Movie Nation

The spring and summer of 2012 are forever ago — in movie years. And that suits Taylor Kitsch just fine. It’s a year worth forgetting, in a lot of ways.

The hunky star of the TV version of “Friday Night Lights” had his big screen coming out party in 2012, a lead role in two blockbusters (“John Carter”, “Battleship”) that broke the bank, not box office records. Reviews of both films zeroed in on the budgets ($250 million for “John Carter), the bloated silliness of the projects. And Kitsch got caught in the crossfire. Even in his native Canada, people were making fun of “the unfortunately named Taylor Kitsch” (Toronto Globe and Mail).

So the Kelowna, British Columbia native changed direction. He went back to ensemble work, which his TV show had championed. He chose scripts that demanded more of a performance. And he went back to Canada.

“I don’t know if it’s a burden, carrying a film” Kitsch, 33, says. ” You’d be an idiot to say ‘No’ to (“John Carter” director Andrew) Stanton. You’d be an idiot to say ‘No’ to Peter Berg (“Battleship”).

“But if you get to bounce off Gleason, Mark Ruffalo, Julia Roberts or Travolta — any of those guys — you dive right in. Surrounded by wonderful actors, you can just feel the weight off your shoulders. I don’t have to do the heavy lifting.”

“Lone Survivor” was an ensemble piece, a true story combat film set in Afghanistan that was a hit back in January. “The Normal Heart” is a new all-star HBO adaptation of Larry Kramer’s play about gay activism in the early days of the AIDS crisis. But the film that reminded Kitsch of why he loves “ensemble” is the first one he made, post-“Battleship.” “The Grand Seduction,” is a Canadian remake of an earlier French-Canadian film (“Seducing Dr. Lewis”). It’s a whimsical comedy about a dying fishing village that tries to trick a hip young doctor into settling there.

“I felt I could this guy justice,” Kitsch says of the role, a too-pretty plastic surgeon hijacked to tiny Tickle Cove, Newfoundland. “I could bounce off Brendan Gleeson (playing a townie in charge of the “Seduction” scheme) and not carry a huge film. No pressure working back in Canada. I wanted to work there because I’ve never a done movie there. And I like this guy. He’s dry and dorky and everybody else’s reaction to him is hilarious. There’s a charm about this script that is kind of infectious.”

And?

“It’s refreshing to be standing in front of real people and a real waterfront, and not have a (bleeping) green screen behind me,” Kitsch cracks.

Better reviews have followed this change in direction, with “Seduction” moving John Hartl of The Seattle Times to call Kitsch a “self-deprecating hunk…who could be branded for life (in a nice way) with a line like “No one has cheekbones like that.”

The critically-acclaimed “The Normal Heart” was “the most fulfilling job I’ve ever had,” Kitsch says. “It gave me so much to do, to think about and work on. The whole process of making it was rewarding, start to finish.” Sharing scenes with Mark Ruffalo, Julia Roberts and others, playing a character with “duality” and a real story arc “made me a better actor, I think. And a better person.”

But “Grand Seduction” may turn out to have the biggest long-term impact on Kitsch’s life, if not his career. The production put him up “in this place on a 100 foot bluff overlooking the ocean. That’s living…That taste of small town living, the pace of really living, exposes you to all the negative things you’ve brought into your life. How much (bleep) you add on that isn’t necessary, you realize that when you’re back to living at that pace.”

So he’s moving to Austin, Texas, with its “very hard, fast-paced lifestyle — tubing and wake-boarding and golfing…It reinvigorates you, I think. The tone, the pace, the people, just the simplicity of life gets to you, especially if you’ve been doing time in Los Angeles.

“I have two acres on Lake Austin that I’ve yet to build on, and I was there just the other day thinking, ‘THIS is what it’s about.’ You’re not listening not to the city, the traffic, the phone. You’re listening to the changes in the wind. THAT’S living.”

Leading roles in major motion pictures may come back. “I’ve got one I THINK I’ve landed, unless I’m jinxing it.” But he directed a short film — a dramatic thriller “Pieces” — that he’s gotten the money to turn into a feature. And he’s getting into a whole different movie business scene, in Austin, where indie icons Richard Linklater, Robert Rodriguez and others have set up cinematic shop, just beyond Hollywood’s grip. That could pay off, too.

Austin filmmaker “David Gordon Green (director of “Joe,” “Pineapple Express”) and I are meeting up, having five or ten too many drinks — something it’s easy to do in Austin — and seeing if there’s something we can do together. If that’s how things work down here. I think I’m going to like it.”

“Coherence” is an indie thriller of modestly cerebral ambitions, a Theatre of the Absurd piece with “Twilight Zone” touches.

Round up eight friends for a dinner party. Set us up for the usual interpersonal melodramas — this character used to date that one, these two slept together and didn’t tell — and then toss in the comet.

The comet? That’s the sci-fi plot device that makes the power go out and cell phones shatter. That’s the excuse for one character to recite weird bits of comet lore.

And that’s when the eight see one house still has light, way up the street. A couple of them go to check it out. Who do they see? Themselves, or versions of themselves, gathered for this same dinner party, coping with the increasingly odd evening in many of the same ways.

Writer-director James Ward Byrkit concocts a Mobius loop of illogical temporal logic as the people in the first house — ballerina Em (Emily Baldoni), home owner Hugh (Hugo Armstrong), actor Mike (Nicholas Brendon) and the others — puzzle over what is happening, the clues each version of themselves leaves the other, and what to do about it.

“If there’s another version of me, I want to meet him!”

Beth (Elizabeth Gracen), wife of Hugh, references “that movie, ‘Sliding Doors,'” as they speculate on how they might tamper with or choose among the alternate realities they seem to be confronting. Can they undo something their alternate selves have done? Can they mix and match party guests, alternative versions of each other, with the other house? On a dark, confusing night, with only glow sticks (blue for one house, red for the other) and a passing comet to illuminate the gloomy suburban street, how can they avoid that?

How long before the Yahtzee dice come out to introduce true “randomness” to their reasoning? When does the violence start? And is there more wine?

“Coherence” provides the cast with one puzzle and the audience with another. Characters sit and try to reason out the motives for this or that action for the other versions of themselves.

“The other ‘Mike’ is worried about you.”

And the viewer tries to keep track of who is doing what to whom, and where. And when.

Byrkit keeps a lot of the mystery off camera and tells the story, more or less, from Em’s point of view. As curious as the men at the party might be, Em is the one proactive one, playing her cards close to her vest as she does. Baldoni makes her interesting enough for us to identify with her.

But its 87 minutes feel like more of a writing/plotting exercise than a finished, polished film. The one thing “Coherence” needs most is that word that gives it its title.

MPAA Rating: unrated, violence, adult situations

Cast: Emily Baldoni, Maury Sterling, Elizabeth Gracen, Hugo Armstrong, Alex Manugian, Lauren Maher

Credits: Written and directed by James Ward Byrkit. An Oscilloscope Laboratories release.

Running time

Saturday is always the big cash-in day for a kids’ cartoon. So don’t be shocked if the middling “How to Train Your Dragon 2,” which enjoys much weaker reviews on the simple yes–or-no rating the Rottentomatoes meter measures (go to metacritic.com for a surer analysis of overall ratings) overtakes the equally-hyped and far superior “22 Jump Street” (made by “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” cartoon veterans) at the box office.

As it stands right now, though, “Jump Street” is poised to pull in $60 million+ by midnight Sunday. A simply HUGE Friday for the R-rated comedy sequel mocking sequel.

That’s good news. When better films make more money, that’s what Hollywood tries to duplicate and we all win.

“Dragon,” all alone in the choices for parents and kids this weekend, pretty much, is headed toward $50-53 million, based on Friday. Again, Saturday could blow up and change that. reverse the order of finish by Sunday.

 “The Fault in Our Stars” has dropped over 60% in its second weekend, suggesting it reached most of its audience with that $50 million+ opening last week.

We call that sort of swoon a “Tyler Perry Plunge.” The worst of Perry’s pictures fall off to nothing on their second weekend. And while $19 million is nothing to sneeze at (“Fault” could reach that, after earning over $50 last weekend), if that’s what the film reaches by midnight Sunday, it does look as if every teenage girl and every adult addict of YA fiction likely to take to this overpraised Disease of the Week weeper, will have seen it by then. And they’re not seeing it twice and insisting that everyone they know see it too.

Compare that to the superior “Edge of Tomorrow,” which is only losing 45% of its opening take on its second weekend. It will probably never catch up to “Stars,” but it will have longer legs and remain higher in the top ten longer.

“Blended” fell out of the top ten and is spiraling out of sight, kind of a sign that Adam Sandler is over and out.

“Chef” is sticking in the top ten and will be close to $14 million by Monday AM.

Reviews for both of this weekend’s wide releases have been overwhelmingly positive, though skipping past the deceptive Tomatometer to the more measured Metacritic scale shows support for “How to Train Your Dragon 2” is a bit soft. As in everybody likes it, but love? It’s not funny enough to earn that.

Box Office Mojo figures that will be to blame if this tepid sequel doesn’t do epic business. Word of mouth could push it down to the $40s, but the high end of expectations should be $67-million for an animated sequel.

Box Office Guru figures the tight one-two box office race this weekend will be a dead heat, and splits the difference on “Dragon” expectations. A kids’ cartoon with so few laughs cannot be edited into a trailer that makes you chuckle. Maybe the kids will know. Guru thinks $54 million for “Dragon,” and $53 for “Jump Street.“

Blockbuster R-rated comedy sequels are all compared to “The Hangover” films, which suggests that the critically-adored “22 Jump Street” could be in for a bonanza. $50 million says Mojo.

All of the summer’s blockbusters have opened and faded fast, so  “Fault in their Stars” and “Edge of Tomorrow” will test that pattern. “Fault” could have longer legs and stick around in the top three through the end of the month, when “Transformers” opens. “Maleficent” is doing what “Godzilla” did what “X-Men” has done, and so forth.

The steadily-building feel good comedy “Chef” should fall out of the top ten. But you never know. It’s this summer’s “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” and if it hopes to be, it will have to stick around through July to hit $50 million. I don’t see that happening. Nice for theaters to have as counter-programming, but it should lose screens, starting this weekend. “Belle” is spent and hasn’t reached $10 yet. “Heaven is for Real” is losing screens but will have cleared $90 million by Monday or Tuesday.

The big releases from major studios this week are getting enthusiastic endorsements — or at least some love, from most critics.

The riotous “22 Jump Street” is the sequel to end all sequels. It mocks the idea of making a sequel, and then proceeds to ride that mockery all the way through a closing credits sequence that puts an exclamation point on the cynicism that inspires such films. Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill score again, and Ice Cube uses his baggage to great effect in many his funniest performance since “Friday.”

I was never one to swoon over “How to Train Your Dragon.” Nice message, good animation, not a lot of laughs. More heart than laughs. Fine. What else? The sequel has even fewer laughs and the message is a bit more pacifist and muddled, to me anyway. I am in the minority on that one. Not bad, but not all that, either. Overwhelmingly positive reviews for “Dragon 2.”

“The Signal” is a fascinatingly strange and beautifully executed sci-fi thriller, more cerebral than most. Kind of “Catfish” like, if you follow. Mixed reviews for that one, but I liked it more than some.

There are this week, as most weeks, a lot of limited releases that are worth considering — films that smaller distributors picked up off the festival circuit.

“The Rover” is a powerful, minimalist thriller from A24, a “Mad Max” sort of post-Apocalyptic Australia road trip quest directed by the “Animal Kingdom” guy and starring Guy Pearce (terrific, grisly, dressed down) and Robert Pattinson (somewhat less so). Good notices for that one.

I really liked the minimalist dark comedy “A Coffee in Berlin,” sort of a “Slacker” in German and in black and white — very cool, funny at times. Lovely to look at.

“Hellion” is a very good teen in trouble drama with Aaron Paul as a blue collar dad trying to keep his motocross punk son in line after a family tragedy. Juliette Lewis is also very good in it. Mixed notices for that one.

“Lullaby” is a more moving, more pointed treatment of end-of-life issues than the monster teen hit “The Fault in Our Stars.” But it has no teens, so the critical pandering isn’t there, nor will there be much of an audience. Nice work by Richard Jenkins, Anne Archer, Garrett Hedlund and Amy Adams kind of goes to waste because of it.

“Witching & Bitching” is a hilarious Spanish comic thriller about a divorced robber whose getaway runs him, his sidekicks and his kid afoul of Spanish witches. Very Almodovarian. Fun.

“The Human Race” is a horror sci-fi purgatory thriller with some promise, despite the familiar tropes trotted out in it.

The charms of “How to Train Your Dragon” are thinned a bit for its sequel, a cartoon with better animation and livelier action, if fewer jokes. If there’s one thing these sweet-message/great flying sequence movies don’t need is fewer jokes.
The misfit, inventive and now one-legged Viking teen, Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) and his pet Night Fury dragon, Toothless, are living with other Vikings and other dragons in utter harmony on the island of Berk. Their days are taken up with Dragon Racing, a dragon-mounted chase game that’s reminiscent of Hogwarts’ sport, Quiddich, with catapulted sheep as the ball to be battled over.
“No sheep, no glory!”
Hiccup’s dad, Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler) still has the kid’s ascent to the chiefdom of Berk in mind. But Hiccup would rather ride like the wind with Toothless.
Hiccup and his peers (America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Kristen Wiig and Christopher Mintz-Plasse do some of their voices) are venturing far afield, exploring lands to the west. That’s where they stumble into The Dragon Thief and rumors of an army of Vikings mounted on dragons led by the malevolent Drago, “a madman without conscience or pity.”
Hiccup, an optimist and, against all odds, a Viking pacifist, wants to fix that.
“Let’s go find him and change his mind!”
“How to Train Your Dragon 2” is about that quest to do just that. Kit Harrington, Cate Blanchett and Djimon Hounsou voice new characters that the Berk kids stumble into. First the younger Berks, then the adults tangle with these new faces, with their different dragons and their differing dragon agendas.
The original “Dragon” broke from the Dreamworks formula as a film not overly reliant on one-liners and verbal comedy. That’s even more true about the sequel, in which writer-director Dean DeBlois, no longer sharing those duties with his “Lilo & Stitch” teammate Chris Sanders, ignores the bevy of potentially funny voices and focuses on physical shtick. It was all about the “respect the differently-abled” message. Even the message is watered down, here.
But Berk, now dragon friendly, has its own dragon (cat) lady. There are scads of giggle-worthy sight gags involving pet dragons imitating puppy behavior — manic games of fetch, bellies being rubbed and the like. Awww.
New dragons mean new menaces and new lessons for Hiccup to learn in his journey to manhood — “A chief protects his own.” And a second film meant a chance to up the ante with the animation, with dragons frolicking like seagulls in the seaside updrafts. These 3D films have sequences that play like a prospectus for a theme park ride.
But the whole franchise — yes, “How to Train Your Dragon 3” is already in the works — while still airborne, is also already bit winded, and only getting more so.

MPAA Rating: PG for adventure action and some mild rude humor
Cast: The voices of Jay Baruchel, Cate Blanchett, Djimon Hounsou, America Ferrera, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, Jonah Hill
Credits: Written and directed by De DeBlois, based on the Cressida Cowell books. A Dreamworks Animation/Fox release.
Running time: 1:42

Science fiction cinema doesn’t get much more beautifully strange than “The Signal.”
An alien-interaction thriller that borrows from generations of such films that preceded it, it has the visual tone, production design and especially sound design to rival the best recent films in the genre.
It features a compelling young cast and a wizened, inscrutable veteran of the genre as the chief antagonist.
And then the filmmakers trip over themselves with a too-conventional/too exposition-heavy “Let us explain this to you” finale that kind of unravels the strangeness that preceded it.
“Signal ” begins as “Catfish,” three college kids played Brenton Thwaites, Olivia Cooke, Beau Knapp are driving a battered Volvo cross-country. They’re M.I.T. students, and they’re being hounded by a hacker.
“Nomad” is “messing with us again,” Nick (Thwaites) warns Jonah (Knapp). They taunt the hacker, and the hacker taunts back — turning on the camera of a nearby computer in the hotel room they’ve just checked into, posting traffic camera shots of their trek, messing with their heads.
Nick, who suffers from a debilitating illness that has him on crutches, ignores his girlfriend’s first warning.
“You guys should just stop taunting him.”
Nick used to be a jock, a cross country star. Now, he’s looking at a less and less mobile future, he’s moving that girlfriend, Haley (Cooke) across country where she’ll attend Cal Tech. He’s irked, and he’s arrogant.
“It’s CRAZY not to go after this guy.”
He and Jonah trace Nomad to an address in the middle of the Nevada desert. “This doesn’t look right,” especially in the dark. And “Nick, you know this is stupid, right?” has no effect.
Next thing you know, screams, a supernatural event and Nick wakes up in what appears to be an underground research lab of the type we’ve seen in films from “The Andromeda Strain” to “The Stand,” where everybody wears elaborate haz-mat suits, including Dr. Damon (Laurence Fishburne), who quietly, calmly, asks questions. And gives one answer.
“You’ve made contact.”
Director William Eubank handles the script’s “How can I get out of this place?” sequence with skill. Nick’s methodical problem solving and reasoning, and his rising rage (he can see Haley is in a coma in another sealed room) bring out his arrogance.
“You’re dinosaurs with government grants,” he fumes. “You’re a relic protecting ruins.”
Is that him insulting Dr. Damon, or some higher intelligence infecting him?
Thwaites, the Aussie actor who is Prince Phillip in “Maleficent,” makes a great, empathetic presence at the center of this, and Knapp (“Super 8”) a credible foil, even if the hacker with thick glasses is a genre cliche.
But what makes “The Signal” work, up until it turns predictable, is the world they place these characters in. Meghan C. Rogers’ production design, David Lanzenberg’s cinematography (lovely flashbacks to Nick’s cross-country sprints in the woods in springtime), Nima Fakhrara’s eerie score and the overall sound design are top drawer.
So even though “Signal” isn’t great sci-fi, you’d never know it to look at it and listen to it.
　
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some thematic elements, violence and language
Cast: Brenton Thwaites, Olivia Cooke, Beau Knapp, Laurence Fishburne, Lin Shaye
Credits: Directed by William Eubank, written by Carlyle Eubank, William Eubank and David Frigerio . A Focus Features release.
Running time:

They should’ve killed him when they had the chance.

Twas ever thus in revenge thrillers. The “hero” is wronged, injured, left for dead.

Only he isn’t. And since he’s Guy “Memento” Pearce, we reckon there’ll be heck to pay.

“The Rover” is set in post Apocalyptic Australia, somewhere between the end of “Mad Max” and before “The Road Warrior,” judging from it. Not that it ties directly to the Mel Gibson/George Miller saga. Something about the arid wastelands of Australia’s interior suggest End Times.

An unnamed, sun-spotted, disheveled man pulls up to what amounts to a roadhouse. Guy Pearce doesn’t pretty up to play this guy — hair thinning, beard greying. He hasn’t even finished his drink when a trio of robbers (Scoot McNairy, David Field and Tawanda Manyimo), one of them bleeding, have run their SUV into the ditch. They steal the Man with No Name’s car.

He rescues their SUV and chases them — a cat and mouse run through the wilderness. They’re armed, he’s not. But he’s kind of crazy.

“I want my car back.”

That’s when they have their chance. That’s when they don’t kill him. And that’s when the pursuit turns maniacal, dogged and something almost epic.

Robert Pattinson plays a Southern fried member of their gang left for dead at the heist. He’s bloodied and “Deliverance” simple but coherent enough to recognize the getaway car that our hero is chasing the bad men in. Pearce’s No Name takes the young guy hostage, hoping he’ll lead him back to the three — back to his car.

David “Animal Kingdom” Michod co-wrote and directed this thriller, neatly depicting a world in partial decay. Roadside motels cling to life, convenience stores are armored and their owners armed.

“American dollars only. Take it or leave it.”

There are soldiers, barely making an effort to maintain law and order, guarding trainloads of coal which seems to keep the power on, in some places. Mainly the Army is just protecting or avenging their own.

Every argument is short and bullet-riddled. It is everyone out for himself, and a person hoping for a glint of humanity in this future will be hard pressed to find much of it.

At the center of this is the irredeemable, silent hero, played by Pearce. Everybody asks him questions. What’s his name, why does he have to get this car back? He never answers, not in the first two acts of “The Rover.” He answers every question with a question, until finally the fidgety simpleton Rey (Pattinson, in a very mannered performance) wears him down.

“You should never stop thinking about a life you’ve taken. That’s the price you pay for taking it.”

“The Rover” — the title is another long-unanswered question — is as violent and primal as “Animal Kingdom,” but not as brisk. The film grinds to a halt in between confrontations. And those shoot-outs are simple, direct and bloody, not “staged” in the Hollywood sense.

But it’s a film that greatly benefits from an unfussy, nihilistic turn by Pearce, one so devoid of vanity that you kind of wish he’d landed the lead in next year’s “Mad Max” revival. He didn’t, but “The Rover” is very much in that spirit. Pearce, in “The Rover,” is the epitome of the Man Who Has Lost Everything, including, perhaps, his name.

MPAA Rating: R for language and some bloody violence

Cast: Guy Pearce, Robert Pattinson, Scoot McNairy

Credits: Written and directed by David Michod, based on a story by Joel Edgerton and David Michod. An A24 release.

Running time: 1:42

　
You’re pretty much going to have to see “22 Jump Street” twice — just to catch all the jokes the roars of laughter make you miss.
No kidding, when this buddy cop parody hits its sweet spots — bromance gags carried to hilarious extremes by Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, too-dumb-to-be-a-cop riffs by Tatum and a couple of vintage, sneering rants by Ice Cube — “22,” the sequel to “21,” only “exactly the same” as the first film (a running gag) becomes a “see it again on Netflix when I can hear it all” experience.
This comedy produces the biggest, loudest laughs of any movie this summer.
Undercover cops Jenko and Schmidt are sent off to M.C. State University to track down a new designer drug that college kids are using to help them focus. It’s called “WhyPhy.”
“I’m the first person in my family to pretend to go to college!”
They try to blend in by doing slam poetry, by pledging a frat, attending classes that are out of their dimwitted depth, hitting parties and asking around about the drug and this coed who died because of something she knew about it.
But they’re not fooling anybody.
“He’s like a 30 year old eighth grader!”
“Tell us about the war…ANY of them.”
The filmmakers and the cast mock the idea of a sequel and get away with doing exactly what they’re mocking, even if “It’s always worse the second time around.”
Ice Cube, making the most of just few scenes, lands more laughs with a scowl or three than he has in his last five pictures
And Tatum and Hill take their characters’ relationship to the next level of bromance, toying with the idea of “an open…investigation,” learning from their human sexuality class how inappropriate each can be.
“Did you know I used homophobic slurs in high school?”
“Yes, aimed at me.”
Pretty funny line, coming from Jonah Hill, who just had to apologize for calling a paparazzo a homophobic slur. There are other coincidences — Maya Angelou and Tracy Morgan jokes — that give the comedy an eerie currency.
Hill scores with an epic girlfight and a blast of slam poetry. Tatum is comically convincing as a walk-on superstar tight end for the football team, and a parkour-loving jock who climbs walls, and finds a new BFF in an Owen Wilson-look-alike quarterback (Wyatt Russell).
.
A pack of credited writers, and the co-directors of the first film, those “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” guys Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, conjure up good, quick footed and foul-mouthed fun. It goes on way too long, peaks too early and sputters before rallying with a frothy finale and a closing credits gag that kills, but also goes on too long.
That doesn’t much matter. Hill and Tatum are the unlikeliest of big screen odd couples, a happy-goofy one that seems headed for a long and fruitful relationship — homoerotic or not. And you’re still going to need to see this one twice to get all the sight gags, punchlines and pratfalls that this “exactly the same” sequel serves up.
MPAA Rating: R for language throughout, sexual content, drug material, brief nudity and some violence
Cast: Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Ice Cube, Amber Stevens, Jillian Bell, The Lucas Brothers, Peter Stormare
Credits: Directed Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, scripted by Michael Bacall, Oren Uziel and
Rodney Rothman, based on the Fox TV show. A Sony/Columbia-MGM release.
Running time: 1:52