The Twilight Saga, The Blind Side, and The Bad Lieutenant Top New Movies for Nov. 20

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON:

Did you ever see such hype and anticipation for a movie?
Magazine covers. Endless gossip. Newspapers counting down the days. Well it’s here and the young women fans love it. They whoop when Robert Pattinson appears and again when Bella’s new friend (Taylor Lautner) takes off his shirt. They find the film dreamy. Not that it matters that much, but I found quite a bit of it slow, short on both the angst and the sense of mystery and discovery of the first in the series. Pattinson as the vampire Edward Cullen does less acting and more brooding and posing in this one. Much of the time he’s away in Italy, having broken up with Bella and re-appearing only in her visions, until she goes after him. Kristen Stewart plays her very well, swooning effectively, then constantly in danger but unfazed even by hanging out with werewolves. In Italy she finds Michael Sheen heading up a vampire tribunal. The film gets  crowded with these new story elements. They don’t fit together easily. Still, it’s a safe vampire flick for teen girls and  here’s a thought for all of us. This is the second week in a row that the biggest movie on earth was made here  in Vancouver. (Showing on 1 out of every 5 movie screens in Canada)  3 out of 5

THE BLIND SIDE:

If you’re worried that Precious, coming next week, may be much too harsh, try this one. It’s essentially the same story, but much easier to take. Both films have  an oversize African American, silent, uncommunicative and damaged because of a terrible childhood, rescued by a caring woman and pressed to heal through education (and in this case: football). It’s the true story of Michael Oher, now a rookie playing with the Baltimore Ravens. As a teenager he was taken in by a Memphis family straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Dad is played by country singer Tim McGraw and mom is a no-nonsense energizer brought brilliantly to life by Sandra Bullock. She’s just as ready to talk back to a redneck in the bleachers as to a drug dealer in the projects. It’s wonderful, and not at all sentimental, to see her push Michael to open up and feel his worth. The film is very entertaining, light in tone, often funny and infused with humanity.
(At theatres all over) 3.5 out of 5.

PROM NIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI:
Even in the Obama era, a lot of old racial attitudes survive. This absorbing documentary visits the small town of Charleston to watch a test case unfold.

The local high school, which held separate senior proms, one for whites, one for blacks, was convinced to integrate the event last year. The film shows how that happened. Morgan Freeman, the actor and local resident, is seen before the school board offering to pay for it, and then appealing to the students in a quietly authoritative speech at an assembly. The students, in interviews as they prepare for the big night, offer up idealism, rebellion and sometimes apology: “My parents are racist but I love them”. The film's last section is the dance itself, lively, rockin' but probably just a first step. The 2009 official prom was again integrated, although in both years there was also an unofficial separate prom for whites. Showing at the Ridge Theatre. Director Paul Saltzman will be at both shows Friday and Saturday night and take questions. Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 

BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS:
Master filmmaker Werner Herzog takes on a familiar movie genre, the cop thriller, and delivers a standard potboiler with some brilliant moments. Plus  Nicolas Cage acting almost as unhinged as he's ever been. He's investigating the murder of an immigrant family that got involved in the drug trade. But he's got a drug habit himself which makes him steal from the evidence locker, shake down rich kids in parking lots and zone out twitching at a crime scene staring at two iguanas while an entire song plays on the soundtrack. The film takes several zany diversions like that. His girlfriend (Eva Mendes) is a hooker, his father hates him and an old lady in a wheelchair will remember the day he chocked off her oxygen tube to get information. Even then he comes off as more likeable than evil and the film itself as quirky and entertaining.
(Tinseltown) 3 out of 5 

AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD:
Fans at the recent Vancouver International Film Festival recognized this as an exciting documentary with a social purpose. They voted to give it the VIFF Environmental Film Audience Award. Beautiful cinematography captures all the action as two ships from the Sea Shepherd Society harass the Japanese whaling fleet in the Antarctic. It's a hyper-active confrontation involving sabotage, ramming, a tense search for colleagues lost at sea and at the same time good information about how the Japanese skirt the international rules. A Dutch captain leads the action from one ship, while Paul Watson on the other is seen talking to the world media by satellite phone. "We're officially a pirate ship," he says.
(VanCity Theatre, in tandem with Collapse). 3 1/2 out of 5

COLLAPSE:
Who needs 2012? The real goods on the end of the world as we know it is right here in a fascinating interview with a whistleblower. Michael Ruppert is a former cop turned journalist who helped expose some CIA drug smuggling, predicted last year's stock market meltdown and is now obsessed with peak oil. That's the theory that says the world is well on its way to running out of oil. Neither offshore drilling nor Alberta's tar sands can delay it very long. Ruppert outlines with considerable intensity and even a couple of on camera breakdowns what will happen next. Think complete crash of the economy, agriculture, even the population. Others say that too but he pulls such a wide range of elements together into his scenario that it becomes compelling and scary.
(VanCity Theatre until Nov 23)  3 out of 5   

PLANET 51:
Here's  yet another spoof of 1950s sci fi movies. It's animated, has a big-name voice cast and turns out to be only a little better than most of the others, even with its novel twist. A typical white-fence suburbia inhabited by little green cartoon characters gets a surprise visit by an alien spaceship. Turns out its from our earth and piloted by an astronaut from our time. He's got an ipod, spouts Star Wars quotes and argues he's not an alien, the locals are. It's a clever idea, at first, but the reverse parallel is so deliberately engineered that it becomes belabored. A topical song, for instance, in that  alternate world, goes like this: “The times they are ah … different”.  Boomer parents will get that and the many other cultural references. Few children will. Dwayne Johnson is great fun as the self-possessed earthling, while Justin Long, John Cleese, Jessica Biel and others are only OK.
(At theatres all over)  2 out of 5  

Also playing … 

THE BOONDOCK SAINTS II: ALL SAINTS DAY:
A ten-year old cult hit (on DVD) spawns a sequel promising more violence and a higher body count. Two Irish-American brothers (Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flanery) who took to killing Boston Mafia figures in the original film and then retired to Ireland come back into action when they hear the mob killed their priest. Billy Connolly and Willem Dafoe also return. Comic book vigilante stuff filmed in Toronto.
(Tinseltown)

Twilight: New Moon

Twilight: New Moon

The Blind Side

Bad Lieutenant