The familiar lines, “I’ll huff and I’ll puff…” and “Grandma, what great big eyes you have…” both appear in “Red Riding Hood,” the new Amanda Seyfried supernatural romance, and our heroine does wear a bright red cloak, but any resemblance to the source material ends there.
Set in a medieval village, Seyfried plays the anachronistically named Valerie, a pretty young woman in love with one boy but engaged to another, richer man. That’s not the worst of her problems, however. A big bad werewolf has been reigning chaos on her village for generations, and now, with a blood moon rising and silver-finger tipped werewolf hunter coming to town it looks like her story might take a grim—but not necessarily Grimm—turn.
Following in the footsteps of so many of today’s angsty supernatural romances for teens, “Red Riding Hood” (which was directed by “Twilight, Mach One” director Catherine Hardwicke) plays like an odd but imaginative hybrid of “The Crucible” and “Twilight.”
Filled with dramatic moments that aren’t really as dramatic as I imagine Hardwicke would hope and a mystery filled with red herrings and heaving bosoms “Red Riding Hood” has a weird rhythm to it.
Hardwicke, a former production designer has made a terrific looking movie—in wide shots the village looks like an illustration from a high end kid’s book of fairy tales—and Seyfried’s movie star face, with it’s beautifully exaggerated features—bee stung lips and Bette Davis eyes—holds the screen, but Hardwicke never met a steady cam shot she didn’t love and her restless shooting style seems to have influenced the story as well. The narrative is a bit all over the place as though it is trying too hard to hit all the points that make up teen entertainment in 2011. A bit of script streamlining would have helped the big bad wolf from blowing this house of cards down.
And while I’m at it, can we discuss Gary Oldman for a moment? He’s probably having more fun and making more money now with films like “Kung Fu Panda 2” and playing Sirius Black in the “Harry Potter” films than he did when he essaying Joe Orton in “Prick Up Your Ears” but I miss watching the volatile and versatile actor who disappeared into roles like Sid Vicious and Albert Milo.
Despite its title “Red Riding Hood” isn’t kid’s stuff, but it also isn’t quite well developed enough to be adult fare either.
If Michelangelo Antonioni and Sergio Leone had a love child and that love child directed a movie the result might be something like “Rango,” the new animated not-only-for-kids movie starring the voice of Johnny Depp.
Depp plays a theatrical chameleon with a big imagination and a host of imaginary friends who finds himself stranded in the desert. Following his shadow he lands in the town of Dirt, a miniature town inhabited by small creatures that look like they just crawled out of a John Ford movie. The town is short of water, in fact, it’s so dry cactus die of thirst. Creating the persona of Rango, a Wild West gunslinger, the lizard hero becomes sheriff and tries to get to the bottom of the water problem.
It’s possible that “Rango” is a movie that only the money-making team of Depp and “Pirates of the Caribbean” director Gore Verbinski could get made. It’s a big budget animated film that must have cost a fortune, but instead of playing it safe they have turned in a surreal family film complete with a cameo from gonzo journalist (and Depp mentor) Hunter S. Thompson. It may be a new kind of kid’s flick—existential comedy for kids.
Like many heroes before him Rango grapples with the big questions—Who am I? What is my destiny?—as he convinces the townsfolk to put their trust in him and “tango with the Rango.” Not sure if the young ones will get it, or if they’ll care about the story, which has more than a whiff of “Chinatown” about it but the animation by George Lucas’s Industrial Light and Magic—it’s their first fully animated movie in 35 years—will definitely capture their eye.
The movie truly looks fantastic—who knew lizards could have such expressive eyes—but takes a little too long to get to the good stuff. A self indulgent—and bizarre—intro gets things off to a slow start but soon the film finds its own unique rhythm, revealing its own bizarre charms.
If there was an after-school special about exorcism “The Rite” would be it. Its earnest, has a message and there’s even a teenage pregnancy angle.
Based on the book “The Making of a Modern Exorcist,” “The Rite” is the story of Michael Kovak (Colin O’Donoghue) a seminary student weeks away from graduation and taking his vows. The trouble is, he isn’t a believer. He went to the seminary to get out of the family business—his Dad’s (Rutger “Hobo with a Shotgun” Hauer) mortuary. The men in his family, he says only have two career options—caring for the dead or joining the priesthood. When he tries to opt out of taking his vows an older priest arranges for him to go to Rome and study exorcism, a sure way, the priest thinks, to reaffirm Michael’s faith. In Italy he meets Father Lucas, a veteran priest and expert in exorcism, who leads his student into a wild satanic showdown.
The holy man with a crisis-of-faith is by now a standard exorcism movie character. We’ve seen it as recently as last year’s “The Last Exorcism” and we’ve seen it done with more spirit (no pun intended) than O’Donoghue conjures up here. Luckily he has Anthony Hopkins, master thespian and expert scenery-chewer to keep things lively. Quick! Somebody get Hopkins some mustard to go along with the ham he’s selling here.
As Father Lucas he’s got the movies best lines and has no problem giving them with gusto. It’s an unexpected performance and rather entertaining.
The movie, however, isn’t trying as hard as Hopkins. It’s not scary, occasionally freaky, but not scary. When Father Lucas asks, “What’d you expect? Spinning heads and pea soup?” I wanted to shout, “Actually, yes Father, I do!” An exorcism movie without those elements is, well, sinful.
Worse than that, “The Rite” is at least twenty minutes too long. It s-l-o-w-l-y builds to an entertaining final exorcism, but the subplot about a pregnant “possessee” goes on too long and the inclusion of a demon mule (seriously) take the focus away from where it belongs—on the relationship between Michael and Father Lucas. That older priest, younger priest thing worked really well in “The Exorcist” and could have here as well, if only the movie was a tad more interesting.
“The Rite” aspires to be a high-minded story about faith but falls flat when Hopkins isn’t on screen. There’s little sympathy for this devil…
“Rabbit Hole,” the new film starring Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart and Dianne Wiest, is about what happens when the natural order of things is disrupted. Just as summer always follows spring and two plus two always equals four, some things are immutable. The sad premise that lies at the base of “Rabbit Hole,” however, is a natural law that unfortunately isn’t as absolute as the others. What happens to parents when they outlive their children?
Howie and Becca (Eckhart and Kidman) are a couple trying to deal with the death of their four-year-old son Danny. They are at different stages of their grief, but they share a couple of things; a terrible sense of loss and an inability to know how to deal with it. On the surface he wants to move on but at night secretly watches videos of the toddler. She is angry at the world, a bubbling cauldron of resentment and hurt that could boil over at any time. Healing comes slowly, and from some unexpected sources, leading up to a climax that is quiet and inconclusive yet starkly effective.
“Rabbit Hole” is the kind of film Nicole Kidman needs to make to remind us why we liked her in the first place. After nondescript performances in big budget stiffs like “Bewitched” and “The Golden Compass” it is a relief to see her sink her teeth into the role of the devastated mother. She avoids the clichés and melodrama a lesser actor might have brought to the role and delivers a masterfully subtle examination of grief and loss. The iciness that sometimes creeps into her work melts away here as she reveals her vulnerabilities.
Kidman leads the cast but fine performances abound. Eckhart connects (and disconnects when appropriate) with Kidman while Wiest hands in a beautifully modulated performance as a woman who has known much sadness in her life but has moved on. Each character in the film is flawed, yet in their own way sympathetic.
Up until this point director John Cameron Mitchell—of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and “Shortbus” fame—hasn’t been known for his restraint, but with “Rabbit Hole” he takes a melodramatic premise and reins it in until all that’s left is real human emotion. Highly recommended.
When you see Helen Mirren’s name in the credits of a comic book adaptation you know that either hell has frozen over or you’re in for a pretty good bit of cartoony fun. Luckily it isn’t time for Old Scratch to buy a parka. Mirren stars in “Red”—an acronym for Retired, Extremely Dangerous—joining an all star cast of grey power actors like Bruce Willis (who would likely be grey if he had hair), Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich in a dramatization of a three-issue comic book mini-series about retired CIA agents called back into duty.
Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is retired and bored. Padding around his comfortable suburban home he carries on a phone relationship with Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), a clerk at Social Security. Their flirtation, however, goes to a whole new level when Frank’s home is invaded by some very bad men with some very large guns. He dispatches them, then realizes that not only is he a target, but very likely so is Sarah, the only person he ever talks to on the phone. They’ve never met face to face, so he travels to Kansas City, kidnaps her (for her own safety, of course) and embarks on a truth seeking mission that will reunite him with his old CIA workmates (Mirren, Morgan and Maklovich), uncover a war crime and a plot that leads to the very upper echelons of power.
“Red” serves up a clever mix of one-liners—“I miss the old days,” says Ivan Simano (Brian Cox), “I haven’t killed anyone in years.”—and action with a chaser of Geritol. We’re used to seeing Willis do action, so that’s not much of a stretch, but it’s a hoot to see his co-stars play against type. Malkovich’s paranoid (and rightly so) weapons expert, Mirren’s mild-mannered assassin (“I kill people, dear.”) and Morgan Freeman’s deadly intelligence officer are old timers, but unlike other lame retiree movies like “The Crew” (which starred “Red” bad guy Richard Dreyfuss) “Red” proves these grandparents don’t need Red Bull to be Red—Retired, Extremely Dangerous.
In the supporting cast Mary Louise Parker as Sarah, the clerk who finds she enjoys the life of danger Frank offers up, is a livewire. Parker takes a role that could easily have been played as the hysterical girlfriend cliché, puts a spin on it and very nearly walks away with the whole movie. Also strong is Karl Urban as an up-and-coming CIA black ops agent. He’s a family man and killer and is an effective foil for Willis and company.
“Red” isn’t great art, but it is a lot of fun and worth it to see tough guy Willis tucked in bed reading a romance novel called “Love’s Savage Secret.”
In a twelfth century twist on a modern saying, the only two things you can count on in “Robin Hood,” the handsome new retelling of the age old tale from director Ridley Scott, are taxes and treachery.
Set in the waning days of Richard the Lion Heart’s (Danny Huston) ten year long Crusade, the origin story of how Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) became Robin Hood, really picks up when Robin promises one of the king’s knights, Sir Robert Loxley (Douglas Hodge), that he will deliver a sword to Robert’s father, Sir Walter Loxley (Max Von Sydow), in Nottingham. Meanwhile, Richard’s ridiculous brother Prince John (Oscar Isaac) ignores his trusted advisors, his chancellor William Marshall (William Hurt) and his mother Eleanor of Aquitaine (Eileen Atkins) and imposes crippling taxes on his subjects. Egging him on is the duplicitous Godfrey (Mark Strong), a traitor who is secretly trying to start a civil war and help France invade the country. Back in Nottingham, Robin delivers the sword, meets Lady Marion (Cate Blanchett), helps save England from the French and for his trouble is declared an outlaw by King John.
The new “Robin Hood” isn’t the bright Technicolor tale of the famous Errol Flynn version. Scott’s vision of the story is dark, thematically and visually. It’s a raw boned and bloody story of greed, unfettered ambition and treachery with a complex plot that touches on some very modern issues like taxes, too much government and one that might make the people of Arizona happy—unwanted immigration. It’s a mostly historically correct representation of the time and the Robin Hood legend, but Scott has added in an unbelievable plot twist involving Robin’s father and a coincidence that stretches credulity to the breaking point. It seems so out-of-place and glaringly silly I’m sure the writers of the campy cartoon series “Rocket Robin Hood” would have rejected the idea as being too outlandish.
Despite that lapse in judgment, the movie works. Fans of “Gladiator” will feel a sense of déjà vu—the only thing separating the two movies is the time period and Richard Harris and Oliver Reed, and they’re both dead. Scott and Crowe have returned to the winning formula of historical drama mixed with strong characters and lots of crazy action.
At the center of it all is Crowe, possibly the only Hollywood a-lister he-man enough to pull off “Robin Hood’s” combo of raging machismo, honor and emotional intensity. Physically he doesn’t look like he spends much time at the gym, instead it seems like he earned those muscles the old fashioned way—by swinging a sword. Equally strong is Blanchett in a role that could be redubbed, Maid Marion, Warrior Princess. She defines twelfth century girl power and, as one of only three female characters, cuts through the thick cloud of testosterone that hangs over the movie like a cloud. The supporting cast, including Mark Strong—in what is now becoming his trademark bad guy routine—Max Von Sydow, William Hurt, Danny Huston and Canadian Kevin Durand as the ironically named Little John, add much to the overall effect.
“Robin Hood” is a new take on an old story; it’s entertaining, occasionally funny and as epic a film as we’re likely to see this summer.
Few tales of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll contain as much sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll as the tawdry tale of The Runaways. An underage all girl rock band—they billed themselves as “Genuine Jailbait”—spawned from the Sunset Strip’s late 1970s seedy underbelly, they imploded in 1979 after four tumultuous years. “The Runaways,” a new film written and directed by former video helmer Floria Sigismondi, sees two “Twilight” co-stars leave behind repressed romance for life on the road.
Set back when you could still drink a bottle of stolen booze in the shade of the Hollywood sign without being arrested for trespassing, the movie focuses on two glue sniffing, glam rock obsessed tough girls named Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) and Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning). Disaffected SoCal teens, they see an exit from their mundane suburban lives through rock ‘n’ roll. Unfortunately their ticket out comes in the form of impresario Kim Fowley, a record producer and self proclaimed “King Hysteria.” He cobbles together the band, trains them to be rock stars, convinced that these “bitches are going to be bigger than the Beatles.” Before they can play Shea Stadium, however, the band breaks up—knee deep in ego, drug abuse and bad management.
Sigismondi has made the movie equivalent of an ear blistering blast of feedback. Like the band’s two-minute-forty-five-second guitar punk tunes, “The Runaways” is loud, fast and dirty. If you want depth wait for the rock ‘n’ roll bio of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Here Sigismondi leaves behind the surreal feel of her videos and visual art, instead opting for a straightforward (although probably mostly fictional) retelling of the rapid rise and equally rapid free fall of the band. Its “Behind the Music” formulaic but Sigismondi layers on so many other rock ‘n’ roll elements that the lack of experimentation in the telling of the tale isn’t a minus.
Kristen Stewart is the name above the title star, and she does bring her brooding Brando best to the role of Joan Jett, but this movie belongs to Dakota Fanning and Michael Shannon, who hands in a flamboyant performance.
As Kim Fowley he has a more than a passing resemblance to Beef from “Phantom of the Paradise,” and like that character he is campy, dangerous and slightly unhinged. An egomaniac, he introduces himself as, “Kim Fowley, record producer. You’ve heard of me.” It’s a bravura performance that could have gone very wrong in the hands of a less committed actor, but Shannon pulls it off with wild aplomb.
Fanning shines, but in a much more low key way. Low key, but not low wattage. Fowley describes her outer layer as part Bardot, part Bowie but she plays Currie as damaged goods; a young girl with a crappy home life and faraway look in her eye. Fanning quietly gives Currie an unspoken inner life as she slowly falls apart, and whether she’s smashing pills with her platform heels and snorting the powder off the floor or rocking it out on stage there is a core of sadness to her that is so real you can almost reach out and touch it. It’s the most demanding role in the film and Fanning aces it.
Kim Fowley described the music of The Runaways as the “sound of hormones raging” and in her film Sigismondi transcends the formulaic aspects of the story by capturing the gritty spirit of in-your-face teenage rebellion.
Like last year’s “Repo: The Genetic Opera,” this weekend’s “Repo Men” is set in a dystopian world where health care is a corporate game. Unlike the opera, which starred Paris Hilton and featured a noise-rock soundtrack, this one stars Jude Law and Forest Whittaker as two violent organ repossession agents who kill their clients to complete their jobs. That is, until one of them literally has a change of heart.
Set in the near future (in a city that looks very much like Toronto on steroids) “Repo Men” centers on two weapons grade repo men, Remy and Jake, played by Law and Whittaker. They work for The Union, a multinational health care provider who sell artificial organs—everything from hearts and lungs to esophagi—to terminally ill people who are usually unable to pay in full. That’s just fine by The Union, because, according to their unctuous head salesman Frank (Liev Schreiber), they don’t make any money when people pay in full. Their motto of “a job is a job” regardless of the consequences takes a hit when Remy gets a new pumper, a new attitude and falls behind in his payments.
Originally titled “The Repossession Mambo,” after a novel of the same name, I’m sure “Repo Men” was meant to be a timely comment on health care in a world where corporations place profit above human lives. It’s a timely message, and one that might have been explored a bit more in a better movie, or at least a movie that wasn’t content to replace content with blood and guts. The film is either a.) really gross or b.) marvelously bloody depending on your point of view.
There are several squirm inducing repossession scenes involving open wounds and a shootout in an all white room that leads up to a sequence that can only be called “squirty,” is startling. All that brings us to a spectacularly yucky repossession climax and a cool twist (ed) ending.
Law and Whittaker are odd choices to headline an action movie. Despite some good moves—Whittaker is a martial artist and Law has clearly been visiting the gym—neither feel like action stars on the screen. Liev Schreiber, seen here as a heartless pencil pusher, might have been a better choice in the action department, but shines anyway as the slimiest salesman ever.
“Repo Men” has a campy sense of humor to it, some wild action sequences, a cool looking vision of the future, and an unforgettable final repossession / sex scene, but ultimately fails because it can’t make up its mind whether it is satire, black comedy or serious look at the failings of health care.
“Remember Me” is teen heartthrob Robert Pattinson’s first adult role. This, despite the fact that his best known character “Twilight’s” Edward Cullen, is well over 100 years old. Here he sinks his teeth into the part of a troubled twenty-one year old with daddy issues, a dead brother and a girlfriend he began dating on a dare.
When we first meet Tyler (Pattinson), he’s slumming it in NYC in a crappy apartment with a wrench for a doorknob and a job restocking shelves at The Strand bookstore. “I’m undecided,” he says, “about everything.” His father his wealthy, but since the suicide of his brother Michael their relationship has soured. One night after a bar brawl he is beaten and arrested by Neil Craig (Chris Cooper). In a strange twist of fate Craig’s daughter is in one of Tyler’s classes. They begin to date, at first based on his need to get back at the cop who beat him up, but soon he develops real feelings for her. Their relationship is complicated by Tyler’s issues with his father, his issues with his rage and generally, his issues with everything. Then, just when everything seems to be on the upswing for the young couple, tragedy strikes.
Two “Twilights” worth of brooding lessons has been good training for Pattison, who has brooding down to a science in “Remember Me.” As the tortured Tyler he’s equal parts James Dean, alternative school attitude and thunder, but he does show more range here than he has in the “Twilight” movies. He is thoroughly credible for two thirds of the film, up until the film’s closing moments when his angry young man schtick starts to get a little old. Until then, however, he displays enough chops to suggest he may have a career once he throws off the shackles of Edward Cullen and is allowed to grow as an actor.
His best work comes in the scenes opposite his younger sister Caroline (“Nurse Jackie’s” Ruby Jerins). Jerins is a good natural performer—there’s not an ounce of pretense in her—and their on screen time is filled with warmth and (occasionally) some badly needed levity.
“Remember Me” is a serious movie that begins with a murder and ends with a startling conclusion. In between there is the above mentioned brooding and some dramatic family dynamics at play, but it feels like there is a bit too much story for any one plot thread to be given the film’s full attention. As a result it wanders more than it needs to. A little red pencil action on this script could have easily simplified the story for the better.
Not that any of that will matter. There are a couple of love scenes and a romantic story to keep the Robsessed Twihards interested and if only if only one tenth of his fan base shells out to see it, “Remember Me” will still be a hit.
