Aloha

Please tell me not every major American director will feel the need to decamp to Hawaii for a navel-gazing loll in the hammock.

The Monuments Men

In the flat and turgid "The Monuments Men," George Clooney turns WWII into a painted set, a mere backdrop for a series of vapid speeches (by him, natch) about art as the cornerstone of civilization, the thing we were fighting for most.

Hyde Park on Hudson, Rust and Bone

Hyde Park on Huudson

Rust and Bone

There's almost no substance at all to the weightless and pointless "Hyde Park on Hudson," about King George and Queen Elizabeth's war support-seeking visit to the New York home of a philandering FDR (Bill Murray) and an Eleanor (Olivia Williams) who lived separately from him but not apart. Through an accident of history, the story is told by a distant cousin of FDR's (Laura Linney) who became one of his conquests, driving with him out to a lavender-flowered field and giving him a hand job (from somewhere I heard the voice of Bea Arthur: "I swear I thought I was setting the parking brake"). Murray manages to contain himself enough to have a couple warm-fuzzy chats with George (Samuel West), but Linney's Daisy Suckley is such a nothing character (with no evidence of any thoughts or ideas in her head), and Linney herself such a standoffish actress, the entire weekend takes place at a remove, never developing any comedy-of-manners momentum or historical gravitas.

Moonrise Kingdom

It’s tough to convey the torturous ordeal that is “Moonrise Kingdom,” the latest exercise in unfettered self-indulgence for the look-at-me party drunk Wes Anderson, who reaches a new nadir with each successive picture. The embarrassing storyline involves a precocious, nerdy young boy and the blank-faced, empty-headed older girl he instantly recognizes as his soulmate (it’s hard to tell who’s more annoying), but as always it’s just an excuse for Anderson to have a cast of name actors recite his interminable stream of vapid, cutesy-poo dialogue. Frances McDormand, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton, Bruce Willis – all just dolls for Anderson to move about his elaborate dollhouse; and it’s been at least a decade since Bill Murray brought anything of value to a movie. Anderson is obviously not without visual flair - you could see an Oscar for set decoration – which only makes his choice of material all the more discouraging. Meanwhile, I kept hearing guttural moans and snippets of commentary from the friend I took to “Moonrise Kingdom”: “I can’t…” “It’s a nightmare…” How much money, I asked, would it take to get him to go back and see it again. He gave the question thoughtful consideration. “It would be tough,” he said, “but I’d do it for $150.”