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“ANSWERS TO NOTHING”: Well, they got the title right

December 2, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Dane Cook, Elizabeth Mitchell

“ANSWERS TO NOTHING” My rating: C

97 minutes | MPAA rating R

The multi-character, multi-plot melodrama can be very satisfying.

Robert Altman’s “Short Cuts,” the Oscar-winning “Crash” and Rodrigo Garcia’s excellent “Mother and Child,” for example, each scored big by following several plots united by a common themes (the alienating effects of modern life, race relations, parenthood).

Writer/director Matthew Leutwyler’s “Answers to Nothing” attempts something similar, giving us a sprawling drama unfolding in LA over several days in which the city is abuzz over the presumed kidnapping of a little girl.

But despite a cast of great depth and talent, there’s not much cinema magic here. Leutwyler and co-writer Gillian Vigman take a scattershot approach. They haven’t really focused on their themes — heck, they fail even to define them — and the resulting film seems adrift.

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“EVERYDAY SUNSHINE”: Music of the spheres

December 2, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

“EVERYDAY SUNSHINE: THE STORY OF FISHBONE” My rating: B 

107 minutes | No MPAA rating

I’m ashamed to admit that until seeing this film I knew next to nothing about the seminal black punk band Fishbone.

Now I’m a fan.

One of the best films to play at the 2010 Kansas International Film Festival, Chris Metzler and Lev Anderson’s “Everyday Sunshine” makes a strong case for Fishbone being one of the great rock ensembles.

This doc offers the usual elements: vintage performance footage, talking-head interviews withe the band members and their admirers (Ice T, Gwen Stefani, Flea).

But it also features some wildly inventive animation to follow the rise and fall of this highly unusual group which, according to narrator Laurence Fishburne,  “drew on sources too vast for the common mind.”

Indeed, the band somehow synthesized rock, soul, ska, jazz and even rap into an eclectic sound. Moreover, the players incorporated into the music social commentary and gonzo humor. The only other performer who comes close to their approach is the late Frank Zappa.

Of course, that’s a combination guaranteed to wow the critics and intellectuals, but not necessarily the common listener. And, indeed, “Everyday Sunshine” is in many ways a eulogy to musicians who were too good for the rest of us.

But check out this film. You’ll fall in love.

P.S. The filmmakers (Metzler is a Kansas City native) will attend weekend screenings of “Everyday Sunshine” at the Screenland Crossroads and discuss their work.

| Robert W. Butler

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“MELANCHOLIA”: ‘Tree of Life’ for pessimists

November 23, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Kristen Dunst in “Melancholia”

“MELANCHOLIA” My rating: A- 

136 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Achingly beautiful and fiercely nihilistic, “Melancholia” may very well be Danish director Lars von Trier’s ultimate philosophical statement.

And since von Trier (“Breaking the Waves,” “Dancer from the Dance,” “Antichrist”) is both genius and jerk, this is one of those love/hate deals.

You may despise what he has to say; you’ll be floored by the skill and artistry with which he says it.

“Melancholia” begins with a series of mysterious images, all of which will be revisited before the film’s over. These are presented as slo-mo tableaus:

A black horse stumbles and falls beneath a sky illuminated by the aurora borealis.

Electric arcs flicker from a woman’s upraised hands.

A mother struggles to carry her child across a golf putting green, but her legs sink in turf as loose as quicksand.

A bride in white runs through a forest glade, but tree roots and branches reach out to entangle her legs.

Finally the Earth collides with another planet in a cataclysmic dance of destruction. Continue Reading »

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“HUGO”: A film about film

November 23, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Asa Butterfield as "Hugo"

“HUGO”  My rating: C+ 

127 minutes | MPAA rating: PG

This is a great idea for a movie.

Of course, that’s not the same thing as actually being a great movie.

“Hugo” finds American master Martin Scorsese turning his attention from R-rated mayhem to family-film friendliness.

But he struggles to put himself on a child’s wavelength. “Hugo” is too cerebral, too methodical, too cool in its emotional palette. There’s just not a lot of joy here.

Plenty of eye-popping visual magic, though. The film is Scorsese’s first in 3-D and it looks terrific. The settings and effects are splendid.

Still, this feels more like an elaborate test reel meant to try out visual tricks than a fully-shaped and inhabited drama.

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“MY WEEK WITH MARILYN”: Beautiful neurotic

November 23, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe

“MY WEEK WITH MARILYN” My rating: B- 

99 minutes | MPAA rating: R

An actress portraying Marilyn Monroe faces the same daunting obstacles as an actor playing Jesus.

No matter how good your performance, it pales in comparison to the real thing.

Michelle Williams, one of our finest young actresses, does a perfectly credible job as the  immortal blonde sex symbol in “My Week with Marilyn,” a melodrama unfolding during the filming of “The Prince and the Showgirl” in London in 1957.

But as good as Williams is, not once did I mistake her for Marilyn. It’s a passable impersonation, but no one will ever fill the screen the way Monroe did.

Simon Curtis’ feature directing debut  (after a long career in television)  is based on “The Prince, The Showgirl and Me” and “My Week with Marilyn,” Colin Clark’s memoirs about his experiences as a young production assistant on the film. Continue Reading »

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“THE DESCENDANTS”: Comedy in tragedy

November 23, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

“THE DESCENDANTS” My rating: B+ 

115 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Alexander Payne doesn’t make movie about big ideas.

He makes movies about small people, then makes us care about them, flaws and all.

In fact, it’s hard to name another contemporary director who has so successfully found the comedy in tragedy and the tragedy in comedy.

Matt King, the clueless Honolulu lawyer at the center of  “The Descendants,” is a near cousin of “Sideways’” Miles, “Election’s” Jim McAllister and “About Schmidt’s” Warren Schmidt. He’s a not-particularly-nice guy thrown into circumstances that force him to face himself.

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“THE SKIN I LIVE IN”: Deliciously sick

November 18, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya

“THE SKIN I LIVE IN”  My rating: B 

117 minutes |  MPAA rating: R

“The Skin I Live In” is one spectacularly sick movie.

I kinda loved it.

This heady mashup of “Frankenstein”/mad scientist horror story, sexual fantasy, revenge yarn and existential escape caper shows Spanish writer/director Pedro Almodovar indulging numerous of his well-chronicled obsessions.

The resulting film is simultaneously creepy and beautiful. Think of it as a less offensive (but equally disturbing) “Human Centipede” for the art house crowd.

Vera (Elena Anaya) is the only patient in a private clinic in the home of brilliant plastic surgeon Robert Ledgard (Almodovar stalwart Antonio Banderas).

Vera lives in a hermetically sealed, sterile-looking room. She wears a form-clinging body stocking outfitted with various flaps and zippers so that Robert can examine his handiwork. Clearly, Vera has undergone some major skin grafts.

What tragedy — accident, disease or birth defect — required such extensive surgery? Continue Reading »

Posted in Cinema Espanol, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment »

“LIKE CRAZY”: It isn’t nice to fool Uncle Sam

November 18, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Anton Yelchin, Felicity Jones

“LIKE CRAZY” My rating: B- 

90 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

A great screen romance makes those of us in the audience feel that we’re falling in love, too.

By that criteria “Like Crazy” is a just-OK romance that dishes up two hugely attractive young performers, a frustrating dilemma and a big question mark of an ending that is a lot more honest about love than 99 percent of the romance movies you’ve ever encountered.

That was enough for Sundance audiences, who gave the film top jury honors and laid a best actress award on newcomer Felicity Jones.

Well, I can certainly get behind the green-eyed, rosebud-lipped Jones. But I’m not nearly so enthusiastic about Drake Doremus’ film. It’s fun while its young protagonists are falling in love. And then they started acting stupid and much of my sympathy waved bye-bye.

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“THE OTHER F WORD”: From anarchy to domesticity

November 18, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

“THE OTHER  F  WORD” My rating: B- (Opening Nov. 18 at the Screenland Crossroads)

98 minutes | No MPAA rating

The whole punk movement was about giving the finger to the Establishment, about spreading political, musical and social anarchy, about just not giving a damn.

So what happens when hard-core punkers become parents?

That’s the intriguing question posed by Andrea Blaugrun Nevins’  “The Other F Word,” a documentary that allows a dozen or so punk rockers to comment on their lives as fathers.

The film’s subjects — like Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Duane Peters of U.S. Bombs, Lars Frederiksen of Rancid and especially Jim Lindberg of Pennywise — remain working musicians. They tour, they sing angry songs, they rant and spit from the stage.

But all describe a profound change brought on by having their own children.

“Nothing in the punk rock ethos prepares you for parenthood,” one observes.

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New on DVD: A mess of movies for Christmas gift giving

November 16, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Dominic Cooper as Uday Hussein

“The Devil’s Double”:

If Brit actor Dominic Cooper doesn’t get an Oscar nom for his work here we should start an Occupy Hollywood movement.

In Lee Tamahori’s film Cooper (he was the bridegroom in “Mamma Mia!”) plays both Uday Hussein — Saddam Hussein’s psychotic and murderous older son — and real-life Iraqi officer Latif Yahia, who looked enough like the young despot to become his double, filling in for Uday at boring affairs of state and, on at least one occasion, drawing an assassin’s bullet.

It’s a delicious star turn, with Cooper reveling both as the piggish, ultra-violent Uday, and as Latif, a decent guy forced to live side-by-side with a man he despises.

Tamahori doesn’t bring a whole lot of style to the proceedings, but then he doesn’t have to. This is Dominic Cooper’s movie and he owns it from first frame to last.

“13 Assassins”:

Takashi Miike’s samurai tale may not score many points for originality (it’s yet another clone of Kurosawa’s timeless “Seven Samurai”), but it’s hugely enjoyable.

A dozen jobless ronin and a comical forest-dwelling goofball join forces Continue Reading »

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