Opening
Carmen & Geoffrey (US, 2005)
Dancers/choreographers/actors Carmen de Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder
first met in 1954 on a production of Truman Capote’s House of
Flowers. Already established members of the dance community, they
became fast friends and ultimately married. Directed by Linda Atkinson
and Nick Doob, this documentary explores their relationship by
utilizing a mix of present-day interviews and archival footage. With
its constant references to choreographers and dancers, the movie’s more
intended for dance enthusiasts than general filmgoers, something that
comes out as Lavallade’s biographer discusses things like the place the
two hold in the history of the art world. Still, they are colorful
enough as characters (especially the tall, deep-voiced Holder) that the
documentary more or less holds your interest for its 85-minute running
time. Cleveland Museum of Art Lecture Hall. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, July
8. *** (Jeff Niesel)
Cheri Set in 1912 Paris, Chéri is the
story of Léa de Lonval (Michelle Pfeiffer), a retired courtesan
who takes up with beautiful, spoiled playboy Fred (Rupert Friend), 19,
nicknamed “Chéri” by Léa, whom he calls “Nounoune.” Their
affair lasts six years, until Chéri’s mother, mercenary
ex-courtesan Madame Peloux (heartily played by Kathy Bates), marries
him off to the wealthy young Edmée (Felicity Jones). Both
Léa, who worries about her fading beauty, and Chéri, who
cares little for anyone but himself, realize too late that theirs was a
genuine, if impossible, love. The movie’s Belle Epoque settings are
lovely: art nouveau furnishings and ravishing costumes, enhanced by
Darius Khondji’s fine cinematography. But it’s hard to look past the
casting of Pfeiffer, possibly the last actress you would think of for a
French courtesan. Pfeiffer emotes valiantly, but her slender California
beauty and disturbingly unlined forehead do not suggest a voluptuous,
aging concubine, or a Frenchwoman of any kind. Cedar Lee Theatre.
** 1/2 (Pamela Zoslov)
Explicit Ills (US, 2008) With its extended pans of city
streets and interweaving storylines, this Mark Webber-directed drama
has elements of a Jim Jarmusch flick. That’s probably why Jarmusch
signed on as an executive producer. Explicit Ills, however, is
hardly up to Jarmusch standards. Though beautifully filmed, it has so
many meandering storylines that by the time they come together at the
end, you probably won’t care. The film centers, for the most part, on
Babo (Francisco Burgos), a precocious young kid with a struggling
single mother (Rosario Dawson). Babo befriends Rocco (Paul Dano), and
the two start playing chess together on a regular basis, until Babo
suffers an asthma attack that sends him to the hospital. The other
storylines revolving around a starving artist and a pair of drug
addicts seem so unrelated that by the time they’re woven together at
the film’s end, it just seems forced. Cleveland Musuem of Art Lecture
Hall. At 7 p.m. Friday, July 3. ** 1/2 (Jeff Niesel)
Guest of Cindy Sherman (US, 2008) As the host of a mid-’90s
public access show called GalleryBeat, Paul H-O spent his free
time hitting gallery openings in New York asking dumb questions (“What
do you eat for breakfast?” is one of his favorites). After finding that
photographer Cindy Sherman wasn’t put off by his in-your-face approach,
he became friends with her and interviewed her during a work in
progress. He ended up hanging out with her in her studio loft and
telling her, “You’re the best-dressed person I know” and “You look
really swell.” Sherman eventually fell for him, and the two ended up in
love and living together. As much about the New York art scene as a
relationship gone bad (the film includes interviews with artists like
Robert Longo, Julian Schnabel and Sean Landers), Guest of Cindy
Sherman is an interesting self-portrait of Paul, who also directed
the movie and doesn’t shy from depicting his battles with depression
and his feelings of inadequacy. You can’t help feel for the guy, even
if the exploration of his relationship with Sherman comes off as a bit
exploitative. Cleveland Museum of Art Lecture Hall. At 7 p.m.
Wednesday, July 1. *** (Niesel)
Mr. Hulot’s Holiday (France, 1953) French comic filmmaker,
mime artist and actor Jacques Tati scored an international hit in 1953
with this thinly plotted farce about a trudging, klutzy bachelor named
Hulot and the small-scale disasters that seem to follow him when he
vacations at a seaside resort. There’s so little dialogue, it doesn’t
matter whether you understand French or not; the comedy arises out of
the little visual gags and even sound effects that Tati planned with
meticulous precision. Still, it’s disjointed to the extreme, and
despite the universal embrace by film critics everywhere, Tati would
more fully realize the Hulot character in a handful of comedies he made
over ensuing decades. A strong inspiration for Mr. Bean’s
Holiday, n’est-ce pas? Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. At
7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 2, and 1:15 p.m. Sunday, July 5.
*** (Charles Cassady Jr.)
Sin Nombre (Mexico/U.S., 2009) The debut feature of Cary
Fukunaga, Sin Nombre (Nameless) was a sensation at Sundance,
where it won prizes for direction and cinematography, and earned
Fukunaga a development deal with Focus Features. The story of a Mexican
gang that preys on immigrants who ride trains headed for the U.S., the
movie is impressively made. Fukunaga researched the film by riding the
rails himself and mastering the difficult art of shooting on a moving
train, and the talented cinematographer Adriano Goldman graces the film
with haunting Mexican landscapes. It brings together Wily (Edgar
Flores), nicknamed “El Casper,” a member of a brutal, elaborately
tattooed gang in Tapachulas, Chiapas, Mexico, and a Honduran girl,
Sayra (Paulina Gaitan), who joins her estranged father on a journey to
the U.S., where she dreams of living. Willie, forced to escape from the
gang — a group so vicious they kill their enemies and feed them
to their dogs — saves Sayra from an attack and is reluctantly
bound to her for the rest of the perilous trip. For all its visual
beauty and technical brilliance, the movie is unsentimental to the
point of emotional flatness, offering insufficient sweetness to offset
the horrifying violence. Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. At
5:30 p.m. Thursday, July 2, and 3:05 p.m. Sunday, July 5.
*** (Zoslov)
Whatever Works Casting about for an idea, Woody Allen dusted
off a script he wrote in the’70s for Zero Mostel. The great Zero being
long dead, we have Larry David as Boris Yellnikov, a misanthropic
ex-physicist who rants against everything from religion to love and
dismisses most humans as “incompetent morons” and “inchworms.” The
persona is as familiar as a cranky old friend, and while Woody still
inhabits it best, David is far from the worst fit. The story is a
funny, often hilarious farce centering on this hypochondriacal hermit
who spends his days waxing philosophical with his friends (Michael
McKean, Adam Brooks, Lyle Kanouse) and teaching chess to children, whom
he insults mercilessly. One night, Melodie (Evan Rachel Wood), a pretty
Southern teenage runaway, appears at the doorstep of his dismal
apartment. Boris reluctantly takes her in and schools her in his
cynical attitudes. As always in Allen’s romances, the young girl
wearies of her neurotic older mate, and several un-couplings and
re-couplings occur. The redemptive finale, reminiscent of Hannah and
Her Sisters, is unexpectedly uplifting. *** 1/2
(Zoslov)
In Theaters
Away We Go In the opening scene of Away We Go, Burt
(John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) are in bed going at it. Burt
has his head under the covers and is clearly, um, pleasuring Maya,
while he tries to keep up a conversation at the same time. It’s a funny
if awkward scene that sets the tone for the whimsical film, a much
lighter movie than director Sam Mendes’ previous effort,
Revolutionary Road. A road movie of sorts, Away We Go follows Burt and Verona as they traipse across the country, visiting
friends and acquaintances to find a place where they can live and raise
their child. They embark on their trip after Burt’s parents (Jeff
Daniels and Catherine O’Hara) inform him they’re moving and won’t be
around once Verona, several months pregnant, gives birth. No longer
tied down, Burt and Verona go first to Phoenix, where they meet one of
Verona’s former colleagues (Allison Janney). Then they’re off to Tucson
to visit Verona’s sister (Carmen Ejogo). After stops in Wisconsin,
Montreal and Miami, they decide their friends don’t have any answers
about where to live and how to raise children. Written by Dave Eggers
and Vendela Vida, the movie avoids most of the usual romantic comedy
clichés and offers a fresh approach to the genre.
*** (Niesel)
The Hangover A pre-titles sequence sets the scene: Four men
are stranded in the desert, all of them beaten, bruised and bloodied.
One of them calls a bride-to-be on his cell, informing her that her
wedding — just hours away — isn’t going to happen. The
groom is “lost.” Flashback two days earlier, when four men —
groom Doug (National Treasure‘s Justin Bartha), his best
friend Stu (The Office’s Ed Helms), buddy Phil (Bradley
Cooper, who played Rachel McAdams’ dick boyfriend in Wedding
Crashers) and the bride’s loser brother Alan (standup comedian Zach
Galifianakis in a breakout performance) — are prepping for Doug’s
bachelor party in Las Vegas. They check into a $4,200-a-night suite, go
to the roof for a celebratory drink and … wake up the next morning,
not remembering a thing. Including how a tiger got in their bathroom,
why they now have a baby and where they left Doug. They spend the rest
of the movie piecing together their forgotten night. It’s one of the
funniest movies of the past couple of years, with enough testosterone
to power Caesars Palace. *** (Michael Gallucci)
My Sister’s Keeper After six feature films in 13 years, it’s
safe to assume writer-director Nick Cassavetes will never be confused
with his late father, indie pioneer/auteur John Cassavetes. If
Cassavetes Senior’s films were (deliberately) rough around the edges
and seemingly improvised (even when they weren’t), Cassavetes Junior
occasionally errs on the side of slickness — Exxon Valdez
oil-spill slickness. Take My Sister’s Keeper, Cassavetes’
alternately moving and insidious adaptation of Jodi Picoult’s
bestselling novel. Cassavetes displayed his tearjerker chops with
2004’s The Notebook, and Keeper proves that he hasn’t
lost his touch at wringing emotions. But Notebook worked because
the lead performances by star-crossed lovers Ryan Gosling and Rachel
McAdams were so classy you could (almost) forgive the crass
manipulations of the icky Nicholas Sparks source material. Cassavetes’
latest borders on Hallmark porn (“Let’s all feel good about feeling
bad”). Or maybe it’s just that the directorial hand is so heavy this
time. The story of an 11-year-old girl (Little Miss Sunshine cutie Abigail Breslin) who sues her parents for “medical emancipation,”
My Sister’s Keeper has such a loaded, Lifetime Movie premise
that it can’t help but get under your skin. The most troubling aspect
of the film is the faint whiff of exploitation that lurks around the
edges. ** (Milan Paurich)
The Proposal Even with the age difference (she’s 44; he’s
32), Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds make a darn cute couple in The
Proposal, a high-concept romantic comedy that sizzles more than it
fizzles. Directed by Anne Fletcher, who helped turn Katherine Heigl
into a bona fide rom-com princess in last year’s 27 Dresses, The
Proposal might very well restore Bullock’s title as America’s
(blue-collar) Sweetheart. Bullock plays Margaret Tate, a book editor
who strikes fear into her cowering staff just by entering the building.
After learning that she faces deportation, the boss-from-hell
blackmails her executive assistant Andrew (Reynolds) into marrying her.
Realizing that he’s suddenly got the upper hand, Andrew somehow
convinces “Satan’s Mistress” to fly to Alaska to meet his (what else?)
quirky family. It’s only a matter of time before Margaret and Andrew
realize that they sort of, kind of, actually dig each other. Fletcher
again displays a deft touch with even the most obvious of comic
situations. And hiring veteran cinematographer Oliver Stapleton (The
Cider House Rules, Restoration) ensures The Proposal has
more visual élan than Fletcher’s dowdy-looking Dresses. *** (Milan Paurich)
The Taking of Pelham 123 Walter’s (Denzel Washington) having
a typical day at his job — bullshitting with coworkers,
maneuvering subway trains throughout the city — when a group of
machine-gun-toting bad guys (led by a mustachioed John Travolta) takes
over one of the cars. They stop the train (the Pelham 1 2 3 of the
title) on the tracks, in the middle of a tunnel, and demand $10 million
in exchange for 19 hostages. Travolta’s Ryder gives authorities one
hour to deliver the ransom. If he doesn’t receive it, he’ll kill one
passenger for every minute it’s delayed. Unfortunately, family guy
Walter takes the hijackers’ call and becomes Ryder’s go-to man in this
remake of a 1974 film. Washington brings his usual stately cool to
Walter, slowly transforming him from a downgraded desk jockey to a
button-down-shirt-and-tie-wearing action hero. Meanwhile, Travolta
gives his most intense and showy performance in years as the
foulmouthed and tattooed Ryder. It all culminates in an
underground-to-street showdown, making it a helluva thrilling ride.
*** (Gallucci)
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Nobody went to the
first Transformers for Shia LaBeouf. Nobody went for Megan Fox
either (well, maybe some of us did). Everybody who saw that summer
blockbuster two years ago went for the robots — the
shape-shifting, ass-kicking, totally awesome robots. In this overblown
sequel, director Michael Bay wisely keeps the camera on the Autobots
and Decepticons for most of the movie, shoving aside what little plot
there is to make room for big, explosive set pieces where tons of shit
blows up. This time around, the “story” has something to do with a
reborn and revenge-minded Megatron returning to Earth to kidnap
LaBeouf’s Sam and then take over the planet. But who really cares? It’s
all about bigger and badder battles that span Sam’s front yard to the
Egyptian desert. At two and a half hours, there’s plenty of time to get
to know Revenge of the Fallen‘s bots, but Bay is more
focused on big bangs, cheap laughs and having his metal heroes call
opponents “punk-ass Decepticons.” Sam is in college now, giving Bay the
opportunity to cause some major property damage on campus. He also
introduces a horny coed who’s a literal man-eater. It all spills over
into one of the movie’s best scenes. But too much of Revenge of the
Fallen is loud, plodding and totally obnoxious. ** 1/2 (Gallucci)
Up Up is an eyes-wide-open fantasy about Carl
Fredricksen (voiced by the always-cranky Edward Asner), whose lifelong
dream of being a globe-trotting adventurer has been halted every step
of the way. He marries his childhood best friend, a girl who shares his
dreams and quest for adventure. Over the years, they live and love and
try to scrape up enough cash to visit Paradise Falls, a mythical
wilderness in South America. After his wife dies, Carl — now an
old man with a bad back and an even worse temperament — spends
his days in his ramshackle house, which stands in the middle of a
construction site. After he assaults a worker on his property, the
court orders him to a retirement community. So Carl hatches a plan to
escape to Paradise Falls by attaching hundreds of balloons to his
house. Surprisingly, it works, and he sets sail serenely above the city
streets. All goes well until he hears a knock at the door and finds
Russell, an overweight and chatty Wilderness Explorer (it’s like a Boy
Scout) who needs one more badge to advance to the next level. A brutal
storm steers Carl and Russell miraculously in the middle of Paradise
Falls’ outlining forest. And then Carl’s real adventure begins. Unlike
the meditative WALL-E, Up is filled with thrilling action scenes
and colorful set pieces. Like WALL-E, it’s a stunning visual
work with an eco-friendly message. *** 1/2 (Gallucci)
Year One Zed (Jack Black) is an inept primitive hunter forced
to leave his tribe after he gets caught eating from the tree of
knowledge. Zed’s friend Oh (Michael Cera) tags along, and as the two
wander through the ancient world, they encounter various biblical
characters including, Cain (David Cross) and Isaac (Christopher
Mintz-Plasse). Eventually, a plot of sorts begins to emerge: Zed and Oh
learn that their former tribespeople, including a couple of girls (Juno
Temple and June Diane Raphael) for whom they have the hots, have been
sold into slavery and taken to Sodom. So the hapless duo set out on a
rescue mission. Directed and co-written by Harold Ramis, Year
One definitely has the feel of a movie from the guy who wrote
Animal House, Meatballs, Caddyshack and Stripes. Like
those films, this follows the tried-and-true formula of casting strong
comedic leads as lovable losers who get beaten down but ultimately come
out on top. The movie slips a little when it reaches beyond just trying
to make us laugh to insert a half-assed message about people making
their own destinies. Still, Year One is a reasonably
entertaining film with a generous number of laughs.
*** (Robert Ignizio)
This article appears in Jul 1-7, 2009.
