If nothing else the new animated film “Wonder Park” will teach kids how to use and possibly overuse the word “splendiferous.” Good lessons on self reliance and facing fears abound, but “splendiferous” appears so many times it’s as if the screenwriters earned a bonus every time a character utters it.
Precocious ten-year old June (Brianna Denski) spends most of her days hanging out in a world of imagination. Encouraged by her loving mother (Jennifer Garner), June is a mini P.T. Barnum, inventing a fantasy theme park, Wonderland, “the most splendiferous park ever,” using nothing but bendy-straws, stuffed animals like her monkey Peanut and her creativity.
When her mother falls ill and has to be hospitalized June puts away childish things, putting Peanut and all of Wonderland into boxes. Looking after her father she becomes obsessed with running the house. Concerned he cannot survive without her, she plays hooky from math camp, creating a diversion so she can get of the bus and cut through the woods to get home. On the way she discovers a discarded amusement park ride that transports her into the land of her imagination.
But things aren’t quite how she imagined them. Her beloved stuffed animal mascots are on the run from hoards of chimpanzombies determined to destroy the park. As the architect of the park her imagination will be put to the test as she searches for a way to restore harmony to her beloved Wonderland.
Even at just one hour and twenty-six minutes “Wonder Park” feels padded. Music montages and several frenetic action scenes stretch the story to feature length but there is much to like nonetheless. Good messages about the power of imagination to help work through life’s challenging moments and self-belief are sincere and powerful—“There is wonder in all of us!”—but it is the film’s willingness to expand beyond the eye-distracting action scenes into more personal territory that earns it a recommend.
The mother’s illness sub-plot is handled subtly and carefully but drives the entire story. “I got so scared of losing her,” June says, “that I lost myself.” It’s poignant and more heart-tugging than you might expect from a movie featuring a talking porcupine (John Oliver, doing some fun voice work).
“Wonder Park” is a movie that respects its audience. That understands children can handle complex ideas about real life and for that, it is splendiferous.
“Sorry to Bother You” is set in an alternative reality version of present day but feels like a throwback to the politically charged satires of the 1980s and 90s. Echoes of “Repo Man” and the like reverberate throughout but nonetheless director Boots Riley is never less than original in his telling of the tale of a telemarketer who trades part of his identity for success.
The story centers around slacker Cassius Green (LaKeith Stanfield), a young man who lives in his Uncle Sergio’s (Terry Crews) garage. “I’m just out here surviving,” he tells his performance artist girlfriend Detroit (Tessa Thompson). In need of money—he’s four months behind in rent—he goes to a telemarketing job interview armed with a phoney resume and some fake “Employee of the Month” awards. Lies notwithstanding he gets the gig. “This is Tele marketing,” says his new boss (Robert Longstreet). “We’re not mapping the human genome here. You will call as many numbers as possible. You will stick to the script we give you and you will leave here happy.”
After a rough start Cassius gets some advice that changes everything. “If you want to make some money here use your white voice,” says the guy in the next cubicle (Danny Glover). “I’m talking about sounding like you don’t have to care. Like you don’t really need this money. It’s what they wish they sounded like.” The technique works (David Cross provides Cassius’s white voice) and on the eve of a strike in the telemarking office Cassius is promoted, bumped upstairs to the elite Power Callers floor. “Welcome to the Power Caller suite,” says his new boss (Omari Hardwick). “Use your white voice at all times here.”
The new job involves selling power—fire power and manpower, specifically the services of WorryFree, a service that offers lifetime work contracts to desperate people. Run by mogul Steve Lift (Armie Hammer), the company has been accused of selling slave labour, and now Cassius is their number one salesperson. His success comes at a cost, however. His girlfriend doesn’t approve and his striking friends call him a scab. The new job may be on the wrong side of the ethical divide but, at first at least, Cassius grins and bears it. “I’m doing something and I’m really good at it. I’m important.”
From here the story goes places that will not be spoiled here. Suffice to say Riley takes “Sorry to Bother You’s” viewers on a journey unlike any other. The film is an audacious capitalist nightmare, heavy on anti-corporate, pro-union rhetoric filtered through a kaleidoscopic lens. It’s risky and witty, edgy and inventive and unrestrained in a way that makes it utterly unique. Scathing commentary on the state of the world—“If you are shown a problem,” says Squeeze (Steven Yeun), “and can’t do anything about the problem you get used to the problem.”—is coupled with creative, confrontational filmmaking.
In “Sorry to Bother You” Riley has created an apocalyptic world that looks like ours but tilted 180°. He’s populated it with offbeat characters who forward the story but bring humanity to the strange world they inhabit. Their take on race relations, employment and relationships feels real even though nothing else in the movie does. It’s the peak of satire to heighten the situation but still make real, humanistic points. Riley does both in a way that is both experimental and entertaining.
When I ask Kung Fu Panda 2 and 3 director Jennifer Yuh Nelson how she feels about being one of the highest grossing female directors of all time, she demurs and gives all the credit to her star.
“I think it is a testament to how much people like Po and like these films. There is such a huge fan base it is really flattering to have been helming something that huge.”
Alessandro Carloni, her directing partner on Kung Fu Panda 3, adds, “I think it will be fair to assume this will be the highest grossing movie ever to be directed by a Korean woman and an Italian man.”
For the uninitiated, Po is the clumsy giant panda that became an improbable hero, dumpling-eating champion and kung fu master in the first two movies. Voiced by Jack Black, in the new film he is reunited with his biological father Li Shan (Bryan Cranston) who takes his son back to the Panda Village so the youngster can learn about himself, become a Chi master and do battle with Kai, a supernatural bull villain played by Oscar winner J.K. Simmons.
Both directors have great affection for Po and understand why audiences have fallen in love with the character.
“We love how enthusiastic he is, how geeky he is, how much passion he has,” says Alessandro. “One thing I have heard someone say is often there are movies where the side cast steals the show because they are the most fun while the central character is the straight guy. But we made a movie around a goofball and everybody else are the straight characters. He is the one who steals the show. When Po is on screen you will love him.”
“He has got so much enthusiasm and is basically wishing for something that is bigger than him,” says Yuh. “Something he is not able to achieve and yet he perseveres. That’s why we root for him because we’ve been there. Everyone has been there where there is something you wish you could do but don’t have the means to do it and yet you keep on going. You have to root for that.”
The pair have been with Po for a long time. Yuh was head of story and the action sequence supervisor on Kung Fu Panda before taking over the reins for the second film. Carloni worked on the first film as animation supervisor and story artist on part two.
Their almost 10-year journey with Po has been shared with Jack Black, who was the model for the character.
“He’s very unique in that he’s so funny but underneath the funny he’s got so much heart,” says Yuh of Black.
“He’s not somebody you laugh at, you laugh with him. You root for him and that is very rare. Usually you have these more jaded guys that are funny and you laugh at them when they fall on their face. But you feel bad for this guy when he falls on his face. I think that just leaks out of his performance.”
In “Kung Fu Panda 3,” Po (voice of Jack Black), the Warrior of Black-and-White, continues his “legendary adventures of awesomeness” when his long-lost panda father suddenly reappears. The movie reunites the stars from the first two films, Angelina Jolie and Dustin Hoffman, and ups the marquee value with the addition of Bryan Cranston as Po’s dad and J.K. Simmons as Kai, a supernatural bull villain but will it deliver the same kind of Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique fun of the first two?
A quick catch-up: Over the course of two films dating back to 2008, a clumsy, giant panda named Po became an improbable hero, dumpling eating champion and kung fu master. Raised by a noodle-making goose named Mr. Ping (James Hong), he becomes the leader of the Furious Five—Angelina Jolie Pitt as Tigress, Jackie Chan as Monkey, Seth Rogen as Mantis, Lucy Liu as Viper and David Cross as Crane—a celebrated band of warriors with prodigious fighting skills.
The new film sees Po reunited with his biological father Li Shan (Cranston) who takes his son back to the Panda Village so the youngster can learn about himself and become a Chi master. Meanwhile Kai (Simmons) has returned to the mortal world after a five hundred year absence with an army of Jade Warriors. He’s been collecting the Chi—the life force—of China’s masters and only needs two more for a complete set, the ancient tortoise Oogway (Randall Duk Kim) and his protégée, who happens to be Po.
The “Kung Fu Panda” movies don’t look like anything else. State of the art 3D computer animation brings the characters to life, but the gorgeous hand drawn animation in the action sequences is uncommonly sumptuous and gives the movie real character. High tech and traditional art collide to create a beautiful backdrop for the slapstick of Po and company.
Simmons and Cranston are welcome additions to the cast, bringing distinctive voices and humour to their characters.
The visuals are captivating but the star here, the reason to return for a third time to the “Kung Fu Panda” franchise, is Po. He’s a classic character, an underdog (underbear?) unsure of his abilities, going up against great challenges. He’s lovable, aspirational and audiences like to laugh with him, rather than at him. He is us… only in panda form and he—along with Jack Black’s voice work—is worth the price of admission.
“Kung Fu Panda 3” is the rare sequel that holds up to the original. It’s respectful to the story but more importantly it’s respectful to the audiences who have grown to love these characters.
On Monday June 16, 2014 Richard hosted a Q&A with “Obvious Child” star Jenny Slate. The movie currently sits at 89% on Rotten Tomatoes and has earned great reviews from critics. The Boston Herald calls it reminiscent of “Woody Allen’s early, New York City set comedies,” and Common Sense Media called it a “smart, irreverent, edgy romcom about complex choices.”
Here’s some info on the film: “For aspiring comedian Donna Stern, everyday life as a female twenty-something provides ample material for her incredibly relatable brand of humor. On stage, Donna is unapologetically herself, joking about topics as intimate as her sex life and as crude as her day-old underwear. But when Donna gets dumped, loses her job, and finds herself pregnant just in time for Valentine’s Day, she has to navigate the murky waters of independent adulthood for the first time. As she grapples with an uncertain financial future, an unwanted pregnancy, and a surprising new suitor, Donna begins to discover that the most terrifying thing about adulthood isn’t facing it all on her own. It’s allowing herself to accept the support and love of others. And be truly vulnerable. Never failing to find the comedy and humanity in each awkward situation she encounters, Donna finds out along the way what it means to be as brave in life as she is on stage. Anchored by a breakout performance from Jenny Slate, OBVIOUS CHILD is a winning discovery, packed tight with raw, energetic comedy and moments of poignant human honesty. Writer/Director Gillian Robespierre handles the topic of Donna’s unwanted pregnancy with a refreshing matter-of-factness rarely seen onscreen. And with Donna, Slate and Robespierre have crafted a character for the ages – a female audiences will recognize, cheer for, and love.”
Director Zak Penn has taken a page from Christopher Guest’s Best in Show playbook and made an improvised film set in the world of a high stakes poker tournament at the Rabbit’s Foot Hotel in Las Vegas.
Woody Harrelson is One Eyed Jack Faro, a drug-addled heir to a Las Vegas casino. He has squandered his inheritance—on bad investments like a theme hotel/casino based on the Chicago Fire and wild partying—now may lose the business his father built up from nothing. To earn some desperately needed money he enters a tourney playing opposite a cast of characters that include Werner Herzog as a sadistic cardsharp called The German; Dennis Farina as a Vegas old-timer who longs for the days when the mob ran Sin City; Yakov Achmed (Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander), a man of undetermined ethnicity, and Cheryl Hines and David Cross as brother-and-sister competitors with an overbearing father, Seth Schwartzman (Gabe Kaplan).
Working from a script that was only 29 pages long, more a treatment really than a script, Penn determined the course of the action by staging a fake Las Vegas poker championship with the actors, in character, playing a real poker match up to determine the winner. It’s not quite as exciting as the Texas Hold’ Em shows that are all over television these days, but it is much funnier.
Among the highlights are Herzog’s delightfully unhinged performance as a man who needs “to kill something each day” and travels with a menagerie of small animals, and Ray Romano as the insecure husband of the Hines character but this is Harrelson’s movie.
His strange portrayal of Jack Faro brings to mind his delightfully off kilter turn as Woody on Cheers. He has an easy-going charm and a way with a line that makes even the more outrageous moments of this story seem almost plausible.
The Grand doesn’t quite measure up the Christopher Guest’s films—he’s the master at balancing the silly with the poignant—but it will work just fine as a stop gap while the master works on his next release.
Christmas will soon be here and with it comes the usual assortment of movies that seem to exist only to create a demand for stuffed toys, talking pens and soundtracks. First out of the gate this year is Alvin and the Chipmunks, starring Jason “My Name is Earl” Lee as a struggling songwriter who discovers three talented chipmunks—Alvin, Simon and Theodore—living in his house and rides their little furry coattails to the top of the music charts.
Brought to you by the director of Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, Alvin and the Chipmunks is as good as you would imagine a movie from the director of Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties to be.
A compact ninety minutes, it has the prerequisite ”heartwarming” family values message and is jam packed with all the stuff calculated to make kids laugh—loads of slapstick, poo jokes and goofy songs—the trouble is, the audience of kids I saw it with wasn’t laughing much. That’s because there’s nothing clever or interesting about Alvin and the Chipmunks. It’s aimed directly at kids, but feels more like the target is their parent’s pocketbook. The entire movie feels like a big-budget commercial for Chipmunk’s merchandise; a way to influence little Johnny’s Christmas wish list.
It’s ironic because the movie comes with a stern anti-consumerist message. In one of the most obvious postmodern examples of life imitating art, the big-screen Chipmunks are exploited by their evil manager who tries to suck every dollar out of their popularity by marketing Chipmunk’s dolls and other products. It all feels a bit hypocritical.
Alvin and the Chipmunks will likely do well at the box office trading on its family appeal and the nostalgic goodwill generated by the name, but despite its hip cast—Jason Lee, Justin Long, David Cross and Jesse McCartney—it is little more than a holiday money grab.
I could have been a lawyer. Or a doctor. Or a truck driver, aerobics instructor or even a pastry chef. But instead I ticked off the film critic box on career day and began a journey that brought me to a screening of “Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked,” a movie that chipped away at my will to live.
Once again Jason Lee returns as Dave, the owner, manager and father figure to Alvin, Theodor and Simon, chipmunk singing superstars and their sister group, the Chipettes. On cruise before heading off to the International Music Awards the critters raise havoc before becoming castaways on a remote island inhabited by a stranded UPS worker who has been searching for the island’s hidden treasure for ten years. It plays like a rodent “Gilligan’s Island,” with bits of “Survivor” and “Treasure Island” thrown in for good measure.
“Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked” isn’t a movie, it’s marketing, an excuse to sell plush toys and soundtracks filled with chirpy–chippy?–versions of pop hits like “Vacation” and “Bad Romance.” (Parents be warned! Buy the soundtrack and spend the holiday season listening to Lady Gaga songs cutified to the point where they make Miley Cyrus sound like Megadeth.)
For all the film’s family friendly messages about family and responsibly and the occasional adult joke–“I can see Russia from here!”–I can’t help but see these Chipmunk movies as more an excuse to sell products than entertain young minds. I know not all kid’s flicks have to have a redeeming social message or an educational angle, but I do think they should aspire to something more than consumer culture.
The film’s two main human stars–Lee and David Cross–both started their careers doing much more alternative kinds of work. Lee as a skateboarder and Kevin Smith protégé, Cross as the evil genius behind TV’s “Mr. Show with Bob,” so it must come as a surprise to them how much time they now spend acting opposite furry co-stars whose idea of a great joke is initiating a dance-off with a group of “Jersey Shore” castoffs.
Cross, at least, seems to be in on the joke. He’s taking the paycheck and every now and again gets a good line like, “Hate, anger and resentment aren’t just the names of a girl group I once signed,” but Jason Lee, what is he thinking?
He’s a usually charming, edgy and funny performer force fit into the role beloved family entertainer. He fits the part well enough, although, frankly it could be anyone playing the role, but every minute spent working opposite wisecracking chipmunks makes it harder to remember when he made cool movies like Chasing Amy.
As commercials for kids toys go “Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked” is state-of-the-art. As a movie it’s ninety minutes of product placement.
