Whiskey Tango Foxtrot - Everywhere
Tina Fey's second movie in three months is more serious than Sisters was, but I found myself liking it more. One of the issues I had with Sisters was Fey playing against type, taking on the role of the slightly dumber and carefree of the two siblings. In Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, she's back to playing it smart, but with that combination of partial naïveté that was key to Liz Lemon's appeal.
Loosely based on the book The Taliban Shuffle, written by real-life print journalist Kim Barker, Fey plays Kim Baker, a copywriter for a TV news organization who's in a personal and professional rut. When the brass decides to send more reporters to Afghanistan, they offer the position to all of the "unmarried and childless" employees. Baker decides to forgo crying about her status, and embrace the opportunity as a welcome challenge.
The first half of the movie is a bit typical, with fish-out-of-water comedy showing Baker getting used to life in a war-torn and chauvinistic country. She befriends a fellow female reporter, played by Margot Robbie, and learns that in the "Kabulbubble" she rates a lot higher on the "attractiveness" scale, due to the lack of visible females around them. She also learns it's a bad idea to carry around a bright orange backpack when embedded with a troop of Marines, (headed by a perfectly cast Billy Bob Thornton).
Eventually Baker acclimates, and begins to crave the adrenaline of reporting and finding that next story. This often means she does stupid things, but some of those stupid things allow her to uncover stories male reporters wouldn't be able to. And it's that feminist thread that ultimately saved the movie for me. Yes, she ends up falling into bed with a Scottish photographer (Martin Freeman), but that story ends up going in a direction completely opposite from the way a traditional romance would.
The movie is not without its problems. The fact that the English-speaking Afghan characters are in fact played by white actors is quite troubling, (even if they're all pretty good, especially Chris Abbott, who is unrecognizable as Barker's local fixer, Fahim). The politics of the early 2000's war aren't delved into much, and the movie has less to say about it than it does the politics of reporting, so it won't rank up there with the best war comedies. But I think it will rank up there with Tina Fey's better movies, and as proof that comedy isn't the only thing she can do well.
London Has Fallen - Everywhere
Sequel to Olympus Has Fallen, which was the takeover-of-the-White-House movie that didn't star Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx. This time around, the POTUS is in London for the funeral of the prime minister, and becomes the potential victim in a plot to kill all of the world's leaders. Only Gerard Butler can save him — AND THE WORLD!
The Other Side of the Door - Everywhere
Xenophobic horror disguised as possession horror. A grieving mother travels to India to partake in a ritual to help put an end to her grief, only to have it totally backfire and unleash a demon from hell on her — AND THE WORLD!
This non-Pixar animated movie from Disney is getting Pixar-level praise, and I can safely give it a thumbs up because it's like they tapped into my brain and brought to life everything I find squeal-level cute. I mean just LOOK AT THAT BUNNY! The story, seemingly tailor-made for furries (something Disney isn't shying away from), centers on a world much like our own, but inhabited by walking, talking, and working animals. Ginnifer Goodwin voices that (adorable) bunny, Judy Hopps, a rookie police officer trying to solve the mystery of some missing mammals and Jason Bateman is the streetwise fox she befriends.
The Boy and the Beast - Everywhere
If you prefer your animation a little less cute, and a little more foreign, here's the first of two Japanese anime offerings hitting the theaters this week. It centers on an orphaned boy who enters a world of magical beasts, and meets a a warrior who takes him on as an apprentice.
This Studio Ghibli classic is getting its first official American release, 25 years after it originally came out. Back in 1991, it became Japan's highest grossing movie, which was unusual since it was one of the first anime features to center on real life drama, with women at the center. It is being released in both English and subtitled versions.
Proof that America isn't the only country that can make disaster movies? Or proof that when it comes to disaster movies, only America makes them into cinematic disasters? This Norwegian spectacle seems to hit all the disastrous notes, but maybe the subtitles make it all feel much more legitimate.
