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“LE HAVRE”: It takes a village…

December 29, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Andre Wilms and Blondin Miguel in "Le Havre"

“LE HAVRE”  My rating: B (Opens Jan. 30 at the Tivoli)

93 sminutes | No MPAA rating

I’ve never known quite what to make of Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki. I guess you could say he makes dour comedies (“Leningrad Cowboys Go America,” “Man Without a Past”), though in truth it’s sometimes hard to know if we’re supposed to laugh or not.

But there’s no missing the intentions of “Le Havre,” which might be described as a Communist fairy tale. However you describe it, it is the most audience friendly film Kaurismaki has yet produced.

In the French port city of Le Havre the graying shoeshine man Marcel Marx (Andre Wilms) plies his trade, even though he’s frequently hassled by the police and pompous merchants who don’t want him conducting business outside their swank shops.

In the nearby dockyards authorities hear noises coming from one of those big steel shipping containers. Inside are a dozen illegal immigrants from Gabon who have been locked inside and forgotten for several weeks.

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“WAR HORSE”: Spielberg’s David Lean moment

December 24, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

“WAR HORSE”  My rating: C+ (Opening wide on Christmas Day)

146 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Visually rich and dramatically undernourished, “War Horse” is director Steven Spielberg’s attempt at a David Lean-style epic.

It’s big. It’s gorgeous.

And, unfortunately, it is largely uninhabited despite a deep cast of yeoman British thespians.

The source material, Michael Morpurgo’s 1982 book for children, already has become a hit West End and Broadway show. The dominant critical view of the stage version is one of indifferent material elevated by brilliant staging, with breathtaking life-size puppets portraying the equine characters.

The question going into the Spielberg film, then, was whether the yarn would still deliver in a “real” world without that awe-inspiring stagecraft. The answer: Every now and then the movie is magic. But too often it feels overplotted and plodding.

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“THE ARTIST”: In a silent way

December 23, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

“THE ARTIST” My rating: B (Opening Dec. 23 at the Glenwood Arts and AMC Town Center)

100 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

When everyone from the coastal heavy hitters to the Joe Blow bloggers declare a movie a masterpiece, you’re probably smart to take it with a grain of salt.

So it is with “The Artist.”

French filmmaker Michael Hazanavicius’ daring update on silent movies is wildly creative, often quite funny, extremely well acted and peppered with philosophical implications.

It’s also a bit too familiar, being basically yet one more variation on “A Star Is Born.”

Here silent film matinee idol George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) sees his career hit the skids even as vivacious newcomer Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo, the director’s wife) becomes a new audience favorite thanks to her embrace of the newfangled sound technology. Continue Reading »

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“YOUNG GOETHE IN LOVE”: The poet as young gadabout

December 23, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Miriam Stein and Alexander Fehling

“YOUNG GOETHE IN LOVE”  My rating: B- (Opening Dec. 23 at the Tivoli)

100 minutes | No MPAA rating

Think “Shakespeare in Love” — German division — and you’ve pretty much got the number of “Young Goethe in Love,” a pleasant little romance about an artistic genius in his formative years.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is to German literature what Shakespeare is to English literature. Nearly 300 years  after his birth Goethe remains the single most celebrated and influential poet/dramatist/essayist in the German language.

But as  Philipp Stolzl’s film begins, young Goethe is facing early burnout. He shows up late to face a panel of educators who will rule on whether he gets his law degree; it soon becomes obvious that Goethe (Alexander Fehling) has spent most of his university years partying and scribbling fiction.

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“THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN”: What you see is all you get

December 21, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

“THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN: THE SECRET OF THE UNICORN” My rating: B- (Opening wide on Dec. 21)

107 minutes | MPAA rating: PG

Steven Spielberg’s “The Adventures of Tintin” has so many jaw-dropping moments of visual splendor that it takes a while to realize that there’s really nothing much of interest here except the jaw-dropping visual splendor.

Employing the motion-capture animation techniques employed in films like “The Polar Express” and the Jim Carrey “Christmas Carol,” this screen adaptation of the late Herge’s universally popular comic book hero should please long-time fans. But it’s hard to imagine it winning many new converts to the Tintin brand.

Tintin (voiced by Jamie Bell of “Billy Elliott” fame) is a perpetually boyish, carrot-topped newspaper reporter who goes nowhere without a tan trench coat, brown knickers and a white pooch named Snowy.

He’s sort of like a junior Sherlock Holmes who’s always up to his neck in one mystery or another.

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“THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO”: As good the second time around

December 20, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

“THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO” My rating: B (Opens wide Dec. 21)

158 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Like a lot of movie fans, I greeted with a big dose of cynicism the news that Hollywood was remaking the Swedish thriller “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.”

That film, which introduced to the world actress Nomi Rapace as the gloriously twisted investigator/hacker Lisbeth Salander, was more than adequate. Why remake it for a bunch of ignoramuses too thick to read subtitles?

Well, I was wrong. The American “Girl…” is the equal of the Swedish version in most regards, and in its technical production vastly superior. That’s because it was directed by David Fincher (“Fight Club,” “The Social Network,” “Zodiac”), an exacting filmmaker who composes and lights every scene for maximum visual impact. (Don’t forget, the three Swedish films based on Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy were made for television and suffered somewhat from limited production values.)

The tale remains essentially the same (with some minor variations) and the overall effect — a queasy blend of serial killer thriller, unrepentant male piggishness and offbeat relationship flick — very similar to the original. Continue Reading »

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“SHERLOCK HOLMES: GAME OF SHADOWS”: St. Vitus Dance

December 16, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Downey as Sherlock...man of 1,000 disguises

“SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS”  My rating: C 

129 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

The Robert Downey Jr.-powered “Sherlock Holmes” franchise, like the “Transformers” franchise, makes me feel very, very old.

Both series are hugely successful. Apparently they make other moviegoers terribly happy.

But they leave me feeling…empty. For all their visual razzle dazzle, there’s no there there. I might as well be beating myself over the head with an inflated pig bladder for all the pleasure these movies provide.

I know, I know. What a disagreeable old man I have become.

It’s not that I cannot appreciate superficial charm.  But these movies aren’t charming. Just superficial.

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“MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL”: The further adventures of Wile E. Coyote

December 16, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

“MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL” My rating: B

133 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

If “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol”  feels like a live-action version of a cartoon, it only stands to reason.

The man behind the camera is animator Brad Bird, who gave us “The Iron Giant,” “Ratatouille” and “The Incredibles,” three of the smartest and most ambitious animated features of recent years. And he brings to the “M:I” franchise the same breathless pacing, eye for action and sly humor that has marked his animated work. Continue Reading »

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“YOUNG ADULT”: Comedy of selfishness

December 16, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Charlize Theron...sizing up the competition

“YOUNG ADULT” My rating: B

94 minutes | MPAA rating: R

“Young Adult” doesn’t always work. But it takes enough chances to be kind of endearing…sort of like a Christmas package with a bomb inside.

For their sophomore effort director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody — who hit indy film gold a couple of years back with their teen pregnancy laugher “Juno” — deliver another comedy, albeit one from a considerably darker place.

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“BLACK POWER MIXTAPE”: How far we’ve come

December 16, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

“THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE 1967-1975” My rating : B 

96 minutes | No MPAA rating

I’m not sure how members of other generations will view it, but for this boomer “Black Power Mixtape” was a sort of wonderful time machine to a not-so-wonderful time.

Goran Hugo Olsson’s documentary has been fashioned primarily out of footage shot by crews from Swedish television who in the late ‘60s and ‘70s reported on social upheaval in the U.S.

The Scandinavians were particularly intrigued with race relations in this country, especially the rise of the Black Power movement, the backlash from the powers that be and the arrival of charismatic new voices like Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael and Bobby Seale.

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