MOANA is better than “Frozen,” which I reckon makes it better than pretty much any other recent animated musical. This new one has it all: likeable characters, a fast-moving story and jokes that don’t insult grown-up sensibilities (thank “Zootopia” screenwriter Jared Bush), showtunes you’ll not be able to get out of your head (thank “Hamilton” songwriter Lin Manuel Miranda and his collaborators), fabulous action, CGI-animated faces and production design (thank “Little Mermaid”/“Aladdin” directors Ron Clements & John Musker and their collaborators), Dwayne Johnson (who can sing and sell gags even when his eyebrows are offscreen) as a funny demigod, and “Flight of the Conchords” icon Jemaine Clement as a gigantic, greedy, Bowie-esque crustacean. Plus a hilarious chicken sidekick who proves dim even by chicken standards. “Moana” is one entertaining piece of filmmaking.
ALLIED, directed by Robert Zemeckis (“Flight,” “The Walk”) and starring Brad Pitt and Tala Al Ghul, is a engaging and gripping World War II espionage thriller about a Canadian who falls in love with a French colleague while thwarting countless evil Nazis. Twists ensue. It’s nowhere near the league of the very different “Inglourious Basterds,” which also starred Pitt as a Nazi nemesis, but one can see why Zemeckis was drawn to the material. The film is also full of strong performances and I say “Allied” is worth the trip to the cinema.
RULES DON’T APPLY is a messy and too frequently listless look at elderly zillionaire Howard Hughes and some actresses and flunkies in his employ. Incredibly, this is 79-year-old Warren Beatty’s first movie role since April 2001’s “Town and Country.” (Alec Baldwin is in it for a minute, playing a character he did not play in “The Aviator.”) I’ve always found Beatty a capable actor and producer but less useful as a director and screenwriter. He performs all four roles here and this is not one of his stronger efforts. The movie does give us a good long look at Alden Ehrenreich, who has been hired to play Young Han Solo in the latest Star Wars movie to be scripted by Lawrence Kasdan. (Fans will be relieved to learn Ehrenreich’s hillbilly accent in “Hail Caesar” was likely an affectation not carried over to “Rules.”)
KERN-FM’s “The Ralph Bailey Show” was dark this Friday thanks to Thanksgiving, but if you’ve questions about these and the many other entertainments I’ve consumed of late, you can listen to my regular Periscope netcast at 9pm PT Saturday, accessible via my @hercAICN Twitter feed.
LAST WEEK'S POST:
“Edge of Seventeen” is way better than its promos and trailers let on, and is for my money the best comedy of the year so far.
The tale of a teen named Nadine who falls into despair when her best friend since age seven starts sleeping with Nadine’s popular older brother, “Edge of Seventeen” is justifiably compared to “Clueless,” “Mean Girls” and “Juno,” and meets and exceeds those benchmarks.
It is scripted by Kelly Fremon Craig, who also makes here one spectacularly assured directorial debut. So excellent is she at crafting great characters and million-dollar jokes, she should be recruited and soon by the likes DC, Marvel, Lucasfilm and Bad Robot to bring her dark wit to their superhero and sci-fi franchises.
Hailee Steinfeld (who was also very funny in the Coens' "True Grit") and Woody Harrelson (as Nadine’s hilariously cynical teacher) get top billing, but “Seventeen” offers a find in Hayden Szeto as Erwin Kim, an awkward student filmmaker who offers Nadine a bit of distraction.
If you want to hear me chat more about "Edge of Seventeen" (and “Fantastic Beasts,” which I prefer to the Harry Potter movies I’ve seen) you can listen Friday 4:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time as I discuss it live on KERN-FM’s “The Ralph Bailey Show.” No matter where you are you need only hit the “Listen Live” button at kernradio.com.
