Film Shorts: Valley Cinemas, GCCL, The Worx

Two new offerings make their debut at the Valley Cinemas this week. Zoolander No. 2 is a film that didn’t need to exist – except for once existing already previously in 2001 when the first film came out. That satire on the fashion industry was so popular on video that many years later carrying on with the characters seemed like a profitable idea.

As heavily promoted in the media as Deadpool, Zoolander No. 2 is silly and a whole lot dumber, and not just because the two male models at the center of the contrived and barely comprehensible tale are as dumb as dirt. In addition, the film suffers from the curse of Saturday Night Live – two former cast members appear and tarnish the already blighted film’s humorless affect with a runway’s worth of over-strutting.

Deadpool, on the other hand, is actually funny. Based on a Marvel comics character few outside a fantasy convention have heard of, what seems like years of pre-publicity and near constant manipulation of the media and through them the minds of teenagers, the film came into existence. Crude, vulgar, violent, and hilarious, it’s an origin story with an R rating. Ryan Reynolds plays Deadpool, a former mercenary whose treatment for an illness leaves him both deformed and imbued with rapid healing powers. The bulk of the film concerns DP fighting on a freeway bridge with the forces that made him this way, as he severs heads and blows up things. The distinguishing characteristic of the film, however, is that it breaks through the fourth wall of the screen. This detachment from the genre manifests itself as talking to the camera and numerous jokes at the expense of the film and comic book stories, from the credits to the asides, to even a joke about Ryan Reynolds. The film is a juggernaut and anyone with demurrals is left dead in the water, but you won’t hear one here. Stay through all the credits for some amusing codas.

Over at the Glasgow City-County Library (408 3rd Ave S, 228-2731), we have the following (selected by Parker Kulczyk): The King’s Speech, The Book of Eli, Inception, The Hobbit 1, 2, and 3, and Blade Runner. The first is a dull, Oscar-winning coffee table movie that flatters America’s misplaced obsession with British royalty, while the second is a boring, confusing post-Apocalypse story with Denzel Washington. The others are something else.

There’s a theory going around that Christopher Nolan doesn’t know how to edit scenes. You wouldn’t be able to tell, really, from Inception, his science fiction film about a team that invades dreams for profit. The premise allows the director to leap from one mind-blowing sequence to another, especially in a climax that represents the height of special effects. Well cast, Inception is also that unusual thing, a thoughtful big action picture from Hollywood.

Peter Jackson, on the other hand, was criticized for going to the J. R. R. Tolkien well once – or rather three more times – too often. Still, the library now gives local Tolkien fanatics a chance to binge on The Hobbit, the one book divided by Jackson into a trilogy. And this being a Peter Jackson production, the movies are longer than their screen representation, and the discs are loaded with extras.

Blade Runner had the misfortune to come out the same year as E. T. : The Extraterrestrial, a happy kids film that buried the thinking man’s science fiction tale. Blade Runner is a beautiful combination of action, music, futurism, climate change protest, and romance, with great performances by Harrison Ford as the future’s version of a private eye, Rutger Hauer as his nemesis, and Daryl Hannah as a gymnastical robot. Sink into this dystopian vision, and then decide if there really needs to be a sequel, which is planned for 2018.

At the Worx (700 1/2 1st Ave N, 228-4474) come this week’s helpings of DVD and Blu-Ray, including The Good Dinosaur, Spotlight, and Knock, Knock.

The Good Dinosaur is a happy kids animated film, which tells the same story that almost every Hollywood animated feature tells – a kid surrogate goes on a trip with a sidekick and “learns something.” The good thing about the DVD release is that the parent can turn it on and walk away, unlike in a theater where they may well question the point of reproduction.

Knock, Knock is an effective horror film about a middle class guy played by Keanu Reeves who is terrorized by two young women. Horror maestro Eli Roth is adapting a cheap drive-in movie from 1977 called Death Game, which starred Coleen Camp as one of the two girls – she is a co-producer here. It’s in that small genre that includes Funny Games and Hard Candy, and is funny, scary, and unnerving.

Spotlight now gives the home viewer a chance to decide if it’s the best picture of the year – or if they prefer Mad Max or The Revenant. Spotlight tells the story of the Boston Globe reportorial team that exposed systemic suppression of pedophile cases in the Catholic Church. The tale is soberly told – there are no exploitative scenes of abuse, no romance subplots among the reporters, and no dramatic meetings in parking garages. Instead there are meetings and paper shufflings, and a condensed but accurate account of the case, which is more horrific for lacking the usual clichés. The film also features an excellent ensemble that includes Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Stanley Tucci, Rachel McAdams, and Mad Men’s John Slattery.