"Sing Street" Review

Sing Street is deceptively simple. I don't mean that a "boy meets girl" trailer turns into a critique of the universe. Rather, the movie does what great films do: take a basic yet enjoyable plot; splash on a coat of eye-catching fashion; lure and then latch you onto the emotional bedrock of it all. Sing Street is a story about a teen who starts a band to impress a girl. It's set in 1985 Dublin, infused with the eyeliner, funk, and neon of new wave. But once the lure is set, the magic hits. That's where Sing Street becomes a film about finding passion, taking risks, and the joys of living somewhere that both nurtures and condemns them.

Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) is a teen whose family is in a financial slump, so they move him to a new Catholic school called Synge Street, full of fights, bullies, and an intimidating, rule-worshipping headmaster (Don Wycherley). Underneath Conor's shy exterior is a clever, ambitious mind, so he becomes the bravest dork and chats up the cool, aloof Raphina (Lucy Boynton) across the street. She tells him about her modeling career; he asks if she'd be interested to star in one of his band's music videos, and she accepts. The only problem? Conor doesn't have a band. So he rustles up a gang of misfits, borrows his older brother's (Jack Reynor) records, and with his band, Sing Street, enters this brand-new crazy world of new wave.

Duran Duran, The Cure, The Jam, Motorhead - the film's entrenched into this golden age of British music (not to be confused with the golden ages of the British Invasion, New Wave of British Heavy Metal, Britpop, and Garage Rock Revival).

As Conor gets into a band, he ends up borrowing their style, both music and fashion. Sporting blue eye shadow and blond streaks, he uses a baritone croon through a funky, synth-laden Duran Duran rip-off called "The Riddle of the Model." How can you not love that title? As soon as he gets a hold of the Cure, Conor launches his black hair into the stratosphere, writing acoustic-driven "happy-sad" music.

You'd think these pastiches would get annoying, but I'll be damned if this isn't one of the best soundtracks I've heard in years. The kids are all extraordinarily talented, especially the rhythm section (Karl Rice on bass and Conor Hamilton on drums). Sing Street's set comes off as a sampler of the decade, a who's who of new wave without having to suffer through covers.

Sing Street is like other '80s family films - namely Back to the Future, The Goonies, Ferris Bueller's Day Off - in that it presents the characters realistically. The teens aren't stereotyped as thugs or romanticized as soda pop drinkers and conduits of lame jokes. Walsh-Peelo doesn't have quite the level of charisma as Michael J. Fox, but he's approaching it. Boynton is spunky, smart, and funny, sharing stellar chemistry with Walsh-Peelo. The rest of the band members have their time in the sun, making for great comic relief.

Jack Reynor is extraordinary as Conor's older brother, Brandon. As someone who obsessively lines his own shelves with pop culture and a wealth of records, I saw a bit of myself in him. The environment Conor lives in, one full of divorce and growing pains, discovery, passion, and rejection, is harsh, difficult to navigate. Brandon serves as Conor's most faithful member of his corner, constantly challenging and motivating him to be better. He's a character who's failed in his endeavors, so if he can push Conor to succeed and carve his own path, he'll feel vindicated in that regard.

My brothers don't want to start a band, but I can't help but feel that urge to watch over their growth: to help them avoid pitfalls or offer different perspectives in life in ways my parents can't. Director John Carney dedicates the film "for brothers everywhere," and that reminder to encourage and support the young men I love hit home.

With Sing Street, Carney reaffirms his proficiency in making music dramas. I love this more than Begin Again, and it seems entirely possible, like in 2014, that a John Carney film will make it to my top ten list at the end of the year. Sing Street is a charming, thoughtful coming-of-age film that packs heart, wit, and loads of style.

For those about to rock, I salute you.

Thank you all for reading. I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off.

"Ratchet & Clank" ADVANCE Review

As an 8-year-old, my favorite video game was Crash Bandicoot on the PlayStation. I loved the spinning marsupial so much, I made my own series of poorly illustrated 5-page books about his adventures. Needless to say, they sucked - I explained a boost in Crash's powers once by morphing him with Goku and Wolverine - but the love was there, the love of telling stories about really cool bandicoots.

...I didn't play for the realism. At least the real one's cute.

I never played Ratchet and Clank. I opted for a Nintendo over a PS2, but the duo were Crash Bandicoots to a new generation, and as such, popular enough to get a movie made about them. And just like my 3rd-grade fan-fiction, the story's bonkers and rips off a lot, but the love is still there.

Ratchet (James Arnold Taylor) is a Lombax (think a cat with fox ears and a lion's tail) working as a mechanic on the desert planet Veldin. He dreams of joining the Galactic Rangers, saving the universe alongside his idol, Captain Qwark (Jim Ward). When Chairman Drek (Paul Giamatti) starts vaporizing planets with his Deplanetizer, the Rangers search for new recruits to help take down the menace. Ratchet tries out, and being a runt, he flunks. But after coming across a little robot named Clank (David Kaye), who has Drek's plans; and accidentally saving the city, the two team up with the Rangers to stop Drek.

The only thing missing is a cantina - the movie is Star Wars from beginning to end. It's not just characters: dialogues, shots, and whole scenes are lifted. Ratchet racing his ship through the caverns is almost a replica of the podracing scene in The Phantom Menace. This isn't a note-for-note ripoff; neither is it cynical, like Starchaser: The Legend of Orin. The film playfully parodies the movies, and while some of it falls flat, other jokes are gems (acknowledging how horribly under-equipped the four Galactic Rangers are against Drek and his legions of Warbots).

The movie also throws in references to other movies; callbacks to old PlayStation games; "current" jokes about texting; winks to the audience that the movie is self-aware to varying degrees of success. At best, I chuckled; at worst, my eyes rolled.

None of the characters are bad, but few stand out. Ratchet is the bumbling, naive hero; Clank sounds like a British professor talking to a fan. Jim Ward is enjoyable as Captain Qwark, hitting the sweet spot of lovable idiot and narcissist. His expressions are priceless, and when I laughed, it was mostly because of him.

The action is rapid, quick-reflexed. Ratchet and the Rangers (band name, anyone?) cycle through weapons in the blink of an eye: ice blasts, fusion grenades, flamethrowers, and the Omniwrench (nothing special, just a really cool name). We get a great variation of ground assaults, space chases, and one-on-one dukefests. All in all,  if a video game is to become a movie, this is how you translate levels to the big screen.

I don't know why Super Mario Bros. couldn't have been handled right the first time. The job is fool-proof: make an adventure starring two brothers saving a princess from a bad guy. It doesn't need time travel or a dystopian future, or Dennis Hopper screaming "Monkey!" Just keep it simple, that's where Ratchet and Clank shines. The game wasn't a sprawling epic, so why would the movie be? The joy is in the action and wacky humor, and that's what the movie gives us, nothing more nor less. If you have kids, aged 4 to 10, they'll have fun with a matinee. This serves best as a solid rental. Thank you all for reading. I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off.

Ratchet and Clank comes out April 29th.

"The Jungle Book" (2016) Review

Why don't I like The Jungle Book (2016)?

I woke up today with that question at the top of my list, perhaps carried over from the exhaustion of a late night screening. (Judging by my girlfriend's refusal to move even an inch off the bed, I guess exhaustion still has her.)

The Jungle Book from 1967 is favorite Disney movie. I exclude Pixar because I associate "Disney" with hand-drawn animation and videocassettes. And that's the way I remember the movie: a worn-out VHS, fruit snacks, and a second-grade voice singing to "I Wanna Be Like You."

So is nostalgia to blame for my irritation when I learn Richard M. Sherman (co-writer of the original song) changed an entire verse so he could apparently shove as many mentions of the word "Gigantopithecus" as possible?

Well, yes, but not entirely.

A shot-for-shot remake wouldn't be much better - at best, pointless, and at worst, Gus Van Zandt's Psycho - so in an effort to balance myself out, I'll go point by point and give you Jekyll and Hyde, the critic and fan.


1) Story:

          Jekyll (critic) - The premise is shared between both versions: Mowgli (Neel Sethi) is a boy who was abandoned in the jungle as a baby. Found by Bagheera the panther (Ben Kingsley), he's sent to live among the wolves. The fact that Mowgli's not as good at being a wolf as his siblings is the least of his worries - he's being hunted by Shere Khan the tiger (Idris Elba), whose hatred of man fuels his desire to see Mowgli, and anyone in the way, dead. Bagheera offers to escort Mowgli to the safety of the Man Village, and along the way, they come across a cast of colorful characters, including Baloo the bear (Bill Murray), Kaa the snake (Scarlett Johannson), and King Louie the orangutan (Christopher Walken).

Outside of the premise, there's little point in comparing the two.
       
The cartoon is a light-hearted musical comedy about a blissfully ignorant youth forced to face the harsh realities of the world. The sunshine is rarely broken, only by Bagheera's sternness or Shere Khan's attacks, which fits Mowgli's development.

The live-action version is a more straight-forward adventure which sees Mowgli in constant peril. The story is more concerned with the boy's heroism, and asks how a human can fit productively in the animal kingdom.

This newer film, while exposition-heavy, tells its story well, making the message accessible and relevant to all ages. I have some problems with pacing - some scenes are chopped and screwed to where the emotional payoff doesn't do it for me - but overall, it's executed well.

          Hyde (fan) - The remake doesn't go all the way with the darkness, to match Rudyard Kipling's books, so we get watered-down comedy and action. When the cartoon went dark, it caught me off guard. The juxtaposition of comedy and drama made the drama more intense.

In trying to be realistic, the movie drained the fun. It was boring, to the point where my girlfriend fell asleep.

2) Characters:

Jekyll - Two big positives here: Bagheera and Mowgli. Kingsley nailed Bagheera's uptight, protective nature, while Sethi was adorable, bratty, kind-hearted, and funny - he was Mowgli!

I like the update to Kaa. Johannson's sweet, lulling whisper made the character even creepier, a notch I give over the original.

Lupita Nyongo is great as always. She plays Mowgli's adoptive wolf mother, Raksha, with strength passion and nuance.

          Hyde - What the hell did they do with Baloo? He's a dick! I don't blame Bill Murray; he can play a wise-cracking con artist in his sleep, but it's not Baloo, the lovable absent-minded oaf.

I love Christopher Walken. I love King Louie. I love Christopher Walken AS King Louie. I don't love King Louie as King Kong. Outside of a pointless action scene, there's no need for him to be a giant. The original was fun and inviting, but most importantly, sly. It's hard to be sly when you're five stories tall.

I've a weird bone to pick with Shere Khan. The strength and evil is there, but the original had a regality, an arrogance that made him fun to hate.

There's some of this in Elba's performance - a scene where he tells the wolf cubs a story is deliciously sinister - but it's nothing compared to George Sanders, who relished in every drop of malice.

Elba's Shere Khan operates out of "righteous" anger, masking his mania with a plea against the corruption of man. Not to say I don't appreciate a morally complex villain, but one who won't even TRY to reason with you is scarier than one who does.


3) Design:

          Jekyll - Jon Favreau has crafted a gorgeous film. Not since Tarzan have I been this excited watching someone whip through the trees and brave the jungle. The action-movie angle works best here; the landscapes are diverse, and just as perilous as they are breathtaking.

Surprisingly, the element I worried about the most, the animals' CGI, worked wonderfully. I grew up watching animals stare stone-faced into the camera while an actor dubbed a voice-over. To see these characters come to life, in a way that mixes imagination with reality, is extraordinary. CGI is usually associated with laziness and cheap film-making, it's great to call this the exception.

          Hyde - ...ditto.

4) Music:


          Jekyll - The Jungle Book (2016) often missed the spirit of the original, but when it broke into "The Bare Necessities," my childhood came roaring back. Sethi and Murray's voices blended great together; it's as if all the joy from the cartoon was contained in that microcosm.

          Hyde - (to Favreau, John Debney and Richard Sherman) All the goodwill you earned on "Bare Necessities" was lost during "I Wanna Be Like You."

That sequence wasn't a Louis Prima party. There were no trumpet-blowing monkeys nor swing dancing. It should've been fun with an agenda, as King Louie is. Instead, it felt like a villain's song. How does that make sense?

Also, no "That's What Friends Are For?" For shame.

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So what do we get when we bring Jekyll and Hyde back together? A concession.

I don't think The Jungle Book (2016) is a great movie; it's clumsy in tone and pacing, enough to be a distraction. However, I don't think it's a bad movie, at all. For what it is, its own story and feel, it's imaginative and extraordinarily well-made.

This film's for a new generation, a new fable to be told. As a fan and nitpicker, I can't say I liked it, but don't let that stop you.

Thank you all for reading. I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off.

"God's Not Dead 2" Review

Did you ever see Birdman?

Of course you did.

Remember that scene where Michael Keaton drunkenly walks past a crazy guy (Bill Camp)screaming at the top of his lungs? I've referenced his quote before - it's from Shakespeare's Macbeth - "it's a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

I bring up Birdman to borrow Camp's sentiment: the anguish and rage, desperation and melancholia that he knows will rattle only on deaf ears.

So look at this scene...

(Skip to 2:22)

And imagine it's me yelling about God's Not Dead 2.

In the sequel to Pureflix's popular Christian drama, Melissa Joan Hart plays Grace Wesley, an Arkansas high school teacher who gets in trouble where her answer to a student's question brings up Jesus' teachings. The student's parents are offended, and the school board asks Ms. Wesley to apologize. She refuses, defending her right to speak her beliefs, and the parents file a lawsuit. 

On Grace's side is a non-believing rookie lawyer (Jesse Metcalfe) assigned to her by the teachers' union. On the parents' side is an anti-Christian prosecutor (Ray Wise) from the ACLU, taking the case to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. He hopes to prove once and for all - in a line so deliciously overdone, it's only missing an evil laugh and lightning - that "God is DEAD!" 

What follows is the courtroom equivalent of "David vs. Goliath" and by this point, if you've ever seen a movie, you know how this ends.

Grace is aware of the implications surrounding talking about Jesus in school - Hart sells her hesitation well - and the dialogue tiptoes through the incident, conveying to any rational person that she's not preaching. Sure, this makes the opposition look trigger-happy, but it also shoots the movie in the foot. So much of the movie is spent arguing the separation of church and state; prophesying a doomsday scenario for religious liberty; even arguing the existence of Jesus Christ as a historical figure. (Maybe it's because I was raised in a Baptist home, but I'm pretty sure it's common knowledge that Jesus, at least as a guy, existed.) This lengthens what should be a 20-minute case by an hour.

"But Daniel," you ask. "Isn't the movie two hours long?" Why yes, reader, yes it is. The remaining forty minutes go to subplots. Like the first, the movie rips off Magnolia or Crash (take your pick) in having four to five separate story lines that (occasionally) weave into each other. 

This is where most of the recurring characters from God's Not Dead lie: Amy (Trisha LaFache) questions her atheism after her cancer suddenly goes in remission; Martin (Paul Kwo) develops his new-found faith to his father's dismay; Pastor Dave (David A.R. White, founder of Pureflix, but better known on the Internet for the following clip*) deals with a jury summons and a random subpoena meant to acquire transcripts of his sermons. These stories and many more are edited into the narrative so sloppily, it feels like a TV-watching session where I started with an episode of Law and Order, got bored, and started channel-surfing.

*David A.R. White in Second Glance

The whole affair feels like the weekly list of grievances from the evangelical right. While the stereotypes aren't as shockingly offensive as the first, and Martin's subplot could be worked into a respectable sequel of its own, it just doesn't warrant that much thought or outcry. To borrow again from the Bard, God's Not Dead 2 is much ado about nothing.

Thank you all for reading. I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off.