Movie Nation

These days, Adam Sandler is a bottle of beer that’s lost all its bubbles — cheap, mass produced domestic beer.
So let’s focus on what works in his latest, “Blended,” because he sure doesn’t.
Drew Barrymore, in her third pairing with the Sandman, still brings energy and conviction to her performance as Lauren, a mother of two thrown together on an African vacation with this lump she met on the Blind Date from Hell — a blind date at Hooters.
Wendi McClendon-Covey, playing her best friend Jen, delivers a comically furious turn and either upstages Barrymore or forces Drew to play at her level. Watch and listen to the two of them berate an obnoxious, snarky loser-dad at Lauren’s son’s Little League game — shouting, talking over each other, name-calling. It’s Vince and Owen in “Wedding Crashers” good.
And then there’s Terry Crews, who steals the movie as the MC and singer of an African vocal group at the Sun City resort where Jim, the sad sporting goods salesman (Sandler) and Lauren, the professional closet organizer, and their five kids end up in an absurdly contrived joint vacation/safari.
The wild-eyed Crews, dancing and crooning, bumping and grinding, sings of the “blending” that will go on during this week of non-traditional families wildlife watching and bonding. He is the Greek chorus for this obvious, stale and stiff comedy, a shirtless jolt of life (the man’s pecs do a dance all their own) in this lesser entry in he career of the aptly-nicknamed “Sandman.”
We are deep into the “family comedy” stage of Sandler’s working life, families where the kids cuss and rhinos hump, where Jim urinating long and loudly outside of a tent is played for a laugh, where the past-expiration-date Kevin Nealon and a jiggly/funny Jessica Lowe (the new Anna Faris?) are the oversexed other “non-traditional family” that the Lauren-Jim ensemble pair up with.
Jim is raising three emotionally stunted daughters to be pseudo-jocks, like himself. Who nicknames his daughter Hilary (Bella Thorne) “Larry”? Who would name his troubled middle daughter, the one who “still talks to (dead) Mom” (Emma Fuhrmann) Espn?
Maybe the sort of guy who peoples his movies with jocks (Shaq) and jockcasters (Dan Patrick) in cameos, along with other washed-up comics of his generation.
Jim’s a widower, meant to explain Sandman’s sleepwalking demeanor. His daughters need a mom.
Lauren’s newly divorced, with a maddeningly rude and hormonal teen (Braxton Beckham) and tantrum-tossing tween (Kyle Red Silverstein), both of whom need a father figure, since their dad (Joel McHale) is a no-show.
Every set-up is an eye-roller. Jim and Lauren stumble into each other at the drug store. He’s cluelessly buying tampons for his teen, she’s replacing a porn mag she ripped up for her teen.
Gags and one-liners that would be discarded in a better comedy are trotted out and then underlined here. When Lauren gives the tomboy “Larry” a girlish makeover, she debuts hearing “I’m Every Woman” in her head, her possible new beau hears “I’ll Make Love to You” while her dad panics and hears “It’s the End of the World, and We Know It.” Hilarious. Let’s repeat that musical joke, shall we? They do.
The African scenes include digital ostrich riding and a digital monkey band performing “Careless Whisper.”
And in the middle of it all is Sandler, aimlessly going through the motions, a character others dismiss as “a buffoon,” “a chubby loser” in need of a fist-bump. Even Barrymore, who has gotten rich on “The Wedding Singer” and “50 First Dates,” has a hard time giving him one in this flat-beer farce.
　
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for crude and sexual content, and language
Cast: Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Terry Crews, Kevin Nealon
Credits: Directed by Frank Coraci, written by Ivan Menchell, Clare Ser. A Warner Brothers release.
Running time: 1:59

Leave it to the X-Men to put the fun back in summer blockbusters.
Hugh Jackman, in the role he was coiffed to play, and the rest of the crew
from pretty much every film in this past, present and future franchise, deliver
the action and the laughs in “Days of Future Past,” an all-star/all-X-Men outing designed to transition from the aging first generation cast into their younger
selves. It’s too long and so cluttered with characters and exposition that if
you weren’t a fan of the comics, you may feel you’re being punished. But it
delivers the 3D thrills and the Wolverine (and Quicksilver) giggles, and
how.

In a “Terminator” future, the robotic Sentinels have all but wiped out
humanity and the mutants who love them. But with the aid of time-bending Kitty
Pryde (Ellen Page), the X-Men may be able to stop the mad — or at least greedy
and irritable — scientist (Peter Dinklage) who invented these machines back
during the Nixon administration. Future mutants send the greying Wolverine
(Jackman), or at least his consciousness, back to 1973.
And from the minute the guy wakes up in a world of lava lamps, Little Feat
and ‘Lectric Shave, things are popping. Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and
his nemesis-turned-MFF Magneto (Ian McKellen) need Wolverine to convince their
feuding young selves (James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender) to prevent a vendetta
by Raven/Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) that dooms the future. So Wolverine, Beast
(Nicholas Hoult) and the two mutant leaders contend with the Vietnam War peace
talks, Richard Nixon, as well as the young soldier who will age into the evil
Stryker as they chase Mystique hither and yon.
Because she’s seen the experiments this scientist has been doing on mutants.
She’s been to Vietnam, where a selection of them were used in combat. And she’s
got blood in her blue-green eyes.
History is twisted and sent up, from the Kennedy Assassination to “Star
Trek.” They need to bust into the Pentagon, so they track down a punk teen, the
future Quicksilver (Evan Peters, who just kills in this part). That break-in
scene, in 3D slow motion “bullet time,” may be the coolest action beat ever
filmed in 3D and packs the biggest giggles in any X-Men film. Quicksilver
hurtles through a sea of military police, misdirecting their guns, playing the
“stop hitting yourself” game, giving wedgies.
Meanwhile, in the future, Bishop (Omar Sy), Storm (Halle Berry), Blink
(Bingbing Fan) try to hold off the Sentinels using some of the most spectacular
effects (instant wormholes) you’ve ever seen in a fight scene.
Jackman has most of the one liners. He drops in on the past version of
Xavier’s school for gifted (mutant) kids, which has closed as the Professor has
lost his way and crawled into a bottle.
“Are you a parent?” Hank/Beast asks at the door.
“I sure as hell HOPE not!”
The acting is all you could hope for from this cast, with Page bringing the
empathy and Jackman delivering the cool. Dinklage could have brought a bit more
villainous glee, but McAvoy re-interprets Xavier nicely and Lawrence doesn’t let
down the side.
There’s no Stan Lee cameo, the onslaught of characters is a bit much and the
third act drags and drags before delivering a heartfelt payoff. But “Days of
Future Past” is most everything we’d hoped the summer’s earlier popcorn pictures
would be, most of all — fun.

MPAA Rating:PG- 13 for sequences of intense sci-fi violence and action, some
suggestive material, nudity and language
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, Ellen Page, James
McAvoy, Peter Dinklage, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Omar Sy
Credits: Directed by Bryan Singer, written by Simon Kinberg, Jane Goldman and
Matthew Vaughn, based on the Marvel comic books. A 20th Century Fox release.
Running time: 2:12

“The Love Punch” is an empty-headed nothing of a caper comedy, a movie whose
moves are so obvious and obviously absurd that even a moment’s scrutiny lets the
gas right out of the balloon.
But darned if those high-mileage troopers Emma Thompson and Pierce Brosnan
don’t play the heck out of a flimsy plot. And even less-than-witty banter sings
when they’re flinging it at one another.
“You get me, Kate,” Richard (Brosnan) purrs to his ex (Thompson). “Or at
least, you used to.”

“That’s because I’m a trained child psychologist.”They’re divorced, but oh so cute together.</P>
“Come Ooonnnn,” old pal Jerry (Timothy Spall) pleads. “Get back
together!”
But split they are, amicably or not. They pack their daughter off to college,
and then the bottom falls out of their happy divorce. Richard’s company is
looted by a French takeover fiend. And since Kate’s retirement was swiped as
well, they’re in a pickle.
“How’s your FRENCH?”
“Non,” she says, seeing where this is going. “Non non non.”
But Richard knows how to get to “Oui,” and next thing they know, they’re
confronting the fiend (Laurent Lafitte, too soft to play the heavy). And then
they’re plotting to crash the guy’s wedding to a super model (Louise Bourgoin),
steal the $10 million diamond necklace he’s bought her and thus save the
retirement of everybody they know.

As if.
Writer-director Joel Hopkins, who never has lived up to the promise of his
“Jump Tomorrow,” ineptly stages car chases in a tiny Citroen through Paris, a
scene set to Free’s “All Right, Now” as chase music. That’s so obviously a
compromise choice for a chase tune that you’ll grimace. The tempo is all
wrong.
Hopkins has his heroes and heroines (they enlist Jerry and his wife Penelope
— Celia Imrie) get a fake version of the diamond fabricated, snorkel in scuba
suits, clamber up a cliff, pose as Texans invited to the wedding and attempt a
daring caper. None of which this bunch could possibly pull off.
But here’s what works –the running gags. EVERYbody wants Kate and Richard to
get back together, even the innkeeper (Marisa Berenson) at the pension where
they check in to plot their heist
“And you are holidaying together to see if the FLAME still burns?”
“The flame is out,” Kate corrects. “Snuffed. Gone.”
Thompson and Brosnan have chemistry. And Spall is a delight playing goofy
Jerry as a man with a past, one his wife of 35 years only learns about as he
keeps saying “I have a guy” or “I have contacts” with gun dealers, fake diamond
fabricators, blue print providers.
“When I was in the Legion,” he explains. Wait, the French Foreign Legion?
“Back when I was in the Merchant Marine…When I was in Saigon in ’64.” Or,
“Back when I was in Guam.” Imrie’s reaction to every new revelation is a giggle.
“When I was with the Australian paratroopers…”
They’re in an undercooked and under-plotted caper comedy, but you’d never
know it from these four. Perhaps they were just happy to be shooting on the
Riviera. They help “The Love Punch” land just enough blows to the funny bone to
be worth it.

MPAA Rating: :PG-13 for some sexual content, language and rude humor
Cast: Emma Thompson, Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Spall, Celia Imrie, Marisa
Berenson
Credits: Directed by Joel Hopkins, written , based . A Ketchup Entertainment
release.
Running time: 1:34

“Words and Pictures” is the cloying title of a cloying little comedy made by talented people who, not that long ago, deserved better than this, and knew it.
It’s a nearly two-hour long “meet cute” academic romance from the director of “A Cry in the Dark”, “Roxanne” and “Barbarosa” — rent them if you haven’t seen them.
“Words” would be English teacher Jack Marcus, a once-promising poet who has gone to seed — and bourbon — at an exclusive private school where the kids adore “Mr. Marc” (Clive Owen) even if the administration and the local barkeeps don’t.
“Pictures” is Dina Delsanto (Juliette Binoche), the new art “honors” teacher, a semi-famous painter suffering a debilitating illness, forced to take teaching work because the brush no longer does what she wants it to do.
Mr. Marc, drunk and late for class, challenges his kids — “Who ARE you droids?” He assigns them to “write one sentence that elevates the human mind.”
Delsanto is cranky, exacting and just as challenging.
“I’m NOT the kind of teacher you’re going to come back to visit.” Her outgoing voice mail message echoes that.
“Please, get to the point.”
To Delsanto, “words are lies,” especially for an artist.
Marcus reads his students a snatch of “The Declaration of Independence.”
“WORDS did that, not pictures.”
And since she’s cute, with or without crutches, and a challenge, it is on. SO on. The teachers will feud and flirt, the kids will rise to the occasion, painting or purple prosing to great heights as we head toward a school assembly showdown which will decide if a “picture is worth a thousand words,” or vice versa.
Owen makes a decent drunk and a passably glib chatterbox. Marcus is outside his usual simmering comort zone. If nothing else, he and screenwriter Gerald Di Pego make this a very listenable script.
Binoche can play brittle, and their banter works, sometimes.
“You’re attracted to me? Why?”
“Same species, different sex.”
But it’s all pre-digested, a happy ending straining to find obstacles to get in its way. Director Fred Schepisi dawdles when he should sprint and adds on when he should have subtracted. The students, collectively, make no impression. Bullying is introduced and tossed aside, Jack’s former lover (Amy Brenneman) somehow has a say in whether he’ll keep his job, booze and all, there’s a son he keeps letting down, all ideas brought up and left to wither.
Enough already. Romantic comedy should be light on its feet as it falls trippingly off the tongue. “Words and Pictures” is a lead-footed, witty bore.
　
　
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual material including nude sketches, language and some mature thematic material
Cast: Clive Owen, Juliette Binoche, Amy Brenneman, Bruce Davison
Credits: Directed by Fred Schepisi, written by Gerald Di Pego. A Roadside Attractions release.
Running time: 1:51

He was one of the greatest of the greats from the Golden Age of cinematographers as painters, the American Sven Nyqvist or Vittorio Storarro.

Gordon Willis shot gorgeous looking Westerns (“Bad Company”), stunning mob epics (“The Godfather”) and the loveliest black and white and color comedies ever put on film (Woody Allen, from “Manhattan” through “The Purple Rose of Cairo”).

I’d make the case that one reason Allen is still taken so seriously as an artist himself was the handiwork of Gordon Willis, who died this weekend at 83.

But his “Pennies from Heaven” gorgeously evoked The Great Depression, his “September 30, 1955” beautifully captured the texture of rural America at the birth of teen culture (on the day James Dean died).

One of the great ones.

Audiences prone to going to a movie’s opening weekend are even more prone to dash off to a movie they’re dying to see late night Thursday or Friday.

Especially with regards to summer popcorn pictures.

So…”Godzilla” shot his wad Friday.

Saturday? A 20% drop off, despite having more people off from work and a whole day of screenings available.

It won’t hurt the film, but it does suggest that there is a finite audience for this big lizard blockbuster.

People were talking $100 million for the big guy in box office discussions Saturday afternoon.

Sunday AM? $90-92. (UPDATED — final estimate, $93.2)

Reviews, which tilted toward ecstatic on Tuesday have settled down to “It’s OK, especially if you’re a kid movie goer.”

“Neighbors” is still settled in at number 2, “Million Dollar Arm” is still looking like a $10 million opening weekend. Audience scores tracked leaving that one have been quite high, so word of mouth will help the Mouse in weeks to come.

“Belle” and “Chef” are doing very well in limited release, “Heaven is for Real” and “Mom’s Night Out” are still in the top ten.

“Godzilla” will only enjoy one weekend at the top. “X-Men Xterminate All Lizards” opens next week.

Those sneaky French — turning a romantic comedy into a trilogy, maybe even a
franchise, without even telling us.
It started in 2002, in Barcelona, with a bunch of foreign exchange students
— meeting, flirting and falling into one another’s arms in “L’Auberge
Espagnole” (“The Spanish Inn”).
It continued in London, Paris and St. Petersburg with “Russian Dolls” (2005).
And now, as the characters and the actors playing them — Romain Duris,
Audrey Tautou, Kelly Reilly, Cecile de France — push 40, they collide once
more. This time they’re in New York, in Manhattan’s Chinatown, in “Chinese
Puzzle.”
“I love the idea of following these characters in their 20s, 30s and 40s,”
says writer-director Cedric Klapish, who is 52. “You don’t cover the same
subjects you would in an ordinary movie. You’re talking about time passing,
getting older, how a person changes from his 20s to age 40. The dreams you have
when you’re 25 that change when you’re older — what you want to become versus
what you actually became.”

Klapisch doesn’t really call the films a trilogy, and never really warned the
actors that he’d be coming back to them and taking the story further. But they
all signed on. Duris, who turns 40 May 28, was lured back by the parallels he
saw between the script and real life.
“This business of not growing up until you’re 40, that must be universal,
yes? Your decisions and choices have consequences that they did not have at 25,”
Duris says. He plays Xavier, the writer who has split from his Irish wife
(Reilly) but who follows her to New York to be near their children. “At 25,
you’re full of youth and pursuing a career, a lover, but maybe not for life. We
see Xavier making decisions in ‘L’Auberge Espagnole’ that seem, to him, to be
very very important. But we, the audience, know how tiny his problems are, how
insignificant his decisions are.”
Xavier struggles to settle into New York, find an apartment, to master the
moods of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, to raise his kids and meet
the needs of his needy lesbian friend Isabel (Cecile de France) and her
partner.

Writing in The Village Voice, Heather Baysa says that “with each of these
movies, Klapisch reiterates a core sentiment behind all the romantic comedy:
that lives are continuously pieced together, broken, and rearranged in different
settings.”
With each location, the characters — mostly French — cope with a new city
and a new pace of life. From laid back Barcelona, to go go London, the
long-lunches, longer-vacations of Paris, to patience-testing St. Petersburg, the
scene shifts to the City that Never Sleeps — New York.
“They are two cities that dream of each other,” Klapisch says. “Paris dreams
of New York, New York dreams of being more like Paris.”
“The electricity of the streets, that magic energy the city has like no
other,” Duris adds. “When you go out, there’s just something in the air. It was
great to play with that in the movie, the rhythm of the streets, and of the
people, working in Chinatown, wherever. The pace of life is fast in Paris, and
has gotten faster since I was a child. It is the most electric city in France.
But New York? It’s on another level. The whole world is here, young and old, all
these different cultures. And they’re all moving.”
Not that either Frenchman doesn’t prefer Paris, which can be “stimulating,
and yet, peaceful where you don’t hear noise all day and all night,” Klapisch
says. “You can have a long lunch, and long vacations. I love that about the
French life. You can enjoy food more, leisure time more. Maybe the best would be
a mix of the two, half New York, half Paris.”
“Maybe something like Hong Kong,” Duris offers.
Wait, that sounds like another movie. Will we be seeing this quartet again,
at 50? Duris is game. And Klapisch?
“Conceptually, I like following them further, maybe at 50,” he says. “I am
not sure they will have much to tell me then. . But to work with good actors, to follow them in real life as the years pass and they become successes, is a once in a lifetime experience.”

Hats off to the Warner Brothers marketing department.

They assessed that there was a hankering for a monster movie in epic scale. They shook off the weaker returns of “Pacific Rim” and plowed onward. They didn’t spend a lot on cast or director and put it all on effects.

They tamed the tendency to go for bloody, R-rated action and made a kid-friendly PG-13 Creature Feature.

And they sold it. “Godzilla,” the latest version of the Japanese King of the Monsters, piled up the money Thursday night and all-day Friday.

$90 million, maybe more. Wow. “Spider-Man” numbers. Impressive. More impressive than the movie itself. Could another franchise be launched here?

“Million Dollar Arm” is opening below expectations — $10-11 million. That’s not a bomb. But it’s a “You’re no movie star” slap at Jon Hamm. Not yet, anyway.

“Neighbors” is still doing decent business — a 40-45% drop from its opening weekend.

“Spider-Man” took another dive, but not a death plunge. $16 million.

“Chef” opened in more theaters and seems headed for wider and wider release.