Casino Royale with Daniel Craig

Bond is Back

I had low expectations of Casino Royale, the latest edition of the James Bond franchise while it was in production. I like Pierce Bosnan, even if some of his 007 movies smelled like fish on the second day. And reworking Casino Royale, not exactly the shiniest penny in the Bond bank, seemed to be a profitless enterprise. Like many others, I had no appreciation for Daniel Craig who is, after all, a blond.

Instead, Casino Royale is the best Bond in decades. It’s stripped-bare approach crackles with intensity in all but a few scenes. The opening chase sequence, which takes place almost entirely on foot, is an artistic and athletic feat. The script makes Bond a wit, rather than merely cheeky. And they picked Bond Babes who can act. As it turns out, so too can Craig.

He plays Bond as a newly-minted 00-agent, a ‘blunt instrument’ who has yet to prove his mettle. This Bond isn’t all smoothness and polish. He’s a little rough at the edges and the movie begins with a spectacular and very public failure that threatens to scuttle his career.

The setup involves terrorism and diamonds. Whatever. Those are just the MacGuffins, as Alfred Hitchcock used to call them; a way to get the story started. The usual Bond set pieces are set in motion; the lavish sets, the distant landscapes and the beautiful women. But it’s leaner than usual. More taut. And that’s to the movie’s advantage.

The one place where the movie grows fat is in an extended gambling scene. I’d rather watch someone install drywall than watch people play poker, so for me this scene limps to its conclusion.

There’s also a gruesome torture scene involving Bond stripped naked. It’s this scene that keeps me from offering a better review grade. Your kids definitely should not see it.

Casino Royale is rated PG-13 for intense scenes of violent action, a scene of torture, sexual content and nudity.

DMR grades Casino Royale a C.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as a ‘thanks for trying’ attaboy. Casino Royale was downgraded because of the torture scene. Minus that I would have graded it as an A-.

Stranger than Fiction with Will Ferrell

Almost True to Life

Some neighbors just buried their tragically-disabled daughter after tending for her hand and foot her entire abbreviated life.

Friends care for their non-ambulatory, non-speaking (but precocious) five-year-old who was severely burned in an accident.

These are the kinds of real-life sacrifices that people make for people they love or care about. And self-sacrifice is the theme of the quirky and original movie Stranger Than Fiction.

The movie concerns Harold Crick (Will Ferrell)… a gray IRS agent living a paper thin slice of life… who begins to hear in his head a narration of his life’s events.

The effect, of course, is very disconcerting for Crick, especially after the narrator (Emma Thompson) says as Harold waits for the bus, “little did he know that this seemingly innocuous act would result in his imminent death.”

Crick goes to see a shrink (the woefully-underused Linda Hunt) who tells him that he’s schizophrenic and recommends a drug regimen.

But what if I really am hearing a narration, he asks, what would you suggest? She tells him to go see a literary specialist (Dustin Hoffman). Together they compile a list of likely authors. With imminent death hanging over him like a cloud, Crick’s life begins to take on some color as he rounds out his life, especially on the romantic front.

If this doesn’t sound like much of a movie, you’re right. Up until the last 10 minutes or so of the movie the depiction of Crick’s life seems so gray and ordinary you wonder if anything the filmmakers can do can possibly pay off.

The answer is yes. The climax is wonderfully moving and affecting. I’m going to own this movie.

Ferrell, believe it or not, brings nuance to the role. And the co-stars, which include Maggie Gyllenhaal (as Crick’s love interest) and Queen Latifah (as Thompson’s long-suffering assistant) are all quite good, Thompson especially so.

My only complaint is philosophical. The fact is, people make extraordinary daily sacrifices for others as a matter of course in the everyday lives. Everyone of us knows people like the ones I described above. Their sacrifice is so common it seems mundane. Crick’s act of sacrifice is spectacular, but momentary. But how would you depict people like my neighbors caring for their disabled child over a lifetime, whose devotion is so complete it seems ‘stranger than fiction’?

It may be impossible to make that movie. But I want desperately to one day see that harder, sadder, more meaningful, real, and joyful movie.

Stranger Than Fiction is rated PG-13 for some disturbing images, sexuality, brief language and nudity.

DMR grades Stranger than Fiction as a B.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as a ‘thanks for trying’ attaboy. Stranger Than Fiction was downgraded a full grade because of all the elements that made it PG-13. Minus those elements I would have graded it as an A.

The Fountain with Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz

An Art-House Movie at a Dollar Price

I heard Jerry Herman, who composed Hello Dolly, say that the best day of his life was when Louis Armstrong agreed to sing the title track. It made a hit of the song and the play.

Likewise for Nick Wechsler, the executive producer of The Fountain, the best day producing the movie had to be when Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz agreed to star in this would-be art-house film. Otherwise this headscratcher of a movie would not have been made by Warner Brothers.

Jackman and Weisz bring not only star power but real acting chops to The Fountain. They play star-crossed lovers in three different timeframes; Spain at the time of a Torquemada-like Grand Inquisitor; in the present day; and another time in space (literally).

The non-linear editing whipsaws between each timeframe so fluidly that I don’t think I ever caught up. Normally you would call this kind of time shifting science fiction. But it reminded me of Jacques Offenbach’s opera The Tales of Hoffman, too.

Opera or science fiction, I sympathized with the woman who left at the same time I did asking aloud, “Do we get an explanation now?” People smarter than me have taken The Fountain as a romantic poem on themes of mortality. (Like I need to spend any more time thinking about the shortness of life!)

The movie isn’t unwatchable... by any stretch... but I found it unfathomable rather than “deep.” By all means go see it if you like the stars or if you fancy yourself a patron of enigmas. That said, there are some very bloody sequences and the PG-13 rating is well-earned. The Fountain’s not for kids.

The Fountain is rated PG-13 for some intense sequences of violent action, some sensuality and language.

DMR grades The Fountain a C+.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as a ‘thanks for trying’ attaboy. The Fountain was downgraded a half-grade because it was bloody.

I have just removed my review for Charlotte's Web in protest

I have just removed my review for Charlotte's Web in protest of the decision by the movie's young star, Dakota Fanning, her mother Joy ,and agent Cindy Osbrink, to star in a movie that features the rape of her preteen character.

I will not name the movie. I will not see the movie. And I won't review another movie in which Dakota Fanning stars. Ever.

This movie isn't art, it isn't entertainment, it's pedophilia. And the fact that in real life children are raped is no argument for depicting it. It wouldn't hurt my feelings or slight my reverence for our First Amendment rights if the district attorney where those scenes were shot charged the producers of the movie with child abuse.

Dakota Fanning... who won't be 13 until February 2007... is hardly the first mainstream starlet to act in a movie that presents the sexual exploitation of children, but she's probably the youngest.

Brooke Shields was less than 15 when she was in the 1978 Pretty Baby, a movie wherein her character's virginity was auctioned off. Jodie Foster was about the same age when she played a teenage prostitute in Taxi Driver in 1976.

But there is a difference. Reportedly, Fanning is shown in the nude or scantily clad during the movie and during the rape itself her face is reportedly shown in close-up.

There's a second difference. Pretty Baby was banned in a number of countries, including Canada. Not even 30 years has passed, and Dakota Fanning's movie will be banned almost nowhere.

In other words, our morality and sense of outrage over the sexual exploitation of children has measurably declined. We ruffled our national feathers when Rep. Mark Foley sent salacious instant messages to young Congressional pages, but the depiction of the rape of a child brings an actor early Oscar attention. This is morally wrong.

Hollywood can't stop itself from producing these kinds of films. But Americans of normal sensibilities can respond by actively shunning them, their producers and the actors who star in them.

I hope you'll join me in doing so.

Flushed Away with Hugh Jackman & Kate Winslet

Sushi Without the Fish

There was something especially wonderful about Aardman Animations and their stop-action clay animation movies like Chicken Run and the Wallace & Gromit movies and shorts, produced by Nick Park.

The stories were inventive and affecting and the characters were handmade; you could literally see the artist’s fingerprints in the clay.

The problem with Flushed Away, the latest CGI release from Aardman and Dreamworks may be that there are too many fingerprints on it. There are four credited story writers and six screenplay writers, none of them Nick Park.

The movie ends up being a kind of California Roll; you know, sushi without the fish.

There’s the makings a good movie here. The cast is dynamite. The storyline is out or the ordinary and the animations are shiny as a newly-minted penny. It's just missing a soul; or maybe just Nick Park.

Flushed Away is about the longstanding enmity between the class amphibia and the order rodentia, which plays out in the sewers beneath London.

Roddy (Hugh Jackman) is a lonely if pampered pet mouse in a posh Kensington apartment who finds himself flushed into a shadow-London with bustling streets, Big Ben, a mini-Thames, even the London Bridge.

There he falls in with lovely Rita (Kate Winslet), a riverboat captain from a family of scavengers who is on a collision coarse with The Toad (Ian McKellen), a grandiose crime kingpin with a scheme for ridding the sewers of mice.

Roddy is horribly clumsy physically and socially in this lower world, but he’s quite taken with Rita and her extended family of seemingly hundreds of mice. Roddy and Rita openly disdain one another, but we no where that relationship is headed. They throw in together to stop The Toad from fully flushing London's sewers.

McKellen plays The Toad the way Sidney Greenstreet might have; big and broad. McKellen's way over the top and having fun. He's joined by Da Vinci Code co-star Jean Reno, who plays The Toad's French cousin Le Frog. A Frog playing a frog. Funny, eh? The versatile Jackman also gets to sing a few numbers.

Flushed Away is rated PG for "crude humor and language."

The DMR grades Flushed Away a B-.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as a ‘thanks for trying’ attaboy. Flushed Away was downgraded a half-grade because it was a hair too crude.

Santa Clause 3 with Tim Allen and Martin Short

An Easy to Swallow Sugar Confection

My mother used to make the candy confection ‘divinity’ each year at Christmas. Her recipe produced sweet, light sugary-goodness. As a kid I’d eat it by the fistful and wonder why, at the end of the season, she didn’t make it more often.

Truth be told, my blood-sugar counts couldn’t have handled it more than once a year.

The Santa Clause movies feature that same kind of treacly sweetness. But at Christmas time I find I have a sweet-tooth.

Judged by the movie trailer, I expected to dislike Santa Clause 3. The infinitely talented Martin Short looked mean-spirited and Tim Allen appeared to be sleep-walking. Instead, I found myself enjoying this frothy holiday confection.

It involves Santa Claus/Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) finding a jealous rival in Jack Frost (Martin Short). The original Santa Clause developed a clever back story for Santa Claus and explained such head-scratchers as ‘how does Santa deliver the goods when there’s no fireplace?’

Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, doesn’t revisit Santa lore so much as it invents new lore for a guild of Legendary Figures that includes Santa and Frost, but also Mother Nature (Aisha Tyler), the Easter Bunny (Jay Thomas), Cupid (Kevin Pollack), the Sandman (Michael Dorn) and Father Time (Peter Doyle). The cast also includes the reliably droll Alan Arkin as Santa’s father-in-law, and Ann-Margret as his mother-in-law.

Frost learns that there is a way for him to assume the mantle of Santa. By trickery he transports himself and Calvin back to the moment when Calvin first slipped into the big red jacket. In a Back to the Future moment Frost gets to the jacket first and Calvin is suddenly living a joyless life as a successful toy company executive.

As Santa, Frost crassly exploits the commercial possibilities of the North Pole. Christmas, it turns out, could actually be more commercial. This is, as I say, a sweet movie so suffice it to say that the movie doesn’t end there.

This is a deeply-talented cast with not enough to do, although the producers somehow managed to fit in musical numbers by Ann-Margret, which was too short, and Martin Short, which was too long. And maybe someone can explain why flatulence jokes… in this case involving the reindeer… are now part of every G-rated movie these days. Sigh!

Santa Clause 3: the Escape Clause is rated G for general audiences.

DMR grades Santa Clause 3 a B.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as a ‘thanks for trying’ attaboy. Santa Clause was upgraded a half-grade because it was clean and because I want to encourage more movie producers to cast Ann-Margret.

Open Season with Martin Lawrence and Ashton Kutcher

Don’t Rush to Put Open Season in Your Sights

When I reviewed Over the Hedge I wrote that it was an animated movie that wanted to be good for you, like a high fiber cereal.

Open Season, another animated movie featuring furry forest creatures has no such ambitions. It’s a cheese doodle and a Diet Coke. It fills 99 minutes but when you’re done you realize that there’s not a lot of movie in this movie.

And they spend way too much time answering the eternal question, “just where does a bear do his business in the woods?” The jokes are kid-friendly enough, they’re just few and far between and take their sweet time delivering.

Open Season stars Martin Lawrence in the Shrek character and Ashton Kutcher as the Donkey character. Open Season isn’t a direct clone of Shrek, but the buddy dynamics and the ‘journey of discovery’ plotline are plenty familiar.

Lawrence stars as Boog, a 900-pound grizzly bear who is the pet of Beth (Debra Messing) and the mountain town of Timberline. He’s the star of small animal show and so house-trained he uses a porcelain toilet. Then one day Elliot (Kutcher), a scrawny one-horned deer turns Boog’s life and Timberline upside down.

In the wake of the mess, Beth does the only thing that makes sense to her. She returns both misfits to the forest above town where they encounter beavers, squirrels, porcupines, deer and other denizens, who mock the pair’s foreign ways. Worse, hunting season is starting soon.

One of the movie’s shortcomings is Lawrence, who’s no Eddie Murphy or Mike Meyers for that matter. Open Season would have gotten instantly better with almost anyone besides Lawrence. Kutcher is surprisingly strong as the mischievous buddy. So too is Gary Sinise as Shaw, a hunter on the lunatic fringe.

Kudos to the producers for casting Canadian native American actor Gordon Tootoosis as Gordo, Timberline’s Indian law enforcement officer.

Open Season is rated PG for "some rude humor, mild action and brief language."

DMR grades Open Season a C+.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. Open Season was downgraded. Without the potty jokes I would have graded as a B-.

The Best and Worst Dollar Movies of 2006

It’s the end of 2006 and time for the best and worst lists.

The Dollar Movie Reviewer has been filling notebooks and now he looks back at the Dollar Movies that made him laugh (Cars), cry (The Lake House) and wince in pain (Zoom).

Plus, there’s a bonus list of movies that, er, didn’t make any other list. That’s why I call it the “Didn’t Make any Other DollarMovieReview.net List.”

What about you, is there a Dollar Movie that should be on a list but isn’t? Be sure and comment.

DollarMovieReview.net Top Five Family Films

Cars. The best animated film in a year full of animated films. Pretty to look at and as fun as a ride in a convertible, it doesn’t quite measure up to the Pixar classics.

Over the Hedge. Smart and funny, it needled fat people (like me) a little too much.

How to Eat Fried Worms. A boy’s movie that reminds us, in Hallie Kate Eisenberg’s words that, “boys are so weird!”

The Ant Bully. Like Monster House, Ice Age, and Barnyard, it’s an imperfect animated movie that eventually rewards you.

Ice Age: The Meltdown. As slow-moving as a glacier, but the warmth of the movie helps melt the ice.

DollarMovieReview.net Top Five Film Films for Parents

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. Thrills from the opening to the closing credits, just too intense and gruesome for young children.

Invincible. Inspiring as a session with Tony Robbins.

The Devil Wears Prada. Meryl Streep is a force of nature and Anne Hathaway is a breath of fresh air.

The Lake House. The romance and genuine chemistry between Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves see you through the muddled space-time continuum parts.

Superman Returns. A rousing reworking of the original Superman, it would be on the family list if not for a scene where Superman takes a vicious beating.

DollarMovieReview.net Bottom Five Dollar Movies

Zoom. Don’t let this Tim Allen dog bark its way into your DVD collection.

Lady in the Water. A dripping wet mess from the usually reliable M. Night Shyamalan.

Flicka. The cast can’t bring enough life to this dying horse.

Talladega Nights. I laughed, heaven help me, at this thin movie and equal-opportunity offender.

Failure to Launch. A funny movie that could have and should have been rated R.

Didn’t Make any Other DollarMovieReview.net List

Nacho Libre. You either get it or you don’t. I saw it as a goofy silent movie with plenty of slapstick to go around.

Monster House. Starts strong but wheezes to its finish.

Barnyard. Don’t get me started on the topic of male cows with udders.

Flyboys. A ‘war is hell’ movie that’s satisfying even while it’s ghastly in its depictions of death in war.

The Da Vinci Code. The pacing is steady and the acting is confident. But it never made my heart race. The central premise is offensive to Catholics and others.

The Guardian. It drags and too much time is spent in training, but the movie depicts heroism like it hasn’t been seen since John Wayne quit making movies.

Flyboys with James Franco and Jean Reno

War is Hell

There was a time when to go to war was a glorious thing and to fight and perhaps die in battle was a mark of honor. Americans probably lost much of their innocence with the Civil War when every casualty was American. But the war that set Europe on the path to cynical existentialism was WWI.

Flyboys chronicles the lives of a group of dewy young flyers who gallantly fought on the side of the French in an all-American air force squadron called the Lafayette Escadrille well before America herself entered the war.

Based on a true story, these flyers hit all the expected stereotypes. There’s the glory-seeking Nebraska farm boy; the spoiled rich kid out to prove himself; the Midwesterner trying to stay ahead of the law; the French-speaking son of a slave who has found a comfortable place in France; the faithful flyer who’s co-pilot is God; the jaded ace; etc. And there’s romance with the girlish French maiden whose family has been devastated by the fighting.

But the story unfolds mainly through the experiences of Blaine Rawlings (Spiderman’s James Franco), who leaves Texas having lost the family ranch. Franco is surrounded by a young cast of mostly unknowns who acquit themselves well. Jean Reno, the French actor of choice among American casting directors, needed more material to work with.

The best moments in Flyboys are the dogfights and there are wondrous times when the screen is filled edge to edge with fragile aircraft battling for air supremacy. Powered flight was just a little more than a decade old when the war started and the pilots easily transitioned from chivalry to the barbarism which so characterized the rest of WWI.

WWI doesn’t need any help being portrayed as a savage, regrettable moment in human history. Nine million people died in a war that few people could identify the cause of.

But the barbarism is painted a little too brightly in Flyboys. It’s my only negative in a movie that liked quite a bit. War is hell. But I don’t have to look at hell to understand or even to feel that.

Flyboys is rated PG-13 for “war action violence and some sexual content.” The rating is well earned. There are some ghastly depictions of death in Flyboys.

DMR grades Flyboys as a C+.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. Flyboys was downgraded. I would have given it B+ if they would have left out the detailed violence.

Flicka with Tim McGraw and Alison Lohman

A Grrl and Her Horse

There’s a hysterical scene in Disney’s 1997 movie George of the Jungle where two minor characters ask, ‘what is it with chicks and horses?’ Flicka, a movie concept that’s been around the track a few times over the last 60 years, tries to answer that question.

Flicka is about three kindred spirits trying to understand one another. Spirited young Katy McLaughlin (Alison Lohman) is a mustang who chafes under the iron hand of her father Rob (country singer Tim McGraw). She comes home to the family quarter horse ranch in rural Wyoming for the summer after botching her final paper of the year at boarding school and the school tells her not to return.

Before she tells her parents about her failure, Katy goes for a pre-dawn ride in the Wyoming countryside. There she comes across Flicka, a beguiling black mustang mare full of fury and fight.

Against her father’s best judgment, Flicka ends up on the family ranch and Katy works to tame the horse during nighttime visits.

During the days, a lot of anger and recriminations flair between Katy, her brother Howard (Ryan Kwanten), and their father. But the drama seems forced. Long before Nell McLaughlin (Maria Bello) tells her husband “When are you going to look at your daughter and realize she’s you?” we know that Flicka is Katy and Katy is Rob.

The movie trailer for Flicka made me think that the movie was going to be One Tree Hill on horseback. Refreshingly, it’s not. This is about a girl who falls in love with a horse, not a boy.

A lot of the drama depends on McGraw being a gigantic force of will in his family. But all McGraw’s able to pull off is a sort of general surliness. This is only his third film role, so it’s unfair to say that he’s not terribly good. Instead, let the blame fall on the casting director, director and producers for relying on McGraw to carry so much weight.

Flicka is rated PG “for some mild language.

Dollar Movie Review rates it a B-.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. Flicka was upgraded. I would have given it a C+ on its own merits. It got the upgrade because Flicka is clean and appropriate for the entire family. It's worth your time and your dollar.

The Guardian with Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher

John Wayne Meet Kevin Costner

About 130 minutes into The Guardian I realized that I was watching a brand new John Wayne movie showing right now at the Dollar Theater. Oh, the Duke’s been dead since 1979 and his last movie was The Shootist in 1976 (which co-starred director Ron Howard). But make no mistake, The Guardian is a John Wayne movie.

It’s about a handful of the 200 or so Coast Guard ‘rescue swimmers’ who do the most heroic darn thing I can conjure up. They go out in the worst weather imaginable, jump out of helicopters and pull people out of the roiling ocean or off pitching boats. Exactly the kind of larger-than-life people that John Wayne used to profile in his movies.

Starring in the John Wayne role is Kevin Costner. Costner plays Ben Randall, an aging and legendary rescue swimmer with hundreds of saves to his credit. His home base is on Alaska’s Kodiak Island in the forbidding Bering Sea. Costner’s marriage to Helen (Sela Ward) is on the rocks because his all-encompassing job rescuing people is drowning their marriage.

After a horrific rescue attempt that claims the lives of two of his fellow crewman, Ben’s commanding officer (Clancy Brown), gives him a choice; retire or recharge as the chief instructor at A-school, where new rescue swimmers are trained. Reluctantly Ben agrees.

A-school is brutal. There’s a 50 percent attrition rate. And the men and women who want to be rescue swimmers are a curious mixture of confidence and humility. Both are present in would-be rescue swimmer Jake Fischer (Ashton Kutcher), although we don’t see the humility until well into the movie.

The movie runs 136 minutes which director Andrew Davis (Holes, The Fugitive) isn’t able to sustain. As John Wayne knew, this kind of move should be about 120 minutes or less. Davis got some help from his editors, and their trims are noticeable, but it wasn’t enough. There are really only four rescues in the movie. The rest is training sequences and the humbling of Jake. A lot of that could have been shortened.

A little Kevin Costner goes a long way for me. Like John Wayne, Costner mostly plays himself in movies. And when he doesn’t, you get Robinhood: Prince of Thieves. Whether or not you like him more than I do, it’s his movie and he’s in darn near every scene. As for Kutcher, he’ll be Costner’s age before I quit thinking of him as a ‘dude.’

There’s some salty language in the movie and a lot of pillow talk and casual sex between Jake and his girlfriend Emily Thomas (Melissa Sagemiller). Needless to say, there’s images of dead bodies floating in the water, too.

The Guardian is another example of why we go to the Dollar Movies. It’s hardly perfect, but for a dollar or so, there’s plenty of entertainment for your money and your time.

The Guardian is rated PG-13 “for intense sequences of action/peril, brief strong language and some sensuality.”

DMR grades The Guardian a B.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. The Guardian was downgraded. I would have given it an B+ except that the language and the sensuality are too strong for young children.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Your Dollar Will Stretch ‘till it Screams in Delight
DMR Gives Dead Man’s Chest an A

Sometime during a fantastic three-way sword duel (a ‘triuel’?) it became clear that Dead Man’s Chest is more than a mere billion-dollar blockbuster, it’s a ripsnorter of a swashbuckler. A breathless rock’em sock’em three-hour thrill ride.

I don’t remember ever seeing a ‘triuel,’ but it isn’t the novelty that makes that scene (and others) so memorable. Instead the triuel moves in and out of the foreground pulsing with energy and finding new ways and places for the three to clash swords while spilling out laughs all along the way.

Dead Man’s Chest is much better than the first POTC, but also less satisfying. After all, the movie has to get us from POTC 1 to POTC 3. So you can count on a cliffhanger just as you’re wondering how it can possibly be resolved. Unlike POTC 1 there’s a real… if twisty… plot in Dead Man’s Chest and the stunts and laughs don’t all rely on Johnny Depp’s considerable appeal this time around.

The story brings back all the familiar characters: Capt. Jack Sparrow (Depp) Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), Norrington (Jack Davenport), Governor Weatherby Swann (Jonathon Pryce), and Ragetti (Mackenzie Crook).

The movie opens with Elizabeth being stood up at the altar. Her affianced, Will, has been arrested by Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander), a new character with no apparent scruples. The arrest turns out to be a matter of leverage. The real object is Capt. Jack, or rather the compass around Jack’s neck.

Meanwhile, Capt Jack is dealing with troubles of an otherworldly nature. Bootstrap Bill… Will’s un-dead father (Stellan Skarsgard)… delivers a startling message to Capt. Jack from the no-less-un-dead Davey Jones; pay up or join the crew of Jones’s ship, the Flying Dutchman. It seems Capt. Jack had made a devil’s bargain with Davey Jones (Bill Nighy) 10 years before to raise the Pearl. As Bill leaves, a sore appears on Jack’s hand. A walking death is stalking the wily Capt. Jack and even he might not be able to wangle his way free.

Davy Jones and all his unfortunate minions are gruesome characters, part sea creatures, part human, and no longer subject to the constraints of mortality. Jones has a beard of sea anemones that along with the rest of his face was entirely computer generated. Such creations can be rather soulless, but between the animators and Nighy’s performance, Davey Jones seems as real as a dead man with sea anemones growing on his face could be.

Is it worth your dollar? I would have paid full price to see POTC: Dead Man’s Chest.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest is rated PG-13 for “intense sequences of adventure violence, including frightening images.”

DMR grades Dead Man’s Chest an A.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. Dead Man’s Chest was downgraded. I would have given it an A+ except that it is too violent and too intense for young children. So don’t bring them. The crew of the Flying Dutchman may also be too ghastly for children and others. My wife is convinced her parents would find it so.

Monster House

Not Quite Scary Enough to be Really Therapeutic

DMR Gives Monster House a B

My Scoutmaster growing up had a little bit of Ol’ Nick in him and he liked to scare us. He was a cop and we made an annual field trip to the municipal jail. That put the fear of God into us! I remember a camping trip to an honest-to-Pete ghost town when he told us murder stories before forcing us to… one by one… touch the Victorian-era iron fence that surrounded the tiny weed-choked graveyard.

Ah, there’s something so therapeutic about a good scare when you’re 12.

I was hoping for something like that from Monster House. I anticipated a nice taut preteen scarefest from Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, the film’s executive producers. Instead I got something a little more slack from Jason Clark and Ryan Kavanaugh, who also shared executive producer’s credits.

The story takes place on Halloween and the day before. It opens when crazy Old Man Nebbercracker (Steve Buscemi) falls dead (apparently) onto D.J. (Mitchel Musso) after coming unhinged in a fit of anger. D.J, who lives across the street, has allowed an object to trespass on Nebbercracker’s lawn and Nebbercracker really lets him have it. D.J., who had long watched the suspicious goings-on across the street, confesses to his best friend Chowder (Sam Lerner) and the sophisticated love interest Jenny (Spencer Locke) that he’s killed the old man.

Kids in the neighborhood always knew about Nebbercracker and his home. No trike, no kite, no ball is safe anytime it gets near the sidewalk or the trees of the Nebbercracker home, Old Man Nebbercracker would see to that. More strangely still, even the grass seems to suck down mislaid objects.

The day before Halloween, D.J.’s parents (Fred Willard and Catherine O’Hara) head for a dental convention leaving Zee (Maggie Gyllenhaal), an irresponsible babysitter in charge. With Old Man Nebbercracker apparently dead, the house seems to be coming viciously alive, just in time for trick or treaters.

Monster House makes use of the motion-capture technique used to such great effect in 2004's The Polar Express, which was directed by Zemeckis. Motion-capture involves actors putting on suits studded with sensors that digitize their movements, including even facial expressions. The intent is to give movement a more human-like look and to simplify the animation process.

But oddly it’s the ‘human interactions’ in the movie that are sometimes less than compelling. There’s a strangely stilted scene between D.J. and Chowder playing basketball early in the movie. Twelve’s an awkward age, but not that awkward.

That’s not the fault of the technology, of course, but of the writers. That scene is balanced by one in which D.J. and Chowder, competitive for Jenny’s attention, dash into the house to save her. Man if I had a nickel for every time I dreamed of saving a girl when I was 12!

Monster House is rated PG for “scary images and sequences, thematic elements, some crude humor and brief language.”

DMR grades Monster House a B.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. Monster House was graded straight up.

Worth Watching Press Release

Hey gang:

Here's my first press release for the blog. Let me know what you think.

Warm regards,
Paul


DollarMovieReview.net Launches With Backlog of Dollar Movie Reviews

Cheeky, valuable, interesting, and loaded with links to dollar and first-run theatres and other critics, DollarMovieReview.net is a reliable guide to what’s really worth watching at the nation’s dollar theatres.

SALT LAKE CITY---DollarMovieReview.net… the first website devoted to reviewing movies showing at the nation’s dollar theatres… is now live with a backlog of movie reviews including Talladega Nights, Invincible and How to Eat Fried Worms.

“Dollar Movies reward the patient with a big screen experience for a fraction of what they cost only a few weeks before,” says Paul Jones, the Dollar Movie Reviewer.

Reviews at DollarMovieReview.net are quick-reading, with an easy-to-understand letter grade. DollarMovieReview.net includes links to the nation’s main Dollar Movie chains, along with the major first-run chains. There are also links to other reviewers including Movie Mom, Rotten Tomatoes, and Roger Ebert.

“All these movies have been reviewed before, of course,” says Paul Jones, the Dollar Movie Reviewer. “But DollarMovieReview.net brings a fresh voice, a blogger’s sensibility… and because Dollar Movies are particularly popular with children and families… a family-friendly eye.”

Just because these movies have a second life, doesn’t mean they’re worth watching. “Cheap doesn’t necessarily mean good,” Jones says. “The highest praise you can give a dollar movie is that you’d come again, because your time is more valuable than the dollar. The most disparaging thing you can do at a Dollar Movie is to walk out on a movie. You’re saying it’s not worth your dollar, and worse, it’s not worth your time.”

DollarMovieReview.net’s review criteria is entirely subjective, but there are some hallmarks. “I love movies,” says Jones. “And like any critic I look for movies with artistic merit. But I’m also a father of young children. So I grade these movies on a curve. Elements in movies like sex, violence, profanity and the like (all things that, frankly, didn’t bother me as much when I was still single) don’t fare as well in my reviews. Moreover, kid-friendly movies will get the benefit of a doubt in my reviews; a kind of ‘thanks for trying’ attaboy.”

DollarMovieReview.net believes that it’s possible to make movies that are engaging and entertaining without being course or debasing. “Pixar has done it with every release,” Jones says. “I see part of my job as to encourage better movies.”

“I once heard Gerald Molen talk about his experiences as a Hollywood producer,” says Jones, “and he mentioned that the only R-rated movie he'd produced was Schindler's List (for which he won the Best Picture Academy Award in 1994). Someone piped up and said, what about Rain Man? He said, when he started the movie, it was a PG or PG-13 movie, not an R movie. The director, Barry Levinson, had made choices during the course of the production that turned it into an R movie.”

“I believe Hollywood is capable of producing splendid movies,” says Jones. “But too often the first sensibility of modern Hollywood screenwriters, directors, producers and actors is to make movies that cheapen and degrade. When filmmakers make those kind of choices, DollarMovieReview.net will say so.’

###

Everyone's Hero

A Swing and a (Near) Miss
DMR Grades Everyone's Hero a B

For about 12 years I worked for two different media-savvy children's charities. During that time I spent more than a few hours brainstorming ideas for bringing to the world an animated children’s movie or TV series that would feature those charities. It never worked out. We had some interesting ideas, especially when it came to the charity tie-ins and promotions. Our problem was the stories that came out of development just weren’t up to snuff. We were forcing it. Our second problem was that we didn’t have a force of nature like Christopher Reeve driving it.

Everyone’s Hero, directed by Reeve, was his last project before his unfortunate and untimely death. As a movie, Everyone’s Hero has some of the same earmarks of the stuff I was involved in. It’s a tad on the precious side and the story tries too hard. It’s a nice movie, but not a great one.

That said, my 4-year-old loved it. She laughed, she was sad, and she was triumphant, all at the right moments. This is a G movie intended, and best suited, for younger kids.

Everyone’s Hero is about a 10-year-old boy named Yankee Irving (Jake T. Austin) who lives in the Bronx and is a huge Yankees fan. It’s the Fall Classic and the Yanks are facing the Cubs in the 1932 World Series. The Yankees are led by Babe Ruth (Brian Dennehy) who has a favorite bat named Darlin’ (Whoopi Goldberg).

The owner of the Cubs determines that the difference maker is Darlin’ and he orders his conniving pitcher Lefty Maginnis (William H. Macy) to steal the bat. Yankee’s father Stanley (Mandy Patinkin), who works for the Yankees, is accused of the theft and is fired by the manager (Joe Torre). But with the help of a talking baseball named Screwie (Rob Reiner), Yankee figures out that it was Lefty who stole Darlin’ and proceeds to Penn Station to track Darlin’ down so his dad can get his job back.

Yankee does just that, but how to get it to the Babe who's now in Chicago for the rest of the Series?

Like I said, Everyone's Hero tries too hard. There’s a scene with good-hearted hoboes, for instance, that really doesn’t advance the movie. And another one with the family of Negro Baseball League player Lonnie Brewster (Forest Whitaker), that seemed forced. Another scene that features Brewster’s team The Cincinnati Tigers and a lesson for Yankee on how to hit a ball, is much more fun.

Everyone’s Hero is rated G for all audiences.

DMR rates it a B.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. Everyone’s Hero got that upgrade. Without the upgrade, I would have given it a C+.

Invincible

Invincible with Mark Walberg

A Touchdown for Cynical Times

I needed a little pick-me-up when I walked into Invincible, a little go-juice, a tonic, a bracer, a cordial for cynical times. And I got it. Invincible is an inspiring movie, well-told.

It concerns Vince Papale (Mark Wahlberg), an underemployed substitute teacher and bartender in South Philly having a hard time making ends meet. One night after he stops to play a little mean-street tackle football with his buddies, his wife (Lola Glaudini) up and leaves him. Her note, revealed late in the movie, is as cruel as a Philly winter. When his meager teaching contract is not renewed, Vince is forced to borrow from his dad to meet rent.

At the same time, the Philadelphia Eagles are coming off a miserable season and they hire Dick Vermeil (Greg Kinnear) away from UCLA. Vermeil announces in his first press conference that the Eagles will hold open tryouts, gambling that that sounds inspirational rather than desperate to the tough Philly fans, who notoriously once threw snowballs at Santa Claus.

The people that show up are a motley bunch; too old, too slow, too fat, too inept, too stupid. “More stupid than I’m used to,” one TV sportscaster remarks to his cameraman. But there is one bright spot, Vince Papale, who runs a remarkable 4.5 40. All the more remarkable because Vince, who is 30, never played a down of college ball, and just one year of high school football.
At the end of tryouts Vermeil asks only Vince to come to summer camp.

In the neighborhood bar where Vince works the regulars go wild.

Like Philly fans, film critics are a fickle lot and inspirational movies don’t always fair well with them. But I like to be inspired. It’s only when someone does the impossible that we realize it can be done. The sports world has treasure trove of these kinds of stories and Disney is making its way through them one by one with Remember the Titans, Miracle, The Rookie, Glory Road, and now Invincible.

There’s a formula in each of these movies to be sure, but for my dollar none of them ever turn formulaic. The Beatles made a lot of great music with just three chords and a steady beat. The mark of a good movie isn’t originality, per se, it’s whether or not the story invites you in and the characters make you care.

Invincible made me care. Wahlberg still has some growth ahead of him as an actor, but his charisma is undeniable. Max, who owns the bar where Vince works, is delivered with masculine compassion by Michael Rispoli. Scenes with love interest Janet Cantrell (Elizabeth Banks) were clean, with only implied sex.

Invincible is rated PG “for sports action and some mild language.”

DMR rates it an A-.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that choose to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. Invincible got that upgrade. Without the upgrade, I would have given it a B+.

How to Eat Fried Worms

A Tasty Dish of Fun for the Young and the Young at Heart

DMR Grades it a B+

When An Inconvenient Truth came out, Roger Ebert wrote, “You owe to yourself to see this film.”

In that spirit I say to all the 7-11 year old boys within the reach of this blog: “Don’t miss How to Eat Fried Worms or Hallie Kate Eisenberg will come to your school and kiss you on the lips in front of all your friends!”

That’s right, it’s that good.

Poor Billy (Luke Benward) is the new kid in school and he’s taunted from the first moment he arrives by the class bully Joe (Adam Hicks). In a moment of bravado, Billy flicks onto Joe's face one of the worms that just tumbled out of his lunch thermos. The worms in the thermos, of course, came courtesy of Joe and friends.

Joe wouldn’t be any kind of bully if he took that insult lying down, so he intimidates Billy into a contest of worm eating the following Saturday. Billy must down 10 worms in disgusting concoctions by 7 pm or the loser has to walk the school’s hallway the following Monday with their pants full of worms. Yech!

Joe doesn’t know it, but Billy has the world’s weakest stomach. He vomits in car trips, on waterslides, when his pre-school brother has food on his face, everywhere. The contest begins and Billy manages to will himself through, even though Joe’s team finds new and ever-more disgusting ways to prepare the worms.

There’s worm omelets, flattened-worm PB&Js, green worm spinach slop, spicy stewed worms, marshmallow worms, and the namesake fried worms. Ah, the inventiveness of boys with time on their hands.

As Erika (Eisenberg) says, “boys are so weird.”

There’s lots of kids in this movie and Benward and Hicks are particularly good. Some of the young supporting actors were less so, but in a kids’ movie I usually blame that on the director.

The movie is fun and funny and it ends in honor. I’m no longer a boy, but I found the worm-eating stunts surprising easy to stomach. Adult actors included Tom Cavanagh and Kimberly Williams as Billy’s parents, Clint Howard as an uncle to one of the boys on Billy’s team, plus James Rebhorn, a veteran character actor, as Principal ‘Boiler Head’ Burdock.

How to Eat Fried Worms is rated PG “for mild bullying and some crude humor.”

DMR rates it a B+.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. How to Eat Fried Worms got that upgrade. Without the upgrade, I would have given it a B.

The Ant Bully

A Cub Scout-Ready Romp
DMR Grades it a B+

Fellow blogger and new friend Rob Merrill described The Ant Bully as a boy’s movie. “I should take my scouts to see it,” he told me.

With that framing I wasn’t sure what to expect from it. 'Tom Sawyer' was a boy’s book. The fine 2003 movie Holes was a boy’s movie.

But for every Holes or Tom Sawyer, there’s 10 pieces of schlock passed off as boy ready. So what kind of movie would The Ant Bully be, Holes or a piece of schlock?

Well, neither, actually. The Ant Bully is a nice dollar movie, worth your buck and your time.

It’s the story of Lucas Nickle (Zach Tyler), no longer the baby his mom thinks he is, but not yet a teen either, and harassed by the local bully and his geeky gang of toadies. After the bully takes a chunk of Lucas’s underwear in a vicious wedgy, the friendless Lucas turns his squirt gun on the ant hill in his front yard in frustration.

By contrast, the ants aren’t friendless. Instead, they live in a colony with a rich heritage, a spiritual grounding, its own culture, and a complex social order where everyone has a respected role. After Lucas attacks a second time with the hose, the colony’s leadership asks Zoc, the colony’s militant wizard what he would do. Zoc (Nicolas Cage) suggests a counterstrike at Lucas, who the ants call The Destroyer. They get the OK from the Head of Council (Ricardo Freakin’ Montalban!) and they make a strike on Lucas that night in a way that recalls Hamlet, believe it or not.

Using his own potion, Zoc shrinks The Destroyer down to ant size and he’s brought to account before the colony and the Queen Ant (Meryl Streep). Zoc is calling for Lucas’ thorax, but the Queen instead counsels mercy; Lucas, she rules, must instead become an ant under the tutelage of Hova (Julia Roberts), whose approach to The Destroyer is tender and motherly.

Much peril lies ahead for human and insects and many lessons are learned. The boy part of the movie is especially pronounced in the final reel when boy and insects join forces to battle a overzealous exterminator (Paul Giamatti).

The Ant Bully’s animation is first-rate and well imagined. The only that keeps it from being a top-rated movie is that the story is a little loose and the editing a little haphazard.

The Ant Bully is rated “PG for some mild rude humor and action.”

DMR gives it a grade of B+.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. The Ant Bully got that upgrade. Without the upgrade, I would have given it a B.

Barnyard

Farmland Fun for the Whole Family
DMR grades it a B+

Barnyard is a surprisingly tight, funny animated film for the whole family built on the premise that once the humans aren’t looking, the animals are walking on two legs, talking, making fun of us, and partying like it’s 1999.

Barnyard wasn’t particularly well reviewed, but the rule of thumb with dollar movies is that the longer a film stays in first run, the better the audience likes it. Barnyard opened August 4, the same day as Talladega Nights, and came to the dollar theaters about 60 days later. Someone besides the critics liked this movie.

The story involves a barnyard full of animals overseen by the gravel-voiced Ben (Sam Elliot) a male cow with udders. All the other cows… male and female… had udders, too. Critics have drawn all kinds of conclusions about those udders, but rather than see them as a sign of some kind of transgendered farm I just sorta went with it.

Ben has an irrepressible adopted son named Otis (Kevin James) who’s feeling his oats. By day he’s out ice block surfing and by night he’s ‘boy tipping’ or fronting the house band in the barn and flirting with Daisy (Courteney Cox), the cute widow with a calf on the way. Meanwhile, dad is leading by example, taking responsibility and keeping watch for a pack of junkyard coyotes under the leadership of Dag (David Koechner).

Circumstances force Otis to assume responsibility for the first time, much as they had for his father before him. As Ben reminds Otis, “A strong man stands up for himself. A stronger man stands up for others.” Much as I admire the sentiment, that sentence is anthropomorphic nonsense given the situation, but again, I let it slide.

I won’t reveal any more of the plot, but the movie is basically ethay ionlay ingkay in overalls.

The movie has an astonishing amount of singing and dancing, enough so that Barnyard could have been a musical. Most of the music isn't on my iPod, but it did include Sam Elliot crooning Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” during a crucial sequence. Curiously, (for a kids movie) the movie makers chose to include the lyrics, “you can stand me up at the gates of hell..."

The cast, which also includes Danny Glover, Wanda Sykes and Andie Macdowell, does fine, but Koechner deserves special notice because he brings unusual menace to his character.

Like I said, critics weren’t kind to Barnyard, but I liked its message of personal responsibility, teamwork and, for that matter, the joys of adoption. But it is edgy in places and tends towards political-correctness.

Barnyard is rated “PG for some mild peril and rude humor.”

DMR gives it a grade of B+.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. Barnyard got that upgrade. Without the upgrade, I would have given it a B.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

Not so much a guilty pleasure as a guilty laugh.
DMR gives it D.

Like anyone, I have regrets.

I regret that I don’t already have a graduate degree. I regret that I don’t eat more fruits and vegetables, and I regret laughing so hard during Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.

Talladega Nights is surely a crowd pleaser, but it’s only an OK movie. The pacing’s often episodic, and there are plenty of strained or false notes. The language, which includes the “R-word,” is bad. And if the movie would have made as much fun of Muslim prayer as it does Christian prayer, there would be riots in the Arab street.

Yet still I laughed.

The movie is about Ricky Bobby (Will Ferrell), born in a muscle car as his daddy sped past the county hospital. His father is an irregular presence after that, but after an appearance at career day at Ricky's school, he tells young Ricky that “if you’re not first, you’re last.” Ricky, along with his childhood friend Cal Naughton Jr (John C. Reilly) make that their life's code and as adults they find themselves as NASCAR teammates.

With Cal’s help, Ricky wins races and endorsement deals, including one for the official tampon of NASCAR! But Ricky’s aggressive way of winning doesn’t bring a NASCAR team win, and the owner (Greg Germann) is upset. On the same night Bobby gets unceremoniously fired for totaling a car… and deliriously stripping to his tighty whities because he thinks he’s on fire… his wife (Leslie Louise Bibb) leaves him for Cal.

The question becomes, can Ricky make his way back to the winner’s stand?

Talladega Nights is an equal opportunity offender. Although it's not really mean-spirited, it takes aim at homosexuals, heterosexuals, NASCAR fans, NASCAR crews, the French, the Waffle House, concerned grandparents, Tom Cruise, untamed grandchildren, dodgy fathers, and darn near everyone south of the Mason-Dixon line.

And still, I regret to say, I laughed.

Talladega Nights is rated PG-13 for “for crude and sexual humor, language, drug references and brief comic violence.” And believe me, it’s a well-earned PG-13.

Dollar Movie Review gives it a grade of D.

The Dollar Movie Review Grading System: The Dollar Movie Review grades on a curve. Movies that make choices to be course or vulgar are downgraded a full to a half grade or more. Likewise, movies that don’t gross out or offend too much can be upgraded as ‘a thanks for trying’ attaboy. Because of its language, situations, and numerous course moments, Talladega Nights was downgraded. Without the downgrade, I would have given it a B-.