A Liar’s Autobiography (2012)

I love the hell out of Monty Python, the shows, the movies. I can’t get enough, even on repeat viewings. A wildly animated F.U. to the whole biopic genre, “A Liar’s Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman” wants to be the M.P. version of the group’s founding member and leader’s life story, but it’s a pile of random tid-bits that don’t say much. Crazy fact: I learned more trivia about Chapman’s life and comedy impact in the “Making of…” documentary on this film than the film itself. That’s sounds like a Python satirical sketch. (Skip the movie! Watch the extras!) “Liar’s” never boring and much of the animation stuns – dig the section that represents Chapman kicking booze -- but there’s so little context I never got a hook on the man. A scene big on Python gore has toddler Chapman looking at the bodies of soldiers killed in a WWII plane crash. Why? Did he recall this a haunting memory? Who can tell when we’re told it’s fake? A letdown from a film I expected much from. C+

Oz: The Great and Powerful (2013)

Note: I saw this while ill and on medicine, missing sections, so grain of salt... 

Sam Raimi’s prequel has an impossible task: Stand not after, but before the perfect “Wizard of Oz,” one of the greatest films produced by Hollywood. Dolled up in 3D and the best CGI computers can buy, borrow, and steal, “Oz: the Great and Powerful” has no chance. But it’s not a bad film. There’s a childlike playfulness to it, and stacked beside his very unchildlike “Spring Breakers,” oddly fascinating. James Franco again plays against three women as a con artist who’s been bullshitting himself so long, he believes his own schtick. His Oscar is swept away by a tornado to the land that bears his nickname, and there he meets three sisters and witches (Michelle Williams, Mila Kunis, and Rachel Weisz) who believe him to be some kind of prophet. You know from “Wizard” how it all shakes out, and this echoes the same beats -– traveling companions, munchkins, and witch battle. Franco gives a weird, sly take as with “Breakers.” Maybe too sly. Kunis is great and terrible. But wasn’t Judy Garland? Great and powerful? No. The heart of “Oz” beats far too cynical, whereas the 1939 film roared beautifully and proud. But it entertains. B

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), in 3D High Frame Rate

When I first saw “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” I did so in the 2D, normal 24-fames-per-second format. Movie geek that I am, I sought out the much-debated 3D, 48-fps version that Peter Jackson insists is the definitive version. The 48 verdict: Incredible. Damn the naysayers. I have seen hundreds of films in a cinema, but I have never felt as if I could reach into the onscreen fantastical world before me, and what better film to do that with than a Tolkien story? Even one embellished and stretched thin and loud as it is here, part one of a new trilogy. Skin, swords, wizard beards and hats, and even Hobbit pottery appear real. The 3D work amplifies the perspective. Of course, this was my second viewing, I knew what was coming. Would I be so positive on my first go-round, unsure of the “Journey” ahead? I cannot say. I can say: The action and special effects have zero blur, including the jaw-dropper “riddle” face-off with Bilbo (Martin Freeman) and Gollum (Andy Serkis). I hated the lethargic pace more, and the fully unnecessary “LOTR” alumni reunions more so, but what a visual delight! The B- advances to B for this version.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

J.R.R. Tolkien’s seminal 1937 children’s book “The Hobbit, or There and Back Again” is concise, funny, and light in spirit, which I cannot say for director/writer Peter Jackson and his team from the famed “Lord of the Rings” trilogy in their adaptation of the newly titled “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.” There is no “Back Again” here, and there shall not be for two movies, and six (!) more hours. 

This toss-in-the-kitchen-sink trilogy opener stops just shy of three hours as it spells out in detail how Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman, playing the young version of Ian Holm, who appears as well) came into possession of the powerful ring –- the Ring -– that sets in motion the 2001-2003 films and 1954-1955 books fans know so well. 

First thing out of the way: I saw “Hobbit” in 2D and regular frame rate, not the 3D and 48 frames-per-second rate that has garnered much press. Second: I read the book so long ago I cannot recall it in my memory. I judge by hunches and –- God help me -– the Web. 

Movie wise, “Hobbit” is split as Tolkein’s greatest and most troubled character, Gollum, the schizophrenic villain/victim who owned and lost the preciousss golden circle to Bilbo, who decades later will hand it over to nephew Frodo, and you know the rest. Team Jackson –- including co-writer Gillermo del Toro -– take not just the “Hobbit” book, but myriad side-stories, prefixes, appendices, and shopping lists written by Tolkein and knit out a story that is jovial, eye-popping in wonder, and maddeningly dull and repetitive to the point of tedium. Even during the big CGI action sequences. 

(There’s a fist-fight between two black-rock mountains (!) that is impressive, bizarre, laugh-out-loud ridiculous, overlong by half, and in the end, useful as a lecture on thermodynamics.) 

I could not repeat all the plot tentacles to save my soul, except this quick sketch: Homebody Hobbit Bilbo is thrust into joining 13 dwarves (led by Richard Armitage as the dreamiest “GQ” dwarf ever) as they set out to kill the dragon that took their mountain homeland decades ago. The instigator of this hunt is the wise Moses-like wizard Gandalf, again played by Ian McKellan. The troupe is hunted by trolls, a vengeance-seeking one-armed orc, and wolves. Llittle of this is in the book, but thrown in by Jackson, who seems set on making a simple fable into something far darker and massively important. 

I know that’s nit-picking. Changes were made to the “LOTR” trilogy, especially the loss of the vital “Scouring of the Shire” finale, but so much of this movie is filler created solely because the filmmakers have the budget and technology, not because it serves this story. 

As with prequels, characters are re-introduced wholesale to goose memories. In almost every instance, these are time-killers. We don’t need Elijah Wood as Frodo. Nor Holm as old Bilbo. Cate Blanchett’s elf queen, so majestically introduced in “Fellowship of the Ring,” stumbles into this film with such little fanfare, one can’t imagine her importance. Same with Christopher Lee’s Sauramon, parked in a chair and practically giving away his whole game plan of evil to come later on. Ditto Gollum and his long slow intro, now redundant I suppose. I'm muffing some of the details here, but the point stands -- especially if this film is viewed as a true prequel.

See, Jackson is making these as a man looking back, nostalgic for every morsel he can scrape, not a man looking forward with this chapter and its two coming successors as predecessors to what befalls Bilbo, Gandalf, and all our beloved characters. 

All gripes aside, I have hope for “Hobbit” parts 2 and 3. Freeman -- Watson in BBC’s “Sherlock” -- turns in a star-making reading of Bilbo, a man (Halfling?) who finds his worth far from home. He’s funny, irritating but sincerely so, curious, bold, and thorough, a wonderful homage to Holm’s take. 

When Bilbo and Gollum meet –- toward the end -– the scene crackles and brings “Hobbit” to Must Watch status. (Andy Serkis as Gollum again shine as the MVP of this series. As well, the CGI work to bring this foul creature to life is still the best use of computers in a life-action film, ever.) As Bilbo holds a sword to the neck of a seething, panicking creature, Jackson and all the wizards behind this tale put us in the hot seat. We know striking down Gollum will prevent much agony later, and I thought, “Push it through.” Knowing full well that won’t happen. 

It’s a twisty definitive, solid moment in a film full of holes, not the Hobbit kind. B-

Life of Pi (2012)

“Life of Pi” follows the harrowing spiritual journey of an Indian teen named Pi (newcomer and sure-to-be-famous Suraj Sharma) who is swept away from a sinking cargo ship and lost at sea in a life boat for months, with a Bengal tiger as his sole companion and nemesis. Lost to Pi is his family -– father, mother, and brother, their zoo -– and before him lays certain death by starvation, heat stroke, thirst, insanity, or likely being the last meal of the tiger. Of all the books I read in the past decade, this has to be most un-filmable, yet Ang Lee -- who made “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” -– took it on. Cheers to him. Lee uses some of the best 3D and visual effects imagery I or you will ever see and every aspect of the film is just as top notch (including the music score) but … And I must be careful here not to spoil the end, author Yann Martel, in his award-winning book, dared stare God in the face and did not blink. Lee blinks. He shows all the beauty of spirituality, but not the darkness. Read the book. The movie insists on lightness. Martel, and God, knows different. B+

Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted (2012)

Who knew Dreamworks’ animated adventure-comedy "Madagascar" (2005) would churn out two sequels and a cartoon series? The first movie was solid fun as four Central Park Zoo animals -– a lion (Ben Stiller), a zebra (Chris Rock), a giraffe (David Schwimmer) and a hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith) -– and a pack of penguins made a break for freedom and ended up in, well, Madagascar. The sequel was a cash-grab mess. "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted" is marginally better as our heroes make a break for, well, Europe, as a means to get back to NYC. They join a circus train and bring on the wrath of a rabid animal control officer (Frances McDormand). The animation veers from wildly imaginative (Rome!) to a 3D gonzo neon acid trip for children too young to know the meaning of acid trip. As with most Dreamworks works, the movie relies on sight gags, but the creators trash their best idea: A tiger who can jump through a wedding band. McDormand’s villain is a hoot, yes, but the sight of her taking a saw to the hero lion’s neck veers close to Daniel Pearl territory. B-

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012)

Warner Bros. made “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” for 3D big screens in 2012, but watching the pop-art colors, goofy-grin special effects, and family-on-an-adventure story, I thought of the Disney movies from 30 years back, fantasies that put children center stage. “Journey” is proudly rah-rah family fun, hokey with “I love you, dad” montages that rocket past cringingly cloy, but it is miles better than the first “Journey” film, “Center of the Earth.” That piffle drowned in bad CGI, but here we get tiny elephants, giant bees, raging waters, and falling rocks that ring more true. (Sort of.) Speaking of Rocks, Dwayne Johnson replaces Brandon Fraser as the adult who joins our teen hero (Josh Hutcherson) on an adventure that again focuses on Verne and a missing relative (Michael Caine as one cool grandpa). Hutcherson is too old to be short-bus style yelling “Grandpa!,” but Johnson has a ball singing and playing a ukulele. Adults won’t mind when the cast breaks the fourth wall and smirk. B-

Pina (2011)

Ignorance truly is bliss. I knew nothing of the documentary film “Pina,” or Pina Bausch, the avant-garde choreographer and subject of this brilliant movie/eulogy, when I entered the theater. What a wonderful education. Bausch was a German-born contemporary dance performer/ instructor/artist/feminist/chain-smoker who died weeks after agreeing to let director Wim Wenders (you know him, right?) make a 3D documentary of her work. She died and then the film died, but her dancers/followers/disciples resurrected the latter to honor the former. An Easter miracle. This is one of the films of 2011, documentary category and overall, shot in glorious big-screen 3D, which I sadly missed out on. 

Wenders starts his film on stages and dance studios within literal film frames, and then takes us out onto the streets, industrial parks, public swimming pools, EL trains, parks, and mountains of Pina’s home country, her dancers, young and old, performing works that touch on love, nature, water, and violence, the movement onscreen and the music so new and thrilling to these naïve eyes and ears, so energetic and beautiful, I was spell bound. He skips the boring this-than-that-happened of most bio-docs and lets Pina’s art speak for her as we watch men and women contort their bodies in unspeakable ways, out of tribute, love and joy. 

The best/most disturbing sequence has a pack of men picking/ jabbing/clutching a woman, it’s harrowing to behold, but amazing: Pina showing how sexist, condescending men openly treat women as a meat product or a car, an object to be bought. No heart. And yet Pina’s heart still beats damn strong. A must watch and listen. A

Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax (2012)

Conservative bobble (hot) heads are denouncing the CGI animated 3-D version of Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax” as the second-worst thing in the universe since “The Communist Manifesto,” or third, behind Obama’s birth certificate. The book: Quick subtle lesson of conservation over consumerism by the late Theodore Geisel. Its plot simple: A boy from a treeless, polluted town seeks a real, life tree. But none are to be found, according to the Once-Ler, a recluse who long ago killed all the trees in the land to make bizarre products from the flowery tree tops. The Once-Ler did not heed the warnings of the Lorax, a short hairy beast that looks like (no really) Wilfred Brimley, but oranger and shorter and much hairier, and the self-proclaimed voice of the voiceless trees.

The “Lorax” movie, directed by Chris Renauld and Kyle Bald, is not quick nor subtle. It’s a sermon. Jonathan Edwards Spider kind, but leftist, and with brighter colors. I am quite liberal, and I fast grew tired of the tree-hugger brimstone drum beat, which is finished off by a disturbing and loud Tom Petty/MTV dirge that will scare the hell out of toddlers. It’s “The Day After the Day After Tomorrow,” but the lessons are not remotely “indoctrinating,” as the Fox critics cry. It’s telling kids to be smart, watch your resources. (I know, responsibility crazy right? I mean, wasn’t there a sentence of three in the Bible where God said, “Take care of the Earth. It’s mine. Not Yours.” Commie Bastard out to get Job, err, jobs.) For 90 minutes, yeah... OK, too damn long.

I digress, sorry. See, all the Seussian word plays, innocence, and childlike wonder of the book, are washed in a sea of redneck jokes, spoofs on the bottled water business (bottled air!) and “Too Big To Fail” gags, and this relentless dizzying, loud, nonstop mad dash to deliver a dozen jokes per minute. (The similarly CGI’d “Horton Hears a Who” is far, far better, a true treat.) That’s not to say “Lorax” is a bad, the animation pops with bright cotton candy colors, and many of the jokes are funny – just more akin to current TV fare. The voice talent is ace, especially Danny DeVito for The Lorax. It’s a joke all its own, such a cuddly creature with that Joizee guy mutter, but still warm.

As for the 1971 book, Corporate America did not like it here or there, or anywhere. They made their own book, “Truax” I recall, a tale that included the lesson that, hey, if some forest animals die in the name of progress, tough luck. In God We Trust. Who says who’s brainwashing children? Maybe Murdoch and Gingrich will fund a pro-multi-national-corporation cartoon, about the fun of mountain top removal, as long as it ends with money being made, it’s all good. “I am the Newt , I speak for the dollars…” Not that “Lorax” is any more pure. B-

P.S. I saw this in 3D. Not necessary. A few scenes, maybe. But overall, save your money. Skip the plastic glasses. But, loving Momma Earth, you knew that, eh?

The Adventures of Tin-Tin (2011)

When Steven Spielberg said he was making a Tin-Tin movie, I was stoked. I was born in England, and although I can’t recall my time there, I did inherit piles of “Tin-Tin” books. The boy reporter and his little white dog, Snowy, are huge there. In America? Not so much. Which is why “The Adventures of Tin-Tin” crumpled at U.S. cinemas. Despite the Spielberg name, some of the best motion-cap animation ever made and 3D effects that make the format a blast of wondrous pop-up fun. The plot is Tin-Tin simple, and very “Young Indiana Jones”: Our ginger hero buys a model ship on a lark and gets wrapped up in a worldwide conspiracy that nearly gets him (and his little dog, too!) killed. Spielberg works with physics-defying action as if he’s thrilled not to worry about reality. It’s all too much, but this is a boy’s adventure. How else to explain a 120-pound boy fighting men three times his size? Bummer news: The ending is a let-down, a promise of cinematic godliness left to a sequel. Jamie Bell is Tin-Tin, Andy Serkis is a drunken ship captain, and Daniel Craig (smartly nasty!) the villain. B+

Hugo (2011)

Leave it to Martin Scorsese to not just set a new high bar for children’s films, but all 3D movies. “Hugo” is a – superlative! -- masterpiece, a tale of an orphan boy (Asa Butterfield) in love with machines, cinema and stories, living in a Parisian train station as a clock master. Thid 3D gem glows with a boundless joy of movies and books beloved by Scorsese, making his best film in years, and his brightest, most wide-eyed adventure in ... forever. Hugo – this will upset Fox viewers – is poor, and steals food and drink to survive. (Call Newt!) That thievery puts him at odds with a short-fused toy shop owner named Georges Melies, who you well know if you know cinema. The plot kicks into glorious gear when Georges (Ben Kingsley) confiscates a notepad from Hugo, not knowing it once belonged to the boy’s dead father (Jude Law). I will say nothing more of the plot, watch and enjoy. Everything in “Hugo” – from the scenery and special effects to the actors and words -- is for proudly childish dreamers of all ages, all the ones who ever held a film camera or took pen to paper and thought, “What world can I create today?” Amazing from start to finish. A

Immortals (2011)

The first shots of “Immortals” are breathtaking in their 3D glory. We open on a massive stone cube and we then swoop in to see black-grime-covered men, lined up perfectly, their heads held in metallic clamps, their teeth clenching rods. It’s another startling image from director Tarsem Singh, the visual artist who made “The Cell,” a flick that took us inside the mind of a serial killer. There’s not much on anyone’s mind here, just insanely buff guys clanging swords and spears – hey, nothing gay here – during the ancient days of Greece. You know the tale: After his family dies, mad King Hyperion calls war on the gods and slays thousands of people as an attention grabber. The brave peasant Theseus -- who is the son of an earthly woman and a god, does that sound familiar? -- must stop him. The talking bits are ridiculously serious and full of blowhard boasts, especially when our hero rallies his troops “Braveheart”-style, but the blood-soaked action is something to behold. Henry Cavill, soon to be Superman, is the stalwart hero. Mickey Rourke is Hyperion, a bit too cool and ironic. From the makers of “300,” but not nearly as bloodily cathartic. B-

Gnomeo & Juliet (2011)

“Gnomeo & Juliet” is exactly what you think it is: A child’s eye version of Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet,” minus the suicide, blood, lust and sex. Although there’s a helluva lot of jokes about cock – hat – sizes, and references to brave boy gnomes having huge balls. But will children get that? Likely not. They won’t care, either. Nor will they care that the movie’s concept steals from “Toy Story,” the gnomes come to life when left alone by people, and turn back into objects when they appear, and its humor stolen from the Dreamworks line of film parodies and famous voices for entertainment. There are some witty bits: Dig the moving truck, or the Taming of the Glue. The opening is a silly wink-wink nod to narrators of old. Nine writers took part. Up to 10 or more if you count Shakespeare and actorly improvisation. With that many people, you can have a soccer club. But a good film? No. C+