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This article was published 16/10/2014 (4355 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Kingpin

IN 1996, fraternal filmmakers Peter and Bobby Farrelly followed up their mega-hit comedy Dumb and Dumber with the bowling comedy Kingpin, only to face a crushing disappointment at the box office.

Pity. Very much in the Dumb and Dumber template of stupid, gross but undeniably funny comedy, Kingpin is a distant takeoff on Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money, albeit set in the seamy world of bowling, as opposed to pool hustling.

Woody Harrelson plays Roy Munson, once a hotshot bowler, reduced to selling alley supplies after bowling-hustle victims mangle his bowling hand, a tragedy attributable to Roy’s nemesis Ernie McCracken (Bill Murray).

Roy seeks glory by proxy when he discovers Amish bowling prodigy Ishmael (Randy Quaid in a ridiculous pageboy wig). And when it emerges that Ishmael’s community owes $500,000, he and Roy embark on a quest for a million-dollar bowling jackpot in Reno, where Roy and Ishmael will face Ernie in one fateful match.

The Blu-ray release of Kingpin is appropriate: the film did eventually become a hit on the home video market. The Farrellys themselves appear in a doc (filmed in a bowling alley, natch) where they reveal a few interesting behind-the-scenes tidbits. For example, they were reticent about casting actress Lin Shaye, the sister of New Line kingpin Bob Shaye, as Roy’s repulsive landlady until she came to the audition in character and convinced the brothers she was a deranged street person. Also, in a climactic scene in which Bill Murray’s character bowls three consecutive strikes, Murray really did bowl three consecutive strikes. ***1/2

 

X-Men: Days of Future Past

THE director of the first two X-Men movies, Bryan Singer, resumes his firm hold on the mutant superhero franchise in which the younger cast of the ’60s-set First Class share the screen with the millennial X-Men.

The ageless Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) bridges the gap when Wolvie’s consciousness is sent back in time to prevent the apocalyptic reign of killer robots called Sentinels. He will not only need the assistance of the bitter young Prof. Xavier (James McAvoy), but he’ll also need to bust young Magneto (Michael Fassbender) from a prison in the Pentagon, a feat that requires the touch of juvenile speed demon Quicksilver (Evan Peters) in the film’s liveliest action sequence, all set to the Jim Croce tune Time in a Bottle.

Their mission, it turns out, is to prevent the assassination of Sentinels inventor Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) by the temperamental young Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence).

It remains unsatisfactory that Singer plays fast and loose with continuity issues — how exactly is Prof. Xavier still alive after X-Men 3? — but excusing the major temporal lapses, this still feels like a return to form for the franchise. ***1/2

 

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca