Brave

Posted on June 21, 2012 at 6:00 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some scary action and rude humor
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Peril and violence including scary animals with big teeth
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	June 22, 2012
Date Released to DVD:	November 12, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B005LAII08

“Brave” is not just one of the best movies of the year for any age; it is one of the best movies ever made from a female point of view.

It has been a long time coming. Pixar’s unprecedented series of outstanding critical and audience successes has been justifiably criticized because its leading characters have almost always been white and male. While “The Incredibles,” “Finding Nemo,” and “A Bug’s Life” had important female characters (you might also include “Wall•E”), it was the male characters who were at the center of the story. With its 13th film, Pixar has given not one but two female characters center stage. As we expect from Pixar (well, as we hope, following “Cars 2”), “Brave” is smart, fun, funny, and exciting, with gorgeous settings and endearing characters. But this is something more. It gives us a teenage girl in the leading role who is not pretending to be a boy (“Mulan”), unsure of herself, or trying to attract a boy (just about every movie ever made). She is strong, independent, and completely comfortable with who she is. It’s the rest of the world she thinks needs some change.

Merida (Kelly Macdonald of “Boardwalk Empire” and “Gosford Park”) is a Scottish princess and by tradition, she will marry whichever of the sons of the local lairds bests the others in an athletic competition. But she has no interest in marrying any of them. Her mother (Emma Thompson) makes her dress up in a confining outfit that barely lets her breathe and hides her wild , unmanageable hair. But Merida splits the seams of the dress, takes out her bow, and wins her own hand. In some other movies, that would be the end. Here, it is the beginning. To split the seams of tradition the way she burst through the confines of her regal attire, Merida asks for help from a witch (Julie Walters, Mrs. Weasley in the Harry Potter movies). She says she wants to change her fate. She should have been more specific.

Things go terribly wrong, and soon Merida finds her relationship with her mother turned upside down. Merida learns what it like to have to take care of someone. Her mother has to learn something, too. Their new situation (I am trying not to give too much away here) gives the queen a chance to take a new look at Merida and see how capable and trustworthy she is, while the queen herself begins to lose her connection to civilization. And all of this is in the midst of antics from Merida’s mischievous triplet little brothers, the struggles between the clans, the witch’s travels (her voicemail equivalent is hilarious), and a very scary bear who once took part of Merida’s father’s leg and may be back for more.

Action, comedy, and heart are expertly balanced and the mother-daughter dynamic gives the story a powerful appeal. For me, it felt like a rare chance to hear a story in my native language. There was no need to translate. The wild beauty of the crags and tors of the Scottish landscape provide a bracing environment for Merida’s real and psychological journey with her mother. Merida is a winning heroine who does not define herself by getting or being a boy and it is a pleasure to share her story.

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Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

Posted on June 21, 2012 at 6:00 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language including sexual references, some drug use and brief violence
Profanity:	Very strong and explicit language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, drunkenness, drug use
Violence/ Scariness:	Disturbing themes of the end of the world, some violence
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	June 22, 2012
Date Released to DVD:	October 22, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B007L6VRBM

Dr. Johnson memorably said that the prospect of hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully. Part of what stories do for us is concentrate the mind by providing us with narratives that eliminate distracting quotidian effluvia and allow us to focus on one element of the story. In “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World,” writer/director Lorene Scafaria (“Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist”) makes that concentration explicit. The world is literally ending in three weeks, and we get to see how that concentrates the minds of Dodge (Steve Carell), Penny (Kiera Knightley), and the people they meet as everyone has to decide what from their “someday” list gets moved up to “now.”

Lorene Scafaria, who wrote the lovely “Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist,” here directs her own screenplay with a top-notch cast and a sure sense of tone and pacing. The classic elements of the journey film with a mis-matched pair on the road in search of something is kept fresh through the setting, the adventures and encounters along the way, and sensitive performances from Carell and Knightley.

As Elizabeth Kubler-Ross might have predicted, a lot of people get stuck in stage one: denial. The movie opens as Dodge and his wife hear the radio announcer promise to keep the audience up to date on the progress of the asteroid known as Matilda and its collision path with Earth, along with a countdown to the end of days and “all your classic rock favorites.” At first, most people run on automatic pilot. Dodge goes to his office and tries to explain to a client that his insurance policy does not really cover what is about to happen. “The Armageddon policy is extra.” His boss tries to fill some abandoned positions by offering promotions. People who always wanted to kill someone offer their services as assassins for hire by those who do not want to be alive when the meteor hits. Musicians put on an end of the world awareness concert. It’s like Wile E. Coyote running off the cliff and staying suspended in air until the realization hits — and then he does.

People start to get desperate. Dodge’s wife leaves him. A friend (Patten Oswalt) explains that the end of the world has made it very easy to sleep with women. Dodge’s friends have a party and try to fix him up with a woman (Melanie Lynskey) who arrives wearing all of the jewelry she was saving for the right occasion. But that is not what he wants. The world is increasingly divided between people who choose various ways to numb themselves and those who take this last chance to stop being numb.

Dodge meets his neighbor, Penny, an English girl who has missed the last opportunity to get back to her family. She has a mis-delivered letter from a girl he loved and lost. And she has a car. When rioters take over their building, he offers to get her to a plane if she will help him find the woman who sent the letter. Helping each other gives them purpose. Getting to know Penny gives Dodge more of a sense of being alive than he has ever had before. Dodge had always been too cautious. Penny had always been too irresponsible. Now he must take chances and she must grow up. It’s never too late.

On their journey, they see people and places from their past, including Penny’s survivalist ex-boyfriend (Derek Luke), who thinks that stockpiling weapons and canned goods will help him rebuild society. They stop at a relentlessly chipper restaurant called Friendsy’s (yes, lots and lots of flair) where the staff’s increasingly shrill Ecstasy-fueled cheeriness becomes borderline deranged. And then, even with just days and then hours left, they begin to shift from the past to the future. And, as Rabindrath Tagore wrote, “The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.”

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Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted

Posted on June 7, 2012 at 6:00 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some mild action and rude humor
Profanity:	Some schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic, cartoon-style peril and violence with chase scenes and tranquilizer darts
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters and species
Date Released to Theaters:	June 8, 2012
Date Released to DVD:	October 15, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B005LAIHW2

“Madagascar 3” is the best of the series, bright, fresh, fun, and funny, with a terrific script from co-director and Eric Darnell, a series regular, and, a bit improbably, “The Squid and the Whale’s” Noah Baumbach.

In the first Madagascar, four pampered animals from the Central Park Zoo leave home and find themselves on the title island off the coast of Africa. Alex the Lion (Ben Stiller), Marty the Zebra (Chris Rock), Melman the Giraffe (David Schwimmer), and Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinckett Smith), a bunch of penguins, and a lemur (Sasha Baron Cohen) try to get back to New York, but only get as far as the mainland. The second installment was Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, where “home” took on new meaning as Alex was reunited with the parents he had not seen since he was captured as a cub. He was also reconnected with his inner animal as he learned about his heritage. As the third in the series opens, the animals are still trying to get back to the zoo. The penguins (minor characters in the first who were so popular they got their own spin-off) and chimps left for Monte Carlo at the end of the second movie and have not come back, as they promised, with the plane to take the zoo animals to New York. So Alex, Marty, Melman, and Gloria go after them. The chimps (dressed in absurd French finery) have been cleaning up at the gambling tables. But it is not easy for zoo animals to remain unnoticed in a casino, and soon the most lethal and relentless animal control officer in Europe, Captaine Chantel Dubois (Frances McDormand) is on the case.

There’s only one place zoo animals can hide out and be on the move at the same time. With Dubois after them, the zoo animals tell the circus animals that they are from a American circus to persuade them to let them on the train. They are on their way to Rome and then London where a scout will decide whether he wants to bring them to New York. Alex et al have to do more than hide out — they have to make the circus a success.

The storyline avoids the poor choices the first two stumbled over, which includes one character wanting to eat another and a tribal rite that involved sacrifice. This time, the circus setting is colorful and engaging, the action scenes are cleverly choreographed and briskly paced, and there is plenty for both children and their parents to laugh at. The characters seem like old friends for us and for each other, comfortable with each other and sweetly supportive. At first, they appear really old as Alex has a nightmare that they are all creaky and wrinkled. But it turns out it is just his birthday and his friends have honored the occasion by re-creating New York City out of mud. When an animated movie for children finds time to comment on the recently renovated Times Square’s “corporate lack of character,” you can be sure that the movie has some confidence and personality, not be the usual bland bore. They even find time for a meta-joke about jokes, a Marie Antoinette license plate, and a reference to the French economy, a fabulous rendition (under a spotlight) by Dubois of “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien,” and a very touching lesson about home. Bien sur, je ne regrette cette film, and it even has me looking forward to part four.
Parents should know that this film has cartoon-style peril, action, and violence, fire, animal tracker uses tranquilizer darts and other weapons, brief potty humor

Family discussion: What changed the animals’ minds about going home? Who should be the leader? What did Alex and the circus animals teach each other?

If you like this, try: the first two “Madagascar” movies

Coriolanus

Posted on May 28, 2012 at 9:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for some bloody violence
Profanity:	Strong Elizabethan language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Graphic battle violence, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	January 13, 2012
Date Released to DVD:	May 28, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B0059XTUR2

Shakespeare’s play about a Roman general who survives battle only to take on the bigger battles of politics has been brought to screen by Ralph Fiennes, who directed and stars as the title character. Contemporary costumes and weapons and Serbian locations underscore how little has changed in the 500 years since Shakespeare wrote the play and indeed in the more than 2000 years since the events depicted.

Caius Martius (Fiennes) is a general who returns home in triumph after defeating the Tarquins and rewarded by being given the new surname Coriolanus. His fierce mother (Vanessa Redgrave in an incendiary performance) is proud and ambitious. His wife (Jessica Chastain), is quietly devoted. He calls her “my gracious silence.” He is persuaded to go into politics, but his public statements come across as arrogant and ignorant. He sees it as honesty and refusing to pander to the crowd but he is condemned as a traitor and exiled. Furious, he goes to the other side, first offering to sacrifice himself and then joining forces to attack his own city. Once again he faces the leader of the opposing forces (Gerard Butler).

Fiennes makes an impressive debut as a director, making good use of the locations to evoke the chaos of a war-torn world and its symbolism for what is most broken and bleakest inside the title character. Redgrave matches his ferocity, helping us realize a depth of understanding for one of Shakespeare’s few lead tragic characters who never explains himself with asides or monologues. Butler, as the antagonist who understands Coriolanus better than his family, his colleagues, and the political operators who want to use him, is the cracked mirror who provides the insight that Coriolanus fails to have for himself. The single-mindedness and lack of introspection that served him — and Rome — so well as a general leave him defenseless when the war is over.

Parents should know that this film includes bloody battle violence with characters injured and killed.

Family discussion: What leaders in today’s world are most like Coriolanus? Like those who encourage him to try politics?

If you like this, try: “Looking for Richard,” with Al Pacino working on a production of “Richard III.”

The Avengers

Posted on May 2, 2012 at 1:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action throughout and a mild drug reference
Profanity:	Mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Brief reference to "weed"
Violence/ Scariness:	Constant comic-book style action violence and peril, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	May 4, 2012
Date Released to DVD:	September 24, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B0083SBJXS

“The Dirty Dozen.” “The Bad News Bears.” “The A-Team.” “The Expendables.” Stories about a mixed group of badass tough guys who have trouble with authority but learn to work together are second only to stories about loners taking on The Man in their enduring popularity. Writer-director Joss Whedon, who revitalized science fiction and fantasy with “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Firefly” makes “The Avengers” a smart, exciting, and engaging superhero story that deftly balances seven larger-than-life characters (some literally), their personal and inter-personal struggles and their interplanetary battles. The film does not take itself or its characters too seriously but it takes entertainment seriously, serving up plenty of popcorn pleasure. There’s a light dusting of politics (secret WMDs) and character (sibling rivalry, making peace with oneself), and some humor pixie dust to break the tension and add sparkle, but this is about fighting the bad guys, and it does that very well.

There are two super-geniuses. The enormously wealthy businessman Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.) gets his super-powers mechanically. Scientist/humanitarian Dr. Bruce Banner (newcomer Mark Ruffalo taking over from Eric Bana and Edward Norton) has somehow become credentialed as a medical doctor and is providing health care to the poor while trying to maintain his equilibrium to avoid turning into an enormous green rage monster. There’s a demi-god: the Norse deity Thor (Chris Hemsworth), who swings a mighty hammer. The Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) is a former Russian spy and assassin. Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) has super-archery skills, shooting a near-endless supply of high-tech arrows with a Swiss Army knife’s worth of super functions. Super-soldier Captain America (Chris Evans) is still adjusting to modern life after having been frozen for 70 years. For him, defeating the Nazis was just months ago and the discovery that the world is still so unsettled and violent is disturbing. But he perks up at a flying monkey reference — that one he recognizes. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is the guy with the eye-patch from S.H.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division) who brings this group of “remarkable people” together, explaining that they might not be able to save the earth, but they can certainly avenge it. If they can stop fighting with each other in a sort of rock-scissors-paper that has them matching strengths and weaknesses to see whether an immortal deity outranks a guy in an iron suit that flies and which is stronger, the hammer of Asgard or a vibranium shield.

When Thor’s brother Loki (a nicely demented Tom Hiddleston, pale as a vampire) steals the tesseract (a glowing blue cube that has the kind of powers you don’t want in the hands of the wrong people), it is time for the Avengers to assemble. Only the most completist fanboys will think that they could not have cut out about 20-30 minutes of the opening sections of tracking everyone down and having them battle each other until they develop some respect and the ability to work together. Some of it is necessary as an introduction to everyone’s powers and vulnerabilities, but we all know they’re going to get on board, so it slows things down too much. Do we really need the “This is not a drill” evacuation sequence? And why must every summer action movie feature a black tie party with a string quartet?

Once everyone is on the team, though, things pick up nicely as Loki’s warriors with long, creepy teeth show up in Manhattan and there is plenty of battle to go around. The bad guys bring all kinds of nasty stuff, including enormous sea-monster-type flying ships. And we get to see each of the Avengers do what he or she does best as they struggle with their own issues to be the heroes the world needs them to be. The Hulk is not the only one who has to make peace with his darker side. “Aren’t the stars and stripes a little old-fashioned?” Captain America asks, wondering what his new uniform should look like? “People might need a little old-fashioned,” says Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), who proudly owns a near-mint (light foxing) set of Captain America trading cards. The idea of heroes sometimes seem a little old-fashioned in these cynical and compromised days, and it is good to see a story that brings that idea back.

NOTE: Stay ALL the way through the credits. It will be worth it.

DVD/Blu-Ray: There are some lovely extras including commentary by writer-director Joss Whedon, a gag real, and behind the scenes features.

Parents should know that this film has constant comic-book peril and violence, chases, explosions, characters injured and killed, and a brief joke about “weed.”

Family discussion: Why was it so hard for the Avengers to learn to work together? What was the most important thing they had in common?

If you like this, try: “Iron Man,” “Thor,” “Captain America,” the X-Men movies and the original comic books