Film Clips: This weekends movie openings and more May 07 2010
A movie about babies on Mother’s Day weekend. What gimmick?
OPENING FRIDAY
BABIES 3 stars (PG) French director Thomas Balmes presents this rugrats-eye-view of the lives of four infants born in Namibia, Mongolia, Tokyo and San Francisco. Essentially a plotless film that offers little you wouldn’t get from watching 79 minutes of Youtube, it nevertheless features impressive and undeniably cute footage of babies in their natural habitats. Babies implies that the children of the developed world may be overly coddled compared to their Third World counterparts, who seem perfectly happy to play in the dirt. — Curt Holman
IRON MAN 2 (PG-13) After outing himself as Iron Man, zillionaire Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) contends with vengeful, whip-cracking Ivan Vanko (tattooed, Russian-accented Mickey Rourke), a smarmy arms merchant (Sam Rockwell), romantic tension with his assistant (Gwyneth Paltrow) and … a blood toxicity problem? — Holman
THE RED RIDING TRILOGY 4 stars (R ) Three directors film three separate adaptations of crime novels by David Peace, exploring serial murders and police malfeasance in West Yorkshire in 1974, 1980 and 1983, respectively. Man on Wire director James Marsh directs the second and most gripping installment, as Paddy Considine uncovers crooked cops amid the search for the Yorkshire Ripper. While the first installment (featuring Andrew Garfield as a police reporter) relies on a few too many crime clichés, the trilogy collectively offers a grim but compelling account of institutional corruption and the depressing capacity of human beings to tolerate corruption. — Holman