“Mr. Right” is a rom crime com that plays a bit like “Pitch Perfect” with a very high body count.
Anna Kendrick is Martha, a twenty-something who dumps her boyfriend when he cheats on her. The morning after a wild bender—”I want to do something terrible,” she says.—she it’s love-at-first-sight with a stranger (Sam Rockwell) she meets at a supermarket. He’s a babyface assassin who cold bloodedly murders for money. “Killing is wrong,” he says, “but I’m not perfect.” Part Bruce Lee, part James Bond, he’s as lethal as he is charming. Ignoring the obvious warning signs—he won’t tell her his name and jokes about killing people—she falls for him and is only slightly conflicted on their third day together when she sees him shoot a man. “Are you upset that I killed that guy?” he says. “How I feel about that guy has nothing to do with how I feel about you.” They flirt, banter back and forth and after some metaphysical weapons training are a committed couple. “When I was little I had a dream I was dating Lex Luther,” she coos. Now if only the squads of hitmen sent to kill him would lay off, the couple could decide whether she is his weakness or the Bonnie to his Clyde or both.
Other movies have trod this path. “Something Wild,” “Grosse Pointe Blank” and “True Romance” all mix affection with offing, and all do it better than “Mr. Right.” What this movie has going for it is a handful of clever lines—for instance, Rockwell’s dusty charm is described as “fancy homeless”—and two people who know how to deliver them, Kendrick and Rockwell. Despite a seventeen-year age gap, or maybe because of it, they click.
The first half of the movie, before it turns into a shoot ‘em up, has many funny, charming moments. The preposterousness of the story aside, there are enough effervescent screwball moments in Max Landis’s screenplay to carry the day. But just about the time bad guy Johnny Moon (Michael Eklund) says, “Don’t let this become unfun… This is supposed to be fun,” it’s hard not to disagree with him. What was once a light and fluffy—if a little bloody—confection loses its way in a hail of bullets and beatings.
“Mr. Right” doesn’t get everything right, but in between the quirky trying-too-hard moments are some amiably charming moments.
In “Poltergeist,” the new reworking of the 1982 ghost-in-the-TV Tobe Hooper cult classic chiller, when Mom (Rosemarie DeWitt), “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” you know, of course, here’s loads to be afraid of… like crappy special effects and a story almost entirely devoid of thrills or chills.
Sam Rockwell and DeWitt are Eric and Amy, underemployed parents of three, Maddy (Kennedi Clements), Griffin (Kyle Catlett) and Kendra (Saxon Sharbino). Forced to downsize, the young family relocates to a rundown and apparently haunted home in suburban Illinois. The older kids aren’t thrilled with their new home but little Maddy loves it, immediately talking to the invisible spirits that also live there.
On their first full night in the place Maddy modernizes the most famous visual from the original film by sitting in front of the flashing big screen television. “They’re here,” she says and soon things get poltergeisty. Clown dolls attack the kids and Maddy disappears but is able to communicate with them through the television. And people say there’s nothing worth watch on TV now that “Mad Men” has gone off the air.
They discover the house was built on top of an old cemetery but are told the bodies were “moved to a nicer neighbourhood.” Freaked out, Eric and Amy call in experts, Dr. Claire Powell (Jane Adams) from the local university’s Department of Paranormal Research and reality show ghostbuster Carrigan Burke (Jared Harris) to rid themselves of the pesky poltergeist and rescue Maddy from the 500 channel universe.
“Poltergeist” would more accurately have been called “Paychequegeist: Good Actors, Terrible Movie.” I hope whatever money Rockwell, DeWitt and Harris were paid for this was worth it because cash must have been the only incentive to sign on for this movie. It certainly wasn’t the script and this one is likely going to come back to haunt them
Where to start? How about Rockwell’s reaction to Maddy’s disappearance? “If we call the cops they’ll blame us,” he says, opting instead to bring in a ghostbuster to locate his youngest daughter. Or how about DeWitt’s sly smile after overhearing a lover’s tiff between Powell and Burke? Her daughter is being tormented by malicious spirits who aim to drag her to hell but, hey, laughter is the best medicine, right? Yes, it’s laughable, but for us, not her.
There is so much wrong with “Poltergeist” it’s hard to know where to begin. Sure little Kennedi Clements could probably win an award for Best Scared Face of the Year but she’s more scared than anyone in the audience for this generic reboot will ever be.
It’s one thing to feel cut off from other people. It’s another thing to be alone thousands of miles above the earth.
A new film from Children of Men director Alfonso Cuarón does a great job of showing the isolation felt by two cosmonauts who, in the words of David Bowie, are “sitting in a tin can, far above the world.”
Gravity stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts who get pelted by a debris storm, comprised of bits and pieces of old satellites. With their space shuttle disabled and their communications offline and they are forced to become Space MacGyvers in order to survive.
Bullock and Clooney aren’t the first movienauts to be cut adrift in space. From animated films like WALL-E to epics like 2001: A Space Odyssey Hollywood has mined the vastness of space in some unforgettable movies.
In the film Moon Sam Rockwell is astronaut Sam Bell, a Lunar Industries employee living and working on a space station on a three year contract.
His job is to tend to machines that are “harvesting solar energy from the dark side of the moon” and providing almost 70% of earth with power. His only companion is a robot / cup holder named Gerty (voiced by the appropriately named Kevin Spacey) although he can receive taped messages from his wife Tess (Dominique McElligott). The loneliness of the job is broken, however, when he discovers that he may not be truly alone.
The comparisons to 2001 are obvious, made even more apparent by Spacey’s HAL-like delivery of his robot lines, but director Duncan Jones has simply used Kubrick’s film as a visual reference on his way to creating a unique and fascinating film. Another thing he borrowed from Kubrick and many other sci-fi films of the 60s and 70s is his emphasis on ideas rather than special effects. Michael Bay this ain’t.
One of the earliest alone-in-space movies came in 1950. Destination Moon is noted as the first Hollywood movie to contain scientific representations of space travel. The story involves a two-man journey to the fifth largest moon in the Solar System and the difficult decision to leave one behind. Heralded at the time for its realism, through today’s eyes it looks somewhat corny. For example: “I know one thing,” says a spacesick General Thayer (Tom Powers), “unless these pills work, space travel isn’t going to be… popular.”
Popular culture has frequently paid homage to the lowly rodent. The Captain and Tennille scored a hit with Muskrat Love, their ode to arvicoline amour and Michael Jackson rode to the top of the charts on rat back with the tune Ben, possibly the only love song to a rat ever released.
Ben, of course, was the theme song to the 1972 movie of the same name. It was the sequel to Willard, the original “revolución de las ratas” flick. Ben and Willard, along with Stuart Little, Mr. Gopher, the burrowing terror from Caddyshack, Rizzo the Rat, Despereaux Tilling, Fievel Mousekewitz, the gang from Once Upon a Forest and of course, the biggest rodent star of all, Mickey Mouse, have left their mark in movie theatres. This weekend a new set of rodents that go by the collective name G-Force hope to do for guinea pigs what March of the Penguins did for tuxedo clad furry birds.
This mix of live action and animation from hotshot producer Jerry Bruckheimer centers on a team of trained secret agent guinea pigs. There’s team Leader Darwin (voiced by Sam Rockwell), Juarez (Penélope Cruz), Blaster (30 Rock’s Tracy Morgan) and mole Speckles (1996 Best Actor Nicolas Cage). In the midst of their biggest US government assignment ever—stopping evil billionaire Leonard Saber (Bill Nighy), from destroying the world with household appliances—they are shut down and sent to a pet shop. There they go rogue, hooking up with Hurley (Jon Favreau) and hamster Bucky (Steve Buscemi) and get back to the business of saving the world.
On the cute scale the G-Force members are somewhere between Ratatouille and Stuart Little, which is to say they are quite adorable. Pet stores should brace themselves for a run on guinea pigs but I couldn’t help but think that the rodents are less characters than prototypes for action figures and other toys. As is so often the case with bad kid’s films, more thought seems to have been given to the spin off toys kids will want after they leave the theatre than what is actually up on the screen.
The story is silly, but really, what did you expect from a film about crime fighting guinea pigs? It’s not the story that brings G-Force down, but the flat, bored performances.
The live actors aren’t the focus of the movie, but Wil Arnett and Bill Nighy do little more than simply show up and Zach Galifanikis blows whatever street cred he built up after his bizarre breakout performance in The Hangover.
The voice cast includes not one, but two Oscar winners, which may be an indication that the recession has finally taken root in Hollywood. When the best gig Penelope Cruz can get involves saying lines like “Oh, I have to save his fur again?” you know times are tight for a-listers.
Voice work wise only Nicolas Cage seems to be putting in much effort, doing a kind of Pee Wee Herman impression as the brianiac mole Speckles and Steve Buscemi has a naturally good cartoon voice but the other actors blow through their lines as if they had something better to do elsewhere.
The 3-D is sharp but other than a few fun stereoscopic gags it adds nothing to the movie except $3 to the price of the ticket.
G-Force has some good messages for kids about believing in yourself and the importance of family, but they are wrapped in a frenetic and cynical excuse for a movie that ends by setting itself up for a sequel which, if there is a patron saint of film critics, will never happen.
With a lineage like his it should come as no surprise that Duncan Jones’s first feature film, Moon, is a sci fi space epic. You see, Duncan Jones is better known as Zowie Bowie, first son of David Bowie, whose song Space Oddity became a top five hit forty years ago. He may be best known to triviaticians as Zowie but that should change with the release of this evocative and intelligent film.
Sam Rockwell is astronaut Sam Bell, a Lunar Industries employee living and working on a space station on a three year contract. “Three years is a long haul,” he says, wearing a t-shirt that reads It’s Almost Quittin’ Time. “It’s way, way, way too long. I’m ready to go home.”
His job is to tend to machines that are “harvesting solar energy from the dark side of the moon” and providing almost 70% of earth with power. His only companion is a robot / cup holder named Gerty (voiced by the appropriately named Kevin Spacey) although he can receive taped messages from his wife Tess (Dominique McElligott). The loneliness of the job is broken, however, when he discovers that he may not be truly alone.
The comparisons to 2001 are obvious, made even more apparent by Spacey’s HAL-like delivery of his robot lines, but Jones has simply used Kubrick’s film as a visual reference on his way to creating a unique and fascinating film. Another thing he borrowed from Kubrick and many other sci-fi films of the 60s and 70s is his emphasis on ideas rather than special effects.
Michael Bay this ain’t.
It’s a deliberately paced story packed with grand themes, unusual story twists and a dark covering of creeping dread. In the middle of it all is Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell, the lonely astronaut.
For a decade Rockwell has teetered on the verge of enormous mainstream success. He’s co-starred in big studio pictures with Nic Cage and George Clooney (Matchstick Men and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind respectively), earned street cred by starring in small difficult films like Choke and Snow Angels and has occasionally been the best thing in so-so movies like Joshua. He’s an inventive and fearless actor who delivers a performance in Moon that proves, once and for all, that he can carry a movie virtually by himself.
As Sam he hands in a performance ripe with longing, confusion, horror and yes, even a bit of humor.
Moon—which could easily have been retitled ***SPOILER ALERT*** The Clone Wars: This Time It’s Personal for commercial purposes—is a promising debut from a new director and a reminder of how good Sam Rockwell is.
There have been many movies about writer’s block. Screenwriters love to write about the affliction that affects everyone who puts fingers to keyboard for a living. So Martin McDonagh, the writer director of “Seven Psychopaths,” isn’t treading new ground here, but he does it entertainingly and with way more guns than you usually find in movies about writers.
Colin Farrell is Marty, an alcoholic screenwriter whose mental state hovers somewhere between depression and suicide. Blocked, he can’t seem to get past the title of his latest screenplay, “Seven Psychopaths.” Trying to pull him out of his funk, his (not always) helpful friend Billy (Sam Rockwell) places an ad in the newspaper asking for certified psychopaths to contact Marty. In exchange for their stories, he might make them famous in the movie. Meantime Billy is working a side job with Hans (Christopher Walken), stealing dogs only to “rescue” them for the reward money. The scheme puts all of them in contact with Charlie (Woody Harrelson), a sensitive psychopath who cries at the thought of his lost dog, but doesn’t mind killing people to get it returned.
As you might imagine from a movie titled “Seven Psychopaths,” there is a great deal of antisocial behavior on display. It’s occasionally gruesome—heads are detached from their bodies, throats are cut—but it is the performance style that you’ll notice. Rockwell has rarely been this twitchy, but it mostly works, and Farrell and Harrelson bring considerable charisma to their roles, but it is Walken who is memorable.
Everybody loves Walken, and there’s no denying he fills the screen, but his idiosyncratic vocal mannerisms are so exaggerated here it’s almost as if you are watching someone do an impression of the actor, rather than the real thing. He’s entertaining, but his performance here is just inches away from self-parody.
In a way that’s appropriate for a film that is so inward looking. McDonagh has taken all the bits and pieces of thriller and turned them on their heads. Early on Marty says he doesn’t want his screenplay to be “about guys with guns in their hands,” sending an indication that the film-idea-within-the-film may be telegraphing the action (or lack thereof) that we’re about to see.
The film subverts its own story to make ironic comments on the collaborative nature of filmmaking when not all the creative agree on the story’s direction, plot structure and role of women in action movies, (“You can’t let the animals die in movies, just the women.”). It almost works except that the cleverness of the idea—making an anti-movie—feels a bit labored in the final third of the film.
“Seven Psychopaths” gets lost in its own idea, but only temporarily. What’s left is solid fun.
Based on Stewart O’Nan’s 1994 novel of the same name, it is the tragic story of loss of innocence in a small town. It’s the kind of movie that can be difficult, but rewarding to sit through.
Structured like a film noir Snow Angels begins in the present before jumping backwards in time to show us the events that lead up to the two mysterious gunshots that kick off the movie. We meet Annie Marchand (Kate Beckinsale), a single mom and waitress in a Chinese restaurant. She is recently separated from her high school sweetheart, Glenn (Sam Rockwell), a recovering alcoholic and born-again Christian who has trouble holding down a job, but is desperately trying to change his ways to earn back the right to spend time with their four-year-old daughter Tara (Grace Hudson).
Working with Annie at the restaurant is busboy Arthur Parkinson (Michael Angarano), a shy boy dealing with his parent’s recent separation. His life changes for the better when he meets Lila (Olivia Thirlby), a charmingly offbeat girl who brings him out of his shell.
Inevitably these storylines mesh in heartbreaking ways, brought together by Annie’s affair with Nate Petite (Nicky Katt), the husband of her hard-edged co-worker Barb (Amy Sedaris).
Director David Gordon Green does a fine job of balancing the stories, skillfully weaving Arthur’s coming-of-age story throughout the considerably more morose story of Annie’s sordid life, but make no mistake there are few bright spots here. The story is almost unrelentingly tragic but Green and his cast keep things compelling by creating believable, convincing characters.
At the top of the heap is Sam Rockwell’s take on the troubled Glenn. One of the best and most underrated actors working today, Rockwell brings a tangible sense of despair to his character. He presents Glenn as someone who recognizes his shortcomings, but is almost incapable of straightening up, no matter how hard he tries. He’s by times charming and funny, by times dangerous and unhinged, but never less than interesting.
Kate Beckinsale also impresses. Best known for her leather clad vampire “Death Dealer” character from the silly Underworld movies, she proves there is more to her than the tight sweaters and the high wire action of her best known franchise. Her Annie is a quietly desperate character, a woman whose life has become frayed at the edges and the struggle to maintain normalcy for herself and her daughter is wearing her down. Beckinsale does a nice job at identifying Annie’s world weariness while putting on a brave face to those around her.
The misfortune in Snow Angels breathes the same air as the family heartbreak of The Sweet Hereafter in that they are both riveting slice-of-life dramas that examine the effects of tragedy on life in small communities. It isn’t easy viewing but its taut and uncompromising look at the dark side of relationships turned sour and great performances make Snow Angels worth a look.
In the movies there are as many was to come of age as there are kids to mature into adulthood. Teen wizards fight dark lords, young rock writers have their heart broken by sad groupies, Parisian boys turn to crime and a girl named Baby does “The Lift” with a camp dance teacher.
“The Way, Way Back,” a new comedy starring Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell and Canadian actor Liam James, sets the story in a beach resort where a kid is trapped in a world of adults. It doesn’t add anything new to the coming-of-age genre, but what it does, it does really well.
Duncan (James) would rather spend the summer break with his father in California, but instead is headed to a New England beach town with his mom Pam (Toni Collette), her boyfriend Trent (Carell) and his daughter (Zoe Levin). The place is “like Spring Break for adults,” which doesn’t leave much room for Duncan to enjoy himself.
He’s an introverted fourteen-year-old, who can’t stand Trent’s condescending attitude or the change in his mother when she is around him. The summer becomes bearable, however, when he meets Owen (Rockwell), the free-spirited owner of Water Wizz, a local water park.
“The Way, Way Back” has a number of characters best described as “quirky.” Movies like this frequently rely on an artificially created sense of eccentricity to mask weaknesses in the storytelling, but when the actors involved are as good as the cast here, a few kooky characters are welcome.
Surprisingly Carell gives one of the least quirky performances of his career. As Trent he is cold and controlling, the kind of guy who treats Duncan like an add-on to his relationship. He calls the boy “Buddy.” as if he can’t remember his name, and after every pronouncement says, “Am I right?” It’s a quiet, nicely realized villainous performance that will help erase the image of nice-guy Michael Scott from viewer’s minds.
Collette also does solid, down-to-earth work alongside Amanda Peet and Rob Corddry as he loud, goodtime neighbors, and AnnaSophia Robb as the cute, sensitive girl next door.
Liam James also does a nice job as a teen who admits, “There’s not much for me at home,” and takes the initiative to make his life better.
The performances you will remember when you leave the theatre, however, belong to Allison Janney and Rockwell.
Janney, as the drunk, tag-along neighbor storms into the movie like a wild sea squall.
“I’m drinking again,” she announces. “Accept it and move on.”
It’s a big performance that requires her to deliver lines like, “That’s exactly the kind of bathing suit that got me pregnant the first time,” and while she is a caricature of the loud mouthed person you never want to sit next to at the regatta, she is expert in her delivery.
As man-child Owen, Rockwell is a fast-talking loser who has probably watched “Animal House” one too many times. Prone to doling out Bueller-esque life lessons like “Go your own way” and “Don’t die wondering,” he provides some real heart and becomes a satisfying component of the movie’s would-be father and son story.
Less nuanced is Louis (Jim Rash) who mans the bathing suit rental booth at the park. He’s quirky for quirk’s sake, but Rash is a master of the deadpan, and it works.
“The Way, Way Back” is more than just another study of awkward teen behavior. It’s a sweet movie with genuine laughs and despite the occasional bigger than life performances, is remarkably down to earth.
At their best movies can transport the viewer to new worlds populated by different and interesting characters. A truly successful movie is an immersive experience that envelopes the onlooker for ninety minutes or so. Choke is successful in the sense that it creates a new world that not many viewers will be familiar with, I’m just not too sure how many theatre goers will want to visit the twisted universe of Victor Mancini, a sex addicted med school drop-out and self described evil schemer who fakes choking to death in restaurants.
Mancini (Sam Rockwell) is a sex addict, con man and colonial theme park historical re-enactor trying to support his Alzheimer’s-afflicted mother’s (Angelica Huston) treatment in a constant care facility.
She’s the very definition of a bad mother, but he desperately wants to keep her from moving to the dreaded “second floor” of the nursing home. To raise money for her care he fakes choking in fashionable restaurants and then bilks the people who come to his rescue out of money. When he’s not conning people or trolling sex addicts anonymous meetings for willing sex partners he’s at the nursing home trying to put the moves on his mom’s pretty attending physician Paige Marshall (Kelly Macdonald). When Marshall uncovers a secret about his past he must get the real story form his mother before it’s too late.
Mancini is played to greasy perfection by Sam Rockwell, an actor of considerable talent who brings just the right amount of self-loathing to balance off the character’s tongue-in-cheek comedy. He’s able to turn from the dramatic to comedic on a dime, providing an anchor for the movie’s offbeat sensibility and tone. We have to believe that this self centered lounge lizard has the capability to scrape away the filth of his everyday life and realize that his life will never improve until he is able to love someone other than himself. For the most part Rockwell convinces us that Victor isn’t simply a dysfunctional horndog but the revelation comes long after the audience has stopped caring about his redemption.
Choke is based on a book by Fight Club writer Chuck Palahniuk and features his usual marginalized lead character and self-destructive aggressiveness, but where the book was able to use literary devices to explain Victor’s compulsive behavior and abandonment issues the film relies on tiresome flashbacks that wear out their welcome early on. On the plus side it does maintain Palahniuk’s deliciously dark sense of humor and by the end reveal a bit of unexpected heart.
Choke will likely disappoint Palahniuk fans who might expect the intense fist-in-your-face power of Fight Club, but they can rest assured that the author’s deviant storytelling has been left pretty much intact, topped off with a great performance from Sam Rockwell. He’s an actor who deserves to be better known and while I doubt Choke will do much to increase his profile, his performance is outstanding.
