New Releases for the Week of October 11, 2013

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS

(Columbia) Tom Hanks, Catherine Keener, Barkhad Abdi, Max Martini, Yul Vazquez, Michael Chernus, Chris Mulkey, Angus MacInnes. Directed by Paul Greengrass

The captain of a cargo ship is on a routine run off the coast of Somalia when his radar picks up a couple of small boats headed towards his vessel at speed. Something about it feels wrong and he communicates his concerns to the authorities. They think it’s probably nothing more than a couple of Somali fishing boats but he’s still uneasy. His fears turn out to be real as his ship is boarded by armed pirates, beginning a real-life crisis that would grab world headlines.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard, IMAX (opens Thursday night)

Genre True Life Drama

Rating: PG-13 (for sustained intense sequences of menace, some violence with bloody images, and for substance use)

Ghost Team One

(The Film Arcade) Carlos Santos, JR Villarreal, Fernanda Romero, Meghan Falcone. A couple of slacker roommates accidentally wake the dead during a party. What to do? Call in a paranormal investigator who turns out to be a mega-hottie. Both of the roomies are into her in a big way but someone else has his eye on her – the demon they’ve inadvertently summoned.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Horror Comedy

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

 Machete Kills

(Reliance) Danny Trejo, Michelle Rodriguez, Sofia Vergara, Mel Gibson. The return of the ex-Mexican Federale from the Grindhouse trailer and his own feature film. This time he has been personally recruited by the President of the United States to take out a revolutionary and an arms dealer who have teamed up to start a reign of terror and war across the globe. One man against an army of thugs? When that one man is Machete, that’s all you need. When Machete takes out the trash, it stays took.

See the trailer, promos and a clip here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday night)

Genre: Action

Rating: R (for strong bloody violence throughout, language and some sexual content)

Romeo and Juliet

(Relativity) Hailee Steinfeld, Douglas Booth, Stellan Skarsgaard, Paul Giamatti. The classic Shakespeare tragedy gets a new treatment. While the film is set in the traditional setting of the original play, it is meant to be geared towards young people who may not have experienced that play although may have heard of it. Perhaps they should show the title characters texting their dialogue to one another.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Romance

Rating: PG-13 (for some violence and thematic elements) 

The Painting (Le tableau)

Art is a leap of faith.

(2011) Animated Feature (GKIDS) Starring the voices of Jean Barney, Chloe Berthier, Julien Bouanich, Serge Fafli, Thierry Jahn, Jean-Francois Laguionie, Adrien Larmande, Jessica Monceau, Jeremy Prevost, Jacques Roehrich, Celine Ronte, Magali Rosenzweig, Thomas Sagols, Michel Vigne. Directed by Jean-Francois Laguionie

 

In this French-Belgian co-production, the figures in a painting lead their own lives behind the canvas walls that we see. In one particular painting, there is a rigid social strata; in the luxurious castle live the Alldunns, the completed figures who are at the top of the food chain and are altogether pleased with themselves as the painter meant to complete them. Below them but worlds apart are the Halfies, figures not quite finished with occasionally the matter of only a few brush strokes separating them from the top of the rung – but it is in the garden they must live. Finally there are the Sketchies, little more than pencil drawings who hide in plain sight and are the low carvings on the totem pole, the objects of derision and hatred from both the other groups, exiled into the forest.

Of course everything begins with a Romeo and Juliet-esque romance between Alldunn Ramo (Larmande) and Halfie Claire (Berthier). This is deeply frowned upon by the Great Candlestick, the Doge-like leader of the Alldunns. The Halfies are just as resentful of Claire and so she runs away. Separated from his love, Ramo goes into the woods to find Claire, accompanied by her friend Lola (Monceau) and Plume (Jahn), a bitter Sketchie who watched his friend Gom (Bouanich) horribly beaten and thrown from the castle balcony to the ground below.

The three go on a journey to reunite the lovers and to find the painter, who can bring harmony to the world of the painting by completing his work. They will discover new worlds inside other paintings and find out that the things that seem important on the outside pale in significance to what’s inside.

The paintings here bring to mind the works of Matisse, Modigliani, Picasso and Chagall although they are representations of different styles of art more than of a specific piece. The world of The Painting is imaginative and clever, although the animation, while colorful, is a bit choppy in places, looking almost like a Cartoon Network version of an art history course.

Still, this is solid family entertainment with a lovely little twist at the end and a distinctly European point of view, especially in regards to class differentiations and in changing your environment. It took four years to realize and I suspect that the things I found deficient in the animation itself may well have been done deliberately to make a point which I can appreciate but still in all with a little bit more care this could have been the work of art that it was trying to portray.

REASONS TO GO: Very colorful. Imaginative and innovative.

REASONS TO STAY: Animation is spotty in places. Very simplistic story.

FAMILY VALUES:  One of the paintings in the movie is of a topless woman, but in an artistic way and certainly non-sexualized. There is a bit of violence including one rather disturbing scene.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The distributor name, GKIDS, stands for Guerilla Kids International Distribution Syndicate, and began life as the organizers of the Oscar-qualifying New York Children’s International Film Festival which they continue to do today.

CRITICAL MASS: There have been no reviews published for the film for either Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Toy Story

FINAL RATING: 6.5/10

NEXT: Putzel and further coverage of the 2013 Florida Film Festival!

Warm Bodies

Love is not only blind, it doesn’t have much of a sense of smell either.

(2013) Zombie Romance (Summit) Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Analeigh Tipton, John Malkovich, Rob Corddry, Dave Franco, Cory Hardrict, Daniel Kindress-Kay, Vincent Leclerc, Clifford LeDuc-Vallancourt, Billie Calmeau, Adam Driscoll, Robert Reynolds, Christine Rodriguez, Debbie Wong. Directed by Jonathan Levine

Zombies are in these days with the success of The Walking Dead television show (one of the best things on television right now) and movies like Shaun of the Dead and 28 Days Later. For the most part we see those imperiled by the zombie apocalypse. But what are the zombies thinking?

A young man wanders around the airport, listlessly. He doesn’t work there; he’s been dead for some time but has been reanimated by forces unknown. He has some memory but can’t remember his name, other than that it starts with R. So R (Hoult) it is. His best friend (if you can call it that) is another shuffling undead flesh-eater whose name might have begun with M (Corddry).

R’s life kind of sucks but then it kind of doesn’t. He collects things and puts them in the jumbo jet he’s converted into his home, a kind of zombie man-cave. He listens to old LPs on a turntable (where’s the power coming from for it?) and stares at little knick-knacks he picks up around the airport. Occasionally, he goes hunting for food with M.

There are zombies and then there are Bonies who are kind of like hardcore zombies who have given up. One day they just start tearing their own flesh off. They’re superstrong, super-aggressive and super-grouchy. There are a few humans left who live in a walled-off section of town. They are led by the military-stiff Grigio (Malkovich) whose daughter Julia (Palmer) and her boyfriend Perry (Franco) are leading a party of scavengers to get medical supplies for the survivors.

That’s where R’s hunting party finds them. The attack is brutal and the outcome inevitable. Perry is a big talker but not a great shot – and as you know from your zombie 101 that zombies can’t be killed with anything other than a head shot. Perry’s shot hits R in the chest which just pisses R off and he chooses Perry to be his brain snack.

When a zombie eats the brains of a victim, they are able to access the memories of that victim. R sees Perry’s memories of Julia and decides to save her, managing to smuggle her out and to the relative safety of his airplane. After an aborted escape attempt convinces her that it is terribly unsafe to go out of the plane, she agrees to stay with this most unusual zombie.

The presence of Julia is changing R rapidly. His vocabulary improves. He begins to have tender feelings towards Julia (although are they his own or a product of Perry’s memory? an intriguing question the movie doesn’t bother to pose) and there are physiological changes as well. What’s more, M and the other zombies are beginning to change as well.

The Bonies don’t like that one little bit and want to find R and stop this “cure” before it gets too far. Julia needs to get back home but her father and his fanatical soldiers would shoot R on sight (and it’s for damn sure that they’re better shots than Perry). What’s more Julia has developed some powerful feelings for R as well. Is this love as doomed as that of Romeo and Juliet?

It’s no secret that the story here is loosely based on the Shakespeare play with several characters referencing characters from the play (R=Romeo, Julia=Juliet, M=Mercutio, Perry=Paris etc.). That no doubt suits the audience that this is intended for just fine – the preteen/teen girls who adore Twilight and their moms. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that most of the target audience is only aware somewhat of the R&J connection and have had little contact with the original play itself if any.

One of the things that works really well here is the chemistry between Hoult and Palmer. Hoult, who as a young man has become a seasoned veteran of the movies (some of you might remember him as young Marcus in About a Boy), is rapidly turning into a star. This might be the film that propels him to the next level. Palmer, whose done several genre films targeted towards young adults (I Am Number Four and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice among them), plays a plucky independent sort that the young teen girls seem to flock to these days. She and Hoult make an attractive couple (even if one of the is rotting away).

There are some pretty funny moments, particularly with R’s inner monologue. There is also a nice sweetness here that while not going to get you running out to the nearest zombie apocalypse to find yourself a boyfriend, it will at least touch the teddy bear softness of your heart. The only real complaints I have about the movie are the CGI Bonies which are unconvincing (which is a rather charitable assessment) and several plot points that kind of get little play, like Julia’s reaction to the news that R ate her ex. Not something most girls are going to get past very quickly I would think.

Still, this isn’t a bad movie at all. In fact, it’s a pretty good one – much better than I thought it would be, wondering if the filmmakers would be pandering to that target audience (they do but they don’t – Levine and cohorts seem to be of the opinion that teen and preteen girls appreciate a good movie more than a mediocre one). It’s actually a movie that I wish more Twihards had gone to see – I think those pining away over the absence of Bella, Edward and Jacob might find this right up their alley.

REASONS TO GO: Endearing and funny when it needs to be. Nice chemistry with Hoult and Palmer.

REASONS TO STAY: CGI Bonies are weak. Glossed over some important plot points.

FAMILY VALUES:  As there are zombies, there are extensive scenes of zombies eating people as well as getting shot in the head, although the gore is relatively mild (think The Walking Dead). There’s a lot more bad language though.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The Nora character was part-Ethiopian with brown skin in the book but was changed to a Caucasian for the movie.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/19/13: Rotten Tomatoes: 78% positive reviews. Metacritic: 58/100; I’d say the reviews are slightly positive.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Fido

FINAL RATING: 7/10

NEXT: Amour

Gnomeo and Juliet

Featherstone engages in a little light bondage with Gnomeo and Juliet.

(2011) Animated Feature (Touchstone) Starring the voices of James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Michael Caine, Maggie Smith, Jason Statham, Patrick Stewart, Ashley Jensen, Matt Lucas, Jim Cummings, Ozzy Osbourne, Hulk Hogan, Julie Walters, Dolly Parton, Stephen Merchant, Richard Wilson. Directed by Kelly Asbury

If the play’s the thing, then Romeo and Juliet may just be THE thing. Perhaps the most famous play ever written, it has been told and re-told in all sorts of cinematic methods, from musicals (West Side Story) to epics (Zeffirelli’s 1968 version) to mistakes (Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 MTV-hip version). However, I can’t think of any version that is quite as bizarro as this one.

Mr. Montague (Wilson) and Miss Capulet (Waters) live at 2B and Not 2B Verona Avenue. They have had a petty rivalry going on over the years stemming from their gardens. This resentment has carried over to their garden furniture, particularly the garden gnomes that populate their yards. On the Montague side, Lord Redbrick (Caine) rules the red gnomes; on the Capulet, Lady Bluebury (Smith) is the boss.

Gnomeo (McAvoy) is son of Lady Bluebury; Juliet (Blunt) daughter of Lord Redbrick. The endless rivalry that goes on, largely in the form of lawnmower races between Gnomeo and Tybalt (Statham) which Tybalt cheats in order to win, has been escalating. Juliet, tired of being cooped up on a pedestal watched over by Nanette (Jensen), a frog fountain at the behest of Juliet’s overprotective dad, wants to contribute and be productive; she spies a rare orchid in the hothouse of a neighboring yard whose house has fallen into disrepair. She means to nab it for the Reds in order to put the red yard ahead of the blue.

In the meantime, Gnomeo means to exact revenge for Tybalt’s destruction of the Blue lawnmower. He and his cousin Benny (Lucas) go on a stealth mission to the Red yard, meaning to lay down some graffiti but Benny gets a bit carried away and the two are discovered. They flee and Gnomeo is forced to take shelter in the abandoned yard.

It is of course at that moment that Juliet, dressed as a ninja (okay, wearing one of Mr. Montague’s old socks) enters the abandoned yard to nab the orchid. Gnomeo sees her go after it and in the way of guys everywhere, once he sees somebody wants something he wants it too. The two of them compete for the flower in a series of martial arts-like moves until they get a gander at each other’s faces. That’s it – instant love. However, they fall into a convenient pond, washing off Gnomeo’s camouflage and washing away Juliet’s sock and they realize that they are from opposing sides.

That doesn’t mean much to true love however and they arrange a meeting in the neutral yard the next day. There they meet Featherstone (Cummings), a plastic pink flamingo who has languished in the storage shed since the owners of the house divorced and went their separate ways years ago. He is pleased to see them, particularly when they discover his missing leg. He is all about love, particularly since his own love was taken away from him in the divorce.

The two are definitely in love and life could certainly be idyllic, particularly if they follow through with their plans to run away and start a new garden in the dilapidated old yard. However, Tybalt is getting out of control and the war between red and blue is escalating and frankly, red is winning. However, the blue side looks to even things out with something called the Terrafirminator. The more out of control things get, the more likely that a tragic ending is  inevitable.

This is one of those nice occasions where my expectations were exceeded. I didn’t think much of the trailer; the animation isn’t really ground-breaking and while the whole concept is different to say the least, it is sufficiently out there that sight unseen it left me with a kind of wait-and-see attitude. Quite frankly, Da Queen was far more jazzed to see this than I was. I’m very glad that she insisted we go see it.

This is more than pretty good. There are many sly Shakespearean references (“Out! Damn spot!” refers not to a bloodstain but to a wayward hound) as well as some amazing stunt casting, like metal god Ozzie Osbourne as a sweet porcelain deer, and Patrick Stewart as a grumpy William Shakespeare. Hulk Hogan narrates an online ad for the Terrafirminator and Dolly Parton adds a turn as the starter at the lawnmower race (with an appropriately blonde and large-breasted gnome as her onscreen alter ego).  

Director Kelly Asbury previously worked on such disparate projects as Shrek 2 and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmaron.  He shows a deft hand here and despite an army of writers, lends a Monty Python-esque air to the proceedings.

Elton John was the executive producer of the project and most of the incidental music is themes from his hit songs done with an orchestra. That does make for a nice trip down memory lane, not to mention he contributes two new original songs (one a duet with Lady Gaga) but I would have preferred a little more original music – maybe another song or two – to balance the retreads.  

There aren’t nearly the pop culture references so prevalent in most animated features in the post-Shrek era which is kind of refreshing. It has a decidedly English feel, like the Aardman films (like Chicken Run and Flushed Away). In short, this is something completely different from the animated ranks, so much so that Disney chose to release it through their Touchstone imprint rather than the parent company where they usually place their animated features. That may backfire on them – I suspect that the film might have benefitted from the Disney marketing and brand name, but still in all don’t let its lack stop you – this is a fine animated feature that will delight children and adults alike.

REASONS TO GO: Wonderful Shakespeare in-jokes replace pop culture references. Nicely cast (and drawn) cameos.

REASONS TO STAY: Music recycles Elton John themes ad infinitum – some more original music and songs would have been welcome.

FAMILY VALUES: Suitable for all audiences.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: James McAvoy and Patrick Stewart have both played Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men movies; Stewart in the first three (and the Wolverine spin-off) and McAvoy in the upcoming X-Men: First Class.

HOME OR THEATER: Certainly the 3D aspect may work better in the theater, but this one looks just as good at home methinks.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

TOMORROW: The Other End of the Line