MY MOVIE SHELF: Jumanji

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 42 Days to go: 31

Movie #398:  Jumanji

My kids love Jumanji. It’s a really wonderful, carefree, family fantasy adventure film. It’s exciting and a little bit scary (but not too scary), and it’s loving and optimistic too. It’s about sticking together and facing your fears, all wrapped up in a crazy, animal-infested, deadly, magical board game.

The movie starts with a young Alan Parrish (Adam Hann-Byrd) in 1969 finding a box that was buried a hundred years earlier. The box contains Jumanji, an ancient game in a leather-bound case with ivory pieces that manifests whatever weird and horrifying thing implied by the rhyme of the space you land on.

Alan is a small kid, and one of the weaker ones in his class. He’s bullied and generally scared to speak up or be seen. To his father (Jonathan Hyde), this is disgraceful behavior and they have an argument over whether or not Alan should go to military school to toughen him up. Then his father (and mother played by Patricia Clarkson before she was the best thing ever!) leaves for the night and Alan plans to run away only to get distracted by his friend Sarah (Laura Bell Bundy) and the pounding drums of the game. The two kids start to play, and Alan gets sucked into the game by his roll of the dice. “In the jungle you must wait, until the dice read five or eight.”

Unfortunately no one in 1969 understood how game instructions work, so Alan stayed stuck in the Jumanji jungle for 26 years, when the new kids living in his parents’ house, Judy and Peter Shepherd (Kirsten Dunst and Bradley Pierce), hear the drumming of the game and start to play using the two remaining available pieces. Personally, if my kid went missing and the only lead I could get from the last person to see him was that he was sucked into a board game, I’d be obsessed with getting him out, but whatever. Peter gets him out with a roll of a five.

Of course, then Alan (now grown-up and played by Robin Williams) has to finish playing. And so does Sarah (now grown-up and played by Bonnie Hunt). It’s a difficult argument to make for two people who’ve been tortured the past two and a half decades (each in their own ways), but if someone could only get to the finish space and declare “Jumanji,” the game will end and all will go back to normal.

The special effects rendering of all the animals isn’t nearly as seamless and realistic as it would probably be today, but it’s still pretty great — and the fact that there’s an artificial, cartoonish tinge to it all actually lends a bit of credibility to the idea that these creatures come from a game. It’s sort of better that way. (And that huffing, puffing rhino trailing at the back of the stampede is hilarious.)

Another way the movie plays up that surreal artificiality is that the hunter Van Pelt is played by the same actor as Alan’s dad, casting the same aspersions on Alan’s character, showing the same disdain for weakness and fear. For Alan, battling Van Pelt and staring him down is literally like facing the ghost of his father, and all the insecurities that a distant, disapproving parent can place on a child. (But the movie also tells us those tendencies can be reserved, and that when you love someone it’s easy to forgive their faults.)

Jumanji isn’t anything deep or profound, but it’s incredibly fun and a lighthearted, easy way to enjoy some family movie time. Plus it teaches you how to tell a crocodile from an alligator, it folds a police car in half, and it features Bebe Neuwirth and David Alan Grier body surfing down a New England street on doors during a monsoon flood. It’s fun!

Fun movies should get more love.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Jerry Maguire

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 222  Days to go: 222

Movie #155:  Jerry Maguire

Let’s get down to brass tacks, okay? Is Matt Cushman (Beau Bridges, who is for some reason uncredited) racist? Everyone who talks about Jerry Maguire talks about Tom Cruise (as Maguire) or Renee Zellweger (as Dorothy Boyd) or Cuba Gooding Jr.’s manic, Oscar-winning performance as Rod Tidwell or adorable moppet Jonathan Lipnicki (as Ray Boyd). Some — SOME — talk about the fabulous Regina King as Marcee Tidwell. But very few talk about my favorite performances (so it’s a good thing I have my own personal — albeit small — forum), and nobody talks about whether or not Matt Cushman is a racist.

He says “my word is stronger than oak,” and then he goes and signs with Bob Sugar (Jay Mohr) while Jerry is “in the lobby with the black fella.” That’s what he says, and he says it with such animus it makes me truly uncomfortable. Golden Boy Frank Cushman (Jerry O’Connell surprising everyone by 1) no longer being the fat kid from Stand By Me and 2) being hilariously hick-jock-dumb) kind of shakes it off, like that’s just the way it is, which is also pretty chilling, but not as much as his father’s words. I definitely feel like the implication is that Matt Cushman is racist and resented Jerry spending any time with Rod because Rod is black. It’s another one of the subtle, uncomfortable notes that writer/director Cameron Crowe peppers throughout the film.

One of my favorite uncomfortable notes is when Jerry initially gets that “my word is stronger than oak” affirmation and drives off in triumph but is unable to find a suitable song  on the radio to match his uplifted spirits. I’ve written before about Crowe’s singular ability to tell so much of his story through his soundtrack, and this movie is an excellent example of it. “Free Fallin'” is one of the worst songs Jerry could possibly choose as his anthem, and yet it fits the theme of the film perfectly. He’s a man without purchase, without direction. He’s lost himself and he’s grasping at straws. Dorothy is a straw. Ray is a straw. Marriage is a huge straw. He doesn’t know how to be the person he wants to be while still being the man he was with the career he has. The movie is his journey and he doesn’t get where he’s going easily. I love that. I love that Dorothy is the one who realizes the truth of their situation and breaks it off with him, despite being the one to lead him down this path with her too-early declaration of love (even if it was to her sister, Laurel (Bonnie Hunt) and not him). Dorothy is sweet and hopeful and idealistic, but she’s also smart and she’s not a pushover. I love that about her, but truthfully, I love Laurel more.

Laurel introduces herself to Jerry as the “disapproving sister,” and she makes it work. Her constant badgering Dorothy not to fall in with Jerry is awesome because it’s exactly the kind of thing Dorothy needs to hear, even if she doesn’t listen to it right away. And her faux-happy reaction when she hears the wedding news is just about my favorite thing ever, even more than her reaction to Jerry being good-looking, and her reaction to him hugging her, and even her awesome sister-ness when she salvages the dish of food Dorothy runs into. She’s just kind of great all over.

Avery (Kelly Preston) also is fabulous in this movie. She’s brash and she’s fierce and she knows what she wants and she’s not a victim at all. She proudly talks about how she doesn’t have that sensitive thing women are supposed to have, and she doesn’t apologize for it. She’s ambitious and she’s a winner. She knows what she wants. If she believes she can make something work, she will. I freaking love Avery.

There’s also not enough love paid to Jay Mohr, who is an amazing amount of cutthroat huckster. He has no feeling, he sees only dollar signs, and he makes it seem like he’s much taller, much more imposing than he is. He’s a shark in this movie, which is actually kind of incredible. I admit to having a lot more Jay Mohr appreciation than most people, but I think he kills it here. (I also like him as Jennifer Aniston’s love interest in Picture Perfect, though, so I might just be That Girl.)

I have to say, I feel a lot of love and attention was paid to the big roles in this film, and while I love a lot of the smaller moments from the big roles (Jerry’s face and reactions to Ray talking to Rod on the phone is my favorite — all the way through the whispered “you said fuck”), I really really love the small roles. The supporting roles make this movie for me, and make it worth owning and watching and thinking about. It’s not about “show me the money,” it’s about the “kwan.”

“Great word. Tao?”

“No, I air dry.”

MY MOVIE SHELF: Cars

This is the deal: I own around 350 movies on DVD and Blu-ray. Through June 10, 2015, I will be watching and writing about them all, in the order they are arranged on my shelf (i.e., alphabetically, with certain exceptions). No movie will be left unwatched . I welcome your comments, your words of encouragement and your declarations of my insanity.

Movie #45: Cars

Look, I have kids. My son was 2 when Cars came out on DVD, and it was something he enjoyed watching. Owning it has to be one of the absolute smallest sacrifices I’ve ever made for my children. However, I don’t think there’s any denying that this is one of the worst movies Pixar has ever released.

The movie isn’t bad, per se, it’s just formulaic and bland. It’s the standard young-hotshot-gets-schooled-by-an-old-pro-and-small-town-folks-into-being-a-better-person (so to speak) movie, done up in some clever animation that anthropomorphizes motor vehicles. It has none of the heart and wit that Pixar is generally known for. The Toy Story franchise is about toys, yes, but also about life, about friends, about loyalty, and about growing older and becoming obsolete. Up and Wall-E are beautiful tales of love, commitment and redemption. Finding Nemo speaks to the power of the families we are born into, and the ones we find along the way. And the two Monsters movies (Inc. and University) tell similar stories to that of Cars — about taking a step back in life and learning what’s really important — but in a much more inventive and satisfying way. Cars mostly uses stereotypes and familiar tropes to throw shade on the rank commercialism and big business mindset of American culture.

Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) is an upstart rookie race car who thinks he knows everything, who, through a series of odd occurrences ends up impounded in the little town of Radiator Springs off Route 66, sentenced to fix the main road he accidentally destroyed (lots of odd occurrences, but it’s a kid’s movie). Paul Newman, the original Hustler, shows up as Doc Hudson and has nothing but disdain for this car who is disrespectful to everyone and isn’t even that good a racer, considering Hudson was a former racing phenom. Meanwhile, Bonnie Hunt is a local Porsche (Sally) who used to live that fast-paced life and gave it up because she fell in love with this small-town one. She bemoans the interstate that bypassed the town and all the stores that ended up closing as a result, and teaches Lightning a little humanity through the power of her tramp stamp pinstriping. And Larry the Cable Guy is dim but lovable Tow Mater, who pretty much steals the show entirely with his unique brand of goofiness. It’s no wonder Mater emerged as the most popular character.

Naturally, McQueen turns over a new leaf and gives up his chance at a Piston Cup to show respect to a veteran racer, then moves his entire racing team hub of operations to Radiator Springs so he can be with his friends and revive the town. There’s nothing surprising or new or even all that interesting about it. It’s fine and easy for kids to enjoy, but it’s far too heavy-handed and simplistic to resonate emotionally for adults the way most of Pixar’s films have historically done. Not a bad movie, exactly, but fairly boring in the scheme of things.