Seeing Steve McQueen's "Shame" tomorrow afternoon (thank you, NFL, for scheduling no games of consequence until Sunday night...), so certainly looking forward to that. With school pretty much wrapped up, it's time to play catch-up, so I'll be checking out stuff like "Beginners", "The Future", "Another Earth" and some other titles I missed this summer.
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Speaking of which, for some reason, I caught up with "Sarah's Key" and was honestly not very surprised to find it a doughy history lesson that finds false uplift through tragedy by framing story around pregnant, glum Kristin Scott-Thomas. Even she can't survive its obvious shortcomings, most of which, I presume, can be traced back to Tatiana de Rosnay's 2006 bestseller.
For me, there's no more enduring performance this year than John Boyega's in "Attack the Block," Joe Cornish's slick, propulsive small-scale action-comedy hybrid which rose through the ranks of genre festivals to become one of the more noteworthy debuts of the year.
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Boyega plays Moses, the leader of a young, petty street gang in an urban UK neighborhood, who rises above his more comically-styled homeboys to become the center of a film that subversively turns into more of a "Die Hard" action film than a "Shaun of the Dead" level satire.
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And if you ask me, a good portion of the credit needs to go to Boyega, whose transformation from expressionless, hesitant slum rat to exterminating hallway-dashing hero provides the backbone for the film, which poignantly ends with his much-deserved final-reel appreciation.
Tom McCarthy's "Win Win", which I just caught up with last week, is a truthful, affectionate family drama, one that's easy to snuggle up to and sympathize with, while still staying true to its self and never compromising its characters in a way that makes them dismissible.
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With this film, McCarthy has further proven to be a practiced hand at portraying these kinds of honest, moving character dramas centered around unexpected relationships. His previous film, 2008's "The Visitor," had a pervasively solemn expression in examining the unlikely (and ultimately tragic) encounter between a lonely middle-aged professor and an illegal immigrant, while "Win Win" sees a seemingly honest rural Midwest family take in a teenager, which temporarily, at least, changes their lives for the better.
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Alex Shaffer, playing the young, reserved Kyle who rediscovers his love for wrestling under his new temporary family, delivers the prize performance of the lot, his blonde mop and monotone delivery masking a subtle vulnerability and always present longing for dependency and support. On the whole, the film may be slightly too calculated, slightly too transparent to prove a knockout, yet its earnestness and its performances are nearly irresistible. [B]
On the topic of Martin Scorsese's "Hugo," I consider myself - from the moment I left the theater until now - a fan. I love that this film (which is obviously breathtaking to witness and a strong counter-argument for the tasteful implementation of 3D) is such a strange detour for one of America's greatest enduring cinema icons, yet once you take it in, it feels like the product of no one else.
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It's a film that, akin to many of Scorsese's works, is oddly structured (it begins as one thing, ends as another and has no problem taking its time to get there) and in the context of "children's adventure" films, seems to be rather anti-adventurous.
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It's a warm, sweet tale about coming to terms with the past and moving on while recognizing our history. A considerable and active presence in film restoration and preservation today, Scorsese's own ideals and beliefs begin to bleed through with each passing frame (his technical prowess on display much sooner) until his influence, his persona, literally appears before you.
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That being said, I never considered the film to be something of a masterwork, and I squint my eyes and furrow my brow every time I hear it. I think it's certainly one of the more interesting works of the year - the reclamation of art and movie-making in the guise of a children's film - but my appreciation of it is just that, an appreciation.
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I can't really argue with anybody pointing out its flaws or its inflated running-time, or the fact that Scorsese's passion feels more intense than the characters, yet I never felt lost or misled or fatigued by "Hugo", rather, I felt it gloriously wondrous to slip into and admire, yet too easy to slip out of.
In what could be perceived as the conclusion (or perhaps bridge) to Danish provocateur Lars von Trier's recent explorations of guilt and depression - beginning with 2009's much ballyhooed horror film "Antichrist" - the director's latest film, the apocalyptically beautiful "Melancholia" is as relatively restrained as a film about the end of the world (and coming from the self-proclaimed "greatest director in the world") could be.
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Which isn't to say that fans of the lurid extremes of "Antichrist" won't have anything to feast their eyes on here (in fact, they don't even have to wait past the title card as they're witness to a balletic slow-motion prologue set to Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" that perhaps outdoes anything the fearless von Trier has attempted before), but the kind of film that "Melancholia" is - a doleful, numbing meditation on recessive despondency, allegorically linked to the end of the world - will likely provoke less revulsion and more quizzical agitation. Unless, that is, you're like me, in which case the film will play like a cosmic revelation.
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Split into two parts separated by inter-titles (each a name of the two sisters), the first introduces Justine (played brilliantly by a morose-then-despondent Kirsten Dunst) a bride on her way to her own wedding reception, which quickly snowballs into a disaster, full of bluntly cynical dinner speeches, a bickering father-of-the-groom and, most importantly, a terribly disinterested bride.
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Part two (easily the more bleakly entertaining and satisfyingly resolute of the two) is titled "Claire," the comparatively chipper of the two sisters (played by Charlotte Gainsbourgh) who frantically, obsessively, fears that the fictional planet (metaphorically called "Melancholia"), scientifically expected to merely pass by the Earth rather than collide with it, is nevertheless about to demolish all life on Earth.
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Von Trier was initially interested in the concept of clinically depressive people behaving normally in a time of crisis, and Dunst's fixed detachment, her deadpan death wish throughout the second half serves as his portal into this morbid curiosity.
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Of course, even the most ignorant of viewers could suspect the film's conclusion - a sonic wave of deep bass and Wagner strings that flood the auditorium in an example of a film that still justifies the trip to the theatre - an all too rare example, perhaps. [A]
In-between spare moments where I'm not thinking about Lars von Trier's "Melancholia" (more on that later, by the way), I've managed to sit down to watch all manner of (mostly) terrible films at home, plus a few that weren't too painful and some that were quite good, honestly.
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Top of mind, Marcus Nispel's "Conan the Barbarian" is an over-lit, over-blown spectacle that (in what is becoming an all too common trend) eschews comparisons to the original film by proclaiming literary conception as its source of inspiration, a silly double standard considering the likelihood of a retake slim without the existence of John Milius' 1982 camp classic starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in his breakthrough role.
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Nispel's vision is far too crass and vulgar, his landscapes too digitized, washed with orange-blue skies and shiny seaside ports, and yet after its bloodthirsty, distasteful first half, the film pants through its midsection and then collapses from exhaustion. It's a primal scream towards the sky that falls on deaf ears. That Rachel Nichols sure is fetching, though. [C-]
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Although it stars Ed Helms ("The Hangover") and isn't afraid to drop a dirty joke or two or three, Miguel Arteta's "Cedar Rapids" is as much a Frank Capra film as it as a lewd, R-rated middle-aged comedy.
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Like "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" or "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", the film is about an idealistic small-town man who travels to the big city (Cedar Rapids, Iowa isn't exactly New York or D.C., I'll admit) where his ideals and beliefs are tested by obscenities and corruption.
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Arteta directed last year's "Youth in Revolt," a rather unsuccessful-yet-curious coming-of-age Michael Cera comedy, and while that film felt too familiar in certain respects and rather flimsy, it did take chances and felt sporadically unique. "Cedar Rapids" is a more refined, mature slice of comedy, one that will likely be appreciated by classic film buffs for its moralistic center and by bawdy comedy fans for its fearless sense of humor. [B-]
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For some reason (okay, because it's on Starz every other hour) I watched Christian E. Christiansen's "The Roommate", a riotous, deathly ineffective horror-thriller that can't even wake up its actors, much less the audience.
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Familiar with the film's obvious influence, 1992's similarly schlocky, yet far more perturbed "Single White Female," I had a vague curiosity in this dorm room update, which is amazingly quite worse than even the most pessimistic could expect.
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Whether its the film's comatose, emaciated leads (I mean that both figuratively and literally) Minka Kelly and Leighton Meester, the director's dull, thrilless hands or its unintentionally uproarious vision of freshmen in art school, "The Roommate" is a stolid, plodding amber-tinted bore. [D]
"The Muppets" is simply a joyous reunion tour, a get-the-gang-back-together send-off like no other, and I say this as someone with almost no prior exposure to the original TV show and subsequent movie spin-offs throughout the 80 and 90's.
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Jason Segel, who stars in and co-writes along with Nicolas Stoller, brings his doughy sarcasm both behind and in-front of the camera, managing to make the film both earnestly nostalgic and blithefully self-aware - it's hilarious, it's catchy and it's irresistibly endearing. [B]
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Contrary to what you may believe, "My Week with Marilyn" is not a sequel to "Me and Orson Welles", although the two are nigh copies of one another, both middling, compelling-but-slim reenactments that will titillate classic film enthusiasts and the non-educated alike, at least for their meager durations.
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Like Christian McKay's Orson Welles personification, Michelle Williams bravely inhabits the title role here of Ms. Monroe, capturing her playful, voluptuous sexuality and her frightfully flimsy self-image, yet the film is so positively scant of any everlasting substance, that it practically wilts as you walk out of the theater. [C]
Speaking of which, for some reason, I caught up with "Sarah's Key" and was honestly not very surprised to find it a doughy history lesson that finds false uplift through tragedy by framing story around pregnant, glum Kristin Scott-Thomas. Even she can't survive its obvious shortcomings, most of which, I presume, can be traced back to Tatiana de Rosnay's 2006 bestseller.
Boyega plays Moses, the leader of a young, petty street gang in an urban UK neighborhood, who rises above his more comically-styled homeboys to become the center of a film that subversively turns into more of a "Die Hard" action film than a "Shaun of the Dead" level satire. 
With this film, McCarthy has further proven to be a practiced hand at portraying these kinds of honest, moving character dramas centered around unexpected relationships. His previous film, 2008's "The Visitor," had a pervasively solemn expression in examining the unlikely (and ultimately tragic) encounter between a lonely middle-aged professor and an illegal immigrant, while "Win Win" sees a seemingly honest rural Midwest family take in a teenager, which temporarily, at least, changes their lives for the better. 
Which isn't to say that fans of the lurid extremes of "Antichrist" won't have anything to feast their eyes on here (in fact, they don't even have to wait past the title card as they're witness to a balletic slow-motion prologue set to Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" that perhaps outdoes anything the fearless von Trier has attempted before), but the kind of film that "Melancholia" is - a doleful, numbing meditation on recessive despondency, allegorically linked to the end of the world - will likely provoke less revulsion and more quizzical agitation. Unless, that is, you're like me, in which case the film will play like a cosmic revelation.
Jason Segel, who stars in and co-writes along with Nicolas Stoller, brings his doughy sarcasm both behind and in-front of the camera, managing to make the film both earnestly nostalgic and blithefully self-aware - it's hilarious, it's catchy and it's irresistibly endearing. [B]
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