Normally I’m not a stickler for punctuation. I’ve been known to drop a comma or two and throw in an inappropriate semi-colon here and there, but the lack of a question mark at the end of the title “How Do You Know” really bugs me. Does director James L. Brooks not have Spelling and Grammar check on his computer? Was star Reese Witherspoon sick the day they taught question mark use in school? What could possibly be the excuse for such an egregious and flagrant abuse of the English language?
In the film Witherspoon is a aging pro athlete at the end of her career. For twelve years she was the star of the USA Woman’s Softball Team, but when she gets cut she finds herself adrift in life. Caught in a love triangle between two men—Paul Rudd and Owen Wilson—who love her for completely different reasons, she must choose one of them but first has to learn how to know when she’s in love.
Even though I was in a bad mood because of all this question mark business, “How Do You Know” still managed to mostly win me over not because it is great, because it isn’t—it rises to the level of good, but not much further than that—but because of its appealing cast.
Witherspoon has been absent from the big screen for two years—her voice work in “Monsters vs. Aliens” doesn’t count—and in that time many have tried and failed to find the rom com sparkle she so effortlessly brings to this movie.
Rudd, as the slightly awkward suitor being investigated for fraud, brings the funny and the mushy and Owen Wilson’s immature pro-ball player is a very funny throwback to his “Zoolander” days.
A big surprise is Kathryn Hahn, as Rudd’s empathic assistant. Best known for roles on television in shows like “Crossing Jordan” and “Hung,” she’s a live wire who brings much to the movie, including its most moving scene. A bigger surprise is Jack Nicholson as Rudd’s devious father. He’s worked with Brooks before, earning two Academy Awards in the process, but here he’s wasted in a role that gives him little to do. For the first time in years Nicholson barely registers on screen.
“How Do You Know” suffers from a weird rhythm, unnecessary minutes in the third act and a major unresolved plot point but is rescued by the enthusiasm of its cast.
The opening line of “Harry Potter 7.5,” the second to last in the series, is “These are dark times we are living in.” Intoned with great gravitas by the Minister of Magic (Bill Nighy) it foreshadows the tone of the movie which includes a people eating snake, Ron going all “Death Wish” on some bad guys and the slithery presence of the one whose name we dare not speak.
This time out Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint), the ginger haired point of the Potter trident, continue their battle with Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) and his evil band of minions, snatchers and Death Eaters. They must locate and destroy the Horcruxes which contains a fragment of a wizard’s soul, battle the fascistic Ministry of Magic and confirm the existence of the three most powerful artifacts of the wizarding world: the Deathly Hallows.
Like all the Potter movies, this one will appeal to the fans of the books but likely leave anyone who hasn’t read the books as unsatisfied as a Dementor in a soul to suck. If you haven’t been keeping up with the exploits of the boy wizard do yourself a favour and google “Horcrux” and “mudblood” before laying down your twelve bucks. Otherwise get ready for a head scratching experience. The movies are good linear adaptations of JK Rowling’s books, and are filled with moments that will resonate with Potter fans but they do not cater to non-Potterheads.
Like the other movies this one is a big handsome beast, almost 2 ½ hours long, with high production value—it echoes everything from Charles Dickens to Triumph of the Will to the Wizard of Oz—and good performances from every English actor currently employed by British Actors’ Equity. But as nice as the movies look—this one has a spectacular animated sequence telling the story of the Deathly Hallows—and as well intentioned as they are, they are a closed club, really for fans only. That’s OK, because there are millions of fans out there, but they leave me a little cold.
I get the appeal of the films. They’re a clever mix of the worldly—friendship, intrigue, good vs. evil—and the otherworldly—everything else—with some action and amiable characters thrown in, but for me the Potter magic wore off some time ago.
“Hereafter,” the new drama from one-man-movie-making-machine Clint Eastwood—this is his eight film in just seven years—begins with a tour-de-force sequence before settling in to a deliberate, but slow pace. In its opening minutes Eastwood stages a tsunami scene that shows a tropical beach town torn apart by a giant wave. Caught in the wild water is a French television anchor (Cecile de France) who later becomes obsessed with thoughts and visions of the hereafter following her near death experience. That’s the first of three stories Eastwood weaves together “Crash”-style to explore the metaphysical side of death. In other, unrelated plot shards Matt Damon plays an American psychic with the ability to speak to the dead—“It’s not a gift,” he says, “it’s a curse.”—and an English boy who longs to communicate with his dead twin brother.
Eastwood, working from a script by two-time Oscar nominee Peter Morgan has made a film that is by times engaging, by times plodding. On their own the three stories each have their merits but the film’s final third, where they are brought together, feels clumsy despite a touching climax between Damon and the little boy. It’s a nice moment, but it seems to take an eternity to get there. Ditto Damon’s interaction with the French journalist. Here Eastwood and Morgan have a chance to provide some insight into the woman’s story in the form of a letter Damon‘s character writes to her, but fail to. It’s a frustrating end to a movie that appears to have something to say.
On the plus side Eastwood creates nice moments of tension early on as he establishes the various story threads, and Damon once again proves that he is a versatile, interesting actor, but unfortunately the movie, so ambitious in scope—shot in three countries with a large talented cast—is let down by a self indulgent script.
When most people think of Hugh Hefner visions of silk pajamas, the Playboy mansion and naked Bunnies with a staple in their middles come to mind. For more than fifty years Hefner has been the hedonistic symbol of sexual liberation, publishing his monthly girlie magazine and living a life that would make some envious and others blush. A new documentary from Oscar winner Brigitte Berman titled “Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel” aims to paint him not as simply a dirty old man but as a leading general in the twentieth century culture wars.
The slickly produced doc combines rare archival footage, cleverly manipulated still photographs and loads of talking heads to lead us through Hefner’s life. More concerned with Hefner as an agent for social change than the grotto dwelling Lothario he‘s so often portrayed as in the press. We learn that he bought back two segregated Southern Playboy Club franchises, reversed their admittance policies to fully integrate them; we’re also told how he shattered the powerful House of Un-American Activities blacklists by hiring members of the infamous “Hollywood Ten” to write for Playboy and appear on his late night chat show “Playboy ‘s Penthouse.” His track record of funding legal battles over birth control and abortion are also carefully detailed as is his early support of gay rights. In 1955, when homosexuality was still illegal in many states he published “The Crooked Man,” a short story by Charles Beaumont which depicts a world where homosexuality is the rule and heterosexuals are a persecuted minority.
Hefner has been at the forefront of twentieth century sexuality and for all the doors he helped open and for all the repression he managed to unbottle it is still hard to buy his steadfast claim that he is a feminist. Sure, he has backed many of the right feminist causes, but feminist writer Susan Brownmiller and others (although notably absent is Hefner’s greatest fem foe Gloria Steinem) make the point that there is a difference between sexual objectification and sexual liberation. Hefner has been treading this fine line for decades and his reasoning that the feminist movement considers sex the enemy rings as hollow here as it did decades ago when he first started spouting about it and sexual subjugation. It‘s even more of a clunker today as Playboy has degenerated into a symbol of female repression; exactly the opposite of Hefner’s original dream.
It’s hard to separate Hefner from the sexual politics he has made his life’s work and Berman doesn’t try. There is no doubt that the man is a cultural revolutionary, but the film plays simply like a timeline of his highs (the lows are conveniently forgotten). It’s a gas to see the vintage “Playboy After Dark” footage and get a glimpse of the inner workings of the infamous mansion, but a bit more depth, a few harder questions would have made this an interesting cultural history instead of a collection of Hefner’s greatest hits.
Harry Brown is a common name, like John Smith or Greg Jones. It’s the kind of name that doesn’t draw attention to itself, but in the hands of Michael Caine, who plays the lead character in the revenge thriller “Harry Brown,” the name, the character and the movie become memorable.
“Harry Brown” is a gritty “Gran Torino” with British accents and a dash of “Death Wish.” Caine plays Brown as High Noon’s Gary Cooper, but instead of being set on the wide open plain, the action in this Teabag Western takes place in the urban terrain of the Elephant and Castle section of London.
Caine plays a widowed man who strikes back after a gang of feral yobs kill his best mate and confidant Len (David Bradley). D.I. Alice Frampton, (Emily Mortimer), a persistent but ineffectual detective with the thankless job of policing the council estate, suspects Harry is a part time vigilante but can’t prove it, and even if she could her partner is ambivalent to the pensioner’s gun slinging ways. “As far as I’m concerned, Harry Brown is doing us a favor,” says D.S. Terry Hicock (Charlie Creed-Miles).
“Harry Brown” is a lurid picture of a crime ridden society. Its bleak worldview effectively illustrates the flip side of the Swingin’ London Caine came to personify in the 1960s. It’s a dark and menacing world where Len admits, “I’m scared all the time, Harry.” But all the atmosphere in the world wouldn’t be worth a hill of bangers and mash if you didn’t believe that an 80 year old man with an inhaler could effectively turn vigilante, take the law into his own hands and go all Dirty Harry on kids a fraction his age.
In a film ripe with nice performances—Mortimer is marvelous and Jack O’Connell is frightening as a young thug—Michael Caine shines, giving us a well rounded portrait of a man who is a trained killer—he was a marine—with a “certain set of skills” and as a defeated old man who has seen too much death and strife in his life.
He’s at his best when he plays the extremes—the heartbroken pensioner on one hand; the lethal killer who tosses off Tarantino-esque one liners like, “You failed to maintain your weapon, Son,” to a drug dealer whose gun jammed at the wrong moment, on the other—and it is his performance that humanizes the film’s often passionate pontificating on “Broken Britain.”
“How to Train Your Dragon,” the story of a kind hearted Viking boy who becomes a Dragon Whisperer, is one of the best animated films yet from Dreamworks, home of “Shrek” and “Madagascar”. It will likely engage audiences of young kids (But no tots please! It’s too intense) and their willing parents, but as good as it is it still doesn’t come close to the lyrical beauty of a Pixar film.
Based on the kid’s books by Cressida Cowell, Jay Baruchel stars as Hiccup, a skinny outcast in his remote Viking village, located, as he says, “in the meridian of misery.” Killing a dragon is “everything” around there but he is too young, too inexperienced and too clumsy to be of much use as a dragon hunter. To make up for his lack of prowess he develops a sling shot that should be able to fell the dreaded Night Fury, a winged beast described as the “unholy off spring of lightening and death itself.” Low and behold, it works, but when he captures one of the creatures he discovers two things. One, he can’t bring himself to kill the dragon, and two, the dragons aren’t the fearful creatures everyone thinks they are.
“How to Train Your Dragon” differs from “Shrek” and other Dreamworks offerings in that it is an action adventure first and a comedy second. Gone are the pop culture references that populate (and instantly date) the scripts of “Shrek” and “A Shark’s Tale.” They’ve been replaced by well executed action scenes and an underdog story that uses humor to accentuate the story, not dominate it.
Scenes of Hiccup riding Toothless, his domesticated dragon, are a step toward Pixar territory for Dreamworks. They are marvelously rendered in thrilling 3D and wouldn’t look too out of place in “Avatar.” The three dimensional work in those scenes is lovely, but doesn’t add much to the earth bound sequences. The village scenes have depth but no eye popping effects.
As usual for this kind of animated feature celebrity voices dominate the voice work. Gerard Butler and Craig Ferguson play the elder Vikings with vigorous Scottish accents, and Jonah Hill brings some fun to Snotlout even though his character is a dead ringer for a young Jack Black, but Baruchel brings the heart and soul to the film. His nasally twang is easy on the ear and perfectly suits the nebbishy character who thinks that if he kills a dragon he’ll get a girlfriend.
“How to Train Your Dragon” has some good messages for kids about not judging a book by its cover and several rousing action sequences. It’s not Pixar good but it is a leap in the right direction for Dreamworks.
“Hot Tub Time Machine” has a Frank Capra life is wonderful feel. The story of three old friends who try and relive the wildest weekend of their lives, and literally jump back in time all the way to the Regan years, is Capra-esque… if Capra swore like a sailor and infused his movies with sexual humor and vomit gags.
Following the attempted suicide of Lou (Rob Corddry) his only two friends Adam (John Cusack) and Nick (Craig Robinson), try and cheer him with a trip to the scene of their greatest party weekend ever—the Kodiack Valley Lodge. The place has seen better days, but through a magical combination of a hot tub and some illegal Russian Red Bull they are transported back in time to a sea of fluorescent coloured ski suits, Walk men and oversized Ray Bans—a.k.a. the Regan years. To a soundtrack of 80s hits like “Kick Start My Heart” and “Safety Dance” the guys and Adam’s nephew (Clark Duke) grapple with the mysteries of the space and time continuum. By exactly recreating the Winter Fest 86 weekend they hope to find a crack in time and get back to present day. Of course, the only thing more complicated than a fissure in time is three middle aged guys with a case stuffed with cocaine and booze.
I’m sure director Steve Pink (and producer Cusack) are likely hoping to emulate the success of that other recent buddy comedy of bad manners “The Hangover.” They have a good chance—it’s the only comedy opening this weekend—but its sense of absurdity and disjointed feel may dampen audience enthusiasm a tad.
Having said that, the movie aims to please audiences who would pay to see a movie called “Hot Tub Time Machine;” the nudity—both male and female—you’d expect from a whirlpool movie is in place, although just enough to keep it on this side of a PG rating. There’s also loads of Apatow style toilet jokes, barfing and off colour jokes, but what good time audiences may not be as prepared for the sentimentality that follows the Cusack character. Luckily that and the “will it be their chance to start over” dilemma is dispensed with fairly quickly and only briefly throws the movie off balance.
Comedy wise “Hot Tub Time Machine” belongs to the lesser known members of the cast. Corddry, best remembered as the manic second banana in movies like “Blades of Glory” and “Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay,” is off the hook as the volatile Lou. Rather than worry about the consequences of tampering with time, he looks at the upside of a slightly altered world—a future where Miley Cyrus doesn’t exist and “Manimal” is still on the air. Finally someone has figured out how to put Corddry`s unhinged energy to good use.
Craig Robison, seen every week on “The Office” and, recently, as the best thing in lame movies like “The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard,” and “Miss March,” brings a great deadpan to the mix and owns several of the film’s funniest moments.
“Hot Tub Time Machine” could have been the comedy equivalent of “Snakes on a Plane,“ a great title and not much else, but despite a couple of dead spots and jokes that may not mean much to anyone born after 1976—will they get the Cold War jokes?—it aims to please and is loud, overbearing and fun—kind of like the decade it pokes fun at.
Humpday is the mumblecore version of You, Me and Dupree with a surprising twist.
If that doesn’t make sense to you, allow me to break it down. Unless you’ve been hanging around the Slamdance Film Festival “mumblecore” is likely a bit of a mystery. It is, by definition, true independent film; shot in sequence on digital video cameras with improvised dialogue and a do-it-yourself philosophy. Most feature twenty-something nonprofessional actors and a production value that makes the Dogme 95 films look like slick Michael Bay movies.
You, Me and Dupree is an awful Kate Hudson comedy about a houseguest that throws her and her new husband’s life into disarray.
Still in the dark. OK. Here’s the lowdown. Ben and Anna are happy newlyweds, anticipating the (eventual) arrival of their first child. One night, at 2 am Andrew, an old school chum of Ben’s arrives, looking for a place to stay. Andrew is a free spirited artist who is in Seattle to raise money to complete an art project in Mexico. His presence immediately upsets Ben and Anna’s comfortable routine, but when he and Ben concoct a scheme to make an amateur porno to prove their brotherly love—it would be “beyond gay” they say—it pushes everyone to reexamine their motives.
Mumblecore is about intimate relationships and Humpday does a nice job of framing Ben’s interactions with Anna and Andrew. His relations with both seem natural and real, but like real life it’s not always very exciting. Humpday’s use of natural conversation is easy on the ears, but could have used a dialogue editor. Discussions drone on and on and more than once I felt myself thinking, “OK, we get the point. Move on!”
It’s nothing that some tight editing couldn’t fix, and I wish someone would take the scissors to Humpday because other than that it is an effective study of people’s perceptions. As Ben and Andrew learn about themselves and where their boundaries lay the only thing that gets in their way is the incessant talk.
While everyone else on the planet was busy getting sucked into Potter’s world of wizardry I missed the boat. I read the first book and have seen all the movies but never really understood what all the fuss was about. The books are phenomenally popular—they’ve made J. K. Rowling the first billionaire author—and the movies have made a fortune—they are among the highest grossing film series of all time—but it wasn’t until the release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, the sixth entry in the series, that I began to understand the allure.
I don’t usually review the audience I see a film with, or even how they react to the film—the only criteria I use is how I feel about the movie’s quality—but in this case I have to remark on the connection Harry’s fans have with these characters. I saw the movie in a screening room with about twelve other people. Directly in front of me were three twenty-something women who cooed during the romantic scenes, gasped during the adventure sequences and laughed when the silly stuff happened. Normally their amount of distracting interaction with the movie would have ticked me off, but in this case it actually enhanced my appreciation of the film. People have tried to explain the appeal of Potter to me but it wasn’t until I became aware of this trio that I finally began to understand what a deep connection people have to these characters.
Filmmakers often try to make audiences care about the characters in their films, but Rowling, the actors and the franchise’s succession of directors have actually made it happen. Having spent hundreds of hours reading the books, seeing the characters grow up, fall in-and-out of love and inch closer to ending Lord Voldemort’s reign of terror, readers and viewers feel real empathy for Harry, Ron and Hermione.
That’s all well and good, but is The Half Blood Prince a good movie?
Yes, mostly. This is a pacer installment, a place holder which sets up the next chapters and like the others it has high production values, imaginative special effects that will make your eyeballs dance; a talented cast all of whom prance about on beautifully designed sets in spectacular costumes but, “Merlin’s beard!”, as with every film since the first one (the only book I have read) I was occasionally left in the dark as to some of the story’s finer points.
Harry Potterland is a singular place with its own particular customs, history and culture and for those familiar with its trappings the movies are magical things that bring that world to life. For the rest of us all this talk of potions, half blood princes and horcruxes might be a bit head scratching, unless of course, you’re sitting just behind the trio that made the screening of The Half Blood Prince so enjoyable for me.
Official plot summary from Warner Bros.:
“Emboldened by the return of Lord Voldemort, the Death Eaters are wreaking havoc in both the Muggle and wizarding worlds and Hogwarts is no longer the safe haven it once was. Harry suspects that new dangers may lie within the castle, but Dumbledore is more intent upon preparing him for the final battle that he knows is fast approaching. He needs Harry to help him uncover a vital key to unlocking Voldemort’s defenses critical information known only to Hogwarts’ former Potions Professor, Horace Slughorn. With that in mind, Dumbledore manipulates his old colleague into returning to his previous post with promises of more money, a bigger office and the chance to teach the famous Harry Potter.
“Meanwhile, the students are under attack from a very different adversary as teenage hormones rage across the ramparts. Harry’s long friendship with Ginny Weasley is growing into something deeper, but standing in the way is Ginny’s boyfriend, Dean Thomas, not to mention her big brother Ron. But Ron’s got romantic entanglements of his own to worry about, with Lavender Brown lavishing her affections on him, leaving Hermione simmering with jealousy yet determined not to show her feelings. And then a box of love potion-laced chocolates ends up in the wrong hands and changes everything. As romance blossoms, one student remains aloof with far more important matters on his mind. He is determined to make his mark, albeit a dark one. Love is in the air, but tragedy lies ahead and Hogwarts may never be the same again.”
