“Country Strong” is a little like modern country music — odd moments of sincerity, heart and authenticity peek through the plastic, the hype and the manufactured hokum.
Moving once or twice, maudlin and mawkish the rest of the time, this “Crazy Heart” for Gwyneth Paltrow and launching pad for Garrett Hedlund (“TRON: Legacy”) and Leighton Meester (“Gossip Girl”) doesn’t quite work out, from its honky-tonk opening to its incredibly overdone and overlong concert curtain call.
Too cute, too star-studded and entirely too long, “How Do You Know” is a jocks’ romance that offers more proof that James L. Brooks has lost his fastball. The director of “Broadcast News” and “Terms of Endearment” serves up an immensely quotable, scene-by-scene adorable love triangle that never amounts to anything more than a sweet nothing, an excuse to swoon over Reese Witherspoon the way Paul Rudd does as he tries to win her away from Owen Wilson.
“Little Fockers” is possibly the last and certainly the least among the trio of comedies about the power struggle between a nebbishy male nurse and his menacing, control-freak father-in-law. It’s a desultory, patchwork affair — competently made, comfortably played, but lacking the heart and wit that characterized, in varying degrees, “Meet the Parents” and “Meet the Fockers.”
But oddly, this running out of gas seems less about a film series exhausting its supply of jokes than about something more organic and recognizably human. Gaylord “Greg” Focker (Ben Stiller) is an old married man, now — settled and successful in his career, a father of five year old twins. He’s lost his manic panic at dating a scary man’s daughter, his eye-bugging rage at being married into a family whose ex-CIA patriarch has everyone under his thumb. And Jack Byrnes (Robert DeNiro), having had a few mild heart events, has less energy to devote to tormenting the son-in-law.
There are two movies titled “Casino Jack,” and both are about the infamous lobbyist, DC double-dealer and scandal magnet Jack Abramoff.
And truthfully, you don’t need to see them both. If you saw Alex Gibney’s “Casino Jack and the United States of Money,” you know the parameters of the scandal, the sleazy connection between casino cash, The Christian Coalition and efforts to funnel money into the coffers of certain well-placed Congressmen.
But if you expect to make much out of “Casino Jack,” the faintly-fictionalized George Hickenlooper drama built around another epic turn by Kevin Spacey, you might want to give a quick look at the documentary. It’s hard to “follow the money” in the Spacey film, and if there’s anything Watergate taught us, that’s what you do when you’re figuring out a Washington scandal.
Ron Howard’s “The Dilemma” presents the viewer with one. Is it OK to laugh at what was plainly intended as a semi-serious relationship dramedy? Because the best scenes in this Vince Vaughn/Kevin James buddy picture, where one buddy’s wife is cheating on him and the other buddy finds out, give us more to chew on than laugh about.
And that uncertainty — “Wait, is that supposed to be funny?” — makes the movie an unsatisfying if often surprising experience, a less warm and fuzzy “Parenthood” from a director long removed from his warn and fuzzy years.
“John Dies at the End” is a horror-comedy that scores more points for trippiness than it does for truth in title advertising.
Before it trips over its own overly complex plot, before the comic leads have exhausted their modestly amusing repertoires, this odd stoner/sci fi creature feature blows out of the gate and threatens — for about thirty minutes — to blow your mind.
Then it doesn’t.
It’s “The Zombie Twilight.” Teen romance set after the zombie apocalypse, where the few remaining humans (Teresa Palmer, John Malkovich, Annaleigh Tipton, right) hold out against the brain-eaters.
A zombie falls for a human. Mayhem ensues. Only unlike in “Twilight,” this time the characters are in on the joke.
I’m talking to “Warm Bodies” director Jonathan Levine and Analeigh Tipton today. Got any burning questions you want me to ask them? Comment below.
The good news is that this is the first White House under assault thriller to hit theaters this year. March 22. They won’t be compared to “White House Down” with the red hot Channing Tatum until that film comes out in June.
Antoine Fuqua’s a decent action director. And Gerard Butler has his moments.
But Butler’s on a terrible losing streak. And this is FilmDistrict, which is on an even longer one (They’re not even previewing “Parker” this week.). Looks generic.
Old musicians – they have the best insults.
“Your singing brought tears…to my ears.”
“I can’t forget you in ‘Carmen.’ But I’ll try.”
The retired musicians at Britain’s Beecham House may not have the cash or relatives to ensure they pass their last years at home. But they still have their wit, their love of rehearsal and the fading vestiges of their talent.
“Is there no END to your bloody talent?”
That’s the setting for Dustin Hoffman’s dainty, adorable and adorably predictable film of Ronald Harwood’s play. It’s a celebration of great old actors set in a world of once-great singers, and Huffman’s affection for them and the material shows in every frame.
Aged operatic divas – the female and the male variety – and lesser mortals from the chorus, the orchestra or the English music halls fill the rooms of Beecham House, people who must live surrounded by music – preferably their own.
“Now, when I was Gilda, it was a TRIUMPH.”
“Yes, I remember my mother telling me about it.”
That last zinger is delivered with panache by Dame Maggie Smith, playing the diva among divas, Jean Horton. The ancient, imperious Jean, “as large as life, and twice as terrifying,” is new to Beecham. And that creates a stir.
Cissy (Pauline Collins, delightful) was Jean’s forgetfully addled supporting player in many an opera. And the old skirt chaser Wilfred (Billy Connolly, too young for the part but a hoot with a randy pick-up line) knew her well, too.
That’s because his best friend, Reginald the tenor (Tom Courtenay) used to be married to her. Jean is the last person Reginald wants to see as “dignified senility” sets in.
Beautifully back-lit bodies are suspended in water and suspended from the 3D screen in “Sanctum,” the new trapped-in-a-cave thriller that James Cameron produced as a way of showing off his love of all things underwater. It’s a solid, old-fashioned action yarn filled with the very latest dive gear and the oldest plot formula in the movie-maker’s playbook.
Set deep underground in the Esa Ala “caving district” of Papua New Guinea, it’s a “Ten Little Indians” story of a handful of explorers — some experienced, some novices — trapped underground when a cyclone floods “the largest unexplored cave system in the world.”
There are two central conflicts. Team leader Frank (Aussie actor Richard Roxburgh, in full growl) is the hardened veteran cave explorer whose son Josh (Aussie newcomer Rhys Wakefield) is in full rebellion against dad’s chosen profession and his place in it.
“It’s a sphincter of rocks,” he pouts. “NOBODY cares!”
Carl (Ioan Gruffudd) cares. He’s underwriting this expedition, ready to slap his name on places that “since the beginning of time, no human being has ever seen.” He’s readier to take risks than Frank is, and that’s the second major conflict set up here.
Carl’s dragged his mountaineering girlfriend (Alice Parkinson) down the huge hole with him. Then there’s Frank’s old diving mate, George (Dan Wyllie), an expert on “the bends” — “Your blood’s gonna fizz up like a dropped can’o beer.” And also along, Frank’s longtime aboriginal colleague Luko (Cramer Cain).
In the first act, we see how even when all the hi-tech is working something terrible can go wrong when you’re squeezing through underwater tunnels with bulky dive gear on. Director Alistir Grierson has seen Cameron’s earliest underwater thriller, “The Abyss.” He knows there’s nothing more traumatic than watching someone panic and suffocate right in front of you. The 3D makes that first death all the more traumatic.
Then the rains come and those five other folks are trapped below with only Frank, “the most determined cave diver in the world,” to get them out. Frank’s leadership consists of barking “You can do this because you have to do this” and “This cave’ll kill you in a heartbeat.”
In true “Ten Little Indians” (an Agatha Christie story that set this formula in stone) fashion, the object of “Sanctum” is to make us wonder who will live and who will die next?
