70 San Diego Reader April 21, 2016
MOVIES
released any new music, and even his fans have lost the thread: a Davis tribute on the radio rhapsodizes over his early work, but our hero knows the past is dead, man. He wants to be an artist, not a legend, and despite star (and director and co-writer) Don Cheadle’s benumbed countenance, the fear in his eyes makes it clear that he’s anxious on that score — can I still do this? The historical stuff shows up in steady beats inspired by the present-day action, which keeps it from feeling too fusty. Ultimately, Cheadle’s labor of love prizes the music-making over the music, and maybe even over the man. 2015. — M.L. ★★ (ANGELIKA FILM CENTER; ARCLIGHT LA JOLLA; LANDMARK HILLCREST)
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 — The entire cast returns for this big, flat, weak sequel to the highest-grossing romantic comedy in movie history. (You read right.) It’s been 14 years since the release of the original, but that doesn’t stop screenwriter and star Nia Vardalos from warping the timeline just enough so that she and John Corbett can play proud parents to a 17-year-old daugh- ter (Elena Kampouris). Instead of the high-schooler getting hitched, the titular nuptials involve her grandparents, once again played by Michael Constantine (he’s limited to only three Windex references) and Lainie Kazan. (The discovery of an unsigned marriage license kindles the soggy premise.) More a series of skits than a fleshed out story — Andrea Mar- tin’s advice on how to spice up a relation- ship brought a few chuckles. In fact, the only possible explanation for taking in this overdue spinoff is if you’re a Martin completist. Kirk Jones (Nanny McPhee, Everybody’s Fine) directs. 2016. — S.M. ● (IN WIDE RELEASE)
Remember — A genre mashup of four of contemporary cinema’s least desirable storylines — the Holocaust, old folks, and dementia. This should represent every- thing we’ve spent the past three decades at the movies trying to forget. But all is forgiven the moment the director’s credit hits the screen. Atom Egoyan is one of the few working today of whom it can be said has never made a bad movie. Christopher Plummer stars as Zev, an Auschwitz
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survivor in the early stages of dementia who’s recruited by his retirement village neighbor (Martin Landau) to undertake a perilous journey in search of the Nazi responsible for exterminating his fam- ily. There is no actor currently at work capable of embodying the complexity of this character like Plummer. Zev is not to be pitied, nor scorned, nor stopped. The energy Plummer brings to every scene of this film — and there aren’t many without him — is enough to still any costumed vigilante one-third his age. And in many ways, the role offers pleasant payback for all those years he’s spent trying to fog the memory of Captain Von Trapp. 2015. — S.M. ★★★★★ (LOT)
Sing Street — John Carney (Begin Again) once again tries to reheat a Once soufflé and instead serves up a flat, cheerily antiseptic period musical. Ferdia Walsh-Peelo (this year’s answer to Freddie Highmore) makes his movie debut as Cosmo, a well-scrubbed Dubliner who starts a band to escape the daily rigors of Mom and Dad. It’s the ’80s, when no musical group was complete without a video, and no video fully realized without a pretty girl to front it. Enter Raphina (Lucy Boynton, doubling for the cost-pro- hibitive Lana Del Rey), the stereotypical (and equally spotless) dropout, and the unlit cigarette-dangling beauty of Cosmo’s dreams. Lively background work from
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Cosmo’s bandmates (Mark McKenna and Ben Carolan) and brother (Jack Reynor) aren’t enough to compensate for the treacly romance that takes centerstage. There’s a sweet, safe, familiar smell to it — nothing comes of the storming priest complimenting the boy on his beauty, and a vicious skinhead is reduced to cuddly comic relief — that can’t be masked. 2016 — S.M. ★ (LANDMARK HILLCREST)
Take Me to the River — Herein lies the problem: 19-year-old Ryder (Logan Miller) doth not protest enough when his California-phobic uncle’s (Josh Hamilton) false accusation of child molestation against the lad turns a Nebraska fam-
ily reunion into a grievance-dredging weekend inquisition. Unless Ryder was meant to get off on being a tool in his perverted uncle’s melancholic revenge scheme — first-time writer-director Matt Sobel clearly doesn’t have what it takes to go that dark — all that’s left for the boy to do is make a lot of implausible choices. Not unlike mom’s redneck side of the family, the deeper you go, the dirtier and harder to fathom this River becomes. It doesn’t help that the children in the film have been rehearsed to the point they make Tatum O’Neal’s work in Paper Moon look like improv. And is it me, or is the big climactic reveal not really worth all the hubbub? 2016 — S.M. ★ (LAND- MARK KEN)
Zootopia — Disney’s animated arm wrestles with race relations. Here, that means predators and prey: formerly enemies (the film requires you to resist any temptation to use the modifier “natural”), they have now evolved to the point of living as peaceful neighbors in an urban metropolis. Of course, out in the sticks, things aren’t so progressive, as an early dustup between a fox and a rabbit indicates. The rabbit in question is Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin), our heroine: a rookie cop who hopes to “make the world a better place.” Judy doggedly strives to prove that she is “not some token bunny,” but rather, living proof that in Zootopia, “anyone can be anything.” Cue the contrarian fox Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), who infuriatingly insists that “you can only be what you are.” But when predators start “going savage,” the ques- tion of exactly what constitutes “what you are” gets fraught. Might there be a… biological component? (My, Grandma, what big sharp teeth you have…) Byron Howard and Rich Moore share direct- ing credits along with co-director Jared Bush, but that’s nothing compared to the ten (ten!) names attached to the story and screenplay. The result is a buddy-cop comedy crossed with a political thriller and mashed up against a social drama. It’s a credit to Disney’s collaborative process that the whole thing manages to hold together as well as it does. But even so, you may notice a few sags and stretched seams. Also, some sharply protruding points. And if you don’t, there’s a help- ful sermon at the end for anyone who got distracted by the animal gags and snappy patter. 2016. — M.L. ★★ (IN WIDE RELEASE)
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