film find: the sapphires

The Sapphires is a fun, music-filled, (sorta) based on a real story movie that is definitely worth a look. Set in 1968, Chris O'Dowd stars as alcoholic Irish talent scout Dave Lovelace, who, while touring Australia and looking for new acts, runs across a talented group of girl singers and sisters (Deborah Mailman, Jessica Mauboy, and Miranda Tapsell). Dave believes the girls have loads of potential — if they are willing to stop singing country and folk music, and let him style them with his favorite brand of music — soul music. Joined by their estranged sister Kay (Shari Sebbens) and renamed The Sapphires, the girl group is quickly hustled on tour — to Vietnam, to entertain the troops.

Dave tries to teach a group of girls how to become a girl group

Australian Geographic tells us where they are now: The Sapphires today.

While the film may vary more than slightly from the real-life circumstances of The Sapphires, it features some strong performances and great music. The girls' struggles, as indigenous aboriginal Australians, gives viewers a look at a culture and a time they might not have thought about previously. Especially moving and horrifying is Kay's backstory, which highlights how lighter-skinned aboriginal children were separated by the Australian government from their families and raised "white."

O'Dowd is very good as the girls' irresponsible but well-meaning mentor. He provides not only comic relief, but also a romantic subplot as well. The Sapphires is a nice little film that may follow a typical rise-and-fall-of-a-musical-band movie plot trajectory, but adds both some local color and history that make it a real film find.

epic

The animated film Epic is anything but, but it does have some nice things about it. Colin Farrell gives an engaging vocal performance as ... I can't really remember his character's name, not that it really matters. He plays a tough soldier, a "Leaf Man," and he gets to use his own Irish accent. I actually can't remember any of the character's names. It's a very ephemeral movie. It's undeniably sweet and pretty, but it's as fleeting as a summer's day. Maybe that's the point.

The animation is beautiful, set mostly in a magical forest. Comic relief comes in the form of Chris O'Dowd and Aziz Ansari, who are suitably amusing as a couple of snails — pardon me, that's a snail and a slug — who befriend young heroine Amanda Seyfried, who like Alice, gets magically miniaturized. Teenage Mary Katherine, or M.K., as she prefers to be called (I looked the character's name up on imdb) must help her new friends save the world from the evil Mandrake (Cristoph Waltz), who has cornered the bad guy market in recent films.

Less impressive are Beyoncé as a fairy queen and Josh Hutcherson as a smart-alecky teen. The movie shares some similarities to the other recent adaptation of a book by William Joyce, holiday fare Rise of the Guardians. Wise-cracking youth — check. Gorgeous animation — check. Extremely nasty villain — check. Fairy tale theme — check.

These are all actually great things to have in a kid's movie. I just wish that maybe the two young leads from different worlds, what's-her-name and who's-he-what, were just a tad more memorable characters. Still, considering that most of the multiplex fare is completely unsuitable to take the kid to, Epic is actually a fine and fun way to spend some time on rainy day.