30 Nov 2014

Fight or Flightless: "Penguins of Madagascar," "Horrible Bosses 2," and "Rosewater"

By Mike Schulz

Penguins of MadagascarPENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR

Penguins of Madagascar opens with a sweeping overhead shot of an (animated) Antarctic expanse, which eventually lands on an orderly march of flightless waterfowl. This introduction is narrated by a documentarian voiced by Werner Herzog, who informs us, in the director's unmistakable German-accented English, that we're to witness penguins in all their natural glory - right before he orders a crew member to shove a few off a cliff, just to see what will happen. Between Herzog, the environmental-doc satire, and the sheer goofiness of it all, this prelude is such a fantastically funny way to start directors Eric Darnell's and Simon J. Smith's spin-off that it immediately leaves you anticipating a movie that'll be smart and hilarious throughout. Would you settle, though, for smart and moderately amusing?

16 Nov 2014

Stars' Wars, and the Employee Strikes Back: "Beyond the Lights," "Saving Christmas," "Dumb & Dumber To," and "Citizenfour"

By Mike Schulz

Nate Parker and Gugu Mbatha-Raw in Beyond the LightsFriday, November 14, 10:45 a.m.-ish: I'm beginning the day with writer/director Gina Prince-Bythewood's Beyond the Lights, a romantic melodrama about a troubled, Rihanna-like pop star, and it opens with its central character, as a little girl, getting reprimanded by her awful stage mother for the heinous crime of being first-runner-up in a talent show. Nearly two hours later, with the now-grown chanteuse overcoming her demons and finally scoring her long-awaited personal and professional triumphs, everything the prelude led me to expect from the movie has come to pass, but with one major exception: I'm grinning like mad and wiping away tears. How the hell did that happen?!

19 Oct 2014

"Women & Children" First: "Men, Women & Children," "The Book of Life," "Meet the Mormons," "The Skeleton Twins," and "Venus in Fur"

By Mike Schulz

Rosemarie DeWitt and Adam Sandler in Men, Women & ChildrenMEN, WOMEN & CHILDREN

The single most definitive shot in director/co-writer Jason Reitman's "Ee-e-eek! The Internet!" melodrama Men, Women & Children is one from the previews, in which Ansel Elgort trudges toward dozens of fellow high-schoolers, all of whom are so fixated on their phones that they can't see anything, or anyone, directly in front of them.

11 Aug 2014

Time Flies: "Boyhood"

By Mike Schulz

Ellar Coltrane in BoyhoodBOYHOOD

Late in writer/director Richard Linklater's Boyhood - the finest movie yet by the creator of Dazed & Confused and the Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight trilogy - there's a simple scene between a mother and her son. The son, who is either nearing or has just turned 18, is heading to college and is packing a bag in his room; he and his mom talk while she pays bills in the kitchen. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the mother starts weeping. Her son enters the room and nonchalantly asks what's wrong (this is hardly the first time he's seen her cry), and she replies with a litany of romantic, professional, locational, and maternal decisions that we've watched her make over the course of the film. She asks where all that time went. Her son, offering a slight smile of empathy, goes back to his room and continues packing. The mother buries her face in her hands, and says, "I just thought there would be more."

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