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Home - Film
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Sweet and Lowdown - |
Old man Duvall does it again in Get Low
By Justin Senkbile
Director Aaron Schneider’s Get Low isn’t an American masterpiece, but it certainly is a masterful piece of Americana. A simple story full of complex, conflicted people is probably the best and broadest way to put it. Like many truly great American movies, it follows a broken man whose gruffness is equaled only by his fear. He’s done something he regrets, and he bravely, stupidly sets about exacting punishment on himself. |
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Cutting Room - |
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If April is the cruelest month, September is the coolest month eat your heart out Eliot, I made that one up all on my own. Film Streams at the Ruth Sokolof Theater is helping “Sep” keep its “rep” by holding not one but two events through their Community Development program. Why? Because more is more better! Thursday, Sept. 16, at 7 p.m., in collaboration with the Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska’s At Ease Program, Film Streams will hold a screening of Restrepo, which is not a documentary about someone with a poor grasp of Spanish trying to describe the source of their sore throat. Following the film, which is actually about the deployment of a platoon in one of the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan, a panel discussion on PTSD and stress in the armed forces will take place. FYI, I’m calling this shot early: Restrepo will be on the Oscar short list. |
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Film Fiesta - |
Film Streams and UNO’s OLLAS collaborate for Cinemateca
By Leo Adam Biga
Ten films from eight Spanish-speaking countries. Several cultures, themes and periods depicted. Authentic Latin and Spanish cuisine served. Opportunities for convivial conversation and post-film discussion offered. It adds up to an Omaha film fiesta. |
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Sick Shooters - |
The Good, The Bad, The Weird doesn’t aim, just fires
By Ryan Syrek
Baloney.
There’s no way it took both director Kim Ji-woon and writer Kim Min-suk to pen the screenplay to The Good, The Bad, The Weird, unless one was assigned only adjectives and the other only verbs. With costumes comprising the bulk of character development, and dialogue consisting mostly of grunts and expletives, if the screenplay tallied more than 20 pages, it’s only because someone was drawing pictures in it. This journey into the wild, wild East is not about nuance and verbal finesse. No, it’s a MacGuffin-fueled chase through 1930s Manchuria, with a punch-drunk Peckinpah at the wheel. So, yeah, it’s pretty much awesome. |
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Cutting Room - |
There should really be a “superhero casting rumor” generator, where you can put in a character name and it spits out a random actor or actress. Oh, I forgot, we have that already: it’s called the Internet. The latest rumor is that Adrien Brody and Amber Heard are up for Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman in The Fantastic Four reboot that is nowhere near close to happening. Although this is exciting in that Brody definitely looks the part and has the talent, and Heard is not Jessica Alba, chances are this news will change faster than Omaha’s financial reports.
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Postcards From a Midlife Crisis - |
Julia Roberts searches for meaning and pizza
By Justin Senkbile
Based on the much-loved memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert and directed by “Glee” creator Ryan Murphy, Eat Pray Love is something of a romantic road movie. Sure, it’s slight, puffy and has its fair share of problems, but it manages to avoid the pandering and veiled sexism of other romantic comedies. |
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It's Hipster to Care - |
Scott Pilgrim vs the World loves fights and fights for love
By Ryan Syrek
If an 8-bit video game got an indie romantic comedy pregnant, Scott Pilgrim vs the World would be their offspring: whiney but infinitely lovable. Spastically working the modern zeitgeist like a stripper’s pole, SPVTW alternates between slapping hipsters in the face and giving them a sexy-time lap dance. Nowhere near as groundbreaking as claimed by Internet-based critics, who just-so-happen to fall into the target demographic, it is an inarguable visual romp, a giddy seizure that’s almost as endearing as it thinks it is. |
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We're All Gonna Die - |
Countdown to Zero hopes you had a good life
By Ryan Syrek
If Countdown to Zero, writer/director Lucy Walker’s documentary on nuclear bombs, were a “Dear John” letter, it would be a hand sketch of a middle finger. If it were a poem, it would read “Roses are red/Violets are Blue/You are going to die tomorrow in a nuclear holocaust.” Forgoing statistics, numbers, facts and measurable evidence, the film is an unrelenting series of interviews and anecdotes that vacillate between a how-to instructional video for terrorists looking to create Armageddon, and promises that such an event is absolutely inevitable. Walker is well intentioned, but boy does she put the “care” in “scare tactic.” |
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Cutting Room - |
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Do you own The Terminator? Before you say no, you should realize that nobody seems to be very clear as to who has the rights to what involving the franchise, so maybe you have a picture of a robot you drew on a napkin and can stake a claim. The latest salvo in the war for a series that’s more dried up than Clint Eastwood’s face is that Hannover House and Red Bear Entertainment, both of which sound totally made up, are partnering to make Terminator 3000, a 3D animated movie. Sure, why not? We should all just start announcing weird fake projects. I’m doing a stop-motion remake of Citizen Kane featuring Star Wars figures. |
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Sequel Opportunity - |
Women treated just as badly in Girl follow-up
By Ben Coffman
It’s unusual for a film’s sequel to arrive in theaters the same year as the original. Unfortunately, this is the case with The Girl Who Played With Fire, the second installment in crime writer Stieg Larsson’s popular Millennium trilogy and the sequel to the well-received The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Could this quick turnaround be an indication that the old “the sequel is never as good as the original” adage is true yet again? The easy answer: yes. |
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In the Line of Doody - |
The Other Guys is funny, not smart
By Ryan Syrek
During the Cold War, an American cinematic action hero could disembowel a “filthy commie” with a Bic pen and remain beloved; in the wake of 9/11, nonspecific Middle Eastern terrorists were omnipresent in film fiction, dispensable evildoers to be dispatched post haste without remorse. The next step in this proud evolution, The Other Guys, officially welcomes financial executives to the guilt-free gunshot victims club. |
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Cutting Room - |
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Other than in weight-loss pornography like The Biggest Loser, bigger is better. Just ask AMC Oakview 24, who just put in Omaha’s first multiplex-based IMAX screen, which will allow audiences to see every pore on an actor’s nose via a larger, curved screen and will deliver amplified sound than can vibrate brain fluid. The colossal brand has been tagged with a tiny scandal recently, centered on whether the massive price tag for tickets is always justified, given that some IMAX-certified screens are really only slightly bigger than regular movie screens. Whether AMC’s new addition will appropriately liquify bowels and zoom-in like Godzilla’s magnifying glass will be determined Sept. 3, when Inception: The IMAX Experience debuts. If nothing else, it gives me another excuse to see Inception again; now I can search for clues in DiCaprio’s nose hair! |
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Fresh Leftovers - |
Dinner for Schmucks is tastier than the usual
By Justin Senkbile
Like any sensible mouse stuck in a corporate maze, financial something-or-other Tim (Paul Rudd) is eager to find the cheese. To do so, he has little choice but to accept an invitation to a dinner where eccentrics (thinking they’re attending some lavish talent contest) are secretly mocked by their more socially sound hosts. His girlfriend Julie (Stephanie Szostak), who runs an art gallery, isn’t thrilled by the idea, just as Tim isn’t too fond of her latest client Kieran (Jemaine Clement), a monstrously macho painter. For each of them, these details are just unfortunate parts of paying the bills. |
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Dali Dollies - |
A Town Called Panic is stop-motion surrealism
By Ryan Syrek
Folks, I’ve never dropped acid. Now, thanks to Panique au village (A Town Called Panic), I no longer have to feel like I’ve been missing out. Writers/directors/voice actors/likely-mushroom-enthusiasts Stιphane Aubier and Vincent Patar whipped up a delightful little stop-motion hallucination without any lingering side effects (fingers crossed anyway). Think of it like a French Toy Story, only instead of a tale of friendship set to Randy Newman’s drunken warbling, tiny plastic playthings chase underwater creatures through the center of the earth, only to be flung back home by a giant mechanical penguin. |
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Cutting Room - |
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The last time Film Streams at the Ruth Sokolof Theater (filmstreams.org) and the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Office of Latino/Latin American Studies (OLLAS) partnered up, it must have been love, because they’ve produced another offspring. How else can you describe Cinemateca 2010, the second annual film series featuring Latino, Latin American and Spanish cinema? Oh, sure, you could describe it as an awesome set of 10 films from eight countries spanning 40 years that runs from Aug. 27-Sept. 30, with discussions following the 7 p.m. Tuesday screenings, but that would be so literal. To me, it’s a beautiful cinematic love child. |
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She Bang Bangs - |
Salt lets ladies be lethal
By Ryan Syrek
Watching Salt is a contemplation of whether the increasingly skeletal frame of Angelina Jolie is capable of producing enough force to actually harm another human. It’s not likely, given that she was seemingly given the largest, most ridiculous wig not currently on Nicholas Cage just to keep her from blowing off set.
Why does this matter? Because beyond the crippling weight mandate Hollywood continues to impose on females, Salt is blissfully empowering and delightfully unapologetic about its lead. Originally written for former human action figure Tom Cruise, Kurt Wimmer thankfully did not appear to holistically change his script to configure stunts or subplots more befitting the fairer sex so much as he seems to have hit “find and replace” to swap “she” for “he.” The result is a run-of-the-mill actioner turned slightly less run-of-the-mill-y |
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Ozark Odyssey - |
A girl’s search gets methy in Missouri
By Ben Coffman
The setting for Winter’s Bone is easy to figure out. In the opening seconds, while Marideth Sisco’s spare, a cappella version of “Missouri Waltz” plays, a camera pans the Ozarks in winter a bare bones place where leafless trees shiver and methamphetamine is the new moonshine. What’s harder to figure out is which cast members are actual Ozark locals from their accents to their dress, the outsiders do an incredible job blending with the locals. Maybe it’s all the camouflage-print clothing.
Winter’s Bone is basically a detective thriller, with the gumshoe role filled by Ree (Jennifer Lawrence), a 17-year-old girl who’s already-shabby home life is about to disintegrate. Her mother seems in a chronic vegetative state, and her meth-addled absentee father has added “jail” right next to “sleep” in his list of things he can’t stand. If he doesn’t show for his court date, Ree and her two younger siblings stand to lose their house and acreage to a bail bondsman. |
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Cutting Room - |
Film Streams at the Ruth Sokolof Theater (filmstreams.org) wants you to get your local on, even more so than usual. Starting Aug. 6, and running daily until Aug. 12, the theater will screen its first Local Filmmakers Showcase, which sports 14 films by 13 different directors, compressed into one easily digestible two-hour block. So jam-packed with films of every genre that it’s practically bursting at the seams, come check out regional talent before it explodes and kills us all in a torrent of awesome.
Cue the voice of the movie guy, may he rest in peace: In a world so hungry for Batman 3 news that they’ll make up ridiculous rumors about Cher as Catwoman, one man would change everything. Aaron Eckhart, who has the world’s shiniest butt-chin, read the script for Batman 3. More than just a confirmation of one man’s literacy, this suggests two pivotal facts: (1) somewhere out there is a semi-completed draft of the film, and (2) Eckhart may have a part in it. The latter is the really intriguing aspect. |
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Report Card - |
Clash of the Titans (ON DVD) D-
In the name of Ray Harryhausen, see the original instead.
Cyrus A-
Hey, you’d have Oedipal hangups if your mom was
Marisa Tomei.
Despicable Me B-
The only despicable thing about this is the Best Buy tie in.
READER RECOMMENDS
Inception A+
A masterpiece worthy of the Louvre and all of your moneys.
The Last Airbender C-
The worst thing to happen to the spoken word since the
invention of “dude.”
Predators C+
The only things more alien than the killer monsters are Adrien
Brody’s abs.
Repo Men (ON DVD) C+
How you mash together five good movies to make an average
one, I’ll never know.
Toy Story 3 A-
Come for the laughs, stay for the contemplation of the toy afterlife. |
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Pinch Me! - |
Inception is a dream come true
by Ryan Syrek
Hype is the spark for the fire of backlash, but screw it: Inception is one of the best American movies ever … as in ever, ever. Someone should place a copy of this film in an indestructible canister so that centuries from now, when our vastly evolved offspring dig up remnants of our self-immolated civilization, we are defined by this and not Twilight.
What writer/director Christopher Nolan has done is meld the American aesthetic of action-adventure with a polycultural pursuit of personal progress. This isn’t a home run; he just bounced a Rawlings off of the moon.
There’s a reason the logo for the film in the trailer tilts to reveal a maze that would make Daedalus suicidal. The plot is so layered that it’s like word Jenga. Because describing it in detail would take the decade Nolan worked on the screenplay, here’s the gist: Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a thief. Technology has been invented that allows shared dreaming, and Cobb and his crew of Ocean’s 11-by-way-of-Sigmund Freud posse use this to sneak inside the Matrix-esque dreamworld of sleepers and rob their thoughts. The process, called extraction, allows them to pilfer passwords, crib codes and steal secrets.
We meet Cobb as he is confronted by the Moby Dick of thieves, that ever-present staple of heist movies: the elusive “last job.” Saito (Ken Watanabe), a powerful businessman, demands that Cobb reverse his usual procedure and implant an idea in the mind of his rival, Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), rather than take one. Although this practice, called inception, is nigh impossible, the price for this effort is the freedom to return home to his children, the one thing Cobb wants most.
Instead of a “weapons expert” and “computer specialist,” Cobb must assemble a team that includes a “forger” named Eames (Tom Hardy), someone who can pretend to be someone else inside the dreamworld; a mental security expert named Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), someone to fistfight the semi-sentient subconscious; and an “architect” named Ariadne (Ellen Page), someone who can create the structure of the dream itself |
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