Pokemon 4Ever (Pokémon 4: The Movie) (2002)

As a parent of a child who has loved, collected, and chattered about Pokemon for more than ten years, I was never a fan of the TV show or the first four movies because of their gossamer-thin script, storyline, and artistic quality. (My biggest complaint can be summarized in the following capsulization of every Pokemon script: Ash cheers yet again "I'm going to be the best Pokemon trainer in the world!" while Pikachu -- or any other Pokemon creature -- repeats its name over and over.) I've gradually made peace with Pokemon's presence in my family, however, so I've learned to accept each TV episode and movie for what it is and to understand each character's motivations through their challenges and successes. (It helped that the artwork began to get better with Pokemon 4ever and beyond.) In th fourth Pokemon movie, we have a story that develops organically and the landscape animations are often quite good. As a result, I am upgrading my rating of this film from 1 star to 3 stars. (1-17-11 posted 1-25-11)

The Bank (2001)

The Bank is a low-key Australian thriller starring David Wenham as the brilliant chaos-theory mathematician who is hired to direct the financial war room and ultimately to implement the increasingly nefarious machinations of Anthony LaPaglia as the chief executive of a megabank. Sibylla Budd is the love interest to Wenham's character though he is smart enough to suspect that she may be a plant -- an intentionally placed spy for his boss. (Is she or isn't she?) The Bank has a couple good twists at the end that proved satisfying. Wenham (Faramir in The Lord of the Rings) is no Brad Pitt but he is a likeable and suitably adequate actor. This movie is recommended if you like math (or a reasonable facsimile), Australian films, or a fictional version of a documentary such as Inside Job. In fact, The Bank is quite topical and prescient as far as contemporary scandals about predatory banking practices go. It reminds me more of the understated Enigma than the glossy Wall Street 2 but, sure enough, the central message is that greed is standard operating procedure in the brave new world of high finance -- and so it may take an even more intelligent and dedicated artist to right the wrongs. I had to rent this movie from a competing service since it has been a Save title here indefinitely. 3.5 stars.

The Linguists (2008)

The Linguists is a fairly fast-paced travel documentary that showcases how the sciences of linguistics and ethnography are applied in the field. David and Greg are can-do go-getters who speak 25 languages between the two of them. They are concerned that social and economic pressures in far-flung corners of the world are leading to the abandonment or death of one language per week. (Like undiscovered rain-forest plants, undocumented languages are not just unique and fascinating things to study but they may likely shed new light on humanity's challenges: Just as plants yield new pharmaceuticals, languages reveal the unique creative insights and problem-solving perspectives of which human beings are capable.) We travel with this Dialect Duo as they narrate their preparations and journeys to remote Siberia to document the Chulym tongue, provincial India to document Chemehuevi and Sora, and the backwaters of Bolivia to document Kallawaya. Their approach is structured yet flexible as they attempt to find native speakers of each dying language; Chulym had 9 speakers at the time of their visit but 4 have since died. Recording everything on audio and videotape, their first step with each interviewee is to conduct an elicitation, learning words for the parts of the face and body, followed by numbers and so on. Their encounters with elderly speakers and the folk of the earth are intriguing and personable. In fact, The Linguists almost does for languages what Throw Down Your Heart does for music across the borders. Our guys camp beside Lake Titicaca (very cold), risk getting killed by insurgents, join in village song and dance, and help document languages in print and video for their native speakers (even organizing one community's effort to produce the first hand-written and hand-drawn book in their native tongue). If you want to stretch the borders of your mind and heart to understand more about your fellow human beings on this our common planet, I highly recommend The Linguists. I will be happy to watch this movie again some other time esp. with anyone who is interested in foreign travel or languages. 4.5 stars.

Family Guy: It's A Trap! (2010)

Seth MacFarlane admits in an even more rambling introductory crawl that, for Family Guy's third Star Wars spoof, the creative team was "out of gas. Heck, we let the interns write most of it. The FedEx guy even got in a joke and he calls the baby Steve" (instead of Stewie). Granted, it is true that Blue Harvest is Family Guy's first and most funny Star Wars parody, Something Something Dark Side is Family Guy's second and secondmost funny Star Wars parody, and It's A Trap! is Family Guy's third and thirdmost funny Star Wars parody. Even dumber than Peter's classic skinned-knee scene, the dumbest scene in It's A Trap! stretches on for several pointless minutes as characters nod knowingly back and forth to each other before they face being thrown into the Sarlacc pit. Family Guy inside jokes don't serve the script well either: Darth Vader (Stewie, voiced by Seth MacFarlane) taunts Luke (Chris, voiced by Seth Green) about Seth Green's lack of acting chops and, in the closing moments of the show, the Griffin family led by Stewie and Chris launch into a critique of Seth MacFarlane versus Seth Green. Yet while the humor of each episode might be on a relaxed downward trend, the fun of watching each episode from first to last remains on an upward trend as the faithful and excellent animation only gets better. Family Guy's Star Wars trilogy amounts to the most sustained, coherent, faithful, and funny Star Wars spoof yet. See it for the first time and later watch it again! 4 stars.

Full Disclosure (2000)

Investigative reporter John McWhirter (Fred Ward) in Full Disclosure falls somewhere between sanctimonious anchorman Howard Beale (Peter Finch) in Network and mercurial father Frank Scott (Michael Brandon) in Dinotopia. His once-stellar reporting career is slowly sinking into drink when he gloms onto an assassination story that could reburnish his reputation. Unfortunately, he has just become personally involved in the developing story through two socialist activists he has known since college 30 years ago. (Their history, a skein that is slowly unraveled for us, provides the reason why John agrees to help them and also contributes to the dangers that emerge from his decision and inexorably uncoil themselves in his sight as well as ours.) John has agreed to briefly and discreetly harbor Armiti Khalq (Rachel Ticotin), a mysterious woman who turns out to be pivotal to his story and pursued by the FBI. John and Armiti establish a baseline detente and gradually build a mutual consensus that reaches its ultimate expression in several dimensions. Perhaps to atone for his sins of the past, John is determined to redeem and prove his character even if it's the last thing he does. Meanwhile, Michelle (Penelope Ann Miller) appears as an accomplished assassin in a delicious role that's my favorite. (That's her with John on the cover art. She's not quite Anton Chigurh but she could have been the perky offspring of Anton and La Femme Nikita.) Virginia Madsen plays John's sympathetic publisher and Christopher Plummer is the FBI chief who is determined to run John to ground. Full Disclosure is a pretty good show. You might not like the ending but this film is slightly better than average and well worth a watch. You could do much worse. I had to rent it through a competing service since it has been a Save title here for many moons. 3.5 stars.

Starz Studios: The Green Hornet / Season of the Witch / Country Strong (2011)

The current Starz Studios 12-min featurette presents us with five films: The Green Hornet, Season of the Witch, The Dilemma, Country Strong, and Barney's Version. It's a generous and well-rounded treatment of all five, ranging from extensive scene selections to actor and director commentary. I have been interested in seeing all five anyway but now am even more interested in all five -- Barney's Version the most. 3.5 stars.

Porco Rosso (Kurenai no Buta; Crimson Pig) (1992)

Hiyao Miyazaki works wonders again in Porco Rosso (Italian for Red Pig), the Casablanca-meets-Castle in the Sky story of a top Italian WW II fighter pilot turned mercenary after a mysterious aerial encounter changed him into a pig. (He's bipedal, has a mustache, smokes cigarettes, and is in every other way apparently human but his face and build are porcine.) He's no longer young, altruistic, or romantic -- "I only look out for myself now." He's cunning but not brash, brave while considering all risks, and an expert pilot (even when drawing the short straw in a dogfight). Circumstances lead or force him to fight air pirates and ultimately to accept an aerial challenge to free someone he originally dismissed but has since come to accord great respect. This engineer and Porco Rosso make a good team together -- more seasoned and reasoned than Pazu and Sheeta in Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky but just as courageous esp. in a pinch. 4.5 stars.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2004)

The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a Hallmark movie but a very good Hallmark movie. Its feel and star performances fall somewhere between Jon Voigt in John Paul II or Harris Malcolm in Fireproof and James Garner in The Ultimate Gift or James Garner and Ryan Gosling in The Notebook. The Five People is a didactic, reflective movie with more visiting spirits than A Christmas Carol and more self-revelations than Hereafter. It is more plodding than What Dreams May Come (a high bar indeed) though still mostly light on its feet; it felt draggy in the middle and could possibly lose 13 minutes (from its 2 hours and 13 minutes) without detriment to the story. As our story begins, Jon Voigt as the tragically killed Eddie sojourns posthumously, meeting five prior decedents who have been awaiting him in various forms of their own heaven (not always apparent to him) so that they may find resolution with him and help him find his own (often for things or in ways he didn't know he needed). Eddie's life, character, actions, and choices are the focus here, with numerous revelations about his and others' motives that shed new light for Eddie on his life and his responsibility for others' lives. Occasionally melodramatic, The Five People is a largely captivating tale of self-examination and redemption that's more reminiscent of Dragonfly than It's A Wonderful Life. I was often moved by the revelations in Eddie's journey and certainly by its culmination. I'd love to watch it again sometime. 4.5 stars.

Changing Habits (1997)

I have liked Maura Tierney ever since seeing her in Primary Colors. In Changing Habits, an earlier starring venue, she plays Soosh, a cute, complex, and brash young woman who shoplifts to save for life goals we gradually discover. Though often testy and untrusting, she gradually rehabilitates herself through the ministrations of love interest Felix (Dylan Walsh) and the Mother Superior (Eileen Brennan) at the convent she scams for cheap room and board. For spirituality, Changing Habits is more like Diary of a City Priest than Sister Act. As a lifelong Catholic, I found its representation of guest lodging in a convent to be largely realistic -- I don't think the handful of salty words would have been allowed even though Soosh is the kind of woman who does whatever the hell she wants -- and the Mother Superior was both practical and supportive in her pastoral attentions. In the convent, Soosh finds a safe place where she can express her personal (Kahloesque) artistic vision as the daughter of a complex and alcoholic painter (Christopher Lloyd). The balance of the movie rewardingly reveals additional layers as it uncovers greater complexities to her life than Soosh knew or expected (beginning with how she came to be named Soosh). I like Changing Habits better than Wide Awake and even Chances Are. Teri Garr has a quirky role as Soosh's boutique shop manager and Shelley Duvall has an even quirkier role as a nun who rarely speaks. I rented this movie from a competing service because it has long been a Save title here but I see it has come in stock this week. 4 stars.

Jeff Dunham's Very Special Christmas Special (2008)

This performance has too many gay and drug references to be a family show but worst of all, Jeff Dunham has actually managed to ruin 'Twas the Night Before Christmas for me. A 150-year-old time-honored traditional poem honoring (and even establishing) St. Nicholas' role on Christmas Eve, heard many times every year of my life over one-third of that time span, and Jeff Dunham managed to wreck its majesty in all of 10 minutes. He does this by having Achmed the Dead Terrorist "translate" the poem by imputing drug use and worse to every line. It's hateful and it's not funny -- not by reason of being hateful; it's simply not funny -- and, incidentally, when it comes to finding and telling original jokes, Jeff Dunham is a hack. 1.5 stars.

Jeff Dunham: Spark of Insanity (2007)

After watching several of his performances, I have concluded that Jeff Dunham skates on very thin ice for the quality of his jokes and then keeps skating over and over the same spots till he falls through -- and even then his audience keeps laughing. (This makes me wonder if they all shop at Sam's Club but that's another issue. BTW see if any non-whites are in the audience.) His opening monologue is folksy, self-deprecating, and brings in members of his family -- the opening scene to this show even depicts his wife in bed with Jeff and several of his characters -- though unfortunately, it's usually to make lame gay jokes about lotion or "playing with dolls" or being "fabulous!" Of Dunham's six characters (ventriloquism dummies), Walter is my favorite. (OK, he's the only one I can stand -- and even he gets on my nerves.) Walter's schtick gets old because it's thin and sooo repetitive: "Waaah. Boo-hoo. I don't care. Whatever." Walter is mean and pretends not to care but is lovable; Peanut is mean and really does not care so he says whatever the hell he wants. Bubba, Big Daddy D, Jose Jalapeno on a Stick, and Achmed the Dead Terrorist are frankly offensive to rednecks, blacks, Hispanics, and Middle-Eastern persons. They would be funny if they were not threadbare stereotypes that rely on catchphrases (esp. "on a steeck" and "Silence! I keell you!") and facial ticks. While Dunham has great talent as a ventriloquist, his race-tinged humor has little more subtlety than a white man depicting a black man demanding watermelon or fried chicken. Finally in disgust, I began predicting Dunham's jokes by saying out loud the stupidest thing that sprang to mind before he said that very thing, which threw my youngest son. Frankly, Dunham's humor appeals best to boys aged 10-14. God save us from Jeff Dunham and those who laugh at him -- on a schtick. 2 stars.