When Jill Soloway was a girl, she and her friends used to put on plays in the courtyard of their street, and charge their parents and neighbors 50 cents to watch. One day, a neighbor lady balked; why should she pay 50 cents to see a play she can watch for free from her living room window?
“God’s Pocket” reminded me of a book of interconnected short stories, the kind where each is written is written from the perspective of a different character in the same town, and together their stories weave together into a larger narrative that only the reader sees all the angles of.
Aaron Paul is really growing as an actor. Having played an emotionally anguished young man in “Breaking Bad” and an emotionally anguished young husband in “Smashed,” he now plays an emotionally anguished father in “Hellion.”
I kid, but Paul is actually very good as a blue-collar widower, Hollis Wilson, trying to raise his two young sons in Kat Candler’s familiar but well-acted drama. His blue eyes haunted behind a forest of beard, Paul effectively conveys the confusion and pain of a guy who thought he’d spend his life working all day and drinking beer in front of the TV all night, instead finding himself forced to clean up his act, get past his grief and be a single parent.
But “Hellion” really belongs to young Josh Wiggins, who plays Hollis’ 13-year-old son Jacob. A delinquent who is one more arrest away from juvie, Jacob hides his grief at his mother’s death (and, more subtly, his father’s emotional absence) behind a storm of heavy metal music and the whine of his dirt bike. Jacob often acts as kind of a second father to his sweet-natured younger brother, Wes, although he’s imperfect, as in a rare amusing scene where he makes whipped cream-and-sugar sandwiches for lunch.
The family’s troubles have caught the attention of both social workers and Hollis’ sister-in-law (Juliette Lewis), who gradually starts making moves to take custody of Wes herself. Lewis is good – she could be the villain of the piece, but she effectively projects good intentions, even as she is fulfilling a motherhood need in her own heart with Wes. Her actions force Jacob and Hollis both (each equally deserving of the title “Hellion”) to clean themselves up and start taking responsibility for their actions.
“Hellion” is a little slow-moving at times, moving like those dirt bikes in the same tight circles of despair, rage and tentative hope. But the performances are good, and Chandler definitely captures the feel of life in south Texas. A half-finished beach house in Galveston serves as a promise of a good life that never quite comes.
I like Jenny Slate. The former “Saturday Night Live” cast member is pretty bold about playing larger-than-life, often unlikable characters, such as Jean-Ralphio’s sister on “Parks and Recreation.”
Gillian Robespierre’s “Obvious Child,” which premiered Friday as part of the NEXT program for low-budget indie filmmaking, is a great showcase for Slate’s voice as well as giving her a more down-to-earth and human character to play. The banter is often fast and filthy, but still finds room for an underlying sweet tone. But the film’s fearlessness trips itself up when it moves into hot-button territory — abortion — and tries to maintain the same jokey say-anything spirit.
It was the Kleenex that saved me. I’m sure of it.
I had an early flight to Park City this morning, and my beautiful, fantastic girlfriend (sorry, but she’s way better than your girlfriend) was kind enough to drive me to the airport. I arrived in plenty of time for my flight, which would head west to Detroit for a tight layover of under an hour before I was able to wing it westward for Salt Lake City.
“Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” opens Friday at Point, Eastgate and Star Cinemas. 1:45, PG-13, two and a half stars out of four.
Paramount Pictures must have had one overriding fear — that the rights to Jack Ryan, the late Tom Clancy’s two-fisted CIA analyst, had been languishing for over a decade (since 2002’s “The Sum of All Fears”), and with Clancy’s passing, interest might vanish altogether.
“Cutie and the Boxer” has its only Madison theatrical screening at 7 p.m. Friday at the UW-Cinematheque, 4070 Vilas Hall. R, 1:22, three and a half stars out of four.
UPDATE: “Cutie and the Boxer” was just nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary on Thursday morning!
Ushio Shinohara is a wiry 80-year-old Japanese-American painter who strips to his waist, dips boxing gloves in paint cans and pummels away at the canvas to create abstract art. And yet, by the end of the charming documentary “Cutie and the Boxer,” you’ll probably find him the less interesting half of the couple. Watching Zachary Heinzerling’s film is like being at a house party hosted by the couple, where we’re initially dazzled by the larger-than-life Ushio in the center of the room, but eventually find ourselves drawn to a quiet corner for a long, fascinating talk with Noriko.
In the classic 1954 French heist film “Rififi,” a motley crew of thieves plot a seemingly impossible jewelry store heist, the store equipped with motion-sensitive alarms and other state-of-the-art defenses.
That, as it turns out, is the easy part.
There are independent movies and independent movies. As one writer observed, if “Inside Llewyn Davis” has the budget to take out a full-page ad in the New York Times just to reprint part of one of A.O. Scott’s tweets, maybe it’s a little too big to be included in the Independent Spirit Awards.
Pick of the week: “The Hunt“ — My full review is here. This Danish film is on the shortlist for Best Foreign Language Film for this year’s Oscars. It stars Mads Mikkelsen as a kindergarten teacher who becomes the town pariah after a young girl makes a false accusation against him. It’s reminiscent of “The Crucible” in showing how suspicion can spread through a small town, overwhelming judgment, and how it is to stamp out.
Madison Movie 