Welcome to Marwen

First Hit: I loved the concept and thought behind the film, but on screen it lagged.

Using computer graphic (CG) actors in combination with real life actors is becoming more modern place in films. Here it is effective to create a world that Mark Hogancamp aka “Cap’n Hogie” (Steve Carell) creates after his memories have been literally kicked out of him. This is a true story.

Prior to the film’s beginning, Hogancamp is a graphic artist who goes into a bar, gets drunk, says something like, I like to wear high heels, to a group of four jerks. The jerks take offense, call Mark gay and beat and kick him to death’s door.

All his memories are beat out of him and his manual dexterity to draw is gone.

To keep his creativeness alive, he builds a miniature WWII village called Marwen (Mark and Women) in his side and back yards. Because so many women helped him recover, he finds dolls that represent them, and they are fighters against Nazi soldiers who appear when Hogancamp’s fears get triggered. The Nazi soldiers represent the men who nearly kicked and punched him to death.

Hogancamp’s alter ego is a doll called Cap’n Hogie who leads and fights with the women of Marwen. Together they battle the Nazi soldiers again and again.

In the battle sequences the film turns to the CG representation of the dolls. In these roles they are wonderfully done. However, as Hogancamp returns to reality, he finds himself taking pictures of the dolls that he’s staged in various poses throughout Marwen, sometimes even fighting the Nazis.

Nicol (Leslie Mann) moves in across the street and they strike up a friendship. Hogancamp falls deeply for Nicol’s kindness and kind inquisitiveness about what happened to him, the town of Marwen, and his cadre of doll women that keep the town of Marwen safe. He likes her so much he finds a new doll to represent her in his Marwen world.

Nicol’s boyfriend is a brutish jerk, much like the men that beat Hogancamp up. There are a couple of intense making scenes when Mark is talking with Nicol and the boyfriend appears.

Hogancamp is being pressed by his real life women friends, his lawyer, and Nicol to testify at the sentencing trial for the men that beat him. He’s reluctant to go to the trial and show opening, which causes him to slip into the dream world of Cap’n Hogie and the women fighters killing the Nazis intensifies.

Additionally, the brother of Roberta (Merritt Wever), one of the real-life versions of his fighters, is having a photography show of Hogancamp’s photos of Marwen in New York City. This event and the trial hearing are bringing things to a head for Hogancamp in the real world so the battles in Marwen are becoming more ferocious.

I thought the segues between real life and CG were really well done. The over done shooting and machine gun fire seem a bit excessive, but then again, they were dolls, so I guess it was required. The CG version of Nicol was wonderfully created and effectively done and captured the essence of Nicol.

Carell was good as Hogancamp. His Cap’n Hogie was even better. However, I cannot put my finger on what didn’t work and maybe it was because there were too many doll scenes. Mann was crazy wonderful. I loved her gentle kindness and empathy. She was perfect in this role. Wever was outstanding as the owner of the craft store where Hogancamp got all his supplies. Her support and getting Mark into a show in New York City was wonderfully portrayed. Caroline Thompson and Robert Zemeckis wrote this screenplay. I think they spent more time in the CG active doll world than needed and could have done more digging into the background of the story. Zemeckis directed this film.

Overall: I loved the end of the film when they showed a captioned picture of the real-life Mark Hogancamp.

Blockers

First Hit: There are some very funny scenes although at times they felt too staged.

Anyone that has been a parent to a teenager and any teenager, can and will appreciate, laugh, and smile at many of the setups and scenes in this film.

Lisa (Leslie Mann), Mitchell (John Cena), and Hunter (Ike Barinholtz) have daughters who meet up in grade school.  They are going to be lifelong friends.

Julie (Kathryn Newton) is Lisa’s daughter and doesn’t have a father. She and Lisa are very close and it is obvious that when Julie leaves for college, Lisa will be alone. Oddly we have no idea how Lisa financially survives so well. The only hint is that Julie is the product of a famous rocker.

Mitchell’s daughter is Kayla (Geraldine Viswanathan). Her mother Marcie (Sarayu Blue) is a strong feminist who runs the show in their house. However, Mitchell has a close relationship with his daughter and guided her to become physically strong and confident, like him. Sam (Gideon Adlon) is Hunter’s daughter. Her parents are divorced and Hunter has been less active in Sam’s life recently.

Together the three girls decide to lose their virginity on Prom night as a way to do something momentous together prior to leaving high school and going off to college. The parents learn about this plan and decide to stop the girls from making, what they think, will be the biggest mistake of their lives.

The film takes you on this journey of them trying to find their daughters, how they confront their daughter’s choice in men, and what they ultimately learn. Conversely the movie also shows how the daughters find what makes them strong fine human beings and their honesty with each other.

The upside is that there are numerous out-loud funny scenes and situations. The downside is that there are moments that seem overly set up. It is almost like they looked at the script and said, the next scene we’ll do this, then they did the scene. It felt blockish at times.

Mann is always interesting because she can be very funny in a very straight sort of way. She’s quirky, goofy, and funny. Cena was funny and his physical size and presence was put to good use in this film. That he wore his phone in a hip holster added to his goofiness. Barinholtz was good and his final scene with his daughter was wonderful. Newton was excellent as Mann’s daughter. Viswanathan was wonderful as a young girl ready to try anything while mindfully figuring out what is appropriate for her. Adlon was perfect as the young girl finally acknowledging her sexuality to herself, friends, and father. Ramona Young was very good as the young girl who entices Sam to come into her own. Blue is wonderful as the strong mother. Miles Robbins (as Connor, Kayla’s boy choice) was excellent. Graham Phillips (as Austin, Julie’s boy choice) was very good. Jimmy Bellinger (as Chad, Sam’s original choice) was hilarious. Brian Kehoe and Jim Kehoe wrote a good script, it just felt too set up at times. Kay Cannon directed. Her strength was making funny scenes funny but some scenes were too pre-setup.

Overall:  If you want to laugh at some silliness, this movie will provide the laughs.

The Comedian

First Hit:  A good story and look into the life of an older comedian whose had his day.

Being about the same age as the character Jackie Burke (Robert De Niro) it was an interesting story, look, and life of an older comedian. Jackie was once a television star and part of the issue is that people see him as this television character and not as himself, an insult comic that is just getting by.

Burke is a sarcastic man in both his communication with everyone he interacts with. Although he's not asked to perform when he goes into a comedy clubs, he is known, gets an occasional shout-out, and carefully watches the younger comedians to see what works, what's  funny.

One night, while performing in a small club owned by Jimmie “J.J.” Walker (yes Mr. Goodtimes), he’s harassed by a couple in the audience. She’s filming him as her husband shoots barbs at Burke. The husband gets under Burke’s skin so much that Jackie ends up hitting the husband with the microphone. The couple sues and also posts the fight they filmed on YouTube. While in court, Jackie refuses to apologize in an appropriate way and the judge gives him jail time. After getting out he starts community work at a homeless shelter which is where he meets Harmony Schitz (Leslie Mann).

She’s also doing community work at the same homeless shelter. They hit it off and spend time together by going to a comedy club, she joins him at a family wedding at the invitation of his brother Jimmy (Danny DeVito) and his wife Florence (Patti LuPone), and then he joins her at a dinner with her father Mac (Harvey Keitel).

In each of the interactions he does a routine, and each one is insult based which goes over in some audiences and not so much in others. He gets an opportunity to be part of the dais of a roast for a 90+ year old May Conner (Cloris Leachman) who ends up dying during his part of the roast.

His agent Miller (Edie Falco) tries to get him gigs, but it is hard because of his age, type of comedy he does and his past history. To juxtapose his past with his more successful peers, the storyline has him visiting the Friars Club in NYC where he talks with Charles Grodin, Billy Crystal, Brett Butler, and Gilbert Gottfried to name a few.

However, despite the star power and interactions with these comedians, the jabs aren't very funny. As it turns out, the funniest and most popular parts of his life are the mistakes he makes which are video taped and posted online.

I thought the jokes that Jackie had were good and De Niro’s delivery was very strong, it just isn’t the type of humor I'm attracted to. However there were moments of out loud laughter. I did like the film's more serious turn when Jackie finds himself wanting to spend more time with Harmony.

De Niro was solid as the old-time comedian and his comedic act was really good. I just didn’t connect with the jokes. Mann was superb. I loved her intensity and skittishness. She was one of the very best parts of the film. Keitel was strong as Mann’s controlling father. LuPone was really perfect as the sister-in-law who doesn’t like Burke. DeVito was wonderful as Jackie’s brother. Leachman was interesting as the 90+ year old honored comedienne. Falco as Jackie’s manager was very good. I liked her realistic engagement and devotion to Burke. The team of Art Linson, Jeffery Ross, Richard LaGravenese and Lewis Friedman wrote a good script that reflected the time of Jackie’s fame very well. I especially liked Harmony’s role and lines. Taylor Hackford did a great job of directing the main characters, but the script didn't use the other great comedians very effectively.

Overall:  Although I didn’t really like the humor in this film, I did think it was well done.

The Bling Ring

First Hit:  Walks a very fine line between aggrandizing these thieves, seeing them as kids trying to fit in, celebrity worship, and viewing how out of touch these affected kids were.

The moment I began to lose interest in a section of the film, Director Sofia Coppola switched gears to show the repercussions of their actions – this is the only thing that made it work for me.

It was clear that Coppola was artfully walking this fine line. The film begins by cutting between telling the story and interviews with the teens pre and post-trial. The story goes that Marc (Israel Broussard) is a soft spoken that doesn’t like to go to school. He’s dropped off by his mom at yet another new school and she says, "have a good day at your new school".

Comments by mean-spirited kids begin immediately as he walks up the steps to his new school. Just as he’s leaving school, Rebecca (Katie Chang) walks up and chats him up. Like me, Marc thinks she’s going to do or say something rude to him, but instead takes him out with another friend and they get high on the beach. Rebecca suspects she can get Marc to do things with her and eventually invites him to go steal from one of his friend’s homes.

Caught between his knowing he’s doing something wrong and wanting to be liked by this beautiful girl keeps him in the game of doing more and larger thefts with her. Her other peers Nikki (Emma Watson), Chloe (Claire Julian), and Sam (Taissa Farmiga) all join in the fun of stealing from the celebrities’ homes and blow all their loot on drugs, liquor, and partying. When they get caught, Marc is contrite, Rebecca tries to make people she didn't do anything, but it is Nikki that steals all the scenes.

Her mother Laurie (Leslie Mann) is fully immersed in the teachings of “The Secret” and has raised her kids this way. Nikki’s public interviews and expressions of being misunderstood (“it will all be clear when my side of the story gets out”) with illusions of grandeur are fascinating.

Broussard is very strong as the meek, wanna fit in boy, who goes along with the thefts but the audience always knows it goes against his beliefs. Chang is a knockout as the conniving “in” girl who is fascinated with Lindsey Lohan. Watson is amazing and is showing some real variety and acting chops since the Harry Potter series has ended. Julian and Farmiga are very good as compatriots of the thieving team. Mann is superb as the disillusioned mom. Coppola did a great job of walking the fine line although the real lack of a strong opinion of her character’s acts could have been a weakness as well.

Overall:  Scary to think that others might want to duplicated these kids’ acts. But definitely an interesting film.

The Change-Up

First Hit: An old idea with varying results.

The idea of people inhabiting someone else’s body is old and there are at least a ½ dozen films around this premise. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing unless there is nothing new in it.

As with all the other films like this, while they are in the other person's body they learn something about themselves and the other person all before they go back into their own body. Nobody stays in the other person's body.

Therefore how much is there to tell about this film? Some of the jokes are out-loud funny. Some of the bathroom humor could (flying baby poop in the face) could be removed and not affect the overall film one iota. Nor did I find that Mitch Planko (played by Ryan Reynolds) to be very believable. I didn’t think he fit being a lorno (light porno) film star, nor did I think he was much of a ladies man if he spent weeks trolling Lamaze clinics looking for a sex partner.

I thought his gross and crass language while being around his best friend Dave Lockwood (played by Jason Bateman) and his wife Jamie (played by Leslie Mann) and their children to be more than required as a setup to how different the guys will be when they embody the other person.

For them to transfer brains/spirit, they pee into a fountain, the lights go out and then the next morning they become the other person. Funny it took them until the next morning to discover they were a different person, because when they reversed the spell it was almost immediately.

There are numerous funny bits that each get to perform being the other life which made the film watchable.

Reynolds was, for me, more OK as Dave than his original character Mitch. Bateman was also better as Dave than he was Mitch. And neither one of them felt very spot on as the other, only caricatures of the other person. The film makers made more of the physical scenes being reversed than hold true to the real characters being reversed. Mann was very good as Dave’s wife; however it was very unrealistic that she wouldn’t have caught on that her husband Dave wasn't really Dave but someone else. They were nowhere near the same people to her. Jon Lucas and Scott Moore wrote a occasionally funny script. David Dobkin didn’t do much to build some depth to the characters while relying on obvious, and at times, humorous scenes.

Overall: This film was good enough for the moment and immediately forgettable afterward.