NEW YORK QUICKIES: Ten new films seen in NYC July 9-17, 2013

[Chris Knipp]

New in New York in mid-summer.

In a sultry heatwave people move in droves to airconditioned cinemas. Sometimes they're rewarded by a good movie. Quick comments on new films I've seen in NYC this past week (July 9-15, 2013). I may write longer reviews of some later, in addition to THE ATTACK and LAURENCE ANYWAYS, already reviewed.

THE ATTACK (Ziyad Doueri). Already reviewed. Mildly recommended, especially for students of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

LAURENCE ANYWAYS (Xavier Dolan). Reviewed. Interesting, but warning: long, badly structured and self-indulgent, with a bland lead. But Dolan still has extravagant filmmaking talent and is still in his early twenties.

BYZANTiUM (Neil Jordan). Beautiful, visually distinctive, attractively cast, ultimately forgettable vampire movie with a British low-life angle and contemporary time-scheme. More push-up bras and rich color combinations than blood.

WHITE HOUSE DOWN (Roland Emmerich). Mostly fun and exciting showcase for the muscular charms of Channing Tatum. Also absurd, violent, and a waste of complexity. Tearing up the headquarters of the US executive branch has become normal CGi sport these days, along with Manhattan.

PACIFIC RIM (Guillermo Del Toro). Astonishingly beautiful (as the Guardian blog piece promised) -- and also astonishingly monotonous and repetitious interweaving of TRANSFORMERS, MATRIX, BLADE RUNNER, and various other things. Essentially just robots fighting monsters over and over for over two hours. Big role for Charlie Hunnam -- with "Sons of Anarchy" buddy (and Guillermo del Toro HELLBOY alumnus) Ron Perlman). Gorgeous images though, especially of the battles.

THE WAY, WAY BACK (Nat Faxon, Jim Rash). Has moments. Sharp, if unresolved, portrait of a sullen, unhappy teenage boy, badly marred by shrill, empty, jokey adult roles. Limp ending. A bit hard to grasp that these are the guys who did the adaptation for Wes Anderson's THE DESCENDANTS.

THE HUNT (JAGTEN; Thomas Vinterberg). Effectively disturbing, though mostly predictable first-person account of false sexual abuse accusations in a Danish nursery school, protagonist played by the charismatic and enigmatic Mads Mikkelsen. Return to agonizing form for the Dogme co-creator. Strong film: recommended.

CRYSTAL FAIRY & THE MAGICAL CACTUS (Sebastián Silva). A precisely organized but largely improvised no-budget film about an American psychedelic tourist (Michael Cera), an embarrassing but partly endearing hippie lady, and three local brothers on the Chilean coast. Not particularly fun, but maybe pretty true. Made me think of Julia Loktev's THE LONELIEST PLANET, for some reason.

THE LOOK OF LOVE (Michael Winterbottom). Steve Coogan stars in a truly dreary and lifeless biopic of English porn purveyor and real estate magnate Paul Raymond, who was the richest man in the UK for a while, and whose daughter died of an overdose. Avoid, unless recreations of old nudie shows are your thing. The screenplay is a monotonous succession of scenes without a strong dramatic arc.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS MAY APPLY (Cullen Hoback). Thoroughly chilling if largely familiar documentary about how technology, social networks, and search engines equal universal surveillance of everyone's data and communications by the NSA, CIA, etc., equals Big Brother Watching You all the time. This along with DIRTY WARS and WE STEAL SECRETS: THE STORY OF WIKILEAKS is a recent political doc that's a must-see.


MADS MIKKELSEN, LASSE FOGLESTROM

[Chris Knipp]

Just to show you how much better if would be to be in NYC than to be in the Bay Area, here in California today, July 26, the following are NOT showing, that ARE in Manhattan theaters right now. This is an approximate list. Sources: NYTimes reviews and Google Movies. Some of the new ones have come to the Bay Area today, of course. THE WOLVERINE. Hooray. I'm So Excited. Oh yes, that's a movie too -- Almodovar's -- accessible, if you need it, in either place.

New today and showing in NYC but not the Bay Area:

BLUE JASMINE (NY Times Critics Pick)
ONLY GOD FORGIVES
DRUG WAR
THE TIME BEING
BREAKING THE GIRLS
TERRA FERMA
POSTALES' | Rich American Girl Meets Poor Peruvian Boy
'FRANKENSTEIN'S ARMY' | Something Unpleasant Behind Enemy Lines
'WASTELAND' new today
'RED TIDE' | Underwater Dream, Stymied by Drugs
'FIRST COMES LOVE' | Going It Alone on the Road to Motherhoo

Released earlier and showing in NYC but not the Bay Area:

VIOLA
MUSEUM HOURS (NY Tmes Critics Pick)
NEANDER-JIN
A HIIJACKING (Metacritic 82)
ICEEBERG SLIM: PORTRAIT OF A PIMP
THE ACT OF KILLING (NY Times Critics Pick)
BYZANTIUM (NYTimes Critics Pick)

Some of these are coming later. BLUE JASMINE opens in the Bay Area next Friday.