I could use this space to write a snarky column about the latest “Beethoven” film, Beethoven’s Big Break, which just came out on DVD, but what’s the point? If you’re reading this review, you’re probably wondering if this is the kind of movie your kids will enjoy and whether you’ll gouge your eyes out while watching it with them. My answers are “Yes” and “No.”

Although it was obviously made on a low budget, kids aren’t going to care that most of the scenes were shot on the generic city backlot of Universal Studios, or that most of the animals were computer generated; all they’ll care about is the heartwarming story and the hijinks of that big St. Bernard named Beethoven. Beethoven’s Big Break is the kind of movie Disney used to make before they became a tween factory.

Sweet, but not too syrupy, and actually a little clever in its plotting, Beethoven’s Big Break stars Jonathan Silverman (a long way from Weekend at Bernie’s) as Eddie, a single dad raising his young teenage son (played by Hannah Montana’s Moises Arias). Eddie is an animal handler for the film industry and has so many creatures living in their farm house (iguanas, monkeys, parrots and more) that he has a strict “no pets” policy for the house. But when a stray St. Bernard (yep, Beethoven) comes into their lives, there’s no stopping this force of nature and her (yes, her) litter of pups from staying with them.

When Eddie gets blamed for the dognapping of a cute canine staring in a new, big-budget doggy movie, he’s quickly canned by his knifing boss (an over-the-top Stephen Tobolowsky). As the movie’s penny-pinching producer (Rhea Perlman) scrambles to recast the film, Beethoven crashes the auditions and wins over the heart of the lively director (Eddie Griffin). Beethoven is instantly cast as the new star and the film’s plucky, cute screenwriter (Jennifer Finnigan) is instructed to follow Eddie and Beethoven around to get ideas for a film catering to the big dog. What results is sort of a meta kids’ film in which the script the screenwriter comes up with is actually the story from the original 1992 Beethoven film which starred Charles Grodin and Bonnie Hunt.

Beethoven’s Big Break has all the hallmarks of any family film. Eddie and the overworked, pretty screenwriter fall in love; Moises overcomes his fears and is finally able to talk to the cute girl in his class; Tobolowsky and his henchman get their due diligence, and everyone lives happily ever after. While it’s quite apparent that most of the film’s budget went into casting, all of the talented actors in Beethoven’s Big Break are having fun on camera and are well aware of who their audience is. Take it from me, the father of a 7-year-old and a 10-year-old: I’ve seen my share of high quality kids’ films and the dregs of the genre, and Beethoven’s Big Break is an enjoyable movie that viewers of any age can enjoy.

Buy “Beethoven’s Big Break” (Universal) at Amazon.com

Barbara Daly Baekland was an actress who married Brooks Baekland, heir to a Bakelite plastics company, and together they spent their lives living glamorously while doing not much of anything else.  Barbara and Brooks had a son, Tony, who watched his parents’ marriage become a façade and eventually implode.  Brooks eventually ran off with a younger woman whom was Tony’s “girlfriend” and later, Barbara, disturbed by her son’s homosexuality, allegedly coerced him into having sex with her.

An emotionally unstable woman, Barbara was prone to erratic mood swings and attempted suicide several times.  Sadly, Tony seemed to inherit his mother’s mental illness and was diagnosed as a schizophrenic, the signs of which became apparent in his early 20s.  In 1972, Tony stabbed and killed his mother and supposedly was found ordering Chinese food as the police arrived.

These details about the lives and deaths of the Baeklands are laid out in the 1985 book, Savage Grace, written by Natalie Robins and Steven M. L. Aronson.  The book has been loosely adapted into a film by the same name and is being released on DVD December 23. Directed by Tom Kalin (Swoon), the film is an intriguing, condensed version of the Baekland tragedy starring Eddie Redmayne (The Good Shepherd) as the troubled Tony, and the incomparable Julianne Moore as the smothering mother, Barbara.

Working from a screenplay by Howard A. Rodman, the film quickly dives into the twisted world of Barbara and her desire to climb the social ladder.  As baby Tony sleeps at home with his grandmother, the parents are out on the town.  It is New York in 1946, and Barbara already shows signs that she’s not all there.  After a later dinner game of questions between socialites, Barbara, upset by Brooks’ answer that he would (theoretically) go home with the first woman who walks through the door, jumps in a passing car with three strange men and drives off laughing, leaving Brooks aghast and pondering who the hell it is he married.  Brooks is played by Stephen Dillane (HBO’s John Adams) who gives the role the right mixture of disdain, aloofness and sadness to make us not like him, yet feel a slight touch of sympathy for him having to live with a force of nature like Barbara. (more…)

Having missed the two previous Mummy films, I wasn’t too concerned about watching the third in the series, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. This film contains an entirely new storyline separate from the first two, and I figured it would be easy enough to catch up on who the characters are and what happened in previous stories fairly quickly. Roger Ebert may have declared this film “the best in the series,” but I had quite a few people tell me to be prepared to be let down.

Maybe it was low expectations, or maybe the taste in my mouth was still sour after that travesty called Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but I found Tomb of the Dragon Emperor to be a good old-fashioned popcorn film that combined the mysticism and grandeur of the Lord of the Rings movies with the adventure and hijinks of the ’80s (i.e. good) Indiana Jones films (in particular Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade).

The film opens with a very Lord of the Rings-like prologue, complete with a noble-sounding female narrator. We learn that the ruthless Dragon Emperor (Jet Li) and his 10,000 warriors were mummified centuries ago when they tried to achieve immortality. A sorceress (Michelle Yeoh) cursed the emperor and his men after he brutally killed her lover. We then jump ahead to the late 1940s and meet the O’Connell family. Brendan Fraser is explorer and famed Mummy slayer Rick O’Connell, and Maria Bello (with a delectable English accent) plays his wife, Evelyn (a role originated by Rachel Weisz). After their adventures in the previous Mummy films, they have settled down on a large English estate to live a peaceful life. Evelyn has written two successful books based on their adventures, and Rick is giving fly fishing a shot, but both are stir crazy and miss bullets flying past their heads and monsters trying to kill them.

Meanwhile, Alex O’Connell (Luke Ford), son of Rick and Evelyn and a dashing young adventurer himself, has unearthed the tomb of the emperor and his massive army. Alex is tricked into awakening the ruler and must rely on the help of his parents, a mysterious warrior girl (Isabella Leong) and the immortal sorceress (Yeoh) to stop the emperor before he takes his army of immortal warriors and conquers the world. Stopping the emperor is not easy, as he possesses supernatural powers, is able to control fire, wind and water, and he can also shape-shift into fantastical monsters. (more…)

The Longshots (2008, Dimension Films)
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Let’s face it, I knew going into watching The Longshots that I wasn’t the intended audience. I could have watched it alone and written a snarky review about how Ice Cube’s transformation from Earth’s most pissed-off rapper to most cuddly family film star is nearly complete, but I chose to watch it with my family.

My daughter, Sophie, is a big fan of Keke Palmer, star of Akeelah and the Bee and the hit Disney channel movie about double dutch jump roping, Jump In. I, too, have been impressed with the young Miss Palmer, who was able to hold her own in Akeelah and the Bee opposite two mighty actors, Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne. I was also curious to see how well Fred Durst — yeah, that dude from Limp Bizkit — was able to direct a film. Throw in a supporting role by Garrett Morris, and people, I was ready to watch The Longshots.

The film is based on the true story of Jasmine Plummer, the first female quarterback ever to lead a team in the Pop Warner football tournament. In the film, Jasmine (Palmer) is a wallflower who keeps her nose buried in books and has no friends. Her divorced mother, Claire (Tasha Smith) implores her daughter to get involved in extracurricular activities, but Jasmine is happy keeping to herself. When Claire has to take on longer hours at the diner where she works, she reluctantly asks her brother-in-law, Curtis, to babysit his niece after school. Curtis (Ice Cube) is an out of work factory worker and former high school football star whose one shot out of the poor Louisiana town where they live was ruined when he screwed up his knee tripping on a street curb. Curtis wants nothing to do with his niece (partly from guilt, because her father is his deadbeat brother) and only agrees to watch Jasmine when Claire promises to pay him. It’s when Curtis and Jasmine come together that the film picks up the pace and become a little more interesting. Up until then, you have a lot of setup (and marginal direction from Durst). (more…)

The parallels between 1976 and 2008 are undeniable. Back then, the economy was in shambles, suffering through a wicked bout of inflation. Late in the year, hope arrived in the person of Jimmy Carter, a Democrat who was elected president to put an end to eight dark years of Republican rule. Sound familiar?

Sadly, no such parallels exist within the music world. In 1976, record companies were on the verge of seeing some of their biggest sales ever. Artistic giants prowled the stages of the world. Concert venues were sold out everywhere. New York City was soon to give birth, nearly simultaneously, to both the disco and the punk movements, even as the city faced financial ruin.

Elsewhere on the musical landscape, funk was in its ascendancy, and the undeniable kings of the genre were Parliament-Funkadelic. George Clinton had founded Parliament as a barbershop quintet back in the ’60s, and that is literally what they were, as Clinton earned a living my styling hair while rehearsing with the vocal group. Parliament had a #3 R&B hit in 1967 with “I Wanna Testify,” but the winds of change were blowing, and it wasn’t long before Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone showed up on the scene to change things forever. Of course, no discussion of funk can even begin without talking about the man who invented the genre, and James Brown was at the peak of his powers.

It was a combination of these musical influences, together with the rise of the black power movement, and the availability of psychedelic drugs that informed Clinton’s next move. While Parliament continued on, he created a rock band that he called Funkadelic. They toured the northeast, often sharing the bill with white bands like the Stooges, and the MC5, and also hit the black college circuit in the South and on the East Coast.

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Just in time for the holidays, the complete Speed Racer series has been re-released in a groovy collector’s set.  If you’re a fan of the popular anime cartoon that came to the U.S. in the ’60s, you’ll totally dig what Lionsgate has done: All 52 episodes come packaged in a metal tin shaped like the Mach 5 (Speed Racer’s car, in case you’re not hip) and are housed in a classy softcover book (colorful and environmentally thoughtful!).  As much as possible, the original filmed episodes have been cleaned up and the sound has been spruced up to make the show as fresh as possible

When we look back on entertainment from our childhood, whether it’s books, movies, or in this case, an animated series, you always run the risk of that beloved piece of entertainment losing its luster. That’s why some people warn about looking back on those visceral memories. Still, we can’t resist, can we?  We want to feel young again.  I’ll admit, the animation is still very limited, the pacing is a tad slow, and the lip assignment never matches the dialogue.  But it never did when we were kids! Speed Racer was always a limiting experience when it came to its animation.  But the stories were and remain fun and cool.  Furthermore, there is a sincerity to the trust and love these characters have for each other that manages to come thorough even though Speed Racer is a flatly drawn cartoon.  I think that’s why the show continues to delight kids despite the wildly outlandish Wachowski Brothers feature film and the highly inferior Speed Racer: Next Generation series (more on that later).

Speaking from experience, I also know that young kids still get into the show: my son watches with fascination each time it comes on. There’s enough action to keep him entertained, and enough humor to make him guffaw. As a parent, I’m glad that he likes Speed, Racer X, Spiddle and the rest of the gang.  So much children’s entertainment has an edge, either in its humor or in the level of action/violence, that I appreciate not having to worry when I walk away from the TV set when he’s watching Speed Racer.

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Garden Party (Lionsgate, 2008)
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Garden Party, just released on DVD after a brief theatrical run, is one of those indie films that kind of meanders through various scenes that don’t really go anywhere. The limited plot features a group of individuals living in Hollywood, trying to make sense of their lives and connect with other human beings on some level. If it sounds like you’ve heard this plot a thousand times before, you have. Only, it was done 100 times better in films like Grand Canyon and Crash. All of the characters bump into one another at various points throughout the film, as if these moments had some import to the overall plot, but they don’t. Instead, these chance encounters feel like devices to make us think how clever writer/director Jason Freeland is. Unfortunately, it comes off as contrived.

The central storyline involves Sally (Vinessa Shaw), a real estate agent who happens upon Todd (Richard Gunn), an artist who is supposedly a sex addict. The only indication we have that he’s some sort of an addict is that he looks at a lot of online porn. Of course, the only reason I’m calling him a sex addict is because the DVD box markets his character as that. It also markets a good-natured Nebraska boy (played by Alexander Candese) as the “dancer,” even though his character never indicates that he wants to dance, and he only actually dances in one scene in the film (one of the most ridiculously staged moments in a movie I have seen in a long time). Sally once posed for some nude pictures and those pictures have shown up on the Internet. When a chance encounter brings Sally and Todd together, he immediately recognizes her because he’s been infatuated with her for years (of course). She tries to get him to sell his house, he reveals he’s seen her naked, she promises sex acts in return for him tracking down the pictures and, man, you get where this is going.

Meanwhile, a group of twentysomethings wanders from scene to scene, hoping the film will end sometime soon so that they can get on with their careers. They include the aforementioned Candese as Nathan, who works for Sally and house sits her stash of dope, Willa Holland as April, a teenager on her own after leaving her home and a lecherous stepfather, and Erik Smith as Sammy, a talented singer pursuing the American dream by trying to become a pop star.

The production value is low-budget and the script is stretched to fill the required number of minutes to make it a feature film (88, in this case). In fact, the script doesn’t even provide enough material, so we’re stuck with long shots of cars driving, wine being poured, or people mingling at a party with no real purpose. It certainly seems that there wasn’t enough footage available to give Freeland any leeway to edit around the weaker performances in the film and tighten the lagging scenes. Either there were scenes shot that didn’t turn out, or Freeland didn’t think the whole thing through before going to into production. Whatever the case, you come away from Garden Party feeling like you’ve missed half of the story. (more…)

30 Rock - Season Two (Universal, 2008)
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I know a lot of you aren’t watching this show, and I understand — I skipped out on it for most of its first season. I had two reasons for this: One, I stopped watching Saturday Night Live after Will Ferrell left, thrust into a deep funk by the prospect of no more Celebrity Jeopardy! sketches or George W. Bush impressions, and thus miissed most of Tina Fey’s best work on the show; and two, I decided I only had room in my life for one series devoted to the behind-the-scenes goings-on at a sketch comedy show, and opted to follow Aaron Sorkin’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip instead.

As you may have already guessed, I started having second thoughts about halfway through Studio 60’s only season, and sometime around John Goodman’s arrival as a loquacious small-town sheriff, I decided it would probably be a good idea to see what was happening on the SNL-inspired series that stood a snowball’s chance in hell of making it to Season Two. I had reservations — aside from a few insane outbursts during “Brian Fellow” sketches, I’d never found Tracy Morgan the least bit funny, and since suffering through The Shadow, I’d made a habit of studiously avoiding anything involving Alec Baldwin.

Surprise, surprise — Morgan and Baldwin are the two best parts of 30 Rock, as evidenced by the following clip from Season Two, a comedic tour de force for Baldwin: (more…)

Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)
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It’s become awfully fashionable to hate on his movies all of a sudden, but personally, I still regard the words “a Judd Apatow production” as a harbinger of moderate-to-gutbusting laughs, not an excuse to lament the rise of schlubby slackers in top-grossing comedies. Given that I have a pair of toddlers in my house, and given that my house is located 20 minutes from the nearest sad strip-mall cineplex, I see relatively few films during their theatrical runs — but I did manage to catch Knocked Up last summer, and I particularly enjoyed Jason Segel’s turn as Seth Rogen’s casually lecherous roommate, so I’ve been looking forward to seeing Forgetting Sarah Marshall for months.

Lo and behold, what should arrive at my house but an advance copy of the three-disc collector’s edition of Forgetting Sarah Marshall? Hooray and hallelujah. I may have spent eight hours last week listening to new albums from Jessica Simpson and the New Kids on the Block, but this job has its perks, too.

But I digress. If you haven’t seen it, you only want to know whether Sarah Marshall sucks; if you have, you’re just waiting to hear whether the bonus materials are worth your $20. I’m here to help. (more…)

Pete Seeger: The Power of Song
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You need to see this movie.

He’s happily existed on the outskirts of the pop culture landscape for the last few decades, but Pete Seeger’s influence is still deeply felt — and his music still resonates. Jim Brown’s excellent 2007 documentary, now reaching DVD for the first time, offers a wonderfully comprehensive overview of Seeger’s long career without sacrificing focus or momentum; even without prior knowledge of Seeger’s recorded output, anyone with a soul should find The Power of Song instantly absorbing.

Of course, even if you don’t know you’ve heard Seeger’s stuff, you probably have; his voluminous catalog includes a wide array of standards, both those he’s popularized and those he’s written (the latter category includes “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”, “If I Had a Hammer,” and “Turn! Turn! Turn!”). He’s one of the most beloved living folksingers in the world — which must be particularly sweet for Seeger, seeing as how he was blacklisted for nearly 20 years after having the guts to stand up to Joe McCarthy at the HUAC hearings — and censored by CBS for daring to perform “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Yes, America, long before there was such a thing as a Dixie Chick, suits in boardrooms were terrified of a man with a banjo.

The Power of Song makes its case for Seeger with a stack of archival footage, some from Seeger’s own collection, and a series of interviews with artists he’s inspired, including Dylan, Springsteen, Peter, Paul & Mary, Bonnie Raitt, Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez, and — of course — Natalie Maines. But Brown is careful to avoid didacticism; the movie is as inspirational and entertaining as it is informative, anchored throughout by appearances from Seeger himself, filmed as he wanders the grounds of the upstate New York property he purchased in 1949, where he and his wife of 65 years still reside. (more…)