“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.
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.
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.”
I went back to Milwaukee on Sunday for Day 11 of the Milwaukee Film Festival. I spent the entire day seeing films in the big ornate theater at the historic Oriental Theatre. Here’s what I saw:
“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.
“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.
“Gone Girl” opens Friday at Point, Eastgate, Star Cinema, Sundance and Cinema Cafe: R, 2:25, three and a half stars out of four.
He’s a bad husband. She’s a good wife. They have a good marriage. “Gone Girl” is first and foremost an absolutely delicious mystery, one that parcels out revelations and surprises at just the right moments to keep us hooked. But dig deeper, and it’s also a movie about the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves, whether it’s on cable news or in the privacy of our own homes. And how those narratives are so powerful that we’d rather change ourselves to fit the story than change the story to fit ourselves. He’s a good husband. She’s a bad wife. They have a bad marriage.
“Land Ho!” opens Friday at Sundance Cinemas. R, 1:36, three stars out of four.
From a distance, we might think Mitch and Colin were pretty much the same sort of guy — white-haired men in their 60s who have lived the same sort of lives and think the same sorts of things.
But we quickly learn that they are completely different animals, and that’s part of the joke and the message of “Land Ho!,” an utterly endearing comedy from Aaron Katz and Martha Stephens. We shouldn’t pigeonhole these old guys, and neither should they sell themselves short.
Pick of the week: “The Double“ — My full review is here. Jesse Eisenberg — and Jesse Eisenberg! — star in this delightfully dark and twisty tale of a downtrodden man who finds that an exact duplicate of himself is slowly taking over his life. Director Richard Ayoade revels in visual touches that recall Terry Gilliam, but it’s really Eisenberg’s double performance that shines.
“We Are The Best!” has its Madison premiere Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, 227 State St. Tickets are free for museum members and $7 for all others. Not rated, 1:42, three and a half stars out of four.
It would be wonderful if the fictional musicians in Lukas Moodyson’s “We Are The Best!” could go on tour and play some live shows, like the duo from “Once” did. One drawback might be that the bandmates are probably too young to do a world tour. Another hiccup is that they only seem to know one song — and barely that.
Madison Movie 