This Weekend at the Movies

Say, people! It’s movies time!
How about that creepy fog, eh? Creepy.

Haven’t read Charles Mudede’s wonderful review of Che, the two-part Che Guevara biopic? Now is the time:

The Argentine (the second film in the sequence is called Guerrilla) is about Cuban freedom fighters under the command of Che Guevara (Benicio Del Toro). The film captures Che at his very best. He cannot be stopped, bullets can only miss him, the enemy can only run from or be absorbed by this man (this superstar) who radiates not only military power but also moral power. The swirl of dates, colors, and locations captured here gives rise to the steady discourse of the revolution, and this discourse dominates the exchanges in The Argentine. In Guerrilla, however, the discourse of liberation dies down, and what we see is the raw prose of a man’s decline. Whereas life is the ultimate subject of The Argentine, death is the final subject of Guerrilla. Che arrives in Bolivia, connects with the local freedom fighters, constructs a plan for the revolution, and then things start falling apart. In The Argentine, we see the idea spread and seize a nation; in the second film, Guerrilla, we see it reduced to just one man, Che. The idea is shot nine times and dies.

Paul Constant does not recommend Hotel for Dogs, but acknowledges that it will not kill you:

Two orphans (Julia Roberts’s niece Emma Roberts, a natural-born fluff-movie star, and the Monchichi-faced Jake T. Austin, bland for a boy genius) transform an abandoned hotel into, derr, a hotel for dogs. The Rube Goldberg devices the orphans employ to entertain and groom the dogs are somewhat clever for a family-friendly Hollywood movie, but they’re not worth making a special trip to the theater for. There are poop and pee jokes, but not so many to make the film offensive. There is educational multiculturalism (the black girl steps in a lot of dog poo, but then the white girl does, too, because we’re all equal!).

Brendan Kiley on the Bollywood blowout Chandni Chowk to China:

The film is all digressions and frosting. There’s martial-arts action, movie-musical dream sequences, Farrelly brothers slapstick, and six out of seven standard-issue Hollywood plots: a revenge story, a love story, a reunited-twins story, a Bildungsroman, a picaresque, and even a bit of a sex thriller, if you count the assassin trying to kiss Sidhu with her poison lip balm. The only thing Chandni Chowk isn’t is a murder mystery. The film is excessive in every way but, for all the overwrought emotion and wocka-wocka humor (balls are kicked, noses are slammed in doors), it never feels like too much.

Megan Seling tackles Paul Blart: Mall Cop, and manages to not hate it:

Paul Blart’s most charming moments (of which there are some) are really when the jokes move beyond the fatness of Paul Blart (played by Kevin James) and build up the character as being a clueless, Segway-riding, hypoglycemic nerd who takes a little too much pride in his position as a mall cop. Ahem. Mall security officer. Or, I dunno. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you should just smoke a bowl and laugh at the fat lady kicking the fat man.

And Mudede takes down Notorious:

There’s a scene in Notorious where Biggie is talking to Tupac in some pool hall. Tupac tells Biggie that he, as a rapper, is not an important figure to the youth. Malcolm X—he important; MLK—he important; Tupac—nigga please. In response to this honest self-assessment, Biggie can only think: Man, Tupac is one crazy cat. But Tupac was not crazy; he knew he was nothing more than an entertainer, and, like Biggie, not a very good one at that. Both were wik-wik-wack commercial rappers. Both brought death and dishonor to essential truths of hiphop culture (and such truths DO exist). Both sold their souls because they could not sell anything else—they had no imagination or talent. Biggie came out of nowhere, sold some crack, released a couple of records, fucked some hos, got caught up in some West/East coast bullshit, and the bullshit got him shot at the age of 24. And that’s all there is to it.

In Concessions this week, I write about the Silent Movie Mondays at the Paramount, and actor Paul Wegener’s insane fucking face:

Aerial shots of Paris close in on a pretty lady sculptor who requires back surgery from a handsome American doctor. Upstairs, a gigantic hypnotist watches, his evil magic breath fogging the glass of the operating theater. The pretty lady, once repaired, rolls limply along through life: noodling around on the piano, wearing a series of adorable hats, getting hypnotized and kidnapped and very nearly faun-raped, and eventually ending up bound and gagged in the titular magician’s sorcery tower. The magician, you see, wants the pretty lady’s virgin “heart blood” so he can perform the ultimate magic trick: the creation of life! (BTW: Hate to blow your minds up, dark magicians past, present, and future, but humans already have the power to create life. It’s called sexy intercourse.)

As always, visit our film page for limited runs and complete Movie Times. Bye!