Category: Reviews

  • Flawed ‘Ted’ reveals Seth MacFarlane’s limits as a storyteller

    Flawed ‘Ted’ reveals Seth MacFarlane’s limits as a storyteller

    Mark Wahlberg stars with a computer-animated stuffed bear in 'Ted'
    Mark Wahlberg stars with a computer-animated stuffed bear in ‘Ted’

    The true star of Ted, the new crass-talking-teddy-bear movie, isn’t lead Mark Wahlberg, gleefully playing in his Boston sandbox, or even the undeniably huggable CGI bear playing the title role. No, this is of, by and for the man who wrote, directed and voices Ted, Family Guy creator and voice actor Seth MacFarlane, who makes his feature-length debut with this movie, and in doing so, shows that the confines of an animated network show might actually be a structural necessity.

    It isn’t like Ted is an awful movie or a disaster. Let’s face it: this is critic-proof stuff, fun but frivolous. Wahlberg is John Bennett, who we first meet as an outcast eight-year-old (played by Bretton Manley). When his parents buy him a Teddy Ruxpin-like stuffed animal, John wishes on a star that the two could be friends for life, and overnight, Ted becomes a real life pal. (Though eventually his voice changes, his appearance does not). There’s no secrecy here; John’s parents warm to Ted, and he becomes a national celebrity.

    The CGI Ted, voiced by Seth MacFarlane, comes to life in 'Ted'
    The CGI Ted, voiced by Seth MacFarlane, comes to life in ‘Ted’

    Alas, you can only be the hot new thing for so long, and eventually, Ted becomes a washed-up has-been,  the snuggly male teddy bear equivalent of Tatum O’Neal, burying himself in hookers (despite, as it is pointed out, the lack of an important appendage), booze and blow. What hasn’t wavered is his friendship with a now 35-year-old John, who at some point over the years has learned social graces and moved in with a hot, ambitious PR exec named Lori (Mila Kunis). The three of them live together harmoniously, though after four years, Lori tells John that Ted has got to go.

    Ted’s main humor comes from the bro-mance between John and the title character, convincingly animated through CGI effects, and MacFarlane employs the same non-sequiturs, pop culture references and cutaways that have become a Family Guy hallmark. Though I’ll leave some of the cameos a secret, the male madness includes a well-choreographed extended fight scene in a hotel room between the two friends and an appearance by forgotten Flash Gordon star and New York Jet Sam J. Jones. And for a long spell, this frat-house humor elicits plenty of shameless laughter.

    But in certain ways, MacFarlane demonstrates the limits to his storytelling capabilities and visual acumen.  His mise-en-scène (I can’t think of a more highfalutin word for a less appropriate movie) is lacking in the vibrant colors such an animated film should merit, and a lot of his framing is rather basic. Additionally, random scenes seem to have been edited out for no good reason. Rex, Lori’s rich boss (John McHale, recycling his increasingly common snide onscreen persona) and potential love interest, decides at a party he wants to sleep with Lori – and then we never see him again for the rest of the night. After a fight between John and Lori (poor, talented Kunis is forced to play one of two opposite ends of the forgiving-brittle spectrum, with no grace notes in between), Ted mentions having gone to the old apartment and seen Lori with Rex. Why does the audience see none of this?

    Ted with the ladies
    Ted with the ladies

    And story construction also suffers: John serenades Lori at a concert with Rita Coolidge’s “All Time High,” to disastrous effect. This scene should either be a major plot turning point or the climax of the film. It’s neither. Instead, the cutaways eventually stop and a ludicrous kidnapping storyline starring Giovanni Ribisi as an overzealous fan of both Ted and pop starlet Tiffany crowds the last half hour of the movie. Most significantly, the entire direction of Ted seems to lead to the epiphany that John, lazy and lacking in career self-confidence, is the real problem, not his fuzzy cohort. And this path ultimately leads to a dead end.

    Such scrutiny is a fool’s errand, however. Ted doesn’t warrant such explication; there’s no poetry within it to parse. It’s formula filth. But we all know how much fun that can be.

  • ‘Magic Mike’ lacks magic

    ‘Magic Mike’ lacks magic

    The guys take it all off for 'Magic Mike'
    The guys take it all off for ‘Magic Mike’

    Some motion pictures manage to be two different movies within the same film.  Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragonis, for example, is both a martial arts epic and a beautiful dramatic love story.  Magic Mike tries hard to be several movies – and ends up being none of them.

    Channing Tatum is “Mike.” He lives an interesting life.  He builds one-of-a-kind custom furniture, but not on a scale where he can really make money from it.  He’s in construction.  He runs a car-detailing service and a promotion company.  But he makes his real money at night, taking off his clothes for crowds of wild women in Tampa, where he lives right on the water.  He’s working to save enough money to fund his custom furniture building business, which is his dream, but that’s going slowly.

    ALSO READ: MAGIC MIKE IS A BIG TEASE WITH NO PAYOFF

    Alex Pettyfer is “Adam.” He comes into Mike’s life on a fateful morning when he shows up to a new gig as a roofer, a job he got by lying about his abilities as a roofer.  Mike helps him out and when Adam’s ride won’t start after work, Mike offers him a lift.  Soon they’re in a club, talking to two young women and Mike is trying to talk them into coming to another club a little later on, a club where men are the entertainment and women are the entertained.

    Then Mike talks Matthew McConaughey’s “Dallas” into giving Adam a gig as the prop guy for that night’s show.  But something goes wrong with one of the scheduled dancers and suddenly Adam is “The Kid” and forced onto the stage to dance.  He is an instant success and Dallas is quick to see his potential.

    Eventually Adam gets home to his sister “Brooke,” played by Cody Horn.  Turns out that Adam resides on his sister’s couch, thanks to her largess.  She’s not pleased at Adam’s late arrival home, nor is she happy that apparently there’s a new influence in Adam’s life.  She explains that Adam has struggled with life since he blew his shot at a college football career by doing something stupid.

    Adam is quickly drawn into the life of a male stripper and he likes it.  The money is good, the sex readily available and he’s introduced into the darker side of this world when he starts into drugs.  Mike had agreed to Brooke’s plea that he keep watch over her brother, but he’s helpless to do anything about Adam’s descent once he downs his first tablet.

    Mike has his own issues though.  Dallas wants to leave Tampa in his rear view mirror and head to a better, more lucrative location in Miami, and he’s promised that Mike will gain an equity stake in the new club, rather than relying on just the tips he makes and his share of the gate.  Mike and Dallas have been together for a while and Mike seems to trust Dallas implicitly in spite of the appearances that Dallas has screwed others over before.

    Matthew McConaughey takes it all off - well, mostly - in 'Magic Mike'
    Matthew McConaughey takes it all off – well, mostly – in ‘Magic Mike’

    Mike is also dealing with Olivia Munn’s “Joanna.” Ostensibly a psychology student who is “observing” the strippers behavior as part of her last days before completing her educational requirements.  In actuality, she’s just loving the sex with Mike, particularly threesomes he arranges with other gorgeous girls.  He wants more than just sex from her, but she doesn’t seem interested and we learn why at one of the turning points for Mike.

    When Adam moves on from taking drugs to being a potential seller of drugs, things deteriorate.  There’s a major problem and from there it’s only a short time before Adam bottoms out and finds a way to take Mike with him.  How Mike will try to save Adam, and to save himself is the critical moment in Mike’s story.

    Before I start with a few real spoilers that are required to adequately discuss whyMagic Mike isn’t magic, it is worth pointing out that the dance sequences were well produced and provide the most entertaining moments in the film, particularly for female audiences.  Plenty of hard-bodied male beefcake is on display and someone with experience (possibly Tatum who did strip for real for 8 or 9 months in his late teens) choreographed the numbers.  Most of the men handle themselves well, with the exception of former WWE star Kevin Nash, who seems to struggle a bit with the dancing.  But the scenes outside of the club environment often plod along too slowly to hold one’s attention.

    Director Steven Soderberg and writer Reid Carolin seem unsure about what movie they are making.  Is it the story of a teen college dropout who comes under the mentorship of a street-wise older guy who takes him into the world of stripping?  Is it a look at the really dark side of stripping?  Is it a romance between a man trying to find the right path in life and a woman who isn’t particularly patient with that man when it seems that he is exposing her beloved brother to danger?  In trying to be all three films, it tries to be too much of three things and becomes little of anything in the end.

    Worse yet is the lack of realism (real spoilers start here, so if you don’t want to be spoiled, stop reading) that the filmmakers subject the audience to.  The film takes place in Tampa, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that every single member of the audience in every “strip show” we’re shown is under 35, slender, with a hot body and dressed to show off that body.  The term “cougars” is mentioned early on, but apparently cougars in Tampa go to some other club where men dance nearly naked.  Another club we never see.

    This is supposed to be a movie for women to look at men’s hard bodies, but there are a bunch of female “hotties” on display and I’m talking more than just cleavage and tight clothes.  Munn and at least two or three other women spend more than just a few seconds showing off naked chests, some of which are quite spectacular.  Perhaps that was to try to generate a heterosexual male audience, or perhaps just to make a point that women are beautiful too.  But the fact that all but one of the women in this film are indeed beautiful makes the unrealistic nature of the portrayal all that much harder to accept.

    Worse yet, Tatum is almost wooden in his portrayal of Mike.  If it were possible to have less than one dimension, he came close to achieving that kind of performance.  He is made to look even worse behind a strong performance from McConaughey, who is more than just very fit for his age (few guys look that good at 42).  There is a darkness to Dallas and we get just enough of that from McConaughey to make it real.  He seems so nice and helpful and yet if you pay attention you’ll learn that he’ll dump any or all of the dancers he supports and coddles if it will provide him with financial security.

    If Magic Mike had focused on being just one type of film, it might have succeeded.  It didn’t and therefore, it doesn’t.

  • ‘Magic Mike’ is a bad tease with no payoff

    ‘Magic Mike’ is a bad tease with no payoff

    Matthew McConaughy strips it all off in 'Magic Mike'
    Matthew McConaughy strips it all off in ‘Magic Mike’

    Did you know Channing Tatum is hot? It’s true! And Magic Mike, Steven Soderbergh’s inside-but-not-probing look at a club full of male strippers, puts a lot (but not all) of the goods on display. And boy does he want to be a major star. Who needs chops when you have abs? Credited to Reid Carolin, Tatum’s producing partner, Mike broaches an interesting subject but plays it so safe that it loses any sense of urgency. It’s a star vehicle in which all players stay belted into the passenger seat.

    Carolin’s script also never decides whose story it wants to tell, creating three separate points of entry into the Xquisite Male Dance Revue: godfather Dallas (Matthew McConaughy, playing a role that I doubt was a stretch but that he fills to a tee), who runs the joint and dangles the carrot of moving the locale from its current Tampa perch to Miami; heir apparent Mike, who toils in construction and makes half-hearted attempts to launch his own business making furniture out of found items; and newbie Adam (Alex Pettyfer, looking a little lost and under-playing), the young college dropout to whom Mike takes an immediate liking and shoves him, 42nd Street-style, onto the Xquisite dance floor.

    Carolin could have woven any of these threads into something captivating, but Soderbergh seems to have a different vision, one that strips the material of any real stakes. This comes despite Tatum’s acknowledged early career as a stripper, which should have provided plenty of substantial grit.

    ALSO READ: MAGIC MIKE LACKS MAGIC

    Channing Tatum is 'Magic Mike'
    Channing Tatum is ‘Magic Mike’

    Mike is all surface. We just watch them lumber along over the course of a summer, learning little about the de facto “family” of brethren that instantly take Adam in – Ken (Matt Bomer), Big Dick Richie (Joe Manganiello), Tarzan (Kevin Nash), and Tito (Adam Rodríguez). These men seem neither ashamed nor empowered. We don’t learn what brought them to Xquisite, if they have money concerns, and save for Ken, who has a wife, what their own personal sexual proclivities are. We also, literally, don’t even see it all. Despite the setting and subject, it’s possible that there is more actual female nudity than male in Mike.

    And it’s also confusing as to whose trajectory we are supposed to follow: Adam’s or Mike’s?

    Adam’s introduction into the world of drugs and occasional sex is never quite heightened enough, especially since Carolin also never clarifies why Adam crashes on medical assistant sister Brooke’s (Cody Horn) couch. Are their parents alive? Dead? Though its conclusion is always foregone, Mike rests on the question of will Brooke and Mike go out. And Tatum, though never demonstrating true star charisma, is a smart guy, and knows that by showing Mike in control of every scene, and acting opposite Horn, a terrible, terrible actress (her father, Alan F. Horn, is the chairman of Walt Disney Studios and once ran Warner Bros., which released Mike) who makes his work look De Niro-esque by comparison, Mike will greatly vault his image. It will.

    Mike reeks of lesser movies that dabbled in the world of stripping and exotic dance – 54, Flashdance, Showgirls – as well as its most obvious forbear, Paul Thomas Anderson’s masterful Boogie Nights – but after the first few minutes, the film fails to titillate. This is a seemingly calculated choice on the part of Soderbergh (who also edited and filmed the movie, under a pseudonym), whose clinical take on the nowhere-bound lives of these men strives to say something about American capitalism that I’m not sure ever becomes clear. Perhaps there is a kernel of an idea of how anything can become a commodity, including ourselves, in the interest of making a buck. That’s a starting point, though, not a finish line.

    “As he looks like that, he doesn’t need to be talented,” the woman sitting with me said halfway through Mike. And that’s precisely the point. But it’s also the problem.

  • ‘Star Trek,’ ‘Transformers’ co-writer Alex Kurtzman shows his softer side with ‘People Like Us’

    ‘Star Trek,’ ‘Transformers’ co-writer Alex Kurtzman shows his softer side with ‘People Like Us’

    Elizabeth Banks in 'People Like Us'
    Elizabeth Banks in ‘People Like Us’

    People Like Us comes to us from first-time director/writer Alex Kurtzman (his writing partner Robert Orci and Jody Lambert share writing credit) and it’s actually good for a debut picture.  Considering that Kurtzman is best known for penning big screen blockbusters like Star Trek, Transformers and Cowboys and Aliens, a drama about a man and woman who were fathered by the same man but have never met is not what one would have expected.

    Yet it’s the very type of film that Kurtzman claimed in a recent interview to have wanted to be making back when he was just getting started.  This particular film hits home in a special way for him.  The story involves “Sam” (Chris Pine) who is a fast-talking salesman for a firm engaged in the barter business.  He lives in New York with his girlfriend “Hannah” (Olivia Wilde) who is about to go to law-school.  Just as he scores a big deal that will solve all of his financial problems (we’re never really clued in to how bad these problems are, or that they even existed until later), there’s an issue.  His boss needs him to make a couple of quick deals to “fix” the issue or else a government agency will be handing Sam his head on a platter.

    In the midst of all this, Sam finds out that his father has just died.  So he needs to go home for the funeral, but there’s a problem at the airport and he doesn’t arrive until long afterward.  His mother “Lillian” (Michelle Pfeiffer) is not pleased that she sat through her husband’s funeral alone and makes her displeasure known, although she’s quite pleased to finally meet Hannah.  Then when Sam meets with his father’s long-time lawyer (the always excellent Phillip Baker Hall) he learns that his father left a task for him.  Deliver $150,000 in hundred dollar bills stuffed into a shaving kit to his grandson.  The son of the half-sister Sam never knew existed until that moment.

    Chris Pine and Olivia Wilde in 'People Like Us'
    Chris Pine and Olivia Wilde in ‘People Like Us’

    Sam decides to at least get a look at his sister and she turns out to be an attractive woman named “Frankie” (Elizabeth Banks) who has her hands full with her son “Josh” (Michael Hall D’Addrio) who is 11, smart as a whip and is busy acting out to get attention.  It turns out that “Frankie” is a bartender at an upscale hotel lounge who attends AA meetings when she’s not busy trying to parent a son who seems to just want to be left alone.  Sam finds a way to enter the lives of Frankie and Josh while his own is falling to pieces.  After seeing how Frankie reacted to the death of their father, Sam knows he can’t reveal his true identity because Frankie will be crushed and refuse to speak to him ever again.

    It is in resolving this tension, and not so much watching Sam deal with his inner conflicts regarding the money, Frankie and his desire to make life better for Josh that give us the best moments of this film.  Banks is perfect as the mom who has been overwhelmed by life since the day she discovered her father’s true nature and saw her “last sight of him” as his taillights receded in the distance.  But Pine is misplaced and miscast, good in the few really active, action moments in the picture but not handling that inner conflict so well.  The angst seems forced rather than genuine.  Michelle Pfeiffer is lovely to look at and gets far too few moments on screen.  The young D’Addrio handles his scenes with the aplomb and grace of someone beyond his years.

    Kurtzman’s love for the action can be seen in fast cars, sudden cuts and a few other things that are more at home in a blockbuster with a 9 figure budget.  But his comfort with the material is evident.  Perhaps that is because he himself did not meet his own half-siblings until he was 30.

    Whatever the reason, his work here is good enough to make People Like Us worth checking out.

  • ‘Seeking a Friend for the End of the World’ doesn’t die soon enough

    Keira Knightly and Steve Carell in 'Seeking a Friend for the End of the World'
    Keira Knightly and Steve Carell in ‘Seeking a Friend for the End of the World’

    It’s another “the end is near” film only this time the object isn’t saving mankind or the planet.  Instead, inSeeking a Friend for the End of the World, the purpose is to see how people would behave knowing that everything on the planet is doomed and doomsday is three weeks hence.

    Writer/director Lorene Scafaria (she wrote the adaptation for “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist) brings us this interesting, off-kilter view of the final days of several individuals.  We know these are the final days because at the film’s open we are informed that the last chance to save the planet has failed utterly.

    Steve Carell is “Dodge” who was unhappily married, working a job he didn’t really enjoy and is now wondering just what to do with his last three weeks.  He happens to live in the same apartment building as Keira Knightley’s “Penny”, who is as free of spirit and uninhibited as Dodge is repressed.  They come together after Dodge’s wife has departed (it turns out she was having an affair for some time) and Penny has had some problems with her live-in boyfriend “Owen”.  She winds up on Dodge’s fire escape and he invites her in after an exchange of dialogue that was worn to death in the film’s trailers.

    Soon things become uncomfortable, because not only are people’s morals slipping away with doom just round the corner, some are also getting violent and looting.  So, since Dodge’s vehicle is no longer usable, they make their get-away in Penny’s Prius.  But it turns out that you do have to put at least a modicum of gasoline into a hybrid at some point or they will stop running and soon the duo are undertaking their quest on foot.

    Steve Carell and Patton Oswalt in 'Seeking a Friend for the End of the World'
    Steve Carell and Patton Oswalt in ‘Seeking a Friend for the End of the World’

    The quest?  Dodge wants to see, just once more, the girl who got away.  Penny, who missed her last chance to fly home to England to watch the end of the world with her family is hopeful that Dodge really does have a friend with a plane who can take her home for the last time.  Penny really wants to make Dodge’s quest successful because she did something that may have delayed this quest until it really is just too late.

    How do people react when the end is near?  In films like Armageddon and Deep Impact, there is some impossible yet plausible mission underway to save everyone on Earth to rivet all mankind to their television sets around the world.  But here there is no such hope.  The last effort failed already, remember?  So people react in a variety of ways.  Some go underground in hope of surviving the impending impact and returning to the surface someday.  Others let go of all inhibitions, trying drugs and having sex with people they don’t know.  Others, like Dodge’s maid, go about their lives oblivious, unaware that there really is no next week for them to return and clean the same apartment for the umpteenth time and no need to buy more cleaning supplies.

    The journey that Dodge and Penny take is interesting and fun to watch, even humorous at times, but it grows tiresome fairly quickly.  Clearly Scafaria intends for the two to become a couple at some point, either before or perhaps after Dodge finally sees and speaks to his lost love.  Once that becomes apparent, everything else is merely a device to bring this about and set up the ending, where we will learn if movies really do always end happily ever after.

    Steve Carell is best at comedy and while I’m sure there is a dramatic actor within him, he didn’t draw from that part of himself in this performance.  Keira Knightley is trying to play the role of Penny as “cute girl”, but there’s an edge to her that most young, cute girls don’t seem to have.  At least not quite to that degree.  Her talent is undeniable but it isn’t displayed here to anywhere near maximum effect.

    It must be noted that there are moments of sheer brilliance to be had in this film.  One involves a completely and totally unexpected gunshot.  Another is seen briefly in the trailer and involves a take-off on what a certain chain restaurant might be like if the wait-staff hung out and kept serving customers once doom was impending.  But these moments are too few and far between to save the quirky but pedestrian fare we get most of the rest of the time.

    We do get to see an underutilized Martin Sheen for a few moments in the third act in a role that comes with a surprise that is best experienced in a movie auditorium rather than here.  I wish the structure of the film would have given him more of an opportunity to deal with the issues that we see too little screen time given.

    Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, when all is said and done, is a film that deserved better and sadly, the mission to rescue it failed utterly.

  • Love stories collide in Woody Allen’s ‘To Rome With Love’

    Penelope Cruz in 'To Rome With Love'
    Penelope Cruz in ‘To Rome With Love’

    To Rome With Love is not an homage to a Sidney Poitier film about a teacher, although perhaps that’s a misnomer.  There are lessons to be learned by almost every character we are introduced to in this film, the third stop on his “tour” of Europe (Midnight in Paris and Vicky Christina Barcelona being the others).

    Here I must confess to having loved the films of Woody Allen back when he was producing brilliant pieces like Sleeper, Annie Hall, Bananas and Manhattan.  But his later works didn’t resonate as well.  My faith has been rewarded as To Rome With Love is his best effort in some time, filled with typical Allen one-liners and a cast of wonderful characters.

    “Hayley” (Alison Pill) is on an extended vacation in Rome and she asks a handsome passing stranger for directions.  “Michelangelo” (Flavio Parenti) is going in that direction and offers to show her the way.  Soon they’ve fallen in love and her parents “Jerry” (Woody Allen) and “Phyllis” (Judy Davis) are en route to Rome to meet their future son-in-law and his parents.

    Jerry doesn’t like anything about Michelangelo including his politics and his legal work on behalf of the downtrodden but soon that doesn’t matter.  It seems that Michelangelo’s father “Giancarlo” (Fabio Armiliato) sings opera in the shower and sings it magnificently.  Jerry is retired from promoting classical music and operas and immediately wants to put Giancarlo on stage to make sure this magnificent gift of a voice gets heard by others. Michelangelo is opposed, but Jerry is determined.

    Woody Allen writes, directs and stars in 'To Rome With Love'
    Woody Allen writes, directs and stars in ‘To Rome With Love’

    Meanwhile a young couple has just arrived in Rome.  “Antonio” (Alessandro Tiberi) and “Milly” (Alessandra Mastronardi) come from a small village, but he has aunts and uncles in Rome and arrives with a promised job in hand.  She is worried that she doesn’t look good enough for her man, so she goes off to get her hair done before his family arrives to meet her.

    Soon there is a knock at the door and “Anna” (Penelope Cruz), a prostitute who was hired to seduce and please another man, but somehow got the wrong room number enters.  Antonio has no pants on and just as Anna manages to get him onto the bed, the door opens and the aunts and uncles enter.  A frightened Antonio then introduces Anna as his wife Milly and begs her to carry out the deception until he can find a way to make things right.

    “Jack” (Jessie Eisenberg) is a student of architecture out for a walk.  His girlfriend “Sally” (Greta Gerwig) is at home when Jack passes by “John” (Alec Baldwin) who is a famous architect.  John is alone having ditched his companions who went sightseeing which he has no desire to do.  He lived for a year in Rome long ago and he wants to visit his old stomping grounds.

    He lets Jack lead him there and then Jack invites him up to his apartment when it turns out this is the building John lived in.  There, Sally mentions that her best friend “Monica” (Ellen Page) is about to arrive and John realizes what a problem this means for Jack, even though Jack doesn’t.

    Then there’s the story of “Leopoldo” (Roberto Begnini) who is an ordinary Italian citizen, a low-level clerk who lives with his wife and children in Rome.  Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the press is pursuing and fawning all over Leopoldo and this is going to change his life in a major way.  They want to know what he ate, and to watch him shave.  He is as big a celebrity in Italy, for a no-talent, low-level clerk,  as some big-bottomed, no-talent woman is, here in the U.S.  Of course, she has a fame-whore mother and Leopoldo has only a wife who loves him.

    This is typical Allen, stories that weave in and out of one another, not entirely linear in chronologic structure and that’s not really important.  Allen has written himself in some form in nearly every character he creates here, although in smaller measures in some than in others.  Jack is clearly the younger Allen, confronted with a woman who loves him (Sally) while he himself soon desires another (Monica).

    What happens to them all you will have to go and see for yourself.  John becomes a device, an advisor of sorts to Jack, telling him the perils he faces in dealing with Monica.  He is interesting because Allen chooses not to make him invisible to others, so Sally and Monica also see him.  Leopold is an example of the stars of reality TV who are famous for simply being famous.  He also has an important lesson to learn.  Antonio and Milly confront temptation while Jerry finds a way to put a man who is only at home singing in a shower onto a stage in front of an audience (the answer is simply hysterical).

    All is resolved before the movies ends, much as it begins.  It’s nearly two hours of laughter and thought-provoking filmmaking and should not be missed.

  • ‘Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter’ gets axed

    Benjamin Walker (left) and Dominic Cooper in 'Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter'
    Benjamin Walker (left) and Dominic Cooper in ‘Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter’

    Okay class, it’s time for today’s alt-history U.S. History prior to 1865.  Open your books to the chapter on Abraham Lincoln.  Our story today begins when Lincoln was just a young boy, living in Indiana.  It was there that he encountered his first vampire.

    I can almost picture my favorite teacher of history, Ms Fonfa, saying this as Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter opens, with the young Lincoln trying to intervene in the whipping of another young boy, the son of slaves, who are having their family ripped apart.  When his attempt to stop the beating fails, Abraham is himself about to be whipped when his father intervenes.

    That intervention proves costly as his father soon loses his job.  The cost increases when the employer, Jack Barts, invades the Lincoln’s home and does something to his mother, that the young Abe watches in silent horror.  The mother died soon afterward.

    We then see the young adult Abe drinking in a bar.  He’s trying to find courage in liquor in order to kill the man he blames for his mother’s death when a stranger at the bar comes up to him.  The stranger says something about a man only getting that drunk if he wants to kiss a girl or kill a man.  Then the pistol falls from within Lincoln’s coat.

    Benjamin Walker is 'Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter'
    Benjamin Walker is ‘Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter’

    Nonplussed, Abe picks up his pistol and leaves to track down his target.  In spite of a problem or two, he manages to shoot his target in the eye and it seems that he has his vengeance.  But the corpse disappears and soon Abraham is fighting for his life against the creature that Jack Barts really is.  Just as it seems he is about to die, the stranger from the bar appears, saves Abe’s life and steals him away.

    When Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) awakens, he’s in the home of Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper), who informs Abe that he was fighting a vampire, what vampires are and the risks they pose for humans, and offers to teach him how to hunt them.  But there is a price to be paid to become a hunter and unless Lincoln is willing to commit to paying that price, he won’t learn the fine art of hunting vampires.

    Soon Lincoln is out in the world, living in Springfield and working in the store as employee of Joshua Speed (Jimmi Simpson).  He meets Stephen Douglas and his fiancée, Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and becomes enamored of her in spite of instructions to not form attachments.  And he begins to receive instructions on which vampires to kill.  He dispatches them with his twirling, silver-tipped axe and soon he is regularly digging graves for his kills, well off the beaten path.  He wants but isn’t going to receive the order to kill the one vampire he truly lusts to slaughter, Jack Barts (Marton Csokas).  And, the vampire leadership, headed by Adam (Rufus Sewell) becomes aware of the hunter and wants to do something about him.

    There are battles, confrontations, jeopardy, and eventually Lincoln puts away his axe and begins the public life that leads him to the White House.  The vampire issue will arise again, once the Civil War breaks out.  It is here that history is a device to be used to insert vampires into conflict between humans, and there is a sinister plot that must be stopped.

    The best feature is that director Bekmambetov doesn’t play any of this for camp or laughs.  The action is frenetic, a bit repetitive, but still fun to watch.  By playing it more or less “straight,” he gives the actors and the material the best chance to work.  Because the notion that the man who freed the slaves was actually a male version of Buffy is a bit hard to swallow, playing this any way other than straight would have meant for a major disappointment.

    Again, if we had half-ratings, this would be more like a 2 and ½, but this refusal to give in to the temptation to camp it up works in the film’s favor.  There is misdirection and an ending history has foretold, but they are still a bit predictable.  The actors do their best, but the roles are limiting to a degree.

    It was an excellent effort. It was better than I expected as well, but my expectations weren’t too high going in.

  • ‘Your Sister’s Sister’ has improvised charm

    Emily Blunt in 'Your Sister's Sister'
    Emily Blunt in ‘Your Sister’s Sister’

    Your Sister’s Sister opens with “Jack” (Mark Durplass) is at a celebration of the one year anniversary of the death of his brother, Tom.  One of Tom’s friends is proposing a toast and it’s one that remembers everything about Tom that made him such a wonderful person.

    When Tom’s friend finishes speaking, before the glasses can be clinked together, Jack has his own toast to propose.  It isn’t nearly as kind, although he doesn’t attempt to be mean.  He just wants to talk honestly about what kind of person Tom was in reality.

    “Iris” (Emily Blunt) is there.  She’s Jack’s best friend and was also at one point, romantically involved with Tom (can we please make things a bit more complicated?) but that ended long before his death.  She watches Jack’s toast go over like the proverbial lead balloon and afterwards confronts him.

    He is not dealing well with his brother’s passing.  In fact he isn’t dealing with it at all, merely putting his life on hold.  Iris says the time has come for him to rejoin life, and the way to do this is for him to get out his red bicycle.  He’s to jump on the bike, ride down to the dock where the ferry is, board the ferry and go directly to the cottage owned by Iris’ father.

    The cottage is on an island and its best features, aside from no television or internet, are the rustic location and surrounding beauty.  There, Jack can contemplate and ponder the mysteries of life, specifically his life and how to re-start it.

    So Jack makes the journey.

    Emily Blunt stars in 'Your Sister’s Sister'
    Emily Blunt stars in ‘Your Sister’s Sister’

    Upon his late-evening arrival, he finds the cottage is occupied and he manages to momentarily frighten the occupant.  Just before he is about to be smacked with an oar, Jack realizes that the woman about to strike him is Iris’ sister Hannah.  After introductions and fear are over, they go inside.  Once there, Hannah insists that Jack stay, there is plenty of room and they can both have the alone time they need.

    But as Jack can’t sleep he hears Hannah and goes down to see what she’s doing.  She is drinking and he joins in.  Soon, as the alcohol flows, Hannah is telling Jack that her reason for being at the cottage is that she’s just ended a seven-year relationship, with another woman.  Jack tells Hannah that the other woman was foolish to have let her get away and how beautiful she is.  One drink leads to another and soon, even though she “hasn’t ridden that bicycle in awhile,” the two are off to have sex.

    The following morning, as they are beginning to just stir, Iris naturally shows up at the front door.

    While Hannah isn’t bothered by this, Jack is desperate to conceal from Iris the fact he’s slept with Hannah.  Unhappily, Hannah goes along with Jack’s plan to conceal what happened from her sister.  However, it will come out and when it does, it merely serves to heighten what was already a bit tense between the women, who in reality are only half-sisters.

    There’s a reason why Jack didn’t want Iris to know he’d slept with her sister, and there’s a reason why Iris is so bothered by this fact.  Turns out that Iris and Jack haven’t admitted to anyone else, or even to themselves, that they are madly in love with one another.

    Your Sister’s Sister’s story is from writer/director Lynn Shelton and it’s pretty good.  True, it’s almost entirely told in dialogue and that’s not the best way to tell an entire story.  It’s clichéd and predictable, and yet, engaging.  The area surrounding the cottage is as Blunt would say “lovely”, and very pleasing to view.  The actors all deliver strong performances and we see the emotions rather than just hear them in the words.

    If it sounds like clichés and predictability wouldn’t warrant a rating of three, normally you’d be correct.  But in this case, the performances of the actors and their strong chemistry overcome what is no longer a limitation but merely a label.

    The trio act together as naturally as though this were their 9th season together on a TV drama rather than something that was shot in less than two weeks.  The shortened shooting schedule and the fact most of that wonderful dialogue was improvised makes Your Sister’s Sister well worth the price of admission.

  • ‘Rock of Ages’ is a bit off key

    Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta in 'Rock of Ages'
    Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta in ‘Rock of Ages’

    Eighties era rock music.  An iconic Sunset Strip club that is struggling to survive.  A rock “god” who got his start there who is willing to help.  A young girl who followed the seemingly nonsensical advice of others to pursue her dream of being a singer and left small-town USA for Hollywood.  A young barback who works at this club, but is pursuing his own dreams of music stardom with his own band.  The wife of the newly elected mayor of the city who is focused on shutting that club down once and for all.

    Those are just some of the elements that are mixed together by director Adam Shankman in Rock of Ages, a Broadway musical turned into a movie.

    Traditionally, stage musicals are hit and miss on the big screen.  Hits like Chicago and Rent and misses like A Chorus Line.  The things that make a musical great are of course awesome musical numbers (especially the mash-ups), a good story and strong, well-developed characters.  Oh, a “mash-up” is the taking of vocals and music from two big songs and intermixing them, creating a back and forth effect between the two songs to make one number.

    With Rock of Ages, Shenkman and the writers of story and music manage to deliver on the music, including the mash-ups, but the story is cheesy and cliched and we’re only treated to one dimension of almost every character.  Worse yet, there are basic gaffes that could easily have been avoided.

    Julianne Hough is “Sherrie”.  She’s the focus at the opening when we see her boarding a bus for Hollywood, leaving her small-town life and adoring grandmother behind.  She wants nothing more than to earn her living singing, and she loves music enough that her suitcase carries her favorite albums from the best rock groups of the 80s.  She manages to make it to Hollywood before she gets mugged outside the famous Bourbon Room and has that suitcase stolen.  It is here that she meets “Drew” (Diego Boneta) who is immediately attracted to the vulnerable young beauty and he helps her secure a job at the Bourbon Room as a waitress.  Owner Dennis Dupree (Alec Baldwin) doesn’t want to hire her, as he knows she’s in town to be a singer, not sling beer, but with one of the other waitresses just having quit, it’s a perfect meeting of needs.

    Tom Cruise belts out tunes in 'Rock of Ages'
    Tom Cruise belts out tunes in ‘Rock of Ages’

    Dupree’s famed nightspot is struggling.  It hasn’t been earning nearly enough to pay all the bills and now he’s got back tax issues.  He’s also got the wife, “Patricia Whitmore” (Catherine Zeta-Jones) of the newly elected mayor, “Mike Whitmore” (Bryan Cranston) and the new first lady of L.A. wants desperately to shut down the Bourbon Room once and for all.  She comes off like a Tipper Gore-type who is opposed not just to the music, but the debauchery; however, her real motives and deep dark secrets are revealed late in the film.

    But the answer to save Dupree is coming and he and his right hand man/assistant “Lonny” (Russell Brand) know it.  Stacee Jaxx, lead singer of the biggest band in rock is coming to do one show.  The take from this show will bail them out and put them back on a firmer footing.  But first, the opening act drops out.  No problem, Drew’s band will do it, and while Drew is nervous, his time with Sherrie has him ready.  The room is sold out and the show should go off without any more glitches.

    Then “Constance Sacks” (Malin Ackerman) shows up.  She’s a reporter for Rolling Stone who has been promised an interview with Jaxx by his manager “Paul Gill” (Paul Giammati), the man who discovered Jaxx long ago right there at the Bourbon Room.  The interview doesn’t go all that well, although the physical encounter between Jaxx and Sacks seems to go quite well.  The problem here is that Drew sees what appears to be Sherrie with Stacee Jaxx post ’encounter’ and believes that his girl has just had the God of rock.  That doesn’t bode well for their future together.

    The show is a hit, with Drew outperforming everyone’s expectations and catching the eye of Gill who sees his newest meal ticket and star right there.  See, Stacee Jaxx wants to go solo and while it’s almost assured he’ll continue to be huge, there are no guarantees.  Particularly in the late 1980s (we’re set in 1987, remember?) when some are of the mind that hair bands and hard rock are dying out.  But the future of the Bourbon Room looks very dim when post-show, Gill goes into Dupree’s office, demanding all of the house’s receipts for the night.  When Dupree complains that Jaxx had promised to do this gig for free, Gill laughs, saying “Stacee Jaxx doesn’t take a dump for free” before leaving with all the cash.

    There are a lot of questions raised by this point and they are all answered before the finale.  Tom Cruise worked hard to prepare for this role and that effort comes across on the screen as this is one of his best performances in quite some time.  Alec Baldwin is also quite good as the long-suffering club owner who has launched so many stars while barely managing to remain afloat.  But the cheesiness of the story, the uni-dimensional nature of most of the characters and some of the cliches within the tale are only barely overcome by those two performance and the quality of the music.  Had they chosen other, less effective music, this would have sucked out loud.  Instead, it’s worthy of a viewing, and delivers some of its promise, but not the full measure.

    I mentioned flaws, and some of these are really nit-picky but…let’s start with Drew and his guitar playing.  Right-handed, but it becomes left-handed for moments during his initial performance on stage.  Very hard to swallow visually.  The film is set in 1987, but there are things (cars, a guitar case, etc) that weren’t around then.  As I said earlier, the choices of music is critical in a film like this and yet three of the songs in the film (“More than Words” “Blaze of Glory”, “I Remember You”) all were released well after 1987.

    Someone told me that in one scene where they are walking through the iconic Tower Records store on the Sunset Strip near the club, some of the album covers that are briefly visible were also not released until after 1987.  That there isn’t a mayoral election in 1987 (they were held in 1985 and 1989 in L.A.) is clearly a bit of poetic license that is forgiveable.  So are the slightly inaccurate gas prices on the sign of that Shell station, and yes, there was a Shell station on one corner of the Sunset Strip back in the 1980s (it may still be there for all I know).

    But most of the physical mistakes, like cars and songs from the film’s future could easily have been avoided.  For most, they make no difference.  For afficianados of music and autos, they detract from what is already not the best movie effort.

  • ‘Piranha 3DD’ lacks scares’ sexuality of ‘Piranha 3D’

    Killer fish are back for more in 'Piranha 3DD'
    Killer fish are back for more in ‘Piranha 3DD’

    I myself am not a woman, so I’m not an expert in bras. But I always thought that the DD measurement was to indicate a relatively big size, having more breast than average.

    Piranha 3DD, however, feels like it has quite less than average. Not just less breasts, but less scares, less laughs, and less fun than its predecessor, which was titled a mere Piranha 3D.

    Posted for 'Piranha 3DD'
    Posted for ‘Piranha 3DD’

    The Spring Break location of the last film’s killer party is, unsurprisingly, now pretty much a ghost town. So Chet (David Koechner) has taken it upon himself to fill the debauchery void. He’s reinvented his water park as an adult-themed locale called The Big Wet, where admission for girls and “hot moms” costs less than it does for kids. The lifeguards have been replaced with strippers and the nude pools have “cooch cams” that broadcast on monitors for all to see. And for the grand opening in two days, they’ve booked a special guest: David Hasselhoff.

    His stepdaughter Maddy (Danielle Panabaker), a marine biologist, is aghast at the changes made, but her friends are more open to them. As they hang out at the nearby waters, they begin to be attacked by these vicious fish. Maddy recognizes them as the piranhas, having seen a YouTube video made by Dr. Goodman (Christopher Lloyd). She and her friends take a drive to visit the doctor, and learn that the piranhas are travelling through man-made water systems.

    So basically this means that the opening of Big Wet will be a bloodbath. Will they manage to convince Chet of the danger? If you think they do, you probably need to see some more of these movies.

    There isn’t much to it. No literally, there isn’t. The meat of the movie is an hour and ten minutes, with the rest of the running time spent on the credits with extra scenes and bloopers.  Even for something with limited ambition, that’s much too little. Perhaps more can be done exploring what the park has to offer, since all I really came away with was a slide and a couple pools. The local playground has more to offer.

    Still plenty of bikini babes in 'Piranha 3DD'
    Still plenty of bikini babes in ‘Piranha 3DD’

    This could be alright if that time was stuffed with many worthwhile moments, but that’s not really the case. The violence and sexuality, although somewhat copious compared to the average movie, pale in comparison what was featured in Piranha 3D. There are some good shots, but nothing that grabs in the way that those in the predecessor did. Nor is it funny on a consistent basis. It’s only towards the end that we see flashes of the hilarity that should have been present throughout.

    But the actors do well in their parts, and Lloyd seems to be enjoying his character some more. Also back are Ving Rhames and Paul Scheer, who add some welcome humor. And as one of Maddy’s friends, Katrina Bowden walks away with the best line in the movie and delivers it perfectly.

    Piranha 3DD needs some more surgery. Or maybe it is very much like DD jobs: fake and lacking.