Latest Reviews

 

The Band’s Visit

The Egyptian members of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra have arrived in Israel to play at a local cultural center. When their handlers fail to show, the group hops the wrong bus and gets stranded in a dustbowl town. Local café owner Dina (Ronit Elkabetz) volunteers lodging at various homes, which the musicians reluctantly accept. Their night amongst the chosen people is a long and tentative one, but in the loving hands of Israeli director Eran Kolirin, it becomes a touchingly understated reminder of what remains when political and religious differences take a break for the evening.
In only his first feature, Kolirin sets the perfect mood: the barren environment strips away all distractions, leaving universal matters of love and music poised to reestablish each side’s humanity. Quietly avoiding polemics, the film contains nuggets of warm humor; when musician Haled (Saleh Bakri) teaches a local boy a lesson in seduction at a roller disco, it becomes an early contender for 2008’s most affecting comic moment. But the heart of the movie is the interaction between the flirtatious Dina and polite, melancholy band conductor Tawfiq (a wonderful Sasson Gabai). As their wariness fades and they begin revealing themselves, one wishes the film had been screened at last year’s Annapolis peace summit. In fact, it’s having trouble being screened anywhere. For political reasons, it was rejected by the most recent Cairo International and Middle East International Film Festivals, proof that not everyone is ready to accept Kolirin’s gentle message of understanding and acceptance. (Mark Keizer) (Pacific’s ArcLight, The Landmark West Los Angeles, Laemmle’s Town Center 5, Laemmle’s Playhouse 7)

 

 

Billy the Kid

A snub-nosed metalhead with a rattail and earnest, vulnerable eyes, 15-year-old Billy once threatened his dad with a knife and blacked his mother’s eye. There’s something off about him: his vocabulary’s too big, his passions too arcane, and his loneliness too apparent. He’s the kid who sits alone at lunch but just might (we hope) be the coolest grownup at his 10-year reunion. First time documentarian Jennifer Vendetti met Billy in a small town in Maine while casting extras for a short. The resulting film, shot in under two weeks, traffics in misfit chic for an audience of fellow oddballs – read: everyone but the quarterback and head cheerleader – who sympathize with Billy’s romantic pursuit of an awkward blind classmate, but squirm when his ingenuous efforts get translated, understandably, as creepy. As unwittingly offputting is Vendetti’s portrait of a kid who hasn’t watched enough reality TV to learn when to say “no comment.” He needs a friend, but should it really be a stranger’s videocamera? (Amy Nicholson) (Laemmle’s Sunset 5)

The Hottie and the Nottie

Nate (Joel David Moore, also in this week’s Spiral) is an insensitive layabout, who can’t commit to a relationship because he’s still hung up on his first crush, Cristabelle (Paris Hilton). The adorable second-grader of his memories has now grown up into a single gal of almost legendary desirability: The Venice/Santa Monica jogging paths are lined with guys positioned to harass her during her morning run. Unfortunately, after all those years, Cris is still looking out for her elementary school best friend, June (Christine Lakin), a gal of almost legendary undesirability – hirsute, with hideous moles and the world’s worst teeth; in short, the victim of everything modern Hollywood makeup can manage to uglify the obvious beautiful actress underneath, who will eventually emerge and win the hero’s heart. Cris won’t date Nate (or anyone else) until June finds a suitor. So Nate has to conjure one.
How bad is this feature from deservedly unknown director Tom Putnam? How’s this?: It’s a blot on Paris Hilton’s dignity. And, even if she’s better than one might have expected, she’s not much better. Nate is at best a nonentity, which may be Moore’s fault but is likelier a result of Heidi Ferrer’s witless script, which alternates between the irritating and the incomprehensible. Nate appears poverty-stricken, except when the plot needs him to have large quantities of cash; he insists on taking advice from his friend Arno (“The” Greg Wilson), even though Arno is an even bigger flop with chicks (and a bigger moron). The many ineptitudes are only worsened by a moral stance that fails egregiously at its attempts to find decent values. (Andy Klein) (Selected theaters)

 

 

Military Intelligence and You!

Writer/director Dale Kutzera has started with a clever idea: He’s assembled a mock military indoctrination film by intercutting staged footage with clips from genuine World War II training films, relying most heavily on 1944 Oscar nominee Resisting Enemy Interrogation. The newly shot material centers on Maj. Nick Reed (Patrick Muldoon), a tough, embittered officer willing to make ugly decisions. While trying to locate the hidden home base of the Nazi “Ghost Squadron,” he finds himself thrown together with former girlfriend Lt. Monica Tasty (Elizabeth Bennett), who is working for Gen. Jake Tasker (John Rixey Moore) and being courted by Maj. Mitch Dunning (Mackenzie Astin). Meanwhile, a generic newsreel voice narrates.
In the new material, the actors follow the Airplane! strategy of being overly earnest, even as their characters utter goofy one-liners. Both the narrator and some characters spout patriotic gibberish that mimics and mocks the Bush administration. “Launch an invasion of a country that never attacked us, using cherrypicked intelligence to make a false case? We’d never do that!” The result is a hybrid of Top Secret!, What’s Up, Tiger Lily?, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, and numerous mockumentaries. The problem is that Kutzera is unable to sustain the humor for feature length – even a brief 76-minute feature length. The first half-hour is terrifically funny, but things run out of steam not long after. (Andy Klein) (Nuart)

 

 

Strange Wilderness

Steve Zahn, comedy’s man-elf, plays Peter, the host of a TV nature show started by his late father. When the station’s co-owner (Jeff Garlin, too bored to act angry) threatens to cancel and replace it with a slick production from rival Sky Pierson (Harry Hamlin), Peter tries to rescue his ratings by finding Bigfoot. The mission is headed for disaster: the
entire crew sucks in bong air like they’re deep-sea diving.
Even by stoner standards, this ain’t a complicated narrative; yet, to prevent pothead frustration, writers Fred Wolf (who also directed) and Peter Gaulke explain even the most moronic jokes. And when Peter’s man-bits get gobbled by a turkey, the weak gag is milked for a panicked dance, an X-ray, a close up, a bit where they stretch like gum, and an opening for yuks about masturbation, homosexuality, erections, and watersports. Actual footage of their wildlife show scores points, with the mind-melding voiceover dispensing wisdom like “Monkeys make up 80 percent of the world’s monkey population.” Ernest Borgnine, oddly enough, plays Zahn’s sound man but, 10 minutes in, finds an excuse to escape this disaster. Supporting players (or accessories to the crime) Jonah Hill, Justin Long, Kevin Heffernan, and Allan Covert should’ve followed McHale out the door. (Amy Nicholson) (Citywide)

 

 

Summer Love

The title may sound odd for a western, let alone a Polish western. But then who’s to say what is or isn’t odd for a Polish western? After a very brief shootout, The Stranger (Karel Roden) rides into town, bearing the dead body of The Wanted Man (Val Kilmer, I kid you not). The Stranger tries to collect a reward but loses rights to it in a gambling game that seems to involve everybody beating the living crap out of The Sheriff (Boguslaw Linda). He then sleeps with The Woman (Katarzyna Figura), a curvaceous barmaid who just happens to be the love of The Sheriff’s life. Soon The Stranger is being chased through the wilderness by a markedly inept posse.
The debut feature of artist Piotr Uklanski alleges to be the first Polish western; the IMDB lists one or two other candidates, but let’s give Uklanski the benefit of the doubt. There’s no doubt that he has an eye: the film is full of beautifully composed shots. But that’s about the end of its virtues. While I’m willing to accept that there were portions of the Old West where everyone spoke with heavy Polish accents – why not? – there’s still the problem that the accents are so heavy as to be often indecipherable. That compounds the general confusion of the story, which is edited in ways that leave you scratching your head. The press notes refer to Kilmer’s performance as “remarkable,” which is true only in the most literal sense. That is, it invites remarks like “What the fuck? There is no performance. He’s playing a corpse!” (Andy Klein) (Laemmle’s Grande 4)

 

 

Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days and 30 Nights – Hollywood to the Heartland

In fall of 2005, Vince Vaughn – with the collaboration of longtime pals like Peter Billingsley and Jon Favreau – mounted a comedy tour through the Southwest, the South, and the Midwest, doing 30 shows in 30 days. Vaughn emceed and goofed around with guests like Favreau, Dwight Yoakam, and Justin Long, but the main part of the presentation was a showcase for four standup comics – Ahmed Ahmed, John Caparulo, Bret Ernst, and Sebastian Manisalco. Director Ari Sandel has assembled this documentary of the event, which is a very mixed bag.
It seems almost deliberately frontloaded with its worst material. The standup excerpts in the opening credits montage are, without exception, completely unfunny. You begin to wonder if these guys are relative unknowns for a reason, but, between a third and halfway through, things begin to pick up. All four comics deliver some first-rate material. And our interest is increasingly engaged as we see more and more of their backstage insecurities. It’s genuinely affecting to watch them visiting their parents in their respective hometowns along the way. (Andy Klein) (Citywide)

 

 

Also Opening This Week:

Fool’s Gold. An estranged couple (Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey) get together in search of a lost treasure. I had almost erased the painful memories of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, which have been dredged up by this reteaming of Hudson and McConaughey. Andy Tennant (Hitch) directed from a script he cowrote with John Claflin & Daniel Zelman; the supporting cast includes Donald Sutherland, Ewen Bremner, and Ray Winstone, which offers some consolation. (AK) (Citywide)
Just Sex and Nothing Else. A thirty-something woman, fed up with dating but desperate to have a child, decides to get pregnant through a no-strings-attached affair, in this 2005 Hungarian farce from director Krisztina Godal. Judit Schell, Kata Dobó, and Sándor Csányi star. (AK) (Laemmle’s Grande 4)
The Reflecting Pool. A Russian-American journalist (Jarek Kupsc, who also wrote and directed) joins up with a driven researcher (Joseph Culp), who lost a daughter on 9/11, to discover clues to a conspiracy behind the tragedy. (AK) (Laemmle’s Monica, Saturday and Sunday at 11 a.m.)
Spiral. A socially withdrawn painter (Joel David Moore, who also codirected with Adam Green and cowrote with the unbelievably named Jeremy Danial Boreing), working at a crappy job in Portland, has his protective shell breached when a coworker (Amber Tamblyn) agrees to pose for him. Zachary Levi costars. (AK) (Laemmle’s Sunset 5)
Ugly Me. A beautiful woman (Bárbara Mori) uglifies herself in an effort to be taken seriously. When she meets a cocky coworker (Marcelo Mazzarello), she tests him by playing both her ugly persona and her real one. Claudio Dabed cowrote (with Franklin McDonald) and directed this 2006 Chilean farce. (AK) (Laemmle’s Regent Showcase, Mann Plant 16, Laemmle’s One Colorado)
Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins. A famous talk show host (Martin Lawrence) takes his son and fiancée to Georgia to visit his family. Malcolm D. Lee (The Best Man, Undercover Brother) wrote and directed; the cast includes James Earl Jones, Margaret Avery, Joy Bryant, Cedric the Entertainer, Nicole Ari Parker, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Mike Epps. (AK) (Citywide)

 

2008-02-07