Movie reviews: ‘The Fifth Wave,’ ‘Anomalisa’

January 22, 2016 Tim Lammers Leave a comment

“The Fifth Wave” (PG-13) 2 1/2 stars (out of 4)

Yet another chapter has been opened in the young adult novel-turned-teen movie genre with “The 5th Wave,” a familiar feeling alien invasion thriller that’s only saved by an interesting beginning and a good cast.

Chloe Grace Moretz stars as Cassie, a high school teen whose life changes dramatically in a day when a monolithic alien ship suddenly appears over her hometown in Ohio. After hanging silent over the city for 10 days, all hell breaks loose when the ship attacks the planet with an earth-shattering electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack, which all but destroys the power grid. Dubbed the “first wave” of attacks, the situation only gets worse, as the second wave brings earthquakes and tsunamis that wipes out the coasts, and the third wave brings a lethal, mutated version of the bird flu, which decimates the population.

Those immune to the flu survive to experience the fourth wave, where the unseen aliens – dubbed “The Others” — begin to take over the bodies of some humans and use them as hosts. Worse yet, the surviving children and their parents are separated in the chaos, leaving the kids in fear of The Others and in some cases, each other, since it’s believed the fifth wave of attacks will be the one that ends it all.

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The foundation of “The 5th Wave” is interesting when you consider that the first three attacks, in particular, are based on plausible events feared by today’s populous. There’s no question the shutdown of the power grid would cripple the nation, if not the world, and result in chaos. In addition, we’ve all seen how deadly earthquakes and tsunamis can be, and a global pandemic (think Ebola virus) is a fear that no one wants to even think about.

“The 5th Wave” begins to stumble with the fourth wave, however, when The Others, who managed to wipe out a good portion of the world’s population with relative ease from their mothership, seem to take on the trait of human stupidity when it comes to inhabiting earthlings’ bodies. They were certainly prepared in their efforts to take over Earth, yet clearly didn’t think out the endgame.

Hoping somehow to replicate the success of such YA movie hits as “The Hunger Games” and “Divergent” series, “The 5th Wave,” like its predecessors, clearly borrows from other well-established source material. In this case, the movie was clearly influenced by such sci-fi hits as “District 9,” “Independence Day,” “Deep Impact” and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” with a little bit of “Alien” thrown in for good measure.

Fortunately, like “The Hunger Games” and “Divergent” sagas, “The 5th Wave” benefits by having a great lead with Moretz, a burgeoning teen actress who burst onto the scene with a controversial turn as the foul-mouth pre-teen superhero Hit Girl in the dizzying action-adventure “Kick-Ass.” She maintains a steady presence in “The 5th Wave,” and she has a stable of veteran co-stars including Liev Schreiber, Ron Livingston and Maria Bello to balance out the cast. The film mainly, though, focuses on Moretz and her younger co-stars, including impressive turns by Nick Robinson (“Jurassic World) and Maika Monroe (“It Follows”) as two of Cassie’s allies in the fight against The Others.

The survival of the series clearly will depend on the film’s performance at the box office, which will be interesting to see play out, since there wasn’t the usual amount of YA fanfare surrounding this film going in. If it does succeed, an open ending clearly will see “The 5th Wave” expand into something bigger – and hopefully better. As it stands now, this wave isn’t that big of a catch.

“Anomalisa” (R) 2 1/2 stars (out of 4)

Oscar-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Being John Malkovich”) brings his unique vision to the stop-motion animation realm with “Anomalisa,” a groundbreaking yet bizarre drama about Michael Stone, a famous author suffering a midlife crisis. The groundbreaking aspect is that it’s an R-rated use of a medium usually reserved for family films, and the bizarre part is that it’s, well, driven by an off-the-wall Kaufman narrative. Duke Johnson (“Moral Orel”) co-directs, while David Thewlis stars as the voice of Stone and Jennifer Jason Leigh voices the title character, a young woman who has a strange effect on him.

Film, Interviews

Interview: Screen legend Diane Ladd talks ‘Joy’

January 16, 2016 Tim Lammers Leave a comment

By Tim Lammers

Screen legend Diane Ladd does double-duty, in a sense, in director David O. Russell’s critically acclaimed dramedy “Joy,” both as the wise grandmother of the title character, Joy (Jennifer Lawrence), and as the film’s narrator. The amazing thing is, Ladd’s enlightened sense of storytelling — which establishes a larger-than-life presence of her character throughout the film — wasn’t originally in Russell’s plans.

Ladd, who was already done with filming “Joy,” said she actually got the call from Russell just as she was wrapping up her upcoming film, “Sophie and the Rising Sun.”

“David put the producers on the phone and they said they tested the picture,” Ladd said in a phone conversation this week. “They said, ‘Without question, everybody adores Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro and Bradley Cooper. But after testing the picture, we need more light in it, and you are everybody’s favorite character in the movie because you constantly give Joy hope. Because of that, we want you the narrate the whole picture.'”

Now playing in theaters nationwide, “Joy” is based on the true-life tale of Joy Mangano, a divorced mother of two who defied the odds in the early 1990s with her invention of the Miracle Mop, a product that helped the burgeoning inventor lay the foundation of what would become a business dynasty. “Joy” also stars Robert De Niro as Joy’s hard-edged dad, Rudy; Virginia Madsen as her sheltered mother and Rudy’s ex-wife, Terry; Bradley Cooper as QVC executive Neil Walker; Edgar Ramirez as Joy’s ex-husband and loyal advisor; and Isabella Rossellini as Rudy’s new wife and Joy’s principal investor, Trudy.

Ladd stars in the pivotal role of Mimi, Joy’s faithful grandmother.

The actress, who earned Oscar nominations for her work in “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” “Wild at Heart” and “Rambling Rose,” said narrating “Joy” was the hardest work she’s ever done because she had “already put the character aside” to work on her role in “Sophie and the Rising Sun.”

“I went off and created a whole new character, so when I came back, David was quite incredible in guiding me,” Ladd said. “He helped me lower my voice three octaves so I would sound older, and give off more wisdom and age. To prepare myself, I would do a bit of method acting, or more specifically, method narration. I would sit in meditation and put myself in a state of unconditional love so I would never judge (the people that wronged Joy).”

Ladd, 80, added that the image Russell gave her to narrate the film was Clarence from the Frank Capra Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

“It was almost if Mimi was an angel and not a human. Maybe her soul had come in ahead of time so she’d be there to help Joy and this family,” Ladd observed. “Maybe she was there to help because if Joy succeeded and fulfilled her destiny, she could put a minimum of 500 people to work, and the people she picked were Spanish and Latin people who needed jobs. Suppose she hadn’t been there to fulfill her destiny, like George Bailey did in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’? What would have happened to those people, and a lot more now? The spiral goes on and on.”

As far as her character’s physical presence in “Joy,” Ladd said she absolutely loved how Russell and co-writer Annie Mumolo created a strong Bond between a grandmother and her grandchild. As the mother of two-time Oscar nominee Laura Dern, Ladd knows the bond between generations very well.

“I told David right away that American Indians have a saying: ‘The soul of a grandchild’ lives in the heart of a grandmother,'” Ladd said. “As a mother, it took five friends of mine to help tell Laura what to do. But if my mother, Mary, said something to Laura, she was right there. They had such a connection.”

Now, Ladd says, she has the same sort of relationship with Dern’s daughter.

“Once Laura and her daughter had a fight and Laura went off, and I said, ‘Come on, Jaya,’ and I think she thought I was going to preach at her. But instead I took a blanket and we went outside, and we laid on the ground and looked up at the trees and the sky — and in a little while Jaya was telling me all of her feelings,” Ladd recalled.

Having lived those vital, real-life roles, Ladd said she’s developed a clear understanding of how the grandmother and grandchild dynamic works, and was more than happy to bring that knowledge to her work with Lawrence in “Joy.”

“I think grandmothers see clear because responsibility isn’t always on us,” Ladd said, laughing. “A grandparent can pull back and relax more, and have a little more detachment. The parent’s on the line, man. God’s got your backside pinned to the wall.”

Film, Interviews

Interview: Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson talk ‘Anomalisa’

January 16, 2016 Tim Lammers Leave a comment

By Tim Lammers

Oscar-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman has daringly explored the corners of his unique brain with such inventive cinematic gems as “Being John Malkovich,” “Adaptation” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” so it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that the filmmaker finds a unique way to tell his unique tale about an author’s complex mind with his latest tale.

Teaming with stop-motion animation great Duke Johnson (“Moral Orel”), Kaufman has assembled, without question, one of the most unique films of the year with “Anomalisa,” which nabbed a Best Animation Feature Oscar nomination Thursday. Kaufman and Johnson co-wrote the screenplay and co-directed the film, which is based on Kaufman’s stage play of the same name.

In a phone conversation with the duo earlier this week, Kaufman said filming the movie in stop-motion animation — where puppet characters’ motions are literally filmed one frame at a time — didn’t even occur to him after the stage production wrapped up more than a decade ago.

“I had no intention of doing anything with it,” Kaufman said. “It was long over, but then (producer) Dino Stamatopoulos and Duke asked me if they could make it into a stop-motion movie. At the time, it wasn’t important for me to do it in stop-motion, it was important for me to get it made.”

Before too long, however, Kaufman said using the under-appreciated art form was the way to go.

“As Duke and I started to think about it, it became clearer to both of us that doing it in stop-motion was the right form for it,” Kaufman said. “It creates a dreamlike sort of element in the look of the film, and there’s vulnerability with the puppets because there’s a sense they’re being controlled by outside forces. We made sure to leave in all the fingerprints of the animators to indicate they were being controlled by outside forces. The combination of those things created the tone of the movie that we were hoping for.”

Now playing in select theaters across the country, “Anomalisa” stars the voice of David Thewlis as Michael Stone, a best-selling author and customer service guru, who ironically suffers from social ineptitude. While on a business trip to speak at a seminar in Cincinnati, Michael — feeling trapped by marriage and fatherhood — becomes enchanted by Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a woman inspired by the author’s work who came to see him speak. And while Michael completely falls in love with the modest woman, whom he dubs “Anomalisa,” it doesn’t take long before his misery creeps back into his psyche.

“Anomalisa” started as a grassroots effort for Johnson, who launched a Kickstarter campaign to set the project in motion. After all, stop-motion feature films are very rarely produced by major Hollywood studio — only about one or two features in the medium are produced a year, and generally those are done by independent production houses – so the co-director was happy for any help the film could get.

In all, the crowdfunding effort raised about $400,000, Johnson said.

“Kickstarter was invaluable in that I don’t think the movie would have gotten off the ground,” said Johnson. “That got the attention of (producer) Keith Calder, who funded the lion’s share of the movie. It wasn’t fully a Kickstarter project, but it was instrumental in the movie happening.”

As an independent production, Kaufman and Johnson had the benefit of exercising some creative freedom with “Anomalisa,” which is groundbreaking in many respects including the film’s mature, R-rated content. Without question, there are many adult scenarios — including a sex scene — that audiences have never seen in a stop-motion feature film.

“When we set out to make this film, we tried to forge our own path with regard to the aesthetic and the approach to the animation,” Johnson said. “We looked at a lot of live-action references and tried to make the film more cinematic.”

While the characters in “Anomalisa” are puppets, it would seem with the success of the film would lend itself to some potential action figures. But can we expect any collectibles of Michael and Lisa to venture into the “Star Wars” action figure universe anytime soon?

“I think that would be fun,” Johnson said with a laugh. “But I find it extremely hard to believe that anybody would do that.”

Film, Movie Reviews

Reviews: ’13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi,’ ‘Intruders’

January 15, 2016 Tim Lammers Leave a comment

By Tim Lammers

“13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” 3 stars (out of four)

Director Michael Bay recreates in startling detail the dark events of Sept. 11, 2012, in “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” – a riveting portrayal of the coordinated terrorist attacks by Islamic militants on an American Embassy compound and secret CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead.

Based on accounts of a handful of real-life CIA security contractors (made up of former Army Special Forces personnel and Navy SEALs) who where there, “13 Hours” is no doubt a huge departure for Bay, a director has spent the bulk of the last decade making “Transformers” movies (which are becoming dumber with each outing). And while “13 Hours” approaches the same level of chaos and number of explosions as the “robots in disguise” movies, at least these explosions and chaos serve a purpose.

Clocking in at 2 hours and 24 minutes, “13 Hours” doesn’t feel nearly as long as other 2 hour-plus movies of late, mainly because the intensity makes the time fly right by. Since Bay isn’t deterred by the blood and carnage resulting from the attacks, “13 Hours” is very tough film to watch, especially because, like “American Sniper,” we know the tragic outcome going in. At the same time, the film serves as fitting tribute to the sacrifices and heroism of the real-life ex-military personnel who fended off the attacks in Benghazi, as well as Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who was the main target of the attack.

Even though the film tries to steer clear of partisan politics, “13 Hours” is bound to be dissected and inspire arguments between party loyalists on the left and right, since it never once mentions then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, President Barack Obama (at least by name, there is one reference to POTUS) or for that matter, any other politicians on the hot seat in the wake of the attacks. Bay and company are not afraid, however, to point out the woeful lack of security and desperate calls for military help from the Americans in peril in Benghazi, which is far more powerful than any political finger-pointing. While “13 Hours” is not a perfect film, it’s a compelling one nonetheless.

In brief:

“Intruders” (R) 3 1/2 stars (out of four)

Minnesota filmmakers Adam Schindler and Brian Netto follow-up their shocking horror film debut “Delivery” with an impressive results in “Intruders,” a twisty home invasion thriller about an agoraphobic woman, Anna (Beth Riesgraf), trapped by her own fears when burglars strike her creaky family abode. Unable to flee even though she has ample opportunities, Anna, who suffers from another psychosis, turns the table on the criminals as her home turns into a virtual maze with no apparent way out. Available on VOD Friday.

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Monthly Archives: January 2016

Movie reviews: ‘The Fifth Wave,’ ‘Anomalisa’

Interview: Screen legend Diane Ladd talks ‘Joy’

Interview: Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson talk ‘Anomalisa’

Reviews: ’13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi,’ ‘Intruders’

Original Interviews, Reviews & More By Tim Lammers