Bears

Posted on April 17, 2014 at 6:00 pm

This year’s Disney Nature release for Earth Day is “Bears,” the story of an Alaskan bear named Sky and her twin cubs, Scout and Amber, their trek from the den where they’ve hibernated all winter to a place where they can find enough food to sustain themselves through the summer and the next year’s hibernation. John C. Reilly is the genial narrator in a highly relatable story that has adventure, humor, peril, discovery, and some very powerful maternal love. There’s a reason that we call our toughest human mothers mama bears.

As in the previous entries in this series, the footage is stunning, both the breathtaking grand vistas of snow and mountains in the five million acre national parkland on the Alaskan peninsula to the tiny faces of the brand-new cubs. And it is filled with “how did they get that” moments, with no indication until the final credit sequence of any human presence. The water sequences are especially thrilling.

The narration is less intrusively anthropomorphic than some of the previous entries in this series. While there are many dangers and some animal battles and predators, it is also less sad and scary than African Cats. Parents of younger children should know that it appears at one moment that one of the cubs has been killed, but it turns out that he is fine.

Sky and her tiny cubs wake up in the den she prepared for giving birth and dozing through the winter. She is depleted and the tiny cubs are not quite ready for the week-long trek through the snow to find a place where the salmon are running, and Sky can have access to the 90 pounds of protein a day she will need to survive the next hibernation. The trio face many threats. They reach a pack of other bears (the cubs’ are very excited to find others of their species), but Magnus, the over-1000 pound alpha male, is capable of eating the cubs if no other food is available. An outcast from the pack is also after them. The hunt for salmon takes them to the shore, where there are clams to eat, but it is also dangerous when the tide comes in.

The devotion and persistence of these animals is a powerful reminder that family connections link all species. With this peek into their world, we are more aware of our own.

Parents should know that this movie includes some peril and animal fighting. It appears at one point that one of the main characters has been killed but he turns out to be fine.

Family discussion: Why was Chinook an outcast? How does Sky teach the cubs what they need to know? Who is your role model and why is it important to have one? How would the story be different if it was from the point of view of one of the other animals or the salmon?

If you like this, try: “Chimpanzee” and “African Cats”

Related Tags:

Animals and Nature Documentary

Wreck-It Ralph

Posted on November 1, 2012 at 6:00 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some rude humor and mild action/violence
Profanity:	Some schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Cartoon-style action violence and peril, guns, explosions
Diversity Issues:	Strong female and disabled character
Date Released to Theaters:	November 2, 2012
Date Released to DVD:	March 4, 2013
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00A7OIXW6

No one wants to be the bad guy anymore. In “Despicable Me,” Gru’s delightfully dastardly plans were no match for the overpowering adorableness of three little girls. “Megamind” found that being the bad guy was no fun after he vanquished the hero. Even the sharks in “Finding Nemo” became vegetarians, with support group meetings to chant, “Fish are friends, not food.”

And now there’s Ralph (John C. Reilly), having something of an existential crisis. Back in the 80’s era of arcade video games, before people had home computers and game stations and televisions that were part computer and part game station to play on, if you wanted to play a game you had to go to an arcade and get a roll of quarters. The primitive 8-bit games had a charm of their own, in part from the novelty of games on a screen instead of being based on mechanical balls and levers, and in part because their very simplicity left a lot of room for the player to fill in the details from his or her own imagination. The brilliant documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters explains that in some ways these older games still provide more of a challenge — they continue to fascinate competitive players.

This is a marvelous environment for a story, whether you grew up with these games and recognize the in-jokes or haven’t played a game since Pong and Tetris, even those who do not know a Wii from a Playstation. Wreck-It Ralph is so persuasively authentic it seems to be entirely at home with what has been referred to as “the Roger Rabbit of video games.” Ralph keeps knocking down the building inhabited by the Webelo-like residents of Niceville, and the relentlessly cheerful Fixit Felix, Jr. (“30 Rock’s” Jack McBrayer), with the help of the quarter-loading player, rebuilds so fast that Ralph gets thrown off the roof of the building and everyone in Niceville has a party. Ralph doesn’t break things to be mean. It’s just his job. It’s in his code. He feels that he is as much a part of the game as Frank and the building inhabitants. Ralph shares his conflicts with an adorable villain support group (love the zombie with axes attached to his hands). But he wants more.

Ralph is just lonely. He wants to go to the party. He wants to make friends. He wants people to like him. But just as he is coded to break things, the Niceville residents are coded to be scared of him. Just to get rid of him, one of them tells him that if he can win a hero’s medal, he can be their friend. So Ralph leaves his game to find a place where he can be a hero.

Ralph visits an intense and violent military game called Hero’s Duty with a tough female commanding officer named Calhoun (Jane Lynch). She is “programmed with the most tragic backstory ever” and probably inspired by video game voice star Jennifer Hale, the combination Meryl Streep and Angelina Jolie of the video game world. Everything seems to go according to plan until he somehow ends up in Sugar Rush, a game for children that looks like NASCAR if it was designed by Katy Perry. Adorable little children race cars made out of candy and cookies.

Maybe not so adorable. Just as Ralph is not so bad, the cute little kids of Sugar Rush are not so sweet. He is annoyed by Vanellope (Sara Silverman), a bratty little girl, but then joins forces with her to help her build a race car. And then he meets the “heroes” of Sugar Rush and finds that the line between good guy and bad guy is not what he thought it was.

The witty and vibrant worlds are gorgeously imagined (and of course now available in game form themselves), with a satisfying balance of heart and humor. The story nimbly mixes existential questions of identity, purpose, and destiny with a sweet friendship and knowing humor about the world of games and gamers and even some Joseph Schumpeter-style creative destruction. I loved the Mentos jokes and the detour to the car-building site. And I loved the constant playing with almost Pirandello-esque notions of the way we create our worlds and the assumptions that underly them.

Parents should know that this movie includes video game violence with guns and explosions, some mildly disturbing images, characters in peril, and some potty humor.

Family discussion: How do you know what is “in your code” and what you can change? Can a bad guy become a hero? What did Ralph learn from Vanellope? Why did Vanellope love her car?

If you like this, try: Two more movies with bad guy-good guys, “Despicable Me” and “Megamind,” as well as “King of Kong,” the brilliant documentary about a video game competition.

Carnage

Posted on January 12, 2012 at 6:23 pm

Some boys are arguing in a park but we are too far away to hear what it is about. One of them whacks another in the face with a stick.

And then we are in a spacious apartment as the parents of the two boys are at the computer, finishing up a joint statement about what happened. The parents of the boy with the stick are Nancy and Alan Cowan (Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz), who have come to the home of the boy who was hit, Penelope and Michael Longstreet (Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly) for a civilized conversation about what happened. Everyone is polite, even gracious. The Longstreets have decorated for guests with a vase of tulips and offer homemade cobbler. The Cowans compliment their hosts. There ar social smiles and reassuring comments all around. The Cowans walk toward the elevator to go home.

And then — they don’t whack each other in the face with sticks. It’s much worse than that.

Based on the Tony award-winning play by French playwright Yasmina Reza and scripted by Reza and director Roman Polanski, this is a sly and ultimately devastating story about the thin veneer of civilization and its uneasy co-existence with the savage spirit within us all. If things had gone well, the Cowans might have made it to the elevator and as soon as its doors closed both couples would have immediately started talking about how impossible the other couple was and how superior their own child was. But the Cowans just can not let that last statement go, so they march back into the Longstreets’ apartment to begin to attack, first with thinly veiled digs, then with stark, direct statements, then with insults, then with chaos.

This is not just about the social hypocrisy of privileged New Yorkers. The play was originally French and the director is originally Polish and famously living outside the United States to avoid imprisonment for statutory rape. Its treatment of its characters is as brutal as their treatment of each other. Every shred of pretense is stripped away — the pretense of a loving relationship, of being good parents, of concern for the injured child, of concern for each other and for the world at large. Everything politely overlooked in the first half hour (Alan’s constant interruptions to answer his cell phone to defend a drug in litigation over the adverse side effects, a cherished item, the tulips, the merits of the cobbler) comes back up (literally and graphically, in the case of the cobbler). The Longstreets bring out the hard liquor and cigars and alliances shift from couples-based to gender-based to everyone for his and her self. Reza makes it about more than the fatuous insularity of upper-class New Yorkers but does not go overboard. When Michael trashes Penelope’s concern for the deprivations and injustice in Africa, both are portrayed as insular and unhelpful. And a hopeful note in a coda shows her to be gentler with her characters than they are with each other.

(more…)

Related Tags:

Based on a play Comedy Drama

Cedar Rapids

Posted on February 10, 2011 at 6:00 pm

The day after they invented cities, they invented stories about what happens when country bumpkins arrive in them. The adventures of the innocent in the big, bad metropolis have been popular for centuries. In part that is because of that satisfying moment when the fool from the country ends up outsmarting the sophisticates from the city, the ones who think he is an easy mark. First, though, he has to identify which ones they are. And then he has to identify who he is, and recognize his own strength.

Tim Lippe (“The Office’s” Ed Helms) has spent his life in a tiny Wisconsin town, and almost all of his life working in the small local office of an insurance company. He started working there at age 16. He does not even let himself dream of the success and cosmopolitan elan of Roger Lemke (Thomas Lennon), the office star, who always brings home the coveted Two Diamond top award from the trade association’s annual meeting; he just sincerely wishes him well. But then Roger dies suddenly, and Tim has to take his place at the convention. The boss (Stephen Root) has no time to give him any instruction except to keep away from Dean Zeigler (John C. Reilly), a client poacher, and to win that Two Diamond award at any cost.

Tim takes off for Cedar Rapids, Iowa, after carefully laminating all of his maps. It is only slightly less daunting and terrifying and utterly strange from him than a visit to Mars. He has never been on an airplane. And when a friendly young woman at the hotel doorway (Alia Shawkat of “Arrested Development”) asks him if he’d like to party, he assumes that it’s just the way they welcome people in the big city.

Surprise number one is that the black man in his hotel room is not a criminal, but his roommate, Ronald Wilkes (“The Wire’s” Isiah Whitlock Jr.), a very proper, buttoned-down insurance agent. Surprise number two is that there is a third roommate, none other than the decidedly unbuttoned Zeigler, a loud, hard-drinking, dirty joke-telling cynic and instigator of trouble. With Joan Ostrowski-Fox (Anne Heche), a very pretty agent from Nebraska who is intent on living it up while she’s away from home, Tim starts to learn some important lessons about his ability to say yes and his ability to say no. And his ability to figure out which is required in a wide variety of unprecedented, unexpected, and highly anxiety-producing circumstances.

As we saw with Helms in “The Hangover,” it is always a lot of fun to see a guy who is tightly wrapped let go — and then to get to see him deal with the consequences. The boss tells Tim that he once thought, “Here’s a kid who’s going to go places,” but then he never did. He goes places and then some in this story. Most of us spend a good bit of time coping with “impostor syndrome, worried that everyone will catch on to our inadequacy. There are a lot of moments of awkwardness and insecurity, but it is heartening to see Tim begin to learn that there is not as big a gulf between him and other people as he thought, even people of exalted rank, and to see him apply what he has learned to get a better understanding of what he thought he knew about the people back home. It benefits from a strong structure, astute depiction of the inevitable corny humor and cheesy networking activities of business gatherings, gutsy performances, and genuine affection for its characters. You will even have a whole new appreciation for insurance. Really. (more…)

Related Tags:

Comedy

John C. Reilly Talks About ‘Cyrus’

Posted on June 18, 2010 at 1:17 pm

John C. Reilly is one of the most versatile actors working today. He has appeared in outrageous comedies (“Step Brothers,” “Walk Hard”), dramas (“Magnolia,” “The Aviator”), and even a musical — he was nominated for an Oscar for “Chicago.” He has worked with Martin Scorsese, Renee Zellwegger, and Will Ferrell. And this week, he stars in “Cyrus” as a man who finds his romantic life complicated by the title character. Cyrus is the adult son (Jonah Hill) of the woman his character is dating (Marisa Tomei). He still lives with his mother and has no interest in sharing her. I spoke to Reilly about working with the Duplass brothers, independent filmmakers who work in a genre sometimes described as “mumblecore,” small, improvised, films about authentically awkward moments without the usual easy, predictable resolutions in studio productions.

Related Tags:

Actors Interview