Modern Life is Rubbish

Posted on April 25, 2018 at 12:46 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	Strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	None
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	April 27, 2018

“Modern Life is Rubbish,” named for the song by Blur, is a slight but sweet update to the classic boy meets girl story. What it lacks in originality it almost makes up for with its exceptionally appealing actors and a soundtrack featuring Radiohead, Stereophonics, the 1975, The Vaccines, Warpaint, The Libertines, and Mt Wolf, all very suitable for a story about a couple brought together by music. It’s like a lower grade “High Fidelity” with a touch of “When Harry Met Sally.”

Liam (Josh Whitehouse, who does play music in real life) meets Natalie (Freya Mavor) in a record store, where he tries to talk her out of buying Blur’s “Best of” album: “It’s cheating. It’s like a shortcut to enlightenment.” “Do you work here?” she asks, before telling him that she already has all the other albums he is urging on her and is buying this one because it is the only way to get the special live acoustic version of “On Your Own.” In other words, she is his dream girl. But she leaves the store without his getting her number.

But we know there is a romantic falling-in-love montage ahead with an impeccably curated musical score as they fall in indie music love and are just plain heart-meltingly adorable. Until life intervenes, Liam’s promises that he will be a big rock star seem increasingly implausible, and someone, probably the member of the couple who is not in the band, has to get a regular old job to pay the rent. In other words, it is time to grow up.

But Liam is, as we saw in the record store, a purist, and cannot sully himself by working for The Man or buying any of The Man’s enlightenment-preventing products, like, for example, an iPod. Music should be on albums you can hold in your hand, with artistic statements in their cover designs and meaningful liner notes. Natalie, who once dreamed of creating album covers (Michael Beck’s job in “Xanadu,” as I recall), goes to work for The Man-iest of The Man jobs — advertising. Each begins to resent the other. They break up and have to go through all the stuff they have accumulated together, each one bringing back memories of better times.

Director Daniel Jerome Gill relies too much on the music to do the work, and the secondary characters are not as colorful as he hopes they are. But Whitehouse and Mavor have great chemistry and give their thinly written characters charm and energy, which keeps us on their side through very predictable ups and downs.

Parents should know that this film includes some strong language and explicit sexual situations (no nudity).

Family discussion: Why was Liam so opposed to new technology? What does it mean to sell out?

If you like this, try: “High Fidelity” and “Bandslam”

They

Posted on April 23, 2018 at 6:57 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	Mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Issues of non-gender-conforming adolescence
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie (gender and ethnicity)
Date Released to Theaters:	April 23, 2018

Trans kids generally know who they are, even when they are very young. They don’t tell their families they want to be a gender different from their body parts. They say they are that gender, and it is usually their families who have to reframe their understanding of the boy or girl they thought they had. Even the most certain of children and the most understanding and supportive of families face a wrenching challenge as the child approaches adolescence. Do you block puberty with medication to preserve the child’s choices about gender until age 18? Secondary sex characteristics for the wrong gender can be intensely traumatic. But the medication can have side effects.

“They” and “their” are the preferred pronouns for the lead character, known just as J, and played by a trans actor named Rhys Fehrenbacher. J is a young teenager who is having an adverse reaction to the puberty blockers and has to decide what to do. J’s parents are away caring for another family member, their return home delayed, and J’s brisk but not uncaring sister Lauren (Nicole Coffineau) and her Iranian boyfriend, Araz (Koohyar Hosseini) have come to stay with J until their parents return.

Writer/director Anahita Ghazvinizadeh gives the film a lyrical, meditative quality. J’s parents, sister, Araz, and doctor are all understanding and supportive, if distracted. They are all so accepting that no one seems to think J might need to talk about the momentous decisions they are confronting.

We see J reciting Elizabeth Bishop’s poem, The Mountain:

I do not mean to complain.
They say it is my fault.
Nobody tells me anything.
Tell me how old I am.

The deepest demarcations
can slowly spread and fade
like any blue tattoo.
I do not know my age.

We see many moments in nature, as though to locate J’s transitions within the context of the natural world. Lauren and Araz are both preoccupied with their own personal and professional liminal challenges as well. There is also a long, seemingly improvised section that takes place in the home of one of Araz’s relatives, with Lauren and J at a large family party. Throughout, it almost seems as though we are eavesdropping on bits and pieces of the J’s world.

That is not always successful, and some of the choices are heavy-handed. But thankfully, it is not didactic or preachy. J may not know what they want, but Ghazvinizadeh has confidence that they will make the right choice, and trusts us to root for them.

Parents should know that this movie deals obliquely but frankly with issues of non-binary gender.

Family discussion: How do the boys with the bicycle feel about J? What should J do?

If you like this, try: the “I am Jazz” series on television

Aardvark

Posted on April 12, 2018 at 5:27 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for mature thematic issues, language, some sexuality and violence
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Some drinking, references to psychotropic medication
Violence/ Scariness:	Some violence, character injured, references to sad deaths
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	April 13, 2018

“Aardvark” has three thoughtful performances and a couple of intriguing interactions, but is ultimately undermined by an underwritten script. The parts are greater than the whole.

Zachary Quinto, who also produced, plays Josh, and we meet him on his first visit to a new therapist, which conveniently gives us a chance to learn very quickly that (1) he is underemployed in a coffee shop but sees it as progress so he must have been pretty badly off, (2) he has plenty of money, but keeps it crumpled up in his pocket so does not seem too on top of things, and (3) he has a brother who — he says — is a successful and very talented actor named Craig, and who is back in their home town for the first time in many years.

Josh is clearly fragile, but is he an unreliable narrator? Should we believe him? The new therapist, Emily (Jenny Slate) is not sure, and neither are well. Josh emphasizes that his brother is such a gifted actor that he can appear as anyone. In a couple of exceptional scenes, Josh speaks to an older homeless white woman and a black cop, who — are we seeing into his mind? — turn out to be Craig.

Is there a Craig? Is he anything like Josh’s description? We probably have concluded it is unlikely as perhaps Emily has, too, until he does, in fact, show up at Emily’s door, played by Jon Hamm. And this is where the movie starts to run out of ideas.

Slate gives an underwritten character as much depth as possible, and two intriguing encounters suggest that perhaps there were other versions of the story that provided more background (or should have). It is disappointing that writer/director Brian Shoaf could not come up with a less well-worn set of conflicts for her. Hamm continues to be one of today’s most thoughtful and adept performers. Especially in his early scenes, Hamm is able to show us the personality distortion of Craig’s years of semi-stardom (as the lead in a popular television series) and distance from his home and his brother. And Quinto is perceptive as he portrays Josh in different stages of his illness, with and without medication.

It is very good to see a movie about someone with mental illness who is not portrayed as cute or a savant, and especially good to see one that grapples with the survivor guilt and exhaustion of family members. Shoaf shows some promise as a writer and director and we look forward to what he comes next.

Parents should know that this movie’s themes include severe mental illness and psychotropic medications, references to sad loss of family members, some violence, strong language, sexual references and situation

Family discussion: Why didn’t Craig want to see Josh? What did Josh miss when he was taking his medication?

If you like this, try; “Entanglement,” “It’s Kind of a Funny Story” and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”

Pacific Rim Uprising

Posted on March 22, 2018 at 5:06 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and some language
Profanity:	Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended peril and violence with disturbing images, giant robots, alien monsters, explosions, mass destruction, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	March 23, 2018

I know you’re all eager to hear whether you will understand this movie if you haven’t seen (or, more likely, saw and forgot) the first one. Here is my answer: you won’t understand this film even if you did see and remember the first one and it just doesn’t matter. The first one was about giant robots fighting alien monsters and it ended with Idris Elba giving a great pep talk to the troops and then sacrificing himself to save the world.

Second verse, same as the first. Even bigger robots. Even meaner monster aliens. Even dumber dialogue. Buildings knocked down and shattered as though they were made of eggshells. A volcano. Plus mutant robot monster aliens. A near-feral girl with a gift for creating robots. A pilot with daddy issues.

And, I can’t help it, since it takes two pilots who mind-meld in a process called “drift” to operate the giant robots called Jaegers in perfect synchronization, every time they do it I keep thinking they’re playing Dance Dance Revolution.

That would be only slightly more silly than the actual storyline (hmm, a “Step Up”/”Pacific Rim” crossover — I offer this idea freely, noting that there is a promise of a third chapter at the end of the film).

“Star Wars'” John Boyega (who also co-produced) plays Jake, the son of the Idris Elba character. As he explains in a striking opening scene, the world has in some ways returned to normal after the defeat of the Kaiju monsters, though their enormous skeletons are still a reminder of the fight, one right next to the pool where Jake is enjoying a life of girls and parties. He has no interest in following in his father’s footsteps as a pilot or a hero. Like his “Star Wars” pal Rey, he is a scavenger, looking Jaeger robot junkyards. But things go wrong when a helmeted motorcycle rider steals the special part he promised to some very unforgiving guys. I note here the famous Roger Ebert rule that a mysterious helmeted figure will always turn out to be female. Yes, Amara (Cailee Spaeny) is not only female but young, and a Shuri-like tech whiz who is building her own Jaeger. The two of them end up in jail, and then, of course, sent to pilot training. “Ender’s Game”-style, younger recruits are taken because they are better at drifting.

When they arrive, Amara excitedly recognizes all the various Jaegers as a way of reintroducing us to them, and, discovering who Jake is, reminds us again that his father was a hero and he is not too happy about that. The tough, this-is-serious-business commanding officer is Nate (Scott Eastwood, channeling his dad), who says things like, “You and I both know you could have been great.”

There’s also a lot of “We need it now.” “It can’t be done.” “Do it anyway” “I need more time!” “We don’t have any!” “You got this!” “Let’s do this!” “Will it work?” “One way to find out!” talk and a lot of “20 kilometers to impact” military/tech language. And Jake says he can’t give a pep talk like his dad but he does. Does it include “This is OUR time!” Yes, it does.

The good thing is that the movie does not just know how silly it is — it embraces the silliness. The better thing is that it has EVEN BIGGER ROBOTS fighting EVEN BIGGER MUTANT ROBOT ALIENS! No matter how dumb it gets, no matter that the robots and monsters have more personality than the humans, no matter how much it seems like a mash-up of “Transformers,” “Ender’s Game,” “Starship Troopers,” and anime, it is undeniably fun to see robots bashing monsters, and thankfully there isn’t much in between the battles to slow things down.

Parents should know that this film includes extended and sometimes graphic peril and violence, many characters injured and killed, chases, explosions, scary monsters, some disturbing images, sad death of parents, issues of sacrifice, brief strong language, brief crude humor

Family discussion: Why did Jake insist that he was not like his father? How do you think the drift works? How do you prevent being defined by other people?

If you like this, try: The first “Pacific Rim,” “Ender’s Game,” and “Starship Troopers”

Tomb Raider

Posted on March 15, 2018 at 5:03 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, and for some language
Profanity:	Some strong language (s-words, one mouthed f-word)
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended peril and violence, chases, guns, fights, explosions, many characters injured and killed, some graphic and disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	March 16, 2018

A video game needs just enough narrative to add some stakes to the challenges. We care more about getting the avatar from A to B if there is a reason — a treasure, escaping the bad guys, revenge. And the action scenes need just enough complexity to hold our interest. The “reason” equivalent is our own skill and seeing if we can do better than an opponent or better than our last attempt. But a movie needs a story and characters and dialog that have to be familiar enough to be believable and new enough to hold our interest. And that is why it is much harder to translate a game to the big screen than it is a book or a play. And that is also why so far none of the attempts to do so have worked very well. It may be tough to get a video game avatar over a chasm or through a labyrinth, but it is even tougher to make her into a movie star, even when she is as appealing a character as adventurer Lara Croft.

The good news is that this reboot stars Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander, a less remote, more real version of the character first played on screen by Angelina Jolie in two earlier “Tomb Raider” films, and by a bunch of pixels in a video game series. While the game version was idealized and the Jolie version was similarly polished, curvy, and near-all-powerful, swinging (literally) through her fabulous manor and ordering around her Alfred-like nerd-of-all-trades, this Lara is a little bit vulnerable and a little bit lost. We first see her losing a boxing match, forced to tap out before she loses consciousness in a choke hold. Because she will not sign papers declaring that her father is dead, though he has been missing for seven years, she cannot access his fortune or that fabulous manor.

Lord Richard Croft (Dominic West) loves his daughter (though he calls her “Sprout,” a truly awful nickname). But devastated by the loss of his wife, he has spent most of his time away from Lara as he seeks some way to connect to the supernatural. He disappeared on an expedition to a remote island where the legend has it that an Egyptian queen with powers of life and death is entombed. Since the movie is called “Tomb Raider,” you know where this is going.

And you also know that who cares about the story, this is about the chases and stunts. There’s a good chase on a bicycle “fox hunt.” And there’s a great stunt in the middle of the film involving a rusted-out crashed plane stuck on a branch over a waterfall. Walt Goggins is a nicely creepy bad guy. But once they actually make it inside the tomb it gets too game-ish, and by the time it hints at another chapter, well, it’s game over.

Parents should know that this film include extended peril and violence, chases, guns, fights, explosions, many characters injured and killed, some graphic and disturbing images, some strong language

Family discussion: Why wouldn’t Lara sign the papers? How did growing up without a father influence her choices?

If you like this, try: the earlier “Tomb Raider” films with Angelina Jolie and the Brendan Fraser version of “The Mummy”