Category Archives: Movie Review

“Minions”: Little. Yellow. Not that different.

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“Minions” opens Friday at Point, Palace, Star Cinema and Sundance Cinemas. PG, 1:31, two and a half stars out of four.

The first “Despicable Me” was a surprisingly clever animated film that reveled in its naughtiness, as a supervillain and his adorable minions were tamed by the love of three adorable tykes. But “Despicable Me 2” fell flat, because now that Gru and his little yellow cohorts had been tamed, they just weren’t that interesting to watch.

So credit the inevitable “Minions” with going back to the good old bad old days, making this spinoff a prequel to the first two movies. Yes, it’s a pretty cynical enterprise altogether, as if Pixar made a “Bing Bong” feature to cash in on “Inside Out.” But for a cash grab (and placeholder until the third “Despicable” in 2017) it’s pretty funny in spots, surprisingly lushly animated, and gets about as much mileage out of three incomprehensible goggle-eyed pill-creatures as one might reasonably expect to get.

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“Tangerine”: Want to make a great comedy about trans prostitutes? There’s an app for that

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“Tangerine” opens Friday in major cities (no Madison date has been announced yet). R, 1:28, three and a half stars out of four.

Don’t judge an L.A. trans prostitute unless you’ve walked a mile (or 50 yards) in her high heels. That’s the message of writer-director Sean Baker’s enormously entertaining and empathetic feature “Tangerine” which gives a collection of marginalized figures some wit, passion and even some dignity.

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“The Overnight”: Getting into the swing of things

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“The Overnight” opens Friday at Star Cinemas. R, 1:20, three stars out of four.

Making friends with another couple is hard. Even if you like one of them, you might not like the other half as much, and then your spouse has to like both of them. And then each of them, of course, have to like both of you. And then you have to make sure that the other couple isn’t secretly luring you into some sort of “Eyes Wide Shut”-style sexcapade. Because that can get awkward.

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“The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out A Window and Disappeared”: Life is like an exploding box of chocolates

FILM: THE 100-YEAR-OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED OUT OF THE WINDOW AND DISAPPEARED Robert Gustafsson (Allan Karlsson). © 2013 NICE FLX PICTURES

FILM: THE 100-YEAR-OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED OUT OF THE WINDOW AND DISAPPEARED Robert Gustafsson (Allan Karlsson). © 2013 NICE FLX PICTURES

“The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared” opens Friday at Sundance Cinemas. R, 1:55, three stars out of four.

“The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared” is like “Forrest Gump,” is Forrest were a centenarian Swede with a knack for explosives. Actually, that’s not really true. “Forrest Gump” was a high-minded entertainment about family, history and the passage of time. “100-Year-Old” man is a cheeky comedy full of eccentric turns and daffy violence.

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“Inside Out”: Your emotions get the better of Pixar

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“Inside Out” opens Friday at Point, Palace, Star Cinema and Sundance Cinemas. PG, 1:34, four stars out of four.

And that’s why Pixar’s Pixar.

While there hasn’t been a Pixar movie I haven’t liked in the past few years ( okay, “Cars 2”), the animation studio once responsible for “Ratatouille” and “WALL-E” hasn’t put out anything essential in a while, anything that another animation studio like Dreamworks couldn’t have done.

That changes with the wonderful and ambitious “Inside Out.” It does exactly what we’ve come to expect from a great Pixar movie, which is to show us things we’ve never even dreamed of before — a balloon-powered house, a monster-scaring factory, a rat chef — and connect them so deeply to the human experience that they feel familiar somehow. It’s one of their very best.

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“I’ll See You In My Dreams”: Life begins at 40 . . . and 50, and 60, and 70 . . .

I'll See You in My Dreams Blythe Danner and Sam Elliott

“I’ll See You In My Dreams” opens Friday at Sundance Cinemas. PG-13, 1:35, three stars out of four.

Like its main character, “I’ll See You In My Dreams” takes a little while to let us in. Carol (Blythe Danner) is a widow living a comfortable life alone in Los Angeles, her solitary life around her arranged just as she pleases. Her old friends (Rhea Perlman, Mary Kay Place, June Squibb) urge her to move into their retirement community — not because she needs to be looked after, but because it’s more fun than living alone.

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“Slow West”: Oh give me a home, where the kiwi roam

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“Slow West” is now playing on DirecTV and on video-on-demand. R, 1:24, three and a half stars out of four.

The movie is filmed in New Zealand, starring two Australian actors and an Irish actor, and was written and directed by a Scotsman.
So, of course, “Slow West” is a Western.

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“Love and Mercy”: God only knows where we’d be without Brian Wilson

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“Love and Mercy” opens Friday at Point and Star Cinemas. PG-13, 2:01, three and a half stars out of four.

For an extra few bucks, theaters showing the Brian Wilson biopic “Love and Mercy” should issue headphones so audience members could jack in directly to Atticus Ross’ hypnotic soundtrack. (And I don’t mean earbuds, but big, fat, pillowy, quad headphones.)

Ross and Trent Reznor have made memorable soundtracks before for films like “Gone Girl” and “The Social Network,” but what he creates for “Love and Mercy” is more like an aural soundscape, with snatches of Beach Boys music and whispers of sinister voices floating around in the ether. Hearing it helps us understand the beauty and the nightmare of being in Brian Wilson’s head.

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“Tomorrowland”: The future sure ain’t what it used to be

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“Tomorrowland” opens Friday at Point, Palace, Star Cinema and Sundance. PG, 2:10, two stars out of four.

Brad Bird’s “Tomorrowland” may be directly inspired by the Disneyland theme park, but it may be more emotionally connected to the name of a Scottish rock band called We Were Promised Jetpacks. Back in the optimistic prognostications of the 1964 World’s Fair (where “Tomorrowland” begis), the future was a bright and peaceful place, without war, hunger or ignorance. Now it’s 2015, and the future belongs to drone strikes, crumbling Antarctic ice shelves and selfie sticks. Where’s our friggin’ jetpacks?

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“Mad Max: Fury Road”: What a lovely day for an apocalypse

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“Mad Max: Fury Road” opens Friday at Point, Palace, Star Cinema and Sundance. R, 2:00, four stars out of four.

I saw George Miller’s “Mad Max: Fury Road” at a 10 p.m. late screening, and, writing this at 2 a.m., I just can’t recommend it as a sleep aid.

I can recommend it every other way imaginable. Miller’s ferocious, grotesque, beautiful film is every bit the equal of its original trilogy from the ’80s, and throws down the gauntlet for every action film made since. You had CGI, $100 million budgets, all the tools at your disposal, “Mad Max” seems to ask all those other films — what were you doing with it, anyway?

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