Opening
Duck Soup (US, 1933) The Marx Brothers’ comic masterwork
wasn’t a success in its era. In fact, there was some doubt the team
would do another movie after the film laid an egg at the box office (it
was indeed the last time Zeppo Marx appeared onscreen with the troupe).
Only in the 1960s, with the Marx Brothers re-appraised and appreciated
by rebellious college students for their anti-authoritarian antics, was
Duck Soup elevated to the realm of classic, warped and surreal
humor. The film is set in mythical Freedonia, a place so poor that
financial existence depends on the charity of rich widow Margaret
Dumont. She’s smitten with the disreputable Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho),
and he’s put in charge of the government. Never mind that Firefly still
insults her and everybody else with rapid-fire verbiage. Neighboring
country Sylvania wants to take over Fredonia, and inept spies Chicolini
(Chico) and Pinky (Harpo) follow Firefly, who arbitrarily leads
Freedonia into war against Sylvania. Then Groucho puts Chico on trial
for treason, simultaneously trying to convict and defend him. Whether a
serious point is being made in all the foolishness is purely moot. Just
laugh and enjoy. Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. At 7 p.m.
Saturday, Aug. 29, and 8:30 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 30. **** (Charles Cassady
Jr.)
The Final Destination Reviewed at clevescene.com.
Halloween 2 Reviewed at clevescene.com.
Hana (Japan, 2006) Set in 18th-century Japan, Hirokazu
Kore-Eda’s parody is something like an Asian Year One. But
without comedic talents like Jack Black and Michael Cera, the humor
doesn’t really resonate. Plus you should probably know a thing or two
about samurai traditions to really get something out of the flick. The
plot revolves around Soza (Junichi Okada), a young warrior who must
avenge his father’s death. Problem is, he’s notoriously shy and is more
interested in reading and writing than fighting. In fact, he’d rather
help the city slaves do menial tasks than pick up his sword and kill
the man who offed his dad. And yet, he still tries to keep some
semblance of the samurai lifestyle, even if he can’t pay his rent.
While some of the double entendres and jokes are really clever, the
movie works better as a period piece than a comedy. Cleveland Institute
of Art Cinematheque. At 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 29, and 4 p.m. Sunday,
Aug. 30. ** 1/2 (Jeff Niesel)
I Can See You (US, 2008) Graham Reznick’s film has been
described as a “psychedelic campfire tale,” and that’s a pretty apt
description for this disjointed movie about a group of guys who work
for a Brooklyn commercial design firm struggling to come up with an ad
campaign for a toxic, all-purpose cleaning solution called Claractix.
To find some inspiration, the crew take their laptops and digital
cameras into the woods for a weekend “total fuckin’ immersion.”
Everything appears to be going according to plan, and one of the guys
even meets a cute hippie chick while hanging out at a bonfire. But the
trip turns into a nightmare of Lynchian proportions when a boogeyman
starts torturing the guys. Poorly acted but visually striking, the film
is a real mixed bag. It’s preceeded by a showing of Reznick’s “The
Viewer,” a 3-D short about an interrogation procedure that has
mind-altering repurcusions. Cleveland Museum of Art Lecture Hall. At
6:45 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 2. ** 1/2 (Niesel)
It’s a Gift (US, 1934) The W.C. Fields classic comedy from
1934 won’t win any awards for fancy scriptwriting — it’s
literally a handful of Fields’ well-remembered sketch routines from the
vaudeville stage charm-braceleted together into the loosest imaginable
plotline, about a downtrodden and henpecked shopkeeper (Fields), his
awful family and his eventual California windfall. Still, screen comedy
and culture wouldn’t have been the same without any of these great
bits. One simple yet beautifully timed routine concerns Fields’
inability to catch an afternoon nap without being troubled by every
disturbance conceivable. The sidesplitting sequence/sketch of
blind-deaf Mr. Muckle obliviously wreaking havoc in Fields’ grocery
store found an admirer in none other than Alfred Hitchcock, who
appreciated the exquisite suspense in the basic dilemma of what was
about to get smashed next. Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. At
5:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 29, and 7 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 30. *** 1/2 (Cassady)
Laila’s Birthday (Palestine/Tunisia/Netherlands, 2008) Former
judge turned persnickety cab driver Abu (Mohammed Bakri) has a very bad
day in Palestinian writer-director Rashid Masharawi’s slice-of-life
fable set in present-day Ramallah. On the day of his young daughter’s
birthday party, the Job-like Abu is forced to endure one indignity
after another: Kafkaesque delays in the Ministry of Justice office;
obstinate passengers; random terrorist attacks more inconvenient than
truly frightening. Even the simplest errands like buying his daughter’s
birthday gift and picking up her cake at a local bakery become
Sisyphian tasks. Similar in bemused tone and neo-realist style to many
works of the New Iranian Cinema, Masharawi’s film might have worked
better as a short, since there’s barely enough drama to sustain a
feature-length running time. It doesn’t help that humorless prig Abu
makes a fairly unsympathetic lead character who’s impossible to warm up
to. Cleveland Museum of Art Lecture Hall. At 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 28,
and 1:30 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 30. ** (Milan Paurich)
Oblivion (Netherlands, 2008) Dutch filmmaker Heddy
Honigmann’s nonfiction feature essay is a sort of Peoples’ History of
20th-Century Peru. Average Yankee-imperialist-pig audiences may wonder
at first what the point is of these elusive interludes with faraway
Lima’s aged headwaiters, unemployed hoteliers, street performers
and vendors, tinkers, tailors and sad shoeshine boys. But eventually
the sense comes through of the too-oft-invisible permanent underclass
in a dysfunctional capital city. These are the resilient bit players in
a much larger drama — Peru’s series of social convulsions,
economic collapses, terror strikes and counter-strikes (to the point
that it’s impossible to tell who’s committing the atrocities —
troglodyte Maoists or police death squads). They are folks like the
clothier behind the manufacture of the presidential sash, threatened
due to a sartorial misunderstanding, or the ever-smiling bartender who
finally gets his little shot at revenge on the highest in the land.
These are great stories of the powerful — none interviewed here
— and the ostensibly powerless hanging on with determination.
Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. At 8:25 p.m. Thursday, Aug.
27, and 7:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 28. *** (Cassady)
Pontypool (Canada, 2008) Pontypool is an effectively
eerie Canadian horror flick by cult director Bruce McDonald (The
Tracey Fragments) about a radio talk-show host (the terrific
Stephen McHattie) whose early-morning program is disrupted by reports
of a zombie invasion. Things come to a boil when an army of the undead
shows up at the station and begins banging on the windows. Despite a
shoestring Canuck budget, McDonald’s terse little chiller has more
smarts — and visual panache — than most Hollywood movies
costing 100 times as much. Anyone who’s ever listened to Rush Limbaugh
and his fascistic ilk will dig the film’s sociopolitical subtext about
the devaluation of language in today’s townhall-meetings-gone-amuck
cultural climate. Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. At 6:30 p.m.
Thursday, Aug. 27, and 9:25 p.m. Friday, Aug. 28. *** (Paurich)
Sügisball (Estonia, 2007) Veiko Ounpuu’s film (the title
translates as “Autumn Ball”) about a group of apartment dwellers who
struggle to find love and happiness portends to be something like an
Estonian version of Crash. Beautifully shot, it chronicles the
lives of a handful of people, each despondent in his or her own way.
The intersecting stories involve a young writer who lives alone because
his wife left him for a friend of his, an architect who gets pissed off
when his friends criticize his extravagant lifestyle, and a doorman who
has aspirations of leaving his lowly job and making money investing in
trash-removal machines. It’s all rather bleak, particularly since just
about everyone appears to have a drinking problem. While the narratives
don’t ever come together into a coherent whole, the film is beautifully
shot and has several poetic moments. Cleveland Institute of Art
Cinematheque. At 1:30 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 30, and 7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 31.
*** (Niesel)
In Theaters
Adam In the opening scenes of writer-director Max Mayer’s
drama about a man with Asperger’s syndrome, Adam (Hugh Dancy) is at his
father’s funeral. While we never see his dad, we get the sense that
Adam’s going to be lost without him. After all, this is a guy who eats
the same thing every day (bran for breakfast, mac and cheese for
dinner) and keeps his brownstone apartment in meticulous order.
Asperger’s is a mild form of autism that makes it difficult for Adam to
communicate, even though he’s physicist-smart. So when he meets his
lovely brunette neighbor Beth (Rose Byrne), he has trouble telling her
how much he likes her, though at one point he blurts out that he’s
sexually aroused. And yet, the two begin a relationship that goes along
smoothly until, in predictable fashion, Adam has one of his fits,
forcing Beth to break up with him. Of course, in the next scene, Adam
overcomes his fear of outside world and pursues Beth. He tries to
convince her to help him with his new job at an observatory, which
requires that he move to California. The film’s trajectory is more that
of a made-for-TV special than a theatrical release, and its subplot
concerning Beth’s fraudulent father (Peter Gallagher) is completely
extraneous. While Dancy and Byrne have decent chemistry, the whole
thing is pretty schmaltzy. ** (Niesel)
Bandslam Will (Gaelan Connell) is the kind of music geek who
writes daily letters to David Bowie about his life. He knows the
complete Velvet Underground oeuvre inside and out and has “Wichita
Lineman” on his iPod. Ridiculed at school because his dad was a
notorious drunk, he gets a second chance when his mom (Lisa Kudrow)
decides to move from Cincinnati to Lodi, New Jersey. And somehow, the
change of locale finds this nerd caught in the crossfire of two hotties
– Charlotte (Alyson Michalka) and Sa5m (Vanessa Hudgens). Sa5m
pairs up with him in “Human Studies” class. Charlotte enlists him to
manage her band, which is preparing to compete in the annual “bandslam”
competition. Complications ensue. Balancing the two relationships
proves to be difficult, and it’s not long before the whole thing
implodes. While you’d be hard-pressed to find a better soundtrack (the
film dips into the back catalogs of Nick Drake and David Bowie), the
good use of music is all for naught since the melodrama is so forced,
it makes tween flicks like High School Musical and Hannah
Montana seem realistic by comparison. * (Niesel)
District 9 On the surface, District 9 is about aliens.
But its subtext is pretty clear to anyone familiar with segregation.
District 9 is about oppression. And standing up for rights. And
wanting to go home. It’s a rebel movie, but the rebels are aliens who
have been crammed into a South African slum for more than 20 years.
Written and directed by Neill Blomkamp (from a short film he made in
2005), District 9 came together after he and producer Peter
Jackson couldn’t get their Halo movie off the ground. And in a
way, the kinda creepy and totally bloody District 9 plays a lot
like Halo, with some very awesome guns capable of blasting the
hell out of anything that gets in their way. But District 9 is
more subtle than the hit videogame franchise, building conflict and a
sense of confinement before turning into a limb-severing showdown
between military pricks, displaced aliens and a good-guy researcher
who’s slowly transforming into one of the creatures. The movie’s
handheld-camera, documentary- style approach is played out by now, but
it serves District 9‘s narrative, even if it sorta breaks
the rules during the movie’s final act. By the end, the big-ass weapons
come out, and District 9 swerves a little into popcorn-movie
territory. But not even a ginormous robot suit can divert from the
film’s undertones of what it means to be an alien in a place where
you’ve lived for so long. *** (Michael Gallucci)
Funny People Adam Sandler plays George Simmons, a
mega-popular comedian — and kind of an ass — who makes
mega-crappy movies that sound a lot like the ones Sandler makes (my
favorite: My Best Friend Is a Robot). George gets some
bad news from his doctor in the very first scene: He has leukemia and
might not have long to live. So he returns to his roots as a stand-up
comic and taps struggling comedian Ira Wright (a svelte Rogen) to write
jokes for him and to help out around his mansion. At nearly two and a
half hours, Funny People sags a bit during the second half, when
the movie takes a turn into director Judd Apatow’s usual messy-romance
territory. It’s not as consistently funny as The 40-Year-Old
Virgin or Knocked Up, but it is a stronger movie and
Apatow’s best film. The stellar supporting cast includes many Apatow
regulars — including Jonah Hill as (what else?) Ira’s smartass
roommate and Leslie Mann (Apatow’s wife) as George’s ex-girlfriend
— as well as tons of cameos by real-life comedians and musicians.
And Sandler has never been better, pulling off funny and serious in the
same breath. *** 1/2 (Gallucci)
G-Force You could do worse than this for a generally OK
summer kiddie frolic, an alliance between Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney.
There’s barely any breathing room in the CGI-dependent,
Ritalin-deficient, action-spazz narrative about a team of superspy
guinea pigs, rodents and bugs trained by an eccentric scientist to talk
and act as a secret-agent task force. Imagine Spy Kids’ Pets as
an alternate title, although — curiously and refreshingly —
there are few child characters. The wonder critters, a.k.a. G-Force,
try to expose a standard spy-flick bad-guy-with-a-suave-British-accent
(Bill Nighy, out from under his Pirates of the Caribbean makeup), who has household appliances around the world timed to
detonate with an evil mystery chip. Not to spoil things too much, but
shape-shifting “Transformer” robots are getting pretty stale as plot
devices. That said, you’re in for visual treat if you go to the 3D
version of G-Force, as the depth effects are quite nicely done.
** 1/2 (Cassady)
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra A group of terrorists, led by
arms dealer McCullen a.k.a. Destro (Christopher Eccleston), plot to
take over the world. The only thing that can stop them is G.I. Joe, an
elite team of international soldiers. But it’s the subplot about Joe
member Duke (Channing Tatum) and his star-crossed romance with femme
fatale the Baroness (Sienna Miller) that gives the movie its heart.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Arnold Vosloo turn in fine performances as bad
guys Zartan and “The Doctor,” respectively. Most of G.I. Joe still consists of people shooting at each other and blowing stuff up,
but director Stephen Sommers and his writers at least tried to make an
actual movie rather than just string together a bunch of action scenes.
G.I. Joe is a little long and a whole lot of silly, but it’s
also a lot of fun and not nearly as obnoxious or bloated as this
summer’s other toy-based blockbuster. *** (Robert Ignizio)
The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard Don Ready (Jeremy Pivens),
leader of a team of hard-partying mercenary salesmen (Ving Rhames,
David Koechner and Kathryn Hahn), is hired to keep a used-car
dealership from going into bankruptcy. While working his sales magic,
Don becomes attracted to a woman (Jordana Spiro) already engaged to the
town’s biggest douchebag (Ed Helms). Because as everyone knows, smart
and attractive young women in the movies always face a shortage of
decent guys who want to date them, so it’s either marry a loser or
become an old maid. But maybe, just maybe, Don will overcome the
tragedy from his past and not only save the dealership, but also find a
way to win the girl. That’s pretty much the extent of the formulaic
plot. Luckily, this is a comedy, so while plot does matter, jokes
matter more. And in that respect, The Goods has the goods. Some
of the humor falls flat, but there are still an awful lot of laughs
here. The excellent supporting cast helps a lot too.
** 1/2 (Ignizio)
The Hurt Locker Set in 2004, The Hurt Locker concerns
an elite military unit (Delta Company) stationed in Baghdad whose job
consists of scoping out and defusing bombs. Sgt. William James (Jeremy
Renner in a breakthrough performance that deserves to be remembered at
awards time), the group’s new leader, is a gung-ho cowboy whose seeming
recklessness and disregard for “official” protocol scares the crap out
of his team members (Anthony Mackie’s Sanborn and Brian Geraghty’s
Eldridge). James is an adrenaline junkie. He thrives on danger and the
narcotic-like exhilaration of always being one step away from harm’s
way. Back in the U.S., James’ life seems hopelessly mundane by
comparison (a visit to a supermarket sends him into temporary
paralysis). Bigelow and Renner make it eminently clear that James is
the type of guy who would probably shrivel up and die if he didn’t have
the addictive rush/high of combat that propels him from Point A to
Point B. “War is a drug,” the quotation from former New York
Times correspondent Chris Hedges that opens the film, might seem
like a reductive cheap shot if the evidence on screen weren’t so damn
persuasive. **** (Paurich)
Inglourious Basterds Opening with a “Once upon a time in
Nazi-occupied France” intro, Inglourious Basterds‘ first
chapter (yes, Tarantino divides his film into episodes again)
introduces a couple of characters — an SS colonel and a Jewish
girl whose family he kills — who weave in and out of the movie.
It’s 1941, and Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt, with cocked eyebrows,
a Tennessee accent and Clark Gable’s mustache) recruits eight
Jewish-American soldiers to “kill Nazis.” But because Aldo is descended
from Native Americans, his gang doesn’t just kill Nazis; they scalp
them too. Aldo’s warriors eventually hook up with a German spy
(National Treasure‘s Diane Kruger), and they hatch a plan
to take out most of the Third Reich’s top tier, including Hitler and
Goebbels. Even though Tarantino isn’t on rapid-fire here, there are
parts of Inglourious Basterds that are every bit as accomplished
as Pulp Fiction. He still gets a kick making movies, and the
evidence is onscreen. *** (Gallucci)
Julie and Julia This movie is based on a book by Julie
Powell, a real-life cubicle drone who decides to change her life by
cooking all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s famous cookbook. Julie and
Julia never meet, yet their stories crisscross, intersect and feed each
other throughout the film, which opens with juxtaposing scenes of the
women moving into their respective new homes (Julie in 2002 NYC, Julia
in 1949 France). Julie — played by Amy Adams, less spunky and
more puffy than usual — has a reputation for never finishing what
she starts. So she sets a deadline for herself: one year to cook the
entire content of Child’s cookbook, posting blog entries about every
dish she makes. Meanwhile, Child (Meryl Streep, overstating) is an
American living overseas with her State Department-employed husband.
She begins taking cooking classes to keep busy. Director and
co-screenwriter Nora Ephron (Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got
Mail), a chick-flick vet who’s never shied away from pouring on the
glop, dispenses plenty of it in Julie & Julia. Too bad
Julie & Julia couldn’t be more substantial, instead of
serving us chick-flick leftovers with a side of cold ham.
** 1/2 (Gallucci)
Ponyo When it comes to anime, no one does it better than
Japan’s Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving
Castle). Miyazaki’s latest is another exquisite film. The plot
surrounds a young boy named Sosuke (Frankie Jonas) who discovers what
he thinks is a talking goldfish. He brings it home and christens it
Ponyo (Noah Cyrus). But Ponyo isn’t a goldfish. Rather, she’s a sea
creature whose father Fujimoto (Liam Neeson) and mother Gran Mammare
(Cate Blanchett) live underwater. While the film’s love story follows
the storyline of most mermaid films (Ponyo wants to become human so she
can spend her life with Sosuke), in Miyazaki’s hands, it becomes a
mystical fairy tale, especially after Sosuke’s world becomes engulfed
by water and he must take a toy boat out in search of his mother (Tina
Fey). And the film’s not just a love story: It’s as much about the
ocean and the environment as it is about a fish who falls in love with
a boy. *** (Niesel)
Post Grad Ryden Malby (Alexis Bledel) is that girl you hated
in college. An attractive straight-A student who participated in all
the right extracurricular activities, she’s the one who seems destined
for success and is set on working at the city’s biggest and best
publishing house. But a funny thing happens on the way to the
publishing house. She doesn’t get the gig. Rival Jessica Bard
(Catherine Reitman) is hired instead, sending Ryden into a tailspin.
Complicating matters is the fact that Ryden leans so heavily on her
best friend Adam (Friday Night Lights’ Zach Gilford). He’s
clearly in love with her, but she’d rather keep the relationship
platonic and falls for the hunky guy-next-door (Rodrigo Santoro)
instead. While the film’s not as quirky as, say, Juno, it does
go for a similar vibe, particularly when it comes to Ryden’s family.
Her goofy dad (an unhinged Michael Keaton), madcap grandmother (Carol
Burnett) and manic mom (Jane Lynch) are such oddball characters, they
provide it with the comic relief it needs. ** 1/2 (Niesel)
Shorts While Robert Rodriguez (Spy Kids, the Adventures of
Sharkboy and Lavagirl) makes kids’ flicks that aren’t necessarily
smart enough to appeal to adults, they’re a step above the kind of
stuff that usually passes for family entertainment. Shorts centers on the trials and tribulations of one Toe Thompson (Jimmy
Bennett), a defenseless kid who gets picked on at school by the
daughter and son of Mr. Black (James Spader), the town’s power hungry
millionaire who’s devised a contraption that transforms from cell phone
to toaster (but doesn’t, thankfully, have Transformers-like powers).
When Toe discovers a secret rock that enables its owner’s wishes to
come true, everyone from his mother and father (Leslie Mann and Jon
Cryer) to his germophobic neighbor (William H. Macy) tries to get his
or her hands on the thing, sending the small suburban community into an
uproar. Toe tells his story out of sequence (hence the “shorts” title),
and Rodriguez often lets the story spiral out of control. But it’s
good, campy fun that never has to rely too heavily on special effects
to make its point that self-discovery is key. *** (Niesel)
The Time Traveler’s Wife Told out of sequence, The Time
Traveler’s Wife begins with the death of young Henry’s mother,
who’s killed in a horrible car accident. But Henry, in the back seat at
the time of the accident, manages to live, thanks to his ability to
travel through time. Flash forward a few years and Henry (Eric Bana) is
all grown up, working in a library. When Clare (Rachel McAdams)
approaches him, she realizes she knows him. Turns out an older Henry
befriended a much younger Clare on his time travels, and they would
meet regularly in a large field on the property where Clare grew up.
Confusing, yes, but the filmmakers go to great lengths to simplify
things. The two get married, and everything is going smoothly until
they try to have a baby. It turns out the fetus is a time traveler too,
and one miscarriage follows another until they get some help from a
somewhat skeptical doctor (Stephen Tobolowsky). While the
time-traveling sequences are artfully done (thanks to some nifty
digital effects, Henry simply fades away on the screen), the love story
is the film’s focus. Much like The Curious Case of Benjamin
Button, the film is about a couple who have to fight against the
odds so they can be together. The movie definitely falls into the
chick-flick realm, but don’t hold that against it.
*** (Niesel)
This article appears in Aug 26 – Sep 1, 2009.
