Movie Nation

China’s most publicized, and maybe only Indie Film Festival, now in its 11th year, has been shuttered by the authorities. “Independent” is a word that frightens totalitarians, and according to the AP, this is not the first time they’ve gone after this festival. They’ve zeroed in on the organizers and they’re plainly at risk of arrest if they defy the State and try to show films that aren’t Communist Party approved.

With Hollywood tacking towards the Pacific Rim as its next growth market, pandering to China in the occasional big action picture (“Transformers 4”, for instance), ridding itself of overtly Chinese villains in all films, another move like this would give, you’d figure, the industry pause. If it was concerned about anything other than the bottom line, they’d realize how much aiding and abetting a Police State will make the cinema look, in the long haul.

Instead, another generation of Russian villains, oligarchs and megalomaniacs, as well as the usual Jihadists and the like which don’t reflect the True Evil Empire du jour.

The professional box office prognosticators figured the girl-friendly YA novel adaptation “If I Stay” would open well, north of $20 million at least. And that “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For” was too far removed from the original film would be lucky to clear $15.

I figured, based on the web traffic to my reviews, that “Sin City” had higher interest than that. Of course, the fact that my review, like most, was lukewarm, may have impacted a weak weaker weakest Friday for the new Robert Rodriguez film. It may not reach $10 million.

That puts it behind an under-performing “If I Stay,” ($18/19 or so) a fading “Ninja Turtles,” and…”Guardians of the Galaxy,” finally back in first after trailing those mutant teen ninjas for a few weeks. “If I Stay,” according to fan tracking, is doing a better job of pleasing its faithful. Not a bad movie, nothing epic either. Maybe $19?

Perhaps it will rally, but “Sin City” looks to lose to the middling faith-based football drama “When the Game Stands Tall,” which has that church-based marketing thing going for it and should sell $10 million worth of tickets. It’s the only new release to actually meet expectations this weekend.

Truthfully, none of the movies opening this weekend is “Let’s Be Cops” or “Into the Storm” awful.

But the tomatometer was most ruthless about “Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner’s overambitious dysfunction and drug abuse comedy “Are You Here?” It’s rating there and on metacritic suggest real consensus, which is fair. I was an outlier. I still find Owen Wilson funny, and Weiner loads him, Amy Poehler and Zach Galifianakis with quick, clever lines. But Wilson is in that can-do-no-right stage of his career, and there it is. 6% on the tomatomater, one of those positive reviews being mind.

“Sin City: A Dame to Kill For” is so much like the first film, from a decade ago, that the reviews reflect fatigue with the graphic novel look and Frank Miller gore and sex. It’s recycled. Gorgeous, clever at times, but been there, seen it.

Then there’s a half-decent doomed teen romance weeper, “If I Stay,” the first film in which Chloe Grace Moretz seems to act on shaky ground. Dating? Love? Awkward. At least she got that and the cello playing right. Decent film adaptation of a popular YA novel, in any event. Weak reviews for that one.

The box office predictions are that “If I Stay” will eat “Sin City” for breakfast. Based on web traffic for my reviews of both films, I think “Sin City” has a chance to do much better than the mid-teens Box Office Mojo predicts or low teens that  Box Office Guru says will be taken in by midnight Sunday. “If I Stay” should clear $20, I think “Sin City” will better that.

“When the Game Stands Tall” soft-sells its faith-based message. This true story of a dominant football team whose Catholic private school character is tested by tragedy and its first losses in a decade is saddled to the stone-faced Jim Caviezel, and suffers for it. Not an awful film, just “Friday Night Lite.”

“When the Game Stands Tall” has been marketed to death among the faithful — many giveaway screenings among church and high school football groups. It’s only predicted to make $9 million. It is on a lot of screens and this audience is pretty forgiving. Maybe it’ll do better.

The best movie opening this weekend is in limited release. “To Be Takei” is a pretty thorough look at how George Takei came to be maybe the biggest winner among the “Star Trek” cast when it comes to his influence on the world. Funny, sweet, touching and blunt. Man, Takei really hates that Bill Shatner.

“Madagascar: Island of Lemurs” is a short IMAX 3D film that is flat out stunning to look at. It goes into wider release this weekend. Maybe wait for that one to show up at your local science center unless you’re starved for something to take the kids to this weekend.

Nauseating, disgusting, vile and vulgar, that much is obvious about “Septic Man” before the opening credits are done.
A horror story/survival tale set in sewers awash in condoms and corpses, this sets itself up as a monster comedy in the “Toxic Avenger” mold, for those who remember their ancient film history. But the screenplay produces little humor and makes less sense the further it progresses, even as it is assaulting our senses with every manner of vomiting known to man.
Collingwood is a town forced to evacuate due to its toxic soup of a water supply. Typhus, e.coli, dysentery — too many locals are coming to a bloody end in the loo. Since nobody there knows what to do “a-BOOT” it, we can assume they’re Canadians and we can understand why they’d flee.
Jack (Jason David Brown) is a local “civic minded” septic man with a high tolerance for the work, so he’s the guy the mysterious Prosser (Julian Richings) bribes to stay behind, go through the city’s sewers and figure out the source of the contagion.
Jack packs his pregnant wife (Molly Dunsworth) off and sets out, alone, through the massive plant, where he is promptly injured and trapped in a dank, underground tank. There are people who might help him, but they (Robert Maillet, Tim Burd) don’t seem human. Lacking even a cell phone, Jack must methodically go through the blueprints of the place, crawl down pipes and try to find a way to freedom, or negotiate an escape with the sewer dwellers before the sewage turns him into something less than human himself.
The Tony Burgess script is idiotically vague about what is the source of the contagion, and Jesse Thomas Cook directs this dawdling 83 minute movie as if he’s more interested in The Gore Brothers’ makeup work and his star’s production design.
That’s right. On tiny budget indie films, everybody does double duty, none odder than Jason David Brown’s leading man/production designer credits. Of the two, it’s the convincing, revolting city plumbing that’s more impressive.
Richings plays Mr. Prosser as a hissing, quietly villainous Bill Nighy impersonation. Veteran character player Stephen McHattie (“A History of Violence,””Seinfeld”) is the mayor, seen only on TV.
The title was right, but the premise needed tweaking. The picture lacks a sense of urgency, and a palpable villain. The filmmakers needed to re-watch “Toxic Avenger” before locking down the script.

MPAA Rating: R for disturbing vile and gruesome images, violence and language
Cast: Jason David Brown, Molly Dunsworth, Robert Maillet, Julian Richings, Stephen McHattie
Credits: Directed by Jesse Thomas Cook, written by Tony Burgess. A Starz Digital Media release.
Running time: 1:23

In case you missed it, it’s George Takei’s America. We’re just living in it. And getting his autograph.

The man owns the Internet, through his wry Facebook memes and comical commentary on issues from gay rights to sci-fi omnipresence.

On film and his many TV guest appearances, he’s a brand — the booming voice, the winking gay self-awareness, the disarming ready laugh that he unleashes on fans and critics alike.

Long closeted himself, he made his “coming out” a party, and all of America was invited. Even his nemesis, William Shatner.

And with every baritone “Ohhh myyyyy,” he taught the world that “It’s OK to Be Takei!”

“To Be Takei” captures this droll 77 year-old as he is now, living the lie that F. Scott Fitzgerald promoted, that “there are no second acts in American lives.” Takei, actor turned gay Japanese-American icon, has never been more hip, more in demand and more beloved than he is right this minute.

Jennifer M. Kroot’s documentary follows Takei and his longtime companion-turned-husband Brad, as they bounce from convention to speaking engagement, nature walk to TV and radio interviews.

He sings his favorite song as a child who lived through the World War II internment of Japanese-Americans who were rounded up because of fears they’d be disloyal, “Don’t Fence Me In.” And he prepares for a starring role in a stage musical about that tragedy, “Allegiance,” a guy whose husband admits, with some worry, “is not much of a singer” hoping for a shot at Broadway.

Kroot captures Takei’s perfectly-rehearsed and from-the-heart speeches about those years, uprooted from Los Angeles to Arkansas with his family, people who had everything taken from them and had to start over in a still-racist country after World War II ended.

“You determine your destiny,” he booms. “I don’t BELIEVE in negativity!”

That’s what preserved him during those early years, and the decades after he realized he wasn’t “normal” in his sexual orientation, decades in which he had to start his acting career playing stereotypes.

Then he landed “Star Trek,” and generations of Asian-Americans had a role model and he, typecast or not, had a career. And a comical nemesis, in William Shatner, the vain camera hog who starred in the show and lorded it over Takei, then and now.

The most interesting elements of “To Be Takei” are his moving accounts of those years of internment (he was very young), years remembered by other public figures (Norman Mineta, Sen. Daniel Inouye) who went through it and the political activism that Takei made into his post-“Star Trek” career.

“To Be Takei” is framed within a long Howard Stern Show interview, rightly placing Takei’s rise to his many appearances on the no-holds-barred shock jock’s radio show. That’s where “Oh MY” was born, where Takei hilariously insisted, for years, that he was heterosexual and where he had a home when he finally came out of the closet, outraged by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s veto of California’s first gay marriage bill.

Takei corrects one and all, including husband Brad, on gay semantics. “It’s NOT a lifestyle, it’s an orientation.” He might debate gay rights on TV, but rarely loses his cool. He might be mobbed by fanboys and girls at conventions, but he is ever-smiling, ever-indulgent.

It’s a fun story, and yes, an inspiring one, a biographical documentary that will make you grin and think, “ONLY in America,” even if his catchphrase, “Oh Myyyyy” is what you say out loud.

MPAA Rating: unrated, adult subject matter

Cast: George Takei, Brad Takei, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, John Cho, B.D. Wong, Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig

Credits: Written and directed by Jennifer M. Kroot. A Starz Digital Media release.

Running time: 1:34

“When the Game Stands Tall” is a solid if unsurprising and uninspiring melodrama built around high school football, faith-based but “Friday Night Lite.”
It’s the latest of that peculiar sub genre of sports films, where filmmakers bend over backwards to make a perennial powerhouse football factory look like an underdog. These stories, about a Permian High in Texas (“Friday Night Lights”) or T.C. Williams in Virginia (“Remember the Titans”) look at status as a burden, and claim to be about “more than a game,” even as they build towards their by-the-book “Big Game” finale.
“When the Game” varies the formula by being faith-based, about a pious coach (Jim Caviezel) who talks about building character as much as he worries about blocking schemes.
Coach Bob Ladouceur lectures his De La Salle Spartans about “love,” setting high standards, making “a perfect effort, from the snap to the whistle” on each play. They share “commitment cards,” pledging the extra strength training, the extra practice and high goals they want to achieve as a team.
They stand up at the end of team meetings and talk about their feelings. They hold each other accountable, and hold hands, symbolically, as they enter the field. Something worked, because this Concord, California school won 151 games in a row at one point.
“When the Game Stands Tall” is about the tests they face when that streak is broken.
The melodramatic stuff in this “true story” involves players dedicating games to this dying granddad or that sickly mother, the seniors who have to decide whether to stick together and attend the same college, or find their own way out of Richmond, California. As with most football factories, a rich community’s public school is an irresistible lure to top athletes from poorer communities nearby.
Coach, quietly obsessed with “The Streak,” has a heart attack. No matter how many time he says “It’s just a high school football game,” we don’t believe him.
His butter-fingered receiver son (Matthew Daddario) just needs a coach, and a dad. Tayshon (Jessie Usher) is the cocky, cynical underclassman reluctant to learn leadership from the seniors.
And then there’s the all-star running back (Alexander Ludwig) whose ex-jock dad (Clancy Brown, very good) is determined will set the career touchdown record.
Caviezel has become the Tim Tebow of American screen acting. Cloaked in Christianity, he’s been surrounded by success (“The Passion of the Christ”), but you wonder how much of that is a result of his talent. He rarely has a role that requires him to smile and his lines all have a stern authority about them. He’s “the hoarse whisperer.” That isn’t necessarily a wrong-headed way to play this coach, just a boring one.
Michael Chiklis makes more of an impression as a more openly passionate assistant coach who is on the same morality page with his religion-teacher head coach.
Director Thomas Carter, who did the Richmond, California high school hoops drama “Coach Carter,” covers many of the same bases here, but loses the thread and never really gets at the idea, pushed by Ladouceur’s wife, that he’s focused too much on the game and not on his family. Perhaps Carter was reluctant to give his acting Tebow the responsibility for the whole film.
There’s a big sin of omission in this faith-based film, too. It has to do with the strained efforts to make this school — this team — into plucky underdogs. De La Salle is a well-heeled private Catholic school, a rather important fact left out of the story.
And for all the naked manipulation of the music and the story that builds toward an only slightly unexpected climax, “When the Game Stands Tall” never delivers that lump in the throat that a “Rudy” or “We Are Marshall” or “Friday Night Lights” managed.
It’s as if everybody involved knows how less fulfilling it is to root for the favorites and not the underdogs. What’s inspiring about rooting for Florida State?

MPAA Rating: PG for thematic material, a scene of violence, and brief smoking.
Cast: Jim Caviezel, Alexander Ludwig, Laura Dern, Michael Chiklis, Jesse Usher
Credits: Directed by Thomas Carter, screenplay by Scott Marshall Smith. A Tristar release.
Running time: 1:55

“Sin City” is back in all its lurid, gory glory, a vivid and visceral graphic novel come to life in the capable hands of Robert Rodriguez and co-director and comic book creator Frank Miller.
If anything, it’s a more gorgeous experiment in green screen digital sets and black and white videography, complete with selective splashes of color — a green-eyed femme fatale’s lips here, a bloodied thug’s ugly mug there. The neon-and-shadows cityscape is stunning, with voluptuous nudes and startling plunges underwater.
But the characters in “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For” are mostly the same, the situations basically a rehash of the bullets, blood and beatdowns of the first film. And the hard-bitten dialogue is jokier and softer, lacking the sucker punch prose of the original.
A couple of characters we saw die in “Sin City” are back — Marv, the avenging angel thug played by Mickey Rourke, with-prosthetic jaw, brow and nose, and the last good cop, Hartigan, played by a fatalistic Bruce Willis. Prominent newcomers are Eva Green, showing off her Bond Babe bod in her birthday suit, luring men to their doom, Josh Brolin and Dennis Haysbert as two of those men, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is an unfortunately lucky gambler and Powers Boothe is a crooked Senator the gambler crosses.
Stacy Keach shows up in a full Jabba the Hutt blob mask, Juno Temple and Jaime King are fresh women of the night, Christopher Lloyd’s a demented mob doctor, Jeremy Piven and Christopher Meloni are ineffectual cops and Jessica Alba and Rosario Dawson return as bustier-and-fishnet clad tough broads with a stripper touch.
The gambler (Gordon-Levitt) woos a lady friend (Julia Garner) with his hardboiled patter.
“A city’s like a woman, or a casino. Somebody’s gonna win.”
Marv is still dealing in revenge-as-justice, execution style.
“I did what any good citizen would do.”
And private eye Dwight (Brolin) is spying on the likes of Ray Liotta and Temple, who plays his paramour.
“She glides out of her coat like it was Christmas wrapping.”
Rodriguez, who shot this and shares directing credit with Miller, films “A Dame to Kill For” in extreme close-ups, through lingering digital clouds of cigarette smoke, staging stylistically fake classic car chases — a Tucker Torpedo, a tail finned Caddy.
The violence is grisly — impalings and beheadings and eye-pluckings. And the sex is explicit. Women take a back seat in these movies, though Alba’s stripper bent on revenge gets to narrate part of it. Dawson and Green are the ones who’re frightening enough to hold their own with the tough guys.
“A Dame to Kill For” isn’t the shock to the system “Sin City” was. But whatever its plot repetition and warmed-over tough talk cost it, this is still a movie like few others you’ve ever seen, a 3D slice of Nihilistic noir that will have you narrating your own guts and guns story on the drive home, chewing on a toothpick as you do.

MPAA Rating: R for strong brutal stylized violence throughout, sexual content, nudity and brief drug use.

Cast: Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Josh Brolin, Eva Green, Rosario Dawson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Dennis Haysbert
Credits: Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller, written by Frank Miller and based on his graphic novels. A Dimension release.
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