Reilly Rocks But The Movie Does Not Quite Roll

It’s hard not to like regular Joe John C. Reilly, whose goofball charm and aw-shucks persona have also been a welcome addition to any movie, whether it be a mainstream comedy, a hard-as-nails indie, or a Hollywood popcorn special. Reilly takes center stage in Walk Hard:The Dewey Cox Story, a full-scale parody of the pop star biopic, an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink spoof that plays it a bit straighter then expected, and even veers towards the surreal, although it never quite gets there. Reilly is a hoot, the pastiche of genre music numbers is spot on, and the movie boasts at least one outright hilarious sequence skewering the Beatles. Co-writer and comedy kingpin Judd (Knocked Up, Superbad) Apatow and director Jake (son of Lawrence) Kasdan accomplish what they set out to do, and that’s funny enough, which is a good thang, but the satirical situations and one-line cap-offs never truly zing or soar.

It's (Stephen) King Time

Well, filmmakers like Orson Welles and Lawrence Olivier had Shakespeare while Frank Darabont has got Stephen King, reteaming once again for The Mist. After finding success with the The Shawshank Redemption (’94) and The Green Mile (’99) (and bombing out with 2001’s non-King The Majestic) the director has gone back to his muse and filmed a 1980 King short story set in Maine (of course), with a wild-eyed mob of regular Joes and Janes (among them, Thomas Jane, Andre Braugher, Toby Jones, Frances Sternhagen, and Marcia Gay Harden) trapped in a supermarket as a mist (with, yup, supernatural forces) closes in. Darabont drops the big budget smoothness of his earlier adaptations in order to approximate a more in-yer-face guerilla style , but the move scores more as psychological thriller than a technical scare fest. It’s an unabashed B-movie, with an ending as cynical as all get out, a movie well worth staying with when it ends up on a cable on some late wintry evening.

Cheadle Keeps it Real (Again)

In Talk to Me (Universal, $29.95,118 minutes) Don Cheadle brings his usual hustle and bounce to the small scale and real life tale of Washington, DC r&b DJ and activist Petey Greene. It’s an episodic film that doesn’t strain for higher meanings, easily mixing humor and poignancy into an engaging character study of a man so bad (in the sixties sense) he was good, an intriguing tale of yet another black entertainer trapped between keeping it real or pushing it into the (white) stratosphere. It’s an infectious little film, well-cast (Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mike Epps, Martin Sheen, Taraji P. Henson) and well delivered, thoughtful and entertaining. Cheadle is one of those guys who doesn’t seem to make a bad choice when it comes to movie roles (we forgive him the big bucks payoffs for the Ocean’s 11 series), and director Kasi Lemmons (Eve’s Bayou) lets him have an obvious good time socking it to the Sixties here.

Muscle Bound Effects

Anyone who’s admired Brit actor Ray Winstone’s authentically feral and quietly mesmerizing turns in movies like Nil By Mouth, Sexy Beast, The Proposition, or even The Departed, prepare yourself for his starring role in the- Robert Zemickis-goes-medieval Beowulf, a film that utilizes the directors same totally off putting technique of merging animation to actors facial movements as his The Polar Express. It’s the Land of the Dead Eye, with the actors resembling zombies after a method acting course, scary looking to some, stupid looking to most. I simply couldn’t get past the sight of the lumpen Winstone’s head magically welded onto a gleaming and shimmering he-man’s bod to even see if noted writers Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman had brought anything to the party. Yup, I committed the ultimate nitcrit sin--I walked.

That's Right-Teen Neo-Noir

Attention all you molls and mugs, it's yer last chance to go to the noir side with me at Local 121 for the Wednesday Night Film Noir series, tomorrow (12/12)at 7:00 PM. Attendance has been spotty, but decent enough to make another go at it on the flip side of the holiday season, probably for a brief series called Paranoia in Film or The Films of Paranoia , or something much more pretentious and seri-ass sounding. (Suggestions?)Anyway, please, baby, please, c'mon down for the final film of the first series, have a drink or two, listen to my insightful spiel, and watch an intriguing movie:

Brick (2005) An outside choice to spice up this brief noir series, ostensibly a modern neo-noir, clearly a homage and genre reconsideration by smart guy and first time writer/director Rian Johnson. Image a Chandler/Hammett styled investigative jigsaw puzzle set in high school, with the hardboiled protagonist a teen (well played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) determined to unearth the truth despite the consequences. Neither a spoof, a textbook redo, or an exercise in irony, but a bold and cool mixture of style and setting, with the neat and effective affection of having the high school cats and kittens speaking in a gangster patois from decades earlier. Moody, intelligent, and unnerving enough to be included in the sublime cannon of film noir.

TV EYE: Through the Past, Darkly

Do I get drummed outta the TV Taste Club if I admit to actually liking a show produced by Uber producer Jerry Bruckheimer? Since it’s inception in 2003, the low key procedural Cold Case (NBC, Sunday, 10:00 PM) has cast a certain spell on me, and I find it’s formula, it’s doom and gloom atmospherics, and it’s wistful gazing-into-the-past structure, all rather addictive. The show centers around a group of Philadelphia coppers ( John Finn, Jeremy Ratchford, Thom Barry, Danny Pino, Tracie Thomas, underplayers all) forced to dig deep into the dusty files that contain, cold, or unsolved cases. Kathryn Morris plays Detective Lily Rush, the team’s centerpiece, a waif-like combo of moral conscientiousness, dissipated guilt, and avenging angel. The show swings back and forth from then to now, utilizing period songs and period film stock, while the actors either doing the age-make-up thang or simply going with two sets of young and old, with each episode occurring within an extremely specific milieu—typically quantified by class, ethnicity, or social issue-of-the-period. Cold Case also well utilizes a solid feel for Philadelphia, it's setting (despite the fact that they probably only go in one or twice a year to shoot exteriors), and the Philly depicted is a steel gray, downcast, chilly urban center, brimming over with dreamers, losers, and (most of all) those that are just going through the motions. The crime always gets solved, yet the general feel of the show is far from smug endings and satisfying turns of justice---the show gives off a weary vibe of lives lost and misspent, of paths not taken, of shared guilt (each and all get lined up as suspects), and it’s final slo-mo, cue-the-music series of shots often make me weirdly sad or downright depressed, while continually exerting a strange pull that brings me back for the next episode of time-bending crime-solving.

What's So Funny About a Hockey Puck?

I guess I’m in the same club as Chris Rock, Marty Scorsese, Penn Jillette, Sarah Silverman, and even Harry (hipper-than-thou) Dean Stanton in looking at old school comedian Don Rickles as part guilty pleasure, part hilarious bastard. Those are some of the talking heads assembled in John Landis’ brand new HBO portrait, Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project. Problem is a good subject does not necessarily make a good documentary. Landis film is part typical clip history, part oral history, a touch of the subject’s own reminiscences, with a large portion devoted to excerpts from a recent Vegas performance, something that really should have just been released separately. The talking heads provide very little insight; some even opting for shtick over substance, and Landis over relies on Tonight Show footage and neglects to show a bit more of the Rickles acting career, which he forged in TV( the doc quickly spins past a series of b&w publicity stills showing Rickles all over the sitcoms of the 60's-from The Munsters to Andy Griffith) and B films, until he hit it big as a stand-up under the protective glow of Frank Sinatra. Check this out (not in the doc) for truly gonzo television.