John Wick

Posted on October 23, 2014 at 5:44 pm

This is a movie directed by two stunt men, which means it is pretty much a first-person shooter video game projected onto a movie screen. But that also means that it is directed by people who really know stunts and the kills on screen (reportedly more than 80) are on display for maximum effect. It delivers exactly what it promises, with a couple of surprisingly sharp and witty touches that lift it above the usual bang bang. There aren’t many movies where the funniest line is the way a character says, “Oh.” And I loved the idea of a very high-end, very specialized safe house/hotel just for assassins. Of course the only currency accepted is gold coins. And of course there is a doctor on duty 24/7 to sew up wounds without any pesky questions.

Keanu Reeves plays the title character and we know from the beginning of the film that he is not having a good day. We see him very badly, maybe mortally wounded, lying out in the rain, watching a video of his wife on his phone. And then we go back a couple of days to see what got him there.

His wife (Bridget Moynahan) is dying. At the funeral, he has an cryptic and uneasy conversation with Marcus (Willem Dafoe), a former colleague. That night, alone in his beautiful but spare home, John accepts delivery of a package. It is an adorable puppy, a gift from his late wife, with a note telling him that “you still need something, someone to love.” She urges him, “now that I’ve found my peace, find yours.”

When he goes out to get food for the dog, he stops to fill up his vintage ’69 Mustang with gas. An arrogant, hot-headed young Russian thug (Alfie Allen) wants to buy the car, snarling that everything has its price. His handler/bodyguard apologizes courteously and they go their separate ways. But that night, when John is asleep, they break into his house, brutally attack him, kill his puppy, and steal the car.

But they have stolen from the wrong person. Before he left the business to live blissfully with his wife, John Wick was employed as a killer and he was very, very good at it. “He was the one you sent to kill the boogeyman,” Viggo, the crime kingpin (Michael Nyqvist) says grimly. He has reason to know, as he was John’s employer. Viggo once saw him kill three guys with a pencil. And Viggo has reason to be grim; the hothead who stole John’s car was Viggo’s own spoiled son.

John gets out his sledgehammer to break the concrete floor and get to the weapons and stash of gold coins he had hidden there. He suits up (bulletproof vest and impeccably tailored grey duds), and off he goes, dodging the attacks from Viggo’s goons and then from the open contract Viggo puts out on him for any hitman (or women) who is willing to take him on, mowing down everyone, and I mean everyone (well, everyone male) who gets in his way.

Reeves is well cast as the implacable, unstoppable John Wicks, and Nyqvist (“Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” and the Swedish “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” series) is outstanding as the wily Viggo. There are some nice darkly comic moments (trust me about that “Oh,” and a later reprise), but this is all about the stunts, and as pure adrenaline action fodder, this movie delivers the goods.

Parents should know that this film includes extremely graphic and intense violence with many characters (and a dog) injured and killed, disturbing images including spurting blood, wounds, stabbing, assault weapons, and explosives, strong language, smoking, drinking, drugs, skimpy clothes

Family discussion: Does everything have a price? Why did Viggo decide to make a deal? What did he mean when he said “this life follows you?”

If you like this, try: “Shoot ‘Em Up” and “Point Break”

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23 Blast

Posted on October 23, 2014 at 3:57 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for some teen drinking
Profanity:	Mild schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Teen drinking, drinking game
Violence/ Scariness:	Character becomes blind, scenes in hospital, sad offscreen death
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	October 24, 2014

23 Blast is the name of a football play, and “23 Blast” is based on the real story of Travis Freeman, a high school football star who lost his sight, but, with the help of a courageous coach and committed teammates, was able to keep playing.

The real hero of the movie is the coach, played by “Avatar” villain Stephen Lang, with a touch of dry with along with his determination and sense of honor. The film’s very first scene, with the coach working with a group of young boys as he learns he will be getting a job with the high school team, introduces us to him as a man of character who understands that the win that counts is the integrity and teamwork he instills in his players. And it introduces us to the tone of the film, honest, unvarnished, and real. You may think you know where a fact-based story about a blind player on a high school football team is going, but this film will surprise you.

That first scene also introduces us to the boys who will become the stars of the team, Travis (a very likeable Mark Hapka) and Jerry (Bram Hoover, as the bad boy with a good heart but a weak will). They are very different people. Travis plays by the rules. He is respectful, reliable, and grounded in his faith. Bram cannot resist a party, and as for rules, they are for ignoring or for breaking. But on the football field, they have a bond. Their passion for football, and their deep understanding of its options, demands, and strategies connects them. Travis is devoted to football because it is his nature to give himself fully to whatever he takes on. Bram is devoted to football because it is the only place where he feels at home.*

One night following a game, Travis becomes ill at a party. The next day he wakes up with severe swelling on his face. His parents take him to the hospital and the doctor tells them he needs immediate surgery. “You’re going to have to take the cross off,” the nurse says as he is wheeled into the operating room. He survives the surgery, but he is blind.

At first, Travis is devastated. He will not leave his room. He refuses to cooperate with the occupational therapist (a warm and spirited Becky Ann Baker). But a dream of a sermon seemingly directed to him and a visit from the coach opens up possibilities he thought were foreclosed. “I’m going to need you to step up,” the coach tells him. “The team needs a leader. Are you that guy?”

It seems impossible. How will he run, tackle, catch? The coach makes him the center and he has to learn a whole new set of skills. But learning that he can learn is revelatory. Some of his teammates are not on board. His ties with Jerry are tested by Jerry’s irresponsible and self-destructive behavior. But the coach understands that the most important thing he can teach these players is not the techniques or strategy but the meaning of being a part of something bigger than each of them.

This is quiet, even modest storytelling, with a surprising final punch, an inspirational tale that never becomes sugary or preachy.

Parents should know that this film includes teen drinking and a drinking game. A character becomes blind and there is a sad offscreen death.

Family discussion: What do we learn from Travis’ dream about the sermon directed at him? Why was Patty able to help him? Would you be willing to have a disabled player on your team?

If you like this, try: “Brian’s Song” and “Remember the Titans”

Fury

Posted on October 16, 2014 at 5:58 pm

History, Winston Churchill reminds us, is written by the victors. But sometimes those victors have some second thoughts, more complex thoughts, about the nature of heroism, patriotism, and the spoils (in both senses) of war. And sometimes people want to comment on contemporary conflicts but find that it is more compelling in an historical framework. That is how we get “Fury,” a fictional story set in the last days of WWII, with Brad Pitt as “Wardaddy” (everyone gets a “war name”), the leader of a tank team pushing through an increasingly desperate Germany.

“Fury” is what is painted on the gun barrel of the tank. Death, both German and Allied Forces, is everywhere. Our forces, we are told at the beginning, are “outgunned and out-armored,” with “staggering losses.”

The first person we see looks like a cowboy hero, a lone figure on a horse, silhouetted against the sun. He is not a cowboy and he is not a hero. He is about to be killed, and not in a Hollywood, glamorized, bang bang way.

“It will end, soon,” Wardaddy tells Norman (Logan Lerman), his fresh-faced and terrified new driver, a kid fresh from the typing pool who has never been in a tank or fired a gun in combat. “But before it does, a lot more people have to die.”

I’m in favor of movies that show war as brutal, morally compromised, and horrific. Ultimately, though, it has to have more to say than that. It is a movie, a work of drama, and if it is not going to be about something bigger than how terrible war is, it runs the risk of making the very horrors it depicts turn into entertainment and have exactly the opposite impact from the original intention. Steven Spielberg did it with “Saving Private Ryan,” making both the personal story of the individual characters and the larger story about sacrifice and honor compelling and meaningful.

But writer/director David Ayer, whose previous films included the pulpish law-and-order “SWAT,” “Sabotage,” and “End of Watch,” is no Spielberg (though this film borrows a lot from “Saving Private Ryan”). This film tells us very little about history, war, or the human experience.

Parents should know that this film includes very intense and graphic wartime violence with many characters injured and killed, executions, disturbing images, sexual assault, looting, constant very strong and crude language, drinking, smoking

Family discussion: How does this differ from other portrayals of WWII combat? What are the different ways the men in this movie cope with the moral compromises of war? Why did the men choose “war names” and what did they signify?

If you like this, try: WWII dramas “Saving Private Ryan” and “The Big Red One” and the Israeli film “Beaufort”

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Action/Adventure Drama War

The Book of Life

Posted on October 16, 2014 at 5:56 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for mild action, rude humor, some thematic elements and brief scary images
Profanity:	Some mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Themes of death and afterlife with some scary images of skeletons and desolation, peril including bull fights and snake bite, violence including sword fights and outlaws
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	October 17, 2014
Date Released to DVD:	January 26, 2015
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00Q599952

Copyright 2014 Twentieth Century Fox Animation

Jorge Gutierrez (Nickelodeon’s “El Tigre”) is co-writer and director of a dazzling new animated film that all but explodes off the screen in a kaleidoscope of color and energy and a love of life and storytelling and colorful characters and fantastic adventures. It is filled with the richness of love and passion and life and death and music and bullfighting and courage and family. It is a refreshing new aesthetic, inspired by Mexican folklore, with many of the characters looking as though they were carved from wood — not by trained experts and not recently. It has great songs and stunning images, covers of songs by artists from Elvis to Mumford and Sons, with a sweet new duet from Us the Duo. Plus, there is a sensational and wonderfully varied voice cast that includes Ice Cube (superbly funny and warm-hearted), Cheech Marin, Placido Domingo, and Anjelah Johnson-Reyes (“Bon Qui Qui”).

And it is very funny and a lot of fun.

Even the opening logo for 20th Century Fox has been transformed, letting us know right from the start that we are in another world, or maybe three of them.

A museum guide tells a school group the story, which begins with a wager. The afterlife has two parts: The Land of the Remembered, ruled by La Muerte (Kate del Castillo), where the newly dead are joyfully reunited with their families, and all is celebration, and The Land of the Forgotten, ruled by Xibalba (Ron Perlman of “Sons of Anarchy”), a bleak landscape where souls who are no longer cherished by the living are isolated and afraid. The two rulers make a bet over which of two boys will win the heart of the girl they both love. The winner will get to rule the Land of the Remembered.

The children grow up. Xibalba’s candidate is Joaquin (Channing Tatum), who has become a brave soldier with a chest full of medals. One he never lets anyone see was given to him by Xibalba, who is not above cheating to win the bet. It gives whoever carries it courage and invulnerability.

La Muerte is rooting for Manolo (Diego Luna), who is studying to be a bullfighter like his father and all the other men in their family, but whose real passion is for music. Both are still in love with Maria (Zoe Saldana), just returned from her studies in Spain. Maria’s father favors Joaquin, who can protect the town from the evil, predatory bandit Chacal (Dan Navarro). But Maria’s heart is touched by the romantic Manolo, even after his first attempt to serenade her turns into a disaster (hint: never let your companeros persuade you that the songs of either Biz Markie or Rod Stewart are romantic). When it looks like he will lose the bet, Xibalba cheats again, sending a poisonous snake to bite Maria and Manolo.

Manolo is killed, and finds himself in the Land of the Remembered, where he is happy to see his mother and many other relatives. But to get back to Maria, he will need to cross through the Land of the Forgotten. He meets the candle-maker (a warm and very funny Ice Cube) and a monstrous bull composed of all the bulls Manolo’s family has ever killed, makes a daring wager of his own before he gets back just in time for the arrival of Chacal.

It may seem thickly plotted at times, but that is all part of the Carnivale sensibility. And the cavalcade of incidents and characters, both living and dead, is reassuring in its matter-of-fact approach, reminding us that it is all a part of the book of life, and that we can never lose what or who we truly love.

Parents should know that this film includes Day of the Dead-inspired images with skeletons and afterlife settings, characters in peril and some violence, sad deaths of parents and grandparent (reunited in afterlife), some scary monsters and villains, brief potty humor and some mild language

Family discussion: How can you tell when you follow your parents’ advice and when to do what feels right to you? What is the best way to make sure we remember the people who are no longer with us?

If you like this, try: “The Princess and the Cobbler” and “Rio” and the documentary “Walt and El Groupo,” about the real-life trip Walt Disney and his animators took to South America and how it transformed the look of Disney animation.

St. Vincent

Posted on October 16, 2014 at 5:29 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 For mature thematic material including sexual content, alcohol and tobacco use, and for language
Profanity:	Very strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking, alcohol abuse
Violence/ Scariness:	Car accident, stroke, sad death, bullies, fighting
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	October 17, 2014

A crude, inconsiderate, bitter slacker — Bill Murray could play that in his sleep. And it would be pretty good. But he doesn’t. Bill Murray gives a beautiful, wise, complex performance as Vincent, an angry old man who drinks too much, smokes too much, gambles too much, pays a pregnant stripper for sex, and seems to get his only enjoyment from trying to make the rest of the world as miserable as he is.

Just as Vincent runs out of money, new neighbors move in next door. It is Maggie (Melissa McCarthy), a single mom, and her son Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher). Maggie, who just left her husband and is working double shifts to pay for Oliver’s private school, is so desperate she is willing to pay Vincent to be Oliver’s babysitter. He is completely inappropriate in every way, taking Oliver to the racetrack and a bar and introducing him to a “lady of the night,” pregnant Russian stripper (Naomi Watts as Daka). And yet, he is able to provide Oliver with support he does not get anywhere else, especially when it comes to dealing with the school bully (Dario Barosso). Vincent’s acerbic take on the world is a bracing change of pace from the chaos and sadness in Oliver’s family and the feeling of being an outsider he gets from being a Jew in a Catholic school, even one with a sympathetic priest for a teacher (Chris O’Dowd) and classmates that include a Buddhist and an atheist. Oliver is in many ways the only real adult in the story, wise and unflappable as the grown-ups around him fail him and each other.

Writer-director Ted Melfi spend the first half of the movie showing us the pressure Vincent is under and his inability to deal with it. He is overdrawn at the bank and he owes money to a bookie (Terrence Howard). His house and car are falling apart and he is, too. He is callous, selfish, and rude. But then we begin to learn that he is capable of great kindness and devotion. He makes regular visits to Sandy (an exquisite performance by Donna Mitchell). She is a beautiful woman with loss of memory who lives in an assisted living facility. He does her laundry and dons a white jacket and stethoscope because she is comfortable thinking he is a doctor. Clearly, he is much more to her, but she does not remember and he does not want to rattle her. He also has a large white cat and seems to be very fond of it.

Meanwhile, Maggie is under a lot of pressure, too. When she gets called into the school after Oliver uses his new lessons from Vincent to hit the bully in the nose, she dissolves into tears. And Oliver’s father is suing her for custody, made much more difficult when he gives the court evidence of Vincent’s poor judgment as a babysitter.

It all comes together a little too sweetly. Even the bully and the grouchy stripper get happy endings. Oliver, while beautifully played by Lieberher, is too good to be true. But Murray’s performance, especially as Vincent recovers from an illness, is never anything less than real, brave, and beautifully observed, and McCarthy, in a largely dramatic role, is outstanding as well. This is a promising debut from Melfi and a quiet little gem.

Parents should know that this film is the story of a man who subjects a child to inappropriate behavior and experiences. It includes very strong and crude language for a PG-13, a stripper and prostitute, an explicit sexual situation, a child exposed to drinking, gambling, and sex work, and a custody battle with references to infidelity.

Family discussion: Who would you pick as your “saint?” Why was Vincent so nice to Sandy and so mean to everyone else?

If you like this, try: “Little Miss Sunshine”

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Drama Movies -- format