Wish I Was Here

Wish I Was Here - Dir. Zach Braff (2014)

Zach Braff stirred up a little controversy when he launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund his second directorial effort, Wish I Was Here. Surely, Braff was living high on the hog off his big, fat Scrubs paychecks? Whether you agreed with Braff's methods for financing his film, the campaign successfully raised over $3 million.

It's been ten years since Braff made his directorial debut with Garden State, a movie that was critically praised by my peers and I. Looking back on it now; I find it cloying and overly precious though I can still admire Braff's visual whimsy. A decade later and it doesn't look like things have changed too much. Wish I Was Here is very much a spiritual sequel to Garden State. Braff's earlier picture was about an aimless twenty-something actor with a deceased mother and a disapproving father. Wish I Was Here is about an aimless thirty-something actor with a deceased mother and a disapproving father.

Wish I Was Here presents the notion that the angst and hipster melancholia of your 20's doesn't go away when you hit your 30's, despite getting married and raising a family in the suburbs.

Braff plays Aidan Bloom, an aspiring actor who hasn't had much luck since starring in a dandruff commercial a couple years ago. He has an icy relationship with his father Gabe (Mandy Patinkin), who pays for Aidan's children, Grace (Joey King) and Tucker (Pierce Gagnon), to attend an Orthodox Jewish school. Aidan's younger brother Noah (Josh Gad) has an even colder relationship with dad. They haven't seen each other in a long time while Noah lives in a trailer and spends his day writing nasty massages to celebrities on Twitter. Aidan's wife, Sarah (Kate Hudson), supports her husband's dream, but suffers silently at a menial job with the Water Department where she is regularly subjected to a co-worker's inappropriate comments.

Aidan is knocked for a loop when Gabe announces his cancer has aggressively returned. He has decided to spend whatever savings he has left on an experimental treatment, which means the kids can no longer afford to go to private school. Aidan decides that he'll home school Grace and Tucker until they can start public school next year. He finds the task much more daunting than anticipated.

Braff co-wrote the screenplay with his brother Adam and the results are a scattered mess. The narrative drifts into several detours along the way that include Noah's trip to Comic-Con to romance a cute cosplayer (Ashley Greene) and recurring fantasy sequences with Aidan as a sci-fi action hero. And did we really need to see the Bloom brood test drive an Aston Martin, aside from seeing Braff reunited with Scrubs co-star Donald Faison? Braff uses creative shorthand when it comes to spelling out his message by quoting T.S. Eliot or Robert Frost's "Mending Wall" while they repair a fence. Braff also slathers on the dreamy qualities of Wish I Was Here by lacing the soundtrack with classic folk rock (Paul Simon, Bob Dylan) and modern indie favorites (The Shins, Bon Iver). Still, Braff's playfulness is on display, such as staring at an empty display that reads, "This pamphlet will save your life."

At least, the acting is well done across the board with Mandy Patinkin as a standout. He brings stoicism and a dry sense of humor to the role. Kate Hudson is a delight and it's nice to see her in something of substance for a change. Both Joey King and Pierce Gagnon are great with a precociousness that feels authentic rather than forced. In particular, Gagnon seems to have a preternatural ability for the screen with his previous role being the ominous child in Looper. The late-James Avery makes a cameo appearance in an amusing scene where Aidan goes to an audition without realizing that the role is now for an African-American.

First world problems come to mind when discussing the drama of Wish I Was Here. It's hard to sympathize with an inert protagonist whose major issue is possibly getting a 9 to 5 job. Your enjoyment of Braff's sophomore film will depend on your love of Garden State and tolerance for schmaltz.

Rating: ** ½ (*****)

White House Down

White House Down - Dir. Roland Emmerich (2013)

Roland Emmerich sure gets a kick out of destroying Washington DC. He famously blew up the White House in Independence Day then wiped out the entire city with a massive tsunami in 2012. Emmerich isn't done with the nation's capital yet as he presents White House Down, the year's second film depicting the President's home under siege by terrorists.

Instead of Gerard Butler, we get Channing Tatum as John Cale, DC police officer and former Iraq War vet working security detail for the Speaker of the House (Richard Jenkins). He's a perennial underachiever and an absentee father. Cashing in a favor from his boss, Cale gets an interview to join the Secret Service and takes along his daughter, Emily (Joey King), hoping the young political junkie will be impressed by a VIP tour of the White House. Cale flops during the interview with Agent Carol Finnerty (Maggie Gyllenhaal), but gets a chance to prove himself when a team of mercenaries and white supremacists infiltrate the White House and capture President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx). The baddies are led by Emil Stenz (Jason Clarke), an ex-Special Forces operative, with assistance from turncoat Martin Walker (James Woods).

While Olympus Has Fallen cribs far more from Die Hard, White House Down borrows only a few elements. Its protagonist not only has a similar name to John McClane, he spends most of the movie running around in a dirty tank top. One of the villains (Jimmi Simpson) listens to "Ode to Joy" as he hacks into NORAD. White House Down isn't as self-serious as Olympus either as Emmerich recognizes the inherent silliness of it all. This is a movie where even the nerdy tour guide gets a kill a bad guy and everything comes down to a nuclear weapon and an edge-of-your-seat countdown. Yes, White House Down goes down some incredibly stupid roads, such as a car chase on the south lawn or when the presidential limo just happens to have a rocket launcher hidden in the back seat. Also, what genius decided to mount a covert assault by sending attack choppers through the DC streets in plain sight of any traffic camera or cell phone? Screenwriter James Vanderbilt (Zodiac, The Amazing Spider-Man) practically draws a bright, bold arrow each time a plot element is introduced for a later payoff. Do you think President Sawyer's pocket watch from Abraham Lincoln will be important later on?

Tatum is a welcome antidote to the grim-faced Butler. He ably carries the film on his broad shoulders by playing the lovable lunkhead we've come to know in 21 Jump Street and Magic Mike. He's helped by the fun chemistry he shares with Jamie Foxx as the idealized Obama, who ushers in world peace, dismantles the military-industrial complex, and looks good in a pair of stylish Air Jordans. Jason Clarke doesn't get much to do as the ruthless Stenz though you can easily picture this being the eventual path of his character from Zero Dark Thirty. James Woods is at his slimy best though Emmerich wastes a stacked supporting cast that includes Maggie Gyllenhaal, Richard Jenkins, Lance Reddick, and Michael Murphy.

Drowning in effects-laden action and ham-fisted jingoism, White House Down is an unmistakable product of Emmerich's brand of summer shlock.

Rating: ** (*****)

Oz the Great and Powerful

Oz the Great and Powerful - Dir. Sam Raimi (2013)

Walt Disney had always wanted to make an animated film based on Frank L. Baum's The Wizard of Oz. However, MGM beat him to the punch, acquiring the rights and producing their classic musical starring Judy Garland. The closest Disney ever came was a television special featuring the Mouseketeers as various characters and the disturbing cult classic Return to Oz with a young Fairuza Balk as Dorothy. Oz the Great and Powerful is an interesting proposition since it’s a prequel to another studio's movie. Despite the books now falling into public domain, Disney is unable to use elements specifically created for the cinematic version of Wizard of Oz, which is now owned by Warner Brothers. Thus, there are no ruby slippers and even the design of the Yellow Brick Road and the shade of green on the Wicked Witch's skin had to be altered.

Spoilers Ahead.

Oscar Diggs (James Franco) is a sideshow magician in a traveling circus that has found its way to the dustbowl of Kansas. He is not only an illusionist, but an inventor with aspirations to become Harry Houdini and Thomas Edison rolled into one. A jealous strongman chases Diggs into a hot air balloon that is quickly sucked into a tornado that transports him to the Land of Oz. Taking a cue from the 1939 version, Oz opens in black and white with the 1.33:1 aspect ratio before expanding to widescreen and fading into color. There, he is greeted by Theodora (Mila Kunis), a good witch who believes Diggs is the prophesized wizard that will free them from the tyranny of the Wicked Witch. Theodora's sister, Evanora (Rachel Weisz), promises Diggs he will become the new King of Oz and be rewarded the treasure of Emerald City should he defeat the Witch.

Diggs is joined on his journey by a talking monkey with wings named Finley (Zach Braff) and a living China Girl (Joey King), the only survivor of a porcelain village shattered by the Witch's army of flying baboons. But, the witch they are sent after is actually Glinda the Good (Michelle Williams) whose father, the former King of Oz, was poisoned by the true Wicked Witch, Evanora. When the truth comes out, Evanora manipulates her sister into biting an enchanted apple that turns her into the hook nosed Wicked Witch of the West.

It's clear that Disney is hoping to replicate the mammoth success of Alice in Wonderland. Both projects share a producer in Joe Roth and a production designer in Robert Stromberg, who also worked on Avatar. Those previous credits clearly shine through in the digital construction of Oz, which looks like a Technicolor melding of Wonderland and Pandora. There are enormous blossoms, river fairies with piranha-like teeth, and a glimmering art deco Emerald City. However, what's lacking is a sense of awe. The CGI environment never feels real and many scenes simply come off as actors walking in front of a green screen. The soundstages and matte paintings of the original film felt more real than the expensive special effects of Oz. Director Sam Raimi manages to inject some life into the action with his trademark flourishes of whip pans, accelerated zooms, canted angles, and cameos by brother Ted Raimi and Bruce Campbell. One set piece involves a Looney Tunes-esque sequence on a cliff that is played out in silhouette. When the heroes arrive at the Dark Forest, they are assailed by snapping vines in a creepy callback to Evil Dead. Thankfully, no one gets raped by tree branches. Raimi also tosses in several cool shots of the witches hurling magical energy at each other, especially Evanora who shoots lightning bolts like a Dark Lord of the Sith. The prologue makes nice use of 3D with objects flying out of frame, but the effects become less pronounced as the movie progresses.

James Franco never rises to the occasion of convincingly portraying the young wizard as a vintage flim-flam man. You imagine the character as someone like Robert Preston in The Music Man or George Clooney in O Brother, Where Art Thou, a scoundrel with the gift of gab. And it's easy to imagine why Raimi would be drawn to Diggs because Raimi's early days as a filmmaker required the same sense of invention, ingenuity, and salesmanship. You can also draw parallels between Oz and Army of Darkness, both of whom feature a protagonist transported to another land who must overcome their own selfish motivations to defeat an evil force with their unique knowledge.

Franco simply isn't up to the task, not surprising since he wasn't the first choice. The studio wanted Robert Downey Jr. and when he turned it down, they pursued Johnny Depp who was already committed to The Lone Ranger. While Franco could hardly be considered a consolation prize, Depp's previous turns as Ed Wood and Willy Wonka might have made him the perfect pick. Franco frequently takes a backseat to Finley and the feisty China Girl, who fill the roles of adorable sidekicks. Mila Kunis is equally out of depth as the Wicked Witch, a role that doesn't take advantage of her natural comedic skills. Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams pick up the slack and are absolutely stellar as Theodora's fellow spell-casters.

Oz the Great and Powerful was lavished with a budget of $200 million, but all that money couldn't buy this film any of the charm or timelessness of its predecessor.

Rating: ** (*****)