Westword July 29, 2010 : Page 32
The Kids Are All Right. (R) Serious comedy, powered by an enthusiastic cast and full of good-natured innuendo, Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right gives adolescent coming-“ of-age and the battle of the sexes a unique twist, in part by creating a romantic triangle between a longstanding, devoutly bourgeois lesbian couple Nic and Jules (Annette Bening and A 3D SPECTACULAR FOR THE WHOLE FAMIL Jami Philbrick, MOVIEWEB.COM Y!” “ “ HILARIOUS. Mark S. Allen, CBS-TV A HIGH-FL FAMIL ” ADVENTURE.” Jim Ferguson, ABC-TV YING Y PURR-FECT! Julianne Moore) and the newly identifi ed, merrily free-spirited sperm donor, Paul (Mark Ruffalo), responsible for both the couple’s teenage children. Normality, as made clear by the introductory family dinner that features two mothers acting all motherly, rules. (The moms’ designated kink is their occasional use of gay male porn as an aphrodisiac.) Whereas Cholodenko’s two previous features, High Art (1998) and Lau-rel Canyon (2003), each focused on an innocent young woman swept up in the glamorously baffl ing sex-and-drugs scene swirling around a charismatic older female artist, the situation here is reversed; unexpectedly drawn in to and fascinated by the ultra-domestic household created by a pair of charismatic femmes, the swinger is the straight man (literally). Premiered last January at Sundance, The Kids Are All Right triggered a lively bidding war. The enthusiasm is unsurprising: It’s actually a pretty conservative movie. Given its juicy premise, The Kids could have been played for sitcom, reality show, or soap opera—had it had been made in 1970, it might have been an Echo Park Teorema, with everyone winding up in bed together. Ten years into the 21st century, it’s a heartfelt poster for family values. (Hoberman) The Killer Inside Me. (R) The premise of The Killer Inside Me— directed by Michael Winterbottom from Jim Thompson’s 1952 crime novel—could be summed up in a classifi ed ad: Texas cop with pleasant boyish demeanor seeks compliant dames for sadistic sex games culminating in murder. Thompson’s fearsome tale is recounted in the fi rst-person by a blatantly unreliable narrator. Foisting himself on the world as a gentle-manly, platitude-spouting Jimmy Stewart type, Lou Ford is less a character than an act. The ease with which the killer-cop outwits the other characters is matched only by the apparent rationality with which this self-conscious psychopath explicates his increasingly brutal crimes. The Killer Inside Me isn’t even so much a novel, let alone a thriller, as a vacuum that inexo-rably sucks the reader into a moral black hole. Perhaps this malign fi ction could have been fi lmed in the manner of Isidore Isou’s notorious Venom and Eternity—a black screen and an unending rant. Winterbottom’s version is Classic Comics. The characters are stiffl y drawn, the action is fastidiously staged, the production design is self-consciously retro. No shortage of cheap thrills, though: Lou (Casey Affl eck) smiles affably as he stubs out his cigarette in a derelict’s outstretched palm or sets about beating his adoring punching-bags—a hot little hooker (Jessica Alba) and a hard-faced school teacher (Kate Hudson)—until they’re black and blue or (much, much) worse. Winterbottom’s greatest asset is Affl eck, convincing enough to keep The Killer Inside Me from being just a steamy, stylish, punishing bloodbath. (Hoberman) The Last Airbender. (PG) While the message boards continue to fume with charges of racism aimed at writer-director M. Night Shyamalan for changing cartoon characters from Asian to Caucasian (except the villains), let’s pursue a less arguable crime—that of lousy fi lmmaking. Adapted from a Nickelodeon cartoon about a young boy who’s part Luke Skywalker, part Neo, and all heroic hodgepodge, this is one muddled attempt at franchise-making: confusing, drab, sluggish. (Ugly, too, if you’re forced to see it in 3-D.) Aang (Noah Ringer) is the boy savior who disappeared 100 years ago and took with him the power to, ya know, bend air—which is to say, manufacture poorly computer-generated gusts of wind after performing what appears to be capoeira. Aang was frozen, somehow, in a ball of ice beneath a pond, and, in his absence, the Fire Benders (led by Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi as the main—and hilarious—baddie) have seized control of the planet and banished the Earth Benders and Water Benders to ghettos. Aang, naturally, will liberate them if only he can learn how to use The Force . . . or the Matrix . . . or something? Perhaps followers of the series will be more forgiving; this installment— with a sequel-teasing fi nal scene that feels awfully desperate— is written entirely in fanboy shorthand. But to those of us who lose patience quickly with blurry, poorly acted, clunky kung-fu movies, The Last Airbender appears to have been shot using stereo instructions. Worse still: This could have been directed by anyone. Or no one. (Wilonsky) “GRIPPING. SPINE-TINGLING. IT’S THE RARE PIECE OF POLITICAL FILMMAKING THAT COULD UNITE THE LEFT AND THE RIGHT.” – OWEN GLEIBERMAN, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY MAKE FOR A NAIL-BITING JAMES BOND FILM. LUCY WALKER’S ARTFUL DOCUMENTARY BRINGS THE ISSUE INTO PENETRATING FOCUS, MAKING A STRONG CASE FOR RENEWED GLOBAL VIGILANCE. THE MOST IMPRESSIVE MATERIAL HERE WOULD ’’ ★★★★ “ – JOSHUA ROTHKOPF, TIME OUT NEW YORK ‘‘ALARMING AND CHILLING, “ WITH SPINE-TINGLING ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE.’’ – JEANNETTE CATSOULIS, THE NEW YORK TIMES A CAN’T-LOOK-AWAY DOCUMENTARY.’’ – JOE NEUMAIER, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS ★★★★ ‘‘YOU SHOULD ABSOLUTELY SEE THIS MOVIE.‘‘ ‘‘ALL I CAN TELL YOU IS THAT – ANDREW O'HEHIR, SALON From the people who brought you “An Inconvenient Truth,” a film about our nuclear threat. WARNING DEMAND ZERO. TEXT “ZERO” TO 77177 STARTS FRIDA 32 Y,JUL Y 30 CHECK DIRECTORIES FOR LISTINGS TAKEPART.COM/ZERO •WWW.MAGPICTURES.COM EXCLUSIVE ENGAGEMENT CALL STARTS FRIDAY, JULY 30 THEATRE FOR SHOWTIMES JULY29-AUGUST4, 2010 WESTWORD | BACKBEAT | CAFE | ART | THEATER | MOVIES | NIGHT+DAY | CITY LIMITS | OFF LIMITS | ¡ASK A MEXICAN! | LETTERS | CONTENTS | WORST-CASE SCENARIO | westword.com
Publication List
