On DVD/Blu-ray: THE GUEST (2014); FALCON RISING (2014); and I ORIGINS (2014)

THE GUEST
(US/UK - 2014)

The terrific YOU'RE NEXT (2013) earned some significant critical acclaim even outside the usual insulated and self-congratulatory horror circles and showed that indie filmmaker Adam Wingard and screenwriting partner Simon Barrett were ready to take things to the next level. The film didn't do very well commercially as mainstream audiences were perhaps a bit fatigued with home-invasion thrillers, but it's found a major cult following on DVD and Netflix streaming. Wingard and Barrett are part of the horror hipster collective that also includes their buddies and V/H/S franchise collaborators Joe Swanberg and Ti West (Wingard and Barrett starred in the horribly self-indulgent 24 EXPOSURES, a recent film by the prolific Swanberg. who also co-starred in YOU'RE NEXT), but as with YOU'RE NEXT, THE GUEST demonstrates that Wingard and Barrett are just as skillfully adept at making smart and entertaining thriller as they are the would-be auteurist circle-jerk home movies they get roped into by their friends. THE GUEST had an even tougher time in theaters than YOU'RE NEXT when distributor Picturehouse--a relaunch of the short-lived '00s indie distributor--cancelled their plans to roll it out nationwide (it was their only 2014 release) and instead halted THE GUEST's run on a mere 53 screens at its widest release for a gross of just $330,000. It deserved better and it's another one of those films that, had it been released ten years ago, would've easily become a huge word-of-mouth sleeper hit and likely launched the big-screen career of former DOWNTON ABBEY co-star Dan Stevens.

Sporting a flawless American accent, the British Stevens (also seen recently opposite Liam Neeson in the underrated A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES) is David, recently discharged from the military and paying a visit to the mourning family of his fallen friend Caleb. Caleb's family--mom Laura (Sheila Kelley), dad Spencer (Leland Orser), 20-year-old sister Anna (Maika Monroe), and teenage brother Luke (Brendan Meyer)--are dealing with his death in their own ways when David arrives to grant Caleb's final wish to tell each of them that he loved them very much. Touched by the extent of David's respect for their son by following through on his promise to honor Caleb's request, Laura and Spencer invite him to stay with them as long as he needs. David repays their kindness by helping out with some problems, whether it's handling some bullies making Luke's life hell, kicking some troublemakers out of a party thrown by Anna's friends, or just being a calming, comforting presence in a home fraught with tension. But something seems off about David, even with his story seemingly checking out and his being clearly visible in one of Laura's photos of Caleb's Special Forces unit in Iraq. To say any more about where the story heads would spoil the surprises THE GUEST has to offer (I haven't even mentioned the involvement of character actor Lance Reddick and an almost unrecognizable Ethan Embry), but with its twisty plot that expertly balances dark comedy and odd bits of humor (note the GENERAL HOSPITAL references in the family names) with grim and shocking dramatic turns, its unexpected character development (Brittany Murphy lookalike Monroe is quite good at playing Anna's very believable maturation from one who is disaffected and can't even to being the first to see through David's ruse and attempt to do something about it), and its killer John Carpenter-esque score by Steve Moore (one half of American synth-rock duo Zombi), it's one of the most giddily entertaining genre pieces in ages, and with the exception of THE IMMIGRANT, perhaps the best film of 2014 that nobody saw. Best of all is Stevens, whose brilliant performance brings to mind the smiling sincerity masking the tightly-coiled, ticking time-bomb menace that Terry O'Quinn brought to the 1987 classic THE STEPFATHER. Wingard admirably wastes absolutely no time in getting THE GUEST off and running, and it rapidly unfolds with all the appeal of a catchy song that's immediately got you hooked. This one should've been big, but like YOU'RE NEXT, it had to wait to be discovered. (R, 100 mins)



FALCON RISING
(US/Germany - 2014)

The busy Michael Jai White divides his time between DTV actioners and the Tyler Perry universe, starring in the Perry-produced WHY DID I GET MARRIED? TV spinoff FOR BETTER OR WORSE, a show that started on TBS but is now about to air its sixth season on OWN. For many years, White was best known for the title roles in the HBO movie TYSON (1995) and the big-screen SPAWN (1997), but his place in pop culture history would eventually be cemented by the 2009 cult classic BLACK DYNAMITE, a dead-on, labor-of-love spoof of blaxploitation films that White also wrote and shepherded every step of the way to its completion. BLACK DYNAMITE only received a limited theatrical release, but it's gone on to become one of the most revered and quotable comedies--at least with hardcore movie nerds--of the last several years, and in that sense, it's surprising that White, who's absolutely perfect as Black Dynamite, hasn't gone on to bigger things. White's no stranger to the world of DTV action, and his films have generally been a cut above the norm, whether he's working for Isaac Florentine in UNDISPUTED II: LAST MAN STANDING (2006), headlining the bone-crushing and bloody BLOOD AND BONE (2009), or directing himself in NEVER BACK DOWN 2: THE BEATDOWN (2011). Like Florentine--another DTV action figure who should theoretically be getting better mainstream offers--it may just be that White prefers the relative freedom that the world of low-budget action allows. Florentine is one of the producers of White's latest, FALCON RISING, which actually made it into a few theaters in September courtesy of Freestyle Releasing. It's the tentative beginning to what producers Shahar & Etchie Stroh of Moonstone Entertainment have christened the "Codename: Falcon" franchise, with White as former Marine-turned-government Black Ops agent John "Falcon" Chapman.

As FALCON RISING opens, a suicidal Chapman, haunted by his Iraq War memories, is playing Russian Roulette before heading to the liquor store, where he of course thwarts a robbery. When his humanitarian aid worker sister Cindy (Laila Ali, Muhammad's youngest daughter) is brutally beaten and left for dead in the "Favela" slums of Rio, Chapman heads to the Rio de Janeiro capital where his old war buddy Manny (Neal McDonough) conveniently runs the US Consulate. It seems Cindy was working to stop a human trafficking and child prostitution ring and got the attention of Rio's most corrupt cops and an evil crew of yakuza planning to ship underage girls to Japan. When an yakuza hit woman disguised as a nurse tries to kill a comatose Cindy, Chapman goes full One Man Wrecking Crew to take out the trash in the Favela. Director Ernie Barbarash is a DTV action veteran (CUBE ZERO, ASSASSINATION GAMES), not on the level of a Florentine or a John Hyams, but FALCON RISING (shot under the far less catchy title FAVELA) shows he's getting a little better. There's an enjoyable Cannon vibe to much of FALCON RISING, right down to its 101-minute run time, and it's really just one action movie cliche after another: PTSD-stricken Chapman's death wish, the Rio cop in charge of the case (Jimmy Navarro, looking and acting like his character should be named "Brazilem Dafoe") obviously being a villain, and the inevitable climactic shootout/MMA throwdown at a shipyard warehouse. There's nothing here you haven't seen before: the villains are complete cardboard cutouts; a sequence where Chapman issues a beatdown on a suspicious-looking guy who turns out to be a complete red herring who never bothers to introduce or explain himself until he and five of his buddies have been decked senseless is unbelievably dumb; a subplot about cleaning up the Favela owes a bit too much to THE RAID; and former boxer Ali has nothing to do but lie motionless in a hospital bed (and she gets an "introducing" credit despite IMDb showing 12 prior acting credits dating back to 2000), but FALCON RISING works as brainlessly diverting action fare. White is an engaging and stoical hero, there's some nice bantering with McDonough (shockingly not cast as a smug prick), who quips "I see you stopped working out" when he first sees the hulking Chapman at the Consulate, the fight choreography by Larnell Stovall is top-notch, and Barbarash and cinematographer Yaron Levy do a fine job of passing Puerto Rico off as Rio and making FALCON RISING look a bit bigger-budgeted than it really is (though you could make a drinking game out of how many times Barbarash cuts to swirling, second-unit aerial shots of the Christ the Redeemer statue). It's hard telling if FALCON RISING will actually lead to a franchise, but it's got plenty of action and no shortage of a perpetually scowling White beating the shit out of people, so what more do you need? (R, 101 mins, also streaming on Netflix Instant)


I ORIGINS
(US - 2014)

(Some SPOILERS ahead). The 2011 Sundance hit ANOTHER EARTH, directed by Mike Cahill and written by star Brit Marling, was one of the most intelligent and thought-provoking indie sci-fi films to come down the pike since PRIMER introduced the world to Shane Carruth. While Marling wrote and starred in the interesting SOUND OF MY VOICE and the disastrous THE EAST for their director pal Zal Batmanglij, Cahill was busy writing his follow-up film I ORIGINS. Marling is just an actress in this one, but it has that distinct feel that she usually brings to her projects. However, the film is ultimately a disappoint that never recovers from the glacially-paced mumblecore moping of its first half and it eventually succumbs to silliness despite an interesting premise once the narrative finally starts advancing. Opening in 2006, molecular biology Ph.D. candidate Ian Gray (Michael Pitt), his roommate Kenny (THE WALKING DEAD's Steven Yeun), and their frumpy research assistant Karen (Marling) are studying the evolution of the human eye in an effort to dismantle the notion of intelligent design and creationism. Ian meets Sofi (Astrid Berges-Frisbey) at a party and the two begin a whirlwind romance that comes to an abrupt end when Sofi is killed in an elevator accident. Cut to 2013, as the now-Dr. Gray and his research partner/wife Karen are told their infant son displays signs of autism. They're suspicious of the tests given to the baby and, through some plot advancement that the audience is just forced to roll with, discover that their son's iris pattern is identical to that of a man who died two years earlier, and the photos which provoked an emotional response from the baby during the test were images from that dead man's past. Making this their new mission--apparently with the plan of cutting the autism specialist (Cara Seymour) out entirely--Ian jets off to New Delhi when an eye-scan database indicates that a child with Sofi's iris pattern was there as recently as three months earlier.

Cahill tries to go for some heady ideas involving reincarnation, religion, and scientific theory, but too much of I ORIGINS is a laborious, pretentious bore. The courtship scenes between Ian and Sofi go on forever, with the two demonstrating the kind of odd, eccentric behavior that only goes over well at film festivals (their meet-cute is particularly absurd), and the performances of Pitt and Berges-Frisbey respectively channeling the most grating aspects of circa-2000 Jeremy Davies and circa-anytime Paz de la Huerta. The first 50 minutes are a slog, but if you can hang with it, it gets marginally better--for a while, at least--as Cahill gets a decent Shane Carruth forward momentum going and actually takes the concept somewhere. But it's ultimately a lot of talk on the way to nowhere special and not really worth the effort. There's still a lot of lingering questions, William Mapother's one-scene appearance as an American minister in Ian's New Delhi hotel seems to be what's left of a larger role that got hacked down in post, and a post-credits stinger tries to go for a big surprise but is just hokey and laughable. There's some nice cinematography, particularly in the New Delhi sequences, but Cahill's follow-up to the far-superior ANOTHER EARTH is, for the most part, a dull, draggy misfire, and though Marling is only in front of the camera, it's a good indication along with THE EAST that maybe the Marling/Cahill/Batmanglij team have said everything they've had to say. (R, 107 mins)

On DVD/Blu-ray: MANIAC (2013); THE COLONY (2013); and THE EAST (2013)

MANIAC
(France/US - 2013)

William Lustig's MANIAC (1980) is so representative of both '80s splatter and the grimy NYC sleaze of its era that a present-day remake seems like a hapless, watered-down proposition from the get-go.  Written and produced by Alexandre Aja and directed by Aja protégé Franck Khalfoun (P2), the 2013 version of MANIAC doesn't top Lustig's original, but it at least tries to be its own film and shows an obvious affinity for its source.  Moving the setting from NYC to some of the seedier parts of downtown Los Angeles doesn't really replicate that scuzzy feeling, but it sort-of suffices, as homicidal Frank (Elijah Wood in the iconic Joe Spinell role) slices and dices his way through a bevy of beautiful women he meets on dating sites, scalping them to adorn the mannequins in the fly-infested apartment behind his restoration shop.  Frank is dealing with unresolved mother issues, having endured a traumatic childhood that saw him witnessing Mom (America Olivo) abusing drugs and sleeping with numerous random men (the shot of her snorting coke while screwing two guys and catching young Frank watching her as she whispers "Mommy loves you" is undeniably haunting).  Frank meets French photographer Anna (Nora Arzeneder), whose specialty is, conveniently enough, mannequins (which seems like an easy way for her to overlook Frank's bizarre demeanor and his creepy collection; in a way, it's just as implausible as the schlubby, greasy Spinell attracting the attention of someone like Caroline Munro in the original), and, of course, becomes fixated on her.

The biggest change this new film makes is shooting it almost entirely from Frank's POV.  Wood primarily turns up as reflections in mirrors and windows, except for a few times when Khalfoun inexplicably bungles it and swings the camera around to show Frank actually killing people.  The POV is a nice touch, so it doesn't make sense and it's completely intrusive when Khalfoun breaks it, and it seems to have been done only to give Wood more screen time as he'd otherwise barely be visible.  Still, as far as remakes go, MANIAC '13 isn't bad, however unnecessary it may be.  The makeup effects by Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger are a nice mix of CGI and practical, with the blood looking appropriately wet and the flesh moist instead of completely cartoonish and badly-digitized.  When he sticks to the Frank POV, Khalfoun stages some nicely-done murder sequences, particularly the first one with the way the knife enters the frame.  Frank, who suffers from migraines, is also frequently sickened by his actions, which gives Khalfoun a good excuse for a suitably gross POV puking shot into a toilet.  I guess if MANIAC had to be remade, this turned out as good as it could've turned out, and the music score by "Rob" is a standout.  Face it, this could've just as easily been a neutered, PG-13, in-name-only revamp instead of the unrated gorefest that it is.  It's an admirable effort, better than anything with the name "Alexandre Aja" attached to it should be, and Wood gives it his all, but when I feel like watching MANIAC, I'm going with Joe Spinell.  (Unrated, 89 mins, also streaming on Netflix)


THE COLONY
(Canada - 2013)

Despite some occasionally effective location work at a decommissioned NORAD station, this tepid post-apocalyptic horror film is largely an uninspired coast that relies on clichés you've seen a hundred times in other, better movies.  In 2045, weather machines constructed to combat the sweltering effects of climate change malfunction and bring about an ice age, putting the entire planet in a deep freeze with never-ending snow.  Most of humanity has died off, but the few survivors find refuge in abandoned military facilities called "colonies," where food is scarce and illness rampant.  Even a common cold is enough to have someone banished to the elements or, if they choose, killed.  After receiving a distress call from nearby Colony 5, Colony 7 leader Briggs (Laurence Fishburne) takes Sam (Kevin Zegers) and Graydon (Atticus Mitchell) on an expedition to investigate.  They find a crazed, lone survivor (Julian Richings), who tells them that everyone has been killed.  The Colony 7 guys investigate and find what's left of Colony 5 overrun by a band of marauding, feral cannibals who have decided that human flesh is the answer to their food shortage.  Of course, the cannibals follow them back to Colony 7, where they also have to deal with Mason (Bill Paxton), a trigger-happy psycho who's taken over the leadership role in Briggs' absence and is only interested in thinning the herd so there's less mouths to feed.

I'm a sucker for a good cold, snowy, icy horror flick, but THE COLONY fails to take its place aside such iconic titles as THE SHINING or either version of THE THING.  It isn't even in the same league as WHITEOUT or the recent prequel THE THING.  At least WHITEOUT went to the trouble of CGI-ing some visible breath for the actors in the exterior scenes.  The interiors of the closed-up NORAD facility make a good location, but THE COLONY falls apart whenever anyone walks outside.  Everything is unconvincingly green-screened and cartoonishly CGI'd.  You never feel for one moment that these actors are out in the elements and not in a comfortable, climate-controlled studio standing in front of a screen.  The best kind of CGI is the kind that doesn't call attention to itself, and the CGI here is basically wearing a bright, flashing neon sign.  And once the cannibals make their way to the colony, the whole thing becomes yet another John Carpenter-styled siege scenario and a sort-of ASSAULT ON COLONY 7.  The film is directed by Jeff Renfroe, who primarily works in TV these days but previously made a pair of interesting and little-seen indies:  2004's Euro-dystopian PARANOIA 1.0 has Jeremy Sisto as a computer programmer who starts cracking up when mysterious packages keep appearing at his door, and 2007's CIVIC DUTY stars Peter Krause in an intense performance as a laid-off accountant with nothing but time on his hands, spending his days watching cable news and becoming increasingly obsessed with his new neighbor--a Muslim grad student--and convincing himself that the guy is a terrorist.  Both of these films have a powerful sense of paranoia and claustrophobia that would seem to be ideal for THE COLONY, but the artifice of the whole production design just keeps you at a distance.  While the film works best when it stays indoors, it has nothing unique or substantive to offer, doesn't even make any valid points on an environmental level, and exists only to provide easy paychecks for Fishburne and Paxton.  It took four screenwriters to come up with this?  (R, 94 mins)


THE EAST
(US - 2013)

Actress/screenwriter Brit Marling has made a name for herself on the indie and festival circuits over the last couple of years with 2011's ANOTHER EARTH (directed by Mike Cahill) and 2012's SOUND OF MY VOICE (directed by Zal Batmanglij).  Marling and Batmanglij team up again with THE EAST, which finds the creative pair getting a sizable budget boost courtesy of A-list producers Ridley Scott and Michael Costigan, and falling flat on their faces, with a story that travels a path that's too structurally similar to SOUND OF MY VOICE.  And where VOICE and ANOTHER EARTH were science fiction stories that could explain away some of the more outlandish plot elements, Marling seems to struggle when the plot is based in the real world and without a fantastic angle.  Marling stars as Sarah, a former FBI agent who lands a gig at a private company specializing in corporate espionage.  Her boss (Patricia Clarkson), hired by big money clients, assigns her to infiltrate The East, a domestic eco-terrorism outfit that's been targeting CEOs and various corporate big shots with such acts as flooding an oil honcho's house with crude after his company causes a massive oil spill.  In the first of many embarrassingly simplistic developments straight out of Plot Convenience Playhouse, it takes Sarah about a day to get into The East's inner circle, which she manages to accomplish via Craigslist and hanging out with some acoustic guitar-strumming hippies on the shore.  Of course she finds herself drawn to their charismatic leader Benji (Alexander Skarsgard) and comes to agree with The East's philosophies and practices (at times, with their straitjacket dinners and off-kilter rounds of Spin the Bottle--"May I hug you for one minute?"--they seem more like a cult), taking part in their projects (called "jams"), and her happy life with her nice but boring boyfriend (Jason Ritter) falls apart as she ignores her boss' most vital piece of advice: "Do not get soft."

Marling seems to have gotten soft with THE EAST.  Even with the formulaic plotting, it still could've been a solid, entertaining thriller.  But with the soapboxing (Sarah becomes a dumpster-diving freegan simply because Marling did that for a while as well) and the fact that, as a writer, the proselytizing Marling stacks the deck in The East's favor, even when they're crossing lines and doing some very bad things (like poisoning the board of directors of a pharmaceutical company), it's hard to really accept a lot of what transpires.  Look, I hate the sociopathic, profit-above-all mentality of these companies as well, but two wrongs don't make a right, and The East aren't meant to be idealized.  This should be a film with no heroes.  Explore that.  Explore the inner conflict instead of having Sarah merrily abandon everything.  Or at least have her abandon everything in a realistic fashion. The idea that the driven, ambitious Sarah is willing to drop her promising career, devoted boyfriend, and happy life in general to fall in with The East as quickly as she does is a metamorphosis that serves the filmmakers' agenda rather than the story.  The character arc is never believable for a second, and the third-act twist with the reveal of The East's final "jam" is only a surprise if you've never seen a movie before.  There are a few good scenes--fanatical East member Izzy (Ellen Page) forcing her chemical company CEO dad (Jamey Sheridan) and a company spokesperson to jump in toxic, polluted water is a memorable moment--and the potential was there for a good thriller, but Marling and Batmanglij can't stop shouting "MESSAGE!" long enough to focus on what's important.  Much like SOUND OF MY VOICE, THE EAST deals with an outsider infiltrating a secret organization (in SOUND, Marling played a manipulative cult leader who claimed to be from the future), but a bigger budget doesn't mean a better movie.  ANOTHER EARTH and SOUND OF MY VOICE were both original, intricate, and thought-provoking puzzles that established Marling as a major new indie talent both as an actress and a writer.  The studio-backed THE EAST, on the other hand, is clichéd, trite, and just plain dumb.  Welcome to Hollywood.  This is a rare case where you wish the suits would've intervened and taken the movie away from its makers.  (PG-13, 116 mins)

On DVD/Blu-ray: THE COMPANY YOU KEEP (2013) and THE BIG WEDDING (2013)

THE COMPANY YOU KEEP
(US/Canada/Luxembourg - 2013)

Despite one of the most star-studded casts of 2013, THE COMPANY YOU KEEP only made it to 807 screens in the US, just over the threshold required to consider it a "wide" release.  It's a rather sluggishly-paced thriller scripted by frequent Steven Soderbergh collaborator Lem Dobbs (THE LIMEY, HAYWIRE) and scored by ubiquitous Soderbergh regular Cliff Martinez (TRAFFIC, CONTAGION), and you wonder if perhaps Soderbergh could've brought more energy to the film than director/star Robert Redford.  As has been the case in some of his more recent directing efforts like 2007's LIONS FOR LAMBS and 2011's THE CONSPIRATOR, there's a good story that gets bogged down in talking points and speechifying lectures.  While THE CONSPIRATOR is a fine film nonetheless and LIONS FOR LAMBS a bit better than its reputation, THE COMPANY YOU KEEP never really catches fire.  When former Weather Underground activist Sharon Solarz (Susan Sarandon) is nabbed by the FBI in Albany for a 1979 Michigan bank robbery that left a guard dead, her arrest prompts local reporter Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf) to dig into her past.  He finds Albany-based lawyer Jim Grant (Redford), a widower and father to 11-year-old daughter Isabel (singing sensation and elderly America's fantasy granddaughter Jackie Evancho), who seems to have no existence before 1979.  That's because Grant is really Nick Sloan, a prominent Weather Underground figure and one of eight suspects still wanted for the 30-year-old crime.  Jim/Nick leaves Isabel with his younger brother Daniel (Chris Cooper) and goes on the run, searching the country for Mimi Lurie (Julie Christie), his ex-lover and the group's most volatile member and, through a convoluted set of circumstances, the only person who can clear his name and verify that he in fact had nothing to do with the robbery.  All the while, Shepard is on his trail, digging up secrets of his past, and the FBI, led by Agent Cornelius (Terrence Howard) is in hot pursuit.

It's based on a novel by Neil Gordon, but I wonder if THE COMPANY YOU KEEP would've been a more challenging, politically-charged film if Redford had the courage to present his character as a killer who saw the error of his ways, as opposed to a noble, heroic guy trying to prove his innocence even though everyone he hung out with is guilty.  Having Jim/Nick be falsely accused is a standard motif of the commercial thriller, but it feels like a missed opportunity to explore the idea of radicalism gone wrong.  Redford doesn't seem interested in that, but at the same time, with his pokey pacing, he doesn't seem interested in making a riveting thriller, either.   Also, Redford seems at least a decade too old for this role (photos of Nick from his activist days look Redford headshots circa THE ELECTRIC HORSEMAN).  LaBeouf, who looks cocky and smirking even when's not trying to be, is hard to buy as a rumpled, crusading reporter, and the banter with his scowling, barking editor (Stanley Tucci) would've come across as hackneyed as far back as THE FRONT PAGE (also laughably unconvincing:  Anna Kendrick, who looks 12, as a hard-nosed FBI agent).  It's nice to see a truly impressive roster of reliable old pros, even if many only have a couple of scenes: Nick Nolte is enjoyably grumbly as a former Weatherman, plus there's Richard Jenkins, Sam Elliott, Brendan Gleeson, Stephen Root, and the promising Brit Marling (ANOTHER EARTH, SOUND OF MY VOICE) as the subject of a plot twist that's practically spelled out the moment she mentions she's adopted.  Content to coast on clichés and its cast, THE COMPANY YOU KEEP is a passable thriller that's a bit plodding at times, but with that subject matter and those actors, this should've been a lot more interesting and thought-provoking than it turned out.  (R, 122 mins)


THE BIG WEDDING
(US - 2013)

Look at that poster.  Just look at it.  Is there any way this movie could possibly be good?  And really?  Someone thought it was a good idea to cast Robin Williams as a wacky priest after LICENSE TO WED?  THE BIG WEDDING, a remake of the 2007 French farce MON FRERE SA MARIE, assembles a huge cast of slumming actors and plants them in one unfunny, smutty situation after another before trying to go for the sappy, feel-good ending (writer-director Justin Zackham scripted THE BUCKET LIST).  The problem is, nobody in this film's target audience wants to see post-Farrelly Brothers vulgarity and other hijinks of that sort.  It doesn't quite approach the "jizz-as-hair-gel"-levels of outrageousness, but if you want to see Robert De Niro getting puked on by Katherine Heigl or going down on Susan Sarandon for a "poonjob," or Topher Grace getting jerked off at the table at a wedding rehearsal dinner, then you've found your movie.

Heading a cast that, for the most part, looks like they'd rather be anywhere else, Diane Keaton (who's already played this same role in SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE) is Ellie, who returns to artist ex-husband Don's (De Niro) Connecticut home for the wedding of their adopted Colombian son Alejandro (Ben Barnes, a British actor who doesn't look even remotely Colombian) to Missy (Amanda Seyfried), daughter of wealthy Barry and Muffin (David Rasche, Christine Ebersole), racists and anti-Semites who are appalled at the idea of "beige grandchildren."  Don lives with Bebe (Sarandon), Ellie's best friend until she and Don had an affair.  There's also Don and Ellie's daughter Lyla (Heigl), who can't have children and just left her husband, and their successful doctor son Jared (Grace), a 29-year-old virgin who's still waiting for the right girl.  The comically dysfunctional family gets along great, but things fall apart when Alejandro insists that Don and Ellie pretend to be married to please his devoutly Catholic biological mother Madonna (Patricia Rae), who sternly disapproves of divorce.  Of course, it leads to one comic mishap after another: Don and Ellie end up having sex, Jared wants to lose his virginity to Alejandro's impossibly hot biological sister (Ana Ayora), and then there's Williams, playing an alcoholic priest.  You know the performances are grating when Williams comes across as the least obnoxious.  Shot in 2011 and bounced around the release schedule for nearly two years, THE BIG WEDDING tries to be shocking with its rampant tastelessness, from the crude situations to the copious F-bombs, but it's merely boring.  This sort of gutter humor can be funny but doesn't really work with an accomplished cast of aging legends that's collectively got double-digit Oscar nods and several wins and seems visibly appalled at the lowbrow nature of the project. Gag after gag lands with a complete thud:  there's supposed to be something inherently funny about senior citizens talking dirty.  Burgess Meredith screeching about "takin' the skin boat to tuna town!" in GRUMPY OLD MEN gets a laugh, but De Niro jokingly calling Keaton a "cunt" comes off as more uncomfortable than funny, and you can even see on his face as he says it that he knows it doesn't work.  If nothing else, this is further proof that his brilliant work in SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK is the anomaly in De Niro's recent filmography and THE BIG WEDDING fits in perfectly with his current career plan of complete apathy and utter contempt for his craft.  De Niro doesn't need to prove himself to anyone, but at what point do we start considering whether he's crossed that dubious line where his bad movies outnumber his good ones?  And he still has four more coming out between now and the end of the year. (R, 89 mins)

On DVD/Blu-ray: SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED (2012) and SOUND OF MY VOICE (2012)

SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED
(US - 2012)

An occasionally amusing, very low-key comedy that exists somewhere in that space between mumblecore and quirky (one character has a fake ear and plays the zither!), SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED is the first starring vehicle for deadpan hipster heroine Aubrey Plaza (PARKS AND RECREATION).  She's a sarcastic, loner intern at a Seattle magazine, and tags along with another intern (Karan Soni) and a writer in an early midlife crisis (Jake Johnson) to track down the Ocean City resident behind an ad for a time travel partner, with the caveat "Bring your own weapons...safety not guaranteed."  They find the guy (mumblecore auteur Mark Duplass), a paranoid, part-time supermarket clerk, and Plaza ends up falling for him, despite not really being sold on the idea that he's constructed a time machine (and there are indeed government agents following him).  While Plaza does all of his work for him, Johnson decides to look up an old flame (Jenica Bergere), the real reason he wanted to go to Ocean City.  Likable if rarely laugh-out-loud funny, SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED gets a little too "cute" the more it goes on, but the cast is engaging (it's Plaza's film, but Johnson gets the biggest laughs), plus Jeff Garlin, Kristen Bell, and Mary Lynn Rajskub put in brief appearances.  Perhaps the film's most memorable scene occurs when director Colin Trevorrow and screenwriter Derek Connolly give Duplass a very heartfelt, moving bit where asks Plaza her favorite song and articulates his need to travel back to an earlier point in his life.  He says it's to find a lost love who died, but adds "It's not about the girl.  It's about a time and a place. You remember that time and that place and that song and you remember what it was like when you were in that place, and you listen to that song, and you know you're not in that place anymore and it makes you feel hollow.  You can't just go find that stuff again." (R, 86 mins)

SOUND OF MY VOICE
(US -2012)

This perplexing thriller with possible sci-fi undertones is another impressive project by promising indie darling Brit Marling, who wrote and starred in last year's ANOTHER EARTH.  Scripted by Marling and director Zal Batmanglij, SOUND OF MY VOICE has a pair of amateur documentary filmmakers--substitute teacher Peter (Christopher Denham) and his aspiring writer girlfriend Lorna (Nicole Vicius)--infiltrating a cult quietly operating in a house in a non-descript L.A. neighborhood in order to expose its charismatic leader Maggie (Marling) as a fraud.  Maggie claims she's from the year 2054, and is gathering a small group of people to accompany her back to her future world.  There's plenty of evidence to support the fraud theory:  the fragments of her backstory indicate that Maggie might be mentally ill or might be a recovering addict, and when she's asked to sing a song that's popular in the future, she offers an a cappella rendition of The Cranberries' "Dreams" and banishes the lone cult member who dares to question her about it.  Lorna is disturbed by Maggie's psychological hold on the members and that Peter seems to abandon the documentary project and might actually be buying into it.  Things get complicated when Maggie asks Peter to bring her an emotionally-troubled eight-year-old girl from his class named Abigail (Avery Pohl), who lives with her mysterious single dad (James Urbaniak).  For every clear indication that Maggie is lying, there's something to back up her claims.  Such is the puzzle of SOUND OF MY VOICE, right down to its unanswered questions (Peter is very evasive of his own past; is the Department of Justice agent really who she says she is? And who exactly is Maggie's mysterious guardian Klaus?) and its conclusion straight out of the 12 MONKEYS and PRIMER school of ambiguity, the likes of which you can discuss from now until the end of time and never find a definite answer.  Marling was recently seen as Richard Gere's daughter in ARBITRAGE, but between SOUND OF MY VOICE and ANOTHER EARTH (both were shown at Sundance in 2011, but it took SOUND OF MY VOICE another year to get released), she's established herself as both a solid actress and one of today's smartest and most imaginative screenwriters.  This is a major new talent to watch.  (R, 85 mins)