Film Review: Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank

     

How much worse can life get than being a dog stuck in a town full of cats?

Well, if Mel Brooks has anything to do with the answer (and he does), it can get pretty darned funny.

“Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank” gives us a hilarious, sometimes raunchy and entirely delightful story about poor Hank the dog (voiced by Michael Cera), who finds himself defending the cat haven Kakamucho from a ruthless villain named Ika Chu (voiced by Ricky Gervais), who wants to wipe the town off the map.

How’s that going to work? Well, first Hank will have to learn how to be a samurai. He asks, but it seems there is no “Samurai for Dummies” book. So Hank will have to take lessons from reluctant local teacher Jimbo (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson).

Need I say more?

There is more, much more, and all of it is hilarious (well, unless you consider the notion of an execution squad for canines less than amusing). 

There’s nothing new, strange or startling here. It was originally supposed to be a follow-up to “Blazing Saddles” called “Blazing Samurai,” but that was years ago. Instead, it’s an outright spoof, with sight gags, fart jokes, one-liners, and a few references to other films like “West Side Story” and “Star Wars.”

It’s got some messages about stuff like admiration, courage and not judging on looks alone, but mostly it sounds like one Mel Brooks gag after another.

Some people don’t think that’s enough to carry a film. Me, I have always loved Brooks’ sense of humor. If you think he writes funny stuff, this show is for you.

Film Review: Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song

                       

                                Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song          

There are poets, novelists and songwriters, but I can’t name many who can do all three well. One of them was Leonard Cohen, who will be forever remembered for the song “Hallelujah.”

Born the son of wealthy, orthodox Jewish parents in Montreal in 1934, Leonard had the luxury of taking his time to figure out what he wanted to do. He started writing poems in the ’50s (and was a published poet at 15), then moved to novels (having two acclaimed novels by the time he was 32). In the ’60s, he decided to write songs.

He wrote the song “Suzanne” and showed it to Judy Collins, saying he wasn’t sure it was a song. She assured him it was, and said “I’m recording it tomorrow.”

But dealing with the business end of music – the recording business – proved more problematic, since it is more concerned about whether records will sell than whether they say anything significant.

But Cohen’s “Hallelujah” made his reputation, despite the lukewarm reception it got from the recording industry. Once it was committed to DVD, everybody started singing it – Bono, Brandi Carlisle, Bob Dylan. It even made the soundtrack of the film “Shrek.”

The new film “Hallelujah” pulls together the multiple strands of Cohen’s work, personal and spiritual lives into a two-hour portrait of man and musician. He seems always to have been on a quest, and would do things like disappear without a word.

When composer/producer/performer John Lissauer heard Cohen’s songs, he reportedly said “They sound cinematic to me.” Cohen asked if he’d like to talk in New York. They agreed to meet and Cohen wrote six songs for him, but when Lissauer called, Cohen said he was going to Egypt.

“I didn’t hear from him for eight years,” Lissauer reports. 

On another quest, he spent six years at a Zen retreat on Mt. Baldy.

Meanwhile, “Hallelujah” became a staple for touring singers.

Cohen was an interesting, complicated person, whose last personal appearance  was in Coachella in 2009. He died in 2016.

“Hallelujah” is a fascinating, complicated film about a most unusual person.

Film Review: Riki Rhino

                                                       

                                            Riki Rhino

What good is a rhino without a horn?

There’s a rhino in Sumatra named Riki who can show you, in the delightful Indonesian animated film “Riki Rhino.” The film was made in 2020, but is only now being released digitally and on DVD in an English version.

Riki (voiced in English by Jennifer Castle) loses his horn to the horrible human poacher Mr. Jak (voice of Zack Lee), and sets out with his buddy Beni the duck (voice of Paul Reynolds) to get it back. 

I can’t recall seeing another Indonesian animated film – but I must say this is up there among the most delightful of the animated films I have seen.

Beni and Riki have many adventures in their lush surroundings, including running off a cliff and ending up in the river, encounters with the King of the Jungle, who ends up needing help when he gets tied to a tree, and running into elephants like the old one called General, who informs Beni that white thing of his is not a horn but a tusk and therefore not what Riki needs. 

But General says he also knows a master healer “who can grow anything.”

The message here is that animals, unlike bad humans, are cooperative and helpful to one another.

The animals bump into porcupines and more bad men (there don’t seem to be any good humans in this place).

But when the baddies start threatening the environment by cutting down trees, the animals put their feet down (so to speak) and come up with a most charming solution.

Director Edwin Budiono keeps the pace moving, with help from the charming screenplay by Cassandra Massardi (from a story by Jony Yuwono). All this and unfettered (except by those nasty humans) nature scenes to boot? What are you waiting for?

Film Review: Glasshouse

      

                         Greenhouse

Beware the Shred.

The what?

There are strange notions and weird stories, oddball ideas and yikes! what’s that? categories of entertainment.

“Glasshouse,” a South African-made film, occupies a spot of its own. I’m still trying to come up with a proper name for it.

In a glass house somewhere in the wild lives a family headed by Mother (Adrienne Pearce), who sees her job as protecting her family from The Shred, a toxin that erases memory.

“In a world of madness, we have found order,” she says, though it’s not altogether clear that the kids like this type of “order.” There are three girls – Bee (Jessica Alexander), Evie (Anja Taljaard) and Daisy (Kitty Harris) – and a boy named Gabe (Brent Vermeulen), whose faulty memory seems to indicate some toxin exposure.

We don’t see it happen, but they appear to grow their own food, somewhat reminiscent of the 1970s American hippie commune Arcosanti in Arizona. But this Mother is fearful, not joyfully growing asparagus and smoking pot.

One day the sisters see a Stranger (male, of course) in the woods, which occasions no little excitement. Is he a monster? They take him home, where he is tied up – apparently the “Glasshouse” version of hospitality – “so he learns where to clean up his piston,” after which Mother informs him that if he stays, he must work because “I don’t feed idle mouths.”

“Glasshouse” life gets more and more restrictive until Mother (who apparently figures out who tells the Stranger is) tells him he must leave, when all hell really breaks loose.

Co-writer/Director Kelsey Egan succeeded nicely in making me feel I was in hell, at least for a while. Patrick Cannell’s music (largely strings, with violins and cellos) and Kerry Van Lillienfeld’s production design project the right lonely atmosphere.

If you like weird stories, this might suit you just fine.

Theater Review: Lempicka

 

                Some of the cast members of "Lempicka"               

The little Polish girl who grew up to be renowned Art Deco artist Tamara de Lempicka found out very early on that “we can’t control the world” – and that  the “we” was doubly true for women, and for Jews. She was both, and also bisexual.

She was born in Warsaw a few years before the turn of the 20th century, but moved to St. Petersburg, where she married prominent Polish lawyer Tadeusz.

When the Russian Revolution started in 1917, she and Tadeusz decided not to wait around for men to ruin the world any more than they already had, and they planned to flee to France. But Tadeusz was caught and imprisoned.s

Tamara, daughter of a Polish socialite, knew how to work a system when necessary. She got Tadeusz released (women have their ways), and much time in the new musical “Lempicka” is spent with Tadeusz asking how she got him out. 

They fled to Paris. Tadeusz was unable (or unwilling) to find work, and Tamara, fascinated by the prospect of painting, enrolled at the Académie des Beaux Arts, where she started painting. She met the prostitute Rafaela at a local bar, and asked to paint her. She eventually did, and they fell in love. Another complication for her.

But she did become a well-known artist, her breakthrough coming in a 1925 exhibition, where her work was spotted by American journalists and other fashion magazines. A few years later, she won some major awards.

In the 20s and 30s she was a celebrated Art Deco artist, mingling with the culturati and European aristocrats, becoming known as “the baroness with the brush.”

“You want to be a lap dog to the rich?” asks Tadeusz.

“Who else buys paintings?” she responds.

Just as she was getting used to fame and no little fortune, World War II broke out and she and Tadeusz moved again, this time to the United States (Beverly Hills), where modernism and abstract expressionism were in vogue. She had to start over again, and adapted to that as well. 

“Lempicka,” now in a pre-Broadway run at the La Jolla Playhouse, illustrates the complicated, hedonistic life of this complex woman who refused to play by the rules. An aside: Her paintings are featured on the UK book covers of two of my favorite books: iconoclast Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

This is a difficult show to review, because in emphasizing change and upheaval, it uses motion, noise and too-bright lights in rapid succession, leaving at least this viewer more exhausted than fascinated by the goings-on. My brain (or nervous system) couldn’t process all that craziness.

And by the way, why does a show that purports to be a musical not list either song titles or singers in the program? Yeah, just call me a grouch.

But the cast is excellent, and Director Rachel Chavkin does a heroic job of keeping the show moving. This is the group that did a previous pre-Broadway run in 2018, right before Covid gripped the world and stopped most travel and all indoor events. 

They are planning to begin that Broadway run soon after it closes here.

The details

“Lempicka” plays through July 24 at La Jolla Playhouse, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive.

Shows Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30; Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m.

Tickets: lajollaplayhouse.org or (858) 550-1010

Theater Review: Freestyle Love Supreme

                         Cast of "Freestyle Love Supreme"
 

What’s to be said about this peculiar, wordy, sometimes musical, often hilarious piece of off-the-cuff hip-hop theater in which the audience provides the inspiration?

Maybe a bit of history will help. “Freestyle Love Supreme” comes to The Old Globe on tour after a successful Broadway run. It features 13 actors of varying talents who find it fun to make up stories (and songs) on the spot with the audience not only watching but participating. 

The show originated when musical comedy buddies and old college friends Lin-Manuel Miranda, Anthony Veneziale and Thomas Kail were taking rehearsal breaks from Miranda’s “In the Heights.” They spent downtime kibitzing, riffing and rhyming just for the fun of it. Later they realized the possibilities of making a whole improvised show of it, with audience input.

That notion scares the stuffing out of me, but I was delighted to watch this crazy gang making up stories with nothing but a suggested topic to start with.

In front of a backdrop that has the square, heavy metal look of umpteen music speakers of varying sizes, the cast cavorts, sings and dances in response to audience suggestions elicited by personable emcee Jelly Donut AKA Andrew Bancroft.

“We’re from New York, where it smells like hot garbage in the summer,” he says. Where do you go from there?

All over the place, with a cast that includes people like Hummingbird (Morgan Reilly) who can sing really high and beautifully, Dizzy (Dizzy Sense) in his white Broncos shirt and others with names like Rich Midway (Richard Baskin, Jr.), Shockwave (Chris Sullivan) and Young Nees (Aneesa Folds).

Don’t bother trying to keep track of anything, just sit back, relax and get ready for an evening that may include talk about Elon Musk, cougars or “Grey’s Anatomy” (but will more likely feature other things entirely).

Beatboxing is not something I really understand, but since I’ve heard it used in connection with this show, I’ll assume I saw it and that you will too. But the important thing is not what you’ll see and hear, it’s that you can depend on it to be fun, often hilarious, sometimes even touching, depending on audience input and cast output.

My advice is to grab a ticket and a friend and spend a night with these affable lunatics. You won’t regret it.

The details

“Freestyle Love Supreme” runs through July 10, 2022 on The Old Globe’s Shiley Stage, 1363 Old Globe Way.

Shows Tuesday and Wednesday at 7 p.m.; Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday at 5 and 9 p.m.

Tickets: 222.TheOldGlobe.org or (619) 234-5623

Film Review: Lightyear

 

If you don’t have ADD when you enter the theater, you will when this film is over. The show starts with sensation and shaky chairs and sound coming from everywhere. I was wondering how to turn down the sound.

Then we see Lightyear (the Chris Allen version) who seems to be an animated version of Tom Cruise in “Top Gun,” a smart-assed pilot who ignores the rules and the command and flies faster and farther than anybody thought he could.

Buzz does the same thing in animated fashion, only he ends up getting stuck on some nowhere place called T’Kani Prime and unable to get away.

Lucky for him he’s got a good crew and a new buddy, a feline named Sox (voiced by Peter Sohn) who knows more about just about anything you can name than Buzz.

This version adds things we haven’t seen before, perhaps because time moves along so quickly. Or maybe filmmakers are just catching up with society. Anyway there is a married pair of women, who have a kid who grows up and wants to be a space ranger too.

There’s a lot of other stuff I won’t bother you with, but suffice it to say that when they finally get back, Buzz is offered a new team. But he sticks with the crew he had. At least he’s learned something. Good for him.