Review: "On the Rocks"

 

Sofia Coppola's "On the Rocks" is filled with great ideas and penetrating questions about life, love, and men and women that the movie itself doesn't do a particularly good job of exploring. It's like a fantastic gift box from someone you adore, and then you open it and what's inside is a little disappointing but man, what wrapping! And the thought!

The film will generate a lot of interest for Coppola's reuniting with Bill Murray for the first time since "Lost in Translation," which if you can believe it was 17 years ago and doesn't that make us all feel old, except for Scarlett Johansson who was so young then she's still a youngster. There are some similarities between Murray's characters as older, charismatic men who act like they've got all the answers but are just dealing with their hangups and insecurities eating them from inside like everybody else.

Coppola and Murray do seem to share some kind of psychic bond beyond the normal writer-director/muse dynamic. Murray is so smooth and comfortable as Felix, a semi-retired art dealer whose entire life seems to consist of having lunches at swanky New York clubs, wearing splendid suits even though he probably hasn't gone into an office since the '80s, dropping in at parties and riding around in his Mercedes -- chauffeured, of course, because who can be bothered with all that parking and driving when you can sit in the back and practice your whistling?

Felix isn't even the main character, just the dad to the real protagonist, Laura, played with a depth and a weary unease by Rashida Jones that stands in contrast to Felix's lackadaisical glibness. The setup is that Laura begins to suspect that her husband, Dean (Marlon Wayans), is having an affair, she mentions this to Felix, who warns her about the straying ways inherent to all men and boy howdy does he know from cheating, and off they go on a rockheaded Nancy Drew investigation into the matter themselves.

You can probably guess where this leads, and I certainly did: laughs, tears, recriminations, lovable hijinks, confrontation and an ending you can see coming an hour off but still lands with a solid emotional smack.

This is one of those "I loved spending time with these characters" film. It winds itself up and you know exactly where it's going, and then it gets there and you're sort of like, "Yeah, saw that coming." But you still appreciate the trip from here to there.

Felix saunters in and out of the story, and any scene he's in is a winner and most scenes he's not you're checking your watch -- those're timey things we used to wear on our wrists, kids -- wondering when he'll be back. The high point is a purportedly clandestine street stakeout in a cherry red Karmann Ghia ragtop complete with caviar snacks, binoculars and a blinky starter motor. 

Then the cops show up and... well, you'll see, but only Felix can be Felix.

For her part, Laura has what seems like one of those blissful Big Apple marriages: Dean is head of charging tech start-up, they live in a fabulous expansive brownstone that has more commas in the price than most New Yorkers have bedrooms, and have two thoroughly adorable daughters. (In the tradition of all Hollywood movies, the kids are around just long enough to demonstrate that the parents feel harried but disappear for long stretches whenever the adults want to do some adulting, which is to say most of the time.)

Laura is a writer who has already sold her book but finds she can't write a single word, what with writer's block and all. That's a thing that only happens to people already rich enough that they can dilly and dally for weeks or months on end and there's nobody to tell them to stop talking on the phone with their friends about how much they can't write and put some goddamn words down or no paycheck-y come Friday. 

(I'm writing this after 10 hours at my day job in the twilight glow between making everyone's dinners and before the dog starts scratching on my leg for a walk before dark, in case you wants a nice little compare/contrast. #$@&%*! "writer's block"...)

Felix leads Laura through a set of adventures that seem designed as much to rekindle their relationship as find out the truth about Dean. Felix walked out on Laura's mom and has all sorts of theories about how men are genetically programmed to need to sleep with lots of women, which he'll happily espouse out loud at length while casting moony glances across the room. 

I think part of Felix knows his shtick is grotesque to 97% of women, but he's happy to keep aiming fire at the other 3.

Can I also just say I hate, hate, hated the character of Dean? He's literally always away on business or working until late at night and is the sort of guy who thinks of himself as a wonderful husband and father but really he's just about the worst there is just north of outright abusive. He makes goofy faces with the kids for a few minutes before leaving for his next stretch of days that he's gone, and doesn't help one bit with getting them dressed or picking up around the house even while he's there.

They say 90% of life is just showing up, and if that's true for being a real man then Dean will never make the grade even with a generous curve. Strangely, Coppola gives him something of a pass, happy to empty her quiver at the scampy Felix but holding fire for Mr. I'll Skype with You Tomorrow.

This film feels like mid-career Woody Allen with its uniquely New York characters, settings and problems. It's filled with people who are so wrapped in a sense of entitlement they aren't even aware of the concept of being entitled. 

At one point Felix insists they pop in at his downstairs neighbor's party because "she has Twombly" and I thought that was some sort of expensive whiskey because that's another thing Felix is into but it's one of those painters you're supposed to pretend you know. I'm just an air freight agent's son who couldn't tell the difference between pricey hooch and moderately aged varnish and knows a little about art but not enough to care who Twombly is. 

(Correction: who Twombly was, I just Googled and he's dead.)

It's weird. I definitely felt let down after finishing "On the Rocks" but now I've sort of talked myself into liking it again. Like Felix, it'll probably let you down but be thoroughly charming while getting there.

Video review: "Isle of Dogs"

An animated film that is most definitely not for children, “Isle of Dogs” is the second foray into stop-motion animation by writer/director Wes Anderson. I run hot and cold on Anderson’s filmography -- adore “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “The Grand Budapest Hotel;” would require a lobotomy to get me to watch “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” again -- so I’m happy to report I’m pretty warm on this one.

It’s a Japanese-themed story set a couple of decades in the future, when the Prefecture of Kobayashi has banished all dogs to the island where they dump their trash, which is soon renamed for its canine inhabitants. It turns out there was an epidemic of deadly flu attributed to the dogs some years back.

But one boy, Atari (Koyu Rankin), who is the nephew of the evil mayor, resolves to undertake a rescue mission to retrieve his beloved pooch. He crash-lands on the island and is helped by a pack of mutts, led by Rex (Edward Norton) and also including Chief  (Bryan Cranston), a grizzled fighter.

Meanwhile, back on the mainland an American exchange student (Greta Gerwig) is leading a rebellion of sorts against the mayor and the scientists he keeps under his thumb.

I should mention that the humans mostly speak Japanese, and no subtitles are provided. The dogs do speak in English, voiced mainly by American and British actors, which we are to understand is translated from bark.

It’s a weird, often wonderful movie that has no real point of comparison. You can’t point to another film and say, “It’s kinda like that.” “Isle of Dogs” isn’t for everyone, but for anyone who appreciates a bold splash of imagination, it’s the cat’s meow.

Bonus features are decent. There is a gallery of images from production and six making of featurettes: “Animators,” “Isle of Dogs Cast Interviews,” “Puppets,” “An Ode to Dogs,” “Magasaki City and Trash Island” and “Weather and Elements.”

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Review: "Isle of Dogs"

Watching trailers for “Isle of Dogs,” I didn’t quite know what to make of it. Now I’ve seen it… and I still don’t quite know what to make of it.

This weird, whimsical and often wonderful concoction from writer/director Wes Anderson is his second step into stop-motion animation after “Fantastic Mr. Fox” from 2009. A critical success but commercial flop, it intertwined Anderson’s sardonic, twee sensibilities with bright visuals and cuddly critters.

Having adored “Fox,” I had high hopes for “Dogs.” But it soon became clear after the opening minutes that we were in store for something decidedly different. Not awful, just… different.

Set against a Japanese backdrop in the fictional Prefecture of Kobayashi 20 years into the future, it’s about a city that has banished all its dogs to the distant island where they dump their trash. A 12-year-old, Atari Kobayashi (Koyu Rankin), undertakes to rescue his beloved pet, Spots, instead falls in with a distaff crew of mutts, which sets off a whirlwind of adventure and political intrigue with Atari’s uncle, the mayor (Kunichi Nomura), as their nemesis.

(After his parents were killed, Atari was taken in by his “distant” uncle, one of the film’s running jokes.)

The canines all speak English (as translated from bark, an introductory scroll informs us) while the humans largely speak Japanese, usually without the benefit of subtitles or translation. So the proceedings often have a kabuki theater feel to them, aided by the percussion-heavy musical score by Alexandre Desplat, which employs traditional Japanese drums.

The dogs are all voiced by recognizable American actors, many of them Anderson favorites: Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton, Jeff Goldblum, Bob Balaban, F. Murray Abraham, Harvey Keitel, Frances McDormand. Newbies to the Anderson troupe include Greta Gerwig, Bryan Cranston and Yoko Ono… yes, that Yoko.

The story starts out pretty simple, but grows increasingly complex. Atari crash-lands on the Isle of Trash (now renamed the Isle of Dogs), getting a propeller clutch stuck in his brain for his trouble. He’s taken in by a troupe of mutts, ostensibly led by Rex (Norton), though all critical decisions are put to a vote. They’re all former pets, except for Chief (Cranston), a mighty fighter with a surly attitude, especially toward humans.

“I bite,” he often growls.

They determine to help Atari find his long-lost pet, and set off to discover the unexplored mysteries of the island. Meanwhile, back on the mainland the mayor is accused by his scientist rival of various evil machinations, including manufacturing the “dog flu” and “snout fever” that served as the pretext to banish all the pooches in the first place. Tracy Walker (Gerwig), an exchange student from Ohio, rallies the student newspaper to take up the cause.

“Isle of Dogs” is an absolute visual marvel. Occasionally I even found myself so ensorcelled by the look of the film that I realized I hadn’t been following the dialogue so closely. The dogs and humans are simultaneously hyper-realistic and cartoony, with big, wet eyes that seem to stare into souls. I loved all the little old-timey animation flicks, like masses of string used to simulate smoke, or the way the dogs’ fur sways with just enough movement to make it believable.

Warning: This is definitely not a flick for kiddies. It carries a PG-13 rating, mostly for gross and/or graphic imagery of dogs eating or fighting. Some of the canines used to be the subject of gruesome scientific experiments, and there’s some stark imagery of them with missing limbs or eyes.

I enjoyed “Isle of Dogs,” as one of the most inventive and offbeat movie-going experiences I’ve had in a while. It’s nice to encounter a film so different there’s nothing to compare it to. If I have a substantial criticism, it’s that the movie could have benefitted from a pared-down storyline and cast -- too many extraneous humans in tale that’s all for the dogs.

Video review: "The Jungle Book"

Here’s to show that not every recent remake has been a total waste of time. I actually prefer the new live-action version of “The Jungle Book,” with a heavy assist from CGI animals, to the original animated film from 1967. This one amps up the action, tamps down the musical numbers to an acceptable level, and delivers a fun and rousing family-friendly action adventure.

Neel Sethi is Mowgli, a boy raised by wolves in the jungle, especially adoptive mother Raksha (voice of Lupita Nyong’o) and Bagheera, a helpful black panther voiced by Ben Kingsley. But Shere Khan (Idris Elba), a hateful Bengal tiger, reviles all humans and wants Mowgli between his jaws. After tragedy, the boy is on the lam.

He meets up with Baloo, a lazy bear (Bill Murray) who wants to use Mowgli for his own purposes – mostly involving procuring honey – but starts to develop a tender spot for the kid. They face off with King Louie (Christopher Walken), a giant orangutan with his own monkey army who demands Mowgli give him the human secret of the “Red Flower” – the ability to create fire.

It’s interesting how this is a twist on the usual dynamic in human/animal stories. Here most of the animals, even benevolent ones like Baloo, are looking to exploit Mowgli for his physical attributes, instead of the other way around.

The digitally animated creatures are completely believable – their eyes, fur, movements and anthropomorphic emotions all seem quite authentic. When Shere Khan is bearing down, we can practically feel his breath on our necks.

The action scenes can be pretty intense, so the smallest children may need a little reassurance (or a pass until they’re older).

With its fancy computerized critters and throwback charm, “The Jungle Book” is a pleasing mix of old and new.

Bonus features are good, though you’ll have to upgrade to the Blu-ray combo pack to get most of them. The DVD comes only with a featurette on creating King Louie layer by digital layer. With the Blu-ray you add a making-of documentary with director Jon Favreau and his visual effects team, a feature on the casting call for Mowgli and an audio commentary track with Favreau.

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Review: "The Jungle Book"

Disney certainly has an appetite for "Jungle Book" iterations. Or at least they think we do. Lucky for them, they're right ... at least when it comes to good ones.

Beyond the cheesy 1967 animated feature, there was its (wisely) forgotten sequel, "The Jungle Book 2" in 2003; "TaleSpin," a short-lived 1990 TV spinoff; a live-action version in 1994 starring a nearly 30-year-old Jason Scott Lee as the boy Mowgli; another live-action version in 1998 that went straight to video; an animated cheapie in 2010; and another TV series that's still running.

The newest version directed by Jon Favreau ("Iron Man") is a pleasing mix of old and new elements. It uses high-end CGI to render all the animals, and the results are pretty stunning. Neel Sethi plays Mowgli, a "man-cub" abandoned in the jungle and raised by wolves, particularly fierce mother Raksha (voice by Lupita Nyong'o), with a little help from wise black panther Bagheera (Ben Kingsley).

The animals still talk, as they did in the books, and recite Rudyard Kipling's verse containing wisdom from the mouths of creatures. The action is fairly intense -- it was a bit scary for our 2-year-old -- and quite well-choreographed.

This is the sort of movie designed expressly for kids but entertaining enough to keep their parents engaged.

And yes, they do bust out a few iconic songs from the '67 movie, including "The Bare Necessities" and "I Wan'na Be Like You," sung by Bill Murray as the bear Baloo and Christopher Walken as the massive ape King Louie, respectively. Both end up serving as comic relief in the middle of some tense sequences.

Murray's version is actually quite charming, and in general his voice work is so emotive and spot-on that I hereby forgive him for the "Garfield" movies. Walken does a talk-singing thing that almost ends up in yodeling territory.

Scarlett Johansson also has a brief role as Kaa the mesmerizing serpent, but her best contribution is a gorgeous rendition of "Trust in Me" that plays over the end credits. Kaa actually helped Mowgli in the books, but here he's a she, and she's all bad.

The story mainly revolves around Mowgli's conflict with Shere Khan (Idris Elba), a massive Bengal tiger who deeply resents a boy living among the jungle denizens. A human wielding "the red flower" (fire) left him scarred and blind in one eye, and now the power-hungry feline wants to exact his revenge on all their kind.

Bagheera and the alpha wolf, Akela (Giancarlo Esposito), decide to return Mowgli to the human village in the name of maintaining comity between the jungle species, but their plans go awry.

Mowgli ends up under the protection of Baloo, a large and lazy bear who wants him to use his human ingenuity to get at all the wonderful honeycomb sticking to a cliff. He says it's for his hibernation, but as others point out jungle bears don't hibernate.

"It's not total hibernation, but I do take naps," he sniffs.

Favreau and screenwriter Justin Marks wisely keep the preachy life-lessons stuff to a bare minimum. The only real moral of the story is that humans shouldn't try to be animals, and vice versa -- but that doesn't mean they can't get along.

Sethi is winsome and agreeable as Mowgli, but as you might guess his character is just a vantage point from which the audience can view all the amazing creatures and action.

I was never a big fan of the old Disney animated film, and most of the other cinematic and TV versions have passed me by. This new "The Jungle Book" manages to seem fresh and full of energy, and that says something all on its own.

Review: "St. Vincent"

I think superior film acting is misunderstood – or, at least, often misidentified.

When we’re talking about adulation and awards, most of the attention tends to focus on “big” acting. That’s where the performers can display a whole lot of studied behavior and over-the-top emotion, or spew great dialogue at a furious clip. Think Denzel Washington in “Training Day” or Natalie Portman in “Black Swan.”

But some of the best cinematic acting is played close to the vest, using only subtle cues, and tends to get overshadowed by the more grandiose sort. Example: I remember watching “Awakenings” and everyone was raving about Robert De Niro’s tics and stammer. For me, the performance was emotionally vacant. Meanwhile, I thought Robin Williams was staggering, seeming to leak pain and loneliness out of his epidermis.

There are a few big moments to Bill Murray’s brilliant performance in “St. Vincent,” but what most struck me about the role was how brave and uncompromising it was. Most movies of this sort about cantankerous older men provide us a window to access his secretly cuddly soul. We feel the actor winking at us even as he parades the sturm and drang.

Not Murray. His Vincent McKenna is a man who is entirely true to himself, even if that truth is off-putting and abrasive. A drunk and a gambler, he doesn’t seem to have anything going on in his life beyond his decrepit Brooklyn house, his battered convertible Reliant K-car (complete with wood paneling) and playing the horses at Belmont Park – mostly poorly, which is why he’s perpetually strapped for cash, with a loan shark (Terrence Howard) circling.

Vin is a sour pill, and he knows it, embraces it, though he doesn’t necessarily delight in throwing his obnoxiousness in other people’s faces. Mostly, he’d just rather leave people alone, and have them return the favor.

This is perhaps the finest turn of Murray’s long career, and one certainly deserving of some attention from awards voters down the line.

The setup is that a newly single mom named Maggie (Mellissa McCarthy) moves in next door with her awkward young son, Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher), and Vin is pushed by necessity/opportunity to form a relationship with the kid.

They don’t meet under the best of circumstances: her moving truck smashes up his place, and they exchange unpleasantries. On the first day at his new Catholic school, Oliver has his clothes, phone and keys stolen, and can’t get into his house. Maggie works long hours as a medical scanning technician, so an ad-hoc arrangement emerges in which Vin babysits Oliver for $12 an hour. She needs a helping hand, he needs the cash and the boy needs a friend.

The pair bond while going to the track, imparting wisdom about standing up to bullies (aka, how to break a nose) and other manly arts.

Most movies of this sort quickly teeter over into rank sentimentalism, with somebody like Vincent softening up like mush in the warm glow of a golden-hearted kid. But Vin more or less stays the same, while it’s Oliver who opens up and grows. This is not so much a story about an old crank who has a change of heart, but one who lets the world into his self-imposed cocoon long enough to discover the reason he got that way.

First-time writer/director Theodore Melfi elicits some terrific performances from his cast. Murray is bleak and brilliant. Lieberher is studious and inquisitive as Oliver, because that’s the kind of child he is. McCarthy is so genuine and wonderful as a struggling everyday woman that I’m willing to forgive her for starring in and co-writing “Tammy.”

Chris O’Dowd has a nice turn as a remarkably upbeat priest/teacher at Oliver’s school, and Naomi Watts supplies enviable comic relief as a pregnant Russian hooker who exchanges services, and something more, with Vin.

“St. Vincent” is one of my favorite films this year. It’s got a lot of hard edges, but treats its characters as believable people who, despite their problems and pain, possess an inherent grace.

Video review: "The Monuments Men"

One of the more disappointing films of the last few months, “The Monuments Men” was an OK movie that could’ve been great.

You had an offbeat, interesting subject: the citizen/soldiers who labored during World War II to save art works and antiquities from destruction or theft by the German Reich. And a reliable director, George Clooney, who also co-write the script (with Grant Heslov, a frequent partner-in-crime). Plus, in addition to Clooney, an eclectic cast of (mostly) older white guys: Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Jean Dujardin.

Alas, this is a gumbo with a whole list of great ingredients that just didn’t come together in a flavorful way. “Men” is alternately silly and somber, and the incongruity cancels out the effectiveness of each.

The film takes great liberties with the historical record – starting with the fact that the Monuments Men are depicted as a small motley group of art experts, when in fact hundreds of people were involved with the effort.

In trying to turn this into, effectively, a “Dirty Dozen” type of story, Clooney and his cast and crew try to do a whole bunch of things, and end up not doing anything particularly well.

Video extras are similarly so-so. The DVD comes with two making-of features: “George Clooney’s Mission” and “Marshaling the Cast.” Go for the Blu-ray version and you add some deleted scenes and two more featurettes: “The Real Monuments Men” and “A Woman Amongst the Monuments Men.”

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Review: "The Monuments Men"

"The Monuments Men" was expected to be a major contender in the Oscar race, but got pulled at the last minute from its December release and moved into February. That rarely speaks well for a movie's quality, so it's no surprise that the latest from director/co-writer/star George Clooney is a disappointment.

It's not a bad movie, certainly, and isolated sections are quite enjoyable in a breezy, been-there-done-that sort of way. It's a World War II story that owes a lot of plot points to other war pictures, and also copies their look and tone. Since it stars all middle-aged actors, with the average somewhere in the early 50s, once could dismiss it as "Saving Private Ryan with Geezers."

(Indeed, Matt Damon, a whippersnapper when he played the title role in "Ryan," is now the youngest guy on the team.)

The concept is certainly a departure from the norm. Instead of the usual dogfaces-in-their-trenches action or generals agonizing over war plans and lost lives, this is the story of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program, an Alllied effort to preserve antiquities being stolen or destroyed by the Nazi machine.

They saved millions of pieces of art, and it's an engaging, relatively unknown subject that received notoriety in a book by Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter, adapted for the screen by Clooney and longtime collaborator Grant Heslov.

Of course, liberties have to be taken to translate such a grand undertaking for a movie, and the film does so liberally. The primary conceit is presenting the Monuments Men as a tiny group of art experts who trade in their magnifying glasses for rifles, when in reality more than 400 soldiers and civilians were involved.

This automatically brings up similarities with other WWII movies like "The Dirty Dozen," where a ragtag team of cast-offs are thrown together and given a big, seemingly impossible mission. The film also has similarities to crime caper flicks, since our guys are essentially trying to steal the art before Hitler does (though with the intention of giving it back to the original owners).

As a result of this and some of the casting choices, "The Monuments Men" has a curiously comedic vibe. Bill Murray plays Campbell, the resident architect and droll quip-man. Bob Balaban is Savitz, the chief target of his jokes, an intemperate little man who resents being looked down upon. John Goodman is Garfield, much too old and large for Army gear, and Jean Dujardin is Clermont, the obligatory French guy.

Damon plays Granger, an art expert who gets sent ahead to be the advance man as the Germans retreat, and Hugh Bonneville is Jeffries, a stiff-upper-lip British type who is looking to redeem himself after past failures. Clooney is Stokes, who came up with the idea for the Monuments Men and acts as leader.

Dimitri Leonidas is the add-on as Epstein, a Jewish German emigre who gets conscripted because he speaks the lingo. Cate Blanchett turns up as a bookish French art expert who worked for the Nazis, and has to be convinced by Granger to give up her secrets.

The biggest problem with the movie is inconsistency. Some sections sing, while others feel flat and by-the-numbers. For instance, the conflict between the Damon and Blanchett characters that eventually turns to feelings of ardor seems preordained.

Clooney & Co. go for a certain amount of gravitas in certain sections, but that's  undercut by all the humor. For instance, after operating as the comic relief for the entire movie, Murray suddenly gets a dramatic scene with a message from home; the whole thing feels forced and false. There's another scene where Garfield and Savitz share a tense moment with a young German soldier that seems to come out of nowhere, and recede just as quickly.

They're not helped by a bombastic score by the usually reliable Alexandre Desplat ("The King's Speech"), who appears to have come up with the music by copying passages from other WWII movies. Good film music should add to the atmosphere rather than try to substitute for it; Desplat's score pushes the audience around.

The lack of a compelling villain also hurts. We get a succession of German officers who appear and then disappear as the chief baddie; Clooney gets a big face-off scene with a smirky SS officer, but because we've only seen him once before the moment carries little real weight. Late in the game they also add in a competing Soviet "trophy brigade" who are snatching up all the art for Mother Russia, but all they seem to do is ride around in vehicles, more existential threat than antagonists.

"The Monuments Men" is something of a puzzle. It has all the pedigree of a good or even great film, but falls flat. I'm reminded of "American Gangster," another movie loaded with talent that just couldn't seem to come together.

As a filmmaker, George Clooney has usually been ol' reliable, lighting up everything he touches. Despite being a movie about the preciousness of artistry, the magic is missing here.

Video review: "Hyde Park on Hudson"

“Hyde Park on Hudson” exists in that nether realm floating somewhere between history, biography and legend. Its central characters are none other than Franklin D. Roosevelt, the King and Queen of England, and FDR’s contingent of relatives and retainers. But the film is not so much about the real people as our modern conception of them.

It’s now well known that Roosevelt, despite being trapped in a body crippled by polio, was a serial philanderer. Bill Murray, hardly anybody’s first thought for the actor who should embody FDR, nonetheless creates a distinct and compelling character that, if he is not reflective of the actual president, at least makes us want the real person to resemble his portrait.

The movie’s central problem is that it’s not really about FDR or the monarchs, but about Daisy, Roosevelt’s sixth cousin played by Laura Linney, who acts as the audience’s eyes and ears. A desperately lonely spinster, Daisy is thrilled by an unexpected invitation to join Roosevelt at the familial estate, where she and the president form a queer relationship that navigates somewhere beyond friendship but does not quite make landfall with romance.

After occupying the bulk of the first half of the film, the relationship between Daisy and FDR recedes into the background during the latter portion. The story’s point of view shifts from Daisy to the British royals, who fret about being insulted and demeaned by American provincialism. Dancing somewhere in between is Roosevelt, a cheery spider playing the strings of his webs.

In the end, we’re not really sure if the movie is about the president, his quasi-affair with Daisy, the king and queen or some amorphous combination of them all.

The film is enjoyable in its parts, even if they don’t quite fit together satisfactorily.

If you’re hoping for a sumptuous set of extras to go with the video release of “Hyde Park on Hudson,” I’m afraid you’re bound for disappointment. The DVD edition comes with absolutely zero features, and even the Blu-ray/DVD combo only has a digital copy of the film, and nothing else.

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Review: "Hyde Park on Hudson"

“Hyde Park on Hudson” is about a time “when the world still allowed itself secrets,” specifically the secret that President Franklin D. Roosevelt carried on a long and intimate relationship with his distant cousin, Margaret “Daisy” Suckley.

The original archivist for FDR’s presidential library, Daisy left behind a treasure trove of letters and diaries after her 1991 death that revealed the deep nature of the friendship, which many have conjectured contained a sexual element. This correspondence formed the basis for a nonfiction book by Geoffrey Ward, a play by Richard Nelson and now this film, also penned by Nelson.

Bill Murray, who bears not even a passing resemblance to Roosevelt, is nonetheless convincing in the role of a great man who was also a supremely talented politician, playing the people around him like well-tuned instruments. Murray's FDR knows his powers of persuasion, using his blueblood sense of entitlement and patrician charm as tools to quietly command those in his sphere, despite a body crippled by polio.

But this story is really Daisy's ... or at least it should be.

Daisy is an aging spinster trapped by familial obligations who's all agog to receive a surprise invitation to visit the president at his ancestral home in upstate New York. He asks about her limited travels and the places she'd like to go, and Daisy admits, "To be honest, I'd love to go just about anywhere." Any opportunity to get out of her drab life of near-poverty, caring for her sickly aunt is a boon.

Laura Linney plays Daisy in a subtle, passive performance in which her character mostly reacts to the people she encounters. She serves as the audience's eyes and ears, and for the longest time we almost forget she's there, like a hostess who shows you around but isn't really part of the party. The president's servants and guardians -- often one in the same -- soon come to regard her as part of the decor, and accept her closeness to him as a matter of course.

Was theirs a relationship of passion, or simply a deep and abiding companionship? Director Roger Michell and screenwriter Nelson are coy to the point of obduracy. After a brief fleshly encounter, Daisy comes to see FDR as her closest friend -- indeed, her only one. He shows her a small cottage he has built where he means to retire, and asks that she share it with him. "When you miss me, come here and miss me," he invites. How nice of him.

Daisy wilts in the face of the powerful presence of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (Olivia Williams) or FDR's secretary Missy (Elizabeth Marvel), whose portfolio also appears to include controlling his drinking and keeping the elderly, opinionated First Mother (Elizabeth Wilson) in check. Daisy soon learns that Roosevelt always kept a circle of women around him, competing for access and in some cases intimacy.

All this sounds like enough for a compelling tale, but then the film goes further by relating the visit of King George and Queen Elizabeth of England. It's the first visit by a monarch to the former colony, but now the royals have come hat in hand asking for America's help in the brewing world war.

The young, newly-crowned king and queen (Samuel West and Olivia Colman) are on edge, with the queen regarding every little American provincialism as an intended slight. She becomes obsessed with FDR's intention to feed them hot dogs at a picnic.

This long sequence is in many ways the best part of the movie, especially a late-night drinking encounter between king and president, with the latter treating the former like a well-behaved schoolboy in need of complimenting. But it ultimately detracts from Daisy's journey, which ostensibly is what this is all about.

"Hyde Park on Hudson" is an odd duck of a film. I had expected it to be much more of a comedy than it is, though there are plenty of amusing moments. And it can't quite decide if it wants to focus on Daisy, Roosevelt or the British royals.

I enjoyed the movie for what it is, though I wish it had a better sense of itself.

3 stars out of four

Video review: "Moonrise Kingdom"

In 1965 on the remote New England island of New Penzanze, 12-year-old misfits Sam Shakusky and Suzy Bishop have run away together. Sam (Jared Gilman) and Suzy (Kara Hayward) both feel alienated in their homes -- Sam is an orphan who more or less lives at the Khaki Scouts camp, while Suzy barely gets any attention in the ramshackle house where her distracted parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand) oversee a triplet of overactive boys.

Their escape sets the cloistered island folk into a tizzy, as they search desperately for the pair before they ... what, exactly? It's a tiny island, so they don't really have anywhere to go. Their journey is about running away rather than going somewhere.

The latest from filmmaker Wes Anderson ("The Royal Tenenbaums") is familiar to any who's watched his twee little whimsical movies -- disaffected characters speaking in deliberately flat cadences, punctuated by quaint snippets of obscure music, and highly stylized sets and costumes that make the whole thing feel like the inside of a precocious middle schooler's diorama.

"Moonrise" doesn't add anything new to the mix, so the result is a stale and turgid addition to the Anderson menagerie. After a career of making very personalized movies, this registers as an unattractive wallow in self-indulgence.

Bonus features, which are identical for Blu-ray and DVD editions, are rather modest. There's a making-of documentary, a tour of the fictional island, and a set tour hosted by Bill Murray.

Movie: 1.5 stars out of four
Extras: 2 stars

Review: "Moonrise Kingdom"

I go back and forth on Wes Anderson. He's a very specific kind of filmmaker, to the point that there is now a recognizable "Wes Anderson style" that is much derided but little imitated. (Do a YouTube search to view some fun-poking examples.)

From the disaffected characters who speak their dialogue in deliberately flat cadences, to the oddball time-warping fashion sense, to the now-obligatory reliance on obscure pieces of music to punctuate and comment on the proceedings, Anderson's films are stylistic carbon copies of each other, merely swapping out storylines and characters (though many of the same actors reappear time and again).

The problem with that is there's a dread sense of sameness to his movies. It's like going to a bunch of different restaurants and ordering the exact same meal. There will be some variations in flavor, texture and certainly in quality, but you walk in knowing what you're going to get.

I liked "Rushmore," and liked "The Royal Tenenbaums" a lot, but "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" was so wretchedly unwatchable I didn't even bother seeing his next one, "The Darjeeling Limited."

Personally, I thought the best marriage of Anderson's aesthetic with the material was the stop-motion animation gem, "Fantastic Mr. Fox." Perhaps it was just because using fake furry critters instead of humans represented the first distinct break from his previous body of work, and that made it seem fresh.
His newest, "Moonrise Kingdom," is a return to the rut.

The sole variation here is that the spotlight is on children, while the adult characters populate the background. It's 1965 and on the isolated New Penzanze Island off of New England, 12-year-olds Sam Shakusky and Suzy Bishop decide to run away together. Of course since it's an island, they don't really have anywhere to go, but it's more a journey about rejecting where they come from than anywhere they're heading.

Sam is an orphan living with foster parents, but actually spends most of his time at Camp Ivanhoe, a summer camp for the Khaki Scouts of North America. The man/boy commander, Scout Master Randy Ward (Edward Norton), acknowledges that Sam was the least popular scout, but is still chagrined by the resignation letter he leaves behind.

Suzy has three younger brothers, and lives in a rambling multi-story house called Summer's End with her three younger brothers and parents (Frances McDormand and Bill Murray), who are both distracted lawyers. Suzy wears neon-colored eye shadow (apparently impervious to the elements) and loves to read books where girls go on adventures in fantasy lands or on alien planets.

After meeting at a church play a year earlier, they've been corresponding by mail and planning their escape, which throws the entire island into a state. Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), whose position appears to be nautical but represents the only semblance of police power, is brought in to lead the search with the help of the Khakis. Hovering around the edges of the story is Tilda Swinton as Social Services -- that's how she refers to herself, no name -- threatening to whisk Sam off to an orphanage.

Sam and Suzy are played by newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward, respectively. They both seem like engaging performers, but it's hard to judge their true talent since Anderson (who co-wrote the screenplay with Roman Coppola) requires them to say all their lines in unemotive declarations. They always sound like they're announcing themselves rather than talking to each other.

(Both are also rather mush-mouthed, and I often struggled to understand what they were saying. I suppose you could make the argument this makes them sound more like authentic kids, but verisimilitude has never been Anderson's bag.)

My biggest problem with "Moonrise Kingdom" is that it's a coming-of-age story in which both the children already behave like cynical, melancholic adults. If they're this jaded and disconnected at 12, how are they going to stand each other at 42?

Consider this exchange of dialogue after a violent encounter with the other scouts, and the Khaki mascot pooch has been slain with an arrow:

Sam: They got him right through the neck.
Suzy: Was he a good dog?
Sam: (pregnant pause) Who's to say?

That sure doesn't sound like any kid I knew. For that matter, why does Sam wear a coonskin hat, despite it being the scorching finale of summer? How come he smokes a pipe? Why is Suzy obsessed with Benjamin Britten's "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra," in which different pieces of symphonic music are layered upon each other one by one as a learning exercise?

I think these elements exist in the movie simply because Anderson finds them delightfully quirky, and includes them simply for the sheer juxtaposition of eclectic bits ‘n’ pieces. He's like a hipster standing at the wardrobe of pop culture, plucking out things he likes and trying them on.

Often the ensemble is a genuinely innovative collage of colors and patterns, a bold new way of looking at old things. Sometimes, as with "Moonrise Kingdom," the result is so blastedly twee and self-satisfied that we just want to sigh, pat the movie on the head and tell it to run along.

1.5 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Ghostbusters 2" (1989)

I've occasionally seen well-known movie critics reverse themselves -- almost invariably, giving a second positive review to a film they dissed the first time around. Never the other way around. Roger Ebert famously gave "Unforgiven" an indifferent review, then changed course shortly thereafter when an overwhelming preponderance of the critic corps lavished it with praise. He begged off that he was distracted by his upcoming marriage. A decade later, he went so far as to include it in "Great Movies," his compendium of reviews of masterpieces.

Personally, I have never seen a movie I deemed bad that I later changed my mind about enough to view it positively. More often, films I adored once upon a time diminish when seen years later with a different perspective. Frankly, I'm more than a mite suspicious of anyone who totally changes course when they find their negative opinion of a film leaves them all alone.

I will say, however, that "Ghostbusters 2" was much better than I remembered it. I saw it only once back when it came out in 1989, and watched it again while experiencing some down time (a nearly unrecognizable commodity these days) during a recent trip.

This isn't to say it's great, or even good. But it's a reasonably funny and entertaining movie that, if it existed on its own, would not be seen as the disaster it was generally viewed as at the time. It doomed any talk for a third movie, though that's perked up again lately, with Bill Murray insisting he won't be involved.

I think a couple of things made "2" seem like such a letdown. The first was the relative long interval between the first film in 1984 and the sequel. At least during the '80s, if a movie did very well the sequel almost always came out two years later, three max. Apparently there was some problem getting the cast to all come back with a screenplay they agreed upon, and that's reflected in the disjointed nature of "2."

The biggest reason, though, is what a huge act it had to follow. I really don't think it's possible to overpraise the original "Ghostbusters." Perhaps my views are colored by childhood memories, but for my money "Ghostbusters" is right up there with the all-time great film comedies -- "Some Like It Hot," "Singin' in the Rain," and so on. Other than being raucously funny, it tapped into scientific and psycho-babble neuroses that were flying around at the time. It essentially launched the genre of the big-budget action/comedy, and brought science fiction into the cinematic mainstream by poking fun at it.

Strangely, one of the things I remember most about "2" was the characters of Louis Tully, the Ghostbusters' nerdy attorney played by Rick Moranis, having a romance with their laconic secretary, Janine (Annie Potts). Like most teenage geeks, I was entranced by the idea of a woman throwing herself at a man with no reason to expect such attentions. Plus, their coupling was cute.

The script, by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, contains a few good zingers. The courtroom scene is one, where Tully addresses the judge in his opening comments and concludes with the patter, "and one time I got turned into a dog and they helped me." Director Ivan Reitman plays out the comic timing on that reaction exquisitely, cutting back to the judge looking utterly gobsmacked.

Another great throwaway line is where the Ghostbusters pop in on their ostensible leader, Peter Venkman (Murray), while he's having dinner at a fancy restaurant with erstwhile lady love Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver). They're covered in ghost goo and make quite a scene, until Venkman hushes them with the classic, "Guys, guys, you're scaring the straights!" This is perhaps one of the first Hollywood movies in which gay humor did not come at the expense of the homosexual community.

I also enjoyed Peter MacNicol's daffy Janosz, the curator at the art restoration museum where Dana is working. He talks in a flighty Eurotrash accent, but when pressed reveals that he's a native-born American.

So why doesn't he film work? Well, the lack of a really good bad guy doesn't help. The villain is Vigo, a long-dead Slavic slayer who is brought back to life when a giant painting of him is reanimated by the negative energy flowing in great churning rivers under the city of New York. He's kind of scary-looking, but just doesn't have a lot of personality.

I also missed the prickly peevishness of Walter Peck, the hostile city bureaucrat so memorably played by William Atherton in the original. Until Gozer arrives on Earth and starts wreaking havoc, Peck operated as the main adversary for the Ghostbusters. Kurt Fuller tries bravely to fill in as the mayor's newest jerk toady, but he just doesn't conjure up the sort of quotidian malevolence personified by Peck.

And of course, the story's finale is a virtual repeat of the one in the original, with the aggressive giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man replaced by the benevolent Statue of Liberty, brought to life by the boys and ridden to the rescue. One icon blown up to titan size smashing stuff in the Big Apple equals big comedy; the second go-round feels like a cynical, uninspired rehash.

Still, I have to give "Ghostbusters 2" points for exceeding expectations, or at least my wrongful recollection of it as a disastrously bad flick. Time may not have totally changed my mind, but it did mellow out my hostility.

2.5 stars out of four

Review: "Get Low"

"I built myself a jail and put myself in it for 40 years," is how renowned hermit Felix Bush describes his self-imposed exile. Now grown old and feeling Death's hand tightening its grip, he wants one last furlough so he can throw himself a huge funeral, with himself as the (living) guest of honor, before it's time to "get low."

In olden days -- or at least the cinematic reflection of them -- every town had someone like Bush: He's far more spoken about than spoken to, with dark stories of his deeds building upon each other, one generation to the next.

We'd call them outcasts, except hermits like Bush have removed themselves from society voluntarily. Absent any concrete reason for shunning them, people create their own, until the truth is buried under a slow avalanche of whispers.

Robert Duvall got his start in movies nearly a half-century ago playing one such recluse, Boo Radley in "To Kill a Mockingbird," and "Get Low" completes the circle.

Imagine if Jem and Scout had never met Boo, but grown up continuing to feed his mystery, and bequeathed their fears and questions to their own children: The result would be Felix Bush.

Stories about him abound: That he's secretly rich, or that he once killed several men with just his fists. One day in the 1920s Bush hitches up his mule and wagon and rides into town, and the folks of Caleb County act as if Ichabod Crane has come to call. He's a ghost, and a legend. People have grown so comfortable with the mythology surrounding Bush, they have no idea what to do when the actual man presents himself.

But Bush has business to conduct: He wants to arrange his own funeral, where people can come together to share their stories about him. Finding no satisfaction with the local reverend (Gerald McRaney), he turns to the local funeral home, owned by recent transplant Frank Quinn.

Quinn, deliciously played by Bill Murray, is disturbed by his clientele's reluctance to avail themselves of his services: Business is slow. "One thing about Chicago, people knew how to die -- shot, drowned, run over ... whatever it took."

Quinn is at first put off by Bush's unusual request to attend his own funeral, but is something of a flimflam man and desperately wants the business. "Ooooo ... hermit money," he chants as they first drive up to Bush's remote shack.

But his young protégé, Buddy (a solid Lucas Black), has qualms. As he gets to know Bush, his fears settle into something like sympathy for the ornery old coot. He grows especially worried when Bush announces that he will raffle off his prime 300 acres, and cash starts deluging the funeral home. "Money makes people do funny things," Buddy says, and we can feel him inwardly turn toward Quinn when he says this.

Two other notable characters, wonderfully played by veteran actors, crop up: Mattie (Sissy Spacek), whose history with Bush goes back far enough to pierce his shroud of mystery, and Charlie Jackson (Bill Cobbs), an old preacher who is his only friend and confessor.

Director Aaron Schneider and screenwriters Chris Provenzano and C. Gaby Mitchell recognize this is an actor-driven film, less about a narrative progression than the richness of individual scenes shared by a handful of interesting characters. I enjoyed the film's bleak look and period authenticity, though its conclusion feels too tidy.

It's the complex, yet grounded performance by Duvall that gives the movie its weight and grit. When he first appears, Bush is nearly monosyllabic and impenetrable, but as he grows used to being around people again, a more layered creature emerges from this shell.

Duvall shows us the man who has reveled in being a hermit and is terrified of letting anyone in, but craves the peace he knows he will only find in the company of others.

There's a great scene at the very beginning where, after being pestered by some local boys, Bush takes down his old "No trespassing" sign and puts up a new one: "No damn trespassing! Beware of mule." The oddity of that threat hides an invitation.

3 stars out of four

Video review: "Zombieland"

There's always been a comedic element to zombie flicks, at least in their modern incarnation. George A. Romero had several moments of dark humor in 1968's seminal "Night of the Living Dead," and the laughs have shambled side-by-side with the flesh-eaters ever since.

If other movies have dipped a toe into humorous waters, then "Zombieland" dives head-first into comedy, with often uproarious results.

The set-up is similar to a hundred other films: The zombie apocalypse is upon us, and it's up to the few remaining humans to survive. Our foursome of heroes take the names of the cities they're from: Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), a video game dweeb; Wichita and Little Rock (Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin), a pair of butt-kicking sisters; and Tallahassee (a hilarious Woody Harrelson), a redneck who was born to eradicate the undead.

The filmmakers seem to know and love every convention of the zombie genre, tweaking them for comic effect while still delivering a satisfying helping of gleeful violence. At one point, Tallahassee takes out a grocery store full of walkers with a banjo.

Whether you're horror fan or just want a good laugh, "Zombieland" offers plenty of biting humor.
DVD extras cover a nice scope of material, though they're not as engrossing as you'd like.

Two making-of featurettes total about 30 minutes, but there's nothing really new other than the revelation the project was originally conceived as a television pilot. Seven deleted scenes are similarly underwhelming.

Better is the feature showing how the special effects were achieved, combining live action with layers of CGI.

I was glad to see a commentary track that actually has the participation of the stars: Harrelson and Eisenberg are joined by director Ruben Fleischer and screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick.

The boys keep the banter flowing at a nice pace, although the constant complimenting each other gets to be a little much.

In addition to these, the Blu-ray version also comes with a "Beyond the Grave" picture-in-picture track with storyboards and animatics, plus a digital copy of the film.

Movie: 3 stars
Extras: 3 stars

Review: "Fantastic Mr. Fox"

Imagine if a group of ironic hipster movie-makers decided to do their own version of a beloved children's book, and in stop-motion animation to boot. It retained the basic story, but layered in a lot of dry humor that appealed to adults -- basically, a kiddie tale tailored for grown-ups.

You can stop imagining, because "Fantastic Mr. Fox" is that movie.

Director/co-writer Wes Anderson brings along many of the actors and all of the sensibilities of "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "Rushmore" to this adaptation of Roald Dahl's book about a fox who can't give up his chicken-hunting ways.

Dahl has been a virtual one-man fount for children's flicks: "Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory," "James and the Giant Peach," "Matilda" and more. Meanwhile, Anderson's movies are marked by their detached quality and wry characters, punctuated by quirky/folksy music.

The combination may not seem obvious, but they mesh together deliciously. "Fox" is one of the funniest movies of the year, though in a deadpan sort of way.

Mr. Fox is voiced by George Clooney, doing his debonair rogue thing. After nearly being captured by a farmer while stealing chickens, his wife (Meryl Streep) makes him promise to give up his life of danger.

Flash forward a few years, and they're a happily domesticated couple with a son, Ash (Jason Schwartzman, whose vocal performance is top-notch). Ash is undersized and resentful, a state that only grows when his athletic cousin Kristofferson (Eric Chase Anderson) comes to stay with them.

Meanwhile, Mr. Fox decides that his life as a newspaper columnist is too dull, so he enlists his opossum friend Kylie (Wally Wolodarsky) to take aim at the mega-farms of Boggus, Bunce and Bean -- the three meanest farmers around. He draws up elaborate master plans to make off with their chickens, ducks and apple cider.

Unfortunately, the farmers hatch their revenge by lying in ambush outside Fox's tree home, shooting his tail off in the process. They're led by the lean Mr. Bean, scarily voiced by Michael Gambon. They even bring in big earth-movers to uproot the whole hill, with throws Badger (Bill Murray) and a lot of the other members of the animal community out of their homes, too.

One of the most delightful things about the movie is how the animals outwardly behave liked civilized humans -- Mr. Fox wears a suit, Mrs. Fox is a watercolorist, Badger is a lawyer, etc. But Mr. Fox believes they're really wild animals inside, and have wandered too far from their feral instincts.

Still, it's fun to watch Fox and Bean square off as equal adversaries, rather than hunter/prey -- they even exchange threatening letters. Fox also has an old nemesis, Rat (Willem Dafoe), who wields a switchblade and has been hired by Bean.

I really enjoyed Whack Bat, the game the animal children play at school, which is like a Rube Goldberg version of cricket.

Oh, and it's witty how instead of swearing, the critters just substitute the word "cuss" wherever the naughty one would be: "What the cuss?!?"

The stop-motion animation is amazing, hitting that sweet spot between reality and stylized embellishments.

The title of "Fantastic Mr. Fox" comes from Fox's neurotic need to be the best at whatever he does so others to like him. Based on his movie -- which should give "Up" a run for the Academy Award for best animated film -- he has no need for worry.

3.5 stars out of four

Review: "Zombieland"

Zombies have become a powerhouse franchise. Movies starring the walking dead, already popular for decades, have seen a resurgence, and zombie literature is on the rise with books like "World War Z" and even classic literary spoofs like "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies."

The next logical step was zombie comedy films. "Shaun of the Dead" got the ball rolling, but "Zombieland" immediately leaps to the front spot of an admittedly nascent genre.

Hip, ironic and often raucously funny, "Zombieland" will have you holding in your guts with laughter almost as often as the zombies try to rip the viscera out of their onscreen prey.

I mean, what other zombie flick would pair two of indie film's young rising stars, Jesse Eisenberg ("The Squid and the Whale") and Abigail Breslin ("Little Miss Sunshine"), both known for their shy, introspective roles, as post-apocalyptic ass-kickers?

Well, not quite: Eisenberg's still pretty dorky as Columbus, a lonely dweeb who spent most of his days playing "World of Warcraft" before the undead outbreak. He's come up with a list of rules for surviving what he calls Zombieland.

The first one is "Cardio" -- as in, maintain your ability to run fast. As the droll prologue narration notes to a scene of an obese guy getting run down and feasted upon, the fatties were the first to die.

Other rules include the "Double Tap," which instructs that even when you think a zombie is dead, put another bullet in its brain just to be sure. When the world is infested with creatures that want to eat you, now's not the time to get stingy with the ammunition.

Columbus soon happens upon a guy writing his own rules, which all boil down to kicking walking corpse butt in as many inventive ways as possible -- baseball bats, chainsaws, even a banjo. Tallahassee (all the characters go by the name of the city they're from) figures that everyone was put on earth to be really good at one thing, and his just happens to be killing zombies. It's Woody Harrelson's best roles in years.

This intrepid pair meets up with a pair of sisters, Wichita and Little Rock (Emma Stone and Breslin), who pull a con on them and steal their guns and ride. Soon enough, though, they've joined forces, with a love struck Columbus making plans to invade Kansas.

Director Ruben Fleisher, in addition to showing a good eye for the action scenes, keeps the tone goofy and light. Screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick seem to have watched every zombie movie ever made, and joke around with the conventions while clearly reveling in them.

So when the boys stumble across a Hummer loaded up with assault weapons, Tallahassee shouts to the heavens, "Thank God for rednecks!"

The movie reaches its full stride of daffiness when the foursome arrives in Hollywood, and they decide to crash in a celebrity mansion, only to find the one belonging to Bill Murray still occupied by its owner. In a short but rich stretch of screen time, Murray plays "Ghostbusters" with his guests and even delivers an apology of sorts for those awful "Garfield" flicks. (Stick around after the end credits for some more fun.)

Based on "Zombieland," I'd say the undead comedy genre deserves to rise again.

3 stars