Feeds:
Posts
Comments

“BRAVE”: Beautiful, but not truly daring

June 22, 2012 by butlerscinemascene

“BRAVE” My rating: B (Opens wide on June 22)

100 minutes | MPAA rating: PG

The problem with being Pixar is that in the wake of releases like “The Incredibles” and “Up” the merely good movie seems a bit of a letdown.

There’s really nothing wrong with “Brave,” the animation factory’s latest feature effort. In many if not most of its details it is exemplary.

But it doesn’t offer the big emotional wallop of Pixar’s finest work, and for those of us who found, say, the photo album sequence of “Up” to be one of the most moving film experiences of recent years, it makes for pleasant but hardly overwhelming movie watching.

Disney animated films over the last 20 years have made a point of featuring spunky heroines, but this is the first Pixar effort (Pixar is an artistically independent subsidiary of the Mouse House) to do so.

Our leading lady is Merida (voiced by Kelly Macdonald), a princess in what appears to be pre-Christian Scotland.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Popcorn movies | 1 Comment »

“WHERE DO WE GO NOW?”: Lebanese standoff

June 22, 2012 by butlerscinemascene

“WHERE DO WE GO NOW?” My rating: B (Opening June 22 at the Tivoli and Glenwood at Red Bridge)

110 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

The only thing men love more than fighting is sex.

That ancient truth, recognized in 411 BC in Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata” (a comedy in which the women of a Greek city withhold sex until their husbands stop making war), gets an updating in “Where Do We Go Now?”, the latest from Lebanese filmmaker Nadine Labaki (“Caramel”).

Labaki wastes no time in letting us know that her film, set in an isolated village, should be viewed as a fable.

It begins with the town’s women walking to the local cemetery to clean the graves of their dead menfolk. They’re evenly divided between Christian and Muslim. But they are united by grief.

Slowly their footsteps become synchronized to a percussive beat. The women begin moving their arms and gesturing in unison.

It’s a lot like one of choreographer Pina Bausch’s curious rhythmic marches, and it tells us up front not to expect too much realism over the next 110 minutes.

The little burg — half Christian, half Muslim — has been cut off from the rest of the world for most of a generation. The sole bridge into town was destroyed long ago in sectarian fighting. The only access is a narrow trail surrounded on both sides by steep dropoffs.

Since nothing bigger than a motorbike can negotiate the trail, most of the villagers rarely leave.

For years now an uneasy peace has been maintained by the women working in cahoots with the local priest and imam. They burn newspapers lest their husbands, brothers and sons learn about the religious infighting that continues in Lebanon. When someone rigs an old TV to pick up a faint signal, the ladies sabotage the effort lest the evening news set off a local bloodbath.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Art house fare | Leave a Comment »

“THE INTOUCHABLES”: God help us, a life-affirming French film

June 18, 2012 by butlerscinemascene

Omar Sy and Francois Cluzet

“THE INTOUCHABLES” My rating: B+ (Now at the Rio)

112 minutes |MPAA rating: R

There are about 100 ways in which the French film “The Intouchables” could have gone disastrously, hideously wrong.

And somehow it avoids them.

Heaven knows that the premise  is fraught with gosh-awful possibilities.

A millionaire paraplegic Parisian hires as his latest care-giver a black immigrant ex-con. And, oh gosh, you spend a while waiting for this street-smart wise guy to, Miss Daisy-like,  transform the life of his wheelchair-bound employer. You know…the uptight, white man gets funky thanks to his black employee.

This is known in some quarters as the Myth of the Mystical Negro. Many people find it terribly offensive.

And in hands less competent than those of co-directors Oliver Nakache and Eric Toledano  — or the film’s stars, Francois Cluzet and Omar Sy – I might have found it offensive, too.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Art house fare | Leave a Comment »

“PROMETHEUS”: Fantastic machines. Indifferent humans.

June 8, 2012 by butlerscinemascene

“PROMETHEUS” My rating: B- (Opening Wide on June 8)

124 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Fans of the “Alien” franchise have been awaiting Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus” with the eager anticipation of cult members preparing for the landing of the mothership.

It’s been more than 30 years, after all, since Scott gave us the original “Alien,” and what red-blooded movie lover could fail to be enthused at the prospect of the veteran director delivering a prequel to that horror-in-outer-space classic?

Now “Prometheus” has arrived with a slew of state-of-the-art effects, a vision of how the those creepy insect-like aliens came to be, and a promising cast.

The verdict? An “A” for the visuals. A “B” for the backstory (which borrows a lot from “2001: A Space Odyssey”). And a “C” for the human factor.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

“PEACE, LOVE AND MISUNDERSTANDING”: Old hippies never die…they just smell that way

June 8, 2012 by butlerscinemascene

Elizabeth Olsen, Jane Fonda

“PEACE, LOVE AND MISUNDERSTANDING”  My rating:  C+ (Opens June 8 at the Tivoli and Glenwood Arts)

96 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Gotta hand it to Jane Fonda…at 77 she looks fabulous, especially when dolled down in torn jeans, tie-died tops and sporting a long, gray-streaked frizzy ‘do.

That’s how she appears in “Peace, Love and Misunderstanding,” a modest comedy about generational conflict and the good old days of hippie-dom.

At the outset of Bruce Beresford’s latest effort, straightlaced lawyer Diane (Catherine Keener) is told by her husband of many year (Kyle MacLaughlin) that  he wants a divorce. Her world upended, she flees with daughter Zoe (Elizabeth Olsen) and son Jake (Nat Wolff) to her mother’s rural home in upstate New York.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Art house fare, Popcorn movies | Leave a Comment »

“SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN”: Grimm indeed

June 1, 2012 by butlerscinemascene

Kristen Stewart…a different sort of Snow White

“SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN”  My rating: B- (Opens wide June 1)

127 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Woody Allen once said of his childhood viewing of  Disney’s “Snow White” that the titular heroine was a  a drag but that he found the evil queen to be incredibly hot.

One might say the same of “Snow White and the Huntsman.”

It’s not that Kristen Stewart’s Snow White is bland, exactly (heck, she ends the film encased in steel and leading an army like Joan of Arc), but rather that Charlize Theron’s evil queen provides the most formidable competition imaginable.  Theron is hands down the most compelling thing in sight.

And given the wildly imaginative art direction on display here, that’s saying something.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

“MONSIEUR LAZHAR”: The Good Teacher

June 1, 2012 by butlerscinemascene

“MONSIEUR LAZHAR”  My rating: B (Opening June 1 at the Tivoli and Glenwood at Red Bridge)

99 minutes | MPAA rating

In the hands of an American movie studio the setup of of the French-Canadian “Monsieur Lazhar” would undoubtedly result in a bathetic wallow.

But writer/director Philippe Falardeau obviously is a very subtle  fellow, for this classroom slice-of-life (a nominee for the Oscar for foreign language film) is quiet, thoughtful and gently moving without dipping into histrionics.

Certainly the subject matter invites big gestures. In the opening moments a grade school boy named Simon (Emilien Neron) discovers that while he and his fellow students were on the playground, their young teacher hanged herself from an overhead pipe in the classroom.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

“UNDEFEATED”: Hope among the football helmets

May 25, 2012 by butlerscinemascene

“UNDEFEATED” My rating: A (Opening May 25 at the Glewood at Red Bridge)

113 minutes | MPAA rating: PG

Already I can hear you groaning over the Internet.

“A sports movie? An inspirational sports movie? Doncha got something with car wrecks?”

Your loss.  “Undefeated” (not the similarly entitled turkey about Sarah Palin) isn’t just a terrific documentary. Simply put, it’s one of the year’s best movies, a real-life “The Blind Side” times 20.

The subject of this devastatingly emotional experience is a middle-aged suburban father with a big gut and jowls. Bill Courtney is the football coach for Memphis’ Manassass High School. Not that he’s an educator by training. He runs a lumber business and volunteers to coach an inner city team that hasn’t won a playoff game in the school’s 110-year-history.

In the course of “Undefeated” Courtney coaches his demoralized and underprivileged players to a winning season.  That would miracle enough.

But T.J. Martin and Daniel Lindsay’s film makes all too clear, Courtney’s most daunting task is to instill hope, sensitivity, discipline and dedication in young men who are circling the drain.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Documentaries | Leave a Comment »

“DARLING COMPANION”: And a mutt shall lead them…

May 25, 2012 by butlerscinemascene

“DARLING COMPANION”  My rating: B (Opening May 25 at the Glenwood at Red Bridge)

103 minutes | MPAA Rating: PG-13

Diane Keaton, Kevin Kline…looking for a dog

“Darling Companion” has been undergoing a trashing from many of the nation’s film critics, who apparently deem it insipid and boring.

Sorry, guys. The wife and I (and the handful of other critics in the theater) found the latest from Lawrence Kasdan to be a funny, warm, well-acted story about aging and relationships (and aging relationships).

It’s not earth-shaking, no. Nor is it terribly original.

But I’m damned if it didn’t leave me feeling very, very good.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

“THE SOUND OF MY VOICE”: Message from the future

May 25, 2012 by butlerscinemascene

Christopher Denham and Brit Marling

“THE SOUND OF MY VOICE” My rating: B (Opening May 25 at the Tivoli)

85 minutes | MPAA rating: R

“Another Earth” was not a fluke.

Hot on the heels of that mini-masterpiece from Brit Marling comes “The Sound of My Voice,” a brain-knotting  thriller in which Marling once again serves as co-writer and star. If there was any doubt about her being independent film’s new golden girl, it’s now a done deal.

Marling plays Maggie, the leader of a religious cult in modern Los Angeles.

Maggie claims to be from the future. She’s been sent back, “Terminator”-style, to collect followers. Those deemed worthy will accompany Maggie to a remote camp where they will hunker down while America is wracked by a civil war so devastating that it will plunge the survivors into 19th-century Luddism.

Her  story sounds like total b.s., but Maggie is nothing if not compelling. To every objection she seems to have a more-or-less convincing answer. Moreover, she’s so beautiful and charismatic (and, surprisingly, easy going) that the disaffected types who gravitate toward her are quickly swept into the fantasy.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Art house fare | Leave a Comment »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »