First off, and probably your best mainstream cineplex bet is Todd Phillips’ immature comedy dude brofest, “The Hangover,” which isn’t as classic as “Old School,” but still does provide some serious laughs. It’s a little clunky in spots, but we presume you’re just looking for crude, silly hilarity which Phillips does so well and mostly provides. We would recommend and would like to note once more just how excellent Zach Galifianakis is in the film. Other critics seem to agree as the film has an 81% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Looking like much less of a winner critically — whether its a box-office loser remains to be seen — is Brad Siberling’s “Land Of The Lost” with Will Ferrell, Anna Friel and Danny McBride. As one of our contribs pointed out the other day, Ferrell always seems to be lost at the movies without director and buddy Adam McKay, and reviews of this one are not good. The consensus seems to be the film is a “series of inconsistent sketches than a cohesive adventure comedy” and has a poor 24% rating on RT. Still it’s PG-13 and mainstream as all get out, so don’t be surprised if this one does well financially (after all audiences did come out in droves for shit like, “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” and “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” which all feel like same shit, different pile to us). We basically thought thought the same as others: it’s an unfunny scattershot mess and for what audience exactly? Who the hell knows.
But apparently, if pundits are correct, Pixar’s “Up” will take the #1 box-office spot again and ‘Lost’ and ‘Hangover’ will duke it out for the second spot. The laws and synergies of diminishing returns and dumb audiences make us believe that ‘Lost’ has the upperhand, but many feel like, ‘Hangover,’ can clinch. We’ll see.
Nia Vardalos, writer and star of “My Big Fat Greek,” seems to have had her “comeback” cut short by critics. Her “My Life in Ruins” film is being called a “charmless romantic comedy” and has a piss-poor 11% RT rating. There’s plenty of reviews too and it’s not just a limited release smattering of critics. It goes wide today. It’s probably going to be Fox Searchlight’s first “bomb” of the year, but then again, they’ve already released “Miss March,” which audiences already ignored wholesale (yes, they’re a great little indie mini-major, but fanboys should note, not everything they release turns to gold).
In Limited Release
Academy Award winner Sam Mendes’ “Away We Go” is easily the biggest film in limited release this weekend and probably the most enticing one to 20-30 something indie film audiences given that it stars John Krasinski of “The Office,” Maya Rudolph of “Saturday Night Live” (and Paul Thomas Anderson’s babies) and an bittersweet-ish, indie-folk soundtrack by Alexi Murdoch (god, people no more “Garden State” for anything remotely indie and with an Pitchfork-approved soundtrack, how fucking obvious and there has been other film’s released since 2004). However, one of us did not like it in the least and found it to be an empty-headed sitcom-like travelogue [ed. I’ll probably regret this, but since I haven’t seen it, I’m still vaguely curious]. The film seems to really divide critics with some hating it and some loving it and finding it sweet, charming and endearing, but it only has a 61% RT rating which is like a C grade?
After that, the most notable is “Downloading Nancy,” simply because of its star. It’s a film we were mildly intrigued/fascinated with the possibilities of the fucked-up sounding Internet drama, which stars Mario Bello as a dissatisfied housewife who goes online to stave off boredom and becomes so engaged in an online relationship (with Jason Patric), she leaves her husband (Rufus Sewell) to pursue a sexually perverse fling. But lord, it was pretty stillborn. It’s not terrible, per se, — though it has a dismal 16% rating on RT — but it’s also not remotely good, completely unengaging and purposefully cold to the point of alienation. The actors strengths are completely underused and there’s nothing kinky, sexy, entertaining or intriguing about the flat and lifeless picture. It’s about people who essentially hurt themselves or each other so they can feel something. It also contains an obnoxious bleepy electronic-like score that sounds as if it was composed by the Postal Service who are purposefully trying to annoy you. It’s miserable, despairing and has no pulse whatsoever. There’s one monochromatic color and tone to the entire picture and it’s suicide gray. Ok, maybe it is terrible [ed. that’s our review, C-].
Another film we saw months ago, but didn’t review is “Séraphine” a picture lauded up the wazoo by the French Cesars (the French Oscars), taking the prize in seven out of its nine nominations including Best Music Written for a Film (Michael Galasso), Best Original Screenplay (Martin Provost and Marc Abdelnour), Best Actress (Yolande Moreau) and Best Film. It has 14 reviews on RT that add up to a super solid 92% rating, but we would say hold the phone a little bit. It’s well crafted and engaging, but it was a bit cold and dour for our taste. People who love classically-made, tragic biopics will probably enjoy it. So might your mom (we’re half-joking).
Lauded Chinese director Jia Zhang-ke’s “24 City” has a great looking poster and a venerable 91% rating on RT (only 12 reviews though), but it’s really only a film that the artiest of the arthouse and chin-stroking critics will enjoy. It’ pseudo-documentary/ fictional version of cinéma-vérité, which centers on three generations of characters in the Chinese city of Chengdu and mixing a blend of fiction and fact, the film features five authentic interviews (some retired workers) and four invented stories all about people that worked amongst and around a state-owned factory that eventually gave way to a modern apartment complex. To some it says something profound about the socio-economic class system and nostalgia for pure-Communist China (as opposed to the modern communism they have now), but we honestly found it really dull and like eating a bowl of dry oat bran with raw broccoli mixed in.
Also out in limited release is the music doc, “Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love,” which some of our correspondents saw at SXSW and it sounds decent, but not mandatory unless you happen to be a big fan (not enough RT reviews to generate a rating). Another film is the winning art documentary, “Herb & Dorothy” about an elderly couple who horde away a estimable (and highly valuable) modern art collection which we saw at the Independent Film Festival of Boston and pretty much loved. If you’re into documentaries, especially ones examining the lives of kooky, idiosyncratic people, this one seems like a good bet.
Not even on RT schedule for this week, but reviewed in TimeOut New York and the NYTimes — which means it’s out in limited release now?? — is “Tennessee” the road trip movie where everyone seemingly mopes around the whole time. Two brothers (Adam Rothenberg and Ethan Peck) travel to the titular state to find their estranged father. Mariah Carey co-stars as the aspiring singer they pick up along the way (as one is wont to do on a road trip. Carey also contributed some songs to the soundtrack, including “Right to Dream” which she co-wrote with Willie Nelson (and made the shortlist for last year’s Oscar nominations). It has a sub-par 44% rating.
And that’s it. Whew, exhausted, best of luck with all that.