April | 2007 | Groundlings Review 2007 April | Movie, Television and book reviews for common folk, by common folk.

April, 2007

Movie Review: Night at the Museum

April 24, 2007 by Bryan Osborn

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Our Night at the Museum

I must admit that after seeing the previews for Night at the Museum, I was genuinely worried that this would be another one of those weak movies with a weak plot that ruins the movie by packing all of the funny parts into the preview. I am pleased to say that I was very pleasantly surprised.

This is one of those movies that takes into account that adults will be seeing the movie alongside their children. When I saw it in the theater, there were several places where you could hear adults laughing out loud. Ok, I admit it. I was one of them. But when I heard an 81-year-old Dick Van Dyke deliver the line, “No, Mr. Fredricks was my father,” I couldn’t help myself.

The premise behind the script is that because of an Egyptian curse, everything in the museum comes to life each night with the setting of the sun. When the rays of the sun once again peek over the horizon, all of the museum pieces return to their inanimate state. Now, this does present some inconsistencies at times. For example, at one point, the information desk is completely destroyed by a tyrannosaurus skeleton on a rampage, but then the desk is magically restored when the sun comes up. However, in another case, our hero Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) gets in trouble when the museum director spots fire extinguisher foam on a caveman display. However, the writing is so clever and entertaining, that you are willing to overlook these “reality” breaks.

Another thing that makes this movie work is the actors. Ben Stiller is able to keep the movie grounded while everything around him is in utter chaos. Stiller is always good at playing the straight man in the midst of ridiculous situations. If you liked him in Meet the Parents, you will like his performance in Museum. Another refreshing surprise was to see Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, and Bill Cobbs as the retiring night watchmen. These gentlemen still have their comedic gifts even in their twilight years. Owen Wilson and Robin Williams also play their parts perfectly, and if you can believe it, Robin’s character is actually quite subdued, playing the part of the wise sage, Teddy Roosevelt. If there was one performance I did not enjoy, it was Ricky Gervais (The Office, UK version) as the museum director. His performance was just too overacted to be believable.

So overall, this movie does not have a life-altering message, except perhaps to never quit and always do your best, but I must say that we were definitely entertained. From the moment my 6-year-old daughter grabbed my arm when the T-Rex came after Ben Stiller, to the car ride home where all my kids kept repeating the lines delivered by a giant Easter Island head, (“Hey dumb-dumb, give me gum-gum.”) We had fun. Kids and adults alike will enjoy this movie. That is, unless you happen to spend your free time sitting on your porch in a creaky rocking chair yelling at kids to “Get off the lawn!” By the way, the scenes with the monkey were still funny even though I had seen them hundreds of times in the previews.

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Book Review: Never Eat Alone

by Dennis West
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The concept of “networking” long held for me a faintly parasitic connotation. The idea that one should view a relationship merely as a means to getting a dream job seemed like an abuse of friendship or a betrayal of trust. Moreover, I wondered if I would ever feel like I really “deserved” the job if I suspected that simply knowing the right person was a significant factor in the hiring decision. This is why I was so skeptical of networker extraordinaire Keith Ferrazzi’s claim that “I have over 5,000 people on my Palm who will answer the phone when I call. They are there to offer expertise, jobs, help, encouragement, support, and yes, even care and love.” Love?!? OK, so the first thing that comes to mind is that anyone who will tell you that he has over 5,000 contacts on his personal Rolodex is narcissistic, insecure, and was likely attention-deprived as a child. Of course, the next thing that comes to mind is: how do I be like him?

In his book Never Eat Alone, Mr. Ferrazzi makes a considered effort to persuade cynics like me that networking can be a genuine, mutually beneficial enterprise. The basic idea is nothing new: seek out the most successful people around you and ask for their help and guidance. What distinguishes Mr. Ferrazzi’s book is his insistence that you can feel good about networking because you honestly believe you will give back more than you get. To prove his point, Mr. Ferrazzi says that when an opportunity to help presents itself, he envisions himself as a switchboard, parceling out “as much information, contacts, and goodwill to as many people as possible.”
Seeing networking relationships as reciprocal partnerships and being a helpful hub of goodwill sound nice enough, but these aims take for granted an extensive and carefully maintained circle of friends (which you probably don’t have). Fortunately, Mr. Ferrazzi has provided you with a book full of suggestions to develop the skills needed to turn your personal acquaintances into a well-oiled success machine. Here are some the best:
- Be bold. Find the audacity to introduce yourself to people who don’t know you. Set a goal of introducing yourself to one new person per week. For motivation, try weighing your fear of embarrassment against your fear of failure.
- Never eat alone. Constantly seek to include others in whatever you’re doing—eating, exercising, running errands, or taking a coffee break.
- Share your passions. Friendships are created and maintained not by the quantity but the quality of time spent together. Use shared interests to engage old and new contacts by planning events that bring you together and give you a chance to solidify your relationship.
- Be a conference commando. See conferences not primarily as a place to gain insight, but an opportunity to extend your network and do business. Get inside access to events and people by volunteering to help the organizer. Better yet, be the organizer (or speaker for that matter).
- Master the “deep bump.” A favorite technique of politicians, the deep bump is a two-minute conversation in which a bond is formed by looking deeply into the other person’s eyes and heart, listening intently, and revealing a little about yourself that exposes some vulnerability.
- “Ping” contacts to maintain relationships. A ping is a quick, casual greeting that helps you stay connected to the people in your network. Ping acquaintances you want to get to know better about once a month; ping friends at least once a year (birthdays and holidays are ideal).Pinging, suggests Mr. Ferrazzi, can be an efficient way to multitask during a cab ride to the airport or time spent in the restroom.
- Seek out super-networkers. Super-networkers are persons who maintain an extraordinarily large network of friends and associates. Super-networkers are often employed as professional headhunters, lobbyists, fundraisers, politicians, journalists, and public relations specialists.
- Take advantage of the strength of weak ties. Recognize that the most important people in your network may be your acquaintances, since unlike your close friends, they generally occupy a different world with information and people you don’t have easy access to.
Sound like a lot of work? It is. Thankfully (albeit near the end of the book), Mr. Ferrazzi admits to an obsessive compulsion for networking and concedes that his is not the only path to relationship success, an acknowledgment which was a source of great consolation for me. Perhaps the dream job will come despite spending only moderate amounts of time networking; perhaps one can get by without having to ping contacts while using the restroom after all. Here’s hoping.
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Movie Review: Flyboys

April 18, 2007 by Dennis West

>What is it, exactly, that makes a movie into a blockbuster? Is it the name-brand actors that populate the cast, Like Oceans 11 and 12? Is it an engaging story that captivates the audience long before the movie is made, like Titanic? Is it the millions of dollars the studio pours into pre-release marketing in hopes of a record-breaking opening, like Happy Feet? Well, it’s a shame, but for some reason Flyboys seems to have missed most, if not all of these opportunities.

Flyboys is a World War I era film centered around Blaine Rawlings, played by James Franco (Spider-Man, Tristan and Isolde), who looses his ranch in Texas to creditors and is left with nobody and nowhere to go, so he decides to go to France to become a biplane pilot before the United States had officially entered the war.

When Blaine arrives, he quickly bonds with fellow Americans who have joined up with France’s Air Force for various reasons but who all must quickly learn how to trust each other as they learn how to use the new invention called an “airplane” in a wartime setting.

Quite a few things impressed me about this movie, primarily how well it was served by the modern special effects technology of our time. The portrayal of the dogfights conveyed well how naked these pilots were up in the sky with no canopy over their head, nothing much thicker than paper around them, and no parachutes to escape with if they should go down. All of this reinforced to me how dangerous these aerial dogfights actually were.

Another great thing about this movie was how true to the period the relationships seemed. In the last few years, Hollywood has seen fit to take historical events and put fictional characters in them to tell the story, such as Titanic, U-571, and Pearl Harbor. The problem with this is that in the process they usually introduce modern sensibilities into these storylines that don’t always mesh with the historical setting. I was refreshed that the romantic plot in Flyboys was every bit as innocent and noble as I would have expected people to act in 1910.

What made this movie even more meaningful to me was that, at the end, they updated us on what happened to the characters after the story portrayed in the movie was over—even showing a picture of the actual people portrayed! I had no idea that this movie was based on a true story and people and was left scratching my head as to why a bigger deal of that wasn’t made when the movie was promoted.

Ultimately, I’m sorry that Flyboys didn’t do better at the box office, because I think everyone really missed out on, not only a great ride, but a great story about a world that was waking up to a new century with new technologies and ideas. I would definitely recommend this film.

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The Prestige and The Illusionist

April 16, 2007 by Dennis West

>Why can’t Hollywood studios hide the fact that they copy each other a little better? Quite often, it seems that an executive from studio Y gets wind of what studio X is doing and demands that his studio come up with something bigger and better.

There are many examples of movie studios copying each other over the last decade: Armageddon and Deep Impact, Madagascar and The Wild, Mission to Mars and Red Planet, A Bug’s Life and Antz. The list could go on and on. Usually these movies are released within a month or two of each other, making it even harder not to suspect copying, which usually leaves me to try to figure out which of the two concepts came first.

So, what’s bringing on this particular rant? The Prestige and The Illusionist. Both are period movies about magicians, both came out within 2 months of each other, and both have twisting plots told in the forms of flashbacks. I can’t help but compare them.

I saw The Illusionist when it was released in the theater. When the titles first appeared on the screen, I noticed how they looked a little shaky and thought it seemed strange. I quickly realized that it was all part of the overall style of the movie that I soon grew to love. The movie was made to appear like a silent movie, with washed-out, almost sepia toned color and subtle shutter flickers and iris wipes that hearken back to the primitive technology of movie making in the early 20th century silent movie era.

This old-fashioned style was also reflected in the designs of the costumes, sets, hair and make-up. Even the dialogue seemed to be stylized to fit more into the time, but never in an over-the-top, melodramatic way.

The story is essentially a love triangle between Eisenheim the Illusionist, played by Edward Norton (Fight Club), Sophie, Played by Jessica Biel (Stealth), and Crown Prince Leopold, Played by Rufus Sewel (Tristan and Isolde). The flashbacks are framed by the recollection of Inspector Uhl, played by Paul Giamatti (Sideways), who is enlisted to investigate Eisenheim once the Crown Prince develops suspicions of him at a performance.

There are plot twists in this movie that center around one question: does Eisenheim have supernatural powers or not? Once we learn the truth of this, all of the film’s other questions are also answered. So while there are no earth-shattering surprises, it’s still an intriguing mystery that you don’t truly know the answer of until the very end.

I saw the next film, The Prestige, on DVD recently. Written and directed by Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins), this movie appears to take place in the same period of time, but unlike The Illusionist, the filmmaking is rather straightforward. It is about two magicians played by Christian Bale (Batman Begins) and Hugh Jackman (X-Men) who at one time were friends, but through an accident have become bitter rivals, each trying to outdo the other.

The Prestige also stars the ubiquitous Scarlet Johansson (The Island, In Good Company, Match Point, The Black Dahlia, Lost in Translation, etc, etc, etc…) in a role that introduces a possible love triangle that turns out to be nothing more than a mildly effective plot device.

While The Prestige was an entertaining movie, I was disappointed that I was able to guess the two big secrets long before they were officially revealed in the movie. In fact, the very last shot of the film was undoubtedly supposed to be a shocking surprise, but it was exactly what I was expecting to see.

Between these two movies, I’d have to say that the best one was The Illusionist. The Prestige really let me down by destroying the illusion of the final trick by introducing technology more akin to Star Trek than performance magic. In watching a movie about magicians, or in watching a real magician like David Copperfield, part of the thrill is seeing something that seems impossible, but knowing it’s ultimately an illusion that leaves you wondering how in the world it was done—which is ultimately what we go see movies for, isn’t it?

Now if the movie studios could only do a better job at creating an illusion that they’re not copying each other, then we might be getting somewhere.

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TV Review: The Black Donnellys

April 11, 2007 by Dennis West

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When my wife and I first saw commercials for NBC’s The Black Donnellys, we immediately thought that we’d pass. We’ve never been much interested in violent gangster shows and the “family above all” theme that was being tagged to the previews didn’t get us interested. But when Heroes was over and we hadn’t changed the channel yet, we got hooked into watching the premier episode.

What caught our attention was the brief family history as told by Joey “Ice Cream” during his deposition. You see, Joey, in prison, narrates every episode. He’s either talking to his lawyer, the cops, his cell mate, anyone who’ll listen. Actually he has such a motor mouth it’s a wonder he didn’t bring down the family years ago, but that’s the charm of it—there’s enough comic relief to lighten-up what would otherwise be a very dark show.

The Black Donnellys is about 4 Irish-American brothers whose family has ties to the Irish Mafia. The oldest of the boys, Tommy, has good intentions, but constantly has to clean up the messes his delinquent brothers are making, and in the process he inadvertently positions himself to be the leader of the neighborhood—ultimately destined to command the Irish mobs, in time.

As the weeks have gone by we’ve enjoyed this show more and more. Last Monday, unfortunately, it wasn’t on! After some digging around on the Internet I’ve learned to my great disappointment that NBC appears to have cancelled it. I thought for sure, that with the success of The Sopranos and The Godfather, that this show was bound to be a hit. I thought that the fact that none of my family or friends were watching it was just a reflection on my family and friends, not the country at large!

Currently NBC is continuing to show the unaired episodes of the show online at www.nbc.com. the are also available on iTunes. I know that networks track the traffic they get in such systems, so consider this my appeal to the world to visit NBC, watch at least the pilot episode and see if you don’t agree that it is a great show. Maybe we can get NBC to give The Black Donnellys another chance!

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