Starbuck - 2 smiles

“Starbuck,” a high-concept French Canadian comedy that has a story better suited for a 60-minute running time rather than 109, has mild laughs and likeability, but that’s not enough to sustain interest. The amiable Patrick Huard plays an aging slacker in Montreal who is trying to prepare himself for becoming a father when his girlfriend Valerie (Julie Le Breton) tells him she’s pregnant. At the same time, he learns that he already has children: 533 of them. It seems that Dave (Huard), using the pseudonym of Starbuck, made several donations to a sperm donor clinic in the late 80s and he how has hundreds of offspring, 142 of which have filed a class-action lawsuit demanding that his identity be revealed. While he battles to keep his identity a secret, he discovers that he has unexpected paternal concern so he sneaks around doing good deeds for his kids, who are in their early 20s.

With the exception of Valerie, female characters are all but absent in this movie, which doesn’t even acknowledge the existence of the plaintiff’s birth mothers. Shamelessly sentimental already, director Ken Scott just keeps piling on the mush until we get to the enormous group hug at the end. “Starbuck” has already been remade in English with Vince Vaughn called “The Delivery Man” due out in the fall. I can only imagine how slap-sticky it’s going to be and I have to admit I don’t like Vince Vaughn so I’ll probably skip that movie. Subtitles. 3/25/13

The Sapphires - 3 smiles

Although the narrative for “The Sapphires” is sketchy, this is an appealing true-to-life musical comedy. Aboriginal actor-writer Tony Briggs has revised his 2004 stage play, which focuses on his own family history, for the screen. Briggs’s mother, Laurel Robinson, was the lead singer of an all-Aboriginal female soul quartet that bucked racial prejudice to tour Vietnam in the last 60s, entertaining troops. Their names and many other details have changed, but “The Sapphires” retains the story’s distinct cultural and ethnic context. Jessica Mauboy, the ‘Australian Idol’ graduate and platinum-selling recording artist, makes an impact via the film’s many bouncy musical numbers, her voice a standout. However, much of the characterization is fuzzy with the only clear characters being Chris O’Dowd’s boozy Dave and Deborah Mailman’s tart Gail.

Sisters Gail (Mailman) and Cynthia (Miranda Tapsell) are on their way to a local talent show, where their sweetly harmonized rendition of a Merle Haggard favorite easily outclasses the competition, but fails to win over the white judges. One man who is impressed, however, is the contest’s Irish emcee, Dave (O’Dowd), an alcoholic would-be music promoter. When teen sister Julie (Mauboy), the standout voice of the troupe but prevented from performing by her protective parents, pleads with Dave to secure them an audition for a gig entertaining US Marines in Vietnam, it’s not immediately clear why he accepts. But the success of this movie is based on audiences not questioning the logic of the narrative because in record time, Julie’s parents approve, the girls recruit long-estranged half-caste cousin Kay (Shari Sebbens) as a fourth member and Dave convinces the skeptical Gail that their calling lies in racy Motown rather than sleepy country ditties. “The Sapphires” is an irresistible, if unpolished, charmer from Aussie director Wayne Blair. 3/24/13

Olympus Has Fallen - 3 smiles

Although there’s a predictability about “Olympus Has Fallen,” starring Gerard Butler, director Antoine Fuqua has crafted a taut political thriller that keeps you engrossed from start to finish with some excellent visuals and a few surprising twists that add to the suspense. The film’s title comes from the fictional Secret Service code for the White House, which is being led by President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart). The central character, however, is Mike Banning (Butler), once the head of the secret service detail for the First Family until a tragic event led him to be transferred to a pedestrian job in the Treasury Department. The president and his top advisers, including the vice president and the secretary of defense, are kidnapped by North Korean terrorists, who barricade themselves in the White House. Banning finds himself thrust into the center of the action and he quickly becomes the sole hope of saving the president and preventing a nuclear disaster that would end American life as we know it.

While the plot and dialogue are frequently predictable, the movie succeeds largely due to Butler’s believability as a Secret Service agent. Butler's Banning has the physical skills and mental cunning that allows him to become a virtual one-man army against seemingly insurmountable odds. The special effects and attention to detail are also effective. It really looks like the White House is being demolished. Fuqua is aided by an excellent cast of veteran actors, including Morgan Freeman, who portrays the Speaker of the House who must become the acting president. Angela Bassett is convincing as the head of the Secret Service and Melissa Leo excels as the tough-as-nails secretary of defense, who endures very rough treatment by her North Korean captors. Rick Yune is the charming and completely lethal Yang, the mastermind of the entire plot. “Olympus Has Fallen” is an exciting actioner that delivers. If you like this type of movie, it’s not to be missed. 3/22/13

The Croods - 2 1/2 smiles

“The Croods,” DreamWorks latest animated feature film, has come cute elements. I liked the croco-dog and the fluffy saber-tooth. But the script isn’t very funny and the various subplots never quite mesh. And apart from the central characters, Grug, Eep and Guy, the other characters add little to the story apart from a few feeble jokes, such as when Gran (voiced by Cloris Leachman) reminisces, ‘He was a hunter, I was a gatherer. It was quite a scandal.’ Funny, huh? Nonetheless, the pacing is generally good and there are several action scenes that will keep you from dwelling on the choppiness of the plot and the lack of humor. The bigger problem is this movie lacks an emotional core, the element that makes Pixar’s films so exceptional.

The Croods are a tight-knit family of six headed by patriarch Grug (an effective Nicholas Cage) and his wife Ugga (a wasted Catherine Keener), who live in a cave in a vast landscape populated by the odd bird and tiger. Grug isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed but he’s fiercely loyal and protects his family with all his might, imposing on them a strict routine: wake up, hunt for food, rush back to the cave before sundown. The world is a dangerous place. ‘Fear is good; change is bad’ Grug maintains. However, Grug’s eldest, teenage rebel Eep (Emma Stone) breaks all the rules. She leaves the cave one night and runs into the first non-Crood boy she’s ever met, a dashing guy named, er, Guy (Ryan Reynolds), who is on a journey to the mountains and carries with him a wondrous thing called fire. Guy is obviously more evolved than the Croods. He persuades them to leave their cave because the world is changing and they need to move to higher ground. At this point, the movie shifts to a road trip. Kids will like “The Croods.” Adults will be harder to please. 3/22/13

Dead Man Down - 1 smile

As “Dead Man Down” moves through its labyrinthine plot, piling one implausibility upon another, you finally throw up your hands in surrender and stop giving the film the benefit of the doubt. Bullets fly, bodies plummet, a mysterious man is held prisoner in an abandoned tanker, a lush suburban apartment gets destroyed in a lengthy (and improbable) climax. Danish director Niels Arden Oplev, who directed the original Swedish version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo in 2009, has a bigger budget, more star power and an awful script by J. H. Wyman.

Someone is undermining the criminal enterprise of slick New York gangster Alphonse (Terrence Howard) and after a few false leads, the saboteur is revealed to be Victor (Colin Farrell), new to Alphonse’s crew. And, unfortunately for us, Victor’s plan to get revenge on Alphonse for murdering his wife and child is way more intricate than it needs to be. To complicate matters more, there’s Beatrice (Dragon Tattoo star Noomi Rapace), an emotionally and facially scarred woman whose high-rise balcony faces Victor’s. She has plans to involve Victor in a revenge plot of her own. While “Dean Man Down” has a European noir look, its filmed in a New York that apparently has no cops. This is a movie to skip.  2/17/13

A Place at the Table - 4 smiles

“A Place at the Table,” a documentary about hunger in America, is a must see for everyone. This nation has enough food for all of its people, yet 50 million of them are hungry. Directors Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush use lots of facts, graphics and expert testimony, but what makes this movie so compelling is its focus on a handful of victims, who make the statistics painfully real. There’s Rosie, a small-town Colorado girl who has trouble concentrating in her fifth grade class because she’s hungry. And Barbie, a North Philadelphia mother of two, who is dismayed to learn that when she finally gets a low paying job, she is disqualified for today’s equivalent of food stamps (called SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). By the late 1970s, with the introduction of food stamps and the school lunch program, hunger in America, more or less, had been addressed. Then came the 80s and hunger returned with a vengeance. The culprits: tax cuts, the rise of corporate welfare for agribusiness, the decline in social programs and the rampant belief that the hungry did this to themselves and that churches and charities could take care of the needy.

Actor Jeff Bridges, who is interviewed extensively in the film, says, ‘We don’t fund our Department of Defense through charity.’ His meaning is quite clear. Bridges has been active since the early 80s and is the national chairman of the Share our Strength/No Kid Hungry campaign. The film’s other experts include celebrity chef Tom Colicchio, seen testifying before Congress; author and activist Raj Patel; nutrition writer Marion Nestle; sociologist Janet Poppendieck, author of Free for All: Fixing School Food in America. We also hear from individuals who are making heroic efforts to address hunger in their neighborhoods. The directors look at how important reforms are hampered by Washington politics and how our agricultural subsidy system results in cheap junk food, which means poor people can be both ‘food insecure’ and obese. One in three children born in America in the year 2000 will develop Type 2 diabetes, a staggering statistic. This moving documentary, “A Place at the Table,” will haunt you long after you leave the theater. Go to www.endhunger.com to learn more. 3/10/13

The Call - 1 1/2 smiles

For the first two-thirds of its running time, “The Call” is a solid thriller with a genuinely creepy villain and a message of female empowerment. And it’s interesting to explore some of the inner workings of a 911 call center, which has a ring of verisimilitude. But once Halle Berry’s character leaves the center, or The Hive as its called, the story goes from stupid to stupidest by the time the end credits roll. And although the acting is solid and there are a few gotcha moments, the preposterousness of the climax had me shaking my head as I left the theater.

The movie opens in an expansive LA Police Department 911 call center. These first responders calmly talk people through a wide range of emergencies from a bat flying around a child’s room to heart attacks and gun shots. Veteran operator Jordan Turner (Berry) makes a tactical error when talking to a terrified teenager who is home alone when a man breaks into her house. Jordan is haunted by her mistake, so much so that after a leave of absence, she comes back to work as a trainer. But Jordan ends of taking a call from Casey (Abigail Breslin), who has been abducted from a shopping mall and thrown into the trunk of a car. Determined to save Casey, Jordan comes up with some effective ways to provide the police with tips on Casey’s whereabouts. But they’re dealing with a deranged kidnapper (Michael Eklund). Unfortunately, Eklund plays it way over the top and the story grows increasingly preposterous the more he’s on the screen. You might think twice if you’re planning to see “The Call.” 3/15/13

Oz the Great and Powerful - 3 smiles

What prevents “Oz the Great and Powerful” from being an exceptional movie is James Franco has been cast in the lead role of Oscar Diggs, the tent-show magician from Kansas who eventually becomes the Wizard of Oz. Franco is too shallow and too unskilled to carry this story. You don’t like him at the beginning of the movie, you don’t like him in the middle and you barely like him at the end. He just isn’t able to get us to empathize with his character’s journey to redemption. Robert Downey Jr., who was rumored to be the director’s first choice, would have been a better Oz. In addition, the script is confusing. Once Oscar gets to Oz, he is welcomed as the prophesied Wizard who will rescue the kingdom from evil, but first he has to figure out which witch is the evil one and there’s no chemistry in his interactions with the very good Glinda (a sweet Michelle Williams), the naïve Theodora (Mila Kunis) and the imperious Evanora (a larger-than-life Rachel Weisz). On the positive side, there are two powerful characters – a winged monkey and a small girl made out of china. Zach Braff is effective as the voice of the little monkey in bell-hop attire and his muttered asides are often as insightful as they are hilarious. Thirteen-year-old Joey King voices China Girl as Oz rescues her from her ruined China Town. However, because these two characters are the result of special effects, you do have to wonder why they’re more powerful than the real people.  Director Sam Raimi has a keen sense of style with the black-and-white opening capturing the drabness of Dust Bowl Kansas to the widescreen lushness of an very colorful Oz.

The movie opens, like the original, in dusty Kansas with a two-bit carnival magician/con man Oscar Diggs (Franco) plying his trade. Thanks to a tornado and a magical voyage, Oscar, or Oz as he’s called, arrives in the Land of Oz. He’s greeted not by Munchkins, but by a beautiful witch named Theodora (Kunis) in leather trousers. Soon Oz is on a quest to save the land and kill the wicked witch, but with the arrival of Theodora’s sister Evanora (Weisz) and Glinda the Good (Williams), it’s not immediately clear to him which witch is the one he’s supposed to kill. “Oz the Great and Powerful” wisely does not try to mimic the original although there is an Emerald City and a yellow brick road, not to mention some Munchkins. It’s enjoyable family entertainment. Too bad it's just a good movie, not a great one. 3/9/13

Emperor - 2 smiles

If you think “Emperor” is about Gen. Douglas MacArthur (Tommy Lee Jones), you’re in for a big disappointment.  Inexplicably, the script, written by Vera Blasi, pushes the most compelling character into the background to focus on one of MacArthur’s assistants and his romantic travails. Matthew Fox plays Gen. Bonner Fellers, the American’s top Japan expert and point man on the inquiry into Hirohito’s involvement in the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Fox’s performance is bland and unimpressive whereas Jones brings appropriate swagger to the larger-than-life MacArthur.

In 1945, MacArthur, as Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, was tasked with overseeing Japan’s disarmament and democratization. Engineering vast social change while respecting the nation’s traditions would be challenge enough, but MacArthur had an additional assignment. He was to recommend whether Emperor Hirohito should be deposed and tried for war crimes. MacArthur assigns the investigation to Fellers. The script throws in a clichéd love story involving Fellers and Aya (Eriko Hatsune), a Japanese teacher he met when she was an exchange student in the US, but who is now missing. Their relationship plays out, often in intrusive flashbacks, as a time-waster, not as character development as director Peter Webber might have wanted. “Emperor” turns out to be a dry, overly simplified history lesson. Too bad. It could have been a gripping tale. 3/8/13

Jack the Giant Slayer - 2 1/2 smiles

When you don’t expect much, you can be pleasantly surprised. “Jack the Giant Slayer” is fun and fast moving, an entertaining fantasy-adventure. Certainly much better than the dreadful Hansel and Gretel that opened in January. The plot hasn’t changed much (so you know how it’s going to end), but director Brian Singer has added a few new wrinkles. Instead of one giant, there’s an army of them, grumbling up in their sky-high home, wanting revenge on the kingdom of Cloister for past grievances. When the inevitable beanstalk appears, Jack (Nicholas Hoult) climbs it to save the runaway Princess Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson).

Hoult and Tomlinson are attractive, if not charismatic and effective as the young couple at the center of the story. The fun, however, comes from the supporting cast. Stanley Tucci sneers nastily as a nobleman with huge ambitions, Ewan McGregor is the gallant knight Elmont and a motion-captured Bill Nighy turns the giant General Fallon into a worthy foe. The special effects are impressive, especially the massive beanstalk that chews its way to the sky. “Jack the Giant Slayer” is scary in just the right places, funny whenever possible and likeable.  3/3/13

Snitch - 1 1/2 smiles

The biggest problem with “Snitch,” starring Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock, is director Ric Roman Waugh doesn’t know if he wants an issue-oriented drama or action-adventure blowout. And, unfortunately, he tries for both, which just doesn’t work. The movie, loosely inspired by events recounted in a 1999 PBS series, argues forcefully against the severity of laws that mandate a lengthy sentence for receiving a package of drugs, even unwittingly. And by casting action star Dwayne Johnson as the protagonist, the expectation is that there’s going to be a lot of adrenaline-pumping, fist-swinging action. What you get is a heavy-handed drama with Johnson as an anguished father (who gets beaten up by a street drug dealer) and a car-truck chase at the end. And although The Rock’s acting has improved, “Snitch” would have been more effective with a different actor.

John Matthews’ (Johnson) son, Jason (Rafi Gavron), has run afoul of the mandatory drug sentencing guidelines. The only way for Jason to reduce a 10-year jail term is by snitching on someone else, which he refuses to do. So John makes a deal with the prosecutor, Joanne Keeghan (Susan Sarandon): he’ll bring down the local drug dealer if she reduces his son’s sentence. When Keeghan learns that they might also get a cartel leader by the name of ‘El Topo,’ (Benjamin Bratt), she changes the deal by offering Jason’s freedom in exchange for more danger to John. “Snitch” is long on dialogue and predictable narrative and short on action and adrenaline. The relationship between John and his son feels forced, but is not nearly as hard to believe as the one he shares with ex-con and new employee, Daniel (Jon Bernthal). Ultimately, the social issue gets buried in the shift to action and I, for one, wasn’t sure what I was watching. 3/1/13

Bless Me, Ultima - 3 smiles

If you can get past the episodic nature of the narrative in “Bless Me, Ultima,” you’ll enjoy this adaptation of Rudolfo Anaya’s 1972 coming-of-age story that blends mysticism with conventional Catholicism.  The central character is Antonio (newcomer Luke Ganalon), a child trying to sort out positive from negative influences in his 1940s community. Antonio’s three older brothers are fighting in the World War II and the family is struggling. A medicine woman named Ultima (Miriam Colon) creates turmoil within the tight-knit community when she comes to stay with Antonio’s family. Ultima has healing powers, but she also arouses deep suspicion from some villagers who consider her to be a witch. She and Antonio share a deep bond that only intensifies when Ultima is targeted by bigoted forces.

The biggest weakness of the film is that the narrative is a collection of vignettes that often interferes with the forward momentum of the story and creates sections that lag. The script also relies too heavily on voice-over narration by the older Antonio (Alfred Molina). Nonetheless, there’s a lyrical feeling to many of the scenes and the spiritual curiosity of young Antonio never seems forced. Ganalon is effective in his first major role although sometimes he seems too mature for his age. Colon brings a soulful stature to her portrayal of a tough and mysterious woman who is teacher to Ganalon’s student. “Bless Me, Ultima”  is a definite for those who avoid big budget special effects movies and action shoot-em ups.  2/23/13