~Downstairs at the Savoy~
Marley
Starts friday, May 25
Rated PG-13; 144 minutes
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (excerpted)
Bob Marley was the most important Jamaican, a figure who stood above race and politics, who sang for the globe, and at a time of racial upheaval and surging African independence, sang the anthem "One Love" ("let's get together and feel all right"). People of color and young people everywhere felt his passion.
An ambitious and comprehensive film, Marley does what is probably the best possible job of documenting an important life. Authorized by all the members of his scattered family and with rights to all of his music and a wealth of previously unseen film and video footage, it shows the growth of a legend. What's interesting is that Marley seems not to have had a concrete goal for his career, other than to use music to bring people together. His instincts were good, and he followed them, and to an unusual degree, he found independence in a white-ruled music industry.
The passages depicting his final years are tremendously touching. He began to seek treatment when it was already probably too late and continued to tour, even though his fans noted with concern his weight loss and increasingly frail appearance. Finally, he went to a clinic in Switzerland, where the snow-covered mountains provided an alien landscape against which his death approached. The documentary features interviews with some of those who treated him and developed great affection; he had become in a sense a secular saint. He flew to warmer weather in Miami, where he died on May 11, 1981.
This film has no great revelations and will start no scandals — if indeed there are any. It's a careful and respectful record of an important life, lived by a free spirit, whose "One Love" seems to be known in every land.
~Downstairs at the Savoy~
Headhunters
Coming Soon
Rated R; 101 minutes
In Norwegian w/subtitles
James Verniere, Boston Herald (excerpted)
Meet Norwegian Roger Brown (ginger-haired, elf-sized Aksel Hennie). In spite of his small stature, Roger is married to aptly named, Valkyrie--sized knockout Diana (Synnove Macody Lund), an art dealer who looks like a model. They live together in a posh midcentury--modern glass house. Roger is the best corporate headhunter in the country. Roger is also a high-tech art thief with a colorful crony named Ove (Eivind Sander) who works for a security company and gladly helps Roger shut down home alarms for a percentage of the take.
Director Morten Tyldum works with easy economy, introducing the characters and the film’s memorable villain Clas Greve (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Game of Thrones) a Dutchman, former member of an elite army kill squad, and former CEO of another high-tech company. When Roger meets Clas at Diana’s new gallery, the sparks fly between Diana and Clas and Clas and Roger, especially when Roger learns that the priceless Peter Paul Rubens painting “The Calydonian Boar Hunt” hangs in the Oslo flat of Clas’ late mother.
This tangled tale will further feature poison, a pair of hick twin cops, a tractor upon which a pit bull is impaled, high-tech hair gel, a Manchurian Candidate reference and an excess of blood and excrement. Roger experiences symbolic death and rebirth and a reversion to infancy, while a lot of other characters experience just plain old death. Everything from the chic interiors to shabby ones and breathtaking outdoor settings is beautifully shot by John Andreas Andersen. This is one funny, gory, high-class crime thriller. Based on the 2008 novel by acclaimed Norwegian sensation Jo Nesbo, Headhunters is a total Euro-neo-noir blast.
(Headhunters contains nudity, extreme violence and sexually suggestive scenes.)