Articles by Carl Kozlowski
'A Walk Among the Tombstones' review
Sep 19, 2014 / 00:00 amEver since he reinvented himself as an action star in the 2009 surprise hit “Taken,” Liam Neeson has succeeded Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger as the leading cinematic butt-kicker of our times. Yet while his string of thrillers has been fun and generally well-produced, they have begun to take on a sense of sameness, leaving serious viewers wishing that Neeson would dial things down a notch and again show some of the gravitas he used to classic effect in his prior career as a thoughtful thespian in films like “Schindler’s List” and “Love Actually.”His new movie, “A Walk Among the Tombstones,” written and directed by ace screenwriter Scott Frank (“Minority Report,” “Marley and Me”) and based on a novel by popular mystery writer Lawrence Block, is a strong and mostly effective attempt to bring both sides of Neeson’s career together. In it, he plays Matthew Scudder, an unlicensed New York City detective (read: vigilante investigator) who used to be a cop until he went on a drunken off-duty rampage against a gang of bar-robbing thugs eight years before, with tragic results.Now living a lonely existence, with his prime human contact coming from Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, Scudder is approached by a fellow group member asking him to help his brother find his kidnapped wife before her abductors can kill her. Scudder learns that the brother, Kenny Kristo (Dan Stevens) is a drug smuggler and almost refuses the job of finding his wife.But when Scudder learns that his wife has been dismembered, with her parts left in bags in the back of a deserted car despite the fact he ponied up $400,000 for her safe return, Scudder gets involved. With the help of a homeless African-American teen boy named TJ, he finds a pattern of similar kidnappings and killings — with all of the victims being the wives or girlfriends of drug dealers and smugglers.Chasing this intriguing pattern of leads, Scudder finds himself up against a pair of disturbed psychopaths with mysterious government ties, and soon finds himself looking into the darkest corners of humanity while battling his own demons. The result is a compelling and artfully made thriller with more on its mind and in its sad heart than most such films.Yet while “Walk” is a well-made and often thoughtful film, especially for the action genre, its central criminal plot of female abductions and dismemberment raises some disturbing questions about both Hollywood filmmakers and modern audiences themselves. While most of the movie merely refers to or gives just enough of a glimpse of the violence or corpses to convey what’s going on, one particular scene — in which a bound and gagged woman is asked by the killers which breast she likes most before it’s implied they cut one off and leave her to die — is simply repellant.Sure, Neeson’s character and the filmmakers aren’t endorsing that behavior. But at the same time, to dwell on a scene like that for a couple minutes nonetheless feels exploitative and is simply beneath Neeson and this film. We as viewers have long since realized these guys are bad news, so there’s no need to take it that far – though to make it clear, this is a brief mistake in an otherwise far above average thriller.On the other hand, Neeson brings impressive depth to his role as Scudder, and its strong portrayal of AA and its spiritual aspects show how much heart a superior screenwriter like Frank can bring to even the coldest of subjects. A major shootout that cuts between gunplay and an AA meeting’s recitation of the 12 principles, laden with heavy scriptural undertones, is quite simply powerful.Add in Scudder’s offbeat yet touching friendship with the homeless TJ (an ace performance by a young actor named Astro), and “A Walk Among the Tombstones” rises above most thrillers to be a film that’s worth thinking about once the lights come up in the theater.
As movies transition from summer to fall, an optimistic film emerges in 'God Help the Girl'
Sep 12, 2014 / 00:00 amThe transition from summer movie season to fall is easily the worst stretch of the year for film fans, with Hollywood using the first week of September to scrape the dregs from the bottom of its creative barrel. Families have one glimmer of hope this weekend with “Dolphin Tale 2,” the sequel to the much-loved “Dolphin Tale,” and can be assured that it’s good clean fun for anyone.But I’m going to try and draw attention to one more underappreciated effort, “God Help the Girl,” an unusual musical from the vivid imagination of art-pop mastermind Stuart Murdoch, lead singer and songwriter of the Scottish pop duo Belle & Sebastian. It’s only out in a few big cities right now, but is available on Time Warner Cable systems as a Video On Demand (VOD) order and should be viewable that way across the country.Murdoch’s music comes squarely from the sugary side of the pop spectrum, with plenty of strings, bouncy beats and perky lyrics about love and romance. He has built a huge cult following both in America since forming his band in 1996, so crossing over into making movie musicals seemed like a logical step, and it pays off beautifully with the movie’s absolutely addictive music and glowing performances from its unknown cast. But what really makes him special is that he is an unabashed Christian who openly discusses his faith and the fact he’s a regular churchgoer. His lyrics are filled with themes of God and Heaven and striving to be good in life, and that certainly applies in this musical.The story of the movie is fairly simple. An insecure teenage beauty named Eve (Emily Browning) sings about her frustrating life while stuck in a mental hospital, where she appears to be recovering from an eating disorder and possibly a suicide attempt. She escapes early in the movie and runs off to Glasgow, where she soon meets a music-making dreamer named James (Olly Alexander) and another singer named Cassie (Hannah Murray), and the three decide to form a band. Lacking a safe place to stay, Eve moves into an extra room in James’ apartment, although the relationship is strictly friendly. She does, however, fall under the spell of a wilder teen rock singer, with whom she engages in a brief make-out scene that nonetheless features a few passionate kisses and his hand fondling her clothed breast.It later shows that she wakes up in bed, with implied nudity due to shadowed bare shoulders, next to the wild guy – but she’s filled with guilt, and this leads to the good boy making a strong declaration of his frustration with her, and saying he’s going to church to pray and tells her that’s where people go to get rid of their bad behavior and strive to be good again.While James, Cassie and Eve strive to make great music together and make a name for themselves on their local music scene, they are thrown off balance by Eve’s secret affair coming to light. Can James overcome his secret unrequited love for Cassie, or can he at least deal with the anguish of being rejected while still leading the band effectively? Is Eve really happier now anyway? These simple yet angst-ridden questions are answered with charming song and dance numbers that veer between cutting-edge style and the old-fashioned hokey fun of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland’s “let’s put on a show!” musicals. But with the luminous Browning going for broke in both her more serious moments of suffering and fear — which are the movie’s only realistic moments amid tons of magic — the movie has an amazing presence to center around. The one other thing to advise about is that there are brief bursts of foul language with about 6 F-words total in two quick scenes. It’s generally fine for teens and certainly adults.Alexander and Murray are also terrific in this movie’s nonstop array of musical numbers, which often feel timeless in a most intriguing way. Let it be clear, however, that if you don’t enjoy unbridled optimism and sunny dispositions, “God Help The Girl” isn’t for you. But in a world that’s going ever crazier and more violent by the day, I’ll gladly tout it as extremely happy therapy for the soul.
'Magic in the Moonlight' movie review
Sep 5, 2014 / 00:00 amWoody Allen turns 79 this year, easily putting him in an age bracket where he could have long since retired. But unlike 84-year-old Clint Eastwood, whose last several films have grown increasingly tedious and uneven, Allen has been enjoying a remarkable career renaissance for the past decade since he finally decided to leave New York City behind and expand his artistic palette to include some of the world’s most glamorous locations, including Barcelona, Paris, London and Rome.The exhilarating results have also carried him along on the hottest box-office streak of his lengthy career, with “Midnight in Paris” and last year’s “Blue Jasmine” two of his biggest hits ever. His latest film, “Magic in the Moonlight,” hasn’t caught fire with audiences, but with movie buffs trapped in the deadly dull transition period between summer blockbusters and fall prestige pictures, it carries more than enough charm to be worthwhile in addition to engaging viewers in some of Allen’s most personal musings ever on life, death, love and the afterlife.Not to worry, “Magic” is a long way from a return to Allen’s utterly depressing late-‘70s Ingmar Bergman tribute “Interiors,” which drew critical praise but which the general public found an insufferable bafflement released between his two greatest films, “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan.” Rather, “Magic” is a lighthearted comic and romantic soufflé as it follows the comic yet philosophical battle between an alleged American psychic named Sophie (Emma Stone) and the famous magician Stanley (Colin Firth) who is asked to debunk her seemingly uncanny ability to communicate with the dead.Stanley is first seen performing in Berlin as his alter ego Chinese illusionist Wei Ling Soo, wowing a crowd in the opening scene before an old magician friend named Howard (Simon McBurney) visits him backstage and asks him to help a family of rich friends. The family has fallen under the spell of Sophie, who travels with her mother to seemingly random places and convinces people along the way that she can communicate with their deceased loved ones via séances.Since the heir to this family, Brice (Hamish Linklater), has fallen hopelessly in love with her, the family is afraid that Sophie is just a gold-digger out to win the family fortune by pretending to communicate with their dead patriarch. Stanley agrees to re-direct his planned vacation to visit the family with Stanley and attempt to prove that Sophie is a fraud - but the problem is, she instantly knows so much about him that he’s thrown for a loop.Add in the fact that Stanley finds her séance techniques to be seamless, and a comic battle of the mind, spirit and heart ensues. The more Sophie baffles him with her impossible knowledge about everyone she meets or conveys seemingly real messages from the Great Beyond, the more Stanley starts to feel his bedrock atheism and absolute rejection of all things supernatural are crumbling. Oh, and he’s starting to fall for her too.All this is literally old-fashioned fun, but while the fast-paced banter about love, life, death and the afterlife is amusing on an artistic level, as a Catholic reviewer I must point out that Stanley makes very frequent jabs at belief in God, and despite the intriguing twists that Sophie's charms put on him, the movie's overall attitude towards the spiritual and supernatural is very much in keeping with Allen's openly atheistic worldview. The movie isn't meanspirited about its atheism, but perhaps the fact it tries to be genial and funny makes it more insidious in that regard. Still, there's nothing in the movie that will shake any viewer's faith. It’s not hard to peg why “Magic” isn’t clicking with crowds on the broad level that “Jasmine” and “Paris” did, for it is set in 1928 in quaint settings with a very old-school jazzy score, rather than being vibrantly contemporary. But Firth and Stone set off comic sparks that are a joy to behold, Linklater plays his comical doofus for ample laughs and there's the usual barrage of witty one-liners that makes Allen beloved.Inexplicably rated PG-13 despite practically being G-rated in content aside from its realistic time-period depiction of frequent cigarette smoking, “Magic” is also classy fun for those who wonder if such a thing is possible anymore in today’s comedies. For those looking for good clean fun at the movies, it’s easy to fall under this film’s spell.
Movie Review: 'The Trip to Italy'
Aug 29, 2014 / 00:00 amIt’s easy to forget that America isn’t the only country that produces film stars, and that the people we consider our top comedic or dramatic actors might be surpassed by completely different performers in other nations. A perfect case in point is Steve Coogan, a hugely popular comic actor and writer in England who had only nibbles of cult-level success in the US until he co-wrote and starred with Judi Dench in “Philomena” last year and that film both became a hit and earned him a Best Screenplay Oscar nomination. Of course, that movie stirred great controversy for its depiction of a pregnant single Irish woman who gave up her baby for adoption through Catholic nuns in the late 1950s. The movie portrayed the nuns involved harshly, when in fact their adoption services and the fact they provided a place to live for single mothers at a time when families routinely tossed them out of their homes were the only opportunity afforded to many of the women. The film also took several major liberties with the facts of its subject’s life.Now Coogan’s back in American theaters with a most unlikely sequel, called “The Trip To Italy” – and thankfully it’s free of an anti-Catholic agenda and is fairly innocent for an R-rated movie, rated as such due to about 20 swear words and an implied sexual affair by a married male character who sleeps with another woman without her or his wife knowing about it. It’s not a follow-up to “Philomena,” but rather to the 2011 film “The Trip,” in which he and fellow British comedy star Rob Brydon played slightly exaggerated versions of themselves being sent on a several-day trip across Northern England to review the region’s finest restaurants for a magazine. That movie only made about $2 million in the US and barely more than that overseas, but it was pieced together from a TV travel miniseries that aired to great ratings on the BBC. That British television monolith sent them packing for Italy last year to film a follow-up series in which the duo travel across Italy in search of great restaurants. In both films, the men are mostly seen driving or eating in restaurants, and both the scenery and the food they consume are sumptuous to behold. Director Michael Winterbottom guided both films, employing an intriguing conceit in which he intersperses documentary-style footage of food preparation with the explosively funny conversations between the stars. It’s a good thing that the conversations are so funny in these films, because they literally are the only thing happening besides eating. Coogan and Brydon are ingenious improvisers who are not only willing to take pointed comic shots at themselves and each other, but also engage in a seemingly unending string of verbal battles trying to outwit each other or top each other’s celebrity impersonations. The funniest exchange comes in a showdown between the men over whether Christian Bale or Tom Hardy was the most difficult person to understand in “The Dark Knight Rises.” But Coogan and Brydon also lock horns over Brydon’s jealousy at Coogan’s greater American success, and Coogan’s envy of Brydon’s seemingly happy home life, which he endangers by having a secret fling with a female boat worker who helps them sail between a couple of destinations. For example, Coogan cockily tells Bryson “I run on the beach with Owen Wilson,” to which Brydon replies, “Is he aware of you? And are you sure he’s not just running away from you?” Even though the banter is absolutely hilarious, it does get to be a bit tiring toward the end of the nearly two-hour film. But Coogan and Brydon are also smart enough to know that the audience needs a little substance to go with all the frothy funniness, and the film slows down at wise points in the flow of events as well, for discussions of philosophy, mortality, the gulf that exists between one’s dreams and one’s reality that even exists for famous people the world assumes have everything their heart desires. In the last weeks of summer there are a few films left to be released, but history reveals that most movies put out near Labor Day are hopelessly lame. “The Trip to Italy” won’t thrill you with explosions, nor will you be on the edge of your seat trying to solve a mystery with the characters.But you will laugh along with two of the world’s quickest wits while enjoying locales that would normally cost way more than a $12 movie ticket to experience. By the time it’s over, you’ll be dying for a sumptuous Italian meal and likely wind up in a special conversation of your own. That should be enough reason to want to take this ride.“The Trip to Italy” is playing in just several major cities in theaters, but is currently available through most cable systems on Video On Demand for home viewing.
'When the Game Stands Tall' review
Aug 23, 2014 / 00:00 amThere’s something about great sports movies that inspires viewers even when they don’t care about the sport in question. Many people find boxing brutal, for instance, but you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who didn’t love the original “Rocky” and its noble blue-collar underdog Rocky Balboa.The same holds true for the new football movie “When the Game Stands Tall,” which isn’t destined for greatness but which will definitely send some heartwarming chills and perhaps a couple of tears through viewers despite the fact that it’s far more focused on its football action than on making its characters compelling and sympathetic human beings. “Game” tells the true story of coach Bob Ladouceur, who coached the Spartans football team at De La Salle High School in Concord, California – a Catholic school - to the longest winning streak in history by leading them to 151 straight wins. To its credit, the movie makes it unequivocally clear that the secret ingredient to their success is the faith-based education and coaching the players receive, including a couple of in-depth discussions of Scripture and several scenes of them praying the Our Father.The movie follows the 2003 season, during which a couple of major hardships occurred that caused the team to lose its streak. Ladouceur, who was a heavy smoker, suffered an abrupt heart attack and was ordered not to take the field for the entire season, which caused major tension with his star-player son , who dreamed of being coached by his dad during his final year.The other, outright tragic, situation arose when a star African-American player who had been living a straight-laced life went to visit a troubled cousin in a bad neighborhood and wound up getting shot and killed. Wracked with grief and without a great replacement player ready, the team lost its footing and lost a game.But when Ladouceur is miraculously healed in his recovery from heart surgery, he gets permission to coach after all. And that decision comes just in time, for Ladouceur and the Spartans in their pre-season state of glory had asked to take on California high school football’s biggest and toughest team - Long Beach Poly High School -in their schedule since playing their regular opponents was getting ridiculously easy.“Game” thus becomes the story of how the underdog Spartans learn to both physically, mentally, and especially spiritually learned to man up and face that challenge head on. And just as the team learns to be stronger after their initial stumbles, so too does the movie follow that path.Ladouceur is played by Jim Caviezel, who of course rose to fame playing Jesus in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” and whose deep personal sense of faith adds gravitas to his performance here. The problem is, though, that Caviezel’s highly contained emotional state often makes it hard to feel impassioned about him and the situations he’s in.The players also mostly seem interchangeable, except for Alexander Ludwig as a star running back whose father places soul-crushing pressure on him to break a state record for touchdowns. As he learns to navigate his dad’s pressure versus the coach’s lessons of teamwork, the movie builds its strongest momentum.Overall, “Game” is going to hold far more appeal for football fans than for viewers who are indifferent to the sport, due to its large chunks of screen time devoted to amazingly well-shot play action. But anyone who takes a seat in a theater showing it, will wind up standing in appreciation when it’s over. It’s also thoroughly clean family entertainment and extremely pro-Catholic.
Movie review: 'Let's Be Cops'
Aug 15, 2014 / 00:00 amNearly every red-blooded American boy dreams of being a cop when he grows up. Most wind up with other careers, but the relatively few brave souls who pursue that dream are generally regarded as society’s protectors against all manner of criminal behavior.The new movie “Let’s Be Cops” features two men who are going nowhere in their lives, but who get the chance to pretend to be cops. But with only TV-fueled fantasies and no sense of responsibility driving them, the results are often-hilarious yet sometimes morally questionable fun.Justin (Damon Wayans Jr.) and Ryan (Jake Johnson) are two best friends whose dreams in life are slipping away. Justin works at a video-game company and wants to sell a concept about heroic cops as a game, but his bosses laugh at him and decide to feature zombies instead. Ryan is a former star college quarterback who has never figured out what to do with his life after an injury ended his playing days.When they attend their college reunion wearing full-on cop costumes while others are simply wearing masquerade masks, Justin feels they’ve made fools of themselves but Justin sees opportunity in the fact their classmates truly believe they’re police. When beautiful women hug and kiss them on the street and they manage to make people freeze by touching their unloaded guns, Ryan gets the idea that they should really push the idea of playing cops as far as it can go.Justin tries to stay responsible at his job while Ryan buys an old cop car on Ebay and redecorates it to look like a real LAPD cruiser. But when they run afoul of a gang that’s extorting innocent shop-owners, and humiliate the thugs while preventing the collection of shakedown money, the gang’s crime boss orders them captured or killed and the fake cops are suddenly in real danger, with only a couple of clueless real cops to support them since they fear getting caught and charged with serious crimes due to their duplicity.Amid this main plot thread, there are numerous very funny scenes mining the difference between how cops are shown in movies and TV and what Ryan comes to learn about the harsher realities actual police face. A lot of the situations are good-natured slapstick fun, but a couple of scenes cross the line into raunchy territory, particularly one in which Ryan is inexplicably tackled by a sumo-sized naked Asian man.There are also a pair of unnecessary scenes in which a young woman (Natasha Leggero) writhes (while clothed) around her apartment in an attempt to seduce Justin and Ryan as they try to set up surveillance cameras from her windows. Neither takes the bait and both are shown being offended by her behavior.The movie also has an unfortunately high level of foul language, with well over 150 profanities and obscenities including F-words, S-words, A-words and occasionally God’s name in vain. While profane, Ryan’s attempts to yell at mean kids and help a loser kid score social points by riding along on his misadventures are also funny.SPOILER ALERTS: But by the end, the guys have learned their lesson while helping the real cops save the day and take down the gang. Justin learns to be bold and re-launches his cop video game to great success, and Ryan is honored along with the real cops.“Let’s Be Cops” has plenty of illicit and illegal behavior (including marijuana smoking by the “heroes” in the first half) fraught with deception and lies, but it’s all so ridiculous that it’s hard to take seriously or imagine that it will influence any real-life copycats. Wayans Jr. and Johnson build on their chemistry as castmates in Fox TV’s “New Girl” and are fantastic in their roles here, with Johnson funny in almost every ridiculous thing he says or does.That said, this is definitely a movie for adults, especially due to its frequent bad language. “Let’s Be Cops” is good-natured and silly enough to rarely be truly offensive, but extreme caution is warranted and it is not for the easily offended. Those who can tune out the profanity though will find much of it will foster big laughs.
Movie review: 'Calvary'
Aug 8, 2014 / 00:00 amIt must be every priest’s worst nightmare: sitting in a Confessional, listening to people anonymously share their darkest secrets and sins, when one person threatens the priest and is utterly unseen thanks to the screen. In the new movie “Calvary,” small-town Irish priest, Father James, finds himself in just that situation when a mystery man tells him in horrifying detail about the sexual abuse he suffered from another priest as a child, and that he wants to kill Father James as revenge since the offending priest is long dead and that the world would be more shocked by the killing of an innocent priest.The man tells Father James to meet him on the town beach in seven days to face his fate, and “Calvary” is the stark yet occasionally darkly humorous depiction of that fateful week of waiting. During it, the priest has to face challenges from all manner of friends and family.Father James (played masterfully by Brendan Gleeson) joined the clergy in mid-life after his wife died, leaving his daughter Fiona (Kelly Reilly) resentful and feeling abandoned. Even as the priest buys a gun for self-defense from a writer (M. Emmett Walsh) who sells it to him illicitly, Fiona comes to visit him, and he has to help her cope with her bipolar depression and the fact that a lover he doesn’t know has hit her.Father James confronts the man he believes is responsible for hitting his daughter, stirring up tension with him, but also faces an unusual visit from his daughter’s ex-husband (Chris O’Dowd), who seems friendly but then scoffs at him for being a priest and for the crimes of those who abused children.Also darkening his world is the town police chief, who secretly uses a homosexual prostitute who repeatedly taunts Father James about the fact that he (the prostitute) was sexually abused as a boy. An atheistic doctor tells Father James a horrible true story about a child who was left helpless by botched surgery, tormenting the priest with the idea of why God would allow such suffering to exist.Father James starts to drink to excess and loses his temper in nearly dangerous fashion. But as the days tick on, he rallies his courage and faith and resolutely makes one nobly right and forgiving decision after another on his way to the showdown.“Calvary” is strong stuff, with a depiction of faith and loss, good and evil that offers plenty for viewers to think about. Through it all, its central character Father James is shown as fighting for moral justice and to help others find forgiveness and regain their own dignity – although some accept these gifts, and some reject them.The movie squarely deals with the consequences of the Church’s sexual-abuse scandals, showing the terrible psychological devastation of the victims. But the fact is, these scandals happened, and a portrait that’s three-dimensional and shows a redemptive priest at its core is certainly a worthy way of dealing with the matter.Ultimately, this unflinching portrayal truly offers a stirring parallel to the desperate last walk of Jesus to His own self-sacrifice on the Cross at Calvary. Writer-director John Michael McDonagh may depict a world with sin in it, but he does so with tasteful discretion and by showing that the wages of sin are depression and misery, as those who taunt the priest with their bad behavior and cruel comments all wind up miserable, while those who strive for redemption or forgiveness attain some level of happiness.Throughout the movie, Gleeson delivers an incredible and timelessly strong performance that fully deserves Oscar consideration, as does the entire movie for Best Picture, Directing and Screenplay honors. Like Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ”, this is a movie that deals with harsh subjects and imagery (though nowhere near the violence of “Passion”), but one that needs to travel its troubled path to redemption.
Movie review: 'Boyhood'
Aug 8, 2014 / 00:00 amThere have been plenty of movies about children and especially adolescents. The French classic “The 400 Blows,” “E.T.” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” come to mind immediately. But no one has ever attempted to follow the entire arc of childhood from first grade through high school, as writer-director Richard Linklater has in his latest film, “Boyhood.”Linklater has been one of our most audacious independent directors for nearly a quarter-century, ever since he made a splash in 1990 by crafting a surreal portrait of life in Austin, Texas in “Slacker.” While he’s made occasional mainstream hits like “School of Rock,” Linklater has earned his greatest acclaim (and a pair of Oscar nominations for Best Original Screenplay, shared with Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke) for his “Before Sunrise” trilogy of films, following the evolution of a relationship through updated stories every nine years.The games he plays with real time in “Boyhood” are even more fascinating. Linklater opted to hire one boy actor — an utter unknown named Ellar Coltrane — and follow him for the full 12 years, rather than hiring different actors at different stages of the boy’s life. Then, he proceeded to gather his core cast (including Hawke as the boy’s father, and Patricia Arquette as his mother) for two weeks each year to film the new footage that fit each year of the boy’s life.The story follows a boy named Mason (Coltrane) from age 6 to 18, living mostly with his mom (Arquette) and his older sister (Lorelai Linklater) after his mom and dad (Hawke) are divorced. While he doesn’t see his dad for large chunks of time early in his life, his father is shown to be a loving and concerned man who is also maturing throughout the years.Mason and his sister and mother are shown moving across Texas to new homes and through two step-fathers. Along the way, he deals with new schools, first loves, good and bad times including having to flee an abusive alcoholic stepdad. He becomes a sensitive photographer and is shown smoking a joint, drinking underage and eventually losing his virginity.These are all epochal moments in any boy’s life, but they don’t make for compelling viewing to outsiders — especially not when it comes to the extremely laid-back approach Linklater takes with the material. Mason is shown as an essentially nice and kind boy and overall is a respectful and caring son, but that doesn’t create enough conflict to be interesting or entertaining. The movie could use a traditional, main narrative storyline rather than being a series of anecdotal episodes from his life.Along the way there's not too much profanity, enough to earn an R rating but not to feel overwhelming. As mentioned, we also see the boy smoke a joint in a couple of scenes and nonchalantly smirk off his mother's concern about it, and he also is seen engaging in underage drinking in a couple of scenes. And while Linklater doesn't actually show the sex scene between the boy and his girlfriend as he loses his virginity, he nonetheless sets up the ruse they employ to hide from everyone in a non-judging way and makes it seem totally casual and normal the following morning as they are woken up under the sheets by the friend whose college dorm room they are using. The result is that the movie does not hold much emotional impact for viewers, even as it accomplishes its daring and impressive feat of using the same actor for 12 years as he grows up. Anything could have gone wrong in that time, with cast members potentially getting sick or dying or the boy proving to be a bad actor as he got older. But the movie manages to succeed on the level of its central idea, even though its weak narrative structure makes the idea feel like a gimmick.As such, “Boyhood” is much like any average boyhood; a fairly pointless exercise that leaves you impatiently waiting for thrills that never come, and which you can’t wait to be over so you can get on with the good stuff in life.
Movie review: 'Guardians of the Galaxy'
Jul 31, 2014 / 00:00 amWhat if Han Solo was the front-and-center star of the original “Star Wars” movies, and what if his team consisted of a talking raccoon, a mutant tree-man, a hulking giant and a hot green woman, instead of a Wookie named Chewbacca, a couple of robots and a clueless brother-sister duo? That’s basically the question asked by the new movie “Guardians of the Galaxy,” and the answer is that you’d still have a pretty good time at the movies, if not a timeless classic.“Guardians” is perhaps the summer’s most original movie, and I’ll give the folks at Marvel and Disney studios credit for taking a chance on such a big-budget ($170 million) mix of sci-fi action and comedy. The risk really comes from the fact that “Guardians” has no big movie stars like Robert Downey Jr. or Jeremy Renner in its cast, centering instead on the charms of veteran TV actor Chris Pratt of “Parks and Recreation,” with Bradley Cooper merely providing the voice of Rocket Raccoon and Vin Diesel serving almost as an in-joke as the voice of the grunting tree-man, Groot, while Zoe Saldana plays the green chick after establishing her bona fides playing a hot blue woman in “Avatar.”Pratt stars as a guy named Peter Quill, who has given himself the nickname “Star-Lord” and loves to brag about it to everyone in sight. The film opens with Peter as a young boy watching his mother die in a hospital, before he runs outside only to find himself inexplicably zapped by a spaceship and hurtled into the heavens.Now an adult, he is a junk collector working with a group called the Ravagers in search of a metallic orb that is wanted badly by a diverse group of creatures aside from his boss, Yondu (Michael Rooker). The green woman, Gamora, is first on that list, as a highly trained assassin under orders from an evil overlord named Thanos to grab the orb at all costs.A sarcastic talking raccoon named Rocket and his sidekick, a tree-man mutant named Groot, are also in hot pursuit, though the four quickly decide to team up rather than fight when they realize they need each other’s particular skills and can split a $4 billion bounty if they deliver the orb to the highest bidder in 24 hours.There are more creatures and characters to be had- almost too many, as the movie bounds from one weirdly-named galactic location to another at a sometimes-confusing pace. But the movie builds momentum and tension well, with the last half-hour a slam-bang barrel of fun that is less serious yet often more fun than the climactic battles of just about every Marvel movie outside of “The Avengers” itself.The wizard behind it all is James Gunn, who directs and co-wrote the script with Nicole Perlman, based on a series of comics written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. Those comics were a daring experiment in themselves, an attempt to create an alternate form of superheroes that served almost as a spoof of The Avengers but with just enough plotline to be compelling as well as funny.Gunn has done a couple of my favorite movies in the past decade – the highly unique comedy-horror mashup “Slither” and the indescribably original “Super,” in which Rainn Wilson of “The Office” plays a put-upon nebbish who decides to gain revenge on society by becoming a superhero vigilante and winds up taking things way too far. Here, he’s been blessed with the opportunity to go big with every crazy idea in his loony-tunes mind, and audiences will have a great time experiencing it.“Galaxy” keeps up the Marvel Comics movies spirit of having little to no profanity of any kind, though the sarcastic Quill manages to leave viewers hanging with the idea that he was about to say something naughty at a couple points before catching himself. There are a couple of innuendoes implying that he is a ladies’ man, but no onscreen sex is shown or implied and he and Saldana keep things focused on action of the fighting rather than bedroom sort. The movie also has a refreshingly lower level of violence than the most recent “Captain America,” which was an outstanding movie but marred by a nonstop barrage of bullets. The movie might confuse kids at times more than it will ever frighten them, but Rocket and Groot are destined to be instant childhood movie icons.All told, “Guardians of the Galaxy” is a movie that stands out as one of a kind in a summer full of sameness. Here’s hoping audiences can embrace its weird vision and inspire even more fresh takes on timeworn genres.
Movie reviews: 'Sex Tape' and 'Begin Again'
Jul 18, 2014 / 00:00 amThe world has gone video-crazy, with people everywhere recording their greatest moments and sharing them with the world. Two new films, “Sex Tape” and “Begin Again,” offer different spins on this idea, and both have their own distinctly different charms. Obviously, most people seeking a Catholic perspective on film will probably already know that a movie called “Sex Tape” is morally problematic, to say the least. It stars Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel as Annie and Jay, a married couple who used to love to have sex anywhere, everywhere and in every way imaginable when they first met but have lost their spark after 10 years and two kids. Annie is about to sell her blog about mommy life to a major online distributor headed by Hank Rosenbaum (Rob Lowe), a white-bread conservative who loves Annie’s now-wholesome image. Annie decides to celebrate by shipping the kids off to grandma and getting it on with Jay all night. But even then, getting frisky is harder than they realize. Through a series of mishaps large and small, Jay and Annie wind up worrying that they’ve flat-out lost their ability to have sex, until Annie suggests whipping out an iPad and making a sex tape for themselves, with the intention of erasing it the next day. Instead of erasing it, clumsy Jay accidentally sends the video out to a group of friends and family who are linked because they’ve each been given used iPads over the past couple years whenever he gets a new one through his work. And so they go on a crazed overnight quest to grab all the iPads back before they can be seen — with their best friends Robby (Rob Corddry) and Tess (Ellie Kemper) in tow, and with Hank Rosenbaum himself as the prime person from whom they must steal back an iPad.“Sex Tape” isn’t a very ambitious film, but then do you really expect ambition with a title like that? If you’re not easily offended, you’ll probably laugh a fair amount of times in spite of yourself in the raunchier first half – and the second half, involving the mishaps in their quest to get the Ipads back, switches the focus from just being sex-obsessed to include some clever twists and fun slapstick.The movie does show the frustrations of finding time to get intimate with a spouse after several years and growing children enter the scene, which is something nearly anyone can relate to. And Annie and Jay are shown as a truly loving couple who strive to be good parents, while they ultimately realize that good sex is just part of a good marriage, not the ultimate goal. But make no mistake, it’s way too risqué and raunchy along the way to that good message for most discerning people to handle.“Begin Again” is also an R-rated movie about adult relationships, but as a drama with a ton of terrific pop music at its core, it’s a richer and much more memorable experience. It’s also way more innocent, as it earns its R rating solely for its use of profanity, which is frequent at times and rather unnecessary, but in the context of its troubled male lead character and its New York setting it doesn’t come off as offensive as it might in other films. And it would be a shame to let some bad words get in the way of hearing some magical music and seeing a lovely story of redemption.“Begin” pairs Kiera Knightley and Mark Ruffalo as a mysterious open-mic singer-songwriter named Gretta and an alcoholic record-label head named Dan who stumbles into the bar she’s singing at on the night he gets fired.Gretta didn’t even want to be on stage that night, but Dan is certain she can be the superstar he needs to make it back to the top. The two agree to work together on an album to be recorded live on the streets and in the alleys of New York City, with unemployed musicians as her impromptu band and ambient noise like subway trains, traffic and irate neighbors all left in the mix of the final product. Adding to the mix are the romantic complications of the two, as Dan has to deal with his estranged wife (Catherine Keener) and teenage daughter, and Gretta has to decide whether to stay involved with the rock-star boyfriend (Adam Levine of Maroon 5 and “The Voice”) who cheated on her. Through it all, New York’s glorious locations are so key to the tale that the movie becomes a valentine to the Big Apple as well as to the power of music. And along the way, “Begin” has wonderful messages about male-female friendship, the value of marriage and fatherhood, and redemption on multiple levels.Written and directed with passion by John Carney, the Irish filmmaker whose 2006 film “Once” became a worldwide indie sensation that also won an Oscar for Best Song, “Begin Again” follows a similar story arc but has a much bigger canvas to work with and rises to the occasion on every level. Ruffalo and Knightley are in career-best roles here, with Knightley particularly impressive because she had to learn how to sing like a champion for the part. “Begin Again” is not only certain to be one of the best movies of the year but has joined my all-time Top Five Favorites list. In a summer overloaded with special effects wizardry, it’s got the most magic of all.
Movie review: 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes'
Jul 11, 2014 / 00:00 amOne of my earliest and most iconic memories from a movie is the ending of the original “Planet of the Apes,” when Charlton Heston discovered the head of the Statue of Liberty lying on a beach and suddenly realized that he was in fact on Earth and humanity had been destroyed and taken over by mutant apes. Watching it on TV at age eight, it shocked me to the core and has remained one of my all-time favorite movies.There were four film sequels and a TV series after that in the 1970s before the initial phenomenon finally died out, and a reboot of the original in 2001 from Tim Burton that was generally considered a disappointment. But 20th Century Fox returned to the well in 2011 with “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” creating a huge worldwide hit that was critically acclaimed as the best since Heston’s film – and the results were good enough to approve two more films for a new trilogy.Unfortunately, the first of those films, “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” is a disastrous step backwards on nearly every level. Whereas “Rise” built its exciting tale not only on impressive effects but also well-drawn human characters played by name actors including major star James Franco and John Lithgow, the only recognizable actors in “Dawn” are Gary Oldman, who’s only sporadically shown as the fanatical leader of a human colony, and an utterly wasted Keri Russell as – well, a pretty and personality-free hot body to come home to for the ostensible human hero.“Dawn” starts off intriguingly enough with a sinister prologue in which the spread of a pandemic virus that wiped out most of humanity is recounted through well-edited news footage from real-life situations. The main events occur a decade after “Rise” ended with thousands of apes overrunning and then fleeing San Francisco for the natural protection of the redwood forests, as the apes are living in peace amongst themselves and wondering if there are any humans left in the world.To their surprise, a lone human appears, and when he’s confronted, he fearfully kills an ape with a gun. When the human runs back to a group of fellow explorers led by a gentle guy named Malcolm (Jason Clarke), the team tries to make peace with the rest of the apes but are instead sent away by lead chimp Caesar (Andy Serkis) with a ferocious shout of “Go!”Returning to home base in the ruins of San Francisco, Malcolm tells colony leader Dreyfus (Oldman) about the ill-fated encounter. He had been leading his science-minded team on a quest to find and regenerate a dam so that the colony can have electricity for the first time in years, and gets permission to spend three days making peace with the apes and succeed in starting the dam – but if he fails, Dreyfus will lead an army of men with an enormous stockpile of weapons on a rampage to wipe out the apes and take over the dam by force.The peace mission appears to succeed at first, but an ape rival of Caesar’s named Koba hates humans for the abuse they used to heap upon him in conducting scientific research, and he leads a revolt on Caesar that has disastrous consequences for both sides. The result is all-out war between mankind and the simians.I realize that it took me four paragraphs to explain the film, and that that fact might make “Dawn” sound a complex film with an exciting, action-packed plot. But trust me, the actual experience of watching this bloated 130-minute film (an excruciating 25 minutes longer than “Rise”) is far from awe-inspiring, as the movie spends literally its first hour with countless scenes of societal and familial peace among the apes and establishing a bond of friendship between the dam-generating team and the monkeys.The few twists leading to the actual war take place in just a few minutes, and lead into a final hour of non-stop monkey mayhem that is dark and depressing and often barely discernible through fog and smoke. Perhaps the thrill is gone because “Rise” used 40 years of advances in special effects to thoroughly shock and awe the audience with an unforgettable battle royale on the Golden Gate Bridge, and there’s simply nowhere to go in comparison.But it doesn’t help that the human characters are ciphers, either as psycho gun nuts eager to kill or the simpering sap Malcolm, who spends most of the movie begging for understanding. He and his rival Dreyfus are the only humans who are given entire paragraphs of thoughts to recite, while the rest of the dialogue is so spare and sporadic it could have actually been written by the proverbial 100th monkey banging on a typewriter.All these disastrous decisions, combined with incessant heavy-handed politicizing (“No guns!” and “Apes don’t kill apes!” are repeated loudly on numerous occasions), will leave viewers wishing they could leave the planet themselves. “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” is rated PG-13. It has barely any foul language and no sex or nudity, but a whole lot of gunfire, explosions, rampaging warfare and ape-on-ape violence. It’s definitely not for kids under 10 or so due to its intensity.
Movie reviews: 'Earth To Echo' and 'Tammy'
Jul 2, 2014 / 00:00 amThere are two major movies coming out this weekend in theatres, and both are surprises for unusual reasons. One, “Earth to Echo,” features a cast of literal unknowns and appears to be a knock-off of “E.T.” and “The Goonies,” with a bit of “Super 8” thrown in at the climax.The other one, “Tammy,” is the latest comedy from female force-of-nature Melissa McCarthy, and features her as a fat small-town loser who hits the road with her grandmother (played by Susan Sarandon) to escape their dead-end lives. Guess which one is the better movie?Surprisingly, it’s “Echo,” a rousing tale of three young teenage friends who chase after mysterious signals from an alien and hope that saving the alien can also save their neighborhood from demolition. Tuck, Munch and Alex have been best friends since their early childhood days, and they try to have one last adventure together before each of their families has to move under government orders so that a highway can be built through their neighborhood. But just as they’re trying to figure out what last-ditch effort can save their homes, they start seeing mysterious maps on their cellphone screens.Figuring that they’re being called out to the desert 20 miles away, they decide to tell their parents that they’re having a last-ever sleepover party and instead ride their bikes into the great unknown. When they finally find the spot they’re led to, they find plenty of men in the distance with flashlights and wind up discovering a huge construction site lit up in the middle of the vast desert expanse.They also find a little robot-like alien they name Echo, and soon they realize that the mystery men are government officials out to capture, examine and likely kill the creature. Thus, the heroic trio decide to make a break for it with the alien and see if they can figure out how to get him home.This may sound like a ripoff of the aforementioned childhood-movie classics, but “Earth To Echo” manages to work due to the fresh performances of its young leads and the propulsive energy brought to the film by director Dave Green and writer Henry Gayden. The filmmakers tell the whole story through the viewpoint of the kids' constantly moving video cameras, which they wear even while riding bikes and running.The result is a constantly engaging visual sense that amps up the tension that should have both adults and kids on the edge of their seats, and is more like a kids’ version of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” than the simply child-friendly fare the movie is being marketed as.“Earth” is refreshingly free of any noticeable profanity or dirty jokes, and while its action is fast-paced and nearly non-stop, it is never truly violent. The kids do lie to their parents about having a sleepover party when they’re actually riding dangerously into the desert in the dead of night, and they do cause some mischief by “borrowing” a car from one boy’s older brother and engaging in reckless underage driving along the way. But they’re doing it all in the name of saving the sweet alien’s life, and the movie is so obviously a fun fantasy that there is little risk kids will try to replicate it. While “Earth To Echo” is unlikely to appeal to many adults without children, its mix of tension and appealing characters should prove a winning combination for kids and families. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for “Tammy,” a tale of dysfunctional characters whom viewers would likely wish they’d never have to encounter in real life. The movie follows the story of a clueless and obese female loser named Tammy (Melissa McCarthy), who works in a dead-end fast-food restaurant. In one day, she ruins her car, gets fired from her job and discovers that her husband is having an affair with their next-door neighbor.Frustrated with her life, Tammy declares she is leaving her husband and needs to borrow the car of her grandmother Pearl (Susan Sarandon), in order to leave town for a big city and start over. Pearl also wants to escape her own dead-end life and the two head off. The problem is that Pearl is a hopeless alcoholic and together, Tammy and Pearl are a disaster with everyone they meet.That is, except for when Tammy meets a sweet guy named Bobby (Mark Duplass), whose married father (Gary Cole) has a one-night stand with Pearl that is implied and discussed, rather than shown. When Tammy and Pearl are arrested, Tammy is released first and she attempts to bail out Pearl by robbing a branch of her former fast-food employer of the $1600 they need.Thus, as Tammy and Pearl go on the run, they wind up surrounded by her lesbian aunt Lenore (Kathy Bates) and a houseful of their lesbian friends having a party. Tammy slowly moves from friendship to true love with Bobby, prompting her to make improvements in her life.“Tammy” sounds like more fun than it actually is, since McCarthy relied on her husband Ben Falcone to co-write with her and direct it and he has no prior feature-film credits to his name. The movie is funny in fits and starts, particularly when Tammy gets angry, as McCarthy is a master of physical comedy and showing frustration in funny fashion.Too much of the movie drifts without enough action or emotion taking place, leaving the audience to stare at the screen in boredom. Conversely, the movie’s depiction of troubled people in denial can be emotionally affecting at times, but “Tammy” also undercuts itself on that front with its jumpy attempts to mix humor and heart.There’s also way too much profanity, as McCarthy and her costars intend to use it in humorous white-trash frustration but it quickly grows tiresome. But the movie does have some sweetly redemptive moments too, as (SPOILER ALERT) Tammy and Pearl break back into the fast-food restaurant to give the stolen money back and Tammy winds up facing the music by accepting a 38-day jail sentence for her initial robbery. Pearl, meanwhile, admits she has a drinking problem and sobers up while settling down in an assisted-living community.But unfortunately, that’s too little too late. Here’s hoping that McCarthy remembers that she should find the funny first, and make sure that she has a more experienced hand guiding her films in the future.
Movie review: 'Transformers: Age of Extinction'
Jun 27, 2014 / 00:00 amI’ll give credit to the “Transformers” movie series for one thing: never has a series of films been so stupid yet attempted to have such pretentious subtitles: “Revenge of the Fallen” was the first sequel, followed by “Dark of the Moon.” In “Moon,” a battle royale between the good Autobots and humans united against the evil Decepticon Transformers pretty much obliterated Chicago and seemed to bring a conclusion to the series.Sadly, that assumption was wrong, and now we have the most pretentious title yet, with “Age of Extinction.” While the trilogy’s main human star, Shia LeBeouf, decided he’s had enough, director Michael Bay, writer Ehren Kruger and Paramount Pictures decided there were more stories that needed to be told – or at least, that they could keep making billions of dollars by cranking out additional entries in the series.Amazingly, they managed to vastly upgrade their leading man, replacing LeBeouf with two-time Oscar nominee Mark Wahlberg , who apparently decided that he could not only set his kids up for life with the paycheck but was also looking for a movie his kids could finally see after a career filled with violent and profanity-packed films. Sure, the “Transformers” films are violent, but society tends to give a pass to graphic violence and mass mayhem when it occurs between giant robots rather than humans, and Wahlberg manages to keep his mouth clean for once.Wahlberg plays Cade Yeager, a struggling robotics inventor and widowed father living deep in the heart of Texas with his teenage daughter, Tessa (Nicola Peltz). He runs his business with his goofy friend Lucas (T.J. Miller, easily the best part of the movie), on the verge of eviction, until they discover an old 18-wheeler truck cab hidden in the back of an abandoned old-time movie theatre.This human-scale early segment has some funny banter between the friends and some sweet father-daughter interaction as well, giving brief hope that Bay and Kruger have finally realized that the “Transformers” films have human beings in them too, not just special effects. But Cade and Lucas’ discovery comes after a geologist has discovered an ancient Transformer frozen in the Arctic, setting off a race between a corporate tycoon (Stanley Tucci) who wants to unearth the ancient robots to use their specialized metal for industrial purposes, and shady US government officials who want to capture and kill the few remaining Transformers first.It turns out that Cade and Lucas have discovered the ultimate Transformer, Optimus Prime, which has been hiding from attack in the form of the truck. When Lucas cluelessly reports their find to the CIA in hopes of collecting a reward, the feds show up and in an evil alliance with the Decepticons draw Cade, Tess and Lucas into a nonstop chase across Texas that also winds up in China for no real reason other than exciting moviegoers to hit the theatres in the most populous country on the planet.Now, no one’s expecting a movie about robots that can turn into cars and other forms of transportation to be an Oscar-winner. The “Transformers” movies are meant to be big, dumb fun that makes viewers’ jaws drop in astonishment at the sheer inventiveness and scale of their destruction. And I can definitely see their appeal to kids, thanks to the shiny colors, countless explosions and propulsive action.Your kids will probably be fine with watching this because living vehicles are undeniably in the realm of fantasy and unlikely to inspire real-life violence in the way that Robert DeNiro in “Taxi Driver” inspired President Reagan’s attempted assassin John Hinckley Jr. But at the same time, maybe parents should be asking why the sheer level of violence in films like the “Transformers” is given a free pass by so much of society.For instance, one evil robot is stabbed through its heart with a giant metal spear, and then the spear slices upwards through his body and all the way out through his head, making it vomit acid and other robotic fluids before dying. Our human heroes react with Cade pumping his arms in the air and rushing to hug Tessa, only to find that she’s in the middle of a deep romantic kiss with her boyfriend. I’m not sure if a kiss would be my first reaction to seeing my opponent sliced in two and heaving bodily fluids on the way to expiration, but then what do I know about love compared to director Bay and writer Kruger?I’ll give the movie a couple of points for its moral tone, as there is little to no profanity and Cade makes it clear he has high standards for his daughter and doesn’t want her sleeping with anyone. Cade also mentions that the “spark” that gives life to the Transformers is much like our soul, reiterating that human have souls at another key juncture in the film. But that's kind of like excusing Osama bin Laden for the destruction of the World Trade Center because he was a good dad. One might think that with Wahlberg aboard, there might have been enough glimmer of artistic integrity to make this be a one-time film. But there’s undeniably more to come, as the movie ends with a ridiculous closing narration by a Transformer that says there are many questions left to answer, existential questions like “Why are we here?”I was asking that question myself after enduring 2 hours and 45 minutes of this junk. I know why Wahlberg, Bay and Kruger are making these films, but the question of why the masses keep watching them remains unanswered. I can only pray that these movies truly do become extinct someday.
Movie review: 'Jersey Boys'
Jun 20, 2014 / 00:00 amAt age 84, Clint Eastwood is setting quite an example that people can stay as productive as ever well past the traditional retirement age. He’s been acting and directing at a rapid clip, and frankly doing some of the best work of his career in the past 20 years with movies like “Unforgiven,” “Gran Torino” and “Million Dollar Baby.”The fact that he’s the director of the new Broadway musical adaptation “Jersey Boys” comes as a double surprise, then, as Eastwood is tackling an entirely new genre with this film. The guy who made his name playing macho icons in the “Dirty Harry” and “Every Which Way But Loose” movies is certainly not the first person one would expect to handle the story of guys who are singing and dancing, even if they are street thugs from early-1960s New Jersey.Sadly, the fact that musicals are so foreign to Eastwood is perhaps its biggest downfall. Built around the dramatic true-life story of the rise and fall of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, who rode to huge success on the coattails of lead singer Valli’s improbably high-pitched vocals before collapsing in a mess due to massive financial misdoings by a fellow band member, “Boys” gets its serious moments right but never soars when it counts, during its musical moments.The movie employs the clever narrative trick used in the stage play, in which each of the Four Seasons takes turns telling the story from their perspective. Frankie’s story starts when he’s a teenager, hanging around with thugs a couple years older who are always on the make, including a hilariously incompetent jewelry store robbery. His best friend is Tommy DeVito, who helps him break out of his trap as a working-class neighborhood boy but ultimately betrays Frankie’s trust with his free-spending ways.It’s obvious early on that Frankie has both star presence and that incredibly unique voice, pairing the two together to lead his thug buddies – who are also skilled rock musicians – into a record contract as a backup band and eventually rapid success with their own recordings. Frankie also uses his charm to entice an older beauty to seduce him and marry him – a relationship that brings him children as well as eventual heartache as he tours constantly to support them.The movie takes at least a half-hour to kick into its first big rendition of a Valli song, but once the music starts it keeps coming in big waves. While the songs are undeniably fun to watch and hear again, Eastwood doesn’t present them with the pizzazz one might expect after a decade of high-energy, high-gloss musicals as “Chicago.” Instead, he seems to plant the camera in front of the band and make viewers feel like they’re watching the band play in mostly static position for early-era TV cameras.The movie does better with its non-music scenes, as the young actors playing the musical icons give impressively wide-ranging performances that score points both with the sarcastic brotherly banter dispensed among the band members and with the more serious and even tragic moments that occur in the film’s second half. The fact that Eastwood chose to hire mostly-unknown actors rather than movie stars in the roles also lends a credibility to the film even as it likely lessens the fun. John Lloyd Young and Vincent Piazza are especially strong as Frankie and Tommy, giving both a sense of their youthful dreams and the anger involved in their fumbling them. When one considers that Young not only matches Valli’s look, handles an impressive spectrum of emotions and even pulls off replicating Valli’s voice, it’s an incredible feat. “Jersey Boys” is rated R almost exclusively for its foul language. There’s a large number of F and A words, and quite a bit of using God’s name in vain, particularly in the form of GD and JC. But in the context of tough-talking street kids from early-‘60s Jersey, it doesn’t truly register as offensively as modern stories with the same kind of language issues, because history has already proven these kinds of guys really talked this way. There are implied affairs and one scene in particular fades in and out of a fellow band member losing his virginity to a hooker who’s provided to him as his “Christmas present,” but nothing sexual is shown. Overall, “Jersey Boys” is pleasant enough and has enough compelling drama to be worthwhile viewing for fans of the Four Seasons or their musical era. But what should have been musical magic instead is a well-produced story with its feet firmly in place rather than dancing across the screen.
Film review: '22 Jump Street'
Jun 16, 2014 / 00:00 amThese days, it seems a sequel or reboot of a prior hit movie is released seemingly every week. In most cases, the filmmakers involved are so cynical about the product they’re pushing that they fully expect audiences to accept the rehashes unquestioningly.While this weekend’s “22 Jump Street” seems like yet another example of this disheartening trend, it’s actually the rare sequel to acknowledge that it’s a retread and flip that admission into something that, while often raunchy and absolutely only for adults, is also clever and pretty entertaining. The key here is clearly the talent involved, both in front of and behind the camera, as both “22” and its predecessor – 2012’s hit “21 Jump Street,” itself a reinvention of a nearly-forgotten ‘80s cop show on the Fox TV network – feature two-time Academy Award nominee Jonah Hill in the lead role of Schmidt alongside one of the hottest stars in the business, Channing Tatum, as Jenko.More importantly, the direction in both films comes from the duo of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who have also brought the highly acclaimed animated hits “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” and “The Lego Movie” to the screen. With two lead actors capable of doing much more than a formula picture and two directors who have upped the game on smart writing in their kids’ films, chances were good for “22” to up the game as well, and thankfully it has.Don’t get me wrong, the main plot is simple and often stupid. In both films, Hill and Tatum play cops who are sent back to school on undercover assignments to stop illegal drugs from reaching student populations.In “21,” they went to high school, with the pudgy Schmidt becoming improbably popular with a newer, more sensitive generation of students and Jenko comically perplexed by the fact his jock personality isn’t in vogue anymore. The result was a hilarious spoof on high school movies and stereotypes, male bonding and macho cop behavior, and in “22” they achieve much of the same by sending the guys to college, pretending to be brothers sharing a dorm room.In “22,” the college shenanigans flip things upside down for the guys, as Schmidt is stuck hanging out with social-loser artists and Jenko becomes a star football player for the college. But Schmidt also finds himself happily pursuing a relationship with an African-American student which starts as a one-night stand but quickly turns to something genuine – the only problem is, Schmidt doesn’t realize that his new lover is the daughter of his police chief (played with hilarious menace by Ice Cube), leading to all manner of problems.The key to the “Jump Street” movies being hugely entertaining (well, to those who like buddy-cop comedies with a brain) lies not in their ultra-simple core criminal plots. Rather, it’s in brilliantly deconstructing and poking sharply pointed fun at the homoerotic tendencies lurking beneath nearly every buddy-cop TV show and movie ever made. Whenever the guys have a disagreement or decide to split their case work in two different directions, the scenes have an undertone of romantic breakups that makes for priceless comedy.Most of the time, this is goofy (albeit profane) fun, and nothing that adults with a broad sense of humor can’t handle. It’s not pushing a “gay agenda” either, but having surprisingly un-PC fun with the feminization of men in so much of today’s popular culture, whether in sports or cop movies. There is only one scene in the movie itself and a brief post-credits moment at the tail end that cross the line into being truly offensive, as the cops go to get advice from the first movie’s villain and are subjected to hearing him brag about his bizarre sexual relationship with his cellmate.Even these moments are a small percentage of the overall movie, which is mostly rated R for profanities (of which there’s a lot - seemingly over 200 "s" and "f" words - throughout the movie, though mostly they blend into the background of the comic mayhem), comic violence, along with some college-age drunkenness and a scene that has goofy fun with the guys having good and bad “trips” when they are slipped the illegal drug they are charged with stopping. There is also a quick scene in which the police chief explains the difference between the abandoned Korean church they headquartered in in “21” and the Vietnamese church they’re ensconsed in now, where Ice Cube’s character pokes relatively innocent wisecracks at the differences in the Jesus statues. The Jesus statue appears very briefly dancing in the drug trip the guys have, as well.Overall, this is one sequel that adds up as a movie adult viewers who are not easily offended by foul language can expect a “23” and a “24” from, and not be afraid to join in on the fun.
Film review: 'Third Person'
Jun 10, 2014 / 00:00 amIn 2004, a writer-director named Paul Haggis took Hollywood by surprise when he released the movie “Crash,” a highly charged take on racial relations in Los Angeles that went on to win the Best Picture Oscar and place him near the top of the industry’s hottest directors. Interweaving the travails of numerous Angelenos of every race and gender as they fell into one culture clash after another, that movie had a visceral impact on moviegoers and critics.The beauty of the movie, and why it landed so strongly at the time with viewers, was that it took examples of our worst behavioral impulses – the anger and biases that lurk secretly in the hearts of almost everyone – and put them front and center as a way of forcing people to see and change their behavior.But has it held up? Looking back from a decade later, many of its argumentative scenes come off as shrill and over-the-top. Rather than feeling the zeitgeist, they make viewers realize “Wait a minute, even in LA, people aren’t just randomly screaming at other races on a daily basis.”Haggis has made some good movies since, with the stark anti-war drama “In the Valley of Elah” and the superb yet sadly overlooked “The Next Three Days,” but none have connected with a mass audience. Add in the profound life changes he surely has undergone since boldly and publicly leaving Scientology in the past couple of years, and it’s no wonder that the filmmaker might want to return to the kind of film that earned him a gold statue.And so it is that Haggis’ latest film, “Third Person,” assembles an incredible cast to take on a series of interweaving tales set in Paris and Italy. Yet despite the fact that there is plenty of high emotion to be found at moments in the film, overall it’s a strangely muted and slow-paced pastiche of sadness surrounding three couples who are each battling over a lost child. The movie focuses foremost on Michael (Liam Neeson), a Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction author living in a Paris hotel suite while finishing his latest book. After leaving his wife Elaine (Kim Basinger), he is having a wild affair with Anna (Olivia Wilde), a young journalist who wants to write and publish fiction.Meanwhile, Scott (Adrien Brody) is a shady American businessman visiting Italy in order to steal designs from fashion houses. He meets a mysterious woman named Monika (Moran Atias) in a bar and finds that she is about to be reunited with her young daughter until the money she has saved to pay a smuggler to bring her to Italy is stolen. Scott feels compelled to help her, and travels to Southern Italy with her only to find that he might be getting conned by her and others.The third story follows Julia (Mila Kunis), a former soap opera actress who is caught in a custody battle for her six year old son with her husband Rick (James Franco), a New York artist. Depleted of funds and desperate for a job, she becomes a hotel maid in the same bar that she once stayed in as a star, while her lawyer (Maria Bello) tries to get her one last chance to win her child back.These three stories may each sound interesting, and the performances (especially by Kunis and Franco) are generally terrific, but Haggis has so many darkly lit rooms and confusing ways of bringing the characters together that the entire movie becomes a ball of confusion by the end. It appears that characters who are said to be in different cities are in fact in the same ones, and many of the characters come in and out of each other’s lives either through extremely preposterous connections.The movie is rated R for language, sex and nudity. There’s about 50 uses of bad language and various forms of God’s name in vain, including about 20 F-words with the rest being milder profanities, scattered throughout the film and mostly in short bursts, meaning the language is not a constant barrage on the listener. The two sex scenes have no nudity, but then Michael leaves his mistress standing naked in the hotel hallway outside his room after she shows up wearing only a robe and he tricks her into handing it to him.She’s left running and laughing through the hotel until she can get back to her own room, with everything showing but her privates. Overall, most adults should be able to handle it easily, and this is hardly a picture that kids or teens would want to watch in the first place.At the end of the screening I attended, I asked the entire roomful of critics if anyone had any idea what the plot was trying to say by the end. The result was explosive laughter and shared confusion. One other terrible aspect of the movie is its score, which is overwrought with treacly, repetitive piano playing.It’s all a shame that a fine cast is wasted, as each of them gives their all to their parts in this mess. The first person to blame for “Third Person” is Paul Haggis.“Third Person” opens at nationwide June 20.
Movie review: 'The Fault In Our Stars'
Jun 6, 2014 / 00:00 amThere’s been a void in movie theaters in the past 26 years since John Hughes wrote and produced “Some Kind of Wonderful,” his last flick aimed specifically at teenagers. That movie ended a string of six films – including “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “The Breakfast Club,” and “Pretty in Pink” – that portrayed teens with a level of respect, intelligence, humor and warmth that was unprecedented in Hollywood.Since then, teens have kept going to the movies, but aside from rare classics like “Say Anything” and “Clueless,” the movies have abandoned any attempt to portray them in a truthful way. Instead, it seems that every teen in a movie is a vampire or a werewolf inside, or forced to kill other kids in a dystopian future.While those kinds of scary transformational plotlines might make a good metaphor for teens transforming through puberty and acne, it was largely cold and effects-driven, lacking real heart. But this weekend, a new movie has come to save the day and remind filmmakers how to make a great teen movie that transcends its target audience to offer a powerful emotional effect to anyone who sees it: “The Fault In Our Stars.”Based on a massive and critically-acclaimed best seller by John Green, “Fault” follows the story of two Indiana high schoolers, Hazel (Shailene Woodley) and Gus (Ansel Elgort) who fall in love after meeting in a support group for teens with cancer. Hazel narrates parts of the film, but rather than being self-absorbed navel-gazing, her commentary comes in quick and sharp doses, with the story offering rich perspectives from all of its major characters.Hazel has grown up fighting the disease, having battled thyroid cancer before it spread into her lungs, leaving her to wear a nasal breathing tube at all times and drag an oxygen tank around with her. She’s a recluse, having earned her GED early before spending her days watching TV and taking online courses at the local community college.Worried that she needs to socialize, Hazel’s mom (Laura Dern in a terrific performance) forces her to go to the support group, which is held inside an Episcopal church’s social hall. It’s in the support sessions that “Fault” makes it clear that it has a unique point of view on life, death, love and what our time on earth is supposed to mean, shot through with a sharp sense of humor where other movies would merely wallow in tear-jerking moments.Part of that humor comes from Hazel’s world-weary sarcasm, which she deploys to fill the uncertain void she feels she’s about to fall into at death. But Gus is vibrant and full of life despite having lost a leg to the disease, and the two soon start a deep friendship that deepens into love for him, while she’s afraid to get romantically involved because she doesn’t want to break anyone’s heart when she dies.The two especially bond over Hazel’s favorite book, a novel by a reclusive one-time-only writer named Peter Von Houten (Willem Dafoe, who’s rarely been stronger) who now lives in Amsterdam. When Gus boldly writes Peter a note asking a series of philosophical questions the book inspired in himself and Hazel, Peter invites them to visit him, setting off a chain of events that consistently prove both deeply moving and unpredictable.To say more about the plot would be to ruin its impact, which is tremendous. Writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber take things even higher than their superb work in last year’s Top Ten-worthy “The Spectacular Now,” and bringing Green’s book to vibrant onscreen life that’s complemented beautifully by a well-chosen collection of indie-pop songs that give “Fault” the feel of the similarly powerful Zach Braff film “Garden State.”I can’t give enough praise to the writers and to the original novelist Green, who give us refreshingly good kids to root for. As mentioned, no one’s turning into otherworldly creatures, but they also are not arrogant smartasses with smugly superior attitudes like countless other on-screen teens. It’s long overdue that a film shows that there are still functional families out there, with parents who aren’t cluelessly out of touch and kids who have a respectful and friendly relationship with them.These kids rarely swear and they don’t smoke, do drugs or sneak alcohol like countless other bad examples Hollywood foists onto American teens. SPOILER ALERT: But there is one major problematic element to the film, as the young couple sneak into Gus’ hotel room after sharing their first kiss and have a lengthy before-and-after sequence in which they spend the night together, with Hazel casting caution and her shirt to the wind while sitting on his lap in bed with her bra on, and then her bare back shown above a carefully placed blanket and her legs sticking out the other side alongside his implied-nude body after they have sex.The way “Fault” handles teen sex is complicated, for it’s not shown leeringly like so many other movies and it’s clearly tied to their love for each other. But obviously glamorizing teen sex is a dangerous thing in general and a bigger issue for Catholics and other Christians who don’t endorse premarital sex.On the other hand, these kids have so little time left that they will never have the chance to get married, so it’s hard to judge the movie as harshly as far raunchier teen films. And considering that the film shows kids who attend a support group in an Episcopal church and Gus in particular mentions his belief in God in addition to many positive messages about family, love and death, the bed scene is far outweighed by the positive elements.Director Josh Boone brings it all together beautifully, guiding audiences to see the beauty of life even at its worst moments and managing to keep a low tension throughout as the audience experiences the same disassociation as its lead characters, wondering and worrying if any given day shown could be their last, even as they press bravely forward. It’s a lesson we all can share.
Movie reviews: 'A Million Ways To Die in the West' and 'Malificent'
May 31, 2014 / 00:00 amIt’s hard being a parent these days, with 500 channels on television and countless ways for kids to see movies. This weekend, a couple of wildly different movies hit theaters – one, “A Million Ways to Die in the West,” that no kids should be allowed within 500 yards of, and the other, “Maleficent,” that is intended for kids but might terrify those under 8 or 10 years of age.Let’s start with “Million,” a Western spoof in the vein of “Blazing Saddles,” and is unabashedly aimed at adults, or at least adults with a teenage level of humor. That means it’s filled with casual profanity, as well as bodily function jokes in addition to quite a few graphic descriptions of sex acts and a few prime pieces of politically incorrect ethnic and racial humor.Yet at the same time, it retains a sweet spirit that makes it hard to be offended if you’re an adult looking for a guilty pleasure good time in the tradition of movies like “There’s Something About Mary,” and there’s actually a few genuinely moral aspects that shine through as well. Bear with me and I’ll explain.The movie stars Seth MacFarlane (the creator of “Family Guy” and the 2012 hit movie “Ted,” and he also co-writes and directs) as Albert, a sheepherder living in the wild West in 1882. He’s surrounded by tough men always looking for a gunfight, with the only available women working in the local brothel. Yet Albert can’t shoot worth a darn, and he’s interested in finding true love."Million" introduces the audience to Albert on a day in which his longtime girlfriend Louise (Amanda Seyfried) dumps him in favor of his arch-rival, the far more successful Foy (Neil Patrick Harris), who sports a ridiculous mustache and owns a store that specializes in mustache maintenance products. Utterly frustrated with his pathetic life, Albert is ready to leave for a new life in San Francisco when he saves a beautiful woman named Anna (Charlize Theron) from a bar fight.He and Anna become fast friends, with Albert pouring his heart out to her but Anna remaining mysteriously quiet about her past. That’s because, unbeknownst to Albert, Anna is the wife of a dangerous bandit named Clinch (Liam Neeson), who had her hide away from him after a gold robbery. Anna is gorgeous but she’s also tomboyish, and teaches Albert to shoot over the course of a week so he can have a gunfight with Foy to win Louise’s heart. But when a member of Clinch’s gang sees her kissing Albert, he suddenly faces a threat from Clinch too.That’s the basic plot of “Million,” but it’s packed wall to wall with other gags, including a hilarious string of comically shocking sight gags that kill people, including a man who gets gored by a rampaging bull and another man who is crushed by a giant block of ice right as he’s delivering it for the townspeople’s summer satisfaction. There’s also a running gag in which Albert’s virginal best friend (Giovanni Ribisi) keeps agreeing to not have sex with his hooker girlfriend (Sarah Silverman) because, despite her professional willingness to sleep with strangers, they’re churchgoing Christians saving sex between themselves for marriage.This may make it sound like the movie’s value lies in offending the audience rather than making them laugh, but ultimately the movie’s tone makes it more silly than shocking. In addition, the relationship between the two main characters, Albert and Anna, is rooted in genuine friendship and respect and never devolves into sex but sets an example of noble and romantic love that winds up in happily-ever-after territory.In fact, for all its raunchy dialogue, “Million” shows just a brief couple moments of implied sex hidden by sheets and no nudity, and the shootouts, bar fights and random deaths are all shown with a maximum of goofiness and a minimum of gore. In one of his showdowns, Albert winds up offering forgiveness rather than gunshots to his rival.Add it all up, and you’ve got a movie that adults with a very broad sense of humor and who are not easily offended will definitely enjoy, but one that no kids should be exposed to at all.“Maleficent,” on the other hand, stars Angelina Jolie as the evil witch from the classic Disney animated feature “Sleeping Beauty,” in a tale that seeks – like the hit book and Broadway show “Wicked” did with the Wicked Witch in “The Wizard of Oz” – to tell the full story of what made the villain turn out that way. Jolie is perfect casting in a film that kids will no doubt beg to see, but despite coming from Disney, parents of young kids should be aware that it has some surprisingly intense action sequences.The movie depicts its title character, Maleficent as a strong but innocent fairy who as a young girl is proud of her impressive wings. She lives in and protects an area known as The Moors, filled with magical creatures and located outside the fringes of a human-run kingdom.The problem is, that kingdom wants to capture The Moors and control both its lush territory and all of its inhabitants. As a child, Maleficent meets a stray human boy named Stefan and the two secretly fall in love, but eventually his desire for power causes him to ignore her and become a henchman of the humans’ king.When the king offers the throne to any man who can kill Maleficent and thus enable human domination of The Moors, Stefan ruthlessly returns to her and pretends to be in love again. But rather than killing her, he cuts off her wings as she sleeps, taking away her powers and leading her to exact revenge years later with a curse on his newborn daughter.Maleficent declares that the young girl will fall into a sleep at age 16 that no human can end, so Stefan arranges for three tiny fairies to hide the infant and raise her until she can be safely past her 16th birthday. But Maleficent finds the girl, at first tempted to ruin her childhood but then finding she has a motherly love for her – and that sudden burst of warmth unleashes a string of events that have enormous consequences for both the Moor and the human world.This storyline is compelling and written at a level that will mesmerize kids yet is also smart enough for adults to enjoy as well. Jolie is fantastic in it, with Elle Fanning bringing a radiant glow to the role of the young girl. Yet parents should be warned that when Maleficent gets angry, she can become truly frightening with special effects to match her spells.The couple of battle scenes between humans and the Moors’ creatures – including some scary trees that come to forceful life – are also just shy of “Braveheart” in their intensity, albeit without any gore. Overall, despite the fact that there is no profanity or sex involved, the frightening atmosphere and action intensity probably means that the ratings board should have given this a PG-13 rather than a PG. For Catholic parents, it’s a great movie to see with teens and possibly those as young as 10, but too much for really young ones to handle.
'Blended' movie review
May 23, 2014 / 00:00 amOver the past few decades, it has become an unfortunate reality that divorce rates have risen to new heights in the US, with one of the results being families that are forced to live together when the parents decide to remarry. While this doesn’t meet approval from the Catholic Church and many other denominations, people do deal with these situations, and the new movie “Blended” offers both laughs and some touching moments as it shows what can go wrong on the way to finally turning out right.Starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore in their third movie together, following 1998’s “The Wedding Singer” and 2004’s “50 First Dates,” “Blended” is a surefire hit in the romantic comedy genre. It doesn’t hit the highs of those prior collaborations, which became perennial favorites after their initial smash-hit runs in theatres, but the terrific chemistry between the two stars and plenty of wacky one-liners and slapstick moments come together strongly enough to make it enjoyable – if marred somewhat by a bevy of sexual innuendoes throughout the film.The movie opens on divorced mother Lauren (Barrymore) and widower dad Jim (Sandler) having a disastrous blind date at a Hooters. Lauren think Jim is both clueless and cheap for taking her there, not realizing that his wife died of cancer and had previously worked as the restaurant’s manager, making it seem like a normal place to go.Through a series of twists, they discover that Jim’s boss is dating Lauren’s best friend (Wendy McClendon-Covey, who is hilarious) – and when the boss and best friend fight, their romantic trip to Africa with their respective children is canceled. Lauren’s friend gives her tickets, while Jim buys his boss’ tickets from him. Unwittingly, both Lauren and Jim have thus accidentally set up having the same long vacation together.As Jim and Lauren each bond with their children, they are forced to get to know each other and each starts to sympathize with the other’s lives. The African sequences are mostly a series of silly situations, such as Jim riding ostriches with Lauren’s son or Lauren parasailing and nearly crash-landing into a rhino, mixed with sweet emotional moments of the parents bonding with their kids in touching ways.These African scenes also make up for an oddly paced first half-hour of the film, which drags too long as it shows the normal daily lives of Lauren and Jim and slowly sets the machinations that bring them together on the other side of the planet. Here, director Frank Coraci seems to be most at fault, with lazy staging in which a few scenes seem to consist of calling the actors in front of the camera to merely recite their lines without feeling.There are also lots of risqué jokes, with several involving Jim’s oldest daughter and Lauren’s oldest son. The issues of menstruation and masturbation are verbally joked about rather than shown, and because the overall movie has such a sweet tone and pro-family message, the good message and overall plot far outweigh the bad elements. When Jim’s tomboy daughter finally gets a makeover from Lauren, for instance, her resulting first date with a boy on the trip is shown as good clean fun – and there are no sex scenes with adults either. There are only about 10 mild swear words in the film, with no F-words either.It’s the touching moments that surprise and hit home the hardest, revealing the big heart beating under the surface of the film. Sandler and Barrymore bring their A-game to the movie as well, giving us a sweet and relatable couple to root for while making an especially strong call for good fathers and showing the impact they have on kids’ lives.Overall, “Blended” proves highly enjoyable and has its heart in the right place enough that it’s hard to hold its raunchier jokes against it. It’s a solid movie for teens and adults who don’t mind some risqué humor mixed in with overall innocent fun.
Catholic movie producer makes his pitch with 'Million Dollar Arm'
May 22, 2014 / 00:00 amMark Ciardi is no stranger to challenges, having worked his way up to the major leagues, albeit for a brief stint back in 1987. This past weekend, he faced another one in a completely different career field when the movie he produced, “Million Dollar Arm,” had to open against the biggest monster movie of summer, “Godzilla.”The movie opened decently with $10.5 million, but received an A in audience surveys, which should help it stick around a while on word of mouth. As noted in my review last Friday, it’s a solid and engaging film that is smart enough for adults and clean enough for kids to see as well, continuing a strong track record for Ciardi in his association with Disney.In fact, he’s had seven solid hits so far in his career, many of them inspirational sports dramas like “Arm,” including “Miracle” (the story of the 1980 US Olympic hockey team’s miracle win over the Soviets team) and “Invincible” (the story of a Philadelphia garbage man who became a player for the Eagles). He recently spoke with CNA about why he feels that sports dramas are great films, about foul language in movies (his have none or almost none), and his abiding Catholic faith.CNA: How did you get involved with the “Million Dollar Arm”?CIARDI: “We’re always obviously looking for great stories, we’ve done a lot of sports films with Disney. I knew JB [JB Bernstein, the real-life sports agent the movie is about] before I was in the film business and I ran into him in 2007 at a Super Bowl party and he said he was headed to India to find a pitcher for a reality show. I thought he was crazy and a year and a half later he told me he got the boys signed and I saw the transition he went through and I quickly realized we had something really special.”CNA: How did you make the transition from baseball to movies?CIARDI: When I played baseball I moved to LA and spent off-seasons here and met people in the film business. My partner Gordon Gray wanted to get into the film business. We looked at each other and said why don’t we produce movies? We worked out of a garage and decided this was something we wanted to try. That was in ’98. Basically I didn’t know any better. Our first film was “The Rookie” and that was shot in 2001 and came out in 2002.CNA: Are these sports films all true?CIARDI: They’re all true stories. This is our fifth sports film and they’ve been inspirational true stories. We have one with Kevin Costner coming in the fall. We’ve done some family comedies and other films, but these six we have are all true stories.CNA: How much was your own baseball expertise relied upon for the film?CIARDI: I certainly have a say in things but we hire really great people. I look at everybody and chime in but I think it helps to have a background in sports. We had to teach these actors how to pitch, a case of life imitating art. We had to get them to be able to throw and be believable.CNA: What’s the magic of sports stories in film?CIARDI: Some are good, some are not as good, but really it starts with hiring a really great screenwriter. It all comes down to the script but you hit a number of other benchmarks. That is a big part of having a successful movies.CNA: How did you set the tone so well, where it’s for families but adults can watch it on their own too and really enjoy it? This was written by Tom McCarthy, who also wrote “Win Win,” a terrific father-son story that was marred by too much pointless cussing and earned an R when it really was a family movie and could have been PG.CIARDI: “Win Win” was my favorite movie that year. But you’re right there was no real need for the language. Our partnership is with Disney and there’s no real need for language. You see the adult couple drinking, having a kiss and it’s not a G rated movie. Kids will like that it feels like an adult movie that they can enjoy. It’s a perfect partner because it’s important to them and important to us. Families have that Disney seal of approval and they appreciate it. Also, I’m a proud Catholic and would never want to offend my grandma’s standards.