New Releases for the Week of June 14, 2019

MEN IN BLACK INTERNATIONAL

(Columbia) Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson, Rebecca Ferguson, Rafe Spall, Kumail Nanjiani. Directed by F. Gary Gray

The Men in Black have long protected the Earth from extraterrestrial villains but now they face their biggest threat yet; one of their own, a mole in their own organization. Agents H and M will be challenged more than any other agent before them in this new installment in the franchise, the first without either Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones.

See the trailer, video featurettes and clips here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Science Fiction
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for sci-fi action, some language and suggestive material)

5B

(RYOT) Hank Plante, Cliff Morrison, Mary Magee, Lorraine Day. The first dedicated AIDS ward in the country was built at San Francisco General Hospital in 1983. This is the story of those who built it; the nurses and caregivers and the often heartbreaking stories of loss, courage and triumph.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal Pointe Orlando, Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs Square
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic content including unsettling images, and some strong language)

American Woman

(Roadside Attractions/Vertical) Sienna Miller, Christina Hendricks, Aaron Paul, Amy Madigan. When a woman’s adult daughter disappears, she is left as caregiver for her infant granddaughter while trying to solve the mystery of her daughter’s disappearance, a journey that takes far longer than she anticipated.

See the trailer and clips here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for language, sexual content and drug use)

The Dead Don’t Die

(Focus) Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, Carol Kane. A sleepy small town is beset by the living dead who are looking for a free meal in the latest by quirkmeister Jim Jarmusch.

See the trailer, a video featurette and a clip here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Horror Comedy
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, Barnstorm Theater, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for zombie violence/gore, and for language)

Late Night

(Amazon) Emma Thompson, Mindy Kaling, Hugh Dancy, John Lithgow. A veteran late night talk show host, in danger of becoming irrelevant, hires a woman of color to join her stable of writers. The two women, who couldn’t be more different, find themselves sharing more in common than they would have thought.

See the trailer, video featurettes and an interview here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for language throughout and some sexual references)

Shaft

(Warner Brothers/New Line) Samuel L. Jackson, Jesse T. Usher, Richard Roundtree, Regina Hall. The son of the baddest private eye in New York City has a completely different methodology than his father. When a close friend of the son turns up dead, he will need a crash course in street tough from his dad, who was absent throughout his childhood but John Shaft has an agenda and no mutha is going to keep him from achieving it, family or not.

See the trailer and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Action Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for pervasive language, violence, sexual content, some drug material and brief nudity)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Blackbear
Changeland
Hampstead
Plus One
Rainbow’s Sunset</em
The Souvenir
Vault

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Game Over
Los Viejos – The Oldies
Nureyev
Plus One
Premier Padmini
Remember Amnesia
The Souvenir

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Daughter of the Wolf
Game Over
Heavy Water
The Souvenir
Vault

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

None

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

The Dead Don’t Die
Late Night
Men in Black International
Shaft

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Hysteria (2011)

You’ll find this in the dictionary under “knowing look.”

(2011) Romantic Comedy (Sony Classics) Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy, Jonathan Pryce, Rupert Everett, Ashley Jensen, Sheridan Smith, Felicity Jones, Gemma Jones, Anna Chancellor, Malcolm Rennie, Kim Criswell, Georgie Glen, Elisabet Johannesdottir, Linda Woodhall, Kim Selby, John Overstall, Ann Comfort, Jonathan Rhodes, Leila Schaus, Ellie Jacob. Directed by Tanya Wexler

Medicine is a field of study that is ever changing. What we KNOW for sure one year is medieval foolishness the next. The human body is a mystery that we have yet to get a real handle on.

In Victorian times, medicine was positively barbaric. Going to a doctor was just as liable to get you killed as the illness or injury you had. Still, there was light at the end of the tunnel. Some scientific sorts were challenging widely-held beliefs through research and the scientific method. Things we today take for granted – the changing of bandages on wounds to prevent infection, the washing of hands before examinations and surgeries, these things were brand new then.

Given the Victorian view on women, it is unsurprising that their mood swings, feelings of frustration and general anxieties were all lumped together not so much as female foolishness but as a catch-all diagnosis – hysteria. Women could be committed to asylums or jailed because of it, or if criminally charged could have forced hysterectomies performed on them (and yes, that is where the term comes from).

However, there were doctors who treated that sort of thing. Dr. Robert Dalrymple (Pryce) was one. He had discovered that women with these complaints (and other similar ones) often found relief by a technique that involved manual stimulation of the genitalia. With a discrete tent-like curtain up, he would let his fingers do the walking and soon enough the woman would experience what he called a paroxysm. It’s what we today call an orgasm, although it was thought at the time that females didn’t experience sexual pleasure. Medieval foolishness, remember?

Anyway, his practice is getting so large that he needs to take on some additional help and it looks like Dr. Mortimer Granville (Dancy) is just the ticket. While he has a tendency to question the methods of established physicians which has basically put him in a position where nobody is willing to hire him, he manages to convince Dr. Dalrymple that he will behave himself. Seeing as Dr. Dalrymple is desperate not to mention that his field of expertise is frowned upon by the medical establishment, it seems they both need each other.

Granville being young and handsome soon becomes a hit with the female patients, but also with the residents of Dr. Dalrymple’s home including Emily (F. Jones), Dr. Dalrymple’s youngest daughter and a proper Victorian lady at that; and Charlotte (Gyllenhaal), his oldest who is the source of all the good doctor’s grey hair. Miss Charlotte you see is a non-conformist, a sort of pre-feminist who runs a shelter paid for by dear old papa who more than likely is happy enough to get her out of his sight. There’s also the randy young maid Molly (Smith) who flirts outrageously with the good Dr. Granville.

Dr. Dalrymple is having none of that however. He feels that Dr. Granville is a fine catch, someone who can partner with him in the practice and marry his youngest to seal the deal. However, Dr. Granville is becoming a victim of his own success; he has begun to develop muscular cramping and pain – most likely what we would call Carpal Tunnel syndrome. However his good friend Edmund St. John-Smythe (Everett), a kind of brilliant slacker, has invented an automatic feather duster, the movements of which remind Dr. Granville of the same motions he uses to stimulate his patients. Thus, the vibrator is born.

Female sexuality is still largely taboo in many ways even more than a century later. Our country is just as prudish as Victorians when it comes to women having sex, let alone enjoying it. Even discussing the subject is thought to be perversion. I personally don’t get why but I guess that I’m just slow on the uptake. The movie has a wonderful opportunity to talk about this subject and give it some weight.

Sadly, the filmmakers choose to make it more of a lighthearted farce than an examination of the attitudes towards women in general and their sexuality in particular. Still, the movie does at least invite conversation on the subject which is at least something. It also has the brilliant Maggie Gyllenhaal who takes a movie that occasionally loses focus and gives it life and energy. While occasionally the role of Charlotte becomes strident, Gyllenhaal gives her enough soul to make her sympathetic rather than irritating.

Everett and Pryce, both veterans who are normally counted on for fine performances, give a decent go of it but Dancy who has had some pretty good turns on both the small screen and the big is largely colorless here which is kind of odd for him. If he’d had half the energy Gyllenhaal did this would have been a movie contending for year-end awards. As it is, it is a movie that has some moments both of pathos and humor with a modicum of thought-provoking on the side. Even despite the movie’s flaws that’s still a recipe for success in my book.

WHY RENT THIS: Gyllenhaal is likable indeed and Smith is fabulously sexy here.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Trivializes the subject a bit. Too low-key.

FAMILY VALUES: As you would guess from the subject matter, there is plenty of sexuality and sexual references.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The original electromechanical vibrator was portable but required a wet cell battery that weighed 40 pounds.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: An abridged documentary on the female orgasm as well as a Q&A session with Dancy, Wexler and Pryce at the Tribeca Film Festival.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $9.5M on an unreported production budget.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Kinsey

FINAL RATING: 8/10

NEXT: Real Genius

New Releases for the Week of June 15, 2012

ROCK OF AGES

(New Line) Tom Cruise, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Julianne Hough, Alec Baldwin, Malin Akerman, Paul Giamatti, Russell Brand, Mary J. Blige, Diego Boneta. Directed by Adam Shankman

A small town girl and a big city boy meet and fall in love to the soundtrack of classic rock at a Sunset Strip club that is in crisis. The club is in financial difficulties and is relying on the concert by superstar Stacy Jaxx to help them out of it, but they are beset by blue-nosed housewives protesting the debauchery of rock and roll in general and the club in particular. Just another Saturday night on the Strip, don’t you know.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard, IMAX

Genre: Musical

Rating: PG-13 (for sexual content, suggestive dancing, some heavy drinking, and language)

Hysteria

(Sony Classics) Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy, Jonathan Pryce, Rupert Everett. Back in the 19th century, women were often diagnosed with something called female hysteria, which had to do with basically being horny without being able to do anything about it. This would lead to the invention of the mechanical vibrator, the godsend of lonely housewives everywhere. This isn’t a true story – but there are some elements of the truth in it.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Rating: R (for sexual content) 

Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap

(Indomina) Ice-T, Kanye West, Chuck D, Eminem. Actor-rapper Ice-T takes us on a personal journey into the roots of rap, the newest musical art form, and dissects the roots, speaking with a variety of artists about their creative process. Along the way he displays the cultural influences of rap music not only on the lives of the African-American community from where it originated, but on America as a whole.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Documentary

Rating: R (for pervasive language including sexual reference, and some drug content)

That’s My Boy

(Columbia) Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Leighton Meester, James Caan. A 12-year-old boy has an affair with his teacher and gets her pregnant. She goes to jail, his parents disown him and he’s stuck raising a kid while being a kid himself. Years later, he’s never really grown up and is in trouble with the IRS for never having paid his income tax. He needs $40,000 or he’s going to jail himself. His now-grown kid is a wealthy man now and might be able to bail him out. His son is getting married and didn’t invite him – they’ve been estranged for years – so he’s going to have to do some relationship building in order to pull this off. Maybe along the way he’ll find some responsibility – and his uptight son might loosen up just a little bit.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Comedy

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

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Sarah Paulson and Elizabeth Olsen contemplate a world without the Oprah show.

(2011) Thriller (Fox Searchlight)  Elizabeth Olsen, Christopher Abbott, Brady Corbett, Hugh Dancy, Maria Dizzia, Julia Garner, John Hawkes, Louisa Krause, Sarah Paulson, Adam Thompson, Allen McCullough, Gregg Burton, Diana Masi. Directed by Sean Durkin

The mind is a terribly fragile and easily manipulated thing. If you tell it something with enough conviction and enough reputation, it will largely believe anything. Someone with enough will and skill can turn a group of people into their own personal marionettes.

Lucy (Paulson) gets a phone call one afternoon from her sister Martha (Olsen) who hasn’t spoken to her in two years. Martha seems a bit skittish and somewhat confused; Lucy offers to pick her up, a three hour drive each way. She brings her sister home to a beautiful, sleek lake cottage (and I use the term “cottage” advisedly; it could easily sleep ten) where her husband Ted (Dancy) waits to meet Martha for the first time. Martha’s behavior is a bit odd, but nothing too out of the ordinary at first.

The weird things begin to happen. While Lucy and Ted are having sex, Martha crawls into bed with them, seemingly oblivious to their need for privacy and intimacy. Martha seems to place no value whatsoever on possessions and has developed skills in cleaning and gardening that she never had before. She also has the look and feel of a puppy who’s been kicked by her owner too many times.

What we know that Lucy doesn’t is that Martha has been in a cult for the last two years. Introduced into it by her friend Zoe (Krause), the cult looks more like a commune at first, a rustic farmhouse in upstate New York where all possessions are shared as is the workload. It is presided over by Patrick (Hawkes), a mild guitar-playing sort. Patrick takes one look at Martha and proclaims her name is Marcy May from then on out and that’s what everyone calls her. Martha doesn’t seem to mind. She is intrigued by Patrick’s philosophy of being self-sufficient.

Except they’re not. The farm is in desperate need of things they aren’t yet able to provide for themselves, so it becomes part of the routine for members of the cult to go to neighboring homes and steal things. This leads to an unexpected and brutal conclusion after which Marcy May makes the decision to flee and return to being Martha again.

At home, Martha is still haunted by her experiences. Little things – a pebble skittering across the driveway, the splash from jumping into the lake – bring her right back into memories of the cult. She becomes paranoid, certain that the cult is after her and is out to bring her back to the farm. How much of her paranoia is real, and how much is the result of a traumatized mind?

Part of what makes Martha Marcy May Marlene (the Marlene is a reference to the name all of the cult’s women adopt when answering the phone) work is the chilling realism of it. Patrick takes control of the women by changing their names just slightly enough that it doesn’t seem like a bad thing and slowly but surely strips them of their own will. Of course, sex is a big part of that.

In a chilling scene, we are made to realize that Patrick himself “initiates” the women into the family by drugging them and raping them. Afterwards, the women are convinced by their “sisters” that not only was it not rape, that it was not just consensual, but it was a purification that they desperately needed and wanted. So indoctrinated is Martha/Marcy May that she assists in preparing and drugging a new member for Patrick.

Women are not allowed to eat until the men have finished; when a hungry Martha absently pops something into her mouth while preparing a meal, she is smacked upside the head and not gently. Even away from the cult, Martha is seen to be mouthing the platitudes that Patrick repeated to her. It truly is chilling.

At opposite ends of the spectrum we have Olsen – yes, sister to the Olsen twins – who plays Martha like a wounded bird; hopelessly naive in some ways, worldly in others and just barely holding it together. It is a performance that if it doesn’t merit Oscar consideration, should at least be leading to some bigger, more visible roles for Olsen who proves herself  to be a fearless actress.

Hawkes, so impressive in Winter’s Bone last year, proves that his Oscar nomination for that film was no fluke. His Patrick is mesmerizing; never overtly evil except in a couple of places, menacing without appearing to be. He’s the kind of guy that inspires trust and only too late do you find that you are ensnared in his web.

Paulson and Dancy play a very self-absorbed couple who fail to see all the warning signs that Martha’s trauma and seek out professional help for the girl. Dancy’s Ted in particular is more worried about his own comforts than he is about the well-being of his sister-in-law. They are both shallow and materialistic and are thrown into a complete quandary by the arrival of someone who is neither.

The tension here sneaks up on you. It’s evident from the beginning that something bad is going on, and it just gets worse and worse while you wait for the other shoe to drop. By the time it does, you haven’t noticed just how much the level of tension has been wound up on you. That’s good filmmaking. What doesn’t work as well is the switching of timelines between Marcy May and Martha, which is I think meant to convey the confusion going on in her mind but winds up confusing the audience as well. That could have been handled better and is the main reason I didn’t give the movie a higher rating; I still suspect I undervalued it a bit.

The movie does build towards a climax which is deliberately ambiguous. I left the theater with a creepy feeling that was unsettling, like you’d looked into the home movies of someone involved in a tragedy and the movie doesn’t make it plain what the fate of Martha and her sister were although it suggests that it doesn’t end well. While this doesn’t pack the emotional wallop of Winter’s Bone, it leaves you with a good ration of something to think about. You feel like you’ve been through the wringer after watching it and quite frankly, not everyone wants to go through that at the movies. Those not looking for mindless entertainment would be well-advised to seek this out.

REASONS TO GO: Durkin establishes a tense mood from the get-go and only ratchets it up throughout, slowly and subtly until you’re a nervous wreck as a viewer. Some intense performances, particularly from Olsen.

REASONS TO STAY: Hard to follow at times and an ending that is disturbing as it is ambiguous.

FAMILY VALUES: There are some disturbing scenes of sudden violence, rape and sex. There are a few bad words and some nudity as well.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The role of Martha was the only one that the filmmakers auditioned. Durkin wanted an unknown actress for the role and after Olsen auditioned twice, she was cast two weeks before filming started.

HOME OR THEATER: This is the kind of movie that you’ll want to see at home.

FINAL RATING: 6.5/10

TOMORROW: Piranha 3D

Our Idiot Brother

Elizabeth Banks is amused as Paul Rudd tries the Bertie Botts Every Flavor Frozen Yogurt

(2011) Comedy (Weinstein) Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, Emily Mortimer, Rashida Jones, Hugh Dancy, Kathryn Hahn, Shirley Knight, Janet Montgomery, Steve Coogan, Bob Stephenson, Peter Hermann, Adam Scott, T.J. Miller, Lydia Haug. Directed by Jesse Peretz

We all are suspicious of things that are too good to be true, whether they be products or people. When people come along who seem to be too nice by half, we wonder if they are manipulating us – or are just plain idiots.

Ned Rochlin (Rudd) is an amiable biodynamic farmer selling his organic wares at a local market when he is approached by a uniformed police officer (Stephenson) who wants to buy some weed. The good-natured Ned, not understanding what was happening, sells it to him and is promptly arrested and sent to jail (although he gets out early for good behavior).

When he does get released, things have changed. His bitchy ex-girlfriend Janet (Hahn) kicks him out, having taken up with Billy (Miller) and refusing to let him claim his dog Willie Nelson. Ned is forced to move back in with his mom (Knight) who’s a bit of an alcoholic and whose style doesn’t exactly conform to Ned’s.

Ned’s three sisters aren’t exactly chomping at the bit to spend time with him. Miranda (Banks) is a self-absorbed career woman trying to make it as a reporter at Vanity Fair and is willing to do whatever it takes to get there. She isn’t seeing anyone, although Jeremy (Scott), a neighbor, would certainly like to have some of her undivided attention.

Then there’s Natalie (Deschanel), a barista and aspiring stand-up comic who lives with Cindy (Jones), a lawyer. Natalie is oversexed and has a one-night stand in a taxicab that ends up with her getting pregnant, which she doesn’t want to tell Cindy about. Finally, Liz (Mortimer) lives in a sexless marriage with Dylan (Coogan), a documentary filmmaker who also regards Ned as something of a moron.

Ned goes to stay with each sister in turn, finding out some dirt on each of them and letting it slip out at inopportune moments. He is good-natured and sweet but he doesn’t know when to keep things to himself. He is utterly honest and guileless and can’t conceive of a world that isn’t, so he wreaks havoc in each of his sisters lives like a hippie tornado.

There is a lot of charm to Our Idiot Brother and it largely comes from Rudd. He is genial, even if he is wearing one of the worst cinematic beards ever. He is so sweet and lovable you can’t help him even if he is dumb as a rock. He’s like that big lovable goofy dog we’ve all had; you kind of love him because he’s a numbskull.

The ladies are all veterans of the indie movie scene and they don’t quite fare as well, sadly. Deschanel is one of the most talented actresses around (not to mention one of the most beautiful) but she is given little to work with other than a libido. Mortimer is forced to drop her robe in front of a disinterested Coogan and mostly look constipated. Banks comes off as an evil love child between Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep’s satanic editor from The Devil Wears Prada) and J. Pierrepont Finch (the ambitious office nebbish in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying).

All three are mostly given character flaws along with an abiding feeling of superiority over their brother, who they all look upon as a complete moron. Of course, all are redeemed by their brother’s honesty and kindness – I’m not giving away anything you couldn’t figure out before walking into the theater. Sadly, they aren’t memorable characters and their conversion comes without any effort or sacrifice. You never get the sense that they suffered in order to come out the other side smelling like a rose.

There are some very funny moments (a party scene where naive Ned falls into a threesome for example) but not enough to sustain the movie which seems to meander aimlessly from scene to scene. There doesn’t seem to be much point here other than to make a sweet, charming comedy which is quite all right by me, but at times this seems more of a collection of scenes than anything else and that’s a bit disconcerting.

It’s worth seeing for Rudd alone – he can be as charming as they come. This isn’t the vehicle that is going to lift him into another strata of stardom however; that will have to come another day.

REASONS TO GO: Rudd is terribly likable and charming. The cast is exceptionally talented.

REASONS TO STAY: There’s little inertia and the movie runs on too long. There are not enough funny moments to sustain it.

FAMILY VALUES: There’s some nudity and sexual content, as well as a few F bombs and other crude words.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie came together unusually quickly, taking about four months from the time producer Peter Saraf read the script to the day shooting wrapped.

HOME OR THEATER: It won’t be around in theaters much longer given the box office numbers, but that’s okay – this will work perfectly well on the home screen.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

TOMORROW: The Debt