Eugene Weekly : Movies : 7.8.10


.MOVIE LISTINGS | MOVIE REVIEW ARCHIVE | THEATER INFO

 

OPENING:

Despicable Me: Evil Gru (Steve Carell), who hides his lair in a tidy suburb, is planning to steal the moon. Three orphan girls need a dad. When these parties collide, wackiness is pretty much guaranteed to ensue. PG. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15.

Exit Through the Gift Shop: The first film by graffiti artist Banksy is about a French shopkeeper who tries to find and film the elusive artist — but becomes the subject of Banksy’s documentary. Some suspect it’s all a hoax, but Ebert says that only adds to its fascination. R. 87 min. Bijou.

MacGruber: You’ve seen the SNL skits; now watch the movie! Will Forte stars as the, um, action hero; Ryan Phillipe and Kristen Wiig are his backup. R. Movies 12.

Mean Streets: Martin Scorsese’s classic, set in New York’s Little Italy, stars Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro and others, and screens as part of DIVA and LCC’s Behind the Lens Seminar. 7 pm Tuesday, July 13, at DIVA. $3. 

Predators: Adrien Brody plays a fearless mercenary. See, right there: I’m in. He’s one of a group of  “hardened killers” being hunted down on an alien planet. With Alice Braga, Lawrence Fishburne and Topher Grace. R. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15.

Single Man, A: Colin Firth has rightly been showered with praise for his superb, subtle performance as George Falconer, a fiftyish English professor wrestling with his existence after the death of his longtime lover. Julianne Moore is his boozy, dramatic best friend; Nicholas Hoult plays the student who starts to snap George out of it. The drama and the beauty are in the details in fashion designer Tom Ford’s directorial debut. David Minor Theater. (2/5)

Splice: Scientists Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody find that one of their human hybrid experiments has gone well — perhaps too well. Directed by Vincenzo Natali, whose Cube scared the hell out of me. R. Movies 12.

CONTINUING: 

A-Team, The: This week brings both the A-Team film and a Karate Kid reboot. Imaginations, working overtime! Between The Losers and The Expendables, this is, bizarrely, the summer of betrayed fighters. The becoming-ubiquitous Bradley Cooper costars with Liam Neeson, Jessica Biel and District 9’s promising Sharlto Copley. PG-13. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15.

Back-Up Plan, The: Jennifer Lopez stars as a woman who opts for artificial insemination after years of not meeting the right man. Naturally, as soon as she’s pregnant, she meets Stan (Alex O’Loughlin, aka that dude from the short-lived, cheesily enjoyable vampire show Moonlight), who’s surprisingly game for going the distance. PG13. Movies 12.

Bounty Hunter, The: Just don’t. Jennifer Aniston as a bail-jumper? Gerard Butler as her bounty hunter ex who’s gotta bring her back? Do you believe in any of this? Do you believe this movie should’ve been made? PG13. 110 min. Eight percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Movies 12.

Clash of the Titans: Kraken or no kraken, Sam Worthington in a skirt or Liam Neeson with funny facial hair, the fact is, this movie is directed by the guy who made the moderately abysmal The Incredible Hulk. Just keep that in mind. PG13. Movies 12.

Date Night: Tina Fey and Steve Carrell are a totally ordinary couple whose date night runs out of control when they steal a table at a fancy restaurant. With James Franco and Mila Kunis as the couple whose table it was, and Mark Wahlberg as a dude who doesn’t wear a lot of shirts. PG13. Movies 12. (4/15) 

Death at a Funeral: Yes, that title looks familiar. This is a wide-release remake of the smaller 2007 British flick about the family secrets (and misplaced bodies, according to IMDb.com); it’s now directed by Neil LaBute (oh dear) and stars Chris Rock, Zoe Saldana, Tracy Morgan, James Marsden, Martin Lawrence and Regina Hall. Peter Dinklage sticks around from the first version. R. 90 min. Movies 12.

Eclipse: The Twilight saga continues with the cinematic adaptation of the least annoying of the four books (still looking forward to some of the batshit crazy stuff in book four, though…) Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) get serious, while werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner) gets more serious about butting in — and baby vampires terrorize Seattle. Yes, it’s all absurd. PG-13. 124 min. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15. See review this issue.

Furry Vengeance: I look at the name of this family film, and I think of something completely other than what I assume the filmmakers intended. Anyway. Brendan Fraser stars as a developer supervising an eco-friendly development. When the local critters get wind of his involvement in destroying their habitat, they take matters into their own cute, furry hands. PG. 92 min. Movies 12.

Get Him to the Greek: Jonah Hill and Russell Brand reunite with their Forgetting Sarah Marshall director Nicholas Stoller for a comedy about a record label intern trying to get British rocker Aldous Snow (Brand, revisiting his Sarah character) to a show on time. R. Movies 12. (6/10)

Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The: This Swedish adaptation of the bestselling (and also Swedish) novel is relatively effective as a thriller, if you can forgive it a pile of cinematic clichés. Noomi Rapace is superb as Lisbeth, the titular girl, who teams up with a disgraced journalist to solve a lingering family mystery that works in abuse, Nazism and other nastiness to disappointingly shallow ends. Looks good, though. R. 152 min. Bijou. David Minor Theater. (4/22) 

Grown Ups: Look, there are stupid movies, and then there are full-on assaults on your intelligence. If you want to watch some comics who fear for their relevance make fart jokes and run into trees, be my guest. With Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James and David Spade. PG-13. 102 min. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15.

Harry Brown: Michael Caine makes his latest odd career choice in this British thriller about a man who snaps when his best friend is killed. Reviews are mixed, and skeptical about director Daniel Barber’s intentions. R. Bijou. See review this issue.

Hot Tub Time Machine: Four dudes (John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson and Clark Duke) get wasted, get in a hot tub, pass out — and wake up in 1986 (does John Cusack get to re-do his old movie roles?). “It’s fun, it’s sad, and it’s kind of sad that it’s so much fun,” wrote A.O. Scott in The New York Times. R. 100 min. David Minor Theater.

How to Train Your Dragon: This movie is 100 percent great. It’s about a young Viking (voiced by Jay Baruchel) who thinks he’d rather befriend dragons, his people’s longtime enemies, than kill them. Good call, kid. That’s a cute dragon you got there. PG. 98 min. Movies 12.

Invictus: Morgan Freeman tackles a South African accent to play Nelson Mandela in Clint Eastwood’s latest based-on-a-true-story film, about Mandela’s effort to unite his nation “through the universal language of sport” — in this case, rugby. Matt Damon plays the rugby team captain. PG13. David Minor Theater. (12/17)

Iron Man 2: Despite the annoying replacement of Terrence Howard with (the fantastic, don’t get me wrong) Don Cheadle as Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.)’s buddy Rhodey — and my own low tolerance for Mickey Rourke in anything — this sequel looks thoroughly, quippily, delightfully enjoyable. Gwyneth Paltrow returns as Pepper Potts; Scarlett Johansson and Samuel L. Jackson join the fray. PG13. 122 min. Cinemark. 

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work: Rivers’ long career doesn’t get enough attention in this documentary, which follows the groundbreaking comedian for a year, but it’s still an interesting look at a woman driven by her fears and her desperate need to keep working, even in her late 70s. R. Bijou. (7/1)

Karate Kid, The: Cranky kid Dre Parker has a hard time adjusting to life in China — an impossible crush, a gaggle of bullies — until he befriends the maintenance man (Jackie Chan), who has a not-so-secret talent. PG. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15.

Knight and Day: Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz are the unlikely pair at the center of this summer action flick, in which Cruise is a superspy who winds up with Diaz in tow. PG. 122 min. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15. (6/24)

Last Airbender, The: Apparently there’s even more wrong with M. Night Shyamalan’s latest than the casting snafu that infuriated fans of the TV show The Last Airbender: Airbender, the movie, stars white actors as characters that were Inuit or Asian in the series (see racebending.com for more). The story concerns conflict between four elemental nations, some members of which can control fire, water, air or earth. Ebert called it “an agonizing experience.” Fair warning, that. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15.

Marmaduke: Owen Wilson voices the big dog from the comic strip. With Fergie, Lee Pace, William H. Macy, George Lopez, Damon Wayans, Marlon Wayans and Judy Greer. PG. Movies 12.

Robin Hood: He is an OUTLAW! Did you know that? I bet you did. Previews look patently ridiculous for Ridley Scott’s serious-business version of the old tale — so, it’s an origin story, right? Isn’t Russell Crowe a bit old for an origin story? Whatever. At least Cate Blanchett is in it. PG-13. 148 frickin’ minutes. Movies 12.

Shutter Island: It’s a bit worrisome that Scorsese’s latest was bumped from last fall to now, but reviews are still good for his thriller (based on a Dennis Lehane novel) about two U.S. marshals sent to investigate an escape from an isolated prison for the criminally insane. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo. R. David Minor Theater. (3/5)

Toy Story 3: Andy’s all grown up, and his toys — Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack) and the rest — face an uncertain future in the third Toy Story film, which has some, but not all, of the charms of the first. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15. (6/24)

 

 

MOVIE THEATERS
Use the links provided below for specific show times.

Bijou Art Cinemas
Bijou Theater 686-2458 | 492 E. 13th

David Minor Theater
David Minor Theater and Pub 762-1700 | 180 E. 5th

Regal Cinemas
VRC Stadium 15 342-6536 | Valley River Center

Cinemark Theaters
Movies 12 741-1231 | Gateway Mall
Cinemark 17 741-1231 | Gateway Mall