Film Blurbs 11-18-2009
Unattributed film synopses indicate movies not yet reviewed by HW staff.
Indicates films of particular interest
Opening
The Blind Side A charity-inducing tearjerker just in time for the holidays. Sandra Bullock, big haired and feisty, channels Erin Brockovich in this story about a well-to-do white family that takes in a black high schooler from a broken home. Their love allows him to discover his football talent.
An Education No, it’s not a documentary about Furlough Fridays. A coming-of-age tale set in 1960s London about a 16-year-old who trades in her dreams of attending Oxford for “an education” with an older, mysteriously wealthy man. Screenplay written by Nick Hornby.
Planet 51 An animated, children’s spin on the OMG aliens! genre. An astronaut lands on a distant planet populated by creatures that look like hybrids between manatees and Shrek. In this tables-have-turned comedy, the creatures are terrified of the Matt Dillon-esque astronaut.
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire The deceptively uplifting tale of Precious Jones, a 16-year-old inner-city girl who’s made to feel not so precious after being raped by her dad then emotionally abused by her mom (played by an unrecognizably austere Mo’Nique). Winner of three prizes at the Sundance Film Festival.
The Twilight Saga: New Moon Like the best-selling novel that the movie adapts, it doesn’t matter how cheesy the production–like vampires to blood, fans will come. After Edward Cullen, the Justin Timberlake of vampires, leaves Bella Swan, her allegiance to the fanged-race is tested by a pack of werewolves.
Continuing
2012 See review on page 20.
Coco Before Chanel takes the story of a complicated, fierce woman and turns it into simply another period-piece love triangle involving an uppity woman. –Dean Carrico
The Damned United See review on page 21.
Disney’s A Christmas Carol The main problem with this adaptation, though, is how little of the new, or unexpected, it brings to the familiar tale. Nothing truly surprises and it’s simply an excuse for Carrey to bludgeon us with his different voices. –Ryan Senaga
The Fourth Kind Paranormal Activity meets Whiteout in this sci-fi horror mockumentary that hop scotches between archival footage and a staged dramatization of events. When a disproportionate number of people begin disappearing in a small Alaskan town, it could only mean one thing: aliens!
The Men Who Stare at Goats Granted, a movie about the U.S. Army funding a unit called Project Jedi to create psychic spies, or “super soldiers,” is hard to swallow, but most of the jokes aren’t rip-roaring enough here. –R.S.
Michael Jackson’s This Is It A glitzy, dance-inducing concert doc, which follows the King of Pop as he crotch-grabs and moonwalks his way through a strenuous run of rehearsals leading up to his death.
Paranormal Activity The latest low-budget home-camcorder horror flick to arrive amidst gigabytes of Internet hype. While the scares are a smidgen obvious, the experience is still fun as theater audiences collectively scare each other with their screams. –R.S.
Pirate Radio See review online at [honoluluweekly.com]
Doris Duke Theatre
Honolulu Academy of Arts, 900 S. Beretania St., $8 general, $7 seniors/students/military, $5 Academy members, [honoluluacademy.org], 532-8768Your Friends (Japan, 2008) A journalist visits an alternative school in small town Japan and meets Emi, a teacher who photographs cloud formations that symbolize her relationship with disabled students.
Wed 11/18, Sat 11/21, Sun 11/22 & Tue 11/24, 1pm, 4pm & 7:30pm. Thu 11/19, 1pm & 7:30pm. Fri 11/20, 1pm & 4pm.
Movie Museum
3566 Harding Ave. #4, $4 members, $5 general, 735-8771Star Trek (2009) An excuse for Trekkies to don Spock-ears and talk in intergalactic slang before the next convention. In this eleventh installment, watch as the series goes back in time with futuristic explosives and glitzy special effects.
Thu 11/19, 12:30pm, 3pm, 5:30pm & 8pm.
Sat 11/21, 12:15pm, 2:30pm, 4:45pm, 7pm & 9:15pm.
Herr Lehmann (Germany, 2003) In this comedy-drama set in 1989, a group of Bohemians settle in Kreuzberg, an enclave near the Berlin wall, and live in a state of alcohol-induced oblivion. Until, that is, the wall falls and our protagonist meets a girl who startles him into maturity.
Fri 11/20, 12:30pm, 2:30pm, 4:30pm, 6:30pm & 8:30pm.
To Have and Have Not (1944) Based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway, starring Humphrey Bogart as a fishing boat captain in the Caribbean city of Fort-de-France in the summer of 1940. Bogart is pressed to help the French Resistance smuggle runaways onto the island. One group contains a special girl and the rest, as they say, is history.
Sat 11/22, 12:30pm, 2:30pm, 4:30pm, 6:30pm & 8:30pm.
Der Tunnel (Germany, 2001) A historical drama set in 1961, featuring an anti-communist swimming champion who flees East Germany for West. Once there, he attempts to reach his family by concocting an underground tunnel that will connect the two sides.
Mon 11/23, 1pm, 4pm & 7pm.
University of Hawaii
Center for Korean Studies Auditorium, 2600 Campus Rd., Free, 956-2688.
Laskar Pelangi (Indonesia, 2008) The title translates to “Rainbow Troops,” the name given to a small group of students who attend a decrepit Islamic primary school on the Sumatra island of Belitung. The students, mostly poor, are a colorful set of characters, including a young genius and a dreamer attached to his radio.
Wed 11/18, 6:30pm.
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