Ghostbusters

Posted on July 14, 2016 at 5:20 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
Profanity:	Mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended fantasy/paranormal violence with some disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	July 15, 2016
Date Released to DVD:	October 10, 2016
Amazon.com ASIN:	B01I2FFGW6

I’m willing to believe them. I mean, sure, the original is a classic, mostly thanks to Bill Murray, Sigourney Weaver, and a new approach to action/paranormal comedy. But the reboot has the Mount Rushmore of movie comedy with SNL writer/cast members Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, and Kristen Wiig, plus America’s sweetheart Melissa McCarthy. That’s some serious comedy power there, and some serious dimples, too. It pays tribute to the original, opening with the Ray Parker, Jr. song and featuring cameos from original cast members Murray, Aykroyd, Hudson, Potts, and Weaver, and a couple of the original ghosts, too.

But it is very much its own take on the story, with a fresh script from director Paul Feig and Katie Dippold (“Parks and Recreation,” “The Heat”). There are tweaks on the original’s headquarters and car. And it has updated references — you know that if a New Yorker saw a ghost today, she’d whip out a selfie stick and Instagram it, and they pause for a burn on Reddit haters).

Like the original, it begins with scientists losing their jobs in academia because of their insistence on exploring the paranormal. Wiig plays Erin, a physicist who misses her chance at tenure when it is revealed that she once co-authored a book called Ghosts from Our Past — Both Literally and Figuratively. It was out of print, but the other author, her estranged friend Abby (McCarthy), has made it available on Amazon. Erin visits Abby’s lab and meets Jillian Holtzmann (McKinnon), a mad scientist type who literally plays with fire. When they are all fired, they start a company to investigate the paranormal and are soon joined by Patty (Jones), a subway worker who does not know much about science but has an extensive knowledge of New York city history. And they hire a receptionist named Kevin (“Thor’s” Chris Hemsworth) and get to work trying to capture a ghost so they can prove they are right.

Meanwhile, a nerdy guy is building a machine to unleash and intensify all of the spirits in the city, and so the women go from studying the ghosts to, yes, busting them, with a major confrontation in the midst of a metal concert with a group called “The Slimers” onstage and Ozzy Osbourne watching in the wings. The mayor (Andy Garcia) and his aide (Cecily Strong) thank the team privately but denounce them as frauds publicly to keep the city from panicking.

The final confrontation goes on a bit too long, which is probably why there is an obvious cut of what would have been a dance number (glimpsed in the credits and I hope added in full to the DVD extras). But the action scenes are strong and the comedy is first-rate, at its best achieving a deliriously loopy silliness that is refreshing in an era where gross-out, oh-no-they-didn’t jokes are considered wit.

Each of the four main characters is clearly having a blast showing what she does best, creating distinctive characters with very different styles but always working the chemistry between them with dialog that often feels improvised by actors trying to make each other laugh. It is refreshing to see a movie with four female leads who are professional, super-smart, and totally badass, kicking the butts of all the ghosts and demons and the Bechdel test as well. Their happily ever after is saving Manhattan not getting some guy to put a ring on it.

Newcomer-to the big screen McKinnon tears it up as a Doc Brown type with a wicked smile, a steampunk vibe, and a Faraday cage, swinging into a Glinda the Good Witch song and handing out weapons from a motion-activated proton glove to a Swiss army knife. “She’s doing a marvelous impression of a deflating balloon,” she says as one of her colleagues is being shot through the air. Jones, also in her first feature film lead role, is outstanding as Patty, who knows who she is and what she wants. McCarthy is adorable as always and has a lot of fun with a particular demon. And Hemsworth is flat-out hilarious as the incompetent Kevin. It’s funny, smart, and sweet and in every way as good or better than the original. Fanboys, have at it.

NOTE: Stay through the credits for glimpses of the excised dance scene and some other treats, and following the credits, a brief extra scene with some important information.

Parents should know that this film includes extended fantasy/horror peril and violence. Characters are killed (one off-screen, one suicide by electrocution), and there are some gruesome images and mild crude humor.

Family discussion: What’s your favorite ghost story? Which was the scariest ghost in the movie?

If you like this, try: the original “Ghostbusters,” “Monster House,” and “ParaNorman”

Trailer: Ghostbusters with Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones

Posted on March 9, 2016 at 8:00 am

Four of the funniest women in the world star in the “Ghostbusters” reboot.

Zoolander 2

Posted on February 11, 2016 at 5:22 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content, a scene of exaggerated violence, and brief strong language
Profanity:	Brief strong language, crude references
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Mostly comic peril and violence, characters injured and killed, some disturbing images, assault weapons, knives, explosions, building collapse
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	February 12, 2016
Date Released to DVD:	May 23, 2106
Amazon.com ASIN:	B018IDVB6W

Kind of like fashion itself, we don’t really care whether “Zoolander 2” is any good. We go because it is silly fun.

The original Zoolander, released in 2001 just after the attacks on 9/11, was based on shorts Ben Stiller created for the VH1 fashion awards. It was moderately successful on release but has become a big hit on DVD/Blu-ray and an enduring cultural touchstone. It’s the kind of movie that is best watched at home, with friends who know exactly where the punchlines and star cameos come in, or while sick in bed recovering from the flu when you’re not quite up for binge-watching something that requires more than half your attention.

I suspect the same will happen with this 15-years-later sequel, again directed by Stiller, who stars as the dimwitted supermodel of the title and co-wrote with Justin Theroux, Nicholas Stoller, and John Hamburg. The script relies heavily on the audience’s affection for and knowledge of the first, with more winking references to the original than attempts to be funny about the current state of fashion and the industry.

In the first film, Derek Zoolander plans to build a book-shaped center called The Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can’t Read Good and Who Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too. After that film ended, we are told through clips from television news shows (Katie Couric, Jane Pauley, and Jim Lehrer are among the first of an avalanche of what-is he/she-doing-in-this-movie celebrity cameos) that after it was built the building immediately collapsed, killing Zoolander’s wife (Stiller’s real-life spouse, Christine Taylor) and injuring Derek’s rival-turned BFF, Hansel (Owen Wilson).

Partly because he was so distraught, but mostly because he is an idiot, Derek was unable to take care of his son, Derek Jr., and he was taken away by Child Protective Services. Derek announced at a press conference that he was retiring from modeling to become “a hermit crab.” Hansel, his face scarred from his injury, also retreated from the world, to live in the desert (well, Malibu) with an 11-person assortment of consorts he refers to affectionately as his orgy.

But then a nefarious villain is killing pop stars, who die with what appears to be Derek’s famous Blue Steel look on their faces. When Justin Bieber is killed (with time for an Instagram filters joke), Interpol’s fashion division, led by a former swimsuit model (eternal beauty Penelope Cruz) decides that they need Derek’s help to solve the crime.

There’s a lot of fan service here, which can seem stale to those who know the first movie well. But as a lukewarm fan of the earlier film, I found myself being a lukewarm fan of this one, too. The dumb jokes (both those about being dumb and those that actually are dumb) and grotesqueries are no funnier but no less funny. The storyline (Will Derek be reunited with his son? Will Hansel be a father to his various upcoming babies? Will Will Ferrell’s Mugatu destroy whatever it is he is planning to destroy?) is weak, but it is a hoot to see the fashion dream team (even Anna Wintour!) playing themselves with such good humor. In fashion terms, it’s a cheap knock-off, but sometimes that’s all you need.

Parents should know that this film includes very strong content for a PG-13 including very crude sexual references and brief graphic sexual humor, mostly comic violence with characters injured and killed and some disturbing images, and brief strong language.

Family discussion: What are the most important messages we receive from the fashion industry? If they make a “Zoolander 3,” what celebrities would you like to see included?

If you like this, try: the first “Zoolander”

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Comedy Movies -- format Series/Sequel

Welcome to Me

Posted on April 30, 2015 at 5:15 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Adult
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for sexual content, some graphic nudity, language and brief drug use
Profanity:	Very strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, drug use
Violence/ Scariness:	Tense confrontations, brief violence
Diversity Issues:	Treatment of people with mental illness
Date Released to Theaters:	May 1, 2015

In “Welcome to Me,” Kristen Wiig plays Alice, a depressed woman diagnosed with borderline personality disorder who wins $86 million in the lottery. She uses much of it to create a one-woman television series that feature monologues about her life and re-enactments of some of her most traumatic moments. This is the most recent in a series of Wiig’s depressed/repressed roles in mostly indie films like “Girl Most Likely,” “The Skeleton Twins,” “Hateship Loveship,” and “Bridesmaids.” Even as the romantic interest in “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” she played a character so low-key she came across as diffident. No one is asking her to do a perky rom-com, but it would be nice to see her try something different.

Alice is off her meds. She makes inappropriate comments that make the people around her feel uncomfortable, although she has the support of her parents, her ex-husband and his new boyfriend, and her best friend Gina (Linda Cardellini). And she gets a lot of support from Oprah, via VHS tapes of her talk show, which Alice plays so often she knows them by heart. Oprah’s exhortation to find “something you were born to give,” to “figure out your calling and then begin to honor it” fascinates and inspires her, though probably not in the way Oprah had in mind. When she wins the lottery, she goes to a tiny television station that has been barely surviving on infomercials, run by two brothers, the three-times married on-air talent Gabe (Wes Bentley) and the behind-the scenes guy Rich (James Marsden). “I’m Rich,” he says. “No, I’m rich,” she replies.

Alice gives them $15 million to create a daily two-hour series for her to talk about herself. Oh, and she wants to enter on a swan boat. Soon there is a string of applicants for roles in her re-enactments of difficult and traumatic moments like the time someone took her make-up or the time Gina thought she did not look good in a bikini. Her comments are bizarre snippets of what she has absorbed from television mixed with more bizarre assertions and confessions, all delivered in near-monotone. “I have a prepared statement,” she says as though everything is a press conference, even to her family.

Is this one of those “crazy people are less crazy than normal people” movies? Or a comic but sympathetic portrayal of the challenges of mental illness? Or a satire of our media-saturated age? Despite excellent performances all around, especially Tim Robbins as Alice’s therapist, it does not succeed in any of those categories. The movie opens with a quote from Montaigne: “I study myself more than any other subject. That is my physics. That is my metaphysics.” But Montaigne drew insights about the human condition from that study, which neither Alice nor this film is able to manage.

Parents should know that this movie includes very strong language and explicit and crude sexual references and an explicit sexual situation.

Family discussion: If you could re-enact a moment from your life, what would you pick? If you had $86 million, what would you do with the money?

If you like this, try: “The Skeleton Twins” and “Girl Most Likely”

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Drama Independent Movies -- format

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Posted on December 24, 2013 at 6:00 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some crude comments, language and action violence
Profanity:	Some mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking and drunkenness
Violence/ Scariness:	Action-style peril, no one seriously hurt, references to sad parental death
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	December 25, 2013
Date Released to DVD:	April 15, 2014
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00H7KJTCG

We all know what it feels like to be Walter Mitty, imagining ourselves as achievers and darers far beyond our normal lives. The original short story by James Thurber is about a middle-aged, hen-pecked man who daydreams about dashing adventures as he is out running errands with his wife. In this version, directed and starring Ben Stiller, Walter runs the photo library for LIFE Magazine. (For you young people out there–this is not a metaphor. There actually was a photojournalism magazine called LIFE. From 1936-1972 it was kind of like a proto-version of Buzzfeed that came in the mail every week. Before television and the internet, it was our first chance to see what the rest of the world looked like, with gorgeous, indelible, iconic images of movie stars and ordinary people, world leaders, athletes, and military battles.)

Every day, Walter walks to work past enormous, blown-up images of LIFE covers and the magazine’s motto: “To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer,to find each other and to feel. That is the purpose of life.”

Like George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Walter once planned to see the world but family obligations kept him at home. Now, he spends his days as a “negative asset manager” cataloguing images taken by the dashing photojournalist Sean O’Connell (a rugged gem of a small performance from Sean Penn). While one is risking his life, the other takes no risks at all. He can barely bring himself to touch the computer key to “wink” at a woman on a dating website. When asked to fill in the “been there, done that” space on his profile, he realizes he has not been anywhere or done anything.

She isn’t a stranger. Cheryl (Kristin Wiig) has just come to work for LIFE. If he cannot work up the nerve to cyber-wink at her, you can bet he does not know how to begin to talk to her in real life. Walter might have stayed in his quiet, safe, lonely little world forever, living through his daydreams and half-living in reality. But there comes a time when real life intrudes on dreams.

Things are coming apart at LIFE and in life. The magazine has a new boss (nicely smarmy Tony Scott) who uses a lot of smug corporate-speak like “Some of you are non-vital.” Walter’s mother (Shirley MacLaine!) is moving into assisted living. And Sean sends in a roll of film with what he says is his best image ever, with a special note for Walter. But that image is missing. And to find it, Walter will have to discover how close he can get to being the daring, adventurous hero of his dreams.

As a director, Stiller is developing a more assured visual style and there are some bracingly robust images, befitting a story about LIFE photographs, the man who takes them and the man who sorts them, the man who goes places and the man who looks at the pictures of places. The only way to find Sean’s photo is to find Sean. He takes pictures in places so remote and exotic they are not reachable by text messages or Skype. That means a journey, physical and spiritual, through rocky, icy terrain and using every kind of transportation, including helicopter and boat.

The film is filled with lovely and surprising touches. The story unfolds organically. Like a video game hero, the items Walter gathers along the way turn out to be vital in keeping him on his journey. Along the way, Walter keeps checking in by phone with the tech support guy who was supposed to fix his online dating “wink” function, as though he does not realize how his life is transforming around him. I won’t give away the surprise by naming the actor on the other end of the phone; I’ll just say that he is ideal for the part. I liked seeing Walter drew Cheryl into his search very naturally, and how Walter was able to be shy but still very capable around her and around her young son. There are moments of true exhilaration and the end has an unexpected sweetness. If you’ve been daydreaming about a great film for the family to enjoy together over the holidays, take them on a journey to see this one at your local theater.

Parents should know that this film has some sexual humor, mild language, and action-style peril, reference to sad death of parent

Family discussion: Why was it hard for Walter to take risks? Which of his real-life adventures was the scariest?

If you like this, try: “Stranger than Fiction”