How Do You Know

Posted on March 24, 2011 at 10:00 am

Lisa (Reese Witherspoon) and George Madison (Paul Rudd) are both nice people and team players. And that is why they end up on a horrible date on what is for each of them the worst night of their lives.

It’s the worst night because both of them have been cut from their teams. That’s literally the case for Lisa, a 31-year-old professional women’s softball team. Being the hardest working and most supportive player is not enough when she’s a second slower getting to first base than she used to be. She makes everyone around her better. “The intangibles are everything,” urges the assistant coach. But they don’t score runs. The upbeat little post-it note aphorisms Lisa has covering her bathroom mirror do not provide any guidance. They can remind her to be determined, but she is no longer clear on what she should be determined about. And although she tells her sort of boyfriend, a player for the Washington National baseball team (Owen Wilson) that she doesn’t want to talk about her feelings, she is a little disconcerted when he tells her that is his preference.

George, a top executive at a corporation founded by his father (Jack Nicholson), has been informed by the company lawyer that he is under investigation and on his own in finding and paying a lawyer to defend him from possible fraud charges. And his girlfriend, a physics professor, dumps him with cheery efficiency. It is a lot to process. And he doesn’t want to process it. So, why not call that blind date prospect he had put aside when he thought he had a girlfriend?

As terrible as the date is — they ultimately decide that it is better they don’t speak at all — they sort of enjoy it. And we do, too, because writer/director James L. Brooks (“Broadcast News,” “Terms of Endearment,” “As Good as It Gets”) is very good at exactly that: showing us a world of flawed people dealing with messy, complicated, and painful challenges in a manner that draws us in and keeps us on their side.

There is a lot that does not work. It completely fails in portraying with two subjects I know very well: securities law (note, Mr. Brooks, that’s “securities” plural — “security law” is more like TSA pat-down challenges) and Washington D.C. (no place in Washington is an hour and ten minutes from any other place, even on the bus). George’s father is a character even Jack Nicholson can’t make anything more than a highly artificial narrative inconvenience. The magnificently talented Kathryn Hahn (please, someone give her a worthy role) does her best in a part that is both over- and under-written as George’s very pregnant and very loyal secretary. One of the big turning-point speeches doesn’t deliver the punch it sets us up to expect.

A lot of people are not going to like this movie. But I did because for me he got a lot right. Audiences expecting a conventional structure and tone will be disappointed. I like a movie that is, like its leads, endearingly messy and subverts our genre expectations. Brooks colors outside the lines. There is more happening around the edges of this movie than happens in the middle of the screen of most — George’s problem is more than just a topical reference. And the difference between a male and female professional athlete is not addressed; it’s just there.

Brooks’ dialogue is always a great pleasure. Rudd, one of the most engaging of actors, has never been better. Watch his face carefully in the elevator scene, when he thinks his world has collapsed and then looks up to see that the girl from the awful silent date is there. The mixture of emotions is superbly handled. Witherspoon is revelatory as a woman who relied on an all-encompassing structure with answers for everything and now realizes there were questions she did not even know she had. And if that makes us question our own conventional notion of what we know, well, it just shows you that the intangibles really are everything.

Related Tags:

Drama Romance

Yogi Bear

Posted on March 22, 2011 at 7:38 pm

Yogi Bear (voice of Dan Aykroyd) is genuinely perplexed by the suggestion that he might want to forage for food and catch fish with his paws. “Isn’t that kind of unsanitary?”

He may live in the woods, but for Yogi, star of the 1960’s series of cartoons from Hanna-Barbera, that does not mean his life has to be bereft of civilization. He has a best friend named Boo Boo with a natty bow tie (voice of Justin Timberlake!). His cave is equipped with a soda machine. He is never seen without his hat, collar, and tie. And he is a well-known aficionado of fine dining. His preferred cuisine is the contents of picnic baskets brought by visitors to Jellystone Park, the campground and nature preserve that is his home. He loves picnic baskets so much, he’s given them an extra syllable, to hold onto the word just a little longer. He calls them “pick-a-nic baskets,” and they are to him what the grail was to Galahad, the whale was to Ahab, and the Road Runner is to Wile E. Coyote.

But to the frustrated Ranger Smith (the always-likable Tom Cavanagh), Yogi’s antics make it impossible for him to have the nice, peaceful, orderly park he dreams of. “There’s no better place on earth,” he sighs, “except without him.” And Smith can’t figure out how to talk to the pretty nature nerd who has arrived to make a documentary about the talking bear in Jellystone Park (the always-adorable Anna Faris as Rachel).

Soon, though, Smith has a bigger problem. The Mayor (slimy Andrew Daly) and his aide (elfin Nathan Corddry) want rescue the city’s budget by privatizing the park and selling off the logging rights. Ranger Smith has just one week to get enough money from increased admissions to the park to save the day.

Yogi Bear began as one segment of the 1958 animated series “Huckleberry Hound.” He quickly eclipsed the other characters, who are all but forgotten (I don’t see “Pixie, Trixie, and Mr. Jinks: The Movie” coming to a multiplex any time soon), and soon became a headliner with his own series. Yogi’s adventures were filled with the same silly slapstick, but he had a special quality that endeared him to kids. They identified with his place midway between the animal world of the forest and Smith’s ultra-civilized world of a uniformed, rule-enforcing (but always-forgiving) grown-up.

Yogi often brags that he is “smarter than the average bear,” but he often outsmarts himself, allowing kids to feel that they are a step ahead of him. As often in comedy, especially for kids, a lot of the humor in cartoons comes from ineptitude and foolishness. Children, who are constantly surrounded by things they do not understand love to see characters who are even more confounded by the world around them. In this film, Yogi may be smart enough to design a flying contraption. But his efforts to persuade Ranger Smith that it is not intended for stealing picnic baskets fails when the Ranger points out that printed across its stern is “Baskitnabber 2000.”

Moments like these are classic Yogi, but it is still an uneven transition to a live-action feature film from the very simplified story-line and animation of a seven-minute hand-drawn cartoon. The running time, computer graphics, and 3D effects overwhelm the slightness of the material, especially when it departs from the core relationship of Yogi and Ranger Smith. The story drags in the middle, when the junior ranger (T.J. Miller), chafing because Ranger Smith won’t let him do anything but sort maps, agrees to sabotage the efforts to keep the park going in exchange for a promotion. Smith’s inept efforts to romance the pretty film-maker are weak and it hardly helps when Yogi offers his advice to Smith about, ahem, marking his territory.

These are what I call “lunchbox movies.” We’ve had a string of big-budget multiplex fodder featuring whatever character was on some studio executive’s second grade lunchbox (Garfield, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Inspector Gadget). They toss in some potty humor for the little kids and some boombox oldies to amuse the parents (Sir Mix-a-Lot will be cashing yet another royalty check). But Yogi and his pic-a-nic basket — and the kids and parents looking for a holiday treat — deserve better.

The Tourist

Posted on March 22, 2011 at 3:05 pm

Behind this forgettable trifle are some very talented people, all punching below their weight when they’re not just calling it in. The screenplay is by Julian Fellowes (“Gosford Park”), Christopher McQuarrie (“The Usual Suspects”), and director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (“The Lives of Others”), based on the 2005 French film, “Anthony Zimmer.” Two of the biggest stars on the planet, Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp do their best to put some sizzle in this would-be romantic thriller, but they are both poorly used and have no chemistry whatsoever. Venice is pretty, though.

Jolie is the veddy proper Elise Clifton-Ward, whose role in this film is somewhere between femme fatale (drawing the poor schlub who happens across her path into a world of intrigue and peril) and Girl from Ipanema — she spends a lot of time walking slowly while those she passes say, “Ahhhhhhh.”

Elise receives a note from Alexander Pearce, the man she loves and has not seen for two years, asking her to find a man on the train who resembles him to use as a decoy and distract the various Interpol teams that are trying to track him down. Enter the shlub, a math teacher from Wisconsin so (apparently) incapable of dishonesty that his very name is Frank. And yet, we see him tell a lie very early on. It’s a small one, perhaps understandable, but still….

Elise invites him to spend the night in her lavish hotel suite (on the sofa) and kisses him on the balcony, thus drawing the fire, and the attention, of Interpol and of someone even more bent on tracking Pearce down, the man he stole from. It’s a nice set-up, but the execution depends on three things that never happen: a witty script, a spark between the leading characters, and an understanding of tone. The script sags. Jolie and Depp are both poorly cast (she may be more of a serene and elegant mother earth in her real life these days but on screen she only comes alive when she is aggressive and a little wicked and Depp can do just about anything but act like an ordinary guy). And von Donnersmarck has no sense of humor or lightness to make the sillier aspects of the story endearing instead of annoying. This is yet another example of an American remake of a French film that just misses the fun, the romance, and the point.

Related Tags:

Action/Adventure Romance Thriller

Lord of the Dance 3D

Posted on March 16, 2011 at 6:20 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	All Ages
MPAA Rating:	G
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	None
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	March 17, 2011

The best seat in the house for one of the most popular shows on the planet is “Lord of the Dance 3D,” a concert film that puts the viewers on stage with the thunderously percussive Irish dancers starring and under the direction of Chicago-born Michael Flatley, the show’s “creator, producer, director, and star.” And of course, Lord of the Dance.

There’s no dramatic tension here, either on or off-stage. They try — Flatley explains at the beginning that this show attempted the impossible and everyone said it couldn’t be done, now the pressure is really on because they are coming home to Dublin. But the graphics that open the movie remind us that it has already sold out the biggest venues in the biggest cities in the world and it is fair to expect that an Irish dance show will do pretty well in Ireland.

And there is a folklore-ish sort of storyline in the dances, with a glittery jester-clad sprite waking the dancers with a flute, followed by some sort of good and evil battle that climaxes as the sprite’s flute is snapped in pieces and Flatley’s sparkling Lord of the Dance belt is ripped from his waist. Do you think he can dance it all back to victory?

At its cheesiest, which is very, very cheesy, the battle of the dancers is reminiscent of a (more) twinkle-toed version of Michael Jackson’s “Bad” video with a bit of the Sharks and Jets from “West Side Story,” if the Sharks costumes were inspired by “Star Wars.” It is almost relentlessly entertaining, with wild stage effects that include shooting streams of sparks and images in lights timed to each tap, and many very lovely legs in very, very short skirts dancing up a storm.

It would have added more interest to give us a sense of what goes on backstage and meet some of the almost interchangeable dancers. I would love to have seen the rehearsals to find out how they create the impeccable precision of the dozen and more taps per second as they all but fly across the stage. But the movie keeps us at a distance, seeing only what the live audience sees.

It’s unlikely to thrill those who are not already fans. But the throngs who love to see Irish step-dancing will find that up-close and 3D is an excellent way to enjoy the show.

Hereafter

Posted on March 15, 2011 at 8:00 am

According to this movie the two universal human imperatives are the need to find out whether we can contact the dead and the need to use Google to do so. Can we please de-Google-ize movies? I love Google, too, but it is impossible to make a compelling movie scene out of someone typing into a search engine and scrolling through the links that pop up.

Clint Eastwood’s latest film is a meditation on death, with three entwined stories. A French journalist survives the tsunami but is haunted by visions from an NDE (near-death experience). An English boy sees his twin brother die and desperately tries to find a way to communicate with him. And an American factory worker resists his gift for acting as a conduit between the living and the dead. There are some powerful and moving moments, but the film overstays its welcome and fails to deliver on its promise.

There are people who are consumed with the need to talk with those they have lost, to ask forgiveness, to forgive, to know there is something, someone there. And then there are those who do communicate with the dead, and can be just as consumed with the need to get away from them, whose most important lesson from those who have passed over is that they need to make a life among the living. George (Matt Damon) is one of those. He once had a website and a business doing “readings” for those who want to reach out to their loved ones who had departed. A book was written about him. He appeared on television. But the comfort he brought to those who found some sense of completion in his ability to connect to the dead was outweighed by his own inability to disconnect from the messages he was carrying.

Then there is Marie (Cécile De France), a successful French television journalist on vacation with her producer/boyfriend on an Indonesian resort when the tsunami hits. This is Eastwood as his best, a stunningly powerful sequence that will leave the audience feeling swept into the pounding power of the ocean. Marie glimpses a vision of what might be the afterlife when she is briefly near death. After she returns to France the concerns that occupied her before — her ambitions, the stories she covers, even her relationship — are not as important to her as understanding what she saw and what it means. When once she was excited to appear in posters for Blackberry, now she is interested in a more profound form of communication.

Jason and Marcus (played interchangeably by real-life twins George and Frankie McLaren, a nice touch to show their close connection) are British twins who are exceptionally devoted to one another. They have to be. Their mother is a heroin addict, so they have to work together to take care of her and of each other and keep the social workers from finding out what is really going on in their home. Jason, 12 minutes older, is the more verbal and the decision-maker. He is killed and Marcus sees him die. He is put in foster care while his mother goes to rehab. He is alone. And he needs, desperately, to find a way to talk to the brother who is in every way the other half of himself. He tries a number of psychics but they all seem to be well-meaning fools or downright fakes.

Nothing that happens later in the movie lives up to the inexorable, thundering, power of the tsunami, which makes the under-imagined images of the afterlife seem thin and tepid. Eastwood’s own score (he is an accomplished jazz musician) is nicely understated and evocative. And it was a relief that the heroin-addict mother and the foster parents were not Dickensian ogres. But the stories meander. The movie could lose half an hour easily — until they all come together for a conclusion that feels inadequate. When a magician shows you a hat, you are entitled to see a rabbit. No rabbit here.

Related Tags:

Drama Fantasy Spiritual films