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03Nov

Reviews in Short: November 2012

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Office Space For anyone who works — or worked — in the soul-sucking confines of a corporate cubicle, this Mike Judge comedy is a must. Its deadly accurate depiction of the white-collar workplace has the makings for one depressing movie, but thanks to its ensemble of instantly recognizable office drones (standouts are Gary Cole as an unctuous, passive-aggressive boss, and Stephen Root as a mumbling milquetoast), it’s much more likely to make you laugh than cry. Release: 1999 Grade: B+

*****

The Bay What’s great about the movies is that the good ones suck you in and make you forget that everything you see is make-believe. The problem with most “found footage” movies is that the jerky camera, grainy film, and improbable edits are jarring reminders that everything you see is make-believe. So it is with The Bay, which is unfortunate because its premise — pollution-generated, flesh-eating parasites invade a seaside Maryland town — is timely and believable. Director Barry Levinson, who knows a thing or two about making movies the old-fashioned way, should have done so with this one. Release: 2012 Grade: C

*****

Kids An “after school special” from hell, Kids depicts one day in the life of some NYC teens who drink, drug, and screw their way through life, spreading AIDS and respecting only peer pressure. The lone role model on display is a grizzled taxi driver; other adults are either apathetic or missing in action. Kids was heralded as a wake-up call to society back in 1995; I have no idea whether anyone actually woke up. Release: 1995 Grade: B+

*****

Gut This low-budget horror film poses a provocative question: Can television viewing habits lead to actual violence? Nicholas Wilder, playing a disturbed loner who introduces his only friend to the lurid attraction of snuff movies, gets my vote for Creepy Friend of the Year. But there is a fine line between building suspense and moving at a snail’s pace, and Gut, with too many lingering close-ups and a plodding story, is undermined by its sluggish momentum. Release: 2012 Grade: C-

03Oct

Reviews in Short: October 2012

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Frozen River Hollywood was delinquent when it finally gave an Oscar to Melissa Leo for 2010’s The Fighter; she should have won two years earlier for her role in this dramatic thriller, in which she plays a hard-bitten mother of two boys who gets involved in human smuggling on the New York-Canadian border. The movie, from first-time writer-director Courtney Hunt, has atmosphere up the wazoo, with a near-perfect mixture of blue-collar pathos and nail-biting suspense. The connection is Leo, who manages to garner empathy for a “trailer trash” mom who’s alternately heartless and heartbreaking. Release: 2008 Grade: B+

*****

The Snowtown Murders Snowtown is a two-hour journey into hell that — assuming you don’t leave the room — grabs you and doesn’t let go. It’s the story of Australia’s most notorious serial killer, John Bunting (Daniel Henshall), whose sinister charisma sucked in disciples and ultimately led to a rented building filled with bodies soaking in acid. Everything and everyone in this film is depressing — not just the killings, but also the joyless, blue-collar lifestyle of suburban Adelaide. Unpleasant stuff, to be sure, but also powerful, and Henshall is unforgettable. Release: 2011 Grade: B+

*****

Cortex This nifty little French thriller is notable for its unusual hero (old) and setting (a home for people with Alzheimer’s). Andre Dussollier plays a retired detective who doesn’t remember his own son, but whose cop instincts tell him that fellow patients are dying under suspicious circumstances. Dussollier is magnetic, but Cortex’s pedestrian plot has a few too many holes. Release: 2008 Grade: B-

*****

Carnage Near the beginning of Carnage, after meeting the liberal Longstreets (John C. Reilly and Jodie Foster) and the conservative Cowans (Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet), Brooklyn parents meeting to discuss a playground scuffle between their sons, my feeling was, “I don’t want to spend an entire movie with these people. They are all smug and annoying.” I changed my mind thanks to some terrific actors and a bottle of Scotch that loosened their tongues and stripped away their social armor. Director Roman Polanski simply sets up shots and lets his actors roll. The result is Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with a wicked sense of humor. Release: 2011 Grade: B+

10Sep

Reviews in Short: September 2012

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Headhunters Roger (Aksel Hennie, Norway’s answer to Steve Buscemi) is a little guy whose gorgeous wife Diana (Synnove Macody Lund, Norway’s answer to Sweden) has expensive tastes. So Roger, a corporate headhunter, supplements his income with a side business in stolen art. And then … things begin to go wrong for Roger. The twists in this clever thriller are unpredictable, and the action is relentless; in fact, things move so fast that I’m not sure whether the plot holds up. But hey, you could say the same thing about some Hitchcock classics. Release: 2011 Grade: B+

*****

The Silent House Young Laura and her father are hired to repair an abandoned cottage — but this is an old-dark-house movie (sort of), so we know that trouble’s afoot. There’s a fine line between “artistic license” and a storyline that cheats, so how you feel about the twist at the end of this low-budget chiller from Uruguay — shot in one well-choreographed, 78-minute take — will likely depend on what you feel is fair. But until its iffy denouement, this House harbors solid suspense and delivers a few genuine jolts. Release: 2010 Grade: B

*****

Heavenly Creatures The attractions here are Peter Jackson’s direction, the performances by Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey, and New Zealand doing what New Zealand does best — looking like New Zealand. But the dark story, based on an actual murder carried out by two teens in 1954, is less compelling than off-putting. Release: 1994 Grade: B

01Aug

Reviews in Short: August 2012

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Hachi: A Dog’s Tale If you’re not an animal lover, the first hour of this little-seen tearjerker about a man and his dog might seem an interminable bore because, other than scenes of Richard Gere playing with a furry little critter (stop it; I know what you’re thinking), not much happens. But if you do have a soft spot for pets, the last 30 minutes of this film … sorry, I have to go find some tissues now. Release: 2009 Grade: B+

*****

M The opening half of Austrian director Fritz Lang’s first talkie hasn’t aged particularly well — too much police procedural and a lack of interesting characters — but stay tuned for part two, in which bug-eyed Peter Lorre gives a performance that is absolutely riveting. Lorre plays Beckert, an androgynous pedophile who terrorizes Berlin with a series of child murders. The hunting of Beckert, Lorre’s deer-in-the-headlights flight, and his “trial” by the city’s underworld are the stuff of cinema legend. Release: 1931 Grade: A-

*****

The Divide Tenants take refuge in the basement of an apartment building when a nuclear bomb levels their city — and that’s just the beginning of their ordeal. Stretches of the film are like a nightmare: surreal and unsettling, but also absorbing. The Divide’s downfall is a screenplay with characters who are all unpleasant or bland, and a plot that degenerates into one disturbing scene of human depravity after another. Release: 2012 Grade: C

*****

My Life as a Dog Life is tough for 12-year-old Ingemar in 1959 Sweden, but the kid’s pain is our gain in this charming comedy-drama. Director Lasse Hallstrom finds the perfect emotional balance as he depicts the early adolescence of Ingemar, who is shuffled from one home to another when his terminally ill mother can no longer care for him and his brother. If that sounds maudlin, not to worry. The oddball characters Ingemar meets — and some marvelous acting — lift this movie out of the doldrums and into the realm of coming-of-age classics. Release: 1985 Grade: A-

01Jul

Reviews in Short: July 2012

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Shallow Grave Three Edinburgh roommates (excuse me, “flatmates”) advertise for a fourth — and wind up with a suitcase full of money and a dead man in the house. Director Danny Boyle’s film is clever and unpredictable, but not particularly suspenseful. That’s because the leads are all so unsympathetic that, really, it’s hard to much care what happens to them. Release: 1994 Grade: B

*****

The Artist A valentine to old Hollywood — and not just silent movies, but that whole era comprising “the way they used to make ’em.” If you’ve seen A Star Is Born or Sunset Boulevard, then the basic storyline will be familiar, but who cares when it’s this well done? And kudos to a Jack Russell terrier named Uggie. Says a (subtitled) cop: “I’ll say one thing, he [the film’s hero] owes his life to that dog!” The filmmakers might owe a Best Picture Oscar to that dog. Release: 2011 Grade: A

*****

The Robber An ex-con finds that life on the outside is better when he runs marathon races, bangs a social worker … and robs banks. The robberies and chases, when they come, are exciting, but for a movie about bank heists and running, too much of The Robber moves at a snail’s pace. Compounding the funereal tone of the film is a romance between our bad-guy hero (Andreas Lust) and his girlfriend (Franziska Weisz), both of whom exude all the heat and passion of an Austrian winter. Release: 2010 Grade: C+

*****

The Illusionist Proving that animated films aren’t just for kids, this whimsical ode to fatherhood is gorgeous and, yes, sentimental, but not overly so. Based on an unproduced script by legendary French comic Jacques Tati, the story concerns a down-on-his-luck magician whose travels through Europe in 1959 land him an unexpected ward: a doe-eyed Scottish lass named Alice. It’s a quiet movie, nearly silent, but its striking images and simple story might leave you believing that magic exists, after all. Release: 2010 Grade: B+

*****

Cronos On the plus side, Guillermo del Toro’s debut feature is visually arresting and boasts a few memorable scenes. But the movie’s story, in which an antiques dealer and his young granddaughter share a secret about a magical artifact, is paper-thin. The result is fantasy that’s moderately absorbing, but never scary and not nearly as touching as it wants to be. Release: 1993 Grade: B-

*****

Evil Dead II OK, so maybe you have to be “in the mood” for it, but if you are, Sam Raimi’s sequel to The Evil Dead is about as close as Hollywood ever got to a live-action Looney Tune, melding horror and slapstick with an emphasis on laughs. And if they gave out Oscars for performances in low-budget splatter flicks, lantern-jawed Bruce Campbell would be a shoo-in. Campbell’s priceless mugging, Raimi’s frenetic camerawork, and some hilariously hokey special effects ensure that this is still the best “cabin in the woods” movie ever made. Release: 1987 Grade: B+

02Jun

Reviews in Short: June 2012

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Tell No One A so-so thriller from France. Eight years after losing his wife, a pediatrician (Francois Cluzet) finds himself on the run from cops and bad guys. There are a few dazzling scenes, but Cluzet is no Cary Grant and it’s a bad sign when, near the end of the film, one character must take 10 minutes of screen time to explain the convoluted plot. Release: 2006 Grade: B-

*****

The Woman in Black Daniel Radcliffe encounters clichés and deafening sound effects in a plodding, derivative ghost story. Radcliffe plays a lawyer dispatched to work at an old dark house, where he hears things that go bump in the night, sees shapes that do not seem all right, and delivers a jolly good fright — just kidding. If there are “starter movies” for kids itching to see their first spooky film, this might be tame (or lame) enough to qualify. Release: 2012 Grade: C-

*****

The War Room Probably of interest mainly to politics junkies and die-hard Democrats, this “fly on the wall” documentary is hampered by the fact that everyone on camera is acutely aware of that fly on the wall. The result is reality TV, politics-style: not particularly insightful, but an entertaining time capsule. How much you enjoy the film — ostensibly about the 1992 Clinton campaign, but really The James Carville Show — will depend on whether campaign manager Carville amuses or irritates you. He amused me, but only to a point. Release: 1993 Grade: B

*****

Chronicle It’s a bird, it’s a plane … it’s Carrie meets Son of Flubber. Or possibly Christine meets Spider-Man. At any rate, a Stephen King sensibility permeates this silly-but-entertaining romp. Chronicle follows three Seattle teens who develop telekinetic powers after encountering a mysterious force buried in the ground. Fun stuff, but it’s time for Hollywood to dump the shaky amateur-cam, which by now is less realistic than distracting. Release: 2012 Grade: B

*****

The Skin I Live In Crazed plastic surgeon Antonio Banderas has bad luck with women, to put it mildly, and the result is two hours of non-stop unpleasantness, populated with characters who are emotionally dead, psychotic, or both. If you’re going to make a movie about death, rape, and revenge, it would help if you include at least one sympathetic character. But the film does look pretty. Release: 2011 Grade: C

*****

Lars and the Real Girl An original idea marred by some exceedingly stupid scenes. Mentally ill Ryan Gosling orders an Internet-era version of Harvey the invisible rabbit, a sex doll named “Bianca,” and everyone in town humors him by playing along with his fantasy — including the entire staff of a hospital emergency room. Yeah, right. But there are some charming moments, and Paul Schneider is a hoot as Gosling’s exasperated older brother. Release: 2007 Grade: C+

22May

Reviews in Short: May 2012

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Rampart See Woody snarl. See Woody cry. See Woody puke. This is an “actors’ movie” if ever there was one, and Harrelson is very good as a crooked L.A. cop, but you still need a story, and Rampart’s plot is threadbare and unpleasant. Release: 2011 Grade: C

*****

Corman’s World For decades, Roger Corman has been Hollywood’s crazy uncle, the embarrassing relation who tells dirty jokes at dinner and insists on shots of whiskey for dessert. Corman made B movies, but his list of protégés is impressively A-list. Jack Nicholson and Martin Scorsese are just two of the Corman graduates who pay tribute in this entertaining, clip-filled documentary. Corman himself never graduated to the Hollywood big-time — a fact not really explained in this movie. Release: 2011 Grade: B

*****

Asylum Blackout My bar is at ground level for low-budget horror movies, but this one isn’t half-bad. Here is what Asylum has going for it: 1) characters with some depth; not a whole lot of depth, but more than we usually get when kids hang out at cabins in the woods (in this case, the kids are trapped in a mental hospital when the power goes out); 2) some genuine suspense; 3) an intelligent screenplay, albeit a tad too smart for its own good near the end; 4) ominous settings; and 5) a good, creepy villain. Release: 2011 Grade: B