High School Musical 3: Senior Year

Posted on February 16, 2009 at 6:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	All Ages
MPAA Rating:	G
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	None
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	October 24, 2008
Date Released to DVD:	February 17, 2009
Amazon.com ASIN:	B001NE80P4

Sometimes “nice” can be very high praise, and that is the way I mean it when I say that the utterly snark-free “High School Musical 3: Senior Year” is as nice as it gets. With a gossamer-weight plot line that makes Archie Comics look like Dostoyevksy but all the heart, spirit, and sweetness and fun its fans are hoping for, this is a resoundingly satisfying conclusion to the record-breaking trilogy. I admit it — I smiled, I tapped my feet, and I even wiped away a tear.

One thing I especially loved about the movie is the way it avoided the usual misunderstandings and hurt feelings. Troy (Zac Efron) and Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens), who met singing a karaoke duet in the original HSM are thoughtful, kind, and committed throughout this film. The overall tone of the movie is sugary, but they are much more authentic than most movie couples in the way they trust and support one another. It is such a relief to see them so solidly together as they try to address their problems. There is no silliness about their relationship, which is supported by everyone around them. That means that when they are not singing or worrying there is not much for them to do but smile their dazzling smiles at each other, but the singing and dancing is great, the smiles are indeed dazzling, and they do have one breathtakingly romantic moment that is surprisingly touching because it is utterly pure and simple and lovely.

Like all high school seniors, Gabriella and Troy feel that everything is moving too fast. They are excited about college but wish they could hold on to everything they have loved at East High. They are trying to figure out how to understand what is right for them, which may not be what their parents want. And they have counted the miles between the schools they are planning to attend and are not looking forward to being so far away from each other. Everyone is just too busy and distracted to be in another musical show this year but somehow Gabriella once again brings them all together for what they know will be their last chance.

But Mean Girl Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale vamping like a cross between Paris Hilton, Christina Aguilera, and Cruella deVil) wants to be the star of the show. With her twin brother Ryan (Lucas Grabeel), the show choreographer, she dreams of having it all in a sensational dance number in the school cafeteria that is a throwback to the all-out show-stoppers of the classic MGM musicals. Sharpay has a car with a “Fabulous” license plate, a personal assistant with a British accent, some truly impressive hair, a double locker with a padded interior and a make-up mirror, and an endless series of tiny miniskirts. Her entrance is sensational — as all of the kids are in bright red in tribute to the championship basketball team, she comes in the door in flaming hot pink.

The musical numbers are sheer delight, especially Efron’s athletic romp in a junkyard with pal Chad (Corbin Bleu) and his Fred Astaire-inspired, literally off-the-wall solo in the school late at night. Troy and Gabriella just might bring back the waltz with their lovely pas de deux in the school’s rooftop garden. They might bring back the idea of sweet, tender romance where one special kiss means everything, too.

Soul Men

Posted on February 10, 2009 at 8:00 am

If you see this movie, stay through the end credits to watch an interview with co-star Bernie Mac, who died not long after filming was completed. It is a better reminder of his gifts than the movie itself, a formulaic road trip that relies primarily on insults and pratfalls.

Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac play Hinds and Henderson, once part of a popular 60’s soul group. But when Marcus, their lead singer (real-life soul singer John Legend), decides to go solo, they are unable to sustain performing careers. Henderson develops a successful car wash business and Hinds ends up in jail.

Marcus goes on to become a superstar, and when he dies, VH1 organizes a tribute concert at the Apollo and invites Hinds and Henderson to perform. Henderson does not fly, so they get in Hinds’ convertible and drive across the country, fighting pretty much full-time and stopping along the way to revisit some memories and try out their act. It’s “The Sunshine Boys” with less shtick and more Viagra jokes.

Director Malcolm D. Lee (the hilarious “Undercover Brother” and the charming “Roll Bounce” but also the terrible “Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins”) has a strong sense of structure and timing but too many of the jokes rely on bad language and gratuitously outrageous behavior. Jennifer Coolidge (“Best in Show,” “American Pie”) is wasted as a voracious one-night stand and Sean Hayes (“Will and Grace”) is wasted in an under-written role as the producer of the VH1 special. There are pointless detours for a stupid and abusive grille-toothed boyfriend of a young woman befriended by the duo, a doofus intern assigned to them by the producer, and an arrest just as they are about to arrive at the Apollo. But Jackson and Mac are clearly enjoying themselves, and their moments together manage to inject some fun into the story and even a little bit of soul.

Related Tags:

Comedy Musical

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

Posted on February 6, 2009 at 4:00 pm

The rare sequel that improves on the original, “Madagascar 2” keeps the silliness and steps up the heart. In the first film, four zoo animals run away and after a series of adventures are sent to live in an African wildlife refuge. Alex the pampered city lion (voice of Ben Stiller), Marty the zebra who longs for the veldt (voice of Chris Rock), Melman the hypochondriac giraffe (voice of David Schwimmer), and Gloria, the warm-hearted hippo (voice of Jada Pinkett Smith) are still, so to speak, fish out of water when it comes to living in the wild. Alex especially is eager to get back home. But their plane, piloted by ditsy penguins, crashes and they find themselves again in the wilderness.

But this time, it feels like home. Alex is reunited with the parents he barely remembers (voices of Bernie Mac and Sherri Shepherd). Marty is overjoyed to be at last among his own kind with a herd of zebras. Gloria wants to settle down with a mate and is delighted to see some handsome hippos as possible prospects. And Melman’s expertise with medical treatment gets him dubbed the new witch doctor. He is able to save the life of a young giraffe by setting his broken leg.

But a rival for the “alpha lion” position (voice of Alec Baldwin) tricks Alex’s father into forcing Alex to fight and banishing him when he loses. Marty finds that while the other zebras may look and act exactly like him, he misses his best friend. Melman tries to find a way to tell Gloria how much he cares for her. And Alex has to find a way to be true to himself as a lion and as a New Yorker.

While there is nothing as tone-deaf as the first film’s focus on whether Alex would eat his best friend, there are still a few clangers. Though gently handled, part of the plot concerns a character’s offer to sacrifice himself by jumping into lava because some of the animals believe it will appease the gods and restore their water supply. A cub is captured by poachers and his father is shot (minor injury). A feisty elderly woman’s fistfights are intended to be humorous. There is nothing especially new here. But it is funny and colorful and even a little bit sweet and you gotta love those nutty penguins.

Push

Posted on February 5, 2009 at 6:00 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, brief strong language, smoking and a scene of teen drinking
Profanity:	Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Teen drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense peril and violence
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	February 6, 2009

If you add up all the recent movies about ordinary-looking people who walk among us with special hidden powers, you might conclude that there are no normal people left. The accountant next door might be a secret mutant, time traveler, mythological character or cyborg, but he is rarely just an accountant.

“Push” is the latest in this genre, and director Paul McGuigan has learned from and built upon many of the films that have gone before. “Push” offers a whole bestiary of people born with special talents, including Movers, Shifters, Pushers, Sniffers, Bleeders and Watchers. Some of their talents are familiar– Watchers, for example, seem to be your standard clairvoyants. But others, such as Bleeders, are a little further off the beaten track: they scream at an ear shattering, brain-pulping pitch.

The mutants in Push are pursued by a nefarious government agency called “The Division” which wants to harness their powers and exploit them for military purposes. Those who are fortunate enough to avoid being locked up in a prison hospital and subjected to horrendous medical experiments go underground in remote locations in an effort to escape detection by the authorities. The movie opens as Nick Gant, a young boy with the telekinetic powers of a “Mover,” watches his father being murdered by agents of the Division. Gant’s father’s last desperate words to his son are a prediction that some day a girl in need of help will come to him with a flower. Years later, our hero has grown into a young man (Chris Evans) who is hiding out in Hong Kong to stay one step ahead of the agents who killed his father. Lo and behold, he is approached by a young girl with a flower, Cassie Holmes (Dakota Fanning) who is another type of mutant– a “Watcher” who draws pictures of the future, and the two are off and running on an adventure to find the secret suitcase and bring down the evil “Division.”

This movie is a fast moving, erratic combination of clever and cliche, of imaginative visuals and unbearably corny dialogue. There are innovative moments, such as a shoot-out in a restaurant between telekinetically manipulated guns hovering in the air, or a chase through a Hong Kong shop filled with huge fish tanks where the screams of “Bleeders” cause the fish in the tanks to burst into red blossoms. On the other hand, sometimes the lines of dialogue are so awful that the screaming of the Bleeders seems like a welcome relief.

One of the best parts is the backdrop of Hong Kong — old shops and winding streets with ancient musicians playing traditional instruments and house boats on the dock — which proves more interesting than some imaginary alien planet. It may be better than the average mutant-next-door movie, even if it doesn’t have any hidden special powers.

Notorious

Posted on January 15, 2009 at 6:00 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for pervasive language, some strong sexuality including dialogue, nudity, and for drug content
Profanity:	Constant extremely strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking, characters sell drugs, reference to drug use
Violence/ Scariness:	Gang-related violence, characters shot and killed
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	January 16, 2009

Christopher George Latore Wallace lived fast, died young, and left a very big corpse. He started dealing drugs as a young kid in Brooklyn, went to prison, and was killed at age 24 in a gang-style shooting that is still unsolved. What makes him worthy of a biopic is that in between all of this he made two rap albums as Biggie Smalls/Notorious B.I.G. that were and continue to be enormously successful.

This movie will inevitably come up short when compared to documentaries like the one about the similarly brief life of the far more prolific rapper Tupac Shakur or full-scale Hollywood biopics like “Ray” and “Walk the Line.” It is produced by Wallace’s biggest promoters, his mother and impresario Sean Combs, who was then known as Puff Daddy and it has the soft edges of a hagiography. And its star, newcomer Jamal Woolard, evokes Biggie’s flattish affect without making the story’s main character particularly dynamic. The film benefits from very strong performances by the supporting cast, including Angela Bassett as Wallace’s mother, Derek Luke as Combs, Naturi Naughton as protege/girlfriend Li’l Kim, Anthony Makie as Shakur, and Antonique Smith as his wife, Faith Evans. But there is not enough in it to engage anyone who is not already a knowledgeable fan. It does not provide any context about why Wallace was different or important or how his experience informed his lyrics or what it was about his performances that connected with such a wide audience. It does not explore the notion of authenticity and “keeping it real” and the inability to understand how legitimate success was different by almost everyone but Puff Daddy that made the tragic outcomes almost inevitable. It is superficial and overly commercial, something the really Biggie never was.