Movie Review: Hundreds of Beavers (2024)

Title: Hundreds of Beavers
Release Date: January 26, 2024
Director: Mike Cheslik
Production Company: SRH
Summary/Review:

Jean Kayak (Ryland Brickson Cole Tews) is an applejack salesman in the north woods of Wisconsin in the 19th century.  After his farm is destroyed, he has to find a way to support himself.  He begins furtrapping beavers and trading them to the Merchant (Doug Mancheski), hoping to win the love of his daughter The Furrier (Olivia Graves).  That’s the plot in a nutshell for this movie that’s made in the style of silent movies, and while it’s not actually silent it is dialogue free.

Live action footage, animation, and puppetry bring to life this imaginative tale.  It’s like if Charlie Chaplin/Buster Keaton movies were mixed with the slapstick animation of Looney Tunes and Aardman Animations with a touch of Guy Maddin style absurdism.  Oh, and all the animals are played by people in furry suits.  It’s a hilarious gag-a-second movie with a lot of great running gags. I think at 108 minutes it could be trimmed down, especially some of the repetitive bits in the middle section, but nonetheless it is terrific fun!

Note: No animals were the making of the film but people in animal suits are gruesomely killed in cartoonish ways, so be warned if that might trouble you.

Rating:

Movie Reviews: The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

Title: The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
Release Date: October 2, 1974
Director: Joseph Sargent
Production Company: Palomar Pictures  | Palladium Productions
Summary/Review:

How the hell can you run a goddamn railroad without swearing?

Four men with machine guns hijack and New York City subway train and hold 18 passengers hostage.  They are lead by Mr. Blue (Robert Shaw), a ruthless former mercenary soldier.  Mr. Green (Martin Balsam) is a former subway motorman with a bad cold.  The trigger-happy Mr. Grey (Héctor Elizondo) and the conscientious Mr. Brown (Earl Hindman) round out the gang. Transit police Lieutenant Zachary “Z” Garber (Walter Matthau) is forced to deal with Mr. Blue’s unreasonably short deadline for delivering the $1 million ransom, and try to figure out how the gang plans to escape the subway tunnel. For added New York-ness, the cast also includes Jerry Stiller as another police lieutenant and Tony Roberts as the deputy mayor.

The crew working with Garber to resolve the crisis are layered with every “Noo Yawk” stereotype imaginable with their conversations peppered with racist and sexist statements and plentiful profanity.  I’m not sure if the filmmakers deliberately decided to make the acting over-the-top or if they really thought everyone in New York City is like Archie Bunker, but the end result is a movie that’s very funny as well as thrilling.  It’s a cynical story with the mayor (Lee Wallace) depicted as worse than useless, while the passengers and other civilians generally seem clueless.  Granted, before the internet and personal devices people did not have ready access to breaking news, but I still don’t think everyone would be so blase.

There are also some evident flaws in Mr. Blue’s plan, but ultimately the story, the action, and the dialogue are just to entertaining for that to matter.  This is a movie in a heightened reality of New York at its grittiest, but in no manner is it realistic.

Rating: ***1/2

90 Movies in 90 Days: A Goofy Movie (1995)

Every day until March 31, 2024 I will be watching and reviewing a movie that is 90 minutes or less.

Title: A Goofy Movie
Release Date: April 7, 1995
Director: Kevin Lima
Production Company: Walt Disney Pictures | Disney MovieToons | Walt Disney Television Animation
Summary/Review:

There have been numerous cultural touchstones of the Millennial Generation that I initially missed out on by being a Gen Xer that I discovered later were actually pretty good.  In the case of A Goofy Movie, though, I think only 90s kids will understand.  The sitcom-ish story involves Max finally getting a date with the girl of his dreams, but all of his plans are ruined when his father Goofy wants to go on a cross country trip.  The humor in this movie feels like the type of stuff that out-of-touch adults who don’t understand kids would write, at least to my jaded Gen X eyes.  There are some good parts with Goofy just trying to be a good single father and actually bonding with Max, but they come late in a film full of cringeworthy gags.  This is definitely a movie that was not for me.

Rating: **

 

 

90 Movies in 90 Days: Pieces of April

Every day until March 31, 2024 I will be watching and reviewing a movie that is 90 minutes or less.

Title: Pieces of April
Release Date: October 17, 2003
Director: Peter Hedges
Production Company: IFC Productions | InDigEnt Productions | Kalkaska Productions
Summary/Review:

I’m not sure this is the movie I meant to watch but it turns out to be an enjoyable indie family comedy-drama of the type that’s not made anymore. Even in 2003 it would’ve felt a little old fashioned (like, nobody in this movie uses a cellphone and that makes if feel a longer than 20 years ago).  April Burns (Katie Holmes) lives in a small NYC apartment and is estranged from her family.  When she learns her mother has breast cancer and may not live another year, she invites her family to her place for Thanksgiving dinner.  April struggles to make dinner but gets help from her multi-ethnic neighbors.

Meanwhile her mother Joy (Patricia Clarkson), father Jim (Oliver Platt), sister Beth (Allison Pill), brother Timmy (John Gallagher Jr.), and grandmother Dottie (Alice Drummond) encounter various misadventures driving into the city (ironically not encountering any of the traffic congestion one would find entering New York on Thanksgiving).  This part reminds me a lot of The Daytrippers.  April is supposed to be the black sheep of the family but the more we see of them the more I wonder how she became a decent person coming from such truly awful people.  But family is family and this film is about a reconciliation of sorts.

Rating: ***

90 Movies in 90 Days: Boy (2010)

Every day until March 31, 2024 I will be watching and reviewing a movie that is 90 minutes or less.

Title: Boy
Release Date: March 25, 2010
Director: Taika Waititi
Production Company: Whenua Films | Unison Films | New Zealand Film Production Fund | New Zealand Film Commission | New Zealand On Air | Te Mangai Paho
Summary/Review:

“Boy” (James Rolleston) is an 11-year-old Maori child whose mother died while giving birth to his brother Rocky (Te Aho Aho Eketone-Whitu) and his father as gone absent.  Set in 1984, Boy is raised on his grandmother’s farm with several cousins and is put in charge when she goes away for a funeral.  Boy imagines his father Alamein (Taika Waititi) in various heroic scenarios, and when Alemein unexpectedly arrives with two members of his biker gang, Boy feels his dreams are coming true.  Boy begins to imitate his father’s “cool” behavior but gradually begins to realize the he is selfish and childish. This coming-of-age tale lurches from laugh-out-loud comedy, especially Waititi’s zany performance, to the heart-wrenching sorrow of Boy’s robbed childhood with alacrity.

Rating: ***1/2

 

90 Movies in 90 Days: Harvie Krumpet (2003)

Every day until March 31, 2024 I will be watching and reviewing a movie that is 90 minutes or less.

Title: Harvie Krumpet
Release Date: June 6, 2003
Director: Adam Elliot
Production Company: Melodrama Pictures
Summary/Review:

Presented in quirky claymation and narrated by Geoffrey Rush, this short film presents the story of Harvie Krumpet, a Polish emigre to Australia who suffers various physical and mental ailments over the course of his eventful life.  It’s surprisingly moving as well as funny for an animated short.

Rating: ***1/2

90 Movies in 90 Days: What Did Jack Do? (2017)

Every day until March 31, 2024 I will be watching and reviewing a movie that is 90 minutes or less.

Title: What Did Jack Do?
Release Date: November 8, 2017
Director: David Lynch
Production Company: Absurda
Summary/Review:

A detective (David Lynch) interrogates Jack (a Capuchin monkey named Jack Cruz, but voiced by Lynch) about his possible involvement in a murder.  For 20 minutes, man and monkey exchange film noir cliches, and there’s even a musical number, before the stunning denouement.  It’s delightfully absurd.

Rating: ***

90 Movies in 90 Days: Charlotte’s Web (2006)

Every day until March 31, 2024 I will be watching and reviewing a movie that is 90 minutes or less.

Title: Charlotte’s Web
Release Date: December 7, 2006
Director: Gary Winick
Production Company: Paramount | Kerner Entertainment Company | Nickelodeon Movies
Summary/Review:

Charlotte’s Web is a competent if uninspired live-action adaptation of one of my all-time favorite books. Dakota Fanning is sweet as Fern, the girl who saves the runt of a litter of pigs, Wilbur (Dominic Scott Kay). Instead he is brought to a barnyard where he befriends the spider Charlotte (Julia Roberts) who spins words in webs with the help of the rat Templeton (Steve Buscemi doing a great job as my favorite character). A number of other big names voice various barnyard animals including John Cleese, Oprah Winfrey, Robert Redford, and Andre 3000, while Sam Shepard is the narrator. Despite this star power, the movie fails to capture the magic of the book, or even the charm of Babe, a movie it’s clearly trying to emulate.

Rating: **1/2

90 Movies in 90 Days: The Cameraman (1928)

Every day until March 31, 2024 I will be watching and reviewing a movie that is 90 minutes or less.

Title: The Cameraman
Release Date: September 22, 1928
Director: Edward Sedgwick, Buster Keaton
Production Company: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Summary/Review:

Buster Keaton takes photos for sale on the sidewalk, but when he falls for Sally (Marceline Day) who works at the MGM newsreel office, he tries to impress her by becoming a newsreel cameraman.  There are a lot of good gags here including Buster accidentally making Man With a Movie Camera a year early, Buster sharing a changing room at the city pool with another man, and a climax that involves a monkey operating a machine gun in a Tong War in Chinatown.  This was Keaton’s second-to-last silent film and is considered his last classic work.

Rating: ***1/2

90 Movies in 90 Days: I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing (1987)

Every day until March 31, 2024 I will be watching and reviewing a movie that is 90 minutes or less.

Title: I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing
Release Date: Vos Productions
Director: Patricia Rozema
Production Company: September 11, 1987
Summary/Review:

Polly (Sheila McCarthy) is a shy, awkward woman in her early 30s who lives alone, takes street photography for fun, and has a propensity for daydreaming.  She’s been unable to hold jobs through a temp agency because of her distractedness.  But as the film begins she starts work as administrative support for an art gallery run by Gabrielle (Paule Baillargeon). Polly develops a crush for Gabrielle – whom she always calls “the Curator” – although she doesn’t seem to understand it as romantic love.  Working with Gabrielle inspires Polly to want to share her photography, while she also urges Gabrielle to share her art, which reveals an unexpected secret.

There is a lot of second-hand embarrassment watching Polly’s clumsy attempts at social interaction.  But she’s endearing because she’s just so relatable.  The film works as a populist story of art being important for the joy in creating rather than the snooty pronouncements of the gatekeepers.  McCarthy’s performance as Polly is delightful.

Rating: ****