The cinema is not a slice of life but a piece of cake,” Alfred
Hitchcock once said, and if that’s true — and who are we to
dispute the Master? — then summertime is when we gorge.
Unhealthily, most of the time, on ear-splitting smash-’em-ups and
nerd-filled sex comedies. This year’s summer movie season is sure to
contain its share of brain goo — is that the march of angry
robots we hear? — but there are more satisfying things on the
menu, too. Gorging, we say, is good — it’s the American way
— but as we peruse the upcoming multiplex offerings, let’s pledge
to seek out the occasional rare delicacy. To help, we’ve narrowed down
the season’s gazillion releases, and what follows is our list of the
best, most intriguing or most promising films. Happy summer.
$9.99
Directed by Tatia Rosenthal
New York animator Rosenthal traveled to Australia to make this
acclaimed stop-motion comedy concerning the peculiar adventures of the
residents of an Aussie apartment building, including two boys who’ve
spent $9.99 (and not a penny more) on a book that promises the secret
to life.
Away We Go
Directed by Sam Mendes
Married novelists of staggering genius, Dave Eggars and Vendala
Vida, team with Mendes (Revolutionary Road) to send pregnant
newlyweds (John Krasinki and Maya Rudolph) on a sweetly comic road trip
across America. Allison Janney, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Paul Schneider
co-star as the friends and family (a.k.a. eccentrics) who offer the
couple temporary refuge.
The Beaches of Agnès
Directed by Agnès Varda
The renowned French filmmaker, Varda (Vagabond), now 80,
continues her ongoing cinematic autobiography with this
César-winning documentary. Using the world’s beaches as both
backdrop and metaphor, Varda recalls the important people of her life,
including her late husband, filmmaker Jacques Demy, as well as rock
star Jim Morrison.
The Boat That Rocked
Directed by Richard Curtis
It’s 1966, and rock and roll has yet to make it to the airwaves of
the BBC, which controls all radio stations in England. So Philip
Seymour Hoffman leads a renegade band of disc jockeys as they broadcast
the devil’s music from a boat off the U.K. shore in this comedy from
the director of Love Actually.
Bruno
Directed by Larry Charles
Sacha Baron Cohen jettisons Borat for Bruno, a gay, hot
pants-wearing Australian fashion reporter. Beyond that, words fail
us.
The Cove
Directed by Louie Psihoyos
In the 1960s, Richard O’Barry captured five dolphins and trained
them to play “Flipper” on the popular TV show. Since then, he’s become
obsessed with getting footage of the brutal slaughter of dolphins in a
Japanese port town. Psihoyos tracks O’Barry’s quest in this wrenching
documentary.
Dance Flick
Directed by Damien Dante Wayans
Damon Wayans Jr. dons tights and ballet shoes for this parody of
those teen dance dramas in which a white girl from the ‘burbs and a
black youth from the ‘hood find true love in time for the big
recital.
Departures
Directed by Yojiro Takita
This year’s surprise winner of the Best Foreign Film Oscar tells of
an unemployed cellist (Masahiro Motoki) who lands a job for which he
displays an unexpected aptitude — bathing, dressing and grooming
the dead before cremation. A comedy, with tears.
District 9
Directed by Neill Blomkamp
From first-time director Blomkamp and producer Peter Jackson, a
sci-fi epic about extraterrestrials that landed in South Africa 30
years ago, only to be captured, segregated and brutally mistreated by
the government. The rest of the plot is a secret (so far), but we all
know what happens when you piss off a space creature.
Drag Me to Hell
Directed by Sam Raimi
Raimi (Spiderman, The Evil Dead Trilogy) returns to
his horror film roots for this tale of a young banker (Alison Lohman)
who makes the fatal mistake of denying a loan to an old gypsy woman.
Demonic curses soon follow. (Does this explain the banking crisis?)
Easy Virtue
Directed by Stephan Elliott
Jessica Biel moves up the social ladder in this adaptation of
Noël Coward’s 1920s comedy about an American bombshell about to
marry into an aristocratic British family. Kristin Scott Thomas plays
Biel’s future mother-in-law/nemesis.
500 Days of Summer
Directed by Marc Webb
An L.A. greeting card writer (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) finds true love
in the form of a beautiful co-worker (Zooey Deschanel) in Webb’s
romantic comedy, which literally counts the days of this up-and-down
relationship.
Flame & Citron
Directed by Ole Christian Madsen
Flame (Thure Lindhardt) and Citron (Mads Mikkelsen) were the code
names for two resistance fighters in Denmark during the Nazi
occupation. Madsen tells their story in a film that’s been a smash hit
in its home country, where Mikkelsen is a superstar.
Food, Inc.
Directed by Robert Kenner
Moviegoers aren’t likely to rush to the supermarket after seeing
this disturbing exposé of the underregulated, profit-mad
American food industry. It’s time to plant that garden.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Directed by David Yates
A nerdy but increasingly sexy teenage boy with magical powers and an
invisible cloak learns the true history of his archenemy, whose name we
dare not utter.
Humpday
Directed by Lynn Shelton
It seemed like a fun idea at the time: Ben (Mark Duplass) and Andrew
(Joshua Leonard), lifelong buds, get high at a party where they agree,
in front of witnesses, to “do it” (with each other) for a sex-tape film
festival. Their girlfriends are amused, and then…they’re not.
The Hurt Locker
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie and Guy Pearce go to war in this
intense drama about a bomb-defusing unit stationed in Baghdad at the
height of the Iraq war. Look for cameos by Ralph Fiennes and David
Morse.
In the Loop
Directed by Armando Iannucci
British satirist Iannucci (BBC’s The Thick of It) goes to
Washington in this fictional riff on the political scrambling —
British and American alike — that preceded the Iraq war. Starring
Tom Hollander, and featuring James Gandolfini as an American general
who speaks in snappy one-liners.
Inglourious Basterds
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Blame the bad spelling of the title on those infernal Nazis, who
refer to the band of Jewish-American soldier-assassins led by Brad Pitt
as “The Basterds.” Tarantino’s World War II action flick also stars
Diane Kruger, B.J. Novak (The Office), Hostel writer-director Eli Roth and last, but never least, the mighty Cloris
Leachman.
It Might Get Loud
Directed by Davis Guggenheim
The Oscar-winning director of An Inconvenient Truth cuts
loose in his new documentary, which finds rock gods Jimmy Page, The
Edge and Jack White singing the praises of their respective electric
guitars. Then they jam. (Loudly.)
Julie & Julia
Directed by Nora Ephron
Ephron adapts Julie Powell’s memoir of the year she spent making all
524 recipes in Julia Child’s classic cookbook, Mastering the Art of
French Cooking. Amy Adams portrays Powell, whose inner musings on
Child’s life and times are enacted by none other than Meryl Streep.
Looking forward to that accent.
Kambakkht Ishq
Directed by Sabbir Khan
Bollywood stars Akshay Kumar and Kareena Kapoor head from India to
Hollywood in this romantic comedy about a stuntman and a supermodel who
become media sensations. Cameos by Sylvester Stallone and
Superman‘s Brandon Routh.
Lorna’s Silence
Directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
Belgium’s Dardenne brothers (La Promesse, L’Enfant),
among the world’s finest filmmakers, return with this story of an
Albanian refugee (Arta Dobroshi) who finds herself going to extremes in
order to gain Belgian citizenship. Advance buzz, including a screening
at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, heralds Dobroshi as a great
discovery.
Mesrine: A Film in Two Parts
Directed by Jean-François Richet
Vincent Cassel, who was so extraordinary as the mob boss’s son in
David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises, moves up the crime ladder
in this four-hour epic about the action-packed life — murders,
kidnappings, the works — of modern-day French criminal Jacques
Mesrine.
Moon
Directed by Duncan Jones
After three years alone on the Moon, a spaceman of the near future
(Sam Rockwell) begins hallucinating, and eventually wakes to find that
he’s sharing the ship with an exact replica of…himself. This is a
first feature for Jones, whose father (just so you know) is David
Bowie.
Munyurangabo
Directed by Lee Isaac Chun
This debut feature from a New York-based Korean-American filmmaker
follows two Rwandan boys out for a walk in the countryside. One boy is
Hutu, the other Tutsi. Wildly acclaimed at recent film festivals,
Munyurangao reportedly begins with the sight of a bloody machete
and ends with a poem.
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
Directed by Shawn Levy
Ben Stiller returns as a museum security guard who discovers that
the statues and exhibits come to life at night. This time, the guard
gets to fall in love with a real live human (played by the increasingly
ubiquitous Amy Adams).
Paper Heart
Directed by Nicholas Jasenovec
In a documentary that’s not really a documentary, comedian Charlyne
Yi (Knocked Up) conducts interviews to see if anyone still
believes in true love. Enter actor Michael Cera, playing himself (sort
of), and falling for Yi, who, in real life, is already his girlfriend.
Got that?
Pontypool
Directed by Bruce McDonald
Veteran character actor Stephen McHattie stars as a Canadian DJ
trying to figure out what’s going on when reports start coming in of
townspeople viciously attacking each other. McDonald directed the
little seen but visually remarkable film The Tracey Fragments,
starring a pre-Juno Ellen Page.
Ponyo
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
From Disney, the new film by master Japanese animator Miyazaki
(Howl’s Moving Castle). In Miyazaki’s take on the Hans Christian
Andersen fairy tale “The Little Mermaid,” a goldfish named Ponyo longs
to become human. (Looks like Ariel’s got competition.)
Public Enemies
Directed by Michael Mann
Johnny Depp is 1930s bank robber extraordinaire John Dillinger;
Christian Bale is FBI super-agent Melvin Purvis, hot on his trail,
tommy gun in hand. The director is Michael Mann (Miami Vice,
Heat), who knows a thing or two about bad guy/good guy
showdowns. Bullets will fly.
Quiet Chaos
Directed by Antonello Grimaldi
Nanni Moretti stars as an Italian film exec devastated by the death
of his wife. Left to raise a ten-year-old daughter, the man finds
himself unable to part from her and ends up spending his days in the
park opposite her Rome school. Featuring Roman Polanski in a small
role.
Séraphine
Directed by Martin Provost
Yolande Moreau stars as the French painter Séraphine Louis,
who worked as a servant girl before her gift for painting was
discovered in 1912. Provost tracks Séraphine’s fast rise and
heartbreaking fall in a film that won seven César Awards (the
French Oscars), including Best Picture and Best Actress.
Soul Power
Directed by Jeffrey Levy-Hinte
In the days preceding Muhammad Ali and George Foreman’s 1974 fight,
musical giants such as James Brown, B.B. King, Bill Withers and Celia
Cruz gathered in Zaire for a three-day concert. Oscar winner Levy-Hinte
(When We Were Kings) has restored a mountain of found footage of
the concert and the chaos that surrounded it for this high-energy
doc.
Taking Woodstock
Directed by Ang Lee
The Brokeback Mountain director lightens up for this
tie-dye-filled adaptation of Elliot Tiber’s terrific Woodstock memoir.
Tiber, played here by comedian Demetri Martin, isn’t famous, but his
family’s dilapidated motel was ground zero for the iconic festival.
Terminator Salvation
Directed by McG
Christian Bale goes ballistic in this reboot of Governor
Schwarzenegger’s signature film series. It’s 2018, and Bale is John
Connor, the resistance leader whose birth Arnie was trying to prevent,
way back in the day.
Tetro
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
In writing his first original screenplay since 1974’s The
Conversation, Coppola reportedly mined his own backstory for this
tale of two brothers (Vincent Gallo and Alden Ehrenreich) trying to
come to terms with their complex family history. Set in contemporary
Buenos Aires, Tetro was filmed in black-and-white, a style
Coppola last employed for 1983’s Rumble Fish.
The Time Traveler’s Wife
Directed by Robert Schwentke
Henry (Eric Bana), a Chicago librarian, is forever bouncing around
in time (literally). This makes life/marriage hard for Claire (Rachel
McAdams), his wife, whose attempts to hold him still are captured in
this film version of Audrey Niffenegger’s best-seller.
UP
Directed by Pete Docter
Only a Pixar animator — in this case, Monsters, Inc. director Docter — would dare ask studio bosses for millions of
dollars to make an animated movie about a depressed 78-year-old widower
(voiced by Ed Asner) who doesn’t like children. We trust all things
Pixar, but don’t expect a run on Ed Asner plush toys at your local
superstore.
Whatever Works
Directed by Woody Allen
Allen returns to Manhattan after an extended European vacation and
casts Larry David as a hypochondriac physicist whose spirits are lifted
when he befriends and later weds a dippy 20-year-old (Evan Rachel
Wood). Reportedly based on a script Allen wrote 30 years ago; luckily,
neuroticism is timeless.
This article appears in May 21-27, 2009.
