New in Theaters
(Playing at Durango Stadium 9)
Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa
(Not reviewed, Rated R.) Johnny Knoxville plays 86-year old Irving Zisman, on a journey across America with his 8-year-old grandson, Billy. Along the way, Irving will introduce the young and impressionable Billy to people, places and situations that give new meaning to the term child-rearing. The duo will encounter male strippers, disgruntled child beauty pageant contestants (and their equally disgruntled mothers), funeral home mourners, biker bar patrons and a whole lot of unsuspecting citizens. Real people in unreal situations, making for one really messed up comedy.
The Counselor
About 115 minutes into the 117-minute running time of “The Counselor,” I wasn’t 1,000 percent sure where everyone was and what they were doing and why they were doing it – and that’s a beautiful thing.
In an era where far too many “thrillers” consist of logic-defying car chases and anti-heroes who survive explosions and shootouts that would take down a Marvel character, director Ridley Scott and screenwriter Cormac McCarthy have fashioned a sexy, sometimes shockingly violent, literate and richly textured tale of the Shakespearean consequences of one man’s irrevocable act of avarice.
It’s also a bloody great time. “The Counselor” achieves the almost unheard-of daily double of giving us the most outrageous sex scene of the year AND the most unforgettably brutal murder of the year. This is a badass journey from start to finish.
Michael Fassbender, on a career roll, is brilliant playing an ice-cool, handsome, impeccably attired and self-assured to the point of arrogance attorney known to one and all simply as “the Counselor.” He tools around Texas in a white convertible Bentley, lives in a home straight off the cover of Architectural Digest – and he’s in love with the beguiling Laura (Penelope Cruz), who just might be the only pure-hearted person in his life (and in the movie). You’d think the Counselor has it made, but he’s facing financial pressures that aren’t exactly mitigated when he purchases an engagement ring for Laura that’s worth the GNP of some small countries.
After the Counselor makes the fateful decision to plunge neck-deep into the world of drug trafficking, he circulates through a world populated with some of the best-written and fascinating characters imaginable. Each could merit his or her own movie. The major players include:
Javier Bardem as the wild-haired, perpetually partying Reiner, who operates nightclubs and facilitates nefarious deals with a smile. Reiner favors the loudest shirts this side of a Vegas magician, and he enjoys watching his pet cheetahs chase down jackrabbits on the Texas prairie. In an infectious performance, Bardem makes Reiner one of the more likable major criminals in recent movie history.
Cameron Diaz does some of her best work as Reiner’s girlfriend, Malkina, who has a gold tooth and a tattoo that starts around her neck and goes all the way to Amarillo. Whether she’s rocking a priest’s world in the confessional or doing things on Reiner’s car one might not have thought possible, Malkina exudes such a combination of temptation and evil you half expect men who look at her to turn to stone.
Brad Pitt, who could make a great living as a character actor were it not for the fact he’s making a great living as a leading man, pops up as the cowboy dandy Westray, who serves as the go-between for the Counselor and a Mexican drug cartel. You know the guy in the airport lounge who has all the best stories? Westray has way better stories.
McCarthy’s screenplay allows plenty of time for Reiner and Westray, each in his own unique way, to caution the Counselor about the business he’s entering. “I’ll keep that in mind,” the Counselor says again and again as Westray explains the Counselor is going into business with people who have no moral or ethical boundaries. And yet we know he won’t.
Amidst all the sometimes abstract, lyrical, artfully crafted dialogue, there are jarring episodes of violence that rank among the most graphic bloodshed Ridley Scott has put on film -- and we’re talking about the man who directed “Gladiator,” “American Gangster” and “Hannibal.” You’ll be hard-pressed not to look away during one particularly gruesome (and ingeniously filmed) murder sequence.
The story of the delivery of some $21 million of drugs from Mexico to Chicago is revisited from time to time, but that’s really just the recipe for the larger tale of a man who willingly endangers his safety and the well-being of the love of his life, all in the name of greed.
Every few scenes, “The Counselor” gives us another choice cameo, from Rosie Perez as an inmate who asks for the Counselor’s help and sets off a fateful chain of events, to John Leguizamo and Dean Norris (Hank on “Breaking Bad”) as a couple of seedy characters in a warehouse, to Ruben Blades as a mystery man who delivers a telephoned soliloquy containing many poignant, heartbreaking truths.
“The Counselor” glistens like a diamond and cuts like a serrated knife. It’s filled with gorgeous people speaking gorgeous prose about some of the loveliest and some of the very darkest corners of the human soul. Rated R. HHHH
Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times
(Playing at the Gaslight Cinema)
Romeo & Juliet.
Like Disney, the name Shakespeare itself has become practically a brand with numerous products of entertainment and pop culture. With such fame comes expectations, and those knocking off the original works in screen interpretations have come off as either forgettable, uninspired or brilliant. Many seem to have forgotten about Jean-Luc Godard’s “version” of “King Lear,” and many adaptations of “Othello” come across extremely dated now. Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh have been the two most successful with their interpretations of Richard III, Henry V and Hamlet some of the best put on screen. But Oscar winner Julian Fellowes of “Gosford Park” (2001) and “Downton Abbey” fame might not have as much luck with his recent interpretation of “Romeo and Juliet.”
As we all learn in high school, Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet come from two families with contempt for each other that runs deep in 16th century Italy. So bad is the rivalry that neither family can seem to communicate without getting into verbal or physical fights. When Romeo (Douglas Booth) meets Juliet (Hailee Steinfeld) at a masque, it is love at first sight. Naturally, their love is impossible with Juliet’s cousin Tybalt (Ed Westwick) threatening to kill Romeo. Ignoring logic and following their youthful emotions, the couple choose to stay together. With their love follows passion, rivalry and death within the families.
Damian Lewis and Natasha McElhone co-star as Juliet’s controlling parents, Paul Giamatti portrays the town friar who aids the couple, while Kodi Smit-McPhee is Romeo’s close friend Benvolio, and Stellan Skarsgård is the Prince of Verona. Adapted by Fellowes and directed by relatively unknown Carlo Carlei, part of the issues with this “Romeo & Juliet” is that there isn’t anything different or new from the traditional screen version by Franco Zeffirelli from 1968 that people already love. We have a period piece with the appropriate setting, and the actors all have the accents (though English accents in grand Hollywood tradition of period pieces). Everyone who loves Zeffirelli’s film will just be spending this time wishing they were watching Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey on screen.
The new movie also doesn’t put a new spin on the classic like in Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 modern set adaptation backed by popular music, so it feels lacking in creativity and inspiration. And sadly for the actors, Booth and Steinfeld don’t have enough star appeal and familiarity to bring in audiences the same way Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes did. The scenery and costumes are pretty enough and Steinfeld gives a fine performance as Juliet after a short break from her “True Grit” (2010) breakthrough, but the direction borders on unintentionally campy — particularly the first Montague-Capulet duel and Mercutio’s death sequence. While Booth is too fair and nonchalant as the male lead, Lewis pens one of the hammiest portrayals of Shakespeare on film and Giamatti looks as if he even knows this feature backfired.
Megan Bianco, Special to the Herald
Still Showing
Durango Stadium 9
(Next to Durango Mall, 247-9799, www.allentheatresinc.com)
The Bling Ring. (Wednesday only.) Inspired by actual events, a group of fame-obsessed teenagers use the Internet to track celebrities’ whereabouts in order to rob their homes. Rated R.
Carrie. An unnecessary remake of a classic horror flick. Bad Hollywood, bad. Rated R.
Escape Plan. Sly Stallone plays one of the world’s foremost authorities on structural security (fear not, it’s only a movie). He takes on one last job: breaking out of an ultra-secret, high-tech facility called “The Tomb.” Deceived and wrongly imprisoned, he must recruit fellow inmate Emil Rottmayer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to help devise a daring, nearly impossible plan to escape from the most protected and fortified prison ever built. We can only hope they fail. Rated R.
Captain Phillips. Tom Hanks stars in the true story about the captain of a freighter hijacked by Somali pirates. Rated PG-13.
Gravity. (In standard format and digital 3-D with surcharge.) George Clooney and Sandra Bullock star as astronauts stranded in space after a devastating accident in orbit. Rated PG-13.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. (In standard format and digital 3-D with surcharge.) Chester V’s evil machine is still creating animal-food hybrids, much to the chagrin of Flint Lockwood. It’s a sequel – hopefully someone understands what all that means. Rated PG.
Gaslight Cinema
(102 Fifth St. Next to the railroad depot, 247-8133, www.allentheatresinc.com)
The Fifth Estate. A look at Julian Assange’s trials and tribulations and the cost of telling tales. Rated R.
Ted Holteen and Associated Press
