As we count down the weeks until The Dark Knight Rises and get our superhero fix through webslinging teenagers, we might as well embrace a documentary about a potential interloper, Robert DeNiro’s turn as a world famous psychic bound to be kin to the devil, the fourth installment of a mediocre animated franchise, and Martin Scorsese’s presentation of an other country’s mafioso-type family drama.
Ice Age: Continental Drift: The newest installment to franchises that elide the number 4 in place of a subtitle begins with the fracturing of Pangea and a separated family. This plot line seems to run throughout as the audience is occasionally reminded that Manny (Ray Romano) will do “anything to get back to his family.” The storyline here is cute, but it seems to regurgitate the same issues within the first three Ice Age installments: comedy in the form of sarcastic non-sequitors and silliness. This franchise exemplifies animated features that pander solely to children. The comedy does not need to be highbrow and out of reach, but it also doesn’t need to be found in lines that mistake “fury” for “furry” and random spitting and sputtering while Sid (Leguizamo) moonwalks to communicate with a bunch of woodland creatures. The kids are sure to laugh and remember their favorite characters, but the movie itself may not be that memorable.
Red Lights: Cillian Murphy and Sigourney Weaver play a pair of doctors investigating psychics “who believe they have a gift” and the con artists who pretend they do. The movie then appears to move from manipulation to an amped up journey into the paranormal with Robert DeNiro as the world’s most famous psychic, Simon Silver, bellicosely indicting Murphy for not “believing my power!” Like many films in recent years that play on the trope of paranormal activity, this film could devolve to a creepy, yet underwhelming film, though I am intrigued as to how long the commentary on fake psychics will run. Most psychics that appear on television – whether it be their own show or as part of a segment on someone else’s – are frauds prepared with obviously leading questions that statistically set them up for accuracy. For example, one may rise from her chair and say: “I’m getting the image of a soldier” (something hardly novel given that we are involved in two wars, which would cover anyone from this generation and have Korea / Vietnam in our rear view, which would cover anyone with a father, uncle, brother, or even grandfather from the last three generations). After culling the audience in half: “Does this soldier’s name start with an R?” (thus cornering some of the more popular males names: Robert / Bob, Richard / Rick / Dick, Ryan, etc.). Now all that has to be done is mention a medal, a heroic act, or a moment of bravery.
The Imposter: In 1994, a thirteen-year-old boy, Nicholas Barclay, disappeared from his home in San Antonio, Texas. Three years later, he is found in Spain. This much we learn from the first few seconds of the trailer. The psychological ride that ensues explores the doubts about this boy’s identity, the motives for the potential subterfuge, and the nature of parents who have lost a child. On the one hand, a possibility exists that a young boy’s disappearance paved the way for a nefarious doppleganger to live another man’s life and perhaps escape his own shady past. On the other, the family’s enduring hope that their son would be returned live is not easily squashed, nor is their desire that this man is their child. This probably won’t be a date film, or one to life your spirits, but it certainly might offer a glimpse into human nature, and some credence to David Hume’s classic believe that human identity is fictional.
Easy Money: There should be little to no surprise that Martin Scorsese would be responsible for presenting a film about beauty, loyalty, and graft in an elite society. Based on the novel of the same name by Jans Lapidus, Easy Money covers drug running, deception, and double lives. What’s most fascinating about this adaptation is the recent indoctrination that family might just be the most perfidious enemy. While I enjoyed both the Swedish and the American versions of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I felt the book was a bit farcical and hyperbolized. I only wonder how the two mediums mesh here with Easy Money.
