Kubo and the Two Strings

Posted on August 18, 2016 at 8:00 am

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Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for thematic elements, scary images, action and peril
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Monsters, peril, sad offscreen deaths
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 19, 2016
Date Released to DVD:	November 20, 2016
Amazon.com ASIN:	B01KMKM4TW

LAIKA Studios’ fourth film, “Kubo and the Two Strings,” is a fable of exquisite beauty and meaning, gorgeously produced in the most painstaking of all forms of filmmaking, stop-motion animation. They are the modern-day equivalent of the monks who labored for years on each page of illuminated manuscripts.

Every detail in every frame and every element of the story, set in a magical version of ancient Japan, reflects the simple profundity of the ancient and contemporary Japanese art that inspired it. LAIKA’s last film, “The Boxtrolls,” was set in a cluttered, sooty, steampunkish imaginary Victorian London, and the studio’s motto was “no square corners, no straight lines.” This time it went in the opposite direction, with the muted palette and spare, carefully balanced settings of Japanese woodblock prints and the sharp lines and perfect corners of origami.

One of the hardest elements to get right in stop-motion is water, because it is impossible to control it frame to frame. In “Boxtrolls,” the studio’s greatest technical triumph was an elaborate set-up for a brief scene in which a character touched standing water and created some ripples. LAIKA loves to challenge itself, and so this film starts with a storm at sea. A woman we will learn is Kubo’s mother is desperately trying to stay upright on a tiny boat. We know she is escaping someone or something, but we are not sure yet what or who it is. And we do not learn until she is washed up on the shore, exhausted and hurt, that she is not alone. In her backpack, there is a baby. It is Kubo.

Like Harry Potter, Kubo had a father who died trying to protect him from a danger so great that Kubo bears a wound. One of his eyes is gone. Kubo’s mother survived, but she used all of her magic to save him and now she is frail, forgetful, and inconsolable.

When we next see them, he is about 11, and has been caring for her all his life. Each day, he makes her food and feeds her. And then he walks from their home in a cave on top of a cliff into the nearest town, where he tells stories in the market. He has the power to bring origami characters to life to act out thrilling tales of the great samurai warrior Hanzo. The townspeople love his stories, which always end with a cliffhanger, and they toss him coins.

The community has an annual Obon festival, where they light lanterns and remember the dead. Kubo wants to go, so he violates his mother’s rule about never being out after dark. And the danger she protected him from years ago comes after him in the form of his mother’s two spooky sisters, both voiced by Rooney Mara and both wearing implacable-expression white masks and terrifying swoopy capes made of black feathers.

Kubo’s mother has just enough magic left to save him one more time. And then she is gone, and Kubo finds himself on a journey, accompanied by the live version of the small monkey charm he always carried in his pocket. He and Monkey (Charlize Theron) set off to find the three pieces of Hanzo’s armor that he will need to fight the sisters and their father, who wants Kubo’s other eye. Along the way they meet a samurai who has been cursed and turned into a giant beetle (Matthew McConaughey). And they meet and fight three different monsters, a giant skeleton, an underwater garden of eyes, and an enormous, floating, reticulated moon serpent, each giving Kubo a chance to discover his courage and power.

This is a gorgeous, epic adventure with grandeur, scope, and spectacular settings, every bit of it wonderfully imaginative. It reflects LAIKA’s own adventurous spirit in taking on narrative and technical challenges as daunting as that faced by any hero. Who else would try to create a stop-motion battle under water? Or take on, in a family movie, a quest that encompasses themes of family, story, courage, loss, destiny, and meaning? LAIKA understands that the most enduring fairy tales are not afraid to deal with darkness because that is the only way to understand its true message, here delivered in a breathtaking conclusion, of tenderness and forgiveness.

Parents should know that this film includes fantasy-style peril and violence with monsters and magic, and sad deaths of parents.

Family discussion: Why did Kubo answer his grandfather’s questions the way he did? Why didn’t Monkey tell Kubo where she came from? Why did the two strings make a difference?

If you like this, try: “Coraline,” “Paranorman,” and “The Boxtrolls”

Little Men

Posted on August 13, 2016 at 5:35 pm

Writer/director Ira Sachs makes small, exquisitely observed, films that are cinematic chamber music. He does not follow the reliable movie formulas about how many minutes into the running time you introduce characters, the challenges those characters face, the small conflict, the big conflict, and the resolution. He does not exaggerate to let us know whose side we are on or even what we are hoping for. He just allows us for a little while to be a part of the lives of basically good-hearted people who, like good-hearted people in real life, mean well but cannot help hurting each other. At first, the stories may seem slight. Sometimes the most important developments happen off screen. But with increasing confidence and understanding, Sachs has provided us with some of the most reliably worthy movies for grown-ups, including “Love is Strange,” and now “Little Men.”

“Little Men,” perhaps a reference to the Louisa May Alcott book of the same name, is an inherent contradiction. In this film, at least two of the characters it refers to are at that moment of inherent contradiction, middle school. As it begins, Jake Jardine (Theo Taplitz) is home alone when he gets a phone call. His grandfather has died. Soon, Jake and his parents, an actor named Brian (Greg Kinnear) and a psychiatrist named Kathy (Jennifer Ehle) move to his grandfather’s Brooklyn brownstone, an apartment over a dress shop owned by Leonor (Paulina García), an immigrant from Chile, who lives nearby with her son, Tony (Michael Barbieri), who is Jake’s age. Leonor greats Jake and his family warmly, if a little warily. And the two boys hit it off immediately and quickly become good friends. All three parents (Tony’s parents are separated) support this friendship, even as their own relationship starts to fray. Jake’s father had not raised Leonor’s rent in many years, even though rates had gone up as the area gentrified. Brian, currently rehearsing Chekhov’s “The Seagull,” does not make much money as an actor, and he is painfully aware that the family depends on Kathy to pay the bills. So is she. Brian’s sister is also pushing him to raise the rent because she is co-owner of the property.

The Jardines’ relationship with Leonor is not quite businesses and not quite friendship. In a way, Brian is a “little man” himself. He knows Leonor cannot afford to pay more and has nowhere else to go. He wants to be a good guy and fair to everyone, and that makes him feel ineffectual.

Sachs and his co-writer, Mauricio Zacharias understand the intensity of middle-school friendships, even when the people involved have little in common beyond being the same age and not quite fitting in anywhere else. Jake is quiet, a loner, happy to stay in his room and draw all day. Tony is outgoing, confident, and ambitious. He wants to be an actor, not because it would be fun to be on television and be famous but because he is serious about acting. In the film’s most uninhibited and joyous scene (filmed in Barbieri’s real-life acting class), Tony and his acting teacher do an improvisation exercise that has them shouting and mirroring one another. And we also see the boys gliding together through Brooklyn on roller blades and scooter, the exhilaration of being young and finding your first real adventure.

And we see Leonor, Brian, and Kathy trying to find some common ground with increasing frustration and impatience. Each scene is a small gem, a particularly apt metaphor because each shows us a different facet, a different face. If at first it seems discursive because it does not follow the traditional beats of cinematic storytelling, we see as it unfolds that Sachs is very much in control. His films reward us with patient, layered storytelling that reveal how large, and large-hearted, a small story can be.

Parents should know that this film has a sad (offscreen) death, family stress, drinking, smoking, some strong language, and issues of income inequality.

Family discussion: Should the boys’ friendship be affected by their parents’ dispute? Who was right and why?

If you like this, try: “Love is Strange”

Related Tags:

Drama Family Issues Stories about Teens

Hell or High Water

Posted on August 11, 2016 at 5:40 pm

“Hell or High Water” is a modern western that reminds us why spare, dry landscapes have so often been the settings for grand American epics. Like frontier stories of ranchers, farmers, cowboys, Indians, masculinity, and bank robbers, this film has a gripping story that touches on the most profound American struggles — from guns to real estate, race, and income inequality — specific in detail but universal in scope.

One of the film’s wisest choices is in keeping important information from us until just the right moment, so I will be especially scrupulous about spoilers and keep the description of the plot to a minimum. There are four main characters, two bank robbers and two Texas Rangers. The bank robbers are Tanner (Ben Foster) and Toby (Chris Pine), and we can tell immediately that they seem less experienced than the staff at the small Texas Midland bank branch they are robbing, just before it opens on a dusty morning. Both bad news and good manners are so deeply ingrained in the bank manager that he courteously wishes them a good morning before turning over the small unmarked bills.

The Texas Rangers are about-to-retire Marcus (Jeff Bridges) and Alberto (Gil Birmingham), who is of both Native American and Mexican heritage, as Marcus constantly reminds him with a stream of amiably delivered insults. As Tanner and Toby continue to rob banks, always Texas Midland branches, Marcus begins to discover a pattern that begins to reveal a plan.

The characters are skillfully drawn and performed with a deep and understanding humanity, not just by the four lead actors but by everyone in the cast. Every performance in even the smallest role conveys an arid and dusty world, physically, financially, and emotionally. Standouts include Katy Mixon as a waitress, Richard Christie as a bank loan officer, and Dale Dickey as the woman who opens the bank in the morning.

The outstanding screenplay is written by Texan Taylor Sheridan (“Sicario,” “Guns of Anarchy”), who knows these people and these places. He has a gift for finding the poetry in dialog as dry and spare as the setting. And he has the confidence in himself, his characters, and his audience to let the story unfold without telling us too much at first, and to present complex issues without feeling that he has to provide simple answers. Sheridan also has a gift for the small, telling details, the bank manager who courteously wishes the bank robbers good morning, the Indian casino, the ex-wife, the way some men say more in the pauses than the words. His deep appreciation for people overlooked by just about everyone makes this cops and robbers story into something real and meaningful.

Parents should know that this film has extended crime and law enforcement-related violence, with characters injured and killed, themes of moral and legal crimes, drinking, smoking, sexual references, prostitute, and a brief explicit sexual situation.

Family discussion: Why does the movie keep some of the details of the plan secret for so long? Why does Marcus insult Alberto? Why does Tanner say he is a Comanche?

If you like this, try: “99 Homes” and “The Newton Boys”

Related Tags:

Crime Drama Western

Equity

Posted on August 11, 2016 at 5:37 pm

“Equity” is a razor-sharp financial thriller about people who are themselves razor sharp. Their battlefields are boardrooms and trading floors but the stakes are high and the rules are just a starting point. There has been some understandable buzz about the background of the film, the first major national release to be entirely made by and about women. But this is in no way a stunt. It is a way to explore the way that the movie’s characters experience the ultra-testosteronic world of Wall Street, and, as we watch them, to explore our own assumptions and biases as well.

Anna Gunn (“Breaking Bad”) plays Naomi Bishop, an ambitious, even ruthless investment banker who knows she has to be twice as smart and work twice as hard in the ultra-competitive world of high finance. Her job is to persuade highly successful privately held firms to let her take them public by being listed on the stock exchange, which means huge fees for her company. That involves a lot of tricky arithmetic to come up with a valuation on the stock they will be selling that is high enough to entice the owners of the private company to agree to the deal, but low enough that the stock will gain in value as soon as the deal goes through. It also involves a lot of tricky diplomacy, stroking and soothing the egos of the clients, who are being courted by every firm on Wall Street.

Naomi appears on a panel before a group of young woman and is very frank about her priorities. When she is asked, “What’s that thing that makes you want to get up in the morning?” she says, “I like money.” She also says that she thinks the time has finally come when it is permissible to say so. On that, she could be wrong, especially from a woman.

Naomi wants and believes she deserves a promotion. But she has just made the first mistake of her career, mismanaging an important deal. It may be that a it would not be as serious a setback for a male in her position. Or it could be that her anxiety about the mistake has clouded her judgment about the best time to push for the promotion. But she needs a win badly. She has an equally ambitious deputy named Erin (producer and co-story writer Sarah Megan Thomas), who is pregnant. This triggers in Naomi, who is unmarried and childless, all of the conflicts we can imagine, though the screenplay is too smart to spell it out too explicitly. Can Erin make the kind of commitment the job needs and, just as important, how can she persuade the client that she will? Both Naomi and Erin know they have to come across to their colleagues, bosses, and clients as confident but not arrogant, dedicated but not reckless.

There is another ambitious woman, Samantha (producer and co-story writer Alysia Reiner), a classmate of Naomi’s, now a prosecutor who is looking for her own big win. At big financial companies, there is a “Chinese Wall” division between the investment bankers like Naomi and people who buy and sell stock, like hedge fund managers. It is illegal and absolutely forbidden for them to exchange “insider” information about deals and there are many rules and structures to make sure that they do not. Could that be why one of those hedge fund managers is romancing Naomi?

The story is taut and engrossing, fraught with moral hazard that would be just as compelling outside of high finance, in a factory or a university, but benefits from the high stakes and provocative details — and from a fresh perspective that adds dramatic heft and makes it clear how much we can learn from letting women tell their own stories.

Parents should know that this film includes very strong language, some sexual references, drinking, smoking, and criminal behavior.

Family discussion: What gets you out of bed in the morning? Would you want to work with Naomi? How would the character’s situation be different if she was a man?

If you like this, try: “Margin Call”

Related Tags:

Drama Gender and Diversity

Florence Foster Jenkins

Posted on August 11, 2016 at 5:29 pm

The charm of the popular “Lip Synch Battle” series is the way that the contestants, all very talented and successful performers, transcend the limits of race and gender — and other limits, too, like vocal range. In her way, real-life heiress Florence Foster Jenkins was doing the same thing a century ago. Her dedication to music was monumental. So was her lack of talent. But she lived a blissful life with a devoted husband, staging elaborate tableaux and concerts. Like the emperor with the non-existent and therefore invisible new clothes, she was surrounded by people who never told her that her singing was a disaster in every category, from hitting the right note to staying in any single key from measure to measure.

In the second film of 2016 based on the life of Ms. Jenkins, Meryl Streep gives (of course) a performance of exquisite humanity and precision. (Earlier this year, the French film, “Marguerite,” was also inspired by Jenkins.) You have to know how to sing well (see “Mamma Mia,” “Postcards from the Edge,” and “Ricki and the Flash”) to sing this badly and you have to be an actor of sublime perfection to make terrible singing funny and brave and poignant. Hugh Grant is also superb as the magnificently named St. Clair Bayfield, Jenkins’ consort, a failed Shakespearean actor who shares Jenkins’ passion for performance and almost envies her complete freedom from self-awareness.

There are lovely performances from Nina Arianda as a brassy showgirl who married a wealthy man, Rebecca Ferguson (“Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation”) as Bayfield’s girlfriend, and “Big Bang Theory’s” Simon Helberg as Jenkins’ long-suffering accompanist, the equally magnificently named Cosmé McMoon. Jenkins is the ultimate exemplar of the Dunning-Kruger syndrome: those who are least able are also worst at assessing their own ability. The fun of this film, far more than laughing smugly at Jenkins’ cluelessness, is the fantasy of having endless resources to create our own fantasies of stardom.

Parents should know that this film includes drinking, smoking, sexual references and non-explicit situation, and a sad death.

Family discussion: Was St. Clair right to hide the truth from Florence? What do we learn from her visit to Cosme?

If you like this, try: The documentary “Florence Foster Jenkins: A World Of Her Own”