Monsters University: Film Review

9:00 PM PDT 6/9/2013 by Todd McCarthy

The third consecutive less-than-first-class Pixar entry.

Friday, June 21 (Disney)

Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Helen Mirren, Peter Sohn, Joel Murray, Sean P. Hayes, Dave Foley, Charlie Day, Alfred Molina, Tyler Labine, Nathan Fillion, Aubrey Plaza, Bobby Moynihan, Noah Johnston, Julia Sweeney, Bonnie Hunt, John Krasinski, Bill Hader, Beth Behrs, Bob Peterson, John Ratzenberger

It should be remedial school, not an institution of higher learning, for Monsters University, an alarmingly lame effort from Pixar, the Oxbridge of animation studios. A prequel arriving 12 years after its progenitor, Monsters, Inc., this marks the third sub-par film in a row from Pixar, after Cars 2 and Brave, suggesting that the brain trust in Emeryville has lost a bit of its edge. Certainly, this genial and inoffensive G-rated lark about cute characters doing their darndest to become scary monsters will play well enough with its intended audience (most members of which weren't even born when the original came out), but it will register as a notable artistic underachiever with people who expect the best from its maker.

Inventiveness and a sense of creative inspiration are what set the best Pixar ventures apart, and these are the elements conspicuously lacking this time around, to the point where Monsters University almost feels like a film made to fill a slot in a release schedule rather than something that simply had to be made for its own organic reasons. It wasn't this way in the old days.

VIDEO: Final 'Monsters University' Trailer Features a Baby Mike Wazowski

Instead of trying to move the story of Mike and Sulley forward, debutant Pixar director Dan Scanlon and his co-screenwriters Daniel Gerson and Robert L. Baird, who both collaborated on the Monsters, Inc. script, elected to make this a how-did-they-become-who-they-are story concentrating on their formative college experiences. The immediate tip-off that we're in prequel territory is that, when first seen, the green, one-eyed Mike (once again voiced by Billy Crystal) is wearing braces, which are replaced by a retainer once he goes to college.

Specifically, he has his sights set on the School of Scaring. This is the heart of the university for the diverse mix of monsters who attend the beautifully designed and appointed campus, the elite proving ground for candidates hoping to excel at scaring little kids out of their minds. “I've been waiting for this my whole life,” admits Mike, who is joined in the incoming class by James P. Sullivan, or Sulley (John Goodman, back as well), an imposing green-and-purple-haired bear of a monster whose father is a legendary scarer.

The film's reasonable but not exactly pulse-quickening central idea is to draw a contrast between the eager and determined Mike, whose decidedly unscary physique forces him to be ever-more resourceful and hard-working, and the more blasé Sulley, whose legacy status endows him with a take-it-for-granted attitude. But when both are kicked out of the Scary Program by the imposing Dean Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren), a striking centipede-like creature with wings, the polar opposites must look for a way to get a shot at redemption.

VIDEO: New 'Monsters University' Trailer: Billy Crystal, John Goodman Back in College

The road back is provided by the Scare Games, a competition among all the campus frat houses. If Mike's team wins, he'll be allowed back in the School of Scaring; if not, he's out for good, along with Sulley. What follows sparks sporadic laughs but is far too pat and cute: The two outcasts team up with the biggest nerds around, the generally rotund and terminally unscary members of the Oozma Kappa fraternity, whose very presence calls into question the entire admissions policy for the university.

These characters could scarcely be less likely candidates for careers in scaring: Among them are fat, bald, middle-aged former salesman Don; a hairy and flexible version of the St. Louis Gateway Arch named Art; a two-headed, two-eyed creature that likes to argue with itself, and a blob-like dweeb aptly named Squishy. In nutty competitions markedly less amusing than the contests in last year's far-more-imaginative Wreck-It-Ralph, the Oozma crew makes it to the finals against the ruling Roar Omega Roar fraternity, to which Sulley belonged before his disgrace.

The fact that Mike and Sulley are ultimately forced to admit the obvious, that they'll never be genuinely scary monsters, provides the story with a bit of mature leavening that will likely go right over the heads of 90 percent of the audience, who will instead be amused and distracted by the vast number of funny-looking critters who, if nothing else, populate the most diverse campus on Earth.

A humdrum straight line of a film, Monsters University never surprises, goes off in unexpected directions or throws you for a loop in the manner of the best Pixar stories. Nor does it come close to elating through the sheer imagination of its conceits and storytelling; Toy Story 3, three years and three Pixar films back, was the last time that happened. Mike spends his entire university career trying to prove to himself that he's “something special.” “But I'm not,” he must finally confess. And neither is the film.

Opens: Friday, June 21 (Disney)
Production: Pixar Animation Studios
Voice cast: Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Helen Mirren, Peter Sohn, Joel Murray, Sean P. Hayes, Dave Foley, Charlie Day, Alfred Molina, Tyler Labine, Nathan Fillion, Aubrey Plaza, Bobby Moynihan, Noah Johnston, Julia Sweeney, Bonnie Hunt, John Krasinski, Bill Hader, Beth Behrs, Bob Peterson, John Ratzenberger
Director: Dan Scanlon
Screenwriters: Daniel Gerson, Robert L. Baird, Dan Scanlon, story by Dan Scanlon, Daniel Gerson, Robert L Baird
Producer: Kori Rae
Executive producers: John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich
Directors of photography: Matt Aspbury (camera), Jean-Claude Kalache (lighting)
Production designer: Ricky Nierva
Editor: Greg Snyder
Music: Randy Newman
G rating, 103 minutes

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Tiger Eyes: Film Review

Multi-generational female fans may enthuse over a feature version of Tiger Eyes -- a fairly standard coming-of-ager -- finally making it onscreen, although the uninitiated might wonder what the fuss is about. A concurrent VOD release should somewhat mitigate the uncertainties of limited theatrical distribution, which will necessitate enthusiastic word of mouth to achieve sustainable momentum. 

After her father is killed in a senseless robbery, 17-year-old Davey’s (Willa Holland) life spins even further out of control when her distraught mother (Amy Jo Johnson) decides to temporarily relocate the family from Atlantic City, NJ to Los Alamos, New Mexico to live with her elder sister while she attempts to deal with the overwhelming grief of losing her husband. Along with her kid brother, Davey must adjust to living with her overbearing aunt and uncle while enrolling in the local high school and suffering all the indignities of a transfer student.

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Her transition is eased somewhat by a flirtation-skewing friendship with the enigmatic Wolf (Tatanka Means), a hunky Native American guy only a couple of years older, who offers both practical and emotional support when he recognizes Davey’s inner turmoil. Struggling to deal with her own sense of loss, extract her mother from a deep depression exacerbated by frequent self-medication and adjust to the uncertainties of her new domestic situation, Davey wonders if she’ll ever get back home and feel like a normal teenager again.

Like many a female-driven Judy Blume narrative, the film centers on the emotional growing pains that come with the inevitable onset of maturity, or at least the inkling of it. Adapting the 1981 novel, the Blumes neither indicate a period setting nor appear to make many concessions to contemporary trends -- there’s hardly a cell phone or computer in sight and scant reference to current events. Davey’s tortuous emotional distress, while generically relatable, seems more appropriate to a younger teen rather than a young woman who’s practically a college freshman. This curious disjunction impacts the performances as well, which are adequate but rarely persuasive.

After working her way up through numerous TV appearances and features, Holland would seem like a safe bet for the Davey character, but she displays a notably limited emotional range, sulking her way through most of the movie when a wider scope of reactions would be more realistic. Tatanka Means, an experienced actor increasingly shifting from TV to feature roles, clearly has more going on than the intentionally innocuous part of Wolf can convey, but carries it off affably enough. His late father Russell Means, the actor and American Indian Movement activist, conveys a relaxed assurance in one of his final screen appearances that’s a pleasure to experience once again.

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In his second feature outing, Lawrence Blume capably connects the dots laid out in the rather schematic script co-authored with his mother, who reportedly included much of the book’s original dialog. Shot primarily under autumnal skies, the Land of Enchantment appears uncharacteristically charmless, in contrast to the few scenes depicting Atlantic City, which at least looks intriguing enough to warrant revisiting at more length.

With an incomparable body of work that’s been translated into dozens of languages, there’s certainly a Blume novel that can break through to a broad audience in feature format -- perhaps Tiger Eyes will pave the way for that eventuality. 

Opens: June 7 (Freestyle Releasing)

Production companies: Tashmoo Productions, Amber Entertainment

Cast: Willa Holland, Amy Jo Johnson, Cynthia Stevenson, Tatanka Means, Elise Eberle, Russell Means

Director: Lawrence Blume

Screenwriters: Judy Blume, Lawrence Blume

Producers: Judy Blume, Ileen Maisel, Lawrence Elman

Executive Producers: George Cooper, Ruth Promerance, Mark Ordesky, Jane Fleming

Director of photography: Seamus Tierney

Production designer: Sharon Lomofsky

Music: Nathan Larson

Editor: Jay Freund

Rated PG-13, 92 minutes

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Somm: Film Review

Engaging doc isn't just for wine nerds.

Seattle International Film Festival

Friday, June 21 (Samuel Goldwyn Films)

Jason Wise

SEATTLE — Even those who view high-end oenophilia as an elitist waste of money will have to marvel at the dedication of the four wine freaks in Somm, men intent on entering an exclusive club of sommeliers that to date has only admitted around 200 experts to its ranks. Jason Wise's doc is reminiscent of 2009's Kings of Pastry, which focused on a similar test for pastry chefs; but this film has broader commercial appeal, and should attract its share of gourmet viewers at the arthouse.

Having heard of the Court of Master Sommeliers -- an international guild setting standards for wine professionals -- from his friend Brian McClintic, Wise grew fascinated enough to join McClintic and three others as they prepared to take the exam for the group's top rank, Master Sommelier. The four men we meet are distinct enough for viewers to choose favorites: McClintic, a former jock who cracks the film's best jokes (surprisingly, we hear that many somms are former athletes); Dustin Wilson, who views studying the history and climate of wine regions as a way of traveling the world; DLynn Proctor, a dapper self-starter who sees the sommelier as a model of hospitality-industry professionalism and has decided to become that ideal.

And then there's Ian Cauble, for whom wine is a lifelong love: A home video shows him evaluating a dinner party's wine at the age of nine. Mockingly called "Dad" by his peers, Ian has an obsessiveness and self-seriousness about the subject that makes him seem the most likely to pass.

The amount of rote learning required by the test is staggering -- the boys go on all-night benders with thousands of flash cards covering every detail of wine production and enjoyment -- though the longer we hear how hard the exam's written component is, the more we wish for a survivor of law or med school to offer some perspective.

More engaging is the test's blind-tasting section, in which each candidate will sample three reds and three whites and be expected to name the winery that produced each. The phrases used here to describe a wine's sensory qualities go far beyond the familiar vocabulary, with tasters claiming to smell "pool toy," "granny's purse" and "freshly opened can of tennis balls" in the vintages before them. Many viewers will be pleased to note how often even experts can't agree -- not just on the winery or region, but on the continent where a wine was produced.

Observing roughly the last three weeks of study, the doc generates the expected "who'll pass?" tension while squeezing in a good deal of color about wine history and the status a sommelier has come to have in the world of fine dining. Photography is inconsistent, with some scenes suffering choppy video motion, but generally fine, especially in scenes ranging outside the candidates' study rooms to rolling vineyards and cobwebby cellars.

Production Company: Forgotten Man Films

Director: Jason Wise

Producers: Jason Wise, Christina Wise, Jackson Myers

Executive producer: William Fowler

Director of photography: Jackson Myers

Music: Brian Carmody

Editors: Jason Wise, Jackson Myers, Bryan Carr

No rating, 93 minutes

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Mystery Road: Sydney Review

Complex racial tensions add texture to an unorthodox Western.

Sydney Film Festival

Ivan Sen

Aaron Pedersen, Hugo Weaving, Ryan Kwanten, Jack Thompson

A young Aboriginal girl is found dumped in a drain beneath an Outback highway, her throat slit, wild dogs circling, and so begins the ruminative creep along Mystery Road, the slow-burn whodunit from Australian auteur Ivan Sen that just kicked off the Sydney Film Festival. Blending genre conventions with subtle commentary on race relations in a colonized landscape, the writer-director-cinematographer-editor follows up the striking realist features Beneath Clouds and Toomelah by corralling a top Australian cast and crafting his most commercial film yet. A strong art house showing seems assured when Sen and his producer David Jowsey distribute the low-budget hybrid Western/murder-mystery domestically through their own Dark Matter film company on Aug. 15. Arclight has licensed U.S. rights to Well Go USA for a 2014 release.

Mystery Road’s racial undercurrents blur the lines of simple white-hat/black-hat Western conventions, but Sen has quite clearly stamped his central character as the lone-wolf hero of the piece with a spotless white Stetson. The charismatic Aaron Pedersen, stepping out of his television drama wheelhouse, is in practically every scene as Detective Jay Swan, an Aboriginal cop returning to his tiny hometown in remote and dusty Queensland after a stint in the big city. Assigned to the murder case, Jay chases down leads through the town and treeless surrounds, navigating the hurdles thrown up by the predominantly white police establishment and the mistrust of his own indigenous community. “We kill coppers bro,” a young Aboriginal boy tells him.

Pedersen is superb as the square-jawed protagonist, stoic in the face of blatant disinterest from his sergeant (Tony Barry) and the thinly veiled animosity of Hugo Weaving’s menacing fellow cop. His inquiries soon lead him to his estranged teenage daughter, who lives with his ex-wife Mary (Tasma Walton) and was friends with the dead girl, and he begins to tease apart a small-town web of drugs, prostitution and further murders.  

The plot doesn’t so much thicken as expand to fill the wide-open landscapes shot with the spare framing and stillness of style that Sen has trademarked. Aerial shots of Jay criss-crossing the town along stringy dirt roads rope in a wide assortment of peripheral characters, giving juicy cameos to Jack Thompson as a melancholic loner, Damian Walshe-Howling as a petty criminal, Bruce Spence as the town coroner, the snowy-haired Jack Charles as the sly, all-seeing Old Boy and David Field and True Blood’s Ryan Kwanten as a casually racist father and son.

Strong characterization and Sen’s distinctive visual style trump plot, which advances at a crawl and occasionally stumbles over a surfeit of fringe characters and too-obvious MacGuffins. The journey is overlong (the multi-talented Sen should have outsourced the editing) but entertaining, helped along by the slowly swinging pendulum of a reverb-heavy soundtrack and a dose of laconic humor. A cracking shootout finale on Slaughter Hill shows Sen as much in command of action scenes as atmospherics.

Opens: Australia, August 15
Production company: Mystery Road Films
Cast: Aaron Pedersen, Hugo Weaving, Ryan Kwanten, Jack Thompson, Tasma Walton
Writer-director: Ivan Sen
Producer: David Jowsey
Director of photography: Ivan Sen
Production designer: Matt Putland
Costume designer: Vanessa Loh
Editor: Ivan Sen
Sales: Arclight Films
No rating, 121 minutes

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My Best Day: Film Review

Underwhelming family comedy isn't as nutty as it thinks it is.

Opens:

Friday, June 14 (IFP)

Cast:

Rachel Style, Ashlie Atkinson, Robert Salerno, Jo Armeniox, Raul Castillo, Harris Doran, Molly Lloyd, Haley Murphy

Director-Screenwriter:

Erin Greenwell

An amiable but unconvincing tale of family secrets and strained relationships, Erin Greenwell's My Best Day spends a hectic July Fourth following a woman on the trail of the father she doesn't know. With little to offer theatrical audiences, the picture seems destined for speedy sale to specialized video, where its incorporation of multiple gay relationships into a straightforward family-dysfunction premise may be a selling point.

When Karen (Rachel Style), a receptionist at a rural Pennsylvania appliance-repair shop, gets a call from a customer whose name she recognizes as that of her long-departed father, she convinces buddy Meagan (Ashlie Atkinson) to impersonate a repair tech and go on the call with her to meet him. But Dad has gone out, leaving his "friend" Eugene watching over son Ray, an adolescent oddball who's trying to learn wrestling so he can impress a girl.

After an unexpected drop-in from Ray's older sister Stacy, a gambling addict trying to steal the family's spare-change jar, Karen comes clean about who she is. Soon she's sidetracked by efforts to keep her newly reunited sibling gambling-free long enough to enjoy the holiday cookout coming that evening.

Other complications pile up, but their quirks feel deliberate and never hit the chaotic crescendo these films rely on. Adam Benn's flat photography underlines the script's lack of inspiration. Only Terry Dame's appealingly clanky score (performed by a "junkyard" version of the Indonesian gamelan ensemble) really succeeds at finding offbeat charm in this rustic story.

Production Companies: Smithy Productions, H Over Walking Y Productions

Cast: Rachel Style, Ashlie Atkinson, Robert Salerno, Jo Armeniox, Raul Castillo, Harris Doran, Molly Lloyd, Haley Murphy

Director-Screenwriter: Erin Greenwell

Producer: Erin Harper

Executive producers: Beth Bogart

Director of photography: Adam Benn

Production designer: James Gloria

Music: Terry Dame

Editor: Babak Rassi

No rating, 74 minutes

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Little Lion: Film Review

Human trafficking gets an altogether different spin in Little Lion, a realistic drama set in the world of competitive French soccer leagues. The film’s sports hook and social relevance could help it gain a foothold via international fest play and perhaps leverage limited theatrical exposure in Francophonic territories.

Young Mitri (Mytri Attal) may be the star player on his Senegalese town’s club squad, but he’s dreaming of bigger things – like playing for the national Lions team. So when a scout turns up recruiting players to try out for the French leagues, he’s thrilled to be selected. Only 15, he can’t possibly afford the recruiter’s fee and begs his grandmother to sell the family’s fruit orchard, his only potential inheritance, to raise the funds for his overseas trip.

Arriving in southern France, Mitri discovers that the recruiter has failed to organize his immigration documents, but it’s not until another agent abandons him on a deserted soccer field that he realizes he’s been duped and his family’s investment lost. Still determined to pursue his dreams of soccer stardom even after the French authorities put him in a group home and enroll him in high school until he reaches legal age, Mitri attempts to crash the practice sessions of a local youth team. Coach and former pro player Serge (Marc Barbe) isn’t having it, however, even after he sees that the kid is superior to most of his regular players, and forces Mitri to go through official channels to register with the team.

Even as he quickly develops into one of the top starters, Mitri constantly gets on Serge’s nerves, bugging him for a chance to try out for the coach’s former pro club. But his old teammates and managers abandoned Serge long ago, leaving him to eke out a living at the nearby Peugeot auto factory and relive his former glory days coaching a youth team while nursing a truckload of toxic anger and resentment. When his suppressed rage inevitably erupts, Serge’s actions not only endanger Mitri’s chances at going pro, but also Serge's few remaining options for redemption.

Although director and co-writer Samuel Collardey’s feature rarely strays far from sports-movie conventions, his incorporation of nonprofessional actors gives the film an edge of unpredictability that's frequently intriguing. Attal turns out to be a great find – not only an impressive soccer player, but also a notably effective debut performer. Vet Barbe exudes wounded pride as the disgraced former pro and youth coach now seeking a new direction in life, but mired in destructive old habits.

The film’s initial scenes set in Senegal are immediately galvanizing and could have benefited from further exploration before the narrative shifts to the oppressive atmosphere of working-class provincial France. Collardey sticks to a straightforward style befitting the realistic tone, although the excellent play action captured on the soccer pitch hints at a superior skill set.

Venue: City of Lights, City of Angeles (COLCOA)

Production company: Lazennec 3

Cast: Marc Barbe, Mytri Attal, Anne Coesens, Jean-Francois Stevenin, Marc Berman, Khady Aidara, Emmanuel Penda

Director: Samuel Collardey

Screenwriters: Catherine Paille, Nadege Trebal, Samuel Collardey

Producer: Gregoire Debailly

Directors of photography: Charles Wilhelem, Samuel Collardey

Editor: Sylvie Lager

Sales: Pyramide International

No rating, 101 minutes

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One Night In Miami...: Theater Review

Four men of enduring consequence and celebrity -- and inspirational if inevitably flawed alternative models of manhood -- blow off the luxurious Miami Beach celebration of Cassius Clay’s surprise victory over the imposing Sonny Liston on Feb. 25, 1964 to hang out together instead in a Miami hotel in the ghetto. They are Nation of Islam firebrand Malcolm X (Jason Delane), singer-songwriter and music entrepreneur Sam Cooke (Ty Jones), football star and actor Jim Brown (Kevin Daniels) and boxing immortal Clay (Matt Jones). The following day Clay would announce, with Malcolm at his side, his allegiance with the Muslims.

In this world premiere at Rogue Machine Theatre in the Mid-Wilshire district by one of its resident playwrights, Kemp Powers, each man passionately argues his personal perspective on the objectives of racial advancement. The artifice requires them to become megaphones for ideas they have continued to represent with unceasing relevance. But Powers provides colorful dialogue that persuasively crackles with both the charisma and humanity of these iconic figures. The actors skillfully animate them into idiosyncratic and appreciably real individuals as well. Powers knows his history thoroughly, and he deftly avoids the traps of oversimplifying the convictions of complex men.

All of these guys are well-documented, so everyone was shrewd to seek out essences rather than impersonations, and the choices necessarily made are, for the most part, salubrious.

It requires substantial balls to sing as Cooke, especially live. Yet Jones’ sensitivity to the scale of the setting manages to suggest Cooke’s style by tying his musical performance to the acting requirements of his character in the scene, surpassing all unavoidable doubts. All the actors boast surprising nuances: the callowness of the so young and unsophisticated Clay; the hectoring and hustle of Malcolm masking legitimate insecurity and fear; the business acumen of Cooke reinforcing his artistic integrity; and the unmentioned fact that the intimidating violence of Brown obscures his intellectual heft as the one man in the room with a college education.

Above all, One Night in Miami… remains unstintingly interesting. It offers a fly-on-the-wall view of these mythic figures, each articulate in his own way, and despite conflicts, each making valid observations and sharing core values even as they differ on substantive action and attitude. Intriguingly, none invests much stock in the prospects for integration as a practical solution. Instead they emphasize individualism or collective discipline to achieve freedom on their own terms, viewing white society as adversarial rather than as an available collaborator.

Yes, with a fabricated premise, there remains an ineluctable sense of a cartoon, but it’s a well-drafted and intricate sketch, with an uncommon feeling for shading. It gives fine actors good material to play in a congenially theatrical mode.

Still, it should be noted that while the action understandably remains tethered to this one moment in time, and we already know that Cooke and Malcolm would be dead within the year, there is no discernible intimation that in his new identity as "Cassius X" (he would not yet be named Muhammad Ali), the former Cassius Clay would disown Malcolm and pledge allegiance to Elijah Muhammad so soon thereafter, an act he would come to rue in time.

Venue: Rogue Machine Theatre, Mid-Wilshire (runs through July 28)

Cast: Ty Jones, Burl Moseley, Jason Delane, Matt Jones, Kevin Daniels, Giovanni Adams, Jah Shams, Jason E. Kelley

Director: Carl Cofield

Playwright: Kemp Powers

Set designer: Stephanie Kerley Schwartz

Lighting designer: Leigh Allen

Sound designer: Christopher Moscatiello

Costume designer: Naila Aladdin Sanders

Producers: John Perrin Flynn & Roxanne Hart

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Clutter: Film Review

SEATTLE — Emotional baggage is literal in Diane Crespo's Clutter, a tale of domestic dysfunction set in a home stuffed to the rafters with bric-a-brac and things that might, but really won't, come in handy some day. An affecting dramatic turn by Carol Kane, playing the hoarder matriarch in question, is buried under the film's less credible elements, leaving little for fest auds to embrace.

Kane's Linda did much of life's child-rearing solo, having scared off her husband while the kids were young. Today all three siblings are deeply scarred, though only one of the characters -- Joshua Leonard's Charlie -- is depicted here with enough depth to be sympathetic: While Charlie struggles with issues of emotional committment and serves as Mom's liaison to the world of the sane, the film draws sisters Lisa and Penny as thin damaged-goods caricatures (played with maximum affectation by Natasha Lyonne and Halley Feiffer).

When Linda's house is condemned, she is secretly moved into a model home whose interiors were "staged" by Penny. Before you can find an episode of Hoarders on your DVR, she's working to fill empty space in her new home as well. As Charlie and his sisters clear out the garbage in their childhood home, he's also working on a memoir-doc that traces all his problems back to the day Dad left without saying goodbye.

Leonard finds enough believable sadness in his role to make the script's on-the-nose metaphors more poignant than they may deserve to be, but little else in the film is up to the level of Kane's committed, unshowy performance. Production and costume design further a stylized atmosphere that makes the drama difficult to take seriously.

Production Company: Table Ten Films

Cast: Joshua Leonard, Carol Kane, Natasha Lyonne, Halley Feiffer, Maria Dizzia, Daniel London, Dan Hedaya

Director: Diane Crespo

Screenwriter: Paul Marcarelli

Producers: Paul Marcarelli, Molly Pearson

Executive producers: Ward Sparacio, Gregory Rae

Director of photography: Dan Hersey

Production designer: Chris Trujillo

Music: William Brittelle

Costume designer: Beth Anne Kelleher

Editor: Erin Greenwell

No rating, 77 minutes

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Rapture-Palooza: Film Review

The End Times are little more than an endless bummer of nuisance plagues and slacker wraiths in Paul Middleditch's Rapture-Palooza, a comedy about life after the Rapture whose occasional chuckles aren't nearly proportionate to the level of comic talent in the cast. Likely to be withdrawn from theaters in the Biblical "twinkling of an eye," the film will likely ride its actors' name recognition to mid-afternoon slots on basic cable.

Anna Kendrick, so winning in supporting roles in Up in the Air, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and elsewhere, is given little chance to shine as Lindsey, a Seattle twentysomething who wasn't devout enough to be spirited to Heaven on Judgment Day. The movie takes a matter-of-fact attitude toward prophesied horrors (most of which quickly become less horrific than exasperating as the thousand-year reign gets going) that was likely modeled on Shaun of the Dead, but Chris Matheson's script has none of that film's savviness about genre or sense of surprise.

When their food cart is destroyed by a flaming meteorite, Lindsey and boyfriend Ben (John Francis Daley) grudgingly go with Ben's father (Rob Corddry) to seek job opportunities on the estate of the Antichrist (Craig Robinson). Robinson's Antichrist -- he prefers "The Beast" -- is no more otherworldly than Silvio Berlusconi: a very powerful man surrounded by flunkies who indulge his every whim. When he takes a shine to virginal Lindsey, insisting that she join him later for dinner and, er, "the Beast with two backs," she and Ben hatch a plan to kidnap him and put this Apocalypse nonsense to rest.

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The particulars and pacing of this scheme are pretty dull, though, and until the film's final scenes the script does nothing to exploit the saving-the-world stakes involved. (When it does embrace the whole Heaven-Vs.-Hell business, things get very weird very quickly. Suffice to say that God is a whiner when his plans are disrupted.) But scenes at the Beast's mansion let Robinson get the picture's biggest laughs, balancing his character's rampant lust with a half-hearted attempt to keep things classy until he gets his conquest in bed.

Production Companies: Mosaic Media Group, Mimran Schur Pictures

Cast: Anna Kendrick, John Francis Daley, Craig Robinson, Rob Corddry, John Michael Higgins, Ana Gasteyer, Thomas Lennon, Calum Worthy, Paul Scheer, Tyler Labine, Ken Jeong

Director: Paul Middleditch

Screenwriter: Chris Matheson

Producer: Ed Solomon

Executive producers: Chris Matheson, David Mimran, Craig Robinson, Jordan Schur

Director of photography: Robert C. New

Production designer: Joe Cabrera

Music: Joachim Horsley

Costume designer: Kerry Weinrauch

Editor: Melissa Bretherton

R, 84 minutes

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Ray Donovan: TV Review

By now it’s old news that major film actors are flocking to television. The roles are often better. The writing is definitely better. Instead of telling a truncated story in roughly two hours, they get to inhabit a character in a multi-episode, living, breathing, ongoing narrative.

What’s not to like?

Despite knowing all of that, it’s still a thrill watching Showtime’s Ray Donovan (premiering June 30 at 10 p.m.) and basking in Liev Schreiber and Jon Voight going toe-to-toe. This was casting gold. Much has been written about how high-quality cable series resuscitated the careers of actresses of a certain age who were getting terrible roles on the big screen. But witness Voight here and you have to think that maybe a two-hour film devoting 20 or so minutes to such a heavyweight, no matter the material, is a disservice to the talent. Seriously, Voight is as riveting, menacing, nuanced and electric in Ray Donovan as in any role he’s had in years.

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There is so much to love about Ray Donovan, but one of the best elements is that 62-year-old executive producer, creator and writer Ann Biderman (Southland, Public Enemies, Smilla’s Sense of Snow, Primal Fear) has absolutely obliterated the ridiculous industry standard that you have to be some young talented thing to make an impact. She’s created the most testosterone-fueled, rough and intelligent drama in ages, and it’s a credit to Showtime’s honcho David Nevins (and other executive producers Mark Gordon and Bryan Zuriff) that he bought into her vision and believed in her ability.

The series centers on Donovan (Schreiber, who is magnetic in every scene), as a Hollywood “fixer.” A famous basketball player ends up in bed with a dead woman? Ray’s got it. Your $200 million action film is about to come out and your star is caught on video blowing a tranny? Not a problem for Ray. He’s the epitome of the Triple C — cool, calm, collected — as he quashes all kinds of TMZ-styled headlines just waiting to happen.

But as good as Ray is at his job, it’s taking a toll on his family. His wife, Abby (Paula Malcomson) wants to be part of the good life in Los Angeles that Ray dabbles in for work, but hasn’t quite figured out that while her husband is powerful, he’s still working for others. Her maddening push to achieve more and more has strained their relationship — as has Ray’s infidelity — and their two children are caught in the middle.

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Elsewhere it seems like Ray’s success and ability to control things in life is a valued asset for his two brothers, Terry (Eddie Marsan) a former boxer now dealing with Parkinson’s disease as he runs a gym in downtown Los Angeles; and Bunchy (Dash Mihok), who was molested by a priest as a young boy and has led a life of addiction and depression ever since.

The Donovans are South Boston through and through (as is Abby), shipped to Los Angeles by Ray to get away from their scheming, criminal father Mickey (Voight), who has spent the last 20 years in prison. And here’s the catch: He was supposed to serve 25. Now Mickey is out and heading to California in what can only be a nightmare scenario for Ray, who has fought his whole life to be separate from his dangerous, manipulative father.

There are lots of surprises in California that Mickey brings to light. First and foremost is that Ray, Terry and Bunchy have a black half-brother named Daryll (Pooch Hall), who is training at the gym. That means when Mickey shows up, his charm and dangerous persuasion is working wonders on at least three of his boys, which puts it at 4-to-1 against Ray.

The beauty of Ray Donovan is that it combines so many superb angles. Ray was the lone son that Mickey couldn’t manipulate and he’s gone to the opposite coast to make his escape and his way. But the sins of the father are close at hand and family is family, even if you hate them. The series skewers the vanity of Los Angeles and allows Ray to exist in this world where money can fix any indiscretion. It’s also the perfect city for exhibiting how a little money can create a lust for even more money — hence Abby’s social climbing — and works as a fine metaphor for the tarnished American dream.

Particularly effective is Biderman’s sense of incorporating something distinctly different — life in South Boston, Catholicism, church abuse, old-school family roots versus the fresh-start reincarnation promise of California. It’s a culture clash that is not even close to being the top element in Ray Donovan but provides a unique extra layer.

Having seen the first four episodes, another aspect that works is Biderman’s hiding of deeper secrets. There’s a hint that Ray was instrumental in putting his father in jail. And there’s another hint Mickey has an explosive secret that can bring down a lot of people, including Ezra Goldman (Elliott Gould), a confidant, collaborator and client of Ray’s who is slowly losing his sanity.

On a separate level, Ray’s day-to-day business of fixing the major screw-ups of the rich and famous in Los Angeles — aided by Avi (Steven Bauer) and Lena (Katherine Moennig), a no-bullshit lesbian whose story (like Avi’s) — is barely unraveling in the first four episodes. But these are good signs. Biderman has a lot of plot to manipulate and a lot of story to tell.

Biderman must be gleeful at getting to pull the strings on such an intricate story, with a fine ensemble cast. It’s an embarrassment of acting riches for Ray Donovan. So much so that any scene where Schreiber or Voight looks up to witness the other at a distance just crackles with anticipation — what hell is about to be unleashed in the ensuing moments?

Early sneaks of Ray Donovan hinted that Showtime might have a real gem on its hands, but four episodes provides an absolute exclamation point.

Email: Tim.Goodman@THR.com

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I Send You This Place: Film Review

Although beautiful to look at, this pretentiously arty doc will strain viewers' patience.

Andrea Sisson, Pete Ohs

“I’m done with Iceland. I’m sick of wearing sweaters,” complains Andrea Sisson, the central figure of I Send You This Place. And despite the gorgeous beauty of that country’s natural wonders, viewers of this arty, experimental documentary will come to feel the same way long before its conclusion. The film is currently receiving a U.S. theatrical premiere at NYC’s reRun Theater.

Co-directed by Sisson with her husband, Pete Ohs, the film is inspired by her (unseen) brother Jake’s mental illness, into which she apparently felt she could find insight by traipsing around Iceland while delivering pseudo-poetic ruminations on the order of “this wind will change the way you think” and “intuition is a tool.”

Divided into chapters featuring headings like “Come Clean With Me,” which literally depicts her taking a shower, the film is a patience-testing, rambling visual and audio meditation in which we see the wide-eyed Sisson, often inexplicably wearing large headphones, engaging in such activities as kissing ice formations, standing in symbolically meaningful doorways and frenziedly dancing until she falls down.

Occasionally she exits camera range to allow room for sequences depicting the country’s gorgeous wintry vistas or showcasing a group of small children playing in mud.

Straining to make points about the nature of mental illness and featuring cutesy line-drawing animation, I Send You This Place is mainly interesting for its travelogue-like views of its cinematically underexposed locations. If nothing else, the film will please the executives of the Iceland tourist board.

Opens: Friday, June 7 (IFP Filmmaker)

Directors/producers/directors of photography/editors/composers: Andrea Sisson, Pete Ohs

Production designer: Andrea Sisson

Not rated, 68 min

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Cut to Black: Film Review

The affection for the film noir genre comes through loud and clear in this modern-day re-imagining.

Dan Eberle

Dan Eberle, Jillaine Gill, Beau Allulli, Joe Stipak, James Alba

Familiar film-noir tropes are lovingly rehashed to good effect in Dan Eberle’s gritty drama about a disgraced former cop turned private investigator who seeks moral redemption in a sordid case. Shot in evocative black and white and featuring the sort of complex, Raymond Chandler-style plotting endemic to the genre, Cut to Black will appeal most to ardent fans of the 1940’s era films that have so often been paid tribute in such modern-day efforts as Chinatown. The film recently made its world premiere as the closing night attraction of the Brooklyn Film Festival.

Director/screenwriter Eberle -- who’s previously received kudos on the festival circuit for such efforts as JailCity and Prayer to a Vengeful God -- plays the central role of Bill Ivers, a former NYPD detective who’s clearly fallen on hard times. Deep in debt, drinking hard, carrying on a risky affair with his landlord’s wife and suffering from recurring nosebleeds that signal a potentially fatal illness, he’s hardly in a position to turn down the lucrative payday offered by his former mentor, a wealthy politician (James Alba) trying to help the daughter (Jillaine Gill), from whom he’s been long estranged.

Since she’s a sexy stripper being victimized by a stalker, there are plenty of opportunities for nudity, as Ivers, checking out her act at The Confessional, the club where she works, finds himself embroiled in a complicated scenario involving her suspicious boyfriend (Joe Stipek) and various other shady types.

As is usual for these sorts of affairs, the hard-to-follow storyline is less integral to the proceedings than the moody atmosphere, well established by James Parsons’ crisp lensing; Bob Hart’s spooky electronic music score featuring touches of traditional jazz; the excellent use of various NYC locations and the hard-boiled, world-weary performance by the gravelly-voiced filmmaker, whose character seems on the verge of collapsing, both physically and emotionally, at any moment.

While Cut to Black doesn’t exactly break any new stylistic ground and often threatens to collapse from the weight of its inspirational archetypes, it’s a reasonably effective and entertaining homage to a genre that has seemingly lost none of its allure to modern filmmakers.

Brooklyn Film Festival (Insurgent Pictures)

Cast: Dan Eberle, Jillaine Gill, Beau Allulli, Joe Stipek, James Alba, Leah Rudick

Director/screenwriter: Dan Eberle

Producers: Danielle Primiceri, Dan Eberle, Per Anderson

Executive producers: Beau Allulli, Tim Guetterman

Director of photography: James Parsons

Editor: Timothy McGonagle

Composer: Bob Hart

Not rated, 90 min.   

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Under the Dome: TV Review

It’s only one episode out of 13 and a whole lot of things can go sideways, but CBS’s summer series from Stephen King, Under the Dome, set the hook pretty deep.

Count me in.

If you haven’t heard about the much-buzzed-over limited series, it’s from King’s best-selling book of the same name (and premieres June 24 on CBS). One day the fictional town of Chester’s Mill is going about business as usual -- except for the guy digging a grave and burying a body out in the woods. But the small rural town is just humming along when it’s engulfed by what turns out to be a gigantic dome.

Seemingly dropped from the sky in a random fashion, the dome cuts houses in half, downs power lines, crushes cars that can’t see it (duh – it’s invisible) and most effectively and gruesomely, cuts a cow completely in half.

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If you reach out and try to touch the invisible dome, your hand gets a slight shock (on the first time) – enough to warn you but not kill you. However, it’s really going to blow out that warranty on your pacemaker.

Developed for television by Brian K. Vaughan (Lost, Y: The Last Man) and executive produced by Neal Baer (ER) and Steven Spielberg, Under the Dome doesn’t waste much time setting up the premise and doesn’t try to spring it on you as a twist (which would be hard with that title). Director Niels Arden Oplev makes the most of the unexplained-phenomenon conceit by not only having a plane crash into the dome -- from the inside -- but also a milk truck from the outside, among a few other visual treats in the pilot.

Oplev also does a fine job of pacing at the outset, lulling the viewer into a sense of Chester’s Mill as a bucolic rural town (the show was shot in North Carolina), before things begin to get a little weirder and more sinister than just some guy digging a grave.

The guy is Dale “Barbie” Barbara (Mike Vogel) and once the dome comes down, he can’t get away from the crime he just committed. We meet the town sheriff (Jeff Fahey) and his deputy (Natalie Martinez), who don’t seem to work up too much of a sweat on the job, though they do seem to be hounded by the small-town newspaper editor, Julia (Rachelle Lefevre).

STORY: ‘Under the Dome': 10 Things to Know About CBS' Stephen King Adaptation

Chester’s Mill is low on both extra police and firefighters because they all went off for a picnic event that fell outside of the dome. Councilman James “Big Jim” Rennie (Dean Norris) is left in charge -- for the most part -- and viewers are given glimpses of various other town inhabitants: Waitress at the diner, college dropout, random high school kids, workers at the local radio station -- which is up and working inside the dome.

Early on the hardships seem obvious. Unless you’ve got a back-up generator, then you don’t have electricity. No radio signals can come in. Inhabitants can’t hear people yelling just on the other side of the dome, right in front of them. Slowly, some begin to wonder how long this could last (which brings up issues of food and water). The government is massing on the outskirts of the dome and they look dressed for a worst-case scenario.

Even though there’s a lot of carnage from the dome descending -- you’ll see some severed body parts -- most of the survivors are more stunned and confused than worried. It’s pretty clear the worry (and perhaps some panic and terror) will begin to kick in shortly, since King has a way in all of his books about getting to people’s hidden secrets and fears.

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Normally networks have a hard time selling summer shows because savvy viewers know all too well that they’re just burned-off series deemed not good enough to air in the regular season. But Under the Dome was always planned for summer and it’s essentially a miniseries.

CBS is on to something here. They went big with King and Spielberg, plus Vaughan and a large cast. I particularly like that CBS is making Under the Dome feel like an event you can get into without having to worry about whether it will return as a series or not. You’re getting 13 episodes and then it moves on. After ceding so much ground to cable through the years as it shut down in late May, the broadcast industry needed to rethink the future. This kind of limited series is a step in the right direction.

And it sure helps that the first hour is intriguing as hell and filled with a lot of storytelling promise. If viewers catch the pilot, they’ll be back for the next episode. Some critics, too.

E-mail: Tim.Goodman@THR.com

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Starcrosser's Cut: Theater Review

Lisa Nowak, the deranged astronaut who drove nonstop from Houston to Orlando to pepper-spray her rival officer in a parking lot, receives an intellectually satisfying, meditative exploration in this experimental performance work.

Hanistarot at Son of Semele Theatre, Silverlake (runs through June 16)  

Shawn Lockie, Tom Colitt  

Joseph Tepperman

The bizarre odyssey of Lisa Nowak (Shawn Lockie) has culminated in her interrogation in a Florida lockup by the chameleonic detective-corporal Camuso (Tom Colitt). Sleep-deprived and unhinged, the highly educated and trained Lisa conjures up fantasies, excuses and deceptions, as does the investigator, in his own circuitous and devious way, repeatedly mixing up her identity with another female astronaut who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. Any hints of the tabloid origins of the story are ruthlessly purged in a series of refracted contemplations on the fractured stresses of a spiritually adrift soul.

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Inspired by the transcript of her 2007 police statement, this world premiere presentation sponsored at the Son of Semele space in Silverlake could well be entitled “The Passion of Lisa Nowak,” as it is fundamentally a musical and sound piece as much as a drama. Her tormented rationalizations assume metaphysical dimensions that weirdly echo Jeanne d’Arc and her inquisitors.

The musical composition by David Dominique never merely backs or underscores the action but instead comprises an integral component of the overall expression, just as writer-director Joseph Tepperman’s complicated sound design constitutes every bit as significant a part of the text as his words. Indeed, one could well perceive this as a contemporary classical chamber oratorio, for amplified voices, tape and a piquant ensemble of accordion, flute, viola and electric guitar. To open ears, the advanced tonalities harmonize euphoniously, if with a free-ranging dread.

Those looking for clearly delineated meanings and conventional logical progression will be frustrated and probably annoyed. The strength of the piece lies in its insinuating allusiveness, which might have grown tiresome save for the pinpoint grounding of the players in moment-to-moment conviction, and the precise and intricate orchestrations of motifs and themes expressed through thoughtfully interwoven speech, distortion, effects or music. Unashamedly abstruse, it manages to sustain interest and involvement through its commitment to juggling ideas through formal gymnastics.

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It might be usefully tightened, a subsidiary skein of references to a condemned inmate on death-watch adds more obscurity than density, and a climactic violent gesture goes down one rabbit hole too many. Yet the invention disdains quibbles in pursuit of its larger poetry of isolation and breakdown, the only journey it is prepared to travel. We can go along, or not, with this determined and challenging vision. 

Venue: Hanistarot at Son of Semele Theatre, Silverlake (runs through June 16)

Cast: Shawn Lockie, Tom Colitt

Playwright-director & sound designer: Joseph Tepperman

Music: David Dominique

Lighting designer: Jose Emmanuel Varcia

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Tour de Force (La Grande Boucle): Film Review

PARIS -- Racing ahead with a decent concept until it dopes itself on way too much feel-goodness, French cycling comedy Tour de Force (La Grande Boucle) never nabs the yellow jersey, but doesn’t exactly come in dead last, either. Rather, this slickly crafted effort from director Laurent Tuel (Ultimate Heist) sticks safely to the genre’s chosen routes while providing a few touching moments in its tale of a forlorn biking fanatic who embarks on his very own Tour de France, hoping to win his wife back in the process. Far from funny, yet easy enough on the eyes, this wide Wild Bunch release should see adequate summertime returns, especially in Francophonia.

A thrifty setup introduces us to Tour junkie Francois Nouel (Clovis Cornillac), who ditches vacation plans with his wife (Elodie Bouchez) and son (Paul Granier) to volunteer on the official support team of pro bike supplier Sport 2000. But his dreams soon are quashed when he gaffs at the company’s pre-race cocktail party, and the now jobless and wifeless Francois sees no other choice then to hop on his 10-speed and follow the Tour de France’s 3,500 km route anyway, riding alone and a day ahead of the actual racers.

Along the way, he crosses paths with a shady trainer/manager (the lively Bouli Lanners), who turns Francois into a bankable publicity stunt, as well as an extreme biking fan (Pierre Bojean), who follows the lone rider around in his Winnebago, providing encouragement, free meals and massages from his nudist wife (Annick Christiaens). Eventually, the Tour media circus catches on to Francois’ exploits, and he becomes a celebrity himself, stealing the spotlight from a trash-talking Italian cyclist (Ary Abittan) and raking in fans, sponsors and even his own doping scandal.

Lots of these elements could have been mined for laughs, but Tuel and a team of five screenwriters can hardly muster a workable gag, relying too much on broad caricature, especially with regards to the various bit players (including a thuggish French rapper -- played by real hip-hop artist Doudou Masta -- who happens to be a huge Tour fan himself).

The film plays somewhat better when it moves away from comedy to center on Francois’ family dilemma, which comes to a head after his son runs away, and he has to decide between finishing the race and becoming a responsible dad. Yet even there, Tuel turns everything into sentimental mush, wrapping up his story in an altogether unconvincing fashion, especially when it comes to the inevitable reconciliation between husband and wife -- the latter of whom is little more than a mindless plot point.

Perhaps one reason the humor falls so flat is leading man Cornillac (A Very Long Engagement), who seems too stiff for the broad-based comedy yet is never expressive enough for the dramatic sections. Where he does impress, however, is in the various racing sequences, which are handled realistically and beautifully photographed by DP Gilles Porte (The Conquest). It’s during these moments that Tuel reveals some of the craftiness he displayed in his 2009 Jean Reno-starrer Ultimate Heist, and Tour de Force does a great job capturing the majestic landscapes and intense sportsmanship that have made the century-old event such a well-watched phenomenon.

Further enhancing the athleticism are several cameos by actual Tour de France champions (including Bernard Hinault and Laurent Jalabert) -- a stunt likely to please diehard fans who may otherwise be let down by the film’s fluffy finale.

Production companies: Fidelite Films, Wild Bunch, TF1 Films Production, France 2 Cinema

Cast: Clovis Cornillac, Bouli Lanners, Ary Abittan, Bruno Lochet, Elodie Bouchez

Director: Laurent Tuel

Screenwriters: Romain Protat, Lyes Belaidouni, Yohan Levy, Stephane Ben Lahcene, Mathieu Ouillon

Producers: Olivier Delbosc, Marc Missonnier, Nicolas Souhami, Renaud Souhami

Director of photography: Gilles Porte

Production designer: Arnaud de Moleron

Costume designers: Emmanuelle Youchnovski, Annabel Leroy

Music: Andre Manoukian

Editor: Antoine Vareille

Sales Agent: Wild Bunch

No rating, 97 minutes

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'Sinbad' and 'Primeval: New World': TV Review

Both one-off series are like summer beach reading -- fluffy, fun, and forgettable. 

9 p.m. Saturday, June 8 (Syfy)

Viewers skittish about committing to new shows in case of cancelation now have an unusual choice to make: is it worth it to take a chance on one season of a series that is absolutely not coming back? Or is there an appeal in knowing a show has a limited run?

Syfy, who seem to have realized BBC America and PBS were on to something when it comes to rerunning U.K. programming, picked up Sinbad and Primeval: New World for summer runs. Both have aired in the U.K. and Canada, both almost a year ago, and both were since canceled after their first seasons. For Syfy, they may not be much more now than something new to burn off on Saturdays, but will viewers show up at all knowing the end is unquestionably nigh?

Sinbad, which serves as the lead-in, follows the Middle Eastern folklore hero at the start of his journey on the high seas around the 9th century. The series initially shares a tonal similarity with Starz's Da Vinci's Demons, in which the hero (played here by newcomer Elliot Knight) is a handsome rogue with a penchant for trouble and a certain brilliance for getting out of it. Things take a dark turn though for Sinbad halfway through the pilot, when a family tragedy leads him to be cast out of his home and cursed to live on the sea until he can find atonement. Complicating matters is Lord Akbari (Lost's Naveen Andrews) who, not content with an eye-for-an-eye after Sinbad is responsible for the death of his son, vows to hunt him down.

The series is filmed in Malta and offers up plenty of eye candy both in its scenery and its cast, which features Elliot Cowan, Dimitri Leonidas and Estella Daniels as part of Sinbad's rag-tag group of misfits (were you expecting something else?) aboard his first ship. Magic and monsters make early appearances, as they do in the original tales, and its fast-paced editing and snappy dialogue keep things moving quickly. The series is broad family entertainment and fairly boilerplate, but its biggest success may be the fact that the cast is entirely (when in Sinbad's hometown of Basra) and mostly (on the ship) non-white actors, giving a necessary authenticity to the location and time period. It's also just generally refreshing (and overdue).

Diversity is not Primeval: New World's strongest suit (or a suit it apparently even owns). The show is a spinoff of the British series of the same concept, except this time, Canadians from the past and future travel through time via wormholes (called "anomalies" on the show), hunting down prehistoric and futuristic animals that can't seem to stay in their own time period. 

Primeval: New World is staunchly a genre series, complete with clunky dialogue and half-baked ideas of time travel. In fact, the show manages to combine practically all genre tropes into one: there's paranormal activity, time travel, hard boiled cops, crime scene investigations, inept government agencies, unlikely heroes, vengeance, atonement, everything. But at the end of its first hour, which is full of dinosaurs, it does introduce some futuristic elements to plots otherwise more or less covered by Jurassic Park, giving it a little more depth and interest. 

It's not at all essential to have seen the original U.K. series to follow the Canadian version, even though there are apparently a lot of callbacks. The only real problem is keeping track of all of the male leads (tall and handsome with shaggy brown hair and soulful eyes is apparently a look Canadians are trademarking).

Though Sinbad and Primeval: New World have been promoted together and will air back to back, their commonalities end there. Primeval: New World's occasional gore and CSI-like construction don't quite gel with Sinbad's magic and potentially younger audience, and those who are drawn to Sinbad's historical setting may feel jarred by the other series' futuristic bent. 

Still, while neither show is spectacular, both offer something that could be casually worthwhile to viewers, even for a single season. While Sinbad and Primeval: New World's producers, Impossible Pictures, did envision longer runs, Sky 1 (who originally aired Sinbad) said that after 12 episodes, the story "had run its course." There's something refreshing about admitting that. Ultimately, both series are the TV equivalent of summer beach reading: popcorn fun while they last, but don't expect a lasting impression.

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Rufus Wainwright Delivers Stunning Set in the Suburbs: Concert Review

One song into his set Saturday night at the Valley Performing Arts Center on the campus of Cal State, Northridge, Rufus Wainwright admitted that he didn't know the San Fernando Valley suburb existed except for the 1994 earthquake.

Some of the subscribers at the theater, which is sort of the valley's answer to the Disney Concert Hall, may have felt the same way about the singer-songwriter before Saturday night's show. But following his stunning 90-minute set, they'll likely never forget him.

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Performing solo, alternating between piano and acoustic guitar, Wainwright was at times incredibly moving, at others funny, but always entertaining. The bare-bones setting showcased his superb talents as a vocalist, musician and songwriter since there was no wall of sound to hide behind, or fellow musicians to prop him up. Rather, he performed strikingly solo, occasionally acknowledging the long shadow of his famous family of musicians, the ghost of his old friend and his own modern family.

In general, the songs Wainwright performed on guitar were more jaunty, such as "Out of the Game," the should-have-been-a-hit title track from his 2012 release. Wainwright joked it was supposed to be "a massive hit, but two things went wrong. The kids couldn't relate to the title … and then there was this massive Korean guy." Hit or not, the song highlighted Wainwright's expert vocal phrasing and sounded like a lost classic.

The numbers performed on piano were more melancholic, sometimes employing seemingly free-form song structures that made them sound like poems put to music, rather than songs with traditional verses and choruses. Particularly moving was "Martha," a musical voicemail to his sister and fellow artist, highlighted by Wainwright's repeated heart-wrenching pleas to his sister to "call me back." That was followed by a monologue in which Wainwright recounted his early struggles for stardom in New York and his hate and jealousy of another son of a folk legend, Jeff Buckley.

Yet when Wainwright found success and returned to New York, Buckley turned up at one of his shows, and Wainwright discovered he was "a great artist and lovely guy, and of course I fell in love with him." A few weeks later, Buckley drowned in the Mississippi. Again at the piano, Wainwright performed "Memphis Skyline," his poignant tribute to Buckley, followed by "Hallelujah," the Leonard Cohen song he and Buckley recorded and helped transform into a modern standard. Even after Wainwright stumbled on the lyrics and let out an expletive, it was transcendental.

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Performing in a custom Cameron Helm hand-painted suit, Wainwright lightened the mood with a tale of guitar shopping in Korea before performing "California." Later he admitted he's "afraid of guitars" because his father, Loudon Wainwright III "plays guitar." He also noted his mother, the late Kate McGarrigle's prowess on a number of instruments. McGarrigle was referenced in the chilling "Zebulon," in which Wainwright employed a hypnotic repetitive chord pattern and turned his gaze heavenward as his vocals soared. He also honored his mother by covering "The Walking Song," one of his songs that will be included on the forthcoming tribute album Sing Me the Songs.

Yet perhaps the greatest insight into Wainwright as an artist and performer came in "Gay Messiah," which he performed after mentioning he recently witnessed some disturbing anti-gay protests in Paris, and "Montauk," which opened the first encore, following a standing ovation. Wainwright explained the song, which references two dads, was for his daughter Viva, and it's likely the most tuneful tale of a modern family you'll ever hear.

Set List:

The Art Teacher
This Love Affair
Grey Garden
Out of the Game
Jericho
Matinee Idol
Martha
Memphis Skyline
Hallelujah
California
11:11
Gay Messiah
Going to a Town
Zebulon
Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk

Encore

Montauk
The Walking Song
Foolish Love
Poses

Twitter: @THRmusic

Update: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Wainwright performed barefoot.

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The Lesser Blessed: Film Review

A coming-of-age film that weaves its cultural themes into the narrative without coming off like it's trying to teach you something, Anita Doron's The Lesser Blessed focuses on a teenaged boy in Canada's Northwest Territories whose First Nations heritage is far from the only thing setting him apart from his peers. Benjamin Bratt's name will draw some attention at arthouses, but his strong supporting performance is incidental to the sensitive film's appeal.

First-timer Joel Nathan Evans stars as Larry Sole, who stands out among his mostly white schoolmates but is less troubled by race than by scars -- both the ones covering his torso and the psychic reminders of the abusive father who evidently put them there. (Evans grew up in Fort Smith, the film's setting and hometown of Richard Van Camp, who wrote the source novel.) Bullied by former friend Darcy (Adam Butcher) and hopelessly in love with pale beauty Juliet (Chloe Rose), Larry suffers quietly, if not with stoicism.

Evans is unassuming and likeable in the role, especially after the introduction of a foil: Kiowa Gordon's Johnny Beck, the new kid in school who shares Larry's First Nations roots but is his social opposite -- a troublemaker and ladykiller who, predictably, is soon sleeping with Juliet. The three spend some happy time together (as happy as times can be for a kid who worships a girl his new best friend takes for granted), but Juliet's shifting attentions only provoke Darcy, and increasingly violent showdowns ensue.

Doron and cinematographer Brendan Steacy offer some stylish visual flourishes without interfering with the picture's convincing hinterlands atmosphere; Paul Intson's score furthers the sense of a movie that knows exactly what it wants to be.

Production Company: First Generation Films

Cast: Joel Nathan Evans, Kiowa Gordon, Chloe Rose, Tamara Podemski, Benjamin Bratt, Adam Butcher

Director-Screenwriter: Anita Doron; Based on the novel by Richard Van Camp

Producer: Christina Piovesan

Executive producer: Richard Van Camp

Director of photography: Brendan Steacy

Production designer: Peter Cosco

Music: Paul Intson

Costume designer: Sarah Millman

Editors: Geoff Ashenhurst, David Ostry

R, 85 minutes

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Paul McCartney Brings Joyous Pop Music to Barclays Center: Concert Review

Somewhere, in one of his many homes, there surely must be a portrait of Paul McCartney that’s aging rapidly.

That’s the only explanation for the seemingly undiminished youthfulness and musical vitality of the former Beatle that was on ample display in his concert Saturday night at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, one of the stops on his Out There tour. Performing more three dozen songs over the course of nearly three uninterrupted hours, McCartney, about to turn 71, delivered a career-spanning set that brought musical history to life before a rapt, multi-generational audience.  

For many of them, it was no doubt the musical equivalent of attending a fiftieth high-school reunion and making out with the person who took you to the prom.

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At this point in his career, reviews of his shows are superfluous. One merely has to scroll down to the set list below to fully appreciate the impact of his concert which culled from the greatest catalogue in pop music. And while the evening differed little from his tours of recent years--including much of the same between-song banter and the bombastic pyrotechnics accompanying “Live and Let Die”--McCartney carefully provided a few special treats in the form of several Beatles classics that he has rarely or never before performed live.

These included the rousing opening number, “Eight Days a Week,” as well as the jaunty “Your Mother Should Know,” the sing-along “All Together Now” (“One of my more intellectual songs,” he joked), and “Lovely Rita” and “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite, both from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. For Beatles fans, these were alone enough to justify a return visit.

Displaying barely any vocal diminishment and constantly accompanying himself on different instruments, McCartney clearly seems to draw energy from performing his lovingly faithful renditions of songs from his Beatles and Wings days as well as his solo career, including the recent lovely ballad ”My Valentine.” His longtime band, with whom he’s performed for over a decade, provided stirring instrumentals and vocal harmonies that brought the music to life in pristine but never stale fashion. They deserve to be named: Paul “Wix” Wickens (keyboards), Rusty Anderson (guitar), Abe Laboriel Jr. (drums) and Brian Ray (bass/guitar).

Nostalgia bloomed in the air, whether it was the vintage film footage of the Fab Four in their prime; McCartney’s accompanying himself on “Paperback Writer” with the same guitar he used on the original recording; or his loving tributes to those who’ve departed.

Indeed, at times the show took on the air of a memorial, with songs dedicated to his wife Linda (“Maybe I’m Amazed”); John Lennon (the imaginary conversational “Here Today”), George Harrison (“Something,” which began with McCartney strumming on a ukulele) and producer Phil Ramone (“Another Day”).

But it was mostly an inevitably joyous affair, with the performer trotting out one classic after another with the sort of well-practiced exuberance that made it seem as if he was performing them for the very first time. His seemingly unquenchable desire to please his audience was evident from the first to last moments.

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“You want to keep going, don’t you?” he unnecessarily asked the crowd well into the show’s third hour. He then listened to the responding cheers for several moments before taking a well-timed pause and deadpanning, “Okay.”

His second encore well demonstrated his musical breadth, as he effortlessly segued from the tender “Yesterday” to the raucous “Helter-Skelter” before launching into his usual show-closing triumvirate of “Golden Slumbers,” “Carry That Weight” and “The End.” It was, as always, a remarkable conclusion to a remarkable evening.

Set List

Eight Days a Week

Junior’s Farm

All My Loving

Listen to What the Man Said

Let Me Roll It

Paperback Writer

My Valentine

Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-five

The Long and Winding Road

Maybe I’m Amazed

I’ve Just Seen a Face

We Can Work It Out

Another Day

And I Love Her

Blackbird

Here Today

Your Mother Should Know

Lady Madonna

All Together Now

Lovely Rita

Mrs. Vanderbilt

Eleanor Rigby

Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite

Something

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

Band on the Run

Back in the U.S.S.R.

Let It Be

Live and Let Die

Hey Jude

Encore:

Day Tripper

Hi, Hi, Hi

Get Back

Encore 2:

Yesterday

Helter-Skelter

Golden Slumbers

Carry That Weight

The End

Twitter: @THRMusic

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Reasons to Be Happy: Theater Review

NEW YORK – First seen in 2008 on this same stage before transferring to Broadway, Neil LaBute’s four-character dissection of thorny relationship dynamics, Reasons to Be Pretty, is among the playwright’s most mature and satisfying works, distinguished by its uncharacteristic emotional rawness. Picking up the same fractious quartet a few years down the track, Reasons to Be Happy is an engrossing if less impactful companion piece that again tempers LaBute’s sardonic side by allowing a glimmer of compassion for people who seem incapable of sustaining lasting connections.

The play mirrors the structure of the earlier work a little too schematically. It opens with another fierce tirade from an enraged female, followed by a succession of mainly two-person encounters, shuffling back and forth between a soul-deadening workplace and neutral ground. While never quite escaping its more-of-the-same feel, this freestanding quasi-sequel improves as it steadily tightens its focus on the writer’s stand-in, Greg (Josh Hamilton). Via that character, it reflects on the sometimes painful necessity of cutting ties with the past in order to have a legitimate shot at self-knowledge. However, that makes it a rinse-and-repeat variation on Greg's arc in the earlier work.

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When Reasons to Be Pretty premiered, it was labeled the conclusion of a trilogy by LaBute about the cultural premium placed on physical appearance, following The Shape of Things and Fat Pig. The playwright appears to be revising that structural grouping with this new work, which explores interlocking romantic triangles and closes on the threshold of further developments for Greg and Steph (Jenna Fischer) and Carly (Leslie Bibb) and Kent (Fred Weller).

Anyone who saw the previous play will remember that volatile hairdresser Steph is an expert at hurling invective, and that chronically passive Greg, the bookish former warehouse worker who has now graduated to teaching, is skilled at ducking and deflecting. The cause of Steph’s anger this time is the discovery that Greg has begun a relationship with her gorgeous friend Carly, Kent’s ex-wife, a security guard at the plant where Greg and Kent used to work. While Steph has moved on and married since the messy end of her relationship with Greg, she tells him in no uncertain terms that he has crossed a line.

But amid the animosity she feels toward him, Steph’s old attraction to Greg resurfaces. Being someone who lets things happen to him rather than taking the wheel, Greg goes along with the plan to give it another shot with Steph. However, the situation gets more complicated when he attempts to break the news to Carly and she informs him that she’s pregnant.

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Set in the airless suburbs of some unnamed Middle American town, this would be standard soap in most writers' hands. LaBute at least keeps it lively with his honed dialogue and his skill at getting under an audience’s skin by exposing misdemeanors many of us have committed at one time or another in a relationship.

In his depiction of obtuse Steph in particular – and also in The Office star Fischer’s abrasively off-putting characterization – the playwright seems to be actively courting the charges of misogyny that have often been leveled at his work. But though the women are set up to appear manipulative, self-serving and even disloyal, they end up being the more reasonable ones, making rational decisions while the guys mostly amble along being evasive.

When non-confrontational Greg finally develops the backbone to face some personal truths and set out in search of a life, it’s a breakthrough. However, LaBute is too cynical a playwright not to leave some gnawing doubt as to whether Greg is really capable of change.

Directed by LaBute, this is a pithy production of a play that maintains involvement and generates some squirmy humor. But unlike the bristling first chapter that introduced these characters, it never yields a lot in the way of emotional rewards. To be honest, it’s harder to care this time around about any of them, either as individuals or couples.

Fischer and Bibb do what's required of them. But their lack of professional stage experience makes them no match for the guys, both of whom go down murky alleys of male weakness and dishonesty. Playing the least sympathetic character, Weller (USA Network’s In Plain Sight) is arguably the most enjoyable of the four actors to watch, whether Kent is simmering with barely contained hostility, sharing his primitive views on women or dissolving into painful self-pity. His scenes with Greg are the play’s truest. But that's unsurprising given that LaBute has always been most at home when investigating the male psyche, particularly as concerns men's desire of and behavior toward women.

Hamilton captures the internal conflict of a guy who has outgrown his environment and the associations that come with it, yet up to now has struggled to see himself someplace else. As the heart of the play, however, he lacks the yearning ache that Thomas Sadoski brought to the same character in Reasons to Be Pretty. But perhaps that’s missing in the writing.

Venue: Lucille Lortel Theatre, New York (runs through June 29)

Cast: Leslie Bibb, Jenna Fischer, Josh Hamilton, Fred Weller

Playwright-director: Neil LaBute

Set designer: Neil Patel

Costume designer: Sarah J. Holden

Lighting designer: Ben Stanton

Sound designer: Robert Kaplowitz

Presented by MCC Theater, by special arrangement with the Lucille Lortel Theatre Foundation

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