Leap Year, Youth in Revolt, Daybreakers Lead the Week’s New Movies for Jan. 8

In the mood for a pleasant romantic comedy? Amy Adams has one for you. Michael Cera tries.

And for big laughs try the Yes Men. They deliver outrageously. You can also start the new year with vampires, a political rant, a sitcom pioneer or a Bollywood star.

LEAP YEAR: Romantic comedies have had a bad time of it lately. Here’s a good one due almost single-handedly to a sparkling performance by the charming Amy Adams. She’s anxious to get married and schemes to follow her cardiologist boyfriend from Boston to Ireland where she’s told that on Feb. 29 women can pop the question. (Feminist this film is not). All the usual set backs get in her way, a diverted plane, a missed train, a muddy slide down a hill and, naturally, a handsome Irish innkeeper (Matthew Goode). Formulaic? Sure but also a pleasant, underplayed comedy with gorgeous scenery and even a couple of surprise twists. (Tinseltown, Criterion White Rock, Grande Surrey and several area Cineplex theatres). 3 ½ out of 5

YOUTH IN REVOLT: Michael Cera is after something more basic than marriage in this romantic comedy. He just wants to lose his virginity. He’s a smart, witty California kid who proclaims: “I have no life” while his separated parents are getting it on, his father (Steve Buscemi) with a bikini bimbo and his mother with a truck driver (Zach Galifianakis, of The Hangover). Michael’s soulmate could be the intelligent young woman (Portia Doubleday) who he meets in an RV park.

She’s into French films so he imagines a bad boy named Francois giving him direct, go-get-her advice. Cera also plays him, sporting a small mustache, smoking many cigarettes and offering a temporary break from his usual self-conscious character. The humor is hit-and-miss hip and ironic  and a few too many low-life types plus Justin Long getting everybody stoned on mushrooms lower the tone considerably. (At 9 Cineplex and the Grande Surrey theatres). 2 ½ out of 5   

DAYBREAKERS: The first horror film of the decade is getting good notices in some quarters. Not here. The Australian brothers, Michael and Peter Spierig have conjured up great atmosphere (a rainy, concrete city), attracted known actors (Ethan Hawke, Sam Neill, Willem Dafoe) and spun an intriguing variation on the vampire story. Then they collapse it all into mere blood and guts territory. They particularly like exploding bodies. The time is 10 years from now. Vampires are in the majority. They work in offices and laboratories and farm humans for their blood. Supplies are running low and work on a substitute is failing. Hawke switches sides and joins a band of humans who may have a solution. There are obvious but only fleeting echoes of real issues like peak oil, class warfare and corporate greed. A lot of mangled bodies, though. (At Cineplex Theatres all over). 2 ½ out of 5   

THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD: This one is worth mentioning again because it continues at the Vancity Theatre through next week and because it is so good. People with an anarchistic streak will especially like it. These are the men who embarrased Canada in Copenhagen last month with a fake press release. They set up fake websites, appear at conferences and issue statements to expose corporate and government failures. This second compilation of their exploits starts right off with their greatest.  

Five years ago they told BBC-TV, and therefore the world, that Dow Chemical was finally taking responsibility for the gas-leak that killed 10,000 people (maybe as many as 25,000) in Bhopal, India. The company’s stock took a $2 billion hit before the hoax was exposed. You’ll see every detail of how they managed to pull it off. There are several others too, including a tasteless one at an oil conference in Calgary. They were briefly arrested for trespassing over that one. Their stunts are funny although there’s a nagging unease. After all, their central tactic is to spread false news. They plan to take on the Alberta tar sands sometime soon. 4 out of 5 

Also at the VanCity Theatre …

PUNISHMENT PARK: Another film about activists and a real rarity. This may be its first time in Vancouver.  Peter Watkins, the radical English  director who made his name with The War Game, took a look at American political repression back in 1971. His view is so caustic and unrelenting, it has hardly ever been shown. He was motivated and clearly outraged by both the Kent State killings and the Chicago 10 trial. His film shows eight or so protesters before a tribunal charged with something that’s not spelled out, spouting tirades about poverty, war and racism and drawing the judges to reply with right-wing rants. It all feels real because the actors improvised their dialogue. The trial is intercut with the punishment. The convicted have to run across a desert with police and national guard in pursuit. Watkins saw it as a metaphor. If those scenes weren’t so hysterical and overblown they’d be more relevant today and not just a time capsule. After all he did anticipate the Patriot Acts and abuses in the name of security.  3 out of 5

ALICE IN WONDERLAND: While you’re waiting for the new version from Tim Burton in March, you can look back 77 years to this all-star Alice from Paramount Pictures. Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, May Robson and even Baby LeRoy are just a few of the actors. Charlotte Henry plays Alice and the film is most remembered for W. C. Fields stealing the show as Humpty Dumpty.

A rarely seen oddity with great design but, according to Leonard Maltin, a slow pace. Sunday afternoon only. Check out http://www.vifc.org/  for all the VanCity Theatre times.

Also playing …

YOO-HOO, MRS. GOLDBERG: I have to think this film would find more of an audience if it were playing the Oakridge Theatre, and not the Granville. It’s a documentary about a Jewish star who made broadcast history. Gertrude Berg wrote and played Mrs. Goldberg on radio for 17 years and then on TV for another six. I remember watching her as a chatty mum offering warm and wise observations on life to her neighbors in a tenement building in, I believe, Brooklyn. She created the sitcom and won the first ever Emmy. He fought in vain to protect her co-star from Un-American Activities attacks. This straightforward documentary has TV types and even a former Supreme Court Justice recall her influence. (Granville Theatre)

3 IDIOTS: One of Bollywood’s most popular stars has another big hit on his hands. Aamir Khan (whose 2001 film Lagaan was an Oscar nominee) has got people in 40 countries turning out in big numbers to watch this attack on what are described as “the glaring anomalies in the Indian education system.” (Indo-Asian News Service). The story has him playing a 22-year-old college student (he’s about twice that age) and mixes humor, tragedy and social commentary without preaching.  The film  has been playing in the suburbs for a week and now also arrives at Tinseltown downtown.