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X-Men: DayS of Future Past

Remember when Nixon killed the Sentinel program that would’ve rid the world of mutants? No? I guess that got lost amongst coverage of Watergate, Vietnam, etc.

Time travel is such a gimmicky plot device. But without it, we wouldn’t have X-Men: Days of Future Past, a film with incredibly good special effects. X-Men: Days of Future Past has its flaws, but I’m guessing most X-Men fans will forgive director Bryan Singer for those sins (as well as for his alleged personal sins).

After robotic Sentinels threaten to wipe out all mutants—even those with strong supernatural abilities—as well as normal humans, desperate measures must be taken. Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) sends Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back to 1973 derail the program.

Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) guides Logan in his time travel, conjuring up memories of Inception. After arriving back in the day and gracing the screen with his naked backside, Logan meets up with Xavier’s younger self (James McAvoy). They work to spring the younger Magneto (Michael Fassbender) from his prison beneath the Pentagon.

The facts that McAvoy does not look a bit like Patrick Stewart and Fassbender only vaguely resembles the present day Magneto (Ian McKellan) must be overlooked. Also, if the Sentinel program had been authorized in 1973, wouldn’t it have decimated the mutant population way before now?

Meanwhile, Dr. Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) pushes to have the US produce Sentinels to eliminate the world’s mutants. In a ceremony on the White House lawn, Tricky Dick is about to give thumbs up to the program. When Magneto uses his powers to move RFK Stadium and set it down surrounding the White House, the ceremony is halted and the climactic battle ensues. (Apparently, RFK was moved back in time for the Redskins’ 1973 season.)

While certain of the mutants get limited screen time, here are key players among those featured. As Mystique/Raven, Jennifer Lawrence shows that she is without a doubt the most versatile actor/actress in movies today. And as Hank/Beast, Nicholas Hoult shows his fine acting range. As Peter/Quicksilver, Evan Peters thrills with incredible speed (and a sense of humor).

Also worth mentioning is the mutant Blink, if only because of the actress’s wonderful name, Bingbing Fan. President Nixon is played by Mark Comacho, who actually resembles the Trickster, but is a bit heavier.

With a good balance of exposition/character development versus battles/awesome effects, X-Men: Days of Future Past, adds another winner to the Marvel movie list. Grab your 3-D glasses and get in line now!

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Chef

Chef is a film that fills me with joy. The food is gorgeous, the music is superb, the characters are (mostly) likeable and this redemption story is neatly presented. This movie is a good time.

Jon Favreau is the cinematic chef for this delicious entrée. He wrote it. He directed it. And he stars as chef Carl Casper, a man with a passion for cooking.

In Chef, the Los Angeles restaurant where Carl cooks is about to get a visit from noted food blogger Ramsay Michel (Oliver Platt). Carl is ready to prepare a creative menu when the restaurant’s owner (Dustin Hoffman) intercedes and orders Carl to cook the same menu the restaurant has featured (successfully) for a decade.

When Michel rips Carl for serving the same old same old, Carl is upset. When he sees that Michel’s slam has been shared on Twitter, he replies obscenely, not knowing how Twitter works. (In real life Favreau is a Twitter master with 1.71 million followers.)

Carl asks for a re-do and invites Michel to come back and let him cook what he wanted to cook in the first place. The owner steps in again and says no, causing Carl to walk out. But he walks back in during dinner service, and launches into a dining room tirade against the critic that is captured on iPhones and shared across the internet.

Any creative person who’s every wanted to rip into a critic for knocking their work, but had the self-control to resist, can appreciate watching Carl rage out of control.

With his career wrecked after this fit of anger, his ex-wife Inez (Sofia Vergara) invites him to join her and their son Percy (Emjay Anthony) in Miami. Shortly after arriving, Carl visits Inez’ previous ex-husband Marvin (Robert Downey Jr.) who gifts Carl with a commercial van that he converts into a food truck.

With an assist from his LA kitchen staffer Martin (John Leguizamo) he equips the truck and begins selling Cuban sandwiches on South Beach. Along with Percy, they take the truck to acknowledged food meccas New Orleans and Austin, before coming home to LA and a storybook ending.

Scarlett Johansson appears as the LA restaurant’s hostess and Carl’s girlfriend. Russell Peters has a funny turn as a Miami cop who wants to take selfies galore with Carl and his food truck crew.

For foodies and those in the food and beverage industry, Chef is a “must see.” Favreau shows great respect for those who cook in Chef. He captures the passion that the best chefs (and kitchen staffs) bring to work every day and night. Impressively, he has good knife skills. That’s no stunt double chopping carrots.

Chef gets a special commendation, too, for getting social media right. Twitter helped bring about Carl Casper’s downfall. And, as anyone who owns a food truck will confirm, Twitter is a valuable tool for telling people where you’ll be parked and serving next. Young Percy is the chef’s social media guru whose Twitter savvy brings crowds to the truck’s windows as soon as they open. Twitter giveth and Twitter taketh away, as Chef clearly shows.

I promise that if you see Chef on an empty stomach, you’ll leave hungry. And I bet you will also walk out happy. Chef is a tasty treat. Savor it!

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Godzilla

The newest Godzilla has everything you want in a summer tent pole movie: a sufficient amount of monster footage, generous servings of destruction, an okay storyline and generally decent acting by the human cast. (And the 3-D is good, too.)

Godzilla’s clever title sequence includes “redacted” credits over nuke-related archival footage, hinting at official cover-ups of atomic testing and the effects of radiation. An old-school opening theme signals a serious attitude.

Joe and Sandra Brody (Bryan Cranston and Juliette Binoche) both work at a Japanese nuclear plant. Joe wants to shut the plant down due to seismic rumbles; Sandra goes to check on the reactor and dies when tremors lead to disaster and force the closing of escape doors.

Throughout the film are reminders of 9-11 footage that are branded into our gray matter, starting with shots of Sandra running to escape an approaching dusty cloud of danger.

15 years after the nuke plant event, Joe’s grown up son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) leaves his wife (Elizabeth Olsen) and son Sam (Carson Bolde) in San Francisco to bail out his widower dad in Japan. Joe has trespassed in the forbidden area around the nuke plant. When he convinces Ford to return with him to the area, they discover why the plant is off limits.

Dr. Ichiro Serizawa (Ken Wantanabe) and his sidekick Vivienne (Sally Hawkins) are seen in the film’s opening scene, checking out a weird crater in a uranium mine in the Philippines. They are involved in the cover-up of events at the shuttered plant. Here’s where we meet the first monster.

As the two flying monsters make their way from Japan to Hawaii to the US west coast, they are pursued by Godzilla, with whom they faceoff in San Francisco. (The battles evoked cheers from the preview audience.)

In addition to visuals that trigger 9-11 memories, the 2011 Japanese earthquake (which caused damage to the real life Fukushima nuclear plant) is referenced when monsters cause a tsunami in Honolulu.

A sensitive touch that director Gareth Edwards brings to Godzilla is a focus on small children and the way peril affects them throughout the film. I was surprised that the 2014 Godzilla’s movements were less fluid than I’d expected. On the other hand, the sounds made by all the monsters are masterpieces of audio production.

The new Godzilla film is good enough to satisfy but not so good as to come close to classic status. It is likely to be warmly embraced by many who recall the old version, as well as by Godzilla newbies.

 

 

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Million Dollar Arm

Million Dollar Arm is a sports movie, sort of, but it has other hooks to attract audiences. First off, I’d guess most sports agents don’t look like J.B. Bernstein (Jon Hamm). Our St. Louis native son in the lead role provides eye candy for women.

It’s being promoted as a baseball movie, but none of the actors is ever involved in a baseball game. It may be promoted in other parts of the world as a cricket movie, but none of the actors participates in a cricket match.

The film has 2 central stories: (1) The “fish out of water” adventures of the two young Indian men who come to America to pitch baseballs (along with a third Indian assistant) and (2) J.B.’s gradual realization that fulfillment comes not just from making money but from doing the right things.

There’s also a simmering romance between J.B. and Brenda (Lake Bell), the woman who rents his guesthouse.

It’s a “feel good” movie that’s likely to have good word of mouth. It’s rated PG, so you can bring your kids and your grandma.

After his meal ticket jock, a Rams linebacker named Popo (Rey Maualuga), takes his business elsewhere, J.B. and his teammate agent Aash (Aasif Mandvi) come up with the Million Dollar Arm competition. J.B. theorizes that a strong-armed cricket pitcher can be taught to pitch a baseball well enough to get a contract. They travel to India to find candidates for the scheme. Rinku (Suraj Sharma) and Dinesh (Madhur Mittal) are the winners who come to America.

USC baseball coach Tom House (Bill Pullman) is given the job of taking the raw talent these young men possess and turn them into pro prospect pitchers. J.B. opens his house to the wide-eyed Indians but initially gives them only minimal guidance about domestic life in America.

Tryouts are arranged. Big league scouts and media attend. Rinku and Dinesh are washouts. The scheme is a failure. Until… grizzled scout Ray (Alan Arkin) hooks J.B. up with the Pirates, who somehow missed the first tryout. If you’ve ever seen a sports movie, you can guess how they do at their encore audition.

Million Dollar Arm is based on a true story, but comes to the screen with a good amount of Hollywood embellishment. The movie should serve as a solid foundation for Jon Hamm to build a movie career upon, now that Mad Men is coming to an end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Other Woman

 

Women (and men) who have caught their spouses cheating will enjoy the comeuppance received by deceitful scoundrel Mark King (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) in The Other Woman. Revenge comes in many forms from the trio of women he’s used and the payback is rough.

Carly (Cameron Diaz) is a New York City attorney having a carefree romance with Mark—until she finds out he is married. Dutiful wife Kate King (Leslie Mann) is shocked to find out that hubby is messing around, but she isn’t overly angry at Carly, because Carly didn’t know he was married.

Kate and Carly become chums. Following a night of alcohol-fueled female bonding, the two follow Mark on a weekend trip to the beach. Conveniently, Kate’s brother Phil (Taylor Kenney) has a beach house near the spot where Mark is cheating with a third woman, Amber (Kate Upton). When Amber learns of Mark’s treachery, the getting even begins.

Coster-Waldau’s credibility as a sleazeball is easy to buy, considering that he also plays the amoral Jaime Lannister on HBO’s Game of Thrones. That character fathered two sons with his sister, tried to kill a small child and, on the latest episode, committed a particularly vile act.

Leslie Mann has been funny in movies before—mainly in Judd Apatow films since he’s her real life husband. But The Other Woman may be her funniest performance to date.

Also appearing in the film are a weathered-looking Don Johnson as Carly’s dad and Nicki Minaj as Carly’s secretary.

The film may remind you of 1996’s The First Wives Club in which three ex-wives seek to make life less happy for the husbands who dumped them for younger babes. In The Other Woman the take down is complete and funny.

Nick Cassavetes is the director. His best-known film is The Notebook, a love story that’s a favorite of many romantics. The Other Woman isn’t quite so touching, but its resolution should be satisfying to most women moviegoers.

And for the guys, we get a few seconds of Kate Upton running in slow motion on the beach. (Thanks, Nick!)

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Draft Day

For hardcore NFL fans, Draft Day is a must see. The entire story takes place on NFL Draft day. Draft Day starts slowly. The movie, happily, builds picks up speed along the way and come to a satisfying ending.

Sonny Weaver Jr. (Kevin Costner) is the general manager of the Cleveland Browns. He holds a high pick but wants to parlay it into something better. He’s on the phone with fellow NFL GMs trolling for deals and seeking info. Meanwhile he’s dealing with all the other characters in his workplace world.

Ali (Jennifer Garner) is the team’s salary cap manager. She’s also Sonny’s live-in girlfriend. Coach Penn (Dennis Leary), who flashes the Super Bowl ring he earned as a Cowboys assistant, wants to have a say in the team’s picks. Team owner Anthony Molina (Frank Langella) gives Sonny plenty of leeway to make his moves—as long as they have a positive outcome.

Weaver’s father, a former Browns head coach, has died just a few days before draft day, which leads to a bit of family drama with his mom (Ellen Burstyn).

As the day progresses, leading up to the draft at Radio City, questions are asked and answered about certain players. It seems unrealistic that a team would still be investigating a player’s character at the last minute—considering all the intelligence that’s gathered for months leading up to the draft.

Chadwick Boseman, who starred a year ago as Jackie Robinson in 42, gives a likeable performance as a collegiate linebacker who’s hoping to go high. Sam Elliott has a brief role as the head football coach at Wisconsin.

Draft Day features several real life individuals. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is played by… Roger Goodell! TV talking heads in the movie include Chris Berman, Jon Gruden, Deion Sanders, Rich Eisen and Mel Kiper.

Two production touches I liked: The flyover beauty shots of several NFL stadiums look terrific on screen. And the way director Ivan Reitman handles split screen shots during Sonny’s several draft day phone calls is clever. (Reitman was director of Ghostbusters, Stripes, Kindergarten Cop, Meatballs and many others.)

As Weaver wheels and deals, tension builds, leading up to the actual picking of the players. The drama of the choosing—seen from several points of view—is greater than was expected.

This is the 3rd Costner movie in the last 3 months and, by far, the most entertaining. As mentioned earlier this year, Costner is an actor enjoyed by men and women. While men may want to see this film because of its football story, women should be able to enjoy the Sonny-Ali relationship and the many conflicts between various characters.

Draft Day will make NFL fans anxious for the draft to begin and will serve as a reminder of just how entertaining NFL football can be. With the real NFL Draft set for May 8, this film should guarantee a bigger TV audience for the annual ritual.

Yes, releasing Draft Day just 2 weeks into baseball season is a bit of a nose thumb to our former national pastime. But NFL football is big enough to get away with it.

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Divergent

There are similarities: A grim vision of the future, young people facing off against each other, young people facing off against authority, unconsummated sexual tension and… cool costumes. As happens in another recent movie, a ceremony near the film’s beginning brings the citizenry together as it tears families apart.

But—–Divergent is not The Hunger Games and Shailene Woodley is not Jennifer Lawrence.

In a bombed-out futureworld Chicago, Tris Pryor (Woodley) faces a choice she must make: Which of five factions will she choose to join? The smart folks are Erudite, the peaceful people are Amity, those who cannot lie are Candor, the brave and daring are Dauntless and the selfless belong to Abnegation.

Tris does not fit neatly into any one of those categories, so she is destined to be Divergent (according to personality testing). However, when choosing time comes, she picks Dauntless.

Her training is brutal, but she makes it through with help from one of the team leaders, the hunky Four (Theo James). He realizes that she’s a bit brainy for Dauntless, but he makes it work. It’s not a spoiler to tip that they fall in love.

The Dauntless leaders get their crew involved in a political battle. Erudite, led by Jeanine (Kate Winslet) is looking to overthrow the government run by Abnegation, whose leaders include Tris’ parents.

Divergent establishes its characters and tells its story clearly. Its violence is direct but not gory. The effects are good but not overbearing. A favorite scene is a nighttime zipline ride from the top of the John Hancock building. Wheeeeee!

Shailene Woodley received an Oscar nomination for her work in The Descendants. She was good in last year’s The Spectacular Now. For Divergent, she has been handed the keys to a franchise. Her acting chops are strong. But can she command an action role? I say yes. (Her Spectacular Now co-star Miles Teller is a fellow Dauntless trainee, FYI.)

Woodley may have the prettiest eyes in movies, but her look is not glam. She’s not a hardbody, but manages to pull off the athletic moves necessary to play Tris. (Not all of that work can be done by stunt doubles.)

The key to the success of Divergent will be, as with the Potter/Twilight/Hunger films, the passion of fans of the books. But for those of us who did not read the Divergent book, the movie is solidly entertaining. While it resolves its main plot issue, there will be more to come. The sequel Insurgent is due out in March 2015.

 

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Bad Words

Bad Words is one of those funny little movies that is definitely not for everyone. It has a ridiculous concept, an obnoxious lead character and a charming kid.

Guy Trilby (Jason Bateman) is a 40-year-old proofreader with an encyclopedic knowledge of words. He finds a loophole in the rules and enters a spelling bee in Columbus, Ohio, which he wins. He moves on to the national finals where the story picks up steam.

On the plane ride to LA, Guy meets and immediately disses a young boy of Indian descent (Rohan Chand) who ignores the putdowns and maintains his upbeat attitude.

Dr. Bernice Deagan (Allison Janney) runs the spelling bee. She is just as upset at Guy’s participation as are the parents of the kids in the bee. Dr. Bowman (the 82-year-old Philip Baker Hall) is the emeritus leader of the bee. He co-hosts the national telecast of the finals with Pete Fowler (Ben Falcone).

Jenny (Kathryn Hahn) is Guy’s sponsor and occasional lover. She has an online news outlet for which she is covering him and his wacky mission. She works to discover his reasons for crashing this party to which he is not welcome.

Other than his talent for spelling, Guy has no obvious redeeming social values. He is an absolute dick. He is rude to everyone: the kids, their parents, Jenny, the hotel staff, etc.

Eventually Guy becomes a friend to the young boy with the perky spirit. He takes him out for a night of totally inappropriate debauchery. Is sabotage his ulterior motive?

Bad Words delivers a few big laughs and several chuckles. Guy’s bad behavior, especially the terrible things he says to people, is often shockingly impolite. An actor less likeable than Jason Bateman would offend greatly. Guy is a total jerk but because it’s Bateman in the role, audiences are more likely to cut him a break.

Bad Words is Bateman’s competent debut as a director. The script is by rookie Andrew Dodge.

Viewers who appreciate its outrageous story and its mean-spirited humor have already championed this film. There are critic blurbs galore. But Bad Words is a movie with a central character who is hard to embrace and cheer for. That, for me, makes this movie hard to like. See Bad Words at your own risk.

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Mr. Peabody and Sherman

Mr. Peabody & Sherman is just okay. It looks good. The voice actors are excellent. But the film isn’t clever. And, worse, it’s not particularly funny.

Maybe I expected more because Dreamworks animation has a strong track record (Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar, etc.) Maybe it’s because the recent The Lego Movie raised the bar for animated films.

Mr. Peabody & Sherman is based on a segment from the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Those bits on the TV show employed primitive animation, but they were well written. They dripped with silly, funny cleverness. And horrible puns. Mr. Peabody (Ty Burrell of Modern Family) shares a few bad puns but they’re perfunctory.

Burrell’s voice work is spot on. (An early choice for this voice gig was Robert Downey Jr.) The child who voices Peabody’s adoptive boy Sherman (Max Charles) does a nice job, but often he sounds more like Rocky the Flying Squirrel.

The movie’s story has Sherman starting school and getting into a fight with classmate Penny (another Modern Family cast member, Ariel Winter). To resolve the issue, Peabody invites Penny and her parents (Steven Colbert and Leslie Mann) over for dinner.

When the kids are sent off to visit together, Sherman invites Penny to check out the WABAC machine. After Peabody hypnotizes the parents into a trance, he joins Sherman and Penny on trips back to the French Revolution, ancient Egypt, etc. They also drop in on Leonardo DaVinci. As mentioned, these segments look great, but their content fails to sizzle.

The film’s resolution has to do with the use of some voodoo physics to correct a time travel induced problem. Thankfully, these last few minutes of the movie manage to offer some of its funnier content.

A highlight of Mr. Peabody & Sherman is a sequence on Sherman set to John Lennon’s song “Beautiful Boy.”

For younger generations who may be less familiar with the TV version of Mr. Peabody & Sherman, the movie version may rock. But for me, a boomer who has watched them most of my life, Mr. Peabody & Sherman is okay. But it should’ve been better.

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Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is similar to other spy caper films you’ve seen, with a few interesting exceptions. Ryan (Chris Pine) is not just an ex-Marine in the CIA, he’s also an economist. And the caper centers on world market trading dirty tricks by devious Russians—particularly Viktor Cherevin (Kenneth Branagh)—designed to destroy the US economy.

US Navy Commander Thomas Harper (Kevin Costner) recruits Ryan for the CIA. He discovers him at Walter Reed Hospital as Ryan is rehabbing from injuries suffered in a copter crash in Afghanistan. Ryan finishes school, joins the CIA and goes to work on Wall Street to monitor economic terrorism.

Upon detecting suspicious activity in accounts run by Cherevin, Ryan chooses to go to Moscow to confront him. Ryan’s fiancé Dr. Cathy Muller (Keira Knightley) decides to follow along and gets caught up in the effort to fend off the Russian assault on world markets.

Because economic intrigue is not quite enough to sustain an “action” film, a corresponding plot has a van filled with explosives, driven by a man intent on destroying Wall Street physically (even as the wicked Ruskies are planning to beat us down financially).

Okay, there’s a lot going on here and some of it works and some of it does not work. It’s good to see an older Costner in this leadership role. (Seeing him in Navy dress blues briefly recalls that 1987 film No Way Out.) Branagh, who directs the film, is surprisingly good as the Russian bad guy.

Knightley is gorgeous and has shown great acting skills in the past. But in JR:SR, she’s of little value beyond eye candy. Her chemistry with Pine is almost non-existent. Pine is good and, after becoming a star via the Trek movies, has the stature to take on the Ryan role. He defines “rugged good looks.” Guys can appreciate his derring-do and ladies can get lost in those blue eyes.

A couple of plot holes and quick resolutions of complicated business may cause one to say, “Huh?” But if you just play along you’ll enjoy the ride.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is okay for a January release. But that’s what it is, a January release. (Note of interest: it’s rated PG-13, so you can send you mom who hated Wolf of Wall Street to see this one.)

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