Ma

Everyone ready to party with Ma?

(2020) Horror (Blumhouse/Universal) Octavia Spencer, Diana Silvers, Juliette Lewis, McKaley Miller, Corey Fogelmanis, Gianni Paolo, Dante Brown, Tanyell Waivers, Dominic Burgess, Heather Marie Pete, Tate Taylor, Luke Evans, Margaret Fegan, Missi Pyle, Allison Janney, Kyanna Simone Simpson, Matthew Welch, Skyler Joy, Nicole Carpenter. Directed by Tate Taylor

High school is a time when we find ourselves, or at least begin to. One of the things we explore is alcohol. It’s illegal – forbidden – so naturally, we have to check it out. Teenagers are natural contrarians to begin with, so telling them they can’t do something is tantamount to giving them incentive to do just that. A friend of mine who fancied himself a wag once said that the only way to get his teenage daughter to do her homework was tell her she wasn’t allowed to do it.

Young Maggie (Silvers) has moved to a small town in Ohio with her freshly-divorced Mom (Lewis). Her mother grew up there and still has a lot of her friends living there. Maggie is a bit on the shy side, but quickly makes a bunch of friends and just as quickly finds out that there’s not a lot for kids her age to do in town other than to score some alcohol and find a place to party, mainly in places that are probably not ideal for a bunch of drunk kids to hang out in.

Trying to get an adult to buy some liquor for them proves to be difficult until along comes Sue Ann (Spencer), a veterinary assistant who remembers what it’s like to be young. She offers her basement for the young people to party in, once she buys the laundry list of liquor that they provide her. She just has a few ground rules; no spitting on the floor, no taking the Lord’s name in vain, and under NO circumstances are the kids to go upstairs.

At first, the situation seems to be ideal – a safe place to get hammered, and Sue Ann turns out to be a fun party thrower. She gets everyone to refer to her as Ma, and soon she starts to become more and more entwined in their lives. It starts to get more than a little creepy and when the kids start to push back, they start to realize there’s something seriously wrong with Sue Ann.

Spencer won her Oscar under the direction of Taylor, so it’s no surprise that she turns in another brilliant performance here. Sue Ann is a complicated emotional creature and often her moods spin on a dime, from motherly to sexual to full-on rage-aholic. Sue Ann isn’t completely evil; there’s some pathos to her story and Spencer makes the audience believe that here is a seriously wounded psyche. We feel bad for her – until she snaps.

The problem here is that the most relatable character here is Sue Ann. The teenage kids with the possible exception of Maggie are all seriously self-absorbed and borderline cruel. Most of them are pretty much interchangeable. The adult roles have some strong actors, including Janney, having a ball as a bossy vet, and Lewis who for my money has been criminally underrated throughout her career.

The movie takes a while to get moving, but once it does Taylor knows what to do with it. Spencer is definitely the reason to see this, but she’s got some decent support – although not enough to elevate this out of middlin’.

REASONS TO SEE: Spencer gives her usual strong performance.
REASONS TO AVOID: Hard to root for anybody in this typical “teens in trouble” romp.
FAMILY VALUES: There is violence – some of it brutal – as well as sexual content, teen drinking and drug use, profanity throughout, and some disturbing images.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Taylor previously directed Spencer and Janey in The Help.
BEYOND THE THEATER: Amazon, AMC On Demand, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Max Go, Microsoft, Movies Anywhere, Redbox, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 10/30/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 55% positive reviews; Metacritic: 53/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Uncle Peckerhead
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Six Days of Darkness concludes!

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Nobody’s Fool (2018)

A buncha girls in cars.

(2018) Romantic Comedy (Paramount Players) Tiffany Haddish, Tika Sumpter, Omari Hardwick, Mehcad Brooks, Amber Riley, Whoopi Goldberg, Missi Pyle, PJ Morton, Michael Blackson, Jon Rudnitsky, Chris Rock, Nev Schulman, Max Joseph, Adrian Conrad, Courtney Henggeler, Candace West, Crystal Lee Brown, Peyton Jackson, Al Hamacher, Victoria Ealy. Directed by Tyler Perry

 

Tiffany Haddish is one of the hottest comedians in the world. Tyler Perry is literally a brand name in African-American cinema. It would seem to be a match made in heaven. Instead, it’s a godawful mess.

For one thing, Haddish is basically an extended cameo. She plays Tanya, the recently released from prison sister to affluent, successful Danica (Sumpter) who has just landed a big contract at the marketing firm she works at, and is long-distance dating Charlie (Brooks), a man she has never seen or been in the same time zone with. Tanya thinks she’s being catfished – ironically (or not) a program on MTV, which is owned by Paramount’s parent corporation. Tanya even gets the hosts of Catfished (Joseph and Schulman) to investigate. Meanwhile, there’s lovesick Frank (Hardwick), the coffee house owner who is completely smitten with Danica but doesn’t quite measure up to Danica’s succinct list of qualities her husband must have. Apparently in Tyler Perry’s world, all single women have such a list.

The problem with the movie is that it really isn’t very funny, and when you’re talking a rom-com, that’s half the promise. Oh, there are a few momentary chuckles – mostly supplied by Haddish – but she’s a fish out of water here. This really isn’t a movie that utilizes her talents very well and quite frankly, there have been damn few of them that she’s been in that have. It’s like she’s trying to out-Madea Madea and we all know that’s just not possible.

Sumpter does a lot better. She’s a natural rom-com lead and while she looks somewhat flustered when she’s with Haddish, she does the upscale African-American woman maybe better than anyone. Sadly, the plot goes meandering into all sorts of different territories – a Perry trademark, and like most of his films it hits and misses. This one is much more of a miss; it’s one of the weakest movies in the Tyler Perry catalogue and it shouldn’t have been. I think he would have been better served to make a movie around either Haddish or Sumpter – but trying to do both doesn’t serve the film well, and since Haddish is absent from nearly the entire second half of the movie, it leaves audiences giving puzzled looks at their TV screen, wondering where their star went to. I’ll tell you where she went – she’s on an extended coffee break in Frank’s shop. Watching her do that would have made a better movie than this one.

REASONS TO SEE: Sumpter has real talent and should be getting better parts.
REASONS TO AVOID: Too many rom-com clichés. Too much overacting from Haddish.
FAMILY VALUES: There is profanity (including sexual references) as well as sexual situations and some drug material.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is Perry’s first film for any studio other than Lionsgate.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AMC On Demand, AppleTV, Epix, Fandango Now, Google Play, Hulu, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/29/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 24% positive reviews: Metacritic: 39/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Why Did I Get Married?
FINAL RATING: 4.5/10
NEXT: Murder Death Koreatown

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

Going to the market is a little different in Jumanji.

(2017) Adventure (Columbia) Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, Rhys Darby, Bobby Cannavale, Nick Jonas, Alex Wolff, Ser’Darius Blain, Madison Iseman, Morgan Turner, Sean Buxton, Mason Guccione, Marin Hinkle, Tracy Bonner, Najah Jackson, Natasha Charles Parker, Kat Altman, Maribeth Monroe, Missi Pyle. Directed by Jake Kasdan

 

There’s no doubt about it; there are pitfalls involved when making a sequel to a beloved and iconic family film 22 years after the fact. The original 1996 film Jumanji starring the late and equally beloved Robin Williams was based on a Chris van Allsburg-penned children’s book about a board game that had a bit of magic to it, bringing the jungle world of Jumanji into a small town complete with mischievous monkeys, scary spiders, rampaging herds of animals and a sadistic hunter named Van Pelt.

The sequel is a little bit updated. It starts with a young teen in 1996 being sucked into a mysterious console video game much as Alan Parrish was back in the day. Somehow the console with the videogame still in it made its way to a high school audio-video room which a group of disparate teens on detention have been tasked with cleaning up. The game is discovered and videogame nut Spencer (Wolff) is keen on playing it. Fridge (Blain), the football star in trouble because he’d enlisted Spencer to write a term paper for him reluctantly accedes as does Martha (Turner), a shy nerd and Bethany (Iseman), a Queen Bee of the school.

Of course the four teens are sucked inside the game and re-materialize as the avatars they’ve chosen; Spencer becomes the muscular and heroic Smolder Bravestone (Johnson), Fridge the manic but diminutive zoologist Mouse Finbar (Hart), Martha the sultry martial artist Ruby Roundhouse (Gillan) and most amusing of all, Bethany the middle aged and out-of-shape cartographer Sheldon “Shelly” Oberon (Black). It is the star power of these four that truly makes the film work.

In any case, they are given unique and special powers as well as weaknesses, some of which are amusing – for example, eating cake will make Mouse Finbar explode. Each of the avatars have three lives available; when they use them all up, they are gone from the game permanently and maybe out of real life as well. They are given the mission of retrieving a magic emerald from villainous Van Pelt (Cannavale) – very different than the one in the original – and restoring it into a gigantic panther statue in order to restore balance to the land of Jumanji. Along the way they’ll battle poisonous snakes, voracious hippos, a herd of rampaging rhinos and not-too-bright but vicious henchmen.

One of the big criticisms of the original Jumanji – best articulated by the late, great Roger Ebert – was that the children in the film were often in realistic peril, perhaps much too much for a film aimed at children. Kasdan solves this dilemma by having the young teens morphed into adult avatars which although being in peril throughout can at least say they weren’t children in peril. Parents concerned about this aspect of the original can rest easy.

As I said, the four leads are really the reason to see the movie. Kasdan wisely plays to the strengths of the actors; the rapid-fire delivery of Hart, the easygoing charm of Johnson, Black’s ability to be absolutely uninhibited and Gillan’s lustrous physicality. Fans may recognize her as Nebula in Guardians of the Galaxy but Doctor Who fans may not recognize anything of Amy Pond in Ruby Roundhouse.

The present-day sequences with the actors playing the teens (not all of whom are juveniles – Blain is thirty years old at the time of release – are less compelling but then again how would you expect even veteran young actors like Wolff to compete with some of the biggest stars in the business? I suppose it’s not really fair but then again it is noticeable that the charm drops precipitously during the bookending sequences of pre-game and post-game.

I have to admit that despite the star power of the cast that I didn’t hold very high hopes for this one. I knew that inevitably it would be compared to the 1996 original and I was pretty sure that it would come out getting the short end of the stick but actually that wasn’t the case. In some ways, the more recent version is better than the original – certainly in the CGI and while Williams delivered a terrific performance along with Bonnie Hunt, the fab four of Johnson, Hart, Black and Gillan all were just as good if not better. I was pleasantly surprised by this and it might just end up in our permanent video collection when the time comes. The fact that the film did some marvelous box office numbers and has already had a sequel greenlit just confirms that the movie-going public agrees.

REASONS TO GO: The adult actors are smashing. This is much better than I expected it to be.
REASONS TO STAY: The actors playing the juveniles are pretty meh.
FAMILY VALUES: There is plenty of action violence, some suggestive content and brief mild profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Johnson and Hart previously starred together in Central Intelligence.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/18/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 76% positive reviews. Metacritic: 58/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Big
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Casting JonBenet

New Releases for the Week of December 22, 2017

JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

(Columbia) Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, Rhys Darby, Bobby Cannavale, Nick Jonas, Alex Wolff, Missi Pyle.  Directed by Jake Kasdan

A group of four bored teenagers discover an old video console and while fooling around with it are somehow transported into the game’s jungle setting, becoming the avatars they chose. They discover their strengths and weaknesses (don’t give Fridge any cake) and must work together if they are to survive the game and make it home. Based on the Robin Williams classic movie Jumanji.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, 3D
Genre: Fantasy
Now Playing: Wide Release (opened Wednesday)
Rating: PG-13 (for adventure action, suggestive content and some language)

All the Money in the World

(Tri-Star) Michelle Williams, Christopher Plummer, Mark Wahlberg, Charlie Plummer. Sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction; in the 70s, the heir to a billion-dollar oil fortune was kidnapped and held for ransom. His grandfather, the richest man on Earth, refused to pay it despite having his grandson’s ear sliced off as proof the kidnappers meant business, leaving his mom to rescue her boy on her own. Also stranger than fiction, disgraced actor Kevin Spacey was originally cast as oil baron J. Paul Getty. After being accused of sexual misconduct and only weeks before the release date, director Ridley Scott decided to erase Spacey from the film and digitally insert Christopher Plummer instead. Like I said, stranger than fiction.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: True Life Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release (opens Monday)
Rating: R (for language, some violence, disturbing images and brief drug content)

Darkest Hour

(Focus) Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ben Mendelsohn, Lily James. Early in World War II, the United Kingdom must replace their Prime Minister with a compromise candidate that nobody really wanted; Winston Churchill. He is given a nation to lead on the brink of complete military collapse; their army is trapped in Dunkirk and their navy and air force have taken a pounding. Somehow this unpopular Prime Minister must summon the will to lead his country through the darkest hour in their history.

See the trailer, clips and featurettes here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, AMC Universal Cineplex, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG-13 (for some thematic material)

Downsizing

(Paramount) Matt Damon, Christoph Waltz, Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis. A middle class couple makes the decision that a new shrinking technique will make their lives better. When the wife backs out at the last moment, the husband is left to begin a new life in a new world and rediscovers wonder and purpose.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and featurettes here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Sci-Fi Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for language including sexual references, some graphic nudity and drug use)

Father Figures

(Warner Brothers) Owen Wilson, Ed Helms, Glenn Close, J.K. Simmons. Two twin brothers discover that their father, whom they were told was dead, was in fact possibly very much alive – but their mother wasn’t sure which man out of several possibilities their actual dad is. They decide to go on a road trip to find out for certain.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for language and sexual references throughout)

The Greatest Showman

(20^th Century Fox) Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams, Zac Efron, Zendaya. The story of the legendary P.T. Barnum whose circus and museum of oddities became known as the Greatest Show on Earth is set to music from the team that gave us La La Land.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, featurettes and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Musical
Now Playing: Wide Release (opened Wednesday)
Rating: PG (for thematic elements including a brawl)

Molly’s Game

(STX) Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Kevin Costner, Michael Cera. Here is the incredible but true story of former Olympic-class skier Molly Bloom who following her athletic career ran a high-stakes poker game that made her an FBI target when it turned out some very dangerous Russian Mafia types were part of her clientele. Remember the whole truth is stranger than fiction thing?

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, Regal Winter Park Village (opens Monday)
Rating: R (for language, drug content and some violence)

Pitch Perfect 3

(Universal) Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Brittany Snow, Anna Camp. The publicity is touting that this is the final chapter in the Glee-rip-off series. We can only pray they’re not lying.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, featurettes and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Musical
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for crude and sexual content, language and some action)

The Shape of Water

(Fox Searchlight) Sally Hawkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins. In a secret laboratory in the 1960s, a mute janitor discovers that the scientists are experimenting on a strange aquatic creature they took from the Amazon. She is determined to stop their cruel experiments on the creature when she discovers that not only is the being intelligent but an emotional attachment is developing between them. This film led all movies this year in total Golden Globe nominations with seven.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and featurettes here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Fantasy
Now Playing: Enzian Theater, Wide Release
Rating: R (for sexual content, graphic nudity, violence and language)

Tiger Zinda Hai

(Yash Raj) Katrina Kaif, Salman Khan, Anupriya Goenka, Paresh Rawal. Superspies Tiger and Zoya are pressed back into service eight years later when India is threatened by a potential despot. This is the sequel to the massive Indian hit Ek the Tiger.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Spy Action
Now Playing: AMC Universal Cineplex, AMC West Oaks, Touchstar Southchase
Rating: NR

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Crooked House
Hello!
Kaleidoscope
MCA – Middle Class Abbay

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Call Me by Your Name
Hello!
MCA – Middle Class Abbay
The Trace We Leave Behind

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Hello!
MCA – Middle Class Abbay
Velaikkaran

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Hello!
MCA – Middle Class Abbay

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

All the Money in the World
Call Me By Your Name
Darkest Hour
Downsizing
Father Figures
The Greatest Showman
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
Molly’s Game
The Shape of Water

Deidra and Laney Rob a Train

Deidra and Laney are on top of the train situation.

(2017) Young Adult Comedy (Netflix) Ashleigh Murray, Rachel Crow, Tim Blake Nelson, Missi Pyle, Sharon Laurence, David Sullivan, Danielle Nicolet, Myko Olivier, Sasheer Zamata, Arturo Castro, Kinna McInroe, Brooke Markham, Cj Strong, Deborah Lee Douglas, Tua Kealoha, Lance Gray, Chad Wright, Gerry Garcia, Nick Moceri, Kami Christiansen, Monica Moore Smith. Directed by Sydney Freeland

 

When you’re a single parent, making ends meet can be no easy task, especially if your employment options are limited and your ex isn’t paying the child support they owe. It’s a difficult situation, one which can go from precarious to catastrophic in a single moment.

Deidra (Murray) is the class valedictorian in a small Idaho town where she is the oldest of three children, including her middle sister Laney (Crow) and her youngest brother Jet (Gray) who likes to play with action figures. They live on the wrong side of the tracks (literally; the train tracks border their back yard) with their mom Marigold (Nicolet) who works at a Best Buy-type electronics store.

One afternoon she unexpectedly loses it at work and goes on a rampage, smashing a big screen TV to pieces. Her erstwhile employer not only presses charges, they insist on making her out to be a domestic terrorist, raising her bail to unaffordable heights. There are bills to pay and Deidra realizes that not only can they not afford to keep food on the table or the electricity turned on, a social welfare worker (McInroe) is threatening to move Jet into a foster home if they can’t demonstrate that the environment is suitable.

In desperation, Deidra visits her ex-con dad Chet (Sullivan) who works as a technician for the railroad. He only has $13 to give them but he gives Deidra something much more valuable; an idea for a way out. He offhandedly mentions that there have been a spate of train robberies lately that have gone unsolved and the railroad brass has sent a security specialist named Truman (Nelson) to investigate. Vaping incessantly, he also has a checkered past in which he’d been drummed out of law enforcement for excessive use of force. He is clearly not a man to be trifled with.

Nonetheless Deidra figures out that she can hop aboard a freight car, break the lock and take whatever she can find in them. She knows she can’t do this alone so she enlists her sister Laney – who is embroiled in the Miss Teen Idaho pageant which she had only entered to support her “friend” Claire (Markham) who immediately turned her back on Laney when Laney was also selected as a finalist . Laney is at first reluctant but when things start to get desperate she agrees to help.

Deidra also enlists her ex-boyfriend Jerry (Olivier), who she dumped for selling pot, to sell the stolen merchandise on E-Bay. She’s set a goal of $12,000 which would be sufficient to catch them up on their bills and get their mom out on bail. She’s also pressured by the guidance counselor Ms. Spencer (Zamata) who believes that if she can get just one student out of town on a scholarship she’ll get promoted and Deidra is her best shot at it. With all this going on, the social worker and the railroad dick both sniffing around their lives and her dad trying to make up years of neglect to his kids, can this high school senior and her sister pull off the larceny they need to get their family whole again?

Those who have paid attention to my reviews over the years should by now realize that I’m not a big fan of the programming on the Freeform cable network. This movie positively reeks of the things that really make me frown about the cable network’s offerings. The script is absolutely ludicrous; for one thing, can you imagine a mother, particularly one who realizes she is the sole support for her kids, melting down like that and then treating her jail time as a vacation? None but the most irresponsible of parents would react that way and even then if they were of that nature they likely would have had their kids taken away from them long before. For some reason (and this goes back a long ways before Freeform was a gleam in Disney’s eye) kids movie/TV show writers delight in making adults be absolutely incompetent so that they can show how kids can solve their own problems.

Of course, normally Freeform and other Disney outlets don’t approve of using crime to solve the problems that their heroes and heroines are grappling with, but these are interesting times. For the working class, these types of conditions are reality and while the mom being hauled off to jail would in reality have ALL the kids taken to foster care, life for the working class particularly in rural towns is bleak and hopeless in a lot of ways – you can see why they chose to vote for the maverick outsider when it seemed like neither political party gave a rat’s behind about their situation. The movie reflects that frustration.

Murray, who also starred in the CW series Riverdale this spring, is a find. She plays Deidra as smart without being condescending and compassionate while being fierce. She avoids the clichés that so many young adult actresses fall into. Sadly, the material she has to work with here isn’t really up to her performance.

While the movie is entertaining for the main part, it’s clearly meant for a young adult audience and will offer little for audiences with a “two” or more as the first number in their age. I’m of the perhaps misguided belief that you can write terrific material for young adults without talking down to them as this movie does; it creates a world where the right thing to do is the wrong thing to do also. While empowering the girls in the movie, it also empowers them without consequences to their actions, something that really doesn’t happen often in the real world, even for adults. I applaud the filmmakers for making this an inclusive film that looks at the real economic situations faced by working class families everywhere; I just wish they could have presented real solutions and real information that kids who find themselves needing to be empowered can do so without fear of being jailed for it.

REASONS TO GO: Murray avoids young adult actress clichés. There is a decent entertainment value here.
REASONS TO STAY: The movie has a Freeform/Afterschool Special vibe (not necessarily a good thing). The ludicrous plot is clearly meant for youngsters, not adults.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some mild profanity and some just as mild violence.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The high school scenes were filmed at Judge Memorial Catholic High School in Salt Lake City, Utah.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Netflix
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/6/17: Rotten Tomatoes: 93% positive reviews. Metacritic: 65/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Hell or High Water
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: Meghan Leavey

Captain Fantastic

Viggo Mortensen points out from which direction the Orc hordes are charging.

(2016) Drama (Bleecker Street) Viggo Mortensen, George MacKay, Samantha Isler, Annalise Basso, Nicholas Hamilton, Shree Crooks, Charlie Shotwell, Trin Miller, Kathryn Hahn, Steve Zahn, Frank Langella, Ann Dowd, Elijah Stevenson, Teddy Van Ee, Erin Moriarty, Missi Pyle, Gallen Osier, Rex Young, Thomas Brophy, Mike Miller, Hannah Horton. Directed by Matt Ross

 

This is not a world conducive to raising kids. We are forced to work jobs that take ever-increasing amounts of our time, forcing us to leave them at day care, in schools where getting an education is an uphill battle and with diversions and distractions guaranteed to change our kids from thoughtful, caring people into automatons parroting whatever the cool kids are saying and preferring to do things that require no thought at all.

Ben (Mortensen) has decided to chuck all of that aside. Something of a latter day hippie tilting at the same windmills of Noam Chomsky and Norman Mailer did, he has removed his family – his wife and six kids – to the woods of the Pacific Northwest. There, they live off the grid; killing and growing their own food, making whatever it is they need, selling their crafts for the little money they do require and Ben both schooling and training the kids not only how to live off the land but to defend themselves from those who would take them off of it by force.

Ben has been doing this alone since his wife Leslie (Miller) has been hospitalized but when his worst fears come to pass and she dies, the entire family is devastated. Ben, a believer in transparency (when it suits him), tells his children in the bluntest terms possible. This of course precipitates a storm of emotion.

Nothing, however, when compared to what comes out of Jack (Langella), Leslie’s bereaved father who blames Ben and his alternative lifestyle for his daughter’s demise and forbids him and his children from attending her funeral. This, of course, inspires them all to pile into the family school bus and head to the services. Along the road, they’ll visit Ben’s sister Harper (Hahn) and her husband Dave (Zahn) who are far more in the normal meter with two sons of their own and predictably, things don’t go particularly well. When the confrontation comes, it will expose some raw wounds in what appeared to be a tight-knit family and call into question Ben’s methods and dearly-held philosophies.

Much of how you’re going to take in this film is going to depend on your attitudes towards the counterculture, both then and now. Those who look at the movement and find it to be self-righteous and arrogant will see those things in Ben; others who look back at that and see commitment and courage will see that in Ben. Curiously, there’s no drug use going on here, so far as I can tell. However, those who think that white rich people are getting the short end of the stick are likely to find this movie to be somewhat offensive.

Mortensen will probably always be Aragorn in my book; since he exploded in the public perception in Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth trilogy, he has stayed away largely from mainstream movies and typical roles. In some ways, Ben is as close to Viggo as we’re ever likely to see. Mortensen is a well-known iconoclast and besides being an incredibly handsome dude, has acting chops guys as good looking as he can only dream about. He is meant to carry the movie and he does.

The kids playing his kids managed not to get on my nerves, quite a feat when you get six child actors together for any reason. Occasionally I’d see a little bit of annoying little brat going on but for the most part the kids are interesting, thoughtful and bright. Ben’s oldest Bo (MacKay) has been accepted at some of the most prestigious universities in the country which isn’t the kind of thing that impresses his father, who disdains anything that has anything to do with the establishment, including education.

The first third of the movie has some beautiful landscapes from Washington State, and the cinematography is correspondingly lush. The middle third is essentially a road movie, largely taking place in deserts and plains and is as different a road movie as you’re likely to see. We get some glimpses of hypocrisy cracking through Ben’s veneer of moral rightness, as well as some of the conflicts going on within the family. In some ways, this is the most interesting part of the picture.

The final third is basically Ben and the kids coming to terms with the fall-out of Ben’s home schooling and attitudes towards mainstream life. There should be catharsis here (and the filmmakers sorely wants there to be) but the ending is such a letdown that any kind of catharsis just gets lost in the backwash. The ending feels arbitrary and inorganic and doesn’t seem consistent with what I thought the movie was trying to get across. Now, I might have misconstrued the filmmakers’ intentions and that’s okay, but quite frankly my wife and I looked at each other after the final credits started rolling and said in almost perfect unison “Really?” You don’t want to leave a movie with that kind of feeling.

Ross is best known as an actor in HBO’s hit comedy Silicon Valley turns out to be a fairly promising director. The timing here for the comedic parts are right on and the drama parts aren’t especially overbearing. While he could have used a better ending, he certainly has plenty to build on for a future career behind the camera if that’s the path he wants to take.

Even given all that, this is still an amazing, thought-provoking movie with one of the most charismatic actors in the business at the top of his form. In a summer full of disappointing blockbusters and run-of-the-mill sequels, this is a literal breath of fresh air.

REASONS TO GO: Mortensen is a powerfully charismatic actor. The film depicts an interesting conflict between alternative ideas and mainstream reality. It’s not your ordinary road movie.
REASONS TO STAY: The ending was a bit of a letdown.
FAMILY VALUES: There’s some profanity and a brief scene of graphic nudity (Viggo Mortensen fans, rejoice!).
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The group of children cast in the film came to call Mortensen “Summer Dad” throughout the shoot during the summer of 2015.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/27/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 77% positive reviews. Metacritic: 72/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Automatic Hate
FINAL RATING: 8/10
NEXT: Life, Animated

Gone Girl

This is NOT what a happy marriage looks like.

(2014) Thriller (20th Century Fox) Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, Kim Dickens, Patrick Fugit, Carrie Coon, David Clennon, Lisa Barnes, Missi Pyle, Sela Ward, Emily Ratajkowski, Casey Wilson, Lola Kirke, Boyd Holbrook, Lee Norris, Jamie McShane, Leonard Kelly-Young, Kathleen Rose Perkins, Pete Housman, Lynn Adrianna. Directed by David Fincher

There are some married couples who appear to have it all. I use the word “appear” because nobody really knows what goes on inside a marriage except for those in it. Even Da Queen and I have our disagreements. There are plenty of things that I do that make Da Queen crazy. Da Queen is also Da Saint.

Nick (Affleck) and Amy Dunne (Pike) are that couple. She’s a trust fund baby whose parents Rand (Clennon) and Marybeth (Barnes) immortalized her as the children’s book character Amazing Amy. Amazing Amy seemed to have a much better life and character than the original Amy which sticks in her craw a little bit but Nick seems to be able to deflect that parent-daughter conflict with his customary humor.

Nick and Amy are both writers but both of them lose their jobs during the recession. Then Nick’s mom gets cancer and they move from New York to North Carthage, Missouri to be close with her, buying a house with Amy’s trust funds. She also buys a bar called The Bar for him which he co-manages with his twin sister Margo (Coon).

On their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick comes home from the bar to find Amy gone and signs of a struggle. He calls the cops and at first Detective Boney (Dickens) is sympathetic but soon Nick’s somewhat un-emotional demeanor and mounting evidence begins to slowly point towards Nick as the prime suspect. Not helping matters is a Nancy Grace-like cable TV commentator (Pyle) who fills the airwaves with anti-Nick vitriol night after night. While Margo believes Nick is innocent, there is enough doubt that she has to ask him what he’s not telling her. And there are things he isn’t telling her.

This is a superb motion picture, not a perfect thriller but damn close. Gillian Flynn, who wrote the novel this is based on, also wrote the screenplay which can be a terrible idea – some novelists have a hard time figuring out what parts of their novel to cut out for the screen but Flynn does an admirable job. I haven’t read the book but I understand she sticks closely to what happens there so fans of the bestseller ought to be pretty satisfied.

The movie comes at you from every direction and although as someone who has seen a lot of thrillers in my time and can generally pick out which direction a movie is going, how it gets there can also be refreshing and new. I like how this movie takes an idea and runs with it.

Affleck is perfectly suited for this role; he can play the chiseled, handsome easygoing lead but he also knows how to allow just enough darkness out to make the character not only memorable but also leave plenty of doubt to the character’s guilt or innocence. This is right in his wheelhouse and he nails it.

And then there’s Pike. Her character is to say the least multi-layered and she handles all the different sides of Amy with perfect aplomb. I would go so far as to say that this is the kind of role Academy voters love to nominate and Pike is so good that I think that she’s got a very good shot at getting that nomination and possibly even the win. It hasn’t been as good a year for women’s roles as last year was and right now only Reese Witherspoon seems to have the other lock on a nomination but of course all that remains to be seen.

Fincher has always been an expert at delivering plots with a cynical but clear eye. There is some satire here on the way modern media influences opinion and on what passes for journalism these days. There is also some on the state of modern small town policing and while Detective Boney comes off relatively unscathed, her colleagues look like rubes. Keep in mind that the Ozarks run through Missouri.

He has also been an expert at keeping tension at a high level and knowing when to shock as opposed to attempting to use shock for shock’s sake (try saying that one five times fast). There is one scene of violence that isn’t entirely unexpected and yet when it does come it still ends up being shocking. That’s the mark of a great director.

If there’s a weakness, it’s probably in the dialogue. In places, the characters talk like characters in a movie rather than how real people talk. A little less cuteness in the dialogue would have made the movie better.

Some have complained that the movie is misogynistic (despite having been written by a woman). I disagree. It’s hard to state my reasons without giving too many plot points away but all I can say is that those who say that women can’t do some of the things that are done by women in this movie is patronizing at the very least. Ever hear of Jodi Arias?

As a critic, I have to be deliberately vague in describing the plot so be aware that much is being left out so as to improve the experience for those readers who haven’t read the book and don’t know what to expect going in other than what they’ve seen in the trailer. Trust me – as good a movie as the trailer promises, the one that is delivered is even better.

REASONS TO GO: Great plot. Pike gives Oscar-worthy performance. Affleck is solid and gets plenty of support.
REASONS TO STAY: Some of the dialogue is a bit forced. A little too long.
FAMILY VALUES: One scene of bloody and shocking violence, some sexuality and nudity and a goodly amount of cussing.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Anna Farris was originally cast as Margo but had to drop out due to schedule conflicts.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 10/5/14: Rotten Tomatoes: 87% positive reviews. Metacritic: 79/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Fatal Attraction
FINAL RATING: 9/10
NEXT: The Equalizer

New Releases for the Week of October 3, 2014

GONE GIRL

(20th Century Fox) Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, Kim Dickens, Patrick Fugit, Missi Pyle, Sela Ward, Boyd Holbrook. Directed by David Fincher

Nick and Amy have the perfect marriage. They love each other madly, support each other completely and are in the initial stages of building a long and fruitful life together. Or so it seems. On the evening of their fifth wedding anniversary Amy turns up missing. As the facade of the perfect marriage begins to crumble, the spotlight turns on Nick who it seems is far from the perfect husband. Did Nick murder his wife? Or is something far more different going on?

See the trailer, clips and a promo here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Thriller

Rating: R (for a scene of bloody violence, some strong sexual content/nudity, and language)

Annabelle

(New Line) Annabelle Wallis, Ward Horton, Alfre Woodard, Tony Amendola. From last year’s hit The Conjuring comes this spin-off, set before the events of that film. Here we find out how the doll Annabelle became so deadly as a cult of vicious Satanists who attack a pregnant wife and her husband. Although they manage to survive the tack, the cultists do not but their blood and horrible memories are not all they leave behind; they had conjured up a demonic entity that has attached itself to the doll, a gift from the husband to his wife. That gift is going to be the kind that keeps on giving, you can be sure of that!

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Supernatural Horror

Rating: R (for intense sequences of disturbing violence and terror)

Bang Bang

(Fox Star) Katrina Kaif, Hrithik Roshan, Jimmy Shergill, Preity Uupala. A mousy bank employee falls into international intrigue when a mysterious stranger comes into his life, claiming to be a spy on a secret mission to save the world. Can she trust the word of this charming stranger? Is he what he says he is? Or is he delusional and leading her into the kind of trouble that she can’t dig her way out of? A remake of the recent Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz vehicle Knight and Day.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Bollywood Action

Rating: NR

The Good Lie

(Warner Brothers) Reese Witherspoon, Corey Stoll, Arnold Oceng, Ger Duany. Sudanese refugees travel 1500 miles on foot to reach a refugee camp where they have a shot at getting the golden ticket to America where they can star their lives over in freedom. Four young brothers have been through incredible trauma making it to America but their sister is left behind for a later flight. However when 9-11 halts refugee activity, a social worker is moved to help these boys reunite their family even though the odds are stacked against them.

See the trailer and premiere footage here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: True Life Drama

Rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements, some violence, brief strong language and drug use)

Govindudu Andarivadele

(Parameswara Arts) Ram Charan, Srikanth, Kajal Aggarwal, Kamalinee Mukherjee. A young agriculture student visits his grandfather’s house in an effort to reconcile the old man with his father. As he does so he discovers the story behind their estrangement and his grandfather learns why the student has come to mend fences at that specific time.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Bollywood Family

Rating: NR

Haider

(UTV) Shahid Kapoor, Tabu, Narendra Jha, Irrfan Khan. A modern version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet set in India, this is the third in a Shakespearean trilogy by director Vishal Bhardwaj.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Bollywood Drama

Rating: NR

Hector and the Search for Happiness

(Relativity) Simon Pegg, Christopher Plummer, Rosamund Pike, Stellan Skarsgard. A psychiatrist who has fallen into a rut, decides he is no longer qualified to advise his patients on how to have a better, more fulfilling life if he hasn’t lived one himself yet. He goes out therefore on an adventure throughout the world trying to find what happiness is.

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

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Dramedy

Rating: R  (for language and some brief nudity)

Left Behind

(Stoney Lake) Nicolas Cage, Chad Michael Murray, Lea Thompson, Cassi Thomson. When the Rapture takes place and the righteous ascend to heaven, those that remain on Earth discover that there’s a reason why going to heaven was a much better idea.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Faith-Based Adventure

Rating: PG-13 (for some thematic elements, violence/peril and brief drug content)

The Liberator

(Cohen Media Group) Edgar Ramirez, Danny Huston, Maria Valverde, Gary Lewis. The story of Simon Bolivar, who led a revolt of the South American indigenous peoples against the colonial might of the Spanish and Portuguese empires. He was instrumental in freeing millions of people to self-govern and is regarded as one of the most beloved heroes in the region.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Biographical Drama

Rating: NR

Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

Logan Lerman, wearing his hoodie, keeps a sharp eye out for George Zimmerman.

(2013) Fantasy (20th Century Fox) Logan Lerman, Alexandra Daddario, Brandon T. Jackson, Douglas Smith, Mary Birdsong, Yvette Nicole Brown, Stanley Tucci, Nathan Fillion, Anthony Head, Leven Rambin, Jake Abel, Missi Pyle, Connor Dunn, Paloma Kwiatkowski, Ron Perlman (voice), Octavia Spencer (voice), Shohreh Aghdashloo (voice). Directed by Thor Freudenthal

When you’re a demigod (the offspring of one mortal parent and one Greek God or Goddess), life pretty much sucks. You can save the world and still end up feeling like a loser.

At least, that’s the way it is for Percy Jackson (Lerman). The son of Poseidon who saved the world from a plot to use the world’s most dangerous weapon to kickstart a war between the Gods that would have devastated the planet is kind of moping around a year later, wondering if he was indeed a one-quest wonder. Upstaged in nearly everything by Charisse (Rambin), daughter of the God of War, his friends Grover (Jackson) the satyr and Annabeth (Daddario) the daughter of the Goddess of Wisdom have his back but the headmaster at Camp Half-Blood, Dionysus (Tucci) can’t even remember Percy’s name let alone his fame.

When the camp’s defensive barrier is attacked (a magic tree), it appears that the only way to sustain it is to retrieve the legendary Golden Fleece of Jason and the Argonauts. However, that rests on an island in the Sea of Monsters (what we humans call the Bermuda Triangle) and the way there and back is perilous indeed. He will have to deal with traitorous demigods, crazed cabbies, monsters of all size and shapes and a dorky half-brother (Smith) who happens to be a Cyclops. With his friends at his side, how can he be beaten? Well, quite often actually…

The second movie in the series based on Rick Riordan’s wildly popular young adult books, like the first film, uses Greek mythology as a jumping off point. However, that film was kind of poorly written with plot points that lacked coherent explanation and suffered a bit from too close to Harry Potter for comfort. Those sins are still very much in evidence here and while the special effects are more spectacular in the sequel, the thrill factor is much less in the second film than it was in the first.

Lerman has blown hot and cold as a young leading man. His sad sack Percy doesn’t have the heroic qualities of a Harry Potter although he does find his inner hero by film’s end (that’s not much of a spoiler). Here, he doesn’t hold up well to Rambin, who is sexy and charismatic and whose character exceeds Percy in nearly every category as Rambin does Lerman here. Lerman is beginning to remind me of Shia LaBeouf in a negative way.

A movie like this needs to be exciting and thrilling and the issue is that I never felt those things even once during the movie. It’s just kind of there – I don’t really care much about the characters, the visuals can be nice but ultimately they are like seeing a single red rose in a snowy garden; the color is beautiful but it doesn’t change that the rest of the setting is bland and colorless. The series, beloved by many, deserves better movies to be made from it.

REASONS TO GO: Some spectacular effects sequences. Fillion and Tucci are fun.

REASONS TO STAY: Way too Harry Potter-esque. Lacks chemistry. Percy not nearly as heroic as Harry.

FAMILY VALUES:  Here there be monsters; also some mild foul language, fantasy action sequences and a few semi-scary images.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Rambin, a natural blonde, wore a wig for her role as Charisse; Daddario, a natural brunette, dyed her hair blonde to play Annabeth.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 8/22/13: Rotten Tomatoes: 38% positive reviews. Metacritic: 39/100.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

FINAL RATING: 5/10

NEXT: The Story of Us

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