“MR. POPPER’S PENGUINS” My rating: C (Opens wide on June 17)
95 minutes | MPAA rating: PG
Jim Carrey used to be dangerous.
You wouldn’t know that from “Mr. Popper’s Penguins,” a soft-hearted comedy that has “cute” scrawled all over it.
Posted in Popcorn movies | Tagged Angela Lansbury, Carl Gugino, Jim Carrey, mr. popper's penuins, penguins | 1 Comment »
“GREEN LANTERN” My rating: C- (Opening wide on June 17)
105 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13
“Green Lantern” suggests we’ve reached the tipping point on special effects extravaganzas.
Just about every shot in this adaption of the long-running DC Comics series is crammed with CG doodling. There’s stuff here that, had we seen it even ten years ago, would have left us in the geek version of post-coital exhilaration.
But the truth is that we’ve seen so many special effects in recent years that they’re no longer special. They’re ho-hum.
Know what makes a movie special? Great characters. Fantastic dialogue. Interesting stories.
None of which are in evidence here.
Posted in Popcorn movies | 1 Comment »
“PUBLIC SPEAKING” (May 24)
God bless Martin Scorsese. When he’s not making a big Hollywood movie, he’s out there churning out interesting documentaries.
“Public Speaking” is a profile of humorist and essayist Fran Lebowitz. It’s not a conventional biography; anything we learn about her origins and literary history arrives as part of several extended conversations or, more accurately, monologues delivered by the delightfully ascerbic Lebowitz.
I love her because she’s an elitist. She claims that NYC was ruined when city fathers decided to sell it to Middle America as a tourist destination. As a result, she complains, the streets of Manhattan are awash in “hillbillies.”
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
JUNE 12:
It’s been a crappy weekend for Missouri’s filmmaking community.
After months of buttonholing state legislators to make the case that the film industry is good for the Show Me State, advocates for Missouri moviemaking have received hugely discouraging news.
Gov. Jay Nixon has eliminated the Missouri Film Office, which legislators had voted to continue funding to the tune of $200,000 a year.
Among other things the film office, headed by Jerry Jones, scouts film locations for out-of-state producers and acts as a liaison between filmmakers and local talent, vendors and movie professionals.
But as of July 1 the office will cease to exist.
Posted in KC Film Scene, Local film, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
One of the summer’s most anticipated films, a documentary about a homegrown C&W star and the story behind Hollywood’s first openly gay feature film are among the attractions of this year’s Kansas City Gay & Lesbian Film Festival scheduled for June 24-30 at the Tivoli in Westport.
But even before the fest gets underway, it’s offering a teaser. “Going Down in La-La Land,” based on the hit novel about a young actor who finds himself a star in the adult entertainment world, will be shown June 16 at the Screenland Armour Theatre in North Kansas City. It’s a benefit for GSP.
For tickets, trailers of all the films and more detailed information visit http://www.kcgayfilmfest.com and www.castromovienights.org.
Here’s the schedule for this year’s Gay Fest:
FRIDAY, JUNE 24
Christopher Plummer and Ewan McGregor in "Beginners"
6:30 p.m.: “BEGINNERS” — Inspired by his own father’s late-in-life coming out, Mike Mills’ celebrated film centers on a son (Ewan McGregor) dealing with his newly widowed — and liberated — father (Christopher Plummer).
Posted in KC Film Scene, Uncategorized | Tagged gay & lesbian film festival, gay film | Leave a Comment »
“POETRY” My rating : B
139 minutes | No MPAA rating
Beauty and brutality, poetry and pessimism are uneasy neighbors in Lee Chang-dong’s “Poetry,” a character study about an elderly woman whose rosy view of life is shattered by the casual cruelty of the modern world.
Mija (Yun Jung-hee, Korea’s greatest actress, who came out of 16 years of retirement to take this role) is a sixtysomething widow rearing her teenage grandson. She lives off a pension and the money she earns bathing and cleaning up after a cranky stroke victim.
Yun Jung-hee in "Poetry"
Once a great beauty, Mija takes girlish pleasure in being told how pretty she still is. In fact she’s flighty and shallow and — perhaps because her looks have always seen her through — naively upbeat.
That’s about to change.
Posted in Art house fare | Tagged Korea, Lee Chang-dong, Yun Jung-hee | 1 Comment »
“SUPER 8” My rating: B-
112 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13
J.J. Abrams’ highly-anticipated “Super 8” is a riff on all those Spielberg-inspired films from the ‘80s in which suburban kids got sucked into other-worldly adventures.
“Goonies” is a big influence here. So is “E.T.,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and a half-dozen other titles.
As a work of homage, “Super 8” will have you tabulating references to all those movies. It makes for a diverting parlor game.
The film itself is a mixed bag. The first half is excellent, with Abrams and a spectacular cast of young performers delivering several strikingly original sequences.
And then “Super 8” becomes a movie we’ve already seen way too many times. It’s not awful, just discouragingly familiar.
Posted in Popcorn movies | Tagged " Kyle Chandler, "Super 8, aliens, Elle Fanning, J.J. Abrams, Joel Courtney | 1 Comment »
“SMALL TOWN MURDER SONGS” My rating: C+
75 minutes | No MPAA rating
“Small Town Murder Songs” is the sort of minimalist effort I feel I should like more than I actually do.
Ed Gass-Donnelly’s Canadian murder mystery evokes memories of films by Atom Egoyan and other practitioners of Great Northern ennui. It’s small, claustrophobic and at times too self-consciously artsy for its own good.
Yet it has a genuinely sad and disturbing central performance by Swedish actor Peter Stormare (he was the thug operating the wood-chipper in “Fargo”). Continue Reading »
Posted in Art house fare | Tagged Atom Egoyan, murder mystery, Ontario, Peter Stormare | 1 Comment »
Shannon Sossamon in "Road to Nowhere"
“ROAD TO NOWHERE” My rating: C
121 minutes | MPAA rating: R
Movies about the making of movies have produced such delights as Francois Truffaut’s “Day for Night” and Richard Rush’s “The Stunt Man.”
Alas, Monte Hellman’s aptly titled “Road to Nowhere” is far from a delight.
This is the first film in 20 years for Hellman, a Roger Corman protege whose 1971 “Two Lane Blacktop” (James Taylor and the Beach Boys’ Dennis Wilson played rootless drag racers) flopped at the box office but subsequently became a cult landmark.
Posted in Art house fare | Tagged Cliff de Young, film-within-a-film, Monte Hellman, Shannyn Sossamon, Smoky Mountains, Tygh Runyan | Leave a Comment »
“MIDNIGHT IN PARIS” My rating: B
90 minutes | MPAA rating:
Some films are lavish eight-course meals. Others are pastries.
“Midnight in Paris” is of the second variety, but since it was made by Woody Allen (one of his best efforts of recent years, in fact) and unfolds in the most evocative city on Earth, it’s a most satisfying pastry. Every bite provides a lovely escape. Continue Reading »
Posted in Art house fare | Tagged Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kathy Bates, MarionCotillard, Owen Wilson, Pablo Picasso, Paris, Rachel McAdams, Woody Allen | 4 Comments »
Butler's Cinema Scene 