Hugo

Posted on November 22, 2011 at 7:17 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for mild thematic material, some action/peril and smoking
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drunken adult character
Violence/ Scariness:	Sad losses of parents and mistreatment of orphans, characters in peril
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	November 23, 2011
Date Released to DVD:	February 27, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B003Y5H5H4

Martin Scorsese’s enchanting “Hugo” is a thrillingly immersive adventure. It is about two orphans trying to solve a mystery. It is about the way that stories help us make sense of life. It stretches from the very beginnings of movies and the transformation of images through imagination into pure magic to technological advances that go beyond anything we’ve ever seen before. Scorsese, perhaps the greatest living master of cinematic storytelling and certainly the most passionate movie fan in history, waited until he and the medium reached a point where 3D was ready to be more than a stunt and become an integral element of the story and with his first film for families he stretches the frame in ways it has never been used before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR-kP-olcpM&feature=youtu.be

It is based on the Caldecott award winning book by Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Hugo (Asa Butterfield) is a Parisian orphan in the early 20th century who lives in the train station. His inventor father (Jude Law) was killed in a fire, so he came to live with his drunken uncle (Ray Winstone), who wound and maintained the clocks at the station and slept in a little forgotten room inside the clockworks. Now the uncle has disappeared and Hugo is trying to keep the clocks going so no one will suspect that his uncle is gone. He is also trying to hide from the station inspector (Sasha Baron Cohen), a WWI veteran with an injured hand and leg who likes to catch stray children and send them to the orphanage. Most of all, he is trying to repair a mysterious robotic machine that his father found in a museum.

They had been working on it together and with the help of his father’s notebook and the gears from some toys he has stolen from the station’s toy shop he is getting close. But then the proprietor of the toy shop (Ben Kingsley) has confiscated the notebook. The proprietor’s adopted daughter, the book-loving Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz of “Kick-Ass”) who is hoping for an adventure, holds the key to the mystery in more ways than one. From the opening moment, with ticking sounds that surround us as Hugo peeks out from the number 4 on a huge clock dial. The intricate pendulums, gears, and catwalks hidden inside the upper reaches of the station are enthralling, with brilliant production design by Dante Ferretti that seems to surround us.

Occasionally Scorsese will tease us a bit with 3D effects — the inspector’s nose is one example. But more often it is subtly done. Dust motes glisten several feet in front of the screen to create a sustained illusion of depth. The children’s search takes them to the movies and then to a library where they research the brief history of cinema from its invention by the Lumière brothers and the early audiences who jumped when they saw a train coming toward them on the screen. They see Harold Lloyd hanging from the hands of a giant clock in “Safety Last” and we get glimpses of classics from Buster Keaton’s “The General” to D.W. Griffith’s “Intolerance.” And they meet a film scholar who has the last piece of the puzzle. Scorsese and screenwriter John Logan make the children’s adventure and the movie history mesh like the gears that operate the station clocks and the result is a rare story with something for every age. Scorsese lingers too long on Butterfield’s face and some of the other images and some of the scenes could be trimmed, but by the time it all comes together in a joyous celebration of film it is clear that the ultimate tribute to the cinematic giants is standing on their shoulders. (more…)

1776

Posted on June 27, 2011 at 3:56 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for language
Profanity:	Some mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	References to war
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the film, decisions to maintain slavery and lack of rights for women
Date Released to Theaters:	1972
Date Released to DVD:	July 2, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000067D1R

Happy Independence Day! There’s only one possible pick of the week for the 4th of July.

This rousing musical about the Declaration of Independence makes the Founding Fathers vivid, human, and interesting characters, and is so involving that you almost forget that you already know how it all turned out. William Daniels is the “obnoxious and disliked” John Adams, Ken Howard is Thomas Jefferson, who would rather be with his wife than work on the Declaration, and Howard da Silva is a wry and witty Benjamin Franklin. As they debate independence, we see the courage that went into the birth of the United States, and as they compromise with the South to permit slavery in the brand-new country we see the tragedy. It is outstanding family entertainment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Iiiy8GnBNI

The Man Who Would Be King

Posted on June 6, 2011 at 8:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	PG
Profanity:	Mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Characters in peril, injured and killed, some graphic and disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	Reflects the racial and cultural prejudices of the era
Date Released to Theaters:	1975
Date Released to DVD:	June 6, 2011
Amazon.com ASIN:	B0045HCIZE

Director John Houston’s “The Man Who Would Be King,” released this week for the first time on Blu-Ray, is a magnificent spectacle, based on a story by Rudyard Kipling. Michael Caine and Sean Connery star as British sergeants and adventurers during the colonialist era of the British Raj. They travel to Kafiristan (now Afghanistan) and are briefly able to persuade the indigenous people that one of them is a god. Caine’s real-life wife co-stars in one of those they-don’t-make-them-like-that-anymore adventure sagas. Indeed, Houston had hoped at one time to film it with Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart. I would love to have seen it, but I am certain it could not have been any better than this thrilling and touching story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNb6SxXcD7g

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Posted on May 19, 2011 at 6:50 pm

Jack is back.

And he is doing what he does best — stealing the movie from everyone else. Johnny Depp continues Captain Jack Sparrow’s conquest of center stage with this fourth in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series, which abandons any pretense of having anyone else as the hero, and just lets him take over.

The series inspired by a theme park ride has for the first time relied on a book as its source. According to the credits, it is “inspired by” On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers, an award-winning fantasy novel about Blackbeard and the fountain of youth. The Disney series characters are grafted onto the story, which takes us from the courts (in both senses of the term) of London to Spain and then back to the Caribbean, with some historical figures like King George II and Blackbeard. And we also get to enjoy zombie crewmen, a gallant missionary, sword fights, Keith Richards, chases, explosions, a pirate with a peg leg, shifting loyalties, daring rescues, revenge, voodoo dolls, a carefully balanced struggle on a shifting surface, and mermaids summoned by song who are as deadly as they are gloriously beautiful. Hurray for summer movies!

Director Rob Marshall (“Nine,” “Chicago”) takes over seamlessly from Gore Verbinski, adeptly managing the tumult of the various characters (three pirate captains plus Penelope Cruz!), locations, and perils. And everyone is looking for the fountain of youth, where you can steal someone else’s years if you have the chalices — and a mermaid’s tear.

In the previous films, Captain Jack Sparrow’s rapscallion impishness set off nicely the brave, honorable, but not exactly colorful romance of Will and Elizabeth. Here, Ian McShane, with his gimlet eye and gravely rumble of a voice, joins the cast as Blackbeard, “the pirate all pirates fear,” to remind us that pirates can be ruthless. “If I don’t kill a man every now and then they forget who I am,” he explains, leaving Jack to be as close as we get to a hero. Cruz plays Angelica, a woman Jack once wronged who may be more of a pirate than he is. “You haven’t changed,” she says to him. “I haven’t found the need,” he replies. And that pretty much sums up the enterprise.

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The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl

Posted on May 16, 2011 at 8:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
Profanity:	Colorful pirate talk
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Characters drink rum, get tipsy
Violence/ Scariness:	Action violence, characters killed
Diversity Issues:	Strong female lead character, one strong minority supporting character
Date Released to Theaters:	2003

This week’s release of the new “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie is a good time to catch up with the original.

Avast, me hearties and come hear the tale of a terrible pirate curse.

No, not the one about the curse on pieces of gold that turn anyone into the walking undead, revealed as skeletons when touched by moonlight. This is one about the curse of the pirate movie, which has been known to turn fine actors into eye-rolling, scenery-chomping over-actors and empty the bank accounts of movie studios faster than real-life pirates pillaged their victims.

It takes a lot of courage to take on a pirate movie following notable critical and box-office catastrophes like Roman Polanski’s “Pirates” and “Cutthroat Island” with Geena Davis. This one’s origins as a Disney theme park ride didn’t seem too promising.

So maybe it is those low expectations that made this movie seem surprisingly enjoyable.

That is, if swashbuckling, rope-swinging, plank-walking, yard-arm-spinning, rum-drinking, double-crossing, colorful sidekick-joking, and all-around yo-ho-ho-ing sounds like fun, and especially if you know the theme park ride well enough to appreciate a couple of sly references, including a replica of one of the ride’s most memorable moments.

Elizabeth Swann, daughter of the Governor (Jonathan Pryce) is fascinated by pirates. On their voyage from England, Elizabeth helped rescue a boy named Will Turner. While he was unconscious, she took his gold medallion with a skull and crossbones.

Now grown up, Elizabeth (“Bend it Like Beckham’s” Kiera Knightley) is still wearing the medallion and is loved both by Commodore Norrington (Jack Davenport) and by Will (“Lord of the Rings” heart-throb Orlando Bloom). When the dreaded pirates of the Black Pearl, led by Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) sack the town, Elizabeth offers them the medallion if they will leave. They take it, and take her, too. Turner takes off in pursuit with the notorious Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), with Norrington and his men right behind them.

It turns out that the medallion is the last of the cursed pieces of gold that turned Barbossa and his crew into the walking dead, always hungry and thirsty, but unable to eat or drink. By restoring the gold to its chest — with the right person’s blood — the curse will be removed.

There are advantages, though, in being a pirate who cannot be killed.

Just like the theme park ride that inspired it, the movie’s greatest strengths are its atmosphere and art direction. The production design has that splendidly imaginative synthesis of classic book illustrations and some innate collective unconsciousness that gets the essence of every detail right, from the curve of the sail to a pirate’s pet monkey. Then come the action sequences, both energetic and entertaining. The script has some nicely creepy twists and some nicely saucy lines. Johnny Depp falls prey to the pirate curse, speaking as though he is recovering from dental surgery and at times seeming to be acting in his own movie completely separate from everyone else. But he is undeniably fun to watch. And with Lord of the Rings heartthrob Orlando Bloom as the hero, you get the two best sets of cheekbones in Hollywood on screen at the same time.

Parents should know that this movie has a lot of violence for a PG-13, and while it is not especially graphic, there are images, including the literally skeleton pirate crew and a false eyeball that keeps coming out, that may be disturbing to some viewers. There are some revealing bodices and some mild sexual references, including prostitutes (not explicit and no nudity or sexual situations). There is some strong and colorful pirate language. Characters drink rum and get tipsy.

Families who see this movie should talk about the rules/guidelines distinction and the movie’s many broken promises. How did the various characters decide which rules they would follow?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy pirate classics like “The Crimson Pirate” with Burt Lancaster and Errol Flynn’s “Against All Flags” and “The Sea Hawk”. Fans of pirate movies with truly over-the-top pirate performers must see Robert Newton’s definitive Long John Silver in “Treasure Island”. For a landlubber version, any version of “Zorro” — with Antonio Banderas, Guy Williams, or Tyrone Power — is swashbuckling fun. And every family should watch “The Princess Bride”. Disney’s “Shipwrecked” is a sort of “Home Alone” with pirates, a neglected delight starring Gabriel Byrne. Fans of musicals will also like the Gilbert and Sullivan gem “The Pirates of Penzance”, with Kevin Kline as the Pirate King and the delightful “The Pirate” with Judy Garland and Gene Kelly.