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February 26-March 4, 2009
buzz@boulderweekly.com
 A Christmas Tale
Catherine Deneuve is the mother who is dying of cancer at the center of a dysfunctional family, her only hope bone marrow from family members heretofore banished. What initially seems a trite scenario is played out by writer/director Arnaud Desplechin in a way that draws the viewer into the family’s intimate, funny world. Not rated. At International Film Series. — IFS
Che
Steven Soderbergh’s two-part Che is a methodical if coolly romantic portrait of the most familiar 1960s T-shirt icon outside the peace symbol. Though not without its faults, this is Soderbergh’s most interesting film in years, defiantly eccentric and absorbing at its best. Both parts focus obsessively on guerrilla strategy and grassroots process. You don’t learn much about Ernesto “Che” Guevara, played by Benicio Del Toro, except how he may have interacted with his fellow rebels while struggling toward revolution. No MPAA rating (intense sequences of violence and action, and some sexual content). At Mayan. — Michael Phillips
Children of Heaven (1997)
Iran’s Majid Majidi wrote and directed this tale of a brother and sister in Tehran who accidentally lose the girl’s only shoes when they take them into the cobbler. Not rated. At International Film Series. — IFS
The Class
This fantastic film takes place in a working-class, multi-ethnic Parisian middle school, where an unruly world of conflict, frustration and joy comes to life. Francois Begaudeau plays a version of himself; he taught in a Paris middle school and wrote a book about it, and The Class distills that book into a year in the life of a teacher and his combative, highly stimulating students. A documentary approach is the key to the film’s success, with real students playing characters, some based on themselves, some not. In French, with English subtitles. Rated PG-13 (language). At Esquire. — Michael Phillips
Confessions of a Shopaholic
This thin, largely unfunny comedy marries lazy filmmaking with bad timing — a recession probably isn’t the right time for a movie about a woman whose passion is shopping for high-end clothes. Star Isla Fisher (Wedding Crashers) is charming enough, but this material is so predictable and leaden that she has no prayer of keeping it afloat. Rated PG (some mild language and thematic elements). At Century, Flatiron and Twin Peaks. — Jessica Reaves
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
This is a tall tale of a man aging in reverse while bobbing serenely on life’s unpredictable seas. The colorful supporting characters spill their guts to the wonder of nature played by Brad Pitt, as he begins his life a very old man, ages into late-middle age, ripens into... well, Brad Pitt, then embarks on the big fade into childhood, infancy and check-out time. It’s worth seeing because the sights are truly something. As with his earlier Zodiac, director David Fincher applies the right technology in the right way. Rated PG-13 (brief war violence, sexual content, language and smoking). At Flatiron. — Michael Phillips
Coraline
An intelligent preteen (Dakota Fanning) discovers a tiny door in the wall of her immense home that leads to a parallel universe offering a brighter, more inviting version of the same house, and her same parents. Coraline may not be for all tastes, and it’s certainly not for all kids, given its macabre premise. But Henry Selick’s film advances the stop-motion animation genre through that most heartening of attributes: quality. It pulls audiences into a meticulously detailed universe, familiar in many respects, menacing in others. Rated PG (thematic elements, scary images, some language and suggestive humor). At Century, Flatiron and Twin Peaks. — Michael Phillips
Defiance
Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber portray two of the four Bielski brothers, Jewish farmers and smugglers who led more than 1,000 Jews to safety in a Belarusian forest during the Holocaust. It’s gripping true-life material, although director Edward Zwick and his writers tart things up with some dubious Hollywood-style mythmaking. Rated R (violence and language). At Flatiron. — Michael Phillips
Doubt
A deft, beautifully built play has made it to the screen with its dramatic juice intact. John Patrick Shanley adapted and directed his stage piece set in a Catholic school in the Bronx in 1964, pitting Meryl Streep’s Sister Aloysius against Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Father Flynn, who’s suspected of an improper student relationship. Rated PG-13 (thematic material). At Starz.. — Michael Phillips
Fired Up
See full screen review on page 46. Rated PG-13. At Flatiron, Century and Twin Peaks.
Friday the 13th (2009)
Having endured a series of increasingly bizarre sequels, machete-wielding Jason Voorhees hits the reset button and starts anew —- Mickey Rourke-esque, if you will. This new Friday the 13th, savvier and snappier than the 1980 original, is a needed return to simplicity: A diverse group of teens visits Camp Crystal Lake, where they engage in naughty behavior before being impaled. After years of Hostel-style torture porn, this straightforward arrow-through-the-eye-socket approach is almost refreshing. Rated R (strong bloody violence, some graphic sexual content, language and drug material). At Century and Flatiron. — Christopher Borrelli
Ginger and Fred (1985)
A bizarre television variety show Ed Ecco A Voi... in Telecitta reunites two entertainers of the 1940s who have not seen each other for 30 years after they parted as lovers and friends. Fellini blends a story of lost love with a visually stunning satire of contemporary television broadcasting. Fellini was inspired to make this film after seeing his older films butchered on Italian television. In Italian with subtitles. Not rated. At Boulder Public Library. — BPL Film Program
Gran Torino
Clint Eastwood’s performance as a reclusive Korean War veteran toughing it out in a sketchy Detroit-area neighborhood may well lead to his first Academy Award for acting. But we’ll have to assume he’s winning it for richer assignments en route. After the vet’s young neighbor (Bee Vang) breaks into his garage to steal the car for which this film is named, our hero sets out to teach the boy how to stand up to his venal gangsta cousins. Some of this is affecting and painful in the right way; a lot of it is just cheap. Rated R (language throughout and some violence). At Century. — Michael Phillips
He’s Just Not That Into You
The film adaptation of Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo’s 2004 relationship-advice book is a sprawling, many-threaded series of stories, most of which contradict the book’s advice about moving on when facing a lack of commitment. Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Connelly, Scarlett Johansson, Drew Barrymore and Ben Affleck head the cast of this romantic comedy, which has some fun with its bubble-gum tone until a rash of ridiculous happy endings takes all the bite out of the premise. Rated PG-13 (sexual content and brief strong language). At Century, Flatiron and Twin Peaks. — Tasha Robinson
The International
See full screen review on page 46. Rated R (some sequences of violence and language). At Century, Flatiron and Twin Peaks.
Milk
The story of Harvey Milk is a tragedy, but not since Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High has Sean Penn played such a serenely happy individual. Penn is superb as the martyred San Francisco city supervisor, America’s first widely acknowledged openly gay elected official. He was killed by Milk’s former colleague, Dan White (Josh Brolin, also excellent), minutes after White’s fatal shooting of Mayor George Moscone in 1978. Rated R (language, some sexual content and brief violence). At Mayan. — Michael Phillips
Moscow, Belgium
Moscow, or “Moscou” in Flemish, is a densely populated working class neighborhood on the outskirts of Ghent, Belgium. That’s where Matty (Barbara Sarafian), an ordinary housewife with nothing but three kids to her name, works at the post office. Her art teacher husband Werner (Johan Heldenbergh) has run off to the bedroom of one of his students. At 43, life seems pretty hopeless. Then she gets in a fender-bender at the grocery store with 29-year-old truck driver Johnny (Jurgen Delnaet). After some harsh words, Johnny finds himself attracted to Matty, who finds that she likes being wanted. A romance ensues just as her wandering husband comes home. Now the center of attention, Matty must choose whether to settle back into the life she was leading or step into the unknown. A heartfelt dramatic comedy about a woman whose soul is full of dents and bruises, from award-winning director Christophe Van Rompaey. Not rated. At Starz. — Denver Film Society
Odyssey of a Naturalist (1965)
Fran Hall bought his first camera 76 years ago. Hall comments about his own work: “A brief look into that tiny world of living things that we seldom pay any attention to! An immature Lady Bird Beetle or two and some caterpillars who turn into lovely Butterflies! Or an immature adult Tiger Beetle drilling it’s hole in the sand! A look at some hunting ants and carrying their prey back to the home in the sand! And a close-up look at just how a brightly colored caterpillar becomes a lovely butterfly right in front of your eyes! A very young Lady Bird Beetle, with a pair of hollow jaws lives in a colony of brightly colored Aphids and never has to look very far for a meal!” In his long and vivid life with a camera, Hall has lectured with his nature films for the National Audubon Society, and helped the Walt Disney Studios make nature films. The filmmaker is present at the screening. Not rated. At Boulder Public Library. — BPL Film Program
Paul Blart: Mall Cop
Kevin James plays a mall security guard trying to stop a Black Friday robbery scheme. Underneath all the cartoonish mall mayhem and silly slapstick lies a comedy that aspires to be the sort of gentle crowd-pleaser John Hughes used to make, had the filmmakers been more willing to sacrifice some of James’ rolling-and-tumbling time. Rated PG (some violence, mild crude and suggestive humor and language). At Century, Flatiron and Twin Peaks. — Glenn Whipp
Pink Panther 2
This disposable Pink Panther sequel follows the 2006 remake and once again features Steve Martin as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau. The cast (which also includes Emily Mortimer, Andy Garcia, John Cleese and Lily Tomlin) sprints way out ahead of the material. Most of it would work twice as well if the filmmakers had eased up and allowed the performers to interact — to do their thing in medium shot, without a lot of pushy close-ups and overemphasis, so that their bodies might inform what their faces are up to. Rated PG (some suggestive humor, brief mild language and action). At Century and Flatiron. — Michael Phillips
Push
Psychic experiments started by the Nazis are being continued by the U.S. government, and so a telekinetic (Chris Evans) and a clairvoyant (Dakota Fanning) must recover a powerful experimental drug in the jam-packed streets of Hong Kong before a government agent (Djimon Hounsou) gets his hands on it. Director Paul McGuigan (Lucky Number Slevin) has never been keen on plot logic, and that might be fine if his inscrutable film offered anything other than lush images of Hong Kong. Rated PG-13 (intense sequences of action, intense sequences of violence, smoking and teen drinking). At Flatiron. — Glenn Whipp
Rachel Getting Married
Jonathan Demme’s most bracing narrative feature since The Silence of the Lambs combines a wedding with a tense family reunion, starring Anne Hathaway as a recovering addict returning home for her sister’s nuptials. A triumph of ambience, this is the first Demme film since the 1980s that feels like a party — bittersweet, but a party nonetheless. Rated R (language and brief sexuality). At Starz. — Michael Phillips
Revolutionary Road
However sterling the craftsmanship, the film adaptation of Richard Yates’ 1961 novel — an excoriating portrait of a mid-1950s marriage built on sticks, straw and delusion — inflates the meaning and buffs the atmospheric surfaces of the story, rather than digging into its guts. But when stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet unleash their character’s demons, Revolutionary Road loses its tight, controlled sense of composition and air of solemnity and, in human terms, matters. Rated R (language and for some sexual content/nudity). At Starz and Century. — Michael Phillips
Slumdog Millionaire
Slumdog Millionaire is a ruthlessly effective paean to destiny, leaving nothing to chance. It also has a good shot at winning this year’s Academy Award for best picture, if the pundits have anything to say about it. Every arrow plucked from director Danny Boyle’s quiver takes aim at the same objective: to leave you exhausted but wowed. An 18-year-old (Dev Patel) in the former Bombay, India, is suspected of cheating his way to national fame on the Hindi version of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? Rated R (some violence, disturbing images and some language). At Century, Flatiron, Esquire and Chez Artiste. — Michael Phillips
Taken
Liam Neeson plays a former CIA spook whose clandestine career bled into his home and led to a divorce. After sex traffickers kidnap his daughter in Europe, our hero has 96 hours to save her, and he wastes no time karate-chopping his way through every mime and baguette peddler in France. The movie overheats quickly, but Neeson and the filmmakers manage to make the Charles Bronson-style simplicity work. Rated PG-13 (intense sequences of violence, disturbing thematic material, sexual content, some drug references and language). At Century, Flatiron and Twin Peaks. — Christopher Borrelli
Tyson
Attention filmmakers, sports fans, psychologists and the curious! Rare insight — the only film boxing legend Mike Tyson ever cooperated with is this sizzling, brilliantly shot documentary, narrated by rapper Ice-T. Not rated. At International Film Series. — IFS
12 Monkeys
The French experimental short Le Jetée was the departure point for director Terry Gilliam in his drama describing a civilization that has been driven underground. Rated R. At International Film Series. — IFS
Waltz with Bashir
An extraordinary achievement and a true visual feast, Ari Folman’s animated Waltz With Bashir is a detective story as well as an moral inquiry into the specific horrors of one war (the 1982 Lebanon War), and one man’s buried memories of it. It’s personal filmmaking of the highest order, recognized with an Academy Award nomination for best foreign film. Rated R (some disturbing images of atrocities, strong violence, brief nudity and a scene of graphic sexual content). Rated R. At Starz and Flatiron. — Michael Phillips
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960)
A middle-aged and widowed geisha on the Ginza must choose to either get married, become a kept woman or buy a bar of her own. Her family hounds her for money, her customers demand her attention and she is constantly in debt. The life of a geisha is examined, as well as the way in which the system traps, and sometimes kills those in it. In Japanese with subtitles. Not rated. At Boulder Public Library. — BPL Film Program
The Wrestler
This film spends 105 minutes grappling at the edge of camp, cheap laughs and cliches. Yet the way it’s handled by director Darren Aronofsky and especially by Mickey Rourke — who really should get an Oscar for his portrayal of Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a steroid-addled sweetie in tights — it stays honest and keeps on fighting. An aging, down-on-his luck pro grappler, The Ram has heart problems, but The Wrestler does not. It’s sincere, violent, sentimental, predictable and extremely effective. Rated R (violence, sexuality/nudity, language and some drug use). At Century and Mayan. — Michael Phillips
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