Author Archives: Neil Pond

Nov 17 2016
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Movie Reviews

Cosmic Conversation

Amy Adams cracks alien communication code in moving, contemplative ‘Arrival’

ARRIVALArrival
Starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner & Forest Whitaker
Directed by Denis Villeneune
PG-13
In theaters Nov. 11, 2016

Whenever space aliens plunk down—as they’ve steadily been doing, courtesy of Hollywood, for some 75 years—it’s always a priority to figure out why they’re here, what they want and if they have a message for us.

All little E.T. wanted was to “phone home,” then to go home. The friendly “greys” in Close Encounters communicated with a blast of now-iconic musical notes. In a classic episode of The Twilight Zone, people of Earth learn too late that a space alien’s book was not a humanitarian help manual, but a collection of recipes—To Serve Man!

In the moving, contemplative Arrival, people around the world wake up one day and discover gigantic, dark, featureless, pod-like spacecraft, all hovering silently a few yards above the ground—a dozen of them, in various locales around the planet.

What do they want? What’s inside? Extraterrestrial tourists? Scientists? Warriors? Should we welcome them? Fear them? Blast them out of the sky?

Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner

Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner

In the United States, one of the pods has “landed” in Montana and an elite team is scrambled to find out what’s going on. A key member is college professor Louise Banks (Amy Adams), a linguist and communications expert whose outstanding translation chops are already renowned by the U.S. military, especially to Col. Weber (Forest Whitaker).

Whisked away in the middle of the night on a military chopper, Louise is teamed with a mathematician and man of science, Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner). Can the two of them decipher the extraterrestrials’ language, decode their message and determine their intentions—before the rest of the world freaks out and starts shooting?

Working from a screenplay based on a short story by Ted Chiang, director Denis Villeneune, best known for the taut Prisoners (2013) and the gritty drug-war thriller Sicaro (2015), creates a trippy, timely tapestry about the power of communication—and about the possibilities of “language” far beyond simply spoken or written words.

ARRIVALOnly hours later, inside the pod, Louise and Ian interact—on the other side of a large window—with a pair of aliens, enormous, seven-legged, squid-like creatures that communicate in dark, circular “squirts.” These circles, Louise and Ian discover, are the aliens’ alphabet, their language, and pieces of a much larger puzzle—the keys to unlocking something much, much bigger and infinitely more mind-blowing.

To reveal much else ventures into spoiler territory, but suffice it to say that when Louise cracks the code, there’s an ambiguity about a word that sends everyone into an international panic. A prequel to the whole alien “arrival,” at the very beginning of the film, sets up the entire movie and becomes its heart and soul in ways you won’t know until the ending twist. Amy Adams is brilliant as Louise, and it’s refreshing to see a whip-smart sci-fi movie that powers through so strongly and confidently on a character, an emotional human story and a performance, instead of special effects.

And coming on the heels of such a rancorous, noxiously loud political season, in an era of so much noise blasted ceaselessly over so many channels, this movie’s uplifting message about the unifying power of communication—to reach beyond time and space, as a tool instead of a weapon, to heal instead of harm, and to build bridges instead of barriers—is a welcome Arrival, indeed.

—Neil Pond, Parade Magazine

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Nov 10 2016
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Movie Reviews

The Doctor Is In

Benedict Cumberbatch makes big-screen magic in ‘Doctor Strange’

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Doctor Strange
Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton & Chiwetel Ejiofor
Directed by Scott Derrickson
PG-13

I never really got Doctor Strange. A neurosurgeon who became a sorcerer, he just didn’t capture my youthful imagination—or my comic-book coinage—the way other superheroes did. Spider-Man was a zippy, zappy teenager. Thor was a god. The Silver Surfer was a surfer…and silver!

Doctor Strange was some older, kinda creepy grown-up dude with a moustache, a soul patch and a big red cape, who always looked like he had a swirl of mist coming out of his hands.

Well, after seeing him portrayed on the big screen, I clearly underestimated—or just plain overlooked—the guy. But I’m certainly a believer now.

The newest entry in the long line of Marvel Comics superhero sagas, the new Doctor Strange introduces Oscar-nominated Benedict Cumberbatch as the arrogant, self-centered and wildly successful brain surgeon whose career is shattered—along with his million-dollar hands—when his Lamborghini crashes off a curvy California roadway one rainy night.

doctorstrange570e9c2256226

The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) gives Dr. Steven Strange an astral wallop.

Seeking “alternative healing” when all traditional efforts fail, Strange ends up at Kathmandu and the foothills of the Himalayas, where he meets the supreme sorcerer known as the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton). She shows him how “to reorient the spirit to better heal the body,” among other things—which include indoctrinating him into her secret society of wizard warriors, who’ve learned to harness and master all sorts of powerful secrets about space, time, consciousness, physics and matter.

The sorcerers, Strange also learns, are around to protect the Earth from dark forces of the cosmos who would do it harm—especially one particularly nasty malevolent entity and his zealots who want to conquer the planet.

null“I came here to heal my hands,” protests Strange, “not to fight in some mystical war.” But that’s exactly what happens—this is, after all, a Marvel movie. But it’s a doozy, and director Scott Derrickson—who cut his teeth on horror flicks like Sinister, Deliver Us From Evil and The Exorcism of Emily Rose—delivers a rollicking adventure with crisp wit, strong characters and visually impressive razzle-dazzle. I don’t usually recommend spending any extra dollars to see a movie in 3D or IMAX, but this one was made for both of those formats, and it’s definitely well worth the splurge—especially for a couple of eyeball-popping, jaw-dropping, kaleidoscopic, head-tripping sequences that beg to be seen on the biggest screen possible.

Rachel McAdams is Dr. Christine Palmer, Strange's former surgical colleague—and former lover.

Rachel McAdams is Dr. Christine Palmer, Strange’s former colleague—and former lover.

Cumberbatch, beloved as TV’s Sherlock and lauded for the mojo he’s brought to movies including The Imitation Game, 12 Years a Slave and Star Trek Into Darkness, steps into the role of Strange like he’s been waiting for it all his life. Chiwetel Ejiofor is Mordo, one of the masters in service to the Ancient One; Mads Mikkelson plays the traitorous Kaecilius, whose theft of a sacred text threatens to doom the planet. Rachel McAdams, strong and sassy as Strange’s surgical colleague and former lover Christine Palmer, could have used a few more scenes. But in a movie this packed with things to appreciate, it’s hard to complain—and I get the feeling she’ll have more time to shine later.

And Strange’s Cloak of Levitation is the most badass superhero cape ever. It’s got his back, in more ways than one.

The bonus-scene teaser during the final credits is a nod to the doctor’s appearance in the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War (2018). Clearly, Doctor Strange has taken his place in the Marvel pantheon. Welcome aboard, doc—I’ll definitely see you at our next appointment!

—Neil Pond, Parade Magazine

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Nov 03 2016
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Movie Reviews, Movies

Hot to Trot

Tom Hanks runs down another cryptic puzzle in ‘Inferno’

Tom Hanks;Felicity Jones

Inferno
Starring Tom Hanks & Felicity Jones
Directed by Ron Howard
PG-13
In theaters Oct. 28, 2016

“Dante—Dante again,” says Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) as he gazes into the “face” of the late, great Italian poet of the Middle Ages. “Why always Dante?”

Well, it’s not always Dante—but it is this time. And it’s always something involving cloaks, daggers, art, religion and old, cold Mediterranean white guys, as fans of Dan Brown know. Brown is the author who wrote the books Inferno and its two predecessors, The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, both of which were also turned into movies with Hanks in the starring role. Brown created the lead character, Langdon, as sort of his own fictional alter ego, a globetrotting, puzzle-solving “symbologist” and professor of religious iconography who repeatedly uncovers conspiracies, solves murders and peels back the layers of other murky mysteries.

In Inferno, Langdon wakes up in hospital room in Florence, Italy, with amnesia and a bloody head wound. Soon he and his nurse, Sienna (Felicity Jones), are running for their lives from a Terminator-like policewoman (Ana Ularu) and connecting the dots from Renaissance-era painter Sandro Botticelli’s painting of hell, inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy, to a plot by billionaire scientist Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster), who just committed suicide. Zobrist’s radical idea of overpopulation control was “cleansing” the planet by wiping out most of the people on it with a viral-pathogen bomb, which he has timed to go off—tomorrow!

Langdon must find the bomb before it’s detonated, and before it’s located by anyone who might try to turn it into a weapon of war, ransom or terrorism.

Langdon (Tom Hanks) and Sienna (Felicity Miller) study 'The Map of Hell'

Langdon (Tom Hanks) and Sienna (Felicity Miller) study Botticelli’s painting of ‘The Map of Hell’

Director Ron Howard, who was also behind the camera for Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, keeps things moving, literally. As they put together the clues that will lead them to the bomb, Langdon and Sienna are constantly on the go—dashing through crowded streets, ducking in and out of cars, taxicabs, trains and planes, and across a gigantic attic, through a garden, over a wall, into side doors, back doors and hidden passageways.

Who can Langdon trust? What’s the deal with that dude from Slumdog Millionaire, Jurassic World and The Life of Pi (Irrfan Khan) and his drawer full of knives, and that mystery woman (Danish actress Sidse Babett Knudsen, currently starring in HBO’s Westworld) in Langdon’s unsettling flashbacks? Who knew there were so many unlocked doors in Italy?

 And the movie never stays put, either. It’s filled with beauty shots of recognizable tourist highlights from all the places Langdon’s search takes him. In Florence, he visits the Baptistry of Saint John and the palatial Palazzo Vecchio; he runs through Boboli Gardens and the Vascri Corridor. A side trip to Venice lets our characters linger on the steps of St. Mark’s Basilica, pontificating about the history of the four bronze horses standing guard there. In Istanbul, we’re treated to a lovely shot of the walls of Constantinople and the movie’s soggy, splashy climax, which takes place in the subterranean 6th century Basilica Cistern.

It all feels like a ridiculously expensive, high-stakes reality-show scavenger hunt, with a preposterously contrived plot twist. And like all of Robert Langdon’s adventures, it takes place in one tidy, 24-hour period.

Kids, if you want to grow up and see the world, by all means, see the world. If you want to solve puzzles, there are plenty of books of Sudoku and there’s always a daily crossword. I’m just afraid I can’t recommend becoming a symbologist—there’s far too much running involved, it’s very dangerous, and Robert Langdon seems to have the market cornered.

—Neil Pond, Parade Magazine

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Oct 27 2016
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Movie Reviews

Ghoulish Game

Dark portal to spirit world opens Ouija: Origin of Evil

Watch out! Elizabeth Reaser and Lulu Wilson star in 'Ouija: The Origin of Evil.'

Watch out! Elizabeth Reaser and Lulu Wilson star in ‘Ouija: The Origin of Evil.’

Ouija: Origin of Evil
Starring Elizabeth Reaser, Annalise Basso, Lulu Wilson & Henry Thomas
Directed by Mike Flanagan
PG-13
In theatres Oct. 21, 2016

When I was a kid, my older teenage cousin had a Ouija board. She mostly used it, at least it seemed to me—moving the plastic, teardrop-shaped “planchette,” the thing with three little legs and a see-through hole—over the letters to answer questions about her boyfriend, Slick.

There was nothing very otherworldly about it, and nothing very ominous; when Ouija didn’t give her the answers, she turned to another oracle, the Magic 8 Ball. I think there may have been some Tarot cards and incense in there somewhere, too. Anyway, she and Slick didn’t last very long.

In this movie, set in 1967, we first see the Ouija board game nested, innocently enough, within a stack of other popular games of the era, including Candyland, Sorry! and Monopoly. But in a movie subtitled “Origin of Evil,” how long do you think it takes before that ol’ black magic begins to stir?

Ouija: Origin of Evil is actually a prequel to Ouija, the 2014 movie about a group of teens who noodle around with a Ouija board and unlock the portal to a dark, dangerous spirit world. In the new Ouija, a widowed mom working as a fake spiritualist (Elizabeth Reaser) adds a new stunt—the Ouija board—to pep up her fake séance business. In doing so, she makes the same mistake, rolling out the welcome mat for a host of malevolent spirits to take over her home.

Film Title: Ouija: Origin of EvilAnd they’re particularly interested in her youngest daughter, Doris (Lulu Wilson), who begins speaking in strange voices, seeing things invisible to everyone else and writing in a foreign language. And all that’s before things start getting really weird, creepy and calamitous.

Mom thinks Doris is good for business, but her oldest daughter (Annalise Basso) is freaked. The headmaster priest at the girls’ Catholic school (Henry Thomas, all grown up from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial) is concerned. When he pulls up in front of the house to check things out, the background music mimics the iconic theme from The Exorcist.

Co-writer and director Mike Flanagan does a very nice job with the late ’60s vibe—the movie genuinely feels like something happening in the era of moon missions, late-night TV test patterns, macramé sweaters and big American-made cars. It also feels like something of the era, from the golden retro glow of its colors to the clever reel-change cues “burnt” into the corners of scenes, an homage to a time when its kind of fright-night scares were something you’d see at drive-ins and double-features—a pre-digital era when projectionists would need visual cues to stay on their toes.

Film Title: Ouija: Origin of EvilRed-eyed, hissing demons—check. Adorable tyke who undergoes terrifying body transformations and crawls on the walls and walks on the ceiling—yep. Slingshots and stitching needles, comin’ right at your nightmares—got ’em. If you’re looking for some straight-up, mainline Halloween haunted-house “gotchas,” this date-night ride has a slow start, but builds to a wild, crazy, screaming finish.

The performers are all good, especially the youngsters. Watch out for Lulu Wilson, who played Mikayla on TV’s The Millers; she reminds me of a young Reese Witherspoon. And Annalise Basso—terrific earlier this year as one of the kids in Captain Fantastic—shoulders more and more of the movie as it goes on, shifting her teen-sister role into a stronger, more significant lead as the plot progresses.

Can playing with a Ouija board open up the door to hell? It certainly does in the movies—and my cousin’s ex-boyfriend Slick might have thought so. And maybe that that’s why I’ve always been more of a Monopoly, Operation and Mousetrap guy myself.

—Neil Pond, Parade Magazine

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Oct 14 2016
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History, Movie Reviews

Birth Rights

Bracing, provocative ‘Birth of a Nation’ resonates with righteous unrest

The Birth of a Nation
Starring Nate Parker, Armie Hammer & Penelope Ann Miller
Directed by Nate Parker
R
In theaters Oct. 7, 2016

In 1831, 31-year-old Nat Turner led a slave uprising in Virginia that resulted in the deaths of more than 50 white men, women and children, and the retaliation of white mobs and militias that killed some 200 blacks—including many who were not involved in the rebellion.

A “literate” black who could read and write, Turner grew up on Bible stories and later held worship services for his fellow slaves. He eventually came to believe that God had finally seen enough of the injustices of slavery, and was calling him to lead a slave army on a march of vengeful, wrong-righting insurrection.

When a solar eclipse darkened the sky over the cotton fields one day, Turner knew he’d seen his sign—he’d gotten his “go” signal. The timing, as they say, was right.

The timing was right for director and star Nate Parker, too, when he opened his movie about Nat Turner earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival. The Birth of a Nation was a smash, a stunner, a shocker. Landing smack in the middle of the #OscarSoWhite controversy—about the lack of diversity among the 2016 Academy Awards nominees—it was a bracing, provocative blast of black-powered, top-to-bottom talent, and a topic, that couldn’t be ignored.

And it wasn’t. Fox Searchlight forked over $17.5 million for the distribution rights, a Sundance record, to get the film into theaters by the end of the year.

The film also recently opened the 10th annual International Black Film Festival in Nashville, Tenn., just ahead of its wide theatrical release.

Armie Hammer as Samuel Turner Nate Parker as Nat Turner and Jayson Warner Smith as Earl Fowler

Armie Hammer as Samuel Turner, Nate Parker as Nat Turner and Jayson Warner Smith as Earl Fowler

The Birth of a Nation is a powerful piece of filmmaking, and a mighty impressive work, especially as Parker’s debut as a director. It takes a little-known event from America’s shameful past and elevates it to rousing, epic proportions. Both in front of and behind the camera, Parker shows the humanity as well as the horrors of slavery in the antebellum South, and the evils of an entire economic system built upon the systematic exploitation of a population for profit, regardless of the “kindness” or cruelty of any individual master, landowner, merchant or anyone else who benefitted.

Armie Hammer plays Turner’s second-generation master, Samuel Turner, whose benevolence is eclipsed by his desire to keep his estate financially secure and reputable—at whatever the cost. Penelope Ann Miller is Samuel’s mother, who teaches young Nat to read, which has enormous repercussions. Jackie Earle Haley is a sadistic slave hunter. Gabrielle Union portrays Esther, a slave wife forced to spend an evening as “entertainment” for one of Samuel Turner’s drunken guests.

Aja Naomi King plays Nat Turner's wife, Cherry.

Aja Naomi King plays Nat Turner’s wife, Cherry.

Yes, it’s sometimes hard to watch—to see Turner tied to a post and horsewhipped to a pulp, to watch a little white girl lead a little black girl around with a rope “leash” around her neck, to witness a slave get his teeth get bashed out with a hammer. And a couple of—pivotal—rape scenes are particularly discomforting, given how the movie has reactivated the spotlight on Parker and his screenwriting collaborator Jean Celeste and the charges that were brought against them in 1999 as college students that they raped a fellow student; Parker was acquitted, the charges were dropped on Celeste after he appealed, and the woman who accused them committed suicide.

Different audiences will see this movie through different prisms, quite obviously. Some people won’t want to see it at all, for various reasons. Given the inflamed, highly polarized state of affairs across the nation, the Black Lives Matter movement and protests about police treatment of blacks, racial profiling, our national anthem and criminal injustice, the film resonates with a righteous unrest that rings far beyond events that happened 175 years ago.

“They’re killin’ people everywhere for no reason all than bein’ black,” says Turner’s wife, Cherry (Aja Naomi King).

In so many ways, the timing for Parker’s film about Nat Turner feels so right, and so right now.

—Neil Pond, Parade Magazine

Oct 13 2016
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Movie Reviews

All Aboard

‘The Girl on the Train’ is dark, juicy fem-centric thriller

Film Title: The Girl on the Train

The Girl on the Train
Starring Emily Blunt, Haley Bennett & Rebecca Ferguson
Directed by Tate Taylor
R

“My husband used to tell me I have an overactive imagination,” says Rachel (Emily Blunt), watching the scenes of New York’s Hudson Valley go by as she stares out the window of the train she takes on her daily commute into the city.

Those scenes, that train and that “girl”—Rachel—drive the drama in the highly anticipated big-screen adaptation of British author Paula Hawkins’ 2015 thriller, which has sold some 11 million copies worldwide.

After her divorce, Rachel spiraled even deeper into her alcohol-soaked resentment—and it tortures her every day when the train passes her old house, now occupied by her former husband, Tom (Justin Theroux), his new wife and former mistress, Anna (Rebecca Ferguson), and their new baby daughter.

Haley Bennett

Haley Bennett

But it’s another house, and another set of occupants, that really intrigues Rachel. A beautiful young blonde woman (Haley Bennett) and her adoring husband (Luke Evans) seem to be so obviously, passionately, completely in love. Sipping on vodka as the train zips by, morning and night, Rachel fantasizes about them, and especially about her. “She’s what I lost,” she muses. “She’s everything I want to be.”

The young woman’s name is Megan, and she works as Anna and Tom’s nanny—and loathes it.

As Rachel’s bitterness about Tom and Anna grows, her voyeuristic beguilement with Megan intensifies when she sees her in the embrace of another man, triggering Rachel’s memories of her own husband’s unfaithfulness. One evening Rachel goes on a drunken tirade about Anna the “whore,” takes the train to her neighborhood, but then blacks out—and wakes up the next morning covered in mud and blood.

And Megan has disappeared—or worse. When Allison Janney steps in as a homicide detective, it becomes a murder case. (Did the screen suddenly pick up a stream of CSI: Westchester County or something?) Did Rachel do it? She honestly doesn’t remember. And as blurry as her memory is, she wants to find out the truth, as twisted as it might turn out to be.

Rebecca Ferguson

Rebecca Ferguson

Tate Taylor—who also directed The Help (2011), another drama with a powerful female ensemble—builds the mystery by toggling between Rachel, Megan and Anna and each of their stories, going backward and forward in time to pick up pieces of the fractured, fragmented puzzle.

The performances are all super-solid, especially from the three women playing the triad of females in various states of personal misery and psychological abuse; as the movie takes us deeper into their stories, we see how they all connect, interweave and eventually collide. It’s about secrets, lies, loneliness, love, infidelity, rage, motherhood, things that aren’t always as they seem, and layers and layers of buried hurt and loss that finally come frothing to the surface, spilling into the light. The shocking conclusion splashes out dark, red and juicy—a catharsis that taps a wellspring of pent-up emotions.

Emily Blunt is an extremely versatile actress who’s done musicals (Into the Woods), comedy (The Devil Wears Prada), sci-fi (Edge of Tomorrow, Looper), family flicks (The Muppets), fairy-tale fantasy (The Huntsman: Winter’s War) and action (Sicaro). Now she’s landed a role that will get her even more serious mainstream attention. For her, especially, this Train is just the ticket.

—Neil Pond, Parade Magazine

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Oct 06 2016
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Welcome, Oddballs!

Tim Burton makes misfits feel at ease at ‘Miss Peregrine’s’

Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children
Starring Asa Butterfield, Eva Green, Ella Purnell & Samuel L. Jackson
Directed by Tim Burton
PG-13

The teenage years can be rough, making kids feel like outsiders, outcasts, oddballs. Wouldn’t it be awesome if there were a place young misfits could feel welcome, safe, protected, understood—and important?

And no, I’m not talking about the chess club.

In Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children, director Tim Burton creates just such a place—or, more specifically, brings it spectacularly to life from Ransom Riggs’ 2011 young adult novel, a sprawling tall tale of mystery, monsters, a young boy on a tick-tocking, time-looping quest to discover his past, and some very, very peculiar kids.

“Did you ever feel like nothing you do matters?” asks teenage Jake (Asa Butterfield) in the opening scene as a crab scuttles across a footprint on a Florida beach seconds before a wave washes it away. Soon enough Jake himself will be swept across the water on a journey to a magical place that previously existed only in his imagination, fueled by colorful bedtime stories of his beloved grandfather (Terence Stamp), where he’ll find out just how needed he can be.

Visiting a remote, mist-shrouded island off the coast of Wales with his father (Chris O’Dowd), Jake discovers a decrepit old mansion bombed to rubble by German air raids in World War II. But stumbling into a “time loop” leads him back to 1943, just before the raids—when Miss Peregrine, her home and all the “peculiar children” were in full swing.

MISS PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDRENThere’s lovely, lighter-than-air Emma (Ella Purnell), who must use steampunk-ish lead boots and rope tethers to keep her from floating away. Hot-handed Olive (Lauren McCrostie) can set things ablaze with a simple touch. Millard (Cameron King), an invisible boy, likes to run around naked—not that you’d notice. Tiny Bronwyn (Pixie Davies) has the strength of a brute. Whenever Hugh (Milo Parker) opens his mouth, bees that live in his stomach come swarming out. Sweet-looking Claire (Raffiella Chapman) has a nasty surprise underneath the blonde curls of her hair. Enoch (Finlay MacMillan) has a creepy power to animate inanimate objects—including the dead.

The faces of two “twin cousins” are always covered, in spooky white hoods with holes for their eyes and mouths—for a reason not revealed until close to the end of the movie.

MISS PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN

Eva Green plays Miss Peregrine.

And as the exotic, pipe-smoking Miss Peregrine, Eva Green (Bond girl Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale) superbly channels her character’s enchanted mission with steely British resolve and flinty maternal focus. She can also morph into a bird, a fleet, regal peregrine falcon. How cool is that?!

Samuel L. Jackson is the evil Mr. Barron—no actor mixes campy humor and genuine menace with such unsettling ease or malevolent charm. There’s Allison Janney and Judi Dench. There’s danger, derring-do, adventure, excitement, laughter, young love and a couple of gross-out creature-feature moments that might be too much for little eyes.

But mostly, there’s director Tim Burton’s thematic signature, everywhere. Burton has always had a thing for outsiders and outliers, misfits like Pee-Wee Herman, Sweeny Todd, Beetlejuice and Willy Wonka, and for classic Hollywood quirk. The topiaries in Miss Peregrine’s courtyard—an elephant, a dinosaur, a centaur—look like they could have been the whimsical snip-snip artistry of Edward Scissorhands. And one major scene is a huge nod—an homage, certainly—to the cheesy highlight of a specific 1960s movie (with stop-motion effects by the late special-effects guru Ray Harryhausen) that Burton has admitted is one of his all-time favorites.

Burton even slips into the action for a super-quick, gob-smacked cameo. Blink and you’ll miss him!

So outsiders, outcasts and oddballs everywhere, of all ages, let your freak flag fly—courtesy of Miss Peregrine, and Tim Burton!

—Neil Pond, Parade Magazine

 

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Sep 29 2016
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Movie Reviews

Ride ‘Em Cowboy

‘Magnificent Seven’ brings western past into focus with Hollywood present

Vincent D'Onofrio, Martin Sensmeier, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Ethan Hawke, Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt and Byung-hun Lee

Meet the new ‘Magnificent Seven’: Vincent D’Onofrio, Martin Sensmeier, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Ethan Hawke, Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt and Byung-hun Lee

The Magnificent Seven
Starring Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Peter Sarsgaard & Haley Bennett
Directed by Antoine Fuqua
PG-13

The western pretty much trotted into the sunset decades ago, but every once in a while something gallops out of Hollywood that reminds us just what a big deal cowboys used to be.

And the cowboy, as depicted and polished by Hollywood and pop culture, remains one of America’s most potent mythic figures—a rugged, rustic, stoic, individualistic, self-sacrificing hero, good with a gun and sometimes even better with women.

The Magnificent Seven gets a lot of its retro dust honestly. For starters, it’s a remake of a remake: The original Seven, in 1960, was an all-star Americanized version of a 1954 Japanese classic, Seven Samurai, in which a samurai warrior and six others band together to defend a village from marauding bandits.

Director Antoine Fuqua certainly knows how to make an action-packed project click into place, with clear-cut lines between good guys and bad guys, a lofty morality-lesson overlay and a dark undertow of bloody revenge.

Denzel Washington;Chris Pratt

Denzel Washington plays bounty hunter Sam Chisholm.

The star here is clearly Denzel Washington—his collaboration with Fuqua in Training Day brought him an Oscar, and the two also worked together in The Equalizer. He plays sure-shot bounty hunter Sam Chisholm, who comes to the aid of a small frontier town under the rule of ruthless robber baron Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard) and his murderous cutthroat bodyguards. Bogue has poisoned the water supply, set fire to the church, enslaved the local men to work in his gold mine and demanded that the residents either sell out, move out—or else.

Beseeched by a firebrand widow (Haley Bennett) whose husband was killed by Bogue’s thugs, Chisholm—whose very name evokes the title of a 1970 John Wayne western, Chisum—assembles a group to help reclaim the town.

The multinational, cross-cultural rainbow coalition looks awesome onscreen, but it feels more like an Old West Suicide Squad—or a colorful team of Avengers assembled by way of High Noon—much more than an organic group of renegades and rogues, despite all the grime, grit, dirt, sweat, stubble and scruff.

Chris Pratt

Chris Pratt

Chris Pratt is heavy-drinking, wisecracking Josh Faraday, whose skill with cards helps him in more ways than one. Ethan Hawke’s erudite former Confederate sharpshooter is haunted by ghosts of his wartime past. His Chinese partner (Byung-hun Lee) can do lethal wonders with any type of blade or firearm.

Manuel Garcia-Rulfo is a hunky Mexican outlaw whose vicious skillset makes him a valuable member of the seven. A young renegade Comanche (Martin Sensmeier) likes the gallant cause and wants to come aboard. Vincent D’Onofrio’s big, Bible-quoting mountain man is a holy terror—and an audience favorite.

Bullets fly, bodies fall, blood flows, hooves thunder, jokey banter gets bantered, dynamite goes ka-boom. There’s a particularly twisty twist at the end that you won’t see coming. You may catch—or imagine—wispy glimpses of the ghosts of Clint Eastwood, John Wayne and other western icons looming and lurking around the edges of some of the scenes.

With a winning combo of gunpowder and star power, The Magnificent Seven brings the cowboy past into focus with the Hollywood present. If you like your popcorn sprinkled with old-fashioned, good-guy gusto, it’s as rip-roaring a time that’s come along on horseback in years.

—Neil Pond, Parade Magazine

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Sep 23 2016
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Movie Reviews

Witchy Poo Park

Young documentarians return to haunted woods

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Blair Witch
Starring James Allen McCune & Callie Hernandez
Directed by Adam Wingard
R
In theaters Sept. 16, 2016

Witches have been around for centuries, and the Blair Witch—well, she’s been on the scene since 1999, when a modestly budgeted little flick called The Blair Witch Project became a spectacular $250 million worldwide hit and created an entire genre of “found footage” horror films in its wake.

“Found footage” movies came to follow a certain format: Someone documents something unsettling with a video camera then mysteriously vanishes, leaving their baffling “footage” behind for someone else to discover—and decipher. The footage can shape the entire movie, or—as in the original Blair Witch Project—be the movie.

_DSC0358.ARWIn this latest Blair Witch spawn, nearly 18 years later, another group of attractive young people ventures into the same haunted woods in Maryland that claimed the original movie’s victims. Apparently, they’ve seen the “footage,” if not the original film. James (James Allen McCune) is looking for clues to the disappearance of his big sister, who never came back from that fateful trip. He brings along three of his friends, one of whom (Callie Hernandez) is working on a student-documentary project for her college class—so she rigs everyone with every kind of recording gizmo conceivable.

The group picks up another pair, a rather odd young couple (Wes Robinson and Valorie Curry) who found the original footage and posted it online. They claim they can be their guides into the Black Hills Woods—a place steeped in legends of a 17th century witch lynching, a cursed town and modern serial-killer madness.

In addition to “traditional” hand-held cameras, everyone has mini-cams that clip to their ears. They also carry portable units that can be mounted on branches, heads or sticks, and there’s even a drone that lets them see what’s going on from high above.

Callie Hernandez

Callie Hernandez

The result is that everything gets recorded—and I mean everything. We see the group drinking in the bar the night before they leave, eating weenies around a campfire, crawling into their tents to sleep. We get to watch as one pees on a tree.

On the upside, all the cameras “explain” why, and how, we’re seeing what we see; this is this movie’s “found footage.”

And when the scares start to roll in and ramp up, all the different shots—the jumpy, jerky cuts between cameras, the glitches and bleeps as audio and video signals cut in and out—add to the sense of extreme disorientation, especially when things get all weird and time-warpy. But the gotchas aren’t anything novel, particularly frightful or ghastly, or anything you haven’t seen before; they just come via new gadgetry.

Important takeaways: Don’t get too attached to any of the characters. Beware, as always, of the “stick men,” the Blair Witch’s handmade calling cards. Don’t go wandering off at night by yourself. Take proper care of all puncture and slash wounds, lest something hideously creepy happen to them. Keep hands and fingers away from the whirring blades of drones lodged in the tops of tall trees. In eerie, deserted houses in the middle of haunted forests, for God’s sake, stay out of attics and basements. And never look directly at the Blair Witch: “No one’s ever seen her and lived to talk about it,” warns one character.

That may indeed be true. But after seeing how upset she particularly seems to be at this group of kids invading her ancient dark space with their arsenal of high-tech recording devices, I’m wondering if the grumpy ol’ gal just simply isn’t in the mood to be photographed and uploaded to Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or anything else. She doesn’t strike me as the social media type.

—Neil Pond, Parade Magazine

 

 

 

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Sep 22 2016
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Movie Reviews

Baby Mama

Romantic triangle sets up sturdy comedy in ‘Bridget Jones’s Baby’

Film Title: Bridget Jones's Baby

Bridget Jones’s Baby
Starring Renèe Zellwegger, Colin Firth & Patrick Dempsey
Directed by Sharon Maguire
Rated R
In theaters Sept. 16, 2016

“How in the hell did I end up here again?” Bridget Jones asks herself as she sits on the couch of her London flat watching the pitiful flicker of a birthday candle in a cupcake remind her that she’s celebrating yet another birthday—number 43—alone.

We might ask the same question: How did Renèe Zellwegger end up in the same place, in the same role, one she hasn’t played in 12 years (since Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason), as a character that she launched back in 2001 in a movie originally made from a Helen Felding novel kinda-sorta based on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice?

Zellwegger received an Oscar nomination for Bridget Jones’s Diary, a delightfully frothy British rom-com, in the title role that captured viewers’ hearts—a plucky, single, working-class lass struggling with her career, her weight, her love life and her tendencies to over-indulge in booze and cigarettes. She chronicled it all in her diary.

Film Title: Bridget Jones's Baby

Bridget and the two possible fathers of her baby: American matchmaking website mogul Jack Qwant (Patrick Dempsey) and British barrister Mark Darcy (Colin Firth)

Now, 15 years down the road, Bridget has moved up—and somewhat on. She’s a producer for a TV news show; she’s managed to corral her figure into something she’s proud to show off. She’s stopped smoking and cut down on the booze. These days she writes on a laptop. But she’s still single, and now more than ever she’s feeling the ticking of her biological clock.

“I’m beginning to think I’ve passed my sexual sell-by date,” she tells one of her co-workers. She refers to her ovaries as “the last barren husks in London.”

But that’s about to change, as you likely surmised by the title of the movie.

Yes, Bridget gets pregnant. But the big question is, who’s the daddy?

Is it her longtime—nearly lifelong—crush, London barrister Mark Darcy (Colin Firth)? Or is it the new American dating-website guru Jack Qwant (Patrick Dempsey)? As fate would have it, Bridget had “intimate encounters” with them both, just weeks apart. As the old saying goes, when it rains, it pours.

That romantic triangle sets up the sturdy structure of the movie’s comedy, and there are plenty of laughs as Bridget at first tries to keep both Darcy and Qwant in the dark about each other, then resigns herself to telling them both. Original Diary director Sharon Maguire also sets up some hilarious gaffes and snafus in Bridget’s workplace as her personal life begins to intrude—once again—on her career.

Emma Thompson is hilarious as Bridget's no-nonsense OG/GYN.

Emma Thompson is hilarious as Bridget’s no-nonsense OG/GYN.

It’s nice to have the original Diary gang—or most of them—back, including many of the supporting players (like Bridget’s parents and pals). Zellwegger and Firth pick up where they left off, just as their characters do, after more than a decade apart; the absence of Hugh Grant’s caddish Daniel Cleaver, Bridget’s other love from the previous two films, is explained early in the movie, with a dry twist of British wit. Dempsey slides right into his role like a sweet slice of blue-eyed American pie.

And Emma Thompson, who was also one of the screenwriters, shines as a bright comedic charm as Bridget’s no-nonsense OB/GYN. There’s a very cool cameo from Grammy-winning British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran.

So how did Bridget end up here again? The important thing is the little bundle of joy she leaves with two hours later, and the laughter—and the surprises—along the way.

—Neil Pond, Parade Magazine

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