Comments Off on 12/31/2009
Merry Christmas everyone! Hollywood’s presents to you include an action/adventure update of a literary icon, a romantic comedy for the over-the-hill crowd, an unneeded sequel to an 80’s cartoon, and the film equivalent of a visual acid trip. Thanks Movie Santa, but there are a few lumps of coal in here with the sugar plums and stockings. We begin with a stylized update of history’s most notorious detective: Sherlock Holmes (Rotten Tomatoes – Metacritic).
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original story gave audiences a hero that would take heroin and speed to help his mind work faster, so it’s somewhat appropriate that Hollywood’s favorite recovering addict, Robert Downey Jr, dons the pipe for this update. Since the (re)creators were working with source material that is so ingrained in our culture, critics shouldn’t be able to avoid using Holmesisms to discuss the film. Observe.
“A handsome, entertaining romp of a film that they really should have called Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Pipes.” Allan Hunter Daily Express
“The script here is a pretext for fatuous action pyrotechnics, misfiring comedy, the inevitable star from Central Crumpet Casting and CG jiggery-pokery evoking Ye Olde London. In short: Doc, Sh’lock and Every Scraped Barrel.” Nigel Andrews Financial Times
I said Holmesisms not Guy Ritchieisms.
“”Sherlock Holmes” may feel a little too modern, more adrenaline than brain-power, more brash than British, but it’s an all right action-pleasure if you don’t mind that the game’s more a-fist than afoot.” James Rocchi MSN Movies
That’s better. At least the game is not a-headbutt or a-knee-to-the-groin.
“This is the ultimate sin of the film, generically helmed by lad-auteur Guy Ritchie: Logic seems to be thrown out the window in order to make room for clashes on a partially completed Tower Bridge. It’s way too elementary.” Time Out New York Joshua Rothkopf
And what about dear Watson?
“Challenged by Downey’s energy, Jude Law, who often seems aimless in his movies, comes fully up to speed. He’s virile and quick-witted, and his Watson, if not Holmes’s equal in brainpower, comes close to him in daring. Their repartee evokes the banter of lovers in a screwball comedy; they flirt outrageously but chastely.” The New Yorker David Denby
When playing Holmes at home, kids only have chaste options.
“Something tells me the only good deduction likely to come from this Sherlock Holmes is a tax deduction for Warner Bros.” Mark Ramsey MovieJuice!
There is no mystery to the money-making in this case. However, sorting through all the reviews, I’ve been able to deduce that the film is a pleasing diversion with action replacing mystery, but enough charm to scoot people out of the theaters with a smile. I wish the same could be said for Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (Rotten Tomatoes – Metacritic).
The original was dizzyingly successful even though it didn’t do much other than squeak out hit songs while occasionally dipping into potty humor for the kids. And, sadly, sequels are usually more of the same.
“With an unengaging plot, flat jokes and shameless product placement, Alvin is a late contender for worst film of the year.” David Edwards Daily Mirror [UK]
Did it just squeak into the running? Sorry, I’ll leave the lame puns to the critics.
Remember the good old days when the Chipmunks weren't co-opting black culture?
“The Squeakquel is painfully high-pitched. It reaches frequencies that could make bats plummet from the sky, clutching at their little ears in agony. It’s as if a mosquito equipped with a power tool is attempting to drill its way through your eardrum.” Wendy Ide Times [UK]
Uh-oh, someone weaponized the Chipmunks.
“The film never tries too hard to be cool, features adorable rodents in fetching knitwear, and includes helium-voiced chipmunks shaking their tushes as they cover Beyonce songs. Just great.” Sukhdev Sandhu Daily Telegraph
Did someone get a stocking full of sarcasm for Christmas? No? Maybe it was a bowl of low expectations.
“There are plenty of lame pop-culture references to Apocalypse Now and Taxi Driver, should any losing-the-will-to-live parents need a final push over the edge.” Alistair Harkness Scotsman
Warning: Suicidal filmgoers should avoid this film.
“What we’re offered is a succession of lifeless scenes punctuated by pratfalls that only a handful of kids in the audience found funny. Next.” Derek Adams Time Out
Next? Did you just call out for another squeakquel to complete the shrillogy? While we’re realing from that horror, let’s open our minds to Terry Gilium (Brazil, Fisher King, 12 Monkeys) who worked with Heath Ledger right up until his death on The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (Rotten Tomatoes – Metacritic).
“There are thrilling flashes of Gilliam getting back to top form here. A scrappy movie with more ideas than it can control, but one born out of a passion and determination that are wholly infectious.” Empire Olly Richards
I wouldn’t mind an imagination infection, although I don’t know what the cure would be.
“Once an exciting and daring filmmaker, Gilliam is now making movies that threaten to put their audiences to sleep. Ask your doctor if Parnassus is right for you.” Alonso Duralde IFC.com
It sounds like Parnassus might be the antidote for the Chipmunk Squeakquel.
The director/doctor
“An acidic combo of a Super Mario Bros. game on a disastrous drug trip and a bad Lady Gaga video — however, both Mario and Gaga have better premises.” Clay Cane BET.com
Even though Clay’s review is negative, I’m intrigued by the description of the film in terms of a video game, a music video, and a drug trip.
“Despite a shaky framework, the magic works. It’s a chance to see Ledger one last time in the act of doing what he loved. Take it.” Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Well said.
“Crammed with shifting CGI canvases and frenetic revues right out of Monty Python, Imaginarium is a galumphing bacchanal of illusionist clutter that’s frequently unwieldy but rarely less than deeply felt.” Fernando F. Croce Slant Magazine
A galumphing bacchanal of illusionist clutter? It sounds complicated. Not unlike our last movie which self-identifies as such: It’s Complicated (Rotten Tomatoes – Metacritic).
Since the premise is about a woman who cheats on her boyfriend with her ex-husband, the title seems fitting.
“It’s bad enough that Nancy Meyer’s latest conventional romcom is blessed with a title so bluntly unimaginative as to seem facetious; the rub is that it’s not even a truthful assessment.”Time Out New York Nick Schager
But, It’s Simple doesn’t sound very interesting.
“It’s Complicated is middle-aged porn, the specialty of Meyers, who also set ladies and interior decorators drooling over homes and gardens in 2006’s “The Holiday.”” Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
May you keep up with all the Jones' joy.
Are the women meant to drool over the home decor or Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin as romantic interests?
“When a movie with such a high pedigree feels so uninspired, you have to wonder whether there’s any hope whatsoever for the romantic comedy genre.” Edward Douglas ComingSoon.net
Maybe romantic comedies got hope for Christmas.
“There are delicious moments of dark humour about the state of being divorced, sex and the divorced woman, and of course, the etiquette of an ex wife being a mistress to her ex husband.” Andrew L. Urban Urban Cinefile
I would like to try a delicious dark humour bar. And after our final note, I shall return to my regularly scheduled merry-making.
“Nancy Meyers’ latest confection is like a rich dessert that tastes good to start with but gradually leaves you feeling overstuffed.” Mike Goodridge Screen International
PDJ can't think of a better time of year to be overstuffed.
Happy almost-Chrismahanukwanzakah internet traveler,
This blog is now officially one year old and has over 200 posts without a missed weekend. In honor of this small achievement, we get to discuss a movie that’s been heralded as something bigger than a milestone, perhaps a leaguestone (league=three miles) or a parsecmark (parsec = 3.26 lightyears). That movie is the $300 million dollar action/sci-fi/love story film from James Cameron (Aliens, Titanic, Terminator): Avatar (Rotten Tomatoes – Metacritic). The hype on this movie has been running harder and longer than most of the world’s economies and critics, corporations, and the entire entertainment industry want to label it the beginning of a new era for movies. However, when people have over a year to hear rumors, see previews, and taste Avatar-themed Coke Zero, many moviegoers will have potent feelings about a movie they haven’t seen, and the critics are no different. Prepare for a Pro/Con-test!
Pro side, you’re up:
“An astonishing, breathtaking masterpiece. Cameron did it! It will easily surpass Titanic’s box office. I think Cameron created a few new colors” Victoria Alexander FilmsInReview.com
Woo hoo! New colors! Someone had better tell Wikipedia to add them to the list. Interior designers, rejoice! Haters, speak!
“The corniest movie ever made about the white man’s need to lose his identity and assuage racial, political, sexual and historical guilt.” Armond White New York Press
Woo hoo! Armond left out religious guilt! Heathens, rejoice! Supporters, declare love!
“Not since Dorothy’s Kansas farmhouse landed in Oz – 70 years ago – and the screen transformed from black-and-white to color – has there been such a magical, revelatory moment as the emergence of the planet Pandora in IMAX 3-D.” Susan Granger SSG Syndicate
Oz revolutionized film by going from black-and-white to color, and Avatar goes from color to new color? Did I get that right?
“For all of the talk about how Avatar is going to revolutionize moviemaking and change films forever, the finished product is nothing more than just another movie with lots of stuff going boom.” Willie Waffle WaffleMovies.com
People would be upset if they didn’t get any boom for their buck and it’s a Cameron movie which means there need to be themes of love (familial or romantic), technological dependence, and boom.
“Embrace the movie — surely the most vivid and persuasive creation of a fantasy world ever seen in the history of moving pictures — as a total sensory, sensuous, sensual experience.” Time Richard Corliss
Does the sensuous embracing only happen in 3D?
“If I wanted to hear endless nonsense spewed from something good-looking, I’d watch The Tyra Banks Show.” Matt Pais Metromix.com
Thank goodness Tyra is completely one-dimensional.
“Game-changing – yes. Spectacular – absolutely. Occasional dodgy dialogue and dramatic imperfections – of course. But still – wait for it… – a titanic achievement.” Andy Lowe Total Film
If you need proof of Cameron’s impact on culture, remember that the Titanic used to be synonymous with impending failure rather than record breaking success. And speaking of impending failure.
In Did You Hear About The Morgans? (Rotten Tomatoes – Metacritic) two actors try to pull out of a career tailspin by going back to well dug by Green Acres (Urban idiots escape trouble in rural rejuvination). See also, For Richer or Poorer, Son In Law, or the reverse approach, Crocodile Dundee. So, like Avatar, I think I’ve already seen this movie from watching the preview, did I miss anything?
“If you are expecting a pleasant evening of escapism, you will be cruelly fooled. The editor responsible for the trailer is clearly a genius.” The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
The film’s promotional materials would probably shorten that review to just “genius.”
“When the material gets really bad, as it does in the dismal Did You Hear About The Morgans?, Grant’s pinched facial expressions become an inadvertent commentary on the movie he’s making, as if he plainly realizes that his one-liners are tanking.” The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Are people still laughing about this?
“It’s not just the sound of crickets you hear watching this movie. It’s the sound of dead crickets.” Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
While watching this movie I will hear the sounds of dead crickets? Spooky, but not panic-worthy. And that is the clumsy segue into:
Our oddest film this week features three plastic toys (Cowboy, Indian, and Horse) having stop-motion adventures in A Town Called Panic (Rotten Tomatoes – Metacritic).
“This little gem is best saved for those — both young and old — who prefer to find surprises under the tree.” New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
I like finding surprises under trees. But only good surprises, not old beer cans or poo.
“A Town Called Panic is an adventure story as fast-paced and exciting as any currently in theaters.” The New York Times Mike Hale
So why isn’t this movie in blow-my-mind/fry-my-eyeballs IMAX 3D?
“If you want more crass parody, and more creative use of action figures, check out Robot Chicken.” Christopher Null Filmcritic.com
Ha, I love that show.
“There’s really very little to say about this film beyond that it’s absolutely brilliant.” The Hollywood Reporter Peter Brunette
Okay then, moving on to the first of our two musically inclined features: Nine (Rotten Tomatoes – Metacritic).
You might be scratching your head if you’ve never heard of Nine. After all, it has lots of Oscar-worthy elements (including Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, and Rob Marshall who directed Chicago). But, it also is a musical remake of Italian Auteur Federico Fellini’s semi-autobiographical film 8 1/2 about past relationships and writer’s block. Does this story not translate well into music?
“If a Broadway musical loosely based on Federico Fellini’s 1963 deconstructionist masterpiece “8 1/2″ sounds like a recipe for disaster, it is.” Cole Smithey ColeSmithey.com
If it sounded like Cole Smithy asked a question and then answered it for you, it was.
“Nine represents the kind of colossal misfire that killed the movie musical back in the late ’60s; here’s hoping the genre can survive it.” Alonso Duralde IFC.com
Not only does this week redefine cinema (w/Avatar), but Nine might kill an entire film genre?
“Nine thrashes about in search of “cinema” the way a child thrown into the deep end of a pool flails for a flotation device.” Scott Foundas Village Voice
And now it’s drowning? What are the yay-sayers saying?
“Director Rob Marshall has come up with something close to an ideal modern screen musical. It is every inch a toe-tapping, show- stopping tour de force that has a big chance of snagging some gold come awards season.” Robbie Collin News of the World
And speaking of little gold idols, there are plenty of critics saying that Jeff Bridges might finally earn one for Crazy Heart (Rotten Tomatoes – Metacritic).
If the tagline is true, I have new pity for musicians. Does Bridges deserve an Oscar for being hard and sweet?
“A compact, economical treat: full of flavor and feeling, wrapped in an unprepossessing package that contains far more than you’d ever imagine.” Marshall Fine Hollywood & Fine
Suddenly, I wonder if we’re talking about candy.
“Ever-youthful in his looks and energy, Bridges now stands as one of Hollywood’s great old pros, incapable of making a false move.” Variety Todd McCarthy
That must be nice.
“Crazy Heart is quiet, gentle, heart-bruised more than heart-broken, and it lingers in the memory after you’ve seen it, like a song you can’t get out of your head.” Drew McWeeny HitFix
That song-stuck-in-head phenomena is called earworm, even though the word reminds me of Star Trek’s mind-controlling ear crustaceans.
“Crazy Heart gets to you like a good country song–not because it tells you something new, but because it tells it well. It’s the singer, not the song.” Newsweek David Ansen
The blogger, not the blog says it’s time to finish this roundup and get on with the merry-making.
PDJ abides
Welcome internet traveler. This interview was conducted online with the intent of giving future readers of The Princess and Mr. Whiffle: the Thing Beneath the Bed an insight into the mind of an artist. In this case, the artist is Illustrator of the Future award winner Nathan Taylor. First off Nate, I know you are a gamer. So, this interview follows gamer progression and gets harder as you go along. Are you ready to play?
Bring it on.
Tutorial question: What first made you want to be an artist?
You might laugh, but I don’t have any memories before wanting to be an artist. I never wanted to be an astronaut or a fireman or anything else…well, maybe a Jedi, but I never had a dream other than art. I think being an artist is as much a part of me as having brown eyes. That’s the romantic answer, the one I believe is true. But, for the child psychologists out there, another answer could be that I was good at drawing as a child, my parents encouraged me, so I kept at it. Every child wants approval after all.
First level: Much of your art style harkens back to the Disney 2D animation that you grew up with. How much of an influence would you say Disney played in your art?
HUGE influence. Disney was one of the few cartoons my siblings and I were permitted to watch around the house, and I absolutely adored the fluid animation and the style of rendering that made their characters look so cartoony, but also real enough to believe. You can definitely still see the influence. They weren’t my only source of inspiration though. I also soaked up Sunday funnies like Tumbleweeds, Garfield, and Herman; and I had a brief period where everything took on a Precious Moments style. I tended toward those styles because they were safe and I could get away with them.
Ninja eleves sound scary, but Nate makes them look cuddlely.
Second level: As a follow up, which artists are blowing your mind all over your draft board these days?
Travis Charest remains one of my all-time favorites, Chris Sanders of “Lilo and Stitch” fame, Chen Wei (Lorland) who does brilliant digital work, Adam Hughes and his beautiful style that I aspire to, Frank Frazetta with his dynamic color and compositions, and Mike Mignola for his style that seems so rough and fluid at the same time.
Mid-Boss question: The Detroit Silverdome was recently sold to a Canadaian company for about 1% of what it cost to build it (586k vs 55 million). If you could buy it for 1% of what the Kanucks paid, what would you do with it? (FYI – it seats 80,000)
Biggest paintball arena ever. I would go completely bread-and-circuses and hold massive championship-level engagements between several groups of players at the same time, and sell tickets. For safety, the first 50 rows would be labeled as Splash Zones. I’d have to have naval battles as well.
Sneak peak of Nose Dive, A Nate Taylor original
Boss fight: Artists are sometimes a medium for what they are consuming (ie, if you read westerns, your art would have a western flavor). If art is a mirror that reflects society, what kinds of things would you expect people to see in your work?
Wow, that’s deep enough to require floaty wings, but I’ll bite. The number one thing that people can always expect to get from me at this point is a feeling of frivolity or whimsy. I’m not a really a dark illustrator with an orchestra of inner demons, so I can’t imitate Brom; I don’t have an animalistic core of unchained wildness so I can’t do Frazetta (not for lack of trying); so I just do what I am, which is light colors and cartoony figures. Then again, maybe that’s just a front for my boiling cauldron of inner turmoil which threatens to burst through at any moment. If that’s the case, then I’m an unpredictable juggernaut, a time bomb of loose wires and artistic Semtex. Beware?
Plot Twist Question: Most artists experiment with multiple forms of art (sculpture, music, etc) before settling on how they best express themselves. What are some failed art forms that you have tried and discarded?
Ah, the list of forms I don’t use is long and distinguished. I’ve found that disciples of one medium or another tend to be very protective of their camp and enthusiastic in their evangelism, so let me say that my distaste for these mediums only means that I’m no good with them. I don’t like watercolor because it’s too fluid and uncontrollable. I like something that will stay where I put it and acrylic has proven itself more suited to my style. Oil paint is also something that’s no good for me. Sure, it’s the tried-and-true medium of the masters, but in my hands it becomes only so much goop. Also, I’m an impatient little boy and I don’t want to wait three years for my painting to dry so I can work on another layer. Drawing with charcoal makes my teeth itch, sculpture is fun and delightful but it requires a serious devotion of time and resources to make any good kind of effort out of it, and mixed media is right out because I’m far more interested in creating an image than I am in figuring out an altogether new way of creating an image.
Experimentation never looked so colorful
Big finale: For this book, you collaborated with Patrick Rothfuss. Since this is a collaboration, people may want to know, how much of the art is Rothfuss’s vision and how much was yours? Did you play a part in the storytelling at all?
In the early stages when we were still creating the style of the book, I used the Princess as a touchstone. If I could find a version of her that Pat liked, then the rest would flow from that. So it was basically a game of back-and-forth. I’d do a sketch or three of the Princess and ask what he thought of them until we settled on a look. After that, I would sketch up several pages at a time, send them to him, and he would either say, “Yes! Beautiful! Perfect!” or a combination of those words along with a suggestion of adding or removing elements to bring more life to the story. As for the storytelling, it’s all just visual from my end. All the words are his, and that’s why it works so well. 
Epilogue: What’s next for you?
Six months ago, I would have had no idea, but I’ve got a large body of work all of a sudden. Apart from Coming Distractions, I have a graphic novel about ghosts, a web comic about an interstellar hero, and a children’s book about an Alaskan cat all in the pipeline. The next several months are going to be very busy for me.
