THOR: THE DARK WORLD: 3.5 STARS
It’s time to get hammered at the movies again.
In the first “Thor” movie Marvel superhero (Chris Hemsworth) and his magical hammer fell in love with Natalie Portman, argued with his father Odin, the one-eyed King of Asgard (Anthony Hopkins), and saved Earth from the super chill Frost Giants.
This time around he’s still in love with Portman (who plays astrophysicist Jane Foster) and fighting with pops, but this time around he must not only save Earth, but all Nine Realms from an ancient enemy as well.
Led by Malekith (Christopher Eccleston), these evil Dark Elves have a bone to pick with Odin. Thousands of years ago Odin’s father banished the Elves and seized their secret weapon, the Aether, a deadly WMD with the power to destroy the universe. Unable to extinguish the Aether the folks of Asgard bury it in a secret location “between the realms.”
Eons later Thor’s girlfriend Foster discovers the Aether in an abandoned warehouse in London, attracting the attention of the vengeful Malekith and his army of angry Elves.
You know what comes next. Hammer time! Thor makes a deal with his untrustworthy brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and hatches an elaborate plan to save Jane, defeat the Dark Elves, and save the universe from the Aether.
“Thor: the Dark World” is a much better movie than 2011’s “Thor.” The love story hat bogged down the middle of the first movie is replaced with more double crosses, vengeance and daddy issues into its two hours than any three Norse myths.
There’s a lot going on, but “Game of Thrones” director Alan Taylor nimbly juggles the mythology and the action, peppering the movie with amusing cameos from Stan Lee and a certain other superhero and some light comedy.
It feels slightly generic, as though bits and pieces were cribbed from the Superhero Blockbuster Playbook, but it redeems itself in the inevitable showdown between Thor and Malekith. It’s wildly entertaining as they zip to and fro through wormholes, literally punching one another into next week -- or at least into a new dimension. It’s tighter and way more fun -- check out Thor on the subway! -- than the endless dustup that bogged down the last 45 minutes of “Man of Steel.”
Hemsworth and Hiddleston, the film’s yin and yang, are charismatic and while they don’t do anything much different than they did in the first movie or in “The Avengers,” they both seem to really grasp the film’s semi-serious tone.
“It’s not that I don’t enjoy our little chats,” Loki says to Odin. “It’s just... that I don’t.” It’s a good line and Hiddleston delivers it with perfect timing, half villain, half comedian.
Unless you’re a comic book geek you might need a quick trip to http://marvel.wikia.com/Thor to make sense of the first twenty minutes of “Thor: The Dark World” but once the movie gets the exposition out of the way and gets into the gags and the action it hammers home the good stuff.
KILL YOUR DARLINGS: 3 STARS

If “Kill Your Darlings” was a superhero movie it would be an origin story. Like “Batman Begins,” or “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” which detail the formative years of Bruce Wayne and James Howlett before they made their mark on the world, “Kill Your Darlings” looks at the lives of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs before they became the superheroes of the Beat Generation.
Set in 1944, the film follows Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) through his rebellious years at Columbia College. “There’s more life in this paper,” he says handing his work into a stuffy college professor (John Callum), “than in all the sonnets you’ve had us read this year.”
The shy wannabe poet falls in with a crowd of intellectuals -- William Burroughs (Ben Foster), David Kammerer (Michael C. Hall), Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston) and Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan) -- whose ethos rubs against the grain of “square” societal norms. They experiment with drugs, booze, sexuality, and their art, laying the groundwork for the Beats, (although that term didn’t come into use until 1948), a loose collective who valued free expression over the accepted communal and political systems of the West.
But all that came later. “Kill Your Darlings” is the groundwork, the opening of Ginsberg’s eyes. Thirteen years before he wrote “Howl,” one of the most famous and controversial American poems, he first explores his homosexuality through an attraction to Carr and opens his mind to new ideas.
It’s a slick, stylish movie that captures the excitement of the time through fast paced editing and lots of shots of Ginsberg furiously typing and smoking. That we’ve seen before in almost every period piece involving writers, but I’d have hoped for more revolutionary filmmaking in a movie about revolutionaries. (For that rent David Cronenberg’s “Naked Lunch.”)
Cliches aside director John Krokidas has good performances to work with.
As the manipulative, troublemaking Lucien, DeHaan is perfectly cast. He’s the engine that drives the movie, both thematically -- “You were ordinary like every other freshman and I made you extraordinary,” he says to Ginsberg -- as well as dramatically. His (SPOILER ALERT) arrest for the murder of his lover Kammerer, and the questions of personal responsibility it raises, takes over the last half hour of the film.
It is Ginsberg’s story, however, and Radcliffe sheds off any hint of Harry Potter to hand in a very good performance. He brings Ginsberg to youthful life, from nebbish to rebel to confident man who proclaims in the film’s final moment, “I am a poet.”
“Kill Your Darlings” makes a few missteps -- the closing song by Bloc Party would make jazz fan Kerouac turn over in his grave -- but allows the performances to bring the characters to vivid life.
BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR: 3 STARS

This Palme d'Or winning French film may be one of the most frank depictions of sexual awakening to ever hit mainstream screens. It certainly is one of the longest. In three hours it establishes the attraction between Adele (Adele Exarchopoulos), a high school student, and artist Emma (Lea Seydoux). It is love at first sight, passionate and fiery, but will passion be enough to sustain the relationship? The film will provide some answers, but despite its length and beautiful raw performances from its leads, it is more content to voyeuristically detail the action than delve into the heart of the story.