Butler's Cinema Scene

“COSMOPOLIS” My rating: C (Opening Aug. 31 at the Glenwood Arts)

108 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Because it stars “Twilight” hottie Robert Pattinson, some of his loyal tweener fans  and their moms may think about seeing his latest film, “Cosmopolis.”

Think again.

Our first glimpse of Rob-Pat as Eric Packer, a billionaire master of Wall Street, does remind a bit of his “Twilight” persona. Packer is pale, red-lipped and hides from the sun behind a dark pair of glasses. And you could describe him as a vampire, at least in the economic sense.

But beware, ladies. This film was directed by David Cronenberg, who has made a career of psychopathy (see “Crash,” “Dead Rigners,” etc.), and over its nearly two-hour running time Pattinson’s Packer has sex with several women, kills someone (for no apparent reason) and submits to the longest prostate examination in medical (and certainly movie) history.

Moreover, “Cosmopolis” is a dispiritingly leaden movie, one populated less with characters than with archtypes. People here speak in long, theatrical monologues. They might as well be wind-up toys.

It wears out its welcome long before the closing bell. Continue Reading »

“LAWLESS” My rating: B- (Opening wide on Aug. 29)

115 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Reeking of period atmosphere and packed with faces that seem to have stepped out of the WPA  photographs of Dorothea Lange (or maybe the Skid Row portraiture of Weegee), the period crime drama “Lawless” certainly looks good.

Guy Pearce

But the latest from Australia’s John Hillcoat (who gave us the Down Under western “The Proposition” and the post-apocalyptic “The Road”) is a dramatically fuzzy venture, one that clumsily attempts to balance vintage bootlegger clichés and hard-core violence with moments of oddball humor.

The subject of the screenplay by Nick Cave (the eccentric Aussie rock star who also scripted “The Proposition”) are the backwoods Bondurants of Virginia, a real-life clan that in the early years of the Depression ran a major bootlegging operation  providing illegal liquor to speakeasies all over the East Coast.

Forrest Bondurant (Tom Hardy, last seen – barely —  beneath Bane’s mask in “The Dark Knight Rises”) heads the operation. A veteran of the Great War who has a reputation as unkillable, Forrest is socially uneasy loner who says little (he croaks like Billy Bob Thornton in “Slingblade”) and radiates an arresting blend of primitive strength and intimidation. Folks hereabouts know better than to cross him.

Helping out with the heavy lifting is brother Howard (Jason Clarke), a shaggy fellow a bit too in love with the family product to be wholly reliable.

Baby brother Jack (Shia LaBeouf) is eager to get into the bootlegging game, but Forrest wants him to go slow, figuring Jack lacks the cut-throat inclinations the job demands.

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“TAKE THIS WALTZ” My rating: C+ (Opening Aug. 10 at the Tivoli)

104 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Some nagging voice in the back of my head tells me I should have liked “Take This Waltz” a whole lot more.

But I cannot lie. I didn’t.

Going in, it sounded like a winner: Michelle Williams starring in the new film written and directed by Sarah Polley, whose Altzheimer’s drama “Away From Her” was one of the best movies of 2006.

But I found “Take This Waltz” pushing me away instead of pulling me in. In part this is because Polley has fashioned a romance of indecision, a brave move but not one filled with big emotional hooks.

Another problem may be that “Take This Waltz” is very much a woman’s picture. I don’t mean that in any sexist way…rather, it feels as if Polley has dedicated herself to capturing a woman’s view of life and romance on the screen with such singlemindedness that those of us with our plumbing on the outside may feel excluded.

Maybe women will view the film differently.

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“HOPE SPRINGS” My rating: B+ (Opening wide on Aug. 8)

100 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Nobody tells a joke in “Hope Springs.” Nor do they ever try to elicit a laugh from the audience.

And yet this latest film from director David Frankel (“The Devil Wears Prada”) is devastatingly funny.

For this you can credit screenwriter Vanessa Taylor (making her feature debut after a TV career that includes scripts for “Game of Thrones,” “Everwood” and “Alias”), who writes about marriage with so many dead-on insights that at a recent screening the lady behind me kept muttering “Been there. Done that.”

Taylor’s screenplay generates laughter through character and situation, not by tossing out clever lines. And the results are pretty wonderful, a grown-up comedy about grown-up problems that will undoubtedly resonate far and wide.

Of course it helps to have Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones interpreting your material.

As Kay and Arnold, who after 30 years have settled into a rut of remote cohabitation,  Streep and Jones create what may very well end up being iconic personalities, movie characters that take on an importance beyond that of a mere film. Kay and Arnold, one suspects, may do for sixtysomethings what Juno did for smart-talking teens.

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