The Butler (Original Title)

First Hit:  Some of the performances were outstanding while others were miscast and poor.

I do not like the ego of directors or writers who name their film with their name as part of the title. This film was originally called "The Butler" and now it is called and marketed as “Lee Daniels’ The Butler”.

I’m sure there are reasons why, but for me it taints a films’ integrity. Why? Because it means that the director (in this case) views himself as or more important than the film itself.

The best thing about this film was viewing changes in the civil rights movement through Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker) life. Where he watched his mother being abused by the slave owner, his father shot by saying something about it to Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and finally a black man being elected President of the United States. How it was portrayed by Whitaker, David Oyelowo, and Oprah Winfrey was excellent.

What didn’t work about this film? The representation of the Presidents Cecil served during his time in the White House. This is a great story about how a man learned how to serve with great strength of character and gained respect for his service and being of service. Although his home life was hard at times with his wife being an alcoholic and his oldest son becoming a radical of the sixties with the Black Panthers, he persevered these things as well as losing his youngest son in Vietnam and through it all he continued to be an honorable man.

Whitaker is wonderful and electric in this role. Winfrey is difficult to watch at the beginning because it is hard to separate Oprah from the role. If she acted more, she would be able to have the audience transcend her television persona more easily because she is a very good actress. Oyelowo is absolutely great as Whitaker’s son. Robin Williams as Dwight D. Eisenhower didn’t capture Dwight’s pace or energy. John Cusack did get the creepiness of Nixon but paled as the film moved on. James Marsden seemed more like Bobby Kennedy than John F. Kennedy. Liev Schreiber as Lyndon B. Johnson was pathetic. Alan Rickman was slightly worse than Schreiber as Ronald Reagan. However, I though Jane Fonda was a priceless and fabulous choice as Nancy Reagan – she caught the look, feel and ways of Nancy. Danny Strong wrote a good script. Lee Daniels got good performances from some actors but the choice of others for their roles was very weak.

Overall:  The real story got slightly demeaned by the actors chosen to be Presidents.

World's Greatest Dad

First Hit: A poorly constructed story with very little character building and ultimately unsatisfying.

There are brief moments in this film that are funny. There are a couple dramatic moments that are captivating. But when filled with all the other scenes and edited together, it was a terrible 99 minutes.

This film barely holds itself together; actually maybe it didn’t. Robin Williams plays Lance Clayton a high school teacher who is a single father raising a high school son named Kyle Clayton (played by Daryl Sabara). Kyle goes to his father’s school, and says he hates everything. I mean everything except porno. Kyle loves internet porno and the film gives the impression she spends all his spare time masturbating, obsessing about sex or occasionally playing a video game with his quiet and thoughtful friend Andrew (played by Evan Martin).

Early on one gets a sense of where this film might, but doesn’t, go. It is the beginning scene when Lance goes to wake up his son for school and walks in on him masturbating while choking himself with a strap to enhance his orgasm.

It is an interesting way to begin a film, but the interaction and dialog fall flat and the film runs a mediocre course until Kyle dies by performing this same act. This unknown and hated kid all of a sudden becomes a beacon of light for all the other kids in school because of a counterfeit suicide note written by his father to hide how the boy really died.

There are other characters in the film, like Lance’s girlfriend coworker Claire (played by Alexie Gilmore) and coworker Jason (played by Jermaine Williams); however they add little to the story. The longer Lance continues to drive the fantasy about his son Kyle, the more his conscious gets the better of him and, in the end, he tells the truth. Didn't we all see this coming?

Bobcat Goldthwait wrote and directed this and I’ve got to say it probably sounded better on paper than the resulting film. I could almost see Williams try to embolden his role to have some meaning, but the script and direction didn’t allow for it. There is no character building therefore we have no idea why or how Sabara’s character developed into this sex obsessed hateful boy. We’re just dropped into this story and expected to believe him with no historical perspective or developmental storyline. It just didn’t work. Jermaine William’s character was only there to make Williams character jealous and it was either bad acting or scripting, but it didn’t work and he wasn’t believable. Gilmore was amusing to watch but seemed more like putting oil and vinegar salad dressing on a Jello mold salad – it didn’t work.

Overall: There were hints of a good and interesting idea for a film, but the execution sinks it after the first 15 minutes.

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

First Hit: Barely mediocre at best.

This film seemed to more about the special effects and the hope of bringing in a sizable chunk of change as it tries to ride the coattails of the first film.

The same characters are back, Ben Stiller as Larry Daley who has become a millionaire businessman, Robin Williams as Teddy Roosevelt, Owen Wilson as Jedediah Smith, and a few others.

The main interesting addition is Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart. The main protagonist is Hank Azaria as a English lisping Egyptian who wants the tablet. The tablet we’re speaking of is the magic behind the museum coming alive at night.

Now that the Smithsonian has the tablet, the Egyptian wants the tablet to open the portal gates to the nether world. Larry doesn’t want this to happen (and neither do I but for different reasons) because all the museum characters will parish if this happens.

That’s the plot the best I could understand. So with the cast of museum characters Larry and crew try to keep the tablet from falling into the Egyptians hands.

Stiller attempts to be a pensive and thoughtful person who is attempting to find what makes him happy. He attempts to be serious but this film isn’t and can’t be taken seriously. Adams as Earhart has the right tone and is the only good thing in this film. Williams as Roosevelt is suppose to be the wise one, but it falls flat. Direction is immature and does little to advance the film as it progresses.

Overall: This film is a shadow of its predecessor and that film was barely moderately good.

August Rush

First Hit: There will be no rush to see this film.

This film was poorly constructed from about every aspect except for the music. Maybe it was the screenplay, direction, editing, casting, or overall concept who knows; but in the end, the film is contrived in its attempts to pull at our heart strings and does nothing to help us to believe the unbelievable.

The story is about a young boy named Evan (AKA August) unknowingly given up for adoption by a cellist, Lyla Novacek (Played by Keri Russell), who got pregnant during a one night fling with a rock guitarist (Jonathan Rhys Meyers).

The boy (Freddie Highmore) “hears” his parents in the ethers and suspects they hear him. He practices playing universal music by doing Joe Cocker imitations in wheat fields. He runs away from the orphanage and ends up in New York trying to find his parents.

But instead of finding his parents he runs into Robin Williams. Williams (“Wizard”) finds, collects, and uses moderately musically talented kids to busk for him. Without any lessons, and using his best Joe Cocker wheat field experience, the kid picks up one of Wizard’s guitars and plays some incredible music first time out.

This unnatural ability to play naturally makes Wizard want to exploit him further. The kid runs off during in a raid on the building where all the kids are holed up and ends up in Julliard where he writes a full and complete orchestra composition during his first few months in the school.

The school decides to let him lead the orchestra during the premiere of his rhapsody, again with no experience. Unbeknownst to him his mother is part of the feature bill during this concert and his father, tired of not living his dream, comes to New York again to fulfill his dream and reminisce about his long lost love Lyla.

In an amazing set of coincidences they all come together in one place and realize who they are to each other at the finale of August’s composition.

Overall: If you are bored some evening rent the DVD, turn off the video and listen to some of the music, it’s quite good.