Opening this week
Role Models
– The premise is completely formulaic and potentially cheesy: A
couple of buddies get arrested and, for their community service
assignment, must serve as big brothers to a pair of misfit kids.
You know from the beginning that many necessary life lessons will
be learned and that all parties ultimat
ely will be better off for the unlikely friendships they’ve
formed. But it’s the wildly, hilariously crude way that director
David Wain and Co. approach this concept that makes
”
Role Models
”
so disarming. The rampant wrongness would have been amusing
enough on the page, but the delivery from co-stars Seann William
Scott, Paul Rudd and the supporting cast of both comedy veterans
and up-and-comers makes the material consistently laugh-out-loud
funny.
Wheeler (Scott) and Danny (Rudd) spend their days giving
just-say-no talks at Los Angeles schools and peddling the energy
drink Minotaur, a job that requires Wheeler to dress up in a furry
costume and guzzle gallons of green gunk. Danny, fed up with his
life and frustrated that his longtime girlfriend (Elizabeth Banks)
has just rejected his marriage proposal, snaps one day and gets
himself and Wheeler in trouble with the law. Rather than going to
jail, the two end up working with the Sturdy Wings mentoring group,
led by the damaged but overly earnest Gayle (Jane Lynch, stealing
every scene she’s in, as usual). While Wheeler gets paired up with
the freakishly foul-mouthed Ronnie (Bobb’e J. Thompson, radiating a
scary amount of confidence for a 12-year-old), Danny gets dweeby
teen Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse of
”
Superbad
”
), who’s obsessed with his live-action fantasy role-playing
game. Comedy, R.
Hitting the theaters
Opening this week
By The Associated Press
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas – This family drama depicts the Holocaust through the simplistic eyes of a child: all the brutality, all the absurdity, crystallized by the innocence of an 8-year-old boy. The lad is the son of a Nazi commandant, and he befriends a Jewish boy his age who is being held in the concentration camp his father oversees. Sounds mawkish, but the relationship between wide-eyed Bruno (Asa Butterfield) and sad-faced Shmuel (Jack Scanlon) is the most effective part of writer-director Mark Herman’s film, based on John Boyne’s novel.
Both boys are newcomers but the curious way they approach each other feels believable because their characters are so lonely, and the friendship that blossoms between them has an undeniable sweetness – even though they’re separated by an ever-present and imposing barbed-wire fence. You know you’re being manipulated, but Herman, who also directed the small gem “Little Voice,” shows admirable restraint – until the very end, that is. The climactic conclusion is so preposterous, so over-the-top in its melodrama, it’s more likely to elicit incredulous frustration than sorrow. The insistent score from James Horner, an Oscar winner for “Titanic,” overpowers us with a sense of dread, which is unnecessary. This is a movie about the Holocaust, after all; clearly, something horrific is going to happen. David Thewlis co-stars as Bruno’s singularly driven father, and Vera Farmiga makes things vaguely interesting as his mother, but only once she snaps and realizes that her husband may not be such a good guy after all. Drama, PG-13.
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa – The pampered zoo animals of the 2005 animated hit this time are dropped off on the African mainland for what amounts to more of the same in this shrill, unamusing sequel. Key voice stars Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith return, along with Sacha Baron Cohen and Cedric the Entertainer. Operating on the principle that the bigger the menagerie, the merrier the movie, the filmmakers tack on fresh characters to the point of distraction, including the late Bernie Mac, Alec Baldwin and singer will.i.am. With so many characters to cram in and not much for many of them to do, the sequel ends up a choppy, episodic affair.
Whether or not they’ve seen or remember the original flick, young kids will eat up this manic mess, a nonstop rush of slapstick and jabbering dialogue. The noise and mayhem will annoy, or at least bore, most parents, who can take some solace in the movie’s brisk running. Animation, PG.
Repo! The Genetic Opera – One of the worst movies of the year, if not all time. This goth garbage isn’t clever enough to be “Sweeney Todd” and it isn’t campy enough to be “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” (and along those lines, it’s not even worthwhile in a culty, midnight-movie way). In fact, it’s hard to tell whether “Repo!” is trying to be serious or funny, the tone from director Darren Lynn Bousman (“Saw II” through “Saw IV”) is so erratic.
One thing’s for certain: This is one of those movies you have to watch through splayed fingers – not because it’s so pervasively violent and gory, which it is, but because it is simply too cringeworthy to look at head-on. If you’ve heard of “Repo!” at all, it’s probably because of the involvement of Paris Hilton, and for no other reason. Hilton actually has a supporting role here as a sort of naughty-vampira version of herself: a black-tressed heiress who’s hooked on plastic surgery. And yes, she does sing, but no better or worse than anyone else. The intentionally dissonant tunes with their painfully clunky lyrics, which writers Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich first created for their “Repo!” stage musical, are set in a futuristic society where people’s organs mysteriously fail and transplants become not just necessary but fashionable. That’s where the biotech company GeneCo steps in, headed by CEO Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino, inexplicably slumming). But if you can’t afford to pay for your new heart or spleen, GeneCo sends the Repo Man (Anthony Stewart Head) to collect. And he sings while he’s doing it! Comedy, R.
Role Models – The premise is completely formulaic and potentially cheesy: A couple of buddies get arrested and, for their community service assignment, must serve as big brothers to a pair of misfit kids. You know from the beginning that many necessary life lessons will be learned and that all parties ultimately will be better off for the unlikely friendships they’ve formed. But it’s the wildly, hilariously crude way that director David Wain and Co. approach this concept that makes “Role Models” so disarming. The rampant wrongness would have been amusing enough on the page, but the delivery from co-stars Seann William Scott, Paul Rudd and the supporting cast of both comedy veterans and up-and-comers makes the material consistently laugh-out-loud funny.
Wheeler (Scott) and Danny (Rudd) spend their days giving just-say-no talks at Los Angeles schools and peddling the energy drink Minotaur, a job that requires Wheeler to dress up in a furry costume and guzzle gallons of green gunk. Danny, fed up with his life and frustrated that his longtime girlfriend (Elizabeth Banks) has just rejected his marriage proposal, snaps one day and gets himself and Wheeler in trouble with the law. Rather than going to jail, the two end up working with the Sturdy Wings mentoring group, led by the damaged but overly earnest Gayle (Jane Lynch, stealing every scene she’s in, as usual). While Wheeler gets paired up with the freakishly foul-mouthed Ronnie (Bobb’e J. Thompson, radiating a scary amount of confidence for a 12-year-old), Danny gets dweeby teen Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse of “Superbad”), who’s obsessed with his live-action fantasy role-playing game. Comedy, R.
Soul Men – This stale buddy road-trip movie will be remembered mainly as the untimely swan song of Bernie Mac, the comic great who died in August at just 50. When it’s about Mac and Samuel L. Jackson, co-starring as former bandmates bickering over decades of pent-up resentments, “Soul Men” has a fiercely raunchy, buoyant energy about it. Trouble is, the movie from director Malcolm Lee (“Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins”) and screenwriters Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone crams in myriad needless subplots – ostensibly to provide padding, which only draws attention to how thin the original story really is.
Mac and Jackson, who were longtime friends off-screen, bounce off each other with expert timing and equally matched, wild-eyed volatility, and when they’re on, the movie is on. Mac’s Floyd Henderson and Jackson’s Louis Hinds were one-time backup singers to Marcus Hooks (John Legend in a cameo) and the three were a popular Motown-style group until Marcus took off on his own for solo stardom. Louis and Floyd stuck it out as a duo through the ’70s until they fell in love with the same woman, which tore them apart. Now, with the announcement of Marcus’ death, the two must reunite for a tribute concert at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Naturally, this requires them to travel across the country in a bright green, 1971 Cadillac El Dorado – the same kind of car that belonged to Isaac Hayes, who also has a cameo as himself and who died the day after Mac – because flying wouldn’t eat up enough time. The road trip also allows them to dust off their act (and their wardrobes) at various gigs across the country, and spar some more. Sharon Leal from “Dreamgirls” co-stars as the grown-up daughter of the woman they both loved, and Jennifer Coolidge shows up for one uncomfortably unfunny sex scene. Comedy, R.
Playing Nov. 7 – 14
Beverly Hills Chihuahua – Warning: This film contains talking animals – and their not animated. In the film from Raja Gosnell, a shi-shi Beverly Hills Chihuahua gets parted from her owner while on vacation from Mexico. Voiced by Drew Barrymore, Chloe runs into a motley crew of Mexican dogs as she tries to find her way back home across the border. Comedy, PG.
The Changeling – Directed by Clint Eastwood, the movie tells the true story of Christine Collins, a woman whose son goes missing in 1920s Los Angeles. A boy is soon returned to her, but she begins to suspect it is not her son. Starring Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich and Michael Kelly. Drama, R.
The Haunting of Molly Hartley – Molly Hartley (Haley Bennett) moves to a new school for a fresh start, but her haunted past continues to follow her. Also starring Jacke Weber, Chace Crawford and Shannon Marie Woodward. Thriller, PG-13.
High School Musical 3 – It’s senior year for the Wildcats, and Troy (Zac Efron) and Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens) need to get used to the idea of being separated for college while spending time with their friends. Also starring Ashley Tisdale, Corbin Bleu and KayCee Stroh. Musical comedy, G.
Saw V – The Jigsaw murder spree continues in Saw V with Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) and Agent Strahm (Scott Patterson) following the leads. Also starring Betsy Russell, Tobin Bell and Julie Benz. Horror, R.
The Secret Life Of Bees – How can a movie populate a house with Queen Latifah, Alicia Keys and Jennifer Hudson and NOT give us a song? Though the cast might suggest a musical, “The Secret Life of Bees” is an earnest, saccharine adaptation of Sue Monk Kidd’s best-selling 2002 novel, brought to the big screen by director Gina Prince-Bythewood (“Love & Basketball”).
The novel, set in South Carolina in 1964, came out of nowhere to sell millions in paperback, so this adaptation arrives with much anticipation from its readers. The film stays close to the novel in telling the story of Lily Owens (Dakota Fanning), a 14-year-old girl who runs away from an abusive father, fleeing with her caretaker (Hudson). They end up serendipitously at the house of the bee-keeping Boatwright sisters (Latifah, Keys and Sophie Okonedo). The three, particularly Latifah’s motherly character, rejuvenate Lily and teach her about love through bees. Keys is by far the most riveting thing in the otherwise one-dimensional, overly simplistic film. All distrust and uptight anger, she dominates the screen with a tension the movie can’t find anywhere else – in the plot, in Lily, even in the early 1960s racial turmoil. Drama, PG-13.
Zack and Miri Make a Porno – The extreme opposites within Kevin Smith’s filmmaking personality co-exist here, to hit-and-miss effect. Yes, there is a ton of sex in “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” as the title would suggest, including one scene that is so incredibly wrong, words don’t even begin to describe it. A proliferation of raw, raunchy dialogue has always been one of the writer-director’s preferred tactics, dating back to his pioneering 1994 debut, “Clerks,” and that’s certainly true this time, as well – actually, it’s more relevant than usual.
But “Zack and Miri” also reflects the sweetness that has crept intermittently into Smith’s movies in recent years as he’s settled into his real-life roles as husband and father. (See: “Jersey Girl.”) A guy and a girl, longtime best friends and roommates, realize they’re secretly in love with each other – it’s one of the most hackneyed romantic comedy premises of all time. Through Smith’s skewed prism, though, Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) achieve this epiphany while having on-camera sex during an amateur adult movie, something they do out of desperation to pay the bills during a miserable Pittsburgh winter. Rogen and Banks make an extremely likable comic pair, despite the fact that they’re an unlikely romantic match (or perhaps because of it).
Both are clearly comfortable in such naughty but highly verbal territory as alumni of Judd Apatow movies – and, as in Apatow’s “Knocked Up,” this is yet another wish-fulfillment comedy in which the tubby, schlubby Rogen lands an impossibly beautiful woman who would never give him the time of day in real life. Comedy, R.
Hitting the couch
Movies out on DVD and Blu-Ray Nov. 11
Hellboy II: The Golden Army – The director of the eerily dark “Pan’s Labyrinth” brings to life the sequel to Hell Boy with the same questionable-looking creatures. Guillermo del Toro bringsto life the story of a mythical world rebelling against humanity’s rule on Earth. Ron Perlman is back as the lead with Selma Blair and Doug Jones co-starring. Action, PG-13. On DVD and Blu-ray
Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Written by Henry Gilroy and George Lucas, this animated feature is pretty much the same as the live-action Episode II: Attack of the Clones. It looks cool, but the story is a repeat. Animated, PG. On DVD and Blu-ray
Hitting the couch
Television shows out on DVD Nov.1
Scrubs seventh season – The comedy series about life working in a hospital continues with its seventh season.
Firefly: The Complete Series – In Joss Whedon’s series a renegade crew aboard a small spacecraft 500 years in the future travel to unknown parts of the galaxy. The series, starring Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk and Morena Baccarin, spawned the feature film “Serenity.” On Blu-ray
