Movie/TV Reviews

Susan Granger’s review of “When Did You Last See Your Father” (Sony Pictures Classics)

“When did you last see your father? Was it last weekend or last Christmas? Was it before or after he exhaled his last breath? And was it him, or was it a version of him, shaped by your own expectations and disappointments?” questions dour British poet Blake Morrison (Colin Firth), coming to terms with the life and death of his own father.
The man in question is Arthur Morrison (Jim Broadbent), a brooding, boorish country doctor, who bullies others to get his way, particularly his ever-patient wife, Kim (Juliet Stevenson), who smokes cigarettes and frequently seeks solitude, suffering from migraine headaches.
Adapted by David Nicholls (“Starter for 10”) from Blake Morrison’s 1993 confessional – and obviously therapeutic – memoir and directed by Anand Tucker (“Shopgirl,” “Hilary and Jackie”), it delves into how the loss of a parent can create in grown children confusing waves of unbridled emotion: blame, resentment, remorse, fear and pride. And it’s just as episodic, fragmentary and repetitive as those emotional moments tend to be, flashing back to Blake’s childhood memories. There’s the time Blake was humiliated by his father in front of the opposite sex, a look at his father’s suspiciously close relationship with “aunt” Beaty (Sarah Lancashire) and his father’s bout with terminal cancer.
Over the past few years, Colin Firth seems to have inherited Hugh Grant’s mantle as America’s Englishman but, this time, he’s mostly morose, except with his wife, Kathy (Gina McKee). On the other hand, Jim Broadbent can do no wrong and Matthew Beard is pitch-perfect as the teenage Blake. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “When Did You Last See Your Father?” is an unfocused, sensitive 6. It’s an agonized tear-jerker about loss and mourning.

Susan Granger’s dvd update for week of Friday, July 4th:

Dennis Quaid, William Hurt, Matthew Fox and Sigourney Weaver star in “Vantage Point,” a terrorism thriller with a terrific premise about a Presidential assassination plot. Problem is: it fizzles into a far-fetched, forgettable formula.
In “Drillbit Taylor,” genial Owen Wilson plays an AWOL Army vagrant living on a Santa Monica beach, who is hired as a bodyguard by three stereotypical dorks who have been targeted by a bully during their freshman year in high school.
Michel Gondry’s “Be Kind, Rewind” is a surprisingly sweet, if slight comedy about two Passaic, New Jersey, slackers (Jack Black, Mos Def) who accidentally erase every tape in the video store in which they work. With angry customers lining up, they agree to remake any request, from “King Kong” to “Ghostbusters” to “Driving Miss Daisy.”
Propelled by sheer talent of Angela Bassett, “Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns” continues that prolific writer/director’s fun-loving exploration of the sense and sensibility of the African-American community.
Actor/writer/producer John Cusack’s political views skew his common sense in “War, Inc.,” a mind-bogglingly awful satire set in a mythical Middle Eastern country that’s been invaded and occupied by a Halliburton-like corporation run by a former U.S. vice-president (Dan Aykroyd).
Fun-time for kids: “Bob the Builder: Let’s Build the Beach” shows the power of positive thinking, problem-solving, teamwork and follow-through, while “Fireman Sam: To the Rescue” is based on the UK television series set in the Welsh village of PontyPandy, where the Fire Brigade helps children out of all sorts of perilous situations.
PICK OF THE WEEK:  Freddie Highmore discovers a world filled with goblins, fairies and other fantastical creatures in “The Spiderwick Chronicles,” based on the best-selling book series. The two-disc special edition’s features take you further into the magical Spiderwick world.

Susan Granger’s review of “Kabluey” (Whitewater Films/Regent Releasing)

If you want to take a break from superheroes and stunts, consider this light-hearted, utterly charming low-budget screwball comedy about loneliness and alienation.
Left alone since her husband’s deployment to Iraq as a member of the National Guard, Leslie (Lisa Kudrow) is a frazzled, working mother. Frantic, she turns to her 32 year-old slacker brother-in-law, Salman (Scott Prendergast), who hasn’t a clue how to cope with his two totally undisciplined young nephews (Cameron Wofford, Landon Henninger), one of whom threatens, “I’m going to kill you.”
So Leslie gets him part-time work with BlueNexion, an incompetent company that’s barely surviving. His job is being Kabluey, the corporate mascot. That entails wearing a heavily padded, baby blue costume with a gigantic head while standing, sweltering in the sun, on the side of a remote highway, handing out flyers trying to sell office space in BlueNexion’s near-vacant building.
Writer/director/actor Scott Prendergast (last seen in the forgettable “The Hottie and the Nottie”) utilizes a kind of kooky, endearing visual comedy that harkens back to the silent films of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, blending the physicality with a droll, satiric social commentary about the toll the war in Iraq is taking on military families. It’s semi-autobiographical because, when Prendergast’s brother was backdoor drafted and sent to the Middle East, he moved in with his sister-in-law to help care for her badly behaved kids.
Still shaking shades of “Friends,” Lisa Kudrow delivers a disarmingly vulnerable performance as a truly desperate housewife – with strong support from Teri Garr, Jeffrey Dean Morgan (familiar from “Grey’s Anatomy”) Christine Taylor (Ben Stiller’s wife), Conchata Ferrell and SNL veteran Chris Parnell. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Kabluey” is a surreal 7 – with timely, touching, thought-provoking relevance.

Susan Granger’s review of “Tell No One” (Music Box Films)

Based on American author Harlan Coben’s best seller, this intricate French thriller revolves around a pediatrician whose life is turned upside-down when buried secrets from his past are unearthed.
Dr. Alexandre Beck (Francois Cluzet) and his wife Margot (Marie-Josee Croze) have been sweethearts since childhood. They’re vacationing at his family’s secluded lakeside home when, suddenly, inexplicably, Margot is abducted and brutally killed after they’ve been skinny-dipping and Alex is beaten into a coma by an unseen assailant. Eventually, a serial killer is convicted of the crime. That’s the prologue.
Eight years later, on the anniversary of the murder, Alex receives a mysterious e-mail showing what appears to be ‘live’ footage of Margot with the cryptic warning, “Tell no one. They’re watching.” About the same time, two more corpses are unearthed by the lake and the police re-open the case. Their prime suspect is Alex, whose blood has been found on the evidence. Confiding only in his friend Helene (Kristin Scott-Thomas), the lesbian lover of his champion horsewoman sister Anne (Marina Hands), Alex soon finds himself on the run not only from the police but also sinister villains, while trying to figure out what’s happening and if his beloved wife is really still alive.
Adapted by Guillaume Canet and Philippe Lefebvre and directed by Canet, it’s complicated, convoluted cinematic storytelling with an abrupt, anti-climactic resolution. Yet Cluzet’s understated performance is so compelling that you’re propelled along, particularly during cinematographer Christophe Offenstein’s breath-taking police chase, as Alex artfully dodges speeding cars while running on Paris’s perimeter highway.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Tell No One” is an eerie, suspenseful 7. In French with English subtitles, it won four Cesars (France’s Oscar equivalent), including best actor and best director.

Susan Granger’s review of “WALL – E” (Disney/Pixar)

What if mankind had to leave Earth and somebody forgot to turn off the last robot?
That’s why – in the year 2700 – little WALL-E, a Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth-Class, is still trash-compacting. Day-after-day, he dutifully glides through the toxic, post-apocalyptic wasteland, sifting through junk, forming it into neat cubes and neatly piling the detritus into scrap-skyscrapers. He’s lonely with only a cockroach for company, but he’s assembled a comfy home, filled with curious treasures, like Zippo lighters, Rubik’s Cubes and an old VHS tape of the 1969 musical “Hello, Dolly!”
One day, he finds a little green sprout. And, soon after, the Spaceship Axiom lands, depositing EVE (Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), a sleek, egg-shaped probe-droid searching for evidence that Earth is ready for re-colonization. EVE so entrances WALL-E that he hitches a ride back with her, traveling out into a distant galaxy, where he teaches the spaceship’s plump, pear-shaped, pampered passengers, who have been reclining indolently in high-tech deck chairs for 700 years, how to be human again.
Writer/director David Stanton’s (“Finding Nemo”) Pixar animators are extraordinary, elegantly conveying complex thoughts, an intricate storyline and a wide range of emotions with minimal dialogue. With his sad binocular eyes and tank-tread feet, WALL-E is immediately endearing; his expressive, metallic speech comes via Ben Buritt, the sound designer who ‘voiced’ Chewbacca, R2D2, and E.T.
WALL-E’s cautionary environmental message rings green and clear, triumphing over the rampant consumerism with great credit to Thomas Newman’s musical score which is evocative, exuberant and self-explanatory, including the “Thus Spake Zarathustra” theme from Stanley Kubrick’s classic “2001.”
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “WALL-E” is a wistful, whimsical 10. It’s a visionary robotic romance that’s destined to be one of the best pictures of the year.

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

Once upon a time, Will Smith ruled Fourth of July weekend with movies like “Independence Day” and “Men in Black.” But while this year’s entry, “Hancock,” may pique momentary interest, it’s one of his worst, like “Wild, Wild West.”
The sly comedic premise is promising: Smith plays ‘John Hancock,’ a whiskey-guzzling, profanity-spewing, grudging superhero who causes nothing but chaos whenever he catches culprits in Los Angeles – and then he saves Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), an earnest public-relations consultant. Realizing that the destructively reckless Hancock, who looks like a derelict, desperately needs an image make-over, Ray tackles the job.
“Landing is your superhero handshake,” he begins. “Don’t come in too hot, don’t come in too boozy, and don’t land on the $100,000 Mercedes.”
Invincible but not intractable, Hancock is willing to run the hazardous anger-management course but it’s obvious during the Embrey family’s traditional Thursday spaghetti-and-meatballs supper that Ray’s wife Mary (Charlize Theron) wants nothing to do with him. The tension between them and her obvious hostility suggests a backstory which, when revealed, is so mind-boggling, muddled and misguided that it makes little sense and undermines the logic and coherence of the rest of the concept, including the introduction of an irrelevant villain.
Writers Vy Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan never really develop the origins of Hancock’s character, and director Peter Berg (“The Kingdom”) relies far too much on jittery hand-held camerawork, intense close-ups and fast cutting which generate a kinetic quality that seriously undermines the story.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Hancock” is a frenetic, unfulfilling, forgettable 5. Even Will Smith looks uncharacteristically uncomfortable, although – as star and producer – one would assume he had veto power over the many misguided choices that were made on this $150 million misfire.

Susan Granger’s review of “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl” (Picturehouse)

This is a brand-new chick flick for the pre-teen set. Although it’s the fourth movie in the popular American Girl historically-themed franchise, it’s the first to garner a big-screen release.
Spunky, inquisitive Kit Kittredge (Abigail Breslin) is a Depression-era 10 year-old with a nose for a good story. It’s 1934 in Cincinnati, where the crusty editor (Wallace Shawn) at the local paper rejects her first reporting effort but not before he mentions that freelancers make a penny a word. The prospect of that financial windfall motivates Kit even more.
After her father (Chris O’Donnell) loses his car dealership, he goes to Chicago looking for work. To avoid foreclosure on the family home,  her mother (Julia Ormond) sells eggs and is taking in boarders, like Miss Bond (Joan Cusack), the ditsy mobile librarian; Miss Dooley (Jane Krakowski), the flirtatious dance-instructor; Mr. Berk (Stanley Tucci), the vaudeville magician; and grouchy Mrs. Howard (Glenne Headly) with her nine year-old son (Zach Mills).
When there’s a string of sinister robberies, the boarders’ suspicions focus on the two orphaned, homeless ‘hobo’ boys, Will (Max Thieriot) and Countee (Willow Smith), her mother has hired to help around the house. But compassionate Kit is determined to find the real culprit.
Leaving the vanity of “Barbie” and the vacuousness of “Bratz” behind, screenwriter Ann Peacock (“The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe”) and Canadian director Patricia Rozema (“Mansfield Park”) tackle gritty, relevant social issues like poverty and prejudice – while Abigail Breslin (“Little Miss Sunshine”) charms.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl” is a sweetly wholesome, unabashedly sentimental 8. And one of its producers, Julia Roberts, acknowledges there will be more American Dolls in the future.

Susan Granger’s dvd update for week of Friday, June 27:

Iconoclastic writer/director John Sayles evokes the complexities of 1950s Jim Crow Alabama in “Honeydripper” about a former blues piano-man (Danny Glover) whose dilapidated roadhouse will be taken by the sheriff (Stacy Keach) if he can’t come up with mortgage money; the soundtrack rocks!

Roland Emmerich’s “10,000 B.C.” is an intense, action-packed, prehistoric adventure. With a banal plot and minimalist dialogue, it’s a guilty pleasure for those partial to woolly mammoths. The heartwarming romantic mystery, “Definitely Maybe,” follows a precocious 10 year-old (Abigail Breslin) who questions her father (Ryan Reynolds) about the three women in his life (Isla Fisher, Elizabeth Banks, Rachel Weisz); extras include deleted scenes, insight into production design and director/actor commentaries.

If you’re into senseless, bloody violence, Martin McDonaugh’s “In Bruges” mixes dark comedy with crime as two morally conflicted gangsters (Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleason) from London are trapped in the Flemish town of Bruges in Belgium, awaiting instructions from their boss (Ralph Fiennes). In the gripping “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” a Romanian college student (Anamaria Marinca) struggles to help a friend (Laura Vasiliu) get a black-market abortion under the repressive Communist regime; the ‘extras’ include revealing interviews. Along the same lines but quite different, Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s animated “Persepolis” revolves around a young Iranian girl searching for her place in the world; what’s unusual is that it tells the story of a nation in turmoil from a child’s perspective.

For kids, ages 3-5, “Loopdidoo,” based on the popular comic books “Grabouillon,” is about a goofy dog and his five year-old owner, Petunia.

PICK OF THE WEEK: With high spirited exuberance, “Charlie Bartlett” is a tart, refreshingly clever coming-of-age tale about teens’ recreational use of prescription medications and the necessity of parental involvement.

Susan Granger’s review of “Wanted” (Universal Pictures)

Making his American feature debut, Kazakhstan-born director Timur Bekmambetov ups the ante on turning graphic comic books into big-screen adventures with this hyper-kinetic, viscerally thrilling, supercharged transformation of a nerd into a superhero.
25 year-old Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy of “Atonement,” “Last King of Scotland,” “Chronicles of Narnia”) is apathetic and riddled with anxiety; he hates his job as an account manager and his girl-friend is boffing his best-friend. Which explains why he’s immediately intrigued when Fox (Angelina Jolie) suddenly saves his life, telling him his estranged father was one of the world’s greatest assassins and recruiting him to follow in his footsteps.
Yet it’s not quite that simple. Fox works for Sloan (Morgan Freeman), who masterminds The Fraternity, a 1,000 year-old league of supersensory-trained killers pledged to carry out a binary code of vengeance hidden in the fibers of the Loom of Fate: “Kill one, save a thousand.” Their shooting specialty is curving the trajectory of bullets around obstacles and people. The Fraternity’s training methods are brutal but Gibson soon develops his dormant skills, along with growing suspicions about Sloan’s fickle finger of fate and his own destiny.
Mark Millar and J.G. Jones’ cult comic book series was adapted by Michael Brandt, Derek Haas and Chris Morgan, and Timur Bekmambetov’s resume includes “Day Watch” and “Night Watch,” Russia’s two biggest commercial hits. Inventive action and stunt work are his forte – as demonstrated by the elevated train sequences and a climactic chase on a high-speed Pendolino train, superbly photographed by Mitchell Amundsen, edited by David Brenner and orchestrated by Danny Elfman.
. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Wanted” is a wry, nascent 9, because Terence Stamp, who plays an enigmatic character, says a sequel is already in the works.

Susan Granger’s review of “Mongol” (Picturehouse)

The theatrical trailer for this ferocious historical epic is a bit misleading. It appears to revolve around Genghis Khan, the 13th century conqueror of Asia and the Middle East, when, in reality, this – the first of a trilogy – is a coming-of-age story about the nomadic boy who eventually became a great warrior
Set between 1172 and 1206, it begins with nine year-old Prince Temudgin (Odnyam Odsuren) traveling the steppes on horseback with his father, Khan Esugei, the tribal leader, en route to broker a bride from a traditional rival, the powerful Merkits. En route, they stop overnight with a lesser tribe but it’s here that Temudgin spies tall, spunky 10 year-old Borte (Bayartseteg Erdenebat) and – much to his father’s dismay – chooses her instead. (There’s a wonderful scene as the eligible girls are lined up for his perusal.) The wedding is set in five years. But en route home, Esugei is poisoned, the family yurt (a portable, circular structure with a wood frame) is looted and Temudgin is captured. Reckless but resilient, the lad is often imprisoned, yet repeatedly escapes. When he grows up (as played by Japanese star Tadanobu Asano), he then embarks on a quest not only to recapture what is rightfully his, including Borte (now played by Khulan Chuluun), but also to unite various warring factions and modernize Central Asia.
Oscar-nominated director Sergei Bodrov (“Prisoner of the Mountains”) is from Russia, a territory that was once plundered by Khan’s troops. He and screenwriter Arif Aliyev have created a solemn, somewhat ponderous family drama/adventure saga, studded with violent carnage and nuances of the exotic Kazakh culture.
In Mongolian with English subtitles, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Mongol” is a sweeping, blood-soaked 7. Beware the wrath of Khan.