Review (D) – Page 4

The Nest

Does she know how to smoke a cigarette? How about some wine?

L&D headed off to Marcus Valley, sans L, to see The Nest, a new drama thriller starring Jude Law, Carrie Coon, and a dark horse named Thunder. The movie starts with an extended shot of Law and Coon’s fine dwelling, presumably in the greater New York metropolitan era. Given the movie title, one might be excused for thinking this is the nest, because it is a pretty fabulous house. Law serves the tea, takes the kid to school, and imagines a new world from his home office. Coon likes to sleep late and she trains horses. They have two children, one who calls Law “Rory,” suggesting that perhaps she is not his offspring. The other is unfortunately named “Beanie.”

One day Rory wakes his wife up with the news that he wants to move back to London so he can re-fill the depleted coffers. I think it is about this point that an unsettling rolling thunder sound makes its appearance, and the movie is pretty much a slow burn from here on out. Rory sets up the fam on a regal farmhouse in Surrey and, well, the story unfolds and the characters’ backstories bleed out from there.

The acting in this movie is excellent all around. The scene where Coon orders dinner and demonstrates the proper wine-tasting technique is a big highlight, capped off with a bemused smile from Law that may well have been genuine. I laughed, too. On top of that, the story is not predictable, not in the least. And the house is both spectacular and unsettling. In fact, it was unsettling enough that I didn’t have time to take apart how the house was being filmed — it definitely had a Shiningesque quality about it and reminded me more than a little of the shotmaking in The Favourite. After the first hour I was checking my pulse to make sure I wasn’t having a heart attack. And, by the end I admit I was curled up in a little ball waiting for the proverbial boot to drop. Not the most exciting movie you will ever see, but well crafted and a lot to appreciate.

Or, perhaps not. My companion, Dr. B, and I were both a little perplexed on how it played out, not disappointed, but maybe surprised. There were also a few guns on the mantle in the introduction that may or may not have gone off. I have neither read nor seen anything else about this movie, so the answers might be found in the text of previews or reviews.

But I would still say it’s worth your $5 if you are CoVid-proof, worth your two hours if you would prefer to catch it on the tele. That’s what they call it on the other side of the pond, mum.

Joker

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We were expecting more.

We were also expecting less. As we arrived at the Marcus Cineplex, the parking lot was cordoned off in a peculiar way, diverting traffic from its usual stream. We were also greeted by Appleton PD as we had our tickets punched on our way to the concessions — a sign of the times, I guess, but unfortunate nonetheless.

The movie really asks and answers one question — can a Joaquin Phoenix Joker bring something to the table that we haven’t seen from Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger, among others? The answer is pretty clearly yes, and he carries what I would characterize as an extended improv performance in an extraordinary fashion. The man has some moves, the trudge up the stairs and the iconic dance down the stairs is possibly worth the price of admission in and of itself. And so what does that get us?

Well, it doesn’t get us the most interesting character imaginable, that’s for sure. As a character, it’s tough to beat the Joker from The Dark Knight. That Joker is a criminal mastermind who meticulously plans everything, down to the timing of a parade of school buses through Gotham. The question is, who is this guy? His gang doesn’t know, though he’s clearly persuaded them to play along. The cops don’t know, his clothes are custom, no tags. What he tells about his backstory is disturbing but probably not terribly trustworthy. This is all in the writing and Heath Ledger’s brilliance makes it all the better.

The Joker writers don’t give us a terribly interesting intellectual payoff, either. Again, the big reveal in The Dark Knight offers a stark example: Alfred tells us that “some men just want to watch the world burn.” A terrifying thought that begs for an answer that never comes. Instead, to stifle the threat, The Batman has to take the bat fall himself “because he’s the hero Gotham deserves but not the one it needs right now. So [they]’ll hunt him, because he can take it. Because he’s not our hero, he’s a silent guardian, a watchful protector. . . a Dark Knight.”

In contrast, Arthur Fleck is an open book. We know exactly who he is and what he’s all about. What’s the big reveal in this one? I think it is supposed to take place when he visits the Arkham Asylum, but what is revealed there isn’t terribly surprising. I walked out thinking it was lazy, connect-the-dots writing. Presumably the two hours of plodding along is supposed to allow us to wallow in his pain and see where this is coming from, but what we get does not add up to any Joker I’m aware of. And this Joker, while certainly insane, does not have the makings of a criminal mastermind. The mayhem he brings is a combination of his own spontaneous reactions to being bullied, and a confluence of societal anger that the film is too lazy to develop. I thought that as the film plunges him into insanity we would see his intense solitude morph into the obsessiveness and attention to detail that we’ve come to associate with Joker characters. Nope, he’s just mad that you are bullying him. And by the end he’s just plain mad.

The tradeoff between a high-quality script and Phoenix’s Oscar nomination is probably easiest seen in the garbage strike. The movie opens with it and it seems like the societal disaffection is going to be built around it, as garbage piles up in Gotham and all that entails. Instead, that plot line comes to an abrupt halt after Murray Franklin (Robert DeNiro) uses it as a punchline on his talk show. There are, indeed, a few scenes where we see garbage in alleys, but certainly not suggesting any crisis situation. The gun is on the wall in the first act, so to speak, but we never find out what happens to it.

A fundamental issue with the narrative is that the audience has no one to root for, there isn’t a single likable character. The kids who steal Arthur’s sign in the opening scene are little thugs. The Wall Street guys senselessly harass the women around them and evidently have a violent streak as well. What we should take away from Arthur’s would-be love interest (Sophie Dumund) eventually becomes shrouded in a haze, but she isn’t terribly likable, either. And even the Wayne family is rolled under, with Thomas Wayne making an appearance as an entitled, boorish lout, with disdain for those who live in the city around him. This doesn’t seem to add up to a city that Bruce Wayne would be inclined to care about, or to a Wayne family name that he would feel obliged to live up to.

As for DeNiro, he seems miscast in his role as a talk show host. In fairness, the movie has such heavy King of Comedy and Taxi Driver overtones that it is possible he is there just to remind us of the comedy stylings of Rupert Pupkin and the violent outbursts of Travis Bickle.* Like his Pupkin character, DeNiro is not funny in this role — and funny is something this movie desperately needs. His motives for grooming Arthur as a potential guest are hazy, is it just for ratings? Murray Franklin perhaps just represents that even a banal personality becomes larger than life on the back of celebrity. Arthur is intoxicated by the prospect of that celebrity, and perhaps that’s all there is to it.

As an aside, I think a much better choice for the role would have been Craig Kilbourn. He’s physically imposing, he carries an aura of entitlement, he has the potential to be biting and smarmy at the expense of his guests, and he is actually funny. A critical point of the narrative is that Franklin is getting laughs at Arthur’s expense; why not give the audience actual laughs at his expense? That would have set up an even more uncomfortable establishment comeuppance.**

On the plus side, I did enjoy the visual characterization of Gotham, particularly the train shots into the city center and along the river. I also thought there were some cool tight shots in the stair sequences (the dancing down the stairs is remarkable) and I appreciated the steely gray of the street scenes. I might see it again to take it in now that the edge is off in terms of the plot.

But, we were expecting more. A headline for The Economist review says that Joker is neither perceptive nor politically sophisticated, and that pretty much sums it up for me. Joaquin Phoenix delivers a performance Gotham’s Joker deserves, but the writers fail to deliver a backstory that anybody needs right now. What makes a man just want to watch the world burn? Two hours later and I’m no closer to an answer.

* We also see further Scorsese influence from Raging Bull and After Hours (and probably others, too). I was reminded of the Alex character in A Clockwork Orange, but he was charming and likable, making his character even more problematic than Phoenix’s Joker.

** Indeed, this is a movie that the audience in our theater erupted in laughter exactly once, and it was at the expense of a person of short stature precisely because he was short! As far as metaphors go, I doubt this is a movie that will kickstart any social movements — its audience literally laughs at the misfortune of the little guy.

And that is probably the answer to my question: there are no laughs because this would put us at odds with the movement arising around the clown vigilante. Presumably, the audience is somehow supposed to buy into that movement without necessarily embracing Arthur as a protagonist?

Brittany Runs a Marathon

Brittany Runs a Marathon focuses on a woman who has come to the realization that she isn’t happy with where she has found herself in life. Starting off at a posh ad agency in The City, Brittany had high hopes for herself and her career. But, alas, we pick up the story and she is a 197-pound party girl with an iffy job and an iffier circle of friends. During a visit to her local clinic to score some recreational prescription meds, her doctor gives her an earful about her sorry state of health. Brittany decides she needs to do something, and that something is to start running.

We’ve seen versions of this movie before, of course, but this one has both some originality and plenty of audacity. L&D particularly liked Jillian Bell in the title role, and neither of us for a second believed that she was acting the part because she owned the part. We agreed that her performance was both seamless and brilliant, even if we felt like scolding her throughout the film. I thought the rest of the characters were extremely well cast, even if I thought the story arcs were either incomplete or bungled for every single character aside from the title character. Even so, the film had some truly enjoyable personalities, especially Jern (Utkarsh Ambudkar), who we loved, and Gretchen (Alice J), who we didn’t.

Thematically the movie is a not terribly subtle homage to the original Rocky film, with a loser in the title role who has an opportunity to transform herself into someone she’d rather be. Brittany does a really good job of emphasizing that the transformation is both physical, virtually anyone can get their body in better shape (especially people who currently spend an inordinate amount of time boozing and smoking and doing drugs), as well as mental. The emphasis on the difficulty in changing her own mentality about her identity is well done. Indeed, this is expressed quite profoundly in a number of spots, including a remarkable scene where her super mean roommate tells her to keep her old clothes, because even if Brittany manages to keep the weight off, she’ll always be the “fat girl.” Ouch. It isn’t until Brittany realizes that it is about process and not outcomes that the transformation is complete.

Unlike Rocky, which dispenses of the character’s bitterness early on in the film, Brittany spends a good deal of time holding on to her anger and envy and insecurities, and dishes out her share of punishment throughout the film. Indeed, my major objections to the film are not that the supporting characters’ are not sufficiently developed or that their story arcs are not resolved in a convincing fashion (they aren’t and they aren’t). My beef is that the movie is extremely short on reconciliation. Why do these folks continue to embrace her unconditionally? She isn’t that funny.

Overall, we are enthusiastic about this one for a great leading role, some great supporting characters, and an enjoyable and thought-provoking storyline. In a year where we haven’t loved a lot of films, this one could creep onto our year-end list perhaps. See it before it’s gone, or catch it on Amazon Prime on the rebound.

Angel Has Fallen

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L&D might be in the market to transcribe our conversations, as it seems that we can’t keep up with our reviews. We took in Angel Has Fallen on opening night approximately a month ago, and we are just getting around to it now. The verdict is that it wasn’t half bad. It stars Gerard Butler as a Secret Service agent, Morgan Freeman as the President who loves him, and Nick Nolte as the guy who pees in the hot tub. Where the story is headed is not terribly mysterious, and it’s tough not to pat yourself on the back throughout for being able to see six steps ahead, who the traitors are, who is going to get killed, and who is going to be still standing when the considerable amount of dust settles. But mystery is not really the point of Gerard Butler productions now, is it?

Indeed, this is the second time we’ve seen a Butler production in the past year from what appears to be the same production companies and crew. I would pretty much throw this one in the same bin as Hunter Killer in terms of its male-centered sensibilities, high production values, solid acting, and overall adrenaline rushiness. Although the movie isn’t terribly original — Butler’s character is sort of a mashup of Jack Ryan and Richard Kimble — it still allows Butler to show more range than with the more robotic caricature of a hardened submarine commander from the previous film. This is possibly because this is the third in the Angel trilogy (who knew?!?) and this is just where the character has evolved. Who knows? I guess my only real observation is that given how it played out, when the antagonist says “Lions” in his dying breath, Butler should not have been so taciturn. I think “**** ***, *******” would have been more appropriate.

Overall, L&D didn’t need to see (or even know about) the first two to enjoy the third one. There are probably four or five thrilling scenes in the movie, including some innovative work with drone strikes. Once DC is rebuilt, perhaps they’ll get around to making a fourth, but for now this one can provide you with way more than your fair share of explosive action if explosive action is your thing.

Ready or Not and Midsommar

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L&D opted to watch the Bears flame out against the Packers this past Thursday night, hence skipping the week’s somewhat slim cinematic offerings. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t been out and about. Indeed, over the past couple weeks we managed to see a couple of movies that we were initially reluctant to see, movies that were seemingly as different as night and day…

On the night side we saw Ready or Not, and if you’ve seen the trailer for this one, you pretty much know the gist of how it plays out. Grace (Samara Weaving) is a beautiful young family-less woman who is slated to marry into an eccentric family, heirs to a board game fortune. As part of the spousal initiation, she must draw a card from the family heirloom box that selects a game to play with the family, something mundane like checkers or Jenga. But once every generation or so, the game is hide-and-seek, the kind where the incumbents have until dawn to track down the spouse and sacrifice him/her to the cause, with the cause being another generation of familial fortune. So, by definition this one is mostly an overnight affair, mostly played out in the confines of a spooky old house, with mostly comedic-style violence, and an ending that is mostly never quite in doubt.

You have to give the filmmakers some credit here: they gave away the broad strokes of the plot from wire-to-wire up front and they were still able to make thing reasonably compelling. That’s a pretty good trick, isn’t it? I went in with low expectations and this one soared over the $5 bar.

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That brings us to the day side, where L&D finally got brave enough to take in Midsommar (Ari Aster’s extended director’s cut, no less), where the sun shines deep into the northern Swedish night, and the idiosyncrasies of IKEAesque paganism are out in the open for all to see, at least in principle.

The movie doesn’t start off that way, however, instead setting us up stateside in the dark, dark snowy days of winter, where we see snapshots of the fractured relationship between Dani (Florence Pugh) and her idiot boyfriend, Christian (Jack Reynor). The opening salvo of a murder-suicide in Dani’s family is troubling enough that Christian decides not to pull the trigger on the breakup, and instead somehow bungles his way into inviting her to tag along with him and his grad student anthro buddies for the Midsommar festival hosted by the commune of his buddy, Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren).

So that gets us to Sweden, and after a few Shining-esque overheads, director Aster literally turns the world upside-down on us as the kids make their way into the sun-drenched village of Harga; the movie is not light on symbolism. I’m guessing an aggressive Google search would turn up a few hours of reading of the myriad meanings of the white frocks, the various shapes, and the character archetypes trotted out — the intellectual, the opportunist, the skeptic, and, of course, “the fool” (remarkably similar to the anthro buddies I had in college, I might add).

On top of the over-the-top symbolism, the movie isn’t terribly shy about foreshadowing, either. In good Chekov fashion, if you see a picture on the wall of a woman trimming her nether regions and baking the clippings into a cake in the first act, expect to be pulling that hair out of your teeth before things wrap up, okay?

Between the visuals and the music and the director’s patience with scenes and the hyper-deliberate pace of the plot-lines, the movie does a spectacular job of inducing dread. It wasn’t terribly scary scary, but it was unnerving and more disturbing than your average bear. The violence has a visceral quality about it that doesn’t show up in most comedic or antiseptic violence that characterizes much of what comes through the theater these days. It’s a provocative movie. Indeed, I am still thinking about the face plant and the “blood eagle” all these days later.

Also way over the $5 bar. L&D approve of this extended message.

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Although these two films are cut from different cloth, they each explore a central question of the day: how insular groups treat outsiders (with the protagonist(s) being the outsiders in both cases). Where you want to take this metaphor — capitalist v. collectivist societies, the upcoming U.S. presidential election — is up to you.

The Ready or Not clan absorbs outsiders subject to a few caveats. First, these outsiders are selected by a member of the family (i.e., prospective spouses). Second, the new prospective member must play this game business, which tacitly makes entrance to the family renouncing any previous allegiances. The bride is an orphan and any of her family or friends that were around for the wedding were certainly not around for the wedding night (This is almost certainly done for expositional simplicity, but a reasonable person can connect a few dots). Then the ~~million~~ billion dollar question is whether the family actually has to adhere to the commitments of its forefathers or not — what are the consequences of reneging on a deal from the past? This question is somewhat latent through most of the movie, but shows up spectacularly down the stretch.

Here is the thesis of the movie: the really wealthy really are mostly indifferent toward you. They are ruthless, possibly incompetent, certainly deluded, and they get to make most (but not all) of the rules up as they go along. If you’ve been watching HBO’s brilliant Succession, this theme should resonate with you. They don’t necessarily have much in common with one another, other than a mercenary intensity in maintaining their lives in the lap of luxury. At least you know where they stand, right?

Although the community in Midsommar is also pretty selective about who gets to come in, the community here is a true socialist paradise. They eat together, sleep together, pray together, and do a lot of other things together that you might not immediately think of as community activities. That’s true at least in terms of what is out in the open and bathed in the sunshine. Who knows what’s going behind closed doors? Although there is a titular head who is ostensibly in charge, it is pretty clear that that’s not who is actually in charge. Of course, the community rules are the community rules, but there is more than a hint that these rules are subject to selective interpretation of the higher ups. As a result, the treatment of outsiders is pretty much on a case-by-case basis and by the end here you can probably make the case that there wasn’t much of a doubt about how this one was going to play out.

Although the movie is ostensibly about a break up, it is much better as a meditation on the pursuit of the collective good, whatever that happens to be. Pro tip: be careful when someone tells you that your sacrifice for the cause is going to be painless.

Ultimately, I would argue that each of these films explores how we think about and how we treat those outside of our immediate circles, however defined. More pointedly, each explores the danger and limits of extremism (are there limits of extremism?), whether the source is a self-interested patriarchy or the socialist matriarchy. The upshot is that maybe night and day have more in common than we are willing to admit. And, it is possibly instructive to think about which of these worlds is more resilient and durable.

Or maybe that’s just how it is in the movies.

Good Boys

Film Title: "Good Boys"

It’s late summer, the Valley’s fried chicken madness is now at a full boil, and the movies seem to be coming fast and furious, including the ninth installment of the Fast and Furious franchise (which evidently still has a lot to say).

Well, we didn’t see that, but instead bit the bullet and spent our late Tuesday evening watching sixth graders drop F bombs.

Yes, we saw Good Boys.

As advertised, Good Boys is Superbad light, with the boys being a little younger and the kids’ objective somewhat less sensationally objectionable than in its muse film. The script is pretty high quality and the acting is pretty solid for what it is, though the pacing seemed off to me. It is pretty funny despite many of the marquee jokes being featured in the trailers, and we did laugh out loud a lot, possibly more than the target audience laughed. Indeed, I think we laughed at a lot of stuff that we weren’t necessarily supposed to laugh at.

A very large portion of the humor involves the disconnect between what we believe sixth graders know and what an over 17 audience knows, particularly pertaining to alcohol, recreational drugs, sex, and adult sex products. Oh, and navigating the suburbs (how exactly should one cross an interstate?). The movie is remarkably restrained in its expression of vulgarity, with the simple appearance of a taboo item enough to elicit laughter in most cases. It’s pretty well done.

This all adds up handsomely for the backers: the theater was packed, there isn’t a single A-list actor in the movie, and the production budget must have been trivial (though it had considerable promotion campaign). By my calculations, this movie is making the big big money and what they will do with the big big money is probably make more films like this, with the writing quality being swapped out for more explicit verbal and visual content. I’d put $5 on that.

Speaking of $5, this one is way over that bar with the caveats that you like your humor blue and aren’t offended by kids swearing like actual kids swear when you aren’t around. Clearing the bar is especially easy given Marcus is offering a free popcorn and drink to anyone who flashes this coupon between now and September 2. We arrived at the theater and our special guest, Bb, was peacocking with his free bounty.

The verdict: it’s not half Superbad.

And that’s pretty good.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette?

L&D had tickets in hand for the new foul-mouthed boys movie that premiered Thursday, but took a detour for an exclusive viewing of the new Richard Linklater project, Where’d You Go, Bernadette? The fact that we were the only ones in the theater perhaps does not bode well for the film’s legs. And this may well turn out to be the lowest-rated film of Linklater’s career, which has included Dazed and Confused, Slacker, the various Before offerings, and the much ballyhooed Boyhood. That sort of poisons the well for the review now, doesn’t it?

But bad by Linklater standards is still pretty good for most of what passes through the theaters, and L&D liked a lot of things here. The movie is adapted from Maria Semple’s smash literary hit of the same name (which I bought for my wife in no small part due to its spectacular — and now oft imitated — cover design) and there are a number of glimpses of why this might be a fascinating read. Whatever was going on in the novel clearly presented some challenges for Linklater, who opts to provide a considerable amount of backstory via the now familiar “character watching YouTube videos” technique.

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I went into the movie cold, knowing virtually nothing about the plot or characters, and really enjoyed how it initially unfolded. The main tension in the movie is between plot, which has its moments, and character development, which has Cate Blanchett. My guess is that how you feel about Blanchett in the title role is pretty much how you will feel about the project more generally; some critics say she was brilliant and others say she was anything but. But this is our review and we agreed that she carried the movie and she makes it worth seeing.

Aside from Bernadette, there are four or five other candidates for main characters, including her techie husband (Billy Crudup), her daughter (Emma Nelson), two mothers from her daughter’s school (Kristen Wiig and Zoe Chao), and a friend from college (Laurence Fishburne). Of these, I don’t think any developed sufficiently to turn this into a great movie. I had high hopes for the daughter and she emerges as the most developed of the main characters, but we never quite get there. There were also three potential villains and I thought these story lines were poorly handled — trotted out as important, but then dealt with in a perfunctory manner. Wiig showed a lot of promise as the busybody neighbor, but the script didn’t allow this to rise above caricature.

So that leaves us with the story, which was interesting and thought provoking, but much less of a page turner as the movie hit the hour mark. It was pretty clear that the movie was headed south (literally, to Antarctica) and I found the back end of the story a little more neatly packaged than it might have been. That said, the last half hour of the film and the credits are just beautiful to watch.

A secondary tension in this movie is whether it is a comedy or not. There are more than a few laugh-out-loud moments and any number of fun moments, particularly with Laurence Fishburne in the role of the long-lost friend. But the movie almost too-quickly pivots to high drama and at one point I turned to L and said, “This isn’t funny at all.” If the movie had been more convincing, I would probably led with the mental illness angle, but it is is not and so I did not, and I will just leave it at that.

Of the many questions you are likely to be asking on your way out, “where’d she go” is probably pretty low on the list. But it is a movie that engages the viewer on many fronts and I thought it was interesting enough to clear the $6.30 bar. L was much more positive, so a fair verdict, I think, is that we are bullish on Blanchett even if we might be a little bearish on Bernadette.

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (D)

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Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood is not quite the Tarantino movie I was expecting, possibly because I didn’t know what to expect. I will start by saying that I was relieved to see L posted his review because, frankly, I wasn’t quite sure where to start with this one. It’s not that the movie doesn’t give you a lot to think about, it does, it’s just that there are so many things going on and so many things that don’t quite fit together that I found it difficult to conceptualize a coherent review. In that spirit, I will just add some additional thoughts to what L has put out there already.

First off, I liked the movie a lot more than he did, though I admit that I shared his doubts that there was an end it sight. There are indeed a lot of close ups of people’s legs as they walk from here to there (and from there back to here again). I really liked the portrayal of late-60s Hollywood and the surrounding environs, and am somewhat surprised that L wasn’t more sympathetic to just taking it all in. Maybe because we didn’t get out of the theater until almost 2 a.m.?

Continue reading “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (D)”

The Lion King

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I took a group to see the new “live action” Disney’s The Lion King, joining a packed house for one of the Thursday opening presentations. I didn’t quite know what to expect, as I have somehow managed not to have seen the animated Disney’s The Lion King or Broadway’s The Lion King, or any other incarnations, sequels, or prequels of the clearly beloved story.

From what I gather, the big innovation here is that instead of animation we are treated to computer-generated “real” versions of the talking animals. To my novice eye this was all quite technically spectacular and those of you into technical spectacularity will undoubtedly enjoy this. But I’m not sure that if your goal is to anthropomorphize a setting and story that adding hyper-realism to the mix is the route to go.

But I will bypass that line of inquiry and say that I didn’t find this particularly compelling or inspirational, and instead found large swaths of the movie to have brooding overtones and the climax to be borderline apocalyptic. The little kid who followed me out of the theater told his mother that he didn’t like it and that it was “too scary.” She started to reassure him and I interjected, saying “Look, when you see a lion falling off a cliff to its certain death and vicious paw-to-paw combat, a little kid is naturally going to be scared…. And did you see that little lion almost get trampled by a herd of wildebeests and then get chased by a pack of hyper-realistic hyenas who were trying to kill him? How do you think that makes your little guy here feel?”

Well, perhaps I didn’t say that, but it wouldn’t have been out of order. The movie does an excellent job portraying the vulnerability and near helplessness of our young vis-à-vis the evils that men do. And I will say that the movie does a much better job motivating how the pride got into its various messes than it does convincing us how they could conceivably get out of them. Yada yada yada, indeed.

So if you are a CGI junkie or just can’t get enough Lion King or you are looking for a cool place to scare the bejeezus out of your small children, head on over and check it out. Unfortunately, a big would-be blockbuster premiere like this generally preempts release of other movies, so the movie selection otherwise isn’t terribly great.

L&D will return with Tarantino at Thursday evening’s opening. See you all there.

Crawl

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You know it’s the soft-spot of the summer when the king of squirm himself texts to suggest that we head off to see a scary movie. Such was the case this past bargain Tuesday, with L&D finding ourselves in the upper-deck of a packed house for the late showing of Crawl, this summer’s addition to the creepy action fare genre.

And it’s not too bad!

The movie takes us to Florida, two hours from Gainsville by car, we’re told, where a hurricane is depositing enough water to flood the place out. Without giving too much away, let’s just say there are some biggun gators on the loose. Who knew? How they terrorize a college student and her hapless father (among others) is the subject of the movie.

The filmmakers definitely did a lot with a little here. I liked the student (Kaya Scodelario) a lot better than I liked the dad (Barry Pepper), though clearly both have some acting chops. The script was pretty tight and self-contained, somewhat logical as far as it goes, not as annoying as it might have been, and plenty creepy. It definitely taxed the limits of the L&D Jump-o-Meter that we bring along for such occasions, though it didn’t seem to phase the younger generation seated amongst us.

I think the kids enjoyed it though. If I recall correctly, we even shared some laughs. I particularly liked the ever-so-brief billboard advertising a giant alligator zoo, barely noticeable if you aren’t looking for it, as the main character drove through the storm. Solid all around.

If you are up for some creepy crawlies, check out Crawl. But I think I will pass on the invitation to join you. Once is enough for me, thank you very much.