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    Big Adventure Weekend at the Movies

    You want a throwback to glamorously zany screwball romantic comedy adventures? Or do you want a real-life, harrowing adventure? Adventures on a train? Irish horror? Bad horror? So many options this week in theaters and at home. Here’s the rundown.

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    The Lost City

    by Hope Madden

    A romance novelist who’s really a bit of a hermit becomes a reluctant adventurer looking for legendary jewels in a far-off land, with a roguishly handsome man—part hero, part heartthrob—at her side.

    No, it isn’t Romancing the Stone. It isn’t even Jewel of the Nile. Aaron and Adam Nee’s romantic adventure comedy The Lost City offers less adventure, more screwball comedy. And more sequins.

    Sandra Bullock is Loretta Sage, whose romance novels are known less for their anthropological mysteries than their hunky hero. That hero has been depicted over many book covers by Alan (Channing Tatum).

    Promoting their latest effort, The Lost City of D, Loretta gets nabbed by a wealthy villain (Daniel Radcliffe, playing delightfully against type), who believes she can decipher a map leading to untold riches.

    The real gem in this film is Brad Pitt in an extended cameo as the tracker hired to find Loretta. The Oscar winner and veteran leading man is just so much fun when his only goal is to be funny, and in this movie, he’s a riot. (It helps that he gets to deliver the film’s single best line.)

    Bullock and Tatum are both solid comic performers, but neither is given much to work with in this odd couple romance. A grieving widow given up on love, Loretta doesn’t offer Bullock a lot of room for hilarity. Instead, she becomes a rather dour anchor for the project.

    Tatum’s dunderheaded beefcake is appealing enough, but can’t quite keep the film afloat. A side plot featuring Da-Vine Joy Randolph (Dolemite Is My Name) feels like filler, which this two-hour film did not need.

    There are some chuckles, especially when Pitt’s onscreen. Bullock and Tatum share enough chemistry, deliver physical comedy well enough, and generate enough charm between them to keep the breezy entertainment enjoyable.

    The Lost City offers pretty, lightweight fun, not unlike a romance novel.

    Grade: B-

    Infinite Storm

    In theaters

    by George Wolf

    Just last month, The Desperate Hour showcased Naomi Watts in an almost one woman show. Infinite Storm adds a few more cast members, and this time Watts isn’t just figuratively carrying a film on her back, she’s literally carrying another human.

    Based on the true life adventure that found search and rescue climber Pam Bales trying to descend New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington before a storm hits, the film leans heavily on Watts to make a rescue infinitely more emotional.

    On her way down the mountain in October 2010, Bales encountered a lone climber she called “John” (Billy Howle) immobile and unprepared for the bitter cold and biting, 50 mph winds. Risking her own life, Bales’s extensive training was often rebuffed by the uncooperative John as she tried to get them both safely home.

    First-time screenwriter Joshua Rollins adapts Ty Gagne’s New Hampshire Union Leader article with added layers of sympathy designed to quicken our emotional attachment. Pam’s chosen to ignore the weather forecast and climb because it’s the anniversary of something traumatic in her life, and climbing “is cheaper than therapy.”

    This isn’t a documentary, so bulking up the narrative is a smart play by Rollins and director Malgorzata Szumowska (whose excellent The Other Lamb was woefully underseen). Szumowska employs onscreen digital timekeeping to keep the pressure on, while deftly weaving Pam’s flashbacks into the harrowing, well-crafted set pieces filmed in the Slovenian Alps (cheaper than N.H.). Yes, we do eventually get to the source of Pam’s trauma, but the reveal is just slightly askew from what we’re expecting, which is welcome.

    Watts again proves she’s more than capable of handling a film’s heavy lifting. She’s rugged throughout the physicality that’s required, and effortlessly human within the ordeal. Pam may not understand why John is acting the way he is, but her commitment never feels false or convenient.

    And even if John is sometimes unresponsive, Watts has someone to talk to this time, helping Pam’s expressed inner thoughts feel more organic.

    The common challenge for adventure films like this is to make an individual experience speak in universal terms. Watts pushes Infinite Storm past some by-the-numbers moments for a worthy reflection on struggle and healing.

    Not to mention the value of a dry pair of socks.

    Grade: B+

    Compartment No. 6

    At Gateway Film Center

    by George Wolf

    She’s a Finnish archeology student on the way to study some ancient cave paintings in remote northern Russia. He’s a blue-collar Russian just traveling to where the work is. They share tight quarters in Compartment No. 6, a measured and often beguiling look at the mysteries of human connection.

    Laura (Seidi Haarla) thought she’d be taking this trip with her girlfriend Irina (Dinara Drukarova). Instead, she’s solo on the train to Murmansk, and her first impression of roommate Ljoha (Yuriy Borisov) is not a good one.

    He’s drunk and crude. She’s quiet and introspective. So the air in their little compartment might just get as bleak and cold as the view outside the train’s sterile, fogged-up window.

    Adapting the source novel by Rosa Liksom, director/co-writer Juho Kuosmanen draws effective contrasts between the two environments, especially when one of them begins to thaw. Buoyed by the two excellent lead performances and moments of dark humor in the script, Kuosmanen leans into the 1990’s setting to evoke a world that seems adrift in time and space.

    Last year’s Grand Prix winner at Cannes, the film often feels like a slow journey for us as well, but don’t mistake the unhurried pace for aimlessness. Be patient and take the ride. Compartment No. 6 has a warm fuzzy feeling at the last stop.

    Grade: B+

    You Are Not My Mother

    At Gateway Film Center

    by Hope Madden

    It’s March. At our house, that means it’s time for Irish horror movies. The Hallow, A Dark Song, The Hole in the Ground —the films that tread that fertile island’s folktales are always among the best.

    Writer/director Kate Dolan’s You Are Not My Mother does just that. Her opening sequence will leave you on edge, wondering what you may have gotten yourself into. After that, she settles into a family drama twisted around the kind of visitors that have been scurrying off with Irish folks and tormenting families for centuries.

    Hazel Doupe is Char, an unpopular high school girl with serious problems at home. Her ma, Angela (Carolyn Bracken), barely gets out of bed and Granny’s (Ingrid Craigle) gout keeps her sidelined. Things aren’t much better at school, where she’s the object of bullying.

    Plus, there are the nightmares.

    The film is a blend of dysfunctional drama and folk horror. At times the story seems allegorical of mental illness — bipolar disorder, in particular. Dolan and a game cast explore the specific pain and yearning that goes along with wanting so badly to save a person you love from themselves.

    At the same time, they dig into the horror of looking into familiar eyes and finding no one you recognize, but maybe someone who means you harm.

    Dolan’s equally invested in spinning an Irish folk horror yarn, and Bracken is entirely on board here. As Angela transforms bit by bit, Bracken embraces the vitality of the new presence Mom has become. She makes the most of some terrifyingly intimate horrors, and one particular dance sequence is enough to leave a mark.

    Doupe leans toward listlessness as the central figure, essentially trying to be invisible until she can escape her adolescent hell. The performance style often works, but at times leaves the film wanting for a little charisma.

    But it’s a small criticism of a film that so cleverly points toward Ireland’s pagan mythology as not the evil nor the good, but the truth that’s working under everybody’s noses whether they admit it or not.

    Grade: B+

    6:45

    On VOD

    by Rachel Willis

    Working from a screenplay by Robert Dean Klein, director Craig Singer brings us the time loop horror film, 6:45.

    Bobby (Michael Reed) and Jules (Augie Duke) are trying to work through some issues, so they visit the quaint island of Bog Grove for a relaxing vacation. What the couple doesn’t know is that their visit to the island falls on the anniversary of a traumatic, unsolved murder. Because of this, the ferry service doesn’t run, and they’re stuck – or so they’re informed by the nosy, odd proprietor for the inn where they’re staying.

    A slow opening that follows the couple exploring Bog Grove, its tourist shops and oddball residents, doesn’t take advantage of the opportunity to build tension. When the tragedy occurs, it comes as a relief rather than a shock.

    Soon, Bobby descends into a nightmare he must relive over and over. Being forced to relive the day alongside Bobby is a horror in itself.

    No one else experiences the loop, so we get to see Duke in a range of roles: some days she wishes could last forever, others see her trying to rein in an increasingly unstable boyfriend. Reed, on the other hand, is stuck playing a man who doesn’t seem to know how to handle himself each day. Every time the crucial event occurs, he seems constantly taken by surprise.

    The cast of locals has little to do, often repeating lines from previous loops. They fill mostly stereotypical roles: small-town friendly and welcoming or weirdly creepy. There isn’t middle ground, and it makes for uninteresting characters.   

    Rather than differentiate itself from similar time loop films through storytelling, 6:45 instead focuses on camerawork and distracting split screens. Anywhere from four to six screens will litter the frame, some focusing on banal details, others on more interesting visuals. Days are relegated to montages,

    Flashbacks detailing the couple’s history sometimes punctuate the flashbacks. It’s here that Singer cleverly injects moments that help us understand why the couple has been fighting. It’s clear that the fight revolves around infidelity, but these fleeting moments offer hints of violence, which reveals something more sinister.

    The film does take an interesting turn, but it comes too little, too late. It also fumbles any message it’s trying to get across. Instead of offering a strong look at a troublesome relationship, it embraces shock over commentary. In the end, we’re not shown anything new or astute.

    Grade: C-

    Follow George, Hope and Schlocketeer Daniel Baldwin for a week in movie reviews and news on THE SCREENING ROOM podcast.

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    George Wolf
    George Wolf
    George Wolf is a member of the Columbus Film Critics Assoc. and a freelance contributor for Columbus Underground covering film. George can also be heard on Columbus radio stations Rewind 103.5, Sunny 95, QFM96 and Mix 107.9.
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