Summer, comic book heroes; they go together in the movies. This week it’s Superman hoping to match all those Marvel comics characters and their box office. Seth Rogen, meanwhile, faces the apocalypse while anarchists, a secret paramilitary outfit and a bullfighting Snow White complete a pretty good line up.
Man of Steel: 3 stars
This is the End: 3 ½
Dirty Wars: 4 ½
Blancanieves: 4
The East: 3
Cinematheque Open House: --
MAN OF STEEL: Looking for a loud, crash-bang, building-toppling, effects-laden summer film? Here it is, with action scenes that, once they get going, refuse to stop until 143 minutes have been filled to excess. You get space ships crashing into high-rises, a planet splitting in two, even a plain old tornado. You get Superman raising a school bus out of a lake, rescuing Lois Lane in a glacier tunnel and going mano a mano with a vicious General Zod. It’s often thrilling, fascinating because it was mostly filmed here in B.C. (check out the Cassidy Pub) but also overpowering with earnestness.
This is Superman getting another reboot (seven years after the last one) with another recounting of his origin. The film starts with his birth, the first natural birth in centuries on the planet Krypton. Rebel leader Zod (Michael Shannon) calls it “heresy” and vows to kill the child. The father (Russell Crowe) sends it by spaceship to our planet Earth where we pick up the story 33 years later. Clark Kent (played by Henry Cavill, a Brit best known for the TV series The Tudors) is anxious to know how he got here and through various flashbacks and dreams recalls struggling with his superpowers as a schoolboy and getting advice from the farmer who took him in (Kevin Costner) to keep them hidden. He can’t. Zod is still after him and Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane, played by Amy Adams, is on to his secret.
Also, his father, who must have died when Krypton exploded, appears to him now and then. That’s perplexing and yet this is a quite intelligent reworking of the story. Superman isn’t yet the crime fighter we know and Clark Kent hasn’t yet hired on at the Daily Planet. The rumored self-doubt angle isn’t really much developed and drama generally, even with these top actors, is second to the spectacle. And there are maybe three fragments of humor here. A film this relentless needs more. (Dunbar, Park, Scotiabank, Dolphin and many suburban theatres) 3 out of 5
THE IS THE END: Before you even consider the movie, look at this list of the people in it. Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, James Franco, Craig Robinson, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, Emma Watson, Michael Cera, Jason Segel, Rihanna, Paul Rudd, David Krumholtz, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Do you recognize those names? Do you like their work? Not just James Franco and Harry Potter’s Emma Watson. All of them. How much you enjoy the movie depends very much on how familiar you are with them. They play themselves in the film and send up their images hilariously. Channing Tatum has an outrageously funny bit. Emma wields an axe.
Seth Rogen (and, Evan Goldberg, his writing partner since Point Grey High School) directed this piece of lunacy, the closest I’ve seen yet to matching the inspired madness of English films like Shaun of the Dead. They skewer these young celebrities for their pretensions and selfishness and keep you laughing as they do it. Careful: the humor is often juvenile and gets very vulgar very often. Rogen started as a comedy club performer, remember.
In the story Jay arrives from Montreal to visit Seth in L.A., goes with him to a party at James Franco’s house and as the evening progresses senses that the Apocalypse is starting up outside. The other guests are too stoned or drunk to notice, until many fall into a sink hole and only six remain. How do they deal with it? Infighting, rude jokes, wasting their meagre food and revealling their real selves, especially their inability to face a crisis. They make fun of each other’s movies and even film a short sequel to one. There’s more but I won’t spoil it for you. The film is wild, exuberant and very funny ... if, you think it‘s for you. (Scotiabank and suburban theatres)3 ½ out of 5
DIRTY WARS: Obama’s current political storm is over government surveillance. Last month it was the unmanned drone flights; he said he might be able to end them next year in Afghanistan. Well, here’s another part of the war on terror exposed. It deserves big publicity and as explained in this documentary will get you angry. Also, and just as important, this is a model of investigative journalism.
Jeremy Scahill, who writes for The Nation, tells it like a mystery story. He went to an Afghan village where a raid on a party had resulted in several deaths, including the police chief and two pregnant women. The villagers said Americans did it. NATO knew nothing about it and the Americans said it was probably an honor killing by the Taliban. But Scahill found cell phone video of American hands digging the bullets out of the bodies so they couldn’t be traced. The U.S. military eventually owned up to it and compensated the village with some sheep.
But who were these Americans? Scahill dug some more and found JSOC, Joint Special Operations Command, an outfit he had never heard of before. It’s top secret, reports only to the president and has more recently been credited with the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. It also killed an American citizen in Yemen, and a few days later his son. It specializes in night raids and can go anywhere it deems necessary. 75 countries so far, says one speaker in this gripping documentary. That’s scary. (International Village) 4 ½ out of 5
BLANCANIEVES: After those two awful Snow White films last year, rejoice. Here’s a very good one, from Spain, where it won 10 of that country’s top movie awards (the Goyas) including best picture. It’s black and white and silent, like The Artist and though not as buoyant as that one, very entertaining as a gothic drama.
In this version, Snow White is a nickname for Carmen, the daughter of a famous bullfighter who was paralyzed in an accident. Her mother died giving birth to her and an avaricious nurse has taken charge to get control of her father’s wealth. As she grows up, she secretly visits her dad on the off-limits second floor of their mansion and learns the techniques of bullfighting from him. She’s played charmingly by TV actress Macarena Garcia.
When her stepmother (Maribel Verdú, known to us from Y Tu Mama Tambien) orders her killed, she joins a band of dwarf bullfighters and becomes a star herself. The Grimm tale, including that apple, transfers well to the bull ring in 1920s Spain, with operatic emotions, melodramatic extravagance and beautiful visual compositions. And once again, we get a reminder how good actors can communicate so much even when we can’t hear them speak. (5th Avenue) 4 out of 5
THE EAST: A form of the Stockholm syndrome is afoot in this one, but we’re not quite sure how deep it is. The film develops it believably and takes us inside a secret anarchist faction but then weakens to leave us guessing at the end. Brit Marling stars as a corporate security sleuth who goes underground to infiltrate a band of eco-terrorists. She lives in their commune, eats food they’ve gathered dumpster diving and joins their elaborate pay-back actions on bad companies. Big pharma’s dangerous new antibiotic? Spike the champagne with it at a company do. Oil pollution? Make the president and his wife stand in it.
Gradually, the more she mixes with the charismatic leader (Alexander Skarsgård), a fiery acolyte (Ellen Paige) and several others she comes to understand their cause. That evolution and the details of the life and rituals of the group are well-drawn. They make the film worthwhile. But how far does her sympathy go? We don’t know. The film proceeds to a third action, or “jam” as the group calls it, that feels out of place, a scriptwriter’s construct that gets into thriller territory instead of finishing the ideas it has raised. (International Village) 3 out of 5
Also to watch for …
THE CINEMATHEQUE is holding its 5th annual open house Saturday afternoon where you can see a couple of free movies (Charlie Chaplin’s Easy Street and Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last), tour the projection booth, library and archives, bid in a poster auction and join a Chaplin look-alike contest. You get a free bag of popcorn too. For details visit http://thecinematheque.ca/5th-annual-open-house
Incidentally the regular screening that night and Sunday at 4 p.m. at the 1131 Howe Street movie house is Ben Hur, the 1925 version with Ramon Navarro. Also a classic, and that makes four silent films showing this week.
NOTE: These images are movie stills provided by the studios. They are the exclusive property of their copyright owners.