Movie Review #2: Superman Returns
We are in an interesting era. No one has really talked about this, but it should be said. “We are in the Golden Age of Comic Book Movies”. In the comics, certain events, catalysts or a specific comic book ushered in a new era of comics. It’s widely held that Action Comics ushered in the Golden Age of Comic Books. This comic was printed in 1938. So how can movies be so far behind? Well, the Golden Age in comics was ushered in when comics became so hugely popular readership was measured in millions rather than thousands. I think that we can see a parallel now to movies. Never before have comic book movies been so popular, been done so well or earned so much. One bad movie doesn’t spell the death of future attempts – it just makes you try harder next time.
Look at the recent glut of comic book movies. X-Men, Batman, Hellboy, Sin City, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and more. Sure, before this glut we had lame attempts at Spider-Man, Superman, Hulk, Captain America, even Fantastic Four either on film or TV. Before that we had the serials of Batman and Superman. However, we have not had anything like the films today. Why all this babbling about the movies? Well, I think that Superman Returns is going to have the same impact on comic book movies as Action Comics #1 did on comic books. This movie represents the pinnacle of comics on film. I don’t know how it can get any better than this.
This movie works in so many ways that director Byran Singer needs to share his secrets with any other filmmaker that dares attempt a comic movie. For some reason he just gets it, so much more than anyone else. He knows how to pay homage to previous versions, to the fans, to the general public and to comic book geeks. Keep your eyes peeled for the “Action Comic #1″ moment in the film.
Singer isn’t redoing another origin story. He knows we all know where Superman came from so his story isn’t re-told. Rather he takes a very bold approach and re-adapts or integrates his story into the previous movies, that being Richard Donner’s Superman 1 and 2. He uses many of his similar designs, like the spaceship and the Fortress of Solitude and incorporates them into his vision. Subtle nods to the Donner films are present here, like Lois asking how many letters in a word, Clark’s use of the word “Swell” the smoking scene and of course the music. Using John Williams’ original score in certain places was a brilliant idea. Williams’ score is Superman and trying to remake that would have been fool hardy.
This movie does a nice job of dancing around the large gap of time between Superman 2 and Superman Returns. “You act like you’ve been here before” are words said to Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) who was in the Fortress of Solitude before as Gene Hackman in Superman 2. There are bridges all throughout the movie and it’s nice, especially if you are a fan of the Donner films.
The tag line for the first 1978 film was “You’ll believe a man can fly” because the effects were so cutting-edge in 1978 you did believe. Well, as you can imagine, the effects have gotten a little bit better and the results are friggin’ jaw dropping. Everything that Superman does is so believable and not just flight. The x-ray effects, super-hearing, heat vision… Everything looked so well done.
Including the cast. I have to start off with Kevin Spacey because looking at the trailer I thought he was going to play it way over the top and be unbearable. That isn’t the case. He actually plays it smart and controlled. He emphasizes the use of his brain and smarts and his grand scheme. His grand scheme is grand and it’s a worthy scheme of a great villain. Too many times we see bad guys that just don’t have the knack for evil genius like Lex Luthor does. Take over the world? Been there done that like a thousand times. Money? Who needs money. It’s a means, but not the end. No, Kevin’s Lex, like Gene’s Lex is interested in real estate, and that’s all I can really say about that. Except an “Ottis-berg” comment would have been funny and a nice touch.
Kate Boswerth made a good Lois, but I don’t know about a great Lois. She seemed too… well… when she fainted, that just didn’t seem like Lois to me. Other than that, she had a great knack for getting into trouble. Kate didn’t jump out at me as Lois Lane. She had her moments, but there just weren’t enough of them. For Lois it was all about getting the story regardless of anything else. Gwyneth Paltrow’s Polly Perkins in Sky Captain was a classic Lois Lane clone and I was hoping that Kate would be able to channel a bit more Lois into her. I’m not saying she was bad. She just wasn’t as good as everyone else.
Which brings me to Brandon Routh. So much is riding on him and his performance. He is going to be compared to the late Christopher Reeve. He is going to be judged on how he plays Superman and Clark Kent. He is an unknown. Or at least he was. Can he pull of what Reeve did and step into one of the most signature characters of all time and be any good? Yes. Yes he can. I’m not sure what psychic Routh visited to get the spirit of Reeve but whatever he did he needs to keep doing it. He reminded me of Reeve without being a poor copycat or a bad imitation. He lookes like Reeve a bit and that helps. But he was able to bring a familiarity to the role of Clark and Superman that let you enjoy what he was doing and be reminded of what Reeve did. No small feat. His “Goodnight Lois” was perfect. His Clark mannerisms were perfect. And his flying was, well… perfect. Routh makes a great Superman and Clark. Some of his Superman lines were a little off. They didn’t carry the weight properly, but that’s just nitpicking. My biggest complaint? The color of the cape, but again that’s just nitpicking. Actually I really wished that Superman gave another person a Kryptonian name. When you see the part you’ll know. That would have been just perfect.
You might think its odd that Clark Kent and Superman are both gone for several years and both return at the same time. I’m sure that it’s the hardest thing that the writers had to overcome and it was played with nicely. Lois has a six year old kid and from his point of view looking up at Clark with the TV monitor behind him he sees that Superman is Clark and he is the only one to notice and it plays for a nice laugh with the kids asthma. Richard White (James Marsden) tries to draw the connection but laughs it off with Lois. I really feel bad for James Marsden. He seems like a nice guy. If its not Wolverine stealing his girl its Superman. How does a guy compete with that?
This movie was a huge risk. I think it has been in development hell for years and years. It passed through many directors’ hands like McG, Tim Burton and Brett Ratner before it came to Bryan Singer. It seems these days if you want a comic book movie done right you have to get Singer to pull it off. I’m glad he didn’t do X-Men 3. If he had committed to that then he wouldn’t have done this, and I wouldn’t want anyone else touching this masterpiece. (9 out of 10)
Movie Review #2: Batman Begins
Usually when a franchise goes bad, like Superman (c’mon, Superman 4 Quest for Peace was really bad!) the owners of the franchise stick their head in the sand and don’t come out until a generation or so has passed and then do they try to re-launch their character. It was 1987 when we last saw the Man of Steel. Finally in 2006 he is going to make a return. That’s a whopping 19 years later. Why is this relevant? This is a Batman review right? Well, someone over at DC comics must have lost their slide rule, because it’s only been a paltry 8 years since the last time the caped crusader was on film.
Batman, however, has always seemed to be at an arms-reach of his fans. He had an excellent run on TV with The Animated Series, popped up again in Batman Beyond and is a regular on Justice League and Ultimate Justice League, and again is on his own show in The Batman. I won’t even mention the animated moves. So this begs the question “WHY do we need a new Batman movie???”
Well, the answer is obvious… We don’t. Not unless it’s going to be done right. Not unless it is going to honor the fans that have spent decades reading his stories. Not unless they are going to treat it seriously. Not unless they are going to make it dark, gritty and real. Guess what? They did.
Maybe they were inspired by Sandy Collera whose Dead End had fans scrambling and wetting their pants over what a Batman movie could be. Finally they thought, maybe someone is taking this seriously. I think DC and Warner Bros. eventually listened. They didn’t hire Collera, but they did hire Christopher Nolan of Memento fame to direct. They hired an excellent writer in David Goyer of the Blade movies to write and then, then they went out and did the unthinkable. They hired the perfect cast. No, wait. They hired THE cast. Every so often a new name would leak out. Michael Cane? NO! Oldman? WOW! Neeson? STOP! Freeman!!! OMG! Hauer. Watanabe. Wilkenson. My God, our heads were spinning. But it was the name BALE that had every fan thinking that they nailed it. This is perfect.
The movie is really, really good. Goyer, obviously is a fan of Frank Miller and seeing as how well his Sin City movie is doing, well it only stands to reason that the Miller Batman makes its way into this movie. This movie is essentially Batman: Year One by Frank Miller. There are many of the same themes and story lines involved. If you have read the comic you know what to expect. Some of the stuff is straight out of the comics. The bat flying into Wayne Manor, the device in Batman’s heel to summon a flock of bats. Falling as a boy into the eventual bat cave. I don’t want mention all of them, but it’s a nice touch to see them pay homage to the source material.
Christian Bale was a great choice for Batman, but just as important he was also a great choice for Bruce Wayne. We saw in American Psycho that he had the yuppie flair. And in Equilibrium and Reign of Fire he had action know how as well. Bale and Nolan made this Batman real. He is scary to those who should be scared of him. The scene on the fire escape where he interrogates the corrupt cop Flass is priceless. The anger emitting from Bale is so intense it’s perfect. We only see a close up of Bale with the cowl on, but he still manages to convey this ferocity and scare the crap out of Flass to get the info he wants. Then we see him in his playboy mode, carefree and aloof and it comes just as natural to him. Forget Keaton, Kilmer and Clooney. Bale is Batman.
The movie is more than just about Batman, this is actually the story of Bruce Wayne. We get the obligatory flashback scenes, but they tell us more than what everyone already knows about his parents being shot. They give us a character study, from a boy to a man. The flashbacks tell us what kind of person Bruce is, who the important influences in his life are and were, and what kind of person he is – not a perfect person, but a flawed one. We go on an existential journey with Bruce Wayne. We see him as a boy at his best in the loving care of his family, we see him at his worst when they die, but we also get to see him choose his path and go to the furthest reaches and pits of society and the Earth to learn and become more than he is. Everything he learns and is going through prepares him for becoming The Batman.
To be honest, this is a big cast with big stars. Each of them had to seriously check their egos to be in this movie. Their screen time, save for Bale was minimal, but ever so good. There are some gripes. Oldman and Watanabe weren’t used nearly enough and didn’t get to really make an impact as characters. Katie Holmes was supposed to be the weak link, and honestly she was used just right. Not too much to hate her but just right so she can have a positive impact in the movie. The rest of the supporting cast used every second they were on screen to create an impression – a great one.
I could go on and on for each character, but I won’t. I’ll try to keep this short. Morgan Freeman is an acting God. I was surprised he took on the role of Fox although I didn’t like that he became Bruce Wayne’s “Q”. But, their relationship/partnership worked. Their chemistry was great, plus it gave us a believable way to see how Bruce Wayne collects all his gizmos to use as the Batman. Between keeping up his appearance as billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne and nights as Batman – who has time to invent and build what he needs? He can’t just go to WalMart to get his “toys”. It may be with a nod and a wink that Fox gives him his equipment, but they don’t insult us either by trying to explain it all away.
The decision to have the Scarecrow as the first villain for Batman is a good one, not because Ra’s Al Ghul is in the background, but because he hadn’t been done before and he’s the perfect tier two villain for the Batman to warm up against. Ra’s is a great criminal mastermind and warrior and he always gave Batman/Bruce Wayne a run for his money although I was a little disappointed we didn’t get to see the Lazarus Pit. He was a very welcomed addition to this movie. The set up for the next villain in the next movie will have most fans very happy.
Are there gripes? Yes, of course nothing is perfect. I’m not crazy about the bat suit. I would have preferred the grey spandex and then see him explain why he needed the body amour instead. The batmobile is what Miller envisioned, but I still like the sleek and fast car of the comics.
The thing that makes this movie great is that it works regardless of it being a Batman movie. It could have been anyone in the main role and the movie would still have been interesting. (9 out of 10)
Movie Review #2: Sin City
This movie was much better than I thought it was going to be. I wasn’t a big fan of Robert Rodriguez’s last few films. (The Spy Kids series was lackluster at best and Once Upon a Time in Mexico was good and bad.) So I had a little hesitation as to whether he could pull this off or not.
He pulled it off. In a big way.
This movie, and I’m serious about this, has the potential to have the biggest impact on cinema since Pulp Fiction. It’s actually set up rather similar to Pulp Fiction, with three interweaving story lines filled with rich characters.
Sin City was filmed like a comic book, and I really think that may be the influence of Frank Miller who also served as one of the film’s co-directors. That said the use of black and white for this movie really set the gritty noir tone of the film. The use of negative space, which comes directly from the comics, is brilliant and reminds you that you are watching something more than a comic book movie. But the greatest feat of all was the use of color. I think there were only five colors used in this entire movie. Red, yellow, a touch of flesh color, green eyes and blue eyes. I’m still trying to understand the use of color and what it really means. There must be some method to deciphering the color scheme of this movie. If anyone else thinks they know what it could be feel free to chime in with your thoughts.
However the greatest aspect of this movie, beyond the story, was the actors. Not because this was an all-star cast, but because the actors really acted well. One of the best surprises was Mickey Rourke, who played the brutal psycho Marv. Marv was the best character of this movie, and a great choice as a first main story to be told. It really sets the stage for Sin City better than the other two stories do. I don’t know where Mickey Rourke has been since I last really saw him in Year of the Dragon. Since then he’s more or less made shit. (Although I must admit, for some insane reason, a fondness for Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man.) Rourke was fantastic in this movie, and I really can’t think of anyone else that could have pulled Marv off like that. Marv is a brutal psycho killer, but one with a warped sense of morality. It’s hard to tell what is good and what isn’t in Sin City. Actually it’s more like trying to figure out their degree of bad.
Marv, like a bull with a hate on, brutalizes his way through Sin City to find the killer of a girl that gave him the time of day. He reminds me of a combination of The incredible Hulk and James Cagney. His rampage, his determination and ferocity won’t be stopped. Yet though all of this, he is portrayed as the “good guy” and we feel for him and we want him to win.
There are main characters in this movie, and secondary characters. The secondary characters may not have as much screen time but they are as every bit as compelling and intriguing as the main ones. Marv’s story introduces us to a few of these secondary people, but the most interesting of these is the Elijah Wood character, Kevin. He doesn’t say a word in this movie, and he’s one of the more interesting and compelling and scary characters in Sin City. I don’t want to say too much about him, but this was a great role for Wood. His silence is freaky.
The second story of the movie belongs to Clive Owen’s Dwight. He’s another bad ass like Marv, but more subtle and not as ugly. (After you see Marv, you’ll understand what I mean.) But he is every bit as dangerous as Marv. Dwight is on a mission to save the girls of Old Town, a part of Sin city where the hookers are in control. Owen’s interaction with Benicio del Toro was pretty intense and oddly compelling. Like Marv, Dwight’s story brings us to other characters in Sin City. One was Rosario Dawson’s Gail, more of an Amazon warrior than hooker. However, the one person that I didn’t think much of was Alexix Bledel (yes the younger Gilmore girl). She was hard to buy as a hooker and just seemed to, well, wholesome to be a hooker. She knows that, and uses it well.
The final story is Bruce Willis as Hartigan. I like this character for Willis. He does more with this character than just smirk his way through his lines. He brings a real conviction to the character that I think will be well received. However, the only problem with this casting and trying to force on us is accepting Willis as a sixty year old. Sorry, but no. He can’t pull off sixty any more than he could pull off sixty eight. But if you can look past that, you can see a real affection between Hartigan and Jessica Alba’s Nancy. I don’t think I would buy this relationship if it wasn’t for the art imitating life aspect of this. (You know the rumors of Willis and Lohan.) But it is explained in a way that is kinda believable without being well, gross. By the way, Alba is smoking hot and not nearly on screen enough.
Hartigan is on the trail of Junior/Yellow Bastard. I’m sure this will sound like I’m gushing, but Nick Stahl does a great job with this character. I’m not surprised by this. I think he is great in the HBO series Carnivale. Hartigan’s pursuit of him offers some great scenes, some really violent scenes and some surprising ones as well, but they are all pretty damn cool.
What makes Sin City so great is the relationships between characters. Here no one is insignificant. Every character is important in their own way and they all deliver the goods. Even Powers Boothe in, thankfully, a small role. Sin city is a dirty place. It’s corrupt, it’s dangerous and no one can be trusted. This movie works on so many levels the story, the direction and one thing that I have to mention is the music. The music of Sin City is so hypnotic and so perfect you don’t notice it’s there until it wants you to. It sounds so tribal and hard. It’s the sound of danger and cynicism – if that can be a sound.
There is so much more to talk about, I could go on and on.
I’m not sure how this movie will play for the masses. Some will love it and others will hate it. I think that this movie will be a major force and influence on movies to come. There is so much in this movie that is so right. Rodriguez, I think, has made his masterpiece. (10 out of 10)
Movie Review: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
This day was not just one day. No, this day was many in the planning. One day I just thought to see if there were any tickets available for the trilogy viewing. To my dismay, I quickly learned they had sold out. So, I turned to eBay, a trusted source that has not let me down in the past. WOW. People were getting $250 US for a pair of tickets. I don’t want to see the movie that bad. I also read somewhere that someone was able to get $700 US for a pair. WOW. So I figured, well I will just go to the midnight showing.
However, as it was so popular I kept checking back online to see if a new block of tickets opened up. This has been so popular I figured that one or two theaters might show it in more than one room. Sure enough, my patience was rewarded. I scored a ticket to a second block release. Oddly enough, on eBay people were no longer getting any bids on their tickets, and people who bought extra and posted them late, got nothing for them at all. Sweet justice!
In my giddy excitement of getting a ticket, I just realized WHAT THE HELL HAVE I DONE?!? Am I insane? Not only did I just spend $50.00 on a movie (okay – three movies) but I spent $50 bucks on a MOVIE! I am insane? It wasn’t just three movies I was watching, but it was the special edition version of the first two. Each movie was almost four hours in length. I am really insane. I just committed myself to over 10 hours in a movie theater. To some that may sound like bliss, but the reality is this is a tough challenge there are lots of things to consider. This required planning.
First? I had to get the day off work. My boss being the tyrant that he is, well, I thought I should just call in sick. But that would never work. You can’t call in sick at my job, they just make you come in anyway. So I had to arrange something else. I could have just given my shift away, but I just spent $50 on a movie. I couldn’t afford to do that. I had to bite the bullet and accept a dreaded Sunday shift – everyone loves to get rid of their Sunday shift. Once I accepted that fate, my Tuesday was in the clear.
Second? Dear GOD! I have to tell my wife. “Ahem… Hi honey, you look lovely today… I just spent $50 on a movie. So, where are the kids?” How do you think this went over? After the dumbfounded look I received, she actually didn’t kill me. She just thought I was nuts. This was very strange indeed. I fully expected to get castrated by her but… Hmm. Odd indeed. Then I found her receipt for her new haircut, and all became clear.
Third? Food. Like it or not I am going to have to eat, and damn it I can’t watch a movie without a snack. So I made a list of movie snacks. Sunflower seeds and goodies fit the bill. Those along with a refillable popcorn bucket and soda ensured that I could watch and munch.
Fourth? The line. I was worried about the line. Geez I hate getting stuck in the very front row or the very back row. In the front, well it just sucks. You can’t encompass the entire screen in your line of sight, your neck hurts and you have to watch at a crappy angle. In the back, well you are so far back that you feel like you are watching TV and not part of the movie experience. A good seat is just as important. One problem – the movie starts at 1:30, and my daughter needs to be at school for 1:00 and the theater was a half hour drive away. So I had arranged for someone else to drive her that day. Perfect. Until that person backed out the last minute and I was stuck. So I took her to school early and waited for the teacher to come out for yard duty. I was able to leave at 12:45. I needed some luck, but being a single I thought a good seat would be easier to find. BONUS. in case you were worried I got a great seat! Everything was going smoothly! And the movie, or movies were about to begin.
I own The Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition DVD already. However this was the first time I saw in on the big screen. It’s amazing how much better it is up there. I loved the movie the first time I saw it. I am sure you can find my review for it somewhere on this site. It wasn’t a movie. It was, well, I can’t describe the sheer joyful emotion and wonderment I felt after experiencing the film. No, you don’t watch – you experience. I actually like the Extended Edition better. It explains a few things a little better (like the gift giving) and even for three hour movie an extra 40 minutes or so gives much more character depth and story flow without dragging us down. I will be honest. I did start to nod off a bit. It had been a long day already, and I was tired. I stared to get the blinks and the nods so I decided to get up and go to the bathroom. This really helped me re-focus and get a second wind.
After the movie we got a 45 minute break. So, I went outside to the pizza joint across the street. The fresh air was a blessing. So was my decision. When I returned the line at the Burger King was crazy. People were still in line by the time the second movie started. The Two Towers Extended Edition.
Cool. I hadn’t seen the Extended Edition of The Two Towers yet. I was going to buy it, but I figured that I would get it for Christmas, so I could wait. I am so glad I did. Watching it on the big screen was awesome. This edition was so much better than the theatrical release. There was just so much more to enjoy. Sean Bean had a wonderful flashback role, in probably the longest of the added scenes. The rest were just a few minutes (from what I could tell) but added so much more to the movie. When I first saw The Two Towers, I didn’t like it as much as the first one. Well, the Extended Edition changed that (or at least watching it right after the first changed that). I now hold it either on par with the first or better, I am still undecided.
We received another 45 minute break. At the end of The Two Towers everyone stood up and complained how numb their asses were. People were rethinking if this was such a good idea. All three in one sitting? It was rough. Sitting on one spot for almost 4 hours at a time without moving is hard and hard on you.
But – the payoff. The Return of the King was about to start. No one reads a chapter of their book, and then returns a year later to read another chapter. Yet, that is what we had to do with these movies. This is not three movies, but one movie in three parts. The flow from beginning to end was well worth the hours and hours of sitting on my behind. Return of the King is simply amazing.
I am worried that I cannot do the film justice in explaining how wonderful this experience was. Time stood still as I watched the events of Frodo & Sam unfold on the screen. After watching this, I knew that these movies would be the greatest movies of this era. I know – big words – but they were backed up, big time.
I loved the fact that all three were made at the same time. All too often we get one movie that is amazing, only to see the franchise ruined by money and ego. Filming all three eliminated all that. The quality from the first would be the same over all three. No holdouts. No writers on strike. No salary demands. It made for three movies over three years that were unspoiled.
There is so much to contemplate and absorb in this movie. To tell you the actors did a great job would be an injustice and an insult to them. They weren’t actors. When you spend three years of your life as someone, you become them. Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen. They didn’t exist – Frodo, Sam, Gandalf and Aragorn do. It is the only way that I can explain the despair and burden in Frodo’s eyes – that can’t be acted, that has to be lived. Then I think about the joyful hobbit from Fellowship and where his journey has taken him and I am amazed.
Never once did I think of Gollum as someone who wasn’t there. He is the first CGI character who isn’t. You want fake, you want no substance? Don’t watch this movie. Every person in this movie is full of emotion and purpose. Gollum is no exception. He is so complex – a mad creature torn between being Gollum and Smeagol. You have so many different emotions for him it’s confounding. This is not CGI. I was also very grateful for Gimli not being the comedic oaf I found him to be in the second movie. The Extended Edition of The Two Towers helps correct this. So does the Return of the King. Yes, he has comedic moments, but they are not bumbling moments. He is someone to be taken seriously again, and I liked that.
Return of the King if full of battles. One ends and another starts that is even bigger than the last. Every battle has meaning and importance. There is no fighting just to have a fight. There is fighting to achieve, there is fighting to defeat the enemy to achieve the goal of destroying the ring. And what fights they are. Gladiator. Braveheart. Ben Hur. No, no and no. Nothing comes close to the choreographically perfect battles portrayed. You thought the battle at Helms Deep was impressive? That was nothing compared to the battle at Minas Tirith. The sight of the ohliphaunts and trolls and the dead army were spectacular. Although they still can’t get Legolas to climb a CGI animal that looks real. However, it is entirely forgivable. The catapults hurling giant rocks and stones at each other, the battering ram and yet in the midst of all this gigantic turmoil the small personal moments between characters such as the poignant discussion on death between Gandalf and Pippin, are not lost. For every large battle there were smaller ones that were no less amazing. Frodo and Sam battling Shelob was just as intense and emotional as any grand battle. Sam in particular stepped up in this movie, proving that friendship, love and trust are just as powerful as any sword.
The ending was a nice wrap up of all the characters. I suppose you could say there were multiple ending points, but I think the story needed to be told until we learned the fate of Frodo and his best friend Sam. After all, it’s really their movie.
I don’t know how Peter Jackson pulled this off. I do not know how many times over he must have sold his soul to get this done. I do know that not one person complained when the movie ended. Everyone’s ass must have been sore as hell, but no one complained. Everyone realized what they had just seen. This is the movie. No, this is the trilogy that defines epic. These movies define perfection. The bar has been raised pretty high. Who knows how long it will be until anyone comes this close again. I can’t wait for the Extended Edition. (10 out of 10)
Movie Review: Chicago
Who says the Hollywood musical is dead? Granted we only get one or possibly two a year, but when we do get one…WOW. Of course it doesn’t hurt to adapt a hit musical of the stage to the big screen. Following in the footsteps of last years acclaimed Moulin Rouge, Chicago is a dirty little jazz musical that is simply quite wonderful. It was captivating from the opening sequence as Catherine Zeta Jones sings “All That Jazz: very provocatively, and in the background wonderfully edited to the song was Renee Zellweger with her lover.
All the world is a stage, and in this movie everyone has their moment in the spotlight using jazz songs to get their message out. The songs were great with everyone driving a specific meaning, feeling or action. They all fit into the movie and story perfectly, and each number was wonderfully and sometimes humorously introduced by The Band Leader – even if all the musical numbers only happened in Roxie’s head. Roxie looks at the world as stage – the one place that she wants to be but can’t seem to get to. She puts everyone she meets on that stage, each singing their jazz song to advance the narrative.
After murdering her lover, Roxie (Renee Zellweger) is sent to prison, and after a great number by the Warden (Queen Latifah), Roxie is introduced to the other girls on murderers row. Elvis would have been proud of the jailhouse rock (…well jazz…) number that followed. Elvis, a touch of the “Roxanne” song from Moulin Rouge, and excellent dance numbers provide the setting as each girl tells her dark story of murder.
This movie is about fame, and fameseekers. Truth? Justice? Forget it! Just give me the headline. The top dog in prison was Velma (Zeta Jones), who shot her husband and sister while they were in bed together. She was a famous club singer, who was making all the Chicago headlines and was the star of the town. Her killings were the biggest news story of the day – that is until Roxie stole her headlines, and her lawyer. The flamboyant lawyer Billy Flynn (Richard Gere) moves from old news to the new in a heartbeat. He loves the spotlight. His numbers weren’t so bad. His first one, “All I Care About”, was the weakest one in the movie but he makes up for it later with a brilliant puppeteer and ventriloquist bit. Flynn leaves Roxie as she almost becomes yesterday’s news, but a brilliant fake pregnancy restores her to prominence in the media headlines and restores Flynn’s loyalty.
Gere was the weakest point in this movie. Sure, he was very good at times, but with him I just couldn’t buy it. Roxie and Velma sold me. They were the real deal. But Gere? Sorry. He had his moments, but for the most part it just didn’t seem like he was doing his own singing. He tried to do some nasal type voice on his entrance number that didn’t fly. Sure, his ventriloquist number was excellent – but his last number, “Razzle Dazzle”, was one of the weaker ones. As a lawyer, he was great. As a singer and dancer, well, he made a great lawyer – one only in it for the money.
Catherine Zeta Jones was excellent in this movie. Her “All that Jazz” number was one of the sexiest song numbers since Michelle Pfeiffer in “The Fabulous Baker Boys”. Apparently she was such a great singer that the producers of the movie said ‘thanks, but no thanks’ to Janet Jackson doing some of the songs. Zellweger too did a wonderful job. Her performance as Roxie was amazing. The contrasting dance and singing style of Roxie and Velma kept the movie and music fresh. Not to be outdone was a touching little number from John C. Reilly, the lapdog husband of Roxie. His “Mr. Cellophane” was bordering on sappy, but was really very touching as he was more or less the invisible man behind Roxie.
Finally, at the end, Roxie makes it to that stage where she longed to be. Teaming up with Velma as the Twin Killers, they set the stage on fire with their tongue-in-cheek wild performance on stage. (9 out of 10)
Movie Review: Catch Me If You Can
Remember the movies from the fifties and sixties? Before special effects became the story? Before the blockbuster event movie? So when you take one of Hollywood’s most established and critically acclaimed actors, add a critically acclaimed heartthrob and for good measure one of the most successful directors of the last quarter century – well it has to be a blockbuster – probably with a huge special effects budget, obviously no story and no character’s and just promote it for the opening weekend, because we all know that it wont have any staying power. What do you get? One of the best damn movies of the year!
Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio and director Steven Spielberg are a great combination. (Plus, don’t forget the always wonderful Christopher Walken!) This movie was a fun, light, whimsical romp that was thoroughly enjoyable. This was a charming movie. If this movie was made in a different era, it would have starred Frank Sinatra and Carey Grant and have been directed by Billy Wilder. It’s that type of movie.
What I really enjoyed about the movie was the people. Frank and Carl made a great team of opposites. It was like Agent Starling and Hannibal Lecter, without all the killing. They just connected so well and played off each other so wonderfully. Frank is a wonderfully flawed character. He has no identity of his own – his identity is stripped from him when his parents announce to him that they are getting a divorce. That’s when he ran, and ran – and became anyone else he wanted to be, always looking for what was taken from him. Frank’s father Frank Sr. (Christopher Walken) lost everything to the IRS. He is a scammer and a con man with a foot in the door of a legitimate business. Caught for income tax evasion, he looses his store, his house, his car and eventually his marriage. Frank Jr. watches his family deteriorate, and watches his mother have an affair. When the divorce lawyer tells him to choose to live with his mother or father, he can’t and he runs.
Jumping from identity to identity and cashing fraudulent cheques everywhere he goes, he is searching for what he ran from. He tries, through his scamming, to buy back his family. He truly believes that if his dad had more money his parents would get back together. He is constantly going to his dad, trying to give him money. To him, money equals respect. Eventually, he comes to a realization that this isn’t going to work. When his dad tells him that his mother remarried, he gives up. His family is gone. He eventually finds what he is looking for in Louisiana when he meets a nice girl and loves their family and wants to stop running. The thing is, it’s too late. He tries to get Carl off his tail by telling him he would stop, he wants to settle down with this girl, but he can’t. So, he runs again, when Carl gets too close.
Frank leads a charmed life, and it’s ironic that Forrest Gump himself helps him out, because he was trying to put him in all along. In prison, Carl offhandedly shows Frank a case he is working on, and Frank’s help leads to his early release, and eventually, working for the FBI and earning millions of dollars a year as a defrauding expert.
I knew I was going to like the movie right from the opening credits, not only because of the John Williams score, but the credit animation was straight out of the fifties. Plus, it was fun to watch. Back to the music, Williams has done his best score work in a long time with his music on this movie. The title track, which I don’t know the name of, was a Sinatra tune, or a Dean Martin tune. (Not sung by them, but it easily could have been.) The music set the perfect mood for the movie and was a wonderful complement.
My one complaint is with the loose ends. I really wanted Frank to go back to the girl he almost married and either marry her or come to an understanding with her. (Granted she tried to help catch him, but she was obviously forced to.) They just seemed to really love each other, and if he got her back it would have been the perfect ending to Frank’s story. Sure, the summation at the end of the movie tells us that Frank was happily married, but I really think the audience needed to see it for some closure.
Go catch it! (9 out of 10)
Movie Review: Austin Powers in Goldmember
Groovy, baby! Austin is back, and in full psychadelia! With the third installment of the Austin Powers franchise, Mike Myers is returning to his most famous character and once again is having a shagadelic time.
However, he’s in the wrong time! Seriously. Austin is a 60’s swinger – a flower child – love and peace. To see him going to the 70’s in his pimp-mobile and dressed as a very un-groovy pimp-daddy to Beyonce Knowles’s Foxy Cleopatra was a poor sight to see.
I guess we did Austin in the present and we did Austin in the 60’s, so let’s take him to the 70’s? It just didn’t quite work. Hell, it would have been funnier if he went to the 80’s. Not only did Austin seem out of place, but he never quite clicked with Foxy Cleopatra the way he did with his co-stars in the first two movies (Elizabeth Hurley and Heather Graham). Even the kiss between the two seemed fake and forced. We never got the feeling that Austin wanted to “hop on one foot and do the bad thing” with Foxy. We never even really saw them in bed! Even Roger Moore took the hammer out to nail Grace Jones! There was no real shag! Only implied shag. This movie isn’t Jungle Fever. It’s 2002. People accept these things. All talk and no shagtion err.. action.
Foxy herself wasn’t too bad. She couldn’t make the chemistry work with Austin either. Personally, Pam Grier would have been perfect for this role. She is still good looking and able to deliver. Watch her in Jackie Brown and especially in Foxy Brown and you’ll get a taste of how good she could have been in a role essentially spoofing herself.
The time travel bit got old, and fast. It worked well in the second film and it should have stayed there. To be quite honest, many of the bits seen in the film were just re-hashed from the previous films. The Mini-Me fight, the shadow curtain, the “Johnson” rocket joke and so on. They were still funny, but I wanted something fresh and new from this one. The new “mole” joke, got real tired real soon.
Some of the bits did work. I was laughing hysterically at most of the comedy sketches. Just not the movie as a whole. This movie was a series of sketches banded together by a very loose but forgivable plot – if we got the payoff. Sadly we didn’t. The story in this movie was lost between the comedy sketches and the musical numbers. Plus, the whole “making a movie while watching a movie while being in a movie” became pretty confusing and a little unnecessary. However, it did provide some great cameo’s of stars in familiar Austin roles. The flash back sequences were not funny, and not necessary to any character. As the did before, they should have had Frau Farbissina look exactly the same further in the past – that would have been a funny re-occurring joke, but sadly, no.
The newest character is Goldmember, an owner of a 70’s disco club called Studio 69. I still don’t know what the real point of having him in the movie was. This was one of the lamest evil characters that Myers could have come up with. The idea of spoofing Goldfinger was brilliant, but there was no real spoof. Goldmember is a roller-skating contortionist who eats his own flaking skin and has a gold penis. For a guy who loves gold, it would have been great and funny to see Austin catch him on a toilet made of gold, beat him up and try the toilet out. (In a great line from the last movie, Austin said he wanted a gold crapper.) But no. He is a character that is quickly forgotten. Perhaps the one nice touch was when Goldfinger put Austin’s dad on a smelting line while gold was slowly pouring toward his groin. The scene reminded me of Goldfinger, when he had Bond trapped with the giant laser.
Michael Caine was perfect as Austin’s dad. I wish there was more of him and that he would have been given a larger role. His character was sadly underused and underdeveloped. He could have been the best character since Austin himself. Sadly, he was misused, and became the cliche dad who was never there for his kid.
Somehow, it just seemed that this edition of Austin Powers was more interested in the quick laugh, and not too interested in the big picture. It lacked many of the elements that made the fist two Austin movies classics. (6 out of 10)
Movie Review: About a Boy
The biggest surprise to me was that I thought this movie was about a boy. I guess it was – just not the boy I thought it was going to be. The boy of the movie is none other than Will (Hugh Grant). A bachelor and pick up artist who wants nothing more out of life than to watch his TV, play pool and shag some new chick every two weeks or so. That is until he meets Marcus (Nicholas Holt) who is a twelve year old boy, but is actually more mature and grown up than Will. Will never left the adolescent stage of his life, he never had to. He never took any responsibility at all – not even a job. Marcus is the exact opposite. He is very much responsible for taking care of his mother and dealing with her depression to stop her from trying to kill herself.
Don’t worry, its not a depressing tale of life. This movie is actually a feel good tale, not a warm and fuzzy one that makes you want to puke or scream out “CHICK FLICK!!!!”. It’s actually an interesting tale of self realization and awareness of oneself. Not just for Will, but for the other main characters of the story as well. From Will to Marcus and Fiona (Marcus’s mother), each one transforms themselves, from a tormented person to a peaceful one. Will learns to become someone that matters, Marcus learns to be a twelve year old kid and his mother learns to be happy with herself.
The journey that they take is fraught with the usual ups and downs, but they are well played out and lend to the fleshing out of the characters. This movie could have been one big bad cliche, but the screenplay manages to give all the characters dignity, wit and true feelings of anger, sadness and everything in between. Nothing about the characters seems fake. Except for Will – and only at the beginning of the movie – but he was supposed to be that way.
Hugh Grant could be the Frank Capra side of Jimmy Stewart. I think he is a great leading man in the same vein as Stewart was – an actor that has nailed romantic comedy down pat. He delivers a very good performance of a man in denial, and his steady transformation into a mature adult. His ride is not smooth. It’s not easy to wake up one day and finally figure out that you are nothing with nothing, then to try to be something. It’s a hard step to take. With the help of Marcus, he does take that first step and continues right down that path.
Marcus is the weird kid in school that no one, including the geeks, wants to hang with. Nicholas Holt plays a very convincing teenager with a messed up mother and antisocial tendencies at school, because he doesn’t know how to be a kid. Well, Will helps Marcus be that kid by teaching him about kid stuff and Marcus helps Will be the grown up by teaching him about truth and responsibility. Because of this, each one gains their proper acceptance among their peers as their roles in life become properly defined.
It’s an odd pair those two, but by the end, the boy of the title name is no longer Will but Marcus. Just the way it should be. (7.5 out of 10)
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