Love, Weddings and Other Disasters

Jeremy Irons counts the number of blind jokes in the scene.

(2020) Romantic Comedy (Saban) Maggie Grace, Jeremy Irons, Diane Keaton, Andrew Bachelor, Diego Boneta, Jesse McCartney, Dennis Dugan, Todd Stashwick, Chandra West, Elle King, Melinda Hill, Andy Goldenberg, Caroline Portu, Richard Kline, Veronica Ferres, Levon Panek, William Xifaras, Ava Gaudet, Dennis Staroselsky, Rob Norton, Rachel Wirtz. Directed by Dennis Dugan

 

Romantic comedies seem to lend themselves to ensemble pieces, in which several different stories about a variety of couples finding love getting tied up with a nice, neat bow at the very end – which usually results in an ending. Far be it for the filmmakers behind Love, Weddings and Other Disasters to mess with the formula.

Jesse (Grace) is a pretty florist who has a type A personality, but became a reluctant viral video sensation when her fiancée dumped her in the middle of a skydive, causing her to dump him into a lake and sending her sailing into a wedding party on the adjoining dock. She became known around her native Boston as “The Wedding Trasher.”

Still, after stepping in to help plan a friend’s wedding, she is recommended to the fiancée of a Boston mayoral candidate (Staroselsky) to plan a big to-do for the candidate that will also score big political points. She takes on the job, much to the chagrin of Lawrence (Irons), the supercilious perfectionist of a caterer who is much in demand for the hoi polloi of Beantown. To make his day even worse, Laurence is set up on a blind date with Sara (Keaton), a photographer who is visually impaired and whose guide dog seems to have an unerring knack for launching her into things, such as the table with the meticulously set up champagne glass tower, sending it crashing to the floor. Even so, Laurence and Sara hit it off and after an actual date, he ends up spending the night at her place. While she’s asleep, he rearranges her furniture and then leaves her a love note. Laurence is a bit of a sadist, I think.

In the meantime, Jesse (remember her?) is trying hard to hire a rock band to play at the reception (the groom is a little bit classical, the bride is a little bit rock and roll – one is also tastes great, the other less filling) and she catches a band and is eager to hire them to do the wedding for which the guitarist (Boneta) is eager, but the front man not so much, leading to a rift in the band – and in the meantime, the guitar player falls in love with Jesse.

=And while all this is going on, a duck boat tour guide/captain (Bachelor) falls in love at first sight with a passenger with a glass slipper tattooed on her neck (Wirtz) and searches Boston for his Cinderella, becoming a cause celebre in the process, and the mayoral candidate’s goofy brother (Goldenberg) is appearing on the worst dating game show ever as contestants who are diametric opposites are chained together with the couple who lasts the longest winning a million dollars. Except instead of being a Harvard-trained lawyer that she claims to be, Svetlana (Hill) turns out to be a stripper with a mobster boss who wants to take a percentage of their winnings. And the hits keep right on coming.

For any screen romance to resonate with audiences, they have to invest in the couple and want them to get together. With all the different storylines going on, it’s nearly impossible to do that; all the characters and situations are woefully undeveloped and the plot, despite every attempt to make it edgy, is as predictable as the Kansas University basketball team having a winning season.

I don’t think this is the fault of the actors. Keaton is as wonderful as ever, and Irons is a pro as always, while Grace and Bachelor pour on the charm, but the writing is so tone-deaf, you end up looking up at the screen with jaw dropped and maybe even saying out loud “are you kidding me?” as the blind jokes are among the least offensive things going on in the humor department.

Still, those who love rom-coms will probably enjoy this because they are a particularly forgiving audience, and any chance to see actors like Keaton and Irons in action should be taken, even when the movies they are in aren’t so good. Just be warned, they are the bright spots in a movie that has few of them.

REASONS TO SEE: Irons and, particularly, Keaton are delightful.
REASONS TO AVOID: Standard, predictable rom-com anthology.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some profanity and sexual innuendo.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Dugan’s onscreen appearance as a game show host is his first screen appearance in seven years.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 12/8/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 5% positive reviews, Metacritic: 10/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: New Year’s Eve
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: Doin’ My Drugs

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New Releases for the Week of May 10, 2019

POKEMON DETECTIVE PIKACHU

(Warner Brothers) Ryan Reynolds (voice), Justice Smith, Ken Watanabe, Kathryn Newton, Bill Nighy, Suki Waterhouse. Directed by Rob Letterman

When Detective Harry Goodman mysteriously disappears, his 21-year-old son Tim goes on the hunt to find his Dad, acquiring along the way Dad’s Pokémon partner, Pikachu. Tim turns out to be a gifted but unrealized Pokémon trainer, allowing him to communicate with Pikachu in a way nobody else has. The two of them come face to face with a monstrous conspiracy that threatens to unravel the entire Pokémon universe.

See the trailer, video featurettes, a clip and an interview here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Fantasy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for action/peril, some rude and suggestive humor, and thematic elements)

Her Smell

(Gunpowder and Sky) Elisabeth Moss, Cara Delevingne, Dan Stevens, Eric Stoltz. A femme punk icon from the 90s is having a tough go of it now. Relegated to smaller venues, their front woman has become a disaster of drug abuse and alcohol, Hollywood-crazy cults and lost inspiration. Having messed up a recording session and a national tour, she is forced to turn her life around or lose everything. In all honesty, I saw this at the Florida Film Festival and walked out after an hour, not being able to take the constant whining and unpleasantness of the lead character. I have friends who think this is one of the best movies of the year; I have other friends who think the film is absolute trash. I won’t try to make your mind up for you but be aware going in this is a very acquired taste.

See the trailer, clips and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: R (for language throughout and some drug use)

The Hustle

(MGM) Anne Hathaway, Rebel Wilson, Tim Blake-Nelson, Alex Sharp. An elegant, sophisticated con artist takes a rough and crude Aussie under her wing as they attempt to fleece the visitors to a resort town on the French Riviera. Loosely based on the hit Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

See the trailer, clips and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for crude sexual content and language)

Poms

(STX) Diane Keaton, Jacki Weaver, Pam Grier, Rhea Perlman. A woman moves into a retirement community and tired of not fulfilling the things she wants most out of life, starts a cheerleading squad. Joined by fellow seniors, they discover in their journey that it’s never too late to follow your dreams.

See the trailer and clips here
em>For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for some language/sexual references)

Shadow

(Well Go USA) Chao Deng, Li Sun, Ryan Zheng, Qianyuan Wang. A general, severely wounded by an opponent who has captured an important city in his kingdom, is not who he seems to be in this lush and gorgeous production by master director Yimou Zhang. It has previously played both the Miami and Florida Film Festivals prior to beginning this short run at the Enzian. A link to a review for the Miami Film Festival appears below.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Martial Arts
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: NR

Student of the Year 2

(Fox STAR) Tiger Shroff, Tara Sutaria, Ananya Panday, Aditya Seal. The sequel to the 2012 Bollywood hit.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: AMC West Oaks, Touchstar Southchase
Rating: NR

Tolkien

(Fox Searchlight) Nicholas Hoult, Lily Collins, Colm Meaney, Derek Jacobi. The story of the man who would go on to create Middle Earth and entrance billions of readers for almost 75 years with the tales of brave hobbits and noble kings.

See the trailer, clips and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for some sequences of war violence)

Wild Nights with Emily

(Greenwich) Molly Shannon, Amy Seimetz, Susan Ziegler, Brett Gelman. We’ve always pictured Emily Dickinson as an austere, passionless spinster but recent unearthed letters have revealed that the Poet Laureate of Amherst was far from that. This film takes a revisionist look at one of the greatest American poets to have ever lived.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Biography
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park
Rating: PG-13 (for sexual content)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Casi Fiel (Almost Faithful)
Charlie Says
General Magic
Mahafrshi
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
Uyare

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Casa Fiel (Almost Faithful)
Charlie Says
Iyengar: The Man, Yoga and the Student’s Journey
Maharshi
The White Crow
Wine Country

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

100
Kee
Maharshi
The Professor and the Madman

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Maharshi
Uyare

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Charlie Says
The Hustle
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
Pokémon Detective Pikachu
Shadow
Tolkien

Book Club

In any decade, nobody parties like Candice Bergen.

(2018) Romantic Comedy (Paramount) Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, Mary Steenburgen, Andy Garcia, Craig T. Nelson, Don Johnson, Ed Begley Jr., Richard Dreyfuss, Wallace Shawn, Alicia Silverstone, Katie Aselton, Mircea Monroe, Tommy Dewey, John Shartzer, Ravi Kapoor, Lili Bordán, Marisa Chen Moller, Amanda Martin. Directed by Bill Holderman

 

Four literate ladies have been friends for ages and have seen the curvature of their lives move towards the downward slope. One of the hallmarks of their friendship is their regular book club meetings in which the four women read a book and then discuss it the following week. The membership includes Vivian (Fonda) the somewhat oversexed owner of a boutique luxury hotel chain; Sharon (Bergen), a divorced judge who is notoriously career-driven; Diane (Keaton), a recent widow whose bossy daughters (Silverstone and Aselton interchangeably) want her to move to Scottsdale into a basement apartment even though she’s perfectly happy and capable of supporting herself in Los Angeles and finally restaurateur Carol (Steenburgen) whose husband (Nelson) has been notably absent in the bedroom of late – corresponding with his retirement. The reading of Fifty Shades of Grey inspires them to ramp up their love lives.

This is one of those films that perpetuates the myth that senior sexuality is at best cute and at worst a colossal punchline to a bad joke. Being that I’m climbing towards those rarefied age climes, perhaps I’m a little more sensitive to that sort of thing but with modern medicine allowing us to live longer than we used to, sex drives are correspondingly lasting well into our sixties and seventies, sometimes even into our eighties. While there may be those who still giggle at the thought of Granny and Grampy getting busy, it’s not realistic anymore to expect that they don’t.

At least Holderman, a veteran producer making his directing debut, doesn’t waste the talents of his cast. All of these pros deliver performances that range from strong to terrific. Bergen in particular brought to mind past glories as we’re reminded watching her that there has never been another Murphy Brown and there likely never will be.

The film suffers from having too many characters and not enough backstory; I would have been much happier with fewer but better developed characters in the mix. Still, I’m glad that these ladies are still drawing a paycheck and I would love to see much more of them, albeit in better films than this one. At least it has a killer soundtrack going for it.

REASONS TO SEE: The great cast also gets a great soundtrack.
REASONS TO AVOID: The myth that senior citizens having a sexual life is ridiculous is perpetuated here.
FAMILY VALUES: There is profanity including sexual references as well as other sex-related content.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Bergen, Fonda and Keaton all dated Warren Beatty at one time or another.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Fandango Now, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/12/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 54% positive reviews: Metacritic: 53/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Boynton Beach Club
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: Patient 001

Finding Dory

Hank and Dory are informed there is a sushi chef nearby.

(2016) Animated Feature (Disney*Pixar) Starring the voices of Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks, Ed O’Neill, Kaitlin Olson, Hayden Rolence, Ty Burrell, Diane Keaton, Eugene Levy, Sloane Murray, Idris Elba, Dominic West, Bob Peterson, Kate McKinnon, Bill Hader, Sigourney Weaver, Alexander Gould, John Ratzenberger, Torbin Xan Bullock, Andrew Stanton, Bennett Dammann, Katherine Ringgold. Directed by Andrew Stanton and Angus MacLane

 

People with mental and emotional issues are all around us; sometimes within our own families. We see people who have these issues and sometimes they are the butt of jokes, sometimes objects of pity but only rarely do we see them as fellow human beings even if they’re fish.

A year after Dory (DeGeneres) helped reunited Nemo (Rolence) with his father Marlin (Brooks), they are all living in the Great Barrier Reef seemingly as happy as…well, clams, but Dory feels there is something missing. She has vague memories of a mother and a father in…California! Yes, that’s it! California!

If you saw the first film Finding Nemo you’d know what a big deal that is. Dory has a short-term memory issue that prevents her from remembering things that happened even five minutes earlier. In fact, she can barely remember anything at all. But this is the first time that she’s had a very real memory and she feels the need to go to California and find her mom and dad. Though the journey is long, Marlin and Nemo feel that it’s the least that they can do to help her be reunited with her mom and dad the same way she helped Marlin and Nemo reunite.

So off they go with the help of the Pacific current and Crush (Peterson) and Squirt (Dammann) get them to the Marine Life Institute – think the Monterey Bay Aquarium if it were a theme park (initially the movie was to be set at Sea World but that was before Blackfish was screened for the animators). Dory gets separated from Marlin and Nemo, and manages to get caught and brought into the Institute’s rehabilitation wing. There she meets the octopus Hank (O’Neill) who points out he’s actually a septapus – he lost a limb in an accident.

The Marine Life Institute, as narrated by Sigourney Weaver often throughout the film, has a three-pronged mission; rescue, rehabilitate, release. Hank wants nothing to do with release; he doesn’t think he could make it in the open ocean. Dory has been earmarked to be sent to an aquarium in Cleveland and Hank wants the tag she’s been given that’s her ticket to Cleveland, which may be the first time in history anyone actually wanted to go to Cleveland. Clevelanders, I kid…I kid because I love.

Anywho, Hank agrees to help Dory find her parents but they are elsewhere in the complex so it will not be an easy journey, particularly since Dory can’t, y’know, breathe air. But she and Hank are nothing if not inventive and they find ways to travel around the Institute, but can they find Dory’s parents? Are they even still there? And will Marlin and Nemo manage to find Dory?

The sequel to the second (now third) largest grossing film in Pixar history is dominating the summer box office this year. It has already pulled in a billion dollars in global box office, one of only 24 movies in history to achieve that feat (and ten of those are Disney films). This is the year of Dory and you can bet it will be a lot sooner than 13 years before the next sequel is released (which is how long it took for this to get made).

In the interest of transparency, I’m not a big fan of the original movie. I recognize the technical proficiency (which is of course even more apparent here) but I never connected with it the way most others did. I also found the character of Marlin extremely irritating. Fortunately for me, he takes a backseat in the film to Dory and Hank, both of whom are far more interesting and far less neurotic. Dory has been described as a one-joke sidekick, but she is really front and center here and is a lot more than that. DeGeneres is one of the most empathetic people in show business and that empathy is very much apparent in Dory.

One of the biggest drawbacks to the movie is that the plot is essentially the same. There are some major differences, but I personally would have appreciated a little more inventiveness when it came to the storyline. I suppose for small children who have had the first movie around their entire lives, the familiar is somewhat comforting.

Certainly the movie should get some props because it gives kids, parents and teachers a discussion point to talk about people with mental and emotional problems, and how to deal with people who are different than they are. Kids are used to being cruel to anyone they perceive as different; perhaps having characters like Dory around will give them pause the next time they want to say something mean to the kid with a stammer.

As I said, I am not a fan of the first movie, although I found this one slightly better in many ways, both from an animation standpoint and from the standpoint that I find Dory far more likable a character than Marlin or even Nemo. That the characters and the environment appeal to mass audiences is abundantly clear and I’m sure that most people would give the movie a higher rating than I am. Take it therefore with a grain of salt and know that you’ll probably find Dory a lot more interesting than you found Nemo.

REASONS TO GO: Less Marlin, more Dory.
REASONS TO STAY: Seems to be very much a rehash of the first.
FAMILY VALUES: Suitable for everybody. There is a tiny bit of peril but even the very young will be enchanted.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Elba appears in three different Disney movies this year, all as animals.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/12/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 95% positive reviews. Metacritic: 77/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Finding Nemo
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Now You See Me 2

New Releases for the Week of June 17, 2016

FINDING DORY

(Disney*Pixar) Starring the voices of Ellen DeGeneres, Diane Keaton, Albert Brooks, Ed O’Neill, Eugene Levy, Ty Burrell, Idris Elba, Bill Hader. Directed by Andrew Stanton and Angus MacLane

The sequel to Finding Nemo focuses on the fish with the memory issues, Dory. When she suddenly is able to remember that she has a family, she knows she must go on a quest to find them and her friends all volunteer to help her get there. But who are they? Where could they be in a vast ocean? And where did she learn to speak whale? Every kid you know is going to see this in the next few weeks.

See the trailer, interviews, a promo and a Mother’s Day video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, 3D, IMAX
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for mild thematic elements)

Central Intelligence

(New Line) Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Amy Ryan, Aaron Paul. Back for a high school reunion, a former big man on campus looks back on his glory days with some wistfulness. He’s an accountant now and lives a boring, quiet life. But into his world comes the former bullied fat kid, now a ripped deadly CIA assassin, who claims to be on a major case. But is he telling the truth or is he just psychotic? Either way, the ex-BMOC wants nothing to do with him – but he finds himself sucked into a world of intrigue and action he only could have dreamed about in his youth.

See the trailer, clips and a video feature here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Action Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for crude and suggestive humor, some nudity, action violence and brief strong language)

The Dark Horse

(Broad Green) Cliff Curtis, James Rolleston, Kirk Torrance, Miriama McDowell. Genesis Potini came out of the slums of New Zealand to become a chess champion. Overcoming the odds and a certifiable genius at the game, he grew up to be an inspiration to his neighborhood and the children of his community, despite having to contend with his own demons.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for language throughout, and some violence)

Genius

(Roadside Attractions) Colin Firth, Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Laura Linney. It has been said (mostly by writers) that behind every successful writer is a great editor and Max Perkins was the greatest of the great. Discoverer of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, he had a long-time friendship and professional relationship with the enigmatic Thomas Wolfe. This is the story of that often-tumultuous relationship.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG-13 (for some thematic elements and suggestive content)

High-Rise

(Magnet) Tom Hiddleston, Sienna Miller, Jeremy Irons, Luke Evans. A high rise apartment building becomes the setting for a class war as the upper class tenants of the luxury apartments on the higher floors are set against the middle class tenants on the lower floors. Increasingly frequent power outages and disturbing flaws in the design of the building begin to show up, particularly on the lower floors. Based on a novel by J.G. Ballard, this film played at the Florida Film Festival this past April.

See the trailer, clips and a featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Sci-Fi Thriller
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: R (for violence, disturbing images, strong sexual content/graphic nudity, language, and some drug use)

New Releases for the Week of November 13, 2015

THE 33

(Warner Brothers) Antonio Banderas, Rodrigo Santoro, Juliette Binoche, James Brolin, Lou Diamond Phillips, Bob Gunton, Gabriel Byrne. Directed by Patricia Riggen

In 2010, the eyes of the world were on Chile when 33 miners were trapped in a copper mine by a catastrophic explosion and collapse of the mine. For 69 days, an international team of mine experts frantically tried to rescue the men who survived underground. With barely enough food and water, with air running out and oppressive heat wearing them down, the race against time to bring the miners home became a desperate one. While we all know how the story ended, we don’t know the real story. This is apparently it.

See the trailer, clips and a featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: True Life Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for a disaster sequence and some language)

Love the Coopers

(CBS) Diane Keaton, John Goodman, Ed Helms, Marisa Tomei. The Cooper family has made an annual tradition of gathering at Christmas. Four generations of Coopers have grown up with this tradition. This year however, their celebration will be thrown askew by unexpected visitors, unlikely events and a renewal of family bonds that withstand the test of just about any calamity.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Holiday Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements, language and some sexuality)

My All-American

(Clarius) Aaron Eckhart, Finn Wittrock, Sarah Bolger, Robin Tunney. Freddie Steinmark has been an underdog all his life. Considered too small to play football, he perseveres and becomes a champion in high school. His fight and determination attracts the attention of legendary University of Texas coach Darryl Royal who awards Freddie a scholarship. His determination and leadership turn around a losing team, but it was only after a devastating injury leads to a shocking discovery that the heart of a champion truly surfaces.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: True Sports Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for thematic elements, language and brief partial nudity)

5 Flights Up

All they want is a room with a view.

(2014) Dramedy (Focus) Morgan Freeman, Diane Keaton, Alysia Reiner, Carrie Preston, Sterling Jerins, Cynthia Nixon, Claire van den Broom, Korey Jackson, Josh Pais, Maddie Corman, Miriam Shor, Nadia Gan, Katrina E. Perkins, Joanna Adler, Hannah Dunne, Liza J. Bennett, Jackie Hoffman, Marcia DeBonis, Jimmy Palumbo, Jordan Baker, Maury Ginsberg, Grace Rex. Directed by Richard Loncraine

What makes a house – or an apartment – a home? It isn’t the things that you’ve accumulated over the years, although that’s a part of it. It isn’t the location, although that’s a part of it too. It’s mainly the people that live in it and the memories you make together.

Alex (Freeman) and Ruth (Keaton) Carver have lived in the same Brooklyn fifth-floor walk-up for the 40 years of their marriage. Now Alex, a moderately successful painter, and Ruth, a retired teacher, are both getting on in years and that five flights of stairs is likely to only get harder on them. They’ve decided to sell and find themselves an apartment that at least has an elevator for them.

Lily (Nixon), their high-strung niece who is also a realtor, is getting them ready for their open house. The neighborhood they live in has undergone gentrification and Lily is confident that they can get north of a million for the apartment. Alex is unsure about this move; he is fully aware that they’re unlikely to get an apartment that has the same charm as the one they own and certainly none of the memories. Ruth realizes this too, but she tends to be more optimistic that they’ll find a new place to fall in love with.

But there are some complications. Their beloved dog Dorothy has gotten to be very sick and requires an expensive operation. The open house itself, which brings quirky and shark-like New Yorkers to the apartment to try and snatch up the property before someone else can, is hindered by an ongoing news story about the driver of a fuel tanker abandoned on the Williamsburg Bridge who may or may not be a terrorist. The media being what it is these days opts for the former.

Alex’s misgivings grow as they find an apartment in Manhattan that they both like, which sounds a little strange. Sure it’s a nice apartment. Sure it’s got an elevator. But can it be a home? Doesn’t sound so strange now, eh?

Loncraine, who has produced some pretty solid romantic comedies and feel-good movies on his resume (Wimbledon, My One and Only) continues to mine that territory here. Much of the movie’s success resides in its casting; Keaton and Freeman both banter with each other so well and show each other the kind of affection that only couples that have been married for decades can really get right that it’s hard to believe the two haven’t been a married couple for as long as Alex and Ruth have been. The two are both such screen pros in any case that they know how to work well with just about anyone, and here they both make each other shine.

This is a very New York-centric movie and New Yorkers are going to get it more readily than those who live outside the Big Apple. For them, the soaring cost of housing is of no great surprise; the rest of us might be nonplussed at what a million dollar listing is in Brooklyn. Then again, if I had to walk up five flights of stairs every time I came home, I’d either be a lot thinner than I am now or dead of a heart attack.

There is also a whole lot of dialogue about open houses, listings, market values and real estate in general. Fortunately, great actors like Freeman and Keaton can make even that dry kind of conversation sparkle, but only so much. The movie could have focused less on the sale of the house and more on how the concept of that sale was affecting Ruth and Alex, although they do spend a fair amount of time on that.

Clearly this is a paean to the dwelling. Not as a physical space mind you, but as a concept and more importantly, as an emotional touchstone. Using flashbacks to act as memories that were on the minds of the couple (played as newlyweds by van der Bloom and Jackson who channel Keaton and Freeman respectively very satisfactorily) enhances the idea of residence being more than four walls but a place where memories reside as well as people. Long after the physical layout is forgotten, the memories of a lazy Sunday afternoon, a rainy day movie, or a Christmas morning will linger in the heart and mind.

Loncraine has crafted a winner of a movie that sadly got shuffled off to the side during the onslaught of early summer blockbusters. I think that the suits at Focus felt that the material would appeal only to older audiences and in that sense they’d be correct, but I think that that same demographic that made The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel a hit could have made this one a hit too. In any case, this is definitely a feel-good movie that left me with the warm fuzzies and is going to appeal to anyone who has ever lived in a home that they’ve loved. Although it got anemic box office during its limited theatrical run, I think that viewing this at home is the best possible place to see it.

WHY RENT THIS: Wonderfully effective performances by Freeman and Keaton. A celebration of home and hearth. A slice of New York life.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: A little more real estate chatter than I might have liked.
FAMILY VALUES: A smattering of curse words here and there, and some artistic nude images.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: During the open house sequence, the book that Alex is trying to read in the corner is A War Against Truth by Paul William Roberts.
NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.
BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $1M on an unreported production budget.
SITES TO SEE: Netflix (DVD rental only), Amazon, iTunes
COMPARISON SHOPPING: On Golden Pond
FINAL RATING: 8/10
NEXT: Southpaw

New Releases for the Week of June 19, 2015

INSIDE OUT

(Disney*Pixar) Starring the Voices Of Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Louis Black, Mindy Kaling, Richard Kind, Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan, Paula Poundstone. Directed by Pete Docter and Ronaldo del Carmen

When a family moves to San Francisco, 11-year-old Riley is bummed to the max. Her parents don’t understand her, mainly because the emotions that live inside her head – Joy, Anger, Fear, Disgust and Sadness – have accidentally gone amuck inside her head. The emotions are conflicting over how to handle all the things going on in her life – a new city, a new school, new friends, a new life, and the loss of everything familiar. Battle stations – things are about to get a little heated in Headquarters…

See the trailer, interviews, a promo, a clip and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website .
Release Formats: Standard, 3D (opens Thursday)
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for mild thematic elements and some action)

5 Flights Up

(Focus World) Morgan Freeman, Diane Keaton, Carrie Preston, Josh Pais. An elderly couple in Brooklyn have lived in the same apartment since they were young, never dreaming that their Williamsburg neighborhood would become gentrified and one of the most sought-after addresses in the city. Now having trouble mounting the five flights of stairs to get to their apartment, they reluctantly decide to put their apartment on the market. An unlikely sequence of events, combined with overeager realtors and snotty bargain hunters combine to make them wonder if they wouldn’t be better off just walking away.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: AMC Downtown Disney
Rating: PG-13 (for language and some nude images)

ABCD 2

(UTV) Varun Dhawan, Shradda Kapoor, Prabhu Deva, Dharmesh Yelande. An Indian dance troupe with three outstanding choreographers head to Vegas for an international hip-hop dance championship. However, internal pressures threaten to tear the team apart.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, 3D
Genre: Bollywood Musical
Now Playing: AMC West Oaks, Touchstar Southchase
Rating: NR

Anarchy Parlor

(Gravitas) Robert LaSardo, Sara Fabel, Jordan James Smith, Tiffany DeMarco. A group of college friends traveling in Lithuania go to a tattoo parlor to commemorate their travels in ink. Instead, they are captured and tortured by the Artist who has more sinister ideas as to what to do with them.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall
Rating: NR

Dope

(Open Road) Shameik Moore, Zoe Kravitz, Forest Whitaker, Kimberly Elise. Malcolm is treading a fine line in navigating life in a brutally tough neighborhood in Los Angeles, looking to escape by going to college. However, a chance encounter at a party leads him along a different path. Set in the 1990s with a classic hip-hop score, this was a critical hit at Sundance.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard (opens Thursday)
Genre: Urban Crime Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for language, drug content, sexuality/nudity and some violence, all involving teens)

Felix and Meira

(Oscilloscope Laboratories) Martin Dubreuil, Hadas Yaron, Luzer Twersky, Anne-Elisabeth Bosse. A Hassidic Jewish wife and mother in Montreal is lost in a highly structured life. She meets a Secular young man, mourning the death of his estranged father, in a bakery. The two begin an innocent friendship which in turn becomes something more which forces her to make a choice between the life she’s always known, or being with the man she loves.

See the trailer and a clip here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Romantic Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village

Rating: R (for a scene of sexuality/nudity)

Gemma Bovery

(Music Box) Gemma Arterton, Fabrice Luchini, Jason Flemyng, Isabelle Candelier.  A rural French village and in particular its baker find their lives transformed by the arrival of a British couple whose name reflects the heroine of a classic Flaubert novel that was written in that very village. When her life begins to mirror that of the heroine of that novel, the baker tries to prevent her from meeting the same tragic end as Madame Bovary. This was a big hit at the recent Florida Film Festival and you can read my review of the movie here.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Romance
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: R (for sexuality/nudity and language)

Darling Companion

Woman’s best friend isn’t necessarily a diamond.

(2012) Dramedy (Sony Classics) Diane Keaton, Kevin Kline, Dianne Wiest, Richard Jenkins, Elizabeth Moss, Mark Duplass, Ayelet Zurer, Sam Shepard, Lindsay Sloane, Jay Ali, Robert Bear, Casey, Paul Kiernan, Jericho Watson, Yolanda Wood, D.L. Walker, Dina Goldman, Ruben Barboza, Mark Robinette, Craig Miner, Anne Cullimore Decker, Aline Andrade. Directed by Lawrence Kasdan

Dog lovers are, if you’ll forgive me, a unique breed. Being one myself, I know whereof I speak. Da Queen will tell you that I’m borderline obsessive and if you pressed, she’d probably even admit that I left the rational border behind years ago. That’s okay. Guilty as charged. From time to time in movies I have to witness bad things happening to dogs. Da Queen will also tell you that there’s no surer way to turn this rational, logical critic into a slobbering mess than seeing harm come to a dog. It’s not just my dogs I love but all dogs.

I tell you this because I was a bit concerned when I heard what the premise for this movie was. When Beth (Keaton) and her daughter Grace (Moss) find an abandoned dog at the side of a Colorado highway, Beth immediately takes to her four-legged friend. Naming the dog Freeway, she adopts the critter when nobody steps in to claim it.

Her husband Joseph (Kline), a back surgeon who invests much more into his career than he does into his marriage although he is to his own mind completely devoted to his family, is a bit annoyed by the presence of the dog but when his wife insists, he capitulates grudgingly. What he doesn’t get is that he spends a lot of time away from the home while she raised her daughters. With Grace getting married at their Rocky Mountain vacation home in the fall, her nest will be officially empty. She needs something to fill it and a dog is an excellent choice.

Beth grows very fond of Freeway and the two are virtually inseparable but things get kind of crazy as the wedding approaches and of course Joseph is of little help. As Beth is helping Grace with the final details at the vacation house, Joseph – about as useful as a cell phone on top of Mt. Everest – is given the task of walking the dog. He does so, forgetting to put Freeway on a leash and so busy talking into his cell phone he barely notices when Freeway runs off after a deer.

When Joseph returns home sans dog, Beth is understandably distraught and unleashes her wrath on Joseph who doesn’t understand what the fuss is all about. “It’s not like it’s a person,” he complains, “it’s just a dog” to which Beth retorts “Love is love. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a person or a dog.” She has a point but then again I am somewhat unreliable  when it comes to objectivity in this regard.

Of course, Joseph is in the literal dog house but he searches for the dog without success. Beth, frantic, enlists Joseph’s sister Penny (Wiest) and her new boyfriend Russell (Jenkins) as well as Penny’s son Bryan (Duplass). Neither Joseph nor Bryan trust Russell whom they think has ulterior motives when it comes to Penny but Penny appears happy enough.

For Bryan’s part, he takes a shine to Carmen (Zurer), the housemaid who claims to have psychic powers who is certain that Freeway is still alive. This only furthers Beth’s determination and as the adults travel the beautiful countryside of the Rockies in the fall, they are forced to deal with each other one on one – for the first time in a very long time in some cases.

Some may recall Kasdan as the director of Silverado and The Big Chill as well as the writer of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. He co-wrote this with his wife Meg so we do get both sides of the equation in most of the relationships without being overly committed to one point of view or the other. Kasdan has the wisdom to know that there are always more than one in any relationship and the case is generally that no one person is always right or always wrong.

However, you can never be wrong when you cast Kevin Kline and nobody knows that better than Kasdan who gave the actor his big break in The Big Chill. Kline is an everyman who can play just about any role and make it believable. He’s also so damn likable that even when he’s playing a character who is a bit of a dick we still end up relating to him which is quite the gift. I think that likability is why we so rarely see Kline in a villain’s role, although he can play those with aplomb as well (see A Fish Called Wanda).

His chemistry with Keaton is genuine and unforced. Keaton who sometimes can overdo the neurotic thing at least doesn’t make her character a complete ditz. She does have some legitimate grievances and while the way things work out is a bit contrived (but what Hollywood film is not?) the character itself isn’t. The acting in fact is terrific all around – the movie in fact suffers from an embarrassment of riches with so many great actors in the movie that you wish some of them got a little more screen time and you tend to leave that kind of film feeling a little cheated – and yet if they’d made the film longer it would have been too long. Catch-22 lives.

While the movie ends up using the dog as a uniting force and the search for him/her as a metaphor as our own search for love and acceptance, it gets to its destination after a few too many convenient coincidences. Other than that though this is a beautifully shot movie – you also can’t go wrong setting a movie in the Rockies in the autumn, although it is Utah subbing for Colorado here. It leaves one with the warm fuzzies which isn’t a bad thing and although a lot of critics grouse about it, this isn’t a dog movie in the same sense as Marley and Me nor is it a dog of a movie in the sense of a whole lot of forgettable exercises in cinema but it is a movie that might just stick with you like a loyal, loving dog and who doesn’t love that?

WHY RENT THIS: Because, you know, dogs. I’ll see Kline in anything, even when he plays a bit of a jerk.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: A few too many contrivances. Too many great actors, not enough time.
FAMILY VALUES: Some sexual content as well as a bit of foul language.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This was Kasdan’s first time in the director chair since 2003’s Dreamcatcher.
NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: Along with footage of the New York premiere there’s also a featurette on the casting of the dog Freeway.
BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $793,815 on a $12M production budget.
SITES TO SEE: Netflix (DVD/Blu-Ray rental only), Amazon (rent/buy), Vudu (rent/buy),  iTunes (rent/buy), Flixster (rent/buy), Target Ticket (purchase only)
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Father of the Bride (1991)
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: The Red Baron

New Releases for the Week of July 25, 2014

HERCULES

(MGM/Paramount) Dwayne Johnson, Ian McShane, John Hurt, Rufus Sewell, Ingrid Bolso Berdal, Joseph Fiennes, Peter Mullan, Rebecca Ferguson. Directed by Brett Ratner

Hercules the legend is also Hercules the man and the man and the legend don’t always coexist well. Haunted by the sins of his past, Hercules the man has turned his back on Hercules the legend and become a mercenary, using his reputation to intimidate those who oppose those who hire him. When the good King of Thrace and his daughter beg for help against an implacable warlord, Hercules finds that in order for justice to triumph he must once more shoulder the mantle of hero and let him embrace his legend – and perhaps at last put to bed the ghosts that haunt him. Assuming he survives, of course. Based on the revisionist take on the Hercules myth Radical Studios graphic novel.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard, 3D, IMAX 3D (opens Thursday)

Genre: Swords and Sandals

Rating: PG-13 (for epic battle sequences, violence, suggestive comments, brief strong language and partial nudity)

A Most Wanted Man

(Roadside Attractions) Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Wright, Willem Dafoe, Rachel McAdams. The arrival of a half-dead Chechen man on the run from mysterious forces brings the attention of the German secret service. They enlist an idealistic lawyer and a banker to discover what’s going on, with a top-ranked spy willing to go to any lengths to discover the truth, even if it means innocent lives. Based on a novel by master spy novelist John Le Carré.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Spy Thriller

Rating: R (for language)

And So It Goes

(Clarius) Michael Douglas, Diane Keaton, Frankie Valli, Frances Sternhagen. Oren Little has everything all mapped out. He’s going to sell one last house, retire from real estate and live a quiet life undisturbed by people. When his son drops off a nine-year-old granddaughter he never knew he had, his plans are thrown into chaos. Completely unprepared and ill-qualified to be a caregiver to a child, he at first foists the girl off on his extremely tolerant and patient neighbor but gradually he learns that being an obnoxious, curmudgeonly loner isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Romance

Rating: PG-13 (for some sexual references and drug elements)

The Fluffy Movie

(Open Road) Gabriel Iglesias, Jacqueline Obradors, Ron White, Tommy Chong. Iglesias went from a contestant on Last Comic Standing to being kicked out of that competition for violating the competition’s rules for calling home and going on to become a cultural phenomenon. The performance footage here is taken from his Unity Through Laughter tour which spanned 23 countries and sold out nearly everywhere.

 

See the trailer, clips and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Stand-Up Comedy Concert

Rating: PG-13 (for suggestive material and sexual references)

Kick

(UTV) Salman Khan, Jacqueline Fernandez, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Randeep Hooda. When a young woman finally figures out that her fiancée who lives for thrills is just not responsible enough for marriage, she calls things off. She tells the story of her previous engagement to a new prospective suitor who happens to be a police inspector. He also happens to be chasing her ex who has become a notorious thief who is giving all his ill-gotten gains away to charities for children. Seems like kind of an extreme way to win your lover back.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Bollywood Action

Rating: NR

Lucy

(Universal) Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Min-sik Choi, Analeigh Tipton. A young woman is caught up in forces beyond her control as ruthless drug smugglers put a bag of a revolutionary new drug in her tummy in order to smuggle it to the United States. The bag starts to leak and the drug enhances her brain to allow her to use 100% of it. She begins to change into something more than human, which not only makes her a danger to the drug smugglers but potentially to the whole human race as well.

See the trailer, interviews, featurettes, clips and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Sci-Fi Thriller

Rating: R (for strong violence, disturbing images, and sexuality)

She’s Dating the Gangster

(Star Cinema) Kathryn Bernardo, Daniel Padilla, Sofia Andres, Khalil Ramos. A Filipino teen and a rebellious friend start up a false romance in order to spite his ex-girlfriend. However, their feelings begin to get deeper and the relationship shows signs of growing into something greater, but the boy may be a part of a vicious Manila gang.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Rating: NR

Willow Creek

(IFC) Alexie Gilmore, Bryce Johnson, Peter Jason, Tom Yamarone. A Bigfoot enthusiast drags his long-suffering girlfriend to the place where the iconic Patterson-Gimlin film was shot years before to try and catch footage of his own. He gets a lot more than he bargained for and the couple discover the meaning to their horror of the term “forest bride.” A send-up of found footage horror films by comedian and director Bobcat Goldthwaite.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Horror Comedy

Rating: NR