Reviewers: Craig Blamer, Rachel Bush and Juan-Carlos Selznick.
domineering mother in particular. Dench is superb and Nighy is a delight, as always. Wilkinson is very good in the one truly somber role. Cinemark 14 and Paradise Cinema 7. Rated PG-13 —J.C.S.
Opening this week
3
Hysteria
Set in Victorian England, the film tells the story of Dr. Mortimer Granville’s invention of the vibrator in the late-19th century in response to the hand pain the good doctor experienced from his ever-growing caseload of genital-massage treatments for so-called hysteria. Starring Hugh Dancy and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Pageant Theatre. Rated R.
Rock of Ages
A country girl and a city boy with rock-star dreams hope for their big break at a popular L.A. nightclub that is about to host a huge show by big-time rocker Stacey Jaxx (Tom Cruise). The film version of the Broadway musical built on big hair and the pop-metal and powerballads of the ’80s. Cinemark 14, Feather River Cinemas and Paradise Cinema 7. Rated PG-13.
That’s My Boy
Adam Sandler plays an idiot who, while still in his early teens, fathers a kid, names him Han Solo and raises him badly until he turns 18. Twelve years later, pops needs money and tracks down his estranged son (Andy Samberg) for a loan. Hijinks ensue. Cinemark 14, Feather River Cinemas and Paradise Cinema 7. Rated R.
Now playing
4
The Avengers
Once Black Widow (Scarlett Johanssen) starts kicking some ass about 11 minutes in, this superhero flick shifts gears and begins to get more awesome as it howls along. What we get next are a few origin stories, about the recruitment of the Avengers—Black Widow, Captain America, Iron Man, the Hulk and eventually Thor and Hawkeye—as a team. As a stand-alone, it could be confusing. But if you kick back and go with the flow, that’s over soon enough and they band together to fight a common threat that has followed power-hungry god Loki to Earth. Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) is pretty much the center of the movie, but director Joss Whedon has also made the Hulk interesting. Helping to sell the package is Mark Ruffalo as Hulk’s alterego, turning in a performance that echoes Bill Bixby (the original live action Bruce Banner) while making the character comfortably his own. Cinemark 14. Rated PG-13 —C.B.
3
Battleship
After a meet-cute with the skanky daughter (Brooklyn Decker) of a barking naval commander played by Liam Neeson, a total loser (Taylor Kitsch) mans up and joins the Navy. With his brother’s help, he manages to work his way up the chain of command while remaining a screw-up. But he gets his shot at redemption when the fleet sets out on some big Navy exercise. If you’ve seen the ads, you know where this is going: Next come the aliens and the explosions. Director Peter Berg has gone from the jagged edges of Very Bad Things to being a fairly polished Hollywood stone, and here he’s delivered one very polished two-hour commercial that is at least much more visually cohesive than a Michael Bay movie. Writers Erich and Jon Hoeber also deserve some credit for floating a narrative out of the basic board game on which the film is based, managing to incorporate the iconic aspects of the game into the mix, while laying down with a subtext involving the nature of games and adding some nice touches regarding disabled vets and forgotten war relics. Cinemark 14. Rated PG-13 —C.B.
3
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
This good-natured crowd-pleaser from John Madden (Shakespeare in Love; Her Majesty, Mrs. Brown) is primarily a charming field day for a small host of veteran British actors. The story, drawn from a novel by Deborah Moggach, sends a motley assortment of hardpressed Anglo senior citizens off to a cut-rate retirement home in India. Their number includes a grieving widow (Judy Dench), a bickering married couple (Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton), a much-married lady (Celia Imrie) boldly seeking yet another (preferably wealthy) husband, a retired judge (Tom Wilkinson) who is gay and returning to the scene of his youth, an exultantly randy old gentleman (Ronald Pickup), and a crotchety exnanny (Maggie Smith) who’s getting an outsourced hip replacement. Late-blooming romances mingle with a medley of financial and medical issues. Individual dilemmas get a miscellany of resolutions, but the film as a whole gathers itself around the problems of Sonny (Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire), whose courtship of lovely Sunaina (Tena Desae) and amateurish management of the hotel draws the ire of his family and of his
Darling Companion
Ends tonight, June 14. The key plot points are a fading marriage and a lost dog, but plot points don’t really matter all that much in this good-natured ramble, a bunch of whimsical little anecdotes fueling what amounts to a mildly amusing comedy of manners set among mostly middle-aged suburban types. Beth Winter (Diane Keaton) is a feisty grandmother who feels somewhat neglected by her husband, Joseph (Kevin Kline), an all-business surgeon. On impulse, she adopts a stray dog, names it “Freeway,” and becomes distraught when Joseph loses Freeway while walking him in the woods. The subsequent search for Freeway brings a host of friends and relatives into play—Joseph’s sister, Penny (Dianne Wiest), and her new boyfriend, semi-retired businessman Russell (Richard Jenkins) and son Bryan (Mark Duplass), who is also a doctor; Carmen (Aylet Zurer) who is the gypsy caretaker of the Winters’ summer cabin; and a veterinarian named Sam Bhoola (Jay Ali) who tends to Freeway and marries the Winters’ daughter, Grace (Elisabeth Moss). It has fewer dramatic pretensions than The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, but the basic appeal is much the same—a mostly irresistible cast playing an agreeably flaky set of characters. Pageant Theatre. Rated PG-13. —J.C.S.
Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted
Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett Smith and the other familiar voices are back for part three in the DreamWorks animated franchise about the mismatched crew of wayward zoo animals trying to find their way back home to New York—this time via a cross-country European adventure disguised as circus animals. Cinemark 14, Feather River Cinemas and Paradise Cinema 7. Rated PG.
4
Men in Black 3
The sharp-dressed partners are back, going about their comfortable routine of policing the city streets for illegal aliens—of the spaceship kind. But that routine suddenly gets really complicated when Boris “Just Boris” the Animal manages to bust out of an über-secret maximum security prison on the moon and head back to Earth for some payback on the Man in Black responsible for his down time. That man being the taciturn Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones). Of course, this being a summer blockbuster, just ambushing him is sort of uninspired so Boris (Jemaine Clement) cuts a time-fart and goes back to 1968 to kill K. This results in all sorts of nasty butterfly effects being unleashed in the space/time continuum, like giant creatures descending from the sky and eating New York. The agency sends K’s partner, J (Will Smith), back to turn the fan off before the shit hits—with surprisingly amusing results. It’s complicated but not too complicated, seeing as this is a summer popcorner. But it’s a very well-crafted popcorner. Cinemark 14, Feather River Cinemas and Paradise Cinema 7. Rated PG-13 —C.B.
2
Prometheus
See review this issue. Cinemark 14, Feather River Cinemas and Paradise Cinema 7. Rated R —C.B.
4
Snow White and the Huntsman
This is an engaging and welcome de-Disneyfication of the old fairy tale, grimed-up and pitched at teenage girls while still remaining accessible to everyone else. It has some weaknesses—a little too much gratuitous spectacle and not enough of the villain—but those are flaws only if you walk into it churlishly. Here we have Charlize Theron as wicked ice queen Ravenna, who after seducing then killing the king, locks his daughter, Snow White (Kristen Stewart), up in a dark tower to let the young girl’s beauty rot away. After she blossoms in her cell and manages to escape, a growling huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) is set loose on Snow White’s trail, which also crosses that of a band of ruffian dwarves. Her adventures with the conflicted huntsman and her eight little friends adds seasoning to a rebellious stew that builds up to a Joan of Arc-ian crusade back to Ravenna’s despairing kingdom. Theron sinks her teeth into the role like it’s Shakespeare, and Stewart has an earthy beauty that plays well against medieval despair, and despite the Twilight haters, she handles herself capably here. Cinemark 14, Feather River Cinemas and Paradise Cinema 7. Rated PG-13 —C.B.
What to Expect When You’re Expecting
In the same vein as other recent fluffy ensemble romcoms (see: Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve), a ton of recognizable faces (J-Lo, Cameron Diaz, Dennis Quaid, Chris Rock, Elizabeth Banks, etc., etc.) fall into a bunch of interconnected roles—this time in the form of five couples all dealing with the ups and downs of having babies. Cinemark 14, Feather River Cinemas and Paradise Cinema 7. Rated PG-13.
June 14, 2012
CN&R 29