DON'T LOOK BACK: Patrick Wilson in Insidious
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THE KING'S SPEECH Arriving on the scene like so much high-minded Oscar bait — indeed, it ended up winning four awards, including Best Picture — The King's Speech is anything but a stiff-upper-lip drama as constrained as a corseted queen. It is, however, perfect film fodder for discerning audiences starved for literate entertainment. Director Tom Hooper and particularly screenwriter David Seidler (both earning Oscars) manage to build a towering film from a historical footnote: the debilitating stammer that haunted Albert Frederick Arthur George (aka the Duke of York and then King George VI) since childhood and the efforts of speech therapist Lionel Logue to cure him of his affliction. The film is careful to paint in the historical details surrounding this character crisis — the support of George's wife Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), the abdication of his brother Edward (Guy Pearce), the buildup toward World War II (Timothy Spall as Winston Churchill; love it!), etc. — but its best scenes are the ones centering solely on the unorthodox teacher and his quick-tempered student. Colin Firth (scoring an Oscar) and Geoffrey Rush are accomplished actors on their own, but squaring off as, respectively, George VI and Lionel Logue elevates their game. It's no wonder that they deliver the two best male performances of the year. ***1/2
LIMITLESS For a film about a drug able to turn its user into a genius, Limitless isn't exactly the brightest bulb in the box — or the smartest movie in the multiplex, as it were. Bradley Cooper stars as Eddie Morra, a struggling writer who gains possession of tiny pills that, after ingested, allow him to write an entire novel in the course of four days while learning to play the piano and mastering a couple of foreign languages on the side. It turns out that this miracle pill unlocks that mythological 80% of the human brain that we don't use, so Eddie decides to put his newfound intelligence toward becoming a good capitalist. But things aren't all rosy for our upwardly mobile protagonist, as he's pursued by dangerous men and the pill's side effects are starting to take hold. The philosophical ramifications of suddenly becoming the most intelligent man on Earth are largely ignored, with the peeks into Eddie's beautiful mind simply conveyed through saturated color schemes and letters tumbling down from the rafters. Still, pushing aside the ridiculous ending and a few risible moments strewn throughout — a skating-rink sequence, Eddie lapping up blood Cronos-style, co-star Robert De Niro pretending to be interested in anything other than his paycheck — Limitless is a fairly entertaining thriller, and viewers aware of its limited appeal beforehand will probably enjoy it the most. **1/2
THE MUSIC NEVER STOPPED The music never stops in The Music Never Stopped, and that would be a problem if the tunes on parade were on the order of, say, Phil Collins' execrable "Sussudio" or Rebecca Black's splinter-in-the-tongue Web hit "Friday." But with a soundtrack lined with the likes of The Beatles and Bob Dylan, there's no chance of anybody finding themselves bleeding from the ears. Bleeding from the heart, though, might be another matter. Based on a true story (recounted in Dr. Oliver Sacks' case study "The Last Hippie"), this details the journey of two parents, Henry and Helen Sawyer (J.K. Simmons and Cara Seymour), as they try to deal with the fact that their alienated, grown son Gabriel (Lou Taylor Pucci) has been diagnosed with a head trauma that leaves him unable to form any new memories. As the parents attempt to communicate with their son, the conservative Henry is reminded of the conflicts that led his liberal son to split all those years ago. Progress in Gabriel's medical condition seems bleak until a therapist (Julia Ormond) realizes that music from Gabriel's youth — the classic sounds of 60s rock — can be used to trigger responses from him. It's pleasing to see Simmons in a rare lead role — he's more known for such supporting stints as Juno's dad or Peter Parker's editor — and it's notable that director Jim Kohlberg allows the emotional material to speak for itself rather than bathe it in manipulative, audience-pushing strokes. But perhaps his approach is a tad too muted: As it stands, the film plays like a slightly above-average television movie, the type that used to be described as a "TV weepie of the week." Some will collapse in tears over this story. Others will remain stone-cold. And still others, like me, will land somewhere in the middle of these extremes. **1/2
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