REVIEW: The World's End

The World's End (2013): Dir. Edgar Wright. Written by: Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg. Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman and Eddie Marsan. Rated R (Language, robot blood). Running time: 109 minutes.

2 stars (out of four)

The World’s End starts promisingly as a the-boys-are-back-together comedy, slips into sci-fi mediocrity roughly a third of the way in, and ends with a slapdash epilogue so lazy, it feels like an insult, or maybe a mistake. The film was directed by Edgar Wright and written by Wright and Simon Pegg, who previously collaborated on the zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead and the (even better) tongue-in-cheek buddy cop movie Hot Fuzz. In both of those earlier films, as well as this one, Wright and Pegg meld the comedy of small town caricatures with more conventional genre-movie entertainment.

Their films also have a wry, distinctly British wit. They aren’t afraid to go for the jugular (sometimes literally, by way of decapitating a character), and for the first half hour or so, The World’s End appears willing to mine some good, uncomfortable laughs from its reunion of middle-aged blokes.

The organizer of this class reunion is Gary King (Pegg), a hyper, alcoholic mess of a guy. On a whim inspired by some mid-life crisis combo of boredom and desperation, he decides to get his old mates from high school back together for an epic pub crawl called the Golden Mile. Twelve pubs in one night, a pint (or more) in each one, is no easy feat for anyone, certainly not a group of men pushing forty. As teenagers, their first attempt at the Golden Mile left them passed out in a field somewhere between pubs nine and ten, getting sick all over themselves (which is also to say it was a smashing success).

The friends are played by a charming and accomplished group of actors that include Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman and Eddie Marsan. Nick Frost, again taking up his usual sidekick role beside Pegg (though, for the first time, as the straight man), plays Andy, Gary’s former best drinking buddy turned teetotaler. An incident from his and Gary’s post-grad years has made him swear off booze (as well as his friendship with Gary), but darned if his old friend can’t drag him back out for one more night.

Andy and the rest of the guys eye the former leader of their group with a mixture of morbid fascination and deep concern. He hasn’t changed a bit. He even still drives “The Beast,” his 1989 Ford that coughs black fumes at the slightest bump in the road. For a while, they enjoy the nostalgia of being in his company, but the sadness of his situation soon sets in. Watch the worried looks Considine and Freeman exchange when they realize Gary has been jamming out to the same cassette tape since high school, some twenty years ago.

The first act of the film is rich with moments like that one, suggesting that The World’s End is heading for bold, uneasy comedic territory. Pegg’s performance walks a careful tonal tightrope. Gary is the type of eternally upbeat guy who wants you to have a blast but just ends up depressing the hell out of you because it’s painfully obvious how in denial he is.

But an earnest set-up is wasted with a hard left turn toward science fiction that, this time around, feels forced rather than inspired. A plot about extraterrestrial robots taking over the guys’ hometown has potential for satire (they also find that the once colorful characters of their favorite pubs have been homogenized as a result of corporate buy-outs, a fate that mirrors the alien takeover) but it belongs in a different movie.

The World’s End’s jarring shift of gears also allows it to duck out of dealing with the more complex and interesting issues its characters face, such as settling into middle age, dealing with alcoholism and the effects of nostalgia.

Instead there are a lot of fight scenes, which are hectic, decently choreographed, squirt blue synthetic blood all over the actors, but are nothing special, really. I find it hard to recommend The World’s End even as simple-minded fun when you can just rent 2011’s way cooler, more inventive and way better alien invasion movie Attack the Block (also produced by Big Talk Productions, the same company that produces all of Edgar Wright’s films).

Fans of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz may be satisfied enough with The World’s End but I’d be surprised if it attained anything near the cult fandom of those movies. There are enough good scenes and chuckle-worthy jokes to remind you of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s earlier successes but the movie ultimately becomes as weary as Gary King does to his friends. You wish it would dispense with the distractions, grow up and deal with something real.

- Steve Avigliano, 8/28/13

REVIEW: Blue Jasmine

Blue Jasmine (2013): Written and directed by: Woody Allen. Starring: Alec Baldwin, Cate Blanchett, Louis C.K., Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Dice Clay, Sally Hawkins, Peter Sarsgaard and Michael Stuhlbarg. Rated PG-13 (Booze is drank and things are said). Running time: 98 minutes.

4 stars (out of four)

When we first see Jasmine (Cate Blanchett), she seems well put together. Elegant, riding in first class, lounging in her chair like she’s just bought the world on credit, she dishes the details of her divorce to the elderly woman seated beside her. Gabbing all the way to baggage claim, you might call her overly chatty or brazenly forthcoming with personal details, but she certainly presents herself as a picture of poise.

Blue Jasmine, the new film written and directed by Woody Allen, depicts the steady unraveling of this woman’s persona. Bubbling just underneath her designer clothes and meticulously maintained golden blonde hair is a twitchy, desperate woman who, we learn, has just suffered a nervous breakdown and appears to be on the verge of another.

Allen often writes neurotic characters into his scripts, usually as a stand-in for his own anxious persona, but Jasmine is a far more complex character than the typical dyspeptic types found in so many of Allen’s comedies. Her problems run much deeper than phobias and a surly worldview; her life of luxury has been violently ripped out from underneath her, a fact she attempts to avoid with corrosive self-deception.

Through conversations and flashbacks, we learn that Jasmine’s husband Hal (Alec Baldwin), a hugely successful entrepreneur, has been convicted of fraud. His empire, including Jasmine’s cushy Park Avenue lifestyle, turns out to have been built on lies and deceit, and has subsequently been snatched away by the U.S. government.

Now broke and hopelessly lost, Jasmine turns to her couldn’t-be-more-different sister, Ginger (a charmingly dizzy Sally Hawkins), who graciously takes Jasmine in despite their past. (Ginger and her ex-husband Augie (Andrew Dice Clay, somehow both gruff and cuddly) were collateral damage in one of Hal’s schemes.) Jasmine will live with Ginger and her two young boys in their modest San Francisco apartment, at least until she gets her feet back on the ground.

The film’s tone ducks and weaves with Blanchett’s performance. One moment, Blue Jasmine is a social comedy, the next it’s an unnerving portrait of mental illness. The comedy comes largely from Ginger, her new mechanic boyfriend Chili (Bobby Cannavale with a hilariously long strand of hair slicked behind his ear), and a spare handful of the people who enter and exit their lives. (Louis C.K. has a nice supporting turn as a competing love interest of Ginger’s.)

These characters are a rowdy and deeply flawed bunch, and from Jasmine’s condescending, undeservedly privileged vantage point, they seem painfully uncultured. On a lunch date with Ginger, Chili and his dopey pal Eddie (Max Casella, getting the biggest laughs of the movie), she doesn’t just order a vodka. She orders a Stoli with a twist of lemon.

But these people are also full of life. Compare them to Jasmine, who walks around in a fog of misery, bumping into men both good and bad (Peter Sarsgaard as a widowed and heartbroken man with great ambitions, and Michael Stuhlbarg as an unsavory dentist).

All the while, Jasmine’s past follows her around like a malignant shadow. The story of Hal’s crimes is more than just fabulously juicy gossip; it is part of her identity. It’s how she gets introduced at parties. She can’t escape it.

Woody Allen has juggled the comedic and the tragic before, but rarely with such a deft touch. He has an ear for idle conversation and his social dialogue is as on point as ever. But he also shows an unprecedented boldness by presenting Jasmine as a very real, very complicated individual. The script hits some decidedly minor notes. Sometimes these moments are offset with comedic relief. Sometimes the laughs come from a less comfortable place.

Allen is a terrifically prolific filmmaker (he’s stayed on pace at a movie a year for more than four decades), though not a very consistent one (his films fall all over the map in terms of quality). Blue Jasmine ranks in the highest tier of his work and is perhaps his best film since 2005’s simmering noir thriller Match Point. It’s a smart, compassionate and funny film, anchored by Cate Blanchett’s remarkable performance. Jasmine is wretched but also vulnerable, bitter but sadly disillusioned. There is much that is buried deep inside her and Woody Allen proves a fearless excavator.

- Steve Avigliano, 8/22/13

REVIEW: Before Midnight

Before Midnight (2013): Dir. Richard Linklater. Written by: Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. Based on characters created by: Richard Linklater and Kim Krizan. Starring: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Xenia Kalogeropoulou, Walter Lassally, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Panos Koronis, Ariane Labed and Yiannis Papadopoulos. Rated R (Language, nudity). Running time: 109 minutes.

4 stars (out of four)

In 1995’s Before Sunrise, a young American man named Jesse (Ethan Hawke) meets a young French woman, Celine (Julie Delpy), on a train. They talk, are caught off guard by the spark that lights between them and get off the train together, spending the whole night talking and walking through Vienna. They talk about the Big Things – life, love, childhood, religion, sex – and, as young lovers do, they fall for each other.

They agree to meet again one year later but, as revealed in 2004’s Before Sunset, they never do. In this second film, they bump into each other and stroll around Paris, falling right back into it. They look back on the years past, reflect on the changes in their lives and wonder, “What happened?” If Before Sunrise captured the young, romantic idealism of its characters, Before Sunset found them grappling with the disappointments of life.

In Before Midnight, Jesse and Celine (Hawke and Delpy, reprising their roles for a third time) have taken a considerable amount more control over their happiness, but there remain things that will forever be outside their control (not the least of which being each other).

The final scene of the second film, a wonderful scene brimming with sexual tension, ended on a bit of a will-they-won’t-they-how-much-will-they cliffhanger, so it would be fair to call any description of where Jesse and Celine stand at the beginning of Before Midnight a spoiler. If you feel this way, skip the next paragraph.

Another nine years have passed since their reunion (for us and for them), and we catch up with Jesse, who is now divorced and dropping off his son from that marriage (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) at an airport in Greece. The son is returning to the States after spending the summer with his father and Celine, who now live together in Paris with twin girls, though they remain unmarried. They are vacationing in Greece, staying in the home of a friend.

For the first time in the series, other people join in on Jesse and Celine’s long, reflective conversations. In one of the centerpieces of the film, they have dinner with a widow and a widower (Xenia Kalogeropoulou and Walter Lassally), a married couple (Athina Rachel Tsangari and Panos Koronis), and a pair of young lovers (Ariane Labed and Yiannis Papadopoulos) who are about the same age as Jesse and Celine when they first met.

Over dinner, they discuss the difficulties of sustaining a loving relationship and the complications of sex. Each generation has their own expectations and experiences that they bring to the table. The conversation is lively and boisterous, full of kidding and teasing until Natalia, the widow, who has remained largely silent up until this point, quietly interjects and does nothing less than explain life.

The first two-thirds of Before Midnight, which includes a stroll through a small village and expands on themes explored in the earlier films, is on par with its predecessors in terms of wit and insight. But the scene that follows in a hotel room takes the movie to a level of greatness that surpasses even those wonderful films.

The hotel room is intended to be a romantic getaway but soon becomes the setting for a passionate and furious fight. Jesse and Celine dig into one another, sometimes cruelly, touching on a range of subjects that includes careers, fidelity, parenting methods, their sex life and more. A untouched well of fears, anxiety, jealousy and contempt is released during the feud, which is also perfectly paced and superbly choreographed by director Richard Linklater.

I hope I’m not making the film sound like a miserable experience. Really, it is warm and heartfelt; even at the height of Jesse and Celine’s argument, the movie has the undeniable vitality of life. Has there ever been a screen romance as complex, honest and absorbing as theirs? The movie is exciting because it feels so real and so true. Watch during that hotel room scene how a biting one-liner lands like a sucker punch, as funny as it is hurtful. Maybe you will be reminded, as I was, of scenes from your own life that defy any single emotion but are in fact rich with layers of feeling.

The performances of Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy reflect this complexity. Jesse and Celine are complicated, multidimensional people. They have changed since the first two movies, and yet, at their core, they have not changed at all. It is fascinating to consider how these characters have evolved, and impressive how Linklater, Delpy and Hawke have so authentically crafted that transformation (the three of them wrote the screenplay together).

With Before Midnight, Linklater boldly and ambitiously continues a thrilling cinematic experiment that began eighteen years ago and shows every sign of continuing for another eighteen. The philosophical and romantic musings of these characters are intellectually stimulating and emotionally invigorating. To watch these movies is to watch life unfold before your eyes.

On one hand, I have gone through a great deal of changes in the last nine years, and yet, on the other hand, I am the exact same person. I look forward to regrouping with Jesse, Celine and myself in another decade or so to see where we all are.

- Steve Avigliano, 7/15/13

REVIEW: The Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger (2013): Dir. Gore Verbinski. Written by: Justin Haythe, Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio. Based on The Lone Ranger by Fran Striker and George W. Trendle. Starring: Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, Tom Wilkinson, William Fichtner, Barry Pepper and Helena Bonham Carter. Rated PG-13 (Guns blazing). Running time: 149 minutes.

2 stars (out of four)

The Lone Ranger is two-and-a-half hours long. If you’re wondering why an action reboot of a 1950s TV show (itself based on a 1930s radio serial) needs to be so long, you may find enlightening the fact that the director, Gore Verbinski, is the man who squeezed a total of seven hours and forty-three minutes’ worth of high seas adventures out of an eight-and-a-half minute theme park ride.

In all fairness, there are a few sequences in The Lone Ranger that gallop along with such jubilant energy you may be willing to forgive the bloated excesses of the film, which too often feels as though it is wading through molasses.

The best of these scenes is the climactic fight on a pair of speeding trains on parallel tracks. Set to the triumphant march of the William Tell Overture (the TV show’s theme), the battle adheres to Looney Tunes laws of physics and is an absolute thrill, though figuring out what exactly is happening and why might prove difficult. The scene is the climax of a jumbled and needlessly complicated plot and features no less than a half dozen participants. But as long as our heroes keep leaping, swinging and dueling, nothing matters except the chugga-chugga-choo-choo nonsense of the action.

During the film’s quieter passages, however, it is hard to muster much enthusiasm for the characters who populate this wild west world or understand their murky motivations. You know a script is weak when you’ve got Tom Wilkinson playing a corrupt politician, Barry Pepper as a mustachioed Army officer and Helena Bonham Carter as a one-legged prostitute, and your mind still wanders during the exposition.

But credit should be given to Armie Hammer who, it turns out, has charisma to match the impressive bone structure of his chiseled jawline. He is likable as John Reid, the dopey lawyer-turned-vigilante of the film’s title. He seeks to bring to justice (not revenge) to his brother’s cannibalistic murderer (William Fichtner, chewing the scenery and at least one man’s cardiovascular organ).

Getting just as much if not more screen time is Johnny Depp as Tonto, the wise-but-dumb Injun sidekick to the Lone Ranger. Tonto talks in fortune cookie phraseology and practices all kinds of goofy hokum, trying the Lone Ranger's patience and very often saving their skin. The character, a mostly inoffensive caricature rooted in decades’ old stereotypes, is a jokester who pokes fun at the white man’s hypocritical ways and acts as a catalyst for much of the film’s action. Johnny Depp, a gifted comedic actor, has a lot of fun with the role.

There’s a weeping damsel too who I very nearly forgot to mention. Rebecca (Ruth Wilson) is the widowed wife of the slain brother and (naturally) a romantic interest for the Lone Ranger. Keeping with the sexist traditions of the genre, the movie uses her as a prop. She spends half her screen time wringing her hands, gripping a scarf and holding back tears.

The Lone Ranger is a genial, good-natured waste of time, as pleasant as it is forgettable. And if you see it on a hot day, you’re guaranteed to get your money’s worth of air conditioning.

- Steve Avigliano, 7/8/13

REVIEW: Monsters University

Monsters University (2013): Dir. Dan Scanlon. Written by: Daniel Gerson, Robert L. Baird and Dan Scanlon. Featuring the voices of: Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Charlie Day, Dave Foley, Sean Hayes, Helen Mirren, Alfred Molina, Joel Murray and Peter Sohn. Rated G (believable college shenanigans but astonishingly still 100% family-friendly). Running time: 104 minutes.

3 ½ stars (out of four)

There are movies that are good kids’ entertainment and there are movies that are simply good entertainment. Monsters University is good entertainment. I laughed out loud more during it than any animated film in recent memory and, as a relatively recent college graduate, even felt a nostalgic pang or two for my campus days.

A prequel to Disney/Pixar’s 2001 film Monsters Inc., it tells the story of how Mike and Sully, our monster heroes from that movie, met in college and further explores the monster world. A bit of backstory is necessary to understand that world but Monsters University does a nice job filling you in if it’s been a while since you saw the first one.

In Monsters Inc. we learned that the monsters that hide under children’s beds and in their closets are not the result of overactive imaginations or side effects of an undigested late night snack. They are very real and exist in their own world, using the energy from children’s screams to power their society. The geographic and metaphysical relation between this world and the human world remains a mystery but monsters are able to freely travel from the Monsters Inc. headquarters to a given child’s bedroom through a specially designed door that acts as a portal.

The monsters themselves vary in shape, color and size. Some have wings and claws, others have tentacles and multiple heads. Mike Wazowski (voiced by Billy Crystal) is round and green, and his single eyeball takes up nearly his whole body. When we first see him in childhood flashback, he is no bigger than a volleyball. A puny runt by any monster’s standards, Mike is in awe of the Scarers, the professional scream team at Monsters Inc., who he catches a glimpse of on a school field trip to the facility.

You’re too small, you’re not scary enough, you’ll never be a Scarer, Mike’s classmates tell him. He sets out to prove them wrong by studying relentlessly and working hard to get into Monsters University. A student can study all sorts of subjects at MU but anyone who’s anyone is in the Scare Program. The terrifying, dragon-like Dean Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren) personally oversees the program. She interrupts Professor Knight’s (the always professorial Alfred Molina) Scaring 101 class to lecture the incoming freshmen on a strict, new exam at the end of their first semester. Fail it and you’re out of the program.

That’s no sweat for James Sullivan (John Goodman), a shaggy, blue-haired beast with a ferocious roar. Looking leaner than his older self in Monsters Inc. (and in an inspired touch, styling the fur on his head in a faux-hawk), Sully comes from a family of Scarers. He assumes he’ll be able to coast through college on the legacy of his family name.

A fierce rivalry forms between Mike and Sully, which ultimately lands them in hot water with Hardscrabble. In order to redeem themselves, they must team up and win the Scare Games, an annual tournament held by MU’s greek life. Helping them is Oozma Kappa, the lamest monster frat on campus. These new characters include the two-headed Terri and Terry (Sean Hayes and Dave Foley), a many-eyed blob named Squishy (Peter Sohn), the oblong furry freak Art (Charlie Day) and Don Carlton (Joel Murray), a former salesman with a moustache shaped like bat wings who is going back to school to learn “the computers.”

The rivals-the-pals story is a bit familiar but it’s executed well here and the pleasures of Monsters University are in the embellishments. There are endless sight gags in this exquisitely animated film and the script is genuinely hilarious at times. I continue to be impressed too with Pixar animators’ abilities to create complex emotions on their characters’ faces. There are several key turning points in the plot conveyed by a subtle glance or facial expression.

And it is this emotional sensitivity, a Pixar trademark for nearly two decades now, that makes Monsters University such a satisfying experience. The script, written by Daniel Gerson, Robert L. Baird and Dan Scanlon (who also directed the movie), has no shortage of wit and humor but it also has heart. This is a compassionate story about the importance of hard work and of realizing that your shortcomings may actually be strengths if viewed from a different angle.

These are excellent, positive messages for a kid in the audience and when these themes are expressed as gracefully as they are here, they ring true no matter how old you are.

- Steve Avigliano, 6/28/13

REVIEW: This Is the End

This Is the End (2013): Written and directed by: Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen. Starring: James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Michael Cera and Emma Watson. Rated R (Language and assorted apocalyptic debauchery). Running time 106 minutes.
 

2 ½ stars (out of four)

There are so many references and in-jokes in This Is the End, an end-of-the-world comedy written and directed by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, I can’t imagine the movie will be very funny even just a few years from now. Still, if you see it on a Friday or Saturday night in the next couple of weeks (a comedy like this is always more enjoyable with a packed house), you’ll get your money’s worth of laughs.

And if you already think the guys in this movie are funny, then seeing This Is the End in theaters is a no-brainer. When all hell is (literally) unleashed on the world, a group of Judd Apatow regulars hole up in Hollywood hoping to outlast the apocalypse.

Everyone plays themselves, or rather, caricatured, sometimes self-deprecating versions of themselves. For some of them, the movie is an opportunity to reinforce an already established persona. Seth Rogen, as always, is the affable stoner. He has a remarkable ability to give you the impression that he is already your friend. James Franco is the playboy. He’s the charismatic jerk who hosts the epic banger of a party in his newly bought mansion on the night of the rapture.

Other actors use the movie to play with their celebrity personas. Jonah Hill, wearing a diamond earring in his left ear, is effeminate and full of himself. Apparently still high off his Oscar nomination from a few years ago, the Hill character sees himself as a cut above the rest of these lowbrow comedians. Like many of the other actors in the movie, Hill is one of those guys people always accuse of playing themselves in every movie. Here, he actually does play himself and it’s one of the most individually distinct characters he’s ever played.

Michael Cera has a memorable cameo, playing against his usual awkward adolescent character as a coke-sniffing womanizer. Emma Watson shows up too to prove she’s more than Hermione Granger. (About a dozen more actors and stars have cameos, some of which are inspired.)

Danny McBride was never an actor I particularly liked but here, maybe for the first time, I understand what it is that people like about him. His comedic timing is on point and he is relentlessly, cheerfully tasteless. After a while though, I remembered why it is I can only take him in doses. His sense of humor is exhaustingly crude and cynical. It can be a bit much.

For my money, Craig Robinson made me laugh the most. He’s been stealing scenes in supporting roles for the better part of a decade now and is always a welcome presence in a movie. Perhaps the most likable and relatable guy here, Robinson squeals like a little girl in the face of danger and is delighted to find that drinking his own pee isn’t so bad. He can switch back and forth between straight man and goofball in a way few comedians can.

Then there’s Jay Baruchel, who usually plays the whiny, goody two-shoes of the group. In This Is the End, he plays the whiny, goody two-shoes of the group. With everyone else so gleefully playing into his type or against it, why isn’t Baruchel allowed to join in on the fun? Did Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen think the movie needed a moral center for the audience to relate to? Someone who scorns the vain lives of Hollywood celebrities? The movie does not need that and would have been more fun without it. Similarly, his bromance with Seth Rogen (in the film, the two are childhood friends reuniting for a weekend of smoking weed at Rogen’s place) is tired and weighs the movie down.

These scenes aside, This Is the End is a lot of fun. These actors are great at banter and the biggest laughs in the movie come not from the gross-out gags but the slick, fast-paced dialogue. At one point, bored in Franco’s fortress of a home, the guys decide to make a homemade sequel to The Pineapple Express. The best thing about This Is the End is that it feels like a movie made by a bunch of friends. All the CGI demons and other hellish effects made possible by the movie’s big budget aren’t necessary. This Is the End puts its stars front and center. They’re having a good time and you will too.

- Steve Avigliano, 6/15/13

REVIEW: Frances Ha

Frances Ha (2013): Dir. Noah Baumbach. Written by: Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig. Starring: Greta Gerwig, Mickey Summer, Adam Driver and Michael Zegen. Rated R (Cursing and frank talk about sex). Running time: 85 minutes.

3 stars (out of four)

The best moments in Frances Ha, a light and breezy new film directed by Noah Baumbach and written by Baumbach and Greta Gerwig (who also plays the titular Frances), are the little ones – snatches of overheard conversations, the offhanded reactions and interactions of its young and cheerful characters. When Frances Ha works, it feels as though Baumbach and Gerwig are skipping stones across the film’s shimmery surface. In one particularly jubilant scene, as she prances and pirouettes down several blocks of Manhattan sidewalk, Gerwig evens seems to mimic that exact motion.

The movie, which recounts a year or so in the life of the hopelessly quirky twenty-seven-year-old Frances, an understudy in a dance company, only sputters when it slows down and grasps for something a little weightier. An early scene, in which Frances and her boyfriend (Michael Esper) break up, has a few funny lines but mostly feels assembled from similar scenes we remember from a hundred other movies and sitcom episodes.

But then there’s a scene like the one when Frances and Miles (Adam Driver), a friend-of-a-friend she meets at a party, go on a first date. Their awkward and halting dialogue has a kind of screwball grace to it, and Frances’s ensuing mad dash to an ATM is gleefully slapstick. Driver, who plays a much gentler version of the self-absorbed charmer he plays on HBO’s Girls, has just the right rhythms to parry with Greta Gerwig, whose wonderfully flighty Frances is always cutting herself off mid-thought or rambling on about nothing. I would love to see a longer, more traditional romantic comedy between the two.

But though the tribulations of dating in the city as a twentysomething take up a considerable amount of focus in the conversations and musings of the movie’s characters, the romance at the center of Frances Ha is not a heterosexual one. The break-up between Frances and her boyfriend comes when he invites her to move in with her. She can’t, she explains. She has to continue living with her current roommate and best friend Sophie (Mickey Summer) at least until the end of their lease. And besides, they’re probably going to renew the lease after that, so it’s kind of impossible.

More than once Frances and Sophie joke that they are like an old lesbian couple who don’t have sex anymore, but unlike the guys who are in man-love with each other in, say, a Judd Apatow production, these young women do not feel the need to be self-consciously and kiddingly homophobic. They are open and honest about their affection for one another, lying on each other’s laps and occasionally sharing a snuggle in bed. They say “I love you,” not “I love you, girl.”

This is refreshing to an extent but mostly just reflects the gender difference in attitudes toward same-sex friendship. And while Frances Ha admirably works to provide counterbalance to the increasingly unbearable number of bromances in movies today, its girlmance isn’t terribly different. It’s a plot device to keep its stars together rather than in the arms of their respective boyfriends and fiancés who just don’t get them the way they do. The scenes between Frances and Sophie are undeniably sincere but also familiar. (Later, Frances’s flirtation with a new roommate and platonic friend Benji (Michael Zegen) has a more fresh chemistry.)

Frances Ha is more giddily free-spirited when Frances breaks free from her second half and makes a nice, cute mess of her life. Greta Gerwig’s performance is sharp and clever in the way it pokes fun at the immaturity of Frances while also embracing and cherishing the character’s innocence. Aided by cinematographer Sam Levy, who paints the film in nostalgic black-and-white, the twenty-nine-year-old Gerwig seems to be looking back on recently passed years of her life with a knowing smile.

Noah Baumbach treats the material with this same warm, backward-looking affection. Frances Ha has a candidness that is fun and funny, and jazzy style that skips from one scene to the next. Baumbach pitches the film’s tone somewhere between Girls and Annie Hall-era Woody Allen, though without ever reaching the heights of either. Frances Ha does not have enough depth or complexity to be a statement about life in your twenties rather than just a fleeting snapshot of it. Baumbach and Gerwig are content to simply cast out a net and reel in authentic moments. They don’t catch many keepers but you can feel that they still had a great time fishing.

- Steve Avigliano, 5/25/13

REVIEW: Star Trek Into Darkness

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013): Dir. J. J. Abrams. Written by: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof. Based on Star Trek by Gene Roddenberry. Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Benedict Cumberbatch, Karl Urban, John Cho, Alice Eve, Simon Pegg, Peter Weller and Anton Yelchin. Rated PG-13 (Bloodless action). Running time: 133 minutes.

4 stars (out of four)

Star Trek Into Darkness is a perfect summer movie. It is smart, fast-paced and emotionally engaging, grabbing your attention in the opening moments and refusing to let go until it’s over. Scene after scene, it surprises and thrills. You can’t help but get drunk off its relentlessly exhilarating energy.

The film, which is J. J. Abrams’s second Star Trek feature, begins by following what I feel is one of the cardinal rules of any great action movie: Open with a scene so good, a lesser movie would have used it as its climax. Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) runs through the blood orange jungle of an exotic planet, chased by spear-throwing natives with chalk white faces. A mostly self-contained episode, this first mission involves dropping First Officer Spock (Zachary Quinto) into an active volcano and sets the tone for the rest of the film, which oscillates between edge-of-your-seat suspense and comic levity.

This is a delicate movie alchemy and too many directors get it wrong, overloading their films with convoluted, disorienting action and occasionally punctuating the monotony with ham-handed one-liners. But J. J. Abrams makes it look simple. The comedy flows easily from his cast and the action is never difficult to follow. There is a clear sense of space and Abrams plays with it.

Take one scene, for example, when the starship Enterprise is under attack. The ship spins through space, tossing around the crew inside. This forces our heroes to run along walls and ceilings as the ship turns. Another scene gets a laugh from watching Scotty (Simon Pegg) sprint down the seemingly endless length of a ship’s hangar. Abrams delights in creating locations that feel real and lets his characters interact with the space. I’d bet half my paycheck he played with Legos as a kid.

He also uses this inventiveness to build a large, richly detailed universe. Even a relatively agnostic Star Trek fan such as myself (in my formative years as a nerd-movie padawan, I sweat and bled Star Wars) could not help but become completely absorbed by it. Along with production designer Scott Chambliss, costume designer Michael Kaplan and countless others, Abrams creates an authentic, believable world. Any given shot is packed with fun things to look at in the background. You get the sense that not a dollar of the movie’s massive budget was misspent. Even the ice cubes at the bar – little spheres of ice that spin when dropped into a whiskey glass – are cool.

But all of these details and embellishments are merely decorative, like so many ornaments Abrams hangs on this dazzling Christmas tree of a movie. The script, written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof, is the fuel that powers this warp speed adventure. Into Darkness is always two steps ahead of its audience; just when you think you know where it’s heading, it twists and turns back on itself. The stakes are always high but ever changing. Villains become allies, friends become enemies and the movie keeps cartwheeling like this until the very end.

Following the wonderfully fun prologue, the plot begins in earnest with the bombing of a Starfleet building in London. Admiral Alexander Marcus (an excellent Peter Weller, growling and snarling his lines) assembles a group of Starfleet commanders and explains who the suspect is: a disgruntled former employee named John Harrison (a steely and terrifically ruthless Benedict Cumberbatch). Harrison attacks a second time and flees to the Klingon homeworld of Kronos. Tensions are already high between Starfleet and the Klingons, and Harrison believes Starfleet would not dare risk starting an all-out war by following him there.

Harrison does not take into account, however, the daring of James T. Kirk, who offers to take the Enterprise and its crew on a covert mission to Kronos to take out Harrison. Armed with seventy-two of Starfleet’s newly developed and highly deadly photon torpedoes, the Enterprise blasts off in hot pursuit of the fugitive.

As the plot rockets down its twisty roller coaster tracks, the crew members on board the Enterprise trade snappy banter and gently poke fun at the proceedings. The dynamic between Pine’s Kirk and Quinto’s Spock is much as it was between William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy (who has a brief cameo here). The cocky bravado of Kirk provides a nice foil for Spock’s rigid adherence to logic and following protocol. They frustrate the hell out of each other but they also share a deeply rooted respect and love for one another.

The beautiful Lieutenant Uhura (Zoe Saldana) is romantically involved with the half-human, half-Vulcan Spock and has her own reasons to be annoyed with him. Think your boyfriend has trouble expressing his emotions? Just imagine if his species was genetically predisposed to be devoid of emotions.

Other franchise mainstays include the ship’s doctor, Leonard “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban), and its chief engineer Scotty (Pegg, relishing the character’s trademark Scottish brogue). A few, including Sulu (John Cho) and Chekov (Anton Yelchin) are present too but are featured less prominently.

For some viewers, there may be additional buzz surrounding this movie beyond the anticipation generated for a sequel by Abrams’s lively and entertaining Star Trek in 2009. Earlier this year Abrams was announced as the director of the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VII. But calling this movie an audition for Star Wars feels unfair because Into Darkness, one could argue, is actually better than at least half the Star Wars movies. Prior to seeing Into Darkness, even thinking such a thing would have seemed blasphemous to me. (I believe I already mentioned my allegiance to the Force.) But perhaps the clearest sign of this movie’s greatness is its ability to turn anyone who sees it into a Trekkie.

- Steve Avigliano, 5/21/13

REVIEW: The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby (2013): Dir. Baz Luhrmann. Written by: Baz Luhrmann and Craig Pearce. Based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton, Isla Fisher and Elizabeth Debicki. Rated PG-13 (Flappers' flapping). Running time: 143 minutes.

2 ½ stars (out of four)

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is, among other things, a tragic melodrama, a portrait of upper-class life in the 1920s, a sharply observant social drama and a powerful rebuke of the American Dream. But Baz Luhrmann’s new film adaptation seems chiefly interested in this first one – Jay Gatsby’s story of love lost and found as melodrama.

The crystallizing moment of Luhrmann’s interpretation comes when Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) stands on a balcony in his bedroom and tosses a cascade of pastel shirts onto his former (and now once again) love Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan). The image is one of many lifted directly from the novel, and realized here in vivid color and gorgeous 3D. It is the emotional and visual climax to a lovely montage set to the crooning of Lana Del Rey, and is one of the more effective sequences in the film. The Lana Del Rey song creeps up a few more times as a theme for the reunited lovers, making this moment the romantic high point and the idyll Luhrmann wants us to recall when things go sour.

Baz Luhrmann, who wrote the script with frequent collaborator Craig Pearce, takes the broad thematic strokes of the novel and hangs one beautiful image after another onto the story.

The basics of that story will be familiar to anyone who read the book (or skimmed the SparkNotes) in their high school English class. Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) moves from the Midwest to a Long Island neighborhood called West Egg for the summer. Intending to relax in a small cottage on the bay and work on Wall Street selling bonds, he soon gets pulled into the intoxicating world of his fabulously rich and curiously elusive neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Gatsby’s mansion towers over Carraway’s modest rental and his extraordinarily decadent parties roar late into the night.

The financial origins of Gatsby, a newly minted millionaire, are a mystery to the guests of his parties, who gossip freely and concoct devious and dubious rumors about the man. Perhaps Carraway’s cousin Daisy, who lives across the bay in East Egg, knows his backstory. She wears the unmistakable look of recognition when her friend Jordan (Elizabeth Debicki) mentions Gatsby’s name one afternoon over tea.

Daisy’s blusterous husband Tom (an excellent Joel Edgerton) scorns the extravagances of Gatsby’s parties and the flashiness that often comes with “new money.” Tom plays polo on his expansive estate and gives orders to his many maids and servants with a more dignified air of entitlement.

Director Baz Luhrmann, who has thrown a few good parties himself, no doubt feels differently. He seems to have the most fun here when his characters are enjoying themselves too, and the party scenes boast not only a frenzied, vibrant energy but also a playfully anachronistic soundtrack (a trademark of Luhrmann’s since 1996’s Romeo + Juliet). Produced by Jay-Z, the soundtrack features a few of Jay-Z’s songs as well as covers of recognizable hits from the past few decades and some original material, including the aforementioned song by Lana Del Rey (whose frivolous socialite persona would make her a perfect fit as either a performer or a guest at a Gatsby party).

Fitzgerald scholars (and English teachers across the country) may react to many of Luhrmann’s creative choices as misguided or even blasphemous but there is no question the movie feels most alive when Luhrmann lets loose with his distinctively excessive style. An afternoon in a New York City apartment with Tom and his mistress Myrtle (a charming Isla Fisher) becomes just short of an all-out orgy. And you have to respect the movie’s sheer audacity when Tobey Maguire starts chugging champagne from the bottle as the distorted growl of Kanye West blares on the soundtrack.

But as brazen and inventive as some of these early scenes are, Baz Luhrmann is surprisingly deferential to the source material as the film goes on. The Great Gatsby turns out to be a relatively straightforward and faithful adaptation. Little has been cut or altered. The one significant deviation is the bizarre addition of a frame story that places Nick Carraway in a sanitarium. Having apparently suffered a mental breakdown, he recounts his summer with Gatsby to a therapist (Jack Thompson). The therapist advises him to write down his feelings, so Carraway begins typing a manuscript for a novel. (An unfortunate, groan-inducing moment occurs in the final scene when Carraway titles the finished manuscript.)

Even this, however, is really just a way to include sizable excerpts of Fitzgerald’s prose in the voice-over narration. To accompany these quotations, Luhrmann uses the exceptionally tacky effect of superimposing whole sentences on screen where the words float toward you in 3D. The script is almost too respectful of the novel, like a high school sophomore too nervous to write a bold, original thesis and too intimidated by Fitzgerald’s writing to do anything but quote it at length and underline the key phrases. Luhrmann means to pay tribute to some of the novel’s classic lines but by using them as a stylistic embellishment, he robs them of their soulfulness.

He also makes all the revelry and partying in the first act so much fun that by the time we get to the meat of the story, the film’s seriousness feels like a bit of a buzzkill. A number of scenes drag, not because of any shortage of substantial material (we are talking about the Great American Novel, after all) but because Luhrmann has not properly set himself up to explore any more interesting thematic territory than love and infidelity. The early scenes are fun but lay down none of the necessary groundwork for the book’s weightier ideas about wealth, class and the hollowness of American capitalism. Instead, the weepy strings of Craig Armstrong’s score steer the film toward the big emotions that are Baz Luhrmann’s forte.

And with a cast as strong as this one, those big emotions can be quite compelling. Leonardo DiCaprio’s easy charisma makes him a natural choice for the role and he is effective in the more explosive moments of the last act. But I wonder if he gives away too much too soon. We see Gatsby’s insecurities and fears on DiCaprio’s face as early as his second scene and the role might have benefited from a less expressive and more inscrutable performance. On the other hand, Joel Edgerton is great fun huffing and puffing with his hands on his hips and a cigar in his mouth. He delivers some wonderful, bloviating speeches on race, politics and the temperature of the sun.

Prior to seeing The Great Gatsby I wondered if Baz Luhrmann was a poor choice to direct this movie. Surprisingly though, it is the novel that holds Luhrmann back. Forced to contend with the novel’s greatness, an unfair task to ask of any director, he does admirably but does not make a great movie. And that’s okay. He still throws a hell of a party.

- Steve Avigliano, 5/14/13

REVIEW: Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3 (2013): Dir. Shane Black. Written by: Drew Pearce and Shane Black. Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce and Ben Kingsley. Rated PG-13 (Comic book explosions). Running time: 130 minutes.

2 ½ stars (out of four)

“You know who I am,” reads a name tag worn by multi-billionaire and generally charming egomaniac Tony Stark (played for a fourth time by Robert Downey Jr.) in Iron Man 3. After two Iron Man movies and last summer’s super-crossover mega-hit The Avengers, there will be few in the audience who do not already know this character.

This flippant, you-know-the-deal attitude runs throughout the film. The script, written by Drew Pearce and director Shane Black, takes a number of shortcuts, assuming (correctly) that we have seen enough superhero movies in the last ten years to fill in the blanks.

When an international terrorist known as The Mandarin (a bearded Ben Kingsley looking like Osama bin Laden) hijacks the nation’s TV stations, we only need to see a brief glimpse of viewers’ shocked reactions. The rest we can remember from when the Joker did the same in The Dark Knight. And when a brilliant geneticist named Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) begins talking about tampering with human DNA to enhance the body’s regenerative powers, we know to be suspicious of him after seeing the mad scientists in Batman Begins, Captain America and just about every Spider-Man movie.

We have also heard enough of those concisely worded nuggets of advice that were so eloquently doled out by Michael Caine’s Alfred in the Batman movies. So Iron Man 3 does not subject us to any more of those. In fact, the characters in this film are particularly dismissive of that sort of pithy, fortune cookie wisdom. (The movie even takes an unintentionally silly moment to decry the very existence of fortune cookies.)

Part of this resistance to flowery phrases and grand themes comes from the brazen playboy persona of Tony Stark, who has no patience for sentimentality. The rest is the result of this movie’s sheer laziness. Like most of the Marvel Avengers movies before it, Iron Man 3 is almost pompously devoid of any real substance. This light-as-popcorn approach has worked in the past, notably in the first two Iron Man movies, but it is becoming less effective. This movie cannot cover up its own hollowness.

And as for Tony Stark, Robert Downey Jr. is still the best part of this franchise but there are signs his shtick is getting old. We can predict the rhythms of his witty comebacks before he says them and his dialogue feels written when it used to feel ad-libbed. We do see a few new angles to the Tony Stark character – he has a terrifically badass moment of James Bond gadgetry wearing not a suit (iron or otherwise) but a black hoodie, and he even does a bit of Sherlock Holmes sleuthing (a role Robert Downey Jr. is very familiar with) – but little real character development. There is a sudden shift in the final scenes that tries to give the character an arc but it feels forced and I didn’t buy it.

So should you spend your money to see this movie in theaters? Marvel Studios has gone through a great deal of effort and untold millions in marketing to convince moviegoers that every film in the Avengers franchise is essential and should be watched in order. This is, however, little more than a way to hide the fact that these movies’ plots are virtually interchangeable, that they are derivative of one another, and are each wholly disposable entertainment.

This is not to say that Iron Man 3 is bad entertainment but that at this point in the series a critical review of it is less applicable than a Consumer Reports checklist:

Love Interest: Good. Pepper Potts, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, underused.

Villain(s): Fair. Mostly forgettable.

Sidekick: Poor. Colonel James Rhodes, played by Don Cheadle, underused and unimportant.

Humor: Good. Frequent and usually funny.

Action scenes: Fair. Muddled and difficult to follow but plentiful.

If you are shopping around for a decent superhero movie at an affordable price, Iron Man 3 is a solid option. If you are looking for a movie that surprises and engages, this is not your movie. This movie is… Well, you know what this movie is.

- Steve Avigliano, 5/6/13

REVIEW: Pain & Gain

Pain & Gain (2013): Dir. Michael Bay. Written by: Christopher Markus and Stephen Feely. Based on the magazine articles by Pete Collins. Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Tony Shalhoub, Ed Harris and Rebel Wilson. Rated R (Brawn, boobs and bad words). Running time: 129 minutes.

2 ½ stars (out of four)

There’s a good satire somewhere in Pain & Gain, a based-on-a-true-story (loosely) crime caper about three bodybuilders who kidnap a filthy rich sonofabitch and steal all his money and assets.

The mastermind of the operation is Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg), a personal trainer at a Miami gym who sees a deserving victim in Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub), a high-rolling client. Kershaw is a grade-A asshole. He doesn’t appreciate what he has. So says Lugo, at least. If someone were to rob the guy, there’s no question he’d have it coming. Following a tough-love motivational seminar from a dubious authority named Johnny Wu (Ken Jeong), Lugo becomes convinced that the only way to get what you want in life is to be a doer. Getting what you want is, after all, the American Dream. He hatches a plan.

His pal and fellow employee at the gym, Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie), is down for it. Doorbal has just come back from the doctor where he found out his steroid use has made him impotent. There’s a cure, a serum injected directly into the penis, but it’s expensive. Maybe a kidnap-and-robbery heist is exactly what he needs.

But they need one more guy if this tricky scheme is going to come to fruition. Enter Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson), an ex-convict and former coke addict with a chest as wide as a pick-up truck. Doyle is going to take some convincing. In prison, he found God and reformed his life. He cut out booze and drugs, and now preaches the word of the Lord. Doyle believes in second chances, another proud American principle. Old habits die hard though and for reasons that are neither convincing nor entirely clear, ­­­Doyle joins the team.

The only hitch in this trio’s plan is, of course, that they’re all idiots. The kidnapping is amateurish and sloppy but – astonishingly – they pull it off. That's when the real trouble starts. These scenes have a lot of comic potential and though the film gets its share of laughs, director Michael Bay does not have the light touch and deft comedic timing to get the most out of a good script. He doesn’t always give the space for a joke to land and I wonder what this film might have been like in the hands of a director who knew how to milk the material for everything it was worth. The scenes don’t have time to breathe; Mr. Bay hurries things along, spending more time on action than on the witty banter between the crooks, which should have been at the heart of this movie.

Michael Bay’s flashy style gets in the way too. The script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely has bite but by amping up the energy at every possible moment, Mr. Bay misses opportunities to dig into his character’s inept interpretations of the American Dream. The superficiality of Doyle’s born-again religious transformation, Doorbal’s obsession with his shlong, and the whole group’s fixation on body image are all ripe with satirical potential but the movie is not interested in pursuing or exploring these ideas. It prefers instead to indulge in the more shallow pleasures of a good chase scene (and there are a few pretty good ones here). The movie is too juiced up for its own good.

But Pain & Gain does show off the comedic skills of its stars, particularly Dwayne Johnson whose nimble work as a heavyweight dunce is a lot of fun. Rebel Wilson as Robin, Doorbal’s girlfriend, admirably checks off the film’s dirty jokes box, and Tony Shalhoub is excellent as the mean and nasty love-to-hate-him victim. Ed Harris also makes a welcome appearance late in the film as a private detective. Anchoring the cast is Mark Wahlberg, who is capable of effortlessly shifting gears from action hero to comedian. He is an impressive physical specimen in this movie but remains an endearing and likable everyman.

Too bad that the skills of this cast are held back by their director. A more subtle filmmaker than Michael Bay might have really let them rip but what can you do? The characters in Pain & Gain are always talking about the importance of getting what you want but sometimes you have to settle for what you’ve got.

- Steve Avigliano, 5/2/13

REVIEW: To the Wonder

To the Wonder (2013): Written and directed by: Terrence Malick. Starring: Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko, Rachel McAdams, Javier Bardem and Romina Mondello. Rated R (Fleeting glimpses of breasts). Running time: 113 minutes.

2 stars (out of four)

Offhand, I can only recall one instance – no, wait, I’ve just thought of another – when a character walks at a pace faster than an idle stroll in To the Wonder, Terrence Malick’s dispiritingly limp new film. As Mr. Malick’s ever-moving camera swirls about his subjects, you may find yourself wishing someone would take a sure step forward and walk with something resembling purpose and conviction.

But this is not a film that places much value on certainty. To the Wonder, though it is not to be confused with the imperative Lil’ Jon refrain, does actually feature its share of characters moving to the windows. Standing beside the windows of homes, churches and motel rooms, they sometimes caress and kiss one another but more often they simply gaze outside looking for… for what?

For happiness, I suppose. Also empathy and love. The film’s characters are trapped inside themselves, longing for a lasting and meaningful connection to another person. This is, at least, how I saw the movie but it is abstract enough to invite multiple interpretations.

To the Wonder follows, in mostly linear fashion, a relationship in decline. A French woman (Olga Kurylenko), abandoned by another man some years earlier, decides to move to a rural Midwestern town where she and her daughter (Tatiana Chiline) will live with an American man (Ben Affleck). Terrence Malick also interweaves memories from the past, chases tangents by following the lives of other townspeople and ends on what I understood to be a fantasy.

We never learn how the two met but it is soon clear that the romance is now gone and the love was perhaps never there to begin with. Ben Affleck’s character as we see him is cold and detached. He is usually down for some fondling (beside one of those windows) or sex but we can see from the anguished expressions of Olga Kurylenko that something vital is missing from their relationship.

This man remains at a distance, not only from Ms. Kurylenko, but from us as well. His presence looms large over the film but we never get a sense of his internal emotions, not even when he is alone. He wanders through the muck and dirt of construction sites, apparently surveying the damage being done to the town’s water, which has been tainted by chemicals, but no expression ever crosses his face. Is he weary? Defeated? Indifferent? Mr. Malick does not offer any clues. Ben Affleck has hardly any lines in the entire film; he just walks around stone-faced and vacant-looking.

Call it an artistic gamble, an experiment, a bold choice, but it drains the emotional power from the movie. And with the heart of the film missing, its curious diversions are all the more frustrating. The midsection of the film, which depicts a romance between Ben Affleck and an old flame played by Rachel McAdams, adds nothing new. He is the same with her as with Ms. Kurylenko. An opportunity to flesh out a new side to this opaque character is lost.

Javier Bardem, as a priest, walks around town, speaking with and blessing the impoverished. Some are physically deformed from the contaminated water. His scenes in this ostensible leper colony offer some fascinating images worth chewing on and mulling over but they feel too disconnected from the rest of the film. It is difficult to know what to make of them.

And this is what makes To the Wonder such a tantalizing but ultimately underwhelming film. Mr. Malick is known for shooting lots of material and whittling it down to its final form in the editing room, and the results are usually mesmerizing. His films are lyrical suites of images and naturalistic moments caught on film; structurally, they resemble musical compositions more than narrative storytelling. But something is missing this time.

You get the sense that the raw material of To the Wonder has potential to make a very strong movie but that Terrence Malick has cut the film in a way that dampens this material’s impact and mutes the emotions. There are at least a dozen breathtaking shots in To the Wonder and I find myself thinking about the film days later, recalling images from it the way one does a dream. All the more disappointing then that the actual experience of watching To the Wonder was such a chore.

The exception is Olga Kurylenko who, particularly in the film’s second half, gives a forceful performance. She is lonely and desperate for love, and cannot understand why the man who invited her to live with him continues to deny her any kind of real intimacy. In one scene, a friend (Romina Mondello) visits her and the two stroll through the wide streets of this flat Midwestern town (leisurely of course). The friend yells out. Where is everyone? Is this whole town dead? Where is the life? The passion? All valid questions.

- Steve Avigliano, 5/2/13

REVIEW: Evil Dead

Evil Dead (2013): Dir. Fede Alvarez. Written by: Fede Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues. Based on The Evil Dead by Sam Raimi. Starring: Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas and Elizabeth Blackmore. Rated R (Endless brutal gore). Running time: 92 minutes.

3 ½ stars (out of four)

Given the recent spate of tired horror retreads, you will be forgiven for assuming that Evil Dead, a remake of Sam Raimi’s 1981 cult classic schlockfest The Evil Dead, is another attempt to cannibalize and dismember a beloved horror franchise by taking only its name and leaving behind its heart and soul. But Evil Dead is far from an uninspired hack job. Scene by scene, from its blisteringly over-the-top opening to its certifiably insane finale, Evil Dead makes a forceful case for its own existence: A horror movie need not break new ground or reinvent the genre in order to feel fresh and new. It just needs to be bigger and badder and better than its peers.

Compare Evil Dead with last year’s The Cabin in the Woods, which was more of a genre deconstruction, pointing out its clichés as they happened. That film was undeniably clever but also kind of smug and I prefer Evil Dead’s classicist approach. Director Fede Alvarez, who co-wrote the script with Rodo Sayagues, revels in the contrivances of the plot. The story is of course familiar but rarely is it told with such zeal.

Five doomed twentysomethings meet at a dilapidated shack in the middle of the woods for a weekend retreat. The trip is actually an intervention for Mia (Jane Levy), whose heroin habit, we learn, has nearly killed her. Joining her for moral support as she tries to get clean is her estranged brother David (Shiloh Fernandez) who left her years earlier to single-handedly take care of their dying mother.

The cabin was a family vacation spot for Mia and David in happier times and it has no doubt seen better days. There never used to be, for example, dozens of dead cats hanging from the basement ceiling, not to mention the stench of burnt hair, the loaded shotgun and an ominous book sealed shut by barbed wire. Leave it to their know-it-all friend (Lou Taylor Pucci) to crack the thing open, start reading aloud and awaken an ancient evil.

There aren’t many surprises in Evil Dead, at least not in the broad strokes of the story, but what makes it so effective is its relentlessness. Once the demonic activity gets under way (and the film wastes very little time getting there), it keeps building momentum, getting wilder and crazier. And despite the presence of two attractive but thoroughly expendable beauties (Jessica Lucas and Elizabeth Blackmore), the movie is notably devoid of sex.

Evil Dead focuses its energies instead on its unrelenting gore. The violence is extreme but pitched at just the right level of ridiculousness to elicit laughter from the audience amidst the disgusted screams and shocked gasps. The various bodily mutilations in the film have the same anatomical graphicness of torture porn but Evil Dead has none of the mean-spiritedness that marks those films. Fede Alvarez comes from that school of horror that combines well-made prosthetics with gallons of fake blood all in the pursuit of a trashy good time. This is the same school Sam Raimi came from and judging by Mr. Raimi’s producer credit on this film, Mr. Alvarez’s approach must have met his approval.

Fede Alvarez and his team delight in some wonderfully nasty details that take Evil Dead up a notch in terms of pure horror craftsmanship. Take one scene, where a character vomits an unholy torrent of blood on another, and notice how chunks of god-knows-what linger in the recipient’s hair for the remainder of the scene, making for a disgustingly hilarious sight gag. Or listen on the soundtrack to the wail of what sounds like an air raid siren, used during a few select moments of terror.

Also crucial to the film’s success is a breakout performance from Jane Levy. She is a remarkably versatile actress, playing the tormented and the possessed tormentor at different points, and is the clear standout in a cast of cardboard cutouts. (A lack of depth in the other characters is not exactly the actors’ faults, though I could have used a little more charisma from Shiloh Fernandez who gets the bulk of screen time in the film’s midsection). And while Ms. Levy is hardly Bruce Campbell, the star of The Evil Dead and its two ultra-campy sequels, she does help the movie maintain that delicate balance between horror and comedy.

I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun squirming in my seat, wincing at the screen and smacking my girlfriend’s arm. I had a blast at this one.

- Steve Avigliano, 4/8/13

In Memoriam: Roger Ebert

On Sunday afternoons in my house growing up, we made a ritual of watching “Ebert & Roeper.” The show usually aired early that morning or late the previous night, so around noon my father and I would go to the VCR and rewind the tape we had recorded the show on to see which movies Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper had reviewed that week. If a movie looked good and day’s schedule was clear, we went to the newspaper, looked up showtimes and tried to catch a matinee.

In this way I saw countless movies, always on Roger Ebert’s recommendation. There is no question that I have read or watched more of his reviews than any other single critic. His genial presence on TV and the candid, conversational style of his writing gave you the sense he was a friend telling you which movies were worth your money and which you should avoid. He died Thursday of cancer and he will be missed.

During my formative movie-watching years, he helped shape my taste in movies. (The first time I was ever outraged by a movie review was in reaction to his two-star panning of Attack of the Clones. Unbelievable! Blasphemous! I thought as a twelve-year-old. Years later, looking back, I realize now he was right about that one.)

He was an immensely knowledgeable critic but always emphasized the subjective nature of film criticism. Analyzing artistry and craftsmanship was important, of course, but in the end all that really mattered to him was his personal, gut-level response to a movie. That was what interested him, what was worth writing about, what made a movie worth arguing about (first with Gene Siskel, then with Richard Roeper, on the “At the Movies” TV show). He freely shared details of his personal life if they changed how he saw a given movie and openly confessed his biases and preferences. He shamelessly gushed over his favorites and scorned the films he had no patience for.

He was also a forward-thinking man. One of the first critics to embrace the web, he reveled in the internet’s ability to foster opinion-sharing and debate. He did not believe, as many do, that the golden age of film criticism was forty years ago, when he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize – a first for a movie critic – and rose to fame. We are currently living in that golden age, he said. For as long as the thoughtful discussion and heartfelt enjoyment of movies exists, Roger Ebert’s spirit will live on.

- Steve Avigliano, 4/5/13

Best of 2012: My Top 5 Movies of 2012

Here are my Top 5 Favorite Movies of 2012. (I’ve also included one Wildcard Pick and an Honorable Mention so I suppose altogether this is my Top 7.)

The Wildcard Pick: Savages (Original Review)

My wildcard pick this year is Oliver Stone’s addictive, blistering Savages about the weed business. Depending on how you look at this brash and reckless movie, you may deem it a frustrating failure or an exhilarating entertainment. Then again, why choose? Oliver Stone does the equivalent of bringing an Uzi to an archery range. He makes quite the mess of things but you can’t say he doesn’t hit his target. The movie is too long and the ending is a strange, ungainly disaster but I can’t say that any other movie this year shocked or thrilled me more. If you’re looking for the most bang for your buck, look no further.

Honorable Mention: Argo (Original Review)

A terrific audience-pleaser and perhaps the best thriller of the year, director Ben Affleck’s Argo is great, edge-of-your-seat entertainment. It tells the absurd, true story of a CIA mission that faked a movie production to retrieve a group of American citizens during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. The movie acknowledges the fraught international politics of the time but is first and foremost a daring rescue movie. This one is loads of fun and smart to boot.

5) The Master (Original Review)

At the end of The Master there are loose ends left untied and mysteries that go unexplained. Frustration with the film’s anticlimax and lack of a resolution is perfectly natural. But part of the fun of this movie – and this is assuming you share my idea of fun – is sifting through this strange and fascinating drama and guessing at what it could all possibly mean.

This is not to say the film is some sort of scholarly exercise; it’s much better than that. Watch the bizarre bond that forms between a mentally unstable WWII veteran named Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix, unhinged and with a wild look in his eye) and Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman, never better), the charismatic leader of a dubious New Age church. Their relationship twists and turns as the two men gain power and leverage over one another. The Master is a half-mad swirl of sexual impulses, pseudo-scientific babble and violent outbursts. I can’t say I understood it all but I was never bored.

4) Zero Dark Thirty

There are a number of thorny issues at play in Zero Dark Thirty – the use of torture on political detainees, the gender politics of women in government – but the heart of the film drives at a larger, more encompassing question: Is the ultimate objective of the War on Terror to protect the homeland from future attacks or to punish those responsible for 9/11? For Maya (an intensely focused Jessica Chastain), the distinction is irrelevant. Either way the goal is the same – take out Osama bin Laden.

The film is a historical approximation of the leads and events that resulted in bin Laden’s death on May 2, 2011, but what elevates it beyond the level of a made-for-TV movie is director Kathryn Bigelow’s remarkable craftsmanship and eye for poetic detail. The final assault on bin Laden’s compound – a flurry of night vision green and fiery explosions set against the darkness of night – is as tense as any action movie. When the dust clears, the human drama ends on a note of bittersweet uncertainty. Whether bin Laden was killed for the sake of homeland security or justice may not matter from a military perspective but emotionally how does one reconcile the two and move on?

3) Amour

Amour is a movie of few words so it seems wrong to use too many here to describe its greatness. This quiet, poignant love story follows an elderly couple as the husband grapples with the deteriorating health of his wife. Through the keen direction of Michael Haneke the film reveals intimate depths of its characters’ emotional lives often with little or no dialogue.

Amour is a devastating study of life and love in its final stages. It explores the difficulty of dying with dignity and of finally letting go when the time is right, but it is not all doom and gloom. Few movies are this honest and true. Every moment in it feels real and its message is ultimately life affirming.

2) Lincoln (Original Review)

There’s no sense in hiding it. Director Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner’s Lincoln is a history lesson. But what this impressive, entertaining movie shows us is that the participants of history were real people with large personalities, not some culmination of dates and facts like our high school curriculum might have us believe. They were politicians who were as prone to grandstanding and as stubbornly biased as today’s elected officials are. Lincoln’s thirteenth amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery, was an ambitious piece of legislation and its passage required bravery and political cunning, but also bribery.

There is no mistaking that Lincoln is a Steven Spielberg prestige picture – it is beautifully shot and features a slew of exceptional performances that will no doubt make the Oscar voters swoon – but it is also vibrant and alive in a way few period pieces are. Abraham Lincoln and the congressmen of his time understood they were making history but for them it was a very real present where victory was far from certain. History lessons are rarely as fascinating and exciting as this one.

1) Moonrise Kingdom (Original Review)

Moonrise Kingdom has the warm feel of a half-forgotten childhood memory and director Wes Anderson brings it to life with the visual whimsy of a picture book. The movie breezes by, telling the story of Sam and Suzy (Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward, each pitch perfect), two lovesick kids who run away from home to be with one another. They are mature beyond their years and yet also heartbreakingly naïve, blissfully unaware of the crushing reality that awaits them outside the bubble of childhood.

This sad fact of life is not lost on the other inhabitants of the small New England island where the film takes place. The remaining cast of characters, a motley crew of melancholic grown-ups, drift in and out of the picture, desperate to find Sam and Suzy while also preoccupied with their own adult problems. Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola’s script finds bittersweet humor in their characters’ lives but never condescends to them. This blend of comedy and pathos is a delicate balancing act but Wes Anderson and his terrific cast – including Frances McDormand, Bill Murray, Ed Norton and Bruce Willis – walk the tightrope wonderfully.

Much like the private cove its young heroes discover and seek refuge in (and also gives the film its name), Moonrise Kingdom is an inviting paradise. One visit is not enough.

- Steven Avigliano, 2/24/13