Review: "Trolls World Tour"

 "That was amazingly better than the first one."
                                                --Joel Lloyd, 9

So sayeth the target audience for "Trolls World Tour," the sequel to the 2016 animation hit based on those scary-cute dolls with neon hair and, apparently, golden singing pipes.

Back then I recognized "Trolls" for what it was -- craftily-made entertainment that parents would find tolerable but designed to dump straight into the bloodstream of their offspring like some beat-driven pharmacological candy. A mite cynical, mayhaps, but undeniably skillfully executed.

So here's the next one, and truth be told I actually dug it more than the first.

The song playlist is maybe not quite as good but the story's actually got a little meat on the bone, as Poppy (voice of Anna Kendrick), Branch (Justin Timberlake) and the rest of the troll popstars find out the world -- both musically and otherwise -- is a lot bigger and more complicated than they took it for.

It turns out the trolls of the original movie are merely one-sixth of the species, representing the pop music segment in a spectrum that's been divided up by genre. The others are rock, funk, classical, country and techno. According to the long-ago-but-just-rediscovered lore, the troll tribes went their separate ways long ago because of their musical differences, each taking with them one magical string from the mythological harp encompassing all things tuneful.

Now I now what you're saying: how does techno qualify as part of a proposed hexad representing all music? Does jazz fall under rock or funk or even classical? And where's a capella? Or folk? Or swingtime? Or punkabilly?

(Hey, don't knock it till you've tried it.)

Don't worry, the filmmakers -- director Walt Dohrn and a small army of screenwriters too lengthsome to list -- get around to recognizing that their framework involves a whole lotta square-peg-pushin' into them proverbial round holes.

My favorite acknowledgement of this is the deployment of four sets of bounty hunters just as diverse as the rogues' gallery of industry colleagues from "The Empire Strikes Back." These include smooth jazz, K-pop, yodeling and reggaeton, marginalized outcasts each vying for their own (very) little piece of real estate in the troll world.

It seems the queen of rock, Barb (?!?), voiced by Rachel Bloom, is determined to take over all the other troll countries, steal their magical strings and weave them onto her mighty guitar to strum the Ultimate Power Chord, which will instantaneously remake the troll universe in something akin to Thanos' Infinity Gauntlet, though less mass genocide-y, this being a PG-rated kids' movie.

Like Poppy, Barb has recently risen to the throne of her monarchy, similarly inheriting her mantle from an over-the-hill dad. Hers is voiced by Ozzy Osborne, riding a motorized wheelchair decked out in leather and spikes. He needs a little help with making the devil's horns gesture these days, rebellion and agedness making poor companions. She's not truly evil, just misguided, though it turns out Poppy is, too.

There's some stuff about Branch wanting to take things to the next level romantically, which must be neck rubs or something, since they don't even get a closing-shot kiss. Trolls are all into hugs and friendship but are quite conspicuously chaste, even being revealed to reproduce asexually through their bountiful wellspring of hair.

Kelly Clarkson provides the voice of the country & western queen, with a Dolly Parton 'do and a mournful wail upon her lips. George Clinton and Mary J. Blige head up the funk realm, which has Wakanda-like technological superiority over the other trolls, cruising about in their spaceship.

The leaders for techo and classical are one-noters, quickly written off into the background.

Sam Rockwell turns up as Hickory, a derring-do man of mystery from the country side who breaks Poppy and Branch out of jail. He also provides a romantic threat, what with his rust-colored jaw scruff and even chest hair, which by troll standards makes him a 6th-grader amongst kindergartners.

He also has four horse-like legs, which might seem unusual except that the funktown inhabits are quadrupeds as well, though theirs are more camel-like. The technos are actually underwater creatures with fins, though this somehow gets lost during the big togetherness concert at the end, where all differences are recognized and celebrated.

Like the original, "Trolls World Tour" is colorful, bright (almost blindingly), fast-paced and keeps a light touch. There's a fairly sophisticated message inside this sugary confection, which is that being different isn't bad, unless we try to impose our preferences on others, or fool ourselves into thinking our culture doesn't bleed into others and vice-versa.

It'll mostly go over the heads of the kiddos, but grownups will be there to catch it, and maybe appreciate a toss with a little more zip on it.

P.S. In a world gone suddenly topsy-turvy, ain't it nice to have one high-profile flick eschew the pack and still release on the same date it was supposed to, even if it's in your living room? I for one hope the theatrical model returns from its slumber, but one way or the other movies will always be there for us, if we are for them.

Video review: "Richard Jewell"

Richard Jewell was a man who was treated very unfairly by the media, and “Richard Jewell” is the movie that returns the favor. Despite being a very solid film, it was buried underneath a mountain of bad press and died a quick death at the box office. As the old saying does, don’t pick fights with people who buy ink by the barrel.

(Or whatever the modern equivalent of that would be -- “people who leverage digital impressions by the terabyte?”)

The beef has to do with the way the movie suggests that Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde) obtained information in an unethical way. Her reporting (and those of many other outlets) indisputably was wrong and terrible, jumping to the conclusion that security guard Jewell (Paul Walter Hauser) planted the bomb at the Olympics rather being a hero who saved countless lives.

I hate that director Clint Eastwood and screenwriter Billy Ray felt compelled to portray Scruggs as sleeping with an FBI agent (Jon Hamm) to obtain the dirt that led to her big scoop. There is no evidence to suggest such a thing happened, and she (like Jewell) died young.

You can’t libel the dead, but you can try to resurrect their reputation. And this “Richard Jewell” does very well, despite the glaring flaw.

Hauser is very solid as Jewell, a simple man who yearned to be seen as a protector of others. But because he was an overweight guy with a slow Southern drawl, people were ready to jump to conclusions about him because he didn’t fit the image of the stereotypical hero.

Kathy Bates got an Oscar nomination for playing Jewell’s mom, Bobi, and she delivers a head-wallop of a speech in defense of her boy.

Also wonderful is Sam Rockwell playing Jewell’s attorney, Watson Bryant, a peevish loner who finds his best self defending an innocent man who has literally the entire country’s law enforcement and media establishment lined up against him.

Give “Richard Jewell” a chance on video. I hate that they maligned a journalist, even if she was the one who opened up a spigot of false information that nearly claimed a man’s freedom and very life. One bad turn does not deserve another, and it’s a really good movie despite this bad take.

Clint’s movies tend not to have a whole lot of bonus features on video release -- he’s an old-school guy who doesn’t believe in filmmaker commentaries and such. So all you get are two featurettes: “The Making of Richard Jewell” and “The Real Story of Making Jewell.”

Movie:



Extras:

Video review: "Jojo Rabbit"

I’ve been reading anonymous testimonials from Oscar voters who said they wouldn’t even watch “Jojo Rabbit” because they found the premise offensive. With the proviso that they should do their job, it is a tough subject matter, especially when you just blurt it out:

In Nazi Germany, a young boy struggles to make his way after his father goes missing in the war, substituting in his imaginary best friend, Adolf Hitler.

Yeah, I know. Doesn’t exactly sound like the setup for a great comedy, does it?

Give “Jojo” a try, because it’s a terrific movie with wonderful performances -- including Scarlett Johansson as the mother, who deservedly got an Oscar nomination out of it.

Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) struggles to fit in with the other kids in the Hitler Youth club. Sam Rockwell and Rebel Wilson play hilariously inept/cynical instructors putting the kids through the motions. Jojo gets blown up by a hand grenade during training, suffering scars to his face that make him even more self-conscious.

His only real solace is talking to Hitler, played by Taika Waititi, who also wrote and directed the film. Hitler is sympathetic and helpful, but there’s also a clear note of manipulation to their interactions.

Things grow more complicated when Jojo discovers Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie), a slightly older Jewish girl, living in a hidden space in their house. He’s old enough to realize this means his mom, Rosie, is hiding her there and that if he turned the girl in his family would be broken up. So they slowly start to interact, with the start of a friendship and maybe even an adolescent romance growingt there.

Yes, “Jojo Rabbit” has a little bit of a “quirky for quirky’s sake” vibe to it. But it’s weirdly entertaining, and despite the jokes we find ourselves growing quite attached to these characters.

It may seem strange to feel something for German Nazis, but this is a dark comedy that finds a little bit of humanity in everyone. 

Bonus features include outtakes, three deleted sense, a feature-length commentary track by Waititi and a making-of documentary, “Inside Jojo.”

Movie:

Extras:

Review: "Richard Jewell"

Everybody undervalued Richard Jewell, starting with himself.

By all accounts he was a decent, hardworking man who embraced his role as protector at times too fervently -- particularly during those periods when he worked as a security guard at a college or entertainment venue. Jewell started and ended his career wearing a badge, and knew firsthand that people respect someone with a uniform and gun more than some sweaty dude in a white polo shirt.

So when Jewell discovered a backpack at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta and alerted the authorities before it exploded, saving countless lives, what happened next was perhaps not so surprising. People saw an obese, slow-talking man with a Southern accent and decided he could not be a hero as initially thought.

“Richard Jewell” is director Clint Eastwood’s ambitious and successful attempt to rescue the reputation of Jewell, he was accused of being the bomber without a scintilla of actual evidence. It also tries to cast the FBI and especially the media as the villains, and here it’s less skillful and certainly heavy-handed.

Paul Walter Hauser plays Jewell in a performance that is spot-on both physically and spiritually. He does not try to portray Jewell as a saint or a smart man -- things he surely was not. Rather, Hauser shows us a simple, authentic soul who persevered despite that fact that many people saw him as a pathetic loser.

He knew this, and trudged on.

Take the scene right before Jewell sounds the alert on the backpack. He goes over to confront a group of underage teens drinking and breaking bottles against the media tower at Centennial Park. The boys completely laugh him off, call him a bunch of insulting names tied to his weight, and continue their revelry.

The look on Hauser’s face as he walks away from this scene is telling. He does not react to the insults, because Jewell has heard them a million times before, but simply goes about doing his job. He fetches the cops, who chase off the drunks, and insists they check out the pack nearby, even though most think it’s just full of beer.

The film, written by Billy Ray based on a book by Marie Brenner, takes us through the initial harrowing events of the explosion and aftermath. It’s tense stuff. But it really kicks into high gear when Sam Rockwell rides in as his lawyer, Watson Bryant, after it becomes clear the feds, lacking any substantial clues, have focused on Jewell using the “lone bomber” profile, which had been much in the news back then.

Jewell calls Bryant because he’s the only lawyer he knows, having briefly worked together years before. Bryant (based on actual lawyer Lin Wood) is cantankerous and foul-mouthed, and barely ekes by on personal injury cases. But the way the FBI leans on Jewell, he needs someone ornery in his corner.

They share a great scene where Watson blows up at the way Jewell is deferential to the authorities, calling everyone “sir” and even offering to help while they search the apartment he shares with his mother, Bobi (Kathy Bates, terrific as always). Why aren’t you as mad as I am, Watson demands. Jewell finally gets mad enough to insist that anger just isn’t his way.

Jon Hamm plays the FBI agent leading the investigation, and Olivia Wilde is Kathy Scruggs, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter who first broke the story that Jewell was a suspect. In an odd choice, they kept Scruggs’ name the same as the actual person while changing that of most everyone else.

You may have heard the movie suggests -- without evidence -- that Scruggs traded sexual favors in exchange for scoops, one of the vilest and cheapest charges leveled at female reporters. Both she and Jewell died at a young age, so she’s not around to defend herself.

The movie doesn’t touch on the fact that Jewell and his attorney ended up suing many media outlets for their inept handling of the case, winning settlements from nearly all of them. “Richard Jewell” works spectacularly as a condemnation of a mass media that went from Point A to Point Z on a story without bothering to do any of the legwork in between to connect them.

It’s too bad Eastwood and his team did the exact same thing in portraying the journalist on the case. One poor turn deserves another, apparently.

Video review: "The Best of Enemies"

Sometimes a film works because of the performances more than the story. There’s nothing unpredictable about “The Best of Enemies,” a feel-good drama about the real-life episode in which a KKK leader and a black activist joined forces to abolish segregation in their community.

We know from the very start that C.P. Ellis will eventually recant his racist views and befriend Ann Atwater, a loud-and-proud African-American leader. It’s practically written in stone.

And yet, because these roles are occupied by Sam Rockwell and Taraji P. Henson, the result is a compelling movie that carries us through the inevitability of its plot.

The story opens in 1971 Durham, where blacks and whites still live very much apart. But when the “black” school is severely damaged requiring a months-long closure, an imbroglio begins after a judge punts on the decision to merge the schools. The result is a “charrette,” an old-fashioned council of community members who will listen to the evidence and vote on defacto desegregation.

Atwater is an obvious pick to lead the pro-integration side. Ellis is selected by the white power-holders to represent their stake and ensure that the vote goes down. The two are elected co-chairs, and immediately set out to clash.

But then they gradually get a chance to get to know the person behind the stereotype, and hostility gives way to growing respect, and even friendship. Despite his overt bigotry, Ellis is depicted as a man devoted to his family and community – or at least “his” half of it.

I just enjoyed watching Henson and Rockwell inhabit these characters. You won’t be surprised, but you may find yourself engaging with “The Best of Enemies.”

Bonus features are modest, and are limited to three documentary shorts: “Make a Connection,” “Ann Atwater” and “An Unlikely Friendship.”

Movie:



Extras:

Review: "The Best of Enemies"

Hoo boy. The people who went after "Green Book" for not being sufficiently "woke" are going to lose their collective gourd over "The Best of Enemies."

The basic gist is a racist white dude overcomes his upbringing with the help of a black character he befriends, written and directed by a white guy based on a book by a white guy. And the white star is Sam Rockwell, who ate backlash over winning an Oscar for playing another racist character who takes steps toward redemption in "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri."

Man the brigades!

Or, actually take the film on its own merits, which speak to a solid if unspectacular historical drama about the little nudges and shakes that form the earthquakes resulting in societal change.

This true story set in Durham, North Carolina in 1971 relates the tale of a KKK leader and a black civil rights activist who became unlikely friends. They are clashing as part of a broader effort to decide if the black and white elementary schools should be integrated after the black school was severely damaged by fire.

This is the sort of movie where you sit down in your seat knowing exactly what's going to happen every step of the way. And yet because Taraji P. Henson and Sam Rockwell are such gifted performers, and writer/director Robin Bissell unspools the story with sensitivity and emotional heft, every scene feels unpracticed and fresh.

Henson is Ann Atwater, a loud, big (helped with ample padding) woman who know how to get the black community motivated and out to support causes. But she's continually shot down by the Durham city council, led by thick-necked, white-suited genteel cracker types (like Bruce McGill).

"I better see your face looking black and angry," she warns one of her people who says she's too busy to show up.

The white politicians and bureaucrats keep chummy but arm's-length ties to the local Klan, led by C.P. Ellis (Rockwell). He runs a gas station that black folks know to avoid. He's uneducated and stubborn, but has a certain genuineness and charisma about him, which led him to being elected president -- or wizard, or cyclops, or whatever the hell the KKK calls them.

A judge doesn't want to own the decision of whether to integrate the schools, so Bill Riddick (Babou Ceesay), a black lawyer from "up north" (meaning northern North Carolina) is brought in to lead a charrette. This is an old-school meeting of the minds, which lasts two weeks, with half the council black and the other half white, and a two-thirds majority is needed to pass anything.

C.P. and Ann are elected co-chairs, and they go about the usual dance of hating each other and then getting to know one another. C.P. is committed to his wife (Ann Heche) and four kids, including a boy who's institutionalized with severe mental and physical challenges. You can take a wild guess if Ann winds up helping him out with his boy's situation.

Meanwhile, his Klan buddies (Wes Bentley chief among them) are leaning on C.P. to deliver a no vote, as well as individual white members of the charratte in the usual crackers-with-shotguns-and-friends ways.

Curiously, although we delve fairly deeply into C.P.'s background and mind, we never really learn much else about Ann other than her involvement in civil causes.

That's a failing of the script, but it also boasts lots of other little lovely moments. Like the white city council member who happens to turn his chair away whenever Ann is talking. Or the dumbstruck look on Ann's teen daughter's face when she C.J. is introduced to her. And the authentic, if colossally misguided, way in which C.J. initially believes the Klan is all about sticking up for one another.

"The Best of Enemies" is the sort of old-fashioned movie-making that's falling out of style now. That's a shame, but mostly for the people who stay away from a film about hatred giving way to mutual regard and, eventually, friendship.

Just don't talk about which actor is the lead and which the supporting, though.

Review: "Vice"

“Vice” comes not to illuminate, but eviscerate. Unlike other portraits of powerful men in the WHite House (“Nixon,” “W.”), there is no attempt to show nuance or pursue inquiry. The reason this film exists is to condemn former Vice President Dick Cheney, to call him out as an evil and corrupt man.

There’s nothing else to call it but a hatchet job. It’s a well-made, splendidly acted one, caustic and occasionally quite funny. But let’s call a spade a spade.

Three years ago writer/director Adam MacKay made “The Big Short,” which I marveled at its ability to be so angry and so funny at the same time. “Vice” does the same, although the proportions are way out of whack.

The thing people will talk most about is the transformation of Christian Bale. And it’s a knockout. The tall, lean actor of “Batman” is so physically and vocally spot-on as the late-middle-aged, bald and portly Cheney that they barely even needed to superimpose Bale’s image into historical photos and footage.

His Cheney is a growly bear of a man, one who speaks in a guttural monotone punctuated with odd pauses. He’s obsessed with power, gaining it and using it.

The portions covering his early life are rather flat and sketchy. Amy Adams plays his wife, Lynne, a powerful woman who demands that he reform his wayward path. After failing out of Yale, he became an electrical lineman in Wyoming who racked up two DUIs. But he turned things around, earned college degrees and became a congressional intern, eventually allying with a young Congressman named Donald Rumsfeld.

If Bale’s Cheney is the film’s dour yang, then Steve Carell’s exuberantly mercenary Rumsfeld is the giddy yang. Together they would move up to Nixon’s White House, and then become the youngest Secretary of Defense and Chief of Staff, respectively, under the Ford administration.

The story bounces around in time somewhat, with Cheney’s relationship with former President George W. Bush (Sam Rockwell) as the framing device. Like other Hollywood movies, “Vice” portrays the 43rd president as a bumbling yokel out of his element in the corridors of power. The Machiavellian Cheney sees this as his chance to remake the office of the vice presidency from a ceremonial BS job into a locus of dark, secretive power.

Much of MacKay’s story is taken from the historical record, but overlaid with a heavy slathering of showbiz razzmatazz that often crosses the line into outright mean-spirited fabrication. For instance, the controversial “outing” of CIA agent Valerie Plame is shown to be done explicitly at Cheney’s orders. (Even though a State Department official, Richard Armitage, admitted that he inadvertently slipped the info to columnist Robert Novak.)

Rather than just show Cheney to be a bad guy, MacKay goes for the whole hog: declaring that the blame for much of our problems today, from ISIS to the concentration of wealth, can be laid at Cheney’s feet.

The movie repeatedly throws up titles about the “unitary executive theory,” a bit of legal doctrine embraced by Cheney that has been interpreted by some to mean the president essentially has the powers of a dictator. There’s even a furtive flashback to the 1970s with a young Antonin Scalia, later a conservative stalwart on the Supreme Court, first introducing Cheney to the concept.

In the end “Vice” plays out as a conspiracy theorist’s dream, intercutting horrible war footage and mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners with Cheney clomping along the hallways of the White House. I swear there’s even a snippet of the recent California Camp Fire in there -- I guess that’s Cheney’s fault, too?

It’s fine to loathe Dick Cheney and even make a whole movie to that effect. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be any good. Despite the masterful performance by Bale, “Vice” plays as a venomous takedown of a personality-challenged right-winger Hollywood loves to hate.

I didn’t have any particular sympathy for Cheney going into the movie, but it stacks the deck so badly I did afterward.

Review: "Blaze"

“Blaze Foley was a genius and a beautiful loser.”
                       --Lucinda Williams

“Blaze” is a hazy, mournful elegy for a man many have called the greatest country music singer-songwriter nobody’s ever heard of.

He’s revered by folks in the industry, many of whom have covered his songs (Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson) or wrote their own about him (Lucinda Williams, Townes Van Zandt). Blaze died nearly 30 years ago, gunned down at age 40 while defending a friend. His few albums barely leave much of a recorded legacy, , including instances where the master tapes were stolen or disappeared.

This film is Ethan Hawke’s attempt to resurrect Blaze’s ghost and give us a haunting portrait of a legend that never was.

Hawke has quietly directed a few small films over the years. He co-wrote the script with Sybil Rosen, based on her memoir of her romance and doomed marriage with Blaze. Musician Ben Dickey, stepping in front of the camera for the first time, gives a memorable, aching performance as a man who, as a friend described, knew the value of being zero.

An enormous person, Blaze was physically arresting, hobbling on one leg shortened by infant polio, sporting a waist-long beard and festooned cowboy hat that hid most of his head, his coat and boots trimmed with duct tape -- partly to keep them together, partly as a poke at the urban cowboy trend of the time.

He was usually drunk when he performed, and also when he did not.

Alia Shawkat plays Sybil, and the movie is at its best in skimming through their relationship. The story jumps forward and back in time, like a family album that’s being flipped around by someone clutching at painful memories. For a time they lived in a ramshackle treehouse on a commune, he picking out songs on his guitar and she acting in the local playhouse.

Narratively, the movie is deliberately unfocused. It plays out with not one but two framing devices. In the first, Blaze delivers his final performance at a dive bar in Austin -- quite literally the “Outhouse” -- where he is recording an album using his last few dollars. In between songs he delivers a heartbreaking sermon-slash-confession to the spare, indifferent audience, with one interruption to throw down with a rude patron yammering on the phone.

In the other, two of his collaborators and best friends, Townes Van Zandt (an arresting Charlie Sexton) and Zee (Josh Hamilton), are being interviewed by a radio DJ (Hawke himself, only heard and seen from behind). It’s ostensibly to promote a new album by Van Zandt -- a fellow traveler on the path of wastrel gypsy troubadours -- but they spend the whole time talking about Blaze, someone the DJ has never heard of.

Watching the movie is like walking through a waking dream. It’s an absolutely gorgeous-looking film (cinematography by Steve Cosens) that uses Blaze’s music as the quiet engine that powers the imagery, which is often a mix of montages with little narrative intent.

For example, a song will start with Blaze singing it at that dive bar, then switch to a vignette of Blaze and Sybil rambling around their shack decades earlier, and then the moment when he first wrote it.

Characters speak in lifelike, hard-to-understand dribbles of overlapping dialogue. Especially Dickey, whose deep-chested rumbles often seem like they barely pass through his mouth for refinement into coherent words. It’s an odd trend, this incomprehensible dialogue, undertaken by disparate filmmakers in recent years, and one best reconsidered.

“Blaze” is a very atypical biopic about a rather unusual figure. By any reasonable reckoning, Blaze Foley was a drunkard who failed at everything he tried. But he wrote a few songs that people still sing, and left an indelible portrait on those few fortunate enough to have known him. Some might call that very lucky indeed.

Video review: "Laggies"

“Laggies” came and went quickly at theaters -- too quickly. This dramedy doesn’t quite flesh out the promise of an intriguing premise, but the trio of lead actors is tremendously appealing. This is the sort of movie where you just like spending time with these characters.

Keira Knightley plays Megan, drifting through life in her late 20s with a degree in family counseling but who can’t summon the energy to do more than be a sign carrier for her dad’s CPA business. Realizing that she’s become the “sad one” of her social circle and after a surprise marriage proposal she wasn’t prepared for, Megan skips out on everything and ends up hiding out at the home of Annika (Chloë Grace Moretz), a precocious 16-year-old she happens to meet.

Annika’s dad, Craig (Sam Rockwell), is a cynical divorce attorney still bitter about the breakup of his own marriage. He can’t figure out why a grown woman is hanging around with her kid, but goes with the flow after determining she’s not dangerous. Soon, though, both recognize a pull between them.

Director Lynn Shelton and rookie screenwriter Andrea Seigel make the common mistake of introducing an intriguing group of characters and setting, and then not really knowing what to do with them.

The primary relationship would seem to be between the two young women, but then the Megan/Craig romance starts to heat up and Annika sort of disappears into the background. Rockwell’s role is rather underwritten, but he still makes it vibrant and memorable because, well, he’s just that good.

I enjoyed “Laggies” even while recognizing that, like its main character, its lack of a coherent destination prevents it from being entirely successful.

Video features are decent, and are the same for DVD and Blu-ray editions.

Shelton provides a feature-length commentary track. There are also about 10 minutes worth of deleted/expanded scenes, and two featurettes, “Lagging On with Lynn Shelton” and “Shooting Seattle: The Look of Laggies.”

Movie:

Extras:

Review: "The Way, Way Back"

Is there anything tougher than being a socially awkward 14-year-old? How about having your parents recently divorced, too? And being dragged off to an unwanted summer vacation with your mom’s vaguely hostile new boyfriend?

That’s the premise of “The Way, Way Back,” the insightful and charming new comedy-drama in the mode of “Little Miss Sunshine,” which also reunites two of its key stars, Steve Carell and Toni Collette.

That’s where the similarities end. Here Carell plays the jerk, Trent -- has there ever been a redeeming movie character named Trent? – who’s dating Pam (Collette), mother of Duncan (Liam James).

Trent is a real piece of work. A car salesman, he drives a beautifully refurbished 1970 Buick Estate Wagon, which as someone points out shows really poor taste in cars. Who puts their energy and money into restoring a vehicle that was considered uncool even when it was brand new?

Trent rides Duncan like a cruel jockey whipping a tired quarter horse. When we first meet them, Trent is demanding that Duncan rate himself on a scale of one to 10. After browbeating a “6” out of the hapless lad, Trent offers his own rating of “3,” saying he doesn’t see much effort from the introverted teen.
“Let’s try to get that score up, huh?” Trent concludes, thinking this is encouragement.

Pam is kind-hearted and loving, but is stuck between her excitement at new romance and wanting to protect her son. She soon gets lost in the whirlwind of drinking, dancing and clam bakes that consumes the adults on the unnamed coastal town where they spend the summer.

Other attendees in the ongoing party include Betty (Allison Janney), Trent’s boozy next-door divorcee, and married pals Kip (Rob Corddry) and Joan (Amanda Peet). As Betty’s smart, winsome daughter Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb) points out, these summer vacations are like “spring break for adults.”

(No attempt is ever made to explain how these people don’t have to work for weeks and months at a time.)

Trend has his own kid, a snobby girl named Steph (Zoe Levin) who’s a few years older than Duncan and wants nothing to do with him, taking him with her when forced to and ditching him as soon as possible. Susanna is also part of that crowd, though she seems none too thrilled about it, reads books instead of gossiping and appears to have an inner life. Perhaps inevitably, Duncan develops a crush on her.

Just when things look like they couldn’t possibly get worse for Duncan, he stumbles across the Water Wizz, a dilapidated water theme park run by a motley crew of fun-loving adults.

(From my childhood memories, water parks are exactly like regular amusement parks in that people will wait in line for 45 minutes for a two-minute ride, with the notable difference being that you’re standing there mostly naked while the sun broils your skin to a nice medium-well.)

Duncan gets recruited by the loquacious manager Owen, who actually lives above the Water Wizz central office like a debauched fallen demi-god. He’s got a co-manager he’s sweet on (Maya Rudolph), though his lack of responsibility is a constant roadblock.

Something unexpected happens and Duncan finds the mentor/protector he needs in Owen, who teaches him to loosen up, and stand up to Trent. Sam Rockwell is terrific as Owen, who’s all shtick on the outside but harbors dark recesses. One of the loveliest things about their relationship is Owen being utterly astonished that someone would look up to him.

Soon Duncan is ditching his seaside retreat to go fold towels and stack chairs every day, which escalates tensions with Trent. Here’s a hint if you’re dating someone with a teenage kid: if they’d rather go work a menial job than hang out with you during the summer, things aren’t going so well.

“The Way, Way Back” was written and directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, Oscar-winning screenwriters for “The Descendants” taking their first step behind the camera. They both also have key supporting roles as burnt-out Wizz workers.

It’s a knockout directorial debut, a feel-good picture about a kid who learns not to feel so bad about himself.

Review: "Cowboys & Aliens"

Perhaps I was expecting too much out of "Cowboys & Aliens" ... or at least, I was expecting something much different.

For a summer tent pole movie with a title like that, starring two actors  -- Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford -- who have played iconic action heroes, and directed by admitted fanboy Jon Favreau ("Iron Man"), I was expecting something loopier. Wacky hi jinks coupled with slick special effects.

What we get instead is a fast-paced Western oater in which the bad guys happen to be crusty boogums from outer space. Imagine "War of the Worlds," except the invasion happens during the days of six-shooters and saddles.

The result is a movie that takes itself way more seriously than any film with a title like "Cowboys & Aliens" ought to.

It's still a fun ride, and Ford gets to play a more multi-dimensional character than we've seen in awhile. Craig is less fascinating, squinting his way through the movie and stumbling through an unconvincing American accent.

The movie opens without preamble. A man wakes up in the desert, lacking boots, a weapon or even a memory of who he is. He's the epitome of the spaghetti Western Man with No Name, since he doesn't even know it himself.

He does have a strange metal doohickey attached to his left wrist, and when some cowpokes try to roust him, he discovers a freakish ability at hand-to-hand combat.

The stranger rides into town, where he is soon identified as Jake Lonergan, a notorious bandit with a $1,000 bounty on his head. He runs into trouble with the son of the local ranch boss, and finds himself arrested by the sheriff. There's also a strange, beautiful woman who knows how to use a pistol and seems very interested in Lonergan.

Things come to a head when Col. Dolarhyde (Ford), the ranch boss, arrives to spring his boy. He's a hardened Civil War veteran, takes guff from no man, and always gets what he wants.

It seems things will go very badly when suddenly the town is attacked by spaceships, which blow people to bits or lasso them with metal contraptions and carry them away. Lonergan's bracelet suddenly comes to life and shoots down one of ships, so he's recruited for the posse to track down the kidnapped townsfolk.

Things go on from there, and there wasn't much that was very surprising, although it was executed well. The secret of Lonergan's amnesia and laser bracelet are uncovered, the creatures reveal themselves in all their googly-eyed, crustaceous glory, and of course some American Indians will ride in as some sort of reverse cavalry.

Dolarhyde is the most interesting character by far, and the small army of screenwriters (six, including story credits) give him plenty of layers. At first he's just a hateful old boss, pushing people around with his wealth and gang of armed cowboys. But eventually we discover him to be more haunted than hateful, especially in his relationships with a longtime Indian employee (Adam Beach) and a young boy who tags along with the posse.

I enjoyed myself at "Cowboys & Aliens," but it's not the sort of experience that will linger in the memory. Instead of genre-bending kitsch, we got a gritty Western with creepy critters.

2.5 stars out of four

Review: "Conviction"

"Conviction" is a well-meaning drama that contains absolutely zero surprises. Hilary Swank gives another strong, stubborn performance as a working-class woman who essentially put her life on hold for two decades to get her brother sprung from prison on a wrongful murder conviction. We know even before the arrest that he will eventually be let go, because why else would they bother making this movie, based on a true story?

Tony Goldwyn directs in a resolute, straightforward manner that never allows any doubts about who the good and bad guys are. Melissa Leo, playing the ambitious cop who made the arrest, is denied even a sliver of humanity. There's one scene, years later, of Betty Anne Waters (Swank) confronting the cop, and she makes some weak excuse about being the only woman on the force in the early 1980s.

Tales of this officer's misdeeds continue, but she's never seen or heard from again. If she's supposed to represent the villain of the piece, then screenwriter Pamela Gray does a poor job of setting her up as a worthy antagonist.

The story begins with the arrest of Betty Anne's brother, Kenny (Sam Rockwell). Because he has a criminal record, the local police harass him over every misdeed committed in the community. But officer Nancy Taylor (Leo) seems to hold a special grudge against him. Kenny is depicted as a rebellious spirit who loves his sister fiercely, but just can't back down when he's pushed.

After it's clear no lawyer will touch the case, Betty Anne resolves to go to law school herself so she can represent her brother. Lacking even a high school diploma, this process takes years and years, during which time her marriage (Loren Dean plays the husband) dissolves and her relationship with her two sons grows strained.

What makes it a great role for Swank is that Betty Anne just won't take no for answer and won't give up -- even when Kenny does. Rockwell gives a genuine performance of measured power, as Kenny's will is slowly sapped out of him by the passing of time and the fading of hope. Rockwell makes us feel the years.

Minnie Driver plays a fellow older law student who offers her friendship and assistance, and Peter Gallagher plays Barry Scheck, the head of the Innocence Project, which provides a hand in getting Kenny freed. Juliette Lewis has a small, (unintentionally?) comic turn as one of the witnesses who helped seal Kenny's fate, and now provides a key break in the case.

As a legal drama, "Conviction" doesn't really have much plot to churn over. Betty Anne isn't portrayed as some kind of blue-collar Eliza Doolittle who suddenly transforms into a legal savant. Their case is built entirely around the slim hope of finding some blood evidence that wasn't destroyed so they can have it DNA tested.

I don't know how many scenes there are of Betty Anne and her cohorts phoning, pleading, looking through storage rooms in search of the elusive DNA. Of course, we know it will eventually turn up. Once it's found, though -- a little more than an hour into the film's run time -- the story keeps finding ways to delay the inevitable, and milk the dramaturgy.

As is to be expected in a Hollywood movie, certain liberties have been taken. The film portrays the time between which the DNA evidence turned up until Kenny's release as more than a year, when in fact it was something like two weeks.

Strangely, in the inevitable title cards right before the end credits that explain what happened to the various people, it doesn't mention that Kenny Waters died in a fall a few months after getting out of prison.

As a film that got a lot of early mentions for Oscar contention, there's no denying "Conviction" registers as a disappointment. Swank and Rockwell still give fine performances, almost enough to recommend the movie on that basis alone. The stubbornness of Betty Anne, though, is mirrored in the script's tunnel-vision approach to storytelling, which doesn't leave much room for nuance or complexity.

2 stars out of four

Video review: "Moon"

Snooty cinephiles like to proclaim themselves indifferent to box office grosses, but I admit I pay pretty close attention to them. The reasoning is simple: Movies I like, I want to do well, so studios will have an incentive to make more like them.

"Moon," a tiny independent sci-fi film, made something like $5 million in theaters, which was probably less than the soda-and-snacks budget for "Avatar." Here's hoping "Moon" does well on video, because Hollywood needs more clever, imaginative movies like this one from first-time director Duncan Jones.

Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell, the solitary worker living aboard a lunar base responsible for collecting energy from moon rocks that powers much of Earth. His only companion is Gerty, a one-eyed robot (splendidly voiced by Kevin Spacey) very much in the tradition of Hal from "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Nearing the end of his three-year contract, Sam is anxious to get back planetside to his family. But after an accident, he wakes up to find there are now two Sams aboard the station.

Are they clones of each other? Hallucinations of a dying mind? Split personality a la "Fight Club"?

Jones and screenwriter Nathan Parker shrewdly play with the audiences' expectations to keep us constantly, and grippingly, guessing.

Extras are the same for both Blu-ray and DVD versions. They encompass a pretty wide scope of features, although they aren't the most compelling stuff I've seen.

Jones contributes to two separate commentary tracks; one paired with producer Stuart Fenegan, and the other teamed up with the cinematographer and designers. Both tend to be a lot of rambling shot-by-shot descriptions, without much depth or context.

There's a 16-minute making-of documentary, and an 11-minute featurette on the film's low-budget special effects, including the challenges of getting two Sam Rockwells to interact -- and even fight -- onscreen.

There is also over 30 minutes of Q&A with Jones, Rockwell and others at Sundance Film Festival and at Space Center Houston.


Movie: 3.5 stars
Extras: 3 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: "Moon"

"Moon" is fully aware of the tradition of movies like "2001: A Space Odyssey" where people venture out into space and go totally off their gourd. The existential angst-in-space thing has been done well, and been done poorly (see "Solaris" ... or rather, don't). With "Moon," director Duncan Jones and screenwriter Nathan Parker take us to familiar territory, and yet make it seem fresh and vibrant by playing against our expectations.

Sam Rockwell, a character actor who tackles leading-man roles in smaller films like this, plays Sam Bell. He's an astronaut in the near future who's living on the moon, collecting energy from the lunar rocks that is used to power nearly the entire Earth.

It's a one-man gig, and needless to say Sam is crushingly lonely as he nears the end of his three-year hitch. He's looking forward to getting back to his wife and the daughter he's never met. Because of persistent satellite problems, he can only communicate with them through prerecorded videos.

Sam's only company aboard the space station is Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey), a robot caretaker very much in the tradition of HAL from "2001." Gerty moves around the base via system of track embedded in the ceiling, has a single camera eye and emotes via a screen that displays smiley (or not) faces.

There really isn't that much work to do other than occasionally driving out to the collectors to pick up a canister of condensed gas, which are returned to Earth via rocket probes. So Sam bides his time exercising, tending to his plants and working on a tiny model city.

One day on a routine trip, Sam is distracted and crashes his moon truck into the collector. He wakes up back at the base, with Gerty telling him he was injured in the accident. Gerty tries to lock him up in the base, but Sam manages to talk his way out and makes it back to the crash site, where he finds an injured astronaut who looks just like him.

This is merely the beginning of the story, but it's impossible for me to say more without ruining the film.

If you're like me, I thought I had the entire movie figured out at this point. Jones and Parker know what the audience is thinking, though, and use it to their advantage, dropping hints and possibilities.

For awhile, the two Sams steer clear of each other, and we wonder about them. Are they two sides of the same personality? Is one a clone of the other? Hallucinations of a dying Sam, still stuck out on the barren moonscape?

The answer is teased out, and when it arrives it lands with the impact of a giant asteroid. Rockwell plays the two Sams as similar yet distinctly different, like twin brothers raised in separate circumstances. The "old" Sam is peevish and sarcastic, while "new" Sam is more of a hothead.

Gerty's role in the scheme of things is somewhat in limbo. He was programmed by the corporation that owns the base, but seems to have a genuine desire to help Sam in any way he can.

"Moon" is a hard movie to review, since to tell you how wonderful it is I have to give everything away, which I will not do. But here's this: Now that the Oscars have expanded the roster of Best Picture nominees to 10, hopefully it will allow outstanding smaller films like this to make the list.

3.5 stars