Funny 'Damsels' is a slightly absurd look at campus life

<b>Reel Life review: 'Damsels in Distress'</b>

Whit Stillman, chronicler of the exploits of the highly educated, upper-class neurotic in three films so far, returns with his version of a rollicking campus comedy, featuring iconic actress Greta Gerwig, who might just be the director's perfect muse.

Gerwig plays Violet Wister, leader of a pack of righteous female students out to change the world, one doofus guy at a time. She and Rose (Megalyn Echikunwoke) and Heather (Carrie MacLemore) adopt Lily (Analeigh Tipton), a new student at Seven Oaks College, as their mascot and self-improvement project.

Violet's posse works at the campus suicide-prevention office where they dole out doughnuts to depressed students and offer them tap dances as all-purpose cures for whatever ails them.

Meanwhile, Violet pursues her passion to create a national dance craze, when she's not dealing with guys mentally a few moves short of a box-step.

These are amusingly strange and detached women operating in a humorously insular world that seldom intersects with reality. Although comical, it's not necessarily at the expense of Violet and her friends (all named for flowers, don't you know). That's one of the movie's best qualities.

Still, once we've stayed around Stillman's campus for a while, the initial eccentric behavior that was so amusing and clever soon loses its novelty, and "Damsels" drifts into a narrative purgatory where the glib dialogue can no longer push the story along.

Nor can a splashy, zany campus musical number set to a Gerwshin tune "Things Are Looking Up" (from the 1937 musical "A Damsel in Distress") do much more than send us out on a sense of highly restrained fun.

"Damsels in Distress" opens at the Century Centre in Chicago, the Renaissance Place in Highland Park and Evanston's CineArts 6. Rated PG-13 for sexual situations. 97 minutes. ★ ★ ½

<b>'Two Days' on Tuesday</b>

Independent filmmaker Michael P. Noens, a graduate of Palatine's Fremd High School, will show his new feature "Two Days in February" at 6:15 p.m. and 8 p.m. Tuesday at Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont Ave., Chicago. Tickets cost $8 (plus a box office fee) at Stage 773. Call (773) 327-5252 or go to Stage773.com, or twodaysinfeb.com.

"Two Days" concerns a young man, lost in the memories of past relationships, deciding if a long-distance relationship is worth the effort. "Two Days" has been accepted at the 2012 Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival in Iowa.

<b>'Hatchet' job on film?</b>

Adam Green's 2010 horror film sequel "Hatchet 2" was supposed to open in its original unrated version at 68 mainstream movie houses operated by AMC Theaters.

"Hatchet 2" opened for business on Thursday, Oct. 1. By Sunday, the film mysteriously vanished from all AMC's theaters in the U.S. and Canada.

Did the MPAA lean on AMC? Did AMC officials change their minds about running an unrated horror film?

"We will never know exactly what happened because nobody stepped forward to accept responsibility," Green told me.

Now, you can see Green's original "Hatchet 2" at Muvico Theaters Rosemont 18 when it plays at the Chicago Fear Fest this weekend. Episodes of Green's new FearNet cable TV network sitcom "Holliston" will also be shown at 7 p.m. Saturday with a Q&A with Green, co-star Joe Lynch and producer Sarah Elbert.

By the way, AMC Theaters should be warned that Green's "Hatchet 3" is already on the way.

"I'm fighting back against the mean-spirited, depraved (stuff)," Green said. "If you're going to do gore, at least make it silly and unrealistic like we do in this movie."

So far, I have seen two movies playing at Chicago Fear Fest:

The cheesy, Chicago-made "The Moleman of Belmont Avenue" squanders the casting of Robert "Freddy Krueger" Englund and Chicago's own "SNL" veteran comedian Tim Kazurinski in a tale about a creature snatching high-rise pets for snacks. It has the feel of a goofy student movie, long on running time, short on wit, scares and laughs.

Patrick Rhea's "Nailbiter" is more like it. A mother takes her three daughters on a road trip to pick up her returning-home military husband when a gigantic twister forces them to frantically seek shelter in a farmhouse basement. Now, they can't get out. That's just the way the strange characters in the house want it. The creature effects are better here than in "Moleman," but not by much.

Go to chicagofearfest.com for the complete schedule, including films such as "Abraham Lincoln vs. the Zombies," "Juan of the Dead" and "Rec 3."

<i>Daily Herald Film Critic Dann Gire's column runs Fridays in Time out!</i>