Video review: "Big Miracle"

"Big Miracle" came and went at theaters without much of a ripple, but it's well worth checking out on video. This admittedly sappy story about three whales who get trapped beneath the Alaskan ice and elicit a flood of worldwide attention is certainly manipulative, but at least goes about jerking its tears in an expert manner.

John Krasinski plays a TV reporter yearning for his big break when he stumbles across three California gray whales caught in the encroaching ice, unable to travel south for the winter. Based on a true story from 1988, the trio soon attract hordes of television cameras, plus dozens of people looking to help.

Director Ken Kwapis and his screenwriters do a good job juggling a large cast of characters, including Drew Barrymore as the headstrong local Greenpeace leader; Ted Danson as an oil company CEO lending a hand for PR reasons; Dermot Mulroney as a National Guard helicopter pilot sent in to assist; Vinessa Shaw as a White House aide looking to burnish the president's environmental credentials, Kristen Bell as a hotshot reporter from L.A.; and John Pingayak as the chief of the local Eskimo tribe.

Despite its TV Movie of the Week feel, "Big Miracle" is a smart, tenderhearted flick suitable for the whole family -- and there aren't too many of those these days.

Extra features are pretty decent, and you don't have to shell out for the most expensive package to get some good stuff.

The DVD includes deleted scenes introduced by Kwapis, plus the director provides a feature-length commentary track. There's also a featurette, "Truth is Stranger Than Fiction," interviewing the real people behind the true story and the actors who portrayed them.

Upgrade to the Blu-ray addition, and you add a making-of featurette, "A Big Miracle in Alaska," plus a digital copy of the film.


Movie:3 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars


 

Review: "Big Miracle"

Yes, “Big Miracle” is a sappy story about some whales trapped in the ice, and the people who came together to save them. It’s a family-friendly tear-jerker, unabashedly trying to wring heartfelt emotions out of the audience, and impart a tasty feel-good message covered by a light sauce of environmentalism, with a side of can’t-we-get-along political optimism.

For one great big Warm Fuzzy, it’s an extremely watchable movie. The cast, led by John Krasinski and Drew Barrymore, are enjoyable to hang out with, and the story has a certain weight of authenticity, since it’s based on a true story that happened in 1988.

The movie uses lots of news clips with Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather and others to show what a big story it was back in the day, though I confess I have no memory of it whatsoever.

Krasinski is known for his smart-aleck role on TV’s “The Office,” but he’s had a busy if largely unnoticed film career (16 credits over the past six years, including the little gem “Away We Go”). Here he plays Adam Carlson, a television reporter stuck in Barrow, Alaska, who stumbles across three California gray whales trapped beneath a thick layer of office.

No one quite knows why the mammoth mammals haven’t already migrated southward, though it may have something to do with the fact they’re a family: father, mother and baby. The locals quickly dub them Fred, Wilma and Bamm-Bamm.

Barrymore plays Rachel Kramer, head of the Alaskan Greenpeace chapter, who spends most of her time railing against the big oil companies drilling in the neighboring oceans. When the whales become a national story, she’s soon to arrive on the scene, complicating matters since she and Adam recently ended a romance.

I was pleased that the film does not make their relationship the centerpiece of the story. Most Hollywood movies would have played up the love angle to the maudlin hilt, so credit to screenwriters Jack Amiel and Michael Begler (working from a book by Thomas Rose) for sticking with the whales. An aura of sexual tension colors Rachel and Adam’s interchanges, but it doesn’t suck all the air out of the room, narratively speaking.

I also enjoyed the way director Ken Kwapis juggled a large cast and competing story elements.

There’s stuff about the tension between the local Eskimos, who hunt whales for food, and the environmentalists; Ted Danson as the chief of Alaska Northern Oil, who volunteers to help as a way to get the pesky Rachel off his back; a National Guard helicopter commander (Dermot Mulroney) unhappy about being handed a PR assignment; a White House official (Vinessa Shaw) who sees a chance to burnish then-outgoing President Reagan’s (weak) environmental record; and Adam’s ambition to get a job in the Lower 48 by sucking up to a star reporter (Kristen Bell) from Los Angeles.

Particularly nice is the interplay between Adam and Malik, the local Eskimo chieftain, and his grandson Nathan (Ahmaogak Sweeney). The Eskimos see harvesting the whales as the most humane thing to do, but Adam warns Malik how it will play out in the media. Malik is played by first-time actor John Pingayak, who exudes a warm mix of nurturing and command – I was not surprised to learn he is a teacher in real life.

I won’t bother discussing how “Big Miracle” turns out, since even if you don’t remember it’s not hard to guess (or to Google).

All I’ll say is, if one has to have your emotions manipulated, it’s at least a comfort to have them jerked around expertly, with style and wit.

3 stars out of four

Review: "Going the Distance"

"Going the Distance" is this year's "(500) Days of Summer" -- something that superficially resembles a genre film, but is hipper, edgier and about 40 I.Q. points smarter than the average romantic comedy.

Justin Long and Drew Barrymore make for a terrific couple trying to keep a West Coast-East Coast romance alive. Long in particular has developed a really sharp sense of comic timing, and elevates the role just through his quizzical reactions and off-center line deliveries.

But I think it's the creative team that brings a vibe of freshness to a stultifyingly stale genre.

Geoff LaTulippe makes an audacious debut with his original screenplay, and documentarian Nanette Burstein -- she made the wonderful but little-seen "American Teen" a couple years ago -- directs her first narrative film.

The pair behave like a couple of eager kids who don't yet know the romcom rules they're not supposed to break, and deliver a better movie because they fail to acknowledge the boundaries of the familiar boy-meets-girl tale.

For instance, one of the telltale signs of the romantic comedy is the couple's inevitability. Some kind of challenge or set of obstacles is placed in their path, and the entire movie becomes a mechanism to delay that which the audience knows is bound to happen.

In "Going the Distance," we truly don't know if Erin (Barrymore) and Garrett (Long) will end up together. The barriers in their way are not simple hurdles that can be overcome by the telling of an uncomfortable truth, or some other quick fix. They're deep, life-changing conundrums about how much of your own life you're willing to give up in order to share it with someone else.

Burstein and LaTulippe use the form of the raunchy comedy as a prism through which to glimpse some heavy issues.

And there is plenty of raunch. On Garrett's end, he has a couple of excellent wingmen to lubricate the way with dirty jokes and inappropriate behavior. Dan (Charlie Day) is Garrett's roommate, who's not big on the whole person space thing, and cynical Box (Jason Sudeikis) works with Garrett at a New York record label.

Yeah, the music business ... is there any industry facing such a monumental paradigm shift and soul-crushing downturn? Oh wait, I know: Newspapers! Turns out that's Erin's gig. She's just finishing up a summer internship (at age 31) at the New York Sentinel, where she can barely get anything into print.

(Matt Servitto nails the harried, hectored nonchalance of her editor, having to put off eager beavers like Erin asking about permanent jobs when they're about to lay off a hundred veteran journalists.)

Erin and Garrett hook up for a quick six-week romance, after which she has to go back to San Francisco to wait tables while living with her sister and her family. But things go so well, they decide to give the long-distance relationship thing a try.

Their first, desperate coupling after months of separation happens on the sister's dining table. Christina Applegate is priceless in the role of the fussbudget sibling who scrubs the table all day, and probably would burn it if she could afford to.

The film drags a bit about two-thirds of the way through, but it's possibly unavoidable as Erin and Garrett transition from puppy love to the more troublesome, mature kind that requires sacrifice. They struggle and snipe, and the movie turns sadder but wiser.

There are so many dumb movies out there about falling in love. "Going the Distance" is one smart flick that's not afraid to ask what happens next.

3.5 stars out of four

Video review: "Whip It"

When you say "roller derby," a lot of people bring to mind an image of a cheesy sport on roller skates that briefly captured the public imagination back in the 1970s. It's been reborn in recent years as a sport for wheeled women who want to showcase their bruises and bad attitudes.

"Whip It" wants to be the anthem for a generation of derby girls, and it serves that role, if fitfully. Ellen Page plays Bliss, a small-town teen who gets caught up in the derby craze, much to the consternation of her mother, who thinks beauty pageants are more ladylike.

But after going to a local match, Bliss is enamored by the tough, fun-loving girls of the Hurl Scouts -- even if they're the league bottom-feeders. Drew Barrymore, who also directed the film, has a small role, and other players include Eve, Kristen Wiig and Juliette Lewis.

Soon Bliss -- renamed Babe Ruthless -- is winging her way around the oval, trading elbows and having the time of her life.

If the movie has a downside, it's the downbeat second act, in which Bliss struggles in romance with an older boy in a band, and squabbles with her family and best friend. It all seems like a cynical ploy whose only reason for existing is to set up the big match at the end, in which Bliss' uptight parents learn to embrace their daughters' newfound passion.

But there's no denying the brash energy of this movie, which taps into a more modern, punk-rock take on feminism.

Video extras for "Whip It" are rather miserly, although the Blu-ray has a little more to offer than the DVD.

Both include nine deleted/extended scenes totaling about 16 minutes worth of material. Only the alternate opening scene, in which Bliss and friend dumpster-dive from the roof of the tacky little restaurant where they work, is worthwhile.

The Blu-ray also has "Writer's Draft" feature with Cross, plus a digital copy of the film.
What a shame -- a commentary track by Page, Barrymore and Wiig could've been a grrrl-power hoot.

Movie: 2.5 stars
Extras: 1.5 stars

Review: "Everybody's Fine"

"Everybody's Fine" is ... well, just fine.

This inoffensive but largely charmless drama is a remake of a well-regarded 1990 Italian movie, about a retired father whose adult children stand him up on a promised visit, so he travels to each of their far-flung homes to see them. Now the story has been transplanted to the States with all the quirky opera references removed (the Italian dad was a music buff who named his children Tosca, etc.).

Robert De Niro has done many things in his great career, but he's never played a total Average Joe like this, a man without any kind of strong personality traits or identity.

Frank Goode is like a million guys you see in their early golden years: Widowed, seemingly content but a little needy, who fills his days with quotidian distractions like mowing the lawn and chewing the fat with his butcher.

Frank's getting ready for a big family reunion at his house, but one by one the kids call to cancel. Not one to wallow in self-pity, he resolves to travel the country to see his four children -- and deliver cryptic letters to each of them.

He can't fly because of lung fibrosis due to decades of putting PVC coating on thousands of miles of telephone wire, so Frank goes the train and bus route. He takes pride in watching the wires he helped make go streaming by his window, bragging to a fellow passenger that it took a million miles of the stuff to pay for his kids' educations.

Those wires also carry the conversations of his children, who soon get wind of his "surprise" visits and conspire to keep him in the dark about the youngest sibling, David, an artist who's seemingly disappeared.

After missing David in New York, Frank sees Amy (Kate Beckinsale) in Chicago. She's a partner at a big advertising firm, and lives in an art deco mansion. All seems well, but there's some dark clouds between her son and husband.

This sets up the dynamic for all of Frank's visits, which involve his children avoiding him and lying about their life circumstances. Since he doesn't seem like a bad guy, we wonder why they would treat him so shabbily.

Robert (Sam Rockwell) plays percussion in an orchestra, which is great except that Frank had been led to believe he was the conductor. It's the same with Rosie (Drew Barrymore), who lives in a fab Las Vegas apartment and has a female friend with a baby with which his daughter seems overly familiar.

The film "Everybody's Fine" will remind most people of is "About Schmidt," a similarly-themed movie starring Jack Nicholson as a man navigating the straits between family man of business and lonely retiree.

Writer/director Kirk Jones ("Nanny McPhee") layers in moments of levity, gently poking fun at the middle-class values and foibles of people like Frank. He insists on taking photographs of Amy in front of her company's sign, and even takes a picture of the impressive big-screen TV in Rosie's guest bedroom.

It doesn't really add up to much, other than a drably pleasant protagonist struggling to narrow the distance he's inadvertently placed between himself and his offspring. Like Frank himself, who doesn't traffic much in introspection, "Everybody's Fine" has few depths to plumb.

2 stars

Review: "Whip It"

I know some roller derby chicks, and can testify to the girl-power jolt that fuels the resurgence of the cheesy 1970s sport. In its modern punk incarnation of ripped fishnet stockings, mascara applied with a trowel and tattooed gals who celebrate a really gnarly bruise, it's all about elbowing aside all of society's rigid hang-ups about what nice girls do -- and don't do.

That's what I was hoping for from "Whip It," the new roller derby flick starring Ellen Page from "Juno" and marking the directorial debut of Drew Barrymore (who also has a small role). There's some of that brash energy, and the action in the rink is enjoyably rough-and-tumble.

But something about the movie, which was written by Shauna Cross and based on her book "Derby Girl," left me wanting more.

Perhaps it's the fact that roller derby phenom is stitched onto the back of the overly familiar coming-of-age teen movie, with all the predictable tropes.

Page plays Bliss, who enters beauty pageants to satisfy her mother's (Marcia Gay Harden) Doris Day concept of womanhood, but secretly favors combat boots. Daniel Stern breathes a little life into the dad role, but it's the same-old portrayal of a decent but emotionally absent father figure.

When Bliss catches sight of some derby girls, she determines to travel from her sleepy town of Bodeen, Texas, to nearby Austin to catch the show. She's encouraged to try out for the team, and despite her tiny size she turns out to be fast and nimble on her skates.

One of the most fun things about roller derby is the comically violent or risqué skate names the women gives themselves and their teams. The Hurl Scouts (told you) includes Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig), Rosa Sparks (Eve) and Smashley Simpson (Barrymore). Bliss herself is rechristened Babe Ruthless.

(Some real-life players in my backyard include Jane Ire, Trauma-lina and Smackie Onassis.)

The heavies are the Holy Rollers, led by Iron Maven (Juliette Lewis, in full sneer mode). The Hurl Scouts are the league doormats, but when the girls add Ruthless to the roster and start listening to their hapless coach, they move up the ladder.

About two-thirds of the way through, the movie enters a dark and angsty phase that feels obligatory -- it subtracts, rather than adds anything to the film.

Bliss/Ruthless has hooked up with a hipster guitar player (Landon Pigg) who disappears on tour, her parents find out the high-schooler has been lying about all the late nights, and her best friend Pash (Alia Shawkat, one to watch) becomes P.O.'d at her for no good reason.

It's all meant to set up the triumphant showdown on the rink, with mom and dad learning to bask in their daughter's crazy new obsession.

I feel like I've spent this whole review dumping on "Whip It," when actually I quite liked it. It's fun, it celebrates rebellion -- at least the kind unlikely to result in anything worse than a sprained ankle or a busted nose -- and it's all about girls realizing their own power.

Floor burns beat a tiara any day.

3 stars