“CONTAGION’’ My rating: B (Opening wide on Sept. 9)
105 minutes |MPAA rating: PG-13
There’s no shortage of big names in the cast, but the real star of “Contagion” is filmmaker Stephen Soderbergh.
His latest is a hypnotic juggling act, a carefully calibrated mashup of characters and situations that proves him a master storyteller.
This time the maker of “Traffic,” “Erin Brockovich,” “Che” and “Out of Sight” (and, yes, the “Ocean’s” flicks) delivers a “what if?” thriller about a killer flu pandemic that puts mankind on the ropes.
“Contagion” paints a grim but fully-detailed picture of how we’d react in such circumstances, and it’s not pretty.
In outline there’s nothing terribly original about “Warrior,” which follows the well-tested dictates of your typical “fight” movie.
You’ve got your training montage. You’ve got your chatty TV sportscasters giving us the blow-by-blow even as we’re watching the bout unfold before our eyes. You’ve got your dramas outside the ring spilling over into the brawl inside the ring.
Happily this melodrama from writer/director Gavin O’Connor tosses in a few welcome changeups. And it’s been so well acted that even the familiar somehow seems fresh.
At heart “Warrior” is the story of a fractured family somehow coming together in the fury of a mixed martial arts tournament.
Tommy Conlon (Tom Hardy) returns to his blue-collar home town after an absence of nearly 15 years. He’s an angry young man Continue Reading »
“HOW TO LIVE FOREVER” My rating: C+ (Opening Sept. 9 at the Tivoli)
92 minutes | No MPAA rating
No movie can teach us how to live forever, not even one entitled “How to Live Forever.”
At best Mark Wexler’s documentary offers an generally diverting look at people who have lived to a ripe old age while sprinkling the whole thing with comments from experts in the field of aging.
The results are hardly comprehensive, but with its grab-bag approach and ever-changing focus the film is mildly amusing.
It begins with Wexler visiting the world’s oldest person (she’s 115), followed by a trip to a national convention of funeral directors in Las Vegas (Elvis and Marilyn impersonators, Klingons).
“KURONEKO (BLACK CAT IN THE GROVE)” (Opening Sept. 9 at the Tivoli)
minutes | No MPAA rating
Fans of classic Japanese cinema will have an atmospheric old time with “Kuroneko,” Kaneto Shindo’s 1968 feature based on a centuries-old old folk tale.
Set in a feudal period, this supernatural love story begins with the brutal rape and murder of a peasant woman (Nobuko Otawa) and her daughter-in-law (Kiwako Taichi) by a roving band of samurai/bandits. Their hut is set ablaze; later a black cat laps the blood from the bodies. Continue Reading »
Brendan Gleeson has always been a great actor, but he’s spent most of his life in supporting roles.
“The Guard” won’t change that, but it should.
This absolutely wonderful film from first-time feature director John Michael McDonagh (who also penned the script) finds Gleeson dominating every second he’s on screen in a role tailor-made for his imposing physical presence and bullish personality.
The movie is a crime saga, a buddy flick, a black comedy…but most of all it’s a terrific character study of a guy we’re not sure we like, but who grabs our attention and won’t let go.
Gleeson here plays Sgt. Gerry Boyle, a member of the Guardia (Ireland’s national police force) stationed on the west coast near Galway.
Boyle is fat, cynical and sarcastic…at first glance he might be the Hibernian equivalent of a redneck Southern sheriff. Continue Reading »
John Boyega and Jodie Whittaker defend their block
“ATTACK THE BLOCK” My rating: B(Opening Sept 2 at the Studio 30)
88 minutes | MPAA rating: R
“Attack the Block” hits the ground with all four limbs moving like the Coyote in a “Road Runner” cartoon, and it doesn’t let up until nearly 90 minutes later.
Along the way Joe Cornish’s low-budget alien invasion flick manages to be funny, scary, exciting and even socially relevant, though not so much so as to slow things down.
Set in a London public housing high rise (they’re called “estates,” which is a pretty classy word for a pretty grungy environment), the film follows a gang of disaffected teens who turn from mugging strangers to confronting an invasion of voracious alien creatures who have dropped from the sky.
“THE FUTURE” My rating: B (Opening Sept. 2 at the Tivoli)
91 minutes | MPAA rating: R
“The Future” is the second film of the summer to leave me stranded between admiration and nagging irritation.
The first was “Tree of Life” from the semi-reclusive Terrence Malick.
“The Future” springs from the non-reclusive-but-definitely-out-there mind of performance artist/writer/filmmaker/video artist Miranda July.
Like her debut film, “You and Me and Everyone We Know,” this is an extremely quirky affair that will charm some viewers and alienate others.
It’s about a midlife crisis, but not the typical Hollywood-movie midlife crisis where a guy in his 40s goes looking for thrills before returning to his wife with his tail between his legs.
It’s got star power out the wazoo, yet “The Debt” feels slight and perfunctory.
It certainly never achieves the depths it is so clearly aiming for; perhaps this remake of a hit Israeli thriller requires an Israeli audience to truly appreciate the morally conflicted situation it presents.
John Madden’s film takes place in two decades separated by 30 years. In the present (actually the mid-1990’s) we have the publication of a book about one of Mossad’s most celebrated operations: the 1966 capture and elimination of German war criminal Dieter Vogel, the notorious “Surgeon of Birkenau” who conducted fiendish “medical” experiments on Jewish prisoners.
The agents who undertook that mission — Rachel Singer (Helen Mirren), her husband Stephan Gold (Tom Wilkinson) and David Peretz (Ciaran Hinds) — long have been regarded as national heroes.
But the book’s publication opens old wounds, for these three know their story is based on a lie.
“OUR IDIOT BROTHER” My rating: C- (Opening wide Aug. 26)
90 minutes | MPAA rating: R
The only person likely to win any awards for “Our Idiot Brother” is the anonymous editor who cut the trailer. This unsung hero took an aggressively unfunny comedy and so effectively manipulated bits and pieces as to evoke potential ticket buyers’ memories of other, much funnier Paul Rudd films like “I Love You Man.”
But make no mistake, this is bottom-drawer stuff that, by all rights, should have shuffled straight off to home video.
And what makes it even more discombobulating is that “Brother” wastes a slew of good comic actors.
Ned (Rudd) may not be precisely an idiot, but he’s slow enough on the uptake to be in perennial trouble. Also he cannot lie. When a cop in uniform asks him for some weed, Ned takes pity on the poor flatfoot and sells him some. Result: Prison.
Newly out, Ned is passed back and forth among his three sisters. His childlike pechant for honesty gets him in one scrape after another.
Sister Liz (Emily Mortimer) doesn’t appreciate it when Ned reveals that her filmmaker husband (Steve Coogan in typical supercilious mode) is having an affair with the ballerina who is the subject of his latest documentary.
Sister Miranda (Elizabeth Banks), a magazine journalist, tries to use a source’s off-the-record comments in her latest piece. Ned calls her on it.
And Sister Natalie (Zooey Deschanel), in a relationship with another woman (Rashida Jones), doesn’t appreciate Ned letting it slip that she’s pregnant by an artist friend.
The best that can be said for this film from director Jesse Peretz and writers David Schisgall and Evgenia Peretz is that the hirsute Rudd (he looks like a very happy Jesus) exudes a sweetness that helps make up (though not nearly enough) for the script’s lack of cleverness and wit.
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