The Croods

Eep reaches for her dreams.

(2013) Animated Feature (DreamWorks Animation) Starring the voices of Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener, Clark Duke, Cloris Leachman, Chris Sanders, Randy Thom. Directed by Chris Sanders and Kirk DeMicco

At the dawn of time, everything was new. Even change was new. Survival was the only motivator for anything and those who were able to change, survived.

Eep (Stone) is a young cave girl whose father Grug (Cage) has lived life by a strict rule; fear everything. Grug has depended on brute strength and caution to keep his family alive, including his wife Ugga (Keener), son Thunk (Duke), feral baby Sandy (Thom) and his mother-in-law Gran (Leachman), the latter of which he wouldn’t mind seeing violate a few of his rules. Eep chafes at the restrictions placed upon her, longing to see the world outside the cave but there are too many dangers in the prehistoric world for her to do that on her own.

Then one night she sees a light outside the cave. What was the sun doing out at this hour? But it wasn’t daylight. She must investigate! She follows the light and runs into Guy (Reynolds), a step up on the evolutionary ladder. He has invented fire and is running around the countryside with it. After some time, she gets that he has a lot of interesting ideas and might be a valuable addition to the family (most of their neighbors have fallen to pestilence and predators). He also has a cute little mammal named Belt (Sanders) who provides quite a few functions, not the least of which is providing appropriately dramatic musical accompaniment.

However, Guy has a warning; the world is changing and tearing itself apart. They’ll need to get to high ground in order to survive. Grug pooh-poohs the idea; they can ride anything out in the safety and security of their cave. However, when the cave is destroyed, Grug has to rethink his position (and believe me, that’s quite an accomplishment for Grug). The family will have to make its way through an increasingly hostile landscape facing all sorts of bizarre and fearsome threats before they reach safety.

I have to admit, my expectations weren’t very high for this one. It seems that of late there’s been a surfeit of mediocre animated features (some very successful I might add) that really seem to be little more than an attempt to create characters that can be marketed as toys, happy meals, TV shows and whatever money-generating idea the studios can think of. And I don’t doubt that there is some of that involved here too

But still this one has plenty of heart. Yes, the message seems to be “try bold new things” which is something most kids have trouble doing. However, the filmmakers borrow liberally from such things as the old Looney Toons Roadrunner cartoons. Some critics have complained about it; either because it’s ripping off a classic or because the classic is so violent and outrageous to begin with. However, as one who grew up on them, I can say that you couldn’t pick a better source to rip off from. And homage is the sincerest form of flattery is it not?

The voice cast is pretty small for one of these things which works out nicely. Cage, normally an actor who can lose it in an instant, plays the dad with comparative restraint. He actually has some very nice scenes with the spunky Stone as their fractured parental bond is repaired in the crisis. Da Queen shed more than a few tears and I have to admit to being misty eyed myself. That was completely unexpected.

It was also nice to hear Leachman, who last year attended the Florida Film Festival and then tended bar at the Eden into the wee hours of the morning, doing her thing. She announces with that tone that tells you she knows how irritated Grug is with the fact that she’s still alive that she is indeed, still alive. It’s Cage however who gets the best line of the film: “Release the baby!!” You had to be there I guess.

Funny and endearing, this is the kind of animated feature that the kids will love and their parents won’t mind. In fact their parents might end up liking it more than the kids, which doesn’t happen often. The Croods relies on slapstick humor, a bit of pathos and a can-do attitude to be successful, tuning out the cheap potty humor which seems to be creeping into kid flicks more and more these days (and how did I start sounding like my Dad?) which is appreciated. The first major animated feature of the year (not counting Escape From Planet Earth which I haven’t seen yet but admittedly it comes fro a mid-major) may turn out to be the most surprising – and one of the best. Who’da Thunk?

REASONS TO GO: Surprisingly moving and well-animated. Fun for the whole family. Road Runner-esque.

REASONS TO STAY: Nothing particularly new or daring.

FAMILY VALUES:  Some of the scenes in the film depict some peril that might be a bit too scary for the really young.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: After a long run with Paramount, this is the first DreamWorks Animation film to be distributed by 20th Century Fox.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 3/28/13: Rotten Tomatoes: 67% positive reviews. Metacritic: 55/100; the reviews were pretty mediocre trending towards the negative.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Incredibles

FINAL RATING: 7.5/10

NEXT: Red Planet

New Releases for the Week of March 22, 2013

THE CROODS

(DreamWorks) Starring the voices of Nicolas Cage, Ryan Reynolds, Emma Stone, Catherine Keener, Clark Duke, Cloris Leachman, Chris Sanders. Directed by Chris Sanders and Kirk DeMarco

A family of cavemen have their safety ripped away from them when the cave they’ve lived in all their lives is wiped out. They are forced to explore the prehistoric world around them which can be pretty beautiful but pretty dangerous as well. They will come to rely on one another and learn that different isn’t such a bad thing after all.

See the trailer and a music video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard, 3D

Genre: Animated Feature

Rating: PG (for some scary action)

Admission

(Focus) Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, Lily Tomlin, Michael Sheen. A prissy admissions officer for an Ivy League school visits the alternative school run by an old college friend who drops the bombshell that the student she’s recruiting might be the son she gave up for adoption back in the day. Now she finds herself bending her own rules for the young man who may well be the cause of her losing everything she’s worked so hard to build or finding the thing she truly wants – or both.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Comedy

Rating: PG-13  (for language and some sexual material)

InAPPropriate Comedy

(Freestyle Releasing) Adrien Brody, Rob Schneider, Michelle Rodriguez, Lindsay Lohan. A sketch comedy that explores all facets of crude and inappropriate behavior, from the Amazing Racist to a metrosexual cop, from a curmudgeonly porn critic to Lohan’s ultimate revenge on the paparazzi who stalk her. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Comedy

Rating: R (for strong crude and sexual content, graphic nudity, pervasive language and drug use) 

John Dies in the End

(Magnet) Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Paul Giamatti, Clancy Brown. The new designer drug du jour promises an out-of-body like no other but users are coming back…different. It seems that the drug takes them on a trans-dimensional drift and what returns isn’t human. A massive alien invasion is underway and there’s not a ship in the sky. It remains for two college dropout slackers to save the world. The world is pretty much screwed my friends – but whatever you do, don’t give away the ending….oh crap.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Sci-Fi Horror

Rating: R (for bloody violence and gore, nudity, language and drug content) 

Murph: The Protector

(Mactavish) Michael Murphy, John McElhone, Daniel Murphy, Kristin Bishop. Lt. Michael Murphy was a U.S. Navy SEAL who gave up his life for his men during an operation in Afghanistan in 2005. He was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor two years later. This is his story.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Documentary

Rating: PG (for thematic material and some language)

Olympus Has Fallen

(FilmDistrict) Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd. When the White House falls, only a disgraced Secret Service agent stands between the terrorists and their agenda. However, soon he discovers that there is a much more monstrous fate in store if he can’t rescue the President and retake the White House.

See the trailer and featurettes here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Action

Rating: R (for strong violence and language throughout) 

Spring Breakers

(A24) James Franco, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson. A group of college girls, broke and bored during spring break, decide to rob a fast food joint to finance their trip to sun and fun. However once there, the fun goes a little bit too far and the girls wind up being arrested. Bailed out by an infamous local criminal, they go on a Spring Break trip that is one for the books. However, just how far is too far?

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Crime Drama

Rating: R (for strong sexual content, language, nudity, drug use and violence throughout)

Upside Down

(Millennium) Jim Sturgess, Kirsten Dunst, Timothy Spall, Holly O’Brien. A man and a woman meet and fall in love. They’re from different social strata which makes it difficult. They also live on twinned planets whose gravitational pulls go in opposite directions which makes it nearly impossible. The despotic society that runs things doesn’t want to see these two together and takes great steps to keep them separate. But love is stronger than gravity…isn’t it?

See the trailer and a featurette here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Science Fiction

Rating: PG-13 (for some violence)

A Late Quartet

Practice makes perfect.

(2012) Drama (EntertainmentOne) Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Christopher Walken, Mark Ivanir, Imogen Poots, Wallace Shawn, Liraz Charhi, Madhur Jaffrey, Nina Lee, Megan McQuillan, Anne Sofie van Otter, Jasmine Hope Bloch. Directed by Yaron Zilberman

 

A string quartet is more than the sum of its parts. The members must learn to play not only with great discipline and technical expertise but must learn to anticipate the play of the other members. Only when they are thinking about one another can they truly harmonize beautifully.

The Fugue Quartet began life as a pioneering group of young musicians looking to push the boundaries of classical music and have largely done that. They approach their 25th anniversary with plans for another major tour spotlighting Beethoven’s Opus 131, one of the most difficult pieces for quartets due to the pacing and the length (seven movements instead of four). In fact, the instruments often start to go slightly out of tune by the seventh movement, forcing the musicians to compensate for each other.

But the well-oiled machine that is the Fugue is about to face their biggest crisis. Cellist Peter Mitchell (Walken), the heart and soul of the group, has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s and won’t be able to play for much longer. He determines the first concert of the 25th season will be his farewell.

The news hits the other member of the quartet hard, particularly Juliette Gelbart (Keener), the viola player who was literally raised by Peter and Miriam (van Otter), the opera-singing wife of Peter who had passed away the year previously. The news also sets in motion a number of events, starting with Juliette’s husband Robert (Hoffman), the quartet’s second violin who has chafed under the autocratic rule of first violinist Daniel Lerner (Ivanir), the technically perfect first violin who likes things the way they are – and is even trying to convince Peter to stay.

Peter’s mind is made up though and he has thoughts of his replacement (Lee) although he’ll have to pry her away from the leader of her trio (Shawn) who isn’t inclined to let her go. In the meantime Robert has announced that he no longer wants to play second violin exclusively; he wants to alternate in the first chair. Daniel is having none of it and to Robert’s dismay and frustration, Juliette supports Daniel and not him.

This leads to a particularly dumb move on Robert’s part which sets in motion events that will pull Robert and Juliette’s daughter Alexandra (Poots) who is also a musician, and threaten to tear apart the quartet before they make it to the farewell concert.

First-time filmmaker Zilberman gets to work with an extraordinary cast and he makes the most of it; this might well be the most well-acted movie over all I’ve seen this year. Walken is on a role of really good performances and he continues it here. But it’s Hoffman who really impresses. This is one of his best roles in the past five years. At first you think Robert is being petulant and childish but as the movie progresses you realize that this is a man who has been second fiddle in every aspect of his life, not just in the quartet. It’s heartbreaking to watch him self-destruct.

Poots is a revelation. I’d thought her just a pretty face more or less but she has a scene with Keener in which long-percolating resentments between mother and daughter finally see the light of day and as such resentments often are it’s ugly and captivating.

The movie isn’t what you’d call fast paced; although the Beethoven piece is rousing and lively, the music that moves through the movie is the current of these musician’s lives. They live quiet, comfortable lives that are filled with the most beautiful music on earth. Heck, they’re responsible for making a lot of it so why not?

This is a movie about rhythms interrupted and so it might at times not sit well with those who like their movies to be more tranquil. It is also quite predictable (does anybody not see what Danny’s character does coming from nearly the beginning of the film?) and at times has that snooty pretentiousness that you only find in the fine arts.

I really liked this movie. It takes a look at the discipline that goes in to being a world class musician, and at how being part of a group – not just in rock and roll or even just in classical music but ANY group – requires the egos be put aside, that the focus is and always must be the good of the whole over the needs of the individual. It is not natural for human beings to think that way which makes it a minor miracle when they do.

REASONS TO GO: Plenty of good performances both musically and from the actors.

REASONS TO STAY: Predictable in places and pretentious in others.

FAMILY VALUES:  There are some bad words scattered here and there and a few scenes of sexuality.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: At one time Ethan Hawke was cast in the film but had to withdraw due to scheduling conflicts.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 12/6/12: Rotten Tomatoes: 72% positive reviews. Metacritic: 67/100. The reviews are respectable.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Footnote

STRING QUARTET LOVERS: The actors received rigorous training in how to properly play their instruments but the music you actually hear is from the world-renowned Brentano Quartet.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

NEXT: The Mummy (1999)

New Releases for the Week of November 30, 2012

KILLING THEM SOFTLY

(Weinstein) Brad Pitt, Ray Liotta, James Gandolfini, Sam Rockwell, Richard Jenkins, Bella Heathcoate, Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn.  Directed by Andrew Dominik

Three not-terribly-smart guys rob a mob-protected poker game. This, as you might imagine, doesn’t sit too well with the mob and they hire a hitman to track down the perpetrators and restore order to the local criminal underworld. However as it often happens with the very foolish, not everything goes according to plan.

See the trailer, clips and a promo here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Crime Comedy

Rating: R (for violence, sexual references, pervasive language and some drug use)

Anna Karenina

(Focus) Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Kelly Macdonald. Based on the epic Leo Tolstoy novel, a woman lives a life that most women in that time and that place would envy. But as she questions her heart, she begins to question her marriage and as her world is engulfed in tumult, so too the world around her changes forever in spasms of awful violence.

See the trailer, featurettes, promos and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Drama

Rating: R (for some sexuality and violence)

The Collection

(LD Entertainment) Josh Stewart, Emma Fitzpatrick, Christopher McDonald, Navi Rawat. When the daughter of a rich man is captured by a sadistic serial killer, he hires a group of mercenaries who in turn coerce the only man who escaped from the killer’s maze alive to return and lead them to the captured girl. This proves to be much easier said than done.

See the trailer and a clip here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Horror

Rating: R (for strong bloody violence, grisly images, language and brief nudity)

Dragon

(Radius) Donnie Yen, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Tang Wei, Jimmy Wang Yu. A shy, retiring craftsman in a turn of the century Chinese village is forced to defend a shopkeeper from two violent gamblers. The police detective investigating the incident believes the craftsman is much more than he lets on. However, his investigation begins to draw the attention of the criminal underworld to the craftsman and his village.

See the trailer and a link to streaming the full movie here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Martial Arts

Rating: R (for violence)

A Late Quartet

(EntertainmentOne) Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Christopher Walken, Jeremy Northam. When a beloved member of a world-renowned string quartet gets a medical diagnosis which means his career must come to an end, the long-suppressed squabbles of ego, competitive bickering, unrequited passions and hurt feelings comes out and threatens to destroy what a quarter century of friendship, hard work and harmony has established.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Drama

Rating: R (for language and some sexuality)

The Other Son

(Cohen Media Group) Emmanuelle Devos, Pascal Elbe, Jules Sitruk, Mehdi Dehbi. Two young men – one Israeli, one Palestinian – discover that they were accidentally switched at birth. The revelation has unforeseen repercussions on not only the lives of the men but on their families as well.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Drama

Rating: PG-13 (For a scene of violence, brief language and drug use)

Silent Night

(Anchor Bay) Malcolm McDowell, Jaime King, Donal Logue, Lisa Marie. A sheriff and his deputy chase a maniac dressed as Santa Claus who is murdering those he judges to be naughty. That list includes everything from porn and adultery to green…to lesser offenses. Loosely based on the Christmas horror classic Silent Night, Deadly Night.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Horror

Rating: R (for bloody violence, some sexuality/nudity, language and brief drug use)

Talaash: The Answer Lies Within

(Reliance Big Pictures) Aamir Khan, Rani Mukherji, Kareena Kapoor, Nawazuddin Siddiqui. When a popular movie star dies when his car plunges into murky waters, a detective investigating the case is charged with discovering whether it was an accident or murder. The closer he gets to the truth however the closer he gets to his own past which he will be forced to confront if he is to find out what really happened.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Bollywood

Rating: NR

Please Give

Catherine Keener is amused at one of Oliver Platt's bon mots.

(2010) Black Comedy (Sony Classics) Catherine Keener, Oliver Platt, Rebecca Hall, Sarah Steele, Ann Guilbert, Josh Pais, Elise Ivy, Amanda Peet, Thomas Ian Nichols, Scott Cohen, Lois Smith, Amy Wright, Romy Rosemont, Kathleen Doyle, Kevin Corrigan. Directed by Nicole Holofcener

Guilt works on us in funny ways. Some of us feel compelled to assuage our guilt by doing things for others, while others simply hide that guilt away and ignore it, much like listening to a long-winded preacher on Sundays. Few of us confront it head-on.

Alex (Platt) and Kate (Keener) own an antique furniture place which is primarily stocked by finds at estate sales, or having Kate find grieving children to buy large amounts of furniture for as little as she can get away with and having Alex sell the pieces for as much as he can get away with. Pretty much typical capitalism.

However, the circumstances work on Kate’s conscience and she tends to give cash and food to the local homeless in her trendy Chelsea neighborhood in New York City much to the irritation of daughter Abby (Steele) who sees little generosity from her mother.

Alex and Kate, eager to expand their small apartment, have managed to purchase the apartment next door which they will eventually knock down the walls to in order to make a larger living space for themselves. The problem is that Audra (Guilbert, who was once Millie the neighbor on The Dick van Dyke show) lives in that apartment currently, so Alex and Kate must wait for her to die in order to start construction. The fact that Audra is a bitch of epic proportions makes this an easier proposition. This also makes for an uncomfortable relationship with Audra’s grandchildren, who have issues of their own.

Rebecca (Hall) is a mammogram technician who is kind enough on the surface, but wishy washy and indecisive deep down. She has been guilt-tripped into caring for Audra who uses her for a verbal punching bag. Mary (Peet) is a cosmetologist who appears to be confident and strong but has some anger issues and a sharp tongue that occasionally rears its ugly head.

That’s really it in terms of plot. Holofcener, one of the better American independent directors out there, prefers to deliver slices of life and character studies more than telling a story from beginning through middle to end. There is a resolution of sorts, but the payoff is somewhat low-key and doesn’t really signal any sort of growth or change on the part of any of the people in the cast.

Holofcener, unlike other directors, tends to put more attention on the women of the cast which isn’t to say that Platt doesn’t get much screen time; only that Holofcener tends to pay more attention to the main female parts of Kate, Rebecca, Mary, Audra and Abby. Platt does get some of the better lines in the movie and makes a fine foil for Kate.

Keener, who has worked with Holofcener before, is the main focus here. She talks a good game about compassion and community involvement but she mostly uses these things as a means of making herself feel better because she’s well aware that while she is doing nothing illegal she is clearly in a moral grey area. That calls into question the genuineness of her actions and Abby’s caustic remarks about charity beginning at home at first seem self-centered and teen-centric but as you come to understand Kate’s motivations, Abby’s charges seem to be more right on the money.

Most of the characters aren’t always easy to get along with and Holofcener likes it that way; her characters are presented as being flawed and occasionally stepping over the line of decency (Mary stalks the girlfriends of an ex-boyfriend she can’t get over; Alex has an affair). The relationships are complicated and often muddied by the human frailties of those in them, which is pretty much what real life is all about.

This isn’t strictly speaking 90 minutes of non-stop entertainment but it is the kind of movie that you should find fascinating from beginning to end. Parts of it are painful to watch and others will make you smile in spite of yourself. If you are still thinking about a movie several weeks after you’ve seen it then the director has done his or her job and in my case Holofcener did her job well.

WHY RENT THIS: Well-written and well-acted, particularly by Keener, Platt and Peet.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Not always easy to watch, particularly since most of the character have some sort of hang-up that makes them unlikable for long stretches, particularly in Steele’s case.

FAMILY VALUES: There is a fair amount of foul language, as well as some sexuality and nudity.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The spa scenes were shot at Skintology, a chic spa in the Chelsea area of New York City where most of the movie was shot.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There is a blooper reel and a director Q&A from a preview screening.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $4.3M on $3M production budget; it’s unlikely this was profitable at the box office.

FINAL RATING: 6.5/10

TOMORROW: Micmacs

Cyrus

Even Marisa Tomei finds the concept of falling for John C. Reilly amusing.

(Fox Searchlight) John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei, Jonah Hill, Catherine Keener, Matt Walsh, Katie Aselton, Tim Guinee, Steve Zissis, Jamie Donnelly, Diane Mizota, Kathy Ann Wittes, Charlie Brewer. Directed by the Duplass Brothers

In a simpler age, it was said a boy’s best friend was his mother. These days, that statement has creepy connotations, which is no doubt what inspired the making of this movie.

John (Reilly) is not a very happy guy. It’s been seven years since his wife divorced him (not his idea, as he very firmly points out) and ever since, he’s been in a shell. He rarely goes out, has few friends and as for a romantic life? Obviously not. Mostly, his only social contact is his ex-wife for whom he still carries a torch. She walks in on him masturbating to tell him the news that she’s getting re-married, which gives you an idea of what kind of movie this is going to be.

She badgers him to go to a party she’s throwing and at first, John isn’t keen on going. She has invited a lot of beautiful single girls and insists he goes so he can get on with his life (and by inference get out of hers). Finally he gives in and shows up, and it’s clear that he has no game whatsoever. As the night goes on, he continues to drink vodka and Red Bulls, getting progressively more sloshed and makes horrible attempts at small talk with disinterested, even to the point where he opens up to a woman (Wittes) about how desperate and lonely he is, sending her fleeing as far away from him as she can get.

He is overheard by Molly (Tomei), who can relate being also desperate and lonely. The two meet each other while John is urinating in the bushes (oh, the romance!) and she deflects the awkwardness of the situation by saying the only thing a woman can say that won’t cause the man to wish he were a thousand miles away – “Nice penis.”

From such things great romances are born, and Molly and John spend the night together. Soon, they are seeing each other seriously despite John’s misgivings about his looks (“I’m, like, Shrek!”) but John is a little concerned that she always leaves his bed in the middle of the night. One night, he follows her and finds out where she lives. He discovers she has a grown son named Cyrus (Hill) who lives at home and is working on a New Age music career.

Cyrus is welcoming enough at first but it becomes clear that he has another agenda in mind. For one thing, Cyrus is extremely possessive of his mom and doesn’t want to compete for her affection. In fact, the two are so close it’s kind of creepy; apparently Cyrus was still being breastfed when he was about, I think, eight. Years, that is – not months.

The Duplass Brothers are noted as leading artists in the “mumblecore” filmmaking movement, which is more evident in their previous features Puffy Chair and Baghead. This movie isn’t mumblecore per se, but it has some of the elements of it – like the jerky camera movements and the sudden zoom ins and zoom outs that become really annoying after awhile. It’s all part of the “Look, Ma, I’m Directing” syndrome that often affects filmmakers who have been too much on the indie circuit.

This has romantic comedy elements too, and unfortunately they are the same ones that have made American romantic comedies mostly forgettable and lame. The movie’s ending is very predictable, to the point of making me want to pound my head against the wall.

What saves the movie is the premise and the execution, as well as the acting of the three leads. Reilly and Tomei are two very likable actors and even though they’re playing very flawed characters here, they make you root for them despite those flaws. Reilly is so rumpled and beaten down you wonder what a hottie like Tomei would see in him until you find out how beaten down she is. They’re kindred spirits, which makes the romance all the more acceptable.

Jonah Hill has played some oddball characters in his time, and this is one of the oddest. Cyrus is at once pathetic and shrewd, able to play his mother like a Stradivarius. In many ways their relationship symbolizes a lot of the problems with modern parenting, the permissiveness and clinginess that many parents feel towards their children. If that was the intent of the Duplass brothers, then a big ol’ Bravo to them.

The movie is definitely creepy in places and awkward in others. Watching it is not unlike walking in on a married couple having a big fight; the longer you stay, the more awkward it feels. In some ways, I like being thrown off-balance that way – it makes for a more memorable cinematic experience. However, those who feel uncomfortable at the expression of raw emotions should stand warned that they might find it too awkward.

REASONS TO GO: Some really funny moments. The three key leads all turn in solid work.

REASONS TO STAY: Self-consciously indie combined with rom-com clichés make it an uphill climb at times to like this movie. The forced focus and montage sequences became tiresome.

FAMILY VALUES: There’s a fair amount of bad language and a little bit of sexuality. Some of the situations are decidedly uncomfortable concerning the mother-son relationship.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Filmmakers Ridley and Tony Scott served as producers on the movie, through their production company Scott Free.

HOME OR THEATER: While worth seeing in the theater, this certainly will work at home if you’d so prefer.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

TOMORROW: G-Force

New Releases for the Week of July 9, 2010

The more minions, the merrier!

DESPICABLE ME

(Universal) Starring the voices of Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Will Arnett, Kristen Wiig, Danny McBride, Julie Andrews, Miranda Cosgrove. Directed by Chris Renaud and Pierre Coffin

Deep beneath a quiet suburban neighborhood lies the unexpected – the vast underground lair of the world’s greatest supervillain, Gru. He and his vast army of minions plot dastardly deeds, some of which they actually pull off. His latest scheme – to steal the moon. However, before he can do that, he must ward off his chief rival for supervillainy, Vector and something even more insidious; three heart-stealing little girls. With vocal talents from members of Judd Apatow’s crew and SNL, this looks to be a big hit.

See the trailer, clips, featurettes and interviews here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: PG (for rude humor and mild action)

Cyrus

(Fox Searchlight) John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill, Marisa Tomei, Catherine Keener. John has given up on romance after the dissolution of his marriage; that is, until he meets Molly. The chemistry is obvious and immediate between them, but for some reason she’s reluctant to bring him to her own home. One day he follows her home and meets the other man in her life – her son Cyrus, a 21-year-old musician who has no desire whatsoever to share her with anyone, particularly a boyfriend. Even more particularly, he doesn’t want to share her with John and thus a war of wits is undertaken that will leave only one man standing alongside Molly. Oh yes, it’s a comedy.

See the trailer, clips, featurettes and interviews here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: R (for language and some sexual material)

I Am Love

(Magnolia) Tilda Swinton, Flavio Parenti, Gabrielle Ferzetti, Pippo Delbono. The Recchi family of Milan has long been masters of an industrial empire. The patriarch is married to Emma, a Russian émigré. Cracks in the façade of the family’s domination are beginning to show, however; Edo, the grandson, has no desire to inherit the family legacy and instead opens a restaurant with his friend Antonio. Further complicating matters is that Antonio and Emma fall in love and begin a torrid affair that threatens to bring the powerful family to its knees.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: R (for sexuality and nudity)

Predators

(20^th Century Fox) Adrian Brody, Alice Braga, Topher Grace, Laurence Fishburne. Producer Robert Rodriguez takes this sci-fi franchise to a whole new level as he takes some of the most vicious killers on Planet Earth and deposits them on an alien game preserve, there to be hunted down by the most vicious hunter in the universe – the predators. How will they survive and even if they do, how will they get back home?

See the trailer, featurettes and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: R (for strong creature violence and gore, and pervasive language)

New Releases for the Week of June 18, 2010

Woody and Buzz, together again at last.

TOY STORY 3

(Disney/Pixar) Starring the voices of Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Don Rickles, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Michael Keaton, R. Lee Ermey. Directed by Lee Unkrich

If you think that there is a glut of computer animated features, you have Toy Story to blame. That was the very first all-computer animated feature. It established Pixar as a major player in Hollywood and spawned an equally successful sequel; the only one Pixar has made to date. Now, they’re going the three-quel route with Andy having grown up and gone to college. His mom donates the toys to a day care center, which turns out to be bad news as there is some nefarious goings on there. Still, Andy wants Woody back, which seems a little creepy for a college boy. Still, after nearly a decade’s absence, Buzz, Woody and the gang are back which is cause for celebration in itself.

See the trailer, featurettes, clips and promos here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard, 3D and IMAX 3D

Rating: G

Jonah Hex

(Warner Brothers) Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Megan Fox, Michael Shannon. This DC comics adaptation pits a disfigured cowboy and bounty hunter out to gain revenge against the man who maimed him and killed his family. There are elements of the supernatural involved in this gritty western which is based on a character not very well known outside of comic book fandom; it’s surprising, given that better known characters like Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Arrow and Swamp Thing are all languishing in development hell that this got greenlit, and even more surprising that Warner Brothers has not promoted it very heavily. Still, the trailer looks very promising.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: PG-13 (For intense sequences of violence and action, disturbing images and sexual content)

Please Give

(Sony Classics) Catherine Keener, Oliver Platt, Amanda Peet, Rebecca Hall. A Manhattan couple purchases the apartment next door in order to eventually expand their own apartment. However, the elderly woman who resides there has to die first, which leads to a good deal of liberal guilt and as the couple begin to get involved with the lives of the elderly woman and her granddaughters, their own lives and ambitions begin the evolve. This is the latest film from director Nicole Holofcener who also directed the wonderful Friends With Money. It opened in limited release elsewhere in April.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: R (for language, some sexual content and nudity)

New Releases for the Week of February 12, 2010

If you think being called to the principal's office is bad, just try being summoned to Mt. Olympus!

PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF

(20^th Century Fox) Logan Lerman, Brandon T. Jackson, Alexandra Daddario, Sean Bean, Pierce Brosnan, Steve Coogan, Rosario Dawson, Catherine Keener, Uma Thurman, Ray Winstone, Joe Pantoliano, Kevin McKidd. Directed by Chris Columbus

High school is hard enough without finding out that you’re the human son of an ancient Greek god with amazing powers, but that’s what happens to Percy Jackson. When his mother disappears, he discovers that there is more going on behind the disappearance than at first was apparent. For one thing, the gods are mighty irritated; it seems that someone made off with Zeus’ lightning bolt, a powerful weapon. And they are planning on taking out their wrath on us puny mortals unless Percy can find the thief, but that may open up a can of worms to something even more powerful than the gods themselves.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Rating: PG (for action violence and peril, some scary images and suggestive material, and mild language)

Valentine’s Day

(New Line) Julia Roberts, Jamie Foxx, Shirley MacLaine, Bradley Cooper. Director Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman) directs an all-star ensemble cast in a series of vignettes about the Hallmark holiday in L.A. in an effort to explore the nature of love and romance in the 21^st century over the course of a single February 14^th. Not every romance has a happy ending.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website

Rating: PG-13 (for some sexual material and brief partial nudity

The Wolfman

(Universal) Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Hugo Weaving, Emily Blunt. Universal continues to re-invent their horror franchises; this time taking on Lon Chaney Jr.’s hirsute lycanthrope. Del Toro stars as Lawrence Talbot, youngest son of a noble family who lives in a crumbling mansion in a town called Blackmoor. When his older brother disappears, the brother’s fiancée asks him to locate her missing love he discovers a terrifying ancient curse that will soon entwine him in the clutches of a living nightmare.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Rating: R (for bloody horror, violence and gore)

What Just Happened

De Niro contemplates the images of his latest film in the anonymous darkness of a theater.

(Magnolia) Robert De Niro, Catherine Keener, Stanley Tucci, Robin Wright Penn, Sean Penn, Bruce Willis, John Turturro, Michael Wincott, Kristen Stewart. Directed by Barry Levinson

It is said that in space no-one can hear you scream. In Hollywood, not only can everyone hear you scream, chances are the rights to it are in turnaround.

Ben (De Niro), a veteran Hollywood producer, is at a photo shoot for a Vanity Fair feature on the 50 Most Powerful People in Hollywood and he is miffed at where he is placed on the set. In a town where perception is everything, he finds himself off to the side, away from the true power brokers. For a producer, the perception of powerlessness can make his job damn near impossible.

Ben’s latest project, a Sean Penn (played by himself) vehicle called Fiercely, is at a test screening attended by the hard-as-nails studio boss Lou Tarnow (Keener). The test scores are a disaster. Not only is the hero killed at the end of the film, so is his dog, brutally shot by generic Eurotrash hitmen. The movie is scheduled to open the Cannes Film Festival in less than two weeks and Ben is ordered to change the ending or else the vindictive Tarnow will bury the film, preventing its release in any form.

When the news is presented to the film’s manic English director Jeremy Brunell (Wincott), he has a meltdown, not wanting to compromise his artistic vision. Still, those problems pale in comparison to Ben’s next project, which is set to begin filming in ten days. It’s star, Bruce Willis, shows up to the set bloated, grossly overweight and even more terrifyingly, with a beard that would do Stonewall Jackson proud. The film’s backers are threatening to halt production and sue everyone, including Willis’ neurotic and hypochondriac agent (Turturro). To make matters worse, the film’s writer (Tucci) is having an affair with Ben’s ex-wife (Penn), who Ben wants to get back together with despite their attempts at “breakup therapy” which smacks of L.A. flightiness.

While Ben navigates a personal life that is nothing short of a minefield, his professional career is threatening to implode. And buddy, nothing is harder to come back from for a producer than the perception that he is ineffective.

Director Levinson also directed the satire Wag the Dog which skewered politics and Hollywood on the same spear, but this doesn’t have the bite that the other film possesses. The movie’s worst quality is its blandness, and that prevents the movie from being rated highly. What the film has going for it is that the cast is exceptional, led by De Niro who can make ordering a ham sandwich compelling. Willis and Wincott take the over-the-top route, which works out nicely. However, it also serves to illustrate the movie’s other glaring flaw – the characters feel more like caricatures than real people. It’s hard to get behind a movie when the characters in that movie are unbelievable.

There is a fascination with peeking behind-the-scenes in Hollywood. We all have visions of massive egos jousting for higher perches in the pecking order, and to a certain extent that’s true. There’s a certain vicarious thrill with watching rich power players grovel and from time to time get put in their places and that’s the attraction for What Just Happened. It’s unfortunate that a cast this talented and a director with the abilities of Levinson couldn’t have made a better movie, but even their lesser efforts are worth a look.

WHY RENT THIS: An insider’s look at Hollywood from a consummate Hollywood insider. An outstanding cast, led by the always watchable De Niro. Willis and Wincott in particular, give over-the-top performances.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: The movie falters when covering Ben’s personal life. While some of the scenes are based on real-life incidents, the characters don’t feel reel. The satire is bland, the kiss of death for satire.

FAMILY VALUES: The language is pretty salty and there are some scenes of violence, sexuality and drug use. Probably a bit rough for the younger sorts.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: While the book the movie is based on is non-fiction, the book’s author, producer Art Linson, chose to film it as a fictional work with fictional characters.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

TOMORROW: Traitor