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“HORRIBLE BOSSES” : Workin’ for the man

July 8, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis and Jason Bateman in "Horrible Bosses"

“HORRIBLE BOSSES”  My rating: C+ 

100 minutes | MPAA rating: R

It may not be a comedy for the ages, but “Horrible Bosses” certainly resonates in the here and now.

The premise of this extremely rude effort from director Seth Gordon finds three buddies trapped in jobs with miserable bosses and, given the current dearth of employment opportunities, unable to escape.

Their answer: Murder. They agree to knock off each other’s bosses.

That’s a bit extreme, but then so is everything about this movie, which takes Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day and basically casts them as modern versions of the Three Stooges, nice dopes who mess up everything they touch and then react in a childlike frenzy of shoving, slapping and punching. Continue Reading »

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“SUBMARINE” : Youth isn’t all it’s cracked up to be

July 6, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Craig Roberts in "Submarine"

“SUBMARINE” My rating: C+  (Now at the Glenwood at Red Bridge)

97 minutes | MPAA rating: R

JD Salinger never allowed a movie to be made of his classic novel The Catcher in the Rye, and I now think I know why.

It’s because his adolescent protagonist Holden Caulfield — so funny, entertaining and idiosyncratic on the written page — would be borderline intolerable in the flesh-and-blood world of film.

I base this on my reaction to “Submarine,” an adaptation of Joe Dunthorne’s novel about a Welsh teenager in the ‘80s. Dunthorne’s Oliver Tate is self-absorbed, judgmental and maddening in all the ways a young person can be, but while he’s fun to encounter on the written page, in the darkness of the movie house he’s an infuriating and irritating wad of mopey misery.

As played by young Craig Roberts, Oliver isn’t much fun to be around, despite the cinema tricks thrown at him by director Richard Ayoade.

For example, early on our furtively angry hero imagines what it would be like if he were to die. He envisions — and we witness — TV news reports of the mass outpouring of grief, of candle-bearing classmates, of spontaneous shrines to his memory that spring up on street corners, of platitudinous eulogies.  Continue Reading »

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Book Review: Sleight of hand

July 6, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

“THE MAGICIAN AND THE CARDSHARP”  (Owl Books)

Karl Johnson’s breezy nonfiction read — just out in paperback — offers a multitude of attractions.

For anyone who’s ever been fascinated by magic, it’s a detailed look into the world of professional illusionists and sleight-of-hand artists.

For card players it’s replete with possibilities for cheating.

For general readers it’s a real-life detective story.

And for residents of this neck of the woods — Kansas City and environs — it’s a yarn set in our own back yard.

Johnson’s principlal subject is Dai Vernon, a Canadian who became New  York high society’s premiere performer of close-up magic, established himself as the dean of North American magicians, and who spent the last 30 years of his life (he died in 1992 at age 98) as the in-house attraction of Los Angeles’ famed Magic Castle, training young magicians and putting on amazing shows for a delighted public.

Continue Reading »

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DVD review: Brilliant film, maddening coverup

July 5, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Lambert Wilson and Michael Lonsdale in "Of Gods and Men"

“OF GODS AND MEN” (Now available)

Terrific movie.
Infuriating DVD packaging.

“Of Gods and Men” is one of the year’s finest films. This French release, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes last year, centers on the monks of the Tibehirine Monastery in Algeria’s Atlas Mountains, who in 1996 were abducted by Islamic revolutionaries then waging war against the government.

Several months later the monks’ severed heads were returned to the monastery for burial.

Happily, this isn’t a film about dying. Rather, Xavier Beauvois has made a movie about living. Continue Reading »

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NEWSPAPER DAYS: The flying Underwood

July 4, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Jim Fisher never looked to me like a newspaperman.

He looked like a Kansas rancher.

While most career journalists are prone to corpulence (too many donuts, too much time sitting at a keyboard), Jim was as lean as the Marlborough Man…with whom he shared a love of tobacco.

From the day I first met Jim in the city room of the Kansas City Star until my last sighting of him more than a decade ago, his looks hardly ever changed.

He always had a four-day growth of chin stubble (I never understood this…at some point wouldn’t it either turn into an actual beard or be cut back to baby-bottom smoothness?). His hair was trimmed close…not quite Marine D.I. close, but getting there.

His wardrobe never varied: Well-worn blue jeans, a wrinkled shirt Continue Reading »

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DVD review: Cleanup on aisle five

July 3, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Rutger Hauer goes postal in "Hobo with a Shotgun"

“HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN” (Available July 5)

Is it a good bad movie? A bad good movie?

“Hobo with a Shotgun” muddies the distinctions.

It’s based on a fan-created faux trailer that won Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse Trailer Contest, which means that from the outset this tale of a hobo (Rutger Hauer) who single-handedly cleans up a corrupt, crime-riddled city is packed with over-the-top violence and bad (deliberately so, one hopes) acting.

After all, the Grindhouse concept embraces the lurid tackiness Continue Reading »

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DVD review: Strut your smut with “ELEKTRA LUXX”

July 2, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Carla Gugino and Timothy Olyphant in "Elektra Luxx"

“ELEKTRA LUXX” (Now available)

I’ll watch Carla Gugino in anything (“Spy Kids” movies excepted); apparently I’m not alone in this.

Which may account for the straight-to-video success of 2009’s “Women in Trouble” and now this sequel, “Elektra Luxx.”

Both comedies feature Gugina — ravishing in blond wig and cleavage-challenging fashions — as Elektra Luxx, a legendary porn star. This new entry finds Elektra retired from the skin game and pregnant with the baby of a recently deceased rock star.

The films — both directed by Sebastian Gutierrez — are story thin and smarm rich. Basically they’re a series of loosely-related comic episodes Continue Reading »

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“BUCK”: Tall in the Saddle

July 1, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Buck Brannaman

“BUCK” My rating: B+ (Opens wide on July 1)

88 minutes | MPAA rating: PG

Heroes are hard to come by in this day and age. But I think we’ve got a new one.

Buck Brannaman trains horses. He is, in fact, one of the men on whom the title character of “The Horse Whisperer” was based.

His ability to read these animals, to commune with them telepathically (one good old boy rancher calls it “voodoo”), to meld minds so that no sooner does Brannaman think it than the horse responds, would be enough to make him a world-class curiosity.

But as the new documentary “Buck” illustrates, what makes Brannaman truly heroic is not his skill with horses Continue Reading »

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“LARRY CROWE”: Lower education

July 1, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks in "Larry Crowne"

“LARRY CROWNE”  My rating: C (Opens wide on July 1)

99 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

“Larry Crowne” is so slight a romantic comedy that it’s hardly even there.

It’s not unpleasant. It has moments of lightweight charm.

But given the powerhouse potential of stars Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks Continue Reading »

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“CONAN O’BRIEN CAN’T STOP” : Anger and exhilaration

July 1, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

“CONAN O’BRIEN CAN’T STOP”  My rating: B- (Opening July 1 at the Screenland Crossroads)

89 minutes | MPAA rating: R

It’s said that comedy is born of anger. And you’ll no find a better illustration of that than Conan’s O’Brien’s Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour.

In the wake of his 2010 breakup/betrayal with NBC, the former “Tonight Show” host — who in return for a huge cash settlement agreed not to appear on TV, radio or the Internet for six months — opted to launch a nationwide comedy tour.

It was no small affair: a full band, backup singers/dancers, elaborate props (like a masturbating stuffed panda) and an ever-changing slate of special guests.

And it was all fueled by rage.

In “Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop” the normally affable funnyman Continue Reading »

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