Krimes

The King of Krimes.

(2021) Documentary (MTV Films) Jesse Krimes, Jared Owens, Russell Craig, Gilberto “Cano” Rivera, Cindy Krimes, Robyn Buseman, Asia Johnson, Michelle C. Jones, Courtney Cone, Daniel McCarthy Clifford, Sherrill Roland, Nicole Fleetwood, Julie Courtney, Jasmine Heiss, Peg Krimes. Directed by Alysa Nahmias

 

We all make mistakes when we’re young. Most are of the variety that harm nobody but ourselves, although occasionally we break the hearts of others who don’t deserve to have their hearts broken. Sometimes, young people make worse mistakes and the consequences of those errors in judgment have them ending up in prison.

Jesse Krimes (if ever there was an appropriate name for a convict!) is one such young man. Raised by a single mom, he showed a knack for creativity and artistic design. He ended up going to Millersville College and getting an art degree there. However, by then he had begun to party a bit too hard and got into trouble, finally being arrested and convicted for possession of cocaine with intent to sell. He was sentenced to six years in prison.

While in prison, he met Jared Owens and Gilberto Rivera, both of whom were artists in prison. He also found out that his girlfriend was pregnant (she would give birth to his son while he was incarcerated). Suddenly realizing that he was in danger of becoming the kind of absent father that had haunted his own childhood, he vowed to go the straight and narrow and through Owens and Rivera, began to find his own artistic voice. He began work on a mural that was too large to fit into any space in the prison, and knowing that it would be confiscated as contraband (particularly since he was using prison sheets for his canvas), he mailed them out and wouldn’t see the completed work as a whole until after he was released, a year early.

He did get a job with a public works project in Lancaster, Pennsylvania (his home town) where he met Russell Craig, a fellow ex-con artist. Staying clean and sober was no easy task; it was difficult for him to find work and financial pressures were leading him to making some old mistakes. One night, after drinking too much, he teetered out of a bar and almost literally into the arms of a police officer. He spent an agonizing night in jail, thinking that everything he’d built was going to fold like an accordion and he would be sent back to prison. However, his parole officer saw something in him and he was allowed to remain outside. The pressure of knowing that the slightest mistake would send him back into prison for a much longer stint hung over him like the sword of Damocles.

But his art began to get noticed and soon he began to sell some of his work, and put together shows. He became an activist for fixing the broken criminal justice system, for the rights of ex-cons and for rehabilitation through art. He began to be the father to his boy that his own father had never been to him.

Krimes is a compelling subject. He’s a handsome man, resembling professional wrestler Chris Jericho slightly. He’s also humble and accountable for the errors in judgment he’s made in his life. He also loves being a dad and it’s clear watching him and his son together that he is a good father.

Some look at the prison system as simply a vehicle to punish those who have done wicked things. Others see it as an opportunity to rehabilitate those who turn to crime. Most of us agree that the system isn’t working the way it is supposed to, fulfilling neither goal effectively. Many ex-cons end up returning to crime because every other door is closed to them. That doesn’t sound like a particularly efficient system to me.

Krimes is, while a fairly standard documentary/biography, noteworthy in that while it recognizes its subject as a flawed human being, also celebrates the beauty he has created (and his artwork really is wonderful). He’s a man who has recognized that he has been given a second chance and intends to make the most of it and if that isn’t something admirable, well, it should be.

REASONS TO SEE: A compelling story about overcoming the odds.
REASONS TO AVOID: Fairly typical documentary tropes.
FAMILY VALUES: There are some adult themes and drug content.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Krimes and Craig co-founded the Right to Return Fellowship with the Soze Agency, funded by the Open Philadelphia Project, to assist ex-convict artists.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: DOC NYC Online (through November 28)
CRITICAL MASS: As of 11/17/21: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet; Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Big Eyes
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Omara

Fatherhood

You and me against the world.

(2021) Dramedy (Columbia/Netflix) Kevin Hart, Alfre Woodard, Lil Rel Howley, DeWanda Wine, Melody Hurd, Paul Reiser, Anthony Carrigan, Deborah Ayorinde, Frankie R. Faison, Thedra Porter, Holly Gauthier-Franel, Ellen David, Julie Trépanier, Julian Casey, Anne Day-Jones, Teneisha Collins, Maria Herrera, Anthony Kavanaugh, Puja Uppal. Directed by Paul Weitz

 

Some actors fill a niche, and pretty much stick to it their entire careers. Most actors, however, feel a need to branch out, to flex their dramatic (or comedic) wings and fly out into uncertain winds. Sometimes the result is a steep drop into a faceplant on the tarmac. However, when the landing is stuck, the actor then faces the double-edge sword of raised bars and higher expectations.

Kevin Hart has mostly played irascible immature men conning their way through life, but in this film, based on the experiences of author Matthew Logelin as chronicled in his book Two Kisses for Maddy, Hart plays Logelin, a tech engineer in Boston who is about to be a dad. His wife Liz (Ayorinde) gives birth to a beautiful baby girl, but a pulmonary embolism cuts short her life.

Now Matt faces the daunting task of being a single father and a grieving widower. He is devastated by the grief, but doesn’t have time to let it be front and center; he’s got a career to deal with and a baby to take care of, even though he doesn’t have a clue how to do it. Initially, he gets help from his mom (Porter) and his somewhat overbearing other-in-law Marion (Woodard) who are willing to stay much longer than they are welcome, but Matt is firm; he can do this, although Marion has her doubts. She exacts from him a promise that if it gets to be too much that he’ll move back to Minnesota – where he met his wife – and where Marion can keep a better eye on him.

Hart delivers a career-defining performance here. He dials back the volume and emphasizes Matt’s loneliness and humanity without sacrificing the confusion and loneliness he feels. He’s so unprepared for being a dad that he doesn’t even know what colic is – and let’s not get started about the joys of assembling a stroller. His Matt has skated through, notorious for procrastinating until he realizes he is in a situation where he simply can’t afford to put anything off, particularly when it comes to his daughter. And the love he feels for Maddy (Hurd) shows through in every frame.

Movies like this can easily become maudlin and manipulative but with the sure hand of Weitz (About a Boy) at the helm, it never descends into either pitfall. The movie does occasionally stumble; the character of Jordan (Howley), Matt’s immature best friend, is a little too over-the-top for the film. However, it does better in pointing out the difference in the ways men and women approach parenthood; women get it far more intuitively than men do (for the most part – there are always exceptions) but Weitz wisely doesn’t let this descend into a “men are buffoons who couldn’t tie their shoelaces without women” tone that movies sometimes descend into.

What we have here is a really good movie about the challenges of facing single fatherhood alone. It is well-acted with a great ensemble cast and the interplay between Hart and Woodard is priceless. This is easily one of the best movies that the streamer has delivered to its subscribers (although to be fair the movie was originally intended for theatrical release until COVID put a stop to it) and if you have a Netflix subscription, this one should be on your radar.

REASONS TO SEE: Hart gives his best performance by a mile. Great chemistry between Woodard and Hart. Really gets how men fumble around for what women understand intuitively.
REASONS TO AVOID: Howley’s Jordan character may be a bit TOO inappropriate.
FAMILY VALUES: There is adult thematic material and some brief profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Channing Tatum was originally going to play the role of Matt when the project was first announced in 2015, but couldn’t get it to work in his schedule; he remained on board as an executive producer.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Netflix
CRITICAL MASS: As of 8/6/21: Rotten Tomatoes: 66% positive reviews; Metacritic: 53/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Parenthood
FINAL RATING: 8/10
NEXT: Bring Your Own Brigade

15 Years (15 Shana)

If men rolled out of bed looking like this, we’d all be gay.

(2019) LGBT Drama (Breaking Glass) Oded Leopold, Udi Persi, Ruti Asarsai, Dan Mor, Tamir Ginsburg, Lint Balaban, Ofek Aharony, Or Asher, Keren Tzur. Directed by Yuval Hadadi

 

Reaching middle age can be a terrifying proposition. Our entire worldview has to change. No longer are we young and indestructible; we are reaching a point in our lives where we have to take stock and prepare for the future rather than live in the moment. Even though 40 isn’t what it used to be, it still has great psychological significance for most of us.

Yoav (Leopold) has reached and surpassed that milestone. In fact, he’s 42 and outwardly, at least, he seems to have things figured out. A successful architect with a beautiful apartment in Tel Aviv that he shares with his partner of 15 years, Dan (Persi) who is a lawyer. They lack for nothing. They are surrounded by friends. Life is sweet indeed.

Yoav’s best friend since childhood is Alma (Asarsai) who has continued that relationship into adulthood. She is an artist and at the opening of a gallery show for her art, she makes the surprise announcement that she is pregnant. The news floors Yoav; as her best friend, he is offended that he wasn’t the first to know.

Even worse from Yoav’s point of view is that Dan is now thinking of fatherhood for himself and that is something Yoav emphatically doesn’t want. His mother has been dead for a while and his father is dying in a nursing home which Yoav refuses to visit; when on the phone with a representative there, he coldly tells them “Then let him die without seeing me.” That’s just the beginning of a downward spiral for Yoav who begins to resent Alma for her life change and Dan as well for wanting one. Yoav is pushing the two people closest to him away as hard as he can; when his firm loses an important project, the stress is clearly beginning to show. But what’s behind Yoav’s sudden change into jerkhood?

Well, to be honest, we never really find out for sure. Hadadi, who also wrote the film, drops cryptic hints; clearly his relationship with his parents is strained – one wonders if they never accepted their son’s sexuality, but Yoav is convinced he’d make a lousy father whereas Dan is just as sure that Yoav would make an excellent dad.

Yoav is at the center of the film and his relationships with Dan and Alma are the movie’s heart; the relationships are thankfully believable; both Alma and Dan are legitimately hurt by Yoav’s actions which he is unable to adequately explain. When questioned about why he’s behaving this way during a crucial scene, he keeps on repeating petulantly “I don’t know!” which gets tedious but then, I think that’s the point.

Hadadi does a great job to create a character who is unpleasant and barely likable; we get occasional glimpses of a different side to Yoav but mainly we begin to get tired of the man’s self-centered narcissism. Yoav has become so in tune with his own needs that he has ceased giving any thought to anyone else’s. He resents Alma because the change in her life is going to affect him. He resents Dan because he has a life goal that is different than his own. We are left to suss out the reasons for the behavior but at a certain point, we just don’t care. A dick is a dick is a dick, as they say.

The relationship between Dan and Yoav is actually pretty realistic; we don’t often get representations of successful gay men in long-term relationships and even though the one depicted here is crumbling, it certainly doesn’t reflect badly on Dan who is bewildered at his love’s behavior and beyond hurt. Eventually the two split up but it is clear that Dan is very much in love with Yoav. Whether Yoav is in love with anyone besides Yoav is a revelation I’ll save for your viewing – can’t leave too many spoilers, right?

Kudos to Hadadi for portraying gay men with depth and even, in the case of Dan, compassion. I also very much admire that Hadadi never wastes a moment; each scene portrays what it needs to and the n Hadadi moves on to the next one. While there might be a couple of sex scenes that may have been a little bit extraneous, Hadadi also reminds us that not every sexual encounter goes the same way. There are different rhythms, different contexts.

I think if we saw a bit more of what Dan saw in Yoav in the first place the movie would have been more powerful. Nonetheless, this is one of the most powerful pieces of LGBT cinema that I’ve seen in quite a while and it is well worth seeking out if you enjoy the genre or better still, if you just like damn good movies.

REASONS TO SEE: Hadadi wastes no time; every scene is efficiently composed and only precisely as long as they need to be.
REASONS TO AVOID: Yoav is so unlikable that after awhile audiences may not be able to identify with him.
FAMILY VALUES: There is sexuality and some profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The film has to date won three Best Narrative Feature awards at three different Film Festivals, including the Chicago Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Vudu
CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/28/20: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet, Metacritic: No score yet
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Junebug
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Until the Birds Return

Out of Omaha

Twin sons of different others.

(2018) Documentary (Dreamville) Darcell Trotter, Darell “Rell” Trotter, Wayne Brown, Barbara Robinson, Yono Jones, Eric Lofton, Anthony Beasley, Dr. Jef Johnston, Dazmi Casterjon, Yvonne Beasley, Kenneth Scott, Christopher Trotter, Anthony Kellogg, Aubrey Caballero, Shay Murph-Bookhardt, Keiara Ritchie.  Directed by Clay Tweel

 

After the formation of the Black Lives Matter movement, many on the right – some well-meaning, I grant you – responded back that “All Lives Matter.”

They’re missing the point.

African-Americans in this country have been marginalized ever since being delivered here in chains. They may no longer be the property of plantation owners but they are marginalized by poverty, by a lack of opportunity and an excess of suspicion. They are put into ghettos where crime and despair run rampant and even should they manage to get an education and become pillars of the community, they can expect to be pulled over with regularity by the police or have neighbors call the cops when they are working in the garage of their own home.

No matter the size of the city, the racial divide is palpable. Omaha, Nebraska isn’t exactly a megalopolis but it is a good-sized Midwestern city that prides itself on its heartland values. Those values seem to end at the border of North Omaha, the poverty-stricken African-American community which is plagued by gang violence and drugs. Into this world twin brothers Darcell and Darell Trotter were born.

Omaha has one of the highest per-capita murder rates in the country, largely thanks to the violence in North “O.” It also has a high concentration of millionaires living in lovely split-level homes surrounded by beautifully manicured lawns. The Trotter twins knew nothing of that other Omaha. Their reality was the gangs and drugs of the north side.

Documentary filmmaker Clay Tweel, who has been responsible for films such as Gleason and Make Believe, spent seven years off and on filming the twins as they try to escape the poverty and hopelessness of their environment. Primarily focusing on Darcell’s story, the film watches him leave the gang life which consumed his brother Rell and the drug addiction which trapped his father Shane, taking advantage of a program called Avenue Scholars which allowed him to attend the University of Nebraska Omaha in pursuit of a music production degree with an eye on becoming a hip-hop producer and entrepreneur.

However, he is fated to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when he attends a party in which a violent robbery takes place. Despite the fact that he left at the first sign of trouble, he is identified as one of those involved and his face is plastered all over a Crimestoppers segment on the local news. When Darcell, whose loyalty to his friends was forged as a gang member where it was drilled into him that you never give up your friends, refuses to name the other people involved, he is sent to jail, a scared 19-year-old kid in a scary place. Eventually the charges are dropped but the damage is done.

He moves in with his brother and their father in Grand Island, Nebraska, 150 miles away. With an African-American population that makes up just 2% of the total population, they are looked upon with some suspicion but both of them work hard and start to make something of themselves. Their father, hooked on heroin, abandons them, leaving them with nowhere to live. Aubrey Caballero, the mom of their friend Ricky, takes the two boys in.

The boys are accused of sexual assault which once again puts them on the front page of the local news but their accuser recants and admits that she made up her story. Their exoneration gets absolutely no coverage at all – go ahead and Google Darcell’s name and see what comes up – which leaves them with a blight on their record. Nevertheless, they both continue to work hard and when Darcell fathers a young daughter, he finds reservoirs of strength he never knew he had.

The movie is enormously powerful in the sense that you get a first-hand look at what young African-American men are facing; how their opportunities are restricted by poverty and racial profiling, and yet both of the twins aspire to something better for themselves, the comforts of life that those who grew up in comfortable suburban lives take for granted. Tweel is non-judgmental about the choices the brothers make (and they aren’t always wise ones), not making excuses for their poor choices but neither blaming them for them. In many ways they are conditioned to see the world through a sheen in which the only escape from the hopelessness is through drugs and crime. Tweel has come a long way as a filmmaker over the years and this might just be his best film yet.

This is very much a cinema verité experience as the camera follows the boys and watches their story unfold. There are a few interviews, such as with Wayne Brown, a man who with his wife Niki managed to get out of North Omaha and become respected professionals but still had to put up with police officers pulling them over every few days while driving to work. Mostly, though, this is the story of two boys who grow up to be men but never lose their hope for something better despite everything thrown their way. While the movie ends on a hopeful note – the twin brothers are preparing to open up their own appliance store in Grand Island – it may not be an earth-shattering triumph but considering the journey they took to get there, it is as inspiring a story as any epic tale.

REASONS TO SEE: Tweel is growing as a filmmaker. Unvarnished cinema verité.
REASONS TO AVOID: There is nothing really game-changing here.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a shitload of profanity, some drug use and descriptions of violence.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The film was executive produced by rising hip-hop star J. Cole.
BEYOND THE THEATER: Amazon, Fandango Now, Google Play, iTunes, Starz, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 10/1/19: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet: Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Princess of the Row
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: The Game Changers

Straight Into a Storm

This is truly a band of gentlemen.

(2018) Music Documentary (Abramorama) John McCauley, Ian O’Neil, Chris Ryan, Dennis Ryan, Robbie Crowell, Shaylyn McCauley, Joe Lusi, Chris Paddock, Paul Marandola, Diego Perez, Brendan Massei, Zeke Hutchins, John Chavez, Justin Collins, Adam Landry, Taylor Goldsmith Dawes, Jana Hunter. Directed by William Miller

 

Deer Tick is far from a household name – are there any rock and roll household names anymore that didn’t arrive via some TV reality competition show a la American Idol or America’s Got Talent? The truth that rock and roll has become a niche genre in pop music; the bands that make it generally have some sort of hip-hop pedigree but I digress somewhat.

The indie rock band Deer Tick has pushed on through what are fairly long odds to go from, as lead singer/songwriter John McCauley proclaims, “being an indie band to being a cult band” and yes, there is a distinction. We see plenty of performance footage from house parties in their native Providence to the film’s nadir, a seven day residency at the 600-seat Brooklyn Bowl to simultaneously celebrate the band’s tenth anniversary and the incoming New Year (the residency culminated with a New Year’s party in 2014). That their most recent footage is three years old robs the film of any immediacy it might have had but then, I don’t think anyone is clamoring for a Deer Tick biography.

And yet we got one and I must admit that it is pretty thorough as these things go. McCauley is a reasonably competent raconteur and his band mates contribute some fairly interesting stories about the life of a touring band in the age of Spotify. When you make a documentary about a cult band, the question becomes “will the movie make any new fans for the band?” The answer is likely not; the performance footage tends to be choppy and often shot on cell phones. You get a sense of some of the songs (and Dennis Ryan explains in depth why he needed to write a song about John Wayne Gacy) but for the most part we just hear snippets. The performances were often characterized by heavy drinking and drugging which makes them far more interesting if you’re present and also drinking and drugging. I will plead guilty to loving the Beat Farmers but being shitfaced with the band will do that for you.

And there’s the rub. The things that make fans rabid about a band is not so much a devotion to their music although that’s where it begins. No, the connection comes through interaction, a feeling of being part of the band which getting drunk with them will kind of do. When you’re as plastered as the band is, you become a part of the show.

Some time is spent on McCauley’s problems with drugs and how marriage and fatherhood have caused him to cut way back on his psychedelic consumption (although not completely eliminated it). There’s also some morbid talk about him joining the so-called 27 Club, the group of artists (mainly rock musicians) whose only qualification for membership is dying at age 27. McCauley was eager to join the club along with the likes of Janis Jopllin, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain. For anyone who watched the old VH-1 documentary series Behind the Music this will be familiar turf.

I found myself, not being a fan of the band or at least a devoted one, checking my watch a little bit as the film approached its end. There’s no doubt that this is a movie for the fans and the rabid ones at that. If you’re not a fan of the band or unfamiliar with their music you’re way better off checking out some of their recordings on Spotify if you’re interested in really checking them out. I would recommend the War Elephant album as a starting point and in particular “Art is Real (City of Sin)” if you want to fall in love – and who doesn’t want to fall in love with a band? It’s wonderful to make a discovery that only you and a select few are aware of. That makes the emotional connection even stronger. Like all romances though, one must take some caution though; not everyone will understand your love. That doesn’t matter so much though – love is love, even when it is given to a band. At least you’ll always have the music.

REASONS TO GO: The performance footage is generally the best part.
REASONS TO STAY: Way too long and detailed, the film will likely only appeal to big fans.
FAMILY VALUES: There is plenty of profanity and some drug references.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Deer Tick was originally formed in Providence, Rhode Island. They are currently based in New York.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/17/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 60% positive reviews: Metacritic: 48/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Shut Up and Play the Hits
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Tattoo Girls

The Front Man

Why, yes, we’re in a band.

(2014) Documentary (DevlinPix) Jim Wood, Christie Wood, Dan Snyder, John Kayne, Glen Burtnik, Graham Maby, Howard Stern, Beetlejuice, Robin Givens. Directed by Paul Devlin

We are all the stars of our own documentary feature. Our lives are, to us, as important and meaningful as any we see on the screen or read about in the newspapers and history books. The one thing we all have in common is that our lives are ours to live.

Jim Wood is one of those guys who not only gets to have his own documentary feature, other people are going to get to see it as well. In all honesty he’s a pretty ordinary guy in a lot of respects – he’d probably be the first to say he’s just a guy from Jersey – but he has hopes of being a rock star. Or at least, he did.

He did something about it too. He has a band – the Loaded Poets – that have been playing in Jersey bars and recording tracks for about 27 years now, dating back to when they were in high school. He and his band mates – Dan Snyder and John Kayne – have been plugging away for nearly all that time. They have no illusions that they’re going to hit it big. That’s just about impossible to do even if you’re young and attractive and while these guys aren’t necessarily bad looking, they’re well past the young portion of the equation. In other words, you won’t be seeing them on American Idol ever and also as unlikely on such shows as America’s Got Talent or The Voice.

Which is likely all right by them. They want success on their own terms which means the songs come first, and in all honesty they aren’t half bad. However, Jim has joined his bandmates in wedded bliss – and Jim’s got a gorgeous wife in Christie. She’s very supportive of his music – going so far as to make out with Beetlejuice on the Howard Stern show just to get her husband’s webpage advertised on his show – but she realizes neither one of them are getting any younger and the window for having a family is beginning to swing shut with an ominous creak.

Jim is a wacky kind of guy who sometimes looks at least on-camera like he doesn’t take much seriously but that would be doing him a disservice. While I have no doubt that he’s a kid at heart, one gets the feeling that when he needs to be he’s smart and mature. The decision to have the kid alters his life as he trades one dream for another – although he continues to make music on his own terms.

While fame eludes him, he talks to a couple of local boys who grabbed a fair slice of fame of their own – Glen Burtnik who had a minor hit in the ’80s and was a member of Styx for several years, and Graham Maby, best known as the bass player for the Joe Jackson band. Both offer insights into fame, rock and roll and how to integrate it into a good life.

This is like watching a documentary about your buddy down the block. Devlin, who has known Jim since kindergarten, uses home movies and years of footage that he has taken to compile a look at an ordinary guy living an extraordinary life. A huge fan of the Z-Movie Alien Factor, he seeks out its director Don Dohler and after impressing the affable director by quoting dialogue, casts both Jim and Christie in one of his last films (he passed away in 2006) as victims of vampires.

While the movie violates one of the prime commandments of home movies – your child is always far cuter to you than it is to everyone else – to be fair that’s a violation that occurs in a number of documentaries. Otherwise, Jim, Christie and their coterie are people you wouldn’t mind sharing a beer with at a barbecue down the street. This isn’t the most important documentary you’ll ever see but I could have spent more time with the people onscreen and at the end of the day that’s about the highest compliment you can pay to any kind of movie.

REASONS TO GO: Very human. Likable subjects.

REASONS TO STAY: Not really vital.

FAMILY VALUES:  Some sexuality and a few instances of foul language here and there.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Devlin’s local TV pilot Slammin’  which presented the Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe semi-final poetry slam as a sporting event, was nominated for two local Emmys.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/10/14: Rotten Tomatoes: no score yet. Metacritic: no score yet.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Anvil: The Story of Anvil

FINAL RATING: 6/10

NEXT: Slingshot

Delivery Man

Chris Pratt needs a hug.

(2013) Comedy (Touchstone) Vince Vaughn, Chris Pratt, Cobie Smulders, Andrzej Blumenfeld, Simon Delaney, Bobby Moynihan, Dave Patten, Adam Chanler-Berat, Britt Robertson, Jack Reynor, Amos VanderPoel, Matthew Daddario, Jessica Williams, Jay Leno, Bill Maher, Leslie Ann Glossner, Derrick Arthur, Michael Olberholtzer, Kevin Hopkins, Jessica Abo, Kate Dalton. Directed by Ken Scott

There’s a difference between being a dad and being a father and sometimes the two get confused. Anybody with sperm can be a father; not everyone is cut out to be a dad.

David Wozniak (Vaughn) is a charming but incompetent slacker who delivers meat for his father’s (Blumenfeld) Brooklyn butcher shop. He often gets sidetracked, using the truck to take care of his personal business and essentially chauffeuring the meat around Brooklyn. He takes four times as long to deliver the same meat as other drivers and it seems likely that if his dad didn’t own the joint he would have been fired long ago. His brothers Victor (Delaney) and Aleksy (Moynihan) are exasperated with his aimlessness. David needs some focus, a reason to be responsible.

He might have one now that his girlfriend Emma (Smulders), a cop, tells him she’s pregnant. David is thrilled and looks forward to being a dad but Emma isn’t so sure she wants him to be around. She needs stability and security; she wants to know that David will be there when he says he’ll be there and won’t leave her holding the bag every time, something he has done to her many times in the past.

David is also $80K in debt to loan sharks who are threatening to drown him in his own bathtub. To make matters worse, he’s also been served with an injunction. It seems that 20 years earlier, he’d donated sperm to make some extra cash. A lot of it, in fact. Due to a clerical/systemic error at the sperm bank, an excess of his ejacula has been used to procreate – 533 times. Yes, David is the proud pappy of 533 kids and 142 of them have filed a lawsuit to discover the identity of their sperm donor father. David had signed an anonymity clause for every one of his donations and had used the name “Starbuck” as a code to determine the source of his sperm.

Realizing he needs a lawyer, David goes to his best friend Brett (Pratt), a single father of four who isn’t respected by his children, his mother – pretty much everyone else for that matter – who happens to have a law degree. Brett actually welcomes the opportunity – this is the kind of case that can become a landmark and establish a fella in the profession.

David is given for reasons that I dare not even guess a folder full of profiles of the 142 progeny who are involved in the lawsuit and given strict instructions not to open them. David being David, he opens one up and discovers that one of his sons (Hopkins) is a basketball star. Heartened, he decides to open other profiles and discovers that each of them are pretty decent kids, from the one who is a struggling actor (Reynor) to one who is struggling to get her life together after years of drug addiction (Robertson).  One of them, Viggo (Chanler-Berat) manages to figure out David’s identity and rather than disclose it moves in with him.

Becoming the guardian angel for his kids turns David’s life around, despite Brett’s protestations that he is potentially harming his own case. Will David’s past sins threaten everything or will his new attitude finally make him the man Emma thought he could always be?

This is an English-language remake of the French-Canadian comedy Starbuck which played this year’s Florida Film Festival and had a brief theatrical run at the Enzian earlier this fall. The same director who did that does the remake and I’m not sure whether or not that was a good idea – this is virtually a shot-by-shot, line-by-line remake that differs only in minute details from the original.

Which is fine because I liked the first film so much but the remake doesn’t really add anything. Vaughn is as affable and as charming an actor as you’ll find in Hollywood and this is the sort of role that he has built his career on, albeit David is less of a fast talking con man than some of Vaughn’s other performances. In fact contrasting Vaughn with David Huard who played David in Starbuck I think if anything Vaughn is more laid-back than Huard was. Who would have predicted that?

The things that made the first film so enjoyable are present here as well – the heartwarming charm, the gentle humorous pokes at fatherhood. Although the subject matter of sperm donation has an inherent sexual component and it is alluded to in a couple of jokes, this is largely as family-friendly a comedy as you’re likely to find from a major studio release these days and it certainly lacks the raunch of Judd Apatow’s work or the Hangover series. Some might say that there’s not enough edge here but that’s entirely a matter of personal taste.

As pleasant comedies go this one is inoffensive and while I would certainly recommend Starbuck ahead of this, those who haven’t seen the former will certainly enjoy this one, quite possibly a lot. While the average movie critic and cynical indie-loving film buff might decry this as too manipulative, a little manipulation can be a good thing from time to time.

REASONS TO GO: Vaughn is as engaging as ever. Funny and heartwarming.

REASONS TO STAY: Lacks edge and energy. Doesn’t add anything to the original.

FAMILY VALUES:  A bit of sexual material, a bit of drug content, some foul language and brief violence.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Chris Pratt gained 60 pounds to play the out-of-shape lawyer Brett.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 12/15/13: Rotten Tomatoes: 38% positive reviews. Metacritic: 44/100.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Parenthood

FINAL RATING: 6/10

NEXT: The Book Thief

Starbuck

Here’s how you’ll likely feel after seeing this movie.

(2011) Comedy (EntertainmentOne) Patrick Huard, Julie LeBreton, Antoine Bertrand, Dominic Philie, Marc Belanger, Igor Ovadis, David Michael, Patrick Martin, David Giguere, Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse, Sebastien Beaulac, Patrick Labbe, Andre Lanthier, Patrick Caux, Catherine De Seve. Directed by Ken Scott

 

Being a father is easy (and fun). It doesn’t even require a mom these days – just sperm. Being a dad however is a whole ‘nother story.

David Wozniak (Huard) is about as irresponsible as guys can get. He works for his father (Ovadis) delivering meat to various stores and restaurants around Montreal. It’s the easiest job in his dad’s business but even that David screws up. He uses the delivery van for personal business, forgets vital tasks (like picking up soccer jerseys for team picture day) and generally gets into trouble without meaning to. He’s been with his beautiful girlfriend Valerie (LeBreton) for four years and seems content to let things remain pretty much as they are.

He’s a bachelor slacker, well-liked but not respected. Then Valerie gets pregnant. HE is willing to do the right thing but SHE has taken a good hard look at David and realizes, perhaps regretfully, that he is anything but dad material. She wants to break up; he wants to prove to her that he can grow up.

But he is deeply in debt to loan sharks (who send thugs around to his apartment to laconically hold his head under water to remind him that if he doesn’t pay up soon he is going to end up floating face down in some unpleasant body of water) and nobody really takes him seriously enough to give him a chance to prove himself. To make matters worse, he is served with a summons that turns out to be quite a blast from his past.

As a younger man he had regularly donated sperm to a specific sperm bank in order to make some cash. Due to a clerical error, more than 500 of his samples have been used to impregnate different women . He is now the proud daddy of 533 kids and 152 of them are suing to get his identity revealed.

At first David is appalled and hires a friend (Bertrand) to represent him legally. That friend is also a dad, although his kids basically don’t EVER listen to him and treat him like a jungle gym more than anything else. His friend, the scruffiest barrister ever looks on this as an opportunity to argue a groundbreaking case, maybe the only one he’ll ever have.

After initial reluctance, he begins to look at the profiles of his now-adult children. He tells himself it will be just once. When that child turns out to be a superstar soccer player, David is ecstatic. It becomes like a drug, looking in on his kids and surreptitiously inserting himself into their lives as a kind of guardian angel. Gradually David grows to realize this might be the opportunity to prove himself that he can improve himself that he was looking for.

The movie has a profound charm to it and a kind of scruffy sense of humor. It is sweet at unexpected moments, sometimes tugging the heartstrings without warning. Huard is given a much more layered and complex role than at first it appears – David is certainly a slacker of epic proportions but he also has an amazing heart – his father tells him in one of the most affecting scenes in the movie “I never have to worry because everyone loves you.” In short, one of those rare dads who recognizes that there are different standard of success in life than the ones he measures himself by. It truly is one of the most difficult parts of being a parent – understanding that your definition of success may not be what your child is looking for in life.

Starbuck is one of those rare movies (although this year there seem to be more of them) that looks at what it means to be a dad – there have always seemed to be more mom movies than dad movies in Hollywood, particularly in the last 50 years. Being a dad has challenges of its own, and sometimes in our rush to exalt motherhood (and don’t get me wrong, motherhood deserves exaltation) we forget the important and vital contributions that father’s make in the nurturing of children. Parenthood isn’t a process or a science and it’s barely even an art form – it’s thinking on your feet, it’s being willing to change your own outlook before trying to force your kid to change theirs. It is frustrating, demanding, infuriating – and ultimately as rewarding an endeavor as a man can undertake.

This isn’t the ultimate fatherhood movie – there are a few too many easy-to-spot plot points for that. Still, I found myself enjoying the charm and outright manipulation the movie put me through. Huard is likable enough and the movie pulls just enough unexpected moments to drive the score as high as it winds up. If you’re looking for a case of the warm fuzzies, here’s your source.

REASONS TO GO: Heartwarming. Very funny at times. Huard does a terrific job.

REASONS TO STAY: A bit far-fetched occasionally. A tiny bit too long.

FAMILY VALUES:  There’s a good deal of sexual content, a pretty fair amount of rough language and a teeny bit of drug material.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The title refers not only to the character from Battlestar Galactica but more specifically to a Canadian Holstein bull that during the 1980s and 1990s fathered thousands of progeny and is considered one of the most fertile creatures ever to have lived.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/9/13: Rotten Tomatoes: 64% positive reviews. Metacritic: 48/100; not what you’d call an overwhelming critical endorsement.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Daddy Day Care

FINAL RATING: 9/10

NEXT: The Painting and more 2013 Florida Film Festival coverage!!!

The Other F Word

Lars Frederiken still knows how to swing.

(2011) Documentary (Oscilloscope Laboratories) Jim Lindberg, Lars Frederiksen, Tony Escalante, Fat Mike, Art Alexakis, Tony Hawk, Mark Hoppus, Matt Freeman, Ron Reyes, Flea, Brett Gurewitz, Mark Mothersbaugh, Jack Grisham, Josh Freese, Tony Adolescent, Rick Thorn, Greg Hetson. Directed by Andrea Blaugrund Nevins

It is the nature of misspent youth that we rebel against the things our parents held dear. Maybe the ultimate rebels in that sense were – and are – the punks, who turned their collective tattooed backs on everything our commercially-oriented society held dear.

Those punks though are reaching middle age and have wives, families and mortgages now. This documentary captures these guys at a crossroads where their idealistic youth is colliding with the reality of life and in nearly every instance ideal is giving way to the needs of one’s children, which are considerable.

Jim Lindberg, in particularly, is at a crossroads. The lead singer for Pennywise, one of the most successful punk bands out there, he like many musicians has been forced to spend increasing amounts of time touring in order to make ends meet, but that’s becoming more and more of a problem for his family obligations. He clearly loves his family – but he clearly loves his band as well. Something is going to have to give and it isn’t much of an issue. He announces that he’s leaving Pennywise.

Lars Frederiksen of Rancid still sports leopard-patterned hair and tats but has a sweet boy that is his entire world. He looks far more dangerous than he is – but when he enters a park to play with a son the other parents leave pretty quickly. That’s okay with Lars – he doesn’t mind getting some one-on-one time with his son and having no lines at the swing set is only an extra added bonus.

Duane Peters of the mid-level band U.S. Bombs has several children but his son Chess was his oldest. When Chess died in a car accident, Peters – a veteran skateboarder and singer with a variety of bands on the skate punk scene – fell apart. He became suicidal and when discussing that period in his life, it’s obvious the wound is still raw.

But mostly it is about guys outside the mainstream trying to provide a life that’s as close to normal as their kids as is possible. Most of these guys had childhoods that were far from that and they’re determined to give their kids the support and love that they didn’t get themselves. You get a sense that while yeah these guys can be aggressive about their ideology and look pretty damn intimidating, they’re still basically nice guys.

We get a pretty wide range of punks and extreme sports guys from the famous (Tony Hawk) to the largely unknown outside of the punk rock community. The relationships with their kids varies; some of these guys are surprisingly disciplinarians while others are kind of new age in their child-rearing philosophies.

We see the dads in their punk rock lives (although some of them, like Black Flag’s Ron Reyes, has moved on from music and gone to different professions) and also in their home lives. There are a lot of interviews, like Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers talking about the birth of his daughter inspiring him to give up drugs and alcohol.

Some of the movie is pretty lighthearted but a few scenes are truly moving. Throughout there’s a kind of goofy charm. Sure there’s that fish out of water element where we see punks adjusting to the real world (which seems to piss off some critics who don’t get that people change as they get older) but that’s not all that this movie is about. What it really is about is how kids can change even the most out there of people – people who reject even the most basic of society’s norms can have their hearts changed in an instant by the birth of their child.

The mother-child bond is often idealized, particularly in the movies and there’s no doubt the power of a mother’s love may well be the strongest relationship there is. However, the bond between a father and his children is often overlooked. For many little girls, their first valentine is their daddy and indeed the affections of a dad for his kids, while often expressed poorly, is no less deep or lasting.

This is one of those movies that remind you about that bond and that guys, doofuses though we may be, have it within us to be surprisingly sweet. Those moments can keep you ladies coming back to us guys for more, even though we may forget our anniversary date or need help finding where the extension cords are. In my book that makes this movie something to be treasured.

WHY RENT THIS: A really good look at fatherhood in unusual circumstances at times. Lindberg and Peters are distinctly moving.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Might put off some punk rock fanatics.

FAMILY VALUES: There’s a pretty fair amount of cursing and some adult themes.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The making of the movie was inspired by Lindberg’s book Punk Rock Dad which is referenced somewhat here.

NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: There are some performance clips for a number of the bands presented here (including Lindberg’s post-Pennywise project Black Pacific) as well as some pretty interesting outtakes, including one involving Dr. Drew Pinsky. There’s also a 15-minute Q&A session from South by Southwest that I wouldn’t have minded going on longer.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $53,714 on an unreported production budget; I’m thinking this movie wasn’t profitable.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization

FINAL RATING: 9/10

TOMORROW: The Pianist

Barry Munday

Is the football game on yet?

(2010) Comedy (Magnolia) Patrick Wilson, Judy Greer, Chloe Sevigny, Jean Smart, Cybill Shepherd, Missi Pyle, Shea Whigham, Malcolm McDowell, Billy Dee Williams, Barret Swatek, Christopher McDonald, Colin Hanks, Kyle Gass, Mae Whitman. Directed by Chris D’Arienzo

 

There is no shortage of guys out there who live for the conquest. You’ll find them in bars and clubs, trolling for potential one night stands, out to sleep with as many women as they possibly can with varying degrees of success. It’s how they define themselves. What happens when you are suddenly faced with having to redefine yourself?

Barry Mundy (Wilson) is one of those minor league Don Juans who seem to have that magic touch when it comes to scoring with the ladies. He has had plenty of sex without any consequence; but one of the girls he seduces comes complete with an angry father who administers the beating of a lifetime to Barry in a movie theater. When the smoke clears, Barry is missing some good buddies – his testicles.

Bitter, angry and feeling betrayed, he holes up at home, only to discover that he is being served with a paternity suit. The woman who is suing him, Ginger Farley (Greer) is a bitter, snarky woman who is about as unpleasant as a porcupine enema. For his part, Barry doesn’t remember sleeping with her. At first he wants to fight the suit but when he thinks about it he realizes this might well be the very last chance for him to leave anything genetic behind him, so he throws himself enthusiastically into the idea of being a dad.

The trouble is, Ginger isn’t so sure she wants Barry around and she makes it completely unpleasant for him to be around. She reluctantly introduces him to her family – her parents (McDowell, Shepherd) and her slutty stripper sister Jennifer (Sevigny) who takes an unhealthy interest in Barry. Still, Ginger is warming to Barry and he to her. Can they change enough to be good together and more importantly, good parents?

This is one of those indie movies which is going to seem very familiar to you if you’ve seen any indie movies in your time. Many of the characters have that familiar quirkiness to them that makes them endearing – the first twenty times around. By this point endearing indie quirkiness is annoying for the main part.

Patrick Wilson often plays the romantic rival and a lot of the characters he plays are real shmendricks. Here he plays a part we really haven’t seen him tackle much and he carries it off nicely. I haven’t seen many other parts of this sort come his way since; I hope some casting directors see this and consider him for more of these sorts of roles.

Judy Greer has also made a career for the most part out of the driver’s seat, often playing the wacky best friend. She is thoroughly unlikable through much of the movie which is risky; it’s hard to root for someone so bitchy but Greer pulls it off for the most part. She is definitely a fine comic actress but I suspect she’d do real well in the dramatic field as well.

While this is based on a novel, I couldn’t help but feel that the writers were occasionally unsure how to proceed. The movie flounders awkwardly in places although I can easily accept that life is all about floundering awkwardly. Still, when the movie seems to lose its focus it’s hard for the audience to maintain theirs. It’s a cardinal filmmaking sin. Fortunately the performances are such that the audience focuses on that rather than the story.

This is one of those movies that is elevated by the stars. Greer and Wilson aren’t known for carrying movies but they show they are well able to do it. I would really love to see the public discover them both in that sense. This movie isn’t necessarily the vehicle to get them there – it’s very flawed but it isn’t without merit despite the clichés  – but it’s certainly worth a look.

WHY RENT THIS: Wilson is surprisingly deft in a romantic comic lead. Greer boldly makes her character wholly unlikable.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Too many indie clichés. Seems to be rudderless at times.

FAMILY VALUES: As you might imagine from the subject matter, there’s a good deal of sexual content and dialogue. The language is a bit foul in places.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Had its premiere at the 2010 South by Southwest Film Festival.

NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: There’s a gag reel and a faux PSA about the horrors of genital detachment.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: Not available.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Percy

FINAL RATING: 7/10

NEXT: The Matrix Reloaded