TV on DVD Review - Dragons: Defenders of Berk (Part 1)

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Vikings and dragons, oh my! In the third DVD installment based on Dreamworks Animation’s Annie Award nominated Cartoon Network series based on the Oscar nominated CG blockbuster How to Train Your Dragon, we pick up right where we left off in the previous two-part title Riders of Berk with the even more adventurous follow-up Defenders of Berk.

The first installment of a season spanning collection that includes the second season’s first ten episodes, Defenders puts you right in the middle of the action as we find our young heroes taking matters into their own hands to help protect their island home, regardless of whether or not they have the blessing of their chief, who just so happens to be the father of our lead.

Forbidden from flying their dragons following the perilous experiences depicted on screens both big and small (which likewise help build anticipation for Dreamwork’s upcoming second feature film installment of their planned trilogy), the headstrong young Viking characters originally adapted from the young adult book series by Cressida Cowell set out on their mission under the cover of night.

In doing so, they form their own Fight Club-like Dragon Flight Club wherein the first rule of Dragon Flight Club is that there is no Dragon Flight Club confuses some of the IQ challenged young members of the Berk Dragon Train Academy. Yet almost as quickly as they get that first rule straightened out, the members are discovered by Chief Stoic.

Surprising his son Hiccup, Chief Stoic reveals that even though he’s angry as a father that his son disobeyed him he recognizes that as a chief, he was wrong to not let the talented academy students continue working on what they do best for the good of the people.

And as the audience discovers, this decision is reversed precisely at the right time as via a clever diversion that fools everyone but the suspicious Hiccup, the evil Alvin and his henchmen have already taken advantage of the situation to plant the seeds for what promises to be a dangerous uprising.

Threatening the very heart of Berk from below its caves by leaving a group of Whispering Death eggs behind to be hatched, the stage for battle is set by the end of the very first episode of this briskly paced, gorgeously animated, high-flying adventure series that soon finds the Academy students putting their training aside to defend Berk for real.

With Jay Baruchel and America Ferrera heading up a gifted voice cast of performers reprising their roles from the film and enhancing the world established in the hit feature with all new characters and talented artists, Berk continues the tradition of quality set forth in the previous season.

While some of the crass Renaissance fare style humor is sure to play better to boys (as well as girls willing to overlook occasional gross-out sight gags that liken lava to vomit for example), because the caliber of not just the visual storytelling but the emotionally engrossing Joseph Campbell style mythic hero’s journey paradigm is so consistently high, Dragons is a decidedly worthwhile investment.

Moreover, it’s a terrific addition to family entertainment libraries that – much like the previous discs – will help prepare viewers for the upcoming How to sequel slated for June by reacquainting us with the characters both in terms of how much has changed as well as stayed the same.

While most TV adaptations pale in comparison to their big screen counterparts, refreshingly not only does Berk live up to the original film but likewise it does an incredible job of continuing the coming-of-age journey of the characters that made the books upon which the material is based so compelling.

Also boasting a handy Ultraviolet digital copy code that enables you to bring the two-disc set with you on the go without any heavy peripherals save for a Wifi ready device, not only does Defenders make the wait to June far more bearable but it also provides your children with quality entertainment they can enjoy and learn valuable moral lessons from along the way.

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: Our Family Wedding (2010)

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In pursuit of matrimonial bliss and to encourage good fortune, the saying goes that every bride should have something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue on her wedding day. And although you could perhaps best liken the task of a movie director to a wedding planner instead of a bride, essentially Brown Sugar and The Wood filmmaker Rick Famuyiwa followed the exact same advice in bringing 2010's Our Family Wedding to the screen.

By playing up the angle of the overbearing patriarch best epitomized in the classic and contemporary versions of Father of the Bride the movie takes something old but manages to turn it into something uniquely new while introducing us to two dads of completely different ethnicities than the lily-white genre usually presents as we meet the African-American groom's father Brad Boyd (Forest Whitaker) and the Mexican-American bride's father Miguel Ramirez (Carlos Mencia).

In setting up all of the culture clashes, misunderstandings and mishaps that will follow to help fuel the comedic plot, the director along with his co-writers Wayne Conley and Malcolm Spellman borrow heavily from far more successful comedies and dramas including the classic Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (another “something old”) as well as the Meet the Parents franchise among others.

Likewise, in lifting a sequence where the Father of the Bride runs into trouble while scoping out the bathroom of the groom's father, this time instead of Steve Martin's shenanigans, we experience Carlo Mencia's as he knocks a bottle of something blue – namely Brad's Viagra -- down the sink.

Similarly it replaces another Bride plot device of an athletic display that works in the groom's favor instead of the dad's by changing out basketball for softball. Thus, while giving us more loony relatives in some ethnic caricature scenes that rival My Big Fat Greek Wedding for most cringe-worthy, all of these “somethings” collide.

And although everything about Our Family Wedding feels overly familiar and predictable and you could play a game of “spot the influence” as you watch, shouting out The In-Laws or Meet the Parents from one scene to the next, it's a benign and affable film that manages to squeak by based on the charm of its crackerjack cast.

To this end, the bride and groom fit the genre prerequisite of being both bland and adorable so that the dads get the opportunity to shine as America Ferrera's Lucia and Lance Gross' Marcus are reminded that it's their marriage but their family's wedding when the plans for a tasteful, intimate gathering blow-up into an overwhelming affair.

While Mencia provides a great deal of the laughter in the film, despite the fact that he and Whitaker are forced to overplay their first meeting to unbelievable effect as Miguel fills in for a sick employee and tows Brad's luxury car away before his eyes, it's particularly refreshing to see the Oscar winning Whitaker in a comedy for a change.

Yet stealing away most of Whitaker's thunder is the under-utilized Jerry Maguire MVP Regina King as Angela, Brad's long-time best friend who helped raise Marcus. Similar to her work in Maguire which reminds you on repeat viewings of the fact that half of Cuba Gooding Jr.'s Oscar truly belongs to her, King is flawless here, playing the supportive ally of Brad who deserves to be a more permanent fixture in his life, which we see gradually escalate as friendly banter moves into flirtation and then into one of the movie's multiple cake fights.

Still when a film script repeats itself with duplicate cake fights and far too many scenes involving the recitation of the same song lyrics, it's a sign that the writers were scrambling blind which is apparent throughout as problems brought up in the film are glossed over far too easily including one heartbreaking scene when Lucia's mother overhears her two daughters ridiculing her lot in life as the type of Latina they've vowed never to become.

Moreover, we never really understand why Lucia has been keeping both the existence of Marcus and her decision to drop out of law school to pursue volunteer teaching work from her entire family aside from the fact that it helps build the plot and make everything awkward when the two families get together.

These issues create some conflicting viewpoints when it comes to the character of Lucia – possibly indicative that the script was written by three men – as just one of a handful of females both on and off screen including an overly clingy wife of Taye Diggs and Whitaker's cruel ex-wife who abandoned her son that feel just as stereotypical as some of the racial insults and ethnic barbs the two dads throw at each other.

Thus you can't help wishing that another writer (or a different team altogether) had taken an additional pass at the screenplay to offer us much more in the “something new” department since the premise was promising and it broke through the color barriers of most Caucasian wedding pictures without of course, the name Tyler Perry being attached to it.

Nonetheless, while the ingredients don't all blend together smoothly during its 103 minute running time despite the gorgeous production values that amp up the Fox Searchlight Blu-ray presentation of the film with some sparkling night shots, overall this forgettable but mildly diverting Wedding boasts a few genuinely entertaining moments to keep you interested enough to remain on the movie's guest list.


Text ©2010, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Tinker Bell (2008)

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The first in a planned series of films centering on Disney Fairies and winner of Heartland's Truly Moving Picture Award, Walt Disney's DisneyToon Studios offers one of the company's most exquisitely crafted wholly original works, making its DVD and Blu-ray debut on 10/28/08. With incredible computer generated animation that's nearly 3D in quality, one of the company's most iconic figures--the pixie dust delivering, wand carrying fairy in the logo-- Tinker Bell herself is finally given a voice in a film that centers specifically upon her own origins.

While initially, I admit that it sounded a bit odd to hear the quiet, miniature flying golden-tressed fairy speak, the film is a truly classy addition to the J.M. Barrie character landscape and the tiny heroine we first encountered in Peter Pan. Voiced by Mae Whitman, we meet the young Tinker Bell as she becomes acquainted with the other fairies living in Pixie Hollow, including the wise matriarch Queen Clarion (Anjelica Huston) and her new friends, the light fairy Iridessa (Raven-Symone), the garden fairy Rosetta (Pushing Daisies star Kristin Chenoweth), water fairy Silvermist (Lucy Liu), America Ferrera's animal fairy Fawn, and her envious rival Vidia (Pamela Adlon).

As Tinker Bell challenges her position as a fairy whose role is to "tinker," by trying to overstep her bounds, she ultimately discovers that it's best to stay true to herself. Simply awe-inspiring in its imaginative depiction of an inspirational world as the fairies "nurture nature" whether it's occupying the winter woods with the Snow Fairies, ushering in Summer or Autumn, or in a breathtaking sequence helping grow flowers and inspire rainbows for Spring, the world of Pixie Hollow is, for my money, far more enchanting than that of Never, Never Land.

A much more female-centric take on J.M. Barrie's beloved characters, this "girl power" laced prequel to Peter Pan is simply "flitterific" as its characters might say. However, but more than that, it's a worthwhile film with a positive message and one that seems to resonate a bit more than traditional Disney Princess pictures do in encouraging girls to contemplate science and the beauty in the world around them and appreciate the value of hard work and assisting others.

Running a brisk seventy-eight minutes, frequent Disney sequel director Bradley Raymond's Tinker Bell never overstays its welcome. Additionally, the film arriving on both DVD and Blu-ray this coming Tuesday is equipped with a fun collection of extras to explore including a Magical Guide to Pixie Hollow, a DVD-ROM Activity entitled "Tinker Trainer," other magical offerings as well as more mainstream selections taken out of Pixie Hollow and targeted to "The Mainland" including a "making-of" featurette with the filmmakers, a music video with Selena Gomez of the Disney Channel, and deleted scenes.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (2008)

Director: Sanaa Hamri

Predictably, unlike the crowded screenings for The Dark Knight or Swing Vote, when it came to The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, the reserved press section had enough vacancies that the seats next to mine were released rather quickly. Soon enough, a kind, educated couple and their adorable, roughly nine-year-old aspiring blogger/film critic daughter became my impromptu movie buddies. Surprised to see such a young face amidst a theatre filled with halter top-wearing, high-heeled shoe adorned teenage girls who all looked like they’d mistaken the screening for a Gossip Girl audition or a Miley Cyrus concert, I eagerly chatted with the amiable family.

Quickly I learned that their daughter was not only the biggest fan of The Sisterhood but had also — unlike this reviewer whose schedule prevented proper preparation — recently watched the original 2005 film a few times earlier in the week to double check where the director Ken Kwapis had bookmarked the lives of Tibby (Amber Tamblyn), Lena (Alexis Bledel), Carmen (America Ferrera), and Bridget (Blake Lively). While Kwapis didn’t return for the Sisterhood reunion, Warner Brothers made an excellent choice in bringing in the talented Sanaa Hamri, who is not only a female director and thus more in tune with memories of female post-adolescent identity crises but also one whose wonderfully uplifting and overlooked romantic comedy Something New was one of the best entries into the genre over the last few years.

Although unaware of any changes behind the scenes, the contagious enthusiasm expressed by my new young seatmate made me recall just how surprisingly good the first movie had been. Given its intelligence, humor, warmth, and compassion, it put to shame all of the forced women’s bonding films such as the anti-feminist Georgia Rule and stereotypical Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.

Additionally, the fact that a girl that young could view the film speaks volumes for its family friendly quality. And although both the original and especially the sequel do contain some issues that make the most of its PG-13 rating, the filmmakers and screenwriter Elizabeth Chandler (taking plots from numerous titles in the series by Ann Brashares) ensure that it’s all handled with taste. Besides, luckily it appeared that my seatmate seemed to have the ideal parents with whom she could consult were there any lingering concerns she wanted to discuss after the film. Therefore it was joyous to see parents and children both enjoying a film together and appreciating aspects of it on different levels as some jokes played better to males in the audience than females and others struck a chord with varying generations.

Catching up with The Sisterhood’s foursome after their first year of college, we find them all dealing with that instantly relatable feeling of trying to reconcile the concerns and friendships of their youth with their new busy lives studying and living in various places. As those who are of a certain age are readily aware, it’s a tough transitional time where friendships are put to the test but the girls all continue loyally shipping the worn pair of blue jeans to each other in the hopes they will slide not only into the denim but the miraculous good fortune the jeans are purported to inspire. However, predictably we learn that over the previous freshman year, The Sisterhood has started to drift, barely e-mailing one another with some beginning to view their traditional ceremony at the beginning of the summer as “forced” rather than the spontaneous and exciting ritual they’d begun in the original film.



Set over the course of another fateful summer and unfortunately given little in the way of shared screen time, we follow the adventurous events of each girl’s life in Chandler’s jam-packed script. In trying to be all things to all people, the screenplay grew in both complexity and length but unfortunately not in quality, most likely similar to those infamous, unhygienic jeans which have barely survived after too many trips through the washing machine along with racking up the frequent flyer miles from globe-trotting via FedEx. While overall, the film is so warm and comforting that it reminds one of a teddy bear, Sisterhood 2 is so overstuffed with plot points and introduces too many useless new characters that it is bursting at the seams and leaking stuffing and plot threads throughout.

Before the smash success of Ferrera’s Ugly Betty made her the marquee name of the sequel, the former film’s biggest “name” star, Gilmore Girls’ Alexis Bledel, reprises her role as the ultra-feminine, sweet-natured, sketch-happy Lena. Thrown for a heartbreaking loop early on, Lena’s on again/off again relationship with Kostas (Michael Rady) is jeopardized with some shocking news. Still reeling from the revelation about the man she assumed was her soul mate, she continues studying at the Rhode Island School of Design where her spirits are lifted when the possibility of a new love literally unfolds before her eyes in the form of Leo (Jesse Williams), a handsome fellow art student who moonlights as a nude model in exchange for studio time.

Of course, this being a family film marketed for tweens and teens, the nudity is implied rather than overt but Bledel charms in an early scene as she stumbles, fidgets, blushes and reminds us of the socially awkward Rory Gilmore we used to know and love. Unfortunately, soon enough the lackluster plotline makes her character just go through the motions until Lena’s problems are wrapped up in a rather forced and ludicrous conclusion in Greece that actually felt like the segment had been added in during the filming stage to bring the gang back for one last hurrah.

While it’s Ferrera who is drawing the most critical praise for her return as Carmen, the insecure and often overlooked bright young woman feeling left out as both her family and friends have proceeded to move on with their lives, Carmen clings to her youth and the pants of The Sisterhood as if they were a baby blanket. After spending an unenthusiastic year at Yale School of Drama working as a tech helping the school’s star diva Julia (Rachel Nichols) make quick changes and exits, she accompanies Julia to a theatre program in Vermont.

Under the direction of pompous Kyle MacLachlan (visibly loving his clichéd role) and catching the eye of British hottie Ian (Tom Wisdom), Carmen discovers her inner actress and finally earns her own chance to shine after being cast in Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale. Despite Ferrera’s talents which are best displayed with her stellar work in independent films like Real Women Have Curves and her award-winning television series, she never fully convinces us this time around in her Shakespearean debut. In this case, I’m wondering if it’s possibly due to Hamri’s direction or Ferrera’s own intuition as “Carmen”. By playing Shakespeare with an incessant exclamation point, it always felt like a forced performance (or the old warning of an actor “acting”), thereby taking away from Carmen’s storyline, which admittedly consisted of a recycled All About Eve meets 42nd Street subplot.

The film’s strongest plot surrounds Blake Lively’s Bridget who returns from playing soccer at Brown University to the still overly quiet, sad home where she and her father (played by the father of the actress, Ernie Lively) struggle to converse, still equally haunted by Bridget’s mother’s suicide. While preparing for an archeological dig in Turkey led by House of Sand and Fog actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, Bridget stumbles upon a box filled with cards and letters from her estranged grandmother Greta (Blythe Danner). Midway through the Turkish adventure, she inevitably makes the decision that her own past is more urgent to dig up and goes to visit her feisty grandmother.

While their scenes are filled with emotional potential, especially with the pitch-perfect casting of Blythe Danner who manages to give Blake Lively more to do than simply pout and sigh like her Gossip Girl character Serena, the effect is overly rushed and too much time is spent trying to juggle the other, less interesting plots. However, in retrospect, the other characters’ arcs may have been put on the front burner since Bridget’s is the only one that doesn’t involve romance and Warner Brothers most likely wanted to ensure the teen viewers had enough chances to swoon at the attractive male stars in Lena, Tibby, and Carmen’s storylines.

In my humble opinion, the best actress of the group is Joan of Arcadia's Amber Tamblyn as the wisecracking, cynical, aspiring filmmaker Tibby (a more likable version of Thora Birch’s Enid from Ghost World) and while she was given an admittedly contrived plotline in the first Sisterhood, it was also one of the film’s most moving storylines. This time around, despite being tossed one Juno-like plot device which Tamblyn plays to masterful comedic effect, she’s wasted here and in some scenes it feels like she’s only set to enter just to deliver a well-written, witty line (for proof, just check out the film’s trailer). Unfortunately, aside from a superb build-up to a conflict that never fully materializes in a way that’s beneficial to the script other than to end up as an obstacle to romantic happiness with her equally hip beau Brian (Leonardo Nam), we get far too much Carmen playing Shakespeare than we’d like.

While fans of the original are sure to enjoy it, the film ends on an unintentionally hilarious note via a ridiculously spontaneous journey to Greece to find the pants that the girls fear have been the only thing keeping them together. But despite Sisterhood 2's many, many flaws and the way characters and stories are just inserted for distraction much like the beadwork, ink, and ornaments on their famous jeans, it’s still quite a welcome sight to see a film that can play to audiences of all ages. Not to mention, the bonus that it’s a feature film which portrays young women as intelligent and thoughtful as opposed to the media-perpetuated cliché they’re simply vacuous beings all just angling for credit cards and trips to the mall.

Admittedly, box-office wise, it’s unfortunate that it’s playing opposite the Summer Olympics; however, given the elevated celebrity of Lively and Ferrera, it’s sure to garner more ticket sales than the original film did. Although, via the advice of my new young acquaintance whom we will probably see reviewing on the world wide web someday, I’d urge prospective audience members to check out the first Sisterhood before they journey to the theatre so they can see how surprisingly good a stereotypical “chick flick” can be.

Steel City

Director:
Brian Jun

Ironically after a fatal collision sends reckless Carl Lee (John Heard) to jail, it’s his old resilient pickup truck that’s in the least need of repair. Instead, unlike the steel metal of his vehicle, it’s the humans affected—namely his family—that are the most in need of healing. As we learn in writer/director/editor Brian Jun’s feature length filmmaking debut Steel City, the trauma from the crash which found an unfortunate motorist dead simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time spirals out from the road and into the Alston, Illinois buildings and lives occupied by both the locked up Carl Lee as well as the relatives he’s left behind.

This is all the more apparent in the case of Carl Lee’s only regular visitor, his son PJ (a terrific Thomas Guiry) who, having survived the crash which sent his father to jail, struggles to cope with the aftershocks and secrecy involved in that particular incident that seems to magnify a childhood filled with repressed “accidents” before his mother (Laurie Metcalfe) decided to divorce Carl and start a life with a kind police officer (James McDaniel).

Although PJ seems content to stay in denial of the dysfunction in his youth, when director Jun switches the film’s focus onto his older, unhappily married, philandering brother Ben (a menacing Clayne Crawford), after just a few scenes we realize in light of two very different characterizations how having Carl Lee for a father has manifested in the cool gazes and detached personalities of the two men who seem to have only DNA in common with one another.

Unwilling to admit he’s self-sabotaging his relationship with his girlfriend Amy (America Ferrera) whose appearance he criticizes behind her back, soon PJ gets fired from his job working in a restaurant and fearing he’ll lose his home, looks up his long-absent Uncle Vic (Independent Spirit Award nominated Raymond J. Barry), who helps his nephew get back on his feet and in the process enlightens PJ to some of the dark secrets lurking in the family’s past.

Intriguingly Vic’s revelations seem to be the tip of the iceberg when Jun surprises audiences with a genuine shock late into the picture to help explain the vague motives of two key characters, however despite this twist, the bleak, hopeless characters living in the shadows of missed opportunities and failure does drain on the viewer throughout. Still, Steel City marks an incredible, mature and deft filmmaking achievement for helmer Jun, just in his twenties and one that-- in spite of the unceasingly gray color scheme and characters whom we can’t imagine wanting to spend any time with in reality for longer than a minute-- boasts an astute, atmospheric sense of time and place, earning it a Grand Jury Prize nomination at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

Under the Same Moon

Foreign Title:
La Misma Luna
Director:
Patricia Riggen

Think of it as August Rush flavored neorealism in the wondrous crowd pleaser Under the Same Moon that, in its Sundance Film Festival premiere, received a standing ovation from the audience. Making her feature film debut, director Patricia Riggen, working from a script by “Go, Diego! Go!” writer Ligiah Villalobos follows Carlitos (Adrian Alonso), a young, precocious boy who, just after his ninth birthday decides to make the risky and increasingly dangerous illegal journey from Mexico to East Los Angeles on his own in order to reunite with his mother (Kate del Castillo). After a rocky start hiding in the vehicle driven by college students America Ferrera and Jesse Garcia, he soon makes the unlikely acquaintance of Enrique (Eugenio Derbez), who like the elderly woman in Salles’ Central Station, is a rough around the edges, grumpy sort who finds their heart melting around the adorable child.

While it’s the gifted young Alonso who captures the affection of the audience from the get-go, it’s ultimately Derbez who is the film’s most valuable asset, turning in a tough, convincing and layered performance that may have easily ventured over in the land of camp or as a one-note portrayal. The travels of Carlitos are intercut with the story of his struggling single mother Rosario, who, beautiful and hardworking, cleans houses for wealthy white employers to try and give her son a better life and has come to the crossroads of her life in trying to figure out if she should return home or make her citizenship legal by marrying the handsome and sensitive Paco (Gabriel Porras) who has long had a romantic interest in Rosario.

With plenty of dramatic heartbreak and missed connections along the way, Under the Same Moon, much like its tiny hero Carlitos, journeys onward to an emotional conclusion guaranteed to make even the most hardened viewer blink back a few tears. While there’s a definite political undercurrent to the topical tale of illegal immigration in Riggen’s film, it’s never heavy handed and takes the lofty stance of character driven plot to illuminate the struggle and even for those who may disagree with the border crossing, one cannot deny the relatable story of a child going to great lengths to reunite with a mother who in return has gone to great lengths to take care of her son.