Movie Nation

The last weekend of August and the first week or two of September are typically very low attendance weekends for movies. Which is why studios rarely take a shot at releasing anything with heft or potential in that window.

Movie execs are all headed to Toronto, audiences are headed back to school, starting the fall, what have you.

So “Riddick” is the only wide release this weekend. Weak reviews for that one. And Box Office Mojo figures it’ll do a decent $21 million or so, thanks to Vin Diesel’s appeal and the few still filmgoing fans old enough to remember “Pitch Black” and “The Chronicles of Riddick” from a decade ago.

Actually, that might work in its favor as to most of the “Fast/Furious” 18-25s, this is a new character. Box Office Guru thinks it’ll be lucky to do $19.

“Instructions Not Included,” the surprise Lionsgate hit from last weekend, opens even wider this weekend. Publicized in Hispanic media (Lionsgate never gave me so much as a “By the way” over it — last weekend or this one), it could do another brisk weekend for an under-served audience. $10 million? It could happen.

I will check it out today as my market is one of those it opens in.

“Adore” comes out in limited release. Middling to weak reviews for that one. I liked the leads — Naomi Watts and Robin Wright — the Aussie settings and the faintly titillating tone.

“Tio Papi”, also in limited release, seems like a Spanglish version of “Instructions Not Included.” And a lame one.

“The Butler” and “We’re the Millers” should hang around in the top five another weekend. “One Direction” probably won’t. With “Rush,” “The Family” and “Insidious 2” opening Sept. 13, fall movies will push the summer ones out the door pretty quickly.

“Riddick,” a movie that might have been titled “A Diesel and his Digital Dingo-dongo Dog,” is built to mirror the signature traits of its star. Like Vin Diesel, it has bulk, lumbering clumsily along as it repeats Diesel’s greatest hits — the ones that don’t require him to drive a fast and furious car.
It’s the third movie in Diesel’s career-making “Pitch Black” (2000) trilogy, roughly (VERY roughly) picking up where 2004’s “The Chronicles of Riddck” left off.
The human convict has been dumped and left for dead on a planet covered with desert and just enough water holes to survive. And it’s all just a tad…familiar.
Riddick narrates his saga, his new life on a place where “the whole damned planet wanted a piece of me.” Yeah, there are beastly birds and eels and scorpion-like monsters that come out when it rains.
Familiar. Except for the dogs, deep space dingos or hyenas, one of whom he befriends and trains to be his pal.
It’s just him and the dog until he stumbles across a “mercenary post,” where he sends out a distress call, luring two competing teams of bounty hunters, which he can then pick off, one by one. Jordi Molla and and Matt Nable are the feuding mercenary bosses who long to collect the price on Riddick’s head–and only his head. But they aren’t hearing Riddick’s narration. He tries to warn them.
“It’s always the punch you don’t see coming that puts you down.”
Diesel is wholly engaged in the project, unlike the last few “Furious” pictures, where sleepwalking was allowed. He grimaces through Riddick’s self-surgery, scowls as he fights various digital beasts and turns all David Caruso with Riddick’s omnipresent sunglasses.
The supporting players and mainly here to be sadists, and the fetchingly brawny Katee Sackoff, as a lesbian mercenary aptly named “Dahl”, stands out in that crew.
But this is a slow, unexciting thriller lacking the edge-of-the-seat suspense of “Pitch Black.” The story arc — spree killing convict redeems himself by killing monsters and saving people — is the same, but there’s no snap to it.
Idiotically, Diesel and his collaborator in all things Riddick, writer-director David Twohy, expect us to remember details from the first two films — not blockbusters, from a decade ago — expect us to care that they conned Karl Urban into a thankless cameo reprising a role he played in “The Chronicles of Riddick.”
But as bad movies go, you could do worse than having Diesel growl at a bunch of tough hombres who are already counting the bounty money they’ll collect for collecting his head, sunglasses and all.
“Will it be enough to pay for your funerals?”

MPAA Rating: R for strong violence, language and some sexual content/nudity
Cast: Vin Diesel, Jordi Molla, Matt Nable, Katee Sackhoff, Bokeem Woodbine
Credits: Written and directed by David Twohy, A Universal release.
Running time: 1:59

<p>Maybe. The screen legend is getting way on up there. He’s 77. And Oscar winner or not, the man is known for his indulgences. And not just younger women.

If he is retiring, his last film would be the dog “How Do You Know.” That’s not on a par with Gene Hackman’s  bow out, “Welcome to Mooseport” and Sean Connery’s “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.” But not his best work.

But the rumor is taking some serious hits that shoot it down.

We need this denial from the horse’s mouth.

Melanie Griffith’s actress/daughter with Don Johnson, Dakota Johnson, is to be Anastasia and Charlie Hunnam is Charles Grey in the big screen version of “50 Shades of Grey.”

Prestige project? Um, no. Big name stars? Not in the least.

He’s on “Sons of Anarchy,” and he was in the disappointing “Pacific Rim” this past summer. Not that anyone remembers.

Johnson is still best known for her parents (“21 Jump Street” is her biggest big screen credit).

A mildly depraved bondage romance between a college girl and a young businessman, they cast it age appropriate, but star-power deprived.

Sam Taylor-Wood (“Nowhere Boy”) is directing, with Focus Features putting the movie in theaters in August of 2014.

Smallish studio, modest-scale director, no name stars, an August release date.

Are fans of this adult novel as devoted as the Hunger Games/Potter/Twilight crowd? We’ll find out in August.

But all signs point to diminished expectations.

At the end of September, two-time Oscar nominee Naomi Watts turns 44. So this fall is probably the perfect time for her her “mid-life crisis” movie — “Adore” — to come out.”
“We all like to be reminded we’re still desirable,” she says as she drops her two young sons with actor and long-time love Liev Schreiber off at a suburban New York day camp. “That’s a very human thing. That’s why people have affairs in that age range, why marriages get into trouble. People look for some sign that they’re still alive and that they’re still capable.
“That’s kind of what a mid-life crisis is, right? I mean, that’s what I HEAR they’re like!”
And actors and actresses in their 40s don’t mind that sort of validation either — a role that demands a lot of swimsuit wearing, a lot of alluring looks, moments of weakness and the attentions of a much younger man. “Adore,” based on Doris Lessing’s novella “The Grandmothers,” is about two lifelong friends (Robin Wright and Watts) who grew up together and raised their kids together on the idyllic shore of Australia’s New South Wales.
Then one day, one of them realizes that the 19 year-olds they’ve raised are “like young gods.” And darned if she doesn’t act on that attraction. And darned if her best friend doesn’t follow suit with that best friend’s son.
It’s all très scandaleux, as the film’s French director (Anne Fontaine) might say. And “thoughtful, sexy, and nonjudgmental” if “potentially tawdry),” as a critic for Screen Journal International notes.
“There are very few stories of women’s desire, and even fewer that are as twisted as this,” Watts says with a chuckle. “I love the fact that I move from a place of shock to a place of judgment to forgiveness. My character eventually wishes this could go on forever, but realizes, more than the others, that it cannot.”
Watts, a veteran of edgier film fare, tries not to get defensive about this boundary-pushing romance. But she finds herself repeating what sounds like an old Woody Allen defense — “There’s nothing illegal going on here.” And so there isn’t.
“It’s a bizarre set-up, these four people and the way they link up. They’re like people who cannot break the chain of their relationships and their link to this place. But there’s nothing illegal about it. They’re honest with each other, and very non-traditional…It’s not grotesque. It’s just awkward very non-traditional. NOT illegal.”
As Watts points out, in Nobel Prize-winning novelist Doris Lessing’s story, “there’s no judgment in it. She sees this as a happy chapter in the long lives of these two very close friends.”
The bucolic, beachfront setting gives “Adore” a Garden of Eden quality.
“They’re outside all the time. The sun is shining all the time, they’re wearing little to no clothing, the salty air, all of that has meaning. And it’s all quite sensual.”
And you don’t have to see snakes to find temptation in all that.
The actress is starting work on Noah Baumbach’s new comedy, “While We’re Young,” co-starring Ben Stiller and Amanda Seyfried. She just finished work on another comedy, “St. Vincent,” and took a role in the dark farce, “Birdman,” about a has-been movie superhero struggling to restart his career with a stage show version of that persona.
But Watts is what Oscar watchers are calling a “major threat” (The Hollywood Reporter) to land a nomination for her turn as Diana, Princess of Wales, in the bio-drama “Diana” due out later this fall. Her big competition could be from her best friend, Nicole Kidman, playing Grace Kelly in another fall bio-pic. Which takes us back to the reasons the actress was drawn to the offbeat “Adore.”
“I love that the strongest relationship in the movie, the enduring one, is between Lil and Roz. They experienced everything in life together, from the time they were little girl, all the way through their midlife crisis, which we see played out in the film. They survive conflict and contradictions and a form of betrayal. But they share fun and happiness as well, and loyalty — women who love each other, no matter what.”
(Roger Moore reviews “Adore” here)
There. Watts is done “defending” the controversial “Adore.”  “It’s good practice,” she says, for her next film — which has a lot of heat surrounding it. “Adore” “is controversial. ‘Diana’ isn’t. I don’t think so. The mere fact that we made it might be controversial, but there’s nothing upsetting about it, aside than of course, her death. Nothing in it strays from the facts. It’s much tamer than ‘Adore.'”

As the October release date of her Princess Diana bio-pic comes closer, Watts is wading through the same revived conspiracy theories about her death that everyone else is, thanks to the British press and a re-opened investigation.

“I don’t know about all these various theories that pop up, seemingly, every time the anniversary of her death rolls around. It’s such a tragic way to die and she was so famous that we feel that we knew her and this can’t be all. It’s very hard to reconcile sudden, tragic death like that. That keeps her saga alive. I can’t be sure, but it seems to me that it was just a horrific accident, nothing more than that. I don’t see any conspiracy in that.

“She was the most famous woman of our times and her legacy lives on. That’s all I read into it.”

They don’t plan this. They couldn’t.

Maudlin and wholesome to a fault, “Tio Papi” is a family dramedy about a single guy who gives up his dream life when his sister dies and leaves him with six kids that he doesn’t know how to raise.
It stumbles out of the gate by not showing anything of a “dream” life that New Yorker Ray Ray Dominguez (Joey Dedio) is giving up. He lives alone and saves his cash, yet he’s behind on his rent. Way behind.
The film finds zero laughs in the worn out situation of a bachelor — Puerto Rican, in this case — who suddenly has to cope with kids. A strained romance with a teacher (Elizabeth Rodriguez) he split from because he didn’t want to be “tied down” with kids doesn’t work. The financial struggle of being responsible for six fresh mouths to feed is skimmed over.
And the third act is a litany of idiotically obvious plot devices straight out of bad ’70s sitcoms, from the “crisis” that could cost him the kids to the serendipitous arrival of  out of the blue bonuses that tie the whole misshapen mess up in a bow.
“Tio Papi” — the title means “Uncle Daddy” — takes in the kids and is instantly overwhelmed. Two rebellious teens, two quarrelsome tweens and two primary school darlings who miss their parents are enough to test anyone. Are they sweet enough to soften his “get my life back” sentiment?
By the time the stern social worker (Kelly McGillis) gives him 30 days, Ray Ray is desperate enough to beg his ex, Cheeky (Rodriguez) for help. Will she change her mind about taking a job in Miami and dive into this chaos? Guess. The lack of surprises walks hand in hand with the absence of laughs.
The kids are forgettable and faintly amateurish and all the performers are, to a one, bland, given nothing funny to say or do. Dedio — the little seen indie drama “Downtown: A Street Tale” is his best-known credit — came up with the character but needed help making him funny, charming, selfish or interesting in even the most basic ways. This guy has no rough edges to him.
If it weren’t for the well-intentioned moments of pathos — a tear or two, hear and there — “Tio Papi” would be a complete waste of time. Sure, the kids miss their parents. But not that much. And yes, he’s giving up his dream, but even his dream is boring. This “Tio” makes you want to cry “uncle” long before the closing credits.

MPAA Rating: PG for thematic elements, mild rude humor and brief language
Cast: Joey Dedio, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Kelly McGillis, Frankie Faison
Credits: Directed by Fro Rojas, written by Joey Dedio and Brian Herskowitz. An Active Fox release.
Running time: 1:27

The acronym “BFF” was new to the world when Nobel Prize-winner Doris Lessing’s novella “The Grandmothers” was written. But she touched on the rewards, temptations and consequences of that sort of all-consuming, enduring female friendship that lasts from childhood through adulthood, into adultery and then grand-motherhood.
It comes to the screen as a high-tone, erotic and faintly feminist soap opera titled “Adore,” an Australian tale that follows two lifelong best friends and comments on both the joys of that closeness, and the perils.
Roz (Robin Wright) and Lil (Naomi Watts) have been neighbors and chums pretty much since they were born. They swim and sunbathe off their lovely New South Wales Beach. They had kids — a son, each — at about the same time. And when something happens to one — Lil’s husband dies — the other is right there, next door, an unwavering support system that has lasted decades.
Roz and Lil still cut striking figures in their swimsuits. They’re close enough to prompt the odd whisper.
“We’re not lezzos, are we?” Lily jokes.
“Not as far as I can remember.”
But their relationship changes comes when their sons , Tom and Ian (James Frecheville, Xaxier Samuel) hit their hunky surfing 20s.
“They’re beautiful,” Roz reflects on their lads. “They’re like young gods.”
Thus does temptation arrive in their Aussie Garden of Eden. The square-jawed boys share intimate wine dinners with their mums, and the wine leads to dancing and we all know where dancing leads. It’s not the widowed Lil who is lured to the forbidden fruit first. Roz, married to an academic (Ben Mendelsohn), is the first to cross that line, with Lil’s son Ian.
That’s bad enough. Their secret doesn’t last, which is worse. And Lil is easily tempted into reprisal sex, which is where that last line is crossed. A lifetime of shared child-rearing is forgotten as the tender touches of mothering become something sexual.
Frecheville and Samuel are limited to moments that reveal how shallow, petulant and arrogant these self-admiring “gods” are at their age. The ladies have a lot more to play here — faraway stares as their characters reflect on the transgression they’re falling into and their rationalizations of it.
Director and co-adapter Anne Fontaine (“Coco Before Chanel”) wrestles to balance the narcissistic side of feminism, with Roz and Lil seeking sexual validation in their 40s, with the human cost of giving in to impulses and abandoning adulthood/motherhood and its responsibilities. Not everyone will waltz through this interlude with a psyche un-scarred.
It’s hard to imagine a gender-inverted version of this tale — two fathers seducing/being seduced by each other’s daughters — as anything but icky or French. But as edgy female wish-fulfillment fantasy, showing that fantasy’s consequences, “Adore” engrosses and engages, never titillates and never betrays even the tiniest hint of revulsion.

(Roger Moore interviews Naomi Watts about “Adore” and her next film, “Diana,” here)

MPAA Rating: R for sexual content and language
Cast: Robin Wright, Naomi Watts, James Frecheville, Xavier Samuel
Credits: Directed by Anne Fontaine, scripted by Anne Fontaine and Christopher Hampton, based on the Doris Lessing novella. An Exclusive Media  release.
Running time: 1:50