28 Jun 2015

Fuzzy and Furry: "Ted 2" and "Max"

By Mike Schulz

Mark Wahlberg and Seth MacFarlane-ish in Ted 2TED 2

Every fan of Family Guy knows that when he wants to, Seth MacFarlane can be really offensive. (I am in no way a fan of Family Guy, and even I know that.) But the biggest problem with MacFarlane's Ted 2 - which is likely to at least occasionally infuriate anyone who isn't a white, straight alpha-bro - isn't that it's offensive; it's that it's too often sincere. This is a movie in which Morgan Freeman, as a benevolent civil-rights attorney, invokes the 16th Amendment and the Emancipation Proclamation when arguing for the rights of a talking teddy bear, with the scene's moved onlookers and swelling score matching him in earnestness and integrity. My audience, meanwhile, watched and listened to Freeman's impassioned oration in what felt like stunned silence. Can MacFarlane possibly be serious about this - that his foul-mouthed teddy's rights are equal to those of hundreds of thousands of disenfranchised human beings? And if he's not serious, why isn't this scene in any way funny?

17 Jan 2015

Tickler, Failure, Soldiers, Spies - Notes on a Quadruple Feature: "Blackhat," "Paddington," "The Wedding Ringer," and "American Sniper"

By Mike Schulz

Wei Tang and Chris Hemsworth in BlackhatFriday, January 16, 10:05 a.m.-ish: My first and final quadruple feature of 2015 (yeah, right) begins with the Michael Mann thriller Blackhat, which opens with the camera racing within a computer module and deeper and deeper into the internal workings of binary code, like a burrowing reverse of Robert Zemeckis' introductory shot in Contact. At its climax, we discover that we've been watching the process by which a faraway cyber-terrorist sets off an explosion at a Chinese nuclear facility, and it's a juicy, unsettling prelude - so good, and so promising, that it probably takes longer than it should to realize the movie is goofy as hell.

22 Jun 2014

Under the Streetlamp: "Jersey Boys" and "Think Like a Man Too"

By Mike Schulz

Vincent Piazza, Erich Bergen, John Llyod Young, and Michael Lomenda in Jersey BoysJERSEY BOYS

Jersey Boys, Clint Eastwood's film version of 2005's still-running Broadway smash, is a big, bizarre, cornball, clever, terrible, wonderful movie. It's hard to fathom what, beyond its inherent appeal, made Eastwood want to take on the project; this bio-musical about 1960s pop sensations the Four Seasons seems so clearly designed for Scorsese that's it's almost some kind of joke that it instead wound up in the hands of a man who, stylistically and temperamentally, is Scorsese's polar opposite. Yet somehow, astonishingly, the damned thing works. Its parts may be stronger than the whole - at least if you're allowed to cherry-pick the parts - but the film is affecting and entertaining and alive, and exudes more sheer joy than any other title on Eastwood's 43-year directing résumé.

16 Mar 2014

Stale Magnolias: "Tyler Perry's The Single Moms Club" and "Need for Speed"

By Mike Schulz

Nia Long, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Zulay Henao, and Cocoa Brown in Tyler Perry's The Single Moms ClubTYLER PERRY'S THE SINGLE MOMS CLUB

In Tyler Perry's new movie, a quintet of women with seemingly nothing in common beyond their single-parent status decide to ... .

I'm sorry. Can we stop for a moment? Tyler Perry has another new movie?! Is the yuletide corpse of A Madea Christmas even cold yet?

09 Jan 2013

Vacation Daze: "The Impossible," "Promised Land," and "Texas Chainsaw"

By Mike Schulz

Naomi Watts and Tom Holland in The ImpossibleTHE IMPOSSIBLE

Juan Antonio Bayona's The Impossible, based on one family's experiences in the wake of 2004's horrific Asia tsunami, is a supremely well-designed, emotionally draining disaster tale, and its opening minutes filled me with great dread. If only that dread were caused by the approaching tsunami.

23 Sep 2012

"Stee-e-e-erike!": "Trouble with the Curve," "End of Watch," and "Beasts of the Southern Wild"

By Mike Schulz

Amy Adams and Clint Eastwood in Trouble with the CurveTROUBLE WITH THE CURVE

The latest movie to star Clint Eastwood, marking the icon's first on-screen appearance since 2008's Gran Torino, is director Robert Lorenz's baseball drama Trouble with the Curve. That curve, by the way, is the least of this film's troubles.

13 Nov 2011

Secrets and Lies: "J. Edgar," "Immortals," and "Jack & Jill"

By Mike Schulz

Armie Hammer and Leonardo DiCaprio in J. EdgarJ. EDGAR

Pretty much everything that's bothersome about director Clint Eastwood's biographical drama J. Edgar is only bothersome for the movie's first half hour. That may sound like a lot of time spent bothered. But the film does run 135 minutes, even its weakest moments are by no means awful, and in the end, it emerges as a really fine work with a really fine central performance. So as a nod to J. Edgar (the movie, not the man), let's just get it out of the way and address its failings at the start.

15 May 2011

Single Wiped Female: "Bridesmaids," "Jumping the Broom," and "Priest"

By Mike Schulz

Ellie Kemper, Rose Byrne, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Maya Rudolph, and Kristen Wiig in BridesmaidsBRIDESMAIDS

You wouldn't necessarily think that exhaustion and depression would be fertile subjects for a big-screen slapstick - at least, for a big-screen slapstick that didn't star Paul Giamatti. Yet in director Paul Feig's buoyant and brainy Bridesmaids, Kristen Wiig plays a sad, discouraged, frequently humiliated maid of honor with such inventiveness and style that she seems to be creating a new comic archetype right before your eyes. Hiding her misery behind a thinly veiled mask of courtesy and good cheer, and letting her anger and resentment spill out in sarcastic asides and messy, chaotic bursts, Wiig's Annie - like many of the brilliantly talented performer's most memorable characters - is a singular creation. And so, too, is Bridesmaids, a female-driven Judd Apatow comedy (he's a co-producer) with the rare distinction of being smarter than it is funny, though it's still plenty funny.

09 Mar 2011

Off to See the Lizard: "Rango," "The Adjustment Bureau," and "Beastly"

By Mike Schulz

RangoRANGO

I spent the past several days enjoying a vacation halfway across the country, and am consequently getting my reviews written a few days later than usual. In terms of reviewing the animated Rango, though, I'm quite grateful for the delay, because I so rarely get the chance to write about movies that I love after I've seen them a second time. Had the vacation lasted longer, I might've even gone for a third.

24 Oct 2010

Dead and Not-So-Gone: "Hereafter"

By Mike Schulz

Cecile de France and Matt Damon in HereafterHEREAFTER

It's been a couple of days since I've seen it, and I still find myself unable to explain to friends why I enjoyed Clint Eastwood's Hereafter as much as I did. I wonder if that has anything to do with the movie being an almost complete mess.

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