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Chicken Little

Posted on November 1, 2005 at 8:42 pm

A-
Lowest Recommended Age: Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
Profanity: Brief crude humor
Nudity/ Sex: Kiss
Alcohol/ Drugs: None
Violence/ Scariness: Mild peril, no one hurt
Diversity Issues: Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters: 2005

You know that nightmare of appearing at school in your underwear? That happens to poor Chicken Little (voice of Zach Braff of TV’s “Scrubs”), a tiny little chick with big glasses perched uncertainly on his beak, but he has the heart of a lion. And Disney’s first-ever fully computer-animated movie movie has a wonderfully fresh and unpretentious energy that is a lot of fun to watch.

How does his story begin? Disney signals this film’s departure from the grander traditions of the past by addressing that question head on. Should we try the old but reliable “Once upon a time….?” No. How about a huge orange sunrise over the Serengeti? It’s been done. The classic beginning — a leather-bound book, pages fluttering artistically as it opens to a lovely old illustration? Nope. This one is going to begin right in the middle of the action, with Chicken Little ringing the town’s alarm bell and everyone in the town of Oakley Oaks getting, well, very alarmed. That underpants incident turns out to be the least of his problems.

It turns out that what Chicken Little thought was the sky falling on his head was just an acorn. At least, that’s what his father (voice of Garry Marshall) sheepishly admits in his apology to the town. He doesn’t believe his son’s story about being hit by a stop sign-shaped piece of the sky.

Chicken Little is sure he can start over and prove to everyone that he’s not a lunatic and a loser. But things get off to a bad start on the first day of school when he misses the bus and loses his pants. Mean girl Foxie Loxie (voice of Amy Sederis) keeps cough-insulting him. But Abby, the kind-hearted and wise Ugly Duckling (voice of Joan Cusack), a merry little fish (with a diver’s helmet to keep his head in water), and the anxious but sweet-natured piggy named Runt (voice of Steve Zahn) believe in Chicken Little and he believes in himself.

That’s how he knows that he can prove himself to everyone by becoming the star of the baseball team, just like his father. “All I need is a chance to do something great and my dad will finally have a reason to be proud of me.”

There is one very small problem however, and that is Chicken Little’s very small stature. On the one hand/wing, he has an almost-microscopic strike zone. On the other hand, he can barely lift the bat. Meanwhile, Foxy Loxy is the closest thing to Babe Ruth that Oakley Oaks has ever seen.

Still, Chicken Little seems to be making some progress when once again he is the only one to see that the sky seems to be falling. Will he risk his refurbished reputation to warn everyone?

The computer animation is meticulously crafted, from the broadest gag to the tiniest detail. Each of Chicken Little’s over 70,000 feathers is individually and perfectly rendered and each joke/visual pun/pratfall/wisecrack/political satire is perfectly paced to balance the tension and sentiment. Yet the film still has a nicely casual feel, due in part to a mix-tape selection of pop standards but mostly to not taking itself too seriously. A meta-moment at the end proves a perfect capper.

The voice talents are exceptionally well chosen, especially Marshall and Cusack, along with hilarious bits from Don Knotts (as ever-equivocal Mayor Turkey Lurkey), Patrick Warburton, Fred Willard, Catherine O’Hara, and Adam West. The visuals are technically superb, but we take that for granted now. What captures us is the worth-a-second-viewing visual wit, from a chameleon who changes color with the traffic light to a china shop proprietor who happens to be…a bull, and the subtle chicken theme in everything from a hood ornament to the wallpaper pattern and a three-eyed Mickey Mouse (trust me, it makes sense).

The artists have a lot of fun with the physical properties of their animal characters, especially the bulky rooster (watch him try to get up from the bed). And the story is a sweet reminder of unconditional love and the importance of “talking about something until it’s resolved.” Unlike its hero, this film does not swing for the fences, and that works in its favor. The technical focus on detail is balanced with a nice, casual looseness on the story side. The folks at Disney all know that even something as small as an acorn can still make a difference.

Parents should know that (spoiler alert) some children may be frightened by the tentacled aliens and apparent evaporation of some characters, though it all turns out fine. There is brief crude humor (character in underpants) and a sweet kiss. Some children may be upset by Chicken Little’s having lost his mother. Spoiler alert again: Some audience members will also be concerned about Foxy Loxy’s transformation from a rude but confident and athletic girl into a simpering, ruffle-wearing “girly” girl.

Families who see this movie should talk about Abby’s advice to Chicken Little. What is “closure?” How can we make sure that families always talk about the things that are important to them? Why do family members sometimes find it hard to see how much they are loved? Or that they don’t need to prove themselves? They should also talk about Chicken Little’s courage and resilience in looking at each day as a new beginning.

Families who enjoy this film will also enjoy The Emperor’s New Groove, Lilo and Stitch, and A Bug’s Life.

Jarhead

Posted on November 1, 2005 at 5:29 pm

A-
Lowest Recommended Age: Mature High Schooler
Profanity: Constant extremely strong and vulgar language
Nudity/ Sex: Extremely explict sexual references and situations, nudity
Alcohol/ Drugs: Drinking, including drunkenness, smoking
Violence/ Scariness: Battle violence, guns, charred bodies, fighting
Diversity Issues: Diverse characters are brave and loyal
Date Released to Theaters: 2005

In Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Estragon and Vladimir wait for someone (God?) who never arrives, evoking the absurdity and powerlessness of the modern condition. In “Jarhead,” based on the memoirs of Persian Gulf veteran Anthony Swofford, Marine recruits wait for something (war) that never arrives. The absurdity and powerlessness of their condition is evoked as they try to find some sense or meaning in their deployment.

Swofford was trained as a sniper, then sent to a war that was all in the air. His platoon spent more time showing a reporter what they would do if they got to fight than they spent actually fighting. They are warned that Saddam Hussein would use poison gas, but their protective gear falls apart. They are given pills to counteract the effects of biological warfare, but first they have to sign a waiver because no one knows whether the pills themselves will cause permanent damage. And for months at a stretch they are stuck in the desert, where it is scorchingly hot, far from any other people, and thousands of miles from home.

They went through brutal the training that turned boys into killers who aim for “the JFK shot — pink mist.” It transformed them so that what they once dreaded — whether going into battle or being branded USMC — became what they desired. But it was even tougher to be put in the desert and not given the chance to do what they have been trained for.

They are told to maintain a constant state of suspicious alertness. For months of nothingness, they shoot and throw grenades at nothing, then hydrate, tell a reporter they love to serve their country, wait for letters from home, and hydrate again. And on a bus, they see a Viet Nam war veteran, looking haggard and broken, and they wonder, if they do survive, whether that is how they will end up.

In its structure, this is the classic war memoir. There is the terrifying drill instructor and the almost-as-terrifying initiation ritual. There is a sensitive hero (he is reading The Stranger by Camus) thrown together with a diverse group of recruits by circumstance, getting on each other’s nerves but establishing the bonds of loyalty that are only forged in the direst human circumstances.

There is boredom. There is horror. There is loneliness. There is loss and betrayal. There is courage, loyalty, honor, and, finally, sometimes, understanding.

But in the traditional war movie, all of this comes through battle that replicates and reinforces the battle inside. In this movie, it almost is all inside. They say that the military always prepares for the last war. In this case, this platoon prepared for a war that made their skills obsolete. Echoes of Viet Nam are everywhere as the Marines joyfully sing along to Wagner while watching “Appocalypse Now” and later, listening to The Doors, ask plaintively whether this war will ever get its own music.

Mendes is a master of visual sumptuousness, from the nightmare landscapes of endless oil-soaked sand and charred bodies to the small confines of a testosterone- and liquor-soaked Christmas party in the tent. Brilliant performances by Jake Gyllanhaal as Swofford, Jamie Foxx as his sargeant, and Peter Sarsgaard and Lucas Black as fellow Marines make the characters vital and moving. He gets the chemistry of the frustrated all-male energy right. But the screenplay has some holes, especially about Sarsgaard’s character that make it, like Swofford’s deployment, unsatisfying.

Parents should know that as one might expect for a movie about Marines in wartime, this has constant obscene, profane, and vulgar language, extremely explicit sexual references and situations, and battle violence, including charred bodies, shooting, and scuffles and fights. A Marine is branded by his platoon. Characters drink and get drunk.

Families who see this movie should talk about what kind of training and equipment are required in order to make enlistees into effective soldiers. They may want to talk about family experiences in the military and what it is fair for people who choose not to serve to expect from those who do. How do the experiences of these characters reflect the changing nature of combat? What does it mean to burn the fat off our souls?

Families who enjoy this film will also enjoy Three Kings, Appocalypse Now (watched by the Marines in the film) and M*A*S*H. They may appreciate the deeply disturbing Full Metal Jacket. Families should also watch Gunner Palace, a documentary about the current conflict that is not pro-war or anti-war but pro-soldier. It allows them to tell their own stories in their own words. They should see Mr. Roberts, a WWII drama about those whose wartime responsibilities take them “from tedium to apathy and back again, with a side trip to monotony,” and The Red Badge of Courage, about a young civil war soldier’s fears that when the battle comes, he will not be able to muster the bravery necessary to demonstrate his value to those around him, more important to him, at least at the beginning of the story, than demonstrating it to himself.

Families will also appreciate Swofford’s book, Jarhead: A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles as well as other wartime memoirs and novels, from Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five to John Crawford’s The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell : An Accidental Soldier’s Account of the War in Iraq. For a General’s eye view of the Persian Gulf war, families can read Norman Schwartzkopf’s It Doesn’t Take a Hero. They can see Cooper and Gyllanhaal as father and son in October Sky.

Bee Season

Posted on November 1, 2005 at 1:58 pm

A-
Lowest Recommended Age: Mature High Schooler
Profanity: Brief strong language
Nudity/ Sex: Brief explicit sexual situation
Alcohol/ Drugs: None
Violence/ Scariness: Tense emotional scenes, mental illness
Diversity Issues: Religious differences a theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters: 2005

A little girl who thought she was the ordinary member of the family discovers a talent for spelling, in this thoughtful movie based on the best-seller by Myla Goldberg. But this is not a fictionalized version of the superb documentary Spellbound. It is a story about breaking apart, from the letters in a word to the connections and relationships we most rely on, and about the way we try to hold on, and, if we fail, to heal what is broken.

Images of breaking apart appear over and over again in the stories we tell. Yeats described it in his poem, “The Second Coming.” “Things fall apart,” he wrote. “The center cannot hold.” And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again. E.M. Forster said the most important rule was “only connect.” According to Jewish folklore, the world began with a great splintering when the divine light God poured into vessels shattered them. So it is the obligation of all people to put the pieces back together again. The duty is called “tikkun olam,” which means “to heal the world.”

The scholars within the Jewish community who take this command most literally are those who study Abraham Abulafia and kabbalah, from the Madonna-chic red bracelet-wearers who skim along the surface to the mystics who believe they can see the world in the patterns of its pieces.

In this story, Saul Nauman (Richard Gere) is a professor who studies kabbalah but has never achieved the transcendent ecstasy of those who have mastered it, especially Abraham Abulafia, the subject of his dissertation. He is devoted and affectionate, but not always sensitive or aware. Saul does not realize how narcisisstic his attentions are.

He does not see that his daughter Eliza (Flora Cross) feels left out and unimportant because of the attention Saul gives her brother Aaron (Max Minghella). He does not see that Aaron is seeking something to heal his own sense of being incomplete. He does not see that his wife Miriam (Juliette Binoche) feels both smothered and disconnected, that she is seeking something even she does not understand to help her make sense of her own perception of what is broken.

And he can never guess that these things will be revealed by Eliza’s simple but inexplicable gift for spelling. Somehow, she just seems to know how words break down into pieces. Saul becomes fascinated with this — can it be that she has found a way to tap into Abulafia’s ability to understand the way the patterns are where the whole universe is found?

Screenwriter Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal (mother of Maggie and Jake) creates a mosaic of her own, an assemblage out of small, shiny pieces: the family members and their various fears and dreams. Saul and Miriam see connections that do not exist while their children long for connections they wish they had.

The underrated Gere, not anyone’s first thought to play an observant Jew, is fine, in part because he makes no effort to “act Jewish.” He just acts like a man who does not recognize his self-involvement and who can only see his family as reflections of himself. Cross is solomnly lovely as Eliza, and when she looks out from the stage, visualizing the word she has to spell, we feel her sense of wonder, magic, and mastery.

This is an ambitious undertaking, and translating such an intensely metaphorical story to screen inevitably unbalances it so that it often looks like just another dysfunctional family story instead of a meditation on the nature of connection. It is uneven and ultimately, inevitably, unsuccessful in making that part of it work. But it raises the questions powerfully, and that is enough to begin that connection — that healing — it calls upon all of us to try for.

Parents should know that this movie includes brief strong language (two f-words), an explicit sexual situation and some implied nudity. There are tense and unhappy family confrontations and (spoiler alert) a character becomes mentally ill.

Families who see this movie should talk about why it was hard for the members of this family to talk to each other. They should also talk about tikkun olam and their own faith or value traditions of the responsibility for “repairing the world.”

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Spellbound, the wonderful documentary about the national Spelling Bee, and Searching for Bobby Fischer, based on the real-life story of chess champion Josh Waitzkin, and the impact his experience had on his family.

Families who want to know more about Abraham Abulafia and kabbalah will find many resources online. The national Spelling Bee website has information about participation and some great materials for spellers and anyone else interested in words.

Pride and Prejudice

Posted on October 28, 2005 at 5:34 am

A
Lowest Recommended Age: 4th - 6th Grades
Profanity: None
Nudity/ Sex: Reference to ruined reputation of girl who runs away with an officer without being married
Alcohol/ Drugs: None
Violence/ Scariness: None
Diversity Issues: Class issues
Date Released to Theaters: 2005

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the best romantic novel in the English language must perpetually be in need of a remake.

And it is equally true that movie adaptations of Pride and Prejudice face an odious dilemma. On the one side, there are the “Janeites,” those passionate Austen-ophiles who would prefer that her stories be read, preferably by candlelight, the better to appreciate every one of Austen’s exquisitely chosen words. For those fans, any new version has to compete with the previous filmed versions as well, mostly recently the acclaimed 1995 miniseries, which even the most ardent Jane-ites tolerate, partly because it had the space to include just about every detail from the book, and partly because Colin Firth was such an estimable Darcy.

On the other side are those who are allergic to “marriage plot” stories set in drawing rooms in the olden days. Discussions of who is asked to dance at which ball make them long for some nice alien or explosion to make things more exciting.

The good news is that this version will be satisfactory to both sides. Yes, there are heart-breaking omissions, as must be necessary in any 2-hour version. And no, there are no aliens or explosions. But it is a very faithful adaptation that bursts out of the drawing room into an outside world filled with mud and chickens — and passion.

Elizabeth Bennett (Kiera Knightly) is the second of five daughters. Her older sister Jane (Rosamund Pike), as sweet as she is pretty, always sees the best in everyone, is her closest confidante. But her foolish, tactless mother (Brenda Blethyn) and affectionate but disengaged father (Donald Southerland) don’t seem to realize that their two youngest daughters, Lydia (Jenna Malone) and Kitty (Carey Mulligan) are not just young and frivolous. They are dangerously silly, with no sense of propriety or honor. All they care about is going to parties with dashing officers in red coats.

The story begins with three important arrivals. The endlessly benign and highly eligible Mr. Bingley (Simon Woods) has taken a house near the Bennett home, and Mrs. Bennett is determined that he must marry one of her daughters. Mr. Bingley has brought with him his closest friend, the haughty Mr. Darcy (Matthew MacFadyen), a guy whose most inviting expression is his glower. And, shortly after, Mr. Bennett’s cousin arrives. He is the unctuously obsequious Mr. Collins (Tom Hollander), a clergyman on the estate of the very grand Lady Catherine de Bourg (Dame Judi Dench), and he never tires of talking about how very grand it and she are.

Mr. Collins is determined to marry, and his ever-aware-of-what-is-proper thought is that it should be one of the Bennett girls, as the estate’s entailment requires that he inherit the property after Mr. Bennett’s death. (It was common in that era for all real estate to be kept together and inherited by the closest male relative.)

All of this provides many opportunities for love and misunderstanding, for excruciating embarrassment and transcendent displays of honor and sensitivity, for marriage proposals declined and accepted, and of course for happily ever endings, even for those not entirely deserving of them.

Director Joe Wright makes the camera energetic, but never distracting, intimate, but never intrusive. He creates a sense of freshness and immediacy through movement and through a vivid, lively world not just in the drawing rooms and at the balls but with chickens and pigs in the dooryard and muddy skirt hems after long walks through the fields. The outdoor scenes are breathtaking and the settings, particularly the magnificent Pemberly, are as vital as the human characters. He changes a display of paintings in the book to a display of sculpture. The smooth white marble is wonderfully tactile. But Wright really takes our breath away with a stunningly masterful staging of a ball, combining the intricate dance and interlaced conversations in a three-dimensional roundelay of plot, character, and music.

Wright also gives us more of a sense of class differences than we usually see in Austen adaptations. The dress and comportment of the servants in the various households speak volumes. And the difference between the gowns worn by the Bennett girls and the sisters of Darcy and Bingley remind us that there you can be “upstairs” but quite a ways down from those who live at an even higher “upstairs.”

Those who were concerned that Kiera Knightly’s modern athleticism and overpowering teeth and jaw would make her a bad fit as Elizabeth will find they must confront their own prejudices, as she gives a lovely performance, an Elizabeth whose “fine eyes” show us the merry spirit that may get her into trouble but that also makes her irresistible to Darcy and to us. She and MacFadyen give us characters who may be proud and prejudiced but who are also alert, open, always observing and thinking.

Parents should know that, as in the book, the story involves a 16-year-old girl who runs away with an officer, bringing great shame to her family.

Families who see this movie should talk about what it was about Elizabeth and Darcy that at first made them so quick to judge each other and then overcome those prejudices. Why was Elizabeth so much better able to understand the motives and consequences of her family than her parents and sisters were? What is the best way for parents to teach values to their children? Who in this story is judged by his or her family, and when is that accurate? Families should talk about how it can seem like a compliment and an indicator of friendship to share uncomplimentary confidences about a third party, but it is more likely to be an indicator of poor judgment and possible manipulation.

Families may also wish to explore some of the rich array of scholarly essays on every aspect of this novel, from Marxist to proto-feminist to discussions of Austen’s descriptions of the natural world as metaphor for what is going on with her characters. Websites like this one provide some idea of the range of topics and perspectives that have been engaged by Austen’s work.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the book, as well as the many other outstanding adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels, including the justly-lauded miniseries with Colin Firth and the MGM version with Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson and a screenplay by Aldous Huxley, Gwyneth Paltrow’s version of Emma and Sense and Sensibility, with an Oscar-winning screenplay by Emma Thompson, who also stars, along with Hugh Grant, Kate Winslet, and Alan Rickman, Persuasion, and Mansfield Park. Films inspired by Austen’s novels include Clueless (Emma), Bridget Jones’s Diary (note that not only is the leading man named Darcy, he is played by the miniseries’ Darcy, Colin Firth), and Bride and Prejudice, a Bollywood adaptation by Bend it Like Beckham director Gurinder Chadha.

The Weather Man

Posted on October 25, 2005 at 7:05 pm

B
Lowest Recommended Age: Mature High Schooler
Profanity: Some very strong and crude language
Nudity/ Sex: Explicit sexual references and situations, including child molestation
Alcohol/ Drugs: Drinking, references to drug use by teenager
Violence/ Scariness: Fighting, sad death, arrows
Diversity Issues: None
Date Released to Theaters: 2005

In this movie, David Spritz (Nicolas Cage) pays tribute to his father, Robert (an immaculate performance by Michael Caine) by quoting a Bob Seger song. So I’ll begin my review with a quote from a Bob Dylan song: “You don’t need a weather man to know which way the wind is blowing.”

Spritz is the weather man for a Chicago television station. He stands in front of a green screen and points at cold fronts and snow flurries, making cheerful jokes and predicting each week’s “nipper” (coldest temperature).

People keep throwing things at him, mostly fast food. He’s been hit by a Super Big Gulp, by hot apple pie, by a shake. He feels like he lets everyone down. He does not know what to do. He’s a whether man. There’s a constant ticking sound in the score that could suggest a clock or it could suggest a time bomb.

His Pulitzer Prize-winning father is disappointed in him. His 12-year-old daughter Shelli (Gemmenne de la Pena) is unhappy and overweight. His 15-year-old son Mike (Nicholas Hoult of About a Boy) is getting counseling because he was caught with marijuana. His ex-wife(Hope Davis) has a boyfriend who seems to get along better with his kids than he does.

David is a man whose job is predicting what the wind will do, and that feels as far out of his control as the rest of his life. He keeps thinking that if he could just “knuckle down” he would find the right words to make everyone happy with him. Or maybe, if he could just get the job of being weather man for the network “Hello America” show, then everyone would be proud of him and everything would work out at last.

And then David’s father is diagnosed with terminal cancer, and all he can think of is how little time he has to show his father that he has not completely messed up.

Cage, Caine, and Davis are always worth watching and the movie conveys well the feelng of middle-age desperation, simultaneously failing your parents and children and finding that all the “somedays” of your youth are almost used up. But even the movie’s hopeful moments have a sour feeling. Can it possibly be that the movie wants us to think that buying new clothes or punching someone is the way to solve a problem — or likely to impress either parents or children?

David might shatter the ice on an archery target with a well-aimed arrow, but he never brings that sense of control or focus to the miserable problems around him. It’s disconcerting that he continues to be self-centered and superficial while the point of view of the movie seems to be that he has had some kind of breakthrough. He may have achieved acceptance; we have not.

Parents should know that this movie has very strong and crude langauge, brief nudity, illustration of the term “Cameltoe,” and sexual references, including oral sex, attempted seduction/molestation of a teenager, and pornography, and sexual situations. Characters drink. There is a sad death, a fistfight, and one character points a weapon at another.

Families who see this movie should talk about why David found it so hard to be the person he wanted to be and the person he thought his father and children and ex-wife wanted him to be. What was David good at? What did he need to do to be a better father? A better son?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Wonder Boys and Save the Tiger.