Monthly Movie Preview: September 2014

September is one of the dullest months in the year for a movie fan, and this year's may be even slower than average.  The summer movie season has ended, usually with a string of failures in August, and generally you want start to see the earliest awards season fare (the earliest usually being the more mainstream) until October.  Meanwhile, there aren't even any big movies coming to home video because most of the releases are from the typically slow previous April and the flops from May.  High profile theatrical releases are especially short in supply this September, where the lineup is mostly comprised of thrillers adapted from previous sources (BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP, A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES, THE EQUALIZER) and the likeliest contender for #1 movie of the month is a HUNGER GAMES rip-off, THE MAZE RUNNER, although even that will probably be minor.  In a very dead-looking month, the most interesting release is THE BOXTROLLS, a stop-motion animated fantasy from the makers of CORALINE and PARANORMAN

September 5th
THE IDENTICAL  (DRAMA)
Directed by Dustin Marcellino; Starring: Blake Rayne, Ashley Judd, Seth Green, Amanda Crew, Ray Liotta
Rated PG for thematic material and smoking.
This movie was listed as an upcoming wide release, but I wasn't familiar with it at all, so I had to do a bit of digging.  This is the kind of movie that they don't bother with advertising- you've got to find them.  But the best thing it seems to have going for it is that people don't know about it.  Made by a Nashville-based Christian company whose mission statement is to create films with "redeeming value," this musical-drama is about a preacher's son in the 1950s who defies his father's wishes to become a rock 'n' roll singer.  He begins doubling for a famous rock star, and even though it would technically constitute a big "spoiler," the official website and preview reveal that, yes, they are twins, and this eventually leads him to God (the Christian one).  This isn't a movie, it's a sermon, and an aggressively cheesy-looking one at that.  It's a shame how far GOODFELLAS-star Ray Liotta has fallen, but I guess it's because he has a weird mouth.  Independent Christian cinema is burgeoning, but without better films, it'll never break out into the mainstream.

September 5th
FORREST GUMP  (COMEDY-DRAMA)
Directed by Robert Zemeckis; Starring: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Mykelti Williamson, Haley Joel Osment
Rated PG-13 for drug use, some sensuality and war violence.
The divisive #1 Movie of 1994 and winner of the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor returns to the big screen, specifically, the biggest screens for a special 20th anniversary IMAX release.  When I say it's divisive, it isn't so much that audiences are split between whether it's good or bad, but rather, there's an atypically heated split over whether it's good or great.  Whether you believe Forrest is an exemplary conservative role model or subversive and liberal tale of historic irony, FORREST GUMP is a fine example of Cinema Americana, and if its one of your favorite films, there's no better way to watch a movie in theaters than IMAX.

September 12th

DOLPHIN TALE 2  (FAMILY/DRAMA)
Directed by Charles Martin Smith; Starring: Harry Connick Jr., Ashley Judd, Nathan Gamble, Cozi Zuehlsdorff, Kris Kristofferson, Morgan Freeman
Rated PG for some mild thematic elements.
What I remember best about the first DOLPHIN TALE is that it wasn't quite as bad as the previews made it look and that it had an amusing amount of gimmicky 3D shots for a truth-based movie about building a prosthetic tail for a dolphin.  The previews for the sequel also look dreadful, and I'm not sure why this film isn't going straight to home video, because that's exactly what this whole thing resembles.  It's basically a big fat commercial for the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, where the film takes place and was filmed along with the aquarium's star resident, Winter, a bottlenose dolphin with a prosthetic tail.  In this film, also based on true events, Winter's depressed and the veterinarian diagnoses him as horny, so they have to get him a dolphin girlfriend.  That's how they'd describe it if it were a comedy, and I might be more interested in seeing that.  The film also features an appearance by Bethany Hamilton, the real-life inspiration for the extra-cheesy 2011 family drama SOUL SURFER.

September 12th
NO GOOD DEED  (THRILLER)
Directed by Sam Miller; Starring: Idris Elba, Taraji P. Henson, Leslie Bibb, Kate del Castillo, Henry Simmons
Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence, menace, terror, and for language.
A former District Attorney turned stay-at-home mother of two faces off against an escaped convict/sociopath when he shows up at her house asking to use the phone.  It's a little troubling that this film was supposed to be released last October (release delays like this sometimes suggest a lack of faith by the film studio), but as a starring vehicle for Idris Elba (PACIFIC RIM, PROMETHEUS) it has potential.  Watch the reviews on this one as well- it could lean either way.

September 19th
THE MAZE RUNNER  (SCI-FI/ACTION-THRILLER)
Directed by Wes Ball: Starring: Dylan O'Brien, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Kaya Scodelario, Will Poulter, Patricia Clarkson
Rated PG-13 for thematic elements and intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, including some disturbing images.
In yet another adaptation of a young adult science fiction action-thriller novel, a group of teens wake up to find themselves trapped in an expansive maze riddled with numerous perils and no memory of how they got there or who they are.  Racing to survive in the labyrinth, they piece together the clues of their past to discover their purpose and the way out.  Based on a best-selling novel published a year after The Hunger Games, the advertising has showcased some grabbing visuals, but has done nothing to suggest that it can overcome its greatest obstacle: to prove it's not a rip-off.  If it can do as much as that (and other films with much more distinct plots have failed to do so, cough, DIVERGENT, cough), then it will at least be a minor success.

September 19th
TUSK  (HORROR) 
Directed by Kevin Smith; Starring: Justin Long, Michael Parks, Haley Joel Osment, Genesis Rodriguez, Johnny Depp
Rated R for some disturbing violence/gore, language and sexual content. 
Justin Long stars as a podcaster who travels to the backwoods of Manitoba to interview an eccentric old seaman, but his then held hostage by his subject who intends to surgically turn Long into a walrus.  Nope, you did not misread.  It's kind of like THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE, but instead of sewing peoples' mouths to peoples' butts to create one digestive tract, the mad scientist is turning a man into a walrus.  I'm a little iffy on Kevin Smith myself, but the concept is... intriguing.  Also, Haley Joel Osment, the Academy Award-nominated child actor from THE SIXTH SENSE, co-stars as Long's best bud, and he's significantly weightier, so that's a win right there.  Probably won't make it out to the theater for this one though.

September 19th
A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES  (CRIME-DRAMA)
Directed by Scott Frank; Starring: Liam Neeson, Dan Stevens, Boyd Holbrook, Ruth Wilson, Sebastian Roche, Whitney Able, Stephanie Andujar
Rated R for strong violence, disturbing images, language and brief nudity.
Liam Neeson, apparently typecast forever as the gritty, hard-boiled badass, stars as a disgraced former cop turned private detective who's hired by a drug lord to find his kidnapped wife, but when she's found murdered, he starts tracking down the killers.  Scott Frank hasn't directed much to date and is best known for writing THE WOLVERINE and MINORITY REPORT, but this is clearly going for a dark, violent neo-noir vibe.  It'll probably be a bit smarter than TAKEN fans are used to, but as it's adapted from one of a series of books featuring Neeson's character of P.I. Matt Scudder, a potential series may be in order.

September 26th
THE BOXTROLLS  (ANIMATED/FANTASY) 
Directed by Graham Annable & Anthony Stacchi; Featuring the Voices of: Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Ben Kingsley, Elle Fanning, Toni Collette, Jared Harris, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost
Rated PG for action, some peril and mild rude humor. 

Based on the children's novel Here Be Monsters!, THE BOXTROLLS is the story of an orphan boy dubbed Eggs, who lives with his adopted family of underground-dwelling, garbage-collecting creatures called Boxtrolls (they wear cardboard boxes), but an evil exterminator named Archibald Snatcher (voiced by Sir Ben Kingsley no less!) has them in his sights and Eggs has to help save his oddball family.  This may not be a sure thing (unfortunately, it's very unlikely to make much of a mark at the U.S. box office), but there's undeniable charms to the idea and after the one-two punch of the good and very chilling CORALINE and the spectacular and heartwarming PARANORMAN, I'm more than willing to give the stop-motion animation wizards at Laika some credit.

September 26th
THE EQUALIZER  (ACTION-THRILLER) 
Directed by Antoine Fuqua; Starring: Denzel Washington, Chloe Grace Moretz, Marton Csokas, Melissa Leo, Haley Bennett, Vladimir Kulich, Robert Wahlberg, Bill Pullman
Rated R for strong bloody violence and language throughout, including some sexual references.
Another TAKEN wannabe, but potentially one of the more entertaining ones, TRAINING DAY-director Antoine Fuqua's adaptation of the eighties television series of the same name reunites him with star Denzel Washington as an ex-black ops commando now laying low as a worker at a home improvement store, but in secret fights crime as a vigilante and helps the victims of criminals.  When a teenage prostitute (Chloe Grace Moretz) he's befriended at the diner he visits as his off-hours haunt is hospitalized but who he assumes are mere pimps, he takes the men out and discovers that he's declared a one-man war on the Russian mob.  On the one hand, it looks like an unintentionally funny combination of TAKEN, TAXI DRIVER and James Gunn's SUPER, but on the other hand, there's a schlocky sort of appeal here.

Summer 2014: The Full Report

Something changed in 2012 when a little movie called THE HUNGER GAMES grossed $408 million, opening to gigantic $152.5 million over one weekend in March.  Something clicked, and the Hollywood studios realized that they could release their big-budget "tentpole" event movies, usually reserved for the "Summer Movie Season" (May-August) and a few for the "Holiday Movie Season" (Thanksgiving-Christmas), just about anytime they want to and still make prime season dollars.  It's not like it was the first time a non-summer, non-holiday season movie had made blockbuster dollars, but THE HUNGER GAMES was huge.  Now, major brands like Marvel releases movies like THOR: THE DARK WORLD and CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER in the months November and April, respectively, and strike gold, with the added benefit of less competition than they would face in the busier summer months.  This has led to a lot of discussion though about whether the summer movie season still begins in May.  Of course it still begins in May!  You might as well argue that it's not Christmas just because there aren't presents.  Without presents, it may be a pretty lame Christmas, but it's still Christmas  When movies of summer blockbuster caliber are released in March, that doesn't mean that March is now part of the summer movie season, it just means that March is now more awesome.  But the summer movie season still runs from the first weekend in May to the end of August, or at least until the big movies stop coming, whichever comes first.

NOTES ON THE 2014 SUMMER MOVIE SEASON

• Kicking off the summer, THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 was one-part ridiculously charming and two-parts a showcase of the worst possibilities of a post-AVENGERS multi-character crossover attempt.  The over-the-top fun of the opening action sequence and the beautiful interactions between Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker and Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy were so good, making the bad things so much more infuriating, because we know they could do better, if not for the misguided "franchise-building."  Not technically a huge disappointment, because expectations weren't terribly high to begin with, but definitely a disappointment in its own conflict.  It did introduce the schadenfroh pleasure of the "Spider-Man Shuffle," when a studio, in this case Sony, is so sure of a franchise that they schedule multiple installments for the next several years, only to shuffle those around after a film under-performs, in this case, THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2.
• X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST was the best lot of superheroes in a summer unusually low on superheroes, a summer staple for the past decade.  Imperfect, but an impressively-mounted science fiction epic with powerful emotional resonance, DAYS OF FUTURE PAST edged out even the late-summer smash hit GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, with as much humor and character as that film, but better action.
• MALEFICENT, the latest in Walt Disney Pictures' mining of their legendary animated fairy tales canon for live-action, special effects-heavy blockbusters, was better than it was given credit for, but admittedly, I was overly generous in my initial review.  My expectations were fairly low, but my first viewing was an unexpectedly pleasant experience, and while my head was saying 3 out of 4 stars, my heart was saying 3.5 out of 4 stars, and wanting to emphasize my positive feelings about it, I went with the latter.  On a second viewing, I might have gone as low as 2.5 out of 4 stars, but I still say it was a harmless diversion, and it's not like the 1959 animated so-called classic was all that much better outside of its technical craft.
• June opened with a great sci-fi action film characteristic of summer cinema and a comparatively small teen romance atypical of summer cinema, with the former failing terribly at the U.S. box office and the latter over-performing significantly.  The former was EDGE OF TOMORROW, a film that I might just as soon have written off but wound up loving (see "Best Movies of Summer 2014"), and the latter was THE FAULT IN OUR STARS, which I was very eager to see, but was a little underwhelmed by.
• Two sequels released on the same day, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 and 22 JUMP STREET, were both abnormally good sequels.  22 JUMP STREET, the box office winner, was a raunchy and thoroughly self-aware R-rated comedy, and HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 underperformed (you can still expect another come 2016) but improved handily on the overrated original as a darker, more widely-scoped adventure.
• Currently the highest-grossing film of the summer (it's grossed $1 billion internationally despite under-performing slightly in the U.S., making a tempting case for "American exceptionalism"), TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION was the worst movie of the summer, beating out another Michael Bay-related production, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES, for the title with its obscene 165 minute running time.
• July was dreadfully dull, with the lone bright spot of DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (unless you were near a theater playing the independent film BOYHOOD), which turned the big special effect-driven blockbuster formula on its head with well-constructed characters and striking visuals.
• GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY came in and rescued the summer season as a quality sci-fi action-comedy that performed spectacularly at the box office and is currently on track to out-gross not only TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION to be the #1 movie of the summer, but also Marvel's last film, CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER, to be the #1 movie of the year, at least until THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART 1 comes out in November.

THE BEST MOVIES OF SUMMER 2014
1. BOYHOOD  (DRAMA) 
Directed by Richard Linklater
Starring: Ellar Coltrane, Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, Lorelei Linklater
Rated R for language including sexual references, and for teen drug and alcohol use.
Most people won't consider this a real "summer movie," seeing as it's actually a low budget independent drama that's only been gradually expanding from five theaters to several hundred currently, but it's a summer independent movie and shouldn't be passed up.  It has one heck of hook, having been filmed over the course of twelve years from 2002 through 2014, with writer/director Richard Linklater reuniting the same cast, led by Ellar Coltrane who is seven-years-old in the first scene and nineteen-years-old in the final scene.  In addition, the rest of the cast, including Patricia Arquette as his mother, Ethan Hawke as his father and Linklater's daughter Lorelei Linklater as his sister are followed as they change and grow throughout the years.  It just may be one of the greatest behind-the-scenes stories in the history of modern cinema, but against all the odds, it justifies its audacious production as an incredible and remarkable, epic and yet intimate drama the likes of which we aren't likely to see again.  It's almost three hours long, and not a minute of it is boring, but it isn't until you've reached the journey's end and can look back on it, having witnessed over a decade of life illustrated in the little moments, that you realize just how exhilarating and satisfying it is.  FORREST GUMP turns 20 this year and is even getting a 20th Anniversary re-issue in IMAX, and in contrast to that film's fairy tale mentality of man experiencing history in retrospect, what makes BOYHOOD so important is the light it shines on history as its being discovered.  There are no on-screen subtitles to indicate the year each chapter takes place in, but the details make it clear regardless, and as all those details (excepting the soundtrack, with songs corresponding to the given years) are being filmed as those then-current events were current.  We aren't looking at the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the 2008 Presidential Elections or the supposed end of the Star Wars film series depicted in hindsight, where it can be milked for exploitative nostalgic value.  It's an opportunity to experience our recent past once again, as it was happening, in a grand epic narrative filled with rich, evolving and endearing characters.

2. EDGE OF TOMORROW  (SCI-FI/ACTION) 
Directed by Doug Liman
Starring: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, language and brief suggestive material.
Not that I have anything against Tom Cruise, but I wasn't expecting much from EDGE OF TOMORROW at the start of the summer.  Director Doug Liman hadn't done anything really good in a long while, and Tom Cruise's recent work had been a bit lukewarm, but goodness, both were at the top of their game and had an ace-in-the-hole with Emily Blunt as the "Full Metal Bitch."  A cross between ALIENS and GROUNDHOG DAY, with a dash of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, EDGE OF TOMORROW, formerly ALL YOU NEED IS KILL, was the biggest and best surprise of the summer.  Tom Cruise gives a surprisingly humorous performance, Emily Blunt is the biggest badass of the summer, and the action showpiece, a D-Day-style battle on a French beach between the legitimately nightmarish alien "Mimics" and a futuristic Earth military is astounding and startling.  Plus, it's an awful lot of fun.

3. DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES  (SCI-FI/ACTION-THRILLER) 
Directed by Matt Reeves
Starring: Andy Serkis, Jason Clarke, Toby Kebbell, Gary Oldman, Keri Russell
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and brief strong language.
It was a little frustrating that DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES's really cool marketing wasn't particularly representative of the film itself, and I'd still really like to see that grand battle for dominion of the planet, but once you get past that, it's an unusually intellectual blockbuster that justifies its incredible visual effects.  Andy Serkis is still the King of Motion-Capture Performing, having found in Caesar his greatest role since Gollum/Smeagol in THE LORD OF THE RINGS, and his fellow mo-cap performers don't disappoint either.  The sci-fi "world-building" here is top-notch, but what most makes the film remarkable is its well-rounded main players, especially the quartet of Andy Serkis' Ceasar, Toby Kebbell's Koba, Jason Clarke's Malcolm and Gary Oldman's Dreyfus, all four of whom are sympathetic and given understandable motivations, even in the midst of their conflicts.  There are still a lot of flaws, but nothing too major, and all mostly overshadowed by the film's strengths.  It's equal parts sci-fi action blockbuster and character drama, and in today's world, it certainly doesn't hurt to represent an anti-gun opinion, a stance which DAWN OF... is surprisingly bold in.

WORST MOVIES OF THE SUMMER 
TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION  (SCI-FI/ACTION) 
Directed by Michael Bay
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, Jack Reynor, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, language and brief innuendo.
When you pass the 2-hour mark, you surrender your option to the "dumb fun" defense.  Ninety minutes is the optimum running time for dumb fun, but if it's really fun and not too dumb, a 2-hour running time can be justified.  TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION runs a mind-boggling two hours and forty-five minutes, and has something around a 15:1 ratio of dumb to fun.  There's very little I think to defend director Michael Bay with, especially when his films are not only less-than-entertaining, but they're also full of dreadfully irresponsible role models, racism, sexism and homophobia, all while catering to an impressionable young male audience.  I can't even give a very strong defense for him as a director of action scenes, because for every good one, he has a few unhinged, bombastic, convoluted ones.  But I don't even feel like he cares about this film; it feels a like a checklist of Michael Bay trademarks been checked off with indifference.  It's not even as remarkably bad as REVENGE OF THE FALLEN, probably the worst major blockbuster of the last twenty years at least; it's just routine bad.  The whole thing is bewildering.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES  (ACTION/FANTASY) 
Directed by Jonathan Liebesman
Starring: Megan Fox, Will Arnett, William Fichtner, Noel Fisher, Alan Ritchson
Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence.
Michael Bay's been getting a lot of flack from critics for this newest iteration of the mutated teenage turtles who are ninjas, but I don't think that's quite fair.  Bay's responsible for TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION, and that's bad enough, and while he acted as producer on the 2014 TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES and brought down hellfire from the internet fanboys for trying to make the Ninja Turtles into aliens, this doesn't strike me as Bay's brand of crap.  It does not surprise me, however, that this came from director Jonathan Liebesman, the man behind WRATH OF THE TITANS.  The real shame is, while I knew well-enough that TRANSFORMERS 4 was essentially a lost cause, I actually had some hope for NINJA TURTLES.  I wasn't really into them as a kid, so I have no emotional attachment to them, but the previews looked kind of cool and I loved the cross-marketing campaign, such as Ninja Turtle Crush pop cans.  But this movie failed on almost every level, and the only saving grace was its relatively brief 100-minute running time.  The turtles are hideous and unpleasant to look at, having fallen into some bizarre uncharted territory of the "uncanny valley," Megan Fox is a bland leading lady, the camera is wildly and unnecessarily shaky and frenetic, all the jokes fall dead flat and the script was obviously subjected to heavy re-writes during shooting, because there are major inconsistencies and ridiculous shortcuts.  I went in with good faith and left actively disliking this movie.

MOST DISAPPOINTING MOVIE 
GODZILLA
Directed by Gareth Edwards
Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Bryan Cranston, Elizabeth Olsen, Sally Hawkins, Juliette Binoche
PG-13 for intense sequences of destruction, mayhem and creature violence.
It's not that GODZILLA was bad, because it's not a bad movie, but it should have been a lot more.  It's a good movie with a crippling flaw- if you're going to go "slow burn" with your big-budget monster movie, you damn well better have some interesting characters, and this movie did not provide in that department.  The character who may have been an interesting lead turned out to be a red herring, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, or rather his character, was bland stock military character.  To be fair, there's a lot to be praised in this reboot of GODZILLA, and assuming they learn from their mistakes, the upcoming sequel (scheduled for 2018) will be worthwhile.  By the final act, there's a lot of payoff for our patience, but I'd just as soon skip the human drama if it isn't going to add anything.

BEST SUMMER COMEDY
22 JUMP STREET  (ACTION-COMEDY) 
Directed by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller
Starring: Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube, Wyatt Russell, Peter Stormare, Amber Stevens, Jillian Bell
Rated R for language throughout, sexual content, drug material, brief nudity and some violence.
NEIGHBORS was a really funny and pleasant release early in the summer, which was largely disappointing, but I've got to give 22 JUMP STREET the edge for ingenuity.  From the title itself to the self-mocking vignettes that play with the end credits, 22 JUMP STREET is a rare worthy comedy sequel.  Parodying buddy cop movie, blockbuster filmmaking, romantic-comedies, media franchises and just about everything it is or can get its hands on, the film's directing team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (also responsible for THE LEGO MOVIE, CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS and 21 JUMP STREET) have essentially written themselves a blank check for audience and studio credit on whatever they want to tackle next.  And it isn't even the best movie they've put out this year.

THE SUMMER'S HIDDEN GEM 
SNOWPIERCER  (SCI-FI/ACTION-THRILLER) 
Directed by Joon-ho Bong
Starring: Chris Evans, Kang-ho Song, Ah-sung Ko, Jamie Bell, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Ed Harris, Alison Pill, Ewen Bremner
Rated R for violence, language and drug content. 
The Weinstein Company, which acquired the rights to North American distribution for this South Korean film, demanded substantial edits and the addition of a narration before it played in theaters, but when director Joon-ho Bong refused to make the alterations, the Weinstein Company agreed to release it in its uncut form but only in eight theaters, eventually expanded to a few hundred.  But, it was also made available on VOD services (digital rental).  Despite the unceremonious release, there's nothing that separates SNOWPIERCER from the better movies playing in theaters everywhere.  Based on a French graphic novel, the film is primarily in English with a mostly English-speaking cast, led by Chris Evans (best known as Steve Rogers/Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe), with Jamie Bell (the title character in THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN), Tilda Swinton (known for THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE) and John Hurt (recently seen in HERCULES).  Set in 2031, after a last-ditch attempt to slow global warming inadvertently started another ice age, killing all life on Earth, save for the passengers on a lone, massive train, the Snowpiercer, which circumvents the globe with a perpetual-motion engine, piercing through the snow and ice on its tracks.  The society of the Snowpiercer inhabitants has formed a class system, with those living closer to the engine living in opulence, while those at the tail end are impoverished and suppressed by the cruelty of the upper class.  But the tail end passengers are ready to stage another rebellion, and if they can take over the engine, they can take over the train.  In the tradition of classical science fiction, SNOWPIERCER is a richly detailed, heavily layered commentary on our own society's problems, and nuanced in its judgement, asking hard questions without easy answers.  The action is sometimes stunning and often exhilarating, and the cast is top-notch.  This isn't a cheap little movie or an arthouse film with limited appeal; there's as much and more to enjoy in SNOWPIERCER as there is in any big summer blockbuster, and it'll make you think.

Note: Because I'm not a professional film critic or writer, this article is subject to the films that I, as a private film-goer and theater projectionist, was able to see this summer.  As a disclaimer, these are the summer releases that I'm including in my consideration:
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2
NEIGHBORS
GODZILLA
X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST
MALEFICENT
THE FAULT IN OUR STARS
EDGE OF TOMORROW
22 JUMP STREET
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2
TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION
SNOWPIERCER
DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
BOYHOOD
PLANES: FIRE & RESCUE
HERCULES
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES

A Career in Profile: Robin Williams, 1951-2014

This took a little longer to put together than I had expected, so plenty of people have already had their say, but in recognition of one of the great film careers of the past few decades, I'd like to put my two cents in as well.  With the early half of my childhood taking place through the 1990s, the peak decade of Robin Williams' career, he was one of the few celebrities a child may age had any idea existed.  He was the guy in HOOK, JUMANJI, FLUBBER, BICENTENNIAL MAN and the voice of the Genie in ALADDIN.  Although it's often regarded as Steven Spielberg's worst film, HOOK was one of the first movies I remember watching (it came out in theaters only a few weeks after I was born, but the memories I refer to are of watching the VHS tape at home) and I remain very fond of, especially for Williams' performance, which is very underrated. 
Like most, I had a moment of disbelief when I saw that Robin Williams had died this past Monday.  As stunned as I was by the news, I hadn't registered what a blow it would be on a cultural level, possibly the talked-about celebrity passing since Michael Jackson died five years ago.  Williams hadn't been as active or as bankable a star as he was over a decade ago, but his wide-ranging work still stands fresh in the public mind.  Unfortunately, a lot of the online discussion has shown more of the shortcomings of human understanding as usual, and too many people have a very strong opinion on the issue of suicide.  We shouldn't judge though; it's always a tragedy that a fellow human being would be in such despair that they felt they had no better choice than to end their life prematurely, a greater tragedy is that we as human beings and as a human society were unable to convince the victim otherwise.  It's more important to value a life than to understand or moralize over a person's choice.  Williams may not have died the death of a soldier, he may have lived a flawed and troubled life, but his impact on us as a culture has been indelible, as an actor, a comedian and a philanthropist.


Film Career Highlights

As Popeye, opposite Shelley Duvall in POPEYE.

• 1980- POPEYE  (MUSICAL/FANTASY, PG): Legendary director Robert Altman's live action-musical adaptation of the classic cartoon character "Popeye the Sailor Man", an expensive joint venture between Paramount Pictures and Walt Disney Productions, first brought Robin Williams to the big screen, but without the star power that he would later wield (he was best-known at the time as the alien Mork from the television series Happy Days and its spin-off Mork & Mindy) and a divided critical response, the film went down in history as a flop.  Despite its reputation, like many of today's box office flops, POPEYE did not actually lose money, but did not make enough to warrant the effort on behalf of the studios.  Playing the iconic Popeye showcased Williams as a "living cartoon" though, speaking through half his mouth with a high-pitched, yet gruff voice, one eye squinted shut and a pair of anchor-tattooed prosthetics to make his forearms bulge.  His performance was not on the manic level that he would later become known for, but in retrospect is a fascinating starting point for his film career.

As Adrian Cronauer in GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM.

• 1987- GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM  (COMEDY-DRAMA, R): Following a stay at a rehabilitation clinic to rid himself of an addiction to cocaine (the substance Williams described as "God's way of saying you're making too much money"), Williams pay grade took a dive, making him a viable option for Disney, a studio which built a reputation in the late eighties and early nineties for penny-pinching by hiring burnt-out or on-the-rise talents for modest pay while providing a comeback or breakout role for their stars.  Directed by Barry Levinson, GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM was inspired by the true story of Adrian Cronauer, who worked as a DJ for the U.S. Armed Forces Radio Service.  As Cronauer, Williams broadcasts to the U.S. troops during the Vietnam War and becomes popular with the troops thanks to the same unhinged, irreverent style that aggravates his superiors, as he eventually brushes with the horrors of the war around him.  The film was a huge box office success, critically-acclaimed and earned Williams, who improvised his "On Air" scenes, his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor (the award went to Michael Douglas for his iconic performance as Gordon Gekko in WALL STREET).  Unfortunately, GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM is a largely overrated film and not one of Williams' better performances, given too much leash here to improvise, which usually descends into a manic absence of rhyme or reason.  This film also introduces a trope that would factor heavily into Williams' career through the nineties, which was succinctly put by the character Abed in the cult-favorite sitcom Community, "In every movie, there's an authority figure that gets mad at him for making people laugh."
 
• 1989- DEAD POETS SOCIETY  (DRAMA, PG): Williams received a second Academy

  

  As John Keating in DEAD POETS SOCIETY.

  Award nomination for Best Actor in as many years for his role as John Keating, the new English teacher at a conservative New England prep school in 1959 (the award went to Daniel Day-Lewis for MY LEFT FOOT).  Directed by Peter Weir and yet another Disney production (like GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM, released through Disney's mature audiences label "Touchstone Pictures"), DEAD POETS SOCIETY was a critical and commercial hit, winning an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and making popular catchphrases out of "O Captain! My Captain!" in reference to the Walt Whitman poem and "Carpe diem.  Seize the day, boys.  Make your lives extraordinary."  It's oft-imitated, pious and a little trite, the story of an eccentric teacher who inspires his young male students to break out of their stifled upbringings, but it's also the best of its breed.
 

• 1990- AWAKENINGS  (DRAMA, PG-13): Williams branched out into something even more dramatic than he had before starring alongside acting titan Robert De Niro in this truth-based medical drama.  As Dr. Malcolm Sayer (a fictionalized version of the real-life Dr. Oliver Sacks), Williams is a doctor who discovers a new drug in 1969 that he administers to catatonic victims of a 1917-1928 encephalitis lethargica epidemic, including De Niro's Leonard Lowe, who awakens decades after he first succumbed to the disease as a child, finding himself in a whole different world than he last knew.  Williams earned fourth Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor.

• 1991- THE FISHER KING  (COMEDY-DRAMA, R) & HOOK  (FANTASY/ADVENTURE, PG): Williams teamed up with two top-of-the-line auteurs in 1991: Terry Gilliam and Steven Spielberg.  Having worked previously with Gilliam in a minor role on THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN three years before, he played a much meatier role in THE FISHER KING as a deluded homeless man who bonds with the has-been radio shock jock whose thoughtless response to an on-air phone call resulted in the mass shooting that killed Williams' wife.  A nice balance for Williams' manic comedic persona and intensity, the role won Williams yet another Academy Award nomination for Best Actor (the award went to Anthony Hopkins for his iconic performance as Hannibal Lecter in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS).  Also, he did full-frontal nudity in the film, if that's what your into.  He then headlined one of the biggest films of year in Spielberg's HOOK, which in contrast, was critically-maligned, but I have my own strong opinions on.

• 1992- ALADDIN  (ANIMATED-MUSICAL, G) & TOYS  (FANTASY/COMEDY-DRAMA, PG-13): 1992 found Williams at the peak of his powers as a commercial draw, but found him in two sharply contrasted films, one was one of the biggest films of his career and arguably his most memorable role, while the other was a bizarre box office disaster.  In gratitude to Disney for reinvigorating his career post-rehab with GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM, Williams agreed to voice the Genie in the studio's animated feature film ALADDIN for the minimum fee required by the Screen Actors Guild, vastly less than his usual payment.  In 1992, Williams also reunited with Barry Levinson, the director of GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM on Levinson's long-gestating passion project TOYS, scheduled for release only a month after ALADDIN.  In the interest of protecting the risky TOYS against the formidable Disney marketing machine, Williams agreed to do ALADDIN on the stipulation that his name not be used to market the film and that his character take up no more than 25% of any poster art.  Disney violated the spirit of the agreement however, by emphasizing the Genie nonetheless in the marketing, and while technically not taking up more than 25% of space on the posters, the Genie was displayed with brazenly more prominence.  Williams' unadvertised voice work as the Genie became one of his best-known roles, finally melding the famously "animated" actor's voice and heavily-improvised lines, with high-energy animation, but his relationship soured with the Disney company after that.  TOYS, a really weird and wildly uneven fantasy comedy-drama, starred Williams as the son of an eccentric toy factory owner who has to stop his evil uncle from using the factory to build military toys.  It's a visually sumptuous movie and an incredibly interesting watch, but undoubtedly a disaster, as were the box office returns.

  

  As Leslie Zevo (right), opposite LL Cool J (center) and Michael Gambon (left) in TOYS.

As Daniel Hillard/Euphegenia Doubtfire in MRS. DOUBTFIRE.

• 1993- MRS. DOUBTFIRE  (COMEDY, PG-13): Considered for inflation, Chris Columbus' melodramatic family comedy MRS. DOUBTFIRE was the highest-grossing film of Williams' career.  Playing an affectionate father who goes to extremes to be with his children more after his wife divorces him, Williams stole the show in a drag getup with a grandmotherly English accent.  Successful as it was, a sequel had been announced just last April, but upon recent re-watching, it's not good.  The story of a man who stalks his ex-wife and disguises himself in a bodysuit and makeup to be with his kids is just a little too close to the side of creepy, and Columbus' trademark treacle has never been thicker.

• 1997- GOOD WILL HUNTING  (DRAMA, R) & FLUBBER  (FAMILY-COMEDY, PG): With the famous Harvey Weinstein Oscar-hunting machine behind him, Williams finally won an Academy Award in the category of Best Supporting Actor for his role in GOOD WILL HUNTING, in which he played the therapist of a young but brilliant delinquent in a deferred prosecution agreement.  While a good performance, it wasn't his best, but it was just Williams' year at long last, and although many would argue the case for his competition, it just wasn't as fierce in that category that year.  Having previously resolved his earlier dispute with Disney, Williams also starred in FLUBBER, a lame but commercially successful remake of Disney's 1961 film THE ABSENT-MINDED PROFESSOR co-written and produced by John Hughes.  Williams would have another falling out with Disney over the studios budget cuts and marketing of the 1999 Chris Columbus film BICENTENNIAL MAN, which bombed at the box office.

As Sy Parrish in ONE HOUR PHOTO.

• 2002- INSOMNIA  (CRIME-DRAMA, R) & ONE HOUR PHOTO  (DRAMA/THRILLER, R): His box office clout having decreased significantly after the nineties, Williams began appearing in smaller, independently-produced films, more dramatically-based than his mainstream comedy.  In 2002, he gave two of his very best performances, both as disturbed criminals, but not necessarily villains, in two such independent thrillers.  INSOMNIA, directed by Christopher Nolan, just prior to his being selected to direct BATMAN BEGINS, starred Al Pacino as an LAPD detective under investigation for corruption and about to be disgraced by a colleagues testimony who's sent to an Alaskan small town to assist local police with an investigation when an accident results in a comprising situation, allowing the murderer, played by Williams, to blackmail him.  In ONE HOUR PHOTO, Williams took the starring role as a photo technician at a one-hour photo developing clinic in a shopping mart who becomes obsessed with a family whose photos he regularly develops, eventually leading to a psychotic break.  In both roles, Williams exceeds expectations by conveying both an aura of menace and an underlying tragedy.

• 2006- RV (FAMILY-COMEDY, PG), MAN OF THE YEAR  (COMEDY-DRAMA, PG-13), HAPPY FEET  (ANIMATED, PG) & NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM  (COMEDY-FANTASY, PG): While not necessarily a "comeback," considering that none of the roles clicked with the public consciousness the way other performances did at his peak, Williams was a busy man in 2006.  His first return to mainstream comedy since the financial flop DEATH TO SMOOCHY in 2002, he starred in RV as the cliche of a workaholic dad who hijacks a promised family vacation to secretly pursue a business deal and accidentally bonds with his family.  RV was critically savaged and a financial disappointment.  For his other starring role in 2006, Williams once again teamed up with his GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM and TOYS director, Barry Levinson, also somewhat in need of a comeback, with MAN OF THE YEAR, which although marketed more as a comedy, turned out to be surprisingly dark and conspiratorial.  Williams starred as the host of a The Daily Show-esque political news comedy show who runs for President as a stunt and accidentally wins, but the fun is ruined when there turns out to be a voting system conspiracy behind it.  A box office failure, MAN OF THE YEAR's wild unevenness also earned it negative reviews.  In the Academy Award-winning HAPPY FEET, Williams voiced two stand-out comic relief characters and had a small supporting role as President Theodore Roosevelt in the hit family film NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM, a role he reprised in two sequels, one of which is scheduled for release this December.

As Theodore Roosevelt (right), opposite Ben Stiller in NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM.

Movies Available to Watch on Netflix Instant Starring Robin Williams

THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN  (FANTASY/ADVENTURE, 1988) 
Directed by Terry Gilliam
Also Starring: John Neville, Sarah Polley, Eric Idle, Charles McKeown, Winston Dennis, Jack Purvis, Jonathan Pryce, Uma Thurman, Oliver Reed
Rated PG for unspecified reasons (contains some PG-13-level suggestive content, brief nudity and fantasy action).
Credited as Ray D. Tutto, Robin Williams' role in Terry Gilliam's infamously troubled production is really an extended cameo.  John Neville stars as the incomparable Baron Munchausen, the fictionalized nobleman and teller of tall tales, which the good Baron is quite insistent are true.  With the Turkish army at the gates of the unnamed European city in the 18th Century, the Baron and a stowaway ragamuffin set out to reunite the Baron's extraordinary comrades, who've all gone their separate ways, in order to save the city.  Williams appears as The King of the Moon, a conflicted deity whose head detaches from the body in order to engage in higher pursuits while his vulgar body is only interested in sex, farts and other bodily functions.  The production went disastrously over schedule and doubled in budget before failing spectacularly at the box office, essentially destroying Gilliam's promising career due to his famous lack of discipline, and while it's a mishmash of a film, it's an undoubtedly interesting, and for the most part entertaining, mishmash.
3 out of 4 stars

As King of the Moon (left), with Valentina Cortese in THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN.

THE BIRDCAGE  (COMEDY, 1996)
Directed by Mike Nichols 
Also Starring: Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman, Dianne Wiest, Dan Futterman, Calista Flockhart, Hank Azaria, Christine Baranski
Rated R for language.
A remake of a French-Italian film called La Cage aux Folles, Mike Nichols' THE BIRDCAGE stars Williams as Armand Goldman, the gay owner of a South Beach drag club where his partner Albert (Nathan Lane) stars nightly.  When Armand's son (the result of an experimental one-night stand) announces his plans to marry the daughter of a far-right conservative politician (Gene Hackman) up for reelection and co-founder of the "Coalition for Moral Order", Armand and Albert try to play it straight to meet their future daughter-in-law's parents.  The movie is very funny, but it's hard to sympathize with the young couple who ask Armand and Albert to pretend to be straight, when Williams and Lane are so likable and sympathetic, and more than mere stereotypes, they are surprisingly layered characters.  The film received endorsement from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and was a huge success in 1996.
3 out of 4 stars

As Armand Goldman (right), with Nathan Lane in THE BIRDCAGE.

THE FISHER KING  (COMEDY-DRAMA, 1991) 
Directed by Terry Gilliam
Also Starring: Jeff Bridges, Mercedes Ruehl, Amanda Plummer, Michael Jeter, David Hyde Pierce
Rated R for language and violence.
One of Williams' early acclaimed roles that brought him back together with Terry Gilliam, THE FISHER KING is a strange and certainly Gilliam-esque film, which opens when Jeff Bridges, playing shock jock Jack Lucas, tells a depressed caller off on the radio, later learning that the caller committed a mass shooting following the phone call.  Three years later, Jack is disgraced and guilt-ridden, so he attempts to commit suicide but is rescued by Parry (Williams), a homeless man with an unsteady grip on reality, retreating from real life to delusions inspired by Arthurian legends.  When Jack discovers that Parry's life was ruined when he witnessed his wife murdered in the depressed caller incident, Jack tries to find redemption by helping Parry.  It's not all as grim as it sounds, although Williams does bare all, so you know, fair warning.  As visually inventive and imaginative as you'd expect from Gilliam, THE FISHER KING got Williams his third and final Academy Award nomination for Best Actor (he would win for Best Supporting Actor in GOOD WILL HUNTING six years later).
3 out of 4 stars

As Parry (left), with Jeff Bridges in THE FISHER KING.

HOOK  (FANTASY/ADVENTURE, 1991) 
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Also Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Bob Hoskins, Julia Roberts, Charlie Korsmo, Amber Scott, Maggie Smith, Caroline Goodall
Rated PG for unspecified reasons (contains adventure action, language, thematic elements, and some rude humor and scary moments).
Oh boy, HOOK.  I have a complicated relationship with Spielberg's much-maligned twist on Peter Pan, having grown up with it as far back as I can remember.  Some of my earliest movie-related memories are of watching HOOK on VHS cassette, and while it's certainly not what I'd consider one of my favorite movies today, I definitely have a big fat soft spot for it.  In my defense, I'd say it's similar to 1989's BATMAN, which a lot of contemporary film critics still adore from childhood, but outside of nostalgia and an impressive technical production, is clearly not so great a film as was once thought.  Then again, at least critics liked BATMAN when it came out.
The odds were stacked against HOOK in the arena of expectation- Spielberg always had had a Peter Pan picture in him- it was a passion project and a seemingly perfect match of filmmaker and source material for the film mogul who built his career on boyhood adventures and rollicking fantasy entertainment.  As the film developed though, it morphed into something that was neither expected nor altogether wanted, the story of the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up- deciding to grow up.  Then there were a lot of iffy decisions made along the way, such as layering the many of the scenes with less-than-family-friendly themes and language (Peter calls an orphan boy a "near-sighted gynecologist").  By the time all was said and done, it became clear that Spielberg had outgrown his purer intentions.  Acknowledging its copious flaws though, the only thing about it that I consider genuinely bad about it is the climactic "war" that relies heavily on cheap, stupid "Little Rascals"-style gags culminating in a disappointingly lackluster swordfight.  The rest of it, even the parts that I know aren't exactly good, is always entertaining to me.  The production is gorgeous and Spielberg's staging is superb, the script is flat-out batshit crazy, I love the ironically anti-Peter Pan moral of growing up and coming into a role as a parent, and to top it all off, it's anchored by a pair of excellent performances.  We all know how great Dustin Hoffman is as the titular Captain Hook, even the film's many detractors acknowledge his work here as great, but Williams' performance as Peter Banning/Peter Pan is criminally underrated.  In fact, I argue that it is the best performance he ever gave onscreen; I literally forget that I'm watching Robin Williams much of the time.  The role allows him to show incredible range, from moments of startling rage to ineffectual nebbishness, and repentant father to sword-wielding action hero.  There's only one scene where the better-known manic Williams comes out, and it is a really bizarre and unnecessary scene in which he reverts to a childish Pan in a moment with Julia Roberts as Tinkerbell.  Outside of that one scene though, his performance transcends all that we thought we knew about Robin Williams as an actor.
2.5 out of 4 stars

As Peter Banning/Peter Pan (right), opposite Dante Basco in HOOK.

JUMANJI  (FANTASY/ADVENTURE, 1995) 
Directed by Joe Johnston
Also Starring: Bonnie Hunt, Kirsten Dunst, Bradley Pierce, David Alan Grier, Jonathan Hyde, Adam Hann-Byrd, Laura Bell Bundy
Rated PG for menacing fantasy action and some mild language.
I guess Joe Johnston's 1995 feature film adaptation of Chris Van Allsburg's picture book of the same title has a lot of nostalgic value for grown up "90s kids," but I can't get on board with it.  Unlike the later Van Allsburg film adaptation THE POLAR EXPRESS, JUMANJI does suitably flesh out a story to justify a feature length by taking the simple story a kid's board game turning real and making a multi-generational game of it.  Williams stars as the adult Alan Parrish who, as a boy in 1969, became trapped in the board game Jumanji with the roll of a die and left his friend Sarah (Bonnie Hunt) traumatized, and is finally released 26 years later when young Judy and Peter (Kirsten Dunst and Bradley Pierce, respectively) unwittingly join the already started game and roll the dice.  After 26 years living as a wild man in the jungle of the board game, Alan has to help finish the game which has unleashed a menacing menagerie into Judy and Peter's house and out into the small town.  I love the premise and have no complaints or particular praise about Williams in this film, but it's too mean-spirited, a "family film" that treats its characters too cruelly and everyone acts bitter.  The visual effects, which included an assortment of computer-animated beasts like rampaging elephants, monkeys and lions created by Industrial Light & Magic, were a big deal at the time, but no longer hold up.  It's just an unpleasant film filled with conceptual promise.
1.5 out of 4 stars

As Alan Parrish (right), with (from right) Bonnie Hunt, Kirsten Dunst and Bradley Pierce.

POPEYE  (MUSICAL-COMEDY, 1980) 
Directed by Robert Altman
Also Starring: Shelley Duvall, Ray Walston, Paul Dooley, Paul L. Smith
Rated PG for unspecified reasons (contains mild language and comic action).
It's been a few years since I last watched Robert Altman's POPEYE, Williams' big screen debut, but I remember being a little interesting and mostly underwhelming.  Altman, a directed best known for widely-scoped artistic pictures, directed the film from a script by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist and playwright Jules Feiffer, adapted from the the classic cartoon character "Popeye the Sailor Man" who first appeared in the comic strip Thimble Theatre in 1929 and became even more famous in the Fleischer Studios animated shorts of the 1930.  Starring Williams in the title role with blonde hair, one open eye and one functioning side of his mouth, with a pair of over-sized, tattooed forearms.
It's a musical, styled in the spirit of Gilbert & Sullivan, and very old-fashioned in its sensibilities.  The whole experience is a weird and intermittently amusing, but only mildly so, and Williams doesn't appear as comfortable as he did in later roles.
2 out of 4 stars

WORLD'S GREATEST DAD  (COMEDY, 2009) 
Directed by Bobcat Goldthwait
Also Starring: Alexie Gilmore, Daryl Sabara, Evan Martin, Geoff Pierson, Henry Simmons, Mitzi McCall, Jermaine Williams, Lorraine Nicholson, Morgan Murphy, Toby Huss
Rated R for language, crude and sexual content, some drug use and disturbing images.

As Lance Clayton in WORLD'S GREATEST DAD.

The last really good film starring Williams didn't play in many theaters, but instead was released straight to video on demand services.  An acerbic, severe black comedy, WORLD'S GREATEST DAD is not for everyone, but it's also surprisingly brilliant and uncomfortably hilarious.  Williams stars as a failed writer who teaches an unpopular poetry course at his son's high school.  His son, played by Daryl Sabara of the SPY KIDS films, is an insufferable creep who berates and manipulates everyone he interacts with and is obsessed with pornography and deviant sexuality.  When Williams discovers his son has accidentally strangled himself to death while performing autoerotic asphyxiation and masturbating, Williams decides to spare the embarrassment by staging it as a suicide and writes up a suicide note.  But the suicide note is more profound than anyone would have expected and soon the whole school is seeing Williams' late son in a whole new light, identifying with his plight in the letter, and Williams finds appreciation as a writer, so he also "discovers" a journal that turns into a best-seller.  WORLD'S GREATEST DAD poses a lot of questions that most of us would rather not ask about the unfortunate phenomenon of posthumous celebrity and adult angst, but does so through humor and without softening the pointing query.  It might be tempting in the light of Williams' passing to suggest a new meaning to the film, but it doesn't fit, so don't worry about it.  With moments of veiled poignancy and droves of sharp social criticism, it's one of the best comic performances of Williams' late career.
3.5 out of 4 stars

Review: TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (2014)

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES  (FANTASY/ACTION)
1 out of 4 stars
Directed by Jonathan Liebesman
Starring: Megan Fox, Will Arnett, William Fichtner, Alan Ritchson, Noel Fisher, Pete Ploszek, Jeremy Howard, Danny Woodburn, Johnny Knoxville (voice role), Tony Shalhoub (voice role), Whoopi Goldberg, Tohoru Masamune
Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence.
101 minutes
Verdict: A dull, headache-inducing endeavor, the Ninja Turtles haven't exactly become the Transformers like was feared, but they're no better.  Frenetic, impersonal and rarely funny, there's no suggestion here that a sequel is deserved, or that one won't come along anyway.
YOU MAY ENJOY TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (2014) IF YOU LIKED:
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (1990)
TMNT (2007)
TRANSFORMERS (2007)
WRATH OF THE TITANS (2012)
G.I. JOE: RISE OF COBRA (2009)
 
The appeal of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a largely inexplicable cultural phenomenon.  Beginning with an underground comic book created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird in 1984 meant as a parody of some popular comic books that involved urban ninja clans and mutated teenagers, the Ninja Turtles rose to hugely unlikely popularity through merchandising and an animated television series.  The Turtles became a major presence in the pop culture landscape of the late 1980s and early 1990s, an unusual case of an ironic cult property exploding into the mainstream to appear on lunchboxes and in their own video games and film series.  But like all fads, the popularity of the Ninja Turtles fizzled out eventually, becoming dormant after a third film, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES III, was a financial and critical disappointment in 1993, the popular animated series wrapped up in 1996, and a 1997 live-action television series was canceled after one season.  Multiple attempts have been made since to bring the Turtles back to their former popularity as a successful franchise, but the question has to be asked: Can the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles exist beyond the realm of a 1980s icon?  Clearly Paramount and Michael Bay, who have already struck gold (strictly financially speaking) with their collaboration on bringing the Transformers, a similar 1980s cultural icon, to the big screen with lots of explosions and visual effects aimed at adolescent males, are hoping they can do the same for Ninja Turtles, but it's clearly not a sure thing.
In the new $125 million, PG-13-rated, live-action attempt to breathe new life into the TMNT, Megan Fox stars as April O'Neil, a television news reporter in New York City, currently relegated to lightweight stories which she covers with her cameraman Vernon (Will Arnett), but struggling to break into bigger material.  The city lives under the covert thumb of the Foot Clan, a Japanese criminal organization led by a warlord known as Shredder (Tohoru Masamune), and April hopes to get her big scoop by exposing the Foot's secret operations, but she stumbles upon something much bigger when she witnesses a quartet of vigilantes thwarting a Foot heist.  The vigilantes are six-foot-tall teenage turtles with advanced ninjutsu training and ridiculously ripped muscles; the leader, Leonardo (motion capture performed by Pete Ploszek, voiced by Johnny Knoxville), the angsty bad boy, Raphael (motion capture performed/voiced by Alan Ritchson), the jokester, Michelangelo (motion capture performed/voiced by Noel Fisher), and the brains, Donatello (motion capture performed/voiced by Jeremy Howard).  The results of a laboratory experiment that April's late father worked on years before, they were raised by fellow lab test subject Splinter (motion capture performed by Danny Woodburn, voiced by Tony Shalhoub), a rat sensei with a fu manchu.  When the Turtles are discovered by the Foot Clan, they become targets of Shredder and his partner, businessman Eric Sachs (William Fichtner), who want the genetic material possessed in the Turtles for a diabolical scheme with citywide consequences.

In my heart, I wanted to have fun watching this film.  I know it's the Ninja Turtles, and that comes with a lot of baggage and is based in an ironic concept, which doesn't necessarily lend itself to cinematic possibilities, but I really think a good, fun movie is possible involving them.  On the other hand, this movie is coming from Michael Bay as a producer, who is a master of bad blockbuster-making, and Jonathan Liebesman as a director, who previously worked on the horrifically dull WRATH OF THE TITANS and BATTLE LOS ANGELES, so my head wanted me to be apprehensive.  Unfortunately, my head won this bet handsomely.
Very, very little of this film works.  Even as bad as I knew it could be, but I hoped it wouldn't be, it's worse.  The cinematography is dizzily frenetic throughout, and it definitely hinders the action scenes, which are already not helped by the CGI overload.  Certainly we've reached a point in visual effects where, even if we can still tell that a character is an effect created in a computer, it is possible to render that knowledge inconsequential within the film, as is evident in last month's DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, and as far back as Gollum in THE LORD OF THE RINGS over a decade ago, but TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES never even approaches that.  The title characters never feel like anything more than a visual effect, and an unpleasant one to look at, at that.  I have no emotional investment in these characters, so I don't care a fig for the fanboy complaints about the design being changed; all I know, is that these turtles are really unappealing to look at and annoying to boot.  I had no idea going in that the worst moments would be those involving the Turtles, especially considering that the lead is played by Megan Fox, a pretty but unremarkable actress who looks and acts significantly less like a porn character than she did in Bay's Transformers films.  But the Turtles aren't even the worst CGI effects in this film; that dishonor goes to Splinter, who, as a giant anthropomorphic rodent with stereotypically Japanese characteristics is an inherently difficult character to pull off, but looks even worse than the puppet from the 1990 film.
There is an effort to make a point of the comedy in the "action-comedy," but most of the jokes fall flat, even with the usually hilarious Will Arnett getting substantial screen time.  The screenplay, from Evan Daugherty, and Josh Appelbaum and Andre Namec, the latter two who teamed up to write the excellent MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE- GHOST PROTOCOL, is dull and lazy (I counted two instances where the clearly labeled and weirdly specific button to press in case of emergency cliche was used), and nothing about the characters are interesting enough to care about.
Thankfully, not including credits, the movie clocks in at a relatively short 95 minutes, but it feels longer and yet lightweight, like not much has happened.  Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies clearly are hoping they have a franchise starter on their hands, but if this is a sign of things to come, the Ninja Turtles may as well be left to their nostalgic slumber on the Nickelodeon channel where bored children tune in on lazy afternoons.

Review: BOYHOOD

BOYHOOD  (DRAMA) 
4 out 4 stars
Directed by Richard Linklater
Starring: Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Lorelei Linklater, Steven Prince, Libby Villari, Brad Hawkins, Zoe Graham, Jenni Tooley, Richard Jones, Karen Jones
Rated R for language including sexual references, and for teen drug and alcohol use.
165 minutes
Verdict: One of the most audacious creations of cinema in recent memory, Richard Linklater's greatest strengths as a filmmaker have pulled together to form an incredible human drama full of reality, but not bogged down by it, and an engaging meditation on the lives we lead.
YOU MAY ENJOY BOYHOOD IF YOU LIKED:
BEFORE MIDNIGHT (2013)
BEFORE SUNSET (2004)
BEFORE SUNRISE (1995)
MUD (2012)
DEFINITELY, MAYBE (2008)
 
Casual moviegoers may not be familiar with the name Richard Linklater, but most of them are probably familiar with at least one of his films.  His 2003 family comedy SCHOOL OF ROCK may be his best-known film, but as good as SCHOOL OF ROCK may be, Linklater's filmography is even more remarkable in the independent filmmaking arena.  His film trilogy of BEFORE SUNRISE, BEFORE SUNSET and last year's BEFORE MIDNIGHT, sometimes dubbed "The Before Trilogy," is one of the best movie love stories ever created, notable for a dialogue-driven style as the central couple of Jesse and Celine stroll through European cities while expressing in-depth thoughts and feelings through conversation from both genders and across three life stages.  In a sense, the Before trilogy is experimental, while never feeling that way, such as MY DINNER WITH ANDRE does.  Now, Linklater's strength at crafting a long-term story and the relationships that evolve within that, as he's previously displayed in the Before films, and his smart period storytelling for which he first received wide acclaim in his 1993 ode to the aimless youth of the 1970s DAZED AND CONFUSED, have come together in a landmark of independent filmmaking.  BOYHOOD, advertised on the poster as "12 Years in the Making," is an unusual epic, an intimate and vastly-scoped 12-year slice of life that you've never seen the like of which before and are doubtful to see again.
Ellar Coltrane plays Mason, a quiet and gentle boy living in Texas, who come first meet at the age of five.  His mother (Patricia Arquette) and father (Ethan Hawke) are divorced, and he lives with his mother and his older sister Samantha (played by Linklater's own daughter, Lorelei Linklater).  Mason and Samantha only see their shiftless, irresponsible, but loving dad occasionally, and their well-meaning mother tends to gravitate towards bad men.  Over the course of twelve years, from 2002 to 2014, we see Mason grow up, along with his family, dealing with everyday issues like school, family drama, making friends, bonding, learning and so on. 
At a 165 minutes, it's lengthy, but never boring, nor exhausting, as the film sort of drifts along like life, albeit at a heightened pace, full of relatable moments.  It's not about the obvious landmarks of life, but rather about the little, often overlooked markers through childhood and adolescence.  As a character contemplates, it's not us seizing the moments, as much as it's the moments that seize us. 
The much-reported "gimmick" is how the film was filmed over a 12-year process, from 2002 to 2014, with the same cast returning year after year to shoot new scenes, most notably Coltrane, who began filming the film's earliest scenes at age five and finished filming the last scenes at the age of 19.  I'm only a few years older than the Mason character myself, so there's a lot of direct familiarity to the occasional pop culture touchstones that appear at times in the film, such as the well-picked soundtrack which includes pop songs timed to the year scenes take place in, or new Star Wars movies and new Harry Potter books, and internet video phenomenons like Lady Gaga and Funny or Die's "The Landlord," which I remember sharing with my friends in school.  But there's also great stories going on with characters like Mason's mom and dad, both of whom evolve along their own character arcs, growing and wising as adults.
The background story of the film is incredible and full of audacity, to have created a fictional narrative that spans the course of over a decade, and no doubt adapting plans to present circumstances, such as scenes that correlate to distinct moments in recent history, and wrangling a 12-year shoot.  The end product is a chronicle of not only its characters, but of American life from 2002-2014 on an intimate stage, showing the political, economic and cultural shifts that affect lower middle-class families and how people interacted with their surroundings over these years.  But unlike the hokey melodramas of FORREST GUMP or LEE DANIELS' THE BUTLER, it's not about the characters affecting the world, or even so much the world affecting the characters, but the characters understand ans exist in the world.  There's no nostalgic showboating, and the film takes historical moments as they come, a grace note to the immediate importance of people's own personal lives.  The uniqueness and audacity of this production is unlikely to be repeated any time soon, but those background details are ultimately only a means to an end anyway, and the end is a reflective, insightful and soothing slice of life spanning the years in which a boy becomes a man.