Posted on November 12, 2011 at 3:35 pm
I’m delighted that PBS Indies are now available on iTunes for rental or purchase. Great documentaries like “Between the Folds” (it’s about origami and it is fabulous), “Carmen Meets Borat” (real Kazachs respond to Borat’s comic portrayal), and “Wham! Bam! Islam!” (about a comic book that promotes Islam) can now be seen anytime. Enjoy!
Posted on November 6, 2011 at 8:10 pm
I was delighted to see that one of my favorite childhood films, Hand in Hand (1960)
Posted on November 5, 2011 at 6:56 pm
I was pretty sure that the line between being lame and making fun of being lame was fairly distinct but in this film Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) push it so hard it almost dissolves. We’ve all come a long way since the original film came out in 2004 and charmed everyone with the unpretentiousness of its protagonists’ aspirations (they just wanted some of those scrumptious square burgers from White Castle) and its own (silly stoner fun). The sequel in 2008 brought in a politics by taking our heroes to Guantanamo prison and a meeting with the President. And now they’re back.
Harold has moved on. He is married to the beautiful Maria (Paula Garces) and has a beautiful home and a fancy job on Wall Street. He even has an obsequious assistant.
What he doesn’t have is the respect of his father-in-law (the scary Danny Trejo) or his old friend. Harold hangs out with a dweeby new friend, now, and his name is Todd (Tom Lennon). He and Kumar have gone their separate ways and never see each other.
Kumar has been kicked out of med school for failing a drug test. His girlfriend has left him. All he has left is a weed habit and a dweeby new friend, Adrian (Amir Blumenfeld). He and Harold have nothing in common anymore. But when he brings Harold a package that was delivered to their old apartment and accidentally sets Harold’s father-in-law’s prize Christmas tree on fire, they team up again to find a replacement and go on a journey that will include drugs, nudity, a claymation interlude, a song and dance from Neil Patrick Harris (worth the price of admission as a demented version of himself, singing and dancing and explaining that the gay thing is just a ruse to help him get more girls), more drugs including marijuana smoke in 3D that floats out into the theater, 3D jokes, hot nude nuns, Russian gangsters, and a drug-taking baby.
It hasn’t quite jumped the doobie yet, but the shtick is getting tired. Things that were funny in a college kid are not so funny when they get older and Kumar’s pudgy slacker-hood just seems sad. It’s as though they made a check-list of ways to be outrageous instead of letting the humor come naturally from the situations. When they and their characters were new to us we enjoyed the sense of discovery. But when they make jokes about Penn’s service in the White House and Harris is no longer a has-been but, thanks in part to the first movie, an Entertainment Weekly cover/J.J. Abrams musical-starring success, it feels phoned in and phony.
Posted on November 4, 2011 at 10:09 am
If the Occupy Wall Street crowd decided to make it movie it would be “Tower Heist,” the story of 99%-ers stealing back from a 1% guy what he stole from them.
Alan Alda has a lot of fun playing a bad guy for a change, a Madoff-style villain named Arthur Shaw who takes a daily swim in his rooftop pool with an enormous painting of a hundred dollar bill along the bottom. He lives in the penthouse of a luxury building in New York with an attentive staff under the perfectionist eye of building manager Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller). The employees entrusted him with their pension money and when he is arrested for securities fraud they realize that the money they saved and counted on for retirement has disappeared. Luther, the doorman (Stephen McKinley Henderson) is so disconsolate he attempts suicide. And Josh is so frustrated and furious that he plots a heist to steal some of their money back, with the help of a lowlife neighbor named Slide (Eddie Murphy, who co-produced). Josh has spent years protecting Shaw and the other wealthy residents of the building by creating an unbreakable security system. And he has spent years losing to Shaw in their online chess game. Will he be able to take Shaw’s king?
Co-scripter Ted Griffin wrote “Oceans 11” so he knows that heist films depend on three things: (1) We have to be on the side of the thieves and it helps to have them steal from an arrogant bad guy. Check. (2) It has to be a challenge with some enormous logistical obstacles to outsmart. Check. And (3) there have to be some unexpected problems for our anti-heroes to solve as the caper is underway. Check again.
It is a pleasure to see Eddie Murphy, who co-produced, funny again in a live action film, playing a character who might be an older, less smooth relative of his “48 Hours” Reggie Hammond. Instead of trying to play all the parts himself, he blends into a top-notch ensemble cast that includes Téa Leoni as an FBI agent, Gabourey Sidibe of “Precious” as a maid who is handy with locks, an abashed Matthew Broderick as a failed Wall Streeter evicted from the building, and Michael Peña and Casey Affleck as accomplices. We could use a lot more Leoni (any movie could use more Leoni) and the conclusion feels awkwardly tacked on, but it is timely and fun.
Posted on November 1, 2011 at 9:05 am
B| Lowest Recommended Age: | Kindergarten - 3rd Grade |
| MPAA Rating: | Not Rated |
| Profanity: | None |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | None |
| Violence/ Scariness: | None |
| Diversity Issues: | A theme of the movie |
| Date Released to Theaters: | 2011 |
| Date Released to DVD: | November 1, 2011 |
| Amazon.com ASIN: | B005BRFN8Q |
This Dove-approved family film stars Ted McGinley and Daniel Baldwin as one-time high school rivals who find themselves on opposite sides again when they battle over Christmas decorations in a small Alaska town and learn that Christmas is not about what is displayed but what is felt and shared.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkK30YFv9u0
