Drop Dead Diva: Season Two

Posted on May 13, 2011 at 8:03 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	NR
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Social drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Off-screen
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to DVD:	May 3, 2011
Amazon.com ASIN:	B002N5N4DA

“Drop Dead Diva’s” second season is out and it is even more fun than the first. The delightful Brooke Elliot plays a beautiful slender model whose spirit takes over the body of Jane, an overweight but very successful lawyer. Only her best friend (April Bowlby) and guardian angel (Ben Feldman) know who she really is. Every episode features clients with legal problems and Jane’s progress in getting used to her new life while trying to connect to the fiance from her old one. The second season features the “Devil Wears Prada”-with-a-twist story featuring one of my favorite young actors, Laura Breckenridge. Here are some glimpses of the show:

I have one copy of the DVD to give away. Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with your name and address. Put “Diva” in the subject line and tell me which episode is your favorite. I’ll pick a random winner a week from today. Good luck!

Thor

Posted on May 4, 2011 at 6:00 pm

The original Hammer is here. Thor, Norse god of thunder and lightning (and the source of the word “Thursday”), star of Marvel comics written by Stan Lee and his brother Larry Lieber and memorably illustrated by Jack Kirby, now joins his fellow Marvel superheros with his own movie franchise. Marvel pretty much has the big budget franchise assembly line working smoothly. While it does not hit the spot the way “Iron Man” did, it delivers on what it sets out to do, pleasing newcomers and fanboys as well. To say that the post-credit sequence glimpse of things to come is the best part of the film is just to say that this film meets its number one goal — to increase anticipation for next summer’s Avengers movie, where we will see the superhero all-stars working together.

Thor (Australian hunk Chris Hemsworth) is the son of Odin, King of the Gods (Anthony Hopkins in magisterial mode). In myth, Odin traded his eye for wisdom. In comic books, he lost it in battle with the Frost Giants, with whom they now have an uneasy truce. Thor has a brother named Loki. They are close, but competitive, and true to his stormy nature, Thor is impetuous and arrogant. A small incursion by the Frost Giants is squelched. Odin wants to leave it at that. Thor disobeys and takes the warriors from Asgard through a portal to fight the Frost Giants. They fight bravely, but they are overmatched, and barely rescued by Odin. Furious, Odin banishes Thor to earth, stripping him of his powers — and his mighty hammer. “That is pride and vanity talking,” he tells his son, “not leadership.”

A physicist named Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) as pretty as her name is plain, finds him as she is investigating some cosmic phenomena. As the government steps in to take over the investigation (“We’re the good guys.” “So are we.”) she begins to realize that he is more than human. And he begins to realize that the battles he left behind are following him to earth. “These are someone else’s constellations,” Jane says as she looks up at the sky.

This has all the ingredients for a superhero movie — director Kenneth Branagh (yes, that Kenneth Branagh) ably mixes the action and drama. He takes it seriously enough to satisfy the fanboys and slyly but respectfully tantalizes them with touches only they will understand — look for Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye alter ego Clint Barton and a shout-out to Tony Stark. But he makes it accessible to newcomers and adds in some humor, much of it provided by the refreshing Kat Dennings. Hemsworth has all the charm and brawn anyone could wish, and Tom Hiddleston as Loki is one of the best super-villains to hurtle through a vortex to take control of the universe. And the hammer really is extremely cool.

Stay to the very end of the credits for a glimpse of “The Avengers.” If it makes this movie feel like nothing more than a long coming attraction, it makes me glad that “Captain America” will be out soon.

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Jumping the Broom

Posted on May 4, 2011 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for some sexual content
Profanity:	Some mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Tense family confrontations, slap
Diversity Issues:	Race and class issues
Date Released to Theaters:	May 6, 2011
Date Released to DVD:	August 8, 2011
Amazon.com ASIN:	B003Y5H58S

Sabrina (Paula Patton) is from a wealthy, upper-class family with a mansion on Martha’s Vineyard. Jason (Laz Alonso) is from a blue-collar family in Brooklyn. They fall in love, he proposes, and there’s just one obstacle to their happily ever after ending — bringing those two families together for the wedding. When Shakespeare said that the course of true love never did run smooth, it might very well have been the culture clash that accompanies any joining of two families he was thinking of.

We meet Sabrina as she realizes she is about to take the walk of shame. It is the morning after what she thought of as a promising relationship but he thought of as a one-night stand. She decides to make a major change. If God will send her a true love, she will honor herself and that relationship by not having sex until they are married. And then she literally runs into Jason. They have to make a decision about their future together very quickly when she is transferred to China. He proposes, she accepts, and their perfect little bubble of love is intruded on by just about everyone. It’s hard to say which is worse, the family members who are trying to hide their feelings or the ones who are over-sharing.

Sabrina’s parents (Angela Bassett and Broadway star Brian Stokes Mitchell) are barely speaking to each other. She thinks he is having an affair and is hurt and angry. Jason’s mother (Loretta Devine) feels neglected and intimidated. As often happens at weddings, the happy couple reflects the strains of their family conflicts and has some of their own, as the “ever after” part of the deal sparks some panic. And, as often happens at weddings, a lot of the attendees are looking for love or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

Patton and Alonso are in every way the heart of the film. Patton is as effervescent and refreshing as a chilled glass of champagne and Alonso is endearingly open-hearted and gallant. While the script requires them to behave so inconsistently and immaturely at times that even by wedding craziness standards it is hard to reconcile, they are performers of such immeasurable grace and charm that we keep rooting for them. The script also throws a seasons worth of soapy complications their way, but director Salim Akil is skillful in balancing the drama and melodrama along with some romance and comedy as well. The situations and dialogue may be overdone but the characters always feel real, their poor behavior coming believably from fear and pain and not just the need for another confrontation. He stays well on the safe side of caricature but is not afraid to weigh into tough questions of race, class, faith, money, and identity — and to allow every side some dignity and grace.

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The Green Hornet

Posted on May 3, 2011 at 8:00 am

Anyone here remember Van Williams?

He was the star of the 1966-67 television series, “The Green Hornet.” But the only thing anyone remembers about the show today was the actor who played the title character’s martial arts and automotive expert sidekick, Kato: Bruce Lee. The tradition continues with this new film. Jay Chou (“Curse of the Golden Flower”) has the screen charisma, timing, and fight skills to make Kato watchable. That guy who plays the Hornet? Not so much.

In fact, the three things wrong with this movie are: Seth Rogen co-produced, Seth Rogen co-wrote, and Seth Rogen stars. Seth Rogen the co-producer and writer badly over-estimates the appeal of Rogen the performer. When called upon to play a clueless schlub, he can convey a certain shambling lack of pretension or artifice with some appeal. He was perfect as the brainless jello character in “Monsters vs. Aliens” and held his own fairly well as a secondary character in “Funny People,” “Superbad,” and “Knocked Up.” He may have some meta aspirations in casting himself as a self-indulgent and irresponsible playboy who decides to become a force for justice. But he doesn’t even make a persuasive dissolute. When he tries to do more, he loses all of the affection from the audience he ever mustered in playing guys who were better than they knew. Here is is so much less than his character believes to be and is supposed to be, he comes across as full of himself and egotistical; it’s as though his success in Hollywood and his hyphenate status have finally gone to his head. And even though he apparently recognizes his limited range by reducing the character arc to about an inch and a half; even after Britt decides to become a sort-of grown-up and a sort-of crime-fighter, Rogen the writer and Rogen the actor keep him pretty much an immature dope all the way through. It wears thin long before the movie is half over.

It also drags down the parts of the film that do work, especially Chou, whose precise, understated delivery is a nice counterpoint to Rogen’s messy stumbles. Michel Gondry (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Be Kind, Rewind”) has a gift for whimsy that adds visual interest. An impossibly souped-up supercar has an old-fashioned turntable for playing disarmingly retro LPs. He slices up the screen into segments resembling something between “The Thomas Crown Affair,” the opening credits of “The Brady Bunch,” and that Breck shampoo commercial about “and they they told two people and they told two people.” And he makes good use of the depth of 3D in the fight scenes. We get Kato-vision to see how he sizes up the opposition, with a clever variation later on. Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz (“Inglourious Basterds”) manages to make more of the villain than the script gives him and there’s a nice cameo from the ubiquitous James Franco (giving us time to think that he would make a great Hornet).

Rogen is falling into the Adam Sandler/Peter Pan trap, the endless boy-man, alternately wolfish toward and intimidated by girls (Cameron Diaz has the thankless role) and incapable of taking responsibility at home or at work. At one point, Kato literally puts him in a diaper. The only reason to give the audience such a mess is so we can have the fun of seeing him learn some lessons. But he never does. This is a hornet that’s all buzz, no sting.

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Hoodwinked Too: Hood vs. Evil

Posted on April 28, 2011 at 6:52 pm

The Weinstein Company may be nowhere near the gold standard set by Pixar in the imagination and technical ability of its animation, but it beats all ten of the champion’s justifiably lauded classics in one category. Pixar has yet to produce a single film with a female hero, while “Hoodwinked Too: Hood vs. Evil,” has two, both brave, strong, compassionate, loyal, smart, and independent.

As director Mike Disa wrote in The Huffington Post, female characters in animation – the human ones anyway – are nearly always focused on love and family. “How many animated films have you seen where the female lead is little more than a cliché object for the hero to impress in the last reel? Face it, if you want to be a strong female character in animation you are better off as a mouse.” He was determined to make a movie for girls and boys with female characters whose idea of happily ever after did not necessarily mean the perfect date.

The first “Hoodwinked” movie was a fresh and funny take on the tale of Red Riding Hood, with appealing characters and a clever script to make up for animation that tended to be static and pedestrian. We entered the story at the climax, with the woodsman breaking into Granny’s house just as Red realized it was a wolf wearing Granny’s nightie. As each of the characters explained what happened to a patient cop who happens to be a frog (elegantly voiced by David Ogden Stiers) we learned that everything we thought we knew about the story was wrong and any assumptions we had about the intentions and capabilities of the characters was entertainingly turned inside out and upside down. The wolf (with the impeccably wry voice of Patrick Warburton, “Seinfeld’s” Puddy) was merely a reporter trying to get a story. Granny (voice of Glenn Close) had a secret – she was an X-games champion. The burly, ax-wielding huntsman was a gentle soul who just wants to yodel. Red did not need to be rescued by anyone. And the real villain turned out to be the adorable little bunny named Boingo (voice of Andy Dick), who was trying to steal Granny’s recipes.

As the sequel begins, Red (voice of “Heroes’” Hayden Panettierre, replacing Anne Hathaway) has taken a leave of absence from working with the Wolf at a super high-tech law enforcement operation called HEA (for Happily Ever After). She is studying with the Sister Hood, a training camp high in the mountains with a combined program of martial arts and cooking.

Surveillance experts Bo Peep and her sheep, stationed at the control center’s bank of monitors, report that two children have been seen in the vicinity of a house made out of candy.

Wolf tries his best, but this time huffing and puffing won’t blow the door in. To rescue little Hansel (voice of Bill Hader) and Gretel (voice of Amy Poehler) and Red’s granny from a masked wicked witch named Verushka (voice of Joan Cusack), he needs some help.

Red has yet to learn the Sister Hood’s most carefully guarded secret, the missing ingredient in the magic truffle recipe. She still makes the mistake of getting distracted from her task by impetuous pride and impatient insistence on doing things herself. But those lessons will have to wait – or be learned on the job — as she races to the rescue.

Red and Wolf get the help of old friends: the frog cop (who mutters “Mammals!” when things get out of hand), Twitchy the over-caffeinated squirrel (voice of co-screenwriter Cory Edwards), a banjo-playing goat, the yodeling huntsman (voice of Martin Short), and even an old enemy – Boingo, now confined, Hannibal Lecter-style, in prison. Welcome new additions include Wayne Newton as a singing harp, Cheech and Chong as two of the three pigs, and David Alan Grier as Moss the Troll, who tries to keep Red from crossing his bridge.

The jokes come very fast, with a whirlwind of pop culture references from “Happy Days” to the Food Network, “Goodfellas,” blogging, and the Disney classic “Mickey and the Beanstalk.” There are some nice 3D swoops and drops, but the more vertiginous entertainment of the film is in the script as once again what we think we know about fairy tale heroines, villains, mean girls, old ladies, witches, and happy endings are deliciously turned upside down and inside out.

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Related Tags:

3D Animation Fantasy Series/Sequel