Dog Days of Movie Summer

New and recent releases to check out in the heat of August.

August is practically halfway over – already, with only a few weeks left until Labor Day and the “official” end of the summer movie season. We’ve said several times before that the summer of 2009 wasn’t exactly one for the memory books, though now we see it has the potential to end strong. Several films are out now and several more are still come this month, and some of them even look promising.

Here’s the rundown of most of  the major openings, as well as an independent we think might have some potential. All release dates are for American markets, so some may not be accurate for international audiences.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (opened August 7): A week after its opening, the consensus of those who’ve seen this toy movie comes down to something like, “It wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been.” You know movies collectively are in a funk when the best thing said about a week’s tentpole opening is that it wasn’t the crap people were expecting. And people were expecting crap - there was heavy expectation for months that it would emerge as the grand flop of the summer.

In the unlikely event you don’t already know (and knowing is half the battle), the movie’s about a squad of government soldiers attempting to stop a terrorist group, and it’s based on a groundbreaking line of Hasbro toys from the 1980s. Dennis Quaid, Sienna Miller, and Channing Tatum star.

Julie & Julia (opened August 7): Lonely housewife and white collar drone Julie Powell (Amy Adams) tries to make all the recipes in Julia Child’s (Meryl Streep) memoir/cookbook My Life In France in a single year. Based on the chick lit bestseller (itself the first book based on a blog) and directed by Nora Ephron (You’ve Got Mail), the film is half Powell’s story and half biography of Child’s rise to becoming arguably the most famous chef in history. It’s a woman’s film, though it’s almost certainly better than last summer’s Streep offering, Mamma Mia! Stanley Tucci (Big Night), who we wish made more movies, plays Child’s husband.

Our full preview includes the trailer and a more in-depth plot summary and analysis.

The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard (opens August 14): With the exception of the dark horse The Hangover, most male-oriented comedies flopped hard this summer. Land of the Lost and Year One were deservedly dead on arrival, Funny People had naysayers announcing the end of the Apatow Dynasty, and Bruno came and went pretty fast. Meanwhile traditional female-centric romcoms like The Ugly Truth and especially The Proposal might as well have had licenses to print money.

But the guys’ comedies get one more chance with The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, the directing debut of Chappelle’s Show writer Neal Brennan. Jeremy Piven plays a used car uber-salesman hired to clear out a lot of 200 cars over the Fourth of July weekend. Abetting him are Ving Rhames, David Koechner, and Kathryn Hahn. The Hangover‘s Ed Helms, Jordana Spiro, and James Brolin also appear.

Our full preview includes the hilarious trailer and some ideas about why this might be the role Piven was born to play.

District 9 (opens August 14): A thriller in the vein of Species and Alien Nation, first-time feature director Neill Blomkamp’s gritty story imagines a world where aliens have lived in a kind of apartheid among the people of South Africa for decades. When a human inspector (Sharlto Copley) assumes some of the aliens’ DNA, the ruthless international corporation running their ghetto chases him through their sprawling encampment.

Peter Jackson directed the film, which only took shape after the long-ballyhooed film translation of the Halo video game fell apart. Not to second guess, but some images from the film’s TV spots suggest it’ll carry the glum meanstreak that resurfaced in Jackson’s work about two thirds of the way through Return of the King and helped make King Kong almost unwatchable. We hope not, because the film’s setup is fascinating, and there’s always room for another good science fiction film on our viewing schedules.

We’ve got a a preview of this one, too, that includes more background on Blomkamp as well as the film’s setup.

The Time Traveler’s Wife (opens August 14): A woman (Rachel McAdams) spends her life loving a man (Eric Bana) who, thanks to a rare genetic anomaly, compulsively travels through time. Based on the bestselling novel by Audrey Niffenegger and directed by Robert Schwentke (Flightplan), the film’s emphasis apparently rests on the romance side of the story.

Bana and McAdams should by all rights be bigger stars than they currently are, but this sort of sci-fi tinged melodrama doesn’t seem likely to push them up to the A-list. Early reviews have been mixed and often seemingly skewed to how much individual critics cared for the source novel.

We just compiled our list of favorite time travel romances earlier this week.

Inglourious Basterds (opens August 21): Universal’s marketing the living shit out of this on television, so is a synopsis really necessary? Writer-director Quentin Tarantino has said the film is his masterpiece, though what that could mean after the cinematic lip-syncing of Kill Bill and Grindhouse is anyone’s guess. As with so much of his recent work, it’s based on a cult film from the 1970s and reportedly continues his withdrawal from cinematic realism (which was never exactly his strong suit anyway.) History buffs will likely be less than pleased to know he’s changed the ending to World War II.

We imagine Tarantino’s fans (and we imagine there are less of them than in years past) will cheer while most everyone else remains indifferent. And yet, for all that we still love Jackie Brown.

Big Fan (opens limited release August 28): A parking lot attendant (Patton Oswalt) who’s also a New York Giants megafan struggles to cope with getting beat down by his favorite player. Kevin Corrigan and Michael Rapaport co-star, while Robert D. Siegel (The Wrestler) writes and makes his directing debut.

Actually, the script was one of The Wrestler’s biggest problems (we didn’t like the film), suffering from the same pretentious airlessness that’s also creeping into the edges of the trailer below. Still, Oswalt is exactly the actor to tackle a part like this, while Corrigan and Rapaport are the go-to guys for playing working-class Atlantic Northeast.

Monday we’ll have our review of The season 3 premiere of Mad Men. Have a good weekend.

- Michael Kabel

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Time Enough For Love

Five love stories with a time travel twist.

Seeing the trailer for the upcoming The Time Traveler’s Wife got us thinking about other love stories hinging on the science-fiction trope of time travel. There’s more than you might think. The blending of the two genres also serves a more pragmatic purpose, too, bringing the male-friendly sci-fi genre together with the female-dominated romance.

Actually, science fiction authors have understood this from the beginning: H.G. Wells included a love interest for the hero of his The Time Machine – the progenitor of most time travel stories – and more recent successes like Quantum Leap and even the Terminator series played on the bittersweet pathos of lovers separated by and through time.

We have mixed expectations regarding The Time Traveler’s Wife. Though screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin did pen the 1990 scare-your-ass-off thriller Jacob’s Ladder, director Robert Schwentke’s only major directing credit so far was the 2005 Jodie Foster vehicle Flightplan. Audrey Niffenegger’s bestselling source novel looks like weapons-grade chick lit but was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction; yet the film’s emphasis, judging by the trailer, is on the romance side of the story. Stars Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana are always welcome screen presences, though, and are almost certain to generate more heat than Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock managed in 2006′s vaguely similar The Lake House.

There are more time travel romances then the five listed below, though these are the ones we can recommend.

Time After Time (1979): Speaking of Wells,  co-writer-director Nicholas Meyer (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) adapted Karl Alexander’s novel about the author (Malcolm McDowell) time-travelling to the present day in pursuit of Jack the Ripper (David Warner.) The movie Wells finds love with bank employee Amy Robbins (Mary Steenburgen, Step Brothers) but (because they’re in a movie) she becomes the Ripper’s next target.

Though its premise may politely be described as “contrived,” the film works largely because all three principals are at the top of their games. McDowell is charming as a Victorian Utopianist lost in Disco Era Manhattan, and Steenburgen is as lovely and graceful as ever. On the other hand, you sort of expect Wells and Jack to square off more than they do, building more tension for the inevitable plot twists that happen later. With a heavyweight ringer like Warner playing history’s most notorious killer, the tension is there from jump.

Somewhere In Time (1980): A playwright (Christopher Reeve, Superman) falls in love with the woman (Jane Seymour) in a portrait he finds at a resort hotel. Using hypnosis, he travels back to 1912 to find her, even as her manager (Christopher Plummer) conspires to keep them apart.

The elaborate plot, written by Richard Matheson and based on his own novel, includes lots of smart paradoxes and complications. Unfortunately Reeve is somewhat miscast as a brainy playwright desperate to find his romantic ideal, though Seymour is spot-on as a Victorian stage actress. Director Jeannot Szwarc (Jaws 2) soaks the film in soft-focused opacity to recreate the sumptuous pre-World War I era, even if its pace often stalls out.

Made In Heaven (1987): The time travel method in this overlooked melodrama by eclectic director Alan Rudolph (Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Cirlce) isn’t a machine or hypnosis – it’s the afterlife. After dying heroically in the 1950′s, Mike Shea (Timothy Hutton) goes to Heaven and falls in love with a “new soul” (Kelly McGillis) soon to depart for a life on Earth. The powers that be allow him to return to Earth and find her – but he only has thirty years, and they return on opposite ends of the economic ladder. They arrive in the 1980s, which as the trailer below demonstrates was the worst decade ever for men’s hairstyles.

Besides the leads, the film features pitch-perfect turns by Maureen Stapleton, James Gammon, Amanda Plummer, Tim Daly, and Mare Winningham. Debra Winger steals her scenes, however, unrecognizable in an uncredited turn as Shea’s redheaded guardian angel.

Late For Dinner (1991): A cult movie fan’s cult movie, W.D. Richter’s (The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai) weird, oddly-paced romance puts two 1960′s New Mexico everymen (Brian Wimmer, Peter Berg) on the run from the police after a shootout defending their property. Fleeing to Los Angeles, they’re taken in by a scientist (Bo Brundin) who cryogenically freezes them for thirty years. Upon their awakening, the two men attempt to reunite with their family, despite the passage of time and their relative lack of aging.

Marcia Gay Harden plays the wife and sister to whom both men try to return, while 90s indie mainstays Peter Gallagher and Janeane Garofalo also appear.  Like Made In Heaven, the film isn’t available on DVD, though it sometimes shows up on cable movie channels.

Happy Accidents (2000): The time travel edge to writer-director Brad Anderson’s (El maquinista) indie effort saves it from its bevy of period romcom tropes, many of which seem dated just a decade later. Lovesick big city girl Ruby (Marisa Tomei) almost gives up on men until meeting, seemingly by chance, the sensitive and charming Sam (Vincent D’Onofrio, beta testing Robert Goren’s weirdness). They meet cute and have a thrilling romance until Sam divulges he’s from 500 years in the future. Ruby’s taken aback, and Sam works to convince her of his veracity and – you guessed it – save her life from an approaching traffic accident.

Anderson wisely envisions Sam’s 25th Century as a hellish mire of eugenics and deprivation, lending plausibility to Sam’s claim that its inhabitants time travel virtually out of necessity. Tomei and Donofrio have real screen chemistry, and the plot is smart enough to keep you guessing until the last minutes, when everything comes together with an ingenious twist.

- Michael Kabel

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Review: Star Trek

J.J. Abrams’ re-imagining packs the final frontier with action. That’s not entirely a good thing.

After months of delays that only fueled the expectations of both old-school Trekkers and newcomers alike, J.J. Abram’s (Lost, Mission: Impossible 3) re-imagining and re-energizing take on the Star Trek franchise roared into theatres this weekend, taking in a franchise-record setting $74 million. Expect that number to grow quickly on the crest of great word of mouth: the film is a built-for-entertainment joyride that’s virtually wall-to-wall action. It’s a hell of an action movie, and though explicit comparisons to franchise rival Star Wars aren’t entirely accurate this new Trek has the same sense of dizzying momentum.

But that’s also it’s biggest problem. The Star Trek TV franchises and films have never been preoccupied with stunts and pyrotechnics, often proudly wearing their cerebral ambitions on their multi-colored sleeves. While Abrams and company have jettisoned such a restrained attitude in favor of adventure, the new film’s bravado often sometimes drags it down or lets it skip over important plot clarification. Also noticeably missing is the Utopian optimism that, at its best, let the original series and its various children transcend their budgets as well as the usual genre pitfalls.

The story’s basics are familiar but made vividly fresh. Centuries into the future, James T. Kirk (Chris Pine, Bottle Shock) spends his childhood in the shadows of the Iowa shipyards that construct massive starships used to patrol the galaxy. An orphan whose father died saving the U.S.S. Kelvin from an attack by the belligerent Romulans, young Kirk is recruited into Starfleet by veteran officer Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood, The Sweet Hereafter) on the strength of his natural aptitude and his father’s heroic legacy.

From left: Quinto, chair, Pine

Jump ahead three years and Kirk has breezed through San Francisco’s Starfleet Academy, even rigging a no-win mission simulation test (which veteran Trek fans will recognize as the Kobayashi Maru from Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan) in his favor. A disciplinary hearing, spearheaded by Academy instructor Spock (Zachary Quinto), is interrupted by a distress signal from Spock’s home planet of Vulcan. With the rest of Starfleet’s armada preoccupied elsewhere, it’s up to the Starfleet cadets to respond in seven brand new starships, including the venerable U.S.S. Enterprise. The Romulan craft that destroyed the Kelvin has returned again, and with help from his friend “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban, The Bourne Supremacy) Kirk stows away beneath Captain Pike’s notice to help out.

The action that follows includes time travel, black holes, the destruction of planets, parachuting from low-Earth orbit, sword fights… it often seems as if frequent Abrams collaborators Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman threw everything they could devise into the chain-of-set-pieces script, leaving no idea discarded. Thanks to state of the art special effects and a production design that’s almost always nothing short of dazzling, for the most part that damn-the-torpedoes strategy works. Other times, including a tedious man vs. monster chase sequence on an ice moon (itself too derivative by half of The Empire Strikes Back), all that action instead feels superfluous and distracting from the main story thread.

Not Hoth. Not even Rura Penthe.

And it’s a very, very linear thread. One thing happens and then another, sequences building on the one before rather than happening from circumstance. Abrams et. al. have a lot to accomplish in the film’s two hours, yet despite the diversions, repetitious stunts and sometimes glaring holes the story makes sense without seeming simplistic; it’s easy to see where the plot might’ve dissolved into chaos instead. The stakes, thanks to the Romulan commander Nero (Eric Bana, Munich), are demonstrably high enough that the rapid pitch continuously seems justified. Add that to Kirk and company’s relative inexperience and you feel justified in believing the danger.

What’s missing most is backstory, and context. We are told that the Federation is a worthy cause but not of its origins, or why Earth and other alien races remain devoted to its purpose. The time-travel elements are explained but not developed, so that depending on your familiarity with that trope’s mental contortions the ensuring plot details will seem opaque at best and frustrating at worst. Kirk’s childhood is given only the barest amount of details, likewise the motivations of bad guy Nero or the Romulans in general. Extant Trek continuity is apparently filled with details on almost all of the above (we’ve just scratched the surface ourselves), so there was no shortage of source material from which to draw. Maybe Abrams and company have deferred such embellishments until the already-announced sequel? Whatever the case, the story needed greater depth to bring the film’s setting into a completely coherent focus.

Luckily the cast is up to the script’s ambitious challenges. Pine, given the task of bringing the famously pre-politically correct Kirk to the modern age, finds his character not in the swagger but rather in the relentless self-confidence that made William Shatner’s Kirk legendary. Quinto, a talented actor not given much to do on Heroes anymore except beckon or arch his formidable eyebrows, builds Spock from barely-restrained and seething… emotion. Urban is underused as the crusty Dr. McCoy, as is Simon Pegg (Hot Fuzz) as Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott. Playing the heavy, Bana makes the most of a perfunctory role. In origin movies like this it’s enough for the villain to simply be menacing, but thanks again to impeccable costuming and production design a large part of that work is already accomplished. Still, he makes the most of each line of dialogue allowed him.

They'll pick you up.

Speaking of design, the new Enterprise vessel looks great most of the time. This latest interpretation of the classic shape is sleek and detailed, keeping the recognizable form while incorporating new elements including a dynamic new electrical effect to the warp nacelles. The bridge is a swirl of translucent display screens and fluorescent lights, selling the movie’s futuristic setting all by itself.  Less impressive, unfortunately, are a generic-looking medical bay and an engineering section that looks as anonymous as any petrochemical refinery. For such a classic and famous ship you’d expect a bold new vision of its engine room to be just as impressive and well-thought out. It’s something to be considered as Abrams and his group boldly go into plans for the sequel, plans most likely underway even as you read this.

- Michael Kabel
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