“Lone Survivor” opens Friday at Point, Eastgate, Star Cinema and Sundnce. R, 2:01, three stars out of four.
Peter Berg shoots the opening moments of “Lone Survivor” as if he was making a recruiting commercial for the Navy SEALS. Stirring music plays as we see real-life footage of Navy SEALS going through grueling basic training, a hardy few making it to the end.
“Inside Llewyn Davis” opens Friday at Point, Eastgate, Star Cinema and Sundance Cinemas in Madison. R, 1:45, four stars out of four.
If you see a man walking down the street in wintertime, freezing because he doesn’t have a warm coat on, you think one of two things: 1.) he can’t afford a warm coat, or 2.) he left it at home.
In “Inside Llewyn Davis,” filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen show the reasons why their hapless folk singer hero, Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) seems to be out in the cold in so many ways. Part of it is beyond his control — he’s a folk singer trying to make a living in early ’60s in New York’s Greenwich Village, a tough line of work for the great ones (and Davis doesn’t seen to be one of them). And part of it is a result of Davis’ penchant for self-sabotage, antagonizing allies and burning bridges and generally being a pill in the name of art. He doesn’t have a warm coat, but if he did, he’d figure out a way to lose it.
“American Hustle” opens Friday at Point, Eastgate, Star Cinema and Sundance. R, 2:17, three and a half stars out of four.
“From the feet up” is a phrase that comes up again and again in “American Hustle.” It’s an expression con artists in the film use to signify full commitment to the role they’re playing.
For his follow-up to last year’s “Silver Linings Playbook,” writer-director David O. Russell has assembled a cast that all perform from the feet up. The result is an entertainingly shaggy riff on the caper film that emphasizes loose, naturalistic performances and comedy over plot and thrills. If you’re looking for a clockwork-perfect crime plot, you won’t find it here. But if you want to hang with some wildly unpredictable and complex characters and wonder who will come up on top, “Hustle” is a lot of fun.
“Anchorman 2” opens Wednesday at Point, Eastgate and Star Cinema. PG-13, 1:19, two and a half stars out of four.
At one point in “Anchorman 2,” Ron Burgundy bottle-nurses a shark back to help, and then gently sets it free in the wild, where it happily devours other fish to the strains of a “Born Free”-like ballad.
What does this have to do with early-’80s newscasting, exactly? Nothing, which is part of its genius. It’s just one of those random moments that longtime partners Adam McKay and Will Ferrell like to throw into their films, just because they can.
“A Touch of Sin” has its Madison premiere for FREE on Friday, Dec. 13, at 7 p.m. at the UW-Cinematheque, 4070 Vilas Hall, 821 University Ave. Not rated, 2:05, three and a half stars out of four.
China is changing and the films of Jia Zhang Ke are changing with them. Jia’s previous films (“The World,” “Still Life”) gazed at ordinary Chinese citizens adrift in a country that was changing around them, uncertain if there was a place for them in it.
“Nebraska” opens Friday at Sundance Cinemas in Madison. R, 1:50, three and a half stars out of four.
Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska” looks bleak. I mean, it was shot in black-and-white in rural Nebraska — how could it not?
“Bastards” screens at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, 227 State St. Free for museum members, $7 for all others. Not rated, 1:41, three stars out of four.
Directly before the title card for Claire Denis’ “Bastards,” we see a man (Vincent Lindon) in a taxicab, looking out the back window, the landscaped divided by the horizontal lines of the rear defroster.
“Frozen” is now playing at Point, Eastgate and Star Cinema. PG, 1:25, three and a half stars out of four.
Disney’s “Frozen” is set in a faraway kingdom suffering under a curse of eternal winter, plagued by subzero temperatures and frozen lakes. To which I say, sitting here in Wisconsin, I’ll bet that must be pretty rough on you there, faraway kingdom.
“Kill Your Darlings” is now playing at Sundance Cinemas. R, 1:40, three stars out of four. Note: Closes Wednesday.
We’ve now had three films featuring Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation play at Sundance Cinemas in Madison. Walter Salles’ elegaic adaptation of Kerouac’s “On The Road” played in the spring, and “Big Sur,” which looked at a tormented Kerouac at middle-age, just played there last month.
“The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” opens Friday at Point, Eastgate, Star Cinema and Sundance. PG-13, 2:26, three and a half stars out of four.
If you want a reminder of how well “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” does what it does, make sure to get to the theater early to see the trailers for all the other young-adult films trying to emulate it. One plucky teenage girl after another fulfilling her destiny against a dystopian future — where have we seen that before?
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