Movie Review: Friends with Kids

Friends with Kids ***
Directed by: Jennifer Westfeldt.
Written by: Jennifer Westfeldt.
Starring: Adam Scott (Jason Fryman), Jennifer Westfeldt (Julie Keller), Jon Hamm (Ben), Kristen Wiig (Missy), Maya Rudolph (Leslie), Chris O'Dowd (Alex), Megan Fox (Mary Jane), Edward Burns (Kurt), Lee Bryant (Elaine Keller), Kelly Bishop (Marcy Fryman), Cotter Smith (Phil Fryman).

While watching Friends with Kids, I didn’t quite realize how clichéd it is. It wasn’t until after the movie was over, while thinking it over, that I realize just how closely it follows the typical romantic comedy formula. This is a movie about two best friends – Jason (Adam Scott) and Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt, who also wrote and directed), who are getting up in their 30s, have seen their best friends married and have kids, while they are still desperately single, with no prospects. The one thing they can agree on is that they want to have children. And who better to raise your kid with than your best friend? So, they have a kid together, and then get right back to dating. For each of them, their ideal mate is right in front of them, but it takes them the entire movie to realize that. That is essentially the same setup as every romantic comedy in history.

And yet, Friends with Kids, as filled with clichés as it is, feels fresh and original, at least while you’re watching it. A lot of that is due to the casting. Adam Scott, so good in Parks and Recreation every week, is perfectly cast as Jason, the smart aleck, womanizing best friend, who can never commit to anyone for very long, but is always good for a laugh. Westfeldt, writing her third movie (following the wonderful, original lesbian comedy Kissing Jessica Stein and Ira and Abby, unseen by me) and making her directing debut, knows precisely what role to write for herself – the quirky, neurotic who is usually cast as the “best friend” but finally gets her chance to shine. Her directing style is much like her writing and acting – low-key, but effective.

The supporting cast – made up of Bridesmaids alumni – add good support for these two. Chris O’Dowd and Maya Rudolph are a fairly happy, loving couple, who bicker constantly, but lovingly. Kristen Wiig and Jon Hamm, have a darker relationship – not strong enough to survive the pressure of having children, as the slowly deteriorate until there is no relationship left to save. Megan Fox and Edward Burns are on hand briefly to be the personification of everything the two leads think they really want.

But the heart of the movie is Scott and Westfeldt and they have a nice chemistry together. They do a typical indie romance together, but because these two are so naturally charming and funny, you do not really care.

Friends with Kids is not a particularly original film, and yet it feels natural when its going on. From the scenes of them trying to raise a kid together, to slowly, but surely falling in love with each other, to their interactions with their friends, Friends with Kids is enjoyable while its going on. And I cannot recall the last true romantic comedy that I can say that about.

Movie Review: Dr. Seuss' The Lorax

Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax ***
Directed by: Chris Renaud.
Written by: Ken Daurio & Cinco Paul based on the book by Dr. Seuss.
Starring: Danny DeVito (The Lorax), Ed Helms (The Once-ler), Zac Efron (Ted), Taylor Swift (Audrey), Betty White (Grammy Norma), Rob Riggle (Mr. O'Hare), Jenny Slate (Ted's Mom), Nasim Pedrad Once-ler's Mom).

It’s not often that an animated kid’s movie hits the op-ed pages, with people decrying it as little more than propaganda. But perhaps in these contentious political times in America, where no one can seem to agree on anything, and the right constantly complaining about the left’s supposed demonization of the rich (sorry, “job creators”) and their “radical” environmentalism, it was probably inevitable that what most people will see as a fun, entertaining, bright kids movie, with a rhyme spewing, mustachioed creature with the voice of Danny DeVito who loves trees, some will see as another opportunity to demonize Hollywood and its leftish agenda. Give me a break. While it very clear where The Lorax’s politics lie – and yes, the movie does have them – which is for conservation and against greed, I cannot help but that think that the movie’s lesson is a valuable one to learn for kids – both because our environment should be protected, but also as future “job creators”. After all, if you make your living off of the earth’s natural resources, sooner or later, you’ll run out.

But let’s leave the politics of the movie aside – at least for the moment. Based on Dr. Seuss’ 1971 book, which has already been turned into a half hour TV special, which to pad its running time already had to expand the books material. To turn it into an 87 minute feature, even more stuff needed to be added. Bright and colorful, fast paced and entertaining, The Lorax is a fine animated film. It centers on Ted (with the voice of Zac Efron), who lives in Thneedville, a completely plastic city, which no one ever leaves, and which needs to buy its air supply from Mr. O’Hare. In order to impress an older girl named Audrey (voice of Taylor Swift), he decides to try and track down a real tree. The problem is no one knows where the real trees are – but he gets some advice from his Grandma (the suddenly everywhere Betty White) that what Ted needs to do is track down the Once-ler, who lives far outside of town. Ted goes there – through the desolate wasteland outside the Thneedville walls. The Once-ler tells him what happened to the trees – how his own greed ruined what was once a paradise, over the objections of the Lorax, who pops out of the stump of the first tree that the Once-ler cut down.

The Lorax is an entertaining, fast paced animated film. I appreciated that even though the film is computer driven animation, that they kept the basic character design of the Dr. Seuss original. This is a candy colored film, full of adorable animals (who do not talk). Danny DeVito does a great job as The Lorax, a strange little; orange creature referred to throughout the movie as either an orange meatloaf or a peanut, and the description is apt. He is a persistent little creature. The other great voice performance in the movie is by Ed Helms, as the Once-ler, who is not a bad guy, but simply gets caught up in his company and it becoming biggerer and biggererer (that’s not a typo) until its gone too far for him to turn back from.

So yes, the movie is an environmental parable, and if you’re one of those people who think they should drill for oil in the Alaskan Wildlife refuge, or think that Global Warming is a myth, or a Wall Street bank executive who thinks that short term profits are better than a sustainable business model, than perhaps you’ll see The Lorax is propaganda aimed at indoctrinating your children. But it didn’t bother me at all, because I realize that all kids movie have a message of some sort for the kids, and what matters is that the movie is entertaining. And even if The Lorax is padded perhaps too much from the original story – and even if I still kind of prefer the half hour 1970s TV version, The Lorax as a movie is still a superb entertainment. And the message – well, I agree with it.

Movie Review: Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia ****
Directed by: Nuri Bilge Ceylan.
Written by: Ebru Ceylan & Nuri Bilge Ceylan & Ercan Kesal.
Starring: Muhammet Uzuner (Doctor Cemal), Yilmaz Erdogan (Commissar Naci), Taner Birsel (Prosecutor Nusret), Ahmet Mümtaz Taylan (Driver Arab Ali), Firat Tanis (Suspect Kenan), Ercan Kesal (Mukhtar), Mrol Erarslan (Murder Victim Yasar), Ugur Aslanoglu (Courthouse Driver Tevfik), Murat Kiliç (Police Officer Izzet), Safak Karali (Courthouse Clerk Abidin), Emre Sen (Sergeant Onder), Burhan Yildiz (Suspect Ramazan), Nihan Okutucu (Yasar's wife Gülnaz), Cansu Demirci (Mukhtar's Daughter Cemile), Kubilay Tunçer (Autopsy Technician Sakir).

Nuri Blige Ceylons Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is part of a growing number of crime films where the closer you look, the less you seem to know. David Fincher`s Zodiac is the best of these recent films, but Bong Joon-ho`s brilliant Memories of Murder, Cornielu Porumboiu`s Police Adjective and his countryman Cristi Puiu`s Aurora, also fit the bill nicely. While all of these films are vastly different, the one thing they share is that none of the central mysteries in them can be easily explained away. While the movies concern themselves with the details of the case, they can never explain everything about them.

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia opens on a convoy of police vehicles heading out in the hills and fields of small town Turkey at night, where they are looking for a body. The two killers have already confessed to killing the victim, so this isn’t a whodunit at all. But as they drive from one location to another – all of them look very similar to each other, the killers are never quite sure if this is where they have buried the body. Most of the action is limited to one car – where police chief Naci, two other officers, the medical examiner Cemal, and one of the confessed killers, Kenan – the one leading them from site to site – sit. They talk – about everything and nothing – and become increasingly frustrated at the lack of a body, and the time this is all taking. The eventually have to stop to eat – at the residence of a small town mayor, who uses the opportunity to try and hit up the Prosecutor, in another car, for more money. Eventually – at around the half-way point of this two and half hour long movie – the body will be discovered, and the movie then switches gears – from search to documentation.

This is a movie mainly about the men on the journey – more so than the crime or the journey itself. Eventually, three of them snap more clearly into focus – the police chief, the doctor and the prosecutor. Yet the movie never really attempts to explain all their mysteries away. Ceylon, as always, favors long shots, often in close-up, of these men thinking as they stare off into space. What are they thinking? The answer to that question changes throughout the course of the movie, or at least our perception of what that answer is, does. Women are few and far between in the movie, but their presence is felt throughout. The only woman we even see during the long search sequences is the beautiful daughter of the mayor, seen only in candlelight, as she brings tea to the men. They all stop and stare at her. Yes, she is beautiful, but there`s more than that. She represents their idea of female perfection, but also their own lost youth, and their wives when they were younger. We do not meet any of these three men`s wives, but through their words, we feel that we know them. They are all distant from their wives in one way or another – for reasons hinted at throughout the movie.

Once the body is discovered, the movie switches gears, and yet while things should become clearer through the investigation, they simply become more complicated. Miscommunication and willful lies simply serve to complicate things further. The autopsy that ends the film is sickening, not because of what is shown (very little is), but because of the sounds of bones being saw, organs being removed and examined.

Nuri Blige Ceylon has made a name for himself in the past decade with films like Distant, Climates and Three Monkeys. Stylistically similar to those earlier efforts, but far more complex, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is his supreme achievement so far. This is one of the best films of the year.

Movie Review: Kill List

Kill List ****
Directed by: Ben Wheatley.
Written by: Ben Wheatley & Amy Jump.
Starring: Neil Maskell (Jay), MyAnna Buring (Shel), Harry Simpson (Sam), Michael Smiley (Gal), Emma Fryer (Fiona), Struan Rodger (The Client).

Note: I have done my best to avoid spoilers in this review. However, I think the least amount of knowledge you have when walking into Kill List, the better, so you may want to avoid the review until after you’ve seen the film. It is a brilliant horror movie but it is also incredibly violent. You’ve been warned.

Ben Wheatley’s Kill List is one of the most disturbing horror films in recent memory. Wheatley doesn’t jump headlong into his horror story, but builds it from the ground up; moving through domestic drama and crime film before it even gets to the horror elements of the story. And yet despite the shifts in narrative, Wheatley keeps a remarkably similar tone throughout. We know something is wrong right from the beginning – that Wheatley has more on his mind than what first appears on screen. The horror elements infiltrate those early domestic scenes, much like the domestic ones infiltrate the shocking finale. This is one screwed up film – but a brilliant one.

The movie opens with Jay (Neil Maskell) in an argument with his wife Shel (MyAnna Buring). He hasn’t worked in months, apparently because of a bad back, and their savings have been depleted in that time. His friend Gal (Michael Smiley) shows up one night with his new girlfriend Fiona (Emma Fryer), and the two of them are treated to a domestic battle between the couple. She wants him to go back to work to support her and their son, he isn’t sure he can. But the money is gone, and besides Gal has a line on a job that they can do together. The pay is good. But what the hell is Fiona doing in that bathroom? To say more would be unfair, as the movie takes many unexpected turns along the way. Needless to say however, that Jay and Gal, two old army buddies with a dark past, do not run a dry wall business and violence has a way of coming home to roost.

Kill List is an odd film – especially for a horror film. Most horror films, even good ones, don’t spend much time on character development or even character motivation. It’s hard to develop characters when they spend most of the movie running from a psychopath. But Kill List is different because it takes it time. Those opening scenes of marital discord are as important as anything else in the movie. The interaction between Jay and his wife have the same power to shock you with their cruelty as anything else. By the time Jay and Gal hit the road, we know who these characters are, and that makes things all the more disturbing.

Performances in horror films are often underrated, and here, they are as important as anything else. Neil Maskell makes Jay into an angry, violent man, who rage simmers just beneath the surface, even in the most banal of situations. He will become increasingly unhinged as the movie goes along, but that grows from within – this is the person he always was, so even when he becomes violent, it seems natural. MyAnna Buring, as his wife, has a much more complex role than it appears on the surface. She knows precisely what it is her husband does – knows what he is going to do when he leaves with Gal, and knows the price it will cost him. She shoves him out the door anyway. Michael Smiley seems more at ease with himself as Gal – more able to separate what he does and who he is than Jay is. And Emma Fryer, who has but a few short scenes, is all disturbing sexual energy.

The violence when it comes in Kill List, and boy does it come, is strong, disturbing and bloody as hell. And yet, the violence is not prolonged. The movie doesn’t dwell on it, and while it is fast and furious, it is telegraphed beforehand. This doesn’t take the edge off of the violence in anyway, but somehow, makes it hit even harder. Whether it execution style killing, beating someone with a hammer (in what will become the movies most infamous scene), mowing down the faceless enemy with automatic rifles, or the disturbing conflict that ends the film, the violence is harsh – as well it should be.

Kill List, although it is a horror film, ultimately has more on its mind than killing people. It is about that line of killing that once crossed, for any reason, enacts the price on the person doing the killing. Could Jay do what he does had he not already killed in the army? And if you kill people while in the army, even if for a “just cause” whatever that may be, does it not make it easier to continue killing later? Perhaps the most shocking moment in the film comes right at the very end – after all the blood has been split, and the body count is finalized. Jay didn’t look too upset to me.

Movie Review: Goon

Goon *** ½
Directed by: Michael Dowse.
Written by: Jay Baruchel & Evan Goldberg based on the book by Doug Smith & Adam Frattasio.
Starring: Seann William Scott (Doug Glatt), Jay Baruchel (Ryan), Alison Pill (Eva), Liev Schreiber (Ross Rhea), Eugene Levy (Dr. Glatt), Marc-André Grondin (Xavier Laflamme), Kim Coates (Ronnie Hortense), Nicholas Campbell (Rollie Hortense), Richard Clarkin (Gord Ogilvey), Jonathan Cherry (Marco Belchier), Ricky Mabe (John Stevenson), George Tchortov (Evgeni), Karl Graboshas (Oleg), Larry Woo (Park Kim).

Hockey movies normally suck. I`m not quite sure why that is, but very few movies have been made about hockey over the years, and even fewer of those films are watchable, let alone very good. Part of it may well be that some hockey movies seem to be made by people who know nothing about hockey (really, stick duels, Youngblood. Iceland is a hockey power house, Mighty Ducks 2. C`mon). The only hockey movies that come readily to mind that function as more than guilty pleasures are Slap Shot, Miracle and The Rocket. You can now add Goon to that list. Goon wants very badly to be the Slap Shot for a new generation – and you know what, it succeeds.

Loosely based on the real story of Doug Smith, Goon follows Doug Glatt (Seann William Scott), a Massachusetts boy who is the source of never ending embarrassment of his adoptive Jewish parents. Unlike his brother, he is not following his father into the medical world. The only thing he is good at is being a bouncer. But at a hockey game, he gets into a fight with one of the players, and knocks him out cold. The coach sees this, and in need to a tough guy, invites Doug to try out for the role. The fact that he has never played hockey, and cannot really skate, doesn`t matter. He can fight, and that’s all they need from him. Soon, he`s called up to the league just below the NHL. The team has a highly touted prospect, Xavier Laflamme (Marc-Andre Grondin), but he needs someone to protect him. That`s where Doug comes in. Meanwhile, one of the toughest guys in NHL history has just been sent down to the same league to finish off his final year. We know from the beginning that the movie will climax not with a championship game or a big goal – but an epic fight between Doug and Ross Rhea (Liev Schreiber).

Goon sticks with a well-worn plot of sports movie clichés - the scrappy underdog who gradually gets better, a divided locker room where no one seems to care gradually coming together, a barking mad coach, the sweet romance with a puck bunny, the profanity spewing best friend more psyched about his friends success than he is and hilariously clueless color commentary to the on ice action. And yet, while the movie milks these clichés, it works for a many reason – the biggest being that the movie is actually funny. For those who only know Seann William Scott as Stifler from the American Pie movies, who may well have missed his growth as a comedic actor, particularly in the little seen, and under rated indie The Promotion. Like that film, Scott’s performance in Goon could not be further away from his Stifler image. Goon, and Scott, does a great job of highlighting one of the seeming contradictions in being a hockey enforcer – that these men who make their living with their fists, are often the nicest, sweetest guys around. Scott’s Doug Glatt is sweet, nice, awkward, a little slow perhaps, but also completely sincere. He embraces hockey immediately, because it allows him to be part of a team – he knows what his role is, and does it without question or complaint. Nowhere is his sweetness more apparent than in his budding romance with Allison Pill’s Eva, a puck bunny, who is trying to “stop being a slut” (her words, not mine) and already has a boyfriend, and yet she cannot help herself from falling for Doug. Their hilariously aborted first date has Doug bring her a series of gifts – the best being a plush toy of his team’s official mascot (a Highlander). But when he finds out she has a boyfriend, he backs off. That would be crossing a line that he does not want to cross. Unlike most sports movie romances, this one feels genuine – there is real feeling between these two, and it is played perfectly by both actors.

I also have to admit that I loved Liev Schreiber as Ross Rhea – who we see only in video clips for much of the movie. His Ross Rhea is much liked Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now – a larger than life figure that neither the audience nor the films hero can barely believe exists. But Scott and Schreiber share a near perfect scene in a diner – heavily influenced by DeNiro and Pacino squaring off against each other in a similar scene in Heat. These two respect each other, but Ross is trying to spare Doug a little – teach him something in that scene telling him “just don’t try and be a hockey player. It will only break your heart”, which verbalizes another truth about hockey goons – many didn’t want to be a goon, they wanted to be a hockey player, but when it became clear they didn’t have the talent to make it on their own, became enforcers as a way to at least stay involved in the game they love. It is a perfectly played scene – and their climatic fight scene is inarguably the greatest hockey fight in movie history. No, this blood battle between these two titans have little to nothing to do with actual hockey fights, but it is visceral and satisfying in a way a real hockey fight never could be,

Goon is the third movie in the past three years made by Canadians, for Canadians, to try and exploit our nation’s obsessed love of the game. But while audiences saw through the phoniness of the previews of Score: A Hockey Musical and Breakaway, and stayed far, far away from them. But Goon is a completely different beast – probably because writers Jay Baruchel (who is hilarious as Doug’s best friend) and Evan Goldberg took the time to make the characters feel real, and also made the film funny. And director Michael Dowse delves headlong into the movie, going over the top with the violence, but never too far to make the movie into camp. In short, Goon is the hockey movie Canadians have been waiting for.

Movie Review: Act of Valor

Act of Valor **
Directed by: Mike McCoy & Scott Waugh.
Written by: Kurt Johnstad.
Starring: Jason Cottle (Abu Shabal), Alex Veadov (Christo), Ailsa Marshall (LT Rorke's Wife), Gonzalo Menendez (Commander Pedros), Emilio Rivera (Sanchez), Roselyn Sanchez (Lisa Morales), Nestor Serrano (Walter Ross).

I have nothing but respect for the real Navy SEALs that essentially play themselves in Act of Valor. They do a nearly impossible job and put their lives on the line for what they believe in. And I know the whole idea behind Act of Valor was to use “real Navy SEAL” tactics, instead of pumped up Hollywood clichés of what those tactics really are. And yet, there are so many problems with Act of Valor that I do not know where to begin. No, I did not expect that the Navy SEALs would be very good actors, but still, you would think that directors Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh would be able to get them to sound a little more natural in their roles, since they playing themselves. And you would think that a movie that wants to show “real” tactics instead of Hollywood clichés, would have been able to come up with a less clichéd story. This is a movie with no complexity whatsoever.

The SEAL team is first seen relaxing on R&R discussing family, patriotism and heroism, before they are thrust into action. First, they need to rescue a captured CIA agent from a heavily guarded compound of South American drug traffickers. That leads them to information about an Eastern European drug lord, Christo, and his Muslim childhood friend, who wants to strap bombs to people and detonate them all over America. These two main villains are such cookie cutter bad guys that it is impossible to take them seriously – they are one step away from twirling their mustaches. The SEALs themselves blend together because there is no effort or attempt made to differentiate between them by showing things like personality.

So the SEALs rush headlong into one action sequence after another, mowing down dozens of bad guys, in action sequences that, are at times, impressive and harrowing. And yet, the movies visual style seems inspired more by video games than anything else – there are many, many shots that replicate the look of a first person shooter video game. And because the SEALs are so interchangeable, and the henchmen they gun done are even more nameless and faceless, Act of Valor plays even more like a video game than any movie I can recall. And as anyone who plays video games will tell you, there is nothing more boring than watching someone else plays a video game.

There are moments that work – that first raid on the compound to get the captured CIA agent for example is particularly good – especially in the quieter moments of killing that precede the all-out bloodbath it will become (shooting someone on a dock while another SEAL has swam up behind him to catch his body so it won’t back a sound is particularly fascinating). The massive gunfight that follows is also well handled. But too much of what follows feels interchangeable. The action sequences work, at least to a certain extent, but whenever the movie slows down, and anyone says anything, the whole things grinds to a halt.

I understand that the filmmakers wanted to honor the heroes who fight for their country, and are willing to die for it. But I also think that the best way to do that would be to present a realistic portrait of what their lives are actually like. Act of Valor turns their lives into a globetrotting adventure film – and worse yet, merely a game. I doubt they view it that way.

Movie Review: The Secret World of Arietty

The Secret World of Arietty *** ½
Directed by: Hiromasa Yonebayashi.
Written by: Hayao Miyazaki & Keiko Niwa based on the novel by Mary Norton.
Starring: Bridgit Mendler (Arrietty), Will Arnett (Pod), David Henrie (Shawn), Amy Poehler (Homily), Moises Arias (Spiller), Carol Burnett (Hara), Gracie Poletti (Aunt Jessica), Dale Sison (Harachi).

Hayao Miyazaki is one of the greatest filmmakers animation has ever seen. Yet, at more than 70 years old, we may have to accept the fact that he may never direct another feature again. The amount of time and effort, and loving attention to detail that fills every frame of his films, is perhaps too much for someone who just wants to enjoy retirement. Miyazaki however did conceive, plan and co-write The Secret Life of Arietty, and even if it doesn’t quite have the same magic that his best films – like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away – it comes close. And in a world where almost all American animated films have a similar, computer generated look and feel, and often appeal to the lowest common denominator, it is refreshing to see an intelligent animated film aimed at kids, yet doesn’t talk down to them.

Based on Mary Norton’s beloved kids book The Borrowers, The Secret Life of Arietty centers on the title character and her family, all only a couple of inches tall, who live under a house inhabited by humans. They “borrow” things that the humans above them discard in order to survive. Families of these borrowers have been living there for generations, but Arietty and her family may be the only ones left – they certainly do not see any others around them. They stay out of view of the human world – and like it that way. Arietty is finally old enough to go on her first “borrowing” with her father.

Into the human family above comes a sickly boy named Shawn who is resting up in preparation for heart operation. He sees Arietty fleeting upon his arrival – and goes looking for her. Not out of malice, but out of genuine curiosity. The housekeeper, Hara, on the other hand isn’t quite as nice as Shawn. When she suspects that little people are afoot, she wants to capture them, not help them.

The film certainly has the look of a Miyazaki film – which isn’t surprising when you consider that director Hiromasa Yonebayashi has been an animator for Miyazaki for years. The outdoor scenes invoke the same sense of reverence for nature that has become a Miyazaki tradition. The indoor scenes, with the massive size compared to the small borrowers finds a sense of wonder in the ordinary that a movie like this needs.

A hallmark of Miyazaki, and really a lot of anime, has been the strong female heroine, who doesn’t need a wacky animal sidekick or prince charming to come in so she can fall in love. There is a strange, almost innocent romantic longing between Shawn and Arietty, yet for obvious reasons, it is not a typical romance, although they do grow to love each other.

 As I mentioned, the movie doesn’t quite hit the heights of Miyazaki’s best films. Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Castle in the Sky and Nausicca, are truly magical films that are beautiful, wondrous and narratively complex. The Secret Life of Arietty gets the look and feel of Miyazaki’s films almost perfect, but the story itself, as wonderful as it is, does have more than its share of lulls in it. And yet, this is still likely to be among the best animated films of 2012. It’s not really Miyazaki, but it reminds you enough of the master’s work, that I really did not mind.