Ghost Team

Things are looking up for the Ghost Team.

(2016) Horror Comedy (The Orchard) Jon Heder, David Krumholtz, Justin Long, Melonie Diaz, Amy Sedaris, Paul W. Downs, Tom Schiller, Joel Marsh Garland, Doug Drucker, Rob DeRosa, Martin Barabas, Clem McIntosh, Shane Velez, Vincenzo Vaccaro, Veronika Dash. Directed by Oliver Irving

 

For the most part, we’re all fascinated by the paranormal. Who doesn’t want to see proof of life after we pass on? The existence of ghosts certainly is one of those things that have fascinated us for centuries, and yet for the most part, ghosts still remain essentially mythical figures. That doesn’t mean we haven’t stopped searching for definitive proof of their existence.

Plenty of television programs have documented the search of paranormal investigation teams. One of the most well-known is Ghost Getters which copy store clerk Louis (Heder) watches religiously. When the team puts out the call for a new member, Louis is psyched to apply, but he wants to stand out – by conducting his own investigation.

It’s hard to do when one’s day is mostly spent printing Lost Dog fliers. However when a curmudgeonly old man looking to get some laminated No Trespassing signs printed up lets slip that the barn on his property is “probably haunted,” Louis realizes this is the break he’s been waiting for. He ropes in his sad-sack best friend Stan (Krumholtz) who was left at the altar and thinks the only explanation for it was that his bride-to-be was kidnapped by aliens. They need a computer whiz and happen to know one who works at Micro World, Zak (Downs). When a late night run to “borrow” some equipment from Micro World ends up in a confrontation with gung-ho security guard Ross (Long), the team has their security chief. They enlist phony baloney TV psychic Victoria (Sedaris) and to round out the team, Ellie (Diaz) who works as a beautician in the shop next door to Louis and whose job is to….well, crap, I’m not really sure.

The intrepid erstwhile paranormal investigators who have christened themselves the Ghost Team head out to the barn to conduct their audition but when they arrive, they realize they’ve stumbled onto something that they simply weren’t prepared for. Will the Ghost Team’s first case also be their last?

The field of paranormal investigation shows has been ripe for a comedy to be based on it (although some would say that the original Ghostbusters was kind of a preemptive strike in that general direction). Certainly the movie takes aim at shows like SyFy’s venerable Ghost Hunters, which the fictional Ghost Getters is essentially based on as are many other like-minded shows all over cable television.

But sadly, the movie devolves into a kind of live action Scooby Doo minus the talking dog although it does have a van not unlike the Mystery Machine. How it does that I will not tell you, but suffice to say that those who grew up on that show will undoubtedly make that connection. I don’t have an objection per se only that the tonal shift doesn’t work here; they needed a better transition.

Heder has always been a bit too laid-back for my taste as an actor but the more he moves away from his Napoleon Dynamite past the better I like him and this is certainly a step in that direction. Like most of the characters here, Louis isn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier but he certainly means well and that’s the kind of thing that’s right in Heder’s wheelhouse. He gets some superb support from Sedaris as the fake psychic who can’t believe that anybody buys her particular brand of B.S. and Diaz as an atypical damsel in distress. Long is terribly miscast as a security guy who seems to be suffering from Roid Rage.

Inexplicably, the movie uses Gary Wright’s 70s synthpop hit “Dream Weaver” to almost annoying extent. It was one of my favorite songs growing up but let’s face it; it’s not the kind of song you need to hear more than once on any movie soundtrack. The most genuinely scary moment in the film is when the Ghost Team sings along to the music.

And therein lies the rub; for a horror film, there aren’t any scares; for a comedy there aren’t many laughs. It tries to be both and ends up being neither. Part of the problem is that the writer doesn’t appear to be sure just what he wants this movie to be and what it ends up feeling like is a bunch of zombies wandering around aimlessly, calling pathetically for brains and this is not a movie that has (or should have) a lot of them. All the right ingredients are here for a good little film, but sadly, it ends up tasting rather bland.

REASONS TO GO: A cross between Ghost Hunters and Scooby-Doo. Heder is at his most likable here.
REASONS TO STAY: Official overuse of Gary Wright’s “Dream Weaver” on the soundtrack. It gets overly juvenile in places. The action sequences are unconvincing. There aren’t enough laughs.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a bit of profanity, some sexual references and some drug material as well.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie was available for streaming free on Google Play before it’s limited theatrical run. It will continue on Google until the end of August after which it will be available on other streaming sites.
BEYOND THE THEATER: Google Play
CRITICAL MASS: As of 8/13/16: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Ghost Team One
FINAL RATING: 4/10
NEXT: Star Trek Beyond

Walt Before Mickey

“Well, that’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.”

(2015) Biographical Drama (Voltage) Thomas Ian Nicholas, Jon Heder, Jodie Sweetin, Armando Gutierrez, David Henrie, Taylor Gray, Ayla Kell, Owen Teague, Hunter Gomez, Sheena Colette, Jeremy Palko, Kate Katzman, Tamela D’Amico, Arthur L. Bernstein, Amber Sym, Beatrice Taveras, Conor Dubin, Timothy Neil Williams, Donn Lamkin, George Licari, Briana Colman, Maralee Thompson. Directed by Khoa Le

The name of Walt Disney is one of the most beloved and best-known names in the history of mankind. Nearly everywhere you go on God’s green Earth, everyone knows his wonderful animated features, his theme parks, his movie company and of course the mouse that started it all. Few people know, however, that before that great success that grew into a multi-billion dollar company that it is  today, Walt went through some lean times.

Disney (Nicholas) grew up on a farm in Marceline, Missouri where he felt a certain amount of affinity for animals – and also an affinity for drawing pictures on the side of the barn, something that irritated his father Elias (Lamkin) no end. When his father grew ill, the family had to sell the farm and move to Kansas City.

When the First World War broke out, Walt was too young to enlist like his brother Roy (Heder) did but he did manage to drive for an ambulance corps and was sent overseas anyway, continuing to draw whenever he could. When he came back home, his brother had contracted tuberculosis and was sent to a Veteran’s Hospital in Los Angeles to recover. Walt, having been laid off from an advertising company, decided that animated films were the wave of the future. He started his own company, Laff-o-Gram Pictures along with artist Ub Iwerks (Gutierrez) whom he met at the ad agency.

Adding other local artists like Friz Freleng (Gray), Rudy Ising (Henrie) and Fred Harman (Williams), Walt proved to be a better animator than he was a businessman and after realizing that the amount he was charging had only covered cost, his company eventually went bankrupt. Selling a camera Iwerks gave him to use, he bought a train ticket out west and convinced his brother Roy to stake him and start a new company, Disney Brothers Animation which was eventually changed to Walt Disney Pictures. Walt would bring over many of his cronies from Kansas City to work for him; he also agreed to hire women to do the inking and painting because they worked for less. One of those ink and paint girls was named Lillian Bounds (Katzman) who would eventually become Mrs. Walt Disney.

At first Disney tasted success as his live action/animated hybrids, the Alice cartoons, sold well. However the underhanded distributor (Dubin) sent over his brother-in-law George (Licari) to sow seeds of discontent among the troops and drive Disney’s business into the ground, putting Disney in a position where all the characters that Disney had come up with – including the popular Oswald the Rabbit – would become the property of the distributor. Walt was up against the wall, but he had one last shot – a plucky mouse who would become the world’s most famous cartoon character.

This is a production shot in the Orlando area for the most part and with Central Floridian talent in front of and behind the camera. Clearly this is a labor of love and if sometimes the filmmakers seem to be a little star-struck by Walt, I suppose that it’s understandable especially considering what Walt meant (and continues to mean) to the economy of the region.

Based on a book written by Timothy S. Susanin and vetted by the Disney family (Walt’s daughter Diane wrote the book’s forward), the film looks hard at Disney’s struggles with bankruptcy and poverty. Despite his best intentions, his first business failed, leading to eviction from his home and seizure of his possessions. A homeless Walt resorts to eating garbage. Nicholas captures Disney’s despair and his guilt feelings for having failed his employees.

And, to his credit, Nicholas also shows one of Disney’s less savory side; he was something of a tyrant to work for, firing one employee for sleeping on the job despite forcing him to work brutal hours. We don’t get a sense of Disney’s love for children or how that was developed – certainly by the time the first silent Mickey Mouse cartoons came out he was writing for the younger set – and the movie would have benefitted from giving the viewer more of a sense of that affection he had for kids. It certainly would be a driving force in the rest of his career.

Although Heder, Sweetin and Nicholas do well in their roles, much of the rest of the cast is less successful. Some of the acting is stiff and the line readings more suitable for community theater. Not knocking community theater, mind you, but those expecting more should be forewarned as to what to expect. I have to admit that some of the dialogue sounded like it was being read rather than being said.

It should also be noted that this is a first feature for much of the cast and crew; a little leeway is recommended when viewing this. While much of the technical end is professional, some of the creative side is a bit rockier. One gets a sense of a cast and crew doing their best but flailing a little bit. I don’t doubt that they’ll get better with more experience.

The filmmakers do a wonderful job of setting the period correctly for both the Kansas City and Los Angeles settings. They also do something that is unusual in the film business when creating period movies; they get the rhythms of language, culture and everyday life right. You may well feel like you’re getting a glimpse of American life in the 1920s. Main Street USA indeed.

I can only give this a mild recommendation because, at the end of the day, movies should live up to certain standards and even as you recognize the effort, you can only judge the results. I will say that you learn a great deal about Walt Disney that you may not have known before. If you are interested in learning more about the man behind the legend, this is a good place to start. I would also highly recommend a visit to the Disney Family Museum in the Presidio in San Francisco as well. Nonetheless, the movie truly captures Walt Disney’s determination to make his own dreams come true. In doing so, he would make many new dreams for millions upon millions of children from then to now.

REASONS TO GO: Informative about Disney’s early business failures. Nicely creates early 20th century setting.
REASONS TO STAY: The acting is stiff and often amateurish. Sometimes treats Walt as more icon than human being.
FAMILY VALUES: There are a few mildly bad words scattered here and there, some adult themes and period smoking (and a lot of it).
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: American Idol finalist Julie Zorrilla sings the song “Just a Wish” over the closing credits.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 8/18/15: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Saving Mr. Banks
FINAL RATING: 5.5/10
NEXT: The End of the Tour

New Releases for the Week of August 14, 2015

STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON

(Universal) Corey Hawkins, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Jason Mitchell, Paul Giamatti, Aldis Hodge, Neal Brown Jr., Marlon Yates Jr., R. Marcus Taylor, Alexandra Shipp. Directed by F. Gary Gray

In the middle 80s, Compton was a part of Los Angeles that you didn’t want to live but nonetheless people lived there. It was sometimes described as Southern California Beirut; overrun with gangs and violence, extreme poverty and drugs, growing up was a mixture of survival and despair in some of the most dangerous streets in the country. Out of this mix came NWA, a rap group that not only changed hip hop forever, they changed the attitudes of African-Americans and channeled the rage into action. All these guys did was tell the truth about their existence; in doing so, they galvanized not just a people but an entire movement.

See the trailer, interviews, a clip and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard (opens Thursday)
Genre: Musical Biography
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for language throughout, strong sexuality/nudity, violence, and drug use)

Brothers…Blood Against Blood

(Fox Star/FIP) Akshay Kumar, Jacqueline Fernandez, Jackie Shroff, Sidharth Malhotra. When an alcoholic father goes to jail, his two sons part ways and become bitterly estranged from one another. When Dad is released some ten years later, the two boys are struggling to make ends meet; one an ex-fighter turned schoolteacher faced with mounting medical bills for his daughter, the other an alcoholic himself eking out an existence on the underground street fighting circuit. When the biggest MMA event in the world comes to India, both men unknowingly sign up for the winner take all event; when both end up facing each other in the finals, all bets are off. Will blood prevail over years of bitterness?

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Sports Drama
Now Playing: AMC West Oaks
Rating: NR

The End of the Tour

(A24) Jason Segel, Jesse Eisenberg, Mamie Gummer, Joan Cusack. David Foster Wallace was one of the most talked-about writers in America. It was 1996 and he had just published Infinite Jest, and was on tour promoting it. Rolling Stone writer David Lipsky was assigned to interview the hot young author and the two shared five days on the road. They would bond in some way, sharing confidences that may or may not have been entirely truthful. Ironically, the interview was never published and the two men went their separate ways, never meeting again. In 2008, Lipsky stumbled on the tapes from the trip in his attic and decided to write a book on his experience, which became the basis for this film for which Segel has been getting some serious Oscar buzz.

See the trailer, clips and a featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: R (for language including some sexual references)

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

(Warner Brothers) Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander, Hugh Grant. It is the height of the Cold War and the United States and Soviet Union are playing a deadly game of chess with nuclear annihilation as the stakes. But now there’s a new player in the game, a criminal organization bent on world domination and they’ve just become a nuclear power. The Soviets and the Americans must bury the hatchet at least for the time being and take on this new threat together, although they can’t do it officially, and so a new agency is created – U.N.C.L.E. – with agents Napoleon Solo from the West and Ilya Kuryakin from the Evil Empire partnering to save the world. Based on the hit TV show from the 60s and directed by Guy Ritchie.

See the trailer, clips, an interview, a promo and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, IMAX (opens Thursday)
Genre: Spy Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for language)

Return to Sender

(RLJ) Rosamund Pike, Shiloh Fernandez, Nick Nolte, Camryn Manheim. A blind date turns into the worst kind of nightmare for a woman who courageously stands up and accuses her attacker. Against all odds, he is sent to prison. While there she continues to communicate with him, developing a sick kind of relationship. When he is finally released, he seeks her out – setting up the opportunity for her perfect revenge.

See the trailer and a clip here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: AMC Downtown Disney
Rating: NR

Walt Before Mickey

(Voltage) Thomas Ian Nichols, Jodie Sweetin, Jon Heder, David Henrie. Before Walt Disney was synonymous with family entertainment around the world and had become a global brand name, he was a struggling artist trying to make it in a harsh world. This is the story of a driven, determined and sometimes obsessive man who would later make history – thanks to a chance meeting with a rodent.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: AMC Downtown Disney
Rating: PG (for period smoking throughout, mild thematic elements and language)

When in Rome

Josh Duhamel and Kirsten Bell hope they are eaten by wild animals before doing When in Rome 2.

(2010) Romantic Comedy (Touchstone) Kristen Bell, Josh Duhamel, Will Arnett, Dax Shepard, Jon Heder, Danny DeVito, Anjelica Huston, Alexis Dziena, Kate Micucci, Bobby Moynihan, Lee Pace, Don Johnson. Directed by Mark Steven Johnson

Love is so mysterious to most of us that it borders on magic. It appears in its own mercurial time, it disappears without warning, it transfers from one person to another and when it hits us head-on, our lives are never the same.

Beth (Bell) is a workaholic sort who has blazed her way into becoming the youngest ever curator at the Guggenheim in New York City. Nick (Duhamel) is an easy-going sportswriter. They meet at the whirlwind wedding of Beth’s sister Joan (Dziena). Beth, stressed over a big exhibition that she is curating that no work is getting done on while she is foolishly enjoying her family’s life event in the company of chip-off-the-old-block pa (Johnson).

Things go inevitably wrong complete with a vase that refuses to break, electrical mishaps and the kind of shenanigans that usually go on at movie weddings. Pay no attention to these. Instead, note that Beth is getting hammered, and as hammered women often do she goes wading into the Fountain of Love (the city fathers of Rome wisely prevented the Trevi Fountain from being associated with this in any way shape or form) and pulls five coins out of the fountain.

This is when the magic happens…so to speak. Each of the men who threw the coins in the fountain – an annoying street magician (Heder), an annoying painter (Arnett), a really annoying model/narcissist (Shepard) and a slightly less annoying sausage king (DeVito) – all fall hopelessly and unrealistically in love with Beth and follow her back to New York where they make attempts to woo her that are about as well-worn as the word “woo.”

In the meantime there is that fifth coin. Was it thrown in by Nick? And if so, does that mean the blossoming romance between Nick and Beth is all a lie, forced by the magic of a fountain which has apparently confused stalking for love. Then again, what would you expect from a hunk of concrete.

There are some elements here that would have made for an interesting movie – unlike a lot of critics, I have no beef with the concept, only the execution. Rather than trying for genuine laughs, the writers opted for weak slapstick routines and cliché comedy bits (if I hear that freaking record scratch again I swear I’ll lose it – and you hear it not once but twice in the first five minutes).

It’s a real shame because Duhamel and Bell are genuinely appealing and make a nice couple. Duhamel, in particular, shows himself to be a real pro, offering a good performance despite the obvious knowledge that he’s in a movie that has some real problems.

I have no issues with Shepard, Arnett, DeVito and Heder individually but I’ve never really connected with them consistently as actors (with the exception of DeVito, who showed in such films as The Oh in Ohio that when given a decently written role he can make something wonderful out of it) and here they seem to be allowed to mug all over the place. I get the impression occasionally that there are four of them because they could get four name actors for the roles; had one of them passed, there would have been three of them – if one more name actor had agreed to do it, five. I found it amusing that all four of the coins belonged to men- statistically, far more women throw coins into the Trevi than men – and thought the movie might have worked better if at least one of the coins belonged to a woman (I could see someone like Amy Poehler as an aggressive romantic stalker).

But then that wouldn’t have played in middle America and one gets the sense that this was a movie assembled to target a particular demographic rather than because the writers had something important to say about love and life. I know that the first instinct of a studio executive is to go with the safe and the familiar, but I think box office figures demonstrate clearly that a well-written movie with an interesting story, memorable characters and something to say about the nature of life will more often than not bring in the box office gold that Hollywood studio executives know more about chasing than they do about chasing love.

WHY RENT THIS: Duhamel is one of the most underappreciated stars in Hollywood and he has nice chemistry with Bell.  

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: The romance is cliché, the comedy is cliché, the script is cliché, the romance is cliché, the comedy is cliché, the script is cliché – say, do you get the strange feeling you’ve seen it all before?

FAMILY VALUES: There is some suggestion of sexuality but nothing really overt.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: In the scene where Beth first stands in the Fountain of Love and surveys the coins, they are all in U.S. currency even though the fountain is supposedly in Rome.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There are a couple of music videos and a blooper reel here.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $43M on an unreported production budget; the movie most likely underperformed or broke even.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

TOMORROW: Invincible