Trailer — The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Posted on October 3, 2013 at 1:27 pm
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2
Posted on September 29, 2013 at 11:33 pm
Who would have guessed that the brightest and funniest and most heartwarming animated film of the year would not be from Pixar or Disney but Sony? And that to boot it would be a sequel, or, perhaps given the subject matter, a second helping? “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2” is a fresh and charming delight especially welcome after a series of animated disappointments.
There’s a quick recap of the first episode, very loosely based on the 1970’s children’s book classic
At first, Flint is hesitant to put on hold his plans to create a lab on the island for his friends, especially meteorologist Sam Sparks (Anna Faris). But Sam knows what it means to Flint to get a chance to work with Chester, so she encourages him to put the plans for the lab on hold. Sam, Flint’s fisherman dad Tim (James Caan), the Chewandswallow police chief (Terry Crews), and their goofy friend Brent (Andy Samberg), all move to California and Flint goes to work in a facility that looks like a tweaked version of the Googleplex with coffee always within reach and caffeine patches on request.
But then it turns out that the FLDSMDFR is somehow working more damage than ever, now producing weird combinations of food and animals — foodimals — with hilariously preposterous visual and verbal puns. There’s the shrimpanzee, the hippotatosaurus, the susheep, and the taco-dile, along with other delicious mash-ups. Chester sends Flint to shut it down, swearing him to secrecy, but Flint tells Sam and ends up taking the whole gang back to Chewandswallow with him. A few mild quibbles — it would be nie in a movie about scientists to have some actual science used in the problem-solving. And after a movie in which adorable marshmallows and strawberries and even cheeseburgers are cavort so endearingly, parents may find it even more difficult to persuade picky eaters and tenderhearted types to eat their dinners.
But there’s a very sweet storyline about the importance of friends — having friends and being a good friend, and a nice aspirational moral about making the world better — and the pure silly fun of a group of animators outdoing each other with escalating puns that range from the outlandish to the almost-but-not-quite unforgivable. Not once, but twice, there are jokes about a leek in the boat, and it is funny both times. Lines of dialogue lie “piece of cake,” “we’re toast,” and “this is bananas” are punctuated with visual counterpoint. And a bright “New” song by Paul McCartney gives the soundtrack as much sunshiney as the adorable creatures and cheery humor.
Parents should know that this movie has some mild potty humor and comic/cartoon-style peril, most shown to be not scary.
Family discussion: Why was it important for Flint to apologize? How was he affected by being bullied? What does Barb learn about Chester? Which one of Flint’s inventions would you like to try? Do you have an idea that could change the world?
If you like this, try: the first film, the book, and “Megamind”
The World’s End
Posted on August 25, 2013 at 2:14 pm
B+| Lowest Recommended Age: | Mature High Schooler |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated R for pervasive language including sexual references |
| Profanity: | Constant very strong and crude language |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | The theme of the film is a pub crawl intended to make the characters very drunk, drinking and drunkenness, drugs, drug dealer |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Comic peril and violence with some graphic images |
| Diversity Issues: | Homophobic insult |
| Date Released to Theaters: | August 23, 2013 |
| Date Released to DVD: | November 18, 2013 |
| Amazon.com ASIN: | B00BPEJX12 |
Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and co-writer/director Edgar Wright have re-united for the third in the genre-bending “Cornetto” series, which I refuse to call a “trilogy” because I want them to keep going. In case you’re listening, guys: Please.
“Shaun of the Dead” was a romantic comedy with zombies and strawberry Cornetto ice cream. “Hot Fuzz” was a sort of deranged meta-buddy cop film with blue Cornetto ice cream. And now we have “The World’s End,” a comedy about a group of high school friends who get together to re-create a legendary pub crawl in their suburban home town. Twenty years after their high school graduation, they go back home to have a pint in each of the twelve pubs that constitute the “golden mile,” concluding at one called The World’s End. And yes, that is foreshadowing.
Things go badly. Things are not as they remembered. When the group arrive at the first pub on the list, it is depressingly generic. In the decades since they left, everything has been homogenized into sterile, interchangeably dull corporate decor. The second one is indistinguishable from the first. Gary has always cherished the notion that they were legends in the town. But no one seems to remember them, not even the high school bully.
Then the robot aliens show up and things get worse.
Co-write Pegg plays Gary King, who is now only dimly realizing that the qualities that lead to popularity in high school do not equip one for success thereafter. This is particularly the case when those qualities are essentially limited to creating the kind of experiences that result in watching the sun come up with bloody knuckles, a hangover, and vomit on your shoes. You can still do that after high school, as Gary’s current status as an inpatient in a substance abuse clinic attest. It’s just that it no longer makes him a hero to his friends. Now all respectable men with jobs and, for most of them, families, they have moved on and have no interest in going back.
But Gary, who thinks he lost his way when they failed to make it to all twelve pubs in “the golden mile,” manages to persuade the other four to come with him and try it again. For no other reason except for pity, survivor guilt, and perhaps some wish to revisit a carefree past, they decide to come along. It is possible, though, that they envy Gary’s freedom as they are constantly checking with their watches, their phones, and their wives. There’s car dealer Peter Page (Eddie Marsan — all of the characters have royal court-related names), realtor with a permanently embedded bluetooth earpiece Oliver Chamberlain (Martin Freeman of “The Hobbit”), recently divorced Steven Prince (Paddy Considine), and Gary’s former best friend Andy Knightly (Nick Frost), whose hostility indicates that a revelation about some horrible misdeed lies ahead. Also in town is Sam Chamberlain (Rosamund Pike), Oliver’s sister, who was there for an important part of the legendary pub crawl in 1990.
Gary is darker than the previous roles Pegg wrote for himself, which mostly had him as an amiable, if immature and socially inept doofus (although in “Hot Fuzz” he was a very buff and straight arrow variation). He clearly relishes playing a completely dissolute character who cannot seem to figure out why a system of doing or saying whatever will get him what he wants at that moment without any regard to the consequences for himself or others is not working for him anymore. It is also good to see Frost playing something different as well. His Andy is responsible, dignified, and quietly competent and confident. He also turns out to be very good at fighting the robot aliens.
It’s a delicious mix of understated British humor and over-the-top craziness, with witty lines, some knowing digs at Hollywood, and razor-sharp satire. It also has the only credible explanation for hideous public sculpture I’ve ever seen. I hope they end up with at least as many in the series as there are flavors of Cornetto ice cream treats.
Parents should know that this film has constant bad language, including crude sexual references and a homophobic insult, a lot of drinking and drunkenness, drugs, and mostly comic peril and violence with some disturbing images.
Family discussion: Why did Gary’s friends agree to come back? Why was the pub crawl important to Gary?
If you like this, try: “Shaun of the Dead,” “Hot Fuzz,” “Paul,” and the television series “Spaced”
Kick-Ass 2
Posted on August 15, 2013 at 6:00 pm
The first Kick-Ass was entertaining as an over-the-top response to true-blue superhero movies. The Dark Knight might think he’s angsty and tortured and tough, but he has nothing on the merry band of misfits who form a sort of Justice League on crack, featuring an 11-year-old known as Hit Girl who was raised to be the world’s greatest assassin.
It is less entertaining this time. The lines have already been crossed, the 11-year-old is now 15, and all that’s left is to add a few new characters and a lot more violence. There are some interesting ideas, but mostly it’s just a bloodbath.
The first movie ended with Dave (Aaron Tayl0r-Johnson), who has assumed the identity of a superhero (without any superpowers) named Kick-Ass, killing off the crime boss with a bazooka. Now the crime boss’ son, Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), wants revenge. He has unlimited resources and unlimited fury. He dresses up in his late mother’s bondage gear, looking like a cross between Spinal Tap and Maleficent. He gives himself an unprintable name, builds an evil lair with strippers and a shark, and hires an international assortment of mercenaries to set himself up as a super-villain.
Meanwhile, and this is the interesting part, it turns out that even knowing dozens of ways to kill a bad guy, with his own finger if necessary, Mindy/Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) cannot escape a little bit of an adolescent identity crisis. Though she confidently assures Dave that Kick-Ass is his real identity and it is being Dave that is the mask, when her cop guardian (an underused Morris Chestnut) makes her promise to be a normal highschool freshman, she decides to give it a try. A section of the movie is like Buffy crossed with “Mean Girls” as she is taken in by her high school’s Plastics and there is a funny scene where she tries out for Dance Squad by imaging herself in a ninja fight. But, as we all know only too well, the evil in high school is worse than any super-villain, and Mindy, like Dave, will learn what her real identity is.
Over and over, characters tell us that what they are going through is real life, not a comic book. That gets as tiresome as the over-the-top carnage and efforts to shock. Writer-director Jeff Wadlow, taking over for Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman, fumbles the eternal challenge of a sequel, keeping it enough like the first to deliver what the audience expects while taking it in new directions to make it surprising. His biggest mistake is in overlooking the obvious — this movie belongs to Hit Girl. Every time she is off the screen, it’s like the projector bulb fades.
Parents should know that this is borderline NC-17, an exceptionally violent film with very graphic and disturbing images and sounds, massive destruction, and many injuries and deaths. It also includes exceptionally raw and crude language (a running joke has Mindy filling more than one swear jar), sexual references, and explicit sexual situations and nudity.
Family discussion: Was Dave responsible for what happened to his father? What is the difference between Dave and his friends and vigilantes?
If you like this, try: the original film and the comics by Mark Miller and John Romita, Jr.
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters
Posted on August 6, 2013 at 6:00 pm
B+| Lowest Recommended Age: | 4th - 6th Grades |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated PG for fantasy action violence, some scary images, and mild violence |
| Profanity: | Some mild language ("screwed," etc.) |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | None |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Fantasy violence and peril with some moments that may be too intense for younger viewers including repeated apparent deaths |
| Diversity Issues: | Diverse characters, very strong and brave female characters |
| Date Released to Theaters: | August 7, 2013 |
| Date Released to DVD: | December 16, 2013 |
| Amazon.com ASIN: | B008JFUNTG |
The second in the series of films based on Rick Riorden’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians
We learned in the first film that Percy (Logan Lerman) is the son of Poseidon, one of the gods of Olympus and brother of Zeus and Hades. Because his mother was human, he is considered a demigod. As this film begins, he is safely at Camp Half-Blood with the other children of gods and mortals, including Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario), the daughter of Athena, goddess of wisdom, Luke (Jake Abel), the son of Hermes, god of messages and deliveries, and Clarisse (Leven Rambin), daughter of Ares, the god of war.
We see in flashback Percy’s friend Grover (Brandon T. Jackson), a satyr, Annabeth, and Luke first arriving at Camp Half-Blood, pursued by murderous monsters. Another young demigod named Thalia sacrificed herself to save them, and in death Zeus turned her into a tree that provided an impenetrable safety zone around the camp. In the present day, as Percy is losing a competition to Clarisse and feeling dejected and alone. His mother is gone, his father does not respond, and he does not feel that he has what it takes to live up to the expectations everyone seems to have for him. Yes, he saved the world in “The Lightning Thief,” but was that really him? He does not feel like a hero. The support of centaur Chiron (Anthony Head), Annabeth, and Brandon does not reassure him.
A new arrival at Camp Half-Blood shocks Percy. It turns out, he has a half-brother. When a god and a human have a child, the result is a demigod. But when a god and a nymph have a child, the result is…a cyclops. (“The politically correct term is ocularly impaired.”) As much as he longs for family, it is hard for Percy to accept this one-eyed person named Tyson (Douglas Smith) as family.
He does not have much time to think about it. Camp Half-Blood is attacked by a bronze Colchis bull. Thalia’s tree is poisoned and the protective shield is destroyed. Clarisse is assigned the task of retrieving the golden fleece that can repair the tree, but Percy, Annabeth, Grover, and Tyson set off as well. But the golden fleece is guarded by a scary giant cyclops who uses it to lure demigods so he can eat them. And the people who want to destroy Camp Half-Blood are after it, too. A series of CGI adventures lie ahead of them, including rides on and in various mythic creatures and a little help from Hermes (a terrific Nathan Fillion) and Poseidon.
Like the books, the films have a nice balance between the mythic scale of the adventures and the teenage problems that can feel every bit as grand and daunting, a nice balance between the classic and the modern, with a sprinkling of humor when it starts to get too intense. Locations range from an amusement park to a UPS store to the inside of a sea monster and things move briskly along to a conclusion that is exciting and touching as well.
Parents should know that this film has a lot of fantasy peril and violence with some scary monsters. There are several apparent deaths but (spoiler alert) just about everyone turns out to be all right.
Family discussion: How did Percy feel about his brother? Why did Percy doubt himself and what did he learn from this adventure?
If you like this, try: the books and the original film — and read books about Greek myths like Greek Mythology for Teens: Classic Myths in Today’s World
