Review: "The Mitchells vs. the Machines"

“The Mitchells vs. the Machines” is a pretty curious animal: a slick-looking CGI movie from a major animation studio (Sony) playing on the biggest streaming service (Netflix) that’s all about how people are letting technology interfere with their interpersonal relationships. It takes shots at Facebook, Apple, YouTube, Google and all the other big digital players.

This is pretty bold stuff. It’s like the Woman's Christian Temperance Union deciding to serve gin martinis at their next meeting to juice up attendance.

At one point the titular family is sitting around the dinner table and everybody’s nose is in their phone. (Chances are at least one of them is watching Netflix.) Dad has to beg them to make eye contact for 10 seconds before the strain does them in. Later they take on a literal army of evil robots let loose by our own increasing reliance on technological crutches… like the very ones you’ll probably use to watch this movie.

Holy conflicting signals, Batman!

Rather than shy away from the cognitive dissonance, director Mike Rianda and co-screenwriter Jeff Rowe gleefully embrace the crazy in a freewheeling, fast-paced story full of action, sharp wit and not a little pathos. It’s the best animated flick I’ve seen since “Wolfwalkers.”

The setup is that teen heroine Katie Mitchell (voice of Abbi Jacobson) is a queen of geek culture and an aspiring filmmaker. She has a popular YouTube channel for her shorts, a series starring the family’s barely-there pug, Monchi, as Cop Dog. She uses a mix of live action, filters and animation -- a style the movie mimics, so characters will have little emoticons pop over their heads and whatnot.

She’s jacked to move away to California to start film school and connect with her tribe of fellow weirdos. But there’s also the usual teen disconnect with her family, especially with her well-meaning but clueless dad, Rick (Danny McBride). He’s a technophobe who doesn’t understand Katie’s tools and wants her to have a backup in case filmmaking doesn’t work out. Recalling their close bond when she was little, Rick is hurt that Katie seems so eager to cut the ties that bind.

Her mom, Linda (Maya Rudolph), is a first-grade teacher and domestic goddess, handling the daily chaos and gently pushing Rick to reach out and connect. Younger brother Aaron (voiced by Rianda himself) is anxious and dinosaur-obsessed, and is worried about losing his closest (read: only) friend when Katie moves away.

Rick comes up with the (not so) brilliant idea of a cross-country road trip to reconnect, but it only seems to push them further away. The action sets in when the PAL mega-corporation, led by the callow young tech billionaire Mark “Totally Not Zuckerberg” Bowman (Eric Andre) introduces the next big technological leap: personal assistant robots to not just control all your communications and interactions, but make you breakfast and clean up the house while doing it.

Unfortunately, the old PAL operating system (Olivia Colman), represented as a emotive face within a phone, is none too pleased about being displaced, and soon takes over the system. Humans across the globe are scooped and placed into glowing blue pods to be shot off into the cold, dark reaches of unknown space -- but hey, we’ll still have Wifi!

With the help of a pair of captured robots who have incurred damage that renders them more human-like, the Mitchells set out to upload a backdoor shutdown program into the mainframe, dodging legions of enemies and multitudinous explosions. Their only weapons are Katie’s canny brain, Rick’s old-school crafty brain, and a can of whup-tush that gets unleashed by the unlikeliest member of the clan.

There’s lots of zany action to please kids as well as a few gross moments to draw titters. I was more lured toward the clever throwaway jokes, various side characters offering social commentary and surprisingly heartfelt rumination about the challenges of maintaining a father-daughter bond.

I’d prefer to watch a fun spectacle like “The Mitchells vs. the Machines” in a movie theater, but in this age of isolation we have to watch where and whenever we can. It’s still astounding that a movie that makes use of the technology it mocks could result in such a delightfully human story.

Video review: "La La Land"

I’ve been accused of being a “La La Land” hater. It’s not really so. I admired a lot about writer/director Damien Chazelle’s second feature film, and am a big fan of his first, “Whiplash.” It’s a gorgeous love letter to the city of Los Angeles, as well as a homage to old-school film musicals of the Golden Age of movies.

I just didn’t think it deserved the mountain of Oscar nominations it received, which tied “All About Eve” for the most ever.

“La La Land” is a little bit of a lot of things -- funny, sad, romantic, melodious, handsome, charming. But it just doesn’t impact you in one or two strong ways. Rather than landing hard with both feet, the film dances around you like a zephyr, entertaining but not engrossing.

For movies, it’s better to do a few things well rather than try to be a lot of things at once.

Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone play Sebastian and Mia, struggling young L.A. artists. He’s a jazz purist who pounds the keys for coins, but keeps losing jobs because he doesn’t want to stick to the stingy playlists. She works as a barista to the stars but dreams of becoming one herself. She goes on an endless series of soul-numbing auditions, where casting directors take phone calls while she’s performing.

They waltz through a familiar boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-wants-girl-back narrative. In between the movie also puts the pair through their paces in several musical numbers (composed by Justin Hurwitz). The tunes aren’t particularly memorable, and neither Stone or Gosling will ever be confused with singers.

I like “La La Land,” admire things about it. But it didn’t even crack my list of the top 25 movies of 2016.

Bonus features are excellent, and even the DVD edition has a handsome suite of goodies. Though you’ll have to pay for the Blu-ray version to get everything.

The DVD has a feature-length commentary track with Chazelle and Hurwitz and three making-of featurettes focusing on specific musical numbers, as well as a piece on song selection.

The Blu-ray adds a host of more featurettes, focusing on things like Gosling learning to play piano for the movie and John Legend making his featuring film acting debut. Best bonus bit: “Damien & Justin Sing: The Demos,” in which the guys behind the camera and piano, respectively, belt out some tunes.

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Review: "La La Land"

“La La Land” is kind of adorable and kind of inconsequential. It’s writer/director Damien Chazelle’s (“Whiplash”) ode to Old Hollywood, both the city of Los Angeles and the musical films it once spawned like sunrises.

It’s a stunning-looking movie, with eye-pleasing vistas, vivid colors and detailed production design and costumes. Not to mention the eminently ogle-able stars, Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. You could take their faces and charms and transpose them into any Hollywood musical from its 1940s and ‘50s heydays, and they would not look out of place.

Both, alas, have rather modest singing voices. Hers is breathy and girly; his has a narrow range to which Justin Hurwitz, who composed the songs and soundtrack, carefully bookends his melodies so as not to strain. “City of Stars” is the most memorable tune and main theme, repeated in various forms and with both singers.

The story’s as old-fashioned as can be: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy tries to woo girl back. The narrative only really takes on some heft in the final act, as our star-crossed lovers struggle to reconcile their passions and hearts -- which don’t necessarily always point in the same direction.

Chazelle uses a nifty parallel structure, so we see the tale unfold from first one perspective, and then the other. Later, this trick will be used again, unspooling in the opposite direction.

Gosling is Sebastian, a jazz purist eking out an existence hammering standards on the piano at a hip restaurant. But he has a tendency to lapse into his own compositions, much to the ire of the owner (J. K. Sebastian). One night in walks Mia (Stone), an aspiring actress worn out from endless auditions, and she’s smitten.

It’s got all the ingredients of a classic Meet Cute – until Sebastian angrily brushes past her after getting canned.

But they do meet again, he’s a little more attentive this time, and things rise from there. A long walk to parked cars ends in a dance against the starry sky, with Gosling and Stone (or at least their doubles) flowing beautiful in a pas de deux. Later they’ll wind up at the planetarium and their hoofing will grow more literally celestial.

Their careers rise and fall, which alters and leavens their romance. Sebastian abandons his principles to join a very lucrative band that’s more Kenny G than Coltrane. Soon he’s on the road all the time, doing interviews, making bank but emptying out his reserves of integrity. Mia, meanwhile, gives up on auditions and her day job as a barista to stage her own one-woman play.

I find myself deeply in like with this movie. It’s charming, it’s gorgeous, it’s nostalgic without seeming like a mere throwback. But I was emotionally detached during most of it. I understood Mia and Sebastian as constructs for a story, not living beings I could invest in. “La La Land” gives us the ol’ razzle-dazzle, but doesn’t get around to plucking the heart strings.