If you could change your identity and start over as someone else, would you? That’s the main proposition in director Joshua Marston’s (Maria Full of Grace) third feature film, Complete Unknown. The film begins as a mystery, following a woman pretending to be someone that she’s not, with Marston taking a big gamble and revealing this information early on. After that, the film suddenly shifts from cryptic thriller to slow conversation piece, a change that might frustrate viewers if it were Complete Unknown’s only issue. It’s one thing to stop asking compelling questions, but it’s another to stop providing compelling answers. After the reveal, Complete Unknown is supposed to be about why she changes her identity, and I’m not sure if the film gives a convincing answer.

Rachel Weisz plays Alice, the mysterious woman who attends a birthday party for Tom (Michael Shannon) on a date for a newly befriended colleague. She’s the life of the party, fascinating everyone with her tales of traveling to Tanzania for 18 months where people started calling her by a different name. The only person not fascinated is Tom, who seems to recognize her as someone named Jenny from years ago.

Once he confronts her about this privately, Complete Unknown transitions into a lengthy heart-to-heart discussion that many are comparing to Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy. But the conversation that follows between them never gets close to as introspective as the comparison suggests.

Rating:
6/10

A favorite ’80s movie-mother, Mary Ellen Trainor has died of complications from pancreatic cancer on May 20th at the young age of 62 in Montecito, California according to The Hollywood Reporter and her close friend Kathleen Kennedy.

She may have never been a Hollywood big shot or superstar, but many will find her face quite recognizable. Mostly, in memory, framed by a halo of wispy blonde feathered hair. Probably because we all mainly know her from movies that made it big during the ’80s and ’90s, beginning by playing the flighty kidnapped sister of Kathleen Turner in the 1984 film Romancing the Stone or the Spanish-deficient mother of Mikey and Brand Walsh in The Goonies. Married to Robert Zemeckis from 1980 to 2000, she also appeared in a few of his movies, one of which was Romancing the Stone of course, but also included bit roles in Back to the Future II, Death Becomes Her, and Forrest Gump.

She’s played aside Bill Murray in Scrooged, Bruce Willis in Die Hard, and Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in all four Lethal Weapons, being a close friend of Lethal Weapon director Richard Donner.

Some other movies from which she might be recognized would be Ghostbusters II, Congo, and Little Giants.

We are sorry to see her gone. We know she will live on through her presence in so many memorable films from our childhood. Rest in Peace, Ms. Trainor.

LUV, by first-time director and co-writer Sheldon Candis, poses the question: Are today’s black, inner-city youths predestined to become corrupted by the murderous environment left to them by their felonious predecessors, or can they muster the strength to transcend the bleak future they’ve inherited and cleanse themselves of their fathers’ sins? LUV is a trite, hackneyed film with a relevant message that is saved from mediocrity by riveting performances delivered by a gifted cast.

An aggressive coming-of-age story set in the urban streets of Baltimore, LUV follows 11-year-old Woody (Michael Rainey Jr.) as he accompanies his alpha-male, ex-convict uncle, Vincent (Common), on an eventful quest to hustle enough money to finance the opening of a crab shack. This is Vincent’s key to a straighter life. The film consists of Vincent’s increasingly dangerous attempts to procure the much-needed money, all viewed through Woody’s virgin eyes. It’s a crash course in street life that unfortunately escalates into distracting implausibility. The later scenes in the film, especially the climax, follow the blueprint laid out by similar crime-drama works like The Wire so closely that every moment and beat feels clichéd and telegraphed. The script fails to innovate or color outside the lines, and the film ends up playing like a greatest-hits of urban crime-drama scenes. Also, the overly melodramatic plot rubs up against the gritty, grounded photography of Baltimore in an unsavory way. Though the collection of scenes that comprise the movie don’t add up to anything special, there are a handful of moments that pack real tension and an emotional punch.

The script is unbalanced, and its inconsistencies are jarring. Early in the film, Vincent asks Woody if he has finished his homework and then tells his nephew that he is talented when Woody shows him some sketches he’s drawn (of his uncle, adorably.) Moments later, he yells at Woody for not flirting with a girl, and forces his nephew to skip school. Later in the film, Woody finds himself in the harrowing situation of having to fire a handgun to save his uncles life. He chokes, immobilized with overwhelming fear. Later that night, 11-year-old Woody, held at gunpoint, successfully conducts a $25,000 drug deal with a gang of thugs. It’s nearly impossible to suspend disbelief in these scenes, as the absurdity of these situations is almost comical.

The overly-derivative script’s saving grace is the ultra-talented cast, who give remarkable performances across the board despite being cast as every black criminal archetype in the book. Common plays a street Casanova; he walks like he’s won before, head held high, eyes unblinking, embodying irresistible charm and street savvy. As the sins of his dubious pre-incarceration history begin to catch up to him with deadly force, his tough-guy façade begins to crack, and Common conveys Vincent’s deterioration with nuance and finesse. Though Vincent takes some jarring, questionable turns as a character, Common does his best with the role and his performance shines.

A first-time-actor, Rainey Jr. shows impressive range for a child actor, and carries an air of genuineness that few young actors are gifted with. Dennis Haysbert plays the kingpin antagonist with gravitas and calculation, and Danny Glover, who plays his equally untrustworthy brother, complements and enhances Haysbert’s performance with the adeptness of a true movie veteran. The brothers, unlike the rest of the inner-city cast, live in an extravagant suburban house in the woods, though it’s later revealed that they had climbed to the top at the expense of their younger protégé, Vincent. Though the climax of the film is trite in its writing and staging, Haysbert, Glover, and Common’s use their sharp acting skills make what is a paint-by-numbers scene on paper truly intense and powerful on screen.

The soundtrack is comprised of somber, dreamlike drones that attempt to underline the drama of the scenes they accompany, but unfortunately end up dampening them. To his credit, Candis does dispense of the cliché of obnoxiously blaring hip-hop music in every establishing shot to tell the audience “This is a black neighborhood, this is what black people listen to.” Candis has a hard time finding solid footing in his wobbly delivery of the narrative. He does, however, show a true knack for eliciting fine performances from his actors. LUV is a woefully contrived tale of delinquent father-figures and inescapable pasts, but it succeeds as a platform for its excellent cast to exhibit their masterful acting skills.

The Royal Tenenbaums is about a dysfunctional family with each member having their own talents and idiosyncrasies, reunited again under the same roof the child prodigies grew up together. Director Wes Anderson’s style is clearly shown like most of his films, the script is incredibly detailed and the character development is phenomenally well done. Most of it is comprised of quirky characters with deadpan punch lines. Love him or hate him, Anderson remains one of the most original contemporary American filmmakers, this film only reflects that.

The Royal Tenenbaums is written in a style of a book and starts off with a prologue – which is narrated by Alec Baldwin – that gives us a detailed background on the Tenenbaum siblings as children. Each of the three kids is gifted in their own way. The oldest son Chas managed to develop a new breed of mice and close real estate deals in his teens. Margot is an adopted daughter who before the age of 14 produced a $50,000 playwriting grant and a secret smoker since 12. Richie is an international tennis champion. Then you have Eli Cash, who is a neighbor kid who spends enough time with them to be considered an honorary Tenenbaum.

To close out the prologue, we see the father, Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman), explain to the kids that even though he has made “certain sacrifices” by having children, that he is leaving based on their mother’s, Etheline Tenenbaum (Anjelica Huston), decision.

The film then jumps 22 years later and we see the children all grown up. At their core, the siblings are falling apart although it is seems like it was not because of being child prodigies or growing up fatherless but simply where life as taken them.

Royal has not spoken to his ex-wife in seven years until one day he pops in to tell her some news. He tells her that he is deadly sick and claims he has six weeks to live. In his own words he “has a pretty bad case of cancer”. However, you do not know if he is telling the truth or not as he is the type of person that walks with a cane but rarely uses it. His last wishes are simple, to get the family back together.

Chas (Ben Stiller) in now permanently in a state of paranoia after losing his wife in a plane crash. The film implies that the late night fire evacuation drills he does with his two children are not rare occurrences. He decides that because there are no sprinklers inside the apartment, he and his kids should live with his mother.

Richie (Luke Wilson) was once a famous tennis player but had choked in a big tournament which ended his career. He blames his failure on his absent father and his love for his adopted sister Margot. Currently, he is cruising around the world on a large ship when he hears the news about his father and decides to go home to visit him.

Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) spends six hours a day in the bathtub of a locked bathroom watching TV and secretly smoking. Her isolation has caused her not to write a play in years. She is married to Raleigh St. Clair (Bill Murray) but leaves him when she decides to go back home.

Royal never has as much as a quarter on him at any time. He constantly has to ask people for money or credit. His own son Chas has sued him twice for taking money from him. That may be pay back from when Royal shot him in the hand with a BB gun as a kid (which actually happened to Owen Wilson’s brother as a kid).

Since moving back home, Margot rekindles a relationship with Eli Cash (Owen Wilson) which is very upsetting to Richie who is in love with her. Richie eventually resorts to suicide as desperate call for attention. Similar drama surrounds Etheline as Royal is trying to get closer to her at the same time his nemesis Henry Sherman (Danny Glover) is.

Henry calls Royal out for not having cancer and he is right. Royal admits to faking it in an effort to try getting back with his ex-wife but realizes the 6 days he spent with his family has actually been one of the best times in his life. And that is something he is not lying about.

A scene towards the end of the film is wonderful, a long continuous scene that captures almost all of the characters showcasing their personality. Henry is still trying to cheat the system by getting the most out of his insurance. Royal finally makes up to Chas by giving him a dog. The doctor who was giving bad medical advice in the beginning is still giving terrible advice. Margot is still getting cigarettes from hiding places and Richie Wilson is still taking care of his bird as he did as a child.

Wes Anderson’s love for the theater shows as this felt more like a play than it did a feature film. His focus on scene decoration and matching of colors on the set are both artfully done. Along with cinematography, another similar theater element is most of the characters are almost always wearing the same clothing throughout. When you watch a Wes Anderson film, you instantly know it by the look and feel of it, which is something I greatly admire of him. His style is identifiably unique.

While both Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson came up with a script that can hold its own to many others, the acting performances help sell it wonderfully. Gene Hackman nails the role perfectly, in what might be the best film he has done. This role landed him a Golden Globe win. Granted, the amount of talented actors Wes Anderson got to work with for this is mesmerizing, but he did get them each to perform their best.

With The Royal Tenenbaums, Wes Anderson spends so much time carefully distinguishing each character that it makes the main storyline seem relatively shallow. It is the type of film that becomes more rewarding after each viewing and because of that it has a tremendous cult following. Of course, most films put out by Anderson have a following automatically associated to them.