“The Trip to Italy” opens Friday at Sundance Cinemas. Not rated, 1:48, three stars out of four.
Ever been on a fantastic vacation? Ever go back to the same spot the following summer?
Not quite the same, is it? You can still have a good time, but a great vacation is more than just location — it involves your state of mind, the time, the people you’re with, and often the essential newness of the experience. Hard to exactly replicate that again.
“Frank” is now available on iTunes and VOD. R, 1:35, three and a half stars out of four.
The old rule in Hollywood is that if you have a handsome movie star in the lead role, don’t obscure his features. No mustaches, no beards, no fake noses.
And one would presume that a giant papier-mache head would also be right out.
It’s a cycle familiar to Madison movie fans. We pick up the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly or some other national publication and read a review of some cool independent movie on the way. A Jim Jarmusch vampire movie starring Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston? A comedy about three Swedish middle-school punk rockers? A new Roman Polanski movie based on an acclaimed off-Broadway play? Can’t wait to see it when it comes to Madison.
And then it doesn’t. For reasons only booking agents can understand, the films don’t open in Madison.
Pick of the week: “Le Week-End“ — My full review is here. Don’t get snookered by the trailer, which tried to sell this Roger Michell drama as a Baby Boomer “Before Sunrise,” which longtime married couple Lindsey Duncan and Jim Broadbent rekindling that old flame in Paris. In fact, this is an often bruising, acerbic but tender look at a wobbly but resilient lifetime relationship, with two terrific lead performances by two of Britain’s finest character actors. Add in a playful Jeff Goldblum performance as an old friend and you’ve got an entertaining but not easy film.
“Fort McCoy” is now playing at Point Cinemas. Not rated, 1 hour 41 minutes, two stars out of four.
The term “labor of love” might normally seem like a cliche, but it applies in spades to Kate Connor’s “Fort McCoy.” Connor, who wrote, co-directed and stars in the film, created the drama out of stories her mother told about living with her family in 1944 on the Fort McCoy military base near Sparta, Wisconsin. Not only were thousands of soldiers stationed there, many on their way overseas into hellish combat, but the base also housed a large number of German and Japanese POWs.
Night Moves” has its Madison premiere Friday at 7 p.m. at the UW-Cinematheque screening room, 4070 Vilas Hall. R, 1:52, three and a half stars out of four.
I would be very surprised if Kelly Reichardt’s “Night Moves” isn’t inspired at least in part by the 1971 Sterling Hall bombing on the UW-Madison campus. Four anti-Vietnam protesters tried to blow up the Army Mathematics Research Center using an Econoline van filled with ammonium nitrate, and a university researcher was accidentally killed in the explosion. Many would call them murderers, but they thought they were saving lives.
A similar moral ambiguity, or at least moral distance, infuses Reichardt’s film, which looks at three eco-terrorists planning a siimlar attack. What they’re doing is a crime, but they speak with the fervent urgency of freedom fighters. (“People are going to start thinking. They have to.”) All the while, the film, co-written by Reichardt and her longtime screenwriting partner Jon Raymond (“Meek’s Cutoff,” “Wendy and Lucy”) prefers to observe rather than judge.
1. “Under the Skin”/”The Lego Movie” double feature (6 p.m., Friday and Saturday, Union South Marquee Theatre, 1308 W. Dayton St.) — Oh, those crazy college kids. The UW Union South Marquee Theatre’s fall season starts this weekend, and the student programmers in charge clearly have a gleefully perverse sense of humor in their pairings. First on Friday, catch “Under the Skin,” Jonathan Glazer’s disturbing R-rated sci-fi film starring Scarlett Johansson as an alien hunting horny Scotsmen. Then stick around for the hilarious and inventive “The Lego Movie” starring everybody’s favorite plastic blocks. On Saturday night, the order is reversed. Both films are strong Top 10 of the year contenders for me — I just never thought to pair them together like that. FREE!
Movie-wise, we’re languishing in the doldrums right now between the summer blockbuster season and the fall awards season, which is why the hottest movies at the multiplex right now seem to be old movies like “Ghostbusters” and “Forrest Gump.”
But one of the many virtues of living in a college town is that the on-campus series are firing up right now. While the Union South Marquee has second-run showings are more mainstream fare, it’s the UW-Cinematheque that really has movie lovers ready for fall. The series, which screens films for free Thursdays through Sundays at its home base at Vilas Hall as well as at the Marquee and Chazen Museum of Art, has a terrific lineup of Madison premieres, classic series featuring great directors and actors, series built around genre (horror) and theme (World War I), and other movies that are just plain fun to see on the big screen.
The start of a new month means a whole bunch of new movies just hitting Netflix. As always, click on the title to take you directly to the movie on Netflix.
Pick of the week: “All is Lost” — My full review is here. Writer-director J.C. Chandor followed up his conversation-heavy debut “Margin Call” with a movie with one character who barely talks. But he’s Robert Redford, in one of his best roles, playing a man lost at sea and calling on every ounce of his resources to stay alive.
It’s been a long hot wait for fans of the Sundance Screening Room Series, which brings foreign, documentary and independent films to Sundance Cinemas on a regular weekly schedule. The last Screening Room calendar ended in late April, and while you can’t begrudge a theater for wanting to sell those “Guardians of the Galaxy” tickets, at some point between “The Giver” and “Sin City: A Dame To Kill For” getting booked there, it seemed like it was high time to get back to the Screening Room.
Thankfully, the series will fire up again next week, presenting nine films between Sept. 12 and the end of October, including some films that indie fans have been waiting for for months. The Screening Room films are all exempt from the Sundance amenities fees, and I’m happy to say that Sundance has invited me back to do some post-show talks after a couple of the films. I’ll let you know soon which ones and when.
Madison Movie 