"The Muppets"
Richard's Review: 4 stars
It's time to put on make-up. It's time to light the lights….again. For the first time since "Muppets from Space" in 1999 Kermit and his felt friends are back on the big screen.
The story begins in Smalltown, U.S.A., with brothers Gary (Jason Segel) and Walter (Peter Linz). Gary is human while Walter is a puppet and the world's biggest Muppets fan. When Walter tags along with Gary and his girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) on a trip to Hollywood he is disappointed to discover that the Muppet Theatre has fallen into disorder. Fozzie's Joke Room is closed for repairs and worse, an evil businessman, Tex Richman (Chris Cooper), has discovered oil under the theatre and because of a clause in Kermit's contract, plans to tear down the theatre to drill. Gary, Mary and Walter help Kermit put the old gang back together for The Greatest Muppet Telethon Ever to raise the $10 million needed to save the theatre.
It's been twelve years since the Muppets last visited the multiplex and much has changed since then. The question is, as Kermit says in the movie, is his green turning to grey? In other words, is there room for the Muppet's old-fashioned brand of humor in an increasingly cynical world?
The answer, I'm happy to say, is yes. The movie's response is to create a tribute act, The Moopets, a rough and tumble Reno show band featuring a razor blade flipping Miss Piggy. They're a "hard cynical act for a hard cynical time," says Richman. While the Moopets may better reflect the tenure of today, the Muppets exist to remind us about the importance of concepts like friendship and loyalty while lobbing corny jokes at us along the way.
Star and co-writer Jason Segel combines wide-eyed enthusiasm with some social commentary ("I think kids are smarter than…" Kermit starts to say in a TV pitch meeting before a television executive physically shuts him down), post modernism (the actors and puppets frequently comment on the movie they're in) and a large dollop of sweetness.
None of it is cloying, however. The film's sweetness and sentimentality may be from another age but it is self-consciously so. It celebrates its past as much as it looks forward to the future.
"Hugo"
Richard's Review: 4 1/2 stars
The man who introduced us to big screen outsiders like Travis Bickle and Jake LaMotta isn't the first person you'd think of to direct a big budget kid's flick. But Martin Scorsese's latest film is just that. Based on the graphic novel "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick, "Hugo" is a sophisticated children's 3D fantasy. It's also one of the best films of the year.
Set in the 1930s, the new Scorsese mystery is the story of orphan Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) who lives in the walls of a Paris train station. Left a broken antique automaton by his father (Jude Law), the youngster becomes obsessed with repairing the robot. Stealing spare parts from a toy shop, the boy is caught and forced to work with the shop keeper's (Ben Kingsley) niece, Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz). When the robot is finally fixed, they discover the shopkeeper isn't just a grumpy old man but the forgotten film pioneer Georges Méliès.
"Hugo" is the kind of movie that could only be made by someone who has studied and absorbed one hundred years of movie art. Scorsese effortlessly pays tribute to what has come before. For example, the staircase in the home of Méliès was borrowed from Truffaut's 1959 film "The 400 Blows." But Scorcese makes the film his own. This is the director's homage to the filmmakers who shaped his youth -- an asthmatic, Scorsese passed time in darkened movie theatres -- and the art form itself.
"Movies are like seeing dreams during the day," Hugo explains to Isabelle. Scorsese doesn't hide the fact that he thinks movies are divinely inspired when he introduces a montage of classic clips emanating from a religious-themed painting.
I won't go as far as to say "Hugo" is divinely inspired, but I will say it is like seeing a dream. There is a sense of wonder imprinted on every frame. Add to that Butterfield's face, reminiscent of the moon-faced children of early cinema, the dulcet tones of Christopher Lee, 3D that enhances not overwhelms, and you have a movie about the magic of film with plenty of its own magic.
"Arthur Christmas"
Richard's Review: 2 1/2 stars
When your last name is Christmas you'd better be filled with Yuletide spirit. Luckily Arthur Christmas, the titular star of a new animated holiday flick, is brimming with the tidings of the season. That's a good thing because his father, grandfather and brother -- better known as Santa, Grand Santa and Santa-In-Waiting -- are positively Scrooge-like in their appreciation of the holiday.
In the high-tech world of "Arthur Christmas," Santa travels crossed the globe in a souped-up sleigh which converts milk and cookies to bio fuel. The modern Kris Kringle (Jim Broadbent) is aided by an army of elves and his eldest son Steve (Hugh Laurie), who will one day take the reigns himself. In the background is the 136-six-year-old Grand Santa (Bill Nighy) who did 70 Yuletide missions on his own. He thinks the new technology reduces Santa to "a postman in a spaceship," and longs for the old days. More supportive is Arthur (James McAvoy), Santa's youngest son, who works in the Letters Department. He's a bumbler, but when one present goes undelivered he's willing to travel around the world to make sure it arrives before Christmas morning.
"Arthur Christmas" has the look of a slick Rankin and Bass claymation Christmas special. It's computer animation without the slickness associated with Dreamworks or Pixar movies. But what it may lack in execution it makes up in subversive good fun.
It tempers the sweetness of its main character with jokes you might not expect in a kid's movie -- Grand Santa tells Arthur it's not impossible to deliver the present, because "they used to say it was impossible to teach women to read." The Yuletide "Mission Impossible" style opening is also lots of fun and a sequence featuring flying animals and magic dust is positively hallucinatory.
Layered on top of that is a father and son story -- who knew Santa isn't good with kids -- and the obligatory messages about the virtues of working together, respecting your elders and general kindness.
"Arthur Christmas" is a sweet movie, but ultimately feels like it would have made a better one-hour TV special than a feature film.
"The Descendants"
Richard's Review: 4 1/2 stars
George Clooney may be the above-the-title star of "The Descendants," but this cannot rightly be called a George Clooney movie. Although he may get nominated and may even win an Oscar for his performance, this movie belongs to his director Alexander Payne, who once again keenly observes the human condition through his camera lens.
Clooney plays Matt King, a work-a-holic Honolulu lawyer, descendant of Hawaiian royal blood and an heir (along with his cousins) to a huge chunk of valuable, unspoiled land. His life is turned upside down when his wife Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie in cinema's least rewarding role ever) is injured in a boating accident. Matt has always been the "back-up parent," the distracted dad who left the raising of his two daughters, impulsive Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) and 10-year-old Scottie (Amara Miller), to his wife. Now, Elizabeth's diagnosis isn't good, Alexandra is a wildcard and Scottie is acting out. To make maters worse, Matt discovers his wife had been having an affair with a realtor named Brian Speer (Matthew Lillard) and was contemplating divorce.
Simply put, "The Descendants" is one of the year's best movies. Payne keenly observes Matt's life, effortlessly mixing the heartache, humor and hate which make up the character's journey. It's complex but understated, focusing on small moments to create a larger whole that is deeply satisfying.
Clooney leads the terrific cast with a performance that puts aside the sly grin and charm that have been his trademarks until now. He's raw, flawed and heartfelt in his search to rise above the domestic turmoil.
The supporting cast is equally strong. Shailene Woodley is a revelation playing a character trapped between childhood and an uncertain future. In the supporting cast Judy Greer as Speer's unsuspecting wife, Beau Bridges as a greedy relative and Robert Forster as a grieving father-in-law all leave us wanting more, in the best possible way.
"The Descendants" is a hard movie to define. It's a contradiction, a dramedy, a drama with comedic elements, but more than that it's a small movie with big emotions.
