Category Archives: family

Reign Over Me

Posted on April 19, 2008

There have been a number of movies in the last few years focused on people dealing with the emotional devastation of 9/11 and, for the most point, I tend to avoid them as too painful or too likely to be maudlin. Somehow, though, I had the feeling that Don Cheadle and Adam Sandler could be trusted not to make those mistakes.

Reign Over Me, the story of how a lost friend (Cheadle) helps a lost soul (Sandler) come to grips with the loss of his wife and daughters, doesn’t make those mistakes. A terrific supporting cast helps too. Jada Pinkett-Smith, Saffron Burrows, Liv Tyler, Melinda Dillon, Robert Klein, Donald Sutherland and Paula Newsome all add to the total what their roles as family and friends permit.

Particularly surprising was the understated script by writer/director Mike Binder (though not his performance as Sandler’s friend), since his previous work rarely rose above the level of dreck like The Upside of Anger, Man About Town and especially the HBO flop comedy series Mind of the Married Man. Maybe I’m trying find excuse but I think the difference with Reign Over Me is likely down to the influence of the two stars, who produced it.

Mostly I like this movie because the story is primarily about having to go on with life after tragedy rips away the ones you love most, where the events of 2001 are the origin, offscreen, and next about how giving friendship can be repaid many times over in self-awareness.

definitely recommended

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Definitely, Maybe

Posted on March 22, 2008

Love, Actually is one of our (my wife and I) favorite movies, which we watch every New Year’s Eve (or Day), and Ryan Reynolds is turning out to show up pretty well most times too so when we saw a ‘new movie from the people who brought you Love, Actually’ starring the actor that Matthew Perry and Matt LeBlanc want to be we figured it would be to our liking. Sure enough, it was.

Definitely, Maybe is kind of a grownup fairy tale that Will Hayes (Reynolds) tells to his spunky daughter Maya (the uber-present tike Abigail Breslin) after he splits up with his wife and her mother. Once upon a time daddy was luckier than, well, most princes and got to date three gorgeous women. “What’s a threesome, daddy?” “A game adults play sometimes when they get… bored.” Whatever.” Will marries one but changes some of the facts and the names so Maya has to guess which one became her mommy.

Is she college sweetheart Elizabeth Banks, aspiring journalist Rachel Weisz or the unassuming Isla Fischer, who Will meets when he moves to New York to launch his career in politics? Any one of them would have satisfied 99.999% of (straight) men in America, I’d have to say. Each has some failing that makes Will move on. And of course at the end his precocious daughter makes sure he reconnects with the woman who is the right choice for him.

Also lending a hand are Derek Luke as Will’s best friend and consulting partner, Adam Ferrara as their mentor, Nestor Solano the politician the three support and Kevin Kline as Weisz’s Tom Wolfe-ish mentor and lover.

Despite the advertising, Love, Actually‘s writer/director Richard Curtis is in no way involved here; the connection is a few of the same people produced both flicks (and probably carefully chose a title that echoes the earlier hit). No worries, Canadian-born writer/director Adam Brooks (Practical Magic, Wimbledon, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason) does fine with this American-set tale and Curtis has rarely ventured beyond the shores of the British Isles.

Brooks offers three very different, smart and warm women as Hayes’ (and our) choices, develops his characters without rushing or stomping plot development and cleverly avoids telegraphing the result so early that the climax gets spoiled. A chick flick that men can enjoy, on par with Brook’s Practical Magic rather than his Renee Zellweger sequel which, to be fair, possibly suffered from too many chefs sticking spoons in.

recommended

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Gray Matters

Posted on February 24, 2008

This is a cute little movie starring Heather Graham and Tom Cavanagh as sister and brother who are also best friends and flatmates and Bridget Moynihan as the woman who turns their lives upside down. If you wonder how come you don’t remember it from being in the cineplex last year that would be because other than a few short art house showings it was essentially straight to DVD.

Sam and Gray Baldwin are very happy with their lives; Gray Matters opens with a dinner party where a couple of the other guests who don’t know them too well mistakenly get the idea their a married couple. Having recently passed 30 they decide it’s time to get out and find loves, which starts with a trip to the singles heaven that is the local (Manhattan) dog park. They see Charlie Kelsey (Moynihan) and Gray makes an excuse to introduce herself, then point out her cute brother.

The three meet up later at a Spanish place for tapas, drinks and dancing. Both Baldwins find her extremely attractive but it’s Sam who stays up all night with her. Then  turns up home that afternoon with the news that he and Charlie are getting married in Vegas Saturday and would Sis very kindly come along as maid of honor/best man.

All good time is had by all but certain events during the Friday night bachelorette party trigger the main conflict of the movie. Back home Gray is forced to confront the truth of her desires, reconcile with Sam and Charlie, and find a new path to happiness. All of which she does, with some assistance from her officemate Carrie (Molly Shannon in one of her few mature, non-annoying roles) and new bet pal Gordy (Alan Cummins, allowed for once to be himself, or at least a heterosexual version of himself).

Written and directed by Sue Kramer (her only IMDB credit, though she bears a striking resemblance to the also-lesbian Heather Matarazzo), Gray Matters is a sweet post-modern coming of age story that is smart and believable, wastes little time on poorly though out ‘character development’ and (sadly, because Graham is hot) avoids the easy allure of cheap lesbian sex scenes.

recommended

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The Last Mimzy

Posted on February 24, 2008

A family movie trying to cross the appeal of Harry Potter and ET and succeeding somewhat, judging by the writing and directing credits this 2007 movie was the pet project of some Hollywood studio execs who decided the time was right for them to get creative.

In the The Last Mimzy young brother and sister Noah (Chris O’Neill) and Emma (Rhiannon Leigh Wryn) Wilder uncover a trove of toy treasures at their vacation home on the beach of one of the many small islands off the Seattle coast. Right away, though, we see that despite appearances these treasures are far more than toys; instead they’re tools sent back from future humans desperate to save themselves from a pollution-caused extinction.

Jo (Joely Richardson) and David (Timothy Hutton) Wilder get concerned over the changes the toys cause in their kids and have some high-end diagnostic testing done, which produce nothing conclusive. Noah’s teacher (Rainn Wilson) and his fiance, both knowledgeable in Eastern religions, get involved when the boy starts drawing amazingly obscure, complex and accurate mandalas.

The real action starts when one of the devices draws enough power from the electricity grid to knock most of Seattle into darkness. Post-9/11, that draws the notice of the regional Homeland Security crew, lead by Nathaniel Broadman (an appropriate name for the large and determined Michael Duncan Clarke). Even though the offending device was never plugged in or otherwise directly connected, Broadman traces the cause to the Wilders’ home and comes calling. Hard, with geared and gunned up troops since, of course, they were expecting terrorists and not a mild mannered family of four.

Time is running out for the future and Broadman refuses to understand the situation. Fortunately those toys have a few tricks up their sleeves…

Based on a classic science fiction story Lewis Padgett (a nom de plume of husband/wife team CL Moore and Henry Kuttner), the script was done by Bruce Joel Rubin, who wrote a number of human side of sci-fi movies like Deep Impact, Jacob’s Ladder and Ghost, and Toby Emmerich, an executive with New Line Cinema whose only previous writing credit was the 2000 oddity Frequency. Robert Shaye, Emmerich’s boss at the studio, directed Last Mimzy, the first time he’s sat in that chair since 1990 romantic fantasy Book of Love which, coincidentally, was written by William Kotzwinkle, who wrote the novel for ET many years ago.

Despite being on the business side of things for so many years, I think Shaye, Rubin and Emmerich did a good job with this film. The plot didn’t strain credulity or come across as dumbed down for eight year olds, the soft and colorful visual provided a warm level of comfort to counterbalance the dramatic tension and Shaye got quality performances from the two young leads.

recommended

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Juno

Posted on February 11, 2008

A surprisingly positive, funny movie that’s enjoyed great critical success including Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Jason Reitman for directing, Diablo Cody for the script and Ellen Page for Best Actress. This is only Reitman’s second feature, Cody’s first and Page’s first leading role, which make all the nominations quite surprising as well.

Juno is an offbeat 16 year old high school junior living in suburban Minnesota who decides one fall day she’s ready to find out what sex is really like and so climbs atop meek boyfriend Paulie Bleeker. Two months and three home pregnancy tests later Juno cannot deny her experiment worked all too well. She tries to get an abortion but can’t go through with it.

Dad (J.K. Simmons) and stepmom Bren (Allison Janney) are unhappy at the news but supportive as soon as they hear she intends to give the baby up for adoption. Juno may be offbeat but she is smart enough for a 16 year old. Vanessa (Jennifer Garner) and Mark (Jason Bateman) are pretty good as the yuppy couple she decides should have her offspring despite some struggles of their own. Michael Cera, Bateman’s son on the late lamented series Arrested Development, puts in another good performance as Paulie and Olivia Thirlby is Leah, a goofy cheerleader who’s Juno’s best pal.

Diablo Cody is famous for working as stripper to support herself before making a living writing and she gives the characters very realistic attitudes and words. Reitman, who learned at the foot of his father, the great comic director Ivan Reitman, and Reitman pals like Bill Murray, does better here than in his previous film, Thank You For Smoking, helped by the not nearly as dark nature of Juno. He adopts a nice visual language using camera angles and more sunlight than expected for a Minnesota winter.

recommended

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Legends of the Fall

Posted on January 29, 2008

This Brad Pitt vehicle seems likely to have been greenlit in the wake of Kevin Costner’s stunning Dances With Wolves. Aiming for a similar epic Western revisionist anti-hero result and adding the burgeoning star power of Brad Pitt backed with Anthony Hopkins as well as the fresh beauty of Julia Ormond, the execs at Columbia surely expected similar huge grosses and perhaps a few golden statuettes of their own.

Sadly Legends of the Fall (1994) was not in the same class as its model. Director Ed Zwick, still mainly known at this point for the hit TV series thirtysomething, was a bit too loose with his focus. Pitt’s Tristan had to contend with his father (Hopkins), compete with his two brothers (Aidan Quinn and Henry Thomas) for Ormand’s heart and disappears for a huge chunk of the second act after finding himself unable to deal with his feelings of responsibility for a tragedy that couldn’t, really, have been down to him at all.

This gets mixmastered by frequent narrations voiced by a native American elder and family friend (Gordon Tootoosis). Frankly, a movie that needs this much help explaining the on-screen action probably should have gone back to scriptwriters Susan Shilliday and Bill Witliff for another draft.

The acting is strong enough, though Quinn as usual does little for me, and the wide open territories in Montana where the  Ludlow clan have a ranch, the film’s primary setting, is awesome; that John Toll took the 1995 Oscar for Best Cinematography seem reasonable. Yet I wonder how much better Legends might have been if the younger brother and related subplots had been edited out.

recommended

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Smash Palace

Posted on December 23, 2007

This 1981 early Roger Donaldson effort was one of the first I remember seeing from Down Under and was perhaps one of the seeds of my fondness for that part of the world. I admit to all along believing this was an Australian films when, I found out flying home from Auckland on Air New Zealand, it’s actually from the Kiwis. Weird.

Smash Palace was written and directed by Donaldson (who next gave us The Bounty and Cocktail) and stars Bruno Lawrence, Anna Jemison and Greer Robson as Al, Jacqui and Georgie, the family Shaw, and Keith Aberdein as Al’s best mate, local copper Ray Foley. The Shaws own and live at a junk yard (the literal meaning of the movie’s title) out in a remote small New Zealand town and Al stays sane working on cars he occasionally races.

Jacqui has no similar outlet and the isolation is harder on her than Al–he grew up here but she emigrated from an unspecified city in France. Georgie is more puzzled than dismayed because the junk yard is a fine playground for an eight year old. Still, no big domestic issues until Jacqui cannot bear the boredom and finds herself alone and drunk with Ray.

Combined with the prospect of the business going under or giving in to a mediocre purchase offer from an out of town real estate company, Jacqui’s decision to move out until she sorts out her feelings pushes Al over the edge (the figurative meaning of the title) and launches the movie’s third act right into the stratosphere.

While this is a small film, in the same sense of, say, Kevin Smith’s Clerks and Robert Rodriguez’s El Mariachi, as with both of them Donaldson and his core cast deliver an excellent result. Watching this while struggling with sleep on the previously-mentioned trans-Pacific flight I had no choice but to focus on the dialog and emotional interaction and, while I admit sleep would have been nice, this was a very decent second choice.

recommended

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Curse of the Golden Flower (Man cheng jin dai huang jin jia)

Posted on November 7, 2007

Dazzling visuals give this transposed Greek tragedy an epic feel but in the end Curse of the Golden Flower is a tale of betrayal and revenge inside a single family. Chow Yun Fat is the father and Li Gong the mother of the two younger sons–though she appears far too young to be the mother of the older of her boys, well, it is a movie.

Set 1100 years ago during the T’ang Dynasty in China, an ambitious soldier has completed his rise to power and consolidated control of the empire. The Empress, daughter of the ruler of a neighboring kingdom, has reached the end of her usefulness. His three sons are all grown but Wan, the oldest, is a weakling, Yu, the youngest, a bit mad and Jai, the middle, cannot bear the way his father has betrayed his mother.

The annual Chrysanthemum festival is drawing near, an event with special significance for the family. Not only is it the day the Emperor chooses to celebrate the values of his monarchy, it is also the anniversary of the death of his first wife, his eldest son’s mother. Further, the Empress has found out that her husband has added a poison to her daily medicine, a concoction of his own composition.

To celebrate, then, the Empress has arranged that at the opening of this year’s festival a coup will be staged; she will be rid of her disloyal husband and the son of his first wife. This is a royal soaper so in addition, Crown Prince Wan is having an affair with the lovely daughter of the Imperial Doctor and she and her father are the ones adding the poison to the Empress’ medicine–and the wife of the Imperial Doctor is the person who told her of it.

Writer/director Yimou Zhang (House of Flying Daggers, Hero) continues to use the screen as a vast movie canvas, swaths of brilliant color always in motion. Golden Flower is played out on the huge stage of the Forbidden City in Beijing and the coup attempt involves, literally, thousands of soldiers between the two sides. One army is dressed all in gold, the other in steel, and despite the numbers a great deal of stealth is involved. The palace interiors dwarf the cast, the walls and doors huge blocks of fabrics, and the costumes, especially of the royal family, massive affairs that somehow do not restrict movement.

recommended

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Because I Said So

Posted on November 5, 2007

An out and out chick flick, this was our Saturday night date movie with TS1 even bringing the fresh popcorn. A fun way to spend a couple of hours after a day full of English and American football–Liverpool had another crap 0-0 outing but USC reached back for a nice 24-3 rebounder–and Mandy Moore is growing on me as a nice young actress

Moore costars with Diane Keaton in Because I Said So, a slight romantic comedy whose twist is that Keaton is not only Moore’s overbearing mother Daphne, she’s afraid her own life is over at 60 (her birthday party is a key scene) without her ever having had an orgasm. Lauren Graham and Piper Perabo play Moore’s character Milly’s two slightly older, better adjusted sisters so you can imagine the locker room scene is very male viewer friendly.

Daphne despairs of the 20-something Milly ever finding the true love she never did–the girl’s father was “the wrong choice”–and so she posts a single ad asking for suitors for her daughter. Interviewing applicants in a hotel lounge she finds one good man, an architect named Jason (Tom Everett Scott), and has an arrogant conversation with Johnny (Gabriel Macht), leader of the jazz combo playing there.

Milly of course meets both men and, this being the 21st century, sleeps with both after a decent/minimal number of dates. Johnny turns out to be a better match, though appearances and mom disagree. Hilarity ensues. Daphne meets Johnny’s dad (Stephen Collins) and learns what an orgasm feels like. Milly and Johnny’s five year old son Lionel hit it off instantly. Jason never does figure out how to get the stick out of his ass.

Fairly standard stuff but nicely done.

recommended

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Lithium Springs

Posted on August 20, 2007

I was asked to review an independently made movie called Lithium Springs but have nothing positive at all to say, so I will just leave my comment as this note.

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