FEATURE FILM
HIGH-RISE
LOCAL THEATERS AMHERST THEATRE (DIPSON) 3500 Main St., Buffalo / 834-7655 amherst.dipsontheatres.com
BY M. FAUST
AURORA THEATRE 673 Main St., East Aurora / 652-1660 theauroratheatre.com
A FEW WORDS WITH FILM DIRECTOR BEN WHEATLEY IT’S LIKELY THAT none of the novels of J. G. Ballard, whose work has
EASTERN HILLS CINEMA (DIPSON) 4545 Transit Rd., / Eastern Hills Mall Williamsville / 632-1080 easternhills.dipsontheatres.com
inspired films as diverse as Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun and David Cronenberg’s Crash, has as devoted a fan base as High-Rise. This story about an enormous modern apartment complex whose ultra-efficient design sends its inhabitants into violent class conflict has been of interest to filmmakers since its publication in 1975: Nicolas Roeg wanted to adapt it in the late 1970s, and the rights have been under option ever since.
FLIX STADIUM 10 (DIPSON) 4901 Transit Rd., Lancaster / 668-FLIX flix10.dipsontheatres.com
It has finally come to the screen under the direction of Ben Wheatley, the edgy young British director whose A Field in England you may have seen at Squeaky Wheel earlier this year. I had a chance to speak with him when he was premiering the film at the Vancouver Film Festival this spring. Befitting a movie about the breakdown of technology, our conversation was beset by its own technological snags and snafus (compounded by the announcement of the film’s Buffalo opening arriving two hours before this publication’s deadline). For what it’s worth, here’s how it went:
FOUR SEASONS CINEMA 6 2429 Military Rd. (behind Big Lots), Niagara Falls / 297-1951 fourseasonscinema.com HALLWALLS 341 Delaware Ave., Buffalo / 854-1694 hallwalls.org
Producer Jeremy Thomas has been trying to get this book adapted for so many years. Were there a lot of pre-set expectations about how the adaptation that you had to deal with? There was a little bit, but the way it was put together was unique. [Screenwriter] Amy Jump wanted to go back to the book—she didn’t want to read anything that had been written already, which was a stack of screenplays as high as a man. We didn’t want to be gluing together bits from everyone else’s script. Being a little bit weird, Amy doesn’t like being paid up front, so she said I’ll write the script and if you like it you can pay me. Fortunately Jeremy Thomas liked it and we went from there.
HAMBURG PALACE 31 Buffalo St., Hamburg / 649-2295 hamburgpalace.com LOCKPORT PALACE 2 East Ave., Lockport / 438-1130 lockportpalacetheatre.org MAPLE RIDGE 8 (AMC) 4276 Maple Rd., Amherst / 833-9545 amctheatres.com
Because it was predictive fiction, set 20 minutes into the future, the first scripts were projecting into the 80s. And new scripts would do the same thing, so by the time it got into the ’90s it didn’t resemble the book any. So all that stuff needed to go.
MCKINLEY 6 THEATRES (DIPSON) 3701 McKinley Pkwy. / McKinley Mall Hamburg / 824-3479 mckinley.dipsontheatres.com
It must have taken some restraint not to get caught up in making fun 1970s references. What I told our production designer Mark Tildesley was that we needed the ’70s that Ballard was predicting into, not what actually happened. There is no date stamp on it, nothing that links it to a particular year. We wanted a kind of alternative seventies.
NORTH PARK THEATRE 1428 Hertel Ave., Buffalo / 836-7411 northparktheatre.org
Amy Jump is your wife… Well, I prefer to say that I’m married to her.
Point taken. Assuming that she was writing this as a project for you both to work on, did you have any input as she was working on it? She’s very independent as she writes and not interested in what I have to say at all—it’s the way we work. Well, not always: For Kill List I wrote a first draft, she did the final. A Field in England started as a script I wrote about the Civil Wars, but she rewrote it so totally that by the end there wasn’t as much as a comma of mine in it. We’re coming to the edges of what the perception of a director is, away from the auteur theory that makes the director a rock and roll character in charge of everything. When you have a writer who’s also an editor, as Amy has been for all of our films, that person has almost as much control as the director. And she owns our production company, Rook Films. So we’re trying to make the credits for our films more reflective of that, dropping all P that “a film by Ben Wheatley” bullshit.
REGAL ELMWOOD CENTER 16 2001 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo / 871–0722 regmovies.com
picks up an evil force after a trip to the Grand what they actually think is one of the movie’s Canyon. Starring Kevin Bacon, Radha Mitchell, pleasures, though there is more open fun to be and Jennifer Morrison. Directed by Greg Mcfound from the performance of Tom Bennett REGAL NIAGARA FALLS STADIUM 12 Lean (Wolf Creek). Regal Walden Galleria as Sir James Martin, a but marriageable blithe 720 Builders Way, Niagara Falls nincompoop whose attempts to hold his own in EYE IN THE SKY—Modern communications tech236–0146 polite society get the film’s biggest laughs. With nology bring military and government leaders regmovies.com Chloë Sevigny, Xavier Samuel, and Stephen Fry. into the decision process of a proposed drone –MF Dipson Amherst, Dipson Eastern Hills strike against a terrorist leader. In what feels REGAL QUAKER CROSSING 18 like real time, we watch the operation from the THE MAN WHO KNEW INFINITY— fits the audi3450 Amelia Dr., Orchard Park / 827–1109 perspectives of its various participants, mostly ence-pleasing template of the biopic, but does regmovies.com British and American, linked from around the next to nothing to impart any understanding of world. It comes down to a single chilling queswhat made its subject a great man. Srinivasa tion: Is the life of a single innocent young girl a Ramanujan (1887-1920) was a self-taught mathREGAL TRANSIT CENTER 18 price worth paying to prevent an attack likely ematician who rose form poverty in India to recTransit and Wehrle, Lancaster / 633–0859 to kill scores of other equally innocent people? ognition at Oxford’s Trinity College before his regmovies.com Different viewers may react differently to what untimely death. His insights are still studied, but they see here. But the script by Guy Hibbert making a movie about mathematics is like dancgives you all sides of the argument, clearly, coming about architecture Dev Patel essays the role REGAL WALDEN GALLERIA STADIUM 16 pellingly, and without prejudice. If you don’t like with the full actor’s arsenal of misunderstood One Walden Galleria Dr., Cheektowaga to have your opinions challenged and tested, dignity and suffering, but the movie belongs to 681-9414 / regmovies.com this is not the movie for you. With universally Jeremy Irons as the young man’s sponsor, who strong performances (including Alan Rickman learns to value humanity over abstract numRIVIERA THEATRE in his last film) and tense direction from Gavin bers. With Toby Jones, Jeremy Northam, and Hood (Tsotsi). With Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, 67 Webster St., North Tonawanda Stephen Fry. Directed by Matthew Brown. –MF and Jeremy Northam. –MF Dipson McKinley Eastern Hills (Dipson) ENDS THURSDAY 692-2413 / rivieratheatre.org THE IDOL—True story of Muhammad Assaf, the THE MEDDLER—The title may lead you to expect Palestinian boy from Gaza who won the Arab a melodrama about an overbearing mother, THE SCREENING ROOM Idol competition and became a worldwide symand the film certainly starts that way, but stick 3131 Sheridan Dr., Amherst / 837-0376 bol of hope. Directed by Hany Abu-Assad (Parawith it: as a widow looking who has to re-invent screeningroom.net dise Now). North Park ENDS THURSDAY her life after the death of her husband, Susan Sarandon turns this clumsily plotted script into LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP—As the pre-eminent (if SQUEAKY WHEEL a winning showcase. Writer-director Lorene underemployed) chronicler of the lives of privScafaria (inspired by her relationship with her 712 Main St., / 884-7172 ileged and self-aware young Americans, Whit own mother) is better with details than story, VISIT DAILYPUBLIC.COM FOR MORE FILM LISTINGS REVIEWS >> Stillman (Barcelona, The & Last Days of Disco) squeaky.org and best of all with dialogue. You will inevitais a smart choice to breath new life into the bly be reminded of last summer’s Blythe DanJane Austen industry. Adapted from an early SUNSET DRIVE-IN ner vehicle I’ll See You In My Dreams (with J. novella that was never published in her lifetime 9950 Telegraph Rd., Middleport 735K. Simmons in the Sam Elliott role), but there (but bearing the unrelated title of a different 7372 / sunset-drivein.com are worse films to imitate. –MF Dipson Amherst, youthful work), Love and Friendship will be unDipson Eastern Hills familiar to all but the most ardent Austenphiles. TJ’S THEATRE Kate Beckinsale stars as Lady Susan Vernon, a MONEY MONSTER—Jodie Foster’s admirably lean woman with no redeeming characteristics aside thriller goes for some of the flavor of classic 72 North Main St., Angola / 549-4866 from her survival instinct. Poorly provided for 1970s New York City-based movies like Dog newangolatheater.com VISIT DAILYPUBLIC.COM FOR MORE FILM LISTINGS & REVIEWS >> by the death of her husband, she sets out to Day Afternoon or The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3. find herself a new spouse, after clearing the George Clooney stars as the host of a financial TRANSIT DRIVE-IN hurdle of marrying off her daughter, provides advice show—think Jim Cramer with props and 6655 South Transit Rd., Lockport abundant material for social satire that has dancers—who is held captive while on the air by more bite then most of Austen’s oeuvre. The 625-8535 / transitdrivein.com a man who lost all of his money buying a stock gulf between what these characters say, in he recommended. Unlike The Big Short, though, dialogue that requires an attentive ear, and this only uses our rigged financial system as a
CULTURE > FILM
CULTURE > FILM
plot device instead of tackling it head on. Still, it’s more adult than anything else you’re likely to find at the multiplex this summer. Co-starring Julia Roberts, Jack O’Connell, and Dominic West. -MF Regal Elmwood, Regal Niagara Falls, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden Galleria MOTHER’S DAY—The latest of veteran director Garry Marshall’s holiday-themed ensemble movies (after New Years Eve and Valentine’s Day) continues to follow the blueprint set by the British hit Love, Actually. But where that one played as if it was condensed from a half-dozen fully fleshed rom-coms, this American line uses the multiple character format in the laziest way, with obvious situations and clichéd characters. Still, it’s hard to summon up the bile so many critics are directing at it: It’s wholly undemanding in pandering to an audience seeking the equivalent of comfort food. Starring Jennifer Aniston, Jason Sudekis, Kate Hudson, Timothy Olyphant, and Julia Roberts. —MF Four Seasons MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING 2—Long-in-coming sequel. Too bad they didn’t have the nerve to make it My Big Fat Second Greek Wedding. Starring Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Michael Constantine, Lainie Kazan, and Andrea Martin. Directed by Kirk Jones (Nanny McPhee). Four Seasons, Regal Transit THE NICE GUYS is the kind of movie you watch when you want to watch something and there’s nothing better available. Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe go the buddy-cop route in a movie written and directed by the man who all but invented the genre, Shane Black. The convoluted story, set in 1970s L.A., involves mob hit-men, porn filmmakers, the U.S. Justice Department, environmentalists, and a thoroughly ridiculous evil scheme, all as an excuse for the odd coupling of Crowe and Gosling. Some of the shaggy-dog byplay between the stars is diverting, but as a whole the movie feels cobbled together, and the violent brutality is incongruous with the comedy and the occasional sentimentality. -GS Dipson Flix, Regal Elmwood, Regal Niagara Falls, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden Galleria P
CULTURE > FILM
VISIT DAILYPUBLIC.COM FOR MORE FILM LISTINGS & REVIEWS >> DAILYPUBLIC.COM / JUNE 1 - 7, 2016 / THE PUBLIC 21