At The Cinema - September 2015

Inside Out – 10

I gave in.  For the first time since I was a kid I went to an animated movie.  Why this one?  Because this one is getting such universal acclaim (48 out of 48 positive critical reviews on metacritic) it may even be in the Oscar Best Picture race.  I thought I better check it out.

This is the story of Riley, a happy young school girl who has been uprooted from her Minnesota home to San Francisco when her parents relocate the family.   The swirl of emotions that comes with a new school and new surroundings is portrayed in the form of inner characters like Joy (Amy Poehler), Anger (Lewis Black), and Disgust (Mindy Kaling) who live in her emotion headquarters. 

Animated and voiced to perfection, you get more involved then if the characters were flesh and blood.  Directors Pete Docter and Ronald Del Carmen pull all of this off in exactly 94 minutes of rich, beautiful story telling that I hope Judd Apatow has watched.  Brevity and humor can go hand in hand, and when it works like this, it doesn’t even test your bladder.  Obviously destined to be another Pixar classic, adult, child or curmudgeon – if you don’t enjoy this movie you have problems I can’t help you with, (although I can see it being a little harsh for a very young child.)  My primary thought on leaving the theater was that I wish I had their imagination.  

Brilliant – and it made me wonder what’s going on in my own brain.    

The Visit – 8
M. Night Shyamalan’s classic was The Sixth Sense almost 20 years ago.  I’ve often contended it ruined movies, in that the ending was such a great shock that for the next 20 years movie makers have been trying to top it, match it, or copy it.  They are rarely up to the task.  Shyamalan himself has fallen short of it, and seems to get further and further from the rarified air of that first movie, to the point of being the butt of jokes.

Until now.  Finally he has gotten close, with The Visit.  No, it’s not a classic, but it is compelling story telling, with chills and jumps and a nice twist at the end.  I don’t want to give too much away.  A mother (Kathryn Hahn) has been estranged from her parents since the day she left as a pregnant teenager to run off with her boyfriend.  They married and divorced, and mom has finally agreed to let their 2 kids visit her parents for the first time, although she wants no part of the visit.  She goes off on a cruise. 

It’s often just the generation gap that makes our grandparents seem a little crazy.  Here it may be just a little more.  They occupy one of those old farmhouses and exhibit a tinge of crazy, especially when the kids are sent off to their room at 9:30 each night and the lights go out.  Do you hear strange noises at night?

Becca (Olivia Dejonge) is 18 and an aspiring film maker, and her brother Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) wants to be a rapper, and naturally they are going to film their week-long encounter, assuming they survive.  It’s a Blair Witch kind of gimmick and it serves the story well.  You’ll jump, you’ll scream, and you may even rejoice that Shyamalan is on his way back. 

The Intern – 8
Robert DeNiro is the gentle-bull title character, 70 year old widower Ben Whitaker, who eschews the boredom of retirement to return to work as “senior” intern for Jules’ (Anne Hathaway} upstart dotcom.  That’s the gimmick and it’s a good one, as her exploding firm and her hectic personal life could use the steadying hand of a little maturity.  Ben is just the man.

Director Nancy Meyer’s films are usually a little antiseptic and white bread, but that’s ok because she usually picks a great cast.  This movie is no exception. Other than one breakneck break-in scene which I thought was really out of place, it seems she captures the challenging pace of the dotcom life.  Your web site could be a hit today, and gone tomorrow.  Better make hay while your internet shines.

De Niro actually plays a real character for the first time in years, instead of a variation of himself.  Anne Hathaway is like a supernova.  The camera drills in on her face and her body language, and she nails every aspect of the character.  When your face is 10 feet tall on a movie screen there’s no place to hide, and the way she carries the movie reminded me of Annette Bening’s brilliance in The American President.  Anne will win no awards for this performance - it's not that kind of role.  But it doesn’t make it any less convincing.  It will be underappreciated, and that’s a shame.  I don’t get the Hathahaters, if they really exist.  She’s an American treasure and while I’m still waiting for her to portray Judy Garland, a movie a year like this will do until then. 

What I really liked about the movie was there were really no villains – just a lot of good people trying to adapt to change.  This is a perfectly pleasant 2 hour diversion.