Hollywood - Movies 9/Longview

Steven Spielberg and his jaunty little apologue about the 16th President of the United States aside, it's no longer enough in movies for an historical figure or literary character to do simple stuff like abolish slavery or find a man of... More »

Steven Spielberg and his jaunty little apologue about the 16th President of the United States aside, it's no longer enough in movies for an historical figure or literary character to do simple stuff like abolish slavery or find a man of intelligence and character. Abraham Lincoln is reduced to slaying vampires. Elizabeth Bennet is stuck fighting off zombies. And Hansel and Gretel can’t just kill off one cannibalistic witch and call it a day: In Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, they've grown up to become bounty hunters who must roam the land, kicking gnarly witch butt. Actually, according to this assertively revisionist reading of the Brothers Grimm, young Hansel and Gretel were led into the woods by their parents for a very good reason, having to do with the naked ambition of a very bad witch, Muriel (Famke Janssen). As it turns out, the grown versions of Hansel and Gretel, now celebrity witch hunters-- they're played by Gemma Arterton and Jeremy Renner-- have been brought to a small village to find the crone who's been snatching the local children, and damned if it isn't Muriel herself, accompanied by a whole coven of evildoing uglies in makeup left over from The Devil's Rain. There's actually no pleasure at all to be had in this humorless Hansel & Gretel, which was directed by Tommy Wirkola, whose previous credits include the 2009 Nazi-zombie horror comedy Dead Snow. But there is a truly intriguing mystery here: What on Earth are Renner and Arterton doing in this godforsaken thing? « Less

(2:20 PM), (4:35 PM)

There are big, tall, terrible, fleshy, bulbous-headed giants in the sky-- and, eventually, on earth-- in Jack the Giant Slayer, X-Men director Bryan Singer's big-budget, gently revisionist, 3-D spin on "Jack and the Beanstalk." It's a journey... More »

There are big, tall, terrible, fleshy, bulbous-headed giants in the sky-- and, eventually, on earth-- in Jack the Giant Slayer, X-Men director Bryan Singer's big-budget, gently revisionist, 3-D spin on "Jack and the Beanstalk." It's a journey facilitated by the eponymous Jack (Nicholas Hoult), the naïve farm boy who trades his horse for magic beans that sprout up like some unholy tincture of Miracle-Gro and HGH, putting both Jack and an intrepid princess (newcomer Eleanor Tomlinson) face to face with mankind's potential extinction. The story is hardly original or surprising, but the supremely confident Singer lends Jack an enjoyably old-fashioned showmanship that recalls a time when movie illusions were created by hand rather than by computer. Hoult (Warm Bodies) makes for an appealing lead, with the hesitant milk-fed smile of the young Tom Cruise and an unforced chemistry with Tomlinson. Simply put: Any five minutes of this is preferable to all of The Hobbit. « Less

(1:45 PM), (4:15 PM), 6:45 PM

Gross-out horror is never far from comedy, and The Host, Bong Joon-ho's giddy creature feature, is a broadly played clown show full of lowbrow antics -- itself a sort of monster as the top-grossing movie in South Korean history. The main... More »

Gross-out horror is never far from comedy, and The Host, Bong Joon-ho's giddy creature feature, is a broadly played clown show full of lowbrow antics -- itself a sort of monster as the top-grossing movie in South Korean history. The main attraction is a killer tadpole: It's an "It." Bong's allegory is deliberately free-floating; still, that the thing has its origins in American hubris is made clear in the prologue, set in a morgue on a U.S. Army base, where an overbearing American officer orders a hapless Mr. Kim to dump gallons of toxic chemicals down the drain and into the Han River. Cut to picnickers on the riverbank, transfixed by something suspended beneath the bridge. The "It" falls into the water and swims over. Ordinary people, being what they are, merrily pelt the unknown creature with garbage until, with projectile force, it bounds ashore, grabbing the 11-year-old Park family granddaughter in its fishy clutches. From then on, it's personal. For the Parks, the monster comes to embody whatever irrational forces oppress them. Meanwhile, authorities explain (rather illogically) that the creature was carrying a mysterious virus. But is it the It or South Korea who is really the host? As amorphous as its creature, The Host has an engaging refusal to take itself seriously -- and yet, however funny, it is hardly camp. The emotions that The Host churns up, regarding idiot authority and poisonous catastrophe, are raw. Is revulsion a form of revolt? « Less

(1:55 PM), (4:30 PM), 7:05 PM

Nerd stats for the two kinds of zombies featured in Jonathan Levine's Warm Bodies: "Bonies" are leathery, desiccated skeletons with +10 dexterity, +10 strength, and a chaotic/evil outlook. "Corpses," meanwhile, are shamblers with -20... More »

Nerd stats for the two kinds of zombies featured in Jonathan Levine's Warm Bodies: "Bonies" are leathery, desiccated skeletons with +10 dexterity, +10 strength, and a chaotic/evil outlook. "Corpses," meanwhile, are shamblers with -20 intelligence, but with +20 charisma and a neutral/cute alignment. The story (adapted from the novel by Isaac Marion) is based on Romeo and Juliet in the same way as an essay by a high school freshman with basic cultural awareness of the plot but who didn't do the reading. Julie (Teresa Palmer), the daughter of post-apocalyptic zombie fighter John Malkovich, is separated from her adorable Y/A team by a group of hungry zombies including "R" (Nicholas Hoult), the soulful corpse who kills her boyfriend. He develops a crush and drags her back to his airport lair to protect her from the other, less understanding undead. "R" narrates in wry voiceover, the lucidity of his interior life a contrast to his understandable difficulty with language. Still, it's weird listening to zombies talk at all, particularly in sentences of more than two words. As the zombie culture at large becomes exposed to the romantic chemistry between "R" and Julie, the corpses begin showing signs of life, signified by single heart palpitations. The evil "bonies," who hate love, set out in pursuit of the couple, mostly because once you endow your film's zombies with relatability and courage, you need to find some new bad guys. The film's intentions are way too good for its own good, producing bloodless romance and more shamefully bloodless carnage. Nobody kisses anyone else until it becomes clear that both parties have pulses, and everyone gets to keep all their limbs. « Less

(2:30 PM), (4:45 PM), 7:00 PM

Here's a breakthrough, of a sort: The funniest scenes in Identity Thief are of Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman beating the hell out of each other. McCarthy-- playing a multi-named serial liar and credit-card fraud artist we'll call Diana--... More »

Here's a breakthrough, of a sort: The funniest scenes in Identity Thief are of Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman beating the hell out of each other. McCarthy-- playing a multi-named serial liar and credit-card fraud artist we'll call Diana-- clocks Jason Bateman with a vicious neck punch. Bateman-- as yet another sane fellow whose life is infested with plot-driving crazies--clocks, tackles, and even brains her with the stolen bric-a-brac that clutters Diana's home. I'm not going to argue that this man hitting this woman for laughs is a progressive triumph. But it is at least a victory for whatever is the opposite of sexism. McCarthy gets bashed about like a Stooge, and she bashes back with riotous abandon. Sadly, the rest of the movie is a shambles. So, let it be said, this one time only: Here is a comedy that really could use more inter-gender violence. (I’ll leave it to you to parse the sexual politics of McCarthy's insult after Bateman beans her with a knickknack: "You throw like a fuckin' girl!") The rest of the film, they’re solo acts, each doing what audiences expect: She yells and exhibits an unsocialized horniness; he regards her with dismay and disgust. Yes, disgust. There's no way around it: The producers of Identity Thief seem to find McCarthy's real-world body loathsome. Her big comic sex scene is ruined by director Seth Gordon's refusal to shoot her below the chin, and her Diana is later freighted with a sad-clown back story and given a princess makeover—penance, perhaps, for having roughhoused like the boys in the first reel. « Less

(1:50 PM), (4:20 PM), 6:50 PM

After Katie (Julianne Hough) has spent a week or so in the coastal hamlet of Southport, North Carolina-- she'd settled in a cabin in the woods after lamming it from Boston-- a neighbor reminds her that things are done differently on this side of... More »

After Katie (Julianne Hough) has spent a week or so in the coastal hamlet of Southport, North Carolina-- she'd settled in a cabin in the woods after lamming it from Boston-- a neighbor reminds her that things are done differently on this side of the Mason-Dixon line. Dixie states have been the settings for all of the movie adaptations of Nicholas Sparks's corn-syrupy novels, but Safe Haven, the first to mix in thriller elements, appears to have traveled even farther south, landing in a writers' room for a telenovela that even Mexican broadcasters might consider too outlandish. As the reasons why Katie is wanted for murder are being parceled out, the guarded Yankee transplant begins to soften around general-store proprietor Alex (Josh Duhamel), a widower raising two young kids, who seem to exist solely for the purpose of being imperiled. Safe Haven director Lasse Hallström helmed an earlier Sparks-sourced production, 2010's Dear John, which was buoyed by the heat generated by Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried. But here he is unable to ignite any electric connection between the leads. Hough emits all the charisma of a personal assistant, a mien as dull and blunt as the address of a letter (it's not a Sparks film without a healing epistle) left by a beneficent ghost, for which Katie is the intended recipient: To Her. « Less

(2:00 PM), (4:40 PM), 7:05 PM

(2:05 PM), (4:55 PM), 7:10 PM

Tina Fey is a killer comic actress—she could probably start and stop a Rolex with nothing but brainwaves. But even though she brings much more to the role than the movie asks of her, Admission doesn't have the courage to suggest that a childless... More »

Tina Fey is a killer comic actress—she could probably start and stop a Rolex with nothing but brainwaves. But even though she brings much more to the role than the movie asks of her, Admission doesn't have the courage to suggest that a childless woman who's doing work she loves just may have it all-- or at least her all. Fey plays Princeton admissions officer Portia Nathan, a character who admittedly doesn't quite love her work, though she doesn't know that, yet. What's missing from Portia's life? Might it be . . . a child? An old college classmate, John Pressman (Paul Rudd), the half-twinkly, half-insufferable principal of an alternative high school, has contacted her about a weird but brilliant student named Jeremiah (Nat Wolff). Pressman believes Jeremiah might have a shot at Princeton. He also drops the bomb that Jeremiah might be Portia's son. Once she begins to see herself in him, Portia begins pulling Ivy League strings for this economically disadvantaged yet extraordinarily bright kid, who might be what he Princeton student body needs—and what the admissions system guarantees Princeton is unlikely to get. Great comic actresses-- like a Stanwyck or Streisand-- can have a direct line to feelings we'd rather not air. Fey is on that track; her Portia is both maddening and deeply sympathetic—there's warmth behind her crispness, even if it’s not the fresh-baked-cookie kind. If Admission were sharper, it could be the ultimate Mother's Day movie: A picture about a nonmother who cares deeply for the next generation, even when it hasn't sprung directly from her own womb. « Less

6:40 PM

Though Snitch loudly announces itself as a social-issues movie, its nominal outrage over the severity of our nation's sentencing laws for first-time drug offenders is quickly subsumed by a jacked-up narrative of a father going to extremes to save... More »

Though Snitch loudly announces itself as a social-issues movie, its nominal outrage over the severity of our nation's sentencing laws for first-time drug offenders is quickly subsumed by a jacked-up narrative of a father going to extremes to save his son. Inspired by a real-life incident detailed in a 1999 episode of Frontline, the film tracks construction-company magnate John Matthews (Dwayne Johnson) as he offers to go undercover to nab drug dealers in exchange for a reduced prison sentence for his estranged 18-year-old son, Jason (Rafi Gavron). The teenager, still apparently smarting over his parents' divorce, faces 10 years in jail for accepting a package filled with Ecstasy and refuses to concoct evidence against a friend to lessen his time behind bars. In order to assuage the hurt he's caused his firstborn, John, after reading the Wikipedia entry for "drug cartel," first has closed-door meetings with a federal prosecutor (Susan Sarandon)-- her villainy signaled by both her childlessness and a snide remark about gay weddings-- then drives 1,000 miles in a semi containing mountains of coke secreted in cement bags. As the plot grows more and more absurd-- Benjamin Bratt shows up as a drug kingpin named "El Topo"-- Snitch reveals another kind of political agenda. After telling his co-conspirator in the blow setup that "there's no way I'm going to let either side dictate our fates," John stands in a gun shop, coolly assessing the arsenal that's his for the taking. « Less

(2:25 PM), (4:50 PM), 7:15 PM

WWE Studios, the film production arm of World Wrestling Entertainment, breaks from its usual target audience of guys who like films about shirtless, muscley men with The Call, a suspense thriller starring adequate actress and Academy Award... More »

WWE Studios, the film production arm of World Wrestling Entertainment, breaks from its usual target audience of guys who like films about shirtless, muscley men with The Call, a suspense thriller starring adequate actress and Academy Award recipient Halle Berry as an overcommitted, hotshot 911 emergency operator. When she makes a rookie-level error that costs a teenage girl her life, she opts to hang up her call center headset-- until the girl's killer kidnaps another teen victim. Locked in a car trunk with a prepaid cell phone, she calls 911. The middle third of the film comprises the phone call, a tight 40 minutes in which the girl, guided by Berry, deploys the contents of the trunk (screwdriver, paint roller handle, cans of white matte finish) to make her kidnapper's vehicle more conspicuous while Berry presses her for details she can relate to the police. In a nod to the studio's usual demographic, two-time WWE tag-team champion David Otunga plays officer Jake Devans, though fans hoping for spinning headlock elbow drops or backflip kicks will be disappointed. When the emergency call ends, Berry drives out to the crime scene the cops traced down and goes all Clarice Starling inside the spooky cabin where the bad guy keeps his Saw basement, which has to be seen as a departure from the film's thin blue line of realism, or the workaday reality that WWE became known for when the Undertaker defeated Kane with his signature Tombstone piledriver at Wrestlemania XX. « Less

(1:50 PM), (4:25 PM), 6:55 PM