The Illusionist

Posted on August 16, 2006 at 4:21 pm

B
Lowest Recommended Age: Middle School
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for some sexuality and violence.
Profanity: Mild language and insults
Alcohol/ Drugs: Drinking
Violence/ Scariness: Off-screen violence
Diversity Issues: Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters: 2006
Date Released to DVD: 2007
Amazon.com ASIN: B000K7VHQ4

This feels like a fairy tale, so I will begin: “Once upon a time…”


…there was a princess who loved a commoner but was engaged to a cruel prince.


The commoner and the princess played together as children, but when they were discovered, he had to disappear. Many years later, he returns, transformed. Even his name is different. Now, he is the famous Eisenheim (Edward Norton), a magician who thrills audiences with his illusions.


One night, the volunteer he brings on stage to assist turns out to be the same girl he knew as a boy. She is Sophie (Jessica Biel), and she is engaged to the cruel and arrogant Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell), not because he loves her but because an alliance with her will help him become emperor. And because he does not want anyone else to have her.


Leopold orders Chief Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti) to investigate Eisenheim.


Parents should know that the movie has a non-explicit sexual situation and offscreen violence. There is a murder with graphic injuries and a character commits suicide. Characters drink alcohol and one becomes intoxicated.


Families who see this movie should talk about why Leopold was so disturbed by Eisenheim’s illusions. What did Chief Inspector Uhl want from Eisenheim? How did he decide how far he would bend the rules for the prince? What situations present people with those kinds of pressures to compromise today?


Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Houdini.

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Drama Movies -- format Mystery Romance Thriller

The Night Listener

Posted on August 2, 2006 at 3:06 pm

C
Lowest Recommended Age: High School
MPAA Rating: Rated R for language and some disquieting sexual content.
Profanity: Some very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Alcohol, drug reference
Violence/ Scariness: References to abuse, tense confrontations, peril
Diversity Issues: A strength of the movie is positive portrayal of gay characters
Date Released to Theaters: 2006
Date Released to DVD: 2006
Amazon.com ASIN: B000J3FBDO

Armistad Maupin (Tales of the City) didn’t trust his own story in his adaptation of his novel inspired by something that happened to him. But what could have been a thoughtful psychological drama raising issues of identity and trust and the meaning of the stories we tell deteriorates into distracting melodrama. We spend too much time worrying about whether the main character will be arrested for breaking and entering and not enough understanding what is motivating him to want to.


Gabriel Noone (Robin Williams) mines his life for stories that he tells on the radio. He is feeling very vulnerable because the man he loves, Jess (Bobby Cannavale), has moved out. When his friend Ashe (Joe Morton) asks him to read a manuscript by Pete (Rory Culkin), a 14 year old boy who had been horribly abused by his parents, Noone is touched. He calls the boy, who is sick with AIDS and being cared for by Donna (Toni Collette), the social worker who adopted him. Gabriel becomes very devoted to Pete. But something does not seem right and Gabriel begins to wonder if Pete and Donna are telling the truth, if Pete even exists at all.


He flies out to see if he can find out the truth. This section of the film feels choppy and incomplete. The real life Maupin was mining may not have provided him with any clear answers. Movies don’t need clear answers; indeed, trying to tie things up too neatly with an “aha” moment is a common mistake. But movies do need answers that meet some standard of psychological validity and this movie is not murky; it’s flimsy.

Parents should know that this movie has explict references and some graphic images depicting the most severe child molestation, abuse, and pornography. There is some strong language, alcohol drinking, and drug references. There are tense and unhappy confrontations and characters are in some peril. A theme of the movie is betrayal, which may disturb some viewers. A strength of the movie is its positive portrayal of gay characters.


Families who see this movie should talk about why Noone wanted to believe Pete? How did what was going on between Noone and Jsss make Noone more vulnerable? What does Armistad Maupin (who wrote the book and movie baased on his own experiences) think about Donna? How can you tell? Families might want to learn more about the real story that inspired the book and movie and about similar literary hoaxes like James Frey’s highly embellished “autobiography” and the books by “J.T. Leroy”, who never really existed.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Williams’ performances in Insomnia and One Hour Photo as well as his Oscar-winning performance in Good Will Hunting (all with mature material).

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Drama Movies -- format Mystery Thriller

Miami Vice

Posted on July 25, 2006 at 4:06 pm

C
Lowest Recommended Age: High School
MPAA Rating: Rated R for strong violence, language and some sexual content.
Profanity: Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Characters are drug dealers, drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness: Extremely intense and graphic peril and violence, characters wounded and killed
Diversity Issues: A strength of the movie is its portrayal of strong and loyal relationships between diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters: 2006
Date Released to DVD: 2006
Amazon.com ASIN: B000J4QWMC

The original “Miami Vice” was Michael Mann’s decade-defining television show. It ran from 1984-89 and everything about it was fresh, edgy, and influential. The t-shirt under the Armani jacket with photogenic beard stubble look, the best-selling techno-synth musical theme that won a Grammy, the pastel colors and quick cuts all became cultural touchstones and signifiers. The idea was inspired by a two-word memo from a network executive — “MTV cops” — and by a ruling that permitted the use of goods confiscated from criminals in other police-related work — thus, the cops who drove a Ferrari. It was cool. But that was then. Now, it’s just cold.


So when Mann adapted the television show with this new movie, he excised all of its signature elements, so permanently wedded to the 80’s. But he didn’t add anything to make it worth watching.


Mann’s movies are usually smart and stylish. They usually have a visceral, vital quality. Not this one. He gives us no reason to care about the characters or the story. There’s not even any special sense of place; it could just as easily be called “Generic Canadian City Vice.”


Jamie Foxx replaces Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo “Rico” Tubbs and Colin Farrell fills in for Don Johnson as James “Sonny” Crockett. They are brought in after the feds have failed in an undercover investigation of a drug dealer. After a brief interlude permitting Tubbs and his girlfriend (the wonderful Naomie Harris from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest) to get soapy in the shower, they get hired as deliverymen. Then they get caught up — personally and professionally — in the organization, which is (yawn) much larger and more far-reaching than they anticipated.

They have to prove themselves. Crockett gets involved with the drug operation’s CFO, Isabella (Gong Li), who dresses like an investment banker. But, like Melanie Grffith in “Working Girl,” she has a head for business and a bod for sin, and pretty soon she and Crockett are getting soapy in the shower.


The drug kingpin’s latest recruits have to prove themselves and work their way up the organization. The plot, however, mostly consists of bang bang bang, even the shoot-outs and explosions are not well-staged and the pacing is a slog. It seemed to take forever to load the darn drugs onto the darn boat. Foxx and Harris manage a little sizzle, but there is no chemistry of any kind between Foxx and Farrell or Farrell and Li. One reason is that Foxx and Farrell sport hairdos that all but emit chemistry repellent. The colors are dull. The pacing is dull. How long do we have to watch drugs being loaded onto a boat? Even the music is dull, as generic as a third-rate cover band. Even the preposterous ending is dull.

The dialogue is dull, too, all faux-tough, keeping-it-real we-can’t-trust-anyone-but-each-other-because-we’ve-shared-unspeakable-reality-and-know-things-the-rest-of-those-corrupt-and-incompetents-don’t malarky. It all sounds like something written by a computer tuned into the Spike channel. The only point in its favor is that there could be quite an active drinking game if viewers took a shot every time someone in the movie says something like, “Here’s how it’s going to be” or “Here’s how it’s going to happen.” It would have the advantage of both providing a more interesting distraction than the movie and rendering participants less concerned about the two hours and ten minute running time, the only theft in this movie anyone will care about.

Parents should know that this is a “hard-R” movie with extremely intense and graphic violence, including heavy artillary, a lot of blood splatter, and suicide. Characters are injured and killed. Characters are drug dealers and undercover cops who try to stop them. Characters drink and smoke (scenes in clubs) and use strong language. There are explicit sexual references and situations. A strength of the movie is the positive portrayal of inter-racial relationships, but some may find the South American drug dealers to be stereotyped.


Families who enjoy this film will also enjoy the original television show and Mann’s other movies, including Hannibal Lecter’s first appearance in Manhunter and Will Smith’s brilliant performance in Ali. Mann’s last film, also featuring Foxx, is the much better Collateral.

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Action/Adventure Crime Drama Movies -- format Remake Thriller

My Super Ex-Girlfriend

Posted on July 19, 2006 at 4:09 pm

B-
Lowest Recommended Age: High School
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for sexual content, crude humor, language and brief nudity.
Profanity: Some repeated crude language for comic effect
Alcohol/ Drugs: Social drinking
Violence/ Scariness: Action-style violence
Diversity Issues: Some homophobic and sexist humor
Date Released to Theaters: 2006
Date Released to DVD: 2006
Amazon.com ASIN: B000J4QW8Q

Even with a face contorted with rage and vengeance and a voice echoing through the streets of New York as well as the theater, it’s difficult not to like Uma Thurman as the needy, controlling and manipulative Jenny Johnson/G-girl. The odd sensation of not disliking someone that, well, dislikable seems to stem from the movie’s greatest asset: its understanding that evil can be a misguided outlet of the chronically insecure.


As she tells her story to Matt Saunders (Luke Wilson) – our good-natured protagonist with the requisite New York apartment, reluctance to believe beautiful women might dig him and sex-obsessed, super-vocal best friend – we are introduced to a Jenny Johnson who only wants to be liked and accepted. An outcast in high school, Jenny and her best friend, a schoolmate named Barry, are fooling around in a car when Jenny hears something. Rushing to the site, Jenny and Barry discover a meteor that explodes violently when Jenny touches it, thereafter imparting her with the super powers that turn her into G-girl, an indestructible protector of Gotham and savior to the seriously put-out.


In her story, Jenny becomes more confident at school, and blossoms with her new-found poise. She claims that she and her friend Barry simply grew apart. What we see, however, is a best friend left behind to fend for himself, which explains why in adulthood, Barry has become Professor Bedlam, G-girl’s arch-nemesis played by Eddie Izzard. The catch is that G-girl’s saving grace in high school has become her burden in the real world – her super power secret seems to have kept her from getting truly close to anyone and when she finds Saunders, she’s so hungry for human affection and acceptance that she fumbles and foils her way through a whirlwind relationship that quickly sours as Saunders realizes he can’t handle her neediness and that he is, in fact, in love with a coworker. The main plot of the movie takes us through Saunders’ relationship and breakup with G-girl.


So now you see the problem. We have a needy, whining, guilt-tripping girlfriend with a rage problem, and a weasel-ly, conniving evildoer for a nemesis, and we can’t help but try to collect our melting hearts while wishing both of them the best. (The best, in the form of a “happily-ever-after-ending,” does come, by the way.) Add to this pair our “everyman” Saunders, a role custom-made for likeability and played very well by Luke Wilson, and the raunchy best friend who dishes out bad advice aplenty with comic irreverence, played by Rainn Wilson of television’s The Office fame, and we have a movie with characters you like being allowed to like (despite their imperfections).


Parents should know that although the film is sweet and somewhat cheesy, it contains very adult-targeted sexual references and humor, including brief scenes with implied sex but little nudity, as well as direct references to masturbation and oral sex. The characters have sex without knowing each other well or establishing a caring relationship. Crude language is used abundantly and mostly for comic effect, but includes Thurman’s character referring to another woman as a “slut.” There is some action-style and comic violence, most in the form of Jenny/G-girl attempting to exact revenge on Saunders, including throwing a thrashing, gnawing shark through the window at him and targeting her laser eyes on his pet goldfish.


Families who see this movie should talk about the effects of alienation at school and changes in close relationships. They should also talk about Jenny’s actions as they discuss revenge and jealously, and appropriate ways for addressing insecurities. Effective communication and honesty in relationships are also relevant, and families might explore how Saunders and G-girl could have better handled their breakup.


Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy The 40 Year Old Virgin, which has similar adult-oriented humor and the same “everyman with the raunchy friends” feel, and Office Space.

Thanks to guest critic AB.

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Comedy Crime Drama Movies -- format Romance Science-Fiction Thriller

Lady in the Water

Posted on July 17, 2006 at 4:16 pm

C
Lowest Recommended Age: Middle School
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for some frightening sequences.
Profanity: None
Alcohol/ Drugs: Smoking, some social drinking
Violence/ Scariness: Intense peril, suspense, tension, some violence, mostly off-screen
Diversity Issues: Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters: 2006
Date Released to DVD: 2006
Amazon.com ASIN: B000JLTR8Q

There is no conventional rating scale that could do justice to this film. It is a terrible movie, but it is terrible in an interesting and often highly watchable way. There have been better films that I have enjoyed less. The C grade is not an indication of mediocrity; it is an average of the movie’s successes and failures.


Let’s start with the successes. First and most important is that M. Night Shyamalan is unquestionably a superb director with a brilliant understanding of how to use the camera to tell a story. Second is Paul Giamatti, who plays handyman/caretaker Cleveland Heep with sensitivity and conviction. Sarita Choudhury also brings a vibrant and lively spirit to the film.


But it is in a way the extraordinary ability and subtlety of those elements that undermine the film as a whole by providing a contrast to the stunningly self-indulgent claptrap they are attempting to serve.


Director Shyamalan makes the mistake of working from a fundamentally unworkable script by, who was that screenwriter again? Oh, yes, M. Night Shyamalan, who seems to be, as we say, working through some issues.

We see some of his favorite themes — the damaged doctor, the wise child, the characters stunned by devastating trauma, the spooky creatures lurking somewhere out there. But we also see what looks like petty payback. This is a story in which story-tellers are magically powerful while those who criticize them are half buffoon and half pompous but ineffectual know-it-all, and doomed to a uniquely awful fate. This is the movie equivalent of Barry Manilow wailing about how he writes the songs that make the whole world sing with an extra verse more than an hour long about how no one understands and appreciates him enough.


Though set in a dingy apartment complex outside of Philadelphia, this is a fairy tale. As the movie begins, we are told with simple line drawings of a time in which another race of beings called the Narf were in contact with humans. But then humans became greedy and wanted to own the land and the Narf could not communicate with them any more.

Heep (the names in this film make Pilgrim’s Progress looke subtle) discovers something, someone swimming in the pool at night. It is a narf (Bryce Dallas Howard from Shyamalan’s The Village). She has been called from her world to deliver a message to someone in the complex who is trying to write something. Her name is….Story.


Heed asks around to figure out which resident is in need of the message. It turns out there are several writers on the premises, including a book and film critic named Farber, perhaps named for legendary critic Manny Farber (Bob Balaban). But the Writer sought by Story because his writing will change the world is….none other than our very own story-teller, writer-director Shyamalan as Vick Ran, who has been stuck in the middle of writing a book about his ideas.


Does Story have a message for Vick? A story to tell him? No, it turns out one look from her is like a mega-dose of Ritalin; all of a sudden he is completely clear and focused and bangs that sucker out in a few hours.


The rest of the film is about getting Story back home. All Heed has to do is persuade one of the residents, a Korean woman, to tell him the bedtime story she heard from her mother, which has all of the details about every obstacle the Narf will face and every kind of help that is available to her.

The disparate residents of the complex may have been drawn there because they have exactly the talents she needs, but how to know who has what? Fortunately, no one wastes any time doubting Heed’s story. Unfortunately, instead they waste their time trying to sell this flimsy, self-serving mush.


Shyamalan promised that there would be no surprise twist ending this time. He is right. Although there are some good spooky moments and some surprisingly comic ones, you can tell where this one is going right from the start. But he is also wrong. The surprise twist is how far this is from what we know he can do. Shyamalan is a truly great story-teller. This is just a truly empty story.

Parents should know that this is a very intense film with a good deal of peril and suspense and some jump-out-at-you surprises and ominous portents. While most of the violence occurs off-screen, we do see graphic wounds. Characters smoke cigarettes and there is some social drinking. A strength of the movie is the way diverse characters live in a community of tolerance and lack of prejudice.


Families who see this movie should talk about the kinds of myths and other stories that transcend all cultures and the reason that stories — like movies — are important. Are you more like a healer, a symbol interpreter, a guardian, or part of a guild?


Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy The Sixth Sense, Signs, and The Village.

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Fantasy Movies -- format Mystery Thriller
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