And I thought this whole Oogieloves business couldn’t get any stranger. Take it away, A.O. Scott! “Nobody is mean in this movie. They talk very loud. Theres parts where you dance or say cheers and rimes which made it noisy in the theter. Hallie’s dad said it was Rocky Horror for toddlers whatever that is. Me and Hallie are 7 and we thought it was for babies. Theo is 3 and a half. Dont you dare call him 3. He ran in circels and fell asleep. At the end the Oogieloves get all the bloons and the bloons grow faces. That was kind of a scary part evn tho the bloons were nice.” When I was seven I could spell much better than this, but whatevs. Yes, it counts toward the Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes . WTF indeed. [ NYT ]
Like the Paranormal Activity films and their cinematic ancestor Poltergeist , The Apparition takes place in what may be the least naturally atmospheric setting out there — suburban California. There’s something welcomingly off-kilter about dropping a supernatural tale in a location so inherently mundane. It’s straightforward enough to spin scares out of creaky mansions in remote areas, cavernously empty hotels and abandoned asylums, but sunny tract housing doesn’t naturally lend itself to spookiness, which makes it all the more immediate and unsettling when a movie manages to make such a thing work. It doesn’t, unfortunately, work in The Apparition , an incomprehensibly garbled, derivative attempt at a horror flick from first-time writer-director Todd Lincoln. The setting may actually be the most interesting aspect of the film, a sparsely occupied, recently constructed planned community in the Los Angeles suburb of Palmdale, where young couple Kelly ( Twilight- er Ashley Greene) and Ben (Sebastian Stan) have just taken up residence in a new house purchased as an investment by Kelly’s mother. With its shiny appliances, pre-installed flatscreen and near-identical exterior to neighboring buildings on the block, the Overlook Hotel it is not, but then it needn’t be, because the pair may have brought their haunting with them. The Apparition is inspired by the Philip Experiment, in which a group of Canadian parapsychologists in the ’70s invented a ghost, gave it a history and tried to imagine it into being by the force of their combined will and thoughts. The film presents a version of this experiment, done in faux aged stock, at its outset before skipping ahead to more modern footage of a recent, disastrous attempt to recreate the deed with scientific equipment, led by college student Patrick (Tom Felton — Draco Malfoy himself). The double framing story presents a captivating concept, of a spirit birthed entirely out of human belief, a self-reinforcing thing once it came into being and started scaring people. But the film essentially drops this idea after introducing it, as it does most of the elements it introduces. Whatever other problems The Apparition ‘s apparition has, bewildering inconsistency is its foremost. At first the spirit is flinging open doors and making banging sounds a la the aforementioned Paranormal Activity , then it’s causing dark stains to appear on the ceiling like Dark Water , then it’s sucking people into walls like Pulse , then it’s taking the form a jerkily crawling ghost woman right out of The Grudge . The apparition, it would seem, has no clear motivation and is of fuzzy origin, but it’s definitely a movie buff, especially when it comes to J-horror. That last scene in particular is such a carbon copy of Kayako, the ghost in Takashi Shimizu’s franchise, and so unlike what’s happened in the haunting thus far (everything has suggested it take the form of a tall, thin man) that it’s almost laughable, as if, having given up on more traditional scares, the apparition has decided to go international. Greene and Stan are both very pretty, and they’re fine actors who are required for the sake of the movie to do extremely silly things. Stan’s character, for instance, keeps his past connection to the spirit secret for no sensical reason, and tries to pretend the paranormal force that’s growing ghost mold on their ceiling and tying their clothes in knots has no interest in them. Greene’s character uncovers her boyfriend’s keepsake trove of videos and other evidence of the experiment gone wrong, and the first thing she asks him about is not why he helped summon some apparent demon thing but who the girl is in the photos with him — were they together ? The primary frightening scene in the film is also its biggest headshaker, in which Kelly is left alone in the house as the lights are shutting off by themselves, and rather than run outside or shriek for help, she uses a thermal imager to peer around the dark downstairs, the soundtrack running an accelerating, thumping heartbeat. It’s a good thing neither Kelly nor Ben are developed enough for the audience to invest in their safety as they heedlessly engage in such hazard-courting behavior, but without characters to latch on to, all that’s left are the scares and the story, neither of which amounts to anything. At only 82 minutes long, The Apparition is so lean you’d think it had to have been edited to bits somewhere, except that there’s no conceivable way that these pieces could have fit together to begin with. With no consistent mythology — at one point the characters drive and drive to take shelter in a Faraday cage that immediately stops working once they get inside — and few original thoughts, The Apparition is distinguished only in being what has to be the lone horror movie to set a climactic scene in a Costco. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Welcome to THG’s Week in Review! Below, our staffers look back at the stories, stars and scandals that made the last seven days some of the craziest all year. If you don’t already, FOLLOW THG on Twitter , Google+ , Tumblr and Facebook for news 24/7/365. Let us be your celebrity gossip source across the board! Now, a rundown of the week that was at The Hollywood Gossip : Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux got engaged! Congratulations! Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson was arrested for head-butting his wife. Evelyn Lozada filed to divorce him after just 41 days of marriage. He was also cut by the Dolphins , as seen on Hard Knocks (above). Lots of people apparently wanted to see Paul Ryan shirtless … … and learn about the GOP V.P. nominee’s wife Janna Ryan . Miley Cyrus cut her hair VERY short, as you can see below … Miles went on to defend her wild, crazy new look as all about self love . Dave Mustaine said President Obama staged the Colorado shooting . Rihanna was more concerned for Chris Brown than for herself. Katrina Darling , Kate Middleton’s cousin, graces Playboy ‘s cover. Lady Gaga slammed PETA after the group had called her out. Al Roker took a shot at Matt Lauer over Ann Curry’s firing. The Robert Pattinson Daily Show visit was classy and hilarious. Kristen Stewart looks to be out of any Snow White sequel . Some believe she’s taking an unfair share of the blame . Rashida Jones joked that John Travolta should come out . Sophia Bush told gay marriage opponents to eff themselves. A guy took this Loch Ness Monster photo (supposedly).
This weekend Charisma Carpenter , Nan Yu and Amanda Ooms bring the feminine touch to the macho action flick The Expendables 2 , but for onscreen skin there’s only one game in town: the indie drama Compliance (2012), nude in limited release. Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23 star Dreama Walker makes her nude debut as a fast-food employee forced to strip for her boss thanks to the manipulation of a pervy prank caller. The movie has been the source of some controversy, with multiple walkouts at festival screenings and and The Huffington Post dubbing it ” The most disturbing movie ever made. ” Sound like a fun night out at the movies? Read our review of Compliance after the jump!
To even describe The Expendables 2 as a movie seems to do both the medium and this strange, smirking effort a disservice. It isn’t a movie — it’s more like the world’s most expensive, elaborate viral video, making a detour to the big screen before being broken up into more easily consumable segments to be consumed on YouTube. 2010’s The Expendables , directed by its star Sylvester Stallone , was built around the meta-joke of its cast being a who’s who of past and current action stars, particularly ones associated with the more iconic of ’80s muscle movies. But it also had characters with rough personality designations, it had settings and a plot that actually crescendoed toward its violent conclusion. Helmed by Con Air ‘s Simon West, The Expendables 2 has none of these things. Instead, what it has is Chuck Norris making a cameo as a character named Booker (a hat tip to Good Guys Wear Black ) to shoot a few dudes and then recount a Chuck Norris fact (it involves a king cobra). It has Arnold Schwarzenegger, who also briefly appeared in the first film, showing up to joke about being back and terminating people, and ending a bickering session with Bruce Willis by muttering “Yippee-ki-yay.” Whatever throwback charm the first film had has been utterly Snakes on a Plane -d by this sequel, which from the start is far more pleased with itself than audience members are ever given a chance to be. So Stallone is back as Barney Ross, leader of the mercenary group of the title, who’ve become (with one key exception) hammily invincible in the time since the last film ended. Along with his bantering best bud Lee Christmas ( Jason Statham ), Ross heads his team up on a mission to rescue a Chinese billionaire in the opening scene, a sequence that turns into an orgy of automatic weapon fire, armored vehicles smashing through walls and a chase that eventual takes to the water, no element of which sustains even the illusion of putting the preening main characters in harm’s way. If you’ve been in the game this long, it seems, you no longer need to even pretend you could get shot by those extras gamely firing blanks. Dolph Lundgren is still on board as Gunner Jensen, gone from turncoat to comic relief, while Jet Li has a fight scene or two before making a shrug of an exit. Terry Crews and Randy Couture are given little to do other than flex their biceps and fill in the background in this iteration. And Liam Hemsworth shows up as the new team sniper, whose place as “the kid” in a film that’s all about decidedly grown (and slightly creaky) men suggests he’s in a position of peril even before he ends up taking one last gig before retiring to start a new life with his girl. The Expendables are given a mission by Willis’ CIA agent Mr. Church, and head off to retrieve a valuable object from a downed plane at the direction of token female Maggie (Yu Nan), a motorcycle-riding Chinese agent who charms Ross with her ability to efficiently torture information out of informants. When the plan goes awry, Ross and company set out for revenge, targeting a swaggering villain who’s actually named Vilain, and who’s played by a scene-chewing Jean-Claude Van Damme in sunglasses, a duster and a Satanic neck tattoo. In an age of overabundance of CGI, in which neither physical presence nor prowess is required to take the lead in an action film, the appeal of something like The Expendables is clear. Stallone and his buddies aren’t just waving the banner of nostalgia, they’re a stand-in for practical effects and martial arts training, for being able to hold the camera with bulk and charisma (if not necessarily acting range) while delivery cheesy one-liners with a dearth of irony. They represent an outmoded form of the blockbuster, one that’s become replaced by something even more slick, calculated and forgettable — consider the new Total Recall versus the feature on which it was based, the remake a film in which everything is possible and yet nothing seems to matter. The longing for more tangible entertainments is what makes The Expendables 2 feel so damnably lazy — it trades on the quirk of being able to assemble cast-members who’ve devalued enough over the years to become affordable in a single movie, and then barely bothers to actually make that movie. It’s not a joyless effort, but it’s one in which (with the exception of the always admirably present Statham) most of the joy feels self-directed — just a group of guys pounding each other on the back between takes and reassuring themselves that they’ve still got it. Maybe they do, but there’s little evidence of the fact on screen here, in this smug attempt to power a franchise on novelty value alone. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Whether or not Robert Pattinson carries Cosmopolis to box-office glory this coming weekend, I hope he’s around the movie business for a long time. Unlike Kristen Stewart, who, I’m convinced, is Oscar material, Pattinson has yet to blow me away as an actor, but I do think he should win an award for the cheeky way in which he keeps showing us that contemporary celebrity journalism is a joke. Pattinson’s hysterical media tour for Cosmopolis has been underway since Monday when Jon Stewart — Mr. I-Schooled-Jim-Cramer-and-President-Obama-on-national-TV — served the actor melted ice cream and a bunch of runnier questions on The Daily Show . And then on Wednesday, things got even sillier. Pattinson appeared on Good Morning America, where host George Stephanopoulos informed the actor that the show’s staff had done some research and come up with Pattinson’s favorite breakfast food: Cinnamon Toast Crunch. (Good to see the ABC News budget going to good use.) The interview that followed was a lot like that cereal: sickly sweet and full of empty calories, although the winning and witty Pattinson never went soggy in the milk bath of Stephanopoulos’ aimless questioning. I couldn’t help but admire the actor’s response when Stephanopoulos, attempting to get the “elephant in the room out of the way” asked Pattinson “How are you doing? And what do you want your fans to know about what’s going on in your personal life?” Behind the two men, a small horde of those fans stared hungrily at their Twilight idol through the glass walls of GMA ‘s Times Square studio. If Pattinson, who we keep being told has no publicist, was going to play the game, that was the moment where he was supposed to drop some morsel about his supposed relationship drama with Kristen Stewart. Instead, he used GMA’ s cereal shtick to his advantage. “I’d like my fans to know that Cinnamon Toast Crunch has 30 calories per bowl,” Pattinson said with a vampy grin, reducing the idiocy of contemporary celebrity journalism to a single line. Make that two: “Pretty much everything that comes out of my mouth is irrelevant,” he added. Nice. “I take it that you don’t want to talk too much about it,” replied Stephanopoulos, which made me spit my breakfast back into my bowl. Really? “Is that the way you handle all of this craziness?” the former Clinton Administration adviser continued. “You get into to it to do movies,” said Pattinson. “I’ve never been interested in trying to sell my personal life. And that’s really the only reason people try to bring it up. The reason why you go on TV is to promote movies.” The thing is, even though GMA showed a clip and Pattinson talked about the role, I don’t think the TV audience left with a better idea of whether they would want to see Cosmopolis , or why Pattinson wanted to appear in it. If director David Cronenberg — whose films provoke and inspire even when they don’t work as conventional entertainment — was discussed at all during the interview, I don’t recall a single significant thing that was said. Instead the interview became more about Pattinson’s celebrity. Fortunately, he is capable of being introspective. “If you start getting used to it, it means you’re going crazy,” the actor told Stephanopoulos, adding: “It’s like being on the craziest theme-park ride. It’s exciting, but, eventually, at some point, you’ve got to have a break.” Pattinson, who plays an increasingly unhinged billionaire in Cosmopolis , even suggested a way that henpecked celebrities like him could get a break from the paparazzi: “If you put the lives of people who control billions on the front page of every single paper, the world would be a better place,” he said. (Except Rob, that many of those billionaires also control much of the media.) To those same ends, the actor without a publicist had a few choice words to say about “spin culture” that, I suspect, raised some hackles at the high-powered publicity firms that represent celebrity’s finest. “If you took away publicists” and those who relied on them “spoke for themselves, then they’d have to be responsible for their words.” the actor said. I think that’s what I like best about Pattinson. He knows he’s part of the problem, but he sounds like he’d prefer to be part of the solution. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Whether or not Robert Pattinson carries Cosmopolis to box-office glory this coming weekend, I hope he’s around the movie business for a long time. Unlike Kristen Stewart, who, I’m convinced, is Oscar material, Pattinson has yet to blow me away as an actor, but I do think he should win an award for the cheeky way in which he keeps showing us that contemporary celebrity journalism is a joke. Pattinson’s hysterical media tour for Cosmopolis has been underway since Monday when Jon Stewart — Mr. I-Schooled-Jim-Cramer-and-President-Obama-on-national-TV — served the actor melted ice cream and a bunch of runnier questions on The Daily Show . And then on Wednesday, things got even sillier. Pattinson appeared on Good Morning America, where host George Stephanopoulos informed the actor that the show’s staff had done some research and come up with Pattinson’s favorite breakfast food: Cinnamon Toast Crunch. (Good to see the ABC News budget going to good use.) The interview that followed was a lot like that cereal: sickly sweet and full of empty calories, although the winning and witty Pattinson never went soggy in the milk bath of Stephanopoulos’ aimless questioning. I couldn’t help but admire the actor’s response when Stephanopoulos, attempting to get the “elephant in the room out of the way” asked Pattinson “How are you doing? And what do you want your fans to know about what’s going on in your personal life?” Behind the two men, a small horde of those fans stared hungrily at their Twilight idol through the glass walls of GMA ‘s Times Square studio. If Pattinson, who we keep being told has no publicist, was going to play the game, that was the moment where he was supposed to drop some morsel about his supposed relationship drama with Kristen Stewart. Instead, he used GMA’ s cereal shtick to his advantage. “I’d like my fans to know that Cinnamon Toast Crunch has 30 calories per bowl,” Pattinson said with a vampy grin, reducing the idiocy of contemporary celebrity journalism to a single line. Make that two: “Pretty much everything that comes out of my mouth is irrelevant,” he added. Nice. “I take it that you don’t want to talk too much about it,” replied Stephanopoulos, which made me spit my breakfast back into my bowl. Really? “Is that the way you handle all of this craziness?” the former Clinton Administration adviser continued. “You get into to it to do movies,” said Pattinson. “I’ve never been interested in trying to sell my personal life. And that’s really the only reason people try to bring it up. The reason why you go on TV is to promote movies.” The thing is, even though GMA showed a clip and Pattinson talked about the role, I don’t think the TV audience left with a better idea of whether they would want to see Cosmopolis , or why Pattinson wanted to appear in it. If director David Cronenberg — whose films provoke and inspire even when they don’t work as conventional entertainment — was discussed at all during the interview, I don’t recall a single significant thing that was said. Instead the interview became more about Pattinson’s celebrity. Fortunately, he is capable of being introspective. “If you start getting used to it, it means you’re going crazy,” the actor told Stephanopoulos, adding: “It’s like being on the craziest theme-park ride. It’s exciting, but, eventually, at some point, you’ve got to have a break.” Pattinson, who plays an increasingly unhinged billionaire in Cosmopolis , even suggested a way that henpecked celebrities like him could get a break from the paparazzi: “If you put the lives of people who control billions on the front page of every single paper, the world would be a better place,” he said. (Except Rob, that many of those billionaires also control much of the media.) To those same ends, the actor without a publicist had a few choice words to say about “spin culture” that, I suspect, raised some hackles at the high-powered publicity firms that represent celebrity’s finest. “If you took away publicists” and those who relied on them “spoke for themselves, then they’d have to be responsible for their words.” the actor said. I think that’s what I like best about Pattinson. He knows he’s part of the problem, but he sounds like he’d prefer to be part of the solution. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Also in Wednesday morning’s round-up of news briefs, Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders will direct 90 Church for Universal. Tobey Maguire joins an indie project by Craig Zobel and the New York Times names a new chief. Bachelorette is an iTunes Hit Leslye Headland’s Sundance premiere Bachelorette is at number one on the iTuens top movies chart, the first pre-theatrical release to mount the spot, Deadline reports . Snow White and the Huntsman Director Rupert Sanders to Direct 90 Church Universal acquired 90 Church: The True Story of the Narcotics Squad from Hell , a book written by Dean Unkefer that Random House will publish Stateside. “The upcoming novel 90 Church refers to the address of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics when it was formed in New York City to combat organized crime and drug traffic in the mid-1960s through early ’70s,” Deadline reports . Kristen Stewart Won’t Be in a Snow White Sequel In related news to above, Universal has decided to shelf its Snow White and the Huntsman sequel and will focus on a solo Huntsman movie starring Chris Hemsworth. A sequel is being re-conceived as a spin-off story and it’s not clear if Rupert Sanders will return, but Stewart will not be returning, THR reports . Tobey Maguire Joins Z for Zachariah Maguire will star in the project which Compliance director Craig Zobel will direct. Based on the novel by Robert C. O’Brien, and adapted by Nissar Modi, the story is a post-apocalyptic drama centers on a teen who survives both a nuclear war and nerve gas because of a self-contained weather system. Carey Mulligan will also star, Variety reports . New York Times Names BBC’s Mark Thompson its New Head “The New York Times Company has announced that BBC director general Mark Thompson is to become its chief executive and president in November. The NYT runs national and regional newspapers and websites and said his experience in digital media on a global scale made him the ‘ideal candidate,'” BBC reports .
Also in Wednesday morning’s round-up of news briefs, Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders will direct 90 Church for Universal. Tobey Maguire joins an indie project by Craig Zobel and the New York Times names a new chief. Bachelorette is an iTunes Hit Leslye Headland’s Sundance premiere Bachelorette is at number one on the iTuens top movies chart, the first pre-theatrical release to mount the spot, Deadline reports . Snow White and the Huntsman Director Rupert Sanders to Direct 90 Church Universal acquired 90 Church: The True Story of the Narcotics Squad from Hell , a book written by Dean Unkefer that Random House will publish Stateside. “The upcoming novel 90 Church refers to the address of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics when it was formed in New York City to combat organized crime and drug traffic in the mid-1960s through early ’70s,” Deadline reports . Kristen Stewart Won’t Be in a Snow White Sequel In related news to above, Universal has decided to shelf its Snow White and the Huntsman sequel and will focus on a solo Huntsman movie starring Chris Hemsworth. A sequel is being re-conceived as a spin-off story and it’s not clear if Rupert Sanders will return, but Stewart will not be returning, THR reports . Tobey Maguire Joins Z for Zachariah Maguire will star in the project which Compliance director Craig Zobel will direct. Based on the novel by Robert C. O’Brien, and adapted by Nissar Modi, the story is a post-apocalyptic drama centers on a teen who survives both a nuclear war and nerve gas because of a self-contained weather system. Carey Mulligan will also star, Variety reports . New York Times Names BBC’s Mark Thompson its New Head “The New York Times Company has announced that BBC director general Mark Thompson is to become its chief executive and president in November. The NYT runs national and regional newspapers and websites and said his experience in digital media on a global scale made him the ‘ideal candidate,'” BBC reports .
Easier to admire than to love, David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis is an amplified, feverish vision of the one percent as scarcely human — not because of any innate maliciousness, but because they’re so removed from the lives of the masses. They’re like children who’ve already won a video game and now play carelessly, without any need to observe the rules. The lead role of 28-year-old billionaire Eric Packer is played by Robert Pattinson, although the star of the film is just as much Packer Capital’s high-tech stretch limousine, which serves as his mobile office as he inches across Manhattan in search of a haircut and, perhaps, his own destruction. That limo, equipped with glowing console panels, a slide-out urinal and what’s essentially a throne in the back, is the primary setting of Cosmopolis. It’s a hermetically sealed bubble in which Eric can glide through the roiling urban landscape, jumping off or taking on passengers at whim. He is in the city, but not a part of it. The vehicle is armored and, he explains to his aloof wife Elise (Sarah Gadon), “Prousted” — lined with cork soundproofing — though the latter gesture is, he admits, largely symbolic, as the New York noise manages to bleed through. Despite this, the barrier between him and the world is considerable, bolstered by watchful presence of his security chief Torval (Kevin Durand), who informs him tersely of any credible threats to his life. Cosmopolis is based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Don DeLillo, but Cronenberg adapted the tale to the screen and it feels very much like a Cronenberg work. It’s the chilly sibling to eXistenZ , without the comfort of slipping realities. If the universe of Cosmopolis were to come loose, it would only reveal a void underneath. Pattinson does a quietly marvelous thing in finding vulnerability in Eric without making it seem like softness. The film depicts Eric’s financial kingdom (and with it his sense of self) crumbling over a day, but his breakdown is a gradual one. His panic rises in barely perceptible increments. Despite Torval’s warnings, Eric has set out to get a haircut, though he doesn’t seem to need one. (Pattinson begins the film looking like a character from The Matrix , pale and immaculate in his dark suit and sunglasses.) The city is in a state of intense gridlock thanks to a presidential visit, the funeral procession of a famous Sufi rapper and by anti-corporate protests that strikingly recall Occupy Wall Street, though instead of a tent the crowd’s chosen symbol is a giant rat. As the limo crawls along, Eric takes meetings with coworkers and employees who appear in his car as if beamed in: his partner Shiner (Jay Baruchel), his art consultant and lover Didi (Juliette Binoche), his finance chief Jane (Emily Hampshire) and his adviser Vija (Samantha Morton), with whom he sips vodka while calmly discussing the rioters outside rocking his limo and spray-painting anarchist symbols on it. “This is a protest against the future,” she says. Packer Capital is attempting to short the yuan, a gambit that is not going well and bleeding the company of vast amounts of money as the hours roll by. Eric is a big fat symbol — the film treats this fact with a wink — never more so than in scenes with his wife Elise (Sarah Gadon), who’s as much an enigma to him as he initially is to us. A poet from a massive wealthy family, she’s indifferent to the wealth he’s built and the position he’s achieved. She’s also apathetic to his more animal needs: Elise solemnly refuses to have sex with Eric because, she tells him, she needs to conserve her energy for work. Their connection is so tenuous and they know so little about each other that their marriage might as well be an arranged one between two royals. Cosmopolis is a film about the demeaning and dehumanizing effects of money, and Eric’s wealth has left him untethered. He can buy things or simply have them at will — security, sex, an appropriate spouse, maybe even the Rothko Chapel, which he wants to keep whole in his apartment — but few of these acquisitions seem to resonate with him. As a portrait of the far end of wealth, Cosmopolis is hauntingly hollow, its world deliberately crammed with things but empty of meaning. It’s possible that Eric courts death — by intentionally putting himself in the way of a “credible threat” — because he’s losing his fortune, or maybe he set out to lose that fortune first as part of plan for complete self-destruction. Either way, Cosmopolis presents a world of vivid and sometimes nightmarish imagery outside those tinted windows, and finds something elegiac and terrible in the detached way its characters process what they see. As Morton’s character says as she gazes at a protester who’s set himself on fire outside the limo: “It’s not original — it’s an appropriation.” Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
