Weekend Movie Forecast: <em>The Taking Of Pelham 1-2-3</em>
13 photos
<p>As the NY Post puts it, <em>The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3</em> is the "train event." Post movie critic <a href="http://www.nypost.com/seven/06122009/entertainment/movies/trainiac__173808.htm">Lou Lumenick suggests viewers</a> "suspend any thought of credibility. For starters, as far as I know, nobody has even tried to hijack a subway train since the idea was floated nearly 40 years ago. Go along with that, and you won't have any trouble with the even more preposterous details of Travolta's plot -- much less his (and the filmmakers') need for a wireless connection in a subway tunnel," before settling in to watch Denzel Wasington's "hugely charismatic, expertly modulated movie-star performance" as "Walter Garber, a former MTA exec who has been busted down to dispatcher while facing an ethics investigation" and a "scenery-chewing Travolta [who] is the best he's been since 'Face/Off' as the mustachioed, psychotic villain Ryder -- who, like Garber, has been equipped with a slowly unfolding back story, in Ryder's case as an ex-commodities trader."<br/><br/>The NY Times' A.O. Scott <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/movies/12pelham.html">also likes the remake</a>, calling the Tony Scott-directed effort a "canny, energetic updating of the 1974 mass transit thriller, takes account of how much the character â to say nothing of the characters â of New York has changed since that almost mythic decade of decline and default." Scott also likes how the mayor, played by James Gandolfini says, "I left my Rudy Giuliani suit at home." Speaking of Tony Soprano, he was spotted <a href="http://www.politickerny.com/4006/gandolfini-enters-city-hall">heading into City Hall today</a>.</p>
<p>Francis Ford Coppola returns to writing and directingâand black and whiteâwith the family drama <em>Tetro</em>, which stars Vincent Gallo and newcomer (and NYU student) Alden Ehrenreich. The <a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-06-10/film/papa-coppola-s-tetro-returns-successfully-to-the-family-saga/">Village Voice's J. Hoberman finds</a>, "The narrative is a bit labored, but, after decades of far more ponderous efforts, Coppola has found his way home. However overwrought, Tetro is neither a project nor a package; it exudes enthusiasm and love of cinema. Coming from the 70-year-old who once bestrode Hollywood Boulevard like a colossus, Coppola's new movie offers best possible evidence of youth without youth."</p>
<p>The scale of food documentary <em>Food Inc.</em>âwhich happens to earn a <a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/food_inc/">96% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes</a>âis "mind-blowing" to <a href="http://nymag.com/listings/movie/food-inc/">New York magazine's David Edelstein</a>: "After an hour and a half of sighing, wincing, and clucking over the manifold outrages portrayed in Robert Kennerâs Food, Inc., I gave up the thought of âreviewingâ the documentary and decided, instead, to exhort you: See it. Bring your kids if you have them. Bring someone elseâs kids if you donât. The message is nothing new if youâve read Eric Schlosserâs <em>Fast Food Nation</em> or Michael Pollanâs <em>The Omnivoreâs Dilemma</em> (both are in the film). But every frame makes you choke on your popcornâif for no other reason than the focus on government-underwritten corn and the companies who put it into everything from soda to Midol to the gassy, E. coliâridden bellies of factory-farmed cows."<br/><br/>Bonus: Kenner <a href="http://www.filmforum.org/films/foodinc.html">will be at Film Forum</a> for tonight's and tomorrow's 6pm & 8:30pm screenings.</p>
<p>Eddie Murphy is back with another kids' comedy, <em>Imagine That</em>. The Boston Globe's Wesley Morris sums it up, "A workaholic dad bonds with his creative 6-year-old daughter, who brings him to her imaginary world, which due either to lack of money or, well, imagination, the audience doesn't get to see. You can take the title any number of ways: as a command, the beginning of a sentence that trails off, what someone says when surprised by a bit of news, or how one feigns that surprise. Eddie Murphy in another mediocre family comedy? Imagine that."</p>
<p>Sam Rockwell stars in <em>Moon</em>, Duncan Jones' directorial debut about an astronaut about to complete his three-year stint on the moon (he was supervising helium-3 mining machines), only to discover there's a clone of himself out there. Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/film_review.html">cuts to the chase</a>, "I wonât pretend to understand the movieâs deep meaningâif it has oneâbut I can say three things for sure: Mr. Rockwell gives a brilliant performance, the physical production is impressive and <em>Moon</em> made me think. Four things: It made me smile."</p>
<p>The Quad Cinema is showing <em>Sex Positive</em>, a documentary about AIDS activist Richard Berkowitz. The <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2009/06/11/2009-06-11_short_film_reviews_moon_.html?page=1">Daily News' Elizabeth Weitzman writes</a> that he was "unknown and uncelebrated, alone and barely scraping by. . Even the peers interviewed here, like Larry Kramer, once shunned him, because he took a controversial approach to what was, in the mid-'80s, a taboo topic. He was desperate to introduce the notion of safe sex while decreasing promiscuity, a tactic considered either foreign or insulting to many of the men he was trying to reach. It didn't help that he was self-righteous and stubborn â but it sure didn't hurt, either. After all, some of those same people may be alive today, thanks to his inflexible persistence."</p>
<p>Senegalese singer Youssou NâDour and his risky 2004 work <em>Egypt</em> are the subject of the documentary <em>Yossou N'Dour I Bring What I Love</em>. <a href="http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/film/75427/youssou-ndour-i-bring-what-i-love-film-review">Time Out NY's David Fear thinks</a>, "Itâs this concentrated portrait of an artist betting on a highly personal, boundary-pushing project that lifts I Bring What I Love above the level of a VH1 special, even if Vasarhelyi & Co. closely skirt hagiography. When the movie lets the music do the talking, you understand the singerâs determination to see the album through. Praise filtered through pop is never an easy sell, but such gorgeously transcendental expressions canâtâand shouldnâtâbe ignored."</p>
<p>Paul Devlin follows his brother astrophysicist brother Mark Devlin's attempt to "figure out how all the galaxies formed by launching a revolutionary new telescope under a NASA high-altitude balloon" in <em>BLAST!</em>. The <a href="http://www.avclub.com/articles/blast,29092/">AV Club's Noel Murray assesses</a>, "BLAST! could use a little of the personality of an <em>Ice Road Truckers</em>, or the showmanship of a <em>Mythbusters</em>, or the philosophical inquiry of a Werner Herzog film. That said, Devlin comes away from his globe-hopping scientific adventure with a lot of terrific footage of giant balloons rising from barren landscapes, and stressed-out theoreticians nervously watching their fragile, expensive equipment scrape across ice floes."</p>
<em>The Last International Playboy</em> sounds a lot like Chuck Bass of <em>Gossip Girl</em> in a few years, with Jason Behr playing a, yes, New York City playboy who goes all depressed when his childhood love is engaged to someone else and then self-destructive because he's still haunted by his mother's suicide. <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/movies/12play.html?ref=movies">Jeannette Casoulis of the NY Times sniffs</a>, "Grown men behaving like emotional infants are seldom fun to be around, a truism that âThe Last International Playboyâ does nothing to disprove... Making minimal use of his Manhattan locations, Mr. Clark lets the soundtrack do the talking, with the obtrusive indie-rock lyrics (by the likes of Bright Eyes and Burden of Man) shoveling the story forward in ungainly chunks."
<p>Alan Cavalier's <em>Le combat dans l'ile</em> (1962) is at Film Forum. The Village Voice's <a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-06-10/film/cavalier-s-nervy-le-combat-dans-l-ile-too-unstable-to-be-called-a-masterpiece/">Vadim Rizov says</a> it "isn't a lost masterpieceâit's too unstable for thatâbut it's fascinatingly nervy. Right-wing militant Clément (Jean-Louis Trintignant) broods around the house, concerned that wife Anne (Romy Schneider) is acting like a slut. Clément's a man of contradictions; when the negotiations he's conducting on behalf of workers at his father's factory break down, Clément grabs his bazooka and heads out to assassinate a politician."</p>
<p>Cinema Village is showing the director's cut of 1986 French film <em>Betty Blue</em>. Directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix, starring Beatrice Dalle and Jean-Hugues Anglade, and nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar, the movie is, per Cinema Village's website, "a cult sensation for its full-frontal nudity and explicit sex." Roger Ebert gave it one-and-a-half stars in 1986, <a href="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19861225/REVIEWS/612250301/1023http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19861225/REVIEWS/612250301/1023">explaining</a>, "Reviews have been written debating the movie's view of madness, of feminism, of the travail of the artist. They all miss the point. <em>Betty Blue</em> is a movie about Beatrice Dalle's boobs and behind, and everything else is just what happens in between the scenes where she displays them."</p>
<p>"Junior!!" <em>Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade</em> is the <a href="http://www.landmarktheatres.com/market/NewYork/SunshineCinema.htm">Landmark Sunshine Cinema</a>'s midnight movie this weekend. Many people would like to consider this the last Indiana Jones movie, <a href="http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/187269">especially the South Park guys</a>.</p>