Reviews

Enough Said comes from the mind of writer/director Nicole Holofcener, whose works tend to focus on foibles and miscommunications among small groups of upper-middle-class characters. Some of her characters can be gratingly obtuse, yet always have a grain of something relatable about them. This movie differs from her earlier work in that it veers more towards the romantic comedy genre. It's still very obviously a Holofcener film, however.

Divorced masseuse Eva, played by the marvelous Julia Louis-Dreyfus, begins to date divorced museum worker Albert (the late James Gandolfini in his second-to-last film role), and attempts a friendship with new client Marianne (Catherine Keener). She also worries about her daughter Ellen (Tracey Fairaway, webseries First Day), about to head off to college. These three relationships form the core of the film. Once Eva discovers that Marianne and Albert were once married, she decides not to tell either of them that she is involved with the other. What would a Holofcener movie be without things left unsaid?

Don Jon, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's feature directorial debut, riffs on the idea of the traditional romantic comedy by giving its leading man (Gordon-Levitt, who also wrote the film) a life-dominating internet porn addiction. Though he holds fast to a squeaky clean gym/church/family routine and seems to be open to finding "the one," this sex-obsessed Jersey boy has no qualms about getting off whenever he can with the help of modern technology and a parade of anonymous women.

He also pursues real women as he prowls the bars each week (hence his "Don Jon" nickname), but only for one-night stands he can later brag about to his friends. Each Sunday, he nonchalantly confesses his activities to a priest, recites his penance while lifting weights and doing pull-ups, and then does it all again.

Jon's sin-and-repent cycle is knocked off course when he meets Barbara (played by Scarlett Johansson, who does the blonde bombshell role perfectly). He falls for her purely based on her looks, but as opposed to the one-sided relationships he's used to having with the women he summons to his computer screen, Barbara has demands. She thinks he should further his education and get a better job. She wants their friends and family to meet. She loves seeing cute, dumb movies and makes him watch them, too.

At first Jon goes along with this new life plan, but one of her stipulations might be too much for him to handle. Barbara is appalled to find out he watches porn (even before she knows the extent of his habit) and tells him to stop. As beautiful as his new girlfriend is, Jon still craves the easy detachment of his longtime hobby, and it's soon clear that his porn addiction isn't so much a psychological condition as it is a signifier for the fact that he has no idea how to relate to people.

Because he is so emotionally stunted and Barbara's character is never given much to do besides be bossy while looking gorgeous, what follows is a journey that soon grows a little frustrating. It's hard to tell who Jon and Barbara really are -- do they even know? They saunter around with flashy confidence, but there's not a whole lot going on beneath the facade.

My first thought on seeing an extended preview for Metallica: Through the Never was that it looked like Metallica's attempt to create for themselves an icon like Pink Floyd The Wall. On viewing the movie at Fantastic Fest, my impression was cemented by one particular scene where a rioting crowd faces off against a line of police in riot gear.  Director Nimród Antal foregoes the surreal animated scenes that marked The Wall's flights into fancy, but the thematic resonance is unmistakeably clear.

Chronicle's Dane DeHaan is Trip, a roadie for the band whom we see arriving before the concert on a skateboard. Told to stay nearby in case he is needed, Trip walks out into the arena where he watches as a time-lapse view of concert preparations is set to "The Ecstasy of Gold."

From there, the music almost never stops. As the concert launches into full swing, Trip is given a map and a gas can and told to go find a missing truck that contains something of vital importance for the concert. His mission, presented in cuts during and between Metallica's nonstop performance, takes him into a riot of heavy-metal proportions.

Filmed on location at two concerts in Canada (Rogers Arena, Vancouver, BC and Rexall Place, Edmonton, Alberta), Metallica: Through the Never is flashy, loud, gritty, violent, riotous and as revolutionary as Metallica's music.  Crews construct a statue of the goddess of justice that comes crashing violently to the stage as Lars Ullrich sings the words "Justice is gone" from "And Justice For All." An electric chair is suspended above the stage arcs with lightning from an array of Tesla coils in a display as awesome as it is violent. The entire concert is pandemonium akin to a show from the group Survival Research Laboratory.

Above, around, and through all this, Antal takes the audience through the concert as if it were a ride at Disney. The effort to edit as many as 30 cameras at once is phenomenal, but he makes it look effortless. Despite the inevitable comparisons, this is more a concert film than The Wall.  As a concert film, it invites no comparison. It is unbeatable. Metallica: Through the Never opens this weekend and is a must-see for Metallica fans.

Oh, Baggage Claim, I wanted to like you. I really did. A romantic comedy wherein a flight attendant (Paula Patton, Precious) attempts to meet up with ex-boyfriends in hopes she can get engaged before her sister's wedding in 30 days sounded like a fun proposition (though silly, certainly). Unfortunately, Patton can't carry this ridiculous film. I kept wishing that Jill Scott, wasted here as close friend Gail, was the lead instead.

As Patton's Montana reclined on a hotel sofa (BTW, this movie is like a feature-length ad for Renaissance Hotels) talking on a phone to Gail, it struck me as too obvious that there was no one on the other end of her prop phone as the camera filmed her on a soundstage. If Patton can't convince me that she's playing this character, well, I just don't know. She holds a simpering grin through about two-thirds of the film. We only really see her personality in spurts.

This is as much director David E. Talbert's fault as anyone's. The screenplay, which he wrote, is based on a novel -- which he also wrote. I sincerely hope Montana in the book is more of an actual character, because she's not here. (Now again, if Jill Scott had played her, maybe things would be different...)

The plot of Baggage Claim is sadly predictable -- as soon as Derek Luke's character was introduced, I could see where things were heading. William and Montana have been friends since childhood, have never dated, but live in the same Baltimore apartment building ... on the same floor, even. How convenient!

Scott, Jenifer Lewis as Montana's wedding-happy mom, and the airline support staff recruited to help Montana in her quest (played by La La Anthony and Affion Crockett among others) are the high points here. I'm happy to see Derek Luke in any film, really, and he gives an earnest performance in this film.

here have been all kinds of sports movies: ones that focus on teams coming together, teams facing mighty odds as underdogs, or a lone athlete and the story that built his/her legendary status. Recently, there has even been a film, Warrior, focused on two opponents but neither was a villain, putting the viewer at odds as to who to root for.

Rush focuses on two opponents as well, but it does something Warrior didn't, bringing a fresh spin on the sports movie genre. While focusing on the story of the opponents, Rush also manages to focus on the psyche of each individual and what really drives them as competitors. You understand so much about each of these two men, especially Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl), who can't be seen as a simple "villain" to James Hunt's (Chris Hemsworth) "hero" because neither fits the role.

In the 1970s, Formula One Racing had just ascended to the ranks of the more popular sports in the world at the time, and at the height of that popularity, one man became the face of it. James Hunt was charismatic, handsome, carefree and in general the type of man that all men wanted to be. Bursting onto the scene was a hypercompetitive individual that couldn't have been more of a polar opposite of Hunt. Niki Lauda wasn't conventionally handsome, was curt with other drivers and not well liked. The feeling was often mutual. While there was a lengthy roster of drivers, every race seemed to boil down to these two men who captivated the world with their competitiveness, but few ever understood the respect these two men had for each other.

While the driving sequences are spectacular, they are secondary to the performances that the two leads accomplish in Rush. Brühl, at Ron Howard's direction, takes you into the mind of a competitor like no other sports movie ever has. You understand that he will let nothing stop him from achieving what he has worked so hard for, not even spending close to a minute in an 800-degree inferno of a car crash. He's not great at emotions, as his proposal to his future wife illustrates hilariously in a sad sort of way. No matter what you end up feeling about Niki Lauda, you can't ever think of his as a villain, because James Hunt never did.

At the same time, Hemsworth's turn as James Hunt is that of what you might think of any professional athlete. He chases women, drives away the ones closest to him, and competes for a championship not because he's worked for it, but because he feels like his presence alone is worthy of being named champion. Most of the movie is spent conveying the fact that Hunt hates that Lauda is constantly there, but the moments where his respect for Lauda comes through make this a remarkable sports movie about two competitors.

Well, this is what Fantastic Fest is all about: a Japanese movie about a teenager who derives superheroic powers from wearing girls' panties on his face. (They can't be new panties, either. You get the picture.) How could I possibly not see a movie with such a premise?

And happily, Hentai Kamen: Forbidden Super Hero manages to live up to its premise and deliver, both as a superhero movie and better still, as a spoof of contemporary superhero movies. It's obvious that this movie's budget is probably a single-digit percentage of a Marvel blockbuster, but it's easily twice as funny.

The fun starts with the opening credits, a panties-laden riff on the Spider-Man (2002) credits, and climbs from there. Kyosuke (Suzuki Ryohei) is a high-school student -- his late father was a policeman who met his mother, a professional dominatrix, during a raid. Kyosuke wants to follow in his father's footsteps and deliver justice, but he's too puny for vigilantism. But then one of those accidents that creates superheroes occurs: He inadvertantly pulls a pair of women's underwear on his face and ... Hentai Kamen (which translates as "Pervert Mask") is born!

"Like Phone Booth, but with a piano." "It's what you'd get if Brian De Palma decided to rework Unfaithfully Yours."

Glib descriptions of Grand Piano like the ones above (overheard at Fantastic Fest) don't do the film justice, not at all. I'm not even certain they give you an accurate idea of what you're about to see. On the other hand, a plot summarization of the thriller makes it sound ridiculous ... and thanks to filmmakers and stars, it is instead breathtakingly suspenseful.

Grand Piano takes place during a concert of classical music. It begins as one of those potentially enervating movies about a pianist, Tom Selznick (Elijah Wood), giving his first public performance five years after a notorious failed concert. His wife (Kerry Bishe) is a famous actress whose career has eclipsed his, and who's obviously pulled strings to get the event set up, with help from a conductor friend (Don McManus). And just when you think you're in the middle of A Star is Born during the Norman Maine decline, the concert starts and out of nowhere, the movie shifts gears into a thriller with death on the line. That's not the only genre shift in the movie, either.

Just when you thought a trope had reached the end of its shelf life, a new vision appears and adds more days to that trope's expiration date. This year's vision comes in the form of a new horror film called Afflicted. Afflicted tells the story of Derek (Derek Lee), and Clif (Clif Prowse), best friends about to depart for a round-the-world trip of high adventure.

The film opens with a set of vignettes (shot in the style of MTV's The Real World), where the friends describe to the camera their long-standing friendships and excitement for this round-the-world trip. The trip begins in Barcelona where the friends meet some musician friends on the final leg of their European tour, which wraps in Paris a few days later.

After their friend's final show, our protagonists find themselves in a seedy Paris bar where we are treated to the obligatory horror film hookup scene. After "working the program," Derek finds himself in the company of a beautiful Parisian girl and soon disappears to his hotel room. After having a few more drinks, Cliff and his musician buddies decide to play a prank on Derek by crashing into the hotel room they are sharing. After barging into the hotel room, Clif and his friends are shocked to find Derek unconscious and sporting a nasty shoulder wound. In true horror fashion, this is a hookup gone wrong. This attack affects the remainder of their trip as Derek slowly sinks into illness.

The subject of age in film has always been a fascinating one to me. Hollywood tries so hard to focus on the next up-and-coming star or starlet, glorifying them in HD on the big screen. We as audiences are looking to stay forever young through the films we watch too, focusing on what we can do to make ourselves look thinner and younger, just like these celebrities.

That's why films like Still Mine are important to me. It's not often that you see a film that focuses on the struggle of the later years in life, when family has grown up and moved on. In a film world full of romantic comedies often centered on young people, we don't often hear the stories of the ones who have lived through the most.

Craig (James Cromwell) and his wife Irene (Geneviéve Bujold) have been married for 61 years. They live a simple life on a farm, we are introduced to their daily activities: raising cattle, harvesting their own vegetables, and essentially living off the land that they own. Their daily routine is unbreakable and content, until Irene begins to lose her memory. Little things at first, but each day seems to get worse once she stops remembering things like where she lives or where things are in the house. Without Irene's contributions towards the upkeep of their property, Craig realizes that it is too big of a homestead for them to take care of. In an effort to help Irene regain her memory as well as to take on a new challenge, he decides that he is going to build a new home for them elsewhere on their property.  

No one who sees Short Term 12 will be surprised that writer/director Destin Cretton spent two years working in a group home for at-risk teens.

A riveting story about such a home, the film feels so authentic and emotionally on target that it's obviously the work of someone with first-hand experience. Short Term 12 is, in a word, real.

And painfully so. Based on Cretton's 2008 short film of the same title, Short Term 12 pulls no punches as it tells the story of Grace (Brie Larson), the twentysomething lead supervisor in a foster-care facility for kids whose worst enemies are their own families. All her charges are in a world of hurt, from Marcus (Keith Stanfield), a quiet but sometimes violent 17-year-old who's about to age out of the system, to Sammy (Alex Calloway), a perpetual flight risk who's more child than teen and who slumps into a deep depression when his therapist has all his dolls taken away.

Grace is dating one of her co-workers, Mason (John Gallagher Jr.). The two have a solid long-term relationship; they also have no trouble separating their personal and professional lives, leaving their relationship at home while helping the kids.