Category: Reviews

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark

“Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” is a silly, wooden horror story with a dumb family and plot at its center.

The characters of “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” are always unwisely poking their heads and appendages into dark spaces they shouldn’t be. It’s one of the few ways the film’s monsters,  bite-size monkeys crossed with the Tooth Fairy (I kid you not), can wreak havoc on this bland, underdeveloped family dumb enough to live in a haunted house.

Seriously, which is more cliche? An oblivious, idiot father (Guy Pearce) who ignores his daughter Sally’s (Bailee Madison) pleas for help from the creatures that go bump in the night or the wise, old groundskeeper who’s always on hand to warn that the basement isn’t safe for children? Continue reading “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark”

Cyrus

“Cyrus” is what is known as a “mumblecore” film, which is a new revolution of indie filmmaking. The genre is known for its real characters and even more “real,” if mundane, plots. Its lo-fi style makes its characters and their common problems highly relatable, but not all mumblecore films can avoid feeling contrived.

I identify most closely with John (John C. Reiley), a lonely and divorced 40-something who abruptly discovers his ex wife (Catherine Keener) is getting remarried. The two remain congenial, and she invites John to a house party where he can meet a girl and drown his sorrows.

John’s monologue spoken to a disengaged girl at the party, delivered so affectingly and with frailty by Reilly, is very close to what I feel at times, and what I imagine most average people go through. He says he’s in a tailspin, that he’s depressed and lonely, but he knows himself to be a fun person with so much to give if he only finds the right person.

This man is not starting at rock bottom. How many people really do? We go through lonely, turbulent times, but many of us can still persevere and continue living. This is a common and true emotion rarely seen in mainstream Hollywood. Continue reading “Cyrus”

The Help

“The Help” isn’t really a drama about racism but about snobby, white Southern socialites.

 

What’s the real evil in civil rights era Jackson, Mississippi? Is it racism or controlling, white female socialites? “The Help” thinks it’s the former but the film is simply an entertaining movie about the latter.

It tells of how the budding young journalist Skeeter (Emma Stone) returns from college to find she is more enlightened and intelligent than her prejudiced housewife friends and that the black maid that helped raise her as a child is gone from their home. She’s embarrassed by a rule that would force black servants to use a separate bathroom outside the house and decides to write a book from the perspective of the help.

Skeeter’s two most animated subjects are the life of the film. Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minnie (Octavia Spencer) are fun, sassy, strong and complex individuals with a lot of stories about one of their employers, Hilly Holbrook. Bryce Dallas Howard plays Hilly with spunk and whiplash tartness, but her character is a one-dimensional, bitchy control freak who determines who’s in and who’s out in her middle class WASP social circle of women. Continue reading “The Help”

Captain America: The First Avenger

“Captain America: The First Avenger” is campy fun with some neat ’40s nostalgia but gets bogged down by service to the franchise.

Don’t be mislead that “Captain America: The First Avenger” is a period piece war movie. It’s got a sepia tone and World War II era costumes, but the film is done up with as much CGI flair as any other superhero blockbuster. That said, this campy, Americana kicker that’s more sci-fi than old Hollywood is still a good time at the movies.

It goes to show that even if your character is just as goofy as a Norse God and if your film has nearly as many blatant product placement moments for yet another franchise a year in the future, a movie can still have quality if it feels like more than an advertisement.

Let’s leave all the Avengers mumbo jumbo aside. The real movie starts not with a crashed and frozen spaceship in modern day but with the vicious Nazi Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving) stealing an ancient artifact that will do more for the war than the Ark of the Covenant did. Mutated with powers that make him believe he’s above God, he wants to separate from the Fuehrer and take over the world himself. The only person to stop him is a scrawny kid from Brooklyn, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans). No enlisting center will accept him given his size and medical problems, but he’s granted a special opportunity by a German scientist, Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci). Erskine will transform Steve into a hulking super soldier with the hope that he’ll maintain a good and strong heart. And thus Captain America is born. Continue reading “Captain America: The First Avenger”

Up

Pixar’s “Up” is yet another masterpiece from the animation studio.

 

In 1937, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” proved that animation is an art form that can transcend film. In 1995, Pixar and “Toy Story” spawned the new era of animated filmmaking, showing human depth and emotion beyond any that had been seen in a children’s movie. Ten films later, Pixar is still here, and it’s a sad thing that adults still need reminding that even a kid’s movie can be breathtaking.

So here it goes: “Up” is yet another of Pixar’s masterpieces. It is not my favorite film of theirs, but asking me to choose between them is like asking which is my all time favorite breath of air; each one is as good and as essential as the last.

Like the many other Pixar achievements, “Up’s” accomplishment is being original, colorful, charming, intelligent, humorous, simplistic and profound. But this movie doesn’t have the natural charm we see when looking into WALL-E’s droopy binocular eyes. “Up’s” hero is the bitter old man, Carl Fredricksen (Ed Asner), who after the death of his wife has refused to leave his dream home that’s about to be torn down, and instead glowers at the construction workers with a cold, firm stare behind his thick glasses he’s worn since being a child.

Ever since his childhood, he’s admired the work of explorer Charles Muntz, and he and his soon to be wife Ellie had always dreamed of one day following in Muntz’s footsteps to visit Paradise Falls in South America. After her death, he harnesses thousands of balloons to his roof to float his house away, but not without one young stowaway. After takeoff, the 8-year-old Russell and Carl both start a journey to fulfill Ellie’s lifelong dream.

The beauty of “Up” is its exploratory, simplistic concept. It’s one we still find reason to care about, but it grants us time to appreciate the vast landscapes and the glorious colors that serve to tell the story better than anything else. Director Pete Doctor knows that a million blue balloons is not nearly as effective as the same number glistening in all different shades. Continue reading “Up”

The Secret of Kells

The Secret of Kells is a beautifully animated gem that swept up a surprise Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature.

 

A Best Animated Feature category at the Oscars may have hurt the Best Picture chances of certain cartoons in the past, but the beauty of such a category is that it and the Animated Short category that has existed forever allows for honoring the craft of the most artistic sort of animation. “The Secret of Kells” is the most recent beneficiary.

This Irish indie received a surprise Oscar nod in early 2009 to the universal scratching of heads from American journalists and critics nationwide. I recall viewing the IMDB page for the film the day of the nomination to see it had a 500% increase in popularity over the last few articles. Articles entitled, “What the hell is ‘The Secret of Kells’” sprang up over night. And it didn’t even get a proper American release until two days prior to the Oscar ceremony.

But what had flown under the radar for so long was a wondrous miracle of 2-D drawings and classical imagery that had undergone production over five years in three countries for about $8 million. The completed film is remarkable, a lovingly sketched film from start to finish. Continue reading “The Secret of Kells”

How to Train Your Dragon

Dreamworks’ “How to Train Your Dragon” is a welcome surprise with beautifully animated flight sequences.

Advertisers may think they know what “How to Train Your Dragon” is about. They see the cute dragon, they see the fat one, the scary, ugly one, and they see Gerard Butler’s name stapled onto the credits and they assume a madcap adventure made to be coupled in with trailers about movies with talking, live action cats and dogs. Thank goodness someone saw how elegant the flying sequences were in “Up” and “Avatar.”

“How to Train Your Dragon” is a welcome surprise, a charming film that can stage a moment of the utmost beauty and tranquility through marvelous animation and the right pacing and tone. It has the same markings of any Dreamworks movie as well, but I became invested in the characters and enchanted by the visuals to even appreciate the longer, manic ending of action and fire breathing explosions.

The film takes place in a Viking village overrun by dragons on a regular basis. The tribe is fully concerned with killing and eliminating dragons of any kind, but after a scrawny boy named Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) has an encounter with a rare dragon he successfully harmed, he finds he has a change of heart towards the creatures when he looks into the eyes of this particular dark blue dragon and can’t bring himself to kill it. Continue reading “How to Train Your Dragon”

Crazy, Stupid, Love

“Crazy, Stupid Love” is a rom-com salvaged by its cast but done in by a strange side plot.

Steve Carell is hoping to be a movie star after “The Office.” Ryan Gosling is trying to prove he can do more than simply dramatic method acting. Emma Stone wants to be seen as more than a kid. “Crazy, Stupid, Love” tries so hard to be generic and boilerplate, and there’s a sense the cast would simply not allow it. Continue reading “Crazy, Stupid, Love”

I Love You Phillip Morris

Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor give some of the best performances of their career in this farcical biography.

Some Hollywood love stories just seem too good to be true. “I Love You Phillip Morris” seems way too good to be true, and yet somehow it is, but hardly in the cliché way one might expect from, well, Hollywood.

Steven Russell (Jim Carrey) is a man devoid of any identity but a pro at performing the expectations of society whenever the mood strikes him. As a child, he was adopted and became an upstanding poster boy. As an adult, Steven’s a cop and a model citizen living the American dream with a wife and kids. Following a car accident, he reveals he’s gay, but more accurately, flamboyantly gay, going as far as committing credit fraud to live a perfect life of fashionable luxury. And in prison, Steven’s the perfect cellmate laying down the rules of the yard and encouraging the sexual favors.

Yet with no personality to fall back on, Steven’s cheerful demeanor and everything that comes out of it is a lie. He means no ill will, so it’s impossible to dislike him, but if you’re going to be a fraud, why not be a fraud in the biggest way possible? Continue reading “I Love You Phillip Morris”

The Fountain

It isn’t easy to make a masterpiece, even if your ambitions are in the right place, you’re a talented director with a knack for visual effects and you’ve seen “2001: A Space Odyssey” hundreds of times. “The Fountain” is an extravagant film about immortality, but sadly, it’s not the sort of film that will be remembered for eternity.

“The Fountain” spans thousands of years from the age of a Spanish conquistador raiding the Mayans to a surgeon in present day to a time beyond time or space where a man with a shaved head levitates around a bubble floating in the cosmos as he cares for a dying tree. The man in all three time periods is played by Hugh Jackman, and in each he is bound by a promise of love to his wife. In the present she’s Izzy (Rachel Weisz), a dying writer. In the past she’s Queen Isabella. In the future she’s the tree. Continue reading “The Fountain”