trh movie – Page 4 – my tragic right hip

TRH Movie – Sweeney Todd

We had a pass to go and see this last Wednesday, which meant a mad panic of finishing up the Christmas shopping (done!) and racing around to actually get to the screening on time, which we did, yay!

I’m not going to say too much beyond the fact that it was one of the most enjoyable films I’ve seen all year long. Yes, I realize it’s a musical about a demon barber, and goodness is it gory, bloody and gruesome, but it’s also whimsical, beautiful and supremely acted. But what I liked the most, apart from the utterly delicious art direction, was all the singing, from start to finish, just like a stage musical.

So, if you’re out and about on Boxing Day and are in the mood for something that’ll keep your toes tapping and force you to cover your eyes at the same time, this is the film for you. As my RRHB said as we exited the theatre: “It’s got to be Tim Burton’s best.”

Santa, Baby!

Last Friday, before the illness felled me like a giant tree, we had our holiday party for our group. There was a Kris Kringle involved, with a limit, and while I missed the present opening part of the evening (we went to go see Christine Fellows), I did end up receiving my gift on Monday morning.

What did Santa deliver?

Only the A&E mini-series, Pride and Prejudice, starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. For those of you whose memories are as jammed full as mine, I’ll remind everyone that I caught all kinds of flack at our last sales conference for coming out on the “pro” side of the Keira Knightley / Joe Wright version. Someone out there not only remembered, but has since decided to school me by making it impossible for me not to also watch the earlier version.

I tried to convince the RRHB that we watch it last night (oh, sure, he was all in the “why don’t we watch Pride and Prejudice niceness while I was sick, but now that I’m just about back to normal, he’s no longer so inclined) to no avail. Anyway, he’s away at the beginning of January recording, so I’ll have the television all to myself, and with the writer’s strike, I’ll take the protest even one step further and cut myself off from the networks entirely.

Well, that might be a bit harsh.

But still…Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, how exciting!

Happy Christmas to me.

TRH Updates – December Madness

There are reasons why I hate starting every post with, “Goodness, I am so busy I barely have time to sleep these days.” Firstly, it’s boring, no one cares how busy I am. In fact, I don’t even care, and I’m the one living this manic life. Secondly, being swamped with work doesn’t count as almost every single person I know professionally and personally is in the same boat. Thirdly, I miss the comments, the emails, and frankly, the love, that I get from my blog and when I don’t post, I don’t get anything back. After all, you get back what you put out in the world, right?

So, I apologize in advance for the brief list-post detailing what’s gone on in the past few weeks. I know it’s just not the same.

1. Sales conference sucked up a good chunk of my life in the last couple weeks. However, it introduced me to Tim Winton, an Australian writer who has written a beautiful, lyrical and utterly compelling novel called Breath that I devoured in a 24-hour period (#77). It’s not coming out until next year so I won’t go into too much detail except to say that I would urge anyone and everyone to pick up his book of short stories The Turning and let me know what they think. It’s the book that’s top of my list now.

2. Another book I read before conference made me think that the subject matter of stories doesn’t matter as long as the telling is compelling. (Am I rapping? Take it to the break! Yeah.). The Art of Racing in the Rain (#78) has a dog for a protagonist. A dog obsessed with race car driving. Do you think that deterred me? No, it did not — it’s a charming, engaging and sweet book that proves, much like Friday Night Lights, the power is in the storytelling and not the subject matter. This is an interesting lesson so late in life.

3. Zesty and I went to go see Atonement. I think she had a greater emotional response to the film than I did, having read the book and remembering how heartbreaking the story ends up being. It’s a beautiful movie with an interesting soundtrack, and I think James McAvoy is simply delicious, but on the whole I’d give it a solid B, maybe moving on to B+ in certain parts. There’s a scene when Robbie’s at Dunkirk filmed in one long, gorgeous shot that truly brings home the destructive, debilitating experience for British soldiers in the Second World War. With none of the Hollywood-style American touches of huge explosions, instead showing a choir of rag-tag men battle weary and broken who are singing, the film takes a totally different point of view than that which we’re used to in terms of exploring the war.

4. Awww, Enchanted. I was so glad that Tara was home for a whirlwind weekend that we got to see this film together. It was the perfect girlie movie. Amy Adams is delightful, and will probably get nominated for an Oscar. I can take or leave McDreamy. You get the feeling that his giant head wobbles a bit from walking around with all that hairy ego.

5. Dirty Dancing: The Stage Show? So not worth the money. The Evil Empire (where we were all employed three years ago, before half of us were unceremoniously fired) Ladies and I got together for a lovely pub dinner and set out to get our hearts broken by Baby. Only it never happened. Because the show is awful. Not even good-bad like Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights which was awesomely bad, and hilarious. The stage show truly sucks, despite its lovely art direction: the dialogue is painful, the performances beyond wooden, and the leads don’t sing. In a musical. And there’s no dirty dancing except one very small part at the beginning. Trust me, it’s not worth it, even for the laughter factor (we cackled through the entire performance). It’s troublesome because we were laughing at the actors and not with them, which is never a good thing.

So that’s about it in terms of my latest cultural indulgences. Lots more to come in terms of reading challenges, my top 10 books of 2007, my top 10 movies, and all kinds of other delightful lists that I adore making. And I promise, more regular updates.

TRH Movie – American Gangster

So Zesty and I decided to go and see a movie together yesterday afternoon, and we had both thought that American Gangster might just be the kind of flick for a no-boys afternoon. She picked me up at 3 PM, after I had spend a delicious lunch-brunch with Sam and Sadie, and we drove off to the Queensway only to discover the film’s 4 PM show time had been cancelled. I whipped out my blackberry, we got back in the car, and we ended up in good time at the Paramount downtown only to discover that its afternoon showing had too been switched around. So, back in the car we got, racing up to the Varsity only to get there absolutely in time for the 4:20 show (snacks and seats saved in time to actually even get to see the commercials before the previews).

Was the film worth all that? Maybe not. I mean, it’s not a bad movie by any standards, but it’s certainly not the best picture I’ve seen this fall of truly excellent movies. In some ways, it felt like a substandard season of The Wire crammed into one two-and-a-half hour film. Sure, the performances are good, but it’s certainly not the lean, mean film that it absolutely could have been. Denzel Washington plays Frank Lucas, a gangster who revolutionizes the drug trade in NYC during the heyday of the 70s, when over half the cops in the city were crooked and on the take. Russell Crowe plays one of the only honest cops on the block, Ritchie Roberts, who gets assigned to a new drug task force after turning in close to a million dollars in unmarked bills, much to his partner’s chagrin. The back and forth between Lucas and Roberts starts slowly, as both try to stay under the radar of one another, just trying to do their respective jobs. With the appearance of Blue Magic, a better product at a lower price, all of that changes.

There’s nothing subtle about the film, and that doesn’t mean it’s not a good picture, but you get the feeling Washington’s playing the same character he played in Training Day, which was never my favourite of his films. The fine line Lucas draws between the kind of businessman he imagines himself to be and the business that he’s in remains the most interesting part of the character. And Crowe’s missing the same spark he had in the earlier 3:10 to Yuma, a film that saw him perhaps not rest entirely upon his laurels. But I’d argue in this film, there was never a moment where I felt I hadn’t seen the same story before told in much of the same way. I’d be curious to see which movies from this heady fall season are still standing come Oscar time, and I have no doubt that this one will be recognized, regardless of whether or not its truly deserving. A solid B-, I would think.

TRH Movie – Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead

My RRHB is away in Sudbury recording, so I decided to do something completely and utterly out of character: I went to the movies by myself. At night. On a Friday. I had a book (in a very Rory Gilmore moment) for the pre-show annoying commercials, I had popcorn, and I had a ridiculous urge to see Sidney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. Not simply for the whole Ethan Hawke factor, but more so because I had heard and read so many great things about the film, that I wanted to see it before it disappears from theatres in Toronto. My poor aunt, with whom I had plans to see the movie in the first place, fell ill with a nasty case of pneumonia, which meant that she needed to stay home in bed. I was looking forward to seeing her, but of course, I’m wishing she gets better by resting up. So, I went alone. It’s character building right?

Annnywaaay, that got me out in relative suburbia by 7 PM on a Friday night with hundreds of other happy movie goers. Surprisingly, I didn’t feel too weird being there by myself, happily lined up, got my ticket, the good seat by the railing and settled in with The Luxe before the movie started. It being Friday, there were tonnes of people around me, too much perfume, too much chatting, and I got stuck in a slightly broken chair. Not off to a good start, but the film soon sucked me in so much that it wouldn’t have mattered where I ended up sitting and how uncomfortable I was by the end.

And when the movie starts, it’s deceptively quiet. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Andy, a relatively successful accountant whose desperately in love with Gina, his wife, played by Marisa Tomei. While on vacation in Brazil, they seem to reconnect, to discover what’s important, even if it soon becomes apparent that they’re both moving in different directions. Once home, Andy feels that getting back to Brazil and starting all over again will save their marriage. He sets out on a dangerous course to try and get them there, involving his younger brother Hank (Ethan Hawke) in a plot meant to knock off their parents jewelry store. Money problems solved, right?

Both brothers are stuck in situations entirely of their own making: Andy addicted to various substances, including his wife; Hank suffering the fall-out of a truly bad marriage who can’t quite keep away from the drink long enough to actually be a man and stand up for himself. Things go from bad to worse when all the plans for their so-called victimless crime wreck havoc on the lives of everyone around them, and then some. There’s not a single character in the film that makes you feel any kind of sympathy, even when Andy pours his broken heart out to his dealer in a pristine environment to shoot yuppie smack, you’re shouting at him in your mind to just do the right thing, to not let what’s about to happen happen. And as the situation goes from very bad to worse than one could possibly imagine, you desperately want them all to wake up and face their lives with a level of honesty that might redeem them in the end.

On the outside, everything looks great, if life were all about appearances. Andy and Hank wear their suits well, and they go through the motions, either truly able to weather the line between right and wrong with any kind of cold-hearted integrity. While the film’s really about the men, it’s a bit of a shame that all the female characters, with the exception of the mother (and for reasons that I won’t spoil here), feel overplayed and under-written, Gina’s all body with no heart, and Amy Ryan (who plays Hank’s beleaguered ex-wife) doesn’t do much more than swear (rightfully so) at her ex. As well, at first I was put off by the terribly derivative way of storytelling, of showing one event and then switching back to the “2 days before the robbery.”

But as the film progresses, the device becomes more and more effective, a way for the film to show the events from multiple perspectives, fitting everything back together with a point of view that only a skilled filmmaker like Lumet could pull off. Kelly Masterson, the film’s screenwriter, has created a terrifyingly bleak world with a cast of characters who cut so close to the bone of the human condition that they become more compelling the worse they act, each personifying an age-old sin representing all that’s wrong with our world. Events of the film are so shocking that at one point, a woman behind me shouted, “OH MY GOD!” when something particularly awful took place.

It’s an excellent film that explores right and wrong, good and bad, and all of the other black and white morals that refuse to let the characters out of their grasp for a second. Regardless of the unlikable nature of any of the characters, the performances in the film are riveting, and as much as I never want to inhabit that kind of a world, I do have to admit that it makes for one hell of a movie.

TRH Movie – No Country For Old Men

Yesterday was Remembrance Day, and for shame I only realized when I looked at my TTC transfer on my way to work. Granted, on our way home yesterday we walked past Soldier’s Tower, and paused. It’s a beautiful monument, covered in wreaths, and lit up from the bottom in that way that feels so respectful. I’ve written before about the particular significance of Remembrance Day, and it always makes me think of my grandparents, and my great-grandfather, who served in the First World War. Almost every part of my being Canadian is a direct result of them, and that’s not something to be forgotten.

I spent most of my day at the office yesterday tidying up some stuff before my holidays this week. And it’s nice sometimes to be there with no meetings, no distractions, nothing to keep from concentrating and getting a lot of things done. Although I did promise myself after the evil Boss From Hell experience I would never work weekends again, I feel so much better leaving now for a week now that my entire to-do list has been crossed out.

So when the RRHB called and suggested we go see a movie, at first I balked, because there’s always more I could do, and then decided that we should maybe go and see No Country For Old Men. There’s no end to my adoration for Cormac McCarthy but having sat through All the Pretty Horses and then writing a very long article for the now-offline Chicklit about how frustrating the adaptation was, I was worried. Until I found out, months ago, that it was a Coen brothers’ film.

An incredibly honest adaptation, the Coen brothers’ storytelling, straightforward but with incredible impact, ensures the film truly feels like the book brought to life. They’ve stripped out what won’t work on film (a lot of Ed Tom’s internal narration; some of the more violent scenes) and added in bits that made the movie more effective (like the visual aspects of the setting; in the sense that it truly brought your mind’s eye to life), and the end result is quite spectacular.

Okay, that’s not normally a word I would use to describe a film, but the acting is superb, the source material strong, and I really feel like the movies coming out this fall in terms of quality of both film making and storytelling are a cut above. The movie starts off with Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) hunting in the dry Texas back country where he comes across the detritus, human and otherwise, of a drug deal gone bad.

And even though he knows it, Llewelyn makes a few decisions that change the course of his life forever, most importantly, he picks up a satchel carrying about two million dollars of heroin money. Money that doesn’t belong to him. Anton Chigurgh (a merciless Javier Bardem), hired gun and strangely philosophical hitman, is charged with tracking him down. On the other side of the law, there’s Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), the sheriff in the town where Moss lives, who sits at a crossroads in his own life.

Like I said, the performances are all outstanding, but what’s more, I’ve read the book, so I know what happens, and parts of the movie still had me gripping my RRHB’s arm and gasping. Now, that’s a sure sign someone’s doing something right.

TRH Movie – 30 Days Of Night

Oh, horror of horrors.

Goodness. Regardless of whether or not 30 Days of Night ends up succeeding as a film, which I’m not entirely convinced it does, it sure as heck scared the crap out of me last night in the theatre. Based on the graphic novel by Steve Niles (story) and Ben Templesmith (art), the film takes place in Barrow, Alaska during the winter’s 30 day absence of sunlight. The most northern community in North America, the community hunkers down for the month of darkness when strange acts of violence and odd behaviour start happening.

First, Sheriff Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett) and his deputy Billy discover a pile of burnt cell phones (everyone’s in town), and then he’s called out to find that someone’s entire pack of sled dogs has been slaughtered. The culprit, a filthy, rotten-toothed stranger, called aptly The Stranger (Ben Foster), rolls up into the local cafe asking for raw hamburger meat when Eben apprehends him. No one knows what’s going on, but nor do they know what’s about to hit them as a league (again is that the right word) of vampires descends upon the town for a feast they’ve never seen the likes of…and it’s as bloody and as horrific as you’d think.

The rest of the film pits a core group of townies against their bloodthirsty enemies led by a frightfully made up Danny Huston; the former trying to stay safe, the later trying to eat them. The vampires, with makeup and prosthetics done by Weta, are ridiculously horrifying, and they all speak some language I didn’t recognize (if anyone knows, please enlighten me) in strange philosophical sentences that sounded more like doctrine than any kind of normal dialogue.

On the whole, the film felt forced in places, and I’m not sure Josh Hartnett, who will live forever in my mind’s eye as the luscious Trip Fontaine, was the right choice for the town sheriff charged with saving his community, his brother and his ex-wife. He’s a little too teary in places, but man, can he ever wield an ax when necessary. Also, as Kate pointed out, there was a whole subplot about his having asthma that seemed contrary to him running all over the place in the dead of winter in Alaska and a) not being out of breath and b) not coughing like a maniac. As a girl who has lived through winter with plenty of disease-induced lung problems, I know of what I speak.

Also, my RRHB, who read the original graphic novel, made a lot out of the fact that the film didn’t do enough with the vampire’s backstory. That by keeping the focus entirely upon the humans in the film, you didn’t get enough of the reasons why they picked Barrow or the in-fighting that apparently went on within the sect once they arrived. And if I’m listing complaints, Ben Foster might need to invent another character other than crazy to play. It seemed a lot like he stepped right off his horse in 3:10 To Yuma, pulled on some boots and a parka, and whipped up the same kind of mental instability he played in the other film. Regardless, he’s an actor who’s got a spark of something that I certainly appreciate, and he did scare the living crap out of me, which I guess was the whole point.

In that sense, to me, whose not a horror movie aficionado by any stretch of the imagination (the last scary movie I saw in the theatre was The Exorcist when it had its anniversary many years ago and afterwards I told the RRHB never again, I was THAT scared), it sure did the trick. There were numerous points during the movie where I had my hands clasped on my lap and was physically shaking because I was so scared. I fell asleep with the light on last night and even when I went to bed I still had to tell myself over and over again that it’s just a movie. So, if you’re looking for bloody, scary fun, it’s not a bad place to spend a few hard-earned dollars, just don’t expect it to be one of the best films you’ll watch all year, because it’s certainly not.

And just one last question, if the film takes place so far north, where are all the Inuit?

TRH Movie – Gone, Baby, Gone

There must be something in the water in Hollywood this fall, because out of the four pictures I’ve seen (3:10 to Yuma, Into the Wild, Michael Clayton, and now Gone, Baby, Gone), there’s not a bad one in the bunch. Sure, they all have their flaws, but that’s what makes filmmaking so interesting as an art form.

So I refrained from writing a full review of Dennis Lehane’s novel until I had seen the movie. I wanted to really explore the idea (in my head) of how a movie adaptation might work or not work. Gone, Baby, Gone seems, at first glance, to be a strange book to start with, considering it’s one of the middle books in Lehane’s series centering on Dorchester-native and private investigator Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and his partner, Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan). But in the end, I think it was a good choice, although I haven’t read the others, if only for its utterly current storyline and setting.

In this particular story, Patrick and Angie are called upon to help find a missing neighbourhood girl after she’s taken one night from her mother’s apartment. The mother, a drug addict and terrible mother, is forced into a sort of reckoning for her lifestyle by her older brother and his wife, who are the ones who actually hire Patrick and Angie. From the beginning, something’s just not right with the case, whether it’s the involvement of the cops, how the girl disappeared, or the story behind the story that starts to unravel the deeper Patrick and Angie get into it.

The film does an excellent job of streamlining the complex plot for a theatre audience. While plot details are tightened up, the film remains contextually in tact, despite its extreme complexity, which always doesn’t translate easily to the big screen. Affleck pays homage to noir films before him, but sometimes, he takes the elements a bit too far (although not to the crazy degree found in last year’s similar noir-influenced The Black Dhalia). Yet, despite the film’s few shortcomings, it remains tight, riveting and well-acted throughout.

If I have one complaint, it’s that the character of Angie becomes so very secondary in the film. She really doesn’t have a lot to do, she stands beside Patrick, asks a couple of questions, and has one pivotal moment that they took directly from the novel. Yet, in the book she’s complex, troubled, and deeply confused about elements of the case. The movie, I guess to keep it clear on Patrick, turns her into a truly supporting character, a partner in name only, and much less the strong, tough woman in Lehane’s narrative.

But the film’s got amazing art direction that brings the setting to life, fabulous performances by character actors like Amy Madigan and Ed Harris, and Deadwood‘s Titus Welliver and The Wire‘s Amy Ryan, and Casey Affleck, who brings a heart to the film that Lehane’s controlled style and hard-hitting language doesn’t always reflect. Affleck’s deft hand behind the camera and with the script show real talent and promise. And that’s a sentence I never thought I’d write, let alone think. He took everything he could from the book, changed what he needed to, remained faithful to the rest, and created a film that’s poignant, aching, bright, and honestly worthy of praise.

TRH Movie – Michael Clayton

We had a free half-day on Friday, which I was terribly happy to receive, for the Thanksgiving holiday this weekend. I went out for lunch by myself, finished reading PS, I Love You (#65), bought some books for my Around the World in 52 Countries challenge, and then went to go see Michael Clayton. Really I just needed some time to myself, to wander around regardless of how my tragic hip hurt, and think. Quietly.

I suppose spending two hours in a movie theatre isn’t necessarily quiet time, but for me it’s a place to sit alone with no one talking to me, or talking at me, where I can’t punch the keys of the blackberry and sort of get lost. So, yes, it’s a good place for me after what felt like weeks of non-stop activity. And while the film drags a bit in its middle section, I have to say that the more I think about it, the more I have to say that it’s one of the best pictures I’ve seen this year.

Michael Clayton, played to precision by George Clooney, pulls himself out of a high stakes back door poker game to answer his particular call of duty. The Willy Loman of lawyers, and I felt Arthur Miller’s influence is all over this picture, he’s a fixer, the guy the other lawyers in the New York mega-firm call when there’s a problem with one of their clients. From shoplifting wives to hit and run accidents, he’s got a reputation for being a lawyer among cops and a cop among lawyers, which puts him in a very complicated position when it comes to cleaning up a particular mess his associate, a brilliant but manic corporate lawyer named Arthur Edens creates.

See, Clayton’s cleaned up the mess left behind by Edens before, and his particular brand of mental illness, while it leads to utterly brilliant lawyering, has also caused him to become completely unhinged when dealing with the UNorth class action suit. They’re defending the company against claims their fertilizer, growth products, and/or genetically modified seeds, are killing farmers and poisoning their land. We see very little of the case itself but more the people around the case, like Tilda Swinton’s Karen Crowder, lead counsel for UNorth, who manically plots to save the company and herself from harm.

What this film is not is a terribly rehashing of bland early 90s legal thrillers of the John Grisham variety where big, bad business comes down hard on the good guy. The lines are blurred, the action more subtle, and the end result less Hollywood. In the middle of getting to the bottom of Edens breakdown (or breakout he would say), Clayton needs to deal with many issues in his personal life, the failure of his restaurant, his gambling, a tenuous relationship with his son, and the urge to throw away his career because he’s simply tired of being on the cleanup crew.

The struggle between the responsibility of work and the responsibility in a larger, more global sense is at play, as it is in many of the films Clooney makes these days. Right and wrong are blurry but not blurred and as the picture moves towards its conclusion, there’s a sense that you’ve picked up in the middle of the story. There’s the feeling that Clayton will continue for years to come in this role that he’s created for himself, driving a company car, cleaning up the messes of the rich and richer, and always hoping that doing the right thing means more than collecting a paycheque or an exorbitant bonus. Personally, the end of this film, which I won’t go into for fear of spoiling it, really made the movie for me. It’s a film that made me think a lot of about the state of men being ‘men’ and what it means to be successful in this past postmodern world. Regardless, it’s definitely a must see this season.

TRH Movie – Into The Wild

I’ve been mildly obsessed with reading about Sean Penn these days after going to an advance screening of Into the Wild before I jetted off to NYC two weeks ago. I know I’m prone to hyperbole, but goodness, it’s one hell of a film. As he’s mentioned in interview after interview, Penn wanted the landscape to be as much a character within the picture as the actors themselves, and it’s truly heartbreaking how he achieves this throughout the movie.

Emile Hirsch plays Christopher McCandless, whose tragic (if you want even to call it that) story was brought to light by Jon Krakauer in his best-selling book. When McCandless promptly hands over the balance of his college fund to Oxfam and heads on his own to discover America with only his courage to guide him, it’s less than two years later that he ends up starving to death in a magic bus in the Alaskan wilderness. The film charts his journey with an effortless spirit and energy that portrays McCandless as a modern-day hero, fully realized and idealistic, charming and charismatic, who gathers love around him like a moth to a flame. Abandoning the ethics and ethos of his upper-middle class parents, McCandless steps to the beat of his own heart in a way that betrays his youthful good looks. As my RRHB said to me when we left the theatre, “How incredible to live that fully realized, even if it was just for a short period of time.”

And it’s true. McCandless might have been foolish to head off into the Alaskan wilderness, but the philosophy behind his need to live a life off the beaten path, remains true. All in all, it’s a wonderful movie that runs maybe just a tad too long, and showcases an extreme talent in the young actor who carries the burden of the title role.

I think, however, the performance of the film, for me, rests solidly with Hal Holbrook, An older man Chris befriends the months before he heads into the wild, Holbrook’s Ron, who tenderly tries to dissuade the younger man from following his dream, ends up coming to terms with a life he never expected to lead. I don’t want to say too much more for fear of spoiling the genuine moments the two have on screen. But I will say that akin to Richard Farnsworth’s magnificent turn in The Straight Story, Holbrook’s performance in Penn’s picture remains riveting throughout.

Anyway, I’ve rambled on far too much today anyway. Just know that I admire Penn’s aesthetic when it comes to this picture so much that I fell I’m the one doing it a disservice trying to describe it with my weakened words.