31 Days of Horror: Maggie

August: Osage County

Directed by John Wells.

2013. Rated R, 121 minutes.

Cast:

Meryl Streep

Julia Roberts

Ewan McGregor

Benedict Cumberbatch

Chris Cooper

Abigail Breslin

Juliette Lewis

Margo Martindale

Dermot Mulroney

Julianne Nicholson

Sam Shepard

Misty Upham

Beverly (Shepard) is a man at the end of his wits. He's been married to Violet (Streep) forever and ever. She's a mean old biddy who has been stricken with mouth cancer, but keeps sucking down cigarettes. She medicates herself with as many pain killers as she can get her hands on. He prefers to drink away his pain. One day, Beverly goes out and doesn't come home. After a few days, Violet calls everyone in the family she can get a hold of to help her solve the mystery and the whole dysfunctional clan shows up. Her daughter Ivy (Nicholson) appears first, since she lives in the area. Then, in some order I can't exactly recall, the house fills up with up with people. There's daughter Barbara (Roberts), along with her husband Bill (McGregor), and their daughter Jean (Breslin). Daughter Karen (Lewis) arrives with "this year's man," Steve (Mulroney). Violet's loud sister Mattie Fae (Martindale) rumbles in, dragging her hubby Charles (Casper) with her. At some point, later on, Mattie Fae's and Charles' son Little Charles (Cumberbatch) joins the fray. Every one of these people has serious issues with themselves and each other. You know what that means. Oscar baiting ensues.

In seemingly trying to garner accolades for its cast, August: Osage County comes off more as a collection of clips worthy of awards ceremonies than the gripping drama it impersonates. The actors take turns showcasing their chops. More accurately, headliners Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts take lots of turns while the others get a scene or two apiece. Luckily, it's an amazing cast. Just about everyone is at their fiery best. Every line is delivered with passion and conviction.

Playing our main protagonist, Streep inhabits her role so fully, it's scary. She makes the cigarette between her fingers and the cloud of smoke swirling around her head while puffs of it punctuate her speech integral parts of Violet's persona. She's clearly a fire-breathing dragon once she gets riled up. While Streep is constantly on the attack, Roberts is busy counter-punching. A strong presence in her own right, she never withers beneath her co-star's massive light. Instead, she fires back in verbally violent fashion, commanding the screen as she does.

As stated, the rest of the players all knock it out the park when they step up to the plate. Margo Martindale provides the thunder to Streep's lightning. she is appropriately loud and angry. The difference is where Streep is sinking her fangs into everyone in sight, Martindale is usually trying to make someone do something. As her husband, Cooper fares best amongst the men in the cast. It's not that anyone is bad. Even the weakest links in the cast, either Nicholson or Breslin, are both very good. Ladies and gentlemen, when the masters decide to chew scenery, this is how they do it.

That I've spent most of my review to this point gushing over the acting begs the question 'why don't I love this movie?' The answer lies in something I snuck in a little earlier. It plays like a collection of clips. Due to the talent on display, they are immensely watchable. However, what links them just feels like a writer purposely throwing fuel on various fires to create melodrama. Between every rant, another problem is added to the mix until it all becomes too much for the movie to bear. Eventually, I just rolled my eyes as the next thing always and inevitably happens. In that way, it's very Tyler Perry-esque. We get one earth-shattering revelation after another until the film collapses beneath its own weight. What we're left with is a movie that is much less than the sum of its parts.

Ender's Game

Directed by Gavin Hood.

2013. Rated PG-13, 114 minutes.

Cast:

Asa Butterfield

Harrison Ford

Viola Davis

Abigail Breslin

Moises Arias

Ben Kingsley

Hailee Steinfeld

Aramis Knight

Fifty years ago there was an alien invasion that wiped out much of humanity. Eventually, us earthlings were able to defeat the extra terrestrial invaders when a brave soul named Mazer Rackham (Kingsley) rammed his ship into the bad guys' mother ship and all of their smaller ships started falling out of the sky. Apparently, he saw Independence Day. Anyhoo, his sacrifice has made him a legend and we've been preparing for another attack ever since. Of course, all of our fighting vessels have lots of buttons and big screen displays and kids are allegedly more adept at using those things than adults, so it's decided that we only train child prodigies to be our future fighters. The program is run by Colonel Graff (Ford). He goes all Morpheus and thinks he has found "the one" in the form of Ender Wiggin (Butterfield). Trying to get him ready for the next invasion ensues.

Right away, the movie puts me in position to actually contemplate its premise. I like it, but at the same time it sounds like complete rubbish. To begin with, people who are really adept at video games are simply people who love video games, regardless of age. Kids tend to play them a lot more often due to having more time, less responsibility, yada yada, which is why they're generally better. Where I'm going is I don't think it would be wise at all to utilize children for such a program because of the real life ramifications of what you're asking them to accomplish. Do you really want to place your fate in the hands of button happy children? Since that's what the movie is going with, that's what I'm going with. The sooner you let go of the questions, the sooner you can get into the movie.

To help us get into it, it presents us with the dire reality that the powers that be aren't just preparing for a possible attack, they're fairly certain one is coming. Next, they run our hero through a series of training exercises. These are mostly interesting, particularly the floating war games thingy. On top of this our hero clashes with whoever his leader is every step of the way, so there's lots of arguing about everything. Lots of this arguing is done by Col. Graff and his right hand man woman Major Anderson (Davis). Her only function throughout the film is to say the exact opposite of whatever Graff says. Their back and forths are amusing, even if Ford seems to be phoning it in. Davis is her usual intense self. I swear that woman could make twiddling your thumbs sound like an urgent matter that must be addressed. Our star, Asa Butterfield, is rather meh, but helped greatly by appearing normal next to the scenery chewing Moises Arias (of Hannah Montana fame) as one of those leaders he clashes with. Ben Kingsley shows up later to chew whatever scenery was left over. Butterfield gets a nice emotional centering from Abigail Breslin as the girl who takes a shine to him and helps him out from time to time. This reminds me, as always, there is a budding romance shoe-horned in, though it never really goes anywhere.

Ahhh...never going anywhere. That's the movie's problem. I understand that the whole thing is meant to set up a sequel. However, that doesn't mean that it should completely anti-climactic. I hope I'm not spoiling it, but the way the movie plays out it's training, argue, training, argue, training, stupid twist, The End. It quite literally pulls the rug out from beneath your feet. My first reaction to what happened was "What? That's it?" Usually, when that happens I put my brain to work trying to dig a little deeper. Maybe I missed something. Perhaps something profound is lurking just beneath the surface that I didn't initially grasp. No, not really. It just kind of says "We were pulling your leg this whole time," and drops the mic like it just finished rocking the house. My house wasn't rocked.

The Call

Directed by Brad Anderson.

2013. Rated R, 94 minutes.

Cast:

Halle Berry

Abigail Breslin

Morris Chestnut

Michael Eklund

David Otunga

Michael Imperioli

Roma Maffia

Evie Thompson

Ross Gallo

I imagine being a 911 operator is stressful. Real matters of life and death probably comprise at least several calls a day. Whether someone survives until the next sunrise may depend on your ability to keep a frantic person calm in the face of danger and/or wrestle information from someone currently incapable of thinking clearly. It’s a life Jordan Turner knows all too well. She is good at her job, but as the old saying goes, you can’t win them all. A loss in this case is fielding a call from a scared young girl because an intruder is in her home. As cell phones are wont to do, the call is dropped during this crucial situation. Jordan immediately calls the girl back which turns out to be a very bad idea. When it rings on the girl’s end it clues in the bad guy to the whereabouts of his prey. He proceeds to murder the girl before the police can get there.

Fast-forward six months. Jordan is so distraught, she’s resigned from her post on the boards, takes lots of meds, and now trains newbies. She is giving a tour of the floor when a rookie operator takes a call from another frightened girl. This one is named Casey Welson (Breslin). With the rook proving useless, Jordan has to jump back into her old role in an effort to help the poor child. The firs issue is that she is calling from a disposable, and therefore more difficult to trace, cell phone. The second makes things even tougher. She is traveling, but completely unaware of where she is or where she is going because she has just woken up in the trunk of a moving car.

For a sizable chunk of the movie, we watch and listen as Jordan tries to help Casey find ways to make her presence known to others, figure out where she is, and/or escape. Meanwhile, Jordan’s bosses try to track that call and Officer Phillips (Chestnut), the cop who happens to be Jordan’s boyfriend, chases every lead they throw his way. And just to demonstrate his ruthlessness, our bad guy (Eklund) is forced to hurt and/or kill anyone who figures out too much. This portion of our film is intriguing. At times, it is edge-of-your-seat stuff as we really feel like whatever the girl does next could decide if she lives or dies. Some of the things Jordan has her do are simply brilliant. When these things are mildly successful, civilians get involved with mixed results.

Through it all, Halle Berry gives us her best concerned and horrified look. I’ve written a number of times that I don’t feel she is not nearly as good an actress as she is good looking. However, I will give credit where it is due and say she’s pretty strong here. She manages to make us feel how much she cares about this situation, not just for the girl’s sake, but also for her own. It helps that she has a really good performance to bounce off. The work of Abigail Breslin as the victim is outstanding “scream queen” material. Yes, she screams a lot. She also whimpers, snivels, and pleads her way into our hearts.

Unfortunately, when act three gets cranking everything falls apart. It’s no surprise that our bad guy has been twisted since birth, but just how much so might be overkill, pardon the pun. Still, this isn’t as bothersome as what happens with our other two principals. For starters, our 911 operator turns super-sleuth and is, in fact, a far better detective than anyone in the police department. I won’t tell you what happens after that for fear of spoiling the movie, but suffice it to say it’s overly contrived and completely inconsistent with the characters we’ve been watching until that point. The Call becomes yet another film with a great premise that seems to be delivering on its potential for quite a while until it crumbles under its own weight.

The shame of it all is that the first two acts work so well our anticipation is peaking just as it becomes plain that the conclusion is coming. The entire thing is a situation many of us are fearful of in real life, no matter how remote the chance of it actually happening. Seeing it play out here taps into this anxiety. It does double the damage for those of us with kids who might be out and about on their own. Therefore, we want to see how it ends. Sadly, when we do we can’t help notice it took all that goodness it had going and made a mess of itself.

Rango

Directed by Gore Verbinski.
2011. Rated PG, 107 minutes.
Cast:
Johnny Depp
Isla Fisher
Ned Beatty
Abigail Breslin
Alfred Molina
Bill Nighy
Harry Dean Stanton
Timothy Olyphant
Ray Winstone
Stephen Root
James Ward Byrkit
Gil Birmingham

After some slick talking and fortunate accidents, Rango (Depp) finds himself as the sherrif of the water starved t own of Dirt. The town is in such a drout all of their water is kept in the bank’s vault. On Wednesday’s all of the townspeople gather by the giant spicket so the mayor can dole out their weekly allowance. Western style hijinks and shenanigans ensue.

One of the first things we notice in Rango is the vivid colors as our hero is alone in his tank with a few props in the back of a car. Likewise, when he falls out of the car onto the road and into the oppressive sunlight. Most notable is all this is the main characters bright green hue. It serves as a constant reminder of his status as an outsider when most of the colors are stripped away. What we’re left with is a pallet mostly made up of various shades of brown, gray and black. Other colors that manage to get included are muted. It recreates the rustic atmosphere of a place long passed over by time. Through amazing character designs even the citizens of Dirt have the weathered look befitting people who live in a town with such a name. This is no small feat considering these “people” are all animals. This attention to detail perfectly sets the mood and tone.

Of course, this is no straight forward adventure of a stranger riding in to save a desolate town. This is a parody of such movies. Depending on you, this is either a strength or a weakness. For adults that have watched their fair share of westerns this will be a great strength. You will be able to laugh at the parts that specifically poke fun at the genre as well as the more accessible humor, of which there is plenty. For those that haven’t watched many westerns this will likely be a weakness. There may be stretches where it seems nothing much is going on. My children have no use for westerns and my daughters have never watched more than a few minutes of one before giving up. My wife and son may have made it through one or two apiece. Indeed, I laughed more often than any of them.

If there is any other weakness, to me it is Johnny Depp in the lead role. Generally, I’m a Depp apologist. However, he sounds forced in this case. Instead of just using his natural voice, which would’ve worked just fine, he sounds as if he’s trying to imitate what he thinks Rango should sound like. The character himself is reminiscent of Woody Allen, so I also kept wondering why he wasn’t playing the part. It’s not that Depp is bad, he’s just clearly better at live-action than voiceover work.

Fortunately, weaknesses are few in Rango. It’s a wonderful sendup of westerns without alienating the audience at which its aiming. It moves smoothly from comedy to action and uses striking visuals effectively in both veins. There are a few words harsher than one would expect in a PG rated animated flick, so parents be prepared for that. Still, its very well done and lots of fun.

MY SCORE: 7.5/10

Zombieland

Directed by Ruben Fleischer.
2009. Rated R, 88 minutes.
Cast:
Jesse Eisenberg
Woody Harrelson
Emma Stone
Abigail Breslin
Bill Murray

Plot: A virus that transforms people into zombies has infected most of Earth's population. Columbus (Eisenberg) is among a handful of survivors and tries to survive and wants to make it back to his hometown in hopes of reuniting with his estranged family. Strangely enough, love intervenes.

The Good: It's downright hilarious. It perfectly spoofs zombie flicks and road movies, alike. A little commentary on society is thrown in for good measure. Woody Harrelson give his best performance in years, getting back to his roots as a comedic actor. His never-ending search for what remains of the world's supply of Twinkies is way funnier than it should be. Even better is the cameo by Bill Murray (playing himself). His time on screen is hysterical and some of his best work in a few years, as well. Story-wise, it moves along at a nice pace and includes some really well done flashbacks. There are also some very fun and funny action sequences.

The Bad: Our two females are rather bland. They're both serviceable characters but not particularly memorable. In a movie where there are only four humans, the two ladies (one of whom is a preteen) should do more than just be chased (including by our heroes). So other than just being really horny due to a dearth of women, I've no clue why Columbus is head-over-heels for Wichita (Stone), the older girl. Speaking of Columbus, I have the same problem with him as I did James in Adventureland: he's played by Jesse Eisenberg. I don't necessarily dislike him, he just reminds me so much of Michael Cera, its distracting. Finally, we needed more zombie stuff.

The Ugly: How Bill Murray's scene ends. Comedy gold.

Recommendation: My faith in the future of spoofs has been revived. It was trampled nearly to death by the unrelenting crappiness of Dance Flick. Thankfully, this one's actually funny. As far as zombie spoofs go, it's not quite as over-the-top or gory as the recent Planet Terror half of Grindhouse but its even more tongue-in-cheek and delivers more consistent laughter.

The Opposite View: Scott Foundas, Village Voice

What the Internet Says: 8.1/10 (#233 all time) on imdb.com (11/14/09), 89% on rottentomatoes.com, 73/100 on metacritic.com

MY SCORE: 9/10

My Sister's Keeper

Directed by Nick Cassavetes.
2009. Rated PG-13, 109 minutes.
Cast:
Abigail Breslin
Cameron Diaz
Sofia Vassilieva
Jason Patric
Alec Baldwin
Joan Cusack

Plot: Anna (Breslin) was conceived to be a donor for her sister Katie (Vassilieva) who suffers from leukemia. At age 11, Anna sues her parents for “medical emancipation” in hopes of gaining control of her own body and not be subjected to any medical procedures without her consent.

The Good: This is a movie that knows how to push your buttons. Scene after scene is played to its emotional hilt. In the process, it raises some interesting questions. Though we may not all have to deal with the extreme situation depicted here, we parents can all passionately discuss and debate just how much control we have over our children’s bodies. To facilitate all of this, we get some dynamite performances across the board from adults and children, alike. This surprisingly includes Cameron Diaz. Her portrayal of a mom unwaveringly dedicated to saving her daughter’s life makes for an intriguing villain.

The Bad: Remember that whole “emotional hilt” thing? Let’s just say manipulative doesn’t even begin to describe what’s going on here. It seems the movie’s main concern is making as many people cry as possible. Nearly every scene is a tragic occurrence or a set up for one. It gets to be too much. Also, this is the most overly narrated film I’ve ever seen. Every family member plus a lawyer gets to do a good deal of voice-over work. Of course, they mostly just tell us things we either already know or can easily delineate from what we’re actually shown. At times, it feels like trying to watch an audio-book.

The Ugly: Did she just throw up on her own hair? Ewww.

Recommendation: Because we all love kids and families and hate to see them going through tough times, this is a hard movie to hate. However, if it doesn’t totally hook you from the beginning, it’s hard to love. This means while some of you are crying, others may be vigorously rolling their eyes.

The Opposite View: Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

What the Internet Says: 7.4/10 on imdb.com (6/7/10), 47% on rottentomatoes.com, 51/100 on metacritic.com


MY SCORE: 6/10