Jack Black

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot

First Hit: A unhurried film revealing the power of how forgiveness of others and self, can make one’s life different.

Many of us know of people who have struggled and paid prices by their addiction to alcohol. Here we get a glimpse into the life of cartoonist John Callahan (Joaquin Phoenix). As an orphan he struggled early with his own identity and reconciling his life. He claimed he knew “three things about my mom; she was Irish, had red hair, and she was a school teacher. Oh, yeah, and she didn’t want me. I guess that makes four things.”

He was molested at age eight by a school teacher and began drinking by age twelve. He claims that the last day he walked, he woke up with a hangover.

The film spends a fair amount of time showing the audience how blatantly he liked his drinking. One scene that exemplifies his cluelessness to his drinking is when he’s walking along a beach, he spies a beautiful young woman surfer. He tries a pickup line from a song, offers her a drink from the bottle he’s got in his pocket, and her look of polite disgust, says it all.

The film follows his journey of drinking and when he meets Dexter (Jack Black), the two magnificent partier’s have a wild night of drinking. It finally ends with Dexter driving John’s car, having an accident, leaving John a quadriplegic, and Dexter walks away with a few scratches.

As you might imagine, he’s angry at his predicament and takes it out on a number of people who are attempting to help him. However, one person who comes to help him weekly was Annu (Rooney Mara). She’s assists people who have a physical handicap. The way she enters the scene, she’s angelic and that’s exactly how John sees her.

One of the people he needs for support and whom he also antagonistic towards, is Suzanne (Carrie Brownstein) who oversees monitoring social, services expenses to keep him in an apartment, with wheelchairs, and covering medical costs including Tim (Tony Greenhand) who takes care of John. Tim’s job is to wash John, do his grocery shopping and clean his house.

Eventually, John finds himself going to an AA meeting, but he doesn’t speak much. Eventually he gets a sponsor named Donnie (Jonah Hill). Donnie is rich, gay, and calls the people he sponsors “piglets.”

He begins to draw crudely renditioned cartoons using his two handicapped hands pressed together to hold the pen. They are very funny because they are extremely poignant and targeted. One that I easily recall from the film shows two men in sheets (as KKK people), talking to each other, and one says, “Don’t you love it when they’re still warm from the dryer?” Another caption is the title to this film, where a small band of cowboys are in the desert find an empty wheelchair and the lead cowboy says “(see movie title)”

The group he sponsors are wildly honest and engaging to watch while they work out their stuff in front of one another.

When Donnie tells John to work on AA's Step 9, which is about making amends, he begins to see the power of forgiveness.

Phoenix was powerful in his portrayal of Callahan. He definitely shared a depth of pain in never thinking his mother wanted him. Black was perfect as his alcoholic friend. The scene when John comes to make amends is with Dexter was extremely well done. Mara was fantastic as a woman who always looked passed John’s handicaps and appreciated him for him. Brownstein was excellent as the caring yet restricted by policy social worker. Greenhand did a great job as the caretaker. Hill was amazing as the AA sponsor and friend. John Callahan wrote a pointed and direct script. Gus Van Sant directed this thoughtful film.

Overall: This probably isn’t everyone’s kind of film, but as the ending began to reveal itself, I loved the theme of forgiveness.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

First Hit:  The interaction of the actors in this film make it work – I enjoyed it.

It is hard to miss the funny mark when you’ve got Jack Black (as Bethany), Kevin Hart (as Fridge) and Dwayne Johnson (as Spencer) together in a film. The wonderful part is that Karen Gillan (as Martha) held her own quite well with these three funny and larger than life guys.

A young Spencer (Alex Wolf) is nerdy and unsure of himself. As the film begins, he’s being taken advantage of by a young Fridge (Ser’Darius Blain), who is a big strapping young man. Intimidating Spencer into doing his homework Fridge creates a friendship of convenience.Although Spence is somewhat resentful of being taken advantage of he does it anyway. After they get caught cheating, they are sent to detention.

Young Bethany (Madison Iseman) is the class popular beauty. She’s constantly on her phone and uses her contrived sexuality to get her way in school.  She ignores a teacher’s request to put away her phone and gets sent to detention.

Young Martha (Morgan Turner) is a nerd and introverted. She hates PE and tells the teacher she won’t participate in the exercise class and gets detention.

This is the setup and together in detention they discover an old electronic version of Jumanji. Getting sucked into the game they end up in a jungle where they arrive as the opposite of who they are outside the game. Spencer (Johnson) is no longer an intimidated skinny nerd, he’s a big, strong assertive man. The big man on campus football player Fridge (Hart), has turned into a small wise cracking man. The beautiful Bethany (Black) turns into a short dumpy man. And the nerdy quiet Martha (Gillan) has turned into a beautiful, strong woman who is a martial arts expert.

Given this setup, a lot could go wrong if the situations and dialogue are weak or don’t allow the actors breathing room, however this is not the situation. It works: The situations and dialogue create scenes that are funny and allow the actors to interpret both their former younger selves while embodying their new older bodies and skills.

Johnson is fun to watch here because his ability to seem like his size and strength are new to him really works. His interactions with Hart are priceless. Hart does a great job of trying to make the others still believe he’s still the size of his younger self instead of his shorter self. The script makes good use of his innate talents of making wise cracks and barking out his intentions. Black is perfect. He makes you believe that he was once a beautiful young lady who is now trapped in a stubby man’s body. I enjoyed the scenes when he gave Martha lessons on how to seduce the men guarding the transportation building. Gillan was fantastic because, despite her beauty, she embodied the nerdy girl of her younger self. She was great as the martial arts expert, ready to kick some butt. Wolff, Blain, Iseman and Turner all did a wonderful job of being the younger characters. Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers did a nice job of creating a screenplay that enhanced the story and actors. Jake Kasdan elevated the story to something fun and engaging.

Overall: I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this film.

Bernie

First Hit:  Jack Black is amazing and will be considered for an Oscar next year.

This is based on a true story in a small place called Carthage, TX.

It is about a helpful, kind, community oriented assistant funeral director named Bernie Tiede (played by Black) who comes to town and transforms it in small ways. Everyone, to him, deserves the best. And he does his best work on dead people for their funeral.

When Marjorie Nugent’s (played by Shirley MacLaine) husband dies, Bernie does his best to cheer her up. However, this is a tall task because everyone knows both Marjorie and her now deceased husband were rich mean people – probably she more than he. She is despised by everyone, including her family.

Her grandchildren tried to sue her for money after their grandfathers’ death and she wouldn’t budge. She found her family to be ungrateful and misguided people who only wanted to take from her what she owned. Bernie, through kind persistence, became her friend and over time they began to travel together as well as spend a lot of time together.

The film does serve up the question as to whether they were intimate lovers and one never knows. The truth is not really known and therefore the film is honest in presenting both possible sides. Why Bernie shot Marjorie, I’m not sure Bernie really knows, except that he felt caged by his own giving in his friendship to Marjorie.

Lastly, the cutaways to townsfolk are beyond funny. The quips, comments, and thoughts about Bernie, Marjorie, and them as a couple are simply hilarious. Although at times I felt like I was the only one laughing out loud and hard, there were plenty of times, I was joined by others in the audience.

This is one truly funny dark comedy, the sad part is that it actually happened.

Black is extraordinary and deserves to be considered for an Oscar for this performance. He is amazing, believable, and his obvious talents in singing and comedy are fully apparent. MacLaine is very good and holds the mean disposition very well. Her subtle shift towards being human at times is small and very controlled. And although she does share a smile and some joy as time moves on, the deepening of her controlling nature over Bernie bubbles in full force as time moves on. Matthew McConaughey plays the DA who prosecutes Bernie. His natural homespun Texas charm and sideways quips are on full display here. For all the actors who played townsfolk – a grand hurrah!!! You were great. Skip Hollandsworth and Richard Linklater wrote a sparkling funny script, while Linklater’s direction brought all this together in a very funny and interesting way.

Overall:  There is controversy with this film, which only adds to its irrepressible humor and charm.

The Big Year

First Hit:  Moderately funny and insightful as to the phenomena of bird watching.

Bird watching may be a passive pursuit but Americans will make a competition out of anything and here we witness the competition at its finest, worst, and funniest.

Brad Harris (played by Jack Black) is working at an IT job he doesn’t enjoy. His real love is bird watching and one day he wants to do a “Big Year”. Stu Preissler (played by Steve Martin) is an extremely successful businessman, loves bird watching, and itches to get out of his CEO role and into doing a “Big Year.”

Kenny Bostick (played by Owen Wilson) is the record holder for “The Big Year” with 732 different North American bird sightings in one year. Birders do not tell each other that they are doing a “Big Year” because they don’t want someone else to know they are trying for the most sightings in a year.

The focus of this film is relationship building and understanding priorities. Brad’s dad thinks Brad is wasting his life being interested in birds. The scene when his dad and he find an owl, the sighting brings reconciliation and resolves years of pain. Stu keeps getting called back by his lieutenants to fix their incompetence but he learns that his supportive wife and new grandchild mean more than his work.

Bostick is obsessive about his record and he is good at counting birds. The issues are that he puts his record over his wife’s wanting to have a baby. The scenes around his decisions reflect cruelty, obsessiveness, and thoughtlessness.

There is humor along the way but I found the film more dramatic than of comedic based. The strongest aspects of this film are informing the audience about how various weather phenomena affect bird migration behavior.

This film has education built into it and during the credits we get to see slides of all the 755 Bostick gets in this new “Big Year.”

Black was good as the guy who is stuck doing a job he doesn’t like but trying to find a way to do what he wants. Martin really fits the role as a cool rich business tycoon who realizes that life is more than his work. Wilson is perfect as the guy who can argue and reason his abhorrent behavior with wit and in the end feel his sadness. Howard Franklin wrote a smart screenplay that was moderately funny. David Frankel’s direction was clear and crisp enough to make this perceived boring subject exciting.

Overall: This was a good, educational and fun film to watch.

Year One

First Hit: Although they bend time, in both dialogue and thematic stories, there are some funny bits but for the most part the joke gets old quick.

The film begins somewhere around the caveman days with hunting and gathering being how everyone's days are spent.

Jack Black (playing Zed) and Michael Cera (playing Oh) are best friends and have opposing personality types. Zed is obvious, outgoing and a loud optimist while Oh is the cautious, introverted and unsure one of the two. Their personalities work fairly well together during the film when a scene is set up well. Like when Oh wants to dance with the girl of his dreams in an early sequence. 

Each are outsiders in their current village so when Jack makes a mistake and spears the village big shot, they are asked to leave the village. The two head off together to create a new better, more exciting village. Hiking over a mountain, they discover they won't fall off the end of the earth but end up thousands of years later running into Cain and Abel. They meet these brothers just in time to witness Abel's death by Cain.

Then, just as magically, they are whisked to Egyptian times where they are slaves about to be stoned to death. Fancy talking by Zed and Oh, who has gained new strength because of first sexual experience, lift themselves out of their dire predicament and into a happily every after ending.

There are some funny moments in the film and others that were meant to be funny but landed with a thud (think hairy chest massage, it just wasn't funny).

Black is Black, a loud, smart aleck con-man, which as I said before, plays well off of Cera the thoughtful cautionary. There are moments that their skills work intelligently off each other, but mostly this is a sophomoric mess held together mostly by Harold Ramis’ reputation.

Overall: Not worth seeing except as a video on a very lazy rainy afternoon with nothing else to do.

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