Movie Review - The Secret Life of Pets

The Secret Life of Pets (2016)

Featuring the vocal talents of Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Kevin Hart, Jenny Slate, Ellie Kemper, Lake Bell, and Albert Brooks 

Directed by Chris Renaud and Yarrow Cheney

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

There's nothing inherently wrong with the animated The Secret Life of Pets, but this Illumination Entertainment picture (from the company that brought us the mind-bogglingly popular and also mind-numbing Despicable Me franchise) doesn't excite in any way -- visually, vocally, plot-wise.  In the end, it just sort of sits there, creating amusing-enough background noise, but not involving the viewer in any way.

In full disclosure, I'm not a "pet person" so the plot about what happens when owners leave their pets home alone for the day doesn't ingratiate itself to me at all.  Human Katie (Ellie Kemper) and her dog Max (Louis C.K.) have a nice life together in their small apartment in New York City.  Things are going swell for Max, but then Katie decides to adopt another dog -- a big ole mutt named Duke (Eric Stonestreet) -- which sets off a tension-filled fight for dominance between the two canines.  This leads to a romp through the Big Apple with silly story tangents that fail to really create a cohesively engaging story.

Much like other Illumination Animation pictures, the visuals look decent, but never exquisitely intricate or cleverly designed.  The basic nature carries over to the vocal talent which takes a cadre of comedians who give solid performances, but nothing exciting.  The lack of anything truly riveting is a staple of this studio's animated pics and until they up the ante, they'll just be middle-of-the-road like The Secret Life of Pets.

The RyMickey Rating:  C+

Movie Review - Trumbo

Trumbo (2015)

Starring Bryan Cranston, Diane Lane, Helen Mirren, Louis C.K., Elle Fanning, Michael Stuhlbarg, Alan Tudyk, and John Goodman

Directed by Jay Roach

Dalton Trumbo (played here by Bryan Cranston) was one of Hollywood's most sought after screenwriters in the early 1940s, but his Communist political leanings led him and many other Hollywood artists to be questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).  After refusing to testify in front of Congress, Trumbo went to jail for a year in 1950 and, upon his release, found himself blacklisted in Hollywood with no one willing to hire him because of his politics.  Trumbo details the title character's story and his fight to get back into the profession he loved.

Director Jay Roach is known for his wacky comedies -- Austin Powers series, Meet the Parents -- and in his first theatrical foray into drama, he unfortunately doesn't quite succeed.  Trumbo feels like a film inhabited by caricatures rather than a film inhabited by actual people.  Because of this, we lose the emotional connection needed in order to really feel for Trumbo and his plight which is admittedly a blight on both our government and the Hollywood machine of the 1940s/50s.

While Bryan Cranston plays things straight for the most part -- although certainly embodying the witty, literate side of the screenwriter -- many of the other major players in the film are told to chew up as much scenery as possible.  Helen Mirren exudes snarky evilness in every line reading and movement as Hedda Hopper -- gossip columnist and strong anti-Communist activist.  While the HUAC was certainly an ill-advised group, portraying Hopper as a vigilante gung ho on bringing down Trumbo proves to be laughable as opposed to realistic.  (The problem here is that Hopper may very well have been the way she's portrayed, but the film makes her out to be so comically and vehemently vile that she loses any sense of reality.)  John Goodman as a bellowing low-budget film producer who hires Trumbo after his incarceration is also simply playing a stereotypical brash bigwig.  Other than Cranston's Trumbo and Diane Lane's portrayal of his wife Cleo, everyone depicted here feels fake.

Trumbo is reminiscent of a film made in the 1940s and 1950s where actors would be playing broad versions of undeveloped characters as opposed to a film made in the 2000s that looks back on that era over a half century ago and really delves into the issues.  Light-heartedness certainly works in a comedy depicting the 1950s and it works in portions of Trumbo as well except that this film -- and Dalton Trumbo himself -- deserved a film that also gave this man's struggles (and those of his peers) the gravitas they deserved.  All this being said, I appreciate the light that Trumbo shines on this pretty disgusting time in Hollywood history, but I wish the film itself was a better representation of the era.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - American Hustle

American Hustle (2013)

Starring Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, Louis C.K., Jack Huston, and Michael Peña

Directed by David O. Russell

Quite simply, American Hustle is the most overrated movie I've seen as of yet that's gained prevalence during this awards season.  (Captain Phillips is a close second.)  For a movie that is inherently about backstabbing and thievery, there wasn't a moment of tension or excitement and the characters failed to make any impact on me whatsoever.

David O. Russell who directed and co-wrote the picture was also behind the lens and put the pen to paper for last year's Silver Linings Playbook, another film I found to be incredibly overrated and undeserving of the heaps of praise thrown its way.  There's something about Russell's writing style that just doesn't grab me in the slightest (and would also explain why I enjoyed his previous film The Fighter seeing as how he didn't write it).  Silver Linings Playbook felt like two disparate halves that failed to come together.  Similarly, American Hustle is a mishmash of different genres, none of which resonate.  When the comedy is culled from jokes about people's perms or comb-overs or the sassiness of a "New Yawk" broad, it makes me wonder if Russell has any original ideas.

But perhaps Russell wasn't going for original.  Much has been said about American Hustle being Russell's ode to the 1970s films by Scorsese and while that very well be true, that doesn't make this worthwhile.  While the film itself is fictional, it has its basis in true events.  Back in the 1970s, Atlantic City was looking to rebuild its name as the gaming capital of the world.  In order to do so, Camden mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner) tries to bribe other politicians to help the city flourish.  You'd think that'd be the basis of the film considering it's a story that could have some depth to it.  You'd be wrong.

Instead, Russell (and co-writer Eric Singer) place the emphasis on Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale), a slimy owner of a collection of dry cleaning establishments who has a side business in offering fake loans to people.  At a swinging 1970s shindig, Irving meets Sydney (Amy Adams), a gal from New Mexico who moved to New York looking for a different lifestyle.  She immediately falls for Irving and shows him that she's quite game to help him with his "loan" business, willing to go so far as to create a new identity for herself -- Lady Edith Greensley whose English accent will instinctively make her seem more important to Irving's clients.  One of these clients just happens to be Richie DeMaso (Bradley Cooper), an undercover FBI agent, who manages to catch Irving and Sydney in the act of fraud.  After he arrests the couple, Richie agrees to free them only if they'll assist him in helping him track down even bigger folks committing fraudulent acts.

Throw in some love triangles, a brassy wife for Irving (played way too over-the-top by Jennifer Lawrence), and Robert DeNiro as a mafia kingpin, and American Hustle is just a mess in terms of story.  Much like Silver Linings Playbook, this film just doesn't know what it wants to be.  [I criticize Ms. Lawrence there, but her character's brashness was at least a breath of fresh air in this story, and her scenes, despite not having much to do in terms of advancing the film, were some of the film's best.  However, Lawrence is the one person that I felt you could "see" acting whereas the others embodied their characters more or less.]

Granted, I'll give Russell credit that he does manage to get some nice performances from his group of actors, but overall, the film is a mess.  The costumes were groovy, though!

The RyMickey Rating:  D+

Movie Review - Blue Jasmine

Blue Jasmine (2013)

Starring Cate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin, Sally Hawkins, Andrew Dice Clay, Bobby Canavale, Michael Stuhlbarg, Louis C.K., Tammy Blanchard, and Peter Sarsgaard

Directed by Woody Allen

Yesterday on the blog, I wrote a review of the cinematic version of A Streetcar Named Desire and I didn't speak too kindly of it.  The overly dramatic nature of the story and the acting didn't sit well with me in the 21st century.  Fortunately, Woody Allen must've agreed with me (at least I like to think that) as his latest film Blue Jasmine is a definite homage to that Tennessee Williams (screen)play.  Mr. Allen is definitely hit or miss with me, but I found his 2013 entry to his canon of work a definite success with a fantastic performance from Cate Blanchett who proves that a character similar to Streetcar's Blanche Dubois can work onscreen.

Blanchett is Jasmine, a woman who lived for over a decade in New York City with her incredibly rich Bernie Madoff-esque husband Hal (perfectly embodied by Alec Baldwin).  Never wanting for anything, Jasmine had everything she could have ever needed and hung out with anyone she could have ever desired.  However, when we first meet her, Jasmine is heading to California to move in with her sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins) thanks to her husband losing all of his fortune and Jasmine losing all the superficial things she held so close for so many years.  Not quite grasping the fact that she's penniless, Jasmine finds herself constantly reminiscing about the past, failing to face her unfortunate current situation.  She left behind her old life (and her birth name of "Jeanette") in order to find what she believed was happiness with Hal, but now that the fairybook life has been shattered, she's unable to face reality.

Blue Jasmine isn't a scene-for-scene re-creation of A Streetcar Named Desire nor are characters carbon copies.  However, the essence of Williams' work is all around Blue Jasmine, but made more believable and relatable...at least to this reviewer.  Perhaps the greatest advance Woody Allen makes is with the character of Jasmine.  In Streetcar, I never felt the crazed Blanche Dubois was a well-rounded character.  (Yes, I realize many think Blanche is one of the best written females in modern playwrighting, but I'm odd.)  I never understood what made her cuckoo and what kept her constantly on edge and scattered.  In Blue Jasmine, I completely comprehended what Allen and Cate Blanchett brought to the screen for Jasmine. By granting the viewers access to Jamsine's life pre-downfall (via Allen's rather engaging way of bouncing back and forth between Jasmine's past and present), there's an understanding as to why Jasmine talks to herself or rambles incessantly.

Blanchett is a powerhouse here.  It's early in the season and I'm well aware I haven't seen many movies this year at this point, but she should absolutely be remembered come awards season.  This is her film and she magnetically carries it from the opening scene.  I found myself almost entranced at certain moments by the way a simple change in the timbre of her voice can carry so much meaning and emotional emphasis for her character or the way a seemingly nonchalant motion of her hand can relay the pain her character feels.  Vivien Leigh did a lot with her hands in Streetcar, but in that film it really felt like someone "acting" as opposed to feeling intrinsically necessary like when Blanchett does the same movements.

The film falters a bit when it places its focus on Jasmine's sister Ginger and a relationship she forms with a stereo salesman (Louis C.K.) she meets at a party.  It's not that Sally Hawkins or Louis C.K. fail to deliver in anyway, but their characters' story fails to materialize into something substantial enough to warrant its presence.  In addition, Michael Stuhlbarg is given a rather hilarious role to sink his teeth into as a dentist who falls hard for Jasmine, but his character is the one person in Allen's screenplay that didn't feel based in reality to me.

Still, Woody Allen definitely has it in him after all these years to craft good work.  Granted, last year's To Rome with Love was a complete bust and I didn't fawn over Midnight in Paris nearly as much as everyone else, but as I've "grown up" I've come to look forward to whatever he brings to the summer moviegoing season.  It may be time to look at his earlier work with which I'm not entirely familiar.

The RyMickey Rating:  B+