Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life [2016]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review
Los Angeles Times (K. Walsh) review
RogerEbert.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (J. Hassenber) review


Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life [2016] (directed by Steve Carr, screenplay by Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer and Kara Holden based on the book [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by James Patterson [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb], Chris Tebbetts [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb] and Laura Park [GR] [Amzn]) is a fun if slanted (naturally against "the Man") Ferris Bueller [1986]-like diversion about a contemporary American suburban Junior High / Middle School (from Hell) where the chief "devil", Principal Dwight (played by Andrew Daly), clearly found the current test-score-driven "state of affairs" in the American school system to his liking. 

Indeed, some 10 years back he published a school hand-book with at least 86 rules (or was it over 130 ...) that he enforced without exception to produce a school full of autonomons, who unsurprisingly tested _really, really well_ ;-).  The motivational slogans in the hallways included: "Assimilate," "Listen to your Teachers," "Authority is Good."  (Well kids, please do listen to your teachers, but teachers / principal please be well rounded / empathetic _enough_ to be worthy of being listened to ;-). 

Of course, in this film Principal Dwight (no doubt named after Eisenhower, though _he_ actually was _very liked by his troops_ ... it was MacArthur who was more of the "prima dona" ...)

Anyway, into this little "suburban North Korea"  falls a seventh grader named Rafe (played wonderfully by Griffen Gluck ;-).  (Seriously folks AS A COMPANION PIECE, if you'd like to see a remarkable documentary about _an actual otherwise cute-as-a button_ little North Korean girl who _really_ was going to a true "school from Hell" (in North Korea) find / rent Under the Sun [2015] available for streaming on vudu.com. It's WELL WORTH THE VIEW).

Well ... Rafe had some issues.  His little "Irish twin brother" (15 months apart) died of cancer a couple of years back, and his parents (mom, played in this film again quite excellently by Lauren Graham) broke-up over the death.  As such, Rafe had retreated into his own world for a couple of years, doodling quite creatively into a special notebook of his, and ... as such found himself _not performing well in school_ enough so that at story's start, he had been expelled already from two schools and this "Academy" again "from Hell" seemed to be "his last stop."

So ... soon it's "game on" ... Principal Dwight vs this  quite sensitive / creative 12 year old, half-orphan named Rafe.  Who's gonna win?  Well ... guess ;-) ...

Folks, this is a cute if more-or-less obviously slanted film.  And I do have to say that BOTH of the Principals that I worked with in my years at Annunciata Parish on Chicago's South East Side WERE VERY NICE PEOPLE and while _yes_ there were some rules, WE ALSO HAD A REMARKABLE ART PROGRAM and OUR SCHOOL'S KIDS ALWAYS DID REALLY WELL both at Annunciata and IMHO even more remarkably AFTER THEY LEFT.  There were years when _our entire graduating class_ went on to make the Honor Rolls of EVERY SINGLE HIGH SCHOOL that our kids went-on to attend.  Honestly, this was quite a remarkable achievement ... and honestly most of our kids left our school with good memories / smiling ;-)

That said, this was a fun / cute film and does ask (ADULTS above all) the question: Where do we want to put our priorities? in simply rules or in training our kids for life?

All in all, a quite good / excellent children's / family film.


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Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children [2016]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  RogerEbert.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (1 Star)

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


Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children [2016] (directed by Tim Burton, screenplay by Jane Goldman based on the book [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by Ransom Riggs [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) will certainly confuse many viewers, intrigue others (as they begin to understand what's being attempted here) and finally disappoint still more.

For honestly, both the book(s) and the current film largely comprise a rather intriguing project.  Whether Readers of the book(s) and/or Viewers of the current film will find the project successful will largely depend on whether they believe that the well of contemporary (Anglo) young adult culture is deep enough to allow one to simply take even a fairly wide array of motifs / elements from said contemporary culture and blend them in a novel way to produce _a new story_ that wouldn't feel, well, "derivative."

So the story here involves a young Harry Potter-ish teen named Jake (played by Asa Butterfield) who instead of living in England begins the story growing-up in a nondescript, suburban-like town somewhere in Florida.  In every way (and not unlike Bella of the Twilight Saga) it would seem that Jake was utterly average, except, of course, he was not.  Indeed, like Harry Potter, it turns out that there are beings, who seem to live on the edge of this realm and another one, who want to get him.  Why?  Well, that's (necessarily) initially "unclear" ... 'cept he has a LOTR-like Gandalf-ish-like grandfather (played by Terence Stamp) who's spent most of Jake's childhood trying to "protect" him from the forces that would want to kill him and _instructing him_ (through what seemed to be rather fanciful tales) as to the forces that he would one day encounter.

Well early in the story, coming home from work (as a common stock-boy at a giant Walmart-like store) he finds that his grandfather was not at home but rather had been apparently dragged-out of his home (by something?) into the swampy woods behind their suburban Florida home.  There, in the swampy woods behind their otherwise quite contemporary suburban Florida home, Jake finds his Gandalf-y grandfather mortally wounded.  And Gandalf-y grandpa's last words evoked in Jake's memory a particular story that he had told him about his youth as a war-orphan (Jewish?) from Poland ... in 1940s Narnia-like England, er Wales, that Jake (and his reluctant family) then pursue ...

When Jake and his reluctant dad (played by Chris O'Dowd) who honestly had thought his dad (Jake's Gandalf-y grandpa) was always a bit on the extravagant ("nuts") side come to Wales, they find that the house that he would talk about had actually been abandoned decades ago, destroyed by a quite random bomb during a German air-raid.  'Cept, of course ... Jake happens upon (at the time, he doesn't even know how) another, (again) somewhat Narnia-ish, way to enter into the house (and back into time ...) when the house was NOT destroyed at all.

And that's when the heart of the story really begins, when Jake enters into the house that Miss Peregrine (played quite wonderfully by IMHO quite perfectly cast Eva Green) maintained for "Peculiar Children" (children with X-Men-like "gifts" that made them hard to "fit in" in the world of their time).  Grandpa had been one of those children with a "peculiar gift" and it turned out that Jake was one as well ...

Much ensues ...

Among that which ensues makes obvious (and creative / amusing) reference to both films as varied as the quite silly (yet definitely memorable / enjoyable) Ground Hog Day [1993] where "everyday was the same day, until..." and the great young adult melodrama (circa 1910 / 1990 ;-) Titanic [1997] ;-).

It's all _quite creative_ and almost perfectly tailored for the aesthetics of a film-maker like Tim Burton [wikip] [IMDb].

My ONE (but BIG) complaint would be that, "out of the blue" the CHIEF VILLAIN in the story becomes "a crazed black man" (!?) (played actually quite well, but ... by Samuel L. Jackson) who turns out to be THE ONLY PERSON OF COLOR IN THE ENTIRE FILM.

Why? Why? Why?  Why must the CHIEF VILLAIN IN THE FILM be THE ONLY PERSON OF COLOR IN THE FILM ?

Why?

Is _that_ "part of contemporary (Anglo) youth culture" as well?  I hope not ...

Reluctantly 1 Star ... despite some genius otherwise.


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The Magnificent Seven [2016]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  RogerEbert.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (1/2 Star)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
Los Angeles Times (K. Turan) review
RogerEbert.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review


The Magnificent Seven [2016] (directed by Antoine Fuqua, screenplay by Richard Wenk and Nic Pizzolatto based on screenplay for The Seven Samurai [1954] by Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni) while perhaps improving the rather still rather racist underpinnings of the 1960 version (where the heroes were basically "white guys" and both the poor / largely "defenseless" victims and _especially_ the villains were "south of the border darker complected Mexicans" ...), quite shockingly (honestly) with the single clear exception of a "righteousness seeking" heroine, a widow named Emma Cullen (played by Haley Bennett), who in the film actually hires the Seven to bring justice to her town, _every_ woman in the film (every last one) is either anonymous or a prostitute and usually both.   It's really a stunning oversight -- reducing "the women folk" in the film basically to the status of being props -- especially since at least _part of the drive_ to "re-tell this story" was almost certainly to correct the rather lazy / unreflective racism of the 1960 version.   But there it is ... what were the film's producers thinking?  I asked the same question regarding the stupid unthinking racism of Despicable Me 2 [2013] (an otherwise utterly adorable film with the single exception that BOTH of the villains in that story were Mexicans, one with hygiene issues ... sigh, WHY?? Didn't the makers of that film realize that 1/3 of their audience would have otherwise been ADORABLE HISPANIC KIDS??  Here, M7-2016 becomes a really odd sort of a "date movie" -- where younger couples could perhaps discuss if one or both still really believed that women even today should strive to "just shut up and look pretty / slutty."  Sigh ... once again, WHY?)

So ... aside from that ... what else to say about the movie? ;-)

The Mag 7 here becomes quite racially diverse -- including a stately / imposing African American lawman Chisolm (played by Denzel Washington), his friends, a former Confederate sniper (played by a goateed Ethan Hawke) and a card playing / whiskey drinking good-ole-boy (played by Chris Pratt) who've in turn befriended a dagger-wielding Samarai-ish Asian immigrant (played by Brung-hun Lee) and Mexican Zoro-ish outlaw (played by Manuel Garcia-Ruflo) and then a still-scalp-collecting relic of a mountain man (played by Vincent D'Onofrio) and a bow-and-arrow Native American Comanche prodigy (played by Martin Sensmeier) who had been told by his elders that he "just doesn't fit in" ;-).  Again, too bad the _only_ women around seem to be period-corset-wearing hookers... and then THE ONE RIGHTEOUS WOMAN just wanting Justice (though she'd "settle for vengeance if only that were possible" ...).

Then though following current PG-13 conventions that seem to allow almost unlimited amount of mayhem / destruction so long as minimal blood is shown, I honestly was surprised the film was rated PG-13.  In spirit it's certainly an R.

Finally Christian religion has a surprising (and IMHO problematic) presence in this film.  Very quickly the film's chief villain (played by Peter Sarsgaard) literally a "Robber Baron" (stealing the land of the honest poor and rendering women widows and children orphans) declares himself to be merely "a Capitalist doing God's Will."  Thank you very much.  Yes, there were ALWAYS nutjobs like this in American history, from the Robber Barons of the Old West to some of their spiritual descendants today.  However, THANKFULLY the film seems to improve upon its theology as the story progresses.   Both African American lawman Chisolm and the widowed honest woman Haley offer more honest / morally sound interpretations of traditional Christian faith.  Still, I do believe that a lot people of faith will be simply appalled by chief villain's initial announcement and if not leave the theater outright, certainly shut the film-off in their minds from then on.

So what then would be my "final judgement" on this obviously quite flawed remake?   In general "yuck."  It's a film that will offend both _many women_ and _many Christians_ and while not drenched in blood, that's only because the current rating system allows violent film-makers to have it both ways -- allowing them to "shoot up a storm" and pretend that the bullets flying everywhere don't have any consequences.  The film's a lie.


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Deepwater Horizon [2016]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  RogerEbert.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
Los Angeles Times (J. Chang) review
RogerEbert.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review


Deepwater Horizon [2016] (directed by Peter Berg, screenplay by Matthew Michael Carnahan and Matthew Sand based on the NYT article by David Barstow [wikip], David Rohde [wikip] [IMDb] and Stephanie Saul [NYT] [IMDb]) dramatizes the final hours of the Deepwater Horizon off-shore oil drilling rig, which exploded on April 20, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico after a well blowout, resulting in one of the most spectacular industrial disasters in memory and the worst oil spill in U.S. waters in history.

What happened?  As the name of the ill-fated rig already implies, the rig and its crew were pushing the limits (the horizon) of deep-sea (deepwater) oil drilling.  To do so, they were inevitably taking risks.  Both the article and the current film note that the rig was not particularly well maintained (there is the temptation when "pushing the envelope" to let more "mundane" maintenance concerns take a back seat...).  Added to this, British Petroleum, which contracted the rig from Transocean (the rig's owner), was pressuring Transocean to get the particular well that the rig was drilling _done_ (it was over 50 days behind schedule) so that the rig/crew could proceed to BP's next project (that it had _also_ already contracted Transocean for).  So there was commercial pressure as well to go faster with this project than would have been smart or prudent.  Well ...

While the film simplifies some of the dynamics -- BP was definitely cast as the villain in the film, while the original NYT article put more attention on Transocean's own cutting corners in neglecting both maintenance and emergency preparedness protocols -- the film IMHO does capture, and quite viscerally, the horror of a _really big disaster_ exploding upon a rather complacent crew accustomed to getting by on quick-wits (as necessary) and ... luck.  This time the roulette wheel spun terribly, terribly wrong ... Even the best bronco-rider can sometimes be thrown-off his horse in a particularly bad way and ... stomped.  Here the oil well exploded, 11 of the Deepwater Horizon's crew died in the explosion / subsequent fires and the environmental damage caused by oil disaster remains simply incalculable.

Heroics of the crew aside, the greater society has the right to ask the question: Should that crew have been out there drilling for oil "in our name" in the first place?

An excellent / thoroughly thought provoking film about a tragedy that on multiple levels, honestly, didn't need to happen.


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Storks [2016]

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

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


Storks [2016] (directed and screenplay cowritten by Nicholas Stoller along with Doug Sweetland) makes for a remarkably insightful (or at least hopeful) children's parable about priorities.

Where do babies come from?  Well, storks, of course, bring them to families that wanted them.  I don't know if that was the explanation my folks used when I first asked this question, but I always liked it as a nice age appropriate explanation for young kids who couldn't possibly understand the real answer ;-).

Well if this was the case -- that storks bring babies into the world to families that wanted them -- in the past generation this has proven to be a problem: Both storks and (potential) parents found babies to be ... well kind of a hassle.  So ... (potential) parents _stopped_ asking for babies _and_ storks led by a particularly "business savy" head stork (voiced by Kelsey Grammer) "repositioned" the storks into "delivering" less problematic items -- consumer electronics -- for a new (and omnipresent) Amazon-like company called "cornerstore.com";-). 

And nobody, neither the storks nor people, seemed to mind until ... a somewhat neglected little boy named Nate Gardner (voiced by Anton Starkman) asked his ever-on-their-cell-phones parents Henry and Sarah (voiced by Ty Burrell and Jennifer Aniston) -- running some sort of a real estate business out of their home -- that he'd REALLY WANT "a baby brother" to play with.  How to fit _that_ in?  The parents initially are _definitely_ NOT "on board."  So ... Nate decides to "write the storks" himself. 

Well the storks "aren't in the baby delivery business anymore" anyway.  So the letter is destined to be "returned to sender" BUT ... BY HAPPENSTANCE ... this letter manages to get through, and the LONG MOTHBALLED "baby making machine" up there on a perch on a faraway mountain in the clouds, starts-up and makes a CUTE AS A BUTTON baby for Nate.  And ... seeing this cute as a button baby ("after all these years") despite calls by the "head stork" to "not get distracted" and just continue to deliver the consumer electronics that they're now delivering, the CUTE AS A BUTTON baby proves FAR MORE INTERESTING (first to the storks and _eventually_ to potential parents) and ... the rest of the story ensues ... ;-)

It's honestly A LOVELY STORY ... PEOPLE (and especially KIDS) prove FAR MORE INTERESTING than "stuff" ;-)

Great job folks!  GREAT JOB! ;-)


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Bridget Jones's Baby [2016]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J.P. McCarthy) review
Los Angeles Times (K. Walsh) review
RogerEbert.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review 

Bridget Jones's Baby [2016] (directed by Sharon Maguire, screenplay by Helen Fielding, Dan Mazer and Emma Thompson, based on story and characters by Helen Fielding [wikip] [GR] [IMDb]) is a charming (if not necessarily demanded) "Part III" of a story that charmed "back in the day" fifteen years ago when the first film, Bridget Jones's Diary [2001] first came out.  But there it is.  Clutsy, endearing, everywoman/everyperson Bridget Jones (played wonderfully as ever by Renée Zellweger) finds herself "celebrating" alone, yet again, on her 43rd birthday (How?  See the movie, and most will immediately understand... It could honestly happen to anybody, but it still hurts). 

But our often unlucky heroine didn't not let her, yet again, quite lousy birthday get her down ;-).  She now had a (pretty) great job as a producer of a "hard-hitting" (if tabloidish) News Program called "Hard News" where her über-focused / no-nonsense anchor Miranda (played by Sarah Solemani) would take her guests (often enough quite awful/unsavory despots and/or their henchmen) to a (quite comfortable-looking) "sofa" for questioning.  (Think Monty Python's "Spanish Inquisition" -- "Bring out ... the comfy chair" ;-) ;-).   Of course, Bridget, the producer, would often get distracted by other things and feed Miranda (into whose earpiece she'd be talking) wildly inappropriate questions and comments that would, of course, "make the show" even as the questions / comments would undermine it.

Miranda, about the same age as Bridget, thankful for Bridget's unscripted goofiness (as it paid _her bills_ as well), decides that what Bridget really needs is to "hookup with a man" and get one epic ...  So she takes her to a contemporary Woodstock-like music festival complete with quite tidy Mongolian hookup "yurts" (part of the thematics of film appeared to be how everything today, even raunchy no-holds barred hedonism is actually quite scripted and sanitized today).  There she does, in fact, hook-up with an American looker (played by Patrick Dempsey) named "Jack."  A week later, at a far more traditional / staid Christianing she runs into her old and far-more stiff  British boyfriend Mark Darcy (played by Colin Firth).  Despite her/their better judgement, the two end up spending the night together as well. 

A number of weeks later, Bridget finds herself pregnant, and of course, doesn't know by whom, and ... in typical Bridget Jones fashion can't seen to find an easy way to tell either of the other.  Much of course ensues ...

It makes for _a strange_ sort of comedy to write about (positively) on a Catholic blog ;-).  But underneath the story is actually a more-or-less consistent bias toward the traditional.  Yes, Bridget is a klutz.  Yes, her good yet ever-stiff ex is often incredibly boring (even to himself).  BUT ... in the end both are more authentic, more "made for each other" than the faux "über-self-realized" (nominally "far more perfect") others who surround them.


Strange as it may be, this is a goofy, middle-aged rom-com that leaves one with much to think about ;-).  (Pretty) good job!



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Blair Witch [2016]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (K. Jensen) review
Los Angeles Times (J. Chang) review
RogerEbert.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review 


Blair Witch [2016] (directed by Adam Wingard, screenplay by Simon Barrett) is a rather benign "20 years later" sequel (wow, it's been nearly twenty years...) to The Blair Witch Project [1999] which, "back in the day" had really "turned heads" / caught the attention of movie goers and movie producers alike.  Yes, the original BWP was the very first film built around the "lost footage" device that has become part-and-parcel of horror / "scary movies" ever since. 

So how does the sequel do?  To be honest, "Eh, pretty well..." IMHO ;-).  Indeed, I'm somewhat surprised at the R-rating (for language mostly and, yes, least one of the "college aged couples" going out into Maryland's "Black Hills Forest" in search of "what really happened to Holly" (one of the college aged women who disappeared in the first film) more-or-less clearly set-out to do so with the expectation of sharing a tent together (They die, of course ... But then, in the "Shakespeare as a teen" (as HE _could_ have been "back in HIS DAY...") ETHOS of the whole "lost footage genre" ... they ALL "kinda have to die ..." ;-)

The technology of course is updated, reminding us today of JUST HOW HUGE the "state of the art" handheld "minicams" of 1999 still were.  In the current film, the characters wear "flash cams" mounted to blue-tooth style earpieces, the batteries powering them presumably being no larger those powering today's hearing aids.  One character even brings along a little plastic "Walmart Special" four propeller helicopter drone ;-). 

None of this technology, however, is a match for the well-timed-to-be-scary "wind gust" or random howl of some random animal, wild or domestic, in the distance.  Add rain (and the mud it produces) and between shaky cams and shaky flashlights, it all makes for one heck of a low budget, and quite believable "scary high school / college camping story" ;-). 

The best comment about the film that I've heard came from the teenager who sold me the ticket as I went to see it.  I asked: "So did you see it yet?"  "No, and I don't plan to.  I'm just a big scardy cat" ;-)  Scardy cat indeed ... ;-)

Folks, this is not Citizen Kane [1941], nor even Psycho [1960].  But for teenagers and those who _were_ teenagers "back in (some) day" who used to go hiking or camping, it spins a pretty good tale ... ;-)

Not bad really, not bad at all ;-)


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