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Category: Reviews (Page 3 of 3)

Levy’s High Five, May 18 – 24

May 17, 2012 /

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

Jiro Dreams of Sushi.jpg"Jiro Dreams of Sushi"
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) “The Portland Queer Documentary Festival” Now marking its sixth year, QDocs, as it’s known, continues on as the only festival in the hemisphere dedicated to non-fictional films dealing with LGBT issues (there’s also one in Australia, which is rather a schlep...).  This year’s crop is predictably diverse, with several films on contemporary political issues such as marriage rights (“Question One”) and gay clergy (“Love Free or Die”) and a number of portraits of artists who have carved out space in fields not immediately associated with gay and lesbian performers such as country music (“Chely Wright: Wish Me Away”) and comic books (“King of Comics”). A particular highlight is “Vito,” a compelling, smart and moving portrait of the late film historian and activist Vito Russo. Many of the films will be presented by their directors or subjects; all screenings will be held at McMenamins Kennedy School. Full ticket and schedule information

4) “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. 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.  Laurelhurst, Living Room Theaters




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

May 17, 2012 /

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

Bernie.jpgShirley 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


QDocs, "Plymptoons" and EFF Portland make for a busy week of film festivals

May 17, 2012 /

A diversity of film events turn up at once, making for a rich and hectic week.

Vito.jpgVito Russo from "Vito" at QDocs
The weather may be hollering, ‘get outside,’ but Portland filmlovers have ample reason to head for the great indoors in the coming week.

Two festivals of note and a barnstorming film tour highlight a truly eclectic crop of movie choices, and we’ve got the skinny on all three.


QDoc
(by Grant Butler)

Portland’s Queer Documentary Film Festival, kicked off at McMenamins Kennedy School on Thursday night with “Wish Me Away,” about country singer Chely Wright, followed by a big party at downtown’s new restaurant Corazon. But the festival kicks into high gear today, with screenings of 11 additional films being held Friday through Sunday. Here are five of the standouts:

“King of Comics”  German cartoonist Ralf König has been shocking and entertaining readers since the 1980s with his graphic and often hilarious comic books “Gay Comix.” His drawing style is reminiscent of R. Crumb, with a touch of delicious crude humor. This portrait of the artist shows him giving a hilarious reading of some of his best stories, intermixed with a melancholy look at his life, which has involved broken relationships and loneliness, showing there can be tears behind the laughter. This is a 21-and-over screening. (9 p.m. Friday; 80 minutes; Germany) B+

“Question One”  President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage earlier this month is just the latest chapter in the ongoing debate over marriage equality, and this documentary offers an even-handed look at the emotions on both sides of the issue. In 2009, Maine’s state legislature approved same-sex marriage, prompting a constitutional ballot battle that ended with voters overturning the right to marry by a significant margin. Filmmakers Joe Fox and James Nubile follow both gay activists fighting the ballot measure, as well as Christian supporters and ministers who believe that marriage can only be defined as between a man and a woman. The film captures the complex thoughts and concerns of people on both sides of the referendum — no easy task. The filmmakers and one of their subjects, Darlene Huntress, will be in attendance. (6 p.m. Saturday; 113 minutes; United States) A

“This Is What Love In Action Looks Like” Gay-conversion therapy is one of the most-controversial practices by some churches today. It prompted a national firestorm in 2005 when a Tennessee program called Love In Action became the focal-point of protests after a 16-year-old gay boy was forced into the program by his parents against his wishes. Memphis bloggers and activists began protesting outside the treatment facility, eventually getting the attention of national TV news, leading to the eventual dissolution of the program. This film asks questions about the intersection of Christian faith and free will, and whether any gay-conversion programs have any merit — not just those directed at teens. Director Morgan Jon Fox will be in attendance. (11:30 a.m. Sunday; 70 minutes; United States) B+

“Love Free or Die”  Gene Robinson made international news when he was made a bishop of the Episcopal Church in New Hampshire in 2003, prompting the Anglican Church to ban him from its 10-year conference of bishops five years later. But Robinson went to England anyway, shadowing the conference with speeches at a handful of churches that dared to invite him to preach. The portrait shows how Robinson’s efforts to get the Episcopal Church to recognize same-sex marriage and the role that gays and lesbians have in the clergy is fleshed out with snapshots of his homelife, including his own marriage to his longtime partner when it became legal in New Hampshire. Director Macky Alston will be in attendance. (4 p.m. Sunday; 82 minutes; United States) A-

“Vito”  Gay film historian Vito Russo helped show the dismal way that Hollywood has treated gays and lesbians on film with his landmark book “The Celluloid Closet” and his live presentations in the 1980s that showed hundreds of examples of homophobia on film. But Russo was more than a scholar, becoming an outspoken activist in the early years of the AIDS crisis, before the disease cut his own life short. Interviews with family, friends, and archival interviews with Russo create a full portrait of someone who loved cinema, and wanted to see gays and lesbians depicted fairly in the medium. Director Jeffrey Schwarz will be in attendance. (7 p.m. Sunday; 93 minutes; United States) A

Full ticket and program information


Adventures in Plymptoons.jpgView full size
The Great Northwest Film Tour
(by Shawn Levy)

The Oscar-nominated cartoonist Bill Plympton is, of course, a native son of Oregon, so it’s only right and proper that he bring a film about his life and art to his home state.  And by that you can take it to mean the whole state -- or as much of it as hosts a McMenamins brewpub movie theater.

“Adventures in Plymptoons,” directed by Alexia Anastasio and featuring interviews with a great many of Plympton’s peers and chums, both local and national, will play at no fewer eight of the McMenamin brothers’ theaters in a span of nine days.  And Plympton and Anastasio will be on hand throughout the event to discuss their project.  

The tour, which has been mounted by the Oregon Media Production Association trade group, begins on Saturday at the Mission Theater in Portland, followed by screenings at the Old St. Francis School in Bend (Sunday), the Kennedy School in Portland (Tuesday), the Grand Lodge in Forest Grove (Wednesday), the Olympic Club in Centralia, Washington (Thursday), the Edgefield Powerstation in Troutdale (Friday, May 25), the Bagdad Theater in Portland (Saturday, May 26) and the St. Johns Theater in Portland (Sunday, May 27).

Saturday’s event is being billed as an “Industry Premiere,” with many of Portland’s famed animators and filmmakers expected to attend.  And the next-to-last show, on May 26, is a gala fundraiser for the OMPA, with musical performer Weird Al Yankovic  adding to the festivities.

Full ticket and schedule information


EFF Portland.jpgView full size
Experimental Film Festival Portland
(by Shawn Levy)

It’s been a few years since Peripheral Produce has held one of its seminal PDX Film Fests, and that hasn’t been because there’s been a lack of new experimental film projects created in this most creative of towns.  Rather, PDX Fest honcho Matt McCormick has been working busily films of his own and simply hasn’t been up to the heavy task.

With the thought that it would take a whole collective of people to replace McCormick and his team, the filmmakers in the group called Grand Detour have combined their talents to mount a new festival dedicated to film on the margins.  Experimental Film Festival Portland (or, cheekily, EFF Portland) will run from Tuesday, May 22 through Sunday, May 27, with premieres of new works from, among many others, Portlanders Vanessa Renwick, Pam Minty, and Karl Lind.

The several programs, comprising dozens of films in all, bear names like “Eruption,” “Mycology” and “Magma Flow” and screen at various locations around town.  It all climaxes on May 27 with the Dill Pickle Club history group hosting a symposium on experimental film at the Clinton Street Theater,featuring new work from McCormick, Brooke Jacobson and Jim Blashfield, and, later in the day, the premiere of Renwick’s new film, “Charismatic Megafauna,” presented at the Hollywood Theatre with live musical score.

Full ticket and schedule information


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

May 17, 2012 /

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

Mansome.jpgJason 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 /

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

Mansome.jpgJason 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


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

May 16, 2012 /

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

God Bless America.jpgJoel 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 /

Catch 'em while you can!

Bully.jpgfrom "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 /

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.

The Dictator.jpgSacha 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


Movies: Hot summer films, tepid ‘Shadows,’ an eerie ‘Voice’ and more

May 11, 2012 /

New releases in Portland-area theaters not reviewed in this week's A&E.

dark shadows 2.jpgJohnny Depp in "Dark Shadows"
In this week's paper, we weigh in on the eleventy-jillion movie releases due in Portland theaters between now and Labor Day in our annual Summer Movie Guide.  We've also got reviews of the films that open today, including the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp horror comedy "Dark Shadows," the Norwegian comic thriller "Headhunters," the multi-character British charmer "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," and "Sound of My Voice," a creepy film about life in a charismatic cult.  And those bad pennies:  "Also Opening," "Indie/Arthouse" and "Levy's High Five."

Cruel ‘Games,’ tireless ‘Searchers,’ several fests and more

May 11, 2012 /

New releases in Portland-area theaters not reviewed in this week's A&E.

The Searchers.jpgJohn Wayne in "The Searchers" (1956)
“Funny Games” Writer-director Michael Haneke’s terrifying 1997 film about a pointless and sadistic home invasion (he later remade it himself in Hollywood, to far lesser results).  (5th Avenue Cinema, Friday through Sunday only)  

“HDFEST” A selection of new films from around the world made for and projected in high-definition formats.   (Living Room Theaters, Tuesday through Thursday only)  

“Inter-Action: Animated Shorts” A collection of recent animated films by SEAT (the Seattle Experimental Animation Team), presented by Seattle animator Tess Martin.  (Northwest Film Center, Thursday only)  

“The Invisible War” Documentarian Kirby Dick (“This Film Is Not Yet Rated,” “Derrida”) looks into the under-reported phenomenon of sexual assault in the American military.  (Hollywood Theatre, Thursday only)  

“Jesus Henry Christ” A boy conceived in a laboratory seeks his biological father; stars include Toni Collette and Michael Sheen.  (Living Room Theaters)  

“Pacific University Senior Theses Films” A presentation of the work of soon-to-be graduates of Pacific University’s Media Arts Department.  (CLinton Street Theater, Thursday only)  

“Sprout Film Festival” A collection of films about the lives and accomplishments of people with learning disabilities.   (McMenamins Kennedy School, Saturday only)  

“The Searchers” John Wayne stars as the brutal, dogged, racist Ethan Edwards, who spends years seeking a neice who has been kidnapped by Native Americans, in John Ford’s 1956 classic.  (Laurelhurst Theater)  


Levy’s High Five, May 11 – 17

May 10, 2012 /

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

The Deep Blue Sea window.jpgRachel 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 /

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

Headhunters.jpgAksel 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 /

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

Dark Shadows.jpgJohnny 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


Movies: The ‘Avengers’ assemble, the ‘Pope’ has cold feet, Studio Ghibli is celebrated, and more

May 4, 2012 /

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

Avengers -- Thor Cap Am.jpgThor (Chris Hemsworth) and Captain America (Chris Evans) in "The Avengers"
The one big deal movie out there this weekend is, of course, "The Avengers," and I've got a review and a brief introduction to the characters.  Other movies were mostly scared away from opening opposite such a blockbuster, but we review the Italian comedy "We Have a Pope" and a new retrospective of films from Japan's Studio Ghibli.  And -- but you knew it, didn't you -- there's "Also Opening," "Indy/Arthouse," and "Levy's High Five."

Levy’s High Five, May 4 – 10

May 3, 2012 /

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

The Deep Blue Sea pub.jpgTom 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

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


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

May 3, 2012 /

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 -- Thor Iron Man Cap Am.jpgView full sizeAvengers 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 /

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

We Have A Pope.jpgMichel 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 /

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

The Deep Blue Sea.jpgTom 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 /

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

The Deep Blue Sea window.jpg 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.  Cinema 21

2) “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

3) “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

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 /

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

The Deep Blue Sea pub.jpgTom 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 /

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

Damsels in Distress Gerwig Tipton.jpegGreta 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 /

A profane and bloody lark...on ice.

Goon.jpgSeann 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 /

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

The Raven.jpgJohn 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 /

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

The Five-Year Engagement.jpgJason 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


Movies: the full ‘Marley,’ a ‘Lucky’ romance, a sweet ‘Salt’ and more

April 20, 2012 /

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

Marley 2.jpgBob Marley from "Marley"
Light week at the movies.  We've got reviews of the epic-scale biographical documentary "Marley," the Zac Efron love story "The Lucky One," the Italian slice-of-romance comedy "The Salt of Life," and, off the wire, the nature documentary "Chimpanzee." And, as ever, no matter the weather, "Also Opening," "Indie/Arthouse" and "Levy's High Five."

Levy’s High Five, April 20 – 26

April 19, 2012 /

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

The Cabin in the Woods lab.jpg"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 /

The reggae superstar is the subject of an epic documentary.

Marley.jpgBob 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


This week’s last-chance movies: ‘Unfeated,’ ‘We Bought a Zoo,’ ‘Comic-con’ and more

April 18, 2012 /

Catch 'em while you can!

Undefeated.jpg"Undefeated"
Another Wednesday, another batch of worthwhile films packing their bags to leave town.  Today and tomorrow mark your final chances to see the following films on the big screen in Portland-area theaters:  "Undefeated," the superb Oscar-winning documentary about a Memphis, Tennesse, high school football team; "Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope," Morgan Spurlock's charming look at the annual assembly of freaks and geeks in San Diego; "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia," a haunting police drama from Turkey; and "We Bought a Zoo," Cameron Crowe's sweet and sentimental story of a family living through tragedy in unique fashion.  

Guy Pearce in space, Buster Keaton as ‘Sherlock,’ the return of ‘The Interrupters’ and more

April 13, 2012 /

New releases in Portland-area theaters not reviewed in this week's A&E.

Sherlock Jr.jpgBuster Keaton in "Sherlock Jr." (1924)
“Best of the Northwest Filmmakers’ Festival” In case you missed it last fall, here’s the pick of the crop from the region’s longest-running homegrown film fest.  (Northwest Film Center, Friday and Saturday only)

“Dreadnaught” Classic 1981 martial arts drama.  (Hollywood Theatre, Tuesday only)  

“Four Lovers” French romance about the ups and downs of two star-crossed couples.   (Living Room Theaters)  

“The Interrupters” Titanically good 2011 documentary about a group of former Chicago gang-bangers dedicated to eradicating the cancer of violence.  A must-see.   (Northwest Film Center, Wednesday only) 

"The Lady" Tedious account of the work and marriage of Nobel Prize winning Burmese democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi (Michelle Yeoh). (Fox Tower)

“Lockout” Sci-fi drama about Guy Pearce trying to rescue a kidnapped girl from a prison that orbits the Earth.  (multiple locations)  

“North by Northwest” Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 thriller is considered by some to be his most enduring work.  (5th Avenue Cinema,  Friday through Sunday only)  

“Political Science Theater 3000” An evening of current events and comedy, with political advertisements and other filmed object parsed by a panel of wiseacres. Sponsored by The Bus Project.  (Hollywood Theatre, Monday only)  

“Sherlock Jr.” Buster Keaton’s immortal 1924 film about a daydreaming film projectionist, presented with live musical accompaniment.   (Hollywood Theatre, Thursday only)  



Levy’s High Five, April 13 – 20

April 12, 2012 /

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

Interrupters -- ameena.jpg"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 /

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

The Cabin in the Woods.jpgFran 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 /

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

Bully.jpgOne 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


Filmed by Bike: an only-in-Portland festival rolls on in its tenth year

April 12, 2012 /

6 days of bike movies, parties and more.

Filmed by bike logo
Now in its tenth year, “Filmed by Bike” is something of an echt Portland event -- the kind of thing that can only happen here and that signals ‘here’ to the outside world.

A mini-festival of (mostly) short films about the bicycling life, it launches on Friday night at the Clinton Street Theater with a screening and a street party and runs through Wednesday, screening some 75 films, mostly from Oregon but also from 13 other states and five foreign countries.

As in previous years, “Filmed by Bike” is a wide-brush survey of life on two (or sometimes one or even three) wheels, with documentaries mixed in with comic and dramatic shorts.  This year, one of the six programs (some of which feature overlapping films) is dedicated to longer-form works of closer to 20 minutes.  Another program, comprised mainly of locally-made movies, focuses on the rough-and-tumble sport of cyclocross, a kind of obstacle course-style racing for bikes.  And the final program will consist of festival organizers’ favorite entries from the past decade.

Tonight’s street party is sponsored by New Belgium brewery and will include live musical entertainment, a DJ, and break dancing -- plus, of course, films inside on screen.

For full information on the event, including lists of the dozens of film titles, visit the Filmed by Bike web site.


A quarrelsome ‘Footnote,’ a lively ‘Comic-con,’ a glum ‘Reunion’ and more

April 6, 2012 /

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

American Reunion.jpgJason Biggs in "American Reunion"
There's a lot of variety on offer this Easter weekend.  The "American Pie" gang is back for an "American Reunion," you can visit a world of freaks and geeks with "Comic-con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope," there's a bickering family of scholars in the Oscar-nominated "Footnote," you can watch a lad come of age in "Boy," or you can investigate mysteries within mysteries in "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia."  All that, plus "Also Opening," "Indie/Arthouse" and "Levy's High Five."

Levy’s High Five, April 6 – 12

April 5, 2012 /

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

The Raid redemption dreadlocks.jpg"The Raid: Redemption"
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. Cinema 21, Lloyd Center

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) “Chico & Rita”  A handsome, enthralling and grown-up animated feature film from Spain that was a surprising but highly deserving Oscar nominee earlier this year.  Three directors combine to tell the story of a pianist and singer who fall madly in love in pre-revolutionary Havana and are separated by the vagaries of careers, money and passion.  There are frank sequences of sexuality, drug use and violence, but there are also exhilarating scenes of music, including appearances by Woody Herman, Dizzy Gillespie and Cuban jazz legend Chano Pozo.  It’s a gorgeous dream of a film, traveling the world -- New York, Paris, Las Vegas -- but as passionate and intimate as a bolero. 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



‘Footnote’ review: the father-son warfare is bad enough, but they’re SCHOLARS…

April 5, 2012 /

A charming Oscar-nominated comedy about blood ties, academic rivalries and very close reading

Footnote.jpgLior Ashkenazi (l.) and Shlomo Bar-Aba in "Footnote"
‘Academic politics is so bitter,’ goes the old saw, ‘because the prize is so small.’  In writer-director Joseph Cedar’s Oscar-nominated “Footnote,” the internecine scrapping between a community scholars is even uglier than normal because it feeds on the uneasy relationship between a father and son.  Throw in the fact that they’re Talmud researchers in Jerusalem, where you can actually gain celebrity by studying sacred Jewish texts, and you’ve got a way for both the stakes and the bitterness to rise to dizzying heights.

The elder combatant in the struggle is Eliezer Shkolnik (Shlomo Bar-Aba), who has slaved unrecognized in an obscure corner of textual analysis for decades, his chief fame arising from his being cited in a footnote by a legendary scholar.  His son, Uriel (Lior Ashkenazi), has gained real prominence and even celebrity in the same field, transforming lessons gleaned from the study of the Talmud into a kind of pop psychology phenomenon.

Stereotypically, the younger man’s success ought to be a source of naches, or parental pride, in a Jewish household.  But Eliezer is a bitter, exacting scold, barely able to disguise his disdain for of Uriel’s glib and, in his view, slipshod scholarship.  Whenever the son is accorded some sort of grand honor, which is often, the father cannot warm himself or approve.  Instead, he tends to denigrates the honor itself as a trifle bestowed upon dilettantes.

And then, one day, out of the blue, a phone call:  Eliezer has been awarded one of Israel’s top cultural prizes -- a life-affirming endorsement of his career.  It’s a blessing for all, really.  Or it would be, if only things were as simple as they initially seem.

Nominated for an Oscar as best foreign language film, “Footnote” is a bright, smart and funny movie that evinces a real feel not only for the daily work of scholars but for the bloody minefields of academia.  Cedar, who made the memorable war film “Beaufort,” contrives several witty passages in which some of the processes of academic researched are mimicked as storytelling techniques.  As fun as these are, though, you wish he had either committed more deeply to them or excised them altogether.  As it stands, they impart an incomplete or less-than-fully-baked quality to the film, a note which is underscored by the deliberately inconclusive ending.

Still, it’s a fine, clever movie with a real feel for the milieu of academia, some truly memorable turns of character and story, and some wonderfully persuasive acting -- all of it much more charming than dedicating your life to ceaseless study of forgotten texts or being related to someone who has chosen that path.

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


‘Comic-con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope’ review: a breezy romp among the freaks and geeks

April 5, 2012 /

A visit to the world's biggest sci-fi/comics/fantasy gathering without having to wait in line.

Comic-con Episode IV -- A Fan's Hope.jpgThe gang's all here: "Comic-con Episode IV -- A Fan's Hope"
There’s much to enjoy in the lively, fun and fresh documentary “Comic-con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope,” but chief among them may be that its director, Morgan Spurlock, is nowhere to be seen.

Not that the sight of Spurlock is awful, or anything:  in his films “Super Size Me” and “POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold” and his TV series “30 Days,” he has presented himself as an agreeable Everyman out to expose some of our culture’s ordinary but vital hidden truths.

In “Comic-con,” though, Spurlock turns his lens on the massive crowd of nerds, geeks, freaks, and dreamers who annually descend on San Diego for the world’s largest gathering of fans of all things comic book, fantasy, sci-fi and such.  And the resulting film is so spry that you feel like you’re watching the director recharge his creative batteries in real time.

The film loosely follows a half-dozen or so attendees: a comic book dealer, two aspiring illustrators, a costume designer, a toy collector, a guy who wants to propose to his girlfriend in the midst of the mayhem, and so on.  Alongside are casual interviews with celebrities such as comics legends Stan Lee and Frank Miller, filmmakers Joss Whedon and Kevin Smith, actor Seth Rogen, and cartoonist Matt Groening.

Does it have a “big” “point” to make?  No.  But it’s bright and breezy and gives you a real sense of being at Comic-con without the hassle of actually, you know, being there -- which appears to be, given the cost and crowds and ever-increasing commercialization of the thing, something of a gift to the viewer.
    
(88 min., unrated, probably PG-13, Hollywood Theatre) Grade: B-plus


‘Once Upon a Time in Anatolia’ review: mysteries unravel and pile up in the Turkish provinces

April 5, 2012 /

The search for a body buried in the wilderness leads to the unearthing of uncomfortable truths.

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia.jpg"Once Upon a Time in Anatolia"
For a long time (and it is a looooooong time), writer-director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” feels like a wild goose chase:  a half-dozen or so cops drag a pair of suspects around the steppes of Eastern Turkey looking for a corpse which the pair have buried.  

In the course of an long, uncomfortable evening, the characters are revealed in sometimes fleeting snatches and sometime long and open-ended exchanges of dialogue:  a frustrated police chief (Yilmaz Erdogan), an imperious prosecutor (Taner Bisel), a cagy doctor (Muhammet Uzuner), a detail-obsessed soldier (Emre Sen).  When night lifts, a number of subtle realities emerge -- along with the decidedly unsubtle body.

There’s a very lifelike feel to Ceylan’s film, from the murk of the night and the frustration of the search to the hidden truths that become clear but nevertheless remain tacit or unacknowledged.  Ceylan (“Three Monkeys,” “Climates”) has a fine cast on hand, and he’s not afraid to let uncertainty linger in the air, just as it does in the real world.  With its wide-open setting and taciturn, macho characters, it’s a film that earns the right to use the “Once Upon a Time” title that Sergio Leone made so perversely famous.
    
(155 min., unrated, probably R, Hollywood Theatre) Grade: B-plus


Movies: A wild ‘Raid,’ a sexy ‘Chico,’ a hearfelt ‘Undefeated,’ and more

March 30, 2012 /

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

The Raid redemption dreadlocks.jpg"The Raid: Redemption"
There's some really fine stuff new to local theaters this week.  I'm especially fond of the Indonesian martial arts extravaganza "The Raid," but I heartily recommend the Oscar-winning high school football documentary "Undefeated" and the Oscar-nominated animated musical "Chico & Rita" (surprisingly grown-up, that one).  There's also the Belgian slice-of-grim-life drama "The Kid with a Bike."  All that -- plus "Also Opening," "Indie/Arthouse" and "Levy's High Five" -- for the fabulous price of free!  Enjoy!

Levy’s High Five, March 30 – April 5

March 29, 2012 /

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

The Raid -- REdemption -- Taslim and Ruhian.jpgJoe Taslim (l.) and Yayan Ruhian in "The Raid: Redemption"
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. Cinema 21, Lloyd Center

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) “Chico & Rita”  A handsome, enthralling and grown-up animated feature film from Spain that was a surprising but highly deserving Oscar nominee earlier this year.  Three directors combine to tell the story of a pianist and singer who fall madly in love in pre-revolutionary Havana and are separated by the vagaries of careers, money and passion.  There are frank sequences of sexuality, drug use and violence, but there are also exhilarating scenes of music, including appearances by Woody Herman, Dizzy Gillespie and Cuban jazz legend Chano Pozo.  It’s a gorgeous dream of a film, traveling the world -- New York, Paris, Las Vegas -- but as passionate and intimate as a bolero. 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 Raid: Redemption’ review: non-stop martial arts action gets, thrillingly, to the essence of movies

March 29, 2012 /

A bloody, nearly plotless Indonesian action film is exhausting and exhilarating.

Nothing actually mov
The Raid -- Redemption -- Uwais.jpegIko Uwais in "The Raid: Redemption"
es in movies.  The motion in motion pictures is an illusion, created (at least in the century prior to the digital age) by the flickering of frames of film through a camera (and, afterwards, a projector) at such a rate so that a series of still photos shown in sequence seems to show something moving -- just like in a flip book, but using light and chemically-treated celluloid instead of paper.  

Because of this, there is a case to be made that the essential theme of the cinema is (or ought to be) motion, and, more specifically, mechanical motion, and, more specifically still, the mechanical nature of the human body in motion.  From Charlie Chaplin through Fred Astaire through Bruce Lee, the spectacle of the human body expressing its physical angularity, muscularity, jointedness, aspiration, and finitude is, in many ways, the acme of film art.  Movies are (or, again,  ought to be) about moving, and nothing is more interesting to watch in motion than a person.

Lots of people move in “The Raid: Redemption,” chiefly in violence against one another.  Writer-director Gareth Evans, a Welshman living in Indonesia, has pared his film almost utterly of the things that other filmmakers often overdo and get wrong -- namely plot, character, moral, and meaning, aspects of literary and dramatic art that cinema inherited from other media when it emerged as a narrative form.

Instead, Evans expends his considerable gifts building sequences of sheer mayhem involving martial arts combat and gunplay, creating a boggling spectacle of raw thrills that should make other directors ashamed of calling their work ‘action movies.’  “The Raid: Redemption” is almost entirely action -- or, when it catches its breath, the tense pauses leading up to explosions of action.  It viscerally indulges itself in one of the cinema’s most elemental functions, and it overwhelms.

Plotwise, the film could not be simpler and still be said to tell a story.  One grey morning, a squadron of policemen, including the soft-spoken Rama (Iko Uwais), stage an assault on a Jakarta apartment block where a crime lord (Ray Sahetapy) is bunkered on the top floor.  The mission is to go in, apprehend the bad guy, and drag him out.  But the villain isn’t up there defended by hopes and wishes, and from the moment the cops get to the building they’re engaged in a fight to the death.  Rama, displaying superhuman capacities of speed, strength and agility and defying the bad fortune of uncovering several twists and deceptions, stays the course, determined to see the mission through and emerge alive.

The cinematography is dark and sweaty; the electronic music ominous; the location seedy; it’s a splendid bit of B-moviemaking.  But what truly dazzles is the wall-to-wall violence and pervading sense of incipient danger.  Evans has created a raw and pure and kinetic film that hits the audience with wave after wave of energy.  His action stars -- chiefly the baby-faced Uwais and the oily, stringy-haired Yayan Ruhian, who also choreographed the fights -- are quick and lithe and deadly and seem to declare the morality of their characters in their combat styles.  That is, you can read into the hearts of Evans’ characters by observing the ways they use their bodies: Uwais moves and fights in clean, direct lines, while Ruhian, playing a fellow aptly named Mad Dog, is sinuous and deceptive.

That, and not the barbaric glee of seeing bodies break and bleed, is what makes “The Raid:  Redemption” such an impressive achievement: it locks on to a primal aspect of the cinema and of the human animal and celebrates, albeit in the cloak of blood and death, the intersection of motion and character.  You can get a similar thrill from dance:  witness “Pina” or certain sequences, including the climax, of “The Artist.”  But the life-and-death stakes here heighten the whole question.  

There will be those, no doubt, for whom the boilerplate plot and slender characterizations of this film are cause to dismiss it as a trifle.  Others will find it dark and violent and, perhaps, inhuman.  But one thing they can’t say is that it isn’t a moving picture.  Indeed, this is the sort of film for which the phrase ‘movie-movie’ was coined -- and coined as a term of highest praise.

(112 min., R, Cinema 21, Lloyd Center) Grade: A-minus


‘Chico & Rita’ review: a sexy, moving animated musical for adults

March 29, 2012 /

A star-crossed romance plays out in pre-revolutionary Havana and bebop-era Times Square.

Chico & Rita.jpg"Chico & Rita"
“Chico & Rita” is full of surprises.  

The first is that it was nominated for an Oscar as best animated feature in February, even though it hadn’t played in the US except in festivals.

The second is that it’s a foreign-language animated film with adult content: nudity, sex, profanity, drug use, violence, and bloodshed -- though none of it in excess.

And the third is that it’s totally captivating, a handsome and touching film about fiery love and cold pride, soulful art and calculating careerism.  Its Oscar nomination and grown-up tenor make it a curiosity; its quality and craft make it a treat.

Set in pre-revolutionary Havana and bebop-era New York, it tells the story of Chico, a gifted pianist, and Rita, a talented singer, who meet, spark, fall hard and then separate, painfully, while she follows a chance for stardom in the USA and he dedicates himself to his music.

There are appearances by jazz greats Woody Herman, Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo, scenes of sensuality, luxury, daring and exotica, glimpses of the old and new Havana and Las Vegas, a nifty dream sequence, and, throughout, wonderful music.  It’s hot and sweet and made with inspiration and cheek.  And it is not your children’s animated fare -- which, in this case, is a recommendation.

(94 min., unrated, likely R, Fox Tower) Grade: A-minus


‘Undefeated’ review: the valiant heart of a high school football team

March 29, 2012 /

An Oscar-winning sports documentary lifts the spirit.

Undefeated.jpg"Undefeated": coach Bill Courtney and star player O. C. Brown
Given how many ‘inspirational’ sports films are based on true events, it seems inevitable that we should get a movie like “Undefeated,” a documentary about...an inspirational sports story.

What isn’t inevitable, though, is that “Undefeated” should be so intimate, warm, gripping, and moving.  Winner of the best documentary feature prize at February’s Academy Awards, the film by Daniel Lindsay and T. J. Martin peers empathetically into a tiny world and opens it up for its audience, who, in turn, will surely open their hearts to it.

The focus of “Undefeated” is the football team of Manassas High School in North Memphis, a perennial doormat of a program in a poverty-stricken neighborhood.  The school can’t afford to pay a coach, so its football program is run by Bill Courtney, a local businessman dedicated to giving young men the sense of self-worth that he himself never had growing up.

In the course of a single surprising football season that has more ups than downs, several personalities emerge:  a gifted, sweet-talking big man en route to a college scholarship -- if he can get the grades; a hothead who would make a good player if he can focus his anger; a good student who cares more about football than his grades and then suffers a season-threatening injury.

Chiefly, the film has Courtney, a big-hearted man whose love of football and his players with an earthy, infectious zeal.  “Undefeated” puts us inside his locker room, and you simply cannot fail to be moved by the human affection, commitment and passion you feel there.
    
(112 min., R, Fox Tower) Grade: A-minus



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