REVIEWS - 'Selma', 'Inherent Vice', 'SpongeBob'

I saw these several months ago...better late than never I suppose.  Had I written these shortly after watching them as originally intended I would have had more to say about them.  Just trying to remember my thoughts about them at this point in time...several months later...

'Selma' (PG-13) ***
Nominated for 2 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Original Song (winning the latter of the two), 'Selma' follows Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo) as he peacefully fights for equal voting rights for African Americans by embarking on a march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama.  Overall this is a pretty good movie bolstered by a great performance by David Oyelowo as MLK. 


'Inherent Vice' (R) ***
Nominated for 2 Academy Awards including Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Costume Design, 'Inherent Vice' has such a meandering plot it's almost impossible to put it all here.  But I'm gonna try.  The basic story follows hippie private investigator Larry 'Doc' Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix), as he is recruited by his ex girlfriend Shasta (Katherine Waterston) to investigate the disappearance of her current boyfriend (Eric Roberts) who may have been committed to an insane asylum by his wife (Serena Scott Thomas) and her lover.  This is interweaved with subplots concerning a police detective (Josh Brolin) who hates hippies, a clean cut district attorney (Reese Witherspoon) who Doc is currently seeing, a missing musician (Owen Wilson) and his wife (Jena Malone) and a drug crazed dentist (Martin Short).  There's a lot going on in this movie that's based on the novel of the same name by Thomas Pynchon.  The latest from Paul Thomas Anderson, the director of 'The Master', 'There Will Be Blood', 'Punch-Drunk Love', 'Magnolia', 'Boogie Nights' and 'Hard Eight'. 

Yes it is two and a half hours long and it certainly feels two and a half hours long with it's meandering plot.  But the quirky characters, the occasional one liners, the period detail and the great soundtrack all made it watchable.  I don't think I'll be seeing it again, but while watching it I did overall enjoy it.




'The SpongeBob Movie:  Sponge Out of Water' (PG) ***1/4
The second theatrical 'SpongeBob' movie and the first in eleven years, 'Sponge Out of Water' follows SpongeBob and his friends as they are forced to team up with Plankton after a pirate (Antonio Banderas) steals the Krabby Patty secret formula. 

I've liked 'SpongeBob' ever since I was a kid when it first debuted on Nickelodeon in 1999.  Today as an adult it is one of the few current children's shows that I can actually tolerate.  If you never got on the 'SpongeBob' bandwagon then you definitely will not like this movie.  It's bright and colorful and had me laughing pretty consistently throughout.  I liked it way better than the previous 'SpongeBob' movie from 2004.