On the Trail We Blaze: The Road to El Doraro 16 years later

So my other movie is the Road to El Dorado. I remember this movie from when I was a kid. Apparently it came out in 2000. It’s always an experience to re-watch movies from childhood as an adult. Sometimes you’re disappointed. You remember a movie as great and you find it’s not. Sometimes you’re in for an unexpected surprise. You forget elements of the plot, jokes, songs, and so on. With a movie like this that I haven’t seen in a long time, there wasn’t much that I did remember.

 

Gifs are fun

 

 

I ended up watching this last night with my pals Mk and O (don’t want to give away their names) and it was magical. This movie is a little bit more “adult” than I remember but it is darn funny. The voice cast is amazingly talented and the songs are by Elton John. It would not be hard to see this movie transferred to the stage.

 

The Road to El Dorado concerns Miguel and Tulio: two 16th century Spanish adventurers who have to escape and run to the New World where they pose as gods. Meanwhile an Aztec girl, Chel, a conwoman ends up their confidante. A power hungry temple priest is our story’s main villain. Miguel and Tulio try to get as much gold as they can from the fabled city to bring back to Spain. On their tails is Cortes the conquistador.

The movie is more than anything about the friendship between Miguel and Tulio two pals who have been through thick and thin together and the things that come between them namely Tulio wants to leave and Miguel wants to stay in the place he’s come to love and Tulio and Chel have a fling (cue risqué element you parents may want to know about).

It’s a cute buddy comedy but there are some possibly scary moments for kids. As for me, I enjoyed the comedy and music and the story is tight, well-written and just plain fun.

Have any of you seen or remember this movie? Which movies from your childhood do you love? Until next time, Trox out.

 

Hotel Transylvania 2 Made Me Cry

First of all, I’m sorry I’ve been MIA the past week or so. I’ve been pretty swamped with the end of school, but I didn’t forget about you guys. I haven’t been able to get to the movie theater lately but I promise I will soon.

I’m sure you’re all thinking, where did he go?

 

In the meantime I am going to review two kids movies I re-watched recently: Hotel Transylvania 2 and The Road to El Dorado. Let’s start with Hotel Transylvania 2. I saw this the first time when I was sitting for my young cousin and watched it again on Netflix. I saw the first one on cable a few years back and liked it, thought it was cute. But my thing about sequels is that it has to add something new, fresh and original and not just rehash a tired old plot for money’s sake.

In case you didn’t notice the title this movie made me pretty emotional. I actually think Hotel Transylvania 2 was better than its predecessor. Yes, the idea of Mavis having a baby is a little obvious and so is the idea of 3 generations trying to connect but it’s still cute.

The plot is that Mavis and Jonathan’s son Dennis is living with his parents at the Hotel with all the monsters but Dennis isn’t a monster. Count Dracula aka Papa Drac is hoping that Dennis will “get his fangs” and if he doesn’t by his fifth birthday, he might not ever.

So Papa Drac comes up with a plan to better associate his grandson with monster culture while Mavis and Jonathan visit Santa Cruz (Drac hoping that Mavis will hate the human world and not want to leave Transylvania). So Drac rounds up his old crew Frankenstein, Murray the Mummy, Griffin the Invisible Man, Blobby the Blob and Wayne the Werewolfon a roadtrip to show Dennis that monsters are scary.

Dracula (Adam Sandler), Frank (Kevin James), Wayne (Steve Buscemi), Dennis (Asher Blinkoff) and Griffin the Invisible Man (David Spade) in Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation’s HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 2.

I don’t want to spoil the plot any more than that, but needless to say it doesn’t go according to plan. The movie is basically a generation and culture clash. There are plenty of cute scenes with Dracula and his grandson bonding and there’s enough at stake with Dennis possibly being taken away from the Hotel to add some drama.

Dennis (Asher Blinkoff) and Dracula (Adam Sandler) in Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation’s HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 2.

As far as kids movies go, I’ve seen plenty worse. And as a sequel, it’s pretty good. If you’re looking for something to rent with the kids, it’s a good choice.

The Millionaire, The Olympian and the Widow: Team Foxcatcher Now Out on Netflix

One of my goals when it comes to this blog is trying to write about a variety of movies, not just in terms of genre but age group and target audience as well. We all don’t enjoy watching the same movies. I realize that writing this, I’m going to be writing about the movies I see and what I most enjoy. This new post is different, then, because it’s about a documentary. Now I know some of you might think docs are boring af, but here me out because this one is pretty good!

Documentaries are fantastic because you realize that what you’re watching actually happened. So, they can often elicit strong emotions. Team Foxcatcher is no exception. It is brutal and harrowing and at times terrifying.

For those of you who may not know the story, in the 1980s multimillionaire John du Pont financed a wrestling training center on his estate in Pennsylvania with the hopes of becoming the go to guy for the Olympic team. John du Pont was a pretty messed up guy who didn’t really get the love and attention he needed from his parents (sort of a Norman Bates thing went on with his mother) and was stunted emotionally. He was probably schizophrenic and addicted to drugs. In 1996, he murdered wrestler Dave Schultz at his compound. He was subsequently tried and found guilty of murder and he died in prison.

Millionaire and murderer John E. du Pont

 

Team Foxcatcher aligns itself most closely with Schultz’s widow Nancy. The opening shots are of her walking around the house where she, her husband and their young children lived some 20 years before. What the film does so well is it sets up these parallels in great opposition that coexisted side by side. The du Pont property was a utopia for these athletes where they could live with their families. The film makes a good point by mentioning about how this was hard at the time given what athletes were paid and that they often had to give up the sport young to support their wives and kids. Here, they were taken care of by this rich, seemingly generous guy.

Olympic Wrestler Dave Schultz

 

And du Pont got a lot of love from this environment, too. John du Pont was a guy starved for love. Nancy mentions time and time again that he was their friend, which makes the events all the more shocking. Dave is presented as the most loving, laid-back guy: a true friend and good father. He was also protective of John, dismissing any criticism of suspicion against him even when John was at his most erratic.

However, you get the sense that with John he felt people were either with him or against him. John, was delusional and paranoid, especially when he was high and one of the more unsettling elements of the documentary is seeing the cracks in his already unstable façade. At what point does eccentric become dangerous?

Steve Carell was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of du Pont in 2014 drama Foxcatcher which focused more on Dave’s brother Mark (Channing Tatum)

 

Needless to say, from the beginning of the documentary, you know where it’s going to end up. However, Team Foxcatcher does a remarkable job of showing the aftermath of the events from after the murder. The fallout The murder scene itself is shown remarkably: no showing of blood, corpses or anyone holding a gun. The car pulls up and it cuts the audio is of a shot, screaming, 911 calls and the like, but the visual is of a massive Hitchcockian flock of black birds flooding the sky as the crescendo of music drowns the audio.

Team Foxcatcher is a visually striking film. The shots of the du Pont estate in rural Pennsylvania are beautiful with open fields whether blanketed in snow or just rolling green hills with running deer and horses.

The du Pont family estate (referred to as the Big House) in Delaware County, Pennsylvania

 

The film itself uses standard documentary practices of archival footage coupled with modern-day interviews. All in all, this is a film about John du Pont, a somewhat sad story at that: Schultz’s now-adult daughter even mourns for him saying that everybody mourned for her dad when he died, but people celebrated John du Pont’s death because there was no one to mourn for the madman.

As much as this film is about John and a memoriam to Dave, it’s Nancy’s film and her segments are by far the best and most revealing emotionally. I won’t give away any more unnecessary info or spoilers. But y’all should definitely check out Team Foxcatcher now out on Netflix!

Dave’s widow Nancy

My Big Fat Greek Disappointment: MBFGW2

A little while back I saw My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 because my mom really wanted to see it. She’s a big fan of the original, and as a kid, I could find it on TBS or Lifetime often enough that I had seen the first one a few times. The first one was a good movie, a critical and box-office smash. The sequel, however, is not.

Oh, the original. We were smiling then, too

The thing that made the original so funny was the zany wacky characters and caricatures of Greek culture. For anyone who comes from a large family, we could identify with feeling like the only normal one in a group of crazies. It didn’t hurt that that there was a classic mismatched lovers story happening. But the best parts of the first movie were always about Toula’s wacky clan.

Family Bonding

 

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 has several different plots going for it. Toula’s parents discover they are not legally married due to a clerical error and her mom wants Gus, her father, to propose. A B-plot is about Ian and Toula’s teenage daughter, Paris, who is suffocated under her Greek family pressures to find a Greek boyfriend while she tries to choose a college.

This it’s Maria and Gus’ wedding

 

My major problem with the movie is a lack of focus. The movie decides pretty early on that the wedding is the more important plotline and so it does not give Paris the attention as a character she should. She’s a smart girl, but the script turns her into another teenage stereotype.

A stereotype like this. See, it’s all in the crazy eyes

 

Another thing that’s disappointing is that Nia Vardalos, who plays Toula, is hardly in this movie and when she is, her jokes are not very good. She tries to rekindle the romance with Ian and it gets abandoned so quickly that it hardly constitutes a plotline. Toula seems just like a tool that drives the narrative along while the rest of her family cracks jokes.

Another reason why this film might be so bad is that we already know the Portakalous’ by now. There is little they can do to surprise us. The script does not really seem to add much to these very one-dimensional characters. Gus is still the cranky, stubborn, old man. Aunt Voula is still the controlling sex-freak. Mama Yaya is still the endearing, silent, if dementia’d grandma.

Andrea Martin’s performance as Aunt Voula arguably saves the film

 

Is it funny? Yes, there are enough jokes and zaniness to keep most audiences laughing. Those who loved the original will be happy to see everyone back. But I can’t help thinking that the filmmakers missed a golden opportunity to do something great with a beloved film and they seemed to just not try very hard. The plot is predictable and can’t stand enough on its own (hence the many subplots) to work. All in all, it substitutes jokes for a plot.

Did you see My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2? Did you like it? What did you think? Agree or disagree, please comment, like and share.

Adult Beginners: Too Much Drama for Comedy-Drama?

Another film recently out on Netflix, but unlike Pee Wee’s Big Holiday isn’t an original film is Adult Beginners from 2014 starring comedian Nick Kroll from Comedy Central’s Kroll Show, Rose Byrne best known from Damages and Neighbors and Bobby Canavale from Will and Grace, and Boardwalk Empire.

Adult Beginners is about Kroll’s character Jake an oblivious hipster-type whose life in New York City consists mostly of raucous parties and bingeing on drugs while he runs his new tech company. After the company fails and his investors are ruined, Jake is forced to move back to his hometown and in with his sister Justine played by Byrne. Justine is a pregnant high school guidance counselor with some problems of her own and her husband (in real-life and in the movie) Bobby Canavale who runs a construction business. Jake is tasked with taking care of his three year old nephew Teddy to give him some responsibility.

Taking care of little Teddy is the only thing keeping these poor souls together

 

Adult Beginners is a messed up movie about messed up people, the sad thing is how normal their messed-upness really is. Comedy-dramas like this have popped out a lot in recent years especially among indie films. These comedy-dramas are usually more drama than comedy. They include a few laughs, enough to keep the sadness of the films content from being unbearable, but they deal with heavy themes. I can think of two Kristen Wiig films, The Skeleton Twins and Girl Most Likely, that fit this mold. Many of them deal with what it means to be a child, parent, or sibling.

Jake is a man-child who has no direction in his life and can barely take care of himself let alone a three year old. Justine has a drinking problem, is largely bad at her job and has concerns with her ability as a mother, her husband is having an affair and smokes pot to escape from his dull life. Behind all this lies the fact that Jake and Justine’s mother died when they were young. Each character tries to navigate their lives, for better or worse.

Jake goes back to his hometown to realize he hasn’t gotten much farther in life than his old high school friend.

The thing about these films is that they do not really ever have a resolution. The lives of the characters may become slightly better, but they still have to live with their regrets, mistakes and misery, that doesn’t go away. You get the feeling watching Teddy, the three year old in the film, that he’s the only one who knows how to live life. I guess it makes these films more realistic, but perhaps less satisfying.

Will a new baby bring hope and change? These characters need to get their lives together to find out

Adult Beginners  benefits largely from the performance of the actors involved, but it is not for everybody. It is not funny enough for most mainstream personalities or polished enough to qualify as a high drama. You have to be willing to face the sadness along with the laughs.

Much of the comedy in the film stems from Jake’s clueless inability to take care of Teddy

There’s a scene in the movie where the main characters are at a swim lesson that sums up the film pretty well. Jake takes his nephew but cannot swim himself. When the teacher says she offers swim lessons for adults, Rose Byrne deadpans, “that will be good for my brother’s depression.” Kroll, either oblivious, sarcastic or saving face turns to the teacher and says, “I’m not depressed.” We’re not sure whether he believes it or not, but we can sympathize with the dumbfounded teacher who wonders what craziness she’s watching. Much like swimming, in life, sometimes you just have to take the plunge.

Adult Beginners is now streaming on Netflix. What did you think of it? Is it too depressing? Post in the comments and let me know. Please like and share.

 

Pee Wee’s Big Holiday, a Holiday Present for Fans

This blog should not just be about movies shown currently in theatres. For one reason, movies tickets are expensive and neither I nor you can go each week to see the latest thing. For another, so much of the great movies we love, we see secondhand on TV, sometimes years later. Netflix and other streaming services has helped with this and they even add their own original content on a regular basis. I feel like I wouldn’t be doing this blog right if I didn’t write about it a little bit.

One of the things Netflix does is resurrect old series to play the nostalgia angle. Whether or not you like it, nostalgia is a big moneymaker and sometimes it can work. This month Netflix released Pee Wee’s Big Holiday. Paul Reubens has played his man-child character before in feature films and on his eponymous TV show. He has since been known for getting into trouble with the law (the less said, the better) and many people may think of him that way, but he also happens to be a brilliantly funny comedian. This is true outside of Pee Wee Herman, on a first season episode of 30 Rock, Reubens guest starred as a prince in an episode that, for the first time with that show, embraced a certain absurdity that later became its trademark.

We may call this brand of humor camp. It’s weird, outrageous and may not make sense. It has a lot of physical gags, exaggerated personalities, puns, non sequitirs, distortions of reality, madcap adventures, silly costumes like a real-life cartoon which is exactly what Pee Wee Herman is. He is blind and oblivious to the world around him for better or worse.

Vroom, vroom bitches!

 

But that’s old news. In many ways, Pee Wee’s Big Holiday feels the same. Pee Wee finds life in his idyllic, small town a little dull until a mysterious stranger, whom Pee Wee doesn’t know is Joe Manganiello shows up and they become fast friends. But when Joe invites Pee Wee to his birthday party in NYC, Pee Wee has to travel outside of his humble hamlet for the first time.

“Triple cool!”

 

The plot is a little contrived and the misadventures are weak and fall too flat for my liking, but it’s still funny. The friend moments between Joe and Pee Wee are some of the sillier parts of this movie. My favorite parts are casual jokes about Pee Wee’s somewhat ambiguous sexuality, which has been a guess for some four decades. When Pee Wee has no idea who Joe is, Joe starts naming movies, asking if Pee Wee has seen Magic Mike, “you’d think so, but no.” Damn funny joke.

Bromance? I don’t know…

 

Pee Wee gets a little meta and can play with its own ridiculousness in this movie. I won’t say it’s great, but it’s silly, fun and enjoyable. If you grew up watching Big Top Pee Wee or Pee Wee’s Big Advenure or Pee Wee’s Playhouse, I’m sure you’ll love it.

What show, movie or characters from the 80s or 90s do you think Netflix will resurrect next?

 

Take A Ride With Maggie Smith: The Lady in the Van

The Maggie Smith film The Lady in the Van is different from the other films I’ve posted about on this site. I did an action movie, a comedy and a family film. This is a drama (or some may say dark comedy) and British. Many Americans aren’t used to seeing British movies, it takes some getting used to. Most audiences will recognize Smith from the Harry Potter movies and Downton Abbey, but she is a phenomenal actress who within the past 15 years or so (though she’s never really gone anywhere) has had a renaissance in her career.

 

Smith is known for playing dodgy, old ladies. Her age may give her a somewhat limited range is who she can play, but never in what she can play. Smith is one of the most versatile actresses on the planet, and make no mistake, this is her movie. She can be equal parts tough and vulnerable, strong and weak, giddy and curmudgeonly, hilarious and heartbreaking all in one movie. The title character in this film is one of the whackier old biddies she’s played.

WHEEEEEE!!!!

Mary Shepard is a homeless woman who lives like a packrat in her run-down van in one of the more fashionable streets in London. The denizens of the neighborhood treat her with curiosity, contempt and ignorance. Yet she forms a bond with playwright Alan Bennett under fear of arrest parks her van in his driveway where she stays for some 16 years.

“So I flirted to get out of a ticket, don’t be jealous.”

Bennett forms a bond with this old lady and we’re left to wonder why. Are they both antisocial outcasts? Ms. Shepard is one for obvious reasons, she smells from never bathing, she lashes out at almost everyone, and claims to speak to the Virgin Mary. Bennett happens to be a gay man and protects Ms. Shepard (though he asserts doesn’t care for her) out of a sense of guilt he feels from not caring for his own elderly, senile mother. The two aren’t exactly friends, but the two are the closest either one has to a real friend.

Meanwhile we are given snippets of Mary’s life leading up to her decision to live in a van. Smith can play comedy, such as during a wheelchair ride down the hill of the street and painting her van a garish, bright yellow. She can play fear, such as when a mysterious stranger pounds on the van in the middle of the night, or when a gang nearly tips the vehicle over. She plays anger, cutting Alan to pieces when he goes through her belongings. She plays an intense sorrow and sympathy, when disabled and near the end of her life, she allows a social worker to take her to a day center to bathe her.

“You don’t like it, do you?”

I won’t give the details of the plot away. This film can get dry and stuffy at times and the plot moves somewhat slowly. Yet there is an authenticity to the film; it was based off a true story. One recurring element is the bits of shit (presumably Mary’s) Bennett finds in his driveway.

Funny Shit

 

It’s an odd story. I am always weary of films that try to balance comedy and drama, because they so often fail at a difficult task. Too funny and the dramatic parts of the film can come on too strong and out of nowhere, or not taken seriously. Too sad and serious and no amount of comedy can save you from the blues. This film manages it quite well.

Somebody better call Hoarders

 

It is also a moving story, largely because of Smith’s performance. Overall, this outshines much of the storytelling, unfortunately. I guess it’s just so-so. However, I think that if you’re the kind of viewer who enjoys actors acting, you won’t be disappointed by one of the best at the top of her game.

Disney’s Jungle Book Remake Done Right

This weekend I indulged my inner child by eating candy while seeing Disney’s new adaptation of the Jungle Book. Disney is starting a trend of doing live action of their old animated movies. While the magic of CGI and computer animation brings up the question of exactly how live action these films really are, they add a “real-life” feeling to the story, even if the story does not change much. I have mixed feelings about Disney’s master plan but the Jungle Book seems like the perfect choice for it.

That’s not to say that the story’s tone or narrative style doesn’t change. It is a bit darker, and more grown up than the animated version. Small kids might find moments in the film a bit too scary. And for good reason. A vicious tiger is after Mowgli and will stop at nothing. Life is tough in the jungle. It’s a eat-or-be-eaten-world of survival. The colors of the computer world are very earth toned, not bright and happy. Greens, browns and grays. The movie can play out like an action film. The fights themselves are choreographed and filmed in an epic fashion. One brief moment with Shere Khan reminds me of the action movie 300.

One example is the character of King Louie. Louie lives in a gargantuan ancient temple with what seems like slave monkeys at his control, who push Mowgli around and fight Baloo and Bagheera. When Louie comes out from the shadows, he is presented as a gigantopithecus (basically a monstrous orangutan) and voice actor Christopher Walken adds a sinister quality to him and his power lust for fire that sync up well with the wide blue eyes. Later, he chases Mowgli through the mazelike temple, destroying it in his path. This is one of the scarier scenes in the film.

For comparison, here’s Louie from 1967.

Not is not to say that the film does not include its happier moments. Bill Murray as Baloo gives plenty of laughs, including one that had me in stitches for a solid 30 seconds.

But be forewarned that there are heavy moments in the movie. The characters of Raksha and Bagheera add a parental element to, what is ultimately a coming-of-age story. Disney loves their coming-of-age plots: a crisis or threat, trying to run away, and ultimately returning as a man (Lion King and Frozen anyone?)

Ultimately what made this movie very enjoyable for me was how well it was casted. Neel Sethi makes for a good Mowlgi, giving childlike sass, glee and ultimate bravery and fearlessness with credibility (even if he does look like Dora the Explorer). But the animals are the stand-outs here. Watching the film I could not help thinking that Bill Murray always did seem somewhat bearlike, likewise monkeylike for Walken. Scarlett Johansson as Kaa is so mesmerizing, the audience is hypnotized with Mowgli. Who knew a python could be sexy? Perhaps this picture isn’t the best example but…

I think that most audiences will enjoy it. Adults with Disney nostalgia still will get The Bear Necessities and I Wanna Be Like You along with some action and deeper things as well. It might be an interesting idea to watch the 1967 original and this newest version back to back for a little fun.

Have any of you seen it? What did you think? Please like, share and leave comments.

Until next time…enjoy the simple bear necessities of life.

Why I didn’t Love the Hateful Eight

Okay, okay…so I know this movie came out some time ago, but I’ve been wanting to say something about Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight for a while now. It’s now out on Blu-ray and DVD so if you don’t mind indulging me a little while I get this off my chest.

Tarantino has been making movies for a long time now…25 years at least. He’s one of the industry’s biggest success stories, but always maintained the image of an outsider–and for good reason–there’s no one else quite like Tarantino. His style is bold and brash. His dialogue is unforgettable, but that doesn’t begin to scratch the surface. Tarantino loves violence. Throughout his career we’ve seen

• a man shot in the face
• a woman’s eyeball torn out

• a black woman in a hot, metal box
• slaves eaten alive by dogs

• a woman’s arm cut off by a samurai sword
• Lucy Liu’s head by the same sword.

The list goes on.

So it’s safe to assume Tarantino likes his violence, but the question is why do we like it so much? Maybe because it feels different from so much other movie violence that we’ve seen? Pulp Fiction for example, is about gangsters. Casino and The Godfather are also about gangsters, and just as violent, but they seem like two totally different movies.

In The Godfather we start off not by seeing Don Corleone killing mobsters with impunity, but as a family man at his daughter’s wedding. He looks old. His voice is a weak whisper. His body looks clumsy in that tux. Similarly, we start out by seeing his son Michael as the son who does not want to follow the family “business”. Don’t forget the mob world is at peace and the families are in a truce. What makes the violence so shocking is that it relates to a corruption of  a character. We see men like Michael Corleone or Henry Hill from Goodfellas get swept into a mob lifestyle that culminates in violence.

The difference with a Tarantino movie is that his characters are basically cartoons. They start off corrupt.The basic motivator for any Tarantino character is revenge. Look at his most recent films: Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. Shoshanna and the Basterds in Inglourious Basterds and Django in Django Unchained. The interesting thing about this revenge set-up is that we automatically side with one character because we think their quest for revenge is noble. Who among us wouldn’t go after the assassins who killed our baby and the chance for a new life? Who wouldn’t side with a slave trying to get his wife back? Or against freaking Nazis?

That’s my major problem with The Hateful Eight. There is really no character to root for. All of them are awful, duplicitous murderers and liars. The lawman played by Kurt Russell acts self-righteous around southerners for being friends with Samuel L. Jackson, but beats the crap out of prisoner Jennifer Jason Leigh. Samuel L. Jackson’s character Major Marquis Warren carries around a fake letter and one scene shows how crazy and weird his quest for vengeance against a white man gets (no spoilers!)

There are other problems. The pacing, even for a Tarantino film, is slow. We meet each one of these characters one by one and get their basic back story, or all we need to know. Secrets come out. Surprises are revealed. Alliances are broken. There’s murder, murder, murder. A flashback changes all that we think we know. The whole movie seems to me like one of those old Agatha Christie who-dun-it plays…or a really fucked up Murder She Wrote.  Jessica Fletcher drinking the blood of her enemies.

It’s entertaining, but that’s because it’s Tarantino. The pacing lags in places, but the story and characters are compelling enough to keep you watching for the whole 3 hour plus running time. But the ending leaves you disappointed. The pay-off isn’t big enough for all the action leading up to it.

At least, that’s what I think. It’s one theory. I want to know, what do you think? Did you see the movie? Did you love it? Hate it? Do you agree or disagree with what I said? I wanna hear from you. This blog may be called Troxtalks but he listens to. So comment, please share with friends. More posts to come.