Movie Nation

Disney-Pixar realized they’d hit on a can’t-miss formula for animated blockbusters about the time “Monsters, Inc.” came out in 2001.

Find some fantastical corner of pop culture you can peek in on – after hours. From the lives of toys when the kids aren’t around to where scary monsters go when they’re not hiding in kids’ closets or the private lives of clownfish, comic book superheroes or video game characters (Disney’s new “Wreck-It Ralph”), these familiar but imaginary worlds have proven to be fertile ground for animation.

Whatever chances they take with the riskier “Up,” “Brave,” “Cars” or “Ratatouille,” taking children inside a world they have only imagined has been box office gold.

“Monsters, Inc.” may have lost the best animated film Oscar to “Shrek.” But ask any parent which film is aging better, and which DVD their children wear out, and the real winner emerges. Reason enough for a prequel, “Monsters, University,” to go into production. It comes out next June.

And that’s a good excuse for converting the computer-animated “Monsters, Inc.” to 3D for a special holiday release.

Whatever his other accomplishments (He’s in theaters Christmas Day with “Parental Guidance”), generations of kids know Billy Crystal only for the comic-stylings of Mike Waznowski, the one-eyed working stiff (monster) he plays in “Monsters, Inc.”

“I don’t know, but it’s been said, I love scaring kids in bed!”

The perfect comic foil to Sulley (John Goodman), beau of the long-suffering and equally one-eyed Celia (Jennifer Tilly), nemesis of the slithery Randall (Steve Buscemi), Mike is the guy who keeps his pal Sulley in tip top scaring shape – ordering up the closet doors that the monsters go through to frighten children, whose screams are bottled and converted to the energy that keeps the monsters’ world, and Monsters, Inc., going.

Until that fateful day that a teeny tot nicknamed “Boo” isn’t scared, and follows them back through the door. Kids, out of their element, scare the dickens out of monsters. Call out the haz-mat team and bar the door – all the closet doors, stored in a vast kids’ closet-door repository – until Boo is rounded up and order is restored to the universe.

That ingenious set-up is detailed to a staggering degree, from the décor each child has on his or her closet door, to the vast variations of monsters on the job on the Monsters, Inc., “scare floor” – blobs and yeti and giant spiders and all manner of lizards, snakes and goblins.

The jokes benefit from perfect timing and the best running sight gag ever – big, hairy monsters, all scared to death by a burbling, giggling, “KITTY” shrieking tyke (voiced by Mary Gibbs).

This didn’t need 3D to work. And the big question, on seeing it anew, is “How WILL they top this by taking us back to see these guys in college?”

But any time Disney and/or Pixar goes astray in an animated way, they have only to look back at this, one of their best, to remember that magical recipe that works as well now as it did then.

MPAA Rating: G

Cast: The voices of Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Jennifer Tilly
James Coburn

Credits: Directed by Pete Docter, David Silverman and Lee Unkrich, scripted by Andrew Stanton and Daniel Gerson. A Disney/Pixar release.  

Running time: 1:32

 It’s no great stretch to imagine the chiseled, hot-footed hottie Channing Tatum as a stripper. It’s how he got his start in show business, after all.

And even though he never danced for his dollars, Matthew McConaughey has never been shy about shedding a shirt on the big screen.

But that’s the simple genius of Steven Soderbergh’s “Magic Mike,” a fictionalized spin on Tatum’s pre-Hollywood years, his Florida years, taking it off for ladies who stuffed tips into his thong. The casting does most of the work in this very entertaining dramedy set in a sexy/seedy world of male exotic dancers.

From the moment McConaughey, as the veteran owner of the Xquisite Dance Revue, struts onstage to introduce his ensemble and tell the ladies “what you can…and canNOT touch,” we know we’re in good, um, hands. Soderbergh’s direction here is like stripping itself — the selling of a fantasy, a tease. It’s only as the film progresses that the sobering reality of living in this sordid world is stripped bare.

Tatum has the title role. By day, he’s a hustler — working as an off-the-books roofer, running a mobile car-detailing business, living in a beachfront split-level where he’s as likely to wake up with two naked women as one.

That’s because by night he is “Magic” Mike — the break-dancing star of the Xquisite Dance Revue. He’s living the good life. It’s a pity that all his businesses are cash-only. At 30, he’s got no credit, no prayer of getting a loan to run the business that is his first love — hand-crafted design.

Right.

Enter Adam, aka “The Kid” (Alex Pettyfer), a hunky college drop-out that Mike takes under his wing. The Kid doesn’t realize what Mike means when he says “You OWE me” as he gets him into a club. Next thing Adam knows, he’s helping Mike hustle birthday girls into the strip club. After that, David’s up on stage, a virgin doing his first awkward striptease. The money rolls in and the lazy Adam realizes the REAL American Dream — he’s getting paid just for being pretty.

So what if his nurse’s aide sister (Cody Horn) doesn’t approve? Not that she’s a prude. She just senses danger.

Soderbergh, working from Reid Carolin’s script, revels in the backstage “making of a stripper” scenes, as The Kid is trained to do the Ken Doll routine, the GI Joe strip, “An Officer and a Gentleman,” the trench-coat and umbrella “It’s Raining Men” number.

And in his face, taunting the shy out of him, is Dallas, given a searing swagger by McConaughey.

“What are you, a 12 year-old in the locker room?” he teases. Put some salesmanship into that bump and grind. “You are fulfilling every woman’s wildest fantasies!”

The film showcases the dancers — the funny-beefsteak Joe Manganiello stands out in the supporting crew. And it sells the fantasy. For a while. The club patrons are young and gorgeous and beddable. The hours allow for enjoying the sun and fun as “The Kings of Tampa.”

And then the dark side shows up — the easy access to drugs, the “real” women who frequent such clubs (Plain Janes, over 40, not super model skinny) turn up –one dancer throws his back out lifting one onstage. There’s the fleeting nature of the career, the sleazy way employees are treated by the “entrepreneurs” who run such revues. Soderberg doesn’t pretty up Tampa, either, sending everybody out for a “sand-bar party” on the dull-brown waters of Tampa Bay, suggesting how easy it would be to leave all that behind.

Tatum is spot-on, conflicted and perfect in the part. Mike is smart enough to know he can’t get by on his looks and his stripping forever. He’s ready to leave behind his “friend with benefits” (Olivia Munn) for the plainer and testier Brooke. Horn, the daughter of the head of Warner Brothers studio, acquits herself well in the role of the grounded girl, protective of her brother and suspicious of Mike.

But McConaughey is the spark here, preening, amusing, but suggesting the dark side of the business and the only possible future for those who stay in it — alone, with lots of ready cash but no self-respect, a guy who has to take advantage of the next generation the way he was probably taken advantage of. McConaughey takes his hipster-revival preacher, butt-slapping jock persona to the next level here, hinting that maybe all this dirty talk, getting up in his dancers’ business in the dressing room is a closet door he’s hiding behind.

“Magic Mike” drifts into melodrama, and Pettyfer (“I Am Number Four”), though adequate, struggles to make an impression with a character that is little more than a cliche.  

But Soderbergh, Tatum and McConaughey strip this world of glitter and body oils. They let us know that for all the supposed fringe benefits,  these guys work hard for the money, and that creating every woman’s fantasy takes a lot of fantasizing on the part of the toy boys, too.

MPAA Rating:R for pervasive sexual content, brief graphic nudity, language and some drug use

Cast: Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Matthew McConaughey, Olivia Munn

Credits: Directed by Steven Soderbergh, written by Reid Carolin. A Warner Brothers release.

Running time: 1:49

“Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted” is a riot of splashy colors, silly 3D gimmicks, big, broad kid-friendly gags — and those professionally pesky penguins.

And for adults, there’s the charming spectacle of Oscar winner Frances McDormand giving voice to her inner Edith Piaf as she belts out “Non, je ne Regrette Rien” — as a French-accented animal control officer.

The third film in this unlikely animated franchise takes those New York refugees from remote Africa, where they’ve been stranded, to Monte Carlo and other points in the Eurozone as they try to get back to the friendly and confining Central Park Zoo.

Continue reading →

“The Lucky One” is the edgiest-ever film adaptation of the writings of Nicholas Sparks.

Which isn’t saying much.

Continue reading →

 From the day it was published, Dr. Seuss’ environmental parable “The Lorax” has courted controversy. A screed about consumerism, greed and its cost to the environment, this anti-clear-cutting tale prompted protests in lumber-country school districts and just last week inspired an attention-starved Fox Business News anchor to attack its “indoctrination.”

That’s what you get when you write a character who says, “I speak for the trees” — Lou Dobbs speaking up for the clear-cutters.

The gorgeous and glorious new film of this fable from Universal’s “Despicable Me” team turns a somewhat gloomy, cautionary tale into a 3D musical, with catchy tunes and gags borrowed from every film from “Toy Story” and “The Truman Show” to “Babe.”

But the message is as obvious and irritating to those who resent the Clean Air Act as ever. 

Ted the teen (voiced by Zac Efron) lives in Thneedville, where everything is packaged, paved over and plasticized. He doesn’t know things weren’t always this way, or notice how bad things are until he tries to impress his cute redheaded neighbor, Audrey (Taylor Swift), and she shows him her mural.

“What are those?”

“TREES.”

Audrey longs to see a real tree. And Ted, asking his mom, realizes how hard that’s going to be.

“We already have a tree — the latest model!”

But Granny (Betty White, of course) sends Ted off into the wastelands outside of the city, in pursuit of the Once-ler (Ed Helms). And the Once-ler tells Ted the tale of how he deforested the Seuss-scape long ago, all in the name of profit. The Once-ler, in flashbacks, remembers the warnings of the Lorax (Danny DeVito), and how he’d ignored them.

“Everyone here needs the trees,” the Lorax declares, surrounded by forest creatures. “And you’re choppin’ em down.”

The film is a feast of bright, Seuss colors and wonderful Seuss design — all curvy, undulating lines and shapes. The 3D kicks in as Ted dodges axe heads and the Once-ler is sent hurtling down river rapids.

A goldfish trio sings and chirps a funny accompaniment, just like the mice in “Babe.”

And the songs are a stitch — Ed Helms warbling “Everybody needs a Thneed,” advertising his new scarf-like product made from the Truffula trees, and croons “How bah-ah-ah-ad can I be?” in his defense when the trees fall in their thousands and the cash piles up.

“I’m just building the economy,” he protests, standing in front of his business, which he’s labeled “Too big to fail.”

“Lorax” takes on echoes of “Wall-E” as it embraces its gloom — the Once-ler’s replacement entrepreneur/villain is a fellow who has figured out how to bottle and sell clean air. Bu it’s all a set-up for the redemption song, the gospel-tinged “Let it Grow.”

That’s when it becomes obvious why the Seuss rhymes here are subdued, saved up for big moments when they’ll have the most impact. That’s when the one-word warning of the Lorax — “Unless” — threatens the Lou Dobbses of this world with extinction.  

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

MPAA Rating: PG for brief mild language

Cast: The voices of Zac Efron, Taylor Swift, Ed Helms and Danny DeVito

Credits: Directed by Chris Renaud,  scripted by Lem Daurio and Cinco Paul, based on the book by Dr. Seuss. A Universal release. Running time: 1:34

Joseph Gordon-Levitt utterly masters the Bruce Willis squint, where the action hero narrows his eyes, furrows his brow and purses his lips. He gives us a little of the Willis smirk, the one Bruce breaks out when he’s about to let-go a whispered threat. Yeah, JGL has that whispered threat thing down, too.

Continue reading →

 “Lola Versus” is a conventionally unconventional romance in the modern mode, alternating between cute and crude and packing a heaping helping of self-affirmation into its 84 minutes.

It’s got that “Where have I seen this before?” familiarity even as it updates an old formula with snappy, slangy and sexual one-liners.

Continue reading →

Guy Pearce goes into low Earth orbit to get his cool back in “Lockout,” a silly sci-fi B-picture made fun by his star turn in the lead role.

It’s “Escape from New York” in space, with Pearce channeling Kurt Russell brawny bravado as Snow, a disgraced CIA agent sent to rescue the president’s daughter who is caught up in a convict’s revolt in the M.S. One space prison.

Continue reading →

“Life of Pi,” Yann Martel’s fantastical folk parable about faith and spirituality makes the journey to the big screen more or less intact, a meditative Ang Lee survival-at-sea adventure with many of the same virtues and shortcomings of the novel.

Continue reading →