Category: Reviews

We Bought a Zoo

If you are even the slightest bit less jaded, cynical and bitter to life and movies than me, the film critic who cannot enjoy anything but dark, thoughtful art house movies in black and white and a foreign language, then do not hesitate to see “We Bought a Zoo.” It will make you feel elated. You will bawl your eyes out with tears of pure sunshine.

“We Bought a Zoo” is possibly the most joyously tepid movie ever made. It is schlock, formula tearjerker filmmaking to perfection. It is as dopey and exuberantly cute and infectious as any movie you will ever see ever.

Watching it, I felt like Benjamin Mee’s (Matt Damon) teenage boy, just rolling my eyes and muttering under my breath at every passing moment to all the fun emotions and happy people around me.

Except like a teenage boy, I’m brooding and hating it all for no good reason. It’s lame and bad and predictable and stupid and formulaic, but it’s all so HAPPY.  You don’t watch the movie or think about it; you just cheer in glee. Continue reading “We Bought a Zoo”

Bully

When I was a freshman in high school, I remember a day when the entire band was gathering in the hallway to go outside for marching practice when a senior came up to me and handed me an empty 7-Up can. He asked if I would hold it while he tied his shoe, but after I took it he simply walked away and stood on the other side of the room.

This was harmless, but you could say it was a form of bullying. He had duped me into taking the damn thing, and everyone saw it happen. It was enough of an embarrassment for them to laugh at me still holding it like an idiot and being confused as to what happened.

But I was lucky and arguably changed how that student saw me for the next year. I took the can and threw it at his turned back. Not hard, but enough for him to know I’d done it. Everyone saw that too, and he said, “Okay, I like you,” before turning to my friend and jokingly saying, “You’re next.”

I was a target, however briefly, and it’s something most kids know throughout their entire childhood lives. Yet some kids are more targeted than others and are unable to cope. When that happens, it can lead to tragedy.

Such is the focus of “Bully,” a documentary that earned a lot of buzz because of its unfortunate debacle with the MPAA Ratings Board. Harvey Weinstein lobbied intensely for Lee Hirsch’s film to be seen by kids and teenagers so they could see students just like them going through similar hardships. But much as the film demands change, it struggles to find an answer outside of letting kids know this is happening. Continue reading “Bully”

The Avengers

“This intergalactic energy cube ain’t big enough for the six of us,” “The Avengers” says with a forceful tone as it struggles to conceal a smile.

Joss Whedon’s superhero movie equivalent to The Travelling Wilburys fully knows how impossible it is to squeeze all of these massive folklore figures into one film. So when the whole serious side starts to cave and just gets silly, Whedon is there with a zinger to run with the moment.

“The Avengers” is a fun and smart movie in doses, one that surprises and dazzles when it isn’t talking your head off. Continue reading “The Avengers”

Marwencol

The camera in Jeff Malmberg’s documentary “Marwencol” is always stationary, but it’s handheld and shaky, just like the flimsy action figures composing Mark Hogancamp’s fantasy world. They don’t move, but they have life and immense depth, and there’s still so much that seems unclear about them.

The film is named for the make believe town Hogancamp has created in his home and backyard in which he uses GI Joes and Barbie dolls to enact a sweeping World War II epic set in Belgium. He lives out alter egos for himself and his family and friends in Marwencol, and he photographs different moments in their lives in vivid detail.

Except Hogancamp is already living an alter ego. After being beaten senseless by a group of five teenagers leaving a bar, Hogancamp suffered severe brain damage and woke from a coma as a new person, with no recollection of his ex-wife, his hobbies, personality or how he suffered from alcoholism. His new way to keep his mind stimulated is through models in his parents’ hobby shop, but it evolved beyond something to pass the time into literally a second existence he takes as seriously as anything. Continue reading “Marwencol”

The Raid: Redemption

Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan perform martial arts. Their fighting prowess and acrobatic agility is so impressive and stylish that their work can literally be called an art form.

“The Raid: Redemption” is an Indonesian martial arts film, and it is a stunning one, but it is such a gruesome action movie that it hardly feels artistic. It is remarkably made, immensely creative and yet drenched in cold blood to the point that it no longer feels fun.

That’s because it’s packed with non-stop violence from start to finish. It squeezes in time for a story, but characters, names and dialogue hardly matter amidst all the rapid fire, bullet-ridden set pieces. A SWAT team has been assigned to infiltrate an apartment complex run by a gang lord and capture him after battling through 15 stories of crazed killers. The dull acting and flimsy plot twists are there to remind us we’re not watching the best YouTube montage ever compiled. Continue reading “The Raid: Redemption”

The Cabin in the Woods

Because all of “The Cabin in the Woods” comes as something of a surprise, this horror film’s real twist is that a movie this clever could end up having an ending so outrageous, cheap and dumb.

It sets loose five teenagers into a slasher-film playground and tempts them with sex, booby traps and creepy gas station attendants before unleashing zombies to murder them.

The clever conceit is that this is a game, if not an experiment, by a secret shadow corporation pulling all the strings. The employees have unexpected fun taking bets on how these kids will choose to die, be it ghosts, psychopathic clowns, mermen, zombies or the notably different family of redneck zombies.

The cute realization is that there are Hollywood studios operating just like this, dropping character types into a fish bowl and then spicing up the outcome with a new monster. Continue reading “The Cabin in the Woods”

Bill Cunningham New York

“I don’t care about the celebrities. It’s the clothes!” says New York Times fashion photographer Bill Cunningham. For nearly 50 years he’s been capturing fashions at their best in the most candid of moments on New York’s streets. Now, the documentary “Bill Cunningham New York” has recreated the flair of his photography while still getting to know the man inside the clothes.

Cunningham’s column “On the Street” (which you can see in its audio form here) is best at capturing life in the heat of the moment. He’s an 80-year-old man peddling a bicycle through alleyways and busy roads, blending in to highlight the things that stand out. In his visual column, he selects from hundreds of photographs to point out trends in fashion for the week or season.

Yet he’s an old-fashioned journalist wonderfully versed in modern trends. He selects photos from their negatives and lives in near shambles in basically a filing cabinet inside Carnegie Hall. Dressed in a frumpy blue smock and donning a beret and a big, droopy smile, Cunningham is a wonderfully upbeat, fun, congenial and good-hearted person.

Fashionistas, designers and other photographers speak to how he always focused on the narrative in fashion and never tried to depict people at their worst. He’s a deeply happy human being with no needs other than to work and see people live and look good. Continue reading “Bill Cunningham New York”

21 Jump Street

Thus, “21 Jump Street” is a sharp, silly and self-aware movie that barrel rolls head-on into its ridiculous concept.

I’m used to seeing movies where the characters flash back to their embarrassing days in high school in the ‘80s and ’90s. Now in “21 Jump Street” even seven years earlier in 2005, when I was in high school, can seem like an eternity ago. Time moves fast, and jokes have to move even faster.

Thus, “21 Jump Street” is a sharp, silly and self-aware movie that barrel rolls head-on into its ridiculous concept as willfully as Channing Tatum dives head first into a gong while tripping out on drugs.

The film pairs Jonah Hill and Tatum as Schmidt and Jenko, two hapless cops who together are physically and mentally inept at their jobs. Their punishment is a reassignment to an undercover operation in high school to locate the supplier of a new synthetic drug.

The two were in different worlds in high school, but now they’re best buds, and the movie never messes too much with their bromance. They remain likeable even as they bro out and act too big for their egos, and “21 Jump Street” has a way of being raunchy and endearing simultaneously. It’s wild and absurd without being cynical in a way perhaps no blockbuster comedy has done since “Superbad.” Continue reading “21 Jump Street”

A Separation

The emotions in “A Separation” are universal. Asghar Farhadi’s film gets at the harsh reality of everyday life. It’s enthralling, urgent, complex, saddening and one of the best films of the year.

I’m still too young to know how painful a divorce can be. I’ve also never lived in Iran, nor have I been so devoutly religious that I let a fear of sin dictate my actions.

But the emotions in “A Separation” are universal. Asghar Farhadi’s film gets at the harsh reality of everyday life. It’s enthralling, urgent, complex, saddening and one of the best films of the year.

“A Separation’s” first hard truth is that a broken marriage never just affects two parties. Nader (Peyman Moadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami) are a middle-class couple living in Iran with their 11-year-old daughter Termeh (Sarina Farhadi). They’re comfortable and care for each other, but Simin knows they can be better off and wants to move. Nader won’t budge because his father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi) is suffering through Alzheimer’s. Because the two must each go their separate ways, Simin files for divorce in a gripping opening sequence done in one shot.

Both are right, both are caring individuals for their family, and both are stuck at an impasse. With Simin gone, Nader hires Razieh (Sareh Bayat) to work as a nurse. Razieh has her young daughter Somayeh (Kimia Hosseini) and has another on the way, so she desperately needs what little money Nader can now offer as a single parent. Continue reading “A Separation”

Lars and the Real Girl

If your brother showed up to your house with a sex doll he believed to be his real life girlfriend, you could have one of two reactions: Either you could go along with his delusion and try and help, or you could lop the head off the damn thing and try and help that way.

“Lars and the Real Girl” is a sitcom-y but sweet story about a man with a social phobia stuck in a delusion. It’s approach for self-help is the former, and it becomes obvious how drastically different a film this could’ve been if it adhered to the latter. But by straining to avoid cynicism and discrimination at all costs, “Lars and the Real Girl” overcomes what would otherwise be cheap, sitcom laughs.

Ryan Gosling shows magnificent range as Lars, the awkward but undeniably endearing disabled person who brings home a plastic girlfriend. He has a crippling fear of social situations and experiences a burning pain at the touch. But at almost every moment Gosling is just naturally beaming.

As we see him sitting with this slutty doll, we laugh with him, not at him. Everyone in town cares so much for him that much of Craig Gillespie’s film is about his family and friends more than it is about Lars. Continue reading “Lars and the Real Girl”