New in Theatres
Animas City Theatre
(128 E. College Drive, 799-2281, www.animascity theatre.com)
Manhattan Short Film Festival
The annual global free-for-all began with 628 entries from 48 countries. Audiences will only have to pick the best from the Top 10. Plays today only.
Short Term 12
In a year where blockbusters seem to be underwhelming movie audiences, the indie dramedies are experiencing a breakthrough. With Mud, The Way Way Back, Blue Jasmine and The Spectacular Now all achieving critical and modest box office success, newcomer Destin Daniel Cretton’s Short Term 12 can be added to the list as well. Starring Spectacular Now co-stars Brie Larson and Kaitlyn Dever, Short Term 12 brings us inside from all the coming of age journeys from the previous hits with a personal tale of isolation and illness in a foster care facility.
The film begins with new counselor Nate (Rami Malek) discovering the bizarre and dysfunctional routines of a care facility called Short Term 12 led by Grace (Larson) and Mason (John Gallagher, Jr.). Inside the facility are wise-mouth Luis (Kevin Hernandez), quiet, but angry Marcus (Keith Stanfield), and frustrated Jayden (Dever), who just arrived for abusing herself through cutting. When not aiding to the troubled teens as best they can, Grace is herself is dealing with her own depression, relationship with Mason and now contemplating a sudden unplanned pregnancy. Former P.T. Anderson protégé Melora Walters makes a pleasant surprise cameo as a therapist near the end.
In the same vein as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest(1975) and Manic(2001), Cretton’s feature tries to break the stigma on mental illness, and remind viewers of how emotional and complicated the human condition really is. But rather than just focus on the kids’ issues in the facility, Cretton chooses to follow the head counselor—the person whose is supposed to be the most stable and responsible—through a journey that shows she is just as in need of help as her patients. Larson, who has been on a roll throughout 2013, with Don Jon, The Spectacular Now and now Short Term, gives one of the best efforts of her already long lasting career since age nine. Fluidly, she puts Grace in mother mode at work, becomes a loving girlfriend at home and understanding friend with Jayden whom she can relate to from her own past. Gallagher is fine as the straight man in the film who attempts to keep everything grounded with a good sense of humor. And, Dever manages to portray Jayden as someone who is genuinely misunderstood and not just another ‘emo’ cliché. Particular strong scenes are subtle confessions between Marcus and Mason, and Grace and Jayden on the roots of their addition to the facility.
Cretton transitions from short films to feature length feature with Short Term 12, and reminds us of how much you can do and say onscreen with so little effects needed. Though the direction is decent and the story isn’t the most original, the acting (especially from Larson) carries the movie to success. Short Term isn’t a film that will probably take hold of the Oscars or make box-office records, but it is the type to be a nominee darling at the Independent Spirit Awards. A modest success for a modest film.
Trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhS6tvSb0UQ&feature=player_detailpage
Megan Bianco, Special to the Herald
Durango Stadium 9
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2
(In standard format and digital 3-D with surcharge.)
Not reviewed, but it’s the sequel to the film of the same name minus the 2. Flint Lockwood now works at The Live Corp Company for his idol Chester V. But he’s forced to leave his post when he learns that his most infamous machine is still operational and is churning out menacing food-animal hybrids. Rated PG.
Don Jon
Jon Martello’s relentless libido has a comic math to it.
At the club, Jon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and his pals rate girls on a scale of one to “a dime.” He keeps a weekly tally of both his conquests and his far more numerous – and to him more rewarding – porn-aided masturbations. And being a good Catholic boy, every Sunday, he counts up his sins and receives back from the priest his neat sum of Our Fathers and Hail Marys.
His life is a circle of replenishing lust, a ritual of superficial pleasure that adds up to robotic emptiness. Even his most attractive catches leave him unsatisfied, and he sneaks out of bed to his laptop. Real sex doesn’t measure up to the fantasy of online pornography that lets him “lose himself.”
But “Don Jon,” the writing-directing debut of Gordon-Levitt, equals something quite substantial: a speedy little comedy about not just sex addiction but modern lives wasted on shallow gratification. There are other contemporary cravings, too: A big-screen TV dominates family meals at his parents’ house (Tony Danza and Glenne Headly shouting back-and-forth like a sitcom couple), where Jon’s younger sister (Brie Larson) pecks away at her smartphone.
Jon’s compulsive routine (echoing the “gym-tan-laundry” of “the Situation” from “The Jersey Shore,”) is broken when he meets Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johansson, in full sex bomb). She requires the “long game” of dating and family-meeting before sleeping with Jon, but he judges her worth it. Their first date is a sparring match of Jersey accents, a dueling “Saturday Night Live” sketch.
“Don Jon” is a lark, but an enjoyable one with a full-hearted finale, and it further reveals the considerable talents of Gordon-Levitt.
“Don Jon,” a Relativity Media release, is rated R for “strong graphic sexual material and dialogue throughout, nudity, language and some drug use.” Running time: 90 minutes. HHH out of four.
Trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RAhtdVdc3Y4
JAKE COYLE, AP Film Writer
Rush
Maybe, just maybe, Ron Howard and screenwriter Peter Morgan are perfect opposites: one a swinging playboy, the other a cold calculator.
They have twice now collaborated on what you might call coin-flip films: movies about dueling, diametrically opposed forces. Their latest, the Formula One thriller “Rush,” is a lot like their “Frost/Nixon,” only on wheels.
Chris Hemsworth plays the English bounder James Hunt, a dashing head of blond hair whose daring-do and high-class accent turn women into mush. Daniel Bruhl plays Niki Lauda, an analytical Austrian with pointy front teeth and a complete dearth of what you might call people skills.
Whereas Hunt is a classic, carousing, big-ego racer, Lauda is a methodical tactician. The film, based on the lives of the two famous racers, captures the climax of their collision in the 1976 world championship that came down to the final race and that also featured a crash that left Lauda’s face terribly burned.
Racing films often speed inevitably toward clichés of fast-paced living catching up to the men behind the wheel. “Rush” has plenty of that, but it veers away toward something much sweeter: a simple ode to rivalry.
Without Thor’s hammer in tow, Hemsworth looks particularly unburdened in a role perfectly suited to his talents and natural bravado. Bruhl, though, is even more compelling. The German-born actor (who also makes a strong impression in the upcoming WikiLeaks drama “The Fifth Estate”), makes Lauda, with a clipped Austrian accent, endearing in his obsessive pursuit.
There are other good supporting performances (Olivia Wilde, Alexandra Maria Lara as the drivers’ wives), but the film belongs to Hemsworth and Bruhl as they weave through a tumultuous racing season.
It’s not only one of the better racing films, it’s one of Howard’s best. For Morgan, it’s yet another example of his great talent for taking seemingly minor true stories and expanding them operatically.
“Rush,” a Universal Pictures release, is rated R for sexual content, nudity, language, some disturbing images and brief drug use. Running time: 123 minutes. HHH½ out of four.
JAKE COYLE, AP Film Writer
TRAILER: www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QKAr42gxjhM
Still Showing
Durango Stadium 9
(Next to Durango Mall, 247-9799, www.allentheatresinc.com)
I Give it a Year. (Wednesday only.) A seemingly mismatched couple marry despite the misgivings of friends and family. Will they make it through the first year? Rated R. Trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGKeHFlOYZ4&feature=player_embedded
Prisoners. Hugh Jackman and Terence Howard play fathers whose daughters go missing after a holiday dinner. A riveting search ensues. Rated R.
Insidious Chapter 2. If you know what happened to the Lambert family the first time around, then understanding how it happened probably makes sense to you. If not, it’s still just really scary. Rated PG-13. Trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBbi4NeebAk&feature=player_embedded
The Family. A mobster and his wife (Robert DiNiro and Michelle Pfeiffer) have trouble laying low with their family in the witness protection program. Rated R. Trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nwZNypYmPFE
Riddick. Vin Diesel is back in the third installment of what was supposed to be a cult movie nine years ago. There’s just no telling what will work. Rated R. Trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bAPvv9gFnbk
Planes. If they can make it talk, they’ll make a movie out of it. This one has planes. They talk. Rated PG. Trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch39vLdQi1g&feature=player_embedded
We’re the Millers. Jason Sudeikis creates a family from a bunch of derelicts to cover his drug-running activities. Rated R. Trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0Vsy5KzsieQ
Gaslight Cinema
(102 Fifth St. Next to the railroad depot, 247-8133, www.allentheatresinc.com)
Lee Daniels’ The Butler. Forest Whitaker plays the butler who served presidents for three decades at the White House. Oh, the stories he could tell ... Rated PG-13. Trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JAagFuR_XIM
The Way Way Back. An introverted 14-year-old tries to survive summer vacation with his mom and her boyfriend (Steve Carell). Rated PG-13. Trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwNo1i3jkCo&feature=player_embedded
The Back Space Theatre
(1120 Main Ave., 259-7940, www.thebackspacetheatre.org)
The Hunt. Mads Mikkelsen (“Casino Royale”) won the Best Actor Award at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival for his portrayal of Lucas, a former school teacher who has been forced to start over having overcome a tough divorce and the loss of his job. Then it gets worse when a student falsely accuses him of things teachers aren’t supposed to do. Rated R. Trailer: Www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieLIOBkMgAQ&feature=player_detailpage
Ted Holteen and Associated PresS
