The Martian Child

Posted on February 12, 2008 at 8:00 am

There’s nothing wrong with a little fakery now and then if it smooths out some rough spots and eliminates some distractions. But this film goes past fakery into condescending phoniness that knocks the story off its tracks. What is frustrating is that it is so unnecessary and intrusive. We start out on the side of the characters, John Cusack as David, the grieving widower, a successful writer of science fiction, and Bobby Coleman as Dennis, a troubled orphan who spends all day in a cardboard box and says he comes from Mars. We want them to find a way to connect to each other. But every time the movie has a choice between what might really happen and ramping up the dramatic tension to raise the emotional stakes, it chooses the latter, until we begin to feel less engaged than resentful. My heart was ready to be warmed. But it never got above room temperature.
David and his wife had planned to adopt a child. After her death, he intends to cancel, but something about the boy in the box reminds him of his own time as a misfit kid. He knows that most people labeled “weird” as children never eradicate the weirdness; they just find a way to push it inside. In a sense, every adult who fits in lives in a kind of a box. Except that Dennis’ box is not only literally labled “Fragile — Handle with Care,” but someone has to point that out, in case we miss the point.
When Dennis says he is afraid of the sun, some ultra-strength sunblock and a gentle game of catch help to coax him out of the box. Dennis says that he is afraid that he will float up into the sky because “Earth’s gravity is weak. Mars is constantly pulling me back,” David creates a weight belt to anchor him to the ground. When he comes to live in David’s house, he tells Dennis to “think of it as a bigger box.”

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Daddy Day Camp

Posted on January 29, 2008 at 8:00 am

This farm team follow-up to “Daddy Day Care” puts Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Paul Raye as Charlie and Phil, the parts originated by Eddie Murphy and Jeff Garlin. Note that the ads proclaim this is “from the studio” that gave us the first one. Even the writer, director, and stars of the original wanted to get as far away from this one as they could. So should audiences.
The day care center Charlie and Phil began in the first film is flourishing and their sons are now seven and want to go to camp. So, Charlie buys broken-down Camp Driftwood, the camp he went to as a kid. And of course everything goes very, very wrong. Much of it involving things that smell very, very bad. And then comes the big inter-camp competition with the rich meanies over at Camp Canola. We know they have to be evil because they have valet parking, because the owner is a bully who says he hates children, and because it is named after cooking oil.
If this was a live performance, the people in the front row of the audience would have to bring a plastic sheet, like the audience for watermelon-smashing comedian Gallagher. A lot of wet stuff flies toward the screen and there are many, many intended-to-be-hilarious gags (in both senses of the word) about things that smell bad. There are jokes about getting lost in the woods, barfing, exploding backed-up toilets, skunk odor, bees, poison ivy, burping, and more barfing. This is the part that is supposed to be funny. Not so much.
Charlie (father of what is apparently the only black family in town) has to struggle with feeling that he never got the approval of his own father, a tough military man named Buck (Richard Gant) and wanting the approval of his son Ben (Spencir Bridges). When the camp’s buildings, programs, and balance sheet begin to fall apart, Charlie has to call in reinforcements — Buck. This is the part that is supposed to be heart-warming. Not so much.
We are also supposed to care that the arrogant bully who runs Camp Canola was once responsible for Charlie’s humiliating defeat in the inter-camp Olympiad. So, even though Charlie is all about nurturing and against competition, he gets caught up in the honor of the thing and decides that for his self-esteem he needs to have his campers win this year. So it turns that that a combination of Buck’s leadership and Charlie’s supportiveness is the right answer. This is the part that is supposed to be interesting. Not so much.
A character describes camp as “all those snakes, spiders, and wedgies,” and that’s pretty much the entire movie. While neither Charlie nor Phil seems to notice this, there are some children at the camp, and Smurf-style, each is allotted one characteristic. One is a redneck with a mullet. One is a videogame freak who develops a crush on a girl and can only think to ask her if she likes “World of Warcraft.” One has a barfing problem and one has a bed-wetting problem. Each is tediously trotted out one at a time like Hansel and Gretel on a barometer to perform his or her little function (nerd! redneck! hyper-articulate! precocious about sex! secret shame!). The not-so-secret shame is what attaches to everyone involved with this cynical, pandering piece of claptrap, as unwelcome as a raging case of poison ivy.
Parents should know that this movie is filled with gross-out humor involving bodily fluids and functions. Characters use some strong language for a PG, including “crap.” There is some comic peril and some fighting, including getting hit in the crotch. Parents may be concerned by some of the values apparently endorsed by the movie, including the idea that the way to respond to cheating is to cheat better. Charlie also lies to his wife and puts the family’s home at risk.
Families who see this movie should talk about the different parenting styles of Charlie and Buck. Why was winning so important to the Canola campers?
Families who enjoy this film will also enjoy Camp Nowhere and Meatballs.

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The Invasion

Posted on January 29, 2008 at 8:00 am

This fourth movie version of the Jack Finney story about “body-snatchers” again reminds us that the scariest enemies are not creatures with sharp talons and teeth, aliens with super-powerful weapons, or enormous dinosaurs with powerful jaws but the prospect of losing ourselves and those we love by having everything that makes them individuals erased by some sort of emotionless collective mind.
Unfortunately, it also reminds us that a scary premise and a top-notch cast are not enough to make a good movie. This movie does to the original Jack Finney story what the alien virus what-not does to the characters — it sucks out all of the energy and spirit. Where the original earned its thrills through good old-fashioned psychological terror, this one substitutes a couple of “boo!” moments and some gross-out effects. In the original, as people slept, their duplicates grew silently in alied pods. In this one, the virus that turns people into drone-like automatons is transmitted by — projectile vomit. Ew. And in this one, first-class performers better known for Shakespeare are covered with slime and barf on each other. Ewww.
The original Invasion of the Body Snatchers was a brilliantly terrifying film that resonated and illuminated the issues of its time. Liberals claimed it as theirs, arguing that it portrayed the consequence of soulless conformity. Conservatives said it was a parable about the dangers of communism. The 1978 version (rated PG) was directed by Philip Kaufman (“The Right Stuff”) and features Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams in a post-me-decade take on individualism vs. the community. In 1994, another version, this time called Body Snatchers (and rated R) was released. That version is less a political analogy than a reflection of a teenager’s conflicts over identity and separation.
And now this one which is sort of about…national security? Would it be worth it to give up our individuality and ability to feel emotions to gain what every Miss America claims as her platform, world peace? That might be worth thinking about, but thinking is something this film does not do. If it did, perhaps it could tell us how someone could avoid an impenetrable roadblock keeping anyone from leaving Washington DC by buying a ticket and taking the train. Or how sometimes the infected creatures seem to share one consciousness and other times they do not. Or why the bad guys check everyone’s IDs but don’t seem to notice that one of them has the name of someone from their Most Wanted list.
Reportedly, this film was retooled with new directors after an earlier version did not pass muster with focus groups, and some scary stuff was added in. It only serves to make the story more disjointed. The action sequences are dull and the story does not work at face value or as metaphor. It was a great mistake to remove intentionality from the threat, which weakens the story further. Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Jeremy Northam, and Roger Rees look great (except when Rees is covered with slime and creeping along the floor like Regan in “The Exorcist”), but their greatest achievement as performers in this film is hiding what must have been strong emotions about appearing in this film. Someone should check the basement of the studio for pods.

Parents should know that this is a creepy thriller with graphic shots, some jump-out-at-you surprises, chases, suicide, and some gross-out effects. There are bloody wounds, corpses, adults and children in peril, and bodies covered with ooze. Characters shoot guns, crash cars, and hit each other with various blunt objects. A child gives an adult a shot with a syringe into the heart. There is brief strong language.

Families who see this movie should talk about the Russian ambassador’s statement that “in the right situation we are each capable of terrible crimes.” What evidence does the movie have for and against that view? How does this version of the movie attempt to reflect our times?
Families who like this movie will also like the book , the original version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the 1978 version with Donald Sutherland, the 1994 version, or The Faculty. This film continues the tradition of putting alumni of the original in small parts. Actor Kevin McCarthy and director Don Siegel from the original appear briefly in the 1978 version. And one of that film’s stars, Veronica Cartwright, appears in this one as Mrs. Lenk.
A grislier exploration of some of the same themes is in Night of the Living Dead and its remakes and sequels. The classic children’s book A Wrinkle in Time also deals with the same issues.

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Mr. Woodcock

Posted on January 15, 2008 at 8:00 am

If Sophocles knew that this would be the result, he would never have allowed “Oedipus” to see the light of day. “Mr. Woodcock” is an Oedipal comedy about a man who loves his mother and who becomes very, very upset when she falls for the man who terrorized his childhood, his middle school PE teacher.

John Farley (Seann William Scott) is now a very successful author with a self-help book about letting go of the past. When his Nebraska home town wants to give him its highest honor, he cancels his book tour obligations and flies home.

That’s when he finds out that his mother is now in love with the PE teacher whose pedagogical technique consisted of humiliation and harassment. Or, maybe he was just a bully.

John comes home to accept an award and instantly all of his carefully-built confidence and maturity evaporate and the idea of breaking up his mother’s engagement to Mr. Woodcock becomes all-consuming.

And so we go from a brief opening scene showing John being humiliated by Mr. Woodcock in gym class to an entire movie that humiliates him in just about every possible context from being stuck under the bed as Mr. Woodcock and his mother make loud, passionate love to having a chunk of hair shaved off at Mr. Woodcock’s barber, dunking Mr. Woodcock’s whistle in the toilet, and being a bad sport in cute county fair competitions. Or, rather, cornpetitions — this movie’s idea of witty wordplay is to substitute the word “corn” for every possible syllable.

Thornton and Scott have nothing to work with here. Thornton carries over the mean thing that was already not funny in “The Bad News Bears” and “The School for Scoundrels,” and Scott has to do his best with a character whose characteristics shift from one scene to the next. Poor Sarandon is limited to 50’s sit-com lines like “Isn’t that sweet?” and “Can’t you two try to get along?”

The pacing is slack and slapdash, the comedy based primarily on cruelty, injury, intimidation, and humiliation. It also throws in some irresponsibility, selfishness, alcoholism, and general skankiness. Then, instead of ending, it all just gives up with a sort of “never mind” ending that even Mr. Woodcock would have to call a foul on. Indeed, that is the best possible assessment of the movie as a whole.

Parents should know that this film has extremely strong material for a PG-13, right up at the edge of an R. It includes very crude and insulting epithets and very vulgar sexual humor and situations, including John hiding under the bed as his mother and Jasper have loud sex. Woodcock humiliates his students and others by calling them “ladies” and impugning their manhood. Characters drink (including jokes about alcoholism and scenes in bars), smoke, and use very strong and crude language include a vulgar word for sexual organs used as an insult and a joke about child molesting. There is a good deal of comic violence, with many characters getting hit on the head and crotch by various blunt instruments.

Families who see this movie should talk about why John and his mother saw Mr. Woodcock so differently.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Anchorman – The Legend Of Ron Burgundy and Old School (both with mature material).

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The Great Race

Posted on April 20, 2007 at 12:23 pm

Dedicated to “Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy,” this movie is both a spoof and a loving tribute to the silent classics, with good guys, bad guys, romance, adventure, slapstick, music, wonderful antique cars, and the biggest pie fight in history. The opening credits are on a series of slides like those in the earliest movies, complete with cheers for the hero and boos for the villain, and a flickering old-fashioned projector that at one point appears to break down. Always dressed in impeccable white, the Great Leslie (Tony Curtis) is a good guy so good that his eyes and teeth literally twinkle. His capable mechanic and assistant is Hezekiah (Keenan Wynn). The bad guy is Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon), assisted by Max (Peter Falk). Like Wile E. Coyote, Fate’s cartoonishly hilarious stunts to stop Leslie inevitably backfire.

After a brief prologue, in which Fate tries to beat Leslie in breaking various speed records, literally trying to torpedo him at one point, they both enter an automobile race from New York to Paris. So does a beautiful reporter (Natalie Wood as Maggie DuBois) trying to prove she can get the story — dressed in an endless series of exquisite ensembles designed by Hollywood legend Edith Head. Great%20Race2.jpg

The race takes them across America, through the Wild West, to a rapidly melting ice floe in the Pacific, and into a European setting that is a cross between a Victor Herbert operetta and “The Prisoner of Zenda,” where a spoiled prince happens to look exactly like Professor Fate and it takes all of the stars to foil an evil Baron (Ross Martin) who wants to use Fate to take over the throne.

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