Win Win

Posted on August 22, 2011 at 8:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, teen smoking, offscreen drug abuse
Violence/ Scariness:	Offscreen violence, tense confrontations
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	March 25, 2011
Date Released to DVD:	August 22, 2011
Amazon.com ASIN:	B0057LOEGS

Writer-director Tom McCarthy gives us stories of the families we choose. In “The Station Agent” and “The Visitor” the main characters were loners who found themselves unexpectedly drawn into caring for people who were very far outside their usual circles. In this, McCarthy gives us a man who already has a loving, stable family and a best friend (“The Station Agent’s” Bobby Cannavale) and is under enormous stress trying to take care of everyone. But he, too ends up meeting someone who at first seems a threat, then a burden, and then, somehow, family.

Paul Giamatti plays Mike Flaherty, a lawyer with a solo practice that is not bringing in the money he needs for repairs at the office and at home. Most of his clients are indigent but Leo, a man in the early stages of dementia (“Rocky’s” Burt Young), has a comfortable bank account. In a guardianship proceeding, Mike impulsively has himself appointed as guardian so that he can get the fee. Then he puts Leo in an assisted living facility, contrary to his assurances at the hearing that he would keep Leo in his own home.

Mike did not know that Leo had any relatives. But a teenage grandson who has never seen Leo turns up. His name is Kyle (newcomer Alex Shaffer). He has dyed blonde hair and he smokes. His mother, Leo’s daughter, is in rehab and he has come to stay with Leo. Mike and his wife Jackie (Amy Ryan) reluctantly take him in. Mike coaches the high school wrestling team part-time. Kyle turns out to be an exceptional wrestler. He begins to work out with the team.

There is a wonderful decency, naturalism, and humanity to this story, thanks to a sensitive script and superb performances. Ryan and Giamatti have the rhythms of a long-married couple, with a real sense of established teamwork, and appreciation. Her “what is that?” expression and his “it’s okay and under control” gesture to her are eloquent in conveying their depth of trust and understanding. The look on Mike’s face when he wishes Kyle luck in keeping his secrets reflects more than a decade of seeing her ability to get the truth out of anyone. And yet Mike himself is keeping bigger and bigger secrets from Jackie. He thought it would not hurt anyone. But there really isn’t any such thing as win-win. Someone always pays a price.

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Spy Kids: All the Time in the World 4D

Posted on August 20, 2011 at 10:53 pm

Jessica Alba was dressed for her role in Robert Rodriguez’s ultra-violent “Machete” when, on a break from filming, she stopped to change her baby’s diaper. Rodriguez says he saw her performing this most domestic of tasks in her action-movie attire and knew it was time to start up the “Spy Kids” series again, this time with Alba taking her baby with her on a mission.

The first Spy Kids was about Carmen and Juni Cortez (Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara), children of super-spies who got caught up in the family business. It was sharp and funny and imaginative and made it clear that the real adventure is being part of a family. It was a rare film for audiences of any age with strong, smart female and Latino characters. And Rodriguez, known for his ultra-violent films for adults (“Once Upon a Time in Mexico,” “Machete”), kept the “Spy Kids” series refreshingly non-violent. If this fourth in the series is not as good as the first, it is better than the unfortunately titled Spy Kids 3D: Game Over. And much, much better than The Smurfs.

Alba plays Marissa Wilson, a spy who goes into labor in the middle of a chase but manages to capture the evil Time Keeper on her way to the delivery room. She quits to be a stay-at-home mom for the baby and her twin step-children, Cecil (Mason Cook) and Rebecca (Rowan Blanchard). Her husband Wilbur (a likable Joel McHale), has a “Spy Hunter” television show but somehow never figured out that his wife was not a decorator.

A year later, the Time Keeper is creating chaos and Marissa, the twins, and the baby are off to save the world and do some family bonding as well. The original spy kids, now grown up, arrive for some bad guy chasing and family conflict resolving as well.

Everyone gets a chance to know each other better, of course, but the film has a bit more substance. Cecil is hearing-impaired and he and everyone around him are completely comfortable with it. It is very rare in movies of any age that we get to see a character with a disability rather than a disability with a character. Cecil is a regular kid who happens to have hearing aids and Cook gives a nice comic snap to his comments. The gadgets are a lot of fun, including a robot dog with more functions than a Swiss Army Knife, hilariously voiced by Ricky Gervais, and “hammer hands” gloves that can punch through walls. Like all parents, Rodriguez is dismayed by the ever-quickening passage of time. So in the midst of the silliness with a “4 dimension” scratch and sniff card to accompany some of the story’s most odoriferous moments, a muddled storyline, and too much potty humor, there is a sweet theme about seizing the moment for what matters most.

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The Hedgehog

Posted on August 18, 2011 at 6:59 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Shocking and very sad death
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters, class prejudice
Date Released to Theaters:	August 19, 2011

It’s hard to imagine a less cinematic novel than The Elegance of the Hedgehog. Author Muriel Barbery is a professor of philosophy, and the book reads more like a series of essays than a story. What made it work was the way Barbery created engaging voices for the two characters considering all those abstruce and arcane philosophical and literary concepts. The movie gives us those characters without the ideas. It is pleasant enough but it is like a frame without a picture.

The two characters, a middle-aged woman and an 11-year-old girl, barely know one another but they have three important things in common. They live in the same building. They are both autodidacts with prodigious intelligence. And both are invisible to everyone around them. Renee (Josiane Balasko) is the building’s concierge. No one pays any attention to her unless they need something and that is fine with her. She has a hidden room filled with books and her inner life is rich and satisfying. The husband who may not have understood her but truly appreciated her has died. She has just one friend, a warm-hearted woman who has no idea that Renee has read more than most college professors. Paloma (Garance Le Guillermic) feels so isolated by the superficial concerns of everyone in her family that she cooly decides to kill herself on her 13th birthday.

The way that these two discover each other and the sweetness of their friendship is touching. Balasko and Le Guillermic bring a lot of intelligence and sensitivity to their performances. Togo Igawa is lovely as Mr. Ozu, a new resident of the building, but his character is too perfect a Prince Charming to make his relationship with Renee meaningful. And, as with the book, the ending is jarring and unearned. Without the depth of the book, it seems like an arty Hallmark movie.

One Day

Posted on August 18, 2011 at 6:32 pm

A gimmick that sort of worked in a novel becomes an obstacle that trips up this love story based on best-seller by David Nicholls. It is better at telling us to care about the two characters than it is at making us feel anything for the couple who stumble their way toward each other for almost 20 years.

The gimmick is that we check in on Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Dex (Jim Sturgess) every year on the same day, July 15, known in England as St. Swithin’s Day, less a holiday than a Groundhog Day-style harbinger of the weather. So instead of following them on days when especially significant or illuminating events happen, we see whatever happens to be going on each July 15. Sometimes it is an important moment but most often it is more indicative than revealing. In the book we had their internal perspective on what was going on. Dex’s dead-on assessment of Emma’s room in the first chapter was as revealing about himself as it was about her. It was so astute that it made up for his cluelessness about himself and frequent boorishness for many years to come. On screen, even Hathaway’s radiance and Sturgess’ charm cannot persuade us that these two people would have stayed in touch, much less been dear friends, over decades.

The gifted director Lone Sherfig (“An Education“) resists the temptation to throw in a lot of signifiers of time passing, but inevitably we get distracted by the shifting hairstyles and conversion from typewriters to laptops and phone booths to cell phones. Covering 20 days over two decades means that there is very little time for each update, and without the interior monologues that gave the novel’s characters more substance, it feels more like a perfume commercial than a story. There is more wit in the interplay of the digits of the passing years with the action of the scene than in most of the interactions between Emma and Dex. Nicholls, who adapted his book for the screen, is too attached to details that do not work in a movie. It would have been much better to jettison as many as half of the days to give us a chance to catch our breath and see how the friendship actually works. There is too much of Dex’s “VH1 Behind the Music”-style descent into alcohol, drugs, and one-night stands (even in the book, he seemed hardly worthy of the loyal and principled Emma) and too little of the characters around them who are supposed to have been an influence. And there is much too little of actual events. It is Emma’s experiences as a teacher that lead her to find her voice as a writer. How do I know that? From reading the book. It all feels rushed and abrupt and unsupported, and the ending feels like a maudlin cheat.

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30 Minutes or Less

Posted on August 11, 2011 at 6:42 pm

Counter-terrorism expert Mark Sageman has described what he calls the “bunch of guys” theory. Instead of looking for a mastermind and a bunch of crackerjack operatives, Sageman says more often the people who create mayhem are a bunch of guys who think they are more intelligent and capable than they really are. “30 Minutes or Less” is what we could call a “bunch of guys” movie about two pairs of guy-friends who get wrapped up in a bank robbery and murder for hire from a combination of bitterness, slackerdom, and way too many movies and video games, with constant crude language and sexual references. In other words, if Quentin Tarantino made a Three Stooges heist movie, this is what it would look like.

Dwayne (Danny McBride) and Travis (Adam Sandler pal Nick Swardson), in the tradition of duos from Jay and Silent Bob to Dumb and Dumber spend their days hanging around the house Dwayne’s dad (Fred Ward) bought with his $10 million lottery winnings. They eat, squabble, blow stuff up, watch movies, play video games, and talk about all the things they could do if they had the money.

Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) delivers pizzas for a place that promises if it doesn’t get there in 30 minutes, it’s free. His best friend Chet (Aziz Ansari of “Parks and Recreation”) is a teacher and the twin brother of the girl Nick likes. They hang out, squabble, and watch movies.

Dwayne decides to hire someone to kill his father, a retired Major (Fred Ward). But it costs $100,000, so before he can do that, he decides to force some random guy to rob a bank for him by making him wear a vest covered with explosives. How do you get a random guy to come to an isolated place? Order a pizza.

This is a fairly standard “dumb guys do dumb stuff” movie along the lines of “Pineapple Express.” There are some funny moments and clever conceits but the family of a real-life young man who was killed in a similar incident has raised strong objections to turning a tragic story into a buddy comedy and it is difficult for this slight material to overcome that blight.

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