Two New Remakes With a Twist: Splash and Rocketeer
Posted on August 1, 2016 at 3:53 pm
More remakes! Two Disney films are getting remakes and both have gender twists. I’ve always had a lot of affection for Disney’s Rocketeer, with Billy Campbell, Timothy Dalton, Alan Arkin, and Jennifer Connelly. It was not a hit when it was released, but it is stylish and smart and exciting. I’m not the only one who considers it delightful.
Disney has announced a remake, but this time the title character will be black and female. And there’s a gender switch in the other remake as well. In a new version of Splash, Channing Tatum will play the mer-man, and Jillian Bell will be in the Tom Hanks role.
Extended fantasy/paranormal violence with some disturbing images
Diversity Issues:
Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:
July 15, 2016
Date Released to DVD:
October 10, 2016
Amazon.com ASIN:
B01I2FFGW6
Copyright Columbia 2016I’m willing to believe them. I mean, sure, the original is a classic, mostly thanks to Bill Murray, Sigourney Weaver, and a new approach to action/paranormal comedy. But the reboot has the Mount Rushmore of movie comedy with SNL writer/cast members Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, and Kristen Wiig, plus America’s sweetheart Melissa McCarthy. That’s some serious comedy power there, and some serious dimples, too. It pays tribute to the original, opening with the Ray Parker, Jr. song and featuring cameos from original cast members Murray, Aykroyd, Hudson, Potts, and Weaver, and a couple of the original ghosts, too.
But it is very much its own take on the story, with a fresh script from director Paul Feig and Katie Dippold (“Parks and Recreation,” “The Heat”). There are tweaks on the original’s headquarters and car. And it has updated references — you know that if a New Yorker saw a ghost today, she’d whip out a selfie stick and Instagram it, and they pause for a burn on Reddit haters).
Like the original, it begins with scientists losing their jobs in academia because of their insistence on exploring the paranormal. Wiig plays Erin, a physicist who misses her chance at tenure when it is revealed that she once co-authored a book called Ghosts from Our Past — Both Literally and Figuratively. It was out of print, but the other author, her estranged friend Abby (McCarthy), has made it available on Amazon. Erin visits Abby’s lab and meets Jillian Holtzmann (McKinnon), a mad scientist type who literally plays with fire. When they are all fired, they start a company to investigate the paranormal and are soon joined by Patty (Jones), a subway worker who does not know much about science but has an extensive knowledge of New York city history. And they hire a receptionist named Kevin (“Thor’s” Chris Hemsworth) and get to work trying to capture a ghost so they can prove they are right.
Meanwhile, a nerdy guy is building a machine to unleash and intensify all of the spirits in the city, and so the women go from studying the ghosts to, yes, busting them, with a major confrontation in the midst of a metal concert with a group called “The Slimers” onstage and Ozzy Osbourne watching in the wings. The mayor (Andy Garcia) and his aide (Cecily Strong) thank the team privately but denounce them as frauds publicly to keep the city from panicking.
The final confrontation goes on a bit too long, which is probably why there is an obvious cut of what would have been a dance number (glimpsed in the credits and I hope added in full to the DVD extras). But the action scenes are strong and the comedy is first-rate, at its best achieving a deliriously loopy silliness that is refreshing in an era where gross-out, oh-no-they-didn’t jokes are considered wit.
Each of the four main characters is clearly having a blast showing what she does best, creating distinctive characters with very different styles but always working the chemistry between them with dialog that often feels improvised by actors trying to make each other laugh. It is refreshing to see a movie with four female leads who are professional, super-smart, and totally badass, kicking the butts of all the ghosts and demons and the Bechdel test as well. Their happily ever after is saving Manhattan not getting some guy to put a ring on it.
Newcomer-to the big screen McKinnon tears it up as a Doc Brown type with a wicked smile, a steampunk vibe, and a Faraday cage, swinging into a Glinda the Good Witch song and handing out weapons from a motion-activated proton glove to a Swiss army knife. “She’s doing a marvelous impression of a deflating balloon,” she says as one of her colleagues is being shot through the air. Jones, also in her first feature film lead role, is outstanding as Patty, who knows who she is and what she wants. McCarthy is adorable as always and has a lot of fun with a particular demon. And Hemsworth is flat-out hilarious as the incompetent Kevin. It’s funny, smart, and sweet and in every way as good or better than the original. Fanboys, have at it.
NOTE: Stay through the credits for glimpses of the excised dance scene and some other treats, and following the credits, a brief extra scene with some important information.
Parents should know that this film includes extended fantasy/horror peril and violence. Characters are killed (one off-screen, one suicide by electrocution), and there are some gruesome images and mild crude humor.
Family discussion: What’s your favorite ghost story? Which was the scariest ghost in the movie?
If you like this, try: the original “Ghostbusters,” “Monster House,” and “ParaNorman”
Rated PG-13 for sequences of action and violence, some sensuality and brief rude dialogue
Profanity:
Some racist epithets and mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:
Some social drinking
Violence/ Scariness:
Extended peril and violence, characters injured and killed, some disturbing and graphic images and scary animals
Diversity Issues:
Historical abuse and enslavement
Date Released to Theaters:
July 1, 2016
Copyright 2016 Warner Brothers“The Legend of Tarzan” gets some things right. The swinging through the trees is exhilarating. Alexander Skarsgård (Tarzan/John) and Margot Robbie (Jane) are beautiful to look at, as is the African scenery. The CGI animals are pretty good. Thankfully, other than a few flashbacks, it avoids dwelling on the over-familiar origin story. And it is nice to see a shift from the colonialist perspective of some Tarzan stories to recognition of the real-life atrocities inflicted by Belgium’s King Leopold on the African natives, exploiting their resources and enslaving their people.
But there’s a lot the movie does not get right. It’s not terrible; it’s just oddly off, as though it was assembled by a committee that didn’t communicate with each other very well. The first problem is that Tarzan is depressed. I do not know why people seem to think that we somehow make classic literary characters more sophisticated or modern by making them depressed, but I’ve had enough of it. We’ve already had a depressed Batman and a depressed Superman this year. We don’t need a depressed Tarzan. Tarzan, now using his birth name of John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, is living in England when we first see him. Presented with an invitation to return to the Congo as the guest of King Leopold, he declines. Lifting a pinky as he sips from a porcelain teacup to demonstrate just how far he has come from running naked through the jungle, he explains simply, “It’s too hot.” He does not want to go back. But an American named George Washington Williams (played by Samuel L. Jackson and a toupee) persuades him to return, so he can investigate charges of abuse and enslavement. Jane is thrilled to return to Africa, and John reluctantly agrees to let her come along.
The invitation from the King was engineered by Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz, in his usual ultra-civil, ultra-evil mode). If he can deliver John to Chief Mbonga (a regal Djimon Hounsou) the chief will give him access to the diamond mines. When John escapes, Rom takes Jane and some of her tribal friends prisoner.
There’s an unfinished quality to the film. The tone shifts from a literally heavy-handed early image of a cruel hand wrapped in a rosary ripping a flower from its stem to some awkward and anachronistic attempts at humor (Samuel L. Jackson after a diplomatic speech: “And I thought the Civil War was long!”), and distracting random camera-swooping. But the real drag on the film’s momentum is Tarzan himself, who is so morose that the energy seeps out of the story. Reportedly, Skarsgård spent six months working out all day. He looks great, but to be honest he already looked great, and the fixation with male or female movie stars remaking their bodies for roles is barbaric. What needed the work was the script.
Parents should know that this film includes extended peril and violence, guns, spears, explosions, predator animals some disturbing images, characters injured and killed, some sexual references, and brief strong and racist language.
Family discussion: Why did John and Jane have different views about going back to Africa? How did John’s idea of honor change and why?
If you like this, try: the many other movie and television portrayals of Tarzan and the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs
“Alice Through the Looking Glass” the movie has almost no relationship to Alice Through the Looking Glass, the book by Lewis Carroll in spirit, character, or storyline. That might possibly be all right if the spirit, character, or storyline were in any way worthwhile, but it is not. Gorgeous production design and some cool stunts do not make up for a story that begins as passable and ends as painful.
Tim Burton, who produced this one, previously gave us an “Alice in Wonderland” with an adult Alice (Mia Wasikowska) replacing the little girl of the story and spending way too much time in the above-ground “real” world as she attends a party, turns down a proposal of marriage from the odious Haimish (Leo Bill), and accepts instead the offer from his father to serve as crew on a merchant ship.
In “Looking Glass,” we first see Alice, now captain of the ship, in an exciting escape from pirates that show us her courage and love of adventure. But when the ship returns to port in London, she finds that Hamish’s father has died, leaving him in charge, and he refuses to let her go back to sea. In his home, she finds a mirror over a fireplace that is a portal back to Wonderland, led by the former caterpillar, now-butterfly (voice of of the much-missed Alan Rickman).
Having already imported the talking flowers, chess pieces, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and the Jabberwocky from “Through the Looking Glass” into the first film, conflating the first story’s Queen of Hearts (the “Off with the head!” one) with the second story’s Red Queen (the chess one) this movie takes — but makes no use of — the first book’s characters like the Cheshire Cat and the White Rabbit, and then has a completely invented story about time travel.
This has many disagreeable aspects, but the worst is when it puts Sasha Baron Cohen as the embodiment of Time into a scene with Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter and allows them to try to out-grotesque each other in a manner clearly intended to be charming. It is not.
Neither is the plot, which relies heavily on just the kind of treacly heartstrings-plucking backstories that Carroll would never have allowed, asking us to feel sympathy for outrageous behavior and affection for caricatures. The first film’s attempt to create a warm, devoted friendship between Alice and the Mad Hatter was rather ooky. In the sequel, we are asked to believe that she has returned to do whatever it takes to help him because they love each other so much.
To paraphrase the folks behind “Seinfeld,” in the Alice world, there should be no hugging and no apologizing — and no heartfelt professions of affection, especially when they are not in any way justified by the characters’ history with each other.
Alice is needed on the other side of the mirror because the Mad Hatter has found something that has convinced him that his family is still alive, and not killed by the Jabberwock as he had thought. Why is this so important? Is it because he misses them so? Not really. It is because he feels bad about his behavior and needs to see them again so he can be forgiven. The disconnect between the expressions of devotion and the narcissistic reality of behavior is disturbingly cynical. Alice decides the only way she can save his family is to go back in time to the Jabberwock battle, which means she has to retrieve the chronosphere from Time himself, and that leads to more time travel as she solves various not-very-mysterious mysteries and Time chases her to get it back. Not that any of it makes any sense, logically or emotionally.
The production design is imaginative and witty, but it is buried under a gormless, hyperactive mess of a film. The book is endlessly witty and imaginative and delightful with all kinds of wordplay, math puzzles, and chess references from Carroll (aka Charles Dodgson), a math professor. The movie wastes all of that opportunity. Look at the title — the movie should be about a reverse world, not a heist/time travel saga that only concludes you can’t change history. If I had the chronosphere, I’d use it to go back to the moment I sat down to watch this movie so I could go home.
Parents should know that this film has extended fantasy peril with many disturbing images, discussion of loss of parents, brief image of someone dying, and bullying.
Family discussion: If you could go back in time, what time would you pick? Why did the Hatter and the White Queen have a hard time telling their families how they felt?
Roots 2016 — Remake of the Classic Series Based on Alex Haley’s Book
Posted on May 25, 2016 at 3:03 pm
The 1977 television miniseries Roots, based on the book by Alex Haley, was one of the foremost cultural events of the decade, watched by millions and discussed by everyone. It followed the story of Haley’s family from the capture of his African ancestor, Kunta Kinte (Levar Burton), who was enslaved and brutally abused. For generations, the family struggles to stay together and to hold onto their culture and history.
A remake of the series begins on May 30, 2016, on the History Channel, and also on Lifetime and A&E. Levar Burton is one of the producers. The cast includes Forest Whitaker as Fiddler, Anna Paquin as Nancy Holt, Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Tom Lea, Anika Noni Rose as Kizzy, Tip “T.I.” Harris as Cyrus, Emayatzy Corinealdi as Belle, Matthew Goode as Dr. William Waller, Mekhi Phifer as Jerusalem, James Purefoy as John Waller, Laurence Fishburne as Alex Haley, and newcomers Regé-Jean Page as Chicken George and Malachi Kirby as Kunta Kinte.
“I think we also think more in terms of the social violence of being separated from your entire genealogy in Africa.”
That is a rift “Roots” tries to highlight, with a new understanding about the real Kunta Kinte, now said to be an educated young man from a prominent, well-to-do family, who lived not in a remote village (as depicted in the 1977 version) but on the shore of a bustling trading post. “He spoke probably four languages,” Mr. Wolper said.
His characterization changed, too: While Mr. Burton’s is a headstrong naïf, the new Kunta is “a little tougher, a little edgier,” Mr. Wolper said, in what he hoped would be a more contemporary spin. Though one of the iconic images of the original was Mr. Burton in shackles, in promotions for this one — “focused thematically more on defiance, resistance and the ability to overcome the shackles of the body,” Mr. Wolper said — Kunta Kinte is shown breaking through his chains.
The new series reflects changes in culture and understanding since 1977, and, like the original, has some important context for contemporary conflicts. The older series is dated in terms of production values and perspective, but it is well worth re-visiting, in part to better understand what has and has not changed.
