Palo Alto

*** out of ****

In Gia Coppola’s directorial debut, Palo Alto, a family legacy continues. Francis Ford Coppola has handed down filmmaking advice to his family in the same way one patriarch may share secret ingredients or life lessons. It may sound cheap for me to attribute artistic ability to a family name but I can’t help but observe a lineage of ambition in some areas. Francis knew how a scene needed to be lit, what it was about and what needed to happen but if unpredictable crap got in the way, he wasn’t quick to fight it off. This is the reason for a cat in Marlon Brando’s lap during the opening scene of The Godfather.

So… What does this have to do with his granddaughter who has just made a film about wealthy white suburban teens in California? Well, it feels like a film by her Aunt Sofia and a little bit like one by her Uncle Roman. All of these people seem to know how to frame a shot, get the actors comfortable and just go with whatever comes their way. They all succeed in creating aimless but hypnotically atmospheric films.

In each filmmaker’s case, they work from what they know. Gia has made a film about modern teens who are kind of smart but don’t understand their feelings. She directs with the kind of ease that one may feel when their high school years are behind yet still in the rearview mirror. She shows empathy for their problems and displays their recklessness without apology. The adults in their lives are absent and sometimes obliviously contribute to their delinquency.

The film is written by Coppola and based on short stories by James Franco, who also appears in the film. Emma Roberts, Nat Wolff and Jack Kilmer get the most focus among the characters. They are all good young actors who meet the task of inhabiting the world that teens create when they lack aspiration.

There is an audience for this movie but not a big one. It falls into the “mumblecore” realm and is committed to its troubled characters so realistically, that it may turn off a lot of people.

Belle

*** out of ****

Currently in theaters, Belle is finding an appreciative audience. It is a well-shot, well-edited, well-acted and engaging as a historical melodrama. The film would have a little more of my respect had it not sacrificed plausibility for crowd-pleasing moments.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw lights up the screen with a beautiful lead performance as Dido Elizabeth Belle. This woman was an exceptional case in British Aristocratic history as she was the offspring of a Naval Captain and a slave woman. Left in the care of her Uncle, Lord Mansfield (Tom Wilkinson) she grew up alongside her cousin, Elizabeth Murray (Sarah Gadon). A famous painting of the two preserves Dido’s history. The film is very clever in putting emphasis on this painting as its inspiration.

The supporting cast also includes other seasoned performers, such as Penelope Wilton, Emily Watson, Matthew Goode, Miranda Richardson, Sam Reid and Draco Malfoy.

Left to inherit her father’s estate, Dido was given a high rank but the story is about her struggle to find a place when her ethnicity creates social limitations. A very Austenesque plot is fabricated involving suitors for Dido and her cousin -as well as a legal drama surrounding a slave-trade scandal for which Mansfield presided as judge.

In its history lessons and embellishments, the filmmakers mold everything into a rather beautiful experience. Unfortunately, some artistic liberties seem too obvious. Without going into spoilers, I’ll just say that they save the most ridiculous for last.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

**1/2 out of ****

I’m not sure how I would evaluate X-Men: Days of Future Past, (the seventh entry in the series) as a stand-alone film. The first two films made huge changes to what was established in the comic series but they found a way to work as an alternate cinematic universe. Then the movie series started contradicting its own storyline in various ways. Now this one restores characters to their previous states - including bringing one person back from the dead - and offers no explanation. We’re just supposed to fill in the blanks. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a pretty fun movie but in spite of seeing all the X-Men movies that came before (and not liking most of them), it made me feel as though a whole movie required to lay the foundation for this one had passed me by somehow.

This film gathers its resources selectively. Certain plot elements from previous films count. The prequel world from X-Men: First Class has its awesome cast, including Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult. Then there’s the older group from the “not to distant future” with Ian McKellan, Patrick Stewart and Hugh Jackman –among many others. There is also a storyline from the comics about a war that devastated the entire world and a time-travel plan to set everything back to normal. The prospect of this story being put on the big screen excited a lot of fans.

For those who don’t know this world very well, it is about an exponentially growing group of people labeled “mutants”  - who are born with different kinds of powers - and their fight against human oppressors - and in many cases each other. In this movie, Wolverine (Jackman) is sent back to the nineteen-seventies to find help from younger versions of his friends to put a stop to the early stages of a government-funded technological movement that will result in humanity’s annihilation decades later.

From the perspective of a comic book movie fan –as opposed to an actual comic book fan, I thought this time-travel story was weak. I waited with patience for every confusing story problem to have an answer -or at least something emotionally gripping about the prospect of changing time, but it’s all played about as loose as Men in Black III.

I won’t go into the controversy that surrounds the director Bryan Singer’s personal life, but I will say that I have always rooted for him as a director in spite of his complacency towards lazy screenplays. His work on X-Men and its sequel X2: X-Men United helped to launch a renaissance for comic book-based movies. As far as the X-Men movies are concerned, he had a gift that the other directors who followed seriously lacked. This gift is a cinematic imagination in relation to showing people with superpowers. This movie demonstrates that he’s still got it. He manages to show Magneto, Xavier and Mystique using their abilities in new and crafty ways, but it is in one throwaway scene involving a first-time screen appearance by the character, Quicksilver, that the whole movie peaks in its coolness.

I was initially disappointed with this movie but there are sequences that are rather unforgettable. Most fans will be forgiving of its shortcomings unlike the awful Spider-Man movie that came out earlier this month. I will simply close with a plea to people who only seek out franchise movies when going to the theater: There are unique original movies out there. Give one a try. You may have a better time.

Chef

***1/2 out of ****

You can have an unchallenging -yet delightful time with the feel-good, food-porn, travelogue comedy, Chef, where actor / writer / director / producer ...and probably very good cook, Jon Favreau, uses the resources he’s gathered from nearly two decades in the business to take a break from the mega-budget projects. He’s made a simpler movie about a chef quitting the fine dining business and starting a food truck while bonding with his son for the first time. 

It's only major crime: Being a big Twitter commercial. Otherwise, this movie’s optimism is very winning and sure to be an audience pleaser. It also makes you very hungry. My lady and I went out for Cuban food directly after it was over.

Locke

**** out of ****

For daring filmgoers, there’s a really good one out there called, Locke. It’s an intense drama, starring Tom Hardy (best known as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises) as a man in the painful process of losing his family and job. All eighty-five minutes of the film take place within the area – inside and outside - of his car with no other human faces to be seen. He takes a long drive through the night while he communicates with his boss, wife, children and others on the car speakerphone. This is high-concept experimental filmmaking that pays off with beautiful writing, cinematography and acting. It is a fine example of art thriving on limitations.