{ 1 comment }
“Splayed out on the screen in pixelated, glimmering, hollow 3-D, Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” is “inspired” by Lewis Carroll’s 1865 “Alice in Wonderland” and 1872 “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.” The phrase “inspired” is in quotes above because, bluntly, there’s not a moment of true inspiration in the entire film, just a series of moments demonstrating that Burton, more and more, has become a director content to use his tools as crutches. “Alice in Wonderland” follows Alice (Mia Wasikowska, rendered blank and bland by the script) as she returns to Wonderland and its characters, now a fully-grown woman. This time when Alice tumbles down the rabbit hole, it’s because she’s fleeing a dreary arranged marriage to a dreary man.
And once in Wonderland, Alice becomes the ultimate Tim Burton protagonist, which is to say that she wanders through a meticulously-designed fantasyland doing very little, meeting fantastic characters much more interesting than she is. Alice has only cloudy memories of her previous visits to Wonderland, and meets at every turn her old friends like Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Matt Lucas), the White Rabbit (voiced by Michael Sheen) and the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp, looking like the headliner in a hypothetical acid trip by the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen). Alice, we and she are told, is the only person who can defeat the Jabberwock and free “Underland” (apparently, Alice misheard it all those years ago, an empty fillip that adds nothing) from the tyranny of the petty, cruel Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter).
But Linda Woolverton’s screenplay doesn’t give us any reasons for this, moving between expensive and lead-footed set-pieces and unfunny, ostensibly whimsical wordplay before culminating with Alice clad in battle armor bearing the Vorpal sword to defeat the Jabberwock. This is exciting if you collect action figures, or wonder what Joan of Arc would look like given a makeover suitable for the racks at Hot Topic. It is not in any way thrilling if you are interested in character, motivation, coherent storytelling or anything other than Burton’s high-tech, high-cost puppet show, in which he jams his clumsy hands up into various literary figures and has them say what he likes before tossing them aside. The unanswered questions are many, and grow with each passing second (Why is Alice the savior? Why is the White Queen [Anne Hathaway] better than the Red?) and we are not given answers, merely spectacle.”
– From my full review at MSN Movies
{ 2 comments }
A New York State of Mind with Robert Pattinson and Emille de Raven in “Remember Me”In “Remember Me,” New Yorkers Robert Pattinson and Emilie de Ravin meet and fall in love at the turn of the century, dealing with both their tragic pasts and the unknowable future. The film’s full of granular detail, so I had to ask British-born Pattinson if he felt any apprehension about playing a New Yorker; as he explains, director Allen Coulter’s born-and-bred New York state of mind helped a lot. “Allen, our director is … kind of an obsessive New Yorker; I don’t how to describe it,” Pattinson said. “All the little New York touches, he was so adamant; shooting at NYU, it had to be NYU and have every little thing. Even the purple flags outside NYU were so important to him to get it in there … and I knew nothing about them. And it’s such a big deal to him. I sort of saw the whole thing about being a student in New York and living in New York as a fantasy. It’s kind of the dream, living in a little cool apartment in the Lower East Side.”
Director Coulter, of course, defended his meticulous vision: “We wanted to be as true to New York as possible; those little details are, to me, critical in creating an authentic New York. I don’t think there’s such a thing as too New York.”
I had to prod Coulter a little bit, nonetheless; he’s made a movie about New York in 2001 and rounded up a British actor, Pattinson, Ireland-born Pierce Brosnan, and Australian Emilie de Ravin. I asked him if he felt any apprehension at that, or if he just put his faith in his actors. “The latter — putting our faith in the actors. In a lot of these situations, sure, if I can cast a New York actor, I will,” Coulter said. “But ultimately it was about the best actors for the role, people you can believe in the role. And we were confident that they could all play New Yorkers, or Americans. They did it. Pierce really devoted himself to playing a guy who’s long since left the streets of Brooklyn, but you believe him as one of these guys. Emilie and Rob, they were head-to-toe American accent; they’re really kind of impeccable with that accent. It was like, ‘No, these are the best people for the part.’”
And, for Pattinson, “Remember Me” also gave him the chance to work opposite terrific actors: Chris Cooper plays de Ravin’s dour dad; Brosnan plays Pattinson’s withdrawn, willful father. I asked Pattinson which was more bruising: being physically beaten by Cooper or emotionally beaten by Brosnan? “Literally?” Pattinson laughs, more than a little ruefully: “Chris Cooper. It really hurt.” I asked Cooper about the visceral, tough fight scenes he shares with Pattinson, and Copper’s matter-of-fact manner has an undertone of respect for his co-star, even if he seems oblivious to Pattinson’s bruises: “It’s viscerally satisfying if the scene works … and when I know these scenes are coming, I’m very conscious of safety. And have been involved in other work where an actor can get carried away, and people do get hurt. So we talked it through very seriously, rehearsed it, paced it, and it worked out well. If it has an emotional impact, all the better. But, fortunately, it was a safe shoot, and nobody got hurt.”
– From The Rundown, MSN Movies
{ 0 comments }
The Borgnine Effect
“Maybe you’re waiting for the Oscars with the casual interest of a movie fan, or perhaps you’re tracking every dip and shift in the races with the obsessive mania of the doomed. Either way, your office Oscar pool is coming up, and you’re hoping to pick the winners. Thing is, reading Oscar’s mind isn’t that easy, and the Academy doesn’t look that much like the modern landscape of film fans. I always tell people that to predict the Oscars, all you have to do is think like an elderly white man who’s worked in show business his entire life, respects the dim, dull glow of longevity more than flashes of brilliance, and has the kind of “liberal” politics you get from being a multimillionaire who doesn’t ever talk to actual people or go out into the real word.
In short, you have to think like Ernest Borgnine. Borgnine, at 93, is the oldest living Best Actor Oscar winner . So he’s an outlier, to be sure, but exactly the kind of man you should think of, and think like, when trying to predict the Oscars. With that in mind, here are the imagined Borgnine Picks (with Borgnine-mind-set commentary) for the big races:
Best Supporting Actress: “I really feel like Mo’nique really dug deep to portray the kind of person I would never, ever meet or know; also, I admired how ‘Precious: Based on a Something Blah Blah’ really blew the lid off of social problems in New York over 20 years ago.”
Best Supporting Actor: “Wow, this one’s tricky. But Christoph Waltz has already won a lot of awards, which is a real time-saver when I’m filling out my ballot. At the same time, Chris Plummer’s never won one and Waltz is just a kid; he’ll have plenty of time later. I say Plummer, just because Hollywood loves Hollywood.”
Best Actor: “Is ‘Crazy Heart‘ Jeff Bridges‘ best film? Who can say? I don’t even think I saw it. But that kid’s got a great-looking body of work, and I’m more than willing to reward that over an actual performance.”
Best Actress: “And speaking of bodies of work, check out that cutie-pie Sandra Bullock. Can you believe that kid’s never won an Oscar? Besides, ‘The Blind Side‘ really reminded me of — what was it? ‘Erin Roberts’? ‘Julia Brockovich’? — so I feel very comfortable rewarding something I’ve kinda-sorta seen before. Plus, that movie really gave me an insight into poverty, insofar as ‘poverty’ is something that only affects one person who grows up to be a multimillionaire.”
Best Picture: “Look, my producer and executive friends love ‘Avatar,’ and even though I didn’t get it — who’s the blue guy again? — I totally get their logic. First, it made a bunch of money. Second, if a 3-D movie wins Best Picture, that totally validates making more 3-D films, so that you people go to the theater paying a higher ticket price so you can see Spider-Man or Abe Lincoln or whoever leap off the screen instead of waiting for the less-profitable DVD. Also, it’s at the top of the ballot, alphabetically, and, really, with 10 nominees, my eyes just get tired. “”
– From The Rundown, MSN Movies
{ 2 comments }
I didn’t leave Charlie Wilson’s War, the new film from director Mike Nichols, dissatisfied or unamused. I walked out of Charlie Wilson’s War angry. No reasonable person expects a film — any film — to capture the complexity and scope of real events with absolute precision; adaptations are translations, and as the old Italian saying goes, “The translator is a traitor.” It’s one thing to compress, combine and fictionalize a story to fit the sprawling, ugly mess of it onto the big screen; it’s another to take only the best, shiniest parts of a real, ugly story and turn it into a feel-good comedy. Translation may be traitorous, but Charlie Wilson’s War feels like a conscious act of treason against reason itself. As film critic David Thompson has said, “We learn our history from movies, and history suffers ….” Charlie Wilson’s War isn’t just bad history; it feels even more malign, like a conscious attempt to induce amnesia.
Based on George Crile’s 2003 book of the same name, Charlie Wilson’s War follows the exploits of Charlie Wilson, a Democratic Congressman from Texas who, during the ’80s, had as much fun with his position as you could, which was a lot. As Charlie Wilson’s War opens, we see Charlie hot-tubbing in a Vegas hotel suite; the room’s full of booze, broads and blow. But Charlie, played by Tom Hanks, can’t look away from the news; as one of his new acquaintances notes her apathy to world events, Charlie boils it down: “Dan Rather’s wearing a turban; you don’t want to know why?” Dan Rather’s in a turban because Dan Rather’s in Afghanistan, among the Afghan mujahideen — the Islamic rebels trying to drive the Soviet Union out of their country by any means necessary. This sight sparks something in Charlie, so he sets out to increase the C.I.A.’s funding for the Afghan rebels — from $5 million a year to 10. It’s a lot of money. It’s going to be much more.
Charlie’s desire to help puts him in contact with other like-minded Americans — like Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts), a Houston socialite whose born-again Christian beliefs mean she’ll support anyone against the Godless communists, and Gust Avrakotos (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), a C.I.A. man who’s not a company man. Joanne and Gust can’t imagine anything worse than the Soviets capturing Afghanistan, and they work with Charlie — funneling money and arms through Pakistan, working with a motley crew of arms dealers, spies, Saudi billionaires, Pakistan’s military dictator and other interested parties. Eventually, the covert funding to help the mujahideen — with no Congressional oversight outside of closed committees — was as high as a billion dollars a year in the name of expelling the Soviets from Afghanistan.
And Charlie Wilson’s War makes all of that look like great fun — hard-drinking, glad-handing, sneaky spy stuff. What isn’t on screen in Charlie Wilson’s War — but is, interestingly enough, in Aaron Sorkin’s script — is any mention of the fact that the Afghan mujahideen became the Taliban, or how the Afghan mujahideen were helped in their cause by the “Afghan Arabs” who later became Al-Qaeda. Sorkin’s original script closes with an older, wiser sober Charlie on a Washington morning shattered by a sudden loud noise; something’s burning at the Pentagon. His phone rings, and Charlie’s wife says “It’s Gust. He says to turn on the TV.”
In the version of the film actually shot, our finale is a closing quote from Charlie, noting how his team got the Soviets out of Afghanistan, but ” … we f***ed up the endgame.” And no, I am not saying that Mr. Wilson’s actions led to 9-11; but I am saying there’s a link, and any reasonable student of history would agree. But there are fewer and fewer students of history nowadays; more people will see this film than will ever read Crile’s book. And rest assured, I hate the “‘Blame America First” crowd as much as anyone; the only thing I hate more, in fact, is the “Blame America Never” crowd. Yes, Charlie Wilson’s War notes that Wilson and his crew goofed up the ‘endgame’; what it doesn’t quite acknowledge is that to thousands of Afghans who suffered under the Taliban and the armed forces of America and her allies in Afghanistan, it wasn’t, and isn’t, a game.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a brutal violation of international law; a grown-up would nonetheless ask if our cure was in fact better than the disease. Charlie Wilson’s War doesn’t. (Again, a line in Sorkin’s script — but not in the final film — has Avrakotos noting “Remember I said this: There’s gonna be a day when we’re gonna look back and say ‘I’d give anything if (Afghanistan) were overrun with Godless communists.’”) There is one scene, at the climax of the film, where Gust confronts Charlie at their victory party — about declaring Afghanistan in safe hands, warning him that there may be unintended consequences of their efforts, even slapping the drink out of Charlie’s hands — so you know Gust means business. As Wilson thinks, the soundtrack offers the slow, droning roar of a low-flying plane. And that choice can’t be accidental; it has to be a 9-11 reference, but at the same time, plenty of critics I’ve talked to (including a 20-year veteran of the field) literally didn’t notice the sound effect. There’s subtlety, and then there’s invisibility. Nichols offers us champagne-sparkle charm and whimsy and aw-shucks hijinks; if a film really wants to tackle the covert actions of the Cold War and their long-term consequences, it needs to provide short sharp shots of truth as raw as whiskey, one after the other. We get the buzzy, boozy, bonhomie of Charlie’s crusade; what Nichols has done is eliminated the historical hangover of unintended consequences. Charlie Wilson’s War is timid where it should be reckless, clever where it should be cutting, funny where it should be fierce.
I haven’t really spoken about the performances in Charlie Wilson’s War, because they’re largely irrelevant. Hanks is mis-cast as a Texan; Roberts is, as always, herself; Hoffman gets to rage and chew scenery, but his character’s deeper doubts are shoved off-screen for wacky globetrotting adventures and well-dressed pluck on the part of Hanks and Roberts. Reading Sorkin’s script, I couldn’t help but think that again, big Hollywood had turned a sharp-toothed, snarling real story into a neutered, nuzzling housepet. Charlie Wilson’s War offers the bright glare of star power instead of any real illumination; it’s a historical-political comedy without any history or politics. Nichols’s cut, gutted version offers a few cheery, breezy moments of rat-a-tat comedy, but Charlie Wilson’s War stops being funny when you realize we’re living in the sequel.
{ 0 comments }
“As adapted from the first installment of Rick Riordan’s kid-lit adventure saga, “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” begins with the sound of thunder and the absence of lightning. As Zeus (Sean Bean) explains to his bother Poseidon (Kevin McKidd) atop the Empire State Building, someone’s stolen Zeus’ mighty bolt. Zeus suspects Poseidon’s abandoned son, because while the gods are forbidden conflict, their offspring are not. But Poseidon’s son Percy (Logan Lerman) doesn’t have the bolt, and doesn’t even know his divine heritage. But Percy’s about to be brought up to speed, and fast, because finding the bolt will be the key to saving his mother Sally (Catherine Keener) from a Hell far more literal than figurative.
Directed by Chris Columbus (“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” and “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets“), “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” is another attempt to recreate the on-screen Potter phenomenon, with kids (late teens here) hurled into mythical magical battles. There’s a done-in-one feeling to “Percy Jackson,” though, with no obvious setup for a sequel or a series-long arc. That modesty, probably partially motivated by how Fox doesn’t want to get “Golden Compass“-ed if “Percy Jackson” flops, ill befits an epic saga, and may disappoint fans of the books. But Columbus knows this territory well, even if the world of Percy Jackson is a bit more violent and visceral and less warm and whimsical than that of Harry Potter. (When Percy takes refuge at “Camp Half-Blood,” the training camp for demigod Olympian offspring with deadbeat dads and missing moms, he’s immediately thrust into swordplay opposite his peers; it’s like “300” summer camp, and a touch intense.)”
– from my full review at MSN Movies
{ 0 comments }
“Imagine briefly that some island castaway lives in isolation, having never met or spoken to an actual human being. The only cultural artifacts to divert the solitude are a copy of Richard Curtis’ 2003 London-set Christmastime ensemble comedy “Love Actually” and a map of Los Angeles. This person then writes a movie. That movie is “Valentine’s Day.” As a friend of mine noted, shell-shocked after the press screening, “I kind of like ‘Love Actually’ as a guilty pleasure, but compared to that, it’s ‘Nashville.’” That’s a convoluted set of analogies, but, trust me, they offer you far more mental stimulus than all of the sloppy, shabby, sentimental, shot-through-dishwater 125 minutes of “Valentine’s Day.”
Directed by Garry Marshall, whose slight, shameless “Pretty Woman” looks like “The Apartment” in comparison to the candy box of sticky-sweet sappiness and frothy-light nougat chunks of empty ethical dilemma of “Valentine’s Day,” the movie follows a group of Los Angeles residents through, yes, Valentine’s Day. The young florist (Ashton Kutcher) who’s just proposed to his flinty, all-bidness girlfriend (Jessica Alba). The teacher (Jennifer Garner) whose too-perfect doctor boyfriend (Patrick Dempsey) is just that. The lifelong lovers (Hector Elizondo and Shirley MacLaine) who still have surprises for each other. The young lovers whose two-week-long budding dating is disrupted when he (Topher Grace) forgets the big day and she (Anne Hathaway) hides her work as a phone sex operator. The soldier (Julia Roberts) seated next to a suit-clad smoothie (Bradley Cooper) on a flight back to Los Angeles. The randy teens (including Taylors Swift and Lautner). The anti-romantic sports reporter (Jamie Foxx) working with the romance-hating publicist (Jessica Biel) as an NFL quarterback (Eric Dane) makes an important decision. The towheaded kid (Bryce Robinson) whose somber circumstances have made him need to believe in love to a degree far beyond his years, just like Thomas Sangster in “Love Actually,” right down to the haircut.”
{ 0 comments }
“The Wolfman” Cast Howls, “Percy Jackson”’s Star and Director Enlighten us, and Oscar’s Coulda-Shoulda-Woulda-Second-Guesses
“Last weekend, the cast and crew of “The Wolfman” sat down to talk about their new film. Though inspired by the original 1941 film, “The Wolfman” includes some unique new choices to alter the feel and the shape of the material, including setting the film in Victorian England.
The film’s settings are all stark moors and glorious country estates, and this, according to Sir Anthony Hopkins — “Call me Tony,” Hopkins says, with the charming grace of someone giving you permission to not call him by the title the Queen bestowed on him — was actually the best possible preparation for his performance: “When you’re working on a big set you don’t have to act; you don’t have to do much. It’s like John Wayne said: ‘When you’re in Monument Valley, you don’t have to be bigger than Monument Valley.’ The great American actors, like John Wayne and Gary Cooper … they didn’t act; they just did. That’s the best kind of acting. When you’re in the middle of Old England in the old manor house … you don’t have to act. You just meld in with the place, and the sinister beauty.”
Emily Blunt also had thoughts on the setting and how it informed her work as Gwen, who feels an undeniable attraction to Lawrence (Benicio Del Toro), the brother of her dead fiancé. When I mention that the Lawrence-Gwen relationship feels like something out of “Wuthering Heights” dipped in blood, she laughs. “It’s so weird because I read ['Wuthering Heights'] around when we did it, and ‘Hound of the Baskervilles,’ and those books that were relevant to that time period,” Blunt says. “And I think that’s what we wanted to create: something that had tension, and suspense, but was gothic with something repressed about it. And I think setting it in Victorian times is cool because it was a superstitious time … And I think that’s what’s part of this movie, because it was a time when village gossip ruled the world, and I think that was a good backdrop for the film. ”
Of course, some actors got to walk in that world, and some had to wear it; I asked Hugo Weaving, who played Police Inspector Aberline, if his elaborate period facial hair made him think, each time he saw it in the mirror, about his character and the film. “It was a four-month shoot,” he said, “and every time I looked in the mirror I thought, ‘Why did I make this stupid decision?’”
Period ’stache-sideburns combo aside, Weaving also talked about his character as the voice of Victorian reason and as an anti-villain to Del Toro’s anti-hero: “I think what’s interesting about Aberline is that in many ways he’s your eyes as you’re watching the film; he represents that view of life: ‘There aren’t werewolves. Of course there aren’t. Superstitious people abound, but you can’t take them seriously.’ … And then he has to see a transformation in front of his eyes and has to completely change his worldview and jump into action.” ”
– From The Rundown, MSN Movies
{ 0 comments }
