Time to give a brief description of the plotline. Glenn Close’s character has had a terribly difficult time of it as a youth and young woman. In 19th Century Dublin, in order to get a job as a waiter in a hotel and support herself, she disguises herself as a man, renames herself, and lives that way for many years. Nobbs is withdrawn emotionally and has relatively little dialogue. Things are enlivened by a couple of events. One is the entrance of Janet McTeer, who also is posing as a man, Hubert Page. Page comes to the hotel and finds himself sharing a room with Hobbs. I have loved Janet McTeer since her turn as a Southern single mom in Tumbleweeds. Here she brings some life to the story, and richly deserves her Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. The other point of interest is Nobbs’ relationship with a much younger female hotel worker, played quite well by Mia Wasikowska. Parts of Nobbs come to life as this relationship develops, but Nobbs hadn’t earned my sympathy earlier in the movie, and so it wasn’t quite enough.

About Rodrigo Garcia: He has done an outstanding job directing contemporary female ensemble pieces like Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her, Nine Lives, and, most recently, Mother and Child. He has also directed quite a few television shows like Six Feet Under, Carnivale, and In Treatment – no small feat. I think that he just didn’t match up well with the genre of Albert Nobbs.

Anyway, a second opinion — I chatted with Will briefly about this film, and he said he liked it a lot more than he thought he would. So for viewers who enjoy period pieces, appreciate the costuming, the art direction, and the particular kind of dialogue that the best of these offers, maybe give Albert Nobbs a shot. Also, if you are curious about Glenn Close’s turn as a man and care about the scope of her filmography, roles in movies as diverse as The Big Chill, Fatal Attraction, and The Chumscrubber, check out what she’s up to as Nobbs. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Drama

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 5/15/12

Based on a short story by Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, who co-wrote the screenplay with Carnahan, it has Neeson playing yet another tough guy, albeit one contemplating suicide who works in Alaska killing wolves that threaten a team of oil workers. When the plane they all take home crashes, Neeson and six other survivors struggle against not only the elements, but a pack of grey wolves stalking them.

Neeson, unsurprisingly, is the film’s bright spot. His size alone makes him a commanding presence, someone you’re convinced could survive such a brutal ordeal. But he has a touching soft side, too. You hear the defeat in his voice in the opening scenes as he narrates a letter, and feel his compassion as, in the film’s best scene, he helps a survivor face his impending death.

To his credit, Carnahan (The A-Team) manages to wring some decent tension out of the wolf attacks themselves, and for the most part eschews explicit gore, staging the attacks at night or showing them from a distance. As well he does a solid job with the soundtrack, effectively creating brief moments of terror as wolves howl into the night or growl threateningly at the weary men.

The main problem is that, when the wolves aren’t attacking, the film attempts weightiness, which Carnahan doesn’t know how to pace. Scenes of the survivors discussing religion while sitting around a fire, or of an injured character quietly claiming he can’t continue, drag on and on and practically ground the film to a halt. The weak writing in these scenes only compounds the issue.

What’s more, the survivors (including Dermot Mulroney and Dallas Roberts) are poorly defined, save, naturally, for Neeson, making it hard to care what befalls any of them. They’re basically just types. Roberts is the one with humanity, Joe Anderson the freaked-out chatterbox and Frank Grillo the aggressive challenger (and the only supporting survivor with any kind of depth).

Beyond that, the script creates too obvious a parallel to the wolf-pack mentality, there’s a little too much shaky cam for my taste, and, save for a couple shots, Carnahan fails to do much with the obviously breathtaking Alberta locale. What burned me the most, though, is how Carnahan ends the thing. I wanted to see Neeson punch a wolf in the throat. I had to imagine he did instead. – [DVD]

Action/Adventure/Drama

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 5/15/12

Dreamed up by Max Landis and director Josh Trank, it follows a trio of Seattle high school seniors—outcast Andrew (Dane DeHaan), his cousin Matt (Alex Russell) and popular kid Steve (Michael B. Jordan)—via Andrew’s camera (and, later, other camera vantage points) as they acquire telekinesis, and other abilities, after touching what we assume is an alien artifact.

The film is at its most fun as the boys use their powers for mischief—blowing up a girl’s skirt, scaring people in a toy store, shoving a BMW across a parking lot, skipping rocks. It turns downright exhilarating when they learn they can fly, soaring, and even playing football, among the clouds. Their teenage exuberance at this discovery is contagious.

But the dangers of having these abilities start to become apparent after Andrew playfully shoves a car off the road and into a river. Where Matt and Steve are well-adjusted teens, Andrew is angry, dealing with bullies, an alcoholic father (Michael Kelly) and a sick mother, and so his abilities cleverly reflect his bottled up hostility toward the world. Watch as he unleashes a roar of rage at one point close to the end, shattering windows and making the ground tremble.

So the film descends into ever darker territory, though remains completely compelling, as Andrew spins out of control, killing neighborhood thugs, ripping out a bully’s teeth, inadvertently blowing up a gas station and blowing a hospital room to pieces. It all culminates in a fantastic finale, a super duper showdown between Andrew and Matt that involves, among other things, the Space Needle, a city bus and an exploding helicopter.

Dialogue isn’t the film’s strong suit, to be sure, but it more than makes up for it in other ways, especially in how Landis and Trank are constantly able to have us see Andrew, who’s almost always with camera, via mirrors, the camera of a cute blonde girl (Anna Wood) Matt likes, hospital security footage and the like. Their most ingenious method, though, is having Andrew use his abilities to make his camera float above the action. (The bloody-nose-something-is-wrong conceit is also neat.)

Not to dilute the contributions of Russell and Jordan, who are solid, nor Trank’s skill at inserting convincing effects amid all the handheld mayhem, but none of this would have worked without DeHaan. Resembling nothing less than a young Leonardo DiCaprio, the 26-year-old perfectly and beautifully embodies bullied-teen misery. The only difference is that, when this teen becomes enraged, he can crush a car simply by closing his fist. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Drama/Sci-Fi/Thriller

Rated PG-13

DVD Release Date: 5/15/12

In Michael, a pinched faced nebbish of a man goes about his day. He does errands, cleans his house and yard and when he smokes he does so outside. His job at an insurance company is the most “lonely guy” of clichés and our initial impression is of a closed-off individual. This set, bland, routine to his life is very necessary when the viewer is shown the boy, Wolfgang, who this man, Michael, keeps prisoner in his basement.

In a bright room with toys, books and a kettle to heat water for soup, Wolfgang spends his day. This is why the shutters on the windows that close at a precise time every evening are industrial grade and a battering ram would be needed to break down the door to Wolfgang’s. Michael has methodically prepared for keeping this young man captive. Nothing unspeakable is ever really shown, just chilling implications.

Early in the film, Michael takes the boy on an outing and you wonder why Wolfgang doesn’t just bolt. What unfolds is a study of almost masterful mind control. Michael constantly takes steps to keep the boy in line, but also placated. They do chores, eat upstairs at the table, work a puzzle, throw snowballs. Michael seems in these moments like an overly dour father. It’s when he’s alone, laughing at a horror film as he lays on his couch or in awkward explanations with his family that he seems his most monstrous. We squirm at the massive disconnect and lack of conscience he needs to maintain this subterfuge. The boy’s room is always stocked with supplies, especially when Michael takes a days long ski trip, but he also prepares for any eventuality as when scouting the woods for a grave.

We’re never taken far into Michael’s psyche. There are no hints of abuse or trauma that led him to this. He just wants to have this boy. When an interview with a doctor about pedophilia comes on the television, Michael frantically shuts off the power to Wolfgang’s room. He isn’t upset that a mirror has been held up to his actions, but more that there could be a break in his mind control.

Michael is the first time directing for Markus Schleinzer who’s been a casting director for films like The Robber and The Counterfeiters, but also for director Michael Haneke and whose dark work this film bears the most resemblance to in its style and choice of subject matter.

The comedian Louis C.K. made an observation that if child molestation were more socially acceptable, there’d be fewer child murders. Nobody believes or wants this, and we’re conflicted about putting a sympathetic or “human face” on this most heinous of crimes, but put Michael alongside L.I.E., The Woodsman, and M as proof we’re long past the easy boogeyman in film.

A dance of memory and devotion set in 1960’s Japan, we see debts owed from love and friendship in Norwegian Wood. In spare narration, the film’s main protagonist Watanabe (Ken’ichi Matsuyama) tells the story of himself and his friends, the sweethearts Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi) and Kizuki (Kengo Kora).  Kizuki and Naoko have known each other since they were very young and being together, along with Watanabe’s friendship, make life perfect until Kizuki commits suicide. The tragedy makes it seem that nothing can ever be right again.

Watanabe is attending college when Naoko, now twenty and fragile, tenderly reaches out to him, reveals a secret about her and Kizuki’s love, then disappears.  As Watanabe works two jobs, and the student unrest of the day passes him by, he meets and is quietly enamored of Midori (Kiko Mizuhara). Then Naoko contacts him from a sanitarium where she’s recovering from a breakdown and Watanabe tries to pull her back to him.

In film, young love can be an obsessive, one-note theme. An obsessive wants the object of that obsession to never change. The passion of young love must be an all consuming flame always. Both make for the shallowest melodrama because tempering either of these with ruminations gets away from the formula of romance. Perfectly composed with a rich palette of colors, and capturing the era with clothing crisp and bright and furnishings completely of the time, Norwegian Wood could be slagged off initially as foreign film young-people-in-mope with a lot of surface and no substance.

But the film quietly, elegantly goes about its business. Change is in the air, mainly between the sexes and Watanabe’s character battles against himself over his devotion to Naoko, his attraction to Midori and, let’s face it, how a young man steeped in his culture should handle himself. He does want Naoko. Not as she was, in their honeyed younger days of only a short while before, but he wants here well and he wants to understand what’s happened and he also wants his life to move on. There’s frankness and a lyricism to the dialogue (yes, we’ll just have to trust the subtitles, but that doesn’t take away from it) and when heartbreak happens to the characters (as with Naoko, her back is to us, yards away on a hillside) the restraint used draws us more into the moment then any Oscar-bait movie in recent memory. A tryst with Reiko (Reika Kirishima), a music teacher and fellow patient of Naoko’s, is not opportunistic sex for Watanabe, it’s closure for them both and her first step back into the world.

In the end this is what we do. You take time to remember. Effect what repairs you can on your heart. Then you go on. – [DVD]

Michael: Drama, Unrated, Austria

Norwegian Wood: Drama/Romance, Unrated, Japan

DVD Release Date: 5/15/12

In the mood for something with subtitles? One of these fine new Foreign Film arrivals ought to fit the bill — take a look at the list below, with our recommendations marked with the red stars:

France:
Domain (2009) - On the threshold of adulthood, 17-year-old Pierre becomes obsessed with his aunt Nadia (Béatrice Dalle). A flamboyant mathematician whose intellect clashes with her alcoholism and fatalistic view of life, Nadia is on a path to self-destruction. As Pierre discovers his budding sexuality, he attempts to rescue his beloved aunt from herself. (France) – [imdb]

Italy:
The Organizer (1963) - The Organizer (I Compagni) takes a gritty, near-documentary approach to its subject matter: the exploitation of Italian laborers in the 19th century. Shorn of all his studio-imposed glamour, Marcello Mastrioanni plays a Genoan political refugee visiting a friend in Turin. Appalled by the horrible working conditions in the town’s textile mill, Mastrioanni stays on to organize the workers in a strike. (Italy) – [imdb] – Criterion Collection!

Spain:
Garbo: The Spy (2009) – A compelling account of Juan Pujol, an extraordinary Spanish double agent during WWII who helped change the course of history. (Spain) – [imdb]

Eastern Europe:
Cirkus Columbia (2010) - After the fall of the communist regime in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1991, Divko Buntic returns to his former home after a 20-year exile in Germany. Returning with an attractive young girlfriend, a flashy new Mercedes, a pocketful of cash, and a lucky black cat, things are looking good for Divko. When his cat goes missing things begin to fall apart… (Bosnia and Herzegovina) – [imdb]

Eclipse Series 32: Pearls of the Czech New Wave (1966-1969) - Of all the cinematic New Waves that broke over the world in the 1960s, the one in Czechoslovakia was among the most fruitful, fascinating, and radical. With a wicked sense of humor and a healthy streak of surrealism, a group of fearless directors began to use film to speak out about the hypocrisy and absurdity of the Communist state. (Czechoslovakia) – [imdb]

UK/Ireland:
Albatross (2011) - Beth, a bookish teenager, befriends Emilia, an aspiring novelist who has just arrived in town. Emilia soon begins an affair with Beth’s father that threatens to have devastating consequences. (UK) – [imdb]

Enemies of the People (2009) - The Khmer Rouge ran what is regarded as one of the twentieth century’s most brutal regimes. Yet the Killing Fields of Cambodia remain unexplained. Until now. In Enemies of the People the men and women who perpetrated the massacres – from the foot-soldiers who slit throats to the party’s ideological leader, Nuon Chea aka Brother Number Two – break a 30-year silence to give testimony never before heard or seen. (UK/Cambodia) – [imdb]

Reuniting the Rubins (2010) - Lenny Rubins, an up-tight lawyer, puts his dream retirement on hold when his ailing mother emotionally blackmails him into reuniting his estranged children for a Jewish holiday. (UK) – [imdb]

Shame (2011) – In New York City, Brandon’s carefully cultivated private life — which allows him to indulge his sexual addiction — is disrupted when his sister Sissy arrives unannounced for an indefinite stay. (UK) – [imdb] – click here to read our review!

The Wicker Tree (2010) - Charmed by the residents of Tressock, Scotland, two young missionaries accept the invitation to participate in a local festival, fully unaware of the consequences of their decision. (UK) – [imdb]

Australia/New Zealand:
The Getting of Wisdom (1978) – Thirteen-year-old Laura, an incorrigible free spirit from the Australian outback, is enrolled in a prestigious girl’s boarding school. The indoctrination process is a rough one, and Laura very nearly loses her individuality and sense of self-worth. (Australia) – [imdb]

Kawa (2010) - A critically-acclaimed psychological drama depicting a family in crisis, Kawa tells the story of a successful businessman in New Zealand, as he is forced to reveal his lifelong secret that he is gay. (New Zealand) – [imdb]

The Sun Came Out (2010) - An intimate behind the scenes look as Neil Finn, Johnny Marr, KT Tunstall, members of Radiohead and Wilco record an album in three weeks in New Zealand. Proceeds to charity. Witness the music, the humor and the love. (New Zealand) – [imdb]

Asia:
After the Banquet (2009) - A group of old college friends reunite at the wedding of a former classmate, and find tensions rising after realizing that an eccentric young wedding crasher is one of their long lost daughters. As the celebration gets underway, everyone attempts to uncover the mystery guest’s identity. (South Korea) – [imdb]

The Front Line (2011) - A drama centered on the Korean War’s final battle that will determine the border between north and south. (South Korea) – [imdb]

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood: The Sacred Star of Milos (2011) – A fugitive alchemist with mysterious abilities leads the Elric brothers to a distant valley of slums inhabited by the Milos, a proud people struggling against bureaucratic exploitation. (Japan) – [imdb]

Let the Bullets Fly (2010) – Set in China during the warring 1920s, notorious bandit chief Zhang descends upon a remote provincial town posing as its new mayor, an identity that he had hijacked from Old Tang, himself a small-time imposter. Hell-bent on making a fast buck, Zhang soon meets his match in the tyrannical local gentry Huang as a deadly battle of wit and brutality ensues. (China/Hong Kong) – [imdb]

Soon after humans discover the existence of both species and try to eradicate them, Beckinsale’s vamp is captured and cryogenically preserved. Many years later, she thaws out and sets about trying to thwart the genetic machinations of a ruthless scientist (Stephen Rea), receiving help from a pretty-boy vampire (Theo James) and a helpful detective (Michael Ealy).

On a positive note, the plot is relatively straightforward and easier to follow compared to the convoluted mythology storylines of the first three films, and Swedish directors Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein both give the film a pleasingly sleek and slick look and ensure you can actually make out what’s happening during the plentiful, relentless and extremely bloody action sequences.

Beckinsale herself remains a striking figure as Selene, breathtakingly cool and confident as she struts around in her sleek leather outfits, blasts away with machine pistols and evades danger by running up walls and flipping back over the bad guys. She even bodily broadsides a van at one point, sending it flipping and flying. And her character’s graceful landings after jumping from very high places are a thing of elegance amid all the mayhem.

But the action scenes, while blessedly coherent, generally lack energy and style. You first notice this as Beckinsale, James and Beckinsale’s genetically unusual tween daughter (India Eisley) flee in a van from a pack of Lycans, and then later in Beckinsale’s initial tussle with a colossal über-Lycan, a sequence that also serves to remind us what second-rate CGI creations the werewolves are here. Paul Haslinger’s pounding score attempts to make these scenes exciting, but to no avail.

The only sequence that’s even kind of visually interesting is when Beckinsale saunters in slo-mo out of an elevator she’s just blown open, silver nitrate particles drifting down around her like snow. Otherwise, the film has little personality, and gets no help from the too low-key Rea. Its biggest flaw is how it ends so abruptly at the 78-minute mark, leaving you unsatisfied and screaming for blood. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Action/Fantasy/Horror

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 5/8/12