Movie review by Greg Carlson

WARNING: The following review reveals key plot information. Read only if you have seen “Gone Girl.”

Gillian Flynn, author of the bestselling novel “Gone Girl,” hit the Hollywood jackpot. She, A) Got to adapt her own screenplay without having to share any screen credit; B) Had the fortune of finding David Fincher at the directorial helm; C) Saw her characters brought to life by talent like Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike; D) All of the above. At its best, Flynn’s page-turner explores the domestic battle for control and the struggle for married partners to live up to and/or fulfill masculine and feminine expectations. At its worst, the book is a trashy, outlandish potboiler that embraces many of the clichés of the mystery thriller genre.

Flynn’s novel, which alternates between the voices of shitty husband Nick Dunne (Affleck) and psychotic wife Amy Elliott Dunne (Pike), recounts the variety of ways each spouse has been wronged by the other. When Amy disappears on her fifth wedding anniversary, Nick is – obviously, perfectly, absolutely – the principal suspect. Flynn borrows the twist from Hitchcock’s masterpiece “Vertigo,” revealing on page 219 (of 415) that Amy is alive, with the words “I’m so much happier now that I’m dead.” Turns out Amy meticulously planned the ruse, staged the crime scene, and planted overwhelming evidence against her husband before lamming it. At this point, some readers struggle with the placement of their allegiance.

Fincher’s movie retains Flynn’s shifting perspectives, but the faithful presentation of the events in the novel in the same order in which they occur on the page biases the viewer on behalf of Nick (I had hoped, like some readers, that Fincher might have taken the opportunity to mess around with the chronology). As a result, there is very little Pike can do to bring the inscrutable Amy to life as a thoroughly realized, recognizably human character. She’s as icy as Sharon Stone’s fellow writer Catherine Trammell and Kim Novak’s manipulative Madeleine Elster, just not as captivating. Even if Flynn and Fincher are suggesting we aren’t supposed to know Amy, the ploy doesn’t entirely pan out.

It’s no fair to compare Flynn’s dialogue to the wizardry of Aaron Sorkin, whose invented conversations in “The Social Network” make most of the chatter in “Gone Girl” sound like reheated leftovers from an old Lifetime movie. Fincher also had the good sense to limit the entire history of the origins of Facebook to two swiftly paced hours, while “Gone Girl” bobs along at a more leisurely 149 minutes. Fortunately, the late arrivals of Tyler Perry as a smooth defense attorney and Neil Patrick Harris as one of Amy’s old boyfriends inject a refreshing shot of winking “can you believe this?” mirth when it is most needed.

The most ardent defenders of “Gone Girl” will make claims about Fincher’s interest in exploring gender roles, the pressures brought to bear (on the upper class no less!) by the flaccid economy, and the ways in which the media distorts reality. My inclination is to focus instead on the things that really worked in the transfer of novel to movie: the ridiculous and over-the-top streaks of black comedy that threaten to align the film with the likes of lurid “erotic mystery thrillers” like “Fatal Attraction,” “Basic Instinct,” “Sliver,” “Color of Night,” and “Jade.” “Gone Girl” is better than most of those movies, but not as good as Fincher’s finest.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Challenging the viewer to discover points of engagement with its two ferociously solipsistic protagonists, “Fort Tilden” is a wickedly funny satire sustained by the comic writing of co-directors Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers and the deadpan performances of Bridie Elliott and Clare McNulty as codependent BFFs/roommates as clueless about humanity as they are passive-aggressive about their relationship. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at its South by Southwest world premiere, the movie observes the aimlessness and awfulness of its privileged millennials as they navigate a series of obstacles that can only be described as first-world problems.

For all of its inside jokes and Williamsburg-specific, hipster cred (including a Reggie Watts as Reggie Watts cameo) “Fort Tilden” relies on the sturdy, universal, and instantly recognizable naïveté associated with twenty-somethings struggling to accept grown-up lives and the grown-up decisions that come with maturity. Elliott’s Harper, a self-styled artist in regular phone contact with her distracted, check-writing father, and McNulty’s Allie, uncertain about her imminent Peace Corps service in Liberia, operate exclusively in the moment. That moment, such as it is, revolves around a decision to rendezvous at the title location with two guys they meet at a rooftop party that opens the film.

Bliss and Rogers set up one hilarious conundrum after another as Harper and Allie slowly make their way to the Rockaways. The pals purchase a shabby chic barrel (perfect for the collection of umbrellas they don’t yet own) but can’t muster the energy to wrestle it up the stairs to their apartment. A minor bicycle accident involving a baby stroller and alarmist parents turns into a farce of false remorse. The women stand paralyzed and incredulous as a thief steals their property. A litter of kittens is deemed worthy of rescue until the act requires patience and effort.

Elliott and McNulty are terrific at conveying the fragile insecurity and withering snark of their characters, but Bliss and Rogers show a flair for teasing terrific comic performances from their supporting cast members as well. Peter Vack steals his big scene as Harper’s bisexual boyfriend. Desiree Nash and Becky Yamamoto earn plenty of laughs as smug Teach for America acquaintances of Allie being used for their access to a car. Best of all is veteran Upright Citizens Brigade improviser and onetime SNL writer Neil Casey as neighbor Ebb, who makes the very regrettable decision to loan his bike to Allie.

Even Bliss and Rogers appear in a quick scene as a couple offering directions to Harper and Allie, and their inability to share any helpful information earns the derisive contempt of our heroines (nice touch that the filmmakers are listed in the end credits as Fucking Idiot 1 and Fucking Idiot 2). The directors refuse to take anything too seriously, but they also show enough affection for Harper and Allie that the viewer can comfortably laugh with the young women as much as at them. A look past the movie’s onslaught of absurd interactions reveals that Harper and Allie need and depend on each other just as much as they deserve what they get.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Co-directed and co-written by Martha Stephens (age 30) and Aaron Katz (age 32), “Land Ho!” premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics for theatrical distribution. A modest but picturesque blend of road movie, buddy comedy, and seize-the-day philosophizing, “Land Ho!” might be described as mumblecore for retirees, especially given the filmographies of its directors. Stephens and Katz may be youthful, but their decision to craft a story of two older men winding their way through Iceland on a pleasure vacation elevates the often couchbound parameters of mumblecore beyond the purely conversational.

“Land Ho!” is also the first movie released under the Gamechanger Films banner, a “for-profit film fund dedicated exclusively to financing narrative features directed by women,” and even though Stephens and Katz train their eyes on the fraternal bond of the two main male characters played by Paul Eenhoorn and Earl Lynn Nelson, the movie comments on the mysteries of male/female relationships amidst all the homosocial bonding. Eenhoorn’s Colin and Nelson’s Mitch were once married to sisters, and the men have remained friends beyond the lifespans of their marriages.

Colin’s reserved politeness positions him as the straight man to Mitch’s no-filter frankness. Much of the humor in “Land Ho!” is derived from the inappropriate comments uttered by Mitch, a libidinous epicure of the “dirty old man” variety. In one extended sequence that shapes a significant early section of the film, the fellows host Mitch’s young relative Ellen (Karrie Crouse, who previously worked with Katz in “Quiet City” and Stephens in “Passenger Pigeons” and “Pilgrim Song”) and her friend Janet (the warm and winsome Elizabeth McKee, who served as the production designer of “Pilgrim Song”). The filmmakers unravel the meeting of the unlikely quartet with enough tension to keep the audience slightly off-balance, and when Crouse and McKee exit the film, you’re sad to see them go.

While Katz and Stephens take complete advantage of the gorgeous Icelandic locations, the filmmakers weirdly, almost shockingly, overlook the residents. Nearly faceless rental car employees and restaurant staff are given a few inconsequential lines, and the only significant scene played by an Icelander involves a brief exchange in a club. Credited under his hip-hop moniker Emmsje Gauti, Gauti Peyr Masson plays Glow Stick Guy, a laidback fellow whose presumable altered state lends a humorous touch to a very short interaction that serves to set up a later visual callback to Glow Stick Guy’s chemiluminescent party favors.

Despite the dearth of native Icelanders, a few of the people met by Colin and Mitch on the road add some flavor to the proceedings. David Ehrlich’s claim that “The people Mitch and Colin encounter along the way are too perfectly premeditated, and the moments they share with them are never surprising” doesn’t account for Alice Olivia Clarke’s Nadine, a Canadian whose interest in Colin provides “Land Ho!” with one of its most rewarding and welcome exchanges. The finely tuned non-verbal communication shared by Colin, Nadine, and Mitch – who gallantly knows when three is a crowd – is one of the movie’s small joys.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Lovers of “instant” photography can vividly recall their whereabouts in 2008 when Polaroid announced the end of integral film production. Integral film, the description commonly applied to the white-bordered prints that sandwiched all the chemicals necessary for development in layers, is synonymous with both inventor Edwin Land and the once powerful company he originally founded in 1937. Filmmaker Grant Hamilton’s “Time Zero: The Last Year of Polaroid Film,” artfully frames the digital versus analog struggle in clear and persuasive arguments about the things we lose when established processes are replaced by promises of the new and improved.

The first sections of the movie recount the monumental innovations of Land, and a number of the man’s colleagues share recollections of the inventor’s remarkable work habits. While a different story could have been told solely about Land, “Time Zero” avoids outright hagiography by broadening its scope to engage the art as well as the science behind Polaroid’s legendary history. Hamilton uses Arthur C. Clarke’s line that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” and photographer Lou Noble, who has by his own estimate taken between four and five thousand Polaroid images, reiterates the oft-stated claim that Polaroid photography is akin to wizardry.

A significant portion of “Time Zero” explores the aesthetic and psychological appeal of Polaroid’s tactile, physical process, and some of the movie’s best moments belong to photographers like Tod Brilliant, who talks about how instant photography “transcends cultural boundaries.” Brilliant’s anecdote about presenting a Paris couple with the only photo they were going to see of themselves on the night of their wedding is one of several quicksilver illustrations of Polaroid’s unique immediacy and intimacy. Brilliant, Kim Van Groos, and many others make a mantra out of the power that resides in producing a physical artifact you can give to the subject just moments after exposure.

Graphic and industrial designers will salivate at any number of Hamilton’s sidebars. An interview with Polaroid art director Paul Giambarba, whose gorgeous, clean package design became one of the most distinctive brand identifiers during the company’s glory days, is a highlight. So too is the explanation by Barbara Hitchcock that Polaroid photography functions as a communication tool that “would make it easier for you, and everyone, to become an artist.” Not everyone, of course, likes the recognizable properties of a Polaroid photograph, but you won’t find any of those critics in Hamilton’s movie.

The final act of the film focuses on the efforts of the scientists and entrepreneurs affiliated with the Impossible Project, a labor of love undertaken by Florian Kaps and a few other dreamers who believed in a future for instant photography after Polaroid turned off their machines. Polaroid fanatics know that the Impossible Project is the only company in the world currently producing new film for the SX-70 and other automatic eject camera models, so the movie’s conclusion may be somewhat anticlimactic. That manufactured suspense, along with Hamilton’s decision to omit all but a passing mention of the still-popular-among-enthusiasts Land cameras that use peel-apart pack film, are minor complaints.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Tim Jenison, an inventor whose work in video editing solutions and computer graphics has made him a wealthy man, embarks on an odyssey to “paint a Vermeer” using an optical device Jenison believes might have been similar to something theoretically available to the Dutch master. The result of Jenison’s obsessive quest is less interesting than the lengths to which he goes in the process. “Tim’s Vermeer,” the story of Jenison’s grand experiment, is captured by magic/comedy tricksters and skeptics Penn and Teller. Penn Jillette provides on-camera commentary while silent partner Teller makes his feature debut as director. Appreciators of great painting might take issue with the suggestion that Vermeer “cheated,” but the film does raise some thought-provoking ideas concerning the intersection between art and technology.

One of the movie’s most vocal critics is Jonathan Jones, who wrote about “Tim’s Vermeer” in “The Guardian.” Jones took the position that Teller had made “an art film for philistines,” and suggested that, ironically, the “failure of Jenison’s device to create any of the power of a real painting by Vermeer puts all these theories about painting and the camera obscura and ‘secret knowledge’ in their place.” Reading the commentary of Jones causes one to speculate that the documentary might have been richer had some respectable voices of dissent been allowed a measure of screen time. Instead, Teller trains his camera firmly on the progress of Jenison as a lavish recreation of the objects and elements depicted in Vermeer’s “The Music Lesson” (or “Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman”) is assembled.

The strongest point made by Jones reminds us that the movie never presents images of the Vermeer original, but instead relies on inherently inferior and misleading reproductions of “The Music Lesson.” A short section of the movie is devoted to the unsuccessful efforts of the filmmakers to photograph the painting, which is held privately in London by the British royal family. Jenison is ultimately granted a short personal audience with the piece, but viewers are asked, somewhat anticlimactically, to accept his breathless descriptions.

Many viewers will find it entirely possible that critics like Jones overstate the case against Jenison. “Tim’s Vermeer” is devoted to technological possibility at the expense of deeper conversation and contemplation of the “mystery of history” presented by Vermeer’s uncanny and unfathomable talent. Undoubtedly, even if Teller had devoted equal time to explorations of Vermeer by the artist’s greatest scholars, the central premise of Jenison’s experiment would have most likely remained the same.

Teller includes the testimony of British artist David Hockney, whose 2001 book “Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Techniques of the Old Masters” suggested that the use of camera obscura and optical assist techniques advanced photorealism in painting. Philip Steadman, another supporter of the optical assist theories, also appears in “Tim’s Vermeer.” Steadman’s “Vermeer’s Camera: Uncovering the Truth Behind the Masterpieces” was published the same year as Hockney’s “Secret Knowledge.” The principal argument opposing Jenison, Hockney, and Steadman raises the “so what?” question and makes the emphatic claim that Vermeer’s genius resides not in the possibility that some kind of mirror allowed him to “copy” reality but rather in the authenticity and singularity of his transcendent vision.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Father James Lavelle (Brendan Gleeson) receives the startling news in confession that he is to be murdered in one week – not for anything Lavelle has or has not done, but because the damaged soul on the other side of the sliding lattice insists that “There’s no point in killing a bad priest, but killing a good one… That’d be a shock.” The unseen man who condemns Lavelle is known to the clergyman but not to the viewer, a tactic that allows writer-director John Michael McDonagh to trot out a gallery of weirdoes, malcontents, non-believers, adulterers, and abusers functioning as potential suspects while Lavelle “puts his house in order” and the hours tick by.

“Calvary” is the second screen collaboration between McDonagh and Gleeson, and the veteran actor provides a measure of stability and calm in a movie that regularly shifts from black comedy to serious contemplation. McDonagh’s ambitions are abundant, but the filmmaker is happy to apply the hammer when a scalpel might have been more effective. Lavelle, who opts not to take any real precautions against his imminent demise, is burdened by the weight of the widespread sexual abuse and rape of vulnerable minors, but as David Edelstein notes, the scope of charges could be expanded to include the “corruption, impotence, and general irrelevance of the Catholic Church.”

Lavelle is by most accounts a good and decent man. We learn that he joined the priesthood after the death of his wife, leaving their young daughter (played as a grown-up by Kelly Reilly) with the devastating feeling that she’d lost both her parents. Reilly’s Fiona, visiting her dad’s village following a suicide attempt, brings a much-needed female perspective to “Calvary.” The only other women to interact with Lavelle are a grieving widow and a local cheating on her spouse. McDonagh’s decision to give Lavelle a daughter – and the marriage and sexual knowledge of his former life – humanizes the friar by distancing him from the “celibates” who preyed on children and by suggesting to the community members that Lavelle is “one of them.”

There is something off-balance, however, about the way in which McDonagh imagines Lavelle going about his business after someone he knows makes a threat against his life. Surely, audience members are being invited to size up the possible killer-to-be, and many will wonder why Lavelle doesn’t bother to confront him earlier. McDonagh, in an interview with Helen O’Hara, acknowledges that he set out to “kind of rip off the Hitchcock ‘I Confess’ structure” as well as utilize a “Who’s going to do it?” variation on Agatha Christie-style formula.

In his somewhat anachronistic soutane, Lavelle defies the stereotype of the contemporary Catholic priest, and McDonagh has claimed that the stark costume calls to mind both the iconographic look of figures in Sergio Leone films and the “Samurai warrior putting their armour on every day to go out to battle the forces of darkness.” In the end, and especially in the movie’s grim climax, “Calvary” fails to attain the level of insight and transcendence that might have been present in a story with richer characterizations among the supporting cast and fewer manipulations by the filmmaker. McDonagh’s fascination with sinners, however, never lacks for color.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

In 2005, “Sin City” exploited the possibilities of green screen in a manner that felt fresh and exciting, marrying computer generated imagery to the performances of Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s game cast. Faithfully replicating the stylized, monochromatic panels of Miller’s cult comic book series, the film’s design was exciting and novel. At the time, I wrote “Seldom has a movie recreated the particular experience of reading comic books,” and compared to most of the films based on graphic fiction, only Edgar Wright’s “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” has since surpassed the cinematic representation of the comic medium’s unique properties explored in the original “Sin City.”

What a huge disappointment, then, to discover that the anticipated sequel is such a deflating and dispiriting letdown. Titled “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For” and using Miller’s yarn of the same name as one of its principal storylines, the follow-up, as Nathan Rabin argues in his “Dissolve” commentary, “makes its predecessor seem much worse by association” and “calls into question whether ‘Sin City’ was any good at all, or whether the novelty of its visuals and storytelling merely masked a howling nothingness at its core.” Rabin’s critical annihilation of “A Dame to Kill For” lands squarely on what he sees as the movie’s hatefulness and stupidity, but plenty of fuel could also be added to the pyre regarding the leaden pacing and numbing repetitiveness.

Miller’s hard-boiled neo-noir voiceover, meant to pay homage to the slang-infused tough talk of classic pulp detective and crime fiction, is delivered without a single hint of humor or self-awareness, and the result is a tone deaf litany of misogynist cliches presumably reflective of Miller’s own regressive attitudes about gender. Abandon all hope that the filmmakers could be sophisticated enough to use the pulp format to deconstruct chauvinistic attitudes that fail to account for women as real human beings. The use of classic “narrating I” belongs exclusively to the men until late in the game, when Jessica Alba’s haunted stripper Nancy — following some painful self-mutilation — goes on a revenge-fueled murder spree.

That Nancy’s inner thoughts are expressed to the audience at all is something of a surprise. That those thoughts are only shared once Nancy begins behaving like Mickey Rourke’s violence-prone behemoth Marv is less suprising. From returning veterans like Alba, Rosario Dawson, and Jaime King to new recruits such as Lady Gaga, Jamie Chung (replacing Devon Aoki as Miho), and Juno Temple, Rodriguez and Miller include a significant number of women in the cast. The women of Basin City, however, exist only in positions subordinate to or dependent upon the men who aim to protect them — unless, of course, they are emasculating punishers.

The most important woman in “A Dame to Kill For” is Eva Green’s femme fatale Ava Lord, a one-time lover of the Marv-esque Dwight (Josh Brolin). Ava’s reappearance in Dwight’s life calls up old demons he had hoped to keep at bay, and the outcome of their entanglement can be guessed even if one has no previous experience with Miller’s source material. Green somehow manages to rise above the phony dialogue, a feat unrealized by Brolin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Powers Booth, and a barely present Bruce Willis. She almost looks like she is capable of having fun in a universe where that concept seems forbidden by every law of (un)civil society and human nature.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Probably best known in America as the screenwriter of Ji-woon Kim’s terrifying “I Saw the Devil,” Hoon-jung Park closely examines classic and contemporary gangster genre hallmarks in the smart and entertaining “New World.” The Korean filmmaker’s second feature as director, “New World” stylishly blends together key elements of Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s “Internal Affairs” (and Martin Scorsese’s sinewy, Best Picture-winning American remake “The Departed”) with Johnnie To’s “Drug War.” Most noticeably, the grand gestures and the tragic hero’s journey of “The Godfather,” which Park claims to have studied “dozens of times,” are paid direct and loving tribute.

One of the most common devices in the contemporary thriller is the mole, and Park places undercover cop Ja-sung (Jung-jae Lee) in the eye of the hurricane. Ja-sung’s loyalties and nerve are tested as he rises through the ranks of the octopus-armed Goldmoon front, balancing his commitment to police boss and handler Kang (the shaggy, durable Min-sik Choi) with the constant pressure to impress the board of crime lords monitoring Ja-sung’s devotion to their operation. All the while, Ja-sung’s very life depends on hiding his true identity in a world where skepticism and paranoia are standard procedure. Just as he did in the “I Saw the Devil” script, Park sinks his teeth into the question of whether it takes a monster to catch a monster.

Park studies the minutiae surrounding the procedures for succession when a death leaves a power vacuum in the crime syndicate, and the tight-lipped Ja-sung’s quiet stoicism contrasts with the flamboyance and unpredictability of extrovert Jung Chung (Jung-min Hwang), a deeply dangerous man with whom Ja-sung has spent countless hours and forged an unlikely friendship. The director chooses not to depict Ja-sung’s moral struggle through any of his virtually non-existent after-work relationships. Instead, Park expects the viewer to question Ja-sung’s allegiances along with Kang and Jung Chung, and the tactic builds the necessary level of ambiguity surrounding the question of what “side,” if any, Ja-sung has chosen or will choose.

Another parallel to “I Saw the Devil” materializes in the grisly violence, and although the amount of onscreen mayhem accounts for a smaller total of the running time than the horrors depicted in Kim’s 2010 film, Park stages the shooting, stabbing, and bludgeoning with matter-of-fact calculation that more sensitive viewers will find difficult to stomach (hand-to-hand combat junkies, however, will thrill to a Crazy 88-style parking garage melee that concludes with a nasty, bird’s eye view, elevator knife fight). With its emphasis on sudden death and the posturing of characters defined by competitive machismo, the gangster genre has typically lacked for strong female figures. Park skips the moll entirely, but the movie’s only two significant women are confined to secondary roles, and both are placed in harm’s way.

Several critics have observed that “New World” fails to innovate – or worse, simply recycles the gangster film’s most familiar beats – but an equally compelling argument could be made in favor of the confident way in which Park honors the traditions and conventions of the genre. Additionally, “New World” looks great, from the vivid photography of frequent Chan-wook Park collaborator Chung-hoon Chung to the elegant costume design of Sang-kyung Cho. The smartly tailored suits worn by the gangsters will leave the fashion-conscious out of breath, especially when those handsome outfits get spattered with blood.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

“Boyhood,” Richard Linkater’s twelve-years-in-the-making adventure that follows the lives of a familial quartet, carries in its DNA one of the Texas auteur’s most durable paradoxes: the easygoing, everyday, and quotidian markers of cyclical middle class life onscreen contrast sharply with the vision, commitment, and work ethic that Linklater applies to his profession. From the fascinating and entertaining connect-the-dots vignettes that propel “Slacker” to the unfolding poignancy and brilliance of the “Before” series, Linklater’s continued interest and investment in chronicling the deliberately uneventful routines, intimate conversations, observational silences, and tiny epiphanies experienced by his characters make “Boyhood” one of the year’s most vital movies.

The lengthy production period undertaken by the intrepid cast and crew is nearly without precedent in mainstream fictional narrative cinema, although comparisons have been made to Francois Truffaut’s two-decade spanning Antoine Doinel series of five films (featuring the character played by Jean-Pierre Leaud). Rumors of Stanley Kubrick hiring a young actor and shooting material for a month at a time every few years turned out to be false. In the non-fiction realm, Michael Apted’s remarkable “Up” series continues to check in every seven years with a core group of participants who were children when the first installment, directed by Paul Almond, debuted in 1964.

While outliers like Kenneth Turan have employed apophasis to “rain on the parade” of the movie’s almost universal acclaim, the recent film world discussion of “Boyhood” was assessed by Indiewire’s Sam Adams in a piece called “Why the Unanimous Praise for Boyhood Is Bad for Film Criticism – and for Boyhood” that called attention to issues that may not have occurred to Linklater as he designed, altered, shaped, and nurtured the project for more than a decade. Adams collects the varying thoughts of Armond White, Rebecca Cusey, Mark Judge, and Rebecca Mead to summarize the complexities of the movie’s polarizing affect. Where some see cliché, banality, and a kind of “liberal conditioning” that allow audience members to validate their privilege, others will point to a Bressonian transcendence in the movie’s quiet concerns.

For many, the sight of Ellar Coltrane aging from six to eighteen in the course of the movie’s 164 minute running time will be more than enough to put a lump in the throat. Alongside Lorelei Linklater, who plays sister Samantha and whose transformation is just as emotionally concussive, Coltrane reacts and responds to the scenarios from the perspective allowed by his chronological age at any given point in time (not unlike the evolving concerns acted by Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint as they grew up throughout the “Harry Potter” movies). Lorelei Linklater has received a fraction of the attention enjoyed by Coltrane, but she is every bit as valuable to the film. One imagines that a companion piece titled “Girlhood” could be equally compelling.

The movie’s most deeply felt thematic exploration, however, emerges not from the remarkable changes that often occur when a single cut reveals the startling growth and maturation of the children, but rather through Linklater’s portrait of parenthood. While Ethan Hawke’s Mason, Sr. comes and goes, seemingly at his own pace and convenience, into the lives of his children, Patricia Arquette’s Olivia represents the glorious, frustrating peaks and valleys of trying to raise a daughter and a son the best that you can without the full support and presence of a committed partner. Others, including Kyle Buchanan, have suggested that the movie could just as easily be titled “Motherhood,” and Wesley Morris argues that the film contains “the most poignant depiction of a single mother I can think of.” Whether one identifies primarily with the kids or the adults, growing up is hard to do, but watching your children grow up might be harder.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The whopping financial success of “Guardians of the Galaxy” portends many eventualities, but chief among them is the seemingly bottomless desire of the moviegoing public for summery, blockbuster-budgeted superhero tentpoles. If Indiewire’s Kevin Jagernauth is correct, the “tipping point” may be in sight, with “30 comic book movies from major studios hitting theaters in the next six years.” In his August 7 post, Jagernauth argues that it is simply not possible for all nine of the planned 2017 superhero films to meet with box office success, and the author goes on to suggest that the genre will need to “change it up” to avoid exhausting viewers with tired and formulaic stories.

Director James Gunn’s new movie, a swashbuckling sci-fi adventure that liberally borrows from “Star Wars,” “Star Trek,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and Marvel’s own “The Avengers,” surprised many by turning out to be a critical and commercial hit. Marvel Studios president and architect Kevin Feige’s streak toward world domination remains intact, and we can expect the company to make a lot more hay while the sun shines. Gunn’s vision, based mainly on the 2008 “Guardians” iteration created by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, follows the reversals of fortune experienced by Peter “Star-Lord” Quill (Chris Pratt) and the unlikely gang of interstellar misfits who follow him through gorgeous starscapes that look like the paintings of John Berkey and Chris Foss come to life.

Chasing a powerful and dangerous MacGuffin orb related to the Tesseract, Quill meets green-skinned assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana), genetically modified organism Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) and Rocket’s leaf-bearing sidekick Groot (Vin Diesel). Later, vengeance-seeking, muscle-bound literalist Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista) rounds out the collective. Stuffed with non-stop wisecracks and what feels like a contest to fit in as many variations on calling one another idiots as (in)humanly possible, “Guardians” bathes and basks in its self-aware irreverence. References to Jackson Pollock, “Footloose,” Alyssa Milano, Ranger Rick, “The Giving Tree,” and John Stamos fly by as quickly as the vintage pop radio staples on Quill’s “Awesome Mix Vol. 1.”

Despite the emotional enthusiasm of fanboys and fangirls, the movie is far from perfect. Next to Joss Whedon’s superior translation of “The Avengers,” Gunn and Nicole Perlman’s script fails to deliver a compelling and complex antagonist to keep our heroes on their toes. Thanos (an uncredited, motion-captured Josh Brolin) barely appears. Benicio del Toro’s Taneleer “The Collector” Tivan is fright-wigged comic relief. And Lee Pace’s Kree baddie Ronan the Accuser –the movie’s primary villain – is far removed from the elegance, wit, and charm of Tom Hiddleston’s memorable take on Loki. The best of the bunch is Michael Rooker’s blue pirate Yondu Udonta, whose whistle-controlled arrow competes with Rocket’s heavy blaster for coolest “Guardians” weapon.

Additionally, “Guardians of the Galaxy” insists on maintaining the bummer belief that even in other solar systems it’s a man’s world. Fulfilling the Smurfette Principle as the team’s lone female, Gamora gets the Black Widow slot, minus any scene as strong as the tables-turning interrogation of Loki. Even though she is missing from much of the merchandising, Gamora proves a formidable fighter. She may also be the smartest of the Guardians, although given the crew’s lack of brainpower, that’s not saying much. Recently, Amanda Marcotte staked out a pro-Gamora position. Manohla Dargis asserts that Gamora escapes Trinity Syndrome, but the point is debatable. Certainly Saldana brings much to the character, and Gunn and Perlman handle her more comprehensively than any of the other female characters, including Karen Gillan’s Nebula, Glenn Close’s Nova Prime, Ophelia Lovibond’s Carina, Melia Kreiling’s Bereet, and Laura Haddock’s Meredith Quill.