Log In


Reset Password
Film, TV and Streaming

At the Movies

New in theaters

I. FRANKENSTEIN

(Not yet reviewed) 200 years after his shocking creation, Dr. Frankenstein’s creature, Adam, still walks the earth. But when he finds himself in the middle of a war over the fate of humanity, Adam discovers he holds the key that could destroy humankind. Rated PG-13.

HER

(Playing at Durango Stadium 9)

(Rated R) In various and cloying TV ads for the iPhone’s Siri, Samuel L. Jackson, Zooey Deschanel and John Malkovich treat their phones like their best friends as they engage in whimsical conversations with their incredibly efficient invisible friend.

As much as I cling to my iPhone as if it were a breathing apparatus, I have no such relationship with Siri. I kinda hate her. She doesn’t listen to me, she misinterprets my requests, and she says, “Now now, Richard,” when I curse at her.

In Spike Jonze’s lovely and wondrous ultra-modern romance “Her,” we’re asked to imagine a world in which a Siri-like knowledge navigator has advanced to the point of having human emotions and super-human intelligence. Not only can she answer all your questions at the speed of light, she can ask questions of her own, develop her own personality and even give you some pretty great phone sex.

It’s not even considered insane if you fall in love with her.

Working from that premise, writer-director Jonze (“Adaptation,” “Being John Malkovich”) comes up with one of the more original, hilarious and even heartbreaking stories of the year. It’s kinda nuts, but also kinda unforgettable.

Sporting a mustache that makes him look like a silent film star, favoring tomato-red shirts and hitching his pants halfway up his torso in what apparently is the fashion of the era (the Los Angeles of a not-too-distant future), Joaquin Phoenix’s Theodore is a kind, smart and fragile fellow. He’s the star writer at a company that composes personalized greeting cards, anniversary messages and love letters for other people. Theodore aggregates all the data about your relationship and turns your history into a beautiful prose poem expressing everything you feel but don’t know how to say in your own words.

Alas, Theodore’s own heart is cracked nearly beyond repair since his wife abandoned him. (The wife is played by Rooney Mara, and wouldn’t your heart be broken if Rooney Mara left you?)

Unable to connect with real women, save for a platonic friendship with a neighbor (Amy Adams), Theodore takes up with an operating system – an OS. While most humans continue to have relationships with other humans, the OS option is becoming increasingly popular, to the point where some folks even go on double dates where only three people are in the room.

Voiced by Scarlett Johansson and heard but never seen, Theodore’s OS is called Samantha. She’s brilliant, empathetic, funny and capable of growing as an entity. She’s not a synthetic program; she’s a living being. The only thing is, there’s no actual body. It’s a Bluetooth romance.

Thanks to Jonze, Phoenix and Johansson, it’s remarkable how believable this all is, and how we can understand (to a point) why Theodore prefers the supportive, playful, loving Samantha to a more complicated human being. (A date with a gorgeous, charming but extremely needy woman played by Olivia Wilde goes horribly wrong.)

In most movies set in the future, the populace wears shades of gray, toils under a sunless sky and is usually fending off zombies or aliens while living under an oppressive government. In “Her,” the characters wear oranges and browns and whites, and though there does seem to be a general sense of ennui permeating the air, people move about freely, the beaches are crowded, and the skyline (with Shanghai serving as the L.A. of the future) is beautiful. Jonze has created a universe both realistic and dreamlike.

“Her” is filled with small touches of genius, including a computer game character that taunts Theodore, and perfect musical selections. At one point I did feel the Theodore/Samantha romance was stretched a bit thin, with the sharp satire yielding to some you-gotta-be-kidding-me behavior by Theodore.

But “Her” works as a legitimate romance, and as a commentary on the ways technology connects everyone to the world, but also isolates us from legitimate, warm human contact. Next time you’re on a train or a bus or in a coffee shop, count the number of people gazing at portable devices, wearing headphones or talking on their phones, as opposed to the number of people engaged in face-to-face conversation. You know which group will be larger.

Running time: 119 minutes. HHH½.

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times

BLUE JASMINE

(Playing at Gaslight Cinemas)

(Rated PG-13) Cate Blanchett bursts out of the gate a startling fireball of nervous energy as the title character in Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine.”

Seated in first class on a flight from New York to San Francisco, dressed in an ensemble that surely cost in the thousands, Jasmine prattles on to a nodding, sympathetic older woman seated next to her. For the first of many times in “Blue Jasmine,” we hear about the moment when she met Hal, the man who would become her husband. “Blue Moon” was playing in the background.

Only when they reach the baggage claim is it made evident this poor woman doesn’t even know Jasmine.

Jasmine imposes her woes, and her life story, on anyone unfortunate enough to cross her path. Fueled by a nonstop medley of vodka martinis and Xanax, horrified at the train wreck her life has become, condescendingly sniping at her working-class sister and the men in her life, Jasmine is a mesmerizing nightmare.

It is the kind of performance that immediately announces itself and could be deemed over the top in the hands of a lesser talent – but there is no “lesser” when it comes to Ms. Blanchett. Here is a great actress diving into a showcase role and knocking it out of the park.

A few years shy of his 80th birthday, Woody Allen isn’t about to abandon the familiar white-on-black opening titles, the music choices from more than a half-century ago, and some of the themes he’s explored again and again. But six decades into his career, Woody is still capable of writing and directing one of the liveliest, funniest and sharpest movies of the year.

The primary influence in “Blue Jasmine” is “A Streetcar Named Desire,” with Blanchett (who played Blanche DuBois onstage in Liv Ullmann’s production of “Streetcar” a few years ago) playing Jasmine as a wounded bird desperately clinging to a broken dream while fading further and further from reality.

As we learn in flashbacks set in Manhattan and the Hamptons, Jasmine was once married to Hal, a Bernie Madoff-type investment guru. Perfectly played by Alec Baldwin, Hal is a constantly smiling, smooth shark who moves about a room as an effortless multitasker, capable of finessing another deal while brushing off the concerns of his attorneys, flirting with Jasmine’s friends and earnestly speaking of his charitable works, all without spilling a drop of his pricey scotch.

Hal’s also thoroughly corrupt and without a conscience, in the boardroom and in the hotel rooms where he conducts his extramarital affairs. Jasmine turns a blind eye for as long as she can, but eventually it all comes crashing down in a horrific, life-changing confrontation set in one of the perfectly decorated rooms in their breathtaking Manhattan apartment.

Now Jasmine’s “temporarily” living with her sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins, in a marvelous performance), a grocery store cashier, and Ginger’s two husky sons from a broken marriage to the gruff Augie, played by Andrew Dice Clay (and yes, Clay gives a terrific, authentic performance).

Ginger’s dating an auto mechanic named Chili (Bobby Cannavale). Swilling his beers and speaking his mind without caring he’s fracturing the language, Chili just seems like Augie 2.0 to Jasmine, who is appalled by Ginger’s home, Ginger’s taste in men, Ginger’s sons – and is never reticent about making her feelings known, even though Jasmine’s ex-husband fleeced Ginger and Augie, and Jasmine is now living off Ginger’s kindness.

There’s a lot of unpleasantness and many an uncomfortable moment at play here, what with Jasmine’s insufferable intolerance for anything in life that’s not about her. This is heavy, dark stuff. Even when Ginger is romanced by a sweet guy (Louis C.K.) who comes across as much more evolved than Augie or Chili, or Jasmine finds herself in a whirlwind courtship with a wealthy diplomat (Peter Sarsgaard), you get the sense things will not end well.

Of course, this being a Woody Allen film, “Blue Jasmine” also provides plenty of laughs, with the stellar cast nailing the terrific lines they’ve been given to deliver. But Blanchett’s performance in particular is mostly the stuff of deep drama.

It’s brilliant, haunting work from a great actress.

Running time: 98 minutes. HHH½.

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times

LONE SURVIVOR

(Playing at Durango Stadium 9. Rated R)

They are Navy SEALs, but this mission is all about tree lines and rocky terrains, and finding refuge in a nature-made bunker as yet another storm of bullets rains down on them.

There are only four of them. They expected to fight and take out a similar number of Taliban. Instead, they found themselves under attack by a small army.

“Lone Survivor” is Peter Berg’s sometimes horrifically realistic re-creation of Operation Red Win gs, a 2005 SEAL mission that went tragically wrong almost from the moment four American soldiers were dropped via helicopter onto a steep Afghanistan hillside covered with jagged rocks and thick tree lines.

Even if you’re not familiar with the outcome of the real-life mission, the title of this film doesn’t leave much room for ambiguity. Even before the mission, when the SEALs talk about loved ones back home, we know some of them aren’t ever going to make it home. (Cardinal movie rule: The more a soldier lingers over a snapshot of the love of his life and talks about his pregnant wife or his upcoming wedding, the more likely he’s a goner.)

After a quick flash-forward that further gives away the end of the movie, Berg takes us back four days, before the battle. Using the same kind of visual style and jangling-guitar soundtrack that punctuated his brilliant “Friday Night Lights” TV series, Berg delivers scenes of the SEALs at the Bagram Air Base: enduring the rigors of training, giving each other grief at meal time, going through initiation rituals, planning a covert mission. (The “Friday Night Lights” ties run deep for Berg. Most of the music is done by “Friday Night Lights” alums Explosions in the Sky, and “FNL” star Taylor Kitsch, who was also featured in Berg’s “Battleship,” is one of the four SEALs here.) It’s all very familiar war-movie stuff, establishing our main guys and setting the table for the action to come.

In addition to Mark Wahlberg’s Marcus Luttrell, there’s Mike Murphy (Kitsch), the special-ops team leader who’s such a legend other soldiers repeat his name with reverence, as if he’s a superhero; communications specialist “Axe” Axelson (the always intense and excellent Ben Foster); and Gunner’s Mate Danny Dietz (Emile Hirsch, in another fine performance). Eric Bana plays their commander, Erik Kristensen, who oversees the mission from base camp and has to make some life-or-death decisions on the fly, sometimes with only a sliver of new information with which to work.

The goal of Operation Red Wings is to eliminate a key Taliban leader, Ahmad Shah (Yousuf Azami). The intel says Shah is in a remote village at the base of that rocky hillside and is vulnerable – but as Luttrell almost casually notes during the planning session, this is the kind of mission that “has a lot of moving parts,” and they won’t really know what they’re getting into until it’s too late to reconsider the plan.

As the soldiers move into position, they run into a goat herder and a young boy, presumably his grandson. They take the two captive, and there’s intense debate about what to do next. Axe says they’ve got to kill the old man and the boy because if they don’t, the two are going to run down to the village and give them away. Marcus takes a step back and says if they “terminate the complication,” as Axe has put it, they’ll be all over CNN and they’ll be known as kid-killers forever.

Soon after that debate is settled, the fighting begins – and for the next half-hour-plus, Berg delivers one of the most realistic, shocking, gruesome and devastating depictions of war ever put on film. When the SEALs aren’t getting peppered with bullets from the seemingly endless rows of Taliban fighters, they’re tumbling down cliffs, their bones breaking as they bash into trees and rocks before landing with a cringe-inducing thud on solid rock. Even after Marcus finds refuge in an ancient Afghan village, there’s more violence coming.

The later scenes in that village are intriguing, but frustrating. Berg makes the choice to wait until the credits to explain certain things – a payoff that might have worked better had we been given just a little bit more information while the action was in progress.

Working from Luttrell’s memoir, Berg isn’t interested in putting this particular mission into some kind of big-picture, “Zero Dark Thirty” perspective. “Lone Survivor” is primarily about the unflinching bravery of soldiers executing their mission and looking out for one another, even as they’re coming to grips with the reality of how this thing is going to end.

Running time 121 minutes. HHH

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times

Still Showing

Animas City Theatre

(128 E. College Drive, 799-2281, www.animascitytheatre.com)

Dallas Buyers Club.

Gaslight Cinema

(102 Fifth St. Next to the

railroad depot, 247-8133,

www.allentheatresinc.com)

Dallas Buyers Club.

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY. This is a dark and deeply touching story of the strong-willed women of the Weston family, whose lives have diverged until a family crisis brings them back to the Midwest house they grew up in, and to the dysfunctional woman (Meryl Streep) who raised them. Rated R.

Durango Stadium 9

(Next to Durango Mall, 247-9799, www.allentheatresinc.com)

IN A WORLD. (Wednesday only.) Lake Bell stars in this comedy about a struggling vocal coach who strikes it big in the cutthroat world of movie-trailer voiceovers, only to find herself in direct competition with the industry’s reigning king – her father. Rated R.

AMERICAN HUSTLE. A con man and woman are forced to work for an FBI agent during the ABSCAM era in the 1970s. Rated R.

FROZEN. Inspired by the 19th-century fairy tale, “The Snow Queen,” by Hans Christian Andersen, “Frozen” marks another Disney film modernizing one of the Danish author’s stories.

DEVIL’S DUE. After a mysterious, lost night on their honeymoon, a newlywed couple find themselves dealing with an earlier-than-planned pregnancy. While recording everything for posterity, the husband begins to notice odd behavior in his wife that they initially write off to nerves, but, as the months pass, it becomes evident that the dark changes to her body and mind have a much more sinister origin. Rated R.

JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT. This tells a new backstory for Ryan. Inspired by Sept. 11, he joins the Marines and is heroically injured in Afghanistan. During his recovery, he meets his eventual fiancee and is lured to the CIA by a mysterious recruiter. Rated PG-13.

RIDE ALONG. Ben wants to become a cop so he can impress James and win his blessing to marry Angela. James thinks Ben is a clown, so he comes up with a plan to scare Ben away from becoming a cop and from marrying Angela: He’ll take Ben on a “ride along.” PG-13.

THE NUT JOB. (In standardformat and digital 3-D with surcharge). A comedy in fictional Oakton that follows the travails of Surly, a mischievous squirrel, and his rat friend, Buddy, who plan a nut store heist of outrageous proportions and unwittingly find themselves embroiled in a much more complicated and hilarious adventure. Rated PG.

Ted Holteen and Associated Press

Jan 23, 2014
The terror of HIV/AIDS


Reader Comments