This Those Weeks In Tickets: 5 February 2018 - 18 March 2018

Well, I wasn't going to allow myself to fall behind like this, but festivals and vacations and such got us here, catching up on six weeks:

5 February - 11 February
12 February - 18 February
19 February - 25 February
26 February - 4 March
5 March - 11 March
12 March - 18 March



Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool was only in town for a week or so, and it got a little attention because it was expected to get some Oscar nominations for Annette Bening or at least Elvis Costello, and they both had an argument. Still, well worth a watch. It probably would have made sense to hit the sack immediately afterward, but instead I opted to put a pin in the first leg of my plans to watch all my discs of entries in series that I haven't finished with The Vanished Murderer, which... wasn't good. A real disappointment, honestly.

After that, it was time for the Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival, which was as always a mixed bag. The opening weekend included Junk Head & Ayla on Friday; Flora, The Gateway, and Andover on Saturday; and Kill Order on Sunday. That's not a festival schedule that entirely fills the weekend, but I also tried to catch all of the Oscar-nominated shorts. I missed the docs - you've really got to buy ahead of time when stuff's in the GoldScreen - but I did manage to catch the Animated Oscar Shorts as well as the Live Action Shorts.



The next week was also pretty much all festival, with Beyond Skyline on Monday; Space Detective & Darken on Tuesday; Before We Vanish & Tangent Room on Wednesday; Division 19 & Paradoxical on Thursday; Framed on Friday; and Closer Than We Think, Muse, and Canaries on Saturday. That's a busy week, but one of the reasons I am kind of down on letting it eat an entire week is that we're starting to see a lot of Chinese New Year releases, and I was only able to get to two of the three that came out that weekend - The Monkey King 3 and Monster Hunt 2 - around the festival.

And then, after the "festival" part was over, it was time for the Marathon! As I say in the roundup, I kind of got to the point where I decided that the event probably wasn't for me anymore early this time around, because who wants to see movies with people who think they can make a Spielberg classic better with their call-outs, especially if so little is going to be on film? Supposedly, the Somerville Theatre will be playing a larger part next year, but we'll see how it's looking closer to the time. Anyway, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Time Machine '60, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, "Haley", The Lost World '25, Marjorie Prime, and Bride of Frankenstein got us to midnight...



... and Shivers, Night of the Living Dead, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", World WIthout End, The Little Shop of Horrors, Yellow Submarine, Army of Darkness, 20 Million Miles to Earth, and Looper got us to noon or so.

I half-considered doing another movie during the afternoon, but figured I'd be better off doing laundry, packing, and such before heading out on vacation - at one point, I actually planned to get on a plane that evening and let the whole "being exhausted from being up 36 hours" help me sleep on the flight and beat jet lag, but I didn't go that route. Instead, I headed to New Orleans, which isn't entirely my bag - a lot of the cool tourist stuff is in the French Quarter, which is bigger on drinking and noise than I am. Pretty great food, though, and I had fun visiting Steamboat Natchez, The National WWII Museum, The Louisiana State Museum (well, the ones that were in NOLA and open: The Calibdo, The Presbytere, The 1850 House, and The Jazz Museum at the Old Mint), The New Orleans Pharmacy Museum, a swamp tour, Preservation Hall, the Sculpture Garden, and jazz at Snug Harbor. A full week, and I ate beignets the way I eat poutine in Montreal, at a rate completely unsustainable if they were common in the Boston area.

And, yeah, I saw a couple movies while I was there, both because I'm not drinking after dark the way a lot of tourists are and because I was feeling kind of spoiler-averse. So I went to Black Panther on Wednesday and Annihilation on Friday. There was only really one cinema particularly close to the hotel, Regla's "Cinebarre Cafe", which charges premium prices (or at least, enough for MoviePass not to cover it) and has table service, but doesn't really feel that much like a fancy spot in the theaters. Decent enough, though, and the movies were pretty darn good.

Black Panther

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen on 21 March 2018 in Regal Canal Place #9 (first-run, RealD 3D DCP)

Separate the Marvel stuff from this movie - and, believe it or not, you can do that fairly easily; you really don't need Captain America: Civil War even though important setup happened there - and you've still got something pretty terrific: An African-influenced bit of science fantasy that manages to balance two concepts extremely well. Black Panther's Afro-futuristic setting both asks us to imagine a world where Africa wasn't colonized and developed independently with all of its resources and, for those who would point out that this is a fantasy, it wrestles with the idea of what obligation the fortunate have to the less fortunate, and what the best course is when that good fortune comes after a lifetime of denial.

It's a non-DC superhero movie, so you can guess where it will land to a certain extent, but it's also a pretty great bit of pulp entertainment, with great big action that draws from both totemic fantasy and dizzying science fiction, set mainly against beautiful African (approximating) vistas but traveling enough to have fun set-pieces in London and Busan. Writer/director Ryan Coogler occasionally slows things down enough to both get some background out and let a character articulate his or her point of view, but it never becomes drab, and even the characters who supply a lot of the jokes are seldom played for fools. The movie never gets dumb to have fun.

It's also got a cast worth loving; Chadwick Boseman and Martin Freeman return from Civil War and both kick things up a notch as the title character and the token American ally (although, I must admit, as a fan of the comics I much prefer Everett K. Ross as a State Department liaison in way over his head than as a CIA operative), but Michael B. Jordan makes a pretty darn charismatic villain, the trio of Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira, and Letitia Wright are great as the warrior women who have their king's back in different ways, and even the smaller roles are well-filled.

Annihilation

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen on 23 March 2018 in Regal Canal Place #6 (first-run, DCP)

Right now, I think Annihilation is pretty darn good, and I'm only half-joking when I say that I want to see what I think of it after it's given me a few new varieties of nightmare. That is to say, it may wind up seeming even better.

And, make no mistake, it is pretty great as it sinks its audience into a situation that finds something more to disturb in every moment - a returning husband who is just demonstrably more shaken and traumatized in every moment until he starts shaking apart, a team of people who are not only all damaged goods but seemingly aware of it in the least reassuring way possible, chimera-like plants and animals that display a certain beauty despite verging on the unearthly... and then it starts in with the things that are more obviously horrific, split right down the middle between the familiar and the really terrible idea executed extremely well.

Then things get weird.

Much of this movie reminds me of Sunshine, the screenplay writer/director Alex Garland wrote for Danny Boyle, especially how both feature rational, capable people more or less destroyed by getting too close to something that they can't possibly grasp, whether it be the awesome power of the sun or an incursion onto Earth by a life form that not only may lack comprehensible motivation but which may be so different that the lecture Natalie Portman's Lena gives to her students about the cell being the basic building block of life may not apply. It's also got a nifty cast, an aesthetic that veers between practical and impossible while using piercing light to put the audience off-guard, and a last act that is visually stunning but also challenging in how it pushes into bizarre situations without much in the way of explanation at all.

Indeed, it's so willing to trust the audience to catch up then that it makes the blemish of its framing device a little more noticeable; maybe the flashbacks/forwards help the audience identify with Lena more because they see something in her relationship with her husband, but it both could have come out in conversation with the other characters and seems kind of small, conventional potatoes against the rest of what's going on. It's hardly a problem (though the film only going that far is apparently why some of the producers and its studio lost a certain amount of faith in it), especially when it's so great otherwise



My flight back was fairly early on Tuesday morning, although I was soon headed back downtown because Federal Express wouldn't deliver a parcel with my Red Sox season ticket package while I was away, and that meant going halfway back to the airport. The FedEx facility is pretty near the seaport, but Icon was only open for the very early and very late shows that day, so I couldn't give it a look. Weird schedule. So I wound up headed to Boston Common to do a double feature of Game Night and Operation Red Sea, not yet aware that the latter would have a pretty impressive run there.

I mostly let go of scrambling to see all the Oscar nominees before the ceremony, because feeling like I was fulfilling an obligation would probably lead me to not actually enjoying Lady Bird and Call Me By Your Name even if I wouldnormally go for them. I did wind up going for the Documentary Shorts, although their length and scheduling meant seeing the first three at the Coolidge on Thursday night and the last two at the ICA on Saturday, where they wound up playing in reverse order, confusing some of the folks there. I might have done that double feature, but I'd already purchased tickets for a different double feature a few weeks earlier, with the Alloy Orchestra accompanying The General and A Page of Madness at the Somerville Theatre.

Sunday would be Oscar Night, but instead of catch-up my matinees were a couple of foreign oddities. I got up early to take the T out to Brookline for the Goethe-Institut screening of Wild Mouse, which I might not have prioritized if the Wilde Maus roller coaster in Wiener Prater hadn't caught my eye when I was on vacation in Vienna last fall. That's probably not the best reason to see a movie, but, on the other hand, if that can be a reason for you to see a movie, you really should make the effort. After that, it was up the Green Line for Detective Chinatown 2, and then home for the Oscars. Which were fun; I like the positive vibe Kimmel brings to it and years where, even if one movie wins a lot, nothing really dominates.

The General (1926)

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen on 3 March 2018 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Alloy Orchestra, digital)

I know the Alloy Orchestra uses this to get people to come out for the back end of a double feature which is somewhat more esoteric, but it's nevertheless a great experience on its own - a fantastic movie and they've honed their propulsive score to perfection.

Other than that, what to add to the other times I've talked about this movie? It's a ton of fun, the choreography and stuntwork is fantastic, and even in an era where we probably want to be a little more conscious about presenting the Confederacy as heroes, there's something absurd enough about the way Buster Keaton presents them to make it go down a bit easier.

Full review at EFC (from 2004).

Kurutta ippêji (A Page of Madness)

* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen on 3 March 2018 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Alloy Orchestra, digital)

Ever since learning about the Japanese tradition of narrated spent films, I've wondered if seeing something like A Page of Madness without a benshi is a bit off the original intent. It's a fascinating film to watch and the lack of intertitles makes it feel like a pure, abstracted silent, but maybe it wasn't meant to be quite so abstract.

It's intriguing nonetheless, spending most of its time in a mental hospital where a humble janitor seems to have more empathy for the patients than either the doctors or their visitors, particularly a woman who seems to have snapped after losing a child. It can sometimes straddle a fine line between gawking and sympathy in how the inmates are observed, and the story could occasionally use that narrator as it presents alternate outcomes.

It's often striking, though, especially for how willing the filmmakers are to muddle which side of the bars one is on from shot to shot. There will often be no visual signifier to distinguish looking out and looking in, which both makes it easier to see insanity consume the seemingly sane and to wonder about often this sort of commitment is less helpful than convenient, or if the cruelty toward the patients is more dangerous than their afflictions.

The Alloy Orchestra were quite good, as usual, even if certain bits of the score did seem a bit more awkwardly "oriental" than is comfortable from western performers, although that diminished the deeper one got into the film.



The next week was a little more relaxed, starting with a sort of mini-theme that nobody involved would have planned: On Tuesday night, I hit the Brattle to see Skyfall on 35mm film as part of their series on Oscar nominated winning cinematographer Roger Deakins. It looked fantastic, obviously, but it also served as a bit of a contrast to Agent Mr. Chan the next night, which was a straight up James Bond spoof, something a little less relevant in an era that has already seen the "Bond Begins" of Casino Royale.

The weekend was about going to theaters I don't hit that often. Early Man was down to just matinee shows in the small room at Fresh Pond, and it's a bummer it didn't have more success here; it's quality work from Aardman, although I didn't realize that it had been a decade since Nick Park's last directing credit. Later that evening, I headed to the Seaport to catch Red Sparrow on their big "Icon-X" screen, and returned the next morning to see A Wrinkle in Time in 3D. The picture is extraordinary (for digital), although that's really not the place to go to see how kids are going to react to that movie.

Skyfall

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen on 6 March 2018 in the Brattle Theatre #1 (Roger Deakins, 35mm)

There are a lot of reasons why Skyfall is an all- timer as far as James Bond movies are concerned, but it was playing the Brattle as part of a Roger Deakins series, so you'll forgive me for mainly focusing on how it looks amazing. It was on film, too, a pleasant surprise considering that it's not always a sure thing that actual prints exist when the movie is of such recent vintage.

I am, personally, very glad that this one in particular was good, because my second viewing was actually in London, at the Imax theater not far from Parliament where some of the action took place, the sort of thing that sticks a movie in one's head just a tiny bit more.

One thing that really struck me was how it disassembled both classic Bond and the newer pictures in order to ultimately arrive at a version of the franchise that is both traditional and very modern. It's an impressive balance that they couldn't really achieve again with Spectre, and I hope like heck that Danny Boyle can hit this spot for Daniel Craig's expected last go around.



The next week would be pretty quiet - it snowed again, so I didn't mess around for a couple of days - but it led to a decent weekend: I caught Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story on Friday night, which I enjoyed, and then Tomb Raider on Saturday, heading out to South Bay because they had the cheapest 3D show. Probably won't be doing that much in the future; it's a hike and I like the way that the theaters are set up at other places a lot better than that spot.

Tomb Raider (2018)

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen on 17 March 2018 in AMC South bay #6 (first-run, RealD 3D DCP)

I wouldn't say that Tomb Raider doesn't deserve Alicia Vikander; it's got the makings of a top-flight adventure series despite being a second run at something adapted from a video game and having someone like Vikander in the lead can only help. But it absolutely needs her; in an age where new big-screen pulp shows up every week and only a few have truly great action or effects, someone who can grab the audience between the running, jumping, and punching is a must.

Tomb Raider isn't one of the great ones; its story is one part lost-parent quest and one part vague, almost incidental conspiracy. The filmmakers show only the vaguest interest in the mythological story being chased down, the sort is moved forward by people doing something dumb just to make things happen, and it absolutely involves a collapsing floor that is apparently not a big deal on the way out of the trap-filled tomb. The action is fine but often uncreative; you'd think they would pick up some guys to help with that during a stop in Hong Kong.

There's no denying it's got all the pieces, though, with a star who always makes her scenes worth watching improving a film that, even if it seldom hits the highest heights, seldom screws things up. With a supporting cast for the first that includes Kristen Scott Thomas, Walton Goggins, Nick Frost, Dominic West, Daniel Wu, and Derek Jacobi, some of whom could come back, it's certainly well-placed to be a decent film series if the producers fine-tune it in the right ways.

Alloy Orchestra: HE Who Gets Slapped

Is it just me, or is the Alloy Orchestra's visit coming earlier every year? I can go back and check, but it seems like they used to arrive in February or March, but I'm probably wrong about that. Still, they're always welcome, even if I must admit that I kind of miss when they performed right on the stage, sometimes even casting a sight shadow on the edge of the screen. They've had their orchestra pit in working order for (I think) a bit more than a year now, which means the band is hidden:



(OK, they're not actually there.)

As usual, it was a fun show, even if they're projecting video rather than their own restored prints nowadays and the couple behind me seemed to think that the characters not talking meant it was fine to talk amongst themselves juuuust enough to be a distraction but not quite enough to compel shushing.

The combination of movie choice and band was kind of interesting, too. The program noted that it was MGM's first production, but you won't find it on the list of films being offered on DVD as part of their 90th anniversary, and not just because there's not a huge market for silent films these days; MGM is a shell of its former self, with most of its library in the hands of Warner Brothers and the present-day studio surviving by remaking material from the United Artists catalogs and that of other groups they've absorbed. The brand should honestly be allowed to retire with dignity as a going concern with the trademarks winding up with the films at Warner Home Video, but that won't happen.

The funny thing is that despite the remains of MGM being scattered to the four winds, their logo still pops up at the beginning of their movies on video, and the audience got a kick out of how Leo the Lion just sort of looked around rather than actually roaring, what with this being a silent.

I did find Alloy doing this film a bit odd, though, if only because there's another local group, Cirkestra, that occasionally accompanies silents around here, especially if they're as circus-themed as this movie. It was tough not to think of them at times, especially when the musicians were going full circus on the soundtrack. I'm kind of curious to hear what they would do with this movie.


Neither will be at the Somerville this weekend, when Jeff Rapsis takes up residence for a weekend of silent films kicking off the 100 days leading to the 100th anniversary, with a Mary Pickford program on Friday, Lillian Gish in D.W. Griffith's Way Down East on Saturday, and Wings on Sunday. Genuine 35mm on each one, most (I believe) from the Library of Congress collection. It's going to be a good few days for those of us that like the silents.


HE Who Gets Slapped

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 25 January 2014 in Somerville Theatre #6 (World Music/CrashArts, digital with live accompaniment)

What remains of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year, although it's spent so much of recent decades in and out of bankruptcy, selling its library off, replacing it with other acquisitions, and partnering up with other studios that it's almost impossible to think of today's MGM as the same entity that produced HE Who Gets Slapped as its first project. That's a genuine shame, because HE is a bold, entertaining silent with a fine cast and style to spare.

It starts with scientist Paul Beaumont (Lon Chaney) announcing his tremendous discovery on the origins of human life to his beloved wife Maria (Ruth King) and patron Baron Regnard (Marc McDermott), the latter of whom will arrange for him to present it to the Paris Academy. Base treachery soon leaves him with nothing, and he reinvents himself as the clown "HE Who Gets Slapped" at a circus outside the city. Years later, someone new joins the troupe, Consuelo Mancini (Norma Shearer), a skilled horsewoman who attracts the attention of both HE and Bezano (John Gilbert), the show's other equestrian daredevil. Of course, her father, the bankrupt Count Mancini (Tully Marshall), would rather a marriage be arranged to a wealthy aristocrat.

The story that director Victor Sjöström (credited as "Victor Seastrom") is telling here is fairly elemental; were it to be adapted again today, it would likely be dressed up with subplots, twists, and layers of ambiguity. And that would be fine - times change - but a huge part of what makes Sjöström's film so effective is its almost shocking directness. Beaumont is torn down nearly as quickly as he was built up, and his nameless position in the circus is an obvious but effective reminder of what put him there. From there, let's just say that Sjöström and company are not particularly wishy-washy where the climax of the film is concerned.

That pulling-no-punches style doesn't mean that Sjöström made the sort of film that is grounded in modern realism; it's very much a product of the silent era, fading the circus audience to that of the Academy and back to show that HE is not beyond that moment, snickering descriptions of new characters in the intertitles, and a gigantic neon sign perhaps meant to give an ironic indication of how the fame HE earns as a slapstick clown dwarfs what he might have achieved as a scientist (even as characters wonder why they laugh at violence being done to one who does not really deserve it). The five-year jump is accompanied by a bit of effects work that is now quaint, but also perfectly implies that the whole world is a circus. It ties into a repeated bit of nightmare fuel - HE grinning for no reason, spinning a ball against a plain background - that never ties into the story around it but emphasizes that HE may not just be wronged, but mad.

It's a great part for legend Lon Chaney, who doesn't undergo the sort of physical transformation he is famous for but does certainly do a few things to earn his nickname of "The Man with 1,000 Faces". There is a remarkable feeling of transformation between the sweet, bearded Paul and the later clown, just as Chaney can make HE shift from a sad, forlorn character to a grinning terror when the chance for revenge comes. The film was also a star-making picture for two of his co-stars: Norma Shearer is certainly magnetic as the girl that all the men in the movie desire (and she gives Consuelo a bit of upper-class attitude without making her feel snooty), while John Gilbert is impressively handsome and physical without seeming a block of wood. Ruth King and Marc McDermott give the sort of silent performances that let the audience hear their words without crazy gesticulations, while Tully Marshall goes all-in as Count Mancini.

Unlike the performances, the soundtrack can change every time one sees a silent, and the one composed and performed by the Alloy Orchestra is likely quite different from the one on the Warner Brothers DVD. The Alloy score's a good one; somewhat conventional in the early reels but shifting to circus music as the action shifts there, and kicking the big-top sound into a more frantic gear to match the action when the time comes.

Whatever soundtrack one sees "HE" with, it was an auspicious start for MGM, even if it was not actually the studio's first film released (the film was held for a more prestigious end-of-year slot; that practice apparently goes way back). Today, it is certainly an artifact of its time, but that does little to diminish it; it's a terrific silent film, as noteworthy for its quality as its place in history.

This Week In Tickets: 23 September 2013 - 29 September 2013

Not a busy week, but makes up for it by being pretty good.



Stubless: We Are What We Are, Thursday 19 September 2013, 7:30pm, Regal Fenway #2

... Although, I suppose you could say I did have a stub for that, in the form of the piece of paper taped to a seat to reserve it for me because I'm an IFFBoston member. Disappointingly, it wasn't a packed house for this preview, despite all the local festivals and horror-oriented websites saying this was likely to be good and worth watching. I was surprised how good it was, just because I half-remembered the original as putting me to sleep, but Jim Mickle did a great job with the material.

It was one of two things this week where I didn't miss the bus on purpose in the morning but didn't complain, as it's a lot easier to put in a full day of work at get to a theater on the gren line in the 7pm hour from home than from Burlington. The other was Monday's screening of The Last Command at the Coolidge with the Alloy Orchestra. I thought I'd seen it with them before, but the only entry on the blog is from a Sterberg/Dietrich series at the Brattle almost ten years ago.

Between and after those: The surprisingly good last-minute-replacement Jose e Pilar as part of the Gathr screening series on Tuesday; my last show in the HFA's Hitchcock series, Suspicion, on Friday; straight-from-China prequel Young Detective Dee on Saturday; and Ron Howard's latest, Rush, on Sunday.

One per day is kind of short, but there's still baseball, and even though there's going to be more in October, I cling to the regular season because I don't want to let the summer go without a fight.

The Last Command

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 23 September 2013 in Coolidge Corner Theatre #1 (Sounds of Silents, 35mm w/ live accompaniment)

I cringe to look at my original review of this movie, not just because the stuff I wrote nine-plus years ago is not very good (as you might expect), but because I openly admit that I arrived late and reviewed it based on that. Granted, back then I was just throwing this stuff up on the blog for my own amusement, but it was less than a month before I started writing for eFilmCritic and imported everything that thirty-year-old me didn't find too embarrassing. I've revised that review a bit.

I still like the movie an awful lot, though: For all that the bits with the aged, shaky Sergius Alexandr seems kind of blunt, the movie is a fine story of not judging a man's morality by his politics, and Evelyn Brent is rather fantastic in it. And, yes, it really does pay to see it from the beginning: Missing the first couple of minutes with William Powell the first time meant that I wasn't completely keyed into his character's potential for meanness when he reappeared later, and having it in mind that this former revolutionary has the capability to be so vindictive does affect the way one looks at the character.

Revised review at eFilmCritic

Suspicion

* * * (out of four)
Seen 27 September 2013 in the Harvard Film Archive (The Complete Hitchcock, 35mm)

Given how certain an element of a thriller that the shocking twist has become, the way Hitchcock's Suspicion ends is kind of a surprise on its own; it not only doesn't end the way one has come to expect, but it's even more abrupt that the typical Hitchcock finale.

This isn't one of the greatest thrillers of its type - even considering that it's from 1941, it seems a bit generic, like the writers had the basic shell of a "did I marry a killer?" story but didn't really have a unique setting or character hook to run with. It's a workable enough story that actually does fairly well to keep certain things off-screen, and while it's sort of dated in spots, there's a lightness to much of the activity that makes the genuine threats that make their way into the movie that much more sinister.

That includes - perhaps primarily - Cary Grant, who plays his character in much the same way he'd play his comic roles, tossing off quips and showing a casual, insouciant charm even as he's being an utter jerk, with just the sort of twinkle that lets the audience believe that his wife will give him the benefit of the doubt even when the audience is past that. Joan Fontaine isn't quite so ideal here as she was in her previous collaboration with Hitchcock (Rebecca), but she has moments, especially when Lina is allowed to be confident. Nigel Bruce, meanwhile, is kind of charming as the dimwitted Beaky, although, man, this guy is dumber than his version of Dr. Watson.

Rush

* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 29 September 2013 in Regal Fenway #5 (first-run, 4K DCP)

I've never been a particular naysayer where Ron Howard was concerned, and am in fact usually pretty surprised when I see folks acting like he is a particular blight upon filmmaking - his stuff is mainstream, but generally fairly capable, and he's got a real knack for doing movies that are technically very difficult without ever letting the spectacle overwhelm the storytelling. (See: Apollo 13) So I'm kind of surprised that it's Rush, of all movies, that seems to be getting him some praise.

It's not a bad movie, by any means; Howard really does know how to present a story clearly, neither overweighing things nor allowing the movie to feel like it's just filling time. That's a good trait to have with this movie, where supporting characters are drifting in and out and the real-life story doesn't really allow for streamlining to a simple story. He gets good performances out of stars Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Bruhl, with Hemsworth especially having great movie-star charisma that makes the movie slow smoothly and pleasantly.

But, like I said, the competition between James Hunt (Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Bruhl) is in some ways too full of the complications of real life to make a good movie. Take how the first act introduces a girlfriend for Hunt who disappears off-screen, quite contrary to how her introduction is such a big deal. Or the structure of the 1976 Grand Prix season, which denies the audience a real feeling of head-to-head competition between the two. That may be how things went, but it's not dramatically satisfying. Plus, for all that Howard and company shoot some great racing footage, it's not great action storytelling. Getting so close to the action doesn't often give the audience a chance to see what Hunt and Lauda are doing in relation to each other during the head-to-head races.

It goes down pretty easy, and Hans Zimmer contributes a good soundtrack that becomes great as the closing credits roll. Rush is certainly no waste of time, but it's not going to be one that sticks in my head. It's filmed and acted well, but it seems like it skipped the step where writer Peter Morgan should have looked at it and decided it wasn't really a movie.

From Morn to Midnight with the Alloy Orchestra

Pretty simple rule of thumb: If the Alloy Orchestra is in town, you go see them. Not just because they are, as Roger Ebert once said, the best in the world at accompanying silent film, but because it's often a way to find interesting films. It's often something that tracks the venue that they're playing - when they're booked in the big rooms at the Somerville or Coolidge Corner Theatres, that generally means fairly well-known movies (not always; you sometimes get a wild-and-weird show), but when a museum books them, well, then it's time for something a little less common.

And, as mentioned in the review, it's hard to get much more obscure than From Morn to Midnight (the program and titles had "morning" instead of "morn", but every reference I found says otherwise). Apparently, despite being based on a relatively well-known play, it never opened in Germany after an initial press screening. I'm not sure how that happens - booking was very different back then, obviously, and maybe it played in some markets but it's just hard to find evidence of it, but it wound up down to one nitrate print at one point. Yikes.

That it was mostly championed in Japan made me wonder if it had managed to hook up with a really good benshi. As much as I think the movie itself is pretty good, their performance really underlined how much a quality soundtrack can add to it. This is a movie with a lot of abstractions, and their score managed the neat trick of being something familiar to hold on to and enhancing the oddness. Roger Miller's work on the keyboards, emphasizing how badly the cashier's daughter likely plays her piano, was the most obvious reminder of it. Similarly, I wonder if a benshi's acting, setting up context, and giving asides might have given the picture a boost in Japan that it didn't have elsewhere.

Anyway, if was a fun experience, so take a bow, guys:



Terry Donahue and Ken Winokur did a quick Q&A after the show. There wasn't a whole lot to say - the audience didn't have a lot of questions about the music specifically and they didn't have much more to say about the movie's odd provenance than what was explained in the opening titles.



Meanwhile, Roger Miller sold stuff. I kind of wish I'd stopped to look closer, because I see on their website that they've got an MP3 CD of their score to the complete Metropolis that can be synced with the Blu-ray. That's something I need.

Cropped out/unreadable: One of the greatest signs in a public performance area you'll ever see; someday I'm going to get a really good shot of it and make it my Twitter avatar or something. Also, it was kind of a bummer to see that the curtains were closed throughout, even before and after the show. The ICA's theater is one of the coolest places to see a movie in part because it can actually be opened up to let in natural light on three sides, while the screen has a lot of space behind it. It's a weird, cool, "suspended in space effect when they do some of that. Still, not as impressive when it's as damp and rainy a day as Saturday was.

Von morgens bis Mitternacht (From Morn to Midnight)

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 25 May 2013 at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (Alloy Orchestra, video)

To say that From Morn to Midnight (Von morgens bis Mitternacht, in the original German) was not appreciated in its time is to understate the case rather severely: After a 1922 press screening, it never actually opened in Germany, though it was championed by critics in Japan, where a sole nitrate print survived long enough to be copied into a more stable format. It would likely have become obscure eventually, being a silent Expressionist film that it isn't quite in the top rank, but its unusual style and oddly compelling story makes it an interesting discovery.

A woman (Erna Morena) goes to the bank in a small German town looking for 10,000 marks in credit, the sum that her son (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski) needs to purchase a painting from a second-hand shop. The bank's director (Eberhard Wrede) refuses; he has received no communication about her bona fides. The cashier (Ernst Deutsch), struck by her beauty, opts to take the money and go to her himself, with the idea of leaving his dreary home life behind - though no matter where he goes, there is always a girl (Roma Bahn) in one form or another haunting him.

The film is divided into five acts, as was often the case for feature-length silent dramas, especially those based on stage plays. which is noteworthy on the one hand because it corresponds with Roma Bahn appearing in five different roles and on the other because Georg Kaiser's original work is described as "a play in seven scenes". I wonder if the story of the Dame, her son, and the scandalous painting is finished on the stage, and whether the poor old shopkeeper with the massive beard ever got paid for his troubles. Here, they seem to vanish once they've provided a reason for the cashier to steal and go on the run, setting up a somewhat familiar arc of dissatisfaction, greed, discovering riches aren't all they're cracked up to be, and eventually pining for one's "Sweet Home" and repentance.

Full review on eFilmCritic.

These Weeks In Tickets: 11 February 2013 - 24 February 2013

It's okay to miss a week during festivals, right? When you're seeing two movies a day but can only really write up one and a half, falling behind is sort of inevitable.



As you can see, the Boston Sci-Fi Film Fest ate my week (and, yes, it was apparently a "fest" versus a "festival" this year). I've managed to review everything I saw at the festival - The Final Shift, War of the Worlds: The Untold Story, Found in Time, Earthbound, Mars et Avril, When Time Becomes a Woman, Juan in a Million, El Xendra, S.I.N. Theory, Love & Teleportation, 95ers: Echoes, Space Milkshake, Motivational Growth, The History of Future Folk, and War of the Worlds: Goliath- and put up a diary of the marathon. Like always, I wish this event would grow a little faster; the emails I got for the Philip K. Dick science fiction festival in Brooklyn last fall suggests that it has already leapfrogged the festival portion of Boston's in its first year, although I don't know what sort of funds they have to go after movies rather than just rely on what showed up in their Withoutabox.

Like before, I'd really like to see a little more professionalism - better communications (which includes burning the website down and rebuilding from the ground), not projecting industry screeners, and, honestly, giving the awards out on merit rather than just because someone from the production showed up. Just as I felt in the last few years that the festival abused the "premiere" designation, both by advertising it for studios that weren't premieres and being the first to show movies because there were no other takers (honestly, would you recommend a festival on the basis of the movies being terrible but you get to see them first?), I think bypassing superior movies to give a best-in-fest award to Motivational Growth and giving War of the Worlds: Goliath a best animated film award when there's a field of one sends the right message to the wrong people: Sure, it might encourage some filmmakers to bring their movies in person, but does it impress those who could win the award on merit? I suspect not, and since a good reputation is the most valuable asset a festival can have, I don't see how these shortcuts can work.

Hope I'm wrong, though; as I say every year, this is something I'd love to see grow into a real "studios premiere their spring movies here and indies value Boston more than SXSW's midnight screenings" festival.

I did have time to squeeze one more movie in, and it sure was squeezed: I caught the Saturday midnight screening of Lost in Thailand on Saturday night, then walked home (no T after 1am-ish), wrote until I fell asleep, and then somehow made it to the marathon at noon as a non-zombie. Mostly worth it; it's a broad comedy, but that broadness translates reasonably well. I half-wonder if it's one of those movies that got a special, less-nationalistic cut for foreign distribution, because what I saw does much less to shove Chinese prosperity down one's throat than many similar movies from the People's Republic do.



Stubless: The second half of the marathon. Scroll up.

The Monday afternoon following the marathon is kind of weird - I'm generally actually pretty alert as things let out, get home, take a shower, and then start to drag mid-afternoon, at which point it's a struggle to get to eight or nine o'clock so that the rest of the week isn't messed up. I'd actually considered Happy People: A Year in the Taiga for that afternoon, but in that situation, Werner Herzog's voice and the relatively mild material would have knocked me out.

I caught it on Tuesday, and then didn't get to anything until the weekend, when it more or less revolved around The Alloy Orchestra's Buster Keaton show - I'd purchased the ticket a while ago, so it meant I was only going to see a bit of the Brattle's Matthew McConaughey mini-series (Magic Mike on Friday). For some reason or another, I didn't feel like heading back home immediately after that, so I headed to Boston Common and went for the next one I hadn't seen, which turned out to be Snitch, which wasn't bad. Sunday's movie was A Good Day to Die Hard, and I didn't dislike it nearly as much as others (faint praise!).

Had time after that to get some groceries before the Oscars started, although missing that might not have been a particular tragedy, as Seth McFarlane was more or less terrible, and I really didn't get the celebration of Chicago's tenth anniversary. That was pretty bad.

Magic Mike

* * * (out of four)
Seen 22 February 2013 in The Brattle Theatre (Matthew McConaughey, 35mm)

So, when did we start taking Channing Tatum seriously? 21 Jump Street seems like a reasonable if unlikely place to date it from, although some people did like him in A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints.

But, here he is now in the title role of this movie, pretty darn charming as an exotic dancer who isn't ashamed of that job but has other ambitions, eventually including the sister (Cody Horn) of the new kid (Alex Pettyfer). Add in Matthew McConaughey as the owner of the club and Olivia Munn as Mike's regular booty call, and it's a pretty nice cast, although not so star-powered that anyone overpowers the ensemble.

What's interesting is how it inverts a number of expectations. The biggest, of course, is going for the beefcake instead of the cheesecake, not just in finding reasons for characters to have their shirts off, but having scenes that are just there for the ladies to ogle men. Even more unusual, though, is how the apprentice winds up providing the object lesson for the mentor; Pettyfer's Adam spirals out of control in the way that Mike never did, and it's not really "man, I've gotten lucky" moment as much as seeing that he's the one that doesn't quite fit.

Buster Keaton Shorts

* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 23 February 2013 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Alloy Orchestra, digital)

Well, actually it's more Keaton & Arbuckle, as the first two of the three shorts are Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle things in which Buster has a supporting role - although the last one certainly makes up for that. It's a surprisingly stark difference, with Arbuckle going for very broad material while Keaton is still doing physical comedy, but it's incredibly precise and well-planned. To a certain extent, it shows why (beyond scandal and never really doing features) Keaton has endured and Arbuckle hasn't; Arbuckle's material feels dated and primitive while Keaton's, though clearly of its time, is narratively and technically sophisticated enough to hold up.

"The Butcher Boy", for instance, is certainly funny enough, but it's basically a collection of slapstick that you'd mostly find in kids' movies nowadays. It also becomes basically an entirely different movie halfway through, going from hijinks in a general store to Arbuckle and co-star Al St. John both sneaking into the boarding school where the owner's daughter has been sent (which means she's, what, 17 at most? Ick!). Amusing stuff.

"Good Night, Nurse!" is interesting in that it seems more like Buster is playing a part than usual, as the sadistic doctor running the sanitarium to which Fatty has been sent to with the intention of curing his alcoholism. Large chunks of it are completely arbitrary, but the cast (which overlaps a great deal with the previous movie) sells each joke pretty well.

"The Play House", though, is pretty amazing, especially in the opening sequences, as Keaton playing every part on screen, sometimes ten or eleven at once, and the compositing is pretty incredible. The funny thing is, as much as the trick photography is something to be marveled at there, it doesn't necessarily cross the audience's mind that Keaton and company are using it to make twins out of a single actress later. That's in part because Keaton is surprisingly good at the technical aspects, and in part because he's making good jokes that lead from one to the next.

It's pretty amazing, really, just how good Keaton was from an early age; he was 21 when he made "The Butcher Boy" (his first movie) and only 25 when creating something as technically impressive as "The Play House". Alloy was pretty good, too, although kind of low-key - I wasn't sure just how much anybody but keyboardist Roger Miller was playing; the others were in the pit and it was tough to see much activity.

Snitch

* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 23 February 2013 in AMC Boston Common #13 (first-run, DCP)

Man, does Dwayne Johnson need to find better parts. The guy is tremendously charismatic, has the sort of physical presence that the likes of Schwarzeneggar and the other action stars of the 1980s and 1990s did. And yet, this one has him behind the wheel of a truck for most of the action, which is still more impressive than a lot of what he's done in the past.

It is some pretty impressive action, though - writer/director Ric Roman Waugh came up through stuntwork, and he knows what he's doing. The last big chase scenes are actually pretty incredible, especially since, as far as I can recall, there were no digital effects companies listed in the closing credit crawl - Waugh and company just smashed the crap out of a bunch of cars, trucks, and a big rig or two. The execution of the action stuff, and a good deal of the crime story, is pretty darn good.

Unfortunately, there's an agenda at work, and while it's a noble one - I sympathize with the film's message of how mandatory minimum sentencing laws prevent the system from considering people as individuals - it's incredibly heavy-handed. There's also perhaps too little effort to sell the main premise of the movie, that Johnson's character, who works in construction, can do this sort of undercover work on behalf of the government to help his son.

A Good Day to Die Hard

* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 24 February 2013 in AMC Boston Common #19 (first-run, 4K DCP)

It's kind of amazing, really - you can spot the exact moment when A Good Day to Die Hard goes wrong. The first half of the movie makes a concerted effort to call back to the first, with John McClane (Bruce Willis) out of his league, confronted by his failure as a father, wandering into a mess orchestrated by folks who are, let's face it, much smarter than him. Even when he gets involved in a gigantic car chase, he seems to be kind of desperately making it up as he goes along.

And then, pretty close to the mid-point, son Jack (Jai Courtney) tells him to "do what you're good at - kill bad guys!" From that point on, McClane is in super-hero mode, tossing off cocky wisecracks rather than nervous ones, and often obviously right rather than really working to get things right. It actually makes the movie go too quickly at times - between John being too good at this and Jack being a very capable CIA guy, there's not time for the traditional Die Hard stuff where regular law enforcement is being played or a step behind, McClane just gets physically worn down, and the pieces of the real puzzle take a while coming together. They're too able to move from set-piece to set-piece.

Still, there are enough good parts that this movie won't actually sully the box set. The breakout and car chase in the first act are insanely good - I've been impressed with the stunt driving they've got in Russia ever since Junk, and while I'm sure there's a lot of CGI enhancement going on in this chase, it's insanely elaborate and dangerous-looking. There's also a nifty little scene toward the end, where John looks at Jack and says the day's been fun, that's easy to look at as macho neanderthal crap but which Willis acts well enough that it says, no, this has actually been a nightmare, but he is really happy to be with his boy anyway. There's a lot of dumb stuff in the movie's last act, but that bit makes a lot of it worthwhile.

(Still, given what everyone thinks they know about Jack in the beginning, would it have killed the producers to bring in Bonnie Bedelia for the last scene? Although, now that I think about it, it would kind of be great if Die Hard 6 were to include her in a bigger role than that sort of cameo, especially if the kids are going to be around. Let the facts of being divorced and knowing he screwed it up make John McClane squirm!)

This Week In Tickets: 17 September 2012 - 23 September 2012

Hey, I went to a Red Sox game and they won! I'm sure it's happened at some other point this season, but I can't recall it. Plus, movies!



Stubless: Young Gun in the Time, in my living room on Saturday night via a Fantasia Festival screener.

I've generally been terrible about watching screeners that I'm given to review, but there's something nicely focusing about another festival with the same movie coming up that gets the thing put in the DVD player. It's not like EFC is going to get other coverage of Fantastic Fest, after all (as much as I like Jay Whyte's enthusiasm, I am much less interested in hearing about the people who go than the movies they show).

Anyway, the week started with Blackmail with the Alloy Orchestra. It could have started with the first CineCaché screening of the fall, but, yeah, silent Hitchcock with live music wins. Of course, there were points on Monday when this didn't seem like a particularly great idea; getting from work in Burlington to the Coolidge for a 7pm show via public transportation is a near thing in the best of conditions and, man, was the 17th not the best of days. I thought things were going well when there was little wait between the 350 bus and the Red Line at Alewife and a C Line train showed up right away at Park, but it was slow in the tunnels and once we were out, it seemed like we were advancing meters at a time (you can feel the whole train wanting to yell "come on, you can do it!" to the engine until the mood inevitably turns angry). By the time I realized it would be faster to get out and walk, they wouldn't open the door even when stopped in a place where doing so would be perfectly safe. I arrived at the 7pm show at 7:20, and it's a good thing I didn't mind sitting on the end of the front row, right next to the band, which was just starting to accompany the "Filmstudie" short. I think it's one of the ones I saw this March; especially since another short started as soon as it finished, causing the guys in the band to ask if someone could tell the projectionist to go to the main film, because while "The Life of a Film Extra" is a fun film, they weren't going to do that one. Screwy night all around.

As for the rest, I hit the RPX screen for Dredd in 3D and went to Somerville for End of Watch. I'd heard good things about Dredd's use of 3D and the RPX screen is the best for that in the area, non-actual-IMAX category, while at Somerville, sometimes you get lucky and wind up with film on the big screen, but not today. An interesting pairing, just because they both wind up being "two cops in an ambush" movies, but good ones that take things in entirely different directions.

Blackmail (silent version)

* * * (out of four)
Seen 17 September 2012 in Coolidge Corner Theatre #1 (Sounds of Silents, 35mm w/ live accompaniment)

I've reviewed this one before, and pretty much stand by that assessment: Good movie, Hitchcock was great from the start... You know the drill. It does, admittedly, lose a little something the second time through; there's a bit less delight in the perversity of the situation and the actions of the characters seem less motivated, while the finale is kind of a cheat. It's not enough to spoil the movie, but does lead to those weird moments when you remember something being great, but the reality is not quite there.

Still, it's a fun movie with some nifty work for a silent; the rig they must have built for a scene where the characters climb a staircase must have been pretty elaborate. It's a reminder that I really should get back on that "all Hitchcock in order" project, maybe working my way up to Universal by the time their massive Blu-ray box arrives in a month.

This Week In Tickets: 30 January 2012 - 5 February 2012

Well, the "always have it up on Monday" plan didn't really last for a month. In my defense, I actually spent a lot of time in theaters this week, with Wednesday the only real "day off":



Friday, meanwhile, was a day off from work as IT reconfigured our computers for the new corporate overlords, and while for the most part, I'm not noticing much difference in working for a gigantic company versus the start-up it acquired, I might just decorate my laptop with stickers that accidentally cover the camera. I spent the day lolling around the house doing nothing, but it let me get to the MFA in time for a Miyazaki double feature.

And as you can see, I wasn't watching football Sunday night. Hey, it's not like I watched any of the Patriots' other 18 games this season, and Oscilloscope had been strangely quiet about opening We Need to Talk About Kevin in Boston. I suspect plans changed when it wasn't nominated for the expected Oscars (really, how does the Best Actress category not have either Kirsten Dunst or Tilda Swinton?), but it wasn't on the postcard they included in my latest Circle of Trust DVD, either. I hear it's been booked in West Newton, but the expected Cambridge playdates have yet to be announced.

Funny thing: This was the second time I've wound up watching a preview for a dark, dark movie at the HFA instead of the Super Bowl; the first being Irreversible. Since I arrived late and was in the front row, I don't know if Kevin had any walk-outs. It was eerily quiet when I got out, though - I could have walked back home in the middle of the street in perfect safety, just like the morning after a major snowstorm. But, hey, at least I saw a really good movie; I'm probably ahead of the folks who watched a crushing loss in that regard.

Beginners

* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 31 January 2012 in the Brattle Theatre [(Some of) The Best of 2011, 35mm]

Beginners is a cute, pleasant-enough little movie that will probably be seen as smothering Christopher Plummer's great performance, since that's what has been getting the bulk of the acclaim as people started making lists and filling in ballots to commemorate the change of one year to another. I think that might be a fair assessment - if the "Beginners" of the title are people just figuring out how to be in a relationship, despite their not exactly being kids any more, maybe we should see Plummer's Hal stumble with his new out-ness more, especially when what's going on with Hal's son Oliver (Ewan McGregor) and Anna (Mélanie Laurent), the equally relationship-challenged girl he meets is nice, but not quite superlative. There's also hints that this is the first time Hal and Oliver have ever been anything like close, but there's not a lot of beginners' mistakes there, either.

Still, there's not a bad performance from the main cast - McGregor and Laurent don't get to play parts as flashy as Plummer's, but they play their learning-how-not-to-be-lonely parts well. Pllummer is, of course, excellent, and while writer/director Mike Mills does tend to get a little cutesy with a gimmick in Oliver's narration a few times, he's also genuinely fantastic at how he abruptly moves back and forth in time, really making it clear that Oliver, for as hopeful as his present is and how hard he's trying, is very much stuck in the past at times.

The Alloy Orchestra: "Wild and Weird"

Seen 4 February 2012 in Somerville Theatre #1 (CrashArts)

The Alloy's annual visit to the Somerville Theatre wasn't quite a new soundtrack for a silent classic this year, but a concert where they accompanied ten short films, mostly from the early silent era, half of them over a hundred years old. They were projected from a video source, but almost all of them were kind of amazing in one way or another, as early filmmakers played with special effects, animation, and broad slapstick. There were a couple of variations on a theme - two takes on Windsor McCay's "Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend", only one of which by McCay himself; two with insect casts. Sometimes you have to catch yourself - at one point during "Red Spectre", I found myself thinking that it looked a bit rough before remembering that it was made in 1927 and the full color was actually amazing.

I am a little disappointed that I didn't get pictures, because this was the first time I've seen the Somerville's reconstructed orchestra pit in action. It changes the experience from the previous Alloy shows I've seen, where they're on stage next to the film and I find myself watching both - less makeshift, sure, but I did kind of find myself missing the band and their more unusual percussion being a visible part of the show.

Gianni e le donne (The Salt of Life)

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 5 February 2012 in Coolidge Corner Theatre #2 (Talk Cinema, 35mm)

The Salt of Life is the title given to this movie for it's American release; the actual title translates to "Gianni and the Woman", which is kind of literal but less pretentious, which might have been preferable. There's no great wisdom or philosophy to be found here, but a few smiles, as it's an amiable enough "late-life-crisis" movie.

It's one of those films that's "more a character piece", and this is one of the times that feels a bit like a cop-out. Character is best expressed via the character's action, and Gianni doesn't really do a lot; most of the time, he seems to be an unenthusiastic reflection of his friend Alfonso. It leads to a few funny moments, a few uncomfortable ones, and far too many moments that aren't really either. There either need to be more memorable moments or something stronger tying them together.

The Woman in Black

* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 5 February 2012 in Regal Fenway #11 (first-run, 4K digital)

A pretty darn solid ghost story. I think I enjoyed The Woman in Black much more than I expected, in part because it was going for a genre that seems hard to do authentically. The conventions of gothic horror movies were codified in film's infancy, and as the genre occasionally fell out of favor, the way movies were shot changed, and the basic culture became less familiar, there's a sense that later entries are trying to imitate the older ones, and it doesn't quite work; the cast and crew aren't as directly connected to the characters' world, and something about the look doesn't seem right. For example, during this one, I often found myself thinking that the background was too elaborate - the house should look like a flat matte painting, and the town should feel like it was built on a soundstage, with the camera and characters still lest it reveal that the scenery ends a foot past the edge of the frame.

But, judge this on what it is rather than an unfair (and sort of ridiculous) set of prejudices, and it works. The mythology makes a sort of spiritual sense, tragedy and fear loom over every inch of the story and setting, and director James Watkins times his scares well enough that the jumps punctuate stretches of actual nervousness. It's the sort of horror movie that wears its PG-13 rating as a badge of honor rather than an indication of compromise, and the cast does quite well when they are "doing" and "being" rather than just "establishing".

It's not perfect - through no fault of his own, Daniel Radcliffe is going to need a little more time to put Harry Potter behind him, especially for a role like this. Being young is fine, but his face needs to be more than glum; we need to see he's been shattered by tragedy. And like a lot of horror movies it doesn't quite stop at enough - it needs to bang the piano to punctuate something appearing, and any way you look at it, the last sequence is problematic. By and large, though, it works, creeping the audience out more than many of its more explicit counterparts.

We Need to Talk About Kevin

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 5 February 2012 at the Harvard Film Archive (Lynn Ramsay, 35mm)

As chilling as everybody its reputation, with fine performances by the actors playing the title character at various ages and John C. Reilly as his father, as well as an absolutely fantastic one by Tilda Swinton as Eva. Co-writer/director Lynn Ramsay maintains an incredible level of focus, never once going for twists when crushing, horrible inevitability is an option. It is, after all, not about what happened as much as the reaction to it and build-up to it. It does a legitimately great job of playing on the audience's emotions - as much as the easy, and likely right, explanation is that Kevin was just born bad, it's hard not to get caught up in Eva's feelings of guilt that maybe she did something wrong. Or, perhaps, she's an unreliable narrator... The simple explanation is probably right, but the nuances make it fascinating.

If there's one fault, it's the occasional use of ironic music and sound choices, which might be clever in another movie, but this isn't really a pop-culture commentary picture. Still, that doesn't come close to undercutting the movie's effectiveness.

Friends and family with young kids: Don't see this movie for, like, twenty years.