This week in movies you missed: The title says it all.
What You Missed
One day while hunting in the forest, Gov. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Barry Bostwick) is attacked by a werewolf. Being a badass, he defends himself manfully, but the critter still infects him with polio.
However, this was no ordinary werewolf ... it was carrying a copy of Mein Kampf, and serves as the first clue that the foreign werewolves known as Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito are plotting world domination. To take them on, FDR — or “the Delano,” as he prefers to call himself — must win the presidency, repeal Prohibition and get himself a rocket-powered wheelchair engineered by Albert Einstein. Oh, and cope with Eleanor’s lack of sexual interest in his “shriveled-up hot-dog legs,” as she tactfully puts it.
Why You Missed It
Straight to DVD.
Should You Keep Missing It?
I love the idea of this movie. We need FDR: American Badass! for at least two reasons: (1) Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter took itself way too seriously; and (2) We’re hearing a lot of neo-con scoffing at the whole concept of the New Deal this election cycle. Maybe it’s time for FDR to stand up for the social safety net he wove — yeah, like a badass.
And some people do love this movie. They’re calling it an “instant cult classic.” Comparing it to Airplane!.
In my view, a better point of comparison would be a present-day “Saturday Night Live” sketch; both the production values and the writing of Garrett Brawith’s spoof are about on that level. That is to say, it’s just not that funny.
Granted, Brawith and writer Ross Patterson throw a ton of wackiness, silliness and bad taste at the screen, and all the actors, especially Bostwick, seem to be enjoying the hell out of it. (Ray Wise, aka Leland Palmer, plays Douglas MacArthur; and Kevin Sorbo is Abe Lincoln.) But the movie isn’t a satire of anything, such as presidential hagiography or opportunistic pop-culture mash-ups where presidents become action heroes. This is not Idiocracy; it’s basically just an excuse to be irreverent with American historical iconography and throw scattershot one-liners and sight gags at the screen.
And I mean really scattershot. It’s amusing at first to hear FDR say things like “The Delano needs to get all Fireside Chat up in this bitch.” And then it’s not. Patterson relies way too much on comic anachronisms, balls-out ethnic stereotypes (too surreal to be offensive, but not that funny, either), random boob shots and raunch, and groaners (“Did you debrief him?” “Yes, I hate when I have to take off his briefs.”).
The central joke — that wheel-chair-bound, cigarette-lighter-sporting, populist FDR is a macho badass obsessed with his own sexual prowess — never gains any shadings. I can imagine Will Ferrell going somewhere with this premise and making Badass FDR an actual character with a story arc. Brawith and Patterson just milk it over and over.
Verdict: Just a suspicion: This movie could be funnier stoned. Such is the not-so-subliminal suggestion of a scene where FDR and Lincoln’s ghost partake of some of George Washington’s finest weed.
More New DVD Releases
“American Horror Story,” season 1 (pure craziness)
Delicacy (Audrey Tautou is a widow finding romance.)
Drunkboat (John Malkovich plays a drunk trying to put his life back together.)
Eddie Izzard: Live at MSG
Klown (man-child shenanigans from Denmark)
The Letter (Winona Ryder and James Franco in a psycho-thriller)
The Man from Beijing (Swedish mystery based on a novel)
“Portlandia,” season 2
Resident Evil: Damnation (CGI-animated version with no apparent connection to the theatrical series)
The Samaritan (Samuel L. Jackson “confronts his criminal past.”)
She Wants Me (Hollywood comedy with Hilary Duff, exec produced by Charlie Sheen)
Snowman’s Land (“Tarantino-esque” thriller set in the Carpathian mountains.)
Soldiers of Fortune (Christian Slater takes some 1 percenters on a war-game adventure that turns deadly.)
The Tempest (Stratford Shakespeare Festival version with Christopher Plummer)
Each week in "Movies You Missed," I review a brand-new DVD release picked for me by Seth Jarvis, buyer for Burlington's Waterfront Video, where you can obtain these fine films. (In central Vermont, try Downstairs Video.)
This week in movies you missed: One of last year’s Oscar nominees for Best Animated Feature Film is definitely not for kids. From Spain, Chico & Rita is a stunning evocation of midcentury Havana and its popular music.
What You Missed
In present-day Havana, a lonely elderly man hears an oldie on the radio, clinks two glasses together to suggest an invisible companion, and remembers his past.
Havana, 1948. When talented piano player Chico (voiced by Eman Xor Oña) sees drop-dead sexy Rita (Limara Meneses) singing in a bar, he can’t take his eyes off her. They begin a turbulent, off-and-on romance that leads to musical collaboration and then to a bitter split, when an American producer decides he wants to make Rita a star in the U.S. — and in his bedroom.
The story follows the two lovers (and their friend Ramón [Mario Guerra]) through decades and cities: New York, Paris and Vegas are also lovingly reproduced by artist Javier Mariscal.
Why You Missed It
Widest U.S. release: 23 theaters. You may have caught Chico & Rita at last spring’s Green Mountain Film Festival.
Should You Keep Missing It?
I admit, I’ve always preferred live-action films to animated ones. For me, there’s just something about being stuck in an animator’s surreal world — especially when it’s full of hectic kid-movie action — that can be creepy and claustrophobic. But the more great animated films I see, whether they’re Pixar or Miyazaki or last year’s Oscar winner, Rango, the more that changes.
Chico & Rita reminds us that animation can do things live action can’t, besides give people rubber limbs. It can transport us to places that no longer exist — places extensively documented in historical photos, but far too costly to recreate on movie sets. Gazing at Mariscal’s incredibly detailed drawings of a Havana bristling with corner shops, ornate architecture and giant neon signs is like taking a vacation in the past. When the action moves to 1950s New York, the palette gets colder, grayer, but the detail and ambiance are just as striking.
The story of Chico & Rita is a pretty standard show-biz melodrama, albeit with hard edges Americans may not expect in an animated film. (Neither Chico nor Rita is great at fidelity, and the movie addresses the racist treatment of black musicians in the midcentury U.S. Oh, and there's a nude scene.) But the real stars are the images and the music. Fernando Trueba, who codirected with Mariscal and Tono Errando, is credited with drawing golden-age Cuban bandleader Bebo Valdés (b. 1918) back out of obscurity for his film Calle 54. Valdés contributed an original soundtrack to Chico & Rita and does Chico’s playing; Idania Valdés does Rita’s smoldering vocals. The film also features sound-alikes for Nat King Cole, Dizzy Gillespie and others.
Like The Artist and Moonrise Kingdom, Chico & Rita recreates the pop myths of an era as much as its reality, but it’s a recreation many viewers will want to sink into and enjoy at leisure.
Verdict: If you love the Havana sequence in The Godfather: Part II, or really any film set in a smoky jazz club at midcentury, this is for you.
More New DVD Releases
The Babymakers (Paul Schneider tries to steal his deposit back from a sperm bank)
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (British seniors in India)
Beyond the Steppes (Belgian drama about woman struggling to keep her child alive)
The Do-Deca-Pentathlon (The Duplass brothers bring us the tale of two grown brothers who work out their sibling rivalry through an epic series of contests.)
Hysteria (Maggie Gyllenhaal in comedy about the invention of the vibrator)
John Leguizamo: Tales From a Ghetto Klown (profile of the actor as he mounts a one-man show in NYC)
The Magic of Belle Isle (Rob Reiner directs Morgan Freeman in something heartwarming.)
Salvation Boulevard (Pierce Brosnan in satirical tale about a mega-church.)
Shakespeare High (Documentary about teens in a Shakespeare immersion program with famous alumni)
These Amazing Shadows (Documentary about the National Film Registry — a hot topic as we approach the demise of 35-millimeter film)
The Woman in the Fifth (Ethan Hawke and Kristin Scott Thomas have a thriller-y romance in Paris.)
Each week in "Movies You Missed," I review a brand-new DVD release picked for me by Seth Jarvis, buyer for Burlington's Waterfront Video, where you can obtain these fine films. (In central Vermont, try Downstairs Video.)
This week in movies you missed: Eduardo Sánchez, codirector of The Blair Witch Project, proves he can make a movie where actual scary stuff happens on screen.
What You Missed
Blue-collar newlyweds Molly and Tim (Gretchen Lodge and Johnny Lewis) move into the creepy 18th-century house where Molly grew up. Weird stuff starts happening, especially when Tim is away overnight, and Molly tries to document it with her camcorder.
We soon learn that Molly is not the most level-headed of paranormal investigators. Heroin and hospitalization are in her past. She’s fixated on her dad, who died in the house — hears him calling her in her sleep, and then insists she sees him. While the audience struggles to figure out how much of what Molly believes is happening actually is, she spirals out of control.
Why You Missed It
Five theaters. None here. And yet the snoozy-sounding PG-13 horror flick The Possession (which, by the way, was the original title of Lovely Molly) somehow rockets to No. 1 at the box office?
Should You Keep Missing It?
On the scare-o-meter, I give Lovely Molly a 6. It’s a solid try, but Sánchez doesn’t have the rhythms down, the way Ti West (The House of the Devil) does. His star, Lodge, rises to most of the film’s challenges, which include whip-lash mood changes and walking around naked smeared with icky things. But she is no Sissy Spacek when it comes to expressing abject terror.
On the gore-o-meter, the movie scores a 7 (higher than you’d expect from the slow start). And on the creep-o-meter, it gets an 8, with extra points for a surprisingly disturbing last shot.
However, that creep score falls if you make the mistake of watching the featurettes included on the DVD. What makes Lovely Molly so creepy is its ambiguity: We don’t know if Molly is haunted, possessed or just off her rocker. Roughly a third of the movie consists of found footage from Molly’s camera, which doesn’t give us definite indications one way or the other, but does demonstrate her mental deterioration in graphic and shocking ways.
Because the rest of the film is shot from a third-person perspective, Sánchez can’t pull off the usual “this really happened” found-footage gimmick. Yet that is what he seems to be attempting in the featurettes, which are similar to the mini-films that provided backstory for Blair Witch. In these mockumentaries, we’re given about 100 possible explanations for everything nasty that happens in Molly’s house: It was built on sacred Indian territory, the first inhabitant was an occultist, a dude was hanged there during the Civil War, people consider it cursed, etc., etc. Not only is all this backstory hokey and dopey, but it serves to take the focus off Molly’s family relationships, which give the film its authentically unsettling moments.
So, if you want to retain the illusion that the filmmakers knew what they were doing, avoid the special features. And don’t think too hard about the motivations of Molly’s sister (Alexandra Holden), who makes a decision late in the film that is really stupid, even by horror-film standards.
Verdict: Horror fans who were irked that Paranormal Activity ended “just when it was finally getting interesting” should be more satisfied with Lovely Molly. It’s not a classic, but considering how many far worse scare flicks get wide releases, this one deserved a chance.
More New DVD Releases
Bonsai (based on the novel by Chilean author Alejandro Zambra)
Cleanskin (Sean Bean as an antiterrorist agent)
Elles (Juliette Binoche plays a journalist who gets rather too personally involved in her story about prostitutes.)
For Greater Glory (historical drama with a Christian slant)
Girl in Progress (Teenager. Rebelling. Eva Mendes is her mom.)
Goats (David Duchovny plans a “goat-trekking sage” who mentors a teen.)
The Loved Ones (cautionary tale about a young fellow who turns down a psychopath’s invite to prom)
October Baby (Girl who was nearly aborted seeks out her real mom to ask why.)
Rosewood Lane (Rose McGowan in horror flick featuring an evil paperboy.)
Snow White and the Huntsman (Charlize and Kristen compete for Fairest of Them All.)
What to Expect When You’re Expecting (Stars pretend to be pregnant.)
Where Do We Go Now? (Lebanese ladies try to distract their men from starting a war.)
Each week in "Movies You Missed," I review a brand-new DVD release picked for me by Seth Jarvis, buyer for Burlington's Waterfront Video, where you can obtain these fine films. (In central Vermont, try Downstairs Video.)
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