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Writer-director Brian Helgeland delivers his best movie with “42,” a sharp, earnest tale about Jackie Robinson’s contributions to Major League Baseball. Although Robinson was an outstanding player who appeared in six consecutive All-Star Games, he is best remembered as the man who broke the color barrier. In “42,” Helgeland deftly tells the story of Robinson’s signing, as well as the pressure both he and Rickey faced once the color barrier was broken.
For several of director Czubek’s subjects, vulnerability is their overriding concern. This is never more present than in Sarah McKinley’s case. A very young, slender mother—recently widowed by a cancer-ridden husband—she presides alone over a desolate 2,000 acre spread in Blanchard, Oklahoma, wide-eyed over the immensity of her loneliness. With one hand around her weapon and another around the baby, she eyes the rubble from a recent break-in. She stood her ground and shot the intruder dead. Now she must live with the psychic consequences of her actions.
What’s a romantic comedy to do when it is neither romantic nor comedic? When that film is “Admission,” it plunges forward drunkenly, hoping to overcome its inadequacies with goodwill created by the cast. Thankfully for director Paul Weitz (“American Pie,” “Little Fockers”) that cast contains Tina Fey, Paul Rudd and Lily Tomlin, a group that would make a line at the post office more appealing.
“The Lone Ranger” debuted in theaters in time for the July 4 holiday, and while Johnny Depp’s decision to play Tonto—a fictional Native sidekick to the white cowboy—has drawn attention and criticism, the film’s release means that all things Native are unusually relevant—and marketable. And that can be a good, bad, and very ugly thing, all at once. Tonto action figures are already being sold as “Native American warrior spirit” caricatures. The Lego Corporation is pushing its “Comanche Camp” toys. And Subway is hawking plastic soft drink containers with Tonto snapshots.
How could a character so admired, so charismatic, become so thoroughly unappealing quite so fast? In reality, though, the wheels of Don Draper’s downward spiral have been churning slowly since the very beginning of the series. What made season six immediately different was that, for the very first time, we weren’t really on Don’s side. Prior to this season, even within the throws of his most despicable past deeds-- the lies, the cheating, the arrogance-- Don has remained an appealing anti-hero that most viewers stood by, loved, and even defended.
Americans have long celebrated justice and freedom, but director Eugene Jarecki’s “The House I Live In” forces viewers to look closely at political policies that have turned the nation into the No. 1 jailer in the world. As Jarecki (“Why We Fight,” “Freakonomics”) points out in the documentary, the U.S. contains 25 percent of the world’s prisoners despite possessing only 5 percent of its population.
It’s amusing to watch Steve Carrell and Steve Buscemi strut around in jeweled costumes, tossing their lion-mane hair to and fro. It’s also funny to watch Jim Carrey play an over-the-top Criss Angel wannabe. Sadly, these are the only highlights in “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone,” a slow, humdrum comedy that would have worked better as a 10-minute sketch than a feature film. Because the performers are charismatic, director Don Scardino is able to milk a few laughs from the tepid, committee-written screenplay, but that’s hardly an endorsement.
Revealing secret symbols or transforming a flat plane into a 3-dimensional world, anamorphosis activates a sudden shift or rupture in its impression on the spectator. Whereas perspective seeks to systematize an image of the known world for the benefit of the human eye, anamorphosis “leads the eye slowly through incomprehension and then offers a resolution.”