BIG SCREEN: Les Miserables Revieux (PG-13)

The timing of the release of this screen adaptation of Les Miserables is especially poignant, as the emotions it evokes seem to mirror the roller coaster of emotions our country is experiencing right now. We’ve been mired in the horror and heartbreak of terrible tragedy that has brought about acts of kindness that serve to renew our faith in humanity. So, be prepared. It’s quite a cathartic experience!

So, the plot… a 19th century Frenchman named Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) is finally released from prison after serving nineteen grueling years for stealing a loaf of bread. As he jumps parole and tries to make a new, meaningful life for himself, he’s ceaselessly hunted by Javert (Russell Crowe), the man who made his life extra hellish in prison. Just as he’s about to surrender to Javert, Valjean finds a new reason to remain free when he vows to raise the young daughter of a destitute, dying factory worker (Anne Hathaway), and later finds himself fighting alongside the passionate young rebels of the French Revolution.

In addition to the breathtaking cinematography and wonderful directing by Tom Hooper (The King's Speech), what makes this version so successful is the casting. Pure genius, with maybe one or two missteps.

Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman are just astounding. Hathaway’s raw portrayal of Fantine is just hard to comprehend. The musical’s signature song, “I Dreamed a Dream” has been done a zillion times, yet she manages to totally own and reinterpret it in a gut-wrenching fashion. How the heck do you emote and sob to the degree that she did, while maintaining vocal control? If they did overdubs, I don’t want to know.

And Jackman’s amazing transformation into a hollow, unrecognizable shell of a man at the start of the film is mindboggling. He then proceeds to ably carry the entire film, and beautifully performs some seriously, seriously difficult songs. Holy smokes, is that dude talented.

The child actors are all heartbreakingly spot-on, Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen as the innkeeper and his wife are brilliantly absurd, and the rest of the supporting cast members just nail it. Then, there’s Russell Crowe. One of the aforementioned missteps. Oh, Russell. Bless his heart, he’s not bad, but next to all the powerhouses, he just falls short. You can sense the incredible amount of effort he puts into the role, but it just doesn’t measure up to everyone else. I felt sort of the same way about Amanda Seyfried as the adult Cosette. The acting was great, the vocals just didn’t do it for me. Bummer.

Other than those two blips, the rest of the film is just perfection. Do yourself a favor, though – be sure to go with fellow musical lovers. It’s pretty faithful to the stage play – all singing, all the time for two-and-a-half hours. Trust me, you do not want to sit next to someone sighing and squirming throughout the movie, as I did. You may also want to make a pact with your fellow moviegoers to be allowed to freely and openly weep, as needed. I seriously would like to rent an entire theater out for myself so I can sing and sob to my heart’s content.

It’s a true masterpiece. Enjoy!

BIG EASY: Adventure Quest Laser Tag

People are often waxing nostalgic for the good ol’ days. Y’know, for a simpler time, when we weren’t obsessed with electronic devices, and when a birthday party meant inviting kids over for cake, ice cream, and pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. And while I agree that we need to occasionally shut off the smartphones and engage with our families, I am REALLY glad the current trend is to pay someone else to host my kid’s birthday parties!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a working mom who has to budget both time and money. I’m not some Real Housewife of New Orleans, who throws elaborate parties that cost more than a mid-sized sedan. I’m just talking about the kiddie arcades and bounce places where you get in, play, eat, hand out goodie bags, get out, shell out some cash to the proprietor, and retreat to your nice clean house. We’ve enjoyed partying with the giant mouse and the inflatables in years past, but we had the ultimate little boy birthday party at Adventure Quest Laser Tag in Harahan last weekend, and it was a HUGE success!

If you’ve never been there, file it away in your brain for the next rainy day or boring day-off from school. It’s got an arcade and laser tag (obviously), plus cosmic bumper cars and mini golf. They have three birthday packages at different price points to choose from, depending on how many activities you’re looking for and what extras interest you. Each one includes a private party room, a party attendant, two slices of pizza per guest, unlimited drinks, table settings (plates, cups napkins), cake serving tools (utensils, candles, lighter, knives), a birthday banner, and at least two of the aforementioned activities. This also covers up to 12 guests, with a per guest fee applied to any overage. That fee varies from package to package.

We chose the middle “Treasure” package and purchased the medium sized bundle of video game tokens, which was $50 for 220 tokens. (Please note: we had eight seven-year-old boys, and it barely lasted us until the end of the party!)

As our guests arrived, our very helpful attendant slapped a wristband on them, handed them their tokens, and sent them on their way. As you can imagine, this place can get a little hectic, which is why it’s so awesome that someone else kept up with our itinerary and announced over the PA when and where our party guests needed to go. And each time, the boys would magically appear, like a herd of spastic little monkeys. Our attendant helped serve the kids their lunch, cake, and drinks – and the table would miraculously get cleared afterwards. Our bags of supplies and gifts even found their way to a cart at the conclusion of the party. Amazing!

The kids had an outstanding time, our stress level was very minimal, and we returned to a relatively tidy house, where we could put up our feet and nap for the rest of the afternoon. Name one 1950s housewife who got to enjoy that! Sometimes progress is a good thing!

For more information, or to book your party, visit http://www.lasertagnola.com/ or call (504) 207-4444.

BIG SCREEN: The Dark Knight Rises Revieux (PG-13)

You know how men scoff at chick flicks for their implausibility? And women argue that we KNOW the plots and romantic scenarios are sort of ridiculous, but we’re willing to suspend disbelief and just enjoy the experience? Well, I think The Dark Knight Rises is the dude equivalent of a great chick flick.

So, in this, the final installment of Christopher Nolan's Batman franchise, Bruce Wayne has hung up his suits (both the Bat and tuxedo varieties), and withdrawn from the world, letting himself and his company fall into ruin. Broken in body and soul ever since the traumas he endured eight years ago in The Dark Knight, he’s pretty much become a recluse at stately Wayne Manor. It’s only after – you guessed it – Gotham City really needs him that he gets back in the game.

As for the cast, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman are back as Batman, Alfred, Commissioner Gordon, and Lucious Fox, respectively. New to the mix are Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a rookie cop who seems to be the only brave and logical man on the force; Anne Hathaway as icy, badass “cat burglar,” Selina Kyle; and Tom Hardy as Bane, a terrifying, partially masked, Darth Vader-y terrorist leader who takes the whole city hostage, and turns an energy fusion core, developed by Wayne Enterprises, into a nuclear bomb that’s set to demolish the city.

Suffice it to say, Batman and the citizen of Gotham wind up facing some insurmountable odds. Like, really, truly, impossibly impossible odds. That’s where the suspension of disbelief was truly tested for me. But, I’ve heard that critics who’ve written negatively about the film have gotten death threats, so perhaps I’ll get to the positive stuff first… Cool Bat vehicles. Elaborate sets, locations, and special effects. Amazing cast. Impressively unnerving bad guy.

Okay, now the not-so positive stuff. First of all, it was kind of overly ambitious, in both population and scale, which made it a bit cluttered and clunky. Sometimes just a tad less is more. Also, uh -- Bruce wears pointy ears, a cape, and fake torso muscles, but he has absolutely no wit or sense of humor. I find costumed people who take themselves too seriously to be really funny, which, I’m sure, was not the desired effect, so that was a little distracting. A little self-deprecating levity might have also made the little spinklings of bad dialogue, which are totally acceptable and sort of expected in action movies, a little more palatable. I was also a little distracted by a few questionable plot points that made the aforementioned suspension of disbelief a bit tough for me. Once “wait a minute, he couldn’t have…” starts rattling around in my brain, it’s a problem for me.

It’s been eight long years since The Dark Knight came out, so perhaps you’ve forgotten or never saw it in the first place, but this franchise doesn’t exactly produce the kid-friendly variety of PG-13 material. I take my six-year-old son to the occasional PG-13 movie, such as The Amazing Spider-Man, which was totally fine for him. But I would not take him to this one. Not only is it incredibly long (almost three hours – even I got a little squirmy), but it’s far more frighteningly sinister and intense than most comic book-inspired movies. He’s disappointed, of course, but this ain’t Xbox Lego Batman.

Anyway, it’s quite an impressive spectacle overall, and I’m pretty sure most serious Batman fans will approve. And, I suppose, if I can allow myself to shrug off the implausibility of a one-handed Nicolas Cage falling in love with Cher because she cries at the opera (yeah, I’m talkin’ Moonstruck, people), then maybe this movie can be forgiven for its little shortcomings.

The Dark Knight Rises is now showing in New Orleans. Go here for theaters and showtimes.

BIG SCREEN: Meet the Inspiring Talent Behind Louisiana's "Beasts of the Southern Wild"

I honestly believe that non-natives to South Louisiana provide some of the best perspectives on the unusual, unwieldy, slightly unsettling vibe of this region. And it helps when those non-natives are sort of kooky, creative types with keen powers of observation, and a genuine affection for this place.

The makers of Beasts of the Southern Wild, an independent film that’s been winning film festival awards and getting lots of great industry buzz, took on the rather daunting task of trying to convey the strange and remarkable undercurrent of energy that truly separates this region from the rest of the country, with pretty impressive results. Just as the movie's co-writer, Lucy Alibar suggests, “It’s cinematic, completely visual, and sensory. It does everything that only a movie can do.”

Shot in Terrebonne Parish using local, first-time actors, it’s the story of a young girl named Hushpuppy who lives in a remote, fictional swamp community at the very tip of Louisiana, called The Bathtub. Her mother has long since abandoned her, and her alcoholic, ailing father (Dwight Henry, owner of the Buttermilk Drop Bakery and Café in Mid-City, New Orleans) uses a tough-love approach in preparing his daughter for his death and an impending storm, which is threatening to decimate their home.

At first glance, theirs is a filthy, harsh, bizarre existence, but as the story progresses, with the help of Hushpuppy’s insightful and colorful narration, and a rather unconventional filmmaking style, we begin to appreciate the amazing outlook that the lifestyle and culture has afforded this little girl. It combines mythological elements (prehistoric cave paintings that come to life) with ecological considerations (the destruction of Louisiana’s wetlands, thanks to disruptive levees) and existential ponderings (Hushpuppy often contemplates the unraveling of the fabric of the universe). The outcome is a very primal, yet sort of high-concept representation of the region. Does that sound obtuse and pretentious? Sorry, it’s a multi-layered film that’s a bit hard to describe!

Luckily, I got the chance to speak with the filmmaker, his co-writer, and the star of the movie just before the New Orleans premiere. Each add some much-needed humanity to my clumsy attempt at a synopsis.

After a little prodding, Quvenzhané Wallis, the spunky eight-year-old from Houma, Louisiana, who plays Hushpuppy, sheepishly admits that like any normal kid, she’d rather be spending time with her Yorkshire Terrier and family at home. But she politely responds to a question about the grueling post-production marketing campaign (which has included press junkets and trips down the red carpet in Cannes, L.A., and now New Orleans) by happily chirping, “I want to be positive, it’s all been great and beautiful!”

When I first met Quvenzhané, known as “Nazie” to friends and family, she had casually plopped herself in the director’s lap, and remained there while we chatted. This may sound a little sketchy on paper, but it was actually quite sweet, as Behn Zeitlin is a youthful, moppy-haired 29-year-old who seems more like her big brother than the boss who made her traipse around the swamps for seven weeks.

On the subject of filming the movie, she says, while grinning and hugging Behn’s neck, “It was not boring with this director! And I liked all the animals, except the pig. He was big and fat,” she admits, seemingly struggling to stop herself from holding her nose, as though indicating a possible pork-based hygiene issue would be rude. “And I’m used to the swamp, but I’m not used to the mosquitoes – all the mosquitoes! We don’t have mosquitoes like that in Houma!”

Mosquitos weren’t the only challenges they faced during filming. Guess what oil well in the Gulf of Mexico exploded during day-one of production! Considering the storyline of the movie, I wondered what effect the timing of the BP oil spill disaster would have on the production.

“It definitely felt like life imitating art. It was eery,” Behn explains. “We didn’t want to make a political movie or anything that was about the science of (Hurricane Katrina) or a call to action, but more of an emotional experience of living through an environmental catastrophe.”

And there it was. Right on cue.

Benh has been friends with his co-writer, the aforementioned Lucy Alibar, since they were 13 years old, so their decision to collaborate was an easy one. For this project, they decided to combine elements of Lucy’s imaginative, Southern gothic play, Juicy and Delicious, which is based on her own struggle to come to terms with her father’s declining health, with Behn’s short film, Glory at Sea, which is about a mysterious man who gets people to build a boat using Hurricane Katrina wreckage to rescue loved ones lost at sea. To gain a little insight during the writing process, they moved into a Terrebonne Parish fishing village to observe the language and the general vibe of the locals.

Lucy is a sunny, thoughtful young woman who uses her whole body to speak. When describing her experience in Louisiana, she gets a distant look in her eyes and seems to channel the tides, making wide, fluid motions with her arms. “I had never been to Louisiana before, but it felt like home,“ she admits. Then, she sums up the locals’ style of communication thusly, “They give you the whole world when you ask a simple question.”

Behn conveys a similarly esoteric, feel-don’t-think approach when describing the production. “We cast as we wrote, and we kind of let actors rewrite their roles. We tried to let places and people that are in the film breathe and speak for themselves, and not bring in preconceived notions. We were just trying to… stay back and not force any ideas.”

In speaking with both Benh and Lucy, you can’t help but recognize the heartfelt fondness they feel for this region. Benh has made New Orleans’ Bywater neighborhood his permanent home, while Lucy admits that she’s never felt like a true New Yorker, and she wants to move to New Orleans, as well. I wondered how two writers from New York could connect so quickly and deeply with South Louisiana, then I discovered, they both have roots in the South. Behn’s mom is from South Carolina, while Lucy is originally from South Georgia.

Ah, therein lies the basis for the connection. South Louisiana is like the foreign-born cousin to the Deep South. It’s definitely its own country, but with some decidedly familial Southern threads.

As unique and somewhat odd as it is, Beasts of the Southern Wild probably won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but those who get it, will really appreciate the affection with which this film was made. It taps into and conveys the indescribably energy that locals are born with, and so many of us transplants are so excited to discover.

Beasts of the Southern Wild opens at The Theatres at Canal Place and Prytania Theater on July 4.

BIG SCREEN: Brave 3D Revieux (Rated PG)

From the second it begins, Brave definitely has a different vibe than most Disney princess movies. It’s beautiful and ethereal, but with a slight… darkness and depth, I guess? It’s hard to pinpoint, but there’s a quality about it that makes it feel more akin to centuries-old European fables than to the Americanized cotton candy fairytales of the last several decades. So, off to a good start.

And then, we meet Merida (Kelly Macdonald). She’s a young Scottish princess whose unruly red hair matches her wild, adventurous spirit. Though she’d rather charge through the forest on her trusty steed and practice extreme archery and execute death-defying rock-climbs, her lovely, graceful, almond-eyed mother, Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson) desperately tries to instill in her daughter a sense of royal duty and decorum. The two stand in stark contrast to one another, and they are constantly butting heads.

When Merida finds out she is to become betrothed against her will, she makes some reckless choices that put her mother and the entire kingdom in peril. There’s no doubt she’s gutsy, but she’ll now have to rely on her heart and her head to right these terrible wrongs.

One of the things I loved most about this movie is that it didn’t lay out a standard good guys vs. bad guys scenario. No evil stepmother, no pristine heroine, no smarmy prince. All the principal characters were more complicated. They had flaws, made mistakes, faced major challenges, and learned valuable lessons. WOW! Just like in real life. What a concept.

I really, really dug Brave, and am hoping it resonates with kids. It’s got magic and humor and awesome characters -- her burly dad (Billy Connolly) and mischievous and mute triplet brothers are pure delight -- and I think Merida might be my favorite Disney princess ever. Mainly because she is the anti-Disney princess. And the fact that my six-year-old son wanted to discuss the moral of the story and the meaning of the metaphors (my words, not his, but still!) proves that a cartoon can actually be mentally stimulating to kids.

There’s a time and place for schmaltz and mindless silliness, but it sure is nice to get treated to a little smarting up instead of dumbing down in a kids' movie every now and then!