Monthly Archives: October 2014

“Venus in Fur”: Polanski’s new film is tied up, but never tongue-tied

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“Venus in Fur” screens Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, 227 State St. as part of the Spotlight Cinema series. FREE to members, $7 to all others. R, 1:29, two stars out of four.

Some critics (not me) complained that Roman Polanski’s last film “Carnage,” an adaptation of the play “God of Carnage,” was too stagey. Polanski has responded by adapting another play, “Venus in Fur,” this with only one location and two characters instead of four. And not only that, but a play set in a theater. So there.

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Instant Gratification: “Team America: World Police” and four other good movies to watch on Netflix Instant

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Pick of the week: “Team America: World Police” — Trey Stone and Matt Parker’s hilarious satire of action movies and American politics (which have a lot of overlap with each other) was probably a pain to film, what with all those marionettes jiggling around. But it holds up very well a decade later — and that theme song is still catchy.

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“For No Good Reason”: Fear and loathing in the sketchbook

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“For No Good Reason” opens Friday at Sundance Cinemas. R, 1:29, two and a half stars out of four.

Ralph Steadman doesn’t look like the sort of man who has nightmares. An almost cuddly-looking elderly British man, Steadman looks like he should be teaching calculus or running a bookshop in the West End.

But out of his fingers have poured some truly nightmarish visions. Steadman was an illustrator for Rolling Stone for many years, creating grotesque images of Richard Nixon and others. These weren’t mere caricatures — the moral darkness that Steadman sees in his subjects seems to erupt out from within, distorting their features into gargoyles of fear, rage and greed.

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The five movies you have to see in Madison: Oct. 10-16, 2014

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1. “Kill the Messenger” (All week, Point) — Jeremy Renner plays journalist Gary Webb, who caught wind of a story that the CIA was complicit (or at least turning a blind eye) to drugs from Central America flooding urban cities. Webb was hounded by the government and his fellow journalists for holes in the story and eventually disgraced. It will be interesting to see how the film by Michael Cuesta plays such a nuanced tale.

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“Wetlands”: She puts the “germ” in “German”

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“Wetlands” opens Friday at Sundance Cinemas. Not rated, 1:49, three stars out of four.

Can a movie be a sensitive coming-of-age film and include a scene that seems to feature an extreme close-up of somebody’s buttcrack, only to reveal it’s really the crook of her leg? In the case of David Wnendt’s inventively gross “Wetlands,” the answer is apparently yes.

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“To Be and To Have” is the best movie about teaching ever made

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We’ve seen our share of teachers in the movies, but we never see them as teachers. We see them as great orators, stand-up comedians or wise counselors, but we never see them doing the actual nitty gritty of teaching grammar or times tables.

The French documentary “To Be and To Have” is simply about teaching and learning. Filmmaker Nicholas Philibert trains his camera on one classroom in a small school somewhere in the French countryside for a semester, and he finds spellbinding drama there. “To Be and To Have” gets inside the lives of its young characters so deeply and so empathetically that every tiny academic setback feels like a tragedy to us, and every small step forward feels like a triumph.

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Instant Gratification: “In a World . . .” and four other good movies to watch on Netflix Instant

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Pick of the week: “In A World . . .“ — My full review is here. Lake Bell wrote, directed and starred in this sly comedy about a female voiceover artist trying to make it in a male-dominated profession. It’s very funny, but also has a lot to say about the need for women to find their “voice.”

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“My Old Lady”: What’s the matter with Paris?

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“My Old Lady” is now playing at Sundance Cinemas. R, 1:47, three stars out of four.

What is going on with Paris in the movies? Once the go-to destination for lovers looking to rekindle that spark, the City of Lights has gotten a little dark lately. “Le Week-End” advertised itself as a fizzy romantic comedy about a sixty-something couple on a romantic getaway, but the movie itself was a turbulent cavalcade of arguments and regrets in which the couple barely got away unscathed. “Frances Ha” sent its protagonist to Paris for a wild weekend, only for her to have a miserable time, culminating in going alone to see “Puss in Boots” at a Paris movie theater.

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The five movies you need to see in Madison: Oct. 3-9, 2014

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“I Origins” (All week, Sundance) — I was a big fan of Mike Cahill’s “Another Earth,” in which the presence of a twin Earth hanging in the sky was a large sci-fi conceit that orbited a rather small, personal story of a woman (Brit Marling, who co-wrote) trying to atone for a terrible act. His follow-up similarly mixes sci-fi and intimate drama, as researchers (Michael Pitt and Marling again) make a tremendous discovery that deeply affects one of them personally.

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