Movie Nation

Some movies are built for mass appeal, and some aim smaller, “festival films” they’re called.
“Frank” feels like a “festival film” aimed squarely at one festival, the one that is the setting of its third act. Here’s an eccentric tragicomedy, with music, built to play like gangbusters at Austin’s South by Southwest music-movie fanboy/fangirl festival.
The title character is a singer/songwriter who performs and lives his entire life wearing a gigantic plastic head over his skull. The fact that the great Michael Fassbender is the talking, fuming, rambling and singing man-behind-the-mask makes this wildly improbable film all the more intriguing.
Domnhall Gleeson is Jon, an office drone and aspiring songwriter whose banal observations of life-observed, set to music, aren’t getting him anywhere. And then, as he’s watching this keyboard player go mad and try to drown himself in the Irish Sea, opportunity knocks. Don (Scoot McNairy), the manager of the band (called Soronprfbs), asks Jon to fill in.
Their music is madness incarnate — wild trills of guitar, drums, synthesizer and theremin. Frank, his mask containing a built-in microphone, croons on about “screeching frequencies of pulsing infinity.” The women in the group (Maggie Gyllenhaal, Carla Azar) are protective of Frank, and enraged at the universe. Carla (Gyllenhaal) is violently toxic and takes an instant loathing to Jon.
“You are fingers being told which keys to push,” she hisses, dismissively.
But Frank appreciates Jon’s unflappable nature and his seemingly incompetent songwriting. Jon could be the missing ingredient as they go “all the way out there,” to “the furthest corners” of music, and remote Ireland, where they endlessly rehearse for an album Frank is never ready to put on tape.
Jon’s in,but he’s got a lot of questions. Who IS Frank? Does he ever take the mask off? (No.). Is he mad?
“Jon, you’re just going to have to go with this,” Don says. Frank, he assures Jon, is the “100 percent sanest cat I’ve ever met.”
It’s where Don and Frank met that’s the key to this jarring jewel of weirdness.
The “real” Frank was this British comic named Chris Sievey, who wore an identical head for a character he played named Frank Sidebottom. Add in a band that summons up memories of Devo, The Residents, Captain Beefheart and others off the sonic beaten path, and you’ve got a story not unlike a hundred “band trying to make it” tales, with more than a whiff of insanity about it.
Gleeson, son of Irish actor Brendan and star of the warm “About Time” in his own right, is well-cast as the innocent trying to hold his own with the cranky weirdoes he tossed his lot with. Gyllenhaal is on-the-nose alarming as the scary Clara.
And Fassbender, his face hidden in a mask, singing and charming when Frank isn’t off-the-rails despairing and naive even in his sanest moments, is a hidden delight. He makes Frank both a puzzle at the center of the picture and the heart of its humor. Frank has to either get his emotions across with his speaking or singing voice, or give you a hint of what his face is doing inside that mask.
“Underneath, I’m giving you a welcoming smile.”
And that “welcoming smile” goes not just for Frank, the character, but this puzzling, beguiling comedy of the same name.
　
MPAA Rating: R for language and some sexual content
Cast: Domhnall Gleeson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Fassbender
Credits: Directed by Lenny Abramson, written by Jon Ronson and Peter Straughan. A Magnolia release.
Running time

Mixed Sundance notices for the film, but not for K-Stew. Put a girl in uniform…

A Big Saturday followed a very big Friday and those poorly-reviewed, weakly Cinema-scored (film fans are walking out of it less than thrilled) “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” look to pocket $64 65million or so, when all the Cowabungas are counted Sunday night. That’s a shock.

And while is ensures that a limp summer at the box office is finishing with a bang, it kind of buries “Guardians of the Galaxy,” which fell off to a $42 million or so second weekend.

“Into the Storm,” with even worse reviews than “Turtles,” exceeded expectations and will pull in about $18 million.

“The Hundred Foot Journey” improved enough Friday-Saturday to now sit at $11 million+, a bit better than expected. Pity that audience didn’t go see “Get On Up,” as the very good James Brown bio pic fell off 63% from its opening and got passed by a pitiable “Step Up” installment. Kids these days.

“Guardians” should clear $200 million by next weekend, where it will join “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” in that exclusive club. “Apes” should clear that mark by Tuesday or Wed.

Further down the charts, audiences have given up on Woody Allen’s latest, “Boyhood” seems to have peaked and NOBODY went to James Cameron’s 3D science project in the deep blue sea.

Those steroid-juiced “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” may not be very teenaged this time around, but that isn’t stopping them from exceeding expectations on opening weekend. Based on Thursday night-all day Friday numbers, they could top $58 million this weekend, justifying Michael Bay’s involvement in this $150 million reboot.

That means they’ll best “Guardians of the Galaxy” by a sizable margin. The Marvel marvel, which threatened to rescue the summer all by itself last weekend, has fallen off sharply in its second week and looks to earn $40-42 million, right in line with projections.

The critically derided “Into the Storm” is doing $17 million or so,, right where it was widely predicted to fall.

And “The Hundred Foot Journey” will manage a paltry $10 million. Middling reviews won’t help it, and it typically takes the audience it is aiming for — older —  to get around to seeing it.

It’s the second weekend of release for the blockbuster “Guardians of the Galaxy.” And it’s the opening weekend for the $150 million (rumored) Michael Bay produced “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” reboot.

Will it be a close race at the box office? “Turtles” got terrible reviews, overall. It’s on fewer screens. But if everybody got to see “Guardians” this past week, we could see a dead heat.

Box Office Mojo thinks “Turtles” will do $42 million, which seems a bit high to me. Low end of high expectations, parents who grew up with the turtles taking their kids, etc. That should put it right at or just behind “Guardians,” which could do $42-50 this weekend.

I’m more in line with the Box Office Guru, who figures if Ninja’s take home $36 million, they and we will be lucky. That hardly justifies doing any more of these overly violent kid pictures.

Nobody believes “Into the Storm” will do more than $17 (Guru). And nobody is thinking that the latest “Step Up” movie will do more than $10 (Mojo).

Indifferent reviews have to have hurt the Oprah and Spielberg produced/endorsed “Hundred Foot Journey.” An older audience will find this one, but it will take a few weeks. $8 million opening? Seems about right.

Eddy, played by Misha Gabriel Hamilton from the last “Step Up” movie, turns to Sean (Ryan Guzman, star of the latest film, and asks the question that’s already on our minds just ten minutes into “Step Up All In (3D).”

“What are we still DOING here?”

Five films and eight years into the unlikeliest of film franchises, a series that has changed characters, changed locations and changed studios, with none of the movies anywhere near being a blockbuster, you really do wonder why every so often — usually in the dog days of summer — “Step Up” returns.

“All In” takes us back to Los Angeles — Miami was the invigorating setting for 2012’s “Step Up: Revolution.” There’s continuity to the story in the form of characters from several earlier installments. But “story” is used loosely here, and the best that can be said for “Step V” is that it has some sparkling moments of choreography, clever gimmicks as themes for the dance-offs and lovely costumes.

And that it’s very best sequence happens under the opening credits. That’s where Sean, Eddy and Twitch (Stephen Boss) of the last film’s Miami MOB are comically humiliated through a string of L.A. auditions for commercials in which clueless casting folk put them in one ridiculous costume and situation after another.

That’s what prompts Eddy to ask, after three years of effort, why they’re still struggling for this elusive, low-paying, short-lived dream. It’s that “Chorus Line” sentiment and it’s as deep as “Step Up” movies get. So most of The MOB de-mobs back to Miami.

But Sean spies this VH-1 promo for “The Vortex,” a Vegas dance-off to be hosted by Lady Gaga-style pop star Alexxa Brava (Izabella Miko, deliciously vampy). In the film’s second best bit, Sean and our old friend Moose (Adam Sevani) piece together a crew, which includes twins, a killer Robot the comically shrill Kido (Mari Koda) and the husky-voiced Annie (Briana Evigan) from earlier “Step Up” installments.

They’re all working at odd jobs, the way dancers and actors do. And to a one, they walk off those jobs for “one last shot.” Because that’s what dancers do.

There’s a tepid new villain (Stephen Stevo Jones) and, in Vegas, another place for “Step Up” to step off to. But everything else is at it ever was.

“Does this ALWAYS have to end up in big dance battle?”

It does.

There’s always a half-hearted love story, always a series of elaborate, impossibly expensive set pieces and always a big lip-lock at the final curtain.

Christopher Scott’s choreography sparkles and Trish Sie’s direction captures it, with hats, squirt bottle blasts of water and the like flying off the 3D screen. But the writing is poor and the acting uneven, at best. Our leading man is so unconvincing he could have starred in “Into the Storm.”

So Moose’s Old World grandfather provides the short review here, a man who refers to the trials of life as “sheep poop.” And in life, sheep poop and “Step Up” movies, “Sometimes you just have to shovel through it.”

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some language and suggestive material

Cast: Ryan Guzman, Briana Evigan, Adam Sevani, Mari Koda, Stephen Stevo Jones,Izabella Miko

Credits: Directed by Trish Sie, screenplay by John Swetnam. A Liongstate release.

Running time: 1:51

“Into the Storm” is as close to a real tornado as most of us would ever want to get. Its effects are so spectacular that it makes “Twister” look like “The Wizard of Oz.” You wonder, as immersive as all those objects flying off the screen are, why they didn’t film it in 3D. Secretly, you’re grateful they didn’t.
But as impressive as the effects can be, as effective as the blend of TV news helicopter POV shots, security camera footage, cell-phone video and storm chaser images mimicked here turn out, the human stories are given short shrift in this “spend our budget on effects” action picture.
Late in the season, “Tornado Alley” storm chaser Pete (Matt Walsh) hasn’t scored the money shot. He’s a freelancer with the backing to get the image nobody else has — the “eye” of the tornado, shots from inside the vortex. He’s got a hired gun meteorologist, Allison (Sarah Wayne Callies), “Titus,” a veritable tank of a chase vehicle, some young videographers and backers about to pull the plug on this venture if he doesn’t produce.
“We got nothing you can’t get on Youtube,” he gripes, blaming Allison’s forecasts for their woes.
That last big system whipping across Oklahoma,is their chance. Everybody else is headed towards one town, Allison insists the REAL action will be in Silverton.
Where it’s graduation day at Silverton High, and widowed vice principal Gary (Richard Armitage) is hoping they can hold the ceremony outdoors, and that his rebellious sons — Donnie and Trey (Max Deacon, Nathan Kress) — will video it, along with scores of testimonials for a “video time capsule.”
Donnie (Deacon) gets distracted by a girl (Alycia Debnam Carey) who needs to videotape an abandoned factory that’s a waste dump for her internship, so he’s a no-show. But the super cell isn’t.
The twister hits and we’re sucked into that school with it. But the realism of this gripping school-under-assault scene isn’t the first grabber moment. That comes in the opening credits — teens caught — in a car, obsessed with cell-phone recording the tornado that swooped down on them the previous night. If “Into the Storm” has a theme, it’s that. We’ve become a nation of gawkers, cultists forever holding our phones up to whatever dangerous, tragic or comic disaster is unfolding in front of us.
Drunken rednecks Donk and Reevis (Kyle Davis, Jon Reep) are exemplars of this — beer swillers with cell phones out imitating those guys glorified by The Weather Channel, The Discovery Channel and others.
“I’m in a TORNADO! I’m in a Tornado!”
But Pete is just a better-financed, more mercenary version of them. He’s also taking stupid risks more for glory and video fame than science.
Where “Into the Storm” makes you appreciate 1996’s “Twister” is in the ways the new film makes the victims mostly anonymous, even if their deaths are spectacular. There’s a reason movies are cast with movie stars, and with every under-reaction to something this character or that one has never seen before, performances that lack urgency, panic or even awe, you see “Into the Storm” fail.
Movie stars have not just acting chops and screen presence, but that ineffable spark that creates instant empathy. Director Steven “Final Destination 5” Quale never gives his cast of cable TV unknowns the chance to achieve that empathy except very late in the picture. That’s also, belatedly, when a “ticking clock” kicks in and we start to fear for characters’ lives.
The “America’s Funniest Home Video” jokes are weak, foreshadowing is ignored, tamping down the dread the viewer should feel, and everything is just an elaborate set-up for the next “touchdown.”
That’s when the characters do what the audience does — gawk, in shock and something like awe. In a disaster picture, that only gets you so far.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sequences of intense destruction and peril, and language including some sexual references
Cast: Richard Armitage, Sarah Wayne Callies, Matt Walsh, Alycia Debnam Carey, Max Deacon
Credits: Directed by Steven Quale, screenplay by John Swetnam. A Warner Brothers/New Line release.
Running time: 1:29