Movie Review: X-Men: Days of Future Past

X-Men: Days of Future Past/Dir. by Bryan Singer/20th Century Fox/Rated PG-13/131 min.

The X-Men have sure had a bumpy road at the movies.  First, there was X-Men, Bryan Singer's first big budget movie and a film that really paved the way for the superhero revolution of the last ten years by proving a comic book movie could be good and popular without containing the words Superman or Batman.  Singer then followed up with X2: X-Men United, a movie that many still consider one of the best superhero films ever made.  Singer then left the franchise to pursue Superman Returns leaving the super mutants in the hands of one Brett Ratner, the mastermind behind the Rush Hour movies.  While his visual skills on X-Men: The Last Stand were actually quite impressive (the incident at the Gray household is still one of the most stunning sequences in the franchise), it also was a little too happy to unceremoniously kill off major characters and minimalized one of the most beloved story arcs in the comic books.  Then there was X-Men Origins:Wolverine, which....well....the less said the better.  Next was the obligatory prequel/reboot, X-Men: First Class, which ended up being a fantastically entertaining look at how Professor X and Magneto first met and started gathering mutants together.  For my money, this was the best of the series at that point.  Finally, 20th Century Fox erased the memory of the first Wolverine movie with the economically titled, The Wolverine, not a great film, but leaps and bounds ahead of Wolvie's first solo outing.

Well, the powers that be brought Singer back to direct X-Men: Days of Future Past, a story arc that would bring together both the original cast and the First Class cast and a film that is the highlight of the entire series.  More than just a big summer explode-fest, DoFP is a movie about characters and ideas that just happens to have some mind-blowing action set-pieces.

Starting in a dystopian future roughly 20 years after the events of The Last Stand, the X-Men are fighting for their lives against Terminator-like robots called Sentinels that can mimic any mutants powers and are built specifically to exterminate all mutant kind.  In a last desperate attempt to save themselves, they decide to have Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) use her powers to send Wolverine's (Hugh Jackman) conscious back to his younger body in 1973 in an effort to stop the events that lead to the creation of the Sentinels.  This future works mostly as a bookend to the film with the majority of the film taking place in '73 with the First Class cast.  Wolverine must get Professor X (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) to work together in spite of their bitter differences in order to stop the chain of events that leads to cataclysmic world war.

In the family of superheroes, the X-Men have always been the super brainy, but brooding cousins.  The films are far more about ideas than just super battles and in Days of Future Past the ideas are largely about choice vs. fatalism.  There's the fundamental plot arc in which the hope of changing the future is inherent, plus there's the individual character struggles and younger versions prove that they are not necessarily destined to become the same people they were in the original trilogy.  The conceit of time travel is not only a great plot device to examine the cause and effect of single decisions, but it's also a great way to celebrate the film series while erasing the memory of its less celebrated moments.  

The performances are, across the board, terrific.  Fassbender and McAvoy get even more opportunities to stretch their emotive muscles, while Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique is expanded to a level fitting of her current popularity.  She's the perfect person to play this character, filling her with a confidence, yet a vulnerability that was not found in Rebecca Romijn's incarnation.  However, it's Evan Peters as Quicksilver that steals the entire show.  It's unusual in a film series that's been around this long to feel a sense of discovery and that's what this character is.  He's only on screen for about 15 minutes, but he owns the screen in that time and there's certainly a feeling of disappointment when he leaves.  Here's hoping Quicksilver can be a big part of the already announced X-Men: Apocalypse , coming to a theater near you in 2016.

I promise not to get spoilery, but the final scenes of Days of Future Past will elate any fan of the series.  There were audible sounds of crying, happy laughing, and involuntary clapping in the theater during these scenes and they elevate what was already a very good film to the level of epic.  Hopefully, Singer will continue guiding the series well past Apocalypse, because in his hands, the X-Men are certainly among the best that superhero films have to offer.

To 3D or not to 3D:  The 3D has some nice moments, giving depth to the future worlds while enveloping the viewer in the action, but it's not vital to the story.  If you enjoy 3D, it's an easy recommendation, but if you're not sold on 3D technology, you're safe to see the 2D version.

Bottom line:  This is the first great film of the summer and the best of the franchise.  If you have any vested interest in the X-Men or in great action movies in general, this is a must see.

Grade: A

Movie Review: Million Dollar Arm

Million Dollar Arm/Dir. by Craig Gillespie/Walt Disney/Rated PG/124 min.

Disney has a pretty terrific track record with sports movies.  Sure, they're all highly sentimental and they have similar scrappy underdog makes good plot arcs, but with the exception of 2006's somewhat pedestrian Glory Road, every one of them has tread the sports movie tropes masterfully.  In fact, I personally think that Remember the Titans, The Rookie, and Miracle stand with the best sports movies ever made, and I'm a sucker for a great sports movie.  There is something innately inspiring about watching an individual overcome physical and personal adversity to succeed in a make or break game.  It's the same thing that makes the Olympics so riveting to watch.  Such sporting events become metaphors for the human spirit and the watcher, be they athletes or not, can't help but relate.

Million Dollar Arm, the latest in the canon of Disney sports films is a bit of an odd duck.  Yes, it has a climactic scene of sporting prowess and it certainly hits all the emotional beats of a great sports film, but it's also a business drama,  a la Moneyball,  and an examination of differing cultures being forced to intermingle and younger generations learning to honor their heritage,  a la The Namesake,  and a story of a man realizing that the life of a solitary bachelor is perhaps not as fulfilling as he once thought, a la Ryan Gosling in Crazy, Stupid, Love.  The happy thing is that in spite of all of these varying messages and plot arcs, Million Dollar Arm succeeds because of its solid direction, confident screenplay, and winning performances.

Million Dollar Arm tells the true story of J.B. Bernstein (played by Jon Hamm), a sports agent who sets up a game show in India in an effort to convert the most talented cricket bowlers into world class baseball pitchers.  The idea is that not only could they harvest unknown talent, but also gain a nation of over a billion fans for American baseball.  The winners of the competition are Rinku Singh (Suraj Sharma, Life of Pi) and Dinesh Patel (Madhur Mittal, Slumdog Millionaire).  Neither of them play cricket, but both of them has a fast enough pitch to justify training them for an MBL try out.  However, as the pair traverse the landmines of learning an entirely new culture in America, J.B. begins slowly begins to realize that his new investments are changing his life as much as he's changing theirs.

There are moments in Million Dollar Arm that feel a bit trite, particularly as it deals with the culture shock J.B. feels in India and the boys feel in America ("Look!  Indian food makes him sick and he hates the chaotic traffic!  Funny!  Look!  The kids from India have never been on an elevator and have never had pizza!  Funny!"), fortunately, the film gets past the more shallow fish-out-of-water jokes pretty quickly, moving to the more satisfying story of how these characters change each other.  

Like many of the best sports films, the movie hits its stride as it parallels the personal trials of the characters with their professional journey.  By the time the boys get to their final tryout, it represents far more than a mere shot at the big leagues for them and for J.B.

Million Dollar Arm is not perfect and it doesn't reach the giddy levels of enthusiasm that are found in Miracle, it's still a worthy entry into Disney's increasing catalog of sports films.  There are so few entertainments that truly uplift and I'm happy to report that Million Dollar Arm does just that.

Grade - B

Cool, cool, cool. My Ten Favorite Episodes of Community

(Note: This post is not movie related, however, if there is any justice in the world, it will be when Community: The Movie debuts in theaters worldwide)

Let me state from the get go that I completely understand that what I'm feeling is ridiculous.  I understand that regardless of my devotion to any artistic endeavor, be it music, film, literature, television, or stick figure puppetry (RIP Horsebot 3000) that I have a wonderful and amazing life that is completely independent of that devotion.  That having been said, this is a first for me.  I have never mourned the cancellation of a television show before. 

Sure, there have been T.V. shows that I was sad to see go.  M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Cosby Show, Friends, Futurama, The Office and many others were brilliant shows that left an emptiness on the tube when they were gone.  However, these were shows that had a long run and finished with a strong sense of closure.

There have been shows that I have become a devotee of after their early cancellation.  Had I been watching Freaks and Geeks, Better Off Ted, or Pushing Daisies from the beginning, I would have been feeling the same way I do today.  You see, today Community was cancelled and I'm devastated.

There's a reason that Community has one of the most vocally devoted fandoms in all of television.  It's a show that's not afraid to get messy in the name of creating something different.  When you tune into Community you always know you're going to get the funny, but you never really know what subgenre of funny it will be.  You see, in spite of the fact that it is, on the surface, a one camera comedy about a lovable group of misfits at a horrible community college, it manages to also be a satire of just about every type of film and t.v. show there is.  There are musical episodes, animated episodes, horror episodes, and puppet episodes.  The list of widely diverse films and television shows that it directly spoofs includes Goodfellas, My Dinner With Andre, Pulp Fiction, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Glee, M*A*S*H, Scrubs, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Shawshank Redemption, Dawn of the Dead, The Ring, The Hunger Games, Apollo 13, Shutter Island, Die Hard, A Fistful of Dollars, Star Wars, The Conversation, Mean Girls, Terminator, RoboCop, The Color of Money, The Shining, Ken Burns' The Civil War, Scarface, The Matrix, 28 Days Later, Ghost, Dead Poets Society, Indecent Proposal, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Hearts of Darkness Freaky Friday, and that's just touching the surface.  The miracle of this is that Community manages to directly spoof these things with such a deft hand that all of the spoofs actually fit in the basic premise of the show.  Not only that, but key character developments have been brilliantly handled in these "spoof" episodes.

Community is more densely layered than any other network comedy other than possibly The Simpsons.  There are hilarious surface jokes, multi-episode character arc developments, tons of background jokes that make re-watching episodes extra fun and even jokes that take multiple episodes to pay off, rewarding the patience of the sharp eyed viewer.  One example of the latter is the "Beetlejuice Joke."  As you know, In the film Beetlejuice, the way you get the titular specter to appear is to utter his name three times.  In season one of Community a character said "Beetlejuice" once.  In season two, another said it again.  In season three, during the Halloween episode, Annie mentions "the Beetlejuice soundtrack," at which point Beetlejuice strolls by behind her.

So, in honor of my favorite t.v. show and the hopeful saving of it by Hulu or Netflix, I give you my ten favorite episodes of Community:

Honorable Mentions: 

The Science of Illusion (Season 1) - If for nothing else, Annie's accidental self-pepper spraying.  Best line:  "These are not tears!  This is self-inflicted friendly fire!"

Epidemiology (Season 2) - The Dawn of the Dead episode in which Community manages to pull off actual zombies in a semi-realistic comedy about a community college.  Best line: (as a psychotic cat continuously jumps across the room in the basement) Troy: "What about the zombies?!?"  Jeff: "Backburner, Troy!  This cat must be dealt with!"

Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas (Season 2) - Abed has a psychotic break and sees everyone as stop-motion animation a la Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  Best line: Annie: "I'm taking a relaxation course next semester and I was going to use the break to do all the reading in advance."

10. Regional Holiday Music (Season 3) - After the college glee club has a corporate mental breakdown, the study group is recruited by a creepily charismatic, sweater vest-wearing Glee Club adviser (terrifically played by SNL's Taran Killam).  They resist, but are one by one drawn in to the Glee-fulness.  This episode is a brilliant spoof of Glee by way of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  The songs are catchy and hilarious and the cast has a blast with the premise.  Best line: Troy: "Who hates glee?  Listen to how that sounds.  "Glee" literally means....glee."

9. Basic Human Anatomy (Season 4) - The best episode of the much derided, Dan Harmon-less fourth season, this episode was written by Oscar winner Jim Rash (who also plays Greendale's dean).  In it Troy doesn't want to deal with breaking up with Britta, so he pretends to switch bodies with Abed, a la Freaky Friday.  What could have been a throw away movie spoof turns in to a truly thoughtful character study about friends, relationships, and how difficult it is to to face hard truths.  Best line: Dean Pelton: "Uh, I'm at Greendale , stuck in the body of a man that could be Gollum's shadow.  So yeah, I'd say it's half past suck."

8. Modern Warfare (Season 1) - a.k.a. "The Paintball Episode", this is the first time Community did a full-blown movie spoof as Jeff is forced to channel his inner John McClane in order to win a school-wide paintball competition with a highly desired grand prize.  Directed by Justin Lin, the director of the last three Fast and Furious movies, Modern Warfare feels wonderfully cinematic and gives each character moments to shine.  Best line: Abed: "To be blunt, Jeff and Britta are no Ross and Rachel.  Your lack of chemistry and sexual tension are putting us all on edge, which is ironically, and hear this one every level, keeping us from being Friends."

7. Digital Estate Planning (Season 3) - One of creator Dan Harmon's least favorite episodes, I think this one is just brilliant.  After the death of his multi-millionaire father, Pierce is instructed to invite seven of his friends ("Levar Burton was a maybe") to a warehouse where his father had developed a 8-bit video game which will determine who inherits his fortune, Pierce or one of his friends.  Most of the episode is the video game, with each of the characters scanned so there are little 8-bit versions of them playing.  On a visual level, it's one of the most fascinating episodes, but it also contains some pretty terrific character work and a high level of hilarity.  Best line:  Jeff: "When you die you go all the way back to the study room, so don't die."  Shirley: "Yeah, I used to really love dying, but that speech really turned me around."

6. Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism (Season 3) - One of the under-nourished relationships on Community was Jeff and Shirley.  In season 1 there was Social Psychology, but it basically dealt with how little these two characters have in common.  Here, not only do we discover that they share a passion for foosball, but also that when they were both children Shirley was a bully who motivated Jeff to be the hard and shallow man he became.  Their differences explode in an epic game of foosball that transforms into an anime extravaganza.  In the end, their friendship is stronger because of their honesty.  This episode also has the sweetest ending shot of the entire series.  Best line: Jeff (to the Germans loudly monopolizing the foosball table) "Gentlemen, my name is Clarence Thaddeus Foos.  My grandfather, Fletcher Morton Foos, invented this game for one purpose - to have the loudest, dumbest thing happen.  Now it has.  The game of foosball is completed.  You're free to return to your undoubtedly hearing-impaired families."

5. Geothermal Escapism (Season 5) - Another epic episode in which the whole school plays a game of "The Floor Is Lava", turning the entire campus into a Mad Max-ian dystopia after Abed announces that he's giving a comic book worth $15,000 as the grand prize.  In the end, Abed had designed the game so he could show his friends the literal lava that he's seeing as a result of the impending departure of his best friend, Troy.  The Troy/Abed friendship had really been the center of the quirky nature of the show from season 1, so dissolving the duo because Donald Glover, who played Troy, was leaving the show, needed to be epic.  This episode did not disappointment.  Plus, it ends with a terrific Levar Burton cameo and a wonderfully poignant Aimee Mann remake of Styx' "Come Sail Away."  Best line: Magnitude: "I'm actually British!"

4. Paradigms of Human Memory (season 2) - Best...clip episode....ever.  Why?  Because none of the clips were from any previously aired episode.  The clips used were from non-existent high concept episodes, including the gang being trapped in a haunted house, the gang visiting a ghost town, the gang fighting bed bugs at a cheap motel, the gang being institutionalized when they experienced mass mercury poisoning, the gang encountering drug runners and Pierce almost being executed for racism....every clip is a gold mine. Plus, it's the episode that gives us the fan mantra, "Six seasons and a movie."   Best line: Troy: "You can yell at me all you want.  I've seen enough movies to know that popping the back of a raft makes it go faster!"  

3. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (Season 2) - One of the most emotionally difficult episodes, AD&D, deals with Jeff trying to save the life of a suicidal student by inviting him to play D&D with the study group.  He leaves Pierce out of it to avoid any mishaps, but Pierce finds out, forces himself in the game, and officially becomes the villain of season 2.  This is a consistently funny episode, but it also has some moments of discomforting cruelty as Pierce tries to undermine the suicidal Neal for appearing to replace him in the group.  Thoughtful, smart, and emotional, AD&D is Community at its riskiest.  Best line: Troy (about the game): "Shouldn't there be a board or pieces or something to Jenga?"

2. Remedial Chaos Theory (Season 3) - The source of all the "Darkest Timeline" talk.  In this episode, the group tries to decide who to send to get pizza for a apartment warming party for Troy and Abed.  Abed posits that if they choose by means of dice, they will actually be creating six different timelines.  The episode then shows the different outcomes of different people being chosen.  The results are everything from everyone happily dancing together to different couplings beginning to Pierce getting shot and dying.  This is the type of episode that makes Community a favorite of the MENSA crowd.  Best line: Troy (to Pierce after Pierce decides not to give Troy a mean joke housewarming gift): "I demand to be housewarmed!  You're bad at gift giving!"

1. Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design (Season 2) - Jeff and Annie work together to discover a deep-seeded conspiracy while Troy and Abed bring the joys of blanket forts to the entire campus.  I know this is an unconventional choice for best episode, but I seriously can't stop laughing through this entire half-hour.  The Jeff and Annie plot involves some really terrific jabs at the conspiracy thriller, while the blanket fort subplot is purely delightful.  Then, when the two plots intersect as the conspiracy plot erupts in a chase scene that careens through the emerging blanket city, comedy gold explodes.  Best line (or rather favorite out of an endlessly quotable episode): Dean Pelton (rocking back and forth, pulling his hoodie around his head after thinking he had witnessed multiple murders and then finding out they were fake) "Would that this hoodie were a time hoodie!"  Runner-up: Jeff (blocked by a group of people during the blanket fort chase): "What's that?!?" Troy: "It's the Latvian Independence Parade.  Don't look at me, they had the proper permits!"

So, with that, I say that I hope this is merely a tribute to a show in transition.  If there was ever a fan base capable of shepherding a series from one network to another (or possibly to a streaming service), it's the Communies.

10 movie characters more annoying than Jar Jar Binks

Happy Star Wars day!  Having been stuck in bed most of the weekend because of a chest cold, I decided to make my way through all six movies.  Well, almost.  Yesterday, I started with The Phantom Menace, but found myself fast forwarding through, well, a lot.  I skipped the midichlorians, I skipped through "cute" little Annie, I skipped through the pod race that wouldn't end, but mostly I skipped through Jar Jar.  I remember before Episode I was released, I ate up every bit of news, every photo, every trailer, and after consuming all of that pre-release publicity, I was actually excited about Jar Jar.  I liked his character design quite a bit.  He looked unlike anything that had come before, but distinctly "Star Wars-ian".   I also was glad to know that there would be room for humor in such a dark story.

Then I saw The Phantom Menace.  Yes, he annoyed me, but I didn't jump on the "death to Jar Jar" bandwagon.  I just looked at him as a "strictly for kiddos" character and moved on.  However, as 15 years (has it really been that long?!?) has passed since his introduction, Jar Jar has taken his place in film history as one of, if not the most loathed movie characters of all time.  Poor misguided Gungan.  So, in honor of Star Wars day, I present ten characters that I find far more annoying than Jar Jar Binks.  Some of you may agree with me, some may not, but these are the characters that set my nerves on edge more than would an entire two hours of "Meesa called Jar Jar Binks" madness.

Honorable Mention:  Dr. Kafka in The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Dr. Kafka, as played by Marton Csokas, gets an honorable mention only because I was just introduced to him this week.  He needs a little more time to earn his place among the monumentally annoying, but holy cow is he off to a good start.  Every bit of good will built by the rest of the film is squandered whenever the sign for "Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane" appears on screen.  Dr. Kafka feels like he belongs in a 90's era Mel Brooks spoof than in a big budget superhero film.

10. Ace Ventura (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective) - It wasn't until The Mask that I got why people loved Jim Carrey and the reason is Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.  I love comedies.  Heck, I love "so dumb they're funny" comedies.  However, I don't love "so dumb, they're dumb" comedies, and that's precisely what this is.  On the recommendation of many friends, I watched this movie and I was glad that I watched it alone, because I found it about as funny as Schindler's List, which is to say, not at all.   Every word that comes from that smug, rubbery face puts my nerves on edge.  If you love this movie, I do not mean to dismiss your tastes.  In this case, however, I do not share them.

9. Ron and Judy Witwicky (Transformers 2 and 3) - I don't include these characters on this list based on their inclusion in the first Transformers movie.  In that film, I found them light and amusing.  However, like most everything else in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen they were "upgraded" from amusing side characters to mindless and shrill focal points.  It all goes downhill once Mrs. Witwicky eats a "special" brownie while dropping her son off at college.  Then for reasons that are ridiculous, they're brought to the center of the action scenes in the Middle East, ruining every great special effect with non-stop screeching and "comic banter."  Yes, I know a lot of people disliked Shia LaBeouf in these films, but he's Cary Grant compared to these two. 

8. Bella Swan (The Twilight franchise) - Unlike most people, I do not put the blame for this character on Kristen Stewart at all.  I've seen her in other movies and she can act circles around what she does in these films.  No, I blame Stephanie Meyer, the one who concocted this selfish and shallow ode to teenage girls.  Let me say this as plainly as I can:  TEENAGE GIRLS DESERVE BETTER!   First, the love story is weightless, making Padme and Anakin from Star Wars look like Romeo and Juliet.  Secondly, Bella is written as a bland and personality-less character, who is inexplicably the most popular girl in a new school, in spite of the fact that she never speaks, she dresses like she's on a never-ending campout, and drives the dumpiest truck in town.  Plus, she gets her eventual "powers" from giving up her family and her life for an emo dude that she's had roughly two conversations with.  Again, I know many people who adore this character, but I find her an insult to the intelligence and emotional fortitude of all teenage girls.

7. Galbatorix (Eragon) - As Galbatorix in this filmed version of the popular fantasy book, John Malkovich turns in the most over-the-top performance of his career.  Again, the most over-the-top performance of John Malkovich's career.  That's saying a lot.

6. Mr. Freeze (Batman and Robin) - This spot could have just as easily gone to Poison Ivy from the same film, but Mr. Freeze gets the edge merely because of the demented glee Arnold Schwarzenegger seems to get from uttering some of the worst dialogue ever written.  He chews every ice-related pun as if it's a rare delicacy.  While many of the actors in this movie clearly look like they realize how horrible it is, Schwarzenegger looks like he's having the time of his life.  Unfortunately, that extra commitment doesn't make the character less annoying, it just makes me feel sad to know that this is the same man who played The Terminator.

5. Ruby Rhod (The Fifth Element) - Much like Jar Jar Binks, Ruby Rhod was clearly written as the comic relief in a fairly serious space adventure.  However, unlike Jar Jar, Ruby screams every inane thing he says in the most annoying voice possible.  He (yes, he) would be annoying as all get out if he merely spoke his horrible dialogue in a regular voice, but he screeches for two whole hours, making what should be one of the most unique sci-fi epics of the last 20 years almost unbearable.

4. Willie Scott (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) - As long as this character is singing, she's charming and a welcome change of pace for the adventures of our favorite whip-cracking archaeologist.  Unfortunately, she only sings for the first two minutes.   From then on out, she whines and whines and whines.  One wonders if Indy finally kisses her just to keep her from speaking.  Whenever someone talks about how horrible Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is, I secretly want to force them to watch a loop of the Willie Scott scenes in Temple of Doom.  Suddenly CGI monkeys and "nuking the fridge" don't seem so bad, do they?

3. Rasputia Latimore (Norbit) - Eddie Murphy needs a fat suit intervention.  He should never be allowed within 50 feet of latex for the rest of his life.  It's bad enough that in this inexplicably successful film he played the villain as a fat woman, but that he played her as a reprehensibly selfish and grotesquely crude fat woman is downright prejudiced.  He may of thought he was being funny, but in fact was insulting any woman who was overweight with tired cliches and callous mockery.  Plus, this is the role with which he chose to follow up Dreamgirls, quite possibly the best (non-animated) performance of his career.  Just sickening.

2. Skids and Mudflap (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen) - The only reason I can think that these two were allowed to exist is that Michael Bay couldn't stand the thought of George Lucas holding claim as creator of the most reviled and racist CGI character in history.  From their names to their jive talk to their exaggerated facial features, these characters feel like rejects from a 20's era vaudeville routine.  Not to mention that the actual dialogue they spout is insultingly inane.  

1. Little Nicky (Little Nicky) - Quite simply the most obnoxious, ridiculous, grotesque, grating character I have ever seen in a film.  Little Nicky is the worst film ever to star Adam Sandler (let that sink in a little) and his characterization of the title character is ill-conceived in every way.  While there is absolutely comic potential in portraying the son of the devil as a dunce destined to accidental greatness, Sandler makes sure that the character is utterly impossible to empathize with by giving him insulting dialogue, a horrible speech impediment, and facial ticks that make Jim Carrey seem like a model of restraint.  I watched this movie once and I would rather watch Jar Jar get his mouth numbed by a thousand power couplinks than endure another minute of this monstrosity.

So, while Jar Jar is annoying, for me at least, he is not the worst.  May the Fourth Be With You, everyone!

Movie Review: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

The Amazing Spider-Man 2/Rated PG-13/Dir. by Marc Webb/Columbia Pictures

For over a decade, an unwritten Hollywood law has been, "every summer must begin with a Superhero movie."  I'm not sure what the penalty for breaking that law has been, but only three summer movie seasons since 2002 have started with something other than men in spandex fighting CGI bad guys.  So here we are.  Another first weekend in May and another superhero movie.  This time it's the sequel to the pleasant, if unremarkable The Amazing Spider-Man, the creatively titled The Amazing Spider-Man 2.  The good news is that it doesn't land in the lowest level of comic book hokum.  The bad news is that it's the weakest summer kick off movie since 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

The characters in TASM2 are dealing with all the same issues they had to deal with in the Sam Raimi series.  There is still a city-wide debate in New York about whether he's a help or a menace.  Aunt May (Sally Field) is still struggling to deal with finances in the wake of her husband's murder, in addition to trying to figure out why her nephew's door is always locked and he always seems to be out of breath and dirty.  Peter Parker (again winningly played by Andrew Garfield) is still trying to balance loving a girl, in this series it's Gwen Stacy (the always great Emma Stone), and avoiding her so he can keep her from getting hurt by his web-slinging exploits.  Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) is still having daddy issues, except this time it's a debilitating disease that turns his skin green that he's inherited instead of severe mental issues.

The villain, Electro (Jamie Foxx), is of the "somewhat off, but nice person falls in a vat of chemically imbalanced (fill-in-the-blank) and somehow fuses with it becoming super-powered and suddenly evil" variety.  This time it's a electrical engineer who is saved by Spidey and becomes obsessed with him, imagining they're best friends.  After an accident involving electrocution and a dip in a vat with genetically altered electric eels, he becomes Electro, sort of a combination of Dr. Manhattan and the Electric Gremlin from Gremlins 2: The New Batch.  (warning:  light spoilers until the end of the paragraph)  The motivations of this character are the most hollow this side of a Joel Schumacher Batman movie.  You see, Electro loves Spider-Man until Spidey's face replaces his on the Times Square jumbo-tron.  Yep.  "You're my hero!  You saved my life and I will be eternally in your debt and.....wait a minute.  You just upstaged me.  Die!  Die!  Die!" 

In addition, there is a lot of film time devoted to uncovering the mysteries of the disappearance of Peter's parents.  The mysteries are solved, including an opening sequence that shows precisely what happened after they left Peter with Uncle Ben and Aunt May, but the answers are not weighty enough to justify the amount of time spent searching for them.

The best thing about this film, much like it's immediate predecessor, is the chemistry between the leads, real-life couple Garfield and Stone.  These two are probably the only thing that is a step up from the original Raimi series (sorry, but Peter and Mary Jane never felt like much more than a couple of geographic convenience to me).  The best dialogue of the movie is reserved for them and they fill the characters with a playfulness that was sorely lacking in the previous trilogy.

Also, the special effects are solid and the action set-pieces are exciting enough to justify the price of admission.  However, the tone and quality of this film is wildly uneven.  There are moments that almost reach the highs of  Raimi's Spider-Man 2 and moments that are as bad as anything in Batman and Robin, in particular the normally dependable Marton Csokas plays an evil German scientist so horribly, grotesquely over the top that he seems like he'd be more at home trading puns with B&R's Mr. Freeze than in a semi-realistic New York City.

Finally, there's a moment toward the end of the film that is clearly meant to get the audience emotional, but it feels rushed (in spite of the endless series of slo-mo shots that precede it).  The actors do their best to give it weight, but much like the rest of the movie, it feels poorly timed and just emotionally off.

As I stated before, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 isn't a bad movie.  The lead performances are terrific and the action set-pieces, which are admittedly the reason movies like this exist, are serviceable eye-candy.  However, it is frustratingly uneven.  Once again, it can't help but have a feeling of deja vu as it clamors over territory so well tread in the Raimi trilogy and at a few spots it reaches a level of camp that even the much maligned Spider-Man 3 never scraped, and yes, I do remember the jazz club scene.

Final word:  The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a middle-tier superhero film.  No where near as good as the resent slate of Marvel Cinematic Universe films, but still a mild diversion.  However, it is the weakest Spider-Man film to date.  If given the choice, I'd recommend you see Captain America: The Winter Soldier again.

Grade: C+

Best of 2013

The credit lists have been published, the award nominations have been announced, and the also-rans have begun to slip into memory.  Therefore, it seems a bit anticlimactic for me to publish my top ten of the year.  Of course, the official reason is that I waited until a) I had time and b) I had a chance to see a few more of the "Oscar"-y movies.  There are still several that I haven't seen (12 Years a Slave, All Is Lost, The Book Thief and others), but I can share my thoughts on the ones that I did see.  So, here ya go:

HONORABLE MENTIONS:  Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase Two (AKA "Iron Man 3" and "Thor: The Dark World") - The more I think about what Marvel Studios has managed to do with its "Cinematic Universe", the more I think that the films are a significant as the Harry Potter films in terms of success to risk ratio.  In addition, both of the newest additions to their library manage to entertain and surprise, which is very difficult for a superhero sequel to do.  I can't wait to see this year's contributions, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" and "Guardians of the Galaxy."

"Monsters University" - Not the best Pixar movie, but sure a lot of fun anyway.  As much as I enjoyed "Despicable Me 2", "M.U. was far more deserving of an Oscar nomination, if for it's thoughtful message alone.

"Pacific Rim" - To quote the "Honest Trailer" treatment of this film, "It's either the dumbest smart movie ever made or the smartest dumb movie ever made.  Either way, man, I can't wait to see it again."

"The Croods" - Do not underestimate the talent of director Chris Sanders.  He's directed three films.  None of them were expected to be much of anything and all three surprised audiences and critics alike with their heart, intelligence, and ability to find depth in seemingly shallow plots.  "Lilo and Stitch", "How to Train Your Dragon", and now "The Croods."  This is a streak of great films almost the equal of those of Brad Bird.  Here's hoping it continues.

"Enough Said" - The plot of this film could've come from the most stereotypical romantic comedy.  An awkward meet/cute, the quirky best-friend, the ridiculously contrived obstacle designed to separate our heroes, they're all there.  However, what this film has that escapes the vast majority of rom-coms is a one two punch of great, realistic acting and thoughtful, understated dialogue.  Even the side characters, which are usually the most grating aspect of these types of films, are richly developed and relatable.  Of special note is the chemistry between the late James Gandolfini and Julia Louis-Dreyfuss.  Both performances are career cappers, especially that of Louis-Dreyfuss, who not only demonstrates a realistic ease with the comedy, but gracefully, heartbreakingly, and deftly handles the drama as well.

"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" - Haven't read the books, but I was far more invested in this film than the first, as it switches from a less-grisly American take on "Battle Royale" to the revolution story it always wanted to be.

"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" - Yeah, I know it's different from the book, but.....Smaug.  SMAUG!  Quite simply, the most captivating villain of the year and the best looking dragon ever put on screen.

Now, to the top ten......

10. "The Way Way Back" - On the surface, "The Way Way Back" is just another quirky independent coming-of-age comedy, but more than most, this one has a fully committed cast (including the terrific Sam Rockwell, the always dependable Toni Collette, and the uncharacteristically heinous Steve Carrell), plus a sharp and witty script written by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, both of whom built careers as comic actors, but became Oscar winners because of their writing skills.  Loosely based on Rash's own youth, "The Way Way Back" is an entertaining look at the moments in life when we realize adults aren't perfect and we're capable of far more than we ever imagined and it stays with the viewer long after the closing credits roll.

9. "42" - This may not be the best sports movie ever made, but it's a solid biopic about one of the greatest sports figures in history, Jackie Robinson.  This isn't the first, nor will it be the last film about the great baseball hall-of-famer, but it boasts two fantastic performances.  One from Harrison Ford as the Dodger's owner Branch Rickey, who has his own personal and poignant reasons for wanting to desegregate professional baseball, and another from Chadwick Boseman, who brings a noble humanity to his portrayal of Robinson, a role that could have easily just been a reverent lionization.

8. "Philomena" - While "Philomena" doesn't have the lasting emotional impact of director Stephen Frears best films ("The Queen" still packs a wollop whenever I see it), but it does contain one of the best performances in Dame Judy Dench's career, which is saying a heck of a lot.  Also, comic actor Steve Coogan delivers a solid portrayal of the reporter who helps Dench's Philomena Lee locate the son that was taken from her in her youth.  A thought-provoking and moving film.

7. "Lee Daniels' The Butler" - This film was ridiculously and undeservedly shut out of the Oscar nominations, which is a shame.  It's contains some of the best performances in recent  memory, especially Forest Whitaker as the strong, long-suffering title character, a man who uses his skills as a humble butler to slowly change the world in the service of U.S. Presidents from the 50's to the 80's.  

6. "Frozen" - The song score of "Frozen" isn't the insta-classic kind like that of "Beauty and the Beast", but the music is certainly fun and the story one of the most innovative, yet traditional takes on a fairy tale film that Disney's come up with in decades.  Changing from a standard "true love's kiss" kind of story to a tale of female empowerment and sisterly bonding, "Frozen" is a film that will be treasured by many for ages.

5. "Saving Mr. Banks" - The biggest oversight in the Oscar nominations this week, for me at least, was the lack of recognition for Emma Thompson as P.L. Travers in "Saving Mr. Banks."  Ms. Travers, a character that, as written, is cold, aloof, and completely off-putting, is given a complexity by Thompson that makes her seem positively heroic as she fights against Walt Disney (terrifically played by Tom Hanks) to protect her dear Mary Poppins.  Some of the suppositions about Travers real-life inspirations may not be grounded in verifiable fact, but it makes for engaging and inspiring film making.

4.  "Blue Jasmine" - I've never made a secret of the fact that I find most of Woody Allen's early work to be over-rated.  However, between "Midnight in Paris" and "Blue Jasmine", his later work is winning me over.  While "Midnight in Paris" was a fanciful look at the myth of nostalgia, "Blue Jasmine" is a heartbreaking take on the myth of happiness in wealth.  The commercials might have made it look like a sharp, comedic look at the battle of the classes, "Blue Jasmine" is far darker, with a devastating performance by Cate Blanchett as an intelligent woman losing her mind thanks to memories of a failed marriage and a dependence on medicated escape.  With Emma Thompson out of the Oscar race, this one has Blanchett's name written all over it.

3.  "Star Trek Into Darkness" - You might disagree, and that's your prerogative, but the oddly titled "Star Trek Into Darkness" was an ideal follow up to JJ Abrams 2009 franchise re-boot.  Sure, he could have easily taken the cast into a totally new direction with new aliens, but by revolving the story around characters well-known to fans of the original Star Trek cast, Abrams continued to explore the complex consequences of starting up a new timeline, most interestingly the changes in character found in Kirk and Spock as a result of their changed lives in the previous film.  Now that Abrams has been handed the keys to a "galaxy far, far away" too, it may be the first time that I've enjoyed a Star Trek film so much that it makes me beyond excited to see the next Star Wars movie.

2. "Captain Phillips" - Let me be clear.  This is not a film I'll watch every weekend.  It's gut-wrenchingly emotional and almost unbearably intense, but it's an amazingly taut look at the real-life kidnapping of a freighter captain by Somali pirates.  The final 15 minutes contain the best acting ever in Tom Hanks career.  Let that set in.  Truly an outstanding film.

1. "Gravity" - Quite simply, "Gravity" is unlike any film I've ever seen before.  Sure, it has moments similar to "2001" and "Apollo 13", but as directed by Alfonso Cuaron and terrifically acted by Sandra Bullock, it almost feels like there just happened to be a camera floating in space that fortuitously captured the extraordinary events depicted.  In addition, there was no film that stayed with me longer after the viewing this year.  Truly, a film that through the dedication and vision of its makers reminds us all the type of rare magic that can happen on the big screen.

So, that's 2013.  As a look ahead, here are the ten movies that I'm most looking forward to in 2014:

10. Muppets Most Wanted - because....Muppets!

9. Big Hero 6 - Disney animation takes on a Marvel property.  Should be interesting.

8. The Monuments Men - I was bummed when this one was moved from 2013, but I love the cast and the true-story premise.

7. The Hobbit: There and Back Again - As much as the 2nd film differed from the book, it did set things up perfectly for a hugely eventful final chapter.

6. Captain America: The Winter Solder - The elevator scene shown in the preview was the best action scene I saw last year.  Can't wait to see if the rest of the movie matches up.

5. Into the Woods - Though I'm a little nervous about this one, if they hit it out of the park it will be one of the best movie musicals ever.

4. Interstellar - Christopher Nolan does sci-fi.  'Nuff said.

3. How to Train Your Dragon 2 - A sequel to one of the best non-Pixar animated films of the last 20 years.  Lots of potential here.

2. Guardians of the Galaxy - Marvel does sci-fi/comedy, plus one of the most unique casts for a big-budget tentpole film ever.  Great or horrible, it certainly won't be boring.

1. X-Men: Days of Future Past - Every bit of info that comes out just feels epic.  Also, it's about time that Bryan Singer had another mega-hit.

Thanks for reading.  Here's looking forward to another great year at the movies!

Movie Review: Frozen

"Frozen"/Walt Disney Pictures/Dir. by Chris Buck an Jennifer Lee/108 min./Rated PG (for some action and mild humor)

Many believe that Disney animation went through a catastrophic decline in quality in the early to mid 00's. While there's no arguing the fact that "Home on the Range" and "Chicken Little" were no classics, I tend to think that this period was less a creative bankruptcy and more a severe identity crisis.  For decades, Disney was the animation monopoly.  From 1939 to the early 80's, most non-animation buffs would be hard pressed to name any feature length animated film that wasn't Disney  (such films do exist, but you probably haven't heard of most of them).  In 1979, one of Disney's key animators, Don Bluth, left the company to start his own animation studio, taking a good chunk of the Disney animation staff with him.  This sudden loss of talent not only lead to the studios' biggest flop, "The Black Cauldron" (the first PG rated Disney animated film), but it also lead to the first major competition the studio had ever faced.  Bluth directed two of the biggest animated hits of the decade, "An American Tail" and "The Land Before Time."  "Tail" was especially challenging to the house of Mouse because it was a success at a style that Disney seemed to hold the trademark for.  Namely cute critters breaking out into delightful song and dance.

However, thanks to an infusion of talent, including amazing animators and terrific collaborators like Broadway's Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, Disney came out on top.  With the quadruple threat of "The Little Mermaid", "Beauty and the Beast", "Aladdin", and "The Lion King", Disney claimed their rightful place on top of the pack.

Then Pixar happened.  In 1995, with the release of "Toy Story", the world's first full-length computer animated film, audiences were treated to a style of animation that not only had the joy and fun of traditional animation, but the visual wow factor of major special effects films.  Plus, Pixar did it without a single character singing about their feelings.

Then Disney animation head, Jeffrey Katzenberg, left to co-start DreamWorks, which made an empire out of amazing computer generated images and more hip and ever-so-slightly naughty humor.  Pixar and DreamWorks began to flourish, while each Disney film seemed to make less and less money.

The first sign that Disney was questioning themselves came in 2000 when they released a major animated film in the middle of December (they normally opted for the high-profile months of June and November).  The film was "The Emperor's New Groove" and while it was a hit with the critics and had long legs at the box-office, it wasn't the event film on which Disney had built their reputation.  In fact, what was originally envisioned as an epic musical update on "The Prince and the Pauper" placed in South America became a non-musical (unless you count Kuzko's theme song) slapstick comedy that owed more to Bugs Bunny than to Belle and Ariel.

Disney continued to play catch up with Pixar and DreamWorks, trying adventure ("Atlantis: The Lost Empire"), sci-fi ("Treasure Planet"), and even sci-fi/comedy/Hawaiian (the delightful "Lilo and Stitch", which was the studios' biggest hit from this period), but the fact remained that they were floundering.  They fought to become like the other studios.  Fortunately, when John Lasseter, the head supah-genius at Pixar, became the new head of animation at Disney, he reminded them that they weren't like the other studios, nor should they be.  He brought back hand-drawn animation and the fairytale/musical style of story that Disney does like no one else.  First with "Princess and the Frog", then with the superior "Tangled", and now with "Frozen", which is a Disney fairytale unlike any they've done before, yet somehow distinctively, delightfully Disney.

Loosely based on the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale "The Snow Queen", "Frozen" tells the story of two sisters.  Elsa (Idina Menzel) is fiery and fun and was born with the power to create flurries of snow and ice. The younger sister, Anna (Kristen Bell) is a bundle of energy and loves spending time with her sister.  However, after an accident, Elsa avoids Anna, leaving their relationship strained and unresolved.  When the two are grown and Elsa is of age to become queen of the kingdom of Aradell, another incident occurs and Elsa flees the kingdom, unknowingly causing a constant state of winter on the kingdom.

To tell you more about the plot is to deprive you of the surprises, suffice to say that this story does a fantastic job of honoring the tradition of fairytales while subverting the cliches that are found in most of them.  There are genuine twists and turns that show that the filmmakers were committed to creating full-rounded characters that act on motivations more noble than finding someone cute to smooch.

The animation on display here is simply stunning.  There's a beautiful scene in "Tangled" when the aura of a flower sprouts out toward the screen.  "Frozen" is filled to the brim with scenes that install the same sense of wonder.  Ice and snow dance and flourish with a vitality and life I've never seen in a film before, made even more exciting by the filmmaker's exceptional use of 3D.  Most impressive is during the song "Let It Go" when Elsa creates her ice castle while fully unleashing her powers.  It's the strongest song in the film and combined with the breath-taking animation makes for a masterful center piece.  

Which leads me to the one draw back to the film.  The songs, written by the Broadway husband/wife team of Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, are simply not as consistently good as previous Disney musicals.  Yes, "Let It Go" is a stunner, but that's as much to do with Idina Menzel's acrobatic vocals as it is with the song itself.  Other highlights include "In Summer", a delightful rumination on warmth from Olaf (Josh Gad), a snowman that doesn't know what happens to snow when it gets hot, and "Do You Want to Build a Snowman", a wistful tune that follows the girls from childhood to becoming young adults.  However, both of those songs beg to be longer.  "In Summer" could've greatly benefited from a little "Be Our Guest" style expansion, especially since it takes place in the imagination of a snowman.  There was so much that should have been done.  The rest of the song score is less memorable, replacing the complex wordplay of the Howard Ashman and Stephen Schwartz with songs that are clearly more interested in simple rhymes than wowing audiences.  In fact, a couple songs could've been taken out completely and not missed one iota.

However, in the long run, "the songs aren't as memorable" is a small complaint in a film that has so much to wonder and dazzle.  It's funny, it's engaging, it's beautiful, and, even if all the songs aren't equal to the task, at least "Let It Go" stands proudly with the best songs in the Disney animation canon.   As films targeted towards family become more and more inane (my wife and I groaned a lot during the previews before the film started), "Frozen" stands head and shoulders above the lot.  It's not only the best animated film of the year, but the most complex and engaging Disney film since their heyday in the 90's.

Grade: A