A&E // MOVIES
MAGIC LANTERNS
A RETURN TO THE SHADOWLANDS
The recent death of actor/director Richard Attenborough prompted the usual encomiums that accompany the passing of such respected filmmakers. With 78 acting roles to his credit, dating back to his auspicious debut in David Lean’s 1942 war classic In Which We Serve, as well as 12 films as director, Attenborough created a truly memorable legacy. He won the Academy Award in 1983 for helming Gandhi, which also won Best Picture and six other Oscars, but that accomplishment is often overshadowed by the far greater popularity of that year’s award loser, E.T. The Gandhi brouhaha aside, Attenborough was always a class act, in front of and behind the camera, a genial, intelligent man who was an artist and a consummate professional. The news of his death stirred me to revisit one of my personal favorites of his, the 1993 film Shadowlands about the author C.S. Lewis (Anthony Hopkins) and his wife Joy (Debra Winger). Written by William Nicholson and based on his play, Attenborough’s film opens with Lewis at Oxford — a respected middle-aged professor of medieval literature, a popular best-selling author, and a noted Christian apologist. His colleagues at the university gently needle him about the success of the Narnia stories and their “hidden” meaning, but Lewis unconvincingly assures them the stories are only about the magic, sidestepping any kind of religious symbolism. On the other hand, addressing a group of Christian advocates, he directly addresses one of the fundamental paradoxes of religious faith: How do we reconcile pain and suffering with the love of God? He concludes his talk with a stirring analogy, likening God to a sculptor who uses pain like a chisel to make us more perfect; paradoxically, our suffering is a sign of his love. Into this confirmed bachelor’s sedate, well-ordered life comes Joy Gresham, a Jewish Christian woman who becomes the supreme test of Lewis’ faith. Shadowlands is the story of their unlikely love and how she, together with her young son, brings the devout, reserved don into a real appreciation of the most basic of human relationships. When she is soon diagnosed with an incurable cancer, Lewis is thrust into the painful dilemma of practicing what he has so long preached — reconciling human love and loss with an unknowable divine will. Unlike many current faith-based films, Shadowlands does not preach to the choir. Its real focus is on two rather extraordinary people and their love for one another; the religious themes are certainly there, but decidedly secondary to the human conflict. Winger won a well-deserved Oscar nomination for her performance as the outspoken woman who turns Lewis’ world upside down, but Hopkins is his usual remarkable self in this familiar kind of character (recalling similar roles in Howards End and Remains of the Day), a man who’s lived his life suppressing his deepest emotions and feelings. Due to Attenborough’s superb direction, we’re also treated to a postcard look at Oxford University and some lovely English countryside. Understated, intelligent and touching, Shadowlands remains one of Richard Attenborough’s most enduring films. Pat McLeod mail@folioweekly.com 40 | FOLIOWEEKLY.com | SEPTEMBER 3-9, 2014
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FILM RATINGS
Return of the Jedi The Parent Trap Twins Big Business
SCREENING AROUND TOWN
SUN-RAY CINEMA Land Ho!, Ghostbusters, Frank and Magic in the Moonlight are screened at Sun-Ray Cinema, 1028 Park St., 5 Points, 359-0049, sunraycinema.com. Life After Beth and The One I Love start Sept. 5. Sun-Ray screens the Jaguars game against the Eagles at 1 p.m. Sept. 7; it’s free but you can reserve a seat by purchasing a $5 drink ticket, on sale now at tinyurl.com/ksn3k6s. Twin Peaks Fire Walk with Me is Sept. 9. LATITUDE 360 MOVIES X-Men: Days of Future Past, Planes: Fire & Rescue and How to Train Your Dragon 2 screen at Latitude 360’s CineGrille Theater, 10370 Philips Hwy., Southside, 365-5555. WGHF IMAX THEATER Guardians of the Galaxy, Island of Lemurs: Madagascar 3D, D-Day: Normandy 1944, Journey to the South Pacific: An IMAX 3D Experience, Jerusalem and We The People are currently screening at World Golf Village Hall of Fame IMAX Theater, 1 World Golf Place, St. Augustine, 9404133, worldgolfimax.com. Forrest Gump starts Sept. 5.
NOW SHOWING
50 TO 1 Rated PG-13 Did anyone ever read the actual book National Velvet? About a piebald horse that was entered into the veddy big deal Grand National Steeplechase, ridden by a girl disguised as a boy? This is kinda like that, except the horse isn’t a piebald (look it up) and the racing hopefuls aren’t British or female. They’re cowboys from the Southwest U.S., and they think their slightly disfigured steed can win the Kentucky Derby. Costars Skeet Ulrich and William Devane. — Marlene Dryden AS ABOVE, SO BELOW Rated R Proving that the phrase “M. Night Shyamalan protégé” can be more than an onscreen title in a Key & Peele sketch, director John Erick Dowdle (2010’s Devil) trains his camera on the catacombs beneath Paris, where the buried remains of millions of people give rise to unspeakable evil. Not to be confused with 2007’s Catacombs, which trained its camera on the catacombs beneath Paris to show that the buried remains of millions of people had given rise to unspeakable evil. That one was made by some nobody, not the chosen inheritor to the mantle of Lady in the Water. Seriously, it’s like Hollywood had a Sorting Hat for hacks or something. — Steve Schneider BOYHOOD ***@ Rated R Director Richard Linklater, in a single film, has upstaged filmmakers who have tried to capture the passage of time and the aging of actors. Linklater simply watched and waited – and filmed – over a span of 12 years. Boyhood, a film focused on the life of a seemingly average boy, was cast when the boy (played by Ellar Coltrane) was just 6 years old. Linklater also cast his own young daughter, Lorelei, as the boy’s older sister, and Patricia Arquette as the boy’s mother. The boy’s father is played by Ethan Hawke, an actor who collaborated with Linklater on the Before series, another project involving the passing of real time. The trilogy (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight) started filming in the early ’90s and focused on the development of a couple’s relationship over the course of two decades. Like Boyhood, its stars actually age in real time; the films are set nine years apart. Now Linklater has compressed real time into a single film. He captures the maturation of his screenplay’s characters, and the real aging of real people, creating a fascinating film and, at the same time, conducting a unique and noble experiment – even crossing the line from fiction into unintended documentary. This film’s concept may be great, but the finished product falls short of greatness. — Cameron Meier CALVARY Rated R Reteaming with Brendan Gleeson, the star of his 2011 comedy The Guard, writer-director John Michael McDonagh portrays the drama that unfolds after a priest is threatened during confession. With a screening two days before opening, we can’t tell you exactly what kind of drama, but it’s probably similar to what Sean Hannity dreams of doing to the Pope. Costars Chris O’Dowd and Kelly Reilly. — S.S. DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES Rated PG-13 For a while there, it looked as if Jonah Hill was going to be this summer’s winner of Saying Stupid Shit In Public. But then Gary Oldman unloaded to Playboy about the unendurable oppression of being unable to call a fag a fag and a Jew a Jew, and we had a new front-runner in the Emergency Hairshirt Olympics – and an answer to the question “What could possibly keep a Rob Ford apology off the front page?” Meanwhile, the apology I want to hear from Oldman is for mentioning David Bowie in the same breath as Charles Flippin’ Krauthammer when the question was “Who speaks the truth in this culture, in your opinion?” Fox is hoping all the fags and Jews out there
THE IDENTICAL: The lives of identical twins separated at birth intersect when one becomes a famous singer and the other follows in his footsteps as an impersonator. are sufficiently swayed by Oldman’s penance that they’ll still go see the second installment in their grand quest to reboot aspects of the original Apes franchise nobody gave an especial shit about. Here, Oldman is in a band of human relics trying to stay alive in a world ruled by filthy primates. Geez, what would a Krauthammer reader know about that? — S.S. EARTH TO ECHO Rated PG If you’re ever worried that something you say or do might piss off Steven Spielberg – and yes, I know that’s probably a likelier element of my life than yours – remember his lawyers apparently couldn’t do anything to stop this family sci-fi adventure in which a bunch of concerned kids try to help a stranded alien find his way home. The poster shows a human kid’s finger reaching toward the alien in a gesture of healing friendship, the scene bathed in a serene blue light. Jesus, all that Jurassic money, and his people can’t even get off a good cease-and-desist? The IMDb trogs think it’s ripped off from Spielberg’s Super 8 instead. Maybe there’s a legal loophole when you bite two of a guy’s properties at once? — S.S. THE EXPENDABLES 3 Rated PG-13 You know exactly what sort of demographic a movie is going for when it augments its regular cast of geriatric mercs with a “new generation of badasses” that includes Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Kelsey Grammer, Wesley Snipes and Antonio Banderas. Hey, some of those guys didn’t even have their AARP card when Clinton was president! Not that they’d want to remember those years anyway, since the Expendables franchise continues to exist mostly to provide steady employment for the right-wing pariahs who can’t get work anywhere else in Hollywood – if you believe Gary Oldman. (Do not believe Gary Oldman – Ed.) Come to think of it, Oldman would make a great addition to the cast next time, along with Gary Sinise, John Malkovich and every other poor, persecuted Rethug you hear from regularly, mostly in interviews where they’re complaining that you never hear from them. Expendables 4: War on Christmas, just in time for Ramadan. — S.S. FORREST GUMP: AN IMAX EXPERIENCE Rated PG-13 In the book, Forrest has an enormous wang, so talk about a missed opportunity. Then again, most of what gets advertised as “IMAX” these days is really just an 18-inch Samsung running Windows Magnifier, which means we wouldn’t be missing out on much large-format idiot-savant weenus anyway. The hook here is a digitally remastered print for the flick’s 20th anniversary, playing for just one week in an effort to find out how many people are willing to throw down cold, hard cash for a cleaned-up print of a movie they’ve seen six times already and which 54 percent of them hate. Personally, I think Paramount should’ve gone whole hog and sprung for 3-D. “Dude, it was like the box of chocolates was in my lap!” — S.S. GET ON UP Rated PG-13 If Hollywood believes two things, it’s that black folks don’t go to comic-book movies and white folks don’t go to movies about black folks. All of which explains why this James Brown biopic is the sacrificial lamb that’s been scheduled against Disney/ Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. In real life, it’s going to be my white music-snob friends filling in my black nerd buddies as to how well Chadwick Boseman did as the King of Soul, and if
they should give this flick a look when it’s on Starz four months from now. Heck, we might even invite them over to watch it – especially if Charlie Crist wins and we get to feeling really liberal! — S.S. THE GIVER Rated PG-13 Here’s one to dither over on Throwback Thursday: Plans to turn the dystopian YA hit The Giver into a movie were first hatched way back in 1994. Not only did half the Expendables still have a sperm count back then, but Richard Linklater had just begun to grow Ellar Coltrane in a petri dish! Now the wait is over, and we can see what kind of work Walden Media has done in adapting Lois Lowry’s oh-so-subtle tale of a conformist society living under the edict of “The Sameness.” Personally, I thought the kids in The Wackness seemed to be having a better time, but I question how committed to “youth concerns” this movie is anyway, since lead character Jonas was 12 in the book but is played onscreen by 25-year-old Brenton Thwaites. Then again, everybody in the source novel of Logan’s Run died at 21 instead of 30, and Michael York gotta eat. — S.S. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Rated PG-13 As I write this, the San Diego Comic-Con is just getting under way, and I’m bracing myself for all sorts of P.R. fog about the future of comics on film, and how DC Entertainment is going to start giving Marvel Studios a run for its money any minute now. So as a reality check, let me just point this out: “Winning” is when you can wring the most anticipated movie of the summer out of a property so obscure even the editors of The Comic Book Price Guide have to look it up. By Christmas, Rocket Raccoon may be firmly entrenched as a star of the Disneyacquisition firmament, making “possible Star Wars crossover” the hot ridiculous rumor du jour. DC’s entire release slate for the next five years will have shifted three more times, just because Olaf the Snowman blew on it really hard. God, how I love a photo finish. — S.S. THE HUNDRED-FOOT JOURNEY Rated PG Boy, there’s nobody better equipped to capitalize on the foodie phenomenon than Lasse Hallstrom, who has for decades been championing the feasibility of solving all of life’s conflicts by shoving stuff in your mouth. (From Chocolat to What’s Eating Gilbert Grape to The Cider House Rules to Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, the guy can’t even make a picture without mentioning food in the title. Talk about obsessed!) In Hallstrom’s latest, restaurateur Helen Mirren’s hostility toward a new rival (the great actor Om Puri) is overcome by the power of his entrées, which are just too damn good for anybody to remember what they were supposed to be fighting about. Fun related fact: In real life, obesity causes 300,000 deaths per year. — S.S. THE IDENTICAL Rated PG It’s time for the latest installment of America’s favorite longrunning quiz, “What Is Ray Liotta Accepting Now?” The answer: A speculative drama based on the idea that Elvis’ twin brother Aron didn’t die at birth, but was given away to another family and grew up to be – an Elvis impersonator! Of course, they don’t call him “Elvis” in the movie, because no project Liotta is involved with these days has that kind of money. And sadly, the onetime Henry “Hendry” Hill doesn’t even get to play the ersatz King, instead taking on the role of the wise preacher