Directed by: David Silverman
Starring: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Harry Shearer, Hank Azaria
Rated: PG-13 for irreverent humor throughout.
Parental Notes: If you let your kids watch "The Simpsons," you're probably going to be okay with the movie. It's only a wee bit more on the rude side than the show.
"The Simpsons Movie" has been in production for years and has eleven writers in its credits. Much to my surprise, these facts do not indicate that the film is a wretchedly bad committee production. Far from it! While it isn't as great as some of the classic Simpsons episodes of yore, it is solidly good from start to finish. Somehow all those years of polishing and all those hands on the polishing cloths have produced a nice little gem of comedy.
The plot revolves around Homer managing, as his son Bart succinctly puts it, to doom them all. Lake Springfield is over-polluted, and in his haste to get to a donut sale Homer dumps one more bit of pollution into the water, turning the lake into a cesspit of toxic horror. The federal government responds by dropping a giant dome over the city, sealing everyone inside -- or so they think. The Simpsons manage to escape (fortunately for them, as once the townsfolk find out that the dome is Homer's fault, they are none too pleased with him), and soon it's up to them to save the city.
There are charming bits of cleverness strewn throughout; Homer complains early on that anybody who pays to watch a movie when they could see the TV show at home for free is an idiot, and there is a hilarious an Austin Powers style skateboard chase as a plot aside. The whole family is up to their usual tricks, blown up a bit larger than life for the big screen.
Also blown up larger than usual is the animation. Matt Groening used computer assistance to get three-dimensional effects in his TV series "Futurama," and it looks like the same technology has been applied here. There are glorious, sweeping 'camera' movements one doesn't usually see with the Simpsons. It took a wee bit of getting used to after years of conventional animation on the show, but it works.
There's little that can be said about the humor of the show that hasn't been said repeatedly over the 19 years it has been on the air. If you haven't seen the series, you've been missing out; many complain that recent years have seen a decline in quality but I now suspect it's because a lot of effort was going into the film. While it might help to be familiar with the show before watching "The Simpsons Movie," it's not entirely necessary. The film is more like an extra-long episode than a spin-off movie -- not only does it have the same plot arc, it stands alone fairly well.
Some hardcore fans may be disappointed that the film is not a return to the glory days of the show's first decade, but this casual fan of the show enjoyed "The Simpsons Movie" a great deal. The creators don't seem to have set their sights very high in making the film, but they succeeded at making a solidly enjoyable 87-minute Simpsons tale work on the big screen, and that takes some doing.
Directed by: Dennis Dugan
Starring: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Jessica Biel, Steve Buscemi
Rated: PG-13 for crude sexual content throughout, nudity, language and drug references. (re-rated; originally rated R)
Parental Notes: This is a difficult film to offer advice about for parents. It's thoroughly crude and has more than its fair share of stupid stereotypes, but it lacks graphic violence or sexual content. Whether you're comfortable with your kids seeing it will probably depend heavily on your opinion of stupid comedies and homosexuality.
"I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" is a very frustrating film, on a number of levels. It's not quite as bad as the trailers would indicate, but that's kind of like saying a lone dead fish doesn't smell quite as bad as a trash dump. It's tempting to praise it for not being offensive and filled to the brim with homophobia, but then I would have to praise a film which has a more thorough helping of gay stereotyping than I would usually tolerate.
The story is simple. Firefighters Larry Valentine (Kevin James) and Chuck Levine (Adam Sandler) are best friends. When Larry discovers that he's missed the deadline to make his children his pension beneficiaries now that his wife has died, he nearly gives up -- until he finds out that if he gets married, he can make his new spouse the beneficiary. That would leave the kids with someone to look after them and enough money to do so. The question is, who to marry? Obviously, he settles on Chuck. His friend balks at first -- he's a serious womanizer -- but Larry assures him that it will only be on paper, so he agrees. Of course, if the whole thing stayed secret, we wouldn't have much of a movie, so word gets out and soon the two super-straight guys have to fake their gay marriage well enough to convince the city investigator, Clinton Fitzer (Steve Buscemi).
"Chuck and Larry" is full of stereotypes. There's the anonymous Japanese fellow who performs their ceremony (Rob Schneider), complete with mispronunciations and frequent "hai!"s and bows. There's the two gay secondary characters, who are incredibly effeminate. Then there's Chuck and Larry themselves, who are basically nice guys but as stereotypically hetero as you can be -- Chuck is able to seduce any woman and Larry is still very much in love with his dead wife and is a terrible housekeeper. This sort of stupid comedy generally has loads of stereotypes, but they become tiresome very quickly because stereotypical characters are so incredibly predictable.
The other thing this sort of stupid comedy often has in spades is wish-fulfillment, and "Chuck and Larry" has plenty of that. There's the obligatory scene where the hot woman who thinks the guys are really gay offers to let Chuck feel her breasts to prove they're real. There are also a couple of scenes where Chuck and Larry put the smackdown on gaybashers, which is a lot of fun for anybody who's ever fantasized about that.
Still, there is a strong undercurrent of "ew, two guys in love? Gross!" We never see James and Sandler kiss, although there are two scenes where they come close and both are played as gross-out style comedy. Every gay character shown on screen is a flaming queer. Even Duncan (Ving Rhames), a firefighter so manly that he threw his captain through a wall at another station and is widely suspected of being an axe murderer, becomes a limp-wristed, singing-in-the-shower, high-voiced stereotype as soon as he comes out of the closet.
Ultimately, "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" is neither all good nor all bad, neither incredibly offensive nor decently sensitive. It's just as stupid as the previews would have you believe, but the filmmakers have gone out of their way to include as strong a "gay is okay!" message as they could without coming close to alienating their straight male audience. This film is not at all revolutionary or challenging to the mainstream viewer, but it might be a teensy step in the right direction -- if only because the main characters remind us that "'gay' is the accepted vernacular" rather than the f-word beloved of gaybashers.
Directed by: David Yates
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Imelda Staunton, Evanna Lynch, Matthew Lewis, Katie Leung, Michael Gambon
Rated: PG-13 for sequences of fantasy violence and frightening images.
Parental Notes: This film is definitely darker, scarier, and more maturely-themed than the previous films, so use caution when taking younger children to see it. If they could handle the book, they can probably handle the film (though they'll likely be peeved by the many cuts the screenwriter made in the story).
The new Harry Potter film is out, and it's a step in a new direction in a number of ways. For one thing, it has virtually no exposition. If you haven't read the book recently and can't stand not being entirely sure what's going on, you should probably skip it. This is a highlights-of-the-book sort of film -- at 138 minutes, it's the shortest Potter film to date, but the book it's based on is far longer than the first four.
Starting with the opening scene of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," it's clear that this is the darkest, bleakest film in the series so far. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) sits alone and depressed on a swing set in an abandoned park. After a few moments, his cousin Dudley (Harry Melling) and a couple thuggish friends appear and provoke him into drawing his wand. The fight is broken up by a Dementor attack, and Harry only just manages to save himself and his hated cousin. For his trouble, he winds up in front of the Ministry of Magic on trial and under threat of expulsion from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The head of the Ministry, Cornelius Fudge (Robert Hardy) refuses to believe that the villainous Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) has returned, and is doing his best to suppress Harry and anyone else who says otherwise.
The idea that those in power are not necessarily in the right runs deeply through the film, and the tendrils of the corruption at the Ministry make their way into Hogwarts in the form of Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton, "Vera Drake"). Professor Umbridge is the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and before long she is made the Inquisitor of Hogwarts and given near-total power over the school. She uses this power to impose her own idea of order, which includes boys and girls having at least eight inches between them at all times and all student groups and activities (including Quidditch!) being banned. She even uses magical pens to torture misbehaving students, and hides all this nastiness under a very thin veneer of sweetness and light. Staunton is absolutely fantastic, and turns Umbridge into the sort of person you love to hate.
Umbridge's Dark Arts classes are entirely book reading, since Fudge doesn't want any of Dumbledore's students learning combat magic, so Hermione (Emma Watson) persuades Harry to teach a small group of students how to really defend themselves against the bad guys. Harry agrees, and the group luckily discovers the Room of Requirement, a hidden room in the school where they can practice without Umbridge catching them. The students name their group Dumbledore's Army, after their beloved (and beleaguered) headmaster and set to work. There are very few scenes of regular classes in the film, so the scenes of the Army training are a delight. Harry surprises everyone by being a very good teacher, and soon even the klutzy Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis) is showing progress. Of course, no Potter film would be complete without a huge showdown, and soon Harry and his friends find themselves in over their heads.
The teenage actors have come a long way in these five films, especially the central trio. Rupert Grint no longer simply makes faces as Ron, and Radcliffe and Watson are able to include some surprisingly subtle bits in their performances. Radcliffe in particular has a lot to handle in this film, including mental possession by a villain and a number of startling revelations and events. He passes all the challenges with flying colors. Here's hoping he survives the seven-film series without being typecast; the boy has talent.
"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is a surprisingly well-trimmed-down film. It is reminiscent of a roller coaster -- every scene is clipped tight, and we're rushed from one exciting part to the next with hardly a moment to breathe. If you can't jump in and go along for the ride you'll be left behind.
Directed by: Brad Bird
Starring: Brian Dennehy, Janeane Garofalo, Brad Garrett, Ian Holm, Peter O'Toole, Patton Oswalt, Lou Romano
Rated: G
Parental Notes: This is a fantastic film for all ages, provided you don't have a phobia of rats or kitchen knives.
The hero of "Ratatouille," the latest offering of Brad Bird ("The Incredibles") and Pixar Animation Studios, is Remy (Patton Oswalt), a rat. That may seem like an unlikely choice for the hero of a film for children, but everything about this film is unlikely. It's set in a three-star restaurant in Paris, half the characters are rodents, the villains are a food critic and a nasty chef, and it's surprisingly touching without being overly saccharine the way so many kids movies are. Best of all, it's thoroughly enjoyable even if you happen to be a grownup.
Remy is separated from his rodent family when they are forced to evacuate the farmhouse where they've been living. He finds himself in Paris, right next to the restaurant founded by his idol, the late Chef Gusteau. You see, Remy is no ordinary rat. He has a finely honed sense of smell -- to the point that his father made him poison-sniffer for the colony -- and longs to try cooking for real, not just the experiments he managed to do in the farmhouse kitchen while the little old lady who lived there was asleep.
Most folks find rats revolting, and Pixar have done quite a bit to make the rats in "Ratatouille" as appealing as possible while letting them still look somewhat realistic. They have human-looking eyes rather than the dark spheres of wild rats, and their noses are a bit cartoonish, as are their paws. Plus, once we get to know Remy a little it's hard to see him as a dirty creature. He walks on his hind legs so he can keep his forepaws clean, after all, and he washes up every time he's going to handle food.
Remy gets a chance to handle food in a real kitchen when a series of lucky coincidences sets him on the path to becoming a real chef: he winds up teamed with Linguini (Lou Romano), a garbage-boy-turned-cook whose actions Remy controls by pulling on his hair. Ridiculous? Well, yes. But this is, after all, an animated film about a rat's existential crisis: should he spend his life as a regular rat, eating garbage and hiding in the shadows, or should he follow his dream of being a chef? Perhaps a little ridiculousness is par for the course. Our suspension of disbelief is aided by the utterly hysterical montage in which Remy and Linguini practice cooking with a blindfold over Linguini's eyes.
Pixar's computer animation walks the line between realism and cartoonishness with deftness. It's just real enough to look phenomenal without crossing the line into creepy unnaturalness ("Polar Express," I'm looking at you). The detail work is astonishing, the water and fur design is superb, and the character design of the rats and humans alike is very well-done. Even the motion, which is vital to a piece driven by physical humor and quick physical action, is top-notch.
Linguini and Remy's collaboration is a huge success, and soon the food critic Anton Ego (a sepulchral Peter O'Toole) is on the warpath. He wrote off Gusteau's restaurant some time ago, and is enraged to hear it being praised. There are complications, of course, and by the end of the film so much has happened that it's really rather astonishing to look back on. It feels almost a bit cramped, like a suitcase with one too many t shirts in it. However, Bird is a good enough storyteller that it all is clear and makes sense, and doesn't loose its momentum. Everything is tied up neatly, of course, but the ending is not nearly as sugary-sweet as I was expecting.
"Ratatouille" is a thoroughly enjoyable film for children and adults alike, and may just encourage a few youngsters to look at cooking in a new way.
Directed by: Kirby Dick
Rated: an early version was rated NC-17 for some graphic sexual content, but the rating was surrendered.
Parental Notes: Like most documentaries, this is not a film aimed at kids. They will find it dull, and parents will be uncomfortable explaining the scenes that include sex and violence. Teenagers will find it informative, though parents uncomfortable with frank talk about sexuality may be unwilling to let their teens watch it.
The Motion Picture Association of America is well-known to just about all movie goers, even if they don't know its name. It's the body that puts ratings on films -- the familiar G, PG, PG-13, R, and the scandalous NC-17. But what do we know about the MPAA? Not much, and they do their best to keep it that way. Filmmaker Kirby Dick set out to learn as much about them as he could, even going so far as to hire a private eye. The result of his efforts is "This Film is not yet Rated," a snarky, hilarious, and rabble-rousing expose of a documentary. It's a must-see for parents who use ratings to decide what their kids see, for folks who care about free speech, and for anybody who thinks that ratings aren't that big a deal.
Dick interviews filmmakers like John Waters ("A Dirty Shame"), Kimberly Peirce ("Boys Don't Cry"), Kevin Smith ("Clerks II"), and Mary Harron ("American Psycho") about their experiences with the MPAA, and their stories are almost shocking, especially "South Park" creator Trey Parker's account of how different his studio-funded film was treated than his earlier independent work. Dick also managed to track down some MPAA insiders who were willing to talk, and their stories are illuminating.
The MPAA has always insisted that their ratings are voluntary, but as Dick shows us, there are agreements between the studios that make the films, the media that advertise the films, and the exhibitors who show the films which pretty much guarantee that any unrated or NC-17 film will receive little or no publicity and be shown in a very limited collection of theaters. For example, "This Film is not yet Rated" surrendered its NC-17 rating and was released as an unrated film; it did not show in studio-owned theater chains as a result and is not carried in some video rental stores either.
The ratings system, ultimately, is arbitrary and secretive. The rules, procedures, and standards used by the MPAA are secret. They promise they have filmmakers' best interests at heart, and we just need to trust them -- but of course they can't provide any evidence because of the secrecy, and they are accountable to nobody. "This Film is not yet Rated" does a lot to drag the MPAA kicking and screaming into the light of public scrutiny, and apparently some changes have been made at the MPAA as a result. There's still a long way to go, though. Hopefully other documentary-makers will be inspired to do some more digging.