Copyright 2016 New Line Cinema It’s all about the eyebrows. Emilia Clarke (“Game of Thrones”) has gamine-like “natural” eyebrows ideal for expressing wonder, hurt feelings, and enthusiasm, and Sam Claflin (“Hunger Games”) has circumflex-like eyebrows ideal for expressing skepticism, irony, and stoicism. All four eyebrows get an extensive workout in “Me Before You,” based on the international best-seller by JoJo Moyes about Louisa Clark (Clarke), a high-spirited, warm-hearted pixie of a girl, just laid off from her job behind the counter at a bakery, and Will Traynor (Claflin), a once-energetic, once-successful finance type from a wealthy family who is now paralyzed below the shoulders following an accident. Lou is hired by Will’s mother (the redoubtable Janet McTeer) as a “companion” for Will, a position that only exists in novels about warm-hearted young women sent to castles with names like Thornhill that have eligible but tortured men waiting to have their hearts warmed. Will has an Aussie aide who handles the icky physical stuff (Stephen Peacocke), so Lou is there to bring cheer to Will, who has no intention of being cheered. And did I mention he lives in a literal castle?
Lou’s family depends on her for money, because her father has been laid off (due, as we will find, to the financial engineering of Will’s one-time protege). And so she accepts the job with no real understanding of caring for a severely disabled person and stays in it even when he refuses to speak to her or to accept her many offers of a cup of tea. Ultimately, through a combination of ennui, frustration, and the impossibility of resisting the charm of Lou’s kindergarten teacher meets Lisa Frank and Hello Kitty-style attire, Will begins to thaw a little. The immense pressure of what he has lost inspires him to want more for her than she wants for herself, and he feels impelled to show her that, even with a castle in its midst, her little town cannot be enough for all she should want from life. Did I mention that his name is Traynor?
This is not a movie that leaves anything to the imagination. Just in case you were not sure of that, Lou’s boyfriend Patrick (one-time Neville Longbottom Matthew Lewis) is Will’s polar opposite, a fitness instructor and “motivational coach” who thinks a few more reps can solve any problem. And just in case that isn’t enough, there’s a brief encounter with the divine Joanna Lumley to spell it all out for Louisa and for us as well.
Okay, so no surprises here, especially if you’ve read the book. Bring a handkerchief, maybe two. But Clarke and Claflin have palpable chemistry, and we are no more able to resist Lou than Will is. As she takes him back out into the world, she thinks it is for him, but he knows it is for her, and we find that the real hero of the story is Will’s, well, will.
Parents should know that this film includes non-explicit sexual references and situation, mild language, severe injury and discussion of assisted death.
Family discussion: Should Will have changed his mind? What will Louisa do next?
If you like this, try: “Love Story” and “A Walk to Remember”
Mary Poppins Returns — With Emily Blunt and Lin-Manuel Miranda
Posted on May 31, 2016 at 4:41 pm
Hamilton writer/star Lin-Manuel Miranda and Emily Blunt will bring us Disney’s new sequel, “Mary Poppins Returns.” P.L. Travers wrote six books about the magical nanny so there is a lot of great material for new adventures. This will be exciting!
“Alice Through the Looking Glass” the movie has almost no relationship to Alice Through the Looking Glass, the book by Lewis Carroll in spirit, character, or storyline. That might possibly be all right if the spirit, character, or storyline were in any way worthwhile, but it is not. Gorgeous production design and some cool stunts do not make up for a story that begins as passable and ends as painful.
Tim Burton, who produced this one, previously gave us an “Alice in Wonderland” with an adult Alice (Mia Wasikowska) replacing the little girl of the story and spending way too much time in the above-ground “real” world as she attends a party, turns down a proposal of marriage from the odious Haimish (Leo Bill), and accepts instead the offer from his father to serve as crew on a merchant ship.
In “Looking Glass,” we first see Alice, now captain of the ship, in an exciting escape from pirates that show us her courage and love of adventure. But when the ship returns to port in London, she finds that Hamish’s father has died, leaving him in charge, and he refuses to let her go back to sea. In his home, she finds a mirror over a fireplace that is a portal back to Wonderland, led by the former caterpillar, now-butterfly (voice of of the much-missed Alan Rickman).
Having already imported the talking flowers, chess pieces, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and the Jabberwocky from “Through the Looking Glass” into the first film, conflating the first story’s Queen of Hearts (the “Off with the head!” one) with the second story’s Red Queen (the chess one) this movie takes — but makes no use of — the first book’s characters like the Cheshire Cat and the White Rabbit, and then has a completely invented story about time travel.
This has many disagreeable aspects, but the worst is when it puts Sasha Baron Cohen as the embodiment of Time into a scene with Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter and allows them to try to out-grotesque each other in a manner clearly intended to be charming. It is not.
Neither is the plot, which relies heavily on just the kind of treacly heartstrings-plucking backstories that Carroll would never have allowed, asking us to feel sympathy for outrageous behavior and affection for caricatures. The first film’s attempt to create a warm, devoted friendship between Alice and the Mad Hatter was rather ooky. In the sequel, we are asked to believe that she has returned to do whatever it takes to help him because they love each other so much.
To paraphrase the folks behind “Seinfeld,” in the Alice world, there should be no hugging and no apologizing — and no heartfelt professions of affection, especially when they are not in any way justified by the characters’ history with each other.
Alice is needed on the other side of the mirror because the Mad Hatter has found something that has convinced him that his family is still alive, and not killed by the Jabberwock as he had thought. Why is this so important? Is it because he misses them so? Not really. It is because he feels bad about his behavior and needs to see them again so he can be forgiven. The disconnect between the expressions of devotion and the narcissistic reality of behavior is disturbingly cynical. Alice decides the only way she can save his family is to go back in time to the Jabberwock battle, which means she has to retrieve the chronosphere from Time himself, and that leads to more time travel as she solves various not-very-mysterious mysteries and Time chases her to get it back. Not that any of it makes any sense, logically or emotionally.
The production design is imaginative and witty, but it is buried under a gormless, hyperactive mess of a film. The book is endlessly witty and imaginative and delightful with all kinds of wordplay, math puzzles, and chess references from Carroll (aka Charles Dodgson), a math professor. The movie wastes all of that opportunity. Look at the title — the movie should be about a reverse world, not a heist/time travel saga that only concludes you can’t change history. If I had the chronosphere, I’d use it to go back to the moment I sat down to watch this movie so I could go home.
Parents should know that this film has extended fantasy peril with many disturbing images, discussion of loss of parents, brief image of someone dying, and bullying.
Family discussion: If you could go back in time, what time would you pick? Why did the Hatter and the White Queen have a hard time telling their families how they felt?
Roots 2016 — Remake of the Classic Series Based on Alex Haley’s Book
Posted on May 25, 2016 at 3:03 pm
The 1977 television miniseries Roots, based on the book by Alex Haley, was one of the foremost cultural events of the decade, watched by millions and discussed by everyone. It followed the story of Haley’s family from the capture of his African ancestor, Kunta Kinte (Levar Burton), who was enslaved and brutally abused. For generations, the family struggles to stay together and to hold onto their culture and history.
A remake of the series begins on May 30, 2016, on the History Channel, and also on Lifetime and A&E. Levar Burton is one of the producers. The cast includes Forest Whitaker as Fiddler, Anna Paquin as Nancy Holt, Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Tom Lea, Anika Noni Rose as Kizzy, Tip “T.I.” Harris as Cyrus, Emayatzy Corinealdi as Belle, Matthew Goode as Dr. William Waller, Mekhi Phifer as Jerusalem, James Purefoy as John Waller, Laurence Fishburne as Alex Haley, and newcomers Regé-Jean Page as Chicken George and Malachi Kirby as Kunta Kinte.
“I think we also think more in terms of the social violence of being separated from your entire genealogy in Africa.”
That is a rift “Roots” tries to highlight, with a new understanding about the real Kunta Kinte, now said to be an educated young man from a prominent, well-to-do family, who lived not in a remote village (as depicted in the 1977 version) but on the shore of a bustling trading post. “He spoke probably four languages,” Mr. Wolper said.
His characterization changed, too: While Mr. Burton’s is a headstrong naïf, the new Kunta is “a little tougher, a little edgier,” Mr. Wolper said, in what he hoped would be a more contemporary spin. Though one of the iconic images of the original was Mr. Burton in shackles, in promotions for this one — “focused thematically more on defiance, resistance and the ability to overcome the shackles of the body,” Mr. Wolper said — Kunta Kinte is shown breaking through his chains.
The new series reflects changes in culture and understanding since 1977, and, like the original, has some important context for contemporary conflicts. The older series is dated in terms of production values and perspective, but it is well worth re-visiting, in part to better understand what has and has not changed.
This week’s Tim Burton “Alice Through the Looking Glass” is the latest film to feature one of the most popular characters in movie history, based on the books Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll. That was the pen name of a Oxford mathematics professor named Charles Dodgson, who wrote the books in 1865 to entertain a little girl named Alice Liddell.
The stories have been adapted for every possible kind of media, from theater to the earliest silent films, audio and radio, one of Disney’s most popular animated features, and live-action films. Some of the most memorable include:
A 1903 British silent film with some of the earliest special effects.
Walt Disney’s 1923 “Laugh-o-Grams,” a series of “Alice” stories with a little girl interacting with animated characters was a variation on Alice in Wonderland.
