John C Reilly Page 4

The quality of the animation in this musical comedy may not be up to Pixar standards, but the story and characters are thoroughly endearing. And the music is fabulous. As it follows a group of likeable animals through a variety of plots and adventures, there's plenty for everyone in the audience to connect with. So even if the climactic action mayhem gets a bit ridiculous, the movie keeps us laughing. And it also makes us want to get up on that stage and belt out a few numbers.

It's set in a city populated by animals. Buster (voiced by Matthew McConaughey) is a koala who has been obsessed with musical theatre since he saw the diva Nana (Jennifer Hudson then Jennifer Saunders) perform when he was a child. So he grew up and bought the theatre. Now with audiences waning, he stages a musical competition to save the theatre. In the auditions, he selects his finalists: anarchist porcupine Ash (Scarlett Johansson), jazzy mafioso mouse Mike (Seth MacFarlane) and silky voiced gorilla Johnny (Taron Egerton). He also teams up two pigs as a double-act: frazzled housewife Rosita (Reese Witherspoon) and German dancer Gunter (Nick Kroll). There's also golden-voiced elephant Meena (Tori Kelly), who's too shy to face the audience so takes a role backstage. Of course, nothing goes as planned.

The key conflict comes from Buster's frantic efforts to avoid bankruptcy, plus rather half-hearted action subplots involving a gang of bears and Johnny's criminally minded relatives. These generate quite a bit of tension that erupts into rather outrageously destructive slapstick along the way. More interesting are the personal journeys of the various contestants, especially as Ash, Meena and Johnny all discover their voices and Rosita finds inventive ways to balance her long-lost career with her role as a mother to 25 rambunctious piglets. Yes, the film is rather crowded with characters and storylines, and the animation looks plasticky, but everything comes together cleverly,

Continue reading: Sing Review

Japan's Studio Gibli has been responsible for some of the finest animated movies in recent decades, from 2003's Oscar-winning Spirited Away to last year's beautiful The Tale of the Princess Kaguya. Now adapted by Disney with a starry Western voice cast, their films are reaching a wider audience. And this remarkably moving drama shows how complex an animated movie should be, skilfully grappling with grown-up themes through a child's perspective.

The story comes from the Joan G. Robinson novel about Anna (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld in the English-language version), a 12-year-old who lives in Sapporo with her foster mother Yoriko (Geena Davis). But Anna isn't like the other giggly girls at school, and after an asthma attack, she moves to the countryside to live with Aunt Setsu and Uncle Kiyomasa (Grey Griffin and John C. Reilly). They give her plenty of space to explore the area, and when she spots an abandoned seaside mansion, she is unexpectedly drawn to it, befriending Marnie (Kiernan Skipka), the free-spirited girl who lives there. Anna understands that Marnie is an imaginary friend, then is surprised to find Marnie's diary hidden behind a bookshelf in the rambling house.

The twisty plot incorporates a range of elements that keep the audience off-balance: Is this a ghost story? Is Anna mentally unstable because of her difficult background? But the film is much deeper than that, and as Anna takes a fiercely original journey to self-discovery, the film touches on all kinds of resonant themes. For example, Anna struggles with her self-image, never believing that she's a talented artist, although she clearly is. This has left her feeling like no one else likes her either. So it's both fascinating and moving to watch her blossoming relationships with both the young girl Sayaka (Ava Acres) and the older woman Hisako (Vanessa Williams) who paints by the seaside. Both offer emotional insight into Anna's story.

Continue reading: When Marnie Was There Review

Eva (Swinton) is a shell of her former self, living in isolation as the target of anger from an entire community. She clearly blames herself for an act of violence unleashed by her 15-year-old son Kevin (Miller), and misses her husband (Reilly) and daughter (Gerasimovich). But as she finds a job and starts to put her life together, the memories won't stop swirling in her mind. Does she even deserve to have survived such a horrific event? Can she ever make peace with the grieving, enraged people around her?

Continue reading: We Need To Talk About Kevin Review

Number 9 (Wood) is a brave little creature who wakes up into a decimated city where meets the inventive 2 (Landau), who's promptly captured by a scary monster. Soon 9 finds a community led by conservative leader 1 (Plummer) with his muscly/dim bodyguard 8 (Tatasciore) and obsessive sketch artist 6 (Glover).

It's the friendly 5 (Reilly) who accompanies 9 to rescue 2, and along the way they meet swashbuckling 7 (Connolly) and bookish twins 3 and 4. Together they need to figure out how to stop a voracious soul-sucking machine.

Continue reading: 9 Review

Torpid, trite and not the least bit scary -- just unrelen=tinglyunpleasant -- the first 45 minutes of the movie only came to life in twoscenes involving the messy divorce of miserable single mom Jennifer Connelly(proving Oscars don't bring talented actresses good roles). She subsequentlymoves into a drab, creepy cinderblock slum with her sad-eyed daughter (ArielGade), even though it's made very clear that there's nothing keeping herfrom finding a nicer place in the suburbs.

Soon the kid has an "imaginary friend" she won'ttalk about, their ceiling is dripping gooey black liquid from an abandoned(and eerily flooded) apartment upstairs, and the building's greasy manager(John C. Reilly) and bug-eyed, hollow-cheeked building superintendent (PetePostlethwaite) both seem to be hiding something sinister.

Director Walter Salles (the Brazilian behind "TheMotorcycle Diaries," making his inauspicious Hollywood debut) dragsout these routine, oppressively glum establishing scenes to a mind-numbingdegree. (If this apartment building is spooky enough to justify its ownominous soundtrack theme from the moment mom and daughter arrive, how comeConnelly isn't astute enough to realize something's amiss, even if shecan't hear the music?)

Continue reading: Dark Water Review

Somewhere inside "The Perfect Storm" there's a near-perfect movie drowning under gale-force swells of romanticized sea-faring melodrama.

Here's a stomach-in-knots true story about the rugged crew a swordfishing boat caught in the biggest sea storm in modern history -- a terrifying human saga with unsurpassed, seat-gripping special effects, strong performances from a stellar cast and level of realism so potent you can almost smell the 200-lb. fish and the sweat of the men who scrape together a living endangering their lives to net them at sea.

Yet the movie's potential got gutted in post-production, where director Wolfgang Petersen ("Outbreak," "Air Force One") slathered it in sentimentality weepy voice-overs, choppy editing and an incessant, intrusive score (by "Titanic's" James Horner) that saturates every single frame of the film with pounding tympani and crashing cymbals.

Continue reading: The Perfect Storm Review

Making a Hollywood story with a decidedly un-Hollywood flair, co-writers, co-directors and co-stars Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cumming take a casual, almost guerilla approach to their collaborative conception called "The Anniversary Party."

It's a shoestring production shot cinema vérité style in which these two gifted journeyman actors play a shaky show biz couple throwing themselves a sixth anniversary bash even though they've just recently and tentatively reconciled after a big infidelity blow-up.

Their guests -- movie stars, directors, industry types and hangers-on -- seem vaguely uncomfortable congratulating Sally and Joe Therrian (Leigh and Cumming) on their longevity under the circumstances. But in a town where fakery is the norm, it's easy for everyone to put on a happy face -- even the non-industry next-door neighbors (Denis O'Hare and Mina Badie) who have been invited only in an attempt to ease tensions over a barking dog dispute that's threatening to turn legal.

Continue reading: The Anniversary Party Review

If I see one more high school movie that uses a Literature class Shakespearelesson as a metaphor for raging hormones and whatever else the screenwriteris trying to put across, I swear I'm going to throttle someone.

But such ridiculously hackneyed plot devices are the leastof the problem with "Never Been Kissed," the most agonizing flickever made by Drew Barrymore, an endearing actress with regrettably badtaste in scripts.

Continue reading: Never Been Kissed Review

"The Hours" is an Oscar voter's nightmare. An adaptation of Michael Cunningham's novel about three women in three different time periods whose lives are profoundly affected by Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway," the film features equally magnificent performances of nearly equal screen time from three of the best actresses working in film today.

Meryl Streep submerges herself in the self-sacrificing soul of Clarissa Vaughan, a modern Manhattan book editor whose longtime dear friend -- and volatile ex-lover -- Richard (Ed Harris) likes to ruffle her feathers by comparing her to the heroine of Woolf's book. Both women are externally serene, perfectionist party-throwers hiding deep reservoirs of regret over missed opportunities while living lives as mother-hen caretakers to others.

Julianne Moore plays Laura Brown, a fragile, pregnant 1950s housewife in the midst of reading "Mrs. Dalloway," whose deep depression (like Woolf's) and suicidal musings (like Dalloway's) go all but unnoticed by everyone except her young son (Jack Rovello), who clings to her apron strings with worry.

Continue reading: The Hours Review

It's hard not to admire Kevin Costner for his stanch dedication to making old-fashioned movies that defy our acidic modern world.

Unapologetically sentimental, he insists through films like "Field of Dreams," "The Postman," "Message in a Bottle" and now "For Love of the Game," that melodrama is not outdated, and the man has an aptitude for jerking tears from even the most reluctant ducts.

Sometimes he tries too hard, and frequently he tries too long (it's been 10 years since he made a movie under two hours), but chick flick or cautionary futurist yarn, he almost always succeeds in taking hold of the viewer's heart, even as some of us wince at his methods.

Continue reading: For Love Of The Game Review