Tag Archives: family movies

McFarland

I pretty much thought we must be out of sports stories by now. How many teams can possibly start out dead-last but thanks to the inspiring speechifying of their devoted but grizzled coach, end up earning first? And of those teams, how many can overcome the prejudice of racism at the same time, convincing white folks who admire achievement that maybe these coloured folk aren’t so bad after all, because they sure are fast? And how many of these can possibly star Kevin Costner?

If you answered TOO DAMN MANY, then you, sir, are correct!

This movie doesn’t really do anything wrong other than steal from every sports movie that’s come before it. If it was the first of its kind, you might even call it good, or inspiring. But I’m going to call it neither, because I do not live under a rock. I’ve seen it all before. I’m tired of this formula, which was pretty thin to begin with.

Tomorrowland

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I was expecting a lot more from Tomorrowland. Brad Bird has been involved in so many good movies in the past, all of which have had fantastical or futuristic elements. Damon Lindelof gave us an amazing first season of Lost (though it was downhill from there as the layers were peeled away). George Clooney is an A-lister who is super reliable and who usually picks his projects well. All the parts seemed to be here for a great movie, or at the very least an interesting one.

But instead of being something memorable, Tomorrowland is entirely forgettable. I really don’t understand how things went so wrong but for a movie about possibilities, there was a distinct lack of imagination or innovation involved in Tomorrowland. It is totally formulaic and by-the-numbers. Which doesn’t make it a bad movie, and it’s not a bad movie, but it left me feeling that an opportunity was missed here.

Going in, I thought the premise was solid one but the way it was handled left me not only wanting more but wanting something entirely different, something closer to what I thought this movie would be after having seen the trailer many, many times in the last six months. I don’t want to spoil things so I can’t really be more specific than to say that Tomorrowland was not at all what we saw in the trailer. And that would have been okay if handled differently but the end result here is that we only end up spending a very small amount of screen time in Tomorrowland when all is said and done, but the scenes of Tomorrowland in the trailer were what I wanted to see lots and lots of.

That’s why the way it played out was so disappointing. It left me feeling a lot like Lost did, now that I think about it.

Tomorrowland gets a rating of 6 child-sized jetpacks out of ten.

City of Ember \ Stardust

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Once upon a time it was movies based on Young Adult Fiction week, and I watched some stuff that I would normally never watch. Some of it was bad, some of it was not bad, and some of it was so bad it was almost good. In the end I was so glad to put it behind me I never got around to talking about the stuff that didn’t fit in either category – not good enough to endorse, but not bad enough to make fun of. So here it is, the middle of the road:

I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen or heard of City of Ember because I didn’t know there was a Billy Murray movie I hadn’t already smothered in love. He plays the mayor of a town built deep underground by a team of scientists just as the world was ending. They buried instructions on how to return to the surface after 200 years too, but stupidly entrusted them to politicians, who predictably bungled the thing and lost the instructions and now their city is crumbling, the power supply is failing and food is running out. Things are dire: teenagers to the rescue! Two “young adults” (Saoirse Ronan & Harry Treadaway) take it upon themselves to do the thing countless older, smarter, more intrepid people (including their parents) failed to do.

The visuals are stunning. I loved the sets of this underground world, everything just a little off-kilter, labyrinthine without being claustrophobic. But the story never quite lives up to what our eyes suggest. The plot is modest, maybe even thin. Writers of this young adult genre seem to follow a pretty strict guide when it comes to their dystopian adventures: the founders, vague as they are, have decreed that people be assigned specific jobs and these jobs are ceremoniously given out and then life is spent labouring away at whatever “very important” job you’ve been given. There is little in the way of joy, but if you keep toiling away then your life is well-spent. BUT then there’s always some young upstart who questions the system. Sound familiar? City of Ember is basically Subterranean Divergent, although really I should say it the other way around since City of Ember came first.

The adventuring is pretty tame, the action mild, and the denouement predictable. This is post-apocalyptic-lite. Martin Landau gives a small performance worth seeing, and Tim Robbins isn’t half bad either. Bill Murray is, of course, always fun to watch, but otherwise this film is blander than you might think possible, though of course that was also Matt’s verdict on Insurgent.

Stardust came out in 2007, just a year before City of Ember, and it also passed me by. I haven’t been a “young adult” in at least a decade and haven’t been a typical consumer of this genre ever, so I guess it’s not so surprising.

I’m not remotely sure that I or alone else can really distill this story, but here’s my attempt:

Tristan is the young adult in question, a lad living in a quiet English village, madly in love with the town’s most beautiful girl who doesn’t give him the time of day because of course she’s way out of his league. Throwing him a bone, she agrees to consider him if only he will catch her a star, and so of course he follows a fallen star over the breach in the wall surrounding his village and into a fantasy kingdom called Stormhold where the star turns out to be Claire Danes. Everyone following? Fallen stars that look remarkably like Claire Danes are quite popular – she’s also being pursued by a witch (Michelle Pfieffer) who wants to eat her heart to make her young, and a bunch of princes (let by Rupert Everett) who believe a ruby she carries will inherit them the throne. So now poor Tristan’s saddled with this star who’s pretty high maintenance, and the only help he gets is from his mother, who’s unfortunately bound by a spell, and a transvestite pirate (played with MUCH enthusiasm by Robert DeNiro- and no, I’m not kidding).

The story didn’t speak to me whatsoever (sorry Neil Gaiman, I’m still you’re girl!), but hello, with a great pop-up role by De Niro and another by Ricky Gervais, it’s pretty much worth watching on that basis alone, and those moments felt more like the trademark oddball Gaiman humour I’m used to. The special effects are pretty awesome (Michelle Pfieffer uses a sword designed for but never used by Magneto in Matthew Vaughn’s 2006 X-Men movie) but the action-adventure really gets bogged down by a sluggish pace. This movie drags on. It’s a string of fun moments but didn’t quite work for me as a cohesive whole.

Night At The Museum: Something About A Tomb

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Wow did this suck balls. Like, no redeeming factors to report at all. The effects are brazenly shoddy. Embarrassing. Was this movie shot entirely in front of a green screen? Is there even a museum in New York?

My problem is, I don’t like Ben Stiller. My other problem is, Ben Stiller likes Ben Stiller. So much so that he conferred upon himself another character, just so he can have the pleasure of interacting with himself, green screen on green screen on green screen. Is nothing sacred?

I love Rebel Wilson but she’s falling into the Melissa McCarthy trap here – genuinely funny women that are reduced to one-note obnoxious roles that wear thin quickly. Not quite as thin as Ben Stiller as a caveman (haven’t we seen that before?), but still. She was wasted. But this movie wasted actors like it was going out of style (and if this is indeed the third and final chapter, then I guess it is) – Ben Kingsley! Hugh Jackman! Ricky Gervais! And y’all know that I love Steve Coogan but for the love of monkeys, throw the man a bone. He and Owen Wilson and floundering with oodles of screen time but nary a point. I felt bad for them.

There was a single workable joke in the whole entire thing:

Ben Kingsley (as an Egyptian pharaoh) to Ben Stiller, half-Jewish: “I love Jews! We owned 40 000 of them. They were very happy. Always singing with the candles.”

Ben Stiller: “Yeah, they really weren’t happy. They left. Spent 40 years in the desert trying to escape. We have dinner once a year to talk about it.”

So now that I’ve ruined the one funny bit for you, you don’t have to watch it.

You’re welcome!

Home (2015)

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Oh is an alien (voiced by Jim Parsons) – they call themselves Boovs. Boovs are really, really good at running away, and their arch-nemesis the Gorg gives them good reason to practice this skill on a regular basis, evacuations led by their esteemed Captain Smeck (Steve Martin). This time, they’re fleeing to Earth, where they simply flip the switch on gravity and relocate all the humans. In the hubbub, a little girl named Tip (Rihanna) is separated from her mother (Jennifer Lopez) and she must reluctantly team up with the ever-unpopular Oh to find “my mom.”

This movie is cute if unoriginal – it reminded me of so many (better) animated films, but didn’t have a defining identity of its own. And I’m not sure if it took a while for the audience to warm up to it, or if the movie took a while to get going, but the laughs didn’t really start for a good 10-15 minutes, which actually felt a lot longer than it sounds. Once the laughs came, they continued. The movie casts a wide net – there’s something for cat lovers, pop culture dwellers, tweens, and younger kids. It’s easy enough to be entertained by this movie, but I doubt it’s going to grab audiences the way the minions did, or the three-eyed aliens from Toy Story.

There are plenty of fun moments: Tip’s house is booby-trapped so cleverly she makes Kevin McCallister (from Home Alone) look like a hack, and Oh learning how to car dance will have the kids waving their arms in the air like they just do not care. Actually, there are enough smart one-liners to earn a laugh from even the most cynical adult in the audience, but it doesn’t play to the adult viewer the way some Pixar movies have managed.

We saw the movie in 3D and wondered why. The movie doesn’t make much use of it, which is understandable since 3D kinda feels played out. Now it feels like a cash-grab, an excuse for the studios to charge twice the price for a ticket.

This movie is a stand-out in one big way though – not only is the protagonist female, not only is she black, she’s animated with realistic proportions. In the era of princesses, this means something. She’s smart and resourceful, and the movie doesn’t rely on stereotypes in her characterization. Her immigrant background is mentioned but not dwelled upon. It’s refreshing to see such a face on the big screen (she’s the first black lead character ever in 3D animation, and the second protagonist of colour for Dreamworks Animation, the first having been way back in 1998 when they did Prince of Egypt).

Bottom line: it’s an enjoyable film for kids, but the ground-breaking diversity doesn’t make it a classic. Diverting but not memorable.

Home

Paddington

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Is Paddington the cutest little movie I’ve seen in a long, long time? Why, I do believe it is.

I was charmed by the bear the moment I met him. He’s cuddly and fluffy and of course you’d take him in! But he’s not a one-note character. We know this because the books have been around for decades, children love the mischievous adventures, his irreproachable manners, and his sweet nature. It’s always nerve-wracking to watch somebody make a go of your fondest childhood memories, but this is one (exceptional) case where you won’t be let down. Paddington’s essence travels with him from Peru to London, where he’s adopted by a family of humans, the Browns, who need rescuing from him just as much as needs to be rescued by them.

Cinderella

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If you’re wondering whether you should bring your 2-year-old to see this movie, the answer is a resounding no.

I happened to sit beside a 2-year-old girl at the screening of this movie a few nights ago, and it did not go well.

Could she make it 3 minutes without yelling something out? No.

Could she stay in her seat? Of course not.

Did she spill all her popcorn before the movie even started and then cry about it at an ear-aching volume? You’ve probably already guessed the answer.

But the thing is, she’s 2. I actually thought she was pretty well-behaved for a two-year old being asked to sit still for over two hours (the movie’s not that long, but the event sure was.) The problem is not the chatter and the squirming, the problem is that in Cinderella, both parents die.

Did you remember that little detail? That’s the catalyst for poor Cinderella being left to the whims of her evil stepmother. First the mother dies, and then the father. And the little girl beside me just didn’t get it. Of course she didn’t get it. At two she’s just beginning to understand that people leave and come back but still exist when you’re not seeing them. Two-year-olds love to play hide and seek. They’ll search for hours (but they really suck at hiding). So even though her mother explained to her that Cinderella’s mommy died (but what is died?), the little girl every 4 minutes would ask “Where’s her mommy?” and every time a vaguely female character appeared on-screen “Is that her mommy?”. And then the dad died, off-screen, and the movie just could not be saved. At two, she is confident that parents always come back. She can’t understand that they just don’t exist anymore. But she’s starting to feel a little panicky about it. Cinderella is sad – why don’t they come out from hiding? A two-year old needs stability, needs to believe that her parents will not abandon her. She resisted the idea of the dead parents for the duration of the movie and had no appreciation for anything that came after. Every moment she was obsessed with the return of the missing parents.

There were other little girls (and boys) at the screening, and the older ones (say, 5 and up) seemed to tolerate it well. The live-action still has the mice, and the dress, and the glass slipper, and the fairy god mother all of the elements to dazzle a child. But it dazzled me as well. I was quite pleased that Kenneth Branagh did so faithful an adaptation – yes, mixing in just a tiny bit of Grimm stuff to even out the story, but giving us just a blush of nostalgia (the shot of Gus-Gus nibbling a kernel of corn comes to mind) to evoke our own childhood experience of the film while telling the story we all know and love.

Lily James is quite lovely in the role. She certainly does The Dress proud – takes what was probably a 15 pound dress and makes it look light as air. Cate Blanchett steals every scene she’s in, though. She’s still Cinderella-pretty herself, but she projects coldness like nobody’s business. She shows restraint, never fully abandoning herself into evil, always holding something back, a shred of humanity that leaves us feeling just a tiny bit sad for her. And she may not get to wear The Dress but she is quite well-dressed. Her gowns are sumptuous, the wardrobe department giving her lots of belted ensembles that remind us how much she means business. Even the set came properly dressed; I could practically feel the textures in Cinderella’s home.

Branagh is careful to sprinkle his fairy dust everywhere. The carriage is resplendent in gold. The glass slippers sparkle attractively. Prince Charming’s teeth are perfectly straight. Matt has said that “If you can do Shakespeare, you can do anything” and I don’t doubt it’s true – I just didn’t expect Branagh to give us something so lovingly and painstakingly rendered. My only complaint is that the camera moves around way too much – so much that at times I felt sick. Cinderella is already plum-full of gilt and brocade and magic; it doesn’t need the added artifice from the camera. Just let it be.

Cinderella is rated PG, which means leave the two-year old at home (with a baby sitter, of course), but bring the rest of the brood to squeal in delight. Your kids will love it, and you might just find yourself right there with them.

Movies on Airplanes

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Watching a movie on an airplane isn’t exactly optimal viewing conditions. No director plans a scene thinking “But how will this look on a teeny tiny screen located approximately 15 inches from your face?” And putting the volume control on a shared arm rest is just asking for trouble. But you persist, because flights are long and seats are uncomfortable and for the love of god you’ve got to do something to block out the noise coming out of that baby. Of course, you must choose your movie well. I know someone who watched The Grey on a plane: not a wise choice. Weird of the airline, I thought, to even offer it, but apparently it did come with the too-mild warning of “not suitable for nervous fliers.” In The Grey, Liam Neeson barely survives a horrific plane crash only to have his life further threatened by a really spiteful pack of wolves.

Here were by recent choices, for better or worse:

The Skeleton Twins: Estranged siblings played by Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader reconnect after one’s attempted suicide interrupts the other’s. Comedies are good choices for planes and both Wiig and Hader give really strong performances although beware, this one is rife with family drama. They have an ease and charm together that’s really engaging, though the movie does suffer from the worst aspects of SNL – a tendency for a skit to go on way too long. So if you find Bill Hader lip-synching to an 80s power ballad, you’re in it for the full 3m48s and you’ll cringe through every second.

X-Men: Days of Future Past: This one mostly confused me. Sean really liked it and I’m sure a glowing review is imminent. He’s explained to me that this one was basically correcting a crappy previous film, but I struggled to keep up not just with the fast pace, which is appropriately engrossing for a plane ride, but with mutants I wasn’t familiar with interacting with mutants who I was pretty sure had already been killed off. I know this movie is time-warpy and rule-bendy, but does it also have to be a complete mind fuck? I’m suffering from super-hero fatigue (probably have been for at least a decade), but I really liked James McAvoy. And really hated Peter Dinklage, as usual. But the bits where Quicksilver is doing his thing almost make the movie worthwhile on their own – this is Bryan Singer at his best.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day: I had the feeling that I’d already seen this family feature like half a dozen times. I’ve never seen this one before, but it feels like a pretty uninspired copy, so you try telling it apart. Lots of horrible\”funny” things happen to a family on what I hope is an atypical day. You know it’s supposed to be funny because Steve Carrell is flailing about on fire, but it doesn’t quite evoke out-loud laughter. I happened to be watching this on the very same day that Carrell would walk the red carpet as an Oscar nominee and it’s kind of nice to see that it hasn’t gone to his head. He’s still making room for bad movies. Well okay, it’s not terrible. It’s horrible and terrible and no good. But it’s also Steve Carrell (and a game Jennifer Garner) doing physical comedy with full gusto. Steve Carrell doing goofball antics just plain goes down easily so while you know this movie is mediocre at most, you just can’t bring yourself to hate it. A pirate accent forgives a lot.

Ratatouille

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This post will publish the moment Sean and I, in Paris and thus “6 hours into the future” will set foot into Guy Savoy, a beautiful 3-star Michelin restaurant, the second most-expensive in the world, where we hope to eat caviar, drink champagne, and delight over brioches slathered in truffle butter. There will be 35 chefs in the kitchen preparing dinner for 60 hungry people and we will hope, hope hope hope, that none are rats. That none so much as have a rat in their hat.

Ratatouille is one of Sean’s favourite Pixar movies, probably because Sean loves food, but possibly also because Sean doesn’t have the classic aversion to rats that the rest of us do – his family idiotically kept them as pets (RIP Robbie and Bambam). So did the animators of Ratatouille. Rats lined the hallways of the Pixar studios so that animators could get their whiskers and tails and paws just right.

The film’s protagonist, a rat named Remy, is rendered with over a million individual hairs (his human counterparts have a tenth that – still impressive!). Little Remy dreams of becoming a great French chef despite the fact that his family’s against it, and you know, he’s also a rat. And restaurants hate rats. But he encounters a laconic chef named Linguine who benefits from Remy’s passion and skill.

The bad guy is the Head Chef, Skinner. This character is named after behavioural psychologist B.F. Skinner, who was known for the Skinner Box, where he made rats push a button for food over and over again.

This is the first Disney movie to feature a bastard. You know, as in, a kid born out of wedlock. Shocking! However, plenty of Disney movies have featured orphaned or partially-orphaned children – disproportionately so, one would hope.

To get the feel of the city just right, Brad Bird took a team up to Paris for a week where they buzzed around on motorcycles and ate at its top five restaurants (certainly Guy Savoy would have been on their list – it’s actually in the top 20 of the world). I feel sort of silly for not figuring out how to get my bosses to pay for my trip. And then I remember I’m self-employed. So I guess she kind of is! Meanwhile, the animators back home got to study and photograph rotting vegetables in order to render a realistic compost pile. No jealousy in that office, I’m sure.

Anyway, while the lucky ones were in Paris, they came across quite a sight, which made its way into the movie: a window shop displaying dead rats! Sounds weird but it’s a real shop that you can find (and we just might) in the first arrondissement called Destruction des Animaux Nuisibles. It’s an exterminator, established 1872, and quite a curiosity, but I don’t think I’ll be shopping for souvenirs there.

I may, however, be staking out their fine wines to bring home to our wine cellar if only we have the weight to spare in our suitcase. There’s a surprising amount of wine to be seen in this children’s movie – the restaurant critic Anto Ego orders a Chateau Cheval Blanc 1947, a Grand Cru, and obviously quite a vintage. This baby would set you back at least two grand, so for the second time in this film review, I’m left commenting: damn. How can I possibly bill that one to my boss? I’m clearly in the wrong profession! John Lasseter, Pixar head honcho, has a winery in Sonoma Valley and a bottle of his Lasseter Cabernet Sauvignon can be seen in the background.