The Big Year

Film Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Road Comedy Recounts 1998 Bird-Watching Contest

Brad Harris (Jack Black) is an unemployed slacker who moved back in with his parents (Brian Dennehy and Dianne Wiest) after getting a divorce and dropping out of graduate school. Kenny Bostick (Owen Wilson) is a roofer whose hard-to-impregnate spouse (Rosamund Pike) is impatient to have a baby. And Stu Preissler (Steve Martin) is a recently-retired CEO whose business partners have been begging him to come back to the company.
These strangers’ paths probably would never have crossed paths had they not shared an obsession with bird watching. But in 1998, all three opted to enter an annual tournament in which participants compete to spot the most species all over North America over the course of a calendar year.
Loosely-based on Mark Obmascik’s best-seller of the same name, The Big Year is a buddy comedy which recounts their spirited contest for the coveted crown while simultaneously highlighting the toll the time-consuming endeavor took on each of the protagonist’s personal lives. After all, such an undertaking involves being away from home for long stretches at a time.
Directed by Oscar-winner David Frankel (for Dear Diary), The Big Year is just funny enough to warrant this critic’s stamp of approval, even if the awkward puns, silly sight gags and pithy dialogue seem a tad forced for a cast stocked with so many seasoned comics. The production suffers from the choice of the over-the-top Jack Black as its omniscient narrator, when either Steve Martin or Owen Wilson’s relatively-droll delivery would’ve been far better suited to the story’s subtle brand of humor.
Another slight flaw is the script’s lack of tension surrounding the outcome of the contest which is not only run on the honor system but allows the entrants to keep their mounting bird counts confidential. Consequently, the character-driven adventure has the audience caring less about the winner than whether these peripatetic, decadent divas will exhibit a sense of family responsibility and return from the road when duty calls, whether it’s Brad’s father suffering a heart attack, Stu becoming a grandfather for the first time, or Kenny’s ovulating wife calling from a fertility clinic.
Still, when at its best, The Big Year devotes itself to the visually-captivating treat of displaying dozens of rare, winged creatures, ranging from the Black-footed Albatross to the Great Spotted Woodpecker to the Pink-footed Goose, either in flight or right in their natural habitats. An ornithological delight designed with the bird fancier in mind!

Very Good (2.5 stars)
Rated PG for profanity and some sensuality.
Running time: 100 Minutes
Studio: 20th Century Fox

Top Ten DVD List for October 18th

This Week’s DVD Releases
by Kam Williams

Headline: Top Ten DVD List for October 18th

Little House on the Prairie – The Complete Nine Season Set


Nora’s Will


Prince of Broadway


Aftershock


Without Motive


It Takes a Thief – The Complete Series


Boys of Summer


Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides


Fire in Babylon


Celtic Angels at Christmas


Honorable Mention

Baaria


Freerunner


Turkey Bowl


The Howling Reborn


Michael Baisden: Do Women Know What They want?

Fire in Babylon DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Cricket DVD Recounts Rise of West Indian Team in the Seventies

Superficially, cricket looks a lot like baseball, except the players use a flat bat, hit the ball on a bounce and don’t bother to run around the bases. But you won’t need to understand all the fine points of the sport’s rules to enjoy Fire in Babylon, a documentary detailing the exploits of the athletes who represented the Caribbean against a host of former colonizing countries during their glory days of the Seventies and Eighties.
What makes the politically-tinged documentary so compelling is the fact that the West Indian team had to endure racist taunts while on tour whether in England, Australia or elsewhere around the British Commonwealth. But again and again they prevailed, despite the fact that white fans were not prepared to sit idly by as the descendants of their ex-subjects beat hometown heroes at their own game.
Plus, the West Indians apparently irritated opposing audiences by adopting an aggressive approach to what had previously been thought of as a more genteel contest. Nonetheless, they enjoyed a 15-year run as undefeated world champions.
To the extent that the picture has a plot, its tension thickens when the team was invited to participate in a tournament in South Africa. This transpired during the reign of the Apartheid regime, so they had to decide whether to enter the country in defiance of international sanctions in return for a big payday.
We learn that those black players who did defy the boycott were later called traitors, mercenaries and sellouts not only by their fellow West Indians but by their political leaders like Jamaica’s Prime Minister Michael Manley. No longer welcome in their own homelands, some of the shunned sought asylum from South Africa’s allies like the U.S., only to end up living out their days in obscurity, often broke and drug-addicted.
An invaluable lesson that there can be social consequences attached to playing a sport without a conscience even if you’re the best around at throwing, whacking or catching a ball. Just ask Muhammad Ali.

Very Good (3 stars)
Unrated.
Running time: 84 minutes
Distributor: Tribeca Film
DVD Extras: Interview with the director and a producer.

Prince of Broadway DVD

Headline: DVD Highlights Adventures of African Street Hustler with Baby-Mama Drama

Lucky (Prince Adu) and his boss, Levon (Karren Karagulian), are a couple of immigrants, the former from Ghana, the latter from Lebanon. Together, they run a shady operation selling counterfeit merchandise out of the backroom of a shop in midtown Manhattan. Lucky works the sidewalk, pressuring passersby to enter the store by whispering promises of discount-priced knockoffs of products like sneakers and designer bags.
But what their potential customers don’t know is that once they enter the legit-looking front, they’ll then be asked by Levon to pass through a back door and to scale a long flight of stairs just to check out the contraband Lucky has them salivating over. Needless to say, the daily grind of such a hand-to-mouth hustle is pretty exhausting, especially when you always have to keep one eye out for cops on the bunco squad patrolling for smooth-talking con men like them.
However, Lucky’s job becomes even more challenging when Linda (Kat Sanchez), an ex-girlfriend he hasn’t seen in a couple of years, shows up and hands him a toddler (Aiden Noesi) right on the street. After saying that he’s the father, she takes off in a car with her new boyfriend and disappears without ever bothering to mention the child’s name.
Lucky is at a loss as to what to do next because, as an illegal alien, he’s afraid to bring the kid to the police. Furthermore, he’s not sure he’s the father, and it soon becomes clear that caring for “Prince” is going to be a draining, time-consuming proposition. Plus, he’s going t have a lot of explaining to do to his main squeeze, Karina (Keyali Mayaga).
So unfolds Prince of Broadway, a harrowing baby-mama drama, “presented by” Lee Daniels. It’s hard to say exactly what the Oscar-nominated director’s contribution to the project might be, since his name doesn’t otherwise appear in the credits. But this relentlessly-grim tale of survival does resemble Precious more than any other picture in recent memory.
The screen is littered with trashy characters who look like they should be settling their differences on The Jerry Springer Show. In addition, the tension is wound around a question of paternity to be resolved by the dramatic announcement of DNA test results.
The movie marks the noteworthy directorial debut of one Sean Baker, who credits his flick’s super-realistic feel to encouraging his cast to improvise their dialogue. New York City as a disturbing dystopia where it’s hard out there not just for a pimp, but for an African scam artist, too!

Excellent (4 stars)
Unrated
Running time: 100 Minutes
Distributor: Elephant Eye Films
DVD Extras: Behind-the-scenes featurette, audio commentaries with the director, a producer and cast members Karren Karagulian and Victoria Tate.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Franchise’s Fourth DVD Features Captain Jack’s Search for the Fabled Fountain of Youth

Pirates of the Caribbean has proven to be an enduring, review-proof franchise, thanks to the derring-do and roguish charm of Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and the way in which his swashbuckling adventures manage to capture the imagination of ‘tweeners. On Stranger Tides, the fourth installment in the popular series, does not disappoint in this regard, as it again immerses the peripatetic protagonist in the sort of special effects-driven, seafaring saga the kids in that target demographic relish.
This episode opens in a London courtroom, where we find Jack hatching an elaborate plan to save his loyal First Mate, Gibbs (Kevin McNally), from the hangman’s noose. After a daring jailbreak, however, the pair are apprehended and dragged before King George II (Richard Griffiths) who spares their lives on the condition that they participate in an expedition to find the fabled Fountain of Youth for England before explorer Ponce de Leon can do so for Spain.
The hitch is that since Jack’s ship, the Black Pearl, was lost at sea, he will have to set sail on the HMS Providence, a privateer frigate under the command of his archenemy, Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush). Rather than suffer such an indignity, Jack mounts another escape, only to end up in league with the legendary Blackbeard (Ian McShane) aboard Queen Anne’s Revenge after falling under the spell of the ruthless outlaw’s daughter, Angelica (Penelope Cruz).
At this juncture, On Stranger Tides morphs into a cutthroat competition pitting Barbossa and Blackbeard’s vessels against each other in a race for the aforementioned Fountain of Youth. En route, the participants must deal with a host of ordeals ranging from seductive mermaids to magical chalices, distractions rather reminiscent of the tests of Ulysses in Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey.
Of course, jaunty Jack prevails in the end, just be sure to watch the closing credits for a hint about what to expect from the next sequel.

Very Good (3 stars)
Rated PG-13 for violence and intense action-adventure sequences.
Running time: 136 Minutes
Distributor: Walt Disney Home Entertainment
2-Disc Blu-ray Combo Pack Extras: DVD feature, bloopers, Lego animated shorts, audio commentary by the director and a producer, and “Disney Second Screen” featurette.

America the Beautiful 2: The Thin Commandments

Film Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Darryl Roberts Stars in Sequel Again Exploring Body Image

Are you overweight? There’s a very good chance that the National Institute of Health (NIH) might consider you obese. That’s because in 1998 it lowered the threshold from 28 to 25 on the Body-Mass Index (BMI) index.
In America the Beautiful 2: The Thin Commandments, director Darryl Roberts suggests that the NIH’s redefinition could be the result of lobbying from pharmaceuticals and the $50 billion dieting industry. After all, there’s a lot of money to be made if millions of healthy Americans are made to think that their weight was unhealthy.
This is the case that he makes while crisscrossing the country in search of some answers. Along the way, Darryl surrenders his body to the cause, allowing doctors to monitor his vital signs intermittently while he tries to reverse his high blood pressure and atrial fibrillation via a combination of exercise and a variety of popular fad diets.
By the end of the film, he does manage to shed enough pounds to arrive at normal readings, all without adopting the daily regimen of prescription pills his physician had been pressuring him to follow. Interestingly, Darryl achieved his goal of health but not the sort of sculpted figure you see in the typical “After” picture in weight-loss ads, which leads to the logical conclusion that dieting campaigns aimed at impressionable young minds probably have precious little to do with sensible nutrition.
A priceless reminder about the value of being able to accept yourself just the way you are without succumbing to the societal pressure to measure up to an unattainable, ideal body-type.

Very Good (3 stars)
Unrated
Running time: 100 minutes
Distributor: Harley Boy Entertainment / PMK*BNC

Kam's Kapsules: For movies opening October 21, 2011

OPENING THIS WEEK
Kam's Kapsules:
Weekly Previews That Make Choosing a Film Fun
by Kam Williams
For movies opening October 21, 2011


BIG BUDGET FILMS

Johnny English Reborn (PG for mild violence, rude humor, brief sensuality and brief profanity) Rowan Atkinson reprises the title role in this James Bond parody in which the bumbling, British spy attempts to redeem himself by foiling an assassination attempt on a head of state by a team of bloodthirsty assassins. With Gillian Anderson, Rosamund Pike, Dominic West and Ben Miller. (In English, Mandarin and Chinese with subtitles)

Paranormal Activity 3 (R for violence, profanity, drug use and brief sexuality) Prequel to the haunted house franchise finds a couple of siblings (Katie Featherstone and Sprague Grayden) befriending an invisible entity which enters their home only to end up tormented by the uninvited guest. With Brian Boland, Lauren Bittner and Christopher Nicholas Smith.

The Three Musketeers (PG-13 for action and violence) 3-D screen adaptation of Alexandre Dumas‘ swashbuckling classic features the trio of legendary swordsmen (Matthew Macfadyen, Ray Stevenson and Luke Evans) teaming with D’Artagnan (Logan Lerman) to prevent the diabolical Cardinal Richelieu (Cristoph Waltz) from seizing the French throne with the help of an attractive double agent (Milla Jovovich). Supporting cast includes Helen George, Christian Oliver, Til Schweiger and Orlando Bloom as the Duke of Buckingham.


INDEPENDENT & FOREIGN FILMS

Being Elmo (Unrated) Puppeteer profile of Kevin Clash, a black man from Baltimore who made it out of the ‘hood to enjoy an enduring career as the voice of one of the most beloved Sesame Street characters. Featuring appearances by Whoopi Goldberg, Rosie O’Donnell and Frank Oz.

Cargo (Unrated) Sex trafficking drama about an Egyptian smuggler (Sayed Badreya) who develops feelings for a young Russian woman (Natasha Rinis) while driving her from Mexico to New York City. Cast includes Phillip Willingham, Raul I. Torres and Seth Ruffer.

Elevate (Unrated) Hoop dreams documentary chronicling the effort to make it to the NBA made by a quartet of unusually tall teens who migrated from Senegal to the U.S. to play for prep schools.

Glitch in the Grid (Unrated) Character-driven drama about three artists’ (Jay Masonek, Eric Leisner and Jeffrey Leisner) quest for spiritual fulfillment while struggling to survive in Los Angeles during an economic recession. With Travis Bellman, Max Daily and Homer Darnall.

Le Havre (Unrated) Unlikely-buddy drama about an elderly bohemian (Andre Wilms) who decides to help an illegal African immigrant (Blondin Miguel) hide from the gendarmes. With Kati Outinen, Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Elina Salo.
(In French with subtitles)

Margin Call (R for profanity) Financial crisis thriller revolving around the panic at a leading, Wall Street investment firm over the course of a pivotal 24-hour period during the 2008 economic collapse. Ensemble includes Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Stanley Tucci, Simon Baker, Demi Moore and Jeremy Irons.

Martha Marcy May Marlene (R for nudity, profanity, sexuality and disturbing violence) Psychological thriller about an escapee (Elizabeth Olsen) from an abusive religious cult who starts suffering from paranoid delusions that she’s being stalked by the sect’s charismatic leader (John Hawkes) after taking refuge at the home of her sister (Sarah Paulson) and brother-in-law (Hugh Dancy). With Christopher Abbott, Brady Corbet and Maria Dizzia.

The Mighty Macs (Unrated) Touching tale of female empowerment recounting the real-life exploits of tiny Immaculata College’s basketball team which in 1971 made a miraculous bid for the women’s national championship. Cast includes Carla Gugino, Ellen Burstyn, David Boreanaz and Marley Shelton.

Oranges and Sunshine (R for profanity) British biopic about Margaret Humphreys (Emily Watson), a social worker from Nottingham who in 1987 singlehandedly uncovered a scandalous government program which had secretly relocated over 150,000 poor children from England to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Zimbabwe and elsewhere around the Commonwealth without parents’ knowledge or consent. Cast includes Hugo Weaving, David Wenham and Tara Morice.

Paul Goodman Changed My Life (Unrated) Reverential biopic about the pacifist visionary, gay philosopher and best-selling author whose countercultural indictment of the establishment, “Growing Up Absurd,” made him a darling of the leftist anarchists back in the Sixties.

Retreat (R for violence and pervasive profanity) Apocalyptic thriller about a couple (Cillian Murphy and Thandie Newton) who leave London for an unpopulated island to recover from the loss of a baby only to have a mysterious stranger (Jamie Bell) wash up on shore with news of an airborne virus that’s suddenly sweeping across Europe.

The Reunion (PG-13 for violence, sexuality and profanity) Dysfunctional family drama about a young woman (Amy Smart) who tries to fulfill her father’s dying wish by bringing her three feuding brothers (John Cena, Ethan Embry and Boyd Holbrook) back together. With Michael Rispoli, Lela Loren and Greg Henry.

Revenge of the Electric Car (Unrated) Chris Paine directs this sequel to Who Killed the Electric Car? highlighting the resurgence in popularity of zero-emission vehicles courtesy of both traditional auto companies such as Nissan and GM as well as industry pioneers like Tesla. With appearances by Danny DeVito, Tim Robbins, Jon Favreau and Stephen Colbert.

The Swell Season (Unrated) Behind-the-scenes documentary, shot in black & white, shedding light on the strains placed by fame on the real-life relationship of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, the co-stars of the film Once, whose collaboration culminated in the couple’s winning an Academy Award for the picture’s title song.