Category: review (Page 2 of 3)

‘Neil Young Journeys’ review: Demme and Young together again, to lesser effect

July 19, 2012 / Mad About Movies

A third pairing of the great director and the great musician is strictly for die hards.

Neil Young in "Neil Young Journeys"

“Neil Young Journeys” is the third documentary/concert film focusing on the great Canadian songwriter that director Jonathan Demme has made since 2006, and it’s the weakest of the three, even as it sporadically charms.

The film combines a road trip Young takes through the Ontario towns of his youth with a 2011 solo performance at Toronto’s Massey Hall. The show, which consists of a lot of material from his 2010 album “Le Noise,” will primarily be of interest to fans (although, one song, the lacerating “Ohio,” is expanded grippingly with a glimpse back at the 1970 tragedy at Kent State which inspired it). The tour of Ontario, too, lacks virtually any context for those who don’t already feel an affinity toward the artist.

In a sense, this film finishes a cycle that began with the homey and impressive “Neil Young: Heart of Gold” and continued with the raucous “Neil Young Trunk Show” of 2009. In that regard, it’s almost not even a stand-alone but rather a piece of a triptych. And, as it happens, the creation was far more compelling in its origin than in this final act.

(87 min., PG, Fox Tower) Grade: B-minus

‘The Dark Knight Rises’ review: Batman, resurrected, in an epic, downbeat battle

July 19, 2012 / Mad About Movies

The final chapter in an gigantic trilogy is more impressive as spectacle than as story or meditation.

The Dark Knight Rises -- Bane vs Batman.jpg

Bane (Tom Hardy) vs. Batman (Christian Bale) in "The Dark Knight Rises"

It’s been eight years, in movie time, since the hooded vigilante known as Batman cleared Gotham City of the deranged scourges of the Joker and Harvey Dent and took the blame for what should have been deemed an act of heroism.

In that time, Dent has become an emblem of the city’s purity and unity, Batman has vanished, and billionaire Bruce Wayne, the man behind Batman, has become a recluse, hiding his broken body and spirit behind the walls of his mansion, making quixotic business decisions, speaking only to servants, lost to the world.

Thus begins “The Dark Knight Rises,” the final entry in a Batman trilogy by director Christopher Nolan, co-written with his brother, Jonathan. In three films approaching eight total hours in length, the Nolans have drawn from some of the grimmest Batman comics to bring forth a deeply conflicted, eternally mournful, gravely reluctant hero who seeks inner peace by imposing justice -- real moral justice -- on the outer world, no matter the personal cost. Defying terrorists, organized criminals, corrupt politicians, a ravaging media, and a fickle public, sacrificing his body, heart and soul for the greater good, he’s an unnerving enigma, a man with everything who fights as if he had nothing, a shrouded beacon of light, a faceless icon.

The Gotham City of “The Dark Knight Rises” has no need for Batman -- or so it thinks. And then the crimes start. Some are little, such as the body of a homeless teen washing up in a storm drain. And some are massive, such as the invasion of the stock exchange by a masked vigilante known as Bane, a villain so horrifying that his emergence occasions the unthinkable: the reappearance of the Caped Crusader.

But the reborn Batman is no match for the musclebound, determined Bane. Tapping deep, mysterious resources of money, science, and ordnance, possessed of savage ruthlessness and intelligence, Bane is set on crippling Gotham City and, indeed, the very culture and economy at the center of which it stands. And, of course, he’ll happily crush Batman in body and heart in the process.

There’s more to “The Dark Knight Rises” -- much more, actually. The film’s threads include Catwoman, an accomplished jewel thief involved in a come-hither tango with both Wayne and Batman; John Blake, a decent cop who senses something bigger behind the small crimes he’s investigating; a business plot in which Wayne staves off a hostile takeover of his empire and considers a partnership on a clean energy project with a beautiful philanthropist; and a sentimental dance of loyalty and sadness between Wayne and his butler/confidant Alfred.

It’s a lot of movie, but if there’s one thing we know for sure about Christopher Nolan is that he’s capable of telling massive, multilayered stories with agility and verve. “The Dark Knight Rises” is overstuffed, and sometimes its components are drawn out excessively, but Nolan always infuses it with energy and grace. It approaches three hours in length but never feels that long.

But that isn’t to say that all of its part are rewarding or that it always compels. Particularly in its first hour or so, this is a glum and chatty movie, and even when it perks up with action and multiple plot lines it never quite shuts up: you can’t imagine a comic book panel crammed with all the verbiage that portions of this script are forced to bear.

And, too, there’s little to lighten the load. The first film of the trilogy, “Batman Begins,” carried a predominantly leaden, sober tone that the second, “The Dark Knight,” shattered, chiefly through the epic performance of Heath Ledger as the Joker. Bane, though, is humorless, his baroque voice (imagine Sean Connery providing the vocals for a cartoon opera tenor) spewing monotone taunts and insults. And while Catwoman is a droll presence (especially as played by Anne Hathaway, confidently scene-stealing), she’s never around long enough to truly lighten the mood. Not even the ostensibly merry bits of this film exactly shine.

Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) in "The Dark Knight Rises"

Elsewhere in the cast, Christian Bale once again brings earnest doggedness to the lead, Michael Caine provides genuine pathos as Alfred, Joseph Gordon-Levitt brings an air of street smarts to the Boy Scoutish Blake, and Tom Hardy is mainly a swaggering body as Bane, hidden behind a baroque mask and a fog of insinuating declamations. No one particularly ignites the screen, and you get the feeling that no one is meant to. Like their director, the actors are in the service of a Big Thing, and the emphasis is on streamlining rather than showcasing.

There is tremendous technical ability on display in “The Dark Knight Rises.” Nolan may not have as strong a personal stamp as, say, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson or Sam Raimi, but he is a gifted filmmaker and, especially, orchestrator. The action sequences are tight and coherent, and the inevitable climactic battle brings new stakes and dimensions to the film (unlike that of “The Avengers,” a more entertaining film with a rather redundant final act). The film is shot, blessedly, in only two dimensions, but never lacks visual immediacy or authority.

It does, though, lack a certain coherence of thought. Bane and company co-opt some of the rhetoric and look of Occupy protestors and unleash a latent fascism when they become ascendant. Wayne is a child of privilege whose Batman persona depends on his colossal wealth, yet he yearns to be free of money and encumbrance. This may sound heavy for a comic book movie, but “The Dark Knight Rises” is not only heavy but heavyhanded on these points. Worse, the points are mud: clichés of left and right mixed willy-nilly until they have no real color, flavor or meaning.

And such musings on wealth and power feel particularly inappropriate when couched inside the $250 million entertainment product of a multinational megacorporation based on a brand that has produced billions of dollars of revue in its 75 years. Nolan is many things as a filmmaker: athlete, visionary, even magician. But deep thinker: not so much. “The Dark Knight Rises” is reasonably accomplished as a gigantic superhero movie; as a meditation on capital and its personal and social discontents, it’s strictly from the funny pages.

(164 min., PG-13, multiple locations) Grade: B

‘Take This Waltz’ review: marriage, interrupted

July 18, 2012 / Mad About Movies

A chance encounter tests a woman's marital resolve.

Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen in "Take This Waltz"

“Take This Waltz” is a film about a romance that looks hotter than it is. It’s a tale of lust-at-first-sight between a writer (Michelle Williams) and her artist neighbor (Luke Kirby). She’s married, mostly happily, albeit with childish undertones, to a cookbook author (Seth Rogen, born to play cuckolds), and she tries to resist temptation. But it’s summer, and she’s stifled, and that intense fellow across the street keeps popping up with soulful looks and leering innuendoes.

“Waltz” is written and directed by Sarah Polley, the actress who made the highly regarded “Away from Her.” Like that film, which starred Julie Christie as a woman disappearing into dementia, the new one is built around a strong leading lady and painted with genuinely brilliant light and color. It’s somewhat less affecting, though, as the heroine here is less formed and her plight less moving. The marriage in which she’s involved is flawed, yes, but the chemistry she’s supposed to feel for the fellow across the street doesn’t quite translate for the viewer. It feels more like mooning than wild passion.

Williams, as ever, fills an ordinary person with credible emotion, but little around her feels equally real (one exception: a remarkable scene in the shower of a women’s locker room at a swimming pool). There’s often real beauty and poetry in the moviemaking, but “Waltz” requires you to be on board with it from the start and doesn’t often enough rouse itself to magnetize you if you’re not.

(116 min., R, Living Room Theaters) Grade: B-minus

Levy’s High Five, July 13 – 19

July 12, 2012 / Mad About Movies

The five films playing in Portland-area theaters that I'd soonest see again.

"Moonrise Kingdom"

1) "Beasts of the Southern Wild" A dreamy and joyous film about life, death, hope, dreams and wonder on an island in the Mississippi Delta. The miraculous young Quevezhané Wallis stars as Hushpuppy, a wee girl who experiences life in the feral community known as the Bathtub as a stream of wonder and delight, even though her dad (Dwight Henry) is gruff, her mom is absent and a killer storm is bearing down on her home. Writer-director Behn Zeitlin, in his feature debut, combines poetry and audacity in ways that recall Terrence Malick, but with a light and spry touch. Still, all his great work pales in comparison to the stupendous little Wallis, whom you'll never forget. Cinema 21

2) "Moonrise Kingdom" Wes Anderson films are such a specific taste that I'm a bit hesitant to suggest that this might be his most approachable (but surely not crowd-pleasing) work. In the wake of the delightful "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," Anderson returns to live-action and his familiar tics and habits in a tale of young (as in 'pre-teen') lovers on the run. Newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward fill the lead roles delightfully, and Anderson's muses Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman are joined ably by Edward Norton, Bruce Willis and Frances McDormand, among others. It's a light and breezy film with a very sweet heart and old-fashioned sturdiness. Even if you were left puzzled by the likes of "Rushmore" or "The Royal Tenenbaums" (still his best non-animated films, for me), this is likely to win you over. multiple locations

3) "Bernie” It’s a term of deep praise to note that writer-director Richard Linklater (deepbreath: “Slacker,” “Dazed and Confused,” “Before Sunrise,” “Before Sunset,” “Waking Life,” “School of Rock”) is capable more than any contemporary American filmmaker of making terrific movies about nearly nothing. Here, working with a based-on-truth story, he gives us life in the small East Texas town of Carthage, where a beneficent funeral director (Jack Black) and a mean, wealthy widow (Shirley MacLaine) become unlikely chums and companions...under she mysteriously goes missing. Linklater weaves the dramatized version of the story with dry and deft interviews of actual Carthaginians (is that what they’re called?) and even several musical numbers in a perfect frappe of a black comedy. multiple locations

4) "Your Sister's Sister" Seattle filmmaker Lynn Shelton spins a sweet and sad and true-feeling variation on a Hollywood romcom, with shlubby leading man Mark Duplass caught unexpectedly between two half-sisters, Emily Blunt and Rosemarie DeWitt. There are machinations that could have been drawn from a higher-gloss (and less appealing) film. But, as in her not dissimilar "Humpday," Shelton finds real grounding for the story in the personalities of her cast, who improvised some of their scenes within guidelines. The result feels theatrical and human at once, with three wise, low-key performances and a credible air of confusion and hope. A sly winner. Fox Tower, Kiggins

5) "Monsieur Lazhar" This delicate, sweet and, surprisingly, harrowing little drama was nominated for an Oscar as best foreign language film, and it's a mark of its quality that it's a very good film despite that sometimes dubious distinction. Mohamed Fellag stars as the title character, a secretive and formal man who arrives at a Montreal school out of the blue and volunteers to take the place of a teacher who has left under horrid circumstances. Gradually his compassion and wisdom come to heal wounds, just as his own personal pains are revealed. Writer-director Philippe Falardeau dances around the clichés inherent in the scenario as if they didn't exist, eliciting wonderful performances from his cast (especially the kids) and real emotions from the audience. Living Room Theaters

‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’ review: joy, danger and beauty in the bayou, through a child’s eyes

July 12, 2012 / Mad About Movies

A triumphant debut blends dreams, fears and hardscrabble life in sometimes breathtaking fashion.

QuvenzhanÃ© Wallis in "Beasts of the Southern Wild"

There’s a sense in watching any movie that you’re dreaming, albeit wide awake and amid a community of strangers. We sit with our eyes open and we gaze at the impossible: instant shifts of space and time, improbable plots, music from nowhere, animation, computer effects, montages.

So if all movies are, to some extent, living dreams, what to say about a film like “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” which is dreamlike and poetic and symphonic and magical in ways beyond the ordinary movie -- and beyond quite a few extraordinary ones, too.

“Beasts” is a fantasy, perhaps, or maybe an alternative history of recent events, or it could simply be a depiction of the world as seen and felt by a curious, apt, precocious, and intuitive young child. At times it moves like a hallucination; at times it feels like journalism or, perhaps more to the point, sociology. You’re continually leaning into it, wondering what’s real and what’s imaginary, what the physical and moral laws of its universe are, and where it all might go. The only thing you’re sure of, virtually from the very start, is that you’ve never seen anything quite like it.

The film is the feature debut of director Benh Zeitlin, who is adapting (albeit, surely, very loosely) a play by Lucy Alibar. It centers on a little girl named Hushpuppy who lives on an island in the Mississippi Delta known by its couple of score of inhabitants as the Bathtub.

The Bathtub sits outside of what Hushpuppy calls “the Dry World,” that is, the land protected by the levees, just as it sits outside of what the rest of us might call ‘civilization.’ It’s a broken-down place, built of and strewn with garbage, overrun by weeds and feral animals, bereft of work and school and government and media, and yet (or, perhaps, ‘hence’) it’s a paradise. The children are raised communally, the lines between the manmade and natural worlds have dissolved, a sense of play permeates the lives of young and old alike, there’s little longing or despair because there’s little need or want. From some vantages, life on the Bathtub might look like mere subsistence; from others, maybe, it looks like purity.

And yet, even through the eyes of wise-beyond-her-years Hushpuppy, who narrates and is largely the focus of the film, we can see that there are things missing from the Bathtub, and dangers in it. For one thing, Hushpuppy has no mother, and is being raised, if that’s the word, by her gruff and often drunken dad, Wink. And for another, an apocalyptic storm a la (if not actually) Hurricane Katrina hits the Delta, inundating the Bathtub and threatening its way of life. The residents take drastic measures to save their community, and Hushpuppy herself sets out on a personal voyage of discovery.

Zeitlin, in the vein of Terrence Malick, dances through his story like a milkweed seed in the thrall of a breeze. He brings us close to Hushpuppy but never quite puts us inside her head; she informs us and counsels us, but we’re mostly on our own in trying to puzzle out who the inhabitants of the Bathtub are to one another and which of the events that we watch are actual and which make-believe. The ominous, destructive creatures Hushpuppy refers to as aurochs, for instance: do they exist only in myth, or are they real, or can’t she tell the difference? And, finally, does it matter? What Hushpuppy believes is, in this universe, what we must take to be true. And whether she’s dreaming or hoping things rather than experiencing them in an objective fashion matters not from the side of the screen through which we experience the movie.

“Beasts” is shot, quite beautifully, by cinematographer Ben Richardson on 16mm, which gives it a raw, documentary feel, but it gracefully includes some moments of computer-generated magic which give life to Hushpuppy’s speculations on the nature of time and the universe. And it moves to strange and intoxicating music Zeitlin composed with Dan Romer.

But for all the beguiling quality brought to the film by its creators, the most unforgettable contribution is made by Quvenzhané Wallis, the tiny slip of a girl who plays Hushpuppy with enormous heart, authority and daring. Looking impossibly fragile and yet enduring whatever the Bathtub and the fates throw at her, she turns Hushpuppy into the most unlikely movie hero you can imagine: a child of nature able not only to withstand but to comprehend the infinitude around her. Wallis is, like crusty Dwight Henry, who plays Wink with offhanded, hazy humor, a newcomer to acting. But despite her greenness she carries the film on her wee little shoulders like a titan. It’s breathtaking.

“Beasts” won the Grand Jury and cinematography prizes at January’s Sundance Film Festival and four prizes, including the one for best first feature, at Cannes in May. Inevitably, that has led to a backlash, with some people complaining that the film is a muddled headscratcher and others that Zeitlin infantilizes and patronizes Hushpuppy and the other inhabitants of the Bathtub in a way that reeks of colonialism, white privilege and liberal guilt.

I would argue, rather, that what disconcerts here is not only deliberate but liberating: just as she lives outside of what the rest of us think of as civilization, Hushpuppy has no concern for ordinary notions of narrative, whether that mean causality or the obligation to differentiate realism from fantasy. As for Zeitlin somehow demeaning his subjects, surely that charge is leavened by the deep intimacy the viewer feels with Hushpuppy. “Beasts of the Southern Wild” brings you into a world you didn’t know existed with a closeness that the movies almost never achieve. If that constitutes exploitation, then it’s a crime which all works of art should aspire to commit.

(91 min., PG-13, Cinema 21) Grade: A-minus

‘Lola Versus’ review: a drab comedy centered on a rising star

July 12, 2012 / Mad About Movies

Greta Gerwig shines through a dim and uninspired indie romcom.

Zoe Lister Jones (l.) and Greta Gerwig in "Lola Versus"

The best thing about the wan comedy “Lola Versus” is the extended opportunity to watch the emerging star Greta Gerwig, even if the material she has to work with isn’t always worthy of her offbeat gifts and charms.

The film, co-written by director Daryl Wein and Zoe Lister Jones (the latter of whom plays Gerwig’s best chum), is the tale of a woman who’s about to get married and finish her Ph.D. on the cusp of her thirtieth birthday. It all falls apart, and in the ensuing throes of angst she relies heavily on her pals (Jones and Hamish Linklater) and her parents (Debra Winger and Bill Pullman) and endures the sort of embarrassing miscues and coincidences that only befall the heroines of bad romantic comedies.

Gerwig manages to infuse her role with dignity and heart, despite the goofy permutations of the script. As in “Damsels in Distress” and “Greenberg,” she combines a real-girl aspect and an arch, knowing calm that feels theatrical and distanced and yet intimate and warm. That strong presence in the center almost makes “Lola Versus” watchable even as it starts to get formulaic, preachy and tiresome.

(87 min., R, Fox Tower) Grade: C-plus

Movies: ‘Spider-Man’ reboots, Woody does ‘Rome’, bloody ‘Savages’ and more

July 6, 2012 / Mad About Movies

Reviews of this week's new releases in Portland-area theaters.

Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield in "The Amazing Spider-Man"

The big movie opening of the week is "The Amazing Spider-Man," but there's plenty of variety out there, and we review much of it, including Woody Allen's Italian rondelay "To Rome with Love," Oliver Stone's bloody, sexy crime film "Savages," the Duplass brothers' warring-sibling comedy "The Do-Deca-Pentathalon," and a restored print of Jean Renoir's 1937 classic "Grand Illusion." On top of that, you can, as always, count on "Also Opening," "Indie/Arthouse" and "Levy's High Five."

Levy’s High Five, July 6 – 12

July 5, 2012 / Mad About Movies

The five movies playing in Portland-area theaters that I'd soonest see again.

Emily Blunt (l.) and Rosemarie DeWitt in "Your Sister's Sister"

1) "Moonrise Kingdom" Wes Anderson films are such a specific taste that I'm a bit hesitant to suggest that this might be his most approachable (but surely not crowd-pleasing) work. In the wake of the delightful "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," Anderson returns to live-action and his familiar tics and habits in a tale of young (as in 'pre-teen') lovers on the run. Newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward fill the lead roles delightfully, and Anderson's muses Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman are joined ably by Edward Norton, Bruce Willis and Frances McDormand, among others. It's a light and breezy film with a very sweet heart and old-fashioned sturdiness. Even if you were left puzzled by the likes of "Rushmore" or "The Royal Tenenbaums" (still his best non-animated films, for me), this is likely to win you over. multiple locations

2) "Bernie” It’s a term of deep praise to note that writer-director Richard Linklater (deepbreath: “Slacker,” “Dazed and Confused,” “Before Sunrise,” “Before Sunset,” “Waking Life,” “School of Rock”) is capable more than any contemporary American filmmaker of making terrific movies about nearly nothing. Here, working with a based-on-truth story, he gives us life in the small East Texas town of Carthage, where a beneficent funeral director (Jack Black) and a mean, wealthy widow (Shirley MacLaine) become unlikely chums and companions...under she mysteriously goes missing. Linklater weaves the dramatized version of the story with dry and deft interviews of actual Carthaginians (is that what they’re called?) and even several musical numbers in a perfect frappe of a black comedy. multiple locations

3) "Your Sister's Sister" Seattle filmmaker Lynn Shelton spins a sweet and sad and true-feeling variation on a Hollywood romcom, with shlubby leading man Mark Duplass caught unexpectedly between two half-sisters, Emily Blunt and Rosemarie DeWitt. There are machinations that could have been drawn from a higher-gloss (and less appealing) film. But, as in her not dissimilar "Humpday," Shelton finds real grounding for the story in the personalities of her cast, who improvised some of their scenes within guidelines. The result feels theatrical and human at once, with three wise, low-key performances and a credible air of confusion and hope. A sly winner. Fox Tower

4) "Monsieur Lazhar" This delicate, sweet and, surprisingly, harrowing little drama was nominated for an Oscar as best foreign language film, and it's a mark of its quality that it's a very good film despite that sometimes dubious distinction. Mohamed Fellag stars as the title character, a secretive and formal man who arrives at a Montreal school out of the blue and volunteers to take the place of a teacher who has left under horrid circumstances. Gradually his compassion and wisdom come to heal wounds, just as his own personal pains are revealed. Writer-director Philippe Falardeau dances around the clichés inherent in the scenario as if they didn't exist, eliciting wonderful performances from his cast (especially the kids) and real emotions from the audience. Living Romm Theaters

5) "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" Yes, I know it's an absurd premise and that in many ways it exists only to be absurd, but there's genuine skill and relish in director Timur Bekmambetov's adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith's novel. The action, as in Bekmambetov's "Night Watch," "Day Watch" and "Wanted," is spectacular, the 3-D effects are top-notch, the woodenness of the historical bits is deliberate and cheeky, and Benjamin Walker is actually quite good as the title character, embodying the clumsiness and self-mocking qualities of the real man and the bloodthirsty venom that this over-the-top story requires. As a summer goof, it's swell. multiple locations

Levy’s High Five, June 29 – July 5

June 28, 2012 / Mad About Movies

The five movies playing in Portland-area theaters that I'd soonest see again.

Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman (and Jason Schwartzman's head) in "Moonrise Kingdom"

3) "I Wish" In "After Life," "Nobody Knows" and "Still Walking," the Japanese writer-director Hirokazu Koreeda has approached weighty issues of life and death with a rare blend of respect and levity. It's a deeply humane stance, and it's not surprising to note that he's also a gifted director of children, as in this story of two brothers, living in different cities because of their parents' separation, who concoct a wish-fulfillment scheme in hopes of reuniting their family. The music, film craft and acting are quite fine, but perhaps the most heartening thing is the way in which Koreeda throws open the theme of childhood fantasy to embrace the various adults in the story who, too, have dreams, realized and not. A charming, shambling, uplifting film. Living Room Theaters

Movies: A ‘Brave’ princess, a ‘Lincoln’ who kills, a sweet ‘End of the World’ and more

June 22, 2012 / Mad About Movies

Reviews of this week's new releases in Portland-area theaters.

Benjamin Walker in "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter"

A little bit of everything in movie theaters this weekend. Pixar brings us the princess tale "Brave"; the brilliantly crazed Russian director Timur Bekmambetov offers "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter"; Steve Carell and Keira Knightley meet up in "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World"; and "Your Sister's Sister" is a sweet, sad, offbeat indie romcom. All that, plus "Also Opening," "Indie/Arthouse" and "Levy's High Five."

Levy’s High Five, June 22 – 28

June 21, 2012 / Mad About Movies

The five films playing in Portland-area theaters that I'd soonest see again.

Emily Blunt (l.) and Rosemarie DeWitt in "Your Sister's Sister"

3) "Moonrise Kingdom" Wes Anderson films are such a specific taste that I'm a bit hesitant to suggest that this might be his most approachable (but surely not crowd-pleasing) work. In the wake of the delightful "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," Anderson returns to live-action and his familiar tics and habits in a tale of young (as in 'pre-teen') lovers on the run. Newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward fill the lead roles delightfully, and Anderson's muses Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman are joined ably by Edward Norton, Bruce Willis and Frances McDormand, among others. It's a light and breezy film with a very sweet heart and old-fashioned sturdiness. Even if you were left puzzled by the likes of "Rushmore" or "The Royal Tenenbaums" (still his best non-animated films, for me), this is likely to win you over. Fox Tower

‘Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’ review: absolutely absurd, and absolutely great fun

June 21, 2012 / Mad About Movies

A potentially ludicrous what-if history is transformed into a thrilling horror film by a gifted director.

You have to be batty to take seriously the very notion of Seth Grahame-Smith’s novel “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” in which the sixteenth President is revealed to be a slayer of undead bloodsuckers. But the movies may not have a battier director than Timur Bekmambetov, the Russian wizard behind “Night Watch,” “Day Watch” and “Wanted,” and it’s a pleasure to report that he dives into an adaptation of the book with wild zest, wicked humor and a hot-blooded spirit of fun.

Benjamin Walker in "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter"

A certain unsteady risibility always threatens the film, in which Benjamin Walker, who has played Andrew Jackson in a Broadway musical, portrays Lincoln as a slightly doofy, knowingly ironic buttkicker who wields an axe in the fashion of a samurai spinning a sword. The dry humor in his performance is echoed in that of Mary Elizabeth Winstead (“Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”) as his wife, Mary Todd, and, especially, in Bekmambetov’s attitude toward history, staging and the more melodramatic aspects of the plot. None of it feels real or tries to; it’s purely cinematic in a sense.

The story (his mother murdered by a vampire, Lincoln spends his life fighting the undead, a struggle which turns out to be the real reason for the Civil War) is clearly of secondary importance to the director, who stages one action scene after another, some grippingly intimate, some (a horse stampede, a fight on a train that’s doomed to derail) thrillingly audacious. Bekmambetov approaches these sequences with inspiration derived from martial arts films, from the Wachowski brothers, and from something not quite seen in movies other than his own. He’s not afraid to risk seeming ludicrous while putting his signature touch on things; indeed, he courts credulity so blatantly and so often that you sense him getting lost in the magical tools at his disposal. He enjoys himself so much that it’s hard not to be roused along with him.

Look, this is a ludicrous premise, and it’s sometimes played stiffly as to seem willfully inept. But when Bekmambetov is in full stride and the gore, oaths and silver bullets are flying, it’s a kick. The title may sound like a joke, but “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” is serious fun.

(105 min., R, multiple locations) Grade: B-plus

‘Brave’ review: a princess from Pixar…and other disappointments

June 21, 2012 / Mad About Movies

The tale of a plucky Scottish lass feels more like second-tier Disney than the top-shelf stuff its Pixar subsidiary usually turns out.

Merida lets fly in "Brave"

In January, 2006, the great independent animation studio Pixar was acquired by the Walt Disney Pictures in a move that, it was assumed, would inject spirit, class and quality into the larger company’s fading animation division.

Pixar had made a remarkable string of six critical and commercial hits in the previous decade (two “Toy Story” films, “A Bug’s Life,” “Monsters, Inc.,” “Finding Nemo,” and “The Incredibles”), while Disney, which had admirably revived feature animation as a genre in the late 1980s, foundered with such flops as “Atlantis: The Lost Empire,” “Treasure Planet,” “Brother Bear,” “Home on the Range” and “Chicken Little.”

As an animation studio, in fact, Disney was still principally beholden to its two generations of princess movies, the classic trio of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves,” “Cinderella” and “Sleeping Beauty,” and the contemporary masterworks “The Little Mermaid” and “Beauty and the Beast.” Pixar, surely, would be able to retool the studio from an admittedly lucrative princess factory into something fresh and exciting.

But corporate cultures have a funny way of mutating everything that touches them, and here we are, six years later, with Pixar, following its first widely-acknowledged disappointment, 2011’s “Cars 2,” with “Brave,” its first...princess movie. It’s like seeing your favorite punk band get hired to run a record label and then release an album of Barry Manilow covers. No matter the execution, the very idea appalls. And frankly, as it turns out, neither the story nor the execution of “Brave” quite approaches the potential genius of punk version of “I Write the Songs.”

“Brave” is the story of Merida, a plucky, spirited, flame-haired lassie in medieval Scotland who rejects the traditional tutelage administered by her prim mother in favor of archery, horseback riding, wilderness adventures, and other boyish pursuits. When her parents effectively name her the prize in a contest between the bachelor sons of the local tribal lords, Merida rebels in ways that threaten the stability of her father’s kingdom and, even more gravely, her mother’s very life.

You don’t exactly require a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature to see the similarities between this story and those of “The Little Mermaid,” “Mulan” and “Pocahontas.” And while I don’t often stress originality of plot in evaluating a film, the spectacle of a Pixar film being squeezed into the mold of Disney production line product is deflating. (In comparison, the short which precedes the feature, the sweet little fable “La Luna,” is a pure, Pixarish pleasure.)

There’s a letdown, too, in the look and feel of the film, which is usually such a strong suit for Pixar. Merida’s headful of ginger locks is more or less the star of the production, shimmering and bouncing in extraordinarily lifelike fashion. Most of the 3-D animation, however, is very flat and dark, and the many action scenes are more cluttered than they are gripping. Now and again, directors Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman manage something rousing -- Merida’s triumph at an archery contest, the pranks of her triplet brothers, the comportment of a large mammal possessed of a human spirit -- but in all this is the least visually inventive and appealing film Pixar has ever made.

If it seems unfair to compare “Brave” to its Pixar siblings, then it should also be noted that it falls quite far from the heights of the great Disney features of 20 or so years ago. It simply never engages you with its grandiose posturing and desperate jokes and trite moralizing. And there’s a twist at the end that absolutely betrays the ostensible lessons of female empowerment; without spoiling the story, let’s just say that Merida’s scheme to save the day repudiates the very spirit that presumably makes her heroic to begin with.

There’s an element in “Brave” that’s worth noting, namely the depiction of a credible mother-daughter relationship in an animated feature, something that’s usually given scant -- if any -- attention. But that effort hardly makes this tepid, boilerplate production worthy of its lineage or even its title.

(93 min., PG, multiple locations) Grade: C-plus

Movies: Cruise is a ‘Rock’, Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Hysteria’ and more

June 15, 2012 / Mad About Movies

Reviews of this week's new releases in Portland-area theaters.

Tom Cruise in "Rock of Ages"

Not very much new stuff in the hopper this weekend. We have reviews of the '80s metal love story "Rock of Ages," the invention-of-the-vibrator comedy "Hysteria" and a program of New Czech Cinema at the Northwest Film Center. Add to that the usual stuff -- "Also Opening," "Indie/Arthouse" and "Levy's High Five" -- and that's all she wrote.

Levy’s High Five, June 15 – 21

June 14, 2012 / Mad About Movies

The five movies playing in Portland-area theaters that I'd soonest see again.

"Bernie"

4) “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” Jiro Ono is the owner of a Tokyo sushi bar with 10 seats and 3 Michelin stars, and David Gelb’s gorgeous and intimate documentary about the man and his obsession gives you an idea of how that can not only be so but be fitting. Jiro and his two sons (bound to the chef’s apron strings, almost literally) devote untold hours of work and thought to the perfection of sushi-making, turning a sometimes makework form of cookery into indisputably high art. At 85, the old master still works virtually every day, and the fruit of his focus is in servings of raw fish and warm rice photographed so lusciously that you can almost taste them. A mouthwatering film: literally. Lake, Laurelhurst, Living Room Theaters

Movies: a handsome ‘Prometheus,’ a lovable ‘Kingdom,’ a warm ‘Lazhar’ and more

June 8, 2012 / Mad About Movies

Reviews of this week's new releases in Portland-area theaters

Charlize Theron in "Prometheus"

Two highly anticipated titles among this week's offerings: Ridley Scott's "Alien" prequel, "Prometheus," and Wes Anderson's return to live-action filmmaking, "Moonrise Kingdom." We've also got reviews of the Oscar-nominated schoolhouse drama "Monsieur Lazhar" and the time-travel-wannabe sort-of comedy "Safety Not Guaranteed." And we've got the evergreens: "Also Opening," "Indie/Arthouse" and "Levy's High Five."

Levy’s High Five, June 8 – 14

June 7, 2012 / Mad About Movies

The five films playing in Portland-area theaters that I'd soonest see again.

Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Edward Norton and Bruce Willis (from l.) in "Moonrise Kingdom"

3) "The Triplets of Belleville" Before he made the utterly charming "The Illusionist," animator Sylvain Chomet made this utterly charming film about gangsters, music, bicycle racing, kidnapping, a sad-eyed boy, a fat dog, and a heroic grandmother. In some ways it's impossibly French, with the hot jazz and the Tour de France and the noirish touches. But the sheer imagination of the thing, the execution, the relentless eccentricity, and the infectious (and Oscar-nominated) music make it, I think, universally accessible. It was no surprise to see Chomet go on to adapt a Jacques Tati script in his subsequent film: this one, with all its quirks and its purely cinematic heart and soul, would have delighted the comic master. Northwest Film Center, Friday through Sunday only

4) "Moonrise Kingdom" Wes Anderson films are such a specific taste that I'm a bit hesitant to suggest that this might be his most approachable (but surely not crowd-pleasing) work. In the wake of the delightful "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," Anderson returns to live-action and his familiar tics and habits in a tale of young (as in 'pre-teen') lovers on the run. Newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward fill the lead roles delightfully, and Anderson's muses Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman are joined ably by Edward Norton, Bruce Willis and Frances McDormand, among others. It's a light and breezy film with a very sweet heart and old-fashioned sturdiness. Even if you were left puzzled by the likes of "Rushmore" or "The Royal Tenenbaums" (still his best non-animated films, for me), this is likely to win you over. Fox Tower

5) “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” Jiro Ono is the owner of a Tokyo sushi bar with 10 seats and 3 Michelin stars, and David Gelb’s gorgeous and intimate documentary about the man and his obsession gives you an idea of how that can not only be so but be fitting. Jiro and his two sons (bound to the chef’s apron strings, almost literally) devote untold hours of work and thought to the perfection of sushi-making, turning a sometimes makework form of cookery into indisputably high art. At 85, the old master still works virtually every day, and the fruit of his focus is in servings of raw fish and warm rice photographed so lusciously that you can almost taste them. A mouthwatering film: literally. Lake, Laurelhurst, Living Room Theaters

‘Moonrise Kingdom’ review: Wes Anderson’s sweetly cracked vision of love at first flight

June 7, 2012 / Mad About Movies

The tale of 12-year-old sweethearts on the run is delightfully light and filled with the director's iconoclasm and quirks.

Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman (and Jason Schwartzman's head) in "Moonrise Kingdom"

“Moonrise Kingdom” is Wes Anderson’s seventh feature film, and in some ways it’s typical of all of them, with tropes and tics and themes and actors familiar from the likes of “Bottle Rocket,” “Rushmore,” and “The Royal Tenenbaums” and the rest. (Indeed, so strong is Anderson’s artistic stamp that it even permeated 2009’s “The Fantastic Mr. Fox,” a stop-motion animated movie based on a Roald Dahl novel.)

And yet, there’s a freshness and vitality to “Moonrise” that was absent from Anderson’s two previous live-action films, “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” and “The Darjeeling Limited,” in which the writer-director trod his wonted territory with heavy -- and heavily mannered -- feet.

Yes, “Moonrise” gives us the predictable feckless fathers and decent-hearted surrogate dads, the precocious kids spouting archaic lingo, the old-timey technology, French pop music, symmetrical visuals, young adult fantasy books, amateur theatricals, pup tents, suitcases, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman and an awkward, ardent romance: the stock ingredients of the Andersonian stew. And yet somehow there’s a zest and lightness that had been missing of late. The film feels more spry and unencumbered and inspired than Anderson’s recent work (the delightful “Mr. Fox” excluded). It’s not a perfect movie, but it’s charming.

Set in 1965 (with a few flashbacks to the previous year), “Moonrise” centers on the romance of two 12-year-olds, Sam Shakusky (debuting actor Jared Gilman) and Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward, another newcomer). Sam has fled his Khaki Scout summer camp and Suzy the stifling home of her lawyer parents (Frances McDormand and Murray) to live together in the wilds of (the fictional) New Penzance Island, sustaining themselves on his outdoorsmanship and her sense of culture.

Naturally, the adults (including scoutmaster Edward Norton and local cop Bruce Willis) are in eager pursuit, as are the other Khaki Scouts, who pretty much loathe Sam, and a Social Services operative (Tilda Swinton) who means to send the orphaned Sam to an institution. And with a famous (and also fictional) storm ominously en route, it all takes on an especially freighted air.

The craft is at the high level we always get from Anderson, who is working with some of his usual creative team. But you can’t help but feel that it’s the young actors -- the lumpy but sober Gilman, with his coonskin hat and pipe, the svelte and cool Hayward, with her eye shadow and Francoise Hardy records -- who have helped the director find his artistic fountain of youth. As often, Anderson has trouble sticking the landing, but “Moonrise Kingdom” is in many ways the most satisfying flight he’s taken us on in years.

(94 min., PG-13, Fox Tower) Grade: B-plus

‘Monsieur Lazhar’ review: a delicate situation, and the perfect man to handle it

June 6, 2012 / Mad About Movies

An Oscar-nominated Canadian film is a small triumph of delicacy and restraint.

Mohamed Fellag in "Monsieur Lazhar"

Discreet, delicate, and cautious, “Monsieur Lazhar” takes you by surprise -- and that goes for both the movie and the man.

After a ghastly tragedy at a Montreal school, an elegant, soft-spoken and mysterious immigrant named Lazhar (Mohamed Fellag) shows up and offers himself as a replacement teacher. Though he hasn’t followed the proper protocol, his manner is impeccable, and he’s hired. In the coming months, he helps his middle-schoolers put the hurtful thing they’ve witnessed behind them. But there is pain in his past, too, and it gradually emerges, bringing challenges of its own.

Writer-director Philippe Falardeau dances delicately along the razor’s edge of the familiar and the conventional. But he does so with tact and taste and just the right blend of tension and relief. He has a wonderfully poised performance from his star and a pair of strong turns from child actors Sophie Nélisse and Émilien Néron.

“Monsieur Lazhar,” which was nominated for an Oscar as best foreign language film, isn’t a world-beater, but it doesn’t need to be to move and impress you. Sometimes it’s the quiet ones who move us the most with their simplicity and their sincerity -- in life and in art.

(94 min., PG-13, Cinema 21) Grade: B-plus

Levy’s High Five, June 1 – 7

May 31, 2012 / Mad About Movies

The five films playing in Portland-area theaters that I'd soonest see again.

Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston in "The Deep Blue Sea"

1) “The Deep Blue Sea” Terence Davies is the finest director you’ve likely never heard of, probably because his best films -- the quiet, devastating semi-autobiographical “Distant Voices, Still Lives” and “The Long Day Closes” -- were made more than two decades ago and he’s only had one film (“The House of Mirth,” an anomaly, really) get even a modest release since. Here, adapting Terence Rattigan’s 1952 play about a passionate woman (Rachel Weisz), her stodgy husband (Simon Russell Beale) and her unreliable lover (Tom Hiddleston), his immense, inimitable gifts for image-making and, especially, turning film into something like music are in full power. The effect is sometimes funny, sometimes dramatic, sometimes absolutely ravishing. Davies is a master, and this is his most accessible film. See it. Living Room Theaters

2) "Bernie” It’s a term of deep praise to note that writer-director Richard Linklater (deepbreath: “Slacker,” “Dazed and Confused,” “Before Sunrise,” “Before Sunset,” “Waking Life,” “School of Rock”) is capable more than any contemporary American filmmaker of making terrific movies about nearly nothing. Here, working with a based-on-truth story, he gives us life in the small East Texas town of Carthage, where a beneficent funeral director (Jack Black) and a mean, wealthy widow (Shirley MacLaine) become unlikely chums and companions...under she mysteriously goes missing. Linklater weaves the dramatized version of the story with dry and deft interviews of actual Carthaginians (is that what they’re called?) and even several musical numbers in a perfect frappe of a black comedy. multiple locations

3) "Sometimes a Great Notion" Before the Oscar-winning classic "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," another film crew came to Oregon to adapt a Ken Kesey novel for the big screen. Paul Newman, Henry Fonda, Richard Jaeckel, Michael Sarrazin and Lee Remick were the stars, and Newman produced and, after a dust-up with the guy he first hired, also wound up directing. The result was something of a misfire, but a spirited one (with a singularly indelible death scene), but the stories about wild times during its making are legendary and a real hoot. Oregon author Matt Love has written a charming book about the shoot, "Sometimes a Great Movie: Paul Newman, Ken Kesey and the Filming of the Great Oregon Novel," and -- schedule permitting -- he'll share some of the amazing tales he's uncovered after each screening. Hollywood Theatre, Friday through Monday only

4) "This Is Not a Film" While under house arrest and facing an insanely harsh sentence for his moviemaking, the Iranian director Jafar Panahi filmed an ordinary day in his life: watching TV, making phone calls, drinking tea, feeding his son's iguana, staring out the window, taking out the trash. He edited the footage and smuggled it out of Iran inside a cake, premiering it at Cannes and reminding the film world of the plight of creative artists under the Islamic regime in his country. It's a movie in which the most ordinary details -- that lizard, the trash run, the celebratory fireworks in the street -- serve as subtle metaphors for Pahani's situation. It all seems offhanded, but it's ingenious and, taken in context, devastating. Hollywood Theatre Theatre

5) “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” Jiro Ono is the owner of a Tokyo sushi bar with 10 seats and 3 Michelin stars, and David Gelb’s gorgeous and intimate documentary about the man and his obsession gives you an idea of how that can not only be so but be fitting. Jiro and his two sons (bound to the chef’s apron strings, almost literally) devote untold hours of work and thought to the perfection of sushi-making, turning a sometimes makework form of cookery into indisputably high art. At 85, the old master still works virtually every day, and the fruit of his focus is in servings of raw fish and warm rice photographed so lusciously that you can almost taste them. A mouthwatering film: literally. Lake, Laurelhurst, Living Room Theaters

‘This Is Not a Film’ review: a sly and daring expose of life under house arrest

May 31, 2012 / Mad About Movies

An Iranian director subtly -- and bravely -- reveals his fate.

Jafar Panahi and friend in "This Is Not a Film"

In December 2010, the Iranian director Jafar Panahi (“The White Balloon,” “Offside”) was charged with committing acts of propaganda against his country its security and sentenced to a six-year jail sentence and a 20-year ban from making movies.

The following spring, while awaiting appeal of his sentence, Panahi spent an ordinary day drinking tea, taking phone calls, watching TV, listening to noises from the street, imagining a new film project, and, subversively, filming it all with the help of documentarian Mojtaba Mirtahmasb. The pair edited the footage, saved it to a flash drive and smuggled it out of Iran inside a cake. The result, entitled “This Is Not a Film,” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, 2011, and has helped direct the attention of the movie and political worlds to the plight of Iranian filmmakers and to Panahi’s situation in particular.

Predictably, not much happens in “This Is Not a Film”; dude is under house arrest, after all. But it’s absorbing and clever. Panahi’s activities -- acting out a potential future film project, letting his son’s pet iguana climb over him, reacting in fear to the noise of fireworks in the streets marking the Persian new year, collecting garbage from the other apartments in the building with the janitor -- all have a metaphorical resonance. At one point, he replaces the high-quality camera which he and Mirtahmasb have been using with his iPhone, demonstrating how easy it would be for someone with his determination to make a movie and share it with the world, governments, censors and even prisons be damned.

“This Is Not a Film” has no special effects, no soundtrack, no plot to speak of, and yet it is, in many ways, one of the most tense films you can imagine: the real stakes of real life don’t often have the shape of narrative cinema, after all, and we almost never get to see them played out in real time like this.

(77 min., unrated, probably PG, Hollywood Theatre) Grade: B-plus

‘Snow White and the Huntsman’ review: a classic tale raucously retold

May 31, 2012 / Mad About Movies

A truly evil queen and some delightful dwarves balance out a bland heroine.

Chris Hemsworth and Kristen Stewart in "Snow White and the Huntsman"

Sometimes wondrous, sometimes overwrought, “Snow White and the Hunstman” is a big, noisy rendering of the fairy tale has been movie fodder since the silent era and particularly since Walt Disney’s 1937 animated masterpiece. There have been dozens of versions of the story; two already this year, in fact: the big screen comedy “Mirror, Mirror” and, with liberties, TV’s “Once Upon a Time.” But this is, in many ways, the largest in scale.

In the hands of first-time director Rupert Sanders and a small clutch of screenwriters, this “Snow White” adheres more or less to the version collected by the Brothers Grimm, with a vain and evil queen, a beautiful and doomed princess, a sympathetic assassin, friendly dwarves, a poisoned apple, a handsome prince and so on.

In some cases, the film augments the tale’s supernatural elements: the queen has an array of horrific powers, a dark forest is terrifyingly alive, and a fairyland is similarly bewitched but in a far happier way. In other ways, it puts a rather more human face on things than we’re used to: the dwarves (there are eight) are played, deliciously, by such actors as Bob Hoskins, Ian McShane, Nick Frost, Ray Winstone, Toby Jones and Eddie Marsan, none of whom feels especially cartoonish.

The core of the story, as in virtually all versions, lies in the jealousy of the vain queen (Charlize Theron, absolutely chewing up the scenery) toward the youth and beauty of the princess (Kristen Stewart, looking, as ever, more stricken than inspired). In this go-round, the queen has a brother (Sam Spruell) who does her awful bidding and Snow White has two champions: a huntsman who refuses to kill her (Chris Hemsworth. in a nicely roguish turn) and a prince (Sam Claflin) who has loved her since their youth. A bit of “Robin Hood” has been added, with the queen depicted as a usurper whose cruel dominion over the realm is contested by rebels who require the sort of inspiration that Snow White can provide. But otherwise, it’s the tale you know.

What’s not familiar is the scale and the texture and all the special effects. Sanders combines whimsy and horror in ways that might very well spook the younger members of the audience. Some of it is quite fetching: the moss-covered beasties who live among the fairies, the queen’s habit of morphing into birds, the soldiers built of shards of black glass. But some, too, is heavy-handed, particularly when shot through with the bombastic score by James Newton Howard. And the film feels long, partly because the story is a bit overstuffed, partly because the pace of the telling can get gummy and loose.

Still, if you’ve a mind to see a classic fairy tale rendered as an action movie, and if you want to see a sizeable handful of fine English actors have grand fun playing grizzled dwarves, there are worse ways to spend two hours than in the company of “Snow White and the Huntsman.”

(125 min., PG-13, multiple locations) Grade: B-minus

‘Polisse’ review: a multi-threaded tale of French police and their woes

May 31, 2012 / Mad About Movies

The personal and professional lives of a child protection squad make for a volatile, uneven drama.

Maiwenn, Jeremie Elkai and Joey Starr (l. to r.) in "Polisse"

“Polisse” is a sprawling, pied, uneven policier about the professional and private lives of the men and women on the Child Protection Unit of the Paris police. Faced with a daily diet of ghastly crimes, struggling to keep the horrors and stresses of their work out of their homes, they’re constantly on edge, as likely to lose control of themselves with suspects as with each other and with their families and partners.

Directed and co-written by the actress Maïwenn, the film covers a period of several months during which a photojournalist (Maïwenn herself) is embedded with the squad. She gets close enough to her subjects to begin an affair with one of them (Joey Starr), a turn of events which is known to all and yet never mentioned as a possible problem with her work. That’s but one of perhaps two dozen stories the film encompasses, the lot of them knit together very loosely in the manner of an episodic TV series.

Some of the drama, comedy, sexuality, and human tension in “Polisse” (the title is meant to evoke a childlike spelling of the word ‘police’) is genuinely engaging. And a few of the actors (especially Starr and Karin Viard as a divorcing policewoman) are quite strong. But the shagginess of the thing, the lack of a throughline, and the fleeting nature of the incidents make the whole thing feel arbitrary. When the chunks are strong, you can imagine whole films being built around them; when they’re not, you wish someone had found the resolve to cut them out. “Polisse” won a jury prize at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, but it’s only a patchwork success.

(127 min., unrated, surely R, Living Room Theaters) Grade: B

‘The Color Wheel’ review: mumblecore becomes fumblecore in comic road movie

May 30, 2012 / Mad About Movies

An indie comedy about bickering siblings lack the polish of its low-budget peers.

Alex Ross Perry and Carlen Altman in "The Color Wheel"

If you think that the tiny indie movies known as ‘mumblecore’ -- movies like “The Puffy Chair” and “Quiet City” -- are easy to make, watch one that systematically botches the staging and framing and pacing and all the other little aspects of film craft that those movies get right. Watch “The Color Wheel.”

The fitfully funny comedy follows a quarrelsome brother (director and co-writer Alex Ross Perry) and sister (co-writer Carlen Altman) on a road trip to fetch her belongings from an ex-beau’s apartment. Along the way, they abuse each other, and everyone they encounter -- stranger or acquaintance -- piles on and adds to the woe.

They’re an appalling pair, deliberately, but the unsteadiness of the moviemaking means that the line between laughing with the filmmaker/stars and laughing at them is blurred in ways that Perry can’t control. Maybe the characters will grate on you, maybe you’ll find them quirky fun, but the sheer clumsiness of the enterprise is patent and undeniable. The best mumblecore movies -- the best low-budget films of any stripe -- make virtues of their restrictions of scale and means. “The Color Wheel” succumbs to them without the least hint of a fight. There’s handmade and then there’s amateurish. This, alas, is the latter.

(83 min., unrated, probably R, Northwest Film Center, Friday through Sunday only) Grade: C

‘Men in Black 3’ review: an unsought sequel affords surprising delights

May 24, 2012 / Mad About Movies

Josh Brolin adds a dash of droll magic to a time travel subplot and lifts a film above its expected quality.

Josh Brolin (l.) and Will Smith in "Men in Black 3"

It’s rarely worth assessing a movie by considering what it might have been, but in the case of the third film in a series that has been dormant for a decade after a brilliant launch and a catastrophic follow-up, it’s almost unavoidable. “Men in Black 3” reunites stars Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith with director Barry Sonnenfeld in a sequel that almost nobody but corporate moneymen was itching for. The Lowell Cunningham comic book series that inspired the previous two films about secret government agents keeping a lid on the activities of alien creatures who live on Earth hasn’t been active for almost 20 years, there haven’t been new episodes of the animated version of the material since 2001, and the 2002 “Men in Black II” seemed to have effectively killed off the franchise, possessing none of the verve or charm of its 1997 predecessor. Factor in Sonenfeld’s absence from the big screen since the horrific 'comedy' “RV” (2006) and Smith’s steadily diminishing boxoffice stature, and it’s no wonder that expectations for a new “MIB” should be at rock bottom, a premonition only bolstered by word that the new film would have a plot involving time travel -- frequently a mark of creative desperation in these sorts of things. How pleasant, then, to find that “Men in Black 3” is a fairly brisk, sometimes funny, periodically inspired film. Yes, it’s a special-effects sequel, with all the noise and excess that implies. But there’s more freshness to it than you would expect, and there’s a performance in the center that honestly makes it all worthwhile. That would be the work of Josh Brolin, who is simply astounding as the 1969 version of Agent K (Jones in the present tense), whom Agent J (Smith) must go back in time to rescue from a time-traveling bad guy (the blustery Jemaine Clement) who seeks to kill the young K both for personal reasons and to facilitate an invasion of the Earth by his species. Brolin does an uncanny Jones -- the still, probing eyes; the stiff, hunched shoulders; the brow and mouth pursed in doubt; the deadpan voice that somehow mixes a drawl with staccato. It’s an impression, yes, but also an interpretation: Brolin’s K hasn’t hardened into the Jones incarnation yet; his youthful verve and openness continually surprise J. And the wit comes as much from Brolin’s timing and control as from the sheer fun he obviously has playing the part. It’s not the sort of thing that will be remembered come awards time, but it’s one of the most enjoyable performances you’ll see in a movie this year. Actually, “MIB 3” has a couple other terrific acting turns -- Michael Stuhlbarg (“A Serious Man,” “Hugo”) plays a sweetly prescient alien and Bill Hader, joins the ranks of, among others, David Bowie, Crispin Glover and Jared Harris in creating a droll and sharp Andy Warhol for the screen. The latter appears as part of the time-travel story (turns out, per the script, that Andy was an MIB agent and his scenesters were mostly aliens), as are the 1969 Mets and the Apollo 11 space mission. These are all woven cleverly into a script credited to Etan Cohen (with, it seems, a small team providing assists) that manages to accrue depth and layers as it moves forward toward an action finale (something which “The Avengers,” which is a better movie in many ways, did not). And Sonnenfeld, who has sometimes been guilty of gratuitous garishness, keeps the gimmickry minimal, employing flourishes only occasionally and using 3-D almost naturalistically -- or as naturalistically as can be hoped for in a movie in which the villain has a deadly dart-spewing spider-thingy living inside of his palm. So did the world need another “Men in Black”? No, not at all. But if there had to be one, then it’s certainly a relief that it should be one as agreeable as this. (105 min., PG-13, multiple locations) Grade: B

‘Hit So Hard’ review: a grunge musician’s real-life survival story

May 23, 2012 / Mad About Movies

She drummed for Hole and babysat for Kurt and Courtney -- and lived through hell and tells the tale.

Drummer Patty Schemel, star and subject of "Hit So Hard"

In many ways, “Hit So Hard,” the story of Patty Schemel is familiar to the point of being clichéd: a ‘90s Seattle rocker spirals into alcoholism and drug abuse until she winds up homeless, then slowly achieves sobriety and a new life.

But Schemel ran in heady circles: she was chummy with Kurt Cobain and his missus, Courtney Love, and she played drums in Love’s band Hole at that group’s height. So her tale of downfall and survival has absorbing echoes and connections. What’s more, Schemel was an ardent videographer who, somehow, held onto her tapes, which means that her personal archives provide a truly rare view into the musical world known as grunge at something like its media-hyped height.

Director P. David Ebersole combines frank interviews with Schemel, her family and friends, and her bandmates to assemble this portrait of a talented woman dealing with the weighty pressures of the rock world, the drug world, and her own sexuality. But it’s a long film for such a familiar story. And, despite Schemel’s appealing candor, the highlight of the film is, by far, those precious images of Cobain horsing around with his baby daughter, helping Love write songs, and behaving like an ordinary fellow: peace, love and normalcy in the midst of madness and pain.

(103 min., unrated, probably R, Hollywood Theatre) Grade: B-minus

‘Bernie’ review: Richard Linklater’s light and lighthearted Texas true-crime story

May 17, 2012 / Mad About Movies

The unlikely comic trio of Shirley MacLaine, Jack Black and Matthew McConaughey brings a sordid little tale to sparkling life.

Shirley MacLaine and Jack Black in "Bernie"

Based on a true story, filled with real people, and deftly mixing comedy, pathos and the macabre, “Bernie” is a delightful and compact confection from director Richard Linklater (“Dazed and Confused,” “Waking Life,” “Before Sunrise,” “Before Sunset”), who’s just as good with a pair of unlikely costars as he is with the ordinary Texas townsfolk who populate the film.

The film tells the story of Bernie Tiede, an East Texas mortician beloved in his community for his charitable works, his cheerful spirit and his attentiveness to widows. After the death of one of the town’s richest men, Bernie befriended the fellow’s irascible -- nay, mean -- wife, Marjorie, and became her unlikely best friend, to the point that the suspicious and sharp old gal gave him control of her fortune. It was eyebrow-raising stuff, and then Marjorie stopped being seen around town and some folks got more suspicious than ever.

Working from a script he co-wrote with Skip Hollandsworth, who chronicled the story in a magazine article, Linklater intermixes the recollections of actual denizens of Carthage, Texas, where it all took place, with the dramatic telling of the story as acted by Jack Black as Bernie, Shirley MacLaine as Marjorie and Matthew McConaughey as a district attorney.

The three are marvelous. Black espouses a mincy fussiness, uses his powerful singing voice beautifully, and stretches more than he ever has, even in Linklater’s “School of Rock.” MacLaine, 57 years into a movie career that began when she was 21, plays her wicked role with just the right blend of comedy and villainy. And McConaughey (whom Linklater discovered, recall) manages subtly to expose the dumb core of his prima donna prosecutor.

“Bernie” is slight but terrific. The intertwining of the sharply tuned actors and the guileless (and often hilarious) townspeople is seamless, the tale is sometimes despairing but never heavy, and the blend of drama, comedy and music is brisk and fresh. Linklater has many estimable qualities, but with this film he reminds us that he can craft a cinematic soufflé better than just about any director in America.

(104 min., PG-13, Fox Tower) Grade: A-minus

‘Mansome’ review: a lighthearted look at the culture of male grooming

May 17, 2012 / Mad About Movies

The director of "Super Size Me" takes a look at men (like himself) who take care with their appearance.

Jason Bateman (l.) and Morgan Spurlock in "Mansome"

In “Mansome,” the intrepid, self-revealing documentarian Morgan Spurlock turns his whimsical eye toward contemporary male attitudes about personal grooming. With the aide of celebrity talking heads (including Will Arnett and Jason Bateman, who co-produced and carry on a film-long conversation during a visit to a day spa), and specialists in such fields as beard-growing, hairpiece manufacture, and body-shaving, it’s a breezy, fleeting film that offers more ‘who knew’ moments than epiphanies.

Spurlock, who risked his health with a fast-food diet in “Super Size Me” and sports a signature handlebar moustache, reveals the stories of a champion beardsman whose life is built around healthy beard growth, a New York businessman who obsessively tweaks his appearance with cosmetic treatments, a professional wrestler who shaves his impressively hairy body every working day, and the manufacturer of a deodorant designed for men to wear in, um, their pants. These are peppered with cameos by a clutch of famous faces, ranging from Paul Rudd and John Waters, who raise sharp points, to Zach Galifianakis, who adds randomness, to Adam Carolla, whose patter any 12-year-old could predict and write without seeing the film at all.

As I say, there’s not a lot of meat on the bones of “Mansome” -- certainly not compared to, say, the steroid expose “Bigger, Stronger, Faster*.” Nor is there the sort of zest that infused Spurlock’s last film, “Comic-con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope” (which appeared in April, bless his busy heart). But there are a few chuckles, a few head-scratches and, thankfully, very few missteps. It charms.

(82 min., PG-13, Fox Tower) Grade: B

‘Mansome’ review: a lighthearted look at the culture of male grooming

May 17, 2012 / Mad About Movies

The director of "Super Size Me" takes a look at men (like himself) who take care with their appearance.

Jason Bateman (l.) and Morgan Spurlock in "Mansome"

‘God Bless America’ review: killing off pop culture, one reality star at a time

May 16, 2012 / Mad About Movies

A screed against the worst aspects of the culture goes off the rails, but not without raising some real issues.

Joel Murry and Tara Lynne Barr in "God Bless America"

Genetically akin to “Falling Down” and “Natural Born Killers,” with a twist out of “The Professional,” “God Bless America” is what’s known in Yiddish as a geschrei or in French a (ital) cri de couer: (ital) an impassioned outburst, a shout to the heavens, a cry from the heart.

Writer-director Bobcat Goldthwait (the squealing, gnarly-haired comedian and, by now, auteur of a handful of cult films) vents his frustration with contemporary American culture, values and mores in the story of Frank, a middle-aged schlub who, divorced, friendless, jobless and diagnosed with cancer, goes on a spree to kill reality TV stars, parking space hoggers, movie theater talkers, and others who violate his code of simple human decency. In the process, Frank accrues a co-conspirator, Roxy, a high school girl with just as many peeves and maybe even more anger at the world.

The pair are played by Joel Murray (Freddy Rumson from TV’s “Mad Men”) and relative newcomer Tara Lynne Barr. Murray isn’t exactly a deep performer, but he fits the role well, and Barr is quite game. As the film progresses, though, their characters come to seem less like people than like mere vehicles for Goldthwait’s personal outrage. And in that context, their anger (not to mention the murders they commit) seems disproportionate and contrived. “God Bless America” offers a few laughs and a moment or two of drama, but it’s finally more of a conceit -- and a familiar one -- than a film.

(100 min., R, Hollywood Theatre) Grade: B-minus

This week’s last-chance movies: ‘Bully,’ ‘Damsels in Distress,’ ‘Marley,’ and more

May 16, 2012 / Mad About Movies

Catch 'em while you can!

from "Bully"

For some reason, we've got one of the busiest movie weeks of the year about to hit Portland: almost 20 feature films and 8 new or continuing festivals or special events. So it's no wonder that the local movie screens need to get out the broom and sweep clean. Thing is, they're sweeping out some very good films in the process. Wednesday and Thursday mark your last chances to see the well-worthwhile "Bully," "Damsels in Distress," "The Kid with a Bike," "Marley" and "The Salt of Life," as well as the locally-made indie "Blue Like Jazz" and the action film "Safe House." Choose accordingly and get watching!

‘The Dictator’ review: in a tired fiction, Sacha Baron Cohen loses his comic bite

May 15, 2012 / Mad About Movies

He's still crude and sometimes quite funny, but there's little electricity in the make-believe compared to his real-world exploits, and the result is Sandler-esque.

Sacha Baron Cohen in "The Dictator"

Sacha Baron Cohen occupies a unique space in the comedy world. In three personae invented on TV and enlarged for movie screens -- Ali G, Borat and Bruno -- he ambushed celebrities, public figures and ordinary Britons and Americans, reveling in crude humor, trafficking in vile stereotypes, and, alarmingly often, getting his subject/victims to reveal their own prejudices and dark sides.

It was frequently sophomoric and often quite hilarious, but it was also a finite enterprise: as the career of Michael Moore demonstrates, a fellow can only catch other folks by surprise for so long before the echo of his own fame precedes him and his access to unguarded sources dries up.

And so Cohen and his team -- director Larry Charles and a cohort of writers who worked on “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” -- have invented a new character who shares some attributes with the comedian’s other false faces but who lives inside a fictional world, which rather blunts the satire. “The Dictator,” the lumpy comedy in which this new fellow appears, feels not so much like a sibling of Cohen’s brilliant TV work or the stupefying “Borat” and “Bruno” movies as it does a cousin with only some of the genetic gifts its relatives enjoys.

Cohen plays Supreme Leader Aladeen, president-for-life of the fictional North African nation of Wadiya, which he rules with callous brutality. When Aladeen addresses the United Nations on the subject of Wadiya’s nuclear weapons program, he is kidnapped and stripped of power by a scheming underling (Ben Kingsley) who plans to democratize the nation in order to exploit its oil reserves. Aladeen survives the coup but is left to the mercies of modern New York, which is filled with the sorts of people whom he has mercilessly despised and belittled throughout his life.

He’s taken in by Zoe (Anna Faris), the over-eager operator of a politically correct grocery, and has a chance encounter with Nuclear Nadal (Jason Mantzoukas), a Wadiyan scientist whom Aladeen had ordered to be executed years earlier (all of his victims, learns, actually had their lives spared by an executioner disloyal to the regime). Together, the two exiles plan to scuttle the plans for regime change in Wadiya, restore Aladeen’s despotic monarchy, and get back to building nukes.

All of this is an excuse for one outrageous, grotesque, gratuitous joke after another. Like Cohen’s other personae, Aladeen is a seething mass of biases and bigotries, and he continually hates on and debases women, minorities, celebrities, children, old folks, ordinary Americans, and, really, anyone who wanders through into his gaze. Some of it is funny, and much of it is shocking, but little of it has the satiric impact or sense of danger that accompanied the antics of Cohen’s previous characters, who risked the chance of having political or cultural figures explode at them or ordinary folks -- often mobs of them -- beat them up. Here, in a purely fictional context, it’s all make-believe, and the sparks that occasionally result from the cheek and the crudeness aren’t nearly so bright. (And Charles, needless to remind anyone, is no one’s idea of a master comic filmmaker.)

For all its boundary-pushing, “The Dictator” only once makes you feel truly uncomfortable, very near the end, when Aladeen lists the qualities that make a nation a dictatorship and virtually anatomizes the contemporary American political, economic, journalistic and cultural milieu. But that moment, a weird inversion of Charlie Chaplin’s famous paean to human rights at the end of “The Great Dictator,” doesn’t resonate amid the caustic frivolity of the rest. “The Dictator” has a few laughs along its bumpy path, but not enough of them to indicate that Cohen has found a means to escape the shadows of his early career and forge a second act for himself.

(82 min., R, multiple locations) Grade: C-plus

Levy’s High Five, May 11 – 17

May 10, 2012 / Mad About Movies

The five films playing in Portland-area theaters that I'd soonest see again.

Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston in "The Deep Blue Sea"

1) “The Deep Blue Sea” Terence Davies is the finest director you’ve likely never heard of, probably because his best films -- the quiet, devastating semi-autobiographical “Distant Voices, Still Lives” and “The Long Day Closes” -- were made more than two decades ago and he’s only had one film (“The House of Mirth,” an anomaly, really) get even a modest release since. Here, adapting Terence Rattigan’s 1952 play about a passionate woman (Rachel Weisz), her stodgy husband (Simon Russell Beale) and her unreliable lover (Tom Hiddleston), his immense, inimitable gifts for image-making and, especially, turning film into something like music are in full power. The effect is sometimes funny, sometimes dramatic, sometimes absolutely ravishing. Davies is a master, and this is his most accessible film. See it. Living Room Theaters

2) “The Raid: Redemption” An ultra-violent, wildly kinetic martial arts film that virtually strips itself of the narrative conventions of plot, theme and characterization to create a white-knuckle thrill ride. Writer-director Gareth Evans, a Welshman living in Indonesia, takes the simplest story -- a squad of cops attacks a Jakarta apartment house where a crime lord is ensconced -- and uses it to string together wild action sequences that leave the viewer as exhausted as if he or she had fought them. His stars -- Iko Uwais as a baby-faced cop and Yayan Ruhian (who also choreographed) as a stringy-haired bad guy -- are dazzling. The whole thing is pure cinema: the human body rendered as a machine capable of mayhem, daring, and, yes, grace. Academy, Laurelhurst

3) “Bully” An emotionally overwhelming documentary about threads of violence in our social fabric. Focusing on five or children who’ve been tormented and abused by schoolmates, two so relentlessly that they took their own lives, documentarian Lee Hirsch advocates without the use of any talking heads, statistics or editorial posturing. Rather, his film actually depicts everyday acts of bullying and -- worse -- the ineffective and even hurtful responses of school authorities. At times, the pity, outrage and empathy the evokes threaten to drown you. But there’s a hint of light, too. At moments you might feel slightly manipulated. But when you look into the eyes of two fathers whose sons killed themselves rather than continue to be bullied, quibbles about journalist practice vanish from your mind. Fox Tower

4) “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” Jiro Ono is the owner of a Tokyo sushi bar with 10 seats and 3 Michelin stars, and David Gelb’s gorgeous and intimate documentary about the man and his obsession gives you an idea of how that can not only be so but be fitting. Jiro and his two sons (bound to the chef’s apron strings, almost literally) devote untold hours of work and thought to the perfection of sushi-making, turning a sometimes makework form of cookery into indisputably high art. At 85, the old master still works virtually every day, and the fruit of his focus is in servings of raw fish and warm rice photographed so lusciously that you can almost taste them. A mouthwatering film: literally. Laurelhurst, Living Room Theaters

5) "The Cabin in the Woods" A slasher movie inside a horror movie of another sort inside yet another narrative, one which looks out and the audience and asks why they (that is, we) keep lining up to watch other people get slaughtered. A group of college students head to the titular location for a weekend’s bacchanal, only to be preyed upon and killed in grisly fashion, as per the familiar genre rules. At the same time, a group of bureaucrats/scientists in a control room manipulate the victims and their killers in the service of...something. Director Drew Goddard and his co-writer Joss Whedon have fun in the vein of “Scream” and in the vein of “The Truman Show” -- and they come up with an intriguing theory to explain the allure of horror films as well as a (literal) hell of a climax. Bloody, funny, clever. multiple locations

‘Headhunters’ review: the tables turn terrifyingly on a yuppie art thief

May 10, 2012 / Mad About Movies

An agreeable Norwegian comic thriller with touches of the Coen brothers.

Aksel Hennie in "Headhunters"

Like a Norwegian cousin of a Coen brothers film, “Headhunters” presents us with a dislikeable protagonist and then heaps so much woe and misfortune on him so gleefully that we come to feel a rising sympathy for the poor devil.

Aksel Hennie stars as Roger Brown, an obnoxious corporate headhunter who’s self-conscious about being married to a gorgeous (and taller) woman. Feeling he must keep his missus happy, he augments his already sizeable income -- by stealing works of art from his business clients and replacing them with near-replicas. In the process what ought to be the biggest score of this second ‘career,’ Roger discovers a secret which shatters him and then must flee for his life from a bloodthirsty mercenary (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau).

Director Morten Tyldum (“Fallen Angels”), working from a novel by Jo Nesbø, nicely balances slickness, terror, comedy and the grotesque, and Hennie is almost too perfect in the lead, particularly in his insufferable early stages.

It’s a light entertainment -- provided you can be entertained by watching Roger suffer and quake as he does. And, almost inevitably, it’s been identified for a potential Hollywood remake. Do yourself a favor and see this one before some Yank director gets it all wrong.

(100 min., R, Cinema 21) Grade: B-plus

‘Dark Shadows’ review: a bloodless spoof with neither laughs nor chills

May 10, 2012 / Mad About Movies

The eighth collaboration of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp is their most lifeless and least necessary yet.

Johnny Depp in "Dark Shadows"

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp need some fresh air.

Their new film “Dark Shadows” marks their eighth collaboration in 22 years and fifth since 2005. In all those films, Depp has only once played an ordinary human being in non-fantasy costume...and that was as the cross-dressing schlockmeister hero of the terrific “Ed Wood.”

In all of their other work together -- “Edward Scissorhands,” “Sleepy Hollow,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “Corpse Bride,” “Sweeney Todd,” and “Alice in Wonderland” -- Depp has played deeply outré characters in flamboyant outfits, wigs and makeup, sometimes finding human emotion beneath the grotesquerie but more often, and more commonly as time has passed, wandering off into self-amusement and obscurity.

This can be fun, I grant you. Nobody in movies has ever quite had Depp’s gift for disappearing into so many variations on the comic and the bizarre, and Burton is almost always audacious in mounting spectacles born of youthful fantasies and nightmares. But the two have returned so often to a single brand of inspiration that they no longer spark a frisson -- in the audience or, one suspects, in each other. There’s a dulling sameness to the characters, the themes, the tenor. Oh, sometimes the comedy is in the depravity and sometimes vice versa, but it’s all been cut from the same cloth, and after all this time the cloth has worn so thin that it’s become transparent.

And so “Dark Shadows,” in which the pair attempt to sprinkle their fairy dust on the gothic daytime soap opera that became a national sensation in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, making an unlikely pop hero of the vampire Barnabas Collins whose family manor, Collinwood, was the setting for the show. (Collins was played by Jonathan Frid, who died in April and has a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him cameo as a party guest in this film.)

In the hands of Burton and at least three writers, much of the original tale remains in place: after two centuries of entombment, Barnabas is awoken to find that the year is 1972, the Collins family’s fortunes have crumbled, his old-time nemesis, the witch Angelique, runs the town of Collinsport, and his long-dead love, Josette, has been reincarnated, or seems to have been, as the governess Victoria Winters.

But, really, it’s more set-up than story: the film grinds through a number of subplots that don’t resonate with one another and don’t add up to a narrative with any momentum or tension. There’s some gore and some CGI tomfoolery, but mainly Burton plays it for laughs, making it all the more depressing that so little of it is funny: Depp’s delivery and arcane argot can amuse, the conventions of soap opera craft are drily mocked, and there are one or two cheeky bits about Barnabas’ encounters with modernity, but that’s it. For hours. It’s a slog.

Depp, as I say, almost can’t help but hold your interest, but watching him work yet another variation on this mock-morbid trope most certainly neither surprises nor excites. Chloë Grace Moretz charms a mite as a rebellious young Collins, and Helena Bonham Carter has some fun as a drunken psychiatrist. But Eva Green as Barnabas’s foe, Bella Heathcote as his love interest, and Michelle Pfeiffer as the modern head of the Collins family are bloodless, no matter the energies they expend.

Indeed, ‘bloodless’ is the word for the whole enterprise. Lord knows that Burton is an inventive fellow, and he’s capable of bringing all sorts of esoteric to pulsing life. But it’s been a long time since he’s made a start-to-finish satisfying film -- and, perhaps coincidentally, nine years since he’s made one without Depp. That walk in the fresh air that I suggested the two of them need? I should add that it would be best if they took it in opposite directions....

(111 min., PG-13, multiple locations) Grade: C

Levy’s High Five, May 4 – 10

May 3, 2012 / Mad About Movies

The five films playing in Portland-area theaters that I'd soonest see again.

Tom Hiddleston and Rachel Weisz in "The Deep Blue Sea"

1) “The Deep Blue Sea” Terence Davies is the finest director you’ve likely never heard of, probably because his best films -- the quiet, devastating semi-autobiographical “Distant Voices, Still Lives” and “The Long Day Closes” -- were made more than two decades ago and he’s only had one film (“The House of Mirth,” an anomaly, really) get even a modest release since. Here, adapting Terence Rattigan’s 1952 play about a passionate woman (Rachel Weisz), her stodgy husband (Simon Russell Beale) and her unreliable lover (Tom Hiddleston), his immense, inimitable gifts for image-making and, especially, turning film into something like music are in full power. The effect is sometimes funny, sometimes dramatic, sometimes absolutely ravishing. Davies is a master, and this is his most accessible film. See it. Cinema 21

2) “The Raid: Redemption” An ultra-violent, wildly kinetic martial arts film that virtually strips itself of the narrative conventions of plot, theme and characterization to create a white-knuckle thrill ride. Writer-director Gareth Evans, a Welshman living in Indonesia, takes the simplest story -- a squad of cops attacks a Jakarta apartment house where a crime lord is ensconced -- and uses it to string together wild action sequences that leave the viewer as exhausted as if he or she had fought them. His stars -- Iko Uwais as a baby-faced cop and Yayan Ruhian (who also choreographed) as a stringy-haired bad guy -- are dazzling. The whole thing is pure cinema: the human body rendered as a machine capable of mayhem, daring, and, yes, grace. Academy, Laurelhurst

3) “Bully” An emotionally overwhelming documentary about threads of violence in our social fabric. Focusing on five or children who’ve been tormented and abused by schoolmates, two so relentlessly that they took their own lives, documentarian Lee Hirsch advocates without the use of any talking heads, statistics or editorial posturing. Rather, his film actually depicts everyday acts of bullying and -- worse -- the ineffective and even hurtful responses of school authorities. At times, the pity, outrage and empathy the evokes threaten to drown you. But there’s a hint of light, too. At moments you might feel slightly manipulated. But when you look into the eyes of two fathers whose sons killed themselves rather than continue to be bullied, quibbles about journalist practice vanish from your mind. Fox Tower

4) “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” Jiro Ono is the owner of a Tokyo sushi bar with 10 seats and 3 Michelin stars, and David Gelb’s gorgeous and intimate documentary about the man and his obsession gives you an idea of how that can not only be so but be fitting. Jiro and his two sons (bound to the chef’s apron strings, almost literally) devote untold hours of work and thought to the perfection of sushi-making, turning a sometimes makework form of cookery into indisputably high art. At 85, the old master still works virtually every day, and the fruit of his focus is in servings of raw fish and warm rice photographed so lusciously that you can almost taste them. A mouthwatering film: literally. Hollywood Theatre, Living Room Theaters

‘The Avengers’ review: They assemble, they fight, and then they fight some more

May 3, 2012 / Mad About Movies

Joss Whedon's film manages the hard part of building a team of superheroes but is a bit puzzled trying to figure out what to do with them

Avengers assembled: Thor, Iron Man and Captain America (from l.)

It may not be based on a work of, in the old-fashioned sense, literature, but a movie like “The Avengers” is, in some crucial ways, quite like an adaptation of Shakespeare or Dickens.

Certain characters, plots, phrases, even props must be handled just so or the director risks losing the good will of those who know a thing or two about it all. Yes, there must be enough in the final product to appeal to non-initiates. But if the core audience is lost -- as it was, say, with “Hulk” (2003) and “The Incredible Hulk” (2008), to pick two loaded examples -- then the filmmakers might as well have stayed home with their comic collections, because they’ll find little love from outside the target crowd.

The happy news, then, about “The Avengers” is that the screenwriters (director Joss Whedon and Zak Penn), have done a splendid job of bringing an entire universe of characters together and to life with fidelity to the letter and the spirit of the source material. Gathering threads from a string of franchise-type films featuring Captain America, Iron Man and Thor, resurrecting the Hulk convincingly after two botched films in less than a decade, adding new characters and an overarching plot that intertwines it all, “The Avengers” pretty much offers up anything a fanboy (or -girl) would want from such a film.

And neutrals are likely to go for it as well, I reckon, for its wit, its pace, and its bang, even if it does expend itself on a third act that doesn’t add much to the drama. Save for that showy finale -- which endures quite a while, although not without some highlights and pizzazz -- it’s a pip.

The fulcrum of “The Avengers” is Nick Fury, the eyepatch-sporting spymaster who has been played by Samuel L. Jackson in a number of teasers leading up to this film. Fury and his organization, S. H. I. E. L. D., serve as a liaison between military-slash-political powers and various superheroes scattered around the world. In the course of his work, Fury has thawed Captain America from decades of icy sleep, worked with Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) on developing weapons, served as a contact with the Norse god Thor during his time on Earth, and employed the assassins Black Widow and Hawkeye in various shadowy missions.

When “The Avengers” starts, Fury is in possession of the tesseract, a mysterious and powerful cube which Captain America prised away from the Nazis long ago. Fury’s scientists are attempting to turn the mysterious whatsits into a source of clean, cheap energy -- among other things -- when it’s stolen from them by Loki, Thor’s evil brother, who wishes to rule mankind as a tyrant. Loki plans to use the tesseract to open a gateway through space and facilitate an alien invasion of Earth, and Fury must roundup all his superhero buddies to stop him.

And so, as in “Seven Samurai” and “Mystery Men” and other films about gaggles of do-gooders, a team is gathered. Captain America (Chris Evans) is, of course, on board from the get-go, as is Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), who is in mid-mission when she’s summoned. Stark/Iron Man is recruited with relative ease, but it takes real delicacy to bring in Bruce Banner (aka the Hulk, played as a man by Mark Ruffalo and as a CGI beast with the voice of TV’s Hulk, Lou Ferrigno). Thor (Chris Hemsworth) appears out of thin air, ready to help, but Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), has been brainwashed into badness by Loki (Tom Hiddleston), and must regain his senses to round out the classic Avengers lineup.

This portion of the film -- the assembling of the team -- is the best part of “The Avengers.” There’s real humor in the byplay of altruistic Captain America and cynical Iron Man, and real wit, mystery and tension as Banner tries to control his inner behemoth. (If nothing else, this is easily the best Hulk on film: Ruffalo’s slightly twitchy chagrin is a perfect vessel for such a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality.) Johansson brings a pleasant heft to her role; Hemsworth, achieving the impossible, makes Thor both human and funny; and Hiddleston relishes the chance to play a classic upper-crust English-accented villain with a sneer worthy of Alan Rickman.

Once they’re all in place, though, the film falters -- although, to be fair, it never exactly stalls or gets dull. There’s a long sequence of plot exposition and fighting aboard Fury’s impressive flying fortress, followed by a long sequence of plot exposition and fighting in midtown Manhattan. Some of this is spectacular and some of it is funny (two sight gags involving the Hulk and the Norse gods are priceless). But it isn’t exactly novel or inspired. And there’s a lot of it.

For the most part, Whedon has made a light and spry film out of humongous, cumbersome parts, and that’s to be lauded. But he’s not a natural director of action sequences, and perhaps this is why he builds them bigger than they need to be -- as if to compensate for their lack of sharpness. Writer Whedon is clever enough to add moments of levity even to the gigantic action sequences, but director Whedon is sufficiently pedestrian to require them, and the latter fellow’s sensibility too often blunts that of the other, brighter fellow.

Perhaps this is too much attention to the film’s weaknesses, because even with the flaws of the final half, “The Avengers” is grand, brisk fun. It comes tantalizingly close to reaching the level of the very best comic book films of the current generation: Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, Sam Raimi’s first two “Spider-Man” films, and the debuts of Iron Man and Captain America. That “The Avengers” is as good as it is should be celebrated, by fans and noobs alike. But that it might have been better can’t be denied, even by zealots.

(140 min., PG-13, multiple locations) Grade: B

‘We Have a Pope’ review: the wrong man for the job

May 3, 2012 / Mad About Movies

Overwhelmed by the thought of his new position, a would-be-Pope flees the Vatican -- and silliness ensues

Michel Piccoli in "We Have a Pope"

There’s a peach of a set-up to Nanni Moretti’s new comedy, “We Have a Pope,” and a fine performance in the middle. But the film wastes itself on silliness and scattered threads before very long, truly squandering a brilliant promise.

At the start, a Pope has died, and the College of Cardinals is united in the Vatican to elect a successor. After a few days of balloting, a dark horse is chosen, Cardinal Melville (Michel Piccoli), and just as he is to be presented to the waiting world he suffers a crisis of nerve, bellowing “I can’t do it!” and fleeing into the privacy of the papal apartments.

His colleagues can’t budge the new Pope into service, so a psychiatrist (Moretti) is called in to help, which becomes impossible with so many prying eyes at the Vatican. A lay official (Jerzy Stuhr) has the idea to take the Pope out to see a therapist who doesn’t know his true identity, but the slippery pontiff escapes his handlers and vanishes into greater Rome.

The premise is truly inspired, the settings are handsome, and the 86-year-old Piccoli is superb in the role of a reluctant Vicar of Christ, his doubts and hopes and fears playing across his face like clouds (and recalling his role in Manoel de Oliveira’s 2001 film “I’m Going Home”).

But Moretti fritters away his star’s fine performance amid side plots about a theatrical troupe among whom the Pope hides and a volleyball tournament which the psychiatrist organizes for the cardinals, and the human and religious drama is lost in grating frivolity. “We Have a Pope” didn’t need to be a stone-serious film, but little is served by turning it into a farce.

(105 min., unrated, probably PG, Living Room Theaters) Grade: B-minus

Movies: a ravishing ‘Sea,’ quirky ‘Damsels,’ a funny ‘Goon’ and more

April 27, 2012 / Mad About Movies

Reviews of this week's new releases from today's A&E.

Tom Hiddleston and Rachel Weisz in "The Deep Blue Sea"

What a busy, eclectic weekend -- and so many reviews! We recommend some little films: the deeply emotional tale of heartbreak and passion "The Deep Blue Sea"; the bloody and profane hockey comedy "Goon"; and the offbeat campus comedy "Damsels in Distress." We also like one of the big releases -- the animated "Pirates! Band of Misfits" -- but cannot recommend the Edgar Allen Poe-as-crimefighter movie "The Raven" or the rom-com "The Five-Year Engagement." And, reliably: "Also Opening," "Indie/Arthouse" and "Levy's High Five."

Levy’s High Five, April 27 – May 3

April 26, 2012 / Mad About Movies

The five films playing in Portland-area theaters that I'd soonest see again.

Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston in "The Deep Blue Sea"

4) "The Cabin in the Woods" A slasher movie inside a horror movie of another sort inside yet another narrative, one which looks out and the audience and asks why they (that is, we) keep lining up to watch other people get slaughtered. A group of college students head to the titular location for a weekend’s bacchanal, only to be preyed upon and killed in grisly fashion, as per the familiar genre rules. At the same time, a group of bureaucrats/scientists in a control room manipulate the victims and their killers in the service of...something. Director Drew Goddard and his co-writer Joss Whedon have fun in the vein of “Scream” and in the vein of “The Truman Show” -- and they come up with an intriguing theory to explain the allure of horror films as well as a (literal) hell of a climax. Bloody, funny, clever. multiple locations

5) “Goon” In the spirit of the immortal “Slap Shot,” in which that nice old Paul Newman put on ice skates and got all potty-mouthed, Seann William Scott, of all people, absolutely kills as a sweet knucklehead who finds his niche in life punching out people as a minor league hockey player. Director Michael Dowse, working from a script co-written by actor Jay Baruchel, who has a key supporting role, dives with real relish into bawdy humor and truly unsportsmanlike conduct. It’s often hilarious, even if it doesn’t really amount to much. And Liev Schreiber is dry, flinty fun as a grizzled hockey enforcer. Hollywood Theatre

‘The Deep Blue Sea’ review: a master filmmaker dives into the waters of love and pain

April 26, 2012 / Mad About Movies

Fine performances and overwhelming film craft tell the story of a woman who leaves a secure home for a passionate affair.

Tom Hiddleston and Rachel Weisz in "The Deep Blue Sea"

There are filmmakers -- precious few -- whose artistic touch and temperament are recognizable in just a few seconds of footage or a few moments of sound. The English director Terence Davies is one of them, a true master of the medium who has made films so small and unassuming that his name is all but unknown save to the most eggheaded cinephiles.

In his best, most personal works -- which, in my view, are the coming-of-age films “Distant Voices, Still Lives” (1988) and “The Long Day Closes” (1992) -- Davies crafts small, cramped worlds and stifled, frustrated emotions through the use of a dark, foggy lens, long, fluent camera moves, gently muddled time lines, and, most memorably, scenes of communal singing: working class Britons of the pre-TV age (Davies was born in 1945) rousing their spirits -- amorous, religious, patriotic, festive -- by filling pubs and sitting rooms with the melodious words of Robert Burns or Johnny Mercer, expressing feelings as a group that they’re otherwise unable to as individuals.

There are two such scenes in “The Deep Blue Sea,” Davies’ first dramatic feature in more than a decade and a relatively accessible movie that could pull him out of the shadows of the arthouse. Which is ironic, considering that, like much of Davies’ work, it is a shadowy film, laced with mournfulness, rue and pain, albeit with a vigorous strain of frequently breathtaking beauty running through it.

The film is an adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s 1952 play (filmed previously in 1955) about Hester Collyer, a London woman who has left her stodgy older husband to live with a fiery younger man. Hester has forsaken privilege and security (her husband is a judge and a Lord) for passion and risk (her beau is a World War II flying ace with no job prospects). Lost in love and in the labyrinth of her choices, left alone in a dreary flat on her birthday, Hester undertakes a suicide attempt, which starts the movie and sparks a weekend of confrontations, revelations and resolutions.

Filling the roles, almost ideally, are Rachel Weisz, sensual and knowing as Hester, Tom Hiddleston, rakish but self-doubting as her lover, and Simon Russell Beale, stuffy and mother-cowed as her husband. (Barbara Jefford has a marvelously acrid turn as that mother, by the way.) It’s no insult to Davies or the film to suggest that these players are so deft as to make you think they’d honed their roles during a long stage run; not a note in any of their performances is excessive or misplaced. They maintain the decorousness befitting the post-war setting while conveying earthy human impulses -- lust or anger or righteousness or pity or regret -- with modern vigor. It’s a tiny ensemble, but it’s splendid.

And splendid, too, is Davies’ direction. We slip in and out of time, now in bed with the lovers entwined as in classical statuary, now in a choked, polite confrontation between estranged spouses, now in a station of the Underground waiting out a Nazi bombardment with an unsteady chorus of “Molly Malone,” now watching outside a phone box as Hester offers the whole of her heart in exchange for next-to-nothing. From the opening frames, in which children play in the bombed-out wreckage of a London home, we are in a master’s hands. “The Deep Blue Sea” isn’t a big or bold or conventionally ambitious film. It’s only a superb one -- which, I fear, may not be enough to garner it the attention it deserves. Feel free to prove me wrong.

(98 min., R, Cinema 21) Grade: A-minus

‘Damsels in Distress’ review: a cult director’s wobbly but welcome return

April 26, 2012 / Mad About Movies

Whit Stillman, gone from movies for 13 years, brings his familiar dry tone to a tale of college students with crackpot ideas.

Greta Gerwig (l.) and Analeigh Tipton in "Damsels in Distress"

It’s such happy news that we have a new movie from Whit Stillman -- the first in 13 years, in fact -- that one feels positively churlish responding to it with only lukewarm enthusiasm. But hopefulness aside, “Damsels in Distress,” the long-awaited comeback from the creator of the chatty, urbane 1990s trilogy of “Metropolitan,” “Barcelona” and “The Last Days of Disco,” reveals a familiar talent needing still to work out the rust.

Set at the fictional Seven Oaks College (itself played by a historic sailor’s retreat on New York’s Staten Island), the film centers on the romantic and social aspirations of a presumptuous, daft upperclassman Violet (mumblecore It Girl Greta Gerwig) and a willowy, thoughtful transfer student named Lily (Analeigh Tipton of “Crazy Stupid Love”).

At the start of the school year, Violet takes Lily under her wing, introducing her to a little knot of vaguely priggish, stiff-mannered girls who run a suicide prevention center, make a project of ennobling dimwitted frat boys with their companionship, and aspire to change the world with a new dance craze. They’re not snobs or mean girls, not nearly. But they are disconnected from modern reality in a way that’s at once comical and creepy. And the men in their lives -- a pair of idiotic frat boys (hilariously played by Ryan Metcalf and Billy Magnussen) and a pair of, as one girl terms them, “operator” types -- are simultaneously disconcerted and magnetized by them, though neither stops them from acting like cads or worse.

The plot is hardly the thing in a Whit Stillman film, but “Damsels” (which adapts its title, a song and a minor character from a 1937 Fred Astaire film), is choppier than its predecessors, comprised, really, of a string of incidents and even gags that are more connected by tone and setting than logic. Some of it is dazzling in its drollery and quiet cheek. But more than a bit of it underwhelms, and some is appallingly flat.

And yet Stillman and his actors do things that you just don’t see and that you wish the movies had more of. Gerwig is a charming vessel for the director’s pithy depiction of an entitled mind gone slightly off track, there are cleverly built bits involving soap and dancing and half-hearted suicide attempts, and there is wonderful, quirky, keenly honed talk all throughout. Whitman might require a few more films to get the storytelling and staging aspects of his art back to full muscularity, but his ability to capture a certain strain of the American vernacular and the American mind hasn’t deserted him in his hiatus. And it’s delightful to behold it anew.

(99 min., PG-13, Fox Tower) Grade: B

‘Goon’ review: in the spirit of ‘Slap Shot,’ a raucous hockey comedy with heart

April 26, 2012 / Mad About Movies

A profane and bloody lark...on ice.

Seann William Scott in "Goon"

“Goon” is a hoot.

Profane, bloody, and sophomoric, it’s a comic adrenaline rush with a surprisingly sweet heart.

Director Michael Dowse, following George Roy Hill’s classic “Slap Shot,” delves into the world of minor league hockey to find a boatload of misfits, neurotics, bullies, freaks and, in one case, a truly nice guy -- albeit one who’s only on the team to fight.

That would be Doug Glatt, a small-town nobody who rises to local fame when he knocks out a player who comes into the stands to fight fans. Glatt can’t play hockey or even skate. But his hammer-like fists get him hired as a goon, someone sent onto the ice to distribute justice or take out the other team’s star., and his effectiveness in the role leads to promotion to a higher minor league team, romance with a not-so-nice girl, and a showdown with a legendary goon whom he has always admired.

Selling all of this is a game and well-tuned cast. Seann William Scott, of all people, plays the polite, doofy, rage-prone Glatt. Jay Baruchel, who co-wrote the script, is his foul-mouthed buddy. Marc-André Grondin convinces as a one-time hot prospect who’s fallen into debauchery. And Liev Schreiber is terrifically dry as the old goon watching a young guy rise to his title. Combined, they give a human heart to this deeply vulgar -- and deeply funny -- film.

(92 min., R, Hollywood Theatre) Grade: B-plus

‘The Raven’ review: Poe show a no-go

April 26, 2012 / Mad About Movies

Edgar Allan Poe is imagined as an action hero in a shrill, bloody mystery.

John Cusack in "The Raven"

Befitting a film about Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven” is dark and grisly and ghoulish. But it also has qualities that Poe’s work never does: It’s dull and mechanical and, most of all, phony. With characters who never seem alive, a plot that never feels clever, stakes that never grip you, and irredeemably weak stabs at horror, tension, and humor, it plays like the first draft of a modestly cool concept, not a finished, polished product.

John Cusack, who, goateed, bares a passing resemblance to the real Poe, plays the great, neglected, alcoholic writer in his final days, when Baltimore is plagued by a madman who kills people in imitation of Poe’s stories. When the fiend kidnaps Poe’s beloved (Alice Eve), the writer joins forces with the police to rescue her.

Director James McTeigue showed real flair in his debut, “V for Vendetta,” but this film is based on much weaker source material, and his visual embellishments feel perfunctory. The script is filled with expository dialogue, and you can’t tell from the actors’ approaches either what century they think they’re in or what tone it’s all meant to bear. Cusack is especially guilty, throwing energies around willy-nilly as if unsure whether to play for laughs, terror or dry irony. It doesn’t finally matter, as there’s so little in the film worth taking any attitude toward whatsoever.

(110 min., R, multiple locations) Grade: C-minus

‘The Five-Year Engagement’ review: in love for the long haul, without many laughs

April 26, 2012 / Mad About Movies

Jason Segel and Emily Blunt can't quite seal the deal...and neither can this dull, overlong rom-com.

Jason Segel and Emily Blunt in "The Five-Year Engagement"

Comedy means different things to different people, but I’m pretty sure that most everyone agrees that it’s best when it’s quick and funny.

“The Five-Year Engagement” is neither.

Oh, there are some titters in the tale of the long-gestating romance of a San Francisco chef (Jason Segel) and his psychology student fiancée (Emily Blunt) who keep putting off their big day. But they are fairly few and very far between in this lumpy, meandering, overlong and relentlessly phony film. All the goodwill that the lead actors bring to the table can’t overcome the sheer ordeal of watching this wan story play itself out.

Nicholas Stoller directs his cowriter Segel, as he did on “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” (the pair also wrote “The Muppets”). They aim for that Apatow-verse sweet spot of raunch and sentiment, but the vulgar bits are more naughty than shocking and the sentiment -- like virtually all of the acting and film craft -- reeks of artifice. At two-plus hours, it makes for a dispiritingly long courtship for which no honeymoon can compensate.

(124 min., R, multiple theaters) Grade: C

Levy’s High Five, April 20 – 26

April 19, 2012 / Mad About Movies

The five films playing in Portland-area theaters that I'd soonest see again.

"The Cabin in the Woods"

1) “We Need to Talk About Kevin” Lionel Shriver’s novel about a mother dealing with the emotional repercussions of her son’s homicidal schoolhouse rampage becomes a devastating tour de force for director Lynne Ramsay (“Morven Callar,” “Ratcatcher”) and stars Tilda Swinton (as the mom), Ezra Miller and Jasper Newell (as the boy at different ages). It’s colorful, musical, airtight, horrifying and staggeringly vivid. You’re reminded of how humanity has made art of the most awful events -- from Greek tragedy through “Schindler’s List” -- and how a masterful filmmaker can mold a transforming experience out of utterly dire material. Deeply disturbing, deeply beautiful, deeply compelling. Fox Tower

2) “The Raid: Redemption” An ultra-violent, wildly kinetic martial arts film that virtually strips itself of the narrative conventions of plot, theme and characterization to create a white-knuckle thrill ride. Writer-director Gareth Evans, a Welshman living in Indonesia, takes the simplest story -- a squad of cops attacks a Jakarta apartment house where a crime lord is ensconced -- and uses it to string together wild action sequences that leave the viewer as exhausted as if he or she had fought them. His stars -- Iko Uwais as a baby-faced cop and Yayan Ruhian (who also choreographed) as a stringy-haired bad guy -- are dazzling. The whole thing is pure cinema: the human body rendered as a machine capable of mayhem, daring, and, yes, grace. multiple locations

3) “Bully” An emotionally overwhelming documentaries about threads of violence in our social fabric. Focusing on five or children who’ve been tormented and abused by schoolmates, two so relentlessly that they took their own lives, documentarian Lee Hirsch advocates without the use of any talking heads, statistics or editorial posturing. Rather, his film actually depicts everyday acts of bullying and -- worse -- the ineffective and even hurtful responses of school authorities. At times, the pity, outrage and empathy the evokes threaten to drown you. But there’s a hint of light, too. At moments you might feel slightly manipulated. But when you look into the eyes of two fathers whose sons killed themselves rather than continue to be bullied, quibbles about journalist practice vanish from your mind. Fox Tower

4) “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” Jiro Ono is the owner of a Tokyo sushi bar with 10 seats and 3 Michelin stars, and David Gelb’s gorgeous and intimate documentary about the man and his obsession gives you an idea of how that can not only be so but be fitting. Jiro and his two sons (bound to the chef’s apron strings, almost literally) devote untold hours of work and thought to the perfection of sushi-making, turning a sometimes makework form of cookery into indisputably high art. At 85, the old master still works virtually every day, and the fruit of his focus is in servings of raw fish and warm rice photographed so lusciously that you can almost taste them. A mouthwatering film: literally. Hollywood Theatre, Living Room Theaters

5) "The Cabin in the Woods" A slasher movie inside a horror movie of another sort inside yet another narrative, one which looks out and the audience and asks why they (that is, we) keep lining up to watch other people get slaughtered. A group of college students head to the titular location for a weekend’s bacchanal, only to be preyed upon and killed in grisly fashion, as per the familiar genre rules. At the same time, a group of bureaucrats/scientists in a control room manipulate the victims and their killers in the service of...something. Director Drew Goddard and his co-writer Joss Whedon have fun in the vein of “Scream” and in the vein of “The Truman Show” -- and they come up with an intriguing theory to explain the allure of horror films as well as a (literal) hell of a climax. Bloody, funny, clever. multiple locations

‘Marley’ review: a full-bodied bio of an artist taken too soon

April 19, 2012 / Mad About Movies

The reggae superstar is the subject of an epic documentary.

Bob Marley

It’s more than 30 years since Bob Marley died of cancer at the horribly young age of 36, and he has become more famous and influential in the decades since his passing than he ever was in his lifetime.

This point is made quite subtly and hearteningly at the very end of the documentary “Marley,” by Kevin Macdonald (who also directed “Touching the Void” and “One Day in September” and the dramatic feature “The Last King of Scotland”). After copiously detailing the life and times of his subject, Macdonald takes us on a journey to every continent of the planet to watch as a pied array of singers, professional and not, perform Marley’s “Get Up, Stand Up” and “One Love.”

Those two songs indicate nicely the range of Marley’s work and spirit: He was at once a revolutionary outsider preaching fiery justice and a holy fool imploring humanity to embrace its best angels -- and always with great hooks and an infectiously tight band. It’s no wonder that Marley’s image has taken on the same sort of universal currency as those of such diverse icons as Elvis Presley and Che Guevara: he is both a musical lodestar and a symbol of political aspiration. And his influence transcends borders, cultures and even generations in a way that very few artists have ever imagined.

The coda aside, “Marley” doesn’t track the impact of Marley as carefully as it does the days and deeds of the man. The film is built around interviews with a stunning array of sources. Marley’s mother, wife, children, lovers, bandmates, teachers, business associates, half-blood relations and so on all appear: a complete who’s-who of his life.

There are chats with Marley himself, piles of photos and film clips (including cellphone-quality images of Marley and Stevie Wonder performing in 1975), tawdry and frightening headlines (an affair with Miss World, an assassination attempt), music biz intrigues, political tussles, family complications, and Kremlin-like maneuvers within his bands. You learn about the rise of ska and reggae music, the roots and meanings of Rastafarianism, the political and cultural climate and history of Jamaica. It’s a thoroughly satisfying, full-bodied portrait.

Marley’s life has been the subject of perhaps a half-dozen aborted feature film projects over the years, and this film gives us an idea of why: there are almost too many irresistible tangents, compelling songs, and colorful characters. “Marley” runs nearly two-and-a-half hours without having to establish dramatic characters or expand small incidents into structured scenes. It may, finally, be the best and last word on the man, his music and his myth that we ever get on film -- an estimable achievement in itself.

(144 min., PG-13, Hollywood Theatre, Living Room Theaters) Grade: B-plus

Levy’s High Five, April 13 – 20

April 12, 2012 / Mad About Movies

The five films playing in Portland-area theaters that I'd soonest see again.

"The Interrupters"

1) “We Need to Talk About Kevin” Lionel Shriver’s novel about a mother dealing with the emotional repercussions of her son’s homicidal schoolhouse rampage becomes a devastating tour de force for director Lynne Ramsay (“Morven Callar,” “Ratcatcher”) and stars Tilda Swinton (as the mom), Ezra Miller and Jasper Newell (as the boy at different ages). It’s colorful, musical, airtight, horrifying and staggeringly vivid. You’re reminded of how humanity has made art of the most awful events -- from Greek tragedy through “Schindler’s List” -- and how a masterful filmmaker can mold a transforming experience out of utterly dire material. Deeply disturbing, deeply beautiful, deeply compelling. Fox Tower

2) “The Raid: Redemption” An ultra-violent, wildly kinetic martial arts film that virtually strips itself of the narrative conventions of plot, theme and characterization to create a white-knuckle thrill ride. Writer-director Gareth Evans, a Welshman living in Indonesia, takes the simplest story -- a squad of cops attacks a Jakarta apartment house where a crime lord is ensconced -- and uses it to string together wild action sequences that leave the viewer as exhausted as if he or she had fought them. His stars -- Iko Uwais as a baby-faced cop and Yayan Ruhian (who also choreographed) as a stringy-haired bad guy -- are dazzling. The whole thing is pure cinema: the human body rendered as a machine capable of mayhem, daring, and, yes, grace. multiple locations

3) “Undefeated” In February, this film came out of nowhere, seemingly, to win the Oscar for best documentary feature, and that’s just about right for a movie about an impoverished Memphis high school football program willed into quality by the heart and will of a volunteer coach and his raggedy squad. Bill Courtney, a white man who has succeeded in business sufficiently to dedicate himself to his passion, has given himself to the boys of Manassas High School for about six years, and he’s finally turned the perennial doormat team into genuine contenders. With a college-bound superstar, an academic achiever who suffers a career-threatening injury, and a gifted hothead among the players, directors Daniel Lindsay and T. J. Martin have the stuff of gold on their hands, and they mine it tastefully, gracefully and movingly. Fox Tower

4) “Bully” and “The Interrupters” A pair of emotionally overwhelming documentaries about threads of violence in our social fabric. “Bully” focuses on five or children who’ve been tormented and abused by schoolmates, two so relentlessly that they took their own lives. It actually depicts the bullying and -- worse -- the ineffective response of school authorities. At times, the pity, outrage and empathy it evokes threaten to drown you. But there’s a hint of light, too. “The Interrupters” is, incredibly, even more powerful. It spends a year alongside a handful of former Chicago gang-bangers dedicated to quelling potentially violent incidents in their communities. Intimate, terrifying, and real, it deflates you and gives you hope in turns. “The Interrupters” plays Wednesday only at the Northwest Film Center. “Bully” plays a regular run at the Fox Tower.

5) “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” Jiro Ono is the owner of a Tokyo sushi bar with 10 seats and 3 Michelin stars, and David Gelb’s gorgeous and intimate documentary about the man and his obsession gives you an idea of how that can not only be so but be fitting. Jiro and his two sons (bound to the chef’s apron strings, almost literally) devote untold hours of work and thought to the perfection of sushi-making, turning a sometimes makework form of cookery into indisputably high art. At 85, the old master still works virtually every day, and the fruit of his focus is in servings of raw fish and warm rice photographed so lusciously that you can almost taste them. A mouthwatering film: literally. Hollywood Theatre, Living Room Theaters

‘The Cabin in the Woods’ review: a slasher movie with (puppet) strings attached

April 12, 2012 / Mad About Movies

The cliches of a horror genre are revealed to be the mechanics of a higher purpose.

Fran Kranz (l.), Chris Hemsworth and Anna Hutchison in "The Cabin in the Woods"

They pile into the RV -- the jock, the tart, the bookworm, the virgin, the stoner -- and they head off for a wild weekend at a secluded house in the mountains, and you just know it’s gonna end badly.

The movie’s called “The Cabin in the Woods,” after all, and from “The Night of the Living Dead” through “The Evil Dead” and “Dead Snow,” moviegoers can be virtually certain that an eclectic group like that in an isolated place like that will be wiped out, one by one, in grisly fashion, by psychos or rednecks or zombies or a virus or just plain evil.

It may not always be the most noble of genres, art-wise, but consider: “Cabin in the Woods” is the creation of Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard, who collaborated on the TV series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel,” and, individually, created and/or worked on the TV series “Lost” and “Firefly,” and the films "Serenity" and “Cloverfield.” They’re clever lads, in short, and as they’re the brains here (they co-wrote, with Goddard directing and Whedon producing), you can expect twists, laughs and freshness.

And that’s exactly what you get. “Cabin in the Woods” is smarter than the average slasher film, with a touch of the “Scream” series in the knowing banter of the doomed partiers and a nifty sci-fi slant in the construction of a second level of reality -- a mysterious control room where the events befalling the unwitting cavorters are dreamed up, as in “The Truman Show” or “The Hunger Games.”

It’s a film full of clever moments that may at first seem cheeky but come to feel inspired, with a third act (which only a churl would describe) that rises to a dizzyingly heightened level of metaphysics and mayhem. Suffice it to say that when the worlds of the cabin and the control room meet, as they must, then all hell breaks loose.

Two casts, as it were, flesh it out. In the cabin, he-man Chris Hemsworth and good girl Kristen Connolly are continually upstaged by Fran Kranz (with a rather spot-on Jamie Kennedy). In the control room, Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford bring the casual sadism with drollery and ease.

Throughout, Goddard juxtaposes the slightly retro sterility of the control room with the moldy atmosphere of the cabin, subtly indicating that the puppets and puppet masters aren’t so different -- much in the way the audience for such films resembles the folks who make them. In fact, when it’s over, and a deeper reality emerges, it’s hard to say who the victims and victimizers truly are. We’re forced, finally, to ask whether we’re more like the luckless souls trapped in “The Cabin in the Woods” or the ironic sadists who selfishly concoct such dooms.

(95 min., R, multiple locations) Grade: B-plus

‘Bully’ review: an overwhelming look into a hurtful syndrome

April 12, 2012 / Mad About Movies

Formerly rated R for profanity, this powerful film about children abusing children is a must-see.

One of the tormented children in "Bully"

Some movies uses make-believe to make you squirm or cry or rise to righteous anger. “Bully” does all of that with reality.

Documentarian Lee Hirsch peers into one of the most horrifying things you’ll ever see -- the lives of bullied young teens -- and wrings and terrifies and outrages you impressively.

“Bully” focuses on five or children around the U. S. who have been abused by schoolmates, two so relentlessly that they committed suicide. The film speaks to the impact of bullying and, more terribly, actually depicts the abuse and -- worse -- the ineffective responses of scholastic and legal authorities, who sometimes exacerbate the troubles.

You sense that some corners have been shaved in “Bully,” but that doesn’t lessen the film’s impact or import. Watching two fathers mourn their sons, who took their own lives, is utterly gut-wrenching, and you want to reach out and help any child headed toward such a dire decision.

“Bully” was initially rated R for profanities that, frankly, I can’t recall hearing. But it’s been edited and re-rated PG-13, meaning that those who most need to learn from it -- victims of bullying and, yes, their tormentors -- will get to see it. I think it could be argued that it ought to be mandatory.

(99 min., PG-13, Fox Tower) Grade: B-plus

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