Tag: Cinema

Return of the Shadow.

“Until when chance came, it ensnared a new bearer…” Breaking news from Gondor: The first of what promises to be many re-issues of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy happens August 29, when all three films will be re-released as 2-disc sets ($28.98 each.) “For each film, disc one presents both the theatrical version of the film and its extended edition through seamless branching, while disc two features an intimate, never-before-seen documentary created by Costa Botes. The feature-length documentaries, with more than 300 minutes of never-before-available footage, focus on a number of complexities and circumstances [that] affected the making of the movies.” Since I own both the theatrical cuts and three extended versions, I really have no business buying these, particularly as they don’t seem to include the much-noted blooper reels or any of the still-missing footage (The Watchers of Cirith Ungol, for example.) But the hearts of Men are easily corrupted, and the Ring of Power has a will of its own.

Iorek, Norrin, & Co.

AICN posts some pics from the big licensing show in NYC, which includes some impressive looking bears from The Golden Compass, as well as posters for Spiderman 3, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (apparently, the ’70’s hair is out), Dreamworks’ Kung Fu Panda, and (gulp) Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer.

E for Escapist.

“Quick answers (as of this date): Golem: yes. Antarctica: yes. Gay love story: yes. Ruins of World’s Fair: no. Long Island: no. Orson Welles: no. Salvador Dali: yes. Loving reference to Betty and Veronica: no. Stan Lee: no.” Author Michael Chabon blogs in to say, among other things, that Natalie Portman is likely Rosa in the forthcoming film version of Kavalier & Klay, to be directed by Stephen Daldry.

Middle of the Road.


First, a disclaimer: While I’m always up for a road trip, for whatever reason — and despite growing up next to the Darlington 500 — I never really acquired an appreciation for NASCAR, or for car culture in general. Still, I’d say the review consensus on Cars, Disney and Pixar’s recent foray into CGI entertainment for the red states, is basically on the money: While not nearly a classic on the order of the Toy Stories or The Incredibles, this visual marvel does make for an enjoyable summer jaunt, even if it feels more than a bit by-the-numbers for most of its run. The movie hits all its beats (albeit somewhat languidly) and kids, particularly those of the Hot Wheels persuasion, are sure to love it — John Lassiter & co. don’t drop the ball here by any means. Still, one can’t help but get the lingering sense from Cars that the tank on Pixar’s incredible creative ride may be in need of a fill-up.

In terms of story, Cars is basically Days of Thunder meets Doc Hollywood: On his way cross-country to the most important race of the year, Lightning McQueen, a hotshot young rookie racer on the Piston Cup circuit (Owen Wilson, whose trademark whine starts to grate after awhile), makes an inadvertent pit-stop in Radiator Springs, a sleepy little town languishing on a forgotten stretch of the Mother Road, Route 66. Impounded for reckless driving and forced into community service by the gruff town elder, a Hudson Hornet (Paul Newman), McQueen finds himself having to spend crucial race-prep days repaving the village thoroughfare. But, fret not — as it turns out, the self-absorbed, vainglorious McQueen may just learn a thing or two about life and the true spirit of racing from the locals, which include, among others, a redneck tow truck (Larry the Cable Guy), a Ferrari-loving Fiat (Tony Shalhoub), a hippie VW bus (George Carlin) and, if you’re into that sort of thing, an alluring Porsche lawyer (Bonnie Hunt). All well and good, but can McQueen still make the big race in time, defeat his mustachi-grilled nemesis (Michael Keaton), and win the glory and sponsorship he’s been so desperately seeking?

Take a guess. Still, one shouldn’t fault Cars for being somewhat pat — it is, after all, a kid’s movie, and, as the film points out, the journey should matter more than the destination anyway. That being said, despite its hyperkinetic opening and for all its many breathtaking visual flourishes (note particularly both the wide-angle western landscapes and the eye-popping neon of Radiator Springs at night), Cars definitely bogs down for most of the middle laps, amid several interminably long stretches of rote character development. (By the way, as the mind wanders while these animated cars talk to each other in been-there, done-that platitudes, it occasionally becomes hard not to see them instead as weird immersion tanks for floating eyeballs — you’ll see what I mean.) To be fair, by the standards of most animated films, Cars is still in a class above the rest. But, given that this is Pixar we’re talking about, it’s hard not to expect a little more ingenuity throughout. (Also, while it may be ludicrous to discuss issues of political economy here, Cars wants it both ways: Apparently small-town folk are more wise and virtuous than their city-car contemporaries, but Radiator Springs’ major beef is that they’re no longer a big city. Ah well…I guess The Incredibles had similar problems.)

Spirit of 93.

Whether or not the world really needed a film about the events that took place on United Flight 93 the morning of September 11, 2001 is, I suppose, still an open question. I can see both sides of the argument: that it’s too soon for a movie about 9/11 and that our current involvement in the war on terror demands we come to terms with what happened that day. (As my father pointed out, the WWII generation saw plenty of war flicks come out while the conflict still raged in Europe and the Pacific.) For my own part, even despite the stellar reviews for Paul Greengrass’ film, it took me a few weeks to crank up the nerve to sit through a movie that I figured would be at best chilling and heart-rending and at worst deeply exploitative and repellent. That being said, having run the gauntlet earlier this week, I can now happily report that United 93 is magnificent, and arguably the best possible film that could’ve been made about this story. Both harrowing and humane, it’s the movie of the year so far.

United 93, like 9/11, begins like any other day. For most of the first third of the film (the opening scenes, where we watch the four terrorists make their final prayers and preparations, notwithstanding) we simply follow people beginning their work day: air traffic controllers look at the weather and discuss possible delays, pilots make small-talk on their way to the cockpit, flight attendants prepare the cabin, and sleepy, anonymous passengers sit around Newark airport, making phone calls or waiting with blank, thousand-yard-stares for their turn to board. It looks exactly like every single airport terminal you’ve ever seen, and, if you had no sense of what’s to come next, you might be deadly bored by all this reveling in mundanity. But, there’s a method to Greengrass’s madness — not only do these early scenes root the film in our world (as well as foster some sickening suspense — we’re obviously waiting for the other shoe to drop), but they take us back to what Karl Rove might call a “pre-9/11 mentality.”

It’s no small testament to the film’s intricate set-up that, when quintessentially Bostonian and New Yorker ATC guys start noticing some planes acting quirky, we sense their palpable confusion even though we know exactly what’s going on, and — when the second plane hits the World Trade Center (which is never shown, except on CNN or in long shots from the Newark control tower) — we feel as shocked as they do, all over again. From there, the film’s second act involves civilian and military air traffic officials (some of whom are played by the real people involved) struggling to make sense of a increasingly horrifying situation for which everyone was totally unprepared. ATC men feverishly watch the wrong planes for signs of a hijacking, FAA authorities put together a board of possible suspect flights and try to track down an AWOL military attache for some answers, a plane that was thought destroyed pops up again on the radar dangerously close to Washington, unarmed fighters (the best anyone could find on short notice) scramble in the wrong direction over the ocean, and NORAD waits desperately for the presidential authorization to fire on hijacked airliners, to no avail. (Think My Pet Goat.)

And, in the meantime, United 93 begins its own hellish journey, as the four terrorists on that plane (who, to Greengrass’ credit, are portrayed as multifaceted as they could be, given their vile plan), after some silent soul-searching, spring into action: They take over the cockpit, scare into submission the passengers (all of whom are played by relative unknowns, although some — such as David Rasche of Sledge Hammer — look vaguely familiar), and set a course for the Capitol. Thrust to the back of the plane by a “bomb”-carrying hijacker, having little-to-no sense of what’s going on in the cockpit, and wracked with fear, grief, and confusion, the passengers of United 93 — operating with even less knowledge than the people on the ground — eventually piece enough to discover that they must act. This all takes place in real time, and isn’t played as cheap film heroics in the slightest. Like everything else in United 93, it all feels terrifyingly real, making the passengers’ final, collective, desperate lunge for survival one of the most visceral and cathartic movie sequences in years — it, like the final shot, will linger in your memory for days to come.

In short, United 93 is undeniably hard to watch at times, and I can see why many folks out there would steer clear of it like the plague. Still, if you feel like you can handle the subject matter, United 93 is a must-see film. While it doesn’t even really attempt to offer a broader perspective on the events of 9/11, it’s hard to imagine a movie that could reconstruct the emotional experience of that day as faithfully and without cynicism or exploitation as this one.

Mona Lisa Frown.


So, I was one of the minority of people out there who had not already read Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code when I ventured into the theater last week for a look-see at the film version (although various people had filled me in on most of the major plot points over the years.) This was partly because I had been told a few times that the novel read like a piece of cinema anyway, so I figured that, contrary to my usual m.o., I’d just wait for the movie. Well, unfortunately, Ron Howard’s film plays at best like a book-on-tape, one that might’ve made for a good airplane listen if the people involved hadn’t taken this enterprise so seriously. As it is, unless you relish usually likable actors spouting forth clunky, Akiva Goldman-penned chunks of exposition at you for two and half hours, leave this Code undeciphered.

Like I said, I’m really late to this party, so you probably don’t need me to summarize the basic gist here. In any case, world-renowned symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), a Harvard professor prone to monologuing and/or gasping in awe when confronted with ancient relics (thank goodness, or otherwise he’d have nothing to do here) is thrust into a murder mystery after a colleague is found dead at the Louvre, his body bloodied by his own hand and laid out like Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. (As we saw in one of the movie’s creepier scenes (also in the trailer), this fellow was killed — under the watchful eyes of countless mournful Madonnas — by the albino monk Silas, an operative of Opus Dei with some serious body issues.) Soon, with the aid of the dead man’s painterly granddaughter, Sophie (Audrey Tautou), Langdon embarks on a quest to uncover the meaning behind the man’s murder, and, while puzzling and ciphering away, inadvertently stumbles onto a two-thousand-year-old conspiracy involving the divinity of Jesus and the Holy Grail, one that certain conspiring cardinals (Alfred Molina) and their pet monks will kill to keep under wraps…

That’s the upshot, and, as you can see, this has all the makings for a decent potboiler. And, at times, watching Hanks and Tautou puzzle away or seeing the film flashback to the Cecil B. DeMille days, one gets the sense that the Da Vinci Code is probably a thoroughly enjoyable beach book. But, as a film — or at least as this ponderous, too weighty-by-half film — it’s a total non-starter. Howard, Hanks, and Tautou can’t seem to stop treating this movie as an epic, when what it really needed was a slapdash of Raiders of the Lost Ark tongue-in-cheek. (In fact, I thought Nicolas Cage’s campy Da Vinci knock-off National Treasure came closer to the unapologetic B-movie tone needed here.) On the bright side, Ian McKellen (as a wry Grail historian, gleefully chewing his way through yet another bad summer movie), Molina (himself an Ark alumnus), and — briefly — Jurgen Prochnow (as a shifty Swiss banker) seem to have a better sense of the proceedings here, and they add some much-needed levity and narrative kick whenever they’re onscreen. Still, their best efforts aren’t enough to recommend Da Vinci, a film that needed less clumsy exposition and a jauntier sense of fun throughout. As it is, The Da Vinci Code is a rather staid canvas.