Tag Archives: Maya Rudolph

Movie Review ~ Disenchanted

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Ten years after her happily ever after, Giselle questions her happiness, inadvertently turning the lives of those in the real world and Andalasia upside down in the process.
Stars: Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, Maya Rudolph, Yvette Nicole Brown, Jayma Mays, Gabriella Baldacchino, Idina Menzel, James Marsden
Director: Adam Shankman
Rated: PG
Running Length: 118 minutes
TMMM Score: (8/10)
Review:  I first saw Disney’s Enchanted when I was out on the road touring with a musical over the holiday season in 2007. Packed into a random theater in some East Coast state I don’t recall, a bunch of visiting actors roared along with the local audience at the charming studio comedy. Both a clever wink to hand-drawn animated films from two decades earlier and a frilly Broadway-esque musical bursting with cheer, it was one of the more “subversive” films for Disney and an opportunity for them to control some self-mockery. More than anything, it spotlighted a fresh-faced star that had received a surprising Oscar nomination (her first of six) a year earlier.

It’s almost hard to wrap your head around it now, but when casting Enchanted, Amy Adams (Hillbilly Elegy) was nearly passed over because the studio wanted an established star in the role. Original director Kevin Lima pushed for the triple threat performer, and she proved to be the perfect fit, very nearly snagging another early Academy Award nomination for her outside-of-the-box approach to playing Giselle, the animated almost-princess displaced to real-world New York by an evil queen. That film ended with Giselle finding her true love Robert (Patrick Dempsey, Bridget Jones’s Baby), and living happily ever after with him and his young daughter in the Big Apple.

With its massive take at the box office, a sequel was put on the books, but with Adams’s career skyrocketing and after many false starts, it has taken an eternity for a follow-up to come to pass. I’m not saying that Adams had some extra time on her hands, but the roles she had fallen into didn’t fully align with the talent everyone knew she had. The Oscar her loyal supporters craved for her remained elusive, but desperation seemed to cloud her choices. Thankfully, the pieces for Disenchanted finally came together, and it’s proven to be precisely the restart button Adams needed.

It’s been a decade since Giselle and Robert tied the knot. In addition to Robert’s daughter Morgan (Gabriella Baldacchino, Annie), the couple is enjoying new baby Sophia. Still, life in the harsh city is starting to take its toll on Giselle’s open-air spirit. A billboard for Monroeville, a new community not far from the city, beckons to her. It seems like a perfect solution for the peace Giselle craves while allowing Robert to commute to work. Understandably, the move isn’t ideal for everyone, and Morgan finds the adjustment to a new school challenging.

Giselle also clashes with a trio of PTA moms led by Malvina (Maya Rudolph, The Way Way Back). They don’t take as kindly to her sunny disposition, especially after she makes a series of missteps threatening Malvina’s authority. Using a wand gifted to Sophia by King Edward (James Marsden, The D Train) and Queen Nancy (Idina Menzel, Cinderella) of Andalasia, Giselle makes a simple wish she hopes will correct some of the deficiencies that instead puts her family and forest friends into grave danger. At the same time, the magic she conjures changes her into what every fairytale princess fears most…a wicked stepmother.

In Disney years, Disenchanted could feel like an ancient property to some. After all, many of the fans that pined for a sequel have moved on (and grown up) by now, but I’m guessing there are even more that will tune in when it premieres November 18 on Disney+ to watch Adams get back to what she does best. That would be singing, dancing, and charming the ever-lovin’ pants off viewers – and wow, does she get the job done. A veteran of the grinding work in dinner theater musicals, Adams knows how to sell a song (even the few clunkers present in the Alan Menken/Stephen Schwartz score) but makes the entirety of her job look effortless.

Apart from Adams, the supporting cast is ready and willing to play. Returning cast members Dempsey, Marsden, and Menzel, are all given swell moments to shine, with Menzel especially having more time in the spotlight. Now a far bigger name than she was in the previous film (thank you, Frozen and Frozen II), she lets her huge vocals rip into “Love Power,” a belty number that builds into just the kind of tune you’d expect to hear from the former-Broadway star. It’s no surprise that Rudolph sinks her teeth into the villainess role, and while her duet with Adams gets off to a shaky start, it works itself into a fine frenzy by its conclusion.

Director Adam Shankman (Rock of Ages) also serves as Disenchanted’s choreographer, allowing him to train his eye on every part of what we’re seeing where movement is concerned. That helps give Disenchanted a nice flow and considers spacing for the camera and the dancers. Shankman lets the film linger on the sweeter moments between Giselle and Morgan as they continue to define their bond as stepmother and stepdaughter. It leads to a finale that blends classic fantasy elements with a strong message that I found thoughtful and moving. 

Almost assuredly destined to please the tiny royalty in training roaming around your home and stir up your good memories from years back when the original was released, Disenchanted is a sequel worth hanging around for. I recall enjoying the first film but not being as bowled over by it as some. For this follow-up, whatever magic ingredient was missing for me was finally found, and it all fell into place. While it may not create the kind of awards buzz Adams is used to by this time, she’s so good in it that you could see a world where a performance like hers gets recognized for its joy to the viewer.

Movie Review ~ The Mitchells vs The Machines

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The Facts:  

Synopsis: A quirky, dysfunctional family’s road trip is upended when they find themselves in the middle of the robot apocalypse and suddenly become humanity’s unlikeliest last hope. 

Stars: Abbi Jacobson, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Michael Rianda, Eric André, Olivia Colman, Blake Griffin, Fred Armisen, Beck Bennett, Chrissy Teigen, John Legend, Charlyne Yi, Conan O’Brien, Sasheer Zamata, Elle Mills, Jay Pharoah, Alex Hirsch, Griffin McElroy 

Directors: Michael Rianda & Jeff Rowe 

Rated: PG 

Running Length: 113 minutes 

TMMM Score: (7/10) 

Review: Were this a time when we were back seeing movies in theaters, a film like The Mitchells vs The Machines (which was originally set to be released in 2020) would have been one that made me glad for stadium seating that allows me a nice distance between the screen and my seat.  There’s so much going on in the movie that it often becomes an overwhelming mash of color, ideas, and sound.  As a child, it would have served to stimulate a number of my senses in just the way the animators at Sony meant to but as I get older, I find that these mile-a-minute delirium exercises put a serious crimp in the overall way I absorb the story.  That means the performances land with a little less oomph and the sweetness at the heart of the screenplay from writer/directors Michael Rianda & Jeff Rowe can’t quite get its hands in a firm enough grasp at your heartstrings to tug away whenever it wants to. 

It’s definitely not for lack of trying, don’t get me wrong.  Rianda & Rowe are willing to go to great lengths and expend copious amounts of energy and animation to send home the message about the importance of family and, more pointedly, family time.  In this ever-expanding world of technology when it can be easy for us to self-isolate, families spend less quality time together than ever before and it becomes an effort to get everyone (parents included) out of their “screens” and involved with one another.  In Rianda & Rowe’s brightly hued world, a service known as PAL (voiced on the mainframe by Olivia Colman, The Father) is installed on nearly every phone and also into many of the machines the country uses on a daily basis.  Think of it as Alexa from Amazon, just with a wider net and a much more sensitive skin that’s easily rankled. 

Katie Mitchell has a number of PAL powered devices and for good reason, she’s a budding filmmaker that’s been at work since she was a small child making movies involving her family and dog.  As she has grown older, she feels like she doesn’t fit into the small-town life and craves a creative community of like-minded individuals (note the rainbow-pin on her jacket and later references to her relationship with Jade) that speak her language.  More than anything, her once inseparable bond with her dad Rick (Danny McBride, Sausage Party) has frayed and father and daughter barely know each other anymore, much to the dismay of mom Linda (Maya Rudolph, The Way Way Back). 

When tensions rise the night before Katie is set to leave for college, Rick makes a terrible error in judgement and decides to make up for it by gathering the family (including always-worried brother Aaron) and road-tripping his only daughter off to school instead of having Katie fly out there on her own.  A bad idea at first, it proves to be a stroke of genius because the family is together when a new model of PAL is released, causing the previous version to erupt in a jealous rage.  Using a virus to take over her replacements, she begins to enslave the humans in a giant prison. However there’s one family that won’t go down without a fight, one that’s rediscovered their strength as a team when put through a series of high-stakes battles with bots.

It’s never quite clear to me what endgame PAL was after but it doesn’t really matter in the end. The Mitchells vs. The Machines is about watching a family that has drifted apart find their way back to one another when put into a perilous situation.  I may question how young children would react to some frightening situations of appliances coming to life and attacking them and just the overall thought of electronic world domination, but it’s delivered wrapped in such a buoyant bow it’s hard to fault anyone involved too much. (I’m easily swayed, clearly.)  Running long at nearly two hours, there’s a lot of story packed in that wound up feeling repetitive and padded for time…that might be good for a theatrical release but when you’re at home I’m always in favor of a shorter sit for the family-oriented flicks.

Despite the presence of a talented comedian like Rudolph and someone that likely had a ball making this like Colman, the voice work is strangely muted here.  There’s so much in motion around everyone that it’s odd for there not to be any standout among the voices heard.  Even two rogue robots voiced by Beck Bennett (Zoolander 2) and Conan O’Brien (The Lego Batman Movie) that wind up working with the Mitchells sound interchangeable throughout.  I kept waiting for some spark to be lit, and while Colman comes close and Rudolph finds it late in the film when her character hilariously finds her inner warrior the movie comes to a close with barely any embers glowing.

For Netflix families that haven’t subscribed to Disney+ or Apple,+ which have had several impressive animated films over the past few months, there is now a viable option for entertainment in The Mitchells vs The Machines.  It’s fast, loud, and firmly a movie of today, but it will surely catch not just the eye of your kids but probably yours as well.  Not only are there positive lessons to be taken away from the sweet-natured heart of the film but its animation is stunning.

Movie Review ~ The Happytime Murders

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The Facts:

Synopsis: When the puppet cast of an ’80s children’s TV show begin to get murdered one by one, a disgraced LAPD detective-turned-private eye puppet takes on the case.

Stars: Melissa McCarthy, Elizabeth Banks, Maya Rudolph, Joel McHale, Leslie David Baker, Bill Barretta, Dorien Davies, Kevin Klash

Director: Brian Henson

Rated: R

Running Length: 91 minutes

TMMM Score: (3/10)

Review: Continuing the entertainment industry’s penchant for turning the sweet and cuddly into rude and raunchy, The Happytime Murders comes from none other than the son of Jim Henson, creator of The Muppets. Brian Henson grew up in Muppet-land and even directed Muppet Treasure Island and the enduring chestnut that is The Muppet Christmas Carol. Like a former child star that decides to pose in Playboy, Henson wants to show us all how grown up he is by pandering to the lowest common denominator, not just in jokes but in filmmaking. The results is a gross, stupid movie that elicits a few shocked laughs but more often than not earns a somber silence.

At the screening I attended for The Happytime Murders there was a problem with the projection and they had to stop the film about five minutes in. This turned out to be a blessing. Not only did it get rid of the foreign language subtitles that had been mistakenly turned on but it also gave audiences a chance to see what a second viewing of the movie might be like.  And it wasn’t pretty.  The first time a puppet swore, there was a huge reaction from the crowd. When a female puppet said something repulsively filthy, you could hear shrieks of stunned cackles. Then the movie stopped to fix the issue and they started it from the beginning. The next time these same jokes came around not ten minutes later, there were light titters but the odd feeling we knew it wasn’t truly funny the first time.

Aping on the classic film noir, the film follows disgraced cop turned private investigator Phil Philips (voiced by Bill Barretta, Muppets Most Wanted) as he teams up with his former partner (Melissa McCarthy, The Boss) to solve a series of murders. All the victims were members of a popular kids show, the first of its kind to show puppets and humans on equal ground, even though in reality puppets are seen as second-class citizens humans can do whatever they want with. At the same time, Phillips gets tangled up with a femme fatale client (voiced by Dorien Davies) being blackmailed who has more than her fair share of skeletons in the closet.

The set-up is not so far afield from the likes of Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett but I doubt either writer could have ever thought they’d be mentioned in a review about trampy puppets that secrete, excrete, and swear like sailors. Screenwriter Todd Berger’s weary script resurrects ‘90s-era groaners in between languid exposition and tired twists. Any audience member that’s watched a police procedural in the last three decades will be able to spot the killer and figure out their motive long before our hero does.

There’s probably no point in poking holes in the logic here but I’m going to give it a go. The way that Berger and Henson see it, puppets are little more than socks filled with fluff so it’s easy to watch them get torn up, blown up, or wrung out without cringing too much. Yet at the same time we’re led to believe that a human can receive an organ transplant from a puppet that supposedly isn’t made of any kind of tissue and just how are these puppets popping out Easter eggs when frightened or ejaculating silly string when excited? If they aren’t more than stuffing, where is the glitter pee coming from? I won’t even get into the scene set in a sex shop that features an octopus doing terrible things with their eight arms to a ecstatic cow.

Poor McCarthy, she’s regressing right back into the gutter humor that did her no favors in films like This is 40 and Tammy. While she’s made a bid in the last few years for respect with Spy and Life of the Party, here she’s slumming it once again and apparently without much arm-twisting. This is a tired performance from an actress that usually shows boundless energy. The same sorrow can be felt for Maya Rudolph (Inherent Vice) who gives great moll but is stuck delivering her lines to a puppet – it’s a lot of energy being spent for absolutely no result. Elizabeth Banks (Pitch Perfect 3) another actress like McCarthy that has experience with ribald comedy, deserves some sort of award for sportsmanship for the scene where she peels a carrot in order to sexually excite a trio of rabbits.  Proving he’s definitely no movie star once and for all, Joel McHale (Blended) pops up as a grimacing FBI agent and manages to miss every potential laugh.

The most shocking thing about the movie is that, based on the audience I saw the film with, parents actually are considering it OK to bring their kids. This is nowhere near an acceptable film for anyone under 17 and this is coming from someone who saw a heap of inappropriate films in the theater before I was old enough to drive. Parents…please, don’t bring your kids to this. YOU don’t even have to go…and, in fact, you shouldn’t.

Movie Review ~ Life of the Party

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The Facts:

Synopsis: After her husband abruptly asks for a divorce, a middle-aged mother returns to college in order to complete her degree.

Stars: Melissa McCarthy, Gillian Jacobs, Maya Rudolph, Julie Bowen, Matt Walsh, Molly Gordon, Stephen Root, Jacki Weaver, Adria Arjona, Debby Ryan, Luke Benward, Jessie Ennis, Heidi Gardner

Director: Ben Falcone

Rated: PG-13

Running Length: 105 minutes

Trailer Review: Here

TMMM Score: (6.5/10)

Review: I’ve got good news and bad news for you if you’re considering making a trip to the movies to see Life of the Party this Mother’s Day weekend. The bad news is that most of the jokes have been spoiled for you in the previews, the good news is that the two best jokes haven’t. A semi-refreshing twist on the old fish-out-of-water/parent-going-back-to-school storyline, this isn’t a movie out to reinvent the comedic wheel but it does manage to capably overcome initial tone problems. What results is a sweet, if completely predictable, comedy that has its heart and brain in the right place.

The third collaboration between star Melissa McCarthy and husband Ben Falcone (What to Expect When You’re Expecting), Life of the Party represents the best of their work together so far. Their first outing was 2014’s Tammy, a movie so godawful I don’t permit its name to be uttered in my presence. They bounced back in 2016 with The Boss, which found more humor, less aggravation, and an overall better script. Writing together allows the couple to play off McCarthy’s strengths but continues to show Falcone’s weakness as a director – I’d love to see what another director would do with one of their screenplays.

Frumpy housewife Deanna (McCarthy, Spy) and her husband Dan (Matt Walsh, Into the Storm) have just dropped their daughter Maddie (Molly Gordon, Love the Coopers) off for her last year of college when Dan announces he wants a divorce. He’s fallen in love with a realtor (Julie Bowen) and is selling their house, leaving Deanna without a home or an income. In a surge of confidence, Deanna decides to reenroll at the same college she dropped out of in her senior year 20 years earlier…the college her daughter now attends.

Going back to school to finish her archeology degree, Deanna finds that while the times have changed the people getting the college experience haven’t. There’s still the mean girl (Debby Ryan) who tears down anything she doesn’t deem cool, the parties are drunken ragers, the sorority sisters have the same doubt about their futures, and Deanna’s fear of public speaking hasn’t dissipated over the last two decades. That proves especially hard during the film’s funniest sequence by far, when Deanna has to give an oral presentation that quickly devolves into a sweaty, knee-buckling, nightmare.

Still, a few things in her homecoming to co-ed life catch her off-guard. Unexpected bonding with her daughter tops the list as well as a realization she can reclaim some of the years she feels were spent in a troubled marriage by returning to finish what she started. Then there’s the romance with Jack (Luke Benward), a younger frat boy which takes some surprisingly genuine turns as the movie progresses. Eventually, even with one nice twist involving Jack, the movie works toward its predictable conclusion yet even though you know where it’s all heading it’s not hard in the least to sit back and be entertained.

That’s not to say the movie doesn’t have moments that call for a markdown on the final grade. As is usually the case with these McCarthy/Falcone features, there’s an overabundance of periphery characters that serve no purpose to any of the characters or the story. Usually friends (or family!) of the director and star, these annoying additions pad the running time and bring down some of the solid funny framework that has been created. Even the usually dependable Maya Rudolph (The Way Way Back) is given far too long a leash as Deanna’s friend – I almost wonder what things would have looked like had Rudolph and the tightly wound and miscast Bowen had swapped roles. There’s also at least one too many sorority sisters for my money. And Deanna’s parents (Jacki Weaver, Stoker, and Stephen Root, Trumbo) could have been removed all together and no one would have been the wiser.

You also have to ding the couple for not editing their films better or providing information to fill in large gaps that go unexplained. It’s never clear until far too late how Deanna is paying for college or what hoops she had to jump through to get back to her studies in less than several weeks. Timelines are also fuzzy, with events either happening too close together or too spaced out and, as with most college movies, everyone seems to only go to one class or not attend at all.

Yet the film is getting high marks from me because even with all these nitpicks, there’s a certain whiff of clean air and good intentions that keep this one afloat. McCarthy again carries an entire film on her shoulders and while that might get exhausting after a while she’s got the boundless energy to pull out all the stops when called upon to do so. While she’s never one to shy away from physical stunts, this is another pleasant example of McCarthy’s continued maturing as a performer with her comedy coming from situational happenstance instead of corporeal humor. Whether she’s dancing in ‘80s-inspired couture, trashing a wedding reception, or performing alongside a pop star’s amusing cameo, there’s always a human being underneath it all.

The Silver Bullet ~ Life of the Party

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Synopsis: When her husband suddenly dumps her, longtime dedicated housewife Deanna turns regret into re-set by going back to college – landing in the same class and school as her daughter.

Release Date: May 11, 2018

Thoughts: The smartest thing the makers of Life of the Party did was refrain from including the phrase “From the folks that brought you Tammy!” in their marketing materials.  Yes, Melissa McCarthy (Spy) has reteamed with her husband Ben Falcone (Office Christmas Party) on another comedy but this one looks considerably less revolting…so there’s a glimmer of funny hope to be had.  Reteaming for the third time (2016’s The Boss was another step in the right direction) Falcone directs a script he and McCarthy co-wrote and while it may seem a bit like the sorta-classic Rodney Dangerfield 1986 comedy Back to School, McCarthy has put her own shine on things.  No McCarthy vehicle is complete without a scene of her getting knocked down and the trailer gets that one out of the way immediately so…spoiler alert!  McCarthy’s been absent since the female-led Ghostbusters fizzled in 2016 but if Life of the Party is as lively as it looks it could get her back in Hollywood’s good graces.

Movie Review ~ Sisters

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Two sisters decide to throw one last house party before their parents sell their family home.

Stars: Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Ike Barinholtz, John Leguizamo, Dianne Wiest, John Cena, James Brolin

Director: Jason Moore

Rated: R

Running Length: 118 minutes

Trailer Review: Here

TMMM Score: (7/10)

Review:  We all love Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, right?  I mean, through their celebrated time at Saturday Night Live to their post-late night days with 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation, both have shown themselves to be fun-loving ladies that work well with others.  There’s nothing like it when Fey and Poehler team up, though, so Sisters should have been a slam dunk, right?

If the end result is less of a slam dunk and more of a two-pointer, it’s at least better than their last pairing, the tepid Baby Mama from 2008.  That film was highly anticipated but came off feeling like we were watching an extended SNL sketch with Fey playing her usual nerd-ish but noble lady and Poehler going big as a white trash pseudo-surrogate.  In the ensuing years, Poehler and Fey have been reunited on several small screen occasions leading up to successfully hosting the Golden Globes three times, ruling over the festivities with their sly observances.

And now we have another attempt at striking it rich on the big screen and while Sisters is markedly better than Baby Mama, it still winds up falling short of the packaged potential of its stars.  This time, there seemed to be some real thought put into the piece, with Fey and Poehler wisely playing against type in bringing friend (and former SNL writer) Paula Pell’s sorta biographical screenplay to life.

When Maura and Kate’s parents (Dianne Wiest, Parenthood and James Brolin, The 33) decide to sell the Florida home of their youth and move into a retirement complex, the sisters are tasked with cleaning out their room before the new family moves in.  Maura (Poehler, Inside Out) is the responsible one, the sister that never got into trouble and was an eternal sober cab for her hard partying sister Kate (Fey, Admission).  Upset with their parents for listing the lot without telling them, they decide to host one big party for their friends before they have to pack it in and move on with their lives.  Kate promises to abstain from booze so Maura can let loose but as the night goes on the sisters find themselves plunked back into old habits, not always of their own free will.

The film takes a while to get going and it mostly coasts along nicely.  There’s a charming romantic subplot with Maura romancing a hunky neighbor (Ike Barinholtz, heretofore not hunky) and it gives Poehler some nice moments, comedic and otherwise.  Barinholtz should get some props here for dealing with a fairly nasty gross-out gag, one of several that occur during the night of increasing debauchery.

Director Jason Moore (Pitch Perfect) knows when to let his stars do their thing but manages to keep control of the wild party that takes up the latter half of the film.  Balancing a host of comedic players (like Horatio Sanz as that guy we all hate at parties and Maya Rudolph as a bitchy rival) with some third act emotional resonance is no easy task but Sisters earns its stripes thanks to its game cast and willingness to “go there” for laughs.

Boldly opening the same weekend as Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Sisters is marketing itself as that other movie you can see after your Star Wars fix is complete.  It’s clever #YouCanSeeBoth campaign works in its good-natured favor and audiences should see both films during their theatrical run.

The Silver Bullet ~ Sisters

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Synopsis: Two sisters decide to throw one last house party before their parents sell their family home.

Release Date:  December 25, 2015

Thoughts: Long-time friends Amy Poehler (Inside Out) and Tina Fey (This is Where I Leave You) were a dynamic duo on the small screen during the time as co-hosts of Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live.  Bold comediennes, they played off of each other well and were the one thing you could count on from week to week to hit the bullseye with their observant comedy.  The relationship continued on into the big screen with 2008’s Baby Mama, a slight romp that didn’t really serve either of them very well.

Arriving in time for the 2015 holiday season, the two are back together with Sisters and while it looks like the latest entry in the “chicks can be raunchy too” genre, Poeher and Fey are so damn likable that I’m willing to toss some goodwill toward (wo)men their way since it’ll be Christmas-time and all.  I like that the actresses are playing against type, with Fey as the more out of control sister and Poehler as the more grounded one.  The trailer is a lively mix of spot the former SNL cast member and ok, it’s not all that funny…but there’s potential.

Movie Review ~ Inherent Vice

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The Facts:

Synopsis: In 1970, drug-fueled Los Angeles detective Larry “Doc” Sportello investigates the disappearance of a former girlfriend.

Stars: Joaquin Phoenix,Reese Witherspoon, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Jena Malone, Owen Wilson, Martin Short, Katherine Waterston, Joanna Newson, Maya Rudolph

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Rated: R

Running Length: 148 minutes

Trailer Review: Here

TMMM Score: (1/10)

Review: Looking back at the experience (and what an “experience” it was) of my recent screening of Inherent Vice I’m reminded of that one time I was in an airplane for 10+ hours traveling from Greece to Minnesota.  At certain points of the turbulent flight I thought I wasn’t going to make it and mentally said my good-byes to everyone I loved while a single tear fell down my face.  Then the plane landed, I was able to exit the airliner, and I went about my life.

Inherent Vice isn’t 10 hours long (but it sure feels like it) but unlike my trip to Greece, you won’t leave a showing of director Paul Thomas Anderson’s adaption of Thomas Pynchon’s 2009 novel with a miniature replica of the Acropolis for your troubles.

Pynchon’s loopy novels have long been thought to be unadaptable for cinematic endeavors and Anderson’s screenplay proves why over and over again.  It’s an obtuse, awkward, non-engaging film with so many layers it could be described as an onion dipped in PCP…which doesn’t necessarily signify a bad film, mind you.  No, the worst offense of Inherent Vice is that it’s shockingly, maddeningly boring.

Set in the Manson crazed days of 1970’s Los Angeles, the film follows schlumpy PI ‘Doc’ Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix, Her, Parenthood) through a case that hits close to home but opens up a Pandora’s Box of trouble.  Asked by former flame Shasta (Robot & Frank’s Katherine Waterston, the victim of a humiliating sex scene late in the proceedings) to take a look into the shady intentions of the wife of her current lover (Eric Roberts, Lovelace), Sportello dives headfirst into a plot involving murder, kidnapping, extortion, drugs, and sex.

Now, sounds like fun, right?  Perhaps…but my friends, it’ all in the execution and though Anderson knows how to produce a film with multiple storylines (Boogie Nights, Magnolia) things are rocky from the get-go.  Though I was initially intrigued by a pre-credit noir-ish sequence that finds Shasta visiting a sleepy Sportello and asking for his help the film lost me before fifteen minutes were up.  Even with the occasional foray into explicit hilarity such as Sportello’s visit to a massage parlor that boasts a menu of services that I can’t reprint here the majority of the film is a rough slough.

Reteaming with The Master star Phoenix, Anderson should have stuck with the original choice for the role….Robert Downey, Jr.  Though Downey was deemed “too old” for the part, Phoenix looks gruesomely ancient thanks to unkempt sideburns, permanently greasy hair, and unshaven scruff.  While Phoenix has a field day with the role, lounging through several drug induced sequences and slurring his words like was the Meryl Streep of lazy r’s, he’s only pleasing himself (and Anderson) as the haphazardly effective private eye.

The film’s labyrinthine plot may be interesting in hindsight but it’s so dense and unconcerned with our interest that I wondered if this shouldn’t have been a home movie for Anderson and Phoenix to watch huddled together with a bowl of popcorn on Oscar night.  Pynchon’s novel is chock full of wacky names and comic turns but onscreen it feels too goofy for its own good.  Josh Brolin (Oldboy), Reese Witherspoon (Mud), Owen Wilson (The Internship), and Benicio Del Toro (Savages) all show up as part of the caper at hand with only Brolin and Witherspoon in on whatever joke Anderson was attempting to convey.  Also of note is Joanna Newsom’s earthy performance as an acquaintance of Sportello, though I started to question if she was a figment of his imagination or not.

Let’s put a pin in showering Anderson with love simply because he started out so strongly.  I feel like it’s almost a sin for a cinephile to deride Anderson’s work but viewing a film like Magnolia side-by-side with Inherent Vice reveals a filmmaker that has given in to self-indulgence and forgotten that films are made for audiences (even discerning ones, though nearly a dozen at my screening didn’t stay for the whole picture).  It doesn’t have to be a simple, easy to digest, pallid work…but it does have to have a pulse.

Movie Review ~ Big Hero 6

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The Facts:

Synopsis: The special bond that develops between plus-sized inflatable robot Baymax, and prodigy Hiro Hamada, who team up with a group of friends to form a band of high-tech heroes.

Stars: Ryan Potter, Scott Adsit, T.J. Miller, Jamie Chung, Damon Wayans Jr., Genesis Rodriguez, Maya Rudolph, James Cromwell, Alan Tudyk, Daniel Henney

Director: Don Hall, Chris Williams

Rated: PG

Running Length: 108 minutes

Trailer Review: Here

TMMM Score: (8/10)

Review: When Disney agreed to buy Marvel Entertainment for the cool sum of 4.64 million dollars they not only started to churn out live-action superhero movies by the truckload (just do an internet search for the multi-year slate of films recently announced) but they began to develop future animated collaborations with Marvel based on their comic book properties.  The first production of this union is Big Hero 6 and if this high energy, vibrantly colored adventure is any indication of what’s to come, both Disney and Marvel execs can start looking at purchasing those beach houses in the Hamptons and 40 foot yachts they’ve been holding off on.

In the city of San Fransokyo, young Hiro (Ryan Potter) is headed down the wrong path, wasting his tech-savy gifts on secret behind closed doors robot battles that may pad his pockets but gets him into hot water with thugs and his watchful brother. A chance visit to his brother’s elite school harnessing the best ideas from the brightest minds gets Hiro interested in following his brother’s footsteps. When tragedy strikes, Hiro must work with a rag-tag group of awkwardly diverse geniuses and one puffy vinyl nurse-like robot to save the world.

With characters first introduced in 1998, Big Hero 6 is an interesting concoction of East meets West styles and the classic origin story that all films of this type need at their genesis.  It plays very much like Guardians of the Galaxy, Disney’s surprise hit from August that slipped in at the last minute to be the most enjoyably film of a rather blah summer.  Even with echoes of Guardians of the Galaxy dancing in your head, Big Hero 6 emerges as its own entity with a fair share of honestly funny moments and the kind of every color of the rainbow animation that practically leaps off the screen.

It’s a rollicking good time and a better film that I thought it would (or could) be.  I laughed a lot and even felt some pangs of sadness, another example of the harmony that exists between the comic-book world of Marvel and the wise minds/hearts of the animators at Disney.

A winning film for parents with kids that too young for Iron Man and too old for Frozen, Big Hero 6 is clearly the start of a beautiful animated partnership.

The Silver Bullet ~ Big Hero 6

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Synopsis: The special bond that develops between plus-sized inflatable robot Baymax, and prodigy Hiro Hamada, who team up with a group of friends to form a band of high-tech heroes.

Release Date: November 7, 2014

Thoughts: Representing the first animated collaboration between Walt Disney Animation Studios and Marvel, Big Hero 6 has the potential to show off the best of what two proven franchise starters can do when they put their creative talents together. Based on a comic book of the same name, it’s interesting that you can clearly see the Disney influence reflected in the look of the film and also a clear indication that this is a Marvel adventure through and through. I’ve had zero exposure to the source material so I can’t tell you how much of a fan base this is coming in with…but Disney had a whopper of a hit last year in the same time period (Frozen) and Marvel hasn’t stumbled yet. Expect big things for this big hero.