Ed's Review Dot Com

Universal 1440 Entertainment,

Danielle Bisutti, Jennifer Tilly, Brad Dourif, Fiona Dourif, A Martinez, Maitland McConnell, Brennan Elliott

Nica (Fiona Dourif) has been in a wheelchair her whole life, but she has to rally the family together after her mother dies. But she has received a weird package containing a doll, Chucky (Brad Dourif) who is back for more mayhem and murder. Chucky is back, containing the soul of serial killer Charles Ray, in this continuation of the Child’s Play franchise.

This film goes back to the way Chucky used to be. The Child’s Play series suffered from the same malady that the James Bond franchise did. In the original Bond films, Sean Connery as Bond has some spy gadgets that were pretty cool, but what he did was pretty much escape using his brains and outwit the bad guys with his cunning cleverness. Roger Moore came in and James Bond became dependent on extremely high tech and unlikely gadgets, but turned into a smug one-liner chucking comedian, and was more of a smart ass than a clever gent. It took a while for Bond to come back as the clever distinguished gentleman that we loved, and not so much of a wise guy. Chucky suffered from the same thing. As the movies went along, they got sillier and sillier, and it went way more for comedy and much less for horror. If you go back to the original Child’s Play, Chucky was horrifying. He became more of a clown. It was as if the Scream series had morphed into Scary Movie. Well, this one is much slower, with much less comedy. No doubt about it that Chucky is still a wise ass, but he’s not going for comedy this time, and though it’s a lot slower developing, that helps to build the suspense, and when Chucky gets going, he’s his old self again. This was a good film that needed to get back to roots of what Child’s Play was about before it went to slapstick comedy. I think they accomplished that.

Now there are gangs of Chucky fans who have been with it through the whole long series. I have seen every one. But this was refreshing to go back so much closer to the original. They tied up a few loose ends here too, tying it back to the original. Mrs Chucky is even here too, in a cameo appearance. Suspenseful and dark without getting too deep and losing the fact that this is a doll after all, Curse of Chuck was what was needed for us to get back to our roots and remember why this doll gave us nightmares in the first place!

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Walt Disney Pictures, Ruby Films, Essential Media & Entertainment,

Tom Hanks, Emma Thompson, Colin Farrell, Paul Giamatti, Jason Schwartzman, B.J. Novak, Bradley Whitford, Ruth Wilson, Annie Buckley, Melanie Paxson, Rachel Griffiths, Kathy Baker

In the 60’s British author P.L. Travers (Emma Watson) found herself low on cash. Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) had promised his daughters that someday he would bring Mary Poppins, their favorite book, to the big screen. But Mrs. Travers was not about to let Mary Poppins out of her clutch as it was much to close to her own life to let it go. She insisted on absolute last say over the entire process. So Mrs. Travers arrives in Burbank to drive the story writers, music writers, and Mr. Disney himself nearly crazy trying to meet her demands. This biographical picture covers the bumps and bruises of trying to get arguably Walt’s most successful movie ever, to the screen.

Emma Thompson is marvelous as the formidable little lady Travers, and Tom Hanks does an amazing job as Walt Disney, but there is lots more going on to make this one of the greatest films I have ever seen. Granted, I was familiar with the struggles Walt went through to try to get Mary Poppins off the ground. One of the things Walt really wanted to do was to bring the world of cartoons and live action back together in the scene where Mary and Bert and the Banks Children enter the chalk drawings to a world of fancy with dancing penguins and all. Walt wasn’t really sure that Mary Poppins would ever be made, as Mrs. Travers constantly threatened not to sign the release. But a little known fact is that Walt hedged his bet with another really great film that was to be the Mary Poppins should Mary not get out of the book. He hired Angela Lansbury and David Tomlinson (who also played Mr. Banks) to make probably one of the least known, but also really good Disney film “Bedknobs and Broomsticks”. This film featured a sequence (like the chalk drawings excursion in Poppins) under the ocean to visit the Island of Naboombu. Had Mary Poppins failed to get launched, Walt no doubt would have thrown all his backing behind this film, and it probably would have been a great film. As it turned out Mary Poppins was the big hit, and this film was left pretty much neglected. The same people who made Mary Poppins also made this film, including the Sherman Brothers (played by Jason Schwartzman and B.J. Novak) in Saving Mr. Banks. Paul Giamatti also has a charming role in this film

Basically this is two stories in one. The major story of Walt’s efforts and Pam Travers resistance to letting Mary Poppins turn into the marvelous movie that it is. The hard work and determination that everyone put into the development of this project is vividly portrayed here. But the alternate storyline is the heartbreaking story of Mrs. Travers life as a small child in Australia and the things that led her to put the stories on paper in the first place. Mary Poppins was indeed a huge part of her life. Prior to watching the movie, the title “Saving Mr. Banks” sounded trivial to me, but after hearing her story, it became crystal clear why this is certainly a brilliant title and the crux of the entire story. This is an excellent film, one of the best stories I’ve seen in many years, and the fact that both Tom Hanks and the movie were snubbed by the Academy this year is dreadful. This could easily have been best film. I urge everyone to get a chance to see this fabulous story. Bring tissues, as it’s very sad in some parts, but well worth watching.

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Kaminski.Stiehm.Film GmbH, Bavaria Pictures, Senator Film,

Michael Caine, Clémence Poésy , Justin Kirk, Jane Alexander, Gillian Anderson, Anne Alvaro

Matthew Morgan (Michael Caine) is living alone in Paris, a retired teacher who just buried his wife who died from a long illness. He’s estranged from his son and daughter, and not doing very well. When he bumps into a young dance teacher, they form a connection. Helping each other, they are able to find meaning again in each others lives. But when the kids return to Paris they are appalled at their father’s new “girlfriend”.

This is a very bittersweet story of love and loss. Everyone jumps to conclusions about the motives of the others, and they’re completely wrong. This is a Lifetime style movie, not very fast paced, and a good character study of the four primary people in this film and what their underlying motives are. The thing that elevates this film far above that level is the skills of Michael Caine. This raises this to an absolutely special film that is very interesting to see. This reminds me a lot of On Golden Pond, but also of films like Dead Poet’s Society and Good Will Hunting. Those too were special films because of the actors in them. This is a really touching film, and one I am really glad I got to see. It may not be on the top of the list as greatest picture of the year, but it is one of those minor films that probably missed your eye. I felt like it was very worthwhile to check this one out, and I recommend it to any film lover that can handle a good character driven drama like this. One note on this. It is set in Paris, and the natives speak French. This is realistically done in the movie, so even though Michael Caine’s character is trying to learn English, and the teacher and the kids speak English, there is a lot of subtitled parts where they are speaking French. It’s not that much, and most of the film is in English. Some of the best humor comes from Matthew’s efforts to speak French (very badly), so unless you really hate subtitles, this should not reduce your enjoyment of the film a bit.

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Darko Entertainment, Principato-Young Entertainment,

Rob Corddry, Leslie Bibb, Keegan Michael Key, Riki Lindhome, Rob Huebel, Paul Scheer, Robert Ben Garant, Thomas Lennon

A couple, Jack (Rob Corddry) and Vanessa (Leslie Bibb) move into their new home. Vanessa is very pregnant, and they bought the house at a good price, but that could be because it’s reputed to be the most haunted house in all of New Orleans. The house comes with it’s own demonic curse, and soon Vanessa learns she has twins, but one is a kind and gentle child, and the other is the devil’s child. The family has to call on the elite Vatican exorcism team for all the help they can get.

There have been some great horror and suspense movie satires. I usually really enjoy spoof movies. After all my sense of humor bends hard toward sarcasm, and satire is my cup of tea! I like the Airplane movies. Monty Python and the Holy Grail is probably my favorite film. I sat through the Charlie Sheen parodies, and everything Leslie Nielsen ever made. Police Squad is a personal favorite. But this one was just plain stupid. There wasn’t anything funny about this film. Well, that’s not fair, as there were a few times when I laughed, but there’s a fine line between genius and just plain stupid. It’s like how some SNL skits become classics that endure for generations, and some other ones just make you say, “What were you thinking?”. I don’t know who approved this one, but it’s not very good. The whole thing is mostly silly, and it’s a decent idea that just was executed very badly. If you can imagine about 90 minutes of the killer rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail in his own feature film, that’s about as grabbing as this movie was. It reminds me a little of the old, old Soupy Sales show that instead of being clever and funny, was just plain tedious because he tried way too hard. (Not a Soupy Sales fan. I know you’re out there). I just didn’t think this movie was worth the effort, and I really found myself getting annoyed more and more by this. I felt the story was dumb, the acting was awful, the humor was over the top and not funny, and it wasn’t remotely scary, although they didn’t really try for that. They were too busy slap sticking it up to really have any meat n the story. I recommend you skip this one!

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Bugeater Films, Votiv Films, Skyscraper Films,

Julia Stiles, Taye Diggs, Melissa George, David Harbour

Four friends, (two couples) meet over two different nights a few years apart. One couple from New York is newly married and are visiting the other couple in their huge home in the Midwest. The rich couple is in a bad way and are at each other’s throats. Later the other couple comes to New York to visit their friends, only to find they are having many issues in their own marriage as well and the tables have turned. The movie is a character study of these four friends and their individual problems and weaknesses.

This is one of those “artsy” films that is basically these four friends talking, fighting, cursing, and just plain acting like the petty self serving jerks they are. Some people will like this kind of movie because it is all eavesdropping on the lives of these friends who have no problem saying anything that pops in their head. There’s no real plot or purpose to the movie, other than to prove they’re all spoiled brats. It’s not my kind of movie. I like some sort of purpose to a film, and watching grown people act like children is not a major pleasure of mine. I didn’t like any of these people, and couldn’t pick either side. They deserve each other, and I am not really sure why they bothered to even make this film. It is marketed as a comedy, but I was simply not amused at any of it. I just found it quite annoying.

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