Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

Posted on January 24, 2013 at 11:52 pm

Once upon a time, a brother and sister were left in the woods by their father. They came upon a house made of candy that turned out to be owned by a witch, who used it to lure children and then fatten them up so she could eat them. But the children outwitted the witch by shoving her in the oven. The classic Grimm story is quickly dispatched in the first few moments of this fanboy fantasy so that we can get to the good stuff. Hansel and Gretel, it seems, developed a taste for killing witches. They grow up to be Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton, who haul their arsenal from town to town as something between bounty hunters, exorcists, and hitmen. And “Ghostbusters.” It’s got special effects and some rocking fight scenes, and its cheeky anachronisms and brief running time (under 90 minutes) mean that it is over before the audience gets a chance to get tired of it.

There’s a lot of winking at each other and the audience. A local fan of the duo (he has a 14th century scrapbook filled with their pre-Gutenberg news clippings) offers Gretel some porridge and assures her that it is not too hot or too cold but just right. The local milkman delivers milk in bottles with drawings of missing children tied to them. And the siblings have some Batman-worthy gear, including a device that draws electricity from a hand-crank, useful for zapping witches or, in a pinch, a bit of defibrillation.

Hansel and Gretel are hired by the mayor of a town where nearly a dozen children are missing. The local sheriff (“Fargo’s” Peter Stormare) does not trust them and, more important, wants to stay in charge. It does not help when Hansel tells the sheriff that the woman he is about to burn as a witch is not, and when Gretel head-butts him and breaks his nose. He sends his own search party into the forest, but they are killed by a witch (Famke Janessen). So, it is up to Hansel and Gretel after all, and it turns out that they have just three days before a “blood moon” will rise that gives the witches a rare chance to make themselves more powerful and much harder to kill.

The production design by Stephen Scott is imaginative and nicely varied, avoiding the trap of looking too Disney-fied. The witches are eerily insect-like in their motions and sounds; there are moments when it feels like they are slightly more human-looking Predators. Arterton and Renner look sensational in their tight, laced-up leather and handle the action scenes with a lot of verve. It is silly, but it is entertaining.

Parents should know that the movie has intense and extensive fantasy violence with some graphic and disturbing images, including a medieval version of assault weapons, crossbows, knives, and a lot of throwing people around. Human and witch characters are injured and killed. Characters drink and use strong language and there is brief female rear nudity and a non-explicit sexual situation.

Family discussion: Why didn’t Hansel want to talk about his parents? Why did Gretel want to talk about them? Why didn’t the sheriff trust them?

If you like this, try: “Stardust” and “Dragonslayer”

Quartet

Posted on January 24, 2013 at 6:00 pm

There is something splendid about seeing fine actors at the top of their game, still nailing it — in a movie about older performers, still nailing it. Last year, it was Maggie Smith in “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.” On television, she is the highlight of the world’s favorite television series, “Downton Abbey.” And now, the two-time Oscar winner continues her total world domination as the diva in “Quartet,” an endearing story of an assisted living facility for retired musicians and singers.

The setting is intriguing, a grand but decaying assisted living facility for retired musicians and singers. First-time director Dustin Hoffman and his luminous cast of actors bring wit, dignity, and all their years of experience to bring the characters to life far in excess of the predictable plot and one-infirmity-to-a-character screenplay that seems to have been inspired by “The Golden Girls.” Like Sophia, Wilf (Billy Connelly) has an age-related impairment of his impulse control, and because he is old, his constant references to sex and attempts to hit on any female he sees are supposed to be funny. Connelly makes Wilf far more appealing than that description contemplates but showing us the character’s vulnerability and good spirits in the face of the loss of control of what he says and of his ability to be the kind of man who has access to opportunities for passion.

The Rose of the group is Cissy, played by one of my favorite actresses, Pauline Collins (the original “Upstairs Downstairs,” “No Honestly,” “Shirley Valentine”). She struggles with forgetfulness but has a sweet nature. Then there’s stern Reggie (beautifully played by Tom Courteney of “The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner” and “Doctor Zhivago”), the Dorothy figure, and the Blanche character — the free spirited diva Jean (Maggie Smith), whose arrival creates opportunities and stirs up old conflicts, rivalries, and hurts.

The beloved sanctuary is in financial trouble. The only thing that can save it is the annual fund-raiser concert. If Jean will agree to re-create one of her greatest triumphs, the quartet from “Rigoletto,” performed with Wilf, Reggie, and Cissy, under the direction of the magisterial, caftan-wearing Cedric (Michael Gambon), they could sell enough tickets to keep it going. But Jean does not want to perform. She does not want to be there. She does not want to be old.

There is more than one way to rage against the dying of the light. There is something ineffably touching about the way that “the show must go on” takes on a deeper meaning for these old troupers, both on and off-screen.

Parents should know that this film has strong language and crude humor as well as issues of aging and mortality.

Family discussion: Did this movie make you think differently about getting older? How? Who surprised you the most?

If you like this, try: “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” and “Meeting Venus” and some of the earlier work of these stars, including “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” “The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner,” “Shirley Valentine” and “Mrs. Brown”

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After the kids go to bed Music

Broken City

Posted on January 17, 2013 at 6:00 pm

Another January weekend, another dumb shoot-out.

Last weekend, it was 1950’s Los Angeles. This week, it’s contemporary New York. It’s still about corruption, betrayal, and bang-bang. Co-producer Mark Wahlberg plays Billy, a cop exonerated after he killed a suspect because there was not enough evidence to refute his claim of self-defense. Mayor Nick Hostetler (Russell Crowe in a very bad Boehner-orange spray tan) congratulates him and then explains with engaging directness and considerable charm why Billy still has to leave the police force. “It is a necessity that we remain un-f’d.”

Seven years later, Billy is almost making a living as a private investigator. He is good at his job but he is too nice a guy to push for payment. His loyal and very beautiful assistant Katy (a likably sharp performance by Alona Tal) reminds him that they are broke because their overdue accounts amount to $42,000, which leads to a pointless scene of phone calls using assorted tactics to get people to pay. There are a bunch more pointless scenes in the film but I cannot say they are any worse than the pointed ones.

Billy hears from Mayor Hostetler, who wants to hire him for the same purpose as all of his other clients but for a lot more money. Hostetler wants to pay Billy $50,000 to find out who is having an affair with his wife, Cathleen (Catherine Zeta Jones). Billy takes the pictures but then, just as the mayor snatches them out of his pocket, it begins to dawn on him (he may be a cop, but he is not much of a detective) that things may not be what they seem and people may not be telling the truth, starting with the mayor.

All of this is happening in the midst of a tough re-election campaign. Hostetler likes to come across as one of the guys, rough, sometimes crude, but effective. He tries to paint his opponent, Jack Valiant (Barry Pepper) — names are not this movie’s strong point — as an out of touch elitist who comes from Connecticut and went to Harvard. But a controversial sweetheart sale of public housing to a private developer (a seedy-looking Griffin Dunne) has tightened the race. Guess what! That surveillance job was not about an affair after all. One clue? Despite a massive shredding operation in the bad guy’s expensive lair/manor, the evidence conveniently shows up in the garbage can in mint condition, not even any coffee grounds or banana peels stuck to it.

It feels like they were making this up as they went along, without regard to what has already happened. A detour about Billy’s actress girlfriend (the very lovely Natalie Martinez) and his fall off the wagon just drags things out in between the chases and shoot-outs. It’s too bad to see top talent slumming in an underwritten, under-thought, under-whelming piece of multiplex fodder.

Parents should know that this film has constant very strong and crude language, sexual references and explicit situations with brief nudity, drinking and drunkenness, shooting, fighting, car crash, corruption, rape (offscreen), and characters who are injured and killed.

Family discussion: What did Billy’s relationship with Natalie tell you about him? Why did he visit her parents? What will happen to him?

If you like this, try: “Inside Man”

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Crime Politics

The Last Stand

Posted on January 17, 2013 at 6:00 pm

The NRA should forget that ad about the Obama girls and use this movie instead. The entire storyline can be summarized in the words of NRA head Wayne LaPierre: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Or, in this case, a ragtag bunch of good guys with many, many, many, many guns. It’s basically a co-commercial for the NRA and AARP.

Arnold Schwarzenegger returns from his decade detour into politics to play Ray, a former LA cop turned sheriff in a sleepy Arizona border town. With most of the residents out of town for a high school basketball team away game, he is taking a day off. A dangerous prisoner escapes while being transported by the FBI and hops into a souped-up supercar. “It’s a psychopath in the Batmobile,” says the furious agent in charge (Forest Whitaker). And he’s taken a hostage with him, another agent (Genesis Rodriguez).

But just like the “Manhunt” episode of “The Andy Griffith Show” where the state police think that the local law enforcement are a bunch of rubes who can’t handle an escaped prisoner, Sheriff Ray has some surprises in store. And a lot of firepower, thanks to Johnny Knoxville as the town nutball-with-a-gun “museum,” an excuse for stockpiling all kinds of exotic weapons, including medieval spiked battle flails and WWII machine guns.

The bad guy is a third generation drug lord (handsome Spanish actor Eduardo Noriega) who has sent an advance team to build a bridge over a narrow canyon between Arizona and Mexico. All that lies between him and escape is Sheriff Ray, his young and beautiful deputy (“Thor’s” Jaimie Alexander), the comic relief deputy (Luiz Guzmán), the drunk and disorderly prisoner (think “Andy Griffith Show’s” Otis, except young, handsome, ex-military, and the ex of the beautiful deputy), and the crazy guy with the arsenal. Can they stop the head of a drug cartel with unlimited resources, a paramilitary operation, a car that goes faster than a plane, and all of the freedom from doubt that comes from being a sociopath? What do you think?

It’s set-piece after set-piece, with many capably staged showdowns and lots of macho posturing (several “let’s play”-style comments), plus numbingly predictable dialog with a few winks at Schwarzenegger’s age. Audiences may be less enthusiastic about the entertainment value of whole-sale carnage these days, less able to suspend any thoughts of what the reality looks like. I hope so.

Parents should know that this film features major non-stop carnage with constant shoot-outs, chases, and fights, many characters who are injured and killed, and strong language.

Family discussion: How does the movie acknowledge the real-life circumstances of its star? Who is right about what kind of life to choose, Ray or Jerry?

If you like this, try: “Con Air”

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Action/Adventure Crime

Zero Dark Thirty

Posted on January 10, 2013 at 6:00 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for strong violence including brutal disturbing images, and for language
Profanity:	Constant very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense and disturbing wartime images including torture and terrorism
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	January 11, 2013
Date Released to DVD:	March 18, 2013
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00B1E6FF8

It begins with heart-breaking audio of 911 calls from the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. A frantic woman who asks if she is going to die is soothed by the operator until she is suddenly gone and we hear the operator’s dawning understanding of the magnitude of the disaster.

And then it is two years later and we are watching the torture-aided interrogation of a detainee in Pakistan. Dan (Jason Clarke) is forthright and almost clinical as he tells Ammar (Reda Kateb) that he will hurt him for every lie. The interrogation is witnessed by a new arrival who we will know only as Maya (Jessica Chastain). She turns down the chance to stay outside the room. “There’s no shame if you want to watch from the monitor.” Maybe she is proving something to Dan, maybe she is proving something to herself, maybe she is so intent on finding Osama Bin Laden that she wants to make sure she does not miss a detail. Probably all three.

Director Kathryn Bigelow brings that same intensity of focus to telling the story that Maya brings to the search. After “The Hurt Locker,” Bigelow, the first woman to win the Best Director Oscar, re-teamed with screenwriter Mark Boal to make a movie about what they thought would be the unsuccessful search for Bin Laden. Their project was overtaken by events as Bigelow and Boal were all but embedded with the military and CIA to do their research in real time, giving the movie an intimate, gritty, documentary feel.

Maya goes to work. “You don’t think she’s a little young for the hard stuff?” one of her new colleagues asks. “Washington says she’s a killer.” This is not a movie where we go home with the heroes and see them hug their children. It is not a movie where we see them struggle with their demons or sit down over drinks to give us endearing details about their lives or explain why they do what they do. At one point, Maya is asked about her background and she says she has done nothing since she got out of school but look for Bin Laden. She acknowledges that there is a reason she was particularly suited for this task, but she never reveals it. This is the story of hard-working, even driven professionals who have to make life or death decisions all the time, about what it takes and about the price they pay.

People come and go in the story. A new President is elected and the policy on torture changes.* The policy on the level of certainty required as a basis for action changes, too. Dan goes back home. “I need to do something normal for a while. I’ve seen too many guys naked.” And, he says, “You don’t want to be the last one holding a dog collar when the oversight committee comes.” Some of the CIA and military investigators are killed and she is attacked. But then there is a breakthrough and she has another challenge — persuading the military and the politicians that she is right about where Bin Laden is hiding. James Gandolfini, Mark Strong, Jennifer Ehele, and Kyle Chandler are all outstanding as Maya’s colleagues.

And then it is time to bring in Seal Team 6. The attack is brilliantly staged, much of it through night goggles that let us see the compound and the shoot-out through their eyes.

It is also a gripping, masterfully assembled story. Even though we know how it ends, it will leave you breathless.

Parents should know that this film includes terrorism, war, and torture scenes with some very graphic images, characters injured and killed, some sexual references, very strong language, and drinking and smoking.

Family discussion: What does this movie stay about torture? Was Mya right to be so confident? What made her good at her job?

If you like this, try: the documentaries “Restrepo,” “Gunner Palace,” and “Standard Operating Procedure”

*Those who claim that this movie is pro-torture are not paying attention. While some people in the movie may be pro-torture, that is not the same thing as having the movie promote torture. The movie makes clear that establishing a high probability of Bin Laden’s location depended on years of intensive research and was based on correlating many, many sources of information. Mya gets critical data other ways. And the movie’s unblinking portrayal of torture is there to remind of what happened, and, perhaps, of Golda Meier’s famous comment about the true tragedy of war: “When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.”