New Releases for the Week of November 7, 2014

INTERSTELLAR

(Paramount) Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Ellen Burstyn, John Lithgow, Casey Affleck. Directed by Christopher Nolan

The Earth is dying. It will soon be unable to support life as all our ecological chickens are coming home to roost. Desperate to preserve our species, an expedition is sent through a newly-discovered wormhole to find habitable planets that one day may be our new homes, but the trip will be full of perilous unknowns and those who are sent to the stars will be separated from everyone and everything they love.

See the trailer, interviews, a featurette and a promo here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release formats: Standard, IMAX (opened Tuesday)
Genre: Science Fiction
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for some intense perilous action and brief strong language)

Big Hero 6

(Disney/Marvel) Starring the voices of Ryan Potter, Scott Adsit, T.J. Miller, Jamie Chung. In a future megalopolis, a young boy stung by a family tragedy gets involved with his brother’s inflatable robot Baymax who was programmed to heal the sick. However, the boy, his robot and his friends get caught up in the machinations of an evil villain who was at the core of the boy’s pain. The boy will transform himself, his robot and friends into high tech heroes to fight the madman who threatens to destroy everything – and everyone – he loves. Sound familiar?

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release formats: Standard, 3D
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for action and peril, some rude humor, and thematic elements)

 

Birdman

(Fox Searchlight) Michael Keaton, Zach Galifianakis, Edward Norton, Emma Stone. An actor best known for playing a costumed superhero decades before is making one last comeback on Broadway in the hopes of reviving a moribund career as well as to reconnect with a family that has given up on him. Getting in the way is his own ego and an encroachment of his fantasy life into his reality.

See the trailer, a clip and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release formats: Standard
Genre: Dark Comedy/Fantasy
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: R (for language throughout, some sexual content and brief violence)

The Blue Room

(IFC/Sundance Selects) Matthieu Amalric, Lea Drucker, Stephanie Cleau, Laurent Poitrenaux. A torrid extramarital affair between a successful family man and a beautiful woman ends with the man being question by the police. What happened to their relationship? And what is the man accused of doing? This stylish and sexy thriller was directed by Amalric, one of France’s most accomplished actors.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release formats: Standard
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for sexual content including graphic nudity) 

Elsa and Fred

(Millennium) Shirley MacLaine, Christopher Plummer, Marcia Gay Harden, Scott Bakula. A curmudgeonly man who wants only to live out his remaining years with as little human contact as possible moves into a seniors apartment complex in New Orleans. However, a gregarious neighbor absolutely refuses to let him give up on life and the two strike up a friendship that deepens unexpectedly. Now treading in an emotional minefield, the two struggle to make it through without everything blowing up in their faces.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release formats: Standard
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Now Playing: AMC Downtown Disney
Rating: PG-13 (for brief strong language)

Laggies

(A24) Keira Knightley, Chloe Grace Moretz, Sam Rockwell, Jeff Garlin. 26 and not ready for adulthood quite yet, a young woman panics when her boyfriend proposes and goes to live with her new 16-year-old friend and her friend’s damaged dad. Dragging herself kicking and screaming into adulthood is one thing but arriving there wiser than when you left childhood is a whole other thing.

See the trailer, clips and a featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release formats: Standard
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: Select Theaters
Rating: R (for language, some sexual material and teen partying)

 

Mr. Pip

(Freestyle Releasing) Hugh Laurie, Kerry Fox, Eka Darville, Xzannjah Matsi. During the brutal civil war in Bougainville in the 1990s, an English teacher – the last Englishman in the village – makes a connection with his students through the reading of Dickens’ Great Expectations. A wildly imaginative young girl begins to believe that Pip, whom the young girl calls “Mr. Pip” is her friend and he takes her into the fantastic world of Dickens’ London. However her belief in her friend Mr. Pip inadvertently puts the entire village in mortal peril.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Touchstar Southchase
Rating: PG-13 (for disturbing situations involving violence and threat, and for some mature thematic material and brief language)

On Any Sunday, The Next Chapter

(Rd Bull Media House) Travis Pastrana, Marc Marquez, Dani Pedrosa, Doug Henry. The 1971 documentary film On Any Sunday helped popularize motorcycle racing in the United States. More than four decades later, the oldest son of the original film’s director revisits the sport, showing its acceptance as an Extreme Sport and becoming more popular than ever.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release formats: Standard
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: Select Theaters
Rating: PG-13 (for disturbing situations involving violence and threat, and for some mature thematic material and brief language)

Whiplash

(Sony Classics) Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons, Paul Reiser, Melissa Benoist. An ambitious jazz drummer, wanting to become elite at his chosen profession, is tutored by an autocratic teacher who continues to push him to the breaking point. Either the student will crack like a walnut and lose everything or he’ll reach his potential and become one of the best drummers in the world.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for strong language including some sexual references)

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Source Code

The sparks between Michelle Monaghan and Jake Gyllenhaal are nothing compared to the flames behind them.

(2011) Science Fiction (Summit) Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, Jeffrey Wright, Michael Arden, Cas Anvar, Russell Peters, Brent Skagford, Craig Thomas, Gordon Masten, Scott Bakula (voice), Frederick de Grandpre. Directed by Duncan Jones

If you knew you only had eight minutes to live, what would you do with them? Would you make every second count? What if you had to re-live them over and over and over again?

Captain Colter Stevens (Gyllenhaal) wakes up on a train. There is a beautiful woman, whose name he later finds out is Caroline (Monaghan), sitting across from him, making small talk. All very simple. All very ordinary.

Except Captain Stevens shouldn’t be there. The last memory he has is of flying helicopter sorties in Afghanistan. He doesn’t know how he got there or why this beautiful woman keeps calling him “Sean.” He doesn’t understand why when he looks in the bathroom mirror, he sees another face – the face of Sean Fentress (de Grandpre), the teacher he’s supposed to be. He’s disoriented and doesn’t understand what’s happening. Then the train blows up.

He finds himself in what appears to be a flight simulator leaking hydraulic fluid, being paged by a woman in a military uniform who he later finds out is named Goodwin (Farmiga), trying to find out from Captain Stevens who blew up the train. Captain Stevens has no idea. Finally someone in charge, Dr. Rutledge (Wright) lets him know; he’s in Source Code, an experimental technology that allows him to be projected into a human host during the last eight minutes of their life and be able to relive it. There’s an explanation as to why eight minutes and why him, but it would only make your brain hurt.

The reason Captain Stevens is being sent back over and over again is that this train bombing is the precursor to a much larger, much more deadly terrorist attack. Time is running out and Captain Stevens must get past his own deepening feelings for Caroline and his desire to save the people on the train who are already dead to find out who the bomber is so millions of lives can be saved.

This is the intriguing premise to Source Code, the latest science fiction opus from director Duncan Jones, the auteur behind Moon. Like that film, it is best that only the barest plot points be revealed as to not spoil the twists and turns that the movie takes you through. Unlike many time travel pictures of late, this one isn’t strictly about time travel since nobody actually travels so much as inhabits. Still, there are plenty of paradoxes involving alternate dimensions.

Like most time travel movies, there are lots of big old plot holes that kind of make you think “oh no that doesn’t work.” For example, every time Captain Stevens goes back into the memories of Sean Fentress, the situation changes. He is able to see people, places and things Fentress didn’t actually see. If he’s inhabiting someone else’s consciousness, wouldn’t he be limited to experiencing what his host experienced? That issue is never addressed, but then again, logical people like myself may not be the best audience for this movie.

Then again, I thought this was extraordinarily well-plotted and well-written, once you just sit back and let your suspension of disbelief take over. The characters are realistic and human rather than being iconic heroic sorts who save the day while admiring their reflections in the mirror. Nope; Captain Stevens has baggage and even though he is a heroic sort, he is far from blindly obedient.

Gyllenhaal has developed into one of the better actors working today. With his sister Maggie, they make the best sibling actors since the Cusacks. While Gyllenhaal’s line delivery tends to be laconic, he makes up for it for his facial emotions, which give him much more animation than other actors who use their voice nearly exclusively to let us see how they’re feeling. He also has great chemistry with Monaghan, which is at the center of the movie.

Monaghan is undeniably beautiful; she also is a pretty decent actress in her own right. She plays Caroline with a mixture of warmth and incredulity. She plays along although she doesn’t always understand what’s going on and Monaghan manages to give the character a sense of continuity from encounter to encounter. Her lines may vary slightly but her emotions don’t.

While there are some spectacular explosions and action sequences, by and large this isn’t a big budget spectacular sci-fi epic. This is an examination of a man trying to figure out what is real, what can be changed, who he is and where he fits in. That’s some pretty intense kind of questions to answer and of course they are to the extent that Colter Stevens wants them to be. However, it is the very questioning nature of Stevens that makes the movie more worthwhile than most of the other stuff that’s out there.

Some may find this a bit too cerebral for their tastes but quite frankly, there is an audience of people who love smart sci-fi who aren’t being serviced by Hollywood too often in favor of the big budget Tranformers and their clones. I’m all for space opera and big epic science fiction action movies, but there’s room for these kinds of films as well and this one is done particularly well. Jones, who once by the name as Zowie Bowie (he is David’s son), has a knack for these sorts of movies and it appears, from the rumors of what movies he’s considering for his next project, that there are more of them to come from him and to my mind, they couldn’t be more welcome!

REASONS TO GO: An intriguing premise that doesn’t fall prey to the same problems most time travel films fall to. Nice performances (and real chemistry between) Gyllenhaal and Monaghan.

REASONS TO STAY: Seeing the same eight minute-period over and over again can get tedious.

FAMILY VALUES: There are some pretty disturbing images of things and people blowing up or having been blown up. There is a little bit of bad language as well.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Topher Grace was considered for the part of Captain Colter Stevens.

HOME OR THEATER: Very much a big screen affair.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

TOMORROW: Death at a Funeral (2010)

The Informant!

All superspy Matt Damon needs is a shoe phone and the cone of silence.

 

 

(Warner Brothers) Matt Damon, Scott Bakula, Joel McHale, Melanie Lynskey, Eddie Jemison, Rusty Schwimmer, Patton Oswalt, Tom Papa, Clancy Brown. Directed by Steven Soderbergh

 

Truth, as they say, is stranger than fiction. However, capturing truth can be a lot like trying to grab a minnow with your bare hands; it has a tendency to slip through your fingers.

 

Mark Whitacre (Damon) is a young, rising executive at Archer Daniels Midland, a Fortune 500 company based in Decatur, Illinois who simply put, handle food and food additives. Chances are, something you ate today came from them. Whitacre is a trained biochemist who suspects that a new additive his team is working on that they haven’t gotten to work quite right is being sabotaged by Japanese corporate interests, who are working on a competing substance. The FBI is called in to investigate and although they find no evidence of espionage, Whitacre calls Agent Brian Shepard (Bakula) aside.

 

It seems Whitacre has evidence that ADM has been engaged in price-fixing on a corn derivative called Lysine that is used in just about everything, from breakfast cereals to sodas. In doing this, ADM has defrauded consumers out of literally billions of dollars, and done it invisibly. Shepard and his partner, the stern and suspicious Bob Herndon (McHale) are incredulous but intrigued; if Whitacre is telling the truth, this could turn out to be one of the most important corporate crimes in history.

 

Whitacre agrees to wear a wire and get evidence of ADM executives agreeing to price-fixing with their competitors. In the meantime, Shepard begins to get uneasy as Whitacre begins to act erratically. That gets overshadowed as Whitacre gets the evidence they need, but more comes out than Whitacre bargained for.

 

This is a true story although it has been embellished for dramatic purposes. The essential facts, however, are the same. Soderbergh is at his best here, utilizing Damon’s voice-over narration as a mood-setter rather than a story-advancer. Marvin Hamlisch’s lounge lizard score sounds like it came straight out of a 60s spy movie, which is exactly the right metaphor for the movie. Whitacre fancies himself as James Bond, only twice as smart. He’s not quite as urbane or witty, unfortunately.

 

Damon was an inspired casting choice and he delivers a performance that will surely go down as one of the best of his career. He gained 30 pounds for the role, wears a toupee that is frankly embarrassing and a moustache that is pure 70s porn star, all the while fidgeting and lumbering about, perhaps the most feckless hero to come onscreen in decades.

 

He is supported by Lynskey as his long-suffering wife Ginger, who is mousy yet manipulative, but in her own curious way very supportive and loving. The two have lovely chemistry that makes the relationship realistic. Bakula, whose career has flourished in television sci-fi fare such as “Quantum Leap” and “Star Trek: Enterprise” plays his supporting role note perfectly. His performance is often overlooked because Damon’s is so good, but Bakula creates a character who is often confused by the behavior of his informant, but not only learns to appreciate his courage but becomes his biggest defender when things go south.

 

Mark Whitacre is definitely a product of the Midwest. He’s straight-forward, a little bit quirky and ultimately somewhat enigmatic. There’s no doubt he is an American hero, the highest-ranking executive to ever blow the whistle on an American company, but he is also an American tragedy. The twist in the movie’s final reel is heartbreaking but inevitable. No good deed goes unpunished, after all.

 

This is ostensibly a comedy but it’s certainly as dry as a cornfield in October. Not everyone will appreciate the dry wit that Soderbergh evinces here. Yes, this is a very cleverly written and insightful script, but I’ve noticed that some folks just don’t get humor that isn’t in their face and over-the-top. Still, I laughed as hard at this as I had any one of Judd Apatow’s comedies, which is saying something.

 

WHY RENT THIS: An intelligent, well-written script bolsters a career highlight performance by Damon.  

 

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: The comedy is so dry that some may wind up scratching their heads with the definite feeling that they are somehow the butt of an even bigger joke.

 

FAMILY VALUES: There is a good deal of foul language which may give some parents pause; frankly it’s probably no worse than most teens hear every day at school, so I wouldn’t have a problem letting older teens see this.

 

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The Smothers Brothers appear in separate but equally memorable cameos.  

 

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

 

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $41.7M on a $22M production budget; the movie broke even.

 

FINAL RATING: 7/10

 

TOMORROW: The Rocker