SYNOPSIS: The 21 Jump Street high school undercover cops Schmidt and Jenko (Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum) are back, but this time they’re narco cops. That is until they botch an investigation into drug lord Ghost’s (Peter Stormare) operation. Their failure gets them demoted back to the 22 Jump Street (they moved across the road) program. Jump Street’s Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) sends them undercover, as unlikely brothers Brad and Doug McQuaid, to college to arrest the supplier of a drug named WHYPHY (WiFi). The bumbling, but self-confident duo infiltrates the college, but campus life—frat house parties, football and girls—threaten to blow apart their partnership.
STAR RATINGS:
Richard: 3 ½ Stars
Mark: 3 Stars
Richard: Mark, Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are producers on the new Jump Street film, which, I guess, explains all the jokes about how much everything cost. At one point Hill actually says, “It’s way more expensive for no reason at all.” I don’t know how much the movie cost to make, but the self-aware jokes did make me laugh even though it is essentially a remake of the first film, with a few more Laurel and Hardy slapstick gags and amped up explosions. What was your take?
Mark: Richard, I liked this installment way more than the previous outing. I loved all the self-referential gags, including the brilliant end-credits that hilariously make fun of the inevitable sequels that will follow. I credit the directors, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, for the knowing pop culture sophistication they brought to the film. They directed the first one too, but they’ve grown more confident since their Lego Movie hit, which also tweaked the audience’s expectations in a similar way.
RC: The end credit sequence, which maps out the next sequels from number 3 to installment 43—they go to Beauty School and Magic School among other places of higher learning— is probably the funniest part of the movie. The stuff that comes before is amiable, relying on the Mutt and Jeff chemistry of Hill and Tatum for laughs. It’s boisterous and aims to please, but best of all are the self-referential jokes. By clowning around about the difficulty in making the sequel better than the original they’re winking at the audience, acknowledging that this is basically a spoof of Hollywood sequels. It’s subversive, meta and kind of brilliant.
MB: Yep. Because I can see explosions and pratfalls in any “action comedy”; it’s the subversive stuff that makes this movie stand apart. The intergender fight sequence between Jonah Hill and Jillian Bell (who is incredible throughout the film) is as subversive a take on sexual politics and “rape culture” that you will ever find. It’s these kinds of scenes that kept me laughing through the picture. The black stoner twins, played expertly by The Lucas Bros, were a masterpiece of writing and comic timing.
RC: I agree, but ill-timed jokes about Maya Angelou and Tracy Morgan were sore thumbs for me, but that’s more co-incidence, I guess than bad taste.
MB: I don’t think those jokes were deliberate, but they sure broke the spell for me. But then Ice Cube’s comic rants got me back.
SYNOPSIS: Set at the height of a worldwide battle between the human race and seemingly indestructible aliens called Mimics, Tom Cruise plays William Cage, a marketing genius whose ads have inspired millions of people to enlist by telling them the story of hero Rita (Emily Blunt), a legendary warrior with more Mimic notches on her belt than the rest of the army combined. When pressed into combat something strange happens. Cage gets caught in a time loop, reliving the same day over and over. Eventually he’ll learn enough to beat this unbeatable foe. Trouble is, he has to die every day…
STAR RATINGS:
Richard: 4 Stars
Mark: 3 Stars
Richard: Mark, two thirds of Edge of Tomorrow is as Un-Cruiselike a movie as Tom has ever made. The Groundhog Day been-there, done-that section of the film is inventive, often played for laughs and presents Cruise in a way we’ve rarely ever seen him—as a coward. It’s a refreshing twist for him and gives him a chance to exercise his rarely used comedic chops. You know he’s going to turn heroic sooner or later, but it’s a blast to see him do something just outside his usual wheelhouse.
Mark: Richard, I enjoyed his cowardly weasel schtick as much as you. I didn’t find the Groundhog Day type plot as inventive, though—it’s been done in other movies like Source Code and About Time, but the mashup with Starship Troopers was different. The problem I had was that the necessary repetitiveness became inevitably boring after a while, and I felt like I was watching someone slowly get very good at a violent videogame.
RC: It does rely a bit too heavily on videogame style violence at the end, but I have to disagree with you on the repetitiveness of the time loop. I thought director Doug Liman figured out clever and entertaining ways to show the same thing over and over, keeping it exciting with interesting editing and changing perspectives. The first two reels are packed with energy and invention it’s only when the conventions that made the story enticing are put aside in the last reel that the movie becomes a standard Cruise action flick. A good Cruise action flick but still more standard than the promising first hour.
MB: Cruise has been in some dogs lately, but this isn’t one of them. And normally I would have dismissed the last third as too conventional, but at least it’s the only part of the movie that puts Cruise and the viewer on the same level—neither knows what’s going to happen next. I just found the time-loop a bit boring, which I also felt in Groundhog Day. I’m in the minority here, Richard, and I know it. What did you think of Emily Blunt?
RC: I’m a fan, but this is something different for her, and for action movies in general. Big budget blockbusters don’t usually make room for female characters unless they are sidekicks or girlfriends. Here Blunt avoids being objectified and is as strong, if not stronger than Cruise.
MB: I also liked Bill Paxton. Even liked watching him do the same dialogue again and again, but with a growing sense of befuddlement and disassociation as the scenes progress.
SYNOPSIS: Set in Arizona’s wild west, McFarlane is Albert, a mild mannered sheep farmer who hates the frontier. “It’s a disgusting dirty place,” he says, “a cesspool of despair.” The despair of his day-to-day life is compounded when his girlfriend Louise (Amanda Seyfried) dumps him and takes up with a wealthy owner of a moustache grooming shop (Neil Patrick Harris). He finds love again with a mysterious stranger Anna (Charlize Theron), who helps him cope with dangerous frontier life and grow a backbone. His newfound courage is tested when Anna’s husband, outlaw Clinch (Liam Neeson) rides into town.
STAR RATINGS:
Richard: 3 Stars
Steve: 2 Stars
Richard: Steve, I laughed at A Million Ways to Die in the West, but strangely enough, I was hoping to be more offended by it. Each week on his show Family Guy, Seth McFarlane manages at least one joke that makes me cringe. I expected him to push the envelope even further for the big screen. Sure there are some wild and crazy jokes here, but they’re at the level of Judd Apatow, not McFarlane. Was it outrageous enough for you?
Steve: It is outrageous but the brazenness in McFarlane’s big-screen sophomore effort is buried beneath more juvenile gags involving bodily gases than the off-kilter comedy his show or Ted succeeds with. Perhaps by covering off all areas of writing, directing and then hiring himself as the lead, McFarland suffers from an inability to self-edit. Speaking of, what do you think of McFarlane as leading man?
RC: I do find him funny, but I can’t help but hear Peter Griffin in his voice and I find that distracting. His part is basically one joke. He’s the fish out of water who speaks like a twenty first century smart aleck. For instance, as people around him are killed in increasingly wild ways—hence the movie’s title—he observes, “We should all just wear coffins for clothes.” It’s a good line, but his overall performance is more Bob Hope than John Wayne.
SG: It’s true but, in this, McFarlane seems to think his gags are more brilliant than they actually are – as if audiences haven’t seen an explosive diarrhea gag before. That said, when he pushes social mores, he goes for the jugular focusing most notably on historical racism. It comes off for some uneven narrative. It’s a good thing he surrounds himself with a solid supporting cast.
RC: Comparisons to Blazing Saddles are inevitable. Both movies have social commentary mixed with cringe worthy gags—some may literally make you gag—but A Million Ways to Die in the West doesn’t have the satiric subtext that made Mel Brooks’ movie great. McFarlane relies on anachronisms and shock value jokes to raise a smile, and spends too much time on the love story. Brooks went for the jugular, and forty years on it’s still funny and edgy. A Million Ways to Die does have at least one classic moment that will appeal to everyone over age 30 and the most undignified duel ever, but it doesn’t have much resonance.
SG: It doesn’t have much heart either. Although Charlize Theron does a stalwart job playing the romantic interest against McFarlane’s spineless pessimist, the filmmaker’s ceaseless determination for punchlines only undermines the film’s attempt at circling back to an earnest love story. In that respect, it lies as lifeless as the film’s many, many corpses. And that includes the western town’s unnoticed, three-day dead mayor.
SYNOPSIS: Based on a 1981 two-issue special of the X-Men comic series the new film begins in a post-apocalyptic future. Menacing robot warriors called Sentinels have created chaos for the mutant race, bringing them to the edge of extinction. To combat the threat long time enemies Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen) team up with Storm (Halle Berry), Blink (Fan Bingbing), Bishop (Omar Sy) and use Kitty Pryde’s (Ellen Page) teleportation ability to send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back in time to change history and prevent the creation of the murderous automations. His first task is to convince the 1970s versions of Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and young Professor X (James McAvoy) that they are stronger together than apart.
STAR RATINGS:
Richard: 4 Stars
Mark: 4 Stars
Richard: Mark, Days of Future Past offers up two for the price of one. Merging the young versions of Magneto and Professor X with their older counterparts is a cool idea, and certainly gives the movie a boost in the marquee department, but I felt the old timers were left with their own heightened sense of drama and not much else. It seems a shame to have McKellen and Stewart, the Martin and Lewis of mutants, on screen together and not give them much to do. What did you think?
Mark: This installment really belongs to McAvoy, Jackman, Jennifer Lawrence and Michael Fassbender. I didn’t care for the “future” plot with the fogey mutants, but I thought the movie snapped to attention when it flashed back to 1973. The sense of time and place seemed very authentic; in one scene Lawrence is dressed exactly like Carly Simon on the cover of her third album. I half expected her to launch into a rendition of “You’re So Vain” at Fassbender. There’s some interesting historical revisionism revolving around JFK and Nixon that even conspiracy theorists would find preposterous-more X-Files than X-Men—but I appreciated the creative effort.
RC: It’s a movie about time travel, mutants and serious actors like Michael Fassbender saying lines like, “We received a message from the future,” so, of course, it’s a little preposterous, but wrapped up in the time bending plot are some interesting ideas about racism, tolerance, war and rebellion. Not usually the stuff of summer blockbusters, but the X-Men franchise has always been a bit brainier than most. At times it’s a bit too ponderous, but I’ll take that over the flash-and-trash of most CGI epics.
MB: Me too. I like the franchise for its superior acting, plotting, and its whiff of Ayn Rand objectivism. But it’s got a sense of humour too, which is rarely found in these epics. There’s a fantastic scene in this movie where Evan Peters as the young Quicksilver, who can move faster than human time, rearranges an entire tableau of bad guys so they wind up hurting themselves instead of our heroes. But he does it with such juvenile glee that it captures the joy of being a powerful mutant and an adolescent prankster. And casting height-challenged Peter Dinklage to play a scientist out to destroy the “outsiders” is brilliantly ironic.
RC: The actors are all good, but I would argue that the real stars of the film are the ideas. Magneto, Professor and Wolverine are all complex, cool characters that bring the film’s themes to life; all the rest is set dressing, except for the Quicksilver scene you mentioned. That was like The Matrix without Keanu’s hangdog expression.
MB: Oh, and just a warning, Richard. When I googled the film there was a link to a movie called XXX Men. Do NOT click on this link!
SYNOPSIS: Fifteen years after the government and mainstream media claimed an earthquake caused a major nuclear meltdown, scientist Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) discovers the responsible party wasn’t Mother Nature, both something far more nefarious. That “something” is a Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism (or MUTO), a giant winged creature that feeds off earth’s natural radiation. Unfortunately by the time his theories are validated the MUTOs have begun to wreak havoc and there is only one force on earth (or maybe just under the earth) powerful enough to battle the overgrown mosquitoes—Godzilla, king of the monsters!
STAR RATINGS:
Richard: 4 Stars
Mark: 3 Stars
Richard: Mark, in a movie like this you know that when the main character’s wife says, “You know you’re only going to be away for a few days… it’s not the end of the world,” that he’ll be gone for more than a few days and it just might be the end of the world, or something pretty close to it. I think the new Godzilla plays by most of the rules of the giant lizard genre, but stomps all over 1998’s Roland Emmerich by-the-book remake. What did you think?
Mark: The Emmerich Godzilla was a forgettable remake. This one is more exciting, more nuanced, and has better CGI. But so many monster movies have the same tired tropes. There’s always a hero just trying to get back to his imperiled family; always a fusillade of army bullets that are fired for naught; and always a monster from the depths of space, ocean, or time. And this movie is no different. Except that Juliette Binoche wears a snazzy trench coat that I should probably source for my wife.
RC: I agree that the standard kaiju kitsch is all in place—humungous monsters knock skyscrapers over with the flick of a tail and scientists talk mumbo jumbo—but director Gareth Edwards has added in some moments of real heartbreak, small sequences that underscore the huge amount of destruction the creatures cause. It’s a balancing act to maintain the spirit of the original Godzilla movies while also updating them for a new audience.
MB: Oh, Richard, I forgot. And there has to be a scene on a bridge. It’s in the contract. This scene on a bridge is a good one, though. Oh, and a scene with a train on a high trestle. This standard scene is also well done. Let’s not forget the scene where the big city where the citizens look in awe at the monster approaching between skyscrapers and then run for their lives. Again, well done here, although the original Godzilla invented the scene. But I think the filmmakers succeeded at the most important task in the movie—making us marvel at the sheer size of the thing. And this is done very, very well.
RC: The MUTOs are on full display, but if I have a complaint it’s that Godzilla doesn’t enter until a bit too late in the game. This whole Cloverfield don’t-show-the-monster thing is artistically noble, but if I wanted to NOT see Godzilla I’d go see Million Dollar Arm instead. For much of the movie every time we get to the cool ‘Zilla action, Edwards cuts to something else or shrouds him behind a cloud of soot and smoke. He is, as Sally Hawkins’ character says, “a God for all intents and purposes,” so we should be treated to a better look at him.
MB: Godzilla has always been an enigmatic presence. He’s got that “good monster/bad monster” thing going. Or maybe he’s just bipolar.
SYNOPSIS: Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne star as Mac and Kelly, aging hipsters and parents to newborn Stella. Their quiet suburban life is uprooted when unruly frat boys led by Teddy (Zac Efron) and Pete (Dave Franco) move in next door. “Make sure that if we’re too noisy, call me,” says Teddy on the eve of a big blowout. “Don’t call the cops.” When the house party spirals out of control the couple has to call the police, thereby violating the fragile “circle of trust” between the two households. Trust broken, petty resentments trigger a Hatfield and McCoy’s style feud between Teddy and Company and Mac and Kelly.
STAR RATINGS:
Richard: 4 Stars
Mark: 3 Stars
Richard: Mark, there’s an old saying that goes, “You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family.” True enough, but as this movie teaches us, you should add neighbors to the “cannot choose” list. Living next door to the frat boys would be a nightmare in real life, but in reel life it’s a great situation for humor. The movie is not so much a story as it is an idea played out in a series of gags, but it is funny. Raunchy, but funny.
Mark: Also a movie that would have us believe there are no zoning bylaws in this fictitious college town. And Richard, I half agree with you. There are two movies here. One is the story of a young married couple with a baby; the other the story of a bunch of frat house goofs. The former is extremely funny—Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne have a comedic chemistry as good as any great vaudeville duo. The frat boys, unfortunately, are mostly indistinguishable and their scenes made me long for Animal House. Why cast the wonderful Christopher Mintz-Plasse and give him so little to do?
RC: I wondered that as well, but let’s face it, in the frat house side of things Efron’s abs are the star. And his hair. And toothy grin. No room for the less physical charms of Mintz-Plasse. The real charm here, though, as you say, lies with Rogen and Byrne. They have great chemistry, and are a natural match; like a frat boys and bongs. Their story doesn’t hinge on the war with the neighbors, however, as much as it does the way they battle against growing up. Their need to be thought of as cool while still being responsible adults, is very funny and adds a nice subtext to what could have been simply a very silly comedy.
MB: And in this way, the movie could be seen as a sequel to Knocked Up. Both films deal with Rogen as a dad and a late bloomer to maturity. Neighbours wouldn’t be nearly as successful if the couple were older or stuffier. It hits the right note of them being almost young enough to take part in frat house shenanigans, but not with the responsibility of a newborn. As a recent first time dad, I can tell you they got all those jokes right. But, Richard, I still laughed the hardest at some of the physical stuff. The airbag sequence is bound to be a classic.
RC: The airbag gags made me laugh, for sure, but the real treat for me was watching Rose Byrne, in her natural Aussie accent, out cursing and out doing Rogen with razor sharp comic timing.
MB: Or check out her seduction scene of two frat kids-one male, one female-which will get an applause break from the audience every time!
SYNOPSIS: Fresh out of high school Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) is being pulled in two different directions. He loves Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) but is troubled by a promise he made to her late father (Dennis Leary) that he would never let anything bad happen to her. Meanwhile, Peter’s old friend Harry Osborn (Dane De Haan), heir to the OsCorp fortune, is battling a hereditary disease he thinks can be cured with a dose of Spider-Man’s blood and Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx), a low level OsCorp electrical engineer, has an accident that rewires him into Electro, a villain with the power to control electricity.
STAR RATINGS:
Richard: 3 Stars
Mark: 2 Stars
Richard: Mark, at two-and-a-half hours the new Spider-Man movie is almost equal parts action and story. The first fifteen minutes contains not one, but two wild action sequences that’ll make your eyeballs dance. If you haven’t had your fill of special effects for the week your thirst will be quenched early on. Then the onslaught of story begins. Jammed packed with plot, bad guys and lots and lots of moony-eyed love, it’s the busiest superhero movie in recent memory. Did you get caught up in the film’s web?
Mark: No, Richard, the movie got caught in its own web. Too much of the film is like the last one, which was very good, but do we need to rehash the origin story yet again? The action sequences are good, and they’d better be, because the plot and characters are feeling kind of tired by now. Not that there aren’t good things in the movie. I liked the Jamie Foxx’ villain, who was sadly sympathetic in a Frankenstein kind of way. And Dane DeHaan, as tortured Oscorp heir Harry Osborn, has the best scenes in the picture, with an otherworldly look that reminded me of a British fascist circa 1936 or Tilda Swinton’s illegitimate son; I’m not sure which.
RC: I thought he kind of looks like the Evil Annoying Orange with a better haircut. To each his own. He does have some of the best scenes in the film, and this is a movie with several well-crafted dramatic moments. Too bad most of them feel like they’re lifted from another movie and dropped into this one as placeholders for the action sequences. Peter Parker is shedding tears over his love life one minute, swinging on webby vines through the streets the next. Both tones are well executed, but they often feel forced together.
MB: The movie seems more like a pastiche than a sequel. Sally Field, bless her Norma Rae heart, invests her part with the intensity of a Eugene O’Neill play. Jamie Foxx makes a sympathetic villain in the Frankenstein mode even though he’s made up like a rogue member of Blue Man Group. But Richard, why is Spidey so cocky this go round? His awkwardness is usually part of his charm.
RC: That’s more from the comic books. The Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies didn’t use Spidey’s sarcasm but on the pages of the comics he wasn’t shy to let loose with some trash talking.
MB: the movie is watchable and intermittently entertaining, but the franchise needs to invigorate itself to keep me in its web.
SYNOPSIS: Married man Mark King (Game of Thrones’s Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) tries to push infidelity to Tiger Woodsian heights by cheating on his wife (Leslie Mann) with multiple mistresses, including Carly and Amber (Cameron Diaz and Kate Upton). “We got played by the same guy,” says Carly.” The three women form an unlikely bond—“We are the weirdest friends ever,” says Carly—drowning their sorrows in a sea of tequila shots before hatching a plan to humiliate and financially ruin the three timer. “The three of us can be just as shady as he can.”
STAR RATINGS:
Richard: 3 ½ Stars
Mark: 2 Stars
Richard: Mark, with The Notebook director Nick Cassavetes made one of the most romantic movies of recent years. With The Other Woman his pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. This is an anti-romance flick about sex, lies and adultery but it is ripe with laughs and some fun performances. Mann goes all in as a Lucille Ball-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown type, Diaz has great comic timing and even Kate Upton, who will never be accused of giving Meryl Streep a run for her money, is charming and funny. It’s not Bridemaids funny, but I laughed out loud quite a few times. You?
Mark: Is it possible to like a movie but hate its sexual politics? Because that’s how I felt about it. I laughed, especially when Leslie Mann was onscreen. This movie is certainly her personal best. She’s amazingly loose and funny, especially in the first third of the film. But the revenge plot against the cheating husband left me feeling queasy. He’s set up as such a cardboard lothario that he made the Kate Upton character look deep. There’s a positive male role model in the film—Mann’s brother—but he’s so anodyne and threat less that I couldn’t take him seriously as a character. The movie is interesting as a series of Rorschach about how women must view men—either cads or eunuchs—but I had to banish these thoughts or I couldn’t enjoy the comedy.
RC: I see what you’re saying, and I suppose the film is a bit mean spirited and not terribly subtle in its examination of the dynamics between men and women, but it does get the girl power stuff right, and I think that’s more the point of the film. This isn’t a movie about the men, they are simply the McGuffins that forward the plot. This is a movie about female bonding rather than female blaming.
MB: Anyway, at least it’s a good-looking movie, and the women’s outfits are chic. Don Johnson is given a part that’s more than a cameo, but less than a role. I think he could have been onscreen more with a beefed-up part. But Nicki Minaj, as Diaz’ assistant, steals every scene she’s in. I thought she was a hoot. Richard, did the soundtrack bother you? Such obvious choices, like “New York, New York” when the husband enters the city, or the Mission: Impossible theme when the three women tail the husband to find out what he’s up to.
RC: Absolutely. The soundtrack is as subtle as Coster-Waldau’s cheesy pick up lines. Five minutes in I was willing to bet “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun would play… and I would have won that bet.
MB: And I bet the women will cheer and the men will groan at this flick.
Synopsis: After enjoying big Easter and Passover meals, the Reel Guys like to treat the family to a good movie. Because there are as many different kinds of family movies as there are colours on the most psychedelic Ukrainian Easter egg, this week the guys have a look at their favourites. From the big screen to rentals for the small screen they choose movies that will put an extra hop in your step this weekend.
Richard: Mark, if you’re planning to take the kids out to the movies this weekend, there are two recent family flicks that deserve to be seen on the big screen. The Lego Movie is possibly the weirdest, most psychedelic kid’s entertainment since H.R. Pufnstuf, but it is also one of the best films of the year so far, kid’s movie or not. Then there is Mr. Peabody & Sherman, a big animated film inspired by a time travelling segment from the TV show Rocky and His Friends. It’s the only kid’s movie with an Oedipal joke and the kind of children’s movie that I think parents and kids will enjoy, but probably for completely different reasons.
Mark: Richard, so far The Lego Movie is the most exciting movie of the year, family or otherwise, but it should be noted that it, too, has a strong Oedipal theme in it. As a father of a three-year-old, I’m never quite sure what family entertainment means; what’s appropriate for my little boy is different than what might entertain an eight-year-old. Pretty much anything animated works for all ages, but then it gets complicated. And gender plays a role in choosing the right flick, too. Young girls love The Wizard of Oz, but young boys, not so much. But you never know. My little one loves Frozen, just out on DVD, even though it might seem “girly” to some.
RC: People love Frozen. I’m not one of them, but there is no arguing with the success of that movie. I’m more on side with Despicable Me II, which I thought was great fun despite its predictable plot. The story of chrome-domed former bad guy Gru’s (Steve Carell) working with the Anti-Villain League could have written itself, but the inventive gags contained within are the reason the whole family will enjoy the movie. There are lots of fun characters, but it’s really all about the Minions — Gru’s yellow, jelly-bean-shaped helpers — who spice things up with their own special kind of anarchy. Speaking in gibberish, they’re fun and more than worth the rental.
MB: Despicable Me II is a treat but my little guy deemed it “too scawy”. But I look forward to a family viewing of E.T. — the greatest family movie ever. Young or old, boys or girls, who doesn’t love the tale of that lovable little alien? Also on my eventual DVD queue would be Gremlins and even Home Alone. Kids love movies with kid heroes.
RC: Speaking of kid heroes, the adaptation of the classic Maurice Sendak children’s book Where the Wild Things Are isn’t a movie for kids as much as it is a movie about being a kid. Max is the hero, a lonely kid who goes to where the wild things are. It’s a slow moving, simple film about deep feelings. It’s not a slick, brightly coloured kid’s film with a connect-the-dots plot and an easily digested moral, but it is a magical movie.
MB: I never got the appeal of the movie or the book, but maybe I’ve been missing something. But here’s an idea: Sit down with the family and watch A Hard Day’s Night. Everyone loves The Beatles, and this is the pop group in full cheeky-cute mode. Their rock songs from 1964 sound a lot like kids music today, with their melodic hooks and innocent lyrics.
By Richard Crouse & Mark Breslin – Metro Reel Guys
