Dirty Grandpa
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
Hey, I’m a simple man. When I see a guy in a horse head mask, I laugh.
Dirty Grandpa has a guy in a horse head mask, along with plenty of other funny business to offset the weak spots.
By the way, that “dirty” in the title is not there just for show. Grandpa (Robert DeNiro) is definitely dirty, and he has ladies on his mind about five minutes after his wife’s funeral. Playing the guilt card, he convinces Jason, his yuppie lawyer grandson (Zac Efron), to drive him down to Florida for a little family bonding.
And by “bonding,” Gramps means partying in Daytona for spring break, where he tries to get “Alan Douche-owitz” to forget his upcoming wedding and be Grandpa’s wingman.
Much of John Phillips’s debut screenplay is a scream, with DeNiro vigorously chewing on merciless putdowns or raunchy sex talk. An unusually chipper drug dealer (Jason Mantzoukas) and a pair of sarcastic cops (Mo Collins and Henry Zebrowski) also bring inspired nuttiness, but MVP honors here go to Aubrey Plaza.
As Lenore, a young spring breaker with a blank space next to “old man” on her to-do list, Plaza goes toe to toe with DeNiro in a riotous series of hilariously awkward who’s-gonna-blink-first exchanges. Their interplay is the consistent high point of the film.
Peaks, meet valleys.
The well of certain jokes is revisited once too often, and director Dan Mazer overplays his attempt to be an equal opportunity offender, as some of the gags – particularly those with sexist leanings – take on mean spirited edges. In a similar vein, “laughing with” quickly turns to “laughing at” when Grandpa grabs the mic for some painful rapping on karaoke night.
Jason’s relationship with his bitchy fiancé Meredith (Julianne Hough) is lifted straight from The Hangover, and expect the requisite mood music when it’s time for life lessons about fatherhood, chasing your dreams, and true love.
Will Jason be inspired to put aside what others expect from him and follow his heart? Can Jason’s attraction to cute coed Shadia overcome the complete lack of chemistry between Efron and co-star Zoey Deutch? Will Lenore and Grandpa get busy? Just who is under that horse head mask?
You’ll only care about half of those questions, and Dirty Grandpa will leave you laughing about half of the time.
The 5th Wave
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
You know the old slam on modern art, right?
“I could paint that!’
Everything about The 5th Wave is so cooly calculated, it feels like the result of watching “young adult” trilogies rake in millions, and copping that same attitude.
All the building blocks are here, but like so many of the other imitators, the finished product just reminds you again how much more effective The Hunger Games is at assembling them.
Cassie (Chloe Grace Moretz) is just a normal teenage girl in Ohio when the first wave of alien attacks hits. The incredibly lazy device of voiceover narration assures girls in the audience Cassie is just like them, so the film’s extended metaphor about surviving adolescence will resonate more quickly.
Cassie is conveniently separated from her parents, and she has a young sibling to protect, so those two boxes are quickly checked off. A love triangle you say? Cassie pines for her high school crush Ben, but then the hunky Evan saves her after she takes a bullet, and the aliens apparently haven’t touched his supply of hair gel or workout equipment so..conflicted emotions!
Even with all the usual trappings, there are possibilities hiding in The 5th Wave. Rick Yancey’s source novel includes a twist that could have been mined for effective social commentary, no matter how quickly you see it coming (hint: quickly).
Director J Blakeson (The Descent: Part 2) and his screenwriting team seem more interested in just feeding the YA beast. There’s no emotional payoff here, only cliched dialogue and convoluted padding to set up future installments, plus one unintentionally hilarious scene that metaphorically depicts teen sex.
Moretz has talent, and her charisma does manage to sell some of the action sequences, but as was the case with the woeful If I Stay, she plays down to the material and forgoes depth for mere posing. Her young co-stars are just more window dressing, but at least Maika Monroe (so good last year in It Follows) gets to say, to a barracks full of young soldiers being trained for alien battle, “Any of you touch me….and I’ll kill ya!”
Five bucks if you yell, “Lighten up, Francis!” at the screen.
Sorry, kids, that a reference to a stone-age movie called Stripes. Your parents will understand, and tell them to watch that again while you watch The 5th Wave.
Anomalisa
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
With Anomalisa, Charlie Kaufman’s proposed animated short becomes a wondrous feature, utilizing a powerful subtlety to explore the challenge and the mystery of human connection.
Customer service specialist Michael Stone (voiced by David Thewlis) is wilting under the weight of the mundane. Though he preaches about finding the individuality in each customer, he views each person he comes in contact with as interchangeable, hearing the same voice (the great Tom Noonan) each time anyone else speaks.
When Micheal flies to Cincinnati for a conference presentation, his rut continues until he encounters Lisa (Jennifer Jason-Leigh), who is staying on the same floor of his hotel. Though Lisa has traveled from Akron to hear Michael speak, it is Michael who is roused by the sound of a new voice – and by the possibility of rediscovering the joy in life.
Kaufman, who wrote the screenplay and co-directs with Duke Johnson, has created a kickstarter-funded marvel of complex simplicity. It envelopes you slowly, on an almost subliminal level, rendering Michael a sympathetic character as a simple matter of course. In doing so, the film touches on emotions so universal you may not even realize how loudly it is speaking to you.
There is a sly wit at work here as well. Michael checks in to the Fregoli hotel, a direct nod to the rare disorder in which one believes many different people are, in fact, one person in disguise. His trip down to meet the hotel manager is also a sarcastic hoot.
At times odd and imaginative, romantic and heartbreaking, Anomalisa ultimately feels like a gentle reminder about how much we need each other.
Mojave
by Hope Madden, MaddWolf.com
“I’m into motiveless malignacy. I’m a Shakespeare man.”
So begins the battle of wits and wills at the center of Mojave, writer/director William Monahan’s meditation on the alpha male.
Thomas (Garrett Hedlund) is having an existential crisis. He’s been famous his entire adult life, and now that he has everything, there’s nothing left for him to want. His downward spiral leads him into the desert, where he happens upon a drifter (Oscar Isaac).
The duo’s hyper-literate fireside exchange is tinged with predatory tones, each man intrigued by the shifting ground of dominant/submissive beneath the wordplay.
The stilted, noir-esque characters – including bizarre cameos from Walton Goggins and Mark Walberg – are too hard boiled to be authentic. Instead Monahan and his cast create entertainingly dead-eyed facsimiles of humans, each floating (often meaninglessly) in and out of the battling pair’s dilemma.
What is that dilemma? Well, something happened out in that desert, and as drifter Jack says, “The game is on, brother.”
The wealthy, handsome Thomas misjudges his lowlife adversary, but Jack is equally guilty of underestimating the superficial pretty boy he’s set as his mark. Don’t look for a good guy in this battle, though, because the world would be better off without either party, and they both know it.
Isaac ranks among the most talented actors working today. If you only know him from Star Wars, you need to look deeper into this chameleonic performer’s work. He struggles here and there with Mojave, though, because Monahan’s writing makes it hard to find a real person beneath all the machismo.
Hedlund is no Isaac, but it’s fun to see the chemistry between the two (who shared a similarly uncomfortable chemistry during their fateful car ride in Inside Llewyn Davis).
Ultimately the cat-and-mouse thriller drowns in its own testosterone – the pair of utterly suicidal antiheroes buckling beneath their burdensome masculinity. Still, as literary references abound and the more-alike-than-different outsiders bristle at societal constraint, this over-written mess remains curiously fascinating.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pwwVQ8YCl4
Boy and the World
by Hope Madden, MaddWolf.com
Often a joyous riot of colors and sounds, and just as often a somber and spare smattering of dehumanizing imagery, Boy and the World poignantly encapsulates the clashing emotions and evolving comprehension of the human spirit.
Ale Abreu’s Oscar nominee for Best Animated Film offers deceptively simple animation to pull you into complex ideas. Boy – the wee, titular character who is about to start quite an adventure – sees a wondrous, kaleidoscopic world saturated with confusing but fascinating sounds and images, colors and experiences.
But as thrilling and vibrant as these early moments are, Abreu’s vision is edged with cynicism. It’s an idea that takes hold sporadically, when industrialization depletes the chaotic energy from the screen, when scores of stooped stick figures lose their meager jobs, when urban blight changes the tone from primary colors to smoky browns and greys, and finally when animation gives over to live action footage of deforestation.
Though the filmmaker’s themes are always evident – occasionally less subtle than they might be – the heartbeat of the story is that of the imaginative, innocent Boy. It gives the whole film a touch of sadness, but balances the anger with an optimism and innocence that’s often beguiling.
A contagious score from Ruben Feffer and Gustavo Kurlat emboldens Abreu’s pictures, emphasizing the vibrancy of the individual’s spirit as well as the celebration of human connection.
Boy’s journey is a circuitous one, a coming of age and acceptance informed by struggle and nostalgia but brightened with bursts of color.
There is something terribly lonesome but simultaneously jubilant about Boy and the World. It’s a heady mix from a confident new filmmaker, and a welcome addition to an entirely laudable set of animated Oscar contenders.