For better and for worse, “A Good Person,” the new drama, written and directed by Zach Braff, starring Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman, and now playing in theatres, is a portrait of the messiness of addiction.
Pharmaceutical rep—and part time jazz singer—Allison’s (Pugh) happy, carefree life falls apart when the car she is driving veers off the road, leaving two relatives dead, her future sister-in-law Molly (Nichelle Hines), and Molly’s husband Jesse (Toby Onwumere). Allison survives, but to combat residual pain, is prescribed OxyContin painkillers.
Now, a year later, consumed with guilt, she is unemployed, living at home with her mother Diane (Molly Shannon), estranged from fiancé Nathan (Chinaza Uche) and addicted to the opioids.
Allison’s life shifts when she bumps into Daniel (Morgan), the father of her ex-fiancé and Molly, who perished in the crash, at an AA meeting. The stern, ex-cop—who leans into pronouncements like, “Better to be half-an-hour early, than one minute late.”—blames Allison for the accident, but attempts to find common ground with her and possibly chart a course through their shared grief.
“Neither of us chose this fate,” he says, “but perhaps we can find a way to love it.”
“A Good Person” features fine performances from Pugh and Freeman, but, despite its heavy subject matter, defaults to a feel-good vibe in scene after scene.
Pugh, even with her movie star glow, convinces as a person drained of the will to live and Morgan’s mix of grandpa and Dirty Harry is entertaining and occasionally moving, but they are undone by a script laced with platitudes. Written by Braff, the story brushes up against the edges of the emotionality required to give us all the feels, but every time it begins to feel authentic, it takes a turn to the artificial. Braff never met a manipulative moment he couldn’t exploit, and it blunts the effectiveness of the storytelling.
“A Good Person’s” set-up suggests a deep dive into survivor’s guilt, addiction and, ultimately, forgiveness, but the lack of jagged edges and grit feels more Hallmark than harrowing.
The fourth and final instalment of the “Hotel Transylvania” franchise, which began in 2012, comes to Amazon Prime minus Adam Sandler, but with the addition of some monstrously heartwarming messages for kids.
When the animated action begins, Count Dracula (once voiced by Sandler, now played by Brian Hull) is on the brink of retirement. His daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) and her husband Johnny (Andy Samberg) are poised to inherit the hotel, but Johnny senses that Dracula doesn’t want him, a human, running things. Professor Abraham Van Helsing (Jim Gaffigan) and his Monsterfication Ray offers an answer. It turns Johnny into a winged monster, but when things go sideways, the ray also transforms Dracula and his monster friends into humans. “Being a human is the worst,” Drac complains of the movie’s “Freaky Friday” twist.
“You don’t recognize me?” asks Griffin (David Spade), the invisible man, after his human reveal.
“I have literally never seen you before,” says Mavis.
Mavis, Johnny and the Drac Pack head to a place deep in the Amazon, the only place where the transformations can be reversed, in search of a cure for their situation. “If we don’t fix you guys soon,” says Mavis. “You’ll be like this forever.”
Like the other, big screen entries in the “Hotel Transylvania” series this movie is loud and frenetic. The goofy, colorful action feels like it could be from almost any other animated movie but the characters and the fun voice work (from actors like Steve Buscemi, Kathryn Hahn, Jim Gaffigan, Molly Shannon, Keegan-Michael Key and Fran Drescher) cut through the noise.
They are all unusual characters, but they’ve found their community. They accept one another, like family does. “Transformania” highlights the family feel by allowing the Drac Pack and Johnny, characters we’ve been watching for three other films, to learn what it is like to see the world through one another’s eyes. It’s a lesson in tolerance and acceptance that feels earned, no matter how outlandish the story may be.
The life lessons are wedged between a monster mash of laughs and action, some of which parents may find headache inducing, but, like Dracula, kids should be able to sink their teeth into it.
The Invisible Man, Frankenstein, the Mummy and let’s not forget Dracula all make appearances in “Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation” but the new, animated Adam Sandler movie isn’t about the monsters, it’s about the importance of kindness and family.
At the beginning of the film Dracula (voice of Sandler) is feeling down, stressed out from the pressure of running his luxury hotel. On top of that, seems even the Prince of Darkness has trouble meeting women. He’s forlorn, hasn’t had a date in 100 years and his voice-activated dating app is no help. “I’m lonely,” he says. “You want bologna?” it replies.
Noticing her dad is depressed daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) arranges for a special treat; some time away with family and friends. “I figured you need a vacation from running everyone else’s vacations,” she says. She books passage on the monster cruise of a lifetime, a journey into the heart of the Bermuda Triangle.
Once onboard Drac immediately falls for Captain Ericka (Kathryn Hahn). The heart knows what it wants, even if it is a cold, un-beating heart. They hit it off, but it turns out Ericka might have an ulterior motive for returning Drac’s advances.
“Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation” is filled with the easy sentimentality that mars Sandler’s live action films. Good messages about acceptance—“We’re here, we’re hairy and it’s our right to be scary!”—tradition and finding your own way in the world—“ You have to honour the past but we have to make our own future,” says Drac.—are hammered home like a stake through the heart.
Surrounding the family friendly clichés are an untraditional cast of cute monsters and that’s the movie’s strength. The fun of “Hotel Transylvania 3” is in the details not the story. The kid friendly creepy crawlies, deadpan fish cruise ship staff, Grandpa Dracula’s (Mel Brooks) skimpy withered green body and Captain Ericka’s underwater craft that looks like it just floated in from “Yellow Submarine” are all a hoot. Come for the creatures, stay for the silly fun.
“Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation” doesn’t add up to much story-wise—music and dance numbers, though inventively staged, pad out the running time to feature length—but the messages of tolerance and kindness are important themes in today’s increasingly serious world. “Gotta be great-a than the hatas,” says one monster. That’s advice you can take to the (blood) bank.
“We don’t have time for zingers!” says Count Dracula (Adam Sandler) midway through “Hotel Transylvania 2.” No time for zingers, indeed. The sequel to the 2012 kid friendly animated horror comedy is short on laughs but long on sentiment.
Like all of Sandler’s movies—no matter how outrageous the characters—the new one is all about family. It picks up after Drac’s daughter, vampiress Mavis (voice of Selena Gomez) married human Jonathan (Andy Samberg). In a twist on “Twilight,” the vampire mother and human father soon have a child, Dennis (Asher Blinkoff). The question is, which side of the family will it take after, the monster or human?
“Human. Monster. Unicorn. As long as you’re happy,” Drac says to his daughter, while secretly hoping the child will inherit the vampire genes. On the eve of the child’s fifth birthday the boy still hasn’t shoed any signs of vampiric behaviour—“He’s not human,” says the Prince of Darkness, “he’s just a late fanger!”—so Drac and friends—Frankenstein (Kevin James), Wayne the Werewolf (Steve Buscemi), the Invisible Man (David Spade) and Murray the Mummy (Keegan-Michael Key)—take Dennis to their old haunts to teach him their scary skills.
“Hotel Transylvania 2” features great kid friendly monsters designs (that will make equally cool toys) like zombie bellhops and Blobby, a gelatine creature that looks like Grandma’s Gazpacho Aspic come to life but the creativity that went into the creatures didn’t extend to the script.
It’s a sweet enough, amiable story about acceptance and family, but the jokes barely rise to the level of the “101 Halloween Jokes for Kids” book I had when I was ten-years-old. If calling Murray the Mummy “talking toilet paper” makes you giggle, then perhaps this is for you, but by the time they have explained why Drac is called “Vampa” for the second time, you get the idea that Sandler and co-writer Robert Smigel know they should have driven a stake through the heart of this script.
The appearance of Mel Brooks as Great Vampa Vlad simply brings to mind “Young Frankenstein,” one of the funniest horror comedies of all time.
The biggest laughs come from the background, the sight gags that keep things visually frenetic in the first hour.
“Hotel Transylvania 2’s” family friendly scares won’t give kids any nightmares, but it won’t make them laugh either.
With a title like “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” you know the new movie starring Thomas Mann, RJ Cyler and Olivia Cooke, is likely to be sad. It is sad to be sure but it’s never maudlin or melodramatic and that sets it apart from most other teenage coming-of-age tragedies.
Mann plays Greg, a self-described “terminally awkward” high school senior “with a face like a groundhog.” His main goal is to get through the remainder of his last year in high school without hideously embarrassing himself. Flying under the radar at school means he has few friends and the one he has, Earl (Cyler), he describes as “a business associate.” When classmate Rachel (Cooke) is diagnosed with leukemia Greg’s mom (Connie Britton) insists he reach out to her and he begins a relationship different than any he’s had before.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking Greg and Rachel fall in love and he helps her through her illness but you’re off base. That’s what would happen in most other young adult stories. “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” takes pains to remind the audience that this isn’t a “sappy love story.” Instead it is a richly painted portrait of a connection between two people that transcends puppy love or a teenage crush.
Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon embraces the YA form—there are chapter titles like The Part Where I Panic Out of Sheer Awkwardness, strange cinematography and quirky characters—but never fails to elevate the story past melodrama to melancholy, from humorous to honest. It’s a tricky balancing act, aided by terrific performances from his young cast.
“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” is whimsical, funny and heartbreaking often in the same scene. It’s a charmer of a film that sets the bar pretty high for future young adult coming of age stories.
A few years ago the rom com was almost dead, gasping for air as formulaic stories stock characters squeezed whatever romance or comedy was left in the creaking old bones of the genre.
“Life After Beth,” a zombie rom com, aims to breath some life back into the dead-on-arrival category that gave us “Because I Said So” and “Fool’s Gold.”
“Parks and Rec” star Aubrey Plaza is Beth, a teenager who passes away in the film’s opening minutes. Her passing devastates her parents (Molly Shannon, Michael C. Reilly) and boyfriend Zack (Dane DeHaan) but the mourning is short lived when Beth comes back from the dead with the idea to resume her “life.” She has no idea she’s shuffled off this mortal coil, but the new life she has with mom, dad and Zack soon starts to disintegrate. Literally.
“Life After Beth” offers up something a different and a little scary. Beth’s return from the dead works quite brilliantly as a metaphor on the strong feelings that typify teenage love. A beak up can feel like a death, or perhaps the person you’re with turns into a monster. Either way, there’s more subtext here than in all of Katherine Heigl’s movies put together.
But subtext isn’t very romantic or funny, but “Life After Beth” is both. The relationship between Zack and Beth is quite sweet and the situation is absurd, which leads to comedy, but never so absurd that the underlying emotion gets lost.
Plaza plays both sides of Beth, the sweet young girl she once was and the monster she’s turning into. It’s her performance that saves the movie from being a “Fido” or “Shawn of the Dead” clone.
