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Disney’s Frozen should melt the coldest heart

It hasn’t been a great year at the movies for animated films. There have been a few bright spots — Monsters University and Despicable Me 2 did well — but for every hit, there were more films that did not live up to box office expectations — Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, Free Birds, The Croods, Turbo. But you can usually count on Disney to breathe life into the genre with one of their “princess” movies, and it’s safe to say that Frozen will not get a chilly reception from audiences or critics.

The story seems simple on the surface: two princesses are the best of friends growing up. The oldest, Elsa, is blessed/cursed with the ability to create snow and ice, much to the delight of her younger sister Anna. But an accident in their grand ballroon — Elsa accidentally zaps Anna in the head — forces their parents to seek help from a tribe of trolls to heal the girl and remove any memory of Elsa’s powers from her mind. Elsa withdraws from the world and refuses to interact with Anna anymore, leaving the girl to wonder what she’s done. This being a Disney movie, you can bet the parents don’t survive the first act, leaving Anna basically alone in the castle, but on coronation day, Elsa must finally come out of hiding and open the gates to their tiny kingdom. The pressures of the day and Anna’s announcement that she is going to marry a prince she just met cause Elsa to lose control of her powers, sending the land into a deep winter … even though it’s the middle of summer. Elsa flees the kingdom, but Anna is determined to find her and bring her home.

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Philomena is a heartwarming and heartbreaking soulful tale

There is nothing new about the concept of punishing people for sexual promiscuity. Historically (and even not historically) young women getting pregnant out of wedlock leading to societal condemnation is considered deserved and proper. And yet, there are always further depths of suffering that might be allowed as “acceptable,” especially when religious extremism is introduced. It may seem odd to those with more “average” upbringings, but even those with teenage pregnancy may actually love and care about their children, despite what reality shows might have you believe. This leads to another, complicated wrinkle: adoption. Because what happens when the mother never wanted to give up her child in the first place?

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The Book Thief tugs at your heartstrings, especially if you happen to be a book lover

I recently saw one of those inspirational quote memes on Facebook that said, “Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.” I can’t think of a more appropriate quote to sum up my impressions of The Book Thief, the new 20th Century Fox film directed by Brian Percival.

From the moment you first see the train traveling swiftly over the snow-covered landscapes of late 1930s Germany, to the fiery rubble of a bombed neighborhood in the final scenes, this film is breathtakingly beautiful in its cinematography. While it was at times happy and at other times bittersweet, it was a joy to watch every scene unfold before my eyes.

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Homefront is a crowd-pleaser, but is it any good?

Jason Statham has made a career of playing suave but lethal killing machines, especially in the Transporter series of films. He’s gone gritty as well (Death Race), and his success has allowed him to branch out into caper films (The Italian Job) and, believe it or not, animated family films (Gnomeo and Juliet). Fans were thrilled by his surprise appearance at the end of Fast & Furious 6 setting him up to appear in the next film, and he’ll be returning to the Expendables franchise as well. Until then, Statham takes a stab at being a family man … who also happens to be a lethal killing machine.

In Homefront, Statham stars as Phil Broker, an undercover cop who had infiltrated a biker/drug gang set to distribute some freshly cooked meth to the masses. The bust goes horribly wrong as the SWAT team gets a little over-enthusiastic during the raid, and the gang leader’s son is shot something like 47 times while Broker’s cover is blown. After the titles, Broker and his adorable daughter and their kitten move to bayou country (the movie was shot in Shreveport, LA) to live a quiet life out of the line of fire. Or is Broker really there on another undercover job? Or does Broker just by chance happen to move to a town with a huge meth operation underway and gets drawn into the cop life again? That much was never made clear.

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The Best Man Holiday a success! More movies with ethnically diverse casts ahead?

It has often been said that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Some people tend to debate this. However, if you ask me, I think it’s factual. This age old adage was proven true when just last weekend The Best Man Holiday, a sequel 13 years in the making, opened with a nice and dandy 30.1 million dollars. This may not come as a shocker to some people. After all, openings in the 30 million dollar range are pretty typical nowadays. However, how many films can you name with an all African-American cast that have opened with these numbers?

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s talk. I don’t know about you, but The Best Man Holiday was a must see event for me, and apparently, for other individuals as well – namely African-American movie goers. According to reports on Entertainment Weekly, on its first day in theaters, the film was successful in beating Thor: The Dark World which is rather impressive. Would you like to know something else impressive? Thor, being a justifiable blockbuster — which I enjoyed by the way — is playing in over 8,000 theaters. The Best Man Holiday came close to beating it … and is only playing in 2,024 theaters. What can I say? Black folks like a good movie!

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The Mentalist’s Red John reveal: Even less convincing than Bradley Whitford

**WARNING: RED JOHN REVEAL SPOILERS FOLLOW**

Remember a couple of years ago, in the season three finale of The Mentalist, when we were supposed to be led to believe that Bradley Whitford’s character, Timothy Carter, was Red John? And then it turned out he wasn’t? I wasn’t convinced then .. and I’m even less convinced of Sheriff McAllister being Red John this season.

After everything we’ve learned up to this point about the elusive and infamous Red John, it turns out that everything lead to a cowardly, sniveling old coot with no remarkable traits to his name other than his fear of pigeons. There were several clues that led to McAllister being Red John throughout the season, but that’s not what I have a problem with. What do I have a problem with? Where do I start? …

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Day of the Doctor exceeded expectations by a mile

If we’re being quite honest, I was expecting this to go very, very poorly. An hour-long special written by Steven Moffat (whose time as showrunner on Doctor Who has produced some of my least favorite story arcs) focusing almost entirely on the “new Who” Doctors and throwing in John Hurt as the not-Doctor-who-screws-up-the-numbering-system — it could have gone ridiculously bad. I was bracing myself for Moffat to screw it up royally, is what I’m saying. I was prepared to sigh and go, “Well, that was … something.”  I was prepared for disaster, but hoping for something decent.

And what did we get? We got pretty freaking good … and that might be the most surprising thing about this special full of surprises. Continue reading 'Day of the Doctor exceeded expectations by a mile' »

Who will win Dancing With the Stars 17?

After a season of some stellar — and awkward — dancing, season 17 of Dancing With the Stars is about to wind down with a two-night finale featuring Corbin Bleu, Amber Riley, Jack Osbourne, and … Bill Engvall! Yes, two underdogs have made it to the finals amid a lot of controversy over the merit of Engvall’s dancing skills. Many dancers who had shown marked improvement went home long before they should have, and this week’s elimination of Leah Remini has outraged some fans and divided our own DWTS “experts.”

Kim: This has certainly been a shocking season on Dancing with the Stars. We’ve seen many talented dancers go home far too early, including Elizabeth Berkley, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, Christina Milian and Brant Daugherty, while a few of the underdogs like Leah Remini, Bill Engvall and Jack Osbourne have remained in the competition. What do you think about the audience’s remaining choices for the upcoming Season 17 finale? Do you think any of the four remaining couples have the Mirror Ball trophy on lockdown?

Chuck: At this point, it’s hard to tell WHO the audience is going to vote for or who will win. They seem to have forgotten that, while voting for their favorite performer, this is still a dance competition in which the better dancer should be rewarded. If anyone should get the Miss Congeniality award, that would be Bill, but the mirror ball trophy? No.

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The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is a scintillating and subversive must-see

The fragility of modern society is a common theme utilized in many pieces of fiction, but chief among them is the science fiction genre of dystopian futures. The Dystopia, contrary to the idyllic Utopia, presents a dark, twisted version of our current civilization in various degrees of horror. The first Hunger Games movie presented one such world, a country ruled by fear and death, where advanced technology is used to maintain the status quo of a new world gentry. But one thing was there, an undercurrent amidst the children killing each other, the vague feeling of humanity and hope in a world surrounded by seemingly nothing but despair. The protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, a capable if emotionally drained hunter from a poor district, wins despite impossible odds and manages to keep another friend, Peeta, alive using a classic trick: Lying.

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Delivery Man fumbles its attempts of something meaningful

There’s a classic problem with remakes of something that was already good. What’s the point? The argument that could be made is to expose the original story to a wider audience, or perhaps to expand on the ideas, or maybe to have a new twist on it. Or maybe it’s because Americans don’t like to read subtitles and find other cultures confusing and hey, if the movie was good already, why not just do it again without having to worry about doing anything original? That takes effort. Of course, some themes are universal; worrying about being a good father, worrying about whether or not the father will be a good person, etc. All of these things were explored in the original movie, of course. And as for the remake? Well….

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