Short Subjectives April 01 2009
OPENING FRIDAY
ADVENTURELAND 3 stars (R) See review.
THE DARK KNIGHT TAKES MADEA TO JAIL 2 stars (PG-13) Batman’s attempts to clear his name following the death of Two-Face are complicated by a pair of female lawbreakers, the femme fatale Catwoman and the angry granny Madea, both played by Atlanta’s Tyler Perry. Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan’s decision to hand the Dark Knight follow-up to Perry offered a boost to the local economy in such decisions as to relocate the Bat-cave to the face of Stone Mountain. Although it’s nice to see more female characters in the franchise, Perry’s whip-wielding Catwoman and belt-swinging Madea seem like hardly a match for Batman, and their ménage à trios just feels wrong. At least now we know why Christian Bale was so angry. — Curt Holman
EVERLASTING MOMENTS See review.
FAST & FURIOUS Does the scent of burning rubber get your engine going? This flick invites you to fill up your tank with Vin Diesel for two hours of car chases around Los Angeles.
TOKYO! Three filmmakers (Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, and Bong Joon-Ho) team up for this frenetic vision of over-populated urbanity in Tokyo.
DULY NOTED
FILTH AND WISDOM Madonna’s directorial debut is a film about rock and roll dreams. Real life ‘gypsy-punk’ band Gogol Bordello stars as the fictional band in the film. $5. Cinefest, GSU University Center, Suite 211, 66 Courtland St. 404-651-3565. www2.gsu.edu/~wwwcft.
THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) (R) The cult classic of cult classics, the musical horror spoof follows an all-American couple (Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick) to the castle of Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry), a drag queen/mad scientist from another galaxy. Midnight, Fridays at Plaza Theatre. 1049 Ponce de Leon Ave., Atlanta (Virginia-Highland), 404-873-1939, www.plazaatlanta.com.
CONTINUING
THE CLASS 4 stars (Not rated) In this Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, teacher and award-winning novelist François Bègaudeau plays a fictionalized version of himself, a middle-school French instructor who struggles with his confrontational middle-school students. Compared to Hollywood inspirational teacher-dramas like Dangerous Minds, The Class could be a remedial course, focusing on the institutional and cultural challenges that make education an uphill battle. Primarily set in the classroom, the film reveals complex conflicts and proves that educational problems have no easy answers. — Holman
CORALINE 4 stars (PG) When spunky tween Coraline Jones (voiced by Dakota Fanning) and her family move into a remote boarding house, she discovers a deceptively appealing ìother worldî full of magical wonders. Henry Selick, director of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, helms another film of stop-motion animated splendors reminiscent of such fantastical coming-of-age stories as Alice in Wonderland and Pan’s Labyrinth. Definitely try to see it in 3-D, which fits the stop-motion format like a hand in glove, but be warned that the wild images may be too creepy for little kids. — Holman
CROSSING OVER 2 stars (R) Harrison Ford plays the central role of a weary but conscientious Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in this sprawling drama about diverse Los Angelenos whose lives intersect through the issue of illegal immigration. Writer/director Wayne Kramer follows the model of the Oscar-winner Crash all too closely, and though he nimbly juggles multiple storylines, the themes and confrontational performances prove hilariously heavy-handed. Kramer has clearly done his homework in the Catch-22s of U.S. immigration laws and black market documents, but the hyperbolic crime-related subplots drown out the thoughtful content. — Holman
DUPLICITY (PG-13) Espionage, romance, and the perfect con are mixed together for this thriller cocktail. Clive Owen and Julia Roberts star.
FANBOYS 2 stars (PG-13) In late 1998, a group of Star Wars fans road-trips from Ohio to Marin County, Calif., to break into Skywalker Ranch and steal a rough cut of The Phantom Menace. First scheduled for release in 2007, the film became a geek cause celebre when the studio contemplated cutting out a wan subplot in which one of the friends is dying of cancer. Even with the cancer plot included, the characterizations are thin, the cameos predictable and the craft generally amateurish, suggesting that films like Clerks set the bar for comedies about fandom culture way too low. — Holman
GOMORRAH 3 stars (NR) Italy’s official entry for this year’s Academy Awards offers a sprawling, journalistic portrayal of the Camorra crime syndicate in Naples. Director Matteo Garrone’s five entwined narrative lines cross generations and social strata, from a white-collar toxic waste dumper to an impoverished housing projects kid named Totó (Salvatore Abruzzese) who aspires to join a “clan.” Gomorrah leaves audiences in the position of innocent bystanders, without always knowing who the players are or where sudden violence will come from, and manages to offer a gangster film without a trace of glamour. — Holman
GRAN TORINO 3 stars (R) For possibly his last screen role, Clint Eastwood plays a pistol-packing, bigoted Korean war vet who becomes reluctantly involved with his Hmong neighbors. Gran Torino’s ideas are about as obvious as a bad Stephen King adaptation, but there’s something irresistible about the film’s middle section, when Eastwood bonds with a young man (Bee Vang) over manual labor. — Holman
THE GREAT BUCK HOWARD 2 stars (PG) The title character of The Great Buck Howard, played by John Malkovich, prefers to be identified as a “mentalist.” Old-school hypnotism and hints of telepathy anchor his old-fashioned stage act, along with threadbare jokes and a half-spoken rendition of “What the World Needs Now.” The film proves to be more focused and plot-driven than Christopher Guest’s improvised ensemble comedies about pop culture bottom-feeders, but fails to give Buck an adequate foil. — Holman
THE INTERNATIONAL 2 stars (R) An Interpol agent (Clive Owen) and a New York City attorney (Naomi Watts) try to build a case against a corrupt global bank, but all their potential witnesses end up dead. Inspired by the BCCI banking scandal of the 1990s, The International hits the national mood just right — what better time to attack financial institutions than during a global financial meltdown? Run Lola Run director offers technically proficient spy-type thrills, but the film wavers uncertainly between loud action movie and tub-thumping economic populism. — Holman
I LOVE YOU, MAN (R) This bromantic comedy follows the struggles of Paul Rudd to find the best man for his wedding.
KNOWING (PG-13) Would you believe that a time capsule dug up at your child’s elementary school could predict the future? If you were in this movie, the latest in a string of Nicolas Cage historical thrillers, you would.
THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT This by-the-book horror remake involves parents taking violent revenge against the man who attacked their daughter.
MISS MARCH A couple dude-brahs chase down the centerfold model that they used to know. Expect a few good fart jokes.
MONSTERS VS. ALIENS 2 stars (PG) After a meteorite causes a mild-mannered bride (Reese Witherspoon) to attain ginormous proportions, she and other misfits of science are enlisted by the U.S. government to repel an obnoxious alien called Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson). Despite the filmís advances in 3-D animation, especially in some spectacular action scenes Monsters vs. Aliens takes a giant step backwards for DreamWorks following the charm and warmth of Kung Fu Panda. The monstrous main characters prove quite endearing, but the weak, mean-spirited jokes and pointless pop references suggest that pod people replaced the screenwriters. — Holman
THE READER 4 stars (R) A German law student (David Kross) discovers that his older-woman fling (Kate Winslet) from his teenage years was a former guard at Auschwitz. The Hours’ Stephen Daldry directs one of the season’s richest and most challenging films, in which the central relationship unfolds as a powerful, two-pronged character study as well as providing sturdy metaphors for a nation’s guilt, responsibility and forgiveness. Playing the same character in different decades, Kross and Ralph Fiennes show how short relationships can reverberate across a person’s life, but Kate Winslet owns the film with her career-best leading performance. — Holman
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD 2 stars (R) A young, miserably married couple (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet) seek to escape the suburban rat race of 1950s America in this adaptation of Richard Yates’ acclaimed novel. Seldom has such an intelligent, impeccably-mounted production seemed so out of sync with the cultural zeitgeist: DiCaprio and Winslet dig deeply in their performances, but its hard to feel sorry for such superficial, prosperous characters at a time of foreclosures and layoffs. — Holman
TWO LOVERS 2 stars (R) Joaquin Phoenix’s bizarre recent behavior upstages his performance in director James Gray’s romantic triangle about a depressed would-be photographer (Phoenix) who vacillates between his attraction to an unstable, alluring neighbor (Gwyneth Paltrow) and the nice Jewish girl (Vinessa Shaw) hand-picked by his parents. Phoenix’s Brando-esque method acting suggest that family ties and bipolar disorder have blunted his role’s true passions, but he also falls prey to a habit of overplaying his characters as innocent or “slow.” The actresses make stronger, more relaxed impressions, including Paltrow’s self-destructive beauty and Isabella Rosellini’s loving, unpretentious mother. — Holman