The Lego Batman Movie [2017]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  RogerEbert.com (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
Los Angeles Times (J. Chang) review
RogerEbert.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (J. Hessenger) review

The Lego Batman Movie [2017] (directed by Chris McKay, story by Seth Grahame-Smith, screenplay by Seth Grahame-Smith along with others, Batman created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster) is ONE FUNNY, FAMILY FRIENDLY / KID ORIENTED (and even MESSAGE DRIVEN) comic book superhero movie! 

It has the child-oriented quarkiness of the (then) surprise Marvel Comics out-of-the-ball-park hit Guardians of the Galaxy [2014] and the similarly surprisingly successful (but not as successful as Guardians) first Lego Movie [2014], BUT then (as in said first Lego Movie) the current movie adds a lovely family oriented message that, yes, even a five or six year old could understand.  In other words, this film offers not just "goofiness," but "goofiness with a purpose" ;-).

The ever-brooding (but here, over-the-top brooding) Batman [wikip] [IMDb] (voiced by Will Arnett) was the surprise "break-out star" of the first Lego Movie [2014] just begging for a Lego film of his own.  And voila' ... in this film we got our wish ;-).

In the current film, we're introduced to said brooding Batman [wikip] [IMDb] as a supremely efficient, if soulless, death-and-destruction dealing vigilante-guardian of Gotham City.  He keeps the _ever_ ready to go _completely unhinged_ city SAFE, but does so certainly _without_ any joy and even without any particular purpose.  It seems that chaos simply "annoyed" Batman, perhaps "annoyed him A LOT" ... but beyond causing him some apparent discomfort in his otherwise thoroughly "cartesian"  / gadget-filled life ... it's hard to say at the beginning of the story that he cared really FOR ANYTHING.  (LOL - "cartesian" ... the box-like Lego-medium of this film becomes an additional amusing metaphor for his apparent "outlook on life" ;-).

Indeed, Batman seemed to "crush" The Joker (voiced inspiringly in the film by Zach Galifianakis) in a way that no punch nor wildly exotic piece of "bat weaponry" could ever do by telling him after their first big encounter near the beginning of the film that even HE, "The Joker," meant NOTHING to him.  "What do you mean NOTHING?" asks a thoroughly aghast Joker, "I am your PRIMARY NEMESIS in this TOWN. (I KILL ... (arguably) for you. ;-)"  But NOTHING was right.  EVEN the Joker was but an "annoyance" to him. 

Batman neither needed nor wanted _any help_ from _anybody_ in keeping the city SAFE (!!) from "vermin" like The Joker.  But after liquidating one or another radically insane "Evil Doer,"  Batman would simply retreat to his "Bat Cave" where he'd eat his wildly luxurious food -- Lobster (lobster, mind you Dear Readers, made here out of legos ;-) and watch ... tear-jerking romcoms.  We watch Tom Cruise declare to Rene Zellwigger in Jerry Maguire [1996]: "You complete me."  And yet ... The Batman does not need ANYBODY to "complete" him ... And yet ... there we see him binge-watching teary RomComs ... "in the darkness" ... ALONE.

This, of course, can not stand ... and ... (of course) it does NOT ;-).

And the rest of the story ensues ;-)  I JUST LOVED THIS FILM ... ;-)  It's a reminder to all that you could even be a "super-hero."  But without friends, you can still be nothing.
 

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The Comedian [2017]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB ()  RogerEbert.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C-)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review
Los Angeles Times (J. Chang) review
RogerEbert.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review


The Comedian [2017] directed by Taylor Hackford, story and screenplay by Art Linson along with Jeff Ross, Richard LaGravenese and Lewis Friedman) is, on its surface, a rather ugly movie about a rather ugly guy.  Robert De Niro plays "Jackie Burke" an aging comedian whose peak (playing a Jackie Gleason [wikip] [IMDb]-like character, a cop named "Eddie," in some wildly popular sitcom of yesteryear) had long since past.  Now he's grinding out a living doing the stand-up comedy circuit in decent enough "boutique comedy clubs," though not exactly "Ceasar's Palace" ... And he's reasonably funny, though mostly crude, and not particularly happy with even his realization that his best years are long behind him.

Striking in this film is that Robert De Niro (Italian American) plays in this film a character who is repeatedly, over-and-over, identified as "Jewish."   Danny DeVito (another Italian American icon) plays his brother "Ben," who runs a New York Jewish Deli.  Even De Niro's love interest played by Leslie Mann, who has a more or less obviously mobbed-up father (played by Harvey Keitel), has a GERMANIC last name -- Schiltz.

What's going on here?  There's _almost certainly_ "a story" there ... "revenge of the Italian American actors?" (and if it is, then GOOD ON THEM ;-) ... But whether or not the original intent of the film-makers was to make ALL THESE CHARACTERS "Italian American," it's an ugly film.

Jackie's a pig.  Thanks be to God,  De Niro's NOT playing an "Italian American pig" but he's still playing a pig. 

But then, that may indeed be the point ... If the film feels ugly with the characters identified as both Jewish and Aryan, why would it have felt somehow "better" if the characters were Italian or Latino?

So honestly, there's an interesting "joke" being played here ... and in a good part it's on the audience itself.

In this regard, it's not an altogether bad film after all ;-).


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Un Padre No Tan Padre [2016]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB ()  AZRepublic (4 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
FilmAffinity.es listing*

AZRepublic (R. Cordova) review
Excelsior.com.mx (A. Ruz) review*

Un Padre No Tan Padre [2017] [IMDb] [FA.es]*(directed by Raúl Martínez [IMDb] [FA.es]*, screenplay by Alberto Bremer [IMDb]) is a Mexican / Spanish language "fish out of water" comedy about Don Severando (played inspiringly by Héctor Bonilla [IMDB] [FA.es]*) an "older gentleman" SO "OLD SCHOOL" / SEVERE that the upscale Mexico City "senior retirement hotel" that he's lived in for the last 20 years has finally had enough and asks him to leave.

Okay, but where to?   Well, NONE of his five grown children want him.  Only the youngest, Francisco, going by "Fran" for short (played again magnificently by Benny Ibarra [IMDB] [FA.es]*) who lives with his long-time girl friend (played by Jacqueline Bracamontes [IMDB] [FA.es]*) and teenage son René (played by Sergio Mayer Mori [IMDB] [FA.es]*) by another relationship in a small comune at the edge of Anglo-American expat haven, notoriously "hippie / liberal" San Miguel de Allende (think Berkeley, Key West, "Big Sur" / Santa Cruz / Monterrey) is willing to take him in, if temporarily, to see if it would work...

Well, needless to say, "much ensues ..." ;-)

I just loved this movie and think that it'd be worth it for A LOT of Readers here (both Anglo and Hispanic) to see it because it reminds EVERYONE of the cultural diversity that, if one thinks about it _at all_, so clearly exists in both Mexico and across Latin America.

BOTH "Don Severando" and "Fran" / Alma and their "artist commune" exist.  Where would Diego Rivera or Frida, to say nothing of the characters populating Carlos Fuentes'  or (Colombian) Gabriel García Márquez' novels, come from?

Just a joy of a film ;-)


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The Space Between Us [2017]

MPAA ()  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  RogerEbert.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (D)  Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
Los Angeles Times (J. Chang) review
RogerEbert.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review


The Space Between Us [2017] (directed by Peter Chelsom, screenplay by Allan Loeb, story by Stewart Schill, Richard Barton Lewis and Allan Loeb) is an at times _truly_ impossible teen-oriented "crush story" (seriously, there's NO WAY _in this universe_ that the story's two "star crossed lovers" could talk to each other (one on Mars, the other in Colorado) in an online chat, with even the speed of light at a mere 186,000 miles/sec, the distances involved, tens of millions to hundreds of millions of miles, are simply too great).  Nevertheless, putting aside this fairly elementary and yet (as of now) utterly insurmountable telecommunications problem -- our deep space probes operate using a mix of artificial intelligence / instructions sent to them ahead of time and report their findings back to earth minutes to hours after the fact -- it's _not_ an awful weepy teen-oriented "crush story." 

PARENTS SHOULD NOTE that there is a scene in which the two teens in question - the lankly Mars-born "Gardner" (played by Asa Butterfield) and the actually quite similarly rootless, shuttled from one-foster-home-to-another "Tulsa" (played by Britt Robertson) DO end up _sharing a sleeping bag_ together ... -- during a truly beautiful "starry night" out in the Arizona desert on their way to find "Gardner's" father (Gardner's mother, an astronaut only found out that she was pregnant 2 months into a mission to Mars ... and dies soon after giving birth to him on the red planet). 

Was that scene WISE or even NECESSARY? -- let's remember that Shakespeare settled his narrative problem of what to do with his two enamored "star crossed teens" in Romeo & Juliet by having them get married secretly by Friar Lawrence (and it would seem that Gardner's mother was married _secretly_ by an Arizona Shaman to Gardner's father before her departure to Mars ;-).  Still the film's wink to "Okay, teens it's okay to shack-up if only for one night, if the night is TRULY BEAUTIFUL / romantic" will irritate a fair number of parents ... and REQUIRE COMMENT (and condemnation) by a Church authority such as me (it's part of our job).

But okay, so the story's science is flawed and in the above point morally questionable.  Still, what a great teen romance: He from Mars, raised by astronauts who didn't necessarily expect that to be part of their job, she born and yet quite lonely here on Earth -- So what's a few hundred million miles distance when TRUE LOVE [TM] is involved ;-).

So all in all, it's NOT an awful sappy teen-age love story ;-) and with regard to _this film genre_ does one necessarily demand "more"?


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Gold [2016]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (L)  RogerEbert.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
Los Angeles Times (R. Abele) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller-Seitz) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review


Gold [2016] (directed by Stephen Gaghan, screenplay by Patrick Massett, John Zinman) is a quite-engaging if thoroughly seemy "hard-boiled" / "gonzo-ish" story, loosely based on a 1990s mining scandal involving Bre-X a Calgary-based mining company founded by Canadian businessman David Walsh. 

Walsh's firm had a quite unimpressive track-record until ... he took a big gamble and on the advise of a geologist named John Felderhof set-out to develop a potential gold-strike in the jungles of Borneo, Indonesia.  The initial estimate of the potential of site, reported by the site's first project manager Michel de Guzman, a geologist from the Philippines, suggested that it could become one of the largest gold strikes in history.  That estimate, of course, proved to be a fraud and ... much, much intrigue (and litigation) ensued.  But with so many players -- optimistic and/or flat-out crooked geologists, a wannabee big-shot Canadian businessman arguably way out of his depth, all kinds of higher-flying investors from Toronto and beyond (read NYC), and then the requisite corrupt / corruptable wierdos that one would find the notoriously "crony-capitalist" state that was Indonesia under Suharto -- who (all) was scamming who?   Famed Rolling Stone journalist Hunter Thompson would have cut-off his right arm to tell _this tale_. 

And so a fictionalized version is told here.  David Walsh of Calgary, Canada becomes Kenny Wells of Reno, Nevada (played quite inspiringly by Matthew McConaughey).  Geologists John Felderhof and Michel de Guzman are conflated into the character of Michael Acosta (played by Edgar Ramírez).  Together Wells and Acosta set-out, up one of Borneo's Rivers and come to a seemingly random location (literally revealed to Wells in a dream) and there they start digging, and digging and ... finding nothing.  Finally, after a month-long bout with malaria that nearly killed him, Wells wakes-up only to informed by Acosta that ... OMG they found GOLD!  Lots of it, indeed POSSIBLY the largest gold strike of all time. Wells goes back home to Reno to line-up investors and as the reports get Bigger and BIGGER ... soon even Wall Street wants a piece of the pie (and arguably pretty-much THE WHOLE PIE).  In the midst of all this "gold fever" the ONLY ONE with any sense seemed to be Wells' long-time Reno-barmaid girlfriend Kay (played by Bryce Dallas Howard) who warns Wells to just get out while he can ...

Well, of course, he doesn't ... and ... well ... when the "... hits the fan ..." there are A LOT OF PEOPLE who are ... "VERY, VERY UNHAPPY" ;-/.

When one thinks about it, even the very idea of going into a place like Suharto's Indonesia IN SEARCH OF _GOLD_ would seem like A REALLY STUPID IDEA.  Even if the gold was there, could they possibly extract it, make money on it, and LIVE TO TELL ABOUT IT? 

Certainly though it makes for one heck of a story and (one would hope) cautionary tale.  This was ONE HECK OF A "TIGER" that Matthew McConaughey's character was "petting."  Don't do this at home ...


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A Dog's Purpose [2017]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  RogerEbert.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
Los Angeles Times (K. Walsh) review
RogerEbert.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (K. Rife) review


A Dog's Purpose [2017] (directed by Lasse Hallström, screenplay by W. Bruce Cameron, Cathryn Michon, Audrey Wells, Maya Forbes and Wally Wolodarsky based on the book [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by W. Bruce Cameron [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) is a LOVELY, largely "can't miss" FEEL-GOOD FAMILY MOVIE unless one's some kind (perhaps any kind) of extremist -- the kind that would simultaneously be offended by the possibility that dogs would have souls AND that (to make dogs different from people) dogs would "reincarnate" rather than "go to heaven."  Anyone who's ever had a dog or loved a dog would know that "there's something in that dog" that's "a lot like us" and perhaps _better_ than us.  The other kind of extremist who'd get mad at this film would be of the PETA variety, who'd pretty much require that a dog write the screenplay and direct the film him/herself (and _that_ "would be hard" because they'd always get distracted by squirrels ;-).

So ... if you _just love dogs_ then this film will probably be for you ;-) -- and let the protesters (I was shocked when I heard that there were folks who have already verbally protested this film) be.

The film is about a dog, or the soul of a dog, (voiced throughout by Josh Gad) who's trying to figure out why he/she exists.  Being a dog is largely _fun_ but ... "there has to be more to it / life" than that.  And so we follow said dog cycle through various incarnations -- Bailey, Ellie, Tino, Buddy -- as he (and at least one time, she) tries to figure out "what it's all about."  The story goes full circle when he is incarnated as Buddy and ends-up incarnating in the environs of where Bailey used to stomp and becomes part of the lives of two humans, Ethan and Hannah (played as teenagers by K.J. Apa / Britt Robertson and as 50+ year olds and Dennis Quaid / Peggy Lipton respectively) again.  (Note that Bailey entered into Ethan's life when Ethan was 8 years old and is played by Bryce Gheisar as well).  Much QUITE PREDICTABLE but CUTE ensues ...

All told, I thoroughly enjoyed this film and would recommend it to most parents / families to watch happily together.


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The Founder [2016]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB ()  RogerEbert.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (B)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review
Los Angeles Times (J. Chang) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller-Seitz) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review


The Founder [2016] (directed by Jack Lee Hancock, screenplay by Robert Siegal) tells the compelling (!) if not necessarily pretty story of the origins of certainly the largest fast-food franchise company, McDonald's, in history.

While as yet hearing surprisingly _no buzz_ for this film, I'd certainly say that Michael Keaton simply DESERVES OSCAR CONSIDERATION for his role as Ray Kroc [wikip] [IMDb] the one-time traveling huckster / salesman from Oak Park, Arlington Heights, Des Plaines, Illinois (suburban Chicago) who turned the "one miracle stand" operation of the McDonald brothers - Richard ("Dick") and Maurice ("Mac") (played in the film by Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch respectively) - of San Bernardino, California into the multibillion dollar multinational McDonald's corporation.

How'd he do it?  He'd say ... persistence.  And one would have to say, a definite level of _meanness_, there were _definitely_ "some eggs" that were "cracked" to make _this_ "Egg McMuffin..."

But honestly, what a(n American) story!  Call it this year's rendition of The Master [2014] (a film inspired by the life of Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard) or Joy [2015] (a film about QVC / Home Shopping Network sensation Joy Mongano inventor of the "the self-wringing mop" ;-).  It's a story that's both trivial / _banal_ AND ... compelling / _worth telling_ ...

Excellent film!


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