Stylish And Simplistic: La La Land Is Unsatisfying Beyond The Hype!

The Good: Decent direction, Emma Stone is fine
The Bad: Dull characters, Boring plot, Indistinct musical numbers
The Basics: La La Land is a gimmick win for Oscar Pandering Season, but is annoyingly insubstantial.


One of the true terrible aspects of being a film reviewer is that, in order to retain any level of credibility, reviewers must experience some works outside their comfort and known enjoyment zone. I, for example, have among my "gimmicks" an obsession with watching every film that has won the Best Picture Oscar. Long before I built up my love of films across a number of genres, I decided that if I was going to be a film reviewer, it was important for me to understand the history of film. Despite that, I never believed that I had to sublimate my personal preferences for popular opinions; there are a number of films that won Best Picture that I assert are utter garbage and some "great" films that I found boring and unimpressive - Citizen Kane (reviewed here!), for example. In recent years, I have tried to get ahead of my Best Picture Project (check it out here!) by watching as many of the Best Picture nominees before Oscar night and with its massive victory at the Golden Globes, today I decided I had to watch La La Land.

La La Land is an inevitable "gimmick nominee" for Best Picture and unfortunately, the Academy has a history of leaping on gimmick nominees, like The Artist (reviewed here!). For my money, though, the novelty of making a silent black and white film or a musical does not at all impress me over the merits of a film with interesting characters and a decent plot. La La Land is exceptionally well-choreographed and directed and Emma Stone is adorable as hell (she is a talented actress, but La La Land is not one of her great performances as the character she plays is very much below her acting abilities - though her dance skills in the film are impressive), but it is not a very complex or engaging film. Despite the bright colors (we get it Damien Chazelle, each roommate gets her own solid color dress), La La Land is flat and boring most of the time and the musical numbers are hardly distinctive.

On the same day as she is stuck in traffic and gives the finger to Sebastian, Mia leaves work at the coffee shop early to go to an audition. There, she makes so little of an impression that people walk in while she is performing. That night, she is out at a club with her friends and she hears Sebastian playing the piano. Sebastian spends the same day mourning his lack of a career as a jazz piano player and his inability to finance his own club. Come Spring, Sebastian is working parties as a background piano player for a small band when Mia encounters him again. The two start to talk about their goals and dreams.

By summer, Mia and Sebastian are dating and Sebastian starts to woo Mia into liking jazz. Sebastian encourages Mia to write and perform her own play, while Mia encourages Sebastian to take more opportunities to get his music out. Sebastian takes a job working for a rock band, where his piano playing is used more as samples in the background. Sebastian continues to work for the band, even when Mia stages her one-woman show and he has to miss her ill-attended, highly-critized play. As their relationship experiences tension, both have to decide between following their dreams and being with one another.

La La Land suffers almost instantly on two important fronts, a prioritization of style over substance and a fundamental lack of chemistry between the protagonists. Writer and director Damien Chazelle makes La La Land look good. I went into La La Land with no knowledge of the film outside the fact that Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling were at the top of the cast list and knowing it won a lot of big awards at the Golden Globe Awards, so I was somewhat surprised when the film opens with a big musical number set in Los Angeles gridlock. La La Land looks good and the dance numbers are well-choreographed. I watched La La Land two hours ago and not a single musical number stuck in my head; while the film looks great, it's no Singin' In The Rain (reviewed here!) on the song front.

That sense of prioritizing style over substance continues into the characters and it guts the emotional resonance of La La Land. Mia is established as a struggling actress with no noticeable dramatic experience - she wrote plays as a child, but it seems like the came to Hollywood to be an actress without having high school or college theater successes that made her believe she was pursuing even a partially reasonable dream - and she is given remarkably little superfluous (or actual) character traits. So, given that one of her few character traits is that she actually does not like jazz, naturally Sebastian sets to changing her mind. La La Land is troubling in that Mia has a pretty flat characterization and so does Sebastian . . . and Sebastian completely steamrollers Mia. La La Land presents such a generic interpretation of adult relationships that the man cannot accept a difference in musical tastes?! That could be fine, but La La Land then forces the relationship.

La La Land forces the romantic relationship based more on plot convenience than actual character commonalities. Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling have had amazing on-screen chemistry in other films (like Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, it seems they come as a package deal!), but in La La Land they present their characters so flatly that there is no real spark between them on-screen. Gosling and Stone have amazing timing for their synchronized dance moves in La La Land, but that is the height of their on-screen skill in the film.

La La Land might dazzle visually, but like most special-effects driven films, it is high on flash and hype, low on substance and enduring greatness. Stone and Gosling are not presenting a timeless couple or even well-developed conflict in La La Land. It might be the big winner at the Golden Globes, it might well get nominated for the Best Picture Oscar and it could win, but as Academy voters truly consider it, I'd encourage them to ask "How often do you really pull The Artist off the shelf to watch it?" Not everything has to be a comparison - in fact, La La Land is objectively unimpressive - but sometimes it helps to recall that the Academy has made some bad choices when it comes to voting for the flash-in-the-pan novelty film as opposed to a movie of substance.

For other movies currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
War On Everyone
Underworld: Blood Wars
Passengers
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

3/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Visually Unimpressive, Les Miserables – 10th Anniversary Concert Is Only For The Die-hard Fans.

The Good: Amazing vocals, Great songs, Moments of performance
The Bad: Utterly uninspired direction, Poor visual presentation
The Basics: Musically amazing, the Les Miserables – 10th Anniversary Concert is a visually unimpressive experience for fans to pick up on DVD or Blu-Ray.


For Easter, my wife and I had a little French day. I made her French toast for breakfast, we kissed a lot, and I presented her with a gift: Les Miserables – 10th Anniversary Concert on DVD. As I understand it, this 1985 performance from the Royal Albert Hall was part of the BBC’s (and PBS in the United States) Great Performances television series. It is presented on DVD as a single concert experience and it is the closest I could come to fulfilling one of my wife’s lifelong dreams. As a young person, my wife, who was already a Les Miserables fan was denied inclusion in a family trip to see Les Miserables at a local college. It absolutely stymied me that the original cast, including Colm Wilkinson and Philip Quast came to the backwoods of Michigan where we now reside, yet it did and my wife was not allowed to go with her siblings to the production and that just left me steamed. So, I – lacking a time machine – decided to do the next best thing to taking her to Les Miserables, which was I picked her up the DVD of Les Miserables – 10th Anniversary Concert. She may not be able to see Les Miserables with her dream cast in person, but now she can see it any time she wants at home.

Watching Les Miserables – 10th Anniversary Concert now was a somewhat ironic experience for me. Since I met the woman who would eventually become my wife, we have listened to the soundtrack to the Les Miserables – 10th Anniversary Concert (reviewed here!) in pretty high rotation on road trips. So, I was pretty intimately familiar with this soundtrack from years of listening to it. Between that and seeing the new version of Les Miserables (reviewed here!) together multiple times, I figured that the benefit to picking up Les Miserables – 10th Anniversary Concert was that we would get a very different presentation of the musical play.

Unfortunately, we did . . . and we didn’t.

It is worth noting upfront that my wife, an absolute die-hard fan, had the transcendental experience I hoped she would when we watched this together today.

I, however, did not.

Les Miserables – 10th Anniversary Concert is, as its name implies and I lived in denial of almost the entire film, a concert, not a play. The difference is all the difference. For more than 95% of the film, the performers on stage are not interacting. In fact, most of them are not even physically emoting with their performances. Instead, this is, for the bulk of the production, individuals standing in front of microphones singing to an audience (not to camera). While there are moments where that is fine, for the bulk of the film, it is tragically dull and at moments when characters are supposed to be presenting dialogue through song back and forth to one another, that they are not looking at one another and interacting is utterly droll.

For those not familiar with Les Miserables, the story spans more than thirty years, climaxing in the French Revolution. The play, based upon the classic Victor Hugo novel, tells the story of Jean Valjean, a man convicted of stealing a loaf of bread and running from the law. Paroled after decades in prison, Valjean finds life on the outside too difficult and steals silver from a Bishop, who lies and exonerates him to the law (in fact, he gives him silver candlesticks on top of the silver he stole). Seeing this as an opportunity to reform, Valjean throws his papers away and changes his name to start a new life.

After becoming mayor and factory owner of a small town, Valjean (under his assumed name), lets his foreman deal with a fight at his factory, which results in his worker, Fantine, turning to prostitution. When Fantine finds herself in trouble, she is defended in an unlikely way from the police officer, Javert, who has been hunting Valjean for breaking parole. Exposed, Valjean runs again after Fantine dies, but this time to make good to Fantine by rescuing her child, Cosette, from the family she stays with. Years later, with revolution upon France, Javert continues to hunt Valjean and he aids the conservatives against the rebels in Paris. But there, among the revolutionaries, Cosette falls in love with the rebel leader, Marius.

Les Miserables is a great story with vibrant and compelling characters, but one would not know it by watching Les Miserables – 10th Anniversary Concert. Sadly, because the performers are rooted in front of their microphones for most of the film, they do not interact. Javert’s death, for example, is left entirely up to the imagination of the viewer. This is not to say that Philip Quast, who sings the role of Javert, is not wonderful – he is. But the death of Javert is Quast singing the part and looking up, before the spotlight on him fades.

Before my head gets bitten off, all of the vocalists are absolutely amazing. Colm Wilkinson is predictably great presenting Jean Valjean and he and Quast have voices that play off one another masterfully. Ruthie Henshall is impressive as Fantine and Lea Salonga’s Eponine actually made me care about the lovelorn character in a way few other actresses in the role have made me. All of the music is incredible . . .

. . .But I got that from the soundtrack. For a video, I wanted some element of performance and Les Miserables – 10th Anniversary Concert is stunningly low on that. The director, Gavin Taylor, does not even use footage at the beginning of the actors singing – in other words, the opening chain gang is on screen, but the singers singing are seldom on screen actually presenting their song, which is weird. Throughout Les Miserables – 10th Anniversary Concert, I noted issues where the direction was just off like that. To Taylor’s credit, there are music-only numbers where there are actions happening on stage, like the slaughter of the rebels at the barricade.

At this point in my reviewing the concert, my wife is getting pissed off with me. She tells me I am being far too hard on the performance because it is a concert, not a play. I just find the piece to be visually underwhelming and I expected more from the performance, concert or play. Given that the greatest amount of physical performance in Les Miserables – 10th Anniversary Concert comes from the Thenardiers in one of the latest numbers, I felt this was not the ideal medium for the presentation – the soundtrack presentation was. But, because I value my marriage, I am mentioning that my rigid standards might not be ideal for this. My wife, who is at least as discriminating as I am, tells me she would rate it a ten out of ten. While I think the soundtrack is up there, the stage performance, which is a true concert, not a play, fell short for me.

On DVD, Les Miserables – 10th Anniversary Concert features two featurettes on the making of the play and DVD. They are a nice added value for the fans, though I think my wife and I geeked out more over the replica of the ticket that was included in the DVD than the bonus features. That said, the presentation of all the Valjeans from around the world singing “When Tomorrow Comes” it is an experience that is undeniably compelling. For fans, Les Miserables – 10th Anniversary Concert will undeniably satisfy. However, for those who have never seen, heard, or read Les Miserables, Les Miserables – 10th Anniversary Concert is presented in a way where it will not be self-explanatory. That, for me, makes it far less compelling than many other presentations of the work.

5/10

For other DVD and Blu-Ray reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

A Clever Successor To Monty Python And The Holy Grail, Cannibal! The Musical Entertains!

The Good: Surprisingly funny, Well-written, Entertaining, Decent plot progression, Good initial characterizations/performances.
The Bad: Mediocre acting, Characters are “types,” Homophobic jokes/milks the same jokes to death.
The Basics: Cannibal! The Musical is a quirky little comedy film that is surprisingly good and vastly underrated in geek culture.


It is a rare thing for me when my wife recommends a movie I have not even heard of. On the few occasions that has happened, it surprises me less when the movie is an obscure, indie comedy film that has almost no presence on video. What surprises me more about learning of these weird little films that my wife witnessed in her young adulthood, is when I see them (which I inevitably do) and actually enjoy them (which so seldom occurs that “actually” is entirely appropriate). Yet, such has happened with Cannibal! The Musical.

Cannibal! The Musical is most analogous to Monty Python And The Holy Grail (reviewed here!) and, in fact, bears such a resemblance to it in structure and humor style that it is absolutely shocking to me that it has not achieved the same level of notoriety in geek culture as the older movie. Created by Trey Parker, with some uncredited writing help from his longtime collaborator Matt Stone (the two created South Park together), the film is a one-shot musical that justifies its entirely cheey acting, inexpensive sets and mediocre direction by claiming to be a 1950’s film that was recently recovered and colorized. Regardless of one’s feelings about South Park (I’ve only had very limited experiences with it myself), Cannibal! The Musical is a riotously absurd live-action musical comedy that stands surprisingly well on its own.

As Alferd Packer awaits the resolution to his trial for cannibalism, Polly Pry visits him in jail. Despite knowing he should not speak with her without a lawyer, he begins to tell her the story of what actually happened in the woods on his journey from Utah to Breckenridge, Colorado. Unlike how the prosecutor characterizes the incident that cost five of Alferd’s associates their lives (the flashback description is gory and ridiculous as Alferd allegedly took all five men on, tearing off limbs and biting directly into their necks!), Alferd’s story is a musical adventure that begins with him getting roped into serving as a guide to a party headed from Utah to Breckenridge in search of gold.

However, after the band of men encounters a trio of punk trappers who mock them and push them around, Alferd’s beloved Arabian horse, Liane goes missing. Crossing two treacherous rivers at the expense of most of their supplies, Alferd’s team encounters Chinese “Indians,” a Cyclops, and the trappers again. Soon, one of Alferd’s men realizes that Alferd is heading south, where the trappers said they were going, following the path of his horse as opposed to guiding them to Breckinridge. As winter falls and the Rockies become impassable, their supplies run out and when Swan goes crazy singing about making snowmen, it sets the men on a course for cannibalism!

Cannibal! The Musical has surprisingly good music. The well-written and catchy songs, like “Shpadoinkle” and “Let’s Build A Snowman” are utterly ridiculous and lampoon musicals nicely. It is hard to imagine watching Cannibal! The Musical and not finding oneself singing “My heart is full like a baked potato” at least once within the week after seeing this movie.

Outside the musical comedy aspects of Cannibal! The Musical, the film is a much tougher sell and probably the reason it never exploded even within geek culture. While something like Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog resonated as a low budget success story of late, Joss Whedon did everything he could to make it look and feel professional. Trey Parker, who wrote, directed and starred in Cannibal! The Musical, seemed to embrace the low-budget nature of the project and used that as an excuse to have the performers acting stiff and amateurish. Given how few of the stars of Cannibal! The Musical have multiple acting credits (most have abundant behind-the-camera credits on the IMDB) after this film, they either did not want to pursue acting or were too convincing in their performances here.

Cannibal! The Musical flops a bit on milking some of the jokes in the film to death. In addition to some unfortunately homophobic jokes near the beginning of the film and the obligatory joke whereby Alferd Packer is called a “fudge packer,” Parker telegraphs some of his best jokes in ways that rob them of their humor. For example, the Chinese “Indians” is an initially funny gag. However, when they speak with over-the-top accents and stereotypically Chinese mannerisms, the joke treads toward the un-funny and more potentially offensive. In other words, the gag is clever when the men walk into the camp and find a bunch of “Indians” doing tai chi and asserting they must be Indians because of the tee pees around, but when they go for more blatant references than that, they beat the humor horse to death.

Beyond Alferd, the hapless guide and horse-lover, the characters are “types” more than well-rounded individuals. Like most Westerns, Cannibal! The Musical features the green cowboy, the religious nut, and the quiet loner, though the addition of the hopeless optimist seems unique to this movie. As far as Western parodies go, Cannibal! The Musical is actually more successful in its execution than the recent Casa De Mi Padre (reviewed here!), though I suppose it is more directly analogous to Blazing Saddles (reviewed here!).

On the balance, Cannibal! The Musical is an unlikely enjoyable parody film and any adult who likes screwball humor and mocking the establishments of musical theater will undoubtedly enjoy this movie.

For other musical comedies, please visit my reviews of:
South Park: Bigger, Longer, And Uncut
Hamlet 2
A Prairie Home Companion

6/10

Check out how this film stacks up against others I have reviewed by visiting my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Stories We Write To Avoid Reviewing Movies We Did Not Enjoy: Rent UGH!

The Good: Moments of vision/concept, Moments of direction
The Bad: Plot serves the songs, Generally disappointing characters, None of the actors shine
The Basics: A disappointing adaptation of a musical I never saw arrives on DVD packed with bonus features that make the primary feature no better.


So, I was cleaning up things left behind by my last ex- and after I sent the box off where it needed to go, I received an angry e-mail. It seems that in my belabored attempt to excise the possessions of my prior love from my house, I forgot Rent. Yes, when I checked, there it was, still unwatched, Rent on DVD waiting for me to return to my ex. So, today, as I played hooky from work (to be fair I was supposed to be on the road to Florida now, but the convention there was postponed), I decided to watch the DVD before I sent it back along to where it belongs.

Considering how little free time I have these days, I am tremendously disappointed in myself now for wasting it this way. There was a joke on The Simpsons, where Homer comments in song a play and says ". . . or Rent or some other piece of crap" and I had the obligatory offense at it (defender of art that I am and having never seen Rent before) and I stubbornly refused to laugh. Now, on this, I'm with Homer.

Rent is a cinematic adaptation of the musical by the same name, following the lives and trials of eight New York City artists and people on the outskirts of the art community there. Essentially, it is a character study that revolves around the relationships within the group building up to and in the aftermath of a protest against a corporation evicting everyone in the neighborhood to put in a high-tech production studio that would allow some artists to do their work. The Bohemian community resists this, along with paying their rent, and conflict ensues between the art and business communities.

These struggles are personified by the characters. There is Mark, the independent filmmaker, Roger, the one-hit wonder, Mimi, the stripper, Angel, the street drummer, and Maureen, the performance artist. On the other side are Joanne, the lawyer, Benjamin, the suit for the landlords, and Tom, who for the life of me (and I JUST finished watching the film) I cannot figure out what he was doing other than acting as a sidekick for Mark and Roger, a love interest for Angel and a guy who comes in with cash at the end.

So, that's the film; set up, singing, characters learn, grow, die, love, fall apart, do drugs, try to get sober, and I just did not like it. There, it's out there. This was pretty terrible, in fact. First, films based on musicals are sketchy with me, but I've seen them done, like with The Phantom Of The Opera (reviewed here!) fairly well. The difference between the cinematic version of any play and the stage play is that the director of the film must use the expanded medium better. The film cannot feel like it could have taken place on a single stage with act breaks. With a cinematic rendition of a stage performance, I want to see camera work that illustrates changes of perspective that could not be gotten through sitting in a seat in a theater. The best adaptations of stage plays do this because the director realizes they are not making a documentary. Instead, they use the film medium and they have the actors play to that, as opposed to relying on their stage sensibilities.

Unfortunately, director Chris Columbus does not do this. Far too often, he has performers singing to camera, acting to camera, looking right at the camera as opposed to one another. This is most notable during Mimi (Rosario Dawson's) strip club scene and Maureen (Idina Menzel's) performance art piece. Indeed, the performance art piece - which was the protest a large chunk of the film was building up to - stuck out like a sore thumb in the film. Columbus failed to make it translate into this medium and it falls flat. Instead of being a protest against authority, Columbus effectively collapses the argument by playing artists as simply sheep to a different shepherd.

Now it behooves me to mention at this point that I am not objecting to the idea of a film about the conflict between art and commerce. I live that struggle every day. As I work to get my second novel published, I've been in a conflict with a major film studio about using a citation I want to include in the book. Their art inspired me, I want to reference that, the business end says "no," I'm nearing the point where I rewrite despite not wanting to. But the point here is that I am sympathetic to the struggle of art and artists.

I'm not sympathetic to these slackers in Rent, though. First, they live in one of the most expensive cities in the world where they refuse to pay for that. I'm so sick of artists who think they have to be in major urban areas and part of a "scene" in order to make legitimate art. And sitting through a two-hour film wherein the protagonists tend to complaining about being poor more than producing art just grates after . . . I don't know, fifteen minutes. Moreover, more of the film isn't actually about artists doing art, it's about artists waiting to make art and resisting authority for . . . the sake of resisting authority. The only genuinely productive members of the group are Mark, who films virtually everything and Mimi, who strips a lot and uses the money to shoot up.

So, it's essentially slackers. Mark doesn't like his parents, so he stays in New York City fighting to film everything he can and sell the footage to make money if he can. Why do Angel, Roger, Mimi, Tom and Joanne stay in the City? Who knows? Arguably, the argument for Angel is that there are broad swaths of the United States where transgendered people are not accepted. Well, as a liberal living in a very conservative area of Upstate New York, and one who has been fired from jobs for having progressive political views, I'll be the first to float the argument that perhaps people would be more accepting of different people if they only had more of them around! Yes, I'm encouraging any transgendered people reading this to move out of the big cities to the suburbs and the rural areas and be out and proud! Artists, transgendered people, anyone who is different, get out of the cities and mingle with the rest of the world! Part of this is completely selfish on my part; I recently took two young people to a concert in nearby Albany, NY (two hours away) and when I needed directions, I found one of my companions looking absolutely slack-jawed because she saw more than three black people for the first time in her life!

How does this relate to Rent? The feeling of being trapped makes no sense on a character level. It's the same way it makes no sense that people packed into New York City insist on being crammed onto the island and yet will pay a premium for space near Central Park to try to feel like their not stuck in the city. I shake my head at people like that and commit acts of profound ad hominem. When I encounter characters like that in cinema or plays or literature, I just grumble and observe how the characters make no genuine sense. There's more than one city, there are more places than just cities and characters who are kvetching about having their lights turned off when they haven't paid when they don't DO anything just annoy me.

The only moment I truly empathized with any character was when Mark starts selling his video footage to a news organization and he is paid a regular wage. Then, he worries he might be selling out, but he DOES something. I respect both the struggle and the willingness to work. As someone who has sold out - I bend pipes at a hellish factory each night to make money to keep my house, much to the sacrifice of my art - I respect the struggle and his character makes sense in that regard.

Much of the rest of the film is just soap operas of characters hooking up, falling apart and waiting to die from HIV. Actually, that leads to the one other thing I liked about Rent. Rent has a very positive view of people living with HIV; in this movie those afflicted are treated humanely and with a strong sense of compassion and realism. I liked that aspect quite a bit and I applaud Columbus and writers Stephen Chbosky and Jonathan Larson for prioritizing that. It makes the film much more watchable.

Unfortunately, the performers do not shine in Rent. I last enjoyed Rosario Dawson in Clerks II (reviewed here!) where she was hilarious and played a very different role than what I had seen her in before. In Rent, she does nothing remotely interesting. Similarly, when I saw the front cover to the DVD, I was psyched to see Tracie Thoms. Thoms played the wonderful sidekick Muhandra McGinty in the short-lived Wonderfalls (reviewed here!). I loved her there and when she presented a solo in the opening credits sequence, I was excited. Unfortunately, she plays Joanne, who does not have the best part in the film. Thoms has a great voice, performs a decent tango, but is much-neglected in the large cast.

The only talent that impressed me was Anthony Rapp, who played Mark. Rapp has the benefit of playing arguably the most interesting character in Rent and therefore has a little advantage. Rapp, however, gets credit with me for the ease of his body language and the way he pays attention to the other actors, as opposed to the camera watching him. He plays most effectively as a character as a result and is very easy to watch.

On DVD, Rent has a full-length commentary track which I couldn't sit through, even for the review. The bonus disc contains a feature-length behind the scenes documentary about the making of the film Rent that is deeply involved with discussing the translation from stage to screen. It will not sell anyone who did not like the film on the value of it. There are deleted scenes and extra songs as well and they have the same effect.

Ultimately, Rent might be a fine play (no comment on that!), but the film is lackluster and uninspired. The characters are unlikable, whiny and make little sense outside the context of being New York City artists or drug users (i.e. some of the characters are motivated by getting their next fix and at least addiction makes some sense). And at the end of the day, it's a shame this didn't make it into the box; it might be the one thing from that relationship I have absolutely no problem giving back.

For other musicals, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Singin’ In The Rain
Chicago
Oliver!

3.5/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing by clicking here!

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Across The Universe: One Long, Decent Series Of Music Videos

The Good: Great direction, Nice performances, Moments (what there are) of character, Concept, Moments of plot
The Bad: Not much plot or character
The Basics: With a strong sense of surrealism, Julie Taymor directs a series of connected music videos to create a story of love and growth in the Vietnam Era in Across The Universe.


I’m not known for being a big fan of concept films, films that hinge on special effects, musicals or art films for the sake of being art films. I tend to enjoy things that make sense, have a balance between plot, character, and acting and are enhanced by special effects. So, when something stands out to me as a film that is one generally out of balance, and I find myself truly enjoying it, it says quite a lot. Across The Universe is one such film.

Jude, a British working stiff, journeys to the United States in the mid-1960s in search of his father. Instead, he finds the college-prankster Max and Max’s sister, Lucy. Lucy, a young idealist who has a boyfriend who is shipped over to Vietnam, hits it off with Jude. When Max drops out of college, he and Jude head to New York City and become part of the art and music scene. Lucy, whose high school sweetheart is killed, follows soon after graduating from high school and the trio finds themselves falling in with musicians Sadie and Jojo and the longing Prudence. Together they explore art, love, and an anti-war sentiment as the Vietnam War and the world spiral out of control.

All this is done, of course, to the music of the Beatles. Or rather, all of the action occurs with the characters expressing themselves with Beatles’ songs. Yes, it’s a musical of sorts, but with its creative direction, meandering story and infrequency of dialogue and actual character development, the resulting film feels like a string of music videos loosely sewn together. In that way, it’s very difficult to evaluate Across The Universe. Like many music video collections, there is a hit or miss quality to the film’s parts that makes it difficult to look back at the whole experience and evaluate it as a single body.

But I liked it and I actually liked it that way. I saw a preview for Across The Universe months ago when watching a DVD for a vastly inferior film. The preview was filled with surreal images, cut together with a wonderful speed and sense of pacing. In fact, my only problems with the preview were that it showed virtually the entire film (as far as plot goes) and it invoked trepidation within me as to the film that was being advertised. I didn’t necessarily believe that the film that was represented by the trailer could be as surreal, well-cut, or visually interesting and clever as what was shown in the preview. Had I made the association before between Julie Taymor, who directed Across The Universe and her prior film, Frida, I think I would have lost the nervous feeling that this film could not be pulled off like the trailer.

And therein lies the strength and weakness of Across The Universe; it is almost exactly like a movie trailer. It’s longer, to be sure, but the sense of movement, style and content is very similar to what one gets from an average movie trailer. It is not an exaggeration to say that the film truly does feel like a series of music videos strung together over a loose story of one man’s interest in a young woman and a young woman’s awakening into a violent, changing (and music-filled) world.

What makes Across The Universe work, more than simply the sheer visual spectacle of it (the choreographers sure earned their paychecks for this one!), is the character elements that are presented. The story of Lucy is an intriguing and fairly timeless coming-of-age story, despite how important the setting of the 1960s is to the film. Lucy is your archetypal suburban, white girl who suddenly gets a vision of the larger world and the injustices that reign right outside her door. With the loss of her boyfriend and the drafting of her brother, she is taken on an emotional journey from naivet?through loss to empowerment. She comes to believe in her own strength and the power of her own voice and as she begins to join the peace movement, she fights the powers that be to change the world while retaining her youthful idealism.

She accomplishes the latter part, in part, through her romance with Jude, which soon grows into the focal point of Across The Universe. Set opposite the slightly more mature and professionally entangled Jojo and Sadie, Lucy and Jude fall in with the Walrus (Dr. Robert), Mr. Kite and increasingly radical students at Columbia University who are fighting against the war more and more extremely.

But it is arguably Lucy’s brother Max who has one of the best parts in the film. Dropping out of college removes Max’s immunity from the draft and he soon finds himself mired in the jungles of Vietnam. Easily one of the most compelling sequences in the film is Max’s induction into the Army set to “I Want You.“ His story is the most brutal in many ways and while it does lead to one of the few serious questions about direction (umm . . . Ms. Taymor, why is his arm missing in the VA hospital and then back by the end of the number, are we truly supposed to believe that the power of music restores warfare’s lost limbs?), he remains one of the most interesting characters.

The other interesting character that I found myself instantly drawn to is also the most poorly used: Prudence. Opening her erratic part in the film with a longing rendition of “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” where she harbors a clear desire for another cheerleader, Prudence loves, but never seems to get to truly express it. Instead, she is neglected, pops in and out of the film with no genuine pattern and her eventual satisfaction (if it even lasts) is a one-line footnote between much bigger scenes involving other characters.

The Jojo and Sadie storyline worked best when the two were singing. Indeed, one of the true proofs of how well-told the story is without the need for extensive dialogue comes in one of the clearest scenes where the two break-up while singing on stage. It is a powerful bit of acting and it works without either character breaking out of their song or stage presence.

While Across The Universe may be light on character and plot, it is not light on acting and great performances. With a mostly young cast (looking the principle characters up on the IMDB, most of them are cited with this as their first major project), it is astonishing how good the acting and the musical performances are. Amid cameos from Bono, Joe Cocker, and Eddie Izzard, Dana Fuchs, T.V. Carpio, Martin Luther McCoy, and Joe Anderson give memorable performances using mostly song as opposed to dialogue.

Jim Sturgess plays Jude and he is effective in making the transition between working class guy to love interest to strung-out artist. He has a wonderful sense of body language and his subtle changes in posture throughout the movie help easily and expressively define his character’s emotional state.

The film is headlined by Rachel Evan Woods as Lucy and it’s about time she got a lead role! I first got a load of Evan Rachel Woods’ pipes in the second season finale to Once And Again (Season 1 reviewed here!) and it has only improved since then. Her voice carries much of the film and she has a wide-eyed, wholesome quality that brings Lucy instant credibility. Her transformation into an educated antiwar activist is the essential character growth of the film and it works through her performance. She loses the shine in her eyes and replaces it with a fierce determination. Wood has that ability and she uses that.

Now on DVD, Across The Universe is presented such that it almost makes it worth seeing despite not being on the big screen any longer! The DVD features an extensive and interesting commentary track with Julie Taymor and her music producer Elliot Goldenthal. As well, there are deleted scenes and extensive featurettes featuring behind-the-scenes information. Still, it helps to see this film on the biggest screen possible!

Director Julie Taymor makes another winner with Across The Universe, though it is not for everyone. This film requires a less linear and literal sense to enjoy it. It is artistic, but it manages to tell a story and do that well. The visual effects and sense of surrealism make it seem like a trip through some of the best music videos featuring lyrics by the Beatles ever. It’s a great way to spend an evening and it’s a strong recommend to see it while it’s on the big screen; anyone looking for something truly imaginative and visually impressive will be glad they did!

For other musicals, please check out my reviews of:
The Phantom Of The Opera
Chicago
The Lion King

7/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Musicals Of Darkness, Desire and Disfigurements: The Phantom Of The Opera

The Good: Great singing, orchestration, costumes
The Bad: Garbled audio in several scenes, Most characters don't "pop," Plot technique removes menace
The Basics: Worth watching for Emmy Rossum's magnificent voice and performance, The Phantom Of The Opera is otherwise a startlingly average tale of love and obsession.


I think the reason most horror movies do not play with narrative technique is that it keeps the viewer wondering who lives and who dies in a story. It's hard to have menace when the story is told in flashback by one of the characters. In fact, one of the few drawbacks of the show Carnivale (reviewed here!) is that the series begins as a story told by one of the characters, who looks noticeably older. So, no matter the menace, the viewer knows the apocalypse does not come and no matter how severe the bloodbath, we know one character who never perishes. In a similar way, The Phantom Of The Opera mortgages elements of menace because the story is a flashback wherein one of the surviving characters attempts to recapture moments of his past by purchasing a chandelier.

Christine is an opera singer whose talents are hidden in the shadows as her career is dwarfed by the diva Carlotta. When new managers buy the Paris Opera House, Christine's career is given a boost by a mysterious figure who live beneath the theater, who insists that the new owners give Christine the lead part in a new opera. Christine performs, and quite superbly, attracting the eye of Raoul, and the ire of Carlotta. Carlotta returns so Christine may not continue to steal the spotlight, which irks the Phantom of the Opera (Christine's mysterious tutor). Hoping to divide Christine and Raoul, the Phantom attempts to seduce Christine, the pupil he has fallen in love with, and chaos ensues.

And the viewer just keeps waiting for that chandelier to make its entrance.

The Phantom Of The Opera is based upon the musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and it, too, is a musical. That means during most of the important character moments and times when characters are relating to one another, they break out into song as opposed to just talking with one another. It's a pretty solid musical.

The decent thing about The Phantom Of The Opera as a musical is that it's a decent musical. The music is good, the tunes are operatic, grand and memorable. The style is a fusion of classic opera and pop-rock, giving the piece a sense of being timeless while still appealing to younger audiences. There are recognizable tracks like "The Music of the Night" and the theme to The Phantom Of The Opera and they are well performed in this outing.

Much of the film has to be judged on the music and in this regard, director Joel Schumacher - whose work I have traditionally not enjoyed - chose well in his casting. Gerard Butler, who plays the Phantom, has a magnificent voice and it is used well in this film. He is paired with Emmy Rossum, who I first noticed in Songcatcher. Rossum's voice is exceptional and in this presentation of The Phantom Of The Opera, she is able to explore the depth and breadth of her vocal abilities and she shines brightly.

Emmy Rossum steals every scene she is in and not only because she is magnificently costumed, which she is. Rossum, whose parts have generally been smaller than this - she does not last long in Mystic River, for example - but here she clearly proves her worth. She creates a distinctive, viable, articulate and empathetic character through her portrayal of Christine. It is her performance that invests the viewer in caring what happens in the movie and Christine becomes the only memorable or intriguing character in the movie based on Rossum's acting.

That is saying quite a bit when you have a movie with so many intricate machinations, including a disfigured guy living in possibly the most cinematic sewer of all time.

Truth be told, though, there is little else to recommend The Phantom Of The Opera, though it is worth mentioning that the direction is decent. Schumacher uses the camera to focus on angles, perspectives and views that could not be captured by watching a stage performance. Wisely, Schumacher makes a visual feast out of The Phantom Of The Opera with lush sets, extraordinary costumes and a sense of movement that establishes a world that feels cinematic, rather than theatrical. This is easily the best directed Schumacher film I've yet seen.

Sadly, though, the film has some of the same limitations as the play. The Phantom of the Opera mortgages any sympathy the viewer might have for him through his villainy and Raoul is pretty much a generic good-looking guy who the audience is supposed to think is a better choice for Christine. The truth is, Christine and her friend Meg have more on-screen chemistry and more binding them than Christine and Raoul. The plot here takes precedence over genuine character development or real sensibilities.

Instead, this is plotted like a very average musical and essentially tells the simple romantic narrative that has been told and retold from Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte on. Writers Gaston Leroux, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Joel Schumacher add nothing new to the essential story of a woman who has two men to choose between.

But, at least they make it look good. And it sounds good. And if you can't create something genuinely new, the least you can do is make an illusion of it that hints at originality. This does that, at the very least.

For other works with Patrick Wilson, please check out my reviews of:
The Switch
The A-Team
Watchmen
Passengers

6/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Is Harum Scarum The Best Movie Ever? Good Grief, NO!

The Good: Camp value, Michael Ansara
The Bad: Acting, Plot, Sets, Direction, Character, Lack of decent DVD extras
The Basics: From the first Technicolor opening credit flashes through the closing song, Harum Scarum is purely awful Elvis Presley camp.


A few years back, when I went to Las Vegas for my annual Star Trek convention pilgrimage, I scheduled the trip such that we overshot Vegas and went to California. This meant I was going to be on the road a few extra days and for the first time, I did not plan out all of the stops. This meant that I played by ear on finding hotels on the way out to California (never doing that again!) and in Missouri, I discovered a wonderful, out of the way, 50's diner that was probably made better by my complete exhaustion when crashing there. On the wall of the diner was various 1950's memorabilia and collectibles and I had to laugh at one of them. There on the wall was "Elvis goes to Afghanistan!" Yes, the movie poster for Harum Scarum, advertised this and I told myself if I ever had the opportunity to see the movie, it was now on the list.

That opportunity came yesterday when I discovered my local library system had Harum Scarum on DVD and I could get it via interlibrary loan. Having now watched Harum Scarum, I think writing a review is the best possible public service I could do. Yeesh! This movie is terrible! In all of the most wonderfully campy ways, this film is just awful and it was a delight to watch it, as I had never seen an Elvis Presley movie before.

Johnny Tyronne, international movie star of action-adventure films, is in the Middle East promoting his new musical, action-adventure film when he is abducted! Taken to a nation that has been isolated for 2000 years, Johnny finds himself in the company of a thief, a gaggle of bellydancers and a mysterious woman who wants Johnny to use his talents to kill the king. Threatening the lives of the thieves and orphans against his cooperation, Johnny reluctantly sets out to kill the king of the small nation while realizing that the woman of his dreams may be the king's daughter!

Harum Scarum is - from what I've heard - a pretty typical Elvis Presley movie; Elvis plays an Elvis-like character as an excuse to break into song periodically and run around mock-fighting, kissing various women and wearing parachute pants (very flattering on the King, by the way!). Opening with the movie within the movie, one of the immediate problems with Harum Scarum is that it presents something of a spoof of itself to open the film, then basically duplicates that for the rest of the film.

The plot is so simple and canned it's amazing to think that even in 1965 when the movie was originally released, it was not considered passe. Johnny Tyronne, played by Elvis Presley, is abducted by The Assassins, to kill a king with his martial arts abilities (which are vastly overstated in the movie). He is extorted to betray his principles of "only in self defense" with the defense of women, children and lovable marketplace thieves. And, of course, there is the most obvious trick in the book to smoke out the real culprits behind the plot to kill the king.

And here's what keeps Harum Scarum from being a total waste. Writer Gerald Drayson Adams uses the best possible villain for the film. Yes, it's the oil companies! Apparently, even in the mid-'60's, Adams was concerned over the international dependence on oil and the unmasking of the villainous oil conglomerates becomes the high point of the film.

The problem is, most of the film is actually about Elvis Presley running around, doing the most fake martial arts in the world, and cozying up to many women in bellydancer outfits. None of that is truly a complaint, it just is what it is. Harum Scarum is an obvious vehicle for Elvis to continue to grow his music career using the film as a pretty blatant advertisement. He sings "Kismet," "Harem Holiday," "Go East, Young Man," a bevy of songs from a pool to his desirous lover, and a Las Vegas song at the end that served only to close the film and remind me that "Viva Las Vegas" was not included in the 30 #1 Hits album of Elvis's that I recently heard and reviewed.

And when he's singing, Elvis is fine. But yes, there's a "but . . ." after that. I am all for historical accuracy, but there's something troubling about watching a film on DVD on my HD-TV only to see the lips not matching the words. When Elvis is singing, often the lips and words do not match precisely. This is not a hardware issue on my end, I soon discovered, but rather a problem with the original print that was not fixed for the DVD release. That seems especially lazy of Warner Brothers, to me.

But when it comes to acting . . . Harum Scarum is universally bad. I get that Elvis has great eyes; they are blue and clear and one wants to call them radiant, but in this film, they are vacant. Elvis looks around and never seems to connect with anything or anyone he is seeing, so the entire film, his eyes carry a glassy, inexpressive expression that makes one wonder if he he had been replaced by a robot. Especially when he is singing, Elvis as Johnny seems disconnected from all around him and that is distracting.

The only acting coup in the film is that of the Prince, played by Michael Ansara. A genre fan like myself knows Ansara from his performance of Kang in Star Trek's "Day Of The Dove" (reviewed here!) a few years after this film, but it's refreshing to see (and hear) Ansara here. The problem with watching Harum Scarum now is that just like Elvis's presence clearly indicates a hero character, Ansara's presence indicates a very specific type of character and he lives up to that expectation, though he does it quite well.

In the end, Harum Scarum is completely mindless fun, less some of the fun for serious cinephiles. It's the type of movie where Elvis takes out a tiger using his martial arts ability which is indicated by a series of cuts that never actually put Elvis or the tiger in a shot together. It's campy and the most troubling aspect of it is that it isn't even smart camp.

Elvis plays Johnny Tyronne, a movie star. Certainly, this is not a stretch for Elvis. I can live with that. But when Tyronne is kidnaped by the Assassins, he never uses the tried and true, "Umm . . . I'm just an actor" excuse. I mean the Assassins, who by their name ought to be able to carry out a simple coup, extort and actor and the film is so desperate to maintain the illusion of movie magic that Tyronne never says, "Yup, didn't really kill that tiger, it's just a movie," which might well have saved him a lot of trouble.

And the viewer from having to suffer through this 85 minute advertisement for Harum Scarum: The Soundtrack.

On DVD, Harum Scarum is presented with minimal bonus features, in fact there are only trailers for other Elvis Presley movies. There are no commentaries, nor featurettes, making this a poor use of the medium.

For other completely hokey, contrived comedies, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Did You Hear About The Morgans?
Bride Wars
Couples Retreat

2.5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

| | |

Utterly Unimpressed, Singin' In The Rain Is A Very "Assembled" Musical.

The Good: Moments of performance, direction and character.
The Bad: The story seems to be designed to service the music, Hard to care about any of the characters.
The Basics: Singin' In The Rain might showcase the many dancing talents of Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor, but it is little more than a string of interconnected music videos.


Today was one hell of a day. After a weekend when I saw a bunch of new (to me) material, it has taken me until now to write the last of the reviews that backlog created. In many ways, the fact that I am only getting to Singin' In The Rain now is pretty significant. I have been putting off watching Singin' In The Rain for years now. I'm not a big fan of musicals and I had to watch a number of them for my Best Picture Project (available here!). So, when a friend finally compelled my wife and I to watch Singin' In The Rain it, honestly, was something I was not biased toward.

Even so, while I emotionally did not enjoy much of Singin' In The Rain, the reasons for rating it lower than most reviewers are all rational and consistent with my reviewing standards. After having a conversation with a friend about how Gene Kelly and director Stanley Donen revolutionized the way directing and filming dance was done, I appreciated much of what was done in Singin' In The Rain was done. But while I could acknowledge that the director did not cheat the way the director of Footloose (reviewed here!) did, the "classic" did not have nearly as developed a story as the new movie did.

Don Lockwood is an actor in schlocky silent movies, where he is professionally tied to the screeching actress Lina Lamont. With the advent of the talking pictures, the studio is deeply concerned because Lina's voice is likely to scare off viewers. Right around the same time, Don runs into Kathy Selden, an outspoken actress who belittles the type of melodramatic pantomime movies Don is in and he is taken with her honesty. After a series of run-ins, Don becomes enamored with Kathy, especially when she is supportive after the utterly disastrous screening of the first Lockwood and Lamont talkie.

Don comes to believe that the answer to his problems is in Kathy when his best friend Cosmo stumbles upon the solution to Lina's terrible voice. Kathy begins doing all of Lina's dialogue and becomes the voice for Lina in the new musical version of the first Lockwood and Lamont talkie. But when Lina learns of Kathy's involvement, the whole project is jeopardized.

The fundamental problem with Singin' In The Rain is that the movie is built around various pieces of music. The title track inspired the film and appears twice in the movie, but I knew that the song "The Broadway Melody" that is performed was from The Broadway Melody (reviewed here!) and there is a reference to The Ziefeld Follies. The musical choices were familiar before the movie was made and there is the feeling through much of the film that the story is simply serving the musical choices, as opposed to fitting organically into the story. So, for example, the song "Gotta Dance" leads to such an extensive dance number that it pulls the viewer out of the movie (much like a similar number in An American In Paris, reviewed here!).

Despite the lack of sensible story that feels organic, Singin' In The Rain features some pretty wonderful dance from Gene Kelly. He is almost outshone in the character department by Cosmo, who is a likable supporting character. He may fill the traditional role of sidekick, but he has the brains to Lockwood's fame and O'Connor has more charisma in key scenes. Kelly's delivery in some of the exposition scenes is a little dry, but O'Connor is always on with a sparkle in his eyes. Debbie Reynolds is fine, though it was no surprise to me to learn she had no formal singing or dancing training before this role.

Ultimately, any bias I have against musicals is eliminated when I consider good musicals which have a concrete narrative and characters who simply express themselves through song. Singin' In The Rain is nowhere near so cohesive. The story seems to have distinctive segments and those segments are more defined by musical numbers being stuck in than by organic character moments. As such, it makes it easy to not recommend this supposedly iconic musical.

For other musicals, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Chicago
Tangled
Repo! The Genetic Opera

4/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Ghastly Dickens Musical Adaptation: Oliver! Is Anything But Extraordinary!

The Good: Generally good Dickens plot, Moments of music
The Bad: Poor acting and musical presentation, Uninspired presentation of themes, Lack of DVD bonus features.
The Basics: A dreadfully disappointing musical, Oliver! simplifies Oliver Twist with terrible child and young adult actors who gut it of any emotional resonance or consequence.


Compelled as I have been by my current writing and enrichment endeavor to watch and review every film that has won the Best Picture Oscar (only six left!), I have found myself experiencing more and more of a genre that I am not predisposed toward at all. Yes, I've been watching a lot of musicals and the latest is Oliver! And while some musicals have surprisingly grabbed me and I would like to watch again or enjoy, this was not one of them. Indeed, the fact that this ended up as a Best Picture Oscar winner absolutely baffles me.

That said, Oliver! is a musical reinterpretation of Charles Dickens' classic novel Oliver Twist. For those unfamiliar with the work, it is a social commentary novel which does not (thematically) lend itself to a popular musical format (though an opera could certainly be pulled off for it). It has been years since I last read Oliver Twist and over a decade and a half since I last saw a stage production of Oliver! As such, this is a very pure review of the film.

Oliver Twist is an orphan living in 19th Century England and one night, he asks his keepers if he might have more gruel, which gets him sent into the street to be sold to the highest bidder. After a brief time with a family that abuses him, Oliver runs away to the streets of London where he is taken in by a thief, the Artful Dodger. In the company of the Artful Dodger, Oliver meets other orphaned children working as thieves and pickpockets working for Fagin and Bill Sikes.

While learning the trade, Oliver falls for the resident woman, the beautiful Nancy. And during one of his first attempts to pick a pocket, he is caught by the kindly Mr. Brown, who takes Oliver in when the attempt to prosecute him for theft fails. Taken in by a man of wealth and society, Fagin and his cronies become fearful that Oliver will "out" them to the authorities and they work to pull him back into the gutter with them.

Outside my appreciation for the occasional musical number - Oliver! has recognizable songs in "Food, Glorious Food!" and "I Think I Have To Think It Out Again" - the only thing that makes Oliver! even remotely worth watching are the costumes. The costumes look good and period appropriate and the street urchins have costumes that have an appropriate amount of wear. But while the costumes look good and the frantic Sikes is appropriately sweaty and greasy-looking throughout, the music is far less extraordinary. Many of the numbers are sung by prepubescent boys and they sound just terrible. This is driven home in painful contrast to the adults who sing and numbers like the one performed when Oliver looks out the window after waking up in Mr. Brownlow's house the first time where people in the street sell their wares are noticeably better than any song the children perform.

While children might be bowled over by the simple morality tale that Oliver! becomes in this interpretation, adults are less likely to be satisfied. In addition to making everything musical, the film has a troublesome tendency to simplify plot and character aspects. While Dickens did build certain 19th Century conceits into his novel, Oliver! seems only to be the conceits; the happy ending, the villains being thwarted and society being upheld, without any real social commentary. There is no real resolution to the orphanage and the simplicity of Oliver's parentage is brought up with no real foreshadowing. Even so, the film is fairly graphic for children, including multiple deaths. But even those seem to be brushed away easily with a rousing closing song.

As for the acting, Ron Moody is decent as Fagin, the greedy leader of the children's mob. His performance has some depth, especially in the final moments of the film when he emotes with his eyes. Throughout the film, he carries himself with a mix of sincerity and sneering in his facial expressions and he is a pleasure to watch, even if his character is villainous. He is also the exception to the rule in this movie.

Oliver! is an excellent example of the old Hollywood adage that one ought to avoid working with children or animals. The children are homogeneously bad. Mark Lester is stiff as Oliver and Jack Wild lacks any of the charisma I recall the Artful Dodger having in the Dickens novel. The songs often look like they are being lip synched and the sense of movement is so choreographed - even in non-musical numbers - that it looks contrived. Moreover, there is no on-screen chemistry between either Nancy and Sikes (which there is supposed to be) or Nancy and Oliver. Because Shani Wallis does not play her scenes with Lester as either inappropriately flirtatious or motherly, the role of Nancy falls flat.

On DVD, the only bonus features are a short featurette on the making of the film and a photo gallery. The featurette is not terribly informative and was disappointing. Moreover, the disc itself is strangely laid out. Despite the capacity for the entire film to appear on one side of a single disc, this film is broken into two sides of a disc with the bonus features appearing on the "b" side. Unfortunately, the disc itself is not labeled which side should be up to begin with so the viewer has some trial and error in this regard.

Oliver! will, unfortunately, be around forever as it won the top Oscar prize. It is two and a half hours viewers need not waste, though. If you want to see Oliver Twist as a musical, wait until a really talented school group performs Oliver! The kids in this, alas, aren't working at a level of competence that some middle schoolers are.

[As a winner of the Best Picture Oscar, this is part of my Best Picture Project online here! Please check it out!]

For other musicals, check out my reviews of:
Repo! The Genetic Opera
Up
Little Nemo: Adventures In Slumberland

3.5/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

The Sound Of Music Is A Musical Anyone May Enjoy (Even Those Who Don't Like Musicals)!

The Good: Nice scenery, Funny, Good character development
The Bad: Direction, Somewhat predictable.
The Basics: A worthwhile Best Picture winner, The Sound Of Music tells a timeless tale of love, music and Nazi occupation set to a wonderful score.


It is amazing that for all of the movies I have watched, there are astonishing gaps in my cinematic education. As I sat down to watch The Sound Of Music for the first time - a somewhat astonishing feat given how many parodies I have seen and understood of the film - I realized two things. The first was that the film's director, Robert Wise, was best known to me for his film Star Trek: The Motion Picture (reviewed here!) and the second realization I had was that I've not seen Julie Andrews in anything save The Princess Diaries (reviewed here!). Yet, I approached The Sound Of Music with a fairly level temperament and few expectations.

Thus, it was a true delight to discover how much I came to enjoy The Sound Of Music. In terms of storytelling and character development, The Sound Of Music is remarkably tight and well-developed. Amidst the instantly-recognizable songs, the story develops as a fairy tale of sorts set in the 1930s as the Germans exert more influence over Austria. In addition to a very classic sense of storytelling - man falls for woman, villain pops up to challenge the lifestyle of the heroes - The Sound Of Music features an optimistic view of the world amidst changing times when innocence was hard to come by. The Sound Of Music is almost deceptive in its apparent simplicity and the true complexity of it only comes out in the later half . . . when the wartime story intrudes upon the love story.

Maria is a nun who has a musical obsession and a true delight in life. However, this leads her to be somewhat reckless and not truly fit in with the other nuns. She is given leave from the abbey to become the governess for the Von Trap family in Salzburg, Austria. There, she discovers five girls and two boys who need her guidance in the wake of their mother's death. The children of a sea captain, the children have lived a rigid life without his attention or affection. After gently chiding them for playing a prank on her, Maria begins to bond with the children by refusing to treat them like animals. Despite their various ages and needs, Maria makes the children feel loved by paying attention to them and offering them opportunities outside the rigid structure their father, including making them clothes from the curtains when the Captain refuses to get her fabric.

As the Captain and the Baronness work on their relationship, the Baronness becomes catty and eliminates Maria's position in the house when she suspects the Captain may have feelings for Maria. Maria leaves the household, but soon returns when the children are inconsolable without her. Soon after, the Nazis move in on Austria and the Von Trapp family is put into real peril.

The Sound Of Music is delightfully colorful and energetic, with wonderful color contrasts for the scenery that instantly transport the viewer to an enchanting world where it seems perfectly natural that the characters would break into song at any moment. And yet, the movie does not live in denial of the music that the characters break into. Captain Von Trap is characterized as a man so broken by the loss of his wife that he has lost music and the house has fallen quiet as a result. Maria, then, is the ideal character to come and rejuvenate the household and she fills exactly that role.

Despite the sense of simplicity that much of the film has, the characters actually develop and there is a decent sense of tension, especially at the climactic moments. Despite using young actors (and actresses), the acting is homogeneously wonderful, despite the unreality of characters breaking into song at a moment's notice. While the movie focuses on Maria and the Captain, characters like Lisle and her German boyfriend have integral roles and the relatively minor character of Ralph ends up having an important role.

What are more disappointing are the stylistic problems with the film. The realistic lighting in the dance number that puts Lisle and Ralph in the gazebo is problematic. It is not until it is lit with lightning occasionally that the scene is easy or enjoyable to watch. Instead, director Robert Wise trades realism - which leaves characters' faces obscured - for style and the comfort of the viewer. Similarly, during the classic song "Doe A Deer," the viewer is treated to the backs of all of the kid's heads to focus on Maria. Despite the beautiful backdrop, the movie has stretches where it is awkward to watch because of how Wise frames or lights the film. This is worse than the usual conceits of inorganic movement that comes with making characters dance in musicals. The movie has that, too (the children rocking back and forth on their knees in "Doe A Deer" comes instantly to mind), but the basic filming problems are worse in The Sound Of Music than the musical conceits.

On DVD, elements like obvious bluescreen shots are accented. Ironically, in cleaning up the print for DVD, shots like the background when the Captain is driving the Baroness back to his property look terrible.

Even the Captain has a decent character to him. He has moments when he is actually wit, like when he excuses himself from the company of Max and the Baroness and urges Max to step out of character and be charming. Despite his rigidity, the Captain has a sense of irony to him which is both refreshing and real. He is hardly monolithic and while he is stern, he clearly loves his children, he just does not know how to manage them (I suspect if I had ever been saddled with children, I would have ended up treating them like the Captain treats his . . . well, maybe without the whistle).

On DVD, the bonus features are surprisingly sparse. There is an audio commentary track and the option to play the film with the isolated score (without dialogue). This is remarkably lackluster DVD bonus features for such an acknowledged great film. No doubt as the film becomes re-released on Blu-Ray there shall be more robust DVD bonus features.

Unsuspecting as I was that I could enjoy The Sound Of Music, this becomes one of the few musicals I would ever want to see again (and not just for the flirtatious rendition of "Sixteen Going On Seventeen"). The movie is fun and a worthy addition to the cultural collective unconscious that great films have created.

[As a winner of the Best Picture Oscar, this film is part of W.L.'s Best Picture Project, here! Please check it out!]

For other musicals, please check out my reviews of:
Repo! The Genetic Opera
The Runaways
Corpse Bride

9/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


| | |