The Way Way Back

COMEDY/DRAMA

Bring the Heat, Bring the Noise

8.75 out of 10 | Matinee or Rental

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Rated: PG-13  Some sexual content, language, brief drug material and thematic elements
Release Date: July 5, 2013 (limited)
Runtime: 1 hour 43 minutes

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Director: Jim Rash, Nat Faxon
Writers: Jim Rash, Nat Faxon
Cast: Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, Amanda Peet, Toni Collette, AnnaSophia Robb, Maya Rudolph, Rob Corddry, Allison Janney, Liam James, Jim Rash, Nat Faxon, River Alexander, Ava Deluca-Verley

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SYNOPSIS:  Over the course of his summer break, a teenager comes into his own thanks in part to the friendship he strikes up with one of the park's managers.

REVIEW: Nat Faxon and Jim Rash moved from just comedians and actors with their breakout screenplay for George Clooney, The Descendants. Jim Rash is most recently known for his work as the Dean in NBC's Community, while Nat Faxon appeared in Bad Teacher and The Zookeeper. Now they write, direct and star in a film about a young man's coming of age in spite of external forces he can never hope to control.

14-year-old Duncan (Liam James, 2012) finds himself in the back of the vintage station wagon going to a summer beach house owned by his mother's boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World). Sitting in the far back seat, Duncan is the odd man out with his mother Pam (Toni Collette, Hitchcock) diverting attention to Trent. Once they get to the Ramsey summerhouse - called the Riptide - Duncan is even more an outsider when Trent's friends reconnect from previous summers. Duncan's mom joins in the fun and Duncan finds himself moping around wishing he was anywhere but there. After a few days Duncan bumps into Owen (Sam Rockwell, The Sitter), the manager of the local water park waterways, and finds the kinship to him. Taking a job at the water park Duncan diverts his problems to enjoyment of the summer job at the park, finding new friends and people to make his days worthwhile. Along the way Duncan finds a friend in Trent's neighbors daughter, makes friends at the water park, and find a new confidence that comes with the start of being a man.

The Way, Way Back can mean many things. Does it refer to Duncan's seat assignment at the far back bench of Trent's station wagon? Or is it a more metaphysical in defining how to find one's way back once you gone astray? At the very least The Way, Way Back is a coming-of-age story of a boy dealing with the destruction of his nuclear family and the turmoil that comes with a new one.

From Steve Carell's turn as a not so funny boyfriend, to Toni Collette reprising a familiar role as an uncertain mother to a young son, to Sam Rockwell scene-stealing with his juvenile antics, the cast is phenomenal. Liam James, playing Duncan, provides all the tell tale sign of an awkward boy who has to find it within himself to grow up a bit. With the addition of Amanda Peet, Rob Cordry, Allison Janney, and Mya Rudolph, the entire film works in wonderful concert. Even Mat Faxon and Jim Rash 'do good' with their more than cameo roles.

The Way, Way Back also captures the volatile teenage angst that seems so foreign to adults. But it also captures the uncertainties and poor judgements that adults make that seem so foreign to a teenager. Life is still so black and white for a young adult - the emotions so raw and intense, the decisions so difficult to come by but obvious and 'right' when made.

Life in a summer season town may seem like a two month paradise to those living on the outside, but it is an odyssey of awkwardness and self-discovery for the young, and a period of regret and the pursuit to recapture youth under the guise of too much drinking, smoking, and partying for adults. Decisions are made or made on our behalf at any age, providing a breeding ground for contempt, regret, and lost opportunities. Seize the day, wherever you are!

The Way, Way Back is a sweet, funny and serious look into the perils of new places, new people, and new family dynamics. The perfect tale for summer, this film will give you a reflection of wonders lost and wonders found.

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The Sitter

No Adventure In Babysitting

Director: David Gordon Green

Writers: Brian Gatewood, Alessandro Tanaka
Cast: Jonah Hill, Sam Rockwell, Max Records, Landry Bender, Kevin Hernandez, Ari Graynor, J.B. Smoove, Kylie Bunbury

SYNOPSIS: Suspended college student Noah Griffith decides to get off his butt to babysit three kids in order to help his divorced mother go out for a nice evening. Little does he know that a request from his girlfriend will lead him and the kids on a wild ride.

REVIEW: David Gordon Green, director of Pineapple Express and Your Highness, sets his sights on a movie about mishaps in childcare. From a script by relative newcomers Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka, director David Gordon Green looks to make the next great babysitting flick to rival Elizabeth Shue's 1987 Adventures in Babysitting and Christina Applegate's 1991 Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead.

Noah Griffith (Jonah Hill, Get Him to the Greek) finds himself college school-less and living with his mother without a job or any motivation to make something of his young life. When his divorced mother's opportunity to meet a new beau at a dinner party is threatened because the Pedulla family needs a babysitter, Noah begrudgedly relented to babysitting their three children, phobic Slater (max Records, Where the Wild Things Are), celebritant wannabe Blithe (Landry Bender), and recently adopted Venezuelan explosives lover Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez). During a early evening of boundary crossing and authority bucking by the kids, Noah gets a call from his not-so-girlfriend Marisa for the promise of sex if he picks up and pays for some nose candy for her at a party she is attending. Weighing the options, Noah packs up the Pedulla minivan with the kids and begins a journey that starts with exploding toilets and ends with carjacking, car chases, gun fights, and revelations.

Filled with crude language and lots of sexual references, The Sitter is certainly not geared to kids, no matter how many unaccompanied minors are strapped into the back seats of the family soccer mobile. Jonah Hill manages to be both crude and cuddly, childishly naive while painfully insightful. The kids, each with their own too-grown-up problems, funnel their frustrations at the novice Noah with barbed bravado. Noah's girlfriend Marisa (Ari Graynor, What's Your Number?) is to die for at the start of the film, but ends up someone you want to kill by the end. The highlights of the film? Drug kingpin due Karl with a K (Sam Rockwell, Cowboys & Aliens) and Julio (J.B. Smoove, Date Night), and Soul Baby (Reggie Alvin Green, Coney Island Baby). Rockwell is disarming, maniacal, and in desperate need of friends more than eight. Smoove, as Rockwell's wingman and business partner, enables Karl at every turn, probably fearful of any stray retribution. And Green's Soul Baby, lends a little swagger and jazz cool as the doorman of a downtown New York pool hall.

At some times funny and silly, at other times foul and crude, The Sitter is a film that you would expect Jonah Hill to star in - in 2007. With recent films under his belt like Moneyball  and Get Him to the Greek,   I expect more from Hill but see why he would return to the type of films that he started off with. The pace of the story is fine, but the situations that Noah and his charges find themselves in become increasingly far fetched and coincidental. Even the supposed love interest Roxanne (Kylie Bunbury, Prom) gets minimal screen and scene time with Noah. Maybe that's for the best since Noah has his hands full with all of the other problems on his plate.

The Sitter is not the 80s-styled formula flick that we remember with the late decade Adventures in Babysitting, although some of the soundtrack is reminiscent. The heady days of good natured ill-advised childcare hi-jinks is so last century. Today, The Sitter, with all of its foul-mouth angst seems to be the standard for this century. Oh, to be young again.

WORTH: Rental

Cowboys & Aliens

A FIstful of Aliens

Director: Jon Favreau
Writers: Robert Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Steve Oedekerk, Scott Mitchell Rosenberg (Platinum Studios comic book)
Cast: Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde, Keith Carradine, Sam Rockwell, Harrison Ford

SYNOPSIS: A man, Jake, wakes in 1873 Arizona with no memory and a futuristic gadget on his wrist as the only clue to who he is. When alien craft attack the town, Jake, the townfolk, ranchers and indians must band together to deal with this extraterrestial threat.

REVIEW: Jon Favreau, touted director of Iron Man and Iron Man 2 (don't forget Swingers and Made, people!), takes a screenplay from a stable of A-list screenwriters to bring Scott Mitchell Rosenberg's Platinum Studios graphic novel (just a fancy name for comic books, folks!) about Old West Arizona Territory cowboys confronted and attacked by aliens from outer space. The A-list team writing team includes Star Trek reboot scribes Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, Iron Man scribes Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, Lost creator/writer Damon Lindelof, and Bruce Almighty writer Steve Oedekerk. Throw in producers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, and executive producer Steven Spielberg, and you have a talent pool that is hard to beat.

The Cowboys & Aliens concept on film is brand new, but makes you wonder how in the world we haven't seen this on the big screen before now. There must be a treatment or screenplay rejected from a major studio head somewhere. Only in the graphic novel format would you believe that the mash-up of Old West cowboys and extraterrestrials would work! Even the title of Cowboys & Aliens in the initial trailers brought eye rolls and giggles from movie-goers.

Daniel Craig stars as Jake Lonergan, a man who wakes up in the 1873 Old West Arizona Territories with no memory of who he is or how he got there. Attached to his wrist is a strange looking metal bracket that cannot be taken off. Happened upon by a trio of hunters, he quickly realizes that in spite of an absent memory, he still can brawl with the best of them, taking down the group of armed men in quick order. Taking clothes, a pistol, a horse, and their dog, Jake rides to a small town named Absolution and quickly gets into unwanted trouble with the wealthy rancher's son Percy Dolarhyde (Paul Dano) and with the sheriff John Taggart (Keith Carradine). The wealthy rancher Col. Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) looks for retribution for both his son and against Jake. Before any of that can occur strange lights in the sky fly in through the night sky, materializing as strange mechanical "demonic" flying machines, blowing up buildings and lassoing townsfolk straight off the dirt streets, into the air and off into the night.

Set as a western, Cowboys & Aliens provides the typical cast of characters, including a preacher Meacham (Clancy Brown), the sheriff John Taggart (Keith Carradine), a doctor turned entrepreneur barkeep (Sam Rockwell), a young boy Emmett (Noah RInger) looking to become a man, and a strange beautiful woman Ella (Olivia Wilde) who seems to know about Jake, his bracelet and the alien invaders. The desert vista landscapes are picture perfect, proving that you do not need CGI or matte backgrounds to shot a scene in epic proportions. Absolution is both gritty and typical for a small formerly booming desert western town.

Also set as a pioneering merge of western and science fiction, Cowboys & Aliens gives us at first shadowing, fleeting shots of the mechanical flying crafts that make their first appearance like the lights straight out from the first appearances in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Even after Jake and his wrist weapon shoots down one of the invading craft the townsfolk are still unsure of what they are dealing with. One of the monster aliens streaks through the town so quickly, Jake, Col. Dolarhyde, and the rest of Absolution are left with only green fluid and tracks to follow - at their own peril. The aliens physiques are somewhat unique and new, a cross between a frog, a crab and the Hulk. Quick and with sharp teeth and durable bullet-bouncing hides, they prove to be a superior menace, both on the ground and in the air. The attack craft are also unique, very cool and fun to watch. But anyone in the known universe knows, humans are as resourceful as raccoons and resilient as cockroaches when threatened by aliens from outer space.

Cowboys & Aliens is a film idea we have not seen before. Jon Favreau makes it fun to watch, both on the western side, the science fiction side, and the convergence of the two. How can horses and six-shooters hope to defeat an alien horde, even with their Old West attitude? As a Western, Cowboys & Aliens will not reach the caliber of Unforgiven or 3:10 to Yuma, although Jake Lonergan is as badass a outlaw as you would ever want to meet. As an alien invasion flick, we have seen some of the stuff before - the lights, the fleeting forms in the dark abducting innocents - but Cowboys & Aliens puts it together in a fresh way. The film may be too high concept for the general filmgoer, but the experience was a picturesque funny action-packed way to spend two hours with a favorite bucket of freshly popped kernels.

WORTH: Matinee and BluRay

Iron Man 2

Iron and Intrigue

[Robert Downey Jr., Mickey Rourke, Sam Rockwell]

Even though I was under the weather a bit, I still made it out to the theater for the sophomore effort of Iron Man. I indulged in a bucket of pop corn and kicked back for the festivities.

SYNOPSIS: Tony Stark and his alter ego, Iron Man, are targeted by a genius looking for revenge against the Stark family and a weapons manufacturer looking to take over Stark's government contracts.

As with all sequels, the same question comes up. Can you guess? Of course you know what it is. The question is whether Iron Man 2 is better or as good as the original. Cameron's "Aliens" pleased Scott's "Alien" fans with more fear and fire power, "Spider-man 2" grew up after "Spider-man" origins, and "The Empire Strikes Back" was the peak of the series, whether it is considered part 2 or 5. But for every "Empire...", there is a "Poltergeist 2", "Predator 2" and Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2". Where does "iron Man 2" fit in?

Reviewers have been critical about the film, and understandingly so. "Iron Man" was a great retelling of the Marvel character's origin. A great mix of humor and action, kinetic and fast-paced. "Iron Man 2" strives for the same humor and succeeds, but is tempered by less action and more intrigue. Where the original was straight forward, "Iron Man 2" delves a little deeper into the Stark psyche and his personal demons. While there are a pair of villains in each film, Mickey Rourke as Ivan Vanko and Sam Rockwell as the defense weaponeer Justin Hammer ramp up the vile and vengeance.

Robert Downey, Jr. returns as the billionaire industrialist Tony Stark, mere months after he announced to the world that he was the armored avenger, Iron Man. Failing to manage his company, his hero duties, and his deteriorating health, he turns the reign of Stark CEO over to Pepper Potts. Fearing his own mortality, Stark spirals out of control with drinking and recklessness, in and out of the suit.

Downey's supporting cast mesh in this second outing. Don Cheadle's Rhodey replaces Terrance Howard without skipping a beat. And he finally gets to don the suit under the guise of War Machine. Rourke brings a wonderful Russian accent and dense intensity to every frame as the hybrid marvel villain Ivan Vanko (Crimson Dynamo) using the tech of the villain Whiplash. Sam Rockwell weasels and worms his way through the movie as Stark's second string defense contractor rival Justin Hammer, pulling all possible strings to undermine Stark and his company in order to get government contracts. Scarlet Johansson joins S.H.I.E.L.D. as the double agent Black Widow, and Samuel L. Jackson and Clark Gregg return as Nick Fury and Agent Coulson, providing easter eggs, hints and clues as to the expanding Marvel universe.

I know I haven't answered the question as to whether "Iron Man 2" is as good or better than the original. Whether it is or not doesn't seem to have had any effect on its box office numbers. And in the end, the legacy of the second "Iron Man" film will rest, not on the words of the critics, but in the hearts of the fans.

One final word, stay to the end of the end credits for a hint at things to come.

Worth: Matinee and BluRay