Goosebumps

Posted on October 15, 2015 at 5:04 pm

Screenwriters Mike White (“School of Rock”) and Darren Lemke (“Turbo,””Lost”) bring just the right blend of scary, funny, and heartwarming in this first film based on the books by tween favorite R.L. Stine, the man who put the BOO in BOOOKs. And when I say “books,” I mean the plural. This movie does not bring just one of Stine’s creepfests for kids to life. It brings many of his more than 300 books to life, sometimes creepy undead life, but life on screen.

Our hero, handsome Zach Cooper (Dylan Minnette of “Alexander and the No Good…etc”) and his mother (Amy Ryan) move in next door to a pretty girl named Hannah (“The Giver’s” Odeya Rush), who lives with her dad (Jack Black). Zach would like to get to know Hannah, but her father warns him to stay away. Hannah would also like to get to know Zach. While her dad tries to keep her in the house, she sneaks out to visit an abandoned amusement park and takes Zach along. Then when Zach thinks he hears Hannah in trouble, he goes to investigate, with his amiably dorky friend Champ (Ryan Lee).

It turns out Hannah’s father, the legendary author R.L. Stine, has not been keeping Hannah inside to protect her. He has been keeping everything inside to protect everyone outside. For some mysterious reason, each of the books he wrote contains a literal monster, and if the book is opened, the monster escapes. And it is very, very, very hard to get them locked back inside. You’ve heard of Pandora’s box? These are Pandora’s books. Whatever scares you the most — insect monster, clown monster, zombies, mummies, werewolf, angry yeti, evil ventriloquist dummy — it’s in there, or, I should say, it’s coming out of there. And a lot of things you didn’t know were scarey (garden gnomes? fluffy poodle? Jack in the box?) turn out to be very scary, too. All the monsters escape and Stine, Hannah, Zach, and Champ have to get them locked back up. If they can do that without getting eaten first.

It is too bad to see the brilliant Jillian Bell, who stole “22 Jump Street” from Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, relegated to a retro man-crazy single lady. The equally brilliant Amy Ryan does the best she can with her limited role. But the special effects, stunts, and production design are state-of-the-art, and Zach and Hannah are likeable leads, with Black and Lee providing some comic relief and a superb score from Danny Elfman, who just about owns Halloween music. There are dozens of allusions to classic scary tales, which should inspire at least some kids to pursue literary and movie monsters from “Dracula” and “Frankenstein” to “The Dark of Night,” “The House that Dripped Blood,” and the original “The Haunting.”

Parents should know that this movie has lots of monsters, some very scary looking, as well as some scary surprises, schoolyard language, and brief potty humor.

Family discussion: Which is the scariest monster and why? How are the three kids different in the way they view the monsters?

If you like this, try: “Monster House” and the books by R.L. Stine

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Trailer: The Good Dinosaur

Posted on October 15, 2015 at 8:00 am

Frances McDormand, Sam Elliott, Jeffrey Wright, Anna Paquin, and Steve Zahn provide the voices in “The Good Dinosaur,” with songs from Taylor Swift. It will be in theaters for Thanksgiving.

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Animation Trailers, Previews, and Clips

A Ballerina’s Tale

Posted on October 14, 2015 at 5:32 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Injury and recovery
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	October 16, 2015

“A Ballerina’s Tale” — the title suggests a fairy story, with sugar plums and a happily ever after ending. But this documentary about Misty Copeland is a story about the brutal hard work and resolve necessary to create those exquisitely graceful performances and make them look effortless. Like the Venus and Serena documentary about the superstar tennis champions, this is a story of an African-American pioneer in a world that has traditionally been white. While ballet does not offer a competition as definitive as a sporting event, like the Williamses Copeland has a level of ability, skill, and dedication that made it impossible to put her anywhere but front and center.

And, like the Williams sisters, Copeland is in a field where people in their 20’s and 30’s may be at the end of their careers. Furthermore, like the Williams sisters, Copeland faces an unexpected health crisis that put her ability to continue at risk. Just as she was given the chance for her first lead role, Copeland found that she had a severe stress fracture in her lower leg. She was 29 years old, and did not know if she would ever dance again.

This is a good movie about a subject and a person who deserve a great movie. The drama is compelling, although it is hard to see an ad campaign as the triumph it expects us to cheer. The best parts of the movie are Copeland’s performances, starting with home video footage at the beginning, going back to when she was in her teens. Her grace and stage presence are there from the beginning. We see her stand in her favorite spot in the practice room, admitting she is a perfectionist. We learn a little about the relatively recent but still-prevalent notion that a ballet dancer should be waiflike and prepubescent-looking and as indistinguishable as possible from the other dancers. Copeland has a strong, healthy body, curvier than the typical principal dancer. And she is black. The film’s most touching moments are when the previous generation’s African-American dancers become her mentors, and we see in their eyes, faces, and still-graceful gestures how much it means to them that she may be able to go farther than they did. If this is a fairy tale, they are the fairy godmothers.

Parents should know that this film has frank discussions of racial prejudice and an injury with brief graphic images.

Family discussion: What other fields are as demanding as ballet? What did Misty Copeland learn from the women who went before her?

If you like this, try: “First Position,” “Pina,” and “Ballet 422”

Trailer: the Jesse Owens Story, “Race”

Posted on October 13, 2015 at 2:31 pm

Stephan James, Jason Sudeikis, Jeremy Irons, Carice van Houten, Shanice Banton, and William Hurt star in this film about Jesse Owens, who defied Hitler’s claims about Aryan supremacy to win four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

Here is the real Owens. I was privileged to meet him when I was a teenager and will never forget it.

Big Stone Gap

Posted on October 8, 2015 at 5:51 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for brief suggestive material
Profanity:	Mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking and drunkeness
Violence/ Scariness:	Tense confrontations, sad death
Diversity Issues:	Ethnic diversity
Date Released to Theaters:	October 9, 2015

Even in small towns, big things can happen. Sometimes the most famous movie star in the world stops by and makes international headlines. And even bigger things happen, too — they just don’t get into the newspapers. Adriana Trigiani’s best-selling novels about her home town of Big Stone Gap, Virginia are loving tributes to the down-home values and adorably quirky characters she grew up with. Big things happen. There are sad losses and disappointments. But there is love and honor and generosity, too. In her first feature film as a director, Trigiani has assembled a superb cast, mixing top Hollywood and Broadway talent with some locals. Ashley Judd is at the center as a woman whose discovery of a secret about her past makes her think differently about her future.

It takes place in 1978. The woman is Ave Maria Mulligan, the owner of the local pharmacy. With a name like that, there has to be a story. When her beloved mother dies, she learns for the first time that her mother’s husband was not her father, as she thought. Her mother has left her a letter explaining that her father was a man she loved in Italy. Ave is determined to find her real father, though she has never traveled anywhere. She has great friends with colorful names and personalities, especially wisecracking Fleeta Mullins (Whoopi Goldberg) and starry-eyed bookmobile librarian Iva Lou Wade (Jenna Elfman). Then there’s Theodore Tipton (John Benjamin Hickey), the high school band and choral director who works with her on the town’s legendary annual “Trail of the Lonesome Pine” pageant and is Ave’s sort-of boyfriend and a handsome coal miner with the rare ordinary name of Jack (Patrick Wilson), who has a very possessive girlfriend (Jane Krakowski as Sweet Sue Tinsley).

It takes place in an eternally cozy past where coal mining is romantic because it creates electricity and there’s no mention of black lung disease. It’s corny cornpone, but unpretentious and it goes down easy, like sweet tea brewed by sunshine.

Parents should know that this film has some sexual references including potency, paternity, and a closeted gay character and non-explicit situations, drinking and drunkenness.

Family discussion: How is Ave Maria different from the people around her? Why did her mother keep the secret so long?

If you like this, try: the book series by Adriana Trigiani and the film “Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!”

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Comedy Movies -- format Romance