Posted on September 16, 2014 at 8:00 am
Inspired by Chekhov’s “The Seagull,” this is the story of a weekend at a country house that includes a famous actress, her discontented son, and people who love the wrong people and are angry at each other — sometimes at the same time.
Posted on July 15, 2014 at 4:52 pm
Mathias Gold (Kevin Kline) is a down-on-his-luck New Yorker who inherits a Parisian apartment from his estranged father. But when he arrives in France to sell the vast domicile, he’s shocked to discover a live-in tenant who is not prepared to budge. His apartment is occupied by a “viager” (like a squatter) — an ancient French real estate system with complex rules pertaining to its resale. The feisty Englishwoman Mathilde Girard (Maggie Smith), who has lived in the apartment with her daughter Chloé (Kristin Scott Thomas) for many years, can by contract collect monthly payments from Mathias until her death.
With no place to go, Mathias strikes a tentative lodging arrangement with Mathilde, instantly clashing with suspicious, lovelorn Chloé over his private dealings with a rapacious property developer, who wants to purchase the apartment. An uneasy détente settles in as the quarreling Mathias and Chloé come to discover a common ground of childhood pain and neglect. As they draw increasingly closer, Mathilde unveils a complex labyrinth of secrets that unites the trio in unexpected ways.
The first-time director is acclaimed playwright (and Beastie Boys dad) Israel Horovitz, based on his play.
Posted on June 19, 2014 at 6:00 pm
Winston Churchill famously said that history is written by the victors. In movie terms, that means that when you see the names of just two of the original Four Seasons listed as the film’s producers, it is clear we are going to get their side of the story.
This film, like the Tony Award-winning musical, is the “VH1 Behind the Music”-style story of four guys from the scrappy streets of New Jersey who grow up with only three possible career paths: the military, the mob, and somehow achieving fame. The first two have a high risk of getting killed. The last seems unobtainable. But the four guys, brought together in part by a fifth guy who took the fame option, Oscar-winner Joe Pesci (played in the film by Joseph Russo), became one of the most successful pop acts of all time, with number one hits through the 60’s-70’s.
Clint Eastwood, a composer himself, who made a fine musical biopic about Charlie Parker (“Bird”), has taken on this story, beautifully performed, but too focused on the lives of the group’s members, with very little about what it was that made them stars, or even what the music meant to them aside from a way to get out of New Jersey and support their families.
Tony Award-winner John Lloyd Young plays the undisputed star of The Four Seasons, Frankie Valli, whose pure-toned, remarkably elastic three-octave range was the pure aural joy amidst the sweet harmonies of the Four Seasons sound. It was that voice that persuaded 15-year-old Bob Gaudio (Erich Bergen), already the composer of a hit single (“Who Wears Short Shorts”), to join the group. A handshake deal between Gaudio and Valli continues to this day.
Eastwood and cinematographer Tom Stern give the movie a bleached-out look that gives the skin tones of the cast the consistency of putty. This is intended to express the grittiness of the New Jersey community, but it just looks drab. And it undermines the points that Eastwood and the Jersey boys themselves try to make about their rough-and-tumble environment when the kindly cop knows everyone in the community so well he remembers Frankie’s curfew. Even the mob boss (a deliciously droll performance by Christopher Walken) is so cute and cuddly that he cries openly when Frankie sings a sentimental number. And he’s there to step in when another mob guy is less understanding.
The predictable temptations and stresses of life on the road are predictably laid before us. Some day, I hope someone will make a movie about a famous guy that won’t have the screaming fight with the wife about how he’s never home. This is not that film. And there are the struggles for leadership, the poor judgment with money, also resolved the Jersey way. We briefly see decisions that led to iconic details. After several other names, the group picked “The Four Seasons” from a sign at a bowling alley that would not hire them to perform. “Big Girls Don’t Cry” came from a Billy Wilder movie they saw on television. But we never get a real sense of the era, of how they fit into the culture musically, how they interacted with the fans, how they were affected by experiencing the world outside of New Jersey.
It is absorbing, largely because of excellent performances by all four of the Jersey Boys, but uneven, largely because the script assumes that we will be as fascinated with the relationships of the four men as they are themselves. At the end, Frankie says that for him the high point was finding their sound, just four guys harmonizing under a street light. That’s a moment we never get to experience. The only time we feel their pleasure in performing is in what has to be seen as the curtain call number, an odd piece of theatricality that, after two and a half hours of running time, finally shows us what made the Four Seasons so thrilling to experience.
Parents should know that this film has very strong language including crude sexual references, a non-explicit sexual situation, smoking, drinking, off-screen drug abuse, and references to mob activity.
Family discussion: Why does Frankie take responsibility for what Tony did? Why did he leave his daughter with her mother? What do you think was their high point and why did Frankie pick the one he did?
If you like this, try: other musician biopics like “Ray” and “Walk the Line” and the music of the Four Seasons. And to get a glimpse of Frankie Valli today, look for him in a small role in Rob Reiner’s “And So It Goes” with Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton.
Posted on February 13, 2014 at 6:00 pm
B| Lowest Recommended Age: | Adult |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated R for for sexual content, language and brief drug use |
| Profanity: | Very strong, crude, and explicit language |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | Drinking, drunkenness, scenes bars, marijuana |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Comic peril |
| Diversity Issues: | Diverse characters |
| Date Released to Theaters: | February 14, 2014 |
Kevin Hart, who starred in the surprisingly successful “Ride Along” just last month, is back with a much sharper, funnier comedy that is ideal for making the best use of his brash, motormouth persona. Even more important, for the first time Hart appears opposite someone who is every bit his match, the fabulously talented and knock-out gorgeous Regina Hall. It’s one of the best on-screen romantic pairings since Mae West and W.C. Fields. As a funny post-credit scene shows, she not only kept up with him every step of the way, she challenged him to do better. It is clear he is not only upping his game but having a blast.
David Mamet’s play “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” was softened a bit for its 1986 movie version, also called “About Last Night,” a romantic comedy starring Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Jim Belushi, and Elizabeth Perkins. But it was still, for its time, provocatively frank in its portrayal of two couples who were navigating a world that was post Mr. Goodbar but pre-AIDS, pre-Tinder, and pre use of the term “booty call.”
Like the original, there is a serious couple and a comic couple. As the movie begins, Bernie (Hart) and Joan (Hall) are each giving their best friends all the details (and I mean all) of the wild, drunken sex within moments of meeting at a bar the night before. Their friends are Danny (Michael Ealy, with a lot of leading man sizzle) and Debbie (Joy Bryant, with one of the best smiles in Hollywood), both serious, stable, and gunshy about relationships following some bad experiences. Bernie and Joan bring their friends along to their second meeting, otherwise known as the “this isn’t a date date.” Bernie and Joan introduce them to each other as “boring,” and that, more than any other reason, prompts them to try to interact and prove that it isn’t true. “I’m not really boring,” Debbie explains. “I just pretend to be so she can be the crazy one.” Debbie and Danny have sex within hours after meeting, uncharacteristic impulsivity for both of them, and then they worry about what it all means.
Danny and Debbie end up moving in together but poor communication, struggles with intimacy, and Danny’s insecurity over losing his job while Debbie is professionally accomplished. No one seems to know what it means to have sex, to live with someone, to say “I love you” first, to decide to get a puppy. And no one is clear about what it should mean — Danny and Debbie want to have a relationship (most of the time) but sometimes it scares them. And when one of them gets scared, the other’s feelings get hurt.
What keeps this part of the story from bogging things down is the energy and oh-no-you-didn’t outrageousness of the bicker/banter, which starts out down and dirty and then gets even down and dirtier. From the opening blast of “Sex Machine” through a series of hilariously explicit conversations swinging back and forth between confident assertions about the most intimate specifics and panicked cluelessness about the basics of any form of interaction out of bed. So, there’s a lot of theories about how to behave and a lot of failure to carry it off. Danny’s problems at work and with an ex are under-written distractions that don’t work as well as the silly fun of a costume party that has Danny and Debbie dressed as Ike and Tina Turner. The energy and chemistry of the four leads keeps things moving so briskly that it diminishes the familiarity of the material. And, more important, it keeps us hoping for a happy ending.
Parents should know that this is a very raunchy comedy. It features extremely explicit sexual references and situations, sexual humor including many jokes about casual sex and various sexual acts and body parts, drinking and drunkenness, drinking games, and marijuana.
Family discussion: Why did Danny keep asking Debbie if they were fighting? Why did Bertie and Joan enjoy making each other angry?
If you like this, try: the original version, starring Rob Lowe and Demi Moore (briefly glimpsed in this remake), “He’s Just Not That Into You,” and “Think Like a Man”
Posted on January 19, 2014 at 3:27 pm
NBC pledged to follow up it’s live production of “The Sound of Music” with another family musical and they’ve announced what the next one will be — another classic that originally starred Mary Martin, “Peter Pan.”
There have been many versions of James M. Barrie’s classic story since he first wrote it as a play and novel in the early 20th century. It was a revolution in the theater back then — not just the flying but the audience participation as everyone had to clap to bring Tinkerbell back to life. Mary Martin starred on Broadway in the 1954 musical with songs by Mark “Moose” Charlap, with additional music by Jule Styne, and most of the lyrics were written by Carolyn Leigh, with additional lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Martin and her co-star Cyril Richard (who played both Mr. Darling and Captain Hook) performed the musical on television in 1955, setting a viewership record. Martin did two more versions on television and later productions starred Sandy Duncan and Cathy Rigby, who played Peter on Broadway and on the road from 1990 until 2010.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s3VfxCYqXs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sye2NanCYHIWho should put on the tights and flying harness for this new production?
