Blue Caprice (***1/2)

BLUE CAPRICE
Produced and Directed by Alexandre Moors

***1/2

Blue Caprice is a movie that documents real, true mental instability. Much like the movies Zodiac and In Cold Blood, it covers a true story of a killer who's motive is not money or jealousy the way we like to think of violent crime. Instead, these killers are motivated by blood lust, seemingly aroused by the chaos created by killing random, innocent people. It may be the single most chilling aspect of the world we live in, that people like this actually do exist, and Blue Caprice is one of the finest films to ever showcase this kind of person. It's inspired by Washington D.C. sniper killings in 2002, and reveals a compelling story behind the seemingly mindless murders that terrified the Northeast for weeks. Directed by Alexandre Moors, his first feature, Blue Caprice holds two of the most perfectly orchestrated performances of 2013 and one of the most blood-curdling tales of murder you can see in a movie theater right now.

Rush (***)

RUSH
Directed by Ron Howard

***

The world of Formula 1 racing is one of constant danger with every race presenting a twenty-percent chance of a racer dying - as we're told by one of the characters early in this film. It's one of those sports (boxing being another) that makes you scratch your head at the kind of person who'd be willing to take part in such an activity. And that's why it's such a juicy setting for a movie, presenting a varied carousel of complex characters, each with their own version of a death wish. Ron Howard's latest film, Rush, takes a peak at two of the most skilled drivers in Formula 1's history, and two of the sport's most calculated and brave. The film is propped up by its two superb lead performances, with each actor, in their own way, displaying a meticulous obsession with winning - one man willing do anything it takes to win, and the other knowing exactly what it takes and putting his formulas to use.

Prisoners (**1/2)

PRISONERS
Directed by Denis Villeneuve

**1/2

The themes of Prisoners have been done countless times before, but that doesn't mean that an interesting film cannot be made from them. It seems in American cinemas there is nothing more terrifying then the abduction of innocent, American children (Prisoners avoids a rather hefty land mine by making the two abducted children both white and black). It's the ploy usually made by most horror films: the biggest threat you can make is the threat to the American middle-class family. But Prisoners isn't a horror film in its most formulaic sense, though it does use the same tactics to play upon audience emotions and expectations. No, instead Prisoners is played as a straight-forward, uber-serious drama, and while the film is filled with true suspense and a clever eye for the kinds of red herrings that make a movie mystery intriguing instead of obvious, its hard not to feel like Prisoners chose the least interesting way to tell this story, seeming to put more faith in its performances than its screenplay. I'm not sure the gamble pays off.

In A World... (***)

IN A WORLD...
Written and Directed by Lake Bell

***

Feels like Lake Bell has been around for a very long time. She's been given a million chances to catch fire with movie audiences. It just hasn't happened. It's a lot similar to what keeps happening with Will Arnett in his various television projects, Bell is so charming and talented that Hollywood suits just figured that if they put her in enough projects, eventually the audiences will catch on. But the problem is that these same Hollywood suits put her in subpar films including the flat unfunny, Jason Biggs/Eva Longoria rom-com Over Her Dead Body and the over-serious family morality tale Pride and Glory. Even if these movies actually were good, none of them were ones that could give Lake Bell the opportunity to shine as brightly as In A World... does. All Bell had to do to get that opportunity was write and direct the film herself.

Salinger (**)

SALINGER
Directed by Shane Salerno

**

Most of what makes J.D. Salinger one of the most celebrated writers of the Twentieth Century is his uncanny ability to translate the mental trauma of his own life and reflect it into his characters in such a way that it became so identifiable to the reader. Most teenagers who get around to reading The Catcher in the Rye feel in a lot of ways like they're reading about themselves. There's an intense, brewing anxiety, a fear of growing up and straight terror of the responsibilities of adulthood rippling throughout its pages. Yes, that is what makes Salinger so beloved... for the most part. But there is also the mystery of Salinger, a famed Howard Hughes-like recluse who would lock himself into a small bunker outside of his secluded home in Cornish, New Hampshire for weeks at a time, possibly writing but definitely not communicating with the outside world. Salinger, the new documentary from Shane Salerno, seeks to solve some of that mystery, with mixed results.

The Grandmaster (**)

THE GRANDMASTER
Directed by Wong Kar Wai

**1/2

When someone as good as Wong Kar Wai doesn't make a movie for six years, his latest movie is going to be an event, which The Grandmaster is. Six years is a good enough amount of time for audiences to forget that his previous film, 2007's My Blueberry Nights, wasn't very watchable cinematically or thematically. It's also long enough to make you want to like a movie more than you'd want to. Wong has always been meditative, stylishly long-winded, but The Grandmaster just felt flat-out long to me at times. It's story too often seems influenced by tired Western biopics, while still trying to grasp onto Eastern history. But in his first action film since Ashes of Time, this is definitely Wong's best martial arts film, helped greatly by master stunt coordinator Yuen Woo-ping (Drunken Master and, in America, the Kill Bill films). The result is a beautifully crafted film with a wobbly storyline, the scales falling widely on each end with colossal thuds as one trumps the other.

Drinking Buddies (***)

DRINKING BUDDIES
Written and Directed by Joe Swanberg

***

Alas, the days of Mumblecore seem numbered. So long ago seem the days of The Puffy Chair and Funny Ha Ha, when wannabe actors like Mark Duplass and Andrew Bujalski were taking matters into their own hands, writing and directing their own scripts and producing charming films on the ultra cheap (and made to look ultra cheap as well). These days, the Duplass brothers are making movies with Jonah Hill and John C. Reilly, and Greta Gerwig - the reigning Mumblecore actress queen - is now headlining the widely released Frances Ha. Joe Swanberg is perhaps the most prolific of the Mumblecore movement, usually making about 2-3 features a year since 2008's Hannah Takes The Stairs (staring Gerwig). Swanberg's latest film, Drinking Buddies, is his first with a major movie star - Olivia Wilde - and the first to have a cast of predominantly name actors, following the trend set by his other brothers in this, the most bedhead-y form of cinema.

Short Term 12 (****)

SHORT TERM 12
Written and Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton

****

There's something so simple about how beautiful Short Term 12 is. It doesn't beg for your approval or squeeze pity out of you with its frank subject matter. It expresses itself effortlessly with a drum-tight screenplay and a wonderfully eclectic collection of performances. Set in an unfamiliar setting unknown to American cinema, its story feels wholly original, but its voice confident and vision totally clear, able to find the sweetness within the troubled lives it displays. It's a textbook independent film, but it isn't filled with the same pompous intellectual superiority that so many low-budget, character driven movies can have. It's equal parts sad and funny, occasionally at the same time. Lead by an impeccable stand-out performance from Brie Larson, Short Term 12 stands alongside The Act of Killing as not only my favorite movies of the summer but also of the entire year.

Ain't Them Bodies Saints (***1/2)

AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTS
Written and Directed by David Lowery

***1/2

The evolution of the American Western in cinema is a fascinating one. Once the jewel of all Hollywood genres, it was marked by plots outlining black & white moralities. In the 1960's, the movies became more cynical, the thrill of cowboy action was replaced by science fiction, and the Western has been a niche genre ever since. When a Western strikes with audiences these days (does anyone remember the last time that happened?) it's usually for gimmicky reasons. But in 2007, three films came out - the Coens' No Country For Old Men, Andrew Dominick's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood - that changed the spectrum of the Western. The Wild West was no longer seen as a thrill ride where white and black hats faced off, but instead showcased a nightmarish, barren landscape filled with greed and danger. David Lowery's Ain't Them Bodies Saints is a continuation of that tradition.

Lee Daniels' The Butler (**1/2)

LEE DANIELS' THE BUTLER
Directed by Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels is a filmmaker of high ideals and low taste, and he enjoys making the two things clash violently in his films. What usually follows are sloppy stories, interesting casting decisions, and more times than not, a movie that is more fun to talk about then to watch. Precious was his big crossover hit, a harrowing story of inner-city poverty, that earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Director. His follow-up, The Paperboy seemed to take any drop of sincerity that Precious had and totally disregard it. Paperboy was a movie about dirty, sweaty people with dark souls and even darker secrets. It seemed preoccupied with being a showcase for these despicable characters, had particularly carnal performances from its cast - which included Zac Efron, Nicole Kidman, Matthew McConaughey, and John Cusack - and seemed completely cynical. But now, with The Butler, Daniels tries his hand at the esteemed Civil Rights drama, perhaps the most sincere of all cinema's sub-genres. It's a combination that is quite interesting indeed.

Elysium (**)

ELYSIUM
Written and Directed by Neill Blomkamp

**

There is a sincerity within Elysium that's hard to fault. It really wants to be about something - socioeconomic classes, South African apartheid, brutal federal government - but has a bit of a lazy way of being about it. It wants to be hard-hitting and sharp, filling the audience with rage at all of the injustice and how goddamn unfair everything is. But the template with which Elysium tries to make us feel all that injustice is hackneyed and uninteresting, a standard Hollywood action movie with all of its pieces moving in highly predictable ways. It wants to make you feel uncomfortable about the way of life presented, but makes damn sure that you don't feel uncomfortable with your viewing experience, with all of the good guys and bad guys ending up exactly where you want them to be. It wants it both ways, to be edgy and safe. This is material that could have really been challenging, but it settles for being something that wants to make everyone smile.

Prince Avalanche (***)

PRINCE AVALANCHE
Written for the Screen and Directed by David Gordon Green

***

There was once a time, before Pineapple Express and The Sitter and Your Highness, that David Gordon Green was one of the most interesting independent filmmakers in America. From George Washington to All The Real Girls, he was the master of the contemporary, ethereal Southern Gothic which has now inspired films by Lee Daniels and Jeff Nichols. But then he cashed in with Pineapple Express, and rightfully so. That was a successful stoner comedy, with great comedic performances from James Franco and Danny McBride (McBride and Green have a long relationship making projects together, and it's safe to say that McBride has been the most responsible for any monetary success Green has ever had), and I thought at the time that Green, ever the visual maestro, deserved a nice paying gig. But that was 2008 and it seems like it's been a long time since the formerly prolific filmmaker had made anything challenging.

The Spectacular Now (**)

THE SPECTACULAR NOW
Directed by James Ponsoldt

**

Before my screening for The Spectacular Now, one of the film's screenwriters, Michael H. Weber, gave a brief introduction in which he spoke of the film as something that he and his co-writer, Scott Neustadter, saw as a blatant reaction to what was happening with high school movies. They wanted to deviate away from the vampires and witches that have plagued the teenaged romances of today's cinemas. Weber and Neustadter also wrote (500) Days of Summer, one of the best romantic comedies in several decades, but where Summer made expert use of several visual gimmicks - and a star-turning performance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt - The Spectacular Now tries to run almost exclusively on sincerity, a tried-and-true tale of the ne'er-do-well finding his way. Gone are the bells and whistles, and hello are the melodramatic soliloquies.

Blue Jasmine (***1/2)

BLUE JASMINE
Written and Directed by Woody Allen

***1/2

Coming up with a story for a movie every year for nearly forty-five years is enough to tax even the most gifted idea man, so it's no wonder Woody Allen has borrowed some from time to time. If anything, he's proven himself to be quite gifted at adaptation. Stardust Memories was a pleasantly sardonic recreation of Fellini's 8 1/2, and Match Point was a pointedly severe vision of George Stevens' brilliant 1951 melodrama A Place in the Sun. That he's able to borrow so heavily without ever betraying his trademark style - or without crediting anyone else on his screenplay - is another testament to just how brilliant a screenwriter and filmmaker Woody is. Blue Jasmine has pretty heavy illusions to the Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire in both theme and structure, but Woody is able to take the baroque Williams and translate it in that lovably simplistic Woody way. The result is his best film since 1999's Sweet and Lowdown.

The Act of Killing (****)

THE ACT OF KILLING
Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer

****

Every once in a while, it's nice to get a reminder how lucky we are to be part of Western democracies, where we're governed by institutions that allow for freedom of speech and the freedom to choose our beliefs and political affiliations. As The Act of Killing shows, there are many places that are not nearly as lucky. The film takes a sharp look at Indonesia and its stringent history for exterminating "communists". In the 1960's, Indonesia's path toward overcoming dictatorship was paved with vicious mass killings acted out by hired "gangsters". Those suspected of being communists were taken in, interrogated and almost always killed - killed in viciously creative ways, with all of the gangsters relishing the chance to act out scenes they saw in Hollywood movies. But specific people are targeted, ethnic Chinese living in the country are extorted, forced to pay officers or else they will be taken and killed by the gangsters as well.