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DISTURBIA / D.J. Caruso (2007)

April 8th, 2007 by Scott Marks

Sarah Roemer & Shia LaBeouf in DUSTIRBIA (2007)

Disturbia (2007)

Directed by: D.J. Caruso

Written by: Christopher B. Landon, Carl Ellsworth

Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Sarah Roemer, Carrie-Anne Moss, David Morse, Aaron Yoo, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Matt Craven, Viola Davis, Brandon Caruso, Luciano Rauso, Daniel Caruso, Kevin Quinn, Elyse Mirto, Suzanne Rico, Kent Shocknek

Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1

Running Time: 104 min.

Genres: Thriller

Shia LeBoeuf has been making the talk show circuit swearing up and down that Disturba is not a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. He must not have seen the trailer.

It all began so peacefully with Kale (LeBoeuf) and his dad bonding on an idyllic fishing trip. Make sure to notice the Coca-Cola cans. Not only is it great product placement, but when their car overturns on the ride home, it assures us that the cause of dad’s death was an accident, not a DUI.

Kale was behind the wheel. A year later he belts a teacher who asks what his father would think of Kale’s indolent behavior. The punch earns him three months house arrest complete with a Government Issue anklet.

Initially Kale whiles away the days watching TV and consuming mass quantities of peanut butter, Hershey’s syrup and Red Bull. Even though his mom Julie (Carrie-Anne Moss) insists that he keep the place tidy, the hardest work Kale does is stomping on the doody-filled plastic bag the pesky neighbor kids set ablaze on his porch.

While testing the limits of his leg bracelet Kale notices Ashley (Sarah Roemer, who’s more Kate Hudson than Grace Kelly), the pretty new next door neighbor whose bedroom he can peer into from his dead dad’s office. Kale’s scoptophilia doesn’t stop with sexy neighbors. He also has a hunch that Mr. Turner’s (David Morse) dented blue Mustang is the same one belonging to a serial killer being talked about on the evening news.

So far, so Hitchcock. Even though it was a flagrant rip-off, I was going along for the ride. The genius of Rear Window is that Jimmy Stewart is trapped in a wheelchair, this was decades before the Americans with Disabilities Act, and unable to leave his home. The entire film takes place inside his apartment and, with the exception of a couple of shots towards the end, exclusively from Stewart’s POV.

Imagine mother figure Thelma Ritter strolling across the courtyard for a hot date with wife-killer Lars Thorwald, yet that’s precisely what Julie does. David Morse is a superb screen psycho, but even he can’t successfully transform the Ray Burr figure into Halloween’s Michael Meyers.

Instead of trusting the characters, not to mention Hitchcock’s foolproof blueprint, the screenplay dead ends with a thing-that-wouldn’t-die formula. Kale’s friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo doing a damn fine Wendell Corey) sneaks a camcorder into Turner’s garage to get video evidence of a blue recycling bag filled with guts. Instead of sustaining suspense, D.J. Caruso delivers Blair Witch visuals and an ill-timed goof by comic relief Ronnie.

The most disturbing thing about the AMC Mission Valley screening that I attended was the sloppy presentation. For years I didn’t have to leave the auditorium in mid-screening to complain about projection. Now I seem to spend as much time in the lobby as I do the theater.

Every projectionist I ever had the pleasure of working with knew my two favorite booth mantras: “There are two kinds of focus: in and out” and “The projectionist has final cut.” AMC whined that the prints frequently arrive late for screenings and have to be assembled on the fly. It takes just as much time to do it wrong as it does right. Four sprocket holes on each side and you cut and splice in the middle. Once you learn it, you never forget.

The film jumped frame twice, the second infraction taking ten minutes to resolve. If it was a Scorsese screening I’d have killed somebody, but I’m tired of complaining, particularly about a tepid merger of Cornell Woolrich and a William Shatner mask. I sat comfortably positioned in the center of the row and didn’t feel like once again scaling patrons. It’s not my job.

Howmust the studios feel when the word-of-mouth screening audience, unaware that it’s a framing problem, tells their friends that the boom microphone had a starring role in the feature? Bottom line, movie theaters are here to do two things: sell concessions and show movies.How hard can it be? Bring back union projectionists and let the managers and candy counter kids stay in the lobby and herd customers.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

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ARE WE DONE YET? / Steve Carr (2007)

April 3rd, 2007 by Scott Marks

2007_are_we_done_yet_017-1.jpg

Are We Done Yet? (2007)

Directed by: Steve Carr

Written by: Hank Nelken, Hank Nelken

Cast: Ice Cube, Nia Long, John C. McGinley, Aleisha Allen, Philip Bolden, Jonathan Katz, Linda Kash, Alexander Kalugin, Dan Joffre, Pedro Miguel Arce, Tahj Mowry, Jacob Vargas, Brenda Prieur, Hayes MacArthur, Colin Strange

Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1

Genres: Comedy, Family

Halfway through the film I began silently screaming the title in my head.

The promotional screening began as they invariably do with a radio station personality hurling knotted t-shirts way back into the stadium seats while overmodulating through a portable speaker. Call it a sadistic form of comeuppance, but there is nothing quite as delightfully uncomfortable as watching the jock have to tear down his own equipment while 400 people watch and wait for the real show to start.

This screening was different. In addition to t-shirts and cup holders, our host also threw up some scripture. The AM 1240 Jesus jock was kind enough to offer a pre-show benediction. He asked our dear lord Mr. Jesus to bless the audience.How reassuring that the Church endorses a film that features its protagonist throwing back boilermakers and attempting to bludgeon a man with a 2×4. All it needed was a dash of pederasty to make it complete.

If there is a God, I’m sure that She has a lot more on Her mind than a bunch of freeloaders assembled to see a new Ice Cube family comedy. And that goes double for rappers and actors who gratuitously acknowledge Jehovah while picking up a trophy.

There are plenty of laughs, all of them unintentional. Ice Cube assumes the Cary Grant role in this official remake of Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House. At least the filmmakers had the decency to rip off one of Cary’s lesser films. What’s next? Fatha’ Goose?

This is more of a bland Money Pit, with an emphasis on “pit.” The gang from the equally noxious Are We There Yet? reunites, this time as a family, for an eagerly unanticipated sequel. As Mrs. Ice, Nia Long adds just the right amount of imbecility to pull it off. No matter what Ice does, she’s sure to side with the competition. Hers is one of the dumbest depictions of a woman in recent memory.

And what about some well-timed comic inspiration? As a real estate agent, architect, city engineer, baby whisperer, former member of the Lakers and faith healer the normally talented John C. McGinley dons numerous caps, each one filled with shit and pathos. A heartfelt scene where Cube pays a condolence call two years after McGinley’s wife’s death brought loud chuckles from my corner of the theater.

Cube plays a spots fan whose upcoming web site appears so lucrative that he’s moving into a $2 million home. His familial goal is to lock his stepdaughter away from boys and toughen up his stepson. Look for the father and son bonding scene down at the river. It’s worthy of Ford. Tennessee Ernie, not John.

Many of the gags involve food and/or physical pain. The neighborhood welcome wagons fill the family’s freezer with sturgeon. Even more offensive, when Mrs. Cube announces that she’s pregnant, Ice asks “by who?” WWJS?

Perhaps the biggest laugh came from a telegraphed Magic Johnson cameo. Host of what could be the worst talk show in TV history, the Magic Man’s delivery has only improved with age. With feet propped on desk and billboard sized cue cards, he literally phones in his performance. Not since Mr. Sinatra’s one day work on Cannonball Run II has a superstar contributed so little to something so small.

It’s worth sneaking in for the first few minutes to see the rejuvenated R.K.O. logo and the imitation DePatie-Freleng credit sequence. After that, all bets are off. If anything, Jesus’ messenger should have prayed that Ice Cube go back to making more R rated action films. Can I get an “Amen?”
Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

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MEET THE ROBINSONS / Stephen J. Anderson (2007)

April 3rd, 2007 by Scott Marks

MEET THE ROBINSONS (2007)

Meet the Robinsons (2007)

Directed by: Stephen J. Anderson

Written by: Michelle Bochner, Stephen J. Anderson

Cast: Angela Bassett, Daniel Hansen, Jordan Fry, Matthew Josten, John H. H. Ford, Dara McGarry, Tom Kenny, Laurie Metcalf, Don Hall, Paul Butcher, Tracey Miller-Zarneke, Wesley Singerman, Jessie Flower, Stephen J. Anderson, Ethan Sandler

Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1

Running Time: 102 min.

Genres: 3-D, Animation, Adventure, Comedy, Family, Sci-Fi

Several months ago I sang the praises of Disney’s 3-D enhanced reissue of The Nightmare before Christmas. The studio’s newest release is their first original film shot in Disney Digital 3-D. The good news is you’ll be ducking and dodging for 100 minutes: the stereoscopic effects are thrilling. The bad news is, for a comedy there aren’t many laughs.

Poor Lewis! He’s a brilliant child inventor who just can’t seem to find a family to bail him out of the orphanage. After 124 sets of potential parents the kid can’t make it past the interview stage. In one instance, a peanut butter and jelly helmet jams and a prospective pater, allergic to peanuts, gets caught in a spray of goobers.

From Dumbo to Bambi to Lady and the Tramp, Disney’s mother figures have spentdecades indoctrinating children into a world of adult neuroses. Contemporary directors keep Uncle Walt’s theory alive and take great delight in their motherly mise-en-scene. In Finding Nemo, the motherfish is killed before the opening credits. In Meet the Robinsons, Lewis takes a nod from Robert Zemeckis by creating a memory scanner to transport him back to the future in search of his birth mother.

If this film hits big, it won’t be long before Disneyland clears a couple of new acres for a Todayland annex. The look of this charming ultramodern city, with its streamlined design and residents riding through town in giant bubbles, doesn’t seem to have advanced much beyond America’s vision of the future in the 1950s.

While it starts well and ends in an agreeably predictable manner, the film’s second act needed propping up. Once Lewis arrives in Todayland and hooks up with Wilbur Robinson, a bulimic Big Boy minus the hamburger, the effects and pace slacken.

What it lacks in laughs is more than compensated for with a slew of bright and affectionate homage. The main source of nutrition in Lewis’ home town appears to spring from Tash Farms, named after animation/live action director Frank Tashlin. Billboards throughout the town remind us of those great “Friz Cola” advertising signs in Loony Tunes. The film’s crowning moment is a Tashlin-inspired Science Fair avalanche gag.

Singing frogs simultaneously bow deep to Chuck Jones and Martin Scorsese. (That alone earned it an extra star!) The Robinsons appear to have been grafted from Kaufman & Hart’s You Can’t Take it With You. The villain, simply called “The Bowler Hat Guy,” employs floating remote Magritte derbies. The BHG even looks a cross between Quentin Tarantino and Grandpa Munster, but I don’t think that was intentional.

When it’s over and the surprise is revealed, do the math. I know it’s a fantasy, but bubbles and spaceships replacing automobiles will probably take more than 25 or 30 years to develop. The filmmakers are probably banking on those nationwide low math test scores.

Oddly enough, The Nightmare before Christmas, which wasn’t originally designed in 3-D, had more depth and eye-popping effects than Meet the Robinsons. Even more mind boggling is that the film didn’t top the weekend box office. Hollywood offers fresh stereoscopy and audiences flock to yet another Will Ferrell marginal-sport “comedy” that I wouldn’t see at gunpoint. Give the public what they want and they’ll turn out in droves every time!

Rating: ★★★☆☆

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