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Weekend Movie Forecast: 2012 Vs. Fantastic Mr. Fox

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At a media screening for 2012 earlier this week, the peals of derisive laughter erupting from the assorted hacks grew increasingly more raucous as the vast destruction was actually overshadowed by the corniness wafting from the dialogue and plot. But what did the critics really expectâdazzling sophistication and dry wit? This is a Roland Emmerich movie, set mostly in the titular year, when neutrinos from the sun melt the Earth's core, causing widespread catastrophe. But fortunately for the movie's elites, scientists alerted the government in enough time for an international alliance to come up with an escape planâwhich protagonist John Cusak must weasel into with his family before they ignominiously die alongside billions of loser non-celebrities. This is the mother of all disaster movies, and it's about as good as you'd expect, provided you only expect a reasonably well-structured spectacle packed with tension and release and a little bit of Hollywood "heart." Woody Harrelson, whom we'd follow into hell, brings a daffy comic touch to the role of the tinfoil-hat radio host who saw the whole thing coming. Danny Glover may be flat and bored as the last president of the United States, but [spoiler!] he's got a great death scene on the White House lawn. <a href="http://gothamist.com/2009/04/01/oliver_platt.php">Oliver Platt</a> is reliably brilliant, and Cusak, as usual, is fun to watch as he contemptuously picks up his fat paycheck. But the real stars here are the forces of nature that literally destroy everything on earth, and it's a strange feeling to be mildly entertained while watching images of our species' demise.

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Wes Anderson's latest opus, Fantastic Mr. Fox, is the painstakingly retro stop-motion animation adaptation of the Roald Dahl children's book. Critics have mostly <a href="http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/fantasticmrfox">embraced the film</a>, and now it's up to the masses to decide if <a href="http://www.foxsearchlight.com/index.php">Fox Searchlight</a> can make a buck off Anderson's signature preciousness. (<a href="http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=60690">One of those puppets</a> cost $83,000 alone!) <a href="http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/11/split_fox_verdi_1.php">Jeffrey Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere says</a>, "I loved and worshipped the auteurist aspectâthe luscious autumnal colors, the every-other-frame movement that Anderson and his team used to create Fox's particular stop-motion look... [New York's David] Edelstein calls it 'a dandy's movie,' and that it is. "Which, as noted, is what gives my inner movie dweeb such pleasure. I intend to buy, watch and occasionally re-watch the Fantastic Mr. Fox Bluray when it comes out next year. But most American moviegoers are not dandies. They're slugs and lugs, and I know, trust me, what's going to happen when they watch it on screens this weekend..."The immutable laws of probability and outcome don't apply. No foxes get killed despite ridiculous automatic-weapons odds against them. (It's a little bit like Sylvester Stallone never being winged in Rambo II.) Life can sometimes be brutal in actuality and sometimes very tough decisions have to be made, and sometimes people stumble and fall and die and go to jail, but in Fantastic Mr. Fox life is an ironic bullshit thing...a hip romp...a lightweight goof."

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Ben Foster (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115173/">Flash Forward</a> anyone?) makes his first foray into leading-man territory in Oren Moverman's The Messenger. Foster plays Will Montgomery, a U.S. Army officer back from his tour in Iraq, who is now assigned the unenviable job of Army Casualty notifier. Partnered with fellow officer Tony Stone (played by that lovable degenerate Woody Harrelson), the two must personally bear the bad news to friends and families of fallen soldiers while attempting to overcome their own emotional battle-scars.Critical response has been mostly positive with a lot of the praise going to the two leading men. A.O. Scott from <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/movies/13messenger.html?ref=movies"> The Times </a> says: "Mr. Harrelson, using his natural affability as a mask for his characterâs pain and insecurity, has never been better. And with this performance Mr. Foster, having shown intriguing promise in Alpha Dog and 3:10 to Yuma, places himself in the first rank of young American screen actors."Mr. Moverman, a combat veteran of the Israeli Army making his directing debut (his earlier writing credits include Iâm Not There, Married Life and Jesusâ Son), approaches this material with an impressive mixture of empathy and objectivity. He seems able to render the psychological complexities of war and its consequences simultaneously from the inside and the outside. No movie can convey the truth of war to those of us who have not lived through it, but The Messenger, precisely by acknowledging just how hard it is to live with that truth, manages to bring it at least partway home."

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When contemplating the existence of a higher power, who can we turn to for answers? The Church? The scientists? That philosophy school advertised on the subway? No? Well how about Hugh Jackman, Ringo Starr and Seal!? If you want your theological advise from the superhunks there's finally a place to turn to: Peter Rodger's globe-trotting, star-studded new documentary Oh my God?Blame it on the liberal media, but the movie has been unsurprisingly, almost biblically destroyed by critics. Nick Pinkerton from <a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-11-10/film/bad-wine-bar-music-backs-the-big-questions-in-oh-my-god/">The Voice</a> says the movie "ponders questions that have captivated theologian and layman alike for centuriesâ'What is God?' 'Is He really one and the same across lines of faith?' 'Is He there?'âand answers them with hectic travelogue montages cut to the beat of bad wine-bar music."Visiting all corners of the globe, from Little Tibet' to the Aussie Outback to Vatican City, Rodgers seeks the counsel of shamans, Shinto priests, Druids, Hugh Jackman, Sir Bob Geldof, etc., and reduces whatever wisdom they offer to soundbites in the mix. The drubbing score leaves one nearly insensate to the fact that Rodgers has nothing original or even interesting to say about his subject, flattening fine points of scripture to recommend interfaith group hugs."

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If you're in the mood for feel-good Baby Boomer nostalgia porn this weekend, look no further than Pirate Radio. Looking slightly more authentic then an Austin Powers movie, the film tells the story of Radio Rock, a radio station broadcast from an old tanker in the North Sea (just outside the jurisdiction of "The Man"), that's filled with an ensemble crew of British comedians, and Philip Seymour Hoffman.Reaction feels good (mostly because every review has in it the phrase "feel-good"), with dissent coming from the probably younger and therefore more cynical reviewers such as Sam Adams from <a href="http://www.avclub.com/articles/pirate-radio,35312/"> The Onion's A.V. Club </a>who asks: "Do you like montages, but grow bored with the tedious plot bits in between? Then Pirate Radio is the movie for you."[Director] Curtis stocks the boat with a crew of fine comic actors, mostly playing the DJs of Radio Rock: Rhys Darby, Nick Frost, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, essentially doing a more animated take on Almost Famousâ Lester Bangs. But while they successfully convey a sense of shipboard camaraderie, enhanced by the boatâs no-girls-allowed rule, Curtis seems to have no idea how to take advantage of their talents."The driving force behind a wave of blandly successful British comedies that include Love Actually and the Bridget Jones films, Curtis evidently has the pull to purchase a dream cast, but not the ingenuity to take advantage of it."

Gothamist

Ten9Eight is the newest documentary in the budding cultural imperialist genre in which the disadvantaged youth of urban America are given the chance at salvation through good, old-fashioned capitalism. The film follows the paths of a number of teens, from cities such as Compton and Harlem, as they compete in an annual business plan competition run by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE). The film is being complimented for bringing the NFTE to the attention of more people (which considering their role in funding the movie, was probably the point), but not for much else.Vadim Rizov from <a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-11-10/film/ten9eight-documents-disadvantaged-youths-capitalist-dreams/"> The Voice</a> shares the lukewarm reaction of his peers saying: "Entrepeneurship or death: That's the blunt choice presented to the ever-euphemistic "disadvantaged youth" by Ten9Eight. Get rich (by pursuing your capitalistic goals and parlaying them into a meticulously detailed business plan) or die tryin' (felled by drugs, poverty, et al.)."This relentlessly upbeat paean to capitalism as the sole path to the American Dream comes at a time when the values of unfettered capitalism are once more up for debate. No blame, to be clear, can be assigned to the subjects: uniformly diligent and lovable teens sincerely promoting businesses they believe in. But the movie is still a glorified informercial, complete with enough blandly upbeat guitar-cues to power all 22 seasons of Real World intros."

Gothamist

The aptly titled Uncertainty has split critics between those interested and those underwhelmed. The film starts on the Fourth of July with a couple flipping a coin on the Brooklyn Bridge to decide how to spend their day -either spending it alone in Manhattan or at a family BBQ in Brooklyn. The film then splits to show how each day would have worked out, with the day in Brooklyn as a domestic drama and in Manhattan as a blackmail murder thriller.Critics can't seem to make heads or tails of the film (sorry), but one thing is for certain (sorry again), no one loves it. Scott Tobias from <a href="http://www.avclub.com/articles/uncertainty,35310/"> The Onion's A.V. Club </a> writes: "Uncertainty finds [Directors McGehee and Siegel] indulging their most academic instincts, fiddling with a bifurcated structure without bothering to flesh out their thin ideas about choices made and deferred, and the hand of destiny. Theyâre like architects of a beautiful home thatâs completely uninhabitable."The leads are immensely appealing, but the sum of their experiences equals nothing more profound than two earnest people wrestling with a tough decision. Their uncertainty is common, and nothing a by-the-numbers blackmail plot can clear up."

Gothamist

Famed radical civil rights lawyer William Kunstler gets the documentary treatment in William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe. Filmed by his two daughters <a href="http://gothamist.com/2009/11/13/william_kunstler_lawyer.php">Emily and Sarah Kunstler</a>, it traces his career from the local housing lawsuit in 1960 that first got him into the civil rights movement up to his death in 1995. The film's critical response has been as quiet as a movie about a lawyer filmed by his daughters would lead you to believe. Stephen Holden from <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/movies/13kunstler.html?ref=movies"> The Times</a> says: "Although the film, with its home movies and family reminiscences, portrays him as a heroic crusader for justice, it is by no means a hagiography of a man who earned widespread contempt late in his career for defending pariahs."A loss of perspective and an inflated sense of self-importance: all too often these are side effects of stardom, whether in Hollywood or in the legal profession."

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Sebastian Gutierrez, the scribe behind the classic Snakes on a Plane, brings us his newest creation: Women in Trouble. Following the life of ten different women over the course of a day, the film has been drawing comparisons to the works of Almodovar, but that hasn't really helped its reviews. Some critics find the level of camp enjoyable (looking at you Post), while others... not so much. Manohla Dargis from <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/movies/13women.html?ref=movies"> The Times </a>writes: "Although some early flashes of color suggest that Mr. Gutierrez is headed for AlmodÃ³var country, he soon settles into discount Robert Altman: a character mosaic with a smattering of different if fundamentally homogenous Los Angeles women yammering about love, sex, whatever."The amateurish production values might be pardonable if the clichÃ©s â the hard-core porn star with the soft heart, the therapist who needs to heal herself â inside the poorly lighted, badly shot images werenât so absurd and often insulting. Mr. Gutierrez, as suggested by all the dÃ©colletage, appears to be a breast man. Too bad he didnât set his sights higher."

Gothamist

Powell and Pressburger's Technicolor marvel The Red Shoes is is <a href="http://www.filmforum.org">playing at the Film Forum</a> with a new restored 35mm print. Considered to be one of the most visually stunning films ever made, it deserves to be seen on the big screen.

Gothamist

See the Truffle Shuffle on the big screen this weekend at midnight <a href="http://www.landmarktheatres.com/Market/NewYork/NewYork_Frameset.htm">at The Sunshine</a>.

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This weekend at midnight <a href="http://www.ifccenter.com/films/all-tomorrows-parties/">the IFC Center screens</a> All Tomorrow's Parties, a documentary featuring performances from a host of alt artists, including Battles, Sonic Youth, Belle And Sebastian, Patti Smith, Animal Collective, Grinderman, Iggy and the Stooges, Portishead, Mogwai, Slint, Grizzly Bear, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Gossip, Daniel Johnston and The Boredoms. "The film is a semi-found bricolage made from Super8, camcorder and mobile phone footage contributed by over two hundred filmmakers, fans and musicians over the festivalâs recent history, with key contributions from co-director Jonathan Caouette (Tarnation) and cinematographer Vincent Moon (The Take Away Shows, Arcade Fire)."

Gothamist

Weekend Movie Forecast: <em>2012</em> Vs. <em>Fantastic Mr. Fox</em>