Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked

Posted on December 15, 2011 at 6:30 pm

The third in the series about the singing chipmunks and their exasperated but perpetually forgiving human father is a little brighter and sweeter than its predecessors. It tones down the slapstick and potty humor, meriting a family-friendly G rating.

The mischievous chipmunk trio singing pop songs in high, squeaky voices have been enduringly popular since their Grammy-winning 1958 single “Christmas Don’t Be Late,” the one where Alvin wants a huuuula hoooooooop. Songwriter Ross Bagdasarian used early audiotape technology to find the right speed – slow enough to be intelligible but fast enough for a helium-like sound to give the harmonies some buoyancy. Many recordings and an animated television series later, Ross Bagdasarian, Jr. has continued the saga of the chipmunks with live action movies starring Jason Lee as their long-suffering human father, Dave Seville.

Like the previous films, the third in the series relies primarily on recycled pop songs, Alvin’s naughtiness, Dave’s frustration, a silly bad guy (David Cross as Ian), and a couple of grown-up jokes (James Bond and the double rainbow YouTube hit) to keep the parents awake. It benefits from the welcome addition of former “Saturday Night Live” cast member Jenny Slate, best known for her viral video and book, “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.”

It begins as Dave, the three original chipmunks, and their female counterparts, the Chipettes, board a cruise ship (intrusive product placement alert) for a much-needed vacation (cue the Go-Go’s). As usual, Alvin keeps getting into trouble and Dave keeps apologizing for the chaos Alvin leaves behind. Their old nemesis Ian shows up on the ship, too, in a pelican costume. There’s an amusing nightclub scene on the ship when the Chipettes are challenged to a dance-off to the inescapable earworm “Party Rock.”

When a kite mishap carries the chipmunks out to sea, Dave and Ian go after them via parasail and everyone ends up cast away on a remote island with only one inhabitant, the stranded Zoe (Slate). Yes, time for Destiny’s Child’s “Survivor.”

This is the best part of the movie as the chipmunks are pushed outside of their usual personas. When the cautious, bookish Simon is bit by a toxic insect, he has a temporary personality change, announcing he is now a dashing French-accented daredevil. Without Simon to act as leader, Alvin has to stop being “the fun one” and be responsible for taking care of the others. Chipette Jeanette learns that she can be more than “the pretty one” and rely on her intelligence and resourcefulness, especially after they discover hidden treasure, another Chipette is chip-napped, and a volcano starts to erupt.

Top voice talents Justin Long, Jesse McCarthy, Amy Poehler, Anna Faris, and Christina Applegate are wasted as the chipmunks, their sped-up voices unrecognizable. The same could be said for musical numbers. Upbeat tunes by edgy performers like LMFAO, Lady Gaga, and Pink are homogenized into indistinguishable rhythmic buzz. For kids, the familiarity, the silliness, and Dave’s unconditional love even when the chipmunks get into trouble make it appealing. For adults, the best it has to offer are nostalgia and a running time under 90 minutes.

(more…)

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Posted on December 15, 2011 at 6:26 pm

There are spy stories with glamor and chases and explosions and answers. And there are spy stories like this one, murky, gritty, grubby, complicated. The brilliant BBC miniseries version of the the book by John le Carre opened with the grim-looking Russian matryoshka nested dolls, a perfect image for this Cold War era story of a traitor at the heart of British intelligence. The original miniseries, with Alec Guinness as the exiled spy called back in to find the mole was known for being both superbly made and almost impenetrable. I watched it four times before I felt confident that I had some idea of what was going on. And now it has been remade in a fraction of the running time. Its production design is brilliantly done and there are moments of extraordinary power and artistry but it is even harder to follow. Yes, the difficulty is part of the point. While one of the reasons we love movies and indeed stories of all kinds is that they make sense of a complicated and ambiguous world, and you can even make sense by pointing out the complicated and ambiguous nature of things, this movie does not have the time or the scope to tell this story effectively and suffers by comparison with the superior earlier version.

Gary Oldman plays the Guinness role of the ironically named George Smiley. He is a spy who was once close to “Control” (John Hurt), the head of British Intelligence, officially known as MI6 but referred to by everyone as “the Circus.” Smiley was pushed out of the Circus, which is why when one of their agents is double-crossed, shot, captured, and tortured, that someone in the top levels is giving secrets to the Soviets, Smiley is the only senior spy who is not a suspect, and thus the only one who can investigate. Control tells him it is one of five men, and he assigns code names to them based on the old nursery rhyme: tinker, tailor, soldier, poorman, and beggarman. Smiley is helped by a young agent named Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch) and a rogue agent named Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), as well as a visit to a retired MI6 head of research (Kathy Burke in the film’s best performance).

But nothing is as straightforward as that paragraph suggests. Everything is codes within codes and what is not said or shown is more important than what is. The atmosphere is the most important character in the film. The production design by Maria Djurkovic powerfully evokes the era as Britain adjusts to post-WWII economic struggles and its rapidly shrinking role in international affairs with its dingy institutional spaces and ironically child-like vocabulary. The scenes set at an office Christmas party are dead-on and deadly, the mirthless drinking and sad little decorations. The contrast between the smallness of that world and the enormity of the end-of-the-world issues in those early days of WMDs is conveyed better by a hand-lettered sign in a grimy office than by the the big reveal about who has been providing secrets instead of gathering them.

(more…)

Thomas the Tank Engine: Rescue on the Rails

Posted on December 9, 2011 at 3:57 pm

Rescue on the Rails is the new adventure from Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends. When Bertie gets stuck on Shake Shake Bridge, Gordon is derailed, and Thomas’ firebox is on fire, who will come to the rescue? Being heroic is more than speed and strength — it is about courage, heart, and teamwork, as every Really Useful Engine knows.

I have one copy to give away. Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with Thomas in the subject line and don’t forget your address. Tell me which engine is your favorite and I will pick a winner on December 16. Good luck!

The Muppets

Posted on November 22, 2011 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	All Ages
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some mild rude humor
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Some tense confrontations
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	November 23, 2011
Date Released to DVD:	March 19, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B006JTS5OO

Let the joy be unrestrained. The Muppets are back. It turns out that deep inside Jason Segal, best known for raunchy Judd Apatow comedies and for playing the monogamous Marshall on “How I Met Your Mother,” is at his core a puppet nerd whose highest and best use is in pushing Disney (which now owns the rights to the Muppets) to let him co-write and co-star in the happiest family movie of the year. And it is accompanied by a “Toy Story” short film that is, minute for minute, the funniest movie of the year.

Segal plays Gary, a sweet small-town guy who is devoted to his brother Walter and his girlfriend of ten years, Mary (Amy Adams), a teacher. Gary and Walter are devoted fans of the old Muppet Showand they spend many happy hours watching reruns. When Gary takes Mary on their first visit to the big city of Los Angeles, they bring Walter along so that he can realize his dream of touring the Muppet studios. Mary was hoping for something a bit more romantic but good-heartedly agrees to share the trip with Walter as long as Gary promises a special anniversary dinner for just the two of them.

The Muppet studio is broken-down and covered with cobwebs. The only other people on the tour are a couple who mistakenly thought they were at Universal Studios. Walter wanders off and overhears the dastardly Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) plotting to buy the studio. He will promise to preserve the Muppets legacy and then tear it down to drill for the oil underneath. To save the studio the Muppets have to raise $10 million. But they have gone their separate ways. Can they get the band back together? And if they do, does anyone still want to see them? When Gary gets caught up in helping the Muppets, will he forget the anniversary dinner?

Segal and co-screenwriter Nicholas Stoller have seamlessly continued the story of the the captivating Muppets, with their unique blend of sweetness and self-deprecating insouciance. It’s what Danny Thomas used to call “treacle cutters” that keep the Muppets fresh and appealing, expertly countering every corny joke with heart and every tender moment with humor. With joyously sunny musical numbers composed by “Flight of the Conchords” co-star Bret McKenzie and cameos by everyone from Mickey Rooney to Sara Silverman and Neil Patrick Harris, this film is utterly true to the spirit of the original television series and pure delight for both fans and newcomers.

(more…)

The Smurfs

Posted on July 28, 2011 at 9:58 am

After a promising beginning with the tart but sweet romantic comedy “Never Been Kissed,” director Raja Gosnell has been mired in the quagmire of movie junk food, “family” movies like “Scooby-Doo” and “Yours, Mine and Ours.” They are the cinematic equivalent of high sugar, high fat processed food: loud, crude, special-effects-driven, cheesy, and vacuous. His updates miss both the charm and the point of the originals. While the animated “My Little Pony” is not only back on television but it is suddenly hip, this latest version of the Smurfs combines an enchanted world of magical animated characters with live-action New York City and manages to get the worst of both worlds. It tries to appeal to kids with pratfalls, potty humor, and the substitution of “Smurf” for every possible noun, verb, and adjective. It tries to appeal to adults with pointless cameos by Tim Gunn and Joan Rivers. Gunn looks around with the disappointed expression he usually reserves for those Project Runway contestants who are an hour from deadline without an idea and Rivers delivers her one line as if she is hoping her face will look as lively as the expressions of the animated characters. It doesn’t.

The Smurfs were created by Belgian comic artist Peyo (Pierre Culliford), who came up with the idea after he and a friend joked around by substituting nonsense syllables for the words in a conversation. He created a community of magical blue creatures “three apples high” called Smurfs who have adventures, fight off the evil wizard Gargamel, and say things like “Oh my Smurf!” “Smurf-zactly!” and, heaven help us, “Smurf happens.” The film-makers are so proud of that last piece of wit they used it for the URL of the movie’s website.

Children enjoy the Smurfs because they are tiny, magical, sometimes mischievous but sweet, and able to defeat their foe, a human-sized wizard named Gargamel. Kids like being able to predict what each Smurf will do, not too challenging because each one’s name, Seven Dwarf-style reflecting his sole characteristic. (The only female Smurf is called Smurfette, because being female is all you need to know about her.) Children learn what it means to be “Greedy,” “Grouchy,” “Vain,” or “Clumsy,” from the characters with those names. And listening to the way the word “Smurf” is used in the dialog is a good introduction to the way language works.

This film takes six of the Smurfs out of their animated community, with its quaint mushroom houses and soft pastel colors. Grouchy (George Lopez), Brainy (“SNL’s” Fred Armisen), Clumsy (Anton Yelchin), the inexplicably Scottish Gutsy (Alan Cummings), Smurfette (the endearingly candy-sparkle voice of pop star Katy Perry), and elder statesman Papa Smurf (Jonathan Winters) are chased by Gargamel (Hank Azaria) and his cat Azrael, who want their magical blue essence. They are all sucked through a portal that lands them in live action Central Park.

Before they can find a way to get back home, they encounter a harried marketing executive (Neil Patrick Harris) and his pregnant wife (“Glee’s” Jayma Mays), toy store F.A.O. Schwartz, an apartment, an office, a prison yard, and many, many unfunny attempts at comedy about the words “blue” and “Smurf.” Also, in a plot twist apparently lifted from every single episode of the last two seasons of “Bewitched,” the Smurfs mess up their new friend’s advertising campaign for his imperious boss (“Modern Family” bombshell Sofia Vergara) but of course somehow it turns out for the best.

The kids in the audience enjoyed the pratfalls, laughing uproariously when Gargamel got hit by a bus, and happily squealing at the gross-out humor from a disgusting hairball, a smelly port-a-potty, and a chamber pot in the middle of an elegant restaurant. They liked seeing Harris get down with the Smurfs for a rousing round of “Rock Band.” It is good to see Smurfette get a chance to show her fighting spirit, though not so good to see her stuck with a plot line about wanting new dresses, and downright disappointing to see her have to stand on a heating vent in one of them for a Marilyn Monroe joke. This must be why Gutsy is Scottish – so his kilt can billow up when he stands on the vent, too.

The movie wants us to feel affection for the Smurfs and make fun of them, too. It is is raw and mean-spirited, with too many of the “Smurf” word substitutions more naughty than nice (“Who Smurfed?” “Where the Smurf are we?”). That’s Smurfed up.

(more…)