Movie Nation

Pervy, titillating and deeply disturbing, the one word you’d never use to describe the documentary “Tickled” is funny.

An expose of the Internet phenomenon of “Competitive Endurance Tickling,” it’s one of those “sports” you hear DJs talk about when they hit the “Can you believe THIS?” portion of their radio shows.

Which is kind of how New Zealand “lighter side” TV reporter David Farrier came to it. A guy famous for funny feature stories on the unusual, the trendy and the physical, he heard about this “sport” and sampled the Internet videos that capture it — young, good-looking men — athletes and actors and teenagers, a lot of them — are restrained, then gang-tickled for minutes and minutes on end.

Kinky. Funny. But, whatever floats your boat, right?

But Farrier’s efforts to get some information from the LA production company doing many of the videos leave him taken aback. He is threatened. There’s ugly name-calling from execs with “Jane O’Brien Media.” Farrier’s gay, and the nastiness includes “little gay Kiwi” slurs and is shockingly out of proportion considering his semi-innocent interest.

“If you want to stick your head in a blast furnace, do it.”

Lawsuits are launched, and Farrier receives letters from both the US and New Zealand law firms. The harassment is non-stop, all-consuming and explicit. Wow, he thinks. What’s going on here?

But the ticklers have under-estimated the features reporter. Farrier and co-director/videographer Dylan Reeve go to America and travel far down the rabbit hole of a “tickle empire” — encountering bullying, the ruined lives of some of the boyish men who took part in the videos and journalists who have tackled this story before.

They meet a less threatening, up-front and proud tickler and producer of tickling videos in Orlando, of all places. Richard Ivey gives insights about what’s erotic about these “games,” the sado-masochistic nature of what’s going on — “control.” The person Farrier and Reeve are after is someone who has gone off the deep end in that regard, a monster with legal acumen and deep pockets. No wonder many people have a fear of being tickled. It’s not that innocent.

It’s a mystery not unlike “Catfish,” a story that begins with one set of assumptions and leads deeper and deeper until the more obvious ones step to the fore. Like “Catfish,” it’s more about peeling the layers than the revelation that “Jane O’Brien” doesn’t exist.

Unlike “Catfish,” what the filmmakers have done is documentary journalism of a public service variety, journalism of a high order. They go on stake-outs, they confront people in the act, they dig through financials, court records, resumes and work histories. They interview victims.

“Tickled” is not a movie that lets you see how the meal is prepared — not totally, anyway. At some point, they stumble into a video shoot at Jane O’Brien Media, and then are beneficiaries of a vast data dump that points them in the right direction (basically solves the mystery). How they got these “breaks” is skipped over, perhaps to protect a source or two.

Reading between the lines, you quickly realize that being tickled isn’t the only thing one has to fear when asking questions the wealthy and well-lawyered don’t want answered. The helplessness one gets being pinned down and tickled, the chilling fear of that, nicely parallels the chill and fear of reporting a story powerful people don’t want reported, which Farrier shows us in this odd and shocking expose.

MPAA Rating:R for language

Cast: David Farrier, Dylan Reeve, David Starr, Hal Karp,
Credits: Directed by David Farrier and Dylan Reeve. A Magnolia release.

Running time: 1:31

OK, so now they’re three weeks into “Top Gear: TNG.” How’s it doing?

“Still gaining acceptance?”

Don’t know about that. Wouldn’t be prudent to make a judgment. Yet.

Maybe everybody made up their minds about post-May/Hammond/Clarkson TG with the premiere episode. But as I said back when this monstrosity re-launched for Series 23, they’re entitled to a bit of a shakedown cruise. As the last incarnation took THREE SERIES to get it right, this could be a bumpy ride.

But there are flashes in every episode that show chemistry, comedy and promise. Antique SUV challenge in episode 1, the crunching/bickering South African safari meant to show off the New Jag SUV in episode two, and Matt LeBlanc’s tour de Hoon of London in Ep 3 — those worked.

Pairing up celebrities for the “car in a reasonably priced car” is an improvement over the last incarnation of TG. Kevin Hart, Jesse Eisenberg, paired up with British film and sports stars — better banter, funnier, a bit of interaction between the guests. It’s a Graham Norton touch.

Chris Harris and Rory Reid are better car reviewers, for those who want CAR reviews in the show that started out as a car culture/car review program. Sorry, programme.

Plainly moving Sabine Schmitz into the studio as a third host(ess) is in the show’s future as she’s funny, natural on camera and German — ready-made for Teutonic mockery. And the best driver in the lot.

The last few years of “Top Gear” were “maybe see” TV for me, as they’d run out of ideas and only the “Grand Tour” specials (the name of the new Amazon series starring Clarkson et al) stick with me from that era.

If they’d launched the series with episode 3, they might have dodged some of the abuse they took for their very derivative and chemically-off premiere. LeBlanc is wisely being moved front and center, as Chris Evans starts EVERY test drive with a good bit of shouting. Where do you go from there, Red?

To me, it’s working out. Bit by bit. The banter is awkward, but I’m watching a Series 14 episode, and there were still groaners rolling out from the veteran cast, even then.

My first take, that this is “Matt Gear,” still stands. LeBlanc is the stand up/stand out guy in this mix.

They’re getting the cast broken in, and that Hoonicorn Mustang ride through London was a hoot. A couple more good ideas and they can call their shakedown season a success. But that’s the rub, isn’t it?

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Kevin “Little Man” Hart team up for “Central Intelligence.”

That’s all the info we need to know exactly how this action comedy is going down. Lots of Big Man/Little Fella sight gags, confident muscle man, man pf action, paired with wee and manic and increasingly shrill funnyman.

But to its credit, “Central Intelligence” flips that script. From the moment Johnson struts on camera, rainbow unicorn T-shirt, fanny pack and jean-shorts “Jorts?” Really?”), we know he’s supposed to be the goofy one. He’s an extension of his “Pain & Gain” doofus, a variation on his “Be Cool” comic bodyguard.

He’s a dork, a fanboy hero-worshipping his once-popular high school classmate (Hart). And he’s comfortable with his sexuality — VERY comfortable. Really in touch with his feminine side.

Hart? He’s reduced to straight-man for much of this Rawson Marshall Thurber (“Dodgeball”) comedy. He has to screech just to get noticed. Because Johnson is freaking hilarious.

A prologue shows us Calvin “Golden Jet” Joyner’s glorious last day in high school. And it introduces the En Vogue loving Robert Whierdicht (Johnson) dancing in the shower, a roly poly fat boy in braces, a prime target for Baltimore’s bullies. Bob will be humiliated that day in a way that will scar him forever.

Twenty years later, “Most Likely to Succeed” Calvin has married his high school sweetheart (Danielle Nicolet) and succumbed a life of accounting and drudgery. Until his former classmate connects, via Facebook.

The dated “Waaaassssuuuuuup” video email is his first warning. “Bob,” as he’s now called, still wears a fanny pack.

“Hell YEAH. You want one?”

Bob never quite got over high school, never got over “Sixteen Candles.”

“Ever see that one?”

“Well, I’m BLACK.”

Bob drags Calvin out for drinks and down a rabbit hole. He has something to do with the CIA. He needs Calvin’s forensic accounting skills. And hey, maybe later we can hit our 20th high school reunion?

Amy Ryan plays a CIA agent chasing Bob. Calvin must decide who is The Good Guy and who will get him tossed into jail. Are you in or are you out?

In, of course. Reluctantly. With some screaming.

Johnson milks his overly affectionate goof for every laugh in the guy.

“You’re like a snack size Denzel!…”You’re like a Chocolate Google!”

Thurber films much of the movie in comic close-ups, and makes Johnson’s entrances and exits lightning-quick, like magic.

Hart is kind of left on his own, “Run funny, here.” “Hold a gun like it’s the first time” there. “Shriek.” “Let’s see some more eyes-bugging this time.” Hart has less to work with and he lets you see the strain of trying to carry his half of the movie.

Set pieces — “Bob” stepping in for Calvin’s marriage counselor — pay off. The CIA stuff and even the shootouts, by comparison, have their moments, but feel routine.

The cavalier amount of gunplay is common is such pictures, but unfortunately-timed here in light of last weekend’s night club massacre. Seriously, hundreds of rounds  discharged in gunfights, barely a drop of blood? That’s irresponsible at any time, and the MPAA ratings board should recognize that.

This picture would have worked better with less of that, and tighter editing. It dawdles between action beats and big laughs, and in the third act, that lets much of the wind out of it. The anti-bullying message is pounded in without a hint of subtlety.

These guys, both veterans of buddy pictures, make the romance work, as it were. But it’s obvious Hart is a bit bugged at being so utterly upstaged. He knows even second bananas have to be funnier than this.

MPAA Rating:PG-13 for crude and suggestive humor, some nudity, action violence and brief strong language

Cast: Kevin Hart, Dwayne Johnson, Amy Ryan, Danielle Nicolet, Aaron Paul
Credits: Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, script by Ike Barinholtz, David Stassen, Rawson Marshall Thurber. A New Line/Universal release.

Running time: 1:47

There are enough laughs in “Finding Dory” to justify Disney wanting a sequel to “Finding Nemo,” one of the most successful animated films of all time. And there’s enough heart and smarts to warrant Pixar making it.

A message-heavy action comedy about the short-term memory loss sidekick of “Nemo,” Dory the blue tang, “Dory” is about her search the family she lost and almost forgot she had.

It’s built around Dory’s “special needs,” in the current parlance, and about her special gifts, too. Fewer jokes revolve around Dory’s disability, and the perfect timing of the woman who voices her, Ellen DeGeneres, who rose to fame with a clever if distracted act described by the line, “My point, and I DO have one.”

A flashback shows Dory’s childhood, when she first memorized “I have short-term memory loss,” and “Just keep swimming.” Mom and Dad (Diane Keaton, Eugene Levy) drilled those into her. In their way, they were the first to under-estimate the “helpless” fish who could get lost between the time she started a sentence and the time she didn’t quite finish it.

Dory’s been living with Marlin (Albert Brooks) and his one-bum-fin kid Nemo (Hayden Roylence) for years. Everybody on the reef has learned to work-around her little problem. It takes a village, after all.

But a memory stirs — Dory did come from SOMEwhere, after all. And someone.

She’s got to find her folks. All she remembers is a phrase — “The Jewel of Morro Bay.” She needs to travel there. Nemo is raring to go. Marlin? Not so much.

“The only reason to travel is so you never have to travel again.”

Their adventures get them separated. Dory has to rely on her own work-arounds and a lot of blind luck. “WWWDD” is her new motto — “What would Dory Do?” Having a wonky memory makes her impulsive, but it’s those impulses that get her to a seaquarium she has glimpses of in her memory.

New characters she encounters include sea lions (Idris Elba, Dominic West), a chameleoid octopus (Ed O’Neill), a beluga whale (Ty Burrell) and a near-sighted basking shark (Kaitlin Olson).

“Dory” is a more downbeat movie that drags, here and there. And a lot of the snap has gone out of DeGeneres’ “What was the first part again?” We’re not meant to giggle at her shortcomings.

The seven-tentacled octopus has a glum worldview that matches the tone of the picture.

“You’re lucky. No memory, no problems.”

An early squid chase is the only real fright flung at the littlest kids, and the big chase finale has a backward slap at Sea World in its subtext.

Pixar’s productions long ago lost their “can’t miss” sheen, and “Dory” is closer to “Brave” than “Inside Out” in appeal and quality. That’s still a long way from “Monsters University” and “The Good Dinosaur.”

And the prologue cartoon — a photo-realistic seaside short about a baby wading bird titled “Piper” — is here to remind us that when they sometimes not only get it right, they get it Pixar perfect .

MPAA Rating: PG for mild thematic elements

Cast: The voices of Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks, Ed O’Neill, Idris Elba, Diane Keaton, Ty Burrell, Kaitlin Olson, Sigourney Weaver
Credits: Directed by Andrew Stanton, Angus MacLane, script by Andrew Stanton. A Disney Pixar release.

Running time: 1:49

The characters are ’80s “types” — the Madonna-wannabe, the would-be B-Boys, the punk rock punk, the martial arts geek, etc.

The soundtrack is a John Hughes comedy cliche — a little “Pretty in Pink,” a lot of “Breakfast Club,” with a smidgen of “Grosse Pointe Blank” and an anachronistic exclamation point by Erasure.

But the teens on-the-make, teen drinking, teen brawling and teens coming to grips with troubled childhoods and family histories are Korean. The expats in Benson Lee’s new film have been sent to learn their heritage at a 1980s summer camp. They are, one and all, “Seoul Searching.”

There is absolutely nothing new in this mash-up homage to ’80s cinema, save for its Korean point of view. But that’s enough to bring a smile to your face and the odd belly laugh as cultures clash and even non-Koreans experience those funny flashes of recognition. Kids and kids’ problems are the same, no matter how you were raised.

The problem — children of the Great Post-Korean War Diaspora, families scattered all over the globe, were not growing up Korean Enough. So their parents packed them off from New Jersey and California, Britain, Mexico and Germany, to learn about their history and culture in The Mother Country over summer vacation.

Most don’t speak the Mother Tongue. And their attitudes about respecting elders, gender roles, work ethic and sexuality have been shaped by growing up as racial minorities in other cultures.

They are a puzzlement, even to the hippest Korean teacher (In-Pyo Cha) supervising them.

It’s 1986, and Grace (Jessika Van) is a skinny flirt in full Madonna regalia. The self-named Sid (Justin Chon) never got over Sid Viscious, or The Sex Pistols. Their eyes lock. Only the militant military school Mike (Albert Kong) stands in their way.

“Yo, Billy Idol. I got first dibs on Madonna.”

Sergio (Esteban Ahn) is an over-sexed Mexican kid forever on the make. Kris (Rosalina Leigh) grew up in Jersey, but never met her real parents. Klaus (Teo Yoo) is the respectful German in Hugo Boss “Miami Vice” wear, Marcello the romantic Italian-Korean, and so on. 

They are forbidden from mingling after hours, but they do. They’re not supposed to be drinking, but they do. There’s no “hooking up,” but there is.

Lee puts cliches in the kids’ mouths and hurls these types at one another and lets the sparks fly, never more than in a comic brawl that’s hilariously retro — straight out of a Burt Reynolds comedy or John Wayne Western. Moments like this are downright giddy.

A nightclub encounter with gangsters reinforces the Korean ethnocentrism that the teachers are pushing. A gangster lectures kids to “Learn Korean or you will bring shame to your families.”
Where the movie rises above formula is in the “What we learned” part of the narrative. Their parents risked everything to be able to raise them in a new country. Native Koreans look down on them as “losers” for being the children of people “who couldn’t make it here.” Abuse became a part of that strain, perhaps driven by traditional Korean sexism being torn asunder in The West.

Among the kids, Kong is a stand-out as a Virginia Military Institute Keydet with an awful chip on his shoulder and a generations-old grudge against the Japanese. He makes the guy a hateful racist (B-Boys with a Run-DMC crush are hit with every African-American slur he can think of) drowning in his insecurities.

With so many recycled scenes and cliches to get through, Lee let his comedy run on too long. But “Seoul Searching” is worth a look and a laugh even as it joins a long line of diaspora comedies (1999’s “ABCD” covered Indians raised in America) and dramas (Justin Lin’s “Better Luck Tomorrow”) in studying the immigrant generation gap and culture shock that comes with Coming to America.

MPAA Rating: unrated, with slapstick violence, teen drinking, smoking and sexual situations

Cast: Justin Chon, Jesica Van, Esteban Ahn, Rosalina Leigh, Teo Yoo, In-Pyo Cha
Credits: Written and directed by Benson Lee. A Wonder Vision release.

Running time: 1:49

“The Conjuring 2” had a good Saturday to go with its great Thursday night and Friday, enough so that the ever-inching-up estimates for the film’s opening weekend now stands at about $42 million. Good reviews may have helped. They certainly didn’t hurt. 

“Warcraft”, a true #2 movie, in every way, will open at #2 as well. $26 million is how it looks when all the dollars are counted Sunday night. It’s HUUUUUGE in China, an even bigger opening than “Star Wars.” 

And they didn’t even pander to the Chinese market with this “story.”

“Now You See Me 2” is up to about $24, not an awful opening. But it’ll be gone in a thrice.

A pretty good weekend, considering most of the movies out and opening this weekend are crap.

On paper, it looks like one of the worst weekends for movies of the summer.

But darned if a horror sequel, a failed video game adaptation and a Jesse Eisenberg magic caper dramedy (sequel) didn’t push to the top of the box office mountain.

Kudos to Box Office Mojo for calling “Conjuring 2” right on the money. I figured that horror ceiling of upper $20s was working against it. But no. Based on late Thursday and al-day Friday numbers, it will hit $37 million. Not a bad picture, either.

“Warcraft” sucks. A dreary orcs vs. humans war bore that has what look like elves and dwarves peopling the edge of several scenes, it seems to hit the high spots of the enduring game franchise, push for pathos here and there, and spend an absurd amount of time with wizards and warlocks and portals and other supernatural jiggery pokery upsetting the balance of things. All animated orcs and dwarves and elves and Paula Patton as a sexy “half-breed.” Not my thing. It’s headed toward $26 million.

“Now You See Me” was an unlikely hit a few years ago, and the sequel opened big enough to not be labeled a flop. But this Eisenberg, Harrelson, Caine, Freeman, Ruffalo and Dave Franco franchise won’t come near earning what the original did. A $22 million opening, it’ll be lucky to hit $40.

Last week’s box office leader, those “Mutant Ninja Turtles,” fell off a cliff — a 70% plunge in receipts. Their finale tally, when they lose all their screens within a week or two, should be in the $75 range.

That’s about where “Alice Through the Looking Glass” will wind up. Dying quickly.

“Angry Birds” will clear $100 million by Tuesday at the latest.

“Popstar,” “Neighbors 2,” “Lobster,” all dying off.

Horror director James Wan’s latest trick is to morph his “The Conjuring” franchise into a supernatural love story.

Both as a director and as a producer, Wan is mining the rich “true story” vein provided by Lorraine and Ed Warren, those original “Amityville Horror” ghost-busters. After casting formidable actors Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as the couple, he and screenwriter Chad Hayes let them show their chops as a committed couple, compassionate people and passionate lovers in “The Conjuring 2.”

And every now and then, they get Farmiga to widen her eyes and scream until she’s out of breath. Because this is a horror movie, after all. And Vera? She sells it. And how.

“The Conjuring 2” has the Warrens a bit rattled, with the psychic Lorraine ready to step back  a little. One seance too many, y’understand.

“This is as close to hell as I ever want to get.”

But there’s trouble overseas, in gloomy punk rock era Britain. That’s where the Hodgsons — mother Peggy (Frances O’Connor of “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence”) and the four kids she’s raising by herself in a creepy, creaky rowhouse — are being visited by a presence.

“This is MY HOUSE!” he bellows. Sometimes in his own voice, sometimes in a voice blurted out by middle daughter Janet (Madison Wolfe). A toy firetruck has developed a mind of its own, a magic lantern/music box is providing more magic than anyone counted on.

And Janet, then her siblings, her mother, the neighbors and finally the police constables, all get the message. Something is tossing furniture about and menacing the whole family.

The good Catholic Warrens are sent over by The Church to investigate. There’s already a British scientist/believer (Simon McBurney of “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy”) and a skeptic (Franka Potente of “Run Lola Run” and one of the Bourne pictures) on site.

Wan may be decades removed from his “Saw” stardom, but he still lets splashes of morbid wit make their way in — cops, seeing a chair slide around a corner, across the floor and into place at a dinner table, mutter, “Well, there’s nothing we can do about THAT.”

The period detail is perfect, from the worn out furniture in this worn-out working class house to the fashions, posters on the kids’ walls (“Starsky & Hutch,” The Bay City Rollers and Joanna Lumley) and vintage British cars under the muddy-gray skies.

The movie is a vexing, patience-testing two and a quarter hours, and takes a full hour to get the Warrens on a plane to the UK. But the few, well-spaced out scares are real spine-tinglers.

Whatever the real Warrens were — and the word “hoaxers” comes up often in discussions of their “cases” — Wan and his various writers (and in the case of the movie “Annabelle,” another director) are taking the license to make them more credible, more real and more empathetic as screen characters.

Watch Wilson as Ed pick up a guitar and croon a little Elvis to put the Hodgson kids at ease, and try not to be moved. The two leads have the gravitas and sense of play to make these movies watchable. Wilson is making a nice name for himself in films like “Insidious.” And Farmiga (“Bates Motel”) is also finding a nice career second wind in the genre.

You don’t have to believe in the Warrens to believe in Wilson and Farmiga. They never let on that this is anything other than all in a scary day’s work. And that they’re more than happy to leave the ghost busting at the office and go home for a nice cuddle and brandy afterwards.

MPAA Rating:R for terror and horror violence

Cast: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Frances O’Connor, Madison Wolfe, Simon McBurney
Credits: Directed by James Wan, script by Chad Hayes . A Warner Brothers/New Line release.

Running time: 2:14

Another video game makes a branded transition to the big screen, and Hollywood blows it, yet again. That’s “Warcraft.” And seeing as how this tripe just wasted two hours and three minutes of my life, with the threat of sequels to come (Yeah, right), I’m tempted to leave it there.

But no. I didn’t get up and leave. Which I thought about. Might as well have a go at it.

A CG-reliant sword and sorcery fantasy that owes an awful lot (a LOT) to Tolkien and even more to the generations of fans that made World of Warcraft a gaming phenomenon, it has two things the vast majority of such fare lacks — characters, and moments of pathos.

It’s that old bugaboo “STORY” that lets it down.

Orcs, those gigantic, blood-and-battle loving beasts of myth, have ruined their world. But thanks to their wizard-leader, they have this portal that can bring their war parties to a human world.

They take prisoners, because their magic is fed with human life force (literally). And they’re preparing the whole Horde for an invasion.

But the Orc chieftain Durotan (voiced and motion-captured by Tobey Kebbell) of the Frost Wolf clan has a new baby on the way, and wonders if things could be different.

Can’t we call just get along, he asks? Or words to that effect, muttered through his bejeweled tusks.

The humans respond to the threat. Dominic Cooper wears a lot of pretty armor and a lot of hair — facial and otherwise — as their king, Llane. His  brother-in-law, named Lothar (without SNL irony) and played by Travis Fimmel, is their champion, humanity’s Achilles or Lancelot.

He will require the aid of The Guardian, a member of a sacred wizard class, played by Ben Foster. And he’s certainly going to need the help of the skilled flunked-out wizard, Khadgar (Ben Schentzer). If they can get past their trust issues.

“What are you doing in my city, spell-chucker?”

Paula Patton plays a fetching “half-breed,” half-human and raised by Orcs, she speaks both languages and has tusks, in addition to everything leather shorts and a halter top offer.

Orcs and humans battle and scheme, digital brawls set in digital wastelands in between visits to digital cities and digital fortresses. The backdrops and roughly half the characters are animated.

David Bowie’s son, Duncan Jones (“Moon”) was an odd choice to direct this time-and-space-wasting oddity. His great accomplishment was keeping a reasonably interesting cast from looking embarrassed every time they have to spout tendentious jibbering or don armor or tusks to stage fights with guys in motion capture suits in front of green screens.

Assuming they went to that much trouble.

Every actor involved with this — Foster, Cooper, Patton and Fimmel (“Maggie’s Plan,” TV’s “Vikings”) — is better than this movie lets on.

If you’ve loved the game, you might appreciate the visuals cooked up for this fantasy universe. As it’s not interactive, and there’s no chance of playing one’s way into a better story, it doesn’t mimic the game experience or improve on it. The plot, subtexts and acting are a hash.

Put another way, I was bored out of my skull, from the “Lord of the Rings” opening to the Old Testament/Moses Afloat finale.

MPAA Rating:PG – 13 for extended sequences of intense fantasy violenc

Cast: Travis Fimmel, Ben Foster, Paula Patton, Dominic Cooper, Ben Schnetzer,
Credits: Directed by Duncan Jones, script by Duncan Jones and Charles Leavitt. A Universal release.

Running time: 2:03