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“SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN”: Fooling Mother Nature

March 30, 2012 by butlerscinemascene

Emily Blunt and Ewan McGregor

“SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN” My rating: B (Opening March 30 at the Glenwood Arts)

107 minutes | MPAA rating:PG-13

With its gentle humor and forgiving view of human nature, Lasse Hallstrom’s “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” reminds me a lot of Bill Forsyth’s “Local Hero.”

Not that it’s as good as that sublime comedy (among the best of the ’80s), but it’s a low-keyed charmer that will leave most of us with bemused smiles plastered across our mugs.

Ewan McGregor is Alfred Jones, a scientist with the British Ministry of Fisheries. He’s a science wonk who takes his job of riding herd on Her Majesty’s wild salmon population quite seriously indeed. So he’s none too thrilled when someone in the Prime Minister’s office — hoping for some news from the Arab world that doesn’t involve an explosion — directs him to take  a meeting with a publicist named Harriet (Emily Blunt) who’s in the employ of a fantastically wealthy oil sheik.

This Muhammed (Amr Waked) is an avid fly fisherman who dreams of establishing a salmon fishery in his native land. All that’s required is to build a massive dam, create a huge lake, and somehow fool North Atlantic salmon to reproduce amid the desert sands.

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“NATURAL SELECTION”: Odd couple

March 30, 2012 by butlerscinemascene

Matt O'Leary and Rachael Harris

“NATURAL SELECTION” My rating: B- (Opening March 30 at the Glenwood Arts)

90 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Rachael Harris, best known for playing Ed Helms’ mean-as-a-snake significant other in the first “Hangover,” is the main reason to see “Natural Selection,” a comedy about a shy Christian wife who slowly blossoms on a cross-country road trip.
Harris is good enough here to have earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for best actress (the film itself won the jury award at last year’s Kansas International Film Festival, which is how it comes to be playing at the Glenwood Arts). But the rest of Robbie Pickering’s comedy has to hustle to keep up with her.
Harris plays Linda, the quiet, obedient wife to Abe (John Diehl), a religious conservative who since learning that Linda is barren has refused to have sex with her. Because, like, having sex with no chance of procreation would be a sin.
This lack of intimacy leaves poor Linda always on the brink of a sexually frustrated meltdown. Abe, on the other hand, has for years been satisfying his needs by donating to a sperm bank.

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“THE HUNGER GAMES”: Jennifer Lawrence vs. the One Percent

March 23, 2012 by butlerscinemascene

Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss in “The HungerGames”

“THE HUNGER GAMES” My rating: B+  (Opens wide March 23)

142 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

The champion — the warrior who enters the arena and through single combat carries the hopes and dreams of his countrymen on his shoulders — is as old as Troy or David and Goliath.

But it gets a highly satisfying updating in “The Hunger Games,” the big-budget adaptation of the first novel in Suzanne Collin‘s best-selling series of young adult fiction.

This is a smart, well-acted and effectively directed bit of dystopian fantasy, one so vastly superior to the “Twilight” franchise that this is the last time I’m even going to mention that endless slog through vampire romance.

In the hands of writer/director Gary Ross (“Pleasantville,” “Seabiscuit”) “The Hunger Games” delivers a potent political/social allegory while giving actress Jennifer Lawrence one of the best roles a young actress could ask for.

Of course, Lawrence has a knack for gravitating to terrific roles, as evidenced by “Winter’s Bone.” And in fact the opening moments of “The Hunger Games” almost look like outtakes from that Ozarks drama.

Here a decidedly unglamorous Lawrence plays 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, resident of what appears to be an Appalachian coal mining town during the Great Depression. Most people appear rawboned and half-starved (there’s not a fatty in sight) and Katniss supplements her family’s meager diet by hunting (illegally) with bow and arrows.

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“IN DARKNESS”:

March 23, 2012 by butlerscinemascene

Robert Wieckiewicz as Leopold Socha

“IN DARKNESS”  My rating: B+ (Opens March 23 at the Tivoli)

145 minutes | MPAA: R

I’m not going to tell you that the Poles have gotten a bad rap when it comes to complicity in the Haulocaust. All the evidence suggests that they were a fiercely anti-Semitic culture to begin with and that the Nazi occupation simply gave those long-simmering hatreds an official outlet.

And yet there were thousands of individual Poles who defied the authorities and their fellow citizens and provided shelter and comfort to their Jewish neighbors.

Leopold Socha was one such individual. But don’t call him a hero. Not yet. Not until you’ve seen “In Darkness,” the latest (and, you could argue, the best) film from Polish director Agnieska Holland.

Holland has done just about everything a director can do, from quality TV (“The Wire,”  “Treme”) to adaptations of classics (“Washington Square,” “The Secret Garden”). But she has often turned to the question of her country’s complicity in Hitler’s “final solution.”

“Angry Harvest” (1985) and “Europa Europa” (1990) both were set in World War II and centered on Jewish characters.

But nothing she’s done has been as powerful as “In Darkness.” Continue Reading »

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“WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN”: Before it’s too late

March 23, 2012 by butlerscinemascene

Tilda Swinton

“WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN” My rating: B (Opening March 23 at the Tivoli, Glenwood Arts and Glenwood at Red Bridge)

112 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Psychopathology runs rampant on our movie screens (and, if recent surveys are to be believed, in the ranks of Wall Street types), but usually the focus is on the psychopath, not the people he leaves behind.

“We Need to Talk About Kevin” is a sort of “Bad Seed” for the era of Columbine, one that focuses not so much on a bad kid as on the mother who produced him.

When we first meet Eva (the ever excellent Tilda Swinton) she’s living in a modest house in a borderline neighborhood. She works in a travel agency. Apart from her loner tendencies, there’s nothing too unusual about her.

But clearly there’s something in her past. Why else would she emerge from her front door every morning to find vile threats spray painted on her front porch and car?

Lynne Ramsay’s film alternates between the present, in which a largely stoic (shell-shocked?) Eva tries to get on, and the past, which reveals her life as a wife and mother.

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“MY REINCARNATION”: Defiant until you aren’t any more

March 23, 2012 by butlerscinemascene

Master Namkhai Norbu and Yeshi Norbu

“MY REINCARNATION”  My rating: B-  (Opening March 23 at the Tivoli)

82 minutes | No MPAA rating

Every son has to come to an accommodation with his father…either that or get out of Dodge.

But when Dad is one of the most revered men in Tibetan Buddhism…well, that adds some new wrinkles to the situation.

Jennifer Fox’s documentary film has been two decades in the making. Back in the early ‘90s Fox began filming the activities of Choogyal Namkhai Norbu, a Buddhist master who fled his native Tibet in the late 1950s and relocated to Naples, Italy, where he got a university job teaching Asian languages and, on the side, Tibetan Buddhism.

Unlike many Buddhist masters, Norbu isn’t a monk, though he studied in a monastery. Once in Italy he married a local girl and became the father of a boy and a girl.

The boy, Yeshi, is the main subject of “My Reincarnation.” Even before Yushi’s birth, Namkhai Norbu dreamed that his new son would be the reincarnation of his uncle, a rinpoche  (or guru) who remained in Tibet and died in a Communist prison.

In grainy old video footage we see Yeshi as a young adult. He says he and his father aren’t close. He says he knows about the reincarnation story and isn’t moved.

So  Yeshi goes off to work for IBM, marries and starts his own family. He’s a good career-driven corporate citizen.

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“JEFF WHO LIVES AT HOME”: The signs are everywhere

March 16, 2012 by butlerscinemascene

Jason Segel and Ed Helms

“JEFF WHO LIVES AT HOME”  My rating: B+ (Opens wide on March 16)

83 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Jeff (Jason Segel) is a thirtysomething slacker who lives in his mom’s basement and obsesses over the M. Night Shyamalan movie “Signs.”

You know…that’s the one where Mel Gibson’s family is besieged in their farmhouse by space aliens? And they discover that little, inconsequential things they almost overlooked were in fact cosmic signs of how to beat the invasion?

Jeff acknowledges that “Signs” can seem meandering and unfocused, but now that he’s watched it a couple dozen times he finds tremendous comfort knowing that in the end it comes together in “one perfect moment.”

Jeff’s opening monologue in “Jeff Who Lives at Home” seems a mere toss-off, the idiotic ramblings of a navel-gazing stoner who hasn’t had a girlfriend since high school.

But remember Jeff’s words. They’ll come back to us in yet another perfect moment.

“Jeff Who Lives at Home” is a pleasantly meandering effort from the writing/directing Duplass Brothers.  It’s funny and goofy.

It also exhibits more genuine soul than any comedy since…well, since Bill Forsythe’s sublime “Local Hero” back in 1983.

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“DECLARATION OF WAR”: Story of a relationship

March 16, 2012 by butlerscinemascene

Jeremie Elkaine (center) and Valerie Donzelli

“DECLARATION OF WAR” My rating: B (Opening March 16 at the Tivoli)

100 minutes | No MPAA rating

Films about desperately sick children tend to follow a certain, predictable format.

But in “Declaration of War” — France’s official entry in this year’s Oscar race for foreign language film — writer/director/actress Valerie Donzelli strikes out in a brave and satisfying new direction. There’s nothing predictable about it.

For starters, it’s less the story of an ill child than of his parents, two attractive young people whose lives are turned upside down. The little boy, Adam, vanishes from the story for long stretches because Donzelli’s true emphasis lies elsewhere.

And her style breaks all the rules. Entire conversations unfold without us being allowed to hear the dialogue. There’s no need for lots of declamatory emoting; sometimes a gesture is far more eloquent.

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“PARIAH”: Teenaged, black, female…and gay

March 9, 2012 by butlerscinemascene

Oduye

“PARIAH” My rating: B (Opens March 9 at the Tivoli)

86 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Being black. That’s one strike.

Being a woman. That’s two.

And being gay…well, those are shaping up as pretty daunting odds.

In “Pariah” Adepero Oduye gives a luminous performance as a high school senior who day by day, incident by incident is being pushed ever closer to revealing to her disapproving family that she’s a lesbian.

Among the many remarkable things about Oduye’s performance is this: At 33 she’s twice the age of the character she so convincingly plays.

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“JOHN CARTER”: Things that go barsoom in the night

March 9, 2012 by butlerscinemascene

“JOHN CARTER” My rating: C- (Opening wide on March 9)
132 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Well, that’s two hours I’m not getting back.

For fans of sword-and-sorcery fiction, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter series of pulp novels set on Mars have long been a sort of cinematic Holy Grail.

Filled with bizarre creatures, massive alien cities and unearthly (well, duh) landscapes, the books have for a century defied big-screen treatment in large part because Burroughs (who was also the creator of Tarzan) had an imagination too fevered to be realized through conventional movie technology.

Now that we’re in a digital age where whatever you can think of can be made flesh (figuratively speaking), “John Carter” has finally come to your local multiplex courtesy of the folks at Walt Disney.

It’s got eye candy out the wazoo, but under the direction of Andrew Stanton (the director of Pixar’s “WALL-E” and “Finding Nemo” here making his live-action debut) this hugely expensive (reportedly north of $200 million) production is a remarkably leaden thing, marked by an embarrassingly inadequate lead performance and an utter absence of anything resembling a directorial style.

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