A kid’s movie about Hollywood as a boulevard of broken dreams doesn’t exactly scream Disney, but “Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers,” a new live action, cartoon hybrid starring John Mulaney and Andy Samberg in the title roles, and now streaming on Dinsey+, is exactly that.
Except it’s WAY funnier than I just made it sound.
Set in Los Angeles, this is the tale of anthropomorphic chipmunks Chip (Mulaney) and Dale (Samberg). Once tight pals and big television stars, relative to their tiny size, they are now has-beens, relegated to the delete bin of popular culture. “We were living the dream,” says Dale. “Dancing the Roger Rabbit, with Roger Rabbit.”
Dale sticks it out in show biz and with some CGI surgery—i.e. plastic surgery in toon world—is now a photorealistic computer-animation version of himself chasing glory on the oldies convention circuit, while Chip gave up his Hollywood dream and makes ends meet by selling insurance.
Worst of all, they’re estranged and haven’t spoken in years. It takes a wild story from their old “Rescue Rangers” co-star Monterey Jack (Eric Bana) about missing animated characters, possibly kidnapped by Sweet Pete (Will Arnett), a middle-aged, paunchy version of Peter Pan, to bring them back together.
When Monterey disappears, Chip ‘n Dale use the sleuthing lessons they learned on “Rescue Rangers” and are drawn into the seedy underworld of Uncanny Valley where the baddies come in all styles—hand drawn, computer generated, claymation, puppets—Muppet fights are a daily occurrence and bootleggers threatens the toons’ lives and careers.
“Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers” is a multiverse of toontastic fun. In a wild mix n’ match, characters from movies like “The Little Mermaid” and “My Little Pony” to “South Park” and “The Jungle Book” clash and collide. There’s even Ugly Sonic, the original Sonic the Hedgehog design with human teeth.
The array of characters aside, there are loads of in-jokes for animaniacs to enjoy. A computer-generated Viking (Seth Rogen) is described as having, “those Polar Express eyes,” and director Akiva Schaffer crams the screen with various styles of animation that irreverently pays tribute to, and pokes fun at, these beloved characters who have fallen on hard times.
A riff on “The Happytime Murders,” which brought the Muppets into a crime-ridden, R-rated world, and the Toontown antics of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”, “Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers” is ripe with sight gags and deep laughs that will likely be appreciated more by parents than kids. Once again, my semi-annual reminder that simply because a movie is on Disney+, doesn’t mean it is for the entire family. There are good messages for kids about the importance of friendship but they are tempered by some adult humour and mild language.
“Being the Ricardos,” the new Aaron Sorkin directed look at the most famous television couple of the 1950s, in theaters this weekend and on Prime Video December 21, is a character study that examines one very bad week on the sitcom set of “I Love Lucy.”
In 1953 “I Love Lucy” was watched by 60 million people a week. The show was so popular that department stores had to change their hours. The big box stores used to stay open late on Mondays but switched to Thursdays because no one shopped on Monday nights while Lucy, Desi, Fred and Ethel were on.
Real life couple Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, played in the film by Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem, are television’s biggest stars as they prepare to shoot episode four of their second season. Tension hangs heavy over the set, the result of two news stories about the couple.
First is Confidential Magazine, a sleazy tabloid that specializes in scandal and exposé journalism, who accuses Desi of having an affair in a lurid article titled “Desi’s Wild Night Out.” More damningly, another report suggests Lucy is a communist, under investigation by the FBI and the House Un-American Activities Committee.
The accusation against Desi causes trouble at home but even a whiff of communism around Lucy could lead to a stink that could ruin both their careers. The Hollywood blacklist looms.
“You and me have been through worse than this,” Desi says reassuringly.
“Have we?” she asks.
“No.”
Set up like a pseudo-documentary, modern day talking heads keep the story moving forward while flashbacks flesh out the action. We learn about how the couple met, their volatile relationship—”They were either tearing each other’s clothes off,” says writer Madelyn Pugh (Linda Lavin), “or tearing one another’s heads off.”—and how the show and Lucy’s perfectionism are more than just a professional concern. “I Love Lucy” was the glue that held her marriage together, especially during troubled times.
It can be tricky portraying familiar figures on screen. Through endless re-runs Lucille Ball’s face and comedy are iconic, but Kidman and Bardem, wisely chose not to do imitations of the stars. They have the mannerisms and a passing resemblance to Lucy and Desi but this is about character not caricature. For the most part this is a backstage drama, and wisely stays away from restaging scenes from “I Love Lucy” that are burned into people’s imaginations. What we get instead are interpretations of these characters that corral their collective charisma, hot tempers and talent.
What emerges is a scattershot portrait of fame, creative control and the power of the press. Sorkin juggles a lot of moving parts, but by the time the end credits roll it’s difficult to know exactly what point he is trying to make. Ball is given the credit she deserves as a trailblazer and Arnaz’s business acumen is celebrated, but the other, colliding plot points feel cobbled together. Any one of them—the communism scare, Desi’s alleged infidelity, Lucy’s pregnancy or the cast in-fighting—could have sufficed as a compelling backdrop to the Lucy and Desi story. Instead, the movie feels overstuffed.
“Being the Ricardos” does justice to the legacy of its subjects, and features pages of Sorkin’s trademarked snappy dialogue, but splinters off in too many directions to be truly effective.
“The Tomorrow War,” the new Chris Pratt sci fi action film now streaming on Amazon Prime, is a unicorn. It’s a big-budget blockbuster not inspired by a comic book or video game. The story resonates with echoes of “The Terminator,” “Alien” and any number of father-daughter dramas, but while it may feel familiar, it’s a rarity, an original movie that doesn’t set itself up for a sequel.
Set in December 2022, Chris Pratt is Dan, biology teacher, Iraq War vet, husband to Emmy (Betty Gilpin) and father to young daughter Muri (Ryan Kiera Armstrong). One night, they’re gathered around the television watching a game when the match is interrupted by visitors from the 2052 with a “cry for help across time.”
“We are from thirty years from the future,” says the spokesperson. “We are at war and our enemy is not human. We are losing. In eleven months, all will be lost unless you help us. You are our last hope.”
The planet goes into a panic. A worldwide draft is instituted and soon Dan is enlisted to jump thirty years forward to fight an alien species, named White Spikes, he knows nothing about. The tour of duty is only seven days, but few survive. “You are not fighting for your country,” he’s told. “You’re fighting for the world.”
Dropped into the future in the middle of an alien hotspot, Dan’s military training kicks in. With the help of Col. Forester (Yvonne Strahovski), he survives but when they put their heads together, they realize the key to beating the aliens isn’t warfare, it’s science! The real solution is a poison serum that neuters the beasts. But, the question with time twisted logic is, can they make enough of it in time to stop the war before it even happens? “We are food,” Forester says, “and they are hungry.”
I have written around a MAJOR spoiler. Time travel stories have the benefit of playing around with their character’s timelines but you’ll hear nothing about that here. Suffice to say, Dan makes a life-changing discovery while stationed in the future and it affects everything he does from that moment onward, and I suppose, in the time that has already happened. (Time travel movies can get complicated.)
Moving on to the broad strokes.
There is a lot going on in “The Tomorrow War.” It has Marvel-style large action scenes mixed with horror—the White Spikes, and their weird gooey puke yellow blood, are plentiful and relentless—family drama—”I’m no hero,” Dan says, “I just want to save my daughter.”— and even a child genius who provides a key piece of information in the war against the aliens. Director Chris McKay and screenwriter Zach Dean jam pack every scene with something, whether it’s Pratt’s zippy one-liners or a city crumbling during an airstrike or doing battle in a cave with an angry White Spike.
It feels like all peaks with very few valleys.
To lure us in and make us care about the characters, there have to be moments where things aren’t blowing up. McKay provides some of those but Dean doesn’t give us much in the way of character arcs in those quieter moments. Things happen to the characters, constantly, but rarely is anything of consequence revealed about them. “Glow’s” Betty Gilpin, for instance, is present, and has a name, Emmy, but is given very little to do except be Dan’s wife. More character work may have given us a reason to care when bad things happen.
Having said that, there are some fun moments of over-the-top alien action. A showdown between Dan, his father (J.K. Simmons) and a seemingly indestructible White Spike is a wild ride but generic characters and the predictability of the story blunts much of the film’s excitement.
“Palm Springs,” the existential new Andy Samberg comedy now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, is a riff on “Groundhog Day.” But if the premise is familiar, the treatment isn’t.
When we first met Nyles (Samberg), he’s a nihilist. “This is one of those infinite time-loop situations you might have heard about,” says Nyles. “It could be purgatory, a glitch in the system, whatever. The important thing is, the only way to live in it, is to embrace that nothing matters.” His girlfriend Misty (Meredith Hagner) is a bridesmaid at the Palm Springs wedding of her childhood friend Tala’s (Camilia Mendes) and her beau Abe (Tyler Hoechlin).
It’s a stuffy affair, livened up only by Sarah (Cristin Milioti), the unlucky-in-love sister-of-the-bride. When Misty runs off with oner of the groomsmen, Nyles sets his eyes on Sarah. They decamp to a private spot in the desert and just as they’re getting down to business, Nyles is impaled by an arrow shot by Roy (J. K. Simmons). Running to escape a second shot, Nyles ducks into a nearby cave but urges Sarah not to follow. Of course, she does and… cut to the next scene, she’s back in her hotel room getting ready for the wedding, caught in the same time loop as Nyles.
Confused, she confronts Nyles. As he explains the screwball situation, she immediately starts looking for a way out. It’s impossible, he tells her, describing how he once tried to escape, and made it to Equatorial Guinea but “still woke up back here.” He lives in the moment, spicing things up a bit from time to time, by hiding a bomb inside the wedding cake to amuse Sarah, knowing that that every day will reset.
As romance blossoms between they wonder, “How can their relationship possibly move forward if time is at a standstill?”
“Palm Springs” is a rom com, but it isn’t so much about finding love as it is finding purpose. “I thought I knew how to live,” Nyles says, “but I didn’t and I don’t.” Nyles and Sarah react to their situations very differently. He uses the endless repeat of his life as an excuse to do whatever strikes his fancy. “I have felt everything I’ll ever feel,” he says, “so I’ll never feel anything again.” He’s not malicious, he simply realizes that there are no consequences to his actions. She wants out, or, at the very least, to get something out of her life after years of being the black sheep of the family. Ultimately, the time loop makes both understand that a life lived without purpose is no life at all.
A great deal of the movie’s success comes from the casting. Samberg and Milioti have tremendous chemistry and bring out the best in one another. She blunts his jerky tendencies; he accentuates her vulnerability and steeliness. Without this sparkling combination the movie wouldn’t work nearly as well.
The time loop rom com is a slim genre, but “Palm Springs” is a worthy addition.
“The Front Runner” is a story of scandal that destroyed a man’s public life in 1988 that seems almost genteel given the tone of today’s politics. Four years after Gary Hart (Hugh Jackman) lost the Democratic leadership convention to Walter Mondale he entered the presidential race with a giant lead. He was the front-runner. Three weeks later it was over.
By 1988 Gary Hart had served in the United States Senate for thirteen years. A intellectual, he sought to reignite the Democratic party, a group experiencing a slump in popularity and in ideology. His was a campaign of ideas with one of his managers marvelling at the candidate’s gift of untangling the bull**** of politics.” Unlike his opponents, however, he didn’t like to smile for photos like “some sort of game show host.” “If I pose for photos what’s next,” he wonders, “a swimsuit competition?” Discussing his personal life, says one of his aides, is not in his comfort zone and yet it was his personal life that torpedoed his chance at the White House.
His undoing came in the form of Donna Rice (Sara Paxton), a woman who wanted to work on the campaign and ended up in an extra marital affair with Hart, who was then married to Lee (Vera Farmiga). “I wanted to work for Senator Hart,” she says. “I liked his positions.” The press picked up on the story, partially in response to Hart’s dare, “Follow me around. Put a tail on me. You’ll be very bored,” and partially because it dented his family values image.
Despite the media circus that followed Hart refuses to be contrite. “The public won’t care,” he says and “the press will not earn the dignity of my response.” By the time Johnny Carson cracked jokes about it on the Tonight Show the campaign was over.
“The Front Runner” is a straightforward retelling of the twenty-one days leading up to Hart’s withdrawal from the presidential race. What it does best is create the environment surrounding Hart. From the fast-and-furious pace of a campaign in full gallop and the dark humour of a newsroom to the inner-workings of a smear campaign and the anxiety-inducing clickety-click of the still cameras at Hart’s final press conference, the film’s most interesting element is it’s atmosphere. There are some fun performances, particularly from J. K. Simmons as Hart’s blunt talking campaign manager Bill Dixon, but the problem lies with Hart himself. He’s a bit of a cypher, highbrow yet bland; the film never gives us a reason to care about him or the mess he gets himself into.
In its final moments, however, “The Front Runner” finally indulges in some subtext, courtesy of direct quotes from Hart’s withdrawal speech.
“Politics in this country,” he says, “take it from me – is on the verge of becoming another form of athletic competition or sporting match. We all better do something to make this system work or we’re all going to be soon rephrasing Jefferson to say: I tremble for my country when I think we may, in fact, get the kind of leaders we deserve.”
The words are thirty years old and yet sound as though they were written yesterday. Perhaps if director Jason Reitman had followed Hart’s lead and focussed more on the ideas and less on the scandal “The Front Runner” might have had more impact.
Richard’s interview with “Justice League” star Ray Fisher.
What’s it like playing Cyborg in Justice League? Ray Fisher compares his excitement to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
“It’s like someone handing you the keys to the chocolate factory and saying, ‘Go ahead, it’s yours now,’” says the 30-year-old actor… Read the whole thing HERE!
What’s it like playing Cyborg, the technologically enhanced human superhero of Justice League? Ray Fisher compares his excitement to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
“It’s like someone handing you the keys to the chocolate factory and saying, ‘Go ahead, it’s yours now,’” says the 30-year-old actor.
Before he was a superhero, Cyborg was Victor Stone, a sports-obsessed young man who was cybernetically reconstructed by his scientist father after a nearly fatal car accident. Cobbled together with technology that allows him to weaponize his arms and mind, he becomes a reluctant superhero.
Fisher first played Cyborg in a cameo appearance in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and audiences took notice.
“Fans have reached out,” he says. “There have been some who are amputees. There have been kids who have implants. For Cyborg to be able to represent the underrepresented in that way is a very special thing. I didn’t know the full scope of what he would represent when I took on the mantle.”
Fisher says he’s inspired by the fact that his character gives voice and power to those who feel marginalized.
“Cyborg represents not just people who are differently abled, he is also a representation of the Black community and people of colour within the Justice League. Being able to don both those mantles with the integrity which that character would need to be portrayed and was adhered to was something that was very important. I never felt that I was in too much danger of becoming a stereotype. I never felt like I was in danger of offending anyone with that particular portrayal because it could go wrong in so many ways.”
Growing up, he thought Cyborg was a “funny character but he didn’t resonate with me.” Live action heroes did, however. “I remember watching Wesley Snipes as Blade,” he says. “I watched Michael Jai White as Spawn. I even watch Shaquille O’Neal as Steel. I felt like seeing a physical representation, a non-cartoon representation affected me in a much different way.”
Although he didn’t read comic books growing up in the 1990s and 2000s, Fisher says he was a huge fan of the animated series and movies.
“It wasn’t until I booked the role of Cyborg that I was sent literally everything Cyborg-related from DC comics. I was able to fall in love with the original iteration of Cyborg from the Teen Titans. For me to be able to bring the character into the same sphere as the shows and the animated series I loved as a kid is coming full circle.”
Fisher, who made a name for himself playing Muhammad Ali in the Off-Broadway production of Fetch Clay, Make Man says he hopes his take on the character will make an impression on DC fans.
“Hopefully it resonates with people in a positive way,” he says. “I think there is definitely a message behind Cyborg that is needed for people to hear and what he represents and the resilience of the human spirit. I hope it means as much to people watching it as it meant to me to do it.”
Let’s face it, without the batsuit Bruce Wayne is just another billionaire playboy with some cool toys. With it, he’s the Caped Crusader, keeping Gotham and the world safe. The clothes make the man, or in this case, the superhero.
To play the Dark Knight in the new Justice League movie, Ben Affleck wore a variation on his Batman v Superman costume which was a variation on every batsuit that came before it.
Designed to conceal his identity and frighten criminals, the basic batsuit is usually blue-black or dark grey, emblazoned with the chest-mounted Batsymbol. Add to that a flowing cape, finned gloves and a utility belt with a variety of crime fighting gadgets. All batsuits are topped off with a cowl with ears that mimic a bat’s head.
Costume designer Michael Wilkinson says Affleck’s new look is, “a little more aggressive.” To pump up the suit’s armour, Wilkinson drew on Bruce Wayne’s history of studying martial arts in Japan, creating new gloves based on samurai designs. Inspired by the Wayne Tech esthetic, he also revamped the cowl, adding in new ways for Batman to communicate with his trusty manservant Alfred.
Like Rick Blaine’s fedora or Annie Hall’s wide trousers, long white shirts, vests and men’s ties, the suit is crucial to Batman’s brand but it’s not always a comfortable fit.
“The first time I ever put on the (suit) myself I thought, ‘Oh, Chris (Nolan) has to re-do the cast,’” says Christian Bale, who played the Caped Crusader in three movies, “because the claustrophobia was just unbelievable.”
The Batman Begins actor says he discovered a meditative process that eased the anxiety of feeling trapped inside the hulking suit and estimates that he spent a total of 21 months encased in Batman’s armour.
He claims the discomfort actually helped him play the brooding character because he was always in a foul mood when he had to don the suit.
“Batman, he’s this very, very dark, messed-up character,” said Bale. “I found when I put on the suit I went, ‘I just feel like a bloody idiot if I don’t use this as a means to (show) his true, monstrous self that he allows to come out in that moment.’”
When Affleck took over the role from Bale he says the Welsh actor gave him one important bit of advice. “He told me to make sure I got a zipper in the suit,” Affleck laughs, “which was valuable, practical advice as it turned out.”
Perhaps the most beloved actor to wear the batsuit was the late Adam West. For 120 episodes from 1966 to 1968, West was Batman on the most popular show on television. He called putting on the suit one of his most memorable moments on the show.
“One defining moment was when I first put on the costume for real and was about to leave my trailer on the stage and walk out in front of the crew and the press, and into the light,” he told me in a 2010 interview.
“I thought, ‘Oh Lord! Are they going to laugh? What’s going to happen here?’ Well, I walked across the stage as dignified as I could and there wasn’t a sound. People stood there in awe and I thought, ‘Yes, this will work.’”
The old truism “Less is more” has been thrown into the interdimensional void with the release of the new jam-packed superhero film “Justice League.”
At almost two hours and featuring the talents of not one but two high-powered directors—Joss Whedon took over for Zach Synder who stepped away in post-production due to personal issues—it features the top-line DC heroes like Superman (Henry Cavill), Batman (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) plus a host of others like Flash (Ezra Miller), Aquaman (Jason Mamoa) and Cyborg (Ray Fisher). Then there’s odds and ends like Connie Nielsen as Hippolyta, villains such as Lex Luther (Jesse Eisenberg) and the motion captured Ciarán Hinds as Steppenwolf and significant others like Martha Kent (Diane Lane), Lois Lane (Amy Adams) and James Gordon (J. K. Simmons).
Phew. That’s a whole lotta movie. I wonder, is there anyone left to make other superhero films?
“Justice League” takes place months after the events of the grim-faced “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.” Superman, apparently, is out of the picture—we see a newspaper with the headline “Disappearing heroes. Did they return to their planets?” accompanied with photos of David Bowie, Prince and Superman—so billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne (Affleck) and Diana Prince (Gadot) a.k.a. Princess Diana of Themyscira assemble a team of super-dupers including the world’s fastest boy, Barry Allen (Miller), merman Arthur Curry (Momoa) and man-machine Victor Stone (Fisher). “There are enemies coming from far away,” says Wayne. “I need warriors right now.”
Their job? To combat alien military officer Steppenwolf—“I am the end of worlds!”—and his army of winged shock troops called Terror Demons. How do we know Steppenwolf is the villain? He has big silver and says things like, “Praise to the mother of horrors!” These are bad dudes and if they lay their hands on the three earthbound Mother Boxes—perpetual energy matrixes that, if joined together, destroy as they create—not even the combined forces of all the DC superheroes will be able to save the planet and stop Steppenwolf from taking his place among the new gods! “One misses the days when the biggest concerns were wind up exploding penguins,” moans Alfred Pennyworth (Jeremy Irons).
The first hour of “Justice League” is essentially a long origin story, detailing the backstories of each of the new characters. It’s still sombre and underscored with a VERY dramatic soundtrack by Danny Elfman. At the same time it doesn’t take itself as seriously as “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.” It’s hard not to find the humour in Bruce Wayne pseudo-seriously asking Aquaman if he can talk to fish. The funny stuff is a welcome addition. The downhearted tone of Synder’s previous film was oppressive, sending the audience on a one-way trip to Bleaktown, USA.
“Justice League,” by comparison, has hills and valleys. Moments of weight play off the lighter scenes, combining to create an overall more enjoyable experience. It even ends on a hopeful note. “Heroes remind us that hope is everywhere,” Lane writes at the end of the film. “You can see it. All you have to do is look up in the sky.”
“Justice League” features a typical-destroy-the-whole-damn-planet-and-bathe-in-your-blood style villain and there’s still way too much CGI but allowing the characters to acknowledge the ridiculousness of their situations—I’m looking at you Aquaman!—doesn’t make it a silly movie. Rather, it makes it a self-aware film that winks at the audience while providing a simple, action-packed story of good vs. evil.
