3 To See This Weekend!!

Rich Hill is a documentary that follows three disadvantaged young men who live in a town called Rich Hill, which is about 70 miles southwest of KC just on the MO side.  It won the U.S. Documentary prize at Sundance, but I’m not sure why.  There doesn’t seem to be a point.  It’s interesting and mostly sad, but it didn't look at a random set of kids in that town, it focused just on the most troubled and there was no arc or analysis at all.  It wasn't quite a commentary on poverty or parenting or mental illness either...but it is still in my thoughts so I can say it was absorbing.  The best contrast that was drawn in the film was between those kids and the annual 4th of July pie auction that brings in thousands of dollars each year. Clearly someone in that town has money to spend, so I think it would have been a better portrait if it also showed a child from the wealthier part of town and would be more of a real image of small town (or anytown) America - the haves AND the have-nots, living side by side yet ignoring each other and just going about their business. Ultimately, I think it just makes the “haves” who are watching it (and going to Sundance) feel like they are looking at the poorest town in America and when the lights come up, they can go about their normal lives.  I grew up in a very poor town myself, but there is always more to the story. There are recent updates on the three kids online too and it seems to only get worse for them, if you’re interested.

2.75 out of 5 stars

Guardians of the Galaxy is based on a comic book, but don’t let that scare you away (or draw you in).  Let it stand on its own, which it does very well.    This comic scifi adventure story of a ragtag set of thieves and assassins is thoroughly charming and enjoyable.  It has the feel of a modern Red Dwarf or Spaceballs, with all the necessary parallels with Star Wars thrown in.  Bradley Cooper as the Rocket the racoon is my favorite, but not for his sometimes spot on, if accidental, Gilbert Gottfried impression.  Unencumbered by his own good looks on screen, he seems free to express himself in ways not yet seen.  In this film, he essentially leads a successful version of the A-Team, for all his folly in the previous film of the latter.  For those of us of a certain age, the multitude of 80s references to music, toys and other pop culture of that time period abound in a very detailed way – not just your run of the mill allusions.  One final note, see the movie for this at least: Glenn Close (doing her own impression of herself from 101 Dalmations) says the word, “prick”.

3.25 out of 5 stars

Dolphin Tale 2 is a sequel to Dolphin Tale 1 (surprise!), which itself was based on the book which was based on the real life story of an injured dolphin who washes ashore and is taken in by a marine mammal hospital in Florida and helps tell the coming of age story of a young boy.  The story here is pretty much the same, but the boy is 3 years older.  This one tugs at the heartstrings just as well as the first, and the acting is just as bad, but it’s got that certain something anyway, darn it.  The two young leads are so bad they seem almost real, unlike their adult on screen counterparts (Ashley Judd, Harry Connick, Jr.  and Morgan Freeman), who must have signed on just to do something educational for children, because it wasn’t for the Lifetime movie dialog.  The real draw is the animals and new twist is somewhat reflective of the recent hullabaloo surrounding Sea World and last year’s documentary, Blackfish.  There are several plot developments focused on making sure the audience knows the hospital is doing everything by the book and putting the animals first, over humans or even money, and not doing anything against nature by keeping them there.  It wasn’t subtle, but I guess I prefer it to the reality of Sea World.

3 out of 5 stars

The Giver is a Gift

Yes, I've read the book by Lois Lowry.  I've read the whole series in fact.  I loved it.  I was eagerly anticipating this movie, without much hope actually, but I was pleasantly surprised.  It's another futuristic dystopian story, but this one was written long before Hunger Games, Divergent and Maze Runner (which I have also read) and it has a slower pace that may be what seems to be keeping movie goers away.  This film is more thoughtful and meant to make you think, with the look and feel a bit reminiscent of Logan's Run and other much older movies.  The film is mostly in black and white, so "color" in all its forms and meanings can be on full display when encountered.

As usual, many things were changed from the book (not because of length, which is usually the case, because it was a short book to begin with - I read it in just a few hours), but I tend to see books and movies as separate forms of art and can appreciate them separately as well.  One of the things I found unique about the book was that the main character is a boy whose love for an infant consumes him - we're used to seeing this from a female character.  That is still true in the film version, but someone in Hollywood felt compelled to make the central love story a romantic one, with a girl who was a minor character in the book.  I know the reasons behind it, and it worked alright on film, but that kind of thing irks me anyway.

The young, beautiful cast (including a brunette Taylor Swift) is a little wooden overall, but that also seems to fit the stiffness of the society they are in.  The older cast members are used effectively with Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep having some fun and all of their relationships setting up multiple sequel opportunities that seem to have nothing to do with the sequels in book form unfortunately.

Overall, the film asks the same questions as the novel and the same questions as all dystopian fiction: "If we get rid of all the bad, does all the good go with it?", "How do we get rid of all the bad in the world and at what cost?", "What makes us human and life worth living?", "Will we always eventually rebel and return to our animalistic beginnings - is that better?".  Here in the Western World, and especially in the U.S., it's clear that we are taught that individuality is best and freedom is fundamental, but elsewhere in the world, this film and others like it would be considered blasphemy or simply incomprehensible. 

All of these questions and issues are why I love to read these books and see these movies myself, attempting to see it from every angle.  The Giver is much  more open ended than most, ending almost exactly the same way the book does, which caused debate for more than a decade until the "sequel" was published.  I liked that the film reminded me of that feeling from the book and why I liked the story in the first place.  It may be too much to hope for a sequel to this version, since it's all financially based, but I would welcome the "gift".

3.25 out of 5 stars

Movie Review: If I Stay

Chloe Grace Moretz is the heart of this movie and thank goodness she's gifted, because in movie form at least, there isn't a lot to the story.  The well-loved book is the story of a teenager on the verge of womanhood who is put into a coma by a car accident that takes the rest of her immediate family and explores her internal turmoil of whether to "stay" or go.  I haven't read the book, so I can only imagine what's missing, but the movie does manage to stand on its own.  The central unanswered questions in the movie are presumably the same ones that interested readers of the original novel: What would you do if you got a choice like that?  What would it be like to stay without your family?  What would it be like if you "went"?

Unfortunately, the film essentially turns out to be just a love story (The sequel, "Where She Went" looks to be even more so), but her male counterpart is a worthy actor as well.  Told mostly in flashbacks, the parts of the story about their developing relationship are perhaps the least compelling, but the exploration of relationships in general make up for it (although in an effort to make her parents seem too perfect to lose to death, they are made a bit cartoony in contrast).  There is definitely enough there to make you cry at the appropriate moment.  Stacy Keach as her grandfather has a small Oscar-worthy speech and it's refreshing to see Moretz play a self-conscious character, since most of her breakout performances have been powerful and self-possessed (Hugo, Kick-Ass).

I won't avoid the inevitable comparison to the recent young adult novel turned movie, "The Fault in Our Stars", but I will just say that Fault was simply better overall.  A better comparison might be to the "non-fiction" book turned movie called "Heaven is For Real", because the only thing about "If I Stay" that keeps coming back to my mind is the questions about comas, death and the after-life, the rest of the movie is basically forgettable.

3 out of 5 stars

Happy Birthday Melissa McCarthy!



On the occasion of Melissa McCarthy's birthday, I thought I would post some pictures from a recent adventure Heidi and I had in Hollywood.  I had read that Melissa McCarthy would be getting her handprints in cement at the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood and hoped it would fit into our family vacation schedule, because Heidi and I are huge Melissa McCarthy fans (Heidi from Gilmore Girls and me from that and her SNL performances and general versatility).  Well, it did and here are the results!

Heidi at the World Famous TCL Chinese Theatre

Heidi waiting patiently and adorably in line



Susan Sarandon's introduction of Melissa McCarthy.



During her speech.  She was gracious, funny and adorable.  Much more like her Gilmore Girls character than her recent hit movies.

The Big Moment, standing barefoot in wet cement.

Melissa with her husband and director of Tammy.

 

Love this pic of Susan laughing with Melissa

Oscar winning screenwriter and co-star in Tammy, Nat Faxon.

O...M...G...here she comes!

Susan: "YOU haven't seen this movie, have you?!" LOL

Such an honor to meet Susan Sarandon.  Heidi didn't know her as well, but I just about died!

Melissa's husband Ben Falcone and director of Tammy.  Heidi knew him as an extra on Gilmore Girls :).

Sarah Baker, co-star in Tammy.

Look how impossibly adorable the two of them are!

Very successful autograph session :).

For the record, I did not at that time plan to take Heidi to see that particular movie because it was rated R and the previews made it look like a cheap knockoff of the worst of Bridesmaids, but I broke down and took Heidi last month and just reviewed it the other day.  Read it here (http://simoniesmovies.blogspot.com/2014/08/catching-up-2-to-see-this-weekend-and-2.html).

Catching Up: 2 to See This Weekend and 2 to Miss

I know I am woefully behind due to vacation and moving house, so I'm going to put my most recent reviews into one here.  Luckily, two of them don't warrant much attention anyway ;).

 

Diane Keaton's schtick has finally gotten old and tired and Michael Douglas has simply gotten old and tired.   The story of an grumpy old man forced to evolve by having a young cherub thrust upon him is an overused gimic. Combine that with poor dialog and a total lack of direction and you get this movie. It's like "How Do You Know - the Golden Years". Skip it.

 

2 out of 5 stars

 

 

 

 

Tammy was actually a pleasant surprise from what I expected, but still didn't qualify as "good".  This is a case of mis-marketing.  The commercials made it seem like a crude spin off of Bridesmaids, capitalizing on what some think is Melissa McCarthy's only appeal to audiences: being bawdy.  (Here is where I insert my objection to movies being rated R just for language again, probably done in this case just to attract the Bridesmaids crowd as well). However, it turns out that her character is the most sympathetic and Susan Sarandon as her grandmother is the somewhat repulsive secondary character. It's a bit of a madcap road movie (much of it in the midwest and Missouri in particular) with colorful characters and circumstances thrown in along the way, but the acting is far too real to allow it to be funny in most cases. This movie had heart and a good cast - see it for that...or don't see it all.

 

2.5 out of 5 stars

 

 

 

The Hundred Foot Journey must have looked tremendous on paper to get the likes of Helen Mirren, Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg involved, and it almost is, but that doesn't count in movie making.  It's a pleasant story combining cultures, generations and palates, the third subject being my favorite part, which includes a sequence of competitive chopping and beautiful cinematography, but it never quite achieves the right chemistry of the three genres together. There are a few moments of humanity that pull at the heart strings, but the only greatness is Helen Mirren who is wonderful as a starched French restaurant owner. The rest of the cast cannot rise to her level and those mismatched feeling lingers throughout the film.  The leads are very appealing and could do better on their own, so a spinoff might be called for.

 

3 out of 5 stars

 

 

 

 

Boyhood is a fairly bold experiment in movie-making.  Filmed for a week or two each of 12 consecutive years, we actually see the actors age and evolve almost in real time - the most pronounced being the young boy who we see turn into a man.  The barely scripted improvisational style of the film also lends to this heightened reality.  It's not a reality show or a documentary, but at times feels that way.  (Also, in reality, people curse, even children, so this is how even this movie attains the R rating). My favorite aspect of this approach is that when they made current pop culture references to ground the film, they actually WERE current.  They didn't need to look in the archives and go figure out what would have been popular at the time - it simply was.  However, with such an open minded approach to making this story of a boy growing up, the (very long) movie at almost 3 hours doesn't end up having a story arch or even a climax.  At the end there is no lesson behind the plot, or even a plot.  So again, I applaud new ways of evolving the cinematic experience, but I would think most audiences would not appreciate that aspect alone enough to consider it one of the best films of the year.  Perhaps the Oscars should add a category for "Most Innovative Filmmaking Endeavor".  I would definitely sign up to see all of them.

 

3.25 out of 5 stars

 

Planes: Fire & Rescue S'Movie Review

Full disclosure: I did not see the first Planes movie.  I was miraculously able to pawn that task off on another family member.  That said, I kind of really enjoyed this second movie.  It had a great story, with the heart and subtle humor of the first Cars movie, which it’s loosely based on.  Cars was so well written, I never expected much from sequels or spin offs, but somehow they managed to make another quality film.   

I’m a fan of puns and this movie was full of flying related humor that most children would miss, but is a prerequisite tongue-in-cheek aspect of these anthropomorphic animated films.  The fire fighting aspects of the plot (these planes are essentially fire jumpers) are actually pretty intense and with the current forest fires in the Northwest, I worried that even my 11 year old would be a little scared by it.  The soundtrack lends a hand to the enjoyment of the movie as well, in particular with the use strategic use of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck”. 

Overall, it’s no 3D Dragon, but  I almost regret not seeing the first Planes movie…almost.

 

3.25 out of 5 stars

Transformers: The Rules Have Changed, But Not In A Good Way

 

So, first of all, I loved the first three Transformers movies.  They were action-packed, funny, even well-acted and charming.  Unfortunately, Transformers 4: Age of Extinction only has the first of those four traits.  Yes, it’s action-packed, I know that’s a surprise, but at almost 3 hours long, action can only keep your interest for so long.  Note to the director, you need more to keep me from leaving in the middle to get another drink (which I did).  I just came back from a trip to Universal Studios and even without a drink, the Transformers 4D ride that lasted only about 7 minutes was better.

Mark Wahlberg is a good actor when the right script and the right direction come together (check out the little seen Pain & Gain), but this movie is made for wooden acting, so that’s what it gets.  As for the beautiful girl cast as his daughter, I’m guessing after the Megan Fox debacle, they thought any pretty model would do, but again, wrong.  The only thing Nicola Peltz has going for her is that she is a pretty crier, but at least Megan could act too.  The relationship between Mark as a would-be inventor and his daughter who is constantly taking care of him after the death of her mother and subsequent adoption of a broken down vehicle evokes Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but even that homage is just an insult to Ian Fleming.  Stanley Tucci is by far the best thing about this movie (and most movies he’s in).  He’s diabolical and funny at the same time with just the right amount of camp, as though he was the only one on set trying to give the audience what they’ve come to expect from the series.

The plot is more convoluted than usual, as it intertwines space saga with technological greed as this sequel’s take on good vs. evil.  In fact, I thought at times that I might be watching the Asylum Studios (of Sharknado fame) version of Transformers, which could be titled: “Dinobots vs. Microsoftbots”.  Actually, that might keep me in my seat, well for two hours anyway.

2.5 out of 5 stars