Pick of the week: “Moonrise Kingdom“ (Netflix) — Wes Anderson’s ode to young love is him at his Wes-est, for sure. But it’s also poignant and funny, as two adolescents who meet while summering on a vacation island run away together, a cadre of disillusioned middle-aged adults (including Bruce Willis, Bill Murray and Edward Norton) in pursuit.
“Grandma” opens Friday at Sundance Cinemas. R, 1:22, three stars out of four.
“Time passes. That’s for sure.” The epigram from poet Eileen Myles opens writer-director Paul Weitz’s comic drama “Grandma,” and the film doesn’t get much more profound than that in exploring its themes of aging and regret. But Weitz (“About A Boy”) isn’t aiming for sweeping profundity, instead making a character study that’s small, sour and sweet — like one of those hard candies your grandma had in a bowl by the front door.
“7 Chinese Brothers” has its Madison premiere Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Union South Marquee Theatre, 1208 W. Dayton St., as part of the UW-Cinematheque fall series. Not rated, 1:16, three stars out of four.
There’s a scene in “7 Chinese Brothers” where somebody tips over a barrel of loose change. As the pennies, dimes and nickels go cascading across the cement floor, I thought to myself “Yikes, that could be the movie’s entire budget, right there.”
“Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet” opens Friday at Sundance Cinemas. PG, 1:25, three stars out of four.
“Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet” is a movie made by people under a spell. The spell was cast by “The Prophet,” a slender volume of poetry written by Lebanese author Kahlil Gibran in 1923 that became an international sensation, especially when the counterculture picked it up in the 1960s.
The animated film “inspired by” the book is clearly a labor of love for all concerned, an attempt to both bring Gibran’s words of wisdom to a new audience and to celebrate them with gorgeous animated visuals from a host of top independent animators. The film succeeds wildly at the second goal. Achieving the first is a little trickier.
A man takes a picture of an artwork by British graffiti artist Banksy at Lower Manhattan in New York, October 15, 2013. Art collectors and tourists in New York got a bargain during the weekend when British graffiti artist Banksy, whose work is expected to fetch upwards of $150,000 at an auction later this year, sold paintings at a pop-up stall in Central Park for $60. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz (UNITED STATES – Tags: SOCIETY) – RTX14CMD
With street artist Banksy taking on the Mouse with his dystopian amusement-park installation Dismaland, it’s probably a good moment to revisit the time when he took over another Magic Kingdom — New York City.
Pick of the week: “Dear White People“: My full review is here. Justin Simien’s bold, funny and complex comedy looks at several African-American students trying to navigate the identity minefield of a “post-racial” campus, including a biracial activist, a gay nerd, and a dean’s son who can calibrate just how “street” he needs to be in a given situation. It’s a little flabby in spots, but I found this a bracing film that that accuses, and then flips the mirror back on the accusers.
“Meru” opens Friday at Sundance Cinemas. R, 1:27, three stars out of four.
“Meru” opens with a shot of three of the world’s best mountain climbers, sleeping in a giant bag hanging off the side of a cliff thousands of feet in the air. You don’t see that on the cover of Outside magazine.
While “Meru” has jaw-dropping visuals to rival that of fictional mountain climbing films like the upcoming “Everest,” it has a lasting impact because of how it digs into the hard work of climbing, and the psyches of those willing to to devote their lives to. Co-directed by legendary climber Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, “Meru” brings us closer than any other documentary to understanding what it’s like to be up hanging out the side of a treacherous mountain. But the more I understood what it was like, the less I understood what drove people like Chin to go back up there again and again.
“When Marnie Was There” gets its FREE Madison premiere (and only theatrical screenings) on Saturday, Sept. 6 at the UW-Cinematheque screening room, 4070 Vilas Hall. The 2 p.m. screening will be dubbed into English (with voice acting by Hailee Steinfeld, John C. Reilly and others) and an English-subtitled version at 7 p.m. This review is taken from the subtitled version. PG, 1:43, three and a half stars out of four.
Studio Ghibli films like “Spirited Away” and “Princess Mononoke” can take audiences seemingly anywhere. But they are cherished because they always stay tethered to the real world of children, creating emotional textures as rich and deep as their visual ones.
Headshot of Irish actor Peter O’Toole (L) and Egyptian-born actor Omar Sharif in a still from the film, ‘Lawrence of Arabia,’ directed by David Lean, 1962. (Photo by Columbia Pictures/Courtesy of Getty Images)
Pick of the week: “Lawrence of Arabia” (Netflix) — This must be a huge honor for “Lawrence of Arabia” to be the Instant Gratification Pick of the Week, right? I mean, I could have gone with “Byzantium,” but I thought I’d throw a little love the way of literally one of the greatest movies ever made. Anyway, David Lean’s epic starring Peter O’Toole as T.E. Lawrence, the British adventure entranced and seduced by the desert sands, is a wonderful movie, and is presented here in its diamond-sharp HD restored edition.
It’s not every film that starts with its own behind-the-scenes featurette, but then, Abel Ferrara is not every filmmaker. “Welcome to New York,” out on Blu-ray this week, opens with an interview with star Gerard Depardieu explaining why he chose to portray a character based on notorious French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
But then we find out in the closing credits that the journalists in the scene are actually played by actors, further blurring the line between fiction and real life. And, if you follow movie news at all, you know that “Welcome to New York” was the flashpoint of a huge feud between Ferrara and distributor IFC when 18 minutes of the film was trimmed against Ferrara’s wishes. He issued a cease-and-desist letter referring to the “destruction of my film,” and said “Some people wear hoods and carry automatic weapons, others sit behind their desks, but the attack and attempted suppression of the rights of the individual are the same. I will defend the right of free speech till the end and I ask all who believe as I do to not support the showing of this film, on their networks, in their theaters, or wherever.”
So it’s not hugely surprising that the Blu-ray release of “Welcome to New York” doesn’t contain a director’s commentary. In fact, there’s no bonus features at all other than the trailer. But it’s hard to know what Ferrara was so upset about, because if this is the softened, defanged version of the “Bad Lieutenant” director’s film, I can’t imagine what Ferrara’s original cut was like.
This is a brutal, scathing indictment against unchecked privilege and power, and Ferrara’s naked disgust for his protagonist vibrates through every frame of the film. Ferrara finds the ideal partner in Depardieu’s brilliantly raw performance, and the result is a film that, if not meant to be enjoyed, certainly packs a wallop.
You may remember the case: Strauss-Kahn, a French economist and managing director of the International Monetary Fund, was arrested and charged with raping a hotel maid in New York in 2011. The case was later dismissed for lack of evidence, although a French journalist came forward with a similar story.
*** FILM STILL DO NOT PURGE **** Welcome to New york Gerard Depardieu (Devereaux) in Abel Ferraras WELCOME TO NEW YORK. Courtesy of Nicole Rivelli. Copyright June Project, LLC. A Sundance Selects release.
In the film, Depardieu is Devereaux, a smooth French politician who we see nimbly navigating the corridors of power, knowing the right backs to slap and palms to grease. After a high-level meeting, Devereaux retires to his hotel suite, where he transforms into a rutting animal, ordering prostitutes two at a time. Depardieu, with his giant naked belly hanging before him, looks like an aging, insatiable bull, smearing hookers with champagne and ice cream as if all his appetites merge into one.
Of his character’s guilt, Ferrara has no doubt, and the film flashes back to the beginning of the assault on the maid. We see the powerful man brought low, fingerprinted and strip-searched by police, his arrogant bellows of “Don’t you know who I am?” falling on deaf ears. (The law enforcement in the film have the matter-of-factness of non-actors, which contributes to the disconnect between them and the regal Devereaux).
In steps Devereaux’s wife (a fearsome Jacqueline Bisset), who gets her husband placed under house arrest in an apartment that seems like a cage for him, but for which most Manhattanites would give their right arm for. As she works the levers of power to get the case thrown out, she confronts her philandering husband in a series of lacerating and seemingly improvised conversations. He is unrepentant. He is not like ordinary men, he insists, and shouldn’t have to play by their rules.
Devereaux, in the end, is as excessive and unapologetic as his cinematic biographer. Even though Ferrara detests the man, he is fascinated by him, and it’s that tension that makes “Welcome to New York” such an arresting film. Even diluted Ferrara can jangle the nerves.
Madison Movie 