The Women’s Balcony

Posted on May 19, 2017 at 1:11 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Peril, some characters injured, one severely
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	May 19, 2017

Israel’s biggest box-office hit of 2016, “The Women’s Balcony,” is a warm-hearted film about a close-knit Orthodox community living in blissful harmony until their synagogue literally collapses in the middle of a bar mitzvah. The rabbi’s wife is critically injured and the rabbi becomes depressed and foggy-minded. The men of the congregation are grateful when a charismatic rabbinical student known as Rabbi David (Avraham Aviv Alush), offers to help, bringing along his friends to conduct services and raise money to rebuild the temple. But he proves to be a very divisive figure when he urges the congregation to become more strictly observant, suggesting the men give their wives headscarves to cover their hair. The showdown comes when he tells the women that rebuilding the balcony, where the women sit separate from the men during services, will have to come after the creation of a new torah scroll. The women do not agree.

The details of the setting are fascinating, and while unfamiliar to many in American audiences, the elements of an Orthodox Jewish life are presented in a comfortable, respectful, natural manner. The film is immensely charming in its depiction of the quiet, gentle humanity of the community and the way their commitment to Judaism is reflected in every aspect of their lives. Evelin Hagoel is a stand-out as Etie, a grandmother who leads the rebellion and Yafit Asulin is radiant as a shy young woman who finds love. This is an endearing comedy with some thoughtful insights about the way we find and keep finding the sustaining force of grace in our lives.

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Interview: Francesca Capaldi on “Max 2: White House Hero”

Posted on May 19, 2017 at 8:00 am

“Max 2: White House Hero” star Francesca Capaldi has a very extensive resume for someone born in 2004, including three seasons on the popular series “Dog with a Blog” and the voice of the little red-haired girl in “The Charlie Brown Movie.” It was a lot of fun to talk to the charming and remarkably bright and poised young actress about her newest project, Max 2: White House Hero, available on DVD/Blu-Ray and streaming May 23, 2017. I have a copy to give away! Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with Max in the subject line and tell me your favorite pet’s name. Don’t forget your address! (US addresses only.) I’ll pick a winner at random on May 31, 2017.

“Okay, so the movie is basically the Russian President and his daughter come to America for talks with the US President,” she told me. “I play Alex, the daughter, and I meet the first son, TJ, who is played by Zane Austin, and his dog Max, who is a Marine dog but he stays with TJ. We kind of get into some trouble and we kind of get in some mischief. We go to a party, I went in the water on this raft, and it’s because someone is trying to sabotage these talks between Russia and the US.”

She was experienced in working with dogs before, from “Dog with a Blog.” “The most important thing to know is probably that they are not typical dogs and they’re not pets either. They’re workers. They are like actors but they’re just not humans and they are so well trained and they know so much that it’s crazy. You just have to remember they are working, kind of like service dogs, you can’t really go around playing with them.” There were actually four dogs playing the part of Max, each with different specialties. “They all had different abilities. They have different strong suits and we got to spend time with all of them before we filmed so that they are comfortable with us and there’s a better emotional connection when we’re filming. One could jump really, really well, one was a runner, one was like the face for the dogs. He’s on the posters and stuff like that. So, they all have different things they do and I thought was really cool.”

Francesca describes her character as “really excited to see what’s going to happen and I think she had a great time visiting America. And she’s a really fun character to play especially since I never did a Russian accent before. It was really cool to try something new with that. And she is a little precocious, she is a little funky and she was really fun to play.” She loves doing accents and developed this one by watching YouTube videos and working with her dad, who speaks a lot of languages. “Russians have a really distinct accent. Instead of ‘will’ they say ‘vill.’ I actually got to say some things in Russian and I’ve never spoken Russian I barely even heard it been spoken before so it was really fun. It was a little bit difficult because it’s not like anything I ever heard.”

She also had her first opportunity to do stunts, which she enjoyed very much. “I had to do a scene where I was kidnapped, where I was thrown into a van and I head butted someone and I was in this river. It was so cold I had to wear a dry suit, it was freezing and I remember the medic that was on set was saying, ‘Yes, keep your toes moving or there’s not going to be any circulation and we’re going to have to amputate them,’ and I was like ‘Oh, okay, yes, I’ll keep my toes moving.’ So it was just so cold but I loved it. I thought it was so much fun.”

Francesca has been performing since she was a baby and says, “I just love acting so much, it’s crazy.” She keeps in mind advice she got from the late Don Rickles. “He said to me, ‘Don’t let anyone ever discourage you. Stay confident, no matter what. Stay strong.’ He just gave me the best advice about the business and how to stay true to yourself.”

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Everything, Everything

Posted on May 18, 2017 at 5:57 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for thematic elements and brief sensuality
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Medication
Violence/ Scariness:	Theme of potentially deadly illness, reference to sad death, domestic abuse
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	May 19, 2017

“Everything, Everything,” based on the novel by Nicola Yoon, is an updated fairy tale about a princess trapped in a castle and the prince who does not exactly rescue her but gives her a reason to rescue herself.

It’s not an enchantment or a curse that keeps her inside. It’s an illness that means any exposure to bacteria or a virus could be fatal. Maddy (Amandla Stenberg, Rue in “The Hunger Games”) cannot remember a time when she was allowed to be outdoors.

Diagnosed at 2 with the immune deficiency SCID, Maddy lives in an irradiated and sterile environment. She has never left her home and has never met anyone other than her doctor mother (Anika Noni Rose), her nurse Carla (Ana de la Reguera), and Carla’s daughter Rosa (Danube R. Hermosillo). She has books, she has an exercise machine, she has 100 identical white t-shirts, and she has an online SCID support group. She and her mother watch movies and play phonetic scrabble. Maddy studies architecture and builds model rooms, placing the figure of an astronaut in each one. This avatar is her opposite. Her world is measured in square feet; the astronaut’s is unlimited.

Maddy stands at the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the backyard and imagines what it would feel like to stand on grass or feel a breeze of unfiltered air. And she has a seat in the corner of her bedroom overlooking the house next door, which is how she peers down at a new family moving in, a new family with a boy who has a beautiful smile. He is Olly (Nick Robinson of “Kings of Summer”). He draws his phone number on his window opposite her bedroom, and soon they are texting each other, sweetly portrayed as a face-to-face conversation at a table in Maddy’s model diner, with the astronaut looking on. She wears white; he wears black. She says, “When I talk to him, I feel like I’m outside.” But when she talks to him, she wants to go outside. And both of them find their worlds getting less black and white.

The elements of a young teen romantic fantasy are all here, primarily the disapproving parent, the utterly devoted and hunky but not too aggressive young male, adoring and supportive, and the big reason that they cannot get too physical, except maybe one perfect time. In “Twilight,” he was a vampire who could lose control and kill her. Here it’s just his normal human germs. Anyone over the age of 15 may be distracted by impracticalities and plot developments that go from improbable to preposterous, but even people who know that you have to have ID to get on an airplane and money to pay a credit card bill might just enjoy the pleasures of watching Maddy wake up to the world and Olly, through her, wake up to a few of his own.

Parents should know that this film includes risky teen behavior, some strong language, serious illness, and a non-explicit sexual situation.

Family discussion: Did Carla make the right decision? Why does Maddy put an astronaut in her model rooms?

If you like this, try: “My Sister’s Keeper,” “Before I Fall” and “The Fault in Our Stars”

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul

Posted on May 18, 2017 at 5:15 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some rude humor
Profanity:	Schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended comic peril and violence
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	May 19, 2017
Date Released to DVD:	August 7, 2017

Ah, the family car trip. Often excruciating, frequently tedious, always unforgettable. For this third in the “Wimpy Kid” movie series, based on the wildly popular books by Jeff Kinney, the story moves from the schoolyard to the highway as Greg and the Heffley family leave home for his great-grandmother’s birthday party. The kid actors from the first movie have grown up. Remember, one of the characters was played by Chloe Grace Moretz, recently in “Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising.” And if that doesn’t make you feel old, consider this: the entire cast has been replaced, with “Clueless” star Alicia Silverstone now playing the mom. Tom Everett Scott takes over the dad role from his “That Thing You Do” co-star Steve Zahn.

The Wimpy Kid stories are funny and reassuring for kids and tweens because they can laugh at and with Greg Heffley (now played by Jason Drucker) as he careens from one excruciatingly disgusting encounter to another, many involving human and animal bodily functions and the products thereof. “I like my family and all,” Greg explains, “I’m just not sure we were meant to live together.”

Greg has a dim older brother named Roderick (Charlie Wright), who mistakes the motel safe for a microwave, subjects Greg to an endless stream of demeaning comments, and explains his secret: “I spent years lowering Mom’s and Dad’s expectations.” He has a toddler younger brother who becomes a rage monster without the pacifier Dad has left behind because what better time to wean him than the road trip? Eventually, they will be joined by another passenger, a baby pig, won by the toddler at a county fair.

Along the way, the family encounters filthy motels, a rude bully Greg terms “Beardo,” and the worst horror of all — a Mom-demanded relinquishment of all devices. “This is an unplugged road trip,” she smiles at the boys. “The only connecting we’re going to do is with each other.” She even forces them to listen to dreadful music like — wait for it — the Spice Girls. And Greg has a secret goal. Trying to overcome public humiliation that has gone viral (“Now I’m a meme!”), he is determined to meet and create a video with his gaming idol at a Comic-Con-style gathering just “two inches on the map” from the party.

The kids in the audience, mostly fans of the book series, enjoyed it very much, but adults are likely to find it a very long haul indeed.

Parents should know that this film includes slapstick comic peril and violence (no one hurt), bodily function humor, and some schoolyard language.

Family discussion: Why do the worst parts of the trip make the family feel closer together? What was your favorite road trip with the family and why?

If you like this, try: the other “Wimpy Kid” movies and the books and “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”

Interview: Barry Watson on “Date My Dad”

Posted on May 18, 2017 at 9:06 am

It was a lot of fun to talk to actor Barry Watson about his new television series, “Date My Dad,” a one-hour dramedy on the UP channel about a widower with three daughters — and a mother-in-law played by Raquel Welch! The show is something of a real-life family affair, as Watson’s wife, Natasha Gregson Wagner, and his father-in-law, Robert Wagner (“Hart to Hart,” “It Takes a Thief”) have guest-starred on the series, which premieres June 2, 2017.

Tell me about the character you play.

Well my character is Ricky Cooper, and Ricky is a widower with three daughters. We start the show off on Ricky’s fortieth birthday where it’s been three and a half years since his wife Isabella passed away and his daughters have decided to get him out in the dating world again because he’s sort of been in a groove just kind of focused on raising his girls. And on top of that his mother-in-law who has been helping out, who’s played by Raquel Welch, decided that she’s moving out of the house so, Ricky thinks his life is just turned upside down. It is obviously a challenge for him that can be messy at times and it is a challenge for me as well as an actor because I’ve got three kids myself and I’ve gone through a period of time where I was a single father so I can bring some of that to the role as well.

I think having a daughter really prepared me in a different way to play the father of three daughters because I don’t think that I would be able to bring the depth that I brought to the character without having my daughter come into this world. Ricky’s a very simple guy, he doesn’t really put a lot of effort into I think what his wardrobe is, he wears a lot of flannels, a lot of jeans, a lot of boots and that become a storyline with his daughters because they’re always telling me I wear dad jeans and I tuck my shirt in too much and it should be untucked and all that. It’s like my real life. My daughter is only five, but she tells me when she thinks my clothes aren’t right.

Ricky is not just a dad in a family of girls but he comes from kind of a macho environment. He was a professional athlete.

This guy was a professional baseball player so he went from city to city and hung out with his ballplayer friends and his teammates, but the one thing that he did have in his life was his love of his wife Isabella who he had been with since high school. So it wasn’t like he was out playing the field like you know you hear all these baseball players in sports athletes do. I think Ricky is a pretty dedicated guy to his wife and his three daughters.

So, basically, he has not dated for more than 20 years.

Yes, in over 20 years, his whole adult life he was with one person and so he doesn’t even know what that dating world is like or even how to do it. So, he needs the help of his daughters, his mother-in-law, and his work-family. They are there to kind of push him along and kind of get him out of this groove he has been in.

But it’s not a sitcom, right?

This is a single camera one hour dramedy. It’s not a drama, but I think most comedy comes from dramatic situations, just like in real life. My nine-year-old son said a few years ago, “I just wish that there is something that you could work on that I could watch.” In households nowadays if they have two TVs, one TV has some sort of Nickelodeon or Disney thing on and the parents are watching some procedural show that’s basically the same show that is on the other networks and nobody is really sharing that time together and I think it’s great that this show came about because it really has a little bit of everything for everybody.

What was it like to work with your famous father-in-law, Robert Wagner?

He’s my father-in-law now so I’ve known him for quite a while and so we have a relationship that’s obviously our personal relationship but it was just great to kind of see how he goes about his work and to share the screen time with him. He’s a pro, and there is no drama with him. He prepares for his work and he shows up on time and he is a true professional. And it was just on honor to be able to work with him.

What kind of role does he have?

He plays a possible love interest for Raquel Welch’s character. So, if we end up getting a season two then hopefully he’ll get to come and do more episodes.

And what kind of role did Natasha play?

Natasha plays this character, Page, who is kind of the first woman that Ricky’s taken any sort of interest in since Isabella passed away. I mean he has had some dates before but it’s always like the dates set up by his brother, Bill or somebody from the gym or his daughters or his mother-in-law and so it was kind of the first woman he’s really taken more serious interest in I think.

Ricky must have some challenges both in dating and in raising his daughters when it comes to technology.

We do, we touch on that quite a bit. We actually have really nice episode that deals with cyber bullying, which is something I obviously worry about in my own life with my own kids happening at some point. They’re too young now but eventually they are going to be into that whole social media world. So it was nice to be able to deal with that topic. That’s what’s so great about the show, being able to tackle these different issues that are happening with kids nowadays. I can relate to some of it because bullying is with every generation but now it’s done in such a different way.

And we did have an episode where Ricky tries an online dating service. But not every episode is going to have Ricky on a date. It’s called “Date My Dad” so obviously Ricky would be going on many dates hopefully to try to find the right one at some point but so far what we’ve tackled in the first season was basically about a handful of dates and most of them were set up by relatives or work friends or his mother-in-law, Rosa. Everybody thinks they know, just like real life, but hopefully Ricky won’t find that person for many, many seasons.

What kind of personality does Raquel Welch’s character have?

The Rosa character really pops off the pages. She’s such a memorable character. Raquel Welch was the first person that we went to. She hasn’t had a role like this that she could actually sink her teeth into and show everybody what she can do. So she was very, very excited to get the offer for it. And obviously, it all worked out.

What was your first paid job as an actor?

I had just moved out to LA, I was very young, I can’t remember what year it was but it was a recurring role on “Days Of Our Lives.” I played Randy, a bad boy with a leather jacket. Yes, you’re shooting one episode in one day, so I learned a lot because I got to see how the regulars on that show would go about their process. Some of them had their stuff memorized and knew everything and some of them would use cue cards. So, I got to see who I wanted to be as an actor.

Working with kids is always a challenge for an actor. How did you make your young co-stars feel like a family?

That’s always like the key to any show. You can have a great written show but if you don’t have chemistry with the cast then it doesn’t really matter. And so I was there during the whole casting process with the girls and I actually thought it was going to be a lot harder than it was. Audrey who plays Gigi, the youngest one, her character is a little bit of a brainiac and I’ll never forget Audrey coming in with a blazer on and these glasses and she didn’t even say any lines. She said, “Hi everybody, how are you doing? These are my new transition lenses.” I was like, “Oh my gosh, she’s Gigi.” None of them have really worked that much and so I just tried to take them underneath my wing and try to guide them in the right direction when it comes to how to be a professional and do your job and then when it comes to kind of chemistry, you know that is something I think that’s kind of built throughout the season. The pilot is great. We definitely have chemistry there. But as the series goes on a chemistry develops within that so I think by the end we were such a fine-tuned machine. I love those girls. I hope I get the chance to keep working with them more.

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