‘The Dink’ is bland — but cheerful

The Dink, a movie about a former tennis wiz reduced to playing pickleball, is a cheerfully bland comedy about a game that has swept the country. Jake Johnson plays Dustin Boyd, a loser who works as a junior tennis instructor at a country club run by his father (Ed Harris). A tough old bird, Dad regards his son as a failure. An ill-fated match with Andy Roddick ended teenage Dustin's promising career. He’s been floundering ever since. The plot hinges on a request by country club members -- led by Patton Oswalt -- to expand the club’s number of pickleball courts. Harris's old-school character resists because he sees pickleball as a threat to all he respects. It's too easy, he thinks. A reluctant Dustin soon tries his hand at pickleball, teaming with Candace (Mary Steenburgen), a recent divorcee. The two get off to a bumpy start, but become participants in a story that flirts with May/December romance. Aaron Chen portrays PJ, the sidekick who thinks Dustin can do no wrong. Ben Stiller, one of the movie's producers, signs on as a doctor who treats Dustin for a minor injury and adds unfunny off-color flourishes.  Sean Clements’ screenplay sets up a match that puts the club's future at stake. Will the pickleballers triumph? Cameos from Roddick and John McEnroe add spice, but the overall effort proves forgettable. The Dink is playing on Apple TV.

Analyzing ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’

Alexandre O. Philippe continues his journey into cinema with Chain Reactions, a critical analysis of what many view as a seminal work of horror, 1974’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre. After devoting a film to the shower scene in Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho) and exploring the influence of the The Wizard of Oz on director David Lynch (Lynch/(Oz), Philippe assembles a group of talkers to discuss the impact director Tobe Hooper’s raw chunk of horror had on them and on a genre that recently has grown in popularity and importance. Philippe relies on interviews with Patton Oswalt, Takashi Miike, Stephen King, Karyn Kusama, and Australian critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas to dive deeply into the movie and its unquestionable impact on successive attempts at raw-boned horror. If you’re a devote of American horror, you undoubtedly know Leatherface, the chainsaw-wielding killer who sliced and diced those who had the misfortune of entering a world occupied by his leering, demented family. Philippe’s interviewees talk intelligently about the film, but, for me,  Oswalt’s analysis proved a standout. And who better to discuss Hooper's contribution to American horror than King? You’ll hear appreciations of a film that defined a horror aesthetic along with some consideration of whether Texas Chainsaw Massacre took a prescient look at the violent power unleashed by some of society's rejects. Is this analysis on point, or is Texas Chainsaw, to take the opposing extreme, an indulgence in cinema's trashiest impulses? To be honest, I’m not sure exactly where Texas Chainsaw belongs. Still, I love hearing smart analysis of films, and Philippe’s specificity and focus are creating an essential body of work for those of us who spend our lives in front of screens.

Time to give up on 'Ghostbusters'?

 

 It would be a mistake to assume that critics never crave an evening of simple diversion. That’s how I approached Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, the latest in a comic franchise that has made intermittent appearances in the nation’s multiplexes since 1984.

 Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd, vets of the original, both appear in the new movie, a promising bit of casting and, although the first movie isn’t among my favorite comedies, I was hoping for laughs in a climate of unabashed silliness. 

  Besides, what could be better than an ample helping of the kind of straight-faced intensity only Aykroyd can deliver?

  All I can say is that hopes aren’t always rewarded. 

  Although Frozen Empire didn’t generate embittered antipathy (at least from me), I found it uninspired, callow, and guilty of misstepping by trying to whip up a real scare or two. 

   To begin with, Murray isn’t in Frozen Empire all that much. Aykroyd’s appearance goes beyond cameo levels but it’s as if he’s taking the role of straight man without a comic to foil to play against. 

   The only scene that begins to suggest wit involves Aykroyd and Patton Oswalt, who appears as a paranormal researcher working at the main branch of the New York Public Library.

   Credit Kumail Nanjiani for bringing a shabby conman’s ease to a role that figures heavily in the plot, but could have been further expanded.

    Returning to the revamped New York City firehouse of the original, the movie centers on a familiar group composed of characters from previous sequels: Paul Rudd (now an aspiring stepdad), Carrie Coon (as Mom), and McKenna Grace and Finn Wolfhard) as her two kids. 

     Grace’s Phoebe emerges as a teen with a ghost-busting gift. She befriends a spirit named Melody (Emily Alyn Lind) who happens to be a chess whiz. 

    Director Gil Kenan, working from a screenplay he wrote with Jason Reitman,  piles on franchise references and adds the requisite amount of special effects. But the principal "ghost" — an evil god named Garraka  -- lacks the necessary silliness to keep the comedy on track. The movie takes Garraka, who can coat the world with layers of life-destroying ice, a little too seriously.

    The original movie relied on Murray’s sardonic delivery and the unashamed and often tacky preposterousness of its ambitions. The giant Stay Puft Marshmallow man who trampled Manhattan in 1984 has been shattered into legions of tiny Marshmallow men, a proliferation that’s overused to the point where it loses its whacky charm.

     The movie also includes an additional team of paranormal researchers financed by the wealthy Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson of earlier movies). That group includes more characters from previous editions who are charged with studying the behavior of captured ghosts, perhaps hinting at the possibility of a rapprochement between humans and the spirit world.

      Other figures from the series reappear, notably Annie Potts, the original  Ghostbusters secretary, and William Atherton, who portrays the oppositional authority figure who wants to hold the Ghostbusters responsible for collateral damage wreaked by their efforts.

      Judging by this edition, there seems little need for another Ghostbusters. Passing proton packs from generation to generation has its limits.

      At one point, Aykroyd’s aging character refers to being in his Golden Years. He wants to spend his twilight years doing what he’s done before, busting ghosts, I guess. I wouldn’t wish a life spent playing golf on Aykroyd's Ray Stantz, but there must be a better alternative.

     

An uneventful life gets busy

Despite fine flourishes, this Walter Mitty doesn't quite fly.

In The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Ben Stiller -- as director and star -- works hard to present an offbeat story about a timid man who finally learns to merge his vivid imagination with reality.

Early on, we learn that Walter's the opposite of the guy in Dos Equis commercial: He's the world's least interesting man. Walter's life is so uneventful that he can't think of a single thing to say about himself when he enrolls in eHarmony. He's an anonymous dullard.

I suppose that's the movie's challenge: How do you make an interesting movie about a boring guy?

Stiller's Walter Mitty shouldn't be seen as a remake of the 1947 movie starring Danny Kaye or a faithful adaptation of the 1939 James Thurber story in which Mitty first appeared. It's a new take on old material -- albeit not an entirely successful one.

At its best, Stiller's movie has a pleasingly fanciful quality. It also mixes humor (a jab at The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Button is particularly well-aimed) with a growing onslaught of action-oriented special effects.

For all that effort, the movie's best bits have less to with bold adventure than with smaller incidents. On an elevator in his New York office building, Mitty imagines that he insults his boss's beard, an unsightly affair that makes the man (Adam Scott) look like an incongruous mixture of American Gothic and Brooks Brothers.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty takes place during the waning days of Life magazine, a publication to which Walter has devoted his career. He's in charge of cataloging and keeping track of the magazine's vast photo library.

As it turns out, Life has been taken over by a company that's intent on closing the publication. The final cover is to be a photograph taken by the legendary photographer Sean O'Connell (Sean Penn), a character who remains unseen until the film's final act.

O'Connell sends his negative to Life's New York's headquarters, but Mitty and his assistant (Adrian Martinez) lose track of it.

Under pressure from management, Mitty intensifies his search and ultimately takes a bold leap. He leaves New York and travels to the Iceland, the Himalayas and Afghanistan to find O'Connell, who makes a point of being unreachable.

To accept all this you have to forget that photography has gone digital and that toward its demise, Life magazine hardly occupied a pivotal position in American culture.

Before his departure from Manhattan, Mitty visits his mother (Shirley MacLaine) and his sister (Kathryn Hahn). He also tries to spark a relationship with a co-worker (Kristin Wiig) who has a young son, one of the few characters to whom Walter is able to relate.

To win the woman of his dreams, Mitty must chart a course of derring-do in which he sheds the cocoon of shyness that has been suffocating him most of his life.

Cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh tends to give Mitty a big-movie feel as Walter leaps from helicopters and engages in other exploits, but Walter Mitty never really hits its stride.

By the time, Walter hooks up with the elusive O'Connell we're ready for a finale that's a little more impactful than the one Stiller delivers in what begins to feel like an overly contrived attempt to marry whimsy and adventure. In truth, it's pretty much a shotgun wedding.

Stiller has directed before (Tropic Thunder, Zoolander, The Cable Guy and Reality Bites), and it's encouraging to watch him try to step off the beaten track. But this increasingly middling movie seems to have been aiming for a lot more than it's able to deliver.

Besides, in these CGI-dominated days, the average Walter Mitty doesn't need to overwork his imagination: All he has to is go to the movies and let Hollywood take care of the heavy lifting.

Romance at the end of the world

Steve Carell and Keira Knightley eventually create some chemistry on the road to oblivion.

Do filmmakers know something we don't? I ask this because of late we've seen several end-of-the-world films. Lars von Trier's Melancholia and Abel Ferrara's 4:44 Last Day on Earth top the most recent list. Before that, we saw a big-screen adaptation of Cormack McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel, The Road, and long before that On the Beach, director Stanley Kramer's earnest 1959 cautionary tale about the dangers of nuclear warfare.

Genre fans can make their own lists, but one thing's clear: Hollywood has an on-again, off-again love affair with the demise of absolutely everything.

Now comes Seeking a Friend For the End of the World, a tonally addled movie that can't seem to decide whether it's a biting black comedy, an offbeat romantic comedy or a drama about the virtues of reconciliation and love. Seeking a Friend, which stars Steve Carell and Keira Knightley, winds up being all of those things and none of them, a curious hybrid of a movie that never quite finds a believable niche.

In the early going, Seeking a Friend threatens to ignite a spark of genius. Carell plays Dodge, an insurance agent. For Dodge, the approaching Doomsday feels like a form of cosmic piling-on. Dodge's wife has decided to leave him rather than spend her last days in his company. He has no luck finding solace among his friends, either. They all seem to have taken to shooting heroin and indulging their libidos.

At a party, one of those friends (Patton Oswalt) finds the proverbial silver lining in this gargantuan cloud. With the end fast approaching, women have become far less discriminating, he says. His final days have turned into an impromptu orgy, fulfillment of a macabre but still welcome (at last to him) dream. To Dodge, everything seems futile.

Alone and depressed, Dodge eventually is thrown into contact with a flighty young neighbor with an affinity for vinyl records (Knightley's Penny) and the boyfriend (Adam Brody) that the script quickly sheds. At that point, first-time director Lorene Scafaria holsters most of her satirical guns and tries on a variety of road movie ploys.

Dodge and Penny flee a riot-plagued New York City, he in hopes of contacting an old high-school girlfriend, she because Dodge promises to help locate a pilot who'll be willing to fly her to Britain to spend her last days with her family.

Along the way, our mismatched couple runs into William Petersen (as a man who has hired someone to assassinate him so that he at least won't know when the end is coming) and Derek Luke (as a former boyfriend of Penny, a survivalist who thinks he can out-macho the apocalypse).

If there's a comic high point in Dodge and Penny's road-warrior adventures, it arrives when they stop at Friendsy's, a restaurant where a giddy staff has become helpful in a nearly berserk sort of way that parodies a variety of well-known eateries.

But Seeking a Friend lacks the fortitude to laugh all the way to oblivion.

Late in the proceedings, Dodge takes Penny to meet his father (Martin Sheen), a man he hasn't seen in years. As fortune and script contrivance would have it, Sheen's Frank is a pilot with his own plane. But before any trans-Atlantic travel can be discussed, Dodge must vent a bit about the father who left home when he was still a kid, and Sheen must slip into apologetic mode.

As the depressive Dodge, Carell can be a little bland, and Knightley works her character's eccentricity as hard as she can, but Carell and Knightley deserve credit for increasing their chemistry quotient as the movie progresses.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World has its comic moments and also a few that prove touching, but here's another movie that asks us to chew on scraps of satisfaction rather than savor an entire meal. Moreover, the movie's lachrymose undertow doesn't always make it easy to take.

And what's up with all these end-of-the-world fantasies anyway? There's an almost sickening indulgence to these movies as if an aging baby-boom generation can't imagine that life will go on without it. As I dipped in and out of the various moods of Seeking a Friend, I began to miss the uncompromising satire of bravura end-of-the world movies such as Dr. Strangelove.

In that classic, we were stupid enough to destroy ourselves. These days we seem content to fantasize about the end of a bland run caused by some sort of cosmic collision which feels more like the cancellation of a forgettable TV series than the apocalyptic conclusion of ... well ... everything.

Oh well, there's one truly great thing about end-of-the-world movies. No matter how much we might crave second helpings, they don't allow for sequels.

Theron conquers in 'Young Adult'

Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody reunite, but it's Charlize Theron who saves the day.

Young Adult begins in a high-rise apartment in Minneapolis, a building with the kind of one-bedroom apartments that have small terraces and that frequently are occupied by single people. Or maybe they're the kind of apartments people move into after a divorce.

One of those tenants -- Mavis Gary -- is lying face down in her bed, where she presumably wound up after drinking too much, something she does a lot.

As Young Adult unfolds, we learn that Mavis ghostwrites a once-popular but now fading series of books for young adult readers, the kind of tweens who've probably moved on to the Twilight books. Mavis is supposed to be writing the series' last book, but she's having difficulty because she's beginning to struggle with second thoughts about her life.

And it doesn't help that she's gotten an e-mail from her high-school sweetheart telling her that he and his wife have just had their first baby.

So Mavis packs a few things, and, in one of those rash decisions that could make sense only to her, drives back to her small Minnesota hometown to reclaim that erstwhile boyfriend.

Mavis thinks her task will be simple because she was (and still is) beautiful. Mavis and Minneapolis or dreary married life in Mercury, Minnesota? The choice, Mavis believes, is a no-brainer.

That's the backdrop for Young Adult, the latest collaboration between director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody, the duo that gave us Juno, a comedy about teen pregnancy.

Say this: Reitman and Cody are not shy about taking risks. They've built their movie around a character that’s both deluded and dislikable, but they've managed to hedge their bet because Mavis is played by Charlize Theron, who captures Mavis' haughty insensitivity, her budding alcoholism and her manipulative personality in spectacular, often funny fashion.

It never occurs to Mavis that Buddy might be happily married or that he and his wife (Elizabeth Reaser) might be seriously committed to each other and to their young family.

Only one of the town’s residents – a geek played by Patton Oswalt – seems to see through Mavis’ facade. Having suffered a vicious beating in high school (a group of thuggish jocks thought he was gay), he views himself as damaged goods. Oswalt’s Matt is willing to tell Mavis how appallingly she’s behaving, not that Mavis cares.

Some of Young Adult is funny and some if it is sad, but there's also a slight stuck-in-a-rut feeling about the movie. Reitman's last movie, Up in the Air, was richer and more entertaining, and Cody still hasn't shed all the self-consciously clever tics that were apparent in Juno. On top of all that, the movie's central focus -- Mavis' boundless narcissism -- can make Young Adult feel as narrow as Mavis' worldview.

Now, not all of Young Adult is easy to take. A scene toward the end is so ugly, it’s painful to watch. It’ s supposed to be that way, but it serves as a kind of exclamation point to what we already know: Mavis is a wreck of a woman, so misguided that even some of her best verbal jabs don't earn her much sympathy.

Most movies are about characters who struggle to come of age. This one pushes, maybe a bit too hard, against the grain by introducing us to a woman who hasn't come of age and perhaps never will.

Still, Young Adult remains watchable because Theron makes an amazing Mavis, a woman who's ready to be completely irresponsible with the lives of others. Oswalt also scores as Matt, a decent, self-aware guy who sees the cliff toward which Mavis relentlessly is driving. Not everyone will share Matt's concern for Mavis, and some may even hope that when the she reaches that cliff, someone pushes her off.