Laemmle's Playhouse 7

Apocalyptic survival drama The Wall opens with a bit of isolationist daydreaming: A woman, holed up with her dog in a darling cabin in the mountains of Austria, discovers an invisible wall separating her from her nearest neighbors. That... More »

Apocalyptic survival drama The Wall opens with a bit of isolationist daydreaming: A woman, holed up with her dog in a darling cabin in the mountains of Austria, discovers an invisible wall separating her from her nearest neighbors. That wall--impenetrable, never explained-- surrounds miles of peaks and forest from which that woman (Martina Gedeck) now must carve out subsistence. From there, you could guess much of the story. There’s a return to nature and the re-establishing of some kind of community, here made up of animals: the dog, some cats, a beauty of a cow. And there's the hint of a threat out there in those circumscribed woods, which lends a melancholy tension to the many scenes of the woman trudging along, dog trotting beside her. What's surprising is what isn't there: That preternatural will to live that is the birthright of most movie heroes. Instead, the greatest suspense in The Wall isn't how she will survive but why she will bother, which she explains in the film's relentless voice-over. Even if you didn't know this was based on a novel (in this case Marlen Haushofer's), you'd quickly suss it out. Gedeck narrates in full paragraphs, and for all its stellar nature photography, its low hum of suspense, and Gedeck's raw and affecting performance, the film often feels like an illustrated audiobook. The bustling stillness of nature is both the appeal and terror of this scenario, and director Julian Roman Pölsler too rarely has the patience to let us sink into it, to feel the isolation ourselves. « Less

(1:55 PM), 7:10 PM

Has anyone ever been so perfectly cast as Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused? Sculpted entirely of charisma and cheekbones yet still seedier than a stash of gym-locker pot, McConaughey’s radiant stoner exemplified high school promise gone... More »

Has anyone ever been so perfectly cast as Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused? Sculpted entirely of charisma and cheekbones yet still seedier than a stash of gym-locker pot, McConaughey’s radiant stoner exemplified high school promise gone bad. He looked like the little man of top of trophies, just horny, stupid, sapped of ambition and only likely to use his physical gifts for the least public-spirited of ends. Mud, written and directed by Jeff Nichols, is the latest in McConaughey’s campaign for re-consideration as a great American actor. He plays full burnout, a starving fugitive hiding out on a small island in the Mississippi. When discovered by a pair of likable local kids, Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and Neckbone (Jacob Lofland), McConaughey lays out the backstory you might wish was more original. There’s a woman he’s waiting for, a crime of chivalrous passion, the usual thugs out to get him. Will the kids keep his secret—and even help him get where he’s going? The mode here is boys’ adventure, Twain and Great Expectations mixed up with rural naturalism. The boys talk about “titties” and wear camo pants; early on we see them pilot a small boat down the tributary they live on and into the great Mississippi itself, a rousing sequence that suggests the danger and wildness of the adulthood they’re surging toward. At moments like this, Mud is honest and involving, touched with life as it’s actually lived. Too bad it settles into melodrama. The climax feels copy-pasted from episodes of Justified, the action comically out of proportion to the small story preceding it. « Less

(1:20 PM), 7:00 PM, 9:55 PM

Fame High is billed as a “documentary musical,” which conjures up images of some Ryan Murphy-inspired Frankenstein monster. Thankfully, this is no Glee clone. The film follows four teenagers—two freshmen, two seniors—across a year at the Los... More »

Fame High is billed as a “documentary musical,” which conjures up images of some Ryan Murphy-inspired Frankenstein monster. Thankfully, this is no Glee clone. The film follows four teenagers—two freshmen, two seniors—across a year at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. Zak is a jazz pianist, Grace a dancer, Brittany a singer/songwriter, and Ruby an actress. Its subjects’ parents run from skeptical—Grace’s parents are a strict Korean-American couple who run a yogurt shop and worry about her ability to support herself through the arts—to the surprisingly supportive. Brittany comes from a small town in Wisconsin, and her mother has followed her out to L.A. (while remaining married to her father, who’s stayed behind) to guide her through auditions at open mic nights as she finishes high school. The dilemmas Fame High’s four subjects face are real, and Kennedy gets plenty of drama from the prospect of failure and disappointment. Compared to the cast of reality shows like Teen Mom 2, these teens are a refreshingly wholesome bunch, and if they skip school, they’re doing it to attend auditions. I could have done without the hyperbolic optimism of the finale, when the doc basically turns into a PSA for arts education, but for most of its length, it’s a fairly complex drama about the rewards and risks of becoming an artist, told from an unusual perspective. « Less

(1:00 PM), 6:00 PM

Perhaps it was disingenuous for George Plimpton to insist for so long that he was above all else an "am-uh-ter." Yes, this tweedy beanpole would lark off from his day job-- only editing The Paris Review, the world-champion lit mag, for almost 50... More »

Perhaps it was disingenuous for George Plimpton to insist for so long that he was above all else an "am-uh-ter." Yes, this tweedy beanpole would lark off from his day job-- only editing The Paris Review, the world-champion lit mag, for almost 50 years-- so that he could have a go at goaltending for the Boston Bruins, or bomb as a stand-up comic, or pitch to Mickey Mantle. Was this "participatory journalism," as he put it, or maybe proto-performance-art media manipulation-- there were those TV specials and, later, endorsement deals that would make Orson Welles blush-- or just some kind of make-a-wish dilettantism? Crammed with lit-world walk-ons and delicious anecdotes, the agreeable new doc Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself posits that he was all this and more. Directors Tom Bean and Luke Poling never shy away from the possibility that Plimpton at times was more a personality than a serious writer, and some of the master-novelist talking heads they've assembled-- James Salter, Peter Matthiesen-- imply Plimpton was right not to aspire to their company. But the doc also treats us to affecting, insightful passages from Paper Lion, his great account of training as a quarterback for the Detroit Lions, confirming that, often enough, the work was as substantial as his efforts as an athlete were minor. Plimpton himself, recorded in interviews and at lecterns, narrates much of the doc, retelling his best tales. A favorite: the time on a fishing boat he asked Hemingway what the white birds that showed up in so often in the novelist's sex scenes were meant to symbolize. Hemingway, infuriated, shouted back, "So you think you can do better?" « Less

(4:50 PM)

You're either with Brit Marling or you're against her. The 29-year-old blond filmmaker (who describes herself on Twitter as a tree climber/actor/writer/producer) catapulted out of obscurity in 2011 with two obfuscatory indies-- Sound of My Voice... More »

You're either with Brit Marling or you're against her. The 29-year-old blond filmmaker (who describes herself on Twitter as a tree climber/actor/writer/producer) catapulted out of obscurity in 2011 with two obfuscatory indies-- Sound of My Voice and the mournful sci-fi drama Another Earth. Marling specializes in films about faith, loyalty, and paranoia, where rationalists argue with dreamers and everybody seeks a greater meaning to what could just be nonsense, which is to say her specialty is life. In The East she acts/writes/produces/and, yes, even climbs a tree. Marling plays Sarah, a former FBI agent turned corporate spy, paid handsomely to protect McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, Exxon, and the like from the terrorists: vegans, environmentalists, and activists out to besmirch their names. Handing Sarah a pair of brand-new Birkenstocks, her boss (the coolly cynical Patricia Clarkson) sics her on the latest shadowy supergroup, The East, who we meet dumping crude oil through the air-conditioning vents of a gasoline mogul's mansion. Sarah is cut from Marling's own image. She's clever and capable, a whiz kid who can't fail. Over the course of the film, she picks handcuffs, punches men, and leaps from trees with the grace of a private-school ninja. If she has a flaw, it's that she can't hide thinking she’s the smartest person in the room. In another life, I'd love to see Marling play Bond-- imagine those Botticelli waves falling over a tuxedo. But in this life, she's still proving her brains, which is why it's disappointing that, for all its empathy and equilibrium, The East has nowhere to go after the script backs itself into a corner. « Less

(1:50 PM), (4:35 PM), 7:20 PM, 10:10 PM

7:30 PM

Jean-Luc Godard said, "All you need for a movie is a girl and a gun." But really, all you need is a girl, preferably a charismatic one with a secret in her heart. Director and actress Sarah Polley has found that girl: her own mother. Polley's... More »

Jean-Luc Godard said, "All you need for a movie is a girl and a gun." But really, all you need is a girl, preferably a charismatic one with a secret in her heart. Director and actress Sarah Polley has found that girl: her own mother. Polley's documentary, Stories We Tell, attempts to unravel some of the mysteries of her own family's life. This wondrous, absorbing little picture covers a great deal of winding meta-territory, reflecting on the ways in which a single family's story can be told—or maybe, more accurately, examining the idea that there’s no such thing as a "single story." One girl, as Sarah Polley learns, can actually be many girls in one. Polley opens by introducing us to her cast of characters: her father, Michael Polley, an assortment of family friends, and various siblings and stepsiblings, all of whom look a little like Polley-- and yet don't. The director has assembled this tribunal to reassemble the story of her late mother, Diane, a woman we get to know gradually through home-movie footage, re-creations that have the look and feel of that home-movie footage, and recollections from the people who knew and loved her. She shapes the picture into a riddle that keeps us guessing every minute, and what she ends up with is so oddly shaped that it could be categorized an experimental film. But it's too warm to be off-putting. There's no way, Polley concludes, to tell a reliably true tale. But this particular story, which begins and ends with a woman’s face, feels true enough. « Less

(4:20 PM)

New York is a cruel and beautiful place, just as 27 is a cruel and beautiful age. In Frances Ha, Greta Gerwig plays a woman who’s feeling the weight of both. Frances is an aspiring dancer who has reached the age when “aspiring” really means not... More »

New York is a cruel and beautiful place, just as 27 is a cruel and beautiful age. In Frances Ha, Greta Gerwig plays a woman who’s feeling the weight of both. Frances is an aspiring dancer who has reached the age when “aspiring” really means not cutting it. Life with her best friend and roommate, Sophie (Mickey Sumner) has taken on the dull glow of old cutlery swiped from the college dining hall—“We’re the lesbian couple that doesn’t have sex anymore,” Frances observes. When Sophie moves out to live with her boyfriend, Frances finds herself adrift, shoehorning herself into new roommate situations. She lacks a job and resources: Encountering a transaction that requires a credit card, which she of course doesn’t have, she blurts, “I’m not a real person yet.” At what age does one become a real person? Frances Ha may be director Noah Baumbach’s tenderest movie, at least among his most recent ones. Shot digitally on the fly, its New York streets rendered in satiny black-and-white, the film is a patchwork of details that constitute a sort of dating manual, one that fortifies you for all the crap you have to deal with when you’re a young person in love with a city that doesn’t always love you back. Frances moves from here to there without flinching, but as Gerwig (who co-wrote with Baumbach) plays her, there’s always a cellophane layer of wistfulness behind her optimism. When you want things you can’t name, how do you search for them? « Less

(1:00 PM), (3:10 PM), (5:30 PM), 10:10 PM

Pouncing on the chance to cover the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, resulting in her controversial pronouncement about the disparity between "the mediocrity of the man" and "the horror of the deeds," the writer-philosopher Hannah Arendt is brought... More »

Pouncing on the chance to cover the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, resulting in her controversial pronouncement about the disparity between "the mediocrity of the man" and "the horror of the deeds," the writer-philosopher Hannah Arendt is brought to life by a mesmerizing Barbara Sukowa in Margarethe von Trotta's film. Despite all its scenes of ideas thrashed out at cocktail parties and in the office of New Yorker editor William Shawn (a droll Nicolas Woodson), and barnburner lectures at the New School where Arendt taught, Hannah Arendt mostly forestalls any complaints of talkiness, and it avoids the static portrayal of writers at work. (There is still too much smoking-while-thinking.) Squaring your own past with reporting duties is a theme-- Arendt, a Jew, was a detention camp survivor—and ur-woman's director Margarethe von Trotta, in a 30-year creative partnership with Sukowa, adds smart, grown-up girl talk about men, marriage, and careers with Arendt's loyal friend, Mary McCarthy (a zingy Janet McTeer). Good, because Arendt meets painful opposition from other lifelong colleagues when she declares Eichmann merely obedient, incapable of envisioning the next horrendous step in his bureaucratic duties constructing the Holocaust. Historical footage of the twitchy Eichmann in his protective glass cage echoes the film's dark re-enactment of his kidnapping from Argentina, mirrored later as Israeli secret forces track down Arendt on an early morning walk, trying to strong-arm her into suppressing Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. It's the one time the courageous Arendt, here more quicksilver than arrogant (as she is reported to have occasionally been), looks scared. « Less

(3:25 PM), 8:30 PM

Sitcoms, especially since Seinfeld, have a way of getting audiences to root for jerks. The Kings of Summer attempts to pull off the same narrative trick by getting us to mistake 15-year-old protagonist, Joe (Nick Robinson), for a scamp instead of... More »

Sitcoms, especially since Seinfeld, have a way of getting audiences to root for jerks. The Kings of Summer attempts to pull off the same narrative trick by getting us to mistake 15-year-old protagonist, Joe (Nick Robinson), for a scamp instead of a sullen little shit, even when he calls his widower dad's girlfriend a "spider woman you found in the gutter." Joe thinks his gruff, sarcastic father (Nick Offerman, playing a less noble variation of Parks and Recreation's Ron Swanson) is totally ruining his life, so he moves into a fantasy cabin-- complete with a loft and air hockey table-- with his athletic best friend, Patrick (Gabriel Basso), and a nonsense-spouting ethnic cartoon named Biaggio (Moises Arias)-- one of the two dark-skinned, asexual characters the film prods us to laugh at. To clinch all the Urkel-era clichés, Joe and Patrick run away by telling their parents they're sleeping over at each other's house. For a while, the teenagers live in a Boys' Life paradise, jumping into lakes, dueling with swords, and sneaking off to Boston Market to retrieve dinner. But their idyll evaporates with the arrival of a popular blond girl (Erin Moriarty)-- do teenage boys in movies ever fall for anyone else?-- who unwittingly pits Joe and Patrick against each other. Joe’s conflicts with his friend and father lead to a tense, funny, mettle-testing climax, but the ending is more cornball than Tony Danza. The film's grown-up world-- populated by the tart, shticky likes of Offerman, Megan Mullally, Alison Brie, and Mary Lynn Rajskub-- a lot more interesting than its pimple-faced counterpart. « Less

(1:00 PM), (3:20 PM), (5:40 PM), 8:00 PM, 10:15 PM

It's not news that the American "war on terror" has helped create growing anti-American sentiment (in Iraq and Afghanistan, for starters) rooted not in people's envy of our culture or hatred of our values but in the senseless bloodshed suffered... More »

It's not news that the American "war on terror" has helped create growing anti-American sentiment (in Iraq and Afghanistan, for starters) rooted not in people's envy of our culture or hatred of our values but in the senseless bloodshed suffered by their families and countrymen. A sobering illustration of how the U.S. creates such enemies is merely the starting point of Richard Rowley's documentary Dirty Wars. Written by David Riker and celebrated investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill (author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army), the film follows Scahill as he unpeels the layers of Joint Special Operations Command, the powerful covert military outfit that answers directly-- and only-- to the President, and whose maneuvers in the Middle East have left more civilians dead than we can know. Fast-moving and sleekly made, the film is woven from graphic images filmed on phones, in-the-field footage shot on handheld cameras, and interviews with both survivors of violence and stunningly calloused American military figures. At times it plays like a real-life Jason Bourne flick as Scahill travels from country to country connecting the dots between mysterious and misbegotten attacks on outpost villages, the U.S. military's hunt for the Taliban, and the complicity of both the U.S. government and media in covering up massacres and smearing journalists who do more than phone in PR-spun news. Dirty Wars is essential viewing for anyone who wants to know how we wage war right now; it's also a chilling prologue for what's likely a global future of endless war and blowback. « Less

(12:45 PM), (3:00 PM), (5:20 PM), 7:40 PM, 10:00 PM

Wielding decapitation-causing spinning blades that are hurled off the edges of swords and resemble a cross between Transformers weaponry (all whirling metal) and the deadly boomerang-thingee from Krull, The Guillotines prove formidable covert... More »

Wielding decapitation-causing spinning blades that are hurled off the edges of swords and resemble a cross between Transformers weaponry (all whirling metal) and the deadly boomerang-thingee from Krull, The Guillotines prove formidable covert assassins in service to China's Qing dynasty until, alas, they're betrayed by the emperor while hunting for rebel leader Wolf (Xiaoming Huang). This treachery, which leaves Leng (Ethan Juan) and his Guillotine mates labeled traitors, stems from the emperor's desire to replace his sword-fighting killers with newfangled canons and firearms, a tradition-vs.-progress dynamic that's handled with maximum melodrama by director Andrew Lau (Infernal Affairs). Full of look-at-me crane shots and slow-motion imagery of silent screams and noble deaths enveloped in swirling embers and falling ice, The Guillotines pivots on the tumultuous relationships between brothers, fathers, and sons. Lau's clichéd mishmash of hectic action and over-the-top hysterics lionizes old-school methods of combat even as it relies on-- from a shot of heroes calmly walking away from fiery explosions to a finale of raining CG fireballs-- the tricks of the modern blockbuster trade. A corny saga of social and generational conflict, it's ultimately yet another Chinese period epic that functions as a thinly veiled treatise on the nobility of socialist equality. « Less

9:45 PM