Upcoming Releases
THE HISTORY BOYS (R) Adapted from Alan Bennett’s play of the same name, Nicholas Hytner’s new film follows a group of very bright and very precocious English schoolboys trying to figure out how to get into Oxford. Stars Richard Griffiths, Stephen Campbell Moore, Frances de la Tour, Dominic Cooper and Samuel Barnett. Opens Dec. 22 at local theaters. (Not Reviewed)
NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM (PG) It’s a toss up who’s the real star here — Ben Stiller or the special effects — in a comedy-adventure about a hapless security guard who discovers all the exhibits in the Museum of Natural History are coming to life. Also stars Owen Wilson, Ricky Gervais, Dick Van Dyke and Carla Gugino. Opens Dec. 20 at local theaters. (Not Reviewed)
ROCKY BALBOA (PG) Three decades after the original Rocky and 16 years after the franchise’s last hurrah, Sylvester Stallone’s most iconic character returns to the big screen for yet another bout of head-bashing and obstacle overcoming. Also stars Burt Young, Antonio Tarver, Geraldine Hughes and Milo Ventimiglia. Opens Dec. 20 at local theaters. (Not Reviewed)
WE ARE MARSHALL (PG) Despite a fairly strong start and the best of intentions, this inspirational sports opus ultimately falls victim to most of the pitfalls of its genre. Taking as its starting point one of the most horrific moments in American sports history — the 1970 plane crash that killed the entire football team of Marshall, West Virginia — We Are Marshall begins with a melancholy and moving first act that focuses on the grieving survivors of the community. Director McG changes course quickly enough, though, when an earnest new coach (Matthew McConaughey) is brought in to rebuild the team, and montages, period music and speech-making take over in a blatant effort to tug at those old heartstrings. Also stars Matthew Fox, Ian McShane, Anthony Mackie, Kate Mara and David Strathairn. Opens Dec. 22 at local theaters. 2.5 stars
RECENT RELEASES
APOCALYPTO (R) For those of you completely over Mel Gibson after his recent tirades, and wondering if there might be any possible reason to be interested in yet another foray into subtitled, gore-soaked sadism from this controversial celebrity, I urge you to give Mel another chance. Although it’s just a chase movie at its stripped-down core (think The Most Dangerous Game by way of John Woo’s Hard Target), Apocalypto does what it does exceedingly well. The film’s exotic flourishes are as intoxicating as they are omnipresent, even as Apocalypto plows ahead with the energy and compelling forward momentum of a Mad Max popcorn epic. It begins in a small jungle village, explodes into the head-spinning chaos and terrible beauty of a full-blown Mayan city, then resolves itself in a final burst of speed and motion, as the protagonist races to elude his murderous pursuers and make it home alive. Apocalypto is no masterpiece, but it’s a more-than-respectable effort from a director who, at his best, produces some of the most visceral moviemaking Hollywood has to offer — no small feat in these blandest of times. Perhaps most important, Apocalypto reminds us that worthwhile art can issue from even the most flawed human beings, and that alone might be worth the price of admission. Stars Rudy Youngblood, Dalia Hernandez, Jonathan Brewer, Morris Birdyellowhead, Raoul Trujillo and Rodolfo Palacios. 3.5 stars
BORAT (R) A subversive mockumentary after the style of Christopher Guest (but pound-for-pound funnier), Borat is a road trip across America in which many of the key players appear bizarrely unaware that they’re participants in a massive hoax. Our guide is British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, adopting the persona of clueless Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdivev (a recurring character from his Da Ali G Show), who travels coast to coast in a feces-smeared ice cream truck, ostensibly in an effort to see what makes this country tick. A typical Kazakh (which is to say, Cohen’s lampooning of otherness manifested as a “typical” Kazakh), Borat is a sweetly contemptible, hygienically-challenged moron, a product of a decimated, inbred environment with a rabid fear of Jews, independent women, homosexuals and virtually anything else that moves. Borat plays into just about every conceivable stereotype, and half the fun of the movie is watching the reactions of the people he encounters, many of them presumably ignorant of the fact that he’s an actor playing a part. Also stars Ken Davitian, Pamela Anderson, Pat Haggerty and Alan Keyes. 4.5 stars
CASINO ROYALE (PG-13) As with Batman Begins, Casino Royale reinvents its iconic hero, bringing him back to square one by stripping him of excess camp and clichés. The movie follows the exploits of a leaner, meaner, younger Bond (Daniel Craig) as he embarks upon his first big case, charting its hero’s Anakin Skywalker-like course as he works his way past human emotions to become the smooth super-assassin we all know and love. Most of the 007 must-haves are here but the movie is so determined to be taken seriously that much of the pure, outsized fun so crucial to the Bond experience winds up M.I.A. And although Daniel Craig is a more than interesting choice to play Bond (he’s probably the best actor to step into 007’s shoes since Sean Connery), I’m not quite convinced. Even if you get past the reality of a blonde Bond, Craig comes off too much like an unnaturally buff method actor; he inhabits the inside of his character fine, but doesn’t seem nearly as comfortable communicating the flashy, iconic exterior. It’s quite possible the actor and the filmmakers will get the mix down in future projects, but Casino Royale is more interesting than genuinely enjoyable, a 007 project mostly valuable for testing the waters. Also stars Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Judi Dench, Giancarlo Giannini, Jeffrey Wright and Caterina Murino. 3 stars
FLUSHED AWAY (PG) The latest project from those ever-reliable genius types at Aardman Studios (Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run) is the animated tale of two mice — posh urban rodent Rodney (voiced by Hugh Jackman) and his scruffy female counterpart Rita (Kate Winslet) — sharing an amazing adventure in London. More accurately, the movie situates itself in a miniaturized clone of London located in the sewers below the real city, and populated by a wonderfully eccentric menagerie of mice, frogs and slugs of indeterminate origin (the later being the movie’s biggest scene stealers who break out in song at the most bizarre moments). The Anglo-centric humor may occasionally drift over the heads of younger viewers (there’s wordplay here on distinctly British patter such as “diverting” and “smashing,” and at one point a cockroach can be seen reading Kafka), but the movie is basically good, silly fun for everyone. The characters all have personality to spare, elements of slapstick, adventure and romance are expertly fused and paced, and the classy CGI animation skillfully emulates the charming stop-motion style for which Aardman is so well known. Also featuring the voices of Ian McKellen, Jean Reno, Bill Nighy and Andy Serkis. 3.5 stars
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION (PG-13) A worm’s-eye view of Hollywood, For Your Consideration should have been Christopher Guest’s ready-made masterpiece. Guest and his collaborators are some very funny people, and they know this terrain as well as anybody does, but For Your Consideration rarely offers much beyond some pretty mild amusements, and the level of satirical insight on display here is a notch or two below even the filmmaker’s recent A Mighty Wind. The new film revolves around a little independent film (an unintentionally kitschy item called Home for Purim) that’s inexplicably managed to generate some Oscar buzz, but, to no one’s surprise, Guest and cowriter Eugene Levy use the storyline as a jumping-off point for a series of sketches skewering actors, agents, publicists, critics and various other sundry members of the movie industry. Curiously, though, much of the humor comes off as flat, toothless this time around, and even weirdly dated (jokes about out-of-touch agents exploring the “world Interweb,” anyone?), to the point where even a standout performance by Guest regular Catherine O’Hara can’t quite turn it all around. Also stars Harry Shearer, Parker Posey, Fred Willard and Jennifer Coolidge. 2.5 stars
NATIVITY STORY (PG) The bizarre synchronicity of its teenaged star’s real-life pregnancy aside, Nativity Story takes its place in the culture as an irony-free affirmation of faith, a surprisingly stodgy but absolutely sincere love letter to Mary, the Mother of God. The film gains a degree of authenticity from its out-of-the-way location shooting in Morocco and Italy (including the village where Mel Gibson filmed Passion of the Christ) to brief snatches of biblical Aramaic sprinkling the English dialogue (although the cast displays a mish-mash of accents that range from Zorba the Greek to Yiddish Borsht Belt to Count Chocula). Digital effects aren’t overly pronounced, and the movie has that by-now requisite bleached-out, semi-sepia look that screams “authenticity” and “taste.” Otherwise it’s pretty much business as usual, a better-than-average Davy and Goliath episode with slightly more animated characters and competent but curiously bland filmmaking chops. Looking at this as the beginning to a contemporary trilogy on the life of Jesus, Hollywood style (with Gibson providing the end, and Scorsese the much maligned middle), then Nativity Story might just be the most moderate of the lot, with a gentleness that approaches colorlessness (think of it as the anti-Passion). What we have here is a carefully faithful reading of material that’s all about faith but decidedly lacking in vision. Also stars Oscar Isaac, Hiam Abbas, Shaun Toub, Ciaran Hinds, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Stanley Townsend and Alexander Siddiq. 2.5 stars
STRANGER THAN FICTION (PG-13) Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) discovers that he’s the main character in a novel-in-process and that his death is imminent unless he can actually locate the mysterious author and somehow change the book’s ending. Needless to say, this revelation causes our terribly uptight hero to loosen up, find love, learn to play guitar and discover the true meaning of life. The obvious references here are Groundhog Day, Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation and, for all its flaws, I (Heart) Huckabees — but while there are plenty of amusing moments to enjoy in Stranger Than Fiction, art and reality collide here in ways more cute than clever. There’s nothing in Zach Hem’s script that’s remotely as thought-provoking as even the least of Kaufman’s projects, nor anything as genuinely profound as the lessons learned in Groundhog Day, and metaphysics here serve as window dressing for what is basically just a moderately engaging romantic comedy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Also stars Maggie Gyllenhaal, Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman and Queen Latifah. 3 stars
TENACIOUS D: THE PICK OF DESTINY (R) Tenacious D is pretty much a love-it-or-hate-it proposition and, from where I’m sitting, there’s not much to love about Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny. This is stoner retro-comedy, pure and brain-cell-decimated simple, a notch above Half Baked (but several notches below Cheech and Chong), and the movie’s gleeful wallowing in its own stupidity doesn’t make it any more appealing. There are no distinctions drawn here between heroes and losers, and both functions are filled by Jack Black and Kyle Gass, two ordinary schlubs charged with the divine mission of becoming the “greatest rock band of all time.” This band turns out to be Tenacious D, natch, and director Liam Lynch (Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic) follows Black and Gass, performers of very limited range (putting it mildly), as they rehearse their boring, hard rock ditties, endure a series of humiliations, and do an awful lot of standing around while repeating various catchphrases. There are a few worthwhile bits here — an opening homage to Tommy is inspired, a cameo by Tim Robbins is a treat, and a Sid-and-Marty-Kroft-esque mushroom trip isn’t bad either — but the rest is often excruciating. Tenacious D is probably best experienced in small doses, and this 98-minute dose can be painful. Also stars JR Reed, Troy Gentile, Tim Robbins and Ben Stiller. 2 stars
This article appears in Dec 20-26, 2006.
