King Versus Cub in "The Judge"

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A Young Lion and The King of The Jungle Square Off in “The Judge”

By Skip Sheffield

There is a reason Robert Downey, Jr. is the highest paid actor in movies today.

“You are the best,” admitted Robert Duvall simply.

Spoiler alert: Duvall was speaking as his character of Judge Hank Palmer in “The Judge.” Downey plays his estranged son, Joseph Palmer.

Joe returns to his small Missouri home town from Chicago, where he is a hotshot lawyer, when he receives word his mother has died. Joe’s pugnacious attitude is established in a brief, funny scene in a men’s room early in the movie.

Joe hasn’t really dealt with his old man since he went off to college. In fact he has not returned home since that time.

Hank Palmer has a reputation has a reputation as a tough but fair judge. His confidence is shaken with the passing of his beloved wife, but there is something else bothering him. His entire reputation is put to the test when a young man on a bicycle is killed by a motorist. Circumstantial evidence points to blood of the victim and damage on Hank Palmer’s vintage 1971 Cadillac.

A young lawyer named C.P. Kennedy (Dax Shepard) is hired to defend Hank Palmer, but Joe Palmer knows from the outset Kennedy is no match for shark-like lawyer Dwight Dickham (Billy Bob Thornton, in fine form) as the prosecutor. Dickham wants no less than a first-degree murder charge.

Director David Dobkin brings out a fair amount of humor, much of it raunchy, but it is the father-son battle that is the heart of Nick Schenk’s (“Gran Torino”) screenplay.

There is plenty of dysfunction in the Palmer family. Older brother Glen (Vincent D’Onofrio) was a champion baseball player in college, but a car accident with a 17-year-old Joe Palmer at the wheel put an end to that career.

Younger brother Dale (Jeremy Strong) is evidently mentally disabled and dependent on his family for care.

Providing strong support as Joe’s high school sweetheart, Samantha Powell, is Vera Farminga. Intriguing as Sam’s alluring daughter Carla is Leighton Meester.

The main attraction is the two leads: a young lion and an aging king of the jungle. Duvall looks older than his 72-year-old character, but there is a reason for that two. “The Judge” is a quality movie for mature adults.

Gay and Union "Pride"

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Unlikely Allies Feel “Pride”

By Skip Sheffield

“Pride” is another fact-based story inspired by the highly unlikely alliance between the striking National Union of Mineworkers and a ragtag group of London gay and lesbian activists in the United Kingdom in 1984, when ultra-conservative Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister.

Thatcher was known as the “Iron Lady,” and she didn’t intend to knuckle under to Welsh miners who wanted increased pay and better working conditions. One would assume she was even less in favorite of flamboyant, noisy homosexuals.

Written by Stephen Beresford and directed by Matthew Warchus (“God of Carnage”), “Pride” is essentially a comedy- a colorful one at that- with a social conscience. It has a young and eclectic cast, with Ben Schnetzer as the heterosexual Northern Irish champion of both groups. Old pros include Imelda Staunton and Bill Nighy.

“Pride” is a word often used by gay and lesbian activists who will love this movie. This little film may make straight people better understand that pride, for if burly, begrimed macho miners can find common ground with flouncy, prancing homosexuals, who cannot learn to get along?

Jeremy Renner Kills in "Kill the Messenger"

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Jeremy Renner Hits Hard in “Kill the Messenger”

By Skip Sheffield

Journalism can be a dangerous business. It can even get you killed.

That’s the big message of “Kill the Messenger,” starring Jeremy Renner as crusading Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Gary Webb.

Renner has twice been nominated for Academy Awards. This time he may well win for his impassioned performance as the hothead, incautious, rough-mannered San Jose Mercury News reporter who virtually single-handedly discovered a link between the CIA and Nicaraguan Contra rebels.

The story starts in 1996. Webb had left Washington, D.C. with his family after some personal unpleasantness to get a fresh start in California. He was hired by the San Jose paper as a local stringer, but Webb’s ambitions went far beyond that. When Coral Baca (Paz Vega), a beautiful, mysterious girlfriend of a cocaine trafficker handed Webb a sheaf of classified documents, Webb began to shadow shady types, lawyers and U.S. officials alike to assemle pieces of a puzzle that asked how so much crack cocaine was flooding the streets of poverty-stricken South Central Los Angeles and other impoverised cities. The search led him to crack kingpin lawyer Alan Fenster (Tim Blake Nelson) and his client, crack boss “Freeway” Rick Ross (Michael Kenneth Williams), Webb was able to convince his wary editor Anna Simons (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and even more cautious executive editor Jerry Ceppos (Oliver Platt) to allow him to travel to Nicaragua to grill imprisoned drug baron Norwin Menses (Andy Garcia). Webb came to the inescapable conclusion the CIA had been turning a blind eye to the scheme of supplying weapons to anti-Communist Nicaraguan rebels in exchange for cocaine, in a misguided attempt to unseat the leftist Sandinista government during the Administration of Ronald Reagan and later George Bush.

When “Dark Alliance” was published in the Mercury News, the response was swift and overwhelming. Webb was criticized by the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and New York Times of exaggeration, sloppy reporting and insufficient evidence. Webb was busted down to a bureau 150 miles away in Cupertino.

The negative impact was not only felt by Webb and his newspaper, but his family and in particular his long-suffering wife Sue (Rosemarie DeWitt) and son Eric (Matthew Lintz) who idolized him.

Working from a script by Nick Schou, who wrote a book on Webb’s “Dark Alliance,” and screenwriter Peter Landesman, director Michael Cuestra (“Homeland”) has devised a fast-paced thriller and given Jeremy Renner free reign to create a flawed but fearless action hero of freedom of the press.

"Marvelous Wonderettes" at Broward Center

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Slow Burn “Wonderettes” at Broward Center

By Skip Sheffield

Slow Burn Theatre of Boca Raton has taken a giant step forward with its debut production of “The Marvelous Wonderettes” at Broward Center for the Arts.

The musical comedy revue, which has a long run through Nov. 23, will not be the first of Slow Burn productions at Broward Center. It’s just the beginning of a relationship that will eventually make Slow Burn the house theater company at Broward Center.

“Marvelous Wonderettes” is an eye-catching crowd-pleaser with fabulous, funny costumes by Rick Pena. It’s a kind of a female version of “Forever Plaid,” written and created by Roger Bean. There is hardly any plot. We meet the four girls of the title at their high school senior prom in Springfield, USA in 1958. In act two ten years have passed and the girls are having a tenth anniversary reunion.

Director/choreographer Patrick Fitzwater was chosen his “girls” well by physical type, comedy chops and vocal ability.

Abby Perkins is Missy, the somewhat quirky, offbeat character with silly 1950s glasses. Amy Miller Brennan (Cindy Lou) is a much-honored South Florida actress/singer who most recently won the Carbonell award for Best Actress Musical in the Actors’ Playhouse production of “Ruthless.”

Julie Kleiner (Betty Jean) is a local polished pro whose first professional gig was as Annie in “Annie Warbucks” at Broward Center. She even had her Bat Mitzvah in the same space that is now the Abdo New River Room Theater.

Bubbly blond, voluptuous Suzy is played by Lindsey Corey, originally from Chattanooga, TN. She was one of the skating actresses in the Slow Burn production of “Xanadu.”

Basically the songs are grouped by the decade, from solos to four-part harmonies. Act one has such 1950s girl group hits as “Lollipop,: “Born Too Late,” “I Only Want to be with You” and “Heatwave,” as well as pop hits such as “Allegheny Moon,” “All I Have to Do is Dream” and “Hold Me, Thrill Me,” “Kiss Me.”

Act two has 1960s favorites such as “It’s My Party,” “Rescue Me,” “Respect” and “Wedding Bell Blues.”

New at Broward Center is a New River Bistro on-site restaurant for the convenience of theater-goers. Prix fixe and a la carte dinners are offered two and  half hours before evening curtain times and a 10 a.m. Sunday Brunch. Call 954-522-5334.

Tickets for “Marvelous Wonderettes” show-only are $45 and may be reserved by calling TicketMaster at 800-745-3000 or online at BrowardCenter.org.

Simon Bolivar is "The Liberator"

Simon Bolivar Celebrated as “The Liberator”

By Skip Sheffield

Want a history lesson with plenty of violence and a side order of sex?

“The Liberator,” open at FAU’s Living Room Theaters, is a fictionalized account of South America’s “Great Liberator” Simon Bolivar. The script is by Timothy J. Sexton (“Children of Men”) and it is directed by Alberto Arvelo. The film is Venezuela’s official Best Foreign Language submission for the 2015 Academy Awards.

Dashing, handsome Edgar Ramirez (“Carlos,” “Zero Dark Thirty”) plays Bolivar and Maria Valverde is his ill-fated wife Maria Theresa, whose death from Yellow Fever was a turning point in Bolivar’s life.

Anyone with a passing education of South America knows Simon Bolivar was an important figure. This movie dramatizes the man’s ambition, bravery and magnetic appeal to both sexes.

Bolivar was from an aristocratic family. His detractors called him a rich boy and dilettante. Venezuelan director Alberto Arvelo depicts Bolivar as a true hero who believed in the freedom of all peoples.

The story is prefaced by the fact Bolivar fought more than 100 battles, travelled more than 70,000 miles on horseback and was the liberator of former Spanish colonies that became Venezuela, Colombia (including Panama), Ecuador, Peru, and the country named after him, Bolivia. All this was accomplished in just 47 years.

The story begins in 1828 with what was one of many attempts on Bolivar’s life, and then it flashes back to the idyllic time of Bolivar’s courtship and winning in Europe of the love of his life, Maria Theresa (Maria Valverde).

Bolivar brought Maria Theresa back to South America, but their idyll was short-lived. She died, perhaps pregnant, of Yellow Fever after only six months of marriage.

Bolivar returned to Paris to drown his sorrows. His conscience is reawakened by his mentor Simon Rodriguez (Francisco Denis) who called Bolivar a “Noble Savage” and encouraged him to adhere to the ideals of Washington, Jefferson and Rousseau and fight for freedom.

Danny Huston plays a small but pivotal recurring role as a cynical British banker who is willing to back Bolivar’s revolution if it profits him.

Bolivar never remarried, but he was satisfied emotionally and physically by an aristocratic mistress, Manuela Saenz (Juana Acosta).

A lot of history is crammed into a movie just under two-hours long. Think of this as a kind of Cliff Notes version of the life of the man who more than anyone else freed South America from the oppression of Spanish rule.

Rosamund Pike Does a Star Turn in "Gone Girl"

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Gone Girl” a Star-Making Role for Rosamund Pike

By Skip Sheffield

Fearless prediction: “Gone Girl” is going to make British actress Rosamund Pike a star.

Ben Affleck already is a star, and “Gone Girl” should burnish his dramatic reputation further.

Stage actress Pike is mostly known in her native England, where she studied English Literature and graduated with honors from Oxford University. Due to extensive travels with her parents, who are both performers, she is fluent in French and German and obviously highly intelligent. She has a delicate, striking, singular beauty which makes her role as the mysterious “Gone Girl,” Amy Dunne, all the more alluring.

Novelist Gillian Flynn adapted her best-selling book for the screen, under the directorship of inventive David Fincher (“Fight Club”).

If you have ever endured the miseries of a crumbling marriage, you will surely relate to “Gone Girl.”

Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) and wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) have recently lost their magazine jobs in New York City. A Nick’s suggestion they have relocated to Nick’s Missouri home town to attend to his mother, who has a terminal illness. With the financial backing of his wife, who has a trust fund, and his sister Margo (Carrie Coon) have opened an Irish bar.

On the eve of their fifth wedding anniversary Nick arrives home to discover his house ransacked and his wife missing. As police investigate, circumstantial evidence begins to incriminate Nick. When gossip TV show TV personality Ellen Abbott (Missy Pyle) begins to speculate out loud on the possibility of Nick murdering his wife, Nick is forced to hock everything and hire the best lawyer money can buy: Tanner Bolt (Tyler Perry).

One of the revelations of this film is what a good actor Tyler Perry is. We are used to seeing him in drag as the comic elderly black woman, Medea, but in business clothes Perry radiates a fierce intelligence and ingenuity.

Another revelation is Neil Patrick Harris, who plays a polar opposite character to that of his real-life personae.

Part of the fun of “Gone Girl” is the shifting allegiances we feel as both husband and wife are explored further. In short neither one is a saint, but the big reveal is that one of them is much worse than we could ever could have imagined.

“Gone Girl” is a cracking good mystery with a shocking dollop of ultra-violence. Surely it will be remembered at Academy Awards time.

Love Hurts "The Skeleton Twins"

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Laugh and Cry With Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig

By Skip Sheffield

Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader made us laugh in their years with “Saturday Night Live.” They may well make you cry with “The Skeleton Twins.”

“Maybe we were doomed from the beginning,” goes the voiceover at the film’s beginning. We know this will not be a cheerful walk in the park, in Mark Heyman’s (“Black Swan”) script, directed and co-written by Craig Johnson.

The fraternal twins are Maggie (Kristin Wiig) and Milo Dean (Bill Hader). Milo is an unsuccessful actor in Los Angeles. In a depressed state, he slashed his wrists and slumped in a bathtub, only to be saved at the last minute.

Maggie (Kristen Wiig) lives in New York with her possibly too-good-to-be-true husband Lance (Luke Wilson). Maggie is notified as next-of-kin, and agrees to take in her brother to help get his life back in order. They have not seen each other in ten years, and they have a lot of catching-up to do.

That’s pretty much it for plot. “The Skeleton Twins” is all about nuance. Milo is a fish out of water; a gay fish who still isn’t over the teacher (Ty Burrell) who seduced him as a teenager.

Milo is proudly gay, but he is despondent that his career hasn’t gone any better.

Maggie is happy on the surface, married to rugged, good-looking landscape architect Lance (Wilson), but she too feels something lacking in her life.

It is revealed that brother and sister are haunted by the suicide death of their father when they were only 12.

Mom Judy (Joanna Gleason) has gone on to re-marry, have more kids, and become an insufferable New Age guru.

“The Skeleton Twins” has good laughs between harsh truths. Hader and Wiig have wonderful chemistry, and nothing shows it better than their lip-synch version of Jefferson Starship’s “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now.”

But make no mistake. This is a serious movie with a heartfelt message that family ties can overcome the worst situations. You will laugh, and you may well cry.