Here are brief reviews of seven films that opened this week:
“For Your Consideration”
Christopher Guest gently takes on Hollywood itself in his latest almost-real feature film. We join the cast of an uproariously awful indie movie called “Home for Purim,” as some evil Oscar buzz descends on the set. With their usual cast of stellar comedians, Guest and co-writer Eugene Levy explore the particular egoism of actors, and how a little awards hysteria threatens to drive them all thoroughly nuts. Not quite as drop-dead funny as “Waiting for Guffman” or “Best in Show,” this one nevertheless preserves Guest’s reputation as an American comedy original.
*** 1/2; PG-13; 83 minutes (Michael Booth)
“Déjà Vu”
“Déjà Vu” has all the obligatory explosions and car chases you expect in a film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. But it has more ambitious, complicated subjects in mind. Denzel Washington is Doug Carlin, a no-nonsense Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent investigating an attack on a New Orleans ferry. Carlin just starts to dig into this mystery when he enters a high-tech realm where government techno geeks are watching what looks like satellite surveillance footage from before the ferry exploded, basically going back in time. Jim Caviezel has a few creepy scenes as the suspected terrorist, Val Kilmer co-stars in a thankless role as the FBI agent on the case, with Paula Patton as a young woman who unknowingly holds clues in the past – even though she’s dead the first time we see her.
* 1/2; PG-13; 125 minutes (Christy Lemire, The Associated Press)
“Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny”
For the uninitiated, there are more than enough easy gags in Jack Black and Kyle Gass’ rock fable about how their band, Tenacious D, came to be to keep the flatulence-loving among you chuckling. Yet the guitar-shredding comedy becomes funnier by half (a star) for the fans of the popular band. “Pick of Destiny” begins in a pious household in Kickapoo, Mo., with long-haired Lil’ JB thrashing and trashing all dining decorum with a song fit for a stevedore. After a tanning and a meandering journey to Hollywood, the heavy-metal aspirant (now an adult Black) meets his rock guru, Kyle Gass, on a Venice boardwalk. Soon enough, the two embark on a Grail-style quest for the guitar pick from hell – literally. “Pick of Destiny” is a “kitchen sink with InSinkErator” comedy, throwing all manner of pop-culture morsels into its mix. Sigh, there is enough ribald rhyming of the word “rock” to earn the movie an R rating. Too bad. There’s nothing heavy about this metal-loving comedy, and there’s a lot that is good-hearted. Fun cameos by Ben Stiller, Tim Robbins and Meat Loaf.
** 1/2; R; 97 minutes (Lisa Kennedy)
“The Fountain”
From the director of the feverish and squalid “Requiem for a Dream” comes an equally feverish, if not quite so squalid, science-fiction fantasy. Hugh Jackman plays a desperate man in three time periods centuries apart, in each searching for a fountain of youth that will help cure the brain tumor of his wife (Rachel Weisz). Aronofsky crafts some beautifully poetic moments, especially in the future segment as musical compositions accompany Jackman in a bubble- style spacecraft toward a distant nebula. But Aronofsky is not so skilled with one-one-one dialogue in the present, and some of the melodrama feels overbaked.
** 1/2; R; 93 minutes (Michael Booth)
“Deck the Halls”
“Deck the Halls” is another leaden slice of holiday fruitcake. An over-organized optometrist (Matthew Broderick) organizes his annual “Christmas traditions” for his family of four in his idealized, postcard-pretty town, Cloverdale, Mass. Then, a burned-out car salesman (Danny DeVito) and his trashy brood move in across the street. Buddy Hall resolves to decorate the daylights out of his house until it’s visible “from outer space.” As the lights pile on and the sort of people impressed by excessive Christmas displays pickup truck their way into the neighborhood, a feud escalates between the two men, leading to destruction and strife.
But this is a mean-spirited Christmas comedy without the guts to be mean. Broderick and DeVito, on- the-nose casting decisions, don’t dial it up enough to make this into a battle royal.
*; PG; 95 minutes (Roger Moore, The Orlando Sentinel)
“Mutual Appreciation”
The wonderful independent film “Mutual Appreciation” brings to mind the French New Wave of the late 1950s and the East Village film scene of the late 1970s. Sara (Seung-Min Lee) and Alan (Justin Rice) are looking for something in “Mutual Appreciation,” written and directed by Andrew Bujalski, who plays one of the film’s leads, a teaching assistant named Lawrence.
“Mutual Appreciation” is what might be called character-driven, because not much happens. But Alan, Ellie and Lawrence don’t actually drive the film; they inhabit it, like people who took up residence long ago. Mostly it’s about a group of young people trying to figure out where they fit into the world. And so they talk and talk and talk some more.
In writing about “Funny Ha Ha,” Bujalski’s earlier film, critics sometimes invoked John Cassavetes. If Bujalski has learned anything from Cassavetes, it’s that films should be about life, not death, fashion or virtuosity, and that there are few more meaningful subjects for art and for personal expression than other people.
***; not rated; 110 minutes;at the Starz FilmCenter (Manohla Dargis, The New York Times)
“Unknown”
A movie that would have definitely made for a better play, Simon Brand’s “Unknown” is set mostly inside a gloomy warehouse in Southern California where five men with erased memories are trying to figure out who they are and what they’re doing there. Two of the men (Jeremy Sisto, Joe Pantoliano) are bound, and one (Greg Kinnear) has a broken nose. Each is suspicious of the other four. From a story in a newspaper left lying around, they learn that two of them are developers who have been kidnapped. But which two? “Unknown” is a coy mind game combining influences from “Reservoir Dogs” and “Memento.” It doles out its clues in measured quantities, mostly through flashbacks in the recovering memory of an unnamed character played by Jim Caviezel.
It all comes together at the end, logically and with a twist. But it’s not a game that allows the audience to play along.
**; not rated; 90 minutes; at the Starz FilmCenter (Jack Mathews, New York Daily News)
