2014 Movie Preview: 25 Films To See

The year of 2014 has now arrived, and with it a slew of all-new major movies!  From the first wave of the upcoming resurgence of bible epics to the typical onslaught of big-budget sequels, remakes and "reimaginings," we'll take a look at the biggest and/or most noteworthy films the new year has to offer!

THE LEGO MOVIE  (ANIMATED/COMEDY)  Feb. 7
Dir. Phil Lord & Chris Miller; Voices of Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Ferrell, Morgan Freeman, Will Arnett
In an explicable LEGO Universe, a generic LEGO minifigure named Emmet (v. Chris Pratt) is mistaken for being the last "Master Builder," the one who can save the universe, and along with an old wizard minifigure (v. Morgan Freeman) and a spunky girl minifigure (Elizabeth Banks), Batman (v. Will Arnett) and other LEGO heroes (including Wonder Woman in her much-delayed cinematic debut!), Emmet learns the power of imagination in order to defeat the evil Lord Business (v. Will Ferrell).  Oh, Fox & Friends is gonna love this.  I'm getting kind of sick of people not realizing how brilliant this could be.  Yes, the simple concept of a movie based on the LEGO brand is a bad one, but when you bring Phil Lord and Chris Miller (makers of CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS, 22 JUMP STREET who have also been writers/directors/producers on How I Met Your Mother and the woefully overlooked Brooklyn Nine-Nine), you just may have imaginative comedy gold, not to mention one hell of a voice cast.

THE MONUMENTS MEN  (WAR/COMEDY-DRAMA)  Feb. 7
Dir. George Clooney; Starring George Clooney, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray
George Clooney's ensemble cast war film based on the book by Robert Edsel was delayed from its original December 18 release date after it ran into trouble at the editing stage, but given a couple more months to figure out the tone of the film, hopefully we'll see a better product.  The film tells the story of a special platoon of Allied Forces tasked with locating and protecting the valuable art pieces in Nazi possession during WWII, and returning them to their rightful owners.  It sounds like an interesting and overlooked story about the value of our culture even on the worldwide stage of war.

THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL  (COMEDY-DRAMA)  Mar. 7
Dir. Wes Anderson; Starring Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori, Saorise Ronan, Bill Murray, Adrien Brody, Jeff Goldblum, F. Murray Abraham, Tilda Swinton 
Kitschy weirdness-meister Wes Anderson follows up his Academy Award-nominated MOONRISE KINGDOM with this 1920s period piece with one his most impressive cast yet as Ralph Fiennes plays a legendary hotel concierge who has a one night stand with a wealthy woman who is soon after killed and bequeaths to him a valuable painting, opening up a world of intrigue in the Grand Budapest Hotel.  If you have liked any of Wes Anderson's previous movies, you'll probably have a good shot with this, heck, you'll probably love it, and if you haven't liked Wes Anderson's movies, then don't expect anything different.  

DIVERGENT  (SCI-FI/ACTION-THRILLER)  Mar. 21
Dir. Neil Burger; Starring Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Kate Winslet, Miles Teller, Zoe Kravitz 
Based on the popular teen science fiction book series, a futuristic Chicago is divided into districts based on their denizens personalities, but when Beatrice Prior (Shailene Woodley) is discovered to be "divergent," meaning she fails to be classified within the five personality factions, she is taken in by other such misfits who are fighting the rebellion against their seemingly 'perfect' society.  I haven't read the books, and the film industry is starting to feel the fatigue of the young adult novel adaptations, all of them wanting to be the next THE TWILIGHT SAGA or THE HUNGER GAMES, but I've heard plenty of enthusiastic recommendations of the books, and more importantly, the film is directed by Neil Burger, whose last theatrical feature was the excellent LIMITLESS in 2011.  Still, I think I'll check the early reviews first.

NOAH  (DRAMA/ADVENTURE)  Mar. 28
Dir. Darren Aronofsky; Starring Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Emma Watson, Ray Winstone
Hollywood has seemingly suddenly taken a great interest in revitalizing the tradition of grand biblical epics, the first of which to break through the doors being this big budget spectacle of the story of Noah (played by Russell Crowe) from the Book of Genesis.  The reason behind this newfound interest is unclear, given that the last successful Bible-based film was THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST in 2004, a decade ago, and the few imitators that trickled after were disappointments financially and critically.  Whatever the point, I'm not complaining, and with Darren Aronofsky (writer/director of independent dark psycho-thrillers such as REQUIEM FOR A DREAM and BLACK SWAN) at the helm it's bound to be interesting.  Hopefully, he can find a way to work under a studio thumb but with $130 million budget at his disposal, but early test screenings have received mixed responses.  Either way, it's the first movie of 2014 that I'm really excited for.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER  (ACTION/SCI-FI)  Apr. 4
Dir. Anthony Russo & Joe Russo; Starring Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan
In 2012, THE HUNGER GAMES did something really strange to shake up box office conventions by pulling in a $152.5 million opening weekend in the month of March, so the studios are getting a little more daring with some of their most potentially lucrative properties by putting them out in the traditionally slower spring and fall months, further away from the real competition.  Such is the case with CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER, aka CAPTAIN AMERICA 2.  Following up the events of MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS, Cap (Chris Evans) is working with S.H.I.E.L.D. in the modern world, still adjusting as a man out of his time, and of course, facing a new and powerful enemy linked to his past.  The trailer looks amazing, plus we're getting back the excellent Scarlett Johansson's Agent Natasha Romanoff as a major character, and it's being directed by the Russo brothers, Anthony and Joe, who collaborated with Dan Harmon on the cult hit television series, Community.  Really excited for this one.

TRANSCENDENCE  (ACTION/SCI-FI)  Apr. 18
Dir. Wally Pfister; Starring Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Kate Mara, Paul Bettany, Cillian Murphy 
Wally Pfister, the acclaimed cinematographer on Christopher Nolan's acclaimed The Dark Knight trilogy and INCEPTION (for which he won an Academy Award), makes his directorial debut with a screenplay that appeared on the 2012 Black List of the most anticipated unproduced screenplays making the rounds in Hollywood.  Johnny Depp plays a scientist at the forefront of the field of artificial intelligence, working on the most advanced piece of sentient artificial intelligence ever built (because he's never seen a science fiction movie), but anti-technology extremists are hellbent on putting a stop to his dangerous work.  Inadvertently, they grant him just what he needs to succeed, by making it possible to transcend his own existence as part of his own work, resulting in the most dangerously ambitious machine imaginable.  The talent is high, but we'll see if an acclaimed cinematographer can make the leap to acclaimed director.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2  (ACTION/SCI-FI)  May 2
Dir. Marc Webb; Starring Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, Sally Field
In a case of humorously uninspired titling (first, there was SPIDER-MAN, then  SPIDER-MAN 2, then SPIDER-MAN 3, and THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, and now THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (...wait for it) 2) Sony is haplessly trying to get in on the AVENGERS-inspired game by putting all of their Spider-Man eggs in one basket.  They may have the most beloved Marvel superhero that there is, but they really only have him (they actually have Ghost Rider, but f*** Ghost Rider), so now Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield), with the help of his creepy friend Harry Osborne (Dane DeHaan), discovers a conspiracy within OsCorp, connecting the villains Electro (Jamie Foxx), the Rhino (Paul Giamatti) and others.  Actually, I really liked the first THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, despite some unnecessary over-editing, and Emma Stone (as Spider-Man's love interest, Gwen Stacy) is awesome, so I'm looking forward to this.

NEIGHBORS  (COMEDY)  May 9
Dir. Nicholas Stoller; Starring Seth Rogen, Zac Efron, Rose Byrne, Dave Franco 
Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne star as a married couple with their first baby who unwillingly become the neighbors of a raucous fraternity headed by Zac Efron as a bullish college lad.  Gross-out mayhem and prankish idiocy ensues.  The previews are freaking hilarious, and this could be the must-see comedy of the summer.  Here's hoping.

GODZILLA  (SCI-FI/ACTION-THRILLER)  May 16
Dir. Gareth Edwards; Starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Bryan Cranston
We have been burned before (thanks a lot Roland Emmerich), but the teaser trailer released with THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG is one of the coolest released in 2013, promising chilling action and visual panache.  Darker, bigger and rawer, there seems to be some of THE DARK KNIGHT effect going on here, but if the film is anything like the preview, this could be a marvelously unnerving sort of summer action flick.

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST  (SCI-FI/ACTION)  May 23
Dir. Bryan Singer; Starring Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Peter Dinklage
I don't care how amazing he may be, this is clearly the most-anticipated superhero film of Summer 2014, up against THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2.  One of several superhero films now taking part in THE AVENGERS effect, 20th Century Fox has brought back Bryan Singer, director of X-MEN and X2: X-MEN UNITED, along with the cast of those films, plus the cast of 2011's X-MEN: FIRST CLASS and a few new additions for the mother of all X-Men films.  With fan-favorite Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) at the center of things, the elder Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and his usual rival, the elder Magneto (Ian McKellen), are have joined forces to put a stop to a threat to the total existence of mutants, and that involves a little bit of time-traveling, bringing the mutants' younger selves into the main proceedings.  The previews are cool, and there's undoubtedly one hell of a cast here, but there's an obvious risk of becoming convoluted.

MALEFICENT  (FANTASY/ADVENTURE)  May 30
Dir. Robert Stromberg; Starring Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley
This reimagining of Walt Disney Animation's SLEEPING BEAUTY (1959) as a live-action fantasy epic cropped up soon after the huge success of Tim Burton's ALICE IN WONDERLAND (2010), and was initially intended for Burton to direct before he left the project and was replaced by first-timer, Robert Stromberg, who worked as production designer on ALICE IN WONDERLAND and AVATAR.  That means the film will undoubtedly be a visual feast, but everything else is uncomfortably up in the air.  However, Disney veterans like Don Hahn (producing) and Linda Woolverton (co-screenwriter) are also on hand, as well as Angelina Jolie and Elle Fanning in the cast, so it's unlikely to be a total loss even if things fall to the wrong side of things.  Disney's clearly heavily invested in this, with a massive approved budget of $200 million and a Memorial Day Weekend release date, so clearly they have faith in their product.  The story seems to be a sort of Mists of Avalon-style take on the classic Disney villain, the "Mistress of All Evil," where Maleficent is a powerful native of the forest, victim to the conquering predecessors of Princess Aurora (Fanning), but she begins to realize that the young princess may be key to finding peace for herself and the kingdom.

EDGE OF TOMORROW  (ACTION/SCI-FI)  June 6
Dir. Doug Liman; Starring Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Bill Paxton 
Granted, it sounded a lot more cool back when it was called ALL YOU NEED IS KILL, and yes, it also looks a lot like 2013's OBLIVION, with Tom Cruise to boot, but Doug Liman of THE BOURNE IDENTITY and MR. & MRS. SMITH is directing, and has proven an aptitude for action before so it might be a decent action flick if anything.

22 JUMP STREET  (ACTION COMEDY)  June 13
Dir. Phil Lord & Chris Miller; Starring Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Ice Cube, Rob Riggle
One of the best titles of 2013 (EDGE OF TOMORROW should have kept ALL YOU NEED IS KILL) and also one of the upcoming years most unlikely sequels, metaphysically acknowledged by Nick Offerman in the teaser trailer, Officers Schmidt and Jenko (Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, respectively) return to go undercover as students in a college, to take down a fraternity crime ring.  It might have been nice if they were going undercover to take on something a bit more different from in the 2012 film, but the 2012 original was unexpectedly hilarious as is the first preview for this movie.

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2  (ANIMATED/ADVENTURE-FANTASY)  June 13
Dir. Dean DeBlois; Voices of Jay Baruchel, America Ferrara, Gerard Butler, Cate Blanchett
DreamWorks Animation's 2010 surprise hit gets a sequel that takes place five years later are now allied with the dragons, using them to travel great distances and discover new and strange cultures and do things that were impossible before.  As Stoick the Vast (v. Gerard Butler) wishes for Hiccup (v. Jay Baruchel) to start a family and become chief of their Viking clan, Hiccup continues to expand his horizons, eventually discovering a whole cave full of new and wild dragons, and a mysterious dragon riding vigilante (v. Cate Blanchett).  The marketing thus far has focused on an unusual big action movie feel with large armies in combat and Hiccup being evolved into a more suitable action hero, and the notion is intriguing.  My one major concern is that the first film's main creative force, Chris Sanders, isn't returning, although his co-director, Dean DeBlois is staying on, so we'll just have to wait and see.  Either way, this is very likely to be the big animated film of the year, and perhaps even one of the summer's biggest blockbusters.

DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES  (SCI-FI/ACTION-THRILLER)  July 11
Dir. Matt Reeves; Starring Andy Serkis, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Keri Russell
This is definitely one of the most exciting prospects of Summer 2014.  I wasn't too excited for 2011's RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, largely because of its unproven director, seemingly unfinished special effects and the disenchanting effect of all films in the franchise save for the original PLANET OF THE APES from 1968.  But RISE proved to be a very fresh and effective sci-fi thriller, anchored by an amazing motion-capture performance by Andy Serkis as the lead ape, Caesar.  In the sequel, which already has a chiller of a teaser trailer, the human population has been decimated by the virus the spread at the end of the first film, and now the apes are on the brink of becoming the dominant species, led by Caesar.  Now, the few surviving humans (including Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke and Keri Russell) and the apes try to maintain a fragile truce, but war is inevitable.  If that isn't enough, it's also directed by Matt Reeves, the talented director of CLOVERFIELD and LET ME IN.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY  (SCI-FI/ADVENTURE)  Aug. 1
Dir. James Gunn; Starring Chris Pratt, Lee Pace, Benicio Del Toro 
This just may be the film that makes or breaks Marvel Studios' ambitious film canon, being the first really outside-the-mainstream adaptation, in what looks a bit like THE AVENGERS on psychotropic substances.  Chris Pratt, who plays the goofy Andy on NBC's Parks and Recreation and had small roles in ZERO DARK THIRTY and MONEYBALL, stars as an American pilot who unites with a band of eclectic alien ex-cons in the far reaches of space to defend the galaxy from a formidable foe connected to the events in MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS and THOR: THE DARK WORLD.  It's still superhero science-fiction action, but it also has a talking, gun-toting raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and a tree-man (voiced by Vin Diesel), plus a very convoluted and bizarre mythology.  I'm not sure yet what to make of this one, but with James Gunn (who directed the disgustingly hilarious horror-comedy SLITHER, but also wrote those godawful live-action SCOOBY-DOO films) at the helm, you can bet it'll be fittingly weird.

GONE GIRL  (DRAMA/THRILLER)  Oct. 3
Dir. David Fincher; Starring Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Tyler Perry, Neil Patrick Harris 
Based on the acclaimed best-selling novel by Gillian Flynn about crumbling marriage where the wife goes missing and the obvious prime suspect is the husband.  I just don't know much about the novel, apparently because it's almost impossible to describe without revealing major plot twists, but the fact that David Fincher (THE SOCIAL NETWORK, FIGHT CLUB, SE7EN) is directing is enough for me. 

THE INTERVIEW  (COMEDY)  Oct. 10
Dir. Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen; Starring James Franco, Lizzy Caplan, Seth Rogen 
Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen are following up THIS IS THE END, their gut-bustingly hilarious directorial debut, with this comedy about a narcissistic talk show host (James Franco) and his producer (Lizzy Caplan) who get caught up in an assassination plot.

BIG HERO 6  (FAMILY/ANIMATION)  Nov. 7
Dir. Don Hall
For their 54th animated feature film, Walt Disney Animation is making their first adaptation of the company's recently acquired Marvel Comics properties, this one being a more minor series, Big Hero 6, set in a fictional portmanteau of San Fransisco and Tokyo, and focused on a young hero and a robot of his own creation, who join up with a team of inexperienced crime-fighters.  There isn't much to go on right now, and the idea of a Disney animated film adapting Marvel superheroes sounds a little strange, especially following the somewhat more traditional FROZEN, but WRECK-IT RALPH turned out to be pretty good, so I'm willing to give it a chance.

INTERSTELLAR  (SCI-FI/ADVENTURE)  Nov. 7
Dir. Christopher Nolan; Starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Casey Affleck
Nobody knows anything about what this movie is about.  Actually, that's not entirely true; we know that it involves humanity discovering a wormhole through which man can travel to space and time in ways not previously thought possible.  That's pretty much it.  We can assume that the proceedings will involve elaborate details of alternate dimensions and timelines, and with ultra-secretive director Christopher Nolan (following up his hugely-acclaimed Dark Knight trilogy) behind the helm, with a script co-written by his brother Jonathan, you can be sure it will be hyper-intelligent and groundbreaking.  Warner Brothers, who produced the Dark Knight trilogy and Nolan's INCEPTION, fought to get a piece of the action from Paramount Pictures, who picked it up first, so the big wigs obviously see the potential, plus, this is one of those very "original" films that people are always clamoring for (on their way to buy tickets for the newest franchise installment).  But then again, knowing so little about it, there's not a ton to be "excited" for yet.

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY, PART 1  (ACTION-THRILLER/SCI-FI)  Nov. 21
Dir. Francis Lawrence; Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland
Lionsgate is splitting the last chapter of their ultra-lucrative Hunger Games franchise into two parts, which could be problematic for the structural quality of the two films, especially the pre-climactic Part 1, but after the cliffhanger ending of a very good CATCHING FIRE, and the ever-excellent Jennifer Lawrence on board, plus an all-around great cast, who wouldn't come back for more?

EXODUS  (DRAMA)  Dec. 12
Dir. Ridley Scott; Starring Christian Bale, Aaron Paul, Joel Edgerton, Maria Valverde
The second big bible epic of the year, following March's NOAH, GLADIATOR director Ridley Scott's long-gestating adaptation of the Old Testament Book of Exodus is finally coming to the big screen, shot on location in Spain and starring Christian Bale as Moses and Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul as his successor Joshua.  Scott is a hit-and-miss director (as evidenced by 2013's THE COUNSELOR), but if Spielberg's decided not to do Gods and Kings, then I guess we can settle for this.

PADDINGTON  (FAMILY/FANTASY)  Dec. 12
Dir. Paul King; Starring Colin Firth (voice), Nicole Kidman, Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Jim Broadbent, Matt Lucas 
The United Kingdom's favorite little bear from the darkest Peru comes to the screen in live action with a computer-rendered visage and the voice of Colin Firth, and produced by David Heyman, producer of the Harry Potter films.

THE HOBBIT: THERE AND BACK AGAIN  (FANTASY/ACTION-ADVENTURE)  Dec. 17
Dir. Peter Jackson; Starring Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Luke Evans
For the climactic chapter of Peter Jackson's bloated but improving three-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkein's The Hobbit, in which a dragon is bound to destroy a town before being slain, and five armies have an epic battle over cursed gold, all culminating with the rise of the greatest known evil in Middle-Earth, THERE AND BACK AGAIN is a mighty quaint title.  Yes, there will still be those awful CGI orcs and it's bound to be unnecessarily lengthy, but after 2013's THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG, Jackson has proven that he still has an aptitude for creating thrilling action, most of which he's been saving up this chapter.

Review: THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET    (BIOPIC/COMEDY-DRAMA)
3 out of 4 stars
Directed by Martin Scorcese
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, Kyle Chandler, Rob Reiner, Jean Dujardin, P.J. Byrne, Jon Bernthal, Matthew McConaughey, Jon Favreau
Rated R for sequences of strong sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use and language throughout, and for some violence.
Verdict:  Wildly unhinged, unnecessarily lengthy and incredibly depraved, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET is nonetheless an intriguing and nasty story about intriguing and nasty people, and achingly funny at times, but not for everyone. 
YOU MAY ENJOY THE WOLF OF WALL STREET IF YOU LIKED:
GOODFELLAS  (1990)
WALL STREET  (1987)
CASINO  (1995)
THE HANGOVER  (2009)
THE SOCIAL NETWORK  (2010)

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET is hugely reminiscent of one of Martin Scorcese's greatest (many might actually say "his greatest") films, 1990's GOODFELLAS.  Both films are about a rise and fall within a criminal empire, narrated by the main character with wry wit and justification, accompanied by the occasional mid-action freeze framing and self-reference.  However, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET is not on that GOODFELLAS level.  I'm reluctant to be very harsh about it though, because time has told us that Scorcese comedy gets better with age (see: THE KING OF COMEDY (1982)); heck, for that matter, so do a lot of his films initially thought of as lesser. 
Based on the autobiography by Jordan Belfort, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET tells the story of a young stockbroker who built a multimillion dollar stockbroking company through corrupt stock dealings.  Leonardo DiCaprio, in his fifth film with Scorcese, stars as Belfort, who arrives on the stockbroking scene at a prestigious company working under a raving drug/sex addict (Matthew McConaughey), before the events of "Black Monday" in 1987, causing the greatest dive in stock percentages since the Great Depression, force that company to close.  Desperate for work, Belfort finds a position at a dinky little penny stock boiler room, where he easily becomes a superstar in sales, coaxing the middle class into putting their life savings into his $0.01 stocks, while he earns a handsome 50% from each sale.  From there, he teams up with Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill; it is so strange to see Jonah Hill and Leo DiCaprio busting each others balls on the same screen), a creepy WASP suburbanite, to found their own brokerage firm, Stratton Oakford, where Belfort personally trains his brokers to sucker in buyers of their garbage stock.  As business explodes, especially after a scathing article in Forbes magazine, dubbing him "The Wolf of Wall Street," Belfort leaves a trail of disaster in his wake, buying and doing whatever he wants with more money than he knows what to do with.  Eventually, his reckless activities catch the attention of the FBI, with a straight-arrow agent (Kyle Chandler) doggedly pursuing prosecution of Belfort for white collar criminality.

Kind of a strange combination, but hey, whatever works.

This is new territory for Scorcese, who has done comedy, especially black comedy, before, but nothing so extreme.  It's a terrifically funny film a lot of the time, but even in the midst of all the ludicrous debauchery that saturates the entirety of the three hour running time, I can't help but wonder what it would be like as a drama, at least like something closer to the tone of GOODFELLAS.  If these are things that happened in real life, than it wasn't actually that funny, but then again, there's also characters doing drugs out of hookers' butts.  In the first few minutes.
Speaking of which, this is yet another movie that has inexplicably been released with an R rating, despite being far, far better suited to the NC-17 rating that its makers worked so hard to avoid.  I don't have a problem specifically with the content itself, but it's exactly the sort of thing that the NC-17 rating is supposed to indicate to responsible adult viewers.  I'm pretty sure that I haven't seen a movie with this much nudity in it since Paul Verhoeven's SHOWGIRLS, or as much drug use since Danny Bole's TRAINSPOTTING.  Reportedly, at 506 counted, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET also has one of the highest "f-word" counts of any narrative film ever made, plus there's probably at least a half dozen "c-words" to boot, but the swearing doesn't bother me as much.  If it did, I'd be in a coma.
All of this attests to the fact that this is a story about really aberrant, abhorrent people, and that is something to be considered.  It's funny, but in reality, so, so dark, not to mention infuriating.

America- F*** Yeah!  -This message brought to you by Jordan Belfort.

I think I'll be better able to understand THE WOLF OF WALL STREET in at the very least a few years, because past experience tells me that I don't quite have it yet.  I didn't really "get" GOODFELLAS the first time that I saw it.  What I see in THE WOLF OF WALL STREET right now is a very funny, very undisciplined and coyly intriguing movie that offends nearly every sensibility.

The Christmas Carols

Undoubtedly, Charles Dickens' classic novella A Christmas Carol is one of the most frequently adapted stories for cinema.  Having been adapted literally dozens of times as theatrical feature films, not mention the countless television series Christmas specials to apply their characters to the story, it ranks with the likes of Dracula and Frankenstein in sheer numbers of reinterpretation.  Some of the most famous include the critically-acclaimed 1951 adaptation starring Alastair Sim as the eponymous miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, later remade as an Academy Award-winning animated short, the kid-friendly THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL with Michael Caine as Scrooge and MICKEY'S A CHRISTMAS CAROL starring Scrooge McDuck (as who else?), and the most recent major adaptation, the big-budget DISNEY'S A CHRISTMAS CAROL (2009) starring comedian Jim Carrey as Scrooge and all three Ghosts of Christmas.  Regrettably, I do not have the time to talk about all the screen versions of Dickens' most beloved work, but I'll here cover several of the major versions, including a couple of my favorites, and some that are less well made.

THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL  (1992)
Directed by Brian Henson
Starring Michael Caine, Steven Mackintosh
Muppets: 
Steven Whitmire as Kermit the Frog, Rizzo the Rat, Bean Bunny, Beaker & others
Dave Goelz as Gonzo the Great, Waldorf, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew & others
Frank Oz as Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Sam the Eagle, Animal & others
Jerry Nelson as  Robin, Statler & others
Rated G
Not only one of the best adaptations of A Christmas Carol, THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL was also one of the last projects considered by The Muppets creator and special effect whiz Jim Henson before his death in 1990.  Directed by Jim's son, Brian Henson, and released through Walt Disney Pictures, it's one of the best Muppet feature films, and also one of the strangest.  It follows the source material pretty closely, despite as a musical with comic threads, with moments like a Muppet mentioning his "little Gwen, her lungs aren't right," to explain to Scrooge why he fell behind in his mortgage payments, and I think this would also be the only Muppet movie to date to actually deal with themes of Muppet "death".
The non-Muppet Michael Caine takes the lead as the miserly moneylender, Ebenezer Scrooge, whose story is narrated by Gonzo the Great in the role of Charles Dickens, accompanied by Rizzo the Rat, who is doubtful of Mr. Dickens' Dickens-ness.  After leaving his lowly clerk, Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit, to close up the offices on Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by the chain-clad ghosts of his deceased business partners, Jacob and Robert Marley (Statler and Waldorf, respectively), who alert him to the coming of three spirits as a chance of avoiding their hellish fate (Muppets, and they've been damned).  The Ghost of Christmas Past, an original and elaborate creation from Jim Henson Studios, shows him the error of his ways in his youth; the Ghost of Christmas Present, another original, in the form of an oversized, full-body felt Muppet, shows him the joys of Christmas Day itself; and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, a standard, but very large, Grim Reaper creation shows him the sadness of a future in his current course.
Caine holds his own opposite the Muppets, who he treats like a lesser race, ruthlessly exploiting the starving little felt guys (a little bunny is actually shown shivering while wrapped in newspapers on Christmas Eve, but most Muppeteers are well-known for loathing the "Bean Bunny" character anyway).  In the final big musical number, "With a Thankful Heart," a shop sign can be seen in the background that reads "Micklewhite's" which is a reference to Caine's actual given name, Maurice Micklewhite, which is actually a fittingly Muppet-esque name.  Tiny Tim, who is cloying and insufferable little character anyway, is appropriately played by Robin, Kermit's nephew, who happens to be the worst Muppet, so there's that.  He still dies and is buried in the Christmas Yet to Come segment, which is a little strange.
Be sure to stick with the theatrical edition though, as opposed to the extended cut which was the only available version on the VHS release and is also the Fullscreen version on the DVD edition.  I guess that it's not a huge alteration, but the extended version has an extra musical number, "When Love Is Gone" which puts the whole thing to a halt.  That one part practically ruined the whole movie for me when I was a young child.

DISNEY'S A CHRISTMAS CAROL  (2009)
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Starring Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Robin Wright, Bob Hoskins, Cary Elwes
PG for scary sequences and images.
I went on my first date to this movie in November 2009, but for anyone who's seen this movie, it's clear that that would-be relationship simply didn't get far at all (it's not my fault; the selection of movies in 2009 was very poor as a result of the 2008 Writers Guild Strike).  This most recent of the major adaptations of A Christmas Carol is very unfortunate, because it has an awful lot going for it, but the rug is constantly being ripped out from under the feet of those good things without justified reason, to say the least.  Directed by Robert Zemeckis, who recently made a strong return to live-action filmmaking in 2012's FLIGHT, but who has been a driving force behind fully motion-capture animated films through his company ImageMovers Digital ever since his 2004 adaptation of THE POLAR EXPRESS, this version of Dickens' tale takes no major deviations from the traditional plot, although it deviate severely in tone and some very strange new details.  Jim Carrey plays Scrooge, both young and old, as well as the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come, and while the shared performer is apparent (with the exception of the relatively vague Christmas Yet to Come), even acknowledged once, he gets by all right, as does Gary Oldman, starring as Bob Cratchit, Jacob Marley and Tiny Tim, with his best moments as Bob Cratchit.  The real stars though are the animators, who while never quite ascending beyond the infamous "uncanny valley" effect, exceed their capabilities on THE POLAR EXPRESS and BEOWULF (also directed by Zemeckis).  Some of the effect is lost without the 3D though (it was released only a month before AVATAR made 3D big), which was used to great effect in the many "fly-through" sequences.
The best thing about this version of A Christmas Carol, marketed as DISNEY'S A CHRISTMAS CAROL to differentiate it from the rest, but not animated at Disney Studios, is its proper use of Victorian culture and carols, filled with old-time church carols and a great original song, "God Bless Us Everyone" sung by Andrea Bocelli, and the street scenes of the marketplace are interesting.
Now for the stuff that just ruins it; Robert Zemeckis had made it clear that he did not believe that A Christmas Carol had been made for the screen yet in the way that Dickens imagined it.  Well, clearly, Zemeckis is convinced that Dickens first and foremost wrote his novella as a full-on Gothic horror in the manner of his contemporaries, Dracula and Frankenstein.  This version is just to occupied by morbidity, to the extent that it distracts from everything else, such as Marley's jaw ripping wide open (it fell open on his chest in the book, but there was nothing said about his cheeks ripping apart and his jaw totally dislocating) and then in a cheap gross-out comic moment, Marley manually manipulates his jaw, completely rendering his powerful words irrelevant.  There's also a truly bizarre moment when Scrooge shrinks down to a couple inches and speaks with a high-pitched voice.  I don't know why.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL  (1984)
Directed by Clive Donner
Starring George C. Scott, Frank Finlay, David Warner, Roger Rees, Edward Woodward
PG for unspecified reasons (contains some scary moments, mild language and thematic elements).
Usually, I am dismissive of made-for-TV movies, perhaps out of a cinephile's snobbery, but I'm fond of this TV movie adaptation of A Christmas Carol, starring George C. Scott as Scrooge.  Scott is one of the great actors and makes for a truly excellent Scrooge, but he also shares the screen with an excellent British cast besides, including David Warner (the ex-cop bodyguard in TITANIC) as Bob Crachit and an excellent rendition of the Ghost of Christmas Present by Edward Woodward, both frightening and jovial in perfect measure.  My favorite though, is Frank Finlay (who played the buffoonish Porthos in Richard Lester's excellent THE THREE MUSKETEERS in 1973) as Jacob Marley, the best Marley I've seen, who bears all the pain and pathos of such a character.  It's a simple adaptation, without many flourishes, but a aptly produced one, and one of my favorites.


SCROOGE  (1951)
Directed by Brian Desmond Hurst
Starring Alastair Sim, Michael Hordern, Mervyn Johns, George Cole, Carol Marsh, Kathleen Harrison
Not Rated
This British film released as A CHRISTMAS CAROL in the United States is often considered the greatest of all the adaptations of the book, starring a particularly memorable performance by Alastair Sim as the title character.  Sim is an excellent Scrooge, although I'm reluctant to call him the best.  The argument that the movie itself is the best one though, is a strong one.  What it brings to mind most for me, is its "Ghost of Christmas Past" sequence.  The Ghost, played by Michael Dolan (the Ghost of Christmas Past varies the most by far from adaptation to adaptation compared to other characters, due to a strange and implicit description in the book), is an unremarkable one, but what is usually a segment ran briskly through to show how Scrooge became the man he is is here a very interesting and very well developed story about the young idealist turned into the odious miser.
 

Rankin/Bass: Charming Classics or Creepy as #@!$?

Holiday TV specials have been one of the major staples of the season since the childhood of the Baby Boomer Generation in post-WWII America, but of all of them, there are none so iconic as those produced for CBS by Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass, hence, the Rankin/Bass Productions.  Beginning in 1964 with arguably the most famous Christmas special of all time, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the stop-motion animated adaptations of popular Christmas carols have since been played annually, regularly pulling strong ratings and have since become family traditions for families across the world.

But they're also creepier than hell.  I'm convinced that the staying power of these programs is almost entirely based in nostalgic value, with parents watching it with their children, and everyone appreciating them for the sake of their own childhood memories.  Because I've neither the time nor willpower to sit through all of them, I've only watched four of them, specifically the best-known and most popular.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer  (1964)
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is by far the most popular of the Rankin/Bass holiday TV specials, and the great-grandaddy of all seasonal TV specials.  Of course, there had been plenty of Christmas television events since the technology had become widely available in the previous decade, but those were usually variety show events, centered around a particular celebrity or brand.  Rudolph was the first of the stop-motion animated specials produced by Rankin/Bass, and I think it might not be unreasonable to say, the creepiest.  Based on a Christmas character and accompanying carol created in 1939 as a promotion for retail company Montgomery Ward, the story is pure post-WWII Americana; Rudolph (voiced nasally by Billie May Richards), the misfit reindeer with a red light bulb for a nose, is a social pariah who teams up with a couple of other social undesirables, and through their freakishness, they ultimately save Christmas for everyone.
Despite the painstaking process of stop-motion animation (not actually "claymation," the characters are created with advanced mechanical armature puppets, each moved minutely between single-frame shots, filmed over the course of 18 months), the overall product has a shabby feel to it all around.  The animation is certainly not up to par with the modern technologies of studios such as Aardman or Laika, but worse, the story is an irrational mess.  The timeline makes zero sense (supposedly this all takes place in the course of under a year), the characters are shakily defined, and the themes are hazily presented.  Yes, everyone learns to accept these misfits at a seemingly fascist North Pole, but only once they've proved they can be adequately exploited.  Plus, Rudolph features the nastiest little Santa of any widely-seen Christmas work.  He's an old grouch who treats Rudolph as poorly as the "other reindeer" do, if not worse!  He doesn't seem to be doing any actual work, but he always complains about being busy, and disses on his elves' singing.
I'm not sure what to make of Hermey either.  For one, I don't know what "Hermey" is short for, but I'm tempted to guess "Hermaphrodite."
For more on this creepy classic, check out I-Mockery's 16 Serious Questions Raised By Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: http://www.i-mockery.com/shorts/rudolph16/

The Little Drummer Boy  (1968)
Rankin/Bass' take on the religious origins of Christmas is probably the least popular of these four specials, no longer playing annually ("War on Christmas," you know), but in 1968, it was the second stop-motion animated special made by Rankin/Bass, following up on the hugely popular Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  Based on 1941 song, Carol of the Drum (the title later changed), popularized in 1955 by the Trapp Family Singers (of THE SOUND OF MUSIC fame) and later versions, The Little Drummer Boy gives the original song's titular figure a name and back story.  Aaron (voiced by Teddy Eccles), an Israelite lad who loathes humanity for the death of his parents, and whose only possession is a drum given to him from them, lives outside of society with a camel, a donkey and a sheep.  He's kidnapped by Ben Haramad (voiced of Jose Ferrer), a conman/showman who hopes to exploit the boy's talents, and Aaron finds himself caught up with the Magi, who summon him to the Christ-child's bedside in a moment of need.
Like the other stop-motion animated stories from Rankin/Bass, The Little Drummer Boy is overwhelmed by a visual creepiness, but it does try to have a serious story with real pathos, which is interesting, but the characters are just too silly looking, especially at their most seriousness.

Frosty the Snowman  (1969)
Frosty the Snowman is the most popular of the hand-drawn animated Rankin/Bass specials, telling the troubling story of a snowman brought to life by a magic hat, who then takes a little girl with him to the North Pole, where she starts to suffer from hypothermia.  There is an adult in hot pursuit, hoping to put an end to the foul snow-beast, but the snowman consistently foils him, nearly fatally at times.  That's what I see.
Honestly, my favorite character in this animated short is the antagonist, Professor Hinckle (voiced enthusiastically by Billy De Wolfe), the worst magician in the world, who only wants to get his hat back from the stupid kids and their creepy snowman, but those behind the product simply don't realize the unparalleled value of this character.  Frosty was a moron.

Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town  (1970)
This is the second-most popular of the Rankin/Bass TV specials, probably because it has one of the most awesome Christmas villains of all time.  Mickey Rooney voices Kris Kringle, aka Santa Claus, who as a baby was discovered by a family of toymakers who live in a cabin in the wilderness.  I don't understand the relationships of this family.  They're made up of several little elf guys, all of whom look like miniature Santas, plus a full-sized old marm named Tanta.  We know that the little guys are brothers, but while it's implied that Tanta is their mother, this is never made clear, and there's no apparent father either, so she may be sleeping with all of them [wretch], but I suppose that's beside the point.  Anyway, Kris grows up to be the only full-sized male of the group, and Tanta will be damned before she does anything useful, so Kris takes charge of taking all the Kringle's toys over the mountain (past an evil warlock) to the next village, Sombertown (subtle).  In Sombertown though, the coolest mayor of all time, Burgermeister Meisterburger (voice of Paul Frees, who you may recognize as the "Ghost Host" at Disneyland's The Haunted Mansion), has declared all toys illegal.  The Burgermeister is awesome; this guy actually makes a huge bonfire of childrens' toys, in front of the sobbing children, in the town square and arrests Santa Claus, without any eventual retribution, although of course, Santa, the hardened criminal, escapes.  Which brings me to one of the most inexplicable plot holes ever; the Winter Warlock, in prison with Kris, laments his loss of magic and mentions to Kris' squeeze, Jessica, that all he has left is a few knick-knacks, like magic feed corn, which he specifies is useless against prison walls, but because they have magic feed corn, they escape on flying reindeer (who eat the corn).  Nobody says anything about the prison walls.  This is obviously because Jessica exchanged sexual favors to the prison guards for them to set her friends free, but they couldn't put that in a children's program.

HOME ALONE Double Feature

 Editor's Note:  Obviously and unfortunately, my intentions for a "25 Days" series of holiday films have fallen through, this because my resources have been stretched too thin, but I will do my best to cram in as many Christmas posts as possible in the next couple days.  Happy Holidays!

HOME ALONE    (COMEDY, 1990)
Directed by Chris Columbus
Starring Macaulay Culkin, Catherine O'Hara, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, John Heard, Roberts Blossom, John Candy, Gerry Bamman
PG for unspecified reasons (contains slapstick action violence, language, some rude humor and brief smoking).
Naughty or Nice?: Pretty Naughty, a Little Nice
Religious or Secular?:  A Few Religious Scenes
Cynical or Sentimental?: Sappy & Sentimental
Holiday Relations: Christmas is Atmospheric and Heavy But Incidental
OVERALL: 2 out of 4

HOME ALONE was on of the biggest box office successes of all time, grossing $285.7 million ($545.2 M in 2013 dollars, well more than 2013's #1, IRON MAN 3's $409 M) at the domestic box office alone and a grand total of $476.6 million at the international box office, it became the third highest-grossing film of all time during its 1990 release.  It stood at #1 on the box office charts for 12 straight weeks from November 1990 through February 1991, and it more than doubled its theatrical grosses when it was made available on the relatively new and widely available VHS home release.  HOME ALONE's colossally lucrative success became a major factor in shaping the nature of family entertainment throughout the entirety of the 1990s, at least outside of the Mouse House and its would-be imitators.  This, in my opinion, was not a good thing.
HOME ALONE is one of the most overrated box office hits ever.  If you happen to love this movie, like most people seem to, brace yourself, because I do not, and I'm going to tell you why, but also why I don't consider it a total loss (for however little reason).
Macaulay Culkin became the definitive child movie star of the decade thanks to his role as Kevin McCallister, the youngest in his well-to-do family, who can only be described as selfish, bratty and even sadistic.  He isn't in terrible company though, so to speak, because with only a couple of exceptions, everyone in this movie is either selfish, bratty, snobby or cruel, etc., before we reach our unearned conclusion of sickening sentimentality.
The McCallisters are taking a trip to Paris, France for the holidays, and they're bringing with them their extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins.  But Kevin is an utterly dreadful child, and in turn, his family treats him discourteously.  But when Kevin wreaks havoc during the family dinner the night before the trip, he's sent upstairs to sleep in the attic.  The power goes out that night, and the family wakes up in a panic to find their alarms have not gone off.  In the rush to make it to the airport in time for their flight, Kevin is left behind, and only wakes up after they've left, and assumes his wish to not have a family anymore has come true.  Kevin runs around the house doing whatever he wants, sledding down the stairs, stealing his brother's money and watching traumatizing movies.  Meanwhile, Kevin's mother (Catherine O'Hara), is horrified on the plane when she realizes that they left Kevin, and with all the phone lines inconveniently (or perhaps, conveniently) down, she's unable to call home, so she finds any and every way possible to get back home in time for Christmas.
There also happens to be a pair of buffoonish burglars, Harry and Marv (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern, respectively), who have the McCallister house identified as the crown jewel of their list of jobs while wealthy families are away on Christmas vacation.  Luckily, Kevin has an entirely unexplained and inexplicable talent for setting up frighteningly elaborate illusions to make the house appear inhabited, and after Harry and Marv realize they've been tricked, Kevin has a disturbing assortment of deathtraps prepared that would make the SAW movie's Jigsaw envious.
It's all for laughs of course, seeing Harry and Marv take paint can pendulums to the face, nails in the bare feet, blowtorches to the head, red-hot doorknobs to the hands, and marbles shot from BB guns to the face and genitals.  I don't especially have a problem with slapstick violence (I'm a sucker for physical comedy involving corpses getting thrown around; that's just funny), but beyond the stupidity and cheapness of the staging, this slapstick, aimed to appeal specifically to children, has a disturbing emphasis on the painful results.  And it is dreadfully stupid too, with the adult burglar bumbling around with an utter lack of reason, while Kevin reacts exuberantly to his violent actions.  He's not just defending his house; he's enjoying the hell out of maiming these guys, even in excess, while they're still down.  It's like torture porn for children.  And you might notice that the torture porn genre really did peak about the time that childhood fans of such movies had grown into adulthood.  Kevin is so sick, I wouldn't really mind if the burglars had gotten a little retribution.
The only legitimately decent characters in this movie are Catherine O'Hara as Kate McCallister, John Candy as Gus Polinski, "the Polka King of the Midwest," who help Mrs. McCallister get home, and Roberts Blossom as the McCallister's creepy hermit neighbor, Marley.  Other than that, despite various nasty character traits, characters like Harry, Marv and Uncle "Look What You Did, You Little Jerk" Frank (Gerry Bamman), are the most likable, if only because they do and say just what I would like to Kevin.  I really, really hate that kid.
I can't act like HOME ALONE is an utterly unsalvageable disaster though.  The production is decent, and even though it's unfair that they've been saddled with such idiotic characters, Pesci and Stern have strong chemistry and play slapstick pretty well.  In fact, despite some assorted plot holes, such as Kevin inexplicable craft for setting up mannequins (where did those come from anyway?) and cardboard cut-outs as marionettes for a fake party and  such a well-thought out series of torture devices, it's a decent movie, but a bad, sick kind of movie.  Plus, it marks the end of John Hughes' talent as a screenwriter.  No, his work was not unmarked by the occasional misfire, but Hughes was behind such classic 1980s movies as THE BREAKFAST CLUB, FERRIS BEULLER'S DAY OFF and SIXTEEN CANDLES before he wrote HOME ALONE, after which just about every movie that had his name on it for the rest of his career had an idiotic "bumbling burglars" subplot.




HOME ALONE 2: LOST IN NEW YORK    (COMEDY, 1992)

Directed by Chris Columbus
Starring Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, Catherine O'Hara, Brenda Fricker, John Heard, Tim Curry, Devin Ratray, Eddie Bracken, Gerry Bamman, Rob Schneider
PG for comic action and mild language.
Naughty or Nice?: Pretty Naughty, a Little Nice
Religious or Secular?: Mostly Secular, a Few Religious Moments
Cynical or Sentimental?: Sentimental
Holiday Relations: Christmas is Atmospheric and Incidental
OVERALL: 1 out of 4

HOME ALONE 2.  Wow, HOME ALONE 2.  Sequels to surprise hit movies like THE HANGOVER and DIE HARD 2 are stereotyped as simply being rehashed copies of the originals, but HOME ALONE 2 takes that to a whole new level. Not only is Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) again left out from a family Christmas vacation, but the film even follows many of the same beats as the first, so consistently that it frequently hits "meta" levels of self-reference.
Once again, Kevin acts out on the night before the family, with their aunts, uncles and cousins, are about to leave on a holiday trips, this time to Florida, and he's sent to his room.  Again, there's an alarm clock malfunction that puts the family in a hectic rush to get to the airport on time the next morning, but this time Kevin is on the shuttle vans to the airport.  Once they do get to the airport, however, Kevin falls behind and accidentally boards a flight to New York City instead.  Luckily, Kevin happens to have his Dad's credit card, and once he realizes he's in NYC, he heads over to the posh Plaza Hotel (which he recognizes from a television ad) and check in after convincing the staff that his Dad is at a business meeting.  However improbable, he manages to book the room, and of course indulges in all manner of room service.  He even watches Angels With Even Filthier Souls, the sequel to the movie that traumatized him in the first film, and similarly to the events in the first film, he convinces the hotel staff that there's more than just him in the room, using this video and puppetry of his own design.  Paralleled to the creepy but actually nice Old Man Marley in the first film is the creepy Pigeon Lady (Brenda Fricker), who doesn't talk much and is covered in bird crap, but is actually just nice and lonely.
Perhaps even more unlikely is that the bumbling burglars from the first film, Harry Lime (Joe Pesci) and Marv Merchants (Daniel Stern), have escaped from prison and happen to also be in New York, in the same area as Kevin.  Of course, they aren't going to rob the hotel; they're planning to steal all the money from a toy store on Christmas Eve.  Luckily, Kevin finds out, and never the one to pass up an opportunity to deal out severe injury to adults, Kevin lures them to an abandoned house and sets up a few death traps for them, firing nail guns at their faces and dropping them from great heights onto the pavement.  Really funny, if you're Freddy Krueger.
It's weird though, because not only is there no attempt to differentiate the film from the original, but there's a deliberate effort to replicate each and every joke with only minor modification, such as Kevin's, "I've committed credit card fraud," line emulating his, "I'm a criminal," from the original, or Fuller drinking Pepsi.  It just hits ridiculous levels.
What's so much worse though, is just how less intelligent the characters are than before.  Harry and Marv are bigger buffoons, the family manages to lose a kid again, and Kevin has to re-learn every stupid thing he learned from the last movie.  Shameless.

Review: SAVING MR. BANKS

SAVING MR. BANKS    (BIOPIC/COMEDY-DRAMA)
4 out of 4 stars
Directed by John Lee Hancock
Starring: Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Paul Giamatti, Colin Farrell, Annie Rose Buckley, Bradley Whitford, Jason Schwartzman, B.J. Novak, Ruth Wilson
PG-13 for thematic elements including some unsettling images.
Verdict: Although still unlikely to satisfy the bloodlust of Disney-haters, SAVING MR. BANKS is a surprisingly earnest and solidly crafted look at the tumultuous backstory to one of the most beloved Disney films of all time, as well as the origins of the source novel itself, anchored by an abundance of strong performances and an able script.
YOU MAY ENJOY SAVING MR. BANKS IF YOU LIKED:
MARY POPPINS (1964)
THE BLIND SIDE (2009)
THE BOYS: THE SHERMAN BROTHERS' STORY (2009)
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (2002)
THE AVIATOR (2004)

There is not a single bit of trivia or information in SAVING MR. BANKS that is new to me.  I pride myself on an encyclopedic knowledge of film, but I have a speciality in the Disney story.  You'd think the idea of this film, the first to ever portray Walt Disney as a major character, would be euphoric to someone like me, but I was apprehensive from the start.  It's like a film adaptation of a book was coming out, a book that I had absolutely loved and clung to affectionately, but other people were going to have their say on it, and I was sure enough that I wouldn't agree with them.  At least, I wouldn't agree with them enough.  Funnily enough, that's basically the story that SAVING MR. BANKS is telling.
Common knowledge to the Disney aficionado is the story of Walt's decades-long courting of author P.L. Travers for permission to translate her beloved children's book, Mary Poppins, to film, and her reluctance to grant that permission, and later, her disowning of the film altogether.  Walt Disney first attempted to acquire the film rights to the book years before the main plot of the film takes place, way back in 1938, just when SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS, Walt's first feature film, had become a colossal success, at the request of his daughters, Diane and Lillian.  Travers, who disdained the cinema, and even more, Walt's children-friendly animations, denied him the rights for over twenty years, and that's when the main plot take place; in 1961, Los Angeles.

B.J. Novak & Jason Schwartzman as Robert and Richard Sherman

Ms. Travers (Emma Thompson), as she insists on being addressed, but which most Americans either do not understand or plainly do not heed, arrives in L.A., at the behest of her agent, who pleads with her to sell the rights now that royalties have stopped coming in and her finances are fastly running out.  However, she has every intention of rebuffing Disney once again, and she lets everyone, including her talkative driver (Paul Giamatti), know right away just how little she cares for their city and the Disney brand.  Right off the bat, she tries to have the legendary songwriting team of Robert and Richard Sherman (B.J. Novak and Jason Schwartzman, respectively) removed, utterly disenchanted with the idea of a musical, and she even demands at one point that the color red be banished from the whole of the film.  Walt (Tom Hanks), the master showman, is stretched to the limit of his patience, struggling to find some way to please her, while also making the film he wants, but is forced to appease her as he still won't have the rights until she is fully satisfied.
Intercut throughout is another story, that of Travers' childhood in rural Australia, wherein lie the seeds of the stories she put to the page in Mary Poppins.  Colin Farrell stars as her father, a whimsical sap and the co-manager of a bank, where the daily stresses have driven him to drink, and his alcoholism threatens his job and the well-being of the entire family, including Travers' mother (Ruth Wilson, recently seen in Disney's THE LONE RANGER).
We all know that the movie MARY POPPINS did get made, and that it came to be considered one of the greatest films that Walt ever produced, becoming the studio's first ever major Academy Award contender.  Although this is mostly glossed over in a happier, but justified, resolution, Travers in actuality did not approve of the final product as it turned out, but it could be argued that the film works as something of a explanation and an apology to the intentions of P.L. Travers, but also a tribute to the final work, which may be displeasing to more cynical audiences, especially the Disney-hating faction who desire a full-blown expose of Disney sins, existent or non.  For most, however, both fans of MARY POPPINS and those who are not, it's not only a fascinating true-life story but solid drama as well.  In fact, you may want to pack some tissues.
I'm not a fan of director John Lee Hancock, whose filmography includes previous Disney films like THE ROOKIE (2002) and THE ALAMO (2004), as well as the Academy Award-winning 2009 hit, THE BLIND SIDE, and SAVING MR. BANKS doesn't exactly make me a fan of him even now.  Although in most cases he gets away with some very risky material here, narrowly avoiding offensive sentimentality (in exchange for tolerable sentimentality), his direction is, like his previous works, standard and unremarkable.  Hancock is mainly a steady hand to guide the film through (not too unlike MARY POPPINS' director, Robert Stevenson), while it emanates its greatness through strong material, a good script and stellar acting.  Although she'll have stiff competition, Emma Thompson will almost certainly garner an Academy Award nomination for her turn as Travers, and Tom Hanks will likely be nominated (possibly even win) for his

Tom Hanks as Walt Disney & Emma Thompson as P.L. Travers

portrayal of Walt Disney.
Thompson definitely has the toughest work here, playing a cantankerous and, frankly, unlikable woman, who is nonetheless sympathetic and realistic, with humor and pathos.  Hanks, on the other hand, is playing a far better known personality, and is also the first actor to portray Walt Disney as a character in a major film.  But Hanks is a case of positively perfect casting, with hair combed back, a mustache, suit and tie with his signature Smoke Tree Ranch tie pin, looking the part adequately, but not identically (that is a good thing, by the way), and playing the Midwestern vocal mannerisms with ease.  Hanks pressed the studio to allow him to smoke in scenes in order to accurately portray Walt, who was a notorious chain smoker off-camera, leading to his death from lung cancer in 1966, but because the studio heads felt that depiction of tobacco smoking would be unsuitable for a "family film," he's only allowed a scene of putting out a cigarette and having a brief fit of a smoker's cough in another scene.  Ironically, the depiction of Ms. Travers' father's alcoholism is plainly intact.

Annie Rose Buckley as "Ginty" Travers and Colin Farrell as Mr. Travers

It's yet another PG-13 rated Disney film, now practically commonplace for the studio that only just came to terms with the rating just ten years ago, but it's more family-friendly by far than their big budget adventure films like PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN.  The themes of alcoholism, attempted suicide and fatal illness make it problematic for the youngest audiences, but it's not aimed at them anyway.  It's probably fine for most kids eight years old and up.  It's potentially a good wear 'n' tear on the emotions though.
Interestingly, it's arguably the first serious Oscar contender released under the Disney label (i.e., not Touchstone, Hollywood Pictures or Miramax; all formerly awards season heavyweights) since MARY POPPINS itself.  I don't really expect it to win the big Best Picture award, although I'm sure it will get the nomination.  For acting and even possibly a Best Screenplay awards, SAVING MR. BANKS just might be a minor to moderate success in the coming awards season.
I did not expect to like this film as much as I did, but I would be interested in seeing it once again.  It's a surprisingly sophisticated (even with the sentimentality, yes) film about filmmaking and storytelling in general, with a wider appeal than most films about the filmmaking process.  It soars on a spirit of old-fashioned optimism through real-world imperfections and an exuberance of the storytelling profession.

25 Days: SURVIVING CHRISTMAS

SURVIVING CHRISTMAS    (COMEDY, 2004)
Directed by Mike Mitchell
Starring Ben Affleck, James Gandolfini, Christina Applegate, Catherine O'Hara, Josh Zuckerman, Bill Macy, Jennifer Morrison
PG-13 for sexual content, language and a brief drug reference.
Naughty or Nice?: Not Nice
Religious or Secular?: Mostly Secular
Cynical or Sentimental?: Cynical With a Cynically Sentimental Cop-Out
Holiday Relations: Christmas is Integral to the Plot
OVERALL: 1 out of 4

SURVIVING CHRISTMAS is one of the great bad Christmas movies.  It's just awful.  A starring-vehicle for Ben Affleck, it's a Christmas story laced throughout with jokes about incest, implicit mental illness, senior citizen suicide and pornography, among other things, all anchored by a Ben Affleck performance that ventures well into Nic Cage territory.
Affleck stars as millionaire advertising executive Drew Latham, introduced in a scene where he pitches an advertisement for alcoholic eggnog as a way to survive the holiday family gatherings.  But Drew doesn't have a family, so he presents his blue-blooded girlfriend, Missy Vanglider (Jennifer Morrison), with surprise plans for a vacation in Fiji over the holidays.  Naturally (not actually), she's insulted at the very concept and dumps him then and there.  In a panic, Drew locates his therapist (Stephen Root, in a cameo) going through airport security, and the good doctor advises him to list all of his grievances on paper and rituallistically burn them where they began at his childhood home; in other words, to burn stuff on a stranger's front lawn.  Drew does this, but gets a shovel to the head, courtesy of the current homeowner, Tom Valco (James Gandolfini).  When Drew wakes up, he is irrationally quick to offer the Valcos $250,000 to let him spend Christmas with them, as in the Valcos playing the role of Drew's family.  Tom takes the offer, to the chagrin of his wife Christine (Catherine O'Hara) and son Brian (Josh Zuckerman).  Drew kicks teenaged Brian out of his bedroom to sleep in the garage, with Drew taking Brian's bedroom for himself, and what's most distressing to Brian about his relocation is that he can't lock himself in his room all the time to look at pornography on the Internet.  Drew doen't just want the Valcos to take him in for Christmas though; he intends to make it all legal, bringing in his lawyer to draw up the conditions that include Mr. Valco wearing a Santa hat and responding to the title of "Dad" and Christine as "Mom," as well as there being other required "merriments" to be provided during Drew's stay.  To complete his fake Christmas family, Drew hires a local stage actor (Bill Macy) to play his "Doo-dah."  The Valcos oldest daughter, Alicia (Christina Applegate), is a late arrival to the holiday gathering though and throws a wrench into Drew's perfect holiday plans, which happen to not involve a sister, and Drew's plans are simply inflexible.  Although everyone hates Drew, Alicia is the only one who seems to be actively attempting to remove him, but after Drew eggs her into taking a toboggan ride down a mountain, Alicia's resolve proves to be worthless.  Over the holidays, Drew forces the family to join him for pictures with Santa Claus and to sing Christmas Carols as they put up a Christmas tree.  He makes Brian have a snowball fight with him, which mostly means pelting Brian in the face with a few snowballs.  He gets Christine to do a sexy photo shoot.  He pisses off Alicia with a grand romantic gesture.
When Missy finds out that Drew is spending Christmas with his "family," she shows up along with her own parents to meet them.  Of course, it's on this night that Drew's Doo-dah isn't able to make it, and his understudy shows up black and flirts with Christine, who's supposed to be his daughter.  Drew makes out with Alicia, who the Vangliders believe is his sister.  To top it all off, Brian's locked himself away in his room with white Doo-dah to look at nudie pics on his bedroom computer, and just as he accidentally brings up an explicit image of his mother flashing that orifice from whence he came (remember the sexy photo shoot?), the whole family and the Vangliders walk into the room to see.  Merry Christmas!
Luckily, in the end, the effort it takes to bring the traumatized Valco family back together isn't all that much, and it turns out that spending the holidays with Drew mends Tom and Christine's breaking marriage and gets Brian to quit porn forever.  Alicia even opens up to Drew and the two of them make out to the horror of the bypassing Vangliders.  The end.  Now go watch it.
Last February, Ben Affleck won his second Academy Award, Best Picture for ARGO, which he produced directed and starred in.  His failure to garner a nomination for Best Director was a major point of consternation for critics, and with his two other directorial features, GONE BABY GONE and THE TOWN (the latter of which, Affleck also starred in), all of Affleck's directorial efforts have received reviews reported on RottenTomatoes.com at more than 90% favorable.  SURVIVING CHRISTMAS is ranked at 7%.  Affleck first appeared big on the scene in 1997 as the star of Kevin Smith's controversial romantic comedy, CHASING AMY, and winning an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for GOOD WILL HUNTING, released in the same year.  Already an indie darling, Affleck then starred in movies like ARMAGEDDON, REINDEER GAMES (another bad Christmas movie), PEARL HARBOR, DAREDEVIL, GIGLI and SURVIVING CHRISTMAS; all terrible movies, little helped by Affleck's presence.  Furthermore, he was showing up frequently in the tabloids with Jennifer Lopez, making up the infamous "Bennifer," which culminated in the mega-flop, GIGLI.  People started calling him "Ass-fleck."  SURVIVING CHRISTMAS was an especially humorous embarrassment, lasting a theatrical run of only two months, releasing on October 22 and making its way to DVD on December 21.
For some reason, audiences just didn't take to the Christmas warmth of incest, pornography, senior citizen suicide (actually only in the prologue montage set to "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year," but the DVD has an alternate opening with way more suicide) and talk about a baby's unnaturally lengthy penis.  Go figure. 
SURVIVING CHRISTMAS is a very funny movie, but it's a bewildering sort of funny.  You don't want to laugh at something that's supposed to be funny, because it's so stupid, but it's also unintentionally stupid and creepy that it comes full circle to downright funny.  Go ahead and watch it please.  It's so bad.

Denny's THE HOBBIT-Inspired Menu

I'm not really a foodie, so this isn't my field, but I'm going to try my hand at a little bit of food criticism with Denny's Restaurants' new menu items inspired by this weekend's major new release, THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG.  One way or another, a guy's got to eat, so when I eat out, the most important point in deciding where to take my patronage is whether or not and which movies the eatery options are partnered up with.  Usually, it's Subway, because with Disney taking the lead in cross-promoting efforts and Subway being the only major restaurant chain to meet their stringent public relations-driven health standards, some of the rest have followed suit, such as last month's THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE.  Long gone are the days when McDonald's and Burger King could be counted on to offer an assortment of collectible kids' meals toys.  Atypical for a sit-down restaurant like Denny's, they've clinched a deal to co-market with Peter Jackson's epic fantasy trilogy THE HOBBIT, with a full sub-menu of items "inspired by" the films, with names like "Smaug's Fire Burger" and "Radagast's Red Velvet Pancake Puppies," in order to make the ordering experience as fun/awkward as possible for you, the valued customer.  Over the course of the past month, I've tried each and every of their Hobbit-inspired items, and discreetly tried to order each one with as little emphasis on the weird names as possible, while the local waitress have come to recognize me on a surname basis.  Now a fully informed customer, I can offer up my Middle-Earth cuisine savvy by the item.

Smaug's Fire Burger

Smaug's Fire Burger

The Fire Burger is the showpiece of THE HOBBIT Menu, the most prominently featured item and named for the titular villainous dragon in the film.  A hand-pressed hamburger patty made with a 7-pepper blend on a distinctive cheddar bun with "X-Sauce," Jalapeno Battle Caps, pepper jack cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, red onions and pickles.  Served with fries.
I'll admit that I cheated some by removing the Jalapeno Bottle Caps from the burger, not merely because they were especially spicy on an already spicy burger, but mainly because I think jalapenos taste disgusting.  For all the extra bits with the pepper blend, pepper jack cheese and "X-Sauce," it wasn't very spicy at all without the jalapenos, which I'm sure had leaked some into the burger anyway.  I love cheesburgers; their one of my very favorite things to get at diners and drive-thrus, but the Fire Burger, a patty made similarly to the rest of their burgers I assume (I am not a Denny's regular), was bland and unremarkable in anyway, despite being of substantial size.  The fries were available as Regular or Seasoned, and I chose the Seasoned Fries, which were similar in taste and texture to Arby's signature Curly Fries, albeit, not curled.  Smaug's Fire Burger wasn't actually bad, but it wasn't noteworthy or especially good either.
Quality: 2/5    Price: $8.49

Bilbo's Breakfast Feast
Named for the titular "Hobbit" of the film, this breakfast platter comes with Honey Cake French Toast, eggs scrambled with cheddar cheese, fresh spinach and mushrooms; a Hearty Breakfast Sausage, and hash browns.
This assortment of items is a bit of a mixed bag, with the best item being the Honey Cake French Toast, which don't really look like the honey-drizzled picture, but is thickly-sliced, toasted bread with a very sweet honey taste.  My least favorite is the scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese, spinach and mushrooms.  If you are a big fan of mushrooms, then this just may well be your thing, but I do not like mushrooms at all, and they are by far the most overwhelming taste in these eggs.  They're like mushroom-flavored mush.  Hash browns are pretty standard, and that's no complaint, while the Hearty Breakfast Sausage, a plump, bratwurst-sized breakfast sausage, is too spicy and greasy for my taste.
Quality: 2/5    Price: $7.99

Bilbo's Breakfast Feast

Build Your Own Hobbit Slam
Basically Denny's traditional Grand Slam Breakfast but with Hobbit Menu items included with the regular Grand Slam options.  Pick any four items out including bacon, sausage, oatmeal, pancakes, etc. or the new Hobbit Menu items, Honey Cake French Toast, Sweet Potato Pecan Pancakes and Hearty Breakfast Sausage.
Having covered the Honey Cake French Toast and Hearty Breakfast Sausage in the "Bilbo's Breakfast Feast," I'll stick with covering the Sweet Potato Pecan Pancakes.  Each order includes two sweet potato pancakes each, filled with glazed pecans (like chocolate chip pancakes but with pecans instead) and served with cinnamon sauce.  They're a "down-homey" sort of taste and not bad, but it is a tad strange to be chewing a pancake and find something crunchy like a pecan in there.
Quality: 3.5/5    Price: $6.59 (add $0.49 for each premium item)

Hobbit Hole Breakfast

Hobbit Hole Breakfast
A returning item from The Hobbit-inspired Menu made to accompany last year's THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY, the Hobbit Hole Breakfast comes with two cheddar bun halves, each with an egg fried into the center of it, as well as two slices of bacon and hash browns made with cheddar cheese and bits of bacon.
This was my favorite of the breakfast items, a hearty and substantial meal for simple tastes with lots of starch.  The eggs fried into the bun halves are especially interesting, made with the same sort of cheddar buns used for Smaug's Fire Burger, and the eggs fried right inside a hollowed-out section of the bun,
Quality: 4.5/5    Price: $6.99

Dwarves' Turkey & Dressing Dinner
Also returning from last year's menu is this Thanksgiving-style feast, by far the largest single order of all The Hobbit Menu options.  The main course consists of three large, approximately 1/2 inch-thick, slices of roast turkey breast meat, with a large portion of stuffing and mashed potatoes, all covered in turkey gravy, with a ramekin of cranberry sauce.  Additionally, it comes with a side of toasted dinner bread and two sides of your choice.  I chose a Caesar Salad and Dippable Vegetables.
Because of the amount of food that came with this one, I split it between two meals.  This item's major bragging point is how much food it includes.  The turkey was surprisingly good, with a honey-glazed taste and I really like the dinner bread too.
Quality: 4.5/5    Price: $8.99

DESSERTS & OTHER SIDES
Bard's Pumpkin Pie Milk Shake
Named for Luke Evans' character in the film and apparently made with actual pumpkin pie and vanilla ice cream, this is a fairly typical pumpkin pie-style milk shake, except that it also has the bits of pie crust mixed in as well.  It's very sweet and creamy and not really my thing, but a decent milk shake one way or another.
Quality: 2.5/5    Price: $3.79

Bowman's Brew Pumpkin Coffee
Also named for Luke Evans' character in the film, this Denny's Bold Signature Diner Roast mixed with pumpkin pie flavor and cream was by a sizable margin my least favorite item.  My taste in coffee isn't very refined, nor do I drink it often, so it's not like I'm an aficionado or anything, but this stuff tasted nothing like "pumpkin pie" and was a very bitter, burnt taste to choke down.
Quality: 1/5    Price: $2.59

Radagast's Red Velvet Pancake Puppies
Another encore from the last year's menu, these hushpuppies are made from red velvet batter mixed with white chocolate chips then deep-fried in bite-sized balls, dusted in powdered sugar and served with a dish of cream cheese icing to dip them in.
Served with six Pancake Puppies to an order, this rather rich dessert is best in moderate to small helpings, and are very good, but become decreasingly so as you go on.  Crunchy, doughy and very sweet, this is one worth sharing with someone.
Quality: 4/5    Price: $1.99

Radagast's Red Velvet Pancake Puppies Sundae
Made with three Red Velvet Pancake Puppies as explained above (the menu says three, but I could swear mine came with five), drizzled with cream cheese ice cream and served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  Again, very rich, but not as shareable now, but also in a slightly more controlled portion and balanced by the cold ice cream.
Quality: 4/5    Price: $2.00

Elven Woodland Pies
Really just Denny's traditional Pumpkin and Pecan pies.  Nothing really remarkable about either.  They're just standard pies, available by the slice or by the whole and served with an option of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
Quality: 2.5/5    Price: $2.00 per slice or $12.00 for the whole pie