News for today's 2018

The Kings of Summer: This film rules!

<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><i>The Kings of Summer</i> </b></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>(2013) • <a href="http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/thekingsofsummer/" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">View trailer</a></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b> </b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>Four stars. Rating: R, and rather harshly, for occasional profanity and teen drinking</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b>By <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/12885694730612878577" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">Derrick Bang</a></b></span></b></span></span></span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>            <br /><div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is why I love my job.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The Kings of Summer</span></i><span style="font-weight: normal;"> marks an impressive feature debut for director Joran Vogt-Roberts and writer Chris Galletta, the latter with nothing more to his credit than a brief 2005 stint as a production staff member for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Late Show with David Letterman</i>. Vogt-Roberts’ résumé includes several shorts and a lot of TV series work, the latter suggesting the hilariously snarky mind set on ample display in this film.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc89O-rvb3zr5Y9Urt9U7yn2jt_AWDR57SCvkvk1_7chfWFeK5BSGLNfro_5HcVbRnVAQzYSlFLaUtZsgZnGBKLccUC7aIc3-8foP6JHIcsSIoFDM4in9Odq4SQ3IKHy7bl8V7vP4N1-8/s1600/Kings+of+Summer+blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc89O-rvb3zr5Y9Urt9U7yn2jt_AWDR57SCvkvk1_7chfWFeK5BSGLNfro_5HcVbRnVAQzYSlFLaUtZsgZnGBKLccUC7aIc3-8foP6JHIcsSIoFDM4in9Odq4SQ3IKHy7bl8V7vP4N1-8/s400/Kings+of+Summer+blog.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Having more or less completed their new home away from home, our three young<br />renegades — from left, Joe (Nick Robinson), Patrick (Gabriel Basso) and Biaggio (Moises<br />Arias) — contemplate the next challenge: putting food on the table. That'll prove far<br />more difficult than anticipated, since they've no experience with traps, lures, bare-handed<br />fishing or any other woodsian skills.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Actually, calling this picture “impressive” isn’t nearly strong enough. It’s a sure-fire audience pleaser: one of those so-called “little films” — like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Little Miss Sunshine</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Juno</i> — guaranteed to take off like a rocket, once word gets out. This year’s enthusiastic Sundance Festival audience certainly thought so, granting a nomination for the Grand Jury Prize (not won, alas).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a collaborative team, Vogt-Roberts and Galletta demonstrate a striking degree of creative synch; the latter’s dialogue sounds <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">just right</i>coming from the naturalistic ensemble cast, granting a level of verisimilitude that makes these characters feel like the folks next door.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Allowing, that is, for a left-of-center gaggle of eccentrics commonly found in films by Wes Anderson or the Coen Brothers. But I mean that in the gentlest way: However funny the lines, however warped some of the emotional behavior by sidebar adults, this is — first and foremost — an intimate coming-of-age saga.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the truest sense of the old cliché, we laugh <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">with</i> our young protagonists, not at them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The contemporary setting is a smallish town in Northeast Ohio, the sort of all-American community that typifies such narratives. Best friends Joe (Nick Robinson) and Patrick (Gabriel Basso) are strongly bonded, in part, by their inability to cope with utterly impossible parents.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Joe’s father, Frank (Nick Offerman), hasn’t yet recovered from his wife’s untimely death, years earlier. He has become bitter, condescending and imperious: a combination that doesn’t blend well with a teenage son’s instinctive rebelliousness. Joe’s favorite method of revenge, when sufficiently annoyed, is to summon the local law — personified by the competent Capt. Davis (Mary Lynn Rajskub) and her absolutely useless rookie companion (Thomas Middleditch) — on some trumped-up accusation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Frank responds to such hijinks the way he deals with everybody: angry sarcasm delivered by Offerman with a relentlessly straight face ... which, of course, makes every bile-fueled line that much funnier. (And they’re pretty funny to begin with.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Joe’s older sister, Heather (Alison Brie), fled the tension-laced home awhile back, although she still visits. That speaks well of the young woman; her choice of male companions, however, does not. Colin (Eugene Cordero) is a misfit who’s as oblivious to social cues, as he is to the fact that Frank constantly winds him up.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In this case, we can hardly blame Frank; Colin’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">much</i> too easy a target. Which Heather is aware of, and Brie’s face is an amusing study in conflict: clearly annoyed by her loutish father, but equally embarrassed by her clueless boyfriend.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><a name='more'></a><br />  <div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Elsewhere, Patrick spends each waking moment smothered by nerdy, overprotective parents — Megan Mullally and Marc Evan Jackson — whose every word and action induces cringes ... both from their son, and from us. Their behavior is beyond ghastly; it’s awkwardly inappropriate to a degree that defies description. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No surprise, then, that Patrick sports an remarkable case of hives; Basso skulks from one room to the next, his body laced with tension, his face eternally set in an anticipatory wince, knowing that he’ll momentarily flinch from some new parental transgression.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The true magnitude of Joe and Patrick’s suffering can be measured by the degree to which they regard high school as a comfort zone ... because we all know how horrible <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i> environment can be.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">School has an additional benefit for Joe: closer proximity to Kelly (Erin Moriarty, in a thoughtful, amiable performance), a lively, free-spirited girl he has tracked for awhile. Better yet, it appears that her current relationship might be heading south, leaving her available. Best of all, she seems to enjoy Joe’s company.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But he’s not allowed the opportunity to contemplate this situation. Stung by one too many dismissive acts by his father, Joe decides to run away from home ... albeit not in the usual way. Joe has a plan, and he wants Patrick on board; the latter resists only until <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">his</i> next parental humiliation, at which point he’s all in.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Joe’s grand scheme: to build a home — not a fort, not a tree-house, but an entire multi-room dwelling — in the middle of the dense, nearby woods. A place they can call their own, and where they can call their own shots, unencumbered by parental baggage. Set their own schedule. Hunt and cook their own food.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The very notion is ironic, because — as we’ve already seen, in the film’s opening moments — Joe can’t even construct a bird house.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But that’s a minor detail; enthusiasm and hard work should be sufficient compensation. (In theory.) As the actual “house” rises, it’s a mirthful blend of found materials, stolen bric-a-brac and a couple hundred bucks’ worth of stuff from Home Depot. Production designer Tyler B. Robinson obviously had a great time sorting it all out, and the result looks precisely what unskilled teens might erect.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Patrick is mildly surprised, as this ambitious project begins, to discover that they’ve been joined by a mascot of sorts: Biaggio (Moises Arias), their high school’s token “weird kid.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I’m afraid to tell him to leave,” Joe confesses, responding to Patrick’s quite reasonable question. “I don’t know what he’s capable of.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Arias isn’t merely funny; he’s a revelation. The younger actor has taken everything he learned during five years on television’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hannah Montana</i>, and channeled it into the sort of career-making performance from which fat contracts are spawned. His line deliveries are impeccably timed, and — like Offerman’s Frank — Arias’ expression always is dead serious. But there’s a difference: Frank is impassively patronizing, whereas Biaggio is simply <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sincere</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He’s like a lost puppy, desperately wanting to belong; neither Patrick nor Joe could be cruel enough to cast him out. And, so, they become a trio.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Although the subsequent bonding has a euphoric, “boys of summer” spirit that can’t help making all of us feel wistful about our own teenhoods, Vogt-Roberts and Galletta have more serious issues in mind. All three teens have been emotionally stunted by their home environments; however droll and never-entirely-successful this attempt at independence, they’re now in a position to help each other achieve adulthood. Of a sort.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And while Biaggio’s unexpected arrival proves cathartic in a beneficial way — his crazed and increasingly wild antics notwithstanding — the same can’t be said of Joe’s eventual decision to let Kelly in on the secret. Because everybody knows that an all-guy dynamic, particularly one this precarious, can be destroyed by the presence of a woman.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Robinson — a veteran of another tween TV series, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Melissa & Joey</i> — is spot-on as our lead protagonist: the guy who drives the action and makes his two companions believe in unspecified possibilities. Joe has no end-game in mind; a moment’s rational thought would reveal that this situation can’t possibly endure. But Robinson grants his performance a deft blend of earnestness and fatalism, and his persuasiveness leaps off the screen; we want to be there, right at his side.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Basso, with a string of credits going back six years, is equally persuasive as the best-friend follower. As a telling scene between the two fathers eventually reveals, Joe has been the instigator of numerous previous, ah, “escapades” involving both boys. This best-bud dynamic is intriguing because it’s counter-intuitive: Basso is the more imposing of the two actors, with the height and weight that ordinarily would make <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">him</i> a leader. But Patrick is a psychiatrist’s manual of insecurities — all persuasively displayed on Basso’s expressive face — and thus looks to Joe for guidance.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Until and unless he can find it elsewhere.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Although the core scenario and various character dynamics are engaging enough on their own, Galletta’s killer dialogue sweetens the pot even further. His lines are to die for, and Vogt-Roberts ensures that each is delivered to maximum potential. Your natural desire to watch this film again will help reveal some choice exchanges that’ll probably get buried the first time, because people will be laughing so hard at the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">previous</i> lines.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ryan Miller’s underscore adds a note of poignance at key moments, but I’m less enthralled by the hard rock tunes inserted by the likes of Youth Lagoon, Thin Lizzy and MGMT ... not because they’re inappropriate, but because they’re much too loud, and overwhelm the film’s mostly gentle tone. Sound mixers Ryan Putz and Marlowe Taylor could have done better.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But that’s small stuff. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Kings of Summer</i> is a revelation: equal parts shrewdly perceptive, unexpectedly poignant and continuously uproarious. That’s not easy to sustain for 93 minutes, but Vogt-Roberts and Galletta pull it off: right up to the absolutely perfect final scene.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I can’t wait to see what these guys do next.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>

The Kings of Summer (2013) • View trailer Four stars. Rating: R, and rather harshly, for occasional profanity and teen drinkingBy Derrick Bang 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style Definitio…

The Kings of Summer: This film rules!

Ads

Archive