Movie Review: "Magic Mike XXL" (2015)

© Warner Bros.

There is a scene in a convenience store where the disheartened Big Dick Richie (Joe Manganiello) is challenged by his stripper buddies to improvise a routine through the aisles to elicit a smile from the downtrodden girl at the counter. That may be the dumbest sentence I've ever written down, and it is a scene that—in a nutshell—embodies everything that this movie is about. Zero stakes, but a metric shit ton of ear-to-ear smiles. Magic Mike XXL is as delightful as it is substance-less, which makes it ideal summer entertainment.

Three years after the events of the unexpectedly plot-filled Magic Mike, the titular Mike (Channing Tatum) is running his carpentry business in Tampa, long done with his stripper days. But you guys, he's got an itch he can't scratch—he just gotta dance. When his buddies from the old show arrive in Tampa on their way to Myrtle Beach for the Annual Stripper Convention, Mike can't resist temptation and hops aboard their Food Truck-turned-Stripper Mobile to make the journey, too.

Mike is a doer, and any problem that arises, he finds a solution so quickly that the film and characters never really suffer for it. Dance routines need updating? Mike's got ideas. Old beefs need to be addressed? Mike'll take that punch he's got coming. Vehicle out of commission? Mike knows where you can find a Bentley. This movie is the exact opposite of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.

There's not a conflict to be found within ten miles of this film, and it doesn't take long to realize that it's really the better for it. Everything is remarkably convenient, and despite any pitfalls, a saucy lady with money and connections is ne'er more than a shimmy-shake and pelvic thrust away. And it's a good thing too, because when the movie tries to be serious is when we all start looking at Snapchat. We want sexy dancing until we're made to blush, and we want it now!



The script is admittedly hammy and simplistic, with forced attempts at confidence boosting for men and women alike. I was delighted and confused by the random Constant Gardener joke, right before rolling my eyes at Mike trying to convince his (sort of?) love interest, Zoe (Amber Heard), that she would be much happier on the pole than following her photography dreams to New York. They're entertainers, and entertainers have a very special, necessary place in society, and so on and so forth. Despite the cheesiness, I wholeheartedly agree, so stop talking and entertain us, boys!

There were a handful of 'bathroom break' moments where it didn't matter what was going on. Which was good, because I was at one of those theaters with a bar where you can bring in your drinks to watch the movie, so after a pint-sized Mojito, that was pretty much a blessing (if you're wondering, when they get to the hospital scene, duck out then, you'll miss nothing).

Every woman these guys come into contact with during their east coast road trip is an extension of that part in all of us that we pretend isn't there: the wine or Cosmo-swilling "woo girl" who wants to make it rain dollar bills over a pair of washboard abs, and be picked up and swung around like we're a feather.

Thank you, Magic Mike XXL, you're like an uncomplicated one-night stand. I'll always remember the time we shared together.

Rating: ★★★½ / 5 stars

I'm gonna leave this right here.

Music Mondays: Demi Lovato "Cool for the Summer"

Demi Lovato's newest single, "Cool for the Summer," has been released, and there are moments in the song that remind me so much of my favorite band in the world, KITTEN, I couldn't not post it today. It's catchy, but less dance-y than you might expect. It's the kind of some that works perfectly on a summer beach mix, meant for lazing about more than having a wild party. Which really is what I prefer in my beach tunes.

The track is from Demi's upcoming album, which I know significantly less about. Due out sometime in 2015, if it's anywhere near as fun as this, I'm a fan already. Enjoy, and happy summer, all! xx

Artist: Demi Lovato
Song: "Cool for the Summer" | download
Album: [TBD]

Movie Review: "The Tribe" (2015)

© Grindhouse Films

It's easy to be distracted by a movie that has an insurmountable gimmick, easy to be persuaded against reason into thinking said movie is good for that reason only. I say "gimmick" because Cannes darling film, The Tribe, released recently in a handful of theaters, is without argument one of a kind. And I say "insurmountable" because what makes it unique is also what makes it so challenging.

Telling the story of a group of Deaf students at a dilapidated Deaf school in the Ukraine, the film is told entirely in Ukrainian Sign Language, with no subtitles, no voice overs, no narration, and likely the most unnerving of all, no soundtrack. Director/writer Myroslav Slaboshpitsky's experiment is a ground-breaking attempt to create a film that, for the first time, tells a story about Deaf characters that could not be less about their deafness.

That was enough to entice me to the theater, but then I saw the movie. And while a movie that doesn't focus on Deafness as a point of melodramatic plot-wringing is, by me, applauded, The Tribe could not be further away from representing the Deaf experience in any meaningful way. Sergey (Grigoriy Fesenko) is the new kid at school, arriving to find himself quickly absorbed into a band of popular criminals who appear to rule dorms. So much so that even the teachers seem to either encourage or simply dismiss their activities—activities that range from loading the younger kids with stolen trinkets to sell to sympathetic hearing people on trains, to pimping out the older female students to drooling truckers. Sergey slips into his role without difficulty, about to cement his place as a reliable thug until he falls for (in his own perverse way) one of the school-girl prostitutes (Yana Novikova).

I'd say that's where the trouble begins, but there is trouble for everyone from beginning to end. Force-fed the violence, however amateur (there's a laughable group brawl pulled straight out of your theater stage-fighting class), and the graphic sexual exploits of every character through coldly unflinching cinematography—every scene consists of a single, unedited shot.

On paper, this sounds spectacularly gripping, and there are times when Slaboshpitsky uses this cinematic tactic to hold us all captive, but it isn't long before we start to resent him for it. Every character is despicable, and the lack of aide in following the story's intricacies only serves to distract from that fact. Watching a film told entirely through any signed language is astounding—watching a film about one-dimensional miscreants is not, no matter how gritty and cynical the sequences, no matter what language you tell it in.



Having spent many years at different points in my life studying American Sign Language, even training as an interpreter, the description from critics of a film where dialogue is impossible to follow felt like a challenge to me. The film is in USL, similar to Russian Sign Language—both come from the same linguistic family of French Sign Language, just like ASL.

Knowing what I knew about the story going in prepared me for the misery that was to come, but with my focus on deciphering a sign here, a sign there, the multitude of non-manual signs (i.e. facial expressions)... paying attention to the dialogue surprisingly distracted me from the insufferable, abrasive, and cruelly crafted plot. When you can't understand story, and are forced to look for clues and signals as to what is going on with the characters, it can all feel remarkably novel—even when it's not.

I understood significantly more than I'd expected. My viewing partner was certainly at a disadvantage as I nodded and squinted knowingly, catching leading bits of conversation that certainly informed me more than the director had probably intended. With the interpreting session happening inside my head, I was able to temporarily ignore the fact that this "Deaf-sploitation" film wasn't edgy, it was lazy. The lack of context or character development shouldn't be something for filmmakers to aspire to, and (spoiler alert!) inserting a traumatizing, real-time abortion scene is more likely going to make me dislike you and your film.

This isn't a film I could willingly recommend to anyone, simply because of the fact that it's so viscerally disgusting in parts, and mindless in others. It's not enough that it plays with our expectations about communication and challenges us to pay attention. If I could have loved it just for that, I would have. If that were the true mission of the filmmaker, he would have realized that watching our characters navigate the hierarchy of a close-knit school, begin and end relationships, is all visually compelling enough to follow through a flurry of hands. I'm left hoping that, with The Tribe likely to make an impression despite itself, sign language finds a way to dominant the screen, attached to a story worthy of it.

Rating: ★★ / 5 stars

AFI Top 100: #57 "Rocky"

Sylvester Stallone and Burgess Meredith in Rocky (1976)

If ever there was a movie I feel compelled to advocate for, whose memory has been pretty tarnished over the past 40 years by jaded movie-goers, it's Rocky. Not many sports movies grace the AFI Top 100 list (the only other one is, not surprisingly, also a boxing movie). Perhaps this is because, by 2007, the formula for these films became too predictable or cliche for audiences to take seriously. Coming in at #57, Rocky can be credited with writing that formula—or rather, screenwriter and star, Sylvester Stallone can. It continues to impress with its unpredictable and inspiring climax, but what makes this movie stand out, and the reason it has spawned five sequels, is its characters.

Rocky Balboa is humble, small-time boxer edging on the far end of his prime in the City of Brotherly Love. Earning a paltry $45+ to get knocked around in a fight, the southpaw Rocky can still claim with shaky confidence that he's never been K.O.-ed. Making ends meet as the part-time muscle for a local bookie, he lives a simple life, sharing a beer with his buddy, Paulie (Burt Young), crushing sweetly on Paulie's shy sister, Adrian (Talia Shire), and biding his time until his next chance to prove himself in the ring.

Movie Review: "Terminator Genisys" (2015)

© Paramount Pictures

The long list of things that I hated and loved about Terminator Genysis results in a very muddled appreciation for this return to the franchise. It is, occasionally, unadulterated fun. It's also a huge mess. Completely bypassing the droll world established in 2009's Terminator Salvation—or at the very least, glossing over it—we instead are handed all the things all at once that we loved about the original: a young Sarah Connor (played by Daenarys herself, Emilia Clarke) meeting time traveler, Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) in 1984 and battling an onslaught of robot assassins that come with being them. It's apparent that the filmmakers recognized what went wrong with T3 and Salvation, and hoped no one would notice they're never acknowledged. Surprisingly, where Genisys shines is in everything related to Schwarzenegger—where it suffers is in everything related to everyone else.

The year is 2029, and a mangled John Connor (Jason Clarke) is moments away from leading the resistance to victory over Skynet and its legion of robots. His mission is to get to the time travel device, Skynet's last hope to save themselves. With that trusty T-800 already on its way, Connor enlists Kyle Reese to make the journey to protect his mother, Sarah. All of this edges very close to being a full-on remake with alternate perspectives thrown in to give it that new car smell, but then something happens and the timeline that we'd come to love shifts.

Now it's not a remake, but a feverish attempt at a reboot, as the past that Kyle is returning to changes mid-jump, and it's not the one he'd been warned to expect. Sarah's already in battle mode and doesn't have time to worry about all this "getting pregnant" business. She's already prepared for how to deal with the T-800 and T-1000 (sent simultaneously, I might add, but by who??) on her heels, and this is all quite delightful to watch. With her trusty, re-programmed and aging T-800 by her side (Arnold Schwarzenegger being ah-mah-zing), the mission to stop the apocalypse before it begins is still on. I'd have been happy if we'd spent 2 hours doing first movie callbacks, but alas, the plot pressed on, leading us to the franchise's first time jump—into the future.

This is when my eyes squinted uneasily. I'm a sucker for time travel movies and odd time-loop paradoxes, but as the film unraveled, I tried desperately to piece together everything that they laid out. The importance of 2017, a young Kyle Reese, an evil version of the operating system from Her. More than one time travel faux pas makes its way into the seams of this thing, and I found myself cringing in dismay all while I peered on optimistically. On the surface, Genisys did its best to answer all your questions the moment that "Uh..." entered your head. Momentarily sated, you will undoubtedly revisit the concepts again and again, distracted by all the wordy mumbo-jumbo and the fact that the characters are scratching their heads right along with you.

Despite all the ads and trailers that had clear and enraging spoilers about plot twists, the movie does takes a few unexpected turns. The story line—and the timeline—become super intricate, but what starts out as intrigue devolves into chaos. Entertaining chaos, but chaos nonetheless. Whether this was on purpose or not remains to be seen, but it's hard not to think that the filmmakers were purposefully obtuse in hopes of leaving some reveals for the inevitable sequels. It's possible that none of this would have bothered me if it weren't for the fact that our heroes had the darndest time navigating this treacherous plot themselves.

Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor is a bit too soft around the edges. At least, this version of Sarah Connor. Hardened from a life raised by "Pop," as she affectionately calls the T-800 sent to rescue her when she was nine years old, Clarke convincingly wields her weapons and makes snarky remarks, but she's not the jaded person we know her to become. Maybe this was an attempt to make her more likable, relatable, but I didn't believe it. A child raised to become a warrior would be a much older soul trapped in a young girl's body, not the bright eyed, soft skinned beauty Clarke portrays. She looks like the Sarah Connor that Kyle Reese expected to go back and rescue in 1984, not the one who ends up rescuing him. She also struggles to maintain her American accent, which was, unfortunately, pretty distracting. It sounded like a Mila Kunis impersonation. Jai Courtney is just a replica of the every-man that Sam Worthington played in Salvation (and everything else), and he's as forgetful as he is broad-shouldered.

Schwarzenegger is the true star here, and he pulls it off without the merest bit of exhaustion. He's as interesting as a character-less character could hope to be, and he slips back into this role with ease. It is to the filmmakers' credit that they put him so front and center. He's the only character that successfully reminds us we're watching a Terminator flick, and he does everything in his power to honor it all. Any of his lines that might fall flat could easily be blamed on the bevy of writers who hand-jammed this thing together. Even then, every moment was clearly done out of love and affection for the film that inspired it, and that is what lands this on the side of success. Because honestly, it could have been leaps and bounds worse that it was.

While the convoluted story might leave you in a bit of a haze, it does have its memorable moments, enough that anyone could, and should, give Genisys two hours on a lazy Saturday night.

Rating: ★★★ / 5 stars