Magic Mike is about watching male strippers, period. There are a couple lame plot threads, but it’s about the stripping. The star, Channing Tatum, is winning and impressively athletic. Matthew McConaughey helps re-brand his career with a funny performance as a sleazeball strip club owner – and shows off his body, too.
Director Steven Soderbergh is known for his prestige pictures but still relishes making B movies. Good for him – he brought something special to the B picture Haywire last year (which co-starred Tatum). But there’s no magic in Magic Mike. And, at 110 minutes, it’s too long.
After 87 years of abiding the law, J.L. “Red” Rountree robbed a bank in 1998. In fact, he became a serial bank robber, robbing banks until his final incarceration at age 92. The documentary This Is Not a Robbery explores how this could have happened. Spoiler: nonagenarians do not excel at the art of the getaway.
Cleverly structured, This Is Not a Robbery intersperses the modern robberies with biographical segments that finally reveal the arc of Rountree’s singular journey. We get to see Rountree explaining himself. He’s a kick, but the most revealing comments are from his friends, who relate the pivotal points in his business career and family life.
At only 70 minutes long, it’s a good watch. This Is Not a Robbery is available on DVD, on Netflix streaming and sometimes plays on the Sundance Channel.
Other than the superb Beasts of the Southern Wild and Take This Waltz, it hasn’t shaped up to be a very rich July at the movies. But I’m interested in three upcoming releases.
Dark Horse is an indie comedy by Todd Solondz (Welcome to the Dollhouse) in which an epic underachiever falls in love with a heavily medicated depressive. Reportedly, Solondz’ take on these characters is clear-eyed, but not mean.
Christian Bale growls on in Christopher Nolan’s newest chapter of the Bat Man saga, The Dark Knight Rises. The cast includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Anne Hathaway, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Juno Temple and Liam Neeson.
Farewell, My Queen is a lavishly staged French costume drama tracing the end of Marie Antoinette’s reign. Early reviews focus on the performances by Diane Kruger as the Queen, Virginie Ledoyen as the Queen’s intimate friend and Lea Seydoux as the servant with ambiguous motives.
You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To. Here’s the trailer for Farewell, My Queen:
The romantic character study Take This Waltz stars the great Michele Williams in an exploration of attraction and fulfillment from a woman’s perspective. Take This Waltz is only going to be widely available for one more week – so see it now! The brilliantly made Louisiana swamp fable Beasts of the Southern Wild opens this weekend and more widely next weekend. Both are on my list of Best Movies of 2012 – So Far.
The wistfully sweet and visually singular Moonrise Kingdom is another must see. Adults will enjoy Brave, Pixar’s much anticipated fable of a Scottish princess, and it’s a must see for kids.
The story of aged Brits seeking a low-budget retirement in India, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, is much more than a fish-out-of-water comedy. Men In Black 3 is delightfully entertaining, as Will Smith time travels back to 1969 and meets the young Tommy Lee Jones (nailed by Josh Brolin).
To Rome with Love is an amusing Woody Allen comedy, but not one of Woody’s masterpieces. Prometheus is a striking and well-acted sci fi adventure with a horror film tinge; I recommend it for sci fi fans.
Richard Widmark running out of luck in THE NIGHT AND THE CITY
On July 15, Turner Classic Movies is showing the under appreciated film noir classic Night in the City (1950). Richard Widmark is superb as a loser who tries to corner the pro wrestling business in post-war London – and, as in any noir classic, it doesn’t end well for the sap.
The American director Jules Dassin had just made the noir classics The Naked City and Thieves’ Highway when he shot Night and the City in the UK. He was blackballed in the McCarthy Era and never moved back to the US.
At the request of a studio exec, Dassin created a role in Night and the City for the stunningly beautiful but emotionally fragile Gene Tierney. The cast also includes real life wrestlers Stanislaus Zbyszko and Mike Mazurki.
Night in the City (along with The Wrestler) represents wrestling on my list of Best Sports Movies, and there’s a clip of an extended wrestling scene from the movie on that page. (Also, Dassin’s Brute Force makes my list of Best Prison Movies.)
Beasts of the Southern Wild is a special film, and its star Quvenzhane Wallis carries the movie. Although this is her first film and she was only six years old during the filming, I would not be surprised if she is nominated for the Best Actress Oscar. That’s how stirring her performance is.
As I wrote in my comments on Beasts, writer-director Benh Zeitlin was specially audacious to bet his movie on the performance of a six year old. But we’ve seen some remarkable performance by child actors this year – and in many of my Best Movies of 2012 – So Far.
In my current pick for the top film of the year, the Dardennes brothers’ The Kid with the Bike , the story revolves around the 12-year old first time actor Thomas Doret. Doret pulls it off, delivering a performance of gripping intensity.
Although Mohammed Fellag is the lead in Monsieur Lazhar, there wouldn’t be a film without the performances by the kids, Sophie Nelisse and Emilien Neron.
Similarly, Wes Anderson’s delightful Moonrise Kingdomis carried by newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayman. Moonrise Kingdom is their movie; even Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Frances McDormand and Bill Murray are just along for the ride.
And in Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation, the key point of view is that of the ever watchful teenage daughter. She desperately wants her parents back together, views everything through this prism and is powerless to make it happen. She is played by Farhadi’s real life daughter Sarina.
Overall, it’s an uncommonly impressive year for child actors.
Doug Glatt is not very smart and he knows it. He struggles to find the right word in every situation. Because his only talent is the ability to knock others unconscious, he is only in demand as a bar bouncer. But Doug is not a brute – he is goodhearted and loyal, and yearns to be part of something. By chance, Doug gets hired by a minor league hockey team to become its thuggish enforcer – despite his inability to ice skate.
We get lots of funny hockey violence a la the Hanson Brothers in Slap Shot. It’s very funny when Doug mangles his every attempt at cogent conversation. The comedy also comes from Doug’s innocent fish out of water in the cynical, sleazy and cutthroat world of minor league hockey. (He’s even reverential about the team logo on the locker room floor.)
There are lots of nice comic touches. For example, when Doug becomes a sensation, one of his fans in the stands holds up a sign reading “Doug 3:69” (Doug wears jersey number 69); we glimpse the sign for only a second, but I appreciate the filmmakers planting such nuggets in the movie. Doug is also that rarity – a Jewish hockey goon, with parents horrified that he isn’t following his brother to med school.
Although plenty raunchy, Goon is a rung above the normal gross-out guy comedy because Doug is such a fundamentally good and well-meaning person. As Doug, Seann William Scott (Stifler in American Pie) plays a naive simpleton, but one fiercely committed to his core values. It’s got to be hard to play that combination, and Scott’s performance is special.
The cast is excellent. Co-writer Jay Baruchel plays Doug’s sophomoric friend. Alison Pill (Milk, Midnight in Paris) is the troubled smart girl who can’t figure out why she’s attracted to a word-fumbling hockey goon. Liev Schreiber, excellent as always, dons a Fu Manchu and a mullet to play the league’s toughest goon. Kim Coates, who almost stole A Little Help as the personal injury attorney, plays the coach.
I Am a Ghost is a singular ghost story about a young woman who has haunted her Victorian home since her death a century ago. First she ambles about the house, repeating the most ordinary chores – sweeping the hall, frying eggs and the like. Then she communicates with a medium hired to rid the house of the ghost; neither can see the other. The medium is having a tough time because, in her life, the young woman suffered from Multiple Personality Disorder (so there are multiple personalities to guide to the Other Side). The movie climaxes with some jolting scares.
It’s a change of pace for writer H.P. Mendoza, whose previous films have been contemporary musical comedies, including the hilarious Colma: The Musical (available on Netflix streaming). At the screening I attended, Mendoza said that I Am a Ghost is neither low-budget, very low-budget or micro-budget – he directed it on no budget (financed on his credit cards). Yet it looks better than some Hollywood films and is a whole lot smarter.
Besides the creepiness and the frights, the story is about memory. The ghost thinks she is having new experiences, but she is merely reliving her past experiences, most of which are banal. Mendoza doesn’t explain this until the audience has endured about 35 minutes of repetitive household tasks.
I Am a Ghost is only 74 minutes long. If you go with the memory idea, it works. If you don’t have the patience, you’ll find the first half of the film to be very tedious.
The dialogue between ghost and medium evokes a session between patient and therapist, with both becoming increasingly frustrated. This interchange is funny and is the highlight of the film. I Am a Ghost is a good choice for ghost story aficionados who are open to a genre-bender.
Seth Rogen and Michelle Williams in TAKE THIS WALTZ
I’ve seen both Take This Waltz and Beasts of the Southern Wild. They are special movies and each is worth the effort to see as soon as you can. It’s easy to find Waltz right now, and Beasts opens more widely next weekend.
The wistfully sweet and visually singular Moonrise Kingdom is another must see. Adults will enjoy Brave, Pixar’s much anticipated fable of a Scottish princess, and it’s a must see for kids. Turn Me On, Dammit! is a wise, sympathetic and funny Norwegian coming of age comedy.
The story of aged Brits seeking a low-budget retirement in India, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, is much more than a fish-out-of-water comedy. Men In Black 3 is delightfully entertaining, as Will Smith time travels back to 1969 and meets the young Tommy Lee Jones (nailed by Josh Brolin).
To Rome with Love is an amusing Woody Allen comedy, but not one of Wody’s masterpieces. Prometheus is a striking and well-acted sci fi adventure with a horror film tinge; I recommend it for sci fi fans.
Here’s a great movie unlike any you have seen before. A small girl and her dad live off the grid in a tiny hamlet on a Southern Louisiana tidal bayou. Responsible for their day-by-day survival by fishing and gathering, the dad is stressed, self-medicating and ailing. Then a killer hurricane threatens to obliterate their home, their way of life and them.
The story is told from the child’s point of view. The audience experiences both her reality as she understands it and, when she switches off reality, her imagination. In her mind, threats can take the form of prehistoric beasts called aurochs. Writer-director Benh Zeitlin shot the film from child height with a handheld camera, and used an entirely untrained cast. The result is a boisterous panoply that celebrates the indomitable human spirit.
In her first role, Quvenzhane Wallis carries the movie. She is on screen at least 70% of the time, and her performance is stirring. Zeitlin audaciously bet his debut feature on the performance of a six-year-old. He went all in and won the jackpot.
Beasts of the Southern Wild is a special film, and one of my Best Movies of 2012 – So Far. Universally critically acclaimed, it won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and the first film award at Cannes. You can find it in some theaters this weekend, but it will be more widely available on July 13.
