The Illusionist

Like Tati’s other stories, this one is not strongly plot-driven. It is, rather, an establishment of setting and mood punctuated by endlessly clever yet understated comic setpieces. Though all of Tati’s films have an undercurrent of nostalgic melancholy, Illusionist serves up a sharper, more intimate sting, presumably due to the more personal nature of the story he wrote, and perhaps why he never could produce it himself.

This is a gorgeous film to look at. Chomet’s style of animation, both here and in Belleville, recalls Disney’s middle-period animated features from the 60′s through the 80′s, which were a riot of pencil-drawn spontaneity and dusky watercolor depths. His character designs blend sharply exaggerated caricature and naturalistic proportions. His use of computer-aided animation is more prominent here, but never heavy-handed or gimmicky. At one point, we even see the real Tati meet his re-animated counterpart.

It’s also plenty funny, but, true to Tati, more full of wise winks and smiles than belly laughs. Chomet and Tati share a love of visual humor–neither director’s films have much essential dialogue–teasing us, for instance, with a shot from behind of a Scotsman on a little motorboat, his kilt blowing in the wind. Or a nice little scene where the penniless magician takes a job at an auto garage and tends to a rich Texan’s ostentatious Cadillac–classic Tati, with Chomet’s satirical barbed twist (the license plate reads “B1G-A55″).

It’s appropriate that a film about a magician should itself be intrinsically and self-evidently magical. But I’m convinced that those who approach The Illusionist familiar not only with Chomet’s work but with Tati’s will find it downright exhilarating, as I did. Therefore I will end this review with an aggressive plug for Tati’s films–particularly 1967′s Playtime. To use my favorite facile tagline for it, it’s like the cinematic equivalent of “Where’s Waldo?” Be sure to watch it on as big a screen as you can–with Criterion’s Blu-Ray disc if possible. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Animation/Comedy/Drama

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 5/10/11

Black plays the title character, here reimagined as a long-time worker in the mail room of a New York newspaper whose crush on one of the paper’s writers (an appealing Amanda Peet) leads to him traveling to Bermuda where, thanks to a fancy CGI whirlpool, he ends up in the land of Lilliput, home to said pocket-sized people.

I do realize the film is meant to appeal to kids, as sophomoric gags abound, including the aforementioned robot with which Black does battle, but none more so than the sight of Black dousing a fire in the Lilliputian castle by relieving himself on it. And if Black falling on a Lilliputian soldier rear-end-first doesn’t get the little ones laughing, nothing will.

Black does little more than his standard slacker shtick as Gulliver, using phrases like “condish” and “grade-A courtage” to try and make the material seem more hip. But what seemed like very funny behavior in School of Rock just doesn’t work here. Admittedly, the film does mine a decent sight gag out of his flabbiness that involves cannonballs.

I can’t really fault director Rob Letterman for trying to impart a grow-up-and-be-responsible message, either, I suppose, but it’s a half-hearted effort at best. Black learns his lesson in the broadest way possible, so I didn’t buy it when he admits to Peet that “These little people have grown very large in my heart.” I rolled my eyes, in fact.

None of this is to say the film lacks laughs. Indeed, Chris O’Dowd is hilarious as an arrogant Lilliputian general who sees right through Black’s where-I-came-from stories (“Vice President Yoda”), while Jason Segel (I Love You, Man) earns some chuckles as a Lilliputian commoner with a crush on the kingdom’s princess (Emily Blunt, also funny) and Billy Connolly makes for a perfect king.

The only sequence I truly enjoyed (which borrows from the second story in Swift’s novel) was the one in which Black ends up on an island whose inhabitants are giants and where he’s captured by a little girl who keeps him in her dollhouse. Nothing else here made me laugh more than seeing Black being forced to wear a doll’s dress while being force fed a baby bottle. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Adventure/Comedy/Fantasy

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 4/19/11

Its long-awaited sequel, Tron: Legacy, also focuses on its looks to the detriment of just about everything else. The writing is weak, the direction, by one Joseph Kosinski, lacks style and the acting, save for Michael Sheen and the returning Bridges, is adequate at best. But, thanks to the huge advancement in visual effects since the original, it’s a far more impressive-looking creature, a grand visual creation utilizing some truly dazzling CGI, and so I was more willing to overlook such flaws.

The plot is thus: some two decades after Kevin Flynn, the genius software engineer played by Bridges, went missing, his rebellious, twenty-something son Sam (Garrett Hedlund, who at various times resembles either Hayden Christensen or Christian Bale) inadvertently finds his way into the dystopian-tinged computer world created by his dad, where he discovers not only the old man, but Clu, Bridges’ digital doppelganger who has plans to conquer the real world.

Kosinski wisely retains many elements from the original film, but understandably updates them. The suits still light up according to their wearers’ allegiance (blue for good, orange for bad, yellow for Clu), but are now sleek, black leather duds, the Light Cycles have the same shape, but are bigger and shinier and can curve around the track, and the identity discs (the glowing Frisbees) are razor-sharp weapons that can slice right through a digital denizen. I also appreciated the brief appearance of Bruce Boxleitner, who played both the title character and Bridges’ friend in the original.

As well the numerous action sequences possess a nice muscular energy, less the result of Kosinski’s directorial choices, I think, than of the superlative CGI work and superb sound design. It was especially cool to watch the way various vehicles materialized around characters, though I also liked how the Light Cycles exploded into big, brilliant gouts of blue or orange pixels when getting hit. And I do have to give Kosinski credit for creating the Outlands, the dark and ominous realm beyond the borders of the digital metropolis where digital thunder rumbles through digital clouds.

Bridges plays Flynn with a certain Zen-like weariness, wearing white robes and sounding a lot like The Dude from The Big Lebowski, only smarter. It works, though. He gives the film dramatic weight, and manages to make his solar-sailing bonding time with Sam a poignant pow-wow. But the big thing here with Bridges is that we also get to see a younger version of him as he plays Clu, a nifty, cutting edge digital trick that’s fairly convincing, save for the moments where his mouth doesn’t move quite right when he talks.

In his turn as a neon-cane-using club owner, Sheen (The Queen) briefly injects some outrageous, over-the-top energy into the film, prancing about like Liberace on steroids. Which leads me to mention Daft Punk, the electronic-music duo that cameos as the club’s digital DJs. They composed the film’s score, a most excellent fusion of electronica and orchestral elements that is perhaps the best thing about the film, turning what would otherwise have been just another slick and expensive sci-fi flick into an otherworldly epic. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 4/5/11

Disney

Said story, of course, is “Rapunzel,” the Brothers Grimm fairy tale about a girl with really long hair locked away in a tower by an evil enchantress. Here the girl, a princess kidnapped as a baby by a vain woman who wants the kid’s hair for its magical healing properties, is made into a relatable teenager who manages to escape the tower thanks to the arrival of a roguish thief.

Unlike her classic brethren, Rapunzel (voiced by Mandy Moore), while certainly innocent and naïve of the world, is a spirited girl here, wielding a cast iron frying pan (an object turned into an amusing running joke) and tying people up with her lengthy locks. So she makes for a better role model for girls, and, in a nice gender-reversal touch, especially for Disney, essentially gets to save the day.

The thief is voiced by Zachary Levi (TV’s Chuck), who makes the guy both smooth and vain to a hilarious degree. His funniest scenes usually involve a white palace horse named Maximus, whose behavior and facial expressions help make him the film’s funniest character. There’s also Rapunzel’s pet chameleon, who sticks his tongue in Levi’s ear and shows emotion by changing color.

As well directors Byron Howard (who also made Bolt) and Nathan Greno render the film beautifully, wholly succeeding in their stated aim of making it sometimes resemble an oil painting, in particular the wondrous scene in which hundreds of lighted lanterns are released into the air. They also wring some genuine emotion from the story, like when the queen gently wipes a tear from the king’s eye.

Granted, the characters don’t look perfectly real (their eyes are a little too big), and the demise of Rapunzel’s captor (voiced with perfect wickedness by Donna Murphy) might prove a bit intense for some tots. But such darkness, which is present in the best of Disney’s animated films, is easily balanced out here by the sight of a tavern full of brutes singing about having dreams.- [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Animation/Comedy/Family

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 3/29/11

Just because I say see it, don’t think I’m endorsing it as a “good” documentary. 

Waiting for Superman is horrifically one sided. While it seems simple to say “Schools are bad, I want to be on the side that opposes that,” education in this country is not a simple issue. Whether by design or happenstance, Waiting for Superman derides the teachers’ unions without giving them screen time to respond.

Now putting aside the lack of objectivity, let’s talk about how inspirational Waiting for Superman is. While examining the decline of education in this country, the filmmakers follow children across the country who are pinning their hopes on charter school lotteries. Kids with involved parents who believe their children won’t get an effective education in the mainstream system.

This is where this documentary excels, watching these kids who, even at first and second grade levels, can recognize their schools for failing institutions, sit through a lottery for what they conceive as the only shot for a future, is gut wrenching and so very real. And that is where Waiting for Superman becomes the movie worth talking about.  Interviews with teachers I’ve never heard of and Bill Gates, or fanciful animations that have become the norm since Michael Moore burst on the scene, they all leave a sort of polish behind that makes some of the more interesting facts presented seem questionable.

Just so there is no confusion, I am wholeheartedly saying see Waiting for Superman, I’m just saying don’t take it as gospel. But if you do take it as gospel, be sure to see the director’s previous education documentary First Year, about a group of first year teachers. It’s another good one. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Documentary

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 2/15/11

Steve Carell

Carell voices Gru, a bald, Nosferatu-looking über villain who hasn’t been very successful in his chosen profession. So he hatches a can’t-miss plan to steal the moon, which involves retrieving a shrink ray from a rival über villain, which itself involves adopting a spirited trio of little girls.

The funniest thing about the film has to be Gru’s minions– short, yellow, thimble-shaped little guys that wear goggles and speak in an amusing kind of gibberish. They’re used as guinea pigs for anti-gravity rays and fart guns, laugh at the bubbles in a water cooler and go shopping for a new toy for one of the orphans. No matter what they do, you’ll laugh.

Almost as funny is the accent Carell creates for Gru, a Dracula-sounding thing that perfectly complements the character’s pointy-nosed appearance. And the character’s all the more humorous for not really being that evil. More like mischievous on a big scale. His biggest claims to fame include stealing the Times Square jumbotron and the tiny Las Vegas version of the Eiffel Tower.

But the execution of all this is surprisingly uninspired, the attempts at cleverness a little too clever and the action a little too frantic. So the rival villain (Jason Segel) being a big-egoed schlub gets annoying fast, watching Gru’s bad-guy ship shrink in mid-air is not funny, and it’s no surprise that Gru eventually warms up to the girls, the youngest of whom is absolutely adorable.

If anything, the film is proof that not every all-CGI flick is a home run, even with the involvement of talent like Carell, Segel and Russell Brand (funny as the voice of Gru’s old-man assistant, Dr. Nefario). That doesn’t mean it’s a despicable movie. Just a slightly disappointing one. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Animation/Comedy/Family

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 12/14/10

Since this is an Emma Thompson project, A-list actors appear for choice bits and cameos. This installment had wonderful surprises in the shape of Maggie Smith, Ralph Fiennes, and Ewan McGregor for the grown-ups and lots of nutty CGI magic (swimming piglets) for the kids. Although the first 20 minutes were a bit cacophonous (noisy children need Nanny McPhee to appear), once Emma T. is on screen the film is an old-fashioned delight for both children and their parents. Also stars Maggie Gyllenhaal as the Mom. - [DVD]

Comedy/Family/Fantasy

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 12/14/10

Once upon a time there was an animated ogre named Shrek.
He was in a movie that made a lot of money, so its studio said, what the heck?
There are enough ideas for a few more rounds.
We’ll make some sequels and try not to run the idea into the ground.
They came close, those studio suits did.
This fourth movie just manages to be entertaining, but hopefully this is it.

Shrek married a lady ogre named Fiona and together they made a life.
Three babies and many dirty diapers later, he finds his domestic bliss full of strife.
He just wants some time alone.
So an evil little imp named Rumpelstiltskin throws him a bone.
Sign this piece of paper, he says, and you’ll be the scary Ogre you once were.
Shrek happily does this, and then bad things occur.

The movie is more sweet than funny, really.
But it still has stuff that will make kids laugh, don’t be silly.
Like Eddie Murphy as the voice of Donkey, Shrek’s faithful buddy.
Who had some babies of his own with a dragon; boy, is that nutty.
There’s also the cat known as Puss ‘n’ Boots, who turns lazy and fat.
He can’t lick himself or turn over; oh, how they’ll chuckle at that.

I myself thought Rumpelstiltskin was a real hoot.
He looks and acts like a spoiled brat, and wears big wigs that reflect his mood.
In one clever bit, he hires The Pied Piper to get rid of Shrek.
He tells a witch, “It’s time to pay the Piper,” and to get his book full of checks.
In another he poses a question to Pinocchio, who, of course, lies.
And the wooden boy’s nose grows really long and pokes Rumpelstiltskin in the eye.

The broomstick ride through the castle is also a thrill, thanks to the director named Mike.
Who also includes a touching ending that adults will probably like.
But I must object to all the pop songs on the soundtrack.
Many of them tunes I like, as a matter of fact.
Lionel Richie, Karen Carpenter, The Monkees and Stevie Wonder, they’re all there.
Yet their constant presence made this movie just a little harder for me to bear. – [DVD]

Animation/Adventure/Comedy

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 12/7/10

Juliette (Patricia Clarkson), a magazine writer who wants to experience this ancient and cosmopolitan city with her husband at her side, promises to save a trip to the pyramids until he is able to come, but she becomes more tense and bored as time goes by and his job continues to delay him. Having been told Cairo is not a city to be trifled with by a tourist, especially a Western woman, she wants to explore, but the heat, exotic tangle of the streets and the attitudes of Egyptian men are daunting if not at times menacing. Her husband’s colleague Tareq (Alexander Siddig), retired from the UN and having taken over his family’s coffee shop, becomes tour guide and confidant.

There’s a slightness to Cairo Time. It does fall in the category of films that set a woman down in a far off land and romance ensues, usually having as much true depth and insight as a Harlequin romance novel. What separates it from others of that ilk is the respectful affection that director Ruba Nadda imbues in the film. Rather than explain, attest or atone for all the tension and problems that make up the Middle East, Nadda lets the city itself happen to Juliette and in a satisfying, economical fashion communicates everything from the dashed hopes and cross-sectioning of a people by religion, politics and gender to the small mindedness of “petroleum wives” to the joy and ease of a wedding day.

Clarkson and Siddig inhabit their roles. Their characters realize there is much they don’t and will never know about each other’s worlds and though distanced by individual disappointments their willingness to take in cautious revelations fuel a burgeoning friendship that seems to be leading somewhere. Clarkson shines as always, one of those rare actors so comfortable in her own skin that her ease catches you off guard, then you realize you’ve been really pulled in. At the film’s end she’s riding in a taxi. In trying to define all the emotions crossing her face, you’ll find you’re right and wrong in the same breath.

Carried on the hot, Nile air, the songs of singer Umm Kulthum all along try to impart what should be so clear. There’s no “time” to worry about in Cairo and the romance of Cairo has no geometric shape. Cairo is the epicenter. - [DVD]

Drama/Romance

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 11/30/10

Cage plays a sorcerer who has searched for centuries for a successor to Merlin. That person, it seems, is the only one who can ultimately defeat Morgana, an evil sorceress who nearly killed the love of Cage’s life way back when before Cage trapped them both in a magical prison. Cage finally finds the successor in a nerdy college physics student (Jay Baruchel) in modern-day New York.

As directed by Jon Turteltaub and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer (the men behind Cage’s National Treasure flicks), the film is about as wondrous as a slice of Wonder Bread. It’s little more than a mass of snazzy special effects, annoying pop music and incessant orchestral music. By which I mean the score by Trevor Rabin, normally one of my favorite film composers.

Cage evidently came up with the idea for all this, probably–and I’m just theorizing here–so he could sport his character’s hat and rawhide trench coat and resemble nothing so much as a low-rent version of Hugh Jackman’s version of Van Helsing. But as quirky as he looks, he acts incredibly somber, only coming to life when he turns himself and Baruchel into a pair of New York cops.

The gangly Baruchel (She’s Out of My League) plays the same kind of can’t-get-a-girl type that he always plays, though here he somehow manages to snag his former, and genuinely pretty, childhood crush (Teresa Palmer) by showing her how his Tesla coils work. (No, that’s not a euphemism.)

There are a few treats among this trash, however, like how the aforementioned magical prison is essentially a bunch of nesting dolls, and how Cage is able to transform his old Rolls Royce into a sleeker ride. The reverse-mirror stuff is also kind of neat. The film’s best scene is a live-action rendering of the Fantasia segment, where even the electrical outlets have a personality.

The biggest treat, though, is Alfred Molina, who also stole the show last summer in the superior Prince of Persia. He’s elegant, very funny and just the right note of menacing. He even kind of sums up this mess of a movie. “It’s not very classy,” he admits to Baruchel about having to kill the kid in a public restroom. “But there you go.” - [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Action/Adventure/Comedy

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 11/30/10