Holiday Season Cinema Roundup 2012 Part 2

Continuing Film Babble Blog's end of the year roundup (check out Part 1 here), we now take a look at several more movies currently playing this holiday season:

LES MISÉRABLES (Dir. Tom Hooper) 

I was surprised at how many of the songs that I was familiar with in this adaptation of the wildly popular musical based on the 1862 Victor Hugo novel. I had forgotten that a long time ago an ex-girlfriend had the CD set of the Original Broadway Cast Recording from the late '80s, so much of it came flooding back as the film unfolded on the screen.



As my memories and the movie coalesced, I took in this French revolution era tale about Hugh Jackman as an escaped convict, who after becoming mayor of a small town, agrees to take care of deceased factory worker Anne Hathaway’s daughter (played by Isabelle Allen as a child; Amanda Seyfried as an adult). As sleazy innkeepers, Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron-Cohen bring on the bawdy and steal the movie whenever they appear.

Jackman, Hathaway, and Seyfried, who all sing their parts live, are in fine voice, but Russell Crowe, as a ruthless policeman who’s hunting Jackman, has a rough warble that can be painful to endure - especially when the songs go on and on, which they often do. Hooper’s epic production, which clocks in at 157 minutes, wonderfully wallows in the muck of its dark, grotesque imagery, but its messiness can be overwhelming at times. Folks who aren’t fans of the musical, or musicals in general, will find it hard to take, but for the most part, I took it just fine.

JACK REACHER (Dir. Christopher McQuarrie) 

Looks like Tom Cruise wants another franchise as this is an adaptation of one of seventeen in a series of novels by Lee Child. This action thriller formula is competently constructed, but its story - Cruise as an ex-army military police investigator tries to get to the bottom of a case involving a trained military sniper who shot five random people - isn't very compelling. 

Some excitement is there in a few set-pieces, but its climax containing a shoot-out at a construction site, only hammers home how routine a genre exercise it is. Still, Cruise fans should love it as he makes a convincing unshakable badass, and Werner Herzog makes a great villain. Read my full review here.



THIS IS 40 (Dir. Judd Apatow)

Judd Apatow’s glorified home movie is his third film to feature his wife (Leslie Mann) and kids (daughters Maude and Iris), so you know he thinks they’re funny. To his credit, for a lot of its running time (another long one at 134 min) they are funny, but this is a big sloppy comic drama with too many storylines that never really get resolved. Paul Rudd and Mann, reprising their married couple roles from KNOCKED UP, have good chemistry together, and Albert Brooks, as Rudd’s father dealing with new triplets, is highly amusing, so there’s enough here to satisfy most comedy fans. Folks who aren’t fans of heavy amounts of profanity, or Apatow’s brand of man-boy humor in general may want to skip it however. Read my full review.



ANNA KARENINA 

(Dir. Joe Wright) 



Leo Tolstoy's 1868 novel has been adapted many many times, but Wright, in the third of his “literary trilogy” with Keira Knightly, has a meta take on the material involving setting the late 19th-century Russian story in a lavish old theater that evolves within the production into whatever backdrop is needed. Knightly, as the title character, works around the ropes, pulleys, curtains, footlights, and appropriate props, to portray a virtuous woman in a loveless marriage to an imperial minister (a balding, bearded, and quite boring Jude Law) who has an affair with Aaron Taylor-Johnson as a dashing cavalry officer. It can get a bit strained at times in its second half, but Wright's inventive reworking of the well worn material makes it recommendable. Read my full review here.


Well, that's it for this not bad Holiday season. By the way, I appeared on a Special Christmas Edition of fellow Raleigh, N.C. based critic Craig D. Lindsey's podcast Muhf***as I Know last week. We recorded a commentary (of sorts) for what Craig calls “one of the shittiest sex comedies ever made: THE HAPPY HOOKER GOES TO HOLLYWOOD (1980). The movie is available on Netflix Instant, so queue it up, go here, and listen to us babble all over it.

More later...

ANNA KARENINA: The Film Babble Blog Review

   

Now showing in the Triangle area at the Rialto Theatre in Raleigh, at the Chelsea Theater in Chapel Hill, and in Durham at the Carolina Theatre:

ANNA KARENINA (Dir. Joe Wright, 2012)

I have to say upfront that I am “Anna Karenina”-illerate. 



I have never read Leo Tolstoy’s 1868 novel, nor have I seen any of the 1,056 TV and movie adaptations (I think this is an accurate number; I’m too lazy to confirm it on IMDb or Wikipedia). All I knew going in was the basic premise, and that this is the third in director Wright and Keira Knightly’s “literary trilogy” (previous installments were 2005’s PRIDE AND PREDJUDICE, and 2007’s ATONEMENT).

Wright’s new adaptation of ANNA KARENINA largely sets the tale of a love triangle that ripples through Moscow’s high society in a lavish old theater that evolves within the production into whatever backdrop is needed. The effect is mesmerizing in the choreography of the players, and the camera work that includes several stunning unbroken shots - at least I think they were unbroken, some cuts may have been invisible to my eye.

So Keira Knight, as the title character, works around the ropes, pulleys, curtains, footlights, and appropriate props, to portray a virtuous woman in a loveless marriage to Count Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin (a balding, bearded, and quite boring Jude Law). Knight meets Aaron Taylor-Johnson (KICK ASS, John Lennon in NOWHERE BOY) as the dashing Count Vronsky, and they begin an affair together.

In a secondary storyline, Domhnall Gleeson as Konstantin Levin, retreats to working along with the peasants after his marriage proposal was rejected by the young blond beauty Kitty (Alicia Vikander), who gets involved with Taylor-Johnson. You see, it’s complicated.

Obviously, since this is a 2 hour and 10 minute adaptation (written by legendary screenwriter/playwright Tom Stoppard), of a 864 page book, the movie has to gloss over a lot of story details, but the last half of the film got a bit too jumbled for me narratively. It was also got harder and harder to be immersed in these people’s lives, as Knightly goes a bit over the top at times, Law is overly-passionless, and Taylor-Johnson’s pretty boy pose mostly just blends into the scenery.

However, overall the film casts a pleasing spell with its intriguing theatrical framework even though that concept gets dropped for a bit in the middle of film. A ballroom dance sequence is one of the most striking, though I’d be hard pressed to name that arm movement dance they’re doing. Background dancing couples freeze as the principals pass, with the exquisite choreography by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui again coming into play. It’s an incredibly inventive way to tackle one of the most standard scenes in all of historical romance drama.

A horse race scene comes close, but I’m not even going to try to describe how they pull that off.

Maybe if I was as in love with the aching close-ups of Knightly as cinematographer Seamus McGarvey’s camera is, I would be into the poetry of these people’s plight, but really caring about how this woman is shunned by the aristocracy was really beyond me. 

Still, ANNA KARENINA has considerable merits, and folks who have a history with this material will surely get a lot out of it. It does make me want to read the book, and maybe check out another adaptation (I hear the 2000 miniseries is good), so I consider it a success for introducing me to one of Tolstoy’s most loved works, and for its meta theatrical take on this oft-told tale.

More later...

Ledger’s Last Film: Good But Not Great Gilliam

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS 


(Dir. Terry Gilliam, 2009)

Terry Gilliam is infamous for problems plaguing (and sometimes halting) many of the productions of his fantastically far-fetched films, but as I'm sure folks reading this well know, none have been hit harder than this one. The untimely death of Heath Ledger midway through shooting threatened to squash the project, but Gilliam came up with a solution to cast three of Ledger’s acting peers to fill in for his remaining scenes.

It helps the conceit that in the story Ledger’s character steps through a magic mirror into another world in which he could be somewhat plausibly changed into another person. It also helps that the 3 actors filling in just happen to be very big names in the business: Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell.

Given these circumstances, the finished film works better than it has a right to. Working with a much lower budget than before, Gilliam knows how to draw an audience in to a strange setting, one that’s familiar to fans with its ratty stage folk and tall tales that just might be true. 

In the title role, Christopher Plummer, made to look ten times scragglier than usual, leads a group of show folks making their way around modern day London in a make-shift stage vehicle. The group is made up of the Doctor’s daughter (Lily Cole), a clever but neurotic magician (Andrew Garfield), and an out-spoken dwarf (Verne Troyer) who has many of the films best lines.

Plummer tells his daughter (and us) his bizarre back story (well, bizarre if you’ve never seen a Gilliam film before) involving a deal with the Devil (a terrific Tom Waits) and the darkening of his visions. When crossing a bridge in the middle of the night the traveling troupe comes across Ledger hanging from a noose. They get him down and find he’s still alive. 

When he comes to the next day he asks where he is. Troyer answers: “Geographically, in the Northern Hemisphere. Socially, on the margins. Narratively, with some way to go.”

Ledger has no memory of his life before his suicide attempt so he joins the Imaginarium players, soon making changes to their set and presentation. A crumbled newspaper page blowing around the rubble of the seedy dank underworld they call home reminds Ledger of his shady background, but he continues to go along with the troupe especially after learning that the Doctor’s Imaginarium is no scam.

The film beautifully builds up to when Ledger first goes through the mirror and the transition to Johnny Depp is successfully smooth. Depp has the briefest bit of the guest replacement actors, but makes the most of it with his patented eyebrow exercises and dance moves. 

Jude Law and Colin Farrell are well suited for the smarmy greedy parts of Ledger’s personality that emerge in further mirror excursions if indeed that’s what they were supposed to symbolize.

Such errant elements in the second half don’t gel well and key plot points are muddled or clumsily glossed over, but that Gilliam was able to complete this film to as coherent as it is makes up for a great deal of defects.

THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN is the closest relative IMAGINARIUM has in Gilliam’s canon. 

Both deal with wizened old men spinning legends out of their outrageous realities; performing their fables on the sideshow circuit, laying in wait for fortune or death - or both. IMAGINARIUM has a much lower budget that MUNCHAUSEN, yet it benefits from less aesthetic indulgence and its smaller scale gives it more intimacy.

It’s far from Gilliam’s best movie, and it’s far from Ledger’s best performance, but as a salvaged final project, I’m glad THE IMAGINARIUM exists. 

It’s a mixed bag of a movie (and may still have been had Ledger lived), but it’s a still a fairly fun film and a fitting tribute. At the end we are told that this is “A film from Heath Ledger and friends.” I know it's lame to say that 'it's the thought that counts', but dammit - it counts the most here.

More later…

High Concept Holmes

SHERLOCK HOLMES
(Dir. Guy Ritchie, 2009)

The recreation of the career of Robert Downey Jr. as a bankable action hero continues with this expensive explosive epic that re-casts Arthur Conan Doyle's classic character as, well, a bankable action hero.

It's a conceit that works grandly for considerable chunks of Guy Ritchie's period production, but an unfortunate feeling remains that such a literary icon as Sherlock Holmes shouldn't be shoehorned into James Bondian conventions or Indiana Jones-ish set-piece progressions.
The thinking behind this is understandable (or elementary) - who wants to see stiff sitting room scenes filled with exposition? Audiences want high octane action and that's what they're going to get here. Holmes was a martial arts master in Doyle's books and short stories so that's an element Ritchie and Downey Jr. run with. Through stylized breakdowns of his fighting strategies we get into Holmes' head blow by blow. However the attempts to get into his head clue by clue are less successful. 



The movie begins with Holmes and trusty sidekick Watson (Jude Law) preventing a human sacrifice by the dark treacherous Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong). Though Blackwood is jailed and sentenced to death, he still inspires fear with threatening prophecies of terror that he'll orchestrate from beyond the grave. 



Three days after he's hanged and pronounced dead by Watson, he appears to have torn through the walls of his tomb and is back among the living. 



Holmes is, of course, back on his trail with distractions such as Rachel McAdams as the infamous Irene Adler and Watson's bromance blocking bride to be (Kelly Reilly) muddying up the waters. Muddy is apt for it's a muddled mess of a mystery - a fast paced muddle, but a muddle all the same. 



For most moviegoers it won't matter as there is fun to be had with Downey Jr.'s almost contagious satisfied smirk of a performance. His accent is much the same as it was in CHAPLIN (that is - not very convincing but still adequate) and his jovial demeanor does much to carry the film through dark passages dealing with black magic and a perplexing plot to overthrow Parliament. 



Law doesn't make much of an impression as he just seems to be along for the ride and his fiancée subplot could be dropped completely with no complaints. Strong's steely faced Blackwood is a worthy adversary, but his evil plans fail to fascinate making the murky mechanics of the third act bog down the proceedings. 



Its ending obviously broadcasts that SHERLOCK HOLMES wants to be the first of a franchise, club sandwiched between IRONMAN efforts, primed for event movie seasons but I pray that it's a one off. 



Downey Jr. is one of the most capable and interesting actors working today, but I fear his hipster appeal will make for major miscasting in future famous icon reboots: Robert Downey Jr. as Tarzan/The Shadow/Buck Rogers/etc. Maybe I'm being too cynical, but as much as I enjoyed particular parts of this film and would like to write it off as pure escapism, I couldn't quite escape the notion that it's a glorified waste.



More later...