Blu-ray Review: The Last Song (2010)

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As a novelist, Nicholas Sparks has never met a character he hasn't wanted to murder. Simply put, the man has a penchant for cutting short relationships and turning smiles upside down to destroy happy endings with a few clicks on his keyboard.

And even without giving his latest endeavor the spoiler heavy title of The Last Song, within the first five minutes of the film you're already guessing which individual will be deleted by the final credits.

Luckily before we get too emotionally attached, it's pretty obvious given the film’s set-up that finds two kids (Miley Cyrus and Bobby Coleman) being driven to Georgia to spend the summer with their estranged father (Greg Kinnear) who coughs suspiciously at least twice in the first act. Alarm bells, anyone?

Unlike mysteries that inspire you to sleuth out the suspect, Sparks' melodramas encourage you to identify the victim in the quest for tearjerker success.

By now he's become a genre all his own considering the montage heavy moments punctuated by pop songs, beautiful beach set sensuous fests in the south as the male answer to Danielle Steel, publishing variations of his breakthrough novel The Notebook for over ten years.

Assuredly this has resulted in cinematic highs (Dear John, Message in a Bottle) and movie lows (Nights in Rodanthe which prompted me to stage an online intervention), mostly Sparks' work falls right into the middle as benignly pleasant Hallmark Hall of Fame style family dramas seasoned with second chances and a side of unexpected love.

The Last Song easily falls into the middle category as a slightly awkward but nonetheless promising adult star vehicle for Miley Cyrus, who, hoping to put Hannah Montana behind her to show her improved range as a performer sought out a generational crossover picture in the vein of Mandy Moore’s Sparks cry-a-thon A Walk to Remember.

Having given up the piano around the same time that her parents' marriage fell apart and her father (Kinnear) moved back to Georgia, Cyrus' rebellious musical prodigy Ronnie grudgingly ventures from New York City along with her younger brother Jonah (Coleman) to spend the summer with their father.

Despite a passion for classic Russian literature and for protecting baby sea turtle eggs from being attacked by raccoons on her dad's beachfront property, the angry vegetarian with a shoplifting record keeps up the tough act for as long as she can.

Of course, it's summer in a Sparks screenplay after all so, following a “meet cute” consisting of the go-to romantic contrivance of the “bump into” when Ronnie's love interest crashes right into her only a few minutes after her Doc Martens hit the sand, eventually the volleyball playing mechanic manages to melt her icy exterior.

To this end, it comes as a surprise to no one with a pulse that Australian actor Liam Hemsworth's good-natured Will will be the one to show up on Ronnie's property to help her save the baby turtle eggs from harm.

However, Sparks impresses us all the same with one of his most creatively written romantic scenes in recent onscreen memory as the two teens guard the eggs all night, taking turns chatting and sleeping in their lawn chairs in a beautiful twist on a first date that puts most teen and tween friendly movies (including some 2010 adult romantic comedies) to shame.

Unfortunately from truck sing-alongs to mud-fights and family misunderstandings spawned by prejudice and economic differences and parental expectations, the rest of the romance between Ronnie and Will goes through entirely familiar terrain.

Nearly abandoning all traces of the original premise of trying to reconnect a father with his children in favor of a teen romance, ultimately the film is bogged down by too many subplots that are unable to be given the attention they deserve in the limited running time.

An inauspicious and slightly sloppily edited effort from first time feature filmmaker Julie Anne Robinson, The Last Song shortchanges not only the relationship between the father and his teenage daughter (aside from one forced heart-to-heart exchange) but also thanks to Sparks' inclusion of a church fire mystery adds another uneven element into the overcrowded work.

While it's a structural mess, the always solid Kinnear manages to add poignant dignity and tenderness to his underwritten role. And even though this Song is a step down from Sony's unexpectedly excellent recent adaptation of Sparks' Dear John, Cyrus' mature debut sans Hannah Montana is augmented by its beautiful lensing and solid technical specs in a flawless Blu-ray transfer.


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.

Blu-ray Review: Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009)

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It opened after April Fool's Day but after reading dozens of "alleged" reviews from renowned film critics across the country for Hannah Montana: The Movie, I couldn't help wondering if temporarily their computers had been hacked into by the same individuals who leave nonsensical, inflammatory, and hateful comments all around the internet. By referencing everything from terrorism to brainwashing to torture, some of my journalistic idols took the lowest road imaginable in pieces that could've most likely been classified as shock-jock rants instead of traditional reviews. In trying to rationalize the hate they were no doubt hoping would pass for humor, another thought that entered into my mind was that perhaps there was some sort of unspoken press corp challenge going on about who could create the angriest and most sarcastically extreme paragraphs.

Having missed the press screening for the film before its release and being repeatedly told to keep my expectations for the film low, I must admit that given the flood of nasty comments, I wasn't exactly looking forward to checking it out save for the fact that I try to review a diverse selection of titles to keep open-minded and offer something for everyone. Additionally, I have to confess that I'm not a fan of Miley Cyrus nor had I ever seen one second of her internationally successful television series Hannah Montana.

Yet while it's a very weak film structurally speaking as contrivances and cliches abound in what would have essentially worked better on the small screen-- contrary to the exaggerations expressed in the frustrated rants I'd read-- watching the film didn't make my head spin around Exorcist style or remind me of waterboarding in the slightest.

Overall, it's a colorful confection that's perfectly tailored to its demographic of devoted fans who are crazy about Hannah and likewise one that actually had me from the inventive intro until the middle act and Miley's "Hip Hop Hoedown" brought the film to a screeching halt.

In order to quickly hip those of us unfamiliar with the Hannah storyline (as minor as it is) via an engaging opener that's still the most dynamite extended sequence of the entire movie, we see Miley Stewart (Cyrus) and her best friend Lily (Emily Osment) arrive outside the ticket booth of a jam-packed Hannah Montana concert. Given the key line to let us know that Miley and Hannah are one in the same, Lily jokes that her friend is the only pop star she knows who can't get into her own concert after their plea that they're on the list is denied.

Coming up with an immediate Plan B, Miley spots a temporarily abandoned security golf cart and the two crash the backstage area to get to the dressing room and Miley's dad Bobby Ray (Billy Ray Cyrus) before the concert fuzz catches up with them. Amusingly driving the cart right into a promotional paper banner that covers Miley's head with Hannah's for an instant, we watch the girls kick her dad out of the room as they transform the typical teenage brunette into the superstar via a blonde wig and an enormous train case filled with cosmetics. After the transition is made, an in-joke hearkens back to a previous Montana song and movie as Miley and her reference her wish to have "the best of both worlds" since she's able to attend school and do chores as Miley but entertain a stadium filled with kids as Hannah.

Yet shortly after she hits the stage, the concert segues into the music video playing in the background as Hannah pays homage to Disney teen queen Annette Funicello's beach movies in a slick piece of movie editing. Building up audience expectation and the film's breakneck pacing, it's a stunner of an introduction to the movie that showcases the creativity and energy of those working behind the scenes to give it a high quality polish which makes the languid and overly long second half especially yawn-inducing.

No doubt taking a cue from Disney's smash High School Musical works where musical numbers are cut from one location to the next, it's this kind of imagination that instantly finds director Peter Chelsom's Hannah Montana: The Movie surpassing Disney's recently released Jonas Brothers title which felt lifeless and generic by comparison.

Unfortunately, Chelsom's film loses the momentum fairly early on when a British tabloid journalist decides to make it his mission to uncover the truth about Hannah in a tell-all expose that would put an end to her double life. Aside from an excruciating shoe fight with Tyra Banks in a brief cameo, the movie benefits considerably from a fun turn by Vanessa Williams-- which should appeal to those who enjoyed her in Ugly Betty-- as Hannah's publicist who encourages the young woman to spend more time engaging in life as a star.

However this advice results in not only the aforementioned shoe boutique showdown but also in ruining Lily's birthday party when she's forced by a time-crunch to arrive as Hannah and steals focus from her best friend. After one too many disappointments has found Miley forgetting what's really important in life and who she truly is, daddy Cyrus (er, Stewart) forces Miley to give Hannah a vacation by bringing her back to her Tennessee roots and life on the farm.

Conveniently the location change provides both Miley and Bobby Ray with love interests in the forms of adorable Lucas Till and The Office and 17 Again star Melora Hardin. Yet when inevitably the tabloid reporter hunts her down to Crowley Corners, TN, Lily arrives to help support her as the body double when Miley must again go from blonde to brunette repeatedly until she's forced to either come clean about the dual role or accept which identity means the most to her in the end.

Although the last half of the film still looks gorgeous in showcasing the colors of the Tennessee landscape in Disney widescreen Blu-ray, in terms of its screenplay it ditches all of the effort that had come before it in the previous sequences in favor of misunderstandings and stunts that we're usually presented with on the small screen. Despite this, the movie is augmented by musical performances by Billy Ray Cyrus, Rascal Flatts, the showstopping Taylor Swift (who similar to The Jonas Brothers Movie, immediately makes you wish she was the artist we were watching) and aside from that regrettable "Hoedown" a few catchy tunes by Miley that sound perfectly balanced with the rest of the dialogue in a solid 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio English track.

While it does best Jonas as a musical comedy, creatively the movie goes to sleep after the opening segment. Thus eventually Hannah pales in comparison to the High School Musical works which-- aside from their thin plot-lines-- managed to hide the flaws with sheer overwhelm in the stylized music numbers that surpassed the horrid Mamma Mia! Moreover, while I won't be watching Hannah Montana: The Movie again since some of Miley's antics beyond the hoedown annoyed to no end especially in the "Go Daddy" chant she starts when she thinks her dad is going to kiss his love interest, it's nonetheless an innocuous movie from start to finish that is nowhere near worthy of the wrath filled rants it provoked.

Additionally, while she's not a young Gloria Steinem, she's the opposite of Paris Hilton which is further evidenced in some of the special features included on the Blu-ray as ultimately you realize that Hannah Montana boasts more "believe in yourself girl power" than most movies being marketed to the age group that find females cast as sidekicks, damsels in distress, or mere stereotypes.

Released as one of those money-saving combo packs that feature the work in three different formats including Blu-ray, DVD, and a Digital DisneyFile copy for owners to download to one of their compatible PC or Mac portable devices to take with them, the Hannah Montana Blu-ray boasts a cleaner color transfer than the overly "blue" tones noticed on the recent Race to Witch Mountain Blu-ray along with BD-Live extras, music videos, bloopers, deleted scenes and a few featurettes including two that were preferable to the film from an adult's perspective.

In "I Should Have Gone to Film School," co-star Jason Earles interviews the many individuals working on the set to educate viewers about the hundreds of people who make a film possible and in a terrific featurette, Miley, Billy Ray and Emily lead you on a tour of beloved spots in their hometowns in the thematic tie-in extra "Find Your Way Back Home," which is an informative, entertaining and revealing exploration of locales in Tennessee and California you wouldn't typically see in a film like Hannah.

Ideally suited for its intended audience-- while there are many things wrong with Hannah Montana as a film, in my eyes, there are far more flaws to be found when those who have excelled in the realm of film criticism lower themselves to playground level insults in rants unworthy of both the writers or their loyal readers.

And this is especially the case when, instead of speaking out against something truly prejudicial or offensive to humanity at large, they're pouring far too much energy in annihilating a G-rated movie for young girls in an industry where females are not only the most under-served demographic for studios but are also extremely under-represented in the field of film criticism. Now maybe it's me but it kind of makes one wonder what the true source of their anger really is since rationally, this benign film can't logically be the cause of it... even when Miley is encouraging us to "polka dot it" in that awful "Hip Hop Hoedown."

Text ©2009, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com
Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited.

Blu-ray Review: Bolt (2008) -- 3 Discs Including Digital Copy & DVD

Premiering First on Blu-ray 3/22
-- 2 Days Before It Dashes onto DVD

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In what Inside the Actors’ Studio host James Lipton calls his Walt Disney contribution as the “first Stanislavski animated method actor,” (following his recent work in the darkly comic Igor) playing a TV director in the film Bolt, he delivers the key line of “if the dog believes it, the audience believes it.”

The dog in question is the titular character Bolt, voiced by the charming John Travolta who-- unbeknown to himself-- is the unwitting, canine Truman Show style four-pawed star of an Inspector Gadget like superhero television series. Acting opposite his beloved “person,” Penny (Miley Cyrus), Bolt doesn't realize that the extreme stunts and heroics he carries out on a daily basis perpetually saving Penny from his cat-stroking, mad genius, arch nemesis Dr. Calico (Malcolm McDowell) are staged.

When the shooting stops-- while Penny retreats to her trailer in the hopes of playing fetch with the puppy she picked out shortly after his birth-- Bolt staunchly refuses to break character (and in fact doesn't even know he is a character) by remaining on guard, paws ready, fiercely devoted to the girl he loves. After series of misadventures finds Bolt mistakenly shipped to New York City with no idea how to return to Penny in Hollywood, the Disney comedy that boasts an inventive premise morphs into a picturesque adventure complete with humorous animal sidekicks in the long-standing tradition of Walt Disney animation.

Initially released in 3D around the 2008 Thanksgiving holiday, Bolt has the honor of becoming Disney’s first release made under the guidance of Pixar’s John Lasseter who took over the animation department following the merging of the two companies. Not to mention, Bolt was the first film to hit shelves after Disney’s bold decision to release the Oscar-nominated Bolt exclusively on Blu-ray two full days before the DVD hits shelves.

Fully committed to the Blu-ray format since Walt Disney's exceptional release of Sleeping Beauty last fall and again unfailingly loyal to their audience, they once more return with high quality two and three disc packs of their movies in a Blu-ray format that also gives families either a digital copy of the movie and/or a standard high quality DVD to prevent added expense incurred when people began making the switch from DVD to Blu-ray.

Coming off the heels of their remarkable restoration of Pinocchio, it's a bit unfair to judge the action-packed and highly contemporary Bolt with the same yardstick. Similar to Pixar’s overly long works Cars and The Incredibles, Bolt feels much longer than its 96 minute running time as it exchanges the first act’s high-tech concept to become a Disney animal road movie wherein the sidekick characters are far more entertaining than Bolt or Penny.

Yet, despite this, the movie offers some of Walt Disney Studios’ most incredibly gorgeous animation since its hand-drawn hey-day as we discover in the terrific Blu-ray extra “Creating the World of Bolt,” which analyzes the film's art direction and goal to give the work a “soft, warm, lived-in-look,” as Bolt makes his way back to Hollywood throughout the various states in the continental U.S.

Following extensive research on the techniques employed by classic American painters and dedicated to bringing back the rich hand painted history of the studio’s original animation cells while merging it into the world of CGI, the artists of Bolt inserted brushstrokes and unprecedented detail in each and every shot. The amazing achievement by the art team also involved traveling the journey Bolt would be making in the film with their cameras and sketch pads in tow to see the way light and shadow appeared to change in each new place.

And indeed, as Bolt treks back to L.A. alongside his hyper, scene-stealing hamster sidekick Rhino (incidentally Bolt’s biggest fan) and the tough New York kitten Mittens (voiced by Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Susie Essman in her first animated feature), we’re simply awestruck by the incredible attention to detail which helps elevate the film after it started to lose momentum in its final act.

Following its phenomenally exciting action-packed opening that soon gives way to pathos as we see the pain in Bolt’s eyes when he struggles to become reunited with his “person,” Essman and Disney employee turned voice actor Mark Walton (as Rhino) manage to charm us into laughs as Essman’s street-wise Mittens gives off an Oliver and Company vibe and Rhino comfortably slides into the most reliable of Disney supporting roles as Bolt’s version of Sebastian from The Little Mermaid.

And while overall, the premise itself is rock-solid and would’ve probably been able to be given a green-light on that strength of that ingenious concept alone, unfortunately as a whole the work feels a bit uneven once Bolt arrives in New York City. Possibly, the screenwriting team of Dan Fogelman and Chris Williams may have been a bit more successful if the storyline would’ve found a better payoff or balance between Bolt’s Truman Show like existence and discovery that although he isn’t a real bona fide “super dog,” his superb affection for his “person “will make him feel like one anyway.

And instead of simply sending him on the predictable ups and downs of a clichéd journey motif (despite the beauty) that Disney has exhausted in the past to better much result in the live action film Homeward Bound and in Pixar’s original Toy Story, by milking the opener of what the director called the set of a Michael Bay type TV show and Hollywood jokes, perhaps it would’ve kept the energy level and pacing it established much better than it did by the closing credits.

Of course, as a sucker for Disney’s four-legged friend films and having really enjoyed the outside-the-box approach of Beverly Hills Chihuahua—Bolt doesn’t disappoint overall and the unique image of a dog, a cat, and a hamster going on the road like a 3D animated version of Jack Kerouac is good fun indeed. However, in the end, I think playing with the idea of the Stanislavski method animation actor approach would’ve given it a few more paws up.

In its gorgeously packaged three disc release of the Blu-ray that comes loaded with extras including a new short starring Rhino as he gets to live out his own Bolt-like superhero fantasy, a music video and in-studio voice session footage featuring Travolta and Cyrus, Disney’s BD-live network capabilities, DBox Motion options, art galleries, a filmmaker featurette, interactive games and more—the highlight for me was definitely the aforementioned “Creating the World of Bolt.”

For in it, once again audiences can sit back and simply marvel at the level of commitment and artistry served up by those who work in Disney animation. Also offering a digital copy (compatible with both PC and Apple computers and portable players) as well as a standard DVD of the film, Bolt is also hitting the street this week along with the hotly anticipated two-disc DVD version of Lilo and Stitch with the bonus of purchasers of both titles getting the opportunity to obtain a Bolt plush toy.