British actor Andrew Garfield spins a mixed web in latest Spider-Man movie
SEE/CHANGE: THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (Marc Webb, 2012)
South Street Seaport
Corner of Front & Fulton Sts.
Wednesday, August 14, free, 8:00
www.southstreetseaport.com
www.theamazingspiderman.com
Originally announced to be the fourth Spider-Man movie in the franchise restarted in 2002 by Sam Raimi that featured Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker and Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson, The Amazing Spider-Man instead goes back to the beginning, telling a different origin story that mixes elements of various issues of the immensely popular comic book hero. The first third of the new film works extremely well, as Peter (Tony-nominated British actor Andrew Garfield) falls for beautiful blonde Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), is bitten by a radioactive spider developed by the one-armed Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), and learns how to use his new strength to battle high school bully Flash Thompson (Chris Zylka) while having difficulty explaining himself to Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Field), who raised him after his parents’ disappearance. It’s even directed by a man named Webb, as if it was all meant to be. But soon Marc Webb, a longtime video director whose breakthrough was 2009’s (500) Days of Summer, lets things get way out of hand as the film devolves faster than you can say “With great power comes great responsibility” (which nobody actually says in this film), with gaping plot holes so big you can drive a New York City crane through them — and when the cranes do in fact show up, they elicit well-deserved groans from the audience. The Amazing Spider-Man works best when Garfield and Stone are on-screen together, their blossoming romance building slowly but elegantly, perhaps representative of real life, as they became one of Hollywood’s hottest couples while making the film. But as Connors transforms into the Lizard, The Amazing Spider-Man loses its focus, turning into yet another CGI-crazed monster movie with silly plot twists, annoying red herrings, and ridiculous segments. (Just what’s up with that antidote, and why do villains always build self-destruct machines that have to count down really loudly?) Even the 3D that worked so well in the beginning seems to have been forgotten in the second half. This reboot deserves a swift boot in the you-know-what, especially given the promise of its opening scenes. The Amazing Spider-Man, is screening August 14 as part of the South Street Seaport’s “Front/Row” “See/Change” series, which continues August 17 with Chicago and August 21 with Back to the Future. For a day-by-day listing of free summer movie screenings throughout New York City, go here.
MoMA’s series of films looking at the more recent history of Warner Bros., “A View from the Vaults,” concludes this week with Peter Jackson’s exhilarating and exhausting Lord of the Rings trilogy. In the first part of the Australian director’s fantastical adventure epic based on the books of J.R.R. Tolkien, Elijah Wood stars as Luke Skywalker, a young man who is suddenly thrust into the middle of the ultimate battle of good vs. evil. He is mentored by a strange little creature called Yoda (Ian Holm), and he is tutored by an old man with special powers, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Sir Ian McKellen). Obi-Wan has had a falling-out with the formerly good but now bad Darth Vader (Christopher Lee). Meanwhile, Luke is joined by hot young stud Han Solo (Viggo Mortensen), who promises to protect him as he falls for the beautiful princess in white, Leia (Liv Tyler). Comic relief is supplied by R2D2 (Dominic Monaghan) and C3PO (Billy Boyd). Jackson’s film, which was nominated for thirteen Academy Awards and won four (Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Makeup, and Best Original Song), is a whole lot of fun, even if you haven’t read the books. And to think that it was made by the man who once gave us the infantile, disgusting, hysterical Meet the Feebles.
Peter Jackson continues Tolkien’s immortal tale as Frodo (Elijah Wood) is off to see the wizard (Christopher Lee) at Mordor, where he can destroy evil by throwing the Ring into a fiery volcano. In addition to loyal Samwise (Sean Astin), Frodo is joined by a creature called Gollum (Andy Serkis), which is what you come up with when you mix Yoda with Steve Buscemi. Throw in a bunch of Ents and Orcs, the kingdoms of Rohan and Gondor, and lots of great music and special effects and you have a three-hour film — which earned six more Oscar nods, winning two (Best Sound Effects Editing and Best Visual Effects) — that surpasses the first part and will leave you unwilling to wait another whole year for the conclusion.
When Leslie Braverman suddenly dies at the ripe old age of forty-one, four of his childhood friends reunite to attend the funeral in this very different kind of road movie. Morroe Rieff (George Segal), Barnet Weinstein (Jack Warden), Felix Ottensteen (Joseph Wiseman), and Holly Levine (Sorrell Booke) have one helluva time trying to get to temple on time as they battle traffic, a crazy cabbie (Godfrey Cambridge), and other urban impediments on their way from Sheridan Square to Brooklyn — even though they don’t know exactly which funeral house to go to. Jessica Walter as Inez Braverman, Phyllis Newman as Miss Mandelbaum, and Alan King as a wacky rabbi add to the fun. Based on Wallace Markfield’s 1964 novel, To an Early Grave, this charming little cult fave was written by longtime television variety show scribe Herb Sargent (Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson), directed by Sidney Lumet (Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon), and shot by Boris Kaufman (one of Dziga Vertov’s brothers). This very funny absurdist comedy will sneak up on you when you least expect it. Bye Bye Braverman is screening August 11 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image series “Fun City: New York in the Movies 1967-75,” guest curated by J. Hoberman, which runs August 10 – September 1 and includes such other Big Apple films as Cotton Comes to Harlem, The French Connection, Coogan’s Bluff, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, and Gordon Parks Jr.’s Superfly, which will be followed by a “Changing the Picture” discussion with actress Sheila Frazier, Bow Legged Lou, Paul Anthony, and George Logan, moderated by Warrington Hudlin.
Martin Scorsese wears his cinematic heart on his sleeve in his first family-friendly film, Hugo. Based on Brian Selznick’s Caldecott-winning 2007 illustrated historical-fiction novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret, the 3-D movie follows the adventures of the title character, a homeless orphan boy (Asa Butterfield) who survives by his wits in a Paris train station in the early 1900s. He spends his days stealing small bits of food, winding the big clock, avoiding Inspector Gustav (Sacha Baron Cohen), and trying to find parts for an automaton he is rebuilding, hoping it will have a message for him from his father (Jude Law). He soon makes his only friend, a girl named Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz) who is being raised by her godparents, the bitter Papa Georges (Ben Kingsley) and his wife, Mama Jeanne (Helen McCrory). When it turns out that Papa Georges is the one and only Georges Méliès, who made the world’s first science-fiction film, A Trip to the Moon, among hundreds of others, then was thought to have died in obscurity, all of his work destroyed, Hugo and Isabelle, along with the help of film historian René Tabard (Michael Stuhlbarg), are determined to resurrect Papa Georges and his reputation. Gorgeously shot by Robert Richardson and featuring marvelous period sets by Dante Ferretti, Hugo is beautiful to look at, the camera roaming through the immense train station and up the tall clock tower like in a Jules Verne story. Such side plots as the budding romances between a café owner (Frances de la Tour) and the newspaper seller (Richard Griffiths) and between Gustav and a shy flower girl (Emily Mortimer) feel forced, and the main narrative meanders its way into treacly territory as all the parts slowly come together. At its heart, Hugo is a movie about the love of movies, paying tribute to the early cinema of Méliès, Harold Lloyd, and others but it gets too stuck on the underlying theme of the preservation of old films, one of Scorsese’s driving forces. Still, Hugo is a visual treat in which Scorsese makes the most of 3-D technology, particularly in the first half, before things get a little too sticky (and slickly) sweet, even for a children’s film. Hugo, which was nominated for eleven Oscars and won five technical awards — Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing — is screening August 10 as part of the South Street Seaport’s “Front/Row” “See/Change” series, which continues August 14 with The Amazing Spider-Man, August 17 with Chicago, and August 21 with Back to the Future. For a day-by-day listing of free summer movie screenings throughout New York City, go