Review: Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 24 (of 2014) by Leroy Douresseaux

Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery (2014) – Video
Running time:  84 minutes (1 hour, 24 minutes)
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR:   Brandon Vietti
WRITER:  Michael Ryan
EDITOR:  Kyle Stafford
COMPOSER:  Ryan Shore
ANIMATION STUDIO:  Digital eMation, Inc.

ANIMATION/FANTASY/FAMILY and ACTION/COMEDY/MYSTERY

Starring:  (voices) Frank Welker, Matthew Lillard, Grey DeLisle, Mindy Cohn, Charles S. Dutton, Bumper Robinson, Mary McCormack, Corey Burton, and Fred Tatasciore; from WWE: John Cena, Kane, Brodus Clay, AJ Lee, The Miz, Triple H, Michael Cole, Santino Marella, and Vince McMahon

Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery is the 21st animated movie in the Scooby-Doo straight-to-video series from Warner Bros. Animation.  This series began in 1998 with Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island.  In WrestleMania Mystery, Mystery Inc. joins WWE wrestling superstars to solve the mystery of a marauding ghost bear.  This film is also a co-production between WWE Studios and Warner Bros. Animation.

Early in Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery, Shaggy Rogers (Matthew Lillard) and Scooby-Doo (Frank Welker) win tickets to WrestleMania.  The two then cajole the rest of the Mystery Inc. gang:  Fred Jones (Frank Welker), Daphne Blake (Grey DeLisle), and Velma Dinkley (Mindy Cohn), into taking them to the event.  The entire gang boards the Mystery Machine and heads to WWE City, the site of WrestleMania.

An accident on the way gives the friends the chance to meet WWE (Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment) superstar, John Cena (John Cena).  They even meet WWE boss, Mr. McMahon (Vince McMahon), and the gang gets an invite to visit the WWE training camp.  The good times are interrupted, however, by Vicious, a ghost bear whose attacks threaten to ruin WrestleMania.  WWE stars join Mystery, Inc. to solve the case and to also protect the health and freedom of Shaggy and Scooby.

I actually did not expect much from Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery, because I am not a fan of professional wrestling.  I was when I was a child (and I was huge fan of it, then).  However, I liked this movie … a lot.  In fact, I found myself wishing for a sequel as soon as I finished watching WrestleMania Mystery.

There are a few reasons.  First, WrestleMania Mystery is one of the better recent Scooby-Doo direct-to-DVD movies, with the animation, production values, and voice acting being mostly good.  John Cena, or at least the cartoon version of him, comes across as a nice guy, the kind of fella who would make a good mystery-solving pal.  The Miz (regular name: Mike Mizanin) is funny in a small role, and I think that he’d also make a good sleuthing buddy.  WWE star, Sin Cara, is fantastic in a non-speaking role.

At 84 minutes in length, WrestleMania Mystery is more like a full-length movie than most of the Scooby-Doo movies of the last several years.  For the most part, the story does not seem padded.  Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery works.  It is genuinely good and funny, and it has a nice, action-filled last act.  I like it enough that it almost makes me want to watch some real-life WWE action … almost.

7 of 10
A-

Saturday, May 17, 2014


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Review: "Gothika" is Creepy and Crazy (Happy B'day, Halle Berry)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 168 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

Gothika (2003)
Running time: 98 minutes (1 hour, 38 minutes)
MPAA – R for violence, brief language and nudity
DIRECTOR: Mathieu Kassovitz
WRITER: Sebastian Gutierrez
PRODUCERS: Susan Levin, L. Levin, Joel Silver, and Robert Zemeckis
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Matthew Libatique (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Yannick Kergoat
COMPOSER: John Ottman
HORROR/THRILLER

Starring: Halle Berry, Robert Downey, Jr., Charles S. Dutton, John Carroll Lynch, Bernard Hill, Penélope Cruz, Bronwen Mantel, and Kathleen Mackey

Gothika is a 2003 supernatural thriller and movie vehicle for Halle Berry. It is a ghost story about a female psychiatrist who awakens to fins herself a patient in the very asylum where she works.

Miranda Grey (Halle Berry) is psychiatrist who deals with really crazy people everyday at a prison for the criminally insane. A respected colleague, Dr. Douglas Grey (Charles Dutton), is her husband. One night she leaves work during a driving rainstorm. After taking a detour, a girl suddenly appears on the road ahead of her and forces Miranda to drive her vehicle off the road. When she goes to the girl who obviously seems to be in some kind of distress, something really strange happens. When Miranda awakens, she finds herself locked in the same institution where she worked, and she’s been accused of committing a horribly gruesome crime of which she has no memory.

Quite a few critics have given it bad reviews. One even called it trash – glorious trash, but Gothika is a very entertaining movie. Like a lot of films, it’s really absent of new ideas, and it seems to borrow heavily from What Lies Beneath and The Ring (2002). It is, however, an effective and entertaining horror film and a nicely made thriller. It has some genuinely creepy moments, and at the theatre where I saw it, one girl immediately screamed after a nice “bump in the night” moment.

French director Mathieu Kassovitz is a hot property, and he has the makings of good director, although I don’t see much that would make him stand out from a whole pack of qualified professionals. There are moments in the film, when Kassovitz makes Gothika a bit too mannered and cold. With an asylum for the criminally insane as a setting and a shocking murder upon which the plot turns, Kassovitz needed to make his film get down and dirty. Instead, Gothika is overdressed and over designed, and the cinematography is too slick and glossy.

But you know what? I love watching Halle Berry, and she gets better practically with each film she does. She sells us this film, even when her costar Ms. Cruz seems to be hanging around only to lend her tabloid star presence and her accent. Like the great actresses and stars, Ms. Berry takes us inside the character with her, forcing us to share the extreme terror that comes from loosing one’s memory, place in society, and, most fearsome of all, loosing one’s mind. We can believe that there is a horrible crime hanging over her head, and that she doesn’t remember it and doesn’t want to because it means admitting and learning horrific things. Have fun, and go see this movie.

6 of 10
B

NOTES:
2004 Black Reel Awards: 1 nomination: “Film: Best Actress” (Halle Berry)

2004 Image Awards: 2 nominations: “Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture” (Halle Berry) and “Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture” (Charles S. Dutton)

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Review: "Mississippi Masala" A Dish That Ages Well (Happy B'day, Mira Nair)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 9 (of 2001) by Leroy Douresseaux

Mississippi Masala (1991/1992)
Running time: 118 minutes (1 hour, 58 minutes)
MPAA – R
DIRECTOR: Mira Nair
WRITER: Sooni Taraporevala
PRODUCERS: Mira Nair and Michael Nozik
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Edward Lachman
EDITOR: Roberto Silvi
Image Award winner

DRAMA/ROMANCE

Starring: Denzel Washington, Sarita Choudhury, Roshan Seth, Sharmila Tagore, Charles Dutton, Jon Seneca, Ranjit Chowdhry, Tico Wells, and Yvette Hawkins

When Edi Amin takes power in Uganda in 1972, Jay (Roshan Seth), a Ugandan of Indian descent takes his wife Kinnu (Sharmila Tagore) and daughter Mina (Sarita Choudhury) into exile. They eventually arrive in Greenwood, Mississippi and some time passes.

In the early Nineties, Mina falls in love with Demetrius Williams (Denzel Washington), a black man who runs a small carpet cleaning business with his brother Tyrone (Charles S. Dutton). What follows is the story of the difficult time that Mina and Demetrius’s families have dealing with the mixed relationship. At the same time, Jay longs for his homeland of Kampala, Uganda and pursues a lawsuit through a post-Amin government to regain the property he lost when Amin expelled Asians and non-black Africans from Uganda.

In Mississippi Masala, director Mira Nair (Salaam Bombay!) weaves a passionate, literate affair that slowly draws the viewer from a Uganda of rich, vibrant colors to a Greenwood, MS of heavy, earthy tones. She allows her prodigiously talented cast to do their thing, and they certainly take to it.

Washington is, as expected, very good. He is a sullen, cheeky fellow who quickly becomes smitten with the beautiful Mina after initially using her to spite his ex. Ms. Choudhury, who is sadly rarely seen in movies, possesses a face rich in its display of emotions. However, behind the husky, dark brown face is a mysterious pool of thoughts and feelings that one must brave to completely enjoy the experience of viewing her acting gifts.

Roshan Seth (Gandhi, A Passage to India) as Mina’s father Ray is also good; he is subtle even when he must be angry and passionate. The viewer can feel his pain and longing for his homeland. He is the bridge in the present from the past to the future, and he is the emotional center of the film. So good is he, that you will feel that you have to cry along with him when he cries, and you will struggle with him as he finds his way when he is lost.

A soundtrack that covers Hindu music, African songs, and the delta blues and soul flows through this film like a gentle breeze. It is a wonderful accompaniment to Taraporevala’s novel like script, which deals with its characters as if the film was a novel and had all the time in the world. It is only a slight problem that there are too many good characters. Taraporevala created such wonderful characters rich in back story, and he only has time to give us a small taste of most of them.

Taraporevala and Nair also make not too subtle comments on race and ethnicity. White folks are only minor characters in the film. They mar their brief appearances with their ignorance and racism. Even the poorest, trashiest whites in the film take on an air of superiority to any non-white they meet in the film. At one point, a loan manager at a local bank lectures Demetrius and Tyrone on how far hard work has gotten him, the loan officer, when it is clear that he hasn’t worked a hard day in his life, and. If he has, he has probably never known the struggle and disappointment that Demetrius and his brother have faced.

The “masala” of the title is an Indian dish composed of colorful spices, and the multi-national, multi-ethnic cast is just like that. The small servings that we get of most of them are indeed spicy and leave us longing for more.

This film only gets better with age, and leaves you always wanting more. One of the best films of its time, it is worth repeated viewings. Mississippi Masala is a thinking person’s film with an eye on telling a story to which anyone can relate – love so strong that no opposing forces are strong enough to dispose of it.

9 of 10
A+

NOTES:
1994 Image Awards: 1 win: “Outstanding Lead Actor in a Motion Picture” (Denzel Washington)

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