Review: "Late Night"

"Late Night" operates as a good companion piece to "Bookmart," which came out just a few weeks earlier. Both are about female relationships, how they can be so important and so complicated. The first movie centered on high school kids, while "Late Night" looks at a professional conflict between an older Millennial and a younger Boomer.

It's written, produced and stars Mindy Kaling as a youngish new writer for a legendary late night talk show host played by Emma Thompson. Kaling's script has television rife through its DNA, but I guess that's not too objectionable since it's about a TV show. It begins wickedly sharp and funny, and grows surprisingly sentimental as it goes along.

The movie starts out aiming for laughs, and gets them, and then shoots for the heart, and nails that, too.

I liked Kaling as Molly Patel, who's added to the roster of writers after it's pointed out that "Late Night with Katherine Newbury," on the air for 27 years, doesn't have any female writers. She's wholly unqualified for the job, working in quality control for a chemistry plant in Pennsylvania, but she's got a nose for funny and for what's true.

Thompson is the real revelation as Katherine. It's a fierce and amazing performance. Katherine is domineering and often downright nasty. On Molly's first day, she's astounded to discover that most of the writers have never actually met their boss before. Too harried and contemptuous to learn their names, Katherine assigns each of the writers numbers so she can call on them more easily, and shoot down their ideas.

It's a role that reminds me a lot of Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada," though Kaling's script and director Nisha Ganatra grant Katherine a lot more interior real estate to explore. In fact, about halfway through it stops being Molly's story and really becomes Katherine's.

I loved how the two women talk to each other. Molly is a bit of a wallflower but not afraid to stand up for herself. When Molly expresses her qualms about being seen as a token diversity hire, Katherine brazenly tells her that's exactly what she is. But then she advises her to go earn her place.

Katherine's show has become tired, out of touch, favoring chats with authors or intellectuals instead of cracking topical jokes. Think David Letterman during the last years of his show: still funny, but you got the sense he was coasting and more than a little annoyed at having to chat up celebrities and entertain audiences.

Early on we learn that the new network president (Amy Ryan) wants to push Katherine out. This propels her to try to reinvent herself, get a little more personal and political. Molly acts as her Svengali, urging her to get out of the studio, connect with people and do fun bits that can go viral.

Reid Scott and Hugh Dancy play Tom and Charlie, lead writers on the show who resent Molly's presence but gradually start to warm up. There's even a budding romance with Charlie, though the movie misplaces his character in the second half.

Denis O'Hare is a solid presence as Brad, Katherine's dependable right-hand man; John Lithgow plays Katherine's eternally supportive husband, Walter, who can see past the casual cruelty to the person underneath; Ike Barinholtz is a hot young insult comic who is held up to Katherine as the wave of the future, much to her revulsion.

One of the most interesting things about "Late Night" is its portrait of showbiz and the types of neurotic personalities that thrive there. Katherine treats her staff like cattle, firing people on a whim, and they in turn crave any scrap of attention from her. "We're not here because you're nice. We're here because you're good," Brad says.

This is a movie that works as both an insider's view of TV comedy and as a character piece about two women clashing and connecting. We instinctively like Molly, and just as instantly loathe Katherine. But by the end we understand what makes these women tick and feel less impulse to judge them, but simply embrace them as they are.

Video review: "A Wrinkle in Time"

I never hope for a movie to be a box office failure, but let’s just say I take a certain perverse sense of satisfaction when poor efforts garner similar results. “A Wrinkle in Time,” based on the children’s novel by Madeleine L'Engle, wasn’t exactly a financial disaster, earning $129 million worldwide.

But it was a big, expensive movie, the first time an African-American female director (Ava DuVernay) was entrusted with a nine-figure budget. And “Wrinkle” did not do “Black Panther” numbers.

Dollars and sense aside, the movie is just a discombobulated mess. Unless you’ve read the book, you’ll spend much of your time trying to puzzle out who the characters are and where the sci-fi/fantasy story is going.

Storm Reid plays Meg Murray, a forlorn girl of about 12 who is pining for her long-lost dad, a scientist who disappeared several years ago. She finds herself spirited away on a journey through the cosmos, with three mystical beings called the Missuses guiding the way.

Chief among them is Miss Which, a queenly sort played by Oprah Winfrey. Like her sisters (Mindy Kaling and Reese Witherspoon), they look like bedazzled women who wear lavish wedding dresses for every occasion.

Tagging along with Meg are her chirpy 6-year-old brother, Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe), and Calvin (Levi Miller), a handsome lad her own age who’s very supportive and nonthreatening. The cast also includes Chris Pine as the dad; Gugu Mbatha-Raw as the mom; Zach Galifianakis as the Happy Medium, a kooky advice-giving sort; and Michael Peña as Red, a crimson fellow who offers some assistance.

It’s a beautiful, colorful film -- imagine Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory in space, with fantastical creatures and warp-holes. But eventually we become listless at the uninspired storytelling.

Video extras are pretty generous. They include an expansive making-of documentary; four deleted scenes with commentary; a feature-length audio commentary track with DuVernay and a half-dozen of her key crew members; blooper reel; and two music videos.

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Review: "A Wrinkle in Time"

What an awful and disjointed mess.

I never read the popular children's novel by Madeleine L'Engle (or even knew it existed, for that matter). But any movie should be able to stand on its own from its source material, especially one aimed at a YA audience of 9- to 13-year-olds. Instead, we get a big-budget movie that requires a written program and screen subtitles just to approach basic comprehensibility.

Directed by Ava DuVernay ("Selma") from a screenplay by Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell, "A Wrinkle in Time" is the story of a brave, precocious girl who goes on spiritual and inter-dimensional trip across the universe in search of her long-lost father, a dreamer and voyager, who abandoned the family out of a sense of higher purpose.

(If that sounds like it has a more than passing resemblance to the plot of "Interstellar," that's because it does. One wonders if this movie could exist without that one, or that movie could exist without the book. But that's one for the philosophers and/or copyright lawyers to ponder.)

The film is getting most of its attention for the starring role of Oprah Winfrey as the chief of "the Missuses," odd interstellar beings easily identifiable by their pancake makeup, kooky elaborate costumes and bedazzled faces and hair. As Mrs. Which, Winfrey wears what appears to be a cross between a suit of armor and Cinderella's ballroom gown, jeweled eyebrows and an albino wig of sea foam swirls.

For most of her scenes, Mrs. Which materializes in an outlandishly outsized form, so she's literally towering above the other characters, delivering pronouncements from on high like a beneficent god-queen. I realize that's already how a large chunk of our population views Winfrey, so it will likely not seem out of place to them.

Though, in keeping with the broadcasting titan's self-love ethos, Mrs. Which admonishes one of her lessers that there is 'no such thing as the wrong size' -- which is something you can get away with saying if you are a billionaire who has literally been every size.

Her sisters/followers are Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling), who always seems a little dazed and is constantly reciting famous quotes -- with attribution! -- and Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon), who appears to be the novice of the trio, having been assigned to help out Meg Murray (Storm Reid), the story's protagonist.

The Missuses actually disappear about halfway through the movie, leaving the kids in charge. Meg has become moody and angry in the four years since her dad vanished, claiming it's possible to bend space and time with the help of a Tesseract. It's unclear if this is a physical object or a term for using one's mind, since the act of wrinkling the cosmos is also used as a verb "to tesser."

Conjugate that, kiddies!

Her adopted 6-year-old brother, Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe), is supposed to be some kind of pint-sized science genius, although with his chirpy voice shouting most of his dialogue at parakeet octaves, I'll have to take the filmmakers' word that what he had to say was smart. He comes along for the trip, for reasons that remain unclear.

Even murkier are the motivations of Calvin (Levi Miller), a dreamy boy who's nice and supportive to everyone. His job is basically to just stand around and tell Meg how great she is. In most movies, Calvin and Meg would end up as a cute teen couple, but despite some moony looks passing back and forth, there's barely even a supportive hug.

Calvin is not so much a character as a Beta Male fantasy of what 12-year-old girls think the perfect boy is supposed to be like, at least until they get to high school and dump him for the football jock or the parking-lot pothead.

Anyway, they visit various fantastical-looking worlds filled with flying flowers and other CGI curiosities, and at one point Whatsit transforms into a flat, furry flying creature that looks like a vegan version of the critter from "The Neverending Story."

There's also some kind of evil force spreading across the universe, known simply as the It, which I thought we had all clearly established was an underground clown that either kills children or makes them have group sex with each other.

Zach Galifianakis turns up as the Happy Medium, who's some kind of lonely guru; Chris Pine is Meg's dad, sporting Hollywood hair that looks short but droops down past the cheekbones when it gets mussed; Gugu Mbatha-Raw is the mom, consigned to just looking smashing and doing nothing; and Michael Peña plays a guy on a beach who seems helpful but really has his mind on one thing, which either makes him the villain or every single teenage boy ever, who wouldn't be caught dead buying a ticket for this movie.

"A Wrinkle in Time" is like a safe acid trip for youngsters, full of color and music and powerful females and guys who know enough to get out of the way of the ladies.

Review: "Inside Out"

Up until 2009, Pixar was where you went in Hollywood for original filmmaking. The fact that their movies were animated was merely a byproduct. The studio with the freshest ideas and the most novel concepts churned out great, inventive films one after another: “Finding Nemo,” “The Incredibles,” “Cars,” “Ratatouille,” “Wall·E,” “Up.”

These films were superlative not just because they told terrific stories and featured characters who mattered to us, but because they were unlike anything we’d ever seen before.

Then a curious thing happened. Almost overnight, Pixar stories became derivative – stale, even.

We got three sequels which, even when exquisitely well-made like “Toy Story 3,” lacked the vitality of the originals. “Brave” seemed like a self-conscious rebuttal to the Disney princess tradition, and as such felt more about the things it was not than the things it was. (Not to mention, it essentially stole the plot of another Disney animated flick, 2003’s “Brother Bear.”)

Suddenly, Pixar movies seemed less like ingenuity and more a commodity.

I’m happy to report the latest, “Inside Out,” is a return to form. It’s hardly among the top tier of Pixar movies, but it’s dizzy with wondrous ideas, interesting things to see and places we’d like to visit.

It all takes place inside the head of one kid, Riley (voice by Kaitlyn Dias). The idea is that a person’s personality is ruled by five emotions: joy, sadness, fear, anger and disgust. Each is represented by little cartoon entities, who collaborate and clash with each other and this in turn governs how the person behaves.

They sit in an isolated central headquarters in the mind, watching a TV screen and seeing the world as their person does. Experiences are recorded as memories, which are glass-like orbs, which the emotions help collate, store and recall. The most vital memories form the core of the person’s being.

It’s a rather cerebral concept, but one that small children can take to easily. (My 4- and almost-2-year-olds sat rapt the entire time.) It helps that the emotions each have distinct identities themselves.

Joy (the irrepressible Amy Poehler), a pixie-like waif, is the dominant emotion for Riley, acting as major domo and subtly ordering the others around. Anger (Lewis Black) is a little red rager who literally blows his top with fire. Disgust (Mindy Kaling) is both protective and disdainful, and Fear (Bill Hader) is the kvetching voice of caution.

Then there’s Sadness, terrifically voiced by (Phyllis Smith), who played a somewhat similar character on TV’s “The Office.” A purple nerdy type, Sadness can’t seem to summon much enthusiasm for anything, mostly likes to just lie around and complain, and has the nasty habit of touching the memory orbs and infecting them with her mope.

“Crying helps me slow down and obsess over the weight of life’s problems,” Sadness drones.

But Riley’s parents (Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan) move the family from Minnesota to San Francisco, and their daughter struggles to fit in. Joy heroically tries to enforce happiness, but this only makes things worse. Then through a series of events, she and Sadness get exiled to the hinterlands of Riley’s subconscious, leaving the three remaining emotions to deal.

I enjoyed the filmmakers’ elegant depiction of Riley’s mind – and those of others, for we get to go inside the heads of other humans, too, where the same five emotions exist in different iterations. Director Pete Docter (“Up”) co-wrote the script with Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley. Ronaldo Del Carmel is credited as co-director.

Along their journey to try to get back to HQ, Joy and Sadness have various sorts of adventures, wandering through Riley’s dreams and finding out what happens to faded memories – even an old imaginary friend from Riley’s toddlerhood, Bing Bong, vividly voiced by Richard Kind. We learn that each emotion exists for an important reason, even if it isn’t instantly obvious.

“Inside Out” is a fun, colorful movie that also offers a little insight into each of us might tick. Pixar has got their mojo back.

Review: "Wreck-It Ralph"

A bouncy, boingy ball of candy-colored fun, "Wreck-It Ralph" is intended as pure entertainment for wee boys and girls. It's one of those animated movies that only really works on a single level, lacking the layers and cleverness of more ambitious flicks. But it's bound to keep the kids from squirming in their seats, and I bet most adults will find it a hoot to boot.

I took my 2-year-old along to the preview screening -- a first for both of us -- and he clapped and cheered, and made the sign for "more" after the end credits rolled. That's as good an endorsement as you'll get anywhere.

The script, by Jennifer Lee and Phil Johnson, manages to take something that's very familiar, video games, and put an original-ish spin on it. The idea is that the characters we see inside the arcade games are actually self-aware beings who perform for the person who's put a coin in their slot, but after closing time they have their own thoughts and lives.

It's the same basic premise as "Toy Story" -- what our playthings do when we're not around.

It's often been said that there's never been a decent movie based on a video game. "Ralph" trashes that notion ... though I should note that it creates a new fictional game as the centerpiece rather than using an existing game as its jumping-off point. But, then again, via the inevitable Disney merchandising tie-ins, an actual video game based on the movie is also coming out. So I'm not sure if this movie represents a sellout or a sell-in.

Wreck-It Ralph is a 9-foot-tall ox with a shock of red hair and torso and arms thick as redwoods. He sort of resembles a steroid monster version of John C. Reilly, which is appropriate since he provides the voice. It's a subtle vocal performance, letting Ralph seem both tough and tender.

Ralph has been the villain of a video game called "Fix-It Felix Jr." for the past 30 years. It's sort of a combination of Donkey Kong and Rampage, in which Ralph smashes up an apartment high-rise and sprightly Felix (Jack McBrayer) repairs the damage with his magic hammer. In the end the residents of the building pitch Ralph off the roof.

He doesn't get treated much better when they're off duty. Ralph lives in the junk pile next door, while his diminutive neighbors party it up in the penthouse. He's sick of being the bad guy -- even attending "Bad-anon," a support group for fellow video game heavies.

How do they get together? It turns out the characters can travel to and from each others' games via the Central Station -- aka the massive surge protector they're all plugged into. This way avatars from newer games can interact with older icons like Pac-Man and Qbert.

It raises some metaphysical questions, like if the characters in home game consoles are also sentient. Somehow I get the impression, though, that this state of bliss exists only in this one particular arcade.

Fed up with his squalid existence, Ralph determines to travel into another game and become a hero, hoping that winning a medal will earn him more respect. He chooses Hero's Duty, a generic militaristic first-person shooter in which armored soldiers battle alien bugs that can quickly replicate themselves.

Hot in pursuit is Felix, who hopes to set things right, and Sergeant Calhoun (Jane Lynch), the crusty star of Hero's Duty. The chase ends up in another game called Sugar Rush, a cutesy racing game in which everything is made out of cookies and candy -- even the go karts the little clique of snotty girl racers drive.

Here Ralph meets Vanellope von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman), who's an outcast in her own game because of her "pixlexia" -- a tendency to glitch out at inopportune times. The ruler of this land, the goofy but slightly despotic King Candy (Alan Tudyk), refuses to let Vanellope race because the human player might think the game is broken. This would lead to being slapped with a dreaded "Out of Order" sign, the equivalent of a death sentence in this world.

Director Rich Moore, a first-time feature filmmaker, has a good grasp of how to stage action scenes and balance them with quieter moments about friendship and doing the right thing even when you won't get credit for it. It never gets too deep or ooey-gooey emotional, which is a smart move for this material.

"Wreck-It Ralph" may not go down as one of the all-time great animated movies, but it's worth your quarters -- you'll need about 40 at today's ticket prices.

The film is preceded by "Paperman," a 6-minute animated short that's a gorgeous black-and-white, wordless depiction of love and happenstance in the big city.

3 stars out of four