REVIEW: Baby Geniuses

If I didn't lose a competition then I never would have seen this film.  I will make that very clear right now.  Netflix, I know you see what I watch and you probably believe that because I clicked on something then it is worth keeping on your service.  It is not.  I made sure to give Baby Geniuses a thumbs down, but I am concerned that isn't adequate.  Picture the world's thumb wrestling champion turning their roided up opposable digit to the ground with the emphasis of thirteen William Wallace's screaming 'FREEDOM', and then multiply that by a factor of ten and we are starting to get into the neighbourhood.  It still isn't a good neighbourhood.

Interesting, Baby Geniuses doesn't have a single baby in it.  If we are playing the semantics game (and I think we should be up for playing any game possible because it will all be more fun than the movie) the film is populated by toddlers.  It's toddlers.  Not babies.  In this mess of a movie, any human being below the age of two knows all of the secrets of the universe.  Yes, toddlers (not babies) apparently know everything from the meaning of Stonehenge to the Caramilk Secret.  Essentially they are Google Kids.

This film starts in a horrible state.  In the first five minutes we have ugly fish eye camera, awkward and poorly framed tight shots of people's faces, titled cameras (because we all know that tilting a camera is a good substitute for a script), semi-extreme closeups (Wayne knows what I'm talking about), and hideous slow motion.  Just because a movie is made for kids doesn't mean it should have absolutely obnoxious directing.  It is terrible.  I called it quits at the five minute mark and had to wait a day before I was able to return to it.

For some reason there is an underground facility that houses lots of baby geniuses.  Kathleen Turner and Christopher Lloyd are bad people, and I guess the kids are good.  Remember, they're Google Kids, so they're going to advertise to you if they can.  I would like to tell you the exact reason for these kids being used by evil people, but I seriously couldn't care at the time of watching it, and I couldn't care less while writing about it.  Director Bob Clarke did everything he could to tell me what was going on.  After the first opening sequence, the next ten minutes are simply bang you over the head expository dialogue.  It is so bad that we have Christopher Lloyd's character for some reason asking a computer voice to tell him the synopsis of their evil program.  Ugh.

Look, director Bob Clarke missed the mark on this one.  To me, he is someone who brought two very important movies to audiences.  He did the immortal A Christmas Story, and he was almost ahead of his contemporaries in a way with Black Christmas.  Oh, and he did Porky's, for which I don't believe he ever apologized.  He did some bad things, but he also made some classics.  Any abilities that were evident in other films were absent in Baby Geniuses.  Technically, this thing is about as low quality as you can get from a wide release movie.  There is so much dialogue that is dubbed.  I'm not sure what happened in the audio department, but the sound difference between what is dubbed and what isn't is plenty big.  It sounds horrible, and it looks ugly as the words we hear aren't even close to syncing with people's lips.   This. Is. Bad.

People may say, 'oh, it's not too bad, and it's just for kids.'  Sometimes it seems as though people have the thought that movies for kids shouldn't be held up to similar standards as other films.  No matter what a movie is about, the people making it should care about their work.  Some of my favourite movies of the past five years have been family films, and I enjoyed them because their creators cared about them.  With Baby Geniuses, it is evident that nobody in production or post production pushed for this to be a quality product, and I'm talking simply from a technical standpoint.  The script is another mess completely, and the acting is from people who appear to have lost a bet.  What is really sad, and I'm not exaggerating on this, is that made for TV movies have better polish and audio than this thing.

The main event of the film, the 'babies (two year olds that are super brilliant but don't know a single English word), could be described as cute at times I suppose.  However, with the special effects employed to move their mouths to dialogue and to get them to do things like dancing can make them creepier than Paul Reubens as the Tooth Fairy.  To the film's credit, there are a few moments where they seem to have gotten the exact expressions and motions out of the kids as they needed, but that really doesn't happen often enough to forget just how bad things look at times.  And also, the horrible, grainy looking slow motion shots that make an appearance at the beginning and end of the film are amateurish.

Music is a bit of a curiosity in this film as well.  I don't know a quality movie that would choose to un-ironically use Taco's version of 'Puttin on the Ritz.'  Yes, it is the song with the music video where the two black face people chant 'super duper' for some reason.  Oh, and then they ol' timey tap dance.  The song is about as 80s of a song as you can get, and it is cringe worthy.  Why they didn't use the original, quality version is something I will never know.  Also, and even more baffling, there is a final song that seems to function as a send off to all of the antics of the 'babies' at the end of the film.  We are seeing cheerful clips of the 'babies' while there is a life zapping country song playing.  The rhythm is soooo dreadfully dull, and the enthusiasm in the singer's voice makes it sound like he was burying his dead horse when his wife left him after getting a notice that the bank is foreclosing, which means they are going to lose the farm that's been in the family for five generations of McCanty's, and there is no way that she is going to let her kids grow up in the home of a failure McCanty.  The song for that final montage is such an atrocious pick, and it is better suited for some sort of drunken funeral march than for a film about 'babies,' genius or no.

I love A Christmas Story. I've been in love with it since I first saw it as a young kid, and I doubt I will ever change the channel if it is on the television.  I only saw Black Christmas a few years ago, but it instantly stood out as a horror that was predicting things to come.  Bob Clark was a skilled director, but for some reason he decided to forget everything he had learned about the process of making a movie over the decades and trade it in for the creation of a mockery that the KGB would use to extract information from captured spies.

Yes, this is a kids movie, but that shouldn't stop a reasonable adult from wanting quality.  You don't feed old batteries in pesto to children just because they are kids and they won't appreciate prime rib, so why feed them something like this.  They still deserve attention to detail, care, and a modicum of respect for their time.  Some of the world's greatest films are for the whole family (such as Wizard of Oz), and they are that way because the people making them believed in what they were doing.  The folks behind Baby Geniuses couldn't be bothered to make sure audio syncs up with what we see, something that even a novice can do, and I'm speaking as someone who did video editing for community television when I was a teen.  The issues of this film are so easily overcome, but they exist because there are some out there that believe your cherished children aren't worthy of effort.

If you're cruising around for something to watch, this shouldn't be it.  Burlap sacks are more intriguing than anything you will find in Baby Geniuses.  Enough people liked it for them to make a sequel, but don't be fooled by that.  This is a technically sloppy film that literally has someone asking a computer to for some reason tell him the entire plot for the movie.  Or maybe he got the computer to tell him the backstory.  I don't know, and it doesn't matter.  It was a slothful device.  I cannot think of a single movie I have seen with less effort in a script in what is one of the laziest forms of expository dialogue that you will ever find.  Resist.  Stay away.  Watch something like Inside Out, The Lion King, The Princess Bride, or The Secret of NIMH, each of them wonderful works that know to treat your family with respect, films that toil to nail each aspect of story telling.  Or, you could pull out that burlap sack from behind the thirty year old cross country skies in the shed and let your kids contemplate the significance of such a sack. They will enjoy that a whole lot more than Baby Geniuses, and you will know that deep down you gave them the better, more fulfilling option.

Rating - 0.5 out of 4 stars

REVIEW: Eighth Grade

The years of an early teen can be very turbulent.  I am sure that everyone out there can remember what it is like to worry about acceptance and attention, struggling to have a life of confidence.  Physical changes happen, hormonal changes take place, and social structures become more exclusive.    Director Bo Burnham's debut feature film, Eighth Grade, investigates this time of transition by looking at a few week's in the life of Kayla Day (Elsie Fisher) as she nears the end of grade eight.

Kayla isn't a person that mirrors all of our experiences directly.  She fas no friends, no voice for herself, and absolutely no confidence.  I know that only a small number of people out there will have been in a very similar situation, but Burnham knows that isn't the point.  The universal struggles of Kayla, the desire above everything to be noticed and to belong will hit home with anyone.  I was most certainly socially awkward, but I also know that the kids that had it all together faced the scary fear that they may not fit in and be accepted as well.  Kayla, although she is portrayed in an extreme, represents the emotional hurdles for all in that age range.

Acceptance is a big lust of Kayla's, and she believes that she must aim high.  The girls she tries to befriend are the coolest in the school.  Kayla is obsessed with Aiden (Luke Prael), her dream hunk.  Kayla's desire to date the cool boy is strong, as is the need to be befriended by the particular girls.  Elsie Fisher delivers a performance that conveys to the audience just how important this is to her, and how she needs this above everything else.  Life for Kayla, it seems, will have meaning should she achieve her goals.

Kayla's desires inevitably bring about some issues for her, as she needs to come to decide what lengths she will go to in able to get what she wants.  In the case of this film, Kayla thinks that sexuality is the way to get Aiden, that she needs to be exactly what he would want.  What is completely awkward is that Kayla really has no clue of what she is talking about, and is repulsed when she does a little research.  This is the treasure that is Kayla.  While the pressure of being socially accepted appears to override everything in her life, her character ultimately refuses to give away her innocence.

The realm of sexuality in young people is definitely something that Bo Burnham is addressing with Eighth Grade.  This is something that these kids are unable to escape, and Burnham shows how difficult it can be to stay true to yourself.  Kayla faces a few situations where she believes that she is supposed to act a certain way, that it is expected of her, and her conscience and her own comfort are tested.  I know that some people would probably prefer that sexuality isn't addressed in movies about kids, but the reality is that Kayla's struggles are real.  This is what kids face, and, as we see with Kayla, it takes courage to make the right decisions.

This brings up the issue with the movie's rating.  In Canada, it is rated 14-A.  In the United States, it has the R rating.  The film has a little bit of swearing that could be cut out, but Burnham's quest here is to reflect the harsh truth of life at this age.  Because of the rating, the audience that needs to see this the most, the group of people that should see Kayla's story and the decisions she makes, are unable to because of their age.  The rating system really misses the point of movies like this.  What is depicted here, while deemed inappropriate for kids in their early teens, is the truth of their life.  It is unfortunate that what they face every day at school is deemed too mature for them in a film that is not glamourizing these issues, but looking at the toll that they can take.

Social media and living online are a big part of this movie.  Kayla is almost constantly on her phone.  It is the life she lives, and it is a realm where she is not the nerdy kid.  She can be anything at all online.  Interestingly, Kayla creates Youtube videos where she gives life advice and guidance.  None of what she says is anything that she does in real life, and it is the perfect way for Burnham to show how different an online presence can be compared to what people are like offline.  The videos that Kayla makes are terrific, as she tries to spit out confidence, but can't stop over using words such as 'like.'

A part of the film that shows just how isolated kids may feel in their issues is Kayla's relationship with her father, Mark (Josh Hamilton).  Kayla's mother left the family, so it is just the two of them.  The want from her father to have a connection bleeds from the screen, and Hamilton portrays the longing of a parent to understand their child as well as to be understood.  While a lot of films may have focused largely on just what the character would face at school, here we have a touching and heart wrenching depiction of just how far away from their child a parent can be even while sitting at the same table.

All of the wonderful aspects of the story are created with realism through the acting of Elsie Fisher.  She is very young, but the pure range of nuance that is evident in her performance is something that many mature and weathered talents aren't capable of.  I have talked a lot about the heft of this movie, but there are many hilarious moments, and they are all perfectly earned thanks to Fisher.  This is some legit high level acting, the kind that really needs to be well considered for an Oscar nomination.  As I said earlier, Kayla is a conduit for all of us, regardless of if we were awkward like her or not, and Fisher is largely to thank for that.

This really is a wonderful tale.  There is ample humour, relatability, sadness, and triumph.  Bo Burnham created what feels like an authentic experience.  While I would say its target audience is young teens, it is a film that will speak to many adults.  It is a reminder of just how intense the battle for acceptance and identity is at that point in life.  What ultimately stands out is the courage of Kayla, someone who believes they are willing to do anything for friends, but seems to almost surprise herself when she refuses to act out of character.  While difficult at times, this film delivers laughter and, most importantly, connects us deeply to our protagonist and the outcome.  It is a beautiful tale that is easily one of the best films of the year, one that speaks to both kids as well as adults.

Rating - 4 out of 4 stars

REVIEW: War Room

If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.  Yeah, I'm not going to be following that advice.  Sometimes things do need to be said, and I believe that is what should happen in the case of the faith based film, War Room.  I know that there are a lot of people that enjoyed this movie based on the fact that it has an 87% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.  The film was also a financial success as it made $67 million on a budget of $3 million.  To all of the people that like this film and its message, I need to make it as clear as can be that I found this movie to be incredibly upsetting.

The story is about a married family that has struggles.  The wife, Elizabeth (Priscilla C. Shirer), suffers at the hands of the sternly controlling, borderline verbally abusive, and affair seeking Tony (T.C. Stallings).  They have a wonderful little girl, Danielle (Alena Pitts), who gets stuck seeing mommy and daddy fighting.  The story takes off when Elizabeth comes across a cliche named Clara (Karen Abercrombie), an elderly woman that has no boundaries that pries her way into Elizabeth's life to then mentor her.  The guidance that Clara gives, which is in fact the message of the movie, is where the serious issue arises.

Elizabeth is told to pray for her husband.  Sure.  Fine.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.  The problem is that this is ALL she is told she should do.  Clara, and the movie as a whole, is saying that in this situation, with a husband that is controlling, borderline verbally abusive, and actively seeking an affair, all the woman should do is pray.  She is not to assert herself.  She is not to stand up for herself.  She is not to question him on who this other woman is.  And, insultingly, she isn't even to express her feelings.  Nope, all she should do, as a good wife, is pray.  This, friendly reader, is absolute bullsh*t.

I understand that director Alex Kendrick is trying to show that people need to rely on God and trust Him, but try actually sitting down with a woman in an abusive relationship and telling her that she isn't even to call her husband out on what he does.  Elderly cliche, prying Clara nails home the fact that Elizabeth has to pray and get out of the way.  That is what Alex Kendrick is saying is to be done in such a situation.

Of course, this is all easily said within the safe confines of War Room.  A lot of faith based films that I have seen have tried to take 'gritty' topics (like the unhealthy marriage in War Room) to address, but then glaze everything over in a happily ever after fairy tale.  This film is no different.  The husband quickly comes to his senses and everything becomes picture perfect, and the real life questions are worse than ignored.  What happens if the prayer isn't answered?  What happens if the behaviour not only continues, but gets worse.  I guess that doesn't matter.  Apparently the woman is just supposed to take it and never even tell her spouse that she is hurt by what happens.

If you disagree with what I am saying, watch the movie again.  This is what Kendrick is saying, and I do not know how it could be argued otherwise.  The character of Clara is essentially the moral compass of the movie, and it is through her lips that the message is told.  Not only is Clara a cliche, but she is a dangerous cliche that tries to convince people that real life serious issues can be looked at with such simplicity.

  Six percent of females in Ontario report being physically or sexually abused by a spousal partner.  That's only the people who report it.  The real percentage is much higher.  What justice is being done to those poor sufferers (and the males that get abused as well) by saying that the only thing they should do is pray.  Maybe Kendrick would say that physical abuse is different, but, once again, where is the line drawn?  At what point would elderly, cliche, prying Clara advise a woman that she should actually do something for her own mental or physical health instead of just existing like a prisoner?

The message of this movie is quite brutal and is beyond tone deaf.  I mostly had female friends in high school, and had lots of female friends beyond that.  Sadly, I got to see the reality of these relationships that eat away at them and break them.  Never once, and never will I ever, would I have told them they needed to take the kind of fantasy, everything is always going to work out way that War Room puts forth.  There is much more than this simplistic approach.

I have no problem with spirituality being looked at through film.  I honestly think that is something that audiences are open to.  Everyone, regardless of their thoughts on religion, has had moments in their life when they have connected with something on a different level.  Whether it's looking at their new born child for the first time or sitting around a campfire with the magnificent starry sky overhead.  The problem is when movies address these things like War Room does.  It serves to only preach to the choir, and, as with most faith based films, presents themselves as dealing with 'real issues' but never showing actual struggle or consequence.  They come off as fantasy, missing out on opportunities to highlight what actual people deal with when confronted with faith.

There were a few aspects of the film that I do feel the need to point out as positive.  This is the first Kendrick brother film that looked like a real film.  For so long I have despised faith based films for having the same visual presence as Hallmark made for TV films.  People have argued back with me that I need to remember the budget that they were made on, but it doesn't take much knowledge of independent cinema to know that there are films made for a whole lot less that look a whole lot better.  The technical aspect of these films has always been embarrassing, so it is nice seeing that perhaps a corner has been turned.  The audio quality was legit level as well.  Having said all of that, I don't know if it's actually a praise to say that a movie that came out in theatres looked like a movie that would be distributed to theatres.  I don't say that about any other film.  I didn't last year say, 'Oh, wow!  Christopher Nolan made Dunkirk look like a movie!'

Young Alena Pitts, playing the daughter, was very fun to watch.  She had a great emotional range, and the only times in the movie where I felt any kind of connection to the state of the family was through her.  Also, at the end of the film there is a music montage (sigh... one of three music montages in the film... sigh...) that shows freestyle double-Dutch skipping.  I never knew such a thing existed, but there were some serious skills on display.

This movie was nothing but fantasy.  It is so far from feeling real world applicable, and, while seeming to claim a grittiness, it is candy coated in a world where there is no consequence.  I get what Kendrick was trying to show, but that's not what actually came out.  It's the same thing with the offensive Sucker Punch by Zack Snyder.  He believed the movie was really about female empowerment, when what his movie showed was that the only way women could be empowered was in their imaginations because they couldn't take what happened in the real world.  Both directors thought one thing, but, when the base premise is inspected, the films are really just tripe from men who don't seem to have a flippin' clue what women deal with.  People liked this movie, and feel free to argue with me over it.  We can go through the script line by line and nowhere will you find elderly, cliche, prying Clara (who is the bringer of the movie's message) saying anything that disproves what I have said.

Rating - 0.5 out of 4 stars