Movie review by Greg Carlson

A safe and toothless coming-of-age story that leisurely juggles a teenage love triangle, a strained father-son relationship, and all the “how to be a man” cliches that go along with the genre territory, “The Kings of Summer” uses several of the same key components explored to more satisfying and sophisticated effect in “Moonrise Kingdom” and “Mud.” Blending the kids-run-away-from home plot (without any of the urgency or wistfulness of Wes Anderson’s terrific film) and the it’s-hard-growing-up liminality of “Mud,” first-time feature director Jordan Vogt-Roberts grossly overestimates the likability of central character Joe Toy (Nick Robinson), a selfish, unnecessarily cruel jerk.

Like “Mud,” the crisis point of “The Kings of Summer” involves a life-threatening, poisonous snakebite designed in part to reveal Joe’s mettle and signify his transition from callow childishness to maturity, but the misshapen sequence – ominously and obviously alluded to earlier in the movie – unfolds much like the convenient and pat summary of a lesson-learned television episode. The rest of the action alternates between scenes of teenage boy views of domestic drudgery and the sweet escape of hatching a plan, however unlikely, to live off the land. Joe enlists best friend Patrick (Gabriel Basso) and tagalong weirdo Biaggio (Moises Arias), an ambiguous misfit who speaks almost entirely in non sequiturs, to join him in his plan to build a house hidden in the nearby woods.

Cobbled from construction site leftovers and other pilfered scraps, the cabin miraculously comes together almost overnight, courtesy of a time-compressing montage. The result, a marvelous ramshackle fort adorned with a pickup topper-roofed second story loft, a swimming pool slide connecting the upper and lower floors, and an air hockey table (no idea how that particular item was dragged through the forest) is a prime example of the sort of “perfect imperfect” engineering that only exists in the universe of movies. As the representation of a half-real, half-dreamed arcadia, the abode offers the boys respite, refuge, and most importantly, freedom from overbearing parents.

Vogt-Roberts, working from a script by Chris Galletta, struggles to calibrate the movie’s tonal balance, grinding gears from the droll, deadpan sarcasm of Nick Offerman’s grieving dad Frank Toy – easily the most entertaining aspect of the film – to the caricature of nightmarish parenthood provided by Megan Mullally and Marc Evan Jackson (who banter like cartoon stereotypes from a Saturday Night Live sketch).

Alongside the mash-up of broad comedy and straight-faced drama, the least convincing dimension of “The Kings of Summer” is derived from the sizable gaps in logic following the disappearance of the teens. Even though the police are involved and the story makes the local news, Frank remains as calm as Patrick’s folks are alarmist. The stakes are apparently so low that at one point Frank goes fishing with Patrick’s father, showing a bizarre lack of concern during the ongoing search for their boys. Weirder still, when Patrick returns, a newscast relates Patrick’s claim not to have seen his best friend, and there is no indication that the authorities or Frank press for information from the last person to see Joe. Of course, we are not supposed to scrutinize any of this, but the movie’s relaxed pace gives us little else to do.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Considering the many cinematic adaptations of the plays of William Shakespeare, it is surprising that Joss Whedon’s film of “Much Ado About Nothing” is only the second theatrically released, English language, synchronous sound version of that popular text produced as a film (and not a filmed stage production). The previous iteration, Kenneth Branagh’s charming, funny, and fearlessly cast movie of 1993 might have deterred most others – especially Yankees – but Whedon’s effort, shot in less than two weeks during a contractually required break from the massive, nearly all-consuming post-production tasks on “The Avengers,” distinguishes itself in all sorts of ways, some effectual, some not so much.

Peopled with Whedon’s favorite actors from many of his previous projects (including “Angel,” “Dollhouse,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Firefly,” “The Avengers,” and “The Cabin in the Woods”), “Much Ado” was also shot in and around the director’s Santa Monica home, making efficient use of the dwelling’s many rooms and outdoor spaces for all manner of drinking and eavesdropping. Striving for, if never quite fully achieving, the kind of rapid-fire banter associated with the great screwball comedies of the 1930s, “Much Ado” will most likely be sought out by Whedon’s fans and Shakespeare-on-film completists.

Jay Hunter’s black and white photography accentuates the sharp fashions – suits and ties for the men, dresses for the women – but also reminds the viewer of several of the show’s potentially outmoded and antique social customs, most unmistakably the significance of Hero’s virginity as a prerequisite for marriage. While it certainly makes sense that the insecure, unworthy Claudio would be upset when confronted with the idea that the woman he desires has been intimate with others, a great deal of the text’s prose alludes to an expectation of chastity that proves as tough a sell in the modern setting as the idea that the well-dressed fellows have just returned from battle.

The trailer for “Much Ado” tantalizingly promised a carnival of erotic gamesmanship and lusty, masked ball flirtations, but the action is buttoned-up with the notable exceptions of a post-coital disappearing act prologue that confirms Benedick and Beatrice’s intimacy and a rendezvous between Don John and a gender-swapped Conrade that breathes some life into the antagonists’ camp. Given the large number of male roles in the play, Whedon might have re-imagined even more of the boys as girls, since outside of Beatrice and Hero, the latter gender is represented mainly by servants. Fortunately, Amy Acker’s Beatrice is this production’s most luminous and memorable character.

Curiously, Whedon retains Claudio’s racist declaration that he is prepared to marry the veiled “niece” of Leonato even if she is revealed as “an Ethiope,” and while the filmmaker’s intention is to comment on the ugly sentiment rather than condone it, the moment serves as a weird reminder of the cohort’s white, privileged homogeneity and cements Claudio as more than just a fool and a jerk, adding prejudiced bigot to his list of epithets. As noted by Camille Martinez, “Shakespeare’s dramatis personae betray a Eurocentric vision that 21st century audiences may find trouble with.” In 1993, Branagh’s inclusion of Denzel Washington as Don Pedro served as an arguably token example of so-called “colorblind” casting, but given the prince’s rank, authority, and heart, Branagh was making a deliberate statement.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Following his radio debut on Detroit’s WXYZ in early 1933, the Lone Ranger has enjoyed widespread American cultural popularity with children and adults, branded in film serials, novels, television shows, animated cartoons, comic strips, comic books, records, toys, and even a video game. From his ever-present disguise to his supply of silver bullets – a visual reminder that life is precious and the gun should only be fired when absolutely necessary – the Masked Man contributed to the American lexicon several enduring, iconic tropes of justice, honesty, and moral absolutism. Gore Verbinski’s new film retains John Reid’s square jaw and square comportment, but also slathers it with so much mugging, buffoonery, and slapstick that lighthearted irony is transformed into derisive cynicism.

One of the tenets of the Lone Ranger’s creed suggests that God put the firewood there, but that every man must gather and light it himself [sic]. If one applies this notion to the Gore Verbinski, Johnny Depp, and Jerry Bruckheimer interpretation of the legend, the filmmakers collected soggy, substandard kindling and poured the gasoline when it wouldn’t light. For everything that project initiator Depp does right, several things go very wrong. Aside from Tonto, Native Americans are on hand for some old-fashioned combat with the U.S. Cavalry, and Verbinski treats the slaughter as part of the “fun,” don’t-think-about-it spectacle. Women don’t have it any better. Only two females have significant speaking roles (no, they don’t talk to one another) and the majority of other women glimpsed as background extras play frontier prostitutes.

Depp’s dubious, disputed, and longstanding claim that he has some Native American heritage in his family bloodline is mentioned in Daniel D’Addario’s recent “Salon” essay, a sharply written and convincingly argued consideration of the legacy of Tonto in terms of racial and ethnic stereotyping, the false claims of “honoring” marginalized cultures, and the pervasive Hollywood practice of casting white performers in roles that could and should be inhabited by actors of color. Undoubtedly, it is not Depp’s intention to ridicule or demean American Indians no matter how loopy his character design (the plan is assuredly the very opposite), but as D’Addario notes, the actor still uses the Jay Silverheels brand of grammatically infantilizing pidgin English devoid of most definite articles, missing an opportunity to truly re-imagine Tonto in a new century.

Eighteen years ago, Johnny Depp starred in another movie featuring an unlikely partnership between a white, fledgling cowboy and a savvy First Nations “guide.” In Jim Jarmusch’s “Dead Man,” Depp appeared as the uncoordinated tenderfoot from Cleveland who learns to speak through his weapon on a foreboding journey toward death. The great Gary Farmer played Nobody, a half Blood, half Blackfoot outcast (whose tribe-less status parallels Tonto) with an impressive and adequately explained fluency and command of four languages. It may be unfair to compare a black & white indie with a Disney juggernaut (there are no “Dead Man” Lego sets, although there should have been), but if one wants to see how a non-Native filmmaker explodes the traditional stereotypes of American Indians in the movies, you have to watch the one where Depp is the white man.

Finally, when the William Tell Overture sounds and the film’s most impressive sustained action set piece gets underway – complete with some double-steam locomotive chase hjjinks and massive trestle explosion that pay direct tribute to Buster Keaton’s “The General” as reverently as Depp plays Tonto as a nod to the Great Stone Face himself – “The Lone Ranger” hints at the kind of fun we should have had during the rest of the labored, stiff, blow-by-blow. Too much of what remains calls to mind the horrors of Barry Sonnenfeld’s joyless, phony “Wild Wild West” and is as artistically nourishing as the seed Tonto insists on feeding to the desiccated crow perched on top of his head.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Inspired by Nancy Jo Sales’s “Vanity Fair” article “The Suspects Wore Louboutins,” Sofia Coppola’s fifth feature “The Bling Ring” observes the larcenous practices of a group of young California burglars who took advantage of lax security at the homes of several celebrity victims, including Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Rachel Bilson, and Orlando Bloom. Already dramatized in 2011 as a Lifetime movie with the same title, the story provides Coppola with another opportunity to develop several themes that recur in her films: the distance between fame and anonymity, the difficulty of attaining personal fulfillment through material possessions in the absence of self-reflection, and the transition from youth to maturity.

Opening with the infectious beat and blare of Sleigh Bells’ “Crown on the Ground” to underscore a heist in progress, “The Bling Ring” uses music as perfectly as each of Coppola’s movies, thanks to the director’s own expertise and the ear of regular collaborator Brian Reitzell. Like the decadent pastel bon bons, petits fours, millinery, footwear, and couture that decorated Marie Antoinette’s chambers in Coppola’s vision of pre-revolution French court life, the designer handbags, sunglasses, mini-dresses, and jewelry pawed and pilfered by the Bling Ring signify the craving for acquisition-based affluence and serve as a reminder that collected objects are no substitute for genuine personal relationships.

This idea was more effectively explored by Coppola in “Lost in Translation” and “Somewhere,” principally because key points of view in those movies belonged to the wealthy insiders confined by their privilege rather than the narcissistic wannabes of “The Bling Ring,” whose constant exposure to social media and reliance on reality television and prescription medication has instilled a longing to hoard the status symbols and taste the notoriety of those oft-photographed and over-documented beautiful people who are, for the most part, famous for being famous.

With the exception of Israel Broussard’s Marc, who is based on Nick Prugo, the inner circle of thieves consists of several young women, most notably Marc’s new bestie and robbery ringleader Rebecca (Katie Chang) and the absurdly insensitive Nicki (Emma Watson). Coppola is far more sympathetic to Marc than Sales’ description of Prugo in the expanded movie tie-in book, but it is the casting of Watson that yields a real return on investment. Watson brings with her a level of preconceived audience goodwill that offsets the indelicacy of her charmless, venal, mean girl with an addiction to clubbing and duck lip selfies. She nails the shallow, SoCal-speak, deadpanning many of the best lines, including “I want to lead a country one day for all I know,” which Sales claims Watson’s real life counterpart Alexis Neiers actually said.

Showing restraint that has confounded some critics hoping for evidence of a clearer moral position or a more cutting satire, Coppola refrains from passing judgment on the Bling Ring’s aspiring Bad Girls/Super Rich Kids, but one wonders whether the filmmaker missed an opportunity for a deeper examination of class and race by omitting any character directly based on the undocumented immigrant Diana Tamayo, one of the original members of the Bling Ring. Since the film depends in some measure on the “authenticity” of its true-to-life sources, embedded in the ready-made publicity of Coppola obtaining permission to shoot inside Paris Hilton’s Hollywood Hills house, the addition of Tamayo’s part of the saga may have added another evocative layer.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

“Monsters University” is a pleasant if unremarkable prequel to Pixar’s inventive buddy movie “Monsters, Inc.” Revisiting some of the in-universe mythology that fueled the 2001 film, including the concept that monsters depend on the screams of children to power their hidden-from-human-view municipalities, “Monsters University” adds very little of substance to our understanding of Mike Wazowski, Billy Crystal’s green cyclops, and James P. “Sulley” Sullivan, John Goodman’s  furry beastie. Ignoring the first movie’s indication that Mike and Sulley have known one another at least since the fourth grade, “Monsters University” brings the future scarers together as college freshmen.

Whether or not Pixar’s decision to skip elementary school in favor of higher education was sound, the film’s physical interpretation of college meets the expectations audiences bring to the release of any of the studio’s features. Boasting the inaugural application of sophisticated software advancements in global illumination, “Monsters University” takes full advantage of the plenitude of shapes and kaleidoscopic colors in its mutant menagerie. The film lacks an unforgettable, dazzling set-piece like the “Monsters, Inc.” door chase sequence, but the visual quality reaffirms Pixar’s position as the preeminent producer of big-budget computer animation.

Considering Pixar’s reputation for relentless story development and editing, “Monsters University” traces a disappointingly predictable and familiar pathway more akin to the work of the studio’s lesser rivals. By comparison, “Monsters, Inc.” is light years more poignant and emotionally involving. Unlike “Toy Story 2,” in which the yodeling cowgirl Jessie deepened, enriched, and built upon the strong characterizations established in the series debut, “Monsters University” lacks either the bravery or the farsightedness (or both) to introduce a new friend as crucial to the narrative as Mike and Sulley.

Nearly a year has passed since the first comparisons between “Monsters University” and “Revenge of the Nerds” emerged. Even Billy Crystal, during promotional interviews for “Parental Guidance,” noted the connection between the cult comedy and the second “Monsters” installment. “Monsters University” does in fact borrow from “Revenge of the Nerds,” particularly in the establishment of loser/underdog status for Mike’s misfit Oozma Kappa fraternity and the David vs. Goliath competition of the Scare Games. Weirdly, “Monsters University” could have appropriated even more from “Nerds,” a film with a superior understanding of diversity, social persecution, and class discrimination – not to mention a more inventive set of Greek Games challenges.

“Monsters University” earns demerits in several categories, and the conspicuous absence of significant and important female coeds enrolled at MU is at the top of the list. Women do appear in the movie as authority figures: Helen Mirren’s stern headmistress Dean Hardscrabble channels Minerva McGonagall, and Julia Sweeney steals a handful of laughs (especially when listening to Mastodon’s “Island”) as Sherri Squibbles, the stereotypical sweet-natured mother of one of the Oozma Kappa members. Even with a trio of sororities – fully relegated to the background – and Aubrey Plaza’s barely there commentary as a Greek Council president, female monsters are second-class and all but silent, and there is nobody in sight to take the place of Boo. Needless to say, “Monsters University” fails the Bechdel Test.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The experience of “Before Midnight,” the third installment of Richard Linklater’s remarkable group of films exploring, among other things, the possibilities of romantic love, calls to mind Robert Browning’s famous lines, “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be…” What began in 1995 as an impossibly right merger of minimalist plotting and maximalist self-exploration and philosophizing has surprisingly, confidently, and assuredly made the case that sequels can sometimes surpass inaugurations. As Jesse and Celine, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy have by now come to feel like two close friends, and we admirers already hope to see them again in another nine years.

Cynics and pessimists need not bother with the “Before” series, ripe as it is with the poetry of spontaneity, love at first sight, and the value of saying yes. That said, “Before Midnight” embraces the changes that accompany post-40 adulthood. Jesse’s missed flight at the conclusion of “Sunset” has led, finally, to a long-term partnership with Celine, and at least one result is a pair of young daughters. “Before Midnight” opens with a sober airport farewell between Jesse and his son Hank, boarding a jet home to America and his mother, the woman Jesse left to be with Celine. It is instantly apparent that Jesse aches to spend more time with his quickly growing child, and the interaction sharply seeds key elements of a conflict that will soon unfold between Jesse and Celine on Greece’s idyllic Peloponnese peninsula.

Like Linklater’s previous treatments of Vienna and Paris, an appreciation of the dreamy, picturesque locations complements the thematic focus on taking chances and seizing happiness. Even so, all of the “Before” movies have made room for careful consideration of mortality and the finite number of moments we have. In the first film, a visit to the Cemetery of the Nameless confronted both the anonymity of death and the way in which time for the dead is suspended (“Now I’m ten years older and she’s still thirteen, I guess”). “Before Midnight” continues the memento mori ruminations, and a spirited dinner conversation attended by participants of many ages and life stages ends in a wistful toast to “passing through.”

Even though “Midnight” eschews the device of an imposed time limit bearing down on Jesse and Celine, a technique essential to “Sunrise” and “Sunset,” the movie’s final act is a tour de force that summons the same kind of panic and urgency we felt as the endings of each of the first two movies approached. What was planned for Celine and Jesse as a kid-free hotel getaway gifted by friends collapses into a bitter display of grievances, accusations, and deeply cutting differences of opinion that no fewer than half a dozen critics have compared to “Scenes from a Marriage.”

One must see “Before Midnight” to appreciate both the detail and the scale of the vicious verbal battle between two idealized projections of our cherished fantasies. My viewing companion, a longtime and committed backer of the “Before” films, expressed her intense feeling of discomfort at bearing witness to the painful blowup. It is unnecessary to say more, since Celine and Jesse have always been best at doing the talking. Like the serpentine twists and turns of fate that challenged our lovers at sunrise and sunset, things are not always what they seem and endings are often just beginnings in disguise.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

A fictionalized account of Thor Heyerdahl’s 1947 seafaring adventure, “Kon-Tiki” burnishes Heyerdahl’s well-documented penchant for mythmaking and self-promotion. Nominated for an Oscar in the Foreign Language category, “Kon-Tiki” was shot in both Norwegian and English editions, and most U.S. viewers will experience the latter as the Weinstein Company’s release rolls out to American cinemas. Heyerdahl’s theory, that people from what is now Peru may have traveled to and populated Polynesian islands, was not then and is not now believed by most anthropologists, but the spirit of exploration and not the scientific record really fuels the movie.

Culling together material from Heyerdahl’s wildly popular book “The Kon-Tiki Expedition: By Raft Across the South Seas” and the Academy Award-winning documentary that remains Norway’s only Oscar-winning feature to date, “Kon-Tiki” tempers the long stretches of uneventful downtime with sudden bursts of intense conflict and crisis. Spending the majority of its duration on the water journey itself, “Kon-Tiki” also covers Heyerdahl’s initially unsuccessful attempts to mount the unlikely Pacific Ocean crossing on a raft of balsa logs lashed together. A minor subplot addressing marital tension between Thor and his wife Liv adds another small layer of drama.

Weirdly, directors Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg feel compelled to punch up a few of the voyage’s key moments with outright fabrications. Perhaps the most glaring example is the demise of parrot mascot and companion Lorita, who, according to Heyerdahl’s original documentary, simply took wing some sixty days into the adventure, never to be seen again. This time, Lorita is snapped up by a hungry shark, setting the stage for a brutal man-versus-nature slaughter fueled by the rage of a bereaved crewmember. By all accounts, however, the presence of sharks was constant, even if the movies, thanks to “Jaws,” can’t resist showcasing the animals as ultimate, primal fear-inducing predators.

A source of consternation for family members (none of the original Kon-Tiki crew are alive today) of German-born Herman Watzinger is the film’s portrayal of the refrigeration engineer. As Heyerdahl’s second in command, the real life Watzinger was confident of the raft’s seaworthiness, but the movie uses Watzinger to manufacture conflict that did not genuinely exist. Actor Anders Baasmo Christiansen is asked to play a nervous, out-of-shape doubter whose actions veer close to the edge of endangering the lives of his fellow sailors. “Kon-Tiki” screenwriter Petter Skavlan has defended the changes, but the result is diminished credibility.

“Kon-Tiki” might inspire more visits to the excellent museum in Oslo where the original raft is housed (along with Heyerdahl’s Oscar statuette). In the end, the successful completion of Heyerdahl’s mission at least validated the claim that a 4000 plus nautical mile journey on little more than a bobbing cork was possible. Considering the manner in which the filmmakers have defended their “enhancements” to Heyerdahl’s story, however, “Kon-Tiki” surely would have been improved by the inclusion of a more idiosyncratic and self-aware tone. The film takes itself very seriously when it could, and probably should, be playing with the captain’s oddness, ego, and self-righteousness.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

A grim, true crime account of the rise and fall of hitman Richard Kuklinski, a bearish mob affiliate and enforcer whose handiwork resulted in a body count estimated at more than 100 victims, Ariel Vromen’s “The Iceman” showcases another example of Michael Shannon’s totally committed, bravura acting chops. Despite a modest budget, the film effectively sketches the period detail of the gritty 1960s through 1980s East Coast environment (Detroit and Shreveport standing in for New York and New Jersey), evoking the street look of classic dramas photographed by Arthur Ornitz and Victor Kemper.

Based on the 1992 HBO documentary “The Iceman Tapes: Conversations with a Killer” and Anthony Bruno’s 1993 book “The Iceman: The True Story of a Cold-Blooded Killer,” Vromen’s film capitalizes on the unfathomable, unthinkable chasm that exists between Kuklinski the family man and Kuklinski the assassin. Keeping secrets and/or living a double life has served as the narrative engine of titles as wide-ranging as “Belle de Jour,” “Vera Drake,” “True Lies,” and “The Departed,” but “The Iceman” is perhaps closest to “The Sopranos” in terms of Kuklinski’s desire to offer a “normal” life to his wife and kids while concealing the volcanic reservoirs of lethal violence that guide his unorthodox vocation.

As Kuklinski’s wife, renamed Deborah for the movie, Winona Ryder has the unenviable task of playing a character unable to ask questions of or communicate fully with her spouse. The real Barbara Kuklinski described years of physical abuse at the hands of Richard, but Vromen elects to minimize the extent to which Kuklinski’s horrific behavior spilled over into his day-to-day domesticity. The fictionalized Kuklinski is dubiously constructed as a mostly loving husband determined to keep his demons hidden. As the façade begins to crumble, a scene of Richard’s physical abuse is placed as a marker of the man’s slide toward discovery and capture.

Along his twisted path, Kuklinski meets a curious doppelganger in Robert “Mr. Freezy” Pronge, a fellow contract killer whose incongruous front as an ice cream truck driver is just as implausible as Kuklinski’s own double life. Known in real life as Mister Softee and played by an unrecognizable Chris Evans, buried beneath sunglasses and facial hair, Pronge both escalates and diversifies the range of Kuklinski’s grisly trade, which soon includes the use of small spray bottles containing cyanide. Disguised on food or discreetly dispensed as a phony sneeze, the lethal poison is perhaps Kuklinski’s creepiest means of dispatching a target, although the postmortem dismemberments carried out by the two men are equally unsettling.

The presence of Ray Liotta as Gambino crime family crew leader Roy DeMeo links “The Iceman” to “Goodfellas” in spirit and partial milieu, but the tone of Vromen’s movie withholds any romanticizing of the “lifestyle” associated with the mob, instead considering Kuklinski as a perpetual outsider whose ability to commit murder stems in part from a brutal upbringing at the hands of physically and emotionally abusive parents. Using some of Kuklinski’s own confessional descriptions, Vromen alludes to some of the conditions that might shape a future killer, but “The Iceman” is ultimately not in a position to offer any definitive answers for Kuklinski’s psychopathy.