Reviews

Flipped is Hollywood's latest attempt to mine the nostalgic gold found in coming-of-age stories set in the mythical golden age of the mid-20th century.

Adapted from Wendelin Van Draanen's "young readers" novel, Flipped is the story of Bryce, a boy who moves across the street from Juli, who seems to have an asphyxiating crush on the new kid in town. Over a five-year period the story flips between both points of view. A twist on "he said/she said" -- or in this case, "he thought/she thought" -- the plot unfolds as their relationship evolves and everything is seen from two skewed perspectives.

Flipped is as much a story of two very different families as it is about a boy and a girl. Despite living across the street from each other, the sensation of class divide is reinforced. Bryce's father clearly values appearances and the importance of reputation, while Juli's father is comfortably blue collar, with a hint of artist -- his landscapes sell well at the county fair according to rumor. As the two children reach pubescence the differences between their lifestyles comes to a head.

I'll confess that I'm a sucker for sentimental supernatural film and television. Despite its cheesiness, I'll watch Ghost and Ghost Whisperer anytime I come across them while surfing the television channels. I loved the plot twists of What Dreams May Come, The Others and The Sixth Sense, but give me a hanky for the tearful moments. It's the more profound question of the afterlife and redemption that I find mystifying and often comforting in my morose moments of recognition of mortality. Charlie St. Cloud attempts to extract similar sentimentality from its viewers. Based on Ben Sherwood's 2004 novel The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud, this film directed by Burr Steers (17 Again) paints an ethereal portrait of loved ones amongst golden sunsets and raging storms.

Charlie (Zac Efron), is clearly a young man from the wrong side of the tracks. His mother (Kim Basinger) works double shifts to support him and his annoying and devoted brother Sam. Fortunately for Charlie, his good grades and sailing prowess have secured him a sailing scholarship at Stanford. On graduation day, the future couldn't be brighter for Charlie. He promises Sam that he'll play catch with him every day at sunset until Charlie leaves for school in the fall. However, a bad decision leaves both brothers dead in a car accident -- until Charlie is brought back to life by a dedicated paramedic (Ray Liotta).

Slackerwood editor Jette Kernion was very surprised when I offered to review Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore. While I'm an open-minded film fan whose cinematic tastes include everything from local mumblecore to classic exploitation to the occasional Hollywood blockbuster, I'm not really into kid-oriented talking animal movies. And I'm totally not into watching kid-oriented movies in theaters full of, uh, actual kids. (I like kids, except when they're being disruptive during movies. Okay -- disruptive anywhere.)

But as I told Jette, sometimes a critic needs a challenge. It's easy to review a hipster-darling indie in which Catherine Keener frets about her life choices; it's far more difficult, however, to write insightful commentary about a film in which anthropomorphic dogs discuss butt sniffing. So, to test my critical skills -- and my patience -- I braved a preview screening of Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, a sequel to 2001's Cats & Dogs with a few carryover characters.

I could have done without the theater full of restless, yammering young'uns. But I must admit the movie (opening today in wide release) surprised me, in that it isn't bad. Really, it's mostly good. You and your young'uns could do a lot worse at your local multiplex.

I was expecting Salt to be like a female version of the Bourne films, and it is as engaging as the best of that series. But unlike Jason Bourne, with Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie), we're never quite sure what her agenda is -- although we're still quite eager to follow her on her escapades.

The movie starts off with our heroine/anti-heroine being traded for another spy (sounds familiar, right?) after she was captured in North Korea and her German arachnologist boyfriend Mike (August Diehl) worked for her release (unaware at this point that she works for the CIA). Two years later, Mike and Evelyn are living in Washington, DC, married, and about to celebrate their anniversary when Salt is asked to interview a Russian spy who has turned himself in to the CIA.

This spy, Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski), spins a tale about a Russian program in the 1970s that indoctrinated children and raised them to speak English as well as Russian ... and he tells of a certain double-agent brought up in the program who will soon kill the Russian president: Evelyn Salt. Salt starts fretting that her CIA partner Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber) and counter-intelligence agent Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor) will believe Orlov and so she escapes. Thus the action begins!

Last Wednesday evening, I attended a packed screening of The Kids Are All Right at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar; the theater was so full that even though I was there early my friend and I had to sit in folding chairs. I was hungry, but felt too unsettled to order anything (and since I wasn't near a table, I couldn't imagine how I would eat and take notes at the same time). Then the movie started, and I forgot my own problems and got caught up in the story of the family in the film.

Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore) are a married Californian couple with two teenage kids: recent high school graduate Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and 15-year-old Laser (Josh Hutcherson). The kids love their moms, but since Joni is 18, Laser asks her to find out about their sperm donor. Thus, Mark Ruffalo enters the picture as Paul, a organic/local restauranteur (his place is called WYSIWYG, get it?) in his early forties and their biological father.

Paul becomes involved with both the kids and their moms in varying ways. Jules and Joni bloom under his attentions, and even Laser takes his advice (finally) regarding his doofus friend Clay (Eddie Hassell), the kind of guy who would want to pee on a dog's head. Yes, this film goes there! Well, almost.

Christopher Nolan's 2000 breakthrough film Memento set up an expectation for complex, intelligent storytelling. Inception secures Nolan's reputation as an outstanding director and writer.

In Memento, Nolan skillfully turned a relatively simple story into a complex thriller by toying with the timeline. In Inception, he's taken a complex story and simplified it by focusing on two things: one final job and the fundamental emotional reason why it's both necessary and more risky than his colleagues realize.

Inception is a science fiction thriller about Extractors, who construct shared dreaming scenarios to steal secrets. Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his team take corporate espionage to a new level, and after a botched job, are offered a job they can't refuse -- an Inception. Unlike Extraction, where thoughts and memories are stolen, Inception is planting a thought. Inception is thought to be impossible, but Cobb feels up to the job; after all, he's not only in no position to refuse, but his payment includes something he would do anything for.

Another chapter in the life of history's most influential woman in fashion continues with the screen adaptation of Chris Greenhalgh's 2002 novel Coco & Igor as Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky (French title: Chanel Coco & Igor Stravinsky). This dramatization of Chanel's alleged affair with a man as influential and diverse as herself picks up not long after where last year's critically acclaimed by Anne Fontaine, Coco Before Chanel, ends. Although the two films have much in common, there's less appeal and passion to this adaptation.

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky begins with a scandal, but not quite the one immediately expected -- the 1913 Paris premiere of Stravinsky’s modernist ballet, "Le Sacre du Printemps (Rite of Spring)." Igor Stravinsky (Mads Mikkelsen) is nervously awaiting for the curtain to rise as Ballet Russes impresario/founder Sergei Diaghilev (Grigori Manoukov) and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky (Marek Kossakowski) are frantically directing the dancers and orchestra. Within the first act, the classical music audience becomes enraged at the violent motif and dissonance of Stravinsky's work, so much that a riot breaks out and police must be called to calm the masses. Throughout the chaos, Coco Chanel (Anna Mouglalis) quietly and intently observes the ballet and the crowd's reactions. She departs without meeting Stravinsky, but it's evident she's drawn to him.

A few years ago, few people would have taken the phrase "Swedish crime thriller" seriously. Sweden has long been known for films as reserved as its culture; its cinematic output has consisted mostly of thoughtful, understated, often lethargic and slightly dreary films, few of which have generated much international interest. (There are obvious exceptions, of course. Masterpieces like The Seventh Seal vaulted Ingmar Bergman into the world's top echelon of filmmakers, and the indie vampire darling Let the Right One In was a not-so-surprising success in the Twilight-crazed U.S. and Europe.)

Sweden's cinematic reputation may change, however, with a trio of films based on Stieg Larsson's smashingly successful trilogy of crime novels, all international bestsellers. The first film, the taut and gripping The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, has wowed critics and audiences alike in dozens of countries and has just been released on DVD in the U.S. -- read Jette's review for more details.

The series' second installment, The Girl Who Played with Fire (Swedish title: Flickan som lekte med elden), opens in Austin on Friday. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a very tough act to follow, but The Girl Who Played with Fire is a smart, complex and chilling thriller that rivals its predecessor in most respects.

The most popular Swedish film in America in years, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, has just been released on DVD and Blu-ray. Its sequel, The Girl Who Played with Fire, opens in Austin on Friday (keep an eye out for Don's review). The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is an adaptation of the first of three books by Stieg Larsson that focus on an unconventional heroine (or anti-heroine), Lisbeth Salander.

The movie starts with two slightly entwined storylines, which merge more fully after an hour or so. Investigative reporter Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) has just been sentenced to three months' jail for libel, although he has six months before he has to serve his prison sentence. He is hired for those six months by corporate giant Henrik Vanger, whose extensive greedy family runs the Vanger Group, to find out who killed Henrik's beloved niece Harriet nearly 40 years ago. Henrik ran a background check on Mikael before hiring him, and the security company used their best researcher ... a hacker named Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace). Lisbeth is the title character (although she is a woman and not a girl, ahem).

Mikael quickly becomes absorbed in the mystery of which Vanger family member could have murdered Harriet, who simply vanished into thin air under peculiar circumstances. In the meantime, Lisbeth is still keeping an eye on his computer activity and becomes interested herself in the mystery of Harriet Vanger. Lisbeth is also revealed as someone with a past history of abuse who is still targeted for abusive, violent behavior by many of the men she is forced to deal with. Her way of dealing with them is ... intense, to say the least.

What happens when Disney recycles one of its classics? In the case of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, it gets a perfectly genial summer fantasy action tale likely to please most audiences. Based on a 20th century short film based on an 18th century poem, Jon Turteltaub (National Treasure) has created an energetic if uneven adventure about a young man who inherits magical powers and along with his unwelcome mentor, tries to save the world.

"Der Zauberlehrling" was written by Goethe in 1797. In the original, an apprentice uses magic beyond his means to clean while his master is away, resulting in comical disaster. In 1940, the poem was adapted by Disney into an animated short featured in Fantasia, and remained so popular it was included in Fantasia 2000.

The original story has exploded from a simple mishap into a centuries-old battle between evil sorcerers (Morganians) and the good ones (Merlinians), with Balthazar (Nicolas Cage), the last of Merlin's apprentices, seeking out an heir to Merlin's power. After a brief and traumatic encounter, young David (Jay Baruchel) has put the episode behind him, only to have his life turned upside down again. Now Balthazar and David have to stop the Morganians from completing a particularly heinous spell that will end the world as we know it.