Le Havre
The Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki (The Man Without a Past) specializes in ultrastylized, deadpan comedies that exist in their own postmodern, movie-obsessed universe. His latest is a pastiche of classic French resistance thrillers like Army of Shadows that takes on the modern problem of immigration and xenophobia in France. The story, set in the port town of Le Havre, follows a bohemian shoe shine man (André Wilms), who bands together with his neighbors to reunite a stranded African boy (Blondin Miguel) with his mother, who has immigrated to London. The film is pleasant and often funny but too slight and self-conscious to take very seriously. At the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
Big Miracle
The title isn't an exaggeration. It was something of a "Big Miracle," the way the plight of a family of gray whales, stranded under the Alaska ice, captivated the country and forced oilmen and environmentalists, natives and Cold War foes to team up back in the waning days of the Reagan administration. And it's no small miracle that the story of that nearly forgotten moment makes for a delightful family movie. John Krasinski plays the very definition of small-time TV reporter who stumbles across three whales -- parents and a baby -- clinging to an air hole in the ice outside of Barrow, Alaska. Drew Barrymore is the Greenpeace activist with whom he teams up. It's a slight film of simple, obvious charms. In wide release.
The Innkeepers
Written and directed by the talented young horror filmmaker Ti West (The House of the Devil), who presumably spent many an adolescent evening watching and re-watching Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, The Innkeepers introduces us to Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy), who are overseeing the Yankee Pedlar Inn during its final days of operation. When one last guest (Kelly McGillis) checks in, all those rumors about the place being haunted start to prove legitimate. The setup is exuberant, but West's execution feels wobbly. The Innkeepers is so in love with other haunted-house movies that it never develops a personality of its own. At the Texas Theatre in Dallas.
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