Greetings, earthlings. How is your September treating you? Pleased as punch that good movies are coming back? Well this week we have “Abduction” ahahaha, joke’s on you! No but seriously, we have the smart baseball movie “Moneyball” that has made its way to the screen, by hook or by crook, despite the development hell it went through. And we also have the Statham-De Niro-Owen crotch-punching actioner “Killer Elite.” It’s a mixed bag this weekend at the ‘plex!
Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill (and ahem Aaron Sorkin/Steve Zaillain and Bennett Miller) somehow make baseball and statistics not punishingly boring in “Moneyball.” Our review says the “enjoyable and rousing film is a tribute to the game’s journeymen,” and it “swings for the fences and hits a triple.” With Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Wright and Chris Pratt. Rotten Tomatoes: 94% MetaCritic: 87
Oh Tay-Tay Lautner goes out on his own in the teenage spy-thriller thingamagig “Abduction.” He gets to kiss Lily Collins on the face and run around with her too. Our review says the film, directed by John Singleton, is little more than “a boy that might as well be a t-shirt with a forehead, an actor that makes Paul Walker look like Daniel Day-Lewis, and a script that might as well have been written on a cocktail napkin.” RT: 5% MC: 29
If they gave Oscars for trailers (which they do, they are called the Golden Trailer Awards and I went to the show one year), “Killer Elite” would sweep. 1- The Scorpions. 2- Clive Owen‘s disgusting mustache. 3- Jason Statham gets down on one knee and punches Clive Owen in his bathing suit area. I’m not going to summarize the plot because that doesn’t matter. Apparently it’s a period film and that’s why there are so many amazing mustaches. Also, Bobby De Niro. Our review says it’s “a bunch of lousy ‘locations,’ wooden acting, an absurd plot, and uniformly terrible facial hair. As something you stumble across a few years from now, on home video or in the backwoods of your cable spectrum, it’s perfectly passable.” RT: 25% MC: 43
A few months ago, our Playlist EIC sent around a jpeg of a poster debut for “Dolphin Tale,” and we all had a good laugh. Who doesn’t love some good Photoshopped Kristofferson action? I ain’t mad at it. Did I think this would hit theaters? No. But here we are, the tale of a tail, and the dolphin who has a prosthetic. Our review says the “squeaky clean family film…deteriorates into a pat, save-the-aquarium climax in which the dolphin seems like an afterthought and the more pressing issues, about oceanography, the environment, and marine biology, have fallen by the wayside, replaced by cloying sentimentality.” Also, Scientologists! With Harry Connick Jr., Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman. RT: 84% MC: 64
Gerard Butler gets his acting on in the true story of a bad biker doing good for Sudanese child soldiers. Marc Forster directs “Machine Gun Preacher” and our review says the film is “devoid of subtlety or visual imagination,” and is “merely ‘Rambo‘ done wrong.” RT: 19% MC: 45
Chris Evans takes off his Capn America jeggings and puts on his big boy lawyer pants in “Puncture,” playing a lawyer with a junk habit in the true story of powerful medical industry lobbyists and the law team who stood up to them on the issue of one-stick syringes. Our review says, it’s “a film of a few solid performances,” but “Evans’ portrayal gives way to monologues and over-dramatic line readings and it becomes less of a Big Issues film and more like Lucas Lee’s Oscar reel.” RT: 58% MC: 49
Cameron Crowe assembles footage of legendary Pearl Jam‘s early days in the rock doc “Pearl Jam 20.” Our review says, “unlike most standard rock band documentaries, it’s full of personal detail” and “this is the real deal with lots of surprising texture.” RT: 67% RT: 58
Debut film “Weekend” from Andrew Haigh has been getting great buzz out of the festival circuit and has been described as a sort of gay “Before Sunrise.” Our review says, it’s a “mostly-assured debut film,” and “without affected pretense, the low-key ‘Weekend’ has an unexpected power that unquestionably lingers.” RT: 96% MC: 82
Also in theaters:
“Archie’s Final Project,” about a teenage boy who says he’s going to commit suicide on camera for a class project. Wasn’t this called “My Suicide” two years ago? RT: 40%
Ryan Reynolds narrates doc “The Whale” about an orca who befriends some humans. Real-life Free Willy! RT: 70% MC: 63
Jamie Foxx-shepherded “Thunder Soul” follows a high school band’s tribute concert to their teacher/band-leader who turned the band into a funk powerhouse in the ’70s. RT: 100% MC: 80
A parrot brings two people together in the rom-dramedy “Bird of the Air.” RT: 14% MC: 37
From the director of “Cocaine Cowboys,” “Limelight” follows the rise and fall of NYC club impresario Peter Gatien. RT: 58% MC: 57
Director Carl Colby deals with his family history in the doc “The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby.” RT: 100% MC: 73