Let Me In

Owen demonstrates the proper way to mess up a Rubik’s Cube to Abby.

(Overture) Chloe Moretz, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Richard Jenkins, Elias Koteas, Cara Buono, Sasha Barrese, Dylan Kenin, Chris Browning, Richie Coster, Dylan Minnette, Jimmy “Jax” Pinchak, Nicolai Dorian, Rebekah Wiggins, Seth Adkins, Brett DelBuono.  Directed by Matt Reeves

As children, we dread the monsters, the ones that emerge from our nightmares and hide in the shadows of our room. As we grow older, we learn there are no monsters, but some children know better. There are all sorts of monsters.

Owen (Smit-McPhee) is a young boy growing up in New Mexico in 1983. He’s 12, small for his age, living in a run-down apartment because his parents are in the middle of a bitter divorce, which has led his mother (Buono) to alcoholism. As many emotionally traumatized boys are, he is fragile, aloof and a little weird. He is bullied at school by Kenny (Minnette), a boy much bigger than he.

To combat his loneliness, he binges on candy (particularly Now and Laters, his favorite) and hides the wrappers in the snow. He hangs out in the deserted playground of the apartment and watches the inhabitants through a telescope; a young fitness freak, a romantic couple. He has a small knife that he sometimes whispers threats to his tormenters with – never face to face. He is alone and terrified.

One night, he sees a young girl and her father move in to the apartment next door. The next day, the windows are all covered with cardboard, which seems a bit unusual but with many daysleepers in the complex, not that unusual. One night, the little girl comes out to visit with him on the playground. Her name is Abby (Moretz) and she can’t be his friend. This she announces in a sad but firm voice.

However, they do become friends. Abby has a thing for puzzles and Owen has a doozy – the Rubik’s cube. A very strong bond develops between the two of them, despite the warning of Abby’s father (Richard Jenkins) to stay away from him. Soon, Owen is finding the strength to stand up to those who are bullying him.

However, Abby is not what she seems. As they grow closer and a series of unexplained murders bring the police in the form of a single, unnamed dogged detective (Koteas), Abby eventually reveals the truth – she needs blood to survive. Yes, that would make her a vampire.

This is based on the acclaimed Swedish film Let the Right One In which in turn was based on a novel of the same name. Many who saw the first film cringed at the idea of a Hollywood version. Cringe no more; this is nearly as good as the original. Reeves captures the feeling of despair and hopelessness that was the backdrop to the first movie, and adds the dread and sense of something really terrible about to happen that was the original’s spice.

It helps that he has two strong juvenile leads to carry the movie. Moretz has made a name for herself with astonishing turns in Kick-Ass and (500) Days of Summer. She is clearly an actress of immense talent and should have a satisfying career ahead of her. Smit-McPhee, who was also in The Road, captures the innocence and sadness of his character very nicely, retaining the kid aspect in a role that lesser actors would have tried to make more precocious.

The adult actors tend to be moved off to the side, but Jenkins does a noble job in a thankless part, while Koteas continues his strong work of late. However, it is not so much the actors but the atmosphere that will get your attention. The movie is set in the dead of winter and the bleak landscapes and frigid temperatures contribute to the overall mood, which I will admit starts to get to you after awhile.

Still, it’s a great setting for a horror movie and this is a particularly well-written one. There is just enough gore and horrifying violence to satisfy the horror fan, and enough character development to satisfy the cinephile. I happen to fall into both camps, so this movie was like catnip to me. It’s not quite as good as the Swedish version, but it’s so close that the differences are negligible. It’s well worth your Halloween dollar.

REASONS TO GO: A vampire movie that will give Twilight-haters a reason to rejoice. Strong performances from all of the leads.

REASONS TO STAY: The dismal atmosphere can get overly oppressive.

FAMILY VALUES: There are some violent, disturbing scenes and a fair amount of foul language. In addition, there’s an unexpected sexual situation; this is very much for older teens and above only.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The word “vampire” only is spoken once in the movie.

HOME OR THEATER: While some of the moody forest scenes benefit from the big screen, overall I’d say the movie is just as effective on your own television or computer screen.

FINAL RATING: 7.5/10

TOMORROW: Day Two of Six Days of Darkness

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New Releases for the Week of October 1, 2010

The creators of Facebook can’t believe they’re already getting spammed.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK

(Columbia) Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake, Andrew Garfield, Rashida Jones, Rooney Mara, Joseph Mazzello, Max Minghella, Armie Hammer. Directed by David Fincher

Facebook has become the social outlet of the 21^st century for most young people, but someone had to invent it. That someone was Mark Zuckerberg, a young Harvard student who came up with the brilliant idea to take the college experience and replicate it online. This would lead him to become the youngest billionaire in history, as well as personal and legal problems that would plague him once Facebook became the massive hit it is. The movie debuted at the New York Film Festival a few weeks ago and is already being considered a frontrunner in the Oscar race.

See the trailer and promos here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Biographical Drama

Rating: PG-13 (for sexual content, drug and alcohol use and language)

 

Case 39

(Paramount Vantage) Renee Zellweger, Jodelle Ferland, Ian McShane, Bradley Cooper. A family services worker takes on an unusual case where cruel and dangerous parents try to murder their only daughter. The social worker takes the young girl in while she tries to find a good home for her. She also enlists the help of a detective to help protect the girl, and a psychiatrist to help her get over the trauma. Unfortunately, this leads to the discovery of dark forces at work in the girl’s life. This has been sitting on the studio shelf for over a year until they decided to release it suddenly and almost without any publicity.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Supernatural Horror

Rating: R (for violence and terror, including disturbing images)

 

Chain Letter

 (New Films International) Nikki Reed, Noah Segan, Keith David, Betsy Russell. A group of high school seniors receive an electronic chain letter. When they break the chain, one by one they begin to get picked off by a maniacal serial killer. Freddie Kreuger and Jason Voorhees, move over.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Slasher Horror

Rating: R (for strong, bloody, sadistic violence throughout, language and brief nudity)

Enthiran

(Fusion Edge) Rajnikanth, Aishwarya Rai, Danny Denzongpa, Santhanam. A brilliant scientist builds a robot that looks human, has human strength and intelligence but is completely a machine. The results are unexpected to say the least.

See the trailer, clips and interviews here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Sci-Fi Action

Rating: NR

Exit through the Gift Shop

(Producer’s Distribution Agency) Rhys Ifans, Thierry Guetta, Banksy, Shepard Fairey. One of the world’s most notorious graffiti artists makes his film debut about a documentarian who is ostensibly making a documentary about the underground street art movement who becomes the subject of the documentary himself. I saw this at the Florida Film Festival earlier this year; the complete review can be found here.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Documentary

Rating: R (for some language)

Jack Goes Boating

(Overture/Relativity) Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Ryan, John Ortiz, Daphne Rubin-Vega. Two shy people find each other in the mean streets of New York City and through each other, find the strength they never knew they had even as those around them begin to fall apart. This marks Hoffman’s directorial debut.

See the trailer, interviews and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Romantic Comedy

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

Hatchet II

(Dark Sky) Danielle Harris, Kane Hodder, Tony Todd, A.J. Bowen. The sequel to the surprise 2007 indie slasher hit finds one of the survivors heading back into the New Orleans swamp that she escaped from to put an end to the curse of Victor Crowley once and for all.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Slasher Horror

Rating: PG (for brief mild language and rude behavior)

Let Me In

(Overture/Relativity) Chloe Moretz, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Richard Jenkins, Elias Koteas. A lonely young boy who is viciously bullied at school makes a strange new friend who comes out only at night and is seemingly always barefoot despite the bitter winter elements. Soon, her true nature emerges and the violence really begins. This is based on the acclaimed Swedish film Let the Right One In and is directed by Matt Reeves, who also did Cloverfield.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Vampire Horror

Rating: R (for strong bloody horror violence, language and a brief sexual situation)

Kick-Ass

Kick-Ass and Hit Girl do what they do best.

(Lionsgate) Aaron Johnson, Chloe Grace Moretz, Nicolas Cage, Mark Strong, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Lyndsy Fonseca, Omari Hardwick, Xander Berkeley, Craig Ferguson, Yancy Butler, Elizabeth McGovern, Garrett M. Brown, Clark Duke, Evan Peters, Kofi Natei. Directed by Matthew Vaughn

Everyone wants to become that which we most admire. We want to be heroic, rich, athletic, good-looking, shrewd or all of the above. We long to become the same type of person as our heroes. If our hero has superpowers, however, that becomes a bit dicey.

Dave Lizewski (Johnson) is a gawky, rail-thin high school student whose only power, as he himself admits, is to be invisible to girls, in particular Katie Deauxma (Fonseca) whom he is sweet on. His mom (McGovern) had a massive aneurysm at the breakfast table and died a couple of years earlier, leaving Dave and his somewhat oblivious dad (Brown) trying to make things work alone together. He hangs out with his fellow geeky friends Marty (Duke) and Todd (Peters) at the local comic book store slash cafe. The three of them are constantly being set upon by bullies and having their money and things taken from them.

Dave is fed up with this. He wonders why, with all the comic books in the world, nobody has actually attempted to be a costumed superhero (his friends respond “because he’d get his ass kicked in five minutes,” which seems accurate to me). Being fed up, he orders a wet suit that looks a bit like a superhero costume and decides to try out the lifestyle for himself.

His first attempt ends up horribly, with Dave ending up hospitalized. The silver lining on that cloud is that his nerve endings wind up “messed up,” allowing Dave to not feel pain as much as the rest of us do. That turns out to be very handy in his line of work. When Dave intercedes in a gang beating, the incident is captured on a phone cam and becomes an Internet sensation. When Dave is asked who he is, he responds “I’m Kick-Ass” and a legend is born.

What Dave doesn’t know is that there are a couple of costumed vigilantes who are actually out there. Damon Macready a.k.a. Big Daddy (Cage) is teaching his daughter Mindy a.k.a. Hit Girl (Moretz) to be a lethal combat machine. Damon has an issue with crime boss Frank D’Amico (Strong) who was indirectly responsible for the death of his wife and he intends to take him down, despite the objections of his ex-partner Marcus Williams (Hardwick) who worries about the effects of this on Mindy, whom he helped raise.

Through a set of coincidental circumstances, D’Amico gets his sights set on Kick-Ass who was present at a massacre of thugs by Hit Girl. The most unprepared superhero of all time is about to face unimaginable brutality; can he become the superhero he longs to be?

This isn’t your big daddy’s superhero film. This is a movie that is literally awash in cultural reference, so much so that you might wind up wondering if Quentin Tarantino has a hand in it (he doesn’t, but I suspect he finds this movie delightful). Director Matthew Vaughn, who made the criminally underrated Stardust as well as the ultracool crime drama Layer Cake, hits all the right notes here, from the many references to superhero movies from Spider-Man to Batman with stops at Men in Black and Mystery Men.

There are also some nice little subtexts, with Katie striking up a friendship with Dave because she thinks he’s gay, and much of the ass-kicking being done by 11-year-old Mindy, who has the mouth of a sailor and the moves of Jet Li; one of her first sequences is done to the timeless strains of the Dickies’ version of “The Banana Splits Theme Song.”

Now some, like Roger Ebert, have found the latter aspect reprehensible. Certainly Hit Girl is not meant to be a role model; it seemed to me that the filmmakers took special care to make sure she didn’t wind up that way. Was she put in mortal jeopardy? Yes she was, but I’m one of those folks who don’t think that should be taboo. After all, nobody said boo when two kids were menaced by a T-Rex in the original Jurassic Park and it is no less fantasy for a kid to be menaced by a hallway-full of machine gun-toting goombahs. However, it is true the violence is excessive and brutal in places and sensitive souls may find it to be too much.

That said, I found this to be a good deal of fun. While Moretz was a bit too cute in places, Cage and Johnson held up their end well and Strong is rapidly becoming one of the best villains in the business, his brutish D’Amico a far cry from the urbane Lord Blackwood in Sherlock Holmes but just as vicious and effective.

A special mention of Christopher Mintz-Plasse should be made. Although I don’t want to give away too much about his role as it is crucial to the plot, let me say I think he’s perfectly cast for the role and adds a good deal to the movie. He also nicely sets up a prospective sequel should the box office warrant it.

This is meant to be over-the-top and satirical, and those who find videogames to be too tame will probably have some fun with this. For the rest of us, check your inhibitions at the door, and try to keep in mind this is just a movie that’s not meant to be taken as a serious examination of societal woes. It’s a live action Looney Tune, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with the occasional anvil to the head.

REASONS TO GO: Stylized violence, a wicked sense of humor and an accurate portrayal of geekly sorts. Never afraid to go too over the top.

REASONS TO STAY: Chloe Moretz is a little too precious at times. One gets numbed to the brutality after awhile.

FAMILY VALUES: Let’s see, there’s lots of violence, some of it gory and gruesome; there’s some nudity and sexuality; there’s also some drug use. Hmmmmm….I’m thinking you might want to think twice before taking the kiddies to see this one.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Stan Lee makes a cameo in the movie as one of the people watching the news footage of Kick-Ass on television. Also, Nicolas Cage modeled his speech mannerisms as Big Daddy on Adam West of the television version of Batman.

HOME OR THEATER: Big, dumb, fun movies like this one need to be seen on a big screen with a raucous audience.

FINAL RATING: 6.5/10

TOMORROW: Amusement

New Releases for the Week of April 16, 2010

A little girl with a BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG gun!!!!

KICK-ASS

(Lionsgate) Aaron Johnson, Nicolas Cage, Chloe Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Mark Strong, Lyndsy Fonseca, Elizabeth McGovern, Craig Ferguson. Directed by Matthew Vaughn

A young suburban high school student and comic book geek decides that he, too, can be a superhero. The lack of super powers is no deterrent; he just wants to do good, fight crime and maybe get some respect. However, when he becomes famous and inspires others to take up cowl and cape, he finds himself drawn into a war between a local Mafioso and a real-life crime-fighting duo. This is not your standard superhero movie!

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: R (for strong brutal violence throughout, pervasive language, sexual content, nudity and some drug use – some involving children)

Death at a Funeral

(Screen Gems) Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, Tracy Morgan, Danny Glover. An African-American family is just trying to lay their patriarch to rest. However, nothing goes according to plan in this remake of a 2007 British comedy with a misplaced corpse, a case of a hallucinogenic mistaken for a tranquilizer, a little person with a taste for blackmail, a cranky old uncle and a libidinous son all conspiring to make this a funeral to remember.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

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

The Jonses

(Roadside Attractions) David Duchovny, Demi Moore, Amber Heard, Glenne Headly. They appear to be the perfect family, living in a nice home in a gated community with possessions that are all the envy of their neighbors. But the truth is that they’re not a family at all; they’re all employees of a marketing firm whose aim is to get people to want what they’ve got.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: R (for language, some sexual content, teen drinking and drug use)

The Perfect Game

(Slowhand Releasing) Clifton Collins Jr., Louis Gossett Jr., Cheech Marin, Emilie de Ravin. The true story of the first non-American team to win the Little League World Series, a team from Monterrey, Mexico that battle poverty and prejudice to eventually triumph.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: PG (for some thematic elements)

The Runaways

(Apparition) Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, Michael Shannon, Scout Taylor-Compton. The Runaways took the music world by storm back in the late 1970s with their fusion of punk and hard rock, all with a taste of girl power attitude. There had never been an all-girl band like this before – or since. While their career was brief, it influenced rock and roll to this day, and while internal pressures tore them part, their union with impresario Kim Fowley made them legends. This is their story.

See the trailer and featurettes here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: R (for language, drug use and sexual content – all involving teens)

New Releases for the Week of March 19, 2010

Gerard Butler & Jennifer Aniston wonder why the critics are shooting at them.

THE BOUNTY HUNTER

(Columbia) Gerard Butler, Jennifer Aniston, Jason Sudeikis, Christine Baranski, Dorian Missick, Joel Marsh Garland. Directed by Andy Tennant

Life is good for bounty hunter Milo Boyd. He’s finally getting a few breaks his way after years of being down and out and to top it all off, he gets the assignment of a lifetime – to bring his ex-wife to jail after she skips out on her bail. Nothing could make his heart gladder, until he discovers that she is on the run for her life after blowing the lid off of a murder cover-up and now he’s embroiled in her mess too. Ain’t love grand?

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: PG-13 (for sexual content including suggestive comments, language and some violence)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

(20^th Century Fox) Zachary Gordon, Chloe Moretz, Steve Zahn, Devon Bostick. Of all the dangerous situations that humans can face, there is nothing more deadly, more soul-crushing, more demoralizing than…middle school. At least, that’s the way it seems to Greg Heffley, an imaginative and bright young boy who is trying to navigate the treacherous waters of that institution. This family comedy is based on the first book from the series of illustrated novels by Jeff Kinney.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: PG (for some rude humor and language)

Repo Men

(Universal) Jude Law, Forrest Whitaker, Liev Schreiber, RZA. In the near future, prosthetic organs are widely available…if you an afford them. For those that can’t, there are payment plans but God help you if you miss your payments because the corporate bean counters will send the repo men after you to take back their property, and trust me you won’t find any mercy in them. Not even for one of their own, who finds himself on the run from his own co-workers – including his best friend since childhood who knows him better than anyone. He will have to use all his wits to take down the corporation…before his heart is repossessed.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: R (for strong bloody violence, grisly images, language and some sexuality/nudity)

Saint John of Las Vegas

(IndieVest) Steve Buscemi, Sarah Silverman, Romany Malco, Peter Dinklage. A compulsive gambler escapes the clutches of his disease and finds work as a claims adjustor for an auto insurance company in Albuquerque, salving his demons with lotto scratchers. When he is assigned to accompany the top fraud debunker for the company to investigate a dubious accident near Las Vegas, he sees an opportunity for promotion despite his misgivings about being so close to Sin City once again. With a romance developing into something potentially lasting and an assortment of freaks and geeks to navigate through, this may be a lot more than a tarnished saint could have bargained for.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Rating: R (for language, and some nudity)