movies
Things in the Basement
The Truth is Not Nice
Once upon a time, there was a blonde girl in an alley, and she looked like easy prey for a hungry vampire. But that
girl’s name was Buffy, and the vampire was totally wrong.
Once upon a time, and another time, and another time before that, there was a group of kids, and when they
thought they were going to have a nice weekend in a cabin in the woods, they were totally wrong.
You know where this is going, if you’ve ever seen a scary movie or even a preview for one. But the story heads
down a different ominous dirt road in Cabin in the Woods, which has co-writer, co-producer and Buffy mastermind
Joss Whedon’s fi ngerprints all over it. This means wisecracks fl y faster than fi sts or weapons, and chances are good
a poorly CGIed giant reptile will turn up sooner or later. It also means that things are always likely to be much more
than they seem, often in a way that melds deep-seated fears with an even deeper understanding of pop culture.
Whedon’s co-writer and the fi lm’s director, Drew Goddard, also has some experience with mysterious tales;
after writing for Buffy and Angel, he did time on Lost, which likewise did some strange things with a seemingly
straightforward location. Scream is also in the fi lm’s family tree, though Cabin’s view is bigger and broader than that
self-aware series. Why are horror stories often so familiar, even as they’re built to frighten? What’s the point in telling
these stories, with these characters (here including Chris Hemsworth as the jock and Dollhouse’s excellent Fran
Kranz as the funny one), over and over again? Where do your nightmares come from, and where do they go when the
night’s over?
Cabin in the Woods taps into something primal, creepy, funny — and gory. Whedon and Goddard don’t slack on the
bloody hijinks as they meld horror movie tropes with a smart, perfectly absurd take on the things that make horror
stories happen. Is that vague enough? Don’t let the spoilers get you, kids. They lurk everywhere. — Molly Templeton
Academic satire breathes a fairly rarifi ed air, typically
isolated to dodgy second novels or the untenured ravings of
drunk grad students. It seems diminishing, then, to classify
director Joseph Cedar’s brilliant new movie, Footnote, as
merely a jab at the pretensions of ivory tower intellectuals.
Though this nearly perfect fi lm does pick, hilariously, at the
itchy nit of alienated highbrows — revealing how the fortress
of academia also doubles as emotional hideout — it becomes
in the end something more profound than the infi nitesimal
parody implied by its title. Like all great comedies, from Don
Quixote to Annie Hall, Footnote is tragic at heart. Funny, yes,
but heart-wrenchingly so.
Eliezer Shkolnik (Shlomo Bar-Aba) is a proud, grouchy
philologist whose 20 painstaking years of Talmudic research
were suddenly trumped by a colleague’s lucky discovery.
Eliezer’s son, Uriel (Lior Ashkenazi), is an academic all-
star, a pompous, self-regarding but ultimately likable
professor whose pop ethnographies are scorned as mere
Judaic folklore by his scientifi cally rigorous father. When
bitter old Eliezer is mistakenly notifi ed that he’s to be
awarded the coveted Israel Prize actually meant for Uriel,
the fragile bonds of father and son — knotted up by pride,
disappointment, envy, anger, resentment and idolization —
begin to fray, and the line separating love and betrayal is
erased by desperate measures.
It’s a juicy premise, and writer/director Cedar lets things
run their disastrous course without losing an ounce of
empathy for each character drawn into this one family’s
drama. Compared to the act of dying, comedy indeed might
be hard to pull off, but Cedar and his talented ensemble cast
make it look easy. Footnote has an almost anachronistic
feel about it, like some old-school effort from a Golden Age
director like Wilder or Sturges; the fi lmmaking is solid but
playful — fl ashbacks are framed like bits of microfi che — and
the story, up to its ambivalent conclusion, maintains an
intricate symmetry and equilibrium. As with the excellent
later fi lms of Woody Allen (Deconstructing Harry, Match
Point), Cedar’s comedy has the force of a well-conceived,
immaculately executed short story: snappy, sharp and so
much greater than the sum of its parts. — Rick Levin
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CHIMPANZEE (G)
Fri. - Sat.(1230 245) 500 715 930
THINK LIKE A MAN (PG-13)
Fri. - Sat.(1245) 410 700 1000
THE LUCKY ONE (PG-13) Fri. - Sat.(1145 215) 445 730 1015
BULLY (PG-13)
Fri. - Sat.(1200 230) 515 745 1020
THE THREE STOOGES (PG)
Fri. - Sat.(1135 1205 200) 420 645 910
CABIN IN THE WOODS (R) - ID REQ'D Fri.(235) 455 735 955
Sat.(1210) 455 735 955
CABIN IN THE WOODS [OC] (R) - ID REQ'D
LOCKOUT (PG-13)
Fri.(1210 PM)
Sat.(235 PM)
Fri. - Sat.(1155 225) 505 740 1005
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DR SEUSS' THE LORAX (PG)
Fri. - Sat.(1140 AM 150 PM)
THE LUCKY ONE (PG-13)
Fri. - Sat.(120 350) 700 930
LOCKOUT (PG-13)
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12:15,2:35,4:55,7:15,9:35
21 JUMP STREET (DIGITAL) R
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DR. SEUSS’ THE LORAX (DIGITAL)
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HUNGER GAMES, THE (DIGITAL)
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12:20,1:10,2:00,3:40,4:30,5:20,7:00,7:5
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CHIMPANZEE (DIGITAL) G
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12:35, 2:50, 4:55, 7:35, 9:55
GHOST RIDER SPIRIT OF
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12:40, 5:10,10:00
GONE PG-13
2:55, 7:45
THE IRON LADY PG-13
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Fri. - Sat.(150) 430 735 955
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THE RAID: REDEMPTION
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9:10
WRATH OF TITANS (DIGITAL)
PG-13
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12:25,2:55,5:25,7:55,10:25
THINK LIKE A MAN (DIGITAL)
PG-13
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THE THREE STOOGES (DIGITAL)
PG
12:05,2:25,4:45,7:05,9:25
Fri. - Sat.(100) 400 705 1000
THE LUCKY ONE (PG-13)
Fri. - Sat.(115) 400 700 945
THE THREE STOOGES (PG)
Fri. - Sat.(100 345) 640 920
CABIN IN THE WOODS (R) - ID REQ'D
Fri. - Sat.(130) 415 720 955
21 JUMP STREET (R) - ID REQ'D Fri. - Sat.(110 350) 650 935
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