8-Bit Christmas

NPH: Home for the holidays.

(2021) Holiday Comedy (HBO Max) Neil Patrick Harris, Winslow Fegley, Steve Zahn, June Diane Raphael, Bellaluna Resnick, Sophia Reid-Gantzert, Che Tafari, Santino Barnard, Max Malas, Brielle Rankins, Braelyn Rankins, Cyrus Arnold, Chandler Dean, Jacob Laval, Katia Smith, Tom Rooney, David Cross, Kathryn Greenwood, Louise Nicol, Erica Levene, David MacInnis, Monica Dottor. Directed by Michael Dowse

At this time of year, the airwaves – or to be more precise, the streaming services – are flooded with Christmas themed movies, the bulk of them rom-coms with nearly identical plots about how the magic of Christmas serves as a kind of love potion. There are so many of them this year that Cinema365 chose not to list any of them in the Coming Soon preview section. If you want to see one, you won’t have far to look and one is pretty much just like the others.

To be dead honest, making a good, original Christmas movie is truly hard. Walking the line between genuine sentiment and overwrought treacle is tricky at best, and most movies seem to fall off the line into a vat of maudlin faux emotion that leaves you feeling like you just binged on a big bag of Sugar Babies. Some movies, though, manage to avoid that fate. Is this one of them?

Jake Doyle (Harris) is a single dad taking his young daughter Lizzy (Resnick) to his childhood home for the holidays. There is some tension between the two; Lizzy wants a new cell phone for Christmas, but Jake isn’t keen on getting her one. When they get to grandmother’s house (having gone over the river and through the woods), they find nobody home. Jake finds his old Nintendo Entertainment System in his bedroom and invites Lizzy to play a few games with him. Lizzy is about as enthusiastic as you would imagine any modern kid would be to play a game system that is thirty years obsolete. Jake offers to tell her the story of how he met her mother….oh, not quite right…how he acquired his Nintendo.

Young Jake (Fegley) wants a Nintendo more than anything at Christmastime 1988. Only one kid in the neighborhood has one – spoiled rich kid Timmy Keane (Dean) who chooses ten kids from the horde gathered outside his home to come in and play…or, more to the point, watch HIM play. Jake and his friends Mikey Trotter (Tafari), twins Tammy and Teddy Hodges (the Rankins twins), uptight Evan (Barnard) and pathological liar Farmer (Malas) whom nobody really likes but who hangs around anyway, are all eager to get a Nintendo of their own and free themselves of the tyranny of Timmy. A tragic accident involving a Power Glove and the Keane family dog leads Timmy’s mom and dad to embark on a crusade to ban the gaming system, making Jake’s quest even more difficult.

\He tries to cajole his parents – John (Zahn) and Kathy (Raphael) to buy him one for Christmas but they’re not having it. Mom is extremely budget-minded, constantly looking for bargains no matter how they end up causing Jake all sorts of torture, like the girl’s boots she buys him to wear because they were on sale. Jake is also trying to avoid the school bully Josh Jagorski (Arnold) who takes particular delight in torturing Jake.

Every scheme that Jake comes up to get a Nintendo ends up in disaster and with the big day looming, Jake starts to become desperate. How far will Jake go to get his hands on a Nintendo? Will he find success or disappointment? Will his father and mother ever figure out how much this game system means to him? The answer might surprise you a bit.

Most who read the plot synopsis and have a fair amount of film knowledge might see distinct similarities in plot to the Bob Clark 1983 classic A Christmas Story, substituting only the era and the object of the main character’s desire – at least nobody is lecturing Jake that he’ll put an eye out with his Nintendo. However, his parents (particularly his dad) have their own preconceptions of the damage a Nintendo would do to their son. They were, perhaps, not far wrong.

The juvenile actors are actually okay for the most part; at least they aren’t wooden, or worse – act like they’re acting. The late 80s are captured fairly well, although there are a few details that are missing; why are no kids watching either Nickelodeon or MTV? Also the fashions and hair styles don’t scream the era. And yes, while the movie was shot in Toronto, it was supposed to be set in Chicago and to be quite honest, doesn’t have the feel of the Windy City, which is one of the things that made the films of John Hughes such a delight.

I hadn’t expected to like this much, particularly since the plot was seemingly so derivative but something very odd happened; the more I watched the movie, the more I got into it and the more I was captured by its spell. By the end of the movie, I was actually quite misty-eyed and that’s quite a feat when you consider how jaded I am about Christmas movies. This is one of the better ones to come down the pike in recent years and if you have a subscription to HBO Max and have a yen to watch a holiday film, this should be near the top of your list.

REASONS TO SEE: Harris and Zahn are welcome additions to any movie. Grows on you to the point where you might be misty-eyed by the end.
REASONS TO AVOID: A little bit been-there, done-that.
FAMILY VALUES: There is mild profanity, rude humor and some brief violence.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The film is written by veteran writer Kevin Jakubowski, based on his own debut novel.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: HBO Max
CRITICAL MASS: As of 12/20/2021: Rotten Tomatoes: 81% positive reviews; Metacritic: 66/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: A Christmas Story
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: The Mustangs: America’s Wild Horses

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The Post

“Thanks for the coffee but my Oscar is still shinier than YOUR Oscar!”

(2017) True Life Drama (DreamWorks) Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Rhys, Alison Brie, Michael Stuhlbarg, Carrie Coon, Jesse Plemmons, David Cross, Zach Woods, Pat Healey, John Rue, Rick Holmes, Philip Casnoff, Jessie Mueller, Stark Sands, Michael Cyril Creighton, Will Denton, Deidre Lovejoy. Directed by Steven Spielberg

 

In these troubled times, the veracity of the Free Press has been assaulted by the President. If that feels familiar to older readers, it’s because it was tried once before – by Richard Nixon. It is somewhat comforting to know it didn’t end well for him but before the Watergate scandal took him down there was the Pentagon Papers.

The Pentagon Papers were documents leaked to the press by Daniel Ellsberg (Rhys), a security consultant than employed by the RAND Corporation but previously an analyst for the Pentagon. At RAND he worked on the Pentagon papers, documents commissioned by then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (Greenwood) about the decisions made during the war. After a crisis of conscience caused him to rethink his position as a defense analyst, he chose to surreptitiously remove the thousand pages of documents a little at a time to make copies of them at the ad agency of his then-girlfriend. Eventually he got the papers into the hands of the New York Times.

When the Times published portions of the Papers it was as if a bomb went off in the American consciousness. The Papers clearly showed that the war in Vietnam was not winnable – and moreover that Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson all knew it. The Papers also established that the government had been lying to the American public all that time. Although the Papers all concerned the tenures of those Presidents, the current President of the time, Nixon, was absolutely furious that the documents were leaked and the U.S. Government filed an injunction against the Times to suppress any further publication of the Papers. Nixon and his advisers felt that the Papers would erode American confidence in their own government which of course is what came to pass.

That’s where the Washington Post came in. Incensed at being scooped on the Papers, crusty editor Ben Bradlee (Hanks) orders his team of reporters to see if any copies of the Papers can be found. Despite the court order banning the publication of the Papers, one of the reporters – Ben Bagdikian (Odenkirk) – got in touch with Ellsberg, leading to a quandary for Bradlee and his publisher Katherine Graham (Streep) whether or not to defy the court order or do their duty to the American people.

It was a particularly quandary in that the Post was about to go public; were there to be a government action against the newspaper and the Publisher individually the badly needed infusion of cash could dry up and the Post might actually go under.

Graham was a woman of her era; in her 50s at the time that this took place, her husband had been publisher of the paper (inheriting the title from Graham’s father) she was a woman in a man’s world. When she entered the board room of her own newspaper, she was the lone woman. She was often condescended to and she herself felt more comfortable at social gatherings hanging out with the wives than with the policy makers. She did have a close personal relationship with McNamara which was a further complication.

The Post is a celebration of the free press, make no mistake about it. It also illustrates how important that a free and objective press is to the functioning of our nation. Besides that there is also a push for feminism and how the roles of women have changed as women have become more empowered. Obviously, those issues have become extremely timely in the wake of the current administration’s attacks on the press which is roundly proclaimed “fake news” if it in any way disagrees with the world view of the President, as well as the advent of the Me Too movement.

It doesn’t hurt that the movie has three of the most important names in movies over the last three decades participating. Spielberg is considered by some to be the greatest director in the history of movies and while devotees of Hitchcock, Ford, Capra and Scorsese might give that some healthy debate, none can deny that he is one of the greatest ever. Here, he’s at his very best; not a single scene is wasted and every shot not only advances the story but captures an emotional mood. There are plenty who consider Spielberg “the great manipulator” and there is some truth to that. His longtime collaborator John Williams writes a score that might be proof of that.

Hanks is not usually a name one associates with a Bradlee-like character but he has some personal connection to the former Post editor; the two were neighbors on Long Island and knew each other socially. He captures Bradlee’s accent note-perfectly as well as his dogged determination. This doesn’t compare to Jason Robards’ Oscar-winning performance as the legendary editor in All the President’s Men but it is a terrific performance nonetheless.

Streep, however, is absolutely amazing in the movie. It has garnered her yet another Oscar nomination and while she is in no way guaranteed a win, it wouldn’t be a crime if she did. Graham was a complex person who became something of an unlikely icon for the feminist movement and perhaps reluctantly so. As time went by she would become more self-confidence and assured; the events depicted here helped with that, but she was truly a woman who reinvented herself in middle age at a time when women were largely still shackled to the kitchen.

I will admit that the Linotype machines and printing presses depicted here brought me some nostalgia; as someone who worked at the San Jose Mercury News in the 80s and 90s I was familiar with the machinery and seeing them in action here did give me the warm fuzzies. So too did seeing the press at the height of its power and significance; in the years before being purchased by corporate entities who largely stifled their search for truth in favor of a search for advertising dollars. Newspapers remain relevant today (the Post continues to do excellent reporting on the Russian voting interference scandal as well as other important news stories of our day) but they have changed quite a bit. People tend not to get their news from newspapers so much but from social media sites, a dangerous practice. It is the responsibility of the citizen to be vigilant in order to keep our own government in check. When we remain firmly ensconced in echo chambers that do little more than validate our own point of view, we lose sight of what is actually happening. That’s how democracies fail.

REASONS TO GO: This is the work of one of the best directors ever at the top of his game; there’s not a single wasted scene. Streep delivers an incredible performance. The film manages to tackle both freedom of the press and the inequality of the treatment of women. Despite being set more than 40 years ago, the events are just as timely as ever
REASONS TO STAY: Those who are blind supporters of the President will see this as a slap in the face.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a fair amount of profanity as well as a scene of war violence.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Stuhlbarg appears in three of the films nominated for a 2018 Best Picture Oscar (this, Call Me by Your Name and The Shape of Water) but was not nominated for a Best Supporting Actor for any of them.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/20/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 88% positive reviews. Metacritic: 83/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: All the President’s Men
FINAL RATING: 10/10
NEXT: Cassidy Red

The Last Laugh

Springtime for Hitler.

(2016) Documentary (The Film Collaborative) Renee Firestone, Klara Firestone, Mel Brooks, Rob Reiner, Harry Shearer, Gilbert Gottfried, Sarah Silverman, David Steinberg, Larry Charles, Alan Zweibel, Etgar Keret, Carl Reiner, Robert Clary, David Cross, Lisa Lampinelli, Jake Ehrenreich, Zdenka Fantlova, Jeffrey Ross, Susie Essman, Abraham Foxman, Roz Weinman, Malala Sagal. Directed by Ferne Pearlstein

 

Humor is an intensely personal subject; everyone’s idea of what is funny and what is inappropriate varies, sometimes to astonishing degrees. There are always taboo subjects that even comics shy away from, but not all of them. There are subjects that some comics tackle that make even other comics a little bit uncomfortable.

This new documentary by Ferne Pearlstein tackles the interesting subject of what is inappropriate material for comics, concentrating on one of the most horrible events in human history – the Holocaust. More than 70 years have passed since Nazi Germany surrendered but there are plenty who think that jokes about it – even by Jewish comics – are wildly inappropriate. Even Mel Brooks, whose cult classic The Producers dropped jaws when it was released in 1967, says that there is a difference between jokes about the Holocaust and jokes about the Nazis.

Much of the film is devoted to Renee Firestone, an Auschwitz survivor who talks about cabaret shows in the camps used to keep the workers entertained and about the gallows humor employed by the prisoners to help make the days bearable. Other survivors of concentration camps take the opposite tack – the Holocaust was no laughing matter and that the prisoners couldn’t even crack a smile, let alone a joke.

I tend to side with Renee – humor is a mechanism that many humans use to cope with stress and what could be more stressful than living under the constant threat of death? Still, six million Jews and others died in the camps – can we joke about them without trivializing them, or upsetting those who lived in them?

These are the kind of questions that are brought up by various comedians of different eras – old school like Brooks and Carl Reiner, mid-school like David Steinberg and Gilbert Gottfried and more recent vintages like Lisa Lampinelli and David Cross. There are also writers like Alan Zweibel, Malala Sagal and Etgar Keret as well as Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League which monitors anti-Semitism in the media. Foxman has some strong opinions as to what is appropriate and what is not, some of which you may agree with or disagree with. I think it’s a telling point that when Foxman pooh-poohs the argument that some comics make that the jokes keep the Holocaust from being forgotten; Sarah Silverman ripostes that if we haven’t forgotten the Holocaust why do genocides continue to this day?

To the filmmaker’s credit, no side seems to be given advantage other than that of the Survivors themselves and particularly Firestone. She is the emotional centerpiece of the film and some of the most moving moments take place as she remembers being separated from her sister whom she never saw again and having to deal with the death of her husband much later in life. Robert Clary, who played a French prisoner of war in the comedy Hogan’s Heroes used his real-life experience in the concentration camps for his character and reveals almost casually of 13 members of his family to be arrested, he was the only one left alive by the end of the war. How does one survive that? Clary doesn’t say and perhaps it’s better that we don’t know.

Towards the end of the film other taboo subjects are tackled such as 9-11 and use of the “N” word but almost in so casual a manner that they might better have not been mentioned at all. Clearly the Holocaust is the big subject here and thus it should have remained. I suspect the filmmakers were aware that there might be some backlash “what, only the Jews have suffered?” which is completely unfair. Nobody’s saying that these other subjects aren’t important and shouldn’t be handled delicately but quite frankly, I think the filmmakers would have been better served sticking to the subject that brought them to the dance, as it were and use it maybe as a gateway to other taboos. Perhaps that was what they were trying to do but quite frankly I think it was a case of trying to do too much. That’s really the only issue I had with the film.

There are, of course, plenty of jokes here and quite a few of them will get you laughing. One of my favorite bits is the “Springtime for Hitler” musical number from the 1967 version of The Producers and the audience reaction shots which might be how some modern audiences in this era of political correctness might react to some of the humor here.

I’m a big believer in freedom of speech and comics, as Mel Brooks himself observes are the conscience of the country. They allow us to look at ourselves and how we react to things that are controversial and uncomfortable; restricting them with political correctness is an absolute abomination and one of the most things that as a liberal I’m most ashamed of my left-leaning friends. It is a healthy thing once in awhile to be outraged.

There is some thought-provoking stuff here and no ready answers. Like everything else, it’s all up to how you perceive things and what affects you. You may be offended by some of the jokes here – or you might laugh your tush off. Is there a line that cannot be crossed? I don’t know; maybe. Should only Jewish comics joke about the Holocaust or gay comics about AIDS or African-American comics about slavery and racism? There are those who think so; I do not. At the end of the day, we are all humans and if we believe that, truly believe that, then all experiences are shared experiences. While the Holocaust was aimed mainly at those of the Jewish faith, we can mourn the loss of these people because we believe we are all brothers and sisters; the loss of even a single Jew makes all of us less.

Sure, that’s a bit simplistic (and sorry this movie review has appeared to become a rant) but the message is that it’s harder to hate someone if you feel connected to them. If there were fewer divisions between us wouldn’t there be fewer reasons to hate? I’m not sure if that’s the message that these comedians are trying to send by joking about the Nazis or even the Holocaust but it’s a message that can be inferred and wouldn’t it be a better world indeed if we all looked at the world that way?

REASONS TO GO: The subject is truly thought-provoking. Some of the jokes are hysterical. There are a few moments that are heart-rending. Brooks is a national treasure.
REASONS TO STAY: Segments on 9-11 and other taboo subjects seemed a bit rushed and didn’t add anything to the film overall.
FAMILY VALUES: Here you will find plenty of profanity, humor that some might find inappropriate and a few images that are unsettling.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie made its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in April of 2016.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 3/3/17: Rotten Tomatoes: 100% positive reviews. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Aristocrats
FINAL RATING: 8.5/10
NEXT: The Freedom to Marry

Kung Fu Panda 3

Pandas and rabbits and pigs, oh my!!!

(2016) Animated Feature (DreamWorks Animation) Starring the voices of Jack Black, Bryan Cranston, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, David Cross, J.K. Simmons, Lucy Liu, Kate Hudson, Randall Duk Kim, Steele Gagnon, Liam Knight, Wayne Knight, Al Roker, Barbara Dirickson, Willie Geist, Fred Tatasciore, Ming Tsai, April Hong. Directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Allesandro Carloni

Know thyself is a long-standing axiom, but it is hard to know who you are when you don’t know where you come from, or from who. It can leave us with a sense of feeling lost, floundering in a dark sea without any reference points.

You would think Po (Black) has at least some sense of who he is. After all, he is the Dragon Warrior. But he’s also an orphan, raised by Mr. Ping (Hong), the noodle vendor – who happens to be a duck to Po’s panda. Po has just figured that he was the only one.

But there is trouble brewing. In the spirit world, renegade General Kai (Simmons) has been stealing the chi (lifeforce) of all the great masters in the afterlife, which seems problematic at best considering they’re all dead. He’s even managed to grab the chi of Master Oogway (Kim). However, Oogway has a trick up his sleeve, one that is not revealed until later.

The addition of Master Oogway’s chi has given Kai enough power to return to the mortal world where he plans on gathering up all the chi of all the kung fu masters on the planet, culminating with the Dragon Warrior’s. The Dragon Warrior however is very much distracted. Master Shifu (Hoffman) is retiring and he wants Po to take over training the Furious Five, which is disastrous. The appearance of Li (Cranston), who turns out to be Po’s long-lost dad, leads Po and his adopted father Ping to the farthest reaches of China to the secret village of the pandas, where he meets all his long lost relatives.

Po is ecstatic and happy having found not just his people but himself but still has been unable to master chi, something that the pandas were reputed to be masters of. When the news arrives that Kai has beaten the Furious Five save for Tigress (Jolie) and he is on his way to the hidden panda village, Po realizes that there is no way he can beat Kai by himself. He is going to need an army – of pandas. But how to make these lazy, dumpling-eating, hill rolling creatures, as gentle as can be, an army?

The third installment in the KFP franchise has done pretty well at the box office despite its January release date and competition from Star Wars: The Force Awakens. However, of the three films in the trilogy (and this is supposedly the last one as the studio has revealed no further plans to continue the franchise at present, although the success of this movie leads me to think that DreamWorks might be reconsidering that decision) this is the weakest to my eye.

Many of the characters who made the series a success are limited to essentially cameo roles. Hoffman as Master Shifu is limited to maybe a couple of dozen lines after being essentially a main character for the first two films and the Furious Five are mainly an afterthought, appearing together in just one scene. While there are plenty of new characters to make an impression here (including Hudson as a seductive ribbon dancing panda), Kai as a villain seems no different than either of the first two villains, supernatural origin or no.

Black is earnest enough as Po and continues to center the franchise as a character who is slowly learning to believe in himself, which also is getting a bit tired but I suppose if you’re going to be child-oriented as an animated feature, a simple lesson in self-belief or being who you want to be needs to be front and center. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, only that there is nothing here that really stands out from any other animated feature out there.

Maybe I wasn’t in the right mood for a kidflick, particularly in an auditorium full of noxious little brats who were plainly too young or too undisciplined to be in a movie theater but this one left me pretty flat. In many ways this is not quite as good as the second film which got a similar rating, but I didn’t see enough wrong with this one to go down a notch. I got the sense the kids enjoyed the movie (particularly the little boys) and that the parents were more or less happy that their tykes weren’t at home driving them crazy. And that’s not really what I’d consider reason enough to see a film with the kids, animated or not.

REASONS TO GO: Plenty of fun new characters.
REASONS TO STAY: Left me feeling pretty “meh.”
FAMILY VALUES: Some animated martial arts action and slightly rude humor.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Has the longest time between sequels for any DreamWorks Animation film with five years.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/23/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 82% positive reviews. Metacritic: 65/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Tigger Movie
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: The Witch

Men in Black II

Johnny Knoxville’s best day ever.

(2002) Science Fiction (Columbia) Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Lara Flynn Boyle, Rip Torn, Johnny Knoxville, Rosario Dawson, Tony Shalhoub, Patrick Warburton, David Cross, Jack Kehler, Colombe Jacobsen, Peter Spellos, Michael Rivkin, Tim Blaney (voice), Lenny Venito, Michael Jackson, Martha Stewart, Nick Cannon, Peter Graves, Doug Jones, Mary Stein  Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld

Sequels are by and large, to paraphrase Roger Ebert, either a continuation of the original story or a repetition of it and on that score as he was on so many others, Ebert was dead on. Sequels are at once the bane of Hollywood’s existence and the revenue machine that makes other, less sure-thing hit movies possible.

In this follow-up to a 1997 hit, things have changed a lot for the MiB since the first movie. Agent K (Jones), the agency’s best, has been neuralized – you know, had his memory erased by a device that looks something like a laser pointer – and Agent J (Smith), his former partner, is the new Top Dawg. Like K, J has been going through partners like the Kardashian girls go through husbands.

When Serleena (Boyle), the baddest bad girl in the universe comes to Earth in search of something called the Lights of Zathar and the MiB have only 24 hours to stop her from finding it or once again the Earth will be blown up, the only one who knows what or where the Lights of Zathar are is K. J is going to have to go to Massachusetts and find K, who now works in a post office (where half the workforce are aliens in one of the movie’s best jokes) and bring him back to New York to deneuralize him, which becomes problematic when Serleena takes over MiB headquarters along with her two-headed friend Scrad (Knoxville) whose smaller head may well have more control on his actions than his bigger one.

The key to everything may be the lovely Laura (Dawson), a pizza waitress who witnessed some of Serleena’s homicidal chicanery, but J is developing feelings for her – and she for him. The kind of feelings that make doing the job of protecting planet Earth from destruction a mite harder.

As important as bringing Smith, Jones and Torn (who reprises his role as the curmudgeonly Zed here) back on board, perhaps the most important return is make-up legend Rick Baker who created most of the grotesque alien looks. That retro-futuristic vibe of the first movie remains, albeit a little less obvious.

The good news is that even though five years had passed since the first film, the chemistry between Smith and Jones hasn’t decreased one iota in the intervening years. The two work together as well as any duo in the movies, now and ever. Once K’s memories are retrieved, the two resume their relationship from the first film and thankfully, Sonnenfeld doesn’t waste any time getting that relationship back on track.

He doesn’t have any time to waste quite frankly since the movie is only 88 minutes long,  almost a short by Hollywood franchise standards. Sonnenfeld does make every moment count quite frankly; a lot of modern filmmakers should take a few cues from him. Therefore the movie never feels like it’s dragging, even during lulls in the action. While the energy is different than that of the first movie, it is at least a kinetic energy here. Those that really loved the first film though may find this one somewhat flatter than the original.

The problem here is that the movie doesn’t really add anything new to the franchise. Other than a brief reversal of roles with J the mentor to the neuralized K for a brief time, it’s the same basic story as the first. Boyle is less a memorable baddie than Vincent D’Onofrio was in the first film; while she has plenty of tentacles, her performance is a bit strained, as if she isn’t sure what kind of role she’s playing. I don’t know if her late casting had anything to do with it because I’ve always found Boyle to be a capable actress but here she is strangely flat.

Also back from the first movie are Frank the Pug (voiced by Blaney) in a greatly expanded role and the Worms, all of whom provide much comic relief even though when you have Will Smith around you really don’t need much more. Still, this is a pretty decent sequel as sequels go, and while critics tended to grouse about the story overly much, the movie still stands out as top notch entertainment. Anytime you get a duo like Smith and Jones together it’s a good day.

WHY RENT THIS: Smith and Jones are a formidable team. Sonnenfeld’s trademark offbeat humor still in full force. Frank the Pug and the Worms deliver plenty of comic relief.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Story seems way too similar to the first film. Boyle is a bit stiff and wooden.
FAMILY VALUES: Some mild violence and provocative humor.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Initially, Famke Jansen was cast as Serleena and several scenes were shot with her, but due to a death in her family she had to drop out of the production and Boyle was added at the last minute.
NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: The animated short The Chubb Chubbs which preceded MiB2 in some theaters, is included here. Also, there’s a blooper reel, an alternate ending, a music video starring Smith, and a plethora of featurettes. The DVD-ROM also includes an interactive game and screensaver. The DVD-ROM features, it should be noted, aren’t available on the Blu-Ray edition.
BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $441.8M on a $140M production budget.
SITES TO SEE: Netflix (DVD/Blu-Ray Rental and streaming), Amazon, iTunes, Flixster, Vudu
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Stargate
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: Paper Towns

Men in Black

Koochy Koochy Koo.

(1997) Sci-Fi Comedy (Columbia) Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, Linda Fiorentino, Vincent D’Onofrio, Rip Torn, Tony Shalhoub, Siobhan Fallon, Mike Nussbaum, Jon Gries, Sergio Calderon, Carel Stuycken, Fredric Lane, Richard Hamilton, Kent Faulcon, John Alexander, David Cross, Keith Campbell, Patrick Breen, Becky Ann Baker. Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld

1998 OSCAR NOMINATIONS
Best Musical Score – Danny Elfman
Best Set Decoration – Bo Welch, Cheryl Carasik
WINS – 1
Best Make-Up – Rick Baker, David LeRoy Anderson

Conspiracy theorists are generally certain that our planet has been visited by extraterrestrial life; some of them go so far as to say that these visitations come with government help and co-operation. There are those who think that there is an entire agency who oversees the extraterrestrial presence on Earth.

James Edwards (Smith) is a cop. He’s a very good cop; dogged, determined and a pretty smart cookie. When he runs down a suspect whose eyes blink the wrong way, he inadvertently is exposed to something that certain agencies don’t want him to see. Agent K (Jones), a man in a terribly fitting black suit, questions Detective Edwards about the affair, taking him to see Jeebs (Shalhoub), an informant of the NYPD who is also, it turns out, an informant of the Men in Black, the agency Agent K works for. When K gets what he needs, he wipes the memory of Edwards but because he’s looking for a new partner, gives him a business card. Edwards’ unorthodox way of thinking grabs the attention of K’s boss, Zed (Torn). Edwards’ identity is completely erased from existence and he becomes Agent J.

When a Bug lands on the planet and takes over the skin of Upstate New York farmer Edgar (D’Onofrio), it sets the stage for an all out catastrophe. See, the Bug kills a member of the Arquillian Royal Family in order to get a hold of an inexhaustible power supply called the Galaxy. With the Bugs at war with the Arquillians, this presents quite a dilemma; the Arquillians don’t want them to have it and are willing to destroy the Earth to make sure they don’t get it.

With the help of a New York City coroner (Fiorentino) who gets caught in the middle, the Men in Black run down the Bug but he is in the course of getting away using spacecraft hiding in plain sight of all New Yorkers. It is up to the Men in Black to save the day and protect the planet.

Based on a comic book originally published by Malibu Comics which was in turn bought by Marvel, the success of this movie would lead Marvel to go ahead and sell the rights of Spider-Man to Columbia and X-Men to Fox, leading to the explosion of comic book films that dominates the box office landscape today. It also made Smith one of the biggest stars in Hollywood where he also remains today.

The movie displayed a kind of ironic sense of humor that melded the 60s and the 90s, bringing the kitsch of that era back in a big way. The New York World’s Fair of 1964 was on display with the New York Pavilion Towers figuring prominently in the climax, but also the overall architecture of the fair which was echoed throughout the MIB headquarters in Battery Park. Well, below it actually. Strangely, it’s largely because of this era dichotomy that the movie doesn’t feel dated as we approach it’s 20th anniversary in 2017.

The chemistry between Jones and Smith was genuine and worked nicely, the laconic and humorless Jones making an able counterpoint to the ‘tude of Smith who was as modern as they get in 1997. Although they would reprise their roles in two more films to date, the first movie was really the magical one in this regard.

In many ways this movie is to science fiction what Ghostbusters is to horror. The genre elements are as good as they get, but the humor makes this movie as much fun as a movie can be. While folks don’t really consider this an Oscar type of picture, it actually won a golden statuette and was nominated for three all told. In this case, all of the honors it got were richly deserved.

WHY RENT THIS: Incredible kitschy fun. Will Smith kicks off his film career with a classic. Quirky sense of humor.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: At times can be a little too far-out for the mainstream.
FAMILY VALUES: There’s some violence and a little bit of foul language.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Originally, Clint Eastwood was offered the part of Agent Kay but he turned it down, preferring to concentrate on his directing career.
NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: All editions include a plethora of special features, including a music video, storyboard to finished product comparisons, mini-featurettes on the special effects and other technical areas of the movie and the Blu-Ray includes an “Ask Frank the Pug” feature which is a great time-waster for about 35 seconds before it gets old.
BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $589.4M on a $90M production budget.
SITES TO SEE: Netflix (DVD/Blu-Ray rental), Amazon (buy/rent), Vudu (buy/rent),  iTunes (buy/rent), Flixster (purchase only), Target Ticket (purchase only)
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Addams Family
FINAL RATING: 8.5/10
NEXT: Waiting for Oscar continues!

Obvious Child

Life can be cold even for the very cute.

(2014) Comedy (A24) Jenny Slate, Jake Lacy, Gaby Hoffmann, David Cross, Richard Kind, Polly Draper, Gabe Liedman, Paul Briganti, Cindy Cheung, Stephen Singer, Cyrus McQueen, Emily Tremaine, Ramses Alexandre, Julie Zimmer, Ernest Mingione, Stacey Sargeant, Amy Novando, Crystal Lonneberg, Suzanne Lenz. Directed by Gillian Robespierre

One of the results of unprotected sex can be a pregnancy that is unplanned for and unwanted. Women have several options open to them, although not everyone wants it that way.

Donna Stern (Slate) is a budding standup comic who works in a used bookstore by day. She is a classic New York underachiever, one who has vague goals but is in no particular hurry to get to them. She’s been seeing Ryan (Briganti) for years now and is somewhat ambivalent towards marriage or at least, it’s not a subject that comes up.

Her standup routine is full of the juices of life. Lots of farting, the state of women’s panties at the end of the day, skid marks and the fluids of sex. It isn’t for the squeamish which might explain why she’s still in a somewhat rough and tumble Brooklyn bar providing free entertainment for Williamsburg hipsters who are too cheap to pay for it. When she talks about the sex life with her boyfriend as being somewhat routine and predictable while he watches her set, that’s the last straw. That and, oh, him having been sleeping with her friend Lacey (Tremaine) for several months. He dumps her in the unisex graffiti-covered bathroom that looks like something that veteran CDC doctors would run screaming into the night from which I suppose is as appropriate a place to get dumped as any – considering her act, getting dumped in a bathroom has no irony whatsoever.

She also finds out that the bookstore she has been working for has lost its lease and is going to close its doors forever in about six weeks. No job, no money, no boyfriend – things couldn’t be worse for Donna. She takes solace in her support system – her close friends Nellie (Hoffmann) and fellow comedian Joey (Liedman), as well as her Dad (Kind) who works as a Henson-like puppeteer for a successful TV show. Her cold fish Mom (Draper), divorced from her Dad and a very successful business school instructor, tries to motivate her daughter to find new work without much success.

Donna’s next standup gig is an utter train wreck as she ascends the stage completely off-her-ass drunk and proceeds to go into a drunken rant about her break-up that is as unfunny as it is awkward. The only plus of the evening is that she meets nice-guy Max (Lacy) at the bar, continues to get drunker and ends up at his apartment for a night of mindless, meaningless sex. She leaves the next morning without leaving a note.

Not long afterwards she discovers that mindless, meaningless sex can get you pregnant too, even though she was pretty sure they’d used protection in the form of a condom. She’s not really 100% sure on that point – not that it matters because a condom really isn’t 100% protection against pregnancy either. The thing is, she is preggers and the one thing she’s sure about is that she’s not ready to be a mom. She’s not ready to be pregnant either considering her uncertain future, her lack of funds and job and without a partner to help her out. An abortion seems to be the best choice for her given the circumstances.

Once this decision is made, she’s unsure that she wants to tell her mother about it, sure that her mom will see this as yet another failure in life by her disappointment of a daughter. Also, she keeps running into Max unexpectedly and he clearly likes her. A lot and she thinks she might like him too, even though he’s as gentile as a Christmas tree in Rockefeller plaza and she’s the menorah at the top that burns the whole damn tree down.

Some will see this as a movie about abortion but as film critic Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle points out, the better movie would be about the woman having that abortion and Robespierre wisely realizes that. The decision for Donna is a simple one from a practical standpoint but emotionally she’s unsure of what to do, how to feel and she asks Nellie, who’s had one, whether she thinks about it (she does but she doesn’t think she made the wrong choice).

Slate, who was on Saturday Night Live for a season and famously dropped an F bomb in her first episode, does a star turn here in the role of Donna. Donna uses her sense of humor as something of a shield against her own vulnerability and has no filter whatsoever. That endears her to those willing to put the effort in to get to know her. She is far from perfect although she is cute as a button. To my mind, Slate has far more upside than a lot of actresses who have come from standpoint and should easily join the ranks of Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph as graduates of SNL to stardom, although I think the big screen would be far more appropriate than television as a medium for her talents.

She gets some good support from Liedman (her sketch partner in real life) and Hoffmann and Lacy, who was a regular on The Office makes a fine straight man. I like that Robespierre chose not to give us the glamorized indie version of New York where people work in creative jobs, live in amazing lofts they couldn’t possibly afford and eat out and hang out at hipster clubs every night while showing up to work fresh as a daisy the next day. The places Donna and her friends can afford to hang out in are mostly pretty dingy and Donna’s apartment is tiny and far from glitzy. This is the life someone in her situation would be leading for real.

Inevitably there is going to be some politicization of the film’s subject matter but be assured there’s none in the film whatsoever. The conservative religious right tend to portray abortions as something done by sluts without any sort of care or consequence but that’s not what happens here. Donna while vulnerable and impaired has unprotected sex which might be characterized as a foolish mistake but she is not someone who seems inclined to sleep around – in fact, she has a scene with veteran comic David Cross in which she turns him down for sex.

What really makes this film worth seeing are a pair of scene near the movie’s end. The first is when Donna is having her abortion and has been given a sedative to relax her. As the procedure begins, we see a tear rolling down from her eye. Even more powerful is the scene that follows when Donna and the other women who have just undergone the procedure sitting in the recovery room and exchanging glances. No dialogue is said but the looks on their faces say it all – this was not a decision entered into lightly and the consequences are absolutely on all of their minds.

In an era when a woman’s right to choose is under concerted attack from Tea Party politicians and where choices to have abortions are becoming much more scarce in Red States, a movie like this becomes much more necessary and meaningful. While I’m not sure this will change any Right to Lifers minds on the subject, it serves as a vivid reminder that for all the hysteria and noise generated by that group, women in general are not ignorant of the consequences of their ability to make that choice – and that it is a hard choice even if the practical side is easy. From that standpoint, this is an essential film and while I found the nature of Donna’s comedy unappealing, I loved the character in a big way because of her flaws and imperfections. Donna is the kind of woman you probably know already. If you don’t, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to find this movie either at your local art house or soon when it comes to home video and get to know her.

REASONS TO GO: A realistic look at the effects of unwanted pregnancies on real women and the choices they must face. Slate shows that she is ready to be the next great film comedienne.

REASONS TO STAY: Unnecessarily scatological. Too many awkward moments.

FAMILY VALUES:  Plenty of rough language and sexuality.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie’s title comes from the first track on the 1990 Paul Simon album The Rhythm of the Saints.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/9/14: Rotten Tomatoes: 87% positive reviews. Metacritic: 75/100.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Punchline

FINAL RATING: 6.5/10

NEXT: Transformers: Age of Extinction

New Releases for the Week of June 27, 2014

TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION

(Paramount) Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, Stanley Tucci, Jack Reynor, Kelsey Grammer, Sophia Myles, Li Bingbing, Robert Foxworth, John Goodman, Ken Watanabe. Directed by Michael Bay

With Chicago laid waste but humanity safe for now, the Transformers have become persona non grata as the picking up of pieces commences. However, a new and ancient threat has the Earth set right in its crosshairs and Optimus Prime must turn to a new set of humans if this threat is to be defeated – if it can be defeated at all.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, promos and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard, 3D, IMAX 3D (opens Thursday)

Genre: Science Fiction

Rating: PG-13 (for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, language and brief innuendo)

Ek Villain

(Balaji) Sidharth Malhotra, Ritesh Deshmukh, Shraddha Kapoor, Aamna Sharif. After his lover is brutally murdered by a serial killer, a man decides to take the law into his own hands and bring the murderer to justice. As he chases down his nemesis, the lines between good and evil begin to blur and melt into one another until it is impossible to tell light from darkness.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Bollywood/Action

Rating: NR

Obvious Child

(A24) Jenny Slate, David Cross, Gaby Hoffman, Richard Kind. A young woman struggles to make it as a stand-up comic, working a day job to make ends meet. Things however go horribly wrong as she loses her day job, gets dumped by her boyfriend and discovers she is pregnant. Happy Valentine’s Day indeed. She will use her ability to find humor in any situation as the courage that she uses to get up on stage will now be necessary to help her make it in real life. This played the most recent Florida Film Festival and was one that I’m looking forward to seeing.

See the trailer, clips and a featurette here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Comedy

Rating: R (for language and sexual content)

Kung Fu Panda

Sometimes we all need a little kick in the behind.

(2008) Animated Feature (DreamWorks) Starring the voices of Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Ian McShane, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Randall Duk Kim, James Hong, Michael Clarke Duncan, Dan Fogler. Directed by John Stevenson and Mark Osborne

 

Dreams are generally not handed to you. In order to achieve them, hard work and sacrifice is almost always required. The question becomes how much are you willing to give in order to make your dream come true – and is it worth it.

Po (Black) is a big, goofy panda who lives in the Valley of Peace. The animals there live in peace and harmony, overseen by the benevolent temple on the highest peak guarding the town from those who would cause harm. Therein dwell the Furious Five, a group of five kung fu warriors of world renown. Po worships them and dreams of being one of them. However, he is the son of Ping (Hong) a humble noodle shop owner whose secret ingredient makes his noodles better than anyone else and Ping knows that Po’s dream is foolishness itself.

Within the temple is the Dragon Scroll, a parchment which explains how to become the Dragon Warrior, the ultimate kung fu practitioner. Snow leopard Tai Lung (McShane) wants this scroll not to become the valley’s ultimate protector but to dominate and become a cruel tyrant, wreaking revenge on the master who spurned his dreams.

Tai Lung has escaped from his prison and means to take what would not be given to him. The temple announces that their venerated abbot Oogway (Kim) is going to select the Dragon Warrior who will be given the scroll and the power to protect the Valley. The entire village ascends the mountain to see who will be accorded this great honor. Po is sent by his father to go sell noodles at the temple.

Everyone assumes that one of the members of the Furious Five will be chosen – Tigress (Jolie), Mantis (Rogen), Monkey (Chan), Viper (Liu) or Crane (Cross). Maybe it will be their venerated master, Shifu (Hoffman). However when Oogway chooses Po, the entire village goes into shock. Surely there must be a mistake.

Po has no training and it appears, no aptitude for Kung Fu. What he seems to be best at is eating, and he does that pretty much non-stop. Shifu figures that he can discourage the young panda out of becoming the Dragon Warrior and thus allow one of his more deserving students to achieve that honor. However, Tai Lung is approaching and time is running short. Will Po stay and find his inner hero? Or will he leave and watch from the sidelines as one or all of the Furious Five save the day?

Of all the  CGI animated features I’ve seen this is my favorite that doesn’t begin with the Pixar logo. Yes, I understand its faults and shortcomings but for whatever reason I connect with it. Maybe because I’m quite Po-like – I love to eat, I dream about being a superhero and I have a pretty laid-back nature most of the time (that sound you just heard was Da Queen snorting). The animation is also pretty impressive, from the faux Chinese landscapes to the rippling fur on Shifu, Tigress and Tai Lung.

The story is a bit rote and predictable and certainly is aimed at the Nickelodeon set. There is a good deal of physical humor, much of it revolving around Po’s weight and clumsiness (which some might argue reinforces stereotypes about overweight people, not necessarily a message we want to send to kids). Also, there is almost zero character development for everyone other than Po, Sifu and Tigress. Even Tai Lung really is given a kind of cursory character background as to why he is a villain. Most of the non-feline Furious Five all kind of blend together. Makes me wonder if they could have done a Terrific Trio instead.

There are some moments of real beauty – one involving Oogway and peach blossoms – as well as some imaginative fight scenes (especially the one between Po and Shifu involving a dumpling and chopsticks). This is a pleasing film aesthetically, enough so that parents won’t get bored when watching it for the umpteenth time with their kids.

In fact, the movie is much like it’s protagonist – kind of dumb, kind of lovable and ultimately it just steals your heart. Even if you aren’t into the old chop sockey movies that are clearly the touchstone behind the genesis of Kung Fu Panda you’ll still get a kick out of this animated classic.

WHY RENT THIS: Gorgeous animation. Nice work by Black, Hoffman and McShane.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Predictable story aimed squarely at less discerning audiences.

FAMILY VALUES:  There are some action sequences which might overwhelm the littlest tykes.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: James Hong, who voiced noodle shop owner Mr. Ping, is the son of an actual noodle shop owner.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: As with most hit kid films, there are plenty. The DVD came as a stand-alone or in a two-pack with the short animated feature Secrets of the Furious Five. The original DVD included featurettes on how to make noodles like Mr. Ping and a kid-centric instruction manual on how to use chopsticks. There’s also a Dragon Warrior Training Academy interactive game, a music video of the theme song, an animation video jukebox featuring songs from each of DreamWorks’ Animation Studio’s movies to that time, and a nice PSA  on saving wild pandas.  The two-pack also includes an instructional video on how to draw the characters from Kung Fu Panda, an interactive Dumpling Shuffle game, and fun featurettes on how to determine which Kung Fu fighting style is your own and how to figure out which sign of the Chinese zodiac you fall under. The Blu-Ray has all of these in addition to BD-Live downloadable content which includes a Day in the Life of an actual Shaolin monk and the opportunity to hear Po from various other language soundtracks. “Squidoosh” just sounds a whole lot of different in Swedish my friends.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $631.7M on a $130M production budget; the movie was a huge hit.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

NEXT: Tales From Earthsea

New Releases for the Week of December 16, 2011

SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS

(Warner Brothers) Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law, Noomi Rapace, Jared Harris, Eddie Marsan, Stephen Fry, Rachel McAdams, Kelly Reilly, Geraldine Hudson, Paul Anderson. Directed by Guy Ritchie

Holmes is pitted against his archrival, Professor Moriarty and the stakes couldn’t possibly get higher. When the Crown Prince of Austria is discovered dead, all signs point to suicide – but Holmes sees the signs nobody else can see and deduces that the Prince was in truth murdered and that murder is part of a larger plot, one that would plunge Europe into chaos and indeed change the course of history. Holmes must enlist his stalwart friend Dr. Watson and enlist the help of a gypsy to stop Moriarty’s fiendish plans and save Europe from catastrophe.

See the trailer, clips and a featurette here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Adventure

Rating: PG-13 (for intense sequences of violence and action, and some drug material)

Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked

(20th Century Fox) Jason Lee, David Cross, Jenny Slate, Justin Long. The lovable chipmunks turn what was supposed to be a relaxing cruise into their own brand of fun. The fun ends when they get stranded on a remote island. The furry rodents plot their escape to get back home but then it turns out the island isn’t as deserted as they thought.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Family

Rating: G

Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey

(Submarine Deluxe) Kevin Clash, Whoopi Goldberg, Rosie O’Donnell, Frank Oz.  A young man becomes enchanted with Sesame Street and resolves to become a Muppeteer. That this young man is an African American raises all sorts of different obstacles, but this young man will eventually become the voice and the soul of Elmo, arguably the most beloved Muppet of them all and certainly one of the most popular.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Documentary

Rating: NR

Dragonslayer

(Drag City) Josh “Skreech” Sandoval, Leslie. The winner of Best Documentary from the most recent SXSW Film Festival, Dragonslayer chronicles disaffected youth Josh “Skreech” Sandoval from Fullerton, California. Skreech lives the skate punk ethos, possessing as little as possible, staying high as much as possible and skating whenever possible, finding abandoned swimming pools to swoop and glide in.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Documentary

Rating: NR

Young Adult

(Paramount) Charlize Theron, Patrick Wilson, Patton Oswalt, Elizabeth Reaser. A successful writer of teen literature returns to where she grew up for a class reunion, she plots to reclaim her high school sweetheart. Never mind that he is happily married with a baby on the way, that’s just petty distractions. Along the way she kindles a strange friendship with a misfit who also never got past high school. This reteams director Jason Reitman with writer Diablo Cody who together made Juno.

See the trailer, clips, promos and web-only content here.

For more on the movie this is the website

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Black Comedy

Rating: R (for language and some sexual content)