Happy 30th Anniversary to “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”

Posted on June 11, 2016 at 8:00 am

30 years ago today, Ferris Bueller took the day off and in our hearts we all went with him. While kids at school were listening to Ben Stein drone on about tariffs and voo-doo economics, three kids with last names for first names were enjoying the Art Institute of Chicago, a baseball game, fine dining, and a parade!

The John Hughes movie has become a permanent part of our culture, featured this year along in a Super Bowl commercial and a post-credit scene in “Deadpool.”

New OJ Simpson Documentary Gives the Bigger Picture

Posted on June 10, 2016 at 3:51 pm

Premiering tomorrow on ABC and then continuing on ESPN, the documentary series “OJ Simpson: Made in America” is for people who watched the “American Crime Story” series about Simpson’s murder trial, for people who remember his career as a football superstar and television personality, for those who remember the 1995 trial for the murder of his ex-wife and her friend and his acquittal, and for those who read current headlines about the injustices of our legal system, with lenience for the white and wealthy and disproportionate police brutality and punishment for the poor and non-white.

Vulture’s Jen Chaney writes:

Practically every moment of its seven-and-a-half-hour running time is thought-provoking, astonishing, sobering, hilarious, tragic, and sometimes all of those at once….Basically, O.J. Simpson: Made in America is about almost everything that has mattered in this country over the last 50 years. “We talk about O.J. as though the story is O.J.,” says journalist Celia Farber, one of the many sources who speak directly to camera throughout. “The story is O.J. and us.”

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Crime Documentary Sports Television

Best Films of 2016 — So Far

Posted on June 10, 2016 at 12:51 pm

At Rogerebert.com, critics talk about their favorite films of the year so far. Of course there are the usual festival gems and art-house indies, but also films like “The Nice Guys” and “Captain America: Civil War.” I was very happy to get a chance to talk about one of mine: Everybody Wants Some!! \

When “Everybody Wants Some!!” was described as “a spiritual sequel to “Dazed and Confused,” I was expecting a endearing mix-tape movie with party scenes and an impeccable cast of mostly unknowns playing quirky characters. It has all that but it reminded me more of writer/director Richard Linklater’s more existentially ambitious films like “Waking Life” (still my favorite he’s done so far), the “Before” trilogy, and “Boyhood.” Though like “Dazed and Confused” it takes its title from a song that places us immediately in the year (1980) and setting (weekend before classes start in an unnamed Texas university), “Everybody Wants Some!!” (two exclamation points) starts upending our assumptions right from the beginning, as the central character, starting his freshman year, shows himself to be self-aware, confident, and knowing right from the start. Wait, what? Aren’t all college movies supposed to be about freshman who have to achieve that over the course of the film?

Yes, there are a lot of parties and a lot of sex and drugs. But the women are not objectified or exploited by the characters or the camera. And I loved the way the guys had to keep going back to the house to change their clothes before each outing: a disco, a “kicker” bar, a punk concert, a party given by the drama majors. The malleability of the various personas they were trying on as they were discovering what it was like to be on a team where everyone had pretty much been the star of every team he’d been on through high school was skillfully portrayed. And the exploration of the competitive tension between wanting to stand out and knowing that the only way to do that is to work seamlessly with the team was lightly but thoughtfully explored. I loved the discussion of the possibly imaginary scout for the majors who could be hiding anywhere. And I love the so crazy-it-just-might-be-true idea that the character played by Wyatt Russell may be the same breakthrough role that was played by Matthew McConaughey in “Dazed and Confused.”

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Critics

Trailer: The Obama’s First Date in “Southside With You”

Posted on June 10, 2016 at 8:00 am

When Barack Obama took a summer job at a Chicago law firm after his first year of law school, a recent Harvard Law School graduate named Michelle Robinson was assigned to be his supervisor. He asked her to come with him to a community meeting and she agreed, insisting that it was not a date. But by the end of the day, they saw Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” and shared ice cream — and a kiss. “Southside With You” is the story of that date, opening in August.

Now You See Me 2

Posted on June 9, 2016 at 5:40 pm

The first “Now You See Me” was a deliciously entertaining heist film with “the Four Horsemen,” a team of magicians, engaged in a diabolically clever combination of misdirection and triple-cons for the purpose of revenge, Robin Hood reparations, and showmanship. We know what that means for part 2 — the Empire strikes back, and it is a popcorn pleasure. The Horsemen stole from billionaire Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine) and framed the magician turned debunker Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman) so he ended up in prison.

At the end of the last film, the surprise twist revealed FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) as the brains behind the operation. As this one opens, the FBI, with Deputy Director Natalie Austin (Sanaa Lathan) in charge, does not know and thinks Rhodes is still looking for three of the Horsemen. They believe Jack Wilder, played by Dave Franco, was killed. They’re wrong about both. Rhodes is working with the Horsemen, including Wilder. But there is a new member of the group: Lula (Lizzy Caplan, replacing Isla Fisher). And they immediately run into a snag involving someone who knows a bit about magic in the movies: Daniel Radcliffe as Walter Mabry, a mysterious, mega-wealthy guy who wants the Horsemen to steal something for him. It’s the usual MacGuffin — some sort of computer thing that would give him access to everything/control of everything blah blah, and it’s locked away in a place with the kind of crazy security reserved for heist movies. All the world’s biggest, richest baddies are after it, and so the Horsemen have to find a way to get in there before one of them gets it.

The first movie had sensational performance showpieces. This one is more “Mission: Impossible” (the television series, not the Tom Cruise movies) until the final scene. But it keeps the sly twists coming, using all the magicians’ favorite ruses, from misdirection to an almost-balletic slight of hand. Just like “The Avengers,” it is a lot of fun to see each of the Horsemen use their skills — mentalist Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), lock wizard Wilder, card master Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg). We learned in the first film that McKinney’s brother stole all his money and disappeared; it turns out he was an identical twin brother, and he shows up, played by Harrelson with hair that looks like that awful perm Mike Brady had in the last season of “The Brady Bunch.”

It has all the twists and reveals and surprises we were hoping for, including one saucy switch that is not about magic, just social conventions that have not caught up to reality, some very old school means of communication, and a touch of movie magic in giving us a glimpse of one character’s past with some CGI that looks a little more realistic than the “work” that has ruined so many Hollywood faces. Director Jon M. Chu (the “Step Up” movies) has a superb sense of space and movement, giving the story exuberance and flair. It’s a fitting encore and I hope we will see them all again in part 3.

Parents should know that this film includes some strong language, and some action-style peril and violence.

Family discussion: Would you want to be selected by The Eye? Which magic trick would you like to be able to master?

If you like this, try: the original film and “The Sting”

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Crime Series/Sequel