Movie Nation

“That Sugar Film” is Aussie director/essayist Damon Gameau’s attempt to do to Big Sugar what “Supersize Me” did to McDonalds.
It’s a glib yet informative and sometimes entertaining re-hashing of everything we know about how bad sugar is for us and how The Sugar Industry tries to hide its product within processed foods, and keep consumers from knowing how this stuff is poisoning us.
Gameau uses the occasion of his girlfriend’s pregnancy to go off his (Australian) “sugar free” diet, vowing to spend two months consuming the average daily amount of sugar that food processors sneak into our diets — 40 teaspoons at about 4 grams each.
He eats “low fat” yogurt loaded with sugar, “Just Right” cereal, fruit juices — which he shows us give us just the fruit sugars without the fiber — and the like, and proceeds to gain weight.
He is monitored by a “team” which he gives nicknames — “Dr. Blood,” “The Crusader,” etc.
He uses animation to reveal how the liver reacts to sugar, what causes diabetes.
And in particularly cutesie touches, he has actors like Hugh Jackman (as a magician giving “The Condensed History of Sugar”) and Stephen Fry reciting a Dr. Seuss-like poem about sucrose and fructose and how they’re bad for us.
This tends to lighten the scenes where Gameau visits an Aboriginal community dying of diabetes, a whole “dry” town (alchohol free) where people are dying prematurely from their sugar-dosed diet.
A visit to America reveals the Big Conspiracy, where sugar-dependent companies finance junk science to sew the seeds of doubt that sugar is killing us.
The deadly soft-drink Mountain Dew earns a whole chapter, as vast corners of the South raise their rural poor children on this stuff. We follow a Kentucky teen into a traveling dentist’s RV office where the kid is to have his teeth pulled and be fitted for dentures — at 18.
He gains weight and grows lethargic, and Gameau covers familiar ground from first frame to last. We revisit the sugar vs. fat war that American healthcare science fought in the ’60s, for instance.
“That Sugar Film” serves as a reminder, if we needed one, that learning food supplement speak and reading labels in search of “fructose” when we shop — as in what to avoid — is a survival skill in a world where junk food and sugar drinks aren’t the only sources of the daily overdose of Big Sugar that we’re being given.

MPAA Rating: unrated

Cast: Damon Gameau, Hugh Jackman, Stephen Fry, assorted experts, victims
Credits: Written and directed by Damon Gameau. A Samuel Goldwyn release.

Running time: 1:30

“Jimmy’s Hall” is an eye-opening period piece that takes us back to the dark days of the Irish Police State.
The British are non-entities in the post-Civil War Ireland of the 1930s. But the village that political exile Jimmy Gralton (Barry Ward) comes back to still has serious schisms and conflict. He’s a leftist, a union organizer, and “a communist” to the cranky old priest (Jim Norton) who makes it his business to keep Jimmy in line.
That should be no problem, as Jimmy’s agitating seems to have mellowed.
But the kids in the area are bored out of their skulls. Jimmy’s seen the big city (New York). He knows the latest dance steps, and none of this River Dancing nonsense. Won’t he reopen the old community center, Pearse Connolly Hall?
“We want to DANCE, Jimmy!”

That simple request in this pre-“Footloose” epoch opens Jimmy up to a world of abuse and opens every old wound of class warfare between the landed and the renters, backed by the IRA, between the theocratic Catholic Church and the government it backs, and Jimmy.

Because the Hall doesn’t just represent music and dancing. It’s about freedom, a place to meet, organize, debate, a place outside of the control of the Catholic Church, which, as the priest huffs, pretty much runs things in the Ireland of this era.
Leftist filmmaker Ken Loach (“The Wind that Shakes the Barley,” “Land Freedom”) sets up the conflict well, keeping his and the viewer’s outrage in check as the priest calls out the names of people who “dance” at the hall, teens are beaten by parents and the IRA tries to figure out which side to back in this skuffle.
There aren’t really any heroes here, as Gralton’s defiance has a simple, homey and inevitable feel and Ward underplays him — a man who has to keep his temper to stay in the country.
Even “the girl he left behind” element to this (mostly) true story (Simone Kirby) is conflicted, a married mother still drawn to her fiery first love, but not quite. Some of the edges are worn off the myopic priest, here and there, watering down the drama.
But Loach, a veteran of many an Irish-set film, captures the dozens of shades of green even in the nearly treeless hills of this corner of Ireland. And he makes his point with a minimum of fuss.
“Jimmy’s Hall” isn’t consequential or satisfying enough to rank among the best films about Irish politics during those formative years. But it does remind us of the sides people took, the powers given over to the church and the ways those powers were abused, even after the British Army marched north.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for language and a scene of violence

Cast: Barry Ward, Simone Kirby, Jim Norton, Brían F. O’Byrne
Credits: Directed by Ken Loach, script by Paul Laverty based on a Donal O’Kelly play. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

Running time: 1:46

“Call Me Lucky” is another of those “the funniest comic you never saw” documentaries. Guys like Bill Hicks have earned them over the years.
The bearish Bostonian Barry Crimmins is so unknown that it’s a bit of a shock to realize, a half hour into the film, that he’s still alive.
But he is. And still raging about politics, the Catholic Church, American culture, values and the inherent unfairness of the capitalist system.
One wag — and there are many wags, many comics who are fans — labels him a cross between “Noam Chomsky…and Bluto.”
Bobcat Goldthwait’s film is about a guy who was a mentor (Bobcat made up his first name in tribute to “The Bear Cat” Crimmins, no idea how he made up the last name) to a generation of comics, running comedy clubs in the small upstate New York town where Crimmins and Bobcat both grew up, and in Boston — goosing the Boston comedy scene until it produced Denis Leary, Steven Wright and others.
But that’s not the reason to see this film, loaded with testimonials, recollections and jokes — an early Crimmins line about being “hassled the other day. Got caught smuggling books into Kentucky.”
“Lucky” gets at the origins of Crimmins’ angry humor, his sizable beef with the Catholic Church and the cause which took him all the way to Capital Hill, testifying before Congress.
With a little luck, this movie could help him realize a lifelong dream — to be excommunicated from the church he grew up in. Maybe then this angry old recluse will have a little peace, even if he loses a little of what’s made him funny all these years.

MPAA Rating: unrated, profanity

Cast: Barry Crimmins, Margaret Cho, Lenny Clarke, Steven Wright
Credits: Directed by Bobcat Goldthwait script by . An MPI release.

Running time: 1:46

As important as it is to remember that there were fairytales before “The Disney Version,” there’s little else to recommend the German animated take on Snow White, “The Seventh Dwarf.”
For starters, it’s not about Snow White. She’s just a short-skirted tart who is the real heroine’s BFF. That would be Princess Rose (Peyton List), about the celebrate her 18th birthday.
But as Red Riding Hood TV covers the big party, Rose pricks her finger and dozes off, becoming Sleeping Beauty.
She needs a “Kiss of True Love” to rescue her. And the clumsy dwarfs –Speedy, et al, different names from the Disney take on the tale — have to save her, since Bobo, the youngest, pretty much caused this calamity.
Norm MacDonald voices a dragon — yeah, there’s a dragon in this one. And there are songs — forgettable ditties about how “It’s a Pretty Good Day for Cake.”
The computer animation is of the Pixar 1.0 variety — the message, “We’re small, but that means nothing at all.”
Which you could say about the movie, as well, a time-filler for bored 5 year-olds, nothing more.

MPAA Rating: unrated, G-worthy

Cast: The voices of Peyton List, Norm MacDonald, Cameron Elvin, others
Credits: Directed by Boris Aljinovic, Harald Siepermann, script by Harald Siepermann, Daniel Welbat and Douglas Welbat. A Shout Factory release.

Running time: 1:27

“Pixels,” a kid-friendly Adam Sandler comedy, won Friday at the box office. But some are projecting “Ant-Man,” also kid friendly, will have a bigger Saturday and thus take the weekend from the Sand-Man — a $26-$24 million finish, Deadline.com says.

I wonder if “Pixels” will fall off that much (it earned a healthy, but not exactly world-beating $9 million+ on Friday). I weould not be surprised if the vid-game actioner pulled out the win.

“Ant-Man” is the weakest Marvel offering…ever.. So we’ll see. Sandler’s audience has kind of aged out of the movie going habit, though if they have kids, his strategy has been, they’ll still show up.

“Southpaw” is doing OK for a boxing picture that doesn’t have “Rocky” in the title. $16 million or so. Jake G. is good in it, not “Night Crawler” good.

“Trainwreck” lost over 40% of its opening weekend audience. Have to wonder if having a nut shoot up a theater in Louisiana will suppress Amy Schumer’s unshameable slut comedy.

The teen romance “Paper Towns” opened OK, and will manage a healthy $15 million. Not exactly a big name cast, decent (barely) reviews.

“Mr. Holmes” cracked the top ten, Woody Allen’s “Irrational Man,” a dog, opened a little wider and is doing some business.

“Amy,” the best doc of the year (until “Best of Enemies” opens next weekend) is slip sliding away, like our memories of Amy Winehouse.

It all happened so quickly. In under four minutes, two vehicles pulled up at a Jacksonville, Florida gas station, one person from each of those cars ducked inside for a purchase or a bathroom break, and all hell broke loose at back the pumps.
It was the 2012 “Loud Music Shooting” case, when a white man, later to use Florida’s infamous “Stand Your Ground” law as his defense, emptied his pistol into a Dodge Durango full of black teens who had their hip hop turned up too high.
The clumsily-but-accurately-titled “3 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets” reconstructs the court case that spun out of this tragedy. Using trial footage, police interrogation footage of the accused, Michael Dunn, snippets of recreations and interviews with those who knew Jordan Davis, the teen killed that night, writer-director Marc Silver has created a compelling if myopic narrative of a trial that drew international attention.
Ron Davis, Jordan’s dad, remembers his son one donning a hoodie and remarking how much he looked like earlier Florida “Stand Your Ground” victim Trayvon Martin. But there the similarity with the Martin case seems to end. Jordan grew up in a nice neighborhood. He and his friends were strangers to law enforcement, normal spirited teens who wound up gassing up at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Silver confines himself to the trial mostly, showing an articulate prosecutor (John Guy) employing logic and righteousness in his persuasive arguments.
And then there’s Corey Strolla, the defense attorney, expertly planting the seeds of doubt in the jury’s minds, and in ours. Jordan had a temper. He was a typical mouthy teen. His client feared for his safety.
But the star of this show is Dunn himself — not interviewed for the film, but heard on jailhouse recordings of conversations with his fiance, the woman who went into that convenience store to buy wine. Dunn insists to her, and by extension the world, that “I’m not racist. THEY’re racist…I’m the victim here.”
The narrowed focus fits the subject. This never seemed as complex a case as the Trayvon Martin shooting, so following a family “seeking justice” through the courts should have been enough.
But the very “slam dunk” nature of the case in the court of public opinion makes “3 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets” drag along and feel incomplete as it does. A law was on trial, and the more clear-headed local talk radio folk we overhear see that and fret about the consequences of a “Not Guilty” verdict. “Stand Your Ground” seems like “self defense” with a little something extra added on.
And “Stand Your Ground” is still with us., even if Jordan Davis is not.

MPAA Rating: unrated, with descriptions of violence, profanity

Cast: Michael Dunn, Lucia McBath, Ron Davis, Tevin Thompson, Tommie Stornes, Leland Brunson, John Guy
Credits: Written and directed by Marc Silver. A Participant release.

Running time: 1:30

Let’s do some good here. Let’s watch Patrick Jean’s arresting 2:44 short from a few years ago that was the inspiration for the Adam Sandler disaster that critics are tearing apart here, at Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.

Here is the ORIGINAL “Pixels,” in all its low-fi/DIY glory.