Meet the Robinsons. Matthew Goode in the Lookout.______________
After years of watching the long lines cue up for their 20-minute 3-D A Bug's Life attraction, it only seems natural that the folks at Disney would expand this guaranteed crowd-pleasing special effect to their feature film division. The story they've selected is the perfect medium for this leap into the future. Meet the Robinsons is an expanded version of the William Joyce children's picture book, A Day with Wilbur Robinson, in which a little boy meets an eccentric 'You can't take it with you'-type family and learns that it's wonderful to be different.
The film version reinvents Lewis as an orphan, a spiked-hair brainiac with glasses who can't stop making crazy inventions to impress potential parents. After a disastrous day at the science fair, Lewis meets Wilbur. Wilbur warns Lewis about the evil Bowler Hat Guy, who realizes Lewis' genius and wants to steal his inventions. Wilbur, via a time machine, whisks Lewis into the future, where a typical building looks like a cross between the Jetsons, Spanish architect Gaudi and '30s Art Deco. Wilbur introduces his large, wacky, eccentric family to Lewis. Naturally, Bowler Hat Guy has followed them into the future to further the plot.
The zippy, hot-color palette of the movie, and retro-influenced design of the characters and their surroundings, along with Danny Elfman's bouncy music score, are perfectly matched by the light-as-air story and pacing ( with the theme of the film, Keep Moving Forward, being perfectly realized ) . Like The Incredibles, the movie's tongue-in-cheek script offers plenty for both the adults and kiddies, and the 3-D effects are appropriately dazzling. Though the film's also being screened in theaters without the 3-D effect, expect to wear the cumbersome dark glasses for pretty much every animated film from here on out as this is one gimmick that's going to add zillions to the Disney coffers and be imitated by every other animation studio in Hollywood.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, with his permanent pout, specializes in mixed-up loners. He was amazing as the gay hustler in Mysterious Skin and convincing as the de facto high school detective in last year's Brick. Now he adds the emotionally damaged Chris Pratt to his roster courtesy of The Lookout, the first film directed by screenwriter Scott Frank ( Little Man Tate, Get Shorty, Minority Report ) . Chris is a once-popular high school hockey player from Kansas City whose life fell apart after a tragic car accident. Chris has memory problems and, like Guy Pearce's detective in Memento, needs to label items and keep a notebook on hand that helps keep him on track. Chris works as a night janitor at a small-town bank; he doesn't have much of a social life; and the frustration and nightmares over his accident are getting worse. ( Appropriately, the majority of the film is shot at night or in darkened rooms that heighten Chris' emotional claustrophobia. )
Then Chris meets Gary Spargo ( Matthew Goode ) , a good-looking charmer who has a way with the ladies and a lot of friends. Soon he's hanging out with Gary and his friends and pairing up with one of the girls. But Gary actually intends to rob the bank where Chris works and needs him to be a lookout. Will Chris turn his back on his new friends and his old way of life once and for all or will he do the right thing? Though Frank's script has plenty of twists and the outcome isn't really ever in doubt, he writes richly detailed characters that offer his actors plenty of stretching room.
The film is filled with great performances—with Gordon-Levitt getting top honors; Jeff Daniels just right as his upbeat, blind roommate; Isla Fisher sexy and rueful as the girlfriend/bait; and, especially, Goode as the seedy but electrifying Gary. Goode, a poor man's Hugh Grant up to now ( Imagine Me & You, Matchpoint ) , should see a whole raft of new scripts come his way after this complete about-face. Frank's debut is an entertaining, emotionally satisfying little thriller—a nice variation on the typical bank heist movie.
The Page Turner, a marvelously tricky French film directed and co-written by Denis Dercourt, is a sophisticated story of revenge, albeit a very subtle one. Ten years after a thoughtless distraction by classical pianist Ariane Fouchécourt ( Catherine Frot ) has wrecked the promising career of 10-year-old budding pianist Melanie ( Deborah Francois ) , she becomes the nanny for Ariane and her lawyer husband.
During the intervening years, Ariane has lost her confidence and now has terrible stage fright. Carefully, the enigmatic Melanie insinuates herself into Ariane's life, becoming her trusted page turner and laying the groundwork for a detailed revenge. When her plan becomes clear, it leaves one breathless with its brilliant emotional cruelty.
The Page Turner is an enigmatic psychological thriller, an ingenious character study that resonates long after the last chord from the sumptuous classical piano pieces it features have faded. In French with subtitles.
Freeheld—a 40-minute documentary that's playing March 31-April 1 at the Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division, as part of the Chicago International Documentary Festival—also resonates long after it's over but for very different reasons. This heart-wrenching, compelling documentary by Cynthia Wade chronicles the battle over the pension benefits of Laurel Hester, a police lieutenant with 25 years on the force who is dying of lung cancer. Hester wants to leave the pension to her partner, Stacie Andree, so Andree can hang on to their home that she'll otherwise lose. However, the New Jersey county officials, or 'Freeholders'—a group of men where the couple reside—have voted to deny the benefits to Andree, citing the usual malarkey.
Wade's film picks up as Hester and Andree are engaged in trying to change the Freeholders' vote during an appeals process. Wade is given intimate access to the couple's life as they are subjected with both a terminal illness and outrageous injustice. But Wade doesn't manipulate or try to manage the footage and lets the subjects speak for themselves. This proves to be a wise decision as there are moments when the mixture of frustration and sadness the film elicits threatens to emotionally overwhelm the viewer.
Freeheld is the kind of documentary that incites audiences to sob and then take to the streets in protest. A galvanizing experience. www.chicagodocfestival.org
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