Latest Reviews April 10-16, 2008

Chaos Theory

On the morning of his daughter's wedding, regimented efficiency expert Frank (Ryan Reynolds) stops his twitchy future son-in-law (Chris Martin) from dashing out the back door by pouring a tequila and recounting the worst month of his marriage to peevish teacher Susan (Emily Mortimer). Deciding to trick her uptight husband (who only truly glows when talking about his To Do list), she messes with the minute hand on the clock, setting off a disastrous domino effect of flirtatious hotel bar Tangerinis, paternity tests, and naked streaking across a hockey rink.

The framing device is lazy, but allows for a sweet kick in the final scene. Ryan Reynolds’s acting deserves more credit: After all, he shacks up with Scarlett Johansson at night, then by day transforms into Hollywood’s lumpen everyman. He specializes in anti-romance romances, love stories that draw their power from admitting that love stinks (but it’s still worth it). Despite its polemic simplicity, Daniel Taplitz’s slight parable is charming. Reynolds has one Big Speech about the nature of the human heart, but Taplitz largely keeps the sadness just under the surface, where we can sense Susan and Frank’s marital frustrations, along with their hopes for a better tomorrow that we know lies ahead. (Amy Nicholson) (Pacific’s ArcLight)

Devil Girl

Fay (Jessica Graham) is handy with a pool cue and a stick shift. She’s less skilled on the pole of the Burning Bush, a desert strip club in one of those rural stretches where a preacher blasts from every radio station. But an evil hitchhiker (Joe Wanjai Ross), grease-painted up like a harlequin, has stolen her wallet, so prancing around in pink marabou is the only way she can afford to fix her busted fuel pump and get the hell out of Dodge before the mysterious Devil Girl (Vanessa Kay) starts cracking skulls.

Howie Askins might be the first grindhouse director to kick-start a hubcaps-and-pasties flick with a Jung reference. From there, his slick time-waster about a demolition derby of the soul – between the sinister clown and the tough girl whose dad called her “grease monkey” – hews closely to the formula. Askins’s flick (co-written with Tracy Wilcox) is in lust with the road, bleached out and whipping by fast. It’s a fine piece of trash – that’s a compliment – with its retro kitsch collage of burlesque jiggles, poker chips, flames, crosses, and hot rods; it’s not as free-spirited or fun as the ’70s porn it references, but that’s because everything but the acting is trying too hard. (Amy Nicholson) (Fri-Sat, midnight, Laemmle’s Sunset 5)

A Four Letter Word

Chelsea boy Luke (Jesse Archer) is a bit of a horn-dog; between his clerk job at a gay porn store and his numerous hot trickaroonies, he has little time to devote to a greater romantic commitment. Still, after a unique sex club “meet cute” (a “suck cute,” really) with handsome, macho Stephen (Charlie David), Luke is head over heels (and heels over head) in love. But it turns out that Stephen has a secret career that usually requires being paid in hundred-dollar bills for around-the-world service. Complications (and some bragging) ensue.

Director Casper Andreas’s pleasingly daffy sex comedy has little more on its mind than the Great Gay God of Penis – not such a bad thing. The script, credited to Andreas and Archer, is rich with sprightly one-liners and sexy gags: A subplot at Sexual Compulsives Anonymous is downright hilarious. Yet the fast-paced, Manhattan-centric film also possesses an emotional awareness that feels remarkably in tune with today’s younger gay generation. Archer cuts a charismatic and sexy figure, and the film gets the down-and-dirty, frivolous, Chelsea-in-spring atmosphere just right, a latter-day queer wonderland. (Paul Birchall) (Laemmle’s Sunset 5)

Movin’ On Up: The Music of Curtis Mayfield &

The Impressions

This music doc from David Peck, Phillip Galloway, and Tom Gulotta examines a sadly overlooked black songwriter of the highest order. With deep roots in gospel music, Curtis Mayfield was the pivotal figure in Chicago’s thriving soul music scene of the 1960s. His songs always seemed up-to-the-minute with the concerns of black America, addressing love and expressing the spirit of the civil rights movement through the sweet harmonies of the Impressions. He recognized the need for autonomy, and his independent work exuded post-Vietnam urban cynicism. The groundbreaking Superfly soundtrack set the bar high for blaxploitation films; Mayfield’s songs took the sheen off a movie that glorified drugs. But then a tragic accident incapacitated him, cutting short a glorious career and a keen, observant artistic mind. The generic format of talking heads – among them Andrew Young, the Impressions, Chuck D, and Mayfield himself – setting up old performance clips works well enough, but is hardly innovative. Still this sturdy, overdue tribute may rectify Mayfield’s unjust neglect. (Kirk Silsbee) (Tue, 8, at 7 Dudley Cinema, Sponto Gallery, 7 Dudley St., Venice; free; 310-306-7330)

Nim’s Island

In this colorful, intimately scaled Robinson Crusoe/Swiss Family Robinson-type adventure tale, 11-year-old Nim (Abigail Breslin) lives alone with her widowed, marine biologist father (Gerard Butler) on a remote island in the South Pacific. When a storm unexpectedly sweeps him out to sea, though, Nim is left truly alone ... and scared. What begins as a series of research e-mail queries from Nim’s favorite adventure novelist, Alexandra Rover (Jodie Foster), awakens bravery and fortitude in both parties. Soon Alexandra – in actuality a San Francisco recluse hampered by agoraphobia – starts living up to the mettle of her fictional alter ego (also played by Butler) and sets off on a quest to aid her young fan.

Co-directed by Jennifer Flackett and Marc Levin, Nim’s Island surfs along on a precious little wave of handcrafted production design. There is a sometimes slightly cloying tendency to state the obvious with respect to feeling and plot point, and the abortive wrap-up, once Alexandra and Nim are finally brought together, feels a bit anticlimactic. Still, the game, engaging participation of Foster and Butler elevates this sweetly pitched family-friendly flick, whose success lies at least partly in its allegorical representation of awakened adolescent imagination. (Brent Simon) (Citywide)

Orthodox Stance

Even though the double entendre title refers both to a right-handed boxing position and its subject’s religious convictions, Jason Hutt’s documentary could be about any up-and-coming pugilist on the professional circuit. Dmitriy Salita studies televised bouts; he fires and hires trainers; he takes heat for being overweight. But he’s also an Orthodox Jew, who ships kosher meat in from New York when he’s on the road and doesn’t fight on the Sabbath. Although the welterweight’s devotion is certainly genuine, it’s also a gimmick – a novelty that earns him write-ups in Sports Illustrated and The Washington Post and leverage during contract negotiations. The publicity stunts culminate with the nickname “The Star of David” and Hasidic Reggae ringside music.

What’s nicely explored here is Salita’s multicultural posse – including black, Hispanic, and Jewish advisers – and the logistics of reconciling spiritual practice with the demands of the sport. (In a match between religious observance and promotional considerations, Budweiser wins.) But Hutt’s cinema verité style fails to probe the inner contradictions of a religious man immersed in a violent sports culture. Salita mentions that he “found God through boxing,” but he ultimately leaves the audience to puzzle over the paradox. (Annlee Ellingson) (Laemmle’s Music Hall 3)

Smart People

Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) is a newly tenured English professor, less recent widower, and thoroughly pedantic bastard. Kids James (Ashton Holmes) and Vanessa (Ellen Page) aren’t much better: He’s secretive, she’s a Republican. Into this Mensa mix comes a doctor named Janet (Sarah Jessica Parker); just when she’s forgiven Lawrence for once giving her a C+, he knocks her up, and she freezes him out.

Mark Poirier’s script hinges on three whopping implausibilities: 1) that Janet wants Lawrence; 2) that Vanessa wants her cheeseball slacker Uncle Chuck (Thomas Haden Church); and 3) that we give a damn about any of them. After much hand-wringing over the Hiltonization of our culture, recent Hollywood flicks like this and The Savages suggest a determined swerve toward stories about the intelligentsia – only to remind us that idiots are more entertaining. More false than any of Ms. Hilton’s “accidental” panty-flashings, Noam Murro’s dull, meandering dramedy reduces love to a montage and mourning to Quaid’s inability to ride shotgun. When he finally straps in – right before his big “I know I’m a miserable asshole ... ” love speech – we’re supposed to cheer, even though we never understood his hang-up in the first place. However, besides insulting our intelligence, the film’s most dangerous move is dashing our good will for Page, whose brainiac shtick has soured into a scene where she drunkenly pesters a posse of bar chicks about what it’s like to be stupid. (Amy Nicholson) (Citywide)

Street Kings

Veteran Los Angeles cop Tom Ludlow (Keanu Reeves) is an off-the-book type of guy, more than willing to do the dirty work and dark bidding of his captain (Forest Whitaker), a political animal with an eye on higher office. When evidence implicates Ludlow in the execution of his whistle-blowing former partner, though, he’s forced to go up against the corrupt cop culture he’s been a part of for his entire life.

An inelegant, tedious exercise in manufactured grittiness, Street Kings is based on a story by James Ellroy, and one can feel its desperate desire to please from the first frame, when Reeves’s character rolls out of bed, loads his gun, takes a long, hard stare in the mirror, and vomits. Wait, isn’t he also supposed to take a belt of alcohol? Oh, that comes 45 seconds later, when he hits the liquor store. Directed by Training Day scribe David Ayer, Street Kings angles to be a moral code mash-up of that film and L.A. Confidential, with lots of characters played by recognizable faces. But the performances start out at such an elevated pitch – Whitaker in particular is wildly out of control – that the movie is left with nowhere to go, except from the mildly ridiculous to the outright ludicrous. (Brent Simon) (Citywide)

Sunflower

It is 1976, and Gengnian (Sun Haiying) has returned from six years in a torturous labor camp to the post-Cultural Revolution Beijing home he shares with his wife (Joan Chen) and their 8-year old son, Xiangyang (remarkable youngster Zhang Fan). His hands crippled by his captors, Gengnian has given up his life as a painter, instead pushing his son to become the great artist the father could never be. Xiangyang’s resentment at Gengnian’s demand – and the iron hand with which it’s enforced – trigger a 30-year struggle between these two stubborn representatives of old and new China.

This struggle is the heart of director Zhang Yang’s sensitive and intimately observed new film. Zhang (Shower, Quitting) divides his saga into three chapters, the first being the best. In the later sections – when the teenage Xiangyang falls in love and then the adult Xiangyang refuses to provide Gengnian any grandchildren – the emotional build is undercut by melancholy pacing and the threat of excessive melodrama. There’s a reason Zhang is able to portray a difficult father-son relationship and the generational and cultural shift it represents with such care: His own strict father, Huaxun, is also a film director. (Mark Keizer) (Laemmle’s Grande 4)

The Take

After a brutal armored car hijacking and heist, the driver (John Leguizamo) is shot and left for dead. He eventually recovers from his wounds, but two FBI agents (Bobby Cannavale, Matthew Hatchette) still think he’s the inside man, leaving him no choice but to track down the brutal mastermind (Tyrese Gibson) himself.

This sort of urban crime fare would normally go straight to video, and it was supposed to – the DVD will be out in a scant five weeks – but someone at Sony quite rightly realized that solid performances by Leguizamo and Gibson, along with an excellent turn by Rosie Perez (as Leguizamo’s wife), place this a solid notch above the usual. It’s still nothing remarkable, but it satisfies the expectations of its fans, and then goes a bit further. Kudos, too, to director Brad Furman for somehow elevating Jonas and Joshua Pate’s otherwise lackluster screenplay into something marginally attention-grabbing. (Wade Major) (Mann’s Criterion)

The Visitor

In what may be the performance of his career, veteran character actor Richard Jenkins plays a lonely, disaffected economics professor, whose chance encounter with an immigrant couple – one Syrian (Haas Sleiman), the other Senegalese (Danai Jekesai Gurira) – sets in motion a series of events that will literally transform his life and his worldview.

Four years after The Station Agent, his much-lauded debut as a writer/director, longtime actor Tom McCarthy once again steps behind the camera to focus on the relationships of strangers brought together by circumstance. This time, however, it’s the shadow of 9/11 and the War on Terror, rather than generic indie film quirkiness, that draws them to one another and, by extension, to the audience. The result is vastly superior to his previous film, boasting superlative performances from all and masterfully simple direction. Jenkins is nothing less than brilliant, as is the extraordinary Hiam Abbass (Satin Rouge) as his unlikely love interest. This is hardly a simple “War on Terror” film, however – it’s first and foremost a character piece, drifting ever so gently into message mode in its second half. Even then, McCarthy never allows his characters to become polemical pawns – their struggles are the struggles of individuals, desperate for connection and meaning in a world increasingly inclined to provide less of both. (Wade Major) (The Landmark West Los Angeles, Pacific’s ArcLight)

Young & Restless in China

In the first in a planned Seven Up-esque series of documentaries on the people of China, Sue Williams meets and follows a Chinese custom shirt tailor, Internet café entrepreneur, migrant worker, rapper, public interest lawyer, hotel owner, medical resident, rural housewife, and financial services marketing executive. Although their parents needed ration tickets to buy food and clothes, members of this current generation are both flourishing and struggling in a modern, market-oriented economy that’s growing faster than that of any other major nation. Popping in annually for four years – unfortunately, the transparency of this process hampers the narrative flow – the film reveals the myriad challenges faced by China and its people: preparations for the Beijing Olympics; a health care system in which nearly 70 percent are uninsured; the one-child policy; human trafficking; government corruption; and environmental pollution.

The amount of material here is almost overwhelming. Any one of these stories and the accompanying sociopolitical issues could sustain its own film – if the delivery wasn’t so dry. Interview-based, the film mostly offers summaries of what the characters have been up to rather than windows onto their lives. The choice to dub the subjects’ voices rather than use subtitles only puts the audience at a further remove. (Annlee Ellingson) (Laemmle’s Grande 4, Laemmle’s One Colorado)

Young @ Heart

Musical director Bob Cilman founded the Young @ Heart retiree chorus in 1982 when he was 27. Now 25 years later he’s more determined then ever to stay relevant. Out with musty ditties like “Yes, We Have No Bananas”; in with Sonic Youth’s “Schizophrenia.” The gray-haired songbirds complain, but they eventually come around enough to snap at documentarian Stephen Walker’s condescension. When Walker asks 92-year-old Eileen Hall – soloist on the Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go” – “That’s punk, isn’t it?” Hall cracks, “I would say so – have you heard it before?” (She did only give up stripping two years before.) The boorish Walker mistakes his killjoy questions for investigative depth: “Are you worried the cancer might be coming back?” he blurts out to a charming octogenarian visiting a doctor.

Despite the director, the film is damned wonderful, as it tracks the choir through the rehearsals for their latest sold-out show. The subjects are sharper than tacks and give zip to the jokes. In their hands, the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated” becomes an anthem railing against the culture of nursing-home zombies. But death intrudes, and the film’s knockout moment comes when sonorous baritone Fred Knittle deepens Coldplay’s “Fix You” into an elegy, and the hauntingly beautiful ballad – which originally had the depth of wind whistling through a tin can – sends chills down the spine. (Amy Nicholson) (The Landmark West Los Angeles, Laemmle’s Monica 4, Laemmle’s Playhouse 7, Pacific’s Arclight)

Also Opening This Week:

Bra Boys. Sunny Abberton directed this documentary about the Australian surfer culture he is part of. Narrated by Russell Crowe, who is slated to star in and direct a fictional feature version of Abberton’s story. (AK) (Laemmle’s Sunset 5, Laemmle’s Monica 4, Laemmle’s Playhouse 7)

Prom Night. On the night of that most sacred of high school rituals, a vengeful killer stalks the students who were responsible for a death years earlier. Nelson McCormick directed this remake of Paul Lynch’s unrevered 1980 slasher flick; the cast includes Brittany Snow, Idris Elba, Johnathon Schaech, and Ming-Na Wen. (AK) (Citywide)

Remember the Daze. Amber Heard, Alexa Vega, Leighton Meester, Melonie Diaz, and Douglas Smith star in writer/director Jess Manafort’s tale of suburban high school students, ca. 1999. (AK) (Laemmle’s Sunset 5, Laemmle’s Monica 4)

Super High Me. Michael Blieden directed this documentary about stoner comedian Doug Benson’s experiences avoiding pot for 30 days, then staying hugely stoned for 30 days. (AK) (Laemmle’s Regent Showcase)