Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

Posted on August 21, 2014 at 5:59 pm

If you want to not just see but hear an eyeball being pulverized, then see “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.” If you want to see and hear it in the company of an audience who thinks that’s funny, buy a ticket.

Like the first “Sin City,” this sequel is co-directed by Frank Miller, who created the comic book series that inspired it, and Robert Rodriguez, and they have again perfectly transferred the dark pulp sensibility and striking visuals from page to screen. Like the first film, it is in stark shades of black, white, and gray, with splashes of color — bright red lips, shining blonde hair, sleek blue satin — and, of course, blood.

Sin City is a place of corruption, betrayal, and decay, of haunted souls who can’t remember or who remember too much. “How did I get here? What have I done? And why?” Marv (Mickey Rourke) asks as the film opens and he finds himself with some dead and dying guys. He does remember “wishing I had an excuse to break somebody’s face.” When he gets an excuse, he says he feels like Christmas.

The interlocking stories center on a young gambler named Johnny who wants to bring down crooked Senator Roark (Powers Boothe), who controls just about everything and everyone in Sin City, a private detective named Dwight (Josh Brolin) who takes photos of indiscretions for his clients and who knows he should not trust the woman he loved and lost to a man who could afford her (Eva Green as Ava), and a stripper named Nancy (Jessica Alba), who cannot decide whether she should kill the man who murdered her lover or just drink herself into oblivion and hope she can forget him.

People say a lot of tough things to each other. “They’ll eat you alive,” someone tells Johnny. “I’m a pretty tough chew,” he answers. Everyone in this film is a pretty tough chew. “Death is just like life in Sin City,” another one says. “There’s nothing you can do and love don’t conquer anything.” There are monsters everywhere in Sin City, and some of the most painful struggles are with the monsters within.

But that doesn’t keep people from trying.

There is a lot of artistry in “Sin City,” but it is so stylized that it calls attention to itself instead of its story, characters, or themes. The artistry in visuals and storytelling is so self-conscious it is fetishistic. It always keeps us at arm’s length. Despite superb work from everyone in the cast, especially Brolin, Willis, and Gordon-Levitt, the visuals are more striking than the story and ultimately they overpower it.

Parents should know that this is an extremely violent movie with themes of corruption and betrayal. People are injured, maimed, mutilated, and killed by a wide variety of weapons including a sword, knives, guns, pliers, and arrows. There are graphic and disturbing images and sounds. It also includes explicit sexual references and situations and nudity and strong language. Characters smoke, drink, and use drugs.

Family discussion: How do Dwight, Johnny, and Marv define justice? What do we learn from stories of corruption and betrayal?

If you like this, try: “Sin City” and the Frank Miller comics

When the Game Stands Tall

Posted on August 21, 2014 at 5:59 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for thematic material, a scene of violence, and brief smoking
Profanity:	Mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Shooting, very sad death, serious illness, parental abuse, tense confrontations
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	August 22, 2014

This dreary assemblage of every possible sports cliché has one thing in common with the game it portrays. Every time it seems to be going somewhere, it stops.

More frustratingly, it wastes the opportunity to tell a good story by trying to squeeze in too many great ones. There are too many crises, too many story arcs, too few resolutions, too few reasons for us to invest in the outcome. When a movie is based on (or even “inspired by”) something that really happened, the first step has to be deciding what the theme is and streamlining all of the real-life details that are not central to that theme. Or, as a coach might say, “Don’t lose focus.”

The real-life high school football team that inspired this story is Concord, California’s De La Salle Spartans, from a small, all-boys Catholic school. They hold the all-time winning streak record for any sport in any category and at any level. We meet the team just as the streak is about to end. The last game of the season is the 151st win in a row. But then Coach Bob Ladouceur (Jim Caviezel) has a heart attack. A player is killed in a drive-by shooting. Another one becomes an orphan, responsible for his younger brother. The other teams do not want to play the Spartans anymore, so they take on the number one team in the state (in a game that is the subject of a book. The winning streak that went from 1992-2004 came to an end.

That’s an interesting place for a sports movie to begin, a refreshing change from the over-familiar sports movie storyline of a scrappy group of underdogs who have to learn to work together. And the film is sincere and good-hearted, though not much we haven’t learned from reading Kipling’s If, especially the part about understanding that winning and losing are both imposters. But the dramatic force of the narrative keeps being mowed down by so many over-familiar sports movie lines that the film’s greatest appeal may be as a drinking game. How many times do we have to hear about how the teammates are family, especially when we hear it more than we see it? (Though I did enjoy seeing the team come on the field holding hands like a kindergarten field trip.)

There is a lot to explore here about what we learn from winning and how much more we learn from losing. Ladouceur’s techniques include “commitment cards” with training goals, practice goals, and game goals, each one written by a player and shared with a teammate to help them understand they are responsible for each other’s performance as well as their own. It is good to hear a coach say that end zone antics are inappropriate and that the purpose of the training is not to produce great high school football players but responsible men.

A number of issues are set up or glancingly referred to without any real connection or follow-through, including some of the coach’s lessons about what matters more than winning. The coach’s son says that when he needed a dad he got a coach and when he needed a coach all he got was a “lame dad.” The coach’s wife (a criminally under-used Laura Dern) says he does not share himself with her or their children. Ladouceur acknowledges that he has been “a bad husband and a worse dad.” But all we see as a response is Ladouceur burning some burgers when he tries to grill.

We do not get enough of the history between the two players who struggle over whether they will stay together through college for it to be meaningful. A brutish father (Clancy Brown) pushes his quarterback son to break the state record in scoring, but the resolution is not set up in a way that makes it a triumph for anyone. Intrusive product placement from a sporting goods store is a distraction as well. As though to keep us on track, equally intrusive sports announcers keep reminding us what the stakes are. Even more intrusive is a musical score that is ploddingly obvious, with hip-hop in a black player’s home and syrupy pop over the white characters. Meanwhile, over on the sidelines (literally), Michael Chiklis as the assistant coach turns in the film’s most intriguing performance.

“It’s no longer about who the bigger, stronger, faster players are,” the coach who has the bigger, stronger, faster players says about playing against the Spartans. (You can tell what’s coming next, right?) “It’s about who plays with more heart.” The heart in this film is mostly over the end credits, where we see the truly inspirational Ladouceur and wish we had just seen a documentary about him instead.

Parents should know that this film includes the tragic murder of a teenager, serious illness of a parent, death of a parent, parental abuse of a teenager, scenes of wounded warriors in rehab, smoking, and brief crude sexual references

Family discussion: What goals will you put on your commitment card? Why didn’t the coach want his players to pay attention to the streak? What was his most important lesson?

If you like this, try: “Friday Night Lights” (the movie and the television series) and “Remember the Titans,” as well as the books about the Spartans: When the Game Stands Tall: The Story of the De La Salle Spartans and Football’s Longest Winning Streak and One Great Game: Two Teams, Two Dreams, in the First Ever National Championship High School Football Game

A Will for the Woods

Posted on August 15, 2014 at 7:59 am

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Very sad death, themes of death and dying
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	August 15, 2014

“Without this,” Clark Wang says, “dying from lymphoma feels so empty and meaningless and pointless.” Dr. Wang was diagnosed in 2003, and we meet him as he is running out of options for treatment. His doctor tells him it is a matter of months. His choice for making his death meaningful is to seek out a “green” burial. He persuades a local cemetery to preserve a tract of forest instead of cutting it down to extend the lawn area. He finds someone who can make a coffin coffin for him out of reclaimed wood. We see him try it on for size, joking that “I’m going to be here for a while.” He approves. “It’s the exact style that I want to go out in.” And, in a moment of both celebration and defiance, he dances on its cover.

“A Will for the Woods” is a documentary about the small but urgent movement for eco-burial. But its focus on Dr. Wang, a psychiatrist and musician, makes it a profound statement about death and therefore about life. While some people in the film speak in euphemisms and indirection, and even Wang himself uses terms like “burial is a very likely outcome,” the way that he and his partner Jane confront what is happening to maintain a sense of dignity, honesty, and control is both moving and inspiring. It is not surprising that this film has won audience awards at four film festivals so far.

“It’s comforting to know I’ll be in such a beautiful place,” Wang says. He speaks of learning to “befriend death,” to make sure that his last act is not an act of pollution. Jane tells him what she will do after he dies, how she will wash his body and spend time with it, caring for him in a way he can no longer care for himself.

This is a touching film and a very important one. It is about dying with dignity, but it is also about living with grace. Just as Dr. Wang approached his own death with purpose and honor, the filmmakers have done the same in telling his story and making it ours as well.

The Expendables 3

Posted on August 14, 2014 at 6:00 pm

Everything I said about the last two “Expendables” movies, blah blah, with some new additions from the AARP branch of the action heroes club: Harrison Ford, Antonio Banderas, Wesley Snipes, and Mel Gibson, plus a couple of Expendable interns to bring down the median age a bit.

Sylvester Stallone got the gang back together for one more Over-the-Hill gang run-with-a-gun-fest. Once again, he plays Barney Ross, as one of those guys who is most comfortable when he is least comfortable. One of these guys, given a chance to sleep in a bed, puts the bedspread down on the floor and settles in for the night. Barney and the gang are the guys you call when you need the impossible and off the books. I need to point out, however, that it isn’t too hush-hush as Barney’s first meeting with Drummer (ah, the machismo of these names), the CIA big shot played by Ford, replacing Bruce Willis as Church. (There are a couple of cracks about Church, directed at Willis, who reportedly asked for too much money to be in this film.) Barney and Drummer have a nice chat about all the black ops stuff in a hospital parking lot.

Who cares whether it makes sense? We’re here for the stunts and explosions and they are fine. It’s the winks to the camera and the manly quips that are hard to take. Note to the hard-core fans of hard core, however: while the first two films were rated R, this one is PG-13. Which means, basically, just one f-word and less blood.

Despite their name, of course each and every one of the team is vitally important to Barney, and he has a collection of dog tags from those who didn’t make it hanging in the plane like sad little wind chimes. Barney hates to put people in danger, which is something of an occupational hazard when you are in the tough guy business. When one of his team is hit hard, he fires everyone else and brings in new recruits, which (1) gives us a chance to see him hopping around the world with Kelsey Grammer as his talent scout, for one of those “Magnificent Seven,” “Oceans 11” let’s see what these guys can do episodes, and (2) gives them a chance to cast some people audiences under age 25 might recognize, including boxer Victor Ortiz of “Dancing With the Stars,” Kellan Lutz of “Twilight,” and MMA champion Ronda Rousey. Conveniently, each of them can do two things: fight and hack computers, fight and Parkour, fight and rock a mini-skirt, etc.

They’re going after a bad guy played with way too much relish by Mel Gibson, as though he is saying, “You want to hate me? Bring it on!” Of course he is impossible to find and surrounded by armies of security. And Drummer wants him brought back alive. But this is what Barney does. So, he takes his padawans and pretty soon they’re jumping out of plans and exchanging manly quips. And they’re showing old Pops a thing or two about using computers and being in the 21st century. It works out just fine until it doesn’t, and it’s time for the old folks to come in and save the day.

It’s fun to see these old guys in action, and it gives you a lot of bang-bang for the buck.

Parents should know that this movie includes some strong language and crude insults, extensive and graphic violence with knives, guns, fights, explosions, and many characters are injured or killed.

Family discussion: How did the two generations of Expendables differ? Why did Drummer and Galgo care so much about getting into the fight? Why did Barney take off his protective gear?

If you like this, try: the earlier “Expendables” movies and the 1980’s action films featuring these stars

Related Tags:

Action/Adventure Series/Sequel

Let’s Be Cops

Posted on August 14, 2014 at 8:00 am

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language including sexual references, some graphic nudity, violence and drug use
Profanity:	Very strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, marijuana, meth
Violence/ Scariness:	Law enforcement peril and violence, guns, many characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters, some racial, sexist, and homophobic humor
Date Released to Theaters:	August 15, 2014

Oh, let’s not.

As generic as its name and way too long, any significant connection “Let’s Be Cops” has with its audience comes from the increasing sense of regret that this talented cast wasted its time — and ours.

The title is the elevator pitch. Two hapless losers dress up as cops, like the respect and sense of power they get, and decide to wear the uniforms some more so that they can order people around and get past the velvet rope at a nightclub. And impress a girl.

Highly likeable “New Girl” co-stars Damon Wayans, Jr. and Jack Johnson play Justin and Ryan, 30-year old Perdue alums and roommates who are reminded by a reunion party that they have not accomplished very much. Justin has a low-level job at a video game company and is too shy to get the attention of the boss for the new game he has developed, which is about a policeman. That’s why he has a couple of authentic uniforms on hand. Ryan is a sometime actor who — wait for it — is living off the residuals he got for a herpes medicine commercial. Oh, my sides!

The un-dynamic duo misunderstand the invitation to the reunion party and arrive in costume to find everyone else in business attire with masks. Why? No reason except an improbable basis for the even more improbable premise. They leave, embarrassed, but when people on the street believe they are real cops, they think it is a lot of fun. Justin is ready to walk away, but Ryan gets into character, watching YouTube videos to learn police lingo and skills. Pretty soon, Justin is impressing a pretty waitress (“Vampire Diaries'” Nina Dobrev) and Ryan is messing with some guys who crunched his car. It is obvious that these are very scary gangsters, but of course Ryan has no clue and Justin is having way too much fun engaging them in a law enforcement version of Simon Says to pay attention.

The rest of it plays out exactly the way you’d imagine, with the only bright spot Key & Peele’s Keegan-Michael Key hilarious appearance as a tattooed low-level driver for the bad guys, sort of the fake cops’ Huggy Bear. His too brief-appearance only reminds us of the comedic chaos this film is missing. The funny parts aren’t funny enough (Really? Wrestling a naked fat guy? Wasting Rob Riggle as a straight man? Being high on meth? Flirting with a drugged-out floozy?). The action parts aren’t exciting enough. The big surprise twist is neither big nor a surprise. Gene Siskel used to say that the movie should be better than watching the same actors talk over lunch. This one doesn’t come close.

Parents should know that this film has strong and crude language, sexual references and situations, male and female nudity, violence and peril with characters injured and killed, alcohol and drug use (marijuana and meth).

Family discussion: How did Justin and Ryan differ in their thinking about pretending to be policemen? How did their experiences change their ideas about what they were capable of?

If you like this, try: “The Other Guys” and “The Heat”

Related Tags:

Comedy Movies -- format