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TOY STORY 4: Pixar visits the Island of Misfit Toys

21 Friday Jun 2019

Posted by cinepam in Reviews, Uncategorized

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Annie Potts, Christina Hendricks, Jordan Peele, Keanu Reeves, Keegan-Michael Key, Pixar, Tim Allen, Tom Hanks, Tony Hale, Toy Story 4

TOY STORY 4Rankin-Bass probably doesn’t have cause for action, but it is impossible not to feel the influence of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in this fourth Toy Story adventure. The world Woody (Tom Hanks) stumbles on where toys go unloved and unwanted is not an island nor toy world unto itself, but a dusty antique store where toys go unloved and unwanted. For Woody, beginning to contemplate his own obsolescence and a time when no child will call him his own, the place is a revelation. If this is truly Woody’s last roundup, he goes out in a blaze of laughter and tears.

There are five types of toys in Toy Story 4: the traditional playthings that belong to one child, represented by Woody, Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), and the rest of the usual Toy Story crew; the antique store misfits that include Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks), a talking doll with a broken voice box, and her army of spooky ventriloquist dummies; feral toys in the wild that any child may pick up and play with, the place to where Woody’s old friend Bo Peep (Annie Potts), now missing an arm, has fallen; unobtainable toys that are carnival game “prizes” that no one can ever win like Ducky (Keegan Michael-Key) and Bunny (Jordan Peele); and crafts, crude toys made by children themselves, in this case Forky (Tony Hale), a spork with mismatched googly eyes, a misshapen clay mouth, pipe cleaner arms, and Popsicle-stick feet.

It is Woody’s determination that Forky, the current favorite among the child Bonnie’s toys, not become lost during a family vacation that leads to the antique store and a reunion with Bo in a nearby park. Gabby Gabby, with an eye toward Woody’s working voice box, conspires to keep him near, while a Buzz Lightyear reconnaissance mission connects the toys to the carnival crew.

There is a lot of inspired hilarity in Toy Story 4. Allen’s Buzz Lightyear has some wonderful moments after misunderstanding what Woody meant when he tells him to always listen to his inner-voice if he is unsure what to do. Key and Peele delightfully reunite as the cuddly and cute and oh-so-aggressive stuffed animals who deliver some of the film’s most inspired comic moments with their vivid and cartoon-violent imaginations. Hale is both moving and howlingly funny as the little spork who is not sold on this toy business. And coming hot on the heels of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and Always Be My Maybe, Toy Story 4 adds to Keanu Reeves’ current moment with his brilliant and side-splitting turn as Duke Kaboom, a Canadian Evel Knievel-like stuntman toy who can strike a lot of poses but can’t quite nail his stunts.

But this is a Pixar movie and one that deals with a key moment in childhood, at that, when a child either outgrows or grows bored with a toy. It is set aside, never to be played with again. It happens to all toys sooner or later – the Island of Misfit Toys is real, only its residents aren’t just faulty; some are playthings that were once cherished only to be abandoned. That is what Woody is facing. Bonnie plays with him less and less and sometimes leaves him alone all day in the closet. She prefers a spork to his company. In Woody’s drooping posture, in his expressions, the toy’s sadness is evident. When he opens his mouth to speak, the poignancy is complete. This is Hanks at his best, suggesting the weight of the world resting on that little doll’s shoulders.

But cowboy Woody is not a pessimist by nature and he is a problem solver. What Toy Story 4 wrestles with is what comes next when you realize the life you’ve always known may not work anymore. It is a familiar situation and not just to toys. How Woody faces his future is at the heart of Toy Story 4 and it is his sometimes faltering steps to plan his tomorrow that is the beating heart of the movie. –Pam Grady

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The action never stops: JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 – PARABELLUM

16 Thursday May 2019

Posted by cinepam in Reviews, Uncategorized

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Anjelica Huston, Asia Kate Dillon, Halle Berry, Ian McShane, John Wick, John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum, Keanu Reeves, Lance Reddick, Laurence Fishburne, Marc Dacascos

JW3_DAY042_070818_0907077.ARWJohn Wick (Keanu Reeves) is quite the timepiece. He is the Timex watch of assassins: He’s takes a licking and keeps on ticking. In John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum he takes more licks than seems possible and still survive and even thrive, but if John Wick (it doesn’t seem right to call him either just “John”or just “Wick”) has a superpower, it is his preternatural ability to get up and keep fighting even when every fiber of his being is no doubt willing him to just stay down. John Wick is determined to live and no worldwide assassin army is going to stop him—or so he chooses to believe.

Mr. Wick is in quite the pickle in this latest extravagant and darkly humorous display of nonstop mayhem. He has become the enemy of The High Table, the worldwide crime syndicate that controls the activities and lives of assassins like John Wick. The Continental Hotel, overseen by slippery manager Winston (the magnificent Ian McShane) and always accommodating concierge Charon (Lance Reddick), the killers’ neutral ground, is off-limits to him. More worrisome, The High Table has declared him “excommunicado” and placed a $14 million bounty on his head. There is no safe place in the world for John Wick.

This latest chapter of John Wick’s saga ups the action ante. Not only does he face horde upon horde of extreme fighters and martial artists, including John Wick superfan Zero (Marc Dacascos, hilarious), but director Chad Stahelski stages fights on horseback and motorcycles. It is rock ’em sock ’em robots into infinity and beyond. The battles almost never cease save for a quick sojourn into the Sahara Desert, one of the few instances where John Wick appears in daylight. He is a nocturnal creature, emphasized by the dark alleys where much of the action takes place and the subdued lighting in the Continental, the theater where he seeks help from the mysterious Director (Anjelica Huston), and the Moroccan hideout of his reluctant ally Sofia (Halle Berry). Most film noirs aren’t this dark.

Reeves receives valuable support from McShane, Reddick, Dacascos, Huston, Berry, Laurence Fishburne as John Wick’s fellow High Table rebel The Bowery King, and Asia Kate Dillon as The Adjudicator, The High Table’s punishment enforcer. But make no mistake, the success of the John Wick franchise is all due to Reeves. Despite the fact that John Wick is a lethal killing machine, he cuts an empathetic figure thanks to Reeves’ quiet charm. And it is Reeves’ athleticism and grace during the movie’s many fight sequences that elevate what could be ho-hum action into a kind of adrenaline-inducing murderous ballet. Reeves makes John Wick an assassin worth rooting for, no small feat with the body count he’s accrued over three outings. In his mid-50s, Reeves hardly seems to have lost a step off of his Matrix days and that is a beautiful thing to behold. —Pam Grady

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Review: JOHN WICK’s bloody good time

24 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by cinepam in Interviews

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Alfie Allen, Ian McShane, John Wick, Keanu Reeves, Michael Nyqvist

John Wick2“I once saw him kill three men in a bar with a pencil. A pencil! He gave them all lead poisoning.” OK. I made that last line up, but if Russian mobster Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist) had uttered such a thing while explaining just how dangerous fresh-out-of-retirement hit man John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is it wouldn’t be out of place in the over-the-top world of John Wick. A live-action cartoon—perhaps an Itchy & Scratchy episode with Reeves as the most insanely efficient Itchy in the world and Tarasov and his henchmen the hapless Scratchys—it is a thoroughly enjoyable exercise in grandiose action and ultra ultra-violence. Gallon upon gallon of fake blood flows in this palate cleanser before Oscar season gets underway.

Reeves turned 50 in September, but when it comes to old man Wick and his prey, Tarasov’s spoiled brat millennial son Iosef (Game of Thrones‘ Alfie Allen), there is no contest. It is all Viggo can do to try to protect his boy by unleashing his army of mobsters (including his right-hand man, played by Dean Winters aka Allstate’s “Mayhem”—are we sensing a theme here?) and putting out a general, $2-million contract on Wick’s life. Wick anticipates Viggo’s actions and just doesn’t care. Mistaking the recent widower for an ordinary New Jersey suburbanite, Iosef broke into his house to steal Wick’s cherry ’69 Mustang and killed his puppy, a parting gift from John’s dead wife Helen (Bridget Moynahan). For that, Iosef and anyone who tries to shield him will pay with their lives as Wick transforms himself into an impeccably dressed grim reaper.

Screenwriter Derek Kolstad and director Chad Stahelski have created a world in which civilians barely exist amidst operatic and very public outbursts of violence. When Wick reenters a life of crime, he returns to an entire universe where one guy (John Leguizamo) runs a mob chop shop, another (David Patrick Kelly) specializes in body disposal and crime scene cleanup, a priest (Munro M. Bonnell) protects mob cash, and John is just one among many assassins.

There is even a hotel, the Continental, that caters exclusively to the criminal class, overseen by Winston (the great Ian McShane) who enforces the joint’s one hard rule—no conducting business on the premises—from his booth in the hotel’s ’40s-syle supper club. It’s all wackily retro and a little daft, a world in which  Krugerrands (“coin”) are the means of exchange. These guys are so old-fashioned that they’ve probably never even heard of bitcoins and still think of Silk Road as an ancient Asian trade route.

Those Wick doesn’t shoot he attacks with a full-body assault, fists and legs flying. However morose the grieving character is, it’s been years since Reeves has had a role that is this much pure fun. Once Wick’s quest for vengeance is underway, the action is nearly non-stop and Reeves is the ball of kinetic energy at the center of the storm. He wears middle age as well as he does his designer suits. John Wick is a lean, mean, killing machine.

The body count is high. The plot is ludicrous. The humor is pitch black, mostly unintentionally so. No one will mistake John Wick for art, but it’s a bloody good time—emphasis on the bloody. —Pam Grady

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