New Releases

If you watched Paranormal Activity and its sequels, and thought to yourself you could get rich by copying that formula (and doing it badly), you might be William Brent Bell, writer and director of The Devil Inside. This movie tries to do for possession what Paranormal Activity did with poltergeists.

Made for a miniscule sum (although it probably looks cheaper than its actual budget), The Devil Inside is at best described as inept and at worst blatantly disdainful of the audience. It is the only film I have seen where the audience as one booed and hissed as the final credits began to roll.

The Devil Inside presents, documentary-style, the story of Isabella Rossi (Fernanda Andrade) as she attempts to uncover the truth about her mother, who is confined to a psychiatric hospital in Rome. Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley), has been confined since the death of three people during an attempted exorcism. After a brief and disturbing meeting with her mother, Isabella turns to a pair of priests who are performing unsanctioned exorcisms of victims who have been denied by the Catholic Church.

After Isabella convinces the priests that her mother is indeed possessed, the group sets out to perform an exorcism in the hospital, and hijinks ensue. Many of the biggest of them are given away in the trailer itself. It all leads up to an ending that is a shocker only for its blatant stupidity and the fact it directs the audience to a website with an address nobody will care about or even remember five minutes after leaving the theater.

The only remotely good thing in this stinker is Suzan Crowley’s acting, as she clearly revels in a role she was born to play. The scenes with her have a palpable tension, but The Devil Inside is not a film I could recommend even to the lustiest of schlock movie fans. If you have enough morbid curiosity to see this in a theater, buy a ticket for The Artist or Young Adult, and sneak into it (assuming you've already seen both of those). At least the movie is blissfully short, so if they kick you out, you won’t miss much.

Simply put, The Artist is an utterly charming homage to cinema that proves the old can be new again, and just how universal it can be.

George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is at the zenith of stardom in the silent film era; his mere presence is a spectacle. And in the case of aspiring actress Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo), merely being in George's orbit can launch a career. But there's only one place to go from the top, or the bottom, especially when the revolutionary technology of sound transforms silent film into talkies.

Director Michel Hazanavicius has written a perfect film, balancing vintage tropes and pacing with familiar, beloved character archetypes. It's impossible not to fall under Valentin's spell even when being unsurprised at the consequences of his hubris. But it wouldn't be half as interesting without the alchemy of the pacing, editing, and the ever-present, equally perfect score by Ludovic Bource. Being essentially a silent movie itself, The Artist relies on Bource's evocative, often playful score to keep a modern audience from being distracted, and it does it very well.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a spy thriller based on a book by John le Carré (who serves as an executive producer of the movie). The film boasts a large cast of excellent pedigree, but a plodding pace and confusing timeline left me cold. The temperature in the theatre at Alamo South Lamar during the screening also left me cold -- perhaps it was to reinforce the Cold War-era setting? 

The film opens in 1973, when Control (John Hurt) sends an operative (Mark Strong) to Budapest for a meeting with a Communist general who may turn. The operation is botched, and in the fallout, Control and his associate Smiley (Gary Oldman) are fired from "The Circus" (the British secret information service). A year later, Smiley is asked by a high-up bureaucrat (Simon McBurney, Friends with Money) to investigate Control's theory that there is a mole in the service feeding information to the Russians.  Smiley is assisted by former co-worker Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch, Sherlock) and Mendel (Roger Lloyd-Pack, The Vicar of Dibley).

Meanwhile, there are other storylines going on. There's something called Operation Witchcraft, headed up by Smiley's former colleague Percy Alleline (Toby Jones) -- as a sidenote, I did love that at the end of the street where this operation is based, there's graffiti on a wall stating, "THE FUTURE IS FEMALE." Is this a shout out to the 1970s feminism movement? But back to the story -- there's also a scalphunter named Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy, Inception) on the run after falling for a Russian baddie's girlfriend in Istanbul.

Given its fascinating subject matter -- the friendship, collaboration and often bitter rivalry between Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung -- I had high hopes for A Dangerous Method.

After all, David Cronenberg's elegant period piece has the underpinnings of first-rate Oscar bait. Aside from its sexy true story of love, rivalry and fetishes (based on a well reviewed nonfiction book by clinical psychologist and historian John Kerr), A Dangerous Method also has a first-rate cast: Viggo Mortensen as Freud, Michael Fassbender as Jung and Keira Knightley as Sabina Spielrein, a young woman who was Jung's patient and lover as well as Freud's colleague and confidante.

But in spite of this pedigree, I'm ambivalent about the end result. Despite its sometimes startling sexuality, insights about the human mind, witty dialogue, strong performances (with one exception I'll get into later) and flawless attention to period detail, A Dangerous Method is surprisingly emotionally flat and languidly paced. A movie about sadomasochism and the birth of psychoanalysis should be more gripping than this.

Move over, Noomi Rapace -- there's a new Lisbeth Salander in town. And she's as kick-ass as ever.

The relatively unknown Rooney Mara has pulled off an unlikely cinematic coup, claiming Rapace's iconic role as her own. As the tough, taut and tortured Salander, Mara all but owns the new English-language version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with her brave and stunning performance. If there is any justice in the movie world, she has hacked, pummeled and snarled her way to an Oscar nomination.

For the rare film fan who hasn't read Stieg Larsson's bestselling Millennium trilogy of crime novels, seen the trilogy of Swedish (but energetic, and therefore not very Swedish) films, or otherwise been exposed to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's plot and characters, I'll summarize the movie as best I can without spoilers. (This isn't easy for such a dense, complicated story with plenty of surprises.)

The story opens as grizzled Swedish journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) has lost a libel lawsuit over allegations he made against billionaire industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström. Soon thereafter, fellow industrialist Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), patriarch of a wealthy Swedish family, hires Blomkvist ostensibly to write the Vanger family history, but actually to solve a decades-old mystery: Vanger's great-niece Harriet (Moa Garpendal) disappeared from the family's remote island home more nearly 40 years earlier, and Vanger suspects a family member murdered her. As payment, Vanger promises Blomkvist a substantial salary and evidence against Wennerström that will exonerate Blomkvist.

When I was a kid, it was always a treat for us when my dad would check out a Tintin comic book from the library to share with my sister and me (yes, even in the '80s, Austin Public Library had Tintin books). The Belgian comic series by Hergé, about a "boy" reporter named Tintin, was action-packed, and populated with strange and funny characters. When I heard that these comics were being animated for film, I was excited about the prospect, and worried that the movie could not match up to the books.

Under the helm of Steven Spielberg, who had tried to grab the film rights to Tintin while Hergé was still alive, The Adventures of Tintin captures the essence and spirit of the comic, while hopefully introducing the series to many new fans. The film is 3D, although I am sure it would be just as pleasant to watch in 2D. The backdrops are vast and gorgeously-rendered. Through the film's use of motion-capture animation, the characters have been humanized, to an extent. Their overall look remains true to Hergé's original drawings (a Hergé-like figure even makes a cameo in the first scene).

Films from this summer such as Fast Five and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and this weekend's holiday release Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, have proven that sometimes going back to the well can produce great results. Studios aren't always content to throw some actors in front of a camera, put up a familiar title and hope droves of movie fans come out to support the franchise -- in these cases, they're actually hiring great directors to create some truly exciting films. For Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, filmmaker Brad Bird was given the task of shooting not only his first ever live-action feature, but the first Mission: Impossible film in five years, when it seemed like the series definitely wrapped up in 2006.

Opening in the middle of a mission, we see an agent running from armed assailants and escaping in a pretty spectacular manner. In typical spy film fashion, this circumstance will be explained later -- the opening of the film is mostly an elaborate prison break where Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has been for some time after his retirement. He is given a mission to infiltrate the Kremlin in Russia and obtain files that contain launch codes for a nuclear missile strike. Ethan and his team are set up and blamed for an explosion that occurs at the Kremlin and it is up to them to not only clear their own names, but help stop a start to nuclear war between Russia and the US.

Robert Downey Jr. returns to the big screen this week in Guy Ritchie's sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Fans of the 2009 Sherlock Holmes should enjoy this action-adventure movie, which doesn't stray from the moneymaking formula of the previous outing.

Hot on the trail of his arch-nemesis Moriarty (Jared Harris), Holmes and Dr. John Watson (Jude Law) reunite for one last adventure on the eve of Watson's wedding. Aiding them in their quest are a gypsy fortuneteller (Noomi Rapace) and Holmes' brother Mycroft (Stephen Fry).

Did I enjoy Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows? Yes, absolutely. THe movie had better pacing, more interesting visuals and more intriguing characters than its predecessor. Would I call it a great film? Unfortunately, no.

For every good new idea, Ritchie has an equally bad or irritating bit of directing going on. The largest of these was a scene involving characters being chased through the woods. The camera jumps back and forth from normal speed to bullet-time slow motion to show, in dramatic detail, the bullets chopping up the trees. My least favorite shot, perhaps in any movie, this served no purpose other than to bore me and make me impatient for something relevant to happen.

Characters disappear with no plot resolution, and the "Holmes-o-vision" feels overused. Perhaps the heart of the problem for me with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is that this reimagining of the Holmes character is an action hero, who uses little to none of the deductive reasoning popularized by Doyle's character. This version of Holmes is not at all cerebral. There are a couple of good gags, but Holmes spends most of his time fighting his way out of bad situations.

The latest film from director Jason Reitman (Up in the Air), Young Adult, is incredibly hard to review. It's not often that a movie can be a very great one centered on a character so vile, yet so damned relatable that you might find yourself questioning either your current status in life, or your status at some other point in your life. The brilliant Diablo Cody has proven once again that she can write a film tackling issues that force the viewer to think about them rather than just sit in a theater with a turned-off brain.

Different people will see Young Adult and gain different perspectives on the film. Is it a love story? Yes, albeit an extremely twisted one. Is it a story about depression? Yes, but you could argue it isn't clinical depression as much as an intentional unwillingness to let oneself be happy. All of these are true, but for me, the heart of the story is a simple one about the proverbial "one that got away" told from a woman's perspective.

Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) is a slacker. True, at first glance she doesn't look like a slacker, but this very beautiful woman very obviously has some issues. Despite being a successful author of a popular children's series, she wakes up in a stupor every day, usually hung over. Stumbles over to her fridge where she chugs two-liter bottles of Diet Coke like she hasn't had a drink for days. She's got a cute Pomeranian that she feeds and then leaves out on the balcony while she gets her Wii Fit workout on. This is her life, and there's not much to it.

It's a bit early to make Oscar predictions, but I'll make one anyway: Michael Fassbender will not garner a Best Actor nomination for his role as Brandon Sullivan in Shame.

I make this prediction because although Fassbender arguably deserves to win the award for his gut-punching performance, the Academy simply won't go near a film like Shame, a frank, raw and unnerving look at sexual addiction. Of course, plenty of dark films have found Oscar success, as have actors in cringe-inducing roles. But Shame lays bare so many ugly truths about human relationships that to reward its brutal honesty with Oscar gold would be to admit that yeah, human nature really is this messed up.

No, Fassbender and Shame won't be Oscar darlings -- but no matter, because Shame will be this year's most memorable movie. We'll be talking about it and Brandon Sullivan long after we've forgotten the Oscar winners.