Even though I felt like a lot of the comedic beats were misfires, the dramatic exploration of realistically flawed people and crumbling relationships made for a compelling watch.

Celeste (Rashida Jones, Parks and Recreation) and Jesse (Andy Samberg, That’s My Boy) were best friends before they got married. Now that they’re separated and in the process of getting divorced, they still hang out and joke around as if nothing has changed. When Jesse suddenly moves on, Celeste realizes she still has feelings for him and she has to reexamine what actually went wrong with their relationship.

Okay. I’m going to start by saying that I’m pretty sure…fairly certain…that I felt kinda okay about this movie. I liked it. I think I liked it. In the service of being “real”, there was A TON more crudity and cursing than I expected, which threw me off a little. I guess when I heard that Rashida Jones wrote a leading role for herself in a movie I expected a little more Sandra Bullock and a little less Sandra Bernhard. But judging a movie for being different than my expectations is unfair, I was simply surprised to find it vying for the Independent Spirit Awards for Best Ensemble Cursing and Ludest Appearance by a Supporting Lip Balm (a new category this year).

Both leads did an excellent job. Samberg, best known for his crazy SNL Digital Shorts, played it completely straight and seemed like a normal, run-of-the-mill guy. And Jones… It’s really something else. Supposedly, she wrote a film she could star in because she’s primarily offered supporting roles. Then she writes herself a character who spends most of her time being very unforgiving and judgmental of the people around her. It’s a far cry from your typical Hollywood leading lady part. She also proves how unafraid she is by forgoing preservation of image at every opportunity. The film’s funniest sequences involve her sweating uncontrollably or proving how many unappetizingly incongruous things she can put in her mouth at one time while drunk out of her mind. It doesn’t hurt that she still manages to look pretty good while looking her worst.

The environments were very well designed and several sequences were really beautifully photographed, so all in all it’s a decent motion picture.

My personal opinion: I wouldn’t run out to see it, but if you find it while flipping through the channels, it’s worth a watch. –Jake Jarvi

Taking its cue from the different scenarios prescribed for the fate of the Iliad’s Idomeneus, the king of Crete, Sideshow Theatre Company’s Idomeneus is an often ingenious look at the wavering nature of myth and storytelling.

After losing 79 of his ships in battle, the determined Idomeneus refuses to sacrifice his last ship to a violent storm on his way home to Crete. Promising the gods that he will sacrifice the first living creature he sees upon his crew’s safe arrival, he does not count on the ecstatic welcome of his beloved son. Here, though, the susceptible nature of gossip takes over as different members of the show’s chorus tell alternative versions of the story. The first account tells how the son is viciously murdered. Another describes his eventual escape from death, and in one variation, the initial welcome is not even from a boy, but a bounding dog. The fickleness of the gods is never doubted, though, as Idomeneus faces betrayals, vengeful creatures and possible exile.

Working inside Joe Schermoly’s amazing sandbox of a set, director Jonathan L. Green discovers all the poetic paradoxes of David Tushingham’s pert adaptation of Roland Schimmelpfennig’s smart script. Schermoly works wonders, layering the vocals of his accomplished, multigenerational cast whom move with speedy grace. All of the activity is lovingly accentuated by Katie Spelman’s coordination efforts and Kristin DeiTos’ eccentrically fluid costuming.

While the cast works beautifully as a whole, Hank Hilbert as an angered rival of Idomeneus and Susaan Jamshidi’s saucy, seemingly faithless queen provide the show’s comic highlights. McKenzie Chinn, Joshua Davis, Ann James, Lorna Livingston and Kyra Morris all provide standout moments, as well.

Most effective, perhaps, is the show’s final denouement which proves, whether the creative force is Homer, Mozart (whose 1781 opera Idomeneo is based upon the tale) or Schimmelpfennig, that the fate of Idomeneus is truly something to ponder.

Idomeneus runs through September 23rd at the DCA Storefront Theatre, 66 E. Randolph Street. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased by calling 800-838-3006 or by visiting www.sideshowtheatre.org. —Brian Kirst

This week began with the shocking announcement that action-film director Tony Scott committed suicide by jumping off the Vincent Thomas Bridge in Los Angeles. His reasons for doing so have been widely speculated upon in the media, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s a private matter for his family. It’s bad enough that they have to face this tragedy with eyewitnesses trying to hock cell phone videos of the actual event to tabloid websites. As a Tony Scott fan, I thought this would be a good week to pay tribute to the master of the backlit silhouette by ranking my personal favorite Tony Scott films. And five is a nice round number.

1-True Romance

Purportedly, Scott’s favorite as well. The story of Clarence and Alabama (Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette), a comic book store clerk and a prostitute who fall in love, steal a suitcase full of the Mob’s cocaine, and head to California to sell it to a movie producer. Quentin Tarantino wrote a great script full of bizarre and fascinating characters and Tony Scott brought his frenetic shooting and cutting style to the proceedings. It’s rumored that Scott, who felt like a big budget gun-for-hire throughout most of his career, considered this controversial, counterculture flick to be his first film as an artist. The dialogue is spectacular, even bit parts are cast with heavyweights, Samuel L. Jackson and Brad Pitt each have about 45 seconds of screen time, and it also has the greatest interrogation scene in the history of cinema between Christopher Walken and a VERY mouthy Dennis Hopper. Seriously. There are four commentary tracks on the special edition DVD and everyone stops talking when that scene plays. It should also be noted that it’s hard to find a more violent film, so those with weak stomachs beware.

2-­Man on Fire

One of the best revenge movies ever made. John Creasy (Denzel Washington) is a seriously depressed ex-CIA agent who takes a job as a bodyguard to a precocious young girl, Pita (Dakota Fanning), in Mexico City and she immediately endears herself to him. Despite his considerable skill, a group of kidnappers overwhelm him with a ton of bullets and a bunch of bad guys and they kidnap Pita. When the money drop goes bad and Creasy is told Pita has been killed, he crawls out of his hospital bed to mercilessly dispatch everyone who had a hand in the kidnapping. This picture is a really engaging ride. It’s also the first time Scott amped up his style to a degree of calculated chaos. Oversaturation, visible grain, flickering, hand-cranked and double exposures, snap zooms, and shooting with many cameras simultaneously, the guy went hardcore. It feels simultaneously raw and polished, a look that many have tried to ape since but with little success. This flick shows what it looks like when a visual master tries something new and it really works. Really well written too.

3-Enemy of the State

This has to be his most fun movie. Robert Dean (Will Smith) is a successful lawyer in the wrong place at the wrong time and he ends up with evidence of a murder perpetrated by a rogue faction within the NSA. They quickly display how easy it is for someone with the resources of the government to destroy a man’s life, removing his access to money, destroying his reputation, and monitoring him through surveillance devices and satellites all while trying to discredit and kill him. Enemy of the State is an example of a popcorn movie at it’s finest. The writing is tight and clever and Scott’s ability to elicit tension is awesome. The characters are likeable, the plot manages to make a series of coincidences feel plausible, and it never stops moving. This is an example of the highest level of escapist storytelling disguised as a morality tale about abuse of power and it is fantastic.

4­­-Déjà Vu

It’s Scott’s only foray into the realm of science fiction, and it’s a fun ride despite a crazy premise. When a ferry explodes killing 500 people via domestic terrorist attack, an astute investigator, Agent Carlin (Denzel Washington), joins a cutting edge unit with technology that can view four days into the past to try and gather clues as to whom is responsible. Eventually, catching the mass murder isn’t enough for Carlin and he sets out to see if he can actually change the past. Unlike his brother Ridley’s sci-fi pictures, this isn’t a quiet, stark contemplation on isolation, technology, or a search for answers in space, it’s a crazy, time travel, detective picture that should make Time Cop feel ashamed of itself. Like most of Scott’s movies, it’s great looking, fast paced, and a lot of fun. Although I’m still not sure how satellites are supposed to create a window to the past.

5-Domino/Top Gun

Number five is a tie between two movies that are decidedly “style over substance,” a description that constantly plagued Scott throughout his career. They both feature extremely cool visual sequences built around tired plots and cardboard characters.

My wife and I are two of the five people in the entire world who like Domino. The screenplay is horrifyingly bad. “Based” on the true story of Domino Harvey, a model turned bounty hunter, the closest the movie gets to anything resembling real life is the movie poster:

Domino.

“I am a bounty hunter.”

Working from a script by writer Richard Kelly (Southland Tales, The Box), Scott immediately doomed himself to a film that was going to be incomprehensible. The action is insane and the visual style takes what he did with such panache in Man on Fire and cranks it up to 11. This movie is a blast, but it would be just as good—possibly better—with the sound muted so you can’t hear any of the characters.

Top Gun is all about the air photography. A narcissistic, loose cannon of a pilot, Maverick (Tom Cruise), heads to Top Gun school where he competes to prove he’s the best there is. Oh yeah, and he falls in love with a civilian instructor at the school, I guess. The take-off, landing, and airborne dogfight sequences are awesome. Even more so when you consider that everything had to be done for real in the ‘80s. It was Scott’s first pairing with Jerry Bruckheimer and it was a mega smash hit. Watching it again, through the cynical meta-eyes of modern film expectation, it feels very very ‘80s, and if they used the “Take My Breath Away” music cue one more time I probably would have gone crazy. Tom Cruise’s jacket was really cool though, and my wife loved the beach volleyball scene, but we both thought it was really arrogant for Maverick to show up for a date and ask to hop in the shower. Despite all my bellyaching over characters and dialogue, I got pulled to the edge of my seat every time those planes were in the air. That’s what a great director can do. Tony Scott did it every time.

–Jake Jarvi