[ThisWeek] I Heart Huckabees at the Kenworthy

[thisweek at kenworthy.org]

This week at the Kenworthy-

I Heart Huckabees (R)
Friday, December 17
7:00 PM
Saturday & Sunday, December 18 & 19
4:30 & 7:00 PM
$5/adults
KFS passes accepted for Sunday movies
(See Review below)

KPAC will be closed December 20 - January 2.
* * *
Next month at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre . . .

Ray (PG13)
Jan 7 at 7PM
Jan 8 - 9 at 3:50 and 7PM

Enduring Love (R)
Jan 14 at 7PM
Jan 15 - 16 at 4:30 and 7PM

The Motorcycle Diaries (R)
Jan 21 at 7PM
Jan 22 - 23 at 6 4:15 and 7PM

Stage Beauty (R)
Jan 28 at 7PM
Jan 29 - 30 at 4:30 and 7PM

Regular Movie prices:  $5 adults, $2 children 12 and younger.
KFS passes accepted for Sunday movies

508 S. Main Street, Moscow, Idaho
For more information, call 208-882-4127 or visit www.kenworthy.org
* * *

This week¹s review-

I HEART HUCKABEES

Directed by David O. Russell;
Written by Mr. Russell and Jeff Baena
Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes

"I Heart Huckabees" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or
adult guardian). It includes some adult language, but probably nothing any
teenager hasn't heard before.

As reviewed by Manohla Dargis writing for the New York Times

The high-wire comedy "I Heart Huckabees" captures liberal-left despair with
astonishingly good humor: it's "Fahrenheit 9/11" for the screwball set.
Chockablock with strange bedfellows-- Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin play a
hot-and-heavy married couple, Jason Schwartzman gets his groove on with
Isabelle Huppert-- the film is a snort-out-loud-funny master class of
controlled chaos. In this topsy-turvy world, where Yes is the new corporate
No and businesses sponsor environmental causes while bulldozing over Ranger
Rick, a pair of existentialist detectives sift through clients' trash to
solve the riddle of their malaise. Like the film's director, David O.
Russell, they gladly risk foolishness to plunge into the muck of human
existence.

The film hinges on one of these clients in mid-crisis, Mr. Schwartzman's
Albert Markovski, a Sisyphean figure with a flop of hair and his own giant
rock. The founder of an environmental advocacy group (the rock is the sole
survivor of one of its campaigns), Albert has recently agreed to join forces
with Huckabees, a Wal-Mart-like corporation with the newspeak motto of "one
store, one world."

Bewitched by the synergistic soft-sell of the Huckabees executive Brad Stand
(Jude Law), who would tag a bald eagle with the corporate logo if he could,
Albert has just realized the downside to cozying up with the Devil. Now, as
Brad stakes a claim on Albert's reason for being, the activist dreams of
hacking his blond doppelgänger to pieces, a fantasy that Mr. Russell obliges
with some low-key digital trickery.

"I Heart Huckabees" is a comedy of dialectics, in which opposing dualities
slug it out like wounded lovers, but it's nothing if not deeply sincere. Mr.
Russell and his co-writer, Jeff Baena, are clearly furious about the state
of things (you name it) but, like Jon Stewart, they slide in the knife with
a smile. The film's Trojan horse strategy reaches its apotheosis in Tommy, a
figure of both comedy and unexpected pathos. After turning to the
existentialist detectives following Sept. 11, the firefighter peers through
the keyhole opened by the catastrophe and discovers a world of sorrows
(child labor, melting icecaps, the works), becoming a man who truly knows
too much. Knowledge may be power, but as the history of the post-1968 left
in this country suggests, it can also be an excuse for factionalism,
impotence, despair.

"I Heart Huckabees" will probably drive some audiences bonkers. Loud, messy,
aggressively in your face and generally played for the back row in the
theater, the film doesn't offer up solutions, tender any comfort or rejoice
in the triumph of the human spirit. All we can do, says Mr. Russell, is keep
pushing that rock back uphill. That's kind of a bummer, but in its passion,
energy and go-for-broke daring, in its faith in the possibility of human
connection (if not its probability), Mr. Russell's film provides its own
reason for hope. It's a mad mad mad mad world, and for those who already
feel crazy, who wake up and read the morning paper with dread and wonder if
we'll ever wake up from our nightmare, well, have I got a movie for you.

As reviewed by Sam Adams writing for the Philadelphia City Paper

In the way that the overstuffed sprawl of the Kill Bills felt like a direct
outgrowth of Quentin Tarantino six-year quest, so David O. Russell's I Heart
Huckabees, his first feature since 1999's Three Kings, seems to be crammed
with every idea he's had in the last five years. Luckily, most of them are
good ideas, although even at a frenetic clip, the movie finally can't keep
up with its creator. Perhaps it's the other way around.

Most comedy has a core of despair, and Huckabees' lies pretty close to the
surface. You don't have to know that Russell was a political organizer
before he was a filmmaker to feel Albert's genuine panic as the coalition
he's built from scratch slips from his grasp, and it's hard to miss Three
Kings' pointed critique of the oil industry's undue influence on American
foreign policy poking out from behind Tommy's obsession with petroleum
products. And then, of course, there's "the big September thing," which
subtly underwrites Huckabees' frenetic search for meaning‹as well as its
characters' pressing urge to disconnect from the world, which they indulge
by smacking themselves in the face with a rubber ball until they can't think
straight. 

Russell doesn't have the take-no-prisoners heart of a true farceur, or Woody
Allen's gift for intellectual absurdism, so the best he can do is space out
the Big Ideas with the occasional spurt of awkward slapstick, following
every philosophical musing with a whack in the face. After a nearly
pitch-perfect first hour, Huckabees grows jagged, unsteady, as if the closer
Russell gets to his grand conclusions, the less comfortable he is stating
them. He lacks the courage of his pretensions.

As reviewed by Tom Brook writing for BBC Talking Movies

In reviewing 'I Heart Huckabees' I found it chaotic, confusing but very much
alive and very enjoyable.

This film is like a whirlwind with all kinds of ideas flying about presented
with some eye-catching visual effects. It also has an ambitious aim ­ to use
Albert¹s journey of self-discovery to provide a critique of everything from
corporate culture to philosophical arguments.

But David O¹Russell doesn¹t quite pull it off ­ his picture is complex but
it lacks coherence. His characters are forced into byways that are amusing
and idiosyncratic and baffling, but the film is helped by some strong
performances ­ Jason Schwartzman makes Albert very endearing, and Jude Law
is good as the cocksure corporate executive.

There are some great scenes in 'I Heart Huckabees' which make at least
moments in the film truly unforgettable.

Film reviews are researched and edited by Peter A. Haggart
* * *

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PAMELA PALMER, Volunteer
Mailto:ppalmer at moscow.com
Film and Events Committee
Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

http://www.kenworthy.org
To speak with a KPAC staff member,
call (208) 882-4127
Mailto:kpac at moscow.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

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