From the film’s opening, it is clear that while LCD Soundsystem may be over, they certainly went out with one hell of a goodbye party. The decision to end the band was more than surprising to their fans and Shut Up and Play the Hits takes viewers behind-the-scenes of the moments leading up to, during, and after the band’s final show. The film takes its cue from the title and focuses on the music while directors Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace also lace in interviews and quiet moments with front man James Murphy off-stage.

The film opens asking the question on everyone’s mind – why would a band, at the height of their career, decide to walk away from it all? During an interview with Chuck Klosterman, Murphy explains that he simply wants to lead a normal life and while he is not sure that is a good enough reason to quit, it’s the truth. Murphy sums his experience with LCD up by saying he just wanted to make a record that happened to lead to these different experiences and successes, but that was never his goal, he just wanted to make music that people could dance and have fun listening to. And whether he meant to our not, Murphy did just that, just on a much scale bigger than he could have imagined.

Shut up and Play the Hits bounces around from the day after the final show to the preparation for it and, in doing so, paints a picture of Murphy from feeling anxious and excited to experiencing some simple relief when all is said and done. While on stage, Murphy seems to have a child-like glee watching what he created affect so many people, but as the show nears its final hour, you see that glee start to fade and the tone goes from excited to bittersweet.

The end of anything you love is sad, but Southern and Lovelace create a moving narrative that not only shows the band’s affect on their fans, but on the band members themselves. While Murphy says he feels normal the day after – sleeping in, shaving, taking his dog for a walk – he still bases his day around going out to dinner with everyone that night for fear that this might be one of the last times they are all together. It is clear the members of LCD and those around them are a family and, while families grow, change, and move away from one another, that unconditional love is always there and while the band may be over, they created something that not only inspired them, but brought that joy to so many others.

The Upside: Shut Up and Play the Hits is a moving rock-doc that not only takes you inside Madison Square Garden for an up close seat at the band’s final show, it really shows the feelings that would accompany making the decision to end such a big part of your life and looking towards what will happen next.

The Downside: If you are not a fan of LCD Soundsystem, you will probably be bored here as Southern and Lovelace let many of the songs get performed in their entirety.

On the Side: Murphy’s dog can join the ranks of charming canines currently gracing the big screen lately in films like The Artist and Cosmo in Beginners as he also steals all the scenes he is in.

—

The teaser trailer for the upcoming Guy Pearce vehicle Lockout (formerly Lock-Out) gave us a glimpse at the rogue charm Pearce has mustered up in the lead role, but it didn’t let us in on much of what the movie is actually about. The new full-length trailer over at IGN gives us a bit more of that Pearce sass, but it also lays out pretty much the whole plot.

Some of my favorite movies ever take multiple genres and blend them together. Sometimes blending genres creates a tonally weird mess (Cowboys & Aliens), but when you do it right you create something fresh and new out of used parts (Serenity), and it seems like Lockout has some potential to do the latter.

What we’re dealing with here is essentially a mixing of the spaceship movie with the prison movie, with a dash of caper film thrown in. Guy Pearce plays a loose cannon operative (who calls back to Kurt Russell’s Snake Plissken more than a little) given the task of breaking into a maximum security prison that orbits the Earth and rescuing the president’s daughter, who had ridiculously been visiting the prison when a riot broke out. The results are a genre bending action movie that looks like Alien, shares plot elements with Escape From New York, and even throws some Con Air at us for good measure.

I don’t know how you feel, but to my arrested, adolescent brain that sounds like a recipe for an all-time great. And even if this thing turns out to be lame, it’s still good to see Pearce getting a chance to star in something again.

Charlie Kaufman’s directing followup to Synecdoche, New York has been in the casting stage for a while now, and already it has compiled an impressive core of male actors. Names like Steve Carrell, Jack Black, and Nicolas Cage have attached themselves to the picture, and Kaufman has even made a play at securing Paul Blart. So far there’s been a lack of news about who might play any of the female parts, however. This movie, that seems designed to take the wind out of our movie blogging sails, was looking like a real sausage fest.

That’s all changed in a big way though. Vulture is reporting that two phenomenal actresses, Kate Winslet and Catherine Keener, have just signed on to join an already stellar cast. That’s some added girl power that might take even the Spice Girls aback for a minute. News of Winslet and Keener’s involvement on any project would be met with quite a bit of enthusiasm already, but when you factor in that both of these actresses have worked very successfully with Charlie Kaufman material before, things kind of get kicked up a notch.

Winslet’s previous Kaufman experience comes from her work on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a film that was written by Kaufman and that earned the actress an Oscar nomination. Keener’s experience comes from her work on Being John Malkovich, a film that was also written by Kaufman and that, oh look… also earned the actress on Oscar nomination. Neither managed to actually take home the little gold man in their previous efforts, but maybe now that they’re going to be pooling their resources they can bypass the Oscars altogether and go for the coveted MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo. Anything is possible if you work hard and stay positive.

Welcome to Pine Hill, the first feature film from Keith Miller, has won the Grand Jury Sparky Award for Feature Narrative at Slamdance. The film focuses on former drug dealer Shannon (Shannon Harper) who now works as a bouncer when the sun goes down and a claims adjuster when the sun comes up. In this verite-style offering, Shannon receives a bit of life-changing news that sets him on a path to confront the past and contemplate his future.

As you can see in the scene above, there’s something obviously compelling about the delivery and the style. It’s enough to make nerve endings tingle and the brain start thinking about fight or flight. Simple, yes, but effective.

The story behind the film is also fascinating. Director Miller and star Harper met when Miller was walking his dog in New York and an angry Harper approached him claiming that it was his dog. After a huge shouting match, they realized that it was Harper’s dog – a puppy he had previously lost. The next day they met so that Miller could pay him for the animal and could toss out the idea that they make a film together. A short was born, and so was their working relationship. They accidentally shared a dog, and now they share a victory.

Here are the rest of the winners from Slamdance this year – emerging artists truly worth keeping an eye on. The Slamdance pedigree alone ensures that there’s some truly interesting work going on from these filmmakers:

Grand Jury Sparky Award for Feature Narrative went to Welcome to Pine Hill by Keith Miller.

Grand Jury Sparky Award for Feature Documentary went to No Ashes, No Phoenix by Jens Pfeifer.

Grand Jury Sparky Award for Short Documentary went to The Professional by Skylar Neilsen.

Grand Jury Sparky Award for Animation went to Venus by Tor Fruergaard.

Grand Jury Sparky Award for Short Film went to I Am John Wayne by Christina Choe.

Special Jury Prize for Experimental Short went to Solipist by Andrew Huang.

Honorable Mention for Best Ensemble went to I’m Coming Over by Sam Handel.

In honor of our brave rejects battling the snowy terrain and darkened theaters of Sundance, we felt it best to revisit a recent breakout hit from the film festival. As luck would have it, a shiny, slightly used copy of Hard Candy ended up in the DVD player this week. It’s called serendipity. Whatever you want to call it, it’s a fine film, and there is sure to be plenty to gleam off of the actors involved.

That’s right. Actors. We’re giving the directors/writers/producers/best boys a break this week and delving into the minds of Hard Candy‘s two leads, Ellen Page and Patrick Wilson. It’s the first time we’ve checked out a commentary involving only actors. This uncharted territory could be rocky, or it could be fascinating. One thing is for sure, though. The chances of it being boring are about as slim as Wilson’s character ever getting the upper hand in this film. So here, in all of its uncomfortable glory, all the great things we learned from listening to Patrick Wilson and Ellen Page talk about Hard Candy. We’ll keep the Goldfrapp comments to a minimum.

Hard Candy (2005)

Commantators: Ellen Page (actor), Patrick Wilson (actor), lots of Canadian talk.

• Wilson dishes out some tidbits of information about Hard Candy over the opening credits, which, according to him, are computerized blueprints of the house in the film. Hard Candy was made for less than $1 million, it took 18 1/2 days to film, and most of it was shot on a sound stage. The exteriors were filmed at the stunt coordinator’s house.
• Page notes the blueprints over the opening credits are based in part on the blueprints of producer David Higgins’ house. The idea that he and writer Brian Nelson came up with – the idea for the film was Higgins with Nelson serving as screenwriter – was that, if they didn’t get the funding to shoot on a sound stage, they would use Higgins’ home as a budget-conscious backup. Wilson mentions Higgins does have a rock garden in the middle of his living room, but Page is unsure as to whether it conceals a porn-filled safe or not.
• Wilson asks Page if there is pressure from her parents or teachers to be careful who to talk to in the Internet age. Page responds there is, but that there’s also a negative outlook on chat rooms in general. She mentions that it is much safer now than it was 10 or even 5 years ago. She also jokes that, being from Canada, she only got the Internet 2 years ago. That would explain why no Canadians are on Twitter.
• Hard Candy was shot in sequence except for the opening scene, which was filmed last. Both actors agree this scene was the hardest to shoot.
• Page brings up having to eat the cake in the opening scene and how it’s not much fun eating something sweet in a film because of the numerous takes. “You’d think you wouldn’t want to shoot the scene where your cutting off someone’s balls, but, no, I was stressed out about the cakes,” she says.
• Wilson remembered reading the script and notes how he felt most of the dialogue Jeff, his character, delivers is dark or menacing. The actor wanted to take it in another direction and make the character as charismatic and likable as he could. He notes the difficulty of “being positive when you’re doing such dark things”.
• “Are you familiar with Goldfrapp?” Wilson asks Page. She says she is, though she’s not a big fan. She mentions how much she loves the score the band did for 2004′s My Summer of Love. There. Goldfrapp comments done.
• According to Wilson over 300 girls were tested and auditioned for the role of Hayley. Page remembers getting the role and then having to wait while they found an actor to play Jeff. Wilson notes they didn’t have to go through 300 girls to find the right person to play Jeff.
• “It was really crowded when I got there,” says Wilson as an excuse to why Jeff parked in the middle of an empty parking lot so far away from the entrance. Also of note, that little scene was shot in the parking lot of the ArcLight Theater in L.A. Huh. Wonder if Hard Candy played there.
• Halfway through filming, there was talk of having Hayley reveal at the end of the film that A) her name isn’t really Hayley and B) she is actually 18 years old. Wilson and Page, among others, I’m sure, shot this idea down quickly saying it defeats the whole point of the movie to make her older than she appears to be, to turn the film into two adults trying to get the upper hand on one another as opposed to a kid tormenting an adult who starts out by preying on her.
• Wilson mentions there was no ADR or voice dubbing done in post-production. Page corrects him saying she had to go in and dub one word in the film. At one point in the film, her character says “mucho appreciated”. Page delivered the line “like a Canadian would say it” and had to re-record it. Wilson says he loves Page’s Canadian sayings and mannerisms, and a quick conversation about Moosehead Beer and the Edmonton Oilers ensues. “We don’t have the Internet, but we’ve got the largest mall in the world,” says Page. She later remembers the moment when she’s reading the letter Janelle wrote to Jeff was completely ADR.
• When Jeff is taking pictures of Hayley and fighting the effects of the drug she gave him, he yells at her for a brief second. According to Wilson, the shot where he screams at her has been digitally altered. Director David Slade stretched his mouth out wider. This gives the character an animalistic look for a brief moment. Also pausing this shot on your DVD might give you nightmares, but Patrick Wilson is in them, so it’s all good.
• The line “Why do I get tied up first?” when Jeff wakes up was Patrick Wilson ad-libbing. The line was not in the screenplay, but the actor felt that Jeff would still think Hayley was playing a game. Page also mentions a few moments were cut from this scene, moments where Hayley questions Jeff as to why he has a baseball card and AAA batteries. “I’ve totally forgot that,” says Wilson. “That’s a good memory, Ellen. It’s Ellen, right?”
• Despite the amount of dialogue and “speeches” in the film, Page doesn’t consider Hard Candy a preachy movie. She and Wilson agree that you don’t learn enough about either of the characters or what actually happens for it to be considered preachy. “Your character is more black and white than mine because of age alone. Teenagers see things black and white,” says Wilson.
• “I am a tiny little nymph,” says Page after Wilson comments how his jacket – that Page is wearing in the film – envelopes her. She also mentions her roommates call her the tiny Canadian. Wilson quips that he thought that was Martin Short.
• It’s unclear if it was David Slade’s idea or the actors themselves, but Wilson and Page had “phases” Jeff would go through in the film. At one point Wilson says,” Phase One: Sweat.” Page comments Phase Two was Minor Frustration.
• The idea of researching the character comes up. Page comments you can’t really research for a character like Hayley or for what occurs in Hard Candy. She mentions the best way she found to get into a scene was meeting Wilson, getting to know him, and becoming comfortable with him. They did go out to lunch one day where Wilson mentions Page was offered a kid’s menu. Wilson also notes they had five days of rehearsal on the film. He also mentions a lot of the hard work went into the opening scene when Jeff and Hayley are first meeting.
• At the moment when Hayley is talking to Jeff about how all men have porn in their house, Page asks Wilson, “Do they?” “No,” responds Wilson. “I mean, some might.” Way to dodge, Mr. Wilson.
• Wilson is unhappy with the way he says, “I’ll keep my distance.” He thinks his North Carolina roots show now and again in that scene and really wanted to ADR it in post. Now when you come to that scene, there’s no way you can’t hear the southern twang.
• The way Jeff gets the gun off of the middle of the bed even though he is tied to an office chair was completely Wilson’s idea. Instead of coming up with some choreographed maneuver, he told David Slade to just put the gun on the bed and he would figure it out. The results are more than a little impressive.
• Page and Wilson discuss the varying opinions of Hard Candy from those who have seen it. Page thinks it’s incredible how polarizing the film is and even tells the story of her friends going to see it. After the film, the reactions from her friends changed depending on whether they were around all women or if there was a man near the group. Wilson mentions one of his friends said they wanted to punch Hayley. He notes how difficult the film was for his family to watch, particularly his wife.
• “For the record, I never saw Patrick’s penis,” notes Page in the scene where Jeff is tied to the table with his pants down. Wilson lets out an “Oh, God”, but Page assures him that some of the press questions she got about the film were even more outlandish than that. She begins to note one interviewer’s question in particular, but Wilson says he doesn’t want to hear it.
• Initially the idea was to shoot the “castration” scene as a oner, one, continuous shot done in a single take. Wilson notes the scene covered at least 12 pages of the screenplay. This idea was ultimately scrapped for something much more practical.
• There’s not much elaboration about it, but Wilson notes he blacked out briefly while laying on the table. He does mention later it comes at the moment when he’s trying to get his hands loose. If you look closely in a lot of the shots during this scene, you’ll see Wilson’s hands going blue and purple, because the ropes holding him were so tight.
• The story Jeff tells about how his “sickness” began was 1 of about 10 different story ideas Wilson and Brian Nelson had to choose between.
• “When does it become Charles Bronson in Death Wish?” asks Wilson regarding Hayley’s nature, what she’s doing to Jeff, and how far can a punishment go before it becomes a moral crime itself. Page mentions that during test screens, the moment when Jeff is pleading and she continues with her “work” is when a lot of men in the audience wanted to kill her. “Justice is a fine line in general,” says Page.
• Wilson mentions there is nine minutes of music in Hard Candy. He doesn’t explain if this includes the opening and closing credits or not.
• The screen showing Jeff’s “castration” is brought up and what was actually in the footage being used. Wilson notes the beginning of the tape was a friend of David Slade’s who shows his genitalia. The tape then loops footage of turkey gizzards and insides being scraped. So remember that for this year’s Halloween party.
• Wilson mentions he asked David Higgins if he could ADR the line “I’m all here” in post, because he wasn’t sure it was clear enough to people watching that Hayley doesn’t actually castrate Jeff. Wilson and Page mention some people who have seen the film still think throughout the last 30 minutes that she had actually done just that. The “I’m all here” line and the fake castration tape and him running around the house isn’t enough evidence for them.
• “There’s no Hard Candy 2,” says Page after Wilson talks about how bad-ass Hayley is. “This is Hard Candy: The Last Stand.” Wilson laughs, “I see what you did there, Kitty Pride.” Oh, X-Men jokes.
• Sandra Oh plays a character named Judy Tokuda in Hard Candy. Page remembers the character being named Judy was Oh’s idea, even though the producers didn’t like this. They forced her to deliver the line, “I’m Mrs. Tokuda”, but Oh purposefully emphasized the name awkwardly making the take unusable. The take where she says her full name had to be used. She also showed up on set with a colored streak in her hair – Page can’t remember if it was blue or purple – which explains why her hair is tied back in that scene.
• Wilson notes he always liked in the Friday the 13th movies when Jason would walk casually after his victims who would be running at full speed and still be able to catch them. For this reason he chose not to run after Hayley near the end of Hard Candy. Instead, he casually walks around his house looking for her. Naturally, Page is doing the ch-ch-ch-ah-ah-ah while Wilson is saying this.
• The line, “Which do you wanna fuck first, me or the knife” was an ad-lib from Wilson. Applause ensues.
• While filming on the roof, Wilson remembers having to do the shot where he yells, “You’re not gonna shoot me” five times. After the third or fourth take someone within earshot – not part of the film crew obviously – called the police. “I thought, ‘What kind of a fight happens with the same, exact words every few minutes?’,” Wilson says.
• The film’s ambiguity comes up again. Wilson loves how you never know for sure what really happened to the missing girl. “It’s funny after all this people are still like, “Well, what did he actually do? Are you lying? Did you really just watch?’,” he says. He and Page agree that it’s really all about what you believe. They also agree how great it is that the film doesn’t spoon-feed you or show flashbacks of what actually happened. “Why do you need to know?” asks Page.
• Originally when Jeff jumps off the roof to hang himself, Wilson raised his left arm to grab the rope and pull it taut after he lands on a mat. This was corrected digitally in post-production to show what’s there now, Jeff’s left arm staying straight as he jumps. Also footage was taken of Jeff hanging off the side of the house and Janelle finding his body, but this wasn’t used in the final film.
• The next to last shot of Hard Candy showing Hayley sitting quietly was done without Page’s knowledge. She was relaxing before a take, and Slade decided to film her. He calls the shot “Page in Repose”.

Best in Commentary

“What’s so interesting about this film is that you have a character written for a 14-year-old girl with intelligence and passion, and when do we see that? Not really that often.” – Page

“So much of this film is ambiguous. At the end, do you know any more about these people? Not really. In one sense, yeah, you know about their human emotion, but we don’t get caught up in the details.” – Wilson

Final Thoughts

It’s very interesting listening to a commentary track involving just actors after listening to so many with the film makers behind the film. If the Hard Candy commentary is any indication, commentaries with actors come off as a lot more casual. Patrick Wilson and Ellen Page bounce off of one another going from topic to topic and making cracks about their characters throughout. It’s not the easiest thing to try and keep track of the different stories from the set, but the relaxed nature of their commentary makes for a much more enjoyable experience than “This guy did this. That girl did that” or going over a play-by-play of what’s happening in the film. Wilson does fall into that on occasion here, even giving voice to Jeff’s inner monologue at certain times. However, all in all, the commentary he and Page provide Hard Candy is both insightful and incredibly entertaining, eh.

Check out more Commentary Commentary

Not to be confused with Reject Report, The White, which is what happens after we do battle with the Balrog. Reject Report, The White is never NEVER wrong. But in our current form we have to take into account things like star power and demographics and mass appeal, the kinds of aspects that go into making a film financially successful.

This week sees three new movies wanting that success and one Oscar contender expanding to wide release. Liam Neeson fights wolves, Sam Worthington faces a ledge, and Katherine Heigl takes on…money, I guess. I’m not really sure. Only one of these movies can be the victor while the other two scrounge for scraps to make up $10-15m. Not even worth the effort really. It’s the Reject Report, and you shall not pass.

Okay, now you can pass. Go ahead.

BIG HITTERS

Did you know Liam Neeson was a bad ass? Of course you did. It’s the reason he’s been able to take such films as Unknown and Taken and turned them into huge successes. His newest, The Grey, opens in the same weekend spot as Taken, which debuted to $24.7m in 2009. Unknown opened last February with $21.8m. With The Grey he’s reteaming with The A-Team director, Joe Carnahan, but don’t expect Summer-level numbers here. The A-Team, by the way, dropped in its opening weekend with $25.6m, not exactly Summer-level numbers in June of 2010, either. With its man vs. nature premise, though, The Grey could easily fit in with those low-to-mid $20m figures. Look for The Grey to debut somewhere around $23m, and look for Liam Neeson kicking hell out of anyone who doesn’t go see it. That’s what he does, right?

Here’s a little primer for how bad-ass Liam Neeson really is. It’s basically Taken with all the annoying, talky parts chopped out. Enjoy:

Sure, Man on a Ledge has Sam Worthington, star of Avatar. That’s always a selling factor for your film, though Worthington isn’t having quite the career launch Leonardo DiCaprio had after Titanic. But Man on a Ledge, a relatively accessible movie for the casual, adult moviegoer, is opening against The Grey, which has a very strong edge with its own leading man. There will definitely be an audience, though, that is looking to watch a heist movie over a wolves-killing-rugged-men movie. The numbers won’t be in its favor, but you can expect Man on a Ledge to come in somewhere around $9-10m. Let’s just say blue aliens would have done wonders for it.

Katherine Heigl in a completely ambiguously titled rom-com. Life As We Know it opened with $14.5m in 2010. Eh, we’ll go a little South of that. $12m for One for the Money and the Heig-meister. You watch. That name is gonna stick.

FAMILIARITIES

The Descendants was one of the films nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards this week. It doesn’t take a genius to realize Fox Searchlight had the films expansion to nearly 2000 screens this weekend planned for months. It’ll do them a huge favor, too, as the film has been pulling in a per theater average between $4000-5000 the last, few weeks. It can maintain a reasonable per theater average this weekend and walk off with around $6-7m to add to the $52m it’s already made. Look for that number to be closer to $7m than $6m with Clooney’s Best Actor nomination working its own magic.

Other films nominated for Best Picture that are still out in wide or semi-wide release are Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, War Horse, The Artist, and Hugo. The last two are expanding this weekend to just under 1000 screens each, but neither has much of a shot at breaking into the top 10. Expect similar expansions over the next couple of weeks. Moneyball, Midnight in Paris, The Help, and The Tree of Life are all available for home viewing, but they could all easily sneak back into a couple of hundred screens between now and Oscar night.

LITTLE OPENERS

Opening in limited release are Albert Nobbs opening in select cities, Alls Well That Ends Well opening in select cities, Declaration of War opening in select cities, and How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster? opening in select cities.

Here’s how the weekend is shaping up:

1. The Grey – $23.2m NEW
2. One For the Money – $12m NEW
3. Underworld Awakening – $11.1m (-55.8%)
4. Man On a Ledge – $9.6m NEW
5. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – $8.4m (-15.2%)
6. Red Tails – $8.4m (-54.6%)
7. The Descendants – $6.8m Expanded to 1997 screens
8. Contraband -$6.2m (-48%)
9. Beauty and the Beast in 3D – $4.6m (-46.9%)
10. Haywire – $4.6m (-44.4%)

Why Watch? If it’s part creepy and part endearing, it must be from Jim Henson, right?

io9 keenly celebrated this find from the ATT Tech Youtube channel – a short created by Henson in 1963 for a business owner seminar from The Bell System. Even without seeing his name on the work, you could have guessed it. His unique artistic sense is on display here in a fantastic, desperate monologue from a robot that loves ingesting vast oceans of information smoke. Adorable and unnerving. Yeah, it’s Henson alright.

What will it cost? Only 3 minutes.

Skip Work. You’ve Got Time For More Short Films.

The man vs nature genre of action/adventure films is usually a pretty reliable one when it comes to attractive scenery and entertaining scraps between man and beast. From the popcorn perfection of Jaws to the bloody thrills of Savage Harvest there’s a visceral thrill to be found in battles fought fist against claw (or teeth, beak, trunk, etc). With the exception of the very best however the films are usually pure entertainment that stop well short of anything resembling engaging human drama.

The Grey is one of those exceptions.

Mostly.

“Live or die on this day.”

A group of oil-field workers in Alaska settles in for dinner at camp after a hard day’s work, but one of the men looks distant and not all together thrilled with the cafeteria food. Ottway (Liam Neeson) leaves the company of his coworkers and heads out into the cold night air. He falls to his knees with a hopeless and lost look in his eyes, and presses the barrel of his rifle to his face. He’s a man on the verge of giving up completely, but something halts his trigger finger, and he instead boards a plane the next morning bound for Anchorage with some of the other guys.

But when the plane crashes killing most of the passengers on board Ottway and a handful of survivors find themselves stuck in the inhospitable Alaskan wilderness. He assumes a leadership role out of instinct, but before the group can come to a consensus as to their next course of action they discover that freezing weather and starvation aren’t the only threats they face. It seems they’ve crashed into a stretch of frozen wasteland called home by a pack of wolves, and it’s a home the animals are desperate to protect.

Ottway and the eight other men are forced to fight for their lives against the harsh elements of nature as they make their way towards safety. But can they trust their lives to a man who just hours prior was ready to give up on his own?

The Grey is an adventure film that dips its frostbitten toes into both the drama and horror genres, and the result is a surprisingly powerful tale of survival peppered with jump scares and heartfelt emotion. It isn’t simply about physical survival either as it champions the desire and will to live and questions the source of that strength in the men. Whether it be your family waiting for you back home, your faith in a higher power, or the simple drive to go down swinging the film highlights that will as an essential element to life. Ottway in particular is someone whose inner strength is in question, but flashbacks to a life before Alaska reveal both a reason to give up and a reason to go on on living. It’s far heavier stuff than a genre picture usually attempts, but Neeson and director Joe Carnahan nail it.

The last few years of Neeson’s career have seen him capitalizing on the success of Taken by placing him in the tough guy role as someone who never flinches and always succeeds. That trend continues somewhat here, but the character of Ottway also offers up a rare fragility visible on Neeson’s face and captured in multiple close-ups by Carnahan. The actor is more powerful in his troubled silence than he is spouting threats and one-liners.

The remaining men, played by Dermot Mulroney, Joe Anderson, Frank Grillo and others, offer varied levels of back-story and baggage, but they all add to the rough and gritty texture of the film. They’re described as “men unfit for mankind” for a reason as they prove through their actions and choices that the top of the world (or close to it) may be the best place for them. Some early deaths are done for horrific effect and to dwindle down the numbers, but later ones begin to hurt as characters who’ve crossed over from disposable to personable fall victim to the wolves and the environment.

Carnahan and co-writer Ian Mackenzie Jeffers keep things well paced as the film moves between the quiet moments where character is discussed and the action and attack scenes where character is defined. The film’s more dramatic scenes are equally helped by Mar Streitenfeld’s score, especially a short reprise that gets replayed at key moments.

It’s unfortunate that a film so focused on humanity and nature is let down by the intrusion of technology, but the weakest element on display here is the visual effects. A few of the shots stand out for their obvious green screen/CGI-enhanced look with the most egregious being a scene involving a cliff and a tree. It should have been a suspenseful and edge of your seat set-piece, but the lacking visual aesthetic distracts too much and it’s instead diffused of much of its power.

The wolves on the other hand, which are composed mostly of CGI and practical effects, are pretty effective. They’re realistic enough for the most part even if the alpha wolf does tease a hefty resemblance to Gmork from The NeverEnding Story. The attacks are done in a furious, fast cut style that flashes fangs, hair and blood across the screen, and wide shots are filled with a calm menace. The only real problem regarding the creatures is the statement Ottway makes that “wolves are the only animal that will seek revenge.” Has he not seen Orca? Or Taken for that matter…

The Grey is a fantastic adventure and easily Carnahan’s most mature and entertaining picture. It’s both frightening and exhilarating throughout, and some sloppy effects aside, does a great job of putting viewers on the cold, dangerous Alaskan tundra with characters worth caring about. Parts of it are played like a horror film, but the film never casts the wolves as real monsters or the “bad guys.” Instead it’s about survival on all sides in a world where bad things simply happen, challenges must be endured, and the only thing you can really count on to get you through is yourself.

The Upside: Exciting and suspenseful action scenes; characters are fully realized instead of simple cardboard action-hero cutouts; far more emotional than you’d expect; powerful and haunting ending

The Downside: Some terribly obvious CGI and green-screen in a couple scenes

On the Side: There’s a post credits scene, but I think the film works better without it.

The Mayans, the wise race of ancients who created hot cocoa, set December 21st, 2012 as the end date of their Calendar, which the intelligent and logical amongst us know signifies the day the world will end, presumably at 12:21:12am, Mountain Time. From now until zero date, we will explore the 50 films you need to watch before the entire world perishes. We don’t have much time, so be content, be prepared, be entertained.

The Film: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

The Plot: When the Nazis threaten to find and unleash the power within the Ark of the Covenant, the US Government turns to the only place that can save them: Academia. Back in the 1930s, Professors and Archaeologists were made of a lot tougher stuff, and were far more attractive to co-eds than they are today. The manliest among them, Indiana Jones, fresh off a disastrous trip to a South American jungle, embarks on a global quest to find the Ark first.

The Review: I mean, come on people, it’s Raiders of the Lost Ark. Our first introduction to Indiana Jones! The only man in our galaxy with enough swagger to go toe to toe with Han Solo and come out the other side. The mid-1970s to early 1980s represented a true shift in cinema – the blockbuster was born. Action was redefined. A whole new class of hero emerged.

Sadly, as the years move away from this film, it seems there are more and more people who have never seen it. They know who Indiana Jones is and they’ve probably seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom on USA or maybe they’ve had the misfortune of seeing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, in which case they’ve probably never bothered to see another Jones movie. Tragedy.

Raiders is the effective birthplace of the fun adventurer. It’s never too silly, but never too dark, even when dealing with death, Nazis, and face melting. It has been the role model for films like The Rocketeer and Captain America: The First Avenger, as well as much closer clones like Sahara and other adventuring movies, with good reason. You can argue all day over which Harrison Ford character is better – Han Solo or Indiana Jones – and you’ll stick with your answer for more than 30 minutes.

With epic, fun action, tremendous set design, a razor sharp, quotable script, and Spielberg directing at the top of his game, Raiders of the Lost Ark is pure entertainment joy. It manages to be a roller coaster ride of fun without relying on an actual roller coaster gimmick.

The film was written by Lawrence Kasdan (The Empire Strikes Back) based on a story from George Lucas (Star Wars) and is directed by Steven Spielberg (Jaws). These are big names even now, but this is back when they were still making great movies! It’s breath taking, comforting, and contains one of the coolest and most iconic outfits in history. Who doesn’t want to wear a fedora and a leather jacket still to this day? Has a whip ever been cooler?

Few films truly stand the test of time and subpar sequels, but Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of them. No matter how many times you’ve already seen it, there’s always time for one more visit.

But why spend 115 minutes watching this film when you only have 473,640 minutes left to live?

No one wants to be sad before they die. Well, maybe some weirdos do, but not me. I plan on going out with a smile on my face and Raiders of the Lost Ark is the right prescription. It also serves the purpose of wiping a lot of unpleasant memories from your mind before you leave this mortal coil. Want to forget about the new Star Wars trilogy and remember George Lucas fondly? Need to wipe Spielberg’s poor performance over the last decade out of your mind? Begging for death after watching The Crystal Skull? Greet death with a grin and forget that terrible movie by watching this one!

Click here for more must-see movies for your final year, Humanity

Normally I’m not a very big fan of the way rich people spend their money, but Megan Ellison got in my good graces the minute I heard about her existing by starting up Annapurna Pictures and lending funding to interesting sounding projects like John Hillcoat’s Wettest County and Paul Thomas Anderson’s upcoming Scientology movie. Her star dimmed a bit in my eyes, however, when she picked up the rights to the Terminator franchise with the intentions of making another Terminator feature. Why did this new angel in my life who appeared out of nowhere and started funding artsy films just stab me in the back by continuing a once-beloved franchise that has already been run into the ground? I thought for sure our love affair was over.

But now she’s had an exchange on Twitter that has got her back in my good graces. I’m nothing if not fickle. Fan site The Terminator Fans, tried to get some info about the upcoming fifth film by contacting the producer on the service and asking, “@meganeellison We hope you can bring this franchise back from the brink of PG-13 HELL! Can we mail you some questions?” It turns out that no, no they can’t ask her some questions, but her response was both gracious and exciting anyway. Ellison got back to them by responding, “@terminatorfans We can’t really tell you guys anything about Terminator BUT it will be an R rated film as God and James Cameron intended.”

There’s just something about one of the forces behind the next Terminator film saying that God intended for action/horror mashups to be R rated that warms my cockles. I still don’t think that this is a franchise that needs to go any further than it already has, but at least it’s going to give us some extreme cyborg violence.

John Hawkes has quickly became one of my favorite actors by giving my favorite supporting performances of the last two years. First he was the oddly intimidating Uncle Tear Drop in 2010’s Winter’s Bone, and last year he was the strangely charismatic cult leader in Martha Marcy May Marlene. Both of those films made their initial splashes at Sundance, and seeing as this year Hawkes returned to the festival, this time in a leading role, with the movie The Surrogate, I think there’s a good chance he could give my favorite performance of the year overall in 2012. That is, if reports of the film getting lengthy standing ovations and the glowing review of our own very helpful Allison Loring can be believed.

The thing that strikes me about Hawkes is the absolute authority he’s able to command his characters with. He’s a slight man, but he made me fear him completely as Tear Drop. He’s not a pretty man, but he sold me completely on the spell he had those girls under in Martha Marcy May Marlene. In The Surrogate he plays Mark O’Brien, a poet who suffers from Polio, which has left him with a severely curved spine. Hawkes gave a pretty lengthy interview about the movie to Vulture, and the most interesting bits of it, to me, were the parts where he talks about how taxing it was physically to bring this character to life. It sounds like we’re getting another Hawkes performance where he goes all in.

When talking about meeting the film’s director, Ben Lewin, and deciding whether or not he should take this role, Hawkes said, “The first question I asked him when we sat down and met was, ‘Why not a disabled actor for this role? Have you searched for any disabled actors?’ And he assured me that he had… over the period of a couple of years, he put out feelers to disabled organizations and he’d met and read with several disabled actors; some of them he thought were terrific and he’d put in the movie, but none of them felt quite right for the character Mark O’Brien.”

So if you’re not going with a disabled actor, then how do you make an actor with a straight spine appear disabled? Apparently it was no easy task. Hawkes explains the challenge: “Mark’s spine was horribly curved. When you read the script, it says, ‘I haven’t seen my penis since I was 6 years old.’ And Helen Hunt as his therapist says into a tape recorder, ‘His spine is so horribly curved that I don’t know if intercourse is possible.’ You need to honor those things.” And honor those things he did, in true John Hawkes fashion, by getting a little crazy.

Hawkes goes on to describe his attempts at physical transformation by saying, “I invented, along with the lovely props people, something called the ‘torture ball,’ which was a soccer-sized piece of foam that I would lay onto the left side of my back in order to curve my spine. It turned out to not be very good for me and my chiropractor told me that my organs were migrating. I probably will carry some of that the rest of my life, but it’s obviously a minute amount of pain compared to what many disabled people face minute-to-minute.” Good lord, that sounds awful. If he’s to be believed, the man may have permanently injured himself in order to lend a role authenticity. We can at least repay his efforts by all going out and seeing this thing once Fox Searchlight gets it into theaters, don’t you think?

Brook (Dominic Bogart) is not a hipster – he may wear deep V-neck t-shirts, plaid and have an overwhelmingly self-deprecating attitude, but a hipster he is not (or so the title of this film claims.) Brook is an aspiring musician and while he is having a good amount of success on the San Diego indie music scene, he seems bitter and angry. Brook hates compliments and recognition, which is slightly ironic considering his best friend, Clarke (Alvaro Orlando), is his biggest fan (a fact he announces daily.)

While doing a local radio interview Brook seems incredibly disinterested, almost laughing at himself for even being there, but this feeling quickly devolves into combative when the host (Brad William Henke) asks him about his mother (who passed away two years earlier.) Brook flips out and leaves the studio and it is in this moment that we begin to realize what may be the real root of Brook’s behavior.

Brook’s three sisters Joy (Tammy Minoff), Spring (Lauren Coleman) and Marrily (Kandis Erickson) come to visit  along with their father (who Brook seems to have some unresolved issues with) and while this is a surprise to Brook, the girls had been leaving him endless messages about it that he never bothered to listen to. This seems like yet another example of Brook only caring about himself, but when his sisters descend and Brook’s attitude begins to thaw, we start to realize that Brook may not be as selfish as he seems.

The girls are in town to scatter their mom’s ashes and it is clear that the four siblings are incredibly close, sleeping in the same bed and pushing into each other’s space without hesitation. Considering the slightest thing usually sets Brook, one would think the three women invading his life and personal space would send him off the deep end, but Brook seems annoyed for only a few minutes before his attitude starts to shift. In one of the film’s more poignant moments, Joy finds Brook sitting on the floor of his bedroom watching footage of a tsunami destroy a town (footage he seems mildly obsessed with) and Brook reveals what has really been upsetting him – Brook isn’t angry, he is lonely. Clearly losing his mother affected him more than even Brook may have realized and has affected his attitude and outlook on life.

Director Destin Cretton (who also penned the script) paints a story that had a few plot holes, but overall depicted a young man who could at first be considered a stereotype, but is instead slowly revealed to have a bit more emotional depth than it seemed at first glance. Brook may not be a hipster who has an unreasonable disdain for the world around him after all – he may just be a kid dealing with a tragic loss, who also happens to also like wearing skinny jeans.

The Upside: I Am Not A Hipster takes on idea of how we can label people without really getting to know or understand them and Orlando’s Clarke may be a bit of a yes man, but when he finally stands up to Brook he truly shines and made a push over of a character into someone worth watching.

The Downside: It is never quite explained why Brook had issues with his father or why the family waited two years before deciding to spread their mom’s ashes, weakening the narrative which started to get interesting once Brook dropped the attitude and started showing his true colors.

On the Side: While hooking up with a girl after a party one night, the mere mention of his ex’s new boyfriend and his band annoys Brook so much he literally pushed the girl out of his bed – and got one of the film’s biggest laughs.

Click here. More Sundance 2012.

Ellis (Graham Phillips) has grown up in a less-than-average household. Ellis lives in Tuscan, Arizona with his mother Wendy (Vera Farmiga) who is a free spirit and relies on Ellis to make sure their bills are paid on time while she seems to still be “finding herself.” Add to this Goat Man (David Duchovny) who tends to their pool and garden (as well as his own “garden”) and lives on the property with, you guessed it, his goats. Despite this rather unusual upbringing, Ellis seems more than well adjusted and the film focuses on his recent decision to attend an East Coast Prep School, Gates Academy, which his father Frank (Ty Burrell) also attended. Considering Wendy refers to Frank as “Fucker Frank,” it is clear this decision is not one she is happy about.

Although you would expect a typical “fish out of water” story based off this premise when Ellis arrives at the more uptight Gates Academy, pressured to change his ways from goat trekking to cross-country running, he is surprisingly agile and quickly fits into his new surroundings without too much friction. Now on the East Coast, Frank reaches out to Ellis and invites him to his house in Washington D.C. for Thanksgiving. After reluctantly accepting Frank’s offer, Ellis’ laid back persona starts to give way as a suddenly strict father figure enters into his life.

Goats, at its core, is a coming of age story for all the characters involved, not just Ellis. Goat Man eventually realizes he needs to grow up (and shaves his beard and long hair to prove it), Wendy finally gains some self-respect and kicks her deadbeat (possibly gold-digging) boyfriend Bennett (Justin Kirk) out while Frank, perhaps thanks to becoming a father for the second time with his current wife Judy (Keri Russell), finally eases up on Ellis and realizes the two have more in common than he may have first realized (and may have been the reason he was so hard on him.) While the characters do change and grow, it is almost like watching a child learn to walk or tie their shoes – you know these are things they need to, and eventually will do, but watching these characters get there with no real weight was unfulfilling.

First-time director Christopher Neil guides his cast through the motions, never setting up real stakes or conflicts that the characters must overcome. There is nothing glaringly wrong with Goats, but there is also nothing that particularly stands out. Considering Neil was working with such a strong cast, it was more disappointing than anything. And when Duchovny is playing someone known as Goat Man and is less than engaging – something is off.

The Upside: Phillips delivered a performance that was both believable and natural, and might be another reason to start watching The Good Wife.

The Downside: An interesting idea that played surprisingly bland, despite the talented cast. The scenes of Russell trying to mediate the strained relationship between Ellis and Frank were the most interesting, but all too brief.

On the Side: Would tract housing in Palm Springs really allow someone to own (and breed) goats on their property?

We’ve got more Sundance 2012 coverage. Way more.

The notion that nobody walks places in Los Angeles is one of the biggest L.A. clichés, right up there with the belief that Southern California is populated by beautiful sunglasses-wearing people who spend most of their time doing cocaine when they’re not driving around in their convertibles, loudly yammering about the biz.

Still, based on my limited experience there (and City of Angels dwellers, feel free to correct me), the aversion to walking is actually kind of true. At the very least, the idea provides an interesting way into the cross-coastal, gender-driven culture clash at the center of Nobody Walks, a film from New Yorkers Ry Russo-Young (director and co-writer) and Lena Dunham (co-writer), about a New York filmmaker named Martine (Olivia Thirlby) who arrives in L.A. to work on a movie with married sound designer Peter (John Krasinski) and to stay with his family at their home in Silver Lake, in part because she doesn’t drive.

With her pixie haircut and free, seductive spirit, Martine has a transfixing effect on the men she encounters. As this irresistible force upsets the family dynamic inside Peter’s home, erotic desires pervert rational thoughts and painful truths are exposed.

The film is a charged, atmospheric production that trades in subtly heightened sexualized tensions. There’s very little plot, just scenes of men melting in Martine’s presence, intersected with a similar scenario featuring Peter’s psychotherapist wife Julie (Rosemarie DeWitt) and an admirer (Justin Kirk) and a far more sinister one in the same vein involving Peter’s teenage stepdaughter Kolt (India Ennenga) and her much-older Italian tutor (Emanuele Secci).

Russo-Young’s third feature directorial effort turns the standard homewrecker story on its head. Martine is not the villain here; she’s just doesn’t belong in Los Angeles with Peter’s family. A lazier movie would have framed her as an uncaring temptress; this one sees and draws out the person inside the beautiful skin. She’s mysterious and naïve, unafraid of her sexuality but somehow unaware of its power.

This is a tough part, requiring an actress capable of exuding a sexual, transfixing presence while simultaneously seeming like an actual human and selling us on some inexplicable behavior, without the aid of a lot of dialogue. Thirlby straddles that line convincingly, achieving the difficult effect of simultaneously seeming open and obtuse, smart and clueless, and keeping the audience engaged.

The subplots don’t work as well as the main narrative, as the stuff involving DeWitt and Kirk feels tossed off and the leering, creepy tutor is a superfluous, one-dimensional invention. The film struggles when it flirts with melodrama and the events at hand lose credibility if too much logic is applied to them.

But Russo-Young is less interested in a literal enterprise than in producing a lyrical mood piece about the burdens of being a beautiful woman surrounded by weak-willed men. It’s an engaging production on that level, but also in some respects a radical, fascinating statement that subverts and reorients the usual interests of this sort of eroticized production.

The Upside: Ry Russo-Young’s movie turns what could have been the standard story of a homewrecker seducing a husband into an engaging feminist statement.

The Downside: The script isn’t perfect, as its subplots range from mundane to outright off-putting.

On the Side: This is an interesting, difficult film, so naturally it hasn’t been picked up yet at Sundance. The modest star power and intriguing subject matter should get it a distribution deal eventually, though.

Click here for more from Sundance 2012

This Week in Blu-ray may be coming to you a few days later than usual, but fear not, as it was worth the wait. Fox and MGM decided to drop a number of great films on me at the last minute, meaning long hours of pouring over special features, drinking heavily and ultimately turning myself into a late-1970s Woody Allen character by the end. It was all worth it, as you’re about to experience 2500 words or so of the most full edition of this column we’ve seen in a long time. Plenty of unsung heroes of 2011, classics of yesteryear and boxing robots to go around. Also, Rob Hunter stops by for some cross-column reviewing with Rebecca.

50/50

In a week that will see the release of a bevy of classics coming to Blu-ray for the very first time, it would be a crime to overlook one of 2011′s most heartfelt works, complete with some ranged performances from the likes of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen and Bryce Dallas Howard. Jonathan Levine (The Wackness), working from a script by Will Reiser based on a true story, tells the tale of Adam, a 27-year old guy who gets diagnosed with spinal cancer. Dealing with his overbearing friends, his smothering mother and a relationship that hangs on the edge, Adam must find a way to not only beat cancer, but all the situational drama it’s caused between him and those he cares about most. It’s funny, touching and full of memorable performances. Just the kind of thing that could beat Annie Hall to Pick of the Week, especially with a decent amount of special features on the Blu. Don’t let the tagline on the cover — “from the guys who brought you Superbad” — that’s just salesmanship on Summit’s part. This one has far more heart than you’d ever expect.

Wings (1927)

The Pitch: It’s a tale as old as time, just like this movie.

Why Buy? Paramount is making a big deal of the fact that Wings is the first Oscar Best Picture winner, and rightfully so. The 1927 film was, in fact, the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It’s also a story that has been told and retold several times since: two young men, one rich and one middle class, fall in love with the same woman, then get sent off to become World War I fighter pilots. Hilarity ensues. The kicker here is that for a film created in the mid-1920s, it sure looks swell in 1080p. Some Blu-ray buyers are all about the crisp, clean presentation of today’s modern movies. But if you’re that special breed that also loves seeing the cracks and imperfections in a film preserved from a time long gone, presented as perfectly as possible in HD, then this one will feel right at home in your collection. I’m also absolutely in love with the cover art, which adds a bit of celebratory flair to Paramount’s excitement over this particular release. We should all be so excited about this well-aged beauty.

Rebecca

The Pitch: Joan Fontaine is my black & white crush. I would travel through time for this woman…

Why Buy? A young woman (the lovely Joan Fontaine) is drawn into a relationship with a mysterious and wealthy widow (Laurence Olivier), and when the two get married she discovers the secret behind his enigmatic behavior and the possible murder of his dead wife. Alfred Hitchcock’s adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s bestseller was the director’s first Hollywood film, and it remains somewhat of an odd duck on his resume. His vision was compromised at every turn by uber-producer David O. Selznick, and the result is a film that never quite feels Hitchcockian. Still, the movie is a compelling gothic mystery (that went on to win Best Picture at the Oscars) and features three strong and charismatic lead performances. Especially from Fontaine. MGM’s new Blu has a solid, albeit predictably unremarkable transfer, and includes a handful of special features that offer fascinating insight into the film’s production. - Rob Hunter

Annie Hall

The Pitch: Boy meets girl, girl discovers that boy is Woody Allen, somehow girl sticks around for a while.

Why Buy? Believe it or not, I had never before seen Annie Hall. We all have our detestable cinematic blind spots, and one of mine happens to be much of Woody Allen’s pre-2000 filmography. That said, I’m here to report to you 35 years after the release of the film in question that it is quite good. Woody Allen shines as the neurotic Alvy Singer, a comedian who is convinced that life is meant to be miserable. Even when he meets and dates the love of his life, Annie Hall (Diane Keaton), he still seems intent on being miserable. So she leaves. And he wises up for a moment and follows her, and learns a lesson or two along the way. It’s a charming film that proves Woody Allen to be one charismatic fella, and on Blu-ray it looks darn good for its age. A little digital noise here and there will only appear to those with the keenest of eyes. For everyone else, it will look like you’re seeing Annie Hall for the first time all over again. Unless, like me, you’re seeing it for the first time, period. The only wish, of course, would be something in the way of extras. For something labeled as part of ‘The Woody Allen Collection’, you’d think we’d at least get a few extras. Sadly, there are none. That shouldn’t stop you, however, from adding this to your Woody Allen collection.

Notorious (1946) and Spellbound

The Pitch: Two Alfred Hitchcock movies in glorious HD.

Why Buy? First, to answer your initial question: why put these two together? For one, they are kindred spirits, both in the way they were cast and executed by the master himself and in the way they are being released on Blu-ray. Both star Ingrid Bergman. In Spellbound, she’s a psychiatrist who falls for one of colleagues, only to find out later that he may not be a psychiatrist after all, but an amnesiac who was once a murderer. In Notorious, she is a troubled beauty who is recruited by Cary Grant to help him infiltrate a German spy ring in post-war Rio. And of course, like any of us, she falls in love with Cary Grant. To their equal credit, both Blu-rays are presented with shiny 1080p transfers. Presented in their original full frame aspect, they have a clarity that is unexpected from what otherwise feels like a catalog release. No special box art, no big “Special Limited Collectors Edition” taglines, just a good transfer and a buffet of special features. That’s exactly what one might hope to get from such a release. And exactly why you’d be wise to invest your money in this version before MGM wises up and releases the same thing with new cover art for $10 more.

Manhattan

The Pitch: Woody Allen falls for Diane Keaton… again.

Why Buy? Yet another brilliant Woody Allen movie that I had unintentionally ignored up to this point. Allen takes his beloved town into the frame of black and white for this 1979 folly of sex, romance and neurosis. He plays Isaac, a guy who hates his job, has a 17-year old girlfriend, a lesbian ex-wife who’s writing a tell-all book about him and a new love interest in Mary (Keaton), a sexy, intelligent and challenging new conquest. It’s another of those situations in which Woody Allen chases love down the rabbit hole, kicking and screaming about it all the way. But it’s so effortlessly breathtaking visually that it’s impossible not to get wrapped up in the majesty of Manhattan. Like Annie Hall, Manhattan on Blu-ray is a bittersweet pill. It’s a gorgeous movie transferred with considerable effort to the high definition medium. But there are no supplements to speak of. That said, it’s the kind of delightful film that any film fan should own.

Due to its wild length, this week’s edition is broken up into two pages. On page two, you’ll see all the titles I’d buy or avoid, plus all the titles that weren’t reviewed, but still released.

The upcoming Relativity Media release Act of Valor looks like it could be a pretty balls-out fun time in terms of action film, but I’m sure everyone has some hesitation about one of the film’s biggest selling points: it uses active duty Navy SEALs as the cast. While that sounds badass because it is, it also sounds like a risky gamble since these guys are warriors and not necessarily actors.

That fear may be allayed however, the more we get to see of the film, which looks like it’s going to be a non-stop ass kicking ride of guys killing people and blowing stuff up. When there isn’t much call for acting, only action, can you do any better than hiring real soldiers?

Showing just how vital the use of actual SEALs is to the product, we were sent this featurette which illustrates something very few movies are willing to partake in: the use of live ammunition. On almost any other set, this would be an insurance and logistics nightmare, but when you’re dealing with real Navy SEALs who train with live ammunition and actually blow things up for real, rather than using flashy smoke bombs, all you have to do is point the camera in the right spot and remember to put your flak jacket on.

Check out the footage and see for yourself how awesome practical bullets look on screen.

What can you say other than “wow.” That looks awesome. We Rejects always value practical effects over CGI work, and it doesn’t get more real than real bullets. Just compare the awesome look of the muzzle flash and the utter destruction of the vehicles to the crappy digital blasts of other movies or even the somewhat decent but still lacking blank-firing rounds.

With each little bit I see of Act of Valor I get more and more excited about it. My hesitation over non-actors in acting roles fades with each burst of real bullets tearing through metal and actual Navy SEALs putting their skills on display. Count me in.

Act of Valor is in theaters starting February 24th. Visit the official site here.

For those of you who may not be aware, this weekend’s new release One for the Money is based on a series of books about struggling bounty hunter Stephanie Plum written by Janet Evanovich. I’ve read them all, as well as most of Evanovich’s other work and I’d definitely count myself a fan. The writing, which admittedly gets better as the series goes along, is sharp and witty and fun to read. Unfortunately the film version turned out flat and tepid and very middle of the road.

Stephanie Plum is a little down on her luck. After losing her job working the unmentionables counter at Macy’s, she’s languished for 6 months looking for work. Finding none, and with the rent past due and her car already repossessed she tries her last resort working for her sleazy cousin Vinnie. The thing is, Vinnie runs a bail bonds office and Stephanie knows absolutely nothing about being a bounty hunter. Of course that doesn’t stop her. With help from a suave and experienced bounty hunter known as Ranger, Stephanie sets her sights on Joe Morelli, a cop who skipped out on a $500,000 bond. And while it seems like Joe might be innocent, Stephanie could sure use the $50,000 she’d get for bringing him in. If only she could remember where she put her gun…

The biggest problem with the film isn’t a tangible specific item. With a few notable exceptions, most of the dialogue is decent, the acting is OK, the cinematography is acceptable and so on and so forth. Instead the feel and tone are off, not just off from the feel and tone of the book, but taken on its own the film feels plastic and false, like a can of soda that’s sat out too long and lost its fizz. It’s shiny and polished but it doesn’t amount to much.

While the tone is the biggest issue with the film, the specific items like dialogue, acting and storytelling are problematic in how unremarkable they are. There are flaws that can be pointed out, things like the handling of Stephanie’s best friend Mary Lou, who Stephanie talks to on the phone maybe a half dozen times throughout the film even though the character is barely if ever actually introduced. In fact, her name is only mentioned once at most, leaving most of the audience wondering who this soccer mom is that Heigl seems to need to talk to every 15-20 minutes. Critics will also no doubt point out the scene in which a character reaches for a table clearly covered in drug particles and pulls back a hand absolutely covered in white powder which he then proceeds to smell and declare to be heroin. Why an entire fistful is necessary we will never know. But ultimately these types of flaws are fairly minor.

If you go in hating Katherine Heigl, this is certainly not the film that will change your mind. She’s front and center and narrates pretty much the entire film with her character’s stream of consciousness. But if you’re able to stand her, she’s surprisingly not awful in this role, playing frazzled and bumbling relatively well if unexceptionally. Everything about the film is middling. The cinematography is fine but uninspired with the few action scenes looking more like a TV movie. The acting is OK but unremarkable, the dialogue mostly avoids eye rolls but doesn’t gain any earned laughs either. It is the very definition of a movie that just exists, a fleeting film so forgettable, you won’t remember it once your shoes hit the pavement of the parking lot.

The Upside: Heigl does a decent job of trying to bring Stephanie Plum to life and manages not to be too grating in the process.

The Downside: Tone feels like everyone’s trying a little too hard to be funny without ever really succeeding.

On the Side: It’s interesting that Heigl’s ample and bouncy chest is clearly on display throughout most of the film considering that the Stephanie Plum of the books was specifically stated to be far less endowed.

Collette McVeigh seems to be a fairly normal little girl, creating beaded necklaces and bribing her younger brother into running a quick errand for their father that she does not want to do herself. Unfortunately, this errand ends in tragedy, with her brother getting shot and killed. As her mother weeps over his body and her father fixes in on her with a look that could kill, Collette stands frozen, devastated. Shadow Dancer focuses on the life of a now grown-up Collette (Andrea Riseborough) who has a son of her own and is tied up in the “family business” (the IRA), rooted in taking down the English government which cost their brother his life.

The guilt Collette surely felt over her brother’s demise is what pushed her into this life as she seems on edge at all moments and never quite comfortable with what she is doing. After a failed attempt at bombing a London subway, Collette is picked up by an MI5 officer, Mac (Clive Owen), who offers her a deal – become his informant or get thrown in a London prison and never see her son again. Collette only seems at ease when she is with her son, making Mac’s threat all it takes to get Collette to agree this double life.

Things are further complicated when it is revealed that one of Collette’s brothers, Gerry (Aidan Gillen), is the central (and volatile) force behind the movement Mac is after. Thanks to his increasing paranoia, Gerry begins to grow suspicious of his sister while Mac is growing suspicious of his boss Kate (Gillian Anderson), afraid that his operation, and Collette’s life, are merely pawns in a greater chess game. Things begin to get dicey for them both as the narrative escalates and a sudden reveal turns everything on its head.

Shadow Dancer wants to be a tight thriller as the story twists and turns and the stakes grow with them, but the stark cinematography and piano heavy score (from composer Dickon Hinchliffe) create a more mellow feeling punctuated by only a handful of action-packed moments. Owen and Riseborough both turn in captivating performances under James Marsh’s direction and while their time on screen together certainly popped, Mac’s loyalty to Collette never quite had enough reasoning behind it to back up his actions.

The Upside: If you were a fan of the look and feel of Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy, this film should be right up your alley. 

The Downside: Filled with quiet moments and little action to break it up, Shadow Dancer threatens to be more boring than exciting.

On the Side: If you are curious about British film and looking to get an introduction into their style, this would be a good place to start.

—

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr tapes some alcohol bottles to his knuckles and gets ready to brawl with wolves. Unfortunately, he first drinks all the booze in the bottles and ends up passing out in the snow. When he wakes up, he brushes himself off and heads downtown to climb on the ledge of a tall building. The police are called to try and save him, but Kevin ends up jumping when he learns that Katherine Heigl is brought in to talk him down. Fortunately, Kevin survives the fall and stumbles to the local multiplex to check out this week’s new movies.

Want to hear what Kevin has to say on the Fat Guys at the Movies podcast? Click here to listen as Kevin is joined by FSR’s own Editor of Something Rob Hunter to chat about the new movies of the week.

THE GREY
Studio: Open Road Films

Rated: R for violence/disturbing content including bloody images, and for pervasive language

Starring: Liam Neeson, Dermot Mulroney, James Badge Dale, Joe Anderson and Frank Grillo

Directed by: Joe Carnahan

What it’s about: On a trip from the Arctic Circle back to Anchorage, Alaska, a plane crashes with a crew of oil refinery workers. The survivors find themselves in the middle of the frozen wilderness, surrounded by wolves who think their hunting territory is being threatened. The men embark on a quest to find shelter, protection and rescue, while trying to avoid become dinner for the wolves.

What makes the grade: While The Grey doesn’t necessarily tread fresh ground, it’s an extremely well-made movie. Your basic man-versus-nature film, The Grey puts its characters in an impossible yet utterly realistic situation, leaving them to their own devices to survive. There are several bloody, intense scenes, and the film works as much as an actioner as it does a drama.

But with all of this danger content, the film has a heart… and I’m not just talking about the hearts that get ripped out by the wolves. Star Liam Neeson is the key to this, and he raises the level of quality of The Grey from a basic thriller to a touching drama.

Also, having traveled to Alaska, I appreciated the beauty of the land and the surrounding. But as beautiful as nature is, it is also exceedingly dangerous at times. Director Joe Carnahan doesn’t shy away from the uglier side of the natural world, and The Grey becomes a demonstration on how Alaska can kill you a thousand different ways.

What fails: Like any film that features a group of characters facing a non-human threat, the focus on the characters’ humanity can be a bit much. The film has some heart, yes, but sometimes that heart is laid on a bit thick. Case in point, before the plane crash, Neeson’s character writes a letter to his wife, and he spends at least three or four scenes pondering it. This just gets tedious at times. I know what Carnahan is trying to do with it, but he doesn’t quite know when to stop it.

Finally, while I enjoyed the film, it’s a bit silly for Carnahan to now be demanding a re-release in October for next year’s award consideration. It’s a good movie, but it’ll be forgotten in award season next year regardless. It’s not that good. Carnahan is a good filmmaker, but he’s also an egomaniac (like many other of his colleagues, I suppose).

Who is gonna like this movie: People who want to see an intense man-versus-nature drama.

MAN ON A LEDGE
Studio: Summit Entertainment

Rated: PG-13 for violence and brief strong language

Starring: Sam Worthington, Elizabeth Banks, Jamie Bell, Anthony Mackie and Ed Burns

Directed by: Asger Leth

What it’s about: Sam Worthington plays an escaped convict who climbs out onto the ledge of the Roosevelt Hotel and threatens to jump. The police send in a team to try to talk him down, and soon it becomes apparent that there is something going on besides a suicidal jumper.

What makes the grade: Man on a Ledge reminds me of the film Cellular, which starred Chris Evans and Kim Basinger back in 2004. It’s an entertaining movie that has some good thrills. It employs some nice action sequences in it and has enough things going on in the plot to justify its running time.

It’s also competently acted, and yes, I’m including the typically dull Sam Worthington in this mix. The cast seems to know they’re making a basic crime thriller, so they don’t throw down Oscar clip moments that make the movie look silly. In short, there are all the elements in this film to make it not a waste of time to watch on a lazy Saturday.

What fails: However, Man on a Ledge is nothing more than a film that isn’t a waste of time to watch on a lazy Saturday. As inoffensive and attractive as Sam Worthington is, I don’t know of anyone (besides James Cameron, maybe) that he really lights a fire under. He may be the “it guy” in movies now, but he just can’t carry a film without giant blue Na’vi surrounding him or fighting a computer generated Kraken.

For as enjoyable and entertaining as Man on a Ledge is, it offers nothing new. It is predictable down to the last frame, exemplifying the height of minimalist storytelling, at least from an original idea perspective.

Who is gonna like this movie: Someone who wants a distraction that will be forgotten in mere minutes.

ONE FOR THE MONEY
Studio: Lionsgate

Rated: PG-13 for violence, sexual references and language, some drug material and partial nudity

Starring: Katherine Heigl, John Leguizamo, Daniel Sunjata, Jason O’Mara and Patrick Fischler

Directed by: Julie Anne Robinson

What it’s about: Katherine Heigl stars as Stephanie Plum, the lead character in Janet Evanovich’s best-selling book series. Plum is fired from her job at Macy’s and must take a job as a bounty hunter to make ends meet. When she tries to collar an old boyfriend who skipped bail, she finds herself in the midst of a dangerous murder mystery.

What makes the grade: One for the Money reminds me a bit of last fall’s What’s Your Number? That movie wasn’t that good, but its stars Anna Faris and Chris Evans were so charming in it, they helped elevate it to a watchable level. If Anna Faris was the star of One for the Money, we might have had the same effect. Unfortunately, the star is the irritating and arrogant Katherine Heigl.

I can respect the original source material, even though I haven’t read it myself. But from what I gathered from the film, it has some punchy characters and an entertaining story. It’s exactly what you’d expect from a mid-90s piece of pop literature that a housewife might read on vacation. This type of story is a fun, light read that deserves a strong audience.

But it has no place being a major motion picture.

What fails: At best – and that’s if you don’t find Katherine Heigl an annoyance of epic proportions – One for the Money is a mildly entertaining Lifetime TV movie. The script is rocky, jumping around from plot element to plot element sometimes with very little sense, and containing godawful dialogue like, “You’re ancient history. Like the pyramids.” Yeah, they use that little ditty twice in the film, actually.

But the fatal error in this film is its reliance on Katherine Heigl, who doesn’t have a shred of believability as a hard-nosed, smart-talking girl from New Jersey. She might be doing that accent okay, but her acting (as it is often) is so disingenuous that it’s hard to sit still through the film.

I suppose if you are okay with Heigl as an actor, this movie isn’t terrible… but she’s only slightly less annoying than Jennifer Lopez, who is only slightly less annoying than waterboarding.

Who is gonna like this movie: Fans of Evanovich’s books and people who don’t mind Katherine Heigl.