Summer Movie Preview 2014

“Boyhood,” “The Double,” “Tracks” and “The Fault in Our Stars” are some of the most interesting movies this summer.

There are more movies released in a single season, let alone a calendar year, than any one person knows what to do with. While the fall offers a good mix of prestige pictures and indie darlings that everyone can get excited for, the summer is graded mostly on the intrigue of the summer’s loudest, most saturated commercial exploits.

But in a year when most people are more excited for the next Avengers, Superman and Star Wars in 2015 than yet another Spiderman, X-Men and Transformers, wouldn’t this summer be better served playing the field?

Confirming what’s already known about movies that are everywhere gets exhausting each few months. So while my watch list hasn’t shrunk by much, the comprehensive preview for 2014 has.

The Double

The Double – May 9

The British comedian Richard Ayoade’s “Submarine” was a bit too much of a “400 Blows” pastiche, but he did manage to show wonderful stylistic promise. In “The Double,” he follows up that knack with a dark comedy reminiscent of Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil.” It’s based on a Dostoevsky short story and features a dual performance by Jesse Eisenberg, one as a timid, nebbish office drone and the other as his confident, twisted (and possibly imaginary?) doppelganger.

Chef – May 9

It’ll be nice to see Jon Favreau step back from the action/sci-fi stuff for a while and give a taste to a small character comedy like “Chef”. Favreau stars as a chef who quits his kitchen job and goes to work for himself in the back of a food truck. The secret sauce of course is his big cast including Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Dustin Hoffman, Bobby Cannavale, John Leguizamo and Sofia Vergara.

Tracks – May 23

John Curran’s film is a true story about a young woman (Mia Wasikowska) determined to travel across the Australian desert with four camels. The film stars Adam Driver of “Girls” as her love interest and looks like an absolutely sumptuous adventure.

Night Moves – May 30

Here’s Jesse Eisenberg’s second (or third) appearance on this list. Kelly Reichardt makes slow, slow films (“Meek’s Cutoff,” “Wendy and Lucy”) but with this thriller about eco-terrorists trying to blow up the Hoover Dam, I can only expect that this film’s slow simmer will really boil over. Reichardt’s film also stars Dakota Fanning, Alia Shawkat and Peter Sarsgaard.

The Fault in Our Stars – June 6

Shailene Woodley may be going the full on J-Law route to stardom (tiny indie, blockbuster YA novel, mid-scale indie with Oscar potential), but “The Fault in Our Stars” looks lovely in a sardonic, acerbic way. It’s about two teen lovers who meet in a cancer ward and is based on John Green’s acclaimed novel I won’t finish reading before it comes out.

Begin Again – July 4

“Begin Again,” formerly titled “A Song Can Save Your Life,” is the follow-up of bassist turned filmmaker John Carney, the Irishman who gave us the beloved and tender musical “Once.” It stars Mark Ruffalo as an out-of-work record producer who works  with a fresh singer (Keira Knightley) after she’s dumped by her rock star boyfriend (Adam Levine).

Boyhood – July 11

Believe the hyperbole; Richard Linklater cast a 6-year-old boy and filmed a story over 12 years, and it’s said to be every bit as groundbreaking and moving as you would imagine. After “Before Midnight,” this was the second Linklater vehicle in two years that took Sundance by storm, and it gives us the privilege of maturing along with Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette and newcomer Ellar Coltrane.

Life Itself – July 11

Roger Ebert passed away on April 4, 2013, and while Steve James’s documentary is a touching tribute regardless, the real shock is seeing the famous film critic in his final moments. Having seen the film as part of its Indiegogo release, I cried then just like I did on April 4. James, the documentarian behind “Hoop Dreams” and “The Interrupters,” captures the shaded nuance of Ebert and the Chicago he left an imprint on, but its likewise a film about criticism, friendships and as the title suggests, life itself. (My 4-star review will be released prior to release)

Land Ho! – July 11

One of this year’s more under-the-radar Sundance gems is “Land Ho!” a road-trip comedy set in Iceland between two elderly men who were once brothers in law. The men are polar opposites, one soft-spoken and the other brash and vulgar. Indiewire critic Eric Kohn calls it a “gentle meditation on growing old and bored.” It’s not quite “Neighbors,” but it should be an indie summer treat.

I Origins – July 18

Mike Cahill’s “Another Earth” is an underrated sci-fi classic, melodramatic and overtly parabolic, but it completely earns its broad strokes. That proved to be an excellent pairing between Cahill and actress/writer Brit Marling. She’s the co-star in “I Origins,” another sci-fi about a biologist (“Boardwalk Empire’s” Michael Pitt) trying to trace his deceased wife’s spirit by studying the pattern of human eyes. 

Mood Indigo – July 18

Michel Gondry has never really found the same magic he once did with “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” but now he’s returned to his native France for a fantastical comedy and romance. Audrey Tautou is playing a very “Amelie” like role as a woman suffering from an unusual illness. The film also stars the French comedian Gad Elmaleh and Omar Sy of “The Intouchables.”

A Most Wanted Man – July 25

“A Most Wanted Man” will forever be famous as the last movie of Philip Seymour Hoffman, but Anton Corbijn is on his way to becoming a true auteur. His last film was the polarizing “The American,” and he’s back again with a spy thriller based on a John Le Carre (“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”) novel. Hoffman plays a German spy using a volatile and mysterious Islamic immigrant to nail a bigger fish.

The Two Faces of January – August 8

Oscar Isaac found his breakout role last year in “Inside Llewyn Davis,” and this is the year he becomes a real movie star. The first of several films he stars in this year is “The Two Faces of January,” a debut film by the writer of “Drive” (also featuring Isaac), Hossein Amini. Isaac plays an American tour guide smitten with the wife (Kirsten Dunst) of a wealthy American con man (Viggo Mortensen) on the run from mobsters. The thriller is also based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith (“The Talented Mr. Ripley,” “Strangers on a Train”).

Love is Strange – August 22

Only shy of “Boyhood” as the most acclaimed festival darling of the new year, “Love is Strange” showcases the fascinating pairing of John Lithgow and Alfred Molina as a gay couple in New York forced to live apart. It comes from Ira Sachs, who broke onto the scene with 2012’s gay romance “Keep the Lights On.”

Frank – August 22

Michael Fassbender’s big starring role this year is in “X-Men,” but his “biggest” role is under a ceramic, cartoon head in the screwy Sundance comedy “Frank.” While it starts as a high concept of the mysterious Frank as the leader of a rock band, it deepens as a character study about mental illness, art and psychology. Continue reading “Summer Movie Preview 2014”

Rapid Response: Paisan

Roberto Rossellini’s second film in his War Trilogy truly knows what it is to be an Italian and to be affected by the war.

“You simply don’t speak Italian in a hurry,” says an American soldier in the first of six stories of “Paisan.” It’s a funny line within my fast talking Italian family, but “Paisan” is Roberto Rossellini’s second film in his war trilogy and portrait of Italian life during World War II, and it achieves its “neorealistic” slice of life by taking its time across Italian culture and lifestyles.

Like “Rome, Open City” before it, this film is neorealistic because of its pessimistic tone and grave images of poverty and troubled living during wartime. Rossellini may already be going against the tendencies of his first film to be real through non-actors, on-location filming and straight forward stories, because “Paisan” is surprisingly Hollywood. It’s complete with American actors, swelling scores and even a few action heavy scenarios. And yet each ends anti-climatically if not downright sad.

In one story, the American MP befriending a poor, parentless Italian boy turns away when he witnesses just how bad the boy’s conditions are. In another, two heros will spend their entire time negotiating past blockades and barriers only to end up dead just short of the finish line. And in a third, a soldier will forever lose the love of his life when he fails to recognize her, forced into prostitution after the war has taken everything.

Amid it all though is a sense of fortitude, excitement and determination. We see courtesy in homeowners opening themselves to danger at the hands of the Germans, we see American soldiers admiring the architecture of buildings older than their country, and we see spirituality that helps monks get through the horrors and misfortune of war. There’s courtesy, hospitality and a pervasive sense of culture coursing through “Paisan’s” veins, and that’s what makes it such a powerful statement.

Not all war films take up the helm this easily. When compared to American films, there’s a difference between jingoism and culture, and “Paisan” knows what it is to call Italy home, for better or worse.

 

Side by Side: Rome Open City and Los Olvidados

Roberto Rossellini and Luis Bunuel’s films are early examples of neorealism.

Luis Bunuel opens his 1953 film “Los Olvidados,” or “The Young and the Damned,” with a disclaimer that explains his film is true, not optimistic and leaves everything to society’s progressive forces to solve. The film is about the poverty, crime and hardship that’s befallen Mexico as a result of the institution. It could very well be the same description as Roberto Rossellini’s “Rome, Open City.”

With “Rome, Open City” in 1945, Rossellini effectively invented the film movement known as “neorealism.” These films shot on location with non-actors and focused on ordinary lives as they were in the world. And starting in 1945 immediately after the war, Rossellini’s War Trilogy that included this film, “Paisan” and “Germany Year Zero”, were scathing indictments and portraits of the Italian lifestyle that had grown out of the war. Its early protagonist Pina (Anna Magnani) is the fiancee of an Italian insurgent named Francesco (Francesco Grandjacquet), and his associate going under the alias Luigi Ferraris (Marcello Pagliero) is being hunted by the Nazis.

But mostly, their casual scheming and getting around officers is a way of life. We see kids playing football in an alley, hiding rebels, talking on the phone with the certainty that the Gestapo are listening, and parenting with all the salt of an Italian household. Even the kids take an involvement in the war, sneaking home late under a secret underground pathway of rubble after staging an explosion on the far side of town. There’s a beautiful shot of them returning home that highlights the poverty and the valor that came out of the war effort. Continue reading “Side by Side: Rome Open City and Los Olvidados”

The Raid 2

Director Gareth Evans opens up the possibilities of where his copiously violent action can go.

 

2012’s “The Raid: Redemption” was an exhilarating and exhausting bout of wall-to-wall, non-stop beat downs and kinetic action. A bad guy waited at the top of a giant gray apartment building, and it was up to the hero to murder everyone in his path up each floor and through each room. It was relentless, and arguably not a whole lot of fun.

“The Raid 2” is still relentless, and it’s still a grim, copiously bloody martial arts movie in which everyone will still end up murdered. But Director Gareth Evans has opened up the film’s possibilities and scope in fascinating ways. It’s an intense and no doubt excruciating movie experience, but it comes with more arresting visuals and a greater set of stakes. Continue reading “The Raid 2”

Frozen

“Frozen” is the best Disney movie in nearly two decades.

Disney has been trying to recapture the magic of their early ‘90s Golden Age for so long now that it didn’t seem like they had it in them. “Tangled” and its classic princess fairy tale has its ardent supporters, as does the hand-drawn animation and musical charm of “The Princess and the Frog.”

But now “Frozen” has done it. It’s not just big; it really is the biggest sensation to come out of the studio in near 20 years. And they’ve made it work because for once they’ve made a movie for the 21st Century. They made a movie not for the ‘90s kids but for the grown up ‘90s kids and the kids of the coming generation.

Yes, “Frozen” is big, beautiful, funny and cute, but it’s also quirky, awkward, progressive and dark. It’s everything a millennial kids classic should be.  Continue reading “Frozen”

Fading Gigolo

The thin premise of “Fading Gigolo” mines a surprising amount of depth and emotion, but it’s too distracted with its weird subplot and corny sex jokes.

It’s Woody Allen’s thing to be nebbishly uncomfortable, but he is so out of place in John Turturro’s comedy “Fading Gigolo” that even he can’t quite save it. Turturro’s script starts from a thin premise and manages to find a surprising amount of tenderness and emotion within, but it relies on plot contrivances and supporting players that simply don’t add up.

Allen plays Murray, and he comes to Turturro’s Fioravante with a simple idea: would you have a three-way for money? A “ménage”, he clarifies. This is one of those movies where old, fish-out-of-water men delicately giggle at every sexual word and idea as though they unexpectedly saw it in the Bible in Sunday School. And the bit gets tired fast when they start assuming their alter ego names Virgil and Danny Bongo.

They agree to do this on the basis of being strapped for cash, and the two of them together seem to have no trouble landing middle aged women in need of a pick-me-up. And that ultimately is what “Fading Gigolo” is about: providing women added confidence, care and attention.

Turturro does well to ensure there might be more behind each encounter than sex. In his first meeting with the wealthy and assertive Sharon Stone, there’s no sense that either would have any trouble performing, and yet Turturro finds the innocence in having two people experimenting and trying something new and potentially dangerous. They talk and timidly approach one another, suggesting this is like something out of high school, and the steady and calm Fioravante does something beautiful by sharing a slow dance with her first.

Continue reading “Fading Gigolo”

Side by Side: Last Year at Marienbad and Hiroshima Mon Amour

Alain Resnais’s first two features are polarizing art films that cast a spell on the audience but don’t demand to be solved.

The Marienbad Game is a short, two player card game in which cards, or match sticks if you prefer, are dealt in rows of 1, 3, 5 and 7. Players can pick up any number they wish in a turn so long as they draw from the same row. The person forced to pick up the last card loses. The rules matter not, because “Last Year at Marienbad’s” “M” (Sacha Pitoeff) always wins. The film’s patrons speculate and strategize fruitlessly, because the brain teaser seems to have no obvious answer.

Neither does the movie, and Director Alain Resnais, who was still making films but passed away in March, would laugh at the idea that a film or work of art needs to be scrutinized and solved (see: Christopher Nolan, J.J. Abrams, Joss Whedon). “Last Year at Marienbad” resists interpretation.

The film is about a man seducing a woman at a luxurious hotel by trying to convince her they’ve met a year before. He tells an elaborate story rife with details and she plays along while continuing to deny any recollection of their meeting. That description makes it sound like a romantic comedy, but the movie is a gloomy, sprawling and sumptuous fantasy. It’s also a polarizing, yet hypnotic dream of a movie that meanders and blares endlessly.

Continue reading “Side by Side: Last Year at Marienbad and Hiroshima Mon Amour”

Mistaken for Strangers

Tom Berninger’s unusual rock-doc is hardly about The National at all but more about his own behind the scenes antics and volatile personality.

I first saw and discovered The National on their “High Violet” tour opening for Arcade Fire. Their music was deep, mournful, abstract and quietly intense (before becoming loudly intense), and you might suspect that Matt Berninger and company are really just brooding basket cases of emotion and darkness.

But at that show Berninger paused after a particularly riotous number and threw jellybeans into the audience. “Be sure to pick those up,” he said, “They each have a new MP3 track in them… by The Flaming Lips.” You don’t quite realize that they’re funny, quirky, aloof and more like their Midwestern selves than whatever you expect of a rock star.

The new rock-doc “Mistaken for Strangers” sheds light into this side of The National, but it does so by profiling the even bigger goofball behind the scenes, Director and Matt’s brother Tom Berninger. Though he resembles his tall, lanky and hipster brother Matt, Tom is shorter, fatter and has longer hair, and he could very well be portrayed in a movie by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.

He’s made an oddball, meta and awkwardly funny documentary not unlike his own goofy personality. “Mistaken for Strangers” has more to do with Tom than the band itself, and in that way it gives us a more heartwarming portrait of The National than concert footage alone ever could.

Continue reading “Mistaken for Strangers”

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

“Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is the most bullet-ridden superhero movie ever made, and it has a strange assortment of politics embedded within.

Captain America is a hero of morals and integrity. He represents the American ideal not because of his politics but because of his values. And yet his presence in comics dating back to World War II has always had to contend with the American political sphere. What would be the implications if the values of America’s greatest hero no longer matched America’s behavior?

Marvel took an ambitious step by removing Captain America from his ’40s origin story and dropping him into the modern day. “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is a film in which Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) must now grapple with thorny, ripped from the headlines debates surrounding America’s defense spending, use of military drones and their technological dominion over our privacy.

It’s the first time a Marvel film has presented grave, real-world stakes. In one way, the modern setting makes “The Winter Soldier” feel hardly like a superhero movie at all, closer to a conspiracy thriller complete with modern weaponry and combat. But in another way, Directors Anthony and Joe Russo’s placement of the film well within the Marvel template and “Cinematic Universe” make the presentation of “The Winter Soldier’s” vague political ideas that much queasier.

Continue reading “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”

St. Vincent at the Riviera Theater, Chicago: Concert Review

St. Vincent is an alien from another world, and Annie Clark’s live show is direct proof.

St. Vincent is an alien from another world.

This much might be obvious to anyone who has digested the sonic mayhem of her albums, with guitars distorted beyond recognition, baritone saxes providing a funky bite and a Theremin being tortured in place of a solo.

And yet Annie Clark’s meticulously choreographed stage show for her self titled tour suggest that this alien has a scarily deep insight into our heads and a palpable tension as she readies an attack.

“Hello ladies and gentleman, and hello others,” Clark addresses the audience. “We’re not so different, you and I.” In between songs she’ll slyly suggest the questionable behavior and thoughts we all share while leaning heavily on her own creepy confessional. She’ll admit to fantasizing about seeing people naked on the L, about looking at her hands and believing there to be a mix-up, or telling a lie and fearing the universe might be punishing her.

Such is the way an alien might communicate, but Clark utilized the remainder of her near two hour set at the Riv Saturday night seducing, entrancing and terrorizing through her exotic dancing and strobe lighting used “extensively.”

Clark’s outfit makes her look like she came from the same planet Lady Gaga calls home. She wears an extremely short black frock with red plumage bursting from her chest, beset by silvery hair strewn in all directions and glowing, turquoise eye shadow made to clash. Continue reading “St. Vincent at the Riviera Theater, Chicago: Concert Review”