New Movies opening October 28

Big opening this weekend is Puss n Boots (in 3D!); this movie is actually getting decent reviews, and the 3D effects are said to be excellent. But it looks like a kid film, not much crossover appeal. Also up  is In Time, about a world where no one ages past 25, but you can live longer than that (in your youthful body) as long as you can get your hands on a few extra minutes, or hours, or days; time is traded like currency. Stars Justin Timberlake, which is generally a good thing (remember Social Network?) Amanda Seyfried and Olivia Wilde. Decent reviews, a few very enthusiastic. The other big opener is The Rum Diary, based on a Hunter S. Thompson novel and starring Johnny Depp as a down on his luck freelance journalist who takes an assignment in Puerto Rico and has some strange and amusing adventures. Time Magazine calls it “an agreeable time waster.” Hangers on from last week include the box office bonanza that is Paranormal Activity 3, along with Footloose and The Three Musketeers. I saw The Three Musketeers; I was having a bad day and it was playing at a convenient time. It was diverting.

If you live in a big American city you will likely have the chance to see Martha Marcy May Marlene this weekend. This is a very good but very strange film; some disturbing stuff goes on, so keep that in mind if you decide to see it. Elizabeth Olsen is incredible in the title role. If you are interested in MMMM and you don’t live in a big city hang on: it’s hitting more theaters every weekend, finally going wide on November 11. (Review coming in the next day or so.)

Finally there is a lot of buzz about a little movie called Like Crazy. It’s a love story, or more like a lost love story, about two young people who fall madly in love, but then are separated by distance and bureaucratic red tape. It was a huge hit at Sundance, and has been picking up awards at festivals all over the world. Opening in just four theaters this weekend but coming soon to theaters near you.

Next week: Tower Heist with Eddie Murphy and Ben Stiller, and the Harold and Kumar Christmas movie. Well, Halloween will be over by then.

Box Office Wrap Up: October 21

The smash movie of the weekend was Paranormal Activity 3, its $54 million take giving it the interesting title of “biggest fall opening ever.” For perspective, that means it made more money in its opening than films like Jackass 3D, Shark Tale, and The Grudge. The third outing of the low budget franchise is a prequel to the other films in the series, working on the notion that the creepy other worldly ghostly thing that terrorized the young couple in the first movie actually got a foothold when the young woman was just a toddler. Seemed like a good idea, sort Poltergeist-y: little girl picks up communications from the beyond, and her mom is all freaked out about it.

Paranormal Activity 3 locked down about half of the box office generated by the top ten films, but the big fans who turned out for the opening weekend didn’t love it, giving the horror flick a C+ in exit reviews. Meanwhile, the latest screen incarnation of The Three Musketeers barely registered. Continuing movies Real Steel, Footloose, Ides of March, and Dolphin Tale hung on pretty well. Upcoming, we’ve got Jason Timberlake in In Time, a movie where no one ages past 25, and time becomes currency. Olivia Wilde plays Timberlake’s mother. Not sure how that’s going to work.

Looking for a Few Good Films (and Some Oscar Predictions)

I am a big fan of summer blockbusters. I like the comic book heroes and the grand battles between good and evil where good always wins and evil is defeated in a humorously ironic way.

But once Labor Day rolls around, I’m ready for something a little more thought provoking.

Which makes this fall oddly disappointing. It had a promising start, lots of hype about the great films on the horizon, but so far only Moneyball has hit the mark. Like a lot of critics, I was hoping for a little more depth from Drive and more complexity from the Ides of March; both films were well made and entertaining, but neither one could be called a great movie.

So we look forward. This weekend Martha Marcy May Marlene opens, featuring what is promised to be a stunning performance by Olsen twins sibling Elizabeth. Filmmaker Sean Durkin also won the top directing prize at Sundance. Lots of buzz on this one.

After that there is a bit of a wait before the next hyped picture arrives. J Edgar, a biopic about the controversial FBI chief comes out on November 9 in the big markets; Leo DiCaprio takes the title role, and this one has Oscar written all over it. Also in November look for The Descendents: George Clooney stars as an absentee dad who has to step up when his wife has an accident and slips into a coma. From the trailer this looks like a standard family crisis drama but, unlike Ides of March, it persistently shows up in the Best Picture conversation. The Artist opens on Thanksgiving weekend; it’s a black and white not-quite-silent picture about the advent of talking films. Screened at Cannes to wild enthusiasm.

Other possibilities include War Horse, a Spielberg picture that comes out at the very end of the year, barely making the cut off for awards consideration; it’s a World War I (that’s one, not two) movie about a horse and the kid who loves him. Okay, it’s probably more complicated than that, but it hasn’t been screened yet so nobody knows. There is also a film version of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, based on one of the very first novels to set in post 9/11 New York. Also opens late December. The American version of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo looks like it’s meant for mass market pop culture consumption, but Academy voters are keeping it in mind because of Director David Fincher's pedigree (he directed Social Network). As the eponymous Girl, Rooney Mara is also expected to snag a best actress nod.

But she’ll be competing with the Grande Dame of Oscar nominees, Meryl Streep, who is expected to blow out the competition with her performance as Maggie Thatcher in Iron Lady. If there’s a lock in this awards season, old Meryl is probably it.

Review: Fifty Fifty

Summit Entertainment

There are critics who love this picture and I can’t imagine why. It’s possible that the lack of impressive films in the fall “noteworthy movie” season has led them to embrace it, even though it is pretty much like any cancer movie you have ever seen. Guy is having a normal day, feels a twinge, finds out he has cancer, family and friends freak, they rally, they are inspired and full of hope because of his brave struggle. Or something like that.

50/50 doesn’t introduce anything new into this conversation. If you have ever dealt with cancer, either as a patient or as a supportive family member or friend, you will not learn anything from this film, or come away with an altered perspective.

Which is not to say it’s a bad picture. As cancer victim Adam, Joseph Gordon-Levitt does credible work even though his part is badly underwritten; he’s so low key we hardly ever get a handle on what he’s like or how all these events are affecting him. There are a lot of moments in the film where the camera focuses on his face while he … thinks, I suppose, or maybe he just feels sleepy. You start to wonder if the filmmakers have run out of things to do.

There are bright moments, mostly when Ann Kendrick is on screen; she plays Katherine, Adam’s therapist, but she’s young, new to the job, interning at the hospital while she works on her PhD. She screws up a lot but she tries hard to find her way, and you see in her expressive, intuitive face how intently she is trying to break through Adam’s stoicism. Kendrick is a remarkable actress, even though her small stature and slightly off kilter face make her a natural for odd ball supporting cast roles, she always carves out something new in her characters. You would never mistake Katherine for Up in the Air’s Natalie. Angelica Huston also has a few, pitch perfect moments in the film; she plays Adam’s overbearing mother but you have nothing but sympathy for her.

The elephant in the movie, of course, is Seth Rogen, playing the stoner buddy he always plays. It’s comforting to watch the friendship between his character and Adam become a source of support for the poor dude, but Rogan doesn’t do anything new or different here, he’s just the stoner buddy. If you enjoy his act, you’ll have a pretty good time watching him. Or you could just rent Pineapple Express. 50/50 is playing around the country, doing decent box office. B-

Review: Ides of March

Columbia Pictures

In The Ides of March George Clooney plays Governor Mike Morris, a left wing politician with the strength of his convictions; he’s running for president using a straight talk campaign that delights his young lieutenant, Stephen (Ryan Gosling). “You drank the Kool-aid!” reporter Ida (Marisa Tomei), tells the young acolyte. “I drank the Kool-aid, and it was delicious,” responds Stephen with a grin. He’s working for Morris because he loves his country and it’s the right thing to do. There’s a real charm to his nearly naïve conviction, but there’s also a sense that it can’t survive the rough and tumble campaign. 


The movie covers the few days prior to the Ohio Democratic primary, a race Morris needs to win to sew up the Democratic nomination. His single opponent is lagging behind but there’s a trump card to play: both candidates are hoping to pick up the endorsement of a powerful Senator (Jeffrey Wright, in a brief but convincing performance) who controls enough delegates to swing the tide. 

Morris’s campaign manager Paul (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is confident he can talk the Senator into joining their camp, but his opposite number Tom (Paul Giamatti, at his creepy best) is equally sure he can get the man’s endorsement. And Tom has another trick up his sleeve – he hopes to steal Stephen, a crack media mind, once he can convince the young idealist that the Morris cause is lost.

It’s a good story, and the back room politics feel authentic; the whole thing gives you the sense of being an insider at a critical moment in a presidential campaign. Even if you’re just a regular citizen voter, you easily see the significance of what is at stake here, and the myriad small decisions and unexpected missteps that can cause one candidate or another to become the leader of the free world. In that sense, it’s a pretty cool roller coaster ride.

But the movie has a purpose, to show up the dark underbelly of even the most idealistic campaign, and it’s here where things get a little rocky. Stephen’s slide from innocence to cynicism comes on a little fast, and seems almost arbitrary, like it doesn’t take much to stop believing. Likewise, when Clooney’s Morris shows his dark side it doesn’t feel quite authentic; it’s like there was a character mix up and Michael Clayton stepped in for a scene, his sudden tough guy act reminded me of that.

But this is the sort of thing that you think of later, when you stop off for a drink and get to talking about the state of our political universe. Ides of March is a good, thought provoking film, with terrific performances, particularly from Gosling and Hoffman, who plays a grizzled but determined old politico with an odd kind of grace. Also features Evan Rachel Wood as a young intern who enjoys the social side of campaigning. Playing everywhere. B

Review: Moneyball

Sony Pictures

Moneyball is a good movie. It’s also a good baseball movie, but it isn’t like most sports flicks where some woebegone team triumphs in the stirring final minutes. Moneyball is about the business of baseball, the backroom stuff that goes into making a professional team.

Brad Pitt plays Billie Beane, General Manager of the Oakland A’s, a small market team with a small market budget. That constraint makes it tough to compete with say, the New York Yankees, so Beane sits down with the team’s owner and insists on more cash to pick up better players. Owner says no, and Beane sets off to make do, but then on an off season scouting trip to Cleveland he meets a young man with a new idea for assessing the worth of a baseball player: using computer analysis to determine a player’s value, focusing in particular on his ability to get on base. Intrigued, Beane hires Peter Brand (played by Jonah Hill) and the two of them crunch the numbers to come up with a roster that is affordable and has the potential to make a winning team. (Moneyball is based on true events, but the Peter Brand character is invented; Beane's actual partner in crime during the 2002 season was Paul DePodesta, who declined to have his name and likeness used in the film.)

But once the scrappy new team is recruited, the going is still tough; Beane is surrounded by a staff of old dudes who don’t see any reason to change the way they have been doing business, so they don’t like the roster and they don’t want to work the GM’s plan. The scouts are unhappy, but the coach (played by a portly Phillip Seymour Hoffman) is just plain resistant, so it’s tough for Beane to realize his vision. But this is where the fun starts, because Beane has to maneuver around these naysayers in order to find a way to turn a team of apparent misfits into something worth remembering.

Brad Pitt is terrific; you don’t really forget that he’s Brad Pitt but you believe he’s Billy Beane anyway. His scenes with Jonah Hill have a satisfying odd couple vibe, and Hill is great as the nerdy Ivy grad who loves the game, even if he can’t play it for a living. This is lighthearted entertainment but it’s well done, definitely a fun night out at the movies. Playing everywhere. B