Butler's Cinema Scene

Channing Tatum and friends strut their stuff

“MAGIC MIKE”  My rating: C+  (Opens wide on June 29)

110 minutes | MPAA rating: R

For its first 40 minutes – or until it realizes it hasn’t anything to say – “Magic Mike” offers an amusing inversion of movie sex roles.

In this case the usual big-bazoomed bimbos have been replaced by prodigiously packaged dudes.

The film, you see, is a sort of distaff “Show Girls” set in the world of male strippers.  It makes no bones about offering female moviegoers the same sexual  voyeurism men have enjoyed since forever.  Just consider how many scenes in recent movies and TV series have been set, quite arbitrarily, in titty bars.

Turnabout is fair play.

But one could wish that the unpredictable Steven Soderbergh —  who can go from an arty effort like “Che” to the strictly-for-the-money “Ocean’s 11” franchise without breaking a sweat – had something of substance to offer once the thrill of those taunt pecs and rippling abs wears off.

Continue Reading »

Mark Duplass, Aubrey Plaza

“SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED” My rating: B Opens wide on June 29)

86 minutes | MPAA rating: R

“Safety Not Guaranteed” is an indie sci-fi movie.

Sorta.

Well, not really.

What it actually is is an indie relationship movie that’s pretending it’s a sci-fi movie.

It’s sort of a bait-and-switch situation, but I can’t complain because the film from director Colin Trevorrow and writer Derek Connolly is consistently weird and goofily amusing and it features yet another good perf from Mark Duplass, who is seriously courting overexposure (currently you can see him in “Darling Companion,” “Your Sister’s Sister” and “People Like Us”).

Continue Reading »

“TED” My rating: C+ (Opening wide on June 29)

106 minutes | MPAA rating: R

“Ted” begins about 30 years ago in Massachusetts at Christmas, a special time of year, a stentorian narrator (Patrick Stewart) informs us, “when Boston children join together to beat up Jewish kids.”

That level of snarky sardonicism is a constant in this profane fairy tale about a lonely little boy whose beloved teddy bear comes to life. Sounds kind of touching, but don’t be fooled. As written and directed by bad taste king Seth McFarland (creator of TV’s “The Family Guy”), “Ted” is hilariously crude and good-naturedly offensive.

You’d expect nothing less.

Mark Wahlberg plays our hero, John Bennett, who as a little boy found his world turned inside out when his stuffed bear Teddy sprang to life as the result of his Yuletide wish. Initially the talking bear was a big celebrity (there’s old video footage of Ted trading quips with Johnny and Ed on the “Tonight Show”), but now the world has pretty much forgotten about this aberration of nature.

But not John, who still loves Teddy with all his heart. Of course it’s no longer the love of a little boy for a beloved toy. Now it’s the mutual love of a couple of ambitionless stoners who have spent two decades reinforcing each other’s adolescent impulses. Continue Reading »

“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 »

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 »