Killing Them Softly

Posted on November 29, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Adult
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for violence, sexual references, pervasive language, and some drug use
Profanity:	Constant very strong language with crude and explicit sexual references
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking, drug use and drug dealing
Violence/ Scariness:	Very graphic and disturbing violence with disturbing images, many characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	November 30, 2012
Date Released to DVD:	March 26, 2013
Amazon.com ASIN:	https://amzn.to/30b53Do

Brad Pitt plays Jackie Cogan, a hit man who prefers to kill people “softly,” meaning with as little fuss and muss as possible. But because he is a hit man, he is constantly surrounded by messes that he is asked to clean up. Two dumb crooks (Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn) are recruited by a dry cleaner to rob an illegal poker game run by Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta). Since it is generally understood that Markie had arranged the robbery of one of his own games in the past, the dry cleaner figures that he will be assumed to be behind this one, too, so no one will come after them. In other words, a mess.

Time for Cogan. But Cogan knows the dry cleaner, and he prefers to kill people he doesn’t know. Not because he has scruples — it’s just because the ones who know him know why he is there and they get all upset and start crying and begging. And that is messy. So Cogan brings in some help from out of town, another hit man named Mickey (James Gandolfini). They’ve worked together well in the past, but since the last time Cogan saw him, Mickey has started to unravel. More mess.

Prosecutor-turned novelist George V. Higgins had a rich appreciation for his underworld characters and the complexity of their compromised and thuggish connections. His dialog-driven books are filled with tough talk that feels authentic and poetic at the same time. This film is based on a book published in 1974, set in Higgin’s lifelong home town of Boston. Here it is updated to the summer of 2008 and relocated to Louisiana, where the dialog is counterposed with television broadcasts of a panicked George W. Bush explaining the financial meltdown following the collapse of the subprime market and candidate Barack Obama is making speeches filled with optimism and promise. The violent scenes, with slo-mo spurts of blood, are counterposed with cheery pop songs, Petula Clark singing “Windmills of Your Mind” and Cliff “Jiminy Cricket” Edwards warbling “Paper Moon.”

(Note: “Windmills of Your Mind” was the theme song of the original “Thomas Crown Affair,” with Steve McQueen as a millionaire businessman with a sideline as a criminal mastermind.) One of those moments would be plenty. We get it, we get it, the real crooks are on Wall Street and in Washington. Balletic blood spatters juxtaposed with songs are ironic. Or something like that.

Choice moments — Gandofini’s monologues, the conversations between Cogan and his bureaucratic contact known just as “The Driver” (Richard Jenkins), and juicy talk cannot make up for the feeling that this is Mamet Lite, and just the kind of messiness Cogan is wise enough to resist.

Parents should know that this story concerns criminals and thugs including drug deals and hit-men. It includes very graphic violence with disturbing images, dead bodies, constant very strong language, explicit and crude sexual references, a prostitute, smoking, drinking, and heroin.

Family discussion: What is the point of the news broadcasts about the financial meltdown? How does this community establish their rules? What does Jackie want?

If you like this, try: Layer Cake, American Buffalo and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels

Zombieland

Posted on February 2, 2010 at 8:00 am

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for horror violence/gore and language
Profanity:	Constant very bad language, some crude
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Constant peril and violence, characters injured, killed, and eaten, zombies and other graphic and grisly images
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	October 2, 2009
Date Released to DVD:	February 2, 2010

What is it about zombies?

Dating back to 1932’s “White Zombie,” the stories of the relentless, omnivorous undead and the humans who try to escape them have been one of film’s most popular genres, with sub-genres including the flourishing category of zombie comedies, best described as gallows humor, gasps of horror alternating with gasps of laughter. Zombie films turn out to provide many opportunities for some core elements of humor, especially the juxtaposition of dire circumstances with trivial detail and the deconstruction of our assumptions about what we need and the norms of lifestyle and behavior. As its title suggests, “Zombieland‘s” take is darkly comic, with zombie encounters as theme park or video game. It even ends up in a real theme park, the few remaining humans battling the hordes from rides and concession stands.

One thing about zombies is that they thin out the herd. In this story, only four non-zombie humans seem to be left, which gives them an opportunity to try to band together with people with whom they would otherwise have nothing in common and show each other and themselves that they are capable of more in both physical courage and relationships than they ever thought possible.

The mixed bag, all known only by the names of cities, includes shy college student (Jesse Eisenberg) who tries to maintain some sense of control by compulsively making lists of rules for survival. He meets up with a modern-day cowboy (Woody Harrelson) in search of his favorite Hostess treat and a pair of sisters (Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin) who have their own methods for taking care of themselves. And even though they have not much idea where they are going or why they should go there, they hit the road.

Funny zombie movies can be just as scary as straight zombie movies, but they leaven the terror with humor that comes as the characters try to find some element of normalcy in between double-tapping zombies (one of the rules), grabbing whatever they want among the abandoned cars and grocery stores. It also includes checking out the home of a major movie star who shows up for an hilariously deadpan cameo before one last zombie attack in the actual amusement park — that juxtaposition element again.

The actors, including the movie star, are all superb. Eisenberg and Stone are two of the most talented young performers in movies and they hit just the right notes here. The usual getting-to-know-and-trust-you road trip developments play out in a manner that is both endearing and funny, as when Eisenberg asks Breslin if her sister has a boyfriend as though there are any other possible candidates for dating who would have a very different idea of having her for dinner. It goes on a little too long and does not match the inspired lunacy of “Shaun of the Dead,” but it will keep zombie-philic audiences as happy as finding the very last Twinkie.

Parents should know that this film has extreme and graphic violence involving zombies, guns, characters in peril, injured, killed, and eaten, drinking, smoking, and very strong language including crude sexual references.

Family discussion: Why didn’t the characters use their real names? What do you think of Columbus’ list of rules? What makes zombie movies so popular?

If you like this, try: “Dawn of the Dead,” “Shaun of the Dead,” “I am Legend,” and “28 Days Later”

Sydney White

Posted on January 20, 2008 at 3:14 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for some language, sexual humor, and partying
Profanity:	Some crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Tense confrontations, comic peril
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters, some stereotyping
Date Released to Theaters:	September 21, 2007

This updated fairy tale has some clever riffs on “Snow White” but never makes use of the considerable talents of its star, Amanda Bynes.

Sydney (Bynes) is a college freshman who wants to join Kappa, the most exclusive sorority on campus, though she is more comfortable on a construction site than at a cotillion. “You know how people joke about being raised by wolves? I was raised by construction workers,” she explains and we cut to her devoted father (“The Dukes of Hazzard’s” John Schneider) illustrating the facts of life for her with plumbing supplies. When she knew she was dying, Sydney’s mother wrote her a letter, telling her how much she loved being in the sorority. Now Sydney wants to fulfill her mother’s dream.

But Sydney does not meet the standards of the Kappa president, Rachel Witchburn (Sara Paxton). She is not blonde, she is not a size 2, and, worst of all, Sydney fails to recognize Rachel’s supreme domination over just about everything on campus — especially the handsome Prince Matt Long as Tyler Prince, the campus McDreamy.

Rachel boots Sydney out of the sorority in a humiliating public ceremony. There is only one place left on campus that will take her in, the ramshackle house occupied by the campus outcasts. There are seven of them. One has allergies and sneezes a lot. One is an exchange student with jet lag who sleeps all the time. One is bashful. One is grumpy. All are nerdy. And Rachel has a plot to tear their house down so her family can build a shiny new rec center for sorority and fraternity members only.
Echoes of the Snow White story provide the movie’s brightest moments. Rachel checks constantly to make she is still considered the fairest in the land, not in a magic mirror but in the campus “hot or not” website. The poisoned apple? An Apple laptop with an important homework assignment gets infected with a virus. And of course in the big moment Sydney is awakened by a kiss from the Prince.

It is less cute when a nasty trick has the seven dorks naked at a campus party and when they march past Rachel with a mean-spirited “Hi, Ho!” It makes it harder for us to stay on the side of the good guys when they descend to the terminology of the bad guys. And it goes overboard on the geek factor; drawing less from fairy tales than from “Revenge of the Nerd”-style caricatures. For a movie that is supposed to be all about inclusion and respecting the dork within each of us, it has a lot of fun at their expense.
Bynes is captivating despite a role that does not give her much to do but display tomboyish good spirit behind some really unfortunate hair and make-up. She looks trapped in a 1970 Yardley ad, all fake tan, shag haircut, and pale eye shadow. She can make a retort sound spirited, not snappish, as when she tells Rachel that she doesn’t “speak priss.” Her best moments are with Long, who has a great smile and a rare ability to listen to what other performers are saying without thinking he has to be doing something every second he is on screen. Newcomer Jack Carpenter as Sneezy/Lenny brings warmth and humanity to a thinly written role as the most sociable of the dorks.

But director Joe Nussbaum does not trust his performers, the material, or the audience. He keeps the tempo so synthetically sitcom-y you expect to hear a rim shot and a laugh track. Everything is exaggerated. Every joke is an elbow in the ribs. Like Rachel, he is checking his “hotness” every couple of minutes. And like Rachel, his score could use some improvement.
Parents should know that this movie has some vulgar humor and strong language (references to “hos,” b-word), implied nudity, and a drinking game at a party. A strength of the movie is its emphasis on inclusion and the importance of treating diverse people respectfully, and Sydney reaches out to all groups on campus, from the Hassids to the band geeks, cross-dressers, and Goths.
Families who see this movie should talk about when they most felt like outsiders or dorks and what they can do to make sure that people around them feel included and appreciated for who they are.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy other takes on classic fairy tales like Ella Enchanted and Shrek. Barbara Stanwyk and Gary Cooper co-starred in an earlier update of Snow White, Ball of Fire.