The Croods

Posted on March 21, 2013 at 6:00 pm

I think we can all agree that at least in some respects all children are Neanderthals. It is the grand challenge of parenthood to civilize these sometimes savage little creatures by teaching them language, manners, and keeping safe. And some of the most difficult choices parents must make come when we try to encourage children to be strong, brave, independent, and adventuresome when it comes to accomplishing goals in school, sports, and chores while protecting them from mistakes that could be hurtful or even devastating.

That’s the idea behind sweet new animated film about a prehistoric cave family. Familiar family dynamics are amusingly exaggerated in the Paleolithic setting, where the most basic necessities require everyone’s full-time attention. The heavy-boned characters designed by the brilliantly witty Carter Goodrich (“Despicable Me,” “Hotel Transylvania”) may argue with each other, but they demonstrate the strength of their bond on the hunting/gathering expedition. When this family goes out to get breakfast, they really go out to get breakfast. In a joyously-choreographed race to get food, parents Grug (Nicolas Cage) and Ugga (Catherine Keener), Ugga’s mother Gran (Cloris Leachman), and their three children work seamlessly together somewhere between extreme dodgeball, an obstacle course, and a rugby game. Even the happily feral baby joins in for a crucial maneuver.

Other than that, they stay inside the cold, dark, cave. None of the other families of their community have survived, and Grug is terrified of anything that he cannot control. So he tells his family that “curiosity is bad and anything that is new is bad” and insists that they all stay inside together. Keeping everyone alive is his full-time job. “Never not be afraid,” he warns them. “Fear keeps us alive.” “I will never do anything new or different,” promises his son Thunk (Clark Duke). But rebellious teenagers go back as far as protective fathers, and Eep wants to explore the world outside the cave. What Grug sees as safe and under control, Eep sees as boring and old-fashioned.

That bigger world Eep wants to see includes a stranger, a guy named Guy (Ryan Reynolds). He has a lot of new ideas like tools, shoes, a “belt” (a monkey with a theatrical flair for flourish), and “baby suns” — fire. Eep wants to learn more. And soon Grug has to make changes because the tectonic plates start to shift beneath him. Staying the same is no longer safe. The family must leave the cave to find a new place to live. Grug has to learn that sometimes new is not bad. And Eep has to learn the value of what she already has.

Kids will enjoy outsmarting the Neanderthals, whose experience of the world is so limited that they think fire can be extinguished by dry grass and they will marvel at the notion that there had to be a first-ever hug. They will get a kick out of Guy as a proto-MacGyver who shows his traveling companions how to use rocks, vines, leaves — and strategy — to trap food and protect themselves from predators. As Grug and his family leave their rocky home they find new environments that are increasingly dazzling, with spectacularly imagined vistas and gorgeous vegetation. Those images nicely parallel the opening minds and spirits of Grug and his family. Despite a few too many mother-in-law jokes, “The Croods” nicely makes it clear that even before they had fire, families understood how important it was to cherish and protect each other. And Eep reminds us that what may feel like teenage obstinacy and foolhardiness may just be the next step in our evolution.

Parents should know that this movie has some scary animals and children and adults in peril, with references to sad off-screen deaths. There is brief crude humor and there are repeated jokes about Grug wishing that his mother-in-law would die.

Family discussion: How can you tell when it is time to try new things and time to stick with what you know? What did Guy and Grug learn from each other?

If you like this, try: Visit a museum or do some research in books to look at prehistoric fossils and bones and watch “The Land Before Time,” the “Ice Age” series, and “The Flintstones”

Pacific Rim — Sweded

Posted on March 20, 2013 at 8:00 am

One of this year’s biggest summer releases is Guillermo Del Toro’s “Pacific Rim,” a big, big, big summer action movie.

It was the delightful “Be Kind Rewind” that established the term “Sweding” for home-made, frankly cheap but wholehearted and joyful replicas of beloved movies, from “Rush Hour” to “Driving Miss Daisy.” Here is an adorably micro-budgeted Sweded version of the “Pacific Rim” trailer. (Thanks to my friend Brandon Fibbs for sharing.)

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Trailers, Previews, and Clips

Trailer: Epic

Posted on March 18, 2013 at 8:00 am

Really looking forward to this one, featuring the voices of Amanda Seyfried, Jason Sudeikis, Beyoncé, Aziz Ansari, Christoph Waltz, and Colin Farrell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xu3JLXfuwQ

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Upside Down

Posted on March 14, 2013 at 10:48 pm

Argentinean writer-director Juan Solanas has created a work of bracingly singular imagination that is sheer visual pleasure, with some mind-bending ideas and a deeply romantic sensibility.

We are told by Adam (Jim Sturgess) that throughout the universe, there is only one solar system with “dual gravity.” He lives in the “down” side of mirror-image parallel worlds. Interaction between the two worlds is strictly forbidden, with the exception of a tightly controlled transfer of energy by a vast, soulless, and predatory corporation. The laws of physics in this world also impose a barrier. Matter from one side quickly heats up and burns when it is placed in the other. People carry their gravitational pull with them, so that anyone who visits the other side will give themselves away by floating back toward their home turf.

Adam was orphaned following an industrial accident. His only family is his Aunt Becky, who sends him into the mountains to gather a very rare pink bee pollen that stands out in the wintry gray and blue of the bleached-out color scheme. On the highest peak, he glimpses a girl named Eden Moore (Kirsten Dunst) in the mountains of the up world. They are close enough to talk to each other. Within a few years, they are in love. He pulls her down on a rope and with her back up against a protruding crag to keep her from floating back up, they kiss.

But they are tracked down and she is badly hurt trying to escape. Ten years later, Adam learns that Eden has survived the accident and works for the corporation. He has to find her again. But it turns out the totalitarian regime and gravitational barriers are not their biggest obstacles.

Solanas has created two worlds of vast and stunningly intricate detail. Identical desks extend endlessly across both floor and ceiling in cavernous offices. Eden likes to drink upside-down cocktails, blue liquid served in a stem-up glass and slurped from below. And the consequences of reverse gravity are imaginatively (if not always consistently) explored. Adam remembers to use hairspray to help him pass as a top world resident, to make sure that his hair won’t hang the wrong way (up instead of down) when he goes to see Eden. But when he hides out in the men’s room, he does not think about the fact that his pee will hit the ceiling, not the urinal. His early experiments to help him pass for an “up” have a limited time span that adds a Cinderella quality to the story.

Timothy Spall provides zesty comic relief as Adam’s “up” world colleague and Dunst and Sturgess have a swoon-worthy chemistry that makes the story feel, well, grounded. The daring originality of Solanas’ vision more than makes up for some narrative lags and makes this one of the most promising debuts in recent memory.

Parents should know that this film includes peril, chases, and some violence, including shooting, with some characters injured. There is a fire and there are references to sad deaths and a brief image of hanging. A character smokes cigars and some drink cocktails and there is brief potty humor.

Family discussion: What kind of government is in place in this movie? Why is there income disparity between the two worlds?

If you like this, try: “Looper” and “Solaris”

Oz the Great and Powerful

Posted on March 7, 2013 at 6:00 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for sequences of action and scary images and brief mild language
Profanity:	Brief mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Fantasy action/peril/violence, scenes of desolation and loss, scary monsters and jump out at you surprises, some disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	March 8, 2013
Date Released to DVD:	June 10, 2013
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00C7JG0KG

A prequel to one of the most beloved films of all time is a daunting challenge, but Disney’s prequel to “The Wizard of Oz” manages to balance respect for the original with some fresh and appealing insights into the story. But the real star of the story is the enchanting, rapturously imagined setting, brilliantly designed by Bob Murawski and directed by Sam Raimi. From the captivating opening credit puppet theater, we are immediately in the world of magic and mystery — and hokum.

Like the 1939 Judy Garland classic, the movie opens in black-and-white. The screen is shrunken to the proportions of the 1930’s. And, like the Garland version (but not the books), the characters and themes of Oz are echoed in the scenes set back home. Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs, known as Oz for his first two initials, is a showman and a con man, a magician in a small traveling circus. Personally and professionally, his life is about fooling as many people as possible. He is constantly either trying to impress a pretty girl or trying to avoid any personal entanglements, romantic or friendship.

It is telling that his big trick is to select a pre-arranged “country girl” from the audience apparently at random, making her seem to float in the air, and then wait for the viewers to think they’ve figured out the trick by noticing the wires that appear to keep her suspended. This makes possible the dramatic flourish — he cuts the wires to reveal that he has not just made her float — he has made her disappear. Oz is eternally poised on the brink between reality and illusion, between connection and distance, between appearing (no one is more visible than those whose profession is to perform in public) and disappearing (he always seems to have a means of escape handy). At the same time, the “country girl” is discovering that he lied to her, the circus strong man is coming after him for flirting with his wife, and he receives a visit from the only woman we sense he has ever really cared for (Michelle Williams), who asks him if there is any reason she should turn down a proposal from another man. He tells her to accept, though it is clear that he has some regrets. And then, he does what he does best — he escapes, jumping into the circus hot air balloon, which is whipped into a twister, and which deposits him in a strange and wondrous land of lush and vivid color — Oz.

The first creatures he meets are nasty little water fairies with big teeth and a stunningly beautiful woman with a splendid brimmed hat named Theodora (Mila Kunis). She seems to think that he is the wizard from a prophecy — a man with the same name as their enchanted land, who would arrive to rule as king and free their people. Freeing the people does not have much appeal for Oz, but he is definitely intrigued by the notion of a palace, a throne, and a scepter. “Is the scepter made of gold?” he asks, to make sure that this deal is as sweet as it sounds.

We know that Oz will be come the wizard and live in the palace. We know he will become “a good man but a bad wizard,” hiding behind the curtain as he works the controls of a huge face with a booming voice. We know he will bestow gifts that show people the greatness that is already within them. And we know he will have to take a journey to get there. Writers Mitchell Kapner and Pulitzer Prize awardee David Lindsay-Abaire (“Rabbit Hole“) weave in characters and themes inspired by some of the other Oz books as well, including a girl made out of porcelain, rescued from her shattered “China Town.” Oz meets up with two other witches as well, including one who has a very bad reaction to moisture. And he is not the only one who has to decide which side he will be on.

The visuals are fabulously imaginative, consistently surprising and new and yet consistent with our ideas about Oz from the books and the 1939 film. That’s consistent but not identical — Disney had to be careful not to get too close to MGM’s copyrighted designs. So there are flying monkeys, but very different (and even scarier), a poppy field, and an Emerald City gatekeeper (who will be familiar to fans of Sam Raimi’s less family-friendly films). The 3d effects are effective, especially during the twister. Franco’s characterization wavers at times and he never quite persuades us that he is at heart a showman. The big reveal about what prompts a witch to turn evil is disappointingly under-imagined. Indeed, for a movie with three significant female characters played by three of Hollywood’s most talented women and the China Girl (voiced by Joey King), the film’s conception of women is unfortunately superficial, simplistic, and male-oriented. It is an enchanting journey — but at the end you may wish to click your heels three times to return to the peerless Garland version and the books. There’s no place like home.

Parents should know that this film includes extended fantasy peril, action, and violence, with scenes of devastation and loss, jump out at you surprises, and scary monsters, some disturbing images, brief mild language, a character who makes advances at many women, and scenes of jealousy, anger, and sadness.

Family discussion: What is the difference between being a great and a good person? Why did Glinda believe in Oz? How did the characters in the prologue relate to their counterparts in Oz? What elements of the classic Oz story are explained in this film?

If you like this, try: the Oz books by L. Frank Baum, and the classic film with Judy Garland