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Jack Is Back

23 May

At the risk of getting too high-falutin’ for a summer popcorn flick, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End serves as a metaphor for itself.

To wit: when we last left Captain Jack Sparrow (and the Pirates franchise), he was dead, and had disappeared into an abyss. As part three opens, our team of heroes (now joined by the not-dead Captain Barbossa) have rallied together to bring him back.

And behold, when Jack returns to the land of the living, he’s full of life and spirit, the Jack we remembered from the first flick.

But there’s a bigger threat at hand: the East India Company (read: critics and unhappy moviegoers) want to do away with all pirates, and it takes a veritable pirate army to defeat their foes. Continue reading →

One YouTube Video to Rule Them All

21 May

Well this is fun. Someone has posted a video on YouTube that’s basically just a compilation of film clips that reference the numbers 1 to 100. It’s a countdown kind of in the spirit of Apple’s ad for the iPhone. Enjoy.

Movie as Mac-n-Cheese

13 May

Just like with pies, there are different kinds of movies. Some are huge but empty blockbusters. Others are small, personal statements. Still others try to push buttons. And then there are movies like Waitress that don’t appear to have any greater ambition than to be a glimpse at the life of someone different from us. They don’t blow you away, but they do go down easy. It’s like comfort food. Keri Russell (the fickle pickle herself) stars here as Jenna, a waitress in a southern pie shop diner, who learns she is pregnant with her louse of a husband’s baby, and finds herself falling for her obstetrician. One of Jenna’s few escapes is pie-making, and she spends much of her time creating different pie combinations that reflect her state of mind (for example, “Pregnant Miserable Self-Pitying Loser Pie” or “Falling in Love Chocolate Mousse Pie.” Mmmmmm). Add in two fellow waitress friends (Cheryl Hines and writer/director Adrienne Shelly) and a quirky old guy (Andy Griffith), and you basically have the entire movie. As I said, Waitress is nothing earth shattering, but it is a good, enjoyable slice of life. Russell gives an endearing performance (totally different from how she was in Mission Impossible III) that makes you fall in love with her easily. This is a movie that makes you smile, even if it doesn’t make you think, and on a slightly chilly Sunday afternoon, you couldn’t ask for much more. I give Waitress a solid B.

A Prince. But Not Quite a King

8 May

On my list of all-time favorite movies, The Lion King ranks up there somewhere around number 5 (right after Rushmore, Singin’ in the Rain, North by Northwest, Good Will Hunting, and sometimes What’s Eating Gilbert Grape). So it’s always puzzled me why I never got around to seeing the theatrical adaptation of The Lion King, even though it’s been on Broadway for 10 years. Well, seeing the show is no longer on my to-do list because I saw it Tuesday night at the Broward Center in South Florida.

Unfortunately, Lion King will not be on my top-5 list of musicals (like, say, Company). I liked the show overall, thought it was a very creative adaptation of the movie, but I found some of it corny like a show at Disney World, didn’t like a lot of the individual performances, found the transition between some scenes choppy because they were trying to replicate every scene of the film, and thought the way the story was padded (especially in the second act) just slowed the whole thing down. In fact, the first act is much better than the second, but maybe that’s because that’s when all the good stuff in the movie is. On the other hand, the “He Lives in You” reprise is a really nice addition. I also loved how colorful some scenes were (though not “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King”). But I think the movie is really ingrained in my head, because scenes that always get me when I watch the movie totally got me here too. It’s almost a Pavlovian reaction that I get chills when I see “Circle of Life,” for example, and here, with the animals coming from everywhere in the theater, it had a similar effect on me. The wildebeast stampede scene, too, was an emotional experience seeing it in the theater. It’s hard to watch those scenes play out on stage without thinking of how they look in the movie. I have to say, though, that if there was something I really sorta didn’t like, it’s how Timon and Pumba were portrayed. It’s totally pandering in an attempt to mimic Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella’s performances. I also thought “Hakuna Matata” didn’t end the first act effectively.

So am I happy I finally saw the show? Of course. But when I think of The Lion King, I’ll think more fondly of the movie. To me, that’s a perfect animated movie, and it just can’t be replicated in live action.

Gone to the Dark Side

7 May

I guess I’ll cut right to the chase: Spider-Man 3 is the worst film in the series.

There’s just too much going on.

There’s too much hokey dialogue and stiff acting (even for a comic book movie).

There are too many attempts at easy laughs.

It’s too long.

And the finale just doesn’t have the same power as those in the other two films did.

But that’s not all. Continue reading →

Shut Up

28 Apr

It’s embarrassing to think that when I was in college, I used to really like a cappella music.

I liked it so much that freshman year I actually went to other campuses to see various groups in concert — Tufts’ Beelzebubs, for example.

Thankfully, by junior year I came to my senses and realized that a cappella was not all that. I suppose the same can’t be said for those who were actually in those groups.

Well, those people (not me) are the likely target audience of Sing Now or Forever Hold Your Peace, a movie about a group of friends who were all in an a cappella group in college and who reunite 15 years later to sing at one of the guys’ weddings. Continue reading →

Women Problems

22 Apr

How I wish In the Land of Women was really a porn film, like it sounds like it should be. Then it might have had a better plot, for starters. Instead, this film — the story of a guy (Adam Brody) who deals with his model girlfriend dumping him by heading to Michigan to take care of his grandmother — is a real mess. It’s got a whole bunch of clichés, including a wacky old grandma and the family across the street that’s full of problems (cancer, an extramarital affair, estranged mother-daughter relations, a precocious younger sister). It’s got a hip soundtrack (at least it does for half the movie) sure to attract the young’uns. It’s also got, in addition to Brody, Meg Ryan and Olivia Dukakis in lead roles. What it doesn’t have is direction, focus, or anything really worth recommending. It doesn’t even have a poster or a marketing campaign that accurately reflects what the movie is really about (then again, considering I was unsure of the plot, maybe this film is just unmarketable).

I’ve seen ItLoW described as a cross between The Graduate and Garden State (yes, your assumptions about the implications of that are true), but if the comparison was accurate, then this would actually be a good movie. I’m sorry to say the best thing about it — alright, fine, the two best things are the first five minutes and the last five minutes. Problem is, the good joke in the first five minutes has already been spoiled in the trailer. And the last five minutes have such promise that you wish the film had gone down this road much earlier and that the actress with a surprise cameo had been around a lot longer. Oh well. I don’t remember when I’ve yawned more, wondering when the movie was going to end. And when the lights came on, I turned to Stephani and asked, “What was that?” Yeah, I really didn’t like this movie all that much. I’m giving it a D+ (the plus is only because I liked the last five minutes that much).

Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be

21 Apr

All the pieces are in place for Fracture to be a solid, great popcorn thriller. There’s an interesting premise — a guy shoots his cheating wife and confesses to it, and yet, not all the pieces are in place for a conviction — and a great acting duo in the lead roles. There’s even the director of such films as Primal Fear and the underrated Frequency. And yet, despite a crackling first half, filled with some fun lines of dialogue, the wheels somehow come off and Fracture turns boring and somewhat predictable. I guessed the film’s twist (one of them anyway) pretty early on, for example. It’s enjoyable to see Anthony Hopkins chewing scenery, and Ryan Gosling (so good in Half Nelson) tries hard, but ultimately Fracture doesn’t make a strong enough case. And that’s why I’m only giving it a B–.

He Arrived for The Departed

12 Apr

As a movie fan, there are few things I enjoy more than seeing a film and then having the director, screenwriter, or an actor present to do a Q&A afterwards. I got to do that twice last fall, for The Last Kiss and Fast Food Nation.

This week, the Coolidge Corner Theater honored Thelma Schoonmaker, an Academy Award–winning editor who has worked with Martin Scorsese on all his films since Raging Bull, and part of the festivities was a screening of The Departed Thursday night, followed by a panel discussion. You know I was there. Continue reading →

He’s Got the Power

8 Apr

I’m giving The Lookout a B.

Why tell you that up front?

Because sometimes, to know where you’re going, it helps to know the ending.

That’s just one of the lessons learned from writer/director Scott Frank’s film about a promising young athlete whose life takes a tragic turn when he’s involved in a car crash, and then takes another turn when he’s involved in a bank robbery. Continue reading →

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