Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter ***

Short Take: Beautifully mounted, immensely unsatisfying mix of history and fantasy that takes itself WAY too seriously.

Reel Take: As a native Southerner, I should have been greatly offended or at least annoyed by the Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.Abraham Lincoln has always been a polarizing figure for old school Southerners. When I lived in Charleston SC in the late 1970s, an acquaintance once told me of a man she knew who refused to use pennies, $5 bills or drive a Lincoln automobile.

I have heard many theories over the years about why the Civil War was fought. Slavery, economic supremacy and the concept of unity at any cost are among the most popular. The idea of the Confederacy as a nation of vampires that wanted their own country with slavery designed to give them an unlimited food supply was one theory I hadn’t heard.

In many ways ALVH reminded me of one of my favorite TV series from my childhood The Wild, Wild West (which was made into a really bad feature film a few years back). For those of you unfamiliar with that show which ran in the late 1960s, it involved the U.S. Secret Service during the era of President Grant. James West was an agent who uncovered and foiled many a sinister conspiracy against the U.S. Government. These conspiracies were always outrageous, sometimes supernatural, and were treated with a wry sense of humor.

There are two major problems with ALVH. One is its complete and utter lack of any sense of its own absurdity. It treats the material as if it were a documentary by Ken Burns. The other is the graphic and unrelenting violence done in the best slow motion video game style. Since the vampires are depicted as loathsome, fearsome creatures, then they must be dispatched accordingly. Some of the deaths are downright sadistic.

The storyline, taken from a book, is rather clever even if it’s completely absurd. The U.S. ca. 1819 is overrun with vampires. You can’t tell them from any ordinary citizens as they are out in the daylight and have jobs just like anyone else. The Old South is where most of them live although they can be found everywhere. For non-payment of a debt a vampire kills the young Lincoln’s mother and he swears vengeance.

Many years later Honest Abe (Benjamin Walker) meets Henry Sturges (Dominic Cooper), a good vampire who also wants revenge. He trains Lincoln how to fight them. The vampire leader is called Adam (Rufus Sewell). He is over 5,000 years old and hides behind the guise of a wealthy slave owner complete with GWTW style plantation. The vampires dream of a country of their own and so…cue the Civil War. Lincoln fights the vampires, marries Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), eventually destroys Adam and his equally evil sister (Erin Wasson), and then heads off to Ford’s Theater to attend a play.

I really wanted to like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. It’s beautifully atmospheric, historically of interest, and well acted by all the principals. However its poker faced approach coupled with its excessive violence kept that from happening. That didn’t seem to bother the two couples who had brought their young children to see the film. That was the most disturbing thing of all.

Rated R for violence throughout and brief sexuality.

Review by Chip Kaufmann

Hysteria ****

Short Take: The heretofore untold tale of the invention of the vibrator and birth of a sexual revelation, if not quite a revolution.

Reel Take: Any woman who has ever been to a Passion Party (the Mary Kay of sex toys and pleasure products) would never think that the origins of electronic self pleasuring began in Victorian England. It is rather ironic that in a society that prided itself on such prudishness, the electro magnetic vibrator was born (perhaps proving once again that necessity is the mother of invention). One might also think that a film about such a contraption would be rather tacky and tawdry. Hysteria is precisely the opposite – warm, charming and funny.

Back in the day, “hysteria” was the over-used label used for all manner of female complaints. As the story goes here a Dr. Darymple (Jonathan Pryce) specializes in treating women of means who have been diagnosed with “hysteria”. He also came up with a manual treatment involving his well oiled fingers and their … well, I don’t think I need to spell it out for you. Exhausted from his lucrative efforts, he brings the young Dr. Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy) and soon the practice is the busiest place in London. So busy is he in executing the treatment, he suffers terrible hand cramps and seeks relief.

As a matter of fortuitous happenstance, Granville’s best friend and benefactor, Edmund (Rupert Everett), is a tinkerer and inventor. When his most recent invention, an electro mechanical ‘feather duster’, offers Granville’s nearly crippled hand much needed relief, Granville thinks the concept may actually provide his clients relief as well. Edmund creates a prototype, they test it on a randy hooker turned maid to great success.

While the birth of the vibrator is underway, the sub stories involve Granville and Darymple’s two daughters. Emily (Felicity Jones) is the very modicum of a proper English lady. The other, Charlotte, (Maggie Gyllenhal) is a feminist ahead of her time, a champion of the less fortunate, and an embarrassment to her righteous family. At first Granville is taken with the good daughter and appalled by the other. But of course (spoiler alert), he is in love with the wrong sister.

Everything unfolds delightfully, comically, and just rather wonderfully. This is interesting in the fact that everything is entirely predictable, but is still utterly beguiling. For me this was due to a collective effort – a sparkling, a director with an obviously clear vision and its players.

While Pryce and Dancy both turn in fine performances, it is Gyllenhal who charms and Everett who is the stealth scene stealer. Gyllenhal is lit from within, and seems to have as much conviction about her performance as Charlotte does about her convictions. Everett is subtle, mostly in the background and has all the great throw away lines. He’s clearly having a great time and is a joy to watch.

I was stunned to see that Hysteria has only earned a 55% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Perhaps Hysteria isn’t an important film or a blockbuster, but it is a witty, charming and lovely diversion, the kind of movie they don’t make very often. This is a prescribed comedy for Anglophiles, but has broad appeal in spite of its period costumes. Be sure to stay for the end credits to see a pictorial history of vibrators.

Rated R for sexual content.

Review by Michelle Keenan

Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted ****1/2

Short Take: The third installment of the popular Madagascar series has Alex and friends hiding out in a rundown European circus while trying to get back to New York.

Reel Take: I have seen all three of the Madagascar movies so far and I can honestly say that I enjoyed this one the most. The previous two were also enjoyable but this one was more so. In the original Madagascar, a lion, a zebra, a giraffe, a hippo, two chimpanzees, and several penguins are being shipped back to their native habitat from the Central Park Zoo when they get stranded on Madagascar. In Madagascar 2 they make their way to Africa where they try to fit in with the regular animal inhabitants with mixed success.

The plot of Madagascar 3 has them longing to return to the Central Park Zoo but this time they end up in France where they are pursued by an overzealous French animal control officer, Chantel DuBois, along with her army of gendarmes. They hide out in a travelling European circus that has seen better days. They try to help the circus animals regain their self respect but that is easier said than done. Meanwhile Officer DuBois is hot on their trail and she plans to NOT “bring’em back alive”.

In addition to old friends Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Tom McGrath, and Jada Pinkett Smith, new voices this time around are Jessica Chastain, Martin Short, Bryan Cranston, and Frank Welker as the circus animals with Frances McDormand positively stealing the show as Officer DuBois who comes across as a hilarious combination of Madeline and Cruella De Vil.

In addition to providing a new environment in which to put the central characters (the run down circus fits them like a glove), the writing and added vocal talent make Madagascar 3 an improvement over its predecessors. In fact this is one of the few of the recent animation franchises that continues to get better with each new installment.

Along with the clever storyline and the amusing and interesting new characters, Madagascar 3 is loaded with crackerjack 3D effects. I usually no longer go to movies in 3D as the novelty has worn off and many of them are simply enhanced (shot flat and then altered afterwards) and that does make a difference in perspective. Animation is usually a safer bet because of the artificial perspective and this movie is one of the few that is worth the extra bucks.

No Madagascar movie would be complete without a colorful and memorable soundtrack and this one is no exception. Along with the infectious Like To Move It (reworked here as Afro Circus) and We Speak No Americano, Frances McDormand brings down the house with her rendition of Edith Piaf’s Non Je Ne Regrette Rian which is sung in the style of Les Miz.

Now that summer is here and big movies will be coming at us from every direction, those looking for an ideal family film need look no further than Madagascar 3 and Disney/Pixar’s latest offering Brave. This movie will be a box office success regardless of its quality but it’s nice to report that it’s truly deserving of its success.

Rated PG for mild action and some rude humor.

Review by Chip Kaufmann

Moonrise Kingdom ****1/2

Short Take: Wes Anderson’s latest effort tells the tale of two adolescents in the summer of 1965 who fall in love, make a pact and run away together with a parental unit and the assorted authorities in tow, all on an island off the coast of New England.

Reel Take: When it comes to Wes Anderson films (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Fantastic Mr. Fox) there’s little grey area. Typically people either love or hate his work. I’m one of the few who errs fairly neutral on him, with the exception of The Squid and the Whale, which I loathed and The Fantastic Mr. Fox, which I adored. With his latest effort, Moonrise Kingdom, I didn’t know what to expect. I am happy to report not only did I enjoy Moonrise Kingdom, it may just be my favorite film of the year thus far. It’s certainly not for every palate, but it definitely has broader appeal than many of Anderson’s films.

Moonrise Kingdom takes place the summer of 1965 on an island off the coast of New England. Two twelve year olds fall in love, become pen pals, and hatch a plan to run away together. Sam is an orphan and the least liked member of the ‘Khaki Scouts’. Suzy is the brooding, troubled daughter of two lawyers (Frances McDormand and Bill Murray). Both are misfits who identify with each other the moment they set eyes on each other.

They run away armed with a camp set, his Khaki Scout wilderness skills, a suitcase full of fantasy books, a plastic portable record player (with Francoise Hardy 45’s and The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra), a kitten in a fishing creel and a pair of binoculars. In hot pursuit of our underage love birds are her parents, Scoutmaster Ward (Edward Norton), the local sheriff, Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), a social services agent (Tilda Swinton) and a bunch of khaki scouts. We are aware of an approaching storm, so we know the storm will of course hit the island in the climatic moments of the story.

Moonrise Kingdom is part offbeat kitsch and part fractured fairy tale, the combination of which is affected and precious but also somehow rather charming. Anderson’s attention to detail is brilliant and serves the story well. He has also created characters that we actually like; from Sam and Suzy to Scoutmaster Ward and Captain Sharp. In the end we are all misfits in way or another looking for love.

The two unknowns as our young heroes do a great job, completely free of child actor precociousness. Edward Norton, who isn’t taking himself too seriously these days, looks like he had great fun with the part (in spite of the slightly disturbing scoutmaster uniform) and turns a wonderfully comic performance. Bill Murray as the madras wearing, alcoholic dysfunctional dad is spot on, without stealing scenes from his co-stars. Bruce Willis turns in a an understated but darkly comic performance. The narrative by Bob Balaban rounds out our fractured fairy tale and they all live happily ever after. The End.

Rated PG-13 for sexual content and smoking.

Review by Michelle Keenan

Prometheus ***1/2

Short Take: When a clue about the origins of mankind takes crew of scientists on corporate financed trip to space, it’s anyone’s guess where Ridley Scott’s intelligentsia sci-fi adventure will take them.

Reel Take: Ridley Scott has returned to the genre he helped define with films such as Alien and Blade Runner. Just in case you haven’t heard, Prometheus is the prequel to Alien. However, you don’t need to have seen, or even liked, Alien to enjoy and appreciate Prometheus.

The year is 2093. After a team of scientists stumble on to a clue about the origins of mankind, they are sent on a corporate financed trip to deep space to follow the clues to discover the origins of the species and ergo prove or disprove God. Tucked between sci-fi adventure and plenty of gore, Scott set some lofty, rather intellectual goals here, tackling life, God, faith, biological experiments gone wrong, and big money corporate enterprise. He may, in fact, have set those goals just a little too high, trying to cram a few too many messages into the film. That said the intellectual elements of the rather complicated plot, along with the talented and well cast group of actors, were the aspects of the film that worked for me.

We are first introduced to Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Naomi Rapace from Sweden’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and her partner/lover Charlie Holloway (Logan Holloway Green) on a research expedition on Isle of Sky in Scotland. There they make a significant scientific discovery when they find a pictograph that bares a key similarity to ancient pictographs from other ancient civilizations. It seems we have alien ancestors beckoning us home.

Fast forward two years, our heroes are on a space expedition to find the source of the pictographs and perhaps mankind. The expedition is being bankrolled by the Weyland Corporation. With big money involved in so-called scientific research, you know the motives are not going to be altruistic, and all is revealed in good time. Oddly enough for a sci-fi blockbuster, Scott does take his time telling the story, but fear not Alien fans, there are orifice popping and cavity splattering creatures to spare.

The cast is strong even if they are a rather archetypical array of characters — the mercenary, the too cool pilot, the cold as ice princess captain, and other assorted (a.k.a. expendable) one dimensional characters. The space suit Charlize Theron wears is the fabric equivalent of the liquid she bathed in as the wicked queen in Snow White and the Huntsman. She is suitably and purposefully aloof, but after her turn as said queen, this performance feels like she phoned it in.

The most interesting of the characters on board the vessel is David, a robot (the ‘Hal’ of Prometheus) made to look and seem human to make the humans comfortable in his presence. David is played by the versatile Michael Fassbender to great and rather fey effect. He is fascinated with the film Lawrence of Arabia and by the dreams of humans when they sleep (he is ever watchful over them), and wistfully laments the absence of the soul that the humans are said to possess.

Prometheus is good, quite good in parts, but oddly enough for a movie about the dawning of life, something organic is lacking. It also has two endings. I was happy with the first, and would have preferred that Scott stop there, but Alien fans will love the second – the punchline.

Rated R for sci-fi violence, including some intense images and brief violence.

Review by Michelle Keenan

Snow White & the Huntsman ***1/2

Short Take: Potentially interesting take on the old fairy tale eventually bogs down in its Lord of the Rings approach despite a delicious performance from Charlize Theron as the Wicked Queen.

Reel Take: Snow White & the Huntsman is the second movie this year to deal with the Snow White story. Earlier there was the Julia Roberts vehicle Mirror, Mirror, which was considerably lighter in tone and tanked at the box office. Huntsman takes a different approach and turns the fairy tale into a clone of The Lord of the Rings complete with remarkable landscapes, a pastoral sanctuary, and, of course, an epic battle sequence.

Most critics can’t and/or won’t forgive Kristen Stewart for appearing in the Twilight series and have randomly dismissed her performance as the titular character out of hand. While she is certainly not a great actress, I felt that her limited range suited the somber nature of the film that was chosen by director Rupert Sanders.

The other titular character, the Huntsman, is portrayed by Chris Hemsworth as if he were Thor in medieval clothing which is exactly what he is. Whether this is because of the director’s concept or the actor’s limited ability is hard to tell although I suspect the latter. On the other hand he doesn’t harm the film in any way but it’s a shame that he and Kristen Stewart have zero chemistry together.

The real reason to see Huntsman is for Charlize Theron and her portrayal of the Wicked Queen, Ravenna. It’s obvious that from the scriptwriter’s and the director’s point of view, she is the central character as she gets the best lines and has the most interesting back story. Theron clearly relishes her role and while playing it larger than life (as all good villains are), she keeps it grounded in reality and manages to make you feel sorry for the character on occasion.

As is often the case with movies of this type it’s the supporting players who keep things interesting and Huntsman really delivers in that department by giving us Bob Hoskins, Ian McShane, Ray Winstone, Toby Jones, and other distinguished British character actors as the seven dwarves. Of course some serious CGI trickery was needed to pull this off.

While there are a number of very good elements in Snow White & the Huntsman, its impact was considerably lessened for me by the battle sequences at the end which were not only derivative but way too extended. Just cut the hordes of CGI minions being done away and go straight to the confrontation between Snow White (in full armor like Joan of Arc) and the Queen. This is Charlize Theron’s great moment and she does not disappoint investing Ravenna with equal parts of fury and pity.

I hate to sound like an old geezer but it really annoys me to see Saturday Matinee type material like The Magic Sword (1962) or Captain Sindbad (1963) turned into something “weighty” and expensive as if it were Lawrence of Arabia. While Mirror, Mirror is clearly the inferior movie overall, it was a far more enjoyable movie experience for me than Snow White & the Huntsman.

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence and for brief sensuality.

Review by Chip Kaufmann

Your Sister’s Sister ****

Short Take: An engaging bare bones indie flick that revolves around two girls and a guy.

Reel Take: Your Sister’s Sister is one of those ‘little’ films you hear me reference from time to time. Not little in a diminutive or lesser sense, but one of those films that does so much with so little. Writer/Director Lynn Shelton (Humpday) creates a story so real, so natural, one feels like a fly on the wall.

Your Sister’s Sister is essentially an extended dialogue between three people, Jack (Mark DuPlass), his best friend Iris (Emily Blunt) and her sister Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt). The film takes place a year after the death of Jack’s brother Tom. Iris was Tom’s girl friend. At a gathering marking a year since Tom’s passing, Jack makes off putting remarks about his brother. Sensing his troubles, Iris sends him on a retreat to her father’s house on an island in Puget Sound.

Instead of spending a solitary get-to-know-yourself retreat, he finds Iris’ sister Hannah already there nursing a broken heart after breaking up with her girlfriend. The two spend a drunken night together that culminates in a very brief sexual encounter. The next morning Iris shows up, confesses her feelings for Jack to her sister, and the rest of the film is three well meaning but flawed people feeling their way through an awkward situation.

Is this an important film? Not in the conventional cinematic sense. What makes this film so impressive and sets it apart from the pack is what it accomplishes on talent, collaboration and trust in lieu of budget. This film does far more with its raw resources and effort than most films do with budgets five, ten, a hundred times bigger. Maybe this makes Your Sister’s Sister significant if not important.

Shelton creates a safe atmosphere for her players. They have a general idea of what’s to happen in each scene, but she lets the actors improvise their way through it. This would be challenging for many actors, but the result here is utterly organic and refreshingly real. This type of experiment could give way to pretension with some filmmakers, but not in this case. Instead Your Sister’s Sister delivers vulnerability, honesty and comedy.

The three characters are in near constant conversation, but unlike some indie films, Your Sister’s Sister is an emotional farce that never falls prey to slacker angst or being too impressed with itself, and therefore never grows tiresome for the viewer. The film is well paced and engaging. There’s enough evolution of the story to keep things interesting, though a late in the game plot twist feels less organic than the rest of the film. Most importantly, however, you (the fly on the wall) care about the characters. You want them to be ok.

Most films these days cost millions upon millions of dollars to make and offer little in return for your $10 box office fleecing. In contrast, Your Sister’s Sister offers the viewer something to savor.

Rated R for some language and sexual content.

Review by Michelle Keenan