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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 10/23/2006 : 23:31:51
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Monday: Marie-Antoinette
How do I hate thee? let me count the ways: Nah, scratch that! Let's just say -- let her eat rat poison. Let's just say -- off with their heads. [Hey, Francis Ford: can't you keep yer kid inside?!]
Last Kiss
Coulda been good. Shoulda been good. Zach's fundamentally interesting. Some lovely performances struggling against a script that takes itself so seriously it often descends into soap opera. This should have been a really amusing rom com with underlying truths about the problems of/benefits of committed relationships; it should have made ya laugh, made ya cry. All it does is make you keep checking your watch. What?!! Those past three hours I've been looking at this stuff has only taken 20 minutes?!!! WTF?!!!
Tomorrow: Stormbreaker + Grudge 2 [YIKES!]
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Stormbreaker postponed till tomorrow, folks, so here's the one, the only ...
Grudge 2
Now children, what can we learn from the Grudge sequel? Firstly, we learn that the darn old Grudge can travel. Wow, can it travel. One minute we're in Tokyo, the next we pop into California, and then we settle in Chicago before bopping back and forth to Tokyo again. But wherever we go, the Grudge goes too. In its several forms that we recognise from our first encounter. [I keep wanting to call it The Grinch. How the Grudge Stole Credibility.] Ahem, ... as I was saying.
The second lesson we learn is that people, wherever they are in Grudge-world just can't resist the temptation to trespass. Who do these people think they are, just wandering into houses and apartments that aren't theirs - even IF the doors aren't locked. What would their parents say? Is that how they were brought up? Weren't they told it wasn't polite to enter without knocking? Oh, no, in they trot, even ignoring that yellow police tape that says Do Not Cross. And isn't it reassuring to know that the tape in Japan is not only printed in Japanese, but in English, too. Gosh, do you think they anticipated the tape might be featured in a movie?! Ahem, ... as I was saying.
We learn - though quite late into the film - that The Grudge transcends the house. That seminal icon from the first film isn't the heart of scary stuff after all. No, it's The Rage. Well, shoot - we should've known. After all, there it was stated plain as plain can be right at the beginning of the film.
And, finally, children, we learn that when a low budget movie makes as much as The Grudge, not only are we present at the birth of a sequel, we're witnessing the birth of a franchise. Which will explain the ending, as if you couldn't tell.
OK, so apart from that, Mrs Lincoln, did I enjoy the [screen]play? Well, sort of. That Shimizu can direct is a given - some of his camera placement and shot development reminds me of Argento, and perfect for the genre. He has some marvellous visual ideas, one in particular involving a hood - you'll know it when you see it. I guess what I miss is a script witty enough to stretch the actors to real performances instead of the cliched "Oh, look at me I'm so scared" reactions they constantly are called upon to portray. People for Shimizu don't seem human at all, merely ciphers to carry us from scene to scene. I know, of course, that's a well-trodden path in horror flix, but it's a shame, really, because I think these films, instead of being only sure-fire box office, could actually become classics if the scripts were wittier and better constructed.
Tomorrow - the Mickey Rourke experience!
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Edited by - BaftaBaby on 10/24/2006 19:49:47 |
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Whippersnapper. 
"A fourword thinking guy."
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Posted - 10/24/2006 : 18:42:16
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| Standard of these reviews aint what it used to be, if you ask me... |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 10/24/2006 : 19:53:06
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quote:
Originally posted by Whippersnapper
Standard of these reviews aint what it used to be, if you ask me...
Well, Whippy, if you REALLY want more about M-A and/or Last Kiss ... lemme know. I'm SURE I can oblige if you ask nicely.
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Whippersnapper.
"A fourword thinking guy."
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Posted - 10/24/2006 : 22:18:55
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Please, Auntie Baffy, please tell us all about M-A!
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 10/25/2006 : 00:39:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Whippersnapper
Please, Auntie Baffy, please tell us all about M-A!
OK, since you've asked so nicely 
Executive Producer, none other than Francis Ford Coppola, must harbour a secret desire to make sure his little girl NEVER has the chance to steal the thunder of his past.
Remember Barry Lyndon? First a book by William Makepeace Thackeray - a disputed literary genius - made into a film by Stanley Kubrick - generally acknowledged to be a cinematic genius. I suppose there are some who truly believe Kubrick's film is a masterpiece, a work of art. I ain't one of those people. Looks good ... hell it looks great! Gorgeous. Sumptuous. But vapid, characterless, and in narrative terms a bit pointless. imho.
Now we come to Marie-Antoinette. First a literary account by none other than history maven and the current Mrs Harold Pinter aka Antonia Fraser. It's filmed by Sofia Coppola. I liked Lost in Translation, I really did. I didn't think it was as great as the hype suggested at the time, and it felt a bit like one of those late 1960s indie films, but still -- with a freshness, stylish and riddled with charm. But Ms Coppola was far from the promise of genius that, for example, Mr Kubrick showed in his early work. That he made such a mess of Barry Lyndon -- [and clearly I bring up that film because it was, as is M-A a canter through 18th century upper crustiness]-- proves that even a consummate filmmaker occasionally falls in the consomme.
If I'm right about FFC, he's got nothing to worry about. Coppola may have inherited her poppa's nose, but not his cinematic eye, not his innate sense of visual music, not his daring with actors, testing them, pushing them to reach ever deeper into character. Sofia's M-A is as insubstantial as the whipped cream on the endless patisserie so prominent it's the primary source of set decoration. I can see what she was trying to do; she was trying to let us, the audience, feel what it was like to be a young well-brought up girl and then suddenly whisked away to a foreign land to learn new customs and try to please a man who might be better suited as a brother than husband, let alone the future king of France. Not only please him as a companion, but find a way - a way she knows as little about as he does - to engage in the act of sex in order to secure an heir to the throne. Eventually she achieves this with a little advice from her visiting brother, Emperor Joseph -- and isn't it comforting to know that no matter how busy an emperor may be he's still got time to travel abroad to spend ten minutes to tell his baby sister and baby brother-in-law the facts of life. But I digress.
I'm not going into too much detail about the acting, except to say this is probably a collection of performances that rank as nearly each actor's personal worst. Schwartzman, Coppola's cousin, is as much at sea at she is, and Rip Torn, Steve Coogan, even feisty little Dunst are so far off the mark if this were their only screen appearance they'd never have a career. The only two who rise above the ludicrous dialogue and uninspired direction are Judy Davis, whom you'd expect to be wonderful, and Marianne Faithfull, whom you probably wouldn't.
And Sofia's obviously seen/admired Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge and who knows even A Knight's Tale, both of which in varying degrees of success anachronistically mixed rock music with past century settings. I suspect when she first started M-A her music choices weren't locked in, and I suspect both the funky-doodle opening credits and ecletic soundtrack were added as an antidote to the tediuous bloody boredom of this endless bloody film that goes on and on and on and on and believe me is FAR more boring than this review!
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Edited by - BaftaBaby on 10/25/2006 00:42:28 |
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turrell 
"Ohhhh Ohhhh Ohhhh Ohhhh "
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Posted - 10/25/2006 : 01:04:45
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Do I take from this you had no admiration for Lost in Translation? Certainly it was superior to GFIII (mostly because of Sofia's acting albeit).
I'll take you at your word that MA may be no good - but I also thought Virgin Suicides was a well made movie. |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 10/25/2006 : 08:43:24
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quote:
Originally posted by turrell
Do I take from this you had no admiration for Lost in Translation? Certainly it was superior to GFIII (mostly because of Sofia's acting albeit).
Hi Turrell -- Well, if you read it again, what I actually said was: "I liked Lost in Translation, I really did. I didn't think it was as great as the hype suggested at the time, and it felt a bit like one of those late 1960s indie films, but still -- with a freshness, stylish and riddled with charm."
As for GFIII - that would take an entire review in itself to dissect. Yes, of course, many flaws - but inferior to LiT? Hmmm - almost like comparing apples and pears.
quote:
I'll take you at your word that MA may be no good - but I also thought Virgin Suicides was a well made movie.
Conceptually, it probably was, though I'm not convinced she handled such unusual themes with the balance they deserved, and an awful lot was brought to it by the actors ... and I suppose what I've suspected is that having had a shed-load of help with it -- I mean just LOOK at the bevy of top-notch producers for a first feature -- that when asked to fly solo on a huge budget-er, SC just doesn't have the vision or confidence to control it, let alone make it her own. There's no actual story. There's an ersatz pov -- exactly with whom are we meant to identify in the 21st century? A highly privileged aristocrat, emotionially vapid, and playing by rules of duty and obligation while being pampered to the max? And we're meant to feel ... what? some kind of exquisite irony that at a time of her life when this monarch seems to have grown up, aged 38, she gets her head chopped off by a country of people whose livings and rights have been sacrificed partly due to her extravagance? And where have those revolutionaries BEEN for the course of the film? You'd hardly know there was any state, so insular is this treatment. What kind of message is that supposed to leak to us? Because if it's a justification, that's obscene and I don't for a moment suspect SC would back that one. But if it's some kind of wake-up call -- she needs to study Eisenstein or Preston Sturges. You just don't make socio-political points about excess unless you contrast it with deprivation. The script has no muscle; it's flabby and SC hasn't been strong enough or brave enough to send it to the gym.
BTW - the cinema manager told me he had to pull the film a week early because it just wasn't doing any business. I think the most tix he sold for a showing was 15!
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Edited by - BaftaBaby on 10/25/2006 09:44:04 |
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Whippersnapper.
"A fourword thinking guy."
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Posted - 10/25/2006 : 12:57:07
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Citizen Baffy guillotines Sophia!
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 10/25/2006 : 14:44:51
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Stormbreaker
What time is it kids?! It's Mickey Rourke Time!!!
This rollicking teen action tale is just what Brit cinema needs! Adapted by Horowitz from his own hit series of novels about a teen-aged Bond-clone and directed by Geoffrey Sax who did a very decent job helming Dr Who, the film positively careers along every twist and turn, taking no prisoners, without any pit-stops or pauses either for breath or to ruminate on a plot which doesn't bear much examining. But who cares? It grabs you from the get-go and doesn't let go-go.
Flick hooks you at once with a nifty set-up -- orphaned heart-breaker Alex, age 14, ward and nephew of MI6 hero Ewan MacGregor in very large grin mode, cared for by nanny Alicia Silverstone [dat's right, kid, I said nanny!] is recruited into the elite action spy department after said uncle bites the enemy bullet. His mission - into which he's blackmailed with covert threats to the nanny, and dumped into two weeks rugged military training - is to infiltrate the operation of self-made billionaire Darius Sayle. This is the once HOT HOT HOT Mickey Rourke, now hiding his reconstructed face behind shades and blue eyeshadow, playing [no more than adequately] a sleazeball dapper-dan computer magnate who's motivated by revenge to destroy all children, because [kleenex at the ready, now]he was bullied bigtime as a stoo-dent, in a class alongside the current Prime Minister [Robbie Coltrane in a totally thankless role].
The action is fab, if a tad too Bond-like, and the London backdrop even provides some new wrinkles such as a horse-riding chase by the Queen's calvalry in pursuit of Rider and his girlfriend Sabina Pleasure -- geddit, geddit?!
Add some [but nowhere near enough] verbal and sight gags, some stellar talent including Stephen Fry as a Q clone, Bill Nighy and Sophie Okonedo as the MI6 big cheeses, and the redoubtable Missi Pyle as Sayle's right-hand hench-villain - and you have a very entertaining 1� hours. The last shot will alert you to the inevitable sequel.
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ChocolateLady 
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 10/25/2006 : 16:08:24
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| Sounds like agent Cody Banks has been combined with a Baby Bond! |
Edited by - ChocolateLady on 10/25/2006 16:14:07 |
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TitanPa
"Here four more"
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Posted - 10/25/2006 : 17:18:16
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| Thanx to Bafta..She has steered me clear away from Grudge 2 |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 10/25/2006 : 18:45:02
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quote:
Originally posted by ChocolateLady
Sounds like agent Cody Banks has been combined with a Baby Bond!
Sort of, CL ... but Alex is MUCH cuter than Cody ... we like that! 
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 10/25/2006 : 18:46:51
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quote:
Originally posted by TitanPa
Thanx to Bafta..She has steered me clear away from Grudge 2
Hi TPa!
Yes, I live to help shape your cinema experience  
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 10/26/2006 : 21:39:10
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Oh, the life of a BAFTA viewer ain't all cakes and ale. Well, actually in my case it's never cakes and ale, considering my sugar restrictions and tee-totality. But today I paid my triple-bill:
1 Step Up
2 Open Season
3 Barnyard
My brain is sufficiently regressed and I can now report back on this trio of teen and tot fare.
1. Step Up
Remember how Matt Damon was a school janitor who had unrecognized talent and became a better man? Well, this is sort of 'Good Tyler Dancing', only with fellow dancer Nora supplying the leavening which Robin Williams provided for Matt. We've got sassy street dude Tyler played by ex-jock, hunky male model Channing Tatum who's such a terrific dancer he had me fooled as a pro. He plays what your great-grandpappy used to call a wastrel, and with his Afro-American homies trashes a School of the Arts - a kind of Maryland Fame Academy - and gets community service as a janitor there. He gets involved with Jenna Dewan playing beautiful, ambitious and talented student Nora whose senior show will determine the course of her professional life. Now Dewan is a pro dancer, having backed up Janet Jackson among others [she also plays a minor role in Grudge 2]. Tyler 'steps up' to fill the ballet shoes of Nora's regular partner when he sprains his ankle. Soon the dance moves lead to those other moves and ... well, you can fill in your own cliches.
Choreographer Anne Fletcher makes her directorial debut with a script by a couple who may know the biz, but can't avoid any signposting of plot or shallowness of character. It's like they know what a script is supposed to do, they know what characters are supposed to be -- they just can't quite do it. Fletcher's work is adequate but not spectacular; the story partly deals with people who find the courage to take risks, but that's exactly what Fletcher can't do. There's one scene in particular which should have been phenomenal -- it involves cross-cutting between three separate plot elements all to the same backing track; it's a seminal action point of the film and has emotional consequences for all the principles. There are half a dozen ways she might have made this sequence truly cinematic, made it her own ... but she takes the easy way out, so it's just another bunch of cross-cut shots.
The dance stuff, as you'd expect given these pedigrees is stunning, the music really rocks, and the two young leads handle themselves and the characters really well. They've got serious screen chemistry, and enough humour and warmth to lift the material. Most of the support is equally solid.
You just wish it could have stepped itself up a few more notches.
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Open Season
Game Warden Beth [no relation and voiced by Debra Messing albeit Grace-lessly] keeps a giant grizzly bear in her garage; she rescued and raised him as a cub and he now enjoys a very pampared life in Timberline. But Open Season is about to begin, attracting hunters from all over who are allowed to shoot the beejesus out of the forest for a limited time. One of these is Mean Mr Meany Shaw [Gary Sinese] with a trigger finger so itchy it must have chronic hives. Shaw pre-empts Open Season and runs over a stag, straps it on his hood, but fails to see he's still alive. Elliot, the stag [winningly voiced by Ashton Kutcher] inveigles Boog the Bear to release him, then lures him out of his safe garage into 'the outside.' When the two rip up the local mart Beth is forced to helicopter the pair high up the mountain, where they both belong. And then Open Season is declared. Normally that would mean every animal for himself, but this forest houses a veritable parable of denizens who band together to turn the tables on those who threaten them. And, of course, the bear learns that grateful though he may be to his rescue mom, his real place is in the woods. Martin Lawrence, btw, voices Boog - you know, someone should cast him as Whoopi Goldberg's son 'cause he's inherited her timing, her intonations, her wit.
Sadly neither the animation nor the script delivers a fraction of the warmth and charm of the voices. So, while it's not a bad film, it really doesn't compare with the animation genius we've become used to from the best of the genre.
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Barnyard
Faring better - though still, I suspect, not destined to become a classic is Steve Oedekerk's Barnyard. But before I get onto the film itself ... a question: When did it become acceptable to portray animated cows as male animals? What kind of trans-sexual messages is the world of animation sending out to children? Hunh?!! The cows have udders, no horns, you expect them to be cows, right? Unh-uh. Out of their mouths come male voices. The big one has an especially male voice, a very gravelly, gritty seen-it-all, been-around-the-barnyard male voice belonging to Sam Elliott. And the younger 'cow' - udders, no horns - calls him Dad, and he too has a male voice, in this case provided by Monster House star Kevin James. They play Ben and son Otis. There are a couple of female cows, namely Courtney Cox as Daisy with a bow in her 'hair' and her go-girlfriend Bessy [Wanda Sykes] but both look just like the male 'cows.' I'm going on about this anomaly because the story isn't quite distracting enough to ignore it. What, I wonder, do they think they're protecting children from to deliberatly ignore the fact that cows are the females and bulls the males. Especially since both Ben and son Otis are called upon to protect the barnyard community from attack by the most vicious band of coyotes since Duke Mantee and his boys wandered into the Petrified Forest.
There's enough wit, charm and cute characters to hold your hand through a story of adolescent coming-of-age, however tattered and tired it may be around the edges. It's Oedekerk's first animated feature and he paces it well, packs it with a score that rocks when it has to and lilts when it needs to. His barnyard is home to an engaging crew of serious party animals who let it rip whenever the farmer's away. The cgi is smooth as silk and production design works a treat whether outside under the stars, in the scrap-yard that's home to the coyotes, or the down-home barn which the animals have turned into a part-tay club supreme.
Take the kids and enjoy!
More next week, folks!
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Edited by - BaftaBaby on 11/02/2006 13:30:46 |
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turrell
"Ohhhh Ohhhh Ohhhh Ohhhh "
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Posted - 10/27/2006 : 00:28:13
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| Regarding Open Season - I thought this was pretty terrible - it was a fine way to kill 90 minutes with my two boys, but pretty bad - it was so derivative. Let's see a bunch of outcasts elect a strong sensitive outcast to be their champion and restore their freedom - featuring a loud mouthed ne-er-do-well who adds nothing but frustration to the big loveable oaf - it was called Shrek and was far better the first time. |
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Let the [BAFTA] viewings begin!
