Trailer: Absolutely Anything with Simon Pegg and the Monty Python Guys
Posted on May 15, 2015 at 8:00 am
This looks a bit too much like “Bruce Almighty,” but with the Monty Python guys playing aliens, I can’t help but be intrigued.
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Mad Max: Fury Road
Posted on May 14, 2015 at 6:00 pm
B+| Lowest Recommended Age: | Mature High Schooler |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated R for intense sequences of violence throughout, and for disturbing images |
| Profanity: | Some strong language |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | None |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Constant, intense, and graphic violence, guns, explosions, crashes, some disturbing images |
| Diversity Issues: | Diverse characters |
| Date Released to Theaters: | May 15, 2015 |
Mad Max (Tom Hardy, taking over from Mel Gibson) stamps on a two-headed lizard and then chews its head off. And that’s just in the first minute. That master of apocalyptic junkyard anarchy, George Miller, is back, bigger, wilder, madder than ever with this fourth of the Mad Max movies, all set in a post-apocalyptic desert dystopia of deprivation, chaos, rust, and brutality. In this world, all anyone has ever known is loss and despair. There is no hope, no thought of any possible way to learn or create. At one point, a character points to something completely unfamiliar to him, calling it “that thing.” It is a tree.
The first three films were about the fight for gasoline to fuel the vehicles pieced together from the wreckage. This one is about another, even more precious fluid: water. Other precious fluids come into the story as well, including blood and breast milk.
A brutal dictatorship has taken over, controlling access to all of that. All are the preserve of Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne, with the right crazy eyes for the role), who lives literally above everyone else in a place known as The Citadel, maintaining control with his army of War Boys, all with shaved heads and powder-white skin and all convinced that their destiny is to die for Immortan Joe and be transported to paradise in Valhalla. Immortan Joe also maintains a harem of impossibly long-legged, lovely young woman. His chief lieutenant is Furiosa (Charlize Theron), a fearless woman with a mechanical arm, so much the central focus of the film that it should have been named for her. When Furiosa escapes with Immortan Joe’s women, including his pregnant “queen,” Joe and his peers come after them, in a convoy of tricked-up vehicles, all made to destroy. Everything is in shades of burnt-out umber except for the bright red suit of a guy shredding an electric guitar to keep everyone angry.
One of the War Boys is Nuz (Nicholas Hoult), who has brought along his “blood bag.” That would be Max, who was captured by Immortan Joe’s troops and kept alive only to serve as a blood donor. Nuz did not want to be left behind but had not yet finished getting his transfusion. So Max is manacled and attached to the front of Nuz’s car. Max ends up with Furiosa and the young women, who are seeing the “green place” where Furiosa was born.
Miller is a master of cinema, and his staging and cinematography on the action scenes are shot through with throbbing, raging, adrenalin that contrasts with the stoicism of Max and Furiosa. Miller has said that the Edge camera car is the most exciting technological innovation in his career. It allowed him (he operated it himself) to put the camera in the middle of the action. He does not like to use CGI, preferring “practical” (real) effects, and the grittiness is so palpable we feel we are inhaling dust.
Hardy is excellent, though, as with Bain, his face is masked for much of the film. Theron is more incendiary than the film’s mountainous fireballs, creating a character with a rich, complicated history in the way she fights, in the determined set of her brows, in the way she looks at the helpless young women, thinking about where she has been and what she has seen. The action makes our hearts beat harder, but Miller’s ability to create characters that transcend the crashes and explosions and themes that resonate all too sharply with contemporary conflicts, are what can make them beat more fiercely.
Parents should know that this film has non-stop apocalyptic action, peril, and violence with many characters injured and killed and several graphic and disturbing images, as well as some strong language, some nudity, and references to domestic abuse.
Family discussion: Why won’t Max tell Furiosa his name? Why did society become so savage? Why was one community different?
If you like this, try: the first three “Mad Max” movies and Welcome to Wherever You Are, A Documentary Celebrating the MAD MAX Mythology
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Posted on April 30, 2015 at 5:17 pm
B+| Lowest Recommended Age: | Middle School |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action, violence and destruction, and for some suggestive comments |
| Profanity: | Some strong language and jokes about swear words |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | Social drinking |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Extensive and intense sci-fi/comic book violence, some disturbing images, characters injured and killed |
| Diversity Issues: | None |
| Date Released to Theaters: | May 1, 2015 |
| Date Released to DVD: | September 28, 2015 |
| Amazon.com ASIN: | B00WAJ8QXC |
Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) sums it up best. Speaking pretty much to himself but also to us in the audience, he notes that he is on a floating city trying to fight off a robot army with arrows. “It doesn’t make sense,” he concedes. And yet, that is where we are, and we’re okay with it.
Writer/director Joss Whedon knows that we know that this is some superhero silliness, and once in a while we get to see that the characters know it, too. But he never treats the stories or the fans with anything less than respect. We get wisecracks. We get romance. But most of all, we get rock ’em, sock ’em, 3D action involving super-arrows, a super-strong shield, a super-heavy hammer, a cool bang-a-gong hammer hitting shield moment, a super-big, super-angry green guy, a super-assassin, and that genius arms-dealing billionaire philanthropist, Tony Stark.
In the first “Avengers” movie, we had the fun of seeing the team come together, a sort of Traveling Wilburys supergroup made up of heroes each more than able to carry a movie alone. Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.), the Incredible Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), and Black Widow/Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) joined forces to defeat Thor’s brother Loki and retrieve the source of his power, one of the six infinity stones (yep, you saw another one in “Guardians of the Galaxy;” feel free to have your mind blown with Marvel universe awesomeness).
Then they had shwarma.
No time for getting acquainted here. We start smack dab in the middle of the action (thank you, 3D), as our merry band is battling the forces of Hydra, but of course not missing a beat in the quip department, even from the bad guys: “The Americans sent circus freaks to attack us.” Burn! (Both literal and metaphor.) Secret weapons hiding out with Hydra include twins who are very angry and damaged because their parents were killed (by weapons from Stark’s company). Now, thanks to some Hydra tinkering, they have superpowers, best summed up as “He’s fast and she’s weird.” He is Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), and she is the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olson). They both have bad Boris and Natasha accents and look like one of the Diane Arbus-like visions in “The Shining.” Her weird powers involve waggling her fingers and red smoke, with some sort of force field and the ability to impose what looks like a very bad acid trip on anyone with a biology-based brain.
But that’s not the problem. The battle with Hydra lasts just long enough to re-introduce us to everyone and not a few updates, especially a new tenderness between the Black Widow and Bruce Banner. Soon, they’re back at their clubhouse/headquarters and Tony asks for three days to investigate Loki’s stone before Thor returns to to Asgard. What could go wrong?
Pretty much everything, as Tony’s hubristic attempt to create a new artificial intelligence to protect humanity ends up as Ultron (James Spader, using that same tone of languid contempt we first heard when he played Blaine’s snooty rich friend in “Pretty in Pink”). Ultron takes one look around and decides humanity is in need of a major reboot, starting with extermination. Anyone who hates the Avengers has a couple of friends in the twins. And, given the little Hydra infestation problem in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” our group no longer has access to the massive government tools and technology, while Ultron is tapped into all digital data. It’s tough to come up with a bad guy who can be a credible threat to superheroes, but Ultron and the twins are scary and crazy, so they qualify. “Is this your first time intimidating?” Ultron asks with an arrogant robot sneer.
Yep, another big, big battle lies ahead, and yep, it includes a floating city and an army of robots and awesome stunts. It also involves evacuating civilians, often overlooked in superhero films. It also involves some group dynamic governance issues, as you might expect with so many Alpha males in the room. Shwarma, maybe, revels, now and then, but kumbaya, no, not even Robert’s Rules of Order or majority vote. “We don’t have time for a city hall debate,” Stark says as he doubles down on a bad decision. “I don’t want to hear a ‘man was not meant to meddle’ medley.” Perhaps only Downey could give that line the right zhuzh, but that’s why they pay him the big, big, big bucks, and he nails it.
The interaction is a treat, especially when everyone (with one notable exception) tries to lift Thor’s hammer and no one (with one notable exception) succeeds. There is sparkling banter with a refreshing Whedoneseque twist. Given the challenges of making sure at least nine lead characters get their due in dramatic arcs, quippy zingers, and superhero showmanship, it is inevitable that it will be cluttered. It is perhaps a little less inevitable that the ladies will be squeezed out, entirely off-screen Jane and Pepper dismissed with a couple of lines of dialogue about how busy and important they are, Natasha all nurturing and flirty and beauty taming the beast-ish, though she’s dynamite on a motorcycle. But his willingness to grapple with the existential dilemmas of superheroes and his ability to make those questions so much fun is what superheroes — and movies — are for.
NOTE: Stay through the beginning of the credits to find out who the villain will be in the next chapter. But you don’t need to stay after that as there is no shwarma this time.
Parents should know that this film has extended and graphic sequences of superhero peril and action-style violence with some disturbing images, characters injured and killed, some strong language, and brief crude humor.
Family discussion: How can the Avengers find better ways to resolve their conflicts? Why was Stark so wrong in his design for Ultron?
If you like this, try: the other Marvel movies and the original comics
The Age of Adaline
Posted on April 23, 2015 at 5:59 pm
Be careful what you wish for. You think it would be great to stay 29 forever? Adaline (Blake Lively) finds out that it is not great to become unstuck from time, to watch everyone you love grow old and die, to hurt those you care about because you cannot be honest about who you are. It is as though the whole world is on a conveyer belt moving everyone inexorably forward, and just one person has stepped off, rooted in one spot and left all alone. Life becomes a series of goodbyes.
Adaline made headlines as the first baby born in 1908 San Francisco. She lived a normal life, with an engineer husband and a baby girl. But her husband was killed in an accident when he was working on the Golden Gate Bridge. And then, when a very rare snowfall came to San Francisco, her car went off the road and into a pond. She was at the same time frozen and shocked by lightning. And, we are told by the narrator, as scientists will discover in 2015, the effect of these two forces on her DNA somehow stops the aging process. At first, she is able to get away with explaining that she eats right and uses a very good face cream. But as more than a decade goes by and she does not change, she begins to unsettle people and attract the attention of government investigators. So, she has to say goodbye to her now-teenage daughter and come up with a plan where she changes identities and locations every ten years, and never gets close to anyone.
Adaline is living in San Francisco as Jenny and working at a library, but is about to switch identities again and move to Oregon. She has just bought a new fake passport and drivers license and arranged for her new identity to have access to her bank account (one thing perpetual youth is very good for is accumulating capital) when she meets Ellis (Dutch “Game of Thrones” dreamboat Michiel Huisman). He is handsome, wealthy, philanthropic, nuts about her, and knows how to give swooningly romantic gifts and cook charming and delicious dinners in his aw-shucks-I’m-just-living-in-a-zillion-dollar-fixer-upper. Doesn’t Adaline have the right to take a chance on love?
She agrees to spend the weekend with Ellis’ parents for their 40th anniversary party. But as soon as they arrive, Ellis’ father, William (Harrison Ford) says “Adaline!” They were “very close” in the 1960’s. “Jenny” explains that Adaline was her mother. But William remembers Adaline too well to be fooled for long.
The script and story were both co-written by first-time screenwriter Salvador Paskowitz, whose own unconventional life was documented in Surfwise
It has a conceptual delicacy that translates unevenly on screen, with an overly ponderous omniscient narrator and underwritten romantic scenes. But Lively gives a thoughtful, complex performance, with undertones of melancholy and a yearning for connection that struggles with her determination to stay isolated. And she looks sensational in the costumes from Angus Strathie, which show a consistency of style throughout the century that shows us how strong and determined Adaline’s well-defined persona is, despite the various aliases and disguises and changes in fashion.
The romanticism of the storyline was thrown off course for me by the idea that Adaline was involved with both father and son, even decades apart. But if that does not create too much of an ick factor, the bittersweet fantasy of eternal youth and the just-sweet fantasy of the perfect boyfriend make it work.
Parents should know that this film includes sexual references and non-explicit situations, some mature themes of loss and disappointment, and drinking.
Family discussion: What did the comet signify? If you could stay the same age forever, what age would you pick? Is there a “just-miss” in your life?
If you like this, try: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Passion of Mind,” and “Tuck Everlasting”
Paddington
Posted on April 15, 2015 at 5:55 pm
B +| Lowest Recommended Age: | Kindergarten - 3rd Grade |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated PG for mild action and rude humor |
| Profanity: | Some schoolyard language |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | Drinking and drunkenness |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Peril and mostly comic violence, offscreen death |
| Diversity Issues: | A metaphoric theme of the movie |
| Date Released to Theaters: | January 16, 2015 |
Michael Bond’s gentle, charming stories about the Peruvian bear named for a London train station
A generation ago, a British explorer named Montgomery Clyde (Tim Downie) was rescued by a rare breed of bears in Peru. He lived with two of them, Pastuzo (Michael Gambon) and Lucy (Imelda Staunton), teaching them some English, including the 107 ways to describe rain that Londoners like to use, and introducing them to the pleasures of orange marmalade. When he said goodbye, he assured them of a warm welcome if they ever came to London bestowed his red hat on Pastuzo.
Pastuzo and Lucy raised their nephew (Ben Wishaw), teaching him all they had learned from Clyde, developing their own artisanal marmalade recipe, and enchanting him with tales about the far-off land called London where their friend would be happy to welcome him. When Pastuzo is killed, Lucy moves to a home for retired bears and the young cub stows away on a freighter bound for London, wearing the red hat and carrying a suitcase filled with jars of marmalade.
At Paddington Station, he meets the Brown family. Risk-averse Mr. Brown (“Downton Abbey’s” Hugh Bonneville) does not want to have anything to do with him, but warm-hearted and spontaneous Mrs. Brown (Sally Hawkins) invites him home, naming him for the train station where they met. The Browns have two children, Judy (Madeleine Harris), a teenage daughter who never takes out her earbuds, and Jonathan (Samuel Joslin), a budding inventor.
As soon as they get home, the extra-prudent Mr. Brown calls his insurance company to extend the protection of his homeowner’s policy, but it is not fast enough. Paddington’s first encounter with a bathroom ends in catastrophe. Mr. Brown is horrified. But Mrs. Brown is sympathetic, and Judy and Jonathan are delighted. A little chaos can be a good thing. And learning to enjoy the differences we encounter in others is a very, very good thing.
As the Browns warm to Paddington, their neighbor, Mr. Curry (“Doctor Who’s” Peter Capaldi) has only one pleasure — having something new to complain about. And there is a more sinister villain as well. A taxidermist at the natural history museum named Millicent (Nicole Kidman, who also co-produced the film) wants Paddington so she can kill him, stuff him, and put him on display. “Is he endangered?” asks one of the museum staff. Millicent narrows her eyes, channeling Cruella De Vil. “He is now.”
The advertising for the film regrettably focuses on the slapstick and gross-out jokes (Paddington thinks Mr. Brown’s toothbrush is for cleaning out his ears). Thankfully, as a whole the film is true to the gentle humor and sweetness of the books. Wishow perfectly captures Paddington’s innocent friendliness and Bonneville and Hawkins are just right as the couple who only need a slight adjustment to reconnect with each other and their children. A brief flashback showing why Mr. Brown became so worried about safety will be appreciated by the children and parents in the audience, and even Millicent’s motives are revealed to be less about evil than about her feelings of hurt and loss. Paddington remains a most welcome visitor, and I hope we see more of him.
Parents should know that this film includes a sad (offscreen) death and some peril, including a taxidermist who wants to kill and stuff Paddington. Characters use some mild language and there is comic mayhem and peril and some bodily function humor. A woman flirts with a man to get him to do what she wants. A man dresses as a woman for disguise and another man finds him attractive. A character gets a security guard drunk so that other characters can break into a building.
Family discussion: Why did Mr. Brown change his views on taking risks when his daughter was born? Why doesn’t Mr. Curry like Paddington? Can you do a “hard stare” and when would you use it?
If you like this, try: the Paddington books