Weekend Movie Forecast: <em>Capitalism: A Love Story</em> or "Hideous Men"
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<p>Michael Moore's new documentary, <em>Capitalism: A Love Story</em> explores the root causes of the global economic meltdown, which culminated in what Moore sees as the biggest robbery in American history: the transfer of U.S. taxpayer money to bail out private financial institutions. We love Michael Moore, but just to be fair, let's hear what <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/film_review.html">the Wall Street Journal's Joe Morgenstern</a> has to say: "Once again he's on his own barricades, doing whatever it takes to drive home provocative points in a movie that manages shrewdly, even brilliantly, to capitalize on the populist anger that has been sweeping the nation.</p><p></p>"Beyond using comedy as a satiric response to folly and tragedy, <em>Capitalism: A Love Story </em>combines, sometimes tellingly and sometimes befuddlingly, what we know, what we think we know and what we fear about regulatory failures, revolving doors between corporate and public life, the excesses of the financial sector and the human consequences of a distressed economy. And it whips the frenzied events of last fall's meltdown into a montage that suggests nothing less than the Apocalypse. <strong>Mr. Moore aims to proselytize his friends and demonize his enemies. His movie hits both marks."</strong>
<p>We're sorry to see nice-guy John Krasinski's directorial debut, <em>Brief Interviews with Hideous Men</em>, <a href="http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/briefinterviewswithhideousmen">getting such lackluster reviews</a>, but he really had his work cut out for him adapting David Foster Wallace's short-story collection. Nathan Rabin at the Onion <a href="http://www.avclub.com/articles/brief-interviews-with-hideous-men,33308/">laments that the film</a> <strong>"consists of little more than a series of monologues, and plays like some abstract theater exercise, hosted by a college coffeehouse</strong>... Krasinski literalizes Wallaceâs stylistic love of asides too much, but it helps that heâs aware enough of his movieâs limitations to keep Brief Interviews blessedly short. </p><p></p>"It also helps that he saves the most important monologueâone in which a seemingly nice guy explains to his ex-girlfriend why he cheated on herâfor the end, and for himself. Krasinski nails the speech, though itâs such a 'Look at me!' scene that it raises the question of whether Krasinski made this movie because he really loves Wallaceâs work, or because just he wanted to show Hollywood that the loveable doof from 'The Office' can actually act."
<p>Written and directed by Anne Fontaine, this French biopic on Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel (played by the ever-talented Audrey Tautou of Amelie fame) tells the rags-to-riches story of the legendary designer. Growing up a scrawny and poor orphan, Chanel's rise to international fashion phenomenon wasn't without obstacles. In <em>Coco Before Chanel</em>, Chanel strolls down various career paths, enters into tumultuous love triangles, all the while feeling like a fish out of water in the upper-crust society that employs her. "In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different," she once said. </p><p></p>She went on to do just that. Disapproving of the gaudy and excessive wardrobe of the times, she reinvented the woman's conventional lookâdeconstructing it, ridding it of social impositions like corsets, and infusing it, literally, with men's clothing. <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-coco25-2009sep25,0,7544808.story">The LA Times heralded Tautou's strong portrayal</a>, saying, "Tautou not only resembles Chanel, she inhabits the role completely, using flashing eyes and a relentless intelligence to convey the unbending strength of a woman determined to make something of her life in a time and place when that was far from the norm."
<p>For some reason they redid <em>Fame</em>, that gritty 1980 musical about students trying to make it at the competitive NYC High School Of Performing Arts. Surprisingly, <a href="http://www.avclub.com/articles/fame,33317/">Tasha Robinson at The Onion says</a>, "The big surprise is how much the remake respects the original... The creatorsâ instincts only fail when they push too far in the direction of <em>High School Musical</em>, with one too many pretty Zac Efron types, and too much radio polish: When singer Asher Book, mic-and-music-free for his audition, opens his mouth and produces a processed-to-the-max, radio-ready ballad, the moment is disingenuous, artificial, and cloying. <strong>But there are few such wrong moves in a film thatâs largely a raw, uplifting love letter to creativity in every possible form."</strong></p>
<em>Pandorum</em>, starring Ben Foster and Dennis Quaid, is a horror/sci-fi flick that follows two crewmen's nightmarish ordeal in space, circa 2174. After waking up in an eerie spacecraft, complete with crud-lined walls and crawling creatures, the two set on a mission to escape the very unfamiliar vehicle, or at least pilot it someplace safe. But what they don't know is that the growls and groans that they've been ignoring all this time, are more than just their imagination... The film doesn't stray much from the typical thriller formula, but according to the <a href="http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2009/09/25/pandorum_chills_to_the_core/">Globe's Justine Elias</a>, that's A-OK: "Director Christian Alvart and screenwriter Travis Malloy must have seen <em>Aliensâ</em> in the cradle, for theyâve digested it with love and delivered smart thrills that will please more than genre fans."
<em>Blind Date</em>, an English-language remake of Theo Van Gogh's 1966 Dutch film, isn't an exercise in embarrassing hook-ups and mismatched couples. Instead, the movie, which was written and filmed by Stanley Tucci, examines a couple's deterioration after the tragic death of their daughter. Also starring Patricia Clarkson, <em>Blind Date </em>follows the husband and wife as they try to cure themselves of their debilitating grief and the unbearable tension between them in the most unusual way: going on blind dates with one another. "The experiment involves emotions and equilibrium -- keeping an audience off balance while zoning in precisely on the feelings of two very complicated characters, said <a href="http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117935924.html?categoryid=31&cs=1&query=blind+date">Variety's John Anderson</a>. Could repeated dates and role-playing be the mending solution to their broken marriage?
<p>In <em>Surrogates</em>, people no longer have to leave their homes because they have better looking robot surrogates to do their chores, which they control via brainwaves. It's paradise, until the first robot murder happens, and FBI agent Bruce Willis starts sniffing around and unravelling a "vast conspiracy." <a href="http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2009/09/25/surrogates/index.html">Salon's Stephanie Zacharek</a> says director Jonathan Mostow "doesn't treat this material as campâhe navigates the rather absurd plot twists in a way that almost cajoles you into believing they make sense... But even though the picture ultimately carries a heavy-duty moral about the dehumanizing effects of machines, Mostow doesn't approach the material with deadly solemnity. <strong><em>Surrogates</em> stays afloat by not taking itself too seriously, but also by recognizing that a movie about robots shouldn't look as if it were made by one."</strong></p>
<p>How badly you want to buy into the new Scott Hicks-directed movie, <em>The Boys are Back</em>, about a single dad and his two kids may depend on how much you like Clive Owen. The Village Voice's <a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-09-22/film/lord-of-the-flies-meets-j-crew-spread-in-the-boys-are-back/">Brian Miller says</a>, "[Simon] Carr's original anecdotes don't supply much storyline, so Hicks spans the gaps with golden-lit montages set to Sigur Rós. They're a great advertisement for Australian vacations. And vasectomies." But Rex Reed at the Observer <a href="http://www.observer.com/2009/movies/clive-finally-picks-good-flick">provides hope</a> for Clive-o-philes, "Roguish yet vulnerable, he gives a performance that is both rough-hewn and gently nuanced."</p>
<p>Ah, which pan of <em>I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell </em>to choose?! Misogynistic tool Tucker Max's autobiographical cinematic debut is widely reviled, so it's hard to pick just one, but <a href="http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/talking_pictures/">Michael Phillips at the Chicago Tribune</a> is particularly entertaining: "<em>I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell </em>is <em>The Hangover</em> for people who prefer hangovers to drinking. The film came from Tucker Maxâs gleeful bad-boy confessional, a best-seller. The book came from a blog. The blog came from Maxâs life, or so weâre led to believe.</p><p></p>"We listen to jokes about anal rape, and most of the ladies on-screen, initially appalled, give in and say something like, 'Oh, you rude man, youâre so full of it,' giggling, and they canât resist the guy. Heâs just so adorably rage-filled and vindictive... The result just might be the most hypocritical feature in the history of film as well as the history of hypocrisy, <strong>and along with serving beer, I hope they show <em>I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell </em>in hell."</strong>
<p>Boasting interviews and performances from stars of the classical musical word, documentary <em>In Search of Beethoven</em> tackles the master. The Post's <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/movies/in_search_of_beethoven_35rFfBqpSJ6qCIpJc9keqI">V.A. Musetto</a> gives it three (out of four) stars, "Some viewers may say that, at close to 2½ hours, 'In Search of Beethoven' is too long. But then everything about the Bonn-born genius is on a grand scale."</p>
<em>Irene in Time,</em> a comedy-drama directed by Henry Jaglom, explores the intricate relationships that form between fathers and daughters, and how over time, these childhood relations affect their later interactions with men. Irene, played by Karen Black, struggles in her adulthood to cultivate any meaningful bonds with other males, feeling somewhat stuck in the mindset of her younger self. <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/movies/23irene.html?ref=movies">Jeannette Catsoulis at the Times</a> calls it "a loose-limbed conversation about daddies, daughters and emotional damage... Smothering insightful moments in verbal and musical treacle (courtesy of Harriet Schockâs sticky songs), Mr. Jaglom displays an endearing lack of cynicism but an equal lack of discipline."
<p>This weekend at midnight <a href="//www.landmarktheatres.com/Films/films_frameset.asp?id=41008">the Sunshine screens</a> Stanley Kubrick's disturbing 1971 adaptation of Anthony Burgess's novel <em>A Clockwork Orange. </em></p>
<p>And over the west side, <a href="http://www.ifccenter.com/films/the-shining/">IFC Center is screening</a> Stanley Kubrick's disturbing 1980 adaptation of Stephen King's novel <em>The Shining</em>, this weekend at midnight.</p>
<a href="http://www.ifccenter.com/films/passing-strange/">Also at midnight</a>, the IFC Center is screening Spike Lee's film version of the stellar Broadway rock musical <em><a href="http://gothamist.com/2009/05/03/spike_lee_talks_passing_strange_wit.php">Passing Strange</a>.</em>