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For the weekend beginning 21 December, here are the films in focus:
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street [rating: 10]
As the perfect marriage of maker and material, this dark, disturbing splatter-etta stands as the best film of 2007.
The reemergence of the musical as a viable, awards season showcase has been fraught with inconsistency. For every example of the genre that seems to click with voters and moviegoers (Chicago), there’s ambitious flops (The Phantom of the Opera) and pandering populism (Dreamgirls). Finding the right balance between Broadway and the big screen is never easy, mainly because the source material inherently thwarts a carefree translation. What works on a stage before a live audience turns odd and even ineffectual within the two dimensional medium. Similarly, even the most gifted filmmaker can fail in capturing the true spirit of a piece. read full review…
Charlie Wilson’s War [rating: 8]
Witty, wacky, and wildly inappropriate for our Puritan PC times, this story of a lecherous Congressman and his anti-Commie compunction sails along on breezes of effortless engagement, filled with performances so potent they act like double shots of soothing Southern Comfort.
Politicians will forever be known as slick speaking, backslapping, good old boys, re-feeding the coffers that got them into office with promises, perks and mindless policy decisions. Anything they accomplish is instantly compromised by shady dealings, special interests, and the ever-present perfume of scandal. Charlie Wilson had that undeniable aroma. He was a loose living, morally ambiguous Congressman carousing in a town overflowing with such specious experts, and he would have served out his terms in relative anonymity if it wasn’t for Afghanistan. When Soviet forces invaded the tiny Arab country, Wilson saw it as an affront to the cause of freedom. His eventual efforts on behalf of the nation resulted in one of the first major defeats of Communism ever recorded. And according to the new political comedy by American original Mike Nichols, he had a damn good time making it happen. read full review…
Other Releases - In Brief
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story [rating: 8]
The celebrity biopic has become the disaster film of cinematic spoof material. So forced and formulaic that it comes across like a politician’s debate answers, it’s a genre that practically parodies itself - as long as one’s working in clichés. Like the chum on any side of a format that’s jumped the shark, comedy genius Judd Apatow, and his current collaborator Jake Kasdan (son of Lawrence), are ready to pick the category’s carcass clean. The result is Walk Hard, a stunningly stupid and wildly hilarious farce that finds solid supporting player John C. Reilly playing the title character, a nimrod rube who uses the tragic death of his brother (and the resulting olfactory malfunction he suffers from) as his ticket to the top. Included along the way are spot on riffs regarding Elvis, Bob Dylan, and The Beatles, along with the typical familial farce that accompanies such rags to riches ridiculousness. While not as tight as Knocked Up or as scatological as Superbad, Walk Hard is one of the year’s biggest surprises. Yet when you consider the creative minds behind it, such a triumph is more or less a given.
National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets [rating: 4]
There was a time when action movies were big, dumb, loud, and mindless - and those were all positive attributes. Buffed up actors spouting crass one liners were the standard hero du jour, and everything had a Big Jim McBob and Billy Sol Hurok tendency to blow up…blow up real good. So it’s easy to forgive the latest installment in the burgeoning National Treasure franchise, Book of Secrets, for being so unconscionably stupid. What it can’t gain absolution from is how dull it all is. Dealing with the assassination of Lincoln, the discovery of the fabled lost City of Gold, and the role played by a member of the Gates ancestry in both (potentially), we have Nicholas Cage back as our sleepwalking savior, a treasure hunter in possession of all the possibilities and very little panache. He is joined by fellow Oscar winners Jon Voight and Helen Mirren as blindly bickering parents. Add in the nonstop, non-comic chatter of computer geek sidekick Justin Bartha and vacant love interest Diane Kruger and you’ve got a cast going nowhere fast. Even the mandatory action is lame and uninvolving. As by the book spectacles go, this is barely a pulp paperback. It’s more like an incomplete pamphlet.
