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Review of LICORICE PIZZA (Blu-ray combo)

May 21, 2022

James Plath, Family Home Theater Comedy, Drama, R rated 1 Comment

Grade:  C+/B-
Comedy-Drama
Rated R

Sometimes hype can be the kiss of death. It was for me, as far as Licorice Pizza was concerned. All the way through this self-consciously quirky film from Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights), I kept getting wannabe Almost Famous vibes but found myself thinking, when is this going to end?

That’s not the reaction I expected, given that the coming-of-age film Licorice Pizza, even at a sprawling 133 minutes, was the darling of the 2022 awards season. It earned Oscar, BAFTA, and Golden Globe nominations for Best Picture and Screenplay and won Best Screenplay at the BAFTAs. Licorice Pizza was also touted as the first MGM picture produced and distributed since Rain Man to earn a BP Oscar nod. Smaller film critics associations loved it too, but I kept wondering if maybe that was proof of how starved everyone has been for another small pebble to make a big splash, as Little Miss Sunshine, Napoleon Dynamite, and Juno did.

I didn’t find myself as engaged by the characters or their situation as I wanted to be, and the quirkiness level was ramped up so high that it all felt absolutely contrived. As for the plot, Little Miss Sunshine, Napoleon Dynamite and Juno all had strong narrative trajectories, by comparison. Licorice Pizza felt meandering, but not in a way that seemed terribly organic. Small annoyances kept popping up, like why was one character arrested but then quickly released? Why was one character’s world so random? And why wasn’t the developing “love” more perceptible in its development?

Ninety-one percent of Rotten Tomatoes critics loved the film, as did critics on the aggregate site Metacritic, which scored it a 90 out of 100. In other words, just about every critic out there says I’m wrong. If I am, so is the rest of my family, who also wanted more than the quirkiness Licorice Pizza had to offer. More humor, maybe. Or more believable attraction. Or a plot that seemed less aimless. Or a more tightly edited story.

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Review of WILDCATS (1986) (Blu-ray)

May 31, 2021

James Plath, Family Home Theater Comedy, R rated Leave a comment

Grade:  B/B-
Comedy
Rated R

One of my guilty pleasures recently came out on Blu-ray:  Wildcats, starring Goldie Hawn. You know, Kate Hudson’s mom?

Back in the day, Hawn was a huge star, and it didn’t take her long to get there. After a failed TV series (Good Morning World) and two minor roles in films, she landed a plum role opposite Walter Matthau in Cactus Flower and won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Piece of cake, right? Except that after that she was cast in a succession of make-a-buck films that tried to capitalize on her popularity and personality in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Along with Private Benjamin (1980), Seems Like Old Times  (1980), and Overboard (1987), Wildcats is one of the better formulaic light comedies that Hawn made. In it, she plays the daughter of high school football coach who finally gets the chance to realize her own dream of coaching football . . . at an inner city school.

Right . . . to use the catch-phrase of comedian Nipsey Russell, who plays the principal at that school.

Wildcats would be fun viewing for the entire family if it wasn’t rated R for language (F-bombs included), teen drinking and drunkenness, and brief nudity, because the whole high-school setting and fish-out-of-water, win-them-over storyline is meant to be as upbeat and warm-hearted as it is humorous. It’s hard not to root for Molly as she endures sexism in the workplace, resentment and disrespect from her players, and meddling/bullying from an ex-husband en route to trying to coach a bunch of losers into lovable winners.

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Review of THE HARD WAY (1991) (Blu-ray)

September 27, 2020

James Plath, Family Home Theater Comedy, Crime, R rated Leave a comment

Grade: B
Crime comedy
Rated R

It’s usually not a good sign when you haven’t heard of a film starring two well-known actors—especially when it was released almost 30 years ago. How good can it be, this film that somehow sank into cinematic obscurity? As it turns out, The Hard Way, starring Michael J. Fox and James Woods, is surprisingly entertaining. It’s a keeper, especially if you’re a fan of buddy cop crime comedies.

The premise reminds you a bit of Ride Along (2014), with its familiar trope of good cop / bad cop referring, as it often does in the genre, to one good cop who’s forced to partner with someone that drives him guano crazy. Sometimes the ride-along is a wannabe cop, as in Ride Along, and sometimes it’s a geeky and clueless desk jockey, as in The Other Guys (2010). Most fans of the buddy cop movies trace the genre to 1987’s Lethal Weapon, which paired a dedicated about-to-retire cop with a loose cannon of a partner who had a death wish. But while most of the buddy cop films that have been made since then have carried a PG-13 rating to keep them more solidly in the realm of family viewing, The Hard Way followed Lethal Weapon’s lead and went with an R rating. There’s some moderate serious violence and some heavy realistic language here.

In this crime comedy from John Badham (WarGames, Short Circuit, Saturday Night Fever), a no-nonsense, anger-management challenged, borderline-rogue New York City detective (Woods) is forced to partner with a naïve Hollywood action hero (Fox) who pulled some strings to arrange the ride-along experience he needs in order to research a serious role he so desperately wants.

If you can get past the hard-to-swallow (but intentionally absurd) clip scenes of the diminutive and baby-faced Fox as an Indiana Jones’ style hero, and if you can believe that he can walk the streets of New York—where giant billboards featuring his face promote his latest movie—and not be recognized, this film has a lot to offer. There are taut action sequences, a solid plot, and a pairing that, however unlikely it seems, still makes you laugh out loud in a quite a few places. It’s every bit as good as films like Ride Along and Running Scared, better than Central Intelligence and Ride Along 2, and nearly as good as other films in the genre. More

Review of BLOOD QUANTUM (Blu-ray)

September 3, 2020

James Plath, Family Home Theater Horror-thriller, R rated , , Leave a comment

Grade: B-
Horror-thriller
Not rated (would be R)

Blood Quantum isn’t a title that screams “family friendly”—just plain screams, is more like it, considering that this 2019 horror film finds a few inventive new ways to kill zombies. There’s blood and gore and f-bombs galore, but if we’re being honest it’s the kind of film that appeals to older teens and families that enjoy a good frightfest every now and then.

Plus, Blood Quantum deserves a shout-out because this 2019 Canadian film from Jeff Barnaby is that rare horror film made by a First Nations director. Barnaby, a Mi’gmaq, shot much of the film on the same reserve in Listuguj, Quebec where he was born and he spotlights a large cast of First Nations actors. The history of indigenous people in North America is a history of segregation and forced relocation, but this film gets its own symbolic revenge (a theme suggested by two animated segments) by having the reserve be a place where all of the whites now want to go. The film’s key concept is that indigenous people are immune to the zombie plague. While they can be killed, they can’t be turned into zombies themselves. That is, they are immune to whatever zombie virus is being transmitted through zombie bites. As a result, the reserve, ironically, has become the only safe haven in the world.

The title itself is also ironic, because “blood quantum” or “Indian blood” laws were enacted by the U.S. government as a way of legally defining racial groups—too often a first step toward isolation and persecution. Here, blood quantum is a saving grace, and the political statement that Barnaby makes in his second full-length feature (the politically charged Rhymes for Young Ghouls was his first) is unmistakable. More

Review of 1917 (Blu-ray combo)

March 18, 2020

James Plath, Family Home Theater R rated, War , Leave a comment

1917 Blu-ray coverGrade: A-/B+
Rated: R
War

1917 was one of my top five films of 2019, and after the awards show dust cleared it emerged with three Academy Awards (Best Cinematography, Visual Effects, and Sound Mixing), three Golden Globes (Best Picture-Drama, Best Director, Best Original Score), and seven BAFTA Awards (Best Film, Outstanding British Film, Best Director, Production Design, Sound, Visual Effects, and Cinematography).

It’s a striking film that’s a contender for family movie nights if the children are older, despite the R rating, because it’s a war film with an underlying antiwar theme that doesn’t rely too heavily on bloody carnage to get its message across. This unique film from director Sam Mendes (Skyfall) and legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins features just two soldiers on a mission that begins to feel like a fantasy quest, given the surreal landscape and dangers and delights they encounter. The ground they cover is a recently abandoned battle zone, so while there’s little actual fighting, the effects of war pop up here and there in horror-thriller fashion as sobering reminders—hence the R rating.

Long takes make it feel as if the film was made with just two continuous shots, with a brief blackout in the middle. You realize how different this film is from other war movies almost instantly, as it opens with a shot of two soldiers lolling in a bucolic countryside in a pose vaguely reminiscent of the one that Alice strikes at the beginning of Alice in Wonderland. But when one of the two soldiers, named Blake, is summoned and told to pick another and report to the commander and the camera follows them, it’s a long tracking shot through the trenches that leads them to their reverse Wonderland, and not a rabbit hole. That sensation is supported by a later episode in which one of the soldiers helps a French woman in hiding by calming her baby and reciting an Edward Lear poem to the infant—a poem called “The Jumblies.” And of course there are no wondrous creatures in this surreal world—just dead bodies, rats, a few of the enemy, and a number of close calls. More

Review of THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT (Blu-ray)

November 16, 2019

James Plath, Family Home Theater Comedy, Crime, Drama, R rated Leave a comment

Grade: B
Entire family: No (older teens and up)
Crime comedy-drama
1974, 115 min., Color
Rated R for brief nudity, profanity, and violence
Kino Lorber
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Featured audio: DTS-HDMA 5.1
Bonus features: C-
Trailer
Amazon link

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is an offbeat heist film that also fits the buddy cop/criminal mold, so it holds strong appeal for fans of those genres. Just be aware that the R rating isn’t only for language that now would be considered relatively tame. There’s also one brief scene of full female frontal nudity and another instance where a naked man and woman are shown tied up together with minimal body parts showing—though both scenes are comedic.

This 1974 light drama from director Michael Cimino featured Clint Eastwood at the height of his Dirty Harry popularity, playing opposite a young and perpetually smiling Jeff Bridges, who had already received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for The Last Picture Show and would earn another one for his work on this film. Eastwood, meanwhile, would have to wait nearly 20 years for his first acting Oscar nomination (Unforgiven) . . . but he would take home the statue.

A chance meeting pairs an infamous heist mastermind hiding from some of his disgruntled gang (Eastwood, as The Thunderbolt) with a young drifter looking for adventure (Bridges, as Lightfoot). As Thunderbolt’s problems become his own, Lightfoot suggests they do something audacious: partner with the gang to repeat the celebrated heist, step by step. Hit that Montana bank again, using the same anti-tank gun that the gang did initially. More

Review of GOOD BOYS (Blu-ray combo)

November 2, 2019

James Plath, Family Home Theater Comedy, R rated Leave a comment

Grade: C-
Entire family: No (older teens only)
Comedy
2019, 90 min., Color
Rated R for crude sexual content, drug and alcohol material, and language throughout—all involving tweens
Universal
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Featured audio: DTS-HDMA 5.1
Bonus features: C-
Trailer
Amazon link

Good Boys was so heavily advertised on TV that I felt compelled to let Family Home Theater readers know whether it’s another Stand by Me classic that’s well worth the amount of R-rated material, or if it’s just an ironically titled companion to Bad Grandpa or Bad Teacher.

This much seems true: if you’re going to make a raunchy comedy about American boys, it had better be funny. Otherwise, the raunchiness feels like a cement overcoat that drags it down into the muck. If it doesn’t serve a purpose, if it doesn’t make the film funnier, why even include it? When the lines aren’t funny, it just gives viewers an uncomfortable feeling to be watching sixth graders talk the way these kids do about sex (they have no clue), drugs (even more clueless), and beer (don’t get me started).

There’s maybe a dozen laugh-out-loud moments when the R-rated material is funny. Otherwise, the f-bombs and confused sex talk coming out of tweens’ mouths isn’t as hilarious as writers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky seem to think it is. What’s worse, given the precociousness of kids these days, their naivete is hard to believe. Even a younger sister recognizes a sex toy and tells them about it, which all but draws attention to how difficult it is to believe the boys are that clueless.

The first half of this “adventure comedy” is flat, dull, and, for the most part, devoid of laughs. The three main characters are played by actors who seem stiff and self-conscious—though when the second half finds them working with better material, audiences can see that the problem lies mostly with the writing. Writer-director Stupnitsky also penned the screenplay for Bad Teacher, and if you know that in advance, you pretty much know what you’re going to get with Good Boys. More

Review of PAN’S LABYRINTH (4K UltraHD combo)

October 12, 2019

James Plath, Family Home Theater 4K Ultra HD, Drama, Fantasy, R rated, War Leave a comment

Grade: A-
Entire family: No (16 and older)
Fantasy-drama-war
2006, 119 min., Color
Rated R for graphic violence and some language
Warner Bros.
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Featured audio: Spanish DTS-HDMA 5.1
Bonus features: B+
Includes: 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, Digital Code
Trailer
Amazon link

Strange. Dark. Sad. Beautiful. Haunting. Powerful.

That describes Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar-winning Best Picture The Shape of Water (2017), and it also aptly describes the Mexican director’s earlier wartime fantasy-drama, Pan’s Labyrinth (2006).

Del Toro introduces the new 4K HD release (in Spanish, with English subtitles) by saying simply, “This movie almost killed me.” That’s easy to believe, because Pan’s Labyrinth takes a lot out of audiences too. With del Toro’s fairy tales for adults, you know you’re going to find the film visually stunning, narratively compelling, and, ultimately, deeply moving.

The action takes during place during WWII (1944) in Franco’s fascist Spain. Ofelia (played confidently and sympathetically by Ivana Baquero) is riding in a military car with her pregnant mother to a country outpost run by the ruthless and sadistic Captain Vidal—who married the mother, Carmen (Ariadna Gil), after her husband died in the war. He had sent for them because he wanted his baby to be born near him. In the car, Ofelia reads a fairytale about a princess who fled her father’s underground kingdom to live in the world above, where she was subject to that world’s illnesses and death. But her father knew that one day her spirit would return to him in the form of another.  More

Review of ANNABELLE COMES HOME (Blu-ray combo)

October 11, 2019

James Plath, Family Home Theater Horror-thriller, R rated Leave a comment

Grade: B-/C+
Entire family: No (way)
Horror, thriller
2019, 106 min., Color
Rated R for horror violence and terror
Warner Bros.
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: Dolby Atmos TrueHD
Bonus features: C+/B-
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Code
Trailer
Amazon link

First there was The Conjuring (2013), then Annabelle (2014), The Conjuring 2 (2016), Annabelle: Creation (2017), The Nun (2018), The Curse of La Llorona (2019), and now Annabelle Comes Home (2019). The Conjuring Universe continues to expand, but this latest film isn’t as much of a big bang as it is a slow evolution from dark potentiality to a third act burst of relatively predictable action. That’s because it’s a Pandora’s box film, and even if you know nothing about Greek mythology you probably have heard that Pandora opened a box (well, jar, actually) and unwittingly unleashed sickness, plagues, death, and all manner of evils on humankind. With a Pandora’s box film, you know the plot will be about trying to re-contain those evils, and the protagonists either will succeed or not. You have a 50/50 chance of guessing the outcome.

That’s one thing that makes Annabelle Comes Home less energetic or surprising than some of the previous entries. Fans have been through this before and know what to expect. There aren’t as many scares as in previous films, but the ones that are here are high octane, and their intensity is boosted by the fact that much of the action takes place within the confines of the home. More

Review of THE FIRST KING: BIRTH OF AN EMPIRE (Blu-ray combo)

September 28, 2019

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, Drama, R rated Leave a comment

Grade: B-
Entire family: No (older teens only)
Historical Drama, Action
2019, 123 min., Color
Not rated (would be R for graphic violence throughout)
Well Go USA Entertainment
Aspect ratio: 16×9 widescreen
Featured audio: Latin DTS-HDMA 5.1 (English subtitles)
Bonus features: C
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD
Trailer
Amazon link

The First King: Birth of an Empire (originally titled Romulus and Remus: The First King) is an Italian film in Latin with English subtitles (and a dubbed English option) that’s epic insomuch as it’s the story of the founding of Rome in 750 B.C.

But don’t approach this film thinking you’ll see a story related to that famous 5th century B.C. sculpture of The Capitoline Wolf suckling the child figures of Romulus and Remus (which, incidentally, were added in the 15th century A.D.). The story begins with the twins as full-grown men.

Likewise, don’t think that this film has anything at all to do with images of Ancient Rome that you might have in your head. Director Matteo Rovere’s stylish 2019 film has more in common with sagas of ancient barbarians, with a treatment that’s less “Roman” and cinematically epic than it is a second-cousin to the old Hammer films, with their brooding atmospheric narratives paced to allow atmosphere and place to become as important as the characters in those early pagan dramas.

If you happen to know the story of Romulus and Remus, don’t expect a start-to-finish retelling of their story—a fictionalized myth of the founding of Rome that sprang up in the 3rd century B.C. In this  version, their mother isn’t a vestal virgin and daughter of a king deposed by his brother. She could be, but there’s no mention of it. Legend has it that the twins were saved from drowning by the god Tiberinus, then suckled by a she-wolf and eventually found and adopted by a shepherd. That could have happened as well, but again there’s no mention of it.

When a flash flood sweeps the adult Romulus and Remus and their flock downriver, they’re found by Alba and his men and imprisoned in wooden cages. Other slaves have also been captured. Here’s where it takes a Braveheart or Spartacus turn and Romulus and Remus rise up to free themselves and the other slaves. But their escape is jeopardized not only by a soon-in-pursuit Alba, but by tensions and fighting among their own factions. At the center of the conflict is a “god” that Romulus insisted they bring with them—represented by an eternal fire in a small pot that’s carried by a virgin in the service of the god. And it certainly doesn’t help matters that she prophecies one day, while fondling what looks like a piece of liver, that one of the brothers will become king and founder of an empire while the other will fade into darkness:  one brother will kill the other. More

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