Trolls: World Tour

Posted on April 10, 2020 at 11:02 am

B +
Lowest Recommended Age: Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating: Rated PG for some mild rude humor
Profanity: None
Alcohol/ Drugs: None
Violence/ Scariness: Some peril, no one hurt
Diversity Issues: A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters: April 10, 2020
Date Released to DVD: July 7, 2020
Copyright 2020 DreamWorks

Remember on “Sesame Street” when they ask, which one of these four things is not like the other? “One of these doesn’t belong.” But there are a lot of ways to look at what is same and what is different, as “Trolls: World Tour” explores in a surprisingly subtle and nuanced theme in the midst of so much…well, just so much.

This sequel to the popular original film based on the little fuzzy-haired so-ugly-they’re-cute 1960’s fad dolls begins where the last one left off. Formerly cynical Branch (Justin Timberlake) has now learned to be happy, or happy-ish, and the eternally cheery Poppy (Anna Kendrick) is now Queen. Everything is glitters and rainbows and especially music music music, with a dizzying array of song snippets millennial parents will recognize. The snippets contribute to a a hyper, ADD quality that at times makes viewers feel shaken by the shoulders to make sure we notice we are being ENTERTAINED.

But happily-ever-after endings must be undone if there is to be a sequel and so Poppy learns that the pop-music trolls are not the only trolls and, even more surprising, pop music is not the only music. There’s even a map showing all of the different troll music communities, covering country, reggae, classical, hip-hop, funk, EDM, rock and more. (But it’s an old map — there’s no disco anymore. Even a movie about how harmony means accepting and enjoying every kind of music, disco is still over.)

Once all trolls were together, guided by a lyre with magical strings. But then they broke up into separate divisions, each with one string to produce the music. Queen Barb of Rock (a delicious Rachel Bloom of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”), daughter of King Thrash (a very funny Ozzie Osborne), declares a world tour which ever-optimistic Poppy thinks is about bringing everyone together in a peaceful manner, but Barb wants to grab all of the strings and make rock the one music for all of Troll-dom. Will this be the day the music dies? Or will Poppy find a way to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony? Will there be guest appearances from music giants along the way? What do you think? Kelly Clarkson, George Clinton, and Mary J. Blige all show up, along with many more song snippets and a lot of candy-colored action.

Also in the mix is Sam Rockwell, Kendrick’s “Mr. Right” co-star (not for kids, but a great movie if you like dark humor about world-class assassins). Here he plays a suspiciously helpful troll centaur from country music land.

And somewhere in there are some genuinely thoughtful themes. Like “Frozen II,” this movie touches gently but candidly on the idea that history is written by the victors. What we’ve been told about the past should be questioned, especially if we are portrayed as the heroes. And the idea of same and different, what kinds of differences we should appreciate and support in each other and what kinds we should not, is raised with sophistication and yet still in an accessible manner.

As everyone knows, this movie was scheduled to be a big holiday weekend family movie theatrical release. Instead, in the age of COVID-19, it is the first major studio film being sent straight to streaming, both a gift to homebound families and something of an experiment in unprecedented times. It may seem a bit frantic after weeks of sequester, but it is a bright, tuneful, sweet story with a message of hope that seems especially welcome in the spring of 2020.

Parents should know that this film has some mild peril and brief potty humor. A male troll “gives birth” to a baby (pops out of his head, like Zeus and Minerva)

Family discussion: Which is your favorite kind of music and why? How are Poppy and Barb alike? Can you find three things that are the same about you and your family members and three things that are different?

If you like this, try: “Trolls,” “Happy Feet,” and the “All Hail King Julien” series

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The Banker

Posted on April 2, 2020 at 9:51 am

B +
Lowest Recommended Age: Middle School
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for some strong language including a sexual reference and racial epithets, and smoking throughout
Profanity: Some strong and racist language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Drinking and smoking
Violence/ Scariness: Some peril
Diversity Issues: A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters: April 3, 2020

Copyright Apple 2020
“The Banker,” now available on Apple TV+, is three movies in one, all of them vivid, engaging, and compelling.

First, it’s a heist in plain sight movie, and all, or pretty much all, strictly legal. Two black men, Bernard Garrett (Anthony Mackie) and Joe Morris (Samuel L. Jackson) start a business in the pre-Civil Rights Act era when it was not only legal but the universal practice to keep people of color not just out of the neighborhoods where white people lived and worked but out of the places that make property ownership possible, the business that sell homes and office buildings and the people who provide the financing for those purchases.

Second, it is a “My Fair Lady”-style Cinderella makeover fairy tale movie, about taking someone who has the heart to be more than he is and teaching him the language, manners, and skills necessary to have credibility in the highest levels of society, or, in this case, business and finance. Garrett and Morris need a white man to pretend to be the president of their enterprise, so they recruit Matt Steiner (Nicholas Hoult), a genial construction worker, and teach him their version of “the rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain,” how to do (or pretend to do) complex valuation computations in seconds and how to play golf, so he can display the (apparently) effortless credibility needed to do big-money deals.

Third, it is a very personal underdog story of heroes to cheer for, two very different men, both played with exquisite precision, working together against near-insurmountable odds to overturn a virulently oppressive system.

Garrett has a head for numbers even as a young boy, where he listens in on the conversations of men of business as he shines their shoes. As a young man, he understands that the ability to own property is as critical to financial stability, social parity, and equal opportunity as the kind of political organizing that is getting started at the same time. Morris is already a savvy businessman with clubs and real estate holdings. Their personalities are very different — one a quiet, devoted family man, the other a good-time guy. But they both know how things work. They know how to make themselves invisible, pretending to be limo drivers or janitors to get access to the places of power while their front-man pretends to know what he’s doing. (One problem with the film is its failure to give Nia Long more of a role than the ever-supportive wife, though this ever-talented actress lends the character some dimension.)

We know from the beginning, opening on a Senate hearing with some harsh questioning, that powerful people are going to try to stop Garrett and Morris from taking some of their power. This movie, with MCU star-power portraying real-life superheroes, gives some of it back to them.

Parents should know that this film has some strong and racist language, some sexual references, scenes in clubs and bars, and some historical depictions of racism.

Family discussion: What did Morris and Garrett have in common? Who is most like them today? What should they have done about Steiner?

If you like this, try: “Hidden Figures” and “Self Made,” and read more about Bernard Garrett and Joe Morris.

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The Burnt Orange Heresy

Posted on March 12, 2020 at 5:55 pm

B +
Lowest Recommended Age: Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating: Rated R for some sexual content/nudity, language, drug use and violence
Profanity: Very strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Drinking, smoking, drugs
Violence/ Scariness: Peril and violence, arson, murder
Diversity Issues: None
Date Released to Theaters: March 6, 2020
Copyright Sony Pictures Classics 2019

Paintings and movies can both be art or trash, and, in a completely separate binary, they can both be worth millions or pennies. Both forms of expression struggle with the balance of culture and commerce. But in one very important way they are opposite, an element that is literally material. The value in movies is in the experience of watching them, whether on film or in a digital print. The audience is unaware of the particulars of the mechanism of delivery; indeed, one of the great pleasures of film is that it is immersive, designed to be seen on an enormous screen in a dark room so that the line between the art and the audience is nearly dissolved. But for a painting or drawing, the value, the monetary value anyway, is in the unique distinction of the object. Try asking the Metropolitan Museum of Art whether they would swap a Picasso for an exact digital replica of the original. For this reason, the premium attached to the physical object is more important, at least when it comes to price, than the aesthetic merits of the image. A movie is made by dozens, maybe hundreds of people, many of whom never see each other. A painting (except for the high-end conceptual variations) is made by one person whose individual touch contributes immeasurably to its authenticity and value.

Perhaps this is why some movies are so fascinated with gallery art like paintings. Danish actor Claes Bang is appearing in his second film in three years about the conundrums and hypocrisy of the art world (third if you count “The Last Vermeer”). In the trippy “The Square” he played a museum director. In “The Burnt Orange Heresy” he is James Figueras, an art critic working in Italy who might have preferred to be an artist himself, or a curator. And in his first scene, we see he is also a liar. Speaking to a group of American tourists, James describes the story behind the painting depicted on a slide showing on a screen in the front of the room. It was the last painting from a Holocaust survivor, and as he tells them the story of the artist and his sister, we and the audience he is speaking to look at the image of the painting with increased interest and respect. He asks who wants a print and hands go up. Then he tells them it is a lie. He did the painting himself. Lesson: beware of critics, especially when their comments determine the authenticity or value of a work of art.

One American tourist at James’ talk is Berenice (Elizabeth Debicki). She and James have sex and he impulsively invites her to come along on a visit to the opulent home of a wealthy art dealer Joseph Cassidy (Mick Jagger, brimming with wily charm). Cassidy has an irresistible offer for James, a chance at the biggest art story in years, which could bring him fame, fortune, and the credibility he had been seeking since he lost his job at a museum over a little bit of embezzlement. The world’s most famous art genius recluse, a sort of J.D, Salinger of oil painting, lives in a small house on Cassidy’s property. He has not given an interview or allowed anyone to see his work for decades. If James interviews him, it will make his career. But Cassidy wants something in return — a painting. And if James should say no, well Cassidy is not above some almost-genteel blackmail.

The artist is Dabney (Donald Sutherland, deliciously courtly and eloquent, if opaque). It becomes a cat and mouse game with many players, and some surprises about who is the cat and who is the mouse, right up to the final shot.

The various mysteries, especially Berenice’s under-written backstory, are not always satisfying, though Debicki, who was superb in “Widows” and “The Tale,” is always entrancing. The settings, from the fabulous estate to the museum gala and the overall setting of the glamorous world of art museums and collectors, the provocative questions it raises about the uncomfortable relationships of art, commerce, and celebrity, and sharp, witty performances from Sutherland and Jagger make it enticingly watchable.

Parents should know that this film has explicit sexual references and a situation with nudity, very strong and crude language, drinking, smoking, drugs, criminal fraud, peril and violence including murder.

Family discussion: How did James’ story change your ideas about the painting in the first scene?

If you like this, try: “The Square” and “Velvet Buzzsaw” If you like this, try: “The Square” and “Velvet Buzzsaw”

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The Call of the Wild

Posted on February 21, 2020 at 5:30 pm

B-
Lowest Recommended Age: 4th - 6th Grade
MPAA Rating: Rated PG for some violence, peril, thematic elements and mild language
Profanity: Some mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Drinking and drunkenness
Violence/ Scariness: Peril and violence, human and animal characters injured and killed, animal abuse, guns
Diversity Issues: Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters: February 22, 2020

Copyright Twentieth Century 2020
My review of “Call of the Wild” is on rogerebert.com. An excerpt:

Harrison Ford made me believe he was talking to Greedo and Jabba the Hutt in the early “Star Wars” films and those characters were as low-tech as Gumby and Pokey compared to the technology used to create Ford’s canine co-star in “The Call of the Wild.” And yet, I never bought it. Instead of getting caught up in the story, I kept wondering how they achieved the effects, like the interactions between the CGI dog with the real-life people and props around him. A lot of work clearly went into scanning a dog from every angle, and getting the muscles, fur, weight, and shape to look real. But the dog still seems synthetic compared to the animals in movies like “A Dog’s Purpose” and Disney’s own annual nature films (even compared to fully animated characters in the original “101 Dalmatians” and “Lady and the Tramp”). And so does the story.

The problem is less the technology, which is very impressive, than it is the uneven storyline, which zigzags from slapstick to poignance to action. The Alaskan and Canadian scenery is spectacular, the production design is exceptional, and Ford brings heart and dignity to his role, including the narration throughout the film. But the movie is uneven in tone and in its sense of its audience—it is too sad and violent for young children and too superficial for older audiences. The many-times-filmed story has here been sanitized a bit for modern audiences (less racism, for example), but it is rougher than the typical PG film, including animal abuse, and sad deaths of both canines and humans.

Parents should know that this film includes peril and violence affecting animals and humans, sad deaths of dogs and people, guns, animals beaten with clubs, and some mild language.

Family discussion: What did Buck learn from his first experience pulling a sled? From his rescues? From the wolves?

If you like this, try: “A Dog’s Purpose” and “A Dog’s Way Home”

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Olympic Dreams

Posted on February 13, 2020 at 5:28 pm

B
Lowest Recommended Age: High School
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for some language and sexual references
Profanity: Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness: None
Diversity Issues: None
Date Released to Theaters: February 14, 2020
Copyright IFC Films 2019

“Olympic Dreams” is a slight but sweet story set inside a big, colorful, dramatic world, the Olympics. It is the only movie ever filmed inside the actual Winter Olympic Athletes Village, and the behind the scenes settings and encounters are a lot of fun to see, giving us an idea of the vast scope and international culture of the games. Alexi Pappas, who represented Greece in the 2016 summer Olympics 10,000 meter race, co-wrote and stars in the film with her co-star, Nick Kroll, and the director (and her husband), Jeremey Teicher.

Pappas plays Penelope (a tribute to her Greek heritage), an American cross-country skier whose event is on the first day, so once it is over, she does not really have anything else to do. Kroll plays Ezra, a dentist who has volunteered to be on the medical team at the Games. There are not a lot of dental issues, so he, too, has a lot of free time. Much of the movie is just the two of them at various places in the Olympic Village, having awkward conversations. Her side is awkward because she has done nothing but prepare for the Olympics her whole life and has not had much opportunity to have non-sports competition related interactions. His side is awkward because he is an awkward guy, trying to re-connect with his ex long-distance and generally anxious.

So, kind of like “Before Sunrise” if the two people involved were older, less open, and not as good at putting their feelings into words. Much of the film has a gentle, improvisational tone that is appealing, and Kroll in particular shows his range. Pappas is not as experienced an actor, and her director/husband lingers longer on her face than a non-husband might have chosen to do. Real Olympian Gus Kenworthy is a natural in a small role as a sympathetic athlete, and it would be great to see him do more films. The bittersweet romance does not have much depth, but the novelty and natural interest of the setting and the small incidental details provide enough interest to make up for it.

Parents should know that this film has some strong language and sexual references.

Family discussion: What will Alex do next? How did she make Ezra think differently about his options?

If you like this, try: “Before Sunrise” and “Medium Cool” (which also used a real-life setting, the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, as background to a fictional story).

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