Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

I hear people in the blogging community complaining about this film as if it is besmirching a classic film to do another version. Get off it people. The 1995 version was a perfectly acceptable piece of family entertainment for it's time. It featured elaborate early CGI and Robin Williams. There is a warm family story buried in the action adventure plot and all the good guys win and the villains are vanquished. Guess what, that is exactly the same scenario of this film, just take out Robin Williams and insert Dwayne Johnson, and you have the same outcome.

This concept is updated to reflect more modern sensibilities, so the board game is a computer game, and a transgendered Jack Black makes penis jokes, but none that can't keep the movie it's PG-13 rating. Basically the "Breakfast Club" travels to a different dimension and in addition to playing the game, they try to resolve social problems that they have in their "real" life as well. There are no big surprises here. Nothing shows up that you could not anticipate, but it is all carried off in an entertaining manner with a lot of humor and good old fashioned adventure story.

Two things that did standout a bit, and add a little something to the mix. The film is very self-aware when it comes to the sexual stereotyping that exists in a video game. It plays with that a little but not enough to be a polemic on the subject. I also appreciated that the teachers and Principal of the High School that the kids all attend, are not comic book figures for ridicule. They all have reasonable demands that they are making of their students and they are really trying to help the kids, even if the kids can't see it.

The cast here is all game for the film. "The Rock" continues to be a reliable presence in almost all films he appears in, even the bad ones. In this movie he gently mocks himself as a character but also plays the hero role well. Jack Black is hit or miss these days and a little goes a long way. I think he was well used as the avatar of the most self centered girl in the school, he is the complete visual opposite but manages to convey her personality in his performance. Maybe Karen Gillian works in the movie because she has done the video-game thing herself in earlier work. I have only known her from the "Guardians of the Galaxy" but she is apparently a Dr. Who video game fixture. This is a second pairing of Kevin Hart with Johnson, I think they should go ahead and repeat the tag line for "Central Intelligence" for this film. It would work.

So the movie will not win over any converts, but those with an open mind will find some entertainment. If you and your family end up in a theater seeing this, you won't hate yourselves but you won't get much more than some entertainment out of it. That seems like a perfectly acceptable objective, and it is a perfectly acceptable film.

White Christmas : Sing A Long at Disney Concert Hall

We are always looking to do something that feels special around the holiday season. This year we have had a plethora of films with Christmas themes available to us on the big screen. After having watched more contemporary fare like  "Die Hard" and "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", it seems appropriate that we finish our pre-Christmas Cinema experiences with a classic. This screening was scheduled at the beautiful Disney Concert Hall, where just a few of weeks ago we saw "West Side Story" with a full orchestra. I was a little disappointed that there was no scheduled musical accompaniment. There was however a foreground banner with the lyrics to each song printed as the film rolled. So 2200 people were encouraged to sing along with the Irving Berlin songs.

Whenever I read reviews of "White Christmas" they seem to dismiss it as being a clunky piece of Hollywood schmaltz that is overlong and getting by on the reputation of the titular tune. I can't really say that those assessments are inaccurate. The story does feel pieced together primarily to allow for some production numbers. The movie does go on for two hours, which seems a little long for a light piece of fluff. There are however more songs than the Christmas classic here. All of them are delivered with vim and vigor and they remind you of some of the reasons that old Hollywood was referred to as the Dream Factory.

The opening sequence set on the front in World War II, is a combination of cabaret entertainment from the era, with a war story setting. Two performers who have been put together by circumstances are trying to entertain the troops on Christmas eve before a major action. The troops need this morale booster, and the outgoing CO is willing to let them have a few moments, while the new guy thinks the whole shebang should be stopped immediately. It's easy for us to see that the crusty but sentimental General, is the justifiable figure of respect in this unit. Now whether anything that follows makes any sense, it will depend on our willingness to grant him that status. 

Bing Crosby was probably the biggest entertainer in the world for the preceding decade.  An actor with an Academy Award, he was also the artist that most influenced the way people consumed their music starting in the 30s. Danny Kaye was a Borscht Belt performer who transitioned from two reelers and Broadway review shows to movie star. Originally this film was to be a rematch of Crosby and Fred Astaire from "Holiday Inn". Astaire bowed out, Donald O'Conner was unavailable so the second role fell to Kaye who added a lot of his personality and rapid style delivery to the film. Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen are a sister act that the two Broadway Show producers get involved with and then it all comes back to the General at an Inn in Vermont.

The songs are glorious but definitely old fashioned. The acts that break up what story line there is are the kinds of review performances that were once popular but are largely missing from more modern entertainment. Danny Kaye gets to dance an athletic sequence with Vera Ellen that was clearly choreographed for Fred Astaire. Later in the film he does another dance sequence which actually mocks the choreography of dancing. Bing does a little dancing, a lot of crooning and between the four characters there are plenty of laughs that get bogged down a bit by a subplot that could clearly have inspired a decade of "Threes Company".

The sets and costumes make a great impression, especially with the way the brilliant Technicolor photography pops off the screen. By the close, as the cast is singing the title tune in a winter wonderland, you will appreciate why Clark Griswold compares his holiday plans to this film. I hope you all have the " hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny f##king Kaye."

Coco

I'm ashamed to say I waited to see this film until now. "Coco" opened a month ago and I wanted to see it but I was not in a rush. Usually a Pixar film would be a top priority, an opening weekend must. Something about the film put me off. I just didn't feel the same urgency I usually feel about these movies. I ultimately skipped "The Good Dinosaur" a couple of years ago for the same reason. Boy am I glad I didn't repeat that decision this time. "Coco" is a spectacular film and will certainly be among my favorites of the year.

It might have been the Dia de Muertos subject matter. Although the animation looked spectacular for The Book of Life" a couple of years ago, I have still never seen it. The controversy over the inclusion of the "Frozen" short may also have played a part in keeping me away. Well, there was no 25 minute Olaf short in front of the show we went to, and that is good because it keeps all the focus on this really terrific film.

The idea of the Land of the Dead being a place that could be visited by a living person is a little disturbing. And as Miguel, our hero stays longer, he begins to resemble "Jack" from "An American Werewolf in London", Maybe not that gruesome but in spirit at least. Creepy stuff for a kids film but the cultural roots of the story rescue it from being morbid and actually turn the setting and theme into a sentimental piece that people of a variety of cultures can appreciate. The skeleton images that are associated with Dia de Muertos, are not really designed to be frightening but rather a depiction of what an afterlife might resemble. The main characters in the story turn out to be relatives of Miguel who now reside in the land of the dead and are key to his accomplishing his goal of playing music.

There is a lot of humor in the film, much of it based on the displacement of skulls, bones and assorted body parts. There is also some appropriately themed Mexican style music composed by Michael Giacchino (who is not a Mexican but was assisted by musicians who do know the music) that sets a tone that is mysterious but also culturally familiar. People seeing this movie will have a much greater understanding of some of the Mexican traditions that they may only have a passing knowledge of to begin with.

Although there are twists in the story that you can see coming, and the structure is familiar to anyone who has seen a Pixar movie in the last twenty years, the film still manages to be surprising. It is also sentimental and very moving. Parents might want to be warned that there is a subplot that deals with murder, and that may be hard for the young ones to work around. The vividy realized world and the rules under which it operates however are creative as heck and you may be stunned by how beautiful the film can be at times.

Especially memorable is the role that an elderly woman plays in the story. While this might be reminiscent of last year's "Moana", the way it plays out is very different and it does offer children something to value. All of us live on because we are remembered. Heck, that's one of the reasons I started writing this blog, so my kids and grand-kids (if I ever have any) will be able to know me better. This movie is hanging around the box office long enough for all of us to be able to remember it. The theme song is special and ties into the principle behind the movie especially well. I suspect that the tune written by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, will be recalled by the Academy Members as well. I really loved this movie and I hope to see it again and maybe write some more about it's ideas, but for now I just want people to know how I feel.

Die Hard: The Nakatomi Christmas Party Edition

So it's Christmas time in Southern California, which means Santa Ana Winds, Wildfires and "Die Hard". We were accidentally invited to the Corporate Christmas party for the Nakatomi Corporation last night. The event took place at the beautiful Theater at the Ace Hotel. We had been to this venue back in the Spring for a Radiotopia event featuring "The West Wing Weekly". Last night however was a different thing entirely, a screening of that perennial holiday classic "Die Hard".

The event was part of KPCC's Screen Week Film series. Most of the attendees were listeners to that public radio show found here in the Southland. The radio host Larry Mantle, presented a discussion after the film with two critics who appear regularly on the KPCC show.  It was a light hearted salute to the film where the two women who clearly had not seen the film in it's original run , praised it as a perfect action/popcorn feature. One woman is a critic at Variety, and she had some insights on how the movie had originally been received by critics in 1988. The second woman was a writer at Rogerebert.com, and she told some background stories about the films development. I wish I'd written their names down one was Amy and the other I think was Christine. I looked for data on-line but I could not find it listed in the program notes.

The Theater at the Ace Hotel was formerly the United Artists Theater in Downtown Los Angeles. It was built in 1927 and it features a huge orchestra level floorplan and two balcony ares. It seats 1600 people and last night it was close to capacity. If you have never seen Die Hard with an audience, you are missing something. Maybe this crowd was hyped up because it's Christmas time and they are mostly subscribers to the station, but they were definitely a receptive audience.

We whooped it up when Hans arrived, when Karl is killed, when John jumps off the building, and we laughed loudly at every L.A. cliche you can spot in the film. Argyle got a huge share of laughs and every bad guy death seemed to get a cheer from the audience. Al Powell practically got an ovation in the last scene.

I was on a podcast just two weeks ago where we rhapsodized about the film for nearly an hour and a half. If you like, the link is HERE.

Two of the guests on the podcast,

@almostgingr  and

@LifeVsFilm

were Brits who were not familiar with the Run DMC Christmas hit, "Christmas in Hollis" so for them I have included the following music video, which by the way was featured in the pre-show entertainment for the Shane Black event last Sunday. 

I've seen Die Hard so many times it is hard to count, but last nights experience was one of the best. The theater was beautiful, it was packed and the sound combined with the big screen accomplishes exacly what you want, an immersive experience.

Just as promised, it will blow you thru the back wall of the theater.



Merry Christmas to all and to all "Die Hard".