Lovelace

Epic

Directed by Chris Wedge.

2013. Rated PG, 102 minutes.

Cast:

Amanda Seyfried

Josh Hutcherson

Colin Farrell

Christoph Waltz

Beyonce Knowles

Aziz Ansari

Chris O'Dowd

Pitbull

Jason Sudeikis

Steven Tyler

Blake Anderson

Jim Conroy

John DiMaggio

For the first time in quite a while, Mary Katherine (Seyfried), MK for short, visits her father Professor Bomba (Sudeikis). Her mom has passed away so she understandably wants to spend some time bonding with dad. Unfortunately, dad is totally pre-occupied with his work. For years, he's been trying to prove the existence of an advanced civilization of tiny people located somewhere in the forest around his house. He believes them to be the engine of the ecosystem. He is actually right. We know this because we meet Ronin (Farrell) and his misguided ward Nod (Hutcherson), two Leaf Men, or soldiers, tasked with defending Queen Tara from their rivals, the evil Boggins. Today is when she must choose the pod that will continue to make things grow in the event of her death. The Boggins are after her because they want nothing more than rot and decay. Of course, MK thinks her father nuts. Tired of him neglecting her, she storms out into the woods and bada-boom, bada-bing, she is shrank down to about two inches tall and finds herself in the middle of the war in the forest.

Much of our focus is on the adventure to save the chosen pod, as well as the fish out of water aspects of the tale. Both bring a nice balance of action and comedy that keeps things moving along nicely. Though the jokes are on the obvious side, they work well enough. The action fares better. It is certainly close to what we think of when we hear the word swashbuckling. Just imagine what action scenes in Robin Hood might look like if we replaced horses with birds. There are also some very cool visuals employed during this. the scene where a bunch of bad guys come bursting from beneath the bark of a tree is an amazing sight. Visually, as a whole, the movie works quite well. Lots of flowers and other things you would find in the forest are rendered as somewhat humanoid beings. The scenery is occasionally a bit off as it appears the animators weren't always sure what should look photo-realistic and what should not. Still, it's definitely not enough to be a problem.

Less successfully handled are the emotional aspect of things. The relationship between MK and her dad works okay, but nothing happens that even the kids won't see coming. The same goes for the love story between MK and Nod. It hits every note precisely when we expect it to. More disappointing than either of those story lines is that the movie makes a big deal early on that MK's mom has died and so has Nod's dad yet does nothing with these facts. It approaches them as if there is some exploration of the matter about to take place. Instead, it's merely a ploy to give our lovebirds something in common. Again, none of these are major demerits. They are small dings in the armor that younger viewers will likely ignore, but start to pile up on us old folks.

What the youngsters won't ignore is all the hero/villain stuff. At this, Epic succeeds. The message of it is all a bit heavy-handed, but easy to root for. A lush, green forest is full of life while a gray and brown one is not. They will also like the lovably goofy Nod. Juxtaposed with him is the straight-laced Ronin. More than liking him, he's the one character we actually feel for. We understand he's got just a little bigger stake in the game than the rest. His nemesis Mandrake (Waltz) makes for a pretty good villain. He's properly dark and menacing and seems genuinely prepared to take over the world. The voicing of him by Waltz is very effective in getting this point across. Still, it's the good vs. evil angle that will carry the day for many of the kids watching. With a fairly sizable element of revenge factoring in on both sides we feel how personal things have become without anyone ever saying this explicitly. The other things fill out the movie and are solid enough to stand up and keep things enjoyable. I found it very entertaining and well done.

MY SCORE: 7/10

Les Misérables

Directed by Tom Hooper.

2012. Rated PG-13, 158 minutes.

Cast:

Hugh Jackman

Russell Crowe

Anne Hathaway

Amanda Seyfried

Eddie Redmayne

Helena Bonham Carter

Sacha Baron-Cohen

Samantha Barks

Aaron Tveit

Daniel Huttlestone

Cavin Cornwall

Let’s start with a little personal history. Somehow, in all my years, I've never seen any sort of production of Les Misérables, not even part of one. I've also managed to remain completely ignorant of its plot. The only two things I know about it going in are that it’s a musical and it is legendary in the theater world. Without any other point of reference, I’m free to judge this on its own merits without comparing it to what was done on the stage.

On another personal note, my family refused to watch with me. These are the same people that get excited over the mention of Mamma Mia!, High School Musical, and the remakes of Fame, and Sparkle. This doesn't even include all the dance movies they watch over and over…and over. When I mention this, my oldest daughter sums up their collective anguish at the notion of taking in Les Mis when she twists her face into a pained look and says “Yeah, but this is…like opera or something.” With that, they scatter about the house leaving me alone with my virginal perspective on this old tale. Play.

A couple decades after The French Revolution, we meet Jean Valjean (Jackman). He is among a group of chained inmates charged with manually pulling a rather large ship into port. This difficult task is made even more so by the fact that they’re singing as they work. Hey, I am watching a musical…like opera or something. So yes, 99.9% of the dialogue is sang, but I digress. Valjean has been locked up for nineteen years for stealing a loaf of bread. Immediately following the boat scene, he’s finally granted parole.

However, he remains on probation and must report to his parole officer every so often. Pissed at the notion, he tears up his freedom papers, violates his probation by never reporting, and goes on the run. He becomes such a model citizen that when we skip ahead eight years, he is now the beloved mayor of a small town, under a different name of course. Sure enough, his old warden Javert (Crowe) is after him, forcing him to go on the run again. The difference this time is that he has also vowed to care for the daughter of Fantine (Hathaway), a young female employee at the local sweat shop who dies with no one to provide for her offspring. From this point forward, the movie is essentially a cat-and-mouse between the two men.

The first thing we notice is the look of the movie. The opening scene is flat out stunning. Even though the rest of the film doesn't quite measure up to first impressions, it’s a wonderful rendering of what France may have looked like at the time. No shots of snooty folk sipping wine at an outdoor restaurant with the Eiffel Tower in the background. This is a place that is rotting from the inside. Its core has gone bad. What we see is a perfect representation of the country’s political climate.

Next, we notice the startling first shot of Hugh Jackman. With a long scraggly beard and seven layers of dirt on seemingly every inch of him he quickly dispels our preconceived notions. The last time we see him this way, his first big solo, is an amazing moment. The rest of his performance doesn't disappoint, either. He’s just plain good. In fact, he’s better than good. I know he did a lot of theater before hitting it big on the silver screen. The experience shows. His emotions bubble to the surface, compelling us to watch. It’s not until after the movie that we realize we just saw Wolverine singing…like opera or something.  

Aside from our hero, we get a wonderful turn by Anne Hathaway, in just a few scenes. She gives us a gut-wrenching few minutes of screen time. There is also a rather fun performance by our comic relief, the duo of Sacha Baron-Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter. They provide the movie with a sorely needed element of playfulness even though the tandem combines to form the movie’s secondary villain. In what’s become an overlooked portrayal, perhaps due to the sheer bigness of the other names in the cast, Samantha Barks is also very good. I’m not completely sold on the crooning Russell Crowe, but he doesn't embarrass himself.

Story-wise, the movie holds together fairly well, but strains its own credibility in a few places. First, the warring between France’s citizens and its government is built up to be of supreme importance, as it should be, but then revealed to be merely a backdrop for the romance of Cosette (Seyfried) and Marius (Redmayne). It feels like rebellion was only a trivial pursuit for him that didn't go so well. Worse, I don’t believe one second of this romance to begin with. Sure, I can make allowances for love at first sight in movies, but this feels especially under baked. The whole thing is too sudden and they’re too immediately overwhelmed by the other. It’s reminiscent of what happens when Romeo meets Juliet, but without any of the same weight. It’s clearly a subplot, but pushed out front as if it is what we should be focusing on. I've no clue whether or not this works on stage. Here, I couldn't quite be convinced.

My lack of belief in the blossoming love of the couple in question leaves the core of the last few scenes a bit hollow for me. Fortunately, Jackman pulls me back in with his final number. It’s a fitting close to the story. This man who has been through so much finally appears too tired to continue. Since he is the reason we watch, it’s only right that he sends us off with one last heartfelt song. When that song ends we have what is, in my opinion, the best musical in several years, probably since the terrifically morbid Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. It’s certainly the best of a strangely crowded field. That said, if musicals aren't your thing, steer clear. After all, it’s…like opera or something.

Red Riding Hood

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke.
2011. Rated PG-13, 100 minutes.
Cast:
Amanda Seyfried
Gary Oldman
Shiloh Fernandez
Virginia Madsen
Billy Burke
Max Irons
Julie Christie
Lukas Haas
Shauna Kain
Adrian Holmes
Michael Hogan

The gang’s all here. We have a not-so-little Red Riding Hood (Seyfried), Grandma (Christie) and the woodcutter (Fernandez). It should go without saying that we have a big bad wolf. In this case we don’t just follow Red, er, Valerie on her trip to Grandma’s. The wolf is not quite the same as we’ve been reading all these years. It’s a werewolf and it is terrorizing the entire village. Understandably, the villagers are on edge because it has decided to attack for the first time in twenty years. Apparently, the animal sacrifices they’ve continuously given over that period are no longer enough. Even more disconcerting, no one know its human identity. Any one of them could be the big bad wolf. Reluctantly, they hire Solomon (Oldman), who specializes in this sort of thing, and his band of unmerry men to find and kill this evil creature.

It’s an interesting premise. Though its know the world over as a children’s story, the original tale is actually violent and dark. Therefore, reimagining it as a horror flick is not quite the leap many believe it is. In that story, the wolf eats Grandma and would do the same to Little Red Riding Hood if not for the Woodcutter taking an axe to him. See? And I haven’t even mentioned the pedophilic and cross-dressing aspects. Honestly, this removes those particular subtexts and adds some of its own. Freedom of religion, adultery and uncomfortably implied incest all figure into the proceedings. Add in some werewolf attacks and bouts of mob mentality and you get a wild ride through an ancient village.

With all of these things swirling about, Red Riding Hood should be an infinitely more enjoyable watch. Sadly, it botches the one thing at which it tries hardest: the love story. We all knew there would be one. It seems you can hardly make a movie without that element. Our Red…Valerie...is sort of engaged in a love triangle. She’s been in love with the Woodcutter, er Peter, her entire life. However, due to her family’s lack of funds it’s been arranged without her consent for her to marry Henry (Irons). The whole thing is way too reminiscent of Twilight. That should be no surprise since director Catherine Hardwicke helmed the first film in that franchise. Even if you don’t like those movies (or books) you have to admit the Edward vs. Jacob dynamic provides some sparks. Here, there is no such excitement because both guys seem to have Edward’s demeanor and personality. Not to mention that I’m not so sure either guy can give Robert Pattinson a run for his money in the acting department, as bad as that is. The portions of RRH that focus on this are tedious work to sift through.

Fortunately, what’s going on with Red’s family is far more intriguing and keeps the movie somewhat afloat. The same can be said for Solomon, his hunting of the werewolf and his interactions with the villagers. Gary Oldman plays it to the hilt, as always. Though his character is here to do a good thing, we’re not sure whether we like him or not. That’s a good thing. On the other hand, it never scares us and judging by the less than thrilling werewolf attacks, it doesn’t really try to. Still, combine this with a lame love story and RRH has a very uneven feel. It vacillates between intriguing and boring without ever settling on either.

MY SCORE: 5.5/10

Chloe

Directed by Atom Egoyan.
2009. Rated R, 96 minutes.
Cast:
Amanda Seyfried
Julianne Moore
Liam Neeson
Max Thierot
R. H. Thompson
Nina Dobrev
Mishu Vellani
Meghan Heffern

David (Neeson) is a college professor who often travels for speaking engagements. None too pleased about getting older, he purposely skips out on a flight home so he doesn’t have to celebrate his birthday with his wife Catherine (Moore). She, of course, has thrown him a surprise party. Guss who’s surprised. She figures out he went to dinner with some young, pretty co-eds. Combine this with his flirtations nature and the fact he likes to keep up with his students through IMs and texts and the wife realizes she might not be in a monogamous relationship. It doesn’t help that hubby is pretty secretive about the e-conversations he’s carrying on. Then, there is the couple’s son Michael. He’s an ingrate who despises his mom for reasons only known to him. He ignores her rules, including having his girlfriend sleep over. Really, he just ignores her altogether. He only speaks to her when she confronts him. When this happens, it’s all profanity laced attitude coming from his mouth. By the way, mom is a highly successful doctor. Other than that, her existence is pretty miserable.

As luck would have it, Catherine meets Chloe (Seyfried) in a restaurant restroom. It turns out Chloe is a prostitute. She’s also about the same age as all those girls David shares his laughs with. Putting her newfound contact to use, she decides to hire Chloe to present herself to David as a student and see what happens. As for her Catherine’s relationship with her son, she does nothing but whine about it. Her real energy is focused on getting all the juicy details of her husband’s meetings with Chloe. From there, a Skinemax flick breaks out.

For the uninformed, Skinemax refers to the soft-core porn movies that cable network Cinemax became famous for in the 1990s. They mostly aired late at nigh, especially on Fridays and Saturdays. Do they still do this? I haven’t had the channel in years, but obviously I know way too much about this. Still, there is a point. Most of those flicks seems to rip off Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, or have a plot that is some sort of hybrid of the two. This one goes the Fatal Attraction route. Chloe does indeed turn out to be our psycho. Who she is fatally attracted to is a twist that’s not all that surprising. Titillating? Sure. Unexpected? Not really.

The problem is once Chloe’s nuttiness becomes evident, we can always guess her next move. We’ve seen this before. Most of the other movies we’ve watched like this, such as Obsessed and Basic Instinct 2 at least have the good sense to go so far over the top they’re teetering on the edge of the cliff. Those movies revel in their ridiculousness. They are really bad, but enjoyably so. Chloe tries to traverse a more “adult”, artsy-fartsy road. Sadly, it never escapes the shadow of its Skinemax roots. Julianne Moore is a fine actress. I’ve always enjoyed her work. However, her role here could’ve been played by one-time B-movie queen Shannon Whirry. Seyfried could’ve been replaced with any number of less talented but similarly attractive wannabes. Liam Neeson? Let’s just say his role doesn’t really require someone with the chops of Liam Neeson.

Like most of, if not all the movies Whirry actually starred in, there is a good deal of nudity. Also like those movies, the nudity is not there to accentuate the plot, but to grab attention away from a weak storyline. Seeing Moore and Seyfried in various stages of undress, often in the presence of one another, becomes the point of the movie instead of a part of it. The result is we have a wonderful cast doing their best to elevate material that can’t be lifted.

MY SCORE: 4/10

Jennifer's Body

Directed by Karyn Kasama.
2009. Rated R, 109 minutes.
Cast:
Megan Fox
Amanda Seyfried
Johnny Simmons
Adam Brody
Sal Cortez
Ryan Levine
Kyle Gallner
J. K. Simmons

Plot: Head cheerleader/hottest girl in school Jennifer (Fox) goes off with a rock band immediately after the club they were playing in burns to the ground. When she resurfaces later that night she's just a little different. By different, I mean she's now literally homicidal and cannibalistic.

The Good: There is something to be said for a movie not taking itself too seriously. This one doesn't and definitely tries to inject humor whenever possible. Occasionally, it succeeds. The emo-fused funeral scene is a thing of beauty and wraps up this movie's snipes at the Twilight franchise rather nicely (then again, I might be the only one who took it that way). It also establishes it's premise pretty quickly and maintains a nice pace. This is important because that premise is actually good, as horror movies go, offering the potential for a solid high school angst hack flick or even a girl-power gore-fest, which it tries. As our heroine, the aptly named Needy, Amanda Seyfried gives us a strong performance.

The Bad: The movie is written by Diablo Cody, who also penned Juno. In that flick, the dialogue was inventive and witty to most and grating to a few. Here, it is grating to most and only clever to a few. Instead of being cool, it comes off like it was written by an adult trying to invent slang terms on the fly that she thinks is cool. Fox's valley-girl style delivery of every line doesn't help. The story itself, while based on a strong premise, turns out to be a poorly executed metaphor. The movie fails visually, as well. The cgi is unconvincing, at best, and often worse than much of what can be seen on YouTube. There's also the strong hint of a very interesting story that could possibly lead to a showdown between Jenny and her one-handed teacher Mr. Worbloski. One of the great character actors, J. K. Simmons handles the role. However, the movie completely wastes him by setting him up to appear he's going to do something major then ignoring him before he actually does anything at all. And how is it we only meet Jennifer's mom once, and at "that" precise moment.

The Ugly: Why Jennifer had to sit on a bag of frozen peas.

Recommendation: It wants to be a horror movie with a dark sense of humor. From time to time, it manages the humor. However, it doesn't manage it nearly enough to make up for the total lack of horror. You may find it to be so bad, it's awesome, but it wasn't quite good/bad enough for me to grant it such lofty status. You may also be infatuated with Megan Fox. In that case, I say "enter at your own risk."

The Opposite View: Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

What the Internet Says: 5.3/10 on imdb.com (10/10/10), 42% on rottentomatoes.com, 47/100 on metacritic.com


MY SCORE: 3/10