Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules

Posted on March 24, 2011 at 9:55 pm

This is the second movie based on the wildly popular series of Diary of a Wimpy Kid books by Jeff Kinney. Last year, in Diary of a Wimpy Kid, we saw Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon) begin the agonizing experience of middle school. This movie opens with Greg and his best friend Rowley (Robert Capron) starting their second year in middle school, convinced that everything is going to be different. They have learned from their experiences and torments of their first year, and now begin their second year all grown up and sophisticated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbqqYuG1TCM

It doesn’t take them long to discover that an entirely new catalog of horrors is awaiting them. They’re all here: the embarrassment in front of the pretty new girl in class, the embarrassment in the school cafeteria, the embarrassment at the hands of bullies after school at the skating rink, the embarrassment caused by that suspiciously located stain on your pants, the embarrassment from the over protective mother, the embarrassment from the intercepted note in class, the embarrassment from mistakenly walking into the wrong restroom…it’s hard to think of a single childhood humiliation that has been omitted from this comprehensive inventory. Many of these situations are divided by age group. Greg is hounded by his three-year-old brother who just wants to play with the bigger boys, while Greg in turn hounds his older brother Rodrick (Devon Bostick) because Greg is curious about what goes on at “high school parties.” All of the kids in turn had situations with their parents, and a different set of issues with grandparents living at a home for seniors.

Halfway through this movie, Rodrick hisses to Greg, “You’re my brother, but you’ll never be my friend.” And yet, there is progress. Gradually, Greg forms alliances with family members. He and his brother protect each other. He and his mother reach understandings and enter into pacts. This is not just a repeat of the first year of middle school after all.

Kinney does a good job of remembering and portraying these childhood traumas. School children will laugh and groan in recognition of these misfortunes and will take heart from the fact that Greg somehow
manages to survive them all. Adults may cringe at some long dormant feelings, re-awakened by this movie, and feel more sympathy for the burdens of their school aged children.
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I Am

Posted on March 24, 2011 at 9:52 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Not Rated
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	References to substance abuse
Violence/ Scariness:	Some disturbing images of injuries and historical tragedies, consideration of suicide
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	March 25, 2011
Date Released to DVD:	January 2, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B005U0ZP46

Tom Shadyac had it all — if “all” means fame, fortune, and professional success. He directed some of the biggest box-office hits of the 1990’s and early 2000’s, including Jim Carrey’s “Ace Ventura,” “Liar, Liar,” and “Bruce Almighty,” and Robin Williams’ “Patch Adams.” Careful viewers might have been able to discern a spiritual theme, or at least a spiritual yearning in some of those films. But what made them successful was wild, outrageous comedy.

Shadyac made a lot of money and bought a lot of things. He realized that contrary to the messages we receive all of the time, the money and the things did not make him any happier. And then a literal hit on the head made him think very hard about what really matters. For probably less than the cost of one craft services table or a star’s limo to the set, Shadyac went on the road with a crew of four in search of some mind-bending conversations about how we can do better.

Shadyac had a serious bicycle accident, followed by months of unremitting, excruciating pain so devastating that he decided to commit suicide. That moment of relinquishing any sense of control was somehow liberating and clarifying. He had to decide what he wanted to say before he died. This film became first that statement and then a reason to stay alive.

It’s less clear, though, that it is a reason to go to the theater. Shadyac, energized by the thrill of engaging on big questions with great minds, has created an earnest if often incoherent patchwork on the subject of life’s purpose and meaning and how we can make things better. There’s a reason we usually address those issues through faith and parable (parables including all forms of story-telling). It is very hard to address them directly without sounding vague, pretentious, or a little weird.

At its best, this is a movie that asks some provocative questions about the assumptions we fail to question and the consequences of our current trajectory and lets us hear from fascinating, passionate people. It is an exploration of what Judaism calls “tikkun olam,” the obligation of each of us to assist in healing the world. At its worst, it feels like a trippy all-night dorm debate, unformed and uninformed, that concludes the Beatles got it right: Love is all you need. Some viewers may conclude that the entire thing is just a function of post-traumatic brain injury.

Shadyac speaks to experts in hard and soft science and specialists in history, religion, and philosophy. While his posture is often grasshopper to their Master Po, he has not quite managed to free himself of worldly pride. He asks them whether they have seen his films. He is both dismayed and energized by all of the “no’s,” almost taking it as reassurance he is on the right path if he has found people who are so unconnected to what sustained him and trapped him before. But he is very happy to find one of them is a fan of “Ace Ventura.”

At times it feels like a 1970’s journey through what we used to call self-actualization or the human potential movement as Shadyac experiments with emotion-detecting yogurt, considers that “reality isn’t an it,” and “science is a story.” He ponders a “participating universe” and learns about generosity in deer. Ha also rhapsodizes about the purity of indigenous people without mentioning that, like economically developed cultures, some of them are very violent. But it is fun to get a glimpse of some cutting edge research that suggests that our hearts may be, after all, wise than our brains, and that anger makes us dumber. And it is thought-provoking to consider the benefits of a less individualistic and competitive society and the concept of “a participatory universe where everything we do is changing it” for better or worse.

I assumed when I first heard about this film that the title was a reference to the name of God. But we find out at the end that it is taken from the answer G.K. Chesterton gave when asked what was wrong with the world. Will this awkward movie inspires anyone to consider that answer and become a little more generous and kind? Or is that more likely to come from another big budget Shadyac comedy? For the answer, see “Sullivan’s Travels.”

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How Do You Know

Posted on March 24, 2011 at 10:00 am

Lisa (Reese Witherspoon) and George Madison (Paul Rudd) are both nice people and team players. And that is why they end up on a horrible date on what is for each of them the worst night of their lives.

It’s the worst night because both of them have been cut from their teams. That’s literally the case for Lisa, a 31-year-old professional women’s softball team. Being the hardest working and most supportive player is not enough when she’s a second slower getting to first base than she used to be. She makes everyone around her better. “The intangibles are everything,” urges the assistant coach. But they don’t score runs. The upbeat little post-it note aphorisms Lisa has covering her bathroom mirror do not provide any guidance. They can remind her to be determined, but she is no longer clear on what she should be determined about. And although she tells her sort of boyfriend, a player for the Washington National baseball team (Owen Wilson) that she doesn’t want to talk about her feelings, she is a little disconcerted when he tells her that is his preference.

George, a top executive at a corporation founded by his father (Jack Nicholson), has been informed by the company lawyer that he is under investigation and on his own in finding and paying a lawyer to defend him from possible fraud charges. And his girlfriend, a physics professor, dumps him with cheery efficiency. It is a lot to process. And he doesn’t want to process it. So, why not call that blind date prospect he had put aside when he thought he had a girlfriend?

As terrible as the date is — they ultimately decide that it is better they don’t speak at all — they sort of enjoy it. And we do, too, because writer/director James L. Brooks (“Broadcast News,” “Terms of Endearment,” “As Good as It Gets”) is very good at exactly that: showing us a world of flawed people dealing with messy, complicated, and painful challenges in a manner that draws us in and keeps us on their side.

There is a lot that does not work. It completely fails in portraying with two subjects I know very well: securities law (note, Mr. Brooks, that’s “securities” plural — “security law” is more like TSA pat-down challenges) and Washington D.C. (no place in Washington is an hour and ten minutes from any other place, even on the bus). George’s father is a character even Jack Nicholson can’t make anything more than a highly artificial narrative inconvenience. The magnificently talented Kathryn Hahn (please, someone give her a worthy role) does her best in a part that is both over- and under-written as George’s very pregnant and very loyal secretary. One of the big turning-point speeches doesn’t deliver the punch it sets us up to expect.

A lot of people are not going to like this movie. But I did because for me he got a lot right. Audiences expecting a conventional structure and tone will be disappointed. I like a movie that is, like its leads, endearingly messy and subverts our genre expectations. Brooks colors outside the lines. There is more happening around the edges of this movie than happens in the middle of the screen of most — George’s problem is more than just a topical reference. And the difference between a male and female professional athlete is not addressed; it’s just there.

Brooks’ dialogue is always a great pleasure. Rudd, one of the most engaging of actors, has never been better. Watch his face carefully in the elevator scene, when he thinks his world has collapsed and then looks up to see that the girl from the awful silent date is there. The mixture of emotions is superbly handled. Witherspoon is revelatory as a woman who relied on an all-encompassing structure with answers for everything and now realizes there were questions she did not even know she had. And if that makes us question our own conventional notion of what we know, well, it just shows you that the intangibles really are everything.

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Interview: Phil Hall of ‘What if They Lived?’

Posted on March 24, 2011 at 8:00 am

We miss the performers who left us too soon almost as though we knew them.

In a new book, Phil Hall and Rory Leighton Aronsky ask What If They Lived?, with essays about stars and almost-stars from the silent era to the present, with biographical details, career assessments, and fascinating glimpses of projects they might have completed if they had lived longer. Hall was kind enough to answer my questions.

Q: How did this book come about?

Phil Hall: I always wondered what would have become of the great stars that died too young. If you see James Dean in “Giant” or Marilyn Monroe in “The Misfits,” it is difficult not to rue that there would be no further performances from its iconic stars – but if fate was kinder, could they have topped what they already created? The idea for the book percolated for years, but my attempts to get a publisher interested in the project were in vain. For whatever reason, many publishers did not think this was a good idea. Fortunately, BearManor Media, the publisher of my last book – The History of Independent Cinema – was convinced that this had potential. Rory Leighton Aronsky joined me as the co-author on the project, and here we are!

Q: Do you have a favorite of the stars that you wrote about?

Phil Hall: The biggest surprise for me was Jayne Mansfield. Many people have dismissed her as a second-rate Marilyn Monroe imitator that audiences rejected. In fact, she was an extremely talented comic actress and her films were popular. Unfortunately, her studio, 20th Century Fox, found it more profitable to loan her out to cheapo production companies for crummy movies rather than build star vehicles around her. That wrecked her film career. But she could have worked steadily without being a movie star. In the mid-1960s, she sold out New York’s Copacabana at a time when nightclubs were considered passe. I also found a clip of Mansfield appearing as a “mystery guest” on the TV show “What’s My Line.” She received the most thunderous audience response imaginable when she came on stage – and this was two years before her death in a 1967 automobile accident.

Q: Some of the performers you wrote about died as big stars, but some died before they achieved all they were capable of. Which of the stars you wrote about do you think would have surprised audiences the most by showing more than anyone knew they were capable of?

Phil Hall: By the time of his death, Robert Walker was on the cusp of showing a depth of versatility that was not present in many of his films. Walker spent most of the 1940s playing a light leading man or a stolid military type. In his last two films, “Strangers on a Train” and “My Son John,” he showed that he was capable of handling dark, complex dramatic roles. This would have opened a new avenue of career possibilities, and he think that could have enjoyed a long and successful career.

Q: You write about stars like James Dean and Marilyn Monroe who continue to be modern-day icons and others like Judy Tyler and Evelyn Preer who are hardly remembered. Why do some stars remain so present in our culture and others do not?

Phil Hall: A lot of it depends on their output. Judy Tyler had a solid career in television and theater, but she only made two films – and only one, “Jailhouse Rock,” is remembered today. The bulk of Evelyn Preer’s cinematic output came in the all-black “race films” produced by Oscar Micheaux, but most of these films are considered lost. A great deal of public recognition also rests on the role of film critics and scholars in defining the popular cinema culture. For example, Larry Semon was a very popular star of comedy films in the 1920s, but very few contemporary critics or scholars are willing to champion in his cause. And, in some cases, we remember the stars because of off-screen tragedies rather than on-screen triumphs: Roscoe Arbuckle, Thelma Todd and Sharon Tate are the most prominent examples. But the beauty of cinema is the ability to preserve a performance forever, with the hope that future generations will come to re-evaluate a star’s personality and talent. I would say that there is a greater popular appreciation of Dorothy Dandridge and Jayne Mansfield today, due in large part to critics, scholars and fan revisiting their performances and recognizing their value to the film culture.

Q: Is there one uncompleted project you wrote about that you most wish could have been made?

Phil Hall: Laird Cregar was supposed to do a Broadway version of Shakespeare’s “Henry VIII,” but he died before the production could take shape. I cannot imagine a better actor to play the monarch, and he could have easily made it into a signature role that could have been taken to the film or television screen.

Q: Your profiles of each of the stars are insightful and evocative. How did you do your research?

Phil Hall: By reading too many books, magazines and websites, and by having conversations with experts who knew more about the subject than I could. For example, online film critic John J. Puccio is also an expert on classical music, and he provided invaluable opinions regarding Mario Lanza’s future potential, while rock music writer Ricky Flake helped me speculate on the future that Elvis Presley never had.

Q: Why do you think Judy Garland would have focused on concerts rather than movies if she had lived?

Phil Hall: I think there would be a combination of factors. First, there was a lack of quality roles for women of Garland’s age and personality. Second, Garland had a reputation for being (for lack of a better word) difficult, and many producers were not eager to take that risk. Third, there was the same problem that kept Montgomery Clift away from films: getting insurance for the star. Garland’s health problems were front-page news for years, and her presence in a film would have jacked up the budget in order to cover her insurance.

Q: Some of the people you wrote about had their careers limited by racism, sexism, or homophobia. Did that influence your ideas about what would have been possible for them if they had lived until more tolerant times?

Phil Hall: It did, because the contemporary concept of tolerance was a fairly recent development. We cannot create an alternative universe for the past where these talented people could have flourished without the restrictions that limited their careers. At the same time, we have to take into consideration another discriminatory concept: ageism. Hollywood is an industry that in constantly on the search for young new faces – good parts for people in their forties or older are difficult to come by, especially for women. What roles would exist for a 50-year-old Marilyn Monroe? It would be like that lyric from Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies”: “First you’re another sloe-eyed vamp. Then someone’s mother, then you’re camp.”

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Tribute: Elizabeth Taylor

Posted on March 23, 2011 at 9:42 am

Elizabeth Taylor, who exemplified grace, beauty, and stardom, has died at age 79. In an era of reality show “celebrities” and fame that lasts not 15 minutes but 15 seconds, Elizabeth Taylor reminds us of what it meant to truly be a star. She will be remembered for her flamboyant, headline-grabbing personal life — the eight marriages to seven men, the tempestuous romance with Richard Burton, the jewelry, her kindness to troubled performers like Montgomery Clift and Michael Jackson, her tireless work against AIDS. But it is her work that truly endures, from her performances as a child in “Lassie Come Home,” “Jane Eyre,” and “National Velvet” to her Oscar-winning role in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.”

I will have a more complete tribute soon. For now, just a moment to mourn her passing. May her memory be a blessing.

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