Feeds:
Posts
Comments

“GLORIA BELL”: Dancer from the dance

March 21, 2019 by butlerscinemascene

Julianne Moore, John Turturro

“GLORIA BELL” My rating: B-

102 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Julianne Moore elevates every film she’s in, and she’s pretty much the reason to see “Gloria Bell,” an American remake by Sebastian Lelio of his 2013 Chilean drama “Gloria.”

As the title character — a middle-aged divorcee whose main pleasure is hanging around L.A.’s retro disco dance clubs with other folk her age   — Moore hides behind outsized glasses and a semi-mousey makeup job…neither of which begin to hide her star quality.

Gloria’s fixation on ’80s dance music — she’s in constant singalong mode whenever cruising with the car radio — softens the hard edges of her life.

She’s been single for a dozen years. Her son (Michael Cera) is currently a solo dad (his wife apparently has abandoned the family);  her daughter (Caren Pistorius) is in a long-distance romance with an extreme surfer from Sweden.  Neither offspring seems particularly warm toward her.

She works at an insurance company where her specialty is coddling customers shaken by auto accidents.

The script by Lelio and Alice Johnson Boher is a love story…sorta.  Alice meets newly divorced Arnold (John Tuturro) at a dance club where he stares at her from afar and defuses her sullen mood by asking if she’s always so happy.

He woos Alice with  paintball (he owns a paintball preserve; she turns out to be a dead shot) and their shared love of boogying down on the dance floor. And he reads funny/romantic poetry to her.

But there’s a problem. Arnold cannot break away from his needy ex and their even more needy daughters.  He’s at their mercy day and night, and it doesn’t take Alice long to figure out she’s always going to be a runner up in the race for his affections.

“Grow a pair,” she tells him.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

“DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE”: Bloody knees

March 21, 2019 by butlerscinemascene

Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn

“DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE” My rating: B+

159 minutes | MPAA rating: R

With its loquacious cops and crooks and pages of dialogue devoted to the amusingly mundane (Quarter Pounders with cheese, egg salad sandwiches), “Dragged Across Concrete” will remind many of a Quentin Tarantino film, especially “Pulp Fiction.”

But it also bears comparison to Michael Mann’s “Heat,” for this curiously affecting crime epic (nearly three hours) is less about black and white than shades of gray.

Add to the mix Mel Gibson chewing on his best role in ages, and the latest from writer/director S. Craig Zahler (“Bone Tomahawk”) shapes up as an unexpected treat that digs into the viewer’s head and hangs around long after the lights come up.

At the center of this sprawling tale are a couple of police detectives — Ridgeman and Lurasetti (Gibson and Vince Vaughn) — who’ve drawn long unpaid suspensions for brutalizing a suspect.  Desperate for money, Ridgeman talks his reluctant partner into tailing a suave  criminal (Thomas Kretschmann); the hope is that he will lead the pair to some sort of drug deal or robbery that they can interrupt, making off with the cash and contraband.

Ultimately the two cops find themselves wading through the aftermath of a bloody bank heist. Few are left standing.

But around this dramatic core Zahler has introduced a big cast of characters — lawmen, criminals and common citizens caught in the crossfire — and given each enough backstory that we begin to identify with them on a much deeper level.

Gibson’s Ridgeman, for instance, is a tough street cop bitter that his refusal to schmooze has left his career in the dust. Now he’s coping with an ailing wife (Laurie Holden) and a teenage daughter terrified of the only neighborhood they can afford to live in. On the job Ridgeman may seem like semi-racist thug; at home we see a different side of the man.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

“THE WEDDING GUEST”: Love on the run

March 21, 2019 by butlerscinemascene

Dev Patel

“THE WEDDING GUEST” My rating: B-

97 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Since breaking onto the world cinema scene as a struggling Indian Everyman in “Slumdog Millionaire,” Deval Patel has been methodically expanding his repertoire, from broad comedy (the “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” franchise) to straight drama (“Lion”).

With Michael Winterbottom’s “The Wedding Guest” he takes a detour into genre, portraying a ruthlessly efficient man of mystery.

As the film begins Patel’s Jay flies from London to Pakistan.  That’s he’s not your usual tourist quickly becomes apparent: Jay has multiple passports, goes shopping for a small arsenal of handguns and rents two cars.

An anxious pall hangs over the film’s opening sequences.  Is Jay a terrorist bent on mayhem?  A paid assassin on assignment?

Things get a bit clearer when he begins keeping tabs on Samira (Radhika Apte), the daughter of the local gentry preparing for an elaborate arranged marriage. Jay tells people he encounters that he’s one of the wedding guests, but In the dead of night he slips into the family compound and kidnaps the girl, gunning down an armed guard to make his escape.

Samira is at first terrified. Then Jay explains that the kidnapping was arranged by her London-based lover, who hired Jay to spirit her away from her tradition-bound family.

Now the two are on the run, moving across Pakistan and into India toward a rendezvous with Samira’s squeeze. (On one level “Wedding Guest” is practically a travelogue.)

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

“TRANSIT”: Waiting to leave

March 21, 2019 by butlerscinemascene

Paula Beer, Franz Rogowski

“TRANSIT” My rating: C+

101 minutes | No MPAA rating

“Transit” is a great idea that runs itself into the ground.

The opening moments of Christian Petzold’s film (he adapted it from Anna Seghers’ novel) take place in Paris under the German occupation.

Except that the setting isn’t the 1940s…it’s today.

The cars, the clothing, even the flat-screen TVs scream 21st century. But things are missing. Like computers and cel phones.

Our hero, Georg (Franz Rogowski), is part of an underground movement and desperate to get out of the country.  The police are making sweeps of blocks, sending undesirables off to hastily-erected camps.

The film never really lays out its geopolitical roots. Is this a new fascist movement that has swept the country? Was there a physical invasion of France? Is the year 2018 or are we supposed to imagine that somehow it’s still the ’40s?  (Hitler is never mentioned, nor is National Socialism. No German helmets or swastikas.)

Anyway, Georg manages to hide in a boxcar on a train heading to Marseilles. Once in the port city he joins the ranks of thousands of others lining up at the U.S. and Mexican consulates hoping to get transit papers that will allow them to board a ship for freedom (apparently there are no airlines in this alternative reality).

Georg is better off than most. He’s managed to assume the identity of a semi-famous writer, Weisel,  who has committed suicide; his newly-assumed standing as a man of letters moves him to the front of the immigration line.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

“BIRDS OF PASSAGE”: Beginning of the end

March 14, 2019 by butlerscinemascene

“BIRDS OF PASSAGE” My rating: B

125 minutes | No MPAA rating

Crime story and folklore entwine in “Birds of Passage,” Colombia’s nominee for this year’s foreign language film Oscar.

Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerre’s decades-spanning saga, which follows the creation of that country’s drug trade in the late 1960s by indigenous peoples, blends stark realism with magic realism for an experience that plays less like “The Godfather” than “Days of Heaven.”

Initially the film resembles a documentary about the Wayúu tribe occupying a remote, desert-like stretch of northern Colombia. A celebration is in progress, a sort of bat mitzvah to welcome the beautiful Zaida (Natalia Reyes) to her status as a grown woman.  She’s now available for marriage and almost immediately she is claimed by Rapayet (Jose Acosta), a handsome young man from a neighboring family.

Zaire’s mother Ursula (Carmina Martinez), the clan’s matriarch, isn’t impressed with Rapayet’s credentials and sets an impossibly high dowry for her daughter’s hand. Rapayet doesn’t know how he’ll find the resources…until he runs into a couple of young Peace Corps volunteers looking to score weed.

Rapayet has some friends who grow the stuff up in the mountains, and with his colorful bud Moises (Jhon Narvaez) starts a distribution business that not only brings him Zaire’s hand but unanticipated riches.  Eager gringos scoop up Rapayet’s marijuana and fly it to the U.S.; before long Rapayet and Zaire are living in a very modern new mansion (which, weirdly enough, is situated on a vast, dried-up mud flat — I kept wondering about water and sewage issues).

But Rapayet’s business corrupts not only himself but an entire way of life. Steeped in tradition and devoted to ideas of honor and sacrifice, the Wayúu quickly succumb to the get-rich-quick, trigger-happy mentality that spreads like a cancer throughout the tribe.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Art house fare | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

“FINDING STEVE McQUEEN”: Big-time losers

March 14, 2019 by butlerscinemascene

Travis Fimmell

“FINDING STEVE McQUEEN”  My rating: C+

108 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Give the makers of “Finding Steve McQueen” credit for at least shaking up the parameters of your standard heist movie.

For starters, this fact-based caper film about the biggest bank haul in U.S. history is thick with comic overtones thanks to a doofus of a leading man and a goofy gang of miscreants.

For another, it employs a scrambled narrative that hopscotches back and forth in time.

“Finding Steve…” centers on Harry Barber, a minor participant in the event but the only one still around to tell the tale.

Mark Steven Johnson’s film begins with Harry (Travis Fimmel) in the present (actually the early ’80s). He’s agitated. All worked up. Hearing his panicked confession, his girl Molly (Rachael Taylor) — the daughter of a local cop —  freaks out when she realizes the man she’s loved for several years isn’t who he said he was.

He is, in fact, the last free member of a notorious gang, and now his time is running out.

Then we flash back to Ohio in 1972.  Harry — who so worships the films of Steve McQueen that he sports “Bullitt”-ish sunglasses, a blond ‘do and tools around in muscle cars — does jobs for his uncle Enzo (William Fichtner), a veteran thief. Enzo has somehow learned that in a safe deposit box in a little nondescript bank in California there sits millions of dollars in a secret (and illegal) slush fund for President Richard Nixon. (This is true.)

Nixon-hater Enzo decides to rip off Tricky Dick…and posits that since the money is dirty the administration will probably not want to publicize the crime or make too big an effort to identify the perps.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

“CLIMAX”: Dance of chaos

March 14, 2019 by butlerscinemascene

“CLIMAX” My rating: B-

97 minutes | MPAA rating: R

“Climax” may be the most accessible film yet from cinematic evil genius Gaspar Noe (“I Stand Alone,” “Irreversible,” “Enter the Void”). Which is not to say that it is easy movie watching.

“Climax,” like most of Noe’s output, is a celebration of perversity.

It opens with the closing credits (???) and an overhead shot of a scantily clothed and bloodied woman struggling through a field of snow; then shifts into documentary mode before becoming an energetic dance film and ultimately deteriorating into a paranoia-fueled nightmare.

A title card informs us that the story was inspired by actual events in 1996…but I’m not buying that notion any more than I believe “Fargo” was actually based on a real crime.

For 10 or so minutes we get talking-head documentary interviews with a bunch of young French dancers who have auditioned for a special troupe preparing to tour the U.S.A. With few exceptions they lack formal training; most appear to be  kids (all races and ethnicities) who learned their moves on the streets and sidewalks. Some of them are eager and ambitious; others a bit jaded and wary of their newfound legitimacy.

Noe then cuts to a long (like, 15 minutes) single-shot rehearsal in which the youngsters do an elaborate routine that allows for plenty of individual riffing (lots of spectacular hip-hop: locking, popping, cranking) all set to a deafening and hypnotic techno beat.

It’s exhilarating and wildly entertaining, and when it’s over the viewer — like the dancers themselves — is spent and ready for a bit of r&r.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a Comment »

“NEVER LOOK AWAY”: Artistic vision

February 28, 2019 by butlerscinemascene

Tom Shilling

“NEVER LOOK AWAY”  My rating: B

188 minutes | MPAA rating: R

“Never Look Away” is so many things at once that it takes a good chunk of its three-hour running time for it to settle down and take shape.

It is the latest from writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, whose 2006 “The Lives of Strangers” (set in the repressive world of the East German secret police) won the Oscar for foreign language film.

This new effort is at various times  a history of modern Germany, a family saga, a personal odyssey and, ultimately, a story of finding one’s voice in a world determined to tell us what to think, feel and express.

It begins in Nazi Germany at the notorious exhibition of “degenerate” modern art. An insufferably pompous guide describes how in their paintings artists like Picasso and Kandinsky promote “madness and mental illness.”

But among the gallery visitors are the beautiful Elisabeth (a screen-dominating Saskia Rosendahl) and her young nephew Kurt (Cai Cohrs), who though a child is already drawing like an adult. “Don’t tell anybody,” Aunt Elisabeth whispers in his ear, “but I like it.”

The first hour of “Never Look Away” follows Kurt’s boyhood.  Aunt Elisabeth is lively and charming…and also schizophrenic. One day Kurt follows the sound of piano music to find Elisabeth sitting nude at the keyboard. He’s both appalled and fascinated.

“Never look away,” she tells him.

In Hitler’s Germany, alas, mental illness is something to be eradicated rather than treated. Kurt’s beloved aunt is hauled off by men in white coats and vanishes into a medical system that, if she’s lucky, will only sterilize her.

Meanwhile Kurt’s family suffers; his father loses his teaching job after declining to join the Nazi Party; eventually he relents. Then, after their town is “liberated” by the Russians, he is told his party membership will keep him from ever teaching again. Menial labor is all that’s left.

In the second hour Kurt (now a young man played by Tom Schilling) hand-paints signage, is admitted to an art training program, and finds himself forced to adhere to a soul-numbing socialist realism style as doctrinaire as anything embraced by the Third Reich (peasants with scythes staring bravely into the future). One bright spot: he falls for a fellow student (Paual Beer) who is not only named Elisabeth but physically resembles his lost aunt.

The downside  is Elisabeth’s father, Carl (Sebastian Koch), a famed (and arrogant) gynecologist who once embraced Nazi eugenics, managed to elude trial as a war criminal, and now is a vocal supporter of Communism. Carl doesn’t view a struggling artist as good son-in-law material. (Turns out that Carl and young Kurt have a connection that neither is aware of…I won’t give it away here.)

Continue Reading »

Posted in Art house fare | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

“ARCTIC”: Whiteout

February 27, 2019 by butlerscinemascene

Mads Mikkelsen

“ARCTIC” My rating: B

98 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

The man-in-the-wilderness survival drama “Arctic” probably didn’t need a world-class actor.

After all, there’s almost no dialogue and the star of the show spends half the time with his features hidden behind a parka hood. Just about any able-bodied thespian could have handled it.

Even so, give thanks that the great Mads Mikkelsen signed up for this nail-biting bit of outdoor adventure.

Joe Penna’s film begins with a man in a red parka using crude tools to shovel away the white snow to reveal the black rocks beneath.  An overhead shot shows him to be making a huge SOS sign that can be seen by passing aircraft.

Our protagonist (Mikkelsen) has already been stranded in the snowy wastes for days. He survived the wreck of his airplane, which remains intact enough to serve as a shelter. He’s dug holes in the ice and is catching fish, eating some raw and freezing the rest.

And then, rescue!  A helicopter appears and attempts to land. But a gust of wind sends it tumbling. The sole survivor is the pilot (Maria Thelma Smaradottir), a young woman rendered unconscious by the impact.

The man takes her to his plane and sees to her wounds.  But she does’t wake up.  Only the fluttering of her eyelids suggests an inner life.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Art house fare | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

“RODENTS OF UNUSUAL SIZE”: Swamp rats

February 27, 2019 by butlerscinemascene

“RODENTS OF UNUSUAL SIZE” My rating: B- (Now available from Amazon Prime Video)

71 minutes | No MPAA rating

The 20-pound, orange-fanged nutria is a  South American rodent imported to Louisiana during the Great Depression as an alternative to mink farming.

But the furiously reproductive (four litters a year) creatures escaped captivity and made a new home in the swamps and bayous, which they are rapidly destroying with their voracious appetites. The greenery-scarfing nutria have ravaged the natural landscape, bringing on increased flooding; already humans are abandoning towns and farms in low-lying areas because the vegetation that once held back the waters has vanished down the nutrias’ gullets.

This ecological disaster is the subject of “Rodents of Unusual Size” (the tongue-in-cheek title is a line from “The Princess Bride”), a kitchen-sink documentary that finds equal parts humor and horror in the situation.

Directed by Chris Metzler (whose docs about California’s inland Salton Sea and the funk band Fishbone were hits at past Kansas City Film Festivals), Quinn Costello and Jeff Springer, “Rodents…” covers the nutria phenomenon from just about every angle.

We meet bayou denizens whose sole source of income is harvesting nutria and cutting off their ratlike tails to turn in for a $5 bounty. The piled corpses are left to rot.

We encounter fashionistas who have revived the use of nutria fur (apparently the bad juju of wearing the skins of caged animals raised for slaughter doesn’t apply here).

We meet a New Orleans jazz musician who as a sideline cooks up nutria (we’re told it doesn’t taste like chicken).

Actor Wendell Pierce (“Treme”) narrates an animated segment outlining the history of nutria farming.

Though it has a running time of only a bit over an hour, “Rodents…” feels padded. Metzler, Costello and Springer end up repeating themselves to make the film of (barely) feature length; perhaps they would have been better off with a tightly-constructed documentary short.

Nevertheless, there’s enough of interest here to keep us engaged. In the end, it’s a tossup as to whether mankind or rodentkind will emerge victorious.

| Robert W. Butler

Posted in Documentaries | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »