Movie/TV Reviews

Susan Granger’s review of “The Bling Ring” (A24 Films)

 

If ever a movie was designed to induce parental anxiety, this is it – as acquisitive Southern
California teenagers go on an intoxicating, guilt-free burglary spree in the Hollywood Hills, excitedly chirping, “Let’s go shopping!”

Dazzled by the luxurious excess they see on television and in fashion magazines, the group is
headed by ringleader Rebecca (Katie Chang), who befriends shy, socially awkward Indian Hills High School newcomer Mark (Israel Broussard), along with nervy Chloe (Claire Julien) and Nicki (Emma Watson), her younger sister Emily (Georgia Rock) and their ‘adopted’ sister Sam (Taissa Farmiga); the latter three are home-schooled by their ditsy mom (Leslie Mann) whose curriculum draws from the self-help best-seller “The Secret.”  After consulting stalker websites, they target the palatial and surprisingly un-protected homes of indulgent fashionistas Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Audrina Patridge, Megan Fox, Rachel Bilson, Miranda Kerr and Orlando Bloom, among others. Apparently, none of these high-profile celebrities ever installed a burglar-alarm, and Hilton conveniently left her house key under the front-door mat. The teen intruders’ haute-couture haul in glittery designer loot was said to exceed three million dollars.

Based on a real-life crime spree which sparked the 2010 Vanity Fair article, “The Suspects Wore
Louboutins,” by Nancy Jo Sales, the flimsy, atmospheric script by director Sofia Coppola should be a cautionary caper, a societal fable about materialism and amorality. Problem is: as evidenced by “Marie Antoinette,” “Lost in Translation” and “Somewhere,” Coppola seems not only blatantly besotted with the idle rich but also enticed and titillated by their vacuous extravagance. As a
result, there’s too little about the consequences of inept parenting and cocaine addiction.

Nevertheless, Coppola elicits clueless, yet convincing performances from her tweeting,
texting cast, particularly Israel Broussard, prancing in fuchsia stilettos, and Emma Watson, shedding her “Harry Potter” Hermione persona. Not surprisingly, publicity-hungry hotel heiress Hilton allowed Coppola to film her lavishly decorated home and her chocked-full, candy-box closet.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Bling Ring” is a shallow yet scary 6, superficially
documenting a banal youth culture of self-surveillance.

 

 

Susan Granger’s review of “The East” (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

 

Former FBI agent, Sarah (Brit Marling) is now a hotshot operative for Hiller/Brood, a secretive security firm that specializes in espionage for pharmaceutical and corporate clients.  When her no-nonsense boss (Patricia Clarkson), dispatches her to infiltrate a radical environmental group that
calls itself The East, she tells her live-in boyfriend Tim (Jason Ritter) she’s traveling in Dubai.

But instead of boarding an international flight, steely Sarah adroitly exits the D.C. airport, dyes her hair, changes into grubby clothes, dons a backpack and hops a freight train, going off the grid to find this anarchist collective. Sure enough, one of her traveling companions turns out to be a member of the creepy, cult-like cell she’s seeking. Despite some initial mistrust, she’s taken to their headquarters, a burnt-out house in the woods and gets on with their scruffy, strangely taciturn leader, Benji (Alexander Skarsgard from TV’s “True Blood”), and his cohorts, including Doc (Toby Kebbell) and Izzy (Ellen Page). Before long, she’s embedded herself in their vengeful, punitive “jams” or calculated retaliations against smarmy corporate executives.

“Spy on us, we’ll spy on you,” they vow. “Poison us, we’ll poison you.”

Written by Brit Marling and director Zal Batmanglij, the story’s filled with curious communal rituals – like having the group’s members wear straitjackets to dinner, symbolically forcing them to feed each other off big wooden spoons that they grip between their teeth, followed by an awkwardly childish spin-the-bottle game and submissive baptism. Soon, the Stockholm syndrome sets in, as now-radicalized Sarah feels a growing empathy for their anti-Establishment missions and becomes more and more conflicted about being an informant. How will she cope with this moral dilemma?

Brainy actress/writer Brit Marling epitomizes the initiative of the New Hollywood, working in collaboration with Zal Batmanglij to create relevant projects for themselves, including “Another Earth” and “The Sound of My Voice.”

On the Granger Movie Gauge of to 10, “The East” is a shrewd, suspenseful 7, a low-tech, cerebral thriller that raises your social consciousness while oozing a pervasive sense of conspiracy and danger.

Susan Granger’s review of “The Kings of Summer” (CBS Films)

 

Amid the glut of action-packed popcorn pictures and recycled comedy franchises, this refreshingly touching and genuinely funny low-budget, independent dramedy stands tall.

The coming-of-age story revolves around three conflicted teenage boys – Joe (Nick Robinson) and
Patrick (Gabriel Basso), best friends since childhood, and their odd, eccentric tagalong, Biaggio (Moises Arias).  School’s out, leaving them in limbo, caught between tantalizing freedom and imprisonment by their overbearing parents. So they decide to run away from home, build their own ramshackle cabin in an idyllic grove, located deep in the nearby woods, and live off the land. It’s not too difficult to borrow tools, scavenge and salvage materials from construction sites and dumpster-dive for scraps, particularly when there’s a Boston Market conveniently within walking distance.  Wielding axes and swords, they are intrepid adventurers.

But, while they border on maturity, these naïve adolescents still have some important life lessons to learn. There’s plenty of drama in Chris Galletta’s episodic script. Conflict surfaces most often between gawky Joe and his cranky, still grieving widower father (Nick Offerman), plus there’s an interlude of unrequited love which threatens the boys’ friendship and tests their loyalty, along with quirky Monopoly mayhem.

The film’s vivid, bucolic montages, revealing them racing through pastoral fields, climbing trees,
splashing in the river, jumping off quarry cliffs and staging an impromptu jam session, banging on pipes, were captured when director Jordan Vogt-Roberts (TV’s “Funny or Die”) took his actors into the woods near Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and filmed them – just fooling around, improvising – enhanced by off-tempo music and off-kilter editing.

Reminiscent of “Stand By Me,” “Moonrise Kingdom,” even the similarly-themed “Mud,” it’s a simple, yet timeless, emotionally engaging, irresistibly likeable fantasy with a supporting cast that includes Megan Mulally, Marc Evan Jackson, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Alison Brie, Erin Moriarty and Thomas Middleditch.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Kings of Summer” is a compelling 8, cleverly capturing a poignant, formative interlude.

Susan Granger’s review of “The Internship” (20^th Century-Fox)

 

The line between a legitimate feature film and a product placement-filled infomercial grows
thinner than ever with this underdog comedy set on the Google campus, a techie Mecca often reverently referred to as Eden.

When affable traveling salesmen Billy (Vince Vaughn) and Nick (Owen Wilson) discover that their watch company has folded, they’re in their mid-40s and out of luck in the modern workplace. While Billy takes a temporary job selling mattresses for his sister’s randy boyfriend (uncredited Will Ferrell) in Los Angeles, Nick decides to Google Google and look for a job at the giant of the high-tech world. While a brief Skype interview reveals how little these ‘dinosaurs’ know about the digital world of search engines and social networking, it somehow works in their favor because of Google’s determination to achieve age diversity among its employees.

Soon they’re on their way to a summer-long internship at Google’s corporate headquarters in
Mountain View, California, where they not only discover the free coffee, fruit and bagels but also the coveted nap-pods. But they’re not alone. There are many other aspiring programmers, called Nooglers, many of them prodigies, who yearn to spread the Silicon Valley corporate gospel, including a cynic (Dylan O’Brien), home-schooled shy guy (Tobit Raphael) and Comic-Con geek (Tiya Sircar).
Predictably, Nick flirts with a mid-level exec (Rose Byrne), and Billy trades barbs with a British bully (Max Minghella) – and neither of them comprehends the “X-Man” Prof. Charles Xavier reference.  Then there’s the bonding strategy of an awesome Quidditch match, motivated by a “Flashdance” metaphor.

Written by Vince Vaughn and Jared Stern, based on a fish-out-of-water story by Vaughn that was inspired by a “60 Minutes” segment on how Google was one of the best places to work, it’s directed by Shawn Levy (“Night at the Museum”). Although it’s being touted as a sequel to “Wedding Crashers,” it isn’t – except for a brief party scene in a San Francisco strip club.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Internship” is a tame, dreary 5. Bing anyone?

Susan Granger review of “The Purge” (Universal Pictures)

 

Admittedly, the satirical premise of this sci/fi horror story is provocative. In 2022, when the
unemployment rate is at one percent and the poverty rate below five percent, the US Government under the New Founding Fathers of America has legalized all crime, including homicide, for one 12-hour period a year to serve as a national catharsis for society’s knife-wielding, gun-toting maniacs, allowing them to commit acts of violence with no fear of retribution.  So, according to the 28^th Amendment, from 7 pm on March 21 to 7 am on March 22, anything goes.  It’s “Release the Beast” time in a “nation reborn.”  No police calls will be answered; no emergency services provided.

James Sanlin (Ethan Hawie) is his company’s most stellar salesman of home security systems, and he’s installed top-of-the-line surveillance equipment at his own luxurious McMansion within a gated community where the privileged live. While he and his wife Mary (Lena Headley) are prepared for the coming lockdown, hunkering in behind steel shutters, watching the mayhem on television, his family is thrown into chaos, particularly his teenagers, Charlie (Max Burkholder) and Zoey
(Adelaide Kane), when James accidentally kills Zoey’s older boyfriend, mistaking him for an intruder. Then there’s the very real threat posed by a homeless black man (Edwin Hodge), an injured drifter seeking sanctuary, whom Charlie has allowed into the house. When an angry mob comes looking for the man, they demand his release, threatening to ‘purge’ the entire family.

“Things like this aren’t supposed to happen in our neighborhood,” James wails.

Whether consciously or unconsciously, writer/director James DeMonaco (“Assault on Precinct 13,” “The Negotiator”) utilizes the same scary, dystopian, class-warfare concept as “The Hunger Games” but, unfortunately, the sacrificial potential for psychological suspense and tension, revolving around aggression, simply disintegrates into the idiotic gory carnage of a home-invasion thriller. And the macabre masks that the marauding mobs of Freaks wear seem like an obvious homage to “A Clockwork Orange.”

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Purge” is an improbable, yet blood-splattered 4. Interesting idea:  execrable execution.

Susan Granger’s DVD Update for week of June 7:

 

As a Florida con artist, Melissa McCarthy scams a Denver accountant, played by Jason Bateman, in
“Identity Thief,” maxing out his credit cards and tainting his good name,
turning cyber-crime into cinematic chaos.

Bruce Willis is back for the fifth time as durable New York detective John McLane, traveling to Moscow to help is estranged son in the dumbed-down, heavy-handed “A Good Day to Die Hard.”

Suburbanites, including Julia Stiles, America Ferrera and David Cross, get together to gossip
and fight in Todd Berger’s broadly drawn, dark comedy “It’s a Disaster,” facing the apocalypse in the form of nerve-gas attack on Los Angeles, while Keanu Reeves plays a mopey driver for a New York escort service in the forgettable, low-budget  “Generation Um…”

“Mental” is a hyperkinetic farce that reunites Australian director P.J. Hogan with Toni Collette, who plays a dope-smoking, knife-carrying nanny hired by the Mayor (Anthony LaPaglia) of Dolphin Heads, a coastal town in Queensland, to care for his five teenage daughters – all of whom think they have mental illness.

“The Last Ride” imagines Hank Williams’ final days with Henry Thomas (who played the child in
“E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial”) as the iconic country music superstar who became a cynical addict. And Deborah Anderson’s “Aroused”  gets up close and personal with 16 of the most successful women in the adult film industry.

For family viewing, there’s the animated “Escape from Planet Earth,” a serviceable, sci-fi, escapist diversion, teaching teamwork and preaching family loyalty and love.

For film buffs, “Perfect Understanding” is a rediscovered 1933 Ealing Studios comedy, starring
Gloria Swanson and Laurence Olivier with a screenplay by Michael Powell. There are two, new comprehensive Clint Eastwood collections, along with Mel Gibson’s “Max Max Trilogy’ on Blu-Ray.

For foreign film aficionados, “2+2” in Spanish with English subtitles is the most successful
comedy of all time in Argentina, revolving around swinging suburban couples.

PICK OF THE WEEK: Strangely sentimental, “Warm Bodies” adapts Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” with a zombie twist. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, it’s a paranormal romantic comedy in which heart, humor and the human connection conquer everything, even death.

Susan Granger’s review of “American Mary” (Anchor Bay/IndustryWorks)

 

If you’re into feminist-themed horror, this dingy medical thriller could be up your dark alley.

“You’re going to be a great slasher,” her supervisor Dr. Grant (David Lovgren) tells eager, aspiring surgeon Mary Mason (Katharine Isabelle), whose plans to continue in medical school are disintegrating because of her lack of funds. Answering an ad for a stripper, she meets sleazy sex club owner Billy Barker (Antonio Cupo), who takes one look at her impressive resume and immediately offers her $5,000 cash to stitch up a mutilated knifing victim. Soon, Mary builds a reputation as an ‘undergound’ surgeon who’s particularly adept at bizarre body modifications, coolly tackling impromptu operations that no reputable surgeon would consider. Having been drugged and raped at a doctors’ private party, Mary then quits medical school – and takes a grisly revenge on her attacker.

Meanwhile, Bloody Mary’s patient list grows. There’s a deluded doll collector who doles out
$10,000 to have Mary modify her external sex organs so she can resemble a perfectly neutered Barbie, much to the dismay of her husband. A man pays her for a new penis and then ignores her warnings about masturbation. Tongue-splitting and genital alteration is routine.

Written and directed by Jen and Sylvia Soska, the “twisted twins” who previously collaborated on cult favorite “Dead Hooker in a Trunk” (2009), this murky, low-budget schlock was made in 15 days in their hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia – with the Soska sisters playing fetishistic lesbian lovers who wish to exchange left arms, among other alterations.  Actress Katharine Isabelle, who built her reputation starring in “Ginger Snaps,” wields her scalpel and buzz saw wearing a blood-spattered butcher’s apron over black lace undergarments, stiletto heels and black latex surgical gloves.

This is just the latest in the demented doctor genre, including “Dead Ringers,” “Audition” and
“The Human Centipede.” And a modicum of credit goes to “True Blood” prosthetics artist Todd Masters.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “American Mary” is a creepy, perverted 3, a disgusting
fright flick filled with horrific imagery.

 

Susan Granger’s review of “After Earth” (Columbia/Sony)

 

Nepotism has always been part of the Hollywood firmament, but it’s sunk to a new low with
Will Smith’s vanity vehicle for his 14 year-old son Jaden, who appeared with him in “The Pursuit of Happyness” and starred in a remake of “The Karate Kid.”

Beginning on a planet called Nova Prime, it’s a survival adventure, featuring a confused, fearful cadet, Kitai (Jaden), who accompanies his heroic United Ranger Commander father, Cypher Raige (Will), on a spaceship mission that crashes on post-apocalyptic Earth, now a savage, primeval wilderness.  Since Cypher is incapacitated with badly broken legs, it’s up to Kitai to make a dangerous, four-day trek to find and ignite an emergency beacon. Not only is the Earth’s atmosphere toxic but a ferocious creature called an Ursa which was onboard has escaped and is hunting Kitai, who is haunted by visions of a childhood incident in which an Ursa killed his older sister, Senshi (Zoe Kravitz). Since the Ursa species is blind, it senses its prey by the pheromones humans release when they’re afraid. Wounded warrior Cypher has mastered a fear-suppressing technique called “ghosting,” which his son must now learn.

Working with screenwriter Gary Whitta (“Book of Eli”), writer/director M. Night Shyamalan fails once again. It’s hard to believe that after his stunning “The Sixth Sense” debut in 1999, Shyamalan has floundered with one misfire after another: “Lady in the Water,” “The Happening,” “The Last Airbender.” Not only is this father/son relationship plot blandly predictable, it’s impersonal, devoid of emotion and filled with generic details that are plainly derivative of far better sci-fi.

Will Smith robotically plays the appropriately named Cypher with stern, scowling dispassion, while adolescent, charisma-devoid Jaden whines. And they both affect an odd, garbled mid-Atlantic accent that defies designation. Since the filmmakers purportedly wrote “1,000 years of backstory,” their input must have gone into the inevitable video game spinoff.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “After Earth” is barely a boring 1 – a travesty commendable only for its sweeping cinematography, feral CG animals and menacing
atmosphere. Yawn.

Susan Granger’s review of “Now You See Me” (Lionsgate/Summit Entertainment)

 

If you enjoy David Copperfield-like illusions and are captivated by heist capers like “Ocean’s
Eleven,” I’d recommend this magic-themed heist thriller.

An introduction pulls into partnership a slick hypnotist/mentalist (Woody Harrelson), a cocky
card shark (Jesse Eisenberg), a rookie pickpocket/safecracker (Dave Franco, James’ real-life younger brother) and a feisty escape artist (Isla Fisher). Each receives a cryptic tarot card, setting up a mysterious meeting at a Manhattan apartment where they’re given a holographic blueprint for an
incredible magic act.

Within a year, the quartet, known as The Four Horsemen, is performing in Las Vegas, bankrolled by a millionaire (Michael Caine). On opening night, they teleport an audience member into the vault of a Paris bank and cause three million Euros to flutter down on the enthusiastic audience. They’re arrested by a frustrated FBI agent (Mark Ruffalo) and his Interpol partner (Melanie Laurent), who are unable to prove that they’re guilty of the theft. Then they pull off another brazen robbery in New Orleans, distributing millions of dollars to hurricane victims. Observing their spectacular stunts is a cynical debunker (Morgan Freeman), who’s built his reality show reputation by publicly exposing magicians’ secrets. What the Horsemen are ultimately up to and why propels the suspense – and I wouldn’t dream of revealing it and ruining your good time.

Suffice it to say that screenwriters Ed Solomon, Boaz Yakin and Edward Ricourt have concocted
a far-fetched plot, which French director Louis Leterrier (“Transporter,” “Clash of the Titans”) stylishly propels at a fast pace. It’s too bad more screen time isn’t devoted to the magicians’ characters, whose astonishing antics are far more interesting than FBI/Interpol jurisdictional bickering or cops ‘n’ robbers chase scenes. Nevertheless, it’s easy to be swept up in clever abracadabra as long as you’re willing to suspend disbelief and not compare it to Christopher
Nolan’s far-better “The Prestige.”

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Now You See Me” conjures up an entertaining 8, an
intriguing escapade revolving around deliberate misdirection, as in “The more you look, the less you see.”

Susan Granger’s DVD Update for week of May 31:

 

    “Dark Skies” is a dire, unsettling alien abduction thriller, starring Keri Russell (TV’s “The Americans”) and Josh Hamilton as suburban parents whose younger son has been having nightmares about a mysterious ‘sandman’ apparition by his bedside at night.

    Joe Taslim (“Fast & Furious 6”) stars in “Dead Mine,” the legend of Yasmashita’s Gold, as a treasure hunter who gets trapped in an abandoned Japanese bunker deep in the Indonesian Jungle.

    Set Suffolk, England, “The Numbers Station” is about a disgraced CIA Agent (John Cusack) given one last chance: guarding a code operator (Malin Akerman) who receives/sends secret, encrypted messages.

    “Battle Earth” is an action-packed sci-fi thriller about a young paramedic who enlists to fight for his planet when extraterrestrials invade the Earth’s atmosphere on a crash course into the Atlantic Ocean.

    Inspired by a true ghost story/murder mystery, “A Haunting at Silver Falls” follows teenagers who discover the tormented spirits of twin sisters whose father was condemned to death for their murders. And “Picture Day” follows a teenager learning the difference between sex, intimacy and friendship.

    “Dorfman in Love,” revolving around Deb Dorfman (Sara Rue), a Valley girl who’s always taken care of others, like her widower father (Elliot Gould) and stingy brother (Jonathan Chase), is an amiable romantic comedy about how she transforms her life and finds true love.

    “Of Two Minds” is Doug Blush and Lisa Klein’s award-winning documentary that explores the struggles and successes of a few of the over five million Americans living with bipolar disorder. And “The Loving Story” is the definitive account of the landmark 1967 Supreme Court decision that legalized interracial marriage: Loving v. Virginia.

    PICK OF THE WEEK: Set in the Bavarian countryside just after Germany surrendered in W.W. II, “Lore” is the coming-of-age/survival story of a German teenager (Saskia Rosendhal) who’s left in charge of her younger siblings when her parents are taken into custody for war crimes.  As they traipse thru the Black Forest, it becomes a chronicle of the triumph of the human spirit – in a class with Michael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon.” In German with English subtitles, it’s directed with stunning detachment and restraint by Australian director Cate Shortland.