RECOMMENDED Bryan Barber’s oft-magical Prohibition in the South-set Outkast musical, “Idlewild,” is a dynamic feast of anachronisms and heartfelt investment in older styles of storytelling—cliché, elevated—that may suffer from an accelerated cutting style, but even the most begrudging reviews by intelligent reviewers who got to see the movie before last Friday’s opening (which I did not) have indicated that, as messes go, this is one joyous and generous picture. The future of many forms of storytelling may lie in unabashed emotionality, a willingness to be vulnerable or melodramatic, what Lars Trier does pedantically, what Todd Haynes did perhaps too academically in “Far From Heaven,” and what young’uns like Andrew Bujalski (“Mutual Appreciation”) and Joe Swanberg (“LOL”) and Aaron Katz (“Dance Party USA”) might someday reveal after more life experience and attaining some narrative chops. The movies that succeed in the months and years to come that work on whatever modest scale will find a way to swoon, like what songs, playing from a iPod, do for thousands of listeners every day—what kind of gestures and actions will make the dream come real? “Idlewild” is all over the map, but it goes places. With André Benjamin, Antwan “Big Boi” Patton, Macy Gray, Terrence Howard, Paula Patton, Patti LaBelle, Bill Nunn, Ving Rhames, Ben Vereen, Cicely Tyson, Faizon Love. (Barber’s video work includes the “Hey Ya” video.) 120m. 2:35 Widescreen. (Ray Pride)
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