Tracks

Posted on September 25, 2014 at 6:00 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, some partial nudity, disturbing images and brief strong language
Profanity:	Some strong language, one F-word
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Animals and humans in peril, sad animal death, references to suicide
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	September 26, 2014

In 1977, a 27-year-old woman named Robyn Davidson took a dog and four camels and walked 1700 miles across the Australian desert. A National Geographic photographer met up with her four times to cover it for the magazine. That led to a book, the international best-seller Tracks. And now it is a film, starring Mia Wasikowska, with Adam Driver as photographer Rick Smolan, and directed by John Curran, whose previous films (“The Painted Veil,” “We Don’t Live Here Anymore”) show a gift for letting the environment be an essential part of the story-telling. The result is a journey set in surroundings of punishing conditions but spectacular beauty that manages to be meditative and internal, and all the more illuminating for it.

This is the first of two movies based on soul-restoring real-life hikes taken by real-life women that we will be seeing this fall, both based on best-selling books, with Reese Witherspoon’s more high-profile “Wild” coming out December 5, 2014. While there are flashbacks to suggest that Davidson took on the trip to deal with some family losses, in real life Davidson has not just refused to give a reason; she has insisted that it is a foolish question to ask. She walked across Australia for the same reason that Mallory climbed Mount Everest. “Because it’s there.” Her version of a response: “Why not?” It’s pretty clear why not. It is very dangerous. The terrain is blisteringly hot and with very little water. If she is injured or lost, no one will be there to help her. But she is determined to go, indenturing herself with camel dealers to learn how to train camels and earn some to take with her. When the first one cheats her out of what is due to her, she reluctantly agrees to allow National Geographic to sponsor the trip, though it means she will have to allow Smolan to meet up with her four times to take photos.

This is not the usual travelogue, with adventures that include quirky characters, daunting dangers, and lessons learned, though all are there. Along the way, she meets up with Aboriginal people, including one who serves as a guide for a part of the journey because it includes sacred land which she is not permitted to travel on without him. She comes across a farmhouse, and the couple who live there welcome her in a beautifully understated manner.

You’d also expect spectacularly gorgeous and exotic scenery, and that is there, too. And, with just one person on screen much of the time, a lot of voiceover narration, though that’s not too bad. Most of all, this is a spiritual saga, a pilgrimage. Davidson wanted to be alone — she admits that she is much more comfortable with animals than with people. And she wanted to accomplish something difficult by herself. It almost seems at moments as though we are intruding in her beautiful solitude. But mostly, we are sharing it, and feel grateful for the privilege.

Parents should know that this film includes sad and disturbing material including suicide of a parent (off-screen) and putting down animals, dangerous activities, peril, animals shot and poisoned, some disturbing images of dead animals, some strong language (one f-word), and non-sexual nudity (female rear).

Family discussion: Why was Robyn happiest away from people? What was the hardest moment of her trip and why?

If you like this, try: other movies set in the Australian desert, including “Walkabout” and “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”

The Equalizer

Posted on September 25, 2014 at 5:59 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for strong bloody violence and language throughout, including some sexual references
Profanity:	Very strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, drugs and drug dealing
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended and very graphic violence, with many characters injured and killed and graphic and disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	September 26, 2014
Date Released to DVD:	December 29, 2014
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00NX6WZIS

THE-EQUALIZER — Copyright 2014 Columbia Pictures

The only thing nicer than having a real-life friend who could circumvent any obstacle of power or law or, you know, logic to deliver the roughest but most just of rough justice would be to have that friend be Denzel Washington. And that’s the story of “The Equalizer,” very loosely based on television series starring Edward Woodward, but in theme and character closer to a superhero saga.

Washington plays Bob McCall, a kind and quiet inventory clerk at a big box store, but we can tell right away that he has seen some stuff and knows even more stuff. His alarm clock goes off in a room so spare it might be occupied by a monk. But the bed has not been slept in. Bob prepares for the day, serious, precise, and methodical. He does one thing at a time. At work, he eats his bag lunch and gently but firmly coaches his young colleague Ralphie (Johnny Skourtis) on losing weight and working on the skills he will need to pass the test for security guard. And at night, he brings a book to the diner (Hemingway’s The Old Man and The Sea), sits at a table, unwrapping the tea bag he brought with him, and exchanges a few words with Teri (Chloë Grace Moretz), a young “escort.” “The old man met his adversary just when he thought that part of his life was over,” Bob tells Teri. “The old man got to be the old man. The fish got to be the fish. Got to be what you are in this world.” But what is Bob? And what is Teri?

We do not know Bob’s past, but we know he has one (especially if we’ve seen the trailer). If, as Spider-Man learns, with great power comes great responsibility, then with great power come some wrenching conflicts as well. When Ralphie and Terri get in trouble, Bob will step in, risking escalation, retribution, and blowing whatever cover he has worked very hard to create. On the other hand, if he does not step in, it will not be much of a movie. And if you have any question, his next choice of classic literature will make it clear: Don Quixote, who “lives in a world where knights don’t exist anymore.” In his own way, Bob is a Knight of Rueful Countenance. But unlike Don Quixote, Bob does not tilt at windmills. He takes on very bad people and he is very, very good at it. “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why,” the film tells us at the beginning, quoting Mark Twain. Bob was not born to haul sacks of gravel.

A superhero movie has to have a character with power, whether it is money plus gymnastics and cool toys (Batman) or extra strength and speed (pretty much all of the Avengers). But we usually like them to have a secret or at least downtime identity — Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, Tony Stark. There’s a lot of satisfaction in seeing them take down the bad guys. But there is even more satisfaction in what I call the “who is that chef?” moments (a reference to Under Siege). It’s not enough to kick the butt of the bad guy, you have to have the vast, immense, profound satisfaction of letting him know just how massively he has underestimated you. I mean Bob.

We get a lot of both in this film as Bob takes on bigger, meaner, and tougher bad guys in bigger, meaner, tougher confrontations. Bob likes to set his stopwatch so we know he is setting himself against more than the bad guys; he is still in some competition with, what? His abilities when he was younger? Or, as he says, “progress, not perfection” — is he moving toward some goal that is still just out of his reach?

Basically, this is a slow burn movie, with a build-up to introduce us to the characters and then a series of action sequences, all well staged but very, very violent, as to be expected from director Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day”). The bad guys are very, very, very bad. The good guy is very, very, very, very good. Denzel Washington is as good as it gets.

And a sequel is in the works.

Parents should know that this movie is extremely violent, with many characters injured and killed and many explicit and disturbing images. Characters use strong language. Bad guys use every possible kind of weapon and engage in every possible kind of criminal behavior including sex trafficking, extortion and arson, and drug dealing.

Family discussion: Why did Bob go to see his former colleague? What did he learn from the classic books he read?

If you like this, try: “Training Day”

Hector and the Search for Happiness

Posted on September 25, 2014 at 5:00 pm

Simon Pegg stars as Hector in this gentle fable based on the whimsical French novel by psychiatrist Francois Lelord. Like Lelord, Hector is a psychiatrist. He has a “tidy” life with a nice girlfriend named Clara (“Gone Girl’s” Rosamund Pike), nice patients, and a nice apartment. But he is missing something. He wonders if he is really helping people. And he is not sure what he is helping them toward. If he is not sure what happiness is, how can he guide his patients toward finding it?

Your level of happiness on viewing this film will vary depending on your tolerance for whimsy and your affection for last year’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, as it is almost exactly the same movie, though not as good.

Hector decides that what he needs to do is travel around the world to learn about happiness. Clara is troubled, and wonders what it might mean for their relationship — especially since he won’t say when he is coming back. She wonders if “researching happiness” is just a euphemism for “finding Agnes,” the mysterious woman whose photo she found in Hector’s sock drawer (labeled “Hector’s Socks” — he is very tidy). But she is supportive, and gives him a notebook for his discoveries, directing him to “fill these pages.” “If you’re going to do this, do it totally,” she says. “Make it worthwhile.”

And so he sets off on a series of adventures and encounters that will teach him something about happiness. He first meets a genial businessman named Edward (Stellan Skarsgård), who introduces him to one notion of happiness: the kind that can be bought. Hector enjoys wine, women, and club music. He enjoys is all so much that he conks out before he can accept the advances of a beautiful “student” (Ming Zhao). He wonders at first whether it is possible that happiness means the freedom to love two women at the same time, and then discovers to his distress that the interest and affections of the “student” were purchased for him by Edward. Being rich, being important, believing you are captivating to a “student” — that does not seem to be the answer. “Sometimes happiness is not knowing the whole story.”

This is the point at which you are either going to go with the premise and tone or you’re not. It’s either a fairy tale, in which the encounters are metaphors, or it is supposed to be grounded in some semblance of reality, in which case it’s solipsistic, kind of seedy and mired in stereotypes. For me, it was a fairy tale, and so I gave it some leeway.

Hector’s travels take him to visit an old friend who runs a clinic in Africa, where he runs into a cute sick kid and a vicious but also kind of cute drug lord (Jean Reno), both of whom he helps, and also learns that his friend is gay. He is captured by gangsters and almost killed until providentially, like a character in a fantasy game who just happened to have picked up a golden arrow and some magic beans, he has the token he needs to get out of jail if not free, at least relatively unscathed. He meets a dying woman who is philosophical and at peace. He meets up with Agnes (Toni Collette) and has his brain scanned by a scientist (Christopher Plummer) who is studying the biological basis for happiness. He takes notes. He has Skype-fights with Clara. He learns many important lessons, and, like Dorothy Gale of Kansas, learns that the answer was inside him all along and there’s no place like home.

It is a pleasant little trifle as long as you do not take it too seriously. If you understand that it is all inside Hector’s head, and that his adventures are more akin to The Little Prince’s planetary hops than to anything resembling reality, it has charm and even some reminders that we get more happiness from what we do for others than from what they do for us.

Parents should know that this movie includes very strong language, scenes of criminal activity including beatings, death threats, and imprisonment, drug dealing, scenes of injured and dying characters, prostitutes, sexual situations, and nudity.

Family discussion: Which of the observations Hector wrote in his notebook do you think were most important? Why did he have to get away from home to understand what he had? Why didn’t things work out with Agnes?

If you like this, try: “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”

Related Tags:

Based on a book Comedy Drama Romance

Tusk

Posted on September 18, 2014 at 5:59 pm

You can make a good movie about slackers, for example “Slackers,” from Richard Linklater and “Clerks” from Kevin Smith. But you can’t make a good movie by a slacker, and Smith does not seem willing to be anything more. There are flickers of interesting possibilities in his latest film, his first foray into horror. Justin Long nails his early scenes as Wallace, a sort of Smith wannabe. We learn later in flashbacks that he was once a sweet, geeky guy who cried in “Winnie the Pooh.” He was conversant enough with literature to recognize quotes from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and Hemingway. But he found out he could make money and attract groupies by being obnoxious and outrageous. Wallace and his best friend Teddy (Haley Joel Osment) host a podcast something between Smith’s own SModcast, Tosh.0 and the skankier sub-reddits. It’s called “Not-See Party,” get it? In case you don’t, Wallace has a sign-off in a fake German accent. What, too soon?

We first see them helpless with laughter over a found video along the lines of the “Star Wars kid,” but this one is a “Kill Bill” wannabe who accidentally slices off his own leg at the thigh. A real laff-riot! This is such a bonanza of a topic for the Not-See Party duo that Wallace decides to visit the kid in person, at his home in Manitoba, Canada. But when he gets there (following a not-funny encounter at the border with an official who warns him not to be flippant about hockey in Canada), Wallace discovers that the despondent kid has committed suicide. Bummer for the podcast! Seeking some other poor slob to make fun of so the trip won’t be wasted, Wallace comes across an intriguing flier in a men’s room, a man named Howard Howe, a retired sailor, who says he has stories to tell. Wallace rents a car and drives two hours into Howard’s remote house (beautifully creepy interiors by John D. Kretschmer, a highlight of the film). He sips at the tea offered to him by the genially eloquent Howard (as he prefers to be called), at first condescending but thinly disguising his snark, then impressed in spite of himself with Howard’s stories of WWII and being shipwrecked, and then, suddenly, very, very, very, very sleepy.

The tea was spiked. Howard has something very gruesome in mind, which we discover along with the terrified Wallace.

The idea for this film came up in a SModcast conversation with Smith and friend and producer Scott Mosier discussing an ad placed by a homeowner who was offering a living situation free of charge, if the lodger would agree to dress as a walrus. Their can-you-top-this riffs on the possibilities suggested by the ad led to a twitter campaign with the hashtag #walrusyes. And that is why it feels at times as though the screenplay was pieced together by tweets. A major Hollywood star shows up in disguise for a stunt-ish, winking-at-the-screen turn as a Quebecois detective in pursuit of Howard Howe, not nearly as funny or charming as intended. While there are hints of something deeper — the conversation about how Wallace as devolved as a person, with his girlfriend missing the “old Wallace,” the similarities between “Wallace” and “Walrus” — the real possibilities of the storyline about humanity, inhumanity, and what separates us from the animals, are blithely bypassed for random detours and red herrings (maybe red mackerels). It is another disappointment from Smith, who may not write all of his scripts while stoned, but they sure feel like it.

Parents should know that this is a horror film with many graphic and disturbing images of torture and mutilation. Characters are injured and killed. It also includes strong language, drinking and smoking, and sexual references and situations, with brief male rear nudity.

Family discussion: Are we supposed to think that Wallace somehow deserved or asked for what happened to him? How do you interpret the final scene?

If you like this, try: “The Skin I Live In” and “Boxing Helena” — and Eugene Ionesco’s classic Rhinoceros

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Horror Scene After the Credits

This is Where I Leave You

Posted on September 18, 2014 at 5:59 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language, sexual content and some drug use
Profanity:	Very strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking, drugs, references to pharmaceuticals
Violence/ Scariness:	Scuffles, sad death
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	September 19, 2014
Date Released to DVD:	December 15, 2014
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00K2CI008

A toddler carries his little potty out in front of the house so he can try out his new-found skill in public. Twice. Plus another time when the contents of the potty are first displayed for the family and then kind of accidentally tossed onto one of the relatives. This is pretty much the theme of “This is Where I Leave You,” one of those estranged relatives gathering under pressure movies that tries to put the “fun” in dysfunctional.” It’s pretty much great actors trying to make sense of characters who are continuously inappropriate, unpleasant, and miserable, with boundary issues that make Russia/Ukraine seem manageable. And they almost succeed.

Jonathan Tropper wrote the screenplay based on his novel about four siblings returning home for their father’s funeral. Their mother Hillary (Jane Fonda) is a family therapist and the author of a best-selling book on child development that (boundary issue alert) revealed many embarrassing details about the siblings and is now celebrating the 25th anniversary of its initial publication with a re-release. She is given to wildly inappropriate revelations about her sex life with their father (another boundary alert), and showing off her newly enhanced breasts.

She tells her four children that their father’s last wish was for them to observe the Jewish tradition of sitting “shiva,” a seven-day period of mourning where the family stays at home together and receives visits from those who wish to pay condolences. They understand that “it’s going to be hard and it’s going to be uncomfortable, and we’re going to get on each other’s nerves.” But, Hillary says, they have no choice. “You’re grounded.”

They try to protest, but reluctantly agree. Paul (Corey Stoll) is the only one who has stayed in their hometown, the responsible brother who took over the family business, and married Annie (Kathryn Hahn), who is struggling with fertility issues. Wendy (Tina Fey) is married to one of those guys who is always on his cell phone talking about some big financial deal. She has two children, the aforesaid toddler and a baby. Judd (Jason Bateman) is in freefall, having just learned that his wife has been having an affair with his skeezy boss (Dax Shepard), the host of a shock jock radio show called “Man Up.” And then there is Philip (Adam Driver), the irresponsible baby of the family, who arrives in a Porsche convertible, with a new girlfriend named Tracy (Connie Britton), who is much older and a therapist. You don’t need to be a therapist to figure out that there are some mommy issues there. Everyone but Phillip is aware that Tracy is way out of his league and he does not deserve her.

The three out of town siblings all encounter past loves. Wendy’s is Horry (Timothy Olyphant), who was brain-damaged in an accident and still lives with his mother Linda (Debra Monk), Hillary’s neighbor and close friend. Phillip sees Chelsea (Carly Brooke Pearlstein), who looks, as Tracy notes, like a Victoria’s Secret model. And Judd sees Penny (a terrific Rose Byrne), living back in their home town and teaching figure skating. Each presents temptations as the siblings struggle to make sense of their choices, and struggle even more to communicate. “Deflecting emotion with logistics. Nice.” “It’s what we do.” Some secrets will be revealed (though not always intentionally) while others are protected.

Tropper’s screenplay is better than the book because we are not limited to Judd’s depressed narration and because it corrects what I thought was a mistake in the final resolution of Judd’s relationship with his wife. And it is helped a great deal by performances that give the characters more believability and complexity than the book did. But director Shawn Levy (“The Internship,” “Night at the Museum”) has always been stronger with broad comedy than with narrative, romance, and sentiment, and this storyline plays into his tendency to meander. Are we supposed to laugh at the Altmans because they are so awful or sympathize with them because all families are crazy at times? The bad choices, lack of respect, and wild swings of character keep us distant from the characters, despite the best efforts of the terrific cast.

Parents should know that this film includes very strong and crude language, sexual references (some vulgar) and explicit situations, nudity, adultery, drinking, smoking, marijuana and pharmaceuticals

Family discussion: How are the Altman siblings alike? How are they different? How do you feel about “complicated?”

If you like this, try: “This Christmas” and “Flirting With Disaster”