Walden 3

The Kings of Summer

Crit

For the first act, this is as good an entry in the boys-getting-away-from-their-awful-families-and-into-nature subgenre as any I've seen--better than The Goonies, better than Stand by Me, better than The Summer of '42, you name it.

After the first act, it loses some momentum--perhaps not coincidentally when the figurative snake, sexual jealousy, enters the Garden. From that point on, it feels ever more painstakingly plotted (I was surprised not to see an end credit for a young-adult novel basis), though it never loses that early charm altogether. Part of the reason is the performance of Moises Arias as Biaggio, one of the most successful weird characters I've seen onscreen I'm a while. When you can get away with having a character interpret the symptoms of cystic fibrosis as the reason he believes himself gay, you're got some seriously good weird going down.

Late in the film, Biaggio has a conversation with his father, whom we hear but see only neck down as he shaves. The character is credited to one Michael Cipiti, but I'm very much mistaken if that's not Bruce Willis's voice.

Augustine

Crit

A kitchen maid (Soko) in Belle Epoque France has epilepsy, which is treated as "ovarian hysteria" by a doctor (Vincent Lindon) who initially seems well meaning if ambitious before he starts to seem just plain creepy. Transference, countertransference, and sexual healing. Urg. A film about two-thirds as good as it is disturbing--which makes it pretty darned good indeed.

Trailers

• RED 2--Two Oscar winners added to the great cast of the first one. But still . . .
• Mortal Instruments: City of Bones--Another of those I-didn't-know-my-dead-parent-was-a-supernatural flicks.