Ed's Review Dot Com

PCH Films,

Glen Campbell, Bruce Springsteen, The Edge, Chad Smith, Bill Clinton

Glen Campbell, an accomplished musician, song writer, and performer and part of the famous “Wrecking Crew” [click here for Ed’s Review] was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in 2011. Unlike any other celebrity, Glen’s wife Kim decided to make the diagnosis public. In addition, the decided to do a simple three week goodbye tour, as Glen loved doing the live shows, and surprisingly it helped him when he was performing. This turned into a huge 151 event coast to coast tour that kept going and going and going. But in addition to the tour, she also decided to document his sad journey through this film which goes right up to the point where Glen recorded a huge hit farewell song, “I’m Not Going to Miss You”. [Click here for the video on YouTube.] Additionally though, this film documents Glen’s amazing career, through Country and cross over pop music writing hit after hit, and winning many awards and lifetime achievement awards. This is the definitive documentary of a wonderful life that Glen has forgotten, but we never will.

This is a very well done documentary. It’s rather controversial in some ways, and many people have criticized Kim’s decision to put Glen on display when his abilities were weakening, and making sort of a sad clown, but the fans flocked to get to see him once more, and were enthralled at the opportunity. Glen also loved it, and was by far the best when he could be on-stage, so what right did they have to take that away from him. Some question the choice to announce the diagnosis and cause the world to look at him. But this is a documentary, and is an unflinching look at the trials and tribulations of this horrid disease along with the great moments of peace and triumph. I am glad they did this while Glen is still with us, though after the last show it was clear there won’t be any more. But his connection to his fans is something to admire and cherish. This was originally shown on CNN, but is now available on DVD. This is an excellent story of a great man and a bad disease, and looks carefully at both. I highly recommend this movie, even though it’s a documentary, it was fascinating.

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Marcy Media, Olive Bridge Entertainment, Overbrook Entertainment,

Cameron Diaz, Rose Byrne, Jamie Foxx, Bobby Cannavale, Quvenzhané Wallis

This musical remake of Annie is a nod to the original movie musical, but modernized and brought into today. The story is a bit similar of a kid, Annie (Quvenzhane Wallis) who’s been from Foster Home to Foster Home who is cared for by a rich businessman, Will Stacks (Jamie Fox) who is trying to improve his image, while his accountant is planning to make a deal with Ms Hannigan (Cameron Diaz) to have fake parents claim Annie to rip off Mr. Stacks.

There are movies that should never have been made. This is one of them. There was absolutely no cause to destroy this story. They have completely changed the story, and changed a lot of the songs around so that they are not recognizable. Many are lost completely, and the whole charm of the original comic strip was lost. First of all, Annie was an orphan, and it’s not Little Foster Child Annie. Jamie Fox is a good actor, but he was completely wrong for this film. Ms. Hannigan was also badly damaged, being more of a nice lady who is in an unfortunate situation. Cameron’s not about to play a nasty old lady who hires her brother to pretend to be Annie’s father to get Stacks’ stack of cash for a reward. But the updating of the music and changing the songs, and blowing away most of the story to where it doesn’t resemble the original musical is unforgivable. It would be like taking The Sound of Music and updating it to Rio in 2015 and filling it with salsa music. This would have been a good idea were they to do this as a TV special, change and update the cast, but keep the story and the music the same. But when I found out they were going to update the story and the music and make this into a movie, I knew that even releasing it in December couldn’t save it. I was sure this would be a disaster, and I was right. This was one that I wish I had not watched and I recommend you run far away from this one!

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Big Indie Pictures, ShivHans Pictures,

Al Pacino, Annette Bening, Jennifer Garner, Bobby Cannavale, Christopher Plummer, Josh Peck

Danny Collins (Al Pacino) is a rock and roll legend of the 1970’s. He sang some garbage songs that become hugely popular, and here 40 years later, drugs and booze have taken their toll. Danny is still singing the same songs, and wasting as much money as he can. But things are getting rough, and Danny’s best friend and manager Frank Grubman (Christopher Plummer) has set him up with another world tour to bring in some much needed cash. But he has a surprise for him. Frank just got his hands on a letter that was written back in the 70’s from John Lennon himself after a televised Danny Collins concert with some really good advice and invited Danny to call John and discuss it. The letter had never been delivered. Danny was struck deeply by the letter and the advice John gave him and cancels the tour, heads to a hotel in New Jersey to stay long term to change his life around and make thing better. But there are a few other secrets that made Danny choose New Jersey as his estranged son and his family live nearby. With the help of hotel manager Mary Sinclair (Annette Bening) who Danny took a liking toward, he’s trying to change things around. This story is loosely based on a real person who received such a letter from John Lennon that had been undelivered for many years and is based upon his experiences trying to live up to the advice John really did give.

Al Pacino really nailed this role. I was not expecting him to be able to pull this off. Michael Corleone, yeah, or even Satan himself, but a 70’s rock star? Really? He gave it a great deal of effort and played it amazingly. He was extremely funny and quite believable, and really did carry this film. But he had some excellent help. Annette Bening was also very good in her role and it was very nicely done. Jennifer Garner also played the wife of Danny’s son and she had a wide eyed innocence in trying to deal with the whole issue that really added a lot to the film as well. And of course Christopher Plummer was also perfect in his role as the long suffering manager but more of a best friend who really wants to help. All in all, this is a fantastic cast, and I was really blown away with the film. I enjoyed it very much, and highly recommend this movie. I’m not sure how I missed hearing about this one, but this is a great DVD rental and a really enjoyable evening watching this. I was very impressed.

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Brownstone Productions, Gold Circle Films, Universal Pictures,

Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Brittany Snow, Anna Camp, Alexis Knapp, Hana Mae Lee, Hailee Steinfeld, Elizabeth Banks, Katey Sagal, Skylar Astin, Adam DeVine

The US Champion A Capella group the Barden Bella’s are back from their championship win in the original in this song filled comedy sequel. Excited to perform in Washington D.C. for the President, an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction happens that cause the Bella’s to be stripped of their title and disbanded. But they make a deal that they are still allowed to attend the world championship contest in Copenhagen, and if they win, they will be reinstated. Despite all the challenges that face them, they set out to beat the German team and bring home the victory.

This is a worthy follow-up to the original movie. The humor is spot on and the music is really good. These girls can harmonize. There are a lot of cameos in this movie that will be surprising and unexpected. The script is predictable, and the plot is just like the first one. But there are so many good performances, and the humor comes out of nowhere. Many of jokes I wasn’t able to hear because the audience was laughing so hard from the previous joke. Granted this is a serious girl power movie, but that’s ok. There is plenty of fun moments for everyone. I was really surprised. I waited a long time to see the original film because I expected it to be just awful, but when I saw it I was surprised. This one is certainly just as good, just as funny, and equal or better than the first one. Elizabeth Banks had a part in this film that was really funny, but she also directed it. Like the hecklers from The Muppet Show or the announcers from many great comedy sports films, these two are hysterical, basically due to the lack of any sort of filter on this pair. They say what they are thinking no matter how wrong! There is another subplot in this film about an artist and a music producer that is absolutely hysterical. I was surprised when I got to theater on a Tuesday evening and found nearly every seat filled. The crowd was tremendous and it looks like a lot of folks are going to agree with me that the humor was spot on. Not extremely vulgar, it keeps the PG-13 rating, but the jokes are to the point and pretty raunchy from time to time. This was a good sequel and if you’re a comedy fan, this is one you don’t want to miss.

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Lucamar Productions, Marc Platt Productions, Walt Disney Pictures,

Anna Kendrick, Johnny Depp, Chris Pine, Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, James Corden, Lilla Crawford

A Baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) live next door to a wicked witch (Meryl Streep) who informs them that their house is cursed because of something his father did years ago, and they can never have a child unless they retrieve four items from the woods before midnight on the third day. This happens to be a fantasy forest where all of the major fairy tale characters live, such as Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford), Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) and his mother (Tracy Ullman) and many more. The poor baker and his wife set out into the woods to meet up with all these other characters to try to locate the items in time while lots of perils and troubles plague everyone. This film is a musical based upon the Broadway musical by Stephen Sondheim of the same name.

I have been waiting for a long time for this film. I suspect it will get mixed reviews. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion of what art is, and one man’s pile of junk is another man’s brilliant sculpture. I went to the theater positive this would garner a 5 star review. I was sorely disappointed. The look of this film is tremendous. The sets and locations are stunning. The effects are dazzling, but the music did not impress me much. They tried to throw all the characters together, which is a lot to bite off, but they cut what they didn’t want, modified the stories to fit the plan, and then drew out parts that seemed like they would never end. Oh, and the music. I wasn’t sure if i heard different songs, or one long song that changed it up once in a while. I won’t remember any of the music tomorrow. It seems like they said a word or two, made a point or shared a value judgement, then everyone stopped to sing about the same thing over and over for quite some time. The songs did not drive the story forward, they seemed more like a timeout every few minutes. Some of the characters were good. Meryl Streep was amazing, of course, and this was a great role for her. If you can’t imagine her as a wicked witch, that’s the idea, cause she pulled it off. Chris Pine has a nice singing voice, and he’s actually a pretty decent guy, really, but this role had nothing for him to do. I have no idea what happened to him towards the end, as he just went insane and faded out of the picture????? In fact, when the story comes to a nice smooth ending, where Cinderella and the Prince get married and the baker and his wife have their baby, everything is swelling up to a fine fairy tale finish and credits, and then this film takes a bizarre turn into a land where no one ought to go. Bodies are piling up, everything turns really, really dark, and no one is unscathed. We plod on and on and on and on, with no end in sight, and it seems like the whole theater turned really restless. Things got pointless, as I said, extremely dark, and not much made sense after that.

This is a PG rated film, that is very violent and extremely dark for kids. You really need to use Parental Guidance on this one. But even more I would hate to unleash this long dragged out musical on the kids who would probably enjoy a 45 minute version of this without any of the music. I’m not sure where the new musical thing came in where there is really no dialog ,but everything is sung. Les Miserables was like that. I would have liked the story much better if they would have talked more and sung much less. Granted there are great songs in Les Mis, but all the singing in between the songs is what drove me nuts. This is even worse as they sing and sing and sing the same stuff over and over making the same points again and again, and it’s really chaotic. I am speaking heresy here, and the Sondheim fans are going to crucify me, but my reviews are my opinions, and I really felt cheated here. I had such high hopes.

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