She’s Out of My League

Posted on June 22, 2010 at 8:35 am

“She’s Out of My League” recognizes that raunchiness is easy, but sweetness is the challenge. Making both parts of the equation work is something of a struggle but this movie comes closer than many.
The title says it all, and the mismatch of tone parallels the mismatch in the story. It’s a gender-reversed Cinderella story about a shlub who loves a goddess. And he has no idea what to do when it appears that she might just like him back. He cannot believe that he deserves her, and so of course he then does everything he can think of to prove he’s right by making the near-fatal mistake of taking the advice of his friends. The definitive response to this, of course, is still the scene in “Say Anything,” the quintessential she’s out of my league movie, where John Cusack responds to his friends’ awful advice: “If you guys know so much about women, how come you’re here at like the Gas ‘n’ Sip on a Saturday night completely alone drinking beers with no women anywhere?” Apparently, Kirk (Jay Baruchel of “Tropic Thunder” and “Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist”) never saw that movie because when one of his friends tells him that the way to a woman’s heart is to engage in an extreme makeover of a personal area, he goes for it all the way in an extended scene that somehow — see above — manages to become kind of sweet.

A lot of the credit goes to Baruchel, in his first romantic lead, as Kirk, the TSA security guy who works at the airport so he can dream of becoming a pilot, and Alice Eve as Molly, the impossibly beautiful dream girl who also happens to be smart, successful, kind-hearted, and able to somehow see more in Kirk than anyone else ever has. They never lose sight of the fact that this has to work as a romance as well as an over-the-top outrageous comedy, and that helps carry the audience through the slow patches. Unfortunately, it doesn’t to much to get us through the excruciating patches in which Kirk is subjected to a series of humiliating events, many featuring his embarrassingly obnoxious family and ex-girlfriend as well as various drawn-out mess-ups and recoveries and confrontations, ending, finally, in the inevitable race through the airport for a movie that never makes it off the ground.

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Related Tags:

Comedy Romance

Fantasia

Posted on June 21, 2010 at 3:23 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	All Ages
MPAA Rating:	G
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol at festival, god of wine
Violence/ Scariness:	Characters in peril, scary monster, dinosaurs die out
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	1940
Date Released to DVD:	2010
Amazon.com ASIN:	B0040QTNSK

Disney’s glorious “Fantasia” and its sequel, “Fantasia 2000” are out for a limited time in a spectacular 4-DVD blu-ray package.

Considered a failure on its original release, “Fantasia’s” eight-part combination of images and music is now indisputably a classic. Musicologist Deems Taylor explains that there are three kinds of music: music that paints a picture, music that tells a story, and “absolute music,” or music for music’s sake, and then shows us all three. Highlights include Mickey Mouse as The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, whose plan to save himself from a little work by enchanting a broom to carry the buckets of water gets out of control, the Nutcracker Suite’s forest moving from fall into winter (with the adorable mushroom doing the Chinese Dance), Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, with characters from Greek mythology celebrating at a festival and seeking shelter from a storm, and the Dance of the Hours, with ostrich and hippo ballerinas dancing with gallant (if overburdened) crocodiles.

It concludes with the scary Night on Bald Mountain followed by the dawn’s Ave Maria. The movie is perfect for blu-ray — it’s as though we can finally see the colors the way the artists could only dream of. The flying Pegasus family soars through the sky, the thistles kick like Cossacks to the Russian dance, the dinosaurs lumber to the Rite of Spring. This is one of the greatest movies in cinematic history, groundbreaking and timeless.

And there’s more. Disney planned another musical segment designed by famous surrealist artist Salvador Dali, who came out to the Disney studio for eight months to work on it. But it was canceled due to financial setbacks at the company at the time, and Disney always regretted that it was not completed. It has become a legend, much speculated about and sought after. This splendid set includes Destino, with Roy Disney at long last completing Dali’s original vision, 58 years after he began it.

Roy Disney also supervised “Fantasia 2000,” the sequel, which includes a charming Al Hirschfeld-inspired Manhattan saga set to George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and a wildly funny flamingo/yo-yo mix-up (more like a pile-up) to the music of Saint-Seans.

Fantasia/Fantasia 2000 is a genuine family treasure, guaranteed to inspire and entertain all ages. Grab it while you can.

Celebrate the World Cup with Soccer Movies

Posted on June 18, 2010 at 8:00 am

Is this the year the US finally gets it about soccer, I mean football? The biggest sporting event on the planet is the World Cup, taking place this year in South Africa. Now is a great time to recognize the beauty and skill of the world’s most popular game with soccer movies.

1. Bend it Like Beckham A young woman from a traditional Indian family living in London joins a soccer team in this delightful comedy about fitting in and standing out. Parminder Nagra stars along with Keira Knightley, Jonathan Rhys Meyers (“The Tudors”), and Archie Panjabi (“The Good Wife”)

2. The Cup is a gentle and utterly beguiling story of a group of Tibetan monks who go to great lengths to watch the World Cup.

3. Gracie Gracie Bowen (“Mean Creek’s” Carly Schroeder) is the only girl in a soccer-mad blue-collar family in New Jersey, based on the true story of actress Elisabeth Shue, who plays Gracie’s mother. Her younger brothers tease her without mercy, but her older brother Johnny, a star athlete, always encourages her. When he is killed in an accident, she decides to make his dream of beating the rival team come true by taking his place on the team. The boys’ team.

4. The Damned United The star and screenwriter of “The Queen” and “Frost/Nixon” explore some of the same themes of ambition and celebrity in this fact-based story of the soccer coach who took one team to the top and then nearly took a top team to the bottom. Michael Sheen plays Brian Clough, a man whose talents were almost as great as his ego.

5. “The Other Final” When the Netherlands did not qualify for the 2002 World Cup Finals, a Dutch fan came up with the idea of an “alternative” final between the two lowest ranking countries in the world. That would be Bhutan (202nd) and Montserrat (203rd). Neither side had a coach and three days before the match they still didn’t have a referee.

6. A Shot at Glory My friend Desson Thomson, former movie critic for the Washington Post, knows as much about movies as anyone and more about soccer than everyone. He says this movie is worth seeing but not for its story and warns that you should probably turn the volume down when Robert Duvall attempts a Scottish accent. But he assures me that the soccer scenes, featuring real professional players are very well done.

7. Air Bud: World Pup The sports-playing dog joins the soccer team in this family-friendly series entry featuring real-life U.S. Women’s Soccer Team champions Brandi Chastain, Brianna Scurry, and Tisha Venturini.

8. Shaolin Soccer This king fu fantasy movie about an underdog soccer team from writer/director/star Stephen Chow is a genre-bending delight with out-of-this-world special effects.

9. Fever Pitch (1997) Forget the pallid US remake about the Red Sox with Drew Barrymore. And ignore the inflammatory DVD cover art and poster. This version, stars Colin Firth, based on the Nick Hornby book about a teacher whose love for his underdog team begins to interfere with the rest of his life, and it is a sharp, funny, and affectionate portrait of the tribal world of the passionate fan.

10. The Miracle Match (originally called “The Game of Their Lives”) In one of the great upsets in sports history, the US beat England for the World Cup championship in 1950. Gerard Butler and Wes Bentley star in this movie from the people behind “Rudy” and “Hoosiers.”

Related Tags:

Lists Sports

When in Rome

Posted on June 15, 2010 at 8:00 am

An exceptionally strong cast makes this fantasy romantic comedy trifle pleasantly watchable despite its chick-lit conventions. Kristen Bell is Beth, the (of course) supremely competent museum “curator,” who is so devoted to her work that she has never figured out the love thing. She is (of course) not just humiliatingly re-dumped by her ex (the always-engaging Lee Pace) in the middle of a big art gala but — just to make this a major chick-flick tragedy — she also breaks the heel of her boot at the same time. And she has a mean boss (Anjelica Houston). This officially makes her the Cinderella of the movie.

Enter Prince Charming, late and with a loud and inappropriate ringtone. That’s Josh Duhamel as Nick, who is some sort of sportswriter. And they meet at a ball, or close enough, the grand wedding of Beth’s sister to a gorgeous Italian she just met. No evil stepsisters here.) Maid of honor, meet best man. But Beth, all too ready to assume the worst about love, runs away from Nick as fast as her Louboutins can go, stopping to grab four coins from the Fountain of Love to show her defiance of all things romantic.

Enter the complication: it seems that if you remove a coin thrown by a man into the Fountain of Love, you become the object of his desire. So, back in New York and with the Big Gala coming up at the museum, Beth finds herself being something between stalked and chased by: Danny DeVito as the sausage king who sends her a basket of “encased meats,” Will Arnett as an artist who paints an enormous nude portrait of Beth on the side of a building, Jon (“Napoleon Dynamite”) Heder as a street magician who can make the audience’s patience and good will disappear, and Dax Shepherd as a guy who is unabashedly way too into himself.

There’s a lot wrong with this movie. Just for the record, I do not know what the people who made this film think curators do, but in this world party-planning for cultivation of donors seems to be Beth’s primary obligation. Anyone who works in any capacity at an art museum will have more edge and style to her clothes than Beth does, with a particularly unfortunate dress in the big denouement that looks like collision of two of the biggest fashion catastrophes of all time: the 1970’s and bridesmaid’s gowns. The movie promises much more humor from a tiny little car, some pratfalls, a confused priest, a museum exhibit about pain(!), a restaurant in the dark, the characteristics of the four suitors, and the entire premise than it delivers. But the deftness of Bell and especially Duhamel manages to make clumsiness seem a little romantic and rather sweet.

Related Tags:

Comedy Fantasy Romance

Toy Story

Posted on June 12, 2010 at 1:17 pm

A+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	G
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Some tense scenes, characters in peril
Diversity Issues:	No strong female or minority characters
Date Released to Theaters:	1995
Date Released to DVD:	March 30, 2010
Amazon.com ASIN:	B0030IIZ4M

Celebrate the release of “Toy Story 3” with another look at the original — Pixar’s first feature release was the first theatrical released animated entirely by computer. It is now available in a pristine Blu-Ray version that pops off the screen. Although the dazzling technology is especially well suited to a story in which the major characters are made out of plastic, it is the unpretentious imagination and energy of the people behind the story and the outstanding vocal performances that make the movie an enduring classic.

The story is about the toys belonging to a boy named Andy. His favorite is a sheriff from the old west named Woody (with the voice of Tom Hanks). He acts as the leader of the rest of Andy’s toys, including a Tyrannosaurus Rex (voice of Wallace Shawn) and Mr. Potatohead (voice of Don Rickles). All is going well until Andy receives for his birthday an astronaut named Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen of “Home Improvement”). Woody becomes jealous, and in an effort to keep Andy from taking Buzz with him on an excursion, Andy accidentally knocks Buzz out the window. Woody follows, and the rest of the movie consists of their efforts to return home before the family moves away.

Children may relate to the idea of the sibling rivalry between Woody and Buzz, and the movie may provide a good starting point for a discussion of jealous feelings. It may also be fun for parents to point out some favorites from their own childhoods, including Mr. and Mrs. Potatohead, Etch-a-Sketch, Slinky Dog and Barrel Of Monkeys.

NOTE: This movie may be too scary for very young children. The three- year-old with me insisted on leaving less than halfway through, and it got scarier after that. Andy’s next-door neighbor is a vicious and destructive boy named Sid, who mutilates and tortures toys. His room is filled with genuinely grotesque creations made from bits and pieces of toys — sort of Geppeto’s workshop as seen by Stephen King. Sid gets a relatively mild comeuppance as the toys “break the rules” to scare him into being kind to all toys in the future.

Children may also be troubled by the notion that the toys are “real” whenever the humans are out of the room. This is even more confusing because one of the cleverest aspects of the movie’s plot is that Buzz does not know he is a toy, and thinks he really is a space explorer on his way “to infinity and beyond.” Note also that Andy does not have a father, although it is presented so subtly that most kids will miss it.

The two toys have special appeal not only for Andy to use to imagine himself as the fantasy male archetypes of cowboy and astronaut, but also perhaps as father substitutes. Meanwhile, there are no strong female toys, only a simpering Bo Peep who flirts with Woody.