Chances are you’ve already made up your mind about whether or not you’ll see Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Like so many films framing fictional tales around real-life tragedies past, it could be argued a movie centered around the events of Sept. 11 is going to be at best a tacky melodrama and at worst an exploitative venture that cashes in on very real sorrow and the deaths of 3,000 innocent people. 

In this case, the movie is based off the book of the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything is Illuminated), who, coincidentally, like director Stephen Daldry (The Reader, The Hours), has a previous work rooted in another sorrowful bit of history — the Holocaust.

ELIC is a tale (heavily) narrated by 10-year-old Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn), whose father (Tom Hanks) died on “the worst day.” (Though narration is the go-to easy-way out for working the best parts of a book into a film adaptation, it's hard to fault Daldry for the tactic when faced with a collection of words as potent as Foer's) Desperately attempting to make sense of his father’s death and coping with the expanding gulf of time separating him from the memory of his father, Oskar embarks on a nearly impossible quest to unlock the meaning of a key left behind by his father and a lost and mostly forgotten sixth borough of New York. 

Continued after the jump.

There’s little about ELIC that should interest me. I’ve had more than my share of 9/11 films, and I can hardly stomach Sandra Bullock or child actors in dramas, but my skepticism began to fade as Oskar’s journey unfolds. By the time we meet The Renter, a mute elderly man marvelously played by Max von Sydow, I gave up on feeling above ELIC’s blatant tearjerkery, falling for Oskar’s awkwardness and Aspergerian attempts to map and chart his way through the sadness.

Beyond the occasional cheap ploys to cue the waterworks, which, judging from the sounds of sniffling in my screening, were largely effective, and the fleeting feeling there’s not much to the story, ELIC delivers some genuinely wonderful, raw and sad moments, beautiful visuals of heartbreak as we jump back and forth through time — before, during and after the day.

Oskar obsesses over a photo from the newspaper, wanting to see his father in the pixelated picture of a man falling from the towers and pours over his father’s final words. Silently, the Renter pleads for the boy to stop, saying it’s too painful. It would be understandable for audiences to feel the same way or to take issue with someone repackaging our agony into a 120-minute nasal decongestant strategically released just in time for a different Oscar, but ELIC somehow never feels intentionally exploitative.

We end up, kind of obviously, seeing how the sorrow of the day turned strangers into neighbors and with as life-affirming a message as we could hope to take away from a film based on senseless death and chaos. That's not enough to change the way you remember Sept. 11, but it's probably enough to earn ELIC a couple of gold statues come February.

--Eric Pulsifer

_You remember the ‘90s when the Mission: Impossible movies were wildly popular? And then Tom Cruise went all nutso, but JJ Abrams decided to reboot the franchise anyway (and bring in Felicity herself), and it was actually really good? Well, The Incredibles director Brad Bird decided he was going to top all of those.

No, really.

Mission: Impossible--Ghost Protocol decided to go above and beyond any badass action sequences that any of the previous Mission: Impossible films have done before it. And do it in IMAX. I know I’m sounding hyperbolic here, and I went full in expecting to have a good time, but I really didn’t expect to be completely blown away by how over-the-top (in a good way) this film is. Some of the stuff they do is fucking bananas.

READ MORE AFTER THE JUMP.

Granted, all that being said, I wish I had gone back and rewatched the third film because I could barely remember Ethan Hunt’s (Tom Cruise) wife. Shame on me, I suppose. Anyhoo, Ghost Protocol opens with Benji (Simon Pegg) and Agent Jane Carter (Paula Patton) breaking Ethan out of a Russian prison. No one knows why he’s there, but all they know is that they need him to try to break into the Kremlin to find a file. When that mission goes awry, the IMF is implicated in a terrorist plot and Ghost Protocol is initiated--that is, the company is completely shut down. So if Ethan and his team want to clear their names, they must act completely alone, without any help from the IMF and totally off grid. Along for the ride is analyst Brandt (Jeremy Renner).

There is, of course, a real terrorist plot involving some Russian psycho who wants to start a nuclear war, and the team must stop him, at all costs. Which involves jumping into a 10-story shaft, climbing up the world’s tallest building with special gloves that stick to glass, and running through a crazy sandstorm. Ghost Protocol has some of the most insane, bat shit crazy action sequences I have ever seen. It’s like Bird took all of his fun, animated action scenes from his previous films and was like, “let’s bring that shit to life.” And he does. The spectacle of Cruise slowly climbing the Burj Khalifa is a sight unto itself. Do yourself a favor and go see it in IMAX. Another incredibly artful sequence is a fight scene that takes place on a multi-level automated parking garage with multiple levers moving cars to and fro. It’s almost like an action ballet it’s that artful.

Because of Pegg, Ghost Protocol also has some fairly funny moments, too. But, perhaps Renner is the most welcome surprise in that department, as the two have a very humorous scene debating how a particular part of the mission will play out. Cruise’s own personal gravitas work here because they lend Ethan an air of “what, me worry?” that make all the stunts extraordinary.

Mission: Impossible--Ghost Protocol may be one of the best action films in recent years. It’s fun and inventive. Its cast is likable, even megalomaniac Tom Cruise. And the addition of director Brad Bird has pushed the film into a dazzling arena. Just make sure you don't next to someone who likes to exclaim, "HOLY SHIT! Did you just see that?" Because you'll be hearing it a lot.

--Darcie Duttweiler

__The first Guy Ritchie-directed Sherlock Holmes installment didn’t really do it for me. I thought the plot was completely jumbled and too much for the likable cast to overcome. However, I could recognize that the film definitely had a lot of great things going for it: namely the chemistry between Holmes (Robert Downy Jr.) and Watson (Jude Law) and the frenetic directing and fight choreography of Ritchie. I could buy that this Holmes was a martial arts master because of the slow-mo fight scenes where he deduces his opponent’s moves. But I couldn’t buy that awful plot.

For Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, I felt myself more willing to go along for the ride, especially due to the addition of Moriarity (Jared Harris), who gives Holmes a greater intellectual match. However, the sequel still cannot overcome its jumbled plot, but it still becomes a fun movie because of the sum of its parts.

A Game of Shadows follows Holmes as he tries to solve the cause for several bombings in Europe, which are being pinned on an extremist Anarchist group. He believes they are the product of mastermind Moriarty, but he cannot figure out what his evil nemesis is up to. Along for the ride is, of course, Watson, who is trying to embark on his honeymoon without getting killed, Holmes’ brother, Mycroft (Stephen Fry), and a mysterious gypsy (Noomi Rapace) who is trying to figure out how her brother is involved in all the bombings.

That’s the plot boiled down to the simplest I can. There is a whole bunch of Victorian-era politics that predate World War I that I was trying to follow, but it’s mainly best to just sit back and watch Downey, Ritchie, and Holmes do what they do best, which is to make you laugh, show some badass fight scenes, and solve some mother effin’ crimes. But is is the addition of Moriarty (and Harris) that give the film any sense of weight. He is the true foe of Holmes, and he tones down all the adrenaline rush of the action sequences.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows isn’t the most spectacular of films, but it plays on the strengths of everyone involved, and it entertains despite a bogged down plot.

--Darcie Duttweiler

_You may be scratching your head and wondering, “a family movie from Martin Scorsese? WTF? The dude who brought me Goodfellas and Taxi Driver? No way!” Well, Hugo isn’t necessarily a children’s movie in the same vein as The Muppets, which is also opening this weekend. It’s slower, more methodical, and definitely more beautifully-crafted. Sure, it’s about a boy in his quest to uncover a secret, but, more importantly, Hugo is a film that’s meant to be a work of art for those who love movies.

At one point, Hugo (Asa Butterfield) takes his new friend Isabelle (Chloe Moretz) to her first movie, and she turns to him and says, “Thank you for the movie. It was a gift.’’ Hugo is Martin Scorsese’s gift to cinephiles in that he lovingly recreates many of the very first films ever shown but gives them a 3D makeover. This is one instance where the latest technology really does add to the overall package of a film. Hugo is a film for dreamers, but more about that after the jump!

_Hugo, the screen adaption of the 2007 YA novel/picture book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, tells the tale of young Hugo who lives alone in the Paris train station in the ‘30s after the death of his father (Jude Law) and the disappearance of his drunk uncle who wound all the station’s clocks. In order to avoid being thrown in the orphanage at the hands of the Station Inspector (Sasha Baron Cohen), Hugo climbs through catacombs and hides in the walls while stealing croissants and small gadgets from a toy shop run by Papa George (Sir Ben Kingsley). He uses gears stolen from these toys in order to fix a small mechanical boy that his father was trying to fix shortly before he died. Of course, fixing the machine isn’t all that easy because the automaton needs a key in the shape of a heart and Papa George has stolen Hugo’s notebook which has helpful instructions from his late father. Along comes Isabelle, Papa George’s goddaughter who’s longing for adventure, to help Hugo discover the secrets behind the automaton.

Of course, Hugo and Isabelle do discover the secret of this machine, which leads them to Papa George’s past and offers beautiful glimpses into the early days of filmmaking, including a wonderful 3D adaption of Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat by the Lumiere brothers in which the first film’s audience shrieked at the sight of a train coming straight at them. While the loving details to films past and wonderful imagery of dreams and moving pictures is awesome for a devout film buff, I wonder if children would find Hugo as beautiful and moving as I did.

That being said, Hugo is one of the best uses of 3D in recent years (notwithstanding the current Harold and Kumar Christmas movie, of course). It is beautifully shot and directed, with gorgeous cinematography. You can practically feel the train’s steam in your face, and Paris has never looked so magical. Plus, Scorsese angles for kiddos' attention with Baron Cohen’s long nose protruding out of the screen just as far as his trusty canine friend’s snout. Hugo is a feast for the eyes.

Hugo is also incredibly touching with rich characters, even small ones played wonderfully by Christopher Lee, Emily Mortimer, Richard Griffiths, and Helen McCrory. You’ll be hard-pressed to not be charmed by Hugo and his cohorts, especially the lovely Moretz.

Hugo is a loving homage to the original filmmakers and is a charming, delightful film that taps into your dreamer side, but I’m not sure all the kiddies in the audience will be as dazzled and charmed as the grownups.

--Darcie Duttweiler

_The very first song in The Muppets, Gary (Jason Segel) and his puppet brother Walter sing the lyric, “I can’t seem to wipe this smile off of my face.” If that’s not an allusion to how you’ll feel the whole movie, then I don’t know what is. I loooooooved the Muppets growing up, and it wasn’t until that opening number that I realized how much I really missed a great Muppet movie. (Yes, I’m discounted Muppets from Space.) Lifelong Muppet-lover Segel and his cohort, which includes Bret McKenzie from Flight of the Conchords, have created a truly magical and fun Muppet movie that will hopefully relaunch the franchise. And it’s one of the best movies in a loooong time that’s perfect for the whole family.

The Muppets follows Walter, his brother Gary, and Gary’s gal-pal Mary (Amy Adams) on vacation in Los Angeles as they decide to visit the whole Muppets Studio. There, Walter discovers that evil oil tycoon Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) is going to buy the studio and bulldoze it to drill for oil unless the Muppets can scrounge together $10 million to buy it back. Walter persuades Kermit the Frog to rally the whole Muppet gang back together in order to hold a good ol’ fashioned telethon to raise the money. Trouble is everyone has gone their separate ways: Miss Piggy is in France working for Vogue, Animal is in anger management therapy, and Gonzo is a huge plumbing magnate. Plus, a TV exec (Rashida Jones) thinks that the Muppets are obsolete and not famous anymore. (How very meta.) So, can Kermit and Walter get the whole gang back together, and can they prove to the world how much everyone needs a little Muppets in their lives?

While this could very well sound like the sappiest, lamest movie ever, The Muppets is the perfect mix of sincerity, happiness, and humor. The movie doesn’t take itself too seriously, and even offers up classic Muppets meta humor (“this is going to be the shortest movie ever”). Everything is lighthearted and tongue-in-cheek, but nothing feels too grownup or cynical. Sure there are moments of weight, like when Kermit sings a song about how long it’s been since he’s seen his friends, and it’s downright sad and tear-inducing. But then there are absurd Flight of the Conchords-esque songs like “Am I a Man or a Muppet?” that are so pitch-perfect and ridiculous that they’re an amazing fit with the Muppets world.

By the time Kermit sings “Rainbow Connection” you’ll be downright giddy and delirious from smiling so damn much, whether you are a boy or a girl, a kid or an adult, a man or a Muppet. The Muppets might just be one of the best family movies I’ve seen in a long time because it made me feel all gooey and fuzzy in my heart. And this is coming from a cynic like me. Do yourself and your family a favor this Thanksgiving and head out to see The Muppets. 

--Darcie Duttweiler

_Watching the opening wedding scene in Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 is like being a guest at your friend’s friends’ wedding. You don’t belong there, and you frankly don’t give a shit about the copious amounts of toasts occurring. You just want to get to the free booze and maybe make out with a cute groomsmen on the dance floor. Is that too much to ask for? Yes, yes it is. Because instead of a beautiful film with nuance and complexities and fun, Breaking Dawn is a boring, slow film that is laughably awful at several parts. When will Hollywood understand that splitting a film into two parts is quite possibly the worst idea. It makes for the first half to feel completely unfinished and lacking, not the gripping cliffhanger they (or rather, their pockets) anticipate.

Read more after the jump!

_As you may recall from my Eclipse and New Moon reviews, I’m not the biggest fan of the Twilight franchise. But I’m the only writer on this site that actually has a vagina, so I’m deemed the designated Twilight reviewer. It’s not that I can’t get behind a cheesy, teen vampire romance. Trust me, I absolutely adore The Vampire Diaries, as silly and guilty pleasure-y as it is. And I’ve even TRIED to read the first Twilight book just to see what all the hooplah was about. My problem is this: Stephenie Meyer is a terrible writer. Absolutely fucking awful. And all of the crazy Christian overtones of her books are extremely problematic for me. This all translates to movies with terrible dialogue and lots of longing looks that basically spell out how sex equals death.

Plus I think Edward (Robert Pattinson) is creepy as shit. Seriously.

Anyhoo. Now that I got that out of the way (why does Twilight infuriate me SO MUCH?), on to Breaking Dawn! For those of you who haven’t read all the books a bajillion times and wrote about it in your diary, the film picks up where Eclipse left off with Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward getting engaged. Breaking Dawn quickly welcomes us to their wedding, where everyone is all smiles except for Jacob (Taylor Launter, doing some REAL ACTING, DAMMIT), who’s brooding and all preachy about Bella and Edward not getting it on because he might hurt her (that’s what we call a metaphor, folks). Cut to honeymoon, and they do, indeed, do the nasty, and what do you know? Bella totally gets preggers, and because it’s a vampire baby, it grows all crazy fast and hurts her.

Because this baby is basically a monster, all of wolf pack and the Cullen vampire family are concerned and argue over what to do while Bella refuses an abortion even though it would save her own life (oh, are metaphors too hard to spell out anymore when it comes to abortion, Stephenie Meyer? Get it folks, abortions are bad. Period). I digress. There’s lot of scenes of arguing, some bad CGI, some telepathic wolves, lots of brooding, Bella looking all sullen and needing a hairbrush, and that’s it really. Because, while yes, we do see the bloody birth, nothing really happens in this film. It’s a lot of talking and a lot of Kristen Stewart rubbing her belly because that’s what ALL pregnant women do ALL THE TIME.

It’s difficult to write a Twilight review because all the people who are about to camp out for midnight showings could care less what a non-devotee thinks of their precious Bella and Edward. But for me, sitting in the theater about to see The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 gave me the same chills I felt waiting for the Ke$ha concert to start (hey, I got free tickets), which is that I felt scared for the future generation of young girls. But at least Ke$ha is entertaining with her metric tons of glitter. Breaking Dawn is slow, boring, and offers nothing but stilted acting, wooden dialogue, and awful CGI effects.

--Darcie Duttweiler

Let’s imagine a movie. This film will be produced by Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy). It will star Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek as lovers on a quest for redemption and justice. We’ll throw in comic relief from Zach Galifianakis in skin-tight golden spandex and Billy Bob Thorton and Amy Sedaris as a couple of hillbilly psychopaths. That sounds like a movie I’d watch. No, Robert Rodriguez isn’t adding a fourth film to his Mariachi Trilogy — this is Puss in Boots.

About 15 minutes into Puss in Boots, I became deeply concerned. I was being... entertained. How could this be? There are few animated movies I despise more than the Shrek series, and despite a few recent gems, DreamWorks Animation is still responsible for 20-something downright awful films over the past decade. My terror turned into skepticism before dissolving into joyous acceptance after a roller-coaster ride of stunningly animated 3D chase scenes, slapstick humor, wink-wink adult jokes, an expertly choreographed dance off and a flurry of cat puns.

My praise is difficult to utter. It lingers in my throat like a massive hairball I hesitate to vomit free, but I must: This is an entertaining movie. I would recommend people see this.

Though Puss in Boots was born from the painfully unfunny Shrek films, which suffered from a case of Family Guy humor (i.e., mistaking pop-culture references for jokes) and Mike Myers, it has little in common with its forebearers and is much more like DreamWorks Animation’s best work, Kung Fu Panda and How To Train Your Dragon. It’s a family-friendly action-adventure, a PG take on Zorro with universally relatable characters and top-notch visuals and exceptional performances. 

Though the lack of competition may take some of the punch out of this statement, Puss in Boots is the best animated film I’ve seen this year.

--Eric Pulsifer

Ahhh....it’s finally fall. There’s a crispness in the air, everyone’s a-buzz about Halloween, and Austin Film Festival is literally right around the corner. For me, Oscar season kicks off the moment I hit my first AFF screening, as it’s usually a smorgasbord of festival favorites and early Oscar front-runners. So what films do we recommend catching this year?

Check out our list after the jump!

The Artist
Everyone who has seen this film has been going nuts for it. A French silent black and white film, The Artist focuses on a declining Hollywood actor as talkie films are on the rise. Jean Dujardin won the Best Actor award at Cannes this year, and the film is supposed to be an absolute delight.

Like Crazy
Another festival darling, Like Crazy has been making the rounds since it won the Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic Film at the 27th Sundance Film Festival. Starring upcoming indie talent Anton Yelchin and relative newbie Felicity Jones, Like Crazy is supposed to be a heartbreaking and intimate tale on young love.

Shame
Okay, okay, fine I have a crush on Michael Fassbender, and, yes, he DOES go full frontal in this film. While that colors me intrigued, it is, however, not the reason this film is on my list. Fassbender reteams with director Steve McQueen, who directed Fassbender’s breakout moment in Hunger, for a film that delves into sexual addictions, intimacy issues, and control. It also stars Carey Mulligan, who I absolutely adore.

The Descendants
Can George Clooney do no wrong? Spoiler alert: no, he cannot. The Descendants marks Alexander Payne’s return to directing since 2004’s Sideways. Clooney plays a dad of two disconnected daughters struggling to keep his ancestral Hawaiian land after his wife falls into a coma. Everyone who saw the film at the Toronto Film Festival raved about Payne’s latest film.

Martha Marcy May Marlene
What you may have heard about this film is that it is the star-making performance by The Other Olsen Sister, Elizabeth. But it’s also rumored that Olsen, along with the superb John Hawkes, is incredibly captivating in a film about a young girl’s life after traumatically fleeing a cult in the Catskills. Director Sean Dirkin won Best Directing Award at Sundance, and the film is supposed to be an powerful psychological thriller.

You’ll notice that Albert Nobbs isn’t on this list. That’s because I kinda hate Glenn Close. Sorry...

Learn more about the films screening at this year’s Austin Film Festival and plan your schedule!

-- Darcie Duttweiler

Being a writer sucks sometimes. Like today, for instance, when my lovely computer crashed and ate my entire Footloose review, which was quite eloquent and insightful. Trust me, you would have loved it. But, because I'm lazy, you're stuck with this one instead. I promise it will be concise and straightforward with small nuggets of insight.

Footloose, for any of those who've lived under a bridge for the past 27 years, is about a city boy, Ren (newcomer Kenny Wormald) who moves from Boston to Bomont, GA after his mom dies. Quickly he learns that the small town has some weird laws prohibiting public dances outside of church functions because some high schoolers died in a drunk car crash several years before (why they don't just outlaw driving instead is beyond me). Upon his arrival in Bomont, Ren catches the eye of the minister's wild child daughter, Ariel (Julianne Hough) and befriends a yokel named Williard (Miles Teller). Somewhere in there Ren does an angry dance in a warehouse on his yellow VW bug, and my friend, who never saw the Kevin Bacon version, snickered profusely.

Director Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow) has lovingly remade Footloose with much of its original elements. Ariel's red boots pop up, as does Ren's red velvet prom jacket. While most of these elements are welcome additions, such as new renditions of popular soundtrack tunes, the film is almost too similar to the original. The 2011 version wasn't given enough license to make it feel new and fresh and become its own film. I wish they could have made it just ever so slightly different from the original. Although, all the Step Up type choreography was pretty entertaining.

The performers are decent. While Bacon had a dance double, Wormald is a backup dancer turned actor, and it shows. Same goes for Hough. Both actors are slightly wooden and don't really light up the screen until they start dancing. Teller, on the other hand, lends the movie most of its comic relief and steals the show, much like his original counterpart, Chris Penn.

I went into Footloose prepared to dislike the remake. Why remake such a cult classic? But I couldn't help wanting to kick off my Sunday shoes and cut loose. I hate myself for admitting that...

--Darcie Duttweiler

What to say about The Thing that hasn’t been said about the million other remakes, reboots and uncalled for prequels? Well, for starters, it’s another one of those. A film that no one asked for. A movie no one ever knew they didn’t need.

The Thing (1982) — the real one, the John Carpenter-directed one with a bearded Kurt Russell — is a grim, tense and terrifying thriller with groundbreaking special effects and a palpable air of paranoia. 

The Thing (2011) — the brainless yawn-fest of a prequel released this week that stars a beardless Mary Elizabeth Winstead (the object of Michael Cera’s affection in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, the cheerleader from Death Proof) — leads into the opening of the original film by telling us the story of the poor bastards who first come into contact with The Thing. The Thing — the titular shape-shifting alien life form that can morph to mimic its victims — is introduced in The Thing (2011) as a 13-foot tall black bipedal creature with claw-like hands that has been frozen in the ice outside of its spacecraft, which apparently crashed in the middle of Antarctica centuries ago.

This Thing — the appearance-absorbing alien — creates some interesting dilemmas if you’re isolated with a small group of scientists in a remote research facility in Antarctica. Who can you trust when you know the enemy is among you?

Luxurious beards and flamethrower porn after the jump!

Unfortunately, this Thing (2011) has nothing to offer but a diluted and dumbed down copy-and-paste job of The Thing (1982). Same plot. Same problem. Same monster. Gone are Kurt Russell's luxurious facial locks and any method to the madness of The Thing's takeover of the camp. We never know where to direct our mistrust because, rather building any kind of tension about who the predator may be, this Thing seems to take over victims at random.

Then, we get 45 minutes of point the flamethrower at someone, shoot the flamethrower at someone, reaction shot, explosions and/or melting, a CG double-faced crab-walking monster man and then, oh wait, more flamethrower. (Seriously, I don’t think I can convey how much they use the damn flamethrower. It had more screen time than Joel Edgerton. If you have some kind of flamethrower fetish or work in the flamethrower industry, this is the thing for you.)

Most telling about the lack of scares is the biggest startle The Thing (2011) gave me. Sure, the creatures of the '82 Thing look dated now, but it still delivers a real sense of dread. But, there is little suspense or fear in '11 Thing. The silly-looking CG creature with its screeching voice and razor-sharp tentacles, no matter how suddenly or loudly it rips onto the screen, feels cartoonish. No, the only moment that delivered a jump for this unsatisfied viewer was when a scientist yells, “Boo.” Boo indeed.

Rather than going to watch The Thing (2011), go watch The Thing (1982). Hell, you could even go watch the Swamp Thing TV series. Most anything could be better than this thing.

--Eric Pulsifer