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 Nobbs is withdrawn emotionally and has relatively little dialogue.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

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

Like in the first film, an ensemble cast of slumming stars earns paychecks acting out various contrived scenarios in and around New York City (the center of the universe in rom coms), all leading up this time to the dropping of the Times Square ball on New Year’s Eve.

Of the eight storylines concocted by Valentine’s Day screenwriter Katherine Fugate, I couldn’t have cared less about six, including Hilary Swank being in charge of the ball, Katherine Heigl feuding with ex Jon Bon Jovi, Ashton Kutcher and Glee star Lea Michele getting trapped in an elevator and Josh Duhamel rushing to get back to the city for an important romantic appointment.

Swank, simply put, does not belong in a comedy, and, what’s more, proved incredibly ineffective in making me not want to throw up during the excruciatingly “inspirational” televised speech her character gives at one point. Bon Jovi sings better than he acts, Michele sings more than she actually talks and Duhamel’s vignette is a blatant rip off of An Affair to Remember.

The segment I cared for least involved Sarah Jessica Parker refusing to let teen daughter Abigail Breslin go to the ball drop with cute boy Jake T. Austin. Rom-com vet Parker is fine, actually, but Breslin’s rebellious and disrespectful behavior towards her, at least as written, was barely tolerable. Granted, I’m not a parent, but I still wouldn’t let a kid act the way Breslin does.

In the why-is-he-in-this-thing category is Robert De Niro, who plays a dying man just wanting to live long enough to see the ball drop one last time. (Halle Berry is his improbably pretty nurse, Cary Elwes his doctor.) Whatever respect I had left for the man after all the junk he’s made over the last decade is nearly gone. Is he really this hard up for cash?

The better segments include Seth Meyers and Jessica Biel (a funny pair, those two) as a couple competing with Til Schweiger (?!) and Sarah Paulson for first-New-Year’s-baby prize money, which has a nicely touching resolution, and Zac Efron as an energetic, bro-calling bike messenger helping timid Michelle Pfeiffer fulfill her list of ambitious New Year’s resolutions in creative ways.

Every now and then a true laugh pops up—air bags, Marshall flick regulars Hector Elizondo and Larry Miller—but otherwise this is basically just sap in movie form. Even how the characters are connected isn’t quite as interesting as it is in the first film. If you really want to be entertained, skip to the end credits and watch the gag reel. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Comedy/Romance

Rated PG-13

DVD Release Date: 5/1/12

First question:
Who is Gina Carano?

Gina is a mixed martial arts fighter and, I’m totally serious, a former “American Gladiator.” While this is not her first movie, it is probably her first movie to play in a movie theater.

Second Question:
Can Soderbergh do action?

In short, yes, better than most. While he’s known for more artful fare, the action in Haywire is exceptionally well executed.  There isn’t the crutch of a shaky camera or fast cutting; clearly Soderbergh trusts his fight coordinators, and the stunt performers.

Third Question:
Okay, I’m kind of interested, is there anyone else in it?

Well I mean, sure. There’s Ewan McGregor as the shady security firm owner, Michael Douglas as the CIA guy, Antonio Banderas as the guy with the awesome beard, Bill Paxton as Carano’s father, Channing Tatum as a former partner, Michael Angarano as the helpful kid with the car, and Michael Fassbender as a freelance operative.

Fourth Question:
Wow, that sounds like a great cast, and with the awesome action, are there any drawbacks?

As much as Gina Carano is an amazing butt-kicker, she clearly never went to Stella Adler. She does fine, but sometimes her delivery can be oddly stilted, and the internet says that Soderbergh altered her voice in post. The rest of the cast is fine, but kind of forgettable. While critically well received, the film didn’t do gangbusters at the box-office, bringing in 18 million domestically.

Fifth Question:
Now I’m torn, what do you think, Noah?

I’d say go for it. It’s not a perfect film, I didn’t root for Carano like I did Matt Damon in the Bourne movies, but the action is phenomenal, the script is interesting, and it’s probably one of the best shot action movies I’ve seen. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Action/Thriller

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 5/2/12

After Freaks and Geeks ended its brief but glorious run, in 2000, the three “freaks” went on to visibly successful and multi-hyphenated careers, as actors, writers, and directors. Briefly:
James Franco – Spider-Man 2 and 3, Pineapple Express, Milk, Howl, 127 Hours, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and 11 more films currently in some phase of production, not to mention PhD’s, teaching gigs, and soap operas.
Seth Rogen – 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad, Step Brothers, Pineapple Express, Paul, and 50/50.
Jason Segel – Knocked Up, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I Love You Man, The Muppets, and the upcoming Five-Year Engagement.

Those are all great success stories, and well-deserved, but I always thought Cardellini was the cog of the wheel, the one with the greatest acting chops, the one capable of moving us. Maybe, as one of my compatriots here has suggested, it’s the comedy writing (avec the Judd Apatow imprimatur) that seems to achieve the quickest success in Hollywood, or at least has for the three above named.

At any rate, the film is quite good as it delineates the return from Iraq of a soldier (Cardellini) who finds that her life back home is a jigsaw puzzle for which she can’t quite find all the pieces. Her husband (Shannon) only seems to need her on his own terms, and may be hiding an affair; she can’t commit completely to her young daughter, nor to her job. Cardellini conveys all of this with great tact and understatement, keeping her explosions small and contained. I only hope that serves to propel her career in the right direction.

Also: if you also love Mad Men, there is a moment between Cardellini and John Slattery (Roger in Mad Men) that will leave you agog. - [DVD]

Drama

Not Rated

DVD Release Date: 4/24/12

I stopped reading… did you stop reading?

Poetry on the page we may equate with a case of rickets, but in a date night movie gives us passion, a life in letters and lace bodices.

Shakespeare in Love, we thank you.

In Young Goethe in Love, enamored of poetry and having failed his law doctorate, Johann Goethe (Alexander Fehling) is sent by his father to the town of Wetzlar, Germany to clerk in the local prosecutor’s office. He proves competent at this dreary work, finds a friend in fellow drone Wilhelm (Volker Bruch), wonders what life holds for him, then meets Charlotte Buff (Miriam Stein) at a dance. Wine is spilled, quips are exchanged and ardor commences. Her mother has died and Charlotte, affectionately called Lotte by her family, runs her father’s house, though they have little money and may lose their property. An arranged marriage with none other than Goethe’s superior Kestner (Moritz Bleibtreu) will provide for her family, but she wants Johann who can offer her only his words.

It’s all pleasant and diverting with Fehling boyish enough and Stein playing earthy and warm, but the film never fans any real swooning, romantic flames as it gently traipses through its yearning motions. Some rejection letters, bare skin among the ferns and the Sturm und Drang movement is born.

An accomplished artist, poet, biologist and theoretical physicist, Goethe is a household name in Germany and, perhaps like the recent French film Gainsbourg, we’re not as invested in other countries’ icons, so we’d like a little re-preaching for the unconverted. It’d be expecting too much of director Philipp Stölzl, who made the fine North Face (2008), to pull off something as refreshing as Amadeus (1984), but a touch of Bright Star’s (2009) grace and subtlety could have gone a long way.

Yet, Goethe was young once, we were all young once, so this film is fine for a stolen kiss in the rain, but let a cooler head prevail and don’t put pen to paper afterward. – [DVD]

Drama/Romance

Not Rated

DVD Release Date: 4/24/12

Mark Wahlberg

Based on the 2008 Icelandic flick Reykjavik-Rotterdam, in which director Baltasar Kormakur acted, it casts Wahlberg as a reformed smuggler who returns to his old ways to pay back a mobster (Giovanni Ribisi) for a job botched by Wahlberg’s brother-in-law (Caleb Landry Jones).

Kormakur (The Sea) moves the film along at a smooth, brisk pace, supplies gritty atmosphere and every once in a while shows off with an artfully composed shot or two. He also proves capable choreographing the small amount of actual action here, turning the main setpiece, an armored car robbery instigated by a Panamanian drug lord (Diego Luna), into a reasonably exciting thing.

Yet as a whole it just feels too standard issue, with a little too much going on, and lunkhead Wahlberg’s lack of charisma, middling acting skills and constantly dumbfounded expression don’t help. For a brief moment, as he greets his pals on board a cargo ship, Wahlberg does kind of come alive. But generally, like when he informs a bad guy he’s coming for him, he’s Mr. Monotone.

As well Kate Beckinsale, as Wahlberg’s wife, is a little too beautiful to be believable as a blue-collar character, and Ben Foster is underused as Wahlberg’s buddy. He would’ve been great in Ribisi’s role, but admittedly has played more than his share of psychos. As it is, Ribisi, all beard, slicked back hair and nasally whine, is adequately nasty, if not a tad cartoonish.

J.K. Simmons (Juno, The Music Never Stopped) makes the best impression, I think. As the cargo ship captain, he affects an Orleans accent and adopts a wonderfully brusque, unfriendly and somewhat amusing attitude toward Wahlberg. Alas, his screen time is all too brief, and we’re left with Marky Mark in a not nearly funky enough action movie. [DVD]

Action/Crime/Drama

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 4/24/12