These are some of the great movies we'll enjoy during the holiday season as reviewed by Roger Ebert. www.rogerebert.com
***½ 2012 (PG-13)
"2012" (PG-12, 158 minutes) The mother of all disaster movies (and the father, and the extended family) spends half an hour on obligatory ominous set-up scenes (scientists warn, strange events occur, prophets rant, and of course a family is introduced). Then it unleashes two hours of cataclysmic special events in which the earth is hammered relentlessly. This is fun. "2012" delivers what it promises, and will be, for its intended audience, one of the most satisfactory films of the year. Three and a half stars (11/12/09)
*** Amelia (PG)
"Amelia" (PG, 111 minutes) Hilary Swank is an ideal embodiment of Amelia Earhart, who was strong, brave and true, and looked fabulous in a flight suit. The second person to fly solo across the Atlantic was a born feminist who pioneered aviation for women and wed George Putnam (Richard Gere) after informing him their marriage would have "dual controls." Well directed by Mira Nair with impeccably period details; an admirable film, if lacking in drama because Earhart's life was sand and happy. Three stars (10/21/09)
***½ Antichrist (No MPAA rating)
"Antichrist" (Unrated, 105 minutes). A film containing shocking images of a man and a woman descending into an emotional hell after the death of their child. Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsborgh play He and She, cruelly struck by their loss, she turning it into guilt, he into blame. In a retreat to their cabin in a dark wood, they seem overcome by pain and madness, and Nature itself seems to have turned against them. Some admire the film, some loathe it, no one is indifferent. Written and directed by the Danish provocateur Lars on Trier.
*** Astro Boy (PG)
"Astro Boy" (PG, 94 minutes). Metro City orbits above an Earth buried in garbage. Its citizens are waited on hand and foot by robots, and things will get even better now that Toby's dad (Nicolas Cage) has invented the unlimited Blue Power. But the warmonger President (Donald Sutherland) snatches the dangerous Red Power, Toby dies in an accident, his memories are transferred by his dad into the little robot Astro Boy, and so on. Bright and peppy, with a nice moral and, best of all, no 3-D. Three stars (10/21/09)
***½ Big Fan (R)
"Big Fan" (R, 88 minutes). A surprisingly moving dramatic comedy, starring Patton Oswalt as an obsessive sports fan. He lives vicariously through his hero, a quarterback for the New York Giants, and after breaking through the pro-fan barrier, is beaten so badly he almost dies. This causes an emotional disconnect, because if the quarterback is suspended for long, the Giants may lose got the hated Philadelphia Eagles. A remorseless portrayal of a not uncommon American type. Three and a half stars. (9/30/09)
*** Black Dynamite (R)
"Black Dynamite" (R, 90 minutes). A loving and expert modern retread of 1970s blaxploitation pictures, deliberately retro and un-PC, starring Michel Jai White as a one-man army at war with the drug mob and The Man. And when I say The Man, I'm including the climax in the Oval Office. Such pitch-perfect dialogue, costumes, music, fight choreography and cinematography that if you found it while cable surfing, you'd assume it was the real thing. When it's wrong, it's wrong on purpose and knows just knows what it's doing. Also starring Salli Richardson, Kym Whitley, Tommy Davidson, Mykelti Williamson, Bokeem Woodbine and Arsenio Hall. Three stars. (10/13/09)
*** The Box (PG-13)
"The Box" (114 minutes, PG-13). A preposterous but never boring sci-fi movie where a mysterious stranger (Frank Langella) gives a couple (Cameron Diaz and James Marston) a box with a button on top, and tells them if they oust out they'll get $1 million in cash -- but someone unknown to them will die. Well, what would you do? And then the plot really gets wild. Stay way if you expect it to add up and make sense. You're entering…the Twilight Zone. Three stars. (11/5/09)
*** Bronson
"Bronson" (R, 92 minutes). He tells us he was born into a normal family. He doesn't blame his childhood or anything else for the way he turned out. Today Bronson is the UK's most famous prisoner and without any doubt its most violent. With a shaved head and a comic-opera mustache, he has repeated for 34 years behind bars the same scenario: Take a hostage, be beaten senseless. Tom Hardy brings a fearsome intensity to the role, in a portrait of unrelenting self-punishment, Three stars. (10/28/09)
***½ Capitalism: A Love Story (R)
"Capitalism: A Love Story" (R, 117 minutes). Michael Moore's latest doesn't suggest a solution for our economy, and is a little disorganized, but out contains chilling explanations of "peasant insurance" and the Wall Street gambling known as "derivatives." There is also awesome, long-forgotten footage of Franklin Roosevelt calling for a Second Bill of Rights. And first person testimony from victims of the meltdown. Three and a half stars. (9/30/09)
***½ Coco Before Chanel (PG-13)
"Coco Before Chanel" (PG-13, 110 minutes). The story of Gabrielle Chanel, from poor orphan girl to the brink of becoming the most influential figure of 20th century fashion. Audrey Tautou stars as an independent, strong-willed young woman who from behind the clouds of her cigarettes regards the world with unforgiving realism and stubborn ambition. Director Anne Fontaine avoids any effort to make Coco Chanel nice, or soft, or particularly sympathetic. That has the effect of making her just that much more interesting. Three and a half stars (10/7/09)
***½ The Damned United (R)
"The Damned United" (R, 97 minutes). The rise and sudden fall of an enigmatic English legend, the soccer coach Brian Clough. He guided underdog Derby County to victory, was beloved, then switched to its hated rival Leeds United and began a losing streak so sudden he was out after 44 days. Not a sports movie, but one about a fascinating man. Michael Sheen again embodies a British icon, as in Tony Blair ("The Queen") and David Frost ("Frost/Nixon"). With crucial supporting performances by Timothy Spall and Colm Meaney. Screenwriter Peter Morgan and producer Andy Harries were involved in all three; Tom Hooper directs. Three and a half stars. (10/13/09)
****Disney's A Christmas Carol (PG)
"A Christmas Carol" (PG, 95 minutes) An exhilarating visual experience that proves for the third time Robert Zemeckis is one of the few directors who knows what he's doing with 3-D. The story that Dickens wrote in 1838 remains timeless, and if it's supercharged here with Scrooge swooping the London streets as freely as Superman, well, once you let ghosts into a movie there's room for anything. In motion-capture animation, Jim Carrey does the movements and voice of Ebenezer Scrooge, never thinner, never more stooped, never more bitter. The A-list cast also includes Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Bob Hoskins, Robin Wright Penn and Cary Elwes. Four stars (11/5/09)
****An Education (PG-13)
"An Education" (PG-13, 100 minutes) A 16-year-old girl (Carey Mulligan) is the target of a sophisticated seduction by a 35-year-old man (Peter Sarsgaard). Could have been shabby or painful, but the luminous Mulligan makes it romantic and wonderfully entertaining. The romance isn't so much with him as with the possibilities within her, the future before her, and the joy of being alive. Sarsgaard plays a smoothie who bewitches her protective parents. He's a dirty rotten scoundrel, but a real charmer. With Mulligan, a star is born.
** Free Style (PG)
"Free Style " (PG, 94 minutes). "High School Musical" star Corbin Bleu and rising Mexican actress Sandra Echeverria have charming chemistry together in this weary retread of the ancient formula about the poor kid who fights for his dream. Sure, that can be inspiring, but not when we're asking did I see this before? It's about a kid who hopes to become a pro on the motocross circuit, his single mom (Penelope Ann Miller), and, of course, the sweet girl who shares his Dream. Remorselessly by the numbers. Two stars (10/7/09)
*** Good Hair (PG-13)
"Good Hair" (PG-13, 95 minutes). Chris Rock hosts and narrates a warm funny documentary about the hair of black women. He quizzes a lot of celebs and visits beauty shops and the Atlanta headquarters of a hair products empire and a famous hair fashion show. The movie plunges into straighteners and extensions, but doesn't give equal time to natural hair styles, and has info about chemical straighteners that is years out of date. But he has a good feeling, and is surprisingly entertaining. Three stars. (10/7/09)
*** The Horse Boy (No MPAA rating)
"The Horse Boy" (Unrated, 94 minutes). A four-year-old Texas boy with autism has angry seizures and isn't potty-trained. His parents fly with him to Mongolia, drive nine hours into the steppes, and then journey by horseback to a sacred mountain where he undergoes a miraculous cure at the hands of shamans. A remarkable story, but containing unanswered questions. Three stars. (11/4/09)
*** The House of the Devil (R)
"The House of the Devil" (R, 93 minutes). A perky college student (Jocelin Donahue) takes a babysitting job in a Gothic house way, way down at the end of a long, long road in the middle of a dark, dark forest. Her employers (Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov turn out not to have a baby after all, but only his aged mother, who shouldn't be disturbed in her bedroom upstairs while they enjoy a night out to observe the eclipse of the Moon. Three stars (11/11/09)
***½ The Invention of Lying (PG-13)
"The Invention of Lying" (PG-13, 99 minutes). In its amiable, quiet, way, a remarkably radical comedy about a world where everyone always tells the truth. When Ricky Gervais discovers he can lie, this gives him incredible power. Jennifer Garner plays the great beauty who informs him truthful hat he's short and fat and not an ideal genetic match. He agrees. Then he discovers by accident a suggestion that inspires the joy and gratitude from the entire world. Its implications are radical, but the movie is so well-mannered and laid back that it gets way with it. Three and a half stars. (9/30/09)
*** Law Abiding Citizen (R)
"Law Abiding Citizen" (R, 122 minutes) is a thriller starring Jamie Foxx as a D.A. head to head with a serial killer--who commits all but one of his many murders while in prison, and in solitary for most of that time. The story is a classic locked room mystery: How does he set up such elaborate kills? Securely in solitary, he seems able to kill at a distance by ingenious means and with remarkable resources. With Colm Meaney, Bruce McGill, Leslie Bibb, Regina Hall and Viola Davis. Three stars. (10/13/09)
***½ The Men Who Stare at Goats (R)
"The Men Who Stare at Goats" (R, 93 minutes). A weirdly funny comedy that seriously claims to be based on an actual U.S. Army interest in using paranormal soldiers as a weapon. Ewan McGregor plays a reporter who encounters George Clooney, a "Jedi Warrior" graduate of these secret program; flashbacks show Jeff Bridges as an officer who seems very much like The Big Lebowski. Could they kill goats by staring? Well, if you can bend a spoon with your mind, why not a rifle? Three and a half stars (11/4/09)
** Motherhood (PG-13)
"Motherhood" (PG-13, 89 minutes). About a conventional family living a conventional life in a conventional way. This life isn't perfect, but whose life is? Starring Uma Thurman in a thankless role as a Greenwich Village blogger with two normal kids, a nice enough husband (Anthony Edwards) and a slightly dotty friend (Minnie Driver). Meh. Two stars (10/21/09)
*** New York, I Love You (R)
"New York, I Love You" (R, 104 minutes). Eleven directors, ten eighth-minute segments plus transitions, three dozen actors, and an anthology of shirt stories about New Yorkers. I suspect the title should be pronounced with a wry shake of the head, as in, "oh, you kid." The film assembles a collection of characters, who find that eight minutes is quite enough to make an impression, as so many New Yorkers would agree. Three stars. (10/14/09)
***½ Paranormal Activity (R)
"Paranormal Activity" (R, 96 minutes) an ingenious little horror film, so well made it's truly scary, that arrives claiming it's the real thing. Micah Sloat and Katie Featherston, a San Deigo couple, been bothered by indications of paranormal activity in an upstairs bedroom. Micah's bright idea is to film in the house, leaving the video camera running as a silent sentinel while they sleep. Like any man with a new toy, he becomes obsessed with this notion -- the whole point, for him, isn't Katie's fear but his film. After one big scare, she asks him incredulously, did you actually go back to pick up your camera? Flawlessly acted, eerie realistic. Three and a half stars (10/7/09)
*** Pirate Radio (R) (11/11/09)
"Pirate Radio" (R, 116 minutes). Incredible but true: From the birth of rock 'n' roll, through the rise of the Beatles and the Stones, all the way until the late 1960s, the BBC used to broadcast only about 30 minutes per day of pop music. "Thought for the Day" did almost as well. The old maids on the Beeb board of governors thought it was, in the words of a Conservative minister depicted in this movie, "immoral." Boredom abhors a vacuum. From pirate radio stations anchored offshore, a steady stream of rock was broadcast from powerful transmitters to the mainland, where at a given moment, more than half of the radios may have been tuned in. The most famous of these pirates was Radio Caroline.
****Precious (R)
"Precious" (R, 109 minutes). School is an ordeal of mocking cruelty for a fat teenager, and home is worse. Precious avoids looking at people, hardly ever speaks, is nearly illiterate, is pregnant. One of her teachers (Paula Patton) and a postal worker (Mariah Carey) see something in her, or simply react to her obvious pain. They try to coax her out of her shell. She's not stupid, but feels defeated. Gabourey "Gabby" Sidibe gives a powerful performance in the title role, and Mo'Nique is frighteningly effective as her abusive mother. Directed by Lee Daniels, based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire. Four stars. (11/4/09)
****A Serious Man (R)
"A Serious Man" (R, 104 minutes). The darkly comic new Coen brothers film. Every single thing in Larry Gopnik's life is going wrong. His wife is leaving him for his best friend. His son is misbehaving in Hebrew school. His daughter is stealing money. His brother in law in sleeping on the sofa. His neighbor is a gun nut. A student tries to bribe and blackmail him. There's worse. Larry teaches advanced physics, but his life is a medieval tragedy. In a 1960s Minneapolis suburb, the Coens restage the Book of Job as rich human comedy.
****Skin (PG-13)
"Skin" (PG-13, 107 minutes). Magnificent performance by Oscar nominee Sophie Okonedo ("Hotel Rwanda") as the apparently black child of apparently white Afrikanars in South Africa under apartheid. Her parents insist she's white, but society sees nhefr as black, and she's trapped in the nightmare if apartheid's insanity. A powerful emotional experience, based on a true story (we see the real-life woman at the end). Sam Neill and Alice Krige play her stubborn parents. Directed by Anthony Fabian. Four stars (11/11/09)
****This Is It (PG)
"This Is It" (PG, 112 minutes). Not a dying man forcing himself through grueling rehearsals, but a spirit embodied by music. Directed by Kenny Ortega, the doc provides both a good idea of what the final concert would have looked like, and a portrait of the artist at work. One of the most revealing music documentaries I've seen. Four stars (10/27/09)
****Trucker (R)
"Trucker" (R, 90 minutes). Michelle Monaghan plays a cold, loner, hard-drinking, promiscuous trucker. Jimmy Bennett plays her 11-year-old son. She left his father (Benjamin Bratt) soon after he was born, and wants nothing it do with him. But after Bratt gets sick, she's forced to take in the kid. Both of them are angry and closed-off. James Mottern has written and directed a film that closely observes as their abrasive personalities are forced to coexist. Not sentimental, avoids obvious cliches, doesn't play it safe, comes to strong emotional life. Monaghan deserves an Academy nomination.
***½ (Untitled) (R)
"(Untitled") (R, 96 minutes). A good, smart comedy about the fringes of the New York art world, starring Adam Goldberg as an impossible experimental musician and Marley Shelton as a chic Soho gallery owner. The art on display is good enough to be plausible, and weird enough to be funny. It's worthy of the best Woody Allen, and Adrian is not unlike Woody's persona: A sincere, intense, insecure nebbish, hopeless with women, aiming for greatness. Directed by Jonathan Parker. Three and a half stars (11/4/09)
*** Walt and El Grupo (PG)
"Walt & El Grupo" (PG, 106 minutes). In 1941, with his studio shut down by a strike, Walt Disney accepted the invitation of Franklin Roosevelt to embark on a goodwill tour of South America; the president hoped Disney's popularity would raise America's stock on a continent where the Nazis were making propaganda inroads. Using a remarkable trove of footage from the studio's archives, this doc by the son of one of the artists Disney took along recaptures a time when Walt was young, South America unfamiliar, and Hollywood a town where a mogul's reaction to a strike was to get it of Dodge.
****We Live in Public (No MPAA rating)
"We Live in Public" (Unrated, 91 minutes). Provocative doc about "the greatest Internet pioneer you've never heard of." Josh Harris founded the web company that pioneered internet audio/visual streaming in the 1990s, sold it for $80 million, gathered 100 volunteers to live communally online 24-hours a day, and lost his fortune. Ondi Timoner has followed him for 15 years, in good times and bad, and returned with a portrait of a genius/eccentric/screwball who left it all to grow apples. For Harris, the brave new world is behind him.
*** Where the Wild Things Are (PG)
"Where the Wild Things Are" (PG, 101 minutes). Maurice Sendak's much-loved 1963 children's book becomes a big-budget fantasy, with particularly good realizations of his Wild Things, creatures on an island visited in the imagination of a small boy (Max Records). But the plot is simple stuff, spread fairly thin by director Spike Jonze and writer Dave Eggers. Three stars (10/14/09)
***½ Whip It (PG-13)
"Whip It" (PG-13, 111 minutes). Ellen Page ("Juno") is plucky and enchanting in Drew Barrymore's directing debut. She plays a small-town Texas girl, sick of the beauty pageants her mother fires her into, who sneaks off to Austin one night, sees a Roller Derby game, and gets a whole new idea of herself. Page, doing her own skating, is small but fast, and earns the respect of her teammates, in an unreasonably entertaining coming-of-age comedy that sees the modern version of Roller Derby as a sort of gothic-punk-warrior woman ritual.
*** The Yes Men Fix the World (No MPAA rating)
"The Yes Men Fix the World" (Unrated, 96 minutes) The Yes Men are a New York political action cooperative specializes in hoaxes that embarrass corporations by dramatizing their evils and excesses. They put up phony web sites, print fake business cards, and pose as representatives from the companies that are their targets. It's amazing what they get away with, and this doc shows their successful hoaxes against Dow, Halliburton and the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, among others. Funny and thought provoking.
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