Why is it that all the really good movies tend to come out at once, around this time of year, so that me and my student budget have to decide which ones I can afford to go to? Oh yeah, that’s right...the studios want to get them all out in time for Oscar nominations. Grrr.
I missed “Darjeeling Limited” (don’t worry Marissa, I will see it!), but caught “No Country for Old Men,” which was spellbinding (I’m a sucker for Cormac McCarthy and the Coen Brothers). Here are the other films coming out this winter that I find promising:
Juno: This flick, written by Diablo Cody, follows a teenage girl as she deals with pregnancy. Preliminary reviews say it’s witty and not overly-sentimental, although full of sentiment. A fine and difficult line to tread.
Atonement: Some of my friends gave me a lot of flack for liking Joe Wright’s version of “Pride and Prejudice” a few years ago – but if all those nay-sayers had even seen it, they’d know it was an excellent movie. Wright is an amazing director, and although I agree it wasn’t as faithful of an adaptation as the BBC miniseries, it is a much better movie. I’m curious to see what Wright does with “Atonement.”
The Savages: Laura Linney. Philip Seymour Hoffman. Siblings caring for their ailing father. This movie promises to be explosive.
Alvin and the Chipmunks: Ha! Yeah right. Why on Earth did 20th Century Fox think this was a good idea?
Sweeny Todd: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Alan Rickman star in this dark musical about the Demon Barber of Fleet Street directed by, who else but, Tim Burton. Enjoy your meat pies this winter, folks!
Persepolis: Based on the graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi (who happens to co-direct the film, too), this animated film explores the Iranian Revolution through a young girl’s eyes. It is defiantly not a children’s movie. And I highly, highly, highly recommend all of Satrapi’s graphic novels.
There Will Be Blood: Paul Thomas Anderson, who brought us “Magnolia” and “Boogie Nights,” returns with a film inspired by Upton Sinclair’s “Oil.” Rumor has it this could easily be the best picture of the year (possibly even better than “No Country For Old Men,” although that’s a tall order). We’ll have to wait until December 26 to find out…
I love movie trailers. I get very excited when the previews start because, think about it, it’s like a sample of a film: they feature all of the best parts, the biggest swells of background music, the most dramatic pieces of dialogue, a hint of a cliffhanger here and there, and it’s all narrated by that movie-voice guy.
I love them so much that sometimes I don’t want to actually see the movie because it might ruin the trailer. Is that weird? Probably.
When I went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (which had an amazing trailer of its own, I might add), the fifty-seven previews included one for a new film by Julie Taymor. I knew I’d heard the name associated with films before, so I looked her up and found that she directed Titus in 1999, as well as Frida in 2002. Both of those films were absolutely gorgeous, and contained several images that I won’t soon forget (Lavinia sans tongue and hands, Frida on the ground after the bus wreck, covered in gold paint). Her new musical, Across the Universe promised to be just as visually stunning. The trailer got me seriously excited about this film, because it was absolutely gorgeous. One of my best friends majored in musical theater, and she is also a huge Beatles fan, so she was happy to go with me when I told her I was going to see a movie musical based in the 60’s with an all-Beatles soundtrack.
The film begins by briefly touching on the environments of its two main characters: Lucy, a high school sock-hopper, and Jude, a young dock worker from Liverpool. The two sing opposite choruses of “Hold Me Tight” from their opposite places in the universe, which segues into a scene between Jude and his girlfriend, to whom he promises to send “all his loving” when he gets to America. Lucy’s Army-bound boyfriend is shipped out in the next scene, leaving both Jude and Lucy without mates and just too perfect for each other for serendipity to not step in and smoosh them together.
Jude travels to the U.S. to meet his ex-G.I. father, who left his mother while she was pregnant. While visiting with his father, a janitor at Princeton University, he meets Max, a rebellious rich boy. Max takes Jude home with him for Thanksgiving, where he introduces him to his young sister Lucy. Soon after an argument at dinner, Max decides to quit school and move to New York. Jude travels with him for the experience, and the two move in with a bunch of bohemians on the top floor of a broken-down building. Lucy receives word that her boyfriend has been killed in Vietnam, and comes to live with Max and Jude. Of course, Lucy and Jude fall wildly in love, and the only thing to bring them down from their hippie cloud of pink hearts is the draft notice Max receives in the mail. In Max’s absence, Lucy joins the protest effort, and becomes involved to an almost dangerous degree, which causes some tension in her love affair with the apolitical, sensitive, artistic Jude.
There are some absolutely wonderful cameos, such as Bono performing “I Am the Walrus” to a room full of drug-addled cult followers, comedian Eddie Izzard in a circus sideshow as Mr. Kite, Salma Hayek as five digitally-enhanced nurses during “Happiness is a Warm Gun,” and a fantastic performance of “Come Together” by Joe Cocker (in a Cadillac!) and several ladies of the night. The rest of the numbers are performed by the cast, which was often an uncomfortable accompaniment of seriously bad singing to some seriously bad acting. There were, however, some great musical portions of the film. The beautifully sung “Let it Be” chronicled the race riots and the first wave of American G.I. deaths in Vietnam. “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” began with a poster of Uncle Sam coming to life and drafting a very stoned and very frightened Max, and ended with the accompaniment of the screaming chorus to “She’s So Heavy” with the striking image of thousands of young men carrying the Statue of Liberty through the war-torn jungles of Vietnam. “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was gorgeously sung by one high school cheerleader to another high school cheerleader. My personal favorite, “Hey Jude,” served perfectly as a letter from Max to Jude, begging him to work things out with Lucy.
The film is peppered with lots of Beatles references, but I didn’t realize how many until I looked it up online. I picked up on a few things, such as a girl who “came in through the bathroom window” and said she was from “nowhere, man,” and a shipyard worker who thought he’d be doing something different “when I’m sixty-four.” Apparently, there are tons of subtle references, minor characters, and places in the film that bear resemblance to something that shaped or influenced Beatles songs in one way or another. I didn’t get caught up in looking for these, however, because I felt that they turned the film into a sort of musical Where’s Waldo.
The film is somewhat long and drags unapologetically at parts, relying on the audience’s interest in what the next Beatles cover will be. Several of the scenes were, I felt, unnecessary, they fit poorly, and served only as a means to cram another hit onto the soundtrack, such as “Dear Prudence,” “Because,” and “Across the Universe.” As aforementioned, most of the acting was just atrocious, and the singing equally so. The filmmakers seemed to make several attempts at forcing the gorgeous scenes Taymor is famous for, which ended up falling flat with some bits that actually made the audience laugh. It was as if someone at the storyboard meeting had said, “Wait! This is an art film!” thereby reminding the rest of the group that they should stick in a scene of four creepy Vietnamese mummy girls falling into the ocean. The underlying plot was a serious disappointment, because it was the same tired love story, in which I had little faith from the beginning. The script created several external problems for these bohemian lovers to struggle with, but it left the social and familial turmoil by the wayside as the pair quibbled at a laundromat, briefly mentioning these concerns about their environment in a petty argument which (briefly) changed their relationship.
If you’re into that textbook love story, where there’s really not a problem that can’t be overcome by pretty people in love, or you want to see how many obscure Beatles references you can pick out, I highly suggest this movie. If not, maybe you should just watch the trailer, or Google “Happiness is a Warm Gun,” a scene I’m glad I didn’t miss, if only for the “Bang Bang, Shoot Shoot” nurses. If you’re just really into the Beatles, like my dear friend who sat through this with me, you’ll appreciate some of the interesting performances of their music, and you might want to grab the 2-disc soundtrack.
Any B-movie fans out there? StoryStudio student Michelle Dahlenburg is in “Manos: Rock Opera of Fate” with the New Millennium Theatre. Yes, that’s right “Mystery Science Theater” buffs – it’s based on the infamously terrible movie “Manos: The Hands of Fate.” 
Performances are held Fridays and Saturdays at 10:30 p.m., from now until November 3. And get this – it’s a BYOB performance! Is there any other way to enjoy “Manos” than with a beer in hand? Here’s the promo from the website!
What happens when you take the worst movies ever made out of the hands of incompetent filmmakers, and into the hands of inept musical writers? Find out when New Millennium Theatre Company proudly presents Manos: Rock Opera of Fate! Be terrified by the awful dialogue! Be horrified by the Z-movie special effects! Be confused and mildly nauseated by Torgo! And most of all, be afraid as the company adapts and scores the ‘60s “horror” “movie” which found a modern fanbase after being featured on Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Manos is guaranteed to please fans of cult horror and musicals alike!
The New York Times has a gossipy piece this morning on the filming of Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass. Trouble with the actors, special effects more difficult to manipulate, big budget, nervous studio....blah, blah, blah.
What really got me was the acknowledgement that the studio and the movie’s writers had greatly toned down the philosophical and religious content of the book. Well, that’s not quite right. What I should say, is they toned down Pullman’s diatribe against the Church and the harm misguided leaders can cause.
If you’ve been in one of my classes you know what a fan I am of Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. I mean what can you say about a book with a main character named, “Lyra Silvertongue” who travels with her “daemon” and has a machine that helps her determine the truth. Yet, even armed with what is true and what is not, Lyra still struggles to determine who the good guys are.
Pullman is infamous for his lack of love of the Church and it would have been easy for him to write the antithesis of Narnia. But instead, Pullman creates the most fanciful worlds with animals and machines and the unknowable “dust” that far outreaches the likes of Harry Potter and Diagon Alley. I fell in love with the books, but after I read a New Yorker piece on him, I was hopelessly in awe.
My recommendation? Read the trilogy way before the movies comes out later this year. And then tell me what you hope your Daemon is!
And while you’re at it, what books do you wish were never turned into movies? (HINT: if you register, you can leave comments and participate in the discussion!)
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