Limitless

Posted on March 17, 2011 at 6:16 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for thematic material involving a drug, violence including disturbing images, sexuality and language
Profanity:	Strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Plot concerns a performance-enhancing superdrug,
Violence/ Scariness:	Some intense and graphic violence
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	March 18, 2011
Date Released to DVD:	July 18, 2011
Amazon.com ASIN:	B0051MKNV8

Most of us feel that there must be some way for us to unleash the best version of ourselves. Whole sections of bookstores, whole shelves of vitamins, dozens of infomercials, motivational speakers, and guides to personal growth, self-actualization, and personal and professional success are evidence of the powerful human sense that there must be some trick to getting us out of our own way. So, if someone offered you a pill that would do all that for you, you’d probably be tempted to give it a try.

That’s what happens to Eddie (Bradley Cooper) in this stylish thriller. He’s a guy who feels like a loser. He has yet to write a single word of the book he is supposed to be working on. His girlfriend (Abbie Cornish as Lindy) has dumped him. He lives in a dive and he is out of money and out of ideas. He has just about lost touch entirely with any notion of himself as a person in control, a person on track, a person with a sense of possibility. He runs into his former brother-in-law, who says he has moved on from selling street drugs to selling legal pharmaceuticals and offers him something new and special, a small, circular, clear little performance-enhancing pill. Eddie swallows it.

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It hits him like a combination of Ritalin, steroids, speed, and super-powerful ginkgo biloba. It hits him like spinach hits Popeye, if it grew his brain instead of his muscles. Suddenly, everything makes sense. Eddie has focus, confidence, motivation, clarity. The scales drop from his eyes. Everything makes sense to him, information, numbers, people. He can effortlessly access any information he has ever skimmed over, even if he was unaware of it at the time. He finishes writing his book in four days and it is a masterpiece. He can learn new languages almost instantly. He gets a haircut, cleans up his apartment, starts to work out. He gets Lindy back. He starts investing and the money pours in. A billionaire (Robert De Niro) makes him an offer.

But there’s a problem. Eddie becomes dependent on the drug. He keeps upping his dose and he starts to have black-outs. His ex-wife gives him a shattering glimpse of what it means to go cold turkey. The dealer has been murdered. Eddie has a stash, but no way to get more. Other people know about the drug and they desperately want him to get it for them. Can he out-think other out-thinkers?

Cooper has become one of Hollywood’s most appealing leading men and this movie, which he co-produced, plays to his strengths. If he is not exactly convincing as the pony-tailed mess at the beginning, he has all of the genuine movie star gloss to make the newer, better Eddie look, as Dolly used to sing, better than a body has a right to. Director Neil Burger keeps the movie amped up, making us feel a little wired as we watch. It’s fun to get inside the head of someone working at 500 percent capacity, seeing how he thinks through his options, trying to maintain control internally and externally, balancing the swings between extraordinary powers and terrifying dependence and vulnerability.

Even those of average intelligence to spot the problems Eddie overlooks — or the obvious solution it takes him the entire running time to figure out. But it is still a lot of stylish fun to see Bradley Cooper inhabit the fantasy — and deal with the fallout.

The Lincoln Lawyer

Posted on March 17, 2011 at 6:12 pm

That’s not Lincoln as in the rail-splitting President. It’s Lincoln as in car. Mick Haller (Matthew McConaughey) is a lawyer whose office is in his car, the better to maneuver between his court appearances and his clients. He’s a criminal defense attorney, and this is a nicely gritty portrayal of the criminal justice system. That means he has no illusions, either about his clients or about what we like to call the justice system. He has no illusions about happily ever after, either. He is mostly-amicably divorced from a prosecutor (the always-welcome Marisa Tomei), and shares custody of their daughter.

Mick rides around from court to court and client to client, driven by a former client working off his legal fees. He gets paid up front. He’s not above giving a kickback to a bail bondsman for a referral or giving a little sweetener to a clerk to get his case pushed to the head of the list. He’s used to dealing with, well, dealers and other low-lifes. So when he gets a chance to represent a murder suspect who is not only wealthy but claims to be innocent, this is a chance for Mick to do well by justice and himself.

But things are never so simple, and Mickey must find a way to both use and bend the rules after it appears that this case has complications that extend all the way back to a plea bargain he made on behalf of another murder suspect in a case with some disturbingly similar evidence.

McConaughey is well cast as Mick. He has the surface, slightly seedy charm of a trial lawyer. He easily conveys the struggle of someone with essential decency but a gift for shortcuts that makes him money but also makes him feel like he has to try harder. His scenes with Tomei bring out a warmth and essential decency that keeps us on Mick’s side as he tries to do the right thing.

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Based on a book Courtroom Crime Drama

Paul

Posted on March 17, 2011 at 6:01 pm

Director Greg Mottola (“Superbad,” “Adventureland”) is an expert at mixing raunch and sweetness. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (“Shaun of the Dead,” “Hot Fuzz”) are experts at making funny but knowing and affectionate tributes to movie genres. Together, they’ve made an uneven but amiable road trip sci-fi comedy about an alien with sly references to everything from “Star Trek” and “2001” to “Alien” and “Battlestar Gallactica.” And, of course, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “ET.”

It begins, as all pop-culture-obsessed stories should, at Comic-Con, the annual San Diego fanboy extravaganza. Two English fans, Graeme (Pegg) and Clive (Frost) begin their long-awaited first visit to America, starting at Comic-Con and continuing on a road trip to Area 51, Roswell, and other legendary UFO locations. They happily put an “Alien On Board” bumper sticker on their camper. But that doesn’t mean they are prepared to actually have a close encounter of their own.

And certainly Paul (stoner-ish voice of Seth Rogan) is not at all what they had in mind. He immediately reassures them that the business about the probes is just an urban legend. He’s been on Earth for quite a while, so he has had a chance not just to absorb a lot of American culture but to influence it as well (Steven Spielberg has a clever cameo). He thought he was a guest, but has learned he was a prisoner. Now a fed (Jason Bateman) and a pair of cops (“SNL’s” Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio) are after him and Graeme and Clive are in for an adventure beyond their wildest dreams, which were already pretty wild (as shown in their comic book).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5ipZwwQPcY

They meet a variety of people along the way, including Jane Lynch as a sympathetic waitress and Kristin Wiig as Ruth, a fundamentalist Christian with a bad eye who wears a creationist t-shirt showing Jesus shooting Darwin. Paul and the Brits cause her to have massive cognitive dissonance, questioning everything she has ever believed. Wiig manages to make Ruth’s child-like delight in catching up on a lifetime of unused swearwords is sweetly innocent. Mottola keeps things going briskly with some surprising cameos as more people join the chase, including Ruth’s gun-totin’, Bible-thumpin’ father, some angry biker types, a woman whose life was transformed by a close encounter with Paul when he first landed, and the head of the shady government agency trying to capture Paul before he makes it to the mother ship. The crudity, drug humor, and attempted satire about fundamentalism fall flat most of the time, but the affectionate understanding of fanboys and their obsessions, the unpretentious sweetness of the friendship and budding romance, and a couple of plot surprises make this something to phone home about.

Lord of the Dance 3D

Posted on March 16, 2011 at 6:20 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	All Ages
MPAA Rating:	G
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	None
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	March 17, 2011

The best seat in the house for one of the most popular shows on the planet is “Lord of the Dance 3D,” a concert film that puts the viewers on stage with the thunderously percussive Irish dancers starring and under the direction of Chicago-born Michael Flatley, the show’s “creator, producer, director, and star.” And of course, Lord of the Dance.

There’s no dramatic tension here, either on or off-stage. They try — Flatley explains at the beginning that this show attempted the impossible and everyone said it couldn’t be done, now the pressure is really on because they are coming home to Dublin. But the graphics that open the movie remind us that it has already sold out the biggest venues in the biggest cities in the world and it is fair to expect that an Irish dance show will do pretty well in Ireland.

And there is a folklore-ish sort of storyline in the dances, with a glittery jester-clad sprite waking the dancers with a flute, followed by some sort of good and evil battle that climaxes as the sprite’s flute is snapped in pieces and Flatley’s sparkling Lord of the Dance belt is ripped from his waist. Do you think he can dance it all back to victory?

At its cheesiest, which is very, very cheesy, the battle of the dancers is reminiscent of a (more) twinkle-toed version of Michael Jackson’s “Bad” video with a bit of the Sharks and Jets from “West Side Story,” if the Sharks costumes were inspired by “Star Wars.” It is almost relentlessly entertaining, with wild stage effects that include shooting streams of sparks and images in lights timed to each tap, and many very lovely legs in very, very short skirts dancing up a storm.

It would have added more interest to give us a sense of what goes on backstage and meet some of the almost interchangeable dancers. I would love to have seen the rehearsals to find out how they create the impeccable precision of the dozen and more taps per second as they all but fly across the stage. But the movie keeps us at a distance, seeing only what the live audience sees.

It’s unlikely to thrill those who are not already fans. But the throngs who love to see Irish step-dancing will find that up-close and 3D is an excellent way to enjoy the show.

Contest: Win Four Films Featuring Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, and Fred Astaire!

Posted on March 15, 2011 at 12:00 pm

The wonderful Warner Archive debuts four new films today and I have one set to give away! These are lesser-seen films from three of the greatest musical performers of all time, including Gene Kelly’s dream project, a film displays his talents in three different all-dance stories and Judy Garland’s first teaming with her most frequent co-star.

Yolanda and the Thief Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer (of “Meet Me in St. Louis”) star in this fantasy musical about a man who poses as an angel to swindle an innocent heiress but…well, see if you can guess.

Invitation to the Dance Gene Kelly stars in a film that was his own project — all music, no dialogue, with three stories told through three different styles of dance. Kelly plays a clown, a Marine, and Sinbad the sailor.

Little Nellie Kelly Judy Garland plays a headstrong Irish lass who defies her father to marry the boy she loves but dies in childbirth. And she also plays the daughter, named for her mother. Her songs in this film include “It’s a Great Day for the Irish” and “Singing in the Rain.”

Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry Judy Garland again, her first time with frequent co-star Mickey Rooney. They get support from Sophie Tucker and several top character actors in the story of an actress and a jockey and a high-stakes horse race.

To enter for these movies, send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with Warner’s in the subject line and don’t forget your address! I will pick one winner at random on March 20. Good luck!

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Contests and Giveaways Musical