Ender’s Game
Distributor: Summit Entertainment
An anti-bullying allegory writ on the largest possible scale, “Ender’s Game” frames an interstellar battle between mankind and pushy ant-like aliens, called Formics, in which Earth’s fate hinges on a tiny group of military cadets, most of whom haven’t even hit puberty yet. At face value, the film presents an electrifying star-wars scenario — that rare case where an epic space battle transpires entirely within the span of two hours — while at the same time managing to deliver a higher pedagogical message about tolerance, empathy and coping under pressure. Against considerable odds, this risky-sounding Orson Scott Card adaptation actually works, as director Gavin Hood pulls off the sort of teen-targeted franchise starter Summit was hoping for.
— Peter Debruge
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Free Birds
Distributor: Relativity Media
Month-old mashed potatoes wouldn’t leave behind as questionable an aftertaste as “Free Birds,” a well-animated but frankly misguided comedy about two turkeys who travel back in time to stop their species from becoming the official national dish of Thanksgiving. In drawing a parallel between these wild birds and 17th-century Native Americans, this seemingly innocuous toon fantasy becomes another noxious-but-sanitized exercise in family-friendly cultural insensitivity. Kids won’t care, naturally, but even viewers who don’t mind (or don’t pick up on) the unfortunate subtext won’t be thrilled by the picture’s bland storytelling and overly gabby gobblers. Even with an OK opening on the table, holiday-perennial status looks unlikely for this fledgling feature effort from Dallas-based Reel FX.
— Justin Chang
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Dallas Buyers Club
Distributor: Focus Features
Any doubt that still exists in audiences’ minds as to Matthew McConaughey’s talents as an actor are permanently put to rest by “Dallas Buyers Club,” in which the 6-foot Texan star shed 38 pounds to play Ron Woodroof, the unlikely mastermind behind a scheme to circumvent the FDA by delivering unapproved treatments to AIDS patients during the late ’80s. But McConaughey’s is not the only performance of note in this riveting and surprisingly relatable true story, which co-stars Jared Leto as his transsexual accomplice. Rave reviews for both actors should draw mainstream auds to one of the year’s most vital and deserving indie efforts.
— Peter Debruge
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About Time
Distributor: Universal
As sweet, familiar and reassuringly bland as rice pudding, Richard Curtis’ “About Time” evokes a sense of deja vu, not least for anyone who’s seen “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” a conceptually similar love story that also co-starred Rachel McAdams. After the misadventure of “Pirate Radio,” Curtis returns to roost in the well-heeled, quintessentially English milieu that made him famous internationally as a scribe with “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Notting Hill,” and his directorial debut, “Love, Actually.” Still, the emphasis on fresh faces instead of Working Title’s usual thesping suspects adds some zing, and the pic will have a fine old time when it opens wide in the U.K. on Sept. 6. Universal will release the film Nov. 1 Stateside.
— Leslie Felperin
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Aftermath
Distributor: Menemsha Films
Inspired by Jan Gross’ book “Neighbors,” about the 1941 massacre of a Polish village’s Jewish population by their Catholic neighbors, Wladyslaw Pasikowski’s “Aftermath” retools the material into a fast-paced “backwater burg with a dark secret” quasi-horror film, complete with spooky lighting, ominous music, unexplained phenomena and hostile townfolk. The idea of framing Holocaust atrocities in contemporary genre terms, although intriguing, is not without its perils, and the secret, when revealed, looms too large to fit within the plot’s parameters, creating strange disconnects between form and content. Having unleashed a firestorm of controversy in Poland, “Aftermath” will be received Stateside as simply another fictionalized Holocaust revisitation.
— Ronnie Scheib
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Diana
Distributor: Entertainment One
The campy guilty pleasure suggested by the trailer to “Diana” proves a marketing mirage thanks to “Downfall” director Oliver Hirschbiegel’s sensitive direction of an overly earnest drama. While mostly swerving past the pitfall of tastelessness, this sincerely intended account of the last two years of Princess Diana’s life risks an even more perilous roadblock: dullness. Still, the tony credentials, including lead thesp Naomi Watts’s two Oscar nods, provide a handy alibi for upscale audiences eager to have their fill of royal rumpus, but anxious that “Diana” might merely be trash TV on a bigger budget.
— Charles Gant
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Krrish 3
Distributor: Filmkraft Prods. Pvt.
The silly, square and charming Bollywood superhero picture “Krrish 3” measures up pretty well, provided you bear in mind that it’s more of a kids’ movie than its U.S. counterparts. Already a huge hit in India the day after it opened, the brightly colored, upbeat film is a world and a worldview away from Christopher Nolan’s anti-heroic noir psychodramas, although writer-director Rakesh Roshan happily lifts an unmistakable blaring sound effect and a key Swiss mountaintop location from “Inception.” Grownups may find their eyelids sagging, but 10-year-olds should be enthralled.
— David Chute
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Mr. Nobody
Distributor: Magnolia Pictures
In 2092, the last mortal human being reminisces about his past and the lives he could have lived in “Mr. Nobody,” a film that has a beating heart underneath its messy — though breathtakingly designed — exterior. Belgian helmer Jaco van Dormael’s first English-language film expands on the themes of his debut, “Toto the Hero,” and stars a versatile Jared Leto, though this sprawling filmmaking folly never becomes bigger than the sum of its parts. Modest biz looks likely Stateside for this cerebral romance.
— Boyd van Hoeij
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Last Vegas
Distributor: CBS Films
As creaky as an arthritic hip, “Last Vegas” does for four leading stars of the ‘70s and ‘80s what movies like “Tough Guys” and “Grumpy Old Men” did for survivors of Hollywood’s storied Golden Age: It lets them show they can still throw a punch, bust a move, and get it up, and that they’re not quite ready for the Motion Picture Home just yet. Beyond that, this genteel “Hangover” for the AARP crowd has little to recommend it, though a smattering of funny gags and the nostalgia value of the cast — none of whom, curiously, have ever shared the screen before — keeps the whole thing more watchable than it has any right to be. Smartly counterprogrammed against fanboy behemoths “Ender’s Game” and “Thor: The Dark World,” this Nov. 1 CBS Films release could score nicely with its target demo but seems unlikely to match the $175 million worldwide haul of surprise 2007 hit “The Bucket List.”
— Scott Foundas
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Last Love
Distributor: RLJ/Image Entertainment
Original title: “Mr. Morgan’s Last Love”
An outstanding cast does what it can to enliven “Last Love,” a mostly mawkish melodrama from “Mostly Martha” helmer Sandra Nettelbeck starring Michael Caine as a crusty Paris widower and Clemence Poesy as the sprightly dance instructor who brightens up his days. Though the basic elements would appear to be here for a geriatric crowdpleaser in the “Quartet”/”Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” vein, the pic’s funereal pacing and relentlessly downbeat tone hew closer to a watered-down TV-movie version of “Amour,” with a treacly Hans Zimmer score subbed for Schubert. Out Aug. 22 in Germany, this second try at an English-language crossover pic by the Teuton Nettelbeck should travel further than the first (2009’s little-seen Ashley Judd vehicle “Helen”), but won’t spark the word of mouth needed for more than middling arthouse biz.
— Scott Foundas
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Man of Tai Chi
Distributor: Radius-TWC
There’s little in the way of drama, character depth or mise-en-scene to distract from Tiger Chen’s technically dazzling display of human combat in Keanu Reeves’ helming debut, “Man of Tai Chi.” As a vehicle for Hollywood action choreographer Chen to show off his prowess as a gullible tai-chi student lured into underground fight clubs, this China-U.S. co-production is the real deal for hardcore chopsocky fans, and will slot easily into genre ancillary. But Reeves’ workmanlike direction doesn’t boast enough style or originality for this actioner to significantly cross over to the mainstream.
— Maggie Lee
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Big Sur
Distributor: Ketchup Entertainment
Last year’s much-anticipated adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” may have landed softly, but the Beat went on at Sundance this year: Premiering days after “Kill Your Darlings” shed light on the renegade author’s college years, Michael Polish’s “Big Sur” offers an elegantly muted take on the midlife ennui of Kerouac’s autobiographical 1962 novel. A typically atmospheric effort from the “Northfork” director — here working without twin brother Mark — this oblique, episodic study of a writer (Jean-Marc Barr, effectively if unexpectedly cast) seeking refuge from his own success is strictly an arthouse proposition, but should stimulate Kerouac and Polish acolytes alike.
— Guy Lodge
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The Broken Circle Breakdown
Distributor: Tribeca Film
Ups and downs are constantly juxtaposed in “The Broken Circle Breakdown,” a bluegrass-infused Flemish meller about two lovers who lose their little daughter to cancer. As in helmer Felix van Groeningen’s previous pic, “The Misfortunates,” sophisticated cutting brings out the story’s complex emotional undercurrents, though “Breakdown’s” less convincingly scripted second half sputters more often than it shines. A huge hit at home last fall, this crowdpleasing tearjerker with a terrific soundtrack sold widely after its festival bow in Berlin, where it scooped up the Panorama audience award and Europa Cinemas Label.
— Boyd van Hoeij
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One PM Central Standard Time
Filmmaker Alastair Layzell artfully entwines profound tragedy and professional triumph in “One PM Central Standard Time,” a fascinating documentary that details how the “story of the century” — the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy — was covered by up-and-coming anchorman Walter Cronkite and his CBS News team. Layzell is scrupulously respectful of Kennedy and Cronkite, and offers eloquent testimonials from intimates and admirers of both icons. But his film is as much a gripping drama as it is a nostalgic tribute, treating history as breaking news in a manner that fuels the narrative momentum with a sense of urgency.
— Joe Leydon
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Musicwood
“Musicwood” takes as its title and subject an extraordinary coalition: guitar makers, Native American corporation heads and Greenpeace environmentalists who, for a time at least, sought to find a collective solution to their contradictory interests. At stake: the future of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, the largest in the U.S. and the last repository of the rare, centuries-old Sitka oaks used for the soundboards of fine acoustic guitars. Part music docu, part travelogue and part ecological advocacy film, Maxine Trump’s feature loses focus as it progresses, though its insights into guitar making, forestry harvesting and environmental shortages resonate strongly.
— Ronnie Scheib
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Running From Crazy
Distributor: OWN
Fluctuating at random between standard-issue celebrity docu and principled bid to de-stigmatize mental illness, “Running From Crazy” is afflicted with a sort of multiple personality disorder. The pic follows actor-turned-activist Mariel Hemingway, granddaughter of Ernest, as she reckons with a family legacy of depression and alcoholism, with seven of her relatives having committed suicide. Hemingway, whose acclaimed turn in “Lipstick” at age 13 inspired the lifelong jealousy of her late sister Margaux, opens herself courageously to director Barbara Kopple’s camera. But the narratively jumbled film, airing later this year on OWN, features too many scenes that amount to mere stargazing.
— Rob Nelson
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Immigrant
Barry Shurchin’s autobiographical account of his childhood as a 9-year-old Russian immigrant in late-’70s Gotham piles on one traumatic event after another: suicide, beatings, sexual abuse, murder — little Daanyik is spared nothing in the free world. But the storyline develops so erratically that it lacks any internal momentum, with some scenes unfolding in exhaustive detail and others seemingly missing, as if whole chunks had been shot and later edited out. The film’s violent, angry kid’s p.o.v., though strongly conveyed, hardly invites sympathy for its pint-size protagonist and will likely prove too hostile to achieve much traction in limited release.
— Ronnie Scheib
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Sal
Distributor: Tribeca Film
Following his Hart Crane biopic “The Broken Tower,” self-styled professional dabbler James Franco examines the tragically shortened life of another gay artist in his unenlightening but not ungenerous portrait of Sal Mineo. Different from “Tower” in the way it limits its focus to its subject’s final hours, “Sal” is a generally listless affair in which incident and insight are in short supply — a problem offset to some degree by Val Lauren’s warm, gregarious turn as the onetime teen heartthrob who never hit his Hollywood stride. Like Franco’s other extracurricular projects, pic will have trouble breaking out beyond fest and fringe exposure.
— Justin Chang
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Angels Sing
Distributor: Lionsgate
Original title: “When Angels Sing”
Aimed squarely at auds seeking family-friendly, holiday-themed entertainment, “Angels Sing” is an innocuously pleasant trifle that likely would be more at home in the Hallmark Movie Channel lineup than on thousands of megaplex screens. Still, a limited fall theatrical release could be helpful in elevating the profile of this modestly affecting drama about a man who regains his love of Christmas years after his brother’s demise during the yuletide season. Pic could wind up being a popular VOD offering and DVD stocking-stuffer.
— Joe Leydon
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These Birds Walk
Distributor: Oscilloscope Laboratories
Documentary subjects don’t come much more shy than Pakistani humanitarian Abdul Sattar Edhi, though the same could hardly be said for the attention-starved Karachi street children his world-renown welfare org attempts to shelter and support. After giving “These Birds Walk” directors Omar Mullick and Bassam Tariq permission to tell his story, Edhi demurs, saying, “If you want to find me, look to ordinary people.” So the helmers do exactly that, focusing on several camera-comfortable youngsters in a piece of verite portraiture sure to impress on the doc-fest circuit, but ultimately bound to earn better accolades than receipts.
— Peter Debruge
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