Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 (2013)

D-

Call it "Cloudy Animated Feature With a Chance of Anorexia."

There's a standard rule in comedy that a good joke can be used three times, but no more. The repetition of the joke actually heightens the comic effect, but you can have too much of a good thing, hence the rule of three.

In "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2," the repeated joke involves the use of the word "leak," as in "there's a leak in this boat," followed by a cutaway shot to a shrieking, personified vegetable whose species shares that word for a name. And yes, people, this is the film's best joke, which is saying something... something that I'll get into soon enough.

By the second appearance of this screaming member of the Allium genus, I was able to let down my guard - my lifelong confusion over the difference between a leek and a scallion notwithstanding - and experience a rare laugh. And I'm sure by now that you're wondering if the third use of the joke was even more satisfyingly comedic. Sadly, however, I can't remember enough to tell you about it, as by this point I had experienced a near-full mental blackout, a last-ditch attempt at self-preservation, surrounded as I was by candy-munching toddlers hanging on the every word of their favorite foods come to life. I exaggerate little when I say that my viewing strategy most closely mimicked a computer rebooting into safe mode. That's how close I was to losing brain cells.

The original film, 2009's "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs," was itself based on an imaginative and charming children's picture book dating all the way back to 1978. The conflict of the book, as extrapolated upon by the original film with rail-jumping embellishment, is that a young inventor sees the good in inventing a machine that can produce food. The production of the food, however, is tied to weather systems, thus making the good he sees in his god-playing insanity on par with that of another famous scientist by the name of Victor Frankenstein. Eventually, giant mutant foods rain down from the heavens, placing into peril the citizens of Swallow Falls. (Hey, all kids films have built-in jokes for adults...is that a porn name?) I'll say it again, kids...there might just be such a thing as too much of a good thing.

The Frankenstein reference is actually a good point of contact for beginning to grapple with the many levels of psychological dysfunction concocted as this sequel, for "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2" is a cross between the aforementioned Mary Shelley story, the Christian animated series Veggie Tales (if those much less creepy animated edibles had been binge-watching "Breaking Bad"), and that animated conga line of concessions snacks that used to play prior to the previews at drive-in movies 30 years ago. 

Back for more is young Flint Lockwood, unrecognizably voiced by new "Saturday Night Live" alum, Bill Hader. Lockwood, whose 1940s Hollywood star-sounding name betrays his geeky existence, learns that his food machine has not been completely destroyed as he had once assumed. I would print the name of the machine here, but I'm not going to waste my time. Suffice it to say that it involves a vowel-free acronym, the pronunciation of which generates a joke in the film that most definitely violates the rule of three mentioned at the beginning of this review. If I let my dog type this next paragraph, whatever she would type would be exactly the name of this machine.

Enter into the picture the nefarious Chester V (voiced by fellow SNL alum Will Forte in the film's easiest to detect vocal performance). Chester V is in search of Lockwood's machine. He's also in search of a full last name and a more fully formed lower torso, but maybe that will be explored in part three. Chester V, with his prominent, V-shaped, white goatee and serpentine movements that most closely resemble a twerking earthworm, works as an inventor with a company called the LIVE Corp Company. (How clever are you, people? Did you not just see "Elysium"?) Chester has also been Flint's role model since boyhood, and uses this fact to exploit Flint in an attempt to gain control of Flint's still-in-existence machine, so he can use it to sorry-this-is-where-I-blacked-out-and-I-don't-know-what-he-wanted-it-for.

As Flint is manipulated by Chester, members of his inner-circle begin to bemoan the fact that "he's changed." This includes former bully-turned-lobotomized-poster-boy-for-obesity Brent McHale (Andy Samberg), almost love interest and weather girl (but not the cool kind that sings of raining men) Sam Sparks (Anna Faris) and town law enforcement and stereotypical token black character, Earl Devereaux (Terry Crews, replacing the original film's Mr. T. Yes...even Mr. T, who must surely be hard up for work, passed on this script.) There is also Flint's pet monkey Steve, inexplicably credited to Neil Patrick Harris, who gets his own subplot in a conflict established with rival primate, Chester V's own sidekick, Barb (voiced by Kristen Schaal, though I swore it was Sarah Silverman). Barb is an ape, apparently, though the film's animation department took a dump when it comes to creating something that even remotely resembles such an animal...surprising, considering how convincingly they turn two tacos into a crocodile.

I still haven't mentioned the central twist in the sequel's conflict, the new premise that all of the mutant food blanketing Swallow Falls (heh heh...) has now somehow come to life and has developed emotions and human characteristics, including the most disturbing revelation of all in light of Flint's mission to finally destroy his machine, which is the understanding that the foods are members of loving family units. And so, a menacing, aircraft carrier-sized cheeseburger with french fry legs is merely seeking to protect its young and get its belly rubbed, and a family of marshmallows frolic like limbless albino meerkats. What's a compassionate guy to do?

Before long, Flint's father goes on a fishing expedition with a gang of dill pickles in a scene reminiscent of the one in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" where McMurphy hijacks a school bus and takes his fellow psych ward inmates on a life adventure. Okay, there's not really that much of a resemblance. I'm trying here. And is it just me or was it ironic that the pickles were fishing for a food source that actually already has eyes and a mouth?

Perhaps in the biggest they-must-have-been-on-drugs-when-they-made-this moment of all, Flint and his crew encounter a pumpkin-sized strawberry with large, blinking eyes and a Furbee's coo. I am certain that kids all over America today are begging their parents to buy them a giant freaking plush strawberry, though I did not find the thing as cute as everyone else. In fact, I studied the thing with tense caution, certain that, like a fruity Mogwai, the berry would make contact with water, reveal its razor-sharp teeth and destroy everyone in a Jamba Juice-sponsored deus ex machina. The film had me that on edge...I was anticipating a berry Gizmo.

It's possible that you're wondering why an animated children's film would leave me so disillusioned and disturbed, but I can answer that simply, as I made numerous attempts to rationally debate with my fellow adults in attendance just what, pray tell, a guy's got to eat in this world. Worse still, what options will us parents have for our kids, now that they will surely visualize their produce as having feelings. I'd argue that "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2" is a thinly-veiled propaganda piece on behalf of PETA and vegetarianism, were it not for the fact that the preponderance of cuddly and crazy foodstuffs in the film skews vegan. In an act of reverse psychology, shouldn't we befriend the meat?

So if the film doesn't espouse vegetarianism, then what? Anorexia? That's the best I can muster. Don't eat ANYTHING. It has feelings...and family. You sick, uncaring bastard with your basic Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

For the record, the kids I witnessed, including my own, were delighted by "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2." And I will admit that I walked in to the theatre braced and ready to be robbed blind of 95 minutes of my life, jokingly referring to the film as "Cloudy With No Chance of This Being a Good Movie" before the first "pear-ot" (get it?!) took flight. In the end, the kids got what they wanted, as evidenced by the film's $35 million-at-the-box-office opening weekend, and I got what I expected, which is, um, not much, unless you include an experience that I can only begin to describe as a bad drug trip without the drugs. Not that I know anything about drugs. I don't take them, because I'm sure they have feelings. And parents. Maybe this film's makers picked the wrong ingestible items to venerate.

Blue Jasmine (2013)

A+

How much sympathy can one of us regular folks have for the stresses that befall a high-society woman who abandoned the completion of a college degree upon discovering that she could instead marry a dashing business investor with mysteriously incalculable wealth? How bad can we feel for her when she's placed in a situation where her skill at spending her husband's money on Paris runway fashion or lavish cocktail parties serves her no benefit? What if she finds out that her whole life was built on lie after lie - that her wealth is pure fiction and her marriage as well?

This is the challenge facing viewers of Woody Allen's "Blue Jasmine," a mostly dramatic film from arguably the living master of cinematic comedy. It's no secret that Allen is my favorite director, and I've been known to say that "a bad Woody Allen film is usually better than a good film by somebody else." And while I was as impressed as I expected I'd be by the lead performance of sure-to-be-Oscar-frontrunner Cate Blanchett in the film's title role, I found myself wrestling with a tough thing. While blown away by Blanchett's profound mastery of her craft in her every printed frame as Jasmine French, I could not bring myself around to feeling sorry for what was happening to her at all. And I have this thing about needing to empathize with, if not like, the main character of a story.

But then, it happened. And I should have trusted Woody. Because in one breathtaking and intense scene, my feelings for her changed, and I carried a newly-revealed sympathy for her through to the end of the film. Once this switch flipped for me, I noticed numerous other places where an unsympathetic audience member could finally come aboard in support of this character. And therein lies just one of the many acts of genius on display in "Blue Jasmine," a film that plays on screen like an expertly crafted short story, a firmly structured work of classic literature based on a contemporary theme delivered by a master craftsman at the top of his game.

"Blue Jasmine" is a wonder of a movie, lean and deliberate, and as intellectually affecting to me as it might be emotionally affecting to the person sitting next to me. And it joins Allen's 2005 film "Match Point" (coincidentally, also a drama) and 2011's Best Picture-nominated "Midnight in Paris" (a late career return to form in the romantic comedy mold Allen has done so well for decades) as his third masterpiece of this century.

Alternating between the New York of her past and San Francisco of her present, "Blue Jasmine" tells the story of a woman (Blanchett) who has already come unraveled in the wake of the undoing of her husband Hal, played flawlessly and with a soulless smile by Alec Baldwin. Allen rarely specifically references contemporary world events, which is probably what gives so many of his movies a timeless quality, and this can also be his downfall when he perpetuates his own style at the expense of expanding his palate, as he is sometimes wont to do. But here, there is little question that Baldwin's Hal is a fictionalized Bernie Madoff, and Blanchett's Jasmine could easily appear on a Real Housewives reality television program, though with Allen's pedigree, the closer reference point and obvious inspiration for Jasmine is Blanche DuBois, from Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire." For fans of "Streetcar," in fact, the "Blue Jasmine" screenplay includes multiple intersection points, from the presence of not one but two Stanley-esque characters to references as finely detailed as line lifts, certainly candy for any audience member with the background to grab the homages.

Left with little more than her Louis Vuitton luggage and designer wardrobe, Jasmine (whose real name is Jeanette but she's changed it herself - one early attempt of many she makes to recreate herself) finds herself on the doorstep of her sister Ginger's apartment in San Francisco. She has no one else to turn to after her husband is imprisoned for his illegal investment and banking deals and her son walks out on both of them in search of a normalcy he can't quite visualize. Her life as she knew it was gone, and she goes on and on about how the government left her with nothing.

Perhaps somewhat predictably, Ginger (Sally Hawkins) is everything Jasmine is not, though Allen is smart enough to recognize this time-worn device and writes a character twist into the script that justifies it completely. Not surprisingly, Jasmine struggles to cope with her new surroundings. Ginger lives in a modest flat furnished bohemian-style with mismatched tchotchkes, and her two young sons always seem to be dismantling it when they're not with their father, Ginger's ex-husband Augie (in the film's most shocking performance because he's played - brilliantly - by the long-faded comedian Andrew Dice Clay). Jasmine never liked Augie. She turns her nose on Ginger's living as a grocery store clerk. She lacks connection with her nephews. And she's even more unnerved by the arrival on the scene of Ginger's new man, Chili (Bobby Cannavale).

The largest wedge between the sisters has to do with Jasmine's having encouraged Ginger and her then-husband Augie to trust Hal to invest lottery winnings for them instead of allowing Augie to open his own business. Of course, Ginger and Augie lost everything, too. Though Jasmine is quick to outwardly deflect blame and shrug off her involvement in the dismantling of her sister's one opportunity for a better life, we know from the beginning that the guilt is not only real, but cripplingly burdensome. We know this because Jasmine is frequently seen talking to walls, recreating conversations to herself, and popping prescription anti-anxiety and anti-psychotic medication like M&Ms, always washing them down with Stoli. In this way, "Blue Jasmine" also calls to mind the 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical "Next To Normal," as both works take an in-depth look at the impact of profound loss and the far from exact science of the pharmaceutical treatment of a grief-induced nervous breakdown.

Jasmine's mental instability is, of course, what provides Blanchett with the material to create one of the most unbelievable acting performances I've seen in a few years. Her work almost defies criticism and surely rests in a class with Daniel Day Lewis' work as President Lincoln. I don't see how she can't possibly be the front runner for the Best Actress Oscar, and it's not just because the work is showy. It's because Blanchett so completely immerses herself in Jasmine's tumult, vapidity and cloudiness that the honesty of her work rings louder still in Jasmine's more quiet moments. Her performance is brilliant. There's no other way to say it. And if there's any justice, Allen will find that he's coached his first lead actress to an Oscar since Diane Keaton in "Annie Hall," almost 40 years ago.

The film's flashback structure was, for me, part of its great success, as it was advantageous for the audience to reach back to find clarity and context for things happening to Jasmine in the present, rather than watch a straight-linear deterioration. Symbolically, the juxtapositions emphasized the way Jasmine's high society life became her albatross, as she married Hal prior to completing a college degree and never learned skills aside from shopping, decorating, fundraising and entertaining, none of which can provide her with a living now. By structuring the film so that moments in Jasmine's present call to mind moments from her extravagant past, Allen and his production team give viewers some palpable contrasts, their proximity solidifying one's understanding of just how far she's fallen.

Allen's writing here ranks with his very best screenplays, and his direction is not only confident, but in places, surprisingly fresh. I quickly noticed that he did not treat the two cities in which "Blue Jasmine" was filmed as characters in the story in the way that he has in his recent European-set travelogue films. Instead, they are backgrounds that provide depth and insight to the main character's struggles, and Allen wisely cedes focus to Blanchett in what is likely the greatest star vehicle of her career, if not the most prominent star-led film Allen's ever made, given his proclivity toward ensemble pieces. Comedy is also far more circumstantial here than it is the product of a typical line of Allen-penned wit, though a few of those surface, too. And there's far less comedy to be had, barring that of schadenfreude.

There's little I can find wrong with this movie. I read a review from Brad Brevet, my favorite online film critic, in which he stated that "Blue Jasmine" suffered because some of its subplots seemed superfluous. And while I frequently agree with Brevet and respect him for his thorough and thought-provoking analyses, I couldn't be more in disagreement with him on this one. One of the subplots in question involves an altercation Jasmine has with a dentist (Michael Stuhlbarg) with whom she accepts her first menial employment, and without saying too much, this subplot contains the very scene that allowed me to finally sympathize with Jasmine.

Another involves Ginger's flirtations with a character played by the comedian Louis C.K., a sequence of events which challenges Ginger's relationship with Chili. Brevet said that the effect this subplot had on the film was "little to nothing." For me, it reinforced the deepest emotional connections I had with the film as a whole with regards to the nature of from where true happiness derives. Without it, this movie could have been reduced to little more than an acting showcase for Blanchett. With these scenes, "Blue Jasmine" is so much more than a movie about a rich bitch having a crack-up because she can't cope with how the 99 percent live after her well runs dry. That is, to some extent, how I felt after watching the otherwise engrossing documentary "The Queen of Versailles" last year - another "Green Acres"-like story of the falling rich dealing with our average lives and where their remaining jewels fit into it. But I walked out of this movie thinking about so much more, and even analyzing my own relationships.

I think that without these subplots, "Blue Jasmine" would play out as a film with one tone. Instead, the stories add color in addition to support. Just as Jasmine's unpredictable downward spiral appears to be nearing its seemingly inevitable conclusion, she meets a man (Peter Sarsgaard) who will infuriate viewers not because he's inherently unlikable or bad, but because Jasmine gravitates toward him as the only man she's met in San Francisco with the credentials to restore her to the Park Avenue-styled life to which she's accustomed before she's forced to spend too much of her time forging any iron for her spine from the fire of hardship. Jasmine's involvement with her new suitor reveals yet another layer of simply structured complexity to Allen's script, which at this point begins to question the very nature of what is real. Which relationships are real? Is wealth real? Can we recreate ourselves out of the ashes, and if we do, is that new creation "real" or just some manufactured story we tell ourselves to escape our smoldering pasts?

To what extent is Jasmine implicit in her undoing? "Blue Jasmine" certainly clarifies Hal's guilt - repeatedly - but Allen leaves the viewer to ponder Jasmine's. She is most certainly guilty of rampant entitlement, to be sure. And she's maddeningly delusional, not just in the sense of her medically real mental illness but her her maddeningly surface-level plans for getting back on her feet again. Jasmine is broken and condescending. But she was once alive and vibrant, even if only in that plastic, affluent sort of way.

Perhaps the greatest triumph of all is that Allen allows us to pass judgment on Jasmine as we see fit from where we stand in all of these recent financial crises and catastrophes of selfish consumer culture. And then, just to complicate things, he forces us to stare in the face of a once-regal woman laid terribly low, now sitting on a park bench with a few remaining pieces of her once regal clothing, her hair disheveled and her makeup gone completely. And we are able to hit pause on our grass-is-greener longings and see our modest lives as a gift, heading out of the theater to our reasonably-priced compact sedans, the Notorious B.I.G.'s "Mo Money, Mo Problems" echoing its truth in our brains with the same resonance that the song "Blue Moon" worked as facade in Jasmine's life.

...On The Movie's new ratings system

Since ...On The Movie is "a film teacher's reviews of and thoughts about film," I've often contemplated rating films by using a letter rating system, like school grades. This is the system most popularly used by the magazine Entertainment Weekly, and also by Brad Brevet - perhaps my favorite online critic - on his site Rope of Silicon.

Virtually everyone else, of course, uses a star system. Most typically, it's a four-star system, though Rolling Stone sets itself apart from most others with a five-star system. I started my career in college working as a film critic for our newspaper, and then moved over to professional entertainment writing, so the four-star system is in my blood. 

But after much debate with myself, and some wrestling with how to translate one system to the other, I will be revising my system. I am going to switch to the letter grade system; it just make sense when considering my professional identity and my goals for this site, which really combines my former dabbling in published film criticism with my continued aspirations of working in that field, and then rolling in my more than 13-year professional identity as a teacher - and especially a film teacher. 

So how will I now "grade" films? Here's my breakdown to help you read future reviews. (At a later time, I will apply my translation to past reviews.)

A: Films receiving a grade of A will be those that I would have previously given a four-star review to. To receive this rating, I usually ask myself the following questions: "Does it seem that this film accomplished everything it set out to accomplish?" and "Does this film represent the very best of film making within its genre or within the body of work created by its director?" Notice that I try hard not to make it about how much I personally enjoyed it. In fact, many of the films I find myself able to watch over and over again when they play on cable (such as "Ted" or "The Proposal" or "Pitch Perfect") are nowhere near four-star films based on my criteria. Yes, of course, my satisfaction as a viewer in terms of interest and emotional or intellectual connection does factor in to my ratings system. It's just that I allow myself to enjoy things of lesser quality while maintaining the ability to be realistic about that lacking quality to you.

A-: Films receiving a grade of A- will be those that I would have previously reviewed with three-and-a-half stars. These films are films that I find to be "excellent," with only minor flaws or things I wish had been a little different. They almost hold up to yes answers for the questions I mentioned above. Sometimes, I default to this rating when I apply the litmus test of whether or not I can see the film as truly enduring or becoming a classic. That might not be fair because it's impossible for me to predict, but it crosses my mind.

B: B movies are three-star movies. They are solid and enjoyable in spite of their flaws. They are movies I would watch again. They don't feel like a waste of my time or money. They are what I'm hoping for when I go to the movies, and I'm pleasantly surprised when they turn out to be more. I tell my students that in the real world, most people perform at a B level. Exceptional people are A's, and a C is just average. Most of us strive to be a little better than average.

B-: B- movies are two-and-a-half star movies. Under my old review system, this is where I ranked the truly average films - the ones that had clear moments where I enjoyed myself, either in terms of a great scene or a strong performance or some moment or two that stood out. This is my "nothing special" category. These movies don't make me angry that I wasted my time or money, but don't get me excited when I think back on them. Often, they are frivolous entertainments that require none of the deeper-level thinking I enjoy. Many times, they are the "stupid fun" movies that make for enjoyable television viewing in years to come. There's something about these films that makes them a little better than "just okay," but just as much to keep them from being ranked higher by someone with a critical eye.

C: I'll use the C grade for movies that would have previously received two stars from me. This is where I start to get concerned with my new system because I tend to predict whether I will like a movie before I see it. I do this for fun, not for employment, so I often avoid films I know I probably won't like, whereas if I was doing this for a living, I'd be seeing a wider range of titles and probably dispensing the lower grades with more regularity. But a teacher dreams of giving all A's, right? This rating is about as low as I'll go before I really start complaining about a movie. These are films with a few charms but too many flaws to ignore.

C-: A one-and-a-half star film under my old system will get a C- under the new one. By this point, there are probably only a few things about these films that I enjoyed. Maybe it was one actor's performance, or one scene, or something about the concept of the film. But I can classify these films as the ones where I am constantly finding myself thinking about what I think could or should have been done differently to improve it. Since I'm a big fan of a well-written script, these movies almost always have what I consider to be poor scripts.

D: Yuck. D movies are barely worth calling movies. Under my star system, they'd get one star. The number one usually stands out for me when I give a film this rating, because I often give it to a movie that had only one thing I liked about it. As I mentioned before, I try hard to avoid even watching movies that would earn such a rating, but it happens sometimes. And that utter disappointment I feel when it does perfectly translates to this rating.

D-: This is a half-star movie. I give them to movies that are essentially garbage but receiving the benefit of my good humor on the day I review it.

F: You guessed it...this is a zero-star film. Garbage. The ones where I sit in sheer confusion as to how it cleared the studio gates for distribution and am so distracted by those thoughts that nothing at all rises out of the muck to attract and redirect my attention.

+: You might have noticed that I don't have any plusses in this list. But that doesn't mean I won't use them. Movies that receive an A+ will be those rare films that I consider to be as flawless as possible. They will be films that I can't imagine could have been improved upon in any significant way, movies I can imagine becoming classics. Movies that I would nominate for the Best Picture Academy Award if it was within my power to choose those nominations. They will be films I consider to be an example for all films within their genres. Elsewhere, I will use a plus when I find myself stuck between two letter grades. In those cases, I'll try to be clear about why I found myself in that place.

So there you have it. I hope to provide my readers with some cool new updates to my site in the month to come, but in the mean time, I'll start by making this update to the content itself. And, as always, I'd love to hear what you agree and disagree with when you read a review. Add your comments whenever you feel so inclined!