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Dear John / ** (PG-13)
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"Dear John" (PG-13,105 minutes). A Special Forces soldier and a sweet South Carolina rich girl Meet Cute, fall in love, and pledge to meet and marry when his tour ends in a year. But it s not to be. Another one of those bittersweet Nicholas Sparks stories that laboriously endeavor to wring from us a sad smile. I was sadly smiling not at their loss, but of mine. Although Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried are attractive and well-matched as the would-be lovers, and Richard Jenkins makes autism seem kinda sweet (if it's a mild case), this movie is so doomed to end exactly the way it does that we wonder why the characters don't prevent it, if they want to. Two stars
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Fish Tank / **** (No MPAA rating)
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"Fish Tank" (Unrated, adults, 123 minutes). The harrowing portrait of a 15-year-old girl on a reckless path toward self-destruction. Her mother, only about 30, is a drunken slut and she seems on the same path. Covers a few days of fraught experiences with sex and anger. Superbly acted by newcomer Katie Jarvis. Winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes 2009. Directed by Andrea Arnold. Four stars.
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From Paris With Love / ** (R)
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"From Paris with Love" (R, 92 minutes). John Travolta as an American Mr. Fix It who takes a cocky attitude to Paris and backs it up in a messy plot heavy on action scenes concocted from CGI and quick cutting. Nothing original, convincing or involving, although Travolta succeeds almost by being in a movie of his own. Directed by Pierre Morel, whose previous film, "Taken," was much better. Two stars.
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The Last Station / *** (R)
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"The Last Station" (R, 110 minutes). On his country estate, in his last year, Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer) rules over a household of intrigues. His wife Sofya (Helen Mirren) is in fierce battle with his disciple Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), who thinks the Count should leave his estate to the Russian people, and not to Sofya and their 13 children. Cherkov hires young Valentin (James McAvoy) to act as Tolstoy's private secretary and a spy, but Valentin is seduced by a nubile Tolstoyian (Kerry Condon) and broadens his views about the great man. Sort of a Merchant-Ivory picture with loud instead of quiet lust. Three stars.
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Edge of Darkness / **1/2 (R)
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"Edge of Darkness" (R, 117 minutes). When a Boston cop (Mel Gibson) sees his daughter murdered, his search for the killers leads him to a sinister, shadowy corporation and its oily chairman (Danny Huston). An intriguing free agent (Ray Winstone) materializes, with unexplained knowledge about the case. The corporation seems recycled from a Bond movie and the action scenes are boilerplate CGI, but Gibson and Winstone have some nice moments. Two and a half stars.
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The Chaser / ***1/2 (No MPAA rating)
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"The Chaser" (Adults, 124 minutes). An expert serial killer film from South Korea and reminder of what a well-made thriller looked like in classic says. Its principal chase scene involves a foot race through the deserted narrow nighttime streets of Seoul. No exploding cars. The climax is the result of everything that has gone before. Not an extended fight scene. This is drama, and it is interesting. An ex-cop turned pimp chases a serial killer, as a prostitute's life hangs in the balance. Notre: Very violent. Three and a half stars
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The Third Man / **** ()
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"The Third Man" plays a week-long engagement on a double bill with Carol Reed's "Odd Man Out" (1947) at the Music Box.
Has there ever been a film where the music more perfectly suited the action than in Carol Reed's "The Third Man"? The score was performed on a zither by Anton Karas, who was playing in a Vienna beerhouse one night when Reed heard him. The sound is jaunty but without joy, like whistling in the dark. It sets the tone; the action begins like an undergraduate lark and then reveals vicious undertones.
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Great Movie: The Hairdresser's Husband (1990)
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The hairdressing shop is their ocean liner, their lives are a cruise around the world. They will sail the Nile, kiss in the shadows of the Great Pyramids, see the sun set on every earthly paradise, and it will always be exactly like this. Perfect. "The Hairdresser's Husband" (1990) tells the story of two romantics besotted with love, living in a French hairdressing salon, she reading magazines on her perch by the widow, he working crosswords on the red leather bench, the sunlight flooding in. The yellows, blues, tropical colors. The exotic music he dances to. Occasionally at some unheard signal their eyes meet and they smile in shared bliss.
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Movie Answer Man: We know it made plenty,
so let's leave it at that
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Q. Does it makes any sense to you the fanfare made over "Avatar" dethroning "Titanic" as all time box office champ considering no inflation adjustment was done and there is a 10 year period between the release of both movies? Then again the "Titanic" record only stands if you consider the box office receipts from other movies such as "Gone With the Wind" are considered also in non-adjusted dollars. And "Avatar" and "Titanic" were released at a time when we knew the DVD is coming in a few months, thus lowering any urgency to see it repeatedly in a theater.
Gerardo Valero, Mexico City
A. This question, which comes up every time a box office record is challenged, inspiring debates which usually dribble off with, "But there are no reliable box office figures for 'Birth of a Nation'." It is impossible to find authoritative figures accounting for box office prices, inflation, and reporting accuracy. All we know is that if a movie was really successful, it's always mentioned in stories like these.
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Commentary: Top prizes awarded at Sundance
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The four top jury prizes at Sundance 2010 were awarded Saturday night to Debra Granik's "Winter's Bone" for best U. S. drama, Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington's ?Restrepo? for U. S. documentary, David Michôd's ?Animal Kingdom? for world drama, and Mads Brügger's ?The Red Chapel" for world documentary. A special jury prize went to Mark Ruffalo's ?Sympathy For Delicious,?
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