DVD Review: Labou (2007)

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As a child, I was a sucker for Amelia Bedelia author Peggy Parish's tales of mystery and youthful treasure hunting found in the Lisa*, Bill, and Jed series via books like Keys to the Treasure which managed to blend excitement with history and adventure.

And while as an adult, I'm not quite as up on my children's literature since film is my line of knowledge-- nonetheless, it's a bit worrying to discover the very slim range of worthwhile titles offered for adolescents since instead they seem as though they're divided strictly down the gender lines.

However and perhaps in a nice way to balance out this mess, it's been truly refreshing to see the worthwhile adaptations of young adult prize winners and favorites such as Holes, Nancy Drew, and Kit Kittredge make their way to the big screen.

Likewise, thanks to organizations such as the Kids First! Film and Video Festival, Dove's Seal of Family Approval and the Heartland's Truly Moving Pictures Awards having become the cinematic equivalent of Lisa, Bill, and Jed's Keys to the Treasure, awareness of overlooked family gems is growing more and more everyday. Despite this, sadly, it's often hard to actually locate the titles since they're usually independent or lower-budget.Moreover, the off-the-beaten path works that sneak onto shelves usually aren't given the same great marketing push of say, the latest family feature extravaganza from a major studio with Happy Meal tie-ins and action figures.

Determined not to let these works get overlooked, I eagerly tackle as many films as I can and a few weeks back, Paramount released a small gem of a film called A Plumm Summer which-- initially derived from a true story-- took a nostalgic view of coming-of-age in the 1960's as a few kids band together to solve the mystery of a missing beloved marionette from the number one rated television show in the area. A sweet charmer of a movie that nonetheless managed to work in some mature plot-points as well-- the film which came highly recommended here at Film Intuition-- makes an ideal double feature or companion piece to this great new family release from writer/director Greg Aronowitz.

While Plumm's target demographic perhaps skewed a few years older and didn't take a gentle fantasy approach, longtime special effects, prop-maker, and art department veteran Aronowitz (who worked on everything from Spielberg's Minority Report and A.I. to the family hits The Country Bears, The Haunted Mansion, and Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed) utilizes his years of art experience for his first feature length film, Labou.

An official selection of the Kids First! Film and Video Festival that additionally earned the "Best of the Fest" award from Chicago International Children's Film Festival, and "Best Feature" at New York's 10th Annual Brooklyn Academy of Music Kids Film Festival as well as Dove's "Family Approved" seal opens with a fantastical prologue that sets the stage for this atmospheric, jazz-infused ghost pirate adventure set in the New Orleans swamplands.



As the school's over-confident "bully" the Toddster (Bryan James Kitto) chronicles the legend about the Ghost of Captain LeRouge who haunts the Bayou looking for his sunken ship filled with lost treasure, two of his schoolmates shake him out of his reverie. When Marissa Cuevas' cute and practical Emily Ryan and the school's newest student-- the precocious, overly sheltered, brainy nerd Gavin Thompson (Darnell J. Hamilton)-- demand proof for the Toddster's yarn, the three kids set off on a hunt for not just the ghost but his buried treasure as well.

After Emily realizes that two shady cowboy oil men have shown up in town with the intent to travel in the exact direction they're headed, she thinks quickly and steals the map from the public library, promising the boys she'll return it once they've found the treasure. Of course, she makes this pledge right before tearing the map into three parts and handing off a section to both of her partners in adventurous crime yet once they head out to the swamplands, the trio soon encounter more than they bargained for when they come face-to-face with a rather rhythmic adorable, puppy-eyed "mud monkey" also known as Labou.



Drawn in by the sound of Toddster's harmonica and Gavin's cellular phone, soon the kids and Labou engage in an improvised Louisiana swampland jam session before uncovering that the whistles of their new green pal have been said to have served as the impetus for the genre of jazz.

Given Aronowitz's extremely impressive background working in all areas of behind-the-scenes movie-making, the film looks and sounds gorgeous with enviable special effects in crafting not just Labou but the pirate ghosts and other bits of trickery that crop up when the children-- who by now realize they must start to overcome their differences-- join forces to stop the real enemy in the form of the oil tycoons who want to destroy Louisiana's swamplands, Labou's race of creatures, and Earth's natural resources in the name of oil, greed, money and pollution.

Although predictably, our villains are beyond incompetent and don't pose a major threat to the children as in a typical case, after Toddster is compromised, one threatens to tell the kids at his school that he signed up for ballet and the film's conclusion really spells out the morals of the movie and lessons of friendship-- it's a beautifully filmed, positive, and spirited little sleeper.



Managing to capture the flavor of New Orleans especially in the form of its rich natural colors and the sounds of jazz musicians on the street-- the release of the new DVD from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer also ensures that children learn more about the swamplands and surroundings of the fictitious adventures in a series of fun and informative DVD extras (some of which are more geared towards film lovers than children).

A crowd favorite throughout its limited festival engagement, Labou made its premiere on DVD on the same day as its fellow studio child-friendly work in the form of Fox's Dr. Dolittle: Million Dollar Mutts. And while I can't yet speak for Mutts as I haven't reviewed it-- all I can say is that much like the underrated Plumm Summer, for children ages seven and up, this lively and solidly made family effort is well-worth tracking down.

Overall, it's a salute to children's imagination and the valuable lesson that working together can lead to better success. Likewise and much like Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle's Millions-- the underlying theme of trying to do what's right when faced with the prospect of treasure, Labou is a sure-fire way to kick off summer vacation for youngsters longing to create their very own treasure hunts whether in their imagination, backyards, or in the Louisianian swamplands with the Toddster, Emily, and Gavin.

* or Liza, Bill, and Jed depending on the website since Parish's works are credited with Lisa, Bill, and Jed as well as Liza, Bill, and Jed.

Spike TV's SCREAM 2008: Voting Has Begun

Your video guide to this year's "other" election.

With awards doled out in categories such as “The Holy Shit! Scene of the Year” and the “Most Memorable Mutilation,” Spike TV’s third annual SCREAM celebration of all things comic book, horror, sci-fi, and fantasy isn’t for the faint of heart.

While the Oscars contain incessant jokes about the show’s endless running time, the Emmys are usually more fun to discuss than watch, the Grammys are growing more and more forgettable, and the inclusion of alcohol at the Golden Globes has made for some increasingly odd acceptance speeches, the mission of SCREAM 2008 seems to be to highlight exactly what entertains audiences. Whether it’s a guilty pleasure for a cheesy horror film, a deep devotion to a favorite comic book artist, or following each and every twist and turn from television shows such as Lost and Heroes, serving up a diverse selection of contenders in more than two dozen categories, Spike TV’s award show has you covered.

While it comes as no surprise that Christopher Nolan’s record-breaking box office titan The Dark Knight leads the pack with 21 nominations, Iron Man and Hellboy II: Golden Army came in second and third respectively. But there are some truly memorable inclusions throughout, including nods for Anna Friel in Pushing Daisies (for Breakout Performance), supporting performer Jason Bateman in Hancock, and nods for the critically divided films Southland Tales and I Am Legend.

Featuring an impressive advisory board including Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream helmer Wes Craven, Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, comic book writer Geoff Johns, Heroes creator Tim Kring, Frank Miller, Kevin Smith, Paula Wagner, Twilight author Stephenie Meyer, Eli Roth, and Guillermo Del Toro who, according to the press release, “were responsible for advising on categories and determining nominees in each category” of eligible works released between August 11, 2007 and August 8, 2008, in the end it’s the fans who decide the winners. With plenty of widgets, interactive opportunities and chances to vote in every category available on the event’s official website Scream.Spike.com, the show, which will air in more than 160 territories around the globe, will premier on October 21 on Spike TV.

And to facilitate the voting process, I’ve drawn from a wide variety of nominated films to put together a mini video guide featuring clips and/or trailers to refresh your memory.

(Feel free to click on the underlined titles

to explore my original reviews)

Cloverfield

The Dark Knight

Enchanted

Hancock

I Am Legend

The Incredible Hulk

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Iron Man

The Mist

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

WALL-E

Wanted

Dedicated to “bringing the fans exactly what they want to see this year with big world premieres, rare performances and the superstars that made this year a record breaker at the box office,” SCREAM 2008 not only demands your participation but also celebrates “the incredible talent behind these genres,” as Spike TV’s Casey Patterson noted in the press release. Remember, voting is currently taking place from now through Friday, October 17 so head on over to Spike TV’s site to make your selections for the works that made you scream your lungs out over the past year… or just simply call out “Holy Shit!” since — wouldn’t you know — there’s a category for that, too.

The Jaguar

You'd have more fun in a Gremlin.

“Indian magic is no holiday,” Jean Campana (Jean Reno) exclaims nearly midway into writer/director Francis Veber’s mirthless comedy, The Jaguar. And boy, it turns out that he wasn’t kidding. Veber, a master at unlikely buddy comedies and mistaken identities for more than three decades of filmmaking (including La Cage Aux Folles, La Chevre, Le Grand Blond Avec Une Chaussure Noire, and Les Compères) has provided endless fodder for American remakes (respectively The Birdcage, Pure Luck, The Man With One Red Shoe, and Father’s Day). Unfortunately, he misses the mark in his last action/comedy before he again found his footing with a string of popular hits such as The Dinner Game, The Closet, and The Valet (all of which have been subject to remake rumors and contracts).

It’s highly unlikely an American version of The Jaguar will ever see the light of day and frankly, director Veber would probably be the first one to admit that that’s for the best. While sitting down with IndieWire reporter Brandon Judell several years back to discuss The Closet, he admitted that not only did the film-- originally titled Le Jaguar-- fail to earn a stateside release but also he confessed that, “it was not very good.”

Sadly, that’s an understatement as this excruciatingly bizarre mixture of several half-baked plots combusts about thirty minutes into its roughly ninety-minute running time, making the last hour a test of one’s endurance to withstand indisputable trash of the highest order. Veber himself pinpointed the problem directly, arguing that, “when I try to make films that look like American films, they’re not interesting. I tried that. I tried to make an action movie, and we’re not gifted for that. You are better than us in that area.” By noting the cultural differences in filmmaking in France verses America, he does offer an ingenious hypothetical, saying that “if we could mix the systems, having this intellectual approach that the French have and having this entertaining obligation that the Americans have, the result would be the perfect movie.” While no doubt that would’ve helped The Jaguar immensely, Mr. Veber has plenty of perfect films on his resume to bounce back from, as does the film’s leading man Jean Reno. My admiration for these two men provided the two very reasons that I found myself ignoring Veber’s own warning and plunging headfirst into the action/comedy recently released on DVD by Koch Entertainment and SKD.

Obviously inspired by not only the Indiana Jones series but additionally Romancing the Stone and The Jewel of the Nile, Veber introduces us to a mysterious, elderly Indian shaman named Wanu (Harrison Lowe) currently on a PR humanitarian tour to save his beloved Amazon rainforest. Reno’s Campana who serves as Wanu’s assistant/babysitter/interpreter finds he’s in way over his head when Wanu take an inexplicable liking to a stranger they share a Parisian elevator with, Francois Perrin (Patrick Bruel).

One hundred thousand dollars in debt, the freeloading gambler Perrin tries to sweet talk an old flame into loaning him enough money to pay off the mobster loan sharks who have purchased his debt but instead of a check, he forms an unlikely friendship with Wanu who stows away on Perrin’s Jeep and follows him home. After phoning Campana to come pick up the shaman, Perrin sums up his bad luck with a classically penned Veber quip: “What a night. I go out for big bucks and come back with an old Indian.” Wanu, who feels a strange and intense spiritual bond with Perrin, quickly decides that although they don’t speak the same language, in the poker player he has encountered “The Chosen One.” And in the increasingly peculiar events that follow as Veber continually asks us to suspend our disbelief until finally the entire film is incomprehensible and unintentionally hilarious, the fatally ill Wanu depends on his strange new acquaintance to journey deep into the heart of the Amazon forest alongside Campana in order to rescue his “stolen soul.” By now, let's just say I was thinking that it's a damn shame that Mystery Science Theatre 3000 isn't still on the air.

Of course, while Perrin mistakenly leaps at the chance to escape the mobsters, he soon realizes that life in the jungle is far more dangerous than any loan shark, once they venture into the strange land and deadly adventures ensue within the first hour of their arrival. Whether they’re trying to fight off the evil Kumare (Danny Trejo), whom Campana states is a man so evil that he’s a “disaster for the whole planet,” a.k.a. the suspect most likely to have hijacked Wanu’s soul, Veber further muddies up the ludicrous set-up by adding in the beautiful Patricia Velasquez as Perrin’s love interest Maya.

Yet no matter how much mayhem the characters find themselves in, we constantly realize it’s not just the heroes but our director who has completely lost the map as they meander from one ridiculous set-up to another illogical one, and all the while the audience wishes (no doubt as much as Veber, Reno and all involved) that he would’ve played his winning hand and dealt us a comedy of manners instead of a comedy of magic.

Transferred to disc in the original widescreen format with the ability to hear the original French language track (highly preferable) complete with English language subtitles or the redubbed English audio version where the voices sound far too similar, the only other feature available on the newly released DVD is trailers for other projects from the company.

And while, like me, all of the Veber and Reno fans out there will no doubt be tempted to give it a whirl, you’re better off following the talented writer/director’s advice and sticking with the action comedies of Spielberg and company if the mood strikes you or Veber’s own witty odes to wordplay as evidenced in one of his masterpieces such as The Dinner Game or The Closet.

Meet Dave

Director:
Brian Robbins

You know he’s from another planet when you realize that not only is Eddie Murphy’s character in Meet Dave unfamiliar with the maternal fashion adage to never wear white after Labor Day but that if his goal is to remain inconspicuous in contemporary New York, he should never wear a white suit after the 1970’s. Of course, had he worn more suitable attire to avoid what he refers to as his “wardrobe debacle,” then Meet Dave would have lost the precious few jokes that actually work in the opening thirty minutes of Eddie Murphy’s latest cinematic disaster as we find the white-suited character mistaken for the ice cream man by hungry children before learning that he drew inspiration from Mr. Roarke and Tattoo greeting guests with “Da plane! Da plane!” from the 1970’s television series, Fantasy Island.

Why Fantasy Island? Well, it seems it’s the only Earthly transmitted image he could receive in outer space, given the weak signal strength. (And you thought your cell phone reception was bad!) To explain--keeping with the Murphy tradition of playing numerous characters in each of his films, sometimes to marvelous effect (Bowfinger) and downright disastrous (pretty much everything else after 2000), in Meet Dave we learn that Murphy’s primary character is an alien captain leading a space mission to save his planet along with a dedicated crew of very, very little people who are less than two inches tall. However, the catch is that the vessel occupied by the mission’s crew isn’t the typical flying saucer one would expect but a human-sized replica of the Captain himself, giving new meaning to the film’s tag line that we’re watching “Eddie Murphy in Eddie Murphy.” (Cue the obligatory Keanu Reeves like “whoa!”)

Shortly after the film opens, we follow as Murphy—utilizing a terrifically silent film styled comedic and mime-like approach—tries to assimilate with fellow humans on Earth, forcing his lips into an awkward smile to duplicate the expression of an old woman and mimicking the downright orthopedically nightmarish poses of dummies in a store window. Meanwhile the devoted crew inside his “body” (played by Gabrielle Union, Ed Helms, Kevin Hart, Pat Kilbane, Judah Friedlander, Adam Tomei and others) struggles to keep up with the external chaos while advising his every action. Needless to say the fact that his quest for their planet’s missing orb has landed him directly into one of the busiest, most notoriously aggressive and fast-paced cities isn’t making their job any easier and it’s only a matter of time before he’s knocked over by a motorist named Gina (played by the lovely Heights, Definitely, Maybe, and Invincible star Elizabeth Banks).

Fearing a lawsuit, the bohemian painter and widowed single mother invites the strange Captain up to her apartment for some water, where he not only struggles to pretend to “drink” while inside his ship the crew must deal with a tidal wave of water, but also gets his first chance to practice conversation. Upon realizing he must create a name, on the advice of his adoring girl Friday, Gabrielle Union’s No. 3, he dubs himself Dave Ming Chang before rushing off to rectify the problem of his outdated suit which—by this point—has served as not only a running gag but a plot arc for the undercooked script from surprisingly Yale Drama School educated writers Rob Greenberg (Frasier, How I Met Your Mother) and Bill Corbett (Mystery Science Theatre 3000). Landing at Old Navy, the film’s laughs continue as Dave mistakes the store greeter’s obligatory “Welcome to Old Navy” as a ritualistic statement he uses throughout the film’s most comically successful sequence since Murphy first set foot in New York’s concrete jungle, before—and par for Murphy’s course—the scene and indeed a majority of the rest of the film ends up relying too heavily on juvenile scatological humor.

Unfortunately, it really shouldn’t have been this way as I’d genuinely enjoyed Meet Dave early on, recalling once again the Murphy from my youth who made me laugh until my stomach hurt in the original Beverly Hills Cop. However, as the novelty of the ingenious premise wears off, the film morphs into a seemingly endless, really bad Saturday Night Live styled skit. And far more detrimental to its success, in trying to reach every ticket buying demographic, director Brian Robbins (Norbit) tries to cram in way too much plot, never sure if he wants to structure Meet Dave as a family film, a science fiction movie, or an unlikely romantic comedy as Dave finds himself growing attached to Gina and her young son Josh (newcomer Austyn Lind Myers) all the while realizing that the aptly named No. 3 (Union), is beginning to feel like the ultimate third wheel, caught up in an unrequited love triangle with Dave.

While initially there are enough laughs to amuse Murphy’s most ardent fans, the picture completely derails during the last forty-five minutes when the ship’s crew become affected by their interactions with New York as No. 2’s Ed Helms plans to stage a coup, another turns into a MySpace addict and-- at its most demeaning—one becomes a stereotypically flamboyant gay man worshipping Cher, offering makeovers and snaps at will to the horror of intelligent audience member everywhere.

Since, aside from Dreamgirls and the Shrek series, Eddie Murphy has set the bar so low that it’s now a cliché to even critique him, perhaps (other than its very existence), Meet Dave’s greatest crime is that it completely wastes all of its likable performers including Scott Caan who—although he stars as an X-Files inclined police officer-- seems to have been so uninspired by his role that in his major scene with Murphy in a department interrogation room, he basically does a five minute pitch perfect impersonation of his father James Caan. And while I’d rather sit through Meet Dave again in its entirety than even watch the trailers for Norbit, Pluto Nash, and Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, Robbins may have been much better off compiling a few of these scenes, along with Murphy’s brilliant beginning, and releasing a disc of short comedic skits instead of serving up a film that would no doubt have been ideal fodder for co-writer Corbett’s Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

Although, I guess it could be worse-- if the film had actually been good, it could have caused an ironic trend of men defying the fashion faux pas and digging out those retro white suits so instead of “Da plane! Da plane!” it could have been “Da horror! Da, horror!”

WALL-E

Director:
Andrew Stanton

Although most of us run from fix-ups, even if they are preferable in my humble opinion to speed-dating, matchmaking websites, and singles bars, imagine what a tough sell it would be to try and set up a friend like WALL-E. The pitch would have to be well-rehearsed but would most likely go something like this: “I know this great guy. Well, he’s self-employed which in our technology driven society is really impressive… oh, well, technically he’s in waste allocation, actually. He loves movies—Hello Dolly is his favorite and he listens to show-tunes all day. Yes, I’m sure he likes females. Other hobbies? Well, he collects things… oh, um sporks, Rubik’s Cubes, bras, bowling pins, Zippo lighters. Personality? Well, he’s someone of few words, kind of a loner… no, actually, he doesn’t really have any friends but you just know he’s one of the good ones. Wait-- where are you going?”

Needless to say, if WALL-E lived in today’s society and not seven hundred years in the future, he’d be the prime candidate to star in a modern remake of the Ernest Borgnine classic Marty. If you know, it was animated by those wizards at Pixar who by now probably have so many awards that they could possibly build an entire studio out of gold. There’s just something instantly huggable about the titular lead character in their latest film WALL-E that turns viewers into the office busybody, the over-eager relative or worse, those smug married friends who all just want to see this adorable Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth-Class robot find himself a nice robotic girl already. And while we’re at it, hopefully a fellow movie buff unafraid of director Gene Kelly’s less-than-stellar 1969 Barbra Streisand film Hello Dolly and someone with whom WALL-E can roam his bleak, deserted, overwhelmingly trash filled, sundrenched and beige version of Earth set seven hundred years in the future where rampant consumerism and greed have taken the color out of everything with nary a blue sky, crystal clear lake, or flower, and one in which humankind abandoned years earlier to live blissfully ignorant, fat and happy reaping the benefits of virtual reality in space.

Far from the upbeat setting one would anticipate from the studio of Walt Disney, there’s still something surprisingly sweet, infectious, and romantic and quintessentially uplifting in its forty minute opener. And although the movie is preceded by Presto, another ingenious new short film from Pixar, it’s superfluous as the studio may have been better off dividing WALL-E into two distinct longer length short films as while the second half—despite making excellent points likening it in some critical circles to an adolescent version of An Inconvenient Truth—is shockingly bleak in its unflinching presentation of a man-made consumer driven dystopia that, while the youngest audience members won’t pick up on its true political mores, ages six through ten may be a bit too bothered by what they’re facing onscreen.



Still, it’s an outstanding and vital achievement and I can’t praise the first half enough as in contrast to its futuristic setting, WALL-E feels anachronistic yet welcomingly old-fashioned, nostalgic, wondrous in its simplicity like an animated silent film, introducing us to its oddball, outsider loner WALL-E who dutifully goes about his days compacting trash into manageable small square shapes, with absolutely zero company save for his tape recorder filled with love songs and the comforting images of Hello Dolly that delight him in the evening when he retreats to his hideout with whatever pieces of human loot he’s found that day. Therefore, when a ship arrives dropping off the sleek, blue-eyed, pristine, curvier, female robot Eve, WALL-E is determined to put his best battery forward, in making the ideal computerized first impression, yet he’s taken aback by her mission-oriented, lethal personality, shooting things at will which theoretically would have sent most men running, yet WALL-E’s off-the-charts loneliness and instant attraction causes his operating system to run wild with romantic imagery. Soon Louis Armstrong sings “La Vie En Rose” while he works to subliminally gain her interest, creating a self-statue of himself, worshipping her from afar until intimacy is sped up when he must pull her to safety to avoid a violent dust storm and sweetly, like a teenage boy on a first date, he tries to figure out the best way to inch closer to Eve and is delighted when she seems to share his Dolly enthusiasm.

Unfortunately their romance is cut short when her goal is reached and she must return home with WALL-E impulsively becoming a harmless stalker-bot, hitching a ride on her ship, only to discover life as a “foreign contaminant,” on a space station where former Earthbound humans have turned into helpless blobs living in beach styled recliners, their every whim catered to by technology, and a lifestyle best surmised by the company that sponsors it-- Buy ‘N Large. Although in his quest to win Eve’s heart or rather her memory card, WALL-E becomes the unwitting hero to help restore Earth to what it once was, but this gloomy Aldus Huxley, Orwellian like glimpse of the future and dark tone complete with allusions to everything from I Am Legend to Blade Runner to 2001: A Space Odyssey makes a complete one hundred and eighty degree turn from the way the film began and while Pixar still stands above and beyond others in offering intelligent, contemplative, and gorgeously sophisticated animation, when reviewed as an entire picture, WALL-E feels glaringly uneven and surprisingly dissatisfying with its ugly final act, despite an obligatory happy ending, yet in its brilliant opening which just consisted of WALL-E and Eve, what they managed to create is the best proof of their perfection as a studio since Finding Nemo.

Still, for younger audiences, I would recommend Kung Fu Panda, before suggesting you bring the tykes to WALL-E, with the fear that for those who are able to get the admittedly highly important politically implications that seemed inappropriate given its target audience, it may cause nightmares about an uncertain future reminiscent of the cold war scares faced by elementary school children of the baby boom generation. However, for those looking for something heartfelt and genuine, I can’t think of a better and more surprising (and therefore impressive!) date movie—far superior to the by-the-numbers rom-coms of 2008 so far—than the first half of WALL-E.

So in the end... I guess I believe in cinematic speed dating after all.

Hancock

Director: Peter Berg

In order to scare kids straight, there were a string of memorable television commercials which played in regular rotation during Saturday morning cartoons in my childhood that all ended with the tagline of “nobody ever said they wanted to be a junkie when they grow up.” Although that’s definitely true and one can add any addiction (including one to the bottle on that list), however in case of Will Smith’s latest movie character, the alcoholic John Hancock who probably hadn’t intended to fall for the drink, he never said he wanted to be a superhero when he grew up either.

While it’s always a fun game among friends and comic book enthusiasts to speculate about which super power it’d be most beneficial to have whether it’s x-ray vision, the ability to see into the future, immortality, or that always seductive ability to fly (especially now to avoid the price of gas), we seldom realize the downside of an extraordinary gift including the loneliness of being the only one of the kind. Not to mention the forced responsibility and guilt trip we’d face when—like Hancock—we’d prefer to just laze about rather than get up and fight (although he can typically be found passed out in a drunken stupor on a park bench or in his dilapidated camper) and the fact that in a world of law and order, breaking the rules even with the best of intentions is liable to earn you a ticket or two.

In the case of Hancock, he’s racked up over six hundred subpoenas and civil court cases in which he’s failed to make an appearance and as a frequent infamous star of countless embarrassing YouTube videos, his media dubbed “so-called heroics” have made the Los Angeles based superhero a man that citizens love to hate where even children curse at him. Yet all the same, when chaos ensues, he’s the first one they turn to in halting a speeding car full of gun crazed villains, managing to leave several millions of dollars of damage behind by flying into freeway signs, destroying skyscrapers, having close calls with airplanes and using cars or any other object within reach to hurl at another in order to stop whatever crime is being committed, seemingly oblivious that his antics have most likely wreaked more havoc than a typical perpetrator ever could.

Much like our current presidential nominees all turned to professionals to micromanage every aspect of their personality and spin everything related to their persona into the very best version of themselves to win over public opinion, Hancock needs a publicity makeover in the worst way and he fortunately saves just the right man shortly into the film when he pulls good-natured, overly friendly, humanitarian PR agent Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman) from a car trapped on train tracks.

Predictably leaving a ridiculous amount of twisted metal and wrecked automobiles in his wake leading those stuck in the same traffic jam eager to launch into a riot, Ray steps in and reminds them of Hancock’s intentions and good deeds. After “hitching a ride” from the flying man in his battered automobile back to Ray’s middle class suburban home, he invites Hancock to share in the family’s traditional "Spaghetti Madness Thursday." Quickly his young bullied son Aaron (Jae Head) not only takes a liking to the unorthodox, scruffy drunk but eventually requests his help in handling those who target him, although despite her child’s intuition, Ray’s highly skeptical, loving wife Mary (Charlize Theron) seems to immediately sense something in their strange new acquaintance she doesn’t quite trust.



However, partly because he’s grown weary from becoming so ostracized in his community but even more so because he overhears the disfavor in Mary’s voice when she doesn’t know he’s listening, Hancock decides to put himself in Ray’s capable hands in molding his image and turning him into a more traditional version of a superhero that comic book mythology has fostered. To this end, Ray prompts him to make good on all of those warrants by surrendering to the authorities, joining the prison version of alcoholic and rage-aholic anonymous as an act of good faith with the correct impression that eventually the police will realize just how much they need him both back on the streets and back in the skies. And indeed, after the crime rate climbs a staggering thirty percent in just the five days that Hancock has been placed behind bars, the authorities release him to stop an increasingly violent standoff. Of course, this amusingly gives Hancock the perfect opportunity to try and put Ray’s training towards friendlier people skills and beneficial advice to good use in praising the cops, remembering his newfound manners, and above all, not condescending everyone with whom he comes into contact.

After a wildly entertaining, over-the-top, and hilariously offbeat introduction bolstered by the undeniable star quality of one our most likable leading men--Will Smith-- who by now seems synonymous with the 4th of July weekend, the ingenious premise changes along with its cinematic color scheme from light and bright to unexpectedly dark, with a genuinely surprising twist that throws audiences for a loop and completely switches the film’s tone. I hesitate to offer a greater explanation at the risk of giving away spoilers but needless to say, Hancock’s sudden gear switch from wildly fast to deeply heart-tugging jolts us unexpectedly and probably would’ve made a nicer transition had there been more subtle hints dropped into the first hour.

Yet, as I recently learned, following some questionable test screenings, director Peter Berg (The Kingdom) called back his cast for reshoots although it was possibly too late to change enough to give it the right balance it needed for a resounding success. Despite this, I applaud the courage to bring a greater romantic mythology to the piece which admittedly had been so surprisingly light on plot that I think it only occurred to most audiences after the fact, as we’d been otherwise dazzled by the effects to give that much thought to it while in the theatre. Thereby ultimately it makes us wish in retrospect that the creative love triangle set-up of the final act had been developed much earlier on, promoting that to the primary plot in lieu of one sitcom like “uh oh, there goes Hancock” gag after another.

Still, far better than the trailers would have you believe and infinitely better than I assumed it would be going in and in addition to Smith and of course, the always mesmerizing if under-used Theron, one of the brightest additions to the film is Arrested Development’s Jason Bateman who—like his previous work for director Berg in The Kingdom—gamely recognizes his role of selling terrific one-liners with just the right mix of sweetness and tongue-in-cheek humor, making him one of our most valuable supporting players as of late, coming off the heels of his memorable turn in last year’s Juno.

Happy Accidents

Director: Brad Anderson

For years I rejected the notion that I had a romantic type. In fact, it’s a theory I’ve always resisted since no two individuals are alike but after others have pointed out the recurring pattern to be found in men whom I find attractive (tall, typically dark haired, kind, creative, smart, funny, slightly older), there’s no use denying it any longer.

I guess as they say, not only am I one of many who have a type but-- after more than a decade on the dating scene-- I have just as many turn-offs as I do things that cause my head to turn. Whether it’s staying away from gun show enthusiasts, conservative Republicans, smokers, men who loathe foreign film, the devoutly religious, guys without a library card or voter registration, or those who have never been to a museum on an occasion other than a field trip, we all have our deal-breakers with some faux pas (of course!) being more serious than others.

Of course, dating is far more difficult when one is a recovering codependent and such is the case for Ruby Weaver (Marisa Tomei) in writer/director Brad Anderson’s high energy, romantic, fantastical mystery Happy Accidents. Not only has Ruby had her fill of men who were less than her ideal such as the bad actor, the artist who felt she was leaving his work more than him, the fetishist, and addicts and her friend had a scare dating a secretive Jew for Jesus, but as a notorious “fixer,” Ruby’s made it a habit of falling for the wrong men whom she feels she can mold into the best versions of themselves whether they’re interested in changing or not.

While I can assure you that as tempting as it is to try and change men-- even slightly from discouraging an overreliance on their typical wardrobe staples of interchangeable baseball hats-- the only way someone is going to change is on their own, so one needs to make peace with those damn hats and be thankful that (in comparison to the freaks Ruby has met) that’s the least of our worries.

With a therapist to answer to and still so determined to be everyone’s loyal girl Friday so much that she gets fired for being overly helpful and flirtatious as a directory assistance operator, Ruby tries to steer clear of relationships but as we all know, that’s precisely when they spring up like a flower or sometimes a weed in a garden we weren’t looking for.

When Ruby first meets the friendly, intelligent, earnest yet slightly old-fashioned and awkward Sam Deed (Vincent D’Onofrio) who rambles on addictively with theories of time, there seems to be an instant pull but she resigns herself to the fact that Sam is probably one of those men best fantasizing about rather than dating. Of course, this is before he shows up in her life again and after a literal whirlwind courtship complete with fast motion cinematography and quick cuts, we catch up with the blissfully happy couple one week into their relationship which finds them impulsively cohabitating.

However, once they’re sharing the same space, they learn they don’t have room for excess baggage but instead of the usual “getting to know you” discoveries, Ruby is thunderstruck by a revelation offered from the odd, easily confused Sam that he is from the year 2470. With a ridiculous yarn involving time-travel, false arrest, and freedom fighting, in which Sam explains his flight from the “Atlantic coast of Iowa” to come to the year 1999 and meet up with his contact Chrystie Delancey, Ruby grows far more concerned with his mental health, until his story begins to not only evolve as their relationship continues but starts to involve her own future story as well.

Ingenious, clever and unabashedly romantic with superb chemistry between the two leads and great supporting turns by Nadia Dajani and Sean Gullette (Pi), Happy Accidents which was released the same year as the forgettable by-the-numbers time travel love story Kate and Leopold was unfortunately overlooked by mainstream audiences before it was relegated to occasional showings on IFC and even fewer copies placed in video stores across the country.

Fascinating and filled with great screwball dialogue that’s at once so highly intelligent and awe-inspiringly creative it wouldn’t have been out of place in a classic Preston Sturges film, making Tomei’s earthy, caring Ruby seem like a modern take on a role that would’ve been played back in the 1930s and 40s by Claudette Colbert.

Additionally, it’s the type of film that plays even better on repeat viewings when the entire complicated plot can best be appreciated with all of its layers and thankfully without the fierce apprehension one experiences initially. Perhaps and most impressively, the talented work by Brad Anderson (Next Stop Wonderland, The Machinist) can just as easily be called a science fiction or fantasy work as it can a romantic comedy yet it doesn’t fall exclusively into one set genre, dazzling us by breaking both of the molds and constantly switching styles throughout so that it’s as irresistible as a breathtaking date with a man we’ve just realized, much like Ruby, is exactly our type.

In fact, Happy Accidents is not only highly recommended but it’s one of my favorite romantic indie films of the last decade and shouldn’t fail to strike a chord with those who enjoyed Amelie.

Buy It

The Fall

Director:
Tarsem Singh
(aka Tarsem)

Those who have spent any significant amount of time convalescing will tell you that nothing speeds recovery along like a worthwhile diversion in the form of an epic tale. When you add thrills, romance, and laughter to the narrative, you create a powerful, side effect free unparalleled prescription for health without the need of co-pays, waiting rooms or HMO red tape where there aren’t any deductions for preexisting conditions and you never have to deal with a clipboard full of paperwork. Imagine your doctors in residence weren’t the test-happy first year medical students still trying to master the right way to hook up a catheter or IV most of us face at our local hospitals but rather Being John Malkovich filmmaker Spike Joze, Zodiac helmer David Fincher and the innovative fellow music video director turned feature filmmaker Tarsem Singh and you’ll begin to get a better sense of their cinematically experimental procedure where reels of film and not dangerous drugs replace mood altering anesthesia. And comparable to the wonderful program Doctors Without Borders, imagine sending this cinematic dream team of Filmmakers Without Borders to expertly stitch together twenty-six locations over four years in more than eighteen countries (IMDb) in Tarsem Singh’s highly anticipated sophomore follow up to his critically acclaimed first feature, The Cell.

Already, the work, entitled The Fall has divided the critics into largely two factions of those who feel his film is a masterpiece and those who call the mad-scientist’s resulting epic an infuriatingly self-important vanity project. However, for my money, Tarsem succeeds where others like Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly failed with his atrocious second feature Southland Tales, in admirably taking risks but like a good doctor, Tarsem contemplates each move with stealth like precision, making sure that the benefits outweigh the negatives for his unforgettably dark, brilliant grown up fairy tale, The Fall.

From the breathtakingly bizarre black and white opening montage set to music and staged as though it were a silent film to its overwhelming eye candy that seems to pour off the screen in each daring frame as it continues, Tarsem’s Fall combines the scope and ambition of a mainstream Hollywood blockbuster with the artistic risk taking of experimental cinema. Admittedly as one who has never been overly keen on fantasy, I worried that it was going to be as bloated and pretentious as some of the critics described but I was quickly taken in by the riveting tale, which was inspired by the 1981 Bulgarian film Yo Ho Ho.

Set in a Los Angeles hospital, we first meet our precocious five year old heroine Alexandria (Romanian newcomer Catinca Untaru) who, still recovering from a broken arm after picking oranges in a grove along with her impoverished family, forms an unlikely attachment with Roy Walker (Lee Pace) a heartbroken, suicidal film stuntman whose legs were damaged after he attempted a ridiculous sequence jumping from a train bridge onto a horse.

Unable to move on with his life because he’s lost the woman he loved, Roy distracts himself along with Alexandria by first sharing with her a story of her namesake Alexander the Great and afterwards, telling her a fictitious epic tale of five heroic men (including Charles Darwin) who aspire to kill the horrible Governor Odious. As the story continually builds from one exciting adventure to the next, Roy begins to subtly blackmail his young friend into procuring enough medicine for himself so that he may end his life, only to have some of his plans backfire in unexpected ways.

Although the bleak nature of Roy’s outlook on life might have been unbearably sad in another’s hands, Singh fills his film with surprising amounts of black comedy, near-misses as the story Roy begins to tell suspiciously morphs into a catharsis when reality and fantasy are blurred as Roy, Alexandria and others they know in the hospital and in their lives begin to make appearances in the emotionally intoxicating and artistically dazzling saga. However, I must warn that it becomes extraordinarily brutal near the end causing us to shift uncomfortably in our seats in trying to anticipate just how Tarsem will conclude the film.

Despite this, admirably The Fall rises from the obvious label of a spectacle picture due to the sheer amazement to be found in the magical sequences that will haunt your dreams after the viewing, by providing a satisfying emotional payoff as well for both of the characters we’ve come to know and love, and both of whom we realize could not have healed without each other nor the unforgettable tale.

And that’s better than an allergic reaction to a prescription medication your insurance won’t cover but the doctor insists you need any day of the week. In other words, go to the cinema and call me in the morning.

Idiocracy

Director:
Mike Judge

Most of the time, I criticize the validity and artistic morals of test screenings that often send nervous studios and directors scrambling to call their actors back to reshoot new material and delete possibly objectionable scenes in order to try and please everyone. While film indeed is a collaborative medium, I’m not sure that rounding up participants from a mall parking lot and screening a movie they may have very little interest in, only to force them to rate each and every aspect of it is the right way to decide what works and what doesn’t. I am a frequent attendee at advanced screenings but seldom participate in test audience events because art shouldn’t be that much of a democracy and we’re forgetting that people spend years developing what’s onscreen for us to pass judgment on within minutes (or sometimes seconds).

However, in the case of Idiocracy which had according to IMDb “disastrous” test screenings, the reaction was sadly warranted and sent Fox Studios into retreat, hiding the reels for more than one year before quietly dumping it into just six markets with very little advertising.

The film had all the promise of a hit—a wonderfully creative premise, hot star Luke Wilson, and being helmed by director Mike Judge of Office Space fame but somewhere along the way they opted entirely for crass over class, lewd over shrewd, and ended up with a movie one can only describe as ugly. It shouldn’t have been this way and in retrospect, I still admire the ingenious set-up which finds under-achieving and statistically average army librarian Luke Wilson, along with prostitute Maya Rudolph being selected for a year-long experiment that would cause the two participants to sleep for an entire year to hopefully save their brightest down the road for them to be all they can be.

The experiment goes off without a hitch although warning flags are raised when the doctor becomes much too fascinated with the pimp lifestyle discovered when recruiting Rudolph and after he’s arrested and the base is forced to close, Wilson and Rudolph are forgotten about for five hundred years. They awaken to discover that the progressive dumbing down of America weaned on video games, sports drinks, that favors brawn over brains has made the country run rampant with idiots unable to speak coherently and prefer instead to sit on lazy boys which double as toilets while watching shows that consist entirely of guys getting hit in the crotch with a variety of implements for laughs.

Although intellectuals and academics have been speculating on the nightly news and in publications that we’re headed in the wrong direction with our fast food styled entertainment and life of convenience over substance, once we actually see this life produced onscreen, we realize that it’s so disgusting, it’s not one we’d like to spend even five minutes in let alone the entire running time of a feature film.

Idiocracy would have made a hilarious short film or an even superior story, although it does beg to mind the question that perhaps Judge’s fans, already preferring visuals to the written word, may never have read it in the first place, thus making his point without their intention.

The Forbidden Kingdom

Director: Rob Minkoff

In Michael Mann’s Heat, audiences felt their breaths catch waiting for Al Pacino and Robert De Niro to converse together onscreen in the diner, each sizing the other man up in a way that feels nearly Shakespearean. In the movies of Nora Ephron, we felt a similar thrill when Tom Hanks fell in love with Meg Ryan and the two began their happily ever after in the sunny, flower-filled Central Park conclusion of You’ve Got Mail. And in the first onscreen pairing of legendary action stars Jet Li and Jackie Chan for director Rob Minkoff’s The Forbidden Kingdom, as soon as Chan stumbles into the same scene as Li and utters, “Do you come here often?” the last thing I wanted for the men was the two to chat or fall in love. Instead, like nearly every other audience member and undoubtedly Chan and Li themselves, I wanted to see them fight. And fight they do in this uneven but gorgeous spectacle before their characters end up on the same side in helping a modern day South Boston teen who, via a pawnshop and a magical Bo Staff that’s propelled him back in time to ancient China, return the staff to its rightful owner, the Monkey King (Li in a second role).

Beginning as a near homage to Back to the Future, the movie opens with Kung Fu movie obsessed Jason (Shia LaBeouf look-alike Michael Angarano) being forced to aid in a robbery by a band of dangerous bullies that goes wrong and hurls him into the past where he soon meets Chan’s Drunken Master inspired Lu Yan, a perpetually wine-chugging fighter specializing in Drunken Fist which he explains is the “secret Kung Fu of the south.” To restore the order of the land, Jason and Yan decide to bring the Bo Staff back to the Monkey King, who the evil Jade War Lord (Collin Chou) has frozen in stone for roughly five hundred years “give or take a few decades,” and on their peril filled journey to the Five Elements Mountain, they find their team increasing with the addition of a beautiful vengeance seeking orphan Golden Sparrow (Yifei Liu) along with the monk Lan Cai He (Jet Li). The characters and indeed plot from Young Guns screenwriter John Fusco (who is currently writing the questionable new version of Seven Samurai), were derived mostly from “Chinese mythology and adventure pulps” as well from the “Chinese epic story Journey to the West [which is] one of the four great classic novels of Chinese literature,” according to IMDb.

When the battles with an evil witch with stark white hair and other dangerous allies of the War Lord become far more treacherous, Back to the Future morphs into The Karate Kid as Yan takes it upon himself to teach Jason how to fight. The introduction of this element not only provides the characters with more plot from scripter Fusco who went through, as IMDb reports five rewrites (some during the film’s shoot) but also gives the film’s producer and fight choreographer the legendary Yuen Woo-Ping (Crouching Tiger, The Matrix trilogy, Kill Bill 1 & 2) a chance to style some of the most thrilling and high flying fight scenes we’ve seen in years which, even when the film becomes self-consciously cheesy, are worth the price of admission alone.

Although it’s hard to fault a film with this much sheer entertainment value for its inability to sit side by side with works like House of Flying Daggers or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to which, I believe most of the audience was hoping the first collaboration of Li and Chan would compare, for fans of the actors, especially my personal favorite-- the hilarious and charismatic Chan, it’s definitely a treat. And hopefully it’s also one that will lead to even more pairings and possibly a grander cinematic approach, aside from the film's major standout that comes in the form of the jaw-dropping, majestic cinematography by Oscar winning Peter Pau (Crouching Tiger). However, until we get there, The Forbidden Kingdom is a great place to start.

The Good Night

Director:
Jake Paltrow

We all flirt but there are often lines that seem to change with each relationship as to what constitutes cheating. Is going out for coffee with an opposite gender friend cheating? How about dinner with an ex? What about those e-mail correspondences that are getting more flirtatious? Do you find it’s easier to chat with an attractive coworker than your mate in the morning? While these questions can lead to more revelations about yourself and your relationship since they all include boundaries that may be easily crossed, how does it fit into the mix if you dream cheat? That is, if in your dreams you have an affair with a perfect stranger that actually feels more like love while embarking on a fantasy relationship you look more forward to than the perfunctory “good night” and “I love you” said to your partner.

For Gary (Martin Freeman), this is the situation he finds himself in fairly quickly into writer/director Jake Paltrow’s feature film debut. In a beginning that feels ike a British version of VH1 Behind the Music, we learn a bit of the background of former Britpop musician Gary who, now in his thirties, resides in New York with his nagging, frumpy, dark-haired girlfriend of seven years Dora (played by Jake’s sister Gwyenth Paltrow). When we first meet him, Gary is busily eking out an unsatisfying career scoring commercial jingles for an advertising agency with his former band-mate turned boss Paul (Simon Pegg). Although he’s approaching an early midlife crisis, unlike his womanizing, lecherous married friend Paul who is currently having an affair with a woman he describes (as only Pegg can) as “sort of tall and hot, in a kind of short, ugly way,” Gary saves his fantasies for himself and finds them indulged in a bizarre way one evening when he dreams of a gorgeous, beguiling stranger (Penelope Cruz) who, speaking to him only in subtitles, tells him that if he pays close attention and shuts his eyes he “can feel a heartbeat” in her lips.

Intoxicated by this imagined encounter, Gary’s ego is given a boost as he decides to explore the field of dream interpretation and lucid dreaming, visiting a new age bookstore before he meets up with a dream coach in the form of a group run by Mel (Danny DeVito). Gary, who decides to avoid the small clique of fellow dreamers all hoping to control their dreams as if they were listening to their favorite song without an ending before the Kendo practice interrupts them, hires Mel for private consultation. Soon their sessions enable him to continue his affair with Cruz that soon takes over his own waking life as he begins darkening and soundproofing his bedroom for better dreaming conditions before Dora is only too happy to have an excuse to leave for an Italian two week business trip. Quickly startled into thinking that fate is the reason for his dreams when he sees Cruz’s likeness adorning fashion ads on city buses, Paul takes it upon himself to arrange an introduction but will the reality be as good as his dream or was Gary just trying to find a way to avoid his own relationship that may be way past the expiration date?

A fascinating premise that would have done better to be played more for laughs than the downbeat drama as penned by Paltrow that concludes into a dark cheat of an ending that feels a bit rushed and disappointing, the film also suffers from as Hollywood Reporter writer Kirk Honeycut noted, Paltrow’s decision to make “ever character thoroughly unlikable” or as he corrects, “actually pathetic would be a better adjective.” With such a brooding tone to the film with self-involved and cringe-worthy characters that may have been more successful on the page, there is little to recommend the work despite the originality of Paltrow’s idea and his unquestionable gift for direction as the film offers plenty of gorgeous scenes that, on their own, show his promise but compounded with the rest result in an uneven mess. This being said, it's nonetheless suitable for the same audiences who found themselves entranced by the similarly themed fellow Penelope Cruz vehicle, Cameron Crowe’s Vanilla Sky (based on the superior Abre los Ojos also starring Cruz).