Mini-reviews of films Now Playing:
(alphabetically)
"Babylon A.D." (Quality rating: 4) PG-13 (intense violence and action, vulgarity, some sexuality) (1:30) -- Vin Diesel, Melanie Thierry, Gerard Depardieu, Michelle Yeoh, Charlotte Rampling.
Muscular action, depressingly morbid, nihilistic plot elements, spectacular effects, a vacuous lead and an indifferent, unintelligible plot guaranteed to interest no one. In this, the performance-challenged Vin Dieselhe plows through all the gratuitous shootin' and sockin' in the genre's films as he strip-mines the petty thrills, spills and kills off the top. Setting the plot in the near future proves to be a total misfire with little of quality.
Conspicuously blasting you with wild and woolly handheld camera shots, extreme closeup and piles of quick-cuts, this attended by ongoing bleak and deathly panoramas which would easily induce suicide motives into anyone left surviving within this new world, it recollects the much higher quality films of this order like "Blade Runner" and "Children of Men" in which a vast scenario of a degenerated, dog-eat-dog civilization has resulted from a world war. Fleshing out its hero is of no concern in this film. Although it's been adapted from French writer Maurice G. Dantec's 700-page "Babylon Babies," almost all of the intelligent material has been excised.
In the film (the book was set in 2013), in post-modern times, the Apocalypse has come and gone. In wartorn "New Serbia" hired Toorop (Diesel) idles in a boarded-up apartment when a SWAT team slams in to take him to Gorsky (Depardieu), a Russian mob kingpin. Toorop finds himself hired to deliver a special package to New York. The package, in fact, is a mysterious young woman with a secret that certain powers will want to know about. She's Aurora (Thierry), who's been hiding under the wing of Sister Rebecca (Yeoh) in a convent. Why? Well, Toorop couldn't care less and asks no questions. He and she and Sister Rebecca are off into their perilous journey. Their first stop is Kazakhstan where they escape a bomb. Second stop is a nightclub in Vladivostok, Russia, which features Ultimate Fighting Championship-style death matches in a cage which houses a brute of a man who's devoid of all human elements. At this point Toorop's war buddy Finn (Mark Strong) joins him, all immediately attacked by thugs.
At last they arrive in New York where he's to hand Aurora over to the Neolite Priestess (Rampling), CEO of the powerful corporate sect that assigned this mission. In an incomprehensible plot, the deal, in any event, misfires and everybody goes into kill mode, including the delicate Aurora and her guardian, both of whom, as in politically correct modern film, are consummately adept in martial arts.
In performances, Vin is Vin, 'nuff said. But Michelle Yeoh does offer a good emotional pace change as the guardian nun of Aurora. And a high point is when Vin's "Toorop" makes a bit of an effort at an intelligent dialogue with the nun. Score on that: The nun one. Vin none.
The film has no personality of its own. The high action is insistent, pervading and crushing to your senses. Whatever works for you.
"College" (Quality rating: 2) R (pervasive crude and sexual content, nudity, vulgarity, drug and alcohol abuse) (1:34) -- Drake Bell, Andrew Caldwell, Kevin Covais Haley Bennett, Camille Mana, Natalie Walker.
Everything obnoxious about frat-house comedy is surfaced in the film, with toilet humor the norm and incessant. Absolutely nothing is funny and the cast doesn't seem to think so either. The comedy and the acting are bland and anemic.
Three high school seniors (Drake Bell, Andrew Caldwell and Kevin Covais), soon to begin their freshman year in college, visit a local campus as they look to the first weekend. The first surprise is that their roommate at the dorm room is a dedicated masturbator. So as Plan B they try to get into the Beta Phi Theta house because a cousin of one of the guys once lived there.
First off, the frat brothers ridicule them but then they figure that they might be utilized as fun pledges for their well-known disgusting capers. Their frat leader loves humiliating the boys but things get dicey when his persecution gets personal as he sees his own girlfriend (Haley Bennett) falling for one of them. Also, some classy sorority girls appear to be falling for the three guys not realizing that they're still high schoolers. That infuriates the frat guys into more humiliations, but the three kids will retaliate.
The high point is supposed to be when the boys are forced to drink body shot out of every orifice of one greasy, sweaty Beta Phi. Lots of homosexual panic pervades and no "joke" is worthy of the label.
"The Dark Knight" (Quality rating: 10) PG-13 (intense violence) (2:32) -- Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart.
Breathtaking from frame-one over its entire two-and-a-half hours, with
even the pace-changing relationship scenes accomplished with quality tension,
this sudden raise of the bar in comic book thrillers to a perhaps unattainable
standard will go down as a landmark action because of the extraordinary effort
that went into ramming depth and dimension into every sequence.
For that matter, towering over all previous comic book superhero
high-octane thrillers, this is so far abstracted from the previous takes
on the original publications that it exists in a stratosphere all its own.
It's way out there beyond comic book status.
Profoundly ambitious, this full-dimensioned film is a grand effort to
give considerable depth to the caped crusader and his police associates,
not to say the complex moral implications of vigilante justice and anarchy.
It is remarkably successful at everything it touches, adding dark wit and
grotesque motivations to its arch-villain.
Batman joins up with Lieutenant Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent,
to make a grand slam against organized crime in Gotham. They are having success,
but this will, of course, pit them against the greatest bloodthirsty criminal mind
of them all, the Joker. In the story, Batman's persona as Bruce Wayne
finds himself discouraged over the fact that the D.A., Dent, and hard-driving
Lt. Gordon, are seemingly doing very well on their own in crushing
crime. He even hopes to hang up the Batsuit forever and renew his
relationship with assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes, who, also to Wayne's dismay,
has taken a shining to Dent during his crime-fighting crusade. The Joker the
now threatens to slaughter Gotham civilians until Batman reveals
his identity. An embodiment of the devil, his diabolical manipulation of events,
cause and effect and the weaknesses in the minds on humans, force them,
to his glee, to confront the vagaries and contradictions of their morals.
Full-blooded characters are developed everywhere.
And, oh yes, . . . concentrate. The plot turns and twists are many and every word counts.
"Death Race" (Quality rating: 2) R (strong violence and vulgarity) (1:29) -- Jason Statham, Tyrese Gibson, Joan Allen, Ian McShane.
Look, um . . . gotta tell ya: You may suffer serious brain damage if you see this ugly, inane and insane movie. Stupid? Hey, it'd have to be worked on to get it up to stupid. The film obviously regards its audience with some cynicism, if not outright contempt. It's not a satire on movies of that genre; it's a satire on the American audience. With diabolical method, it actually makes itself charismatic. Charismatically idiotic.
In your face it says, "You like this stuff, don't you? Boy, you're dumb."
So this is for for fans of depressing near-future scenarios (2012 in this case), complete with gore galore. Three-time auto speedway champion Jensen Ames (Statham), ultimate expert at survival in the bleak and unwelcoming landscape that has become our country, is now a steel worker. When the mill shuts down, he's desperate to find a living for his wife and infant daughter. But his concerns become irrelevant when that very same day masked men invade his home and kill his wife. When Ames regains consciousness, there he is with a bloody knife in his hand. Now he's thrown into prison with a life term. But prisons are now different. They have become privately run, for-profit organizations.
This is indeed the mother of all prisons. Within its walls there transpires the most brutal sport in the world. The guards have developed, for their own entertainment and profits, lucrative kickbacks from a pay-per-view violence-starved international TV audience, this by way of the "Death Race."
A sinister conspiracy, involving the warden and other forces, has contrived the phony conviction of Ames, now forcing him to don the mask of a driver called Frankenstein who, unbeknownst to the vast TV audience, was recently killed. Crowd-pleaser that he was, the powers-that-be couldn't allow his death to be known because he was a legend as being impossible to kill. So Ames is given the choice by Terminal Island's warden (Joan Allen) to do the impersonation or spend his life in a cell. Actually, she wants to terminate him if Machine Gun Joe (Tyrese Gibson), the second-best racer doesn't. Driving a car of death outfitted with flamethrowers, machine guns and grenade launchers, he's off and running.
The action is first-rate. And the killings are creative.
If you like this, don't say hello. I don't know you.
"Disaster Movie" (Quality rating: 1) PG-13 (pervasive crude and sexual content, vulgarity, drug references, comic violence) (1:30) -- Carmen Electra, Kimberly Kardashian, Matt Lanter. Not funny, a celebration of grossness, totally without imagination, directed solely to the lowest teenage boy taste levels. The satire on blockbuster disaster films hooks onto characters and events from all the genre's history, including "Indiana Jones," "Iron Man" and many more, along with the catastrophies of earthquakes, asteroids, twisters and more and more. Pop culture icons and public figures also come under the gun of lampoon. The plot picks up on a group of handsome and beautiful 20-year-olds (natch) during one horrendous night as they try to survive. But all this is attached to a series of rather strange happenings which must be confronted in order to stop the uncontolled destruction.
"Hamlet 2" (Quality rating: 7) -- R (vulgarity, sexual references, brief nudity of male posterior, some drug content) (1:34) -- Steven Coogan, Catherine Keener, David Arquette, Elisabeth Shue, Amy Poehler.
Set yourself on bizarre and wacky mode for this break from the usual fare. It's for humor sophisticates only. Occasionally smart parody, sometimes hilariously bizarre, but too often erratic in its uneven comic jolts, the plot is original and often delightfully zany. "Hamlet 2" is really a welcome breather in the currently vast Hollywood wilderness of ho-hum themes of retreaded material. Its effect on the funnybone will be greatly varying according to tastes. I found myself in many a smile and chuckle over the bombastic, caricatured, flamboyant actor-director character played by Steven Coogan. I also found myself wishing the film had a firmer grip on its flow of humor so that I wouldn't lapse into heavy-eyed yawns in places.
At its best, you never know where its plot thread or its gags are going to lurch next. Scenes are totally unpredictable, constantly opening new bases for jokes.
In his private life, Dana Marschz’s (Steve Coogan), is a recovering boozer who has father problems. Also he's infertile, his wife is having an affair with their roommate, and he's talentless. His professional acting career has centered around TV commercials for a power juicer and herpes medication among others. He's about had it.
Flash forward to the present where Dana has decided to teach drama at Tucson’s West Mesa High (filmed in Albuquerque, N.M.). Marschz finds some real talent in an up-till-now hostile student and casts him as Hamlet. In this version, Hamlet uses a time machine to bring back to life some of the characters in Shakespeare’s “bummer” original. Production capers now go haywire with make-up impersonations of Hillary Clinton, Einstein and even Jesus Christ (played by Marschz himself) moonwalking on water in the production number “Rock Me Sexy Jesus,” this accompanied by a Tucson gay men’s chorus.
As to the play, not surprisingly, the school board wants to close it down. But, with freedom of speech issues abounding, the ACLU sends out legal zealot Cricket Feldstein (Amy Poehler) to rescue the show.
The film is strong in the unending emotional explosions of acting artistry expressed by Coogan's "Marschz," an open and unbridled parody of the self-absorbed actor's uncompromising energy in which all around him must unite under his inspiration at pain of being roundly scolded for ineptitude.
The ideas are catchy, the delivery bumpy, but it feels good to breathe in some vigorous comedy.
"Henry Poole is Here" (Quality rating: 5) PG (mature thematic elements, some vulgarity) (1:41) -- Luke Wilson, Adriana Barraza, Radha Mitchell, Cheryl Hines. Directed by Mark Pellington. Screenplay: Albert Torres
Are we talking about film or about faith?
The film asks you to bring some religious faith with you. Whether by implication or by hammering its point at you, this is a surprisingly immature production off the Hollywood line with everything as obvious as day and the point-of-view pretty blatant. Its characters run from serviceable to downright annoying. Off the top, its apparent insistence that disbelief in God, and, conversely, a belief in science, is a personal flaw of the first order is certainly fine for a faith film but not for one being released to the mainstream audience.
The story is of a single guy, Henry Poole (Luke Wilson), whose doctor has leveled with him that he does not have long to live. So we join him in the L.A. suburb where he buys a needs-work house on an otherwise reasonable street. As a welcome offering, neighbor Esperanza (Adrianna Barrazza) offers tamales. Henry accepts them politely but has her understand that he really wants solitude.
There's something else that irritates Henry just a bit, namely, the large paint stain on the exterior stucco wall of the house. But more urgent matters now come about. That'll be about Millie (Morgan Lily), the daughter of neighbor Dawn (Radha Mitchell). Millie has not uttered a word since the divorce, her dad having left a year ago. She has the disconcerting habit of recording conversations, one of which is by Henry.
But a real disturbance comes when Esperanza invites herself into Henry's backyard and offers prayers to that stain on the wall, claiming that it's the image of the face of Christ. She then adds to the intrusion by bringing her priest to see it, plus some church members. When Henry orders them all out, Esperanza asks him if he believes in God. At this point a blood stain has appeared on the "face" of Christ. Henry feels awkward in telling the church group to get out. And Dawn is feeling a connection to Henry.
Various incidents suggesting the ineptitude of science now happen, including the checkout clerk at the local grocery store.
"The House Bunny" (Quality rating: 6) PG-13 (sex-related humor, partial nudity and brief vulgarity) (1:37) -- Anna Faris, Emma Stone, Rumer Willis. Hey, listen, it's really not bad. There's funny stuff here. Despite its frivolous title, it has a lot of smarts. Its choice of treatment is to stay very close to Anna Faris because she generates infallible illumination by her personality and physical appeal, embellished by her character's air-headed projection of irresistibly charming innocence. There are many good gaglines in the natural comedy of the scenario. The storyline is timeworn but, for the personality of the movie itself, secondary. This is an Anna Faris spectacle of the dimensions of ditz. I won't give it a "good" rating just because it is a boldly and baldly trivial theme. Beyond ancient. But you can find some fun here.
27-year-old Shelley (Anna Faris), ditzy, bubbly but of innate intelligence and indomitable confidence in her own appearance, is living a sexy and fun life in the Playboy mansion but, to her great sadness, she's never been a centerfold. One day, facing "retirement age," Hef gives her the boot and sends her packing. His aide explains that at 27, she's 59 in bunny age.
Wandering about aimlessly, living out of her car in L.A., she happens upon the sorority campus area of the university. Dropping into one of the elite sororities, the members and the house supervisors contemptuously give her the heave-ho, one suggesting she try a brothel.
Of undaunted spirit, Shelley then pops into the decrepit sorority house of Zeta Alpha Zeta. These girls have a problem. Not only are they superficially man-haters but they're all strong, cranially-oriented individuals, a facet which, not surprisingly, makes them unpopular socially.
They are in fact clueless about what it takes to go with the flow, attract men and therefore general acceptability. Clearly, their road to social success will require somebody like the effervescent Shelley who can show them what men are all about, how to make themselves over and put out the moves. This course is made urgent by the fact that unless they can sign a new pledge class, they're going to lose their house to the conniving girls of Phi Iota Mu.
Meantime, however, Shelley is frustrated in her maneuvers to land dorky but appealing Oliver (Colin Hanks) who does charity work for the local nursing home, a decidedly un-hip pursuit.
Strategy and tactics will generate into parties and intrigues among the newly renovated Zeta girls as Shelley flits and flows from one confrontation to the next.
Anna Faris is a perfect fit to the role. She knows she's in complete control of the film and maintains the requisite energy flawlessly. The movie actually dares you to pan it , with its Faris battery running at full charge all the way.
"Mama Mia!" (Quality rating: 7) PG-13 (sex references) (1:48) -- Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, Amanda Seyfried, Julie Walter. "
A fun escape film, its "plot" really can't be judged as such. Based on a London musical comedy still running, it's more of an exuberance, a jubilation that explodes onto the screen trying its best to appeal to all but probably reaching mostly women. It's not bedeviled by pressing issues like "Sex in the City" or other issues-driven films but just lets joy and outgoing spirit hold the spotlight as entities in themselves. It's a burst of happy energy around love and a pending wedding, allowing a little endearing suspense on issues as urgent to a waiting bride as issues of world-shaking importance are to others.
Meryl Streep plays Donna, a middle-aged woman who runs a woebegone B&B on a Greek Island. Her 20-year-old daughter Sophie (Seyfried), is about to be wed. At about this time, Sophie finds her mom's deeply confidential diary of those days. In it is recounted the details of three men in Donna's life, all 20 years ago: Sam Carmichael (Brosnan), Harry Bright (Firth) and Bill (Skarsgard).
Although she married none of them, plainly, one of them was Sophie's father. In order to find out which one that might be, Sophie decides to secretly send wedding invitations to them all. Relations between mom, the three men, Sophie and her groom will change sharply upon their arrival inasmuch as they're strangers to each other and haven't a clue as to Sophie's existence.
The infectious nature of the upbeat spirit of a wedding carries the film, setting off some catchy songs and a really good sport in Pierce Brosnan who tries so hard to sing that you almost cry at his efforts, though ya gotta love him.
"Mirrors" (Quality rating: 4) R (for strong violence, horror images, vulgarity and brief nudity) (1:50) -- Kiefer Sutherland, Paula Patton, Cameron Boyce, Amy Smart.
OK, are the demons real or imagined? If that's not evident, then what's the point? "Mirrors," is not bad for its production quality alone; special effects are actually pretty good by today's standards. And the first half is actually fairly strong and even compelling. But the basic understanding of horror film essence, now and since the beginning of time, is absent. The film has an inconsistent plot thread and no focused logic. Like, if you're going to show very scary sequences, it must be clear that these monstrous happenings are real, not just in the head of the victim. Because if that's all they are, why bother. We all have nightmares. So?
This is an alleged horror film that seems to be unsure of itself. What's happened here is that the film unintentionally has set up an expectation that the hero is a nut job who shouldn't have been taken seriously in the first place. The story goes that a mentally plagued ex-NYPD cop faces a mysterious evil that is using mirrors to secure entrance into his family's home. This is Ben Carson (Kiefer Sutherland) who's known a better life. Seems his rashness got him into major trouble and suspension when, a year ago, by accident he'd fatally shot another undercover officer. The disease of alcoholism, inducing uncontrollable anger, has alienated his wife Amy (Paula Patton) and two children, forcing him to flee and go crashing onto his bartender sister's (Amy Smart) couch in Queens.
Desperate to get his family together again, he finds a job as night watchman at the burned-out ruins of the Mayflower department store. The store, which at one time was an icon of prosperity, now remains forlornly in decay like an edifice of ghostly abandonment. One night he notices something foreboding, even menacing, about the ornate mirrors that still hang on the Mayflower walls. For reflected in the great sheets of glass are images of horror that shock Carson to his core, like of himself burning alive along with others, gruesome people shrieking for help and lots more. They are actually projecting ugly images of the past, even changing the reality before him. Horrible happenings to he himself are now appearing. He is feeling physical effects. He will be battling his personal demons, tormenting him with convulsions, spontaneous bleeding and near suffocation.
His sister Angela is sympathetic but she shrugs off his bizarre nightmares as no more than his daggers of guilt over the accidental shooting. Yet, having no patience with him at all is his wife Amy who's a no-nonsense NYPD medical examiner. Carson's crazy behavior, getting more and more bizarre, is scaring her and his kids. Soon, his family will be fatally threatened.
Performances are certainly tops, no problem there. But the film is a collection of horror film gadgets and cliches with nowhere to go and nothing to do. If you just like supernatural, grisly stuff, you may wanna try it.
"The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" (Quality rating: 4) PG-13
(adventure action, violence) (1:52) -- Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, Maria Bello, Luke
Ford, Michelle Yeoh, John Hannah. Almost satirical, this pure exploitation flick has
obvious contempt for the mindsets, in particular the attention spans, of its target
audience, American youth. It is remarkably without continuity, suspense or sense, a
second-rate "Indiana Jones" largely confining itself to eye candy for simple fun. In
this, we again find adventurer archaeologist Rick O'Connell now in 1946
post-WWII settings, coaxed with his novelist wife into heading for China in
response to their teenage son Alex's plea for help. Seems he's come upon the
sought-after tomb of the Dragon Emperor, and his enormous army. This dude had
betrayed a witch who had granted him with immortality. She, by way of revenge,
then froze him into a ceaseless state of limbo between life and death. Alex has
accidentally resurrected the emperor and his army. The film has strong special
effects for the monster extravaganzas but no real suspense or excitement. It's a
cumbersome adventure film looking for an undiscriminating audience.
"Pineapple Express" (Quality rating: 5) R (violence, considerable vulgarity, sex references, stoned characters, drugs-driven plot) (1:51) -- Seth Rogen, James Franco, Gary Cole, Rosie Perez, Amber Heard. Creatively crude, even fascinatingly vulgar, with red-hot peppered dialogue. But by less than halfway through, its welcome has worn off. At its best for the first 40 minutes, it fires away with a barrage of contemporary jargon at lightning machine gun speed whose very vibrancy had the theater audience in amazed chuckles and bellylaughs. Some may insist that you have to be zonked on pot to really vibrate with this. In any case, this is, plainly, an in-your-face hyper-high crash comedy which may legitimately command your sense of humor for a spell, but then deteriorate rapidly into a noisy, instantly forgettable pandering. In this mix of comedy and gruesome violence, here's mid-20s Dale Denton (Seth Rogen). His is not an especially exciting life. He's a court subpoena-server whose private times revolve around playing superficially with romance with just legal-age beautiful high school student Angie (Amber Heard). Dale buys pot regularly from Saul Silver (James Franco), a scraggly long-haired slacker who, in the midst of his continuous binge, is an amusing fellow whose conversation rambles in free association all over the place and who finds no use for coherent conversation. Dale does not regard this as a friendship, just a professional purchase arrangement. But Saul really likes him and decides to sell him some Pineapple Express, a grade of marijuana so rare and so fine. Now, after a flood of wildly sprayed zany verbiage, comes the sudden change in mood. Dale witnesses a murder committed by drug lord Ted Jones (Gary Cole). Fleeing the scene, he drops a Pineapple Express joint. Ted finds it real quickly and recognizes its aspects as pointing to Saul. Ted's thugs take off after Dale and Saul. The two new friends are now off and running on a pot-motivated trip that will lead to zany capers, ugly mishaps and tortuous male bonding. Involved will be a mad encounter between Saul and his buddy with an embarrassing, if not disastrous first meeting with Angie's parents. There will be very rough stuff: shooting, stabbing, head-crushing and kicks in the groin -- and ear mutilation. Both Seth Rogen and James Franco are up to the film's demands but their appeal is shot down by the film's progressive loss of quality past the halfway point. Up to that point, however, you can get a lot of laughs if you're OK with granting comedy to potheads. What Director David Gordon Green does basically is to supercharge everybody and everything to spacey levels. The pace is forever on afterburners and the dialogue sizzles with peppy patter in the stoner mode. If you're up to letting your senses and sensibilities get knocked around in both good and bad taste, hey, go for it.
"Savage Grace" (Quality rating: 6) (film not rated) (1:37) --
Cast: Julianne Moore, Stephen Dillane. Director: Tom Kalin. Screenplay: Howard A. Rodman, based on the book by Natalie Robins and Stephen Dillane.
Except for the fact that a son killed his mother at the end of the true story, there's not a whole lot to hook onto except for Julianne Moore's panorama of talents. They're impressive. But after a bit you're gradually aware that there is no suspense here, and surely nothing very different from stories you've seen on these issues. Indeed, Moore's melodrama is so intense at times that, for dramatic impact, she's vitually left stranded as an island of energetic fury.
This is an unrevealing examination of ways the rich do what they do. The tale covers the 1940s through early '70s in the lives of the Baekeland family who became the nouveau riche as heirs to the inventor of plastic. The two central figures are Barbara (Moore) and her son Tony (Eddie Redmayne), with the father, Brooks (Stephen Dillane), also of strong significance.
Essentially this traces the welling and inexorable embroilments within Tony as he's raised by a mother whose need for love, romantic or parental or social, is beyond desperation. Barbara has become obsessed with trying to be accepted by social circles of the European rish, ostentatiously sporting behavior that is patently transparent. Brooks couldn't care less and is indeed ill at ease with a life of ease.
Barbara's quest for love leads into unnatural, quite unmotherly behavior with her son Tony. But it's quite obvious that he's gay, especially when Tony's attraction to a gold-digger beach beauty in Spain (Elena Anaya) fades fast in favor of handsome young Simon (Hugh Dancy), this even as the girl gets involved with Tony's father Brooks and mom enters into a three-way relationship with son and lover.
The film's course is simply descriptive, like from an emotional distance. You're an uninvolved observer. The characters, except for Barbara, are just things on the screen, not red-blooded identities. Notably unexpansive is the Tony personality. The dialogue is over-bloated.
Although this and that scene may draw your interest, you're quite aware early on that these are nihilistic people who make a game out of depression. A dark movie.
"The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Part 2" (Quality rating: 7) PG-13 (mature material and sensuality) (1:57) -- Alexis Bledel, America Ferrera, Blake Lively, Amber Tamblyn, Jesse Williams. An absorbing movie, yet without a moment of real suspense. With no twists, no surprises, it flows along by way of its striking performances, their close-up intimacies taking charge like a charismatic personality. No, there's nothing special about the characters' life's dilemmas, but yes, a well-conflicted and earnestly played out script, with compelling film technique, offers all the urgencies necessary. Recollecting the original, the theme was essentially concerned with four girls, originally high school grad pals, who, planning their diverse summers activities, came upon a magical pair of pants which perfectly fit all four of them even though the girls were of decidedly different body types. They each agreed to keep Fedex-ing those pants to each other to offer a kind of spiritual guidance. Now a year later and facing more mature challenges, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is into heavier conflicts. It's still all about friendship, love, sex and heartbreak. Their outlooks are kind of simple for a start. College freshman Carmen (the stunningly talented America Ferrera) just wants to hang with Lena (Alexis Bledel), Tibby (Amber Tamblyn) and Bridget (Blake Lively). But such is not to be. Her pals have other plans, leaving poor Carmen feeling abandoned. She is enticed to a job as stagehand and acting apprentice at a Vermont summer theater. Once there, the plumpish but pleasantly pretty young woman inadvertently finds herself trying out for Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale." Having little confidence in herself, she's bolstered by the handsome male lead (Britisher Ian Wisdom). And Bridget, while on an archaeological dig in Turkey; must deal with her deeply gnawing pain over her mother's suicide and her father's acts of preventing her from knowing the whole story about her mother's estrangement from her grandmother (Blythe Danner). Now there's Lena who heads off to her education at the Rhode Island School of Design, there falling for the nude male model (Jesse Williams) in her art class. And, of course, Tibby, who's now looking at her possible pregnancy by a charming guy (Leonardo Lam) even as she's working on an NYU screenwriting project. The conflicts are ingeniously treated, with just the right choice of words spoken with the creative energy and styling of the stars and the savvy intuition of a female screenwriter and director. The yearnings, the disappointments, the jealousies, the pain. They're all there and you can't help but live them.
"Step Brothers" (Quality rating: 3) R (extravagantly crude humor and sexual content, male organs on bold display in one scene, considerable vulgarity) (1:35) -- Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Mary Steenburgen, Richard Jenkins. In modern comedies, it begs the obvious that screenwriters and certain actors see vulgarity and crudeness as very bankable items. However, Adam McKay, Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, the creators of Step Brothers, make ugly, crude and twisted comedy and vulgarity into a form of currency which can be used everywhere in the movie to get a laugh. This is a grossly absurd movie with no honest expansion of its extremely dubious and largely unworkable plot and development. Its grossness sets new standards for sheer number and disgust. It is starkly lacking in inventiveness and boldly stands forth as pure and unadulterated contempt for human taste. Among those who curse the jerk who invented work are Brendan Huff (Will Ferrell) and Dale Doback (John C. Reilly), two separate guys for whom unemployment is a valued way of life. Brendan, at 39, lives with his mom, Nancy (Mary Steenburgen), and Dale, 41, with his dad, Robert (Richard Jenkins). Of questionable value in their lives is the wedding now of each their single parents to each other. Hmm . . . now the two professional loafers have to move in and live together. The challenge is obvious: these are two slackers not only forthrightly in love with laziness but they love themselves at least as much. These traits will tend to rattle the family to its core. Now they surely don't want that to happen. So what can these grown up little boys do. Well, their solution to pulling mom and dad back together is indeed elaborate and of doubtful sanity. Most challenging for them is forming the necessary bonding, and this, in turn, may just get them out to meet the real world. Their first thought in their bonding venture is to start a music video business. And where does the film take that? Nowhere.
"Star Wars: The Clone Wars" (Quality rating: 5) (Animated feature) PG (sci-fi action violence throughout, brief vulgarity) (1:38) --
Uh, uh . . . pure exploitation. This is not serious filmmaking. A brazenly obvious promo for the upcoming Oct. 3rd Cartoon Network series, "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" merely points up the tragedy that our new generation will never see the great "Star Wars" sagas on the big screen. And with the animation creating nothing more than veritable puppets in wooden motion, it's bad enough without even considering the bone-dry dialogue that's an embarrassment. Wanna come see a video game on the big screen? -- hey, here ya go.
In the chronology, this episode is supposed to fit between “Attack of the Clones” and “Revenge of the Sith” in the “Star Wars” ongoing epics. It's a surface skimming spinner which just grabs the adolescent- and kid-appealing stuff off the top, namely, hi-tech space battles, and unloads it in your face. There's a modest saber fight, some gratuitous talk, mild plot stuff with a shrug, lots of space battles, although the space scenarios are admittedly some of the best yet.
In the story, the colossal Clone Wars are overtaking the galaxy. At issue are the Separatists and their all-powerful droid army who are now achieving the surrender of increasing numbers of galactic powers, gravely threatening The Republic. It will be the greatest, almost impossible mission of the heroic Jedi Knights to return order, peace and justice against the forces of the dark side of the Galactic Republic.
Anakin Skywalker and his Padawan learner Ahsoka Tano are therefore on a tumultuous mission, With the droid armies on the move, Skywalker is paired with a sensuous, red-skinned, blue-eyed, Egyptian-style teenager, Ahsoka Tano in a quest to find and rescue the kidnapped infant son of the foreboding Jabba the Hutt. As his worthy adversary, Count Dooku and his agents, plus the sinister Asajj Ventress, launch a murderous assault to stop Anakin and Ahsoka. Not to be forgotten are Master Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi who will lead the massive clone army.
Of some perverse amusement is the concept of Jabba the Hutt fathering a little Hutt, called Rotta the Huttlet and Stinko. Dooku dupes Jabba and his kin Ziro into thinking that he will be betrayed by the Jedi. He sends the sensuous Asajj Ventress to assassinate Anakin.
Now middle-aged Star Wars students will find nothing rewarding or fulfilling here. I'm not sure what co-screenwriter George Lucas had in mind.
"Traitor" (Quality rating: 8) PG-13 (intense violence, cruel thematic material, brief vulgarity) (1:50) -- Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Jeff Daniels
Intelligent, brutally frank and genuinely expansive international thriller. A dynamically assembled film about the very culture of modern terrorism, this is a cruelly mesmerizing film which takes most, but not all, of its considerable drama from the ever-reliable Don Cheadle who seems to get more charismatic with every new film in which he stars. This movie virtually immerses you in the lifeblood of the terrorism movement, with all of its subtle human dimensions, especially at the motivation end. The film is as unpredictable as its protagonist, provocatively pursuing the adage that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." On one side the bomber is a heartless murderer, on the other a soldier in a war in which, as in any war, all's fair, allowing the Islamic extremist to point out that the U.S., in its wars, has had ugly instances of "murder."
The scenarios are strongest in their dedication to absorbing conspiratorial settings (mostly filmed in Morocco) of terrorist strategy, preparations and recruiting.
Starting with Samir Horn (Don Cheadle) in Sudan as a youth who witnesses his Muslim Brotherhood-friendly father blown up by a car bomb, the plot follows the seemingly wayward movements of Horn amid car bomb terrorism and initial contacts, raising immediate questions as to just where are his allegiances.
Into modern times the plot follows Samir into his more advanced operations. By-the-book FBI agent Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce), in his project of probing into a menacing international conspiracy, is finding that all leads are taking him to Samir, a former U.S. Special Operations officer. Horn, who has built up major connections to terrorist organizations, somehow seems to find his way into every major terrorist project.
Seems this guy Horn carries quite a baggage of background, ultimately getting too cozy with the Muhajadeen in Afghanistan. What're his politics? None can tell. His polite manner and perfect English attract terrorist thugs of many types. His successes will now attract major terrorists who'd like his services in planning a massive attack in the American heartland. Samir has some real soul-searching to do.
"Tropic Thunder" (Quality rating: 4) R (continuous, intense vulgarity sexual references, gory violence content and drug material) (1:47) -- Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Nick Nolte, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Cruise.
"Tropic Thunder" is not a movie. It's an assault.
Dropping a joke on you like a bomb does not make it satire. Dropping one verbal bomb after another, overstating the overstatement bam-bam-bam just makes, well . . . noise. Terrible noise. And levels of grossness of language in type and frequency which I've never before witnessed. This film is a profoundly abrasive, clunking mess. Framed in sledgehammer humor, what begins as a bombastic exaggeration of Hollywood guts-and-gore blood epics rapidly degenerates into crude-as-can-be comic chaos of lurching, clumsy scenes fueled by unending vulgarity and artlessly stupid sequences.
Supposedly, here's Hollywood poking fun at itself again in a satire on the old Rambo rescue war drama films. In this, an erratic British director pulls together a cast of action film stars for a saga set in the Vietnam War jungle. But what the director now schemes is to actually lose the stars in the jungle and let them try to survive on their own, with hidden video cameras filming them for footage in the final production. Unbeknownst to them is that in no time they'll be stalked and captured, for real, by drug-dealing guerrillas who use real ammo. The dense flow of obscenities takes on a ferocity unmatched for both its ceaseless momentum and its sheer savagery. Whatever the alleged satire is, the film's shotgun barrages of idiotic explosions of random garbage can batter you down.
"Vicky Cristina Barcelona" (Quality rating: 8) PG-13 (for mature thematic material involving sexuality, explicit sex) (1:36) -- Director: Woody Allen. Cast: Xavier Bardem, Rebecca Hall, Penelope Cruz, Scarlett Johannson.
Yep. For Woody Allen fans only. The genius of this veteran director, a premier humorist of the 20th century, is that even when he hasn't casted himself in his film, as in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," his love-hate relationship with the self-inflicted neuroses, anxieties and conflicts of Manhattanites is so subtly and hilariously treated that trickles of audience chuckles and open laughter are ceaseless throughout the film. It's a wit and waggery that is there in virtually every piece of dialogue, a playful manipulation of extended tragedy here and there which, with Allen's flawless choice of words and intonation, evokes a wry smile on any humor aficionado. In this film, he calls together a conflict between American prudishness and uptightness with West European openness, in this case that of sophisticated urban Spain. In a relationship set-up that is not especially original, he calls forth the outstanding acting skills of Spain's Javier Bardem (recollected as Oscar Winner for Best Supporting in "No Country for Old Men"), the incomparable Penelope Cruz and the American Rebecca Hall, along with the serviceable-but-not-special Scarlett Johansson. The result is a thoroughly amusing relationship film with special emphases on facial expression nuance.
Two pretty young American women, Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) come to Barcelona for a summer holiday. They'll stay at the sumptuous hillside Barcelona home of Vicky's older friends Judy (Patricia Clarkson) and Doug Nash (Kevin Dunn). Vicky is a sensible sort, engaged to be married. Cristina, contrarily, is emotionally and sexually adventurous, with a history of bad choices for love relationships but nonetheless undiscouraged.
At an art gallery, the two all-American beauties are noticed by the boldly self-confident bearded bohemian painter Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem, Oscar Winner for Best Supporting in "No Country for Old men"). Later, in a swank restaurant, the charismatic Juan simply saunters up to their table and charmingly invites them to a weekend of dining, art -- and sex. He does not advise them that he is still involved with his wild-spirited, perhaps lethally insane ex-wife Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz). Vicky and Christina, however, are at least partially aware of that circumstance from an overheard conversation.
As to his invitation, Manhattan-principled Vicky, who's engaged to decent guy New Yorker Doug (Chris Messina), says no. But Christina, looking for adventure, says yeah, and they all take off on a private plane to picturesque Oviedo. Juan will now move into both women's lives, first advising as to his abiding love for his ex-wife Maria Elena, whose rage once brought her to stab him and who now lives with a man in Madrid.
All things considered, from Juan's point of view it's Cristina, of course, who's available. But after a binge on booze temporarily incapacitates Cristina, Juan effectively puts the moves on Vicky. In short order, however, he'll have Cristina move in with him. As to poor Vicky, she's facing what may be a boring life with Doug. But, by cell phone, he surprises her with a marriage proposal in which he'll come to Barcelona for the wedding. It will be Maria Elena who will charge the film into high gear by upsetting everybody's lives.
Inevitably, it's the fascinating Penelope Cruz who adds the indispensable bite to the film. Mercurial and provocative, she calls up the deeper implications of the motives of the ambivalent lover Juan. And, almost as absorbing is the play between Juan and Vicky, they being of such opposite morality, his quite laid back, hers principled but, she's to realize, with a shaky foundation.
Allen hasn't lost a bit of the touch over the decades. He's very much in a class by himself.
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