Before There Was Timberlake: Jersey Boys

This review originally appeared on the San Francisco Appeal.

My first introduction to The Four Seasons came from the 1979 Phillip Kaufman movie The Wanderers, centered on gangs in early 1960s Bronx, New York. I loved the movie, bought the soundtrack, and had it on regular rotation for years. Still, that didn't mean that come this week, I wasn't a tad confused about who the musical Jersey Boys was actually about. (For a moment, I was convinced it was about Dion and the Belmonts, since Dion performed the song "The Wanderer.")

No, Jersey Boys is about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, the quartet that, indeed, hailed from New Jersey. The show has been running for years, and is making a return appearance at San Francisco's Curran Theater for a six-week run ending April 28th.

Jersey Boys is one of those "jukebox musicals," meaning it contains no original songs, but instead incorporates existing hits into the show. In this case, it's primarily songs by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, though there are also a few standards and time-period hits thrown in, including "My Boyfriend's Back" by the Angels, (but we'll get to that in a second).

The first act centers on origin story: Tommy DeVito (John Gardiner) has a band with an ever-changing line-up (depending on who's doing time or not), and an ever-changing name, when he "discovers" Frankie Valli, (nee Francesco Castelluccio), (Nick Cosgrove), a teenager with the "voice of an angel." I'm not sure I'd call it the voice of an angel, but anyone who's heard the real Frankie Valli knows his falsetto is nothing if not distinctive. (And if you think it's dated, know that every high-pitched vocal coming from Justin Timberlake's mouth owes a tremendous debt to Valli.)

The band struggles with performance and songwriting (at one point hiring a songwriter who dons an ape mask while making the band perform "I Go Ape.") Eventually Joe Pesci hooks them up with songwriter Bob Gaudio, who at age fifteen was a one-hit-wonder with the song "Short Shorts." (Gaudio was played by the excellent understudy Tommaso Antico the night I saw the show.)

I have a feeling some may be stuck on the Joe Pesci part. Yes, it is THAT Joe Pesci, AKA Joey Fishes, and I will admit I had no idea he played such an integral (OK, any) part in the history of the Four Seasons. (Of course, some of this might be legend-creation, as Joe Pesci was also an original producer of the musical.)

Once the band takes on Bob Giorno, they flounder some more, relegated to providing back-up vocals to a series of artists, until Bob comes up with their first hit, "Sherry." The hits continue after that, with "Big Girls Don't Cry," and "Walk Like a Man."

When the band finds success, the story becomes a pretty familiar one. Fame; money; cheating and the break-up of marriages; and eventually, the inevitable band split. The only thing this rags-to-fame-to-riches story is missing is drug abuse. (Instead, it's heavy debts that lead to a fallout.)

I'm not entirely sure how much appeal the story may have to anyone completely unaware of the music of The Four Seasons. A woman sitting next to me had never heard any of the songs before (which seems impossible, but then again, I am old), and seemed pretty bored by it all.

But I think the show has an energy that's pretty hard to resist. After all, there's a good reason the Four Seasons were so popular: their songs are insanely catchy. While the first act drags a little bit--I kept waiting for them to get their big break already--there certainly isn't a shortage of applause-garnering songs.

But the show definitely earns its Boys title. While there are a few female roles in the play, they're at times frustratingly limited--and scantily clad--and the one big song they have, as The Angels singing "My Boyfriend's Back," is just plain weird, coming off like a pre-punk version that has none of the catchiness of the original. Still, when Lauren Decierdo is playing Vallie's first wife, Lorraine, she's a foul-mouthed firecracker, and a lot of fun.

Frankie Valli's is a hard voice to mimic. Nick Cosgrove does his best to belt it out in falsetto, but it's really not that Valli-like. To my ears, it was a little too strong with the vibrato, delving into Glen Yarbourough territory at times (or, as my companion pointed out, a tad "Lollipop Guild").

That said, he sells the damn thing. They all do. All four of the band members narrate parts of the story, and my personal fave was when the baritone bass-player Nick Massi finally gets his say. He's played by Michael Lomenda, and his performance is definitely the show's comedic highlight.

I'm not a huge fan of musicals, but ultimately, despite some needlessly maudlin moments, Jersey Boys won me over. But a warning to those who think it might be a good choice for a family night at the theater: this is a story about Italian guys from New Jersey. Joe Pesci is a character in it. If you think, because this is a musical, the language is going to be tame, you're out of your fucking mind.

Not What You Think It Is: Side Effects

This review originally appeared on the San Francisco Appeal.

Director Steven Soderbergh and writer Scott Z. Burns have created a bit of a pickle with their new thriller Side Effects, because to discuss the film at any length is to ruin its surprises, and its surprises are some of its most entertaining aspects.

The film is being marketed as a medical thriller, with the basic plot being sold as: Depressed girls takes antidepressants, and something terrible happens. And indeed, that is what happens.

But it's also not what happens at all...

The screening I went to was followed by a panel discussion featuring three psychiatrists, one who was a consultant on the film, and two local doctors. It was an interesting discussion given the plot of the film (both in terms of how it's being sold, and what it's really about). I'm going to offer a brief spoiler-free review, and follow it with some interesting--albeit spoilery--bits from the post-film discussion.

The fact that I went into Side Effect assuming it was one movie, and came out having seen a different movie entirely, was fun. But that's really Soderbergh's modus operandi, sometimes for better, (Contagion is a much smaller end-of-the-world movie than one would think), and sometimes for worse, (Magic Mike turns into a dull and predictable look at consequences, when it was sold as nothing but a good time).

But in this case, I think it's for better. It begins as one kind of psychological thriller, and turns into a different kind by the end. Rooney Mara stars as Emily, the young wife of Martin (Channing Tatum), a white collar criminal who is released from prison at the beginning of the film. She suffers from depression, and after a suicide attempt, she comes under the care of Dr. Jonathan Banks (Jude Law) who, on the advice of her former psychiatrist (Catherine Zeta-Jones), prescribes antidepressants to Emily.

Then bad things happen.

Rooney Mara sells the pretty-but-crazy girl angle quite convincingly, which isn't that surprising being that her last role was as Lisbeth in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. And Jude Law, (who is definitely not the pretty boy he used to be),  is equally good as her frustrated, sympathetic, and perhaps morally questionable shrink.

Soderbergh can get some criticism at times for being a little cold; not really delving too deeply into his characters, and telling a story too quickly. But it's no secret that I have a problem with excessive film lengths, so I've always admired Soderbergh as a storyteller; there's usually just the right amount of movie up on the screen, and I found that to be true here.

While the ending may produce some groans--at times it swerves into silly--I think it plays as well as any of the classic movies in a genre I can't name, because to do so would be to reveal to much about the movie. I'll just say if you see the ads, and you decide not to see the movie because of what you think it's about, go ahead and see it, because it probably isn't about that at all.

Stop reading now if you'd rather not read anything spoilery!

The post-film panel discussion was lead by Dr. Megan Lisska who is chief psychiatrist at San Mateo County Jail, and included Dr. Sasha Bardey a forensic psychiatrist who was a consultant on the film and has also worked as consultant on "Law & Order Criminal Intent" and "Law & Order: SVU," and Dr. Rona Hu, a professor at Stanford.

The two local doctors had no real idea what the film was about going in, but admitted they had some reservations as it looked like it was a thriller that wouldn't portray the psychiatric field in the most favorable light. Dr. Lisska remarked her initial thought was "Great! Another movie about an antidepressant that makes you kill people!" But both doctors ended up appreciating that the movie was thought provoking and actually kind of positive towards psychiatrists.

But this lead to the inevitable discussion: The movie is being sold as a thriller about the evils of antidepressants, when it fact it's an old-fashioned film noir tale of greed and revenge, complete with a sucker of a good guy, and a femme fatale. But what about people who won't look past the poster or trailer and see the movie, and will come away thinking, well, here's further proof that antidepressants are evil, which is exactly the opposite message most psychiatrists would want to send.

Dr. Hu agreed that this is a potential problem, but unfortunately, Dr. Bardey didn't really address it, instead insisting that because they made a movie that ISN'T really about the dangers of medication, there is no ethical conflict there. If people are going to take the wrong assumption about the movie based on previews, there's nothing that can be done about that, aside from telling them to just see the movie. Which...maybe?

Indeed, the movie doesn't paint that bad a picture of antidepressants, but it does acknowledge that they can be prescribed too quickly, and that it can take a while to find the "right drug" for the patient.

The doctors recognized that there are people out there looking for a quick fix, and the direct-to-consumer advertising of antidepressants--which plays a big part in the film--has definitely increased the number of patients asking for specific drugs.

Dr. Hu recounted a story of a patient bringing in an ad for Celexa featuring a woman in a sunlit room, smiling and surrounded by flowers, and the patient saying, "I want to feel l like this!" To which Dr. Hu responded "*I* want to feel like that! Even the woman in the picture doesn't feel like that; she's an actress!"

Which is an amusingly ironic story to tell when discussing a movie that presents itself as one thing in its advertisements, but is, in fact something very different...

Better Than Twilight: Warm Bodies

This review originally appeared on the San Francisco Appeal.

When I first heard about Warm Bodies, and saw the trailer, I immediately joked it was Twilight with zombies, something akin to the SNL short about Twilight with Frankenstein monsters. And that's not too far from the truth.

It's obvious this movie (and the book it was based on) exists because of the popularity of Twilight, a series I personally find reprehensible because of the message it's sending to teenage girls, namely, it's OK if you're boyfriend has a temper he can't control when he's around you, and could land you dead at any moment, because if he loves you that'll never really happen!

Granted, Warm Bodies could be viewed as having a few of those elements as well (undead boy who loves/also wants to eat living girl). But we're dealing with zombies here, and the notion that a girl could fall in love with a rotting, brain-eating zombie is a pretty silly one, even in the realm of fantasy. Which is why it's a good thing Warm Bodies is a comedy. And a pretty good one at that.

Nicholas Holt, (who I will never truly believe was once the goofy-looking kid in About a Boy), stars as the zombie-in-love. He's a literal slacker in a red hoodie, who can't remember his name past it's first initial, R. He spends his undead days shuffling through an airport, occasionally interacting with a fellow zombie, (Rob Corddry), who he deems his best friend, despite the fact that they can't do much more than grunt at each other.

But we can hear R, as his internal thoughts serve as the film's narration, and it's through these thoughts that we find out he's pretty much your average young man: concerned about his future; worried if he's coming across as creepy; wanting to make a better impression by having better posture, but really unable to just stand up straight; tongue-tied around girls. The film's narrated opening moments are terrific.

Of course, he IS a zombie, and as tends to be the case with zombies, he's got an insatiable hunger that can only be fulfilled by eating anything living, preferably human. He hates that he has to do this, but a guy's gotta eat.

During a food run/rampage, R sees and instantly falls in love with the gun-wielding Julie, (Teresa Palmer), saves her from his fellow zombies by smearing her with smelly zombie juice, and takes her back to his home, a jumbo jet filled with mementos of a past life amongst the living.

At first terrified, Julie eventually begins to realize R is not like other zombies, and the inevitable romance blossoms. To say the film is influenced by Twilight is true, but an even bigger debt is owed to Romeo and Juliet, the Shakespeare play at the heart of almost any story of star-crossed lovers. And in this case, it's not exactly subtle, from the names (R and Julie!), to a disapproving father, (John Malcovich, who is also the leader of the living), and a scene that, yes, actually takes place on a balcony.

Despite some of the film's predictability, it has a charm that won me over. Sure, the ultimate resolution is pretty hokey (love, you see, can cure a lot of things), and the "Bonies"--zombies that are reduced to nothing but angry, hungry skin and bone creatures--are kind of a boring enemy, and, thanks to some pretty weak CGI, not very scary. But as a metaphor for angst-filled, Goth-tinged young love, it works far better than Bella and her abusive boyfriend.

If Only This Were Out Of Sight: Parker

This review originally appeared on the San Francisco Appeal.

By screening the Jason Statham movie Parker for critics the night before the movie opens, the studio is pretty much letting the world know they have no faith in it. Oh sure, they may have a little more faith in it than they would in a movie that isn't screened at all, but I have a feeling Jennifer Lopez's presence in the film has something to do with the screenings it did get. No way Jenny from the Block is going to be associated with that kind of movie!

But alas, Jennifer, you ARE.

And because I am having to write this in the wee hours of the morning, I'm going to have to rely on bullet points; I can't be expected to turn out the usual borderline-comprehensible review at this time of night!

• Taylor Hackford directed this. At one point in time, Taylor Hackford actually put out some solid, audience-pleasing films, (Officer and a Gentleman; Against All Odds), so even now, I sometimes get my hopes up when I see his name in the credits. Unfortunately, once again I am left feeling more impressed by the fact that he's married to Helen Mirren than I am by his film.

• Jason Statham plays a neurosurgeon who is also a single dad.

• Of course Jason Statham doesn't play a neurosurgeon who is also a single dad. This is a Jason Statham movie all the way, down to its shirtless scenes, many, many kick punches, and his playing a thief who doesn't "care about the money it's all about the integrity of the job don't you understand that now hold still while I shoot you in the face."

• Jennifer Lopez really wants you to think this is somehow on par with the great Out of Sight, but the only thing Parker has in common with that movie is its Florida location, and a scene where Lopez strips down to her underwear.

• The script is one of the worst I've seen adapted to an actual theatrical release in years. It feels like a first draft, with completely clunky dialogue, useless scenes that go on forever, and characters that exist for no discernible reasons.

• Bobby Cannavale is one of those characters. Poor Bobby Cannavale.

• Nick Nolte's character is slightly, only slightly, more useful, but every moment he's on film is uncomfortable because the man is a walking heart attack waiting to happen. He's red; he can hardly breathe; he's shaky. In all seriousness, I'm kind of worried about the guy!

• There's a flashback scene in the movie where Parker (Statham) remembers being shot in the chest when his crew turned on him after a robbery. You know, in case the audience has forgotten what happened 15 minutes prior.

• I fell asleep for a few seconds during the 45 minute sequence (approx.) where Lopez's real estate agent character is showing Parker houses for sale in Palm Beach, so I might have missed something crucial then. Apologies. [No, you didn't. Unless you wanted to hear EVEN MORE of Jason Statham speaking in a (I hope, humorously terrible) "Texas" accent--ELB]

• I kind of liked the purse Jennifer Lopez carries around throughout most of the movie; I wonder if it comes in blue?

• There's one moment where a barely conscious, bloodied-up Jason Statham looks at a small fluffy dog sitting in his lap, and smiles. I liked that moment. I hope someone makes an animated gif out of it.

• Wait for the gif and stay the hell away from Parker.

Questionable Accents: The Last Stand

This review originally appeared on the San Francisco Appeal.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has his fans. I mean, he must! You don't go from being one of the top action stars of the 1980s, to becoming governor of the nation's third largest state if you DON'T have fans. I've just never been one of them. No matter how much I'd try, and no matter how good the movies he's in might be, (and really, that kind of begins and ends with the first two Terminator movies, right?), I just could never get past the fact that Arnold is a terrible actor with an accent that isn't doing him any favors.

So, perhaps there are people out there who are anxiously awaiting the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger, action star, and they'll rush out and make The Last Stand, Arnold's first leading role since the end of his governator reign, a number one hit. But for me, well, this is the kind of movie that I wouldn't bother to watch even if it was on Netflix Instant, I had gone through my entire queue, and was clamoring for something, anything to watch next.

Schwarzenegger plays Ray Owens, the sheriff of a small border town in Arizona called Sommerton Junction. He was once a cop in Los Angeles, but after a bad drug raid left many of his fellow officers dead, he decided to leave the big city behind and settle for podunk sheriffhood in the kind of place where the only diner in town gets its milk delivered from a local farmer every morning before the sun comes up. (Are there even dairy farms in Arizona?!)

The quiet town gets even quieter when almost everyone leaves for some big local sports team championship somewhere, and Ray is looking forward to some quiet days off...until he notices some suspicious truckers in the diner, and decides to look into their legitimacy.

I'd be suspicious of them too, because one of them has an accent that defies explanation. He's played by Swedish actor Peter Stormare, and I suspect he's trying to do some kind of Southern twang, but man alive, does he fail miserably at it. 

Turns out Ray had reason to be suspicious. Those truckers are actually there to help an escaped drug lord cross the border into Mexico via a bridge over a canyon separating the countries.

The drug lord is played by Spanish actor Eduardo Noriega, (which means another slightly off kilter accent, as he's playing Mexican), and he spends the majority of the movie behind the wheel of a Corvette ZR1, a car I know the name of because it's said about 25 times in the movie. As he races from his escape point in Las Vegas to the town of Sommerton Junction, hostage in tow, he's being pursued by a pissed off FBI agent, played by Forest Whitaker. (His accent is fine.)

Back in Sommerton, Ray must pull together a motley band of deputies to help stop the drug lord from making it to Mexico. These include Johnny Knoxville, as a local gun nut with a veritable arsenal of firepower whom Ray deputizes; Luiz Guzman, (whose presence reminded me that P.T. Anderson should never have stopped using him in movies), as one of Ray's legitimate deputies; Jamie Alexander as an impossibly pretty deputy, (who never puts her long hair up, a move I will never buy since putting my hair up is the first thing I do when I get home, let alone when I'm planning on shooting people with a sniper rifle from a rooftop; shit gets in the way!); Zach Gilford, as another deputy; and finally, Rodrigo Santoro as the pretty deputy's ex-boyfriend, who begins the movie behind bars, but also ends up deputized. He's another one with an unexplainable accent, as he's a Brazilian actor playing, I assume, Mexican-American, but sounds vaguely French?!

And ultimately, there's no real explanation for Schwarzenegger's accent either, aside from one line in which he laments the fact that the evil drug lord he's fighting gives "us immigrants a bad name." Which just makes all the other attempts at accents other than the actors' actual accents just weird. When you've got an Austrian inexplicably the sheriff of a Arizona town, why bother with any other attempt at vocal realism?

And indeed, the movie requires a huge amount of suspension of disbelief, especially since the whole 200 mile high-speed chase after the drug lord could have been easily stopped after about 30 minutes with the mere placement of some tire spikes. But I guess this movie takes place during the United States' famous Tire Spikes Shortage of 2013.

Director Kim Ji-woon has made a name for himself in his native Korea for his versatility in crossing movie genres. The Last Stand is his first American film, and I will give him props for a few well-staged action sequences, including a nice bit that follows a rooftop escape via zipline onto an opposing rooftop, then down to the street below, and on to a foot chase.

But the best directing in the world just can't save a film with a script that has Arnold complaining twice that he is, basically, too old for this shit; a Corvette that can cause an SUV to flip over three times just by stopping in front of it; and a chase between two very low sports cars through a gigantic corn field with impossibly high stalks. (Are there even corn fields in Arizona??)

Finally, with all the recent debate and controversy surrounding gun control, this movie will do nothing to help Hollywood's argument that they play no real part in the country's love affair with heavy fire arms, as about 60 minutes of the film is devoted to watching people admire guns, shoot guns, and get shot by guns. America, fuck yeah!