Dame Maggie Smith, an Oldie but a Goodie

I watched The First Wives Club for the umpteenth time on cable last week. I saw the film a number of times in the late nineties, enjoying the kooky capers of a cast-off lot of revenge-seeking first wives, but this was my first viewing in the 21st century. It's a silly, good-natured comedy showcasing lots of grrl/womyn power in the female leads, with talents ranging from Diane Keaton to Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Elizabeth Berkley (loved in Saved By the Bell, Razzied in Showgirls).

I had forgotten that the unsinkable Dame Maggie Smith was featured in the movie as a wealthy New York socialite who aids the first wives in their revenge schemes against their former husbands and their mistresses, and when she appeared on screen, as spicy (and old) as always, I felt all warm and fuzzy inside.

I've loved Maggie Smith, the perpetual old lady, since I first saw her in Hook, as the extremely endearing and decrepit Wendy, all grown up and with great grand children. It wasn't until years later that I realized the makeup department must have "olded" her up a bit for that particular role - I just assumed she visited the same Fountain of Youth as Sean Connery and that was why she looked younger every year in subsequent film roles (ala the Curious Case of Dame Maggie Smith).

The other old lady roles that deepened my love of the Dame?

• Clash of the Titans (1981, as Thetis - bordering on middle aged)
  
• Sister Act (1992, as Mother Superior)
• The Secret Garden (1993, as Mrs. Medlock)
• Gosford Park (2001, as Constance Trentham)
• Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002, as Caro Eliza Bennet)

And of course, the entire Harry Potter film series, in which she plays the severe and yet infinitely lovable Professor Minerva McGonagall. Maggie took a short break from filming in 2008 while undergoing treatment for breast cancer but appears to be back in action for the sixth and seventh film installments.

What I have recently come to realize, thanks to infallible Internet sources like IMDB and Wikipedia, is that Dame Maggie Smith was not, in fact, born old (although I'm still trying to make my case for it in the Wiki user boards). She was young once upon a time, and apparently, she was a great actress back then too!

I spent an hour browsing Maggie's IMDB page and discovered lots of interesting tidbits, including the following:

Dame Maggie Smith is a two-time Academy Award winner for her roles in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969, Best Actress in a Leading Role) and California Suite (1978, Best Actress in a Supporting Role), in addition to being nominated four other times for her roles in Othello (1965), Travels With My Aunt (1972), A Room With a View (1985), and Gosford Park (2001).

Maggie appeared alongside that other fabulous Dame, Judi Dench, in several movies I need to add to my Netflix list, including A Room With a View (1985), Tea With Mussolini (1999), and Ladies in Lavender (2004).

Wikipedia also states that Maggie Smith plans to temporarily retire from acting in 30 years, after which she will be cryogenically frozen and revived in the year 3012 so that future generations will be able to continue to enjoy the Dame's performances*. How great is that? Dame Maggie Smith: perpetually old, perpetually awesome.

*These statements have not yet been verified and are still under peer review.

Twilight: Fanatics and Fangs. Minus the Fangs.

On Monday, I received an email from a desperate friend who, after seeing Twilight opening weekend, was already suffering serious Robert Pattinson-related withdrawal symptoms and the desperate need to see the film again ... 24 hours later.

I wasn't actually planning on seeing the movie. Well, that's not true. I had decided if the Rottentomatoes critics rated the film very highly (> 70%), I would dish out the $12 to see it. And if the RT critics rated it very poorly, then I would see it - drunk. But with Twilight's middling 43% rating, solidly rotten, but not quite in the "so bad it's good" territory, I wasn't going to waste my time.

And yet, I empathized with my friend's inner 12 year-old, and I was willing to suffer the film for her sake. I too had once obsessed over a tween-heartthrob (Leo DiCaprio, anyone?), fanatically seeing Titanic in theaters 4 times before I was satiated. Of course, I was actually 12 at the time.

Once again, low expectations paid off. Not only was I not disappointed, I was pleasantly surprised.

I haven't read any of Stephenie Meyer's bestselling novels. As a young adult/fantasy series aficionado, I'm embarrassed to say that I hadn't even heard of Twilight until Entertainment Weekly began writing a series of articles on the series and author this summer, around the time Breaking Dawn was published. I am not particularly fond of melodramatic romances, vampire stories, or bad writing, so I don't expect to enjoy the series, but I did buy a used paperback edition of Twilight at Strand last month. If I'm ever going to write for young adults, the least I can do is read what's already out there.

Back to the film.

"Better than it had to be" would be the six-word review. With a modest $37 million budget, a cast light on the A-listers, and with a target audience in the 12-17 year old range, it could have been a lot worse. Despite an uneven plot (jumpy in the climatic chase/final battle, while plodding in other parts), some of the scenes were downright stylish, including the vampires-playing-baseball bit, which, despite the inherent silliness, was actually a lot of fun to watch.

I found Meyer's twists on the vampire archetype interesting. Along with their love of America's favorite past time and their clear lack of fangs, vampires also come in pairs (they're like together together), and they're super sparkly in the daylight.

For me, the most unlikeable scenes were the same ones that had my friend's inner 12 year old swooning in her seat.

As deliciously swoon-worthy 12 year old girls may find Bella + Edward, their "forbidden romance" is simply in no way up to par with Buffy and Angel's from Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

While I thought Kristen Stewart did a fine job as Bella, Robert Pattinson, as Edward, was a disappointment. Pattinson's performance was very one-note; he could make broody faces, but he did little else. I wasn't convinced of his affection for Bella. Obsession, sure, but there was no real romance in his performance or his character's actions.

Thanks in large part to Stewart's appropriately understated performance (up until the end when she really started to get whiny), the romance scenes were tolerable. Edward stared, Bella sighed wistfully, and that was that. I didn't buy that the two were destined for each other and I didn't buy that their "love" was anything more than a trumped-up, melodramatic high school infatuation, just one fantastical step away from disturbing, abusive, and controlling.

When Buffy and Angel learn the hard way that their relationship is toxic (and doomed), as much as it breaks their hearts, they stay away from each other. Bella and Edward, self-absorbed and living-in-the-now, just don't have the maturity and self-respect to make that choice. And thus, their love story will always fall short.

Edit: I just found this great article by Sarah Selltzer at the Huffington Post that sums up concerns about the undercurrents of the Bella + Edward relationship.

*6/10*

Reading vs. Listening, The Debate Begins

I've often engaged in the age-old debate over the merits of literary adaptation. Which is better, the book or the movie? (akin to the equally inconclusive, which came first: the chicken or the egg?).

I most often side with the book as it is the book that inspires the movie to both recreate and reimagine a story that is (hopefully) worthy of being retold. An excellent book may become an excellent movie, but ultimately it is the film that must be selective when condensing the material, sacrificing character development and plot lines to trim the source material to a more manageable form. It is perhaps the television medium that is most suited for long form adaptation, although this medium has its own limitations, mainly in episodic structure and budget and time constraints.

Regardless of your opinion on the book vs. movie debate, here's a debate that you might not have heard before: reading vs. listening.

Shortly after seeing the adaptation of the first book in Philip Pullman's controversial His Dark Materials series, The Golden Compass (2007), I was chatting with a friend who was halfway through listening to the second book, The Subtle Knife, on his media player. He was expressing an interest in seeing the film but was concerned at the possibility of being disappointed with an adaptation that wasn't up to par with the books he was reading. It was here that another rather irate friend joined in on the conversation. She hadn't read the books or seen the movie, but she was very angry with our friend's use of the word reading when referring to a book on tape.

"You didn't read the book," she insisted, "you listened to it. It's not the same thing."

Although I hadn't thought about distinguishing reading a book from listening to that same book on tape, the differences in the experience of the text are indisputable. Even when the book on tape is unabridged and read word for word by a single narrator, the way you engage the material is fundamentally altered.

While reading, you are absorbed in the words and multitasking becomes virtually impossible. You see the words with your eyes, you engage with the layout of the text, consciously or subconsciously acknowledging the paragraph breaks, the emphasis on certain words. You can pace yourself, reading quickly or slowly, skimming ahead or back-tracking to re-read particularly eloquent or difficult passages.

Not only do you not have the freedom to determine the pacing while listening to a book, back-tracking or skimming ahead is more difficult to time accurately. You can't just flip back a page, you have to rewind to the precise moment or you're forced to re-listen to passages you didn't want to hear again. The choices made by narrators or voice actors cast in the roles of the characters limits the reader who may have heard them speak differently in her head. Most significantly, many people who choose to listen to books do so because they don't have the time to read. They listen as they drive, they listen as they do laundry or cook dinner, they listen as they are distracted from engaging exclusively in the text.

I've never listened to a book before, I enjoy the act of reading too much to find any reason to listen instead. Although I will acknowledge one benefit of listening. While reading has made me an excellent speller, I often find myself committing a faux pas when I mispronounce a name or a word newly added to my ever-expanding vocabulary. If only I had listened to the words instead.

Atoning for the Oscars

I haven't really watched the Academy Awards since The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003) swept all eleven categories it was nominated for in an unprecedented victory (and one that kind of made everyone feel bad for the other films nominated that night). Every year there's at least one movie that excites me - Finding Neverland (2004), Hotel Rwanda (2004) or Pan's Labyrinth (2006) - but these films, if even nominated in the top categories, are usually the underdogs. And usually they don't win.

Oscars, schmoscars, I say.

I probably won't bother watching the 80th Academy Awards as there were no films in 2007 that I'm really rooting for this year and it seems unlikely the underdogs will cause any upsets. Johnny Depp really doesn't have a chance of winning for Sweeney Todd (and the fantastic Helena Bonham Carter missed out on her nomination).

Of the five films nominated for best motion picture this year, there are only two that I've actually seen - Juno and Atonement. While Juno is charming and Ellen Page delivers a vulnerable and funny performance in the title role, I'm not so sure that the film is one of the top five of the year. This little indie trouper got lucky - good timing coupled with excellent word of mouth and riding high on the coattail of that other heart-warming indie film to get nominated last year, Little Miss Sunshine (2006). It will probably win best original screenplay but is unlikely to garner any of the other awards.



Atonement, on the other hand, probably will snag a few wins (original score, cinematography, and possibly even the coveted top prize). This sweeping narrative is at once an epic love story and a collection of quietly understated vignettes. While the visuals are far from muted (vivid colors abound), the film itself is subdued, made up of subtle moments that become significant, simply by being - an encounter at the fountain, a secret rendezvous in the library.

Even the war scenes are seemingly secondary moments not usually dwelled on in film. Rather than battle scenes, we are given the intermission - the parting lovers, a nurse giving comfort to an unknown soldier on his deathbed, and most staggering, a tracking shot through a beach of thousands of loitering soldiers all waiting to be shipped away to the next stage of battle and possibly to their deaths. The film's score is less subtle, penetrating the transitions relentlessly, pounding typewriter keys as the story unfolds.


Atonement ends somewhat unexpectedly with a bittersweet finale that few unfamiliar with the original source material (novel by Ian Mcewan) will see coming. It's hard to deny that the film is a rather beautiful, unique love story, but it is one that has failed to inspire me to tune in on February 24th. I'll be rooting for the film, I suppose. But only from a distance.

*8/10*

Just one question: How did the raw, Irish film Once, a love story told in song, fail to receive a nomination for best original score? That film's music really had the power to seep beneath the skin and grab a hold of the heart.

The Producer's List - Part Two

This is a continuation of The Producer's List - Part One, a bullet-point list of big and small details that might get overlooked, particularly by independent filmmakers working in major cities like NYC.

Regardless of the size of the production, there's always the chance that some important detail will be overlooked, unless the producers have their eyes open and their toilet brushes in hand, for when the on-location bathrooms are too disgusting for the cast and crew to use and the unpaid PAs are all off running errands. Suck it up, producers, and soldier on.

• A responsible film crew leaves a location in slightly better condition than the location was found. When on location, be sure to have plenty of trash bags and trash cans. Most importantly, know where the trash needs to be taken out and which days the trash is picked up, and any other trash collection restrictions that may apply.

• When shooting on location, know how much electricity is available - not just for the film lights, but for everything that might need to be plugged in. Prop lights. Heaters. Air conditioners. Fans. Battery chargers. Lights for the green room. Blow dryers. Coffee makers. Never forget the coffee makers. All the electricity in the world won't be enough if there's a shortage of outlets and extension cords.

• When shooting on location (especially in older buildings), make sure that the electricity has been properly grounded. If there's no record of the building's electrical history, have an electrician or someone qualified check out the wiring. If faulty electricity causes any of the film equipment to short circuit, most likely that will be deemed neglect by the filmmaker and insurance will not cover the loss.

• The general advice is never to feed pizza to your crew. Never say never, of course, for sometimes pizza makes excellent, quick comfort food after a long day of shooting. The most important thing to remember is balance in your catering and craft services. For every bagel, have cereal or fruit as an alternate. For every chocolate bar, have a vegetable or cheese platter. For every cup of coffee, have twice as many bottles of water. Find out in advance the dietary needs of your cast and crew. If there are any vegans or vegetarians, lactose-intolerants, diabetics, or people with severe food allergies, plan accordingly.

• Check the weather religiously before the shoot begins, and then every morning afterwards (keeping note of the weather is usually an assistant director's responsibility when preparing the call sheets). Have alternate shooting schedules if weather conditions prevent the exterior scenes from being shot first. Be prepared with plenty of tarps, umbrellas, and plastic raincoats should foul weather spring up unexpectedly.

• When shooting on weekends or in particularly isolated areas, know what's available to you and when. Most rental houses are closed on the weekend, though some may have a weekend emergency contact. Local businesses may have shorter hours or may not be open at all. Film is hard to come by on the weekends, but especially hard to find anywhere outside of the major film metropolises. Have an emergency film backup available to you or plan accordingly and don't run out.
  

• Have everyone's number stored in your phone or at least immediately on hand at all times. EVERYONE. Cast, crew, AAA, location owners, rental houses, taxi cab services, any emergency contacts other than 9-1-1, the state department, etc. You never know what may come up.
  

• Have plenty of actor release forms available and at least one person in charge of collecting signatures, from the lead actors to the background extras, to the random passersby who happened to stumble into the last shot. Do it before you have to track individuals down or resort to blurring out faces in wide shots. Make sure that all legal points are covered in the releases and that a minor has a legal guardian signing in his or her place. Don't leave any room for a lawsuit if you can help it.

Well, that's all for now. Though there's plenty more to remember, so be on the lookout for The Producer's List - Part Three!

James Marsden ... 27 Tries to Get the Girl

With the Academy Awards looming and all of the films marketing Oscar campaigns having debuted at the end of 2007 or holding off for summer blockbuster season '08, the early winter months are known for being sorely laking in quality entertainment.

27 Dresses is the latest in a series of mediocre romantic comedies to have debuted in the last two years (with Fool's Gold appearing to be the next). A cutesy premise and a charming performance from the comedically gifted Katherine Heigl (backed up by the equally likeable James Marsden and Judy Greer), couldn't save this otherwise bland installment. The notably entertaining scenes - overachieving bridesmaid Jane (Heigl) attends two weddings at once and then a few weeks later shares her closet full of nightmare bridesmaid's dresses from her past - are lost amongst the predictable blah blah blah as the film moves through the paces of an over-established formula.

While unexceptional, 27 Dresses was enjoyable enough for a little light escapism thanks of course to Heigl and Marsden. And you have to credit the casting director with one thing - after a long line of cinematic rejection, finally the funny, charismatic (and sexy) James Marsden gets his girl!





A few of his smaller films aside (Sugar and Spice, anyone?), James Marsden has never been the man the heroine falls for in the end. Instead, in his most notable roles, Marsden has been typecast as the "other guy" - he's good looking, he has his attractive qualities, but ultimately he's the one the heroine rejects when she realizes that she's really in love with her leading man. At last Marsden's luck seems to be changing, owing to the fact that he's more than just a pretty face.

Three cheers for our new favorite leading man! Katherine, don't let this one get away.


*5/10*

The Producer's List - Part One

A producer's responsibilities are many and varied, regardless of what medium they are working in, whether they are producing a film, television series, or an art exhibit. Producers must macro- and micro-manage, overseeing the big details - assembling the people, the places, the how and the when - and they must also look out for the small detail specifics, planning for every potential Murphy's Law disaster, allowing nothing to slip through the cracks along the way.

From conception to completion, a producer's responsibilities are all-encompassing.

While attending NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, majoring in film and television production with a minor in producing, I produced a number of student films. Through my varied experiences, and often thanks to trial and error, I've gathered up quite an extensive list of the dos and don'ts of independent film production, the must-not-forgets for anyone who finds themselves as the head of production on a shoot where if it can go wrong, it will go wrong. Many of these bullet points are especially paramount when producing in a big city like New York with more rules and regulations and parking tickets than item lines in the budget.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that part one of this list has to do largely with transportation concerns. Driving and parking in NYC on a normal basis is a bitch, but dealing with the needs, size, and limitations of production vehicles on top of everything else is a bloody nightmare.

• When working with oversized production vehicles, from cargo vans to 24' cube trucks, be aware of the weight, height and width restrictions on city streets, bridges, and tunnels. If your vehicle is 12' tall, you need an alternate route not involving the 11' high tunnel. Do the math.
  

• Keep a list of all of the parking lots or garages able to accommodate your vehicle and know their hours of operation and restrictions. Be sure to make reservations in advance if the lots are likely to fill up fast. Have plenty of cash on hand - parking is often more costly than the vehicle rental.
  

• In NYC, commercial vehicles are not allowed to park on residential streets overnight. As far as parking tickets are concerned, a vehicle is commercial if it has a commercial license plate or visible lettering on the vehicle's sides, advertising a service. Even if you rent a U-Haul truck for a personal reason, the truck is considered commercial. If your move (or movie) takes more than one day, be aware of legal parking around your residence.

• It's near-impossible to find legal street-side parking for a compact car in Manhattan, much less legal parking for production vehicles. It's a good idea to pad your production vehicle budget to account for the price of parking and gas - but also the expense of parking tickets. You're bound to get at least one. Those meter maids are merciless.

• Map Quest driving directions are misleading, especially estimates for how long it actually takes to get anywhere within city limits. Always account for rush hour traffic, road construction, traffic accidents, getting lost, and finding parking. And then some.

• Leaving anything of value in production vehicles overnight or unattended is taking a big risk. Insurance won't cover theft or damage deemed to be the result of neglect (aka: leaving shit in the van), so if your equipment in stolen, you'll likely be in for more than the deductible, but for the replacement value of everything that's ended up on the underground Panasonic, Kodak, and Arri black market.
  

• While the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre, & Broadcasting can secure permits for parking and for shooting on city-owned property for your production (all you need is insurance and permission), the smaller your production, the fewer parking laws you are able to ignore and the less traffic you can interfere with - pedestrian or vehicular. Parking permits are only available for production vehicles, not for personal use.
  

Beowulf in 3-D

I went to see Beowulf in 3-D for $9 at a theater in Louisiana (about half the price of New York tickets!), and I was surprised to see that the theater had posted a sign stating that Beowulf, officially rated PG-13 by the MPAA, was not recommended for viewers under the age of 17.

PG-13 - Parents strongly cautioned

Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

According to the MPAA, there's no mention of "17" at all. I was understandably confused by this bizarre movie math formula the theater had apparently invented:

PG-13 + (3-D) x $9 = 17 (??)

Of course I will attest that while the 2-D version of Beowulf may have belonged to the realm of PG-13, watching the film in 3-D gave the intensity of the violence a whole other dimension - pun intended. Although the third dimension is nothing more than an optical illusion, it is an illusion that amplifies the immediacy of the violence, allowing the action sequences to pack more of a visceral punch. The monster Grendel is particularly terrifying; his presence in the opening sequence is not only powerful in surround sound, but overwhelming in surround visuals. The fact that Grendel's attack on Heorot happens while our eyes are still trying to adjust to the new visual information only adds to its success. The other major battles were less intense, owing to the sometimes cartoonish animation, especially when the scenes were well-lit.

*NOTE* The 3-D amplifies more than just the violence - the mostly naked bodies of Anthony Hopkins, Angelina Jolie, and Ray Winstone (in varying degrees of hotness) are amplified here as well and several scenes may prove to be blush-worthy.


Beowulf worked well in 3-D, unfolding as an epic tale almost come to life. Although a few scenes were blatantly created to send the audience on a cheesy 3-D romp without furthering the story (i.e.: a rat climbs up to the roof of Hrothgar's hall where it is attacked by a hawk which carries its prey across the snow-covered land), for the most part the 3-D worked with the story, rather than against. I'm not sure I can say the same about the use of the motion capture CGI.

While I think that animation techniques applied to live-action performances work for trippy Linklater films like Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly (rotoscoping) or adaptations of illustrated children's literature such as Zemeckis' The Polar Express, it feels out of place in the epic Beowulf. With a cast featuring the likes of Hopkins, Winstone, Jolie, John Malkovich (isn't he animated enough already?), and Robin Wright Penn, and with the efforts to bring audiences closer to the story in 3-D, why distance us further from the performances with CGI?


There have been improvements in the technology over the last few years, but motion capture and CGI still fail on many points. The characters' eyes, especially Penn's and Hopkins' baby blues look hollow and unfocused, and not just because Hrothgar (Hopkins) is drunk most of the time. In the scenes that were more darkly lit - Grendel's attack, and Beowulf's encounter with the luscious, nude Jolie-demon - the CGI looked very realistic, almost as though the actors were really standing there, without the layer of animation and motion capture blue suits getting in the way. Other scenes were more cartoonish, distracting from the story, and ultimately making me wish that I was watching a "real" Anthony Hopkins stumbling around his meat hall inebriated, even if it means seeing his "real" naked rear-end in 3-D.

*5/10*

Juno, Classic Indie Charmer

Like Napoleon Dynamite in 2004 and Little Miss Sunshine in 2006, Juno (2007) is the little independent film that could, chugging up from oblivion and into the hearts of millions of movie goers across the nation. In classic indie fashion, Juno's slice of (slightly surreal) life is filled with quirky characters, off-beat dialogue, and a 1:1 ratio of pop culture references to minute of film.

It's impressive that an indie film about a pregnant teenager who decides to give her baby up for adoption has managed to garner major attention via word of mouth and critical acclaim, racking up a total of four Academy Award nominations (a tie with Little Miss Sunshine in 2007) - Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. How did this film, and others like it, manage to sneak past the Hollywood blockbusters and billion-dollar film franchises to infiltrate popular culture and eventually, DVD collections everywhere?

It's fun to root for the underdog, especially when the underdog is funny and charming.

In the title role, Ellen Page is a classic indie heroine: a witty fast-talker (ala Gilmore Girls), oozing with conviction, and so overflowing with cutesy colloquial slang that you're sure she's likely to burst, and not just from the baby. Yet even as she's smugly pimped out on the lawn of her would-be boyfriend, reclining in an arm chair with a pipe in hand, Page reveals Juno's vulnerability as she falters, unsure what to do and say next. She may be clever and she may be cocky, but she's just as three-dimensional as the rest of us - overwhelmed and insecure; a teenage girl who doesn't know who the hell she really is.

As a film, Juno is fairly down to earth, sticking to the feel-good comedy genre and shying away from the potential melodramatic plot lines that run amuck in most Hollywood/Lifetime "My Baby is Having a Baby" productions. The supporting cast is strong, with plenty of laughs to go around, although Ellen Page is the real standout. Some of the colloquial slang and euphemisms are fun, but Juno and her best friend Leah drop so many of them in "casual" conversation that it can be overwhelming. No real teenager talks like that all the time, no matter who they are trying to impress.

The film's most underplayed relationship, and perhaps one most deserving of recognition, is Juno and Leah's friendship. Leah is there for Juno from the beginning, acting as her confidant, passing no judgment, and supporting her through school lunches, ultrasounds, and the birth. High school can be especially hard for teenage girls (pregnant or not), and it's refreshing to see a character who actually does stick up for her best friend, despite the established peer rejection and Juno's pariah status. While Juno may be lucky to get her guy in the end, she's just as lucky to have a friend she can rely on, through pregnancy and beyond.

*8/10*

Sweeney Todd: The Singing Barber of Fleet Street

There's only one two words that can really describe Tim Burton's film adaptation of Sweeney Todd (a musical by Stephen Sondheim): relentlessly intense.

Bloody good would be appropriate as well, but only if you are in a punning mood.

I've been a fan of Sondheim since I first discovered Into the Woods my sophomore year of high school. I was introduced to Sweeney Todd four years later at a university performance, and while it was staged well with unexpected twists, the musical failed to really work its way into my subconscious. It wasn't until two years later when I saw Burton's adaptation that I really got hooked.

Sondheim is not know for his toe-tapping sing-a-longs, rather he is revered for his brilliant, tongue-twisting lyrics that mix comedy with tragedy and (often quirky) life lessons. I suppose you could say that Sondheim is the Tim Burton of the theatre world. His compositions work for you, or they don't, but it's hard to deny that they have their own unique sort of charm.


From the opening frame of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, it is clear that we are in classic Burton-land once again. The production design is gothic, the colors muted, the style dark and outlandish, yet still strangely beautiful. As the opening credits roll and an animated rich, slurpy blood runs down from the barber shop, through a series of mechanics to the basement where Sweeney's victims are turned into pies, it is reminiscent of the chocolate factory opening credits of Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ... only less delicious.

The film follows barber Sweeney Todd (formerly Benjamin Barker) who has returned to London with a vengeance, fifteen years after being wrongly transported by a corrupt judge. In his sixth collaboration with Burton, Johnny Depp once again plays a pale, crazy-haired man with an attachment to sharp, pointy objects, although unlike Edward Scissorhands, Sweeney Todd's attachment to his razor blades is emotional, rather than physical. They are, as he states in one song, his only friends.


Depp can sing, yes he can, and he growls his passionate lyrics with a deep, unsettling hatred. While Sweeney is a monstrously unsympathetic man, very different from the innocent Edward or the swashbuckling, morally grey Jack Sparrow, by the startling climax, you may find yourself sympathizing for the barber, despite the fact that he has brutally murdered countless people, and most of them for no good reason at all. Depp is just that kind of brilliant.

In a performance equally as riveting is Helena Bonham Carter, crazy haired, and oozing with sensuality. On the stage, Mrs. Lovett, the pie shop owner who ingeniously schemes a way of getting rid of the bodies of Sweeney's victims, has traditionally been played by an older, enthusiastic woman, who serves as the comic relief of the musical (Angela Lansbury in the original cast, if that tells you anything).


While the film adaptation is not completely devoid of comedy, it is considerably darker than the stage version, and most of that has to do with Burton's decision to make Sweeney Todd as gritty and gory as possible. When blood splurts in gushing waves from slashed throats on the big screen (15 feet high?), we are not afforded the buffer of distance from the stage and the limitations of special effects to make the throat slashings less traumatic. Burton exploits this, making each murder as bloody and gruesome and immediate as possible. The cherry red blood may be unrealistic, but the violence is undeniably disturbing.

Carter was the right choice for a darker Mrs. Lovett, whose affection for Sweeney Todd borders on obsession. Despite the horrors that she commits in her own kitchen, Mrs. Lovett is sympathetic, yearning for affection, and beautiful in a Burton-esq way (with a lovely singing voice to match). There's excellent chemistry between Depp and Carter, and it's not hard to imagine that, were Sweeney Todd a different kind of film, the two might really have ended up happily ever after, by the seaside (oh oh), by the beautiful sea.

Warning: this is not that kind of film.

Lyrics for life:

There's a hole in the world like a great black pit
And it's filled with people who are filled with shit
And the vermin of the world inhabit it
And it goes by the name of (insert your city here)

Don't Forget to admire Academy Award winner Colleen Atwood's (Chicago, Memoirs of a Geisha) colorful costume designs in the dreamy "By the Sea" sequence. The costumes are some of the only bright colors in the entire film, other than the blood.

Worth Seeing Again?: The film is even more entertaining (and funnier) the second time around.

*8/10*

The Golden Compass (Well, I Still Liked It)

*I won't be going into the controversy surrounding this film and the very excellent trilogy that inspired it, as that would make this a very, very long post, and I am just too tired to write that much now. Maybe later.*

** Side note: I read the His Dark Materials trilogy for the first time in 2001. I loved the first two books so much that I rushed to buy the third book shortly after publication, although I was unable to find the series cover that matched the first two books. A year later, I found the cover I was looking for and bought The Amber Spyglass - for the second time - so it would match my first two books. Yes, I do that sometimes. **

Ever since moving to New York, and ever since a single ticket to the movies soared past the $11.50 mark, I have become more discerning when it comes to the movies I see in the theater. $24 for two people? *dies* If it's not a must-see, I might as well just wait till it comes out on DVD and buy it for the same price.

Rottentomatoes.com has become my go-to site for determining whether or not a movie is worth my time. If the "freshness" rating is high enough, I'll browse around the critic quotes and then decide if I want to spend the money, or if I want to wait a few months and Netflix it. I had been looking forward to The Golden Compass all year, and I was disappointed to see that the film was only averaging a 44% approval rating, although that was not enough to sway me from seeing it opening night - just enough to keep me from re-reading the books before hand. I wanted to approach the film as a stand-alone story, without comparing every frame and every line of dialogue to a superior book that is still fresh in my mind.


The Golden Compass is not, by any means, a cinematic masterpiece, but it is a VERY beautiful film to watch, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Of course, I went in with fairly low expectations, which was great, because I wasn't disappointed. Nothing is more upsetting than being super excited about a film, and then being let down by what you ultimately end up watching, especially if there's a lot of hype about it being the best movie of the year (or the best movie ever made ever, depending on how outrageous the marketing scheme). This post is already getting too long, so I'll sum up my opinion with some handy bullet points (and pictures!)

• The film is not flawless by any means, but it could be worse. As far as epic fantasy films go, His Dark Materials is a tough series to tackle, especially when compared to the fairly straight-forward Lord of the Rings - sure there's a race of little people, Elves, and Dwarfs, and then there's the whole super-powerful ring, but all of this can be summed up very easily in the opening prologue. His Dark Materials, on the other hand, has people with souls in the forms of animal companions, a race of armored polar bears, sentient particles of Dust, and parallel universes on top of parallel universes. Try summing that up in a paragraph! Never mind that I just did.

• The heaviness of the material (hello, religious controversy) was toned down to court the masses, as a $180 million Hollywood blockbuster always will, but the central message was retained, if in a somewhat diluted form. There is still hope if the film is successful enough to warrant the production of the sequels as the director, Chris Weitz, has every intention of getting as much out of the next two books as he can. If The Golden Compass is enough of a success, he may be given free reign to explore the ultimately much darker and much more controversial sequels. And then there's always the director's cut, extended DVD to look forward to.

• Which brings me to my next point: The theatrical release of the film is too short. It could have done well with a full three-hours (or at least two and a half), so that there would have been time for actual character development. Instead, all we get is a name and a vague reference to race and/or place in society being thrown around whenever someone new pops up on screen. It doesn't help that most of the names are complex and foreign (and technically two names per character, if you count their daemons). I'll give the film a break here for a couple of reasons. 1. Nothing really happened in the first movie that was hinging on emotional attachment to the characters, unless you count the much-hyped polar bear wrestling match. 2. The (theoretical) sequels offer much, much more room for character development. Don't let Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Sam Elliot, and even Kathy Bates (yeah, she was in the movie too) go to waste!

• Although most of the film is well-paced, there are several bits thrown in at random and scenes that were so rushed they required lots and lots of exposition to explain what was going on, as there was (apparently) no time to actually ACT IT OUT. The filmmakers, fortunately, discovered the perfect way of doing this. In the film's world, daemons exist so that they can be confused and question the characters, who then have the opportunity to explain what is going on, for the audience's benefit. This makes the daemons seem redundant. Apparently souls are not terribly bright independent thinkers, and the filmmakers don't think we are either.
  

• This film is not a stand-alone story and most likely couldn't have been, regardless of how it was adapted. A twist-ending (and a major cliff hanger) were pushed to the (theoretical) second film, and to compensate for this, a lengthy monologue by the heroine was added to the end of the film, for the sole purpose of getting us excited about the next chapter of this epic fantasy saga. Lyra literally announces everything that she plans on doing in the next movie - from seeking out her uncle (ah, so Bond will be back) to discovering what Dust is (yes, what IS Dust?), to her desire to explore the parallel universes she now knows exist.

Wow, that sounds like lots of fun! Wouldn't it be great if we could all go along for the ride? Of course, all of this speculation is dependent on there actually BEING a second movie. The intent of the "let's sum up what happens next" final monologue was so transparent it was an unintentionally funny and annoying way to wrap it all up. In case it wasn't clear that there needs to be a sequel ... now the audience knows for sure.

But you know, I still liked it.

And I'll be re-reading the series now.

*6/10*

Enchanted ... Could've Been Even More So

If Enchanted hadn't gotten such unanimously rave reviews from critics, I probably wouldn't have dropped $12 to see it last weekend. From the previews, the premise definitely seemed to have potential (animated princess becomes REAL princess, lost in NYC), although the story looked pretty standard, likely to fall within the "mediocre" range of a lot of Disney animated/family films post-The Lion King.



But see it I did, and the critics were definitely right on one point - Amy Adams truly is enchanting as Princess Giselle, a moderate update on the classic Disney Princess. It's really impossible not to like her, with her wide eyes, her innocent curiosity, and her classic Disney demureness and spunk. She's not the first "princess" to step up as a stronger, less-damsel in distress stereotype (Mulan and Fiona from Dreamwork's Shrek being two prominent examples), and she won't be the last. James Marsden as Prince Edward is the other standout in the cast, showing his comedic chops as the dim, but heroic Edward. Marsden manages to be extremely likable, even when it's obvious early on that he's not the right one for Giselle, 'cause he's not nearly as McDreamy as Patrick Dempsey's Robert.

Despite the enjoyable performances, it's the "obvious" that ends up being Enchanted's greatest flaw. Aside from the hilariously irreverent musical sequences which parodied how easily Disney princes and "princesses" fall in love ("True Love's Kiss") and the importance of singing a happy song while rodents help you clean up ("Happy Working Song"), the story played out very traditionally, with fewer surprises and less satire than I was hoping for.

The filmmakers missed the opportunity to create a memorable new villain, as Susan Sarandon's Queen Narissa looks like the evil queen from Sleeping Beauty and acts like the evil queen from Snow White, without an original scheme to her name, other than tossing wannabe princesses down wells. The ending climax when Narissa makes her ultimate appearance in NYC, determined to keep Giselle from her stepson Edward at any cost, should have been the most thrilling part of the film. Instead it plays out like an old fairy tale we've seen a hundred times, with no real twists and nothing new added to the genre. As a parody, Enchanted is just not up to par with the first Shrek film.

Enchanted was also lacking in character development, with Giselle's transformation to real woman feeling somewhat abrupt, even as she has the majority of the film to develop and grow. The side characters, Robert's fiancé Nancy, Robert's fairy tale-loving daughter Morgan, and the vermin-hating, evil-queen loving Nathanial, are sacrificed to the central story. Although the side plots ultimately play out as they should, another half-an-hour of character development could have made this film, and those characters, a much more memorable experience.

Final consensus: Enjoyable, good-spirited fluff for the romantics at heart, but ultimately failing to bring anything new to the genre.

Don't forget to: Download the songs to your music player and sing your own happy working song while cleaning house. If it worked for Giselle, it just might work for you.

Just one question: Why isn't the fantastically Wicked Idina Menzel singing in THIS Disney musical?

*7/10*