Produce This
I’ve got to give it to
Susan Stroman—she obviously loves the musical form and is willing to stay true to what a “real” musical is, even if that means a crude, thinly tuned, broadly written show. Her commitment to the art form keeps pushing the filmed version of the musical
The Producers forward, almost making it work as a movie. Unfortunately, what keeps it from being something other than an amusing truffle is the fact that its humor is based on a movie from the late 1960’s. Even when
Mel Brooks wrote his famous
screenplay, the humor was dated and a little out of touch. Updating that for the Broadway stage, then translating it into this movie makes much of the humor feel a little recycled.
The idea of horny little old women, campy gay men, and Swedish sexpots just don’t have the zing they once did. We’ve seen them a million times since. One by one the jokes can amuse, but together, they simply feel stale.
However, that’s not to say that the movie isn’t funny. There is much humor to go around.
Matthew Broderick deserves most of the recognition for making his neebish accountant, Leo Bloom to be the most amusing part of the film. Broderick mines every bit of laughter in the most organic way. In addition to Broderick’s performance, kudos also should go to
Will Ferrell (for actually acting) and giving a highly amusing turn as Franz Liebkind, as well as
Uma Thurman, singing and dancing around, coming off as the convincing Swedish sexpot secretary/receptionist Ulla. Yet the most memorable supporting performance comes from
Roger Bart as Carmen Ghia. His campy, delicious turn threatens to steal every scene he’s in.
The movie goes on along about one musical number too long and could be tightened to make things stronger. Part of the problem comes from the fact that the last two numbers rely upon
Nathan Lane. Unfortunately, he’s not up to the challenge. Or more accurately, he’s all over the challenge and anything else somebody wants to throw at him. What results is a performance that’s so theatrical it feels so absurd and untouchable, incredible from the very first moment he appears onscreen. As a result, we never really get to feel anything for Max Bialystock, and we don’t care too much about the tragedy that befalls him. Still, the film works on an inherently basic crowd-pleasing level.
Though it’s no
Moulin Rouge, it’s worlds better than
Rent.
By the Dozen
Oh, the things you’ll do for family…
That’s also part of the point of
Cheaper By the Dozen 2, an uninspired, yet harmless family comedy that is sure to please those individuals who like their movies innocuous, sanitized, glossy, and meaningless. On all those counts, this sequel is sure to please.
That sounds a little harsh, considering how much worse the original film is. The original film, an embarrassing amalgamation of junk and gloss, coupled with a heaping dose of smarm. The sequel, cuts down on the smarm, amps up the gloss, and lets the junk stay as it is. This time however, the film at least is grounded in a bit (emphasizing the phrase “a bit”) more reality. What comes out is a comedy about every parents’ nightmare of letting go. (Star Steve Martin did a far better job in the
Father of the Bride remake nearly fifteen years ago.) Sure, it’s tired, clichéd, and embarrassing at times, but ultimately harmless.
I wouldn’t recommend seeing it, but it’s not harmful if you are drug along. There are worse things to see. (cough—
Memoirs of a Geisha)
Heartbreaker
The New York Times runs an
elaborate story today about online kiddie porn. It's a heartbreaking piece to read.
While there's not much information in here that's completely new (though the reporter acts like every person hasn't gotten some kind of e-mail spam promoting one of these webcam sites), it's devastating to read. Even more so, because you know this kid just kept going back to it, feeling that in some ways, it empowered him. It's the same argument that strippers use to justify their employment--they claim that they have the power and control in the situation. And while porn stars and strippers might have possession of dominance in that specific instance, what they are doing is gradually giving up the control over their own lives and psyche. To see a 13 year old boy get drawn into that is a frighteningly heartbreaking ordeal. Then, to learn about his dad's roll in it is beyond disturbing.
The article's a hard read, but one well worth it, particularly to those who work with young people.
Beautiful Little Surprises
There's nothing like encountering a movie that surprises you in all the right ways. That's what I encountered last night when I saw
The Family Stone. A funny, yet incredibly heartfelt Christmas comedy that extols the state of family.
The movie is about a liberal, wealthy family living in the suburbs of Connecticut who meet Meredith, the girlfriend, of the eldest son, Everett. Most of them completely dislike her uptight, mannered approach to life. And why not? They're carefree, contemporary post-hippie yuppies who talk openly about one another's sexual conquests. It might not be
Focus on the Family's definition of what constitutes an appropriate family, but without a doubt, this is one clan that cares passionately about one another. They are willing to destroy anything or anyone that has the potential to cause one of their brood misery. Despite their loud grumbling, yelling and scheming, every single Stone cares about the others' best interests.
Performances from the cast are first-rate all around, bolstered by a nimble screenplay, and assured direction. Sure, it's a bit predictable, but it's a Christmas movie. Nobody's going to see it for its originality of plot. What we want is a movie with depth, real emotion, and a reminder of why people travel halfway around the world to be with the people they love at Christmas.
This movie has those things in spades.
Find the people you love. Take them to go see it. Consider this suggestion my Christmas gift to you all.
Bad movies
The last two movies I’ve seen this week have ranged from disappointing to very disappointing. All I’ve read is rapturous reviews of
King Kong and the most enthusiastic response I had to it was thinking, “Go Billy!” (Jamie Bell will always be Billy Elliot to me.)
Sure, the visual FX components are amazing. You truly believe Kong is alive, but why do I care? While I did feel a little connection between he and Watts’ character (emphasis on little), I was never too concerned about his welfare.
The other problem the film suffers from is it’s just too much—over directed, overly long, over the top, and too much (if only the characters were just over-developed). There are set pieces for the film that are phenomenal and will be remembered for years to come. (The t-rex chase in particular.) And I never thought I’d develop a fear of heights from watching a movie, but I did just that while watching the finale. But why do I want for that to happen in a movie theater?
Kong was at least better than
Memoirs of a Geisha. Based on an incredibly popular book, the film just doesn’t go anywhere. It sits there, supposedly telling the story of Sayuri, a geisha-in-training who has to learn the skills necessary to become a geisha, while at the same time keeping her archrival, Hatsumomo, at bay.
The problem is the movie just doesn’t have a point. It’s slow, pondering, and overall emotionally uninteresting. Skip it.
Actually, skip both of them.
Corporate Christmas Gift?
Fox still hasn't officially canceled
Arrested Development, but if it does, other networks are interested in the show, reports
Variety.
Both
ABC and
Showtime have had conversations with 20th Century Fox TV and indicated they're open to making a deal for new episodes of the critically beloved, Emmy-winning comedy from creator
Mitch Hurwitz. No formal negotiations have taken place, and there are still numerous hurdles that might prevent such a move -- including the show's hefty pricetag.
Showtime is said to be in particularly hot pursuit of the ratings-challenged comedy, now on life support at Fox. Series' third-season order was recently cut to 13 episodes.
The trade says that Fox has already deficited millions in order to produce the show, which costs about $1.6 million per half-hour to produce. It's believed Fox deficits about $400,000 per episode.
TV Shmeevee
The Golden Globes have always been about recognizing the next big thing, so the nominations doled out yesterday, weren’t really that surprising. There were a couple of head-scratching omissions (particularly Deadwood) since HBO seems to have the Hollywood Foreign Press in its pocket. For the most part however, there was really an inherent lack of originality in the nominations. Who didn’t expect to see My Name is Earl and Everybody Hates Chris nominated? Why not really be bold and give a nomination to Jamie Pressley of Earl or Neil Patrick Harris of How I Met Your Mother? And did the HFPA not see how much Desperate Housewives has declined this year? Absolutely, Eva Longoria deserved her nomination, but some of the other acting nods (ahem, Teri Hatcher), I’m not so sure about.Commander in Chief has Golden Globes written all over it—two major film stars moving to television? And they both got nominations. Same thing with Glenn Close for The Shield. Patrick Dempsey gets nominated for Grey’s Anatomy, but Ellen Pombeo doesn’t? Why not try and be original and recognize the most fascinating actors on that show—Chandra Wilson or T.R. Knight? And nominating Wentworth Miller (Prison Break) instead of Ian McShane, Denis Leary, Anthony LaPaglia, James Spader, or William Fichtner? Please! I think Miller’s incredibly talented, but this award’s not about who has the most potential—it’s about Best Performance—and he’s not that. These aren’t embarrassingly bad nominations, but the Globes sometimes can be a real barometer of quality—just not this year.
Globe Reactions One
First, trying to process the Golden Globe nominations when I’ve been awake for all of fifteen minutes! Curses to this time difference!
Anyway, reactions—the Globes always like to kiss butt—this year no more than usual. Actually, maybe a little more than usual, but whatever.
The largest surprise in the Best Drama category is the lack of
Munich. Most of the critical notices for this have been good so far, but there are some who are objecting to the lack of sentimentality Spielberg apparently shows, so they’re giving him flack for it. Considering the “foreign” nature of their organization, it could explain why the film wasn’t nominated. Nevertheless, they still want to suck up enough to nominate Spielberg. They still didn’t nominate Eric Bana or any of his co-stars, though they did nominate Tony Kushner for Screenplay. (Somebody explain to me how it’s one of the best directing and writing jobs of the year, but it’s not one of the best pictures of the year?)
It was wonderful to see
The Constant Gardener included, but no Ralph Fiennes—sight. At least Rachel Weisz got nominated.
Brokeback continues its domination. Williams and Ledger picked up the nominations they very richly deserve.
As for the comedies, it does seem a bit surprising to see
The Squid and the Whale included (Golden Globes don’t usually go for indies), while
Casanova was excluded. (
Casanova has gotten decent notices and is the kind of film the Globes usually go for. Disney must’ve not done the appropriate junket or sucked up to the right number of people.)
A lot of George Clooney love. He gets nominated for acting, writing, directing, and
Good Night, and Good Luck got nominated for Best Picture. (Remember what I said about the suck-up thing).
As for acting nods--Yeah for Paltrow getting the nomination she so greatly deserved! Besides her nomination and Huffman’s, that category just looks so incredibly weak! In fact, Maria Bello got nominated in the lead category, even though she was a supporting role. Why that happens, I don’t know. Ziyi Zhang (as her Hollywood name has been transposed) was the only significant nomination for
Memoirs of a Geisha (an Oscar vine that’s quickly dying).
As for the actors, while Crowe was a worthy performance, look at the Clooney paragraph for an answer. It was impressive to see Terrence Howard and Cillian Murphy nominated for Best Actor for
Hustle & Flow and
Breakfast on Pluto, but considering the kind of year both these actors have had, it would almost have been a slap in the face at HFPA’s attempt at legitimacy not to. Pierce Brosnan and Johnny Depp’s nominations for
The Matador and
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory seem a little suspect, but whatever. It also doesn’t make a lot of sense that Sarah Jessica Parker would get nominated for
The Family Stone (though we know the HFPA loves her after
Sex & the City), but the film, the screenplay, nor Diane Keaton get nominated either—and they’re the ones that have all the Oscar heat.
For the Supporting categories—how can any organization that nominates Will Ferrell for an award expect to be taken seriously? The Supporting Actor nominations are all over the board—whereas critics so far have cited William Hurt, Kevin Costner, and Jake Gyllenhaal, they’re nowhere to be seen here. Instead, we get William Hurt and George Clooney. Still, bravo for not ignoring Giamatti. And then, while the HFPA was showering
The Producers with love, they seemed to forget that Uma Thurman was the only one that had a chance at an Oscar nomination. Well, not really now. That’s kind of dead in the water. Poor thing. There was a great joke there somewhere—Ula meet Uma.
Obvious omissions—Joan Allen (sob), Kevin Costner, Heath Ledger for
Casanova, Eric Bana, Gong Li, William Hurt, Ralph Fiennes, Frank Langella—that gets the list started.
More thoughts on the TV stuff later. That will take longer to make any sense of.
Weekend Movie Roundup
Brokeback Mountain--calling this the "gay
Gone With the Wind" might be a bit excessive, but saying it's one of the year's best isn't. I'll post separately on this later. It deserves its own post.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe--Marketing stories aside, the film works. It's not perfect, but then, the book isn't either. Still, it's a great ride, very exciting and thoroughly entertaining. It moves at a brisk pace and is quick, clear, and to the point. The battles are intense (maybe a little too much for young kids), but engaging, entertaining and inspiring.
The biggest flaw is the casting of the four young actors. While adequate, I think more convincing actors could've been found. The amount of emotional engagement lacks a little. Even
Tilda Swinton doesn't come off as terrifying as I thought she would. Maybe it's a director thing. (Director
Andrew Adamson has hereforeto worked in animation, so that might be part of the reason). I found it a little off-putting that I thought the most engaging character was Mr. Beaver.
Pride and Prejudice--
Matthew MacFadyen is a million times better than
Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. He's dashing, charming, prideful, pompous, and enough to make anybody's heart melt. I abhorred the
BBC mini-series version of this adaptation. It was long, dull, full of dancing, and too full of Firth. The first twenty minutes of this movie had me fearing this version would be less of the same, but after those laborious minutes of set-up, thankfully the film started to move quickly and turned into a pleasant little piece.
Keira Knightly equips herself well. I still wouldn't give her the
Oscar nomination she might very well have coming her way, but she doesn't deserve a Razzie either. The film is good, but at some point during the night, I found myself wanting to go home and watch
Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility. I didn't take that as a sign of greatness.
Walk the Line--I realized I hadn't talked about this one yet, even though I've seen it twice now. This is the perfect example of "an actor's movie."
Joaquin Phoenix and
Reese Witherspoon own the movie from top to bottom. The story isn't bad, it's just not as well-defined as it should be. The real draw of this bio-pic is the relationship between Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. When director
James Mangold focuses on that, the film soars. When he wanders into other aspects (most notoriously, Cash's relationship with his dad), the film falters and takes on a "been there, seen that" feeling. Nevertheless, the motion pictures soars in comparison to last year's
Ray, partially because of the one-two punch of Phoenix and Witherspoon's performances, but also because the actors do their own singing, which roots the film in a much stronger reality than
Taylor Hackford's ode to Ray Charles.
And the Race Begins
The Los Angeles Film Critics announced their year-end awards today. The big winners were
Brokeback Mountain and
Capote.
A History of Violence was close behind. The New York critics announce Monday and the
Golden Globe nominations are Tuesday. Somewhere next week also produces the
Broadcast Film Critics Association nominations. By this time next week, the
Oscar nomination picture will look much clearer.
This didn’t do much to clear anything up, except giving a bit of a shoulder to
Walk the Line, but
Witherspoon and
Phoenix will overcome that no problem. Obviously, the biggest surprise here is Vera Farmiga—a relatively unknown that probably has no chance of an Oscar nomination, considering nobody’s seen her movie. But where is
The Constant Gardener? And
Joan Allen? Sigh…. And who would’ve ever suspected that Dan Futterman, the actor, would go on to write an award winning screenplay? The biggest head-scratcher for me is
Good Night, and Good Luck winning for Best Cinematography. Sure, it looked good, but framing---not so impressed.
Here are all the winners from
Anne Thompson of
The Hollywood Reporter.
Picture: Brokeback Mountain (over A History of Violence)
Director: Ang Lee (over David Cronenberg)
Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote (over Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain)
Actress: Vera Farmiga, Down to the Bone (over Judi Dench, Mrs. Henderson Presents)
Supporting Actress: Catherine Keener, for four films (Capote, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, The Ballad of Jack and Rose, The Interpreter), over Amy Adams of Junebug
Supporting Actor: William Hurt, A History of Violence (over Frank Langella, Good Night, and Good Luck)
Screenplay: Dan Futterman, Capote (tied with Noah Baumbach, The Squid and the Whale)
Cinematography: Robert Elswit, Good Night, and Good Luck (over 2046)
Production Design: 2046 (over Good Night, and Good Luck)
Music: Joe Hisaishi, Howl's Moving Castle
New Generation Award: Terrence Howard, Hustle & Flow
Documentary: Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man (over Alex Gibney's Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room)
Animated Feature: Wallce + Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Foreign Film: Michael Haneke's Cachet (over 2046).
The Greatness of Ang Lee
Let me count the reasons why I adore
Ang Lee’s films:
- The Ice Storm
- Sense and Sensibility
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
- Ride With the Devil
- Hulk
- Eat Drink Man Woman
- The Wedding Banquet
And now:
Brokeback MountainSubtlety, repression, manners, and love. These are the things that make good drama. These are Lee’s best points. They’re all brought to the forefront in
Heath Ledger’s bravura performance in
Brokeback Mountain. There’s a lot to digest in this film and after having just seen it, I don’t want to snap to anything too quickly, but, in sorting these out, there’s no doubt that this is “an Ang Lee film.”
Seriously?
Universal's marketing team has a television ad for
King Kong
that's set to
Coldplay's "Fix You"? It's ludicrous enough to almost make me not want to see the movie. Of course, the reviews have been so great that I'm eager.
Am I Missing It?
So the first screenings of
Munich started on the East and West coasts this week. And everybody I've read so far that's seen it seems to be provoked to conversation. I suppose with a topic like this--state sanctioned assassinations--it's bound to happen.
So let me just ask, maybe I'm being incredibly naive here, but isn't that something that as a developed, democratic society we should frown upon? I mean, isn't that kind of the point of "innocent till proven guilty"? No matter what ills someone has done, they are given the opportunity to present their own defense? If not, then why in the world is Hussein being tried? I don't know of anyone who believes he won't be found guilty of some serious stuff, so what's the charade for? Oh, wait! You mean the process is the important part--as integral as the outcome? Gotcha.
Postmodern Havoc
One of the dangers of living in a media-saturated society is the difficulty of being able to distinguish reality from non-reality. As a child growing up, my brother and I attempted things that were in no way acceptable—like trying to hang up, catapult one another from a see-saw—because we saw them on television and thought they were things to do.
As media interactive becomes more and more prominent, reaching out to younger and younger youth, the lines between reality and fiction become increasingly difficult to determine. As I peruse through
My Space, I’m constantly amazed at the number of teenagers that use the various media as ways to create a sense of identity. Creating false identities, trying to immerse themselves in cultures and identities not their own, but are deemed “en vogue” because of their trend-setting style or cover percentage, allows them to build self-esteem and feel “cool.”
This is what I kept thinking of as I was watching
Barbara Koppel’s fiction-helming debut,
Havoc. The film, written by
Stephen Gaghan, is about two wealthy SoCal girls who venture into east LA, invading Latino gang territory in an effort to discover something “real.” They experiment with drugs , sex, and violence, curious to see what they’re like. The cautionary tale is dark and cautionary, but the whole time I couldn’t help but think how realistic the movie probably is. It’s an eye-opening little film that probably would have an impact on teenagers who saw it. Unfortunately, the sexuality and language are so intense, as well as there are no name stars in it, so there probably won’t be that many to see it.
Emmy Nominee Al Sharpton?
I don’t know if this is the kind of idea that’s so bonkers that it’s going to be great or horrible. Nevertheless, from today’s
Variety:
Al Sharpton is in talks to topline his own sitcom for
CBS.
ParamountNetwork Television would produce the project, a family comedy dubbed
"Al in the Family" in which Sharpton would play off his
larger-than-life personality. Eye is expected to make a script
commitment to the half-hour.
Thinking Oscar
Crash absolutely deserves an
Oscar nomination.
For Best Original Song.
Bird York created a beautifully haunting piece in “In the Deep” that so far is by far the best original song of the year. She deserves to be recognized for it. If the Academy mistakenly falls all over itself for this movie (as I fear it might), they better not ignore the one deserving nod the film should receive.
