A Not-So-Beautiful Mind – Don’t expect any brilliance from ‘Funny Story’

 Keir Gilchrist, left, and Zach Galifianakis star in ñIt's Kind of a Funny Story.Ó K.C. Bailey Photo

Keir Gilchrist, left, and Zach Galifianakis star in ñIt’s Kind of a Funny Story.Ó
K.C. Bailey Photo

Teenage mental illness forms the center of writer-directors Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden’s “It’s Kind of a Funny Story.” As a result, one might expect a drama along the lines of their debut “Half Nelson” (2006), which tackled heroin addiction from a fresh perspective, or the little-seen “Sugar” (2008), which follows a kid from the Dominican Republic and his desire to play professional baseball. Those were good indie films, and “Funny Story” makes a step toward the mainstream by adapting a popular young adult novel by Ned Vizzini.

But by edging toward box office success, they’ve dropped a lot of the writing skills that made their debuts so successful. In trade, they get a great performance from co-star Zach Galifianakis, who the studio is using to suggest this is some sort of follow up to “The Hangover.” It’s not.

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Horror Movie – ‘A Film Unfinished’ unearths a Nazi filmabout the Warsaw Ghetto

In 'A Film Unfinished,' documentarians from Oscillscope unearthed footage from the Nazi propaganda machine attempting to depict rich Jewish captives as indifferent to the crimes against their fellow Jews during the Holocaust.
In ‘A Film Unfinished,’ documentarians from Oscillscope unearthed footage from the Nazi propaganda machine attempting to depict rich Jewish captives as indifferent to the crimes against their fellow Jews during the Holocaust.

A disturbing Holocaust feature, “A Film Unfinished” brings up many issues about documentaries, propaganda and the invisible lines between the two. Young Israeli filmmaker Yael Hersonski has unearthed a relic of that era and turned a silent film into one that screams to be heard.

In 1942, the walled-off Jewish area of Warsaw contained 440,000 Polish Jews, all crowded into a three-mile area and awaiting “deportation.” Into this cramped, awful space stepped a film crew with less than good intentions.

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We Have the Technology – ‘SonicSENSE’ invites the viewer to play with its art

'SONICSENSE TOUCHSENSE,' (detail) BARNEY HAYNES AND JENNIFER PARKER
‘SONICSENSE TOUCHSENSE,’ (detail) BARNEY HAYNES AND JENNIFER PARKER

Forget the signs at the museum telling you not to touch the art. When “SonicSENSE” sets up its exhibition for this coming week’s First Thursday Forum Lounge at Contemporary Arts Forum, it wants interaction. Play away — who knows what will happen.

One piece features a small corridor made out of piezo speaker film, a very thin, shiny metal paper. As the viewer walks through this narrow space, the displaced air ruffles the fabric, producing a ghostly sound between a rumble and a breath. Spooky, but intriguing.

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Studio Sessions – Artist tour allows a look behind the curtain

From landscapes to abstracts, artwork has been at many times inspired by Santa Barbara and its environs, either as a subject or simply as a place to work. Painters, sculptors and multimedia artists live and work invisibly in plain sight. The woman at the farmer’s market buying a basket of vegetables for the week may be going home to finish a huge canvas. The windows looking out from the Riviera may be artist studios. For those who join the Santa Barbara Studio Artists Tour this weekend, all will be revealed. Secret locations will be open for exploring, and one may just catch the art bug.

Now in its ninth year, the weekend-long open house features over 40 artists who live and work in Santa Barbara, Montecito and Carpinteria. Some work downtown. Others work off in the wilds, or as wild as we get here.

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So Long and Adieu – ‘Farewell’ uncovers a true spy tale of the 1980s

“Farewell” features strong lead performances from two directors-turned-actors in a story of Russian espionage. One is Emir Kusturica, in whose films “Black Cat, White Cat” and “Underground” we got some of the best Eastern European films of the late ’90s. The other is Guillaume Canet, the French director of the very exciting 2006 thriller “Tell No One,” who has a long acting résumé.

In “Farewell” they make an interesting pair, as Kusturica plays Sergei Gregoriev, a Soviet colonel who has grown disillusioned with life under communism. He is looking to leak state secrets in order to have a better life for his son, whom he rarely talks to, and his wife, whom he is cheating on with his secretary.

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Run Run Run Runaway – Two kids set off for Dublin in ‘Kisses’

Shane Curry, left, and Kelly O'Neill, right, play teen runaways in "Kisses."
Shane Curry, left, and Kelly O’Neill, right, play teen runaways in “Kisses.”

Two Irish pre-teens get in trouble with their abusive families and runaway to the big city in “Kisses,” a cute but not always successful film from director Lance Daly.

Dylan (Shane Curry) lives with a drunk, unemployed dad and a mom struggling to make ends meet. We first see the father yelling death threats at a toaster, and that’s the mood we see him in for most of the opening sequence. No wonder Dylan pines to curl up under headphones to the comfort of his Gameboy. Next door, Kylie (Kelly O’Neill) suffers spoken abuse from her sister, is made to walk her infant sister around in a pram and hide from her creepy uncle.

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They Draw Horses, Don’t They? – Artists gather for a 24-hour marathon art session

Artists Keith Puccinelli, left, Penelope Gottlieb, top right, and Alejandro Casazi prepare for the drawing marathon earlier this summer. Thomas Kelsey/News-Press
Artists Keith Puccinelli, left, Penelope Gottlieb, top right, and Alejandro Casazi prepare for the drawing marathon earlier this summer.
Thomas Kelsey/News-Press

“4 a.m. is when it really starts to get to you,” says artist Saul Grey-Hildenbrand. “That’s when you really start questioning your sanity.”

Doing anything for 24 hours straight is pushing human limits, but there’s a special place for drawing, as a select group of Santa Barbara artists, who may want to know how to start a drawing business real soon, will find out this weekend when Contemporary Arts Forum hosts its first annual “From Dusk ’til Drawn” to raise money for CAF’s budget.

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We Are the Dead – ‘Collapse’: One Man’s Mission to Wake Us All Up

Sometimes the best docs start when the filmmakers go off course, when the wheel is grabbed by their subject and driven elsewhere. As “Collapse” tells us, the filmmakers were set to interview Michael Huppert, a former LAPD officer and detective, once CIA whistleblower and now peak-oil evangelist, about his former bosses in the government. “He had other things on his mind,” the caption says.

Huppert’s mind expands into 75 minutes of riveting monologue, assuaged by animated graphs and public-domain film footage from the 1950s — all eye candy, breaking down how the downslope of the peak oil bell curve will change life on Earth as we know it. He warns about the human race’s rush toward suicide, and would like to stop us, if only we’d listen.

And skeptical or not, we do. The camera in “Collapse” approaches Huppert — chain smoking and chatting under a single light — like one would circle an insistent intellectual or a slightly crazed co-worker in a bar. So much of what he says makes sense, but can it all really be true? Are we all doomed? “What if he’s wrong?” we ask, only to be followed by, “Oh my God, what if he’s right?” So we keep listening.

During a month where untold millions of gallons of oil are gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, potentially ending ecosystems and livelihoods for an unforeseeable amount of time, Huppert’s thesis about peak oil feels more prescient than ever.

Not only do we use gas to power cars and airplanes, but oil is the base for all our plastics, all our pharmaceuticals, our entire infrastructure. When Huppert was interviewed, many of his past predictions had come true, including the sub-prime mortgage debacle and the tanking of the markets. But when it comes to peak oil, his thoughts, which are nothing new among the government agencies who refuse to discuss them, may be catching on elsewhere.

Filmmaker Chris Smith wisely let Huppert just talk, though we are never sure how much he and his editor may have shaped a rambling discussion into this tight, cohesive essay.

Smith is not shy about playing devil’s advocate; when Huppert avoids a question, Smith presses him again. He isn’t starstruck by Huppert, but he doesn’t dismiss or ridicule him either.

And anyway, he says, two nations already have gone without oil: North Korea and Cuba. Both lost oil when the Soviet Union fell. North Korea, he says, starved — the full extent of which we in the West still don’t know — but Cuba urged all its citizens to start farming.

And this is what Huppert suggests for us, along with an emotional plea for community. Holing up in a cabin in the woods with a stockpile of tinned food and weaponry is not the way out, he says.

“Collapse” will send you out of the theater a bit sweaty palmed, only slightly hopeful for the survival of the human race and in wonder what we’re all doing as you sit behind the wheel, waiting to leave the parking lot.

He may just be right.

‘COLLAPSE’
****
Length: 82 minutes
No rating
Playing: 7:30 p.m. at UCSB’s Campbell Hall

Give ’em Hell, Harry – Michael Caine takes on the yobs in revenge thriller Harry Brown

Michael Caine is out for vengeance against strung-out thieves, murderers and rapists in "Harry Brown."
Michael Caine is out for vengeance against strung-out thieves, murderers and rapists in “Harry Brown.”

Young gangs strung out on heroin, recording beatings, rape and murder on their cell phones, terrorizing entire housing estates — this is the world that “Harry Brown,” the movie by Daniel Barber and the character played by Michael Caine, lives in. It’s also a world created out of a year’s worth of horror stories from Britain’s tabloid press, and Harry Brown is just the man — and a typical tabloid reader — to sort things out.

“Harry Brown” has not so much divided critics in Britain, but more made it difficult for liberal critics to like the film without siding with right-wing tabloids like the Daily Mail. But this isn’t Britain, and “Harry Brown” should be taken with as much seriousness as any other pulpy revenge film. Hollywood has dished up some vigilante flicks in recent years — Jodie Foster in “The Brave One” may be one with a higher profile — but the zeitgeist isn’t right for it. Over in Britain, it feels like 1974 all over again.

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Iron Man 2 – At the Drive-In, 2.0

Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts, left, and Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark continue their off-kilter romance in "Iron Man 2." Paramount Pictures Photos
Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts, left, and Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark continue their off-kilter romance in “Iron Man 2.”
Paramount Pictures Photos

When “Iron Man 2” opens tonight, it will screen in the usual downtown and Goleta locations. However, there’s a third option. For the first time in 19 years, the Santa Barbara Drive-In opens back up to premiere the first of this summer’s blockbusters on what was and is once again the city’s largest screen.

As a result of a Facebook campaign and some wise investors, the 88-foot wide, three story-tall screen will once again be alive for double features, and a new generation can experience the magic of watching a film in a style that once was thought to be a dying venue nationwide.

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