Thunderstruck

Posted on August 23, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for mild language and rude humor
Profanity:	Some schoolyard language ("sucks," "crap")
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	None
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	August 24, 2012

This “Freaky Friday” with basketball keeps throwing airballs.

It’s the story of Brian (Taylor Gray) a sixteen-year-old kid who wishes he could have the skills of Olympic gold medalist and NBA star Kevin Durant playing himself, not very convincingly but with an engaging low-key unpretentiousness.

A magical basketball (don’t bother trying to figure it out; the movie doesn’t) switches their abilities. Suddenly Brian can’t miss and KD can’t even make a free throw. Brian goes from being the subject of jeers and humiliation in the school cafeteria to being a big man on campus, with the entire student body wearing shirts in his honor. And to the dismay of his agent (Brandon T. Jackson) and the poor director moaning “take 47” as they try to film a commercial for KD’s new shoes, KD can’t get out of his slump.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0wiLTsDqag

Brian first meets KD at half-time, when he has just been given the chance to do a free throw for a big prize. Instead of hitting the basket, he hit the mascot. “I wish I had your talent,” Brian says. “I wish you did, too,” KD tells him, but then says that it is hard work that matters more than talent. That is a good message for kids but the entire premise of the movie is the opposite. Both Brian and KD work very hard but it makes no difference in either case. This is typical of the carelessness of the script. Even the good guy characters are self-centered and without any interest in learning anything new. The coaches (Jim Belushi and his son, Robert) have no understanding of the game’s skills or strategy and no interest in the team other than winning. “Don’t suck!” is their charming mantra. When it comes time for the big pep talk before the championship game, the best they can do is recite some lines from “Hoosiers.” Plagiarism and insincerity — a nice lesson for the kids, both those on the team and those who are watching.

Parents should know that this movie has some schoolyard language (“it sucks,” “crap”), crotch hits, brief potty humor, and some bullying.

Family discussion: Why did Kevin and his agent react differently when Kevin lost his talent? Why did Brian become thoughtless and hurt his friends’ feelings? If you could have someone’s talent, who would you pick?

If you like this, try: “Like Mike” and “Rookie of the Year”

Premium Rush

Posted on August 23, 2012 at 6:00 pm

He’s a Manhattan bicycle messenger and his name is Wilee, like the coyote. But Wilee (the always-brilliant Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is more like the road runner in this story. He has an envelope to deliver, and Bobby (Michael Shannon) wants to stop him. This nifty little thriller does not need much more than that to hold our attention. And yes, it delivers.

Director and co-writer David Koepp (writer of “Spider-Man,” “Panic Room,” and “Jurassic Park”), like his hero, pares everything down to the essentials, and that means removing the brakes. Wilee explains that his bike has no gears and no brakes. It cannot coast, so the pedals never stop turning. “People risk their lives for 80 bucks on a good day,” he tells us. But he loves the freedom, the adrenalin, the constant recalibrating as he swerves in and out of traffic and tries to stay safe in a city were “door” is a verb and getting “doored” (slamming into an opening car door) can cause major injuries.

Just as Wilee is constantly juggling and recalibrating his options as he determines his strategy for getting to his destination as quickly and as safely as possible, with the priority on speed. Koepp takes us inside Wilee’s head as he looks down different paths and calculates what the outcome will be for each one. He applies the same sort of calculus to the rest of his life. He graduated from law school but never took the bar because he cannot see himself wearing a suit to an office, at least not now. He cares about his girlfriend, Vanessa (Dania Ramirez), but he cannot plan far enough into the future to manage to get to her graduation. He likes being in the moment. He does not like anything that reminds him of the other life beyond the urgency of making the deadline. He loves being a part of the few, the proud, the bike messengers — in a world of email and FedEx, there are still some things that have to be carried in person — but he is feeling increasingly competitive with Manny (Wole Parks), who seems to be chasing Wilee on the streets and Vanessa after hours.

Nobody gets mad better than Michael Shannon. I do not want to give away too much about what he is trying to do and why, so I will just say that he is great as a volatile man cracking under extreme pressure. Like Wilee, he looks from side to side to evaluate his options and is still just about able to continue to appear normal when he needs to. Koepp keeps the gears moving like a Swiss watch, hitting rewind to show us how the characters got to where they are but keeping the pacing tight, with just the right touches of comedy, romance, and plot for a nicely satisfying little late-summer treat.

Note: Be sure to stay for the credits to see a clip showing Gordon-Levitt’s real-life on-set accident, which required 31 stitches on his arm.

Parents should know that this film includes extended peril and some violence including bicycle accident and a gun, characters injured and killed, and some strong language (one f-word).

Family discussion: Why did Wilee prefer being a messenger to being a lawyer? What does his name tell us about him? What did the movie gain from being told out of order?

If you like this, try: “Quicksilver” with Kevin Bacon, “Cellular,” and “The Transporter”

Related Tags:

Action/Adventure Crime Thriller

The Expendables 2

Posted on August 23, 2012 at 4:37 pm

The Botox budget must be bigger than the catering costs but less than the ordnance in this sequel to Sylvester Stallone’s first round-up of the 80’s and 90’s A-Team for an action extravaganza. That’s A as in AARP.

This time, our heroes: Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Terry Crews, Dolph Lundgren and Randy Couture, along with their summer intern and obvious redshirt Liam Hemsworth are on a rescue mission. I’m not going to bother with their character names because the point of this movie is the actors, not the characters.

The guy tied to a chair and about to be tortured is hooded, so you know we are in for a big wink-wink surprise, and yes, it is former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said, “This is embarrassing.” The group rescues him and the Chinese billionaire he was guarding and then literally drops the client off by tossing him out of a plane with Li to guide him down. Li wisely exits the movie at this point, so my hopes for a rematch with Lundgren were tossed out of the plane with him.

Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) calls in a favor that has Stallone and the gang out for a job he insists is simple. All they have to do is retrieve the contents of a safe in a plane that crashed. They will need to take Maggie (the “combat proficient” Nan Yu) along, despite Stallone’s grousing that he does not want to be anyone’s babysitter. Hemsworth comes along for what he says will be his last job because he wants to quit to be with his wonderful girlfriend. He might as well be wearing a sign that says DBTA.

Or, he could be wearing a sign that says, “I am here to let the bad guy show everyone how really, really bad he is. Here I am, cute as a kitten and calling everyone ‘Sir’ and sacrificing myself for the others, so he must be really, really bad.” We also know he is really, really bad because (a) he is played by Jean Claude Van Damme wearing very mean-looking sunglasses and (b) his character’s name is, I am not kidding, Vilian.

The over-the-hill gang engages in various shoot-outs punctuated by lame wisecracks that refer to their iconic roles. Do you want to guess whether someone says, “I’ll be back?” At its best, it’s like watching a theme park stunt spectacular, one set-up after another, with brief distractions as the guys bond by discussing what they would pick for their last meal or just by the usual macho put-downs. Not that any of these guys were great actors to begin with, but they are less so, now. Between the Botox and the scar tissue, their faces don’t really move anymore. As the movie goes on, Li’s decision to literally bail out seems like the wisest move.

Parents should know that this film includes constant mayhem, peril, and violence, chases, explosions, fights, assault weapons, many characters injured and killed, drinking, smoking, and mild sexual references.

Family discussion: What did Barney mean when he said “we keep it light until it is time to get dark.” Why did he agree to fight the bad guy without weapons?

If you like this, try: the earlier action films starring these actors and the first “Expendables” movie

Related Tags:

Action/Adventure Series/Sequel

Hit & Run

Posted on August 22, 2012 at 3:21 pm

Real-life couple Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell are as cute as can be on and off camera, but there is nothing in this movie that comes close to the adorableness of their viral sloth video. Bell produced and Shepard wrote, directed, and co-edited this action-comedy-romance about a guy in the witness protection program using the name Charles Bronson (not named after the actor but after the prisoner who named himself after the actor) and his girlfriend, Annie, who has a PhD in non-violent conflict resolution. He told her he was in the program because he witnessed a crime. He didn’t tell her he witnessed it from the driver’s seat in the getaway car. Meanwhile, she has to get to an interview for her dream job, which is a bit tricky when they are being chased by her ex-boyfriend who wants her back and his ex-gang who want him in a lot of pain.

Shepard and Bell said they based the dynamic between their characters on their own relationship and the obvious affection and chemistry is genuinely endearing. But the script is slapdash and haphazard, seemingly thrown together based on whichever of their friends was available for a day of shooting. Kristin Chenoweth has two scenes as Annie’s pill-popping boss (completely wasting the obvious opportunity to cast them as sisters) and Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes show up briefly for two pointless cameos.

They are luckier than Bradley Cooper, who brings all of his goodwill and Actors Studio technique to the role of the dreadlocked, animal-loving bank robber who is looking for payback but can’t make it work, perhaps because his biggest laugh line is supposed to be a funny comment about prison rape. The movie wants us to find naughty words funny just because they are naughty, and that gets tired very fast. There are a couple of mildly funny lines: “I’m not going to teach non-violence at a university and marry Dog the Bounty Hunter.” “It’s not cool to wear those tank tops any more, unless you’re wearing them ironically or something.” It’s nice to see Beau Bridges. The souped up cars are cool and there are some nice stunts. But then we get back to Tom Arnold as a hapless federal marshal who has a premature firing problem and an orgy that is supposed to be funny because all the people are old and saggy and some dumb commentary about racial and homophobic humor and some dumber commentary about the importance of trust and communication — and hedging currencies. Don’t hit, just run.

Parents should know that this movie has constant provocative and outrageous humor including sexual references and racial and homophobic humor, frontal male and female nudity, some graphic violence (guns, battery), drug humor

Family discussion: What should Charlie have told Annie? What do you think of the way they talk about their differences?

If you like this, try: “Smokey and the Bandit” and “Grand Theft Auto”

Related Tags:

Action/Adventure Comedy Romance

VOD: Bringing More Choices Home

Posted on August 19, 2012 at 3:58 pm

Washington Post movie critic Ann Hornaday has a very good piece in today’s paper about video on demand. Like Ann, I would much rather see a movie in a theater. The experience of taking the actual journey to a special place away from the phone and other distractions of home and sharing those moments in the dark with others who are there at the same moment for the same purpose cannot be replicated by watching in your house while you do laundry and sort the mail. But like Hornaday, I love the availability of small movies by VOD that would not otherwise reach local theaters. As Morgan Spurlock told me when we spoke about his Comic-Con documentary:

With “Pom Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold,” we had so much press leading up to that film, and the week before the movie opened I was on Conan, Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, all within ten days and then the movie opened on 18 screens. So the majority of the people in the United States couldn’t even see the movie. I’m a film-maker, and I have yet to have a movie show in my own home town in West Virginia where I grew up. There’s got to be a better way—especially when it comes to documentaries.

If you’re not making a big, giant, huge mainstream Hunger-Games-esque film that’s going out on 3000 screens, how do you start to compete with those movies? For me, the best way to compete is by collapsing the window, giving anyone across the country who wants to see this film access to it immediately. You know, there’s a great line in ‘The Greatest Movie Ever Sold,” “In today’s world, in today’s media landscape, there is a cultural decay rate of ideas that is about two weeks.” So you basically have two weeks to capitalize on whatever surge you have around your moment, your film, your music, whatever it is, get people to get excited about it, to see it, to consume it, to share it—because really soon, something else will jump in there—there’ll be another movie, there’ll be something else that’s the conversation driver. So, for me this weekend, I just wanted to make sure that anyone who wanted to see this film could see it.

And as Hornaday puts it:

here low-budget independent films huddle for warmth against encroaching extinction, the simultaneous release of films in theaters and on VOD — rather than the traditional months-long window between the two — has proved to be a sustaining, even crucial survival strategy.

Related Tags:

Independent