Magic Mike

Posted on June 28, 2012 at 6:00 pm

You might expect a movie about strippers to be either a glossy Hollywood fantasy or a gritty, sour, documentary. The surprise of “Magic Mike” is that it avoids both extremes with an appealing naturalness and intimacy that softens but does not glamorize its setting.

It is inspired by the experiences of co-producer and star Channing Tatum as an exotic dancer before he broke through as an unexpectedly versatile actor (“Step Up,” “G.I. Joe,” “Dear John,” “21 Jump Street”). Equally versatile director Stephen Soderburgh (“Traffic,” “Erin Brockovich,” “Sex, Lies, and Videotape,” “Oceans 11”) gently bumps the story a couple of degrees away from the sordid to keep things fun and even romantic. The big musical numbers are grander and more elaborate than anything you might actually see in a small Tampa club catering to sorority girls and bachelorette parties. But even when it gets debauched and dangerous, it is still kind of sweet. It has a bit of the sense of discovery of Robert Altman’s “The Company.” Plus, those guys have some moves. The dance numbers are a blast, witty, sexy, and very wooo-worthy.

Tatum plays Mike, a would-be entrepreneur who does a little of this and that (and wears very little of this and even less of that) as he tries to straighten out his financial situation so that he can pursue his dream of designing furniture. He meets a young college drop-out named Adam (Alex Pettyfer), and introduces him to the world of exotic dancing, from trolling bars to entice girls to come to the show to turning himself into the fantasy lover they love to be scandalized by. The owner is Dallas (Matthew McConaughey), who has promised Mike he will open up a big club in Miami and make Mike his partner. (Drinking game: take a shot every time McConaughey says “all right.”)

Adam lives with his sister Brooke, played by the very appealing Cody Horn, who has a wonderful easy chemistry with Tatum. So there is a classic structure, with Mike in the center between the hardened and cynical Dallas and the naive kid in a candy store Adam, drawn to the dream of a different life with Brooke. What takes this out of the category of fluff is the way the story is unaffectedly located in the reality of the economic struggles of the area and our time. Mike tries to persuade a bank loan officer to give him some money, shoving stacks of bills across her desk and not quite understanding that even though he is still selling, this transaction differs from the easy and sleazy environments he frequents. But she sees who he is. So does Brooke, and that helps him to see himself beyond the breakaway pants.

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Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Posted on June 21, 2012 at 6:15 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for violence throughout and brief sexuality
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, scenes in bar
Violence/ Scariness:	Extensive, intense, graphic, bloody violence including Civil War battles, vampires, stampede, guns, knives, ax, sad deaths of parent and child
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	June 22, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B005LAIHYU

Now, that’s a President. Abraham Lincoln, previously best remembered for the penny, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Civil War, the Gettysburg Address, the humor, the honesty, and the height, is now re-imagined with all of that plus a rail-splitting ax tipped with silver that he swings like the grand marshall of a marching band to chop off the heads of vampires.

Russian-Kazakh director Timur Bekmambetov is known for hyper-violent films with striking visuals (“Wanted,” “Daywatch,” “Nightwatch”), here working with superstar cinematographer Caleb Deschanel as director of photography, is well suited to telling this story. It is surprisingly absorbing for an idea that sounds like it could easily be all concept and pointy teeth.

We meet young Abe as a boy, risking his life to defend his best friend Will, an African-American boy about to be whipped by the cruel man who oversees the docks. This rebellion gets Abe’s father fired, and also inflicts a more insidious revenge. Those who are familiar enough with Lincoln’s history well enough to know that the mother he loved, Nancy Hanks, died when he was nine will guess what is going to happen when she is stricken with a mysterious illness. Those who expect to see his step-mother, his first love, Anne Rutledge, or more than one of his sons will have to wait for the Steven Spielberg biopic coming out next year. As the title suggests, his one is more about killing vampires in a lot of different settlings, with a lot of spurting blood. In 3D.

At first, it is about revenge. But then Lincoln meets the dissolute but somehow trustworthy Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper), who cues up the training montage by telling Lincoln he must learn how to swing his ax with enough force to knock down a tree with one blow — and teaches him to do it by thinking about what he hates most. “It’s quite a feat to kill that which is already dead.” Sturgess warns Lincoln that if he is going to hunt vampires he cannot have any friends or romantic connections. But after Lincoln moves to Springfield, Illinois, he soon has both, with Joshua Speed (Jimmi Simpson) and pretty Mary Todd (the always-winning Mary Elizabeth Winstead). The head vampire, meaningfully named Adam (Rufus Sewell), is planning to take over America from his decaying plantation in New Orleans. When he invites some of his slaves to a party, it’s not “Mandingo;” it’s “Soylent Green.”

The attempt to weave the vampires into historical events is less gimmicky than it sounds because slavery is so abhorrent it makes more sense that it would require supernatural evil for something so essentially inhumane. But this is all about the fight scenes, and they are striking, even beautiful seen as abstractions, if you stop thinking of them as decapitations and impalings. Like its source material, its effort to straddle genres is sometimes awkward, its storyline overwhelmed by too many action set-pieces. Star Benjamin Walker’s stiff make-up does not allow for much acting. Despite some murkiness from the post-production 3D, the visuals are powerful and the action scenes impressively staged. And it is refreshing to see a politician who is so good at getting things done.

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Brave

Posted on June 21, 2012 at 6:00 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some scary action and rude humor
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Peril and violence including scary animals with big teeth
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	June 22, 2012
Date Released to DVD:	November 12, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B005LAII08

“Brave” is not just one of the best movies of the year for any age; it is one of the best movies ever made from a female point of view.

It has been a long time coming. Pixar’s unprecedented series of outstanding critical and audience successes has been justifiably criticized because its leading characters have almost always been white and male. While “The Incredibles,” “Finding Nemo,” and “A Bug’s Life” had important female characters (you might also include “Wall•E”), it was the male characters who were at the center of the story. With its 13th film, Pixar has given not one but two female characters center stage. As we expect from Pixar (well, as we hope, following “Cars 2”), “Brave” is smart, fun, funny, and exciting, with gorgeous settings and endearing characters. But this is something more. It gives us a teenage girl in the leading role who is not pretending to be a boy (“Mulan”), unsure of herself, or trying to attract a boy (just about every movie ever made). She is strong, independent, and completely comfortable with who she is. It’s the rest of the world she thinks needs some change.

Merida (Kelly Macdonald of “Boardwalk Empire” and “Gosford Park”) is a Scottish princess and by tradition, she will marry whichever of the sons of the local lairds bests the others in an athletic competition. But she has no interest in marrying any of them. Her mother (Emma Thompson) makes her dress up in a confining outfit that barely lets her breathe and hides her wild , unmanageable hair. But Merida splits the seams of the dress, takes out her bow, and wins her own hand. In some other movies, that would be the end. Here, it is the beginning. To split the seams of tradition the way she burst through the confines of her regal attire, Merida asks for help from a witch (Julie Walters, Mrs. Weasley in the Harry Potter movies). She says she wants to change her fate. She should have been more specific.

Things go terribly wrong, and soon Merida finds her relationship with her mother turned upside down. Merida learns what it like to have to take care of someone. Her mother has to learn something, too. Their new situation (I am trying not to give too much away here) gives the queen a chance to take a new look at Merida and see how capable and trustworthy she is, while the queen herself begins to lose her connection to civilization. And all of this is in the midst of antics from Merida’s mischievous triplet little brothers, the struggles between the clans, the witch’s travels (her voicemail equivalent is hilarious), and a very scary bear who once took part of Merida’s father’s leg and may be back for more.

Action, comedy, and heart are expertly balanced and the mother-daughter dynamic gives the story a powerful appeal. For me, it felt like a rare chance to hear a story in my native language. There was no need to translate. The wild beauty of the crags and tors of the Scottish landscape provide a bracing environment for Merida’s real and psychological journey with her mother. Merida is a winning heroine who does not define herself by getting or being a boy and it is a pleasure to share her story.

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Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

Posted on June 21, 2012 at 6:00 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language including sexual references, some drug use and brief violence
Profanity:	Very strong and explicit language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, drunkenness, drug use
Violence/ Scariness:	Disturbing themes of the end of the world, some violence
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	June 22, 2012
Date Released to DVD:	October 22, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B007L6VRBM

Dr. Johnson memorably said that the prospect of hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully. Part of what stories do for us is concentrate the mind by providing us with narratives that eliminate distracting quotidian effluvia and allow us to focus on one element of the story. In “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World,” writer/director Lorene Scafaria (“Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist”) makes that concentration explicit. The world is literally ending in three weeks, and we get to see how that concentrates the minds of Dodge (Steve Carell), Penny (Kiera Knightley), and the people they meet as everyone has to decide what from their “someday” list gets moved up to “now.”

Lorene Scafaria, who wrote the lovely “Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist,” here directs her own screenplay with a top-notch cast and a sure sense of tone and pacing. The classic elements of the journey film with a mis-matched pair on the road in search of something is kept fresh through the setting, the adventures and encounters along the way, and sensitive performances from Carell and Knightley.

As Elizabeth Kubler-Ross might have predicted, a lot of people get stuck in stage one: denial. The movie opens as Dodge and his wife hear the radio announcer promise to keep the audience up to date on the progress of the asteroid known as Matilda and its collision path with Earth, along with a countdown to the end of days and “all your classic rock favorites.” At first, most people run on automatic pilot. Dodge goes to his office and tries to explain to a client that his insurance policy does not really cover what is about to happen. “The Armageddon policy is extra.” His boss tries to fill some abandoned positions by offering promotions. People who always wanted to kill someone offer their services as assassins for hire by those who do not want to be alive when the meteor hits. Musicians put on an end of the world awareness concert. It’s like Wile E. Coyote running off the cliff and staying suspended in air until the realization hits — and then he does.

People start to get desperate. Dodge’s wife leaves him. A friend (Patten Oswalt) explains that the end of the world has made it very easy to sleep with women. Dodge’s friends have a party and try to fix him up with a woman (Melanie Lynskey) who arrives wearing all of the jewelry she was saving for the right occasion. But that is not what he wants. The world is increasingly divided between people who choose various ways to numb themselves and those who take this last chance to stop being numb.

Dodge meets his neighbor, Penny, an English girl who has missed the last opportunity to get back to her family. She has a mis-delivered letter from a girl he loved and lost. And she has a car. When rioters take over their building, he offers to get her to a plane if she will help him find the woman who sent the letter. Helping each other gives them purpose. Getting to know Penny gives Dodge more of a sense of being alive than he has ever had before. Dodge had always been too cautious. Penny had always been too irresponsible. Now he must take chances and she must grow up. It’s never too late.

On their journey, they see people and places from their past, including Penny’s survivalist ex-boyfriend (Derek Luke), who thinks that stockpiling weapons and canned goods will help him rebuild society. They stop at a relentlessly chipper restaurant called Friendsy’s (yes, lots and lots of flair) where the staff’s increasingly shrill Ecstasy-fueled cheeriness becomes borderline deranged. And then, even with just days and then hours left, they begin to shift from the past to the future. And, as Rabindrath Tagore wrote, “The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.”

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That’s My Boy

Posted on June 14, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Oscar Wilde’s famous story The Picture of Dorian Gray is about a dissolute young man who retains his youthful beauty as his portrait, hidden in the attic, shows his face becoming more aged and corrupt. I can’t help thinking that somewhere there is a young Adam Sandler while we watch his screen persona grow more and more repulsively scrofulous. As revolting as this movie is — and it is truly and deeply loathsome — that isn’t the worst part. More offensive than the disgusting attempts at humor that debase every life form is the utter contempt for the audience that shows in every lazy and incompetent frame and line of dialogue, with Sandler’s lines all said in that horrible comic voice he uses to show he is playing a stupid person. And more depressing than all of that is the horrific sight of Sandler’s insistence on creating the most unpleasant character imaginable and then having all of the other characters find him irresistible.

I have no problem with humor that is politically incorrect or even offensive (see my review of “The Dictator”) if there is some intelligence behind it and some point to be made. But this movie’s “comedy” has less wit than a two-year old making diaper jokes. He is not pushing boundaries and challenging assumptions. He is making fun of fat naked people. It is vile.

Sandler plays Donny, a man who was seduced by his middle school teacher (Eva Amurri Martino) when he was 12. She became pregnant, and since she was serving a 30-year sentence, he got custody of their son before he was in high school. And so he named the baby “Han Solo” and gave him candy for breakfast. Most of the movie takes place when the boy, now using the name “Todd Peterson” (Andy Samberg) is about to get married to Jamie (Leighton Meester, looking like Winnie from “The Wonder Years”). He has told everyone his parents were killed in an explosion and has done his best to be the responsible grown-up his father never was. He is a successful hedge fund manager staying at the home of the wealthy boss (Tony Orlando!) he hopes will make him a partner. The boss has an elderly mother, of course. Another one of Sandler’s obsessions is sex with old ladies.

Donny, who has blown through all of the money he made selling his story for a made-for-TV movie (starring Ian Ziering), will have to go to prison if he can’t get $43,000 for the IRS. His only hope is to get Han/Todd to go visit his mother in prison so he can sell the reunion footage to a reality television show. Donnie tracks down his son at the boss’ home the weekend of the wedding and causes many scenes of excruciating and un-funny mayhem. The jokes about Donny and Vanilla Ice(!) having sex with an octogenarian and bother-sister incest(!) are idiotic enough, but Sandler’s need to portray his pustulant character as charming, lovable, and sexy is downright creepy. At times, I amused myself by pretending it was a horror film. That was as close to being amused as I got.

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