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Weekend Movie Forecast: The Soloist Vs. Tyson

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Based on a Los Angeles Times article that grew into full-length book, The Soloist stars Jamie Foxx as Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a gifted classical musician afflicted with paranoid schizophrenia, and Robert Downey, Jr. as the reporter who tells his story while trying to help him. LA Times critic Kenneth Turan <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-soloist24-2009apr24,0,4718808.story">has panned the film</a>, despite his fondness for his colleague: "I can't help being mightily frustrated by The Soloist. I can't help resenting that it suffered the death of a thousand cuts and, more frustrating still, that all this happened in the name of doing good in the world, of making the story's powerful lessons more palatable to a wider audience."But by consistently and relentlessly overplaying everything, by settling for standard easy emotions when singular and heartfelt was called for, by pushing forward when they should have pulled back, director Joe Wright and screenwriter Susannah Grant have made the story mean less, not more. Instead of enhancing The Soloist's appeal, they have come close to eliminating it." Hollywood Elsewhere's <a href="http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/04/mild_soloist_gr.php">Jeffrey Wells says</a>, "Somebody wrote something about it being a kind of magic negro taleâa movie about how a black guy with amazing spiritual currents saves a white guy from becoming too wussy or distracted or divorced from life's essential bounty. Parts of The Soloist seem to work that end of the room, but...honestly? I just can't work up a head of steam about this film. And yet it's very decently crafted and smartly acted. A not-unsatisfying sit as far as it goes."

Gothamist

Tyson might not the long-overdue Hollywood adaptation of the popular Nintendo game, but judging by the rave reviews, this documentary about the famous boxer might be even better than Punch Out: The 3D Imax Experience we've often dreamed out. Director James Toback uses home movies, film clips of fights, and TV interviews to confront the champ with himself, and the results may not be pretty. <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/movie/20726171/review/27537995/tyson">Peter Travers at Rolling Stone writes</a>, "Tyson opens up like a man injected with truth serum. And hardly to his benefit. It's tough on the inspiration factor to listen to Tyson say he was suffering from an STD when he defeated Trevor Berbick in 1986 to become the youngest heavyweight champ ever, at the age of 20... This power punch to the gut is one of the best movies of any kind this year. But Tyson is going out as a documentary, a label that doesn't cut it for describing the overflow of ferocity and feeling on display."

Gothamist

The Informers is why <a href="http://videogum.com/archives/interviews/billy-bob-thornton-on-kimmel_065722.html">Billy Bob Thorton had to appear</a> on Jimmy Kimmel to shrug off the extreme nastiness <a href="http://videogum.com/archives/caught-on-tape/billy-bob-thornton-went-all-th_063242.html">he unleashed on a radio host</a> who dared mention his acting career during an interview about his music. The movie is Bret Easton Ellis's adaptation of his own novel about assorted savory characters moping through the hell of early-'80s LA. The reviews are scathing, but <a href="http://www.detnews.com/article/20090424/OPINION03/904240362/1034/ent02/Incompetence+dooms+repulsive++Informers+">Tom Long at the Detroit News</a> really goes full Bale: "The Informers is such a wretched piece of garbage that there's a certain amount of guilt attached to even writing about it. This film deserves as little notice as possible, mankind being far better with it far off the grid of consciousness. But such are the responsibilities of film criticism... The characters are uniformly unlikable, the stories contrived and disjointed, the insights non-existent. Honestly, it's hard to recall a film more incompetent and downright repellent."

Gothamist

The bio-pic Il Divo delves into the mobbed-up life of seven-time Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti. <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/movies/24divo.html?ref=movies">Stephen Holden at the Times</a> calls it "sensational. From its bizarre opening image of the migraine-prone Mr. Andreotti with acupuncture needles stuck in his headâa picture of prime minister as human porcupine that could be out of a Fellini filmâIl Divo is a tour de force of indelibly flashy imagery. The density of violent crime in this speculative history of skulduggery in high places equals that of I, Claudius, The Sopranos and the Godfather movies. In [Toni] Servilloâs portrayal, Mr. Andreotti, the ultimate Teflon politicianâhe was sentenced to 24 years in prison in 2002 in connection with the assassination of a journalist but was eventually cleared of the chargesâsuggests a Peter Sellers parody of Henry Kissinger with the deadeyed gaze of Peter Bogdanovich."

Gothamist

So Yong Kim's semi-autobiographical <a href="http://www.filmforum.org/films/treeless.html">Treeless Mountain</a> tells the story of two little girls whose mother leaves them with their diffident aunt in order to seek out her missing husband. The Onion's <a href="http://www.avclub.com/articles/treeless-mountain,27060/">Noel Murray says</a>, "Itâs hard to watch these sad, cute little faces without feeling a little torn up as their world falls apart. The amount of effort they put into meeting their everyday needsâsomething to eat, a warm place to sleep, a rudimentary acknowledgment of their own existence, etc.ârenders every setback a tragedy and every small gesture of kindness a triumph. Kimâs aesthetic is arguably more effective here than it was on In Between Days; her choice to fill the screen with nearly everything she shoots has the effect of making plastic toys look like talismans and adult faces look almost mythical in their kindness or indifference."

Gothamist

Director Dito Montiel, (A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints), is back with Fighting, which stars Terrence Howard as a scam artist who partners up with a street fighter (Channing Tatum) to cash in on the bare-knuckle boxing circuit. The Village Voice's <a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-04-22/film/tyson-delivers-a-powerful-blow-fighting-is-down-for-the-count/2">Scott Foundas writes</a>, "Fighting feels like it's been kicking around somewhere for a while, tooâin the office of a studio development executive eager to find more Fast and the Furiousâstyle catnip for the urban adrenaline-junkie crowd... Never mind that you've never seen anyone as chiseled and freshly scrubbed as Tatum hocking black-market goods on the streets of Manhattan: Where "Saints" carried such a vivid sense of place that you felt as if Montiel knew every one of those humid Astoria alleyways firsthand, "Fighting" seems to unfold in a New York learned primarily from other moviesâspecifically those of the pre-Giuliani grindhouse eraâno matter that the setting is present-day."

Gothamist

Earth is a documentary about the climate changes causing increasingly catastrophic damage around the world. <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/movies/22eart.html?ref=movies">Jeannette Catsoulis at the Times</a> says, "Leave it to Disney to make global warming as soothing as a full-body massage. In the grandiosely titled Earth, plundered largely from the BBC Natural History Unitâs magnificent Planet Earth, the filmmakers... take the temperature of our planet and conclude that it is rising. Blame James Earl Jonesâs insistently cozy narration if the film makes that elevation seem as natural a phenomenon as the turning of the tides."But this is nature defanged and declawed for kiddie consumption, so the emphasis is on awwww-filled moments â mandarin ducklings flapping adorably from nest to forest floor, polar bear cubs slithering on ungainly paws â captured in spectacularly high definition. Even when the fangs are visible (a great white shark gobbling a sea lion in balletic slow motion) the blood is not, thanks to tasteful and customer-sensitive editing."

Gothamist

Luis Bunuel's award-winning 1961 film Viridiana is <a href="http://www.filmforum.org/films/viridiana.html">screening at Film Forum</a> for one week only. Keith Uhlich <a href="http://www.timeout.com/film/newyork/reviews/63038/Viridiana.html">at Time Out</a> writes, "Itâs as scabrous a film as they come, following virginal postulant Viridiana (Pinal) on a mother-superior-mandated visit to her reclusive uncle (Rey) at his country estate. An incestuous attraction is semi-acted on, a suicide by jump rope follows, and Viridiana quashes her guilt by ministering to a gaggle of rowdy, discontented vagrants. That might be enough incident and implication for a whole film, but BuÃ±uel knows no restraint. In the infamous dinner-scene centerpiece, he profanes both the Last Supper and the 'Hallelujah Chorus,' then goes on to detail Viridianaâs absolute loss of faith."

Gothamist

The documentary Throw Down Your Heart covers the African pilgrimage of the American banjo virtuoso BÃ©la Fleck as he searches for the origins of his chosen instrument. The Times's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/movies/24thro.html?ref=movies">Stephen Holden calls it</a> "gentle, upbeat... In Mali he meets and plays with the great guitarist Djelimady Tounkara and the diva Oumou Sangare, a national idol and phenomenally gifted composer and singer. When Ms. Sangare sings a heartbreaking lament of 'a worried songbird' searching for her father, you donât need to know the language to be gripped by the force of her cry."

Gothamist

Danny Boyle's (Slumdog Millionaire) wrenching, funny, and hallucinatory adaptation of Irvine Welshâs acclaimed novel Trainspotting <a href="http://www.landmarktheatres.com/Films/films_frameset.asp?id=6136">screens at the Sunshine</a> this weekend at midnight.

Gothamist

David Lynch's landmark first feature <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eraserhead">Eraserhead</a>, released in 1977, screens this weekend at midnight <a href="http://www.ifccenter.com/event?eventid=999852">at the IFC Center</a>.

Gothamist

Weekend Movie Forecast: <em>The Soloist</em> Vs. <em>Tyson</em>