Inside Out

Posted on June 18, 2015 at 5:53 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for mild thematic elements and some action
Profanity:	Some schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Some peril and anxiety, sad death
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	June 19, 2015
Date Released to DVD:	November 3, 2015
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00YCY46VO

Roger Ebert liked to refer to movies as an “empathy machine.” He said that the great gift of movies, more than any other art form, is the way they can put us inside the world, experiences, culture, and perspective of someone completely outside our own experience. But the best movies do that in a way that helps us understand ourselves as well. “Inside Out” is a rare film that takes us inside the mind of one very particular 11-year-old girl in a way that illuminates the vast breadth of human experience, with deep insights about our own particular quirks, struggles, and emotions. It is exciting, hilarious (two of the funniest jokes you will see on screen this year), and deeply profound, making the most complex concepts accessible in so that children and adults will learn more about who they are and how they got that way.

Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) is in the midst of internal and external turmoil. She was very happy in Minnesota, playing on a hockey team, with lots of friends, and feeling, well, at home. But her parents have just moved to San Francisco, so that her father can take a new job with a start-up. Everything is new and different and scary. Everything she liked about her life, everything she took for granted, is up for grabs. And all of this is happening just as that developmental leap that comes around age 11 is causing her to change from the bright-spirited, optimistic, happy little girl who was confident in herself and in her family. She is getting old enough to see and feel more of what is going on inside and out. Her parents try to be reassuring, but she knows that her father’s new job is risky. She does not know anyone at school and they do not know her. The old friends from the place she still thinks of as home do not have as much time for someone who is far away.

Of course we have seen this before. There are a lot of movies about people of all ages who are forced to adjust to changed circumstances, or to find a way to make a strange new place feel like home. What is different about “Inside Out” is that Riley is not the character we follow through this story. She has her own adventure, but the story takes place in her mind and it is her emotions who take center stage. They operate the helm of the — yes — Headquarters.

The characters are Joy (Amy Poehler), a pixie-ish blue-haired sprite who is resolutely energetic and upbeat, Anger (Lewis Black), a stocky red fellow who is fiery-tempered and easily outraged, Disgust (Mindy Kaling), green, with a round head, long eyelashes, and a sensitive spirit quick to resist anything new or icky, Fear (Bill Hader), a lean blue creature who usually assumes the worst, and Sadness (Phyllis Smith), who feels everything very, very, very, very deeply. Each of these characters is introduced with what they help Riley do. Anger helps her see unfairness. Disgust helps her to avoid poisonous foods. Fear helps keep her safe. Joy helps her see the world as a place filled with imagination, adventure, and opportunity. And Sadness — we will learn more about what Sadness does later, but for now we will say that it helps her feel empathy. Joy is the leader of the group. She is the most focused and direct and the best able to negotiate with the others. But her goal is to keep all of Riley’s memories happy, and that might not be possible.

As Riley tries to use her mind, her memories, and her emotions to navigate her new community, Joy and Sadness are accidentally transported to where Riley’s memories are stored, and they must make it through an Oz or Wonderland-style land where we learn about everything from abstract thinking to why you CAN’T GET THAT DARN JINGLE FROM THAT STUPID COMMERCIAL OUT OF YOUR HEAD. A surprising — in every sense of the term — new character shows up to provide support and insight, and to embody the sweet sorrow of growing up. Co-writer/director Pete Docter told Terry Gross that it was when Mindy Kaling came to talk to him about the film that he understood what it was really about: you have to grow up, and it’s okay to be sad about it. That applies whether you are the one growing up or just watching it as a parent or friend. This movie speaks to all of us, whether we have children, are children, were children, or still keep the child we were near our hearts. A lot of good movies are smart. But this one is wise.

Parents should know that this movie includes some mild peril, family tension, running away, and a sad death.

Family discussion: Can you think of a time that Joy was steering your mind? How about the other emotions? When can you feel them working together? Did you have a Bing Bong? Why did he make that choice?

If you like this, try: “Everybody Rides the Carousel,” “Up,” and “Monsters Inc.”

San Andreas

Posted on May 28, 2015 at 5:55 pm

Another summer blockbuster-by-the-numbers, another dad who needs redemption and re-connection with his family, and the only way he can get it is via massive, catastrophic disasters lovingly created via CGI that feels more real than the emotions, characters, or dialog. And that brings us to “San Andreas,” the latest in schlock disaster porn.

This time, it’s an earthquake. Before the tectonic plates start to shift, we get quick intros to our two heroes, the brain (Paul Giamatti as Lawrence, a Caltech seismologist) and brawn (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Ray, a military rescue specialist turned LA Fire Department rescue specialist). This job is easier, because “no one is shooting at us.”

These scenes give the professor a chance to lecture his class and establish the scale of damage a quake inflicts and the impossibility of predicting when one will occur (until….). And it gives Ray a chance to rescue a pretty girl whose car has been knocked off a cliff, accompanied by a TV news reporter (“The Good Wife’s” Archie Panjabi) and cameraman. This is also the only clever twist in the film as the pretty girl is speeding along a narrow mountain road, reaching behind her for her water bottle and checking a text, either of which we assume are going to cause an accident. But this is not a Driver’s Ed cautionary video. Her car is knocked off the mountain by boulders, crushing it and wedging it precariously between rocks on the side of the cliff.

Fortunately, Ray and his wisecracking crew arrive to save the day, explaining what they are doing to the reporter so we can power through some more exposition and see the reporter’s notes on one of the team: “Cute but not smart.” Yep. That prepares us for what is coming all right. Except it’s not that cute. Example: two characters crash land in a baseball field and she says to him: “It’s been a while since I got you to second base!” How hilarious and quippily romantic in the midst of the entire state falling into the ocean!

We quickly establish Ray as a devoted father and estranged husband. Final divorce papers arrive in the mail and his ex, Emma (Carla Gugino — please get a better agent) is moving in with Richie Rich, I mean Daniel (Ioan Gruffudd), who has a mansion and a private plane and says that the skyscrapers he builds are his children. To sharpen Ray’s sense of being displaced, Daniel offers to fly Ray’s daughter Blake to her volleyball tournament in San Francisco, instead of driving with her dad.

As if to manifest Ray’s internal upheavals, the earth begins to shake, first in Nevada, where the Hoover Dam collapses, and then on the West Coast, when the fault line of the title, overdue for a major quake after more than a century, seizes, shifts, and heaves.

The special effects are so extensive that it amplifies their unreality. The movie is more concerned with the individual windows exploding out of the buildings than it is about the underlying mechanics of what is actually happening. It is preposterous enough that the professor not only predicts the second quake but hacks into the television networks. Wi-fi, electricity and broadcast channels are still operating, apparently, which is a long shot, but also people are actually watching the television news to find out what is happening, which is even more unlikely. And then, odds fast plummeting below zero, San Francisco is evacuated in a pretty orderly fashion (some folks stopping to loot flat-screens — why it it always flat-screens?), presumably so we can relish all the destruction without worrying too much about the people, the opposite of the neutron bomb. This is PG-13 “action violence,” designed to be exciting, not terrifying.

Goodbye, Golden Gate Bridge, cables swinging vertiginously. Goodbye Coit Tower. All those pretty pixels and algorithms, so cleverly arranged. California is shredded with the same glee the boys who played at our house used to have in wiping out the Sims with every possible kind of catastrophe.

What is terrifying is the Randian twist that has Ray abandoning any duties he has in LA to rescue just two people, both of whom are in his family. And in the middle of Armageddon, he somehow finds time for a heart-to-heart with his ex, after the scales drop from her eyes to understand what a selfish monster Daniel is. For all the literal flag-waving and reference to rebuilding at the end, this is a curiously sour portrayal of disaster as family therapy.

Parents should know that this film concerns a major earthquake affecting Nevada and California, with many collapsing buildings, roads, and bridges, fires, floods, looting, fighting, gun, characters injured and killed, references to death of a child, some disturbing images, and some strong language.

Family discussion: What does this movie teach us about skills and plans we should have for emergencies? What did Emma and Ray learn about one another and why did it take an earthquake for them to reach that understanding?

If you like this, try: “The Towering Inferno” and “The War of the Worlds”

Related Tags:

3D Action/Adventure

Mad Max: Fury Road

Posted on May 14, 2015 at 6:00 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for intense sequences of violence throughout, and for disturbing images
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Constant, intense, and graphic violence, guns, explosions, crashes, some disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	May 15, 2015

Copyright Village Roadshow Pictures 2015

Mad Max (Tom Hardy, taking over from Mel Gibson) stamps on a two-headed lizard and then chews its head off. And that’s just in the first minute. That master of apocalyptic junkyard anarchy, George Miller, is back, bigger, wilder, madder than ever with this fourth of the Mad Max movies, all set in a post-apocalyptic desert dystopia of deprivation, chaos, rust, and brutality. In this world, all anyone has ever known is loss and despair. There is no hope, no thought of any possible way to learn or create. At one point, a character points to something completely unfamiliar to him, calling it “that thing.” It is a tree.

The first three films were about the fight for gasoline to fuel the vehicles pieced together from the wreckage. This one is about another, even more precious fluid: water. Other precious fluids come into the story as well, including blood and breast milk.

A brutal dictatorship has taken over, controlling access to all of that. All are the preserve of Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne, with the right crazy eyes for the role), who lives literally above everyone else in a place known as The Citadel, maintaining control with his army of War Boys, all with shaved heads and powder-white skin and all convinced that their destiny is to die for Immortan Joe and be transported to paradise in Valhalla. Immortan Joe also maintains a harem of impossibly long-legged, lovely young woman. His chief lieutenant is Furiosa (Charlize Theron), a fearless woman with a mechanical arm, so much the central focus of the film that it should have been named for her. When Furiosa escapes with Immortan Joe’s women, including his pregnant “queen,” Joe and his peers come after them, in a convoy of tricked-up vehicles, all made to destroy. Everything is in shades of burnt-out umber except for the bright red suit of a guy shredding an electric guitar to keep everyone angry.

One of the War Boys is Nuz (Nicholas Hoult), who has brought along his “blood bag.” That would be Max, who was captured by Immortan Joe’s troops and kept alive only to serve as a blood donor. Nuz did not want to be left behind but had not yet finished getting his transfusion. So Max is manacled and attached to the front of Nuz’s car. Max ends up with Furiosa and the young women, who are seeing the “green place” where Furiosa was born.

Miller is a master of cinema, and his staging and cinematography on the action scenes are shot through with throbbing, raging, adrenalin that contrasts with the stoicism of Max and Furiosa. Miller has said that the Edge camera car is the most exciting technological innovation in his career. It allowed him (he operated it himself) to put the camera in the middle of the action. He does not like to use CGI, preferring “practical” (real) effects, and the grittiness is so palpable we feel we are inhaling dust.

Hardy is excellent, though, as with Bain, his face is masked for much of the film. Theron is more incendiary than the film’s mountainous fireballs, creating a character with a rich, complicated history in the way she fights, in the determined set of her brows, in the way she looks at the helpless young women, thinking about where she has been and what she has seen. The action makes our hearts beat harder, but Miller’s ability to create characters that transcend the crashes and explosions and themes that resonate all too sharply with contemporary conflicts, are what can make them beat more fiercely.

Parents should know that this film has non-stop apocalyptic action, peril, and violence with many characters injured and killed and several graphic and disturbing images, as well as some strong language, some nudity, and references to domestic abuse.

Family discussion: Why won’t Max tell Furiosa his name? Why did society become so savage? Why was one community different?

If you like this, try: the first three “Mad Max” movies and Welcome to Wherever You Are, A Documentary Celebrating the MAD MAX Mythology

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Posted on April 30, 2015 at 5:17 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action, violence and destruction, and for some suggestive comments
Profanity:	Some strong language and jokes about swear words
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Social drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Extensive and intense sci-fi/comic book violence, some disturbing images, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	May 1, 2015
Date Released to DVD:	September 28, 2015
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00WAJ8QXC

Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) sums it up best. Speaking pretty much to himself but also to us in the audience, he notes that he is on a floating city trying to fight off a robot army with arrows. “It doesn’t make sense,” he concedes. And yet, that is where we are, and we’re okay with it.

Writer/director Joss Whedon knows that we know that this is some superhero silliness, and once in a while we get to see that the characters know it, too. But he never treats the stories or the fans with anything less than respect. We get wisecracks. We get romance. But most of all, we get rock ’em, sock ’em, 3D action involving super-arrows, a super-strong shield, a super-heavy hammer, a cool bang-a-gong hammer hitting shield moment, a super-big, super-angry green guy, a super-assassin, and that genius arms-dealing billionaire philanthropist, Tony Stark.

In the first “Avengers” movie, we had the fun of seeing the team come together, a sort of Traveling Wilburys supergroup made up of heroes each more than able to carry a movie alone. Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.), the Incredible Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), and Black Widow/Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) joined forces to defeat Thor’s brother Loki and retrieve the source of his power, one of the six infinity stones (yep, you saw another one in “Guardians of the Galaxy;” feel free to have your mind blown with Marvel universe awesomeness).

Then they had shwarma.

No time for getting acquainted here. We start smack dab in the middle of the action (thank you, 3D), as our merry band is battling the forces of Hydra, but of course not missing a beat in the quip department, even from the bad guys: “The Americans sent circus freaks to attack us.” Burn! (Both literal and metaphor.) Secret weapons hiding out with Hydra include twins who are very angry and damaged because their parents were killed (by weapons from Stark’s company). Now, thanks to some Hydra tinkering, they have superpowers, best summed up as “He’s fast and she’s weird.” He is Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), and she is the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olson). They both have bad Boris and Natasha accents and look like one of the Diane Arbus-like visions in “The Shining.” Her weird powers involve waggling her fingers and red smoke, with some sort of force field and the ability to impose what looks like a very bad acid trip on anyone with a biology-based brain.

But that’s not the problem. The battle with Hydra lasts just long enough to re-introduce us to everyone and not a few updates, especially a new tenderness between the Black Widow and Bruce Banner. Soon, they’re back at their clubhouse/headquarters and Tony asks for three days to investigate Loki’s stone before Thor returns to to Asgard. What could go wrong?

Pretty much everything, as Tony’s hubristic attempt to create a new artificial intelligence to protect humanity ends up as Ultron (James Spader, using that same tone of languid contempt we first heard when he played Blaine’s snooty rich friend in “Pretty in Pink”). Ultron takes one look around and decides humanity is in need of a major reboot, starting with extermination. Anyone who hates the Avengers has a couple of friends in the twins. And, given the little Hydra infestation problem in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” our group no longer has access to the massive government tools and technology, while Ultron is tapped into all digital data. It’s tough to come up with a bad guy who can be a credible threat to superheroes, but Ultron and the twins are scary and crazy, so they qualify. “Is this your first time intimidating?” Ultron asks with an arrogant robot sneer.

Yep, another big, big battle lies ahead, and yep, it includes a floating city and an army of robots and awesome stunts. It also involves evacuating civilians, often overlooked in superhero films. It also involves some group dynamic governance issues, as you might expect with so many Alpha males in the room. Shwarma, maybe, revels, now and then, but kumbaya, no, not even Robert’s Rules of Order or majority vote. “We don’t have time for a city hall debate,” Stark says as he doubles down on a bad decision. “I don’t want to hear a ‘man was not meant to meddle’ medley.” Perhaps only Downey could give that line the right zhuzh, but that’s why they pay him the big, big, big bucks, and he nails it.

The interaction is a treat, especially when everyone (with one notable exception) tries to lift Thor’s hammer and no one (with one notable exception) succeeds. There is sparkling banter with a refreshing Whedoneseque twist. Given the challenges of making sure at least nine lead characters get their due in dramatic arcs, quippy zingers, and superhero showmanship, it is inevitable that it will be cluttered. It is perhaps a little less inevitable that the ladies will be squeezed out, entirely off-screen Jane and Pepper dismissed with a couple of lines of dialogue about how busy and important they are, Natasha all nurturing and flirty and beauty taming the beast-ish, though she’s dynamite on a motorcycle. But his willingness to grapple with the existential dilemmas of superheroes and his ability to make those questions so much fun is what superheroes — and movies — are for.

NOTE: Stay through the beginning of the credits to find out who the villain will be in the next chapter. But you don’t need to stay after that as there is no shwarma this time.

Parents should know that this film has extended and graphic sequences of superhero peril and action-style violence with some disturbing images, characters injured and killed, some strong language, and brief crude humor.

Family discussion: How can the Avengers find better ways to resolve their conflicts? Why was Stark so wrong in his design for Ultron?

If you like this, try: the other Marvel movies and the original comics

Home

Posted on March 26, 2015 at 5:59 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for mild action and some rude humor
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic/cartoon-style/sci-fi peril and violence, no one badly hurt but some mildly scary images
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	March 27, 2015
Date Released to DVD:	July 27, 2015
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00XRDYK1C

“Home” is a cute and colorful movie about an alien invasion with an important safety tip concerning one of the most destructive forces in the universe, causing utter devastation to every known life form. Yes, it is hitting the dreaded “send to all.”

This is the catastrophe that strikes Oh (Jim Parsons), part of an alien invasion by the Boov, a civilization known for their primary cultural attribute — running away from danger, from problems, and from learning that some of what they believe about the universe may not be right. They are led by the egotistical Smek (Steve Martin), never in doubt and always willing to cut off any disagreement by smacking his fellow Boov with his “susher,” a staff topped by a rock he grabbed during his last unsuccessful negotiation with a terrifying armored alien Commander of a race called Gorg. The Gorg want to destroy the Boov, so the Boov are constantly seeking planets where they can hide. Earth seems homey, so they vacuum up all of the humans and send them off to Australia and settle into their new domicile.

The Boov are not much for socializing, but Oh wants to make friends. He sends out invitations to a housewarming party, but accidentally hits “send to all,” and “all” somehow includes the Gorg. Oh has just alerted their worst enemy to their location. This is one too many mistakes for him (Boov are allowed just three and he is well over that), so he runs away. And that is how he meets Gratuity “Tip” Tucci (Rihanna), a plucky middle-schooler with a cat named Pig. Tip was missed by the Boov vacuums because Pig was on her head so she was not identified as human.

When Oh fixes Tip’s car and promises to help her find her mother, the two of them (plus Pig) go off on a wild ride that includes an upside-down floating Eiffel Tower, plugging themselves into the Boov brain trust network (with a very funny joke about passwords), and, of course, learning a little bit about each other and themselves.

It’s nice to see a person of color as the lead in an animated film and Rihanna gives a warm, spirited vocal performance as Tip, who shares her West Indies heritage. The character design is cute but uninspired. Same for the storyline. But it is bright and colorful — literally. The Boov turn a crayon box of colors to show their emotions. And the briefly glimpsed Gorg add some zingy sharp angles. Playful touches start right at the beginning, with Oh fishing off the Dreamworks logo. The Slushious car, decked out with convenience store staples, is a hoot. And kids will enjoy seeing Oh learn about life on earth, something they know a little about.

Parents should know that this film has some potty humor, mild peril, and cartoon-style violence, and some sci-fi-style scary images.

Family discussion: When do you feel “sad-mad?” Why did Tip decide to be friends with Oh? What was the best thing about the Slushious car?

If you like this, try: “Monsters vs. Aliens” and “Megamind” and the book that inspired this film, The True Meaning of Smekday, by Adam Rex.