Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Lynn Rapoport, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. Due to the New Year holiday, theater information was incomplete at presstime.
OPENING
The Conquest Yet another entry in the relatively new, burgeoning genre of mostly comic biopics portraying political figures still or at least recently in office, Xavier Durringer’s film chronicles conservative Nicolas Sarkozy’s rise to the French presidency. As cannily impersonated by Denis Podalydès, Sarkozy (a.k.a. the Midget, to his detractors) is a Napoleon complex-afflicted shark whose need for perpetual careerist motion cancels out enjoyment even for his triumphs — save, perhaps, a momentary gloat over enemies left trampled. At the start he’s already neared the top of the government ladder, albeit not nearly near enough. Several years’ further upward scrambling are framed by flash-forwards to 2007, when he’s on the verge of finally becoming president, albeit at the cost of “top advisor” and long-suffering first wife Cécilia (Florence Pernel) jumping ship. Her earlier lament “Our life has become a TV show” has been ignored by a spouse quite happy living an almost entirely public, media-hounded life. (Although as his popularity continues to sink, Sarkozy almost certainly doesn’t feel that way now.) Without depiction of or insight into the main figure’s background, The Conquest becomes an entertaining but superficial, near-farcical enterprise providing little insight into what makes him tick. But then, that’s the problem with instant biographies — it’s a lot easier to grasp a significant figure’s complexities when enough time has passed for hindsight to clear the immediate fog of scandal, spectacle, and grotesquerie. (1:45) (Harvey) The Devil Inside Another year, another CG-heavy exorcism movie. (1:27)
*Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone This doc offers a lively, revealing look at SoCal ska-punk rockers Fishbone, a band that formed circa 1979 in a San Fernando Valley junior high newly filled with bussed-in South Central kids. In its heyday, Fishbone enjoyed cult success with hits like “Party at Ground Zero” and the tune that gives the film its title; Everyday Sunshine speaks to Fishbone’s broad appeal, as famous faces chime in to reminisce (and longtime fan Laurence Fishburne narrates), but it also illuminates some of the reasons its members never became megastars. Codirectors Chris Metzler (a San Francisco resident best-known for 2004’s Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea) and Lev Anderson spent months on the road with the band, capturing the infectious energy of its live shows in addition to behind-the-scenes tension. Past members add their voices, but the main protagonists are bassist-vocalist Norwood Fisher and lead vocalist-saxophone player Angelo Moore. Their intertwining stories offer a poignant portrait of creative soulmates who’ve weathered many storms (personality conflicts, legal and money troubles, an industry that didn’t know how to categorize them) without once giving up on their music. In addition to its compelling story, the film’s quirkier stylistic choices, including animation, lift Everyday Sunshine above the crowded field of traditional music docs. The filmmakers will be on hand for Q&As on opening weekend, with the band in person (and performing short sets) at Fri/6 shows. (1:47) Roxie. (Eddy)
In the Land of Blood and Honey See “Lights, Jolie, Action.” (2:07)
It Came from Detroit See Trash. (1:27) Roxie.
King of Devil’s Island When teenaged Erling (Benjamin Helstad) arrives at Bastøy Prison — more labor camp than reform school — he’s more worldly than many of the other boys there, especially Olav (Trond Nilssen), though the newcomer and long-time inmate bond over a shared fascination with seafaring life. That’s about the only happy thing that happens in Bastøy; set in 1915, King of Devil’s Island is based on the Norwegian island prison’s troubled past, and a rebellion that erupts when the boys reach the breaking point. Surprisingly, it’s not the exhausting work (hauling rocks and trees as rain and snow whip across gloomy fjords) that leads to unrest — it’s the failure of the camp’s strict-but-not-sadistic overseer (go-to stern Scandinavian Stellan Skarsgård) to remove a “housefather” with rapey tendencies. An overlong running time enables a few too many climaxes (though the big uprising is well-earned, and cathartic), but director Marius Holst avoids melodrama, and powerful performances, particularly by the glowering Helstad, elevate the grim King above typical hell-is-for-children fare. (1:54) SFFS New People Cinema. (Eddy)
ONGOING
*The Adventures of Tintin Producer Peter Jackson and director Steven Spielberg join forces to adapt the work of Belgian comic creator Hergé, using performance-capture 3D animation (and featuring that new technology’s most prominent performer, Andy Serkis, in a key role). Hergé wrote over 20 volumes following the globe-trotting exploits of intrepid young reporter Tintin (Jamie Bell) and his canine companion, Snowy; The Adventures of Tintin draws from a trio of books dating from the early 1940s, tweaking the tales a bit but retaining the series’ ebullient energy and sharp humor. After he impulsively buys a model ship, Tintin is sucked into a mystery involving a long-lost pirate treasure sought by the sinister Sakharine (Daniel Craig) and, eventually, newfound Tintin ally Captain Haddock (Serkis). Fan favorites Thompson and Thomson (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost — frequent compadre Edgar Wright co-wrote the script) and a certain “Milanese Nightingale” make appearances in a story that careens between exotic locales and high-seas battles, and is packed with epic chase scenes that would leave Indiana Jones breathless. And in case you were worried, Tintin boasts the least creepy, least “uncanny valley” performance-capture animation I’ve seen to date. (1:47) (Eddy)
Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-wrecked (1:27)
*The Artist With the charisma-oozing agility of Douglas Fairbanks swashbuckling his way past opponents and the supreme confidence of Rudolph Valentino leaning, mid-swoon, into a maiden, French director-writer Michel Hazanavicius hits a sweet spot, or beauty mark of sorts, with his radiant new film The Artist. In a feat worthy of Fairbanks or Errol Flynn, Hazanavicius juggles a marvelously layered love story between a man and a woman, tensions between the silents and the talkies, and a movie buff’s appreciation of the power of film — embodied in particular by early Hollywood’s union of European artistry and American commerce. Dashing silent film star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin, who channels Fairbanks, Flynn, and William Powell — and won this year’s Cannes best actor prize) is at the height of his career, adorable Jack Russell by his side, until the talkies threaten to relegate him to yesterday’s news. The talent nurtured in the thick of the studio system yearns for real power, telling the newspapers, “I’m not a puppet anymore — I’m an artist,” and finances and directs his own melodrama, while his youthful protégé Peppy Miller (Bérénice Béjo) becomes a yakky flapper age’s new It Girl. Both a crowd-pleasing entertainment and a loving précis on early film history, The Artist never checks its brains at the door, remaining self-aware of its own conceit and its forebears, yet unashamed to touch the audience, without an ounce of cynicism. (1:40) (Chun)
Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey (1:25)
A Dangerous Method Cool and chatty (unsurprisingly, given its subject matter and the fact that it’s based on a play and a novel), David Cronenberg’s latest begins in 1904 Zurich as a shrieking patient (Keira Knightley) is escorted into the care of psychiatrist Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender). Dr. Jung, an admirer of Sigmund Freud, tests the “talking cure” on the woman, who turns out to be the fiercely intelligent and conveniently beautiful Sabina Spielrein. An attraction, both intellectual and sexual, soon develops, no matter that Jung is Sabina’s doctor, or that he happens to be married to a prim wife whose family wealth keeps him in boats and lake houses. Meanwhile, Jung and Freud (an excellent Viggo Mortensen) begin corresponding, eventually meeting and forming a friendship that’s tested first when Sabina comes between them, and later when Jung expresses a growing interest in fringe pursuits like parapsychology. The scenes between Freud and Jung are A Dangerous Method‘s most intriguing — save those brief few involving Vincent Cassel as a doctor-turned-patient who advises Jung to “never repress anything” — but the film is mostly concerned with Jung’s various Sabina-related dramas. Pity that this is a tightly-wound Fassbender’s least dynamic performance of the year, and that Knightley, way over the top in Sabina’s hysterical scenes, telegraphs “casting mistake” from the get-go. (1:39) (Eddy)
The Darkest Hour (1:29)
*The Descendants Like all of Alexander Payne’s films save 1996 debut Citizen Ruth, The Descendants is an adaptation, this time from Kaui Hart Hemmings’ excellent 2007 novel. Matt King (George Clooney) is a Honolulu lawyer burdened by various things, mostly a) being a haole (i.e. white) person nonetheless descended from Hawaiian royalty, rich in real estate most natives figure his kind stole from them; and b) being father to two children by a wife who’s been in a coma since a boating accident three weeks ago. Already having a hard time transitioning from workaholic to hands-on dad, Matt soon finds out this new role is permanent, like it or not — spouse Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie, just briefly seen animate) will not wake up. The Descendants covers the few days in which Matt has to share this news with Elizabeth’s loved ones, mostly notably Shailene Woodley and Amara Miller as disparately rebellious teen and 10-year-old daughters. Plus there’s the unpleasant discovery that the glam, sporty, demanding wife he’d increasingly seemed “not enough” for had indeed been looking elsewhere. When has George Clooney suggested insecurity enough to play a man afraid he’s too small in character for a larger-than-life spouse? But dressed here in oversized shorts and Hawaiian shirts, the usually suave performer looks shrunken and paunchy; his hooded eyes convey the stung joke’s-on-me viewpoint of someone who figures acknowledging depression would be an undeserved indulgence. Payne’s film can’t translate all the book’s rueful hilarity, fit in much marital backstory, or quite get across the evolving weirdness of Miller’s Scottie — though the young actors are all fine — but the film’s reined-in observations of odd yet relatable adult and family lives are all the more satisfying for lack of grandiose ambition. (1:55) (Harvey)
*Drive Such a lovely way to Drive, drunk on the sensual depths of a lush, saturated jewel tone palette and a dreamlike, almost luxurious pacing that gives off the steamy hothouse pop romanticism of ’80s-era Michael Mann and David Lynch — with the bracing, impactful flecks of threat and ultraviolence that might accompany a car chase, a moody noir, or both, as filtered through a first-wave music video. Drive comes dressed in the klassic komforts — from the Steve McQueen-esque stances and perfectly cut jackets of Ryan Gosling as the Driver Who Shall Remain Nameless to the foreboding lingering in the shadows and the wittily static, statuesque strippers that decorate the background. Gosling’s Driver is in line with Mann’s other upstanding working men who hew to an old-school moral code and are excellent at what they do, regardless of what side of the law they’re working: he likes to keep it clear and simple — his services as a wheelman boil down to five minutes, in and out — but matters get messy when he falls for sweet-faced neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), who lives down the hall with her small son, and her ex-con husband (Oscar Isaac) is dragged back into the game. Populated by pungent side players like Albert Brooks, Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman, and Christina Hendricks, and scattered with readily embeddable moments like a life-changing elevator kiss that goes bloodily wrong-right, Drive turns into a real coming-out affair for both Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (2008’s Bronson), who rises above any crisis of influence or confluence of genre to pick up the po-mo baton that Lynch left behind, and 2011’s MVP Ryan Gosling, who gets to flex his leading-man muscles in a truly cinematic role, an anti-hero and under-the-hood psychopath looking for the real hero within. (1:40) (Chun)
The Flowers of War (2:21)
*The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo The meeting of Stieg Larsson’s first “Millennium” book and David Fincher promised fireworks, as he’s a director who can be equally vivid and exacting with just the elements key to the series: procedural detail, obsession, violence, tweaked genre conventions, mind games, haunted protagonists, and expansive story arcs. But perhaps because this possible franchise launch had to be rushed into production to ride the Larsson wave, what should have been a terrific matchup turns out to be just a good one — superior in some stylistic departments (notably Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ pulsing score), but overall neither an improvement nor a disappointment in comparison to the uninspired but effective 2009 Swedish film version. Daniel Craig plays Mikael Blomkvist, the muckraking Stockholm journalist whose public disgrace after a failed expose of a suspect corporate tycoon makes him the perfect candidate for an unexpected assignment: staying sequestered in the wealthy, warring Vanger clan’s island home to secretly investigate a teenage girl’s disappearance and presumed murder 40 years ago. His testy helpmate is the singular Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), antisocial hacker, researcher, and ex-mental patient par excellence. Nearly three hours long, the compressed, slightly altered (get over it) storyline nonetheless feels rushed at times; Fincher manages the rare feat of making mostly internet research exciting in filmic terms, yet oddly the book’s more shocking episodes of sex and/or mayhem don’t have the memorable impact one might expect from him. The leads are fine, as is the big support cast of recognizable faces (Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgård, Robin Wright, etc.) But the knockout suspense, atmosphere, and urgency one hoped for isn’t present in this intelligent, not entirely satisfying treatment. On the other hand, maybe those who’ve already read the books and seen the prior films have already had so much exposure to this material that a revelatory experience is no longer possible. (2:38) (Harvey)
Le Havre Aki Kaurismäki’s second French-language film (following 1992’s La Vie de Boheme) offers commentary on modern immigration issues wrapped in the gauze of a feel good fairy tale and cozy French provincialism a la Marcel Pagnol. Worried about the health of his hospitalized wife (Kaurismäki regular Kati Outinen), veteran layabout and sometime shoe shiner Marcel (Andre Wilms) gets some welcome distraction in coming to the aid of Idrissa (Blondin Miguel), a young African illegally trying to make way to his mother in London while eluding the gendarmes. Marcel’s whole neighborhood of port-town busybodies and industrious émigrés eventually join in the cause, turning Le Havre into a sort of old-folks caper comedy with an incongruously sunny take on a rising European multiculturalism in which there are no real racist xenophobes, just grumps deserving comeuppance. Incongruous because Kaurismäki is, of course, the king of sardonically funny Finnish miserabilism — and while it’s charmed many on the festival circuit, this combination of his usual poker-faced style and feel-good storytelling formula may strike others as an oil-and-water mismatch. (1:43) (Harvey)
Hugo Hugo turns on an obviously genius conceit: Martin Scorsese, working with 3D, CGI, and a host of other gimmicky effects, creates a children’s fable that ultimately concerns one of early film’s pioneering special-effects fantasists. That enthusiasm for moviemaking magic, transferred across more than a century of film history, was catching, judging from Scorsese’s fizzy, exhilarating, almost-nauseating vault through an oh-so-faux Parisian train station and his carefully layered vortex of picture planes as Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield), an intrepid engineering genius of an urchin, scrambles across catwalk above a buzzing station and a hotheaded station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen). Despite the special effects fireworks going off all around him, Hugo has it rough: after the passing of his beloved father (Jude Law), he has been stuck with an nasty drunk of a caretaker uncle (Ray Winstone), who leaves his duties of clock upkeep at a Paris train station to his charge. Hugo must steal croissants to survive and mechanical toy parts to work on the elaborate, enigmatic automaton he was repairing with his father, until he’s caught by the fierce toy seller (Ben Kingsley) with a mysterious lousy mood and a cute, bright ward, Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz). Although the surprisingly dark-ish Hugo gives Scorsese a chance to dabble a new technological toolbox — and the chance to wax pedantically, if passionately, about the importance of film archival studies — the effort never quite despite transcends its self-conscious dazzle, lagging pacing, diffuse narrative, and simplistic screenplay by John Logan, based on Brian Selznick’s book. Even the actorly heavy lifting provided by assets like Kingsley and Moretz and the backloaded love for the fantastic proponents at the dawn of filmmaking fail to help matters. Scorsese attempts to steal a little of the latters’ zeal, but one can only imagine what those wizards would do with motion-capture animation or a blockbuster-sized server farm. (2:07) (Chun)
I Melt With You A lamentation frequently heard is that men don’t know how to express their feelings. At least not the theoretically less “manly” ones of vulnerability, self-doubt, weepiness, affection, “do these board shorts make me look fat?,” etc. Every once in a while, however, there comes an entertainment that makes you think: better to keep those feelings unexpressed, bud. “Entertainment” is a term pretty loosely applied to I Melt With You, which careens drunkenly between the obnoxious, embarrassing, and unintentionally hilarious before really jumping off a cliff of unearned, fatal self importance. Richard (Thomas Jane) is a once-promising novelist whose printed output stalled short of the sophomore slump, and who’s now reduced to teaching actual sophomores. Jonathan (Rob Lowe) has blown his marriage, child custody, and Hippocratic Oath playing Dr. Feelgood to prescription-addicted socialites. Ron (Jeremy Piven) is a symptom of high-flying Wall Street corruption whose lush life is about to collapse under a hailstorm of federal fraud investigation. Tim (Christian McKay) is depressed — hey, somebody has to be fourth-billed and most expendable plot-wise. They’re gathering at shared age 44 — the horror — for their annual week long bacchanal at an impressive cliffside Monterey manse. Faced with the unbearable triteness of their being, these quixotically arrogant self-loathers implode in terms just as meaningful as you’d expect from four reasonably privileged grown white men whose primary source of angst is the fact that life didn’t turn out to be as easy or fun as imagined in their freshman dorm. Credit is due to director Mark Pellington (1999’s Arlington Road) and first-time (possibly last-time) scenarist Glenn Porter for their resolute belief that such crybaby bathos merits tragic grandeur. They take the term “epic fail” seriously, making I Melt the Götterdämmerung of male menopause movies. (1:47) (Harvey)
J. Edgar The usual polished, sober understatement of Clint Eastwood’s directing style and the highlights-compiling CliffsNotes nature of Dustin Lance Black’s screenplay turn out to be interestingly wrong choices for this biopic about one of the last American century’s most divisive figures. Interesting in that they’re perhaps among the very few who would now dare viewing the late, longtime FBI chief with so much admiration tempered by awareness of his faults — rather than the other way around. After all, Hoover (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) strengthened his bureau in ways that, yes, often protected citizens and state, but at what cost? The D.C. native eventually took to frequently “bending” the law, witch-hunting dubious national enemies (he thought the Civil Rights movement our worst threat since the bomb-planting Bolshevik anarchists of half a century earlier), blackmailing personal ones, weakening individual rights against surveillance, hoarding power (he resented the White House’s superior authority), lying publicly, and doing just about anything to heighten his own fame. A movie that internalized and communicated his rising paranoid megalomania (ironically Hoover died during the presidency of Nixon, his equal in that regard) might have stood some chance of making us understand this contradiction-riddled cipher. But J. Edgar is doggedly neutral, almost colorless (literally so, in near-monochrome visual presentation), its weird appreciation of the subject’s perfectionism and stick-to-it-iveness shutting out almost any penetrating insight. (Plus there’s Eastwood’s own by-now-de rigueur soundtrack of quasi-jazz noodling to make what is vivid here seem more dull and polite.) The love that dare not speak its name — or, evidently, risk more than a rare peck on the cheek — between Hoover and right-hand-man/life companion Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer, very good if poorly served by his old-age makeup) becomes both the most compelling and borderline-silly thing here, fueled by a nervous discretion that seems equal parts Black’s interest and Eastwood’s discomfort. While you might think the directors polar opposites in many ways, the movie J. Edgar ultimately recalls most is Oliver Stone’s 1995 Nixon: both ambitiously, rather sympathetically grapple with still-warm dead gorgons and lose, filmmaker and lead performance alike laboring admirably to intelligent yet curiously stilted effect. (2:17) (Harvey)
*Melancholia Lars von Trier is a filmmaker so fond of courting controversy it’s like he does it in spite of himself — his rambling comments about Hitler (“I’m a Nazi”) were enough to get him banned from the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, where Melancholia had its debut (and star Kirsten Dunst won Best Actress). Oops. Maybe after the (here’s that word again) controversy that accompanied 2009’s Antichrist, von Trier felt like he needed a shocking context for his more mellow latest. Pity that, for Melancholia is one of his strongest, most thoughtful works to date. Split into two parts, the film follows first the opulent, disastrous, never-ending wedding reception of Justine (Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgard), held at a lavish estate owned by John (Kiefer Sutherland), the tweedy husband of Justine’s sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg). Amid the turmoil of arguments (John Hurt and Charlotte Rampling as Justine and Claire’s divorced parents), pushy guests (Stellan Skarsgard as Justine’s boss), livid wedding planner (Udo Kier, amazing), and hurt feelings (Michael is the least-wanted groom since Kris Humphries), it’s clear that something is wrong with Justine beyond just marital jitters. The film’s second half begins an unspecified amount of time later, as Claire talks her severely depressed, near-catatonic sister into moving into John’s mansion. As Justine mopes, it’s revealed that a small planet, Melancholia — glimpsed in Melancholia‘s Wagner-scored opening overture — is set to pass perilously close to Earth. John, an amateur astronomer, is thrilled; Claire, fearful for her young son’s future and goaded into high anxiety by internet doomsayers, is convinced the planets will collide, no matter what John says. Since Justine (apparently von Trier’s stand-in for himself) is convinced that the world’s an irredeemably evil place, she takes the news with a shrug. Von Trier’s vision of the apocalypse is somber and surprisingly poetic; Dunst and Gainsbourg do outstanding work as polar-opposite sisters whose very different reactions to impending disaster are equally extreme. (2:15) (Eddy)
Midnight in Paris Owen Wilson plays Gil, a self-confessed “Hollywood hack” visiting the City of Light with his conservative future in-laws and crassly materialistic fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams). A romantic obviously at odds with their selfish pragmatism (somehow he hasn’t realized that yet), he’s in love with Paris and particularly its fabled artistic past. Walking back to his hotel alone one night, he’s beckoned into an antique vehicle and finds himself transported to the 1920s, at every turn meeting the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), Dali (Adrien Brody), etc. He also meets Adriana (Marion Cotillard), a woman alluring enough to be fought over by Hemingway (Corey Stoll) and Picasso (Marcial di Fonzo Bo) — though she fancies aspiring literary novelist Gil. Woody Allen’s latest is a pleasant trifle, no more, no less. Its toying with a form of magical escapism from the dreary present recalls The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), albeit without that film’s greater structural ingeniousness and considerable heart. None of the actors are at their best, though Cotillard is indeed beguiling and Wilson dithers charmingly as usual. Still — it’s pleasant. (1:34) (Harvey)
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol No world landmark (the Kremlin, the Burj Khalifia) is too iconic and/or freaking tall for uber-adrenalized Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team (Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton, Simon “Comic Relief” Pegg) to infiltrate, climb, assume false identities in, use as a home base for unleashing futuristic spy technology that seems almost plausible (with the help of lots of iPads), race a BMW through, etc. One kind of gets the sense that Cruise and company sat down with a piece of paper and were like, “What stunts haven’t we done before, and how many of them can I do with my shirt off?” Celebrated animation director Brad Bird (2004’s The Incredibles) is right at home with Ghost Protocol as his first live-action effort — the film’s plot (set in the present day, it involves a positively vintage blend of Russians and nukes) and even its unmemorable villain take a back seat to Cruise’s secret-agent shenanigans, most of which take the form of a crazy plan that must be altered at the last minute, resulting in an even crazier plan, which must be implemented despite the sudden appearance of yet another ludicrously daunting obstacle, like, say, a howling sandstorm. For maximum big dumb fun, make sure you catch the IMAX version. A warning, though: any time the movie screeches to a halt to explore emotions or attempt characterization … zzz. (2:13) (Eddy)
The Muppets Of course The Muppets is a movie appropriate for small fry, with a furry cast (supplemented by human co-stars Jason Segel and Amy Adams) cracking wise and conveying broad themes about the importance of friendship, self-confidence, and keeping dreams alive despite sabotage attempts by sleazy oil tycoons (Chris Cooper, comically evil in the grand Muppet-villain tradition). But the true target seems to be adults who grew up watching The Muppet Show and the earliest Muppet movies (1999’s Muppets from Space doesn’t count); the “getting the gang back together” sequence takes up much of the film’s first half, followed by a familiar rendition of “let’s put on a show” in the second. Interwoven are constant reminders of how the Muppets’ brand of humor — including Fozzie Bear’s corny stand-up bits — is a comforting throwback to simpler times, even with a barrage of celeb cameos and contemporary gags (chickens clucking a Cee-Lo Green tune — I think you can guess which one). Co-writer Segal pays appropriate homage to the late Jim Henson’s merry creations, but it remains to be seen if The Muppets will usher in a new generation of fans, or simply serve as nostalgia fodder for grown-ups like, uh, me, who may or may not totally still own a copy of Miss Piggy’s Guide to Life. (1:38) (Eddy)
My Week With Marilyn Statuette-clutching odds are high for Michelle Williams, as her impersonation of a famous dead celebrity is “well-rounded” in the sense that we get to see her drunk, disorderly, depressed, and so forth. Her Marilyn Monroe is a conscientious performance. But when the movie isn’t rolling in the expected pathos, it’s having other characters point out how instinctive and “magical” Monroe is onscreen — and Williams doesn’t have that in her. Who could? Williams is remarkable playing figures so ordinary you might look right through them on the street, in Wendy and Lucy (2008), Blue Valentine (2010), etc. But as Monroe, all she can do is play the little-lost girl behind the sizzle. Without the sizzle. Which is, admittedly, exactly what My Week — based on a dubious true story — asks of her. It is true that in 1956 the Hollywood icon traveled to England to co-star with director Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) in a fluff romance, The Prince and the Showgirl; and that she drove him crazy with her tardiness, mood swings, and crises. It’s debatable whether she really got so chummy with young production gofer Colin Clark, our wistful guide down memory lane. He’s played with simpering wide-eyed adoration by Eddie Redmayne, and his suitably same-aged secondary romantic interest (Emma Watson) is even duller. This conceit could have made for a sly semi-factual comedy of egos, neurosis, and miscommunication. But in a rare big-screen foray, U.K. TV staples director Simon Curtis and scenarist Adrian Hodges play it all with formulaic earnestness — Marilyn is the wounded angel who turns a starstruck boy into a brokenhearted but wiser man as the inevitable atrocious score orders our eyes to mist over. (1:36) (Harvey)
New Year’s Eve (1:58)
*Pariah A teenage girl stands stock-still in a dark nightclub, gazing with desire and fear at the half-naked female dancers on the stage. Later, riding home on the bus, she slowly removes the layers of butch that held her together in the club, stripping down to some version of the person her parents need to see when she walks in the door. Nearly wordlessly, the opening scenes of Dee Rees’s Pariah poignantly depict the embattled internal life of Alike (Adepero Oduye), a 17-year-old African American girl living in Brooklyn with her family and struggling both to be seen as she is and to determine what that might look like. The battles are being waged externally, too, between Alike’s adoring father (Charles Parnell), living in willful ignorance, and angry, rigid mother (Kim Wayans), desperately enforcing a feminine dress code and steering Alike away from openly butch friend Laura (Pernell Walker). Rees’ script beautifully conveys a household of landmines and chasms, which widen as husband and wife and daughter struggle and fail to communicate, asking the wrong questions, fearfully skirting the truth about Alike’s sexuality and her parents’ crumbling marriage. And the world outside proves full of romantic pitfalls and the tensions of longtime friendship and peer pressure. The poems in which the talented Alike takes solace and makes her way toward a more truthful existence are beautiful, but at a certain point the lyricism overtakes the film, forcing an ending that is tidy but less than satisfying. (1:26) (Rapoport)
*Shame It’s been a big 2011 for Michael Fassbender, with Jane Eyre, X-Men: First Class, Shame, and A Dangerous Method raising his profile from art-house standout to legit movie star (of the “movie stars who can also act” variety). Shame may only reach one-zillionth of X-Men‘s audience due to its NC-17 rating, but this re-teaming with Hunger (2008) director Steve McQueen is Fassbender’s highest achievement to date. He plays Brandon, a New Yorker whose life is tightly calibrated to enable a raging sex addiction within an otherwise sterile existence, including an undefined corporate job and a spartan (yet expensive-looking) apartment. When brash, needy, messy younger sister Cissy (Carey Mulligan, speaking of actors having banner years) shows up, yakking her life all over his, chaos results. Shame is a movie that unfolds in subtle details and oversized actions, with artful direction despite its oft-salacious content. If scattered moments seem forced (loopy Cissy’s sudden transformation, for one scene, into a classy jazz singer), the emotions — particularly the titular one — never feel less than real and raw. (1:39) (Eddy)
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Maybe Guy Ritchie should’ve quit while he was ahead. Thanks to strong performances from Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, the British director’s first Holmes flick proved surprisingly fun. Two years later, it’s clear that Ritchie’s well of creatitivity has run dry. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is cliched and overlong, burying a few good ideas under an avalanche of tired action movie stalwarts gone steampunk. To be fair, the set design and art direction are still sumptuous, creating a hyperbolic, detailed vision of Victorian Europe. New cast additions Jared Harris (as Moriarty, maliciously polite) and Stephen Fry (as Mycroft, eccentric and nude) do well with limited material. Noomi Rapace, playing a helpful gypsy, is superfluous. Downey Jr. and Law are still game for some amusing PG-13 homoeroticism, but it’s the former’s disinterested performance that ensures the movie’s downfall. Forced to make do without witty quips or interesting deductions, the Holmes of A Game of Shadows is part bruiser, part buffoon. The game’s a flop, Watson. (2:09) (Ben Richardson)
The Sitter Which lovable schlub do you identify with more — Zach Galifianakis or Jonah Hill? Galiafiankias was already a full-blown standup-of-sorts talent before he broke into the cineplexes, but Hill — son of Richard Feldstein, account to rockers such as Metallica — seems like a natural talent of the kind that wasn’t buffed and bruised onstage, but embodies a kind of Apatow-like organic funniness untied to one-liners and conventional shtick. In a way that musicians like his father’s clients might appreciate, he riffs well, and that talent serves him pretty well in The Sitter, which the actor has described as a mash-up of Adventures in Babysitting (1987) and After Hours (1985), only more punk rock. It’s actually more hip-hop pop, as filtered through a hapless but smartypants college drop-out and pitched to his 20-something peer group rather than the rug rats, but who’s sweatin’? As our tale opens, Noah (Hill) is not-so-busy failing to launch, living with his lovelorn mom, when he gets roped into sitting her pal’s kids as a good deed. The little monsters (Max Records, Landry Bender, and Kevin Hernandez) need a dose of harsh reality, and surprise, Noah is prepared to give it to them, when he goes on a drug run for his bad girlfriend (Ari Graynor). Hill does well with what he’s got to work with, as do such sketched-out figures like Sam Rockwell’s oddball gay dealer, who seems clearly derived from Alfred Molina’s character in Boogie Nights (1997), and though this effort never quite transcends its obvious sound-bite inspirations (and makes sure everyone feels far too good at the end), it delivers some cute-crass pleasure for just a brief sitting. (1:21) (Chun)
The Skin I Live In I’d like to think that Pedro Almodóvar is too far along in his frequently-celebrated career to be having a midlife crisis, but all the classic signs are on display in his flashy, disjointed new thriller. Still mourning the death of his burn victim wife and removed from his psychologically disturbed daughter, brilliant-but-ethically compromised plastic surgeon Robert (played with smoldering creepiness by former Almodóvar heartthrob Antonio Banderas) throws himself into developing a new injury-resistant form of prosthetic skin, testing it on his mysterious live-in guinea pig, Vera (the gorgeous Elena Anaya, whose every curve is on view thanks to an après-ski-ready body suit). Eventually, all hell breaks loose, as does Vera, whose back story, as we find out, owes equally to 1960’s Eyes Without a Face and perhaps one of the Saw films. And that’s not even the half of it — to fully recount every sharp turn, digression and MacGuffin thrown at us would take the entirety of this review. That’s not news for Almodóvar, though. Much like Rainer Werner Fassbinder before him, Almodóvar’s métier is melodrama, as refracted through a gay cinephile’s recuperative affections. His strength as a filmmaker is to keep us emotionally tethered to the story he’s telling, amidst all the allusions, sex changes and plot twists torn straight from a telenovela. The real shame of The Skin I Live In is that so much happens that you don’t actually have time to care much about any of it. Although its many surfaces are beautiful to behold (thanks largely to cinematographer José Luis Alcaine), The Skin I Live In ultimately lacks a key muscle: a heart. (1:57) (Sussman)
*Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Tomas Alfredson (2008’s Let the Right One In) directs from Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan’s sterling adaptation of John le Carré’s classic spy vs. spy tale, with Gary Oldman making the role of George Smiley (famously embodied by Alec Guinness in the 1979 miniseries) completely his own. Your complete attention is demanded, and deserved, by this tale of a Cold War-era, recently retired MI6 agent (Oldman) pressed back into service at “the Circus” to ferret out a Soviet mole. Building off Oldman’s masterful, understated performance, Alfredson layers intrigue and an attention to weird details (a fly buzzing around a car, the sound of toast being scraped with butter) that heighten the film’s deceptively beige 1970s palette. With espionage-movie trappings galore (safe houses, code machines), a returned-to flashback to a surreal office Christmas party, and bang-on supporting performances by John Hurt, Mark Strong, Colin Firth, Toby Jones, and the suddenly ubiquitous Benedict Cumberbatch, Tinker Tailor epitomizes rule one of filmmaking: show me, don’t tell me. A movie that assumes its audience isn’t completely brain-dead is cause for celebration and multiple viewings — not to mention a place among the year’s best. (2:07) (Eddy)
*Tomboy In her second feature, French filmmaker Céline Sciamma (2007’s Water Lilies) depicts the brave and possibly perilous gender experimentations of a 10-year-old girl. Laure (Zoé Héran) moves with her family to a new town, falls in with the neighborhood gang during the summer vacation, and takes the stranger-comes-to-town opportunity to adopt a new, male persona, Mikael, a leap of faith we see her consider for a moment before jumping, eyes open. Watching Mikael quietly observe and then pick up the rough mannerisms and posturing of his new peers, while negotiating a shy romance with Lisa (Jeanne Disson), the sole female member of the gang, is to shift from amazement to amusement to anxiety and back again. As the children play games in the woods and roughhouse on a raft in the water and use a round of Truth or Dare to inspect their relationships to one another, all far from the eyes of the adults on the film’s periphery, Mikael takes greater and greater risks to inhabit an identity that he is constructing as he goes, and that is doomed to be demolished sooner, via accidental discovery, or later, when fall comes and the children march off to school together. All of this is superbly handled by Sciamma, who gently guides her largely nonprofessional young cast through the material without forcing them into a single precocious situation or speech. The result is a sweet, delicate story with a steady undercurrent of dread, as we wait for summer’s end and hope for the best and imagine the worst. (1:22) (Rapoport)
Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part One Some may have found Robert Pattinson’s stalker-suitor Edward Cullen sufficiently creepy (fits of overprotective rage, flirtatious comments about his new girlfriend’s lip-smackingly narcotic blood) in 2008’s first installment of the Twilight franchise. And nothing much in 2009’s New Moon (suicide attempt) or 2010’s Eclipse (jealous fits, poor communication) strongly suggested he was LTR material, to say nothing of marriage for all eternity. But Twilight 3.5 is where things in the land of near-constant cloud cover and perpetually shirtless adolescent werewolves go seriously off the rails — starting with the post-graduation teen nuptials of bloodsucker Edward and his tasty-smelling human bride, Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), and ramping up considerably when it turns out that Edward’s undead sperm are, inexplicably, still viable for baby-making. One of the film’s only sensible lines is uttered at the wedding by high school frenemy Jessica (Anna Kendrick), who snidely wonders whether Bella is starting to show. Of course not, in this Mormon-made tale, directed by Bill Condon (1998’s Gods and Monsters, 2004’s Kinsey). And while Bella’s dad, Charlie (Billy Burke), seems slightly more disgruntled than usual, no one other than lovesick werewolf Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) seems to question the wisdom of this shotgun-free leap from high school to honeymoon. The latter, however, after a few awkward allusions to rough sex, is soon over, and Bella does indeed start showing. Suffice it to say, it’s not one of those pregnancies that make your skin glow and your hair more lustrous. What follows is like a PSA warning against vampire-bleeder cohabitation, and one wonders if even the staunchest members of Team Edward will flinch, or adjust their stance of dewy-eyed appreciation. (1:57) (Rapoport)
*War Horse If the idea of watching heroic horses getting slaughtered amid the brutal trench warfare of World War I fills your heart with disgust, then you might want to applaud Steven Spielberg and his relatively sensitive touch with that material in the heartrending War Horse. The PG-13 rating also gives you some idea that the director will be hewing to the movie’s origins as a children’s book. Spielberg paints this tale about loss of innocence, be it in the fields of the farm or the battle, in broad strokes, but here, you might feel a bit less manipulated by his prowess as a crowd-pleasing storyteller, less conscious about the legacy he draws on, and more immersed in a story that stays as close as it can to its animal protagonist’s point of view, short of pulling a Mr. Ed. War Horse opens with Joey’s birth and follows him as he’s sold to a struggling English farm run by traumatized war veteran Ted (Peter Mullan), his spunky wife Rose (Emily Watson), and his animal-loving son Albert (Jeremy Irvine). Circumstance — and an unyielding landlord (David Thewlis) — sends Joey off to the so-called Great War, first into the care of an honorable captain (Tom Hiddleston), later a French girl (Celine Buckens), and worst, into the arms of the German enemy, where he toils as a disposable beast of burden charged with hauling the literal machines of war uphill. Spielberg shields viewers both young and old from the more explicit horrors, though gracefully imparts war’s terrors, sending fresh chills through a viewer when, for instance, a child riding a horse disappears over a ridge and fails to return. No one’s immune from tears, and you have to wonder how much healing is actually possible at War Horse‘s conclusion, despite its stylized, symbolism-laden beauty. Nonetheless cinephiles will glean a certain pleasure from images that clearly nod to the blood-red skies of Gone With the Wind (1939), the ominous deep focus of Orson Wells, and the too-bright Technicolor clarity-slash-artifice of National Velvet (1944). (2:26) (Chun)
We Bought A Zoo “If you could choose between animals or humans or animals, which would you choose?” is a standard question among passionate critter lovers, and Cameron Crowe and company go out of their way to outline which side of the divide they stand on. The result won’t please animal-centric fans of, say, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Reporter Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon) has just lost his beloved wife and is so overwhelmed by all the solo dad time he’s had with his two cute kids, Dylan (Colin Ford) and Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones), that he’s ready to do something rash. Despite the advice of his brother (Thomas Haden Church), he quits his newspaper job and throws his lot in with the ultimate child’s amusement: he buys a ramshackle zoo in the boonies and tries his darnedest to fix it. Coming with the property is the fetching if brusque zookeeper Kelly (Scarlett Johansson, slightly bushier of eyebrow — read: homelier — than usual) and a mixed bag of kooky workers (including Elle Fanning and Crowe fave Patrick Fugit). The challenge for Ben is to get the zoo up to speed, with zero previous experience and limited lucre. Unfortunately Crowe takes the human vs. animal choice to heart and errs on the side of the humanoids: there’s way too few animals here and far too little about the zoo itself. Much like an overbearing zookeeper, the filmmaker protects us from this semi-tame kingdom, when really a viewer wants to know is, when are we going to get more stories about the animals? Can we have a real tour of the grounds? Even the comic efforts of Haden Church and J.B. Smoove as Ben’s realtor aren’t enough to whisk away one’s impatience (or the unsettling feeling that Ben’s affinity for a elderly ailing tiger will end with an SF Zoo-style arm removal) with all these damn people standing between us and the creatures, like a crowd of gawkers hogging the view of the lions. (2:03) (Chun)
*Young Adult We first meet Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) passed out next to last night’s bar pickup, whose name she won’t remember upon waking. You get the feeling this scenario happens a lot to Mavis — she’s the aging Manhattan model who seems like a trophy until the guy realizes she’s an even bigger asshole than he is. Plus, she’s in Minneapolis, on a house-grade scotch budget, where the denizens of the Midwestern home town she’s long abandoned assume she’s living a relatively glittering existence as swinging single and published author (albeit ghost author, of a petering-out tween fiction franchise). But no, her life is empty. Save your sympathy, however — Mavis might feel she’s missing something, but her consumerist values and incredible selfishness aren’t going to be sacrificed in finding it. After getting a courtesy baby announcement from old boyfriend Buddy (Patrick Wilson), she makes a determination as arbitrary as it is adamant: they were always meant to be together, and she needs to reclaim him so they can re-live their glory as King Jock and Queen Bitch of high school. Never mind that Buddy is quite happy where he is — let alone that new baby, and a wife (Elizabeth Reaser) less glam but cooler than Mavis will ever be. Acting as her confidant on this kamikaze mission is ex-classmate Matt (Patton Oswalt), who wants to reverse time about two decades for very different reasons. This reunion for the Juno (2007) duo of director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody puts the latter’s facile wit to more complex, mature, organic use — though this ruthless yet quiet black character comedy is no uptempo crowd-pleaser. Rather, it’s an insidious, incisive commentary on such entertainments, as well as on juvie fiction like Sweet Valley High, whose adaptation is what Cody was developing before this tangent trumped it. It’s a surprisingly nervy movie, more like a 20-years-later sequel to Heathers (1988) than to Juno. (1:34) (Harvey)