Les Miserables

Les Miserables, 2012
Directed by Tom Hooper
Nominated for 8 Oscars

Les Miserables is one of the most popular, beloved and well-known stage musicals. It tells the story, starting and ending, with Jean Valjean, a prisoner for 19 years in the galleys for stealing a loaf of bread. Finally, he is released on parole, but breaks it so to make a better life for himself. Years later, he has achieved this "better life", and when he learns one of the workers at his factory was let go, and has a child she is trying to look after, Valjean decides to rescue this child after the woman (Fantine) dies. Valjean, while still hunted, rescues the child, Cosette, and both their lives are changed forever.

I must confess something. Being the bookaholic I am, I decided to read Les Miserables before ever having seen the full musical (I've seen 45 minutes of the 10th anniversary a year before reading). Yes, you read that correctly. I read Les Miserables. Unabridged, and I skipped no pages. And once I read the final page of the book, I realized I`d screwed myself over for watching the musical or the movie. No play or film could ever accurately portray how beautifully written this book had been; how complex, how heartbreaking, and how glorious it was told. Yes, there were many parts that were drawn out or unnecessary, but when you got to the meat of the story, it was so incredible. And once I read the entire summary of the musical, I knew I was in for a let down. Because translating a 1200 page novel into a 3 hour musical meant that many things were going to be changed, and many would be simplified.

The problems I had with this movie were not the films fault (unless we're talking costume inaccuracies, or historical inaccuracies, but that's different), but that it was over-simplified from how the book had told it. Cosette and Marius did not take one look at each other and were in love. Eponine was not really a main character at all. The Thenardiers were not funny, but were incredibly evil people (and had more children than just Eponine). But I digress.

The first half of the film was incredibly done. Hugh Jackman is the powerhouse of the film, and carries it all on his shoulders. His performance is constantly great, and his singing is really quite good. The live singing, I thought, was incredibly well done. The group numbers were all my favourites and sounded so so good. Anne Hathaway, on the other hand, completely and utterly broke my heart. Her portrayal as Fantine was so emotional, and raw, and broken, that I believed her completely every second. Her rendition of I Dreamed a Dream was heartbreaking, and had me in tears (like everyone else in the theater). For only being in the film a short period of time, her character was properly fleshed out and had the right amount of development (something that the second half of the film lacked).

Everything, right up to where Marius, Eponine, etc come in, this film was really, really good. I had thought I wouldn't like the film whatsoever because of the book, but was surprised I liked the movie so much. Until then. Whether this is how it goes in the stage musical, or if this is just the film, I'm not sure, but everything felt very rushed and under-developed at that point. While Marius was my absolute favourite (Jean Valjean a very close runner up) in the book, his character was extremely diminished. We didn't get to know him on a deeper level like we had Fantine and Valjean. Same goes with Eponine. I felt like I hardly knew her at all before she dies. Which was such a shame. Had there been more time to flesh out these 2 characters, and the other revolutionaries, this would have been much better, but it felt too rushed, and too shallow for me to really care.

Overall, it's very hard to come to a conclusion of what I thought of the film overall. The first half was incredible, well paced and heartbreaking. The second half felt a little more rushed, less character development happening. It makes it very hard to decide what you thought overall.

So overall, I know that the live singing was well executed, and brought a lot more emotional, and a lot more acting in to the film. It made things seem a lot more real. I feel like I Dreamed a Dream would not have been nearly as heart-wrenching had it not been sung live. It would've sounded too perfect and not broken enough. The acting was all superb. Jackman, Hathaway were great. And I adored Eddie Redmayne as Marius. Russell Crowe was not nearly as bad a singer as I'd kept hearing he was (he was decent, ok people?). The visuals were stunning and the makeup for Jean Valjean was excellent. But there were pacing issues, lack of character development, etc.

I'd say Rotten Tomatoes hits it right when it gives it a 70%. It wasn't anything fantastic, but wasn't horrible either. It was a decent movie.

7/10

Les Miserables (2012)

 (Disclaimer so people know where I am coming from with this review: I adore the musical “Les Miserables.” I’ve seen the musical three times on stage.  I love the score and listen to it all time on CD. It’s one of my all-time favorite musicals.

I consider the reading of the original Victor Hugo novel to be one of the most profound reading experiences of my life. I’ve seen most of the movie versions, and especially love the 1935 version with Charles Laughton and Frederic March. A five-hour French version from 1934 recently played by TCM and I was blown away by how gripping it was. I just love this story and its characters.)

 

Based on seeing the movie version of the musical “Les Miserables” (2012), I surmised that director Tom Hooper graduated summa cum laude from the Joshua Logan School of How NOT to Direct a Musical.

You know Joshua Logan. The guy who filmed “South Pacific” (1958) on location and then used colored filters throughout.

The guy who hired non-singers Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave for “Camelot” (1967) and filmed a lot of the numbers in close-up (Tom Hooper must have studied “Camelot” a lot).

Speaking of non-singers, Logan cast those iconic warblers Lee Marvin (!) and Clint Eastwood (!!) in “Paint Your Wagon” (1969).

Musical follies, one and all. Add “Les Miserables” to the list of one of the worst musicals of all time.

“Les Miserables” is the biggest disappointment I’ve had at the movies in years. It’s a soul-crushing disappointment from someone who has waited years for a movie version of this show.

Let’s call “Les Miserables” for what it is – an opera. Not grand opera, of course, but an opera nonetheless. If a story is told entirely in song, then it’s an opera. Sure there are a few scenes of dialogue, but Beethoven’s “Fidelio” is considered an opera, and that has long dialogue passages.  So “Les Miserables” is an opera.

And operas need voices. It helps if they’re good actors, but the first requirement is good voices. No, not good voices, but great voices.

Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway and even Russell Crowe have good singing voices.

But not for this material.

Ten minutes in, with the largely laughably large-scaled CGI opening, and star Hugh Jackman, as Jean Valjean, trying vainly to hit the high notes, I had a sinking feeling I was going to be in for the long haul over the next two and a half hours. And I was.

The cast isn’t really to blame. They try their best. But they can’t sing these songs. It’s beyond their abilities.

 

The show’s two best known songs are “I Dreamed a Dream” and “Bring Him Home.” A lot of people have heaped praise on Anne Hathaway’s singing, and acting of the former, but I’m in the minority. Shot in extreme close-up, I was so distracted by the tears and running snot that it took me out of the scene. I know movies are more intimate than what is on stage, but I’ve always been moved by this song, so I don’t need the extreme close-ups to sell it. The less said about Jackman’s rendition of “Bring Him Home” the better. A tough song to sing, to be sure, but it was embarrassingly bad.

A friend of mine commented afterwards that maybe in the old days, Hollywood knew what they were doing when they dubbed the singing voices of their big stars. Sure no one would rush out to see Marni Nixon in “The King and I” (1956) or “My Fair Lady” (1964) but they would go see Deborah Kerr and Audrey Hepburn, respectively. Are those films really lessened by having the leads dubbed? Is Rita Hayworth any less a screen icon because her voice was dubbed singing “Put the Blame on Mame” in “Gilda” (1946) and in her musicals?

So you have a sung-through musical where the leads can’t properly sing the songs, and a director who doesn’t have the foggiest idea of how to stage a musical. Director Hooper use of extreme close-ups throughout gets tiresome after the fourth or fifth time. For me, these are most effective for key emotional moments, not 2.5 hours worth.

And let me get this off my chest. If I hear any more prattle from the cast and crew about the effectiveness of recording the songs live during the filming, I think I may yawn myself to death. Based on the evidence here, I don’t see what the big deal is.

I may be reading too much into these interviews, but there’s an air of condescension and smugness when the cast and director talk about how much more real it is singing live than to a pre-recorded track. It’s as if they’re brushing aside seven decades worth of musicals.

As one who decries the often rapid cuts of today’s movies, I should be applauding Hooper’s use of minimal cutting. But the camera work is static to the point of inertia and when Hooper does move the camera, it’s often the dreaded shaky cam effect, and tilted camera angles, and the whole thing becomes annoying to watch.

One of the show’s most famous songs is the comic number “Master of the House” and it’s a bit of welcome black comedy levity in the often grim proceedings. But it’s very badly staged here, with dumbfounded literalness played out ad nauseum. There’s no sense of movement and looks like it was staged for a community theater production. Like everything else in the film, it’s cramped and claustrophobic.

Adding blame to this disaster was the very poor musical direction, for which I blame orchestrators Anne Dudley and Stephen Metcalfe and music supervisor Becky Bentham. They do the music no favors. Everything is pitched in the most low-key manner possible. The orchestrations are depressingly small-scaled and the musical accompaniment isn’t allowed to soar. It also sounded to like a very poor sound mix, with the orchestra barely heard in the background. It could be one of the tinniest-sounding musicals I’ve ever heard.

(Despite my snarky comments directed at the top of this review to those three Joshua Logan-directed musicals, the musical direction by Alfred Newman and Ken Darby for “South Pacific” and “Camelot”, and by Nelson Riddle and Roger Wagner for “Paint Your Wagon” are superb and can’t be beat. They are by far the best factors of those movies).

 

I’ve done a lot of complaining. Is there anything good in the movie? I liked Samantha Barks as Eponine. She brings a real humanity to the part, and has a good voice. Playing the role on stage obviously helped. I thought all the guys who played the young revolutionaries had strong voices, well suited to the material. But it’s a sad state of affairs that the secondary and third characters in an opera are the best singers.

And while Russell Crowe has gotten the lion’s share of disdainful reviews, I’m going to cut him slack. True, he has the weakest voice of any of the leads. But for me, he was the only one who realized he was playing to the motion picture camera. I never felt like he was striving to reach for the last row in the highest balcony in the largest auditorium in the world.

 

I must admit to tearing up quite a bit at each of the live performances I’ve seen. There’s a little bit of that here in the final scene – how could there be not be – but I was curiously unmoved. I actually told my friends I didn’t want to see it with them, because it would be too embarrassing for them to see me afterwards. No problem here. I could have just watched “Skyfall” for all the emotion it generated for me

I know a lot of people who have seen this movie and just love it. Good for them. I’m glad. It could be their first introduction to this wonderful story and I’m glad they enjoyed it so much.

But it was such a let down for me. It’s been years since I was looking forward to a movie so much. I love this material. But alas, “Les Miserables” is the biggest disappointment I’ve had at the movies since Daniel Craig’s second 007 outing, the execrable “Quantum of Solace” (2008). “Les Miserables” is one of the worst movies of the year. It’s one of the worst musicals ever made. It’s an ugly film to look at and a painful one to listen to. It kills me to write that.

LES MISERABLES

LES MISERABLES
Written by William Nicholson
Directed by Tom Hooper
Starring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway and Eddie Redmayne

Cast: and remember, the truth at once was spoken, to love another person is to see the face of god. 

I would think it would go without saying that a musical that announces itself as an ode to misery in its title, would be a fairly dramatic and depressing affair but apparently this isn't so.  Some of what I'm hearing of Tom Hoopers extravagant restaging of the classic musical, LES MISERABLES, is that it is a relentless, melodramatic onslaught of singing out pain in your face for nearly three hours. Yes, it is most certainly all of this but it was designed to be precisely that. Whether they're forever running from the law or selling their body to feed their child or watching all of their friends die in the French Revolution, these people have every right to be as anguished as they are. And what better way to deal with this pain than sing about it?

LES MISERABLES has a massive following. It has been staged thousands of times and has played to audiences around the world for over thirty years. And yet, this is the first time it has been attempted on film, as a musical anyway. To say that anticipation for the film has been high would also a be a great understatement. Now that it is finally here though, will purists be happy? I suspect not actually. Hooper decided to have his incredibly diverse and talented cast, from Hugh Jackman to Anne Hathaway to newcomer, Samantha Bark, sing this intensely difficult show live on set rather than record first in studio and then lip synch on set. While the effect itself is most often very intimate and emotionally engaging, some of the musical prowess is lost amidst the emoting. While Hathaway's performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" is deeply moving, I am sure some will wish there was more clarity to her belt and less cracking in her voice from crying. All the same, the film does feel more spontaneous than most film musicals so while the decision will polarize some, it is still brave and commendable.

Many an eye is on Hooper here as LES MISERABLES is the follow-up to his Oscar-winning work on THE KING'S SPEECH. While that story was a grand one, it was still told on a much smaller scale. LES MISERABLES may have been a tad bit much for him to handle. Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, this is the story of one man's struggle to forge out a life in times of strife and suffering. Jean Valjean (Jackman) once stole a loaf of bread and he has been paying for it ever since. While pretending to be someone he is not, he takes in Cosette, a young girl (played as an adult by Amanda Seyfreid) when her mother (Hathaway, who shines like you would not believe) passes away. When Cosette falls in love with a revolutionary (a dapper and delightful, Eddie Redmayne), Valjean does everything in his power to ensure they are together. While Hooper has a strong handle on his characters, his French Revolution feels slight at times, hardly like the source of all their misery. 

What I love about LES MISERABLES is the inherent sense of hope in the music itself. The poor sing of how the end of the day brings nothing but another day to a close at first and later, albeit still suffering greatly, sing of how they long for one day more. And what with all the political unrest and death and disease in the streets, to speak of things like love seems entirely frivolous at first but eventually love is the only thing that makes any sense. For it is true what they say, to truly know happiness, you must experience LES MISERABLES first.

311. Les Miserables

311. (15 Dec) Les Miserables (2012, Tom Hooper)* 28



Midway through act two, Hugh Jackman and Eddie Redmayne quite literally are up to their necks in fecal matter. That Les Miserables willfully offers that metaphor makes it the ballsiest or most clueless film of the year. Considering how dreadful it is, I'm leaning toward the latter.

There's not an iota of scale in Les Miserables, with roughly four wide shots that so much as hint that this is a historical epic in its entire bloated runtime. Just like in The King's Speech, Tom Hooper's amateurish aesthetic undermines every moment. Here he's as reliant on dutch angles as he is on dopey framing, keeping heads in the corner of a shot while negative space dominates the background. It's one of the worst photographed major studio films I've seen. But there's simply not much to work with since the sets and costumes are decidedly unremarkable. When Les Miz is not irritating to look at, it's boring.

Tom Hooper's direction is astoundingly misguided. Without dialogue, he relies on the score to tell the story. Unfortunately, only five musical numbers are at all good. Most of the talk-singing is instantly forgettable (namely the added and useless tune "Suddenly"). The nasally Hugh Jackman and overly emotive Samantha Barks are shameful standouts in the cast. Russell Crowe channels Pierce Brosnan in Mamma Mia! Eddie Redmayne and Amanda Seyfriend, without a hint of romantic chemistry, are wasted vocal talents. The much discussed Anne Hathaway is the only performer to give emotional impact to the film at all, overplaying her part, but at least not embarrassing herself in an intense close-up during "I Dreamed a Dream."

Hooper has suggested he attempted to emulate West Side Story, at least during "One More Day," which shows how ambitious and incompetent he is. His shoddily edited film not only is totally incoherent, unmoving, and uninteresting, it's laughable. Crowe's biggest dramatic moment is the most obvious joke, but it's impossible to enumerate the goofs in a film where next to nothing works. Empty heads and empty filmmaking.

296. The Dark Knight Rises

296. (02 Dec) The Dark Knight Rises (2012, Christopher Nolan) 39



The most tolerable of Christopher Nolan's Batman films, The Dark Knight Rises at least has an iota of levity. For the most part, it trudges along in the self-serious fashion of the first two films, but Anne Hathaway's Selina Kyle offers a faint glimpse of the franchise that might have been. She's a buoyant, even silly presence — cracking wise and kicking at things with outrageous heels when she could clearly tone it down. But therein lies the fun in a superhero movie, as Bane is every bit as unpleasant a presence as Heath Ledger's Joker was.

Setting up preposterous plot that never feels properly established or developed, Bane is relentlessly irritating. With the exception of the action sequences centering around him, he's another joyless mouthpiece for Nolan to make Batman as gloomy as possible. The ensemble is bloated, to be sure, but no one sucks the life out of the film as readily as Bane.

The opening scene on an airplane, the football field collapse, and Batman's flying machine make this a worthy Oscar contender for Best Visual Effects. The sound work is also impressive. It took sloppily written transitions and clichés too clunky to ignore (a ticking time bomb, a busload of orphans) to keep this out of the Best Picture race, and I'm so grateful for it.

The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises, 2012
Directed by Christopher Nolan

I remember the summer of 2008. The Dark Knight was released, and there was a massive buzz around it. Even working at summer camp with hardly any link to the outside world, we all knew The Dark Knight was the movie to see. And though I was never a superhero fan (I generally enjoyed the first two Spiderman films, and had watched Batman Begins once), I was excited to see it. I got home from camp, and saw it with my father right away.

And that's how I came to love and appreciate the Batman trilogy. After that, I was more interested  in Batman Begins (a film which I still really really love), and of course, loved The Dark Knight, and rooted so hard for Heath Ledger at the Oscars, and will defend to this day that he still would've won even if he hadn't have died.

Superhero movies were never really things I could get into. They were superhuman people, "doing the right thing" and "saving the world" from "evil". They were all kind of the same, and therefore uninteresting. But Christopher Nolan didn't make superhero movies when he made Batman, they're more intellectual and psychological than that. They're complex and political, character driven, and dark. And this most recent addition is the most complex, character-driven and darkest yet. While Captain America, Spiderman, etc weren't that light of movies, The Dark Knight Rises makes them look incredibly simple and fluffy.

This film is set 8 years after after the events of the Dark Knight. Bruce Wayne is a recluse, mourning what the Joker did to Gotham, and having let Batman take the fall for Harvey Dents murder, leaving the people of Gotham to remember him as a good person. Meanwhile, Gotham is in good hands. Organized crime has been swept up, things are looking good, and it's a time of peace for Gotham. But as Selina Kyle says, a cat burglar who finds the attention of Bruce Wayne, "a storm is coming". And come it does. Bane is a terrorist, intent on taking over Gotham, and while young John Blake, a young curious cop, is intent on handling him, alongside Jim Gordon, things don't go as planned. And it seems Gotham once again needs Batman.

As stated, I'm a Batman fan. No, not in the way of having seen all the old Batman films, but I really enjoy Nolan's trilogy because it's not that "superhero" and it's complex, and intelligent. There are so many mindless action movies out there (think Battleship, Transformers, etc) that it really becomes exciting when something so intelligent and complex like The Dark Knight Rises comes out. It's a brain movie, not one just for the eyes (though this one is particularly striking).

I'm not going to lie, this film is not as straight-forward as Batman Begins or the Dark Knight were, and there were a few times where I wasn't positive who everyone was, what they were about, and what was going on. Additionally, what ended up being the main problem (after like 1 1/2 hours), was a bomb and the race against its detonation. While I found this to be quite cliche (how many movies are there about this!?), and Nolan could've given Bane something way more original and he deserved more than that, it still made for an interesting watch, and with Christopher Nolan, you never really know where he's going to take you in this. Ever since he killed off Rachel Dawes, I've never really known what to expect from him. But nonetheless, it was slightly cliche, but it worked incredibly well for this film, and didn't come off as cliche while watching.

Additionally, there were several different things going on at all times, and it seemed Bruce Wayne/Batman were thrown in as an afterthought a few times. At the fore-front of this film we have Bane, played by Tom Hardy, with menacing mask and voice and brute strength. We have Selina Kyle, played by Anne Hathway. I still laugh thinking of all the nay-sayers who were upset at Hathaway being cast as Catwoman. Hathaway was the star of the show, and gave the best performance of the cast. She was witty and sexy, and was totally awesome and was an awesome female addition at the cast, where the previous two films had been incredibly male dominated. It was nice to see a woman out there who wasn't Rachel, and who could fend for herself. And then we have John Blake, played the new hot-and-in demand star Joseph Gordon-Levitt. For a while the film almost feels like the John Blake show, him being a new and curious cop who's a big Batman believer. All three give great performances, and John Blake was a welcome new character who gave a different side to the police side when Jim Gordon wasn't available, and was the ultimate "good guy".

Normally, I don't find actions movies to be that "visually stunning" as some people would call them. Yes, there's good graphics and car chases, but I describe movies like 2005's Pride & Prejudice as visually stunning. But I'd toss it out there that The Dark Knight Rises is the best looking film in the trilogy. The cinematography was particularly gorgeous (all the scenes in the snow, gorgeous), the scenery was great and everything just looked so good.

Overall, I really enjoyed the film. Yes, there were a couple plot holes and things that got wrapped up really quickly, as well as there was a little too much going on at a few points that I found it a little tricky to follow, but that's what the second viewing is for (which will probably be next weekend). This movie had incredible expectations. And while my friends and I all knew we weren't going to get something better than The Dark Knight, I went in not expecting a whole lot from this film other than it was going to be awesome and intelligent, and that's exactly what I got. This was Nolan's opus of the three films. He was the conductor, and the composer, giving everyone different and complex parts, but weaving them all together effectively to make a beautiful movie.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film, and look forward to having a second viewing so I can completely grasp everything that happened, who everyone was, and pick up on more of the little things that happened that got lost in the wide-eyed viewing of the first round.

Will this film end up making a Best Picture run? While a movie like The Dark Knight deserved it, I'm less sure about this one, though wouldn't be too surprised to see it up there on Oscar morning. However, I'd say it's less likely, and fanboys shouldn't hold their breath, but we'll see in the coming months, I suppose. It has great shots within the technical aspects, and I'd love to see it up for Best Score, as Hans Zimmer always delivers.

Overall, a great film, and definitely this years best blockbuster by far. A worthy ending to the ending of one of the best and more beloved trilogys of all time. And if this entire film wasn't fantastic, the last few minutes (give or take 10 to 15) are the most shining moments and the very perfect wrap up. I wish I could share exactly what happened, but to me, Nolan wrapped things up in his own way, and did it perfectly. It's a perfect sequence, and is the shining moment of the film.

Acting- 8/10
Directing- 8.5/10
Screenplay- 8/10
Music - 9/10
"The look"- 9/10
Entertaining- 9.5/10
Emotional Connection- 9.5/10
Rewatchability- 9/10
Did I like It?- 9/10
"Total Package"**- 8/10 

Total: 87.5

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
Written by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Starring Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Michael Caine

Bruce Wayne: You’re afraid that if I go back out there, I’ll fail.
Alfred: No, I’m afraid you want to.

It is a rare occurrence in Hollywood for any film franchise to be as consistently incredible throughout its run as Christopher Nolan’s Batman series has been. With THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, Nolan brings his ambitious take on the Batman ideology to an epic and fitting close. He brings his slow burning exploration of human fear to the brink of catastrophe and drags Gotham City and all its good people right along with it. The tension he has been building systematically since BATMAN BEGINS, that he brought to entirely unexpected heights in THE DARK KNIGHT, could only conclude in one way and that is with an all-out war. The question is, will anyone come out of this war a winner? Or even alive for that matter?

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES picks up eight years after the last installment left off, when Batman took the fall for Harvey Dent, so that Gotham could go on believing in the hero it needed at the time to move forward. Batman is retired and the man behind the mask, billionaire extraordinaire, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has become a recluse from society. Wayne has always been a conflicted character but the necessary and inevitable journey he must make here to find the bat within and come out of retirement, makes for a bit of a stunted start to the film. We know he will get there so watching him walk away from his waking coma slows us down some, but once he gets there, that’s when things get interesting. Very interesting.

Batman must take on Bane (Tom Hardy) and he has no idea what kind of brute force he’s up against. His motivation to dust off the cape and mask come into question, primarily from his trusted aid, Alfred (Michael Caine, who impresses yet again by finding all new layers to this well known character). Is he doing this because Gotham truly needs him? Or is he doing this because he needs Batman to live? Worse yet, is he doing this because he needs Batman in order to justify killing himself? Regardless, he gets more than he ever expected with Bane, a man with a past that is even more complex than his own. To complicate matters even further, Batman must also contend with feisty cat burglar, Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway). He can never quite tell whose side she’s on and thanks to Hathaway’s playful performance, neither can we.

It isn’t just Batman who must rise to the occasion in this film. Nearly every character we meet must overcome their own limitations and rise to honour their past, their legacy or themselves. Like THE DARK KNIGHT before it, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES builds on ideas of fear, from struggling with it internally to inspiring it in others externally. Unlike last time though, this conflict is more visually destructive than it is psychologically disturbing. As a result, some of the motivation behind the terror felt like more of the same than another truly original installment. That said, the war itself is worth every second. So while THE DARK KNIGHT RISES may not have risen as high as I would have liked it to, it does soar through the sky like only Nolan’s great winged bat can.

030. Rio

030. (24 Jan) Rio (2011, Carlos Saldanha) 47



Considering how well-animated Rio is, it's astonishing the concept is so awful. It's almost entirely reliant on visuals since the plot merely has an awkward parrot lost in Rio. His misadventures are a lame excuse for one action sequence followed by another. Bad musical numbers and awful voice actors are plentiful. (Who on earth cast Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway as the leads?) Jemaine Clement tries to liven things up as the villain, but there's no discernible motivation for a villain in this film so he's just misplaced. At least there's a nice sequence featuring air gliders. The Oscar-nominated "Real in Rio" opening number is also pleasant, if forgettable.

ONE DAY

Written by David Nicholls

Directed by Lone Scherfig

Starring Anne Hathaway, Jim Sturgess and Patricia Clarkson

Emma: I thought I'd make a difference but no one knows I'm here

Some connections are instantaneous while others can take years to come together. When it comes to love, there is no simple formula. When it comes to director, Lone Scherfig’s ONE DAY though, it’s all about formula and fortunately, it is mostly a winning one. Scherfig follows up the brilliantly understated, AN EDUCATION, with an adaptation of David Nicholls’ best-seller of the same name, which checks in with Emma and Dexter (Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess) on the 15th of July every year for twenty years. Neither love nor life come easily to this pair and watching them grow in glimpses over the years reminds us how quickly everything can slip away if we aren’t careful. Scherfig’s gentle hand allows this high concept picture to transcend gimmick, and Hathaway’s shoddy British accent, to reveal genuine emotion and inspire some pretty real sentiment as well.

By dropping in on this couple but one day a year, Scherfig could have had something terribly predictable and monotonous on her hands. Fortunately though, the much loved novel’s author is also behind the screenplay. As a result, Scherfig has the right material in front of her to balance the mundane and the monumental that is inherent in this premise. Some days go by without anything really happening at all but that’s life. There are some days even when Emma and Dexter don’t even spend July 15th together, as their lives have taken them on very different paths. The very first 15th of July we spend with them is the night of their college graduation. They barely know each other and end up in bed together but nothing happens other than of course the beginning of something beautiful. As the years go by, they each go up and down in mood and success at different times from each other, and both Hathaway and Sturgess are given the chance to grow in front of us. These young talents take on the challenge of spanning two decades and each matures as an actor in the process. By the time the end of the second decade approaches, their understanding of themselves and each other is both impressive and admirable.

The title, ONE DAY, alludes to the structure of the plot but thanks to the yearning for closeness and longing for happiness that Scherfig weaves into this picture, it touches on something far more insightful as well. As each day and each year passes without settling or success, Emma and Dexter strive toward that time in their lives when they will feel complete, whole. They work toward that one day when everything will inevitably fall into place. And while that day may not exist for all or at all, for that matter, ONE DAY will have you believing that it is still coming.

Marty to Tackle Liz and Dick

Or, rather, according to Deadline New York, Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese is in talks to helm a film about the love affair between the late Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.  (Just look above, aren't they the cutest couple?)  No casting has been announced, but the rumor mill is atwitter with possibilities, from Charlize Thereon, Angelina Jolie, Anne Hathaway, and even Megan Fox.  I'm personally hoping Russell Crowe is tapped for Burton.

As you can tell from my background both on this blog and my Twitter, I'm a huge Liz and Dick fan, maybe less of their real life relationships and more of their on screen ones.  Together, when they were acting, it was like watching magic on screen.  The work they put together in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf is some of the best ever in a film, and how they play off one another is remarkable.  Aside from Bogey/Bacall and Tracey/Hepburn, this is Hollywood's greatest love story.

If you existed, I'd divorce you! 

But this is said to be about their love affair.  So be it.  I won't be judgemental of this project yet, for this is a tale of Old Hollywood and recently is any director has proven himself perfectly able to tackle Old Hollywood it's The Aviator helmer Scorsese.  This type of tale doesn't need just an apt director, it needs someone who loves movies and not just making them.  Scorsese is such a man.

Who do you think should play Hollywood's most heated couple?


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BREAKING NEWS: James Franco wasn't high

Apparently this still matters.  If you don't know, just hours after hosting this year's Academy Awards, the internet was flooded with speculation regarding Franco.  Rumor had it, the 127 Hours star was high as a kite during the ceremony, thus explaining his apathetic line delivery and generally unenthusiastic nature.  I never really bought it then, and I still don't know.  Whether or not the host was high doesn't absolve the writers of randomly dressing him up as Marilyn Monroe or shoving low-brow Charlie Sheen humor into his mouth.  The writing was just bad.  At least Franco can commiserate with an unpopular past Oscar host, David Letterman.  It goes without saying that laying an egg on Oscar night didn't do too much damage to Letterman's career.

That being said, Franco wasn't the world's best host.  But as he put it on Letterman the other night, that doesn't really matter.  No matter who hosts the Oscars, they're going to be reamed the next morning and then forgiven eventually when everyone forgets just what the host did that was so awful to begin with.  Thankfully, Franco doesn't sound like he'll accept an unlikely return invite anyway.  People forget the "Oh we want him back" man of the moment, Hugh Jackman, got tepid reviews of his Oscar telecast.

But above all, even with all this slandering of Franco's character, we have to stop caring so much about the telecast itself.  It's designed and meant for people who don't care about the Oscars. Those who root for whatever nominee's name they recognize and whatever blockbuster film they saw.  The average viewer doesn't care about Art Direction, or who's favored to win Best Cinematography.  The telecast is a money-making machine, and still foolishly attempting to pander to a younger demographic (see: Anne Hathaway and Franco).  It's unfortunate they were roped into this, but at the end of the day, few people will even remember they hosted the ceremony.  Can you even name half of the hosts this last decade?

Great, he wasn't high.  Who'da thunk?  Moving on.



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LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS

Written by Charles Randolph, Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz

Directed by Edward Zwick

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway and Oliver Platt

Jamie Randall: You're my little blue pill.

Ordinarily, I would say that any film that starts with The Spin Doctors’ “Two Princes” is destined to be a disaster. LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS takes place is 1996 though so I guess I can be reasonable. The catchy ditty that consumed the airwaves that year is blasting in a high-end stereo store, where Jamie Randall (Jake Gyllenhaal) is using his charms to make the sales and get the ladies while he’s at it. He hasn’t a care in the world until he meets a girl (Anne Hathaway) who has no choice but to take life seriously. The twosome are charming together and so disaster is averted but sadly, only so far as to achieve disappointment.

Director Edward Zwick (DEFIANCE) often makes socially conscious films and LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS is no different (although arguably much less serious than say, BLOOD DIAMOND, as far as issues go). Jamie is a pharmaceutical representative for Pfizer at just the right time to cash in on the Viagra explosion. This allows Zwick to explore supposedly scandalous themes like the evils of the drug companies and how they’re ruining our immune systems while getting disgustingly rich. Zwick is never really interested in the matter at hand though. He just uses hot topic scenarios as backdrops for the real story - in this case, the reluctant love between Jamie and Hathaway’s Maggie Murdoch. To make matters worse, and of course much more poignant, Maggie has early on-set Parkinson’s. And so the real question is how life can be so terribly unfair as to give these two people a transformative love that will only get harder and harder to hold.

My answer to that is pretty simple. That’s life, folks. For all of Zwick’s fascination with serious subjects, he rarely seems to comprehend the actual impact of these hardships on the people involved. Maggie pushes people away because she doesn’t think its fair for anyone to have to deal with her condition. Meanwhile, Jamie is frustrated that he can’t fix her with a pill like everything else and has to accept that love is hard. While these are real struggles, the tone is kept pretty light while both of them accept that love is a drug all unto itself. Fortunately for LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS, Gyllenhaal and Hathaway get along brilliantly. They are playful and sharp, like lovers should be, and thanks to Zwick’s somewhat voyeuristic gaze, they are hot and naked a whole heck of a lot too. They are certainly the only addictive element to the film though and when the buzz wears off, there is no withdrawal at all.

Slumdog Millionaire wins Critics Choice Award

Director Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire won the Critic's Choice award as Best Picture, Boyle won director and the film won five awards overall at Thursday nights Critic's Choics awards for 2008 films.

Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire
Best Director: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Best Action Picture: The Dark Knight
Best Comedy Picture: Tropic Thunder
Best Animated Picture: Wall-E
Best

Get Smart

“Get Smart” is a movie constantly at odds with itself. It wants to be both a big action movie and a comedy, but neither part is particularly satisfying.

The main problem is the portrayal of Maxwell Smart, aka Agent 86 (Steve Carell). An analyst at CONTROL, a CIA rival, he’s promoted to field agent and sent out on a mission, partnered with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway).

In some scenes he’s a total incompetent, with Smart played for laughs, while in the next he’s out Bonding Bond.

I can understand the makers of the film wanting to make the character their own, different from Don Adams’ masterful portrayal from the vintage TV show. However the film’s tone constantly fluctuates from scene to scene, which makes for frustrating viewing.

The comedy portions are wildly uneven. There’s a hilarious sequence set in an airplane lavatory where Smart tries to escape his bound hands by shooting the ropes with a dart gun, impaling himself in the process. Funny stuff and very inventive.

But for every scene like that, there’s a dud of a scene that sits like a lead weight. Missed opportunities abound such as Smart trying to avoid laser beam sensors. For all his talent, Carell is not enough of a physical comedian to pull it off. How much funnier it would have been to have him contort his body in all sorts of spectacularly silly ways to prevent his body from touching the sensors.

The same holds true during a dance scene with an obese woman. There’s a lot of footage devoted to it, so it’s obviously meant to be a highlight, but the scene just sits there. There was barely a giggle during the fairly well attended audience I saw it with.

Back to that airplane scene. Smart accidentally ejects himself into free fall minus a parachute, and it’s up to Agent 99 to skydive after him to rescue him. A giant goon of an assassin follows them and the three engage in a freefall fight through the atmosphere. Gee, I liked it a lot better when I saw it in “Moonraker” (1979). Even the camera angles are the same. Homage or creative laziness? I opt for the latter.

The film’s climax hinges at a concert attended by the President (James Caan), where a nuclear device planted at concert hall is set to explode at the end of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Let’s see, an international incident ready to occur in a concert hall to the final chords of a large-scale choral work? Wasn’t that the climax of both versions of Hitchcock’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much?”

So in addition to riffing off famous lines from the “Get Smart” TV show, we get ripoffs of older, better movies. (Though to be fair, “Moonraker” is easily the worst 007 movie to date.)

Speaking of music, the film’s score is another snorer from “composer” Trevor Rabin, a man with the dramatic sensibilities of a snow pea. His chase music is so routine and uninspired you wonder why he even bothered.

For years, the tradition in thrillers with a musical setting was to have the film’s composer play an on-screen role as the conductor. So film music fans had an extra bonus seeing Bernard Herrmann, Lalo Schifrin or John Barry on-screen.

Instead for “Get Smart” we have actor Jerry Sherman playing the conductor, and he’s an odd choice. An old man with chicken-like body, he’s funny looking, thereby giving the impression classical music is boring and old. Of course we get the obligatory scene of the President falling asleep at the concert. Never mind that he’s hearing one of the most monumental musical masterworks of all time, we have to condescend to the audience and show someone falling asleep. (I can guarantee there wouldn’t be such a scene if it took place at a jazz or rock concert.)

The cast is good. No improvements there. Terence Stamp plays the villain Siegfried and he’s great. What a marvelous voice he has. God, how I miss actors with distinctive voices in movies. More Terence Stamp next time please.

I’ve always liked Dwayne Johnson (former pro wrestler The Rock) who exudes screen charisma that most actors can only dream of possessing. He’s also terrific and he participates in what for me is the film’s funniest bit, involving a stapler.

The cone of silence bit is well updated from the TV show and that scene provides some genuine laughs as well. But it’s a sad sign in contemporary film comedy that a two hour movie can only generate three or four big laughs. For a comedy spy melodrama, I think I’ll stick with the glorious “Top Secret!” (1984). Now there’s an example of how to stage a riotously funny dance sequence.

Rating for “Get Smart”: Two and a half stars.