Blu Ray/DVD Review: THE BOOK OF LIFE

Releasing this week on Blu ray & DVD:

THE BOOK OF LIFE
(Dir. Jorge Gutierrez, 2014) *

This Mexico-set CG-animated musical comedy adventure is a vast improvement over the animation studio Reel FX?s first feature, last year?s FREE BIRDS.

While that unfunny fiasco was about time-traveling turkeys, THE BOOK OF LIFE, the directorial debut of long-time television animator Jorge Gutierrez, has a lot more ambition by way of a fantastical storyline that pays vividly colorful respect to Mexican folklore. That Guillermo del Toro (PAN?S LABYRINTH, PACIFIC RIM) is one of the film?s producers gives it a bit of cinematic gravitas as well.

Unfortunately, it?s often clunky and cluttered, with hard-to-care-about experiences and loads of jokes that were met by silence at the screening I attended ? one packed with families with kids.

The characters are accurately described as wooden; through the framing device of a museum tour guide (voiced by Christina Applegate) telling the film?s tale to a group of snotty school children, the major players are represented by handcrafted wooden figures that come to life as marionettes without strings.

Via Applegate?s narration, we are taken to a Mexican landscape sometime in the unspecified past on the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) holiday, and introduced to a love triangle in which two young suitors ? the sensitive Manolo (Diego Luna) and the cocky warrior Joaquin (Channing Tatum, in his first animated feature) ? compete for the hand of the beautiful, free-spirited Maria (Zoe Saldana).

Watching from above, the squabbling husband-and-wife deities, La Muerta (Kate del Castillo), ruler of the Land of the Remembered, and Xibalba (Ron Perlman), ruler of the Land of the Forgotten, make a high-stakes wager on which suitor will marry Maria.

Manolo?s father (Hector Elizondo) wants him to carry on the family?s bullfighting tradition, but Manolo wants to be a musician. This gives the film the peg for both its transparent ?follow your dreams? moral and its musical numbers. Annoyingly interjected into the action is a bunch of Latin-tinged American pop songs, including Rod Stewart?s ?If You Think I?m Sexy,? Biz Markie?s ?Just a Friend? and even Radiohead?s ?Creep.?

There are some decent original songs written by Oscar-winning composers Paul Williams and Gustavo Santaolalla and performed by Luna and Saldana. One entitled ?I Love You Too Much? is catchy enough to be a hit. (It?s also a plus that they don?t make Tatum sing.)

Of course, every animated movie aimed at kids has to be in 3-D these days, and this one has more elements that can be enhanced by the format than most ? like a sequence involving Manolo running through a mega maze before speeding boulders crash down the corridors and crush him. But it made very little difference otherwise.

The presence of Ice Cube as a cuddly, goofy ancient god called ?The Candlemaker? is irksome. The rapper/actor?s performance is ?on,? but it seems a cynical piece of casting designed to up the hipness factor. Still, he drew some genuine laughs.

Despite the fact that a character dies, parents won?t have to worry about the film being dark or disturbing enough to give children nightmares. But on the flip side, THE BOOK OF LIFE isn?t magical or memorable enough to really resonate later, either.

* This review originally appeared in the October 16th, 2014 edition of the Raleigh News & Observer.

More later...

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/10/16/4235680_review-book-of-life-fantastical.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

The Grand Self Mythology Of STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON

Now playing at a multiplex near you:

STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON

(Dir. F. Gary Gray, 2015)

This super-sized (nearly 2 and a half hours!) biopic of hip hop legends N.W.A., co-produced by the group?s key members, Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, is undoubtedly a work of grand self mythology. But since self mythology is a large part of the hip hop game, it?s hard to imagine it any other way.

The flashy, larger-than-life sweep to the story of how Dr. Dre, Easy E, Ice Cube, MC Ren, and DJ Yella - portrayed respectively by Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, O?Shea Jackson Jr., Aldis Hodge, and Neil Brown Jr. - rose out of the poor South Central Los Angeles neighborhood of Compton is initially intoxicating; at times it feels like you?re a fly on the wall of a chaotic in-your-face party.

Of course, it?s a party that?s interrupted by the police every so often, as those infamous clashes with the law are a large part of what gave the West Coast gangsta-rap pioneers the moniker of ?the most dangerous band in the world.?

In a role that?s not entirely unlike his part in the Brian Wilson biopic LOVE & MERCY ? (i.e. the questionable manager/mentor archetype), Paul Giamatti plays Jerry Heller, a longtime music industry maven who befriends Easy E after the single ?Boyz-n-the-Hood? makes a splash. Heller and Easy E start Ruthless Records, Heller lands N.W.A. a deal with Priority Records, and the band start recording the move?s 1988 namesake album ?Straight Outta Compton.?

As per the formula, the film is broken down into a series of greatest hits highlights. The most effective of which is the sequence surrounding their signature anti-police brutality anthem ?Fuck Tha Police.?

The controversial track was inspired by an incident dramatized in the film in which the group was harassed by asshole cops during the recording of their debut, and it caught the attention of the FBI. At a show in Detroit, N.W.A. is ordered by a local police chief not to play the song, but, of course, they defy the order and the audience goes from wildly chanting to rioting as cops rush the stage.

In between these energetic bursts of beat-filled energy we get a lot of complaining about not getting paid. Dr. Dre and the rest of N.W.A. bitch about not getting their contracts while Heller and Easy E are eating lobster dinners; after leaving the group, Ice Cube busts up the office of Priority Records exec Bryan Turner (Tate Ellington) because of non-compensation, and so on.

The rivalry between Ice Cube and his former band members, who call him ?Benedict Arnold? on a track from their second and final album ?Niggaz4Life,? makes for another entertaining back and forth, but the film peaks around the time that the Rodney King beating became a major part of the 24 hour news cycle in ?91. The narrative gets messier after that, with a mess of characters popping in and out of the mix, much like the brief guest cameos that pop up on many of hip hop albums. For example, Keith Stanfield puts in an appearance as Snoop Dogg, does a dead-on impression of the young rapper, then disappears.

There is a lot of criticism that the movie, which was scripted by Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff (WORLD TRADE CENTER), sanitizes N.W.A.?s story by leaving out such incriminating events as when Dr. Dre attacked hip-hop journalist Denise ?Dee? Barnes in a nightclub in ?91, and that it glosses over the frequent charge of misogyny in their lyrics. Indeed, women do the short end of the stick in this celebratory boys club of a biopic ? they are the girlz on the side of the boyz in the hood, often appearing only as groupies in hotel scene backgrounds or extras at topless pool parties.

The men dominate the proceedings so much that when Carra Patterson appears as Easy E?s girl Tomica in the final act scenes that depict the rapper on his deathbed with AIDS, I wasn?t sure how much she had been in the film before.

As for the leads, Hawkins and Mitchell nail their parts as Dre and E, and Giamatti puts in another reliable performance that's equal parts sincerity and sleaze. And, having done no research beforehand, I was floored by how much of a dead ringer for Ice Cube that Jackson Jr. is - I was like 'kudos to the casting director! They must have searched the globe to find a guy that looks and acts that much like the iconic rapper!' Then I find out that he's Ice Cube's son. Man, I'm such an idiot sometimes.

However, the rest of the playas hardly register. MC Ren and DJ Yella consulted on the film, but their onscreen doppelgangers have little to do or say, and R. Marcus Taylor as producer/promoter mogul Suge Knight, one of the film's other villains, casts an imposing shadow but little else.

Now, I was a white teen who was just starting to get into hip hop at the time that this stuff was going down. I was more a Public Enemy guy, but I remember having ?Straight Outta Compton? on cassette back in the day. This successfully took me back to when I was working as a record store clerk reading about these stories in music magazines, and seeing it covered on MTV News.

Despite its self serving short-comings, this big screen bio captures the look, sound, and spirit of both N.W.A. and the era in spades. Just don?t go in looking for anything less than pure legend.

More later...

Blu Ray/DVD Review: THE BOOK OF LIFE

Releasing this week on Blu ray & DVD:

THE BOOK OF LIFE
(Dir. Jorge Gutierrez, 2014) *

This Mexico-set CG-animated musical comedy adventure is a vast improvement over the animation studio Reel FX?s first feature, last year?s FREE BIRDS.

While that unfunny fiasco was about time-traveling turkeys, THE BOOK OF LIFE, the directorial debut of long-time television animator Jorge Gutierrez, has a lot more ambition by way of a fantastical storyline that pays vividly colorful respect to Mexican folklore. That Guillermo del Toro (PAN?S LABYRINTH, PACIFIC RIM) is one of the film?s producers gives it a bit of cinematic gravitas as well.

Unfortunately, it?s often clunky and cluttered, with hard-to-care-about experiences and loads of jokes that were met by silence at the screening I attended ? one packed with families with kids.

The characters are accurately described as wooden; through the framing device of a museum tour guide (voiced by Christina Applegate) telling the film?s tale to a group of snotty school children, the major players are represented by handcrafted wooden figures that come to life as marionettes without strings.

Via Applegate?s narration, we are taken to a Mexican landscape sometime in the unspecified past on the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) holiday, and introduced to a love triangle in which two young suitors ? the sensitive Manolo (Diego Luna) and the cocky warrior Joaquin (Channing Tatum, in his first animated feature) ? compete for the hand of the beautiful, free-spirited Maria (Zoe Saldana).

Watching from above, the squabbling husband-and-wife deities, La Muerta (Kate del Castillo), ruler of the Land of the Remembered, and Xibalba (Ron Perlman), ruler of the Land of the Forgotten, make a high-stakes wager on which suitor will marry Maria.

Manolo?s father (Hector Elizondo) wants him to carry on the family?s bullfighting tradition, but Manolo wants to be a musician. This gives the film the peg for both its transparent ?follow your dreams? moral and its musical numbers. Annoyingly interjected into the action is a bunch of Latin-tinged American pop songs, including Rod Stewart?s ?If You Think I?m Sexy,? Biz Markie?s ?Just a Friend? and even Radiohead?s ?Creep.?

There are some decent original songs written by Oscar-winning composers Paul Williams and Gustavo Santaolalla and performed by Luna and Saldana. One entitled ?I Love You Too Much? is catchy enough to be a hit. (It?s also a plus that they don?t make Tatum sing.)

Of course, every animated movie aimed at kids has to be in 3-D these days, and this one has more elements that can be enhanced by the format than most ? like a sequence involving Manolo running through a mega maze before speeding boulders crash down the corridors and crush him. But it made very little difference otherwise.

The presence of Ice Cube as a cuddly, goofy ancient god called ?The Candlemaker? is irksome. The rapper/actor?s performance is ?on,? but it seems a cynical piece of casting designed to up the hipness factor. Still, he drew some genuine laughs.

Despite the fact that a character dies, parents won?t have to worry about the film being dark or disturbing enough to give children nightmares. But on the flip side, THE BOOK OF LIFE isn?t magical or memorable enough to really resonate later, either.

* This review originally appeared in the October 16th, 2014 edition of the Raleigh News & Observer.

More later...

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/10/16/4235680_review-book-of-life-fantastical.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

The Grand Self Mythology Of STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON

Now playing at a multiplex near you:

STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON

(Dir. F. Gary Gray, 2015)

This super-sized (nearly 2 and a half hours!) biopic of hip hop legends N.W.A., co-produced by the group?s key members, Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, is undoubtedly a work of grand self mythology. But since self mythology is a large part of the hip hop game, it?s hard to imagine it any other way.

The flashy, larger-than-life sweep to the story of how Dr. Dre, Easy E, Ice Cube, MC Ren, and DJ Yella - portrayed respectively by Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, O?Shea Jackson Jr., Aldis Hodge, and Neil Brown Jr. - rose out of the poor South Central Los Angeles neighborhood of Compton is initially intoxicating; at times it feels like you?re a fly on the wall of a chaotic in-your-face party.

Of course, it?s a party that?s interrupted by the police every so often, as those infamous clashes with the law are a large part of what gave the West Coast gangsta-rap pioneers the moniker of ?the most dangerous band in the world.?

In a role that?s not entirely unlike his part in the Brian Wilson biopic LOVE & MERCY ? (i.e. the questionable manager/mentor archetype), Paul Giamatti plays Jerry Heller, a longtime music industry maven who befriends Easy E after the single ?Boyz-n-the-Hood? makes a splash. Heller and Easy E start Ruthless Records, Heller lands N.W.A. a deal with Priority Records, and the band start recording the move?s 1988 namesake album ?Straight Outta Compton.?

As per the formula, the film is broken down into a series of greatest hits highlights. The most effective of which is the sequence surrounding their signature anti-police brutality anthem ?Fuck Tha Police.?

The controversial track was inspired by an incident dramatized in the film in which the group was harassed by asshole cops during the recording of their debut, and it caught the attention of the FBI. At a show in Detroit, N.W.A. is ordered by a local police chief not to play the song, but, of course, they defy the order and the audience goes from wildly chanting to rioting as cops rush the stage.

In between these energetic bursts of beat-filled energy we get a lot of complaining about not getting paid. Dr. Dre and the rest of N.W.A. bitch about not getting their contracts while Heller and Easy E are eating lobster dinners; after leaving the group, Ice Cube busts up the office of Priority Records exec Bryan Turner (Tate Ellington) because of non-compensation, and so on.

The rivalry between Ice Cube and his former band members, who call him ?Benedict Arnold? on a track from their second and final album ?Niggaz4Life,? makes for another entertaining back and forth, but the film peaks around the time that the Rodney King beating became a major part of the 24 hour news cycle in ?91. The narrative gets messier after that, with a mess of characters popping in and out of the mix, much like the brief guest cameos that pop up on many of hip hop albums. For example, Keith Stanfield puts in an appearance as Snoop Dogg, does a dead-on impression of the young rapper, then disappears.

There is a lot of criticism that the movie, which was scripted by Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff (WORLD TRADE CENTER), sanitizes N.W.A.?s story by leaving out such incriminating events as when Dr. Dre attacked hip-hop journalist Denise ?Dee? Barnes in a nightclub in ?91, and that it glosses over the frequent charge of misogyny in their lyrics. Indeed, women do the short end of the stick in this celebratory boys club of a biopic ? they are the girlz on the side of the boyz in the hood, often appearing only as groupies in hotel scene backgrounds or extras at topless pool parties.

The men dominate the proceedings so much that when Carra Patterson appears as Easy E?s girl Tomica in the final act scenes that depict the rapper on his deathbed with AIDS, I wasn?t sure how much she had been in the film before.

As for the leads, Hawkins and Mitchell nail their parts as Dre and E, and Giamatti puts in another reliable performance that's equal parts sincerity and sleaze. And, having done no research beforehand, I was floored by how much of a dead ringer for Ice Cube that Jackson Jr. is - I was like 'kudos to the casting director! They must have searched the globe to find a guy that looks and acts that much like the iconic rapper!' Then I find out that he's Ice Cube's son. Man, I'm such an idiot sometimes.

However, the rest of the playas hardly register. MC Ren and DJ Yella consulted on the film, but their onscreen doppelgangers have little to do or say, and R. Marcus Taylor as producer/promoter mogul Suge Knight, one of the film's other villains, casts an imposing shadow but little else.

Now, I was a white teen who was just starting to get into hip hop at the time that this stuff was going down. I was more a Public Enemy guy, but I remember having ?Straight Outta Compton? on cassette back in the day. This successfully took me back to when I was working as a record store clerk reading about these stories in music magazines, and seeing it covered on MTV News.

Despite its self serving short-comings, this big screen bio captures the look, sound, and spirit of both N.W.A. and the era in spades. Just don?t go in looking for anything less than pure legend.

More later...