Trouble With the Curve

Posted on September 20, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for language, sexual references, some thematic material, and smoking
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking and scenes in bars
Violence/ Scariness:	Tense family confrontations
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	September 21, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B009AMAK0E

“Trouble with the Curve” pitches softballs to power hitters. It has major league players and a bush league script.

Clint Eastwood plays — surprise! — a grumpy old guy, a role he is too comfortable in, on and off screen. Here he is Gus Lobel, the John Henry of the Moneyball era. He is a baseball scout who relies on his instincts and experience while the youngsters look at metrics and formulas. His approach may be out of fashion, but the old-timers believe in him. The problem is that he is losing his eyesight. As he prepares to go on one last scouting trip, to watch a talented but arrogant power hitter, his friend (John Goodman) asks Gus’s estranged lawyer daughter (Amy Adams) to accompany her father on the road. Her name is Mickey, as in Mickey Mantle and the senior lawyers at her firm are about to decide between her and an ambitious fellow associate for a big promotion. She decides to go, bringing her laptop and a bunch of resentments and abandonment issues as well. And on the road they meet up with Johnny (Justin Timberlake), a former player turned scout, hoping to become the team’s radio commentator.

This is a “guy cry” movie. Guys can feel manly going to see it because it stars Clint Eastwood and it is about baseball and the individual literally against the machine, raging at the dying of the light and all that good stuff, so they don’t mind tearing up a little, or sitting through the romantic portion. While Matthew Lillard as Gus’s young rival explains that “these programs are an essential tool in evaluating today’s talent,” Gus knows that even if he can’t see talent, he can hear it. He’s been watching so long that he can tell from the crack of the bat whether a batter is hitting a fastball or a curve. And just as we know that the preening young prospect will need to be taken down a notch, we know that the guy in the suit who tells Mickey he wants to move their relationship forward because “we’re perfect on paper” will be gone by the second act. As will Mickey’s vegan cuisine, no match for a minor-league hot dog. And Timberlake’s shirt.

There’s nothing new or surprising here, except perhaps when things get completely over-the-top at the end. Oh, and Eastwood singing on screen for the first time since “Paint Your Wagon,” when he visits his late wife’s grave to attempt “You Are My Sunshine” with a gravelly warble.” “As you know, to hit the magical 300, you fail seven out of ten times,” Timberlake explains. This film is entertaining, but not especially memorable. Maybe it bats around .240.

Parents should know that this film has some strong and crude language (including the r-word), sexual references, a reference to child molestation, drinking and drunkenness, and a lot of smoking.

Family discussion: Why was it hard for Gus and Mickey to tell each other how they felt? Compare this movie to “Moneyball” – which approach to finding new players is the right one?

If you like this, try: “Field of Dreams” and “Gran Torino”

Liberal Arts

Posted on September 13, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Unrated
Profanity:	Strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, drugs
Violence/ Scariness:	Suicide attempt (off-screen)
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	September 14, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B0090SI3HU

It is true. At heart, everyone is 19, except for the people who actually are. “How I Met Your Mother” star Josh Radnor has followed his promising debut as a writer/director with the uneven but intriguing “Liberal Arts,” a throwback to the neglected tradition of the college-based story that has almost nothing to do with getting wasted or pranks. Radnor also stars as Jesse, a New York City-based college admissions officer who (like the characters he plays in his television series and his previous film) seems stuck in that stage between being in school and being a grown-up.

He is delighted when one of his favorite professors from his own college days calls to invite him back to the campus in Ohio. (The never-named small but prestigious liberal arts school is played in the film by Kenyon College.) The professor (Richard Jenkins as lefty Peter Hoberg) is retiring, and he invites Jesse to come to his farewell dinner and say a few words. Also on campus for the dinner are a couple whose daughter is a sophomore at the school (Elizabeth Olson as Elizabeth, nicknamed Zibby). Jesse and Zibby hit it off, quickly developing a nice rapport. She makes a mix CD for him and he promises to write her a real letter with his reactions. Jesse also meets the morose Dean (John Magaro), a brilliant but troubled student, and a non-student named Nat who is just hanging around campus being all adorably whimsical played as winningly as is humanly possible by Zac Efron, despite the considerable handicaps of an impossibly fey character and one of those knit ski caps with the strings and the tassel that has never done anyone any favors.

Jesse and Zibby have a refreshingly retro epistolary conversation and in one of the movie’s sweetest sequences he writes to her about the way her classical music mix CD has transformed his interaction with the world around him. Not knowing what kind of relationship she has in mind but tantalized by her, he returns to the campus and again encounters not just Zibby, Dean and Nat but also Peter and his other favorite professor, the icy Judith Fairfield (Alison Janney). Peter is already regretting his retirement. Dean is struggling and feels isolated. Zibby is the only one who seems comfortable with where she is, a large part of what draws him. “I just can’t figure out whether it’s because you’re advanced or because I’m stunted,” he says, making her the adult.

But as he shows quite literally with calculations on a legal pad, the numbers do not add up. Zibby, too, is trying to be a different age. The only one who is completely comfortable with who and what he is is the guy in the ski hat, who is at this point in the movie further burdened with an excruciating speech about, oh, dear, caterpillars turning into butterflies. I’m pretty sure Professors Hoberg and Fairfield would take out their red pens and write “TRITE” over that one.

The Dean character does not work well, either, even if you give Radnor the benefit of the doubt and think of Dean, Nat, and even Zibby and Peter as ways for Jesse to confront versions of himself rather than genuine characters. Lovely moments like the classical music discussion, a genuinely moving passion for the written word, and nuanced performances (Radnor is tops in casting and directing actors) may make you smile mistily about being 19, no matter which side of it you’re on.

Parents should know that this film has strong language, a suicide attempt, sexual references and situations, drinking and drunkenness.

Family discussion: How many different ways does this story present the struggle people have to act their age? What does Jesse miss about his time at Kenyon? What does he learn from Zibby, Nat, and Dean?

If you like this, try: “Happythankyoumoreplease” by the same writer/director and “Garden State”

Related Tags:

Drama Movies -- format Romance

Lawless

Posted on August 30, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Musician Nick Cave and director John Hillcoat are Australians who are drawn to bleak internal and external landscapes. They worked together on “The Proposition,” a western-style and very violent crime story about brothers. “Lawless” is another crime story about brothers, again very violent and, like “The Proposition,” with a bleak setting and compromised characters. This one is a true story, based on Matt Bondurant‘s book about his Prohibition-era grandfather and great uncles, who were ran illegal hooch in Franklin County, Virginia, described by writer Sherwood Anderson as “the wettest county in the world.”

“There’s a feeling around these parts that these Bondurants is indestructible,” one character says. Forrest Bondurant (a quietly powerful Tom Hardy) came back from WWI without injury and the community almost believes the legend that he cannot be stopped. That’s good for business; you might even say it is their brand. But just as in legitimate enterprise, the success of a local operation selling moonshine in mason jars attracts the interest of the competition. The big bootlegging organization out of Chicago is thinking about what one might call a very hostile takeover. The Bondurants have a good relationship with the local sheriff, who is happy looking the other way for a small piece of the action. But a federal agent named Charlie Rakes (an oily and twisted Guy Pearce) arrives and for him it is not about law, morality, or directions from his superiors. It is about power. The Bondurants are not afraid of him and that is why he wants to destroy them. Pearce, in gloves and slicked-down hair parted in the middle, is one of the best villains of the year.

Forrest is the leader and he has an unspoken understanding with his brother Howard (Jason Clarke). Indeed, a lot that goes on here is unspoken. The youngest brother, Jack (Shia LeBoeuf) wants to prove himself to his older brothers. And he wants to prove something to a pretty churchgoing girl named Bertha (Mia Wasikowska). Brash and flashier than his brothers, he has the nerve to try to make a deal with machine gun-toting Chicago hood Floyd Banner (Gary Oldman) and the entrepreneurial instinct to improve and expand production and delivery. When he sees a brutal gangland slaying, his only thought is to grab a souvenir shell case. He will have a Michael Corleone moment when the violence gets closer to home. “It is not the violence that sets men apart,” Forrest says. “It is the distance he is prepared to go.” The Bondurants do not give up. It is not about the money. It is about defending their home and their right to make their own choices.

Maggie (Jessica Chastain) shows up out of the blue one day, offering her manicured hand to Forrest’s rough one and offering to work for the brothers. “The city can grind a girl down,” she tells Forrest. “Gets to a point where you start looking for somewhere quiet.”

Franklin County is far from quiet. But the noise Maggie wanted to escape was the cacophony of heartlessness she was surrounded by in the city. Everyone in this story is breaking the de jure law, but Maggie knows that the Bondurants have a core of integrity and loyalty that she can count on. And she will show that she can be counted on as well.

Strong performances and an evocative sense of time and place anchor the film and the unexpected tenderness of the romantic interludes balances the brutality. A coda provides perspective that just because someone is willing to go the distance does not mean he cannot come back home.

Parents should know that this is the true story of moonshiners during Prohibition, so the good guys are law-breakers and the police are corrupt. The movie includes extremely graphic violence with characters tortured, injured, sexually abused, and killed, strong language including a racial slur and segregation, sexual situations including prostitution, female nudity, and alcohol and smoking.

Family discussion: How were the brothers alike and how were they different? The script was written by musician Nick Cave – how does the music help tell the story?

If you like this, try: Lawless: A Novel Based on a True Story by the real-life grandson of the youngest Bondurant brother

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

Sparkle

Posted on August 16, 2012 at 10:28 pm

You can’t help wondering what Whitney Houston was thinking when she decided to co-produce and star in the remake of a flawed but beloved 1976 musical melodrama about a singer who becomes involved with an abusive performer and becomes addicted to drugs. Was this a cautionary tale? A reflection on her own choices? In this movie she plays Emma, the very strict mother of three musical daughters, living in 1968 Detroit. She is determined that her daughters will adhere only to the three priorities she drills into them: respect, education, and having a relationship with the Lord.

Emma once tried to make it as a singer herself and is determined that her girls will not suffer the heartbreak she experienced. But her youngest daughter, Sparkle (“American Idol’s” youngest-ever champion Jordin Sparks) wants to writes songs, and she wants to be a star. She does not have the stage presence of her sultry oldest sister, Tammy, known to everyone as Sister (an electrifying Carmen Ejogo) and is too timid to tell the truth about her feelings in her lyrics. The third sister, Dolores (Tika Sumpter), just wants to go to medical school. She agrees to sing Sparkle’s songs so she can get money for school and Sister agrees because she likes the money and excitement.

They sneak out at night to perform so their mother does not know. Their manager is the poor but ambitious Stix (Derek Luke), whose cousin Levi is in love with Sister. But Sister wants money and excitement. She agrees to marry Satin (Mike Epps), a comedian who specializes in the kind of racial humor that makes white audiences feel comfortable. Emma throws them out. The trio becomes more and more successful, but Sister’s life with Satin is filled with domestic abuse and cocaine and she resists her sisters’ efforts to help her.

Some intriguing themes about the racial conflicts of the era are raised almost in passing and never developed while the soapy parts of the story drag on and the storyline loses any pretense of believability. Sparks is not an actress, and Houston spends most of the movie giving that “Hell to the no” look we saw too often in her reality show. Ejogo is a sensation and Luke continues to be one of Hollywood’s overlooked treasures, bringing a dignity and sweetness to the role. Epps is excellent, showing us Satin’s volatility and magnetism. The musical numbers raise the roof, especially the cover of the earlier film’s biggest hit, “Giving Him Something He Can Feel” (later covered by En Vogue) and Sparks’ rousing finale. But the highlight is Houston’s passionate “His Eye is on the Sparrow,” a powerful spirit-lifter and a sad reminder of her once-to-a-century gifts.

Parents should know that this film includes a scuffle, domestic abuse, characters who are injured and one killed, tense emotional confrontations, sexual references including teen pregnancy and non-explicit situations, some strong language including ugly racial epithets, smoking, drinking, and drug use.

Family discussion: Why did the three girls have such different ideas about what they wanted? Why was their mother so strict? Why did Sister tell the other two they had to leave her house?

If you like this, try: the original Sparkle with Lonette McKee and Irene Cara, “Dreamgirls,” and “Grace of My Heart”