A sorry weekend seems to be in store at America’s mainstream mansions of mass entertainment this week. So sorry, in fact, that a movie nobody seems to particularly care for, the youth-oriented gambling drama, “21,” has a chance of staying at the #1 spot for a third week, but more likely not.
*”Street Kings” has an okay shot at the #1 spot this week. In fact, until I looked a bit more closely at the reviews (including our own David Medskar’s ho-hum take) and the writing credits, I thought this one showed some promise of being be a pretty strong piece of entertainment, despite the often problematic nature of its star, Keanu Reeves. What excited me was that this film is the screenwriting debut of one of my favorite novelists, James Ellroy. Ellroy’s work has, with the exception of “L.A. Confidential,” pretty much defied decent movie adaptations up to now, particularly in Brian DePalma’s highly regrettable adaptation of perhaps my all-time favorite detective novel, “The Black Dahlia.” So, why not give the Demon Dog of American Letters the chance to come up with something original. Since “Training Day” had a bit of an Ellroy feeling to it with Denzel Washington‘s humorously charismatic bad cop, the choice of director David Ayers, not a great director by any means but an efficient storyteller, made sufficient sense.
Also, an unusually strong supporting cast would seem to help, including a couple of personal favorites — Oscar winner (and fellow Daniel Webster Junior High alum) Forrest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie (“House” to most, charming twit Bertie Wooster and ultra-twit Prince Regent from “Blackadder” to BBC America fans and me), plus Jay Mohr and Cedric the Entertainer, who just seem to make sense in this context…I’d love to hear those guys enunciating some of Ellroy’s poetic, blood-spattered profanity. But, with his original screenplay rewritten by two other credited writers, the reviews are not discussing dialogue that snaps, crackles and pops like it comes from Satan’s own furnace, just another average-to-below-average violence-packed thriller that, at least, doesn’t sound like it’s extremely boring. The bar is set awfully low right now, and this one might just jump over it.
* But the smart money at both Variety and the Hollywood Reporter says I’m wrong about “Street Kings.” (Okay, I’m not all that smart and if I was into money, do you think I’d be doing this?) It’s entirely likely this weekend will be won by another in a recent string of review-protected horror flicks, this one a remake of a a movie that wasn’t all that much liked the first time around, “Prom Night.” (The original was a “Halloween” follow-up with Jamie Lee Curtis and Leslie Nielson back when people thought he took this stuff seriously.) The trick here is that this a slasher film that’s rated PG-13, which strikes me as a bit wrong, like showing the pre-sex intros from a gonzo porn film to twelve year boys. Still, while “wrong” often works in show bidness, there has been a glut of horror, both PG-13 and R, lately. Without some real buzz behind it, “Prom Night” may pleasantly disappoint.
*No one’s expecting very much commercially from this week’s semi-indie Fox-Searchlight dark comedy, “Smart People.” With a strong cast led by Dennis Quaid, Thomas Haden Church, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Ellen Page, the set-up and casting — which has Quaid as a recently widowed, ultra-elitist academic dealing with a dysfunctional family and a new girlfriend (Parker) — has resonances with recent “small” hits like “Juno,” “The Squid and the Whale” and “Sideways.” However, even though Bullz-Eye’s Jason Zingale liked it a bit more than most, I think he’d agree this one has nothing like the buzz that accompanied those. Almost always, this kind of picture needs to be seen as unusually good to succeed, and I’m definitely not getting that here.
In fact, the reviews, can get pretty negative, but one did remind me of a grammatical fine point I’d become hazy on. Here’s what Rick Groen of Canada’s Globe and Mail said:
Here, trouble starts early when the rumpled academic in question – Lawrence, the widowed English prof tilling the fields of Victorian literature – is heard misusing the word “loan” as a verb.
I’m embarrassed to admit this took me a second. Yes, it’s not “I’ll loan you the money.” It’s “I’ll lend you the money.” After all, the soon to be Hamlet-stabbed Polonius didn’t advise Laertes, “Neither a borrower nor a loaner be.” A good reminder.
Meanwhile in Indiewood….I’m happy to say, things are looking much more interesting on the arthouse side of things this week. The big indie this week may be “The Visitor,” the new film from writer-director Tom McCarthy — creator of the 2003 Sundance hit, “The Station Agent,” which made Peter Dinklage a household name…well, assuming your household is in Santa Monica or Tribeca.
Anyhow, when I went to Sundance with a bunch of critics for another website, one of my cohorts reported writing the phrase “unlikely friendship” in four separate reviews. And so, like its predecessor, “The Visitor” is a star-free tale of an unlikely friendship, this time between an depressed professor and a young immigrant couple. On the strength of McCarthy’s prior film, I’m wiling to say this one is worth a look and may do some decent business with older filmgoers seeking gentle but smart fair.
Other than that, most of the action is on the documentary front. By far the most high profile doc with solid critical buzz is “Young@Heart,” about a senior citizen’s chorus dealing with a repertoire that includes the words of Sonic Youth, the Clash, James Brown, and Coldplay. Speaking of buzz, but showing up in only four theaters, is “Super High Me,” a film which takes pothead comedian Doug Benson and gives him the Morgan Spurlock treatment. Aside from appearances by such comic luminaries as Sarah Silverman, Bob Odenkirk, and Patton Oswalt, I’m mentioning this one because it’s directed by a guy who played the straight man in this great comedy short a few years back.
I maybe shouldn’t, because it’s only playing at New York’s Film Forum, but I can’t resist bringing up the mega-Freudian documentary “Stalags,” about pornographic Israeli novels, which started popping up during the 1961 trial of German Holocaust planner Adolph Eichmann. The subject of this porn: Nazi she-wolves administering what we’d now call “enhanced interrogation techniques” (nudge nudge wink wink) to brave British and American soldiers. Let me repeat, these books were written and consumed by Israelis. I’m also plugging the well-reviewed documentary “Bra Boys,” about Australian surfing hooligans. If I don’t, narrator Russell Crowe might beat the crap out of me.
So, once again, my optimistic world view is crushed. 
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