Dreamgirls

Posted on December 20, 2006 at 11:46 am

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for language, some sexuality and drug content.
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drug references, off-screen overdose, smoking, drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Sad death, emotional confrontations
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	2006
Date Released to DVD:	2007
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000O1799U

If my movie reviews had headlines, this one’s would be: “A Star is Born.” More like a Supernova. Jennifer Hudson explodes onto screen in this incendiary production of the Broadway musical inspired by Motown and the Supremes. She is mesmerizing. She is dazzling. She is fierce. She shimmers. She melts. She breaks your heart and then she puts it back together so she can melt it. Her voice is sensational, but the real surprise is her acting, which is at the same time commanding and vulnerable. She is a star.

The other star of the movie is screenwriter/director Bill Condon, who blasts through the weaknesses in the underlying material (uneven quality of music that is second-rate Broadway and thus tenth-rate R&B, under-written characters, creaky plot) with unhesitating nerve and electric energy. His direction is a kind of choreography all its own, dynamic and organic. In other words, it has a good beat and you can dance to it.

“Dreamgirls” is the story of three young women who have sung together since they were children. Effie (Hudson) sings lead. She has a strong voice, strong opinions and a very strong personality. Effie, Deena (Beyonce Knowles), and Lorrell (Anika Noni Rose) dream of making it as professionals.

They are asked to sing back-up for James “Thunder” Early (Eddie Murphy, in a career-restoring performance). At first reluctant, because they want to be a group on their own, they agree — chaperone included — and we launch into a road montage as they learn about show business, from cramped tour buses to predatory men. Lorrell succumbs to the married Early. Ambitious manager Curtis Taylor Jr. (Jamie Foxx) becomes romantically involved with Effie, but then, when there’s a chance for mainstream success, he replaces her as lead singer and love interest with slender, conventionally pretty, pliant Deena and renames them the Dreams. Soon, Effie is out of the group all together, though on her way out she gets to sing one of the greatest show-stopping songs in the history of Broadway: “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going,” a gospel-infused powerhouse wail of the heartbreak and rage of rejection.

Taylor builds a recording empire and we get another montage of success and superstardom with a dazzling run of costumes and hairstyles and some soapy sturm und drang until we get to the “had I but known” and “I have to do what is right for me” moments and the big finish.

Along the way, the movie takes on some ambitious themes, from the mainstreaming of R&B into pop to the compromises people make in the name of ambition and the consequences for friends and families. And it is impossible to forget the resonance with the real-life back-stories of its cast — Hudson’s comeback from her loss on “American Idol,” the rumors about Knowles’ own Diana Ross-style diva behavior in the replacement of singers in Destiny’s Child and its subsequent break-up, Murphy’s tabloid appearances and professional slide from Beverly Hills Cop and 48 Hours to Daddy Day Care and Nutty Professor II: The Klumps.

This substance anchors the glossy material, helping it transcend the “Is that supposed to be Barry Gordy? Is that supposed to be James Brown?” questions and making it archetypal instead of derivative, a movie instead of a music video, powerful as well as entertaining.

Parents should know that this film has some mature themes, including racism, behavior that would be deemed sexual harassment, and drug abuse, including an offscreen drug overdose. Characters use some strong language, drink, and smoke. A character has an out-of-wedlock child. A strength of the movie is its frank portrayal of the racism of the era and the way white performers (or less provocative black performers) appropriated the music of minorities who could not get a chance in mainstream outlets.

Families who see this movie should talk about which of the characters made compromises and what the results were. They should also talk about the early days of pop music, when white artists like Pat Boone had hits covering songs from “race records.” Is there still a racial divide in the music business today? How can you tell? Who changed for the better in this story and who changed for the worse? Why?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Lady Sings the Blues (very mature material), with the Supremes’ Diana Ross as Billie Holliday, Ray, with Jamie Foxx in his Oscar-winning performance as Ray Charles, and other movies about the early days of the rock and R&B music industry Sparkle, American Hot Wax, and Grace of My Heart. They will also enjoy the spectacular documentaries Standing in the Shadows of Motown, Only the Strong Survive, and Lightning in a Bottle.

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Happy Feet

Posted on November 12, 2006 at 4:40 pm

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Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some mild peril and rude humor.
Profanity:	Some schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Characters in peril, scary, toothy monster-looking seal
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	2006
Date Released to DVD:	2007
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000MV9026

It’s official. The cutest thing on the planet is penguins singing “Boogie Wonderland.” Especially if one of them is tap-dancing. This movie is a straight shot of sunshine. I defy anyone to watch it without smiling. Just as important, I defy anyone to watch it without thinking. This is a PG computer-animated film that raises issues from fundamentalism to the environment to bigotry in a manner that is accessible without being heavy-handed, condescending, or overly simplistic.

It begins like a sequel to March of the Penguins. As just about everyone on the planet knows now, the daddy penguins balance the eggs on their feet and huddle together for warmth while the mommies go on a long march to the water to get food to bring back for the new baby chicks. In real life, penguins recognize each other through the unique song each one sings. In this movie, those songs include memorable numbers from the Beach Boys, Freddy Mercury, Prince, and, of course, Elvis.

Norma Jean (voice of Nicole Kidman) sings Prince’s “Kiss.” Memphis (voice of Hugh Jackman) sings Elvis’ “Heartbreak Hotel.” Their eyes meet, their songs entwine, and soon Memphis is shielding the egg from the icy wind. But it rolls away from him and bumps.

Perhaps that is why, when Mumble is born, he is different right from the beginning. He has blue eyes, for one thing. He can’t sing. And he never loses his baby fluff. But he can dance. Boy, can he dance (voice of Elijah Wood, dancing by tap superstar Savion Glover).

Mumbles’ mother is sympathetic and his friend Gloria (voice of Brittany Murphy) is supportive, but his father wants him to conform. The other penguins cast him adrift. He meets up with another breed, Adelies, penguins who are warm and friendly and a little rambunctious. They have a seer named Lovelace (voice of Robin Williams) who wears a necklace made from a plastic six-pack ring.

Mumble returns, but he is rejected by the elders, who blame his non-conformity for the disappearance of the fish they need for food. Mumble finds Lovelace being strangled by the six-pack ring. He believes if he can get Lovelace to the place the ring came from, he can find out what happened to the fish and maybe appeal to the better nature of the “aliens” he thinks must be responsible, maybe he can help to get the fish back and save his community.

The animation is brilliant, making full use of the technology for wild swirls down icecaps and through water. The textures are almost tactile and the scope and perspective are stunning, creating a fully-realized environment that feels perfectly authentic from every angle. Penguins move like loaves of bread with feet, but the animators make them thrillingly distinctive and expressive, and the musical numbers are pure pleasure. In a wise move that adds to its sense of vitality, the animators seamlessly integrate real-life footage for the brief appearances of humans in the film.

But what makes the movie memorable is its story, which has real substance beyond the simple formula of “hero is different/hero is outcast/hero goes on journey/hero saves the day.” It manages to touch on the impact of humans on the environment, the inclination of creatures of all kinds to fear and distrust anything new or different — and to blame it for anything that goes wrong, the importance of having a dream to aspire to and a challenge to struggle against, and the role that songs of all kinds play in our lives and connections. Like a great tune, this movie will resonate within those of all ages as they find their own heartsongs.

Parents should know that there are some moments that may be too intense for younger children, including a predator with a lot of teeth. There are some scary surprises and some moments of peril, including some chases and a hit in the crotch. There is brief potty humor with a little schoolyard language. The issue of environmental degredation and the impact of development on the natural world is raised in a gentle (if simplistic) and positive way.

Families who see this movie should talk about times they felt different or reached out to someone who was different. Families should talk about the people they look up to most to think about how each of them at some time or other felt like an outcast for being different. They should talk about what, if they were penguins, their song would be and why. What, for humans, is the equivalent? What does it mean to appeal to someone’s better nature? They should talk about the importance of asking questions and insisting on answers, and about the risk of blaming innocent people when things go wrong. Why were the penguins in the zoo so dazed when they had everything they needed?

Families should also learn about emperor penguins and about efforts to protect the environment of Antarctica.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy March of the Penguins and some of the classic stories about characters whose differences turned out to be good ones: Ferdinand the Bull to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and The Ugly Duckling. Every family should see Finding Nemo, which has an understated but very sensitive treatment of the “lucky fin” that makes Nemo different. Believe it or not, Cary Grant once starred in a movie about a boy who had a dancing caterpillar named Curly, Once Upon a Time. And the original spectacular combination of pop music, animation, and witty and exciting story is the glorious Yellow Submarine.

Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny

Posted on November 12, 2006 at 3:57 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for pervasive language, sexual content and drug use.
Profanity:	Extremely strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Characters drink, smoke, and use drugs
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic peril and violence
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	2006
Date Released to DVD:	2007
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000MCH5RM

If you’re going to make an unapologetic slob/druggy/rock and roll comedy it has to be snark-free, without a hint of irony. Self-deprecation is welcome, but winking at the audience spoils the effect. And this movie winks at its winking, a sort of infinite regression of snark. That’s how the undeniably funny Kyle Gass and Jack Black have produced an over-stretched skit rather than a movie, a script as saggy as the bare tushes they show off as they explain how they got the name of their group. It’s for hard-core (and half-baked) fans only. If you’re not familiar with their previous work, you’ll come away from this either mystified or bored.

Gass and Black, of course, are Tenacious D, the mock rockers. This film purports to be the story of how they got started. We see young JB rocking his heart in a family that doesn’t understand. So he leaves home in search of Hollywood, on the advice of Ronnie James Dio. But it takes him many years to get there because there are a lot of Hollywoods. Once he arrives, he meets KG, a street performer with a lot of attitude, who agrees to teach him how to be a rocker. Eventually, they form a group (their name taken from matching birthmarks on their tushes) and they learn (from an unfunny Ben Stiller in a cameo as a music store salesman) that there is a guitar pick made from the tooth of the devil with great powers. If they can steal it from the Museum of Rock and Roll despite the best efforts of the security guards and a mysterious guy who wants it, too (an unfunny Tim Robbins), nothing can stop them!

So, they go after the Pick of Destiny (unfunny, dragged-out heist sequence), and then, once they get it, they have to battle the devil for it, because he wants his tooth back (the devil, played by rocker David Grohl, does have some funny moments).

Mike White understood how to make Black’s passion for rock music endearing in School of Rock, where the purity of his character’s love for the music and the “stick it to the man” message didn’t just make up for his selfishness; it put it into perspective. Here, though, it seems it’s the culture and the attitude he loves. And the drugs.

It has too little humor and too much of what it does have is inside, “we get it but the rest of the world doesn’t” jokes to sustain a movie. Remember that Stonehenge routine in This Is Spinal Tap? This is like that, only not funny, intentionally or otherwise.

Parents should know that this film has extremely strong and crude language, some sexual humor and non-sexual nudity, and drinking, smoking, and drug use. There is some comic peril.

Families who see this movie should talk about how rock and roll keeps re-inventing itself every time it begins to feel mainstream.

Families who enjoy this film will also enjoy The Blues Brothers and School of Rock. They might also like to see Tenacious D – The Complete Master Works.

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Comedy Movies -- format Musical

Idlewild

Posted on August 24, 2006 at 3:07 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for violence, sexuality, nudity and language.
Profanity:	Very strong language including the n-word
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, scenes in speakeasy, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Graphic violence, characters shot, injured, killed, scenes in mortuary with many dead bodies
Diversity Issues:	Strong, independent minority and female characters in an era when that was rare
Date Released to Theaters:	2006
Date Released to DVD:	2006
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000JJSL1W

Percival, a mortician by day/speakeasy piano player by night, sleeps under an assortment of singing cuckoo clocks and serenades a lovely corpse dressed as a bride. The engraved rooster on a silver liquor flask talks to its owner, also named Rooster. This stylized and stylish love and bullets prohibition-era story from Outkast is more of an extended music video than a movie, but it is eye- and ear-filling entertainment.

Andre (Andre 3000) Benjamin is Percival and Antwan A. (Big Boi) Patton is Rooster. The boisterously rowdy speakeasy is run by Sunshine Ace (Faison Love), a man of great appetites who is only too happy to feed them all at the illegal club called Church hidden behind his car repair shop. He gets his illegal liquor from Spats (Ving Rhames). Rooster performs at the club and helps manage it as well, causing his wife and the mother of his five daughters some distress. Like Ace, Rooster enjoys partaking of the pleasures of this Church, sometimes the very same one, in the person of the lovely Rose (Paula Jai Parker).

Spats wants to retire, and offers Ace the opportunity to buy him out for $25,000. Ace has a plan to get the money – he has arranged for the renowned singer Angela Davenport to perform. But Spats’ henchman, Trumpy (Terrence Howard) has plans of his own, and they involve his gun.

At times, it feels like the story is less an idea than a list made by Benjamin, Patton, and first time director/screenwriter Bryan Barber (director of Outkast’s most memorable videos) of what and who would be fun to shoot – either by film or by (pretend) gun.

As one might expect, the musical numbers are brilliantly handled, with music video-style sweeps and cuts that make the camera as much a part of the choreography as the dancers. Barber’s approach is to evoke rather than reproduce the 1920’s, with many modern touches in the look, script, and especially the sound, which has only the slightest connection to the music of the era. The evident affection for this romanticized vision of the era saturates the film like the warm sepia tones of its palette. There is something liberating about seeing a beautiful, elegant black woman buy a first class train ticket from a white man behind the ticket counter (the only white person in the film) in 1935 Georgia, without any concern that he might display any bigotry.

Barber achieves a dreamy synthesis that works very well, but has less of a sure hand at creating characters and directing actors. Even the experienced and superbly talented Howard, Cecily Tyson, Ben Vereen, and Rhames are not able to make their one-dimensional characters compete with the film’s visual flair. But that flair, with the dizzying mash-up of old and new, the embracing of some cliches and the turning inside out of others, makes this film entertaingnly audacious and highly watchable.

Parents should know that this movie has very strong language, explicit sexual references and situations, nudity, and a great deal of mobster-style violence. Much of the action takes place in a nightclub specializing in illegal alcohol and prostitution. Characters are shot and killed. A strength of the movie is the portrayal of confident, independent black characters in an era in which that would have been very difficult.

Families who see this movie should talk about why it was hard for Percival to do what he wanted and why it was too easy for Rooster to do what he wanted. They might like to find out more about the history of that era.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Chicago, Moulin Rouge, and O Brother Where Art Thou.

Step Up

Posted on August 9, 2006 at 12:17 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, brief violence and innuendo.
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Character is shot and killed, some additional peril and violence
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters have strong, loyal relationships
Date Released to Theaters:	2006
Date Released to DVD:	2006
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000J3OTSM

A ballet dancer needs a partner for the biggest show of the year. She sees a boy working off his community service time at her school showing some of his dance moves off to a friend. Could he do? Will he do it? Will they learn a great deal from each other and about themselves as they work together and will there be an issue right up until showtime about whether the big dance number will happen?

Yes to all of the above, and yes, too, to the really big question, which is: will it be fun to watch? Imagine a hip-hop version of High School Musical, some juvenile delinquency and a drive-by shooting added in to provide some street cred, but still a Disney-fied world where kisses are important and happy endings are guaranteed.

Ever since the days when Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney decided to put on a show, movies about kids working hard on song and dance numbers for the big night that will decide their futures have been a staple for showing off young talent to an appreciative young audience. Like the recent Save the Last Dance, this is the story of a mash-up, as the ballet dancer learns to loosen up and the boy from the streets learns discipline and technique.

Jenna Dewan is Nora, a senior at a Maryland high school for the arts. Tyler (Channing Tatum) is assigned 200 hours of community service at the school for vandalism. Nora is preparing for the big showcase that will determine whether she gets offered a job as a dancer. When her partner Andrew is injured, she asks Tyler if he will practice with her until Andrew is better.

The screenplay is so formulaic that it seems not just predictable but inevitable. The dialogue struggles mightily under its exposition-heavy burden until it collapses completely. Tatum and Dewan are about 10 years too old to be playing high school kids. These kids are about as “street” as a commercial for Target. But the dance numbers are energetically filmed and the underlying sweetness is impossible to resist. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard applause in a movie theater just because of a kiss. And it’s been an even longer time since I wanted to join in.

Parents should know that this movie has brief but disturbing violence. A young character is shot and killed. There are some other moments of peril and threatened violence. Characters use some strong language and engage in vandalism and car theft. A strength of the movie is its portrayal of committed and loyal friendships between diverse characters. And another is its portrayals of teenagers who are not sexually promiscuous and take kissing seriously. SPOILER ALERT: A young boy is killed because he wants to imitate and impress his older brother, who engages in risky and illegal behavior. The brother is told not to feel responsible, but in reality he is in part responsible for what happened and parents will want to discuss this issue with young teens who see the movie.

Families who see this movie should talk about why Tyler and Mac did not dare to dream of more for themselves and why that changed. What is likely to happen to them next? The characters in this movie talk about loyalty — who shows it? How do Nora’s, Tyler’s, and Mac’s home situations affect their perspectives?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy High School Musical (suitable for all ages). There are many popular films about dancers who develop romantic relationships, from Dirty Dancing and Save the Last Dance (mature material) to the more family-friendly Shall We Dance and Strictly Ballroom.

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Drama Movies -- format Musical Romance