Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson

RECOMMENDED

Antiseptic yet endearingly lurid, shiny as a polished stone, Bill Condon’s first of two “Twilight: Breaking Dawn” movies is a couple degrees cooler than camp but at least warmer than the grave. The Oscar-winning writer-director (for the script of “Gods and Monsters”) approaches the material with more tongue-in-cheek, largely in line readings, than earlier directors confronting the sparkly vampires and doggie werewolf boys who surround its hard-crushing teen-girl protagonist Bella. It’s efficient filmmaking shot straight to the heart of its expectant target audience. Kristen Stewart’s nasal murmur, smaller and smaller beside Robert Pattinson, makes for a toothy tiny bride in brown-eyed contacts, blushing, barefoot. Eat, prey, turn? Marry, fuck, thrill? “You have to accept what is,” a character says, meaningfully meaningless. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

I don’t blame the photographer William Eggleston for committing any sins, just the filmmakers whose blood runs cool as a reptile with the essentials of the master’s style. In “Welcome to the Rileys,” the second feature from Jake Scott (“Plunkett & Macleane”), it’s Eggleston-over-easy in virtually all of the film’s quiet, scenic compositions in both an emulated Indianapolis and a post-Katrina New Orleans. Frame-to-frame, symbol-to-symbol, you could be flipping through a gifted young photographer’s Blurb- or-Lulu printed lookbook. The script’s a patch of tidily constructed miserablism, with James Gandolfini’s 52-year-old plumbing contractor evading several necessary forms of mourning and going off the grid after escaping to a convention in Louisiana. Less Crescent City than catalyst city, the French Quarter offers Doug Riley convenient ways of coping, including taking a stripper under his wing, the multiple-monikered “Mallory” (Kristen Stewart), who is a 16-year-old runaway. Read the rest of this entry »

Niche, niche, niche. “Eclipse,” the third in the “Twilight” tetralogy of pre-teen-to-teen abstinence parables from the novels by Stephenie Meyer (eventually to be a film pentalogy), has heightened production values courtesy of music-video-teethed director David Slade (“Hard Candy,” “30 Days Of Night, ” right)—a man who’s never met a digital intermediate he didn’t like—but it’s alien territory for anyone not already an admirer or adept of the series’ peculiar, bloodless vampirism in the service of dubious subtext. I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever walked in on anyone masturbating, witnessing suddenly wide eyes flicking up to reveal brow furrowed, gashed, in private distant transport. Many moments in “T:E” made me feel that way, as if I had walked into a secretly thrumming circle of private fetishes. I’m not entirely sure I want to fathom what emotional satisfactions the core “Twilight” audience gathers. Amid the indifferently paced set-pieces, soundtrack alternating between loud music and the sound of cricket and frog-crazed nights, drawing on a huge, chatty cast, here’s the lessons I take away: Fuck and you’re dead. Fuck before marriage, you’re dead. Read the rest of this entry »

By Ray Pride

“These bitches suck” was Creem magazine’s timeless takedown of The Runaways when the teenage girl band bobbed to the surface of the 1970s.

In Floria Sigismondi’s writing-directing debut, the making-of-the-band, life-on-the-road, taking-of-the-drugs telling of 1970s teen rockers who made it right to the middle (despite mostly sucking, musically) has the right attitude if not a fully fleshed story. It satisfies in bursts, like an erratically track-sequenced album. Based on Cherie Currie’s slim memoir, “Neon Angel,” “The Runaways” is episodic, and Currie’s decline isn’t as interesting as 15-year-old Dakota Fanning’s embodiment of her rapid slip-slide into neurasthenia and diva-dom. (Fanning’s turn-on-a-dime from sullen to sneering as the band assembles the song “Cherry Bomb” is one of her best moments: “Ch. Ch. Ch. CHERRY BOMB!”) Joan Jett’s survival instincts are more indicated than dramatized, and Kristen Stewart, while as watchable as ever, brings more spark than fire. Michael Shannon, playing oddball Svengali Kim Fowley, is bright and funny as a leering loon, but he’s a man we ought to be fearful of as much as mesmerized by. (Shannon’s memorably theatrical styling of lines like “I am the luckiest dogfucker in space!” are more Walkenesque than truly loony.) Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

“The Yellow Handkerchief” is a captivating character study of unlikely provenance, capturing eminently watchable loners in ravishing landscapes. Here’s the pile-on behind the picture: The story began as a newspaper column from the 1970s by Pete Hamill, which was the basis for the Tony Orlando and Dawn song, “Tie A Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Ole Oak Tree.” Producer Arthur Cohn is 83, the only winner of five Oscars in that role, including for “Four Days in September,” “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis,” “Black and White in Color” and “Harlan County.” The glorious cinematography is by one of the world’s best cameramen, Chris Menges (“Local Hero,” “The Mission,” “Notes on a Scandal”); the editing is by Christopher Tellefsen (“Gummo,” “Capote”). The director, Udayan Prasad, is best known for 1997′s “My Son The Fanatic.” “The Yellow Handkerchief,” the film, written by Erin Dignam, is set in post-Katrina Louisiana, with recently released ex-con Brett (a mustachioed William Hurt) winding up in the company of two unschooled teenagers in a convertible, 15-year-old Martine and Gordy (Kristen Stewart, Eddie Redmayne). Taciturn yet menacing, precise just shy of precious, Hurt’s performance is one of his richest. But Prasad’s handling of the slim, familiar story allows the characters space to interact, to breathe, and it’s a gratifying choice. He honors the serious and the sentimental alike. It makes for a lovely fable. The able score is by Eef Barzelay, of Clem Snide, and Jack Livesay (“Sherrybaby”). With Maria Bello. 96m. (Ray Pride)

“The Yellow Handkerchief” opens Friday at River East.

In my notes I drew a large chunk of cheese with some stink lines over it. I wish that would work as a review, since it’s everything I need to say about the continuation of” The Twilight Saga.” “New Moon” continues a summer after “Twilight” ends. Bella and Edward are happy like any other young couple in love, except their problems are not precisely like most teenage worries. Bella’s impending 18th birthday leads to paranoia that one day he will not love her as she grows old. After being bitten by James, she learns a vampire’s venom is what turns human to vampire. She decides that the best way to be safe is to be turned. Yet, Edward’s reluctance has her believing that he does not want to love her for an eternity. Even though his motives are spiritual, he believes that turning Bella will take her soul. Months pass: Bella lives as a ghost. Letters, hallucinations, vampire packs, the threat of Edward’s suicide and motorcycle repair follow. There are endless green forests, and the gray Pacific Northwest suits heartache. The vampires’ marble-like pallor offers a subtle difference from humans, more unreal than obviously undead. Even the CGI wolves hold their own with graceful movement and fur that looked soft to the touch. Nor is the acting terrible. What makes “New Moon” excruciatingly cheesy is that absolutely everything is made explicit in dialogue. There’s nothing left to the imagination, no way to place yourself in Bella’s shoes. It’s like when you are out with a friend, and they run into an ex they had a nasty breakup with. They start off friendly enough, then after a few drinks slowly descend into backhanded comments and hissing accusations as you sit pretending to text someone, even as you’re fascinated by the train wreck next to you. But fans of Stephanie Meyer’s books will likely get what they crave, and there are enough half-naked men to prompt a lust coma strong enough to dull the cheese. 122m. (Julie Gavlak)

RECOMMENDED

Oberlin grad James (Jesse Eisenberg from “The Education of Charlie Banks,” “The Squid and the Whale”) must spend his summer working at an amusement park. Nix that trip to Europeland. It’s 1987 and family finances took a hit. Affording grad school at Columbia University in the fall is iffy. Adventureland is run by an odd couple, played in pitch-perfect supporting roles by Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader, both from SNL and “Knocked Up.” It’s a shit job, but James likes his co-workers. Especially Em (Kristen Stewart, “Panic Room,” “Twilight.”) Writer-director Greg Mottola (“Superbad,” “The Daytrippers”) may overdo her issues with an awful stepmom and an unhealthy affair with a co-worker (Ryan Reynolds) who impresses high school girls by claiming he once jammed with Lou Reed, but he puts together a terrific couple in Em and James. This coming-of-ager includes a juvenile bit about repetitive groin injury yet downplays James’ virginity with something like maturity. An anomaly in American comedy, in the last reel a character makes an account of acts of another character, and judges the character of that character. Mottola sneaks in welcome traces of decency in between cracks about Semiotics and barfed corndogs. With Martin Storr, Wendie Malick, Jack Gilpin, Matt Bush. 105m. (Bill Stamets)

RECOMMENDED

It’s fairly obvious why young girls have gravitated towards Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight” series of novels. In a market swarmed with the likes of “Gossip Girl” and Disney ‘tween stars, Bella is a character girls can really relate to. She’s not rich or particularly beautiful, she isn’t label- or diet-obsessed, nor does she find it necessary to party or rebel. She is, for all intents and purposes, completely ordinary, yet cool at the same time. It’s because she never compromises herself that a seemingly perfect man falls in love with her after nearly a century of solitude. But why does this story appeal to grown women, women in their twenties and thirties, who no longer have the shroud of naiveté to hide them from the reality of love? The idea of a man with the wisdom and patience of your grandfather, forever frozen inside a physically perfect body, would appeal to even the most logical of women. Both the “Twilight” saga and the Harry Potter series were written by women, and both have a ravenous fan base. Web sites with exclusive footage of the film crash within minutes of posting. Public appearances by the stars evoke Beatlemania across the world, causing leading man Robert Pattinson to comment that the sound of fans screaming is like the “gates of hell.” Why? The insight shared by Meyer and Rowling is that their stories intertwine the normal world as we know it with supernatural, giving the reader the illusion that it could all happen to them. Catherine Hardwicke’s interpretation of “Twilight,” from an adaptation by Melissa Rosenberg, feels like a movie aimed at teenagers, only it lacks sex and liberal swearing. Hardwicke’s proven her knack with youth from previous films “Thirteen” and “Lords of Dogtown,” but this is her first project with a pre-existing fan base. Any adaptation leaves one wary that too much might be changed and the mood of the original work will be diminished. In “Twilight,” very little is altered from the original book. Kristen Stewart portrays Bella as a girl with masochistic desires, and who believes that Edward’s love can overcome the thirst for her blood. It’s a sharp contrast to Robert Pattinson’s Edward, disgusted with himself for being selfish yet also saint-like in his resistance to his very nature. This tension between them carries the day. Set in the small town of Forks, Oregon with looming clouds and endless rain contrasting with the bright greens of nature, you wait for the pair to surrender to desire, and when they finally do, it’s like sun breaking through clouds. They are selfish for wanting something that by all lights isn’t right for either of them. This selfishness puts them and their loved ones at risk from a pack of less humane vampires who only see humans as sustenance. As difficult as it gets, the question of whether it’s worth it is never raised. When one finds love like this, any other task seems effortless in comparison. 120m. (Julie Gavlak)

RECOMMENDED

Producer Art Linson has the power to produce a film dedicated to the proposition that producers are powerless. Pushed by Robert De Niro, Linson adapted his 2002 memoir “What Just Happened: Bitter Hollywood Tales From the Front Line” into a screenplay that’s more blithe than bitter. It’s all it-takes-one-to-know-one tattling that stars De Niro (“Wag the Dog”) as a Linson-like producer named Ben who endures the same emasculating indignities Linson recounts in his book, a follow-up to his 1995 “A Pound of Flesh: Perilous Tales of How to Produce Movies in Hollywood.” Linson’s producer credits include “Car Wash,” “This Boy’s Life,” “Heat,” “Fight Club” and “Into The Wild.” “What Just Happened?” opens with a test screening of Ben’s latest production, an arty, bloody film titled “Fiercely” starring Sean Penn. The red carpet at Cannes beckons, once that business about the dog dying in the last reel is fixed. Ben’s next project will star Bruce Willis, unwilling to shed flab or shave his bushy beard before shooting starts in five days. Ben also deals with two ex-wives and a teen daughter, the debris of his so-called family life. Barry Levinson (“Wag the Dog,” “Jimmy Hollywood”) directs with wit, extracting ripe turns from an in-the-know cast. Willis and Penn are regulars as self-spoofers, and Catherine Keener (“Simone,” “Full Frontal”) kills as Ben’s studio overseer. “I hope to get rid of the clichés of producers as big fat cigar chompers,” said the 66-year-old Linson, who copped to 175 pounds in a phone interview. “When Barry Levinson first read the script, he called me and said there’s nothing in this I haven’t experienced.” Linson insists his film, unlike his film-inside-his-film, tested well with audiences. He said he pre-screened it in “odd cities” such as Baltimore and Dallas. “It’s only people in Hollywood who think it’s too insider,” he notices. As a foray in occupational ethnography, it’s a boffo crowd-pleaser. Except for dog lovers. With Stanley Tucci, John Turturro, Robin Wright Penn, Kristen Stewart and Michael Wincott. 118m. (Bill Stamets)