Finding Dory

FINDING_DORY_PosterDoes Pixar have a sequel problem? I doubt it. We can debate the quality of “Cars 2” and “Monsters University,” but “Finding Dory” succeeds because it takes one of the more iconic and unique characters within the Pixar canon and gives her meaningful depth and a story of her own. To me, that’s not Pixar trying to cash in on a few more toys.

“I’m Dory, and I have short term memory loss.” When Dory says this to open “Finding Dory,” she’s just a toddler, a tiny blue bubble of joy with bulging purple eyes that make up almost her entire body. But to hear her say it now, we realize that every quirky and bizarre thing Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) said in 2003’s “Finding Nemo” was actually something far more serious. Dory has a mental illness, and she’s lost. She’s always been lost. As a child, she got separated from her parents and spent her teenage years swimming and searching, asking for help to anyone who would listen, until increasingly, she forgot who or what she was looking for, only that they were missing. Then she bumps into Marlin (Albert Brooks), and the events of “Finding Nemo” take place, interrupting her search for her family until a new memory triggers her old quest. Continue reading “Finding Dory”

This is 40

Do you finally become the person you were always meant to be at the age of 40? Judd Apatow is now 45, and “This is 40,” his fourth film, is him struggling with his mid-life crisis. Apatow is finally showing his colors as a filmmaker, and the result is an unfinished, messy movie.

Maybe that’s life, or more specifically marriage, full of incomplete projects, spontaneous and tumultuous emotions and a life that seems to go on forever. But there are rocky, yet healthy relationships and then there are relationships when it’s really best to just pull the plug.

Something about “This is 40” is missing. Apatow knows how to write a good script, and he can create effortless chemistry between Paul Rudd and Apatow’s wife Leslie Mann because he’s writing so close to the heart. But when the film is another jumble of obscure pop culture minutiae (is “Lost” still a thing?), hipster weirdness (Charlyne Yi?), stream of consciousness vulgarity, nonsensical cameos (Billie Joe Armstrong?) and overwrought drama, all of which were problems in his last film “Funny People,” the act just starts to get old. And if this is film is about anything, it’s that getting old sucks.

Rudd plays Pete, who is turning 40 in a few days, just around the same time as his wife Debbie (Mann). Debbie chooses to lie about her age under the pretense that she doesn’t suddenly want to start shopping at Ann Taylor Loft, just one example of how Apatow’s film likes to throw out “40 stuff.”

Even the vulgarity, not just the pop culture references, is slated at an older audience. Annie Mumolo gets a big laugh talking about how she can no longer feel anything in her vagina, as does Melissa McCarthy during the film and during the credits as she spouts profanity to the school principal in defense of her son, but none of it has the outrageous appeal of an actual set piece that we might’ve seen in something like “Bridesmaids” or even parts of “Knocked Up.”

Apatow even stages these scenes as clearly improvised riffing, constantly cutting away and back for individual punch lines without actually weaving the comedy into the narrative.

So as Pete struggles with a failing record label and Debbie attempts to discover how $12,000 is missing from her clothing store, “This is 40” wallows in the minutiae of white people problems. Having high cholesterol or playing iPad games in the bathroom for too long sometimes earns about as much weight as the revelation of a surprise pregnancy.

Important and interesting characters like Pete’s father (Albert Brooks) or Debbie’s personal trainer (Jason Segel) come and go. Discussions about money, health and romance erupt into enormous, mounting conflicts and then dissipate into inconsequential drama about pop music the next.

Apatow doesn’t capture the feel of a generation or being a certain age as well as something like HBO’s “Girls,” which Apatow produces. It’s full of lovely, funny and charming moments, but is it a movie you’ll want to live with and cherish when you’re Apatow’s age?

2 ½ stars

2012 Oscar Nomination Analysis

The Academy really shook up the Awards season with their 2012 Oscar Nominations.

When the Academy introduced the new rule for Best Picture nominees, they wanted an element of surprise added back into the Oscar race.

They got it.

It seemed as if we all knew what was coming as soon as the graphic was flashed on screen such that only eight nominees would make it into the Best Picture race, with “War Horse” and “The Tree of Life” being the surprises.

But as if to slap all the Oscar prognosticators in the face for thinking the Academy was predictable and boring, Academy President Tom Sherak announced “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” last, a movie long thought dead in the minds of critics and bloggers. I in fact picked all eight of the other nominees save for “Extremely Loud,” and to see it pick up not one but two nominations was something of a gut punch.

The film was critically panned, and rightfully so. What shocks me is how of all the performers in that film, Max von Sydow was the one to steal the last spot in the Best Supporting Actor category, effectively robbing Albert Brooks of a nomination for his chilling work in “Drive.”

This is the first time in several years I have not seen all the nominees prior to their announcement, but I quickly saw ‘Extremely Loud” the same afternoon. I left flabbergasted into wondering why this not only irritating and cloying film, but one that often is more literally hurtful and painful than it is melodramatic and soppy, not only has enough people who like the film but have more than five percent of people who feel it is the best movie of the year. Continue reading “2012 Oscar Nomination Analysis”

Drive

Samurai don’t wear a robe or carry a sword anymore, but they still exist. They wear driving gloves and carry a hammer to nail a bullet into a thug’s forehead.

“Drive”’s nameless anti-hero possesses the same focus, patience and loyalty of his feudal Japanese ancestors, and Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn shares the same pacing and cinematic flourish as his Asian, French and Italian counterparts. Continue reading “Drive”