Movie Nation

“Sex Tape” is not quite the train wreck its TV ads make it out to be. Which turns out to be the good news as far as this last and least of the big R-rated comedies of summer goes.

Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel slimmed down and earned the most flattering lighting manageable for the nudity, which is plentiful. They’re game enough. But their chemistry is strictly professional, and there’s just not a lot of fun in watching two actors go through the motions as boring suburbanites who dare to cut loose and try a no-holds-barred/every-position-tried sex tape, and then freak out when that video gets “out there.”

Diaz is Anna, who narrates an opening that recounts “the first time” her husband saw her naked. Diaz and Segel, as her husband Jay, make a spirited stab at playing their randy collegiate selves — making the beast with two backs in dorm rooms, cars and in between the library stacks.

A pregnancy and marriage follows, and Annie asks the only important question left to ask.

“When’s the LAST time your husband saw you naked?”

She’s narrating her blog (Who’s Yo Momma?) and lamenting the way kids, work and routine kill the romance and the sexual heat in a relationship.

Her blog is popular enough to merit attention from a big toy maker, which would like her to tame it and make her the face of their ideal mommy customer. Rob Lowe is the toothy, “I’m VERY excited” corporate kingpin courting her.

But the couple’s solution to their marriage doldrums could destroy that. Running through “every position” in “The Joy of Sex” on video for their new iPad may have been fun. What happens to the video that Jay “forgets to erase” is what sends them out, in the dark of night, to retrieve iPads they’ve given away to friends, family and their postman.

Yeah, I know, who DOES that?

The best moments in the middle acts involve Segel playing a deadly cat-and-mouse game with a German shepherd belonging to Lowe’s uber-rich toy mogul (He has Annie’s iPad).

But those moments are scattered as they team up with unfunny friends (Rob Corddry, usually better than this, and Ellie Klemper) and an obnoxious kid. Where a Judd Apatow or Nicholas Stoller or Seth Rogen would pile outrageous joke upon joke, Kasdan and crew dawdle from one half-hearted gag to the next. At a slogging 95 minutes, “Sex Tape” has no pacing and few rewards for enduring its dull stretches in between the better bits. Segel amps up the mania, here and there. But Diaz never unleashes that “Bad Teacher” fury.

“My gynecologist is going to be SO disappointed!”

Still, two troubling social ills are mocked in the film. Yes, our world’s over-connected, something demonstrated every time an iPad/Macbook or iPhone runs an app that uploads a video, or turns up creepy toy boss Rob Lowe’s fireplace, cranks up his favorite band (Slayer) or sets the mood lighting for when he asks if Annie is up for a little cocaine.

“You wanna bump?”

And yes, product placement has run amok in the movies. Seriously, did Apple underwrite this? Because the message isn’t going to help their bottom line. That message — “Apple will be our undoing.”

On paper it all should have worked. Diaz’s “Bad Teacher” director Jake Kadan behind the camera, Segel and his “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” pal Nicholas Stoller joking up Kate “The Back-Up Plan” Angelo’s script. Something goes terribly wrong long before Jack Black turns up as the foul-mouthed porn purveying voice of reason and marital harmony in the third act.

As Black’s character reminds up, no “Sex Tape” ever did anybody any good. It just spices up what’s already stale — a marriage, or a movie, especially one that Jay, as he’s making it, reviews himself.

“I’m not sure the story’s that important.”

MPAA Rating: R for strong sexual content, nudity, language and some drug use

Cast: Cameron Diaz, Jason Segel, Rob Lowe, Ellie Klemper, Rob Corddry

Credits: Directed by Jake Kasdan, written by Kate Angelo, JAson Segel and Nicholas Stoller. A Sony/Columbia release.

Running time

“Planes: Fire & Rescue” is roughly twice as good as its predecessor,
“Planes,” which was so story-and-laugh starved it would have given
“direct-to-video” a bad name. Yes, there was nowhere to go but up.
The sequel’s story is about something — Dusty the racing plane learns to be
a S.E.A.T., a Single Engine Ariel Tanker, a fire-fighting plane. For very young
children, it offers animated suspense and lovely and exciting animated aerial
footage of planes and helicopters fighting forest fires in the American West.
The characters are, to a one, stiffs. But bringing in Ed Harris (as a
no-nonsense trainer/helicopter), Hal Holbrook (voicing an ancient fire truck)
and Wes Studi ( a Native American Sikorsky Sky Crane chopper) classes things
up.
And adults will catch the increased supply of one-liners, which will zoom
right over the heads of kids, especially in the scene set in a planes and cars
honkytonk.
“She left me for a hybrid,” a pick-up truck moans to the bartender. “I didn’t
even hear’em coming!”
The story, such as it is, has Dusty (voiced by Dane Cook) discover that his
antique gearbox has nearly given out, so he can’t race anymore. When, in his
grief, he causes a terrible fire at the Propwash Junction Airfield, he realizes
at least he can train to be a firefighter and help aging fire truck Mayday
(Holbrook) keep the field from closing. Dusty flies off to Piston Peak to train
with the team suppressing fires in a National Park.
Harris voices the hardcase captain of the team, Blade Ranger, a chopper.
Julie Bowen is a cute, flirtatious float plane, Studi milks a few funny lines as
the inscrutable Native American heavy-lift Sikorsky, and so on.
There’s more of a “Thomas the Tank Engine” feel to this sequel, with planes
and firetrucks and bulldozers doing the righteous work of dousing pretty
convincing animated blazes.
The conflict comes from the ambitious park superintendent (John Michael
Higgins), the profanity is all motor related (“Oh, Chevy.” “SHUT the Hangar
Door!”) and the pick up lines in the aforementioned honkytonk are real
zingers.
“Did you fall out of a B-17? Cuz you’re the BOMB.”
Disney put more of a Pixar imprint on this than the first “Planes,” with
familiar voices such as John Ratzenberger, Fred Willard and Patrick Warburton
fleshing out the cast.
A couple of flight sequences take us over majestic deserts and amber waves of
grain — beautiful animated scenery. Other than that, there’s not much to this.
But then, you get the impression from all the “Cars” and “Planes” movies that
the box office and video rentals are not why Disney made them. Come Christmas
season, that much will be obvious.

MPAA Rating:PG for action and some peril
Cast: The voices of Dane Cook, Ed Harris, Julie Bowen, Teri Hatcher, Hal
Holbrook, John Michael Higgins, Wes Studi
Credits: Directed by Bobs Gannaway, written by Jeffrey M. Howard. A Walt
Disney release.

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.).