April 12, 2007
After the Wedding. In search of a benefactor to keep a cash-starved Bombay orphanage afloat, Danish aid worker Jacob (Mads Mikkelsen of Casino Royale and The Pusher Trilogy) returns to Denmark and finds a potential angel in a wealthy businessman (Rolf Lassgard) who invites Jacob to his daughter’s wedding. But the otherwise routine event instead becomes a catalyst for a series of life-altering revelations, as Jacob runs headlong into the unexpected demons and ghosts of his past. Dripping with Chekhovian gravitas, this superlative Oscar-nominated drama from director Susanne Bier and screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen is both gripping and grueling, at times fraying one’s emotions almost to the breaking point. And yet, even at its most trying, Bier never allows the film to lose its humanistic focus, extracting performances from her remarkable cast that never fail to underline the most universal and profound of life’s truths. (WM)
Amazing Grace. This latest conscience film from director Michael Apted tells the true story of William Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffudd), a British member of Parliament, who, in the late 1700s, waged a tireless and too often fruitless battle to end Britain’s participation in the slave trade. As the title suggests, the story also dovetails with the origins of the famous hymn, whose author, John Newton (Albert Finney), is depicted here as helping inspire Wilberforce’s indefatigable struggle. Well scripted by Dirty Pretty Things writer Steven Knight and boasting a sterling cast of A-list British talent (including Michael Gambon, Rufus Sewell, Ciaran Hinds, Romola Garai, and Toby Jones), this is far and away Apted’s best film in many years. It’s hardly perfect – at times the treatment feels better suited to television – but the choice to let the story’s inherent power stand on its own, minus any overt cinematic embellishment, is a wise one, endowing it with the gentle power of righteousness. (WM)
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Are We Done Yet? In 2005’s Are We There Yet?, a perennial bachelor (Ice Cube) fell for a single mom (Nia Long) and had to suffer through a road trip with her two kids. In this new sequel, the couple purchase a sprawling country house. But their new dream becomes a nightmare when they’re forced to deal with eccentric contractor Chuck Mitchell (John C. McGinley), who is also the area’s only real estate agent, inspector, electrician, etc. The first film was harmless family fare about besieged masculinity and eventual maturation, but this re-up is a desultory mix of slapstick and bland bickering, powered by mind-boggling contradictions in character. The script is atrocious, the goosing music is grating, and director Steve Carr’s sub-moronic staging makes original helmer Brian Levant look like Clint Eastwood. The high point may be somewhere between the surreal moment when an RKO Pictures title card pops up – the movie is based on the 1948 Cary Grant pic Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House – and its mildly amusing animated opening credit sequence. (Brent Simon)
Avenue Montaigne. Veteran French screenwriter Danièle Thompson’s third film as a director (after La Bûche and Jet Lag) is an ambitious attempt to give the Parisian theater district a Nashville treatment, threading three stories of an individual at a crossroads through the wide-eyed wonderment of the young waitress (Cécile de France) who sees what they cannot. A soap star and stage actress (Valérie Lemercier) longs for the lead in a film bio of Simone de Beauvoir being planned by an American director (Sidney Pollack); a renowned concert pianist (Albert Dupontel) yearns for a simpler existence, to the chagrin of his devoted wife; and an art collector (Claude Brasseur) prepares to auction off his collection. Thompson has always excelled at poignancy, and her new film is no exception – thoughtful and eloquently crafted in every detail. But it sometimes feels like too much of a good thing, poignant to the point of being stifling. (WM)
Black Book. After a group of Dutch Jews are betrayed and mowed down by the Nazis, the sole survivor (Carice van Houten) joins the Dutch underground in an effort to find those responsible. But the inevitable moral vagaries of war soon intrude, creating friction within the underground and revealing even greater schisms among local Nazi officials, one of whom (Sebastian Koch from the Oscar-winning The Lives of Others) appears to take a fierce fancy to the fetching Jewess. Paul Verhoeven’s first Dutch-language film in more than two decades is a mixed bag: It suggests that the director of Soldier of Orange still has a bit of the old juice working. Unfortunately, it’s combined with lots of Hollywood aspects that Verhoeven seems either unable or unwilling to shed, resulting in a story that does too many unnatural cartwheels in order to achieve the coveted “twist.” That Verhoeven would want to make a film about conflicted sensibilities and divided loyalties is not surprising – it’s basically the story of his career. It’s just too bad he can’t make the same tough choices he imposes on his characters. (WM)
Black Snake Moan. A troubled bluesman-turned-farmer (Samuel L. Jackson) finds a beaten, half-naked sexpot (Christina Ricci) lying in the road; he takes her into his home and chains her to the radiator, as he tries to straighten out her sinful ways. Writer-director Craig Brewer (Hustle and Flow) has dressed the old W. Somerset Maugham chestnut “Rain” in lurid Southern Gothic clothing and come up with this enjoyably overcooked melodrama. But he’s operating in a different psychological era. The farmer is no hypocritical prig, and the woman is no debased prostitute: They’re both, you know, decent folk with troubled souls. Brewer doesn’t give us any stylistic hints of irony; with the exception of a few psycho-freakout scenes from Ricci, he plays it pretty straight, suggesting that maybe he didn’t intend it all to be quite as humorous as the audience I was with found it. On the other hand, he did cast Jackson, whose delivery and iconic presence automatically create a certain attitude. (AK)
Blades of Glory. After two rival figure-skating champs (Will Ferrell and Jon Heder) get into a brawl and are banned from further competition in the men’s individual division, they are forced to work together as the first male/male team in the pairs division. Ferrell plays another variation on the arrogant, macho moron character of his earlier vehicles Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Those two were directed by his longtime associate Adam McKay, from scripts the two cowrote. But this time around, Ferrell is working with the directing team of Will Speck and Josh Gordon, who come from advertising, and the result pales next to its predecessors. While there are some laughs here – the best of which sound like Ferrell improvisations – they are nowhere near enough to sustain a feature. And Speck and Jordan don’t seem to know when a joke is exhausted. (AK)
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Boy Culture. Gay dramas should be more innovative than director Q. Allan Brocka’s slick, soulless adaptation of Matt Rettenmund’s popular 1990s cock-lit novel. Dewey-eyed and dimple-mouthed X (Derek Magyar) is that oldest of clichés, the sad male prostitute who tricks endlessly with hideous men for cash, but is almost a virgin in his private life because he fears – horrors! – having his heart broken. He lives in a lovely Portland apartment with another pair of walking stereotypes – bouncy twink Joey (Jonathan Trent), and Andrew (Darryl Stephens), an only-just-out-of-the-closet twentysomething stud, who is sowing his oats with plenty of one-night stands. Brocka’s filmmaking style has the quick-paced, lushly colorful mood of a Coke commercial, but the tired screenplay (credited to Brocka and Philip Pierce) creaks with ghastly romantic platitudes. The performers don’t make sense of the downright illogical psychological twists and lend little freshness to this fusty collection of irritating, stock gay types. The result is a film that feels almost as stiff and unromantic as paying X for his “time” might be. (PB)
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Fighting Words. A moody hunk (Jeff Stearns) and a successful writer (C. Thomas Howell) battle for the attentions of a sultry editor (Tara D’Agostino), slugging it out at the championship Poetry Slam, as both Emote! Like! Shatner! In! An! Even! Lousier! Movie! With writing and acting that rarely rise above the level of your basic soap opera, E. Paul Edwards’s directorial debut isn’t really worth the few unintentional giggles it provides. The best that can be said is that there are attention-grabbing character actors in the smaller roles: Fred Willard, Michael Parks, and Fred Williamson all wend their way through the proceedings with their usual professionalism, turning a paycheck assignment into performances that are better than the movie requires. Howell is effective playing yet another creep (as in The Hillside Strangler), but Stearns and D’Agostino aren’t much more than pretty people trying to act troubled. (JS)
Firehouse Dog. Call it The Prints and the Pupper: A canine movie star gets lost and learns about life on the other side of the tracks, when he is adopted at a rundown firehouse. Todd Holland directed this family comedy, starring Josh Hutcherson, Bruce Greenwood, Bill Nunn, and a bunch of dogs. (AK)
Ghost Rider. For the past couple of years, Daredevil director Mark Steven Johnson has deflected all criticism by complaining that the studio didn’t let him do his version of the movie. So now he gets his hands on another Marvel movie, and surprise! It’s pretty much the same kind of thing – introduce a bunch of comic-book characters, augment them with CGI in almost every shot, and let them fight. Worry about plot later, if at all. The big difference, though, is that this time, instead of boring Ben Affleck, we get crazy Nicolas Cage in the lead, who unleashes 30-odd years of pent-up excitement now that he finally gets to play a superhero. As stunt biker Johnny Blaze, made nigh-invulnerable and occasionally skeletal by a deal with the devil (Peter Fonda), Cage does all kinds of crazy stuff, most of which he probably came up with on the spot, and it’s all every bit as entertaining as his hairpiece or the notion that he and Eva Mendes are supposed to be the same age. (LYT)
Grindhouse. Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino each direct half of this re-creation of a ’70s grindhouse double feature, complete with scratches, missing reels, and trailers. Rodriguez’s Planet Terror is essentially a zombie pic, whose cleverness and insane over-the-top style mostly compensate for the excessive grossness; for the most part, he chooses to reproduce the effect, rather than the particulars, of those old films. He cranks everything up to 11; the result is similar to the second half of From Dusk Till Dawn, stretched out to twice the length. Much of the shtick is wonderfully funny, particularly all the action choreography involving Rose McGowan as a one-legged dancer with an automatic weapon replacing her missing limb. But Tarantino’s Death Proof, which mixes elements of homicidal-stalker movies with car-chase flicks, is more satisfying, in large part because Tarantino is simply incapable of sticking to conventional narrative. The whole thing tops out at about three hours and 10 minutes; while this may mimic the sort of “bang for your buck” that grindhouses provided, it’s a long time to sit. (AK)
Hair High. See Film feature.
The Hills Have Eyes 2. Martin Weisz directed what appears to be a sequel to Alexandro Aja’s 2006 remake of Wes Craven’s 1977 horror film … rather a remake of Craven’s 1985 sequel … or something. This time around, it’s a bunch of National Guard soldiers who stumble across the desert-dwelling cannibalistic mutants. Michael McMillian, Jacob Vargas, Flex Alexander, Lee Thompson Young, Eric Edelstein, and Daniella Alonzo costar. (AK)
The Hoax. In 1971, writer Clifford Irving (Richard Gere) – financially desperate after the publication of his breakthrough novel is cancelled – tells his editor (Hope Davis) that he has been authorized to write the autobiography of the world’s most notorious mystery man, Howard Hughes. In fact, his claim is a total fraud, but he figures that Hughes is so averse to appearing in public that the book will go unchallenged. Anyone old enough to remember the case is likely to spot some major liberties with the facts in this new film from Lasse Hallström (My Life as a Dog, Casanova); he and screenwriter William Wheeler have wisely chosen dramatic effectiveness over slavish loyalty to details. They are aided by a terrific cast, which also includes Alfred Molina, Marcia Gay Harden, Stanley Tucci, and Julie Delpy (playing Irving mistress Nina Van Pallandt, who coincidentally costarred with Gere in American Gigolo). Told almost entirely from Irving’s POV, the film is able to incorporate a host of possibilities that may or may not be the author’s delusions or playful inventions. Gere delivers totally here, and, for all the liberties, this is a fascinating look at a doomed fraud. (AK)
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