Dell's Good, Bad & Ugly Movie Reviews

[dell71]

Despicable Me 2
Directed by Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud.
2013. Rated PG, 98 minutes.
Cast:
Steve Carell
Kristen Wiig
Benjamin Bratt
Miranda Cosgrove
Russell Brand
Ken Jeong
Steve Coogan
Elsie Fisher
Dana Gaier

Our lovable bad guy Gru (Carell) has gone straight. With the help of Dr. Nefario (Brand) and the Minions, he's now a jam manufacturer. Of course, he's also a doting father to the three girls he adopted in the first movie. Soon, Lucy (Wiig) from the Anti-Villain League comes calling. They want his help catching the latest super-villain on the loose. Whoever it is has a serum that turns any living creature into an uncontrollable raging beastly version of themselves. At first, Gru turns them down. However, business isn't going so well and Dr. Nefario quits due to sheer boredom. Gru takes the job.

With Gru's relationship with the girls now firmly established, he spends more time on regular daddy stuff. This includes trying to ward off any boys that dare come near. That means a good chunk of his focus is on oldest daughter Margo (Cosgrove) and the boy she makes googly eyes with. Watching our hero try to get between them and/or keep them from anywhere near each other is where most of Gru's humor comes from. Most of the movie's heavy lifting in the comedy department comes from the Minions. They disappear for stretches at a time, but when they return they give us a few giggles and move along.

Overall, the movie is pretty typical stuff. It's not as fresh, therefore, not as endearing as its predecessor. This is much more of a sitcom plot mixed with a film about a bumbling spy (Gru). There are a number of potential villains on the loose. Most were a little off-putting, at least for me. They tend to be molded from the same stereotypes skewered by Kick-Ass 2, which I watched very recently. This detracted a bit from the fun. The kids watching may not notice this. Still, it's a bit troubling. It doesn't help that these are all one note characters, not as well-rounded as similar ones in Turbo. All that said, it's still a decent watch, particularly funny when the Minions let loose.

MY SCORE: 6/10

[dell71]

Drinking Buddies
Directed by Joe Swanberg.
2013. Rated R, 90 minutes.
Cast:
Olivia Wilde
Jake Johnson
Anna Kendrick
Ron Livingston
Jason Sudeikis
Ti West

Kate (Wilde) and Luke (Johnson) work at the local brewery. After a long, but usually fun day at work, they tend to head down to the nearest bar with a number of their other co-workers and drink lots of their own product. It is painfully obvious the two have a thing for each other. The issue here is two-fold: 1) Each is involved in a serious relationship with someone else, and 2) Neither of them will own up to how they feel about the other. Instead, they flirt endlessly. They do it that way people do when they have a really strong connection. Of course, they think it is mere friendship. So Kate thinks it's no big deal to invite Luke and his girlfriend Jill (Kendrick) up to her boyfriend Chris' (Livingston) beach house for the weekend. They accept. Life rolls on from there.

When I say 'life rolls on,' that's probably the best compliment I can give this movie. It's a true slice-of-life flick in every sense of the term. There really is no plot. Everything about our leads are just the facts of who they are, not set ups for some grand character arc. Finally, Drinking Buddies doesn't end so much as it just stops. When it does, I wouldn't blame anyone who throws their arms up and says "WTF!" when the final credits roll. I suspect that's what's behind the disparity between how critics view this movie and how normal folks see it. Critics have praised it while audiences are rather lukewarm toward it. The things it doesn't have are the things we've been trained to expect from our films. Without those things we're left with a feeling of uncertainty about what we just watched. A movie lacking a definitive beginning, middle, and end might not immediately make sense to us.

Enjoying DB requires a willingness to take it on its own terms and, perhaps, actually thinking about it afterwards. That's because we may have to sort some things out. It does what I often knock other movies for not doing. It shows, not tells. Counter intuitive to that sentiment, this movie is much more noun than verb. It is something that is, not something that does. We're used to our visual media "doing" for us. It sticks around until the bad guy is caught and the hero gets the girl. Little to no effort is required of us. Therefore, most of us don't have the energy for a movie with a figurative test at the end. I like this movie. That's not to say I'm smarter than people who don't. I'm just more willing to put in the work necessary to appreciate it.

I feel like I've rambled quite a bit without saying much about the actual film. There really are reasons to enjoy it as it goes along. Right away, it positions itself as a dramedy. It makes us laugh, but that's not necessarily it's aim. It's more about exploring the relationship between Kate and Luke. Whatever drama or humor that comes out of this is organic to the human experience, not gags or overly contrived melodrama. To their credit, our stars are an immense help in this area. Both Olivia Wilde and Jake Johnson deliver completely natural performances. Wilde is particularly good. Her best acting is done by her eyes during pauses in dialogue. When she speaks, she feels like a woman we might know. The same is true for Johnson. Well, he sounds like a man we might know, not a woman. You understand. Through the two of them, we sense these are people who are aware of their feelings, but struggling mightily not to act upon them. Immediately, we start wondering "will they," or "won't they." This uncertainty drives the movie. Our curiosity happily rides along on this train. I like where it drops us off. I'm not sure you will.

MY SCORE: 7.5/10

[dell71]

The Purge
Directed by James DeMonaco.
2013. Rated R, 85 minutes.
Cast:
Ethan Hawke
Lena Headey
Rhys Wakefield
Adelaide Kane
Max Burkholder
Edwin Hodge
Tony Oller
Arija Bareikis
Dana Bunch
Chris Mulkey
Tisha French

James Sandin (Hawke) and his family are getting ready to completely lock down their home as they do every year during the annual Purge. The Purge is the one night of the year where everything is legal. Whatever crime you want to commit, up to and including murder, is fair game. The idea behind it is that being allowed to do what you want for this night will purge the evil from our systems. It seems to have been effective. Excluding Purge Night, crime and unemployment are almost non-existent and the economy is in phenomenal shape. The Sandins don't participate, though. They barricade themselves in their home using the same expensive security system that James has made a very nice living selling.

Of course, if the Sandins just shut their doors to the world raging outside and the night passed without a hitch, we wouldn't have a movie. Still, Mary (Headey) stands by with passive look on her face while her husband brings the barricades down. Their daughter Zoey (Kane) stomps off to her room because that's what teenage girls do. Meanwhile, their son Charlie (Burkholder), equipped with some techno gadgetry of his own and a bleeding heart, pays close attention to the security cameras. When Zoey gets back to her room she finds her boyfriend there. Yup, dad doesn't like him. He snuck in before the lock down, or never left, since he was there earlier in the day. Minor detail. Point is he is not supposed to be there. However, that's a small issue compared with what Charlie does. While watching those cameras he notices a random black man staggering and screaming for help in the middle of the street. Why yes, he opens up the house and lets the guy in. Obviously, this man being a stranger in the Sandins home on the most dangerous night possible is a problem, but there is even bigger trouble following him. A group of well-to-do white twenty-somethings were trying to purge by killing our random black man when he got away. Having figured out that he's hiding in the Sandin house, they go knocking on the once again barricaded door. Their demand? Send him out so that we may finish killing him or we will find a way in and kill all of you! The problem? It's a pretty big house and the Sandins can't find the guy.

The Purge is a highly political movie masked as a home invasion thriller. It's pretty clear, to me at least, which characters represent Republicans and which are Democrats. The actions taken by them, particularly the ones seeming to be Republicans, are exaggerated versions of what their present ideologies imply. After all, we're told several times the Purge has become an annual massacre of the homeless, the poor, and anyone else the haves deem to be an unproductive member of society. This amplifies the importance of the homeless guy being black. With both of those things perceived to be working against him, he seems a prime candidate to be purged. If you happen to be a conservative don't take offense. I'm just noting how those views sound to people who don't share them.

Like most movies that position themselves as social allegories, The Purge not only tries to give us its point of view, but to provoke questions as well. One of the questions that immediately springs to mind is could an annual purge work? No matter which side of the political ledger you fall, I think you'd agree the correct answer is 'not a chance in hell.' It might be tantalizing to think that it could. Your initial feeling may be 'if we just had that one night to get all the anger and hatred out of our system we would be happy and content, or at least able to restrain ourselves for a year.' However, if you've ever met a human being you quickly realize this is some cockamamie bullshit. Still, it makes for an interesting film premise. Just don't take it literally.

Speaking of the film, let's actually get back go it. Sorry for my rambling. Then again, that rambling is a symptom of the problem with the movie. The thoughts and conversations stemming from its ideas are better than our experience watching it, by a longshot. I don't think it's a bad movie, just an okay one. Ethan Hawke does a very nice job as our dad-turned-action-hero, desperately trying to protect his family. Our first group of bad guys are a purposely faceless and freakish bunch. The second group of baddies aren't quite faceless. For one, they don't wear masks. Unfortunately, their part of the story is telegraphed way too early. The tension created by this whole situation is not as unbearable as it should be, either. Finally, by the end, it just becomes too blatant in its message and reveals itself to be too small for its premise. Watching this family defend themselves is nice and all, but a film more worthy of its ideas might have been made by broadening its scope beyond the walls of our wealthy hosts.

MY SCORE: 6/10

[wingsfan77]

I REALLY enjoyed Drinking Buddies, mainly because I have a man crush on Jake Johnson haha. I loved the ending, my girlfriend not so much.

[dell71]

Louder Than a Bomb
Directed by Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel.
2010. Not Rated, 99 minutes.
Cast:
Kevin Coval
Adam Gottlieb
Nate Marshall
Nova Venerable
Lamar Jorden
James Sloan
Charles Smith
Jesus Lark
She'Kira McKnight
Elizabeth Graf

"Louder Than a Bomb," which takes place in Chicago, is the nation's largest high school poetry slam. For the uninitiated, poetry slams are spoken word poetry competitions. Poets are scored on a scale of one to ten on each poem they perform. Here, we focus on students from four of the nearly fifty competing schools in 2008. Most prominently featured are the kids from Steinmetz Academic Academy. They won the previous year despite it being their first year competing. We spend lots of time with Mr. Sloan, one of their coaches, as well as with students Lamar Jorden, Jesus Lark, She'Kira McKnight, and Charles "Big C" Smith. We get a little time with some others on the team, too. These are the kids that go against the grain. Judging books by their covers, you'd be hard pressed to peg these as poetry buffs. They're the most "urban" group, to use a code word. Yet, these are the defending champs. They are also struggling to get it together for this year's slam.

For the other three schools, our focus is limited to one student each. Adam Gottlieb attends Northside College Prep. He's the kid who loves everyone and everyone loves him. He is the ultimate diplomat, giving shout outs to his competition in his own poetry. Nova Venerable goes to Oak Park and resides at the opposite end of the spectrum. I don't mean that people don't like her. That's not the case. I mean that she's tougher to get close to with her guarded personality that stems from her hard childhood. She writes more as a cathartic exercise and with an underlying anger. She might be in the competition, but she's really purging her soul. Nate Marshall is the happy medium between Adam and Nova. He goes to Whitney Young Magnet School and is known as "the grandfather" of their poetry program. He loves teaching others and has fun with his art. However, he does carry with him the memories of growing up in a rough environment.

With the Steinmetz kids, we go through the trials and tribulations of a team trying to prepare without always having everyone on the same page. Their ups and downs make for an intriguing roller coaster ride. With the others, we delve into their backgrounds, getting to know them more intimately. Adam and his family makes us laugh. Nova's might make us cry. True to form, Nate's does a bit of both. The movie works itself into a fun carousel that stops rotating come competition time. That doesn't mean the ride is over at that point. Directors Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel do a wonderful job playing up the natural tension of the competition without it feeling forced. By the way, movie buffs will find this interesting. Jon Siskel is the nephew of none other than the late and now legendary movie critic Gene Siskel.

As for the poetry itself, it's a solid mix of funny, personal, and socially relevant pieces. Like lots of spoken word, the majority of what we hear relies heavily on rhythm, rhyme, and passionate delivery. We get that in spades and enjoy listening to it. For me, there are three pieces that stand head and shoulders above the rest. There is the crowd-pleasing ensemble poem "Counting Graves" from Steinmetz. It's a superior piece of performance art, timely and powerful. The other two are both by Nova. Her first, "Apartment on Austin," details her relationship with an often drunk and needy father. The other, "Cody," is named after her younger brother who has special needs. Both are exceptionally well written poems with strength completely independent of the theatrics of her recitations, which there really are none. They just punch you right in the chest and rip your heart out through the hole.

You may or may not be into poetry like I am. Still, the human stories on display reach out and grab the viewer. We become invested in their fates and root for the tens to go up after they've read. We're disappointed when they don't. However, we learn that what the slam organizers repeat numerous times is true. The point is not the points, the point is the poetry.

MY SCORE: 9/10

[dell71]

The Internship
Directed by Shawn Levy.
2013. Rated PG-13, 119 minutes.
Cast:
Vince Vaughn
Owen Wilson
Rose Byrne
Aasif Mandvi
Max Minghella
Josh Brener
Dylan O'Brien
Tiya Sircar
Tobit Raphael
Jessica Szohr
Rob Riggle

Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson are luxury watch salesmen that work as a team, because salesmen aren't a bunch of heartless cutthroats. It's okay for me to say that, I was in sales for five years. While I'm at it, let's address me going with the actors' real names instead of their characters' monikers. It's something I almost never do. However, let's keep it real. This is the same Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson we always get. 'Nuff said on that front. Turns out, the company they peddle time pieces for has abruptly shut down. A few nights later, Vaughn is job surfing online when he decides to google "google." Bada-boom, bada-bing, he and Wilson are now part of a highly competitive internship program on the campus of the search engine giant. The winning team of interns will earn full-time gigs. Of course, our heroes have no tech experience at all. Wilson doesn't seem able to turn on a computer. Vaughn can surf the web, but is pretty computer illiterate, himself. Of course, they wind up on a team of misfits. A really long commercial ensues.

If you've seen the trailer for The Internship then you know I'm not kidding about this being a commercial. Hell, the trailer is essentially a commercial for the commercial. So how do they flesh things out? We start with a live-action version of Monsters University. No, I'm serious. Same basic plot, same stock characters. Swap out John Goodman and Billy Crystal for Vaughn and Wilson, respectively. Add a few cuss words, a love interest for Wilson, a scene in a strip club, slap the Google logo all over everything, have everyone speak of the company with great reverence, and voila!

You just want to know if it's funny, right? In spots. Vaughn does his usual fast-talker schtick while Wilson does his normal routine. If you find either or both of these guys funny then you'll find things to make you laugh, potentially lots of things. It helps if you're in their general age group. Lots of the jokes center on the generation gap between them and their fellow interns. When the team is given a task, our heroes start trying to talk their way through it, regardless of whether that's a useful thing to do, and make lots of reference to 80s pop culture. One reference, far older than any of those is one I found most interesting. At one point, Wilson breaks into a paraphrased and truncated rendition of the legendary Langston Hughes poem "A Dream Deferred." The kids don't get this or most references and go about actually trying to solve the problem. Rinse. Repeat. The flip side of this is that neither Vaughn or Wilson has any clue about computers nor current pop culture. Sort of. For instance, a big gag involves the guys being sent on a wild good chase to find Professor Charles Xavier. I get that they didn't immediately recognize the name as being leader of the X-Men. I even get that the joke can go on for a moment while they catch up. However, this isn't something you have to be young and hip to know. Even if we ignore the fact that X-Men was one of the country's most popular comic books right when these guys were right in the target audience for such things, and had a Saturday morning cartoon, we still know something impossible to overlook. They have been making X-Men movies for more than a decade and unless I'm mistaken, all of them have taken in hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office. These movies have also shown up all over TV numerous times. Finally, our "old" guys know something far younger in terms of being a pop culture phenomenon, The Hunger Games. To be fair, as full of holes as the logic for this scene is, it is one of their funnier bits.

The rest of the cast is filled out with characters we've all seen before in a number of movies. Remember how much I said this resembles Monsters University? Yeah, same characters here, pretty much. We have the cocky and arrogant bully as our bad guy in the competition. We also have the unforgiving authority figure presiding over the whole thing. Just about everyone else is one form of geek or another. Therefore, the story feels like a by-the-numbers job that fails to add its own twist to the proceedings. It just tries to float by on the charm of the two lead characters. They do an amiable job, but can't really make it anything special. It is occasionally funny, breezes by without causing us to think, and just isn't anywhere near as good as Monsters University at doing essentially the same thing.

MY SCORE: 5/10

[dell71]

Gravity
Directed by Alfonso Cuaron.
2013. Rated PG-13, 91 minutes.
Cast:
Sandra Bullock
George Clooney
Ed Harris
Phaldut Sharma
Amy Warren

In space, no one can hear you scream. Oh wait, that's another movie. Regardless, it's true. Ryan Stone (Bullock) finds this out the hard way. She and Matt Kowalski (Clooney) are among the crew on a Space Shuttle mission to perform some routine maintenance on the Hubble Telescope. It's her first time in the great beyond so she's not feeling particularly well while floating alongside the machine she is working on. Other than that, things are going according to plan until our good friends, the Russians, intervene. Sort of. They actually just shoot down one of their own satellites which is no longer functioning. The problem is that the debris is sent hurtling through space, directly at the two most photogenic astronauts of all time. Oh, and their co-workers. Crash, crash, boom, boom, and Stone is separated from the rest of the crew, uncontrollably spinning into the blackness. Kowalski soon recovers her. Even if you haven't seen the movie, you've seen the trailer, or watched the Oscars, or one of the entertainment news shows, or just heard someone bumping their gums about it, so you can guess what happens next. Stone gets separated again and spends the rest of the movie trying to rectify her situation.

Early on, we hear a few different voices communicating with the astronauts, and see Clooney scooting around on his motorized chair. However, it really is a one woman show. It's a spectacular one, at that. Sandra Bullock turns in what I think is easily her best performance. Her Oscar-winning turn in The Blindside is great, if a bit over the top. I've liked her in a number of other movies and been indifferent to her in a bunch more. Here, she's captivating in a way not many movie performers have ever been, completely alone for long stretches of film. Tom Hanks' work in Cast Away immediately leaps to mind. For most of that movie his only companion is Wilson, a soccer ball on which he drew a face. Here, Clooney's smiling mug gives Bullock slightly more companionship. The rest of the way is all her. Even more impressively, she's not even acting in an organic setting most of the time. She's often in model space vessels and an anti-gravity environment. Mostly, she is suspended on a wire against a green screen. The only people around her are the crew, all off-camera, so she has no one to play off. If you don't think that's tough to do, I've got an exercise for you. Try standing up in a public place and acting out a personally and visibly emotional scene all by yourself for a full minute without breaking character or acknowledging anyone who is around. Don't forget you have to be totally convincing. Go 'head, I'll wait. No? Okay, let's move on.

We have to get back to that green screen I mentioned. You've probably seen one and know how it functions, but just in case not, it's just that - a green screen on which the techno wizards will later add visual effects. The magicians that worked on Gravity were rewarded with Oscar gold in just about every technical category there is, and deservedly so. It truly is a special fx marvel. From the smallest details to the eye-popping action sequences, the fx do their job. They work in service of the telling of a great story without becoming story. There is never a moment we don't believe our heroine is floating helplessly in space. This is a huge part of the movie's creation of tension. That tension drives the film. Even before we get to all the angst filled stuff, the visuals work magic on us. In the earlier, more serene moments, we're allowed to gaze upon Stone's infinite workplace. The views are as spectacular as we imagine. Rarely has a setting been more well established.

Like I said, though, the job of all those fx is to help tell a story. Making sure that what dazzles the eye does the same to the mind is director Alfonso Cuaron. Given the massive amounts of technology on display this may sound odd, but he really does take a minimalist approach. Sure, the entire set was constructed on a PC, but that's merely a fact of where our tale takes place. Aside from this, the camera is trained on Bullock and her exploits nearly for the entirety of the runtime. There are only a few exceptions made for Clooney, mostly right at the beginning. Most similarly themed movies would have tacked on another twenty-plus minutes by cutting away often to people working feverishly to save the protagonist. That doesn't happen here and the movie is better for it. It's tight and concise, keeping the viewer on the edge of his/her seat without ever letting us off the hook. There is nothing to focus on besides this woman and her plight. Directing that singular person may have been as difficult as the portrayal of said person by Bullock. Here's another exercise to demonstrate my point. Try having a willing person act out a scenario in a room all alone with you. Have them follow your directions but not actually interact with you. Instead, they must react to things that aren't actually there, and make sure they're looking directly at wherever it is decided these things will be located and/or coming from. Bottom line is Gravity is a masterful job done by Cuaron worthy of his Best Director win at the Oscars. It's even more worthy of our massive exhalation when the closing credits roll.

MY SCORE: 9/10

[dell71]

This is not a review, just me rambling about...

Movies I Grew Up With


Purple Rain

I had heard of Prince as early as 1979. I was only eight years old. My mother bought a lot of records back then. One of them was Prince's self-titled second album. I don't remember her playing it much except for the opening track, "I Wanna Be Your Lover." It's a song I still love. In '81, I really liked his hit "Controversy." Since much of his material was on the racy side, that was about all I heard of the album of the same name until I got older and bought it for myself. Like much of the world, I really began to get much more acquainted with this musical genius in late '82, through '83 thanks to his two massive hits "1999" and "Little Red Corvette." Even at twelve years old, I had pretty good grasp on what the former was about. I had no clue on the latter, but damn if it didn't sound good. With these songs, and the help of Vanity 6 and The Time, two acts he practically birthed and nursed, he began to take over the world. Then the big news broke. Prince was going to be starring in a movie. Needless to say, I had to be there when it opened. The only question was how.

Actually, the how was simply a matter of convincing Mom to take us. It opened in July of '84 and we were there opening weekend because I was fairly decent at persistently begging. There is one odd thing about this part of the story, though. By this time, Mom decided she wasn't much of a Prince fan. This little fact is the source of a constant rift in our relationship. Okay, I'm just kidding. There is no rift, but definitely a difference of opinion. Anyhoo, she made the blasphemous decision to not see Purple Rain. She took all of us, her, myself, and my three siblings, to one of what was then a new-fangled thing - the gigantic multiplex. Purple Rain was playing in one of the theaters. Back then, at this theater, you didn't just buy a ticket at one centralized booth and walk in. They actually had a huge interior lobby with a separate ticket booth set up for every movie showing in the theater - all 14 of them. The line for PR took up most of the lobby. She stood with me and the brother nearest me in age until we got to the front, paid for two tickets for us and then went and saw something else. To this day, I have no idea what she saw. For reference though, Ghostbusters, Gremlins, The Karate Kid, Revenge of the Nerds, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom were all still playing on the big screen at the time. No matter, I was walking into the Prince movie. I was happy.

The theater was so packed, my brother and I wound up sitting practically on top of the screen. I remember watching much of the movie either with my head cocked to the side or with my head leaned back so far my nose was practically vertical trying to take in the whole screen. That said, what I saw blew my mind. And by the end, I almost shed a tear. Almost.

The quick story synopsis goes as such: a semi-autobiographical movie about Prince. Need more? Okay. Prince actually plays The Kid, the lead everything of The Revolution. They headline at the nightclub First Avenue, but seem to be waning in popularity. Another group that performs there, The Time (yes, the same group as in real life), led by Morris Day (playing himself, sort of), wants the top spot and begins a campaign to get The Kid out. The two rivals are also smitten with Appollonia (also sort of playing herself), the new girl in town who wants to be a star, giving us a love triangle. Honestly, by the time I left the theater that evening I was in love with her, too. Finally, The Kid also has some serious problems at home as his father is abusive toward his mother.

It is a very well done rock-n-roll movie that is lots of fun. Prince dominates on stage. His performance of "Darling Nikki" is one of the meanest moments in movie musical history. Off the stage, he's actually not a bad actor. And he rides a cool motorcycle. It helps that he is basically playing himself, but plenty of people have played themselves poorly. Appollonia is not very good, but she is gorgeous. That definitely earned her a pass from me when I was one of those piles of hormones known as a thirteen year old. Hell, the fact she had a couple of topless scenes and another where she performed on stage in some trashy lingerie elevated her to a goddess in my eyes. Still, the true star of the show is Morris Day closely followed by Jerome Benton. Day is the de facto villain, but with Benton forms a terrific comic duo. I still consistently laugh at their exchanges, many of which can only be described as Abbot and Costello like routines. If you've seen this movie, you'll likely remember their "password" scene. Better yet, even their on-stage antics are funny...and funky.

The movie went on become a huge success. It opened #1 at the box office the last week of July, 1984 and stayed in the top 4 every week through September. It was top 10 every week until mid October. For the entire year, it was the 11th highest grossing movie grossing a cool $68 million domestically back when buying tickets didn't require a loan and a co-signer (or about $156 million today). Besides all this stuff about the story, the actors and whatever other movie stuff you want to talk about, the soundtrack is one of the greatest albums of all time. Period. The two combined helped Prince complete his quest for world domination. Everything that year was Prince. I very shortly had a copy of the album...yes, the actual vinyl record...and I can't tell you how fast I had every word of every song committed to memory. I bought any magazine I came across that had him on the cover, including several that devoted entire issues to him. Oddly, I didn't have a poster of him. My walls were reserved for the multitude of women lucky enough to be named Jet Beauty of the Week.

Over the years, I've returned to the movie often. I'm pretty sure I've seen it more than twenty times. However, I hadn't watched it in a couple years until just recently. Again, it was one of my children who was the catalyst for my re-introduction to a movie. Unlike other such occasions, I watched it alone. I'm not quite ready for my girls to see this movie in its full glory. They've seen parts of it on commercial TV airings, but not the actual R-rated version. I'm pretty 'lax in what I let them watch but I'm a bit more strict than my own mother was with me. At 16, my son pretty much has the keys to the movie car. One day, I heard him singing, badly, "When Doves Cry." I didn't think anything of it, figuring he probably heard it on one of the oldies' radio stations I sometime play when we're all in the car together. The next day he was singing "I Would Die 4 U" and The Time's "Jungle Love." Even though I already knew the answer, I still asked if he had watched "Purple Rain." He got a pretty sizable grin and responded that he had. Several times. Glad he liked it. Later that night, I popped it in the DVD player and traveled back to the year in which we were all trying to figure out what George Orwell had right and what he had wrong. Even Prince opened the show on a philosophical and reflective note...

Dearly Beloved,
We r gathered here 2day 2 get through this thing called life.
Electric word life,
It means '4ever' and that's a mighty long time
But I'm here 2 tell u there's something else
The afterworld
A world of never ending happiness
Where u can always see the sun
Day or night...

Preach brother, preach.

[Maynard]

i cant tell you how many times i saw that movie at the theaters. Prince was like the anti michael jackson in the 80ies. people would make fun of me in school because i had prince drawings on one side of my folders and motley crue on the other. Purple Rain is still one of my favorite albums and movies of all time. Morris Day and Jerome were fantastic, plus i love jungle love and the bird.

[dell71]

i cant tell you how many times i saw that movie at the theaters. Prince was like the anti michael jackson in the 80ies. people would make fun of me in school because i had prince drawings on one side of my folders and motley crue on the other. Purple Rain is still one of my favorite albums and movies of all time. Morris Day and Jerome were fantastic, plus i love jungle love and the bird.

Morris and Jerome rule! Funny, you mention Prince & Motley Crue. Prince has been a gateway artist for me. He fuses lots of musical genres together, including metal. So enjoying his music helped me appreciate Motley Crue, GnR, Metallica, etc. And yeah, Purple Rain is still one of my favorite albums of all time. Just had to mention that again.

[dell71]

The Lone Ranger
Directed by Gore Verbinski.
2013. Rated PG-13, 149 minutes.
Cast:
Johnny Depp
Armie Hammer
William Fichtner
Tom Wilkinson
Ruth Wilson
James Badge Dale
Helena Bonham Carter
Barry Pepper
JD Cullum
Harry Treadaway
Saginaw Grant

Way back when my age was denoted by a single digit, I made sure to watch three television shows that were made before my birth, but still in syndication. One was "The Adventures of Superman," starring George Reeves. The second was "Batman" with the one and only Adam West in the lead. Finally, to complete the daily triple shot of pre-pubescent testosterone, I watched "The Lone Ranger." I knew that Superman was really the mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent and Batman was millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne. The Lone Ranger was different. That masked man was so mysterious I didn't even know his real name. His secret identity really was just that - a secret! How cool! I guess Tonto knew, but he didn't say much. Besides that, our hero had some other cool things going for himself. He rode that beautiful white horse name Silver and wore a hat that matched her coat. He had a long nosed six-shooter and was so accurate with it he could shoot the gun out of a man's hand from any distance without hitting the hand. Then there was that theme song. Dutta dent, dutta dent, dutta dent dent dent dent - dent dent dent dutta dent....I know, I'm not doing it any justice at all. Maybe this will help...

Fast-forward more years than I care to count and The Lone Ranger graces the screen once more. He made it there once in the 80s, but let's pretend that never happened. This time around, we get Armie Hammer taking over the titular role. Okay, not the first person I think of for the part, but not someone who makes me scratch my head, either. The problems start with his role, though not necessarily with him. What I mean is The Lone Ranger is only the third most important element to this whole production. In reality, this is a film all about the director, Gore Verbinski, and the muse he occasionally borrows from Tim Burton, Johnny Depp.

Depp plays our hero's sidekick Tonto. Sort of. It's really some weird amalgamation of Tonto and all of Depp's other face-painted characters. From the Tonto side of the equation, we get all the broken English we can stand, even if it is fairly irregular. From the other side, he brings his now trademark mugging for the camera and often prancing about the set while playing everything for laughs. It gets close to minstrelsy of a Native American hue. It is pretty much the direct opposite of the way the character was portrayed all those moons ago, in a supposedly less enlightened era. Let's keep it real. He was always a walking stereotype. However, no matter how racism or just plain ignorance was explicit in how he was drawn, Tonto was always honorable and prideful. Depp's version may or may not be a pathological liar, is closer to being a court jester than a hero and is at least a little bit insane. I guess if it makes the kids laugh then mission accomplished, right?

This is where Verbinski comes in. He does here what he does with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. He introduces a lot of colorful characters we should get to know better, but don't, and places our heroes in one life-or-death situation after another. As per his usual, he does it all in a manner that's so silly it's bound to get a few laughs, but not nearly enough to make up for all the gags that fall flat. Finally, he delivers what should be a simplistic plot in a convoluted manner. This starts with where we first met Tonto. He is and exhibit in a museum in 1933. As if this were Night at the Museum, he comes to life and relays the whole adventure to a young boy. It adds nothing to the movie except run-time and a different style of makeup for Depp to perform in. This defines the word extraneous.

Verbinski does give us some exciting set pieces. Early on, we get an amazing scene featuring a runaway locomotive. Sure, it ends in ridiculous fashion, but it's a sight to behold. The climactic battle at the end is also fun. There are also some standouts among the supporting cast. In fact, there are two. One is a cross-dressing henchmen with the IQ of a buffalo head nickel played by Harry Treadaway. He's good for easy laughs. The other is played by Helena Bonham Carter, also on loan from Tim Burton. Here, she appears to be something out of Robert Rodriguez's fantasies. She comes complete with an artificial leg that doubles as a rifle.

Unfortunately, the positives aren't nearly as weighty as the negatives. The good things amount to a few empty thrills. Those looking for lighthearted action may be pleased. Even they won't have much to grab onto, however. The rest of the movie is basically a bunch of stupid stuff happening. As far as our hero, The Lone Ranger himself, well, he's not all that heroic. He whines and complains a lot. He also winds up following Tonto a lot. Only at the end does he change gears. That seems as much about giving him the obligatory shining moment than about him actually developing into that. In other words, this could probably have been titled Tonto: the Movie or Pirates of the Wild West. A whole bunch is going on, there are a few laughs mixed in with some big action sequences that will entertain some viewers while the rest of us will think it's a mess.

MY SCORE: 4.5/10

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Admission
Directed by Paul Weitz.
2013. Rated PG-13, 107 minutes.
Cast:
Tina Fey
Paul Rudd
Michael Sheen
Lily Tomlin
Wallace Shawn
Nat Wolff
Gloria Reuben
Travaris Spears
Christopher Evan Welch
Sonya Walger
Leigha Hancock

Portia Nathan (Fey) is an admissions officer at Princeton University. She has had this job for sixteen year. She's also been with her boyfriend Mark (Sheen) for ten years. Her life is wholly predictable, the way she likes it. Things change when she's contacted by John Pressman (Rudd). He is the director of the Quest School, a newly formed school about to have its first graduating class. He asks her to come and speak to them about Princeton. She only agrees because her boss is extremely interested in drumming up enough applications to put them back into the nation's top spot in the category of most applied to school. They have fallen out of first place for the first time in a number of years. Let's pause right here. If this is what they're really worried about at Princeton they're even more out of touch than I thought. Anyhoo, John introduces Portia to the extremely intelligent, but academically challenged Jeremiah (Wolff). Her life is sent spiraling out of control by these events which happen in fairly rapid succession. She also finds herself attracted to John who tells her that Jeremiah might be her son. Finally, Mark leaves Portia for Helen (Walger), the world's foremost authority on Virginia Woolf. Wackiness ensues.

Actually, I should say attempted wackiness ensues. Most of the humor falls completely flat. Tina Fey and Paul Rudd, in my estimation, both function best when they have a lively, possibly insane person to react to. This is how they induce laughter. It's what made Fey so good working with Tracy Morgan, Alec Baldwin, and even Amy Poehler. Rudd is downright brilliant when sharing the screen with Seth Rogen. With just Fey and Rudd together, we have two people playing it straight and waiting for the other to give them something to bring out their own comedic talents. To use a football analogy, it's like two gifted wide-receivers on a team with no quarterback to throw them the ball. Whatever skills they might have are wasted. Occasionally, Rudd tries to step into that role but he is woefully inadequate. It's not that his acting is bad, because it's not. The problem is both he and Fey are too earnest in their portrayals. Remember, that's what they do. Therefore, things meant to be hilarious, such as Rudd delivering a calf or Fey vomiting in front of a frat house come across as misguided, possibly pathetic, and at least a little bit askew, but rarely funny. That's sort of a problem for a comedy. On the other hand, the movie absolutely sizzles during the few short instances Portia's mom Susannah (Tomlin) is on the screen. She has the right kind of energy and plays it just enough over the top for our stars' natural ability to shine through. The movie works similarly whenever Michael Sheen appears, also. Unfortunately, this serves to highlight the shortcomings of our heroes.

With the possibility for laughter greatly diminished, we're forced to adjust mid-stream to watching a drama with a few funny moments. As such, the story is vaguely interesting, but not one with which we're totally enraptured. What's coming is too easily seen to really intrigue us. We know how it's going to work out between our two leads. We also know we're headed for Portia's impassioned plea to Jeremiah into Princeton. To the movie's credit, this is still a very effective scene, played marvelously by Fey. The one curveball in the whole picture is where our heroine ends up. Though it is presented as if she's in a better place than when we started, it doesn't completely feel that way. She seems strangely content with her new-found incompleteness and dependence upon others.

Admission is a film with its heart in the right place. Sadly, it fails on nearly every level in its execution. It tries to strike a comedic tone, but isn't close to being funny enough. The drama isn't dramatic enough to take up the slack. This renders it forgettable. I'm including the people on the screen in that assessment. The only memorable character, Portia's mom and John's adopted son Nelson (Spears), are minor to the production and go long stretches without appearing. The leads are simply giving us more of the same characters they've been playing for much of their careers. The end result of all this is that the movie just drones on and on and on for its entire run time. In other words, its 107 minutes feel like they are multiplying as they slowly pass.

MY SCORE: 4/10

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The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Directed by Francis Lawrence.
2013. Rated PG-13, 146 minutes.
Cast:
Jennifer Lawrence
Josh Hutcherson
Woody Harrelson
Donald Sutherland
Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Elizabeth Banks
Jeffrey Wright
Stanley Tucci
Lenny Kravitz
Liam Hemsworth
Jena Malone

Katniss (Lawrence) and Peeta (Hutcherson) are the darlings of the twelve districts after winning the most recent Hunger Games in rather unconventional fashion. President Snow (Sutherland) is quite pissed about it. After all, it was their suddenly blooming love that forced the games to end in such an unorthodox fashion, leaving him and the Capitol looking a bit foolish. This wouldn't be quite so bad if his instincts didn't tell him, correctly, that their relationship is a fraud. He tells Katniss they better play nice for the cameras for the rest of their lives or heads will most definitely, and literally, roll. Those heads belong to her family and friends, of course. Since even that doesn't squash her defiant personality, and the people have made her a symbol of hope, President Snow changes the rules, putting her and Peeta into the next year's games. Their competition this time is made up of prior winners.

One of the things this movie does better than its predecessor is get to the point. That first flick took forever to actually get to the Hunger Games. I understand that in the first movie of a franchise, the setup typically does take longer than it does in sequels. However, in that first flick, it feels unnecessarily long. Like a dog dragging a broken leg, it limped along slowly while we watched Katniss is wardrobe, practicing, and being a talk show guest. Repeatedly. Thankfully, we spend much less time in talk show mode. Generally speaking, I love watching Stanley Tucci perform. In this series, as the host of said talk show, he's just an annoyance. I understand what is trying to be accomplished with this character. It's just not working for me.

Tucci aside, another plus for Catching Fire is the acting of its supporting cast. This more mature group gives us more interesting characters and better portrayals of them. The two standouts being Jeffrey Wright and Jena Malone. Malone gives us someone we're not sure how to take. Wright does what he normally does and disappears into his character. Another newcomer, the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, is his usual excellent self as the Game Master. Among the returnees, Woody Harrelson and Donald Suther land are again very fun to watch. Surprisingy, so is Elizabeth Banks, once more in full drag-queen regalia.

Unfortunately, once we get to the games, it's the stretches between action where this movie, and the series as a whole, continues to fail. These are the times when Katniss and her allies plot the next move and get to know each other a little better. It should also be the time during which the tension is building until that next burst of excitement releases it. Instead, that tension dissipates as the scenes drag on, trying and failing, to establish emotional bonds between the characters. Part of this is due to Katniss herself. We know she cares about her friends and family. However, she comes across so coldly to everyone else that no one else's plight seems to resonate with her until it becomes an imminent part of her own survival. In other words, if she doesn't really care about them until the very moment her life depends on their ability, why should we?

Finally, where the first movie positions itself as social commentary, Catching Fire seems to lack any such aspirations. This is partly due to it being the second movie of what we know will be a quadrilogy. What it is trying to say may become more transparent after subsequent installments are released. No, I didn't read the books and please, do not explain it to me. Another reason is this movie's focus on being a "bigger" movie than its predecessor. It does more, but says less. Still, it is the doing more that makes this a more enjoyable movie than its predecessor. By breezing through the setup quicker, we get a more concise effort, even though it's actually a few minutes longer than the first film. We still hit some snags, but fans of the first should be pleased.

MY SCORE: 7/10

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Slam
Directed by Marc Levin.
1998. Rated R, 103 minutes
Cast:
Saul Williams
Sonja Sohn
Bonz Malone
Lawrence Wilson
Beau Sia
Andre Taylor
Momulu Stewart
DJ Renegade
Allen E. Lucas
Ron Jones
Marion Barry

Ray Joshua (Williams) is a small time weed salesman in Washington DC whose real talent and passion lies in his pen. He writes constantly and hopes to parlay his ability into a rap career with the help of his friend Big Mike (Wilson), a more solvent dealer. When Mike is shot down right in front of our hero, it so happens the cops happen to be in the vicinity. Ray flees the scene, not because he has anything to do with it, he doesn't, but because he's holding a big bag of herb. He gets caught and off to jail he goes. Once there, he finds out lots of people want a piece of him because word is he did have something to do with what happened to Mike. Fellow inmate Hopha (Malone) knows the truth and offers Ray protection. Growing weary of the street life, he balks at that also. Then there is Lauren Bell (Sohn), the cute lady who comes into the prison and teaches a creative writing class. She takes a shine to him rather quickly. Ray contemplating whether to be or not to be ensues.

From the beginning, it's pretty clear we're traveling down the road to redemption. While Ray is in jail, the question is will he get there before someone shanks him. When he gets out, he comes to a fork in that road and isn't sure of which path actually does lead to that redemption. This all leads to some interesting exchanges between he and some other characters. Most notably, his conversations with ... and Hoffa carry he portions of the movie that contains them. The acting of these scenes, and the movie as a whole, is surprisingly good. Though there is one lol-worthy oddity. Then real life mayor of DC, Marion Barry appears as a judge lamenting the effects of drugs on the black community. Maybe it's just me, but I found that particularly hilarious. Most of the actors are in their first and only big screen roles, but come across as authentic in their roles, Mayor Barry excluded of course. In the lead, Saul Williams has a certain charm and charisma which not only serves him well here but also helped him become one of the poetry slam world's most famous citizens. Fellow poet Sonja Sohn may also have a name recognizable to some of you. She would go on to play Detective Kima Greggs on HBO's The Wire.

Since we're on the subject of poets and this is part of the Poetry in the Movies Blogathon, let's talk about their work that shows up here. Well, first let me offer a disclaimer. Even though both of my entries in the blogathon involve slam poetry I am really not that big a fan of this particular sub genre. I find lots of it fun to listen to when performed but rather flat and a chore to get through when trying to read it for myself. That's because many of the writers rely on effective stage methods that don't necessarily translate well to the page. There is a heavy reliance on rhythm, repetition, call and response, easy to follow metaphors, vocal sound effects, some didactism, and lots of rhyming. Despite the rather prevalent idea that poetry should rhyme it can easily become tedious reading poems that do unless they are very well executed. There are exceptions, of course. I honestly don't think Williams is one of them. He's actually exciting to watch when he launches into either the straight raps of the earlier parts of the film or when he takes the stage for a more traditional slam poem. It is hard to deny his presence. His style lends itself to a visual audience and thus works well within the frame of the movie. It's easy to follow which helps it blend seamlessly into the narrative whereas more densely layered verse may distract from things. Sohn eventually performs a poem of her own that was obviously written purposely for this film. It works to give us one of the film's most poignant moments.

In part because of the poetry, but more because of the story playing out before us, Slam works as a film. We become invested in Ray's plight. More than just understanding it, we feel that he has great potential and hope that he won't squander it. We also see him turning a corner in his life. While applauding this, we're also a bit afraid he won't get all the way around that corner. As the movie ends, we're still not sure which path he will take. This is no feel-good story, but rather a character study that asks you to draw your own conclusion and is wrapped in some still relevant social commentary. It is the winner of the Grand Jury Prize for a Dramatic Film at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. This isn't to say that that validates it as a great movie, but I think it is a very solid one.

MY SCORE: 7.5/10

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The Heat
Directed by Paul Feig.
2013. Rated R, 117 minutes.
Cast:
Sandra Bullock
Melissa McCarthy
Demian Bichir
Michael Rapaport
Jane Curtain
Marlon Wayans
Michael McDonald
Spoken Reasons
Jessica Chaffin

The FBI's Agent Ashburn (Bullock) is super smart, solving cases with a Sherlock Holmes like intelligence. Her work has her up for a big promotion. Unfortunately, a lack of any discernible personality is her holding her back. No one seems to like her in the least way. Her boss is worried this wouldn't translate well to a position of leadership. For a chance to prove herself, she's put to work trying to bring down a major drug trafficking ring. Against her wishes she's forced to work with local cop Detective Mullins (McCarthy) who is driven and passionate about crime fighting, but highly abrasive in case you haven't seen the trailer. What we have here is a typical wunza buddy comedy. You know, wunza straight-laced by the book colorless FBI agent and wunza manic, fly by the seat of her pants f bomb, dropping slob of a cop.

With the formula pretty much set in stone, The Heat dutifully goes down the checklist of buddy flick tropes. The bland Ashburn is the butt of most jokes and the one Mullins is constantly trying to change in order to get her to loosen up and enjoy life. Through all the initial hatred of one another and completely opposite approaches to the same task, there is, of course, a friendship being formed. McCarthy is there to give us the comedy by verbally abusing every person in her vicinity. Occasionally this does manage to hit the funny bone, particularly early on. After a while we know what's coming so it loses its sting and just becomes noise to suffer through. She's clearly a character cut from the cloths of Eddie Murphy's Axel Foley and Mel Gibson's Detective Riggs. Unfortunately she takes only their most basic traits without the charm of either. They are then fused with McCarthy's brand of potty mouth savagery to form a character we may laugh at occasionally, but don't particularly like. Its a shtick better in short doses as in, This is 40, rather than a steady stream of it. One thing that sort of gets us on her side is her family. They are the one deviation from the formula we have. They have completely made her an outcast and she has to suffer through tongue lashings from them. It's a trick to earn some sympathy for her and it works. However, the best thing to come out of these scenes is her brothers' girlfriends injecting themselves into family business. They give as good as they get.

If Mullins is a dumbed down combination of Foley and Riggs then Ashburn is that of Taggart and Murtaugh from the same movies. She exists merely to be appalled by and eventually bond with Mullins. Her comedic task is to attempt things the way her partner wants her to. Again, this is an occasionally amusing tactic that more often just reminds me of fun stuff we've seen in other, better films. Bullock does with the role requires of her. It just doesn't seem to take much effort. There seems to be no challenge in standing off to one side while McCarthy rants and raves. Her character is just an uninteresting woman. In fact, she's so boring I've written these last two sentences just to lengthen a paragraph in which their really is nothing else to say about her. Well, maybe there is one slightly interesting thing about her. She has a cute potential relationship with Agent Levy played by the refreshingly subdued Marlon Wayans. Still, even this is not an earth shattering romance.

Whether or not you like The Heat boils down to one question: do you find it funny when Melissa McCarthy makes lots of noise and cusses like a sailor. If the answer is yes, you're probably thinking I'm some sort of prude, or a movie snob and dismissing this entire review. Fine by me. You may as well stop reading now and go watch it. Put another way, did you like Identity Thief. If the answer is no, you have likely been nodding in agreement as you read. That's more than fine by me. In this case you should probably skip it. It's only going to annoy you, anyway. Proceed accordingly

MY SCORE: 4.5/10