Sing

A new movie review from The Movie Snob.

Sing  (B).  I saw the sequel (Sing 2) several months before I saw the original, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the original just fine.  This animated feature is set in a Zootopia-like world of anthropomorphic animals.  Our protagonist is Buster Moon (voice of Matthew McConaughey, Sahara), a koala who is the wildly optimistic owner of the town’s run-down live-performance theater.  The creditors are at the door, so Buster hatches a scheme to raise money with a live singing competition show for a $1,000 prize. But a misprint in the flyer turns it into a $100,000 prize, and complications ensue.  Will the show come together?  Can Buster and his ragtag group of amateurs save the theater?  The plot is awfully similar to the sequel. I noticed that a slacker sheep (voice of John C. Reilly, Cedar Rapids) and a Sinatra-esque mouse (voice of Seth MacFarlane, TV’s The Orville) are important characters in Sing but did not come back for Sing 2. The girl-power porcupine Ash (voice of Scarlett Johansson, The Island) is a standout in both movies.

Ralph Breaks the Internet

A new review from The Movie Snob.

Ralph Breaks the Internet  (B).  I remember enjoying Wreck-It Ralph and thinking it had a surprisingly sweet story about friendship at its core.  In this sequel, video-game characters Ralph (voice of John C. Reilly, Talladega Nights) and Vanellope (voice of Sarah Silverman, School of Rock) leave the video arcade behind and enter the worldwide web on a quest to find a replacement part for Vanellope’s arcade game.  The visualization of the internet is a highlight of the movie, as little avatars of the human users scuttle around from eBay to YouTube (or a lookalike) to everything else.  Vanellope falls in love with a Grand Theft Auto-inspired neighborhood ruled by a tough gal called Shank (voice of Gal Gadot, Wonder Woman).  In the most inspired part of the movie, she finds herself in Disney’s sector, which is populated by Star Wars characters, Marvel characters, and, of course, Disney princesses (many voiced by their original actresses).  The movie starts to drag by the end (an hour and 52 minutes? really?), but it is still definitely worth a look.

The Lobster

A new review from The Movie Snob.

The Lobster  (C-).  This movie has too much critical buzz–and sounded just too weird–for me to miss.  It’s an allegory or satire or something about the pressure society puts on people to pair off romantically.  In the alternative universe of The Lobster, everyone has to pair off.  If your partner leaves you for another person, you get shipped off to a hotel where you can mingle with loads of other single people.  And if you don’t find a partner within 45 days, you get turned into the animal of your choice and set free.  Remember, I said it was weird.  Anyhoo, Colin Farrell (Total Recall) is our guide to this insane asylum.  He lands in the hotel at the very beginning of the movie, where he sort-of befriends a guy with a limp (Ben Whishaw, Spectre) and a guy with a lisp (John C. Reilly, Chicago).  Some hotel residents desperately want to find someone, while others seem more or less resigned to their fate.  Oh, and there’s a band of “Loners” (including Léa Seydoux, Spectre, and Rachel Weisz, Agora) running around out in the woods around the hotel–defiantly (and illegally) single people who have their own weird code of conduct about relationships.  What will Ferrell do?  Seek love, join the Loners, or settle for becoming a lobster?  It’s all very weird and artificial and sort of interesting, but I really can’t say I really enjoyed it all that much.

Guardians of the Galaxy

From the desk of The Movie Snob.

Guardians of the Galaxy  (B).  I did not have particularly high expectations for this sci-fi special-effects extravaganza, so that may have helped me enjoy it all the more.  I’m afraid a plot description will make it sound a little flat: a bad guy is searching for an ancient artifact of immense power that will help him rule the galaxy, and a band of misfits (the Guardians of the title) must try to stop his genocidal plans.  But it’s more clever than it sounds, and it’s generally a pretty light-hearted romp.  Likeable everyman Chris Pratt (The Five-Year Engagement) stars as Peter Quill, a Tomb Raideresque scoundrel who is really hoping his self-proclaimed nickname “Starlord” will catch on.  Zoe Saldana (Star Trek Into Darkness) is his enemy-turned-ally Gamora.  Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook) has many of the best lines as a roguish raccoon named Rocket who has somehow acquired the power of speech and the ability to fly spaceships.  Other notable faces show up, such as Glenn Close (The Stepford Wives), John C. Reilly (Walk Hard), and Benicio Del Toro (21 Grams).  The film is rated PG-13 for intense sci-fi action and violence and for some mild language.  I guess that’s about right, although I don’t really think mature 11 and 12-year-olds would have a problem with it.

Wreck-It Ralph

New from The Movie Snob.

Wreck-It Ralph (B+).  I managed to catch this Oscar-nominated animated feature before it disappeared from the dollar movie theater, and I was glad I did.  The premise of the movie is that all those characters in video-arcade games–Pac Man, Mario, and the rest–are actually alive, and they can hang out and mingle with each other when the arcade is closed down.  Wreck-It Ralph (voice of John C. Reilly, Walk Hard) is a big mean guy in a Donkey-Kong-like game called Fix-It Felix.  Ralph gets tired of being the villain and heads off to try to become a hero in a sci-fi shoot-em-up game, but he winds up in a cutesy go-cart racing game called Sugar Rush, where he reluctantly befriends a sassy little ragamuffin named Vanellope von Schweets (voice of Sarah Silverman, School of Rock).  The incomparable Jane Lynch (The 40-Year-Old Virgin) voices the tough-as-nails sci-fi battle commander.  The plot is overly complicated, but it was a pretty clever movie with a couple of touching moments.  Also, there was a decent short before the feature about a guy trying to find a girl that he met cute on a subway platform and then let get away.

Cedar Rapids

From the desk of The Movie Snob

Cedar Rapids (B). This movie has sort of a 40-Year-Old Virgin vibe to it. Ed Helms (The Hangover) plays Tim Lippe, an insurance salesman from the tiny town of Brown Valley, Wis. Although not as sheltered as Steve Carell’s Andy Stitzer was, Tim is still a bit of a fish out of water when he has to go represent his employer at an insurance-industry convention in the “big city” of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Some amusing moments ensue as he bonds with the buffoonish Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly, Chicago), the buttoned-down Ron Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock, Jr., TV’s The Wire), and the up-for-anything Joan Ostrowski-Fox (Anne Heche, Birth). The movie is unnecessarily vulgar (thus the R rating), but I still fairly enjoyed it. (The 87-minute running time didn’t hurt.) And am I crazy, or is Anne Heche really kind of attractive, in an unglamorous, unHollywood sort of way?

Cyrus

A new review by The Movie Snob

Cyrus (B-). This is an odd little movie. The premise is simple. Sad sack divorced guy John (John C. Reilly, Chicago) starts dating attractive Molly (Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler). They get along great, but the fly in the ointment is Molly’s oddly close relationship with her 21-year-old son Cyrus (Jonah Hill, Get Him to the Greek), who still lives at home. You could take this set-up over the top and wind up with a comedy along the lines of Stepbrothers (which also starred Reilly). Or you could make Cyrus totally unbalanced and make some sort of Psycho-type flick out of it. But Mark and Jay Duplass, the directors of Cyrus, play it straight — Cyrus is maladjusted but he’s not crazy, and his relationship with his mom is weird but not perversely so. I liked it well enough, and I certainly wanted to see how things were going to turn out.

9

New review from The Movie Snob

9 (C). I caught this animated feature at the dollar theater, and that was about the right price. In a post-apocalyptic world, a handful of tiny, human-shaped “people” huddle together in a bombed-out church where they seek sanctuary against a few destructive robots still roaming around in the debris. Each has a number painted on its back, and 9 is the last one to show up. What happened to all the human beings? Are the little people alive, or are they mechanical themselves? And who made them? Well, I guess those are the questions you’re supposed to be asking yourself during this flick. Although the visuals were interesting, the story was not all that engrossing, and it kind of falls apart in mystical mumbo-jumbo after a while. They have some decent acting talent supplying the vocals (Jennifer Connelly, The Day the Earth Stood Still; Elijah Wood, Cooties; Martin Landau, City of Ember; Christopher Plummer, Knives Out), but only the character voiced by John C. Reilly (The Lobster) stands out. I guess it would be worth a Netflix, if you have nothing better to watch.

Stepbrothers

DVD review from The Movie Snob

Step Brothers (B-). How do you rate, much less review, a movie that is as unrelentingly crude, that is as aggressively stupid, and that is as completely nonsensical as this one? Especially if it makes you laugh out loud several times along the way? The “plot” is preposterous. Will Ferrell (Stranger Than Fiction) and John C. Reilly (Talladega Nights) are Brennan and Dale–two 40-year-old men who still live at home with their single parents, played by Richard Jenkins (The Visitor) and Mary Steenburgen (Parenthood). Their world is upended when their parents meet and wed. Brennan and Dale act like they are about 9 years old. At first they hate each other, then they become best friends. Brennan has a successful younger brother named Derek who makes his family sing “Sweet Child of Mine” like a hymn while they ride in their SUV. Derek’s wife hits on Dale quite enthusiastically after he punches Derek in the face for being an arrogant jerk. Brennan falls in love with his therapist. Brennan and Dale go on job interviews together, with predictable results. None of it makes any sense, but as I said, I got some laughs out of it.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

New review from The Movie Snob

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (B+). John C. Reilly (Chicago) stars in this spoof of the rock-star biopic — Walk the Line is its primary target, with a couple of little jabs at Ray thrown in for good measure. Plot synopsis is pointless; what matters is whether you enjoy movies like Talladega Nights, Airplane!, and This Is Spinal Tap. If you like comedy that is keenly observant but also involves a lot of aggressive stupidity, you will probably like this movie. Or if you’re a big Jenna Fischer (Blades of Glory) fan, like I am; she co-stars in the Reese Witherspoon role. I should also warn you that this movie includes some of the most gratuitous nudity imaginable. But what do you expect from a film co-written by Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin)?

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

DVD review by The Movie Snob

Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby (A-). I think my family has discovered a new Christmas tradition, and that is to watch this movie every Christmas Eve. I intended to see this movie when it was in the theaters but never got around to it, and then my sister said we just had to watch it with our parents. I was skeptical because my parents do not like cussing or raunch of any sort in their movies. Although there is a fair amount of cussing in this movie, even they were guffawing throughout this send-up of NASCAR and the Tom Cruise vehicle Days of Thunder. Will Ferrell (Stranger Than Fiction) is hilarious as dim-bulb NASCAR champ Ricky Bobby, whose winning ways are threatened by a menacing French driver (Sacha Baron Cohen, Les Misérables) and a crash that may keep him from ever racing competitively again. John C. Reilly (Chicago) is great as the best friend and sidekick who steals Bobby’s sponsor, wife, and house. To me, this movie approaches the greatness of Airplane! and This is Spinal Tap.

A Prairie Home Companion

New review by The Movie Snob

A Prairie Home Companion (B). I saw this movie last weekend, but I’m only now getting around to blogging about it. It’s just a comfortable little movie with a few laughs and a lot of nostalgia. I’ve never listened to Garrison Keillor’s long-running radio show of the same name, but the premise of this movie is that his radio station up in Minnesota has been bought out by some soulless Texas corporation, and the action all takes place during his last show from this old-timey theater. It’s a variety show with performers like a past-their-prime sister act (Lily Tomlin, Nashville; Meryl Streep, Hope Springs) and a couple of joke-telling and singing cowboys (Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri; John C. Reilly, Walk Hard). A very skinny Lindsey Lohan (Mean Girls) shows up as Streep’s suicide-obsessed, bad-poetry-writing daughter. Kevin Kline (My Old Lady) is on hand as Guy Noir, the theater’s bumbling but dapper security chief. And Tommy Lee Jones (The Homesman) shows up as the corporate heavy from the Lone Star State. An enjoyable wisp of a movie.

A Streetcar Named Desire; The Anniversary Party

DVD reviews from The Movie Snob:

A Streetcar Named Desire (A-). Cultural illiterate that I am, until now I could honestly say that everything I knew about Streetcar I learned from season four of The Simpsons. (Remember the one where the town puts on a production of a musical version called “O Streetcar,” starring Ned Flanders as Stanley Kowalski and Marge Simpson as Blanche DuBois?) Anyhow, I rented the movie with few preconceptions and was pretty much spellbound. Vivien Leigh (Gone with the Wind) is Blanche, a southern belle, no longer young, who leaves her ancestral home in Mississippi to stay with her younger sister Stella and her husband Stanley (Marlon Brando, Apocalypse Now) in New Orleans for a while. Their rundown home in the French Quarter and Stanley’s brutish and even violent ways are quite a shock to Blanche, who seems none too able to stand very many shocks of any sort. Stanley, for his part, cannot stand Blanche or her affected gentility, and he makes it his mission to find out why she really left Mississippi. Lots of great dialogue and Oscars went to Leigh, Kim Hunter (Stella) (Planet of the Apes), and Karl Malden (The Cincinnati Kid), who plays a friend of Stanley that Blanche sets her sights on. The ending didn’t quite ring true to me (and I have since read that the play ends quite differently), but I can see why this is considered a classic.

The Anniversary Party (D+). This mess of a movie is no classic. Jennifer Jason Leigh (Fast Times at Ridgemont High) and Alan Cumming (X2: X-Men United) play a Hollywood couple (she’s an actor, he’s a novelist) who throw themselves a sixth-anniversary party. We quickly learn that they split up for a while and reconciled only a few months ago, and their relationship is still not exactly stable. I suppose that we are supposed to empathize with them as the evening wears on and we learn more and more about their troubles, but it didn’t happen for me. Eventually, almost everybody at the party takes ecstasy, secrets are revealed, there’s lots of yelling and crying, but I was neither touched nor entertained. The remarkable guest list (Kevin Kline, Gwyneth Paltrow, Phoebe Cates, Parker Posey, John C. Reilly) can’t save this party. Skip it.

Shanghai Nights; Old School; The Good Girl

These reviews are courtesy of John. John is the oldest member of our Movie Court, and we sometimes affectionately refer to him as “The Grade Inflater.” But he was surprisingly rough on this latest batch of movies….

Shanghai Knights. (C+) The follow-up to the surprisingly entertaining Shanghai Noon, starring Jackie Chan (Rush Hour) and Owen Wilson. This time, they’re in England chasing down the . . . yada yada yada. Mildly amusing but more of the same. I like Owen Wilson (ex-boyfriend in Meet The Parents) enough to make it worth a matinee, but am uncomfortable making a recommendation.

Old School. (B) I laughed out loud a few times, mostly at Will (Talladega Nights) Ferrell’s idiotic hijinks. There was enough funny stuff to keep me entertained and at least a semblance of a plot, albeit completely unrealistic, to officially qualify it as a top-notch guy flick, for what that’s worth. A relative lack of the gross-out Austin Powers Goldmember-type humor was a positive.

The Good Girl. (D+) I rented what I believed to be some basic chick-flick feel-good movies. I got this one wrong (maybe I’ll actually read the box for a description of the movie next time). Jennifer Aniston (The Switch) plays a hapless check-out girl at a generic dept. store who’s discontent with her bland life. John C. Reilly (Chicago) plays the likeable but simple underachieving devoted husband. Jennifer meets a Holden Caulfield wanna-be and her life becomes even more of a struggle. Aniston is a reasonably good, as is Reilly, but the movie is just a depressing bag of turmoil (works well with geraniums). I thought it sucked, frankly, though there were a few humorous scenes involving a female co-worker (Zooey Deschanel, The Happening).

Finally, with due respect to the Queen, I liked Undercover Brother. No way that’s an F. I agree fully with the One Hour Photo review.