New Releases

Physics class is all about learning formulas to apply to solve problems, and repeating them. Writer Katherine Fugate teams with formula pro Garry Marshall to do just that with the romantic comedy New Year's Eve, opening this week.

The feel-good comedrama follows the same formula as last year's chick-flick Valentine's Day. Step One: Pick a holiday. Step Two: Gather together as many stars as possible who owe you favors and pair them up in little stories loosely related to each other. Step Three: PROFIT. Expect to see more of these each year around Thanksgiving Day, St. Patrick's Day, Flag Day ... as long as there are holidays left to exploit.

New Year's Eve was a crowd pleaser, which is of course like saying "People like french fries." They're not any good for anybody, but we still eat them up. In spite of myself, I did find I enjoyed the film somewhat. I just won't find it memorable enough to ever want to revisit it. This is why I would consider it on one level a failure. The movie wanted to be for New Year's what A Christmas Story is for December 25. It tried to show every facet of life in the city on New Year's Eve and the preparations involved, but it could never achieve the timeless feeling of that classic. Nor does it ever reach for that kind of laughter.

There's little more to say. New Year's Eve includes a couple of songs from Jon Bon Jovi with Glee's Lea Michele singing backup. Michele also delivers the most beautiful version of "Auld Lang Syne" that I've ever heard.

Long before my college studies of ecology, evolution, and conservation biology at University of Texas in the 90s, I was fascinated by the research of primatologists. Perhaps it was the story of Koko, the gorilla who communicated through American sign language (ASL) that I found appealing, but later it was the field research of Diane Fossey and Jane Goodall that piqued my interest.

Controversy has plagued primate research for decades, with the most prominent issues being that of "humanizing" primates by taking them out of the wild and placing them in human environments -- or worse yet, subjecting them to the cruelty and isolation of animal testing.

Academy award-winning director James Marsh (Man on a Wire) brings these controversial topics to the screen in his latest film, Project Nim, which has made the Academy shortlist for Best Documentary. The movie was released earlier this year but returns to Violet Crown on Friday for another theatrical run.

Without a doubt Marilyn Monroe is one of the most iconic figures in American cinema. In fact, it's an injustice to limit the magnitude of her legend to just film. She was a star, plain and simple. Her presence would bring any man to his knees and falling in love with her wasn't even a choice, it was a certainty. To know her on that level is something very few people who are alive today can attest to, but My Week With Marilyn, based on memoirs by Colin Clark, gives us a glimpse at Marilyn the person, as well as the fragile and sensitive artist she really was. The movie opens today in Austin.

Clark was an avid film lover who came from a family of means. Despite his love of movies, he grew up working in the family business and had no business performing silly little jobs on film sets. But his tenacity and determination as a young man in 1956 landed him a job as a third assistant director on Laurence Olivier's The Prince and the Showgirl starring Marilyn Monroe. Despite his willingness to learn the craft of becoming a filmmaker, Clark was drawn to Marilyn in a way that many at that time were all too familiar with. She needed constant reassurance and praise, almost always had moments of self-doubt and couldn't be considered a reliable performer because of these issues.

But My Week with Marilyn isn't about how legendary the appeal of Marilyn Monroe was, it was about the effect she had on one man, and how her guard around him was, from his perspective, let down a bit. Michelle Williams does a great job portraying a side of Marilyn Monroe that I don't think anyone alive has ever seen. To play someone whose star power is that huge in such an intimate role takes talent and Williams really owns up to the task. It isn't enough to just look beautiful, or be able to sing and dance and talk like her, but to carry yourself with the kind of humility Marilyn had, while still being obviously aware of her star power ... and that's where the movie really steps up beyond a simple retelling of a week in someone's life. This might be the only time this side of Marilyn Monroe has ever been written and fans of hers owe it to themselves to get to know her on this level.

It dawned on me earlier this week that I've seen every single Muppet movie in a theater on its original theatrical release, from The Muppet Movie (which I love) to The Great Muppet Caper (my very favorite) to Muppets From Space (oh, dear). I couldn't believe it myself, but it's true. And now actor/writer/Muppet fan Jason Segel has brought us The Muppets, a new movie starring every Muppet he could find, including a new one, and his own non-Muppet self. While it's a fun outing, I would have liked it better with less Segel and more Muppets, but again, look where I'm coming from -- a child who was told when she was growing up that she was the exact same age as Sesame Street (which I found out later wasn't quite true), and who thought that was awesome.

Those of you who are familiar with the felt folk -- and apart from my Muppet-hating husband, I'm assuming the Slackerwood demographic includes many old-school Muppet fans -- might be surprised to learn that it takes 20 minutes or so for the old familiar Muppets to appear onscreen in the movie, except indirectly. The story opens with a focus on two small-town brothers, Gary (Segel, again with the man-child) and Walter, an Anything Muppet performed by Peter Linz. Walter -- who believes he's human -- is obsessed with the Muppets, and when Gary and his longtime girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) decide to take a romantic trip to Los Angeles, Walter tags along so he can visit the famous Muppet Studios.

The last Martin Scorsese film I saw was Shutter Island, a movie that garnered great critical acclaim, but which I felt suffered from an all-too-predictable ending. Thus, I have little interest in revisiting it. I hardly dared hope that Hugo would live up to the promise hinted in the teaser trailers I'd seen. But it did in fact far exceed my expectations.

John Logan (Rango, The Last Samurai) has created a superlative adaptation of Brian Selznick's novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret. This isn't just the story of an orphan boy living in a train station in 1930s Paris. It is, as one friend described it, "Scorsese's love letter to film." The answer to each mystery unlocks another until a dramatic reveal so poignant it left the audience in tears of both sadness and joy.

There aren't enough Oscars to cover Hugo. It is a rare magical film that is almost too good for the Oscars. If they held a once-a-decade competition between all the best picture winners, it might be a worthy contest. Starting with Scorsese's direction, and adding what James Cameron says is the best use of 3D he's ever seen, including his own films. Hugo opens with a bird's-eye fly-through of a train station, a single shot so detailed, so amazing that words fail me. The steampunk aesthetic and rich recreation of Parisian characters made it almost a surprise not to see the name "Jeunet" in the credits.

Asa Butterfield has already made a name for himself in such films as Son of Rambow, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The Wolfman and soon Ender's Game. He is a perfect fit for the clockmaker orphan, running through hidden steam tunnels and minding the great clockwork of the station. He finds an ideal match in Chloë Grace Moretz's Isabelle, a shy girl with an adorable quirky twisted grin. The character is so innocent and sweet, it's hard to believe this is the same girl who knocked us out as Hit Girl in last year's Kick-Ass.

Within a cast of today's best character actors including Sacha Baron Cohen, Christopher Lee, Richard Griffiths, Jude Law, Helen McCrory and Emily Mortimer, Ben Kingsley is a standout. Kingsley and Butterfield have a chemistry akin to Mr. Wilson and Dennis the Menace. His grouchy exterior gives way to much deeper emotions as the story unfolds. After flops like Prince of Persia and The Love Guru, it's good to see Kingsley in a film worthy of his talents.

I'm a sucker for stories that offer a fresh take on an established convention. Whether it's a new spin on the tried and true zombie tale (28 Days Later) or a re-interpretation of Sherlock Holmes (let's choose the BBC's Sherlock over the Robert Downey Jr. movies, shall we?), it's great fun to watch accomplished storytellers take familiar material and make it feel new again.

Arthur Christmas does much the same with its behind-the-scenes look at the Miracle of Christmas. No, not the forgiveness of our sins through God made flesh. Rather: how exactly does Santa Claus travel around the world to deliver all those presents on a single night, especially now that the world's population has exceeded seven billion? (Santa will be relieved to know that only two billion or so of those are actually Christian, but still.) The answer does involve magic, but in the 21st century that magic has been seriously augmented with some technological widgetry. The sleigh and reindeer have been retired in favor of a sleek spaceship with stealth capability and thousands (millions?) of ninja elves who rappel from the ship's interior to deliver the goods with a personal touch.

The embodiment of Santa himself is a family legacy -- as each Santa reaches retirement age, he passes the mantle down to his son to keep things ho-ho-ho-ing along. The man next in line is Steve (Hugh Laurie), the power behind the bumbling current Santa (Jim Broadbent, who has never bumbled better). Steve attacks the problem of Christmas gift delivery with an efficiency and technological prowess that would make Apple envious, but his Christmas spirit pales in comparison to that of his younger brother, Arthur (James McAvoy). Arthur can barely make it down the hallways of the subterranean North Pole Christmas HQ without causing trouble, but no one believes in Santa quite like he does.

Director Alexander Payne (Sideways, Election) has turned to Hawaii for his new movie, The Descendants. Based on the 2007 debut novel by Kaui Hart Hennings, the film is narrated by lawyer Matt King (George Clooney), who feels pulled by the past and the present at the same time.

For the present, his wife Elizabeth (a silent Patricia Hastie) is in a coma after a powerboating accident. Now Matt, who has remained fairly oblivious to his family, has to care for 10-year-old Scottie (Amara Miller) and pull 17-year-old Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) out of boarding school on the mainland. Alex admits to her father that the reason she had a falling out with Elizabeth is because she knew her mom was having an affair. King decides to find his wife's lover and tell him about her condition.

The Twilight films are a guilty pleasure. As someone who hangs with the film nerd set, it's fun to trash Stephenie Meyer's angstified hyper-romantic sparkly "cold ones" (we're forbidden to call them "vampires"). Yet, the inner 15-year-old girl in all of us can't help getting caught up in the story a little, if only because we want Bella to just get on with it and pick Edward or Jacob for god's sake.

While that choice would seem to have been made by the end of Eclipse, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 has inadvertenly picked up Bella's indecisiveness and can't decide whether it wants to be a drama or a raucous comedy. In a series where no two movies were directed by the same filmmaker, a steady evolution can be seen from Twilight to New Moon as both the mythology and the films improve. Now Bill Condon, a respectable director with such titles as Gods and Monsters, Kinsey and Dreamgirls under his belt, steps in and forces us to wonder if he's taking his work seriously.

Condon wastes no time giving everyone what they came to see: Taylor Lautner's bare chest and abs. The very first shot of the film is Jacob ripping off his shirt in a lupine tantrum set off by Bella and Edward's wedding invitation. David Slade's Eclipse joked about Jacob's persistent bare torso, but this shot appeared to be an excuse to get one more cheer from the audience that was already screaming when the title card appeared. It also seemed to be Condon's way of saying "OK, that's out of the way, now we're going to do things MY way." Unless I missed something, Lautner doesn't appear shirtless for the rest of Breaking Dawn - Part 1.

Sadly, Condon zigs when he should zag and vice-versa. Doing it his own way means Edward doesn't sparkle when in full sun, a huge break from Twilight canon. It also means we get to see what people are calling the "wolf circle," as Jacob's angry wolf pack circles up in a logging camp for us to hear human voices screaming their telepathic conversation. This was a serious moment presented so ineptly it had even the biggest Twi-hards in the room rolling in their seats. Calling it corny would be an insult to corn, and a gross understatement.

It's taken a long time for me to be anything but suspicious of computer-animated movies coming from anyone but Pixar. The competing studios tended to favor style over substance, often eschewing character development and thoughtful storytelling for pop culture references and the flashiest animation they could manage. (And even that level of animation was often an embarrassment next to Pixar's artistry.) Recent CGI movies like How to Train Your Dragon and Rango seem to be breaking that trend a bit, but it's still kind of a crap shoot. 

Happy Feet Two skirts the line between the sincere attempt to tell a story and animated showpieces for their own sake. In the latter it is highly successful -- there's a level of spectacle on display here of which any animator could be proud. In the former, sadly, the film falls short. The central dilemma -- the hero's flock of fellow penguins is trapped in a valley of ice by a wandering iceberg -- is less than thrilling, though I suppose it's difficult to find a good threat that can be conquered by applied tap dancing. 

Spliced in between the scenes of penguin action are the adventures of two krill shrimp (Will and Bill, voiced by Brad Pitt and Matt Damon, respectively). The existential crisis of these two shrimp learning to live outside their swarm (Will maintains that he is destined to "move up the food chain") is easily the most entertaining thing about the movie. The shrimp seem to be more or less anatomically correct and yet anthropomorphized expertly, and the dialogue between the two is sharp enough to make me believe that these scenes were written separately from the rest of the movie. Not that there should be much surprise there -- four writers are credited for the screenplay. By the end of the story I was hoping the film would leave the penguins out of it entirely and shift into all-krill mode. Alas.

The most aptly titled film I've seen this year is undoubtedly Melancholia.

Lars von Trier's latest movie is dark, dreary and relentlessly dour, as we would expect from a story about family discord and the end of the world. There is, however, a striking beauty to Melancholia, a film full of memorably surreal imagery.

Melancholia follows the strained relationship of two sisters, newlywed Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and scandalously wealthy Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who has the unenviable task of coordinating a highly overproduced wedding reception for Justine and her husband, Michael (Alexander Skarsgård). The film's first half focuses on what is mostly a party from hell: As if the fancy festivities aren't enough of a logistical challenge, Justine is your basic depression-addled bridezilla, wandering in and out of the party as she wanders in and out of various moods. (At one point, she disappears on a golf cart to commune with nature; at another, she locks herself in a bathroom for a prolonged soak in the tub.)