Film

Commune sense

Wanderlust

With the exception of Role Models, an instant hit, director David Wain has made great comedies that take a little while to settle in. At least that’s how his films hit me. I liked Wet Hot American Summer just fine when I first saw it, and gave it a happy, if not glowing, review. With repeated viewings, it now resides in my personal five favorite comedies of all time. It’s a classic. As for The Ten, I ripped into that one when it first came out. In preparing for this review, I watched it again—and laughed hard. So, it took about five years for that one to win me over. Role Models is the only one of Wain’s past films I loved instantly. It was probably because of Seann William Scott’s Minotaur suit. I don’t know what it is … it’s like Wain movies come in a slow, time-release capsule, and I just start laughing more and more as the years pass and they continue to digest. I imagine I will have a stroke from laughing when I watch The Ten five years from now. Now comes Wanderlust, with the immortally funny Paul Rudd, who has thankfully played a major role in all of Wain’s films. Rudd plays George, a politely frustrated Wall Street worker living in a microscopic Manhattan apartment with his bad documentarian wife, Linda (a funny Jennifer Aniston, Rudd’s costar in The Object of My Affection and Friends). When George loses his job and Linda’s penguin cancer documentary is passed over by HBO, they hightail it out of the city to Atlanta, where George’s brother Rick (the

always fabulous Ken Marino, who co-wrote the film with Wain) has promised George a job. After a very funny driving montage, the two wind up spending the night in Elysium, a bed and breakfast/commune. After a fun night of smoking pot and skinny-dipping, the couple head to Rick’s house, but not for long. Rick’s total bastard behavior drives them out of the house fast, and they retreat to Elysium to take a crack at dropping out of society. by The great gag here is that George is ini-Bob Grimm tially the one more open to the Elysium ideal, bgrimm@ but that changes as the film progresses. Rudd newsreview.com gets to show that awesome “Evil Rudd” side when George gets frustrated. Rudd seems like a nice guy, so it’s hilari-3 ous whenever he gets nasty and dirty, and this screenplay allows for plenty of this. Rudd’s general disdain for Elysium’s leader, Seth (Justin Theroux), is comic gold. As for Rudd’s moment in a mirror practicing dirty talk for possible sexy time with commune resident Eva (Malin Akerman), it’s the best mirror acting since Travis Bickle picked a fight with himself in Taxi Driver. And it only gets funnier when George actually attempts dirty talk with Eva in his presence. While the whole premise isn’t altogether original and is a little tired in spots, it does give Wain a platform to gather a great ensemble, Wet Hot style. The cast features many members of The State, the legendary comedy troupe that Wain was a big part of. Best of all are a couple of scenes featuring The State offshoot, Stella—Wain’s other troupe with Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter—as members of a goofy news show. I would like a whole movie of Stella as news guys, please. Theroux, who played a memorable Jesus in The Ten and has written some big screenplays (Tropic Thunder, Iron Man 2, Rock of Ages), gets a chance to show his comedic acting ability. His Seth is a classic comedic creep. And it’s always good to have Alan Alda in your cast, so huge props for scoring Hawkeye. The main reason to see Wanderlust is the mighty Rudd, who doesn’t disappoint. And, if my usual pattern for Wain films plays out, I imagine Wanderlust will make my nose bleed from laughter five years from now. Ω

There’s nothing funny about this photo now ... but in 10 years, it’ll be hilarious.

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POOR

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FAIR

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GOOD

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VERY GOOD

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EXCELLENT 1Act of Valor Even if the real members of the military cast in this film could act—and believe me, they can’t—the story here is a sputtering dud and ineptly directed. Navy SEALS go on a couple of missions involving kidnap victims, drug lords and terrorists, and the film lacks a sense of adventure or purpose. The film’s big draw is that real military types are cast in major roles. Many of them look the part, but they have flat line deliveries. Still, that would be forgivable had directors Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh possessed the abilities to put together a decent action scene and gotten themselves a decent plot. This is a mess of a movie, and it made a ton of money in its first weekend. Shows you what I know.

4The Artist An homage to silent films that’s actually a silent film, this is a funny, touching and innovative piece of work with a fun performance from Jean Dujardin. He plays a silent movie star at the dawning of the sound age, much like Charlie Chaplin, who either must make the leap to sound or slip away. Berenice Bejo plays Peppy Miller, a star on the rise. After sharing a scene in a film, their two careers go in separate directions. They’re wonderfully expressive performers, which suits Michel Hazanavicius’s film perfectly. One of last year’s biggest surprises, and they’ll be watching this one a hundred years from now.

2Chronicle There’s a good movie, and a great idea, buried in the stagey muck that clogs up Chronicle, the latest entry in the “found footage” craze. There are so many of these found footage movies now, I feel like I’m writing about them every week. A movie about three high school kids finding some kind of meteor and absorbing a strange energy that gives then super telekinetic powers is a magnificent idea. But hampering the movie with the idiotic premise that everything is filmed by the characters in an attempt for a new twist on the tiresome fake documentary gimmick is a terrible mistake. There are moments of brilliance, making this a near miss. But the found footage gimmick is so tired and strained that it kills the film. That said, the finale is a real winner. Sneak in for the last 15 minutes of the movie.

4The Descendants George Clooney delivers another great performance as Matt King, a rich land tycoon living a modest life in Hawaii, trying to get along with his two daughters while his wife is in a coma. Matt finds out some stuff about the wife, and his life takes some interesting turns. Shailene Woodley is excellent here as Matt’s older daughter, as is Amara Miller as the younger one. Robert Forster is both funny and sad as Matt’s bitter father-in-law, while Matthew Lillard gets a good role as a real estate agent with a secret. Written and directed by Alexander Payne (About Schmidt, Election, Sideways), it’s characteristic of his films. There are lots of good laughs to go with the heavy stuff. 1Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance Nicolas Cage returns as Johnny Blaze, a comic book character having a very hard time translating to the big screen. The first film was an origin story establishing the fact that Blaze sold his soul to the Devil. This one picks up a few years down the road with Blaze not adjusting well to the life of a guy whose head occasionally explodes into flames. He’s hiding out in Eastern Europe, has let his hair grow out and, because he’s played by Nicolas Cage, has crazy mood swings. It’s as if directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor realized they had a dud on their hands and told Cage to go into psycho Bad Lieutenantmode to attract his diehard fans. This results in random scenes of Cage doing his patented cuckoo act, something that can be amusing on some levels but just odd and out of place when poorly directed. This time out, it’s definitely odd and out of place.

3Safe House Ryan Reynolds plays Matt Weston, a CIA operative who has spent a year sitting in a safe house bouncing a ball against a wall and listening to tunes. He longs for the big assignment in the field, but the organization seems content to keep him out of the way and performing menial tasks. Things change mightily when Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington) is brought to his house for some questioning and good old healthy waterboarding. Frost is a former agent gone rogue, selling secrets to enemy countries and making a decent living off of it. He’s also a dangerous, murderous son of a bitch. Throw into the mix that he’s also virtuous, and you have your typically complicated Washington character. Reynolds and Washington complement each other well in this action thriller that constitutes the rare Reynolds film that is good.

4A Separation An Iranian couple is forced to separate when the wife, Simin (Leila Hatami), wants to live abroad, while the husband, Nader (Peyman Moadi), needs to stay home and take care of his ailing father. The situation causes many difficulties, especially when a hired housekeeper (Sareh Bayat) asked to care for the father starts behaving strangely. Writer-director Asghar Farhadi’s film, which recently won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, is a strong portrayal of family strife and illness. Moadi is especially good as a man who finds himself in all sorts of trouble for one short instance of overreaction, which also gives us an interesting look at the Iranian criminal justice system. It’s an absorbing movie, and it deserved its Oscar.

3The Woman in Black This is an old-fashioned haunted house movie from Hammer Films that takes some time to get going but gets some good scares in the end. Daniel Radcliffe plays a lawyer who goes to a village in the middle of nowhere and, quite illogically, spends a couple of nights in a haunted house. While there, he sees multiple ghosts, not the least of which is the ghost of a deranged woman angry about the death of her son. Director James Watkins sets the film in a place where it’s impossible for Radcliffe’s character to escape, adding to the dread. There are some interesting sequences—I especially like when a mudcovered young boy makes a visit in the rain—and Radcliffe makes his character somebody we can root for, even if he is dumber than a box of hammers for entering the house in the first place. This one is committed to darkness, so those looking for a good time might want to go play skee ball instead.

2This Means War Likeable performers can’t save this silly film from running out of steam by the time credits roll. Reese Witherspoon plays Lauren, a woman with a job I can’t really explain—she’s some kind of product quality tester—who winds up dating not one but two CIA operatives (Chris Pine and Tom Hardy), who are also best friends. The two men find themselves in competition for Lauren’s hand, and they do all sorts of unethical things to win it. All three are good and funny here, but director McG can’t make the premise work for the entire running time, and the film just runs out of energy. McG, who made the weak Terminator Salvation, is quite the messy director. Full blame goes to him for this film’s failures, because the actors almost pull it off.

Reno

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