MY LITTLE PONY

Voices of:  Tara Strong   Emily Blunt   Kristin Chenoweth   Liev Shreiber  

Michael Pena   Taye Diggs   Zoe Saldana   Sia   Uzo Adaba

     This frothy confection using a kaleidoscope of pastels is made for little girls who cherish dolls, animals, sugar and spice and everything nice.  Fortunately, it also conveys messages about friendship (“Friendship is magic”), teamwork, loyalty, creativity, forgiveness, and a sense of responsibility for those in one’s charge.  It has bold adventure, excitement, and near-escapes to balance out the sweetness and light. 

     It begins with all-too-true (for females) dithering by the main character Twilight (Strong), the friendship princess, about whether she will be good enough to lead the Festival of Friendship and convince her fellow princesses to exert their magic on the elements to create a successful party.  They look like they might come around, but suddenly the Storm King (Shreiber) and his commander Tempest (Blunt) burst in with the intent of stealing the magic of Ponyville where the princesses and their people reside.

     Twilight steps up to the plate, vowing it will never happen, and recruits her friends to look for support from Queen Novo of the Hippogriffs (Adaba).  Along the way, they will encounter a smooth-talking cat, Capper (Diggs), Captain Celaeno (Saldana) and her pack of erstwhile pirates forced to abandon their adventures and serve the Storm King, and finally, Queen Novo’s lonely, brave daughter Princess Skystar (Chenoweth).  They narrowly escape being sold and must continue to flee, with Tempest and the Storm King in hot pursuit. 

     My Little Pony was originally a television series, “My Little Pony:  Friendship is Magic.”  The 2017 film, directed by Jayson Thiessen, with screenplay co-written by Meghan McCarthy, Joe Ballarni, Rita Hsiao, Michael Vogel, and Lauren Faust, is based on an original story by Bonnie Zacherle.  Its appeal is almost guaranteed for young girls, and may still be favorably received by older people who can appreciate its solid messages.  The coloring and animations are first-rate, and the music and songs by Daniel Ingram, Sia, the Lukas Graham Band, DNCE, and CL are lyrical and moving.

     I appreciated this film for its appeal to girls, with its messages about basic values of confidence, fortitude, adventure, and comedy that will stand them in good stead, whatever age they live in.

Young girls can dream of greater and greater accomplishments.

Grade:  B                                    By Donna R. Copeland

CHUCK

Liev Schreiber     Elisabeth Moss     Naomi Watts     Ron Perlman     Jim Gaffigan     Morgan Spector     Pooch Hall

     The story of Chuck is not much different from so many other sad boxing tales in the movies (e.g., The Fighter, Hands of Stone, Raging Bull) in which the fighter comes from humble origins, doesn’t mind getting hit, is persistent against all odds, gets bruised and bloodied in the ring, indulges in self-inflated trash talk, and after he has a success or two gets into serious trouble that threatens his career and destroys his family.  In fact, the fighter in Chuck, Chuck Wepner, is the real person on which the character in the movie Rocky is based. 

     Chuck (Schreiber) has such a reputation for getting beat up in the ring, his nickname is the “Bayonne [New Jersey] Bleeder.”  He never shows pain, and when his wife worries about him or his daughter draws a picture of his battered face, his response is always, “I don’t mind getting hit.”  Chuck’s wife Phyliss, beautifully played by the talented Elisabeth Moss, is supportive, comforting, and a good sport; that is, except in cases where his flirtatiousness exceeds the limits of her tolerance.

     Everyone gets excited when Chuck’s trainer (Perlman) informs him that Don King, the influential boxing promoter, wants Muhammad Ali to fight a “white guy” at the world championship.  Chuck has won enough rounds with other fighters that he is considered and finally chosen to be that guy.  That’s enough to get his name on the map, because after the fight went through more rounds than was expected, Chuck became famous. 

     Thereafter, the story grows dark as Chuck has hopes of starring in Sylvester Stallone’s second Rocky picture.  (The first one was based on Chuck’s life, and even though he recognizes that it is actually the story of his life, he simply enjoys the compliment).  But by this time nightlife has done him in, and he fails to succeed in the audition.  He ends up being arrested for drug trafficking, and goes to prison.  That’s not the end of the story for Chuck, though.

     The script and the direction of this film by Philippe Falardeau is well done, and the acting by Schreiber, Moss, Perlman, and Watts is especially good.  Watts doesn’t really figure in until toward the end of the story, so in the interest of not being a spoiler, I won’t go into that.  I will say that the film could have done a better job of folding her character into the plot early on so that what finally transpires is more plausible.

     This seems to be a case where the movie is well done by all concerned, but because there have been so many predecessors telling the same tale, Chuck doesn’t have the punch (pun intended) to wow us as it may have intended.

Yes, another film about boxing, with the hero replicating his predecessors.

Grade:  C                        By Donna R. Copeland

THE 5TH WAVE

Chloe Grace Moretz   Nick Robinson  Alex Roe  Liev Schreiber  Maria Bello  Ron Livingston  Maggie Siff

          What are the waves, this being the fifth, you may ask.  The Fifth Wave refers to a series of attacks by an alien planet that needs earth’s resources.  Their invasion comes in waves, such as a gigantic power outage, an earthquake with tsunami, Asian flu, occupation (including occupation of individual humans), and finally full-on invasion with the purpose of killing all survivors.

           Cassie (Moretz) is the narrator who is in high school when the first wave hits.  She is living with her mother, father, and younger brother and interested in the usual teen preoccupations.  She has a crush on a classmate and is teased by her best friend.  With progressive waves of alien attacks, she anguishes about her losses, but is determined to rescue her brother who was taken away with other children in a school bus on orders of the U.S. military.  Cassie was supposed to go too, but missed it when she went to fetch her brother’s toy bear. 

         What follows is a chronicle of her experiences in trying to survive and rescue her brother and never knowing whether a person she meets is enemy or friend.  The aliens have taken to “occupying” human bodies as a control measure.  All this adds up to a pervasive paranoia in which no one knows whether a person is human or alien. 

          The first half of this drama is intriguing (although not really original in conception), but it eventually devolves into a morass of predictability and romantic kitsch, ending with the pronouncement that “love is not a trick; it’s real.”

         Moretz is at her usual fine skill in portraying a young woman with smarts, always ready to learn, and showing a nice range of emotional expression.  Her two co-stars, Robinson as Ben and Roe as Evan Walker, match her very well, and provide the opportunity to prove that females can be as strong and effective as males.  Further, the character of Ringer (Maika Monroe) is a sassy upstart who uses her brain and skill to figure out a situation and act decisively. 

      The portrayal of males and females is perhaps the only plus in The Fifth Wave.  Females are both nurturing/caring and skillful in fighting, and males are protective and strong while also giving females space to show what they can do. 

         Enrique Chediak’s cinematographic art comes through repeatedly, most strikingly when Cassie and her brother have climbed a tree to escape the tsunami.  He shows a bird’s eye view of them that quickly evolves into a palette of leaves, making the viewer wonder if they survived.

          While it’s not perhaps as original as desired, Director J. Blakeson has put together an interesting apocalyptic tale with talented actors.  I take a bit of a jaundiced eye toward it in its playing up the existence of a threat implying that everyone should be armed at all times.  Guns are highlighted so much I began to wonder if the NRA helped finance the movie. 

Gun advocates will love this movie; others, perhaps, not so much.

Grade:  D+           By Donna R. Copeland

SPOTLIGHT

Mark Ruffalo   Rachel McAdams   Michael Keaton     Liev Schreiber   Stanley Tucci   Billy Crudup   John Slattery

          Shining a spotlight on wrongdoing is a big scoop for a newspaper, but it also holds huge risks.  The small team at the Boston Spotlight was charged with investigating the involvement of Catholic priests in the abuse of children in the 1970’s, just when newspapers were beginning to founder and a new editor had come aboard.  And Marty Baron (Schreiber) was an astute editor, insisting on pursuing the story even when the staff was a bit reluctant—except for one, Michael Rezendes (Ruffalo), one of the newer reporters. 

        Tom McCarthy, director, and co-writer with Josh Singer, has once again shown his considerable talent in telling an important story with grace, compassion, and thoughtfulness (as in The Station Agent, Win Win, and The Visitor) without indulging in hero worship or lurid descriptions.  That is, he avoided focusing it as a major newspaper scoop, and kept the attention on the (in)humanity of the issue.  Based on a true story, for which the Spotlight received the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003, McCarthy’s film is a docudrama about the newspaper’s honorable pursuit of the truth.  In their efforts, they encountered formidable resistance from a shocking number of respected leaders in the Boston community.

         The reluctance of so many to admit culpability—based on a myriad of reasons even as simple as “It just didn’t capture my attention” to “Yes I did it, but it wasn’t wrong”–is entirely understandable in some cases, but reprehensible in others.  The film does a fine job in distinguishing these from one another.  One sign of a story well told is if audience members ask themselves, “What would I have done?” and have to think about it for a while. 

   In addition to the drama, McCarthy knows how to choose musicians and cinematographers who will enhance the drama.  Howard Shore’s music swells or lilts at just the right places to reinforce the drama.  Similarly, cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi is skilled in capturing mood and emotion in the drama and employing the camera as a visual guide.

     Now, back to the actors.  Mark Ruffalo gives probably one of his most memorable performances here, although he is noteworthy in many films (e.g., Foxcatcher, The Kids are all Right, The Avengers series, and television’s The Normal Heart).  As Mike in this film, he shows him as a team player, an eager beaver but with values, and more importantly one of the few who really champions and wants to protect children.  (I was dismayed to see how little regard for children so many, even mothers, had, as well as the absence of any impulse to protect younger children coming up.)  Michael Keaton and Rachel McAdams are noteworthy as well, especially in their “naturalness” in playing their roles.   He in his cool editor role who resists being regarded above his staff and she in her obviously caring but crack reporter role. 

       Actually, the whole ensemble is outstanding.  Liev Schreiber plays a boss that we would all like to have in his wisdom, listening ear, and smooth direction of the team.  Stanley Tucci delivers another of his nuanced performances (with hair this time!) as an outsider in a community that doesn’t seem to want to pay attention to what he has to say.  Billy Crudup and John Slattery round out an altogether fine cast.

      Obviously, I think Spotlight is one of the better films this year owing to the high level of movie-making production and ethical/moral values it epitomizes.

This is a fine film in just about every way.

Grade:  A                                    By Donna R. Copeland