Review: 'Mortdecai,' starring Johnny Depp, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Ewan McGregor

So look at here: We are starting out 2015 with a new Johnny Depp as a crazy character movie, huh? This time it’s supposedly for adults with the whole R-rating thing. I guess he just has no interest in playing someone regular again. Oh well, he was quite good at it at one point in time.

So what is this movie? It’s called Mortdecai. It’s based on a series of comedic thrillers from author Kyril Bonfiglioli that I clearly have not read. Also starring in this is Gwyneth Paltrow as Johanna Mortdecai, Ewan McGregor, Paul Bettany, and Olivia Munn. I guess their goal was to make a really funny British style comedy for American people but it seems like they failed on both sides here.

So what is Mortdecai about? It’s about this dandy-like British art smuggler by the name of Charlie Mortdecai (Depp). He bubbles around as he’s trying to get money to pay his 8 million pounds in taxes. A famous art restorer is murdered for this famous Goya painting and his old Oxford rival Inspector Martland (McGregor) asks him help them find the murderer and the painting. This takes Mortdecai and his manservant Jock Strapp (yes that is his name, and he's played by Paul Bettany) all over the world trying to find this painting. Total hijinks ensue ... I guess. The B-plot is Mortdecai having marital issues with Johanna, his wife, because of his new mustache that he loves so much and she hates.

You know the thing with this movie is that it’s not good but it really doesn’t suck enough to hate. Mortdecai just washes over you in uninterestingness. It seems like they were trying make something in the old Peter Sellers Pink Panther lane of comedy but it never catches on. In a lot of ways the pacing and the structure feels like it would be a really good animated movie. I’m thinking with the way the performances are and the costuming being so over the top, this would’ve been great as a cartoon. The movie really relies too much on weird facial expressions and goofy pratfalls. The cinematography really isn’t anything to talk about other than these silly over-CGI-ed transitions from city to city.

The real saving grace to this whole thing is Paul Bettany as Jock Strapp. He’s hilarious during the whole movie as Mortdecai's tough guy/ladies’ man manservant. Watching makes you think this story would be a lot more interesting if it were from his perspective rather than Mortdecai's.

Another funny thing with this movie is the two stars of it are American actors doing English accents, whereas everyone else is actually English; it's a bit disjointing. I don’t know if Gwyneth Paltrow’s accent always works.

But seriously, this movie really isn’t something to go out and see in the theater. It might be something fun to watch at home. As I said earlier, it isn’t good enough or bad enough to even get a real reaction. I think Mortdecai is something to pass on and instead just go catch up on Academy Award nominees.

Rating: 2 out of 5 Guttenbergs

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Review: Sean McNamara's 'Spare Parts'

They say there's only something like 7 different stories you can tell when you break it down. If that's true one of the seven has to be the underdog story...actually, even as I type this I realize the obvious David and Goliath. It's undeniably true that there are only a limited number of base stories you can start with, star crossed lovers, prodigal son (or daughter), etc, which is why it always bugs me when people blast movies for being unoriginal, it's all in the details folks. That being said the last thirty years has seen so many "underprivileged or inner-city school kids rise to a level they were told they never could" movies that I can understand why people get peeved at the similarity. The simple fact is that this plot has become a parent genre unto it's own, generally breaking down to one of two sub-genre's, sports themed ala Coach Carter or Glory Road and academic themed like Dangerous Minds, or Lean on Me. Spare Parts falls into the latter category and is based on the true story of a group of students from Carl Hayden High School who, with the help of a substitute teacher (who happened to have a Ph.D), take a minuscule budget and a whole lotta can-do attitude to a underwater robotics competition in 2004 and end up defeating well funded collegiate level teams including the defending champs from M.I.T.. The contemporary edge this film brings is that the students here are all undocumented illegal immigrants which gives us a look into something that most of us hear plenty about but know very little of. It's also worthwhile to mention that Spare Parts is the first film in a media deal struck by George Lopez with Pantelion films which will branch Lionsgate films with Televisa, a huge Mexican media corporation.

Yes, this film is very cliche at times, yes you know what's going to happen (even if you hadn't been aware of the true story beforehand), but does that make this film throwaway or forgettable? Not in the least, while it won't sit among the titans of it's genre like the aforementioned Lean on Me, which is the penultimate movie of this kind in my humble opinion, it delivers the kind of warm fuzzies these films are designed to give without overdoing it. The film, while uplifting, does not go out out of the realm of the real world to do so. All to often films of this nature, most of which are based on a true story, can feel so impossibly sweet that any attachment to the real world is lost, Spare Parts manages to not just keep you in the real world but also give you , what I assume, is a real look inside a world most of us know very little about, the life of a teenager raised in this country but saddled with that illegal tag. The flim walks a tightrope between warming and depressing, undoubtedly what gives it that real feeling I keep alluding to.

It's the humanizing, real world scenarios that help you to understand the plight of these kids, imagine living in a place, seeing all it has to offer, feeling a part of it, then being told that though you are a part of that place for all intents and purposes, technically you are not so there are things you can not do. Immigration is a hot button issue, and there are plenty of arguments that can be made on both sides of the fence, BUT, as with most situations, that all falls on the adults. It's the children who are hit hardest as they A. don't know anything different than the American lifestyle and B. are outside the law through no fault of their own. The student who kicks off the whole thing, Oscar Vazquez (Carlos PenaVega), highlights this so perfectly it hurts. The catalyst for him becoming involved is finding out that his dreams of enlisting in the Army are impossible due to his illegal status. George Lopez, who also produced the film, plays Fredi Cameron, the team's coach/mentor, with the exact right amount of warmth. The rest of the team, Lorenzo, Cristian, and Luis, are all surprisingly well-played given their somewhat limited cumulative acting experience. As the icing on the top of this happy ending cake (get your minds out of the gutter) you have Jamie Lee Curtis who brings some welcome funny as the school's principal.

At the end of the day you are not going to be surprised by anything you see in Spare Parts, but you will get another spoonful of that hope flavored ice cream. Unlike some of the less well thought through films of it's kind this pint of ice cream comes off as just the right amount of sweet, not to rich and definitely not bitter.

3 Out of 5 Guttenbergs

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Review: ‘Penguins of Madagascar,’ starring Tom McGrath, John Malkovich and Benedict Cumberbatch

I have seen Dreamworks Animation’s “Madagascar” films and barely remember them, and I’ve never seen an episode of “The Penguins of Madagascar” television show on Nickelodeon (how has it been on for five seasons?!), so clearly I am not the target demographic for “Penguins of Madagascar,” the spinoff film meant to tide us over until 2018, when “Madagascar 4” is released. And yet there are still some jokes here that work for the casual viewer, some sly pop-culture references that aren’t too on-the-nose, and some solid (if not totally inspired) voice acting from the likes of John Malkovich and Benedict Cumberbatch. “Penguins of Madagascar” isn’t all bad, even if it doesn’t really make a case for why it should exist in the first place.

Because at this point, there are nearly 150 episodes of the “Penguins” TV show, and so what goes on in this film isn’t that groundbreaking or forward-thinking. The foursome of penguin friends have distinct, definitive personalities at this point, and those aren’t really going to change: authoritative Skipper (voiced by Tom McGrath), clever Kowalski (voiced by Chris Miller), rowdy-yet-nonverbal Rico (voiced by Conrad Vernon), and adorable Private (voiced by Christopher Knights). The crisis they deal with in “Penguins of Madagascar,” from a vengeful octopus bent on transforming cuteness into ugliness, won’t have long-lasting effects, because why do anything to mess with a television show that is currently running and a future sequel that already has a release date?

So the urgency here is totally lacking, and “Penguins of Madagascar” doesn’t strive to be a film that has a real emotional message (in contrast to this year’s “Big Hero 6,” for example) or any kind of teachable moments (like Dreamworks’s own “How to Train Your Dragon 2”). Instead, get ready for a barrage of fart jokes (why else name a covert spy group the North Wind if not to wring every bathroom-humor opportunity out of it?), cinematic references (from “Planet of the Apes” to “Life of Pi”), and chaotic chase scenes that are, admittedly, a riot of color and design. As exhausting “Penguins of Madagascar” is because of the speediness of its storytelling, at least its pacing will keep younger audiences interested.

The film begins with backstory, presenting how Skipper, Kowalski, and Rico became friends and how they saved the cuter, younger Private from certain doom; over the years, they then traveled the world together, showed up in the “Madagascar” films, and became residents of the Central Park Zoo. All the while, they’ve operated like mercenaries or commandos, conducting super-secret missions that belie their sense of self-importance—until an infiltration of Fort Knox so they can obtain their favorite cheesy snack is foiled by Dave the Octopus (voiced by John Malkovich), an eight-tentacled, purple mollusk looking for revenge.

Dave has been resentful for years that when they were all at the Zoo together, the penguins stole his adoring crowds, and he’s come up with a plan to get rid of cutesy penguins forever: blasting them with a ray gun full of Medusa Serum, which will turn them ugly, deformed, and unlovable. (Yes, this is essentially the same plot from “Despicable Me 2,” where the minions were turned into out-of-control monsters.) Skipper et al. won’t stand for this, so they decide to take Dave down—until they’re undermined by the North Wind, a secret animal crime-fighting society. Led by a wolf who goes only by the moniker Classified (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch), the North Wind have better gadgets than the penguins, more professional strategies, and an even more inflated sense of importance. Whether the penguins and the North Wind can actually work together is an important question, and whether they stop Dave in time is another.

How much more bare bones could the plot get? Not much. There is a sole female character who is supposed to be a super spy but only succeeds in being desired by Kowalski. Skipper wants Classified’s respect and Private wants Skipper’s respect, but that’s about all the self-reflection these characters do. And with all the visual gags (the fact that penguins can’t fly is used again and again) and action sequences (a chase scene through the canals of Venice is very nice, but a long stop in China feels like pandering to the international box office), there isn’t much time to explore any vaguely serious themes. Unless you count making fun of old people being confused by Skype, or joking about National Public Radio pledge drives, or mocking French tax law as sophisticated concepts. And if you don’t, well, there’s always Rico’s ability to eat and then regurgitate everything in sight!

The humor aimed at adults is certainly strange, the characters don’t grow in any way, and there are no stakes to speak of, but there are enough sight gags and silly jokes in “Penguins of Madagascar” to make children laugh. But a generation-spanning film, this one isn’t. 

 Rating: 2.5 out of 5

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Review: 'A Walk Among the Tombstones' starring Liam Neeson

I may as well get this out of the way, this is not Taken 3. I was actually preparing myself to go on a rant about how studios marketing Liam Neeson starring action films try to bank on that every time, so I went back and looked at all of the trailers again. What I found was that it wasn't the studios doing it, they put out pretty honest trailers, it was me equating Liam Neeson with a gun to Taken.

Now that we've got that out of the way let’s talk A Walk Among the Tombstones, the film adaptation of 1992 book of the same name by Lawrence Block. Neeson plays Matthew Scudder, a former NYPD detective turned private eye. The reasons for his retirement are revealed in depth throughout the film but on the surface we know that, while having a few shots of whiskey with his coffee, a bar he’s in is robbed and the bartender is killed. Scudder chases down the three assailants, kills two and wounds a third. After this he retires from the force and quits drinking. The film picks up seven years later, 1999, when Scudder is approached by a junkie who goes to the same AA meetings Scudder frequents. He takes Scudder to his brother Kenny, a prominent drug trafficker whose wife had been kidnapped and murdered. We soon find that this isn’t a garden variety business deal gone wrong, but possibly the work of a serial killer. So, there you see, not exactly what we may have been expecting as it’s not so much bad-ass Liam Neeson but more burnt out detective Liam Neeson with far more investigation than gun fire. But does it work? Partly, I won’t lie to you the film has its problems but I think by the end it succeeds in redeeming itself to bring a nice throwback to noir films of yesteryear with even a little bit of that Se7en feel thrown in. So what works and what ddoesn't Let’s get into it.

I’m going to get the bad out of the way. First and foremost, the film is slow to get started. The first 45 minutes seem to meander somewhat aimlessly. We get story details, and some investigation, but until that 45 minute point it doesn't even feel like Neeson's Scudder is all in…so why should we be? Which leads to the next and possibly biggest problem, Liam Neeson just seems tired. I know a lot of people will say he’s phoning it in, and maybe the two run parallel, but to me his character seemed like he was just getting to work after a night of hard drinking…ironic seeing as how he’s 8 years sober. This isn’t to say that Neeson doesn't still own the character, he does, so much so as to make me question whether Neeson was phoning it in or if Matt Scudder was just supposed to come off that way, after all it would kind of fit how a traumatized ex-alcoholic just trying to scratch out a living until he dies would act, right? Next is the adaptation itself, as I mentioned earlier this film was adapted from a book, when that happens the “adaptation” part is where someone takes the book and rewrites it to work on the big screen in a visual medium. I don’t think I’ve ever criticized this part of an adaptation before but there were several times when conversations played out on screen that something just felt off, it was as if nothing about the dialogue was changed of altered to fit a natural on-screen conversation. You could tell you were hearing good dialogue, but it was like two people reading to each other, it just wasn’t natural. Lastly, and this is such a tiny gripe I considered not including it, is the constant references to establish the year. The film takes place in 1992, then 1999, and for some odd reason they REALLY wanted you to know that, and they did so in the weirdest way. For 1992 it wasn't so bad, just a close up of Scudder reading the paper with a “Nolan Ryan throws shutout” headline…no big deal. The rest of the movie, however, decided to remind you about it being 1999 by dropping Y2K references all over the place. Again, not a big deal, just something that bugged me.

This flick was a weird one for me, there were a number of things that bugged me in the beginning but as the story sped up I grew to like. First and foremost is Scudders friendship with a tough street kid named T.J., in the beginning it comes off like the usual “Old white man helps disadvantaged minority” setups, and maybe it never changed from that dynamic but it definitely grew into something you could appreciate. T.J. who’s played rather well by former X-Factor contestant Astro, becomes something of a sidekick to Matt Scudder and while it is pretty cliché most of the time it does grow into something you can appreciate, you need to see that more human side of Scudder and that’s what T.J. brings out. Next up I have to congratulate the filmmakers on pulling off a good homage to one of my favorite genres, the noir detective films from the golden age of cinema. It doesn’t match perfectly but Scudders attitude, the atmosphere of the film which takes place in the dustier parts of NYC and is constantly soaked in rain, and even some slight nods in the music with a number of scenes backed by ominous tones accompanied by bells (I realize that’s not the best description of the music, but you’d know it when you heard it). So you've got noir blended with some of the 70s detective film tropes (think Dirty Harry) and you've got a winning setup for a detective story. Speaking of, how about that story?

I will say that the story itself is what keeps this film far outside the realm of something like Se7en, but it’s enough to keep you entertained. The murders are creative and the mystery surrounding it is sound, but something in the execution was seriously lacking. If I had to pick what I thought was wrong I’d say it was in the way things were revealed, the movie never makes a big deal out of a reveal. Even if something would have been shocking it’s introduced with so little flair that you don’t even realize something big just happened until you’ve had a minute to process everything. That being said there are two or three “Holy S&@T!” moments, and even if the story lacks punch it doesn’t lack substance. Hell, they even manage to throw in a few moments that are likely to make you laugh (intentionally).

Is A Walk Among the Tombstones going to be for Liam Neeson what Taken was so many years ago? Not likely, but it IS one of his more enjoyable films of the last five years and definitely worth a watch. I don’t know that I can give the full recommendation for seeing it in theaters. There’s not really anything that’s benefitted by the big screen so spending five bucks to rent instead of $20 for the theater is probably the better idea. Unless, that is, you REALLY want to see a good mystery flick this weekend because that is exactly what this film is.

3.5 Out of 5 Guttenbergs

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Review: 'This is Where I Leave You', Starring Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, and Adam Driver

Romantic relationships are usually the center of attention when it comes to exploring them on the big screen. Will they or won't they get together? Should they go out? So on and so forth. These romantic relationships are such a large focus of attention that other types of relationships, important ones to really overlook, are ignored or forgotten in the scheme of things. Siblings, parents, and friends, all important parts of our lives, are the focus in the star-studded This is Where I Leave You, a film that's your typical story about the dysfunctional family and how they still help you get through the roughest parts of your life, with some very comedic moments on the side. 

Judd Altman (Jason Bateman) works for an obnoxious radio host (Dax Shepard) and is excited to get home to his wife Quinn (Abigail Spencer) on her birthday, only to find out that she's already given herself another present, in the form of another man. Judd's devastated and things only get worse for him when his sister Wendy (Tina Fey) calls to tell him their dad is dead. So, Judd goes back home to be with his mom (Jane Fonda), Wendy, and two brothers, Paul (Corey Stoll) and Phillip (Adam Driver). 

Apparently an "atheist Jew", their dad's last wish is to have his family sit shiva, the seven-day Jewish mourning period. So, they grudgingly do as his last wish commands, all under one roof for the first time in years. There are old flames involved (Rose Byrne and Timothy Olyphant), Paul and his wife (Kathryn Hahn) desperately trying to have a baby, and basically everyone running amok trying to sort through everything that's happening and miserably attempting to keep their shit together. 

There's a little bit and a lot going on in the film. There are a lot of characters, and a little bit of development for each of them. This is expected of a film with this many people, but at least the focus is on one character, that of Bateman's down-and-out, but all around nice guy. Everything else just spins, but in an orbit around him. There are snippets here and there of other characters having their own moments, either for us to get to understand them better, or for them to understand each other better, but they usually happen around Bateman. 

This film can be compared to any other film about dysfunctional families (and really, the word "dysfunctional" is thrown around too much, as though anyone's family is perfect) being brought back together after a parent's death or another event. There are a lot of these lurking around, but what is a bit more entertaining about this specific movie is that it's actually funny. Beyond all the crazy, the yelling, and the typical sibling banter is actual, shake-your-shoulders laughter. The real scene-stealer being Adam Driver and his baby-of-the-family shirking of all responsibility, laced with a quick-witted delivery of all his lines. 

The film is enjoyable at face value. And this is how it should be watched, at face value. It's a film that is what it is and doesn't try to be something it's not. There isn't too much drama, there isn't too much comedy, and their aren't too many over-the-top speeches even if some

of the drama does feel a bit contrived. Disappointingly though, Tina Fey's character is probably the most slighted in terms of back story, because she's given one, but we only get a hint of it. 

This is Where I Leave You isn't an offensive movie. It's chock-full of family issues from beginning to end, the siblings being the prime focus of the story, and that in itself is good enough to watch. It's not wholly satisfying on every level, but is moderately enjoyable. Will everyone enjoy it? Maybe not. But the star-studded cast, the humor, and occasional heartfelt moment won't make you feel like you've completely wasted your time. It's exactly the kind of movie most will want to cozy up to on the couch while eating yesterday's leftover dinner, its cast and slightly better-than-expected execution will at least keep you semi-entertained. 

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Review: ‘Dolphin Tale 2,’ starring Nathan Gamble, Harry Connick Jr., and Cozi Zuehlsdorff

Dolphin Taleis not really a movie that needed a sequel, but here we are. It’s summer, parents need a family-friendly movie to take their kids to now that school is back in session, everyone loves dolphins. No real other explanation for Dolphin Tale 2 exists. Not really.

Everyone from the 2011 original film (which told the real-life story of the dolphin Winter, whose use of a prosthetic tail has made her an inspiration to disabled children and wounded veterans alike) is back for Dolphin Tale 2, but that reunited casting doesn’t make the film any less vanilla. The gist is this: Years after Winter was rescued, she’s beloved by practically everyone who visits her new home, the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. The owner of the aquarium, Dr. Clay Haskett (Harry Connick Jr.); his daughter Hazel (Cozi Zuehlsdorff); and the boy that found Winter when she was injured, Sawyer Nelson (Nathan Gamble), are the most constant people in Winter’s life, but when her female dolphin companion dies, they know they’re in trouble. It’s against the law for female dolphins to be unpaired in captivity, and if Dr. Clay doesn’t find another female dolphin soon, Winter could be removed from the aquarium.

This is devastating news, of course, not only for Sawyer (who is essentially Winter’s best human friend), Hazel and Dr. Clay, but also for the aquarium’s investors, who have been seeing dollar dollar bills, y’all, in revenue since Winter became famous. So there are competing motivations at play here regarding Winter’s future, and at the same time, Sawyer has been invited to a prestigious semester-at-sea program that could take him away from Winter … and Hazel, his sort-of-kind-of crush.

You know how this ends, right? Of course you know how this ends. So the point of the film isn’t the foregone conclusion, but the journey, which is … bland. In light of the documentary Blackfish, it feels like Dolphin Tale 2 has a lot of language about how dolphins are wild animals, but Sawyer and Winter seem to have a great time doing underwater spins and twirls together; you’ll have a variety of these inspirational swimming montages. Every so often the aquarium will save another animal, like a turtle, that will do absurd things for children to laugh at. And Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman are still lurking around, providing benevolent wisdom while collecting their paychecks.

For very young children, Dolphin Tale 2 will be fine; it has a straightforward narrative that’s easy to follow, and the dolphins are cute, and Florida looks very pretty. It’s an inoffensive-enough way to spend nearly two hours, and if you do, stay for the credits. The real-life footage of Winter and the aquarium employees that plays during the credits sequence is more inspirational and compelling than practically any of the other stuff that comes before it.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 Guttenbergs

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Review: ‘May in the Summer,’ starring Cherien Dabis, Alia Shawkat, and Bill Pullman

On paper, May in the Summer, the latest film from Amreeka writer/director Cherien Dabis, sounds like a Middle-Eastern version of Eat, Pray, Love. Woman struggling to figure out the next step of her professional life wonders if she’s found romantic fulfillment, and travels abroad to consider her options and herself. But where most other films would turn to clichéd Orientalism, cultural whitewashing, and heteronormative whimsy to construct a happy ending, May in the Summerpushes back against all that. It veers into silliness every so often, but the film knows where it’s going, even if it feels familiar.

Dabis, who writes and directs here, also stars in the film as May, a half-Palestinian, half-American woman living in New York City with her fiancé Ziad (Alexander Siddig), an expert on the Palestinian economy who teaches at Columbia University. She recently published a well-regarded and critically admired book linking Arabic proverbs with the history of and everyday life in the Middle East, and after years of living together, she and Ziad are finally getting married. But when she makes the trip to her childhood home of Amman, Jordan, alone, a month before the wedding, her family thinks something is up.

Younger sisters Yasmine (Nadine Malouf) and Dalia (Alia Shawkat) are confused about why she doesn’t seem that excited for her wedding, and why she’s letting Ziad’s mother plan an ostentatious, over-the-top ceremony that goes against May’s more low-key personality. And on the other hand, there’s May’s very-Christian mother Nadine (Hiam Abbass), who is shocked and disgusted that May is engaged to Ziad, a Muslim. It doesn’t matter to Nadine that May isn’t a practicing Christian or that Ziad isn’t a practicing Muslim; “Marrying outside of your religion, your culture, it’s all the same—it never works.”

Nadine is speaking from bitter experience: Her marriage to the girls’ American father, Edward (Bill Pullman), ended in divorce, after 20 years of Nadine suffering through Edward’s wandering eye and constant travel. The rest of May’s family also isn’t that supportive: At a family dinner, her cousin casually but confidently mentions that she’s certainly going to Hell for marrying a Muslim, and it doesn’t seem like her sisters have ever met Ziad, either.

The wedding seems like more of a question mark than an exclamation point—but so do other parts of May’s life, like her faith (she’s decidedly secular, but her mother keeps badgering her into being more religious), what her next book will be about (she’s had writers block for months, and practically has a panic attack whenever anyone asks, “What are you writing next?”), and her relationship with her sisters. She has something like annoyed contempt for Yasmine, who recently lost her job but is partying hard and hooking up with random guys, and bemused detachment for Dalia, whose sarcasm is certainly a defense mechanism. As May tries to discover who she is—not only on her own but also in this place, with this family, and with Ziad—the film balances your typical dysfunctional family drama with glimpses into life in the Middle East.

How often are there films about the differences between Christians and Muslims in the Middle East? We’ve had plenty about Muslims and Jews, but a film about Christians and Muslims feels inherently rare. What’s interesting here is the way the film sidesteps the basics of how Christians and Muslims must automatically hate each other in favor of exploring how people manifest their beliefs into layers of identity. Nadine doesn’t preach about how Jesus is everyone’s savior—well, not that often—but her Christianity is a way to connect with other people, to craft a social circle for herself after her divorce, to maintain her Palestinian heritage while being unable to ever go back there. She hasn’t taken the time to understand Ziad being a secular Muslim, but she doesn’t want to; anything that isn’t Christianity is a threat to her identity and a threat to her daughters’, too. That reaction isn’t unique and it isn’t treated as villainy here; it’s just treated as how May and her sisters grew up. The film’s light touch regarding what could be a tricky issue is welcome, and helps all the familial interactions maintain believability.

But May in the Summer isn’t as good when it comes to depth for all of its characters; Nadine is the most fully realized, but May, Yasmine, and Dalia are successful to varying degrees. Because May’s entire persona is wrapped in unease, her relationship with Ziad remains mostly a mystery, which is frustrating given how great of an actor Siddig is and how little he has to do. But there’s a familiarity between Dabis, Shawkat, and Malouf that makes their sisterhood work, even though Yasmine only has “big mouth” and Dalia only has “difficult alternative kid” as personal signifiers. They’re not particularly detailed characters, but the scenes of the sisters together—boredly browsing a lingerie store with their mother in tow; drunkenly eating falafel together; exchanging suffered looks while eating dinner with their estranged father and his new, younger wife; sharing secrets in a dark bedroom, smoking cigarettes out of a window—ring true.

Ultimately, though, while May in the Summerpaints a compelling family portrait, May remains a largely opaque character, so the film doesn’t totally deliver as a tale of her self-discovery. As an exploration of entrenched cultural identities or children-of-divorce sisterhood, though, it’s more convincing and more engaging. And a totally happy ending—that wouldn’t be realistic, would it? And if May in the Summer does anything right, it’s realism.

Rating: 3 out of 5 Guttenbergs 

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Review: 'Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return' Starring Lea Michele, Patrick Stewart, and Martin Short

Oh the Wizard of Oz. That first story about the little Kansas girl and her dog being swept away to a magical land has surely lasted the test of time. A completely American fairy tale it’s been able to spawn so many books and adaptations. Last year we got the live action prequel Oz the Great and Powerful and this past season on TV with Once Upon A Time added the Wicked Witch of the West (don’t ask me how that works with the Disney princess stuff). I guess with this whole resurgence of interest in Oz someone decided they needed to also combine with another trend of 3D CG animated family movies and that’s how we got Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return.

Now here’s the thing; this isn’t based on any of L. Frank Baum’s many books that happen after The Wizard of Oz, it instead uses some out of canon story by his great Grandson Roger Stanton Baum. Now I can’t say if that book is good but I do notice that no one talks about many of the sequels that aren’t considered canon and I don’t think many people will be talking about the movie either. This movie is a mess and to be honest a lot of CG films this year just haven’t been that good but this might be the worst one I’ve seen all year. This film is completely forgettable and really uninteresting to look at with some of the flattest 3D to be done in the cinema all year.

The story of the film is that in Oz time a few years have passed and Oz has fallen prey to a new threat called the Jester, who is using the Wicked Witch of the West's broomstick and a magical Orb to terrorize all of Oz.  The Jester also captures all the leaders of Oz and turned them in marionettes. The Scarecrow, along with his friends the Tin Man and the Courageous Lion, find a way to contact and bring Dorothy back to Oz. For Dorothy the entire original adventure in Oz just happened a day a go but once she returns to Oz she has to complete another journey and make a new trio of friends to defeat this new magical bad guy.

Basically this whole story retreads the same type of journey seen in the classic 'Oz'. This time she meets a big, really brainy Owl named Wiser who really has no confidence. Then a solider of Candy County called Marshal Mallow who doesn’t know how to think for himself, and she meets the China Doll Princess, who must learn to not be so demanding and mean, a tired old princess trope seen many times before. Then the last person they encounter is an old talking tree who they turn into a boat called Tugg. The whole movie is 88 minutes of what feels like either a direct to DVD release bumped up to prime-time or three half an hour cartoons poorly tied together. Half the movie is singing with songs that really don’t help or move the plot along at all. There are points where you start to get into the story just a little bit before some annoying song starts blaring out of the speakers leaving you asking why and what’s happening. The vocal performances are decent with the singing all done very well since it’s by Broadway performers and people from Glee and Smash.

To what I said earlier the design of the movie is completely uninteresting. Most of the character designs are pretty generic or coming from old CG movies. Most of the lighting is very flat and the texture at time really didn’t bring any depth or sense of believability to the world or characters. It felt like watching in game cut scenes from launch era GameCube games. There was one short scene that the crew did a fantastic job and it’s where Marshal Mallow gets tricked into asking the China Doll Princess to marry him and even though it’s short it’s the only time I sat there and was like wow these folks did a bang up job making this. The 3D is also a waste if makes a lot of the film very blurry and darker than normal for 3D movies and again nothing really pops out. I took off my glasses a bunch of times while watching and it and I lost nothing. The 3D actually makes Wiser look the worst since his edges of his feathered body is always blurry.

So as you can see I’m not too fond of this movie at all. I don’t think you should waste your time with this unless you have a kid so into the Wizard of Oz that they will annoy you until you past out. This is something to me that so bad you shouldn’t even waste a red box on. With all the options out there just go watch the old movie or read them the book or even the comic adaptations. In the end when I walked out I felt like I just watched a failed Broadway musical that got turned into a failed animated movie that no one else should have to suffer through. 

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Review: “Transcendence,” starring Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, and Paul Bettany

Hurray for Johnny Depp playing a regular, normal human being in a movie in the first time in seemingly forever; he’s not a faux Native American or a vampire or a pirate or a murderous barber or a breakdancing Mad Hatter. Nope, just a regular old scientific genius in Transcendence! Too bad, though, that the movie seems to care very little about that actual science. Instead, this is a frustratingly opaque script, a wasted ensemble cast, and an obvious “message” that makes Transcendence a pretty mediocre way to spend two hours.

Here’s the thing: We’ve been questioning the limits of technology, and the dangers of that limitlessness, in cinema for a very long time. I could point all the way back to 2001: A Space Odyssey, or at the modern classic The Matrix, which turns 15 years old this year (pour one out for the perfection of Keanu Reeves’s cheekbones in that movie). Regardless, the suggestion that it’s humans who corrupt the boundaries of discovery is not new; even as we’ve dealt with the evil HAL and the ever-multiplying Mr. Smith, fundamentally we’re used to the idea that in the wrong hands, science could be dangerous. And yet Transcendence tries to give us that exact same message like it’s a whole new thing, like it’s an idea no one has ever encountered before. Boo.

From first-time director Wally Pfister, who has served as Christopher Nolan’s cinematographer for years, I would expect better. But it’s the story from first-time Jack Paglen that’s really the problem here. There’s the genius scientist angle, of course, but also the love-triangle angle, the abused wife angle, and the technological anarchists angle, and the wise old mentor angle, and the FBI agent angle. There are too many angles! The movie ends up being all edges, without enough natural storytelling flow. It’s impressive how little tension there is in a movie that is ostensibly supposed to be about a human/computer hybrid that wants to take over the world.

The premise is this: Dr. Will Caster (Depp) and his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall), as well as their close friend Max (Paul Bettany), are at the forefront of a scientific revolution. Through extremely advanced software design and nanotechnology, the three of them think they have created a self-sustaining computer, an “intelligent machine” that functions like a human brain. For Will, the PINN (“physically independent neural network”) is his life’s work. He wants to understand how the world works; Evelyn wants to save it; and Max wants to save the people on it. With this breakthrough, they think they can get there.

Except for where not everyone agrees with Will’s ideas; in fact, there’s one anti-technology group, RIFT, which goes so far as to kill to stop the “intelligent machine.” A coordinated attack on labs connected with the Casters leaves researchers dead and Will dying, shot with a bullet traced with radiation poisoning. With only a few weeks left for him to live, Evelyn comes up with a crazy idea: uploading Will’s consciousness onto PINN, sending his neural network into the “physically independent” structure. It’s insane, Max says, but he’ll help her do it.

And when they succeed—to Evelyn’s amazement and Max’s regret—and Will’s consciousness goes inside the computer, and then the Internet, is when the film tries to probe at the how-much-science-is-too-much question. It’s a foregone conclusion that Will wants more power, that his genius can’t be contained within the structural limitations we’re accustomed to. But as Transcendence tries to deal with moral or ethical questions, it can’t do it gracefully. There’s never any question that Will’s consciousness might be dangerous to Evelyn and the world, because everyone tells us so—Max, Morgan Freeman’s mentor character, Cillian Murphy’s FBI agent. And there’s never any attention paid to explaining any of this science so that we can decide for ourselves. Everything, from Will’s engineering of plant life to his curing of human wounds, is done through “synthetic nanotechnology,” and that’s one of those phrases that means everything and nothing at once.

Without any care for helping the audience to understand what’s going on onscreen, Transcendencejust marches along toward the conclusion it gives you in the first five minutes of the film. There’s no surprise here; no nuance. And without any understanding of its subject matter or any interest in making others understand, either, Transcendence gives you very little reason to care.

Rating: 2 out of 5 Guttenbergs

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Review: “Rio 2,” starring Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, and Andy Garcia

In the three years since Rio, was anyone really clamoring for a follow-up? Yes, the movie made a bunch of money, but so did The Smurfs, and then that got a sequel that turned out to be terrible. So maybe it was within Rio’s destiny as an already-meh children’s movie that it would get a further-meh children’s movie sequel. Those are the laws of Hollywood, I guess.

So there it is: Rio 2 is not very good, and I say that as an adult who knows about being in love and being in a relationship, concepts that Rio 2 is surprisingly obsessed with given that it’s supposed to be a children’s movie, you know, for children. Not for parents with trust issues or identity crises, but kids. But we have a movie that focuses predominantly on the marriage of our main bird characters, Blu (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg) and Jewel (voiced by Anne Hathaway), and very little on their children, or on any other younger protagonists. It’s kind of strange, but the plot overall is a recycled save-the-forests thing, so maybe it’s not that surprising that nothing about this movie feels remarkable.

Here’s the gist: Some years ago, blue macaws Blu and Jewel, supposedly the last birds of their kind, fell in love, even though Blu used to be a pet and Jewel was once a wild animal. Despite their differences, they decide to start a new life together, and their former owners, Linda (voiced by Leslie Mann) and Tulio (voiced by Rodrigo Santoro), start a nature sanctuary together. Fast-forward to where Rio 2 picks up, with Blu and Jewel the parents of three tween birds; you won’t really catch their names, but there’s a chubby older girl attached to her music device, a nerdy younger girl with her beak in a book, and a mischievous boy who likes to blow things up. Blu and Jewel live on the nature sanctuary created by Linda and Tulio, who are married and still exploring the Amazon, trying to find more blue macaws in the jungle. Instead, they stumble upon illegal loggers, cutting down the rainforest for their own personal gain. Oh no!

Simultaneously, Blu and Jewel are also being stalked by the evil bird Nigel (voiced by Jemaine Clement), who Blu seriously injured during the first film; now unable to fly, Nigel wants his revenge. Along with a poisonous frog who is in love with him but can’t touch him because she’d kill him and a goofy anteater that serves as his main transportation, Nigel wants to inflict revenge on Blu, and if his family gets in the way, so be it.

While those plots are going on—loggers vs. Linda and Tulio, Nigel and Co. vs. Blu and Family—there’s also a third plot involving the appearance of hundreds of other blue macaws, who have been hiding in the rainforest from humans all this time. Among them are Jewel’s father Eduardo (Andy Garcia) and an old crush, Roberto (voiced by Bruno Mars), who are shocked at Blu’s human-like qualities, like needing a GPS to get around the jungle and a fondness for breath mints. Why wouldn’t Jewel and her children move to the jungle to be with their family? And if Blu doesn’t want to come along—well, Roberto could raise his children, and Eduardo doesn’t really want this pansy city bird as a son-in-law, anyway.

Oh, and at the same time, there’s ANOTHER side plot about the Carnival, as Blu’s other bird friends, Toucan Rafael (voiced by George Lopez), cardinal Pedro (voiced by will.i.am), and canary Nico (voiced by Jamie Foxx), try to find a bird or animal act that could suitably perform at the festival. So they come along to the jungle, too, thinking they could find a good “native” option that will add some local flair to the proceedings.

That’s a lot, right? That’s an overwhelming amount of sideplots for an animated movie that lasts only 101 minutes, and because the movie is so crammed and jumps so often from thing to thing, the characters don’t really move past what they already were in Rio. Blu is still too complacent, still too awkward; after years of marriage, why are he and Jewel still sparring over the most simple things? And Jewel seems incredibly selfish, forcing Blu to meet her demands regarding her family without ever acknowledging that for him, the human Linda is the closest thing he has to a mother. Bad-guy Nigel remains one-dimensional; the only good part of his storyline is evil frog Gabi (voiced by Kristin Chenoweth), whose operatic rendition of their tragic love story is one of the only humorous parts of this otherwise boring movie. And Blu and Jewel’s children, or his friends Rafael, Pedro, and Nico—they remain vehicles for one liners, nothing more.

The strength of Rio 2 should be its music and visuals, really, because its characters are so lackluster. But while Rio 2 is pretty enough visually—the colors of the various birds pop, the detail given to the rainforest is nice, and the Carnival scenes are very exciting—it doesn’t need its 3D effects, and there are no songs—aside from the one sung by Gabi, in which she laments that touching her love Nigel would kill him—that are memorable. Not one. Competition for “Let It Go,” this isn’t.

Perhaps the fact that Rio 2 is set in South America and voiced by a multicultural cast is in itself an accomplishment for a children’s film. But the ho-hum songs, the weirdly mature plot, the expected nature-is-good messaging—children’s movies are defined by their attention to detail and creation of relatable characters, and the lack of both in Rio 2 make it thoroughly mediocre.

Rating: 2 out of 5 Guttenbergs

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Review: ‘Shirin in Love,’ starring Nazanin Boniadi, Riley Smith, and Maz Jobrani

Shirin in Love is a typical, unremarkable romantic comedy wrapped in very underdeveloped Iranian dressing. As an Iranian-American myself, I was so excited for this movie! For a cinematic experience that would subtly capture the intricacies of growing up in Iranian culture in the United States, in the challenges that one faces for love. But Shirin in Love isn’t that movie: it’s not that nuanced, it’s not that insightful, and it’s not that welcoming either to Iranian or American audiences.

The film focuses on Shirin (Nazanin Boniadi), a beautiful, quirky, and forgetful human-rights-lawyer-turned-journalist (the favorite occupation of practically all female protagonists in romantic comedies) engaged to a wealthy plastic surgeon, Mike (comedian Maz Jobrani). Their families have been close for years, but there’s absolutely no romantic sizzle or chemistry between Shirin and Mike; she smiles fondly at him maybe once, and every other time can barely stand him. And she doesn’t seem to like her parents much, either, since they’re just more Iranian stereotypes: Her mother is disgustingly thin, with long, fake blond hair, a put-on British accent, garish makeup, and extremely tight-fitting designer clothes, while her father is disconnected, overprotective, and barely tolerant of his wife.

But Shirin has essentially no backbone, so she puts up with her frustrating parents, still lives at home with them, and has no interest in marrying Mike but makes no attempt to stop it, either. So when her mother offers her a dream assignment in reviewing the new novel by reclusive author Rachel Larson (Amy Madigan) and interviewing her for a cover story, Shirin jumps at the opportunity, driving seven hours to find Rachel in a small cabin-style house in … somewhere, with pretty mountains and vineyards and all the trappings of a perfect romantic-comedy location. Because, you see, everything in Shirin in Love is as clichéd as you would expect.

After a mix-up where she gets taken in by a woman she at first doesn’t know is Rachel, Shirin grows close with the novelist and her son, William (Riley Smith), a blandly handsome white guy who lives in a lighthouse (yes, really) and types his own writings on an ancient typewriter (yes, really). Although he’s in a long-term relationship with a local bar manager, Shirin and William can’t deny the attraction between them; as foreplay, they wonder to each other, “There’s nothing worse than a relationship that’s convenient, comfortable, and boring, right?” Ugh and sigh. So not only do their growing feelings get in the way of Shirin’s engagement to Mike, but they force her to reevaluate her relationship with her parents, too. Maybe she shouldn’t still be living with them. Maybe she shouldn’t still be working for her mother. And maybe she should pursue her own dreams for once, both in love and in life.

Have you read anything yet that surprises you? It shouldn’t. Shirin in Love doesn’t really do anything to provide a specifically Iranian point of view, except for mocking and stereotyping. Iranian men are horned-up partiers, personified in Mike’s best friend, played by fellow comedian Max Amini, who deserves far better than this (check him out in Bridging the Gap: A Middle East Comedy Conference; he’s wonderful). Iranian women are materialistic, superficial shrews, according to Shirin’s mother and would-be mother-in-law.

They’re the kind of stereotypes that, as an Iranian-American, I do recognize: I can name a few relatives who would say things to me like, “Why do you dress like a beggar?” when I’m wearing a tank top, and who would go over-the-top in voicing their criticisms of other people, like when Shirin’s mother says William is “crazy, mentally unstable, self-destructive; most writers are.” But the movie doesn’t do enough to cater specifically to an Iranian audience (not enough Farsi spoken, not enough cultural details) or to an American one (not enough background about Iranian tradition, not enough explanation of why Iranian families are so top-down in their power structure). It’s just a slightly Iranian film, with all of the elements from American romantic comedies thrown in.

Perhaps it would help if the script, character development, or acting were better, but they’re not. Although Boniadi is a nicely naturalistic actress, she’s saddled with the kind of frustrating, infantilizing treatment that most romantic comedies suffer from; she only decides to change her terrible life because of a man she knows for a couple of weeks, and that’s not empowering at all. That man, William, has been living a lie for years, and although he’s not the monster Shirin’s mother makes him out to be, he’s certainly not developed past “rugged-ish guy with too much hair product and a well-meaning but checkered past.” And although the Iranian side of this cast is stacked with comedians—Jobrani, Amini—the former’s character goes from domineering jerk to supportive friend in about five seconds, and the latter only ogles at a white woman and then dances in crowd scenes. They never get a chance to have any real fun.

That’s kind of the issue with Shirin in Love as a whole: it feels like a very dutiful movie, one that goes from story step to story step without ever straying into anything zany or silly, or even remotely genuine. The movie knows where it needs to go to keep that romantic-comedy structure intact, but it doesn’t put any real passion into anything. Shirin isn’t believable either as a product of her parents or as a romantic interest for either Mike or William, and since the movie can’t sell those core relationships, it can’t convince us of anything.  

Rating: 1.5 out of 5 Guttenbergs

 

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Review: ‘The Lunchbox,’ starring Irrfan Khan and Nimrat Kaur

If The Lunchbox, writer/director Ritesh Batra’s first film, were an American, not an Indian, production, it would be a romantic comedy of the silliest degree. Kate Hudson, because she hasn’t had a McConaissance like her onetime costar yet, would be the disgruntled housewife. Maybe Gerard Butler would be the widower receiving her lunches and her letters. And eventually they would have some passionate tryst before running away together, to the joy of female viewers everywhere. Maybe Rihanna’s “We Found Love” would play during the credits or something, to applaud them for escaping their “hopeless place.” And, scene!

But what keeps Batra’s film realistic, relatable, and even somewhat tragic is how thoroughly it rejects that Hollywood (and even Bollywood, if we’re being specific to India) formula, and doesn’t suggest that happiness is right around the corner for either of its main characters. These are people stuck in the ruts and rhythms of life, lonely islands in the bustling city of Mumbai. An accident in the system brings them together, but never actually physically; their trust and affection for each other grows through letters, that outdated technology, and then is never truly consummated. There’s longing and yearning in The Lunchbox, but how you view it will depend on how you receive the conclusion: whether you think it’s a promise that will eventually be fulfilled or one that will eventually be forgotten. It’s thoughtful stuff.

The film begins with Ila (Nimrat Kaur), an unhappy housewife who, after her husband leaves for work and her daughter leaves for school, is found with nothing to do all day but have yelling conversations with her upstairs neighbor, Auntie. Auntie, who spends her days caring for her catatonic husband who spent years in a coma, shouts recipe instructions down to Ila, who thinks her cooking can lure her husband to pay attention to her. She slaves over paneer, she toasts roti bread, she packs it all up in a four-tier lunchbox and then she sends it to her husband in the city through a dabbawala, or a lunch-delivery service that is famous for its accuracy and punctuality. And when the lunchbox comes back each day, she tries to gauge it, what he ate and what he didn’t, to tweak what she makes the next day. It’s a never-ending process to her husband’s heart through his stomach, but it doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

Until one day, when the lunchbox comes back totally empty—practically licked clean—and she realizes the lunch never went to her husband at all, but mistakenly to about-to-retire government worker Saajan (Irrfan Khan). A widower who is so introverted that he moves like a ghost, barely interacting with colleagues and going through the motions of train-into-work, work, train-home-from-work, Ila’s meal begins to break him out of his monotony. The next day, he receives another lunch, this time with a note from her explaining that the meal was from her husband, but he only sends back one comment: the food was “too salty.” It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s certainly more communicating than he was doing otherwise—and the same for her, too.

So a friendship develops, through these notes, which function practically like anonymous messages in a bottle: if you threw your truth and your feelings and your honesty out into the universe, what would come back? The film moves at a good pace to bring us into Ila’s and Saajan’s growing relationship while also developing them us as individuals: we learn that Ila’s father is dying of lung cancer while her mother (Lillete Dubey, of Monsoon Wedding) suffers with taking care of him, and we learn that Saajan is a good teacher when he tries, as he’s in charge of mentoring the man replacing his position, Shaikh (Nawazuddin Siddiqui).

No matter how brief these scenes are, you get a solid sense of what Batra wants to convey: how family, how loneliness, how cultural expectations can batter down your self-will. It helps that Kaur and Khan can both do so much in a glance, in a look. When Ila realizes that her husband might be having an affair, her face as she smells his shirts, cycling through each of them while comprehension dawns on her, it’s a fantastic, mostly quiet scene where you see her heart breaking. The same goes for Khan as he plays Saajan smoking on his balcony each night, staring into the apartment of a happy family across the street—with their home-cooked food, with their children, with everything he hasn’t had since his wife died. Khan has always been a magnificently expressive, subtle actor, and he excels here, too.

Nevertheless, there are some issues; you get an Eat, Pray, Love sense of how food is one of the most important things in life, but that feels a little simplistic for a film that’s also dealing with death and familial abandonment at the same time. The connections don’t always work. And some of the lines are a bit too on-the-nose, like Ila and Saajan wondering, “What do we live for?” and complaining about cell phones and technology ruining human interaction. And then there’s the ending, which is a bit of an Inception twist, but in a romantic setting. It’s not a bad thing, necessarily, but if you’re looking for something totally declarative, The Lunchbox doesn’t deliver it.

Overall, though, this is a thoughtful little movie, one that benefits from its main performances and a nicely slow building romance. “You let me into your dreams, and I want to thank you for that,” Saajan says to Ila, and if that doesn’t have you blubbering quietly, then you’re probably a soulless monster.

Rating: 4 out of 5 Guttenbergs 

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