Pitch Perfect

Posted on September 27, 2012 at 6:00 pm

The sensationally talented Anna Kendrick finally gets to play the lead in a story about the cutthroat world of a capella competitions. It’s “Stomp the Yard” with singing, or “Glee Goes to College.” The songs are fabulously entertaining, the romance is sweet, Rebel Wilson’s understated zingers are hilarious, Kendrick is pure joy. John Michael Higgins (“Best in Show”) and co-producer Elizabeth Banks (“The Hunger Games”) are the acid-tongued commentators at the big competitions.

And the projectile vomiting is torrential.

I blame “Bridesmaids.” I am certain that as this movie was being prepared, some dimwit studio executive saw how well “Bridesmaids” was doing at the box office and ordered up three scenes of disgusting bodily function humor be (awkwardly) inserted. Minutes after the film begins a musical performance is interrupted by massive barfing. We are later treated to two additional and increasingly ludicrous throwing-up tsunamis, plus some cringeworthy jokes, many very crude, uncomfortably racial, or based on increasingly lame plays on the words “a capella.” Few are even remotely funny.

Kendrick plays Beca, who arrives at college by herself as everyone else is being dropped off by their parents. She is a loner and she does not want to be there. She just wants to get a job creating music. But her professor father makes her promise to give it a year. If she can complete the year successfully, and that includes an activity, he will let her drop out and pursue her dream. So she joins the girls’ a capella (no musical instruments, just voices) group, led by micro-managing control freak Aubrey (Anna Camp), who is determined to come back from the unpleasant nausea incident at the finals of the previous year that has made them the objects of derision, especially from the champion male group. She insists on keeping everything safe and bland, with uniforms that make them look like 1970’s flight attendants and a set-list of safe but bland middle-of-the-road pop.

And there’s a guy. Jesse (Skylar Astin) likes Beca, but Aubrey has made consorting with the members of the male singing group a firing offense. And Beca, very hurt by her parents’ divorce, really does not want to like anyone. But her natural gifts and passion for music inspire her to remix some fresh and edgy songs. The relationships play out through and amid various musical encounters, with the best an informal riff-off competition in an empty swimming pool (good acoustics).

Kendrick proves she is a real movie star but the mash-up with low comedy keeps tripping up the movie’s momentum. The musical harmonies are sublime but Beca’s pointlessly hostile Asian roommate, who only speaks to other Asians and a member of the singing group who is unable to make an audible sound are way off-key.

Parents should know that this movie has some racial and sexual humor with crude references (though the lead couple do nothing more than kiss), some strong language, drug references, and torrential projectile vomiting

Family discussion: Should Beca’s father have pushed her to go to school and try activities? What was the most important thing she learned from being part of the group?

If you like this try: “Glee 3D: The Concert Movie” and the television show “The Sing-Off” and the non-fiction book that inspired this film, Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory by Mickey Rapkin

Lawless

Posted on August 30, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Musician Nick Cave and director John Hillcoat are Australians who are drawn to bleak internal and external landscapes. They worked together on “The Proposition,” a western-style and very violent crime story about brothers. “Lawless” is another crime story about brothers, again very violent and, like “The Proposition,” with a bleak setting and compromised characters. This one is a true story, based on Matt Bondurant‘s book about his Prohibition-era grandfather and great uncles, who were ran illegal hooch in Franklin County, Virginia, described by writer Sherwood Anderson as “the wettest county in the world.”

“There’s a feeling around these parts that these Bondurants is indestructible,” one character says. Forrest Bondurant (a quietly powerful Tom Hardy) came back from WWI without injury and the community almost believes the legend that he cannot be stopped. That’s good for business; you might even say it is their brand. But just as in legitimate enterprise, the success of a local operation selling moonshine in mason jars attracts the interest of the competition. The big bootlegging organization out of Chicago is thinking about what one might call a very hostile takeover. The Bondurants have a good relationship with the local sheriff, who is happy looking the other way for a small piece of the action. But a federal agent named Charlie Rakes (an oily and twisted Guy Pearce) arrives and for him it is not about law, morality, or directions from his superiors. It is about power. The Bondurants are not afraid of him and that is why he wants to destroy them. Pearce, in gloves and slicked-down hair parted in the middle, is one of the best villains of the year.

Forrest is the leader and he has an unspoken understanding with his brother Howard (Jason Clarke). Indeed, a lot that goes on here is unspoken. The youngest brother, Jack (Shia LeBoeuf) wants to prove himself to his older brothers. And he wants to prove something to a pretty churchgoing girl named Bertha (Mia Wasikowska). Brash and flashier than his brothers, he has the nerve to try to make a deal with machine gun-toting Chicago hood Floyd Banner (Gary Oldman) and the entrepreneurial instinct to improve and expand production and delivery. When he sees a brutal gangland slaying, his only thought is to grab a souvenir shell case. He will have a Michael Corleone moment when the violence gets closer to home. “It is not the violence that sets men apart,” Forrest says. “It is the distance he is prepared to go.” The Bondurants do not give up. It is not about the money. It is about defending their home and their right to make their own choices.

Maggie (Jessica Chastain) shows up out of the blue one day, offering her manicured hand to Forrest’s rough one and offering to work for the brothers. “The city can grind a girl down,” she tells Forrest. “Gets to a point where you start looking for somewhere quiet.”

Franklin County is far from quiet. But the noise Maggie wanted to escape was the cacophony of heartlessness she was surrounded by in the city. Everyone in this story is breaking the de jure law, but Maggie knows that the Bondurants have a core of integrity and loyalty that she can count on. And she will show that she can be counted on as well.

Strong performances and an evocative sense of time and place anchor the film and the unexpected tenderness of the romantic interludes balances the brutality. A coda provides perspective that just because someone is willing to go the distance does not mean he cannot come back home.

Parents should know that this is the true story of moonshiners during Prohibition, so the good guys are law-breakers and the police are corrupt. The movie includes extremely graphic violence with characters tortured, injured, sexually abused, and killed, strong language including a racial slur and segregation, sexual situations including prostitution, female nudity, and alcohol and smoking.

Family discussion: How were the brothers alike and how were they different? The script was written by musician Nick Cave – how does the music help tell the story?

If you like this, try: Lawless: A Novel Based on a True Story by the real-life grandson of the youngest Bondurant brother

The Bourne Legacy

Posted on August 9, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for violence and action sequences
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drugs, drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended spy-type violence with hand-to-hand combat, guns, chases, explosions, many characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	August 10, 2012
Date Released to DVD:	December 10, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B005LAIIPS

Different spy. Different program. Same evil conspiracy still trying to justify the nastiest of means with the most unprovable ends. This is “The Bourne Legacy,” the fourth in the Bourne series and the first not to star Matt Damon. Tony Gilroy, who wrote the first three films, wrote and directed this latest installment, with “Hurt Locker’s” Jeremy Renner as Aaron Cross, like Jason Bourne an inconvenient reminder of an ambitious spy program that at least some people believe needs to be shut down with extreme prejudice. Those of us who felt there was not enough Renner in the crowded Avengers movie (he was the guy with the bow and arrow) are glad to see him take the lead here. He handles it gracefully.

The way he walks, runs, and punches is as important to defining the character as what he says, and Renner moves with an athlete’s economy, precision, and confidence. We first see Cross in an isolated, frozen location (the settings, even more than usual, really tell the story) and we immediately learn that he is brave, resourceful, and very capable. And that he takes some sort of pills. Soon he meets up with another guy (the always-outstanding Oscar Isaac) and even though they have never met, they communicate with the kind of shorthand that lets us know they recognize they share the same training and perhaps more and yet do not entirely trust one another. Soon we find that the same people who wanted to shut down any record of Jason Bourne’s Treadstone project are trying to erase any evidence of Cross’s project, Outcome and they will do anything to make that happen.

Jason Bourne could not remember who he was or how he came to be injured and floating in the water, and we shared his discovery of his own history and growing realization of the corruption and betrayal around him. So it seems logical that Gilroy would go in the opposite direction with Aaron Cross. His problem is not a loss of memory. In a way, he has too much memory. Slight spoiler alert here, though it is revealed in the trailer — the operatives in the Outcome project have been physically and intellectually enhanced with medication monitored by scientists, including Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz, who can carry off the brainy beauty role). Cross does not need to find out who he is. He needs to stay who he has become. When he runs out of the medication, he has to have her help to get him more.

One of the highlights of the film takes place in Marta’s home, a huge house in the country with beautiful lines and a great deal of potential but a shabbiness that tells us she is a person of taste and vision who never created the home she hoped to have. The confrontation that takes place there binds her to Carter and sets the rest of the story in motion. They end up in the Philippines, and Gilroy makes great use of the city for neatly-staged chase scenes.

Renner is a superb choice for an action hero, with easy charisma, intelligence, and mad fighting skills. He holds the screen effortlessly and is quickly becoming one of the most appealing leading men in Hollywood. The problem with the film is the decision to give him chemically enhanced capacities. It’s the Batman/Superman divide. The first three Bourne movies gave us a damaged hero we could identify with because he was so human. But with Cross, it is hard to identify with him or gauge his level of danger because we don’t really know what he can do or whether another hit of the meds could ramp him up further. We’re rooting for Renner all the way. Cross, not quite as much.

Parents should know that this film has extensive spy-style action violence with chases, explosions, fights, shoot outs, some strong language, drugs, drinking, and a non-explicit sexual situation.

Family discussion: How is Aaron Cross different from Jason Bourne? What do we learn from the scene with the other Outcome agent? Who is in the best position to stop Byer?

If you like this, try: the other “Bourne” movies and the novels by Robert Ludlum and “Hanna”

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days

Posted on August 2, 2012 at 6:09 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some rude humor

This is the third movie based on the wildly popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney. With each movie, the franchise becomes better at milking the formula that causes 4th graders to cringe with delight. The story is always the same: Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon) suffers through the traumas and indignities of a young boy growing up. Tormented by his older brother, hounded by his younger brother, misunderstood by his parents and teachers, and haunted by Holly ( Peyton List), the unattainable pretty girl in his class, Greg muddles through one humiliating mishap after another, accompanied by his well-intentioned best friend Rowley (Robert Capron).

This episode, which is based on the fourth book in the Wimpy Kid series, begins at the close of the school year. The last day is of course excruciating (Greg’s father accidentally gave the school a humiliating baby picture of Greg for the yearbook) but Greg is looking forward to a long and happy summer of computer games and time with Holly. Alas, it is not to be. Greg’s father insists that Greg get out of the house and do something worthwhile. From this premise follows a summer full of catastrophes. Greg’s parents think he might become more responsible if he takes care of a dog. Then they try signing him up to learn outdoorsmanship with Wilderness Troop 133. They consider enrolling him at a disciplinary prep school for irresponsible children. Finally, Greg’s parents leave him alone when he tells them that he has found a summer job. In reality, Greg has no job; he spends the summer sneaking into a country club where he tries to impress Holly. This lie will not end well for Greg, yet like all of the Wimpy Kid movies, everything ends on a warm and upbeat note.

Greg describes his baby brother’s security blanket as “a couple of pieces of yarn held together by raisins and boogers.” One could describe the plot of this movie the same way. There is very little plot to hold together a string of contrived and embarrassing anecdotes. When Greg jumps off the high dive board in front of everyone at the country club, his swim trunks improbably catch on the diving board and come off. He is trapped in the pool naked until an even more embarrassing alternative presents itself: Greg slips on a girl’s bathing suit labeled “princess” across the butt, and hurries out of the pool while people laugh at him and call him “loser.” These episodes are all painful but consistent with the brand of Wimpy Kids, the film always turns away just before the situation becomes truly awful.
The children in the theater all seemed to enjoy being grossed out by Greg’s misadventures. They simultaneously laughed out loud and yelled “Eeewwwwwww.” But those who are old enough to have come to terms with normal bodily functions may be less intrigued.

(more…)

Total Recall

Posted on August 2, 2012 at 6:00 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, some sexual content, brief nudity, and language
Profanity:	Some strong language (for example, s-words, one f-word)
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense and sustained sci-fi action and violence, shooting, explosions, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	August 3, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B005LAII3A

Will the 2012 version of the story inspired by Philip K. Dick’s “We Can Remember it for You Wholesale” erase the memory of the Arnold Schwarzenegger sci-fi classic from 1990? Dick’s story is about a time in the future when a company named Rekal (Rekall in the films) implants false memories to order — vacations, heroic missions, romances –and a man who tries to buy a memory only to find that his own real-life memories have been imperfectly erased and he is neither what nor who he thought he was. Both movie versions are very loose adaptations, but both, like the story, are about heroes who have no memory of their previous lives as spies and assassins until an attempt to insert a happy memory of a vacation trip inadvertently jars loose some imperfectly erased memories of another life.

The original film is fondly remembered but even its fans admit that it is cheesy, with special effects that look like cardboard compared to today’s digital enhancements. The new version has vastly better effects and a vastly better actor with Colin Farrell as Quaid (Quail in the story). He is a factory worker (jackhammer operator in the earlier film) whose dreams seem more real to him than his waking life with a beautiful, affectionate, and sympathetic wife (Kate Beckinsale as Lori, memorably played in the original by Sharon Stone).

Director Len Wiseman (the “Underworld” movies and “Life Free or Die Hard”) and production designer Patrick Tatopoulos create a dazzlingly dystopic world. If it draws heavily on the brilliant work of Syd Mead in “Blade Runner,” at least it pays homage to the best and, after all, that was also based on a Dick story about a dark future and the exploitation of imperfect memory. As in “Blade Runner,” the setting combines the decay of edifices contemporary to our time that we still think of as impressive and useful with the imposition of harshly impersonal spaces and some mind-boggling technology that is matter-of-factly ordinary for the characters who use it. The hover car and the literally hand-held phone are great fun. There are some major logical inconsistencies in the story but it works as a popcorn pleasure.

Some people have strong attachments to the original movie and embrace the cheesiness and for them this re-imagined version is unlikely to replace that memory. While it honors the earlier version, sometimes directly, sometimes with a cheeky twist, this version works just fine on its own, with well-staged chases and confrontations and even a bit of existential rumination about memory, identity, and redemption. Beckinsale’s character is more prominent than Stone’s (yes, she is married to the director, with whom she worked in the vampiric “Underworld” series as well, but it works). Bryan Cranston, Bill Nighy, and Bokeem Woodbine contribute solid performances that keep things grounded. No Mars, no turban, no “consider this a div-ausss,” but it is an entertaining, visually striking adventure with a main character you will not want to forget.

Parents should know that this film includes a great deal of intense and sometimes graphic sci-fi action, peril, and violence, with many shoot-outs and many characters injured and killed. There are some disturbing images of mutants. Characters use some strong language (mostly s-words and one f-word), drink, and get drunk. There are some sexual references and a non-explicit situation and brief nudity (a woman with three breasts).

Family discussion: How did Quaid decide who to believe? If you had a chance to buy a memory from Rekall, would you? What would it be?

If you like this, try: “Blade Runner,” also based on a story by Philip K. Dick, and the original “Total Recall” with Arnold Schwarzenegger.