Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[innerSpaceman]

The Orphanage is a great, creepy film. OMG, Belen Rueda is fantastic in it. Seriously, she gives one the best screen performances I've seen all year (um, meaning 2007).

I don't what it is about ghost stories being a vehicle for serious female roles. I happen to think The Others is the best thing Nicole Kidman's ever done. And The Orphanage would be worth seeing if only for Rueda's performance alone. But it's also quite the atmospheric movie. And kinda scary in places.

[Morrigoon]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

I laughed pretty danged hard. I haven't laughed this hard since Borat.

Oh dear... this comparison doesn't sell me on the film AT ALL (I hated Borat, total snooze-fest all the way through).

In other news, my miscellaneous movie musing is that Johnny Depp is totally hot as Sweeny Todd. Yes, I have very strange taste in men

[innerSpaceman]

Warning: Loads of Spoilers in this Post ... I’m not tagging the entire post


Well, I have some more thoughts about Sweeney Todd, after having seen it again ... and then listening to the Broadway recording for the first time in decades.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, I like the movie less.

Quite surprisingly, though, I remain completely happy with Helena Bonham Carter's performance as Mrs. Lovett. Both her acting and her singing. Much as I love Angela Lansbury in the role, I think her singing style is - - much like Rex Harrison's - not quite real singing, but something uniquely her own. And so I rather enjoyed Carter's renditions of the songs in a more "normal" singing style. They are great songs, and I enjoy them both ways.

Johnny Depp, in the other hand ... well I like him less and less. As the film goes on, I think he becomes more and more ineffective. I think he handles the early songs and the early Todd pretty well ... but he's not up to the demands of "My Friends," for example, and his performance really goes downhill after Todd goes off the deep end on a serial murdering spree. I don't think completely catatonic is what's called for from that point on.

Burton's to blame as much as Depp for that. Most of Todd's songs from the second act are cut. And two of those are necessary to portray his dementia to the audience.

I don't think, we, as an audience, are really too upset that Todd slits throats indiscriminately or that Mrs. Lovett bakes people into pies. It's a black comedy, and these murderous rampages beget mostly amusement (though Burton was brilliant to add the gruesome, head-first body thuddings to the proceedings, as I don’t think the audience bats an eye at the buckets of spurting blood.).

No ... just as we really love Mrs. Lovett no matter what she does to strangers, but begin to have second thoughts about her once we learn she’s betrayed Todd .... in the show version, Todd only becomes despicable once we learn through song that he no longer even cares about being reunited with his daughter, Joanna, and is more enamored with grisly murder. Similarly, though - if we can read quickly enough - we learn he’s going to double-cross Anthony in the movie, the show has Todd sing about it, and it’s much more clear and chilling to the audience.

In other words, the characters can’t simply be murderers. We like that. They have to be nasty to each other to be unlikeable to us. I think Sweeney Todd should be somewhat unlikeable. And menacing. Which Deep is not. He may be angry, but he never seems menacing to me. Len Cariou comes off pretty menacing even on the cast recording ... I never even saw his actual performance, but it was reportedly quite effective.

Perhaps Burton didn’t want Deep’s Todd to be unlikeable, and so cut the songs where the audience might turn against him. I think that was a terrible mistake. It gives Depp really nothing to do in the second act ... and worse than dislike him, I think we simply lose interest in him.

Besides, the pathos at the end when Todd realizes he’s been lied to by Lovett and has murdered his beloved wife makes Sweeney very sympathetic in the end.

Lastly, and speaking of cutting songs ... I had forgotten how often "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" is reprised throughout the show version. There are half a dozen times the tune is sung in one form or another. I understand the difficulties of adapting a "Greek chorus" to a film ... but for a piece which is essentially an operetta, leaving out the signature song which - though opening the show, closing the show, and constantly commenting on the action in the show - becomes the de-facto soul of the score .... well, leaving that out entirely is a calamity which renders the movie version something not quite a reasonable adaptation of this particular musical.

Too bad ... because Burton’s Sweeney Todd has much to recommend it.

And, fine, Tim Burton has a Q&A after tonight’s showing at The Dome, but it’s sold out. I have more than a few questions I’d like to ask him about what in the world he was thinking.

Bah.



.

[Alex]

Two duds in a row. Saw Walk Hard last Sunday. It was ok at best, swinging between being decent enough satire to being simply stupid Scary Movie style spoof. Admittedly it had better actors than the Scary Movie movies but still; I half expected Leslie Nielson to walk on screen at some point. I liked the music though.

And nobody warned me that Tim Meadows in the movie. That guy just sucks the funny out of a room. Some day, our deep space astronauts will stumble across a galaxy mysteriously lacking in funny. And then they'll find Tim Meadows in the middle of that galaxy where the black whole should be and all will be explained.

Tonight I saw Sweeney Todd with Lani. I've never seen a stage version of it and didn't really know anything about it. For the first time in years I was a hairs breadth away from leaning over and asking Lani if she wanted to leave. It was simply so horribly boring. Then it picked up a bit and I wanted to see if I had predicted the ending correctly (mostly yes).

Snoozefest. I don't remember the last time I was in a theater with an audience that was so restless. Constant fidgeting, coughing, scratching, watch checking, throat clearing. But maybe that was just me projecting onto everybody else (I had forgotten to put my watch back on before leaving home so I couldn't check my own watch).

Lani was equally bored and now she has points on me since I pretty much dragged her there.

[mousepod]

We just got back from seeing Juno. What a wonderful movie. I remember last year when everyone was raving about Little Miss Sunshine, and when we finally saw it it just didn't match up to our overcharged expectations. Not so with this one. A great script, wonderful soundtrack, and good acting all around. I think what struck Heather and I most is that none of the characters became caricatures - even when their behavior moved the plot into uncomfortable territory, we still liked them. I'll be rooting for this one at the Golden Globes and (hopefully) the Oscars.

[Strangler Lewis]

Well, maybe then, I'll see it in the theatres. The clips I've seen suggest that this is a movie that's too in love with its own quirkiness. Same problem that's keeping me from rushing to "The Savages."

Saw "Charlie Wilson's War" last night. Really good. I tend to think that a litttle of Aaron Sorkin's writing goes a long way, and this movie is another universe of quirky and damaged characters who are all really good at their job. Nonetheless, it mostly works. I would have gotten rid of the awards ceremony that framed the movie and ended it with Gust's speech on the balcony with the chilling sound effect. Alternatively, I would have added a scene, if justified by real events, of Julia Roberts's character not caring about the endgame.

[Moonliner]

Cloverfield.

[LSPoorEeyorick]

I did enjoy Ratatouille, but I have to say that it's no longer my pick for best animated film of 2007. Persepolis is.

Beautiful black-and-white traditional animation. Incredibly interesting, informative and (chiefly) moving story about a woman (Marijan, the director of the film and the author of the graphic novels upon which it is based) through youth in Tehran, her teenaged years during which she was sent to safety in Vienna, and her return as an adult to her parents and her home. It's fiesty, it's funny, and more than a little enlightening about the history of Iran and the experience of a single person's struggle to come to terms with a culture that attempts to stifle her very vibrant personality (and her interest in pop music. There's a hell of a montage set to Marijan herself singing "Eye of the Tiger" that will remain very close to my heart for a long time.) I really recommend this film about family, culture, identity, and the feeling of being a stranger, in a foreign land or in your own. I think it may actually be my favorite film of 2007 (of those which I've seen so far; at this point we're only missing a handful from the For Your Consideration-type ads.)

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Alex

And nobody warned me that Tim Meadows in the movie. That guy just sucks the funny out of a room.

Aww, no Tim Meadows love? Not even for the "You don't want any part of this sh!t!" scenes (especially the first)? I like Tim, loved Ladies Man, went in expecting to despise it.

[Alex]

Nope, no love. The first drug scene was amusing but just barely and continuous repetition through the movie beat the humor out of it. The Ladies Man would probably make my Top 25 All Time Worst Movies I Actually Sat All the Way Through list.

When he does one of his appearances on Craig Ferguson's show that it my signal that it is time to turn off the TV and get some sleep.

I've never been a regular watcher of SNL so maybe he used up all his brilliance there. I do wonder what he does with all the funny he sucks out of rooms since he doesn't radiate it back out. Maybe he has it compressed down into bricks and is building a home.