Last Vegas

Posted on November 2, 2013 at 11:57 am

Oscar-winning actors are a precious commodity, usually doled out no more than one or two per movie. But in this AARP-version of “The Hangover” crossed with “Ferris Bueller,” there are five, and the greatest pleasure of this film is in watching the evident pleasure they take in each other. They appreciate each other, they trust each other, and they challenge each other. Morgan Freeman, Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, and Kevin Kline play the “Flatbush Four,” lifelong friends who grew up together in Brooklyn, the kind who cheerfully call each other unprintable insults but who are always there for each other. Remember the end of “Stand By Me.” when Richard Dreyfuss says, ” I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?” These are those guys, 58 years, a few spouses, some medical issues and a grudge later.

Billy (Douglas), with a fake tan, a hair color that does not occur in nature, and a girlfriend a third of his age, impulsively proposes in the middle of a eulogy. So, it is time to get the gang back together for a blow-out of a bachelor party in Las Vegas. There’s Sam (Kline), marooned in retireeland, Florida, and horrified by water aerobics and dinner at 4:30, and, generally, being old. Archie (Freeman) is living with his worried son (Michael Ealy), who smothers him with care and caution because he is recovering from a stroke. And Paddy (De Niro) sits in his robe all day, surrounded by photographs of his late wife. Sam and Archie are immediately on board with the idea of a wild weekend, especially after Sam’s wife presents him with a condom, a tablet of Viagra, and a reminder that “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” They persuade Paddy to come by not telling him the purpose of the trip. Paddy is still hurt and angry at Billy for a betrayal that of course will be revealed, though by that time it hardly matters.

The Flatbush Four hear a nightclub singer named Diana (Oscar-winner number five, Mary Steenburgen, bringing warmth and wit to the movie) and they immediately like her very much, especially Paddy and Billy. As the big night approaches, they are determined to party like it’s 1945. And each one will learn something or decide something that will change his life when he gets home.

Listen, the plot developments are older than the stars. Fun to see old guys live it up in nasty, racy Vegas! Time to settle old scores! The jokes are even older than that. But these old pros get such an evident kick out of each other that they are able to find some honesty in what could otherwise feel synthetic. And the chemistry between them cannot be faked. We know these guys. We know their faces and have watched them get older for many years. Seeing them enjoy each other’s company is great company for us to be in.

Parents should know that this movie was originally rated R and then changed to PG-13 on appeal. There is some strong and crude language (one f-word), a lot of drinking, sexual references and non-explicit situations, and girls in very skimpy clothes and bathing suits.

Family discussion: Who changes the most? How did the four men end up so unsatisfied with their lives?

If you like this, try: the other comedy films by these actors including “Analyze This,” “A Fish Named Wanda,” “Bruce Almighty,” “Melvin and Howard,” and “Wonder Boys”

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Comedy Romance

About Time

Posted on October 31, 2013 at 6:00 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language and some sexual content
Profanity:	Very strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking and substance abuse
Violence/ Scariness:	Sad death, scary car crash
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	November 1, 2013
Date Released to DVD:	February 3, 2014
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00BEIYGK2

Richard Curtis perfected the art of the 21st century romantic comedy in “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Notting Hill,” and “Love Actually.” They were witty and sophisticated and had posh British accents that made them seem twice as witty and sophisticated. They were filled with of pretty people wearing pretty clothes in pretty settings, seasoned with self-deprecating humor, magnificent friendships, pop-y soundtracks, and happy ever after endings. “About Time” has all of that, plus a twist. I don’t mean the addition of a fantasy time travel element, thought that is something of a departure. The real twist is that the important love story here is not between man and woman but between father and son.

Oh, there’s a romantic love story, of course, and it’s the part that’s featured on the poster. Tim (Domhnall Gleeson, son of the Irish actor Brendan Gleeson and best known as one of the Weasley brothers in the “Harry Potter” films) lives in Cornwall with his family, a blissfully happy group that includes his slightly starchy mother (Lindsay Duncan), slightly dotty but impeccably dressed uncle (Richard Cordery), wild child of a sister (Lydia Wilson), and book-loving, family-loving dad (the indispensable Bill Nighy). Dad explains to Tim that the men in their family have the ability to travel through time. There are limits, of course. Like “Quantum Leap,” he is limited to his own lifetime. He can’t go back and meet Queen Victoria or ride a dinosaur. And, as Tim will spend the rest of the movie discovering, while he can go back to correct a mistake, the ripple effect of even the tiniest change may have very big consequences that are not so easy to fix.

It may sound all very precious and cutesy, and it is, with Curtis’ trademark adorable eccentrics that are less adorable than he intended. Even an English accent can only make up for so much. Tim’s use of his time travel powers to make up for various gaffes is entertaining in a “Groundhog Day”-lite sort of way. (There’s something rather meta about a feeling of deja vu in these repeated, slightly improved encounters.) The romance between Tim and a pretty American named Mary (Rachel McAdams), while refreshingly free of the kinds of agonizingly silly misunderstandings that plague most romantic comedies, is on the bland side. The first meeting with Mary’s parents is supposed to be awkward and funny, but it’s just awkward. Things get more interesting later, as Tim and Mary get married and start a family. The stakes are higher and the choices are more complex.

It is in the third act when things start to get interesting, because that is when the focus shifts to the father-son relationship. Curtis, who says this is his last film, opens up his heart for a piercingly bittersweet engagement with the big questions of who we are, making peace with not being able to fix everything for everyone we love, and finding a way to make pain and loss deepen us.

Parents should know that this film includes sexual references, some explicit, and some sexual situations, very strong and crude language, car accident, and a sad death.

Family discussion: If you could go back in time, would you correct a mistake or take time to enjoy what already happened? Why did Kit Kat have such a hard time making good decisions? Was there anything her family should have done differently to help her?

If you like this, try: “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and “Love Actually” from the same writer/director and “Groundhog Day”

Free Birds

Posted on October 31, 2013 at 6:00 pm

Maybe it’s just me, but I think this may be the worst idea for a movie intended for children I have heard since the one about the kid bank robber. Does anyone think it makes sense to horrify children just before Thanksgiving with a movie about two turkeys who want to go back in time to prevent centuries of turkeys being eaten to celebrate America’s oldest holiday? Will children who see this movie burst into tears at Grandma’s house and insist on eating pizza for Thanksgiving dinner?

Food is everyone’s favorite part of holidays, a turkey named Reggie (Owen Wilson) tells us, “unless you are the meal.” Reggis is something of a Chicken Little, telling the other turkeys that they are being raised for slaughter, but they do not believe him. They think that the farmer is their friend, and they envy the lucky birds he takes away from the flock because they think it is a special treat. The President of the United States arrives at the turkey farm with his little daughter for the annual photo op “pardoning” ceremony. As happens in real life (but at the White House) an especially handsome bird is presented to the President, who smiles for the cameras and sends it to a petting zoo while the rest of the flock is sent to the butcher. The President’s daughter (Kaitlyn Maher) is a brat who is always obnoxiously throwing a tantrum to get her own way or bizarrely going to sleep on the spot (she might want to ask her pediatrician about narcolepsy at her next check-up). She likes the scrawny Reggie and insists that he not only be pardoned but that she get to keep him at Camp David as a pet.

Reggie is very happy, ordering pizza delivery and luxuriating in a terry cloth robe with the Presidential seal, until he meets another turkey named Jake (Woody Harrelson), who wants to go back in time to the first Thanksgiving, with the pilgrims and the Native Americans, to persuade them to start a different tradition by eating something other than turkey for dinner. They end up in an egg-shaped time machine adorably voiced by George (“Star Trek”) Takei, and soon are back to the Plymouth Colony in 1621, where they have to rally the wild turkeys who are the ancestors of today’s highly cultivated birds. The leader’s spirited daughter is Jenny (Amy Poehler), a practical-minded turkey who handles her lazy eye problem with aplomb.

Hiding somewhere inside the over-plotting, time-travel anomalies, inconsistent characterization and tone, and family-unfriendly themes of animal slaughter there are some brief moments of humor, but the premise is so ghastly that even that feels hollow. It is supposed to be about sensitivity and empowerment but it comes across as callous and pushy.

Parents should know that sensitive viewers may be disturbed by the theme of killing turkeys to eat on Thanksgiving. The movie includes cartoon-style peril and violence, some with guns, mostly comic but minor characters are injured and killed and there is a sad death of a parent who sacrifices himself. There is brief crude humor including joke about developmental disabilities and mixed marriages.

Family discussion: Why does Reggie question what is going on when the rest of the flock does not? Why was it important to learn about Jake’s past?

If you like this, try: “Babe”

A.C.O.D.

Posted on October 4, 2013 at 7:30 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language and brief sexual content
Profanity:	Very strong language, some crude
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, drug references
Violence/ Scariness:	Tense family confrontations, some shoving, fire
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	October 4, 2013

Are today’s 20-and 30-somethings the least-parented generation in history, as a character explains in this film? To quote Rosie O’Donnell in “Sleepless in Seattle” about another depressing statistic, “It’s not true, but it feels true.” While the generation that came of age in the 1970’s and early 80’s were self-actualizing and consciousness-raising and yuppifying, their children were being raised by adults who were too often acting like, well, children.

Adam Scott (“Parks and Recreation,” “Party Down”) produced and stars in “A.C.O.D.,” which stands for “Adult Children of Divorce.” It’s an apt oxymoron. Scott plays Carter, who is very much the adult in his relationship with his long-divorced but still-warring parents and with his younger brother, Trey (Clark Duke). He is also the adult in his professional life, as the owner of a trendy restaurant. But that has a considerable advantage, he points out. “It may be like a family, but I could fire the ones I don’t like.”

Trey’s engagement creates some immediate problems. He and his fiancée Kieko (Valerie Tian) have only known each other four months. Trey cannot support himself; he is living in Carter’s garage. But those are minor concerns compared to the “9 year marriage turned into a 100-years war” — their parents, Hugh (Richard Jenkins) and Melissa (Catherine O’Hara). Trey wants them to come to his wedding and be civil to one another. Even though both have re-married (Hugh twice), their toxic mutual hostility is still the most powerful and all-consuming force in their lives.

Carter, himself allergic to marriage due to the childhood trauma of his parents’ divorce (and their self-absorption, bitterness, manipulation, and use of him as a go-between and subject of endless custody disputes), knows that Trey’s plans are unrealistic. But he can’t help being captivated, even a little wistful and the optimism and certainty of the couple. And he knows it is in part because he has worked so hard to protect Trey from the worst of his parents’ battles.

The stress of negotiating with his parents is so unsettling, Carter seeks help from a woman he saw after his parents split up (Jane Lynch). She is glad to see him again, but informs him that she was not his therapist. She was interviewing him for a book about the impact of divorce on children. And it became an international best-seller. This puts him even deeper into a tailspin, as he reads the book for the first time and discovers what his middle-school turmoil looked like to an observer. “Am I living in a shell of insecurity and approval-seeking?” It is even more disconcerting that the book is a best-seller (“Fourteen printings and Margot Kidder did the audio book.”)

Meanwhile, his efforts to get his parents to be civil to one another has had some very disturbing repercussions. And Carter’s sympathetic and supportive girlfriend of four years (the magnificent Mary Elizabeth Winstead) may not put any pressure on him, but she does point out that it would be nice to have a key to his apartment.

The storyline may be weak in spots, but the spectacular cast (Scott’s “Parks and Recreations” co-star Amy Poehler plays Hugh’s third wife) makes the most of the sharp dialogue and depictions of world-class boundary issues. A credit-sequence coda with the movie’s real-life crew discussing their own A.C.O.D. issues is, like the film itself, sobering but still a reminder that ultimately, no matter how dysfunctional our origins, we get to decide who we want to be.

Parents should know that this film includes explicit sexual references and brief situations, rear nudity, very strong language, drinking, smoking, and drug references.

Family discussion: Why was Carter unhappy about the way he was portrayed in the book? How did he try to be different from his parents?

If you like this, try: “It’s Complicated” and “The Baxter”

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2

Posted on September 29, 2013 at 11:33 pm

Who would have guessed that the brightest and funniest and most heartwarming animated film of the year would not be from Pixar or Disney but Sony? And that to boot it would be a sequel, or, perhaps given the subject matter, a second helping? “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2” is a fresh and charming delight especially welcome after a series of animated disappointments.

There’s a quick recap of the first episode, very loosely based on the 1970’s children’s book classic. We are reminded that would-be inventor Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader), who lives in Chewandswallow, created a machine called the “Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator” (FLDSMDFR for short) that turned water into food. But things got out of hand and the town was deluged with food until he saved the day by turning it off. Flint’s scientific idol, Chester V (Will Forte), has invited Flint and his friends to California while they clean up Chewandswallow. Like Flint, Chester has a simian sidekick. Flint has the monosyllabic monkey Steve (Neil Patrick Harris). Chester has put a human brain inside the brain of an orangutan named Barbara (“Like a terducken!” she says brightly), voiced by Kristen Schaal. Barb has an exquisite manicure and hairdo and a firm insistence on not being called a monkey. She is an ape.

At first, Flint is hesitant to put on hold his plans to create a lab on the island for his friends, especially meteorologist Sam Sparks (Anna Faris). But Sam knows what it means to Flint to get a chance to work with Chester, so she encourages him to put the plans for the lab on hold. Sam, Flint’s fisherman dad Tim (James Caan), the Chewandswallow police chief (Terry Crews), and their goofy friend Brent (Andy Samberg), all move to California and Flint goes to work in a facility that looks like a tweaked version of the Googleplex with coffee always within reach and caffeine patches on request.

But then it turns out that the FLDSMDFR is somehow working more damage than ever, now producing weird combinations of food and animals — foodimals — with hilariously preposterous visual and verbal puns. There’s the shrimpanzee, the hippotatosaurus, the susheep, and the taco-dile, along with other delicious mash-ups. Chester sends Flint to shut it down, swearing him to secrecy, but Flint tells Sam and ends up taking the whole gang back to Chewandswallow with him. A few mild quibbles — it would be nie in a movie about scientists to have some actual science used in the problem-solving. And after a movie in which adorable marshmallows and strawberries and even cheeseburgers are cavort so endearingly, parents may find it even more difficult to persuade picky eaters and tenderhearted types to eat their dinners.

But there’s a very sweet storyline about the importance of friends — having friends and being a good friend, and a nice aspirational moral about making the world better — and the pure silly fun of a group of animators outdoing each other with escalating puns that range from the outlandish to the almost-but-not-quite unforgivable. Not once, but twice, there are jokes about a leek in the boat, and it is funny both times. Lines of dialogue lie “piece of cake,” “we’re toast,” and “this is bananas” are punctuated with visual counterpoint. And a bright “New” song by Paul McCartney gives the soundtrack as much sunshiney as the adorable creatures and cheery humor.

Parents should know that this movie has some mild potty humor and comic/cartoon-style peril, most shown to be not scary.

Family discussion: Why was it important for Flint to apologize? How was he affected by being bullied? What does Barb learn about Chester? Which one of Flint’s inventions would you like to try? Do you have an idea that could change the world?

If you like this, try: the first film, the book, and “Megamind”