New Releases

My sister once made me a low-fat chocolate pie from a Weight Watchers recipe. It looked mouth-wateringly delicious, but when I took a bite, I was taken aback by the lack of any taste whatsoever. It wasn't bad, it was simply the most flavorless food I'd ever put in my mouth. It was an illusion of pie, and I stopped after a second bite and decided that pie time is a time when calories should not be considered.

I felt the same way watching Arthur, the remake of the 1981 frothy romantic comedy, which opened Friday in wide release. Even as a remake, it looks so promising, especially if you have a guilty fondness for Russell Brand (like I do) or Helen Mirren. The casting is fabulous, the New York setting is lovely, the rich-boy premise means potential scenes of cinematic decadence ... and yet its humor and romance have no flavor whatsoever. Arthur has little to savor or enjoy, and it borders on the puzzling, since wit contains no calories or fat. (Or perhaps it secretly does. This would explain a lot about the loss of my girlish figure, instead of blaming pie.)

Growing up in the 80s, I was a fan of many popular films and franchises of the time such as Ghostbusters, Star Trek, The Goonies and of course Star Wars. But the films that most captured my imagination were always swashbuckling "sword and sandal" films that set cold steel against fiery magic. Legend, Beastmaster, Clash of the Titans, Dragonslayer and Krull were some of my favorites, watched on endless repeat ... meaning of course we'd stop the videotape, rewind and play it again.

Writers Danny McBride and Ben Best and director David Gordon Green have brought back a glimpse of that silver age this week with Your Highness, a comedic romp through fantasy that sells itself as a stoner comedy but is surprisingly (and refreshingly) solid.

Prince Thadeous (McBride) is dealing with a serious case of second-child syndrome, yearning for the approval and pride his father heaps on older brother Fabious (James Franco). Seemingly unable to do anything right and unwililng to do anything as expected, Thadeous is ordered to accompany Fabious on a quest to rescue his fiancee Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel) from the clutches of evil wizard Leezar (Justin Theroux) and hopefully become a man in the process. They find help along the way from Isabel (Natalie Portman), who is on a quest of her own.

It would be easy to dismiss this movie for the lowbrow toilet and sexual humor, but all of the above-mentioned films include a smattering of comic relief. Even Shakespeare's plays were written with a bawdy humor that appealed to the masses of the time that when read literally may appear subtle but when performed would become painfully obvious. While some of the jokes in Your Highness are of the least-common-denominator variety, they are mostly hilarious, and unlike some of the more family-friendly comedies (Shrek comes to mind) the humor doesn't rely on current events and references that will soon become dated.

While growing up in the late Sixties to early Seventies, one of the favorite television shows in our house was Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom with host Marlin Perkins. We loved watching wild animals in their natural habitat along with the challenges faced by Perkins and his field correspondents Jim Fowler and Peter Gros. Similar in nature was the classic film Born Free (1966), which told the story of female lion cub Elsa raised to maturity by a Kenyan game warden. Elsa is re-educated so that she can be released back into the wild. Both Wild Kingdom and Born Free left out the violence experienced in the wild, a pattern followed by IMAX documentary Born to Be Wild.

Directed by David Lickley and narrated by Morgan Freeman, Born to Be Wild focuses on two inspirational women, primatologist Birute Galdikas and elephant expert Daphne Sheldrick, who both work with orphaned animals to re-educate and release them into the wild. Galdikas works with orangutans in the rainforests of Borneo who have been orphaned as a result of clear-cutting, while Sheldrick rescues young elephants in Kenya whose mothers are killed by poachers. In both situations, staff help to fill the maternal and family void that help the orphans survive. Their shared mission is to rescue, rehabilitate and return these animals safely back to the wild. The scenes of young orangutans playing and a young elephant sleeping with his keeper are heartwarming.

Writer-director Thomas McCarthy knows that even the smallest of choices can have a profound impact on ordinary lives. His latest movie Win Win, which played SXSW and returns to Austin theaters on Friday, proves McCarthy is a master filmmaker, taking an otherwise ordinary life into another profoundly moving film.

Paul Giamatti stars as Mike, a mostly content family man with a struggling law practice. Like everyone else these days, he's just one bad month away financial disaster. When Mike seizes an opportunity to ease the strain, the consequences include an unexpected addition to his household in the form of  teenager Kyle (Alex Shaffer).

Like other McCarthy protagonists, Mike's quiet existence is interrupted by a stranger's intrusions and reluctantly embraces the change. Kyle simply wants to see his grandfather (Burt Young), who now resides in a senior care facility, so Mike and wife Jackie (Amy Ryan) take him in until they can talk to his mother (Melanie Lynskey).

Despite a promising premise, Hanna tries too hard to meld "stranger in a strange land" with "spy versus spy" and trips over itself.

From the movie's opening shot, director Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride & Prejudice) sets the bar high, showing Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) as a gifted hunter being raised in isolation and without modern luxuries. However, the story often makes illogical choices to drive home Hanna's alienation and unfamiliarity with the modern world.

Co-writer David Farr has experience writing spy thrillers, having penned several episodes of the hit British series MI-5 (aka Spooks) about the UK equivalent of Homeland Security, a combination of espionage and frothy drama. The script penned with Seth Lochhead tries too hard to be clever, with more brute force than subtlety, sapping too much tension from what is clearly meant to be intelligent thriller. Most everything onscreen is too obvious, from Cate Blanchett's cold-blooded spy-master, to Hanna’s isolation and her lack of practical education from the man who raised her to be lethally self-reliant.

When you've made an amazing first feature, it's hard to live up to it with your next movie. I am already hearing people fuss that Source Code, the new film directed by Duncan Jones, isn't as good as Moon, his feature directorial debut. Let's be frank: It's not. But you know what? It doesn't matter. Judging this movie on its own terms, it's a terrific ride.

It's hard not to think about other movies while watching Source Code, though. One of my colleagues described it as "Deja Vu meets Groundhog Day." Well, I liked both those movies, and while Source Code does fit that description ... what did I just say about judging a movie on its own terms? Thank you.

Source Code opens with wide shots of a train, accompanied by the kind of music that might remind you of a Hitchcock thriller or a Seventies heist movie. Yes, I've just invoked two more movie comparisons. Try to keep up. Jake Gyllenhaal's character wakes up on the commuter train and is terribly confused ... he's getting used to the setting at the same time we are. The woman across the aisle says she's his girlfriend Christina (Michelle Monaghan) and that his name is Sean, but he thinks he's someone else. And while he's trying to work it all out --

As much as I enjoy The Birdcage, the Americanized version couldn't hold a candle to the original classic French farce La Cage Aux Folles, in which the setting of the gay club in St. Tropez lends so well to the atmosphere and mood. I was reminded of this while watching The Concert (Le concert), a dramedy set in Russia and Paris. Writer/director Radu Milhaileanu and his collaborator Alain-Michel Blanc originally envisioned creating The Concert in English with American actors to appeal to a mainstream audience. However, the filmmakers decided that English would render the movie more artificial, and decided to shoot in the original languages of Russian and French -- a choice I wholeheartedly support, especially after watching The Concert.

The Concert focuses on Andreï Filipov (Aleksey Guskov), the janitor at the Bolshoi. He enjoys listening to the famed Bolshoi Orchestra, but not because he's a low-class worker aspiring to greatness that he can never hope to achieve -- in fact, 30 years ago he was the celebrated conductor of the Bolshoi. At the height of his fame he was fired for refusing to expel Jewish musicians in his orchestra as directed by Brezhnev, and several of his friends were sent to and later died in Gulag labor camps. Filipov retreats into his despair and alcoholism, with the painful memories of a concert that was never finished.

If you're not familiar with The Lady, or the Tiger? by Frank R. Stockton, take a minute to read that link and come back. Sucker Punch is Zack Snyder's answer to that question after he OD'd on 'shrooms and spent a night watching Moulin Rouge, Charlie's Angels and Inception, then fell asleep to Heavy Metal. The result is a mishmash of great ideas that doesn't know where it's going. With just a little more follow-through, it could have been a hit instead of the critical flop it will ultimately be remembered as.

Emily Browning, best known for her role in Lemony Snicket, plays Baby Doll, a girl attacked by her greedy stepfather after the death of her mother in hopes of securing her fortune. Instead of fleeing, she defends herself and her sister from the evil man, but a stray bullet kills the sister and the stepfather puts Baby Doll away, paying a very nasty orderly at the hospital to make sure she is lobotomized and can never bother him again.

Just as the doctor is about to perform the procedure, she yells "Stop!" and the scene shifts to an alternate-universe version of the hospital where the patients are instead burlesque dancers, and the orderly is the gangster-owner of the club where they are all forced to live and perform.

Now, from this point, we're left wondering, is this the "real" story, and the mental institute just a sick fantasy cooked up for paying clients? Or are we in some kind of schizoid embolism a la Total Recall?  To confuse the issue only further, all the real action in Sucker Punch only happens in Baby Doll's mind when she dances. Her dance is so sensual, so captivating, that it freezes men in their tracks and makes her a hero to the other girls, though we never ever get to see her perform. Instead, we're transported to a third level of the dream where Baby Doll is a superhero fighting undead steampunk soldiers, giant robot samurai and angry mother dragons to the beat of reworked hits such as The Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams." These scenes are truly epic, and the movie is worth watching just for (and only for) them, much like Knowing was worth watching if only for the disaster shots. The action and the music are like the fresh tasty hot dog inside a rotten moldy bun.

In ninth grade I read Jane Eyre of my own volition; it wasn't required reading at my school.  The novel was dark and romantic, so of course I adored it. I watched the melodramatic 1943 classic with Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles (and a very young Elizabeth Taylor in an uncredited role). I haven't re-read the novel since and was unsure what to expect from this 2011 Jane Eyre film adaptation.  Would any slight reference to Wide Sargasso Sea be made? (Answer: not really.)  I found myself inferring certain things from that parallel novel as I watched Cary Fukunaga's take on Charlotte Bronte's original story.

Mia Wasikowska plays our heroine Jane as undiminished, wistful and a sort of realist. "I imagine things I'm powerless to execute," she confesses to her employer's housekeeper, Mrs. Fairfax (Judi Dench!). In flashbacks, we see how Jane's young fire slowly dims in her dealings with a spiteful aunt (Sally Hawkins) and then with the teachers at the autocratic school to which her aunt sends her. Her first position after leaving school is as governess to a French-speaking orphan who is under the guardianship of the imposing, darkly handsome and slightly shady Mr. Rochester (Michael Fassbender).

You probably know the story of Jane Eyre from here, but the relationship between Jane and the Rivers family who discover her stranded on the moor is worth a mention. Jamie Bell's St. John Rivers is a striking figure -- the last movie I remembered seeing Bell in was Nicholas Nickleby, and he's certainly filled out since then! 

Carla Gugino plays the titular Elektra Luxx, a retired porn superstar making a living teaching an adult sex-ed class ("How to act like a porn star in bed"). She's just found out she's pregnant and is having a really bad week. She's suffering an existential crisis, worried about how she can be a good mother and still explain to her child what she used to do for a living. Just as she's dealing with this, people begin appearing in her life, making her question who she is and who she wants to be.

The movie, written and directed by Sebastian Gutierrez, looks like it would have been more suited to a playhouse stage than the silver screen. This, despite an impressive number of stars: Gugino, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Kathleen Quinlan (Event Horizon, Apollo 13), Marley Shelton, Malin Ackerman, Timothy Olyphant, Justin Kirk and Julianne Moore. The dialogue, full of random non-sequiturs, meanders through each scene. A chance encounter with a former co-star, Holly Rocket (Friday Night Lights' Adrianne Palicki) spawns a tedious and completely disconnected subplot that follows Holly and her best friend on a vacation, culminating in the two falling in love.  

Things become a little more clear upon learning Elektra Luxx is actually a follow-up to Gutierrez's 2009 release Women in Trouble. Elektra Luxx is a sequel to that virtually unseen flick with most of the same actors. Taken alone, it is a mess, with characters that appear out of nowhere even in the last 10 minutes of the film, as clunky dialogue explains their connection to Elektra. A friend is actually the mother of a spoiled trust-fund brat neighbor, for instance. The entire lesbian love-affair vacation should have been dropped, as it completely breaks the narrative of Elektra's story, involves characters who have no introduction (unless you've seen the first film), and frankly put me to sleep both times I watched the movie.