A quick glance at Jim Carrey’s IMDB listings for the last few years reveals under appreciated movies like Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, an ill conceived remake in the form of Fun with Dick and Jane and one out-and-out stinker, Number 23. It’s been a tough time to be a Jim Carrey fan. It seemed the stuff that made him famous, the trademarked rubber-faced antics and physical mayhem, were relics of his early career. But just when it appeared that asking Carrey to speak out of his bum again would be akin to suggesting Bob Dylan take a throat lozenge along comes Yes Man, a return to form from a man who began talking himself just a bit too seriously.
Carrey plays Carl Allen, a sad sack who still stings from his divorce three years ago. He lives alone, only leaves the house to go to work or to the video store and has almost worn out the “ignore” button on his cell phone keypad. A chance encounter with an old friend leads him to a “Yes is the New No!” self help seminar, lead by the charismatic Terrence Bundley (Terence Stamp). He’s part Dale Carnegie part Earnest Angely. His message is simple; there’s too much negativity in the world, and if people just said “yes” more often things would get better. Carl takes the advice to heart and after a rough start soon finds that his life does improve when he answers yes to everything.
Like a singer who always wanted to act, Carrey has often tried to deny his gifts as the new Buster Keaton and play serious. Not satisfied with his enormous facility for physical humor he has sought out roles like the above mentioned Number 23 and The Majestic. Trouble is once you get famous for talking out of your bum it’s hard to turn back and be taken seriously. He’s a good light-dramatic actor but he is a stellar physical comedian and Yes Man finds a good mix between the two.
The love story—Zooey Deschanel is the totally charming love interest—and transformation from schlub to super charged Tony Robbins type give him a chance to act, while the script also affords nice opportunities for Carrey to indulge in some good old fashioned Dumb and Dumber style buffoonery.
Yes Man is essentially Liar Liar with a more positive twist. In both films he plays a self absorbed man who finds his life—and the lives of those around him—gets better when he changes his attitude. Both are feel good movies and both feature Carrey’s unique brand of slapstick. Yes Man is more of a fable, with gentler humor than Liar Liar, but if you liked that 1997 film, you enjoy the new one.
Chances are good you’ve already heard about this movie. Under its real title, not the cutesy one I have to use here, it has stirred up a firestorm of controversy in Ottawa. Outraged by the title lawmakers in our capitol came up with the six-hundred page Bill C-10 a new bill that would give the federal Heritage Department the power to deny funding for films and TV shows it considers offensive. The resulting hullabaloo has provided the film with the kind of publicity that most Canadian films would kill for. Now the important question remains: Is the film as provocative and outrageous as its title?
The answer is, thankfully no, otherwise you’d be renting the movie from the adult’s only section of your local video store and not seeing it on the big screen at your local multiplex. Young People Doing the Nasty is a movie about sex and relationships which takes place primarily in beds and in a reclining position but Deep Throat this ain’t. Instead it is a sweet and funny look at how five sets of couples—best friends, roommates do it, exes, a married couple and young co-workers—interact with one another when they are at their most vulnerable—exposed literally and figuratively.
Broken into six segments from Foreplay to Afterglow and everything in between, the movie mostly avoids the clichés of the sex comedy genre [presenting instead, a smartly written look at the dynamics between unclothed men and women. So if our intrepid lawmakers in Ottawa set out to vote on Bill C-10 with an idea of protecting the chaste interests of all Canadians they may want to actually see the movie first. If they do they’ll realize it’s less about young people doing what comes naturally and more about young people talking about it in an entertaining and interesting way.
Instead of vilifying YPF for its provocative title Ottawa should be encouraging young Canadian filmmakers to make movies as attention grabbing as this one.
Six years after 9/11 Hollywood has struggled to make films that deal with the fallout from that tragic day and still connect with audiences. Earnest films like Grace is Gone and Stop Loss have played to empty seats, while action oriented movies like United 93 and The Kingdom garnered good critic response but apathy from ticket buyers.
Considering the graveness of the subject matter it seems odd to report that in recent months a new genre of film has sprung up—the Post 9/11 Comedy. At the box office comedies have had a better run at tackling subjects like terrorism, racial profiling and how the war on terror has spiraled out of control.
Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay and War Inc were both darkly funny films that took on very serious subjects and skewered them with humor while attracting audiences. Now it’s Adam Sandler’s turn. Teaming up with comedy guru Judd Apatow (The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up) Sandler has crafted a film about Israeli / Palestinian relations that is the silliest ode to tolerance to ever hit the big screen.
Sandler is Zohan, a hard partying Mossad counter terrorist agent—he’s like Rembrandt with a grenade his admirers say—who fakes his own death so he can leave the violence of his home country, move to America and follow his dream to become a hairstylist at the flagship Paul Mitchell Salon in Manhattan. Things don’t go quite as planned and when he instead ends up working with, and falling for Dalia (Emmanuelle Chriqui) a beautiful Palestinian woman his outlook on life is changed forever. Now if only Dalia’s race baiting landlord and some enemies from back home would leave them alone they could live happily ever after.
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan is above all else an extremely harebrained comedy. For every reasonably clever line about Israeli / Palestinian relations like, “They’ve been fighting for two thousand years, it can’t last much longer,” there are five scenes that make earlier Sandler movies like Happy Gilmour look like Molière.
Although the jokes are written on the approximate level of a Carry On movie—apparently crotch humor is the new toilet joke—Sandler’s goofy charm carries the film. It takes considerable chutzpah to carry off a scene where a simple hair salon shampoo morphs into an unsexy take-off from 9 ½ Weeks, but Sandler is so guileless and has so much audience goodwill that the scene plays to big laughs.
One of the unexpected pleasures of You Don’t Mess with the Zohan is playing Spot the Cameo. The movie is packed with unexpected casting from the legendary 82-year-old comedian Shelley Berman (a candidate for the “I thought he was dead” file if there ever was one) to Star Trek’s George Takei having fun with his newly announced lifestyle choice to the prim and proper Mrs. Garrett from The Fact of Life, Charlotte Rae, as an elderly sex starved salon patron. Even musicians Dave Matthews and Mariah Carey pop up as a hillbilly racist-for-hire and pop diva respectively.
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan lags for a time in its middle section—the romance angle is as flavorless as Zohan’s ever present hummus without the garlic—but makes up for the dull spots with a mix of outrageous action sequences, bad one liners (“Are you bionic?” asks a bystander after witnessing one of Zohan’s incredible feats of strength. “No I only like the girls!” he says.) and a message of tolerance that would seem heavy-handed if it wasn’t so heartfelt.
Young @ Heart begins with a rousing version of Should I Stay or Should I Go. It’s as loud and unruly as the original by The Clash but instead of four punks pounding out the tune here we have a choir whose average age is north of 80. And you thought The Rolling Stones were old.
While most grand parents pass the day playing Cribbage and doing crosswords these old timers are on the road, belting out an eclectic mix of tunes, everything from James Brown’s I Feel Good to Schizophrenia by alt rock pioneers Sonic Youth and, appropriately enough, Stayin’ Alive by the Bee Gees to sold out audiences across America and Europe. “We went from continent to continent,” says singer Fred Knittle, “and then I became incontinent.”
Coming from their mouths the “put me in a wheelchair” line from I Wanna Be Sedated has a certain resonance not even the Ramones could bring to the song.
The opposite of a coming of age story– whose members range from 73 to 92 years old—Young @ Heart is a crowd pleaser that really draws you into the lives of the chorus members. For many of them the opportunity to sing with the choir is medicinal. “It’s good for your lungs and your body,” says one ripened singer, “you forget all about the creaky bones.” “It keeps the brain alive,” says another, “and if you don’t use it, you lose it.” More importantly for some of them, ravaged by ill health, it lifts their spirits and is a source of renewed dignity.
The film, which could have easily erred on the cute side, (the novelty of seniors singing rock songs could outstay its welcome quickly), instead rings with real emotion as we get involved in the lives of the singers. We learn of one member who endured six bouts of chemo in four years and yet never missed a show; a testament to the rejuvenating power of giving these people something to look forward to which makes them feel useful.
The playful tone of the first half of the film—with scenes of the elders trying to figure out which side of a disc goes face up in the cd player, the shiny side or the printed side—shifts when several members of the choir undergo health issues. By the time of their big show death has touched the choir and in a heartbreaking climax Fred Knittle, an 80-year-old retiree suffering from congestive heart failure, sings a touching version of Coldplay’s Fix You for a fallen friend. As his baritone voice caresses lines like “When you lose something you can’t replace, When you love someone, but it goes to waste, Could it be worse?” the words takes on a deeper hue born out of tragic experience. Later when a seventy-seven-year-old sings “All we’ve ever had is now,” courtesy of The Flaming Lips, it speaks to the fragility of human existence, but is also life affirming. These men and women are embracing the right now and bringing generations of experience to every word that comes out of their mouths.
Young @ Heart is an uplifting documentary which is simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking as it deals with the consequences of age from those who refuse to act their age.
Alfred Hitchcock famously described how to create tension in a movie. “There’s two people having breakfast and there’s a bomb under the table,” he said. “If it explodes, that’s a surprise. But if it doesn’t…” I’ll finish the sentence he so anticipatorily left undone: “…that’s suspense.”
“Zero Dark Thirty” (refers to the military time for thirty minutes after midnight) operates on this premise, creating suspense even though many of the bombs do go off and we know how the story ends. The whole movie is the bomb under the table, leading up to an explosive, although protracted, climax.
The film begins on 9/11 with audio of calls coming from the Twin Towers. Stage set, the movie leaps forward two years to the brutal waterboarding and torture of an Osama bin Laden relative by Dan (Jason Clarke) a CIA expert in extracting information. “In the end everybody breaks,” he tells his subject. “It’s biology.” Overseeing the waterboarding and humiliation techniques is Maya (Jessica Chastain), a newly recruited officer charged with helping to track down terrorist leader bin Laden and dismantle al-Qaeda.
This is Maya’s story. It’s a carefully plotted espionage tale that flows from the clues that lead to the death of bin Laden at the hands of the Navy S.E.A.L. Team 6 in May, 2011.
“Zero Dark Thirty” is not a who dunnit, or why dunnit, but a how dunnit.
It’s a detailed look at the step-by-step process that resulted in locating and exterminating bin Laden. The story begins before President Obama’s famous, “We don’t torture,” speech about regaining “America’s moral stature in the world,” so it presents the uncomfortable, controversial truth that pitiless persuasion like sleep deprivation, boxing and waterboarding—so simple, yet so brutally, terrifyingly effective—was used to gain information.
That queasy feeling from the film’s opening torture scene–that unethical techniques were used to gain information—evaporates during the daring Abbottabad raid sequence. While there’s a political discussion to be had regarding the ethics of waterboarding, that’s for another column. Dramatically it helps to provide a starting place for what is essentially a procedural.
Director Kathryn Bigelow and journalist-turned-screenwriter Mark Boal have focused on the details, shying away from delving into the personal lives of the characters.
Chastain’s Maya is a cipher, we know little about her except she was recruited out of school by the CIA and has spent a decade chasing one goal. Her selfless, obsessive dedication has perhaps cost some of her humanity, but Chastain manages to create an interesting character even when she has to mouth hyperbole about her noble quest. “A lot of my friends have died,” she says. “I believe I was spared so I could finish the job.” That’s a line straight out of any generic action movie.
But this isn’t a generic action movie. It’s a nuanced, suspenseful and terrifically exciting look at recent history.
Frequent overwriting—the inevitable “then I’m gonna kill bin Laden” moment and CIA honchos who say things like “Do your jobs and bring me people to kill,”—seems too easy for a movie this clever, but Bigelow’s virtuosic handling of the climatic raid scene overpowers the film’s weaker moments.
“Zookeeper,” or as any Kevin James movie could be called, “Fat Guy Falling Down… A Lot,” plays like “Dr. Doolittle” if “Dr. Doolittle” was a romantic comedy for kids.
James is Griffin, a schlubby zookeeper who has never really recovered from being dumped by his girlfriend (Leslie Bibb) five years earlier. When she turns up in his life again, he is determined to win her back. Problem is, he has no confidence. When the zoo animals catch wind of his dilemma they decide to help him out by becoming his life coaches. After all, animals are experts in mating.
Your enjoyment of “Zookeeper” will depend on two things. One, your tolerance for talking animals. Two, whether or not you find Kevin James charming. If your answer to either is yes, or if you are under ten years of age, then “Zookeeper” might hold some promise for you. If not, go see “Tree of Life.” It has dinosaurs but none of them speak.
“Zookeeper” carefully adheres to the Kevin James Comedy Template ™: goofy guys tries to get the hot girl and even though it may seem like an un likely pairing, he’s sweet and inevitably irresistible. This is basically “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” with animals and Rosario Dawson. That means it’s a sweet-natured if largely forgettable. There are good messages for kids about accepting people for who they are and respect for animals, but mostly this is an old school comedy with pratfalls for the kids and a bit of romance for the parents sitting next to them in the theatre.
There are a couple of very funny scenes. There’s visit to TGIFridays that no veterinarian would condone and the monkey from “The Hangover 2” (starring in his second big film of the year! Who is this primate’s agent?) has some of the film’s best lines. Adam Sandler, who also produced the movie, provides the monkey voice, but also listen for the vocal work of Cher, Nick Nolte, Don Rickles and Sylvester Stallone.
“Zookeeper” is harmless family fun, with a few more giggles for the kids (who might not get the romantic stuff) than the parents (who might not care about the poop jokes). Luckily for Kevin James, and “Zookeeper’s” audience almost everyone laughs when someone falls down.
Making a horror comedy is tricky business. Do it right and you get a classic like “Sean of the Dead,” a movie whose body count is offset by just the right amount of laughs. Do it wrong and you’ll wind up with “Repossessed,” a movie that is neither funny nor scary, just dull. “Zombieland” director Ruben Fleischer (whose next movie is to be called Psycho Funky Chimp) understands that horror comedies are neither fish nor fowl—they are both. For every decapitation you have to have a giggle and “Zombieland” delivers on both counts.
This post-apocalyptic zom com stars Jesse Eisenberg as a teenage curmudgeon who has survived a fast acting viral plague that turned his neighbors (and everybody else) into ferocious flesh eating zombies. Mad cow became mad person which became mad zombie disease! It should be a paradise for this videogame playing hermit—no facebook status updates!—but a life spent killing ravenous zombies has left him starving for human contact. When he meets zombie killer Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), and two dishonest sisters, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), he realizes for better or worse, they must stick together to survive.
“Zombieland” has the same over-the-top silly vibe that makes movies like “Killer Klowns from Outer Space” such guilty pleasures. It’s gross-out funny with plenty of action and zombie kills for the hardcores, but underneath the absurdity is a message about humanity. At the end of the movie Eisenberg’s character realizes that his solitary life was turning him into the thing he feared most. “Without other people,” he says, “you might as well be a zombie.” The sentiment may not be as powerful as George A. Romero’s zombie metaphors but it puts a nice little bow on this coming of age story.
Also strong is the casting. Eisenberg, a young actor second only to Michael Cera in playing awkward teens on film, is an unlikely action movie hero, but here he plays to his strengths—playing the witty self-conscious teen—and expands his range to include zombie serial killer.
Equally fun is Woody Harrelson as the Twinkie loving zombie hunter Tallahassee. Harrelson brings a swagger and some unexpected twists to the character and delivers many of the film’s funniest lines.
Both are ably supported by Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin who don’t have as have much to do as the boys, but do a great deal to keep the story moving forward.
The showiest role in the film, however, belongs to a Hollywood superstar who has one of the most surreal cameos in recent memory. I’m not going to tell you who it is (it’s funnier if you don’t know) but his wild scenes alone are worth the price of admission.
“Zombieland” breathes a bit of new life into the sometimes stale zombie genre.
Within the first five minutes of Zach and Miri Make a Porno director Kevin Smith establishes the tone of the next ninety minutes. Mere moments after the opening credits he unleashes bathroom jokes, racial jabs and a sequence involving burning pubic hair. It’s not for the faint of heart, but then again the faint of heart likely wouldn’t be caught dead at a movie about two platonic friends who decide to make a pornographic movie to raise money to pay their bills.
“If it’s so easy why doesn’t everyone do it?” asks a skeptical Miri.
“Because other people have options and dignity… which we don’t have,” replies Zach in one of the film’s better exchanges.
Seth Rogen, Hollywood’s go-to Canadian funnyman, and Elizabeth Banks, Rogen’s 40 Year Old Virgin cast mate, play the titular roommates. When their water, electricity and heat are shut off for non-payment of bills on the eve of their high school reunion their already dire situation gets much, much worse. After a chance meeting with a gay porn star (a very funny Justin Long) they hit on the idea of making dirty movies for fun and profit. Well, mostly for profit. “Paris Hilton makes a night vision sex tape,” says Zach, “and now she’s selling perfume to tweens!” After a casting session turns up some willing actors and actresses they begin production on an ill fated erotic reimagining of Star Wars but as the clothes come off and the cameras roll Zach and Miri reveal much more about themselves than what’s under their clothes.
As usual director Kevin Smith, of Clerks and Mallrats fame, manages to be saccharine and over-the-top vulgar simultaneously—a recipe that Judd Apatow has perfected in recent years—although nothing here approaches the gross out of 2006’s Clerks II. Even a gag about an… unusual cure for constipation comes off as cute. Smith, however, is still better at making us laugh than warming our hearts which is Zach and Miri’s main downfall.
The comedy works more often than not, but when the movie switches to full-on romance mode it flops around more than overenthusiastic actors in amateur porn. Banks has the right stuff to be funny, sexy and romantic on-screen and Rogen displays his usual goofy charm, but Smith’s script has too many gaps in logic—I know, it’s a sex comedy, but it should still make sense—to make the relationship aspect believable, let alone something the audience would really care about.
Zach and Miri Make a Porno features frequently endearing characters, some funny supporting work from real live porn stars—Katie Morgan as a big-hearted but dumb stripper and Traci Lords—and a performance from Justin Long that is guaranteed to become a youtube favorite but it lacks the heart of Rogen’s others films, most notably Knocked Up and Superbad, and gets bogged down when it tries to hammer home its sappy “ain’t love grand” ending.
Zathura is more than just a Jumanji wannabe. If that sentence didn’t make any sense to you its because you’ve forgotten about the 1995 movie Jumanji starring Robin Williams. Both movies are based on Chris Van Allsburg books and both are flights of fantasy based on board games that come to life. Beyond that they have little in common. Jumanji was a big budget special effects spectacular that I felt let the effects overwhelm the story. Zathura is about two brothers and an mysterious board game that beams them into outer space, but Elf director Jon Favreau never lets the human element of the story get washed away by the effects. Even though there are black holes, menacing robots, evil lizard-like space creatures named Zorgons and a cryogenically frozen sister, he wisely keeps the focus on the boys and their relationship. Zathura is an action-oriented family film with a sly sense of humor and a healthy dose of sentiment but without the gross-out elements that are so often a part of children’s entertainment.
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