Video review: "The Hollars"

John Krasinski’s second feature film as a director and star isn’t terribly ambitious, but it gathers together a truly wonderful cast and gives them interesting things to say and do. Margo Martindale and Richard Jenkins both fall into that tiniest category of actors I think of as “people I would pay to read my medicine bottles.” They’re always distinctive and alive.

Toss in Anna Kendrick, Sharlto Copley, Charlize Day, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Krasinski himself, and that’s enough reason to choose “The Hollars” for a home viewing right there.

Krasinski plays John Hollar, a typical arrested-development sort who can’t get his career or personal life out of first gear. He’s got an amazing girlfriend (Kendrick) who’s pregnant with his baby, but he hasn’t put a ring on it.

When family matriarch/rock Sally (Martindale) falls ill, dad Don (Jenkins) more or less dissolves into a puddle, while wayward son Ron (Copley) is dealing with his own issues, losing both his job and his family. Meanwhile, the Hollar family business is going under.

So John returns to a scene of chaos and resentment, as all these sharp divides must be spackled together with love and trust.

Everything goes exactly as you’d expect. Most of the time I dislike movies that are completely predictable. But “The Hollars” has genuine heart and some snappy dialogue courtesy of script man Jim Strouse.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you won’t get even a hint of any real surprises. But I doubt anyone who watches this film will consider it time ill spent.

Bonus features are decent. Krasinski and Martindale team up for a feature length commentary track, and there’s also a Q&A with the two plus Kendrick from the LA Film Festival. It also comes with two featurettes: “Persistent Vision: Margo Martindale” and “The Family Trust: Inside The Hollars.”

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Review: "The Hollars"

“You won’t know till you get there that you’re OK.”
--Sally Hollar

On points for originality, “The Hollars” scores a great big goose egg. It’s an overly familiar recitation of the Going Home dramedy, in which a wayward adult returns to their childhood home because of some kind of family crisis and has to face a lot of old fears and doubts, heaped on top of some new ones.

But this cast is just amazing: Margo Martindale, Richard Jenkins, Anna Kendrick, Sharlto Copley, Charlie Day, Mary Elizabeth Winstead. And, of course, John Krasinski (“The Office”), who stars, produces as well as directing his second feature film.

It’s a warm-hearted story that delivers exactly what you expect, yet never has a false moment or trips over any pretensions.

This movie is a big ol’ slice of pecan pie. The taste is like a memory etched into your mind, yet you can’t help finding yourself asking for more. This is the rare movie I actually wished was a bit longer.

John Hollar (Krasinski) lives in New York City and labors in misery as a graphic artist for an advertising firm. He’s got an amazing girlfriend, Rebecca (Anna Kendrick), who’s very pregnant with their child. But he hasn’t put a ring on it, and obviously has cold feet about the sudden push into real adulthood.

Back home things aren’t much happier. (The exact location of the Hollar homestead isn’t specified, but I’d guess somewhere small-town Midwest.)

The father, Don (Richard Jenkins), projects outward stoicism concealing a jumpy bundle of nerves. The family business is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Oldest son Ron (Sharlto Copley) is the resident screw-up; he’s back living in his parents’ basement after being fired by his boss -- that would be his dad -- and is long divorced. He’s taken to spying on the house where his ex-wife and daughters live.

Margo Martindale is Sally, the matriarch and spiritual center of the clan. Don even calls her “Chief,” tacitly acknowledging her prominence. As the story opens she collapses in the bathroom, which at first Don dismisses as a prank. He’s anything but mean-spirited; he’s just rested on that Rock of Gibraltar so long he just assumes Sally is immortal. But tests reveal a large brain tumor.

John returns home, and it’s apparent he was disconnected from his family long before he left. But his momma treats him with patience, knowing the sheep has to wander back to the herd on its own rather than being led. She offers opinions, gives comfort and accept some, too. Martindale is just a wondrous performer, and projects the wave of fear Sally is experiencing underneath a tough game face.

“I like Rebecca,” she tells John. “She’s pushy. Men need to be pushed.”

Rebecca herself soon arrives too, due in part to some tension with an old girlfriend of John’s (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who is now married to Sally’s nurse, Jason (the always acerbic Charlie Day). We think it’s going to turn into a love triangle, but the third leg is not the one we expect.

The screenplay by Jim Strouse stays firmly in the groove of laughing-while-crying melodrama, decidedly sentimental without ever wallowing into sappy. There are a lot of great one-liners – such as Sally, fretting over having to have her head shaved for surgery, predicting she’ll “look like Rod Steiger.”

This is the sort of movie that rises and falls on the strength of its cast, and it’s got a doozy. There’s so much heart in the Hollars; watching a film about them is like a warm, wet hug.

Review: "13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi"

If you're looking for politics in "13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi," then you'll be searching awhile. Told in the vérité style of "Black Hawk Down" and "Lone Survivor," this gripping war drama from director Michael Bay aims only to capture the on-the-ground events of the terrorist attack on the U.S. embassy outpost in Libya on Sept. 11, 2012.

Although that night has proved ample fodder for presidential politics, congressional hearings and more, Bay and screenwriter Chuck Hogan doggedly stick to the account from the book by Mitchell Zuckoff, who interviewed the Annex Security Team, which defended the compound and tried (unsuccessfully) to rescue Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

The team consisted of CIA employees and ex-military contractors tasked with guarding them. Bay, known for the rambling special effects-heavy "Transformers" films and the like, ditches the fancy trappings and focuses on the rough human camaraderie of soldiers who have left any causes behind and simply fight for each other.

Others will get the glory and the medals, but their reward is "We get to go home," says Jack Silva, a fairly recent arrival to the mission played by John Krasinski. He serves as the audience's eyes and ears.

Bay and Hogan immerse us in the world of the grunts, who live in an untidy compound about a mile down the road from the lush, clean proto-embassy. They share the space with a couple dozen CIA operatives, who are portrayed as eggheads whom the soldiers must guard with jock-like disdain -- former football gods forced to ferry around the math nerds.

"What are all the Jason Bournes doing downstairs?" one snidely asks during a break in the firefight.

At first, the six members of the team are hard to distinguish from each other, all bearded and scary with grim senses of humor. But the cast and crew show us bits of humanity in between the bluster -- the stolen video chats with kids, regretful longing for absent wives, and so on.

James Badge Dale plays the leader, "Rone" Woods, who battles daily with the nebbishy CIA station chief (David Costabile). The spook resents the intrusion these security guys have on their intelligence gathering, even complaining about their grunting exercising outside his window. It's he who refuses to let the elite soldiers rush over to the embassy, dooming Stevens, but he's just following orders from above.

The sprawling battle sequences grab you by the shirt, first the rescue mission to the embassy and then the rigid defense of their own annex. Forced to give up the computer-generated protagonists, Bay proves adept at putting us in the shoes of the flesh-and-blood ones. The scariest moments are not when the bullets are flying, but as the soldiers watch strange men approaching the compound, not knowing if they're friend or foe.

Being a decided member of the nerd class, I might be inclined to disfavor a movie where the beefy soldiers are brazenly glorified while the thinking types are seen as insufferable fools. But "13 Hours" is less about pointing fingers than putting some unheralded guys on pedestals. It's a riveting tale of reaching for heroism amid the chaos.

Video review: "The Office: Season Nine"

What happens when a very good television comedy loses its star and iconic main character?

Usually it spells the end, but “The Office,” which at one point was the highest-rated series on NBC, managed to trudge on for another two seasons without Steve Carell. Though the show clearly dipped in quality after losing the manic energy of Carell’s Michael Scott, it still boasted plenty of laughs -- and more somber moments than previously seen.

Despite the naysayers determined to shut down fictional paper company Dunder Mifflin early, “The Office” made for pretty good television during its ninth and final season.

As might be expected, company lovebirds Pam and Jim (Jenna Fischer and John Krasinski) took up some of the vacated limelight. But the show also found time to focus more on previously tertiary characters. Most notable was Ed Helms as self-deluded fussbudget Andy, who assumed Michael’s role as boss and resident empty suit.

By Season Nine, Helms’ movie career was taking off, so his character was largely shunted aside, leaving “fascist nerd” Dwight to finally step into his long-sought role of regional manager for the Scranton office of the fictional paper company. Rainn Wilson, who has created one of the most unique characters ever seen on TV, got to spread his wings a little further.

It was also nice to see Erin (Ellie Kemper), Oscar (Oscar Nunez) and Darryl (Craig Robinson) soak up some more screen time, and complete character development journeys that knocked them out of the grooved slots they had settled into.

There are plenty of television shows that overstay their welcome, diminishing their legacy by ending their runs with superfluous seasons – “Friends” and “Frasier” come to mind. “The Office” was not one of them.

Extra features are quite handsome, and you don’t have to splurge for the most expensive package to get the good stuff.

The DVD version comes with more than two hours of deleted scenes, original audition tapes from 2003 (including then-unknown Seth Rogen!), a cast retrospective, blooper reel and footage of the final table read.

Upgrade to the Blu-ray edition and you add an extensive panel discussion looking back on the entire TV series.

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Review: "Promised land"

“Promised Land” is the sort of movie that is so gratingly earnest, so righteous in its mission and so unwavering in its message that it undercuts the storytelling.

This drama about the issue of hydraulic fracturing drilling for natural gas, or “fracking,” contains some powerful moments and a few nice performances, particularly Matt Damon as a conflicted gas company rep. But the screenplay, co-written by Damon and John Krasinski (who also co-stars), sets up the conflict in such stark shades of black and white, we know exactly how the characters’ journeys will turn out.

To wit: I do not think I am giving anything away by stating that this film ends with Damon’s character, Steve Butler, undergoing a major change of heart, making a big speech in front of the townspeople in which he confesses his sins. This is because, given everything that has transpired, this movie could not have ended any other way.

Steve is the hotshot top salesman for Global Gas. His job is to go into rural communities where natural gas is lying in beds of shale rock deep below the earth and buy up the leasing rights to farms. Steve, along with his partner Sue Thomason (Frances McDormand), have a track record of signing more land at a fraction of the price compared to other teams.

Now he’s up for a big promotion, as soon as he closes the deal on the tiny town of Miller Falls. There he encounters a stubborn old farmer (Hal Holbrook) who used to be a big shot scientist. He warns people about the environmental dangers of fracking, and convinces them to hold an election in three weeks’ time to decide the issue.

This represents a nightmare scenario for Steve and Sue, who are used to descending on a small community, swooping up all the lease contracts and getting out before any opposition has time to coalesce. Even worse, a smarmy young environmentalist from some group called Superior Athena named Dustin Noble (Krasinski) shows up with dire warnings and horrifying photographs of dead cows after his family’s dairy farm was ruined by fracking.

The contrast between Dustin and Steve could not be more puzzling. For a fellow who is supposed to be the best there is at schmoozing and selling, Steve seems absolutely flummoxed by the tall, blithely charming environmentalist. As a result, the farmers keep getting sullener, transitioning from get-off-my-land rebuffs to fisticuffs in bars.

“I’m not a bad guy,” he keeps telling people, until you suspect it’s not them he’s trying to convince.

Damon gives one of his best performances as a guy who’s plowed all of his energy into his job at the detriment of nourishing his soul. Steve came from a small town himself that was devastated by layoffs at the local Caterpillar factory, and was one of only two people in his high school who went to college.

Now he’s successful, and goes around the country writing big checks to dirt-poor farmers who he genuinely believes he’s helping. There’s a sense of altruism there, but also contempt.

Steve sees these fracking contracts as their one chance to cash in and get ahead. He can’t believe it when people turn him down. They’re just perpetuating a “delusional self-mythology” about rural America, he says.

Steve made it out, and thinks everyone else wants to, too.

This dynamic would have worked better if the movie’s internal logic wasn’t all bunched up in knots. For example, we keep getting reminders of how big Global Gas is – “We’re a $9 billion company!” is the phrase that’s repeated several times. Yet they seem to have the resources of a mom-and-pop.

As near as we can figure, Steve and Sue in their beaten-up rental truck and recently store-bought flannels – deliberately downscale accoutrements meant to help them blend in – represent Global’s entire presence. At one point, Steve gets the idea to hold a town fair to generate goodwill, and he has to set up all the tents, hay bales and fencing himself. Huh?

Director Gus Van Sant has a nice eye for the beautiful landscapes depicted – the film was shot lovingly by cinematographer Linus Sandgren outside of Pittsburgh. But his pacing is a little off at times, and characters disappear for long stretches or behave erratically.

For instance, the (inevitable) local love interest is played by Rosemarie DeWitt. Alice, a winsome schoolteacher brushing up against spinsterhood, shares immediate sparks with Steve, then starts flirting around with Dustin. As written, the character seems to have no motivations or opinions about fracking, as long as she’s got two gorgeous guys squabbling over her.

“Promised Land” may have its heart in the right place, but too often it sacrifices believability.

2.5 stars out of four

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: "It's Complicated"

"It's Complicated" covers familiar ground, but this comedy about autumn romance is charming enough to entertain despite its slightly stale themes.

Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin are a tremendous cinematic pairing as a long-divorced couple who unexpectedly re-stoke the dying embers. Since he's now married to the woman he left her for, she effectively switches places as the Other Woman.

To add to the mix, Steve Martin is cast very much against type as a straitlaced architect with the hots for Streep.

Writer/director Nancy Meyers has trod down the path of oldster canoodling before, most notably with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton in "Something's Gotta Give." The idea of a woman nearing 60 having to fend off multiple suitors clearly appeals to the filmmaker, and probably a lot of audience members.

Streep plays Jane, who's sending her youngest daughter off to college, watching the middle son graduate, and helping her oldest daughter prepare for her wedding. She and Jake (Baldwin) were married for 20 years, divorced for 10, and after years of consternation have reached a comfortable sort of detente.

But by the way Jane glares at Jake's much-younger wife (Lake Bell), it's clear she has unresolved issues about the relationship ending -- not to mention that she's in a pretty long dry spell herself romantically.

A successful baker, Jane is looking to add an addition onto her house, and thus meets Adam (Martin). The architect is shy, a bit awkward, and just getting over his own divorce. It's kind of a flat role as written, and Martin doesn't really fill out the part satisfactorily.

Whenever the film wanders off into Adam territory, it loses steam. The Jane/Jake dynamic is what keeps things moving.

The scenes of them together are playful and sexy -- the twinkle in Baldwin's eyes speaks of a lifelong rogue who decides the homefires were the warmest. Streep's character is confused and reticent at first, but eventually decides she deserves a romp.

Jake points out that, by virtue of their age, they have simply aged out of all the problems they had while they were married. He's no longer obsessed with work, and she doesn't have to put family before herself anymore.

"We both grew into the people we wanted each other to be," he says.

There's several laugh-out-loud moments, including one where Streep tells a doctor something that you never expected to hear out of Hollywood's Oscar queen. Along with her fleshy, exuberant turn as Julia Child earlier this year, Streep is Tinseltown's latest-blooming sexpot.

Baldwin bares himself, too, though in a more literal sense. All I will say is it's the funniest use of a webcam since the first "American Pie."

"It's Complicated" isn't terribly original, but it's a generous and entertaining look at life and love while rounding third base.

3 stars

DVD review: "Away We Go"

Director Sam Mendes' first film, "American Beauty," won a slew of Oscars, and he's had his ups and downs since then. Last fall's "Revolutionary Road," pairing Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in a disintegrating marriage, was a major disappointment. But Mendes redeems himself somewhat with "Away We Go," a funny and quirky take on relationships.

John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph play Burt and Verona, an unmarried but committed couple expecting a baby. They're in their early 30s, a bit scatterbrained and irresponsible, but basically good people.

When Burt's parents -- whom they'd hoped to rely upon for child care help -- suddenly decide to move away, Verona and Burt begin a cross-country trip to find a new home.

They visit a variety of friends and relations, played by wonderful actors like Catherine O'Hara, Jeff Daniels and Allison Janney. The hosts grow increasingly kooky, and as enjoyable as these visits are, we come to realize that such characters exist only in the movies.

But still, I was never bored and the laugh-out-loud moments, while spread fairly far apart by screenwriters Vendela Vida and Dave Eggers, earn their chuckles.

Maggie Gyllenhall has a particularly hilarious turn as Burt's cousin, who takes the whole earth-mother routine to such an extreme that she angrily rejects their gift of a baby stroller: "Why would I want to push my child away from me?!?"

DVD extras are decent in scope, but less than impressive. A 16-minute making-of documentary contains more hype than insight, and a featurette about how they endeavored to keep the production environmentally friendly is just self-congratulatory fluff.

Mendes, Eggers and Vida team up for a feature-length commentary that consists mostly of moment-by-moment observations about the circumstances of how each scene was written and/or shot.

In addition to the DVD bonus material, the Blu-ray version contains a small amount of material available only online.

Movie: 3 stars
Extras: 2.5 stars

Catching up with "Away We Go"

The wife and I aren't really big fireworks people, so we decided to catch a movie last night, followed by a big strawberry shake from Steak 'N Shake. It looks like most of the big fireworks displays got canceled anyway due to rain, so I think we made a fine choice for the Fourth.

"Away We Go" is an enjoyable comedy-drama about quirky characters who revel in their own quirkiness. After a time we come to realize that such people exist only in the movies, and an entire film filled with them is a contrivance that soon grows old. But still, I was never bored and the laugh-out-loud moments, while spread fairly far apart, earn their chuckles.

John Krasinksi, the TV star of "The Office" whose first starring role in "Leatherheads" was just this side of a disaster, gives a terrific performance as Burt, half of a couple expecting a baby. Burt and Verona (Maya Rudolph) are in their early 30s, live in a ramshackle home, drive a rusting old Volva and are -- as folks like to say in the current economy -- underemployed.

They are unmarried (at Verona's insistence) but committed and joyfully expecting their daughter. Their lives are thrown for a loop when Burt's parents, who they moved to their current location to be near to, announce they are leaving for Belgium. Suddenly unfettered, they determine to visit a number of cities where they have families and friends to find a new home. So off they wing to Phoenix, Tucscon, Madson, Miami and Montreal.

Now, one can wonder (as Jean did) how two people can apparently have barely enough money to survive and be able to spend thousands of dollars on airplane flights, hotel rooms, car rental, meals, etc. But rookie screenwriters Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida do not concern themselves with such trivialities. Instead, they focus on introducing a cast of increasingly neurotic and improbable characters in each new city.

In Phoenix, they meet an old boss of Verona's who sees nothing wrong with telling her teen daughter she "walks like a dyke" and loudly announcing that she used to have large breasts until her children "sucked them dry."

By the time we get to Madison, they're dealing with a Burt cousin (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who's taken the earth-mother thing to the extreme, including breast-feeding both her children at once, even though the boy is about five. She views Burt and Verona's gift of a stroller as an insult: "Why would I want to push my child away from me?!?"

Things go on from there in a similar vein. As I say, I never really believed most of the characters as real, but they certainly are entertaining. Krasinski is a hoot as Burt, who's kind of a dweeb but just shines with an inner goodness. One of his best recurring bits is after he learns that their baby's heart rate is a little on the slow side, and that by agitating Verona they can raise it. This leads to a number of occasions, usually in public, where Burt sneaks up on her and starts screaming and cursing, followed by a shy smile and pulling up her shirt to listen with the baby monitor.

"Away We Go" was directed by Sam Mendes, whose first two films -- "American Beauty" and "Road to Perdition" -- were knockouts. Then came "Jarhead," a serviceable but unremarkable war drama, and last fall's "Revolutionary Road," a major disappointment. This new film is a worthy entry in his growing body of work, but not one of the high points.

3 stars