Sing

SING (Christophe Lourdelet and Garth Jennings, 2016)

Theater-owning koala Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) is on the verge of losing his prized performance space. Buster puts on a singing competition as a last-ditch effort to save the theater in SING, but a mistake on the flyers promises $100,000 for the winner than the intended thousand bucks.

The purse attracts all sorts of wannabe stars to the auditions. Among those making the final cut are Rosita (Reese Witherspoon), a pig who is unfulfilled as a mother and housewife; Johnny (Taron Egerton), a gorilla who’d rather be singing than helping with his mobster clan; heartbroken rocker porcupine Ash (Scarlett Johansson); and Mike (Seth MacFarlane), a crooning mouse with gambling debts. Shy elephant Meena (Tori Kelly) really wants to participate, but her stage fright holds her back.

SING is an animated comedy for two groups: those who love hearing five- or ten-second snippets of popular songs in celebrity karaoke and those who are really invested in AMERICAN IDOL’s audition episodes and storylines. It’s not bad per se so much as it is perfunctory. SING has a good tempo and enough familiar songs--or their hooks--to seem pleasantly mediocre. As it can be cut up almost infinitely into bite-size portions to promote it, a cynical view might lead one to see its value as a product to help pad a studio’s bottom line, not as anything with aspirations of being more than content. All it needs to do is look sufficiently cute amid the clutter of advertising to take the kids to it.

Some of the voice casting choices are curious, especially McConaughey as a koala. Wouldn’t Chris Hemsworth have provided the star power and a more geographically sensible pick? But then this feels like something created and assembled by a computer algorithm than by artistically motivated people. SING is the simulation of what blockbuster children’s entertainment is supposed to look and sound like.

SING's best joke by far is that brief moment when a sheep bleats the first word of the chorus from Seal’s "Kiss from a Rose", although the animal chosen to perform seems like a missed opportunity for the type of inside joke for adults that these movies love to wink with. The hammy, German-accented pig Gunter (Nick Kroll) is sporadically amusing. Parents who want to get out of the house or distract the kids would be better served going to MOANA again than patronizing SING.

Grade: C

Kubo and the Two Strings

KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS (Travis Knight, 2016)

Childhood for the one-eyed boy named Kubo (Art Parkinson) is magical and mystifying in the stop-motion animated KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS. He brings origami to life as he tells enchanting stories to the villagers near the cave where he and his mother are hiding out. Kubo can shred his three-stringed musical instrument, a samisen, like MAD MAX: FURY ROAD’s Doof Warrior, although no fire shoots out of the neck. While these are marvelous skills for a kid wield, there is much for him to be concerned about. His mother is ill, and and his grandfather, the Moon King (Ralph Fiennes), has killed Kubo’s samurai father and is responsible for the eyepatch the boy must wear. Kubo’s mother insists that he always carry a monkey totem and be home before sundown lest her two sisters (Rooney Mara) and the Moon King find them and complete the task they did not finish.

One night Kubo stays out past his curfew with the predicted tragic results. The Sisters torch the village and try to harm Kubo, but his mother uses her magic to save him and send him on quest. To defend himself from the Moon King Kubo must search ancient Japan for an unbreakable sword, impenetrable armor, and invulnerable helmet. Helping him on his journey are Monkey (Charlize Theron), which is the enlarged totem brought to life, and the samurai Beetle (Matthew McConaughey), a forgetful, wise-cracking insect.

KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS comes from the animation studio Laika, which, with the films CORALINE, PARANORMAN, and THE BOXTROLLS, has developed a reputation for delivering quality children’s fare that is unafraid of handling material that can be visually and thematically darker. The deep oranges and dark blues dominate the palette for a story steeped in legend, like something witnessed through the flickering flames deep in the belly of a cave. The stop-motion animation provides a tactile sense of wonder at the imaginations tapped to bring this fantastical and early historical world to life in the style of folded paper.

KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS puts two kinds of immortality in opposition. The Moon King offers Kubo the chance to live forever with him among the stars, although the price to be paid is his one good eye. Alternatively, the boy can find strength and inspiration in the memories of his deceased parents to resist the Moon King and, in turn, survive through generations because of the bravery he shows. This may sound like rather heavy subject matter--and it is, implicitly--but director Travis Knight and screenwriters Marc Haimes and Chris Butler treat this as a grand challenge to be met with the spiritual guidance of his mother and father than an oppression heaped upon a protagonist unsuited to deal with it.

The film is not left wanting for humor, however. Theron’s voicework reveals a delicacy in the figure entrusted to assist Kubo, but she also brings a sarcastic edge to Monkey, especially as she clashes with Beetle. At face value McConaughey seems like a curious casting decision, as he makes no effort to alter his Texas drawl, but the warmth and orneriness in his voice serves the act-before-thinking character well. The love-hate dynamic between Monkey and Beetle produces some amusing sparring. Likewise, Kubo’s journey encompasses the spectrum of emotion, concluding with a beautiful testament to the ties that bind. The importance of family is hardly a new theme for children’s entertainment, but the gentleness and unsentimentalized handling of it in KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS allows the idea to be seen anew.

Grade: B+

The Wolf of Wall Street

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (Martin Scorsese, 2013)

If THE GREAT GATSBY’s Nick Carraway arrived on Wall Street in the late 1980s and decided that the corruption and decadence was pretty awesome, he’d look something like Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) in THE WOLF OF WALL STREET.  Jordan starts out with notions of doing right by the clients while making money for his firm and himself, but his first day on the job he’s quickly disabused of such thinking.  As his boss Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey) makes clear, they’re playing with other people’s money.  The point is to keep the investors’ cash in the game so they can keep getting their share via commission.

Jordan finds himself out of a job after the October 1987 stock market crash, but his fortunes take a marked upturn when he begins pitching penny stocks in a strip mall boiler room in the suburbs.  He’s a gifted salesman who knows exactly what to say to convince blue collar types to risk their hard-earned cash on companies unlikely to produce the returns he implies are possible.  The commission percentages are much higher on the garbage he’s selling than on the blue chip stocks, so it isn’t long before Jordan is earning fat checks and striking out on his own.

Jordan’s brilliant idea is to open his own brokerage house that lures wealthy investors with familiar investment options and then pushes a bunch of the crap stocks on them.  Jordan perfects the script that he teaches to his right hand man Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) and some old friends so they can land well-heeled clients.  The plan works like a charm.  Jordan rebrands the firm as the more legitimate-sounding Stratton Oakmont and moves them out of a former auto body shop on Long Island to offices in New York City’s financial district.    

For three hours director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Terence Winter present enough bad behavior and language to make a proverbial sailor blush, yet by and large the illegal business practices, heavy drug use, and degradation of women is rewarded and mostly consequence-free.  Jordan and crew achieve their warped vision of the American dream because on some level society deems this acceptable, even if the ugly truths may be hidden from view.  Jordan lives the high life in the land of get mine rather than the land of opportunity, and Scorsese makes it look like a blast to be able to be bombed out of your mind on cocaine and quaaludes and enjoy all that money can buy, whether it’s purchasing a mansion, yacht, helicopter, and sports car or trading up from mousy wife Teresa (Cristin Milioti) to lingerie-designing model Naomi (Margot Robbie).

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET has faced some criticism for making Jordan’s excessive and criminal lifestyle seem too attractive without condemning it, especially because this is based on a true story, but that’s precisely the point.  Jordan has what a lot of people want.  He’s just one of the few able to get it by exploiting get rich quick dreams.  It goes without saying that Jordan and associates are horrible people, but they’re the manifestation of a culture that confuses the pursuit of wealth with the pursuit of happiness.

Jordan and his employees are nothing more than con men operating under a more respectable banner. DiCaprio shines as a huckster whose disdain for his marks ignores the fact that he too has bought into the slick talk he uses to rip them off.  When Jordan gives savage inspirational speeches to his work force, DiCaprio comes off like a bright-eyed cult leader.  He’s very persuasive, yet his monologues seem designed to convince himself of the worthiness of his choices as much as they are to fire up the cold callers doing his bidding.  This puffery emerges in Jordan’s unreliable narration.  For instance, an amount of cash he claims was stolen from his Trump Tower apartment increases as he tells the story.  When Jordan is wrong or inconsistent with the details, it’s in service of building his own legend, which makes him more self-assured and more of an authority to those turning to him for guidance.

Jordan uses words to seduce, and DiCaprio relishes every one in his performance, whether he’s barking out motivational speeches or flirting with bribing an FBI agent.  DiCaprio hints at a wink behind everything Jordan says.  It’s as if he’s asking the rhetorical question “ain’t I a stinker” while beaming with pride at his ignoble accomplishments and actions.  DiCaprio also attacks the physical comedy with zest, particularly when Jordan crawls down a country club’s front steps to his car while incapacitated on powerful sedatives and engages in a slow motion chase of Donnie when he gets home.

Although THE WOLF OF WALL STREET places the spotlight on an unflattering portrait of individual and collective aspirations, Winter’s screenplay spots a lot of humor in the squalor and buffoonery.  All that’s missing is a laugh track to these men behaving badly.  The question is whether all that cackling is because of the idea that these slimeballs are to be envied and emulated or that there are so many suckers waiting to be bled dry.

Grade: A

Killer Joe

KILLER JOE (William Friedkin, 2011)

Chris Smith (Emile Hirsch) has little time remaining to repay six thousand bucks to some bad men or else he’ll be killed.  Desperate to remedy the matter, he approaches his similarly broke father Ansel (Thomas Haden Church) with a solution.  His mother Adele, Ansel’s ex-wife, has a $50,000 life insurance policy to which Chris’ younger sister Dottie (Juno Temple) is the sole beneficiary.  All they need to do to set their personal finances straight is hire Joe Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a Dallas Police Department detective who kills people on the side, to bump off Adele.

After agreeing to split the money four ways--Ansel insists his wife Sharla (Gina Gershon) gets a cut--they’re ready to put the plan in motion except for one minor problem.  They can’t pay Joe $25,000 for the service they want him to render until they get the claim check.  Joe is prepared to break off a business agreement with them, but he has his cold blue eyes fixed on Dottie and proposes they give her to him as a retainer.

The world according to KILLER JOE is a scuzzy Texas trailer park where the family plots to kill one member for a windfall and will pimp out another to make it possible.  The innocent in the middle is a weary girl already so jaded by what life’s dealt her that she signs off on her mother’s murder and embraces being sold to a contract killer because he shows interest in her.  The only person following a code is a moonlighting hit man. Say what you will about his ideas of right and wrong, but at least it’s an ethos.  

Transcending basic instincts is unimaginable when choices are guided entirely by the reptilian brain.  The stupid and venal characters in KILLER JOE cast fun house mirror reflections of a society seeking its best interests while excluding accepted principles. Director William Friedkin and screenwriter Tracy Letts, adapting his play, place the bad behavior in a dark comedy about the depths of depravity.  Like Wile E. Coyote assured that this time he’ll catch The Road Runner, Hirsch plays Chris as someone who thinks he’s smarter than he really is and has the bruises to show for his lack of good judgment. Church’s slack-jawed caricature of Ansel amuses as he serves as lunkheaded lackey to Chris’ would-be mastermind.  Gershon draws laughs with the brazen disrespect she shows her husband and stepson.

Temple interprets Dottie as a tarnished angel in seek of salvation however it may come. Acting younger and simpler than her character’s years would signify--her bed teems with stuffed animals, and the bedroom door is decorated with teen idol magazine headshots of Justin Bieber, 3RD ROCK FROM THE SUN-era Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and others--Temple reveals the glimmers of youthful goodness that, if permitted to flourish, might emerge from this hellhole.  There’s no tragedy in the other Smiths’ bumblings, but her light hasn’t been snuffed out entirely yet.

McConaughey is funny and fearsome in the title role, the devil holding the family accountable for their choices.  Despite Joe’s capacity for violence, McConaughey presents him as the pragmatic businessman and courtly gentleman.  When he drops the cool reserve and southern civility in the intense final act, KILLER JOE produces a reckoning to make the unbelieving wish for divine intervention.  Under the sun’s pounding rays and the night’s garish neon and fluorescent lights, there’s no hiding from one’s actions in this provocative and wickedly humorous film

Grade: B

Bernie

BERNIE (Richard Linklater, 2011)

Assistant funeral director Bernie Tiede (Jack Black), subject of the true-crime comedy BERNIE, is one of the most popular people in the small east Texas town of Carthage.  He’s good at his job and goes beyond the call of duty in following up with new widows to see that they’re getting along OK.  He’s active in church, community theater, and civic organizations.  He’s generous in giving time, money, and knowledge to those requiring help.  

Bernie is so beloved that townsfolk refuse to believe he’s guilty of shooting Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine) four times in the back, storing her corpse in a deep freeze, and lying about her whereabouts for months even after he confesses.  If he did do it, she probably had it coming anyway.  Despite the evidence against Bernie, district attorney Danny Buck Davidson (Matthew McConaughey) is at a loss how he can get a conviction.

Why would the local populace consider Bernie blameless?  In addition to being the richest woman in town, Marjorie was probably the most disliked.  She had not been on speaking terms for a long time with a sister who lived in Carthage.  She communicated with her son on rare occasions.  People in the area had the impression that she thought she was better than everyone else.
       
Bernie and Marjorie were already the talk of the town before the 81-year-old widow’s death at her 39-year-old companion’s hands.  Although he was no stranger to visiting women who’d lost their husbands, Bernie showed extra attention to Marjorie.  She repaid him with gifts far more lavish than anyone thought her capable of giving.  Gossips speculated on who was seducing who.  Before long Bernie and Marjorie were going on trips to New York City and international destinations.  She gave him access to her finances and made him the sole heir to her vast estate.  For all of this Bernie was subject to Marjorie’s beck and call.

With facts that are stranger than fiction and a story surrounding a murder that is often played as dark comedy, BERNIE exists somewhere between an Errol Morris documentary and FARGO.  In lesser hands the resulting film might be terribly offensive, but director Richard Linklater, who co-wrote the screenplay with Skip Hollandsworth, walks a fine line that observes the absurdity around the crime without making light of its consequences.  Nothing’s funny about an old woman getting killed.  Plenty is about the community that gleefully speculates about what happened but willfully ignores what is known.

Linklater mixes the fictionalized recreation of events with documentary-like interviews of town residents to create a version of the story through their eyes.  Whether it’s their homespun stereotyping of parts of the state or judgments leapt to from rumors about personal actions, their perception of reality is so ingrained that nothing can persuade them that the truth is otherwise.  Since the people are sympathetic toward Bernie, the film tends to be as well.  Still, for all of the information that is on the record, the two individuals in the middle of all the chatter remain mysteries.

Black dials down his usual routine and turns in one of his best performances.  The part is a perfect fit in which he can play off his everyman likability and musical talents to build someone who enchants everyone with whom he comes in contact.  From what we’re permitted to see Bernie is not a complex character and purposefully so since he’s constructed from how everyone regards him.  To his credit, Black’s expert portrayal of this friendly naïf makes it hard to dislike Bernie even after he kills Marjorie.  Maybe Bernie is a virtuoso con man--one of his community theater roles is Harold Hill in THE MUSIC MAN--but the impulse is to want to give him some benefit of the doubt.      

McConaughey is a hoot as the showboating DA who provides the voice of reason amid the media carnival.  Wearing glasses, a cowboy hat, and a tie he sometimes uses to wipe his mouth, he plays up his salt of the earth credibility to cast suspicion on Bernie’s cultured ways.

Typically Linklater’s films find him operating in a philosophical mode that encourages contemplating why and how we know what we know.  With BERNIE he humorously explores what happens when those questions aren’t asked.  In the movies it’s funny when empirical belief becomes so rigid that first impressions can’t be altered.  It isn’t when justice is at stake.

Grade: B+

Fool's Gold

FOOL'S GOLD (Andy Tennant, 2008)

Benjamin "Finn" Finnegan (Matthew McConaughey) is obsessed with finding the Queen's Dowry, a trove of jewels and coins claimed by the ocean in 1715. His pursuit of the Spanish treasure knows no bounds, even if it means being deeply indebted to gangsta rapper Bigg Bunny (Kevin Hart) and ruining his marriage to Tess (Kate Hudson). In FOOL'S GOLD the bumbling treasure hunter accidentally sinks his boat, but when the vessel hits the ocean floor, it uncovers a piece of a plate that suggests he may have located the long lost riches he's been seeking. Too bad for Finn that his financier wants him dead and has hired another crew to dig up the goods.

Tess would be Finn's one ally if she hadn't had enough of his adventure-seeking and irresponsibility. He can't even show up on time for their divorce hearing. (In his defense, he was preoccupied making sure that he wasn't going to join the treasure at the bottom of the Atlantic.) Tess had some good times with the hunky and dim Finn but views their marriage as a youthful mistake to be corrected. Although currently working as a steward on the yacht of Nigel Honeycutt (Donald Sutherland), she has plans for returning home to Chicago, going back to school, and forgetting her former husband.

It follows that of all the boats in all the oceans Finn ends up aboard Nigel's in a bid to get the wealthy man to bankroll his search for the Queen's Dowry. Tess objects but Finn charms Nigel and his vapid socialite daughter Gemma (Alexis Dziena) into going along with his scheme.

Like its namesake mineral, FOOL'S GOLD looks like one thing (a romantic comedy), turns out to be something else (an action-adventure), and has zero value. The film plays in the spirit of ROMANCING THE STONE but produces none of the humorous give and take between its lead characters. Preferring to bask in each others' radiance, Finn and Tess never get down to the delicious bickering that should take place between them.

With an overabundance of supporting characters, subplots, and treasure clues to be followed, there's barely time for the protagonists to engage in verbal duels and fall in love again. McConaughey and Hudson don't exhibit much chemistry, but surely an effort to create some romance would have been preferable to side stories about Nigel and Gemma's strained relationship and Finn's rivalry with his former mentor (Ray Winstone).

The threat and depiction of casual violence in FOOL'S GOLD clashes with the tone of this otherwise breezy getaway in the sun and sand. The bloodshed is not graphic, but it is stronger than the surrounding material demands. It is just another indication of director Andy Tennant's scattershot approach to a film lacking a defined personality.

Grade: D+