New Releases

On the strength of its lead performances alone, The Master may be Paul Thomas Anderson's best film ever.

A bold statement, I know. Anderson's strong body of work includes the Oscar-winning There Will Be Blood, as well as Punch-Drunk Love, a film in which he somehow coaxed great acting from Adam Sandler. And The Master isn't even my favorite Anderson movie; that would be the rollicking and surprisingly poignant Boogie Nights. But The Master tops them all for its powerhouse portrayals of a lost soul and his charismatic mentor.

Not-so-loosely based on the early career of Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, The Master explores the relationship between the Hubbard-like Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix), an alcoholic drifter who becomes Dodd's right-hand man. After meeting at a shipboard party circa 1950, the two quickly discover a shared willingness to drink most any intoxicant (potentially poisonous or not) and develop an odd friendship -- actually, less a friendship than a tenuous relationship based on Dodd's exploitation of Quell's weaknesses.

Five years after Julie Delpy introduced her neurotic character Marion and her oddball family in 2 Days in Paris, the actress/writer/director reunites several of the same characters in the romantic comedy 2 Days in New York, opening in Austin this week.

Unfortunately Delpy's real-life mother Marie Pillet, who played Marion's mom in the first film, passed away in 2009. However, Delpy's father Albert Delpy returns as Marion's eccentric father Jeannot, with Alexia Landeau along as Marion's boyfriend-stealing sister Rose. Ex-boyfriend Manu (Alexandre Nahon) also makes an appearance, but he's less suave and more buffoonish than in the first film, and even fat family cat Jean-Luc makes a cameo.

Marion is no longer with her neurotic boyfriend Jack from 2 Days in Paris, and continues to live in New York with their child as well as new American boyfriend Mingus (Chris Rock) and his daughter. When Marion's family travels to New York and stays in their small apartment, cultural differences and antics by Rose and Manu threaten their previously stable home. Rose's exhibitionism and Manu's indiscreet drug buys dig the hole even deeper as Marion must deal with her photo gallery exhibit premiere. Marion's neuroses aren't as prevalent as in 2 Days in Paris, but they are most certainly triggered by Rose and Manu. 

Director Ron Fricke (Baraka, Chronos) and producer Mark Magidson reunite to bring audiences another visually stunning and dynamic portrait of life on earth with Samsara. The first movie in over a decade shot entirely on 70mm film, the theme of Samsara is based on its translation from the Sanskrit language. Literally meaning "to flow on" through the cycles of life and thus the "ever-turning wheel of life," the filmmakers explore the interconnections between cultures and societies around the globe.

Samsara was filmed over a period of five years in 25 countries, documenting sacred rituals, disaster zones, urban industrial sites, as well as natural and historical wonders. The audience is treated to over an hour and a half journey across the continents, visiting a range of sights from the Wailing Wall in Old City, Jerusalem to the lingering and decaying aftermath of post-Katrina floods in New Orleans' Ninth Ward; from the natural wonders of Yosemite National Park to the flow of the tides at Mont St. Michel, France, and then to Petra, Jordan.

Like its predecessors Baraka and Chronos, Samsara is a non-traditional documentary relying on visual images and music to connect viewers to the tapestry of ancient and modern world woven by the filmmakers. Composer Michael Stearns returns as well and provides a well-matched score to the film.

[Editor's Note: Goats was originally scheduled to open in Austin theaters in August, but the local theatrical release was canceled shortly beforehand. As a result, we held Elizabeth's review until the movie's home video release date, which is today. You can find this movie on DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video and Netflix Watch Instantly.]

In theory, Goats seems like your typical coming-of-age story based at a boys' school. But really, Christopher Neil's directorial debut, based on a screenplay and novel by Mark Poirier, is slightly more than that tired premise. Fourteen-year-old Ellis (Graham Phillips, who plays Zach Florrick on one of my current favorite TV dramas, The Good Wife, and looks years past 14) heads to an East Coast prep school, leaving his hippie/trust-fund-baby mom (Vera Farmiga) to her own devices in Arizona with only the groundskeeper "Goat Man" (David Duchovny) to watch out for her. 

Goat Man is something of a spiritual guide to Ellis. He provides Ellis with plenty of weed and serves as a makeshift father figure since Ellis' dad has been out of the picture for years. This new prep school is his dad Frank's alma mater, however, and Ellis keeps finding hints of his dad's times there. Frank (Modern Family's Ty Burrell) invites him to his home in D.C. for Thanksgiving, and assumptions Ellis had made begin to unravel.

Remember my Moonrise Kingdom review earlier this summer, in which I confessed that I'd tweeted the fatuous "oh yes oh Wes oh yes yes yes" after seeing the movie?

Oh, Spike Lee. Oh, no. No (sigh).

Red Hook Summer, Lee's latest feature film, disappointed me greatly. To compare it to my reaction to Moonrise Kingdom causes me to worry that I am a privileged hipster elitist who favors the precious over the real. I'm not going to dwell on whether that's accurate and to what degree, but I firmly believe that even if that's true, it's not why I couldn't engage with Red Hook Summer. Lee's movie about teenagers coming of age has structural problems, clunky performances and an excess of speechifying. As someone who is a great fan of Lee's New Orleans documentaries and several of his features, it is a letdown.

The barely-a-teen at the center of Red Hook Summer is Silas Royale (Jules Brown), who prefers the nickname Flik. Without explaining exactly why, his mom sends him from his sheltered Atlanta private-school home to spend the summer in the rundown Brooklyn neighborhood of the title with his grandfather, Bishop Enoch (Clarke Peters), the pastor of Lil Piece of Heaven Baptist Church. Flik is using his iPad to make a documentary about his summer experiences, which do not look promising. His grandfather shuns worldly pursuits and orders him to work around the church grounds all day with teenage girl Chazz (Toni Lysaith), assisting Deacon Zee (Thomas Jefferson Byrd), who prefers to enjoy his wine and his Wall Street Journal.

In what could very well be the best romantic comedy of 2012, For a Good Time, Call... turns the notion of the rom-com on its head. And the movie doesn't do it in a way that has to majorly push the envelope with an overly sexual (or homosexual) agenda. It does it from the way the best relationships begin, with friendship.

Co-writer/actress Lauren Miller and her co-star Ari Graynor anchor this ultra-charming film about how a beautiful friendship can develop despite a few differences when a thriving business is involved. It also proves that nothing can bring two women together like phone sex. Lots and lots of dirty phone sex.

Lauren (Miller) is one half of a boring couple. They lead boring lives, have boring friends, and have boring sex. When her boyfriend takes off to work for the summer in Italy, it seems the perfect time to take a break, which comes as a shock to Lauren. With the help of her gay best friend Jesse (Justin Long), she finds a place to live that is perfect ... except for the current tenant, a wild partier whom Lauren has met before, Katie (Graynor). Lauren's held a grudge for 10 years, and isn't looking forward to living here, until she discovers Katie is a phone-sex operator. Desperate for money and having just lost her job, she helps Katie set up her own business for a much bigger profit.

Words are extremely powerful things. They're capable doing so much, and in essence they are such small things. That's what The Words is all about. It's a film inside of a film inside of another film in a kind of set of Russian nesting dolls disguised as a complete film.

More so than the importance of words in this movie is the idea that nothing is as important as your own words. To plagiarize is to outright lie, and it's a mistake that can never be taken back, whether or not things are made right on the surface, they can't ever be right again. The emptiness that plagues a plagiarist drives the most interesting part of a strong script from writer/directors Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal, backed by some terrific performances.

Author Clay Hammond (Dennis Quaid) is giving a reading of his new novel The Words, about an aspiring novelist named Rory (Bradley Cooper). Rory isn't without talent -- he's got some, he's just not quite where he would need to be in order to be a successful published writer. Halfway given up on his dream, he takes up a job in a publishing firm.

After almost 40 years as a filmmaker, Jonathan Demme has made his mark not only with his feature films but also as a documentarian. Demme's Stop Making Sense (1984) featuring The Talking Heads and his movie version of Spalding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia (1987) effectively portrayed the eclectic nature of his documentary subjects. Demme thrives on providing an intimate view of iconic characters, most notably his collaboration with the rock legend Neil Young.

Neil Young Journeys is Demme's latest and third film project with Young, preceded by Neil Young: Heart of Gold in 2006 and Neil Young Trunk Show in 2009. Like Heart of Gold, Journeys was filmed over the course of two nights of musical performances. The comparison ends there as Heart of Gold dealt more with Young's personal tragedy and health issues, but Journeys is less dramatic and more a drive down memory lane with Young in a 1956 Ford Crown Victoria.

As Young drives from his hometown of Omemee, Ontario, to historic music venue Massey Hall for the final performances of his May 2011 solo world tour, he relates personal stories and intimate details about himself and his family. His dad Scott Young -- who died just a few months before Heart of Gold was filmed -- was the only white male in a minstrel show, and was quite famous in Canada as a writer. Young points out all the places that are gone in Omemee as well as those still standing, and while driving he reveals that he only listens to music in cars.

Documentaries take us places. Some take us to places where creativity thrives, others take us to the halls of science, and some take us to unpleasant places, places we do not want to admit exist. The film The Ambassador, opening in Austin today, takes us to this latter place, a world where corruption and hypocrisy are woven into the fabric of everyday society.  

The Ambassador takes us to the Central African Republic, a country bordered by Chad, Sudan and the Congo. A former French colony, the Central African Republic is rich in natural resources (diamonds, gold, oil), contrasted with one of the poorest populations in all of Africa. The Central African Republic is a place where the powerful make fortunes on the backs of the poor and unfortunate.

The documentary shines a light on the easily corrupted power structure of this impoverished nation. The creation of Danish journalist Mads Brügger, the movie seeks to expose the corruption found in the heart of nations like the Central African Republic. 

In the near future, elderly former jewel thief Frank (Frank Langella, Dave and Frost/Nixon) lives on his own in Cold Spring, New York, until one of his kids provides him with a VGC-60L health-care aide. This is the premise for Robot & Frank, a sweet sci-fi comedy from new director Jake Schreier and screenwriter Christopher D. Ford. There are hidden layers to this film. Unlike other preview screenings I've attended, no one clapped at the end of this one; I assume it's because most of us were stunned at the depth of emotion in a movie based on what seems at first a silly concept.

Frank is a cantankerous man, suffering through the early stages of Alzheimer's, whose usual routine is to walk to the dying library to flirt with librarian Jennifer (Susan Sarandon) and check out duct-taped hardbacks, then head to a beauty store that was once a favorite restaurant and pocket random items. Once a week, his son Hunter (James Marsden, X-Men) drives a 10-hour round trip to visit his dad and worry over him. Daughter Madison (Liv Tyler, Lord of the Rings) checks in with Frank from her travels afar through Skype-like conversations. Hunter decides that the best way to care for his dad is to give him a caretaker robot (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard).