Iris is the last documentary created by Albert Maysles, whose previous works included Grey Gardens, Gimme Shelter, and others of note. He passed away earlier this year.

Iris tells some of the story of Iris Apfel, a “geriatric debutante” who became a style maven in the middle of last century. She is mostly known for her unique sense of style, and her overuse of accessories – baubles, necklaces, bracelets, etc – is her strongpoint. Her style is her own, and drives her even today. She learned that’s her strength, and she plays to it well. She’s still very active, and has a way of combining things that you wouldn’t consider. She is supported by her husband, who’s turned 100.

The energy this woman has puts many to shame. Despite her age, she’s always engaged in what she’s involved in, and doesn’t show any signs of letting up.

While fashion isn’t my thing, this documentary was certainly an interesting watch. You don’t get too much of her history, but instead, get a sense of how she does things her own way. Impressive, for anyone. Recommended.

This movie is premiering soon in NYC, and will be in more theaters soon enough. Here’s a link to the Official Trailer.

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared is the latest film shown at the Arthouse Film Festival this evening. The film is from Sweden, and is based on a book of the same name, that’s sold over 6 million copies. The movie opens in NYC soon.

The story revolves around Allan Karlsson, and man who is in a nursing home, and has turned 100 years of age. He is momentarily distracted by a kid setting off fireworks, she he skips out on his birthday party, and wanders out to investigate. He decides to just leave the home, so he heads down to the local bus station and buys a ticket on the first bus out. While there, a punk forces him to watch his suitcase, but Allan’s bus arrives, so he takes the luggage. Little does he know what’s inside…

The chase begins. Allan meets people who join him on his “flight”. The film intersperses that story with flashbacks of Allan’s life, from birth onward. Allan has a meager upbringing, but after the deaths of his parents, he develops a wanderlust, never staying in any given place for long. He manages to stumble upon several world-changing events, like the Spanish Civil War, The Manhattan Project, and so on. If you’re thinking of Forrest Gump, add a touch of Being there, and you’ve got it. This movie plays like a farce, with a mix of black comedy, and, like those two films I mentioned, there are convenient coincidences aplenty.

Almost all of it is played for laughs. He rubs elbows with world leaders who befriend him and then want him to do things for them, but he can’t seem to be fully engaged or really let himself get distracted by the situation, even when things start crashing down on him. He has a sort of mellowness that evens him out. Allan is a “smarter” Chauncey Gardner, who never lets the circumstances affect what he wants to do.

This film has some occasional brutal violence, and is therefore not for the lighthearted. DO NOT watch the trailer for the film, it gives far too much away. The film is half in English, the rest in subtitled Swedish.

I wouldn’t rate it as a ‘must see in the theaters’, mainly because it’s a film focused on interpersonal relationships, but it’s worth watching nonetheless.

Home is the latest animated feature from Dreamworks. It is available in 3D, but it is totally unnecessary to see it that, unless you specifically want to. The animation style does not depend on it for telling the story.

The race of Boov are about to settle on a new planet. They are on the run, and have chosen their newest home. Their typical method of colonizing involves collecting all the native sentient species on whatever planet they choose, displace them to some less desirable location on said planet, and move in to whatever homes that species had. This time, they’ve chosen Earth, and they vacuum everyone up and deposit them in the Australian Outback, in organized communities.

The film focuses on the exuberant Boov, named Oh (Jim Parsons), who clearly doesn’t fit in. Most Boov are self-centered, and Oh is most certainly not. Oh was given his name due to when he greets other Boov, they roll their eyes and grumble, “Oh…” After finding his new home, he sends out an evite for a house-warming party, but mistakenly does a “send all”, which could reach the mortal enemy of the Boov, aka The Gorg. The Gorg keep chasing The Boov, destroying worlds along the way. The Boov’s leader, Captain Smek (Steve Martin, yes, that one), puts out a worldwide alert, and the Boov-hunt for Oh begins.

Meanwhile, a human girl, Tippy (Rihanna) was overlooked when the human culling began, thanks to her cat, named Pig. She was separated from her mother and is trying to figure out how to get to her, wherever she is. Oh and Tippy bump into each other at a convenience store, and an unlikely alliance is formed when Oh promises to reunite Tippy and “my mom”.

The Boov are a cowardly race, and avoid confrontation wherever possible. The trust that forms between Oh and Tippy is what drives this movie forward. It is a fish-out-of-water story, as Oh tries to understand Tip’s drive to be reunited. Some of the better jokes are spoiled in the trailer, but definitely not all of them. This film is clearly for children, but there’s enough of a story to keep parents and guardians happy, as well as adults who see the film non-ironically (like yours truly). Tip is trying to explain humanity to Oh, and it’s done with a childlike quality. There are plenty of jokes based on the Boov not understanding simple human culture and fortunately, it’s not too blatantly pandering. The behavior of the Boov is very fitting for Steve Martin, who plays his role almost as if he were Navin from The Jerk, a more or less benevolent fool, but this time, he’s in charge.

I found Home entertaining, and amusing. The title, however, really doesn’t work, for me. If given the opportunity, I’d change it, but I have no idea of what to change it to, though.

Recommended

Chappie is the latest film from South African Director Neil Blomkamp, who’s given us the films District 9 and Elysium, District 9 was a film about Racism, whereas Elysium was about the 1%-ers living the literal high life in a space station. The social commentary of Chappie is not so obvious. This film is about a hard sci-fi concept as it might apply to the real world.

In the near future, crime is rampant in Detroit Johannesburg, South Africa. The OCP Tetravaal Corporation has experimented with robotic police officers to keep the peace. The parallels to the movie Robocop are there, however, Chappie adds elements from Short Circuit into the mix. Current it-actor Dev Patel plays Deon, inventor of the robotic police force, who’s research has continued into the area of Artificial Intelligence. Tetravaal’s CEO Michelle (Sigourney Weaver) orders him to stop the project and just focus on their highly effective Robotic Officers instead. Determined, he steals a unit scheduled to be destroyed, and intends to load his new software into it, since it was too damaged to repair and return to active service.

Meanwhile, a small group of mid-level criminals owes a lot of money to the local gang kingpin, Hippo, and they need it fast. They figure that if they can hack the robots, they can steal what they need. Ninja and Yo-landi (played by rap-trance stars Ninja and Yo-Landi of the group Die Antwoord [The Answer]), kidnap Deon to force him to provide a way for them to hack the robots. They captured him as he was making off with the aforementioned broken robot, and Deon convinces them he’ll do what he can to help, so he installs his AI program into the robot, which is dubbed Chappie. While very much paralleling the early life of Johnny 5 and his growth, Chappie’s development seems more realistic, as Yo-Landi treats Chappie like a child, and Ninja introduces him to the reality of their existence.

Meanwhile, Deon’s rival at the company, Vincent (Hugh Jackman), wants to see the robots fail, as he has been developing a similar protection device, ED-209 MOOSE, but MOOSE would be directly controlled by humans, similar to how the military controls drones now. His funding’s been cut several times, and, well, that’s where the fun begins.

There are some odd choices made in how this film plays out. For one, I found South Africans’ dialect hard to follow, sometimes. Blomkamp must’ve agreed, because he inserted Subtitles for Hippo’s words, but no one else’s. Maybe the theater’s sound system wasn’t the greatest, because I had to strain to hear some of the dialogue properly. There were some other shortcuts taken in order to streamline the movie, but they were more technical, and would never have happened if Tetravaal was a real company and had better physical security. IMO, Chappie’s learning ability progressed too rapidly, too. Those concerns were bypassed to allow the story to flow better, and rightfully so.

This was an enjoyable movie. The story never really dragged, and the third act pulled it all together. It was an interesting take on the concept of AI, and how such an intelligence would accept a not-so-legal lifestyle. There is physical violence in the film, and several gun battles. I found it odd that there were several parents had brought their preteen children to the theater, however, the trailers for the film do not really describe the kind of story it is.

I suspect it will disappear from theaters soon, because the number of theaters showing it on a full schedule were fewer than I’d expect.

Kingsman: The Secret Service is an action movie about a secret British organization, so hidden that no government is aware of its existence. Funded by the English aristocracy, they affect change in the world and choose to remain discreet about it. The Kingsmen all have code names based on the names of the Knights of the Round Table. Manners, etiquette, and honor are the behaviors that all of them must follow.

The movie starts with a kidnapping. Professor Arnold (Mark Hamill) is kidnapped and is held for a meeting. Before that can happen, one of the Kingsmen starts to rescue him, but is foiled. The organization has to find a replacement for their fallen comrade.

Kingsman primarily focuses on Eggsy, a twenty-something that has had a rough and tumble existence. Unbeknownst to him, his father was a Kingsman who was killed in the line of duty. Galahad (Colin Firth) has kept an eye on him, and when Eggsy gets into trouble with the police, Galahad offers him the opportunity to enter the trials to become a Kingsman. The training is difficult and brutal. Only one Kingsman will be chosen from all the candidates.

Meanwhile, celebrities and heads of state are disappearing, and no one knows why, or who’s doing it. Galahad investigates, and the path leads to an enigmatic tech billionaire, Valentine (Samuel L Jackson), who has made it his life’s goal to solve the problem of Global Warming. He has a plan, but the details of it are unclear.

This is, essentially, a spy film, complete with all the requisite action movie tropes. However, it’s done with a certain style and flair that harkens back to the old Avengers TV series, with John Steed, Emma Peel, et al. The Kingsman organization emulates what I expect The Avengers’ organization was. If you’ve never seen that show, you should, and you’ll understand.

Kingsman was unfolding as you’d expect, and it was a typical movie of the genre. They even make several references to James Bond movies, and how they play out. At the very least, they weren’t trying to claim to be original in any way, shape, or form. However, that changed, once Galahad visits a church much like the Westboro Baptist. What he says, and what happens in that scene was as pretty entertaining, if not better, than almost anything Quentin Tarantino has ever done. It has a quite a ‘bit of the old ultraviolence’ that is Q’s trademark, but it was extremely well choreographed, and amusing in its own way.

That said, the rest of the film plays out in a more traditional manner that one would expect from such movies. That scene I’ve mentioned does elevate this from out of the pack of many such parodies and ripoffs, enough to make me recommend it. The very end of the movie is a bit more crude than I’d have expected, given what the Kingsmen supposedly stand for. However, in the movie itself, there’s a discussion about the old guard not being to embrace future generations and their ways, so in that respect, I guess I can almost forgive it. Almost. This is not necessarily a movie you need to see in a theater. You can wait to stream it later, if there’s nothing else on screens that you wish to see.

Of course, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is the sequel to the original film. The gist of the first was a collection of pensioners in England who chose to move to Jaipur, India, on the promise of a nice relaxing set of golden years. Instead, their accommodations are far from perfect, so they struggle to make the best of an awful situation. The hotel’s condition is essentially their own. Do they accept their fate, or do they overcome it? The first movie ended on a positive note.

The Second Best… picks up a few months after the first. Sonny (Dev Patel) and Muriel (Maggie Smith) have managed to get the hotel into decent shape, and are looking to expand into providing more such facilities. They travel to San Diego to meet with an American corporation who funds retirement communities, to form a partnership.

Sonny and Sunaina became engaged, and the wedding is near. An old boyfriend of Sunaina appears, and interferes with Sonny’s plans to expand the business. New Guests arrive at the hotel, including Guy(Richard Gere), who Sonny guesses is an inspector for the company they are trying to do business with. The other guests are thriving, but failing in some ways to get their lives in order. It’s difficult to address these events without giving away too much.

This is a fine movie. The dialogue is really well written, and these actors give the words the appropriate gravitas. There’s one exchange between Muriel and Evelyn (Judi Densch) that really sunk home, and I doubt any other actresses could’ve done that scene as well. While this movie is a bit schmaltzy, and some of the revelations are telegraphed, I still recommend this film.

Jupiter Ascending is the next film from the Wachowskis, who’ve brought us The Matrix series, V For Vendetta, Cloud Atlas, and Speed Racer, among others. Nothing they do is simple. They definitely swing for the fences in every project they’ve made, and Jupiter Ascending is no exception to that rule. This Science Fiction epic contains a lot of detail, whether it’s needed or not.

That said, the plot is relatively straightforward. Mila Kunis plays Jupiter Jones, a maid who lives in Chicago. Through a set of convoluted circumstances, she is the heir to a dynasty that has existed for thousands of millenia. Humanity, as it turns out, did not come into existence on Earth first, but has been around elsewhere for a very long time. There are currently three siblings within the dynasty who need her, and each attempts to take her from Earth, to serve their own selfish reasons.

The one that succeeds sends a ‘hunter’, played by Channing Tatum, who is a half-human/half wolf hybrid. While others are trying to kill her, he wants to protect her, for his own reasons. Deals are made, and double crossings emerge. Sean Bean also plays a role, but I will not divulge his fate. There are dire circumstances that push the story to its conclusion. In My Opinion, the end leaves open the possibility of a sequel, but I suspect that it will never happen.

Jupiter Ascending started as a good idea, but just became too much. This movie is a cacophony of ideas that don’t entirely mix well. Many of them spill onto the screen, and only some are played out. Others just end, and are forgotten, perhaps because they were cut for time. The movie, as it is, runs for 127 minutes, but it probably could’ve used another half hour to 45 minutes to resolve the other bits of story. I had a lot of questions leaving the theater about the movie, most of which were about the storyline, but there were some were regarding why this film was made the way it was. JA is visually stunning, and may have looked better in 3D, but in the 2D version I saw, the overuse of shaky-cam for all the action scenes really ruined my appreciation of this movie.

I cannot recommend this movie. I can admit to being disappointed, but I also can’t really say it’s bad. I leave it up to you to decide for yourselves.

The Wedding Ringer is the latest in a stream of Kevin Hart movies. In this one, he plays Jimmy Callihan, a guy who runs a service for men. He plays a fill-in guy friend, for when those men need someone to fill out their wedding party. He will pretend to be someone’s lifelong friend, and stand up for them at the wedding, usually as Best Man. He spends the time to get to know the groom, spends a few days preparing beforehand, even going so far as to fake some events they shared, to build the backstory of the character he plays. Once the wedding and reception are over, he’s off to his next client, with no one but the groom any wiser.

The movie starts with him meeting his next client, Doug Harris (played by Josh Gad). Doug is a lawyer, who took over his father’s firm after he passed away. He devoted his life to the firm, and nothing else. No family, and no time for friendships. Somewhere in there, he met Gretchen Palmer (Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting), and they are going to be married in two weeks. He needs seven groomsman, and FAST. Jimmy calls this the Holy Grail of cons, and admits no one has ever pulled it off. Does it happen? Does it work? You’ll have to see for yourself.

This movie follows the rom-com scheme movie trope, where the protagonists create a deception in order to seal a relationship deal. The movie is a bit crude, but not continuously. This movie runs at a brisk pace, and it’s suited to Hart’s fast-talking style of comedy. There’s a lot of ground to cover, and, it all seems plausible, but more importantly, it works. There are many moving parts and they mesh well. The groomsmen are a motley crew, each with their own diverse background. I have to admit I’ve disliked Josh Gad for a while, mainly for ruining the show 1600 Penn. I dismissed him as an annoying Jonah Hill wannabe, but his performance here is decent, passable, even. Hart and Gad have decent bro-chemistry. There are some cameos here that were a surprise, and actually fit the story, given the circumstances. I’ll not spoil them here.

There is additional footage at the end of the credits, if you want to sit and wait for it.

Recommended

Yes, I saw it. Yes, it was funny and entertaining.  Yes, I do recommend it.

SpongeBob Squarepants, as you know, is an animated cartoon on Nickelodeon. He lives in Bikini Bottom, in a pineapple under the sea. He has a pet snail named Gary. His best friend is a Starfish named Patrick. He works as a cook at The Krusty Krab, frying up Krabby Patties. Yes, I said frying. They have fires underwater. They have electricity under water. They use paper, too. There are some things you just don’t ask about when discussing his world.

SpongeBob was never really intended for adults, and yet, many enjoy it. SpongeBob and Patrick are definitely children. Man children, but definitely children. They are also hedonists, and always have their own interests in the forefront. They don’t often care about the bigger things, and certainly live in the moment. They are absurd. They are ridiculous. The show definitely has a certain silliness to it that reminds me of the old Looney Toons shorts. Some jokes and gags work on several levels

That said, The SpongeBob Movie starts in the real world, with a pirate (Antonio Banderas) stealing a treasure chest. In there, he finds a book, and starts telling a tale about SpongeBob to his seagull ‘friends’. SpongeBob’s nemesis, Plankton has mounted an attack on the Krusty Krab, in yet another attempt to steal the secret formula to Krabby Patties. At the last moment, when victory is within his grasp, the secret formula disappears from his hands. The loss of this secret formula plunges the whole town into a panic, forcing SpongeBob and Plankton to work together to find it and restore order. Their travels force them to go ashore, into the real world.

There are a lot of sight gags, and there’s a lot of kidding around. This movie is clearly for the kids, but adults will not be bored, nor will they feel like they are enduring something just to appease their children. I went alone, and did not have any regrets. I suspect you will, too.

Cake is a movie about chronic pain.  Jennifer Aniston plays Claire Bennett, a woman who is suffering from unspecified injuries.  The film starts at a support group, where the group leader, Annette, meekly played by Felicity Huffman, is discussing the loss of Nina (Anna Kendrick), due to her suicide.  Claire reacts poorly, and is invited to leave.

We see this consistently – Claire is not a nice person.  She lashes out at everyone. She’s rude to her maid Sylvana (Adriana Barraza), who keeps her going.  She’s awful to her physical therapist, and other patients. We find she has an interesting relationship with Nina, to say the least.  Claire is clearly in hurting, but we find that there’s as much emotional pain as there is physical. Where she goes with it, I leave to you to discover.

I expected a few things from this movie, given the subject matter. As you would expect in a movie like this, there is drug-seeking, there is a lot of hostility. I was pleased  that it did not fulfill all of those expectations.  Relationships barge in to the story, and help muddy the story. Several people appear at random times throughout.   Not everything was spelled out, which leaves you to connect the dots and decide the exact nature of those missing details. The choice of spirit animal is appropriate.

Jennifer Aniston puts in a good performance here.  I’ve always said that she’s the best actor from the cast of Friends, and this only solidifies it.

Recommended.

Afterthoughts –

• I do have to point out what I see is becoming a movie trope.  Much like actors have to be in a prison movie at some point in their career, actresses are finding it necessary to play against their normal glamorous nature – Charlize Theron in Monster, Nicole Kidman in The Hours, and so on.  I’m not against that in the least!  I welcome the change, but I hope that doesn’t become an obligatory thing.
• FYI, the name Claire Bennett stuck in my craw for a while, until I realized that Claire Bennet was a character on the NBC show Heroes.