Tag: review

MOVIE REVIEW: Inside Out

The kudos for Inside Out, and great box office to boot, are well deserved.

Inside-OutAs luck would have it, The Wife, The Daughter and I attended the same Sunday afternoon showing of the new, animated Disney/Pixar film Inside Out at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany as our friend Jon with his kids.

Afterward, we went to eat supper, and Jon, who is a therapist, noted how well the movie did in capturing the various human feelings, as understood by the psychological community. This is because Pixar used consultants to infuse what scientists have learned about the mind, emotion, and memory and worked to get those childhood emotions just right.

Everything was going great for an 11-year-old girl named Riley (voiced by Kaitlyn Dias) until she has to leave her beloved Minnesota when her father (Kyle MacLachlan) gets a new job in San Francisco. Mom (Diane Lane) and Dad try to make the transition easier, but the emotions in Riley’s mind get off-kilter.

The emotion voice actors were fabulous: Amy Poehler (Joy), Phyllis Smith from the US version of The Office (Sadness), Bill Hader (Fear), Mindy Kaling (Disgust), and, appropriately, Lewis Black (Anger). Props too to Richard Kind as Bing Bong.

About halfway through, I heard some bored or perhaps scared three-year-old behind me who was ready to leave, but the kudos for this movie, and great box office to boot, are well deserved. In fact the Daughter has already seen it a second time, she liked it so much.

In that conversation with friend Jon, I hit upon a fundamental truth being expressed in the film, something even we nice adult people unfortunately tend to do a lot. The few critics who did not like the film totally missed the point of the journey, which came from a real, recognizable place, of dislocation.

This movie isn’t as bright and shiny as some other PIXAR films, which I realized only in retrospect. We saw the 2D version, so I can’t speak to what enhancements the 3D version might have brought.

The preview movie was Lava, about two singing volcanoes, which my daughter thought was “cheesy,” my wife thought it was too long at seven minutes, but I thought was cute, clever, and geologically informative.

MOVIE REVIEW: Tomorrowland

tomorrowland-movieIf it’d been up to me, I might have passed on seeing it. Tomorrowland was beset by middling reviews.

Worse, the (not unusual) manipulation of the Disney audience to see the film was quite impressive but really irritating. “Get your backstage pass” to this great film, the network promotion machine hawked on several programs The Daughter watches.

Its box office (relative) failure – as of June 14, 2015, domestic box office of $83,607,000 and foreign box office of $93,500,000, against a production budget of $190 million – put the kibosh on more Disney science fiction.

Still, The Wife, The Daughter, her friend Kay and I went on a hot Sunday afternoon to the Spectrum Theatre in Albany.  The movie was down to two showings a day, and rightly so; there was only one other person in the theater, a middle-aged woman.

If I say I didn’t hate it as much as I thought I would, it’d be damning with faint praise. In fact, I did like good chunks of it.

For one thing, the film looked really cool, a function, I assume, of director and co-writer Brad Bird, best known for fine animated films such as Ratatouille, The Incredibles, and The Iron Giant. The 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, which I attended, is where a boy named Frank (Thomas Robinson), a would-be inventor, gets invited by Athena (Raffey Cassidy) to be a part of the REAL title place.

Sometime later, teenager Casey Newton (Britt Robertson), a saboteur for good, ends up with a button that seems to, briefly, provide a gateway aid fabulous-looking place… oh, heck, read the narrative HERE.

I liked that this movie was attempting to be an antidote to all the dystopian rhetoric that does seem to dominate popular culture. Perhaps the best part of the narrative may be a speech by Nix (Hugh Laurie, of the TV show House, MD) in the latter stages of the film.

It asked some important questions, more than occasionally in a ham-fisted way, such as none of the teachers answering Casey’s questions about the issues they’ve laid out. Still, the Daughter was inspired by Casey, who almost never gave up, and who even inspired the much older Frank (George Clooney) to keep trying as well.

The actors, including Kathryn Hahn and Keegan-Michael Key as the shopkeepers, were entertaining, and especially young Raffey Cassidy. It is true, though, that Britt Robertson, in the middle stages of the film, looked a lot like someone attempting to react to a blue screen.

If the story didn’t make complete sense, generally blamed on cowriter Damon Lindelof, the showrunner for the TV program Lost, I wasn’t as bothered by it as some. It was more coherent than the first two hours of Interstellar, which may be a low bar.

I’m musing over the complete, and therefore bloodless, annihilation of some people in this film, not to mention the intense fighting with the bad guys, which really warranted a PG rating, as opposed to a PG-13. Maybe I’m just overthinking this.

Anyway, it’s not a great film, clearly. Still, parts of it will likely stick with me, so it wasn’t a waste of time.

MOVIE REVIEW – Seymour: An Introduction

Seymour: An Introduction is recommended musicians, teachers, and many others.

seymourActor Ethan Hawke was at a dinner party a few years back, where he met composer/pianist/ teacher Seymour Bernstein.

Hawke was struggling with his artistic direction and found the octogenarian’s insights from his most interesting life both inspiring and useful.

Deciding that the world needed to know more about this accomplished man, who I had never heard of, Hawke directed and coproduced Seymour: An Introduction. Read this New York Times article about that meeting, and the subsequent filming.

From Rotten Tomatoes, 100% positive from the critics and 88% positive from the audience:

“[Seymour] enjoyed a long and illustrious career as a performer before he gave it up to devote himself to helping others develop their own gifts. While Ethan Hawke’s gentle, meditative study is a warm and lucid portrait of Bernstein and his exceptional life and work, it’s also a love letter to the study of music itself, and a film about the patience, concentration, and devotion that are fundamental to the practice of art. Seymour: An Introduction allows us to spend time with a generous human being who has found balance and harmony through his love of music.”

Here is the trailer. Also, Ethan & Seymour talking to David Poland about life, happiness, and art.

When I saw Seymour: An Introduction with my friend Mary at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany in May 2015, it was already down to one showing, so you’re not likely to find it at a cinema. Assuming it comes out on DVR/on-demand, et al., I recommend that you watch it all at once – it’s only 84 minutes long – and get to know Seymour properly.

Recommended for those who perform or listen to music, teach or desire to be taught.

MOVIE REVIEW: Danny Collins

I’m always happy to see Bobby Cannavale NOT playing a mobster or thug.

Danny_Collins_Official_PosterI pretty much HAD to see the movie Danny Collins, which is based, sort of, on a message John Lennon sent to a budding musician named Steve Tilston, interviewed in a magazine back in 1971. Lennon saw the piece and sent a letter to the Tilston, care of the magazine, inviting Steve to call John, complete with his phone number. But the young musician never saw the letter until years later.

That actually happened, and it is the jumping-off point of this fictional piece of an aging musician (Al Pacino), who stays on the road, performing the same songs he wrote three decades ago, essentially selling out, and he needs to “self-medicate” to get through it all. His friend/manager Frank (Christopher Plummer) gives him the present of the aforementioned letter, and suddenly his too-young girlfriend, and excesses in his lifestyle, seem lacking.

He essentially moves into a New Jersey hotel room, tries to woo the hotel manager (Annette Bening, who reminded me of an older version of Annie Hall), and fix up a pair of hotel employees (Melissa Benoist, Josh Peck). Mostly, he tries to make things right by Tom (Bobby Cannavale) and his family (Jennifer Garner, young Giselle Eisenberg), though Tom, for good reason, wants nothing to do with Danny.

The Wife and I saw this at the Spectrum Theatre on our anniversary, and we liked it quite a lot. I think nearly ALL the reviews, positive (78%) and negative, are largely true. The cast makes the mushy journey about self-discovery palatable. The narrative isn’t particularly surprising, though it has a few twists, yet the story by writer/director Dan Fogelman was charming, engaging, and probably a bit schmaltzy. The John Lennon songs that made up most of the soundtrack, were overly familiar to me, but might be revelatory for someone not so seeped into his music.

I’m always happy to see Bobby Cannavale NOT playing a mobster or thug, but just a guy trying to get by.

As usual, I must complain about people leaving the moment the credits start, as they miss the REAL guy (Tilston) talking about, belatedly, getting the Lennon letter.

Oh, two last things: apparently, Michael Caine was originally cast as Danny’s manager, before being replaced by Plummer; Caine’s name still shows up in some cast listings. The original name of the film was to be Imagine, based on the Lennon song; I’m glad it was changed.

Movie Review: Home

The movie Home addresses the danger of group thought.

Home MovieIt must be the low expectations syndrome. Both the Wife and I knew that the new animated feature film Home had not great reviews – only 47% positive on Rotten Tomatoes. The Daughter wanted to see it, however, and we all did, at our neighborhood Madison Theatre in Albany.

Sure, the logic of the Boov sucking up all the humans on earth, except one, and relocating them, is far-fetched. The single girl, Gratuity ‘Tip’ Tucci (voiced by Rihanna) was a preternaturally resourceful 12-year-old. I found the music, by Rihanna and Jennifer Lopez (who voiced Tip’s mom, Lucy) was pretty generic.

But the film has something to say about being the screwup, as the Boov dubbed Oh (Jim Parsons) most certainly was; I can relate. It addresses the danger of group thought, and how leaders, such as Captain Smek (Steve Martin) are capable of deceiving the masses, and the people believing them. And it addresses how one can change one’s mindset and have a positive outcome.

Moreover, the boys behind me squealed with glee during some action scenes. The film developed one bathroom joke that even my spouse and I laughed at.

I think the problem is that Home lacks those adult references that movies such as Toy Story or the Lego Movie have. It’s a kids’ movie, and while it’s not desperately original, I enjoyed it enough that I wasn’t shrieking when I left the cinema, and there is plenty of children’s film fare that I’ve found painful to watch.

If you’re stuck at home watching the video, you might find it not a terrible waste of 90 minutes.

Ramblin' with Roger
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