As anyone who watched Yogi Bear or Winnie the Pooh knows, a good chunk of a bear’s life is spent searching for food. A new Disneynature documentary, “Bears,” has an up-close-and-personal look at how real bears hunt for food in the wild, far away from Yogi’s pic-a-nics and Winnie’s honey pots.
Directed by “Planet Earth” wildlife legend Alastair Fothergill (with co-director Keith Scholey), “Bears” is the result of a year long shoot, following mother Sky, and her cubs Scout and Amber as they fight the elements, wolves and a nasty outcast bear named Chinook in a quest for the “bear” necessities of life.
“Bears” integrates story with an educational point of view. Kids will learn about the bear’s migration via beautifully shot film, stunning time-lapse photography. Unfortunately a strangely conceived voice over from John C. Reilly adds a narrative that anthropomorphizes the animals, adding in an unneeded storyline that seeks to humanize these majestic creatures. Shots of the mother bear delicately eating a clam is elegant and primal, it isn’t necessary to add silly narration to give human attributes to the bears.
It’s meant to make the story more relatable, bit feels a little trite—for instance a scene of Sky and Amber ripping a writing salmon apart is described as a mother and daughter’s sushi date—for a movie with such lush wildlife photography.
In short, let the pictures do the talking. Show me, don’t tell me.
Beyond the distracting VO, “Bears” is a welcome addition to Disneynature’s wildlife canon. There is some intense circle of life stuff that may upset young animal lovers, but the bears emerge with their dignity and majesty intact and kids will learn something while being entertained.
Step Brothers, the new R-rated comedy from the Judd Apatow sausage factory, is a look at extreme Peter Pan Syndrome. Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, last seen together in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, play 40ish men who still live at home and become bunkmates and reluctant step brothers when their parents marry. The familiar reprimand “Grow up and act your age” fell on deaf ears with these guys.
Ferrell and Reilly play Brennan Huff, a thirty-nine-year-old who recently lost his part-time job at Pet Smart who lives with his mother, Nancy (Mary Steenburgen) and Dale Doback, an unemployed forty-year-old who still resides under his father Robert’s (Richard Jenkins) roof. When Nancy and Robert tie the knot Brennan and Dale are forced to share a room in Robert’s luxurious home. Sparks fly as the two immature men clash, arguing and beating one another with golf clubs.
Eventually their shared love of Star Wars and karate helps them find a bond and they become tight friends. Unfortunately as one big immature, lazy force they are twice as destructive as before. Their aggressive behavior prevents them from getting jobs and finally drives a wedge between Nancy and Robert. Will their parent’s impending divorce finally force these middle-aged slackers to grow up?
Step Brothers is essentially an 80s teen comedy with two 40 year olds in the roles that would have been played by young nerdy actors Anthony Michael Hall and Larry B. Scott in 1985. It’s got a meaner edge and certainly worse language than the classic teen comedies of twenty years ago, but the message of being true to yourself could have come straight from the pen of teen scribe guru John Hughes. Besides, any movie that uses a Dane Cook Pay-Per-View Special as a punch line is OK by me.
The chemistry between Ferrell and Reilly as the poster boys for arrested development saves this one-joke idea from becoming monotonous. They play off one another well and as their step-sibling-rivalry escalates so does their outrageously childish behavior. It’s like watching two overweight, foul mouthed ten year olds with thinning hair going at each other.
Step Brothers is silly R-rated summer moving-going fun.
It’s been a rough twelve months for Will Ferrell fans. It seemed the funnyman was losing his touch. Kicking and Screaming was an unfunny flop, Bewitched was so bad that even if I saw it on an airplane I would still want to walk out and Melinda and Melinda showed his more serious and less interesting side. He had a couple of cameos that raised a smile or two in The Producers and The Wedding Crashers, but overall it seemed that the prolific comedian was making too many movies too quickly. It appeared that the silly glory days of Anchorman, Elf and Old School were behind him. That is until the release of Talladega Nights: the Ballad of Ricky Bobby reaffirmed his status as the silliest man in movies.
Ferrell co-wrote and stars in this movie about a dim-witted Nascar driver who rises to the top of his field only to lose everything when a French Formula One racer undermines his confidence. Call it the Fast and the Hilarious because it is the funniest movie that Ferrell has been in a while.
As Ricky Bobby, Ferrell has just the right amount of mindless redneck emptiness behind his eyes, the perfect slanted grin and all-American go-for-broke spirit to bring the Nascar driver to life. Ferrell is also one of the pluckiest of the comics currently working on screen. No joke is too broad to be milked, no chance to strip down to his underwear is missed and no pratfall is too undignified for the fearless Ferrell. Whether he is saying his version of grace at the dinner table re-imagining Jesus way he likes to see him, as a baby not as the long-haired hippie, or driving with a live cougar in the passenger seat every joke is pushed to the limit.
Good supporting work from Gary Cole, John C. Reilly and Sacha Baron Cohen, (better known as Ali G), make Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby the funniest movie of the summer.
Everyone knows what “going postal” means but how about “going video”? It’s the idea behind a new Disney movie called “Wreck-It Ralph,” about a disgruntled video game character who demands respect.
Wreck-It Ralph (John C. Reilly) knows a thirty-year gig as an arcade character is a good run, but he needs a change. He’s tired of being the bad guy, the bully who destroys things to make game’s hero and namesake Fix-It Felix (Jack McBrayer), look good. “Are there medals for wrecking stuff really well?” he wonders. The answer, of course, is no.
To prove he’s more than just a clumsy oaf who breaks things, that he can be a hero, he game jumps from Fix-It Felix to Hero’s Duty, a violent game with a gold medal as a prize. But things have changed in thirty years. “When did video games get so violent and scary?,” he says.
Unfortunately the game also has evil Cy-Bugs that Ralph inadvertently brings over to another game, the saccharine Sugar Rush. Game jumping once again Ralph discovers a kindred soul, Vanellope von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman), battles the bugs and learns that sometimes being bad is good.
The first twenty minutes of “Wreck-It Ralph” are a blast. Spectacular animation, great storytelling and loads of inventive humour set the stage. Unfortunately once Ralph jumps from one game to the next the movie becomes much more standard.
It’s still eye candy, but the cleverness of the beginning disappears, replaced by video game style action adventure. True, it is populated by some fun characters—Jane Lynch is hilarious as the tough talking commando character while Alan Tudyk mixes a hint of the Great Gazoo with Wally Cox to come up with King Candy—and the action is broken up by some inventive animation but the spark of the opening just isn’t there.
Arcade purists, however, will find much to get their joysticks in a knot over. Anyone who grew up playing the first generation of arcade video games will get a nostalgic twinge at the jittery animation of the older characters, and it is a hoot to see the 8-bit bartender from Tapper, Street Fighter’s Zangief and Doctor Eggman all come to glorious digital life.
“Wreck-It Ralph” is better than average, with strong messages about friendship and accepting who you are, and despite being state-of-the-art, has a nice nostalgic glow. Just like the glow of an arcade gaming console.
While Kevin may be the titular star of “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” after seeing the movie the person everyone is talking about Tilda Swinton, who hands in an unforgettable performance as New York suburbanite, mother of a monster and social pariah.
Swinton plays Eva Khatchadourian, travel agent, wife of Franklin (John C. Reilly) and mother of Kevin (played as a child by Rock Duer and Jasper Newell, as a teen by Ezra Miller). Kevin is a constant thorn in her side, from his colicky childhood to his troubled teens, she is at odds with her own son, convinced he is trouble. As her worst nightmares slowly come true the film studies, simultaneously by jumping back-and-forth in time, the build up and aftermath of Kevin’s violent behavior.
Based on a bestseller by Lionel Shriver, “We Need to Talk About Kevin” is a hauntingly stylized look at a deeply troubled relationship. Using a fractured timeline director Lynne Ramsey allows the viewer to decide whether Eva’s interaction with her son turned him into a beast or whether she gave birth to bad seed. It’s a fascinating character study that asks more questions than it answers, but is given real depth by the performances.
Miller is chilling in the role, the personification of troubled teen, but it is Swinton who steals the show. When she utters the line, ““I’m going straight to hell. Eternal damnation, the whole thing,” it would be funny it wasn’t so ripe with self-hate and pain.
“We Need to Talk About Kevin” is made for adventurous viewers; those who can stand watching real ennui played out on screen.
In recent years the template for the big Hollywood musical biopic has been perfected and written in stone. Take a troubled childhood, throw in a tragedy involving a younger sibling, some drug use, a tumultuous romance, lightening strikes of musical inspiration and you have—take your pick—Walk the Line or Ray, two successful biographies that cleaned up at the box office.
Walk Hard, a new outrageous comedy from the team that busted guts with Knocked Up and Superbad, uses all the usual clichés and more to present the story of the amazingly resilient pop star Dewey Cox (John C. Reilly). The film opens, as biopics so often do at the end of the singer’s career, with an elderly Cox about to take the stage for the first time in years. As Cox stands in a darkened hallway deep in thought a stage manager tries to get him on the stage. “Dewey Cox needs to think about his entire life before he plays,” explains his longtime drummer played by SNLer Tim Meadows, and the movie takes off, amplifying and poking fun at all the usual clichés of the genre.
Walk Hard is ridiculous, but ridiculously funny. Like This is Spinal Tap it takes elements from rock ‘n’ roll legend and twists them until they become almost unrecognizable. Screenwriters Judd Apatow and Jake Kasdan looked to Brian Wilson for the drug addled “musical masterpiece” scenes, while the child-bride story is lifted whole from Jerry Lee Lewis’ life and they’ve even thrown bits and pieces of Jim Morrison, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan and Elvis. It’s a musical gumbo that equals the life and unruly times of Dewey Cox.
No matter how silly the movie gets—and it gets very silly—John C. Reilly, who’s built like Johnny Cash, but sounds like Roy Orbison, for the most part plays it straight. His earnest take on Dewey is hilarious, particularly when the 42-year-old actor is playing the 14-year-old Dewey. Look for fun supporting work from White Stripes singer Jack White as Elvis, Harold Ramis as the record company head and Paul Rudd, Jack Black, Justin Long and Jason Schwartzman as John, Paul, George and Ringo and cameos from Lyle Lovett, Jewel, Ghostface Killah and Jackson Browne.
Unlike Ray and Walk the Line Walk Hard doesn’t have a back catalogue of tried and true hits to fill out the soundtrack. Not to worry. Apatow and company have done a great job of coming up with convincing and catchy “hits” for Dewey to sing. The original songs from the title track to Dewey’s others chart toppers, like Hey Mr. Old Guy and Guilty As Charged were written by pedigreed songwriters like Marshall Crenshaw and even Brian Wilson’s Smile (which is parodied in the film) co-writer Van Dyke Parks.
Musical biopics were ripe for parody and like other movie spoofs—Scary Movie and Airplane! come to mind—Walk Hard does a good R-rated job at taking the Mickey out of the genre.
It is likely that director Roman Polanski will not be buying a condo near you any time soon. Not only because he would be arrested if he set foot on North American soil—he’s a fugitive from American justice—but because he clearly sees the confined spaces of apartment life as stifling, claustrophobic and toxic. In movie after movie—“The Tenant,” “Repulsion,” “Rosemary’s Baby” and now “Carnage”—these closed in spaces are scenes of tension and strife.
Based on Yazmina Reza’s play “God of Carnage” the film has a simple premise. Nancy and Alan Cowan (Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz) pay a visit to the Brooklyn apartment of Penelope and Michael Longstreet (Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly) to discuss an altercation between their children in a nearby park. At first, at last superficially, all seems to go well, despite Alan’s insistence on having loud cell phone conversations and Penelope’s passive aggressive tirades. Soon, however, civility gives way to anarchy.
“Carnage” is a comedy of manners—bad manners. The humor—and there are many laughs—however, come from the situations and not jokes with punch lines.
Polanski deliberately keeps the style of the film simple and focuses on the performances and the dialogue. It’s all about the words—and one unexpected but spectacular puke scene—and not one syllable is out of place. Only Polanski, with the aid of two great actors—Waltz and O’Reilly—could make a conversation about toilet flush mechanisms so menacing and so funny.
It’s a sharply written war of words performed by actors who are clearly relishing the chance to get under the skins of their characters and each other. Nancy, Penelope and Michael are all as thinned skinned as the cheap veneer on Michael’s bookshelf. Only Alan, the cutthroat lawyer, seems to understand and appreciate the dynamic in play.
As the undercurrent of tension in the early scenes gives way to the overt hostility of the climax you can see the actors stretching their muscles.
Although her character is tightly wound Jody Foster has rarely been this loose on screen. It’s a highly theatrical performance, complete with bulging forehead veins and furrowed brows, which expertly reveals not only the character’s political correctness, but also her self pity and ultimately her self loathing. When she says, “There’s no reason to lose our cool here,” you know she doesn’t really mean it.
Waltz finds his best role since “Inglourious Basterds” and Winslet is gloriously unhinged. Only O’Reilly seems slightly out of place. He’s fine in the early scenes as the big friendly lug trying to avoid confrontation, but less effective later on when his true colors are revealed.
“Carnage” pokes fun at the middle class, constantly shifting the power from couple to couple, gender to gender, class to class and person to person. It’s a microcosm of society, a fluid dynamic that, despite an abrupt ending that may leave some scratching their heads, is a fascinating look at what lies underneath the carefully manicured facades many of us present to the public.
For those who thought last year’s “WALL-E” was the last word in animated post apocalyptic entertainment along comes a dark fable about a war ravaged world populated by brave burlap dolls (numbered 1 through 9) and terrifying machines. Call it Sock Puppets Save the World if you like, but despite the kid-friendly lead characters, “9” isn’t as cute and cuddly as “WALL-E.”
Set ten years after the war to end all wars actually ended everything, “9” really picks up when the title character mistakenly awakens a terrifying machine with the ability to create other machines of destruction. As 9 and the other dolls fight the evil machines they discover the very essence of their existence; that they were created by a scientist who knew the end of life as he knew it was near. Rather than see all life disappear he created these limited edition rag dolls, each with a special skill, to continue life.
The basic idea behind “9” is something we’ve seen before—technology goes wild and machines turn on humans—but what makes this film unique is, bless their little burlap hearts, the rag dolls. Each has a well defined personality and while the voice work isn’t terribly strong—save for Christopher Plummer as 1, the king doll—they all bring something interesting to the story.
Jennifer Connolly voices 7, a kind of ninja beanie baby character. She’s a strong female presence in a genre that often lacks interesting roles for women. Other voices in this eclectic cast include Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover and Martin Landau.
“9” isn’t so much a story as it is a series of action set pieces bound together by ideas. The narrative is simple—man has been destroyed and now these little saviors must defeat the big bad machines or they too will be crushed—and little effort is spent developing the story past a certain point. Lots of effort, however, has been put into creating the elaborate action scenes that make up the bulk of the film.
The wild scenes—mainly of demonic looking machines trying to kill the little dolls—may be too intense for young kids. Ten and eleven year olds should be fine with the imagery—human skulls attached to winged metal skeletons and the like—but anyone younger than that might have trouble sleeping after these frenetic, violent sequences.
Of course, there is an environmental message attached to the story; this is, after all a movie aimed at the young. It’s not heavy handed, but lines like “This world is ours now… it’s what we make of it” subtly push kids to think about their surroundings.
“9” is cool sci fi for kids with imaginative characters and lots of action that doesn’t talk down to its audience.
As anyone who watched Yogi Bear or Winnie the Pooh knows, a good chunk of a bear’s life is spent searching for food. A new Disneynature documentary, “Bears,” has an up-close-and-personal look at how real bears hunt for food in the wild, far away from Yogi’s pic-a-nics and Winnie’s honey pots. 
