Around this time of year bunnies usually visit kids with baskets of jellybeans and chocolate. This March, however, a baby rabbit named Judy “Don’t call me cute!” Hopps bounces into theatres bringing with her a message of tolerance. The new Disney film “Zootopia” is social commentary disguised as a furry and funny cartoon.
Growing up on a carrot farm Judy (Ginnifer Goodwin) has dreamed of being a police officer in the city of Zootopia, despite the fact, as her father (Don Lake) constantly reminds her, “There’s never been a bunny cop.” In fact, her parents preach the virtues of complacency and want her to go into the family business and become a carrot farmer. “It’s OK to have dreams,” says dad, “just as long as you don’t believe in them too much.”
The call to service to too strong, however, and she soon graduates for the Police Academy at the top of her class. Despite her small size (Message #1: Never give up on your dreams.) she’s sent to Zootopia’s city center, a cosmopolitan place filled with hustle and bustle and animals of all shapes and sizes. “In Zootopia,” she says, “anyone can be anything.”
She’s a keener who introduces herself with, “Ready to make the world a better place?” only to be assigned to parking enforcement duty. True to form she becomes the city’s best ticketer (Message #2: Be The Best Version Of You!) but is unsatisfied by the work. When a missing otter case falls into her lap she starts her investigation by questioning a con artist named Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), a sly fox with a smart mouth and underworld connections. Together (Message #3: We all do better when we work together.) they learn to look past sly fox/dumb bunny stereotypes (Message #4: Er… look past stereotypes and don’t judge others.) and uncover a plot that threatens Zootopia’s basic precept of celebrating one another’s differences. (Message #5: There is beauty and strength in diversity.)
There are more messages in “Zootopia” than in Hillary Clinton’s private server’s spam folder but the film doesn’t feel like a Successories motivational poster come to life. The life lessons are nicely woven into the story and washed down with a spoonful of humour. Kids and parents alike should find Flash, the fastest sloth at the DMV funny, although for very different reasons, while a “Godfather” take-off will likely mean nothing to children but give older folks a chuckle.
Co-directors Byron Howard, Rich Moore and Jared Bush pack every inch of the frame with in-jokes, like a billboard for Zuber car services, the carrot logo on a smart phone, or my favourite, the sloth’s mug that reads “You want it when?” If the messages don’t connect the animation will.
“Zootopia” is more than just another cartoon to entertain the eye. It’s a timely and relevant children’s tale with a social agenda.
“Black Or White” gives Kevin Costner several of his best on-screen moments in years. The opening scene, the aftermath of a car accident, is hardcore, touching and real and a late movie courtroom showdown is powerful stuff but memories of those great sequences are tainted by a weak ending that saps much of the movie’s power.
Costner is Elliot, a recent widower and caretaker of his granddaughter Eloise (Jillian Estell). His daughter, Eloise’s mom, died in childbirth and the father (André Holland) is not in the picture. Elliot is grief stricken and frequently drunk so the girl’s paternal grandmother, Rowena (Octavia Spencer), tries to get custody with the help of her brother, lawyer Jeremiah (Anthony Mackie). The ensuing custody battle raises questions of loyalty, race, compassion and good intentions.
Director and writer Mike Binder swings for the fences here but instead forfeits the game. His script tackles issues of race and of privilege but shrouds them in a cloak of melodrama. Race becomes a major issue during the custody trial but the film doesn’t add anything to the discourse. Instead it plays the drama broad, taking a safe route (THERE WILL BE NO SPOILERS HERE) that leaves issues hanging, reducing everything to black or white with little nuance.
Costner, however, hasn’t been this good in years. He’s a believable drunk with the look of a man who has weathered tragedy but hasn’t given up. A bent-but-not-broken spirit oozes off him and a stronger script might have placed his name on more than a few Best Actor lists.
The other end of the spectrum is Octavia Spencer. The Academy Award winner is a feisty presence, bringing fire and empathy to her scenes.
The supporting cast, including Mackie, Holland and Estell all do good work as well, bringing both drama and humour to a story that needs both to be effective. It’s a shame that an ending that feels pat and sentimental undermines all this good work.
He was called many things. The Godfather of Soul, Soul Brother No. 1, Mr. Dynamite, and The Hardest Working Man in Show Business but he preferred to be called Mr. Brown.
James Brown is probably best remembered as the hit maker behind “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine” and “I Feel Good”; a larger-than-life, cape-wearing showman who made funk a household word over a career than spanned six decades.
A new film, “Get on Up,” aims to fill in the blanks, detailing Brown’s rise from poverty to the top of the R&B charts.
Chadwick Boseman, who, after earning accolades for his performance as Jackie Robinson in”42,” seems to be making a career of playing 20th century legends on screen, plays Brown from age 16 to 60.
In non-linear, cut and paste style, the film tells of an abusive South Carolina upbringing at the hands of his sharecropper father (Lennie James) and a mother (Viola Davis) who abandoned the family early on to career highlights like the incendiary T.A.M.I. Show performance where he upstaged the Rolling Stones, (whose singer Mick Jagger produced this movie). It covers his close friendship with singer-songwriter Bobby Byrd (Nelsan Ellis), a brush with death on a USO show and a young James pulling two-tone loafers off a lynched man.
“Get on Up” is the second musical biopic of the summer but the first one to vibrate with energy, spirit and soul. Where “Jersey Boys” felt staid and straightforward, “Get On Up” is as loose-limbed and funky as one of Brown’s groove-heavy singles.
Some may find the non-linear time jumping scenes that bookend the film arrhythmic, but the randomness of those sequences—it jumps, willy nilly from the 1940s to Brown’s 1970s heyday to a wild scene that lead to his 1988 arrest—breaks the standard rags-to-riches-to-arrests biopic formula. Director Tate “The Help” Taylor takes an impressionistic view of Brown’s life, integrating some magic realism and fourth wall breaking dialogue direct to camera in a bold approach to a very mainstream genre.
Stylistic flourishes aside, there are the usual biographical “one day everyone will know your name” show biz clichés, but the movie is smart enough not to rely on those elements to tell the story. Instead Tate relies on an extraordinarily charismatic performance—one guesses it’s a liberal mix of fact and fiction, life and legend—from Boseman to illuminate Brown’s angels and demons.
He’s called a musical genius more than once, and given his legacy it’s hard not to agree, but some of the more unsavory parts of Brown’s life are glossed over. The drug use and domestic abuse that checkered his life (and arrest record) are touched on but not explored with the same interest as the upward trajectory of Brown’s musical career.
Like the expert backing bands that supported Brown throughout his career, here the character is supported by very good actors. As life-long friend Bobby Byrd, Nelsan Ellis shows he has more range than simply playing Lafayette Reynolds on “True Blood” every week and Dan Aykroyd has fun with the role of Brown’s manager. It’s a shame that good performances from Craig Robinson, as sax legend Maceo Parker, and Viola Davis as Brown’s mother, are limited to extended cameos.
“Get On Up” is one big chunk of funk with a gold standard performance from Boseman and music that will make you want to… er… get on up.
With the name Trayvon Martin on everyone’s lips, along comes a movie that may be the timeliest film of the year. “Fruitvale Station,” winner of the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award for U.S. dramatic film at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, tells the true story of Oscar Grant III (“Friday Night Light’s” star Michael B. Jordan), a 22-year-old who was shot in cold blood at in Oakland, California’s Fruitvale subway stop on New Year’s Day, 2009.
The movie begins, film noir like, with the death of the main character. Except it’s not a character, it is grainy cell phone footage of the real Grant being shot to death. It’s a jarring way to begin the film, particularly given the events that follow.
Grant woke up on December 31, 2008 filled with a sense of purpose.
The ex-convict saw the New Year as a new start, a chance to be a better person to the three women in his life, mother (Oscar winner Octavia Spencer), girlfriend Sophina (Melonie Diaz) and four year-old daughter Tatiana (Ariana Neal).
The movie counts down his final hours and attempts to affect change in his life, culminating with a tragic showdown with BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit Police Department) officers after midnight on the first day of the year.
“Fruitvale Station” is a quiet movie, one that builds in intensity through a series of scenes detailing how being a better man is harder than Oscar thought it would be. “I thought I could start over fresh,” he says, “but it ain’t working out.”
Despite the film’s gritty style—hand held cameras, down and dirty language—the character of Oscar is portrayed in a positive light. He’s a flawed man trying to reform himself, and if the movie has a failing it’s in its treatment of the lead character.
Finely portrayed by Michael B. Jordan, Oscar is the key to the film’s success or failure, but it occasionally feels that director Ryan Coogler doesn’t trust the story or the character to win over the audience. He over compensates, manipulating situations for maximum emotional effect. A scene in which Tatiana tells her dad she doesn’t want him to go out that night, that’s she’s scared he’ll get shot, for instance, feels heavy handed and unnecessary.
Having said that, it’s important to remember that “Fruitvale Station” isn’t a documentary. Coogler has shaped the movie for maximum heartrending effect, and by the time the devastating last half hour plays out it’s hard to imagine any other movie this year packing such a emotional wallop.
