Meet Monica Velour

Meet Monica Velour - Dir. Keith Bearden (2011)

"You screw a few hundred guys and the whole world turns against you."

Marilyn Chambers, Ginger Lynn, Christy Canyon, and Nina Hartley. These are some of the biggest starlets in the history of porn. A few of the well-known performers of the golden age of porn have tried to transition into mainstream film, but found the stigma of their previous occupations to be a tremendous hurdle. Other actresses have happily retired and some are still in the business. Others, like Bambi Woods the starlet of the infamous Debbie Does Dallas, seem to have vanished without at race.

Inspired by these tales, Keith Bearden, writing and directing his first feature film, presents Meet Monica Velour, a coming-of-age story about an awkward young man and a faded star.

Tobe (Dustin Ingram) lives with his grandfather (Brian Dennehy) in suburban Wisconsin and earns a living by working a hot dog truck called the Weenie Wiz. He has a fascination with things of a bygone age, preferring to listen to 1930's jazz and watching vintage porn from the early-80's. His favorite skin flicks feature a beautiful blonde named Monica Velour (Jamie Tisdale). Tobe has all her movies on VHS as well as an extensive collection of posters, photos, and clippings. He's just graduated from high school after four completely undistinguished years. Tobe's prospects are slim after being rejected from every college he applied to. Not wanting to sling hot dogs for the rest of his life, he decides to sell the food truck to an artist living in Indiana. By coincidence, Tobe learns that Monica Velour is making a rare appearance at a Podunk strip club called The Petting Zoo.

Faster than you can say "road trip," Tobe makes the long drive to the Hoosier State to meet his dream girl. What he finds instead is a downtrodden and middle-aged divorcee (Kim Cattrall) whose hollow-eyed routine is a sad sight. She lives in a rundown trailer park and is locked in a bitter custody battle for her daughter with her abrasive ex-husband (Sam McMurray). Monica allows Tobe to stay with her out of pity after he's beaten up by a group of frat boys while trying to defend her honor from their cruel taunts. Thus begins an unlikely friendship as Tobe takes it upon himself to save Monica Velour.

Images of Napoleon Dynamite will likely pop into your head due to the striking resemblance between Tobe and Jon Heder's most well-known character. Much like Napoleon Dynamite, Tobe is a lanky, nerdy looking teenager with thick glasses and curly hair. Unlike Napoleon, Tobe isn't a cartoonish caricature. At least there was an eccentric charm in the former character, Tobe is lacking in any distinct personality. He's also not a very likeable protagonist and his naiveté gets downright annoying very quickly. At least, Kim Cattrall gives a brave, if Oscar bait-y, performance as the over-the-hill adult entertainer. Cattrall put on an extra twenty pounds for the part and wore little to no make-up. It's certainly a far cry from her glamorous role as Samantha on Sex and the City. But, Cattrall hardly gets a chance to delve deeper into the character because of how thinly written she is.

Monica Velour isn't totally devoid of positive elements. The opening credits consisting of mock porno posters and video covers are cute. The film also features the great Keith David as Tobe's prospective buyer, an artist of kitschy Americana. His art studio littered with giant Pez dispensers and a statue of Bob's Big Boy. If it sounds like I'm stretching to find compliments, I am.

Meet Monica Velour is a mix of drama and comedy that's lacking in any drama or comedy. Too often Bearden goes for the cheap jokes. The pseudo-porno scenes are tired gags revolving around poor production values and bad acting. Lacking in originality or genuine emotion, this is a film that fakes its way to the money shot.

Rating: * (*****)

Lottery Ticket

Lottery Ticket - Dir. Erik White (2010)


Ice Cube has come a long way from being a poster boy for gangster rap to being a purveyor of fluffy urban entertainment. Cube serves as executive producer and star of the ensemble comedy Lottery Ticket.

Kevin Carson (the no longer lil' Bow Wow) lives in the projects of Atlanta with his Grandma (Loretta Devine) and two best friends Benny (Brandon T. Jackson) and Stacie (Naturi Naughton). He picks up a couple lottery tickets for his Grandma and one of them yields a big jackpot of $370 million. Unfortunately, the lottery office is closed for the 4th of July weekend. Waiting it out becomes difficult when word gets out around the neighborhood. Kevin soon finds himself hit up by everyone who's looking to ride the money train. The worst though is ex-con Lorenzo (Gbenga Akinnagbe), just released from jail on shoplifting charges thanks to Kevin. Lorenzo not only wants revenge, but wants the winning ticket too.

Lottery Ticket is at its best in the first fifteen minutes as a slice-of-life examination of its colorful characters ala Cube's Barbershop. The opening finds Kevin just trying to get to work at Foot Locker. He's constantly interrupted by a colorful cadre of characters such as Charlie Murphy as the neighborhood gossip and Ice Cube as a former boxer who lurks in his basement and always asks for beef jerky and a Cherry Coke. Yes, all the most interesting stuff happens before the ticket is even introduced. Once it comes into play, the film drifts into a mawkish sentimentality.

Kevin lets riches go to his head as he begins preferring the company of fair-weather friends and gold digging hoochies to his tried and true pals. He inevitably learns the error of his ways and the value of giving to the community. The movie tries to enforce a positive message while simultaneously reinforcing stereotypes. Protagonists describe other characters as a "premature crack baby felon" or being covered in "slave dust."

Aside from the beginning, the rest of the movie only works in bits and pieces. The best scenes belong to the underutilized tandem of Keith David and Terry Crews as a local gangster and his enforcer and rapper T-Pain in a surprisingly funny role as a chatty convenience store clerk.

Rating: * ½

The Princess and the Frog

The Princess and the Frog - Dirs. Ron Clements & John Musker (2009)


2009 was a banner year for the animated film. We’ve seen CG (Up) and stop-motion (Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox) so it’s only fitting that 2009 closes with The Princess and the Frog. The film marks Disney’s return to the traditional hand-drawn animated format they revolutionized in 1937 with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The story structure of Princess and the Frog is evocative of the formula from Disney’s renaissance period of the late-80’s/early-90’s when they produced The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King. Over the past decade, the quality of Disney’s hand-drawn slate gradually declined as they pumped out more misses (Brother Bear) than hits (Lilo & Stitch). The House of Mouse abandoned the format following Home on the Range, but it was Pixar guru John Lasseter who planned to revive the traditional process once he was handed the keys to the Magic Kingdom.

Ron Musker and John Clements, who co-directed The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, were put in charge of the movie while Randy Newman was tasked with composing the soundtrack.

The Princess and the Frog is set in 1920’s New Orleans and stars Tiana, the daughter of a seamstress (Oprah Winfrey) and an aspiring restaurateur (Terrence Howard). Though she comes from a working class background, Tiana is best friends with the affluent Charlotte (Jennifer Cody), a southern Belle and daughter of Big Daddy La Bouff (John Goodman). Tiana’s mother sews dresses for Charlotte and eagle-eyed viewers should be able to pick out the references in her collection. Like many of the Disney heroines of the past, Charlotte’s simplistic goals extend no further than meeting and marrying her Prince Charming. Tiana grows up and now works almost non-stop as a waitress to earn the money to open that restaurant her dad (who is alluded to have died during WWI) always dreamed of.

Meanwhile, the carefree Prince Naveen (Bruno Campos) arrives in the Big Easy searching for a wealthy girl to marry. Seems the Prince’s parents have disowned him for being irresponsible and lazy. A local voodoo practitioner, Dr. Facilier (Keith David), schemes with Naveen’s valet, Lawrence (Peter Bartlett), to turn the Prince into a frog and steal his fortune. When Prince Naveen mistakenly believes Tiana is a princess, he convinces her to give him a kiss, only to see her turn into a frog as well. This pair of newly found amphibians treks through the bayou with a trumpet playing alligator and a Cajun firefly.

The animation is beautiful and enhanced by the film’s unique setting though I believe the filmmakers could have gone further with the period. Much has been made about Tiana as Disney’s first African-American princess, but nary is there a mention of segregation or any type of racial tension. Maybe that was just a little too intense for a kids’ flick? Princess and the Frog may be a welcome return to the classic Disney formula, but it is held back by a slavish devotion to that formula. You’ve got the protagonist, a romantic opposite, a journey, wacky animal sidekicks, and life lessons to be learned. It becomes more and more predictable as the story progresses. Dr. Facilier has some cool visuals backing him up; however, he isn’t nearly as strong a villain as Gaston or Scar. Some of the musical numbers are decent enough with “Almost There” and “When We’re Human” being the best.

The Princess and the Frog is certainly a better offering than the majority of Disney’s recent selections. If you’re planning a family outing this holiday season to the multiplex, you could certainly do much worse than this film. It’s a good picture, but just misses reaching the heights of Beauty and the Beast and its peers.

Rating: ** 1/2

Gamer

Gamer - Dir. Neveldine/Taylor (2009)

The purveyors of punk cinema and anarchic action, the duo known as Neveldine/Taylor wrote and directed Crank and Crank 2: High Voltage, two of my favorite guilty pleasures. Over-the-top, cartoonish, vulgar, and sophomoric, the Crank films were infused by video game conventions and sold like crack to today’s Red Bull generation. Neveldine/Taylor continues their brand of video game-infused cinema with Gamer, a film that acts as an updated version of The Running Man.

At some nebulous point in the future, mega-billionaire Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall) develops a form of nanotechnology that allows one person to control another via the internet. Castle initially uses this new tech for Society, think The Sims with real people. Here, folks are dressed in neon day-glo pimp raver fetish gear and forced to copulate, drug themselves, and laugh off grievous injury. Castle’s next big hit is Slayers, where Death Row inmates can win their chance at freedom by competing in a real life first-person shooter.

The biggest star of Slayers is Kable (Gerard Butler taking on the Jason Statham role) who is only three games away from becoming a free man. Kable’s only thoughts are for his wife Angie (Amber Valleta), a reluctant cast member of Society, and their daughter who was put into foster care. Of course, forces are working against Kable to prevent him from winning the game, not the least of which is Kable’s whiny rich boy controller.

Crank has all the trademarks of Neveldine and Taylor’s sledgehammer sense of plot. There’s the morbidly obese pervert who controls Angie in Society while dipping his foot in greasy vats of maple syrup. There’s Hall’s evil tycoon character whose acts of malevolence include world domination, a bad country fried southern accent, and wearing loafers without socks. The world of Slayers looks like a futuristic combination of Saving Private Ryan and Call of Duty while the action is shot with the usual handheld cameras and rapid-fire edits. However, Gamer has none of the breakneck energy of the Crank films. Neveldine & Taylor attempt to get more serious with Gamer by attempting to slow the pace and pile on the social commentary. The attempt falls flat on its face. It’s hard to take a dramatic turn when you’ve got Michael C. Hall leading a gang of goons in a song-and-dance number set to Sammy Davis Jr.’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”

Gamer gathers together a strong cast with some surprising faces filling out the supporting cast. Neveldine and Taylor score their second failure in being unable to utilize any of them properly. Alison Lohman, hot off her lead role in Drag Me to Hell, appears oh so briefly as a member of a revolutionary hacker group. Zoe Bell pops in as a fellow Slayer only to get her head blown off a minute later. You’d figure if someone were to cast actors like Kyra Sedgwick or Heroes’ Milo Ventimiglia, they’d have them do something of note.

Gamer pales in comparison to District 9. It suffers from a poorly thought-out story full of bland action that builds to an incredibly anti-climactic ending. Sorry, but that dream match between King Leonidas and Dexter didn’t live up to expectations.

Rating: * ½

Coraline

Coraline - Dir. Henry Selick (2009)


Based on the novel by the great Neil Gaiman, Coraline wraps the best and worst of childhood into a mesmerizing fairy tale filled with the haunting imagery they used to have before being Disneyfied.

Coraline Jones (Dakota Fanning) has just moved from the busting urban life of Michigan to the rainy, remote woods of Oregon. Along with Mother (Teri Hatcher) and Father (John Hodgman), they take residence inside a creepy Old Victorian home that’s shared with a pair of retired actresses (a reunited Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders) named Miss Forcible and Miss Spink and Bobinsky (Ian McShane), a Russian acrobat with an army of trained mice. Coraline is instantly bored and can’t get a minute of attention from her parents who are far too busy putting together a gardening catalog. Like any good writer, her father has grown gaunt and pale while sitting in front of his computer. The closest person to a friend Coraline finds is Wybie (Robert Bailey Jr.), an odd boy who follows her around on a motorbike while wearing a skeleton mask.

While exploring her new home, Coraline discovers a little door that’s been bricked over. One night, she finds the passageway unblocked and crawls through to discover a lavish parallel world. Everything is more colorful and fantastical on this side. She meets her Other Mother and Other Father who look just like her real parents except they have black buttons instead of eyes. They fix her an exquisite feast and take her for a ride in the garden on a mechanical praying mantis. However, Other Mother grows more and more possessive and Coraline finds there’s a heavy price to pay.

Nightmare Before Christmas director Henry Selick mixes his own sensibilities with the Gothic surrealism of the Quay Brothers for this modernized take on Alice in Wonderland. It’s as much a coming-of-age tale as it is a wonderful piece of fantasy with all its Freudian imagery of our plucky heroine crawling through a birthing canal towards a field of blossoming flowers. It’s funny, heartwarming, and a little creepy, but in the most fun of ways.

Traditional hand-drawn animation is still clinging to life against the rampant glut of computer animated films, but stop-motion is a dying art form. Coraline is evidence that the medium still has legs. It’s far more gorgeous than anything you could pull off on your Macs. If you get the chance, view the film in 3D. Coraline manages to use 3D as an enhancement rather than a cheap gimmick where characters throw objects at the audience. It allows the audience to immerse themselves in the world of Coraline and enriches the environment. This is a breathtaking animated film and an easy contender for the Oscar. The achievements of the filmmakers is even more amazing when you take into account that everything was built by hand and shot a frame at a time.

Rating: *** ½