Gentlemen Broncos

Posted on November 9, 2009 at 8:00 am

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for some rude humor
Profanity:	Mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Fantasy violence, comic violence including darts and lasers
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	November 6, 2009

“Gentlemen Broncos” is about the fantasies of a 15 year old boy and it has some of the charm but all of the failings of those stories. The charm is its unguarded purity of emotion and unchecked enthusiasm for its powers of imagination. The failings are all of that plus the resulting incoherence and absence of insight.
Benjamin (Michael Angarano) is a shy, repressed boy who lives with his single mother (Jennifer Coolidge). He writes elaborate fantasy sci-fi stories filled with flying battle stags, aliens, and drastic body functions and fluids. Breasts emit laser beams. Projectile vomit erupts like a volcano. And a hero has to sew back is own body part after it was removed for examination by his captors.
At an overnight writing workshop, Benjamin meets his idol, Chevalier (Jermaine Clement of “Flight of the Concords”), a massively self-important author who wears a Bluetooth earpiece like an accessory. And he meets Tabatha, (Halley Feiffer) a supremely confident girl who has mastered the art of mastering shy boys. Both end up appropriating Benjamin’s story, and the movie’s best moments are the variations reflecting each of their perspectives and abilities. Chevalier steals the story and publishes it under his own name. And Tabitha gets Benjamin to agree to let her sidekick film the story. As many an author has learned before him, Benjamin finds that the translation to film distorts his original vision.
Of course, the original vision may not be such a good idea, and that is the problem here. The Hesses are trying to make fun of juvenile behavior but there’s a very fine line between the level of humor they are portraying and the level of humor in the way they portray it. It is the very essence of juvenile humor to overestimate the comedic value of bodily fluids and functions, to go for the knowing snicker rather than the more-knowing laugh.

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This is It

Posted on October 28, 2009 at 11:19 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some suggestive choreography and scary images
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Gruesome images of ghouls, ghosts, and monsters
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	October 28, 2009

“This is It” is here to rescue us from the tabloids and remind us what true star power looks like. There are moments of aching sadness as we get a behind-the-scenes look at the concert tour that never happened, but it is the very intimacy of the preparation process that makes the film so enthralling. Jackson comes across as the consummate professional, always polite and appreciative but with a stunning mastery of the smallest detail and the biggest special effect in putting together what would have been a ground-breaking performance.
Jackson seems physically frail at times, conserving his voice and his energy in the musical numbers as the back-up dancers give it performance-level power every time. In one lovely moment, he falls so much in love with a song he is rehearsing that he cannot resist giving it full power and, as happens more than once in the course of the film, all of the people working on the show just stop to watch and listen, utterly entranced. In another moment, we glimpse his quick, private smile of satisfaction with a number that has come together. When he sings “I’ll Be There,” we can’t help being reminded that even though he is gone, his performances will be a part of our lives forever.
There’s a glimpse of the auditions, the dancers almost overcome with the chance to try out for what they consider the zenith of entertainment. He tells one musician to “let it simmer” and demonstrates a guitar riff for another. He is unfailingly appreciative and thoughtful, over and over thanking everyone and unfailingly respectful in giving direction, almost apologetic when he says that the earpiece is making it harder for him to hear. The endless series of bizarre outfits with their military stripes and Munchkin-like shoulders, seem irrelevant when we watch the way he interacts with people and the way he thinks about the songs and dances. Appropriately, the most thrilling moment is “Thriller.” Jackson says he wants to take us places we have never been before, and in this combination concert film/documentary, he reminds us of the power of imagination and talent and the reason he was a star.

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Documentary Movies -- format Musical

The Providence Effect

Posted on September 24, 2009 at 9:29 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for mild thematic elements
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Reference to poverty and other challenges faced by children and their families
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	September 25, 2009

You often hear the expression “feel-good movie” and it usually refers to a heart-warming romantic comedy or maybe something with penguins. This is a real feel-good movie because it is a real story. A man with a passionate commitment to children, to education, and to his community took a school on the brink of being closed down and made it into a place where teachers and students set, meet, and exceed the highest of standards for achievement in all categories, including character.

The students at Providence St. Mel do not have fancy computers or calculators. They live in a community that struggles with gangs, drugs, and poverty. But they have families who work several jobs to pay a portion of the school’s tuition (every student in the school has a scholarship) and they have teachers who feel lucky to be there and make the students feel lucky, too.

An unabashed valentine to the school, Providence St. Mel, and its driving force, civil rights activist Paul J. Adams III, and at times it feels more like an infomercial than a movie. But it is a genuine privilege to spend time with these passionate, committed students and teachers. We follow the principal through the halls. We sit in circle time with seven-year-olds whose teacher has them not just participating but conducting the session. We see a graduating class that is sending 100 percent of the seniors to top colleges. And we see graduates returning to talk about how Providence St. Mel gave them what they needed to succeed in college, grad school, and the working world. We see their genuine excitement in learning, their pride in their sense of mastery, and the way that the confidence their teachers and parents have in them inspires them to learn. And that may just be the most important lesson that Providence St. Mel has to teach, turning all of us who watch this film into students who want to learn more.

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Documentary Movies -- format

Extract

Posted on September 3, 2009 at 6:40 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language, sexual references and some drug use
Profanity:	Very strong and explicit language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking, characters smoke marijuana
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic violence, character injured, character dies
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	September 4, 2009

The fans who have been waiting for a new workplace comedy as wickedly on target as Mike Judge’s cult classic “Office Space” will have to keep waiting. Judge’s new film has no red stapler, no TPS reports coversheet problems, and most of all, it has no flair.

This time, Judge has us on the side of the boss. He is Joel (Jason Bateman), who owns a small manufacturing company that makes flavor extracts. His life is flavorless, get it?

Joel has an office with a window that looks down on the assembly line that conveys the little bottles to the boxes and the forklift. And he has to deal with petty and incompetent employees. But no matter where we are on our own corporate totem poles, it is always going to be more difficult for the audience to identify with the guy who gets to tell everyone what to do before he goes home to his big house and his big bank account.

And it turns out that this movie is less about the workplace than it is another weak frustrated married life comedy. On one hand, this is a good thing because the workplace plot line, involving an industrial accident than unmans one of the workers (Clifton Collins, Jr., you can do better than this) and a scheming temp (ditto Mila Kunis) is neither interesting nor original. On the other hand, it is not a good thing because neither is the marital plot line. Joel is frustrated. His friend (Ben Affleck, bearded) advises Joel to entrap his wife into an affair, thus giving himself carte blanche to do the same. This was briefly popular back the days of, what was that again, oh yes, “Love, American Style.” There is a reason that show is no longer on the air. And it’s the same reason this movie should immediately move to the 99 cent bin and stay there.

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Comedy Movies -- format

It Might Get Loud

Posted on September 3, 2009 at 3:50 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for mild thematic elements, brief language and smoking
Profanity:	Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	None
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	September 4, 2009

It goes to 11.

Davis Guggenheim (“An Inconvenient Truth”) has made a documentary featuring three generations of guitar gods: Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), The Edge (U2), and Jack White (The White Stripes). But it is not about the musicians. It is about guitars, and passion, and hearing, and sticking it to the man, and art, and music, and the sublime that brings all of those things together. It is a joyous yowl from the depths of existence that soars to the ears of the celestial choirs, where it makes them pause and smile and, if such a thing is possible for angels, envy the humans who get to make such sounds and even those of us who get to listen to them.

We spend time with each of these musicians. The archival clips are surprising and delightful and it is pure pleasure to see these men return to places and instruments that are especially meaningful to them and to listen in as they talk to each other and demonstrate their comments with riffs and techniques. They say that successful musical performers fall into three categories: rock star, performance artist, and musician. These three men are above all musicians. At times they seem to embody music itself, with aural imperatives mortals can only gasp at. Their utter commitment is moving and inspiring. Rock on.

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Documentary Movies -- format Music