Movie Nation

I was finishing up an interview with “Control” and “The American” and “A Most Wanted Man” director Anton Corbijn, and we’d switched to just chatting about his current project, “Life,” a movie about a photographer for Life Magazine (Robert Pattinson) assigned to photograph the iconic American rebel (Dane DeHaan) at his 1955 peak. We both marveled than an actor dead for almost 60 years, with such a tiny filmography, is still a cornerstone of pop culture.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Corbijn says. “I was in Berlin yesterday, within ten minutes of walking around downtown, I met two people wearing James Dean t-shirts. I hadn’t noticed how much he’s still this icon — of fashion, cool, what have you.”

Yeah, I offer, “He’s like America’s Che Guevarra.”

“Exactly! All these kids have him on t-shirts and on the walls of their dormitories, and they don’t really know who he is. Just like Che.”

Zach Braff’s “Wish I Was Here” is a sweet and jokey feature film that is so
at home in the punchline rhythms of TV sitcoms that you may think to yourself,
“When’s his best friend/former “Scrubs” co-star Donald Faison showing up?”
And then he does.
It probably took a little work to invent a character and place for Faison in
this Jewish life/end-of-life dramedy. But it was a safe bet that Braff, who
co-wrote and directed his second feature (after 2004’s “Garden State”) and
financed it with the help of legions of fans through Kickstarter, would make
that “Scrubs” reunion work.
“Safe Bet” is a good way to view this genial, sensitive story of Aidan, a
father and failed actor (Braff) whose wife Sarah (Kate Hudson) supports the
family, something his own father, Abe (Mandy Patinkin) never lets him forget.
Much of what happens here is just R-rated versions of the sorts of life
moments/decisions that distinguished “Scrubs.”
Abe’s cancer comes back, and thirtysomething Aidan and his family, including
his washout brother (Josh Gad), have to wrestle with being faithless Angelinos
with no serious grasp of “Why we’re here” or “What’s it all about?”
Aidan’s kids are in Yeshiva School, where young teen Gracie (Joey King of
“White House Down” and TV’s “Fargo,” a marvel) has taken up the Faith of Her
Fathers with a vengeance. Her Hebrew is impressive, her devotion extends to her
monochromatic wardrobe. Younger brother Tucker (Pierce Gagnon) sleeps through
choir, totes a cordless power drill in his backpack and isn’t all that bummed
when the family suddenly is cut off from the funds that make their expensive,
judgemental all-Jewish school too expensive.
Aidan married a shiksa, so neither he nor wife Sarah are immersed in Judaism.
Their solution, since Aidan’s last acting job was in a dandruff commercial, is
that he’ll home school the kids. He thinks all he’ll need is an elbow-patch
corduroy jacket for that. Disaster waiting to happen.
Meanwhile, tough love Abe is slipping this mortal coil. Aidan can’t talk
brother Noah into even visiting the old man he hasn’t seen in a year, and at
every corner, the disapproving rabbis of the Yeshiva (wizened character actor
Alan Rich among them) tut tut Aidan’s career and the reversal of roles in their
household, where Sarah suffers through a sexist workplace just to keep their
cluttered house in their hands.
The parameters of “Wish I Was Here” fit pretty neatly within what could have
just been a “Scrubs” reunion — similar performances, same tone, similar jokes,
similar aphorisms.
“An epiphany is when you realize something you really needed to realize.”
“The things we left unsaid stay with us forever.”
The banter is snappy and quick, as when Gracie’s non-Jewish neighborhood
crush wonders why she had to drop out of private school.
“But I thought the Jews RAN Hollywood?”
“Me too! Maybe we’re in the wrong tribe.”
Like the year’s other big Kickstarter (fan funded) feature film, “Veronica
Mars,” “Wish I Was Here” takes the “safe bet” route, from its tone to its
fan-friendly pandering. Faison of “Scrubs” plays a sports car salesman that
Aidan and the kids hassle, there’s an inane Aidan as space-suited Skywalkerish
space hero fantasy sequence that returns, time and again. We visit Joshua Tree
for our “epiphany” and Comic-Con, where the nerdy brother finds himself, and
where the soundtrack makes this the second movie of the summer to mockingly use
Paul Simon’s “Obvious Child.” Because at Comic-Con, they’re all children.
Obviously.

If you liked “Scrubs,” and I did, for a few seasons, anyway, you’ll be happy
Braff got to make his movie and happy that you got to see it. Braff and Hudson
play an interesting story arc, and Hudson gives her all in the best role she’s
had in this millennium. But within minutes of the closing credits, you’ll wish
Braff had somewhere fresh to go with all those millions his fans donated to him
to direct his first feature in a decade.

MPAA Rating: R for language and some sexual content

Cast: Zach Braff, Kate Hudson, Mandy Patinkin, Josh Gad, Joey King

Credits: Directed by Zach Braff written by Adam Braff and Zach Braff. A Focus
Features release.
Running time: 1:40

Ian is a man of science. But he is still a man. And when a model-thin hottie with a strange accent comes on to him in a party, the nerdy guy whose “Can I take a picture of your eyes?” is no pick-up line, is smitten.
Ian, played by Michael Pitt of “Boardwalk Empire” and “Seven Psychopaths,” becomes obsessed. He has no name, no phone number. It was a costume party, so he never saw her face.
But he has that photo of her eyes — distinct, as well as her unique biometric identifier. Ian knows eyes. It’s what he studies. And when he spies her eyes on a billboard, he methodically sets out to track her down.
When he finally locks pupils on her on the subway “by accident,” she wordlessly acknowledges their connection. The stumbling, awkward man of science makes his best move. He shuffles to a romantic tune on his iPod, slides the headphones over her ears, and follows her off the train and into a whirlwind romance.
That would be a grand screen romance, all by itself. But it’s just the opening of “I Origins,” a moody, cerebral and very romantic mystery about love, chance, fate and science.
Sofi (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey) is passionate and spiritual. Dr. Ian Grey is all about the data. His work seeks final proof that the complex human eye developed through evolution, to “end the debate, once and for all,” with the Intelligent Design crowd. Sofi challenges that, as does his scientist’s eye for odd coincidences, random numbers that aren’t random.
His new research assistant, Karen (Brit Marling) is just as methodical, and she directs their hunt in a new direction. Meanwhile, Sofi moves in and argues that their love was fated, as if they’ve known each other before and will know and love one another again, forever and always, in different guises.
Writer-director Mike Cahill (“Another Earth”) sparingly doles out the hard plot points, deftly emphasizing mood and character as the man of science finds himself wondering if there’s more to this life than what he can grow in a petri dish.
A tragedy deepens the mystery and becomes a potentially world-altering challenge to Ian’s worldview. But to figure out if the eyes truly are “the windows to the soul,” you have to first believe in a soul. And Ian and lab-partner Karen aren’t having that.
Cahill sets up a great, sexy and mystical romance, with Bergès-Frisbey the very embodiment of exotic accented desire. Then he introduces the testy and testing Karen into the mix, a beautiful, brilliant student who is Ian’s subordinate but in many ways his superior.
Pitt makes Ian a colorfully complicated guy, a romantic, more hip than nerdy, never so puzzled that he stops trying to reason through every fact that flies in the face of what he expects the data to be.
Marling is carving out the most interesting niche of any actress working. After this film, following “Another Earth,” “Sound of My Voice,” “The East,” “The Company You Keep” and “Arbitrage,” she’s practically pigeon-holed herself as the smartest guy in the room. Not a bad place to be typecast — brainy, thoughtful and beautiful.
“I Origins” is a true indie film roller-coaster ride, from moon-eyed romance to aching heartbreak, cerebral puzzle to incredibly moving, emotional resolution to that puzzle.
In a season of the year where sci-fi is dumbed down and then dumbed some more for mass consumption, here’s a piece of speculative fiction that will stick with you long after the last Transformer’s battery has died.
　
MPAA Rating: R for some sexuality/nudity, and language
Cast: Michael Pitt, Brit Marling, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey
Credits: Written and directed by Mike Cahill. A Fox Searchlight release.
Running time: 1:50

　
“Happy Christmas” is a petite, lived-in character comedy of the Mumblecore school — just a group of chatty twentysomethings, drinking, growing beards and having the occasional bathroom hook-up as they think about growing up.
It’s the latest from writer-director-co/star Joe Swanberg (“Drinking Buddies,” “Hannah Takes the Stairs”). And the new arrow in his quiver is “parenthood.” “Happy Christmas” throws his character Jeff and Jeff’s wife Kelly (Melanie Lynskey) and their toddler up against the sort of people they used to be as his sister, Jenny (Anna Kendrick) comes to visit.
Opening scenes capture the intimacy of their couplehood — he’s in film production, she’s a novelist who has become a full-time mom. Baby Jude (Swanberg’s son, Jude) is like a special effect on this set — a natural, surprising and bubbly and cute, even in his pre-verbal state.
Then Jenny rolls in. She’s recently broken up with a guy. She’s staying with them as she decides whether or not to join them in Chicago. But Jenny has issues, and “Happy Christmas” is about the quiet, perfectly believable chaos she brings to their lives.
It starts the day she arrives. She immediately dashes out to a party with her pal Carson (Mumblecore vet Lena Dunham, star of “Girls”). That’s where she gets drunk, has sex in the bathroom and passes out in the bed of this stranger who was hosting the party. Jeff has to go fetch her. And Kelly, a bit on the prim and proper side (Lynskey, of TV’s “Two and a Half Men,” uses her natural New Zealand accent for this role) is understandably and understatedly put out. Jeff needs to give Jenny a talking to.
“The next time she does something like this,” he waffles. “Why WAIT for next time?”
They could use Jenny’s help baby-sitting, if they can ever trust her with the tyke. It would be nice if she cleaned up after herself, if she didn’t smoke pot in their basement. But Jenny being Jenny, “Pitch Perfect” and with all the charm the toothy Ms. Kendrick can give her, is the one who seems to change them — especially Kelly.
Jenny likes having Carson around, and they kind of gang up on passive Kelly about this whole child care arrangement and motherhood thing. Every scene has an improvised feel, a characteristic of the genre, and when Dunham and Kendrick start up, Lynskey’s proper mom picks up their profanity (F-bombs are contagious) and their idea that she can “have it all.”
“Having it all is a dangerous concept,” Kelly sighs. “It means I have to DO it all.”
None of the films of this broad “movement” of a couple of years ago — “The Puffy Chair,” “Baghead” etc. — is as aggressive as your typical Hollywood treatment of the same subject would be. “Happy Christmas,” which is set around Christmas, shares several plot and thematic points with “Neighbors,” but without the aggression or belly laughs.
Jenny, in her own destructive/self-destructive way, just stirs people up and hides her fears behind whatever substance or man happens to be handy.
Compact, well-acted, lightly amusing and warm, “Happy Christmas” shows real growth on Swanberg’s part and feels like his best, most adult film, if not quite as romantic and fun as last year’s “Drinking Buddies.”

MPAA Rating: R for language, drug use and some sexual content
Cast: Anna Kendrick, Melanie Lynskey, Joe Swanberg, Lena Dunham, Jude Swanberg
Credits: Written and directed by Joe Swanberg. A Magnolia release.
Running time:19

“Transformers” fell off 55% in its second weekend, not a bad “hold” as they say. So it cleared the $200 million mark this weekend.

It may catch “Maleficent (over $221 and counting) by next weekend.

“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” did a franchise-respectable $73 million or so, based on Thursday night (weak), Friday (strong) and Saturday (decent) numbers. Reviews might have helped. Overall, quite good.

“Begin Again” doubled its number of screens and cracked the top ten.

“Jersey Boys” lost half its theaters and will fall out of the top ten next weekend.

“America” made another $2.4 million on a thousand screens.

But the big winner at the box office this has to be IFC’s “Boyhood,” which earned $64,000 $71,800 per screen, on just five top market screens. A nearly three hour long film about growing up sold out pretty much all weekend in NYC, in other words. That $72K per screen feels like a record, to me. Is it? I will ask around.

Roll it out to say 100-150 theaters and it’ll earn back its budget ($5 million) within a few weeks (it won’t earn $72K per screen nationwide, no matter how much hype backs it.).

“A Wolf at the Door” arrives in American cinemas, a hot and surprising Brazilian thriller delivered here hot on the heels of the Brazilian World Cup.
It’s a kidnapping mystery in which a police inspector tries to figure out who might have picked up a child that wasn’t her own from a Rio de Janeiro school.
The mother of the little girl, Sylvia (Fabiula Nascimento) is frantic. The school teacher is weepy and apologetic, full of excuses and one interesting clue.
“But Clarinha (the daughter) RAN to her,” she says (in Portuguese, with English subtitles), of the mysterious kidnapper, who called herself “Sheila.”
Then Bernardo (Milhem Cortaz), the father, arrives. He’s sure he knows who did it. Great, now we’re getting somewhere. Who? His “crazy” mistress, a beautiful 25 year-old who was somehow charmed by this toothy bus-driver.
“Rosa.” She’d left him a strange message, set up a rendezvous. We’ll meet her, you arrest her and I’ll get my daughter back
“Men do things like that,” Bernardo says, shrugging off the affair to the cop (Antonio Saboia). “They’re — you know, unavoidable.”
“No, I don’t know,” the cop says with a glower.
The cop is quiet and patient, but blunt. He doesn’t like incomplete answers, and when Rosa doesn’t make the rendezvous, he turns more blunt. What are you two not telling me?
In further interrogations, broken up by flashbacks which take us to how Bernardo met Rosa, the story begins to make sense, only to change directions with the next interrogation/flashback.
“A Wolf at the Door” (in Portuguese, “O Lobo atrás da Porta”) only gets serious about unraveling the mystery after the police bring Rosa in. Cleverly played by Leandra Leal, she is by turns confident and defiant, weepy and confessional. Yes, she took the kid. No, she doesn’t have her.
A fourth suspect is mentioned, maybe a fifth, as the cop questions each of the three people in the police station, in turn. The plot thickens, after the inevitable “Is there anything you’d like to add?”
There are lies and more lies, guilt that seems to spread far and wide as the tale unfolds. Writer-director Fernando Coimbra sets us up for a handful of possible scenarios, teasing out what might have happened, where the solution to the mystery might lie.
He unwisely abandons the interrogations-interrupted-by-flashbacks format — full of nervous close-ups, often hiding the inspector asking the questions — and settles into an hour long, out-of-order flashback. That robs the story of its urgency. There is a missing child, after all. The cops, in better thrillers like this, have a hint of panic in them as well. The movie’s energy never flags, but it never rises to the level of pulse-pounding, either.
Filmed in a sun-baked Rio of working class neighborhoods, performed by players who don’t give the game away, “Wolf” relies more on surprise plot twists than the standard “ticking clock” of Hollywood thrillers. And there are stunning turns, a few that will make your jaw drop.
The sex, the violence, the threats and violations spread far and wide and envelop these three people. And the morale of the tale is clear, almost from the first to the last. Lies have consequences. If you’re feckless and not careful about it, your lies are what bring that wolf to your door.

　
MPAA Rating: unrated, with violence, explicit sex, profanity
Cast: Leandra Leal, Milhem Cortaz, Fabiula Nascimento Fabiula Nascimento, Antonio Saboia Antonio Saboia
Credits: Written and directed by Fernando Coimbra. An Outsider Pictures release.
Running time: 1:40

A soft, in more ways than one, Thursday night opening for “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” was pointing toward a film that would under-perform vis a vis its projected $70 million opening.

But Friday turned that around, as the 3D sequel played to packed houses, 4,000 theaters worth — $27 million or so, according to Deadline.com.

That suggests something in the $60s to low $70s.

Word of mouth on this well-reviewed film should be good, so if Saturday produces similar numbers, Fox has a July hit on its hands.

“Boyhood” is having a healthy per-screen opening — a big midnight Thursday — and should roll out into more than five theaters, starting within weeks. It’s the best reviewed movie of the year. Figure, what, a staggering $35,000 per screen, based on $10,000 from five theaters Thursday midnight? Spitballing here, but it could do $60,000 per screen, extrapolating those single show numbers to all-day Friday, Saturday and Sunday,

“Tammy” is tumbling off and won’t hit anywhere near $100 million, “Begin Again” added theaters and climbs into the top ten, “Transformers” is over $200 million by Sunday night, “22 Jump Street” will probably fall short of that mark, by month’s end.

This looks like the last weekend “Jersey Boys” is in the top ten.