Imagine That

Posted on October 6, 2009 at 8:00 am

Title aside, there is not much imagination in this formulaic story of a daddy who discovers the value of his daughter’s imaginary friends — and then learns that it is his daughter who matters most of all. But I am an unabashed sucker for daddy-daughter movies, the little girl is adorable, and I was immensely relieved to see Eddie Murphy in a movie that is not terrible, so I found myself smiling.

Murphy plays Evan Danielson, who is very good at his job as an investment advisor but not very good as a husband and father. Although he and his wife Trish (the always-graceful Nicole Ari Parker) have recently separated, his primary concern is his competition at the office with Johnny Whitefeather (Thomas Haden Church), a competitor at the office who uses his Native American heritage to sell his investment ideas to clients.

Perhaps because of the separation, Evan’s daughter Olivia (adorable Yara Shahidi) has become very attached to a security blanket she calls her “goo-ga.” When it is over her head, she talks to her princess friends. All of this is distracting and frustrating for Evan, who is caring for Olivia full-time while Trish is busy with work. But then he discovers that Olivia’s imaginary friends have some real-life insights into the companies he is analyzing. And as he spends time with Olivia to get access to the secrets of her imaginary friends, he discovers how much more important she is than any investment or promotion or client could ever be.

This much we knew going in. And parts don’t work at all. The entire Whitefeather plot line is clumsy and borderline racially insensitive, especially when it involves his son. There is too much about business and investments that will be confusing to children. Martin Sheen is underused. But DeRay Davis as Danielson’s former football-player friend is wonderfully natural and leaves us wanting to know more about his character.

Basically, it’s a little “Liar Liar” and a little “The Game Plan” and lighter-weight than both if such a thing is possible. But there is a reason this theme connects so successfully. As with “The Game Plan,” the little girl has the power in this relationship. She is not a bully or a brat and she is not selfish. She is wise and has a degree of control that is a very compelling and reassuring fantasy for children. By encouraging her father to do silly things she helps him to relinquish his own sense of control and need for success and connect to his capacity for fun and play. Shahidi and Murphy have an easy chemistry on screen that comes across as authentically sweet. Murphy will never be a subtle performer but he limits himself to just one role and seems to enjoy portraying the straight-laced but superbly professional Danielson and allowing him to thaw without overdoing it. And any time Murphy does not overdo it, that’s worth seeing.

Year One

Posted on October 6, 2009 at 8:00 am

The two-doofus comedy probably goes back to ancient times, so why not set it there? The always-funny Michael Cera and the frequently-funny Jack Black join forces like Hope and Crosby in an only intermittently-funny movie that is just a series of sketches set in ancient days — prehistoric, Biblical, Roman, and Egyptian. Cera plays Oh, a gatherer, and Black is Zed, a hunter. They are pals who are evicted from their stone-age village and wander off, meeting up with Cain and Abel, Abraham and Isaac, and the residents of Sodom. In yet another “what was the MPAA thinking” moment, the film has been assigned a PG-13 rating, despite jokes about incest, circumcision, orgies, castration, and ingestion of human waste.

The juxtaposition of modern sensibility and prehistory provides some funny contrasts. Oh and Zed are amazed to see their first wheel and when they ride in their first vehicle they raise their arms as though they were in a roller-coaster, even though it cannot keep up with a guy strolling alongside. And then they get their first carsickness. Some things are eternal — like insecurity with the opposite sex, bullies, and the bad guys having English accents. And it is fun to see a modern perspectives combined with ancient situations.

But more doesn’t work than does. Cain does not just kill Abel; he pounds him — and any potential for humor — into the ground. It isn’t enough that a pagan priest be corrupt and gay; he has to be hairy. The movie is too spotty to be comic and too listless to be heretical. There’s no point to it, just a series of gags — in both senses of the word.

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Shrink

Posted on September 29, 2009 at 8:00 am

“Physician, heal yourself!”

Henry Carter (Kevin Spacey) is the best-selling author of a book called Happiness Now and a Los Angeles psychiatrist to glamorous and highly successful people. But he is a mess, self-medicating to the point of obliterating himself with drugs and alcohol. He walks off in the middle of a talk show interview about his book. He walks out of an intervention from his friends and family. He is trying to walk out of his life. His patients want answers, reassurance, a sense of order and safety. But the usual assurances and gentle openings, “I know how hard that is” or “Do you know why you feel this way?” do not seem to work. And a devastating loss in his own life has left him in greater need than any of them.

Spacey is mesmerizing as the “compassion fatigued” Carter. The pain and anger of his character are palpable, as is his heart-wrenching frustration at not being able to stop feeling for himself and his patients. The cast is filled with brilliant performers who find subtlety and heart in otherwise stock characters (out of control rock star, would-be writer, shark agent, troubled teen) complex and sympathetic. Dallas Roberts (the agent), Pell James (the agent’s assistant), and KeKe Palmer of “Akeela and the Bee” (the teen) are pitch-perfect. If writer Thomas Moffett makes the mistake of falling too much in love with his characters to let anything too terrible happen to them, it is understandable, because we do, too.

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The Wizard of Oz

Posted on September 29, 2009 at 8:00 am

The 70th anniversary of this all-time classic is being celebrated with a beautiful new DVD release, a great chance for the family to sit down and watch what is probably the all-time greatest family film again.
Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland) lives in Kansas with her aunt and uncle and her dog, Toto. Mean Miss Gulch (Margaret Hamilton) swears she will have Toto taken away. Auntie Em and Uncle Henry support Dorothy, but they are too distracted by the coming tornado to pay much attention to her. Dorothy dreams of a place “over the rainbow” where everything is beautiful, “troubles melt like lemon drops” and “the dreams that you dream really do come true.” She starts to run away to protect Toto, but is sent back home by the kindly Professor Marvel (Frank Morgan), a traveling fortune-teller.

When the tornado arrives, Dorothy is outside the shelter. She goes to her room, where she is hit on the head by a piece of wood torn loose by the wind. The whole house rises, and is carried away by the tornado.

The house lands with a crash, and when she opens the door, she finds she has landed in the colorful world of Oz (the movie, black and white until this point, becomes technicolor). Her house has landed on the Wicked Witch of the East, killing her, and the tiny Munchkins celebrate Dorothy as a great heroine. Their friend Glinda the good witch (Billie Burke) arrives and gives her the Wicked Witch’s magic ruby slippers, just as the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton) arrives to take them. The Wicked Witch of the East was her sister. Furious, she swears revenge. Dorothy wants to go home and is told to seek out the Wizard of Oz, who lives in the Emerald City, for help.

On the way to the Emerald City, she meets a talking Scarecrow (Ray Bolger) who wants a brain, a Tin Woodsman (Jack Haley) who longs for a heart, and a cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr) who wants courage. They all join her, to seek the help of the Wizard. At the Emerald City, the Wizard at first refuses to see them, then finally tells them they must earn their wishes by bringing him the broom of the Wicked Witch of the West. They are captured by the Witch’s flying monkeys, and just as she is about to kill them, Dorothy douses her with water, trying to protect the Scarecrow from fire, and the witch melts.

They return to the Emerald City only to find that the Wizard cannot help them. He is a fraud, just “the man behind the curtain” whose terrifying displays of smoke and light hid a “humbug” who had no magical powers at all. But he is able to show the Scarecrow, Tin Woodsman, and Lion that they really did have what they were seeking all the time, and he promises to take Dorothy back to Kansas in his hot air balloon.

Toto jumps out of the balloon’s basket. Dorothy runs after him and misses the balloon launch. But, just as Dorothy despairs of ever going home, Glinda arrives and shows Dorothy that she had the means of getting home all the time. Back in Kansas, Dorothy wakes up to find her aunt and uncle, the farmhands, and Professor Marvel (who strongly resemble the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, Lion, and Wizard), and tells them that “there’s no place like home.”

This movie is an ideal family film, superb in every aspect, with outstanding art direction, music, and performances. It is still as fresh and engrossing as it was in 1939, and improves with every viewing. If you ever have a chance to see it in on a big screen, in a theater with a good sound system, you will enjoy it even more.

It is hard to imagine what it would have been like with the original intended cast, including Shirley Temple as Dorothy and Buddy Ebsen as the Tin Woodsman. But 20th Century Fox would not loan its top star, and Ebsen was hospitalized when he inhaled the aluminum dust in the Tin Woodsman’s make-up. Judy Garland is a perfect Dorothy — vulnerable, sensitive, completely believable. On the brink of leaving childhood, her dreams of a place “over the rainbow” are in part a yearning to escape the concerns of adulthood.

There is something especially satisfying about the way that the main characters find what they need within themselves. Talk with children about the way that the Scarecrow demonstrates his intelligence, the Tin Woodman demonstrates his heart, and the Lion demonstrates his courage. Even the humbug Wizard finds that he had the means to go home all the time. Dorothy, who in the first part of the movie runs away from home to try to solve her problems, spends the rest of the movie trying to get back. Even if the story is just a dream (in the book, it is a real adventure), this makes a great deal of emotional sense, a way of working through her inner conflicts.

It is also worth talking about the scene in which Dorothy and her friends disregard the Wizard’s plea to “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” and discover that he is really just an ordinary man. This can be a touchstone or metaphor for many kinds of challenges children face. It can help them recognize that the overpowering figures in their lives (parents, teachers, adults, sports figures) are just imperfect human beings. And it can also help them recognize attempts, by themselves as well as others, to distract people in hopes of hiding our imperfection and vulnerability.

NOTE: There are a number of different scenes in this movie that may be scary for children. Many adults still remember the flying monkeys or Dorothy looking into the crystal ball and seeing her aunt turn into the witch. Parents should talk to children about the story before seeing the movie, and watch with them to gauge their reactions.

Monsters vs. Aliens

Posted on September 28, 2009 at 8:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for sci-fi action, some crude humor and mild language
Profanity:	Some crude schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Action and cartoon violence, characters in peril, tension, lots of explosions, guns, apparent death of character
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	March 27, 2009
Date Released to DVD:	September 29, 2009
Amazon.com ASIN:	B001GCUO7A

An expert blend of silly fun, action that is mostly more exciting than scary, a few clever barbs, and some wow-worthy visuals make “Monsters vs. Aliens” the best family film in months.

“You’re glowing,” says the groom to his bride as they are about to be married.” And she is, but not in a good way. Exposed to a meteor just before the ceremony, Susan (voice of Reese Witherspoon) has a greenish glow. And then she starts to grow. Before she can say, “I do,” Susan is suddenly 50 feet tall. And before she can say, “How did I get to be 50 feet tall,” she is whisked away to a secret government compound for monsters where she quickly becomes a sort of house mother for a motley crew of assorted mutants, turning into a sort of cross between Alice in Wonderland in her giant mode, Snow White with the dwarfs, and Mary Ann with Gilligan, the Professor, and the gang.

Susan’s fellow monsters amusingly cover the full range of of B-movie monster origins. We have “The Fly”-style one mad scientist who became the victim of his own experiment with insects and turned into Dr. Cockroach, Phd (voice of “House’s” Hugh Laurie), one “Creature from the Black Lagoon”-style Missing Link thawed out of an arctic ice floe centuries after all others from his species had become extinct (voice of “Arrested Development’s” Will Arnett), and a giant bug (a la “Them” or “Mothra”). And then there is my favorite, Bicarbonate Ostylezene Benzoate, known as BOB (voice of Seth Rogan), a brainless but genial one-eyed gelatinous ooze along the lines of “The Blob.” These monsters are isolated as a matter of national security until an even bigger threat comes along. If you’ve heard the title, you know that it is aliens — or rather, one alien named Gallaxhar (voice of Rainn Wilson of “The Office”). He plans to take over earth. The monsters are the only hope of saving it.

It was filmed in digital 3D, in part an homage to the cheesy sci-fi films of the 50’s. It begins with the usual 3D trick as a bored technician plays paddleball and the ball on the elastic band seems to stop just short of our noses. But after that, the effects are more subtle and immersive. The animators have literally gone to unprecedented lengths — it almost feels as though we can touch objects that go back the length of a football field. The scenes are brilliantly designed to make the most of the 3D technology and the action scenes, particularly one on the Golden Gate Bridge, are as immediate and involving as any big summer explosion-fest. The story is fast-paced and funny, with many knowing references to classic sci-fi and a solid story of friendship and self-realization. The voices are all excellent, especially Stephen Colbert as the dim-witted President, Witherspoon’s Susan, who remains very real and human even after she becomes what the government christens Ginormica, and Laurie’s cockroach, who has the manners of a butler and the laugh of a mad scientist. And Wilson hits just the right note of petulance to keep the alien from being too menacing.

But the graphic character design is uneven. As with most animated films, the humans are often stiff and artificial. The big bug, the cockroach, and the Link are not particularly engaging. BOB, however, is simply sensational. Rogan’s husky voice and unabashed cheery laugh is a perfect match for the animated marvel of a big blue gooey thing that is endlessly pliant and effortlessly resilient. More than any other part of the movie, this charmingly silly little character shows what this technology is capable of, when the script has a great character to put on screen. In the battle between monsters and aliens, it is this little blue monster who saves the day.