Movie Review: 50/50

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The movie 50/50 is about a cancer patient and could have taken the route of being a total tear jerker movie. Luckily we know in advance that everything ends up ok as it was based on a true story of Will Reiser who penned the screen play. Yet what could have followed the “Oh, woe is me” path instead was peppered with a number of spots that handed the audience moments of laughter. Chances of you giving out some giggles during the movie are better than 50/50.

Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is 27 and single but dating, has a decent job as a writer for the Seattle Public Radio station and has Kyle (the still skinny from doing The Green Hornet Seth Rogen) as his co-worker and best friend. When recurring back pain forces Adam to the doctors, it’s discovered that he has a large tumor growing on his spine. His doctor probably went to the Dr Gregory House School of Charm and Bedside Manners to learn how to deal with his patients. No empathy or even using reassuring language Adam could comprehend without having the DR letters attached to his own name. Very understandably, when the C word, cancer, is mentioned, it’s the only thing Adam could pick out among the medical terms and immediately zoned out of his regular life and entered survival mode.

His support system is his girlfriend, Rachel (Bryce Dallas Howard), a cold and manipulative woman who is a taker and not a giver. His mom (Angelica Houston) is a smothering mom who is dealing with the care of her husband, Adam’s dad, who has Alzheimer’s. She now has two very sick family members drawing her focus. Bro bud Kyle who sort of looks at the positive side of the disease thinking that it can be used to get some action for not only Adam but himself as well. Lastly, his treatment therapist Katherine (Anna Kendrick) rounds out the team although, she is not a doctor; she’s working on her doctorate degree and doesn’t have a huge pool of experience to pull from. While not her first, he is wading in the very shallow end of the pool, barely enough to cover the knees.

There are the tough moments to watch and then these are offset with some of the laughter. Young Adam goes in for his chemo treatment and meets two other patients who are much older. They are looking back on their lives while Adam is supposed to be looking forward now has this giant obstacle staring him in the face. One of the men jokes that the longer the name of the cancer, the tougher it is to beat and Adam’s type has a long name, schwannoma neurofibrosarcoma. Adam goes through the highs and the lows of the disease trying to face it as stoically as possible without being a burden on his friends and family, keeping most of his anger, fear and frustration bottled up. Katherine attempts as a green therapist don’t yield the comfort or mental processing that Adam needs to deal with his circumstances. Kendrick’s eyes help tell the story of wanting to help but at times being at a loss to convey what Adam needs.

The topic of medical marijuana came up several times between eating it or smoking it to relieve the symptoms of the chemo or in Kyle’s case sympathetic chemo nausea; perhaps, but maybe not. Is there a Rogen movie that doesn’t involve getting a party on somehow? Luckily at no time did Adam or Kyle attempt to feed the rescued from the racetrack greyhound given to Adam from Rachel as a way to help comfort him any pot brownies. The joke being that the skinny former athletic race dog about town was named Skeletor, just the kind of name that a cancer patient wants to hear.

With such a heavy topic of life and death at a young age due to cancer, the movie was rated R for drug references and use, language throughout and sexual content during the 99 minute running time.

The Movie Monkey

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Movie Review: Kung Fu Panda 2

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This is the weekend of the sequels. Early weekend releases The Hangover Part II and Kung Fu Panda 2 join last weekends Pirates of the Caribbean 4. The three movies will be battling it out to determine who will be the king of the long Memorial Day weekend box office. Two of the movies are available in 3D and one of them, Hangover, will rely solely on the ticket revenue from a 2D version.

With a special contest code from M&Ms that awarded me a $3 discount on a ticket I had my ticket money plunked down for the 2D version of Kung Fu Panda 2 instead of using the discount to pay the surcharge for the 3D version.

A little shy of three years ago we met Po (Jack Black) as he went from an overweight, lazy, slacker panda to become the Dragon Warrior and join the elite kung fu fighters of the Furious Five: Tigress, Mantis, Viper, Monkey and Crane (Angelia Jolie, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, Jackie Chan and David Cross) under the tutelage of Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman).

Now, the very existence of kung fu is threatened by Lord Shen (Gary Oldman) a pea fowl who has an axe to grind. Well, actually he has a cannon to shoot since he has learned how to use gun powder not for a beautiful display of fireworks but as a weapon for mass destruction and the conquering of China. What stands in way of Lord Shen's desires? According to the Soothsayer (Michelle Yeoh) something that is black and white. Might that be a panda? AND...could that panda be Po?

The battle lines have been drawn and we know that Po and Lord Shen will face off against each other. Po's skills have improved, but if it wasn't for the assistance of the Furious Five, he would have been toast a long time ago. His aligning with the Five is just what he needs to be an effective team player until he discovers a secret which shakes him to his core and rocks his chi. His father, Mr Ping, the goose that makes a delicious noodle soup and one mean, hot, steamed bun is horror of all horrors, not his real father. Insert dramatic duh dah dum....music here. Apparently Mr Ping never had the birds and bees talk with Po for Po to figure out that he didn't come from an egg.

The revelation of adoption and its aftermath is the weakest part of the movie. In movies and TV too many times the characters are shown to loose all self worth and wonder who they are when they discover that their biological parents, usually the mother, felt that someone else could do a better job raising them. Po looses confidence and starts playing mind games with himself questioning the love and care that his father, the goose, Mr Ping has given him since he took Po in as his own. That self doubt interferes with his ability to fight Lord Shen.

Fortunately, the rest of the movie makes up for this short coming. The relationship between Po and Tigress has deepened; Master Shifu giving his masterly advice to Po; Po's working though the necessary barriers to once again triumph good over evil all work in the character development department.

The story really moves along due to the overall story development and the methods used to tell it. When the story opens we are given the back story of Lord Shen. It is told using flat animated, 2D paper cutouts almost shadow puppet in form. As Po has flashbacks those images are again a flat 2D stylized animation form. At the end of the 90 minutes the credits are multi-layer 2D renderings that are well worth sitting through to enjoy. I'm sure in the 3D version they did more with this section. Sandwiched in between are the traditional computer renderings using shadow and highlights to give the 2D figures the look of 3D. The colors were bright and vibrant and the textures were highly detailed. From the fine lines in Lord Shen's feathers to the applique embroidery and stitches in vests and robes to the growth rings in a ram's or water buffalo's horns the nuances add to the graphical details giving further life to the characters.

One last special detail mention is for the fireworks. These fireworks sparkled and shimmered at a particle level like I haven't seen before. Tie that in with the smoke clouds and trails and you sit in your seat and ooooooh and aaaaaah during those scenes.

There is no easter egg at the end but as already mentioned, the credits are worth sitting through for the visuals of this movie rated PG for sequences of martial arts action and mild violence.

The Movie Monkey

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Movie Review: Paul

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Are you the type that believes in conspiracy theories? Do you listen to Art Bell and George Noory late night on Coast to Coast AM? Do you have different colors and styles of tin hats as part of your permanent clothing collection? Have you even remotely thought of trying the Klingon dish gagh, going to Comic-Con, or chuckling at Galaxy Quest? If so, then Paul is the movie for you!

Just as Galaxy Quest pokes fun at the fans of Star Trek writers Nick Frost and Simon Pegg poke fun of both people who believe and don't believe in extraterrestrial life. Frost and Pegg also take the lead roles as science fiction writer Clive Gollings and illustrator Graeme Willy. The blokes are best friends from the UK who have come to America to be part of the greatest geek fest going on planet Earth, Comic-Con. For any red blooded geek male they had to have the shots of a group of ladies dressed up as slave Princess Leia. Be still my foolish heart!

Where were we? Oh yeah...So Comic-Con was the first part of the big journey. The next part was renting a mobile home RV and doing a road trip to hot spots of alien folklore like the Extraterrestrial Highway, Groom lake and the Black Mailbox , Little A'Le'Inn, Area 51 and of course, Roswell, New Mexico. Something that surprised me was two guys from England driving this big vehicle sitting in the left side and heading down the highway in the right side lane. They seemed to pick that up pretty easily!

Of course the story wouldn't be funny if the total believers in aliens don't come across a real alien. All of a sudden they now really have to believe in aliens. This one is named of all things, Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen). Turns out the government has known about him since 1947 and he's been helping them thinking that he was their guest. He made a run for it when he discovered he was not a visitor getting the star treatment, but a prisoner who is now trying to escape and get back to his mother ship. He enlists the two nerds to help him out and they agree.

What worked is that Rogen didn't play the part over the top vocally. What the animation of Paul did with his behaviors was a bit over the edge. Between his need for food, sleep and smoking pot Paul is just one of the guys. The movie parodies and skews so many parts of the alien genre you can get in a few good laughs. Crash landings, mother ships, body probes, mind melds, healing abilities, snacks, men in black, cover ups....it's all there. There are numerous references to all sorts of movies within the genre. See if you can pick them out. There is even one special scene where Paul is talking to a certain someone (wink) on the phone. Turns out that someone (wink) was actually on the other end of the line.

The one part of the movie I didn't like was the language, it went over the top for no reason. It seemed like they were trying to have a swearfest to see who could come up with the most nonsensical combination of words to try to describe things. That just didn't work. It became a distraction rather than an addition to the movie. For the language including sexual references, and some drug use the movie received an R rating.

The ending was not what I was expecting. The actresses selected for two pivotal (well, as pivotal as you can get for a parody movie) were great choices. The 104 minutes passed quickly. Don't leave the theater before the credits start to roll, once they do then go ahead and leave. While I might need to wash out my ears with soap, there was a smile on my face as I walked out of the dark into the light. Between the movie and the free small popcorn that Regal made available via a coupon on their Facebook page, it was a good movie day!

The Movie Monkey

To subscribe to the audio podcast of the reviews via iTunes click here. Audio versions are released the following Wednesday.

Movie Review: The Green Hornet

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To get to today's movie was an event in itself. My regular Regal theater wasn't showing The Green Hornet in 2D, only the Real 3D and IMAX 3D. The previews didn't get me interested enough to pay the upcharge (47% price increase on a matinee show), so I ventured closer to home and went to Consolidated Theaters. BUT they start their shows later in the day and with a couple of other tasks and time management screw ups, I went to the second show that was at 3:55pm. Same ticket price paid but no loyalty program with Consolidated. The one plus was a special station where you text a code to Sprint. The resulting return message when shown to a special scanner allowed you to receive a discount coupon on a concession stand item. I chose to upgrade from a medium to large drink with my coupon saving me $0.50.

The movie itself was for the most part a yawner. It was co-written by, executive produced by and starred everyone's favorite hairy and curly haired fat stoner party guy Seth Rogen. Well, I'll give him credit, he did trim down to play Britt Reid who became the Green Hornet. Mr Party Boy who lost his mother at a young age and had a dad James Reid (Tom Wilkinson) who was more concerned about the 750 people working at the family newspaper, the Daily Sentinel, than worry about the upbringing of his son decides to fight crime after his dad passed away from an allergic reaction to a bee sting. We've seen Rogen play this sort of part before in other movies like Knocked Up, Observe and Report and Pineapple Express. Speaking of Pineapple Express, his friend and PE alum James Franco made an uncredited cameo in the movie where the big baddie of the movie, Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz) is introduced and his bad guy thought process laid out.

Having Waltz play this part was such a waste of talent. This is the man who won the BAFTA and Oscar for his portrayal of Col. Hans Landa in 2009's Inglorious Basterds. The running joke that was set up about Chudnofsky's attire and then the lame-o tag line he planned on using once he decided to upgrade his outfit to turn himself into a super villain were cringe worthy moments in the movie. For him to deliver those lines and keep a straight face proves the guy can act!

Why they would pay a big salary for someone like Cameron Diaz to play the younger Reid's secretary is beyond me. For what she brought to the part they could have gotten a Senior Theater major from USC or UCLA to do the same thing. If they had done that, maybe they could have found the next IT girl kinda like what happened with Diaz in The Mask. Diaz was a pretty face with a name where just a pretty face would have done. There was no chemistry between her character Lenore Case and Reid or the newcomer to American made cinema via Taiwan, Jay Chou who played Reid's Executive Associate Kato by day and by night the Green Hornet's valet, Kato.

Chou's martial art skills were one of the saving graces of the movie. He moved quickly, skillfully and sharply dispatching the bad guys one by one while party boy for the most part cowered, at least in the beginning of the film. Like all hero movies, at some point Britt must develop a back bone. Most of the dialogue scenes were boring. The start of the 118 minute movie was OK, the middle for the most part dragged on. When The Green Hornet and Kato started signing along to Coolio's Gangsta's Paradise while riding in a modified 1965 Chrysler Imperial, The Black Beauty, my eyes rolled back in my head. What kept my overall interest were the action scenes. That would include the ending sequence.

The action scenes were over the top. Guns going off in every direction possible. Lots of rockets and explosions and yet the bodies weren't hitting the floor just from the sheer volume of lead and shrapnel flying through the air. When someone was dispatched, they weren't afraid to show it. Several people were crushed. Blood didn't spatter all over the screen, but you could see the body or what contained the body going down. The movie was rated PG-13 for sequences of violent action, language, sensuality and drug content. But what they considered drug content was they showed a meth lab and for sensuality, a man and a women were in the same bed because saying that you'd like to bang someone doesn't count as sensual. It was really the action that earned the movie the rating more than anything else.

For all the trouble that I went through to see the 2D version, it wasn't worth it. From what I could tell where they would have used the 3D were really manufactured moments like when Kato got excited forcing his heart to pump and change his perception of the world around him. Nah, not buying it. The closing credits were designed to take advantage of people wearing the special glasses while they got to hear Jay Chou crooning to the song Nunchucks which he co-wrote. Trying to see the 3D version could have been easier, but still wouldn't have been worth it. With everything that Rogen has gone through to get this movie to the big screen, it's obvious that it was a labor of love for him. Maybe he could show some love to future audiences by just releasing only the action scenes when the DVD/Blu-ray comes out and by not producing a sequel.

The Movie Monkey

To subscribe to the audio podcast of the reviews via iTunes click here. Audio versions are released the following Wednesday.