Todd Phillips gets the Wolfpack back together, and manages to prove that this formula is stale even when not replicating the exact same plot of the first one. Not that he doesn’t try: there’s a deadline, Doug (the groom from the first film) gets displaced again, Vegas plays a big part, and there are return appearances from Mike Epps and Heather Graham, absent from Part II. This time the scale is more along the lines of Part II than the original, with an emphasis on crazy action, set-pieces, and near-constant callbacks. I know these guys are funny and talented. And I don’t think the first one was any sort of masterpiece or anything (it’s kinda depressing that these movies are international megahits and Phillips’ Due Date was relatively ignored), but it had a certain verve to it, fueled by the three leads who made their names on their performances in that film. Here, it’s like they’re not even trying. When Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper is straining to make himself seem like an easygoing everyman, you know the jig is up. Continue reading →

I dug this spy thriller, a tense romance with elements reminiscent of The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, while set amongst contemporary government and financial entities. Jean Dujardin is dead-serious, but still roguish and charming as a Russian spy working in Paris to get intel on a competitor, played by Tim Roth, of his politico boss/mentor. He’s charged with gathering evidence of Roth’s indiscretions so that his higher-up, who’s a father figure that got him off the streets and into his fancy suits, can box him out and take a prominent position in the Russian government. He gets the bright idea to turn one of Roth’s key financial advisors, and get her to work undercover for him and get under his dirty fingernails. Two problems. One, she’s a drop-dead sexy dame played by Cecile De France that immediately has sexual chemistry with Dujardin. Two, she’s already working for the CIA to clear her name with the American authorities so she can return to the states and take care of her ailing father. Complications ensue. Continue reading →

After tackling a similarly legendary and controversial figure, Roman Polanski, for her last two films, filmmaker Marina Zenovich went after one of the most influential comedians of the latter half of the 20th century, Richard Pryor. Everyone knows he was a trail-blazing comic genius, with a penchant for sexual and profane language that was totally out of step with the clean-cut comedy era that preceded him. Also common knowledge: he love, love, loooooved his drugs, and once famously set himself on fire while in a crack-induced stupor. What this documentary sheds light on is how his tumultuous rise to comedy glory was lined with burned bridges, left and right, and was probably the result of a deeply wounded psyche that was formed in the Illinois brothel where he grew up, and his  beloved Grandmama was the madam of. Continue reading →

For his latest film, Paul Verhoeven conducted a little experiment. He took a four-page script by Kim Van Hooten, shot it as written, exhibited it online in the Netherlands, and outsourced the rest of the screenplay. He accepted scripts from everyone who submitted, and, with a team, rifled through them, one by one, cribbing what he liked and disposing of the rest. He sectioned the film off into a handful of parts; he would show what he had online, compile the best elements of the scripts he was sent, shape them into a next section, and then repeated the process until he had what resembled a feature film. This is all explained in a mini-documentary, starring Verhoeven, that precedes the “film”, and the actual narrative clocks in at just under an hour. But the experiment paid off: the film does not feel like a schizophrenic avant-guarde show-off piece, and is, in the end, surprisingly Verhoeven-esque. Continue reading →

Stanley Tucci and Alice Eve are the only actors in this movie. It’s a highly intimate, tense relationship drama written and directed by Neil Labute that takes place in one location over the course of an early afternoon. It calls back to the days before The Wicker Man and Lakeview Terrace, when Labute was a biting, vicious writer who went after the depths of human depravity with bravery and humor that rivals any scribe in the biz. Fred and Velvet, our protagonists, are not extremely specific characters, but are placeholders for men and women in general as the power dynamics of interpersonal relationships are broken down, abused, and, ultimately, satirized. Continue reading →