Living Room Theaters

An ostensibly feel-good French-Canadian comedy about artificial insemination gone awry, Ken Scott's Starbuck mainly makes you feel like taking a shower. The protagonist is a hapless 40-year-old Montreal bachelor named David (Patrick Huard,... More »

An ostensibly feel-good French-Canadian comedy about artificial insemination gone awry, Ken Scott's Starbuck mainly makes you feel like taking a shower. The protagonist is a hapless 40-year-old Montreal bachelor named David (Patrick Huard, resembling a younger, hunkier Daniel Auteuil, without the wild-eyed intensity), whose life is turned upside down when he learns that his sperm-donating spree 20 years ago has resulted in 142 children (now an attractive gallery of college-age hipsters, all of whom, oddly, are just dying to meet him). Will he take the easy way out and remain anonymous? Or will he step up and embrace fatherhood? Take a wild guess. The humor here is broad and sitcom-ish, and Scott displays little sense of rhythm; the film runs under two hours, but feels considerably longer. And while there are nice touches along the way-- notably a crosscut sequence in which David tries to get a glimpse of some of his kids without them noticing-- the film's second half crescendos into full-on schmaltz. I gave up hope when all 142 of David’s offspring gather for a weekend getaway of sing-alongs, pick-up soccer, and lakeside frolicking; the whole thing looks like an extended United Colors of Benetton ad (or a cult excursion), and Scott indulges in such cringe-inducing flourishes as a montage of close-ups showing the half-brothers’ and sisters' various tattoos. From there, Starbuck devolves into a series of heart-to-hearts (cue cloying music) and, despite its self-consciously contemporary subject matter, reveals a dismayingly retro message: Life has no meaning unless a biological father is front and center. « Less

5:15 PM, 9:40 PM

Over the course of its first 60 minutes, Ken Loach's The Angels' Share proves a testament to its director's enduring reputation as a master of British cinema and the social realist form, articulating the frustrations of Glasgow's working class... More »

Over the course of its first 60 minutes, Ken Loach's The Angels' Share proves a testament to its director's enduring reputation as a master of British cinema and the social realist form, articulating the frustrations of Glasgow's working class with clarity and sophistication. Robbie (non-actor Paul Brannigan) is a brash ne'er-do-well and recent father endeavoring, quite in earnest, to abandon a life of crime in favor of much-needed stability. His quest for redemption through community service and a newfound interest in the world of whiskey-- a matter of smelling and tasting rather than simply imbibing, of course-- forms the heart of this story, which is told with humor and empathy. Loach, always attuned to the nuances of social problems both personal and systemic, negotiates the audacious tonal shifts with confident ease, oscillating from candid kitchen-sink drama (a flashback finds Robbie nearly beating a stranger to death in the street) to broad humor (fart jokes and kilt gags abound). But when The Angels' Share suddenly transforms, in its final act, into a kind of farcical heist picture, that fleeting slapstick tendency wins out, regrettably diminishing the film's social consciousness in the process. It's one of the strangest narrative pivots in recent memory, reducing what began as a smart film about class to a vacuous one about nothing much at all, implicitly trivializing its serious themes the moment it decides to abandon them. « Less

(3:00 PM), 7:35 PM

In Renoir, a languorous look at the last days of the storied painter, we get a view of the artist at odds with a blue-haired lady's notion of her favorite impressionist. It's a pivotal moment of Renoir family history, with father and son both... More »

In Renoir, a languorous look at the last days of the storied painter, we get a view of the artist at odds with a blue-haired lady's notion of her favorite impressionist. It's a pivotal moment of Renoir family history, with father and son both taking creative and sexual inspiration from a shared love object: Pierre-Auguste's last model-muse. Future filmmaker Jean Renoir (a vulnerable Vincent Rottier) is the middle son, recovering from a WWI wound at the family farm at Cagnes-sur-Mer in 1915. Renoir père (affectingly played by Michel Bouquet) is 74, painfully hobbled by arthritis, and grieving the recent death of his wife. Christa Theret plays Andrée, the vibrant, pretty-in-petulance model who revives his creative, if not other, juices; a startling scene reveals he wishes otherwise. Yet the film's real star is the color orange-gold with a touch of russet, making an early appearance as the hair-and-clothing-matched Andrée bicycles in the sunlight to her modeling gig. Renoir's setpiece shows the artist working on a canvas, with Mark Ping Bing Lee's camera gliding to models in soft focus, a kind of live action impressionism and a new take on the familiar Bathers. Wisely, director Gilles Bourdos keeps the pace slow, what with all the tensions beneath the surface: Oedipal conflict, career choices, even class struggle. The ambitious Andrée, aka the future Catherine Hessling of Renoir's silent films, tells Jean she won't marry a "plate painter," but a film director might do. « Less

English Subtitles (2:30 PM), (4:50 PM), 7:05 PM, 9:20 PM

In the same way novels can be better and worse than journalism at processing history, so can movies be better and worse than novels: too unreal, yet too specific. For the movie of Mohsin Hamid's novel, director Mira Nair mounts a sensitive... More »

In the same way novels can be better and worse than journalism at processing history, so can movies be better and worse than novels: too unreal, yet too specific. For the movie of Mohsin Hamid's novel, director Mira Nair mounts a sensitive retrospective procedural of radicalization: Here's how a bright young Pakistani man (Riz Ahmed) goes straight from Princeton into a boutique corporate valuation firm (with Kiefer Sutherland as his sharkish boss), then has a promising meet-cute with an emotionally unavailable American woman (Kate Hudson), then has his priorities rearranged by the fallout of 9/11. He returns to Pakistan as a university lecturer whose ideas may or may not encourage terrorism, drawing attention from a journalist (Liev Schreiber) whose lengthy interview-cum-standoff serves as the film’s narrative frame. At times it’s dense and sluggish, too much like a novel. But there is some exhilaration to be had from Nair's sincere interested in Hudson's character, who is appealing but hung up by grief over a previous relationship. In the richest moment, she offends her new suitor with a naively exploitative art project-- she calls it an expression of love; he says it's defamation-- and he stuns himself with the cruelty of his response. Thus the central arc is a function not just of sadly expected post-9/11 affronts-- the airport strip search, the tire slashing, the colleagues getting nervous about his beard-- but of doomed romance, with a vision of America that's all the more alluring for being so tragically stunted. « Less

(2:20 PM), 5:30 PM, 8:10 PM

At last! A documentary about that underexposed group: the 1 percenters in their lair. In Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's, the storied store is presented in cinematic terms as ex-screenwriter Matthew Miele watches decorator David Hoey madly... More »

At last! A documentary about that underexposed group: the 1 percenters in their lair. In Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's, the storied store is presented in cinematic terms as ex-screenwriter Matthew Miele watches decorator David Hoey madly creating window displays of phantasmagorical "installation art" that moves. The film's climax is the famous annual holiday unveiling as the hoi polloi press their noses against the glass. Yet the long-term employees fascinate more than the clothes: They are beautiful gargoyles, true freaks of fashion. We don’t get interviews with non-celeb shoppers of the reticent monied class, but designers Manolo Blahnik, Jason Wu, Patricia Field, and others each give their rendition of "What Bergdorf's Meant to Me." Vera Wang nails it: Being obsessive is a given; the key is how you fit into the market. A one-size-fits-all documentary format includes a mini-history; apparently the founders weren't just in it for the money. Edwin Goodman was a tailor who knew how to cut and cared about quality. Yet this macchiato with 24-karat gold flecks may not be to everyone’s taste. Spending $7,000 on shoes is shrugged off, since here success is affording Bergdorf Goodman's. Without the dueling-divas drama of The September Issue, or the shiny dynamism of Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, this doc, title taken from a remark by a wealthy European shopper and immortalized in a New Yorker cartoon, is fun and frothy, a fan's mash note. « Less

(2:45 PM), 5:00 PM, 7:20 PM, 9:15 PM