OLD NEW REVIEW! SWEENEY TODD (2007, dir. Tim Burton)

Wrote this like 2 months ago. Sorry, guys. Really loved this movie. Loved it.

I mean, watching Johnny Depp - JOHNNY DEPP - croon Sondheim's "Pretty Women" with the unadulterated bravata of the aspiring rock star he was circa 20 years ago... while seductively wielding a razor at the naked throat of the villianous (and can I just say bizarrely erotic) Alan Rickman...

AAAAAAAAAHHHH! That's as thrilling as a major studio release gets for me. Sure there will be better "made" movies released during this flurry of "LOOK AT ME!" films bidding for awards this season. But I doubt I will have as much fun watching them as I had watching Sweeney Todd. Depp fans, whether they're enamored with the musical genre or not, will find themselves salivating. He's turned in some incredible performances over the years but watching his interpretation of a tuneful serial killer, gave me that tingly sensation I got when he appeared perched on the mast of a sinking ship in Pirates. His Todd also prompted me to ask myself, "When was the last time Depp played a virile character?" I don't really know if he ever has. And, of course, when he does... that man is going to sing.

Ok. I think I speak for everyone when I say that we were all fucking worried about this movie. Trailer popped up and everyone was like "THREW UP IN MY MOUTH A LITTLE! If Burton fucks this up, I am swearing him off forever." I have a confession to make: closet Tim Burton fan over here. Half of you are like "Whatever. Me too." But the other half of you (the real cinephiles)... well, let's just say I can hear your aggressive sigh from here. Here's my thing with Burton. I am the first person to admit that the guy is not a born filmmaker. But I really do love him. Mostly because he fell ass backwards into filmmaking and had a pretty good run there from Pee Wee's Big Adventure to Ed Wood and I think the box office success of Sleepy Hollow surprised even him. But when I skulked out of Planet of the Apes I was really hurt. I took his laziness really personally. I mean, I showed up, Tim. God!

Burton's fundamental problem is mood. It's also his greatest strength to a certain extent. No one does maniacal whimsy like Tim Burton. And... it seems.. All Tim Burton can really muster is maniacal whimsy. What's so startlingly in Sweeney Todd is how Burton adapts to the material. He doesn't throw himself unnecessarily on it (Big Fish) or forget that he's directing something and just babysit the production (Planet of the Apes). He finally found a project that justifies even strengthens his moodiness and he really brought his A-game. For the first time in 13 years, I was impressed with Burton's slight of hand.

And what was also great was the narrative was firmly rooted in Sondheim's piece. So there wasn't any of that obnoxious Burton-My-Dad-Didn't-Love-Me-But-Not-In-The-Cool-Speilberg-Way-But-More-Like-That-Shyamalan-None-Of-The-Other-Kids-Had-Any-Interest-In-Talking-To-Me-I'll-Show-Them-With-My-Weird-Ass-Movie... Way.

To wrap up... I love Sondheim. I think Sasha Baron Cohen can put his penis away for a couple of years. I didn't like the kid. Helena Bonham Carter has lost it and her voice is thin but I love her in Fight Club and I'm glad she's found happiness. And yes. I think Alan Rickman is strangely erotic.

Bottom Line: I feel a similar love for Amadeus. When it comes down to it, Amadeus is a poor man's Barry Lyndon. But that film and this one are deft cinematic adaptations of epic stage pieces sanctioned by their original creators.

Also...

I just realized a lot of you have been reading the blog despite me not updating it in over like two months.

nice going, junkies!

i'll give you a quick update as to why i haven't been posting.

1) i'm cooler now.

that's really the only reason so i'll just explain why i'm cooler.

(a) i'm writing and directing theater in los angeles and it's going well. got some good reviews. got some sold out shows. crickets! check out the makeshift website at www.iamatheatre.com get it? iama theatre. so funny. (not my idea)
(b) i actually sleep now

oh wait! i just thought of another reason

2) i have no money.

let me qualify this statement
(a) not in the self-pitying boring way. in the way that i actually do not have enough money to eat let alone watch new releases. i take the bus. in la. not in an ironic way.
(b) my computer is being held together right now with scotch tape and bailing wire. emergency use only. and here emergencies would be writing other stuff.

all of that being said, i am going to post some new stuff because i think the blog deserves it. you deserve it. i deserve it. we are all good people.

Information I Really Didn't Need at 2am

the new beverly is screening this movie on march 15th at midnight. why?

BECAUSE IT'S THE 10th ANNIVERSARY OF IT'S RELEASE!!!!!!!!!

that means that without a doubt. i am officially old.

ps, i grew up with ethan embry and he was my first kiss. i don't know what he's up to. i haven't spoken to him in a long time so don't ask me.

pps, i had a shirt just like hers in this movie when i was 18. but i looked fat in it.

I SAVED LATIN!!! What Did You Ever Do?!?!

New play cinephiles!

Life... Is SO good!

So yesterday... I woke up at 8am. And not unlike Henry Hill in the last 40 minutes of Goodfellas, "I had a busy day that day." So I'm doing my laundry at the sketchy laundry place near the 7/11 and I look up and the flipping Golden Globe nominations were announced.

And this wave of relief and gratitude swept over me. Not only did I not care AT ALL but I was so happy that I didn't have to DO anything. I didn't have to remember that the nominations came out that day or write thank you notes to people or stress over how many nominations a studio I used to work for did or did not get. I was thrilled to be doing my laundry and besides a newscast with pretty poor graphics my life was completely unaffected by an awards ceremony that is pretty much the Hollywood equivalent of a high school homecoming but without the irony.

Also... how rough does Tarantino look?! My god. When I saw this picture, I had a great mental image/daydream of sitting next to him with his arm around me at some "thing" in a little black dress and a cigarette holder, rolling my eyes.

Link via Popsugar. The girliest site ever. Even its search engine's default text color is pink.

New Review! ENCHANTED (2007, dir. One Lucky Bastard)

Extremely enjoyable movie. About as harmless and girlishly satisfying as any of my guilty Ruffalo pleasures (13 Going on 30 or Just Like Heaven) but Enchanted has a wicked sense of humor to go with its sugarplum charm.

Yeah. I can't believe I wrote that sentence either. I'm tired and I've been eating too much to compensate for feelings of inferiority lately. But also Enchanted puts you in that kind of mood. Where you want to write goopy sentences and eat cranberry bliss bars from Starbucks and sing lead in the musical number that's going on in your head. You also want to find true love and then take him to see this movie and when the film opens with a supremely toe-tingling nod to the Disney films you grew up on you want true love to nuzzle your shoulder with his perfect nose and whisper "I love you for loving this." And then any feelings of inadequcy you've ever had will melt away and you can finally stop putting so much pressure on yourself to succeed and just get married and pregnant.

So... anyway... it's a great movie and what you're imagining in your head based on marketing campaigns and trailers and Amy Adams clips is exactly what the movie is only with better jokes and a reliably predictable ending. So if what you're thinking doesn't excite you I wouldn't go see it but if you're even slightly intrigued I would suggest you check it out.

Patrick Dempsey is really the only guy who could possibly play the male lead in this story without looking like a total and complete skeezeball. Yes. Amy Adams is phenomenally committed to a performance that could have been completely phoned in. She performed her own singing. Hollywood is paying attention because they LOVE congratulating people on achieving the achievable. But there is one moment where Dempsey pulls a quarter from Adams's ear and I died inside with love for her. She really was so endearing and likeable. I couldn't remember the last time I watched a mainstream Hollywood film with a lead actress who I didn't openly hate for being anorexic and an ice queen (YOU TOO REESE!) But my MVP title and "Hooray" go out to James Marsden. Adams may be plucky and charming but at least she got costume changes. MARSDEN WORE THE SAME TIGHTS FOR WEEKS! On top of that he makes an impossibly gentle transition from a caricature to self-aware caricature. A real trooper.

Bottom Line: Boys, take your ladies. You'll probably end up having a ball.

Taste of My Own WhatHaveYou!

Ahh... the reviewer gets reviewed!

Check out an online review of my play, Cinephilia.

New Review! I'M NOT THERE (2007, dir. Todd Haynes)

Here's my beef with director Todd "I don't compromise for anyone!" Haynes' new flight of fancy, a college art project of a Bob Dylan biopic, ingeniously entitled I'm Not There as if to stave off any kind of silly demand viewers may have for a purpose or narrative or point. My beef is... is Bob Dylan that interesting? He's a genius. He's a poet. He's voice of ye olde babyboomers. But is the actual Bob Dylan so interesting and complex that he deserves an entire fictional film dedicated to the "idea" of him?

I'm gonna go with a no. I'm going to base this decision on my own theories of human nature as well as my Exhibit A which would be I'm Not There. The film, which claims to be inspired by the "music and many lives of Bob Dylan", spends an awful lot of time (2 hrs and 15 mins) throwing up more untrue personas of the singer-songwriter to mingle with the real amibiguity that already clouds around Dylan in the far superior and infinitely more entertaining "documentaries" like No Direction Home and Don't Look Back. So the film's aesthetic hypothesis "Does it take six actors to play the voice of the cant-exit-gracefully generation?" meanders and bounces off of padded walls until it mercifully fades to black. It also seems a little childish and redundant considering that Scorsese could just plop a camera in front of the guy as if to say "He's right there."

I don't know if Todd Haynes was as interested in exploring Bob Dylan as he was in gripping onto a cinematic opportunity that would encourage little to no self-control or explanation. I mean, it's Dylan. You could do whatever you wanted for your run time and people would still finance and encourage it because it's Dylan. Masked and Anonymous snagged a distributor. Did you see it? Neither did I. Why? Because it didn't boast a Cate Blanchett in drag. As far as fulfilling the geek quota for the fans, Haynes does a good job. I'm not gonna pretend to have any extensive knowledge about Dylan's life but I've read Chronicles, seen the above-mentioned films, listened to a lot of his music. So I did catch a lot of references to stuff. I also felt that cinematically there was a lot going on that should be commended even if the overall result is a mess.

The entire Blanchett section is very sexy. It's not terribly original but it is sexy. It recreates Pennebaker's iconic cinema vertite style then melds it with Fellini. There's even a dash of Richard Lester when the Beatles make a brief appearance. Watching this section, I was kind of wishing I could watch 2.25 hrs of that. Blanchett. I'm really torn on her. Sometimes I love her. Sometimes I don't. She couldn't play Hedda Gabler to save her life but I know that this role and her Oscar-winning impersonation of Katharine Hepburn have already made her one for the history books. Heath Ledger's section was really poignant. I was surprised since I cannot stand Charlotte Gainsbourg's mouth. But it was. Again, I could have been satisfied by an entire movie dedicated to that love story. Bale's folk revolutionist-turned-evangelist was... fine, I guess. But he's nowhere near as shocking as listening to the "The Times They Are A-Changin'" and "Saved!" back-to-back. Ledger, Blanchett and Bale, the three of whom play the most obvious "biopic" type of Dylans fare much better than their comrades.

The others. Not so much. Richard Gere and Marcus Franklin were just confusing to me. And I tried to go with it. I did. I thought, okay... this could be poetic. But as Franklin's section seemed to crumble as a fable for Dylan's early gusto and strange beginnings, the Gere section was plain old baffling. An aging outlaw in a town called Riddle? A town populated by circus clowns and extras from Twyla Thrap's ill-fated Dylan ballet? What?! When in all of the Dylan canon have circus freaks come to mind except to those people with no understanding of the word metaphor. I was expecting Tom Waits to show up during all this and ask "What is Dylan doing in my movie?" To pull a stunt like the Gere section, Haynes just betrays that his flair and technique are endangered by unimaginative straw-grasping. Ben Whishaw was pretty hot and a nice juxtaposition to the train-hoppin-hobo antics of Gere and Franklin. But that could've been explored more.

I don't want any of my dear cinephiles to think that I'm not completely enamored with Dylan. Of course I am. I'm a writer. I'm also an attention whore and he's the granddaddy of them all. I'm Not There is pretty enjoyable in a wait-for-DVD kind of way. But every beautiful picture or wit-drenched scene or fabulous acting choice in one thread of the tale is matched by a cringe-inducing reference or a joke that fell flat in another. Sometimes I couldn't tell if a moment was supposed to be earnest or blatantly sarcastic. I'm never as frustrated by a director as I am when he forfeits his role as guide and opts to act as wrangler. Icon or not, Dylan rarely sacrificed form for content. That's what makes him Dylan.

Bottom Line: An uneven experiment but a gutsy "art film". Your enjoyment level will depend on your willingness to surrender to it. If you liked, Across the Universe, it looks like this might be your year.

You see this jacket I'm wearing, you like it?

Because I don't really need it. Because I'm cloaked in failure!

Man... this movie grows on me the older I get.