Richard’s column “Big Screen/Small Screen” in the April issue of “Movie Entertainment”!
In Hollywood real life power couples come in all shapes and sizes. There’s the Red Carpet ready Angelina and Brad, the jet setting George and Amal and for nostalgic types, Bogie and Bacall. This year April is offering up several new and different high-octane reel life duos on the big screen.
Based on the romance between Euphemia Gray and art critic John Ruskin, Effie Grey teams Dakota Fanning and Greg Wise in a real life May – December love affair that titillated Victorian England. Effie was a child of twelve when the twenty-something Ruskin dedicated the novel The King of the Golden River to her. They eventually walked down the aisle, but the marriage was never consummated and ended in divorce and social ruin for Effie.
Shot partly on location at the Palace of Versailles, The Moon and the Sun pairs Pierce Brosnan and Bingbing Fan in a story about one man’s search for immortality. The movie was inspired by Vonda N. McIntyre’s novel, which beat out George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones to win the 1997 Nebula Award for science-fiction and fantasy writing.
The former James Bond plays the Sun King, King Louis XIV of France, whose 72 year reign is the longest of any monarch of in European history, but he wants more. His quest for eternal life leads him to steal the life force of a mermaid, played by Fan, but her beauty and gorgeous singing raise ethical questions among the King’s courtiers… To read the rest pick up “Movie Entertainment” magazine’s April issue on stands now!
Rock ’n’ roll and the movies have always had an uneasy relationship. For every film that hits all the right notes, like Quadrophenia or A Hard Day’s Night, there’s a host of tone-deaf films like Light of Day, featuring Michael J. Fox and Joan Jett as musical siblings, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a glam-rock-and-disco re-imagining of the Beatles classic.
Rock ’n’ roll biographies are equally hit-and-miss. In The Buddy Holly Story, the toothy Gary Busey earned an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of the rock legend, but Roger Ebert sneered that Dennis Quaid played Jerry Lee Lewis in Great Balls of Fire “as a grinning simpleton with a crazy streak.”
This weekend, Jersey Boys — directed by Clint Eastwood, and based on the Tony Award-winning musical — tells the story of ’60s hitmakers The Four Seasons. Songs like Big Girls Don’t Cry, Walk Like A Man and Can’t Take My Eyes Off You made them one of the biggest-selling rock acts of all time.
Lesser known than the Four Seasons but louder, faster and dirtier were The Runaways, the subject of a rambunctious 2010 movie. Set back when you could still drink a bottle of stolen booze in the shade of the Hollywood sign, The Runaways focuses on two glue-sniffing, tough girls named Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) and Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning) who formed the underage all-girl band. The music of The Runaways was described as the “sound of hormones raging,” and this film captures that.
I’m Not There is a hard movie to describe. It’s a metaphoric retelling of Bob Dylan’s life, but none of the characters in it are called Bob Dylan. Most of them don’t look like Dylan, and the one who most looks like Dylan is a woman. Unlike Walk the Line or Ray, which were both standard-issue Hollywood biopics, there is nothing linear here, but then there is nothing straightforward about the man, so there should be nothing straightforward about the movie.
Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll is the title of eccentric English singer Ian Dury’s biggest hit and the 2010 biopic about his eventful life. Starring Andy Serkis, the film is as high voltage as one of Dury’s legendary live performances.
Finally, the film Control details the short life of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis (Sam Riley). After seeing the film at Cannes, Curtis’s bass player Peter Hook said he knew the movie “would be very well received because, even though it’s two hours long, only two people went to the toilet the whole time. In fact, one of them was (Joy Division founding member) Bernard (Sumner). The other one was a 70-year-old woman.”
In olden days fairy tales were not meant for children. Until The Brothers Grimm came along, and despite their ominous sounding name, cleaned up folkloric tales like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty by removing all the sex and most of the violence, fairy tales were best told after the kids went to bed. So it is with Coraline, a new animated movie based on the Hugo Award-winning book by Neil Gaiman. On the surface it looks like a kid’s movie with stop motion animation and a young central character, but make no mistake this is a PG13 movie filled with creepy images that could send the little ones straight from the theater to the psychiatrist’s couch.
Coraline’s (the voice of Dakota Fanning) journey into a strange and scary new world begins when her parents (Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman) rent an apartment in a peculiar house called The Pink Palace. Upstairs in the attic is circus performer Mr. Bobinski (Ian McShane) and his troupe of musical mice. Downstairs are a pair of retired actresses, Miss Forcible (Jennifer Saunders) and Miss Spink (Dawn French), who share their apartment ith a menagerie of Scottie dogs, some alive, some stuffed. Despite the colorful neighbors Coraline is bored. Her parents neglect her and the only other kid in the neighborhood is the weeby Wybie Lovat. Things get more interesting when she discovers a mysterious door hat leads to a mirror reality, an eccentric Alice Through the Looking Glass world, where er parents pay attention to her and life is interesting. It isn’t until things take a dark turn hat Coraline realizes she may never escape the eerie Other World and return home to her eal parents.
I’ll say it again, despite Coraline’s storyline about a young girl trying to find her way back to her parents and the animation, (it’s the first stop-motion animated feature to be originally filmed in 3D), this is not a movie for little kids. The New York Times called the novel “one of the most truly frightening books ever written” and while the movie tones down some of the scares for the big screen, it is still a chilling ride.
Visually it’s a cross between Pee Wee’s Playhouse and the gonzo caricatures of Ralph Steadman. Director Henry Selick, the brains behind James and the Giant Peach and The Nightmare Before Christmas, has created two unique worlds: Coraline’s mundane day-to-day world and the heightened existence she has behind the mysterious door. Both are flights of fancy, from a garden that recreates Coraline’s face to the marching mouse band. Rendered with great imagination and beauty by Selick and his team the film is pure cinematic eye candy.
Luckily the story equals the surreal imagery. Coraline’s journey to the dark mirror image of her life is effectively scary not because it offers a thrill a minute but because it plays on primal fears, the dread of being abandoned, the unknown and claustrophobia. These basic feelings form the backbone of the story and the inventive visuals and nice voice work from Dakota Fanning and the supporting cast do the rest.
Coraline is the rare animated film that succeeds both as mainstream entertainment and art
Few tales of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll contain as much sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll as the tawdry tale of The Runaways. An underage all girl rock band—they billed themselves as “Genuine Jailbait”—spawned from the Sunset Strip’s late 1970s seedy underbelly, they imploded in 1979 after four tumultuous years. “The Runaways,” a new film written and directed by former video helmer Floria Sigismondi, sees two “Twilight” co-stars leave behind repressed romance for life on the road.
Set back when you could still drink a bottle of stolen booze in the shade of the Hollywood sign without being arrested for trespassing, the movie focuses on two glue sniffing, glam rock obsessed tough girls named Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) and Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning). Disaffected SoCal teens, they see an exit from their mundane suburban lives through rock ‘n’ roll. Unfortunately their ticket out comes in the form of impresario Kim Fowley, a record producer and self proclaimed “King Hysteria.” He cobbles together the band, trains them to be rock stars, convinced that these “bitches are going to be bigger than the Beatles.” Before they can play Shea Stadium, however, the band breaks up—knee deep in ego, drug abuse and bad management.
Sigismondi has made the movie equivalent of an ear blistering blast of feedback. Like the band’s two-minute-forty-five-second guitar punk tunes, “The Runaways” is loud, fast and dirty. If you want depth wait for the rock ‘n’ roll bio of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Here Sigismondi leaves behind the surreal feel of her videos and visual art, instead opting for a straightforward (although probably mostly fictional) retelling of the rapid rise and equally rapid free fall of the band. Its “Behind the Music” formulaic but Sigismondi layers on so many other rock ‘n’ roll elements that the lack of experimentation in the telling of the tale isn’t a minus.
Kristen Stewart is the name above the title star, and she does bring her brooding Brando best to the role of Joan Jett, but this movie belongs to Dakota Fanning and Michael Shannon, who hands in a flamboyant performance.
As Kim Fowley he has a more than a passing resemblance to Beef from “Phantom of the Paradise,” and like that character he is campy, dangerous and slightly unhinged. An egomaniac, he introduces himself as, “Kim Fowley, record producer. You’ve heard of me.” It’s a bravura performance that could have gone very wrong in the hands of a less committed actor, but Shannon pulls it off with wild aplomb.
Fanning shines, but in a much more low key way. Low key, but not low wattage. Fowley describes her outer layer as part Bardot, part Bowie but she plays Currie as damaged goods; a young girl with a crappy home life and faraway look in her eye. Fanning quietly gives Currie an unspoken inner life as she slowly falls apart, and whether she’s smashing pills with her platform heels and snorting the powder off the floor or rocking it out on stage there is a core of sadness to her that is so real you can almost reach out and touch it. It’s the most demanding role in the film and Fanning aces it.
Kim Fowley described the music of The Runaways as the “sound of hormones raging” and in her film Sigismondi transcends the formulaic aspects of the story by capturing the gritty spirit of in-your-face teenage rebellion.
The trailer for The Secret Life of Bee looks life-affirming. I hate life-affirming movies. I truly dislike being manipulated into feeling a certain way, feeling as though if a tear doesn’t come to my eye that I don’t “get it” or have a heart like a cherry pit. Nothing irks me more than swelling orchestral music, timed to coincide with a first tender kiss, the death of a loved one or a warm embrace between long-lost relatives. So I went to The Secret Life of Bees expecting a slight story buoyed by a handful of cinematic tricks geared to turn me into a ball of mush. Instead I found a rarity, a life affirming movie that didn’t make me want to reach for a barf bag.
Based on the Sue Monk Kidd bestselling novel the movie is set in the American south in 1964. Lily Owens (Dakota Fanning) is an emotionally damaged fourteen-year-old being raised by her abusive single parent father (Paul Bettany) after she accidentally shot her mother ten years previously. President Lyndon B Johnson has just written a Civil Rights Bill into law promising equality to all, but when Lily and her nanny Rosaleen (Jennifer Hudson) try and exercise that equality Rosaleen is brutalized by bigoted townsfolk. Following the beating the pair go one the run—Lily from her father, Rosaleen from police custody. They end up at the Pepto Bismol-pink home of the bee-keeping Boatwright sisters (Queen Latifah, Sophie Okenodo and Alicia Keys) in the nearby town of Tiburon. It’s a sanctuary and, as Lily soon discovers, a link to her former life.
Yes, it’s a dreaded coming of age story. Ugh. Yes, it is manipulative and yes, it is life affirming. Then why did I like it so much? I liked it because although it is all of the above it is also a well crafted, warm hearted story with compelling characters, good performances with an interesting dollop of civil rights history thrown in. The combination of personal stories set against the backdrop of Jim Crow America isn’t a new idea, but The Secret Life of Bees manages a hopeful tone, despite the hatred and bigotry contained in the story.
Leading the cast is Dakota Fanning, the young actress best known as the pre-teen star of War of the Worlds, Charlotte’s Web and Man on Fire. She’s now fourteen and on the cusp of adult roles and with The Secret Life of Bees takes a big step forward. Her work here is wonderful. It’s an understated and natural performance that feels utterly real. She barely moves, as though she’s almost paralyzed by a lifetime of hurt and anguish but when the levee breaks and she bursts into tears, screaming that she is “unlovable” it is heart wrenching.
The rest of the cast follows suit delivering good, solid work. Jennifer Hudson proves that her Oscar for Dreamgirls wasn’t just a fluke; Queen Latifah is dignified and matronly as the oldest of the Boatwright sisters; Alicia Keys gives firecracker June unexpected depths and Sophie Okonedo, in the film’s most thankless role as the emotionally fragile May, takes a character that could have been parody and gives it a sense of vulnerability, turning her into a real person.
The Secret Life of Bees is everything I hate in a movie, and much that I admire. Luckily the strong characters and good performances lift the “life affirming” curse.
In olden days fairy tales were not meant for children. Until The Brothers Grimm came along, and despite their ominous sounding name, cleaned up folkloric tales like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty by removing all the sex and most of the violence, fairy tales were best told after the kids went to bed. So it is with Coraline, a new animated movie based on the Hugo Award-winning book by Neil Gaiman. On the surface it looks like a kid’s movie with stop motion animation and a young central character, but make no mistake this is a PG13 movie filled with creepy images that could send the little ones straight from the theater to the psychiatrist’s couch.
Coraline’s (the voice of Dakota Fanning) journey into a strange and scary new world begins when her parents (Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman) rent an apartment in a peculiar house called The Pink Palace. Upstairs in the attic is circus performer Mr. Bobinski (Ian McShane) and his troupe of musical mice. Downstairs are a pair of retired actresses, Miss Forcible (Jennifer Saunders) and Miss Spink (Dawn French), who share their apartment ith a menagerie of Scottie dogs, some alive, some stuffed. Despite the colorful neighbors Coraline is bored. Her parents neglect her and the only other kid in the neighborhood is the weeby Wybie Lovat. Things get more interesting when she discovers a mysterious door hat leads to a mirror reality, an eccentric Alice Through the Looking Glass world, where er parents pay attention to her and life is interesting. It isn’t until things take a dark turn hat Coraline realizes she may never escape the eerie Other World and return home to her eal parents.
I’ll say it again, despite Coraline’s storyline about a young girl trying to find her way back to her parents and the animation, (it’s the first stop-motion animated feature to be originally filmed in 3D), this is not a movie for little kids. The New York Times called the novel “one of the most truly frightening books ever written” and while the movie tones down some of the scares for the big screen, it is still a chilling ride.
Visually it’s a cross between Pee Wee’s Playhouse and the gonzo caricatures of Ralph Steadman. Director Henry Selick, the brains behind James and the Giant Peach and The Nightmare Before Christmas, has created two unique worlds: Coraline’s mundane day-to-day world and the heightened existence she has behind the mysterious door. Both are flights of fancy, from a garden that recreates Coraline’s face to the marching mouse band. Rendered with great imagination and beauty by Selick and his team the film is pure cinematic eye candy.
Luckily the story equals the surreal imagery. Coraline’s journey to the dark mirror image of her life is effectively scary not because it offers a thrill a minute but because it plays on primal fears, the dread of being abandoned, the unknown and claustrophobia. These basic feelings form the backbone of the story and the inventive visuals and nice voice work from Dakota Fanning and the supporting cast do the rest.
Coraline is the rare animated film that succeeds both as mainstream entertainment and art.
Some things are better left alone. I recently read that the Jack Kerouac classic On the Road is being turned into a movie. I can’t imagine that this is a good idea as the filmmakers could never possibly translate this book, which is revered by generations of people, into a film that would be better than the book. Another, more tangible example is out on DVD this week. Charlotte’s Web is a beloved children’s book about Wilbur a little runt pig who is concerned that he is going to end up as dinner unless he takes action. With the help of a quick-witted spider named Charlotte he hatches a plan to avoid turning into Sunday dinner.
This big budget adaptation features an all-star voice cast, including Julia Roberts as the know-it-all spider and Robert Redford, Oprah Winfrey, Cedric the Entertainer, John Cleese, Reba McEntire and Kathy Bates with Dakota Fanning heading up the live action cast.
There’s an old saying, “You can’t put lipstick on a pig,” which seems appropriate here. Charlotte’s Web isn’t as charming as that other talking pig movie Babe, or the book for that matter, but it is sweet and maybe will encourage a few kids to turn off the TV and pick up the book.
Richard’s column “Big Screen/Small Screen” in the April issue of “Movie Entertainment”!
