Author: Jason Zingale (Page 36 of 112)

Movie Review: “Mistress America”

August 27, 2015 / Jason Zingale

Greta Gerwig, Lola Kirke, Matthew Shear, Heather Lind, Michael Chernus

Noah Baumbach

Real-life couple Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig clearly enjoy working together, but their films are far from enjoyable. The pair’s first collaboration, 2012’s “Frances Ha,” was a painfully obtuse look at self-entitled millennials living in New York City, and although “Mistress America” isn’t as bad, it covers a lot of the same ground while forcing yet another group of mostly unlikable characters down the audience’s throat. Last year, Baumbach directed a movie about a similar subject (“While We’re Young”) without Gerwig’s involvement, and the reason that film was such a success is because it skewered the faux-intellectual hipster crowd from the outside looking in. The problem with “Mistress America,” however, is that its main characters are just like the people Baumbach so effectively mocked in his previous outing; they’re great comic fodder, but they don’t make for very endearing company.

Lola Kirke stars as Tracy Fishko, a lonely college freshman at Barnard College with high hopes of being accepted into the school’s exclusive literary magazine. She hasn’t had much luck making friends, save for fellow wannabe writer Tony (Matthew Shear), so her mother suggests that she get in touch with her soon-to-be stepsister, Brooke (Gerwig), who lives in the city. Brooke is more than happy to take the impressionable Tracy under her wing, and after a night on the town together, the two become inseparable. Tracy idolizes Brooke, using her wild social life as inspiration for a new short story, while Brooke loves that someone so intelligent could look up to her. But when Brooke’s latest business endeavor, a terribly conceived restaurant/hair salon/community center, loses one of its key investors, she brings Tracy with her to Connecticut to convince some wealthy college friends – former boyfriend Dylan (Michael Chernus) and frenemy Mamie-Claire (Heather Lind) – to bail her out.

Entertainment, Movie Reviews, Movies

Greta Gerwig Noah Baumbach

Blu Tuesday: The Walking Dead, Aloha and More

August 25, 2015 / Jason Zingale

Every Tuesday, I review the newest Blu-ray releases and let you know whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping, along with a breakdown of the included extras. If you see something you like, click on the cover art to purchase the Blu-ray from Amazon, and be sure to share each week’s column on Facebook and Twitter with your friends.

“The Walking Dead: The Complete Fifth Season”

WHAT: After escaping from Terminus, Rick Grimes and Co. find refuge in a rundown church as they’re hunted by their cannibalistic captives. But when Beth (Emily Kinney) is kidnapped amidst all the chaos, and Daryl (Norman Reedus) discovers that she’s being held hostage by another group of survivors in downtown Atlanta, Rick (Andrew Lincoln) assembles a team to rescue her, while the others investigate Eugene’s promise of a cure in Washington, D.C.

WHY: AMC’s habit of splitting each season of “The Walking Dead” into two halves has never been very popular among fans, but it actually worked pretty well with Season Five, because the first eight episodes are jam-packed with so much story that you need a break in between just to process everything. Though the hospital subplot is a completely new creation for the series, the rest of the season covers a lot of familiar ground from its pre-existing source material. Of course, with each new storyline comes plenty of new characters, and the show does a remarkably good job of juggling its large cast to keep everyone happy. The show’s most popular characters – Andrew Lincoln’s Rick, Norman Reedus’ Daryl and Melissa McBride’s Carol – are front and center as expected, and each actor delivers excellent work, but Emily Kinney (who gets perhaps the best sendoff arc yet) and newcomers Tovah Feldshuh and Ross Marquand also shine in supporting roles. Veteran cast members like Lauren Cohen are shoved to the sidelines as a result, but that’s all part of being on a show like “The Walking Dead,” which is just as much an ensemble piece as “Game of Thrones.” Though Season Five isn’t without its flaws (the handling of fan favorite Tyrese is especially poor), thanks to some great writing and interesting new dynamics among the core group, it’s easily one of the best, if not the best, seasons to date.

EXTRAS: In addition to cast and crew audio commentaries on six episodes, there are “Inside ‘The Walking Dead’” and “The Making of ‘The Walking Dead’” mini-featurettes for every episode, a behind-the-scenes look at constructing the Alexandria set, a pair of video diaries with actors Michael Cudlitz and Josh McDermitt, deleted scenes and more.

FINAL VERDICT: BUY

“Aloha”

WHAT: Military contractor Brian Gilcrest (Bradley Cooper) returns to the site of his greatest career triumphs – Honolulu, Hawaii – to help billionaire communications mogul Carson Welch (Bill Murray) launch his latest satellite into space. Along the way, Brian reconnects with a former love (Rachel McAdams) who may not completely be over him, while falling hard for the spirited Air Force watchdog (Emma Stone) assigned to babysit him during his stay.

WHY: Cameron Crowe’s latest film came under a lot of fire following its release in theaters – some deserved and some not so much. Although it’s understandable why people would be upset over the supposed whitewashing casting of Emma Stone as mixed-race jet fighter Alison Ng, the whole point of her overeager character is that she desperately wants to be accepted by the islanders as one of their own (constantly informing people that she’s one-quarter Hawaiian) despite not really looking the part. The fact that so much attention was placed on this controversy is remarkable, because “Aloha” is such a complete disaster that there was plenty of other ammunition to choose from. For starters, the movie is all over the place, polluted with weird subplots that aren’t fully explained, an awkward love triangle that goes nowhere, and characters who are so poorly developed that you still don’t know what their purpose is to the story when it’s over. The cast looks just as confused most of the time, with Stone the only actor who comes away with any sort of dignity intact. “Aloha” isn’t the first time that Crowe has made a bad film, but this is easily his worst and most embarrassing failure yet.

EXTRAS: There’s an audio commentary with writer/director Cameron Crowe, a feature-length making-of documentary titled “The Untitled Hawaii Project,” an alternate opening and ending, four featurettes, a gag reel and some deleted scenes.

FINAL VERDICT: SKIP

Entertainment, Movies, Television

Blu Tuesday new Blu-rays The Walking Dead

Movie Review: “American Ultra”

August 20, 2015 / Jason Zingale

Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Topher Grace, Connie Britton, Walton Goggins, John Leguizamo

Nima Nourizadeh

After making his directorial debut with the totally distasteful and juvenile found footage comedy, “Project X,” it wouldn’t have been surprising if Nima Nourizadeh never worked in Hollywood again. But someone clearly saw something in the filmmaker that warranted giving him another chance, and while he doesn’t exactly redeem himself with the action-comedy “American Ultra,” it does prove that he’s at least somewhat competent behind the camera. That’s hardly a ringing endorsement, and deservedly so, because although the movie boasts a talented cast and intriguing premise, it never amounts to more than a mildly amusing end-of-summer distraction that squanders its considerable potential under the indecisive direction of Nourizadeh.

Jesse Eisenberg stars as Mike Howell, an unambitious stoner who’s perfectly content with his mundane life in West Virginia alongside his live-in girlfriend, Phoebe (Kristen Stewart). Mike is completely in love with her, and even plans a romantic getaway to trip in order to propose, but for some reason, he keeps having panic attacks that prevent him from leaving town. Unbeknownst to him, his crippling anxiety is actually a side effect from an experimental government program he volunteered for that wiped his memory and turned him into a CIA sleeper agent. When the program’s architect, Victoria Lasseter (Connie Britton), learns that bureaucratic brownnoser Adrian Yates (Topher Grace) plans to terminate all the subjects from the abandoned project, she decides to activate Mike using a secret code phrase and give him a fair shot at survival. But it doesn’t work as expected – that is, until Yates sends a pair of assassins to kill Mike and he snaps out of his daze, dispatching them with only a spoon and a cup of ramen. Marked for death and forced to go on the run, Mike must utilize his new abilities to rescue Phoebe when she’s kidnapped by Yates and his team of programmed killers.

Entertainment, Movie Reviews, Movies

Jesse Eisenberg Kristen Stewart

Blu Tuesday: Hackers and Walt Disney Shorts

August 18, 2015 / Jason Zingale

“Hackers”

WHAT: After being arrested for crashing over 1,500 computer systems in a single day, 11-year-old tech prodigy Dade Murphy is banned from using computers until his 18th birthday. Seven years later and now a senior in high school, Dade (Jonny Lee Miller) is forced to move to New York City with his mother, and before long, he’s back to his old ways. But when Dade and his new friends uncover a plot to frame a fellow hacker for installing a dangerous computer virus, they must prove his innocence while being pursued by the U.S. Secret Service.

WHY: Everyone has at least a few guilty pleasures in their movie collection, and one of my all-time favorites is Iain Softley’s “Hackers.” The film may have been ahead of its time in its portrayal of hackers as the next generation of activists (though it’s done in the most accidental, roundabout way that it barely counts), but the cyberpunk thriller feels incredibly dated and even cheesier than it was back in 1995. After all, this is a movie where Fisher Stevens’ villainous computer geek rides around on a skateboard and demands to be referred to by his handle, The Plague, with a straight face. But while “Hackers” is so stupid at times that it’s amazing anyone could take it seriously, the film is still entertaining in a fun B-movie sort of way. It certainly helps that the cast has such great chemistry – particularly stars Jonny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie, who have since gone on to bigger and better things – because it makes all the absurd costumes and dialogue a lot easier to swallow. Kudos to the gang at Shout! Factory for recognizing the movie’s cult fanbase and releasing it on Blu-ray to celebrate its 20th anniversary, because while “Hackers” is admittedly very silly, that’s part of its charm.

EXTRAS: There’s an hour-long retrospective featuring new interviews with director Iain Softley, actors Matthew Lillard, Fisher Stevens and Penn Jillette, and various crew.

FINAL VERDICT: RENT

“Walt Disney Animation Short Films Collection”

WHAT: A collection of short films produced by Walt Disney Animation between 2000 and 2015, including “Lorenzo,” “The Little Matchgirl,” “How to Hook Up Your Home Theater,” “Tick Tock Tale,” “The Ballad of Nessie” and “Get a Horse!”

WHY: Why: Having already released two volumes of Pixar shorts (with another likely on the way), it was only a matter of time before Walt Disney put out a collection of its own short films. Unfortunately, it becomes abundantly clear while watching the 12 shorts included on this set that they’re just not as good as the ones made by Disney’s sister company. There are a few standouts – like 2000’s “John Henry,” a traditional hand-drawn short featuring some great music; the charming 2012 Oscar winner “Paperman,” about a meet-cute involving paper airplanes; and the incredibly sweet and funny “Feast,” which was attached to last year’s “Big Hero 6” – but there are more misses than hits. 2015’s “Frozen Fever,” a shallow cash-in that should have never made it past the conception stage, is so awful that I couldn’t bring myself to watch it again, while the other two tie-ins, “Prep & Landing – Operation: Secret Santa” and “Tangled Ever After,” are cute but forgettable. Many of the other shorts (listed above) fall into a similar category or worse, which makes the collection hard to recommend to anyone other than the most diehard Disney fans, especially when there’s so little value on the Blu-ray beyond the films themselves.

EXTRAS: There’s a behind-the-scenes look at the process of developing and producing a short film, but that’s the extent of the bonus material.

FINAL VERDICT: RENT

Entertainment, Movies

Blu Tuesday new Blu-rays

Movie Review: “People Places Things”

August 14, 2015 / Jason Zingale

Jemaine Clement, Stephanie Allynne, Regina Hall, Jessica Williams

James C. Strouse

Writer/director James C. Strouse has become somewhat of a regular at the Sundance Film Festival; all four of his movies have premiered in Park City, which makes you wonder whether he has an open invitation to screen each new project there. (Not that his previous appearances weren’t fully deserved.) Though it’s been six years since his last film, the Sam Rockwell-led high school basketball drama, “The Winning Season,” Strouse is back with his most personal movie to date. The generically titled “People Places Things” explores pretty familiar territory without bringing anything new to the table, but it’s a nonetheless sweet and honest little indie that’s held together by a great performance from leading man Jemaine Clement.

The New Zealand-born actor stars as Will Henry, a graphic novelist and professor at the School of Visual Arts who lives with his longtime girlfriend Charlie (Stephanie Allynne) and their twin daughters, Clio and Colette (Aundrea and Gia Gadsby), in Brooklyn. While entertaining guests at the girls’ fifth birthday party, Will accidentally walks in on Charlie having sex with another man in their bedroom. Charlie insists that she’s not happy anymore and wants a change in her life, so Will is forced to move into a small apartment in Astoria, only getting to see his daughters on the weekends. One year later, Will is still recovering from the break-up when one of his students (Jessica Williams) sets him up on a date with her mother, Diane (Regina Hall), a literature professor at Columbia University who could be just what Will needs to get him out of his funk. But after he expresses an interest in spending more time with his daughters, and that wish is granted when their nanny suddenly quits, Will’s life becomes chaotic as he must learn to juggle work with raising his kids and pursuing a casual fling with Diane.

Entertainment, Movie Reviews, Movies

Jemaine Clement