Max Rose

Posted on September 1, 2016 at 5:51 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, prescription drugs
Violence/ Scariness:	Sad death
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	September 2, 2016

Jerry Lewis is back, playing the title character in “Max Rose,” a longtime jazz musician rocked to discover that his late wife might have been unfaithful. This 2013 film arrives in theaters in 2016, with Lewis giving a performance that is best described with a word not usually thought of for him: subdued. Lewis, then age 86, has learned to trust himself and the audience. He does not have to be big, loud, and needy. He can be quiet, subtle, and patient. The script is under-written, but it is a pleasure to watch Lewis in this mode, along with a bunch of other familiar octogenarian co-stars who bring their decades of experience to the under-written script.

Writer/director Daniel Noah locates us very quickly: some hospital paperwork, a clock ticking, a sympathetic voice asking, “Grandpa, can I get you anything?”

Max was married to Eva (Claire Bloom, lovely and warm in flashbacks), and he believed they were the great loves of each other’s lives. After a lifetime together, he does not know how to begin to live without her. Max has a tense relationship with his son, Christopher (Kevin Pollak). But he is very close to his granddaughter Annie (Kerry Bishé), who is spending much of her time with him, making sure that he eats and trying to make sure he takes his medicine. We see Max outsmarting her on that one. Max hands Annie Eva’s compact, and she smiles in recognition of one of her grandmother’s favorite treasures. But then Max shows Annie the inscription, and while she tries to reassure him that it might not be evidence that she had another relationship, they both know that is its implication.

Max is badly shaken. He questions everything he thought he knew about Eva, their relationship, and the choices he made. How can he reconcile the relationship he thought he had with the idea that Eva’s favorite compact reminded her of someone else every time she looked in the mirror to check her make-up? “I failed my wife, I failed my family, I failed myself.” And yet, he cannot forgive Christopher, now in the midst of his second divorce, for what Max considers Christopher’s own failures as a husband and father.

The story is thin and unconvincing, but it is a pleasure to see Lewis in the role. And in brief appearances, veterans Rance Howard, Dean Stockwell, and Fred Willard make us wish the whole movie was these guys sitting around talking.

Parents should know that the movie has mature material including strong language and sexual references.

Family discussion: What did Max want from his confrontation with the man who gave Eva the compact? Why was he so hard on Christopher?

If you like this, try: “The King of Comedy” and “45 Years”

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Floyd Norman: An Animated Life

Posted on August 25, 2016 at 12:37 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	A bleeped word
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Reference to alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Reference to divorce
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	August 26, 2016

Disney foolishly forced legendary animator Floyd Norman to retire at age 65, but he was not foolish enough to stop coming to work. Every day, he brings his wife Adrienne to her job at Disney, and then he spends the day wandering around, asking questions, talking to people, and generally, to use the portmanteau word Adrienne came up with, “floitering.” “The whole Disney campus is Floyd’s office,” says one colleague. Eventually, Disney realized they could not do without him and they gave up and just hired him again.

This delightful documentary about the very “animated life” of Floyd Norman is a must-see for fans of animation, movie history, and stories of lives filled with creativity, courage, and a sense of adventure. His career extends from the classic “nine old men” era at Disney, where he worked for Walt Disney himself animating the prince, the horse, and the three fairy godmothers in “Cinderella” and Kaa the snake in “The Jungle Book” and the “Jolly Holiday” musical number in “Mary Poppins” to animating, writing, and directing for Hanna-Barbera, Pixar, and for his own company. He used Roy Disney’s camera to go into Watts and shoot footage of the riots that was broadcast on the NBC news, and he worked on iconic Saturday morning cartoon shows like “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids,” “Johnny Quest,” and “Scooby-Doo.” (The only negative comment the sunny-tempered Norman makes in the whole documentary is a good-natured aside on Scooby — “I hate that dog!”) He even animated the opening logo for “Soul Train.”

More characteristic is his description of his childhood in Santa Barbara as “incredibly pleasant.” It was there he saw his first Disney animated film — “Dumbo” and knew that making cartoons would be his life’s work. It didn’t matter that Disney had no black animators. He was “just another kid who wanted to work for Disney,” and when they saw what he could do, they hired him as an “assistant in-betweener” on “Sleeping Beauty,” where he was expected to turn out eight “dead-on precise” completed drawings a day.

One of the highlights of the film is seeing Floyd Norman at San Diego Comic-Con’s Quick Draw, with MAD Magazine artist Sergio Aragonés. But every moment is pure pleasure, as we see the man who is still “in touch with his inner 20-year-old” demonstrate the skill, imagination, and dedication that has been central to much of the most creative entertainment of the past 60 years.

Parents should know that this movie has a bleeped bad word, a sexual reference, and references to drinking and divorce.

Family discussion: Which is your favorite Floyd Norman animation and why? How did he show flexibility and “shape-shifting?”

If you like this, try: “Waking Sleeping Beauty,” “Walt and El Groupo,” and, of course, “The Jungle Book,” and Norman’s other animated classics

Ben-Hur

Posted on August 18, 2016 at 5:25 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and disturbing images
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Some social drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense and sometimes graphic peril and violence including battle scenes, crucifixions, abuse, and accidents, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	August 19, 2016

Lew Wallace’s 1880 book, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, had a revolutionary idea in a spiritual setting. The story of a minor, fictional character at the time of the crucifixion was the first to try to illuminate epic themes through the depiction of a character who was not a participant. Indeed, the title character was hardly aware of the monumental events going on around him. He was too busy dealing with his own personal crises like being enslaved and having his mother and sister contract leprosy. Wallace’s book became the top seller of the century. And then it became a play, two silent films, a Best Picture Oscar winner tied for first place for the most Academy Awards, plus two animated versions and a television miniseries.

Now Roma Downey and Mark Burnett, following the enormous success of their “Bible,” “A.D” and “Son of God” know the genre well and have remade the grand but dated three hour and thirty-seven minute epic. Their version is brisker, not just in the overall running time of just over two hours but in the more contemporary quick cuts and trimmed storyline. It is also more explicitly religious. While earlier versions suggested the presence of Jesus but did not include his face or voice, he is more explicitly involved in the storyline here, portrayed by Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro.

As in all of the earlier versions, it is the story of Judah Ben-Hur (Jack Huston), a Jewish prince who is wrongly accused of a hostile act against the Roman invaders and sold into slavery. In this version the Roman Messala (Toby Kebbell) is more than a close friend; he is Judah’s adopted brother. They are devoted to one another but also deeply competitive.

Messala, in love with Judah’s sister, joins the Roman army in hopes of achieving enough wealth and status to be considered worthy of her. When he returns to Jerusalem, Judah is married to Esther (Nazanin Boniadi). Messala and Judah agree to find a way for the local population to live peacefully under Roman occupation. But a rebel hiding in Judah’s house kills one of the Roman officers and Judah is blamed. Messala refuses to protect him or his family. Judah becomes a galley slave, spending five years chained to an oar on a Roman naval ship.

When the ship is sunk, he escapes. An African named Ilderim (Morgan Freeman) gives him a chance to win back his freedom by competing in a chariot race. And that, after all, is what everyone remembers about “Ben-Hur.” Director Timur Bekmambetov is known for action scenes with tremendous vitality and he more than delivers with the chariot race, which is thrillingly dynamic. The naval battle scenes are also exciting. The screenplay has some clunky dialog and awkward transitions, but Huston is always engaged and engaging and balances the intensity of the action scenes with an inspiring message of forgiveness. The movie is true to the story that has endured in its various versions for more than a century.

Parents should know that this film includes intense and sometimes graphic peril and violence with many characters injured and killed, battle scenes, whipping, abuse, crucifixions, some disturbing images, brief non-explicit sexual situation and mild sexual references.

Family discussion: What changed Ben-Hur’s mind about Messala? Was Ben-Hur right to try to make peace with the Romans? What did Pilate mean when he said, “They’re Romans now?”

If you like this, try; “Risen” and the 1959 version of “Ben-Hur”

The Infiltrator

Posted on July 12, 2016 at 5:25 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for strong violence, language throughout, some sexual content and drug material
Profanity:	Very strong language, homophobic slurs
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drugs and drug dealing, alcohol, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Extensive and graphic violence, guns, car crash, mob executions, disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	July 12, 2016

“We’ve been following the drugs to get to the bad guys. What if we follow the money?” That simple suggestion from FBI undercover agent Bob Mazur (Bryan Cranston) led to an unprecedented massive series of arrests that brought down key members of Pablo Escobar’s cocaine operations — and the world’s 11th biggest bank. Based on Bob Mazur’s book, and with Mazur as a producer, it is set in 1980’s Florida, where Excobar was smuggling in literally tons of cocaine. Getting it into the country was easy. Selling it was easy. Paying off, threatening, and torturing anyone who tried to stop them was easy. The biggest challenge they faced was moving the money between countries.

Mazur, trained as an accountant, went undercover and offered money laundering services to Escobar’s lieutenants, funnelling their stacks of cash through “legitimate” companies and criminal-friendly jurisdictions like Panama, then led by Manuel Noriega. He was able to gain the trust of the drug dealers. It was even easier to get the cooperation of bankers, including the prestigious international financial institution BCCI.

This movie, directed by “The Lincoln Lawyer’s” Brad Furman is sincere, diligent, a little corny, and for better and worse exactly what you expect from a fact-based story of an FBI undercover operative. There is the anxious and at times impatient wife. “Promise me this is the last one.” “I’m just wondering where my little Bobby the accountant went?” She has the thankless task of sighing, getting upset when their anniversary celebration is ruined when he has to go into character because they run into one of his criminal buddies, being jealous of his relationship with a beautiful female agent posing as his fiancee (Diane Kruger) and telling him he should have taken the chance for early retirement.

For a tense crime drama, it is surprisingly inert. We learn very little about what is involved in laundering money to prove himself to the bad guys or how the investigation proceeded or what goes into a long-term undercover operation. Mazur shows up in a Rolls Royce and has access to a mansion. Both were confiscated from drug dealers, but we do not learn that from the movie. What we do see is Mazur going home at night to his modest suburban house and his wife and children and jogging through his neighborhood. Presumably Escobar, one of the most ruthless criminals in history, would not turn over hundreds of millions of dollars to someone without making sure he was who he said he was. Mazur comes across as near-saintly, so even Cranston cannot give the character much by way of depth. The conflicts he feels about betraying a man who trusts him are confusing. Even when he is played by the elegant Benjamin Bratt, he is still a barbaric thug. The “Red Wedding”-style climax is synthetic, which, come to think of it, is the problem throughout. This is a movie about a faker that never feels real.

Parents should know that this film has very intense peril and violence, very disturbing and graphic images, guns, car crash, mob executions, characters injured and killed, very strong and crude language throughout with some homophobic slurs, some nudity, sexual references, drinking, smoking, and drugs and drug dealing.

Family discussion: Do you agree with the sentences received by the people who went to jail in this film? What makes someone good at undercover work?

If you like this, try: “Donnie Brasco,” “American Hustle,” and “Kill the Messenger”

Zero Days

Posted on July 7, 2016 at 5:46 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for some strong language
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	References to weapons of mass destruction
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	July 8, 2016

If I could require every candidate running for office to see one movie, it would be “Zero Days,” the most terrifying movie of the year. It is the story of the Stuxnet virus developed by the US and Israeli governments to infect the nuclear facilities in Iran. As one of the experts in the film notes, for thousands of years combat was carried out by the army on land and the navy on the water. In the 20th century, battles moved into the air, and so we needed an air force. And the development of atomic weapons posed unprecedented threats and daunting challenges of statecraft as well as warcraft. And now the greatest threats come from code in a thumb drive.

“Zero Days” begins with a collage of experts all saying some version of “I can’t answer that,” “Even if I knew, I couldn’t tell you,” or “That is classified.” And then writer/director Alex Gibney, the man behind documentaries about sensitive topics including Enron, Wikileaks, Scientology, use of torture by US military, and Steve Jobs, finds many of the answers anyway. His most candid source appears to us only as a disembodied face made up of code, dissolving around the edges.

Stuxnet is the name given to the weapons-grade virus by the Symantec engineers who are trying to dissect it so they can protect their customers from it. They have never seen anything so professionally constructed and destructive. (We find out later that internally, the constructors referred to it as Olympic Games.) They begin to suspect that it was put together by a nation-state to be used to disrupt enemy programs, but the project is so secret that even the US Department of Homeland Security has no knowledge of it and is spending its resources to make sure it is not used against American citizens.

Gibney skillfully shapes the story, giving us views of experts in national security, public policy, and viruses, who make it clear that by opening up the door to this category of warfare, the US opens itself up to massive and possibly permanent disruptions from our financial services and banking systems to our power grid, transportation, and water safety. A diplomat says that people thought it was impossible to develop international agreements on nuclear weapons, but, after only two decades, one exists. This movie makes clear that we do not have that kind of time, and that in this election year, there is no more important priority to put on the national agenda than this one.

Parents should know that this film has some strong language and deals with weapons of mass destruction.

Family discussion: Who should decide when to use computer viruses? How much does the public have the right to know?

If you like this, try: Gibney’s film “We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks.”

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