Published Feb. 12, 2010

For those wondering where Joe Johnston would take his re-imagining of 1941’s “The Wolf Man,” the answer comes early. “The Wolfman” (one word, like Batman or Darkman) opens with a guy waving a lantern around a Victorian-era English wood, his onscreen life lasting just long enough for him to shout, “I know you’re out there,” before being promptly disemboweled. Johnston, directing from a screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self, is serious about gore. Sadly, that appears to be all he’s serious about. Treating story as an unhappy chore to be rushed through—like foreplay or washing the dishes—Johnston wastes no time bringing Lawrence (Benicio Del Toro) home to the creepy estate of his equally creepy father (Anthony Hopkins). There, Lawrence attends the funeral of his little brother—revealed in that first scene to be a man of real guts—and falls on cue for the dead man’s sweetheart (Emily Blunt). Then he gets bitten by a werewolf—and if history has taught us one thing, we know what happens next. Full moon–triggered bloodbaths follow, each one loud and grisly enough to command even a torture porn–era audience’s attention. (more…)

Published Feb. 4, 2010

“My name’s Temple Grandin. I’m not like other people. I think in pictures, then connect them.” So begins the HBO biopic “Temple Grandin,” with Claire Danes announcing herself as the titular character—her shouty, unselfconscious voice reinforcing her “not like other people” status. Grandin, we soon learn, was diagnosed with autism back when doctors offered such news with a cigarette and the name of a nearby institution. But Grandin’s mother was not the institutionalizing type and instead devoted herself to molding her daughter into a productive member of society. Mission accomplished. Grandin would eventually become a celebrity in an obscure corner of the world: professional livestock handling. She would design a humane system for slaughterhouses through which almost half the cattle in North America now shuffle on their way to our grills. She holds a Ph.D. in animal sciences, teaches at Colorado State University, and has written two New York Times bestsellers. She is inspirational TV-movie gold. (more…)

Published Feb. 3, 2010

How noir is “Terribly Happy”? So noir that when the cigarette-smoking blonde with sex in her eyes explains where the bicycle-shop clerk ran off to, she says, “He just disappeared, the way people disappear around here. I’d better not say any more.” She then shuts up and skedaddles. That, friends, is pretty damn noir—just like the rest of “Terribly Happy,” a brisk ride from director Henrik Ruben Genz. Folks in Denmark liked it enough to make it their selection for the Academy Awards’ best foreign language film category, and there’s little reason to argue with the Danes over their choice. (more…)

Step Brothers, X Files and Man on Wire for the last episode of the BPP from NPR. [Listen]

Director: James Marsh
Rating: PG-13
Grade: 4 globes

“I was a self-taught wire walker who dreamed not of conquering the world, but of conquering beautiful stages,” Philip Petit says in “Man on Wire.” On Aug. 7, 1974, Petit conquered the greatest stage imaginable for someone in his line of work: With the help of friends, he snuck to the top of 2 World Trade Center, strung a cable between the north and south towers and for 45 minutes plied his trade at 1,350 feet above New York. The Port Authority police officer who arrested the Frenchman afterward referred to him as “a high-wire dancer,” saying, “you couldn’t call him a high-wire walker.” (more…)

Director: Adam McKay
Cast: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Mary Steenburgen
Rating: R
Grade: 4 globes

If the current cinema landscape, populated as it is with incredulous, beer-gutted schlubs, were the National Mall in Washington D.C., Will Ferrell would be seated in the Lincoln Memorial — no doubt shirtless, holding his belly in his hands. By playing the oaf and getting rich doing it, he made the world we know today. (more…)

“I’m getting some threatening looks from outside the studio right now.”

Reviewing The Dark Knight, Mamma Mia! and Transsiberian for the BPP. [Listen]

“It’s MySpace Tom. It’s not actually MySpace Tom.”

Hellboy II, Journey to the Center of the Earth, August on the BPP. [Listen]

Director: Austin Chick
Cast: Josh Hartnett, Adam Scott, Naomie Harris
Rating: R
Grade: 3 globes

The August in “August” isn’t just any month — it’s the month just before September, 2001. Hitting that point hard and fast, the film opens with footage of that most unfortunate of Presidential inaugurations, with the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist swearing in the man who just a year earlier was still being called George Bush Jr. by confused campaign volunteers. We then cut to news footage of the Nicole Kidman-Tom Cruise divorce. Ah, the good old days. (more…)

Director: Eric Brevig
Cast: Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson, Anita Briem
Rating: PG
Grade: 3 globes

“Hey, you know that really old Jules Verne novel? Let’s make it into a kids’ movie … with Brendan Fraser … in 3-D!” When you start with such a mediocre idea, you set the bar low. That “Journey to the Center of the Earth” clears said bar isn’t cause for celebration, but it should relieve parents desperate for an alternative to a third viewing of “Wall-E.” (He’s cute, but he’s not that damn cute.) (more…)