Get Him to the Greek: See it or flee it?

Get Him to the Greek

​Get Him to the Greek is a mess as a movie--but that doesn't mean it isn't funny. Besides Russell Brand's new film, your best bet might be a movie made in 1927--the newly restored classic Metropolis, in a weeklong run at the Lagoon.

OPENING

SEE: Get Him to the Greek
Jonah Hill plays a lower-rung record-label lackey whose boss (Sean Combs, never more Puff Daddy than here) charges him with getting a faded, depressed, and drunken rock star (Russell Brand) to a big concert gig. (area theaters)
City Pages: "Get Him to the Greek often feels as if it'll smash to the ground in a thousand pieces of what-in-the-fuck. It's a complete and utter mess, which is not to suggest it's not entertaining--far from it. In fact, it's occasionally uproarious, mostly due to Russell Brand."
Star Tribune: 3 stars Pioneer Press: 1 star RottenTomatoes.com: 73% positive

SEE: Metropolis
Fritz Lang's 1927 masterpiece is being shown with 25 minutes of original footage that was cut after the film's premiere. In this visually breathtaking, thinly veiled Marxist tract, faceless, robotic workers toil in the bowels of the earth, while the wealthy few luxuriate in elegant, glittering skyscrapers. (Lagoon Cinema)
City Pages: "This landmark science fiction classic has had a profound influence on everything from Blade Runner to Star Wars, Madonna's "Express Yourself" video, and ... well, pretty much any work that has tried to imagine the future as both dazzling and horrible."
Star Tribune: 4 stars RottenTomatoes.com: 99% positive

MAYBE: The Little Traitor
In 1947 Jerusalem, a precocious 11-year-old boy and his friends plot ways to harass British soldiers occupying what would soon become Israel. One night, past curfew, he is apprehended by a British sergeant and taken home to his parents. The encounter leads to an unusual friendship, but when the boy's friends find out he's been visiting with the enemy, they accuse him of being a traitor. (Edina Cinema)
City Pages: "Terminally mild and ill-structured. Set during a fascinating and hard-to-reduce moment in history, the movie steers clear of any but the most basic conflicts and resolutions."
Star Tribune: 2.5 stars Pioneer Press: 2.5 stars RottenTomatoes.com: 42% positive

MAYBE: No One Knows About Persian Cats
The great boundary-crosser of Iranian cinema, Bahman Ghobadi purposefully steps over the line in this quasi-documentary, highly unofficial panorama of Teheran's tenacious underground music scene. ( Lagoon Cinema)
City Pages: "Likeable but undistinguished filmmaking, and the performers are a mixed bag of metal bands, traditional ensembles, rap artists, and buskers."
Star Tribune: 3.5 stars Pioneer Press: 3 stars RottenTomatoes.com: 96% positive

MAYBE: Splice
Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley are Clive and Elsa, a married couple of "rock star" genetic engineers whose ill-considered messing around with DNA creates a strange, mutant child. (area theaters)
City Pages: "Though Sundance-screened and sporting an upscale cast, Splice has a mad-science quality. A queerly funny movie."
Star Tribune: 1.5 stars Pioneer Press: 2.5 stars RottenTomatoes.com: 71% positive

FLEE: Marmaduke
The Sunday funnies cartoon about a troublesome Great Dane is adapted for the big screen. Stars William H. Macy, George Lopez, and Judy Greer. (area theaters)
City Pages: "An off-the-rack high school movie plot with canines, a haze of Dog Gone Awful puns ("It's raining cats and us"), and surreal set pieces ("A surf competition for dogs?")."
Star Tribune: 1.5 stars Pioneer Press: 2.5 stars RottenTomatoes.com: 8% positive

UNREVIEWED: Killers
A highly trained government assassin (Ashton Kutcher) meets a beautiful computer technician (Katherine Heigl) and gladly gives up his career to settle down. Three years later, however, he learns that a contract is out on him, and the couple's idyllic life is turned upside down. (area theaters)

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