Bullhead ****1/2

Short Take: The disturbing but absorbing story of a cattle farmer, his ties to the Belgian ‘Hormone Mafia’ and his dark past.

Reel Take: Nominated for an Oscar this year for Best Foreign Film, Bullheadis the disturbingly dark and absorbing story of two men tied by a childhood trauma. Writer director Michael R. Roskam makes his film debut with this profoundly sad and gritty drama from Belgium. Bullhead is not likely to win, but it is certainly deserving of the nomination.

I need to be careful not to give away too much of the story because its impact lies in watching the story unfold. In a nutshell, the story is pitted in the relationship between Belgian cattle farmers (who are apparently generous and free-wheeling with the growth hormone injections) and meat traders and their relationship to the drug dealers who provide them with the Barry Bonds juice.

At the center of these tenuous alliances is Jacky Vanmarsenille, played beautifully by Matthias Schoenaerts. He is a quiet, brooding bull of man, constantly hopped up on steroids and hormones (before you judge him, wait to see the reaon). In the process of a shady deal, he is reunited with his childhood friend Diederik (Jeroen Perceval), whom he hasn’t seen in 20 years. The two are forever bound by a childhood trauma. It is a trauma so devastating their lives are forever marred by it.

As the story unfolds, a murder within the wider ring of the hormone mafia puts the police on Jacky and his family. Jacky’s past come backs to haunt him, he can no longer even remotely shut the memories down. He also senses that something is wrong and that they should back out of this particular deal. He is filled with a feeling of foreboding on all levels. It’s as if he’s a time bomb; it’s not a matter of will he explode, but when.

Roskam weaves the layers of the story past and present to create a world of crime, heartache, cruelty and vengeance. It is a strangely absorbing story, due in part to Roskam and in part to Schoenaert’s achingly poignant performance. It helps that the filmmakers photograph Schoenaert to great effect and the actor knows how to make the most of it.

Bullheadis not easy to watch. It is disturbing yet utterly moving. It is simultaneously quiet and calm yet raging with anger. Jacky is the victim of a heinous crime, but no one in this story is innocent. All have done something that they will have to pay for eventually. To that end Bullhead plays out in classic tragedian form.

I did not want to see this film, nor did I think I would like it. Like isn’t exactly the right word, but I was completely fascinated and I won’t soon forget it. I will certainly keep my eye out for more from both Roskam and Schoenaert. If you can palate it, see it while you can.

Rated R for some strong violence, language and some sexual content. Review by Michelle Keenan

Chronicle ****1/2

Short Take: Chronicle is an impressive low-budget sci-fi/fantasy of teen angst gone awry. Although it falters somewhat at the end, it remains a surprisingly powerful film experience.

Reel Take: Long before Leonard Maltin arrived on the scene there was a TV movie reviewer named Steven H. Scheuer. Describing a 1957 film called Plunder Road he wrote “make a 1000 Grade B crime melodramas and you’re bound to turn out one gem and this is it.” Substitute 100 for “1000” and found footage for “Grade B crime” and you have an accurate assessment of Chronicle. Rarely have I gone into a film with such low expectations and then had my preconceptions so completely overturned.

Andrew Detmer (Dean DeHaan), a lonely teenage misfit, finds solace in his video camera which helps him to deal with the outside world. After he and his cousin Matt (Alex Russell) and high school BMOC Steve Montgomery (Michael B. Jordan) discover strange crystals inside a hole in the ground, they develop telekinetic powers. After an initial period of exhilaration, they spiral out of control, leading to tragedy.

The parallels to drug and alcohol addiction are obvious, as are references to two Brian De Palma films of the 1970s (Carrie, The Fury) but that doesn’t keep Chronicle from being original in its own right as well as a heartfelt depiction of the anxieties and insecurities teenagers face during their high school years. This is due to a solid screenplay from Max Landis (son of director John Landis) and the assured first time direction of Josh Trank. I came away reminded of director Steven Soderbergh and his first time effort Sex, Lies & Videotape.

As someone who endured a difficult domestic situation and was bullied during my middle and high school years, it was easy to identify with Andrew and the physical revenge he inflicts on his tormentors. But Chronicleis more than just a teenage revenge fantasy. It combines superhero films, the deservedly much maligned “found footage” genre, and a coming-of-age story into an extremely satisfying mix.

At 84 minutes there is really no wasted footage, although the climactic CGI destruction scenes grew tiresome. But then something had to pad the movie out and provide footage for the trailers to get the all-important young male audience and their dates into the theaters. The beauty of Chronicle, which takes its name from the fact that Andrew’s camera documents everything, is that it works so well on several different levels and provides you with so much more than just another “found footage” movie.

Rated PG-13 for intense action and violence, some language, sexual content, and teen drinking. Review by Chip Kaufmann

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance ***

Short Take: Sequel to the 2007 Ghost Rider has Nicholas Cage at his loopiest and a much better villain but overall it lacks the substance of the original.

Reel Take: It is somewhat surprising that it took this long to mount a sequel to the first Ghost Rider. Although the 2007 original cost $110 million, most of it spent on CGI effects, its worldwide gross was a healthy $238 million and nothing in Hollywood is more highly prized than financial success. Almost 5 years later the sequel has arrived. It cost $35 million less and runs 95 minutes as opposed to 115. In this case though, less is definitely not more.

The number one problem is the script. There’s about 30 minutes worth of material in a 95 minute movie and that means lots of padding to fill out the time. Most of it involves CGI transformations and lots of action chase sequences. Of course most of this is done to satisfy the IMAX audience and those who want gimmicky 3-D effects. If that’s all you’re looking for then you’ll be satisfied but it doesn’t hurt to have a little more substance in the mix. After all, stew is a lot more satisfying than soup.

Although Nicolas Cage is back, Eva Mendes decided not to return. Her replacement, Violante Placido, does what is required of her but little else. There is, however, a real improvement in the villain department. Ray Carrigan (Johnny Whitworth), who is given the gift of decay by the Devil (anything he touches rots, except for a Twinkie), is much better than Wes Bentley’s Blackheart and there’s no comparison between Ciarin Hinds’ Satan and Peter Fonda’s. Hinds knows the best thing to do with rubbish like this is to chew the scenery and enjoy every bite. He does.

At the helm this time around is the directing team of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor who were responsible for the two Crank movies starring Jason Stathan. Those movies were enjoyable because they were so over-the-top that they subverted the action genre that they belonged to. No such luck here. Ghost Rider 2isn’t outlandish enough or serious enough to make much of an impact, although a demon bulldozer and the amphitheater sequence do manage to lift the film above the ordinary, but not for long.

Although it cost far less to make, GR2 took in considerably less at the box office its opening weekend. While it should wind up not losing money it probably won’t make any and for breaking Hollywood’s golden rule, that means there will be no follow up. While life is sometimes full of disappointments, at least Ghost Rider 3 won’t be one of them.

Rated PG-13 for sequences of action and violence, disturbing images, and language. Review by Chip Kaufmann

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island ****

Short Take: Old school adventure film that is a throwback to the Saturday matinees of yore with Michael Caine having a grand old time.

Reel Take: Seeing this movie was really a trip back in time for me and not just because I saw the original 50 years ago. Before the film begins there is a new Looney Tunes cartoon shot in 3-D. It features animated figures instead of drawings and uses as its soundtrack a recording I had as a child called Daffy Duck’s Rhapsody which was set to Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody #2. Seeing Daffy and Elmer Fudd looking like Shrek and Donkey bouncing around to my old recording was a very surreal experience but an enjoyable one. It set just the right tone for the feature that followed.

I take my hat off to the filmmakers for having the audacity to make an old fashioned kiddie matinee in the 21st century. I’m not sure if this was deliberate but they should be applauded for doing it. Back in 1961 it was Ray Harryhausen’s stop motion effects. Now it’s CGI, but the effect is still the same: Pure, unadulterated entertainment that will engage kids while amusing parents.

The 1961 film stuck fairly close to Jules Verne’s novel of Civil War soldiers carried away by hot air balloon to a mysterious island where their survival is ensured by the unseen premise of Captain Nemo. Harryhausen added several giant stop motion creatures to the mix, creating a film that became a minor classic. For this version the giant creatures remain but the basic story is a follow-up to the 2008 Journey to the Center of the Earthwhich had a contemporary setting.

Josh Hutcherson returns as Sean Anderson but Brendan Fraser is replaced by Dwayne Johnson. After receiving a coded message from his long missing grandfather (Michael Caine), Sean sets out, with the aid of his stepfather, to find him. They are joined by a helicopter pilot (Luis Guzman) and his young daughter (Vanessa Hudgens). They make it to the island where they encounter Caine and then have to find a way off before it sinks.

Everyone enters into the spirit of the proceedings with Hutcherson and Hudgens an attractive couple and Dwayne Johnson acquitting himself nicely. At 78 Michael Caine seems as spry as ever and is having way too much fun. Luis Guzman also takes a break from his usual tough guy role and displays a flair for comedy.

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island succeeds admirably in what it sets out to do, which is be an old fashioned, family oriented adventure movie that follows in the footsteps of Treasure Island, Gulliver’s Travels (both play a key part in the film) and the original 1961 version. Even without the nostalgia value I had a great time and you should too.

Rated PG for adventure action and brief mild language. Review by Chip Kaufmann

Pariah ****

Short Take: Pariah is the raw and powerful telling of young African-American woman’s story of coming-of-age and coming out.

Reel Take: We have film festivals to thank for the distribution of small, wonderfully worthy, independent films like Pariah. Focus Features picked up this brave and beautiful little film after its success at last year’s Sundance Film Festival. Writer director Dee Rees turned her student short of the same name into a feature length film with the help of executive producer Spike Lee. Pariahis the powerful story of young woman struggling to quietly embrace her sexuality. It is a story of coming-of-age and of coming out. Ironically it marks Rees coming-of-age and coming out as a filmmaker as well.

Alike (Adepero Oduye) is a seventeen year old African-American woman who lives with her family in Brooklyn. She is an excellent student and a loving daughter, but she is keeping a secret. Alike is certain of her sexuality, but uncertain in how to embrace life as a lesbian. Her parents are enveloped in their own marital strife, and she knows her secret would compound their difficulties if it was known.

Alike’s mother (Kim Wayans) suspects her daughter’s sexual orientation but is determined to steer her daughter down a different path. “God doesn’t make mistakes,” she tells Alike, inferring that homosexuality is a mistake. In her heart of hearts, she is a loving wife and mother and just wants a good life for her children, but the severity of her convictions and what that means drives her children and husband from her. Alike’s father, played brilliantly by Charles Parnell is struggling in his marriage. Alike is daddy’s little girl, but daddy just doesn’t want to see the truth.

The story unfolds artfully and painfully. It is rife with raw tension, frustration and sheer vulnerability. It feels so real, it’s like you are a fly on a wall while watching an unscripted life. Ironically, there is nothing in the world of reality television that’s as remotely real or truthful as this film.

Overall there is nothing new about this story. It is the texture and context of this film that sets it apart. For anyone who has suffered similar struggles, the film is bound to strike a resonant chord. Part of the human condition and the human experience is vulnerability and finding your truth and your place. Regardless of race, class or sexuality, these struggles are universal.

Pariah is uncomfortable to watch at times, but well done throughout. In the end, Alike reaches out to her mother, turning her own words on her with, “Remember, God doesn’t make mistakes.” If you side with ‘team mom’ on the issue of homosexuality and/or think the late NC Senator Forrester was a true champion of family values and the sanctity of marriage, Pariah may be a bit of stretch for you. Otherwise, Pariah embraces the human condition poetically and bravely, and is a film worth seeing.

Rated R for sexual content and language. Review by Michelle Keenan

Safe House ***1/2

Short Take: A jaded, renegade CIA agent plays mind games with a younger, naïve agent in a fast-paced action drama.

Reel Take: Safe House is Swedish director Daniel Espinosa’s first American film. He is known for Easy Money, an action-packed European sensation from a couple of years ago. There is no denying Espinosa can deliver the punch. Shoot outs and car chases are choreographed in unbelievable and gritty detail. There is gritty detail galore in Safe House, but grit does not a great movie make. Espinosa relies just a little too much on his slick action sequences and fine performances from Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds. Safe Houseis a keep-you-on-your-toes action-packed couple of hours of entertainment, but unfortunately it doesn’t quite rise to what I think they hoped it would be – something more along the lines of the Bourne franchise. The sad part is, it could have been.

Washington plays Tobin Frost, a renegade former CIA agent, now operating in his own interests. Reynolds is Matt Weston, a rookie CIA operative in charge of a safe house in South Africa. When a transaction goes bad, Frost finds himself at the American Embassy in Cape Town, where he is quickly transferred to Weston’s safe house. While being water boarded by the Americans, Frost shows his prowess for psychological evaluation and manipulation. When the safe house is attacked, Weston escapes with Frost and, after a few twists and turns, they become unlikely allies.

Watching everything unfold are Weston’s superiors at Langley, including Weston’s direct supervisor David Barlow (Brendan Gleeson), Barlow’s arch rival, Catherine Linklater (Vera Farmiga), and the top brass, Harlan Whitford (Sam Shepard).

While the film is largely predictable, even its twists and turns, said twists and turns offer the most interesting nuggets of the story. At first it’s all laid out very clearly: Frost is a bad man, and Weston is idealistically working for the good guys (CIA). It’s when the lines begin to blur that the story gets interesting and our two unlikely allies form a bond. Watching that bond emerge is one of the finer points of the film. It’s also one of the only respites from the non-stop action.

I wasn’t sure about the casting of Reynolds as Weston at first (a role that would have likely been Matt Damon’s ten years ago), but ultimately he does a great job as the wet-behind-the-ears rookie. He looks like he’s on the verge of tears for the first half of the film. It was off-putting at first, but only because it was so unusual to see such a human reaction to the events in such a gritty actions flick. Fear not, Reynolds fans – like Damon, he is still a sweetie, but he’s a sweetie with chops by film’s end. Having churned out a host of action films with his buddy Tony Scott since Training Day, the character of Tobin Frost was a cakewalk for Washington. Lucky for us, Washington brings just a little bit more than what the script demands.

Audiences are enjoying Safe House more than the critics are. If you’re looking for an entertaining action film, Safe House will hold your attention while you’re watching it. Just don’t expect it to stay with you very long after you exit the theatre.

Rated R for strong violence throughout and some language. Review by Michelle Keenan

The Vow **1/2

Short Take: Inspired by a true story, The Vow is the well intended, but ultimately mediocre telling of a couple struggling to find love again after the wife suffers a traumatic brain injury.

Reel Take: The Vowsounds like something straight out of a Nicholas Sparks novel, but (very fortunately for us) it’s not. Thank the film gods for that, because the one thing this movie could not have survived is the tragic flaw that graces many a Sparks story. The Vow is a rediscovery of love within a love story – and no one dies. The film was inspired by the true story of a couple, who had to fall in love all over again, after the wife suffers a traumatic brain injury and awakens with no memory of her husband.

Paige and Leo are a young couple, utterly and passionately in love with one another. She’s an up-and-coming sculptor. He owns a fledgling recording studio. Their uber hip fairy tale is abruptly interrupted by a horrific car crash. Paige is left with no memory whatsoever of her life with Leo and, in fact, seems to have reverted to the status quo, country club life of her upbringing. Steadfastly in love with his wife, Leo is determined not only to make her fall in love with him all over again, but to unearth the wildly bohemian Paige buried somewhere deep inside. For Paige it’s a rediscovery of who she really is.

Complicating the challenge already set before Leo is Paige’s estranged family, who swoop in to reclaim their daughter after her accident. Sam Neil and Hope Lange play her one-dimensional, affluent parents. I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that they were more creepy than upper crusty. I would not have needed the reason the story gives for an estrangement from parents like them.

There is always room in the world for simple little love songs and romantic movies. The Vow is well intended and speckled with some bright moments, but unfortunately it suffers from a mediocre script, slight miscasting, and some inconsistencies. Tatum’s heart is in the right place as the romantic Leo, but as an urbanite, recording engineer that hangs with a totally hipster crowd, he just doesn’t quite fit. He and McAdams don’t share the kind of chemistry McAdams shared with Ryan Gosling in The Notebook, but it is a solid chemistry nonetheless. It plays out well in moments of passion, and even more so in the humor, but the over all telling of this romantic tale is too shallow for their chemistry and the movie as a whole to have any real emotional depth.

The film is largely predictable, but that’s not a deal breaker in any story for me, if it’s a good story. This is a good (albeit schmaltzy) story, and it starts off well and ends surprisingly strongly. The middle however is soft, and it magnifies the film’s weaknesses.

The Vow is best suited for young, mainstream hopelessly romantic girls (especially if any of the girls have a penchant for Channing Tatum’s bare bottom). Ladies, don’t make your husband or significant other take you to this one. Earn points for enticing them to see something you both can enjoy.

Rated PG-13 for an accident scene, sexual content, partial nudity and some language. Review by Michelle Keenan

The Woman in Black ****1/2

Short Take: A classic, old school ghost story that is beautifully crafted and anchored by a remarkable, low key performance from Daniel Radcliffe.

Reel Take: I’ll say it right from the start, The Woman in Blackis not a horror film. It is a ghost story and if you don’t know the difference then you are likely to be disappointed. For those of you who do know the difference and appreciate those almost forgotten words “mystery & suspense”, then The Woman in Black will prove to be a very rewarding experience.

The ghost story film is a very small genre which essentially starts with The Uninvited in 1944 and extends through the The Innocents and The Haunting in the 1960s to the Nicole Kidman opus The Others in 2001. The undisputed top dog in this field is Peter Medak’s The Changeling (1980) with George C. Scott, which The Woman in Black clearly references along with a little known 1997 British film, Photographing Fairies.

The screenplay by Jane Goldman (Kick Ass)is based on a bestselling book by Susan B. Hill that became a celebrated BBC made for TV movie in 1989 (which the author hated) and a currently running West End production which also opened in 1989. Although different from the book, the play and very different from the TV movie, the author is reportedly quite happy with this adaptation and she should be.

Daniel Radcliffe plays Arthur Kipps, a young Edwardian lawyer who is widowed after his wife dies in childbirth. He is sent to a remote village to settle an estate. Once there he finds himself unwanted by the villagers but befriended by the local squire (Ciarin Hinds). Immediately upon arriving at an isolated old mansion, he becomes aware of a sinister presence there which quickly turns vicious. Children in the village begin dying by their own hands and Kipps desperately tries to discover the local secret and do something about it.

Director James Watkins, whose previous effort was a brutal 2008 horror film Eden Lake, forgoes all the visceral horror of the previous movie and concentrates on the classic tools of the ghost story film, jump cuts, atmospheric music, enhanced sound effects, and committed performances from the actors. All these elements and more come together nicely to create a classic of the genre. If this sounds like your cup of tea, then by all means drink it.

Much has been made about The Woman in Black being a Hammer Film. The old family company no longer exists but the new one is trying to follow in their footsteps by producing atmospheric, low budget (WIB cost $13 million) movies with solid scripts and quality performances. This and their three other films (The Resident, Wake Wood, and Let Me In) show that they are succeeding.

Rated PG-13 for thematic material and disturbing images. Review by Chip Kaufmann