500 Days of Summer

Posted on December 22, 2009 at 8:00 am

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sexual material and language
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, characters get tipsy
Violence/ Scariness:	Emotional confrontations
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	July 17, 2009
Date Released to DVD:	December 22, 2009
Amazon.com ASIN:	B001UV4XUG

Like its winning hero, this movie wears its heart right on its sleeve. It lays it out for us right at the beginning, making it clear that “this is not a love story.” Oh, and it is a work of fiction. The usual disclaimer from the closing credits appears up front, letting us know that none of the characters should be confused with anyone in real life. Especially one named young woman in particular. Who is then described with an epithet often heard in a kennel.

It’s wrong about one thing; it is a love story. But that does not make it a happy love story. This is, as the narrator obligingly informs us, the story of Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who believes in love and believes that he will find true love and it will make him happy, and Summer (Zooey Deschanel), who does not believe in love and thinks that her 20’s should be about having fun. A match made in heaven? In the movies, maybe, but not this one.

It has been a long time, perhaps since “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” since a movie evoked the joys and pains of first love with such art and delicacy. We know from the title that the romance will last 500 days. The movie shows us that period thematically rather than chronologically so that we go from a day near the end of their relationship to a day near the beginning that explains what the later one was about. By the time we see those first, early moments of heady connection, we realize how the sweetness of those initial feelings will become almost unbearably poignant. In one encounter late in their relationship, when he comes to a party she is hosting, we see a split screen, one marked “expectation” and the other “reality.” The differences between them are subtle, but telling.

Director Marc Webb and screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber think very cinematically, using the unique attributes of film to evoke the feelings and experiences of the characters. And Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel are two of the most appealing and talented young performers in Hollywood and they create characters who are vibrant and real. We may not know whether they will stay in love with each other, but the audience will fall in love with them.

The Gathering

Posted on December 14, 2009 at 10:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	NR
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Tense family confrontations
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	1977
Date Released to DVD:	December 15, 2009
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00310P2H2

I’m thrilled that one of my favorite Christmas movies is available on DVD for the first time from Warner Brothers. It is the Emmy-award winning The Gathering and it stars Ed Asner and Maureen Stapleton as the long-separated parents of adult children. He is a wealthy man who has devoted his life to his business. He asks her for help in bringing the family together for Christmas because he has learned that he is dying and this will be his last chance to see them. It has been digitally re-mastered for this DVD edition. The sequel, “Gathering II,” is also available on DVD but has not been re-mastered.
I am very fond of these holiday family gathering drama with old tensions and insecurities revived as family members gather for the holidays and this is one of the best. Every member of the family has some issue to resolve and the performances are exceptional, especially the brilliant Stapleton, who shows us her character’s strength and vulnerability. This is a bittersweet classic of the season.

Scholastic: A Night Before Christmas (with Hannukah and Kwanzaa)

Posted on December 7, 2009 at 8:00 am

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	All Ages
MPAA Rating:	NR
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Mild peril
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to DVD:	2009

My very favorite series has a special family treat for the winter holidays. Clement Moore’s classic poem about Santa Claus is read by Anthony Edwards. Theodore Bikel reads “In the Month of Kisley,” a delightful Hannukah story about a poor but happy family who teach a wealthy man the meaning of the holiday, featuring some clever insights into family happiness and a very wise judge. In “Seven Candles for Kwanzaa,” the Pinkney’s story and illustrations teach us the values of family, history, and community that each of the nights of the holiday symbolize, with Alfre Woodard narrating. Ed Martinez tells us about how Maria might have lost her mother’s ring in the “Too Many Tamales” she is making for Christmas dinner (Spanish and English narration). The set also includes three other Christmas stories: “Max’s Christmas,” “Morris’s Disappearing Bag,” and “The Little Drummer Boy.”

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

Posted on November 30, 2009 at 8:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for mild action and brief language
Profanity:	Brief schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extensive comic/action violence, no one hurt
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	May 22, 2009
Date Released to DVD:	December 1, 2009
Amazon.com ASIN:	B002GJTYIW

Everything is bigger, better, and especially funnier in this sequel to the surprise hit Night at the Museum. In the original, Larry (Ben Stiller) was an unsuccessful inventor who took at job as a security guard at New York’s Museum of Natural History and found that all of the exhibits came to life at night. With the help of Theodore Roosevelt (Robin Williams), and the young Pharaoh Ahkmenrah (Rami Malek), Larry was able to reconcile the dispute between a cowboy named Jedediah (Owen Wilson) with his neighboring diorama-mate Octavius (Steve Coogan), tame both a dinosaur skeleton and an enormous totemic sculpture, and defeat the bad guys who tried to set him up and steal the magic tablet.

As this film begins, Larry has achieved his dream of success and is doing infomercials with inventions like the glow-in-the-dark flashlight. He is so busy he seldom sees his old friends at the museum and he is shocked to find that they have all been packed up. The museum is going all 2.0 and is about to be tricked up with fancy interactive animatronics. And all of the old exhibits are being shipped off to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, not for display but for storage.

And that is how Larry, the Museum of Natural History exhibits from the first movie, and dozens of new characters from the world’s biggest museum complex in Washington DC, the Smithsonian. Ahkmenrah’s evil brother Kahmunrah (Hank Azaria) wants to use the tablet to raise an army of the dead to take over the world. Larry will have to rely on his old friends and some new ones, like Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams) and George Armstrong Custer (Bill Hadar) to fight Kahmunrah and his allies Ivan the Terrible (Christopher Guest), Napoleon (Alain Chabat), and Al Capone (Jon Bernthal), who is in black and white because he was brought to life from an old photograph.

Yes, even the pictures, paintings, the gift shop bobble heads and the sculptures come to life in this film and there is one sequence where Larry escapes into Alfred Eisenstadt’s classic photo of VJ Day in Times Square, and he later empties the water out of a Turner seascape. The special effects are exceptionally well done, but what makes the movie work is its inspired cast, all having a blast and trying to top each other. Over and over, the same old gag works just fine as the best all-star comedy cast since “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World” finds the sweet spot between action and inspired silliness.

Star Trek

Posted on November 17, 2009 at 8:00 am

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action and violence, and brief sexual content
Profanity:	Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Scenes in bar, drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	A lot of sci-fi and action violence,
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	May 8, 2009
Date Released to DVD:	May 13, 2013
Amazon.com ASIN:	B001TH16DI

Get ready for this week’s “Star Trek” release with another look at this splendid reboot of the 40-plus year old “Star Trek” series. By boldly going where many, many have gone before, J.J. Abrams of television’s “Lost” and “Alias” has managed to make a thoroughly entertaining film that respects the fans but stands on its own.

Those who will nod knowingly (or shiver with excitement) at the appearance of Captain Pike or the reference to dilitheum crystals and those who remember that Sulu can fence will be reassured that any anomalies or inconsistencies with canon are cleverly explained away and by the appearance of one key member of the original cast. Those who are new to the franchise will be reassured that the story is self-contained. They may wonder why people applaud and laugh at a few in-jokes or the inevitable origins moments of first encounters between characters whose future interactions and relationships are as well known as their own (possibly better), but there is so much happening on screen they will not have time to wonder what they are missing. Indeed, there is so much that I have seen it twice already and look forward to seeing it again. I loved it so much I wanted to Vulcan mind meld with it.

Some things will always be true. The crewman you’ve never seen before who transports to a remote location with two of the lead character is not going to last long. In the future, women will all wear very short skirts and be extremely beautiful. All planets are congenial for human life, with just the right atmosphere and gravity. Fights usually occur on catwalks and other locations with precipitous drops. Kirk has to be hanging from a ledge at least three times and have an encounter with an exotic but very beautiful lady. And everybody speaks English, except when Uhura has to show off her translation skills.

Fans are in for some surprises, especially with one romantic relationship. But Abrams is very consistent with the original show’s tone and humanistic themes. Bad guy Nero (Eric Bana) would be right at home with Khan. The characters and the actors who portray them find the right balance, portraying rather than imitating. I say this with the most tender regard for the television series — every one of these performances is better than the original, especially Zachary Quinto as the half- human, half-Vulcan Spock, Chris Pine as Kirk, Karl Urban as the perpetually choleric McCoy, Simon Pegg as a cheerful Scotty, and Zoe Saldana as Uhura. And of course even the series’ biggest enthusiasts would not claim that the special effects were its strong point. This movie’s are stunning. The story wobbles a bit, especially when one decision with potentially catastrophic consequences is explained away as a life lesson for two of the characters. But it is funny, smart, exciting, purely entertaining and enormously satisfying, and sure to be one of the year’s most enduring popcorn pleasures. The cast has signed on for two sequels and all I can say is, live long and prosper and they can beam me up any time.