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HHHHH = max rating contact xpressmovies@aol.com
PicK oF thE WEEK
thEatER ListinGs
12 Years a Slave
FRiday, noVEmBER 8 thuRsday, noVEmBER 14
HHHHS
Due to possible scheduling changes, moviegoers may want to confirm showtimes with theaters.
diREctoR: Steve McQueen (Shame) Asheville PizzA & Brewing Co. (254-1281)
PLayERs: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad Pitt, Paul Giamatti, Lupita Nyong’o
Please call the info line for updated showtimes. Despicable Me 2 3D (Pg) 1:00, 4:00 (no 3D on Tuesdays) elysium (r) 7:00
BioGRaPhicaL dRama RatEd R thE stoRy: The story of Solomon Northup, a free black man kidnapped and sold into slavery. thE LoWdoWn: Powerful, brilliantly — and beautifully — made. It boasts a gallery of fine performances and should finally propel Chiwetel Ejiofor to the stardom he’s deserved for ten years. It’s a fine film, but maybe not quite a masterpiece.
All in all, the praise you have almost certainly heard for Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave — as well as the excellence of Chiwetel Ejiofor in the lead role — is deserved. This is a very good film. Possibly, it is a great one. It is beautifully made and stylish to no end — even elegant. With an assured hand, McQueen has captured the uncomfortable juxtaposition of natural beauty and unnatural ugliness. His images of a genteel Old South that ignores the very uncivilized events playing out in its midst — often just beyond the veranda railings — is disturbing in a way I have never seen in a film of this sort. I have nothing but praise for all this. It’s fine work. It’s powerful. It’s as disturbing as it was meant to be. And yet — why did I sit through it completely dry-eyed? Why was I not in tears by the end of it? I don’t know if the fault lies in me, or my mood
Machete Kills (r) 10:00 CArMiKe CineMA 10 (298-4452) CArolinA CineMAs (274-9500) 12 Years a slave (r) 11:00, 1:50, 4:40, 7:30, 10:15
chiWEtEL EjioFoR gives a magnificent performance in Steve McQueen’s masterful 12 Years a Slave.
About Time (r) 11:00, 1:35, 4:10, 6:45, 9:25 All is lost (Pg-13) 11:10, 1:30, 3:50, 6:15, 8:35 Captain Phillips (Pg-13) 12:30, 3:15, 6:00, 8:50
at the time I saw it — or in the film. A second viewing will probably answer this for me, though I’m inclined to blame McQueen’s clinical approach to filmmaking (something that marred his 2011 film Shame). He sees and records powerfully, but he keeps his feelings close to his vest. That may be what keeps me from calling 12 Years a Slave a masterpiece, but I still think it’s close to one. It recounts the fact-based tale of Solomon Northup (Ejiofor), a free, middle-class black man from Saratoga Springs, New York. He was duped into accompanying a pair of traveling showmen (Northup calls them “artists”) on a trip to Washington, D.C., with the promise of picking up some easy money as their violinist. Instead, they drug Northup and sell him into slavery that will send him to the Deep South — for 12 years of living hell. The film is drawn from Northup’s own account — co-written with a professional writer — and has the feel, at least, of authenticity. The unspeakable cruelties to which he is subjected are occasionally leavened (ever so slightly) by curious flashes of humanity. While we see none
in the slave trader (Paul Giamatti) — ironically named Freeman — there is much apparent decency in Northup’s first “master,” Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch), though it’s mixed with the belief that it’s all right to own slaves and (more importantly) the fear of upsetting the status quo. Ford likes and admires Northup, but when Northup beats up a sadistic overseer (Paul Dano in a skin-crawling performance), it’s easier to sell Northup than deal with the consequences. Ultimately, Northup will find himself on the worst plantation imaginable — owned by Edwin Epps (a mesmerizing Michael Fassbender). Epps is not merely cruel, he’s plainly psychotic. His actions rarely make sense, but they always seem believable in the context of the characterization of Epps as a madman. His wife (Sarah Paulson) is no better, but her ire is directed at Epps’ slave mistress, Patsey (TV actress Lupita Nyong’o). It’s a wholly poisonous environment — not helped by a few side-trips to a neighboring plantation where there is a black mistress (Alfre Woodard) who has risen from slavery to a position of power — she
mountainx.com
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noVEmBER 6 - noVEmBER 12, 2013
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