Movie Nation

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“Thunder and the House of Magic” is a beautifully animated cartoon from
Belgium, a kids’ comedy with barely a laugh in it.

Blame it on translation — it has been released in a number of countries,
perhaps it was funnier in German, French or Hungarian. Or blame it on the lack
of gag writers involved. But when the non-name voice actors playing a cat, a
rabbit, a mouse, a kindly old magician and his scheming nephew have nothing to
recite but exposition (story points, not jokes), and the sight gags don’t make
up for that, this pretty bauble just lies there.

A cat is dumped on the streets of suburban Boston, and after dodging Dodges,
Dobermans and skateboarders, he might find shelter in this spooky old house set
back from the street.

But there are gadgets and puppets come to life there, and a cranky old rabbit
and a mouse guarding their turf. This is an elderly magician’s home, and they
don’t want the cat horning in on their lifestyle.

Lawrence (Doug Stone) was and is Lorenzo the Illustrious, a doddering old man
who entertains at children’s hospitals and regales his former sidekicks — the
rabbit, mouse, “love birds” and automata — with the great illusions of his
past. He spies the cat, names him Thunder, and welcomes him in, much to the
rabbit’s chagrin.

Events conspire to land the old man in the hospital, and that’s when
Lawrence’s scheming real-estate agent nephew Daniel (Grant George) springs into
action. He’ll sell the house and put his uncle in a home. Daniel isn’t above
cursing when the critters scheme to foil his attempts to sell, and he’s not
above resorting to taking a shotgun after the cat. He’s allergic, and he blames
the cat for the “accidents” that happen during every sales pitch.

“It’s the Boston River for you!”

“House of magic” feels old school in that regard. Animated films today have
little at stake, and much of what might be called violence has been washed out
of them. Not in Belgium, apparently. Between the family, pulling a moving
trailer behind their car as they abandon their cat, to Daniel’s shotgun blasts
to the wrecking ball he wants to take to the house and all in it, this is
slapstick of an Elmer Fudd hunting Daffy Duck variety.

If only it was that funny.

The animated chases, from the cat’s or mouse’s point of view, are harrowing
and entertaining. The pull-out-the-stops household assaults on real estate
clients and Daniel are chaotic, if never quite hilarious.

“Magic” just has no magic about it, another limp cartoon in a year that has
been littered with them. This Euro-import dispensed with the classic “easy fix”
on weak animation, hiring movie stars to do the voices, letting fly with the
verbal zingers. The big money was spent on the animation. It’s too bad the
script lacks the sight gags or one-liners that could have made this good looking
picture more animated.

　

MPAA Rating: unrated with mild profanity, violence

Cast: The voices of Murray Blue, Shanelle Gray, Doug Stone, Joey Camen,
George Babbit
Credits: Directed by Jeremy Degruson and Ben Stassen, written by James Flynn, Dominic Paris and Ben Stassen. An nWave/Shout Factory release.
Running time: 1:24

A possible franchise, or a horror film dumped onto the first weekend after Labor Day? It’s based on a Jane Mendelsohn novel, part of a series, I think.

“Innocence” stars Sophie Curtis, a prep school girl who has lost her mom, Kelly Reilly as the creepy new redhead in dad’s life and Linus Roache (as the widowed dad who “just doesn’t see” what’s going on.”).

What is REALLY going on in that exclusive, uniformed prep school?

It opens Friday. And they’re showing it at the last minute, class. Why would be?

The considerable charms of Jason Bateman and Olivia Wilde get a considered workout in the lightly charming New York romance “The Longest Week.”
It’s a droll comedy, with a droll narration (by Larry Pine), set among the idle affluent of Manhattan, the sort of film that Woody Allen or Whit Stillman might make, given a Wes Anderson script — a little twee, but not Wes-twee.
Bateman stars as Conrad Valmont, a pampered, 40ish man-child lost in “the distractions of wealth.” He lives in the family hotel, rides with the family chauffeur and spends his huge family allowance.
Then his globe-trotting parents decide to divorce and that neither of them wants to support him. He’s evicted, penniless, with only a pricey haircut, tailored clothes and a motor scooter to his name.
His shrink, played by Woody Allen’s old pal, Tony Roberts, is worried. Conrad is shallow, obsessed with physical beauty. And he’s dead set against the idea of working for a living. How will he survive?
Conrad’s “Longest Week” begins with a first-time-in-decades ride on the subway, which takes him to his artist-friend Dylan (Billy Crudup). The lovelorn Dylan will put him on the sofa for a few days, but he has to fret over Conrad’s little peccadilloes, his inappropriate flirting with high school soccer players.
“Like little VEAL,” Conrad enthuses.
He nags and nags Conrad to not make a play for Dylan’s potential new “ingenue” girlfriend, Beatrice (Olivia Wilde).
“Don’t you try anything,” he says, in maybe 24 different ways.
“I won’t,” Conrad lies. Repeatedly.
Who could resist Beatrice, a child of wealth, a model, a Bach fan who fancies hers as a life of virtue. She’s a vegetarian.
“Do you love animals that much?”
“No, no. I just hate plants!”
Over the course of Conrad’s week, he endures an attempted set-up with a pretentious grad student, played by the comic Jenny Slate of “Obvious Child.” He tries to reach his parents, falls in love, and he hides his impending poverty with style, not letting on he’s penniless in the greatest city in the world…for those who have money.
Writer-director Peter Glanz doesn’t hammer his jokes, relying on the cast to wring charm out of characters and situations. Bateman’s eccentric line-readings will make you smile.
“I think I see some…foie gras. Want some…DUCK?”
Bateman and Wilde share a cute little aging hipster dance scene in a high-end bar where French pop plays on the jukebox. The few genuinely quirky bits, casting Slate as the “post modern criticism major,” making Dylan’s way of ending a relationship the act of giving the kissed-off a used Volvo, pay dividends.
There just aren’t enough such moments. This shiny New York-in-fall film is no deeper than its pairing of “a hopeless romantic” with “the romantically hopeless,” and hoping for the best. Sometimes that works, but not often enough to make this “week” the whirlwind it might have become.
　
　
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content and smoking.
Cast: Jason Bateman, Olivia Wilde, Billy Crudup, Jenny Slate, Tony Roberts
Credits: Written and directed by Peter Glanz. A Gravitas release.
Running time: 1:26

Dock Ellis was a pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates, New York Yankees and other teams during baseball’s turbulent and flamboyant 1970s.
He won a World Series ring with the Pirates, famously served up an epic home run to Reggie Jackson at an All Star game and won “Comeback Player of the Year” in 1976.
And in 1970, he pitched a no hitter against the San Diego Padres while tripping on LSD. So yeah, he was a genuine character in an era of baseball characters.
“No No: A Dockumentary” captures the essence of this outspoken loud mouth, a self-styled Muhammad Ali of the Major Leagues, a free spirit who wondered, late in life, if he’d ever pitched a major league game stone cold sober. His theory? He hadn’t.
Jeff Radice’s documentary is built around interviews with teammates, his agents, relatives and ex-wives, as well as one late-life interview with Ellis himself. It tracks a baseball career that began in California and adventured through the South in the years not-far-removed from Jackie Robinson’s integration of the game, where minor league towns such as Kinston, N.C. or Salem, Va., had not quite dialed back the racism that Robinson had faced twenty years before. Ellis didn’t take that well.
“I was an angry black man,” he says.
When he got to Pittsburgh, he dressed like Superfly, the drug dealing pimp daddy of early ’70s cinema. He wore curlers to practice. And he took speed — “greenies” — before every pitching appearance. In those pre-drug testing days, “everybody” did it, everybody in the film says. “We were all hungover,” pitcher Steve Blass admits. It was a hard-drinking era where getting one’s focus back, once it was game time, was paramount.
But nobody took that as seriously as Ellis. A drinker and pot smoker since childhood, on game day he went out “high as a Georgia pine.” And he won.
The no hitter is the centerpiece of the film, detailing what he took and when, and how drugs played a role in securing his edge on the diamond. A winning pitcher is an intimidating one, and what could be more intimidating that a tall, hard-throwing pitcher with uncertain control?
“They knew I was high, but they didn’t know what I was high on!”
The amusing anecdotes pile up as Ellis took that intimidation to the next level. He once started a game against hated rivals, the strutting “Big Red Machine” Cincinnati Reds, by beaning every batter he faced. He didn’t win, didn’t finish the inning. But he sent a message.
Rival Reggie Jackson took a beanball to the face that knocked him out of a few games a few years later.
“He knew what he was doing,” one teammate says with a shrug.
We learn who Dock’s mentor was, Negro Leagues pitcher Chet Brewer, but we don’t hear a whisper about his relationship with the equally volatile New York Yankees manager Billy Martin after Dock was traded to them.
And while Ellis only made his LSD no hitter assertion after leaving the game, the footage of that outing, a sloppy (hit batsmen, etc.) “no no,” shows a guy hustling to cover first base on an infield ground ball and getting his sinker across the plate. Yes, Robin Williams is captured using the Ellis anecdote in his drug era stage age, but sportswriters at the game insisted Ellis was lying. None of them, if any are still living, were interviewed.
The third act of “A Dockumentary” sags under the weight of spousal abuse, rehab and his later years as a drug counselor and anti-drug public speaker. But Radice has delivered an engaging portrait of a loose cannon back when professional sports still produced such unfiltered creatures, a man who lived by his own rules, said what he thought and wore curlers to practice when he felt like it.
　
MPAA Rating: unrated, with profanity, accounts of substance and spousal abuse
Cast: Dock Ellis, Al Oliver, Dave Cash, Donald Hall
Credits: Directed by Jeff Radice . An Orchard release.
Running time: 1:40

The long Labor Day weekend may bring an inglorious end to a desultory summer at the box office. But “Guardians of the Galaxy,” which became the biggest grossing film of 2014 (passing “Captain America” sequel and “The Lego Movie”), has reason to celebrate.

Another weekend #1, total take by Monday night, @$21 million.

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” is #2, in every way. “If I Stay” is managing a take in the $9-10 million range.

“As Above, So Below” barely cracked the top five, clearing $8 million.

And “Let’s Be Cops,” which cost nothing, has few laughs and seems tone deaf to the times, is lingering in the top five and could hit $59-60, by last show Monday night.

Zowie.”

“The November Man” didn’t do enough business to suggest Pierce Brosnan has a new franchise on his hands. It finished at #6, and after opening Wed., still only will have $11 million in the bank Monday night.

“Cantinflas,” the 345 screen Pantelion Latin market release, should clear $3 million+ its first weekend.

“Sin City” died, “Ghostbusters” in limited release managed no better than $2.4, “When the Game Stands Tall” held enough audience to stay in the Top Ten — @$7 million.

Pantelion Films is the Spanish language arm of Lionsgate, best known for distributing “Casa de Mi Padre, Will Ferrell’s Mexican vamp. With “Cantinflas,” they’ve picked up a bio-pic of the Mexican Charlie Chaplin, the great comic of the 1940s-60s best known in most of the world, for one role — Paspartout in “Around the World in ’80 Days.” That film came out 60 years ago, and much of America’s Hispanic population is not Mexican-American, so this wasn’t a no-brainer of a bio pic. Who remembers him?

Pantelion dropped the ball in pre-screening it. Or maybe they’re hiding it. But audiences are finding this limited release, and I’m headed to one of two area theaters showing it this AM to check it out.

Much has been made about “Guardians of the Galaxy” failing to reach $300 million at the US box office this summer. But that’s merely a consequence of marketing. If it had opened a week earlier, it might have hit $300 by Labor Day. It would have been the only film this summer to manage that.

More important is it being the best of a bad lot this year, how it rallied a box office that was 20% below last year most of the summer, 30% below for July. The early May-Labor Day numbers are just short of $4 billion, WAY below the numbers from 2013. But it’s not as bad as it might have been, only a 15% drop off, rather than the 20-30% that seemed likely in July.

“Guardians” will win a weak Labor Day weekend with a $15-16 million take, based on Friday’s numbers. 

That will leave it in the $275 range. As I say, if it had opened a weekend earlier it could have hit $300. But tons of movies made $100 (“Edge of Tomorrow” cleared that mark Friday), more than a few made well over $200. So, a bad situation, not the end of the world. Yet.

“Turtles” and “If I Stay” are doing respectable numbers in second and third place.

The new release “As Above, So Below” is earning poor early marks from audiences, following bad reviews from critics, and will be lucky to open in the top five. “November Man” was wisely opened on Wed., as it, “Let’s Be Cops” and “As Above, So Below” are all in the $8-10 million range for the weekend, too close to call for top five standings, as of now. “November” will have earned $13 or so since Wed. by Monday night.

The unpreviewed “Cantinflas” biopic (great Mexican entertainer/film star of the ’50s) is doing very well on a small number of screens. I will have to find a theater showing here in La Florida as it looks to best “Sin City” this weekend. It’s not opened in Greater Orlando, apparently. “Sin City,” with a Mexican-American director, plummeted to 14th place this weekend. Biggest flop of the summer? Yup.

“Ghostbusters” re-opened in theaters, to a couple of million, tops, and “Chef” added enough theaters to finally clear $30 million.

The summer is finishing as it began, with a whimper — down 15% in the US from 2013, the worst showing since 1997. Ticket sales look even worse than the cash take.

Considering the overload of sequels, comic book adaptations and generally repetitious fare, Hollywood should take this as a wake up call. Several comedies flopped, only “22 Jump Street” performed.

But next summer’s “impressive” line up has even more comic book adaptations and sequels set up. Golly.

“As Above, So Below” takes forever to go below. It takes even longer to attempt to be scary. A tale of catacombs and the creatures one might find down there, it’s mostly an “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” or “”Angels and Demons” ripoff, with horror elements. Dull, claustrophobic, but the shaky camera style wears itself out with this one. It gave me a headache. Poor reviews for this last major release of the summer. Will it earn a dime? Hard to say. Box Office Guru figures $9 million. Maybe.
“The November Man” is Pierce Brosnan’ shot at reviving his Bond fortunes, a muddled spy thriller with some interesting elements but which wears its budget and cast-cheap-models as every scene’s extras. His co-star/rival, Luke Bracey, brings nothing to the movie. Olga Kurylenko shows some leg and a few others show some skin. Yeah, it’s that cynical.  It opened Wed. to poor reviews and won’t make more than a few million by Monday night, so all Pierce’s talk show chatter about a series of films is just that — talk.

“The Last of Robin Hood” is a limited release bio-drama about the last “love” of Errol Flynn’s life, an underage paramour played by Dakota Fanning. You see the problem right there. Kevin Kline is Flynn, Susan Sarandon is the mother who lets her daughter take up with an infamous movie star. But Fanning kills the movie. Kills it. Go to college, dear. Make something of yourself. Train to become Elle Fanning’s agent/manager.

The Elmore Leonard adaptation “Life of Crime” is earning mixed notices. A ’70s kidnapping dramedy, it stars Mos Def and John Hawkes as the reasonably clever kidnappers who bring in a doltish weak link to help kidnap Jennifer Aniston. She’s married to the brutish, crooked drunk played by Tim Robbins, who has run off to the Bahamas to be with his wily paramour (Isla Fisher). Decent casting, funny bits, it works well enough. Aniston is the movie’s weakest link, though. She just doesn’t have it, whatever “it” was in terms of something she can bring to the party.