Everything Must Go
(Starring Will Ferrell, Michael Pena, Rebecca Hall, Laura Dern)
One of the nicest things Hollywood occasionally does is allow actors to stretch. In the humane comedy Everything Must Go, Will Ferrell takes a more dramatic approach to his famous jerk-wad characters (Anchorman, Talladega Nights). In truth, the shift is more in tone” Ferrell is still unpleasant here”but it's enough to make an enjoyable little film.
Ferrell is an inveterate suburban alcoholic. For years, his addiction hasn't affected his success in corporate sales. However, a nasty bender at a convention gets him fi red and separated from his wife. She leaves all his possessions on their lawn. At first, Ferrell is belligerent; he intends to live in his front yard. But frank, tough love and support from his friends (Pena, Hall, Dern) start to break down the drunk's stubbornness.
Comedic performers like Ferrell are often also secretly competent dramatic actors (as Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, and Tom Hanks have proven.) In fact, Everything Must Go could've easily played like a typical Ferrell boob-fest. However, the film takes a quieter, more empathetic approach, allowing Ferrell to dial down
the ass-fueled bravado. And even though there are a couple unbelievable coincidences, and some parts of the story seem short-shifted, Everything Must Go steers clear of the more obvious clichés.
In short, it's a nice but not altogether earth-shattering career move for Ferrell. For audiences, it's a charming little tale about an alcoholic butthead at a crossroads in his life.
Winter in Wartime
(Starring Martjin Lakemeier, Raymond Thiry, Jamie Campbell Bower, Melody Klaver)
This Dutch WWII drama is visually stark and tense. It's also somewhat unbelievable and inconsistent. The facts here may be loosely based on a true story, but it feels like the truth morphed over time in the minds of the people involved.
The young teenager Lakemeier is the son of Thiry, the kowtowing mayor of a small Dutch town overrun by Nazis. The clumsy kid is nonplussed by his father's sly, deferential treatment of the SS troops in order to keep the starving berg peaceful. Lakemeier is both protected by his father's position and aided by his own sneakiness;
he and his pals steal Nazi artifacts. So, when given a task behind enemy lines, the boy jumps at the chance. While completing his covert operation, Lakemeier fi nds an injured British soldier (Campbell Bower) and sets to protect him.
Can you already sense there is a lot going on in the fi lm? Yet most of this tale feels like a mash-up of other, much better WWII coming-of-age fi lms. Noble Lakemeier is good, but he cannot hold together a story where the dad is both wimpy and sneaky, and the Nazis vacillate between vicious and kind. Soon, the sullen sister is asked for help, the Nazis start torturing poor old dad, and then it all devolves into a ridiculous chase sequence. By that point, Winter in Wartime has lost us all in the woods around that little Dutch village.
Thor
(Starring Chris Hemsworth,Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston)
It's probably not a thunderous shock that Thor comes with a heaping helping of Nordic cheese. What else can we expect from a hammer-wielding superhero linking Marvel comics back to the Viking godhead? This campy flick contains a little Xanadu and some He-Man. However, director Kenneth Branagh also brings a hint of Shakespeare as well as some humor that saves this schlocky tale.
Drop-dead sexy Hemsworth (Star Trek) is Thor, the hotheaded son of Odin (Hopkins). Both men are leaders of an alien race who have perfected travel by wormhole, inspiring worship by ancient Celtic populations. After an attack on their planet by some ice giant aliens, Thor goes vigilante, and dad banishes his son to Earth. In exile, Thor meets the sexy scientist Portman.
It's nigh impossible to inject any reality into this silly stuff. Nor is there much chance for a deep, meaningful story, because the premise”based on the classic Stan Lee work”is just too goofy. Branagh and his actors take a dual approach, committing to the melodrama with ham-fi sted gravitas and finding the small bits of humor. The special effects vary in quality; there's just no way to make Thor's Valhalla-like homeland, and “rainbow bridge” time travel not look a little gay-fabulous. Worst of all, the story's timeline doesn't make any sense whatsoever. However, if you can turn off the logical, quality-obsessed side of your brain for two hours, you might enjoy getting hammered.
