Before I Fall

Posted on March 2, 2017 at 5:53 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for mature thematic content involving drinking, sexuality, bullying, some violent images, and language - all involving teens
Profanity:	Some strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Teen drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Fatal accident, suicide
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	March 3, 2017

Who would not like to go back in time to correct a mistake? Can you correct a mistake without making it worse?

Lauren Oliver’s debut novel Before I Fall is a bittersweet “Groundhog Day” story about a pretty, popular high school senior named Sam (“Everybody Wants Some!!’s” Zoey Deutch) who lives her last day over and over until she figures out why.

Sam wakes up on “Cupid Day” (her school’s version of Valentine’s Day), happy, confident, and looking forward to the day ahead. Her best friend Lindsay (“Paper Towns'” Halston Sage) is picking her up and at school she is expecting her boyfriend Rob to have red roses delivered to her in class. And that evening, she and Rob have planned to have sex for the first time. Everything seems to be coming together just as she wants it.

She barely acknowledges her parents (yes, that is “Flashdance’s” Jennifer Beals as her mother) as she flies out the door. When her little sister runs after Sam with her gloves, instead of thanking her, Sam barks, “Don’t touch my things!” Lindsay picks up their other two friends, and the movie really captures the wild swings between professing total love and devotion and mildly trashing and topping each other that is teengirlspeak.

At school, the lesson is about the Greek myth of Sisyphus, condemned to keep pushing a huge rock up a hill, never getting it over the top before it rolls back down. But no one is really paying attention and the class is interrupted by the delivery of the Cupid’s Day roses. She receives the red roses Rob sent her — after she reminded him — with a note that is more jaunty than romantic. And then there is a special rose from an old friend, who tells her he is having a party that night. She barely acknowledges him. And she does not even notice a sad and angry girl named Juliet (Elena Kampouris) intently working on a charcoal drawing until they are all in the cafeteria, when Lindsay taunts her. “Remind me why we hate Juliet?” Sam asks, but does not really pay attention to the answer. She is more bored by it than ashamed of it.

She does end up at the party, where Rob gets sloppy drunk and Juliet confronts the girls who have been mean to her, including Sam. Later that night, they learn that Juliet has committed suicide. And then Sam wakes up and it is Cupid Day all over again.

At first, she is frustrated and angry at reliving the same day over and over and over. She exploits the freedom from consequences but it is not fun; it is empty. Finally, she begins to pay attention to the people around her and begins to understand what she has to do.

Deutch ably handles her most challenging role so far, showing us Sam’s thoughtfulness, even in her most self-absorbed moments. The small details of her different approaches to each day keep us aware of exactly where she is on her path to greater understanding. Each day may seem the same to Sam, but for us Deutch makes them different as she passes through denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. She makes us share her sense of loss, but also her understanding as a reminder of a time she was a hero makes her willing to locate that in herself once more.

Parents should know that this movie includes teen drinking, bullying, strong language including crude sexual references, suicide, and a fatal accident.

Family discussion: If you could live today over again, what would you change? Why didn’t Sam pay attention to Kent and Juliet before? Who is your hero? Whose hero are you?

If you like this, try: “If I Stay,” “About Time,” and “Restless”

The Sense of an Ending

Posted on February 27, 2017 at 8:27 am

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Preschool
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, a violent image, sexuality and brief strong language
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Suicides
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	March 10, 2017

Life is messy. Stories are our way of cleaning it up to help us try to make sense of it. Some of those stories are in books or movies, but most of those stories are just the editing each of us does all the time in telling ourselves and others who we are. Whether it is explaining to a traffic cop why you should not get a ticket or the difference between the “how we met” story of a couple who are still together and one who has split up, or living in a version of Lake Woebegone, “where all the children are above average,” all of us burnish the truth a little to make ourselves feel better and look better.

Julian Barnes’ award-winning novel The Sense of an Ending is the story of a older man who has to rethink the stories he has told himself and realign his understanding of his life. On screen, the delicacy of the performances stands in for the lyricism of his prose.

Tony Webster (Jim Broadbent) is semi-retired, the owner of a store that sells vintage cameras, and kind of semi-married, with a warm, companionable relationship with his lawyer ex-wife, Margaret (Harriet Walter, with a voice like a dry martini). Their daughter Susie (“Downton Abbey’s” Michelle Dockery) loves her dad, but finds him exasperating. She is pregnant, and says that her child will call him “Mudge,” for curmudgeon.

The camera store is significant. The vintage cameras are superbly crafted and in some ways better than digital cameras, but they are expensive and complicated and considered obsolete by most people. Tony identifies with the underappreciated quality of the instruments of precision and gets some satisfaction with being out of step with modern technology and mores.

But his romanticized view of the past is put into sharper focus (those cameras again) when he gets a letter about a bequest from a woman he had not seen since he was in his 20’s, when he was dating a woman named Veronica, and visited her family. After he and Veronica broke up, she dated his close friend Adrian, who later committed suicide. Now Veronica’s mother has left him Adrian’s journal, but that raises many questions: Why did she want him to have it? Where did she get it?

And where is it? Her letter says it is enclosed, but it is not. Tony could let it go, but he stubbornly insists on seeing what it is, without considering where it might lead.

We go back in time, the moments and even the gestures mirroring the present as Tony explores the past and reconsiders many of his most fundamental assumptions about how he has lived his life. Veronica (now played with quiet fury by Charlotte Rampling) will not let him to have the journal. Instead she gives him something else, a letter that will make Tony confront one of his most painful and shameful experiences and open up to his ex-wife as he never has before.

The honesty of story’s portrayal of the foolish and selfish mistakes we make and the hurt they can inflict on people around us is tempered by the film’s tenderness toward its characters and the sensitivity of the performances, especially Broadbent and Walter. It judges them less than Tony is pushed to judge himself, and that is why it is so touching.

Parents should know that this movie includes two suicides, some violence, strong language, sexual references and a situation, and tense confrontations.

Family discussion: Why did Victoria’s mother want Tony to have Adrian’s journal? Why was Tony wrong about Victoria’s brother? Why did he forget about the letter?

If you like this, try: “The Remains of the Day”

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Rock Dog

Posted on February 23, 2017 at 5:50 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Preschool
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for action and language
Profanity:	Some schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Action-style cartoon peril, chases, predators, no one hurt
Diversity Issues:	A metaphorical theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	February 24, 2017

The second movie in three months featuring cartoon animals singing pop songs is “Rock Dog,” based on a Chinese graphic novel.

Luke Wilson provides the voice for Bodi, a sheepdog in Tibet, raised by his martinet father Khampa (J.K. Simmons). Bodi is never able to muster the “Kung Fu Panda” style mystic power his father tries to teach him as a part of the elaborate defense system he has put in place to protect the sheep from the Mafia-type wolves (led by Lewis Black as Linnux). At one time the community had two passions, making music and making wool. But after an attack by wolves, the instruments have all been locked away so that there will be no distractions from civil defense.

When a radio literally drops from the sky (an airplane loses some of its cargo), Bodi realizes his true purpose. He is not a watchdog — he is a musician.

Inspired by the music of rock star Angus Scattergood (Eddie Izzard), he decides to leave the mountain to follow in his footsteps: he will find a band in the legendary Rock ‘n’ Roll Park and play music no matter who tries to stop him. “Play your guts out and never stop, even when your dad tells you to stop, don’t stop.” He realizes that this is “the answer to my life,” and soon he is making music for delighted new fans.

Khampa reluctantly agrees to let Bodi go, but makes him promise he will return if he does not succeed. In the big city, he finds the Rock ‘n’ Roll Park, where he encounters a bully (Matt Dillon) who sends him to Scattergood’s booby-trapped fortress of a house as a prank.

Scattergood is desperately trying to come up with the new song his record label is demanding, but he is so isolated that he has run out of ideas, like Dana Carvey playing “Choppin’ Broccoli.”

There are some charming details (the sheep’s pub is called the Warp and Weft and serves shots of wheatgrass), and its international production team is reflected in its settings, like the Japan-inspired Rock ‘n’ Roll park, where Bodi and the bully have a shred-off. Bodi is a likeable hero and it is fun to see his cheery optimism paired with the burned-out, cynical Angus. Like the music they create, it is pleasantly entertaining.

Parents should know that this movie has cartoon action-style peril and violence, including predators, chases, fire, and some pratfalls, although no one is hurt. There is also some schoolyard language.

Family discussion: Why was it so hard for Angus to write a song? Why did he think he did not want to see anyone? How did Bodi know that music was his destiny?

If you like this, try: “Surf’s Up”

A Cure for Wellness

Posted on February 16, 2017 at 5:54 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Preschool
MPAA Rating:	Rate R for disturbing violent content and images, sexual content including an assault, graphic nudity, and language
Profanity:	Very strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense, graphic, and extensive peril and violence with many disturbing and graphic images, sexual assault, torture

There’s jump out at you scary. And there’s something’s coming at me scary. And then there’s the slow, inexorable dread that builds inside you, and that is what director/co-writer Gore Verbinski is going for with “A Cure for Wellness.”

The unsettling through-the-looking-glass idea starts with the title itself. Isn’t wellness what a cure is supposed to achieve? Would a cure for wellness mean making a healthy person sick? Uh…yes. Prepare to feel your stomach drop like a bowling ball.

The best part of the movie is in exploring the world Verbinski creates, with production designer Eve Stewart, a health sanitarium where time seems to have stopped a century ago. A brief opening section establishes that it takes place now. An ambitious Wall Street trader named Lockhart (fast-rising star Dane DeHaan) has done something improper, and the bosses at his firm tell him that if he does not want to go to jail he has to retrieve Mr. Pembroke, the firm’s CEO, from a remote sanitarium so he can sign off on a big deal. Lockhart, confident of his ability to get deals done, and determined to stay out of trouble, takes the long, long drive up to the top of a mountain, to a facility somewhere between the Overlook Hotel in “The Shining,” the tuberculosis sanitorium in The Magic Mountain, and the Grand Budapest Hotel.

He briskly asks to see Pembroke and is informed that visiting hours are over. He does not pay enough attention to notice that things seem a bit…off. And when he is offered a glass of water, he does not hesitate to drink it. This, needless to say, is a mistake. He thinks he can leave and come back to see Pembroke later. This, also needless to say, is also a mistake.

Lockhart tries to find out what is going on. One might say that this is a mistake, too.

He starts to leave, but the car hits a deer and he wakes up in a hospital bed, his leg in a cast. Everyone is pleasant and rather vague, both staff and guests. But everything gets creepier and creepier, and it’s all atmosphere anyway. Don’t try to think about the story too much because it does not make a ton of sense and basically boils down to: creepy scene here, creepy scene there, REALLY creepy scene downstairs, excruciatingly creepy scene in the dentist’s chair, a not very surprising reveal.

Parents should know that this is a horror movie with extremely graphic and disturbing material and with many grisly and upsetting images including dead bodies, snakes, torture, sexual references and situations, nudity, sexual assault, incest, and very strong language.

Family discussion: What does Lockhart’s name tell us about the character? What does Hannah learn from him?

If you like this, try; “The Shining” and “Suspira”

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Fist Fight

Posted on February 16, 2017 at 5:40 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Preschool
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language throughout, sexual content/nudity and drug material
Profanity:	Extremely strong and crude language used by adults, teens, and a child
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drugs and drug dealing by teenager
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended comic peril and violence
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	February 17, 2017

Maybe it’s just here in Washington D.C., but when I saw “Fist Fight,” the biggest laugh from the audience was seeing the name of the executive producer, Steve Mnuchin, who had just been sworn in as the Trump administration’s Secretary of the Treasury. The timing of the movie, with its comic portrayal of an underfunded and wildly dysfunctional public school is uneasily, if inadvertently resonant with the times.

But mostly it is just not very funny. Five writers, including “New Girl” actor Max Greenfield, and a roster of more than a dozen producers, including the two stars, Ice Cube and Charlie Day, could not come up with anything more original than anatomical graffiti, a teacher who takes drugs and want to have sex with students, and a child performing a song with f- and b-words in her school talent show.

The producer/stars play Ron Strickland and Andy Campbell, teachers in a chaotic high school that is even more chaotic than usual because it is the last day before summer vacation. The senior pranks include obscene graffiti in the classroom and on the field, a drugged-up stolen race horse in the halls, the principal’s car covered with paint and left in the school foyer, and (I admit it, this was surreal and funny) a mariachi band trailing the principal for the day.

The students are openly contemptuous of the teachers. So is the administration, which is insisting on re-interviewing each of them to decide whether they will be kept on in their jobs. And poor Campbell, who just want to get along with everyone and impart to his students some of his love for words, has a wife who is about to go into a labor and a daughter who is appearing in the school talent show that afternoon. For some reason, he is performing with her, though she wants to make some last minute changes to the song. Do you think maybe the one she is springing on him has some bad language in it? Yes! Is that something that is inherently hilarious? Not in my opinion.

So, this is about two things: First is Campbell’s constant frustration at trying to do the right thing and the emasculating humiliation heaped on him by everyone when his nice-guy efforts are met with universal contempt. Second is the concept that nice-guy efforts should be met with universal contempt because what matters is the willingness and ability to beat someone up. Even the 911 operator (Kym Whitley) can only laugh when he calls for help.

The movie is filled with funny people. Unfortunately, it is bereft of funny ideas.

Parents should know that this film includes very strong language used by adults, teenagers and a child, drug humor and drug dealing by a teenager, jokes about a sexual predator, graphic sexual graffiti/humor, outrageous pranks, comic violence and peril.

Family discussion: Are Strickland and Campbell good teachers? What do they like about teaching?

If you like this, try: “Three O’Clock High” and “Ride Along”

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