Tristan + Isolde (2006)

January 13, 2006Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Czech Republic, Drama, Germany, Romance, Theatrical, UK, War

*/****
starring James Franco, Sophia Myles, Rufus Sewell, David O'Hara
screenplay by Dean Georgaris
directed by Kevin Reynolds

Tristanisoldeby Walter Chaw After bravely transforming the Robin Hood legend into a case of thirtysomething love jones with Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Kevin Costner's well-known ex-best friend Kevin Reynolds turns the Tristan + Isolde legend into a WB/TIGER BEAT-friendly, mouth-breathing bodice-ripper indicated by lots of backlighting, orgasmic slow-mo, and dialogue purple enough to blind a Bronte sister. It's shot like a perfume commercial and written like a florid creative-writing exercise, one packed with such AM Gold, Luther Ingram treasures as: "Why does loving you feel so wrong?" Well, it might have something to do with said love being the basis for the Guinevere/Lancelot adultery story in which a woman comes between a king and his most trusted knight, leading to the ideological and literal collapse of a kingdom. Or it might have something to do with the fact that the actors playing the lovers in question never for a moment manage to spark the soggy tinder packed beneath the story. This allows a great deal of time for the sentient beings left in the audience after the ten-minute-mark exodus to suss out why this thing was delayed, then dumped in the middle of the January dead zone. It also, incidentally, caused me to fantasize about somehow harnessing the ability of films like this to make 125 minutes feel like six days for youth-giving effects and racing box scores.

Dark Water (2005) [Unrated Widescreen Edition] – DVD

January 12, 2006Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Horror, Mystery, Thriller

***½/**** Image A Sound A Extras C+
starring Jennifer Connelly, John C. Reilly, Tim Roth, Dougray Scott
screenplay by Rafael Yglesias, based on the novel by Koji Suzuki
directed by Walter Salles

by Walter Chaw Dahlia (Jennifer Connelly) is having a nightmare. Dark water is flooding into the ramshackle apartment she’s been forced to rent with young daughter Ceci (Ariel Gade) now that husband Kyle (Dougray Scott) has left her for another woman, where she encounters the visage of her spiteful alcoholic mother. Connelly’s performance throughout, but especially within these few seconds, is so complex, so almost physically wrenching, that the knowledge that Dark Water was badly marketed, critically savaged, and largely ignored stings all the more. Specifically, the moment in question underscores how far from the usual supernatural thriller this picture aspires to be: a ghost story in which the hauntings are golems of the soul instead of ectoplasm, cold spots, and rattling chains. In many ways, Dark Water works as an update of Jack Clayton’s The Innocents, another story of a single woman in a strange place, beset by children and other reptiles of the spirit. And in return, that image of corrupt water invading a woman’s place of sanctuary with her daughter, already laden with archetype, gets a bracing shot of genre smarts.

Lady Sings the Blues (1972) [Special Collector’s Edition] – DVD

January 10, 2006Posted in1970s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Biopic, Drama, DVD, Music, Romance

*½/**** Image A- Sound B Extras B
starring Diana Ross, Billy Dee Williams, Richard Pryor, James T. Callahan
screenplay by Terence McCloy and Chris Clark and Suzanne De Passe
directed by Sidney J. Furie

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Billie Holliday never really surfaces in her ostensible biopic, Lady Sings the Blues. There's somebody using her name, of course, somebody who pouts and shrieks and cries copious tears–but no matter how much Diana Ross knocks herself out "emoting," she doesn't do justice to her predecessor. Nor, for that matter, does the movie she's in. The supremely jaundiced Sidney J. Furie has seen fit to jettison any real mention of either Holliday's music or her convictions, replacing them with a blackface Valley of the Dolls–the story of not one of jazz's premier vocalists, but a sad little girl hooked on heroin. Ross is a solid junkie, all right, yet she and everybody else connected with the production are wrong to impose this on someone who should be remembered for a few things beyond sordid melodrama.

Film Freak Central’s Top 10 of 2005

January 9, 2006Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Authors: Walter Chaw, Best-of Lists, Blog

Top102005graphicsmall

January 9, 2006|After a year, 2004, wherein we indulged in the fantasy that we could forget our recent past in favour of better tomorrows, 2005 finds us obsessed with the things we've lost (especially children), the things we deny, and the difficulty of living with ghosts. It was a reflection of our political landscape split starkly into a Yeatsian twain between the worst, with their passionate intensity, and the best, lacking all conviction–the ultra-conservatives producing more of the same old tired, divisive hate (The Island showed that even Old Scratch could be predictable and boring) and the ultra-liberals producing high-minded garbage that either studiously avoided a point-of-view (The Interpreter, The Constant Gardener, Kingdom of Heaven, Syriana) or was so clearly left-wing proselytizing that it jettisoned context and energy in favour of bland political allegory (Good Night, and Good Luck.). The reason Bush Jr. won a second term is that he ran unopposed–and after the disastrous year the Grand Old Party had under him as their fearless leader, the real tragedy is that there's still no strong message in any opposing party to fill the void. Which explains, I guess, why the most ambivalent, overtly politicized films of the year were not only ultimately mediocre, but also made by a guy who taught himself how to finally direct an almost-passable film on the trial-and-mostly-error backs of three of the most highly-anticipated films of all time (George Lucas and Revenge of the Sith) and the king of everything for everyone (Steven Spielberg and his War of the Worlds and Munich). The blatant exceptions were Christopher Nolan's genre Munich (Batman Begins) and David Cronenberg's A History of Violence, a film that says volumes about vengeance and the delusions of the righteous while trapped in the body of a good old American, sexy dames and guns-a-blazing, neo-noir.

The Flesh Eaters (1964) – DVD

January 9, 2006Posted in1960s, Authors: Alex Jackson, Comedy, DVD, Horror, Sci-Fi

*½/**** Image A Sound A Extras B-
starring Byron Sanders, Barbara Wilkin, Rita Morley, Martin Kosleck
screenplay by Arnold Drake
directed by Jack Curtis

by Alex Jackson When I pan Jack Curtis's The Flesh Eaters, I want you to know that this isn't code to go see it anyway. Watching it, I found myself wondering from time to time if I was no longer capable of appreciating movies like The Flesh Eaters. Comparing my happy memories of Night of the Creeps and the collective work of Ed Wood to this, I've decided that they really do have something that The Flesh Eaters does not. This isn't a "good" bad movie, friends, it's just a bad one.

Kronk’s New Groove (2005) – DVD

January 9, 2006Posted in2000s, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, Disney, DVD, Family, Musical, Philippines, Romance

*½/**** Image A+ Sound B+ (DD)/A- (DTS) Extras C
screenplay by Tom Rogers
directed by Saul Andrew Blinkoff & Elliot M. Bour

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover You know you're watching a family film when: a) father issues dominate the plot; b) it talks down to the parents in the guise of speaking on their level; and c) the whole thing is larded with pseudo-in-jokes intended to make everybody feel smart. So it is with Kronk's New Groove, a straight-to-disc sequel (to an original unseen by yours truly) that posits the Emperor Kuzco's one-time adversary Kronk (voice of Patrick Warburton) in a race against time to impress his "Papi" with the classic wife/kids/house-on-hill bellwethers of success. Alas, it's an indifferently-concocted affair, with the minor character pushing more charismatic presences to the side and leaving nothing to distract from some feeble jokes, obvious plotting, and a total refusal to bring something new to the table.

Broken Lizard’s Puddle Cruiser (1996) + The Dukes of Hazzard (2005) [Unrated – Widescreen] – DVDs

January 9, 2006Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Romance, ZERO STARS

Puddle Cruiser
½*/**** Image C- Sound C- Extras C
starring Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Stephen Lemme, Paul Soter
screenplay by Broken Lizard
directed by Jay Chandrasekhar

THE DUKES OF HAZZARD
ZERO STARS/**** Image B Sound B+ Extras C
starring Johnny Knoxville, Seann William Scott, Jessica Simpson, Burt Reynolds
screenplay by John O'Brien
directed by Jay Chandrasekhar

by Walter Chaw The first film from what would become the comedy troupe Broken Lizard, Puddle Cruiser was completed and released in 1996 on a budget of a quarter of a million dollars and enjoys the dubious distinction of being irrefutable evidence that Jay Chandrasekhar and company are as funny now as they always were. Something about Chandrasekhar's Adam Corolla-on-quaaludes persona rubs me exactly the wrong way: it isn't the delivery, really, so much as the pervasive sense of smug superiority, not to mention the hostility and, while we're at it, the fact that he's just not funny. With Puddle Cruiser, he's created a film best described as a carbon copy of Noah Baumbach's debut pic Kicking and Screaming–the key difference between them that Chandrasekhar and co-writers Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, and Erik Stolhanske are woefully out of their element as scenarists, gag writers, actors, you name it. That Broken Lizard has attained a level of popularity now with garbage like Super Troopers, Club Dread, and The Dukes of Hazzard is astonishing, if not as astonishing as Chandrasekhar having helmed a handful of episodes from the brilliant "Arrested Development"'s first season. Goes to show that even a glib asshole can't ruin a gifted cast, pitch-perfect script, or ironclad premise.

The Jazz Singer (1980) [25th Anniversary] – DVD

December 22, 2005Posted in1980s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Drama, DVD, Music, Romance

*½/**** Image B Sound A- (DD)/B+ (DTS) Extras D
starring Neil Diamond, Laurence Olivier, Lucie Arnaz, Catlin Adams
screenplay by Herbert Baker, adaptation by Stephen H. Foreman, based on the play by Samson Raphaelson
directed by Richard Fleischer

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Having always had a knack for turning schlock into symptomatic gold, J. Hoberman once worked his magic on the remake of The Jazz Singer by comparing the original’s vision of Jewish cultural schizophrenia against the 1980 version’s post-Israel reversal. I recommend the essay (from his collection Vulgar Modernism) not merely for its brilliance, but also to discharge you from seeing the movie–because the only thing Hoberman gets wrong is that it’s “a mediocre film but a resonant one.” Mediocre it may be, but resonant it ain’t, entirely too careful as it is to soft-pedal some traumatic material so as not to upset star Neil Diamond’s MOR constituency. The Jazz Singer has all of the singer’s sentimental weaknesses without the attendant cheesy bombast that makes him entertaining. It’s a singularly bland film that doesn’t quite hurt but that feels like a chore as it trickles towards the end.

Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005)

December 21, 2005Posted in2000s, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Comedy, Family, Theatrical, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/****
starring Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt, Piper Perabo, Tom Welling
screenplay by Sam Harper
directed by Adam Shankman

Cheaperbythedozen2by Walter Chaw I spent altogether too much time during Cheaper by the Dozen 2 anticipating the moment when Hilary Duff would snuffle some sugar cubes out of a little girl’s hand–but in my defense, what else was there to do? I feel strange saying that this film is unwatchable because, hey, I’m proof that, technically, it is watchable; I guess I should say that it’s highly inadvisable to watch this film. I want to be clever, to turn a phrase that better illustrates the point, but in cases like these it’s probably better to be straightforward. If you find yourself in a theatre with this film, leave. It’s awful. Director Adam Shankman is the Uwe Boll of family movies: he doesn’t know how to pace a picture, he has no idea what to do with a camera (check out an outdoor banquet sequence that looks like it was shot under muddy water), and his use of John Debney’s atrocious, hate-crime of a score should set off Amnesty International’s radar. This is film as punishment, I’m serious. It’s never funny, never insightful, never valuable in any way. Kids might like it in the way that kids like anything that’s short and kinetic, yet the film preys upon a consistent mass hunger for “family” entertainment, and children and idiots deserve better supervision. Family films in the United States seem defined only as having no “objectionable” content, such as non-cartoon violence, a whiff of poetry, or any hint of sexuality. At the risk of being a rebel, let me offer the heretical view that the only content that’s truly objectionable is witless sludge like Cheaper by the Dozen 2.

Godzilla: Final Wars (2004) – DVD

December 20, 2005Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Australia, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, China, DVD, Japan, Sci-Fi, Thriller

ゴジラ FINAL WARS
**½/**** Image B+ Sound A- Extras B+
starring Masahiro Matsuoka, Rei Kikukawa, Don Frye, Akira Takarada
screenplay by Wataru Mimura and Isao Kiriyama
directed by Ryuhei Kitamura

Godzillafinalwarscapby Travis Mackenzie Hoover Applying critical standards to Godzilla is a useless endeavour. You don’t have to be schooled in Kracauer and Mulvey to know there’s something cinematically delicious about grown men in rubber monster suits having at each other, nor do you have to have a seat at the Tisch School to figure out that everything surrounding that is gravy. So the most and least a critic can do is to note that the latest (and perhaps last) entry in the series is: a) a big dogpile on the Green One by most of his old adversaries; b) nearly upstaged by some hilariously derivative human/alien backstory; and c) that you probably know before renting or buying whether you’ll come away thinking Godzilla: Final Wars is the greatest movie ever. You could quibble that nobody bothered to shoot Godzilla with the iconic artistry he deserved, but the monster has never been merely represented by cinema. Like John Wayne or Marlene Dietrich, he’s cinema all on his own.

Must Love Dogs (2005) [Widescreen Edition] – DVD

December 20, 2005Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Romance

*/**** Image B Sound B Extras D+
starring Diane Lane, John Cusack, Dermot Mulroney, Elizabeth Perkins
screenplay by Gary David Goldberg, based on the novel by Claire Cook
directed by Gary David Goldberg

by Walter Chaw There must be some kind of comfort in seeing a film that is a carbon copy with only minor variations of a bazillion other films exactly like it. Or maybe the champions of something like Must Love Dogs come equipped with a sensory mechanism that makes them more attuned to detecting nuance between what appear to my untrained eyes to be identical low-aspiring/low-achieving, plug-and-play clockworks. Or maybe, just maybe, the people who will love this movie just don’t expect that much from their movies and will, in fact, resent it mightily if you say something that falls out of line with their miniscule expectations. If that’s the case, the demographic that loves stuff like this (or anything by Garry Marshall or Nora Ephron) is as zombified and brainwashed into acceptance of communally-approved garbage as the demographic that loves stuff by George Lucas and Michael Bay. Dimwits, in other words–ones with a Y chromosome and ones without, but a dimwit by any other name would still spend their hard-earned money on feckless garbage masquerading as art. Must Love Dogs is more extruded, like an iron casting, than created–more a mold than a piece of art. Not everything needs to be art, of course, so here goes your proof.

The Family Stone (2005); Loggerheads (2005); The Dying Gaul (2005)

December 16, 2005Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Christmas, Comedy, Drama, Romance, Theatrical

THE FAMILY STONE
*/****
starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Claire Danes, Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams
written and directed by Thomas Bezucha

LOGGERHEADS
*½/****
starring Tess Harper, Bonnie Hunt, Michael Kelly, Michael Learned
written and directed by Tim Kirkman

THE DYING GAUL
**/****
starring Patricia Clarkson, Campbell Scott, Peter Sarsgaard, Ryan Miller
written and directed by Craig Lucas

by Walter Chaw An absolute freakin' nightmare: Imagine spending the holidays with Diane Keaton in full-smirk, full-chuffing, shit-eating laughter mode, then magnify that with a screenplay by hyphenate and former fashion executive Thomas Bezucha that never misses an opportunity to excrete a little dollop of quirk where silence would have spoken volumes. The Family Stone is an intensely middlebrow bath, dipped in warm sentiments and institutionalized ugliness–one half slapstick fish-out-of-water, one half chestnut-lit holiday perennial-hopeful. (The marriage works about as well as it does in other pieces of Yuletide garbage like Christmas with the Kranks and Home Alone.) Therein, eldest Stone boy Everett (professional piece of wood Dermot Mulroney) is home for the holidays (it's not as good, obviously, as Jodie Foster's film of the same name but it's cut from the same cloth) to introduce his girlfriend Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker) to his quirky tribe. Chief antagonist for the first hour is mousy (yeah, right) Amy (Rachel McAdams), who has an NPR duffel bag in a brief introductory shot, thus establishing her character as much as it's ever going to be established. She doesn't like Meredith because I don't know why but proceeds to brand her a racist and a boor when it seems that, mostly, Meredith is intensely uncomfortable and self-conscious. Maybe she has social anxiety disorder, or the more common stick-up-her-ass-ism. That's how appropriately-named evil mother Sybil (Diane Keaton) diagnoses her, except she calls Meredith a monkey and replaces the ass-stick with a silver spoon.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2004) – DVD

December 15, 2005Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, France, Robert De Niro, Romance, Spain, UK

½*/**** Image A Sound A
starring F. Murray Abraham, Gabriel Byrne, Geraldine Chaplin, Robert De Niro
screenplay by Mary McGuckian, based on the novel by Thornton Wilder
directed by Mary McGuckian

by Walter Chaw Given its cast as well as its presumption to chart the hazy intersection between predestination and circumstance, Mary McGuckian's excruciatingly dull The Bridge of San Luis Rey, the third adaptation of Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, might be the biggest miscalculation of the year. Start with Robert De Niro as the corrupt Archbishop of Lima, presiding over the inquisition of Brother Juniper (Gabriel Byrne). Six years previous Juniper witnessed the unceremonious snapping of the titular bridge, which sent five random people to their howling doom. Had they known how boring our good brown-robed pilgrim would make them out to be, I wouldn't wonder why they didn't try to float. No, Brother Juniper has decided that he's going to write the world's dullest book about this quintet of unfortunates so as to perhaps accidentally ken the mysterious workings of the Almighty in the small lives of small people.

Syriana (2005)

December 14, 2005Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, Espionage, Theatrical, Thriller, United Arab Emirates

**/****
starring George Clooney, Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, Chris Cooper
written and directed by Stephen Gaghan

Syrianaby Walter Chaw An omnibus of shorthand outrage standing in place of actual information, Stephen Gaghan's perfectly respectable–principled, even–Syriana reassures us with its glut of disconnected pop-up liberal soundbites that it's weary and wise enough for the both of us should it be the case, most likely, that we're just weary. But on the off chance there's nothing to connect to here despite all the grandstanding, it makes clear that at the end of the day it's really about something as simple as not taking your family for granted. Call it the secular Magnolia, itself a similarly longish, flashy film that was also about being kind to your children. There isn't anything for us to do with the dry intellectualizing of Syriana: once we're told that the CIA sends assassins around the world, that sometimes Arab kids are turned into suicide bombers by wackos, that the oil industry is a nepotistic disaster, and that as soon as the oil runs out in the Middle East, the emirs of Saudi Arabia will be back "in tents, chopping each other's heads off," what are we left with but justification for our under-informed fears and lazy superiority?

Valiant (2005) – DVD

December 13, 2005Posted in2000s, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Disney, DVD, Family, War

½*/**** Image A Sound B+ Extras D
screenplay by Jordan Katz, George Webster, George Melrod
directed by Gary Chapman

Valiantcapby Walter Chaw The animation is flat, the screenplay is insipid, the pacing is mortally off, and the voice acting is the mixed bag you generally get when you hire movie stars instead of professional voice talent (this is already the second animated film Ewan McGregor's tackled this year–third if you count Lucas's folly) to breathe life into your pixellated creations. But other than that, Valiant's fantastic. Its setting (WWII, circa D-Day) isn't as imaginative as that of Robots (this year's other glaring animated failure), and its CGI housefly sidekicks don't talk, as they did in Racing Stripes (this year's other glaring made-for-kids animal-related failure), but if you can overlook its obvious and subtle and inescapable deficiencies, well, what you have here is a blockbuster simply waiting to have its destiny fulfilled by the same group that flocked to the inexplicably popular Shrek films. Valiant's central marketing point is that it's from the same producer, John H. Williams, as the Shrek franchise, which, while technically true, ignores the movie's ten other producers.

Curly Top (1935) – DVD

December 13, 2005Posted in1930s, Authors: Alex Jackson, DVD, Family, Musical, Romance

*½/**** Image F (colorized)/C (b&w) Sound C
starring Shirley Temple, John Boles, Rochelle Hudson, Jane Darwell
screenplay by Arthur J. Beckhard and Patterson McNutt
directed by Irving Cummings

by Alex Jackson It's funny how a film like Curly Top can feel so weird and so derivative at the same time. Starting with the writing, there is barely any plot to speak of. Shirley Temple is Curly Top, the orphaned child of two circus performers who has only her older sister Mary (Rochelle Hudson) to protect her from mean headmistress Mrs. Higgins (Rafaela Higgins). After becoming enchanted with Curly during a visit to the orphanage, wealthy benefactor Edward Morgan (John Boles) seeks to adopt her under the alias "Mr. Jones." Mary insists that she be adopted along with Curly, as she had promised her parents that the two would never separate. Morgan agrees, but as he spends more time with them he begins to fall in love with Mary. Though Mary likes Morgan back, she's engaged to the handsome Jimmie Rogers (Maurice Murphy). It's up to Curly to bring her "two favourite grown-ups" together.

Fun with Dick & Jane (1977) – DVD

December 12, 2005Posted in1970s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, Crime, DVD

Fun with Dick and Jane
*/**** Image C+ Sound A-
starring George Segal, Jane Fonda, Ed McMahon, Dick Gautier
screenplay by David Giler and Jerry Belson and Mordecai Richler, based on the novel by Gerald Gaiser
directed by Ted Kotcheff

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Although Hollywood and Big Statements have gone hand-in-hand since the very beginning, it's usually a match made in artistic Hell. Being virtuous and fun taxes the tiny minds of the movie colony, resulting in unpleasant "entertainments" that frequently cancel themselves out. Case in point: the original Fun with Dick and Jane, which races through some liberal subtext concerning economic hardships and "materialism" while slinging lame jokes that trivialize everything the film name-checks. That Ted Kotcheff isn't the right guy for pointed satire should have been obvious from the rest of his fuzzy career, but the complete lack of seriousness (or black absurdism) from all quarters reduces the film to just another naughty crime comedy that isn't even very funny–a fact made all the more puzzling by the presence of Canada's acid wit Mordecai Richler among the writing credits.

Serenity (2005) [Widescreen] – DVD

December 12, 2005Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Sci-Fi

***/**** Image B+ Sound B+ Extras B+
starring Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, Adam Baldwin, Summer Glau
written and directed by Joss Whedon

Serenitycapby Walter Chaw A key speech arrives towards the end of Joss Whedon's freewheeling space opera Serenity. The captain of an incongruous hunk of interplanetary junk–dubbed "Serenity" for said captain's transformative moment during a civil war in a valley of the same, ironic name–stands in a shaft of light and asks his disciples if, in essence, they're willing to follow him into Hell for a belief that their martyrdom will be in the cause of a greater glory. He's asking his crew, but he's also asking a slavering fanboy audience that has followed the good ship Serenity here to the big screen after the braintrust at Fox ("We'd rather focus on 'Stacked'–I'm sure you understand") cancelled Whedon's "Firefly" just eleven episodes into its run. The show found new life as a bestseller on DVD, of course, and this feature-length treatment acts as both the series finale it never got and a hopeful audition for a movie franchise. If it's still laden with such Whedonisms as thick, sometimes-inscrutable (certainly unspeakable) dialogue and a political cant worn, bleeding, on its sleeve, Serenity is also home to the kind of passion and belief in a cause worth fighting for with which the good ship's crew is infused at the bitter end.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)

December 9, 2005Posted in2000s, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Disney, Family, Fantasy, Theatrical, UK

**½/****
starring Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell
screenplay by Ann Peacock and Andrew Adamson and Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely
directed by Andrew Adamson

by Walter Chaw I'm offended by the marketing for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (hereafter Narnia 1)–not the trailers (which are pedestrian) or the print ads, per se, but the campaign to pre-screen reels to churches and church groups, including Colorado's wildly divisive rightwing activist organization Focus on the Family. It's not something I'm terribly surprised to see from Walden Media–but it's something that strikes me as peculiar coming from the gay-friendly Walt Disney Pictures, a studio currently "suffering" a boycott from Focus on the Family that aims, in part, to force Disney to explain their "Jekyll and Hyde" products and policies. Of the two hypocrisies, fiduciary vs. ideological, I guess I'd favour one over the other, not being in the business of weighing sins, as it were.

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

December 9, 2005Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, Romance, Theatrical

**½/****
starring Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway
screenplay by Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana, based on the short story by Annie Proulx
directed by Ang Lee

Brokebackmountainby Walter Chaw SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. Ang Lee talks about Brokeback Mountain like it's a break that he needed after the pressure-cooker of Hulk, and the way that the film slinks around the topics that have garnered it its share of awards-season attention suggests that the director of The Ice Storm was well and truly on vacation. It's the most polite depiction of homosexuality you can imagine while still featuring passionate kisses and simulated doggy-style penetration; most of the ways that Lee chooses to illustrate his star-crossed lovers' isolation in the middle of the most closeted American genre are parsed from sub-par situation-comedy scenarios. I like when Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) sees his lover Ennis (Heath Ledger) for the first time in years and the two lock in a passionate embrace, mainly because by the revving-up of Gustavo Santaolalla's score and the look on Ennis's wife Alma's (Michelle Williams) face, it means we're about to get one of those hilarious scenes where the girlfriend walks in on something she wasn't supposed to see. It's a moment unworthy of the picture, just like another where Ennis flips Alma over during sex to simulate his stolen time with Jack, or when Alma chooses Thanksgiving dinner with Ennis, their kids, and her new husband to accuse him, histrionically, of indulging in gay love. I can't think of one good reason for Alma being made the straight man in an old gag, the victim humiliated, and the hysterical representative of society at large except that even at close to two-and-a-half hours, the film is so under-populated that Alma must serve triple duty to Jack and Ennis's shorthand romance. It speaks to Williams's burgeoning talent that she wears the burden well.