Get on Up

Get on Up - Dir. Tate Taylor (2014)

It's too bad Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story didn't make more of a cultural impact. The Judd Apatow-produced parody lampooned the staid conventions of the music biopic as seen in films like Walk the Line and Ray. Walk Hard should have blown up the biopic the way Austin Powers tore down the spy genre. While nobody makes a spy movie in the campy style of the old school Bonds, the standard formula for the music biopic still remains.

The story generally begins with the subject, in his old age, preparing for a major concert and reflecting on his entire life. This is followed by flashbacks of all their highs and lows. Get on Up starts off true to formula with an elderly James Brown (Chadwick Boseman) walking alone down a solemnly lit corridor. The muffled roar of an excited crowd is the only accompaniment to his footsteps. Brown is ready to look back on his life. Surprisingly, Get on Up doesn't go directly to Brown's childhood, but one of his lowest points. In 1993, a drug-addled Brown accidentally discharges a shotgun while berating the unsuspecting attendees of a seminar after someone used his private bathroom. He'd eventually lead police on a high speed chase before spending three years in prison.

From there, Get on Up unfolds in a non-chronological fashion almost as if it were a greatest hits album, except not everything was a chart topper. We see glimpses of Brown as an impoverished child (played by twins Jamarion and Jordan Scott) living in a ramshackle homestead with an abusive father (Lennie James) and a mother (Viola Davis) who abandoned him at a young age. In a disturbing sight, Brown is amongst a group of black boys who are blindfolded and forced to box in a battle royal at a white country club's charity event.

Brown rose from these humble beginnings to worldwide fame as the Godfather of Soul. He upstaged the Rolling Stones in 1964 at The T.A.M.I. Show, strutting offstage and boldly challenging Mick Jagger to top him. Of course, Brown would be a big influence on the Stones frontman to the point where Jagger is actually a producer for Get on Up. Brown performed in front of troops during Vietnam, despite his cargo plane nearly being shot down, and he calmed an angry crowd at Boston Garden the night after Martin Luther King's assassination.

The Hardest Working Man in Show Business would hit his dark patches as well, but you'd hardly know it judging by the film. Brown's problems with drug addiction and domestic abuse are dealt with in the most perfunctory manner. Only one scene a piece is devoted to these issues. Still, Get on Up could hardly be considered hagiographic as Brown's ego and financial blunders are attributed to driving a wedge between he and his fellow musicians.

Get on Up was written by Jez and John-Henry Butterworth, the brothers who knocked it out of the park with Edge of Tomorrow. The Butterworths made a smart move by shuffling the events to make the movie stand out. Otherwise, taken chronologically, this is a typical biopic that attempts to encapsulate an entire life into two hours. There's also a slightly surreal touch, a surprising element given that the director is Tate Taylor, who presented racism in a mainstream multiplex manner with The Help. In a recreation of the Frankie Avalon picture Ski Party, Brown performs "I Got You (I Feel Good)" in an ugly Christmas sweater and surrounded by smiling, plastic faces. The action slows down as Brown laments that he's trapped in a "honky hoedown."  On occasion, Brown breaks the fourth wall and addresses the camera with the payoff being a shamed man who cannot look the audience in the eye after striking his wife.

Chadwick Boseman had a star making turn as Jackie Robinson in 42 and he was reluctant to tackle yet another true-life story. Luckily, Boseman had a change of heart. This is a complete 180 from the stoic Robinson. As Brown, Boseman goes beyond mere mimicry. He captures the electrifying presence of Mr. Dynamite and seamlessly performs all of his fleet footed dance moves. The understated Nelsan Ellis serves as a counterpoint to the outlandish Brown as his best friend Bobby Byrd. The long-suffering pal stood by Brown's side for decades until their falling out. Although, she's only in a handful of scenes, Viola Davis blows everyone away as the estranged mother Susie Brown. Her uneasy reunion with her son is the most powerful scene in the film.

Get on Up doesn't do much to defy the tired conventions of the musical biopic. However, the film is able to rocket up the charts courtesy of a stellar performance by Chadwick Boseman. This is an enjoyable picture, just not one you should go out of your way to see.

Rating: ** (*****)

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 (*****)

Sin City: A Dame To Kill For

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For - Dirs. Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller (2014)

"Sin City is where you go in with your eyes open or you don't come out at all."

You have to hand it to Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller for their dogged determination in sequelizing Sin City. Nine years later, the much-anticipated Sin City: A Dame to Kill For finally arrived in theaters to a tepid response. The movie came just shy of pulling in $40 million worldwide, a fraction of the $158 million earned by its predecessor. Perhaps, too much time has passed.

The original Sin City stood head and shoulders above other Hollywood releases with its hyper-stylized representation of film noir, stark black and white accentuated by splashes of color. Rodriguez also changed the way we thought of adapting comic books by slavishly remaining faithful to Miller's artwork. Pages from the comics were kept on set to utilize as storyboards. Now the look of Sin City isn't as fresh with perfume commercials appropriating the visuals. Miller certainly didn't help matters with his abysmal attempt at a feature film version of Will Eisner's Spirit. As for Rodriguez, Grindhouse was a fun experiment that deserved a larger audience, but Shorts, Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, and Machete Kills didn't set the world on fire.

A Dame to Kill For begins with "Just Another Saturday Night," in which the nigh-invulnerable bruiser Marv (Mickey Rourke) tries to piece together a hazy evening that involved frat boys lighting hobos on fire.

The best and most substantial story is "A Dame to Kill For" starring Dwight McCarthy (Josh Brolin), a man trying to put his violent past behind him. Everything falls apart when he is reunited with former lover Ava Lord (Eva Green). Against his better judgment, Dwight agrees to save Ava from an abusive marriage with the wealthy Damian Lord (Marton Csokas). Of course, Dwight should have known better than to believe anything coming from those luscious lips.

The second Sin City also features two original stories. In "The Long Bad Night," a cocky gambler named Johnny (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) enters into a high stakes poker game against the powerful Senator Roark (Powers Boothe) and might lose more than just his money. Finally, there's "Nancy's Last Dance," which continues the story from "The Yellow Bastard." Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba) is still haunted by the death of her protector John Hartigan (Bruce Willis), who sacrificed his life to protect her from the grasp of Sen. Roark. Now, Nancy is a little unhinged and prepares nearly every waking moment to seek revenge against the untouchable politico.

If you enjoyed the style over substance approach of the first movie, then you'll probably dig A Dame to Kill For since you get more of the same. Rodriguez and Miller seamlessly blend live-action with computer animation in a dynamic fashion to craft the world of Sin City. There's some great imagery here, such as deadly little Miho firing a bow & arrow against a full moon or Roark surrounded by stacks of poker chips that resemble skyscrapers. After a while, it gets tiring, especially when the stories are so repetitive. We get decapitations galore and an endless stream of hard boiled narration. And the women of Sin City wind up being strippers, prostitutes or chopped into pieces by sadistic killers.

The filmmakers try harder this time around to integrate the various stories in the sequel and use the strip club, Kadie's Saloon, as a hub. It doesn't really work nor does it enhance the experience. It can be confusing as well since time means nothing. "Long Bad Night" and "Nancy's Last Dance" take place after the events of the previous picture, but "Dame to Kill For" is a prequel. Keep in mind; these new stories aren't by the Frank Miller who gave us acclaimed runs on Batman and Daredevil. This is the new Frank Miller behind the laughable All-Star Batman & Robin and the atrocious Holy Terror. This is a Frank Miller who thought it would be a fantastic idea for Nancy to disfigure her own face for the sole purpose of getting Marv to help her on a mission of vengeance. Heaven forbid a female character do something on her own.

Marv is a constant in each segment and the big bruiser brought a lot of dark humor in "The Hard Goodbye." However, he's now become a glorified attack dog that they sic on any henchmen in sight. So it makes absolutely no sense why Nancy doesn't just ask him to kill a bunch of dudes for her.

Rosario Dawson as the machine gun toting dominatrix Gail is back along with Jaime King as twin sexpots Goldie and Wendy, and Bruce Willis as the world's most laconic ghost. Dennis Haysbert takes over the role of Manute from the late-Michael Clarke Duncan while Jamie Chung replaces Devon Aoki as the silent assassin Miho. Among the newcomers are Juno Temple, Christopher Lloyd, Ray Liotta, Lady Gaga, Christopher Meloni, Jeremy Piven, and Stacy Keach underneath grotesque make-up that makes him look like a rejected Dick Tracy villain.

None of them hold a candle to Eva Green, who relishes in the role of the femme fatale to end all femme fatales. This is the very definition of sultry and seductive. Green deserves a special award for Best Performances in Unnecessary Frank Miller sequels. She was also the highlight of 300: Rise of an Empire as warrior woman Artemisia. Josh Brolin equates himself well with the gruff and lurid prose as Dwight when he had his old face. It does hurt the tale that Clive Owen was unable to return as Dwight after the reconstructive surgery.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For feels like a quick cash grab that was slapped together, except it came nine years later when the irons have long been cold. It's gratuitously crude and violent without any creative spark.

Rating: ** (*****)

As Above, So Below

As Above, So Below – Dir. John Erick Dowdle (2014)

Is there anything more that can be done with the found footage genre? If As Above, So Below is any evidence, then the answer would be an emphatic 'No.' That's a bit of a shame since the film has something of a pedigree courtesy of director John Erick Dowdle, who co-wrote the script with his brother Drew. The Brothers Dowdle are no strangers to found footage having made The Poughkeepsie Tapes and Quarantine, a remake of the Spanish horror film REC. As Above, So Below has a cool premise, a unique locale, and distinctive poster art, all of which are squandered on a substandard scarefest.

Scarlett Marlowe (Perdita Weeks) is a British scholar and archeologist who dabbles in the skeptical field of alchemy. She desperately wants to validate her late-father's work by finding the legendary Philosopher's Stone, an ancient artifact with the ability to transmute matter. Her first step is the Rose Key, a tablet located in Iran and inscribed with a clue to the Stone's location. She sneaks into the country at great risk and barely manages to escape the cave before the Iranian military bomb it.

Scarlett, accompanied by a documentarian named Benji (Edwin Hodge), jets off to Paris where she recruits ex-boyfriend George (Ben Feldman) to help her translate an Aramaic tablet. George is reluctant to help since Scarlett abandoned him to the Turkish authorities on one of their previous junkets. Our intrepid treasure hunters realize that the Stone is buried somewhere within the labyrinthian catacombs underneath the City of Lights. They hire Papillon (Francois Civil) and his assistants Souxie (Marion Lambert) and Zed (Ali Marhyar) to guide them through the tunnels with promise of treasure as payment.

As Scarlett and her cohorts delve deeper into the catacombs, they find themselves way off map as tunnels collapse and openings mysteriously collapse. They are haunted by strange noises, apparitions, and other oddities such as a ringing telephone and The Mole (Cosme Castro), an old friend who seemingly disappeared in the catacombs two years ago. Most ominous of all is a message carved above an entrance reading, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

As Above earned the honor of being the first production granted permission by the French government to film in the actual catacombs without the luxuries of electricity of cell service. Shooting on location gives the movie an authenticity that would have been lacking if producers had built sets on a soundstage. The tunnels add to the claustrophobia and you can almost smell the musty air. Not to mention all the millions of bodies buried underneath Paris. Unfortunately, the story fails to capitalize on the setting.

The characters are utterly forgettable with most of them simply being present to rack up a body county. Benji's sole purpose is to be the cameraman. You know; the guy who flees in terror, but always helpfully holds the camera at eye level. Scarlett should have been an intriguing protagonist. During an interview, she runs down a resume that includes multiple PhDs, fluency in seven languages, and a black belt in Krav Maga. All while she's barely 30. She should have been the love child of Indiana Jones and Lara Croft. Instead, she comes off as bland, self-serving, and just a bit callous when it comes to other peoples' lives.

Aside from Benji's digital camera, each actor is also outfitted with a smaller camera attached to their heads. There's a lot of shaky camerawork with the characters doing lots of running, climbing, and crawling. Grab some Dramamine if you're prone to motion sickness. Still, Dowdle manages to get a few creepy set pieces in, such as a close-up of Scarlett nearly drowning in a pool of blood. Another scene finds Benji trapped between a narrow opening and a pile of bones.

As Above, So Below is a high concept horror film that never lives up to its promise. It's just another paint-by-numbers production that will put you to sleep rather than keep you up at night.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

The Equalizer

The Equalizer – Dir. Antoine Fuqua (2014)

It's been well over a decade since director Antoine Fuqua and Denzel Washington first collaborated on Training Day, a movie that earned the latter an Academy Award for Best Actor. While Washington has been churning out a combination of action and drama, Fuqua's output hasn't been quite as fruitful. He's helmed a couple of arguably decent action flicks (Shooter, Olympus Has Fallen) and some forgettable fare (King Arthur, Brooklyn's Finest). Now, the pair has teamed up for the second time for a film that is most definitely not Training Day.

The Equalizer is based on the 80's television series about Robert McCall (originally played by Edward Woodward), a former CIA agent, who became a freelance troubleshooter for anyone in need. Think of him as a one man A-Team. Washington easily steps into the role with McCall's background much more mysterious this time around. What we do know is that he's retired from his former life and now living in a Spartan, one bedroom Boston apartment. He's the manager at a Home Mart (a Home Depot-esque megastore) and offers kindly advice to those around him. He spends many sleepless nights drinking tea and reading all those novels people tell you to read at a 24hr diner straight out of Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks." There, McCall befriends a young girl named Alina (Chloe Grace Moretz) who is forced to work as a prostitute for particularly nasty Russian gangsters.

McCall quickly dispatches with the villains after Alina is nearly beaten into a coma. Too late does he find out that they weren't lowly pimps, but integral cogs in the east coast arm of the Russian Mafia. The powerful head of the organization, Mr. Pushkin (Vladimir Kulich), sends in his chief enforcer Teddy (Marton Csokas) to clean up the mess. Meanwhile, McCall keeps himself busy dealing with a stick-up man and two dirty cops.

The Equalizer isn't about shattering genre conventions, but wallowing in them in the best possible manner. This is the type of movie where cargo ships and oil tankers explode as Denzel calmly walks away without ever looking back. He dispatches bad guys quickly and efficiently with the fighting style we've seen plenty of times in the Taken and Bourne films. In a nice touch, McCall generally uses whatever is handy to kill his enemies. This is especially spotlighted during the climax inside the Home Mart, which plays out like an R-rated version of Home Alone.

While the action is fun, there's no flair to it. Fuqua's direction is surprisingly pedestrian. Even the sequences where McCall goes into Equalizer-vision, slowing things down and assessing the situation, were done far better by Guy Ritchie in Sherlock Holmes. Only occasionally do the visuals pop, such as when Fuqua references Rear Window in a scene where Teddy claims another victim. The screenplay by Richard Wenk (The Mechanic, The Expendables 2) doesn't grasp the concept of subtext. The novels McCall reads, like The Old Man and the Sea and Don Quixote, serve as obvious commentary for the various acts of The Equalizer.

At 59, Denzel doesn't look his age at all. Along with Liam Neeson, he's got the presence and instant credibility to serve as an action hero. Here, Denzel dials it down and underplays the role to enhance the character's cool demeanor and ordered lifestyle. It's a stark contrast to Marton Csokas playing it as an old school, menacing Bond villain with tattoos of devils across his torso. Melissa Leo and Bill Pullman are a welcome sight as they pop in quickly as McCall's former CIA handlers. There's definitely a Taxi Driver element to the friendship between McCall and Alina, but Chloe Moretz disappears for a majority of the movie when it decides death and destruction are more interesting.

The Equalizer is a perfectly acceptable compliment to similar action movies such as Man on Fire, Taken, and Jack Reacher. The basic elements are enjoyable enough to forget that Fuqua and Denzel do little to transcend clichés.

Rating: *** (*****)

The Skeleton Twins

The Skeleton Twins - Dir. Craig Johnson (2014)

Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig have proven themselves to be exceptional comedic talents. They've branched out since leaving Saturday Night Live and occasionally appear in a film together. Most notably were their scene-stealing turns as the managers of an amusement park in Greg Mottola's Adventureland. It shouldn't be surprising that an enterprising filmmaker would choose the pair to headline their picture. What might be surprising is that The Skeleton Twins isn't an uproarious comedy, but a somber mix of light and dark subject matter.

Wiig and Hader play estranged siblings Maggie and Milo Dean, who haven't spoken to each other in over ten years. Milo has moved to Los Angeles where he waits tables while trying to make it as an actor. Meanwhile, Maggie has remained in upstate New York where she works as a dental hygienist and is married to nice guy Lance (Luke Wilson). Both are repositories for all manner of emotional damage.

The Skeleton Twins opens with Maggie about to down a handful of pills. Her suicide attempt is postponed when she receives a call that Milo has been hospitalized after slitting his wrists. Milo reluctantly agrees to stay with Maggie and along the way we find out just how damaged these two are. Their father committed suicide when they were kids and their mother (Joanna Gleason) is no peach. She's a new age self-help guru who was too busy with an "insight retreat" to attend her own daughter's wedding. Maggie's seemingly blissful marriage isn't all it's cracked up to be. She's been secretly taking birth control pills in spite of Lance's desire to have children and she's been having an affair with her handsome scuba instructor (Boyd Holbrook). As for Milo, he resumes an obviously doomed relationship with a former high school teacher (Ty Burrell) with whom he had an affair when he was only 15.

The Skeleton Twins was directed by Craig Johnson, who also co-wrote the script with Mark Heyman, one of the writers for Black Swan. The movie has all the earmarks for an indie comedy, right down to Mark & Jay Duplass receiving executive producer credit. Johnson relies heavily on the murky imagery of water; a trope that should have been retired after The Graduate did it so well. Johnson never quite nails the nuances necessary to convey the themes of the story. As a result, many scenes are hindered by dialogue right on the nose though that didn't stop Johnson and Heyman from winning the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance.

Leave it to Hader and Wiig to elevate the material. The SNL alumni effortlessly portray the shorthand communication that comes from siblings due in no small part to their familiarity off-screen. Some of the movie's best moments are when the two are simply riffing with one another, such as when they goof around after sniffing nitrous oxide or dress in drag for Halloween. Hader and Wiig also make the most of the clichéd bonding session over a kitschy pop tune. In this instance, it's Starship's "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now," which goes from insipid to inspired thanks to Hader's energy in contrast to Wiig's deadpan facial expressions.

Wiig and Hader aren't the only winning cast members. Kudos go to a wonderfully understated Ty Burrell and Luke Wilson, who brings all the earnest charm you've come to expect from the Wilson clan.

The Skeleton Twins isn't an altogether successful film, but the engaging performances by Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader are well worth a look. The protagonists find just the right mix of pathos and humor.

Rating: *** (*****)

Obvious Child

Obvious Child - Dir. Gillian Robespierre (2014)

Obvious Child has reductively been referred to as the abortion rom-com. Yes, the subject plays an important part in the film, but the movie shouldn't be defined by it just as the protagonist shouldn't be defined by one act.

Obvious Child began as a 2009 short film written and directed by Gillian Robespierre and starring Jenny Slate. Robespierre is a first time director while Slate spent a season on Saturday Night Live and had recurring role on Parks and Recreation.

Slate stars as New Yorker Donna Stern, who works at a bookstore during the day and performs as a stand-up comic at night. It should go without saying that she's barely scraping by in the Big Apple. The comedy club she frequents could hardly be considered a metropolis of mirth. Donna's material usually involves intimate details from her love life, which angers her boyfriend Ryan (Paul Briganti), who breaks up with her in a dingy co-ed bathroom. To add insult to injury, he also admits to cheating on Donna for several months.

Donna deals with the situation about as well as expected. She clumsily attempts to stalk her ex, and then awkwardly rambles about the ordeal on stage. She tops off the evening by getting blazing drunk and engaging in a one-night stand with the clean cut Max (Jake Lacy). Upon discovering she's pregnant, Donna ultimately decides to have an abortion, but finds it exceedingly difficult to break the news to Max.

Mainstream movies have generally avoided the hot button issue of abortion like the plague. It's flippantly brought up for the briefest seconds in Knocked Up while the title character in Juno is sent fleeing from a clinic. The only film in recent memory to deal with the subject with any dramatic weight is Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days. It goes without saying that Obvious Child is on a completely different spectrum.

Robespierre's screenplay has all the earmarks of an indie comedy with plenty of cutesy, twee moments such as Donna and Max sharing a romantic piss in an alley or a fresh take on the clichéd pregnancy test scene. Robespierre doesn't treat the subject with kid gloves. Yet, she avoids sermonizing or demonizing her characters. Donna's decision isn't painted as a right or wrong one, just a decision that she makes without agonizing over it. It's a bold choice on Robespierre's part and one that will undoubtedly irk some.

Jenny Slate deserves credit for imbuing a potentially unlikeable character with such winning charm. Donna could have easily been an annoying hipster, an aimless millennial in a post-Lena Dunham world. But, no, there's a gentle quality to her in spite of a filthy stand-up act cut from the same cloth as Sarah Silverman and Amy Schumer. There's also a sweet romance blossoming between Donna and Max, the latter of whom might have been relegated to the role of bland nice guy in a more conventional rom-com.

Obvious Child is an uneven comedy and Robespierre may have been better served trimming a few bits and pieces. A scene involving David Cross as a loathsome lothario feels quite superfluous. Still, Obvious Child is a welcome change of pace to all the lowbrow comedies and effects extravaganzas cluttering the shopping mall multiplexes. The picture hinges on a solid performance by Jenny Slate and a supporting cast that includes Gaby Hoffman and Richard Kind.

Rating: ** ½ (*****)

Life After Beth

Life After Beth - Dir. Jeff Baena (2014)

Zombies have always worked well as metaphors for hot button issues, such as rampant consumerism or the darker side of humanity. It's not surprising that a few ingenious filmmakers decided to use the zombie apocalypse to deal with romance and relationships. Edgar Wright did it best with Shaun of the Dead while 2013's Warm Bodies had fun with the premise in our post-Twilight era of cinema. Life After Beth mixes the genres of undead horror with young romance, but in a different manner. Whereas Warm Bodies is set years after the fall of civilization and told from the point of view of the handsome zombie boy, Life After Beth takes place just before the outbreak and told from the point of view of the relatively normal Dane DeHaan.

DeHaan is Zach Orfman, whose entire world has been shattered following the death of his girlfriend Beth Slocum (Aubrey Plaza). She died of a rattlesnake bite while hiking in the woods by herself. Zach is hit just as hard by the lingering regrets he feels because Beth was going to break up with him. There were a lot of things he could have done to improve their relationship like going on a hike with her.

Everything changes when Beth returns, alive and well, with no memories of her death or romantic problems with Zach. Her parents, Maury and Geenie (John C. Reilly and Molly Shannon) aren't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. They're more than content to accept that she's been resurrected though Zach is obviously freaked out. Then, he realizes he's been given a second chance with Beth to do all the things they only talked about. Although, there are little instances that Beth isn't quite right. For example, she has a predilection for sleeping in the attic and listening to smooth jazz. She's also prone to fits of rage and feats of incredible strength. And that skin complexion doesn't look quite right…

Life After Beth was written and directed by Jeff Baena, who also co-wrote David O. Russell's I Heart Huckabee's. There's a similar quirkiness on display in "Beth" with the film set in a heightened version of milquetoast suburbia. The story is almost a prequel to the zombie apocalypse showing the initial return of the dead and their subsequent transformation into a ravenous horde. Baena does an interesting job in setting the parameters of the world, but he never delves further than surface level.

Zach is a blank cipher, a largely reactive protagonist who comes off on the whiny side. Baena hardly gives his supporting characters much beyond what's written on the page and leans heavily on his actors. Luckily, he's cast a wealth of talent accomplished enough to make something out of the one-dimensional denizens of Life After Beth. This includes John C. Reilly, Paul Reiser and Cheryl Hines as Zach's parents, and a throwaway cameo by Garry Marshall. Molly Shannon is pitch perfect as Beth's sweet-natured mom, even maintaining her ultra-sunny disposition after having a hand eaten off. Matthew Gray Gubler is cast against type as Zach's older brother, Kyle, a rent-a-cop with delusions of grandeur and a hard-on for his Desert Eagle .50. Kyle is nothing more than a cartoon thrown into the mix to be quirky for quirky's sake.

Aubrey Plaza is great as Beth, getting a chance to play character outside of her usual sarcastic tone. Anna Kendrick pops in for a handful of scenes as a childhood friend of Zach's. You can't help but imagine the possibilities of a buddy comedy starring Plaza and Kendrick with the former's sardonic humor pitted against the latter's adorable perkiness.

Life After Beth had an intriguing premise with an excellent cast, but never lived up to its potential as a hybrid of horror, comedy, and romance. Unfortunately, the movie decomposed quicker than its title character.

Rating: ** (*****)

The Purge: Anarchy

The Purge: Anarchy – Dir. James DeMonaco (2014)

The Purge was one of the surprise hits of 2013. Produced on a meager budget of $3 million, it went on to rake in over $89 million worldwide. The general consensus from critics was that the film had an interesting premise that was never fully realized.

In the near future, United States has been restored by the New Founding Fathers of America, who have instituted the annual Purge. For 12 hours out of the year, all crime, including murder, is legal. The NFFA expound the virtues of the Purge for lowering crime rates, unemployment, and poverty. Of course, they fail to mention that the poor are easy prey while the wealthy remain safe and sound in their mansions. The first film established the parameters of its high concept with Ethan Hawke as the patriarch of an upper middle-class family with a high-tech security system under siege when they give sanctuary to an injured stranger.

The Purge: Anarchy expands upon the world beyond the walls of a single suburban home and into the streets of Downtown Los Angeles. It shows just how everyone participates in the Purge, or at least, tries to survive it. The homeless hunker down in the subway tunnels praying no one finds them. The elite one-percent don't even leave their homes to purge, not when they can simply order take out. Human beings are delivered directly to them to be hacked to bits by machete. Or they're rounded up and hunted in an arena like a homicidal version of lasertag. Meanwhile, a fiery revolutionary named Carmelo Johns (Michael K. Williams) hacks into broadcast signals to spread his message of bringing down the New Founding Fathers.

For Eva Sanchez (Carmen Ejogo) and her daughter Cali (Zoe Soul), the Purge means they board up the windows and hide in their apartment until the night is over. Shane and Liz (played by real-life married couple Zach Gilford & Kiele Sanchez) are more concerned about how to tell their family that they are breaking up. However, a creepy gang of masked thugs have cut their fuel line leaving them stranded in the city just before the Purge commences. Sgt. Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo) is fully prepared for the Purge. He's bulletproofed his muscle car and loaded it with a stockpile of weapons. The Sarge is on a mission of revenge against a man who killed his son in a drunken driving accident.

Their paths cross when a government-sponsored death squad busts into an apartment complex and drags Eva and Cali onto the streets for execution. Turns out, people aren't killing the lower classes in large enough quantities so the NFFA have sent out their own squads equipped with body armor, automatic weapons, and surveillance equipment tapped into the city's traffic cameras. Sarge becomes the reluctant protector for this frightened quartet

Writer/Director James DeMonaco is clearly influenced by the works of John Carpenter with The Purge owing a debt to Assault on Precinct 13. Not surprising since DeMonaco penned the script for the 2005 remake. Anarchy is reminiscent of Escape From New York as well as The Warriors. Don't worry, there's no need to see the first film to understand the sequel. Edwin Hodge, who played the stranger, is the only returning cast member.

DeMonaco gets to play with triple the budget of the previous movie though that's still barely a drop in the hat compared to big Hollywood blockbusters. Yet, Anarchy looks impressively slick with DeMonaco setting the mood with several slick aerial shots of the city at night. And there's a lot of other cool imagery to compliment them, such as a pair of 18-wheelers roaming the empty highways for unsuspecting targets. A woman, armed with a machine gun and a bullhorn, expounds the wrath of god as she picks off random passersby. At one point, the protagonists drive by a dazed girl covered in blood and looking just like Carrie. One character jokes, "Maybe he deserved it," when he sees a stock broker strung up in the banking district. By the way, the banks have moved their money to undisclosed locations in preparation for the Purge.

Beneath the visuals is a story that lacks any nuance. DeMonaco hammers home his message with the subtlety of the Gatling gun used by the main antagonist. The rich and powerful are preening Caucasians dressed in tuxedos or prep school uniforms while the resistance fighters are obvious allusions to the Black Panthers. Shane and Liz are the least interesting of the protagonists, mostly there to state the obvious when they aren't serving as the bickering Bickersons. At least Eva and Cali grow beyond their designation as damsels in distress. Frank Grillo really is the anchor of Anarchy. As the Sarge, he's Charles Bronson, Kurt Russell, and the Punisher all rolled into one. It's a shame he wasn't able to take the lead in Joe Carnahan's proposed remake of Death Wish, Grillo is a throwback to the action heroes of gritty 70's era action flicks.

The Purge: Anarchy is a marked improvement over its predecessor. This is a lean, mean action movie harkens back to the exploitation genre of the 1970's.

Rating: *** (*****)

Sharknado 2: The Second One

Sharknado 2: The Second One - Dir. Anthony C. Ferrante (2014)

Once upon a time, they were known as the Sci-Fi Channel. Then, they became SyFy and attempted to diversify their programming with reality shows and WWE wrestling. Throughout it all, one thing has remained constant with SyFy and that is the cheesy, made-for-TV monster of the week movies. D-list celebrities like Antonio Sabato Jr. or Lorenzo Lamas are forced to do battle with mutated insects are monsters resurrected from the prehistoric age. The majority of these movies treated themselves deadly serious, despite the fact that they were met with a round of chuckles. It took a while before SyFy got in on the joke and the tipping point was probably Sharknado.

Improbably, the low-budget picture about a tornado full of sharks launched itself into the pop culture stratosphere. No surprise that a sequel, Sharknado 2: The Second One was immediately greenlit.

In case you missed it, Sharknado featured Ian Ziering (of Beverly Hills 90210 fame) as Fin Shepard, a surfer who saved Los Angeles from the threat of a tornado that had swept through the Pacific Ocean and spread bloodthirsty sharks throughout the city. Fin even managed to win back the heart of his ex-wife April (Tara Reid). The sequel begins with Fin and April on a flight to New York City as part of their book tour for the best-selling How to Survive a Sharknado. Suddenly, the plane hits bad weather…bad weather filled with man-eating sharks. Faster than you can say, William Shatner, Fin spots a shark on the wing, but nobody believes him. Heck, he hardly believes it himself. How can the same thing happen to the same guy twice?

The weather becomes even deadlier as two tornadoes threaten to converge in the heart of Manhattan. Fin must not only save the city, but his family as well. His sister, Ellen (Kari Wuhrer), and niece, Mora (Courtney Baxter), are visiting the Statue of Liberty while her husband, Martin (Mark McGrath), takes in a Mets game at Citi Field.

Sharknado wastes no time in getting the carnage going. Whereas the first film had to introduce the protagonists and the concept of the sharknado, the sequel starts right away with sharks being scooped up by Mother Nature. The prologue is basically Sharks on a Plane though Ian Ziering never shouts, "Get these motherf'n sharks off my mother'fn plane." What a missed opportunity. There's a lot more ridiculousness to follow with Martin and his son immolating sharks with super soakers filled with napalm. Or how about Tara Reid replacing her left hand (which was bitten off by a shark) with a buzzsaw?

The popularity of the original Sharknado meant that numerous celebrities were knocking on SyFy's door, each one looking to be a part of the film. Sharknado 2 includes cameos by Wil Wheaton, Andy Dick, Kurt Angle, Kelly Osbourne, Biz Markie and Jared from Subway. You've also got Matt Lauer, Al Roker, Kelly Ripa, and Michael Strahan all portraying themselves. The movie is loaded with just as many winks and nods to other movies and TV shows. Judd Hirsch has a brief role as a cab driver in a reference to his role on Taxi while Robert Hays captains another doomed flight ala Airplane. Fin's family is named Martin and Ellen Brody with Billy Ray Cyrus popping in as a doctor named Quint.

By no means is Sharknado 2 a cinematic classic. The special effects are horrendous and most of the actors are just as bad with Tara Reid being particularly wooden. The screenplay by the gloriously named Thunder Levin makes several sad attempts at fleshing out his one-dimensional characters. Levin wastes valuable shark chomping time with an unrequited love story between Ziering and Vivica A. Fox.

Rating: ** (*****)