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Archive for the category “Family”

14 Jun 2013
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Fantastic Mr. Fox

Review No. 497

“Fantastic” film.

fantastic_mr_fox

A-PLUS

DIRECTED BY WES ANDERSON.  PRODUCED BY ANDERSON, ALLISON ABBATE, SCOTT RUDIN, AND JEREMY DAWSON.  SCREENPLAY BY ANDERSON & NOAH BAUMBACH. BASED ON “FANTASTIC MR FOX” BY ROALD DAHL. FEATURING THE VOICES OF GEORGE CLOONEY (MR. “FOXY” FOX), MERYL STREEP (MRS. FELICITY FOX), JASON SCHWARTZMAN (ASH FOX), BILL MURRAY (CLIVE BADGER), WILLEM DAFOE (RAT), AND OWEN WILSON (COACH SKIP). ALSO FEATURING THE VOICES OF ERIC CHASE ANDERSON, WALLACE WOLODARSKY, MICHAEL GAMBON, ROBIN HURLSTONE, HUGO GUINESS, HELEN McCRORY, JARVIS COCKER, BRIAN COX, ADRIEN BRODY, GARTH JENNINGS, WES ANDERSON, ROMAN COPPOLA, AND MARIO BATALI. DISTRIBUTED BY 20TH CENTURY FOX ON NOVEMBER 25, 2009. PRODUCED IN ENGLISH BY THE UNITED STATES. RUNS 1 HOUR, 27 MINUTES. RATED PG BY THE MPAA, FOR ACTION, SMOKING, AND SLANG HUMOR.

FANTASTIC MR. FOX WAS WATCHED ON JUNE 10, 2013.

“Boggis, Bunce, and Bean
One fat, one short, one lean.
These horrible crooks,
so different in looks,
were nonetheless equally mean.”
–music and lyrics by Alexandre Desplat

Creative writing prompts are a matter of reusing and recycling; I think the one I land on the most happens to be: “Choose two different people from two different periods of time. Let them have a conversation with one another. What does one person say, and how does the other react?” The next time I face this prompt, I shall write a response concerning Roald Dahl and Wes Anderson. The problem I’ll run into is the time constraint. These two would sit around all day and not notice sunrise become midnight. You just can’t condense a high-spirited conversation the length of ten, elaborate novels, into a three-page short story.

ashfoxandkylie

From a “West Side Story”-esque scene – the Foxes vs. the Humans.

The animated comedy at hand is tremendously enjoyable for all ages. Wes Anderson has always been fond of expressing stories with adult humor and youthful attitudes, but he’s never been able to channel his work to both parties, due to the inhibitions of the R rating. Fantastic Mr. Fox is rated PG, and in almost every scene, there’s a melodic balance in humor. Anthropomorphism is outstandingly realized. One of my personal favorite moments was a rather fleeting instance: it’s funny for both young and older audiences when Kylie the Opossum starts playing the piano. One age group would laugh at the thought that an opossum can actually tickle the ivories; the other age group would find it amusing that an opossum is able to serenade his critter family as if he were George Gershwin.

My theory is, these five seconds were a subtextual cameo of Anderson’s. If there’s anyone who can adapt Roald Dahl’s work, it’s Wes Anderson. Henry Selick, Danny DeVito, and Tim Burton have all tried and failed. Proverbially, they knew the notes, they just couldn’t play the music. Anderson doesn’t just play the music, he plays it like George Gershwin. It’s been a while since I’ve read Dahl’s book, so I can’t say so for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if along the way, Anderson gave the notes a little twist. A twist that would make even Roald Dahl smile and remark, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Warm Bodies

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Posted in Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Family, [Film Reviews] and tagged
13 Jun 2013
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Spirited Away

Review No. 496

A movie for all ages, and for THE ages.

spirited_away

A

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY HAYAO MIYAZAKI. PRODUCED BY TOSHIO SUZUKI. FEATURING THE VOICES OF RUMI HIIRAGI (CHIHIRO OGINO), MIYU IRINO (HAKU/SPIRIT OF THE KOHAKU RIVER), MARI NATSUKI (YUBABA / ZENIBA), TAKASHI NAITO (AKIHIKO OGINO), YASUKO SAWAGUCHI (YUMIKO OGINO), TSUNEHIKO KAMIJŌ (CHICHIYAKU), TAKEHIKO ONO (ANIYAKU), AND BUNTA SUGAWARA (KAMAJII). ALSO FEATURING THE VOICES OF YUMI TAMAI, RYUNOSUKE KAMIKI, AND AKIO NAKAMURA. ENGLISH DUBBING FEATURES THE VOICES OF DAVEIGH CHASE, JASON MARSDEN, SUZANNE PLESHETTE, MICHAEL CHIKLIS, LAUREN HOLLY, RODGER BUMPASS, JOHN RATZENBERGER, AND DAVID OGDEN STIERS; AS WELL AS THOSE OF SUSAN EGAN, TARA STRONG, AND BOB BERGEN. DISTRIBUTED BY WALT DISNEY PICTURES ON JULY 20, 2001. PRODUCED IN JAPANESE BY JAPAN. RUNS 2 HOURS, 4 MINUTES. RATED PG BY THE MPAA, FOR SOME SCARY MOMENTS.

SPIRITED AWAY WAS WATCHED ON JUNE 8, 2013.

“Once you do something, you never forget. Even if you can’t remember.” –Zeniba (Japanese: Mari Natsuki / English: Suzanne Pleshette)

There’s an adage that if something can go wrong, it will. Spirited Away is a tale that presents this perfectly. Young Chihiro is instinctive, but she’s also shy. She’s moving into a new house, and as soon as she opens the car door to get out, she’s petrified with fear. Her parents’ one mistake is in dismissing this as pure shyness. They proceed to an abandoned carnival, notice food, and eat it. They’ve been corrupted by their own greed so much that they don’t even notice how the food is so hot in a carnival so deserted. They are transformed into swine, and in order for them to change back, Chihiro is sent to work herself to the bone in a bathhouse, run by spirits who could care for nothing more than to get their grubby paws on some money. Chihiro is able to forgive her parents for betraying her, only because she is devoted to them. But is it possible that one little girl can use devotion as a weapon against greed, the single driving force that motivates the hundreds that now surround her?

spirited-away-large-picture-1

Miyazaki has an imagination, and he isn’t afraid to use it.

The ending is a dead giveaway. It’s in getting there that an unpredictable beauty takes over. Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away is a brilliant “good vs. evil” fable. The story takes the fantasy genre and does it inside-out, similarly to how Guillermo del Toro constructed his Pan’s Labyrinth. This is, in fact, the exact opposite of Pan’s Labyrinth. That film featured a young girl who used her dream world as an escape from her father, a fascist World War II captain, and ended up getting the two worlds dangerously confused. Spirited Away concerns a girl whose reality becomes a world full of nightmares, which she must escape in order to return to her parents.

Spirited Away is either a wholesome film in the costume of a horror movie, or a horror movie in the costume of a completely wholesome film. I’m flummoxed as to which of the two it is, but I’m sure that this is a movie that has touches of both tameness and horror. Hayao Miyazaki proves flawlessly that it’s possible to craft reality out of a fantastical anime. The dangers Chihiro encounters aren’t accessible, but the one fear she has is one that every human has. You could say Spirited Away is more accessible to children who cannot afford to lose their parents, to which I’d argue that there’s someone, something, or some concept in your own life that you can’t possibly separate yourself from. I first watched Spirited Away when I was in the fifth grade, and it struck an emotional chord for me. Although the one this time was an emotional chord of a different pitch, it was just as strong.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

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Posted in Adventure, Animation, Family, Fantasy, [Film Reviews] and tagged
12 May 2013
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Parental Guidance

Review No. 471

“Parental Guidance” not suggested.

parental_guidance

C

DIRECTED BY ANDY FICKMAN. WRITTEN BY LISA ADDARIO AND JOE SYRACUSE. STARRING BILLY CRYSTAL (ARTIE DECKER), BETTE MIDLER (DIANE DECKER), MARISA TOMEI (ALICE SIMMONS), TOM EVERETT SCOTT (PHIL SIMMONS), BAILEE MADISON (HARPER SIMMONS), KYLE HARRISON BREITKOPF (BARKER SIMMONS), AND JOSHUA RUSH (TURNER SIMMONS). ALSO STARRING GEDDE WATANABE, CADE JONES, MAVRICK MORENO, MADISON LINTZ, AND KARAN KENDRICK. FEATURING CAMEOS FROM TONY HAWK AND STEVE LEVY. DISTRIBUTED BY 20TH CENTURY FOX ON DECEMBER 25, 2012. PRODUCED IN ENGLISH BY THE UNITED STATES. RUNS 1 HOUR, 45 MINUTES. RATED PG BY THE MPAA, FOR SOME RUDE HUMOR.

PARENTAL GUIDANCE WAS WATCHED ON MAY 3, 2013.

“My granddaughter’s birth has made me want to create things she will love.” –Billy Crystal

It’s amazing that I could predict how Parental Guidance would end as soon as it had begun.  Actually, scratch that.  If this were a movie that showed a modicum of decency toward a genuine movie lover, then to predict the ending would be impressive.  But it’s just common knowledge here.  Parental Guidance isn’t as far as you can get from original, but aside from a few minor touches, it recycles gags that seem to have gotten old fast.  The film is only as unpredictable as the sight of birds in the early morning.

I’ve been accused of being too generous to movies, but perhaps to Parental Guidance, I just need to be a bit more generous.  Movies like this don’t care about plot or pacing.  They don’t care how suddenly their characters change, because we won’t notice.  Maybe we will, but we won’t care.  Movies like this are the PG equivalent of a standup routine.  You try and “make ‘em laugh.”  Nothing else.  Just a joke.  Another joke.  And another joke.  Maybe a quick gross-out scene right when the under-eight audience is about to fall asleep.  Don’t want the comedy to be too boring.

And that’s exactly the problem with Parental Guidance.  It can’t make us laugh very easily.  You can see where it’s going, for sure.  You know what jokes it’s trying to tell; they just don’t come out right in delivery.  Sure, kids will laugh at this, but there’s several other movies that would treat them to much harder laughs.  The juvenile humor is evened out rather noticeably with Billy Crystal’s “adult humor.”  Fortunately, he steals the better half of his scenes (mind you, he features in a main role).  As for the other half, unfortunately, the writing of Lisa Addario and Joe Syracuse (no, I hadn’t heard of them either) manages to fail even an old-school genius like Crystal.  And unfortunately, there’s no kid who will get his jokes.

Parental Guidance is a substandard family comedy.  You take two parents that don’t look to us like they’d be strict, and apparently they’re Household Hitlers.  They don’t let their kids do anything but what is (hypothetically) good for them.  That includes not meeting their grandparents.  And it’s not until they do meet their grandparents that they realize that they’ve been brainwashed into the rule of their parents, and that their parents realize how totalitarian their rule is.  Seeing from how the movie plays out, you can stop questioning my level of exaggeration.  The movie adopts a great deal of caricature into its namesake.  As you would expect, results are both to success and failure.  But this story is so common.  You could do a two-minute Google search for something that takes the caricature to hilarious extremes.  And I guarantee, you’d find not one, but at least ten to your satisfaction.

Posted in Comedy, Family, [Film Reviews] and tagged
05 May 2013
12 Comments

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Review No. 464

Filthy hobbitses, it tricked us into believing we would not enjoy “The Hobbit”! *gollum, gollum*

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B-MINUS

DIRECTED BY PETER JACKSON. SCREENPLAY BY FRAN WALSH, PHILIPPA BOYENS, JACKSON, AND GUILLERMO DEL TORO. BASED ON “THE HOBBIT, OR THERE AND BACK AGAIN” BY J.R.R. TOLKIEN. STARRING IAN MCKELLEN (GANDALF THE GREY), MARTIN FREEMAN (BILBO BAGGINS), RICHARD ARMITAGE (THORIN OAKENSHIELD), ANDY SERKIS (GOLLUM), AND BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH (THE NECROMANCER). ALSO STARRING BARRY HUMPHRIES, CATE BLANCHETT, CHRISTOPHER LEE, ELIJAH WOOD, GRAHAM MCTAVISH, HUGO WEAVING, IAN HOLM, JAMES NESBITT, KEN STOTT, LEE PACE, MANU BENNETT, AND SYLVESTER MCCOY. DISTRIBUTED BY WARNER BROS. PICTURES ON DECEMBER 14, 2012. PRODUCED IN ENGLISH BY NEW ZEALAND, THE UNITED KINGDOM, AND THE UNITED STATES. RUNS 2 HOURS, 49 MINUTES. RATED PG-13 BY THE MPAA, FOR EXTENDED SEQUENCES OF INTENSE FANTASY ACTION VIOLENCE, AND FRIGHTENING IMAGES.

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY WAS WATCHED ON APRIL 20, 2013.

“Alive without breath,
As cold as death;
Never thirsty, ever drinking,
All in mail never clinking.”

I am not a Lord of the Rings fan. Yes, I’ve read the Tolkien works and seen each of Peter Jackson’s film transformations. Although I absolutely love the classic world J.R.R. Tolkien created in print, I must say that I find the initial film trilogy overrated. And if there’s one movie that transforms Tolkien’s upbeat magic to the silver screen with majestic attitude, it’s this prequel. You’d have to be blind to deny the grandeur that skyrockets to unbelievable heights. I wish I hadn’t so strongly refused to see it in theaters, come to think of it.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is for The Lord of the Rings, what The Phantom Menace was for Star Wars, what TV’s Bates Motel is for Psycho, et cetera. It’s more childlike than the original story, much less stern, much more colorful. The story is as simple as pitching the original in a past generation. In The Fellowship of the Ring–2001′s opening act to the LOTR trilogy–Frodo Baggins set out on a quest for the One Ring. In An Unexpected Journey, Bilbo Baggins sets out on a quest where he discovers the One Ring.

The movie entertains, but it also drags. Each of the three Lord of the Rings films was based on a book longer than J.R.R. Tolkien’s prelude installment–The Hobbit, or There and Back Again. An Unexpected Journey is based on merely the first third of this work, and it runs almost three hours. You can forget what I said about wishing I’d seen it at the cinema. The tale is exquisite, but it can be overly elaborate. It’s just too easy to get distracted from the story so that you can start wondering when you won’t have to feel so numb in the ass. Whereas long epics such as Titanic completely numbed away my ass at the theater, but I was too involved to notice.

I must applaud the cast for their excellence. The Lord of the Rings has always been cheesy, but in a way that takes a purist approach to high fantasy. We hear an elongated “No!” in these movies and it’s different than hearing Daniel Day-Lewis say it. The vast majority of the cast doesn’t see a limit to having fun with such clichés. Specifically, I applaud Andy Serkis for his vocal work as Gollum. The Hobbit is a mostly forgettable experience, but I don’t think I’ll ever tear away from the famous “riddles” scene. Serkis nailed it in the rare, outstanding role that makes one wish the Oscars honored voice acting.

So here’s a riddle for you:

It minuses but does not subtract.
It is yellow but it does not shine on the act.
It does not speak strictly to one pole,
The many words above it make it whole.

[The answer to the riddle is the letter grade off to the right.]

TOMORROW, ON CINEMANIAC REVIEWS…

The Fugitive

Posted in Epic, Family, Fantasy, [Film Reviews] and tagged
03 Apr 2013
8 Comments

Oz the Great and Powerful

Review No. 448

Same wizard, same Oz, better visuals, new generation.

oz_the_great_and_powerful_ver5

Directed by: Sam Raimi
Screenplay by: David Lindsay-Abaire and Mitchell Kapner
Based on: the “Oz” series by L. Frank Baum
Oscar “Oz” Diggs: James Franco
Theodora: Mila Kunis
Evanora: Rachel Weisz
Glinda, the Good Witch of the South: Michelle Williams
Annie: Michelle Williams
Finley the Flying Monkey (voice): Zach Braff
Master Tinkerer: Bill Cobbs
China Girl (voice): Joey King
Also Starring: Abigail Spencer, Bruce Campbell, Ted Raimi, Tim Holmes

Distributed by Walt Disney Pictures on March 8, 2013. Produced in English by the United States. Runs 130 mins. Rated PG by the MPAA–scary moments, infrequent violence, infrequent/mild language.

Oz the Great and Powerful was watched on March 8, 2013.

“There’s no place like home; there’s no place like home; there’s no place like home…” –Dorothy Gail (Judy Garland) in The Wizard of Oz

It’s not really fitting to say that Oz the Great and Powerful is a useless prequel to 1939′s The Wizard of Oz. L. Frank Baum wrote fourteen “Oz” books between 1900 and 1919, and since then, countless others have expanded the universe dramatically. By this point, it’s surprising we haven’t had a direct Wizard of Oz lead-in already.

Sam Raimi’s movie, in fact, does what every prequel sets up to do: tell a story that gives more detail about the characters. The problem is, the Wizard of Oz is only a mentioned name until the last ten minutes of Victor Fleming’s 1939 classic. He enjoys a brief onscreen appearance, leading to an ending that is spoiled within the first three minutes of Oz the Great and Powerful.

We’re talking about a horse of a different color. Not just a prequel, but something of a quasi-remake feel. Oz is, as well, an update for children who cannot possibly sit through a melodrama like the one it precedes. It takes that story, imagines the Wizard in Dorothy’s place, removes any subtlety in the entire message (“be yourself and stay faithful to your friends”), and unknowingly adds frivolous humor left and right. If you ask me, it’s a pretty lazy attempt at screenwriting. I guarantee, however, that your little cousin would strongly beg to differ.

Oz makes passing nods to the timeless work from which it uproots. Oscar Diggs, known by his illusionist stage name “Oz the Great and Powerful,” is blown away in a tornado to a land he never would have dreamed of. There are three witches among the land–one good, the other two wicked. One of the wicked witches must be destroyed in order for the arrogant, egocentric Oz to be appointed king, and to prove that he has been sent to save the Emerald City. But when Oz left Kansas, he was known only as a conman. When that’s all the respect he has for himself, how is he going to earn the trust of an entire nation?

What saves Oz is the visuals. I wouldn’t recommend watching the movie. If I simply can’t convince you and you’re dying to see it in theaters, I’d suggest going for the most Oztentatious approach. The film is incredible in 3-D. Sometimes it can make a show of itself and it’s difficult to care. The film opens in black and white (an homage to the initial work, which commenced in sepia tone) in a 4:3 aspect ratio. When Oz reaches the Utopia, there is a stunning burst of color and a slow shift to standard widescreen.

I would call this sort of eye candy mind-blowing, but nothing else about Oz the Great and Powerful even comes close. All right, James Franco was sturdy in the title role. And the ending was acceptable. Mila Kunis isn’t half bad during the first half, though I’d rather not mention any offenses she threw at L. Frank Baum’s land after her transformation into the maniacal, green-faced witch.

My main problem, near the ending, was that I was beginning to fidget in my seat like a young child. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve seen The Wizard of Oz too many times and thus found this prequel predictable, or that the film was just poorly written. It’s easy to say that neither is a tolerable result.

C PLUS

TOMORROW, ON CINEMANIAC REVIEWS…

My Left Foot

Posted in Adventure, Family, Fantasy, [Film Reviews] and tagged
20 Mar 2013
5 Comments

Jack and Jill

Day Ten of the Two-Week Torturefest

If “Dunkauccino” sounds more like “Al Pacino” than “cappuccino”, then “Jack and Jill” must be something of a crappuccino.

jack_and_jill

Directed by: Dennis Dugan
Written by: Steve Koren and Adam Sandler & Ben Zook
Jack: Adam Sandler
Jill: Adam Sandler
Also Starring: Al Pacino, Elodie Tougne, Katie Holmes, Rohan Chand

Distributed by Columbia Pictures on November 11, 2011. Produced in English by the United States. Runs 91 minutes. Rated PG by the MPAA–scatological humor, profanity, violence, infrequent smoking.

Jack and Jill was watched on January 15, 2013.

“Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water;
Jack fell down and broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.”

I wish I could fall down a hill after this awful experience. Jack and Jill is truly excruciating torture. If you can imagine receiving fixation from the electric chair and the cat o’ nine tails simultaneously, perhaps you can picture some of what I was going through as I sat on the couch and endured this madness. I kept checking the time, but none of it would stop. It’s like having a nightmare, all alone, no one around to wake you up. Then, after an hour and a half that feels at least three times as long, the credits arrived. I could have very well been in a cold sweat at that point, but I couldn’t resist shouting “Hallelujah!” as I rejoiced that it was finally over.

Adam Sandler does possess talent with humor. His films rarely present an unpredictable story or any humor that we haven’t seen before in some permutation, but they’re often fun to watch. Happy Gilmore. Billy Madison. 50 First Dates. Just Go with It. Four right off the top of my head.

Unfortunately, Jack and Jill couldn’t do anything off the top of its head, even if it tried. Because Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill came tumbling after. And then, shortly after all humor was lost in a flow of hemorrhage from the two poor little heads, Adam Sandler made it into an endlessly obnoxious movie.

What’s incredibly sad about Jack and Jill is that it claims to be a family movie. The recurring “joke” (or one of two or three that just recycles itself as if it was funny the first time it appeared) is that Jill has not a clue about the term “PC.” This stands for both “personal computer” and “politically correct,” and she shows an idiotic lack of knowledge in both scenarios, but I refer mostly to the latter.

Jill is a racist. She comes over, claims she’ll stay for four days, ends up staying forever, and while she’s at it, takes every chance she finds to make fun of other religions and ethnicities. She’s Jewish, too, which leads to her catch phrase: “That sounds anti-Semitic!” Try looping that in your mind as a falsetto screamed at the top of Sandler’s lungs, just as the rest of Jill’s dialogue is.

Jack and Jill takes a brave risk trying to appeal to parents. One or two jokes come close to well-written, but even they are difficult to merely chuckle at, when lost in a sea of inaccurate stereotypes, screaming, more dumb attempts at comedy, and all these repeated again and again and again. And again.

The best part comes at the end. If you’ve tried to watch the film yourself, I know. You’re surprised I lasted so long. Al Pacino must not have enjoyed being in the film. At all. In this final scene, Jack plays him the hideous Dunkin’ Donuts commercial that stars Pacino as the Dunkaccino (I actually thought Dunkaccino sounded more like cappuccino than it did Al Pacino, but I may be wrong). Al Pacino’s response: “Burn it.” He asks for Jack to confiscate every copy worldwide and burn it.

I was certain of one thing: Pacino wasn’t at all talking about the commercial. He wanted to burn something else. If only he had warned me before I had wasted my time with it.

F


Battlefield Earth – did you forget John Travolta was a Scientologist?

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Posted in Comedy, Family, [Film Reviews] and tagged
19 Mar 2013
7 Comments

The Last Airbender

Day Nine of the Two-Week Torturefest

I wanted this “Airbender” to asphyxiate me.

last_airbender_ver4

Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Written by: M. Night Shyamalan
Aang: Noah Ringer
Prince Zuko: Dev Patel
Katara: Nicola Peltz
Sokka: Jackson Rathbone
Uncle Iroh: Shaun Toub
Commander Zhao: Aasif Mandvi
Also Starring: Cliff Curtis, Damon Gupton, Francis Guinan, Katharine Houghton, Seychelle Gabriel, Summer Bishil

Distributed by Paramount Pictures on July 1, 2010. Produced in English by the United States. Runs 103 minutes. Rated PG by the MPAA–violence.

The Last Airbender was watched on Saturday, December 22, 2012.

“He was bending tiny stones at us from behind a tree. It really hurt!” –Morgan Spector as the Lead Fire Nation Soldier

The concept of The Last Airbender is entirely ridiculous. This is based on Avatar: The Last Airbender, a conventional anime that appeared on Nickelodeon in recent years…and passed on just as quickly. I enjoyed mild fandom of the series when it first aired; I was in third grade. But the more I think about it, the more ridiculous it seems.

This is the tale of a boy named Aang. Oops! I meant a man named Aang. He’s a hundred-year-old Airbender, the last one alive after the rest of the population died out. Now I know no story that presents the medium intends to be realistic, but it’s more fun to play that game than to try and watch normal frame of mind.

I have a number of questions regarding just the main character and his story:

One—Aang is a century old, but he’s trapped in the body of a seven- or eight-year-old boy. Ironically, the intended understanding is reached from the unintended audience. This is a parable of sorts about the Hindu beliefs of karma and reincarnation, but pre-adolescent would understand that. They’ll think he’s simply a midget.

Two—if he’s so old, why is he so juvenile? Is the tattoo on his forehead really a curse enclosing a sophomoric personality?

Three—this character lives in an ancient Asian civilization, so why does he speak like a young, rude, insolent American child? Was that a curse from his tattoo? It probably isn’t, but I’m sure anyone and everyone involved would use that slight excuse to their defense.

Four—did he get that tattoo out in south Philly? No? What about New York?

The script was written by its own director, M. Night Shyamalan. I’m very impressed that Mr. Shyamalan is currently 42 years old. He may be the only man in our history to age 35 years within two cycles around the sun. Oh wait, he debuted back in 1999…I’d like to report an identity theft: a seven-year-old claiming to be M. Night Shyamalan.

The mindset of The Last Airbender is catastrophically juvenile and anachronistic. A prime example of such makes its grand appearance in the very beginning, when the leading young lady gives a narration to open up the film. It’s totally cornay, and she sounds like a valley garl, if ya know what I’m sayin’. Even worse, his debut was The Sixth Sense. The great debate reaches its zenith here, as we wonder how such talent could starve itself of ideas. It’s what I like to call “anorexia cinematicus.”

One final note: The four countries in The Last Airbender are called the Fire Nation, the Earth Nation, the Water Nation, and the Air Nation. These are, as you might guess, because they were discovered, settled on, and founded by the Fire Tribe, the Earth Tribe, the Water Tribe, and the Air Tribe.

Honestly. This is the very definition of lazy. The Indus River Valley tribe’s settlement is currently known as India, not the Indus River Valley Nation. The Anglo civilization’s settlement is currently known as England, not the Anglo Nation. The Sioux tribe’s settlement is currently known as Sioux Falls, not the Sioux Nation.

How funny that I should mention the Sioux while reviewing a film so comparable to Dances with Wolves: tedious, naturalistic, and vacillating between boring and unintentionally funny. Except sometimes, you’re brought to wonder whether or not Shyamalan is trying to be funny. I guess that’s what happens when a director picks the first names he sees during pre-production; sits around snoring during production; and only activates ever so mildly during post-production, just to verify that CGI is intact.

D MINUS

Jack and Jill – Sandler vs. Sandler vs. your patience

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Posted in Adventure, Epic, Family, Fantasy, [Film Reviews] and tagged
23 Feb 2013

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Review No. 417
harry_potter_and_the_half_blood_prince
The Bottom Line: A step up that even prepares new audiences for the final entry/entries.

Directed by: David Yates
Screenplay by: Steve Kloves
Based on: “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter: Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley: Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger: Emma Watson
Albus Dumbledore: Michael Gambon
Severus Snape: Alan Rickman
Draco Malfoy: Tom Felton
Tom Riddle (child): Hero Fiennes-Tiffin
Tom Riddle (teenager): Frank Dillane
Also Starring: David Thewlis, Helena Bonham Carter, Jim Broadbent, Julie Walters, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Timothy Spall, Warwick Davis
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures on July 15, 2009. Produced in English by the United Kingdom and the United States.
Runs 153 mins. Rated PG by the MPAA for scary images, some violence, language and mild sensuality.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was watched on February 12, 2013.

“Did I know that I just met the most dangerous dark wizard of all time? No.” –Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon)

For quite a while, I’ve imagined the “Potter” saga as one character drama after another; it’s for this reason that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the most demanding entry of the entire canon. In fact, you’d need some of the most fluent debating techniques to assert that the sixth installment to J.K. Rowling’s tale is not the most vitally important to the series’ outcome. It took me several viewings to realize that this film suddenly draws away from a focus on Harry himself, mainly so it can establish that he will be virtually alone against Voldemort, the dark sorcerer who murdered both his parents.

Instead, Half-Blood Prince centers on three characters that have been prominent for the entire series. Professor Severus Snape (Alan Rickman) is one of these individuals. This is the man Harry has hated since day one. It seems Snape has always hated Harry so much and for no reason at all. We learn here that there is a reason and, although Harry has no control over what Snape thinks of him, the reason is indeed valid. Then there’s Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), the stuck-up, rich snob who can’t go a day without insulting anyone. We learn here that although he seemed like a standing object in the prior half of the series, Draco actually isn’t as heartless as he seems.

Among these other two, Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon), the school’s headmaster, is practically the pivotal role in the film. Throughout the film, Dumbledore grows quite fond of Harry. I mean not to sound like a broken record, but this is where writer Steve Kloves stumbles in adapting J.K. Rowling’s text. Not that this is unexpected, considering the novel is over six-hundred pages long, and it intertwines several elaborate subplots. Dumbledore never trusted Harry as much as he does in Half-Blood Prince.

This entry sees him putting every ounce of trust in a student, one who has yet to reach his seventh year, for that matter. Dumbledore entrusts Harry with going deep into the past of Lord Voldemort, from the day the two met face-to-face, to the day the dark wizard learned the grim, dangerous secret to immortality. On one hand, this gives the story much depth as we further toward the end. On the other, none of these lingering questions are explained. In case Dumbledore did not remember, it was only a year before that Harry was constantly and intensely angry, even to the point of fearing he was becoming more like his parents’ killer. Why would anyone be so suddenly willing to trust Harry, then, with knowledge that can be so easily misused?

Half-Blood Prince isn’t the best of its series. Some of it is rather underworked (particularly the cinematography), but it does have shades of excellence. One is that it does something the series hasn’t done since the first entry: open up well enough and clearly enough to fully engage “Potter-newbies.”

B PLUS

Oscar Sunday is here!

Posted in Adventure, Family, Fantasy, Mystery, Romance, [Film Reviews] and tagged | Leave a Comment
22 Feb 2013
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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Review No. 416

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The Bottom Line: A depletion order in screenwriting.

Directed by: David Yates
Screenplay by: Michael Goldenberg
Based on: “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter: Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley: Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger: Emma Watson
Rubeus Hagrid: Robbie Coltrane
Albus Dumbledore: Michael Gambon
Severus Snape: Alan Rickman
Draco Malfoy: Tom Felton
Minerva McGonagall: Maggie Smith
Sirius Black: Gary Oldman
Lord Voldemort: Ralph Fiennes
Bellatrix Lestrange: Helena Bonham Carter
Dolores Umbridge: Imelda Staunton
Also Starring: Brendan Gleeson, David Thewlis, Emma Thompson, Fiona Shaw, Jason Isaacs, Julie Walters, Richard Griffiths, Warwick Davis

Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures on July 11, 2007. Produced in English by the United Kingdom and the United States. Runs 138 mins. Rated PG-13 by the MPAA for sequences of fantasy violence and frightening images.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was watched on February 10, 2013.

“I’m sorry, Professor. I must not tell lies.” –Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe)

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the only film in the canon not written for the screen by Steve Kloves. In most cases, this isn’t a bad thing, let alone an obvious one, but considering Kloves had written more than ten, intricate hours of “Potter” material prior to Order of the Phoenix, it’s likely he knows the franchise over half as well as J.K. Rowling herself.

On one hand, I don’t blame Michael Goldenberg, the new and one-time-only screenwriter, for his faults. Order of the Phoenix was the longest book of the series, at 870 printed pages. But it also provided one of the most important storylines. As a result of religious botching and quickening of events (especially during the opening scenes, as in Goblet of Fire), Order of the Phoenix is one of the shortest of the entire series (at two hours, eighteen minutes) and a rather underworked one, as well.

Order of the Phoenix does put on a near-unforgettable show in one specific area: acting. David Yates has taken over for the production of this film, in which Harry is found twice as brooding as he, last time around, was lovesick. I haven’t so much as heard of Yates’s previous films, and I wouldn’t say I necessarily need to. The man stood in the dark of the “Potter” series for four entries, then snapped back around for his first outing to combine previously established caricatures with the dynamic, impactful structure behind them all.

Take Snape (Alan Rickman), for example. Ever since we saw him in Sorcerer’s Stone, he was delightful to watch simply because he was thrown so far over the top. It’s still that way here, but once we get a glimpse of his story, we’re suddenly curious about the once-cheesy character. Even better are two new entries: Helena Bonham Carter as the cousin of Sirius Black, Harry’s godfather, is more vile than we’ve ever seen or imagined her; and Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge, the new Hogwarts Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, puts forth enough tyranny that chucks her comfortlessly among the likes of detestable and ignorant.

The story presented in Order of the Phoenix takes a free ride back to the series’ third entry. This is where Harry learned his godfather was a good, kind man, and that his parents—though long dead—are surrounding him more than ever in spirit. The problem with this entry is there isn’t enough emotion—save for the final sequences, which feature a sudden change from exhilaration to heartbreak—channeled to keep its gears oiled. As far as I’m concerned, writer Goldenberg has only written superficial, action-packed adventures (2003’s Peter Pan, 2011’s Green Lantern), and that’s all he’ll ever do. (Granted, the climactic brawls are more exciting than ever before.) You could say Order of the Phoenix is a step up from the rest of his work, but you could also say, where the hell did Steve Kloves go? Sir, we missed you quite a lot.

B MINUS

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Posted in Adventure, Drama, Family, Fantasy, [Film Reviews] and tagged
21 Feb 2013
12 Comments

Frankenweenie

Review No. 415

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The Bottom Line: Not one of the director’s better works, but still quite enjoyable.

Directed by: Tim Burton
Screenplay by: John August
Story by: Tim Burton
Based on: “Frankenweenie” by Tim Burton and Lenny Ripps
Victor Frankenstein: Charlie Tahan
Mr. Rzykruski: Martin Landau
Elsa van Helsing: Winona Ryder
Edgar “E” Gore: Atticus Shaffer
Bob: Robert Capron
Also Featuring the Voices of: Catherine O’Hara, Christopher Lee, Conchata Ferrell, Frank Welker, James Hiroyuki Liao, Martin Short, Tom Kenny

Distributed by Walt Disney Pictures on October 5, 2012. Produced in English by the United States. Runs 87 mins. Rated PG by the MPAA for thematic elements, scary images and action.

Frankenweenie was watched on February 10, 2013.

“Look! It’s moving. It’s sha — it’s… it’s alive. It’s alive… It’s alive, it’s moving, it’s alive! It’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive! It’s ALIVE!” –Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) in Frankenstein (1931)

Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie is a huge step up from his previous effort, the chaotic Dark Shadows. This time, he’s taking on another horror archetype: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

The film functions like the mind of a child. It’s often absurd, slightly shallow, all the while fun. Although many jokes here are aimed at young children, none are gratuitously juvenile and many of them draw laughter willingly from just about any audience. Most of all, this “horror comedy” is imaginative and even heartfelt. But if you’re seeking down several novel twists on the story we all know, I’d actually advise keeping away from Frankenweenie.

The film succeeds in its script. Color me surprised, as this feature-length animation is based on a half-hour short. I’d assume that one doesn’t go into nearly as much depth, as the subplots are only available here to give the tale coherence.

Victor Frankenstein is a timid boy who loves his dog Sparky to pieces. I’ll let the clichéd name slide; it’s merely a step up from “Fido,” but a dog is a dog is a dog. He accompanies the boy everywhere. Victor wants badly to participate in the science fair, but his dad wants none of it, instead insisting that he play baseball. But during one game, Sparky is hit by a car while trying to catch a baseball for his kind owner. Grief stricken, Victor uses his demented science class to his ability, using lightning as a defibrillator for his dog.

Frankenweenie is a joyously strange Halloween flick. It’s great to know that “weird” isn’t a term definitive of only directors like David Lynch, who target their bizarre films at mature audiences. Tim Burton has embraced his macabre style as violent and adult (Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow), and as wholesome and giddy (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland). Frankenweenie is an immensely strong instance of the latter.

It goes without saying, however, that Frankenweenie is not entirely original. Most disappointing are the climactic moments. I know the younger audience may not get the overly direct allusion, but at this point, it seems like an overblown knockoff of Joe Dante’s Gremlins. Burton claims they’re sea monkeys, but as I’ve seen that timeless ’80s movie several times, I beg to differ.

Frankenweenie warrants a bona fide recommendation in my book. Even those who have never seen the B-horror flicks at which this pokes fun (in black and white, no less) will surely enjoy its featherweight humor. But a less expected ending and a few more touches of Tim Burton’s genius could have done so much in making the passing cartoon a highly memorable fanfare.

B MINUS

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Posted in Animation, Comedy, Family, Horror, Science Fiction, [Film Reviews] and tagged

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