The Big Sick

Posted on June 22, 2017 at 5:53 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language including some sexual references
Profanity:	Strong and explicit language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Very serious illness
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	June 24, 2017
Date Released to DVD:	September 25, 2017

The more specific the story, the more universal. This is a very specific story. Indeed, you are unlikely ever again to see a romantic comedy with one of the pair spending half of the film in a coma. And that is not the couple’s biggest obstacle. Kumail Nanjiani (“Silicon Valley”), plays a character named Kumail Nanjiani in a story based on his relationship to Emily V. Gordon (played by Zoe Kazan and called Emily Gardiner in the film), who is now his wife and the co-screenwriter of the smart, touching, heartfelt and very funny film. It is beautifully directed by Michael Showalter, as always unsurpassed in meticulous casting of even the smallest roles.

Real-life Nanjiani and his movie alter ego are Pakistani immigrants from traditional families. Every time he visits his parents for dinner, an unmarried Pakistani woman “happens to drop in.” They have made it very clear that they expect him to marry a woman who is Pakistani and Muslim. Gordon is neither; she is white and from North Carolina. Just after they break up because he could not say that they could have a future together, she suddenly becomes critically ill and is placed in a medically induced coma. He gets the call when she is hospitalized and has to be the one to call her parents. He meets them for the first time in the hospital waiting room, where they are understandably frosty (he broke their daughter’s heart) and preoccupied (she’s in a coma).

They would rather that he not be there. And his parents find out that he has not been honest with them and they tell him they cannot accept his feelings for Emily. So, in the second half of the movie there is another kind of love story, about the love between parents and their children and the partners their children choose.

It is also a story about a man learning to be honest with himself about who he is and what he wants. What lifts this out of the recent glut of arrested development movies is its compassion for all parties (the film nicely acknowledges that Nanjiani’s brother has a very successful and satisfying marriage arranged the traditional way and presents as one of the candidates a woman so seemingly perfect for him that we almost root for her) and Nanjiani’s thoughtful, self-deprecating but confident performance. The best stand-up comics mine their own lives for material, with observations that make us see our own lives, and especially our follies and irrationalities, in sharper relief — that’s relief in both senses of the word.

Best of all, the movie itself is proof that they lived happily ever after.

Parents should know that this movie includes strong language, sexual references and non-explicit situations, family conflict, and very serious illness.

Family discussion: Why didn’t Kumail tell Emily about his family’s concerns? How should you decide what traditions to keep and which ones to leave behind?

If you like this, try: “Ruby Sparks” (also with Kazan, who wrote the screenplay) and “50-50” with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen, also based on a true story

Transformers: The Last Knight

Posted on June 20, 2017 at 5:37 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for violence and intense sequences of sci-fi action, language, and some innuendo
Profanity:	Strong language, many s-words and crude insults
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended sci-fi/fantasy violence, fire, guns, explosions, chases, characters injured and killed, reference to suicide
Date Released to Theaters:	June 21, 2017
Date Released to DVD:	September 25, 2017

It is time to stop the madness. I only wish this was called “Knight: The Last Transformers Movie.” I am as happy as anyone to see robots transforming into cars and cars transforming into robots and I freely admit to tearing up once when it appeared that Bumblebee might have been mortally wounded. I’m very fond of Sir Anthony Hopkins, and I’m also very fond of Mark Wahlberg. But this big, loud, dumb, dull, nonsensical dud of a movie is two and a half excruciating hours long.

Wahlberg returns as inventor-turned-renegade Autobots protector Cade Yeager. The government has set up a special branch of the military to get rid of all of the transformers, making no distinction between the honorable Autobots led by Optimus Prime and the evil Decepticons led by Megatron. We see in a prologue set in the time of King Arthur that the Transformers go back more than 1000 years, when Merlin, who turns out to have had no magical skills at all, was given the “weapon of ultimate power,” a staff that enabled Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table to win some battle with the help of a pretty impressive three-headed dragon. The staff and an amulet that is somehow connected to it will be the McGuffins that everyone will be looking for despite the fact that we never really find out what they can do.

Sure, the stunts are fun, and I especially enjoyed seeing Wahlberg leap from drone to drone like he was a stone skipping on a pond. But without a clear idea of the stakes there is no heft to them; it’s just pixels.

And the dialog — I can’t say which is worse, the painful attempts at banter (there’s an intended-to-be cute but isn’t at all riff on the homonyms “chaste” and “chased”), the exposition-heavy portentousness (“Where in Hell is your so-called magician?” “He will be here, Lancelot.” “Why do we tell ourselves these stories? We want to believe we can be heroes in our own lives.” “Do you seek redemption?” “Only a direct descendant of Merlin can wield this instrument of immense power!”), or the faux meaningful (“You are more important than you can possibly imagine”). If someone has to be spouting off idiotic explanations, though, at least most of it is in the beautifully husky Welsh voice of Sir Anthony (though his character’s ripping a page out of an antique library book is the most disturbingly violent act in the film).

Not much makes sense in “Transformers: The Last Night.” I’m not talking about why a robot would smoke a robot cigar-type sense. We expect that going in. But why would a robot want to eat a car?
And I’m talking about the basic elements that are necessary to connect to what is going on. How do you kill a Decepticon? Sometimes robots blow apart and sometimes they just come back together like in “Terminator 2.” How do we know how we are supposed to feel if we don’t know what the impact/import of a hit is? That all-powerful weapon? We never understand what it can do and it doesn’t seem very powerful after all. What is the point of Tony Hale spouting off about physics? I will note that one completely deranged moment was actually quite fun, when a C-3PO rip-off (acknowledged as such!) turns out to be the source of the dramatic organ music in one scene: “I was making the moment more epic.” A bit more deliriously loopy stuff like that would have been a step in the right direction.

What is the point of all the jokes about how a professor at Oxford should be looking for a husband? (Or a wife?) What is the deal with way too many daddy issues? Everyone in this movie seems to be a daughter looking for a daddy or a daddy looking for a daughter. As for this daughter, I’m just looking for a good summer stunts and explosions movie. Still looking.

Parents should know that this film includes extended sci-fi/fantasy peril and violence with chases, explosions, swords, guns, and monsters. Human and robot characters are injured and killed. Characters use strong and crude language and there is some dumb sexual humor.

Family discussion: Does it matter that Cade is “chosen?” Which Transformer is your favorite and why?

If you like this, try: the other “Transformers” movies and the television series

Pixels

Posted on July 23, 2015 at 5:37 pm

C-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for some language and suggestive comments
Profanity:	A few bad words
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, including drinking to deal with stress and alcohol humor
Violence/ Scariness:	Sci-fi action-style violence, no one permanently injured
Diversity Issues:	Some sexist and homophobic "humor"
Date Released to Theaters:	July 24, 2015
Date Released to DVD:	October 26, 2015

I never thought I’d see Max Headroom or “Fantasy Island” again, much less have to explain them to someone sitting next to me who was a toddler when they were on television, but Adam Sandler is still relentlessly working his slacker way through every pop culture meme of the decade where he spent his late teens and early 20’s, and apparently the last decade he was willing to pay attention to. He’s used up most of the good ones. That means that this is another film that was pieced together from the cutting room floors of his previous movies plus VH1’s “I Love the 80’s” series. Yes, I know that it is impossible to believe that there was anything worth remembering that happened in the 80’s that they did not cover. And yet, here we are, with a movie about 1980’s arcade games that have become real-life alien invaders. If you remember and retain some affection for games like Frogger, Pac-Man, Tetris, and Q*bert, or if you like Sandler and are relieved he is not making “Grown-Ups 3,” then you might get a few smiles out of “Pixels.”

Grading on a curve, it is tempting to provide some positive reinforcement for Sandler, who in the hands of director Chris Columbus, is better than some of his recent films. But just because it is safe to say he probably will not be a winner at the Razzies this year does not merit him an endorsement. This movie is less predictable and less entertaining than the charmingly retro 8 bit games to which it pays tribute. And unfortunately, one more element carried over from the 80’s is the idea that homophobic and sexist jokes are funny and permissible. Having a female character be a capable military officer does not mean that it is okay to have the other female characters be one-dimensional (literally, one one case).

Sandler, looking puffy and bored, plays Sam, a Geek Squad-style technician who installs fancy television and gaming equipment in people’s homes. In a flashback, we see that as a kid, he had a natural facility to recognize the patterns in arcade games and made it to second in a national competition. The winner was Eddie (Peter Dinklage from “Game of Thrones”), a mullet-coiffed braggart who triumphed over him in the final round. Another competitor was a whiz kid named Ludlow (Josh Gad, “Frozen’s” Olaf) with poor social skills, conspiracy theories, and a pretty pervy obsession with a video game avatar. And Sam’s loyal friend and supporter was Cooper (Kevin James).

Footage of the competition was sent into space to introduce the galactic community to life on Earth. But it was misinterpreted as a declaration of war, and now the aliens have arrived. Just as in the era of arcade games, they wreak destruction by dissolving everything around them into pixels, according to the same rules and patterns of the original games. Fortunately, if improbably, Cooper is now the President of the United States. So he is able to call on Sam, Eddie (who has to be sprung from prison), and Ludlow to save the day. Helping to coordinate the defense is Violet (Michelle Monaghan), first met by Sam when he is installing a television/game system in her home and finds her sobbing in the closet over her husband leaving her for a Pilates instructor named Sinnamon (with an S) and he comforts and then hits on her. But it turns out that she is actually a top military officer who can muster whole new categories of weapons, train the SEALS, and engage in sizzle-free romantic banter at the same time.

The effects in the battle scenes are fun, turning these very rudimentary characters into real space invaders without losing their iconic 8 bit design. Centipede in particular is impressive, glowing like a Chinese New Year Parade dragon made from Lite-Brite as he slithers through the mushrooms. Like some of the other arcade characters, he is far more vivid and has more personality than the humans in the story.

Parents should know that this film has a handful of bad words, potty humor, sci-fi/action violence with peril and apparent injuries, brief comic view of a portion of a bare butt, and comic but crude sexual references including a threesome. There are alcohol jokes and alcohol is used to deal with stress.

Family discussion: Why did coming in second change Sam’s life? Is Violet a snob? How could the skills you have help save the planet?

If you like this, try: “The King of Kong,” “Wreck-It Ralph,” and “Galaxy Quest”

Earth to Echo

Posted on July 1, 2014 at 5:55 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some action and peril, and mild language
Profanity:	Some schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Sci-fi-style action and peril
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	July 3, 2014
Date Released to DVD:	October 20, 2014
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00MHIKRVA

Three kids go on a wild adventure and make an extra-terrestrial friend in this updated take on films like “E.T.” and “The Goonies.” It being 2014, that means that the found footage genre, pioneered in “The Blair Witch Project” and featured in adult thrillers like “Paranormal Activity” and “Cloverfield,” has permeated family film as well. What makes this intriguing is that its intended audience of digital natives, kids who played with iPads before they could talk, may just be better able to process the fragmented, jerky cinematography designed to appear as though it was shot by the kids in the story themselves, than any adult in the audience can imagine.

As it begins, an entire community is being shut down for a highway construction project and all of the families who live there have to leave. Three close friends, confident, talkative Tuck (rapper Brian “Astro” Bradley), shy techie Munch (Reese Hartwig), and sensitive Alex (Teo Halm)have received mysterious messages on their phones and they want to find out where it is coming from and what it means. Some guys from the construction project have some to the door offering to exchange new phone vouchers in exchange for the phones they say they have damaged with their drilling. But the boys realize that their phones are not broken. They are being contacted by someone or something who wants them to find him/her/it.

The trio is able to get away for one last night because their parents are too distracted by the move to notice what they are doing. They get on their bikes and bring along a movie camera and some “spy glasses” that surreptitiously take movies as well. The signal leads them to a tiny, owl-like robotic alien they call Echo, who needs their help to repair his ship so he can return home. But the “construction guys” are looking for Echo, too. Tuck, Munch, and Alex have to race against time and the men who want to capture Echo in a treasure hunt for the parts Echo needs.

There are no surprises in the storyline, but the likeable kids, cute alien, and novelty of the found footage approach makes this heartwarming story of four friends on a thrilling adventure a good choice for a family outing. Echo does not speak; he/she/it just beeps, which means the kids have to do the talking, and that keeps the focus on what they are learning as they try to understand and take on the responsibility of helping someone in a meaningful way for the first time.

Those not accustomed to the mosaic style of “found footage” films may find it disorienting, but the sense of adventure and the strength of the friendships is palpable throughout, and kids and their families will enjoy being along for the ride.

Parents should know that this film has sci-fi action and peril, some schoolyard language, 0underage drinking and drunkenness and references to tween kissing.

Family discussion: Why did the kids feel “invisible?” What questions would you ask Echo? What did Tuck learn about Alex? Why did Tuck lie about Emma?

If you like this, try: “E.T,” “The Goonies,” “Super 8,” and “The Last Mimzy”

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