Tropic Cinema Blends New Films With Worthy Holdovers
Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades
Film Critic, Cooke Communications
New films keep coming out faster than we can see some
already in theaters. Tropic does an admirable job of blending new with
already-there fare.
New this week is “Welcome to Me,” a great tribute to
narcissism. Kristen Wiig plays Alice, a wacky woman who wins the lottery and
uses the money to buy her own TV talk show, imagining herself an Oprah-like
personality. Chicago Sun-Times observes, “It's a tricky business playing
someone who is
mentally ill and perhaps should be confined for observation,
especially in a dark comedy. Wiig manages to make Alice funny as hell,
endearing, sad, and sometimes a little frightening.” And Globe and Mail adds
that it’s “an unsettling comedy, and I mean that in the best possible way.”
“The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And
Disappeared” is a Swedish comedy about, well, a hundred-year-old man who skips
out on his birthday party and runs off with a suitcase of ill-gotten money. As
Variety puts it, “Like a cross between Forrest Gump and a Jonathan Winters
character, this Swedish centenarian bumbles his way through international
events.” And SSG Syndicate calls it “irreverent and filled with slapstick … an
absurdist comic fable.”
Nominated for an Academy Award, “Clouds of Sils Maria” gives
us Maria (Juliette Binoche), an actress at the peak of her career who is asked
to perform a revival of the play that made her famous
some twenty years
earlier. But is she being humiliated by this role-switching maneuver? Sky
Movies says, “Binoche is reliably good but it’s Kristen Stewart who genuinely
surprises, delivering a sexually-charged portrait of a girl who’s youthfully
vulnerable at one moment and a whipsmart mobile-phone juggling fixer the next.”
And Guardian notes, “It’s mature, complex and talky -- Bergmanesque.”
Moving to Tropic Screens is “The Age of Adaline,” a strange
tale about a woman (Blake Lively) who does not age. Daily Telegraph calls it “a
quaintly disarming fairy tale.” And Times says, “This magical-realist
meditation on mortality is untroubled by logic….”
Holding over is “Far From Madding Crowd,” a steamy version
of Thomas Hardy’s novel about a country heiress who loves unwisely. Salt Lake Tribune says, “Carey Mulligan
breathes life into Bathsheba, in a performance that highlights the character's
passion without treating her like a flighty, immature girl.” And Minneapolis
Star Tribune tells us, “It’s beautifully old and atmospheric without feeling
dated.”
Still proving it’s worth, “Woman in Gold” holds over too.
Here a woman (Dame Helen Mirren) sues the Austrian government for the return of
a painting stolen by the Nazis. The Mercury describes it as “one of those films
that might not challenge you too much with an artful story, but still appeals
on some deeper emotional level.” And Sydney Morning News sums up: “It’s an
underdog story tailor-made for the movies, devoid of surprises but touching all
the same.”
Almost like a wedding with something old, something new,
something etc.
srhoades@aol.com
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