M E T R OAC T I V E . C O M | SA N J O S E . C O M | AU G U S T 18-24, 2010 | M E TR O S I L I C O N VA L L E Y
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REVIEW
Stone Face Speaks WHILE the Three Stooges were making hay recycling vintage comedy bits, with the help of directors and personnel from the golden age of silent comedy (not to mention a scad of innovative sound effects), one titan of 1920s comedy was laboring at the bottom of the industry he once topped. Educational Pictures: The Spice of the Program was a short-subject distributor whose roster included vaudevillians (including Shemp Howard), Mack Sennett, Harry Langdon and Felix the Cat cartoons. But the greatest name in Educational’s roster has to be Buster Keaton, who had a 3-year-long career there.
metroactive FILM politics unseen since the 1970s in film; ornery even before she was raped, Salander is an old-fashioned pulp heroine in a pulp plot. (RvB)
INCEPTION
(PG-13; 148 min.) The basic idea of Christopher Nolan’s film is simple. Led by Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), a sort of Impossible Mission Force,
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working for a Japanese trillionaire (Ken Watanabe), descends into the sleeping subconscious of the plutocrat’s young rival (Cillian Murphy), using technology that allows them to design dreamscapes. Because of the complexity of this operation, the team is forced to create dreams within dreams, and
“HYSTERICALLY FUNNY!” – Paul Perrello, WESTWOOD ONE
“The Winning Ticket For Big Laughs… The Entire Cast Is Terrific.” – Pete Hammond, BOXOFFICE MAGAZINE
“‘Lottery Ticket’ Hits The Comedy Jackpot!” – Kimberly C. Roberts, THE PHILADELPHIA TRIBUNE
“It’s ‘Friday’ For A New Generation.” – Jen Yamato, MOVIES.COM
Calling the 16 shorts in the new two-DVD package Lost Keaton: Sixteen Comedy Shorts 1934–37 “lost” may be a bit generous. True, they haven’t been seen in decades in good, clear prints, but there’s something telling about the cover photo. Keaton, battling Lost Keaton alcohol in those days, looks not Kino just forlorn but haunted, with a International pin-prick-eyed gaze that makes him $34.95 resemble Henry Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath. For the most part, Keaton was redoing old shorts and old bits amid sub–Poverty Row production values. Workhorse director Charles Lamont leads Keaton through occasional rallies, despite Keaton’s seeming reluctance to speak dialogue—even though his dustdry prairie rasp of a voice complements the eloquent desolation of his face. Allez Oop (1934) is a circus adventure with droll discursive twists. While service comedy is usually aggravating, Tars and Stripes (1935) is a sporadically hilarious highlight, with Buster as a trouble-prone apprentice seaman. Three Stooges regular Vernon Dent, playing a burly, hostile officer, orders Buster to “take a bight,” and Buster obediently gnaws on a rope. One Run Elmer (1935) has Keaton operating a last-chance gas station in the desert that suddenly gets both a competitor and a customer (Lona Andre, kind of a living version of Bette Boop). Extras include David McLeod’s notes on Buster’s sound years. —Richard von Busack
each deeper dream takes place in an exponentially larger time frame. Throughout the film, Nolan insists on the practical effect: the miniature and the set, as opposed to CGI. The film is audacious and frequently thrilling, especially when Nolan folds Paris in on itself and Escherizes interior spaces. It’s visionary filmmaking, uncommon at this scale, with neither the mawkishness of What Dreams May Come or the spiritual horse feathers of the Matrix trilogy. (RvB)
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
(R; 104 min.) Crisis occurs when a very settled lesbian marriage is challenged by the arrival of the sperm donor (Mark Ruffalo) who fathered one of the couple’s children. Julianne Moore as a classic California girl: no intellectual, very earthy, a blurter-out of things she probably shouldn’t have said; Annette Bening, amusingly dour, is her hard-working spouse. Director Lisa Cholodenko and co-writer Stuart Blumberg takes their film away from the realm of the typical gay and lesbian film fest talkathon and up to speed with the blogs, Alison Bechdel’s cartoons Dykes to Watch Out For and with the fiction of Mary Gaitskill. As a director, Cholodenko is a dry, tough-minded wit. But the way she analyzes the needy, unpretty cores of these characters is what takes The Kids Are Alright out of the realm of the domestic comedy/drama and makes it a film to remember. (RvB)
THE OTHER GUYS
ALCON ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS A BURG-KOULES PRODUCTION A CUBE VISION PRODUCTION BOW WOW “LOTTERY TICKET” BRANDON T. JACKSON NATURI NAUGHTON KEITH DAVID CHARLIE MURPHY GBENGA AKINNAGBE TERRY CREWS COBY TEDDY CASTELLUCCI PRODUCERS BRAD KAPLAN ANDREW WILSON YOLANDA T. COCHRAN LORETTA DEVINE AND ICE CUBE MUSIC EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS ICE CUBE TIMOTHY M. BOURNE STEVEN P. WEGNER PRODUCED BY MARK BURG OREN KOULES ANDREW A. KOSOVE BRODERICK JOHNSON MATT ALVAREZ STORY SCREENPLAY DIRECTED BY ABDUL WILLIAMS BY ERIK WHITE & ABDUL WILLIAMS BY ERIK WHITE www.lotteryticketmovie.com
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(PG-13; 107 min.) Two disgraced cops—Allen (Will Ferrell) and Terry (Mark Wahlberg)—hope to claim the roles of star detectives held by fellow detectives P.K. (Samuel L. Jackson) and Christopher (Dwayne Johnson). Ferrell’s Allen is a socially awkward detective just looking to get through each day by handling the accounting side of police work. Wahlberg’s Terry provides the kind of extreme vexation that having to deal with Ferrell’s character on a daily basis inevitably leads to. Despite some excellent comedy pairing by the leads, the antics begin to run stale, and Allen lacks the hilarious, good-natured stupidity of, say, a Ron Burgundy. Ferrell attempts to use more dry humor here rather than the outsized expressive comedy we’re used to seeing from him. Other “other guys” detectives Martin and Fosse (Rob Riggle and Damon Wayans Jr.) deliver some of the film’s better one-liners, usually at the expense of our well-meaning protagonists. (Marlon Maloney)