“Danny Collins” begins with a flashback to 1971. The title character is an up-and-coming folk singer promoting his first album. His Chime Magazine interviewer is clearly a fan, telling the young singer that soon he would he rich, famous and have more women than he’ll know what to do with.
Collins squirms in his seat.
“Why are you staring at me like that information scares you?”
“Because it does,” sputters Collins.
Cut to forty years later. Collins is a sell out, a Neil Diamond sound-a-like superstar who has become comfortable with the money, fame and women while developing a crippling cocaine habit. As a birthday gift his long time manager Frank (Christopher Plummer) gives him a letter from John Lennon, written in 1971 in response to the Chime Magazine interview. Collins never received the handwritten note, but its content regarding the Beatles’s thoughts on fame, fortune and not letting them affect your creativity, rock Collins.
“What would have happened if I got that letter when I was supposed to?” he wonders. “My life would have turned out different.”
Taking the letter to heart, he decides to change his life. The first stop on his recovery tour? New Jersey, to contact a son (Bobby Cannavale) he’s never met.
Appropriately enough, I guess, for a movie about music the story spends a great deal of time plucking at heartstrings. Sentimental and sappy, the only rock-and-roll things here are the John Lennon songs that wallpaper the soundtrack.
As edgy as Collins’s big hit “Baby Doll”—which comes complete with its own dance—the movie doesn’t ever feel authentic, but Pacino is Pacino and brings a certain charm to the main character. One of the film’s running jokes has Danny asking hotel manager Mary (Annette Bening) out for dinner, only to have her reject his offer. He won’t give up, however, and neither does Pacino. His Leonard Cohen-esque singing aside, he commits fully to the role and fills in some of the gaps with sheer strength of will.
Cannavale and Jennifer Garner, as the long-lost son and daughter-in-law and Plummer also bring considerable charm but make no mistake, this is Pacino’s peacock show. Like the character, the film is ridiculous but has a lot of heart and it’s hard to deny the underlying good-vibe on display.
Unsafe parenting. Reckless driving. A stoned teenager. No, it’s not the long awaited sequel to Larry Clark’s “Kids,” it’s the latest family fare from Disney.
Alexander Cooper (Ed Oxenbould) is having a bad day. It’s the eve of his twelfth birthday and nothing is going right. He got gum stuck in his hair, he almost burns down the science lab at school and worst of all, no one is going to come to his birthday party because Phillip Parker, “a really cool kid with a hot tub and ADHD,” has scheduled a wild bash for the same night.
Things are going well for the rest of the family. Teen brother Anthony (Dylan Minnette) is taking the “hottest girl in school” to the prom and is about to get his driver’s license. Sister Emily (Kerris Dorsey) is about to star in a school production of “Peter Pan,” mom (Jennifer Garner) is due for a promotion and dad (Steve Carell) has a promising job interview.
Feeling down, Alexander makes a birthday wish. He wants everyone to know what it is like to have a “horrible, terrible, no good day.” Soon Emily gets a cold on the day of her performance, Anthony gets a zit and domestic chaos reigns.
The obvious joke to make about “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” would be to suggest that it should be retitled “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Movie.” But that would be disingenuous. It’s not terribly interesting, but it’s also not terrible, horrible, no good or very bad.
It’s gently paced family fare with a few genuine laughs and few surprises. Carell and Jennifer Garner are the most good-natured parents ever—when Emily vomits on dad after taking too much cough medicine he says, “Oh. I bet that felt good.”—and from that blossoms some funny situations and lines—“I’m going to need you to make an incredible effort on the potty tomorrow.”—but all are in service of the movie’s central theme that everybody has bad days.
Many of the situations don’t really feel organic. Instead they feel like set-ups to gags, outrageous filler—look Carell’s on fire!—to keep us interested until the inevitable happy ending.
Parents won’t find much to hold their attention in “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” but younger kids will likely get a kick out of the bad behavior on display. “Kids” it ain’t, although the Cooper children seem to get away with everything just short of murder.
“Men, Women & Children” is a sprawling ensemble drama that I suppose is meant to shed some light on the widening gap between analogue parents and their iphone toting kids, but comes off more as a high tech “Reefer Madness.” Someone needs to jiggle director Jason Reitman’s cord and reboot.
The movie, based on the Chad Kultgen novel, suggests that social media, video games and texting are the root of all modern evil. Anorexia, the shameless pursuit of Kim Kardashian style fame, teen pregnancy and even adultery, it seems to say, can be traced back to a key stroke or two.
It’s a remarkably clumsy observation from a director who has treated us to a searing look at downsizing in “Up in the Air” and a satiric look at lobbyists on “Thank You For Smoking.” Leading the charge against internet interaction is Patricia (Jennifer Garner), a mom who monitors her daughter’s every text and post and hands out pamphlets on the dangers of the selfie. She’s a hardcore crusader, the Mary Whitehouse of the anti-internet crowd. You expect her to yell, “Get off my URL,” at any moment. In any other Reitman movie she’d be played for laughs, the center for the satire, but here we’re supposed to take her seriously and that decision lies at the heart of what is very wrong with “Men, Women and Children.”
Instead of mining the rich vein of satire in the disconnect between kids and parents, Reitman pitches the tone in the area of an afterschool special. The listless direction and inability to answer any of the questions it raises, coupled with the tiresome cliché of texts and posts popping up all over the screen, overshadows some engaging work by the actors—particularly Judy Greer as a momanger to a teen wannabe, and Ansel Elgort and Kaitlyn Dever as a couple struggling to cope with their mothers.
Given the film’s attitude “Men, Women and Children” might have been better off with a title like “Old Folks Just Don’t Understand.”
Richard’s new Cineplex.com column is now up and running!
“Making love on camera is such hard work,” says actress Julie Christie, “that there is no time for the libido to take over.”
Maybe so, but some good-old-fashioned romance does manage to blossom on movie sets. Just ask Brad Pitt or Goldie Hawn or Ben Affleck. Each of them met their current paramour while making a movie.
Let’s take a look at some of the greatest Hollywood on-set romances… READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!
The message behind “Draft Day,” Kevin Costner’s last sports flick, is that technical ability is one thing, but having heart is just as important. It’s a key message for the story but also vital when considering the movie as a whole.
This film is technically proficient, but loads of technically proficient flicks aren’t as entertaining as this one. This movie works particularly well because it has heart, just like the players that Kevin Costner’s character recruits for his football team.
On the day of the NFL Draft, Cleveland Browns general manager Sonny Weaver Jr. (Costner) is faced with some tough choices. His team is not doing well, sports radio talking heads are beating him up for ruining the franchise his late father, the legendary coach Sonny Weaver Sr, built up and his girlfriend (Jennifer Garner) is angry with him. His future and possibly the future of the team hinges on one deal; a massive trade for hotshot quarterback Bo Callahan (Josh Pence).
Like “Moneyball,” “Draft Day” scores authenticity points by casting a number of sports figures and insiders playing themselves. Cleveland Browns Center Alex Mack appears as does San Francisco 49ers defensive player Delon Sanders, but it’s the supporting cast of professional actors who really score a touchdown.
Frank Langella, playing the anything-for-a-buck owner of the Browns plus Ellen Burstyn and Dennis Leary as Sonny’s mother and grumpy coach respectively, are all great. Sean Combs as a smarmy sports agant didn’t even bother me. But of course, this really is Kevin Costner’s movie. He’s easy to watch at the best of times but particularly so when he’s in the genre that works best for him, and that’s sports movies.
He plays Weaver much differently than Brad Pitt handled real life manager Billy Beane in “Moneyball.” Unlike Beane, who used an algorithm to put a team together, Weaver works on a combo of instinct, experience and guts, which makes for an all round more emotional trip for him and the audience. “There’s no such thing as a ‘sure thing,”” the movie tells us. “All that matters is your gut.”
Story wise this is a pure sports film, complete with lingo and all kinds of stats, but it’s also a mystery. As Weaver digs into Callahan’s past, questions arise, leaving the movie’s central bit of action—will Weaver draft Callahan or not—up in the air until the closing minutes of the movie. It’s not Hitchcock, but it will keep you guessing.
Sports illiterates might need subtitles to understand some of the goings on. For me it didn’t matter if I followed the intricacies of the trades because the underlying emotion that comes along with changing someone’s life by drafting them into the NFL is very powerful and well played here.
A quick on-line search will reveal something interesting about the posters for some of Matthew McConaughey films. The artwork for Failure to Launch, How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days and his new one, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past are all the same! The female faces have changed along the way, but Mr. McConaughey’s pose remains fixed—back to the girl, leaning on his co-star with a cocky grin on his face. I know movie stars are particular about how they like to be photographed, but surely a man of Mr. McConaughey’s physical charms could come up with a more original pose. But if it isn’t about vanity then it must be something else. After watching Ghosts of Girlfriends Past I knew what it was—the posters are all the same because THE MOVIES ARE ALL THE SAME! Eureka! Not since Drew Barrymore has one actor recycled a rom com formula so shamelessly, or so often.
This time out McConaughey is Connor Mead, a womanizing photographer who “swims in a lake of sex” every night. He believes love makes you weak and marriage is a corrupt and hateful institution that should be abolished. While at his brother’s wedding strange things start to happen—he is confronted by his past, present and future. His past, in the form of his lifelong friend and onetime paramour Jenny Perotti (Jennifer Garner), is very real, but all others may be figments of his drunken imagination—this guy drinks scotch like a sailor on shore leave—or are they some kind of divine intervention to force him to feel things he “hasn’t felt in a long time, like feelings”?
I don’t usually judge movies before I see them, but this one just had stink written all over it, from the bad title to the crappy trailer. When I found out that it was originally supposed to star Ben Affleck but was shelved after Gigli stunk up theaters back in 2003 my worst fears were confirmed. Could there be anything worse than a Affleck hand me down? Judging by this movie, the answer is no. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is the worst movie to come down the pike in some time.
As usual McConaughey is playing a “charming” scamp with something to learn. In this case his lesson would involve learning how to be a real character and not simply a mish mash of the worst kind of grotesque lounge lizard clichés left over from a bad seventies sitcom. He’s coasted through a number of these poorly conceived rom coms on the strength of his pecs and pearly whites but this represents a new low. He smarms his way through the first hour and fifteen minutes before busting out his sincere face for the film’s finale. If he did something, anything grin worthy along the way I wouldn’t have to bash his performance so, but this isn’t a performance, it’s simply a succession of facial ticks.
Micheal Douglas doesn’t fare much better. What was he thinking? Really. Did he read the script and think “I’d be proud to put this next my other work. Let’s see… Fatal Attraction, The China Sydrome, Wall Street and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. That’ll dress up the resume a little bit” It doesn’t compute. I expect this kind of garbage from McConaughey but not Douglas. He plays McConaughey’s randy dead uncle, sort of a cross between Hugh Hefner and Robert Evans and is just as charming as you’d imagine that unholy marriage to be.
The only real ray of sunshine here is Jennifer Garner, who frankly, should have known better.
The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is mirthless and worthless. Save your money.
Imagine living in a world where there’s no such thing as flattery, deceit or fiction. I’ll tell you one thing for sure, Hollywood wouldn’t exist and politics would be way less interesting. Retirement homes are called A Sad Place for Hopeless Old People and Pepsi’s advertising slogan might read: “Pepsi, For When You Don’t Have Coke.” This is the world British comedian Ricky Gervais created as the setting for his directorial debut, a strange romantic comedy called “The Invention of Lying.”
The story is quite simple even if the ideas that lie just beneath the surface aren’t. The film is set in an alternate reality, a Norman Rockwell world where no one has ever told a lie. People speak their minds because they are incapable of fibbing. A waiter might say, “I took a sip of your drink,” as he drops a Margarita at your table. Gervais is Mark Bellison a screenwriter who specializes in transcribing 13th century history—remember, there’s no fiction—for films. After unconsciously telling the first lie and inadvertently inventing religion he becomes a celebrity, but will this strange power be enough to win the heart of Jennifer (Jennifer Garner)?
The Invention of Lying sounds like a one joke wonder, and on some levels it is, but it’s a good joke and Gervais as co-writer, director and star brings enough subtext to the story to keep up interest.
Nestled away under the obvious jokes is a healthy dollop of social commentary. Gervais uses the premise of total honesty all the time to shoot satirical arrows at religion (his version of God is “The Man in the Sky”), advertising and social niceties. The satire is sharp, particularly in the first half hour as we get to know the characters. The balance of the film has many laughs and makes some pointed observations before becoming ever so slightly bogged down by the romance and the beyond blatant product placement.
Who knew a Pizza Hut box could stand-in for one of the Ten Commandment tablets? That scene is the most shameless bit of product placement seen on screen, maybe ever.
On the plus side Gervais has assembled not only a strong leading cast—Jennifer Garner sparkles and Louis C.K. is very funny—but also a laundry list of unexpected cameos. I won’t spoil the fun, but look for a Sarah Palin look-a-like and a mustachioed bit-part from an actor not known for his sense of humor.
“The Invention of Lying” could have used a little less product placement but by and large Gervais has created a pleasant and surprising rom com that’ll make you think about all those little white lies you tell every day.
If Tim Burton had directed “The Odd Life of Timothy Green” instead of Peter “Dan in Real Life” Hedges it might have been called something like “The Strange and Sad Tale of Mr. Pencil and the Chlorophyll Kid.” This bizarre tale could have used a dose of Burton’s off-kilter sensibility to mute Hedges’s heart-string tugging.
Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton are Cindy and Jim Green, a good-looking couple from Stanleyville, the Pencil Capitol of the World. She works at the Pencil Museum, he’s a foreman at the pencil factory. Childless, they have been trying for years to get pregnant. After a specialist tells them that it won’t be possible for them to have a child, they commiserate in an unusual way. Over a bottle of wine they write down all the characteristics they’d like their idea child to have; a heart like his mother, to score the winning goal and to be able to rock out on an instrument. Sealing their wishes in a box, they bury it—along with their hope of having a child—in the garden and go to bed. Soon there’s a commotion outside, and they become the proud parents of… a plant. Well, a boy named Timothy (Cameron Adams), complete with leaves where his socks should be, who sprung from the “seeds” they planted.
There is no denying the sweet tone of “The Odd Life of Timothy Green.” Garner has likeability on her side, so you empathize with Cindy and her “You can’t let anyone see your leaves!” protectiveness and Edgerton pulls it off as a confused and confounded dad, but the fantasy aspects of the story come off as twee instead of sweet.
It’s fertile ground for a fantasy about fertility, shame and acceptance but it feels a bit too clever for its own good. It’s hard not to identify with the choices new parents have to make when Jim send Timothy off to school with a cheerful, “Have a great day,” only to have Cindy scold him, “That’s a lot of pressure…” Those bits the movie gets right but the rest of it, the story of leaf boy and the pencils is, pardon the pun, drawn out.
Add to that a series of unnecessary connective scenes at an adoption agency and you have a movie with likeable performances, and a timely message in our bullying age, but one that also feels overgrown with sun-dappled sentiment.
On the television show Alias Jennifer Garner played a woman with a double life—average citizen by day, sexy super-spy by night. In her new film, Catch and Release, she plays it straight, it’s her dead fiancée who led two lives.
Catch and Release is an odd kind of romantic comedy that isn’t exactly a comedy or very romantic for that matter. There are a few laughs—mostly provided by Clerks director Kevin Smith, seen here slumming in the chubby roommate role—mixed throughout the movie in between the suicide attempts, illegitimate babies, crying jags and clandestine sex. Any movie that begins at a funeral reception on what was supposed to be a wedding day isn’t destined to be a barrel of monkeys, but that’s just what makes Catch and Release so confounding.
It can’t quite make up its mind what it wants to be. Is it a comedy? Not exactly. Is it a romance? Kind of. Is it a change of life story involving old friends? Sorta. It all this and, I suspect more. The original cut of the film by director Susannah Grant was an epic three hours in length. Thankfully she has cut it down by an hour, but in doing so she may have lost some clarity in the storyline.
On the plus the movie features some very winning performances. The incredibly square-jawed Jennifer Garner is hard not to like, even when grief pushes her to make some questionable life choices.
Opposite her is Timothy Olyphant, best known as the foul mouthed Seth on Deadwood, this time put he has cleaned up the language and puts on his sensitive guy hat. He’s kind of an unconventional choice for this sort of role and the casting against type works well here.
Juliette Lewis pops up in a supporting role, playing one of her patented flaky, trashy characters. It’s part Mallory from Natural Born Killers, part Jesse the Bounty Hunter from My Name is Earl, but she adds some spark to the proceedings.
Catch and Release isn’t a very good date movie, but it may have some appeal to people who like their romance with a bit of an edge.
