Movie/TV Reviews

Sugar

Susan Granger’s review of “Sugar” (Sony Pictures Classics)

Not only is baseball season underway but here comes the first baseball movie of the year although, in a deeper level, it’s really about the immigrant experience.
With dreams of playing in Yankee Stadium, buying a Cadillac he can drive on water and – most of all – pulling his family out of poverty, Miguel “Sugar” Santos (Algenis Perez Soto) is a confident 19 year-old pitching prospect from San Pedro De Macoris in the Dominican Republic. That’s the Caribbean island where Sammy Sosa, Pedro Martinez, Juan Marichal, Rico Carty, Manny Motta, Jose Reyes, David Ortiz (Big Papi) and the Alou brothers got their start. Dominican players are not subject to the major league draft and can be signed by any team when they turn 16.
Yet when Sugar is invited by the (fictitious) Kansas City Knights to spring training in Arizona to play in the United States’ minor leagues, culture shock sets in. Nevertheless, his mean knuckle curveball earns him a trip to the Single-AQ team in Iowa, where he boards with the older, conservative Higgins family out on their isolated farm. But because he speaks little English, there’s no kindred spirit for him to talk to, except Jorge (Rayniel Rufino), and Sugar’s understandably lonely. Eventually, on his quest for self-discovery, he finds himself questioning the social and economic consequences of his lifelong ambition.
Writers/directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (“Half Nelson”), a married couple who live in Brooklyn, have crafted a thoughtful drama which, while fictional, is evocative of the reality-based basketball-themed “Hoop Dreams.” Essentially, it examines what happens to aspiring big league “beisbol” players who go through the process and don’t make it. Underscoring the essential believability is the fact that long-limbed Algenis Perez Soto was a real-life baseball player before he was cast in this film and that Dominican former World Series MVP Jose Rijo was Boden/Fleck’s principal advisor; Rijo also appears briefly as an actor.
In Spanish and English, with English subtitles, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Sugar” is an authentic 8 – a timely tale about trying to score.

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March 27 DVD Update

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s dvd/video update for week of Friday, March 27th:

In Disney’s animated “Bolt,” a spunky little white hound (voiced by John Travolta) has spent his entire life working on television as a ‘superdog,’ repeatedly saving his devoted co-star (voice by Miley Cyrus) from danger. So when he’s accidentally shipped off to New York City, he’s stunned and confused to discover there’s a real world out there. Like “Homeward Bound” and “Incredible Journey,” Bolt discovers that with friendship and love, you don’t need superpowers to be a hero.
“Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter” with Night Owl’s autobiography “Under the Hood” are dramatic origin stories essential to the “Watchmen” feature film based on the graphic novel, with stars Carla Gugino, Matt Frewer, Stephen McHattie and Jeffrey Dean Morgan appearing as their “Watchmen” characters in a live-action, documentary-style special.
All three previous titles in the adrenaline-pumping “Fast and Furious” film series are packaged together in a new edition, also available in Blu-Ray, punctuated with intense full-throttle action, high-speed stunts and full-on pedal-to-the-metal intensity, as Vin Diesel rules the turbo-charged streets of Los Angeles.
Direct-to-video, there’s “Revenge of the Boarding School Drop Outs,” a snowboarding comedy with Tom Green (“Road Trip”) and Dave England (“Jackass Movie”), and “Side Effects,” a light-hearted look at love and the modern woman, starring Katherine Heigl (“Grey’s Anatomy”). Comedian Rob Schneider makes his directorial debut and stars in “Big Stan” about a nebbish swindler who hires a martial arts master (David Carradine) to teach him self-defense after he’s found guilty of fraud.
For family fun, Smithsonian presents a backyard safari, “Critter Quest,” as Peter Schreimer unearths the fuzzy, squirmy, slimy, gilled, winged and multi-legged creatures who live right outside your door, whether you’re in the country, city or suburbs.
PICK OF THE WEEK: While action-packed “Quantum of Solace” is the 22nd installment in the James Bond franchise, it’s the first sequel, taking up an hour after “Casino Royale,” as #007 (Daniel Craig) discovers that mysterious Mr. White (Jasper Christensen) is just a cog in a complex global criminal conspiracy.

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Monsters vs. Aliens

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Monsters vs. Aliens” (Paramount/DreamWorks)

Get ready to wear those tinted plastic glasses all summer because Hollywood’s on a 3-D binge with at least a dozen new movies utilizing the visual technology that allows various objects to be projected right into the audience..
In the animated “Monsters vs. Aliens,” the Modesto, California, nuptials of a bride, Susan (voiced by Reese Witherspoon), and her vain TV newscaster groom, Derek (voiced by Paul Rudd), are interrupted by the crash of a stray meteorite. As a result of irradiation by oozy outer space glop, Susan grows and grows and grows, until she’s just one inch short of the amazing 50-foot woman. Since she’s now become a freak, she’s sequestered in a top-secret prison, along with B.O.B. (voiced by Seth Rogen), an indestructible-yet-clueless, blue blob who gobbles up everything; a droll British scientist named Dr. Cockroach, Ph.D. (voiced by Hugh Laurie); an ape man/amphibian known as the Missing Link (voiced by Will Arnett); and Insectosaurus, a grub that’s seven times taller than Amazonian Susan, now called Ginormica.
Problem is: a huge, one-eyed, bullet-shaped alien robot is in San Francisco and the ineffectual U.S. president (voiced by Stephen Colbert) can’t seem to communicate since these aliens, apparently, aren’t familiar with the theme from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” So Gen. W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland) promises the ever-optimistic MonSquad outcasts that they’ll go free if they can defeat the galactic invaders, whose sinister leader, Galaxhar (voiced by Rainn Wilson), unleashes an army of thousands of identical clones on his computerized spaceship.
Back in 1968, the Japanese came up with this monster mash concept which directors Rob Letterman (“Shark Tale”) and Conrad Vernon (“Shrek 2”) and a phalanx of writers have amplified into an amusingly playful female empowerment adventure with terrific attitude, lots of old-movie references, top-notch vocal talent and a climactic showdown at the Golden Gate Bridge.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Monsters vs. Aliens” in 3-D is an awesome, eye-popping 8. It’s enormously entertaining, particularly if you catch it in IMAX 3-D.

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The Haunting in Connecticut

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Haunting in Connecticut” (Lionsgate)

An old Victorian house in Southington, Connecticut, which once was a funeral parlor, inspired this horror tale which is loosely based on incidents reported in the 1980s. Back then, the Snedeker family claimed their son heard strange noises in his basement bedroom, which once held casket displays and was located near the old embalming room. He said he saw grotesque, ghostly shadows on the wall, and a visiting niece claimed her bed covers levitated and she felt hands on her body when she was trying to sleep. So the Snedekers turned to ‘paranormal researchers’ Ed and Lorraine Warren, who’d previously participated in Long Island’s alleged “Amityville Horror.” Utilizing a séance, the Warrens claim to have ‘cleared’ the property of evil spirits in 1988, documenting it with a book and a show on the Discovery Channel.
In this new movie, anxious mom Sara Campbell (Virginia Madsen) talks her recovering alcoholic husband Peter (Martin Donovan) into renting a dark, deserted domicile with “a bit of a history” in upstate Connecticut so she can be near the clinic where their teenage son Matt (Kyle Gallner) is receiving experimental cancer treatments. Soon after unsuspecting Sara moves in with their two younger children (Sophi Knight, Ty Wood) and a niece (Amanda Crew), the floorboards are creaking ominously and Matt is plagued by shadowy visions of a charred, clairvoyant child (Erik Berg) who, apparently, had been an unwilling participant, a kind of demonic messenger, in the sinister séances.
Working from a predictably creepy screenplay by Adam Simon and Tim Metcalfe, director Peter Cornwell (“Ward 13”) suggests a macabre, malevolent menace, augmented by the warnings of a dying priest/exorcist (Elias Koteas) who senses evil afoot. So on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Haunting in Connecticut” is a hokey, formulaic 4. But that doesn’t discourage curious tourists who have already begun driving by the spooky residence which now belongs to a skeptical family named Trotta-Smith, who bought it 10 years ago. They claim they’ve never seen anything unusual and they don’t believe the scary stories.

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Sunshine Cleaning

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Sunshine Cleaning” (Overture Films)

If “Sunshine Cleaning” bears more than a slight resemblance to “Little Miss Sunshine” (2006), it’s not surprising. Not only are the titles similar but so is the setting in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where there’s a fragile, multi-generational dysfunctional family with a grumpy grandpa played by Alan Arkin.
On the other hand, this quirky scenario begins with a man walking into a sporting goods store, loading a shotgun and blowing his head off. So it’s not exactly a comedy.
There are these two underachieving sisters who are struggling to stay afloat in a sinking economy, a theme that’s even more relevant now than at last year’s Sundance, where the movie opened.
Optimistic Rose Lorkowski (Amy Adams) is a former head cheerleader/high-school beauty queen who’s barely making ends meet as a thirtysomething single mom with a troubled eight year-old son, Oscar (Jason Spevack), whose father fled years ago. She’s having a dead-end affair with her ex-boyfriend/football star, Mac (Steve Zahn), now a married police detective, and scrubbing the houses of classmates she used to snub. So when Mac mentions to Rose that there’s substantial money to be made in mopping up blood-splattered crime scenes and toxic biohazard sites after the CSI guys leave, she earnestly goes into that messy, morbid business, recruiting her morose, grotesquely Goth younger sister, Norah (Emily Blunt), who’s far less enthused until she hooks up with the daughter (Mary Lynn Rajskub) of one of the victims..
“We come into people’s lives when they’ve experienced something profound and sad. They’ve lost somebody, and we help,” Rose explains. “And it’s a growth industry.”
And her life takes an unexpected turn when she meets a gentle, one-armed cleaning-supply salesman (Clifton Collins Jr.).
Wryly written by Megan Holley and directed with a savvy, if meandering nonchalance by New Zealander Christina Jeffs (“Sylvia”), the often-melodramatic serio-comedy is dominated by compelling performances from Amy Adams (“Doubt,” “Enchanted”) and Emily Blunt (“The Devil Wears Prada”). On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Sunshine Cleaning” is a gently ghoulish, bittersweet 7. Talk about dirty work!

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March 20 DVD Update

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s dvd/video update for week of Friday, March 20th:

Tonight from 10 pm until midnight, retailers will stay open to celebrate the release of Catherine Hardwicke’s film adaptation of Stephanie Meyer’s young adult vampire tale, “Twilight,” a horror drama starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattison that’s been described as a “full-blown cultural phenomenon,” and www.tightlightthemovie.com will feature a store locator to find the nearest party.
Julianne Moore and Matthew Broderick play a dysfunctional couple in “Marie and Bruce,” a comedy which never got a theatrical release but went, instead, straight-to-DVD. And Ray Stevenson takes over as the vengeful antihero in “Punisher: War Zone” with Dominic West as his Mob boss nemesis.
From 1955-58, family entertainment on Thursday nights revolved around the beloved, action-packed “Sergeant Preston of the Yukon,” as the brave Royal Canadian Mounted Police Officer – with his sled dog Yukon King and trusted horse Rex – embarked on another thrilling adventure. Now, all 33 episodes of the inaugural season have been digitally re-mastered in a special edition, five-disc collector’s set.
“Goal II; Living the Dream” follows soccer player Santiago Munez (Kuno Becker) as he eaves England to join the Real Madrid Football Club with cameos by David Bechham and some of the world’s greatest players.
Michael Landon Jr.’s “The Velveteen Rabbit,” inspired by Margery Williams’ classic novel, combines live-action with animation, utilizing the voices of Jane Seymour, Tom Skerritt and Ellen Burstyn, to tell the story of a lonely boy who wins over his distant father and strict grandmother with the help of a stuffed toy rabbit and other toys he befriends in the attic.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Intelligent, adult and provocative, Isabel Coixet’s “Elegy” explores the psyche of a celebrated NPR talk show host/university professor (Ben Kingsley), his estrangement from his grown son (Peter Sarsgaard), friendship with a philandering poet (Dennis Hopper) and casual sex partner (Patricia Clarkson) in the light of his passionate obsession with a radiant, much-younger graduate student (Penelope Cruz). Based on Philip Roth’s novel, it’s an insightful, evocative meditation on lust and death.

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Duplicity

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Duplicity” (Universal Pictures)

Honore De Balzac said, “A flow of words is a sure sign of duplicity” – which may explain why CIA officer Claire Stenwick (Julia Roberts) and MI6 agent Ray Koval (Clive Owen) are never at a loss when forced to explain their unpredictably bizarre behavior in this sexy, sophisticated spy caper.
In the opening scene, for example, at a gala Fourth of July party in 2003 at Dubai’s US Consulate, Ray makes a charming play for Claire. She seductively parries with clever quips – yet, before long, they’ve tumbled into bed. Claire awakens first and deftly steals Ray’s top-secret documents. She’s a professional, he’s her target and exit strategies are her specialty. A few years later, the tables are turned when Claire ostensibly goes to work as a security expert for Burkett-Randel’s titan-of-industry Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson) and Ray is covertly hired as her ‘handler.’ At the same time, rival Equikrom’s CEO Dick Garsik (Paul Giamatti) is set to pull off a consumer coup of global proportions, a scheme which also involves Claire and Ray.
What complicates matters is chemistry: Claire and Ray are irresistibly attracted to each another but, because trust is never part of the equation, they constantly “game” each other with playful misdirection since they’re competitive spirits, consummate deceivers and lovers of larceny.
Writer/director Tony Gilroy’s (“Michael Clayton”) topical timing is perfect since – on one level – this romantic thriller is sheer escapist entertainment while – on another – it’s an observant commentary on contemporary corporate espionage. Problem is: with its constantly shifting timelines, the carefully calculated plot is extremely devious and convoluted. While it eventually makes sense, the ultimate con is difficult, even frustrating to follow as it evolves on the screen.
As previously evidenced in “Closer,” Roberts and Owen work superbly together; they’re friends and their easy camaraderie is obvious. Humor abounds, particularly when Claire’s questioning a travel agent whom Ray seduced and when Ray’s posing as a bumbling American who enjoys appletinis. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Duplicity” is a slick 7 – it’s sneaky, snarky fun, a devilish double-cross.

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Knowing

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Knowing” (Summit Entertainment)

Apocalyptic sci-fi thrillers are supposed to be thought-provoking and supernaturally suspenseful but this is just paranormally dopey.
In 1958, as part of the dedication ceremony for a new elementary school in Massachusetts, a group of students is asked to draw pictures of what they envision for the future. Their artwork will be sealed in a time capsule and stored for a half-century. But one creepy little girl, Lucinda Embry (Lara Robinson), scribbles rows of numbers which she says are being relayed into her mind.
In 2008, a new generation of students examines the time capsule’s contents. Caleb Koestler (Chandler Canterbury) shows the girl’s cryptic numbers to his widower M.I.T. astrophysicst dad, John (Nicolas Cage), who, fueled by whiskey, freaks out. The encoded message predicts the dates, death tolls and coordinates of every major cataclysm of the past 50 years with astonishing accuracy, plus there are three additional catastrophes waiting to happen, perhaps global destruction. Unable to get anyone in authority to take him seriously, John maniacally enlists the help of prophetic Lucinda Embry’s troubled daughter Diana (Rose Byrne of “Damages”) and granddaughter Abby (Lara Robinson, again) in an attempt to prevent the calamities. Meanwhile, four ominous, unearthly men with shiny blond hair seem to be observing everything.
Stuffed with too little structure and too many cloying clichés by screenwriters Ryne Douglas Pearson, Juliet Snowden and Stiles White, it’s additionally hampered by Alex Proyas’ (“Dark City,” “The Crow”) overwrought, if atmospheric direction. While the two major disaster sequences, featuring a subway and an airliner, are well photographed by Simon Duggan with admirable CG effects, their emotional effect is minimal. And the allegorical, “X-Files”-like conclusion ineptly attempts to fuse a religious parable based on Christianity’s Book of Revelations and the Rapture with “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Knowing” is a weird, far-fetched 4. Knowing the future is one thing, changing it is another. Or, as someone next to me, muttered, “It’s a duh-saster.”

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I Love You, Man

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “I Love You, Man” (Paramount Pictures)

According to the Urban Dictionary, a “bromance” denotes a non-sexual relationship between two men and “bromancing” is the act of wooing a fellow male friend for the purpose of becoming closer. The term was originally coined by author/editor Dave Carnie in “Big Brother Magazine,” and it’s the theme of this banal bromantic comedy.
Here’s the set-up: when Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd), a mild-mannered, rather dorky real estate broker, proposes to his girl-friend, Zooey (Rashida Jones), she immediately speed-dials, conferencing her best friends about the wedding. But Peter has no male pal to stand up for him as Best Man. Panicked when he realizes Zooey may not trust a groom without friends, Peter immediately embarks on a mission to audition prospective buddies, enduring drinking bouts, poker nights and man-dates arranged by his parents (Jane Curtin, J.K. Simmons) and gay younger brother (Andy Samberg). Eventually, for better or worse, he settles on scruffy Sydney Fife (Jason Segel), an aggressive ‘investor’ whom he meets at an open house for his biggest client, former “Hulk” Lou Ferrigno (as himself).
This meathead Sydney has a mangy mutt named Anwar Sadat whose poop he deliberately leaves littering the sidewalk because he enjoys the inevitable inconvenience it causes. Soon, the guffawing guys are gobbling fish tacos, just “chillaxing,” sequestered in Sydney’s grungy garage-turned-“man-cave” on Venice beach, squeezing Zooey, literally, out of the picture and placing the upcoming wedding in jeopardy.
While writer/director John Hamburg (“Meet the Fockers”) and co-writer Larry Levin leave no profanity unspoken and some uttered far too many times, his view of women is curiously gentler than that of, say, Judd Apatow, whose raunchy comedies (“40 Year-Old Virgin,” “Knocked Up”) are known for their risqué content. But there’s no chemistry between Rudd and Jones, placing the Rudd/Segal bromance on the front burner, along with jokes about masturbation, flatulence and oral sex. And the outcome is utterly predictable. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “I Love You, Man” is a gross-out 6, aimed at dudes who dig crude slapstick along with sporadic, if superficial shock value.

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March 13 DVD Update

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s dvd/video update for week of Friday, March 13

In “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,” the tragedy of W.W.II and the haunting horror of the Holocaust take on an entirely different perspective as seen through the eyes of a naive eight year-old German lad whose father is a high-ranking SS commandant.
“Cadillac Records” delves into the controversial character of Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody), whose R&B record company attracted talents like Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright), Etta James (Beyonce Knowles) and Chuck Berry (Mos Def), among others; the title stems from Chess’ penchant for gifting each star with a new Cadillac.
Jason Statham drives again in the testosterone-fueled “Transporter 3,” playing the indestructible, imperturbable Mediterranean mercenary whose specialty is transporting ‘difficult’ packages; this time, his passenger is the kidnapped – and thoroughly irritating – daughter of a top Ukraine official.
God and Satan vie for the soul of a troubled ‘teen scream’ girl, played by Haley Bennett, in “The Haunting of Molly Hartley,” as she’s surrounded by friends and foes, like Chace Crawford , Shannon Marie Woodward and Shanna Collins.
Charlie Kaufman’s tiresome, almost incomprehensible “Synedoche, New York” is a weird rumination on love, hate and the creative process as an upstate New York theater director (Philip Seymour Hoffman) finds his marriage to a painter (Catherine Keener) is on the rocks and his world disintegrating into a surreal, synaptic blur.
If you like documentaries, I recommend “The Matador” chronicling David Fandila’s quest to reach 100 bullfights in a single season, a goal only 12 matadors so far have achieved, and “Chris & Don: A Love Story,” revealing the passionate three-decade Hollywood romance between British writer Christopher Isherwood and American portrait painter Don Bachardy.
PICK OF THE WEEK: From British filmmaker Mike Leigh (“Secrets & Lies,” “Vera Drake”), “Happy Go Lucky” is a lighthearted, life-affirming comedy, starring Sally Hawkins as a London primary school teacher who sees the best in everyone: her paranoid driving teacher (Eddie Marsan), grumpy flatmate (Alexis Zegerman) and school’s social worker (Samuel Roukin).

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