Movie Nation

One is a newly-disgraced New York Times reporter desperately in search of a career-reviving scoop.
The other is a newly-captured accused murderer, a man who who has been on the lam using the Times reporter’s identity as he fled the country.
They’re roughly the same age, both opportunists and story tellers, each cynical enough to use the other. That’s only enriched by casting pals Jonah Hill and James Franco as the co-dependent couple, forcing each to not trust and maybe fear the other.
Equal parts sobering and chilling, “True Story” is about the ways journalists are willingly used to get the story. It is “Capote” with a commentary on journalistic ethics, but without the emotional heft.
Hill is Michael Finkel, whose high-flying career as a foreign correspondent is derailed when he conflates characters and events in a story on slavery in modern Africa. He retreats to Montana, to Jill (Felicity Jones), his indulgent but tough-minded significant other.
Then Christian Longo is captured in Mexico City. He was using Finkel’s name because he was on the run. He’s accused of killing his wife and children in Oregon. Finkel is intrigued, beguiled when he meets the quiet and charming Longo (Franco). Finkel still has an eye for the main chance, and this guy is gold. He’s a fan (thus, the assumed name). And he’s willing to talk. To Finkel.
“I can’t tell you what really happened,” the accused killer purrs. “I know what it’s like to avoid the truth.”
Indeed. They both have a feel for that.
Rupert Goold’s more-or-less-true film plays up Franco’s sweetly seductive side, and Hill’s dramatic gift for cold-bloodedness. Franco adds a touch of remoteness, and Hill a calculating undercurrent as these two spar over “the truth,” what the State might be able to prove and what Finkel might know that could turn the case, one way or the other.
The ways the crime is discussed, differing versions of reality, range from heart-breaking to puzzling. Finkel comes off as willing to use everyone — an enterprising local reporter (Ethan Suplee), Longo, law enforcement, even Jill — to get a book out of this tragedy.
But despite Franco’s best efforts, Goold’s film (he co-wrote the script) does a poor job of misdirecting us. The reporter/convict dynamic doesn’t have enough layers to carry the film without some hint of mystery. The relationship between the two, chilling as it is, never raises this “Story” from generic to profound.

MPAA Rating: R for language and some disturbing material

Cast: Jonah Hill, Josh Lucas, Felicity Jones

Credits: Directed by Rupert Goold, script by Goold and David Kajganich, based on Michael Finkel’s memoir. A Fox Searchlight release.

Running time: 1:40

“Monkey Kingdom,” Disneynature’s latest Earth Day offering, is an intriguing peek inside the social structure of Macaque monkey society in Sri Lanka.
So while it’s got plenty of cute Macaque monkeys, playing and cavorting, there’s also a little social commentary in the mirror the monkey movie holds up to us.
It’s about Maya, a young female trapped, by birth, among “the low born.” The alpha male and three testy red-faced queens, “the sisters,” get the dry sleeping quarters, the ripest figs in the top of the tree, first pick of the mushrooms and assorted other fruits that make up the diet of their tribe of 50.
Maya, as Tina Fey narrates, “gets the scraps. This is what it means to be last in line.”
When she has a baby by a displaced male looking for a community to join, her story becomes a single mom’s tale, protecting tiny Kip from a monitor lizard and other external dangers, and the cruelty of “the sisters” and an unjust social hierarchy.
Heavy stuff, not that the very young members of Generation ADHD will catch all of it.
But they may be bothered by the violence. Macaque cliques go at it, with their vampire fangs flashing and expressive eyebrows expressing rage in attacks designed to uproot Maya’s tribe from Castle Rock and the abandoned ancient Sri Lankan city that they call home.
“Monkey Kingdom” begins cloyingly, with frolicking set to “Hey Hey We’re the Monkees.” The arrival of Kumar, Maya’s monkey-love, prompts a cover of Salt-n-Peppa and En Vogue’s “Whatta Man.”
And even the violence and social commentary to come is leavened by comical food raids on humanity — a child’s birthday party is ruined, a town market is overwhelmed by wily, quick-witted and light-fingered Macaques.
But entertainment value and catering to their very young audience aside, “Chimpanzee” filmmakers Mark Linfield and Alastair Fothergill never stray far from the overarching mission of Disney’s noblest film endeavor — capturing natural worlds and animal behavior at its rawest. The gorgeous flora and fauna of Sri Lanka are well-represented, even as the monkey business ranges from cute to cutesy.

MPAA Rating: G

Cast: Narrated by Tina Fey
Credits: Written and directed by Mark Linfield, Alastair Fothergill. A Disneynature release.

Running time: 1:21

“Tangerines,” Estonia’s Oscar-nominee for best foreign language film this past year, is a parable of peace set during the Georgian civil war. That’s when Muslim Chechnya declared its independence from Christian Georgia just after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
It is “The Citrus War,” Ivo (Lembit Ulfsak) mutters. “They fight for the land where my tangerines grow.”
Ivo is Estonian, as is his neighbor and partner Margus (Elmo Nüganen). They haven’t fled the war because they have a bumper crop of fruit in their orchards. The elderly Ivo is building crates, Margus is picking away. And both are hoping to hire a few soldiers to get the tangerines picked and crated and sold off.
If only the fighting would let up. They’re removed from it, above it. Until a shootout leaves a wounded Muslim mercenary (Giorgi Nakashidze) and more badly-wounded Georgian (Misha Meskhi) stuck in Ivo’s remote farmhouse, recovering, threatening each other, just waiting for their health or their comrades to return so that they can finish things with each other.
Writer-director Zaza Urushadze maintains tension as we wait for the violence we know is coming. But his camera shares Ivo’s appreciation for the stark beauty of this Caucasian setting — fruit trees filled with huge tangerines, the foggy breath that says winter is coming to these rolling, greying hills. The actors are attired like the muddy roads, battered vehicles and guns of the bearded, unwashed and little-trained combatants.
Ahmed, the mercenary, prays and goads Niko. Niko, the Georgian, tries to get the tape back into a damaged cassette, a song from home. And Ivo, the foreigner, tries to keep the peace long enough to make his two bloodied patients see the senselessness of the war they’re fighting.
“Tangerines” is a simple tale, sharply drawn and smartly told, a portrait of a people, a place and a centuries-old conflict that this wise yet myopic citrus farmer cannot get his mind around any more than we can.

MPAA Rating: unrated, with graphic violence

Cast: Lembit Ulfsak, Elmo Nüganen, Giorgi Nakashidze, Misha Meskhi, Raivo Trass
Credits: Written and directed by Zaza Urushadze. A Samuel L. Goldwyn release.

Running time: 1:27

Those scowling, tattoo-faced and tongue-licking haka displays that New Zealand’s Maori people trot out for tourists and rugby fans are put to their original purpose in “The Dead Lands,” an unblinkingly fierce and bloody tale of slaughter and revenge.
Set around the time of first contact with the outside world, it’s about treachery that breaks a longstanding peace between two once-warring tribes.
Wirepa (Te Kohe Tuhaka) shows up with an armed party to visit the cave graves of his ancestors in “The Dead Lands,” territory looked-over and respected by another tribe. He visits, by himself, just so he can hurl skulls at rocks and provoke a confrontation.
But young Hongi (James Rolleston) witnesses the desecration. Even his father, the chief, cannot keep the peace. With this knowledge out there, Wirepa has to start the war himself, just to preserve his besmirched honor.
A massacre follows, Hongi is among the survivors, unjustly ashamed of his role in this. He flees into the haunted forests, seeking the guidance of his dead ancestors (Rena Owen) and the help of the demonic “monster” who guards the sacred ground.
Toa Fraser’s film pairs the kid up with the gigantic, aged “monster,” who seems more human and ill-tempered than supernatural. In an age when weapons were spears and clubs, the biggest and the fiercest must have seemed immortal.
Veteran Maori actor Lawrence Makoare makes this warrior a gruesomely amusing savage — pitiless in combat, dining on the flesh of fallen foes, trash-talking enemies to make them lose their focus.
“Make a joke about their mother,” he counsels (in Maori with English subtitles). “That usually works for me.”
The boy and the “monster” stalk the raiding party over mountain and through rainforest, fighting, bleeding, having visions and even running into a pretty good facsimile of Xena, the warrior princess (Raukura Turei, terrific).
The fights are grisly and personal, the boy’s journey to manhood uneven and the pauses many — too many for a story that screams out for a more breathless treatment, a tale that should be told at a sprint, not a saunter.
But those brutish visages in the fight scenes are even scarier when you know that the guy sticking his tongue out at you plans to bash your brains in, and not just tear a rugby ball out of your hands.

MPAA Rating:  R for brutal bloody violence

Cast: James Rolleston, Lawrence Makoare, Te Kohe Tuhaka, Raukura Turei, Rena Owen
Credits: Directed by Toa Fraser, written by Glenn Standring. A Magnet/Magnolia release.

Running time: 1:47

“The Squeeze” is a an old fashioned tale of gamblers, golfers, the good girl next door and the temptations of the easy life.
It’s so old-fashioned that you might think, for half an hour or more, that it’s a faith-based dramedy. Then the profanity is dialed up, the sexuality shows itself, the cheating steps center stage and the threat of violence looms. A morality tale, yes. Not a faith-based one.
But the plot and characters really do make you wonder if the writer-director has experienced the real world, and not just the world as seen in “The Sting” or “Tin Cup” or “The Flim-Flam Man.”
We meet Augie (Jeremy Sumpter of “Soul Surfer” and TV’s “Friday Night Lights”) as he and friends frolic through the small town they live in, playing a spirited game of early morning “cross country golf.” That’s one ball, one club, sprinting from a fixed spot in town to a finish at a hole on a local course — no holds barred.
Augie can do most anything with a golf club. Natalie (Jillian Murray) is pretty good at cross country golf, too, so long as she can just wear a sports bra — to distract the boys.
Augie goes on to win a local amateur tourney later that day, thanks to “hard work, belief in the Almighty and jaw-dropping talent,” he says. That gets the attention of a hustler who goes by the name “River Boat.”
Cute. Corny, but cute. Christopher MacDonald makes what he can of this walking anachronism, paired up with his sidekick, “The Bank” (Katherine LaNasa).
The kid is just the ticket for a few high stakes golf hustles River Boat has in mind.
Natalie isn’t impressed, but Augie needs money and before she can stop him, he “signs a deal with the devil.” And before she knows it, they’re off to Vegas.
“I’ve never been to Vegas.”
“You’ve never been to Hell, either!”
Since we’ve seen the hustler light-fingering a church collection plate, we’ve been set up for a light farce/morality tale. But writer-director Terry Jastrow never gets a grip on tone. “Squeeze” is never funny enough, MacDonald never quite cuts loose, never ever charms us (or Augie) in the manner of the classic flim flam man.
The fun promised by a “Screamin’ Jesus” high stakes golf match (anything goes, including screaming to distract your foe) is a promise unkept. Too little good will has been built up before The Heavy, Jimmy Diamonds (Michael Nouri) shows up and “The Big Match” sets up.
And the ending is such a far-fetched fiasco that you wonder why the veterans in the cast didn’t warn the director away from it.

MPAA Rating: unrated, with violence, profanity, alcohol abuse, adult situations

Cast: Jeremy Sumpter, Jillian Murray, Christopher MacDonald, Michael Nouri, Katherine LaNasa
Credits: Written and directed by Terry Jastrow. An Arc Entertainment release.

Running time: 1:35

Loved her in “An Education,” enjoyed her working class turn in “Drive,” testy folk scene diva dish in “Inside Llewyn Davis,” she didn’t let us down (much) in “Great Gatsby,” and she’s right at home in period attire in a new film of Thomas Hardy’s “Far From the Madding Crowd.”

Carey Mulligan has long been a personal favorite, and as Bathsheba Everdene, she is flinty and willful and ahead of her Victorian Times — plucky and pretty and not afraid to get her hands dirty.

She has “Suffragette” coming up, and I’m not up to date on the latest gossip about her. So there are plenty of places for suggested questions, should you have one. Comment below, and thanks for the help.

“Furious 7,” which could and should be the last “Fast/Furious” film — added as much as $60 million to its take on its second weekend, and is cleaning up in China and some other foreign markets. Deadline.com is saying $800 million so far. Ouch.

Sucks all the oxygen out of the April box office, with “Home,” the lone animated kids’ offering, holding down second place (It will clear $130 million Monday) and “The Longest Ride” the latest Nicholas Sparks adaptation opening at just over $13 million.

“Cinderella” may yet hit $200 million for Disney, and now stands at $180.

“Woman in Gold” added a LOT of theaters and climbed up the top ten, and “It Follows” lost a few and took a dive. “Gold” might yet stick around long enough to become a hit. It’s over $11–needs to clear $20-25 to calls its run a respectable one.

“While We’re Young” added theaters and cracked the top ten for the first time.