Weiner

Posted on May 26, 2016 at 5:17 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language and some sexual material
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Some alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Tense confrontations, family dysfunction
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	May 27, 2016

“The name of a man is a numbing blow from which he never recovers.” This quote from Marshall McLuhan opens the sharp and illuminating new documentary about former Congressman and failed New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, whose political career was derailed by a sexting scandal that unfortunately resonated all-too-perfectly with a last name that is a sometime-slang term for the part of the body he was sharing online. “I did the thing,” Weiner says in what we see is a characteristic mix of candor and denial. And the only thing harder to understand is how he thought he could do “the thing” without bringing down his political career is the willingness of his anguished wife, Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, to literally stand behind him.

And then there is the question of why they would agree to this very film, recording agonizingly painful moments, both public and private. Weiner agreed to allow access to his former staffer, Josh Kriegman and his co-writer/director Elyse Steinberg for what he clearly hoped would be a film about his comeback and instead documented yet another downfall.

Cue the montage of late-night hosts making jokes about scandal #1, when Weiner accidentally sent out what he meant to be a private tweet photo of his bulging underpants to the whole world, followed by archival footage of him insisting he would not resign from Congress, followed by his resignation.

And then, what he saw as his comeback. “To clean up the mess I had made by running for mayor was the straightest line to do it.” He does not want to “live in this defensive crouch.” And yet, he acknowledges, “I lied to them, I have a funny name, and they don’t do nuance.”

While some people resist the prospect of “a punchline as a mayor,” he was ahead in the polls, with a group of bright, dedicated, young staffers. We see Weiner at his best, reaching out to voters and contributors, marching in a parade, passionate about the issues. And then comes scandal #2, the one where he texted nude photos to a young escort known as “Sidney Leathers,” using the name “Carlos Danger.” The second-saddest image in the film is the stricken face of Weiner’s campaign communications director as she must ask him whether he plans to deny the latest round of allegations, struggling with the deep ickiness of the situation on the personal and professional levels.

This movie does not attempt to explain why Weiner would undertake such behavior when he had to be aware of the professional and reputational risks, or why his wife, who clearly hates any kind of public exposure, stays with him, even though, as she says at one point, it is a nightmare. But the superbly edited film, with extraordinary intimate access based on deep trust, has a lot of insights about celebrity culture, media, and what we expect from politicians. Inevitably, the story of the frog and the scorpion comes up. Why do we make decisions we know will doom us? Is it our nature? And who is the frog and who is the scorpion in American politics, media, and culture? This movie suggests that the American electorate may be both.

Parents should know that this film includes strong language, material concerning sex scandals, some brief graphic images, and crude references.

Family discussion: Would you vote for Anthony Weiner? How much should a candidate’s private life matter in considering his or her suitability for office?

If you like this, try: the political documentaries “A Perfect Candidate” and “The War Room”

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X-Men: Apocalypse

Posted on May 24, 2016 at 5:18 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence, action and destruction, brief strong language and some suggestive images
Profanity:	Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended comic book/action peril and violence, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	A metaphorical theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	May 27, 2016
Date Released to DVD:	October 3, 2016
Amazon.com ASIN:	B01G9AXWH2

We love superheroes, but most of the time what makes a superhero movie work is the supervillain. Just as the Avengers on the other side of the Marvel Universe move into X-Men territory by having the supes fight each other, with a villain in “Civil War” who is a mere human, with the most human of motives and goals rather than Loki’s “let’s blow up the universe and roast marshmallows on the flames” sort of threat, the X-Men, whose primary plotlines rest on the shifting loyalties of its mutant members, switches direction toward a more Loki-esque bad guy.

That would be the first mutant of all, going all the way back to ancient Egypt, where he was a god. He is resurrected, he is nearly omnipotent, and he is played by one of the most exciting actors in movies, Oscar Isaac. But there are three big problems with Apocalypse, and that means there are three big problems with the movie.

First, we never really understand that “nearly” part about his powers, and therefore we cannot judge the threat he poses in any given confrontation. Second, Isaac is a superb actor with deeply expressive eyes and voice. Yet he is put into a mask that conceals his eyes and given a double-tracked distortion of his voice. The big, hulking outfit also impairs the precise, distinctive physicality he has brought to roles as different as “Star Wars” ace Po Dameron, the title folk musician of “Inside Llewyn Davis,” and billionaire Nathan Bateman (“Ex Machina”). The power of his presence as a performer is all but muted just when we need a character to be terrifying.

Plus, we’ve seen ancient Egyptian super villains before. After the many versions of “The Mummy,” we need something more than he’s from the time of the pyramids plus chanting. But there is a very cool opening sequence that brings us through history to 1983, the pre-digital era when overhead projectors in classrooms represented cutting-edge technology. And Magneto seems to have found peace, in a small town, with a factory job, and a loving wife and daughter.

Of course, that can’t last. And soon he has experienced yet another devastating loss, and returns to his bad, furious, destructive self — until someone who is even more furious and destructive comes along.

When I say that this episode is a “Muppet Babies” take on the X-Men, I do not necessarily mean that in a bad way. Origin stories are intriguing, and the X-Men have always had an adolescent quality, with the onset of their mutant powers coming with puberty and acting as a heightened metaphor to examine the sense of uncertainty, anxiety, and isolation that comes with the physical and emotional changes that separate teenagers from their childhood. It is intriguing to see Scott (Tye Sheridan) rubbing his red eyes as he becomes Cyclops. But Sophie Turner does not have the screen presence of Famke Janssen as the young Jean Grey, in part because her telepathic gift is not as cinematically dynamic.

Quicksilver (Evan Peters) once again provides the high point, not just in a darker showpiece callback to the sensational Pentagon kitchen scene in the last film but in the film’s brief but most emotionally authentic scene, involving his relationship to Magneto. In a movie about mutants with superpowers, the best moment is human.

Parents should know that this film includes extended comic book-style action violence, with characters injured and killed and some disturbing images, skimpy costumes, and some strong language.

Family discussion: What is the biggest challenge in getting the X-Men to work together? Which powers would you like to have?

If you like this try: the other X-Men movies, especially “Days of Future Past”

The Angry Birds Movie

Posted on May 19, 2016 at 5:50 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for rude humor and action
Profanity:	Some schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Cartoon action-style peril and violence, no one hurt
Date Released to Theaters:	May 20, 2016
Date Released to DVD:	August 15, 2016
Amazon.com ASIN:	B01EK44M64

Like the wildly addictive Finnish app/game/toys that inspired it, the Angry Birds movie is colorful, with some silly humor and imaginative settings. And like the many, many attempts to make games into movies that have gone before it, this one has strong visuals, game talent, and yet never quite sustains itself as a story. It’s a rare movie for kids that endorses legitimate anger, but in these touchy times, it is peculiarly xenophobic.

Bird island is something of a flightless bird sanctuary, with no predators and a mostly happy, companionable community. Red (a perfectly cast Jason Sudeikis) is a bright red bird with Eugene Levy eyebrows, a tendency to defensiveness and snark, and a serious anger management problem.

Red is late to a “hatch-day” party he was supposed to work at as an entertainer. He insults the young bird’s parents and is accidentally standing in the wrong place when their new chick hatches, so that the baby imprints on Red instead of his parents. Red has an angry outburst leading to a court appearance presided over by Judge Peckinpah (Keegan-Michael Key), who sentences him to anger management classes conducted by the New Age-y Matilda (Maya Rudolph), where his classmates include the explosive Bomb (Danny McBride) and excitable Chuck (Josh Gad).

A ship arrives at Bird Island, carrying a cheerful pig named Leonard (Bill Hader), who oozes charm and promises friendship and merriment. He even puts on a show, in order to both pad and juice up the storyline.

Red is skeptical, but he is always skeptical. The other birds embrace their new friend, even after Red tells them Leonard has lied about coming alone. He has lied about his purpose, too. The pigs want the eggs. And…now the game part comes in: the birds need to get angry so they can get the eggs back. The whole part about foreigners/those different from us being evil and scary and wanting to eat our progeny, that’s pretty much glossed over as all in good fun, mingled with shout-outs to The Eagles (get it) and Rick Astley (because why not; it’s an easy laugh).

The birds have a possibly mythical leader, Mighty Eagle, the only bird on the island who can fly. Red, Bomb, and Chuck ascend to ME’s aerie and find that he is not as heroic as they hoped. If anyone is going to save the day, it will be the intrepid trio themselves. They have to find a way to get to the pigs’ island and get the eggs back.

It’s all bright and cheerful, but under-plotted and overproduced. Stunt-casting Oscar winner Sean Penn for a few grunts, throwing in pop songs and faux swearing to amuse the parents and bird poop humor to amuse the kids left me feeling a bit angry myself.

Parents should know that this film includes a lot of cartoon-style action and peril, with no serious injuries, some schoolyard language, and some bodily function/gross-out/crotch hit humor.

Family discussion: When is it helpful to be angry? How can you make the best use of anger?

If you like this, try: “The LEGO Movie”

The Nice Guys

Posted on May 19, 2016 at 5:38 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for violence, sexuality, nudity, language and brief drug use
Profanity:	Very strong, crude, and explicit language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking, drugs
Violence/ Scariness:	Extensive graphic violence, guns, explosions, fighting, falls, many characters injured and killed, grisly images
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	May 20, 2016
Date Released to DVD:	August 22, 2016
Amazon.com ASIN:	B01F5ZY596

Shane Black at his best lives in the sweet spot he pretty much mapped out himself in his 20’s when he wrote the screenplay for “Lethal Weapon.” He figured out that hard-boiled action could be both exciting and funny. His characters have no illusions and few scruples, but in the tradition of loner anti-heroes from westerns to films noir, they have their own set of ethics. They do not like authority and they do not always obey the rules but they will represent the interests of their clients against corruption and bullies.

Black’s mismatched and yet perfectly yin-yang characters have included a “too old for this” cop paired with a wild younger one in “Lethal Weapon,” a cop and a thief-turned-accidental-actor in “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” and now a small-time private detective and single dad named Holland March (Ryan Gosling) and a muscle-for-hire guy named Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe). Healy, hired by a pretty young woman named Amelia (Margaret Qualley) to dissuade the men who are looking for her, goes to March’s home to punch him in the nose and break his arm. “We’re going to play a game. Shut up unless you’re me.”

March has been hired by a woman who says that her niece, porn star Misty Mountains (Murielle Telio), reported killed in an automobile accident, is still alive. March was looking for Amelia because he thinks she may have information about Misty. Healy is almost clinical in his communication with March. “Give me your left arm,” he says, not unkindly. “When you’re talking to your doctor, tell him you have a spiral fracture.”

But soon Healy himself is visited by some tough guys who rough him up for being in touch with Amelia. They even kill his fish. So he goes back to March to ask him to help find Amelia, and that leads them into a pervasive, murky mess of corruption, betrayal, pornography, a wild party, the Detroit auto industry, and a hit-man named John Boy (a “Waltons” reference, played by Matt Bomer), with many excellent 1970’s songs on the soundtrack.

Black is a master of the deadpan wisecrack that nails the essence of character, setting, and story, and Crowe and Gosling deliver with snap and relish. “There’s whores and stuff here,” says March’s young daughter, played by the marvelously poised Angourie Rice as Holly, the closest thing the story has to a grown-up with a conscience.” March, the sometimes hapless father who loves her dearly, is quick with a paternal correction. “Don’t stay ‘and stuff.'”

The mix of wit, slapstick, and mayhem has some dead-on period detail and some shrewd commentary on contemporary issues. Gosling’s comic timing is pure pleasure, especially in a gem of a scene where he juggles a lit cigarette, a magazine, and a gun, with his pants down. Crowe is fine, too, especially in his interactions with Rice. With any luck, they’ll be back for as many sequels as “Lethal Weapon.”

Parents should know that this film features extensive violence including mayhem, auto accidents, and guns, characters injured and killed, grisly and disturbing images, nudity, very explicit sexual references including pornography, very strong and crude language, smoking, drinking, drugs, and much of this is witnessed by a child.

Family discussion: How would this story be different if it took place today? What was the point of the Nixon story?

If you like this, try: “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” from the same co-writer/director and “Get Shorty”

Money Monster

Posted on May 12, 2016 at 5:58 pm

Director Jodie Foster, in her most ambitious project so far, shows an impressive command of the language of film and a discerning eye for the gulf between the way we like to think of ourselves and the way we are in “Money Monster,” which begins promisingly but then pulls its punches with a disappointingly conventional last 40 minutes. It aims for “The Big Short” plus “Dog Day Afternoon,” but comes up just ahead of “Man on the Ledge.”

George Clooney plays Lee Gates, the host of a Jim Cramer-style television show about investing that is more dazzle than reporting. He dances with back-up girls, he amplifies his commentary with movie clips and outrageous stunts. Every episode has a stock buy recommendation “of the millennium,” and on this night he has to announce that one of his previous favorites, IBIS, has suffered a precipitous drop in the stock price due to a “glitch in its algorithm.” IBIS is one of those buzzword-y Wall Street darlings that no one really understands, but it has to do with a fully automated system for “high-frequency trading.”

Gates, a long-time enthusiast of the company, has invited the IBIS CEO (Dominic West as Walt Camby) to be a guest on the show, but the company’s director of communications, Diane Lester (Caitriona Balfe) is appearing instead, explaining that Camby is on an airplane and cannot be reached. Before her segment, though, a man named Kyle (Jack O’Connell of “Unbroken”) walks onto the set. He has a gun, and he takes Gates hostage, forcing him to wear a vest packed with explosives. He invested everything he had in IBIS, based on Gates’ glib assurances.

In the booth, speaking to Gates via earpiece, is his producer, Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts). As a producer, she is used to being the only grown-up in the room (and a little tired of having to be one). She quickly evaluates the situation and keeps things going moment to moment while she tries to figure out a way for the situation to end without anyone being hurt.

Foster skillfully takes us from the intensity of the hostage standoff on live television to show us what is going on with the police led by Captain Powell (Giancarlo Esposito), trying to find out more about the man with the gun and evaluating potential strategies for disarming him, and to the efforts to track down Camby both by Patty’s staff and by IBIS insiders. A couple of unexpected twists and some well-timed comic relief help hold our interest. And Clooney gives one of his most nuanced performances as a man who has spent a lot of time and burned a lot of bridges trying not to think too hard about the impact he has had on people. As both he and Patty use the skills that made them successful in the world of infotainment — and a few new skills, too — the natural chemistry between Clooney and Roberts and their combined star power keep the tension level high. But Kyle and Camby are under-written and the last 20 minutes are a disappointment with a resolution that is too easy and too Hollywood. We know who the monster is, here and we wish the movie knew it, too.

Parents should know that this film includes constant strong language, violence including gun, bomb, characters injured and killed, betrayal and illegal behavior, and sexual humor and situations, and drug use.

Family discussion: What makes Lee change his mind about Kyle? Would you take investing advice from Lee? What does it mean to say “we don’t do journalism?”

If you like this, try: “Dog Day Afternoon,” “John Q,” and “The Big Short”

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