All You Need is Love is an epic 14 hour look at the history of popular music from BBC director Tony Palmer. Spread over 5 discs the documentary series originally aired on the BBC between 1976 and 1980 and pieces together the history of rock and roll from its roots through to the end of the drug fuelled seventies. It stops just short of covering punk rock, so there’s no Sid Vicious, but it does a definitive job of covering the years leading up to and including classic rock’s golden age. That means there’’s lots of footage of bands destroying their instruments on stage, most notably The Who and Keith Emerson who undertakes to turn a Hammond Organ into matchsticks in front of an audience.
Palmer shot over 1000 hours of interviews and concert footage to create this series, and presents a scholarly, yet vibrant and complete look at the birth of rock and roll.
Are there two more stronger, silenter types in modern movies than Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen? Each of these actors are a throw back to the days when cowboy stars were manly men who mean what they say and only say what they mean and nothing else.
Harris (who also directs) and Mortensen are gunmen hired to bring law and order to the City of Appaloosa, New Mexico. Their main target is cop killer Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons), but their job is complicated when a flirtatious woman (Renée Zellweger) comes between them.
Appaloosa comes a year after 3:10 to Yuma and The Assassination of Jesse James gave the western genre a shot in the arm. It’s closer in spirit to the former than the latter—meaning that it is a straightforward genre piece that if it had been made 50 years ago would have starred Alan Ladd and Randolph Scott. Like Clint Eastwood’s The Unforgiven, Appaloosa is a great Western cow opera about men looking inside themselves to discover the true essence of their lives. It doesn’t have the gravitas of Eastwood’s classic, and the economy of dialogue between the leads—there are conversational gaps you could drive a truck through—gets a bit tiresome after a while, but Appaloosa should satisfy viewers who long for the days when men wore chaps and spittoons were a welcome decorative addition to any home.
Australia, the new film from Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrmann is big. It’s an epic with an ambitious running time of 165 minutes that covers a lot of ground; it’s part romance, part western, part thriller, part war drama and part civil rights story. Luhrmann has superimposed the best bits of The African Queen, Gone with the Wind and Giant against the majestic backdrop of the Australian Outback.
Set in World War II era Australia the story begins when plucky English aristocrat Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) impulsively decides to leave her pampered life in the UK to travel to Australia to check up on her husband who has been managing a large cattle ranch deep in the Outback. What was planned as a quick trip soon changes into a life altering journey as she finds she is a widow about to inherit a failing cattle business on a million acre ranch. With the help of Drover (Hugh Jackman), a rough-and-tumble Outback cowboy, she drives 1,500 head of cattle across the brutal Outback landscape to the trading town of Darwin. That would be enough story for most movies, but not an ambitious one like Australia. Once in Darwin Sarah and Drover must contend with their deepening feelings for one another, racism, their responsibility for a young farm worker of mixed race—a “creamy” the locals call him—named Nullah (Brandon Walters) and on top of it all, World War II.
It takes a big movie to introduce a wild bombing scene, complete with aerial acrobatics, in the last hour and not have it overshadow what has come before. When the Japanese bomb the town of Darwin Luhrmann’s camera dances through the sequence and it’s a show stopper but it doesn’t bring the movie to a halt because Luhrmann has carefully set up the story to be about the people and their relationships rather than the bombast of the bigger set pieces.
As I said, it’s big, but the intimate aspects of the story shine through—that’s Sarah Ashley’s feelings for both Drover and Nullah, her unofficially adopted son; Drover’s realization that he can’t live in the past and Nullah’s need to reconcile his heritage with his new life are the focus of the story. The rest is set dressing.
Kidman does a nice job transforming her character from prissy English aristocrat to plucky Australian cowgirl, and actually earns a few laughs along the way. She’s more naturally funny here than she ever has been in the alleged comedies she’s made in the past. Jackman, who has clearly been spending some time in the gym, plays a convincing cowboy. The most magnetic performance comes from newcomer Brandon Walters as Nullah. It’s a tricky role, one that requires the young actor to portray a mix of realism and the mysticism so crucial to his Aborigine culture.
It’s not all sunshine and light however. Nullah’s Jar Jar Binks-esque patois grates after a while and sparks don’t exactly fly between the two leads but overall Australia is a stylish film with old-fashioned storytelling that should lend itself to multiple viewings. (Also note: No dingos were harmed in the making of this motion picture.)
Adventureland is one of those movies in which the setting—the time and place—are more interesting than the characters that populate it. Set in a rundown amusement park during the Regan years, it’s a coming of age story of James (The Squid and the Whale’s Jesse Eisenberg), a sensitive teen whose plans of moving to New York to attend grad school at Columbia are derailed when his father is downsized and money becomes tight. To get out of Pittsburgh and his stultifying suburban life he needs to get a job. Trouble is he has no skills, just a degree in Renaissance studies and, “Unless someone wants help restoring a fresco,” he says, “I’m screwed.” He eventually lands a gig at Adventureland handing out stuffed animals to the few carnival goers lucky enough to beat the amusement park’s rigged games.
The characters at the park seem like an interesting bunch. There’s the part-time musician, womanizer and maintenance man Connell (Ryan Reynolds), who claims to have jammed with Lou Reed, even though he refers to one of Reed’s best known songs as Shed A Little Love instead of Satellite of Love; his best friend from grade four Tommy Frigo (Matt Bush) who wears a t-shirt that says “I’m Frigo! Kapeesh!!” and has the unsettling habit of punching James below the belt two or three times a day; the pipe-smoking Joel (Martin Starr), a self loathing Gogol obsessed intellectual who characterizes their jobs as the “work of pathetic morons” and Em (Kirsten Stewart) a pretty but dour tomboy who favors baggy Lou Reed t-shirts.
It’s an interesting canvas but director Greg Mottola, who based the screenplay on his own experiences of working at the real-life Adventureland, doesn’t bring the same kind of zip to the situations or characters as he did in his last movie, the sublime Superbad.
Adventureland breathes the same air as its predecessor but is much different in tone. The goofy guys in Superbad are gone, replaced by James, a young boy who early on makes a mixed tape for Em of his favorite bummer songs, including Lou Reed’s doleful Pale Blues Eyes, which sets the movie’s downbeat tone.
This is not to say there aren’t humorous moments. Bill Hader shines as the larger-than-life park manager and James’s story about his mom reading his diary—he had to start writing it in Italian to throw her off—is hilarious but the overall tone is sweet rather than funny.
As James Eisenberg is appealing enough, but I’m guessing after the success of Twilight this movie will find an audience based on the popularity of co-star Kristen Stewart. Since playing Bella in the vampire franchise she’s become a hot item, and with her naturally down turned mouth she does sullen like no other young actress working today.
Adentureland, with it’s carefully picked 80s soundtrack and close attention to period details is an interesting time capsule of the decade of greed from a teenager’s perspective. I just wish I had cared more about the characters and less about the set decoration.
The easy description of Anvil: The Story of Anvil is to call it the real-life Spinal Tap. The story of the heaviest heavy metal band you’ve never heard of bears a strong resemblance to the legendary fictional band, but it is so much more than that. It is a story of passion, of trying to beat the odds, of friendship, of hope against hope. It’s also quite funny and the music will peel the paint off theatre walls.
Steve “Lips” Kudlow and Robb Reiner met when they were just fourteen years old and have been making music together ever since. Now middle aged and road weary they have day jobs but haven’t given up on their rock and roll dreams. The Toronto based band released one of the heaviest albums in metal history, 1982’s Metal on Metal, which influenced a generation musicians including Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax, but unlike the bands they inspired Anvil’s career never took flight.
Directed by former roadie (and now Hollywood screenwriter and director) Sacha Gervasi, it’s a film that digs deeper than VH1’s Behind the Music series to fully expose the life of a working band, but the thing that really separates Anvil from the rest of the music bio pack is the more universal story of people pursuing their personal passion in the face of ostensibly overwhelming odds. The persistence and indomitable spirit of Kudlow and Reiner turn them into unlikely heroes whether you’re a metal fan or not.
Let’s face it, heavy metal is ripe for parody but Gervasi takes pains not to patronize or poke fun at the band. He treats them respectfully and in doing so has made the best rock ‘n roll documentary since Metallica: Some Kind of Monster.
FORWARD: I’ve never written a forward to a review before, but because of the large amount of mail I have received about this movie I felt it necessary. In response to the people who have e-mailed me with long tracts regarding Dan Brown’s book, the movie, The Illuminati and the veracity of the book, I point you toward the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano review of the film. They described Angels and Demons as “harmless entertainment which hardly affects the genius and mystery of Christianity.” Calling the movie “a gigantic and smart commercial operation” the review noted that it is filled with historical inaccuracies but went on to suggest that one could make a game of pointing out all of the film’s historical mistakes. I’m with them. This is a movie, not a history lesson, so there is nothing in my review about the historical accuracy of the film. It’s simply a review of a big summer thriller that a lot of people are interested in.
REVIEW:
Harvard Professor Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is back in action. Three years after he uncovered the complicated personal life of Jesus Christ in The Da Vinci Code he’s once again using his knowledge of symbology to unravel the mystery of a secret brotherhood called the Illuminati and prevent a terrorist act against the Vatican. What’s more, he’ll do it all in just one night. Sounds thrilling, yes?
Unfortunately it isn’t.
Most of the elements from Dan Brown’s bestselling book Angels and Demons are in place, although several characters have been omitted and story lines reconfigured and condensed in the name of brevity.
Summarizing the story, however, brings a simplicity that sucks most of the mystery and colorful details contained in the novel from the movie. Langdon seems to be able to unravel clues, some hundreds of years old, with such ease that Angels and Demons becomes simply an elaborate game of connect-the-dots rather than a fully fleshed out story.
It’s a big summer movie, so we shouldn’t really expect sophisticated North by Northwest style intrigue, but since the suspense lacks the action should take up the slack. Unfortunately though, while A&D wants to be an ecclesiastical National Treasure, it contains few of the thrills of those popular Nic Cage movies. For example, one long action sequence in the Vatican Archives is about as breathtaking as you would image an action scene set in a library to be.
Director Ron Howard fills the screen with handsome images of Rome but every time the movie works up a head of steam Robert “Mr. Exposition” Langdon steps in with a long winded explanation of the history behind the various clues and symbols that sucks much of the movie’s momentum.
Angels and Demons isn’t as talky as Da Vinci Code, but its fatal flaw is the Langdon character. In the books he is the historical tour guide who provides the facts to bind the story together. On film, however, he comes across as a windbag who simply supports the story instead of adding to it.
That being said, Angels and Demons is a vast improvement over The Da Vinci Code. The pace has been ramped up and the running time chopped but even though these Dan Brown adaptations are Hanks and Howard’s most successful movies, they aren’t their best. If they choose to work together again I hope it’s in Splash 2 or Apollo 13: Off to Mars! and not another tepid Langdon adventure.
Near the end of Adam the titular character (Hugh Dancy) says, “I’m not Forrest Gump you know.” True enough. Adam may have Asperger’s Syndrome, but director / screenwriter Max Mayer has avoided most of the sentimental pitfalls that make the Tom Hanks movie an exercise in how not to make a movie about someone who is not “neurotypical.” Most, but not all.
The story begins just as Adam’s father has passed away. His lonely life of routine—he eats the same thing everyday and has a phobia of change—is shaken when a pretty young woman named Beth (Rose Byrne) becomes his upstairs neighbor. The two begin a romance, even though Adam, because of his Asperger’s Syndrome, is unable to express his feelings. Nonetheless they create a connection; a fragile bond that stressed by her family and his job woes.
Adam had the potential to be a maudlin movie about a doomed romance but instead is a smart story about obstacles that get in the way of fulfilling relationships. To convincingly drive the story home Mayer has cast two very appealing actors in the lead roles.
Dancy has the showier part, but where he could have played Adam as simply deadpan he instead manages to bring the character to life, taking a role that could have been a collection of obsessions and awkward social interactions and molding it into a real character the audience cares about.
Dancy may have the flashier role, but Byrne brings heart to the film. Her take on Beth is simple and sweet. In a raw, but understated performance she plays a woman who is searching for truth in her life. After a complicated romantic relationship and difficulties with her father she finds Adam’s honesty—it’s a trait of his Asperger’s—refreshing. His bluntness can be difficult at times, but one of the pleasures of the movie is watching the way she learns to communicate with Adam, becoming skilled at saying exactly what she means with no room for interpretation. It’s a complicated dance between the two, but one that is played for real and with little sentimentality.
Little sentiment, that is, until the end. Mayer breaks some of the rules of the usual made in Manhattan romantic film, but chooses to close with a sequence that undermines the tone established in the rest of the film. It’s not a deal breaker, the rest of the movie is too good to be ruined by a schmaltzy ending, but I would have preferred a coda that was more in line with the film’s first ninety minutes.
In “All About Steve” Sandra Bullock is Mary a nerdy cruciverbalist—that’s crosswords constructor to you and me—for a local newspaper in Sacramento. She’s socially awkward, lives at home with her parents, and has an editor who tells her to try and “be normal.” In addition, she’s terminally single and has poor impulse control but, hey, she looks like Sandra Bullock so life isn’t all bad.
Her parents, in a bid to one day have grandchildren, set her up on a blind date with Mark (Bradley Cooper), a cameraman with CCN. She says as long as he isn’t “expressly hideous” she’ll give it a go. Turns out something about Steve brings out the animal in Mary but when she says “I’m going to eat you like a mountain lion” four minutes into their first date he ditches her, saying that he has to leave town for work. She’s smitten—some would say obsessed—and goes off the deep end, handing in a crossword to the paper with the title All About Steve. Sample clue: What do Steve’s lips taste like? Answer: Mint Explosion. She gets fired from her job, which of course, gives her the time to hit the road and follow Steve from town to town as he covers news stories in Texas and Oklahoma. His feelings about her change—he realizes there IS something about Mary—however, when she becomes a news story.
“All About Steve” is kind of a light hearted “Fatal Attraction”—without the boiling rabbit. It’s a screwball comedy where the action is kick started by a misunderstanding. To that list of genres road trip flick and social commentary and you begin to maybe get the idea that this movie covers a lot of ground. Thematically it’s all over the place, but the one element that holds it together is its star Sandra Bullock.
Bullock isn’t playing her usual rom com character here; instead she builds a broad caricature of a chatterbox intellectual, which in the wrong hands could have been really annoying. It’s the kind of role Renee Zellweger would have rendered unwatchable, but Bullock, though sheer charm, pulls it off.
She’s cute. When she tries to slide down a banister, fresh out of the shower, still wrapped in a towel, with predictable results, it’s not a great gag, but she sells it, just like she sells every other silly moment in this kind of inconsequential but entertaining movie.
It’s all a bit harebrained—from the crossword metaphors and the “just accept people for what they are” moral—but a little charm goes a long way and Bullock is nothing if not charming.
The film also takes an unexpected—and not entirely believable—dramatic turn near the end that brings up echoes of Billy Wilder’s “Ace in the Hole,” and points an accusatory finger at the 24 hour news cycle that turns stories into sensationalism. It’s a bit heavy handed but since the rest of the film is feather light it balances out.
“A Serious Man,” though being billed as a comedy, may be the bleakest film the Coen Brothers have ever made. And remember these are the guys who once stuffed someone in a wood chipper on film. The story of a man who thought he did everything right, only to be jabbed in the eye by the fickle finger of fate is a tragiomedy that shows how ruthless real life can be.
This loosely plotted slice of life involves two very bad weeks in the life of physics professor Larry Gopnick (stage actor Michael Stuhlbarg). In an escalating series of events his life is turned upside down. His neighbor is unfriendly, his son complains nonstop about the poor TV reception, his wife announces she’s leaving him for another man and the committee who decides if he will get tenure at his university has been receiving uncomplimentary letters about him. As if that wasn’t enough, his deeply depressed brother is sleeping on the couch.
Set in 1967 Minnesota “A Serious Man” is apparently a thinly veiled look at the early life of the Coens, and if this is true, they deserve the designation of tortured artists. This film is darkly funny, but a celebration of life it ain’t.
Stuhlbarg does award level work turning Larry’s misery into a compelling and fully formed portrayal of a man in torment and the film is beautifully made but this is one of the quirkier efforts—example: there’s an old Rabbi who spouts Jefferson Airplane lyrics—from the filmmaking brothers. Plotting is virtually nonexistent and the abrupt ending makes “No Country Fore Old Men’s” unexpected finale seem wordy and drawn out.
Gopnick is portrayed as a good man, someone who has always done the right thing for his family and faith but reaped none of the benefits. His kids are indifferent to him, his wife openly contemptuous and he doesn’t appear to be on the fast track at work and that’s what makes “A Serious Man” so bleak. Nobody said life was fair but Larry Gopnick never gets a break, which, I suppose is the point of the film, but the futility of life message, while thought provoking, is a serious downer.
All You Need is Love is an epic 14 hour look at the history of popular music from BBC director Tony Palmer. Spread over 5 discs the documentary series originally aired on the BBC between 1976 and 1980 and pieces together the history of rock and roll from its roots through to the end of the drug fuelled seventies. It stops just short of covering punk rock, so there’s no Sid Vicious, but it does a definitive job of covering the years leading up to and including classic rock’s golden age. That means there’’s lots of footage of bands destroying their instruments on stage, most notably The Who and Keith Emerson who undertakes to turn a Hammond Organ into matchsticks in front of an audience.
