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Reel life: 'Future' seems flawed

Reel Life mini-review: ‘The Future'

I wanted to love Miranda July's new movie “The Future,” because I loved her first work, the ethereally giddy cinematic confection “Me and You and Everyone We Know.”

I was amazed by her rejection of Hollywood formula filmmaking before, and “The Future” continues July's exploration of surrealistic alternate storytelling.

Only this time, it doesn't work for me. I'm willing to let a wounded cat stuck in a pound narrate the story. But a dead wounded cat?

My eyes were less misty — the cat's presumed purpose — than they were supporting two incredulously cocked eyebrows.

I'm all for articles of clothing moving around, but not necessarily a shirt exercising free will.

July and Hamish Linklater play L.A. denizens Sophie and Jason. She's a children's dance instructor who really can't dance. He uses the Pennysaver newspaper to find clues to his future employment.

They seem to be a pair perfectly matched for failure, yet, in July's strangely flawed and optimistic world, they don't fail.

July's movie is whimsical and confounding — especially when Sophie realizes she can freeze time and talk to the moon for advice — but at some point “The Future” drifts into dry self-indulgence that feels more pushed than organic to the story or its odd, slightly endearing characters.

“The Future" opens at the Music Box Theatre, Chicago. Rated R for sexual situations. 91 minutes. ★ ★

Reel Life mini-review: ‘The Devil's Double'

Forget weapons of mass destruction.

If only President George W. Bush could have magically shown Lee Tamahori's “The Devil's Double” before the invasion of Iraq, every American would have supported the move, if for no other reason than to put a stop to Saddam Hussein's sadistic son Uday and his campaign of rape, murder and torture of Iraqi citizens.

With its onslaught of corruption and debauchery, drugs and decadence, plus the sexual assault and killing of crying school girls, “Devil's Double” resembles an art-house version of “Caligula,” without the hard-core porn and Malcolm McDowell.

This is a tough movie to watch, but it is redeemed by Dominic Cooper's subtle double-duty role as both the sociopathic Uday and Latif Yahia, a loyal soldier forced to become Uday's double and reluctant witness to the horrific abuses of his cocky, materialistic new boss.

Based on Latif's life story, “Devil's Double” covers the sensationalistic excesses of Uday's behavior without much depth or insight.

Tamahori, who directed the silly James Bond entry “Die Another Day” and the great New Zealand drama “Once Were Warriors,” appears to be slumming here.

But it's interesting slumming, thanks to Cooper's full-throttle performances opposite himself in the smoothest double play since Jeremy Irons' gynecologist twins in David Cronenberg's horror film “Dead Ringers.”

“The Devil's Double” opens at the Century Centre and ICON in Chicago, and the Evanston Century 18. Rated R for language, drug use, sexual situations and extreme violence. 108 minutes. ★ ★ ½

Snappy shots:

• I finally caught up with “Captain America,” press-screened when I was out of town. (Thanks to Matt Arado for filling in.) I was amazed by how much of a stylistic debt it owes to both “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Star Wars.”

Early in the movie, Steve Rogers watches a widescreen black-and-white newsreel short in a New York theater in 1942. Widescreen wasn't invented until the 1950s.

• This email comes from a reader identified as Lawlady: “I can't believe that you didn't trouble yourself to review ‘The Smurfs.'”

Dear Lawlady: Sony Pictures wasn't too helpful for the press on “Smurfs.” Sony set a press screening of “Smurfs” at the same time Universal Pictures had already set a press screening for “Cowboys & Aliens.” Unable to duplicate myself, I opted to see “Cowboys.” A backup screening of “Smurfs” was set last week after Time out! deadlines, and at the same time Sony had already set a press screening for another release, “30 Minutes or Less.”

• Congratulations to the Classic Cinemas chain, based in Downers Grove, for constructing its 100th movie screen. A 10th auditorium is being added to the York Theatre, 150 N. York St., Elmhurst, which brings Classic's screen total to an even 100. It'll be finished in October.

• The After Hours Film Society presents the excellent Italian mystery “The Double Hour” at 7:30 p.m. Monday at the Tivoli Theater, 5021 Highland Ave., Downers Grove. A speed-date meeting between a guard and a chambermaid turns dangerous and quirky in an unpredictably intriguing thriller. Tickets cost $9, $5 for members. Go to afterhoursfilmsociety.com or call (630) 968-0219.

• Daily Herald film critic Dann Gire's column runs Fridays in Time out!