The Reel World

The Muppets debuted in 1955, and the late great Jim Henson’s creations have been delighting audiences (and fellow entertainers) of all ages ever since. They’ve made their mark on the small screen — most notably with The Muppet Show (1976-81) — and at the movies, starring in eight feature films across four different decades. However, 2011’s The Muppets was their first big-screen outing in a dozen years, and the movie spent most of its time wondering if the Muppets’ old-fashioned, irreverent charm still had a place in a more jaded pop culture landscape. The answer was a warm, if not quite resounding, yes. With that out of the way, Muppets Most Wanted is a return to the sort of zany showbiz farce that made them movie stars.

“Doggone it…it looks like they’ve ordered a sequel!”

A concussion is a brain injury that causes trauma, confusion, loss of concentration, and impairment of judgment balance and coordination. The new film Concussion starts with a woman getting hit in the head with baseball thrown by her stepson. Abby (Robin Weigert) is married to divorce lawyer Kate (Julie Fain Lawrence). They seem happy but bored in their relationship. Kate obviously probably was in a relationship with a man before but gave up on it. The two kids seem distant and grouchy toward Abby. Both seem to be well off and have their own money. Abby has been taking a break from renovating apartments, but she decides to go back to it. She spends lots of time with other women over 40. They all seem vaguely dissatisfied, but Abby seems even more edgy than that. Her partner, Justin (Jonathan Tchaikovsky), is used to her bossiness and she decides to confide in him. Abby is bridling at how boring her relationship has become. She decides to go to a hooker. She does it again. Each encounter is different with varying degrees of unsatisfying and satisfying. The implication is that the concussion has shaken her brain up and changed the way she thinks. She learns that Justin is dating “the girl” who sets things up. Justin lets her know that she might be able to play the other side of the fence. Get $800 instead of paying $800. There are young women with lots of daddy's cash who are looking for someone more mature. Justin says, “What's the difference?” So Abby starts seeing young women, under very controlling and particular situations. She gets to meet “the girl”, who is a rather neurotic and pretty college law student. Abby asks to see all kinds of women, not just young ones. “The girl” thinks that is fine, and it would be nice if she would work more than one day a week.

The clients are all different. At one point Justin says number five wants to see her again. Abby says no. Then we see why. Number five likes to choke her and hurt her. One of the clients who turns up happens to be an acquaintance of hers who is married to a Goldman Sachs stockbroker. It was assumed she was happily married, and she is, but she's excited by a lesbian fling. Sam (Maggie Siff) becomes a regular client. Abby enjoys feeling desirable. Most 42-year-old women would probably like the idea of lots of sex with different people, but clearly Abby's life has been thrown out of its safe trajectory. It is obvious that something has to give. It is not likely she can remain a housewife and a hooker forever.

Need for Speed is based on a video game. It caters to people who love the experience of speed. There is a huge audience for this sort of thing. To their credit, the writer and director makes every effort to create an actual story and real characters in this presentation. It is easy to compare it to Fast and Furious, but why bother. That gives these sorts of films too much credit. Fast and Furious and Need for Speed are designed to give people a thrill. If anything Need for Speed takes things more seriously than the Fast and Furious series. It also focuses more on beautiful and very expensive cars. Some of the cars featured include Koenigseggs, Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Porsches, McLarens, and Jaguars, but Ford Mustangs and Torinos get some of the most lavish praise. It could be a commercial for these cars. In fact, the film could be a commercial for the video game and the car culture, in general. One of the plot points is that the millions of invested in these cars is motivation to overlook past hostilities. The other reason for making this film is to give a star vehicle to Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad).

Tobey Mitchell (Aaron Paul) has a high-performance car shop in Mount Kisco. There are some fun street racing scenes right at the start. It should be stated that, at every point in this film, there is zero concern for the safety of innocent bystanders. The driving is always reckless and insane. He connects with his old girlfriend Anita (Dakota Johnson) who was stolen away by an old friend. That ex-friend Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper) is now a big shot in the racing world. Tobey is behind on the mortgage on the shop. Dino offers him $500,000 to fix up a $3,000,000 car. Tobey has no choice but to set their differences aside. All his coworkers and best buddies are totally against it including Anita's brother Pete (Harrison Gilbertson). Pete is also a bit of a psychic and seer, predicting that Tobey will win a great race that ends at a lighthouse.  I'm not going to go on about the plot too much, because it's predictable and done just to make sure no one just thinks it's a cheap video game ripoff. Aaron Paul does give full commitment to his role and is actually very good. I don't think he's leading man material, but he is able to convey all levels of intensity. This movie would be better off with a Steve McQueen type, but those are nearly non-existent (although I think Tom Hardy has potential, but he's not in this movie).

“I know it may seem scary, but flying really is quite fun.”

I respectfully disagree. Air travel is terrible. The seats are too small, the air is stale, there’s hardly any leg room, and the food stinks. (Assuming you even get food.) And I haven’t gotten to the part where you’re hurtling through the sky at hundreds of miles per hour at more than 30,000 feet. Ok, so maybe I enjoy air travel a lot little less than some of you out there, but I think we can all agree airliners provide an inherently tense setting for a variety of stories. We’re talking everything from Air Force One to Snakes on a Plane. So while flying may be awful in real life, it’s a reliably thrilling time at the movies.

Most action pictures have an aura of super-seriousness, or they are filmed as comedies and everything is meant to be ridiculous. It definitely is a difficult task to mix the two effectively. On some level most action pictures are ridiculous, since most of us will never experience the close proximity to death and danger that is depicted on the screen. Also, life and death are often cheapened with high body counts but little consequence for our hero. In 3 Days To Kill, all sorts of elements are brought to bear in order to reinforce the average everyday family experience and not the lone killer. Early on, a different sort of danger affects our hero. It's not bullets and bombs but a rare disease that is likely to kill him in the very near future. As a spy, he has always neglected family to the extent that his teenage daughter barely knows him. Ethan Renner (Kevin Costner) is intent on changing that.

3 Days To Kill is a nearly even mix of comedy, explosive action, and sentimental family drama. It may seem like too much to attempt, but the effect is so wacky as to be winning. The film is directed by McG and written by Luc Besson, both filmmakers with impressive credentials, but I'll get back to that later. The real focus is Kevin Costner as an aging and battle-weary veteran CIA agent who is always counted on to take out whatever targets are assigned him. During a particularly explosive encounter in a Serbian hotel, he begins to get dizzy after chasing one surviving member of a gang. He is subsequently hospitalized and told he has maybe six months to live, and thanks for his service. He leaves the hospital determined to reconnect to his wife, Christine (Connie Neilsen), and daughter, Zoey (Hailee Steinfeld).

In 1983, a massive 672-page novel by Mark Helprin called Winter's Tale was published. In 2006, The New York Times Book Review named it one of the 22 best books of the last 25 years. It is an almost universally acclaimed book, and one that is nearly impossible to translate into any one movie because it covers many characters over a long period of time. Screenwriter/Director Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind, The Da Vinci Code, I Am Legend) has taken on this difficult task. Some of his famous friends have joined him. He has admitted in interviews that he had no choice but to cut many large sections and story lines from the sprawling book. I have no problem with this when someone does their very best to honor and respect what was clearly a great work. I think it is unrealistic to say that a large and complex book can't be made into a movie. They are different experiences, and if you object, then read the book again and avoid the movie.

Winter's Tale is being released on Valentine's Day because it heavily emphasizes the romance inherent in the book. It is a tragic and doomed romance, but one that is laced with magic and a cosmic significance that extends across the cosmos. The movie tells the story of the burglar, Peter Lake (Colin Ferrell) who does not die despite being surrounded by demons disguised as thugs who throw him off the Brooklyn Bridge. He rises from the water 100 years later in modern New York trying to remember his past. The main demon who pursues him is Pearly Soames, played by Russell Crowe (A Beautiful Mind). Soames has magical powers of his own but answers to the Judge or Lucifer played by Will Smith (I Am Legend). Soames has a driving need to destroy miracles and is pursuing Peter Lake because he feels his miracle is near. But both Soames and Lucifer must play by certain rules. Peter Lake has found a white horse to help him which turns out to be angelic being drawn to Peter by his grace. The woman he falls in love with is dying from consumption (Jessica Brown Findlay, Lady Sybil Crawley/Branson from Downton Abbey).

“What are we fighting about now?”

About Last Night isn’t the first — and certainly won’t be the last — movie about adults taking clumsy, tentative steps toward commitment. Heck, it’s not even the first movie called “About Last Night” to tackle the subject. The film is one of a whopping *three* remakes of 1980s hits descending on screens this week. I could easily bemoan the general lack of imagination in Hollywood, but by now that sort of rant is almost as unoriginal as all these remakes. Besides, I’d rather spend my time talking about this engaging, formulaic, frequently funny movie.

There have been complaints that there are not enough films that have decent lead roles for women. There are those that say that Hollywood does not make enough movies for women. Then when they do, critics tend to dismiss them as “Lifetime” movies (a term that is dismissive because of the cable channel that churns out generic movies for women). It seems far easier to accept excessive violence or male-oriented films with sexual content. If a movie tries to legitimately capture real situations from a woman's point of view, it can be patronizingly categorized as pap and schmaltz.

I see an awful lot of movies, and what disappoints me most about many of them is the insincerity of the experience. We get to see a lot of violent movies and a lot of funny movies, and if they seem halfhearted, I shrug it off as the norm. If I see romantic comedies that seem like weak rip-offs of movies made years ago, I assume they just don't know how to make them anymore, but an even rarer commodity is a serious romantic movie that works. Today that usually means it has to be laced with cynicism and anger.

The title refers to the junction in every romantic relationship when a couple has to decide between moving forward and moving on, but That Awkward Moment could also describe the dicey transition between squeaky clean teen star and legitimate adult performer. (Hi, Miley.) To his credit, Zac Efron has already dipped his toe — and other body parts — in provocative waters. (Including Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire.) But That Awkward Moment is the star’s first big, commercial, R-rated swing. The real awkwardness happens the moment you realize the movie isn’t nearly as clever or subversive as it seems to think it is.

Fortunately for Efron — and his two on-the-rise co-stars — the film’s talented, likable performers are its major saving grace. Efron stars as Jason, who can charitably be described as a man-whore lothario. When we meet Jason, he’s sitting on a frigid park bench for reasons that will become clearer over the next 90 or so minutes.

One of the most famous men who ever lived is responsible for over 200 movies and TV shows, yet there has never been an autobiographical film until now. He has been loved and revered for over 100 years, but much of his life is shrouded in privacy due to the constraints of the times in which he lived. The books Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol and others are towering achievements in English literature. We finally can now see what Charles Dickens might have really been like.

Dickens was a good-natured, goodhearted, and hardworking author who seemed to be always in motion and focused on producing and being positive. He had 10 children, and his memories of a difficult period in his youth always motivated him to be earning and never be poor. He achieved his goals but stayed on track to always try to maximize his impact and effectiveness. As a result he was like a rock star of the late 19^th century in the level of his popularity.