The Help

After seeing some pretty mindless but fun movies this summer, it was a joy to see this amazing and thoughtful movie that elicits change.  It was serious while being funny, it was message-oriented while being factual, it was joyful and sobering and it was profound while being simple,  The movie unfolds from the point of view of 3 characters--Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis), a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children, Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer), an African-American maid who alienates herself from her employers but then works for a respectful lady in desperate need of help, and Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan (Emma Stone), a young white woman and recent college graduate who gets a job as a journalist and who tries to make sense of how "the help" are treated by anonymously recording their thoughts and concerns in a book, "The Help."

The movie is set in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960's with Skeeter communicating the daily lives of Southern homemakers and their maids.  The poignancy of the movie is shown in some of the amazing and unfair incidents of child-rearing, non-freedom to use public and private bathroom facilities, nasty and deep prejudice and more. 

I really don't want to relate some of the things that happen because it would spoil the flow of the movie.  Suffice it to say that you will be shocked, saddened, encouraged, and renewed by viewing the movie.  It's probably not a movie for those younger than teen-agers but many people could learn much from this wonderful movie.  It can change you.

The Smurfs

Alice didn't appreciate this movie as much as I did.  I confess that I'm not sure why I enjoyed the movie but I must say that I did.  I get caught up in the idea of "Buddy Movies" and this movie again proved my point.  The Smurfs were buddies with each other, especially Papa Smurf (voiced by Jonathan Winters), the hero, Patrick Winslow (Neil Patrick Harris) was a buddy with his wife, Grace (Jayma Hayes) and even the anti-hero, Gargamel (Hank Azaria) was a buddy with his cat.  The plot was sort of unnoticeable but had something to do with the Blue Moon Festival that the Smurfs were celebrating and the fact that Clumsy accidentally leads Gargamel to their lair and in their panicked escape they are sucked into a vortex and end up in New York City where they befriend (and are befriended) by Patrick.  Papa Smurf works on a potion to get them back home while Patrick works on a perfume ad campaignn to please his boss.  They both are successful while Clumsy is successful in rescuing everyone and returning them to the Smurf village which is now rebuilt with a New York City motiffe. As I said, the plot doesn't matter that much.  It's just fun.  I know, I know.  Some people suggest that the wizardry emphasis is not good for children.  Huh?  It's just fun and the "blue" jokes are worth hearing.  Oh, and Patrick and Grace name their son "Blue."

The Frisco Kid

We watched this movie recently at home on one of the movie channels on Comcast.  At times it was very funny but I'm not really sure that the movie was a comedy.  This Robert Aldrich Western features Gene Wilder as a Polish Jewish rabbi (Avram Belinski) who is true to his religion.  For example, he refuses to ride his horse on the Sabbath much to the chagrin of his bank robber companion (Harrison Ford), Tommy Lillard, who can't seem to abandon him. 

The rabbi arrives in Philadelphia and is dogged in his determination to reach San Francisco, despite being cheated, robbed, humiliated, captured by Indians, nearly frozen and more.  One of the most humorous scenes is his brief alignment with some Amish people whom he mistakes as Jewish.  Tommy robs a bank much to Avram's surprise and the rabbi refuses to use the money and ends up sending his "portion" back. 

Despite its droll humor, the movie shows a great respect for the Jewish religion (I feel) and you can't help but root for Avram and feel his devastation when he is forced to defend his friend and kill or be killed. 

All through the movie I smiled a great deal and wanted to laugh but I kept catching myself shaking my head at the gentle truths being portrayed.

This is a great movie!

Zookeeper

I should have shared this review sooner.  We saw the movie a few weeks ago and enjoyed it.  In some ways it is mindless fun.  I think that the hero (Griffin Keyes) would have been a babbling idiot for many days when the animals started talking to him.  Instead, he quickly accepts their unique ability and even allows the animals to teach him some things about dating rituals.  He does care for the animals and is a good zookeeper though the movie occasionally seems to suggest that his job as a zookeeper is not as classy as other vocations.  While pursuing Stephanie (a real "cougar") he discovers that he really loves Kate and his gorilla friend, Bernie, helps him get to her before she accepts a job in Africa.  The movie's not going to win ay awards but it does have its moments of fun and humor.  It's worth watching.

Larry Crowne

Wow!  This is a great movie.  Not perfect...but very, very good.  Larry Crowne (played by Tom Hanks) is a Navy veteran who served as a cook during his 20 year stint.  Now, after divorce and loss of his job at U Mart he enrolls in a community college and takes a course on informal speech and another course on economics.  He ditches his gas guzzling SUV and buys a motor scooter from his neighbor Lamar (played by Cedric the Entertainer) and befriends and is befriended by a group of motor scooter rebels (really!) with a young lady who tries to update his home and his hair style and clothes.

His speech teacher, Mercedes Tainot (played by Julia Roberts) is a burned out frustrated teacher with a husband addicted to laziness, porn and general disrespect.  The ten people in the speech class are interesting characters who seem to learn and bond.  The huge economics class is taught by Dr. Matsutani (played by George Takei) and Larry learns much from him, including his need to allow the bank to foreclose on his home.

There are many sweet moments in the movie with real teaching and learning going on.  The Tainot character probably needs more development (it was difficult to understand why she was so burned out) and we’re so used to negative Hispanic characters in movies and on TV that we’re probably a little surprised about their sincerity as depicted in this movie. 

Larry and Mercedes have a very chaste relationship and real love (appropriately) does not blossom until after Larry completes her course with a great grade.  The ending is simple and rewarding.  It was a very sweet and nice movie.  Take the time to see it.

Cars 2

I waited a week to review this movie...partly because Alice was concerned about my impending negative review.  She liked the movie.  I’m not sure why, though she saw helpful themes about loyalty, friendship and dedication.  Yes, it was a buddy movie.

On the other hand, I just couldn’t get into this movie at all.  I think it probably was/is a fairly good movie at some level.  The dialogue was crisp.  The animation seemed superb.  There was lots of action.  The row of boys 6-12 behind us were on the edge, biting their fingernails and cheering their favorite cars in the various races.  They jumped up and down about the action going on.  They were excited, but, as I said, I just couldn’t get into it.

I can’t remember whether or not we saw Cars 1.  I think we did but I really couldn’t remember that movie at all.  For some reason I thought the first movie had people driving the cars.  The next day I even asked someone if the cars were replacing human beings as characters.  She looked at me as if I was crazy and her droll answer was, “Yes, of course.  That’s the point.” 

This second movie was, in essence, a spy thriller with cars replacing 007 and other secret agents and the tow truck Mater becoming very useful to the government in dealing with a group of “lemon” automobiles trying to take over the earth while battling “green” technology which is trying to replace gas guzzling engines.  The inside joke was that cars such as Gremlins and similar specific brands are visible to the viewer and are part of the lemon “gang.”  I found that there were lots of inside jokes that seemed difficult to understand without some extensive history about cars and lemons and previous spy movies.  By, the way, Mater (voiced by Larry the Cable Guy) is really the only character whom I remember in the movie. 

Should you go?  Well, if you like cars and racing there is no question—go.  If you like careful and detailed spoofs of things like spy movies—go.  If you want to have some harmless fun—go.  However, I think I’ll stay home and skip the sequel.

Kung Fu Panda 2

Alice and I saw Kung Fu Panda 2 today.  We had enjoyed the first movie and this movie was somewhat different.  There was less emphasis on the things that the Po could not do and was instead a focus on his surprise that he was adopted as a child by his father who happens to be a goose.  Later in the movie when Po reveals his surprise the tiger character says, “You didn’t know this?”

The point, however, is not so much on the adoption as it is on the fact that he loves the father who raised him.  The evil Peacock (!!!) has a plan to conquer China and Po and his Kung Fu friends are left with the task of thwarting this plan.  It involves cornering all the metal possible to construct an evil and deadly gun.  Despite the excessive fighting and fight scenes, it is interesting that there is no blood and I’m not sure more than two “people” die.  That, I suppose would make the movie too heavy.

The ending with Po telling his father he discovered the answer to his question, “Who am I?”  He answered, “I am your son.”  That little revelation was worth the price of the movie.  One shameless anticlimactic scene after that poignant scene was Po’s biological Panda father realizing that his son was still alive.  It sets up the sequel.  It didn’t have to do this.

Hey, we loved the part about the relationship between Po and his father and that was a nice close to this sweet movie.  Forget the last 20 seconds of the movie.