Michael Parks, a gay-bashing preacher in "Red State"
Think Fred Phelps meets the Waco standoff by way of a “Hostel” flick.
The movie is several things at once, some elements more successful than others. But for all of its borderline naive satire and paranoia it cannot be easily dismissed, if only because Smith is working here with some very talented actors who elevate the material into something quite watchable.
Posted in New on DVD, Uncategorized | Tagged Fred Phelps, John Goodman, Kevin Smith, Melissa Leo, Michael Parks | 2 Comments »
Gerarde Depardieu and Gisele Casadesus
“MY AFTERNOONS WITH MARGUERITTE” My rating: B- (Opening Oct. 21 at the Rio and Glenwood at Red Bridge)
82 minutes | No MPAA rating
“My Afternoons with Margueritte” is the sort of enterprise calculated to warm cockles, tug heartstrings and evoke dry retching among cynics.
In this Gallic equivalent of a Hallmark Hall of Fame production, a none-too-bright oaf has a sort of chaste romance with a 96-year-old woman who encourages him to open up his narrowly proscribed world through books.
It’s a shameless manipulative setup that director Jean Becker and cowriter Jean-Loup Dabadie have cooked up, and by all rights it should land with a thud.
That it doesn’t is entirely due to the film’s two stars, Gerard Depardieu (huge in every sense of the word) and Gisele Casadesus (who, incredibly, began her screen career in 1934). This couple could sell space heaters to Amazonian aborigines.
Posted in Art house fare | Tagged Gerard Depardieu | Leave a Comment »
Armeena Matthews...one of "The Interrupters"
“THE INTERRUPTORS” My rating: A- (Opens Oct. 21 at the Tivoli)
125 minutes | No MPAA rating
Heart wrenching and gut twisting, “The Interrupters” spends a year in Chicago’s meanest neighborhoods following three individuals committed to stopping the cycle of violence in the inner city.
The protagonists of Steve James’ exhaustive and deeply moving documentary — Ameena Matthews, Cobe Williams and Eddie Bocanegra– are employed by the not-for-profit organization CeaseFire as “violence interrupters.”
Their unenviable job is to leap into confrontational situations — invariably involving young people who have grown up with guns and violence — and defuse them before things turn ugly…and deadly.
James, the co-director of the legendary “Hoop Dreams,” has an astounding ability to be in the right place at the right time while adapting a fly-on-the-wall invisibility — he captures intense moments way beyond the imagination of a Hollywood screenwriter. The results will leave audiences dazed, in tears and torn between hope and despair.
Posted in Art house fare, Documentaries | Tagged " Chicago, "Interrupters, CeaseFire, crime, murder | Leave a Comment »
Vera Farmiga in "Higher Ground"
“HIGHER GROUND” My rating: B- (Opens Oct. 14 at the Tivoli and Glenwood at Red Bridge)
109 minutes | Audience rating: R
The loss of religious faith is a challenging, hot-button topic for a filmmaker’s directing debut.
So much could go wrong.
“Higher Ground,” from actress Vera Farmiga, doesn’t go wrong, exactly, but it never really adds up.
Working from a screenplay by Carolyn S. Briggs (adapting her memoir This Dark World), the film chronicles the gradual falling away from Christianity of Corinne (Farmiga), a young wife and mother.
Posted in Art house fare | Tagged Christianity, faith, Jesus freaks, John Hawkes, Joshua Leonard, Vera Farmiga | Leave a Comment »
Mary Elizabeth Winstead battles "The Thing"
“THE THING” My rating: C (Opening wide Oct. 14)
103 minutes | MPAA rating: R
We’ve already seen two very good versions of “The Thing” (based on the classic sci-fi/horror story “Who Goes There?”), so anyone making yet a third “Thing” had better bring some new ideas to the table.
In the case of the film opening today, first-time feature director Matthijs van Heijningen and writer Bill Lancaster attempt to stir things up by making our protagonist a woman.
That’s it? That’s the big twist?
Posted in Popcorn movies | Tagged " Mary Elizabeth Winstead, "The Thing, aliens, Antarctica, flying saucers, Joel Edgerton | Leave a Comment »
Nikohl Boosheri, Sarah Kazemy in "Circumstance"
“CIRCUMSTANCE” My rating: B- (Opening Oct. 14 at the Tivoli)
107 minutes | MPAA rating: R
Best friends Atifeh and Shireen (Nikohl Boosheri, Sarah Kazemy) are like lots of other teenage girls.
They like to glam up, go to wild parties, drink, dance, rave over popular music and flirt with boys.
Problem is, Atifeh and Shireen live in Iran, where all of these activities are illegal and likely to get them arrested by the so-called morality police who enforce the mullah’s stranglehold on all aspects of society.
The gal pals engage in anti-social behavior of yet another, potentially even more disastrous form: They are lovers.
Posted in Art house fare | Tagged Iran, morality police | Leave a Comment »
The two best films of the recent Kansas International Film Festival — at least in the opinion of festival goers who voted on their favorites — open today (Oct. 14) at the Glenwood Arts. Plus a KIFF doc about a transgender icon gets a run at the Rio.
“eMANNzipation” My rating: B- (Opens Oct. 14 at the Glenwood Arts)
115 minutes | No MPAA rating
“eMANNcipation” would be the perfect movie for the Lifetime cable channel. It’s about a spousal abuse and how the victim overcomes many obstacles to achieve true emancipation.
Yeah, we’ve been there and done that.
Urs Stampfli and Frances Heller in better days
But this German effort from writer/director Philipp Muller-Dorn pulls a switcheroo. It’s not about an abused woman. Its protagonist is a man…a man whose wife beats the crap out of him.
When we first meet Dominik (Urs Stampfli) he’s living with a married friends, having been beaten up (he’s got a patch over one eye) and kicked out of the house…this in addition to losing his job.
The mopey, unassertive Dominik is soon asked to leave and winds up in a shelter for abused men.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
“THE IDES OF MARCH” My rating: B+ (Opening wide on Oct. 7)
101 minutes | MPAA rating: R
George Clooney, viewed by many as a liberal white knight who really ought to run for office, sends an answer of sorts with “The Ides of March.”
In this political thriller — directed and co-written by Clooney — the charismatic movie star plays a charismatic state governor who has thrown himself into Ohio’s presidential primary in a bid for the Democratic nomination.
Watching Clooney’s Mike Morris gracefully glide through debates, press conferences and stump speeches is a bit weird…it’s like a preview of what a genuine Clooney candidacy would be like. The Morris campaign even has a poster depicting the candidate in the same pop art/street graffiti visual language of that famous Obama image from ’08. Lefties will be swooning.
But this candy apple has a razor blade hidden inside.
Posted in Popcorn movies | Tagged Evan Rachel Woods, George Clooney, Marisa Tomei, Paul Giamatti, Philip Seymour Hoffman, presidential politics, Ryan Gosling | 7 Comments »
“THE WAY” My rating: B (Opening wide Oct. 7)
115 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13
Emilio Estevez’s “The Way” is old fashioned filmmaking.
By which I mean that it takes its time, lets its story and its characters breathe, and slowly gets under your skin until it becomes a part of you.
It’s not perfect, but this variation on the road movie — or “Canterbury Tales,” if you’re a classicist — is terrifically satisfying.
Widower and LA area opthamologist Tom Avery (Martin Sheen) is enjoying a game of golf when the cell phone call comes through. His only child, his son Daniel, has died while traveling in France.
Tom has no choice but to catch a flight to Paris. A train trip brings him to a small town in the Pyrennes where a police officer (French film stalwart Tcheky Karyo) informs him that Daniel died in a mountain storm while attempting to walk the Camino de Santiago, or Way of St. James, a 500-mile pilgrimage from Southern France into Spain and on to a cathedral in the city of Galacia where the bones of St. James reportedly rest.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Deborah Kara Unger, Emilio Estevez, James Nesbitt, Martin Sheen | 1 Comment »
Gerard Butler in "Machine Gun Preacher"
“MACHINE GUN PREACHER” My rating: B (Opens wide on Oct. 7)
127 minutes | MPAA rating: R
God doesn’t need more sheep, impassioned lay preacher Sam Childers tells his small-town Pennsylvania congregation. He needs wolves, men and women willing to fight — physically fight — against Satan.
The evocatively titled “Machine Gun Preacher” (it sounds like a Roger Corman exploitation effort) is very much about the wolf lurking inside the most pious of us.
The story of the real-life Childers — a ex-con who found Jesus, created a mission for orphaned children in the civil war-torn Sudan and became a sort of vengeful freedom fighter against the depredations of guerilla leader Joseph Kony and his notorious Lord’s Resistance Army — is simultaneously inspiring and deeply disturbing.
And in the hands of director Marc Forster (“Finding Neverland,” “Monster’s Ball,” “Stranger than Fiction”) and star Gerard Butler (who redeems his recent history of gosh-awful rom-coms) it becomes one of the year’s most unusual and challenging films.
Posted in Popcorn movies | Tagged Gerard Butler, Joseph Kony, Lord's Resistance Army, Marc Forster, Michelle Monaghan, Sam Childers, Sudan, Uganda | Leave a Comment »
Butler's Cinema Scene 