Cloud Atlas

Posted on October 25, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Six nested stories set in the past, present, and future entwine grand themes of the conflicts between those who would oppress and those who demand freedom, those who must create and those who want to repeat what is already there, those who love and those who are afraid to love or be loved. Some in the audience will be enchanted by the grand scope of the story-telling and the intricate details of the mosaic that make up each of the story’s parts. Others will be impatient with the gimmicks and distracted by the prosthetics, wigs, and make-up. Many will grapple with the frustration of experiencing both reactions.

When they made the “Matrix” films, they were known as the Wachowski brothers, Andy and Larry. But since then, Larry has become Lana while resisting terms like “transition” as “complicity in a binary gender narrative.” That clearly fueled the commitment to age, race, and gender fluidity throughout the film. Even the most sharp-eyed cataloger of prosthetic noses and teeth will be surprised as the credits reveal the multiple roles taken by Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving (Mr. Smith in the “Matrix” films), Hugh Grant, Jim Sturgess, James Broadbent, Ben Wishaw, Keith David, Doona Bae, and others.

The oldest story, set in the early 19th century and told in the traditional style of ahistorical drama, has Sturgess as a man disturbed by the abuse of slaves in the Pacific who is being poisoned by a doctor (Hanks) he thinks is curing him. His journals become a book on a shelf in the next story, set in the 1930’s, with a musician (Wishaw) writing to the man he loves about assisting a venerated composer and working on his own composition, called “Cloud Atlas.” In the 1970’s, styled to remind us of that era’s “paranoid cinema” films like “The Parallax View” and “The China Syndrome,” an investigative reporter (Berry) gets stuck in an elevator with an elderly scientist who gives her some important information about a nuclear facility. She discovers his 40-years-old correspondence with the musician in his papers. In the present day, we see something of a shaggy dog story as a British publisher (Broadbent) goes on the run from hooligans and ends up having to escape from a “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”-style facility.

Two stories are set in the future. The first, in what is now Korea, has a “Blade Runner-“ish society made up of consumers and “fabricants.” One of them sees a movie based on the story of the publisher’s escape (starring Hanks), which helps her understand that she must rebel against the abuses of her society. Her story becomes part of the origin myths of a post-apocalyptic society hundreds of years even farther into the future, where much of humanity has returned to an almost bronze-age level of technology and everyone speaks in a Jar-Jar Binks form of pidgin English that may have worked better on the printed page but on screen is intrusive and overdone.

As the the “Matrix” films, the more specific and concrete it gets, the less resonance it has. Its greatest message about human aspiration and inspiration and connection is in the message as medium. The scope and audacity of this undertaking, the biggest budget independent film in history, with the Wachowskis putting up their own homes to make the final budget numbers, outshines the details that never quite reach the clouds.

Parents should know that this film includes some graphic violence including murders, rape, shoot-outs, knives, arrows, suicide, brutal whipping, poison, car crashes, and a character being thrown off a balcony. Characters are in peril, injured and killed. There are dead bodies with disturbing images, some strong words including f-word and n-word, gay and heterosexual sexual references and explicit situations as well as nudity, crude sexual humor, portrayal of slavery and totalitarianism, smoking, and drug use.

Family discussion: Which of the stories was the most compelling and why? Who was the bravest character? Who learned the most?

If you like this, try: the book by David Mitchell and the “Matrix” movies

Gabe the Cupid Dog

Posted on October 23, 2012 at 11:11 pm

A dog named Gabe plays Cupid for his newly single master in this sweet family-friendly story. Gabe belongs to Eric (Brian Krause of “Charmed”) a journalist planning a move to the UK. But animals have to be quarantined for six months before they can enter the country and Gabe really doesn’t want that. So he has to figure out a reason for Eric to stay home, and decides his best bet is to find him a new girlfriend. A pretty neighbor named Sarah (Boti Bliss of “CSI: Miami”) seems like a good candidate. There are complications along the way but Gabe is on hand to make sure that it all ends happily ever after.

Here Comes the Boom

Posted on October 11, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Kevin James is so gosh-darned likable that he can make up for a lot of sub-par material, but not even he can make this tiresome effort work. James co-wrote the story, an attempted feel-good saga of a lost-mojo high school science teacher who finds his passion when the school’s music budget is cut and he decides to raise the money to save it by losing a series of mixed martial arts fights, inspiring everyone around him and winning the love of the school nurse. But the movie itself comes nowhere near mojo. It taps out right from the start and the promised Boom never arrives.

James plays Scott, who is as unenthusiastic about his students as the texting teacher in the recent “Won’t Back Down.” He does not do much other than hit on School Nurse Flores (Selma Hayek), who has as little interest in him as he as in his job, his self-respect, or his future. But he takes pity on the sweet-natured music teacher Marty Streb (Henry Winkler), who loves teaching, because budget cuts eliminate the music program just as Marty’s wife, defying the odds, becomes pregnant in her late 40’s. Scott promises to help. He takes on another job, teaching immigrants how to pass their citizenship tests, which leads to a painful scene of condescending ethnic humor. People from other countries don’t speak good English! Alert the media!

One of those students is Niko (real-life MMA star Bas Rutten, a James regular), an exercise instructor and MMA coach. Scott finds out how much money can be made by losing MMA matches and decides that since he was a college wrestler, he is “good enough to lose.” Cue the training montage and the beat-down montage. And a limply staged and random food fight. And the mojo montage, as everyone is inspired by this very uninspiring underdog story. They could have included a montage of me looking at my watch. It would last as long and be almost as exciting.

I did enjoy the use of Neil Diamond as Scott’s entrance music and Ruten has some rough charm. But Scott’s attempts to make a connection between stagnant cells and the dispiriting state of schools where teachers “can’t speed up the good ones or slow down for the other ones” falls flat because the film’s own lack of energy feels pretty stagnant itself. Boom, you say? More like a sigh.

Parents should know that this film has extended and sometimes intense “action-style” mixed martial arts violence, with no blood or graphic injuries except a dislocated shoulder but a lot of beating up and getting beaten up. It also has some language, some crude humor (barfing, crotch hit, jokes about fertility of an older woman and about cross-dressing), an AA meeting, and some ethnic humor.

Family discussion: What does “good enough to lose” mean? How did Scott’s experiences as a fighter change the way he thought about teaching? How can someone be jealous of someone else’s passion?

If you like this, try: Kevin James’ “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” or a more dramatic film about MMA fighters, “Warrior”

Related Tags:

Comedy High School Romance Sports

Pitch Perfect

Posted on September 27, 2012 at 6:00 pm

The sensationally talented Anna Kendrick finally gets to play the lead in a story about the cutthroat world of a capella competitions. It’s “Stomp the Yard” with singing, or “Glee Goes to College.” The songs are fabulously entertaining, the romance is sweet, Rebel Wilson’s understated zingers are hilarious, Kendrick is pure joy. John Michael Higgins (“Best in Show”) and co-producer Elizabeth Banks (“The Hunger Games”) are the acid-tongued commentators at the big competitions.

And the projectile vomiting is torrential.

I blame “Bridesmaids.” I am certain that as this movie was being prepared, some dimwit studio executive saw how well “Bridesmaids” was doing at the box office and ordered up three scenes of disgusting bodily function humor be (awkwardly) inserted. Minutes after the film begins a musical performance is interrupted by massive barfing. We are later treated to two additional and increasingly ludicrous throwing-up tsunamis, plus some cringeworthy jokes, many very crude, uncomfortably racial, or based on increasingly lame plays on the words “a capella.” Few are even remotely funny.

Kendrick plays Beca, who arrives at college by herself as everyone else is being dropped off by their parents. She is a loner and she does not want to be there. She just wants to get a job creating music. But her professor father makes her promise to give it a year. If she can complete the year successfully, and that includes an activity, he will let her drop out and pursue her dream. So she joins the girls’ a capella (no musical instruments, just voices) group, led by micro-managing control freak Aubrey (Anna Camp), who is determined to come back from the unpleasant nausea incident at the finals of the previous year that has made them the objects of derision, especially from the champion male group. She insists on keeping everything safe and bland, with uniforms that make them look like 1970’s flight attendants and a set-list of safe but bland middle-of-the-road pop.

And there’s a guy. Jesse (Skylar Astin) likes Beca, but Aubrey has made consorting with the members of the male singing group a firing offense. And Beca, very hurt by her parents’ divorce, really does not want to like anyone. But her natural gifts and passion for music inspire her to remix some fresh and edgy songs. The relationships play out through and amid various musical encounters, with the best an informal riff-off competition in an empty swimming pool (good acoustics).

Kendrick proves she is a real movie star but the mash-up with low comedy keeps tripping up the movie’s momentum. The musical harmonies are sublime but Beca’s pointlessly hostile Asian roommate, who only speaks to other Asians and a member of the singing group who is unable to make an audible sound are way off-key.

Parents should know that this movie has some racial and sexual humor with crude references (though the lead couple do nothing more than kiss), some strong language, drug references, and torrential projectile vomiting

Family discussion: Should Beca’s father have pushed her to go to school and try activities? What was the most important thing she learned from being part of the group?

If you like this try: “Glee 3D: The Concert Movie” and the television show “The Sing-Off” and the non-fiction book that inspired this film, Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory by Mickey Rapkin

Hotel Transylvania

Posted on September 27, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some rude humor, action, and scary images
Profanity:	Some schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Funny-scary monsters
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	September 28, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B0034G4OYA

What scared me most about “Hotel Transylvania” was the prospect of another film starring Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg. Their last collaboration was “That’s My Boy,” by far the most excruciatingly painful experience I’ve had at a theater this year. Thankfully, just providing voices for this PG animated horror comedy written by five other people, Sandler and Samberg are charming. It is a sweet, funny story about monsters who want to enjoy a peaceful life far from humans and the human who finds them anyway.

Sandler plays Count Dracula, a doting if over-protective vampire father who builds the hotel as a refuge so he and his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) can be safe from scary people with their pitchforks and torches. Dracula croons a tender lullaby: “Hush little baby, don’t say a word, papa’s going to bite the head off a bird.” Next to the changing table is a coffin-shaped diaper pail.

Mavis gets a little older, with cute little baby tooth fangs, and her caped father makes sure she’s wearing a helmet before he teaches her how to transform into a bat and fly. The hotel is a castle surrounded by a haunted forest and a graveyard populated by the undead. “Human-free since 1898,” the hotel proudly proclaims. And so things stay for over a century.

This Dracula has no need for human blood (“it’s so fatty and you don’t know where it’s been”). He relies on synthetic. All he wants is to take care of his guests, give his daughter a wonderful 118th birthday party, make sure she never leaves home, and never, ever see a human. But then, just as all of the monsters have arrived for the party, an easy-going bro with an enormous back-pack walks in. His name is Jonathan (Samberg), he thinks the monsters are cool, and he likes Mavis’ goth-girl vibe. This is worse than torches and pitchforks. A human who wants to get rid of monsters is one thing but a daughter who might fall in love with one is even scarier. And yes, there a wink at “Twilight.”

Of the three animated horror 3D comedies this fall, “Hotel Transylvania” is the least aesthetically ambitious, the most accessible for younger children, and the closest to the comfortingly silly scares of “Scooby-Doo.” Like this film, “ParaNorman” (now in theaters) and “Frankenweenie” (opening next week), the focus is on showing us that what we think is scary really is not very frightening after all. Of the three, this one has more all-out comedy, much of it coming from the monster-fied setting and the ghoul-ification of ordinary life. At Hotel Transylvania, the Do Not Disturb signs hanging from the doorknobs are shrunken heads — very outspoken ones. Mavis likes to eat “scream” cheese, which amusingly rises up from the cracker to let out a squeal as she takes a bite. Guests are greeted by zombie bellman, a Jack Pumpkinhead doorman, and a skeleton mariachi band with hats and sarapes. When the Invisible Man (David Spade) attempts to play charades, it is a hoot.

First-time director Genndy Tartakovsky was a storyboard artist on films like “Iron Man 2,” so he has an exceptional understanding of the mechanics and timing of the action sequences, and 3D adds a vertiginous thrill to a chase on flying tables and a touch of claustrophobia to a maze of underground corridors. It is telling that both of those highlights involve the most vivid vampire/human relationship at the heart of the story — Dracula and Jonathan. Despite a lot of talk about romantic “zing,” the bromance is much more real than the love story. And when they leave the castle for that most overused of climax cliches, the race to the airport, the story sags.

Top voice talent includes Kevin James as a sweet-natured Frankenstein and Fran Drescher as his bride, Steve Buscemi and Molly Shannon as the Wolf couple with innumerable cubs, and Ceelo Green as the outgoing Mummy. But the real stars are character designers Carter Goodrich (“Despicable Me”), Greg Kellman (“Madagascar”), and Carlos Grangel (“King Fu Panda”), whose monsters pay affectionate homage to their origins but are so endearing that families may want to pay a visit to have room service deliver an order of scream cheese.

Parents should know that the monsters in this movie are intended to be more funny than scary but there are some grotesque and macabre images that may be frightening to young or sensitive children as well as some potty humor and peril.

Family discussion: Why was Dracula so afraid to let Mavis leave home? How can parents know when their children are ready for more responsibility? Which monster was your favorite?

If you like this, try: “ParaNorman,” “Monster House,” “Monsters vs. Aliens,” and “Scooby-Doo”