CleveMan66 Reviews

Elysium (I) (2013)

"Elysium" is intriguing, but gets bogged down in its own negativity.

[6/10 · 30 September 2015]

Class warfare, health care, immigration. "Elysium" (R, 1:49) is an action thriller that explores all these social issues and more.

Less than a century and a half in our future, the rich live in the ultimate gated community – a man-made satellite shaped like a bicycle tire, which hangs in the sky within sight, but out of reach, of the poor people of earth. Earth has become a dirty, run-down planet full of dirty, run-down people who are lucky if they have a job. Elysium is a paradise with a swimming pool in the middle of every manicured lawn. Every home is beautiful and they all have a device that looks like a cross between a tanning bed and an MRI, which can heal any citizen of Elysium of any injury or disease.

Naturally, the citizens of earth want to be on Elysium and the citizens of Elysium want to keep that from happening. Whenever the citizens of earth attempt their futuristic version of a border crossing…. well, they're stopped. Leading that effort is Secretary Delacourt (played by Jodie Foster) - a Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Homeland Security, National Security Adviser and border patrol agent all rolled into one. She's also ruthless and she talks funny. In the future, unusual accents are plentiful, but morals, not so much. Delacourt will do anything to keep Elysium pure and secure, while people like Matt Damon's character, Max, yearn, and sometimes really NEED to "get up there".

When Max suffers a serious accident at work, he knows that getting to Elysium for medical attention is his only chance for survival. The same need exists with a little girl, the daughter of a childhood friend of Max. Max knows someone who can get him to Elysium, but only if Max does something for his "friend" in the process. And that "something" could turn out to be a game-changer for everyone in this Orwellian morality play.

There's a lot going on in "Elysium". Maybe too much. Incorporating so many social issues into the plot makes the film feel cluttered. The condition of earth and its people is portrayed with an nearly overwhelming grittiness and the "every man for himself" mentality of almost all the characters is pretty depressing. The story is interesting and the action is exciting to watch, but I would call other aspects of the film…. too much of a good thing. "B"

Jimmy's Hall (2014)

If you're interested in Irish history, or just someone standing up for what they believe in, take a peak in "Jimmy's Hall".

[6/10 · 28 September 2015]

There's a sub-sub genre of movies under the general heading of drama that has produced some very entertaining and even poignant films. I don't know that this narrow category of movies has a name, so I'll just call it "rebel dance films". These are movies in which people (usually teenagers) get together to dance, but under some degree of secrecy due to the disapproval of their parents, local religious leaders or even government authorities. Parents may disapprove of the kind of dancing (or what it may lead to), religious leaders may feel that the kind of dancing these young people do is immoral, or the authorities may see modern, non-traditional dancing as a form of rebellion… and a sign of more rebellion to come.

The short list of these rebel dance films range from very popular to very obscure, but they should be recognized and appreciated by dedicated movie fans, regardless of the individual's own level of proclivity to move to the music. In 1984 (and in an ill-advised remake in 2011), "Footloose" told the story of the new kid in town trying to bring a senior prom to his small, repressed southern community. 1993's "Swing Kids" showed us teenagers in pre-World War II Nazi Germany insisting on listening and dancing to swing music, even though much of it came from musicians who were… Jewish! One of the "Step Up" movies, namely the 4th one, 2012's "Step Up Revolution", has teens dancing in a flash mob to disrupt a corporate developer's plans for their neighborhood. In 2014, "Desert Dancer" told the true story of Iranian young people who learned to dance in secret and planned to put on a performance in the desert. 2015's addition to rebel dance films is the British-Irish movie "Jimmy's Hall" (PG-13, 1:49).

This one is also based on a true story, but is about a lot more than dancing which some people and institutions find objectionable. Jimmy Gralton (Barry Ward) returns to his rural Irish home after ten years of living in the United States. He had been exiled for his unpopular political views, but now he wants no more than to live the life of an ordinary man and help his aging mother take care of the family farm. Unfortunately for him, he's still something of a local legend for the community center that he ran before he was forced to leave the country. Now, with the post-Irish civil war government firmly in place, the locals beg him to fix up and reopen the hall that, years earlier, meant so much to so many. He agrees and the community pitches in to bring the old place back to life. Soon, once again, Jimmy's Hall becomes a spot where everyone is welcome to take classes, learn boxing, take music lessons and, most of all, to socialize and dance. All of this brings him back into contact with a lost love (Simone Kirby) and back into conflict with Father Sheridan (Jim Norton), a powerful local priest who uses the pulpit to criticize the hall for its modern music and dancing – and the socialist ideas discussed in the hall. Most of the community supports Jimmy, and a younger priest (Andrew Scott) increasingly speaks out against Father Sheridan's handling of the situation, but strong forces are gathering to oppose Jimmy and his hall.

Then, the movie's plot takes a sharp turn – a sharp LEFT turn. Things get overtly political, as they were in Jimmy's real life. A local landowner evicts a family from their home, a very serious situation for a poor family in rural Ireland during the Great Depression. Out of empathy for this family, and out of a larger concern over what will happen to the community if these kinds of evictions continue, rival political groups band together to do something about it. There's a vigorous debate over what Jimmy's role in their plan should be. He's an important local symbol, but he knows that his direct public involvement will likely destroy any remaining possibility of him living out his life in peace and helping his mother in her old age. It's quite a dilemma. And quiet a story.

"Jimmy's Hall" depicts an interesting and little-known episode in Irish history, but isn't very compelling. People with no prior knowledge of the problems of this place at this time will have trouble relating to Jimmy's story, and the movie lacks the narrative power to overcome that obstacle. Seeing this film is an opportunity to become educated about what common folk in a different country and in a different time had to deal with, and the underlying themes of standing up for your principles and helping your neighbors should appeal to most movie fans, but it's not quite enough for me to give this film a very strong recommendation. If you're already interested in the subject matter or the setting, you should probably check out "Jimmy's Hall". If, after reading this review, you still have no more than a passing interest, and you come upon "Jimmy's Hall", you should probably pass it by without a second glance. "B"

Grandma (2015)

The film "Grandma" isn't worth going over any hills, through any woods or even to the closest theater to see.

[1/10 · 27 September 2015]

Do you want to know what's wrong with the world? What? Yeah, you're right, we don't have all day, and my reviews are long enough anyway. Alright, I'll narrow it down to two things: lack of responsibility and lack of respect. When people live as if their actions have no consequences (or they shouldn't be subject to any consequences arising from their choices), they show a lack of responsibility. When people don't treat others as they would want to be treated, they show a lack of respect. If you stop to think about it, I believe you'll agree that the world would be a much better place if we all were even a little more responsible in our daily lives and a little more respectful in our interactions with other people. Oh, and it's also a big problem when people make a movie in which so few of the characters are likable. Okay, I guess that makes three things, but they're all relevant when discussing the film "Grandma" (R, 1:19).

The great Lily Tomlin takes on her first lead role in a feature film since 1988 (when she starred with Bette Midler in the underrated comedy farce "Big Business"). Tomlin plays the title character in this comedy-drama about an uninhibited, but tough lesbian poet named Elle Reid and her relationship with her 18-year-old granddaughter, Sage (Julia Garner). Elle is still mourning the death of Violet, her life-partner of 38 years. That situation obviously has her emotionally edgy, but it's pretty obvious that she's always been a real pill. Sage stops by her grandma Elle's house in the morning, shortly after Elle cruelly breaks up with her much younger lover of two months (Judy Greer). Elle, in her own words, is "just being maudlin" as she goes through a box of pictures and memorabilia from her lifetime with "Vi". Sage says she needs money. She's pregnant and needs $630 to pay for an abortion she scheduled for late that day.

Elle has very little cash on hand and has cut up her credit cards, so she peels the cover off of Vi's old car and takes Sage on a sort of local road trip to visit people who give them various sums of money toward their goal. They visit Sage's rude, self-centered boyfriend, Cam (Nat Wolff), Elle and Vi's old friend, Deathy (Laverne Cox) in her tattoo parlor, Elle's scowling friend, Carla (Elizabeth Peña), Elle's grudge-harboring old flame, Karl (Sam Elliott), and Sage's unsympathetic businesswoman mother, Judy (Marcia Gay Harden). As the day progresses, instead of an open and frank discussion about Sage's choices and the direction of her life, or even some family bonding, we see Elle being very rude to a series of one-dimensional characters that Elle clearly regards as on the wrong side of the tracks, politically-speaking.

"Grandma" is full of outstanding acting, but lacking in likable characters, moral direction… and fun. Garner is well-cast and gives a nicely lived-in performance, while Elliott makes great use of his limited screen time to give an emotionally-layered performance. Tomlin is as great as ever. I just wish it were in service to a better movie. Although this film is mercifully short, it's basically a long commercial for abortion. Earlier in this review, I generously referred to this movie as a comedy-drama, but two out of three websites I checked label the film simply as a comedy. An abortion comedy?? Regardless of my personal feelings on the issue, I find the idea of a comedy about abortion to be offensive. Whether you're pro-choice, pro-life or don't care much either way, I'd like to think we could all agree that this complicated issue would have been better served by at least some discussion of Sage's options and the probable results of different courses of action. Surely nothing is to be gained by portraying the few religious and/or conservative characters in the story simply as close-minded, abusive snobs.

"But you're missing the point," someone reading this review is thinking. "This is a comedy about an unconventional grandmother's relationship with her granddaughter. Well, I would say in response, I can think of a hundred different ways to make a movie like that without exploiting a very serious, divisive and personal issue for comedic purposes. And even if I ignored the issue which drives this story, where's the comedy? Is it in Elle's terrible treatment of both friends and strangers? Is it in Sage's clueless lack of personal responsibility? Is it in the animosity between Elle and her daughter Judy? If that's your idea of humor, go ahead and enjoy this film. I'm not criticizing your taste in movies, but I'm not laughing either.

Oh, and the movie's boring too. The director must have known that. He placed title cards between each "chapter" of this story, as if to reassure us that the plot was progressing and driving towards some point.

If there's any positive message here, it's about not burning bridges in your dealings with others, but even that lesson is overshadowed by selfish and unkind characters who rarely show remorse for their actions or treat anyone with respect, being especially rude to anyone different from themselves. I don't know about you, but I had grandmas who were outspoken but loving and who taught me about personal responsibility and respect. I miss my grandmas. I wish I had missed the movie "Grandma" too. "D"

Pawn Sacrifice (2014)

See "Pawn Sacrifice". You'll gain so much more than you... give up.

[9/10 · 27 September 2015]

Good actors know how to act "in the moment", while GREAT actors know how to RE-act in the moment – AND to act and react with their eyes, their faces and their entire bodies. Based on those standards, "Pawn Sacrifice" (PG-13, 1:54) is VERY well-acted – enough to even make watching chess games exciting.

Golden Globe nominees Tobey Maguire ("The Great Gatsby", "Brothers", "Seabiscuit" and the 2002-2007 "Spider-Man" Movies) and Liev Schreiber ("Lee Daniels' The Butler", "Salt", the "Scream" movies and TV's "Ray Donovan") play American Bobby Fisher and Russian Boris Spassky, two chess champions whose names will forever be linked in history for their decades-long rivalry, their epic matches and, in particular, the 1972 World Chess Championship in the politically neutral location of Reykjavík, Iceland.

It's difficult for those who don't remember the Cold War to understand all the commotion that surrounded these two men at this particular time and place, but the film does a very good job at communicating its importance. The movie opens with a brief scene in which we hear a reporter announce one of the strangest of many strange developments during those two months in Iceland, then gives us an interesting back story that puts it into context. The movie focuses mostly on Fischer. It quickly and smoothly takes us through a few key moments in his life as he becomes the world's youngest international chess grandmaster (as a 15-year-old) and shows us his rise through the ranks of the world's greatest players, culminating in his much-anticipated showdown with the USSR's Spassky.

Fischer benefits from the help and support of various people, in spite of his erratic behavior. Carmine Nigro (Conrad Pla) mentors young Bobby Fischer (Aiden Lovekamp) from when he's still an unknown Brooklyn chess prodigy. The teenage Fischer (Seamus Davy-Fitzpatrick) becomes estranged from his mother (Robin Weigert), but his sister (Lily Rabe) supports him throughout his ups and downs. As the international star of Fischer the young man rises, but he shows no interest in the political implications of his ability to challenge the Soviet Union's chess dominance, Paul Marshall (Michael Stuhlbarg) shows up. He's a mysterious lawyer who offers financial and logistical support that will help Fischer achieve his goals – and serve his nation as an instrument of propaganda. (It's kind of like John du Pont's support of the Schultz brothers' wrestling careers in "Foxcatcher", but with less insanity and no murders.) Marshall, along with former chess champion and Catholic priest, William Lombardy (Peter Sarsgaard), spend many years helping and encouraging Fischer, as well as dealing with the chess genius' arrogant, rude and demanding behavior as well as his increasingly paranoid and fragile mental state. The film leaves out some major events and issues, and encapsulates others, but it flows well and maintains a clear focus.

The story of American chess prodigy Bobby Fischer is a remarkable one and has appeared in various forms on TV and in the movies, but never this compellingly. The film's script was written by Oscar nominee Stephen Knight, who has written little-seen, but critically acclaimed movies like "Eastern Promises" and "The Hundred-Foot Journey" as well as several TV shows and 2015 feature films "Seventh Son" and "Burnt", not to mention "World War Z 2". The director is Oscar-winner Edward Zwick, who has directed great movies like "Blood Diamond", "The Last Samurai", "The Siege", "Courage Under Fire", "Legends of the Fall" and "Glory". The former has turned dull-sounding Europe-based stories into praise-worthy films and the latter seems to do his best work on true stories and stories in historical and/or politically-significant settings. Both of these men's talents seem tailor-made for a movie like this one, and both make great use of their individual talents and experiences which, when joined with this film's truly outstanding performances, make for a fascinating historic, politically-charged biographical drama.

Maguire and Schreiber make you feel their characters' brilliance, their arrogance and, most importantly, their humanity, as they were each under tremendous pressure to perform in front of the entire world – and represent their rival nations under a microscope as focused on each of them as on any Olympic athlete. Their bodies, their faces and, especially, their eyes draw our attention to those chess boards more than most of us probably thought possible for a movie. They make us alternately feel, or at least understand, their individual moments of stress, frustration, confusion, desperation, dejection and elation. You don't have to understand chess, have personal memories of the Cold War or even speak their languages to understand what they and those around them are going through. Now, THAT'S acting.

When talking about great actors, I've heard people say things like, "I'd pay to see him read the phone book", or "he'd be interesting just watching grass grow" (or something like that). Well, if there's ever a movie in which Tobey Maguire and Liev Schreiber recite a list of names and phone numbers while fertilizing someone's lawn, give me a call – especially if that movie takes place during a period of high international anxiety and has an extraordinary story as exceptionally well told as "Pawn Sacrifice". "A"

Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015)

Kids of all ages like this movie. You should go to "Hotel Transylvania 2".

[7/10 · 25 September 2015]

Mixed marriages are tough. Couples in such situations have to join their disparate pasts into a life together that works for both of them. Their families and friends who are not used to being around the "other kind" may not know how to act in the couple's presence, even if everyone means well. Then there are all sorts of questions about how to raise their children. Should the kids be raised like the mother was raised or like the father? Should the family live closer to the father's family or the mother's? Should children be raised as alive or as the undead? Yup. Life can get pretty tricky when a human and a vampire marry. But watching these conflicts play out is a lot of fun in "Hotel Transylvania 2" (PG, 1:29).

Returning for the sequel to 2012's animated hit "Hotel Transylvania" are director Genndy Tartakovsky, writer Rob Smigel (although gone is writing partner Peter Baynham, replaced for the sequel by Adam Sandler), and most of the voice cast from the original, with the action in the sequel picking up shortly after its predecessor's story ends. Dracula (Adam Sandler), the titular hotel's owner, is glowing like the full moon at the wedding of his vampire daughter, Mavis (Selena Gomez) to her human love, Jonathan (Andy Samberg) and Drac's on Cloud 9 (or whichever cloud he was flying through) when he hears the news that Mavis is pregnant with his grandchild. Drac is convinced that the baby will be a vampire. It's impossible to tell whether the infant favors Mavis or Jonathan, but he seems like a fully human toddler.

Drac grows increasingly anxious as Dennis (Asher Blinkoff) approaches his fifth birthday (when little vampires' fangs appear), and when Drac learns that Mavis is considering moving out of the hotel and going to live with the humans. Jonathan actually wants to continue living at Hotel Transylvania, where he has started to help out with hotel operations (now that the hotel is accepting human guests), but he reluctantly agrees to take Mavis to visit his parents (Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman) in California. Drac gets them to leave Dennis in his care while they're away. As soon as mom and dad are out of sight, he packs Dennis into his car seat while, Frank (Kevin James), Wayne (Steve Buscemi), Griffin (David Spade), Murray (Keegan-Michael Key) and Blobby (Jonny Solomon) pile in to help with Drac's mission.

The vampire, Frankenstein's monster, the werewolf, the invisible man, the mummy and the blob have teamed up to help bring out Dennis' inner vampire-ness. The gang visits some of their old "haunts" to teach the kid the tricks of the monster trade, with some pretty funny results. Dennis is enjoying all of this, but Mavis is none too happy when she finds out what her father has been up to and she (literally) flies home to protect her son. As you'd probably guess, his little road trip doesn't exactly help Drac's chances of keeping Mavis, Jonathan and Dennis under his roof. Complicating the situation further is the attendance at Dennis' birthday party by his old-school human-hating great-grandpa Vlad (Mel Brooks).

"Hotel Transylvania 2" appeals to the eyes, the funny bone and the heart. The animation is so detailed that, at times, it almost felt like I was watching a live-action film – and I "only" saw it in 2-D! The script is clever, amusing, and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. The voice actors are clearly having a good time, as was I, along with the kids and adults sitting around me… if their laughter and smiles are any indication. The story's underlying lesson is the importance of accepting others (with your actions AND your attitudes), regardless of their differences. Mavis makes this point clearly when she admonishes Drac, saying, "Maybe you've let humans into your hotel, dad, but I don't think you've let them into your heart." Parts of this movie get a little dull, and some of the gags aren't as humorous as they're apparently meant to be, but most of the movie is fresh and fun. My advice is to head to the movies… oh, and grab your kids to take them to "Hotel Transylvania 2". "B+"

The Green Inferno (2013)

"The Green Inferno" is a bloody good movie, but not as bloody as you'd think.

[7/10 · 25 September 2015]

Think about the first time you rode some big, new roller coaster. As you waited in line and contemplated what lay ahead, your heart started beating faster. When you occupied your seat, and the picture in front of you began to move, you found yourself wondering what you had gotten yourself into. As you arrived at that first really scary moment, you resisted the urge to close your eyes, even as others around you were enjoying the thrill by thrusting their arms into the air. From that point, everything was a blur of shouts and screams, ups and downs, punctuated by brief moments of relative stillness. Then, suddenly, the ride ended. You were surprised how quickly it went by and, even though you felt a little queasy, you were glad you had the experience. You even may have commented that it wasn't as bad as you thought it was going to be, and that you kind of enjoyed it, all as you started to look forward to that next uncomfortable challenge. You just rode a scary new coaster, but might as well have been experiencing the uncomfortable thrill of a new Eli Roth movie… one like "The Green Inferno" (R, 1:40), for example.

Personal feelings about graphically violent movies like the "Saw" franchise or Roth's own "Hostel" films aside, Roth's film "The Green Inferno" has a colorful history. The film traces its roots to cannibal-themed movies made in Italy during the 1970s and 80s. Roth's 2015 resurrection of this controversial horror sub-genre draws most directly from 1980's "Cannibal Holocaust", a movie so realistic that director Ruggero Deodato was arrested and put on trial for the murder of some of the actors in the film. (Deodato was only exonerated after he gathered all of his actors together for a TV show appearance and then demonstrated in court the special effects used to create the actors' "deaths".) That movie's working title was "The Green Inferno", a title which was eventually applied to the most gruesome scenes in "Cannibal Holocaust", specifically, the film within the film that purports to show footage from a missing documentary film crew. (This was the first use of the "found footage" or "pseudo-documentary" device, which was popularized in the U.S. by 1999's "The Blair Witch Project".) The title "The Green Inferno" was later also used as an alternate title for the 1988 sequel "Cannibal Holocaust II". Eli Roth filmed "The Green Inferno" in the jungles of Peru in 2012. His film opened at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. It was scheduled to be released in the U.S. in September 2014, but financial problems at the film's production company led to the film being pulled. Blumhouse Productions stepped in and the company's multi-platform releasing arm, BH Tilt, released "The Green Inferno" on September 25, 2015.

After a brief scene of bulldozers flattening a rain forest in the Amazon, the narrative of Roth's cannibal film starts innocuously on the streets of New York City. College freshman Justine (Lorenza Izzo) and her roommate, Kaycee (singer-songwriter Sky Ferreira), are annoyed by the student activists protesting outside their window, but Justine is also intrigued. She attends one of the group's meetings in which their charismatic student leader, Alejandro (Ariel Levy), discusses their plan to save a village in Peru from being overrun by bulldozers paving the way for a natural gas mining operation. The students plan to dress as workers, chain themselves to trees and bulldozers, then live stream video from their cell phones to get the world's attention – and keep themselves from being shot by the armed mercenaries which protect the operation. Justine's dad (Richard Burgi), a lawyer at the U.N., expresses his reservations, but Justine goes on what she naively believes will be a weekend trip to save a native tribe from extinction.

After landing in Peru, everything goes according to plan until their small plane crashes in the Amazonian jungle. Several of the students die in the crash, but the survivors are captured by the very tribe that the group was there to save. Not speaking any English or having had any positive experience with outsiders, the tribe considers their captives their enemy – and their dinner. One of the students is ritualistically killed by the village's elder / high priestess (Antonieta Pari) and then he is promptly dismembered, cooked and eaten. His friends watch in horror from behind the wooden bars where they are confined. What follows are more killings, more feasting and various attempts by the students to escape before the natives finish them off, whether for food, as punishment, or because of their brutal religious practices.

"The Green Inferno" is a wonderful family movie. (Still reading? Just checking.) Actually, the film is more restrained than I expected. There's much less nudity than in previous Eli Roth movies and the gore, as disturbing as it is, could have been a lot more graphic, given what's happening on screen. Most of what's shown is on par with typical slasher flicks. You might even say that this is a relatively… tasteful cannibal movie. The story's solid, the acting's fairly decent for this genre and the film works as a horror movie, a thriller, a political commentary and there's even some dark comedy. Some call this kind of movie "torture porn". I think that's a stretch, but the more graphic scenes make it difficult to simply call this movie "entertaining" without qualifying the term. I judge movies based on how entertaining they are and how well they each accomplish their individual goals. Based on those measures, I'd have to say that, much like that big, new roller coaster, this movie isn't for everyone, but many will find it bloody good. "B+"

The Intern (I) (2015)

"The Intern" entertains like a seasoned professional.

[8/10 · 25 September 2015]

Sometimes you don't need a film to try and change the world, make bold political or societal statements or even be shocking. Sometimes it's good enough to be an audience member who can just sit back, relax and enjoy the show… and smile. That's the kind of movie you get when you sit down to enjoy "The Intern" (PG-13, 2:01).

Robert DeNiro plays the title character, a retired 70 year-old widower who has become bored with his life. After 40 years in the business of printing telephone books and then losing his beloved wife of 42 years, he did his best to adjust to his new life, and it worked – for a while. He traveled the world and engaged in a wide variety of physical and intellectual pursuits to keep himself occupied, but it wasn't enough. When walking the streets of his native Brooklyn, he sees a flyer for a senior intern program at a young, but burgeoning internet clothing company. Ben feels that learning more about technology and working with young people feels like just the challenge he needs to occupy his mind and his time. He applies, via a terrific self-made video (the company's requirement), and sits through a series of amusing interviews with company employees young enough to be his grandchildren… and he gets the internship.

Ben ends up working directly for the company's very capable, but over-extended founder, played by Anne Hathaway. The senior intern program was her idea, but Jules is initially hesitant to deal with Ben personally on a daily basis. She's a perfectionist who's constantly on the go. She's difficult to work for and she knows it. She loves and respects all 220 of her employees, but her motto might as well be "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself." Yet, it's hard to resist Ben's earnestness, strong work ethic and wise, calming presence. After a little awkwardness as Ben and Jules both try to figure out how he can best serve his new boss, he ends up becoming her driver. In this capacity, he gets to know Jules' stay-at-home husband (Anders Holm), their precocious, but adorable young daughter (JoJo Kushner) and, most importantly, Jules herself, in all her earnestness, anxiety and vulnerability.

It turns out that, at this stage of the game, Jules needs Ben's wisdom and support more than she'd be willing to admit – to him or herself. Her company is growing so fast and she's so hands-on that one of her assistants (Andrew Rannells) tells her that the investors would like to see her take on a CEO. This would lighten her load, but it would also mean effectively giving control of her company to someone else. She half-heartedly interviews people to be her potential boss, not sure that this is the best move, but wanting to do right by her employees and her marriage, which is starting to suffer due to the demands of her very busy schedule. In the midst of all this, Ben becomes a sounding board and occasional advice dispenser for Jules, a very helpful co-worker and kind of pseudo uncle to a small group of the company's young employees (played by Adam DeVine, Zack Pearlman, Jason Orley and Christina Scherer) and a possible love interest for the company's full-time in-house masseuse (Rene Russo).

Ben is at the story's center, but it's the great mix of interesting characters and subplots that makes this movie so worthwhile. DeNiro has rarely been more pleasant to watch, or Hathaway so winning, as they lead an ensemble cast that complements each other wonderfully. Nancy Myers' amusing and purposeful script and direction highlight the virtues of women making the most of their lives, but never hits us over the head with her message. Jules is simply a modern woman who's very likable and subtly inspiring. A scene in which some of Jules' employees break the law to help her with a pressing personal problem is fun, but seems misplaced, and the resolutions to some of the story's conflicts seem a little trite, but, overall, this is simply a delightful film that I'd recommend to anyone. "The Intern" isn't perfect, but is definitely worth having around. "A-"

You're Next (2011)

"You're Next" is a phrase that should apply to those unfortunate enough to sit down and watch this piece of trash. They're the REAL victims.

[1/10 · 24 September 2015]

Add "Evil Dead", "The Purge", "Scream" and "Home Alone", subtract the fun, and you have the new horror comedy "You're Next" (R, 1:34). Yes, horror movies can be fun and although some may disagree, seeing people meet a gruesome end on screen can be entertaining – as a means to an end, as in, in support of an interesting story… with a point. Someone should've told these things to the writer, director and actors in this horrible excuse for a horror flick.

A cast of mostly unknown actors forms a family who gather at a cabin in the woods to celebrate the 35th wedding anniversary of their well-to-do parents. The couple's adult children all bring their significant others, allowing for a potentially higher body count when the mayhem begins. Once all the victims, er, ah….family members and guests have gathered around the dinner table, someone starts shooting arrows through the windows. It's not long before those someones enter the home, carrying various sharp objects. As the occupants of the house begin to spill their blood, the carnage is played for laughs. The problem is that the deaths and the circumstances surrounding them aren't even remotely funny, nor are the ridiculous things that the others say and do in response.

For a long while, the killings seem random. Then, when the reason for this bloodbath is revealed, it just seems like so much overkill (pun intended). The movie is not funny. It's just gruesome. And it crosses the line from tasteless to downright sick when one character suggests that it would be fun if her boyfriend had sex with her next to the body of a family member who was just killed in bed. If that shocks you, all I can say is that I wish I were making this stuff up. I'm not. And no one else should have either.

"You're Next" should refer to the people unfortunate enough to sit down to watch it. They're the REAL victims. I happen to think life is precious and if a filmmaker chooses to show gruesome deaths, those scenes should be portrayed with the respect that such a painful end to someone's life deserves. I gave grades to nearly 100 movies over the year and a half prior to seeing this… "film". During that time, I sometimes wondered what it would take for me to give a movie an "F". Now I know.

Captive (II) (2015)

"Captive" is a well-acted, but slight film full of mixed messages.

[2/10 · 20 September 2015]

I've often said that every movie has a point of view and, whether you agree with that perspective or not, every film should be judged on how well it presents its story. It's difficult, therefore, for audience members to take a movie seriously when it's obviously "reaching" in its efforts to back up its point of view, and then sends mixed messages along the way. The drama "Captive" (PG-13, 1:37) has problems that should be obvious to the average Movie Fan before he or she even enters the theater. First of all, the simple but vague title has been used previously by at least six other movies, with greatly varied plots. (How can you hope to distinguish your movie and its supposedly unique message by choosing an oft-used and fairly meaningless title?) Secondly, when basing a movie on a true story which assumes an unprovable connection between events, you've chosen a story which will be difficult to make into a compelling feature film. (More on that later.) Thirdly, when your movie obviously wants the audience to think one way about certain characters and incidents, but then shows the audience just the opposite, it's tough to get any clear message across. (Another point to be expanded upon later in this review.) This film is based on the book "Unlikely Angel" written by Ashley Smith about the seven hours that she was held captive by an escaped prisoner. Brian Nichols (David Oyelowo) grew up in a middle-class family, had a God-fearing mother and attended college. He played college football and held down a couple decent jobs, but something went wrong somewhere along the way. He's about to go on trial for rape when he brutally beats a female guard and steals her gun and police radio. While escaping from Atlanta's Fulton County Courthouse and later trying to avoid detection, Nichols kills four people. Looking for a place to lay low for a while, he comes upon Ashley Smith (Kate Mara) smoking a cigarette outside her suburban Atlanta apartment. At gunpoint, he forces her back inside her otherwise empty residence.

Ashley Smith was a young woman who hadn't killed people, but had messed up her life in other ways. She was addicted to meth, a habit which had cost her her husband, who had been stabbed to death by a drug dealer, and her daughter, Paige (Elle Graham), who the courts had taken away from Smith and who was living with Smith's Aunt Kim (Mimi Rogers). Ashley obviously loves her daughter very much and is trying to get her life together so Paige can return to living with her, but she's having trouble staying on the straight and narrow. We see Ashley at a Celebrate Recovery meeting (an addiction rehabilitation program sponsored by evangelical Christian churches around the country), but it's mentioned that this was her first meeting in a while. One of the group's leaders tries to give Ashley a copy of Pastor Rick Warren's best-seller "A Purpose-Driven Life", but Ashley throws the book in the trash. (The woman retrieves the book and drops it off at the restaurant where Ashley works as a waitress.) Ashley continues doing meth and is high as she's unpacking her new apartment on the night that Nichols abducts her.

Over the next seven hours a strange bond develops between Nichols and Smith inside that apartment. She's initially as frightened as anyone in that situation would be, but she stays calm enough that Nichols doesn't perceive her as a threat. At first, he ties her up, but eventually he allows her to move about the apartment freely. He learns that she has drugs in the house and makes her share. Later, he forces her to help him ditch his truck. In spite of all this, as morning dawns, she makes him breakfast and the two of them talk. They commiserate over how they both feel misunderstood. When Nichols sees Smith idly thumbing through Warren's book, he asks her to read some of it to him. This happens several times during Smith's ordeal. At first, Nichols dismisses Warren's words as "a bunch of church crap", but, as the night wears on, he seems oddly calmed and even challenged by the short passages Smith reads aloud.

I won't take issue with the possible role of a higher power in this story, but rather with the way it's portrayed. It'll be clear to most discerning Movie Fans that Warren's book had little, if anything, to do with the way this story is resolved. Smith could have accomplished the same thing by reading to Nichols from her diary. It was her attitude and her approach that calmed Nichols down. Also, are we to overlook Nichols' crimes because they're shown with no blood and aren't repeated later in Smith's apartment? This is a decent home invasion story, but any suggestion that we should sympathize with a man who was unrepentant after murdering four innocent people is offensive, and the idea that a non-Christian drug addict diffused a potentially deadly situation by reading a few sentences from a book that happens to mention God is just silly. There can be little doubt that this experience changed Smith's life (how could it not?), but surviving such an experience would've changed the life of anyone regardless of her beliefs.

The main thing that makes "Captive" any better than an After School Special are solid performances by leads Oyelowo and Mara, as well as Rogers and Michael K. Williams (as the lead detective pursuing Nichols). Still, all these performances do is put a nice coat of gloss on a story that makes questionable assumptions, sends mixed messages and means little except to those directly involved. "C-"

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015)

"Maze Runner - The Scorch Trials" feels random and insignificant.

[4/10 · 19 September 2015]

Have you ever been in a haunted house? If so, you probably walked through a series of dark rooms and narrow passageways, while noticing distinct themes in different areas of the house. A variety of scary creatures jumped out at you or reached for you. The timing of these attacks probably felt as random as the nebulous identities, wardrobe choices and make-up schemes of your attackers. You knew, of course, that none of this was real, but it was just unsettling enough to be fun. Eventually, you got to the end of this bit of entertainment and walked back out into the real world. You likely soon forgot most of the details of that haunted house, mainly because you probably hadn't experienced anything really new, and none of it had a lasting effect on your life. Watching "Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials" (PG-13, 2:11) is a lot like experiencing that haunted house.

This film is the sequel to 2013's "The Maze Runner" and is the second adaptation of James Dashner's initial "Maze Runner" trilogy (which has since added a prequel and is about to add another). The story is even more divergent (pun intended) from its source material than the previous movie was, this time preserving not much more than the mythology, main characters and the most important of plot points.

The action picks up right where it left off at the end of the first film, with Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) and the remaining Gladers, Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), Minho (Ki Hong Lee), Teresa Agnes (Kaya Scodelario), Frypan (Dexter Darden) and Winston (Alexander Flores), taken by those who rescued them to a large facility where there's food and fresh clothes. These teens find out that theirs was not the only maze and they become friends with fellow survivor Aris Jones (Jacob Lofland), who suspects that there's more to their new home than meets the eye. The facility's manager, Mr. Janson (Aiden Gillen), assures the Gladers that they're safe now and will soon be taken to a more permanent and more comfortable home. Meanwhile, their freedom is restricted and security is tight. Every day, Janson calls out a list of names and those young people head for their new home. Aris suspects that those who are called never really leave the facility, suffering a fate that is less than comfortable. Soon, Thomas is convinced too.

The Gladers, now with Thomas clearly accepted as the group's leader, decide to venture out on their own into what's called "The Scorch", a vast wasteland where cities once stood. The earth was decimated by a solar flare and, now, what's left of humanity is struggling to survive and avoid getting a brain-altering disease called the Flare, which turns people into zombie-like creatures who roam freely and prey upon the innocent. (Think "World War Z" meets "Mad Max".) Thomas and company walk across a vast stretch of desert in search of a rebel group known as the Right Arm and their rumored safe haven in the distant mountains. On the journey, they have to elude Janson and his cohorts who believe that Thomas and his friends hold the key to curing the Flare within their bodies and want to bring them back to his prison-like complex. Along the way, the Gladers meet potential allies like maze survivors Harriet and Sonya (Nathalie Emmanuel and Katherine McNamara), underground community leaders Brenda and Jorge (Rosa Salazar and Giancarlo Esposito), and rebels Mary and Vince (Lili Taylor and Barry Pepper), but also have to contend with disagreements, treachery, injury and death within their own ranks.

"The Maze Runner" got a "B-", my barest of recommendations, with a fear that this saga could go off the rails with its next installment. It has. This story has all the narrative cohesiveness of a haunted house and all the significance of a Sunday morning cartoon. Notwithstanding a few nifty action sequences, this film is merely a collection of loosely-related scenes that accomplish little more than keeping the screen bright. Each of the "Divergent", "Hunger Games" and "Twilight Saga" movies stand on their own. "Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials" fails to do that, or even to prove to be a decent piece of entertainment. "C-"

Black Mass (2015)

"Black Mass" is massively disappointing.

[2/10 · 19 September 2015]

It's a story that was begging to be filmed. James "Whitey" Bulger gains control of organized crime in South Boston and, with the help of corrupt law enforcement officials, expands his criminal empire to include the whole city. He gets rich through racketeering, extortion and drug trafficking and enforces his will through violence. Meanwhile, his younger brother is a rising star in Massachusetts politics and becomes President of the State Senate. When Whitey learns that law enforcement is closing in on him, he disappears. Bulger rises to number two on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list (behind only Osama Bin Laden) but remains a fugitive for 16 years until he's arrested. Yes, It's a story tailor-made for Hollywood. Unfortunately, the Hollywood treatment is exactly what Bulger's story gets in "Black Mass" (R, 2:02).

Johnny Depp stars as Whitey Bulger and the film focuses on the middle portion of his life, his rise and fall as a Boston crime boss. In the mid-1970s, Bulger was on the rise but his criminal activities were confined to the South Boston neighborhood where he grew up. When his childhood friend, FBI agent John Connolly (Joel Edgerton), suggests an alliance that can help both of their careers, Bulger agrees. Whitey will supply information about his rivals in the Italian mafia, while the FBI uses that information to bring down the Italians, but ignores Bulger. That arrangement does benefit both parties. The local FBI cripples the Patriarca crime family and Connolly gets promoted. Bulger becomes the undisputed crime lord of Boston and ignores the FBI's demands that he refrain from committing serious crimes. As Bulger's criminal activities increase, the FBI realizes they're in too deep with Whitey to even try stopping him.

There are many problems with this movie, starting with the casting. In a film whose main characters are male, the female cast members do most of the best work. Dakota Johnson (as Whitey's long-time girlfriend) and Julianne Nicholson (as John Connolly's wife) give especially strong performances. Among the males, Edgerton, and Corey Stoll (as Connolly's supervisor) do their usual exceptional work, while the actors playing Bulger's cohorts (Rory Cochrane, W. Earl Brown, Jesse Plemons and Peter Sarsgaard) are no more than serviceable, and consistently outstanding actors like Kevin Bacon (as the director of the FBI's Boston filed office), Adam Scott (as an FBI agent) and Benedict Cumberbatch (as Whitey's politician brother) are simply miscast. The same can be said for Johnny Depp. He gives a convincing performance, but the make-up used on him is distracting and it feels like a lot of time and effort went into making Depp look, sound and act like Ray Liotta in "Goodfellas"… …and that's not the only distracting part of this movie – or the only connection with "Goodfellas". As in that 1990 classic, gangsters are depicted as respected in their neighborhoods/families and there are scenes in which people are talked to very calmly right before they're killed (including one such scene in an otherwise empty room) and there's even a scene in which a dangerous criminal frightens someone by threatening him as a joke, a la Joe Pesci's character in Martin Scorsese's film. The original aspects of this film's characterization of gangsters aren't very compelling either. The opening scene, designed to show Whitey's menacing personality, has him complaining about one of his friends licking his fingers and putting them back in a bowl of bar nuts. Seriously? Is this a gangster movie or an episode of "Seinfeld"? Worst of all is the script's liberal use of dramatic license. Several of the movie's characters, plot points, and major facts are different from what happened and how it happened, while other important details are left out. It's unnecessary and counterproductive to change so much of a true story that so many people know so well. It also would have been nice if the script related the movie's title to the story in some way, shape or form. This movie is based on a fascinating and many-faceted true story and, overall, the film tells a fairly interesting tale, but the devil is in the details and this version of the story of the FBI's deal with Boston's devil is disappointing. "C-"

Everest (2015)

Like climbing the famed mountain, watching "Everest" is a harrowing, but rewarding experience.

[8/10 · 18 September 2015]

"I want to see Everest". Could you be a bit more specific? Assuming that you're not talking about making a trip to Nepal, there are still many ways to interpret your request besides seeing the 2015 docudrama. The world's tallest mountain is the center of the story in a 1998 documentary, a 2007 TV mini-series, a 2014-2015 TV series and another film project still in development. All of these treatments are simply titled, "Everest". More to the point, 2015's "Everest" (PG-13, 2:01) re-tells the specific story from the '98 doc and a 1997 TV movie ("Into Thin Air: Death on Everest"), but tells it more vividly than ever before.

The '97, '98 and 2015 films all take us along for doomed expeditions up the tallest peak in the Himalayas in May 1996, as told in at least five books by survivors, most famously in journalist Jon Krakauer's 1997 best-seller "Into Thin Air", which is the primary basis for the screenplay of 2015's "Everest". As the film tells us early on, by the late 1980s, climbing Everest had transitioned from the domain of adventurers like George Mallory and Edmund Hillary with minimal equipment to a tourist destination for thrill-seekers with little climbing experience, but enough money to buy state-of-the-art equipment, stay in established base camps, and hire local Sherpas as guides and, in some cases, to carry the climber's gear and cook meals. But as the films about the 1996 climbs (and subsequent major avalanches) have shown, no amount of money, gear, help or even experience can insulate anyone from the dangers inherent in this climb. "The last word," as one character in the 2015 film says, "always belongs to the mountain." "Everest" follows two of the expeditions which suffered tragic losses on the mountain on May 10-11, 1996. Rival expedition leaders Rob Hall (Jason Clarke), of the company Adventure Consultants, and Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal), of Mountain Madness, decide to work together due to the large number of people trying to reach the peak on May 10th. The main focus of the story is Hall's team, which includes people with a wide range of personal backgrounds. Hall is an experienced New Zealand mountaineer who has already climbed to the top of Everest four times, including once with his wife, Jan (Keira Knightley), who has stayed in New Zealand this time due to her pregnancy. Doug Hansen (John Hawkes) is a mailman who attempted Everest once before and wants to reach the summit as a way of inspiring schoolchildren back home in Washington state. Yasuko Namba is a 47-year-old Japanese woman who has already climbed the other six of the famed Seven Summits and wants to become the oldest woman to reach the top of Everest. Beck Weathers (Josh Brolin) is an adventurous Texan who is also pursuing the goal of the Seven Summits, but has lied to his wife, Peach (Robin Wright), about his current trip to Everest. Jon Krakauer is a writer for "Outside" magazine, but has never been on a climb above 8000m. Several of the people portrayed in this film died on Everest and others barely escaped with their lives.

"Everest" is much more than a high-altitude adventure movie or disaster flick. Besides learning about the personal backgrounds of the characters, we follow them on their entire adventure, from beginning to end, learning a good bit about mountain climbing along the way. One of the first things we learn is that, to these people, summit is a verb. Hall lays out the dangers of summiting Everest in his briefing to his team before they even set foot on the mountain. "Human beings are not designed to function at the cruising altitude of a 747. Your bodies will be literally dying," he says. This group understands all that, but they've put their trust in the honest, personable and level-headed Hall. And they've paid him a lot of money ($65,000 each) to get them to the top of Everest – and safely back down. At base camp, Hall and his friend and colleague, Helen Wilton (Emily Watson), and their fellow Adventure Consultants employees, teach, coach and take care of their customers, including Hall taking them on some practice climbs. In spite of the danger and discomfort that everyone experiences even going only partially up the mountain, they're all looking forward to the real thing. They know they'll be cold, exhausted and scared, while having trouble breathing and facing the unpredictability of the mountain, but they didn't come this far to quit. Their experiences turn out much worse than anything any of them could have imagined.

"Everest" is a fascinating and gripping adventure. Like other movies about mountain climbing, this one fails to give a satisfactory reason for why these people risk their lives for little more than a great view and bragging rights, but it's clear that there are a variety of justifications within the group. The script depicts this climb as an extremely risky venture, but allows us to marvel at the courage, determination and, in some cases, self-sacrifice of these people. The character development (thanks to a great script and a terrific cast) is outstanding and the cinematography is as impressive as you'd expect (especially in IMAX 3-D). The suffering of the climbers (even when things are going according to plan), the thrilling moments (when circumstances throw the plan into chaos), the heartbreak and the small victories along the way all make us feel like we're right there on that mountain. The hardships and the tragedies of this expedition are sometimes shot and edited oddly, but are never exploitive. Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur brings us an engaging, eye-opening and beautiful film that most are likely to appreciate. "A-"

Meru (2015)

"Meru" doesn't need to dramatize its mountain climbing story - it takes us there.

[8/10 · 17 September 2015]

Be careful around the shark's fin. It's a warning that swimmers might utter – and mountain climbers too. The Shark's Fin is the most challenging route up the most challenging of the three peaks of Meru, which is part of the Himalayas of northern India. The documentary "Meru" (R, 1:27) traces two separate attempts by a trio of climbers trying to be the first to reach the top of Meru Peak, via the Shark's Fin.

Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Renan Ozturk are three of the most famous mountain climbers in the world, largely for their experiences on Meru Peak. Anker had become famous for his climbs in Antarctica and the Himalayas, one of which led to his discovery of 1920s' climber George Mallory's body on Mount Everest. Jimmy Chin had made a name for himself as both a climber and videographer who documented his climbs, as well as the expeditions of others. Anker and Chin were climbing partners for years when they took on Ozturk, a young but accomplished climber, for their 2008 expedition up the Shark's Fin.

This film tells us about and shows us the trio's 2008 and 2011 Meru expeditions and the momentous events in between. Heading up the mountain with them in 2008, we learn about why the Shark's Fin is uniquely challenging, uniquely dangerous and an irresistible goal for serious climbers like these. When the men come heartbreakingly close to reaching their goal, but have to turn back, we feel for them, even as we hear them talking about making another attempt. Their bodies and minds have to recover before they go back to India to try again, and life has to be lived. There are other climbs and other jobs for each of the three men to do while they plan their second trip to the Shark's Fin. When two of the three men have near-death experiences on separate occasions, serious questions arise. Who will make up the team on a second attempt? Given what's happened, can they succeed this time? Will they? "Meru" uses interviews with the trio to explain how they got together and describe their experiences on Meru. Anker's friend and fellow climber, Jon Krakauer, who wrote "Into Thin Air" (which was made into the 2015 film "Everest") also sits for an interview which sheds a significant amount of light on the story of the three Shark's Fin climbers, their expeditions, and mountain climbing in general. Most of "Meru", however, is made up of video shot by Chin and Ozturk on Meru Peak. The interview clips are succinct and informative, but it's the on-site video which gives this documentary its drama and its immediacy. I would have liked to hear more about what makes them do what they do and a bit of what happened in each of their lives after their second attempt to climb the Shark's Fin, but few criticisms can take much away from this remarkable film – one of the most fascinating and engaging documentaries of 2015. "A-"

The Farewell Party (2014)

"The Farewell Party" tackles in important topic with humor and heart.

[7/10 · 14 September 2015]

A woman in a retirement home answers a telephone ringing in the hallway. The caller pretends to be God and asks the terminally-ill woman to continue her difficult medical treatments. "We currently don't have any vacancies," he says, referring to heaven. He adds that the woman's husband says "hello." The woman is shocked. "My husband?" she says. "I was never married." God quickly hangs up.

This is the opening scene from the Israeli comedy-drama "The Farewell Party" (NR, 1:35) and it perfectly encapsulates what the movie is – a sometimes comedic look at the very serious topic of euthanasia.

Yehezkel (Ze'ev Revach) is an old man who has several friends in a Jerusalem retirement home. As one of his friends lies in great pain and close to death, the man's wife begs Yehezkel to do something to help her husband. Yehezkel is a retired machinist. He researches and builds a euthanasia device which allows his friend to press a button and self-administer a drug that basically puts him to sleep. The old man is able to end his suffering and die with dignity. His widow is heart-broken, but grateful. What seemed like an ending, however, turns out to be only the beginning of the story for Yehezkel and his friends.

Rumors about the old man's death quickly circulate around the retirement home. Yehezkel and his co-conspirators soon find themselves facing a series of moral dilemmas regarding helping to end the suffering of others. One man threatens to call the police if the group doesn't help his terminally-ill wife in the same way that they helped the first man. As it becomes clear that this will not be the last such request, they each have to come to terms with what they've done and decide how to react to what they're now being asked. As they begin to disagree about what to do next, and the circumstances start hitting even closer to home, the decisions become more difficult, and the dilemmas more profound.

Neither the film nor its characters take this topic lightly, even though the script does have some fun with the various circumstances that present themselves. The movie's opening scene shows that Yehezkel (the voice of "God" on one end of that phone call) wants to preserve the life of his friends. Yet, out of respect for them, and probably wondering what he'd want if he were in their situation, Yehezkel and a few others choose what they see as the least terrible among some pretty terrible options. To keep the movie from being too depressing, and to make such a serious topic more palatable, the script allows us to see a little of the humor in the lives of these characters – and in some of their deaths – but with due respect.

"The Farewell Party" tells an interesting story about a controversial subject and still manages to function well as entertainment. The film is more serious than the trailer, movie poster and title imply, but most of the humor is well-done and well-placed throughout the film. The script and direction of Tal Granit and Sharon Maymon balance the comedy and drama based on what's happening in the story at any given moment and the very talented cast makes it work. Still, just a few of the movie's light-hearted moments feel a little inappropriate and a sub-plot about a secret romantic relationship between two male characters seems unnecessarily distracting, but those are relatively minor complaints. Overall, this movie entertains the audience, while encouraging each audience member to think about a very important topic and how we each feel about it. "B+"

Phoenix (II) (2014)

"Phoenix" tells a great post-WW2 story, but not very well.

[6/10 · 13 September 2015]

The German post-World War II drama "Phoenix" (PG-13, 1:38) has a great mix of influences behind it. The title, of course, refers to the mythological bird that is reborn when it rises from the ashes of its former self. This film's story is loosely based on French writer Hubert Monteilhet's novel "Le Retour des cendres", which also inspired the 1965 British film "Return from the Ashes". This 2015 version makes changes to the plot and sets the story in Germany. It's also influenced by other films, including Hitchcock's classic, "Vertigo". Underlying all of this is the oft-repeated real-life drama of concentration camp survivors restarting their lives following unspeakable personal and family tragedies. This film takes that situation and tells a fictional story of one such woman whose return from the camps is even more complicated than most. It's disappointing that this movie isn't as interesting as its impressive pedigree.

As "Phoenix" begins, Nelly Lenz (Nina Hoss) is being driven by her friend Lene (Nina Kunzendorf) back to Germany after being liberated from the infamous concentration camp at Auschwitz. Nelly had been left for dead after being shot in the face, a situation that requires her to have plastic surgery. Although the doctor isn't able to make her look exactly like she did before, Nelly ends up with a face that many women would appreciate having. As Nelly heals, she and Lene share an apartment and talk of joining other Jews in Palestine. Nelly's entire family died during the war, leaving her with an inheritance that she could use to relocate. In Palestine, Nelly and Lene could restart their lives, feel more secure and help to build a new Jewish state in the Middle East… but Nelly has something else that she needs to do first.

Nelly was married at the time that she was arrested and sent to the camps. Lene believes that Nelly's husband, Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld), betrayed Nelly to the Nazis, but Nelly isn't so sure. She searches Berlin until she finds Johnny, but thinks Nelly is dead and doesn't recognize her. He does, however, feel that she looks enough like his wife that he asks her to help him with a plan to get Nelly's inheritance for himself. Nelly conceals her true identity and goes along with Johnny as he thinks he's remaking some random woman into someone whom he can pass off as Nelly. She takes advantage of the situation to try and find out whether Johnny did turn her in, or if they might get back together and resume their lives.

"Phoenix" shows us little seen and increasingly forgotten places and situations, using them as a backdrop for an intriguing mystery. Post-war Berlin is seen as a place of bombed-out buildings and people struggling to put their lives back together and learn how to relate to each other again. Allied troops are on hand to keep order and transition the country back to a peaceful existence, but the return of peace is only the beginning. It takes time to heal war's wounds, in all their forms. Nelly is virtually unrecognizable, not just because of the surgical reconstruction of her face, but also due to the obvious toll that the war and the abuse she suffered in the camps has taken on her body and mind. Symbolic of so many who survived the war, Nelly walks differently, talks differently and seems to have lost any pleasure that she once had in living.

Nina Hoss' performance is raw and real, but the others lack energy. The script gives us one-note characters with no background and, except for Hoss, the actors play down to that script and to the uninspired direction of Christian Petzold, who also served as co-writer. And the film's minimalist score doesn't help. The ending comes in one pseudo-dramatic moment, but it depends too much on the actors and not enough on narrative strength. Audience members are fairly likely to end this film with the same look on their faces as the actors in the last scene – with both groups wondering what they just saw and what happens next. It's a shame that such a great story couldn't have made for a better movie. "B"

Huevos: Little Rooster's Egg-cellent Adventure (2015)

"Un Gallo con Muchos Huevos" is cute, but unoriginal.

[4/10 · 12 September 2015]

"What came first, the chicken or the egg?" It's a question as old as… well, chickens and eggs – and questions. And the answer is… the egg! At least that's how the story appears to go in the animated comedy / action-adventure "Un Gallo con Muchos Huevos" (PG-13, 1:38). If you're one of our Facebook page's American followers (and you're really observant), you may guess that, based on the title, this movie ain't from around these parts. You'd be right. This is a Mexican animated movie, and received the widest U.S. release of any other Mexican animated feature to date. "Un Gallo con Muchos Huevos" (pronounced: OOHN GUY-oh COHN MOOCH-ohs HWAY-vohs) literally translates to "A Rooster with Many Eggs". It's the latest in a series of animated features from Mexico's Huevocartoon Productions.

The rooster of the film's title starts out the movie as an egg (hence, the answer to the age-old question). He's a heroic egg (think "Underdog" with a white shell) who swoops into a kitchen and saves three eggs and a strip of bacon that an obviously monstrous human was about to… (gasp!) cook in a frying pan! Soon after this dramatic rescue, as the story's opening narration goes, "a miracle occurred". That heroic egg hatched into a young rooster named Toto (voiced by Bruno Bichir). Tales of his heroic exploits, as told by another egg, make Toto a folk hero in the barnyard, at least to the younger eggs. (In this movie, eggs have faces, arms and legs, but even a runt like Toto towers over the little walking, talking eggs.) Toto may be young and small, but he's destined for great things – even greater than he realizes. Early in the film, he's being trained by the ranch's experienced rooster to crow at dawn. In spite of the encouragement of his mother and the older rooster's daughter, Toto is really bad at crowing. He's going to have to practice, but before he has the chance to master the art of crowing, he has bigger bacon to fry (sorry, Bacon). The old widow who owns the ranch is out of money and she's going to have to sell everything – lock, stock and barnyard. The ranch's poultry hatch a plan to help out the old woman by staging a cock fight with high-stakes betting that, of course, young Toto ends up having to fight and win.

The ranch's experienced rooster used to be a champion of these cock fights (not with claws as much as with boxing gloves)… but that was in his younger days – and his career ended in disgrace. The local crime boss egg agrees to promote the fight that the older rooster wants, but only if little Toto is the fighter – and he fights the local champion, a very large rooster named Bankivoide (Sergio Sendel). To say that Toto is both scared and unprepared is putting it mildly. He's going to have to make up for his lack of size and strength with technique. Toto is encouraged by all the hens, roosters and eggs on the ranch and he's being trained by the son of the fighter who ended the older rooster's career… but will it be enough? Along the way, this story is chock full of pop culture references – including many which will be familiar to those of us north of the border. Characters that appear throughout the film include poultry-esque versions of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Jean Claude Van Damme, Marlon Brando and even Snoop Dogg. There are two or three American songs, one of which is Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" - played by a mariachi band! The most obvious American influences in this movie are the other films that it imitates. Movie Fans who see this film will probably notice strong echoes of "Rocky", "The Karate Kid", "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story", "The Godfather" and several animated features. I think the amount of outside influence in this movie is just too much. Every movie contains influences from other movies and there are no totally original stories out there, but this film takes things too far. There's a fine line between paying homage and ripping off. This movie crosses that line.

Unfortunately, a lack of originality isn't this movie's only problem. It's predictable, some of the plot points and dialog don't make much sense and there are double-entendres and scenes of female anatomy bouncing in slow motion, all saddling the film with an avoidable PG-13 rating. On the plus side, however, the animation is outstanding and the movie does have its cute moments. This movie isn't egg-cellent enough to earn my recommendation, but it doesn't deserve to be tossed in the compost pile either, and the young eggs on your ranch may well like it. "Un Gallo con Muchos Huevos" gets a "C".

The Perfect Guy (I) (2015)

"The Perfect Guy" may not be perfectly original, but it is pretty entertaining.

[7/10 · 12 September 2015]

You can't judge a book by its cover – or people by first impressions. Both are truisms that I've seen play out often – in my life and in the lives of others. Excellent art work doesn't necessarily mean that the book underneath that cover is any good (or the movie behind the poster, for that matter). More importantly, when looking for a life partner, regardless of how charming the man, or alluring the woman, what's underneath is what matters in the long run – and the best way to make life-defining judgments about a potential mate will always be T-I-M-E. The problem comes in when the cover of that book is so utterly impressive that you commit to reading it, but end up regretting it – or when you go ahead and put in the time, then start to sense that you won't like that last chapter. These are the kinds of situations that become real problems for the main character in "The Perfect Guy" (PG-13, 1:40).

Leah Vaughn (Sanaa Lathan) has it all… well, most of it anyway. She has good looks, a devoted boyfriend and a great job as a lobbyist in L.A. What she doesn't have is a life-long commitment from her man. At the age of 36, and after two years of dating Dave (Morris Chestnut), Leah decides that she's tired of waiting for him to decide when he's ready to marry her and start a family. She tells Dave to leave, and again finds herself alone, but not for long. She meets another very eligible bachelor, but this one seems to know exactly what he wants. Carter Duncan comes off as charming, kind and generous as he is good-looking and sexy. He quickly earns Leah's affections, impresses her friends (Rutina Wesley and Kathryn Morris) and wins over her father (Charles S. Dutton). Carter really does seem to be the perfect guy.

Then Leah cracks open that book. Carter soon shows that, underneath his cover, he has some serious imperfections. Leah thinks it's best to close the book on this initially very promising relationship. Carter doesn't quite accept her decision. Harassment, stalking and some very creepy behavior follows. Then, Dave re-enters the picture. He asks for, and gets, another chance at being Leah's forever man. Carter likes this development even less than the restraining order that Leah sent his way. Now we have a full-blown love triangle – and one of these men turns out to be full-blown crazy. A sympathetic police detective (Holt McCallany) does everything he can to protect Leah, and her neighbor (Tess Harper) looks out for her, but Leah ends up having to figure a way out of her situation mostly by herself.

"The Perfect Guy" is formulaic, fairly predictable – and fun. We've seen this basic story in "Fatal Attraction" (1987), "Sleeping with the Enemy" (1991), "Double Jeopardy" (1999), "Enough" (2002), etc., all the way up to 2015's "The Boy Next Door" and beyond, but this one earns its place among those earlier films. The dialog is crisp and real and, for a nice change, the script doesn't portray the cops as indifferent and powerless (although some moviegoers may feel that the extent to which one detective helps Leah sends a dangerous message). This film nicely updates the genre by showing the very real perils of being a stalk-ee in the early 21st century. Rarely have an obsessed lover's actions been more unsettling, more intrusive and more frightening than in this film. For her part, Leah's dignity, spirit and resourcefulness are also very impressive. A very solid supporting cast back up the excellent performances of the three main characters, and all three are also pretty easy on the eye. (Plus, it's nice to see more ethnic diversity in the thriller genre.) "The Perfect Guy" may not be a perfectly original movie, but its appealing cast, smart script and well-constructed story make it worth a look. "B+"

The Visit (I) (2015)

This visit isn't really worth paying for.

[4/10 · 11 September 2015]

What happened to M. Night Shyamalan in 2005? That year seems to be the dividing line between his good movies and his… not-so-good movies. Shyamalan burst onto the international scene in 1999 with his masterpiece "The Sixth Sense". It's been all downhill from there. Even though "Unbreakable" (2000), "Signs" (2002) and "The Village" (2004) were critical and commercial successes, none of them reached the level of praise and recognition he had achieved with "The Sixth Sense". Shyamalan's post-2005 directorial efforts included the less profitable and much less appreciated "Lady in the Water" (2006), "The Happening" (2008), "The Last Airbender" (2010) and "After Earth" (2013). That brings us to the horror comedy "The Visit" (PG-13, 1:34), Shyamalan's next attempt to halt his long losing streak.

Rebecca and Tyler Jamison (Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould) are New York teenagers who have never met their maternal grandparents. Their single mother, Paula (Kathryn Hahn), left her childhood home at 19. She hasn't seen her parents since and won't say why. This makes the kids curious, especially Becca. Besides, Becca and Tyler need more family connections, since their father ran off with another woman. Paula arranges for her kids to spend a week getting to know their grandparents. She puts the two teens on a train to her small hometown in Pennsylvania and sets off on a cruise with her new boyfriend. The kids are happy to give their mom a chance to get away and Becca is hoping that this visit with Nana and Pop-pop (Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie) will lead to reconciliation between them and Paula… …which is why Becca records the visit on video. She wants to make a documentary out of this whole story. Becca uses her video camera for interviews and other important moments, while her brother helps out by capturing additional footage using the video function on an old SLR camera. The video clips they capture aren't quite what they expected. Nana and Pop-pop seem nice enough, but their behavior is rather strange. The kids write off all this to the fact that their grandparents are just old. The kids learn that Pop-pop is incontinent and Nana suffers from sundowning, a type of dementia which causes symptoms to increase in the evening and at night. ("Sundowning" was the film's original title.) Still, old or not, the grandparents' behaviors seem more creepy than quirky – and might even be dangerous.

This is not your typical M. Night Shyamalan supernatural thriller, but it does borrow elements from the genre – and Shyamalan's own earlier work. Much like a haunted house movie, there are plenty of disturbing sights and sounds to go around – and they get more disturbing as the movie progresses. Although Shyamalan doesn't put a twist in ALL of his movies, there is one in this film – and it's a doozy. Odd old people, seen through the eyes of two teenagers making a movie plays as a combination of comedic and creepy through most of this film, but when the twist is revealed and its repercussions play out on screen, the comedy falls away while the creepiness increases and it's joined by a healthy dose of horror. It's also at this point that seemingly incidental details and dialog earlier in the film no longer require a sixth sense to understand.

With this movie, Shyamalan halts the downward trend in the quality of his films, but doesn't quite reverse it. It was disappointing to see him resort to the found footage format. It seems like a cheap ploy to draw in audience members who are too young to remember when his better movies first came out. Although this film minimizes the camera shake and terrible angles that we usually see in the found footage format, he sacrifices authenticity when he allows video shot by two different types of cameras to look exactly the same – and have a level of quality that couldn't come from those kinds of consumer cameras. (If you're going to make a found footage film look almost like a regular film anyway, why use the technique?) Worst of all, this style of filmmaking diminishes what is actually a pretty good story.

"The Visit" would've been better off playing it straight. The "comedy" in this horror comedy isn't really funny. Laughing at the declining mental and physical capabilities of an elderly man and woman when the plot is basically a serious one feels wrong. The quirks that the script gives to the teens don't make them funny either and seem random. In fact, the kids are more annoying than anything else. Their intelligence and preciousness are too extreme to be taken seriously and their relationship as older sister and younger brother doesn't ring true. This attempted return to form for Shyamalan is best visited on video – if at all. "C+"

The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015)

"The Diary of a Teenage Girl" is exceptionally bold and original.

[8/10 · 7 September 2015]

You have to be careful. Many books and movies share very similar or even identical names, but can have very different stories. Take, for example, the film adaptation of Phoebe Gloeckner's 2002 novel "The Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures". The movie "The Diary of a Teenage Girl" (R, 1:42) isn't to be confused with "The Diary of a Young Girl", which is more popularly known as "The Diary of Anne Frank". Then, if you just dropped the "The" from "The Diary of a Teenage Girl", you'd be talking about "Diary of a Teenage Girl", a series of Christian YA books, which also contains a coming-of-age story, but approaches the sexual aspects COMPLETELY differently. "The Diary of a Teenage Girl", like the book and stage play which preceded it, takes an honest, realistic, smart and unflinching look at the sexual awakening of its central character.

Minnie Goetze (British TV and film actress Bel Powley) is a 15-year-old girl living with her younger sister, Gretel (Abigail Wait) and their single bohemian mother, Charlotte Worthington (Kristen Wiig) in mid-1970s San Francisco. Minnie's circumstances may not match many young girls', but her thoughts and experiences do. Minnie feels that she is overweight and unattractive, although she does attract the attention of the males of the species. She's curious and anxious about sex, seeing it as a way to validate her womanhood, offering her virginity to her mother's boyfriend, Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård).

Minnie is very happy that Monroe accepts her offer and the affair continues, as much because Minnie wants it to continue as anything else. She finds an old tape recorder and begins making an audio diary – both to keep a record of her feelings – and to process them. The events and emotions she puts on tape reveal the story and help drive it. As with any young person who has sex before being in a committed relationship or being mature enough to handle what comes next, Minnie's experience is a combination of excitement, frustration, joy, insecurity, happiness and heartache. We see her begin to grow up before our eyes as she works through this confusing mix of emotions in a complicated (and creepy) situation.

"Little Minnie" (as Monroe calls her) continues to enjoy her prematurely adult relationship but doesn't understand the mixed signals Monroe sends her, or the changes she is going through as she learns some difficult lessons. We see her experiment sexually, and also drink and do drugs, which doesn't seem to be a problem with her mom. In fact, Charlotte talks to her older daughter openly about sex (sounding more like a peer than a mother) and expresses concern that her daughter doesn't yet value sexual expression.

Minnie's support network is very limited. Not only does her mother fail to see how her daughter is changing, but Minnie isn't interested in sharing the details of her life with her nosy, only-slightly-younger sister. Minnie confides in her one real friend, Kimmie (Madeleine Waters), who shares some of the aforementioned experiences with her. Minnie also grows closer to her school-girl crush, Austin (Ricky Wasserman), but he is… a typical teenage boy. Minnie and Gretel's former step-father, Pascal (Christopher Meloni), still keeps in touch with the girls and cares a lot about them. He's much more conservative and responsible than Charlotte, but he's obviously not as involved in their lives as before.

As an aspiring cartoonist, Minnie takes a lot of comfort in her art. Her illustrations give expression to her interests and feelings, but also serve as full-screen visual images for the movie. In this way, the film expresses not just the content, but the spirit of the book on which it is based. "The Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures" is a graphic novel which tells its story as much with cartoon-like illustrations by the author as with her prose. Not only does the movie do its best to translate the experience of reading the book to the big screen, but the story also reflects the author's own. The book is considered semi-autobiographical, a fictionalized version of one person's journey into womanhood.

This film is unlike anything most moviegoers have ever seen. Its frank dialog and explicit sexuality may upset some, but I feel that everything I saw on the screen was in service to the story. What is revealed to the eye pales in comparison to what is revealed to the minds of those who can watch this movie without moral judgment. It can be disturbing to see Minnie engage in so many adult activities at such a tender age, but this movie shows us real life for some young women – and reflects aspects of it that apply to all.

The effectiveness of "The Diary of a Teenage Girl" owes to its performances and its writer-director. The entire cast does excellent work, but the two main actresses were especially impressive. I believe this is Wiig's best dramatic work of her ever-expanding career. The 23-year-old Powell is a revelation, giving one of the most fearless and lived-in performances that I've seen in years. I hope for and predict Oscar nominations for one or both women. I feel that this movie could have done without some of its more salacious and upsetting scenes, but first-time screenwriter and director Marielle Heller makes this such a unique cinematic experience, that it's difficult to be too critical of the whole. So, now that I've recorded my minor criticisms, as well as what the film offers to the senses, what it contributes to understanding a subject of universal interest and how well it does all that, I feel that this diary entry deserves an "A-".

A Walk in the Woods (2015)

"A Walk in the Woods" is a trip not worth taking - at least in a movie theater.

[3/10 · 5 September 2015]

Some movies just don't need to be made. I don't mean to imply that one of these unnecessary movies doesn't have a decent story (or other factors going for it), but sometimes film isn't necessarily the best medium with which to tell a particular story. A movie, as with any form of entertainment, should only be made when it is the most effective, or even the singularly necessary method, to communicate and entertain in a given set of circumstances. Take "A Walk in the Woods" (R, 1:44), for example. It's not a bad movie, but it's not all that effective or entertaining either.

Based on the book of the same name by travel writer and humorist Bill Bryson, the story centers on his journey up the Appalachian Trail with his old friend, "Stephen Katz" (a pseudonym for the real person). Bryson (Robert Redford) is a well-known writer who had recently returned to the U.S. after 20 years of living and working in the UK. After attending a friend's funeral, Bryson suddenly decides that he needs to hike the Appalachian Trail. His British wife, Catherine (Emma Thompson), tries her best to dissuade him, based on his age and the possible dangers of such an endeavor, but he's determined to walk the entire 2,180 miles from Georgia to Maine. Catherine sees that she's losing the argument and settles for getting him to agree to take a friend with him.

After making several phone calls (and getting some fairly humorous responses), Bryson gets a call from Katz (Nick Nolte) who offers to join Bryson on his quest. They had spent some time traveling Europe together as young men, but have long since lost touch. While Bryson was becoming a successful writer, Katz was living back in their home state of Iowa and, to paraphrase, spent half his life drinking and chasing women – and wasted the other half. They're quite the odd couple, but, along the trail, they relive memories of their youth and commiserate over growing old. They disagree over their philosophies of life, but each values the experiences that life provides. They sometimes argue and make uncharitable assumptions about the other, but are both happy for the opportunity to have "one last adventure before it's too late." Most aspects of this film are best described as mediocre. The scenery, which should have been this movie's particular strength, is rarely highlighted and not filmed especially well. The life lessons the movie wants to teach are nothing really dramatic or even effectively emphasized. The dialog that's supposed to be funny feels random and rarely rises above the level of barely amusing. The supporting work by Nick Offerman, Kristen Schaal and Mary Steenburgen is lackluster and less well-known actors would have been a better fit for their roles. Thompson does her usual outstanding work and Redford is solid… except when he's trying to be funny. Nolte's performance is probably the best thing in this movie, but even he isn't at his best. He deserves an Oscar win, but it probably won't be for this film.

Besides all that, the movie version of "A Walk in the Woods" changes some important plot points from the book. As a movie fan, I have to ask why. Why make a movie out of a book describing very personal events, then change some of them and, in the process, make the movie even less dramatic than it could have been? Why adapt a book that many found humorous, then fail to find a way to make the humor work? Why make a movie about hiking the Appalachian Trail, but short-change the audience in the scenery department? Why make a movie out of a story that is clearly best-suited to the printed word? The answers to these questions lead us to the central question: Why take this journey? I wouldn't recommend it. Not with the medium of film anyway. "C"

The Transporter Refueled (2015)

"The Transporter: Refueled" ups the octane from the last film, but still seems low on gas.

[6/10 · 4 September 2015]

When you refuel your vehicle at a gas station, you generally have a choice of three types of gasoline with varying levels of octane: 87, 89 and 92 or 93. Octane is a chemical compound that helps engines run smoother – if they have a problem with "knocking" or "pinging". When the 2002 French film "The Transporter" hit theaters, it wasn't especially well-received by critics, but it was a hit with audiences all around the world. Two sequels followed (in 2005 and 2008), but each one received lower average ratings from critics and audiences that the film before. The franchise was definitely knocking and pinging – and, as the title of the fourth film in the series seems to admit, was out of gas. The question is whether "The Transporter: Refueled" (PG-13, 1:36) has enough gas (of sufficient octane) to entertain audiences.

The series' fourth installment is a reboot of the franchise (and the beginning of a prequel trilogy). The character of Frank Martin (played in the first three films by Jason Statham, who became a popular action movie actor because of the role) is now inhabited by British rapper, actor and recent TV pitch man Ed Skrein. Although playing a younger version of Frank Martin (the title character), he's seen from the beginning of the film as the same kind of man as in the previous three films. He's a clever and skilled driver, he has his three (supposedly) unbreakable rules already in place: No Names, No Questions and No Changing the Deal. That last one includes being punctual. Young Frank is still working on that one.

The story centers on a group of young women who are forced by Russian gangsters to sell their bodies on the French Riviera. After fifteen years of this, four of the women (Loan Chabanol, Gabriella Wright, Tatiana Pajkovic and Wenxia Liu) are enacting a plan to reclaim their lives and get some revenge against the men (Radivoje Bukvic, Yuri Kolokolnikov and Lenn Kudrjawizki) who have kept them enslaved all that time. To pull off their plan, they need the help of "the best in the business". Anna (Chabanol), the leader of the four, pays Frank his usual fee, but to ensure his cooperation, they take his father, Frank Sr. (Ray Stevenson) hostage. As the women move forward with their plan, they only tell Frank what he needs to know when he needs to know it, which makes Frank frustrated and places all parties in greater danger, but also entertains the audience – mostly.

The movie re-uses some of the ideas that fueled the previous "Transporter" films, including making the story personal by focusing on the pursuit of justice in the midst of all the car chases and plot twists. Plus, in this story (co-written by Luc Besson, who co-wrote the first three with Robert Mark Kamen) gives us a little more background on Frank and establishes a connection between him and the Russian gangsters, but tells us next to nothing about the women whom Frank is helping. That may be because the questionable acting skills of these four actresses don't deserve any more screen time than they already have. Skrein also comes off as a little too young and small to already be so good at what he does – and be so effective at kicking bad guy ass. The only character in this movie with sufficient gravitas to play his role is Stevenson, but he is given some silly lines and even sillier direction (from Camille Delamarre, who edited "Transporter 3" but is directing one of these films for the first time).

Of course, audiences who come to these movies are more concerned with the action than the acting and, on that level, the film does pretty well. There are some great moments of action and a couple cool fight scenes, but action-packed, this movie is not. The story is decent, unravels nicely and does a pretty good job at keeping us guessing about who's doing what and why. In short, "The Transporter: Refueled" eliminates some of that knocking and pinging by upping the octane, but, with this cast and these filmmakers, probably doesn't have enough gas to make it through two more episodes. "B"

All Is Lost (2013)

"All is Lost" works best as a master acting class by Robert Redford

[7/10 · 2 September 2015]

"All is Lost" (PG-13, 1:46) has Robert Redford stranded in the middle of the Indian Ocean when his sailing boat is rammed by a stray shipping container floating around by itself. The rest of the film involves Redford's character using his considerable sailing expertise to attempt to save his boat and survive until he can be rescued. The film reminds me a bit of the Sandra Bullock / George Clooney movie "Gravity". In both films, we have someone in a very dangerous situation confronting one challenge after another, while the audience waits to find out if the protagonist survives. This film is interesting enough, but not as exciting as "Gravity" and it actually has an even smaller cast.

"All is Lost" is all Redford, all the time. It's "127 Hours" – on the high seas rather than in the desert. It's "Life of Pi" without the animals. It's "Cast Away" without Wilson. 100% of this movie is Redford on (or in) the water. That may sound boring, and some movie fans may indeed find it boring, but, to my surprise, the film held my attention. The reason is clear. It's Robert Redford. The words he speaks throughout the movie are fewer than the number of words in this review. Redford tells the story with his eyes, his face and his body. He puts on a 106 minute acting clinic, is what he does. He is a master at work and his performance is nothing short of masterful.

Of course, writer-director J.C. Chandor (who also wrote and directed the 2011 Kevin Spacey drama "Margin Call") has more than a little to do with this movie's effectiveness. The shot selection and pacing are almost as brilliant as Redford's performance. Now, having said all that, this movie is still "just" a one man show with that one man trying to survive a harrowing ordeal on the high seas. In my reviews, the central question I always try to answer is how entertaining the movie is, so the most I can give this one is a "B+". If you love sailing, survival stories or great acting, you'll probably love this movie. If you need human interaction, explosions, or at least some comedy to be entertained, you won't like this movie very much, if at all. "All is Lost" is not for everyone, but for the kind of movie it is, it is VERY well done.

The Spectacular Now (2013)

"The Spectacular Now" is a spectacularly well-made coming-of-age story.

[10/10 · 2 September 2015]

Coming-of-age movies come in various sizes, shapes and sensibilities. They're usually predictable and often feel contrived. Neither of these is the case with "The Spectacular Now" (R, 1:35). Sutter (Miles Teller, in one of his first major roles) is a high school kid who doesn't take anything seriously - not his school work, not his job, not his future, not his relationships with other people, and not even himself. All that changes (gradually) when he becomes friends with the sweet loner Aimee (a pre-"Divergent" Shailene Woodley). Sutter struggles to get along with the single mother who's raising him (1980s' sweetheart Jennifer Jason Leigh), while wanting to get to know the dad (Kyle Chandler) who left when he was a child.

I've seen all four of the actors I just named in other movies, but all four of them showed me something fresh and new in this film and were all more effective than I've ever seen them before. If there were an Oscar for Best Ensemble, I'd say that this cast earned a nomination. As it stands, any one of the cast members is worthy of an individual Oscar nomination, as are screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael W. Weber (adapting Tim Tharp's novel) and the film's director, James Ponsoldt.

As Sutter and Aimee's unlikely relationship develops and they each take steps to seize their futures, the plot often appears to be heading in one direction, but then takes you in another. The realism of the performances, the authentic feel of the dialog and the unpredictability of the story combine to make you care deeply about these characters and feel a healthy tension about how things are going to turn out for them. "The Spectacular Now" is indeed spectacular and you should see it - now. I give it an "A+".

Turbo Kid (2015)

Fans of 1970s and 80s B-movie future schlock will really get a charge out of "Turbo Kid".

[6/10 · 30 August 2015]

Let's make a movie about the future, but set it in the past and make it look like it was set even further in the past. That could've been the pitch for "Turbo Kid" (NR, 1:33) – and that's just one of many interesting and unusual things that there are to learn about this film even before discussing what it's about. For one thing, it's a co-production of Canada and New Zealand. Since it's technically a foreign film, it has no MPAA rating (but if it did, it would surely be rated "R"). The movie has three directors, François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell, all three of which also share credit for the screenplay, and all appear in the movie in small roles. What's more, the cinematographer, Jean-Philippe Bernier, is also one of the two people who did the film's score, which is a highly unusual combination of jobs. Now, let's get back to that highly unusual pitch summary in the first sentence of this paragraph.

"Turbo Kid" is a post-apocalyptic action movie set in the "future" year of 1997. That actually makes sense when you know that the film intentionally looks and sounds like it was made in the early 1980s. Stating it another way, this movie is "retro futuristic". It's a lot like many of the movies made in the late 70s and early 80s. In fact, the year picked for the story's setting, 1997, is the same year in which 1981's classic dystopian action thriller "Escape from New York" takes place. And that's not the only connection between other movies of this film's sub-genre. There are passing verbal references and visuals that are subtle shout-outs to movies like "Soylent Green" and "The Terminator". What's not so subtle is the strong and obvious influence of another post-apocalyptic film series from the 1980s (rebooted in 2015) on the plot, setting and costumes in this movie. As "Wired" magazine said, it's "'Mad Max' on a BMX".

Munro Chambers plays a character simply called "The Kid", an orphaned teen just trying to survive in a land laid waste by… something (?) which led to the end of civilized society. The Kid scavenges items that he can "sell" to his world's version of a pawn broker (Romano Ozari) for that most precious of commodities – water. The water that exists is under the control of a sadistic general called Zeus (Michael Ironside). As he brags to his "minions" (NOT the cute kind), he not only provides their liquid sustenance, but their entertainment as well. He sponsors regular violent and bloody gladiatorial-like contests between his "henchmen" (better word) and those unfortunate enough to have double-crossed Zeus… or just crossed his path.

When he's not scavenging, The Kid is obsessing over his favorite superhero, someone called "Turbo Rider". The Kid has various Turbo Rider memorabilia in his house and then gets a hold of an old Turbo Rider comic book, which he seems to value almost as much as staying hydrated. As he's sitting in an old playground reading his comic book aloud to himself, he's approached by a girl named Apple (played by Canadian actress Laurence Leboeuf) who wants to be friends. She's impossibly chipper (either gratingly or adorably, depending on your point of view) and she may or may not be a cold-blooded killer. But she insists on hanging out with The Kid, and, well, friends are hard to come by in this terrible future-past (or is it past-future?), so he lets her tag along as he scavenges.

As dangerous as this time and place is, you have to be tough to survive. The Kid teaches Apple his rules for survival and soon the two of them meet someone even tougher than The Kid – a cowboy type named Frederic (Aaron Jeffery) who's an arm-wrestling champion and the closest thing that the few decent people left alive have to a protector. That is, until The Kid becomes Turbo Kid. He finds a costume that makes him look and feel like his hero, Turbo Man. The costume doesn't help him fly or anything, but it does have a pretty serious weapon built into one of the arms. The Kid becomes Turbo Kid just in the nick of time. For different reasons, Apple and Frederic both run afoul of Zeus and they need some serious turbo-charged rescuing! But even if Turbo Kid can free his only two friends from the clutches of Zeus, he'd likely be pretty ticked off and would probably want to hunt them down and, you know, kill them all.

It's kind of a tough thing to judge this movie. On the one hand, it is very effective at evoking the feeling of cheesy early-80s future schlock. On the other hand, the violence (albeit comic violence) can be a bit excessive – unless you find dismemberment and gallons of fake blood shooting everywhere to be amusing. Still, the graphic destruction of so many human bodies notwithstanding, this movie deserves credit for being very different from any other 2015 release and it is more entertaining than not. All this comes out to a mild recommendation – with a strong warning. Considering all the blood and guts, a kids' movie this is not, but adults (especially those who like the cheesier movies of the 70s and 80s, and enjoy a good splatter flick) may find seeing "Turbo Kid" to be a blast. This B-movie gets… a "B".

We Are Your Friends (2015)

If people suggested you go see "We Are Your Friends", those people are NOT your friends.

[2/10 · 29 August 2015]

You've probably heard the admonition: "Don't peak in high school." Good advice. It's sad to see someone who you can tell was at their coolest and most accomplished in their teens. Take Zac Efron for example. I've come to wonder if, as an actor, he peaked in the "High School Musical" movies. Those productions were mainly inconsequential Disney fluff, but they were fun to watch. Efron has worked steadily ever since (which is more than we can say for most of the other stars from those films) and he has had varying degrees of success with his post-HSM roles (often simply as the brooding hunk). But this is the entertainment business: "What have you done for me lately?" He was miscast as a doctor in the otherwise criminally underrated "Parkland" (2013) and in 2014, he was just annoying in "Neighbors" and in "That Awkward Moment" (which lived up to its title – more so, if it were renamed in its plural form). 2015 sees Efron continue to strive for cinematic relevance in the drama "We Are Your Friends" (R, 1:36).

Contrary to the film's title, the story's mainly about an EDM (electronic dance music) DJ named Cole Carter (Zac Efron), his mentor, James (Wes Bentley), and a love triangle involving James' personal assistant – slash – live-in girlfriend, Sophie (Emily Ratajkowski). Sure, Cole has a group of friends, but they're mainly relegated to background roles. Cole lives in the pool house of his buddy Dustin (Jonny Weston) and they hang out with drug-dealing Ollie (Shiloh Fernandez) and quiet, unhappy squirrel (Alex Shaffer). These four San Fernando Valley California buds get together to enjoy "the world's greatest sushi", talk about their dreams and hopes for the future, and party – a lot. In a half-hearted effort to make bank, all four of them go to work for a suspiciously rich real estate investor (Jon Bernthal), but that move feels to most of the guys more like a step backwards in pursuit of their goals.

Throughout the movie, Cole spends a lot of time with his friends, but his pursuit of his dreams and his relationships with James and Sophie occupy the vast majority of the screen time. James is a rich and in-demand EMD DJ who takes Cole under his wing. James is an arrogant alcoholic, but he does give Cole some good advice – and access to his impressive home studio so Cole can perfect his sound. (Cole's convinced that he just needs one great track to make it big.) Meanwhile, there's a growing sexual tension between Cole and Sophie, who's also unhappy with her life. When Cole and his friends take a trip to a big rave in Las Vegas, where James and Sophie are also headed, certain developments change the equation for some of them. Those characters then have to make decisions that'll change their lives.

You know, you can often tell when a studio knows it has a stinker on its hands. The signs include giving it a title which isn't representative of the story, giving the movie little publicity and making drastic changes to the movie poster late in the game. These all apply to this film, as does the suspicious timing of the movie's release. Why release a youth-friendly made-for-summer movie at the very end of the summer (after many teens have already gone back to school) and in a weekend with very little competition in the way of other feature film releases? Put all that together and you have the movie "We Are Your Friends".

This movie isn't horrible; it's just bad. The focus is unequally divided between the friends mentioned in the title and what the movie is really about. The four friends are lacking in direction, work ethic and, to some extent, morality and often don't treat each other as you'd expect they would. The performances are serviceable, but uninspired and Ratajkowski's presence in the film seems mainly for the purpose of giving us something pretty to look at. (We see "more" of her than at any point since her role in the uncensored version of the "Blurred Lines" music video.) The movie's subplots are contrived and unnecessary, then the climax of the movie plays out as unrealistic and fairly anti-climactic. The script educates the uninitiated about EDM and has some decent life lessons, but also features lines like, "This is my favorite part. Right before everything begins." What does that even mean – that it's all downhill from here?!? (Hmmm. Since the quote appears early in this movie, maybe that IS what it means.) Honestly, I hope that Efron has not peaked. I hate to see anyone fall short of their dreams. Efron is good-looking (even though he's getting a little too old for that haircut) and he does have some talent. Besides, when it comes to succeeding in the entertainment industry, there's more than one way to "Bop to the Top". ("High School Musical 4: Class Reunion" anyone?) As for Zefron's 2015 release, one final word of advice: If people suggest that you get together and go see this movie, those are NOT your friends. "C-"