Last Ounce of Courage

Posted on September 12, 2012 at 5:55 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for thematic elements, some war images, and brief smoking
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Some drinking and smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	References to casualties and fatalities in war, brief image of an accidental gunshot wound
Diversity Issues:	Intolerance of non-Christians
Date Released to Theaters:	September 12, 2012

It is truly disappointing that a film that is intended to be in favor of “peace and joy and love,” faith, freedom and Christmas is instead about being a bully and being a phony.

Last Ounce of Courage is the story of a small town pharmacist and part-time mayor who bonds with his teenage grandson over a plan to celebrate Christmas, not in the home and the church, but in the school, the town square, and the federally funded veterans’ facility. Unlike the vastly superior Christmas with a Capital C, which addresses the same issues with insight and compassion — and better acting and more believable characters, this movie almost literally demonizes anyone who thinks that publicly funded venues should respect every faith (or absence of faith) of its citizens. Anyone who objects to a cross or a Christmas tree on public space is portrayed as an enemy of freedom. The idea that the imposition of one religion’s symbols, including a “Jesus Saves” cross, on the entire community might be insensitive, unfair, or unconstitutional is portrayed as anti-freedom. Infringing the freedom of those who do not want to see those emblems is not considered. While a character says he respects the rights of Muslims and Jews to practice their religion, the fact that he is taking over the public space with his symbols does not seem to to bother him and despite his being the mayor of the city and thus the representative of all its citizens, he makes no effort to find out what anyone else thinks. Military music and references to fallen soldiers (and an angel and a family reconciliation) are used to obscure the complete distortion of the law and history of the separation of church and state. It is worse than inaccurate — it is condescending, manipulative, thuggish, and hypocritical.

The people in this story who have no understanding of the meaning of Christmas are those who think it is about forcing one particular idea of how it should be recognized on those whose beliefs are different, or that the most trivial symbols matter more than the message of hope, peace, and goodwill, much less the importance of good deeds and humility. Unlike “Christmas with a Capital C,” there is no recognition that Christmas is about kindness, compassion, generosity, and love. Instead, this film perpetuates a disheartening and divisive stereotype, not just “us and them” but “us versus them.” In an era when there is such an avid audience for faith-based films and we have been lucky enough to see so many that are genuinely moving and inspiring, it is too bad that this film is so over the top it almost constitutes a parody of the the ideas it most hopes to communicate.

I mean, the main character has to be named Revere, right? And the school is so committed to secularity that it decides to have a nativity play(?!?!) but substitutes aliens for the wise men and shepherds and a pot of gold for Jesus. ‘Cause that happens. And the teacher in charge of the play is a little bit effeminate, while the good guys are all hog-ridin’ he-men. All of the people on “our side” are righteous and all of the people who are not are stupid or just waiting to be enlightened. And God must be on our side because an angel shows up to let Revere know that his grandson came through.

This is bigotry masquerading as leadership, thuggery claiming the banner of freedom, braggadocio pretending to be strength. It is arrogant, smug, and superficial, with no evidence of generosity, tolerance, empathy, or kindness. Saddest of all, it is about reinforcing those beliefs instead of reaching out to try to share with, connect to, or understand others. They talk about their respect for the Bible and the Constitution, but do not seem to have read either one.

Parents should know that there is brief wartime footage and a brief image of an accidental self-inflicted gun wound, some smoking and drinking, and insensitive portrayals of the rights of everyone but the movie’s heroes.

Family discussion: Have there been any debates about the separation of church and state in your community? Read some of the history of this issue and look in the news for current discussions and controversies.

If you like this, try: “Christmas with a Capital C”

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Thunderstruck

Posted on August 23, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for mild language and rude humor
Profanity:	Some schoolyard language ("sucks," "crap")
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	None
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	August 24, 2012

This “Freaky Friday” with basketball keeps throwing airballs.

It’s the story of Brian (Taylor Gray) a sixteen-year-old kid who wishes he could have the skills of Olympic gold medalist and NBA star Kevin Durant playing himself, not very convincingly but with an engaging low-key unpretentiousness.

A magical basketball (don’t bother trying to figure it out; the movie doesn’t) switches their abilities. Suddenly Brian can’t miss and KD can’t even make a free throw. Brian goes from being the subject of jeers and humiliation in the school cafeteria to being a big man on campus, with the entire student body wearing shirts in his honor. And to the dismay of his agent (Brandon T. Jackson) and the poor director moaning “take 47” as they try to film a commercial for KD’s new shoes, KD can’t get out of his slump.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0wiLTsDqag

Brian first meets KD at half-time, when he has just been given the chance to do a free throw for a big prize. Instead of hitting the basket, he hit the mascot. “I wish I had your talent,” Brian says. “I wish you did, too,” KD tells him, but then says that it is hard work that matters more than talent. That is a good message for kids but the entire premise of the movie is the opposite. Both Brian and KD work very hard but it makes no difference in either case. This is typical of the carelessness of the script. Even the good guy characters are self-centered and without any interest in learning anything new. The coaches (Jim Belushi and his son, Robert) have no understanding of the game’s skills or strategy and no interest in the team other than winning. “Don’t suck!” is their charming mantra. When it comes time for the big pep talk before the championship game, the best they can do is recite some lines from “Hoosiers.” Plagiarism and insincerity — a nice lesson for the kids, both those on the team and those who are watching.

Parents should know that this movie has some schoolyard language (“it sucks,” “crap”), crotch hits, brief potty humor, and some bullying.

Family discussion: Why did Kevin and his agent react differently when Kevin lost his talent? Why did Brian become thoughtless and hurt his friends’ feelings? If you could have someone’s talent, who would you pick?

If you like this, try: “Like Mike” and “Rookie of the Year”

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days

Posted on August 2, 2012 at 6:09 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some rude humor

This is the third movie based on the wildly popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney. With each movie, the franchise becomes better at milking the formula that causes 4th graders to cringe with delight. The story is always the same: Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon) suffers through the traumas and indignities of a young boy growing up. Tormented by his older brother, hounded by his younger brother, misunderstood by his parents and teachers, and haunted by Holly ( Peyton List), the unattainable pretty girl in his class, Greg muddles through one humiliating mishap after another, accompanied by his well-intentioned best friend Rowley (Robert Capron).

This episode, which is based on the fourth book in the Wimpy Kid series, begins at the close of the school year. The last day is of course excruciating (Greg’s father accidentally gave the school a humiliating baby picture of Greg for the yearbook) but Greg is looking forward to a long and happy summer of computer games and time with Holly. Alas, it is not to be. Greg’s father insists that Greg get out of the house and do something worthwhile. From this premise follows a summer full of catastrophes. Greg’s parents think he might become more responsible if he takes care of a dog. Then they try signing him up to learn outdoorsmanship with Wilderness Troop 133. They consider enrolling him at a disciplinary prep school for irresponsible children. Finally, Greg’s parents leave him alone when he tells them that he has found a summer job. In reality, Greg has no job; he spends the summer sneaking into a country club where he tries to impress Holly. This lie will not end well for Greg, yet like all of the Wimpy Kid movies, everything ends on a warm and upbeat note.

Greg describes his baby brother’s security blanket as “a couple of pieces of yarn held together by raisins and boogers.” One could describe the plot of this movie the same way. There is very little plot to hold together a string of contrived and embarrassing anecdotes. When Greg jumps off the high dive board in front of everyone at the country club, his swim trunks improbably catch on the diving board and come off. He is trapped in the pool naked until an even more embarrassing alternative presents itself: Greg slips on a girl’s bathing suit labeled “princess” across the butt, and hurries out of the pool while people laugh at him and call him “loser.” These episodes are all painful but consistent with the brand of Wimpy Kids, the film always turns away just before the situation becomes truly awful.
The children in the theater all seemed to enjoy being grossed out by Greg’s misadventures. They simultaneously laughed out loud and yelled “Eeewwwwwww.” But those who are old enough to have come to terms with normal bodily functions may be less intrigued.

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Total Recall

Posted on August 2, 2012 at 6:00 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, some sexual content, brief nudity, and language
Profanity:	Some strong language (for example, s-words, one f-word)
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense and sustained sci-fi action and violence, shooting, explosions, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	August 3, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B005LAII3A

Will the 2012 version of the story inspired by Philip K. Dick’s “We Can Remember it for You Wholesale” erase the memory of the Arnold Schwarzenegger sci-fi classic from 1990? Dick’s story is about a time in the future when a company named Rekal (Rekall in the films) implants false memories to order — vacations, heroic missions, romances –and a man who tries to buy a memory only to find that his own real-life memories have been imperfectly erased and he is neither what nor who he thought he was. Both movie versions are very loose adaptations, but both, like the story, are about heroes who have no memory of their previous lives as spies and assassins until an attempt to insert a happy memory of a vacation trip inadvertently jars loose some imperfectly erased memories of another life.

The original film is fondly remembered but even its fans admit that it is cheesy, with special effects that look like cardboard compared to today’s digital enhancements. The new version has vastly better effects and a vastly better actor with Colin Farrell as Quaid (Quail in the story). He is a factory worker (jackhammer operator in the earlier film) whose dreams seem more real to him than his waking life with a beautiful, affectionate, and sympathetic wife (Kate Beckinsale as Lori, memorably played in the original by Sharon Stone).

Director Len Wiseman (the “Underworld” movies and “Life Free or Die Hard”) and production designer Patrick Tatopoulos create a dazzlingly dystopic world. If it draws heavily on the brilliant work of Syd Mead in “Blade Runner,” at least it pays homage to the best and, after all, that was also based on a Dick story about a dark future and the exploitation of imperfect memory. As in “Blade Runner,” the setting combines the decay of edifices contemporary to our time that we still think of as impressive and useful with the imposition of harshly impersonal spaces and some mind-boggling technology that is matter-of-factly ordinary for the characters who use it. The hover car and the literally hand-held phone are great fun. There are some major logical inconsistencies in the story but it works as a popcorn pleasure.

Some people have strong attachments to the original movie and embrace the cheesiness and for them this re-imagined version is unlikely to replace that memory. While it honors the earlier version, sometimes directly, sometimes with a cheeky twist, this version works just fine on its own, with well-staged chases and confrontations and even a bit of existential rumination about memory, identity, and redemption. Beckinsale’s character is more prominent than Stone’s (yes, she is married to the director, with whom she worked in the vampiric “Underworld” series as well, but it works). Bryan Cranston, Bill Nighy, and Bokeem Woodbine contribute solid performances that keep things grounded. No Mars, no turban, no “consider this a div-ausss,” but it is an entertaining, visually striking adventure with a main character you will not want to forget.

Parents should know that this film includes a great deal of intense and sometimes graphic sci-fi action, peril, and violence, with many shoot-outs and many characters injured and killed. There are some disturbing images of mutants. Characters use some strong language (mostly s-words and one f-word), drink, and get drunk. There are some sexual references and a non-explicit situation and brief nudity (a woman with three breasts).

Family discussion: How did Quaid decide who to believe? If you had a chance to buy a memory from Rekall, would you? What would it be?

If you like this, try: “Blade Runner,” also based on a story by Philip K. Dick, and the original “Total Recall” with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Posted on June 21, 2012 at 6:15 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for violence throughout and brief sexuality
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, scenes in bar
Violence/ Scariness:	Extensive, intense, graphic, bloody violence including Civil War battles, vampires, stampede, guns, knives, ax, sad deaths of parent and child
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	June 22, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B005LAIHYU

Now, that’s a President. Abraham Lincoln, previously best remembered for the penny, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Civil War, the Gettysburg Address, the humor, the honesty, and the height, is now re-imagined with all of that plus a rail-splitting ax tipped with silver that he swings like the grand marshall of a marching band to chop off the heads of vampires.

Russian-Kazakh director Timur Bekmambetov is known for hyper-violent films with striking visuals (“Wanted,” “Daywatch,” “Nightwatch”), here working with superstar cinematographer Caleb Deschanel as director of photography, is well suited to telling this story. It is surprisingly absorbing for an idea that sounds like it could easily be all concept and pointy teeth.

We meet young Abe as a boy, risking his life to defend his best friend Will, an African-American boy about to be whipped by the cruel man who oversees the docks. This rebellion gets Abe’s father fired, and also inflicts a more insidious revenge. Those who are familiar enough with Lincoln’s history well enough to know that the mother he loved, Nancy Hanks, died when he was nine will guess what is going to happen when she is stricken with a mysterious illness. Those who expect to see his step-mother, his first love, Anne Rutledge, or more than one of his sons will have to wait for the Steven Spielberg biopic coming out next year. As the title suggests, his one is more about killing vampires in a lot of different settlings, with a lot of spurting blood. In 3D.

At first, it is about revenge. But then Lincoln meets the dissolute but somehow trustworthy Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper), who cues up the training montage by telling Lincoln he must learn how to swing his ax with enough force to knock down a tree with one blow — and teaches him to do it by thinking about what he hates most. “It’s quite a feat to kill that which is already dead.” Sturgess warns Lincoln that if he is going to hunt vampires he cannot have any friends or romantic connections. But after Lincoln moves to Springfield, Illinois, he soon has both, with Joshua Speed (Jimmi Simpson) and pretty Mary Todd (the always-winning Mary Elizabeth Winstead). The head vampire, meaningfully named Adam (Rufus Sewell), is planning to take over America from his decaying plantation in New Orleans. When he invites some of his slaves to a party, it’s not “Mandingo;” it’s “Soylent Green.”

The attempt to weave the vampires into historical events is less gimmicky than it sounds because slavery is so abhorrent it makes more sense that it would require supernatural evil for something so essentially inhumane. But this is all about the fight scenes, and they are striking, even beautiful seen as abstractions, if you stop thinking of them as decapitations and impalings. Like its source material, its effort to straddle genres is sometimes awkward, its storyline overwhelmed by too many action set-pieces. Star Benjamin Walker’s stiff make-up does not allow for much acting. Despite some murkiness from the post-production 3D, the visuals are powerful and the action scenes impressively staged. And it is refreshing to see a politician who is so good at getting things done.

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