A Dog’s Way Home

Posted on January 10, 2019 at 5:29 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for thematic elements, some peril and language
Profanity:	Some mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Peril and violence, death of human and animal characters, characters with disabilities and PTSD
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	January 11, 2019
Date Released to DVD:	April 8, 2019

I laughed and I cried and I said, “Aww,” watching A Dog’s Way Home and that is not a bad way to begin the year.

Bryce Dallas Howard provides the voice of Bella, a pit bull pup living under an abandoned house in Denver with a bunch of homeless cats. She is loved and happy until animal control comes and takes her mother away. The mother cat adopts Bella, who is comforted and at home until the arrival of two animal welfare volunteers, who come by to leave cat food every day. Lucas (a warmly appealing Jonah Hauer-King) is a Veterans Administration employee studying for the MCATs and living with his mother, an Army vet struggling with depression. He is instantly taken with Bella and adopts her, even though his lease does not allow dogs.

Pit bulls are not allowed in Denver. It is up to the individual animal control officer to decide which dogs are covered by the ban, and one has it in for Bella. He picks her up once and Lucas pays the fine. But if he picks her up again, she will be killed. The developer who owns the property with the abandoned homes will do anything to get Lucas and the other animal lovers to stop interfering with his permits.

Lucas brings Bella to New Mexico to stay with friends so she will be safe while he moves to a new apartment outside of the Denver city limits. But Bella does not understand. She remembers that Lucas taught her how to go home, and so she runs away and begins a 400 mile adventure that will take more than two years.

Bella has encounters with humans and animals along the way, some kind, some predatory. She makes some friends and has the opportunity to find new loving homes but she wants to be with Lucas.

Having Bella as our narrator adds some charm to the movie because her understanding may be limited in some respects, but she never loses sight of the essentials. The individual encounters introduce us to a range of human characters, some worth a movie of their own, like the disabled vets who are able to experience joy and purpose through Bella (especially when they have to hide her from the doctor in charge of the VA hospital in one of the film’s best scenes). She saves one man’s life and becomes the last friend of a homeless man (Edward James Olmos). And she mothers “big kitten,” an orphan mountain lion who will someday return the favor. The footage here is heartwarming and genuinely astonishing, especially after they meet again when the majestic cat is fully grown.

This is a nice way to start the year, a story of love and loyalty, canine and human.

Parents should know that this film features humans and animals in peril, injured and killed, animal hit by a car, animal killed by hunters, character dies and the body is discovered by children, and characters who struggle with PTSD and depression.

Family discussion: What did Bella understand better than the humans did? Why did Bella make such a difference for the veterans?

If you like this, try: “The Incredible Journey” and “A Dog’s Purpose”

If Beale Street Could Talk

Posted on December 27, 2018 at 12:08 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language and some sexual content
Profanity:	Strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Acohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Some peril and violence, references to rape
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	December 25, 2018
Date Released to DVD:	March 26, 2019

When I interviewed writer/director Barry Jenkins about “Moonlight,” we talked about the movie’s haunting score, composed by Nicholas Britell. “Many directors would use songs of the era to place the audience in the film’s three time periods,” I said. “Two things,” he replied. “First, we could not afford the rights to those songs. But more important, I believe these characters deserve a full orchestral score.”

I thought of those words as I watched Jenkins’ latest film, “If Beale Street Could Talk,” based on the 1974 novel by James Baldwin, my #1 film of 2018, and winner of the Best Director, Best Supporting Actress and Best Film Spirit Awards. There were moments when it did not feel like I was watching the film. It was more like I was immersed in it, as though I could feel it pulsing through my veins. The entire theme of the movie could be, “These characters deserve a full orchestral score” along with the highest level of every other creative and aesthetic element available to a filmmaker, from Baldwin’s lyrical words to the luscious cinematography of “Moonlight’s” James Laxton, another gorgeous score by Britell, costumes that carry the narrative and illuminate the characters, and performances of infinite sensitivity and humanity.

“If Beale Street Could Talk” succeeds brilliantly at one of cinema’s most central functions: a love story with sizzling chemistry between two impossibly beautiful people. Stephen James (“Race”) and newcomer Kiki Layne are 2018’s most compelling romantic couple, pure pleasure to watch. Their relationship is in every way the heart of this story, the reason we feel so sharply the injustice and, in some ways harder to accept, the resignation that is the most undeniable signifier of generations of institutional racism. We see that most powerfully when Oscar-winner Regina King, as the girl’s mother, looks in the mirror as she prepares like a matador entering the bullring for a meeting that could make all the difference for the couple. She cannot expect much, but she has to try. Throughout the movie, there is resignation and diminished hopes but there is also resilience. And “Beale Street” reminds us that undiminished and imperishable love abide: romantic love, the love of parents and siblings, even an unexpected encounter with a warmhearted landlord. There is the love Baldwin and Jenkins have for these characters. And, most of all, it reminds us that this is a story that deserves to be told with the best of what movies have to offer, including a full orchestral score.

James and Layne play Fonny and Tish, childhood sweethearts who are young and deeply in love. He is wrongfully arrested for rape by a bigoted cop with a grudge and is in jail when Tish tells him that she is going to have a baby. We see what happened before and what happens after in a jazzy, non-linear form, luscious images and exquisite performances. This film is a masterpiece, like its characters of a time nearly half a century ago, “ready,” and exactly right on time.

Parents should know that this film includes explicit sexual references and situations, references to rape, unjust charges and abuse of the justice system, racism, and some peril and violence.

Family discussion: Why does Sharon take off her wig? Why do the mothers respond so differently to the news of the baby?

If you like this, try: “Moonlight” from the same writer/director and the books of author James Baldwin

Aquaman

Posted on December 20, 2018 at 5:37 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and for some language
Profanity:	A few bad words
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Scene in a bar, some alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended comic book/fantasy peril and violence, chases, explosions, monster, sacrifice/suicide of parent, characters injured and killed, some disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	December 21, 2018
Date Released to DVD:	March 26, 2019

On “Entourage” they made fun of the idea of an Aquaman movie as third-tier cheesiness. Even the San Diego Comic-Con fanboys on “The Big Bang Theory” have no respect for Aquaman. He had a very small, unmemorable role in the Justice League movie. So, can a big-budget comic-book movie about a superhero whose powers are — talking to fish? Breathing under water? be any good? Well, throw in some riders on sea-horses, a drum-playing octopus, a majestic, wildly imaginative candy-colored underwater city and a superhero with the grooming aesthetics of a Son of Anarchy, throw out all of the laws of physics and many of the laws of logic, and the answer is oh, sure, why not?

Aquaman is a hoot. In this version of the story, Aquaman is the mixed-race son of a human lighthouse keeper (Temuera Morrison) and an undersea princess (Nicole Kidman) who met when the princess, running away from an arranged marriage, got injured and washed up on the shore. Fortunately, she speaks English, which turns out to be the universal language of all of the undersea kingdoms, who can speak under water as easily and be heard as clearly as though they were on land. See above re laws of physics. Anyway, the human and the underwater princess fall in love and have a much-loved baby named Arthur until her people track her down and she has to go back to protect her husband and child. We will later discover that she returned to the forced marriage, had a son who became heir to the throne, and was killed for having committed the sin of having a “mongrel” child.

Arthur (yes, as in Camelot) grows up with some connection to his undersea heritage, including a Merlin-like guide (Willem Dafoe). He serves as guardian to humans at sea, and early on we see him take on some pirates. One is killed, in part because Arthur refuses to save him, and his son (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) vows revenge.

Meanwhile, another underwater princess (Amber Heard as Mera) is trying to persuade Arthur to claim the throne. Arthur’s half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) is working to unite all of the underwater kingdoms so he can declare war on humans. He has a point — they are upset about all of the poison and junk we keep dumping in the oceans. But we won’t dwell on that because Orm is pretty evil. We know that because he looks like Draco Malfoy and has no sense of humor. And besides, what’s more important is that there is SO MUCH to look at. Each underwater city and population is wildly imaginative and spectacularly gorgeous. If the storyline gets overstuffed, more labors of Hercules than the usual superhero saga (thank you for skipping the origin backstory, by the way), it is a lot of fun, an expert mix of action, adventure, humor, family, and a little romance.

NOTE: Stay for a post-credit scene.

Parents should know that this film includes extended comic-book/fantasy peril and violence with weapons, explosions, spears, knives, suicide sacrifice, monster, characters injured and killed and some disturbing images, along with a few bad words.

Family discussion: What did Arthur understand because of his dual heritage? What made him change his mind about what he thought he wanted?

If you like this, try: the comic books and “The Guardians of the Galaxy”

Bumblebee

Posted on December 20, 2018 at 5:34 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi action violence
Profanity:	Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended sci-fi/action-style violence, weapons, explosions, mayhem, characters injured and killed, some disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	December 21, 2018
Date Released to DVD:	April 2, 2019

You know how Transformers turn from cars into robots and robots into cars? Well, with this movie, an origin story for fan favorite Transformer Bumblebee, who “speaks” via audio clips from the radio. The ridiculously bombastic Transformer series just kept getting bigger, louder, and dumber. Roger Ebert famously called one of them a “horrible experience of unbearable length” and they got worse after that. This Bumblebee has transformed itself, kind of, into a more warm-hearted “ET” plus Herbie the Love Bug-style story with a retro soundtrack, directed by LAIKA’s Travis Knight. And it’s…better. Not great, but it won’t make your ears ring or your brain cells melt.

Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld) is an unhappy teenager living in San Francisco in 1987. She is still mourning for her dad, who died suddenly the year before, and counting the days until she can leave home. Everything seems an affront to her — the terrible uniform she has to wear working at the amusement park food stand, selling lemonade and hot dogs on a stick, her mother’s odious boyfriend who has moved into their home and thinks he can tell her what to do, and the monstrous unfairness of not having a car. So she spends much of her free time sulking and wearing an endless assortment of t-shirts from various edgy 80’s bands to show how righteously disaffected she is.

Meanwhile, after losing a battle to the evil Decepticons on their home planet, the good-guy Autobots led by Optimus Prime (still voiced by Peter Cullen, thank goodness) put their top soldier, Bumblebee (voiced by Dylan O’Brien) into an escape pod and tell him to set up a safe place on a remote planet called Earth. He arrives in the middle of a military wargame that leads to a chase, and is soon tracked down by two Decepticons (voiced by Angela Bassett and Justin Theroux), who permanently damage his voicebox and his memory cells. Later on, when Charlie wheedles a beat-up old yellow VW bug from a junk dealer, it turns out to be Bumblebee, and he and Charlie begin to form a friendship.

This takes us back to the first “Transformers” movie, oh, so many explosions and robot fights ago, when it was about the relationship between Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBoeuf) and his special space friend. Bumblebee’s inability to communicate, until Charlie figures out how to give him access to a radio and he figures out to use sound clips from it to “talk,” give a special poignancy to those first encounters. But that is undermined in part by subsequent scenes, which spend too much time on weak sub-plots about mean girls and the nerdy but lovable boy next door. It is nice that Charlie is very clear about setting boundaries with the boy, and he respects that. The movie could have skipped the scenes of Bumblebee inadvertently trashing Charlie’s house TP-ing the bully’s house and overturning her car, diversions that go nowhere and are not nearly as merry or endearing as they are intended to be as Knight seems more interested in the mechanics of the scene than what they add to the storyline.

All of this is of course just building up to lots more action as both the military and the Decepticons (best line in the movie is when Cena points out that the very name Decepticon should make us worry) come after Bumblebee. The Decepticons first appear to befriend the humans (and incidentally invent the Internet). So, lots of bombast and shooting and chases and explosions.

No matter what, I always enjoy seeing cars turn into robots and robots turn into cars, and I appreciated the lower-key, retro setting. If the series is not completely transformed, it does remind us why we liked the Transformers to begin with, and that’s a good start.

Parents should know that this film has a few bad words and extended sci-fi/action-style violence with characters injured and killed, weapons, explosions, and mayhem. Humans are vaporized. A positive element of the movie is Charlie’s clear boundaries with the boy who likes her.

Family discussion: Why does Charlie trust Bumblebee? Why does Agent Burns change his mind?

If you like this, try: “The Iron Giant”

Mary Poppins Returns

Posted on December 18, 2018 at 10:25 am

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some mild thematic elements and brief action
Profanity:	Mild language in a song
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Some peril, references to sad death of parent
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	December 19, 2018
Date Released to DVD:	March 18, 2019

If I may borrow from the original “Mary Poppins movie” for a moment, the new sequel, “Mary Poppins Returns” is a very jolly holiday with Mary indeed. Inspired, like the first, by the book series by P.L. Travers, this movie has Emily Blunt taking over from Oscar-winner Julie Andrews as the magical nanny who arrives once again just as the Banks family needs her most.

In the first film, she was nanny to Jane and Michael Banks. She took them on magical adventures that included a tea party on the ceiling and diving into a chalk picture for an animated musical number with dancing penguins. But the real magic she brought to the Banks family was a reminder of what was important. The fond but distracted parents learned that it was more important to fly a kite with the family than to keep the job that supports the family and its domestic employees or fight for the rights of women. (Well, the 60’s was a complicated time. But the message of family connections is still valid.)

This sequel very sweetly brings Mary Poppins back, once again arriving from the sky via a parrot-head handled umbrella, again to care for the Banks children, meaning the now-grown Jane and Michael Banks (Emily Mortimer and voice of Paddington Ben Wishaw). Oh, and Michael’s three children, too, who have taken on too many adult responsibilities as the family still mourns the loss of their mother. Jane works for the rights of workers and does her best to help her brother and his children, who still live in the old house on Cherry Tree Lane.

They may lose the house, though, as Michael cannot pay the bank, yes, the same one his father worked at, what he owes. It’s now run by Mr. Wilkins (Colin Firth), who promises he will do everything he can to help Michael, but who shows up as a wolf in an animated adventure when Mary Poppins takes the children into the design on their late mother’s porcelain bowl, so perhaps he should not be trusted.

Jane and Michael remember Mary Poppins, but now believe that they only imagined the magical adventures. They have lost their ability to see magic in the world. Mary Poppins, with her brisk, no-explanations manner, has come back to show them how to find it. And that means a visit to another of her eccentric relatives (Meryl Streep, enjoying herself enormously), and journeys undersea via the bathtub and into the sky with balloons. And it means singing and dancing, too, with a wild music-hall-style number in an animated theater and a tender ballad about The Place Where Lost Things Go. Plus, Dick van Dyke is back. And he dances.

We take it for granted that this movie would have visual Disney magic. No one assembles a more gifted collection of production designers, costume designers, and visual effects designers than Disney, and no studio has a better, more organic sense of its own history and culture. So when Disney decided to revisit the 54-year-old classic based on P.L. Travers’s novels, after having already mined its own history with a movie about the making of that movie, it was fair to expect that it would look and feel as though we had never left. The magic touch is there, with gentle references to the earlier film, including the animated adventure with a retro, hand-drawn, cel-based look along the lines of Disney’s specialty, and an enchanting appearance from Dick Van Dyke, who played two characters in the original. Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins and “Hamilton’s’ Lin-Manuel Miranda as her lamp-lighting friend are practically perfect in every way. And, as “Saving Mr. Banks” reminded us, the real magic, is that at its heart it is not just about fantasy adventures but about healing the family. The songs, the special effects, the imagination are a lot of fun but what makes this movie top ten-worthy is the heart.

Parents should know that there are references to a sad death of a parent, worries about money, and some situations with mild peril. A song has some mildly spicy lyrics with references to nudity.

Family discussion: Which was your favorite adventure? Why didn’t Mary Poppins stay?

If you like this, try: the books by P.L. Travers and the classic original film