The Three Musketeers (2011): A Review

THE THREE MUSKETEERS (2011)

Daring Don't...

 

The Alexandre Dumas swashbuckler The Three Musketeers has been adapted numerous times (I counted at least four film adaptations from 1921, 1948, 1973, and 1993).  Not having seen any of the others (though I did try to watch the 1973 version but started to nod off and decided it wasn't worth continuing) nor the variations of the Dumas novel (such as the Mickey Mouse version or any television adaptations) and never having read the book (but aware of the plot), the 2011 version of The Three Musketeers is my first actual encounter with Athos, Porthos, Aremis, and D'Artagnan.  I have to imagine the book is much, much better than this adaptation.

It is Venice, and Athos (Matthew Macfayden), Porthos (Ray Stevenson), and Aramis (Luke Evans) are breaking into a secret vault where DaVinci kept many private papers.  Aiding our trio is Milady De Winter (Milla Jovovich).  Once they pass many traps, Milady gets the papers, but to the trio's surprise, she betrays them to the Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom).  The plans are for a flying war-machine, and the Duke, the trio's enemy,  is delighted.

We move on to three years and one day later.  D'Artagnan (Logan Lerman), a kid from the French countryside, goes to Paris to join the fabled Musketeers, the King's personal guards.  Alas, that group was disbanded by the villainous Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz).  He is plotting to seize power from King Louis XIII (Freddy Fox), a bumbling boy interested only in being a fashion plate.  The plan involves framing the Queen (Juno Temple) as an adulteress, with incriminating letters supposedly from Buckingham (whom the King hates) and the prized jewels His Majesty gave her in Buckingham's possession deep within the Tower of London.  

By this time D'Artagnan has both irritated and joined the Three Musketeers, who are loyal to the King and want Richelieu out of power.  Thanks the Constance (Gabriella Wilde), the lady-in-waiting for whom the brash and cocky D'Artagnan has fallen for, the Musketeers have five days to which go from Paris to London, break into the Tower, steal back the diamonds, and return them to the Queen.  How else but by airship?

Somehow, I don't want to blame director Paul W.S. Anderson for trying to appeal to modern tastes by throwing in a lot of contemporary effects to his update of The Three Musketeers.  Allow me a slight digression in that while I didn't finish the 1973 version, I got the idea that that version was played for laughs, more as a comedy than a straight adventure.  Here, we get a lot of sequences that on paper might look good, full of action and such, but which on screen are drowned by their sheer excess. 

The opening scene in Venice starts out The Three Musketeers in a bizarre fashion, making Athos into some underwater samurai and being both excessively elaborate and rather cliched (seriously, a booby-trapped hallway?).   Jovovich (who is coincidentally Mrs. Paul W.S. Anderson) has to move in such a way that the movie ends up as Resident Evil: Renaissance (they haven't made that movie yet, have they?).  A couple of fight sequences (actually, almost all of them) are slowed down Matrix-style, which doesn't add anything to the scenes.

Even worse, comes what is suppose to be the climatic moment: the air battle between the Musketeers' stolen airship and the surprise ship the Cardinal had constructed.  The sight of it didn't elicit excitement, more a "seriously?" reaction.  It's an air battle that appears dragged out, and yes, ridiculous.

If one could put that aside (a tall order), what can't be put aside is the fact that the actors in The Three Musketeers appear to be in two different films altogether.  Macfayden as the stalwart leader plays Athos in a totally serious manner, straight, without a drop of irony (I could argue a little too seriously and humorless).  Bloom, on the other hand, is totally camp to the point of parody.  I have long argued that Orlando Bloom is completely incapable of playing a contemporary character and is only suited for costume pictures.  However, his Buckingham in The Three Musketeers makes me wonder whether that still holds.  He was totally vamping it up throughout the film.  Even in his first scene he appeared to have been directed to ramp up the ham factor so high the movie bordered on being declared un-kosher. 

At one point, Buckingham declares "Double everything". Apparently he meant the acting.

Stevenson as the tough Porthos and Evans as the more pious Aramis were a little more balanced than Athos or Buckingham.  Waltz did better than his ridiculous turn in The Green Hornet, but part of him couldn't resist making the Cardinal a touch of camp. 

I digress to say that Anderson (along with screenwriters Alex Litvak and Andrew Davies) couldn't resist throwing in overtly symbolic touches (such as when the Cardinal is playing chess while overlooking a grand map of Europe).  Anderson's camera work of constantly circling the characters was becoming both repetitive and nauseating, not to mention distracting.

Now, going on the Lerman, while he may yet be a good actor, he is not enough of a screen presence to carry the film.  I don't think his facial expression changed and no one could imagine D'Artagnan as he played him to be inspirational.  Instead, he's just a brainless kid who is pretty but pretty bland as well.  If he was suppose to be comedic, he didn't make me laugh; if he was suppose to be serious, I couldn't take him seriously.  It would have been slightly more believable to have cast Michael Cera as D'Artagnan (given that in his goofy wig, Lerman looks like Cera in a goofy wig). 

At first, when I first thought the movie was over, I says to myself, "It was pretty lousy, and the movie does hint at a sequel (always a death knell for me), but it was so idiotically goofy I could forgive a great deal".  It isn't until we get a scene after the screen goes black that I turned on the film.  We get a scene that is not only illogical to the point of stupidity (I'm suppose to believe a character who had jumped off a dirigible into the English Channel ended up alive and merely wet), but a blatant statement that said "We Are Going to Make ANOTHER ONE!" 

"NO, NO, NO!" says I. 

I don't mind it being all for one, but I do mind if it's all for one more. 

DECISION: F

There Be Dragons: A Review

THERE BE DRAGONS

I long ago left the Catholic Church due to theological differences.  Despite that, I have great respect for the Church and think highly of Pope Benedict XVI (or Pope Benny as I lovingly call him).  As such, I go into There Be Dragons with an eye less towards theology than towards cinematic accomplishment.  I wouldn't hate it if it presented points of faith I disagreed with nor would I love it if it was in line with my religious thinking.  On the whole, I didn't hate There Be Dragons. 

HOWEVER, there is a big caveat with There Be Dragons: anyone expecting a hagiography or whitewashing on the controversial St. Josemaria Escriva or the group he founded, Opus Dei, is in for a surprise.  For that matter, so are those who think both are evil.  There Be Dragons involves Josemaria Escrivia but he really is a supporting player.  In a curious manner, Escriva is really an excuse, a reason to talk about other things.  In a sense, what one thinks is the subject of There Be Dragons ends up being almost secondary to the main plot of the film, but more on that later. 

Josemaria Escriva (Charlie Cox) is about to be canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church.  A journalist, Roberto (Dougray Scott) is writing a book about Escriva.  By sheer coincidence (as is the case in these stories), Escriva was friends, or at least acquaintances, with Manolo (Wes Bentley), Roberto's father.  However, Manolo and Roberto have broken off relations for many years.  Roberto wants to reconnect with Manolo, but his father has gone through much to keep his son at arm's length.

Soon, however, Manolo slowly reveals his life story.  Manolo and Josemaria were once friends in their Spanish village, but once they grew Manolo's snobbishness (along with Josemaria's more ethereal slant) caused them to drift apart.  Josemaria gave himself over to The Church, and to the group of disciples he has, imparting his deep wisdom.  Manolo grows to detest the left-wing unions he blames for pushing his father to an early grave.

And then, the Spanish Civil War explodes around them.  Manolo becomes a spy for the Fascists, pretending to be a Communist Republican (no, that's not an oxymoron).  While there, he falls for Ildiko (Olga Kurylenko), a beautiful Hungarian revolutionary.  As is always the case, this love is one-sided, for she has fallen madly for Oriol (Rodrigo Santoro--who, despite being Brazilian, is the closest There Be Dragons comes to correct ethnic casting of the major players).  With a mixture of jealousy and duty to the Fascists, Manolo sends messages as to their locations.  He frames Ildiko, and Oriol has to make a difficult choice.  However, once the Republicans finally fall, we know the truth about Ildiko's child...who has a connection to Roberto (one guess what it is).

At the end, Manolo receives forgiveness from himself and from Roberto, thanks to the intercession (in a roundabout way) by Josemaria.  We even learn that Manolo came across the good father one last time, but to say how would be telling too much.

There isn't anything particularly wrong with There Be Dragons that makes it a bad film.  It's just that writer/director Roland Joffé (who is a good director) apparently made two films that didn't quite mesh together.  Most of the movie is about Manolo and his actions in the Spanish Civil War.  It got to the point that one wouldn't be blamed if one thought There Be Dragons was Reds: Castillian Edition. This has the effect of shrinking the story of Escriva.  There are moments where we glimpse parts of his story (how he survived the left-wing fury and persecution of the priesthood is particularly effective), but because Manolo and Josemaria are kept apart for almost all of the film, we soon forget that they were connected.  Somehow, having them be friends as children doesn't quite cut it.

We also don't get much glimpse as to Escriva's dark night of the soul as the Spanish Civil War tears the nation and its soul to shreds.  The chaos of the war, the slaughter, the misery the conflict unleashed, is not a big part of There Be Dragons.  Again, we do have good moments (such as when the priesthood is driven so underground that confessions must be done surreptitiously at the zoo), but whatever compelled the men in his group to join him, we know not.  Escriva at the end, becomes a shadow in There Be Dragons: a bit distant (dare I say, saintly), separate from the rest of humanity.

This isn't a surprise: I can't think of a film about a saint where we are allowed to see the flawed human struggling towards embracing the divine (perhaps Becket with Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole, possibly the miniseries Mother Teresa: In the Name of the Poor, Jesus of Nazareth or the smaller 1999 miniseries Jesus, although the last two are not about saints but about Christ, a different basket of fish so to speak).  Most films based on saints tend to be rather reverential towards the subject, even the better ones like A Man For All Seasons, The Song of Bernadette, or Luther...oh wait, he's not a Catholic saint, but dear old Brother Martin was treated with the reverence usually reserved for one.  There Be Dragons is really no different: when we see Josemaria he is wise, loving, desperate to save the Host from the marauding hordes storming and desecrating the church. 

That isn't to say we don't see flashes of broadminded thinking from Escriva.  When he attempts to give last rites to Honorio (Sir Derek Jacobi), an old mentor, Honorio at first declines, telling Escriva that he's a Jew.  Escriva does not display any anti-Semitism that sadly was associated with virulent Spanish Catholicism.  Instead, Escriva is quite ecumenical (no pun intended) about Honorio doing right by honoring his father and keeping the faith rather than ask him to convert (although it isn't clear whether Honorio did indeed have a deathbed conversion). 

As I've stated, There Be Dragons is less about Josemaria and more about Manolo.  Most of the film is taken up by the conflict of the Civil War, his passion for Idilko, her rejection of him and passion for Oriol.  Whether this borders on cliche or not I leave up to the reader, but I didn't mind it (even though I think that story could have been stronger, given a lot happens so quickly).  As for the modern story (a part that seems vaguely familiar but one I can't place), a story of a son and father receiving forgiveness and/or redemption could, again, have been stronger. 

One thing I WILL fault There Be Dragons is the simply awful make-up Bentley endures as the older Manolo.  He ends up looking like this:

the villain from The Rocketeer.

I also was confused why Joffé decided that the American Bentley, the English Cox, or the Scottish Scott all affected Castillian accents (I am aware that Spaniards don't actually speak Spanish...they speak Castillian.  Only those in Latin America actually speak Spanish.  Tomato, tomato...).  In any case, I was puzzled by what appeared to be actors trying with varying degrees of success to sound as if they were from Spain (Scott did the best, Cox was halfway descent, Bentley was trying too hard). 

This isn't to say they gave bad performances: all three did a good job despite the limitations of the script.  Joffé directed them on the whole well; although sometimes his camera work was a bit on the heavy-handed side.  When early in the film, Escriva falls, the light flooding him was a touch too much (as was the juxtaposing of his self-flagellation to the wounds of Christ).   

On the whole, There Be Dragons at times tries too hard to be reverential to a subject that disappears in the fog of the Spanish Civil War.  Sometimes the film appears to forget it's suppose to be about a controversial saint, not about a man's actions in wartime.  However, There Be Dragons, despite its flaws, is entertaining, decently acted, with some good moments (in particular some of the battle scenes), and I can't fault it for that.  This is clearly not a bad piece of work, although it is clearly not a work of God.

DECISION: B-

Jack and Jill: A Review

JACK AND JILL

Part of me simply does not want to be harsh with Jack and Jill.  After all, this is an Adam Sandler comedy, and throughout his career Sandler has catered to making films that require less than a modicum of thinking, appeal to the humor of teenage boys (and those who think like them), and has a few trademarks, everything from the calls for sentimentality within the bathroom humor, children who behave badly, jokes and setups that even the worst Borscht Belt comic would pass on, the hot shiksa wife, and a lavish vacation (has this guy even HEARD that there's a recession or about that Occupy Wall Street...thing).  In many ways, Jack and Jill has nothing going for it, but even for the low standards it's aiming for, it still provides few laughs and many groans (at least to those with IQs higher than 100). 

Jack Sadelstein (Sandler) has it all: Erin, the hot wife who converted to Judaism for him (Katie Holmes, whom I digress to point out is twelve years younger than her film husband), two children (I figure the Indian child is adopted), and a somewhat successful career as a director/producer for television commercials.  Right now his main goal is to get Al Pacino to promote a new line at Dunkin' Donuts (the Dunkaccino--get it).  Obviously, a legendary actor like Al Pacino is not about to do a Dunkin' Donuts commercial, but still Jack aims for it.

Unfortunately, Jack's identical twin Jill (Sandler again) is coming.  Jill is a boorish, possibly mentally unstable woman: insulting Jack and others without thinking she's doing anything wrong, unnaturally attached to her pet bird, apparently unaware that she perspires so heavily she leaves sweat marks on the bed.  She is so out of touch with reality that she thinks being homeless means someone is deaf and, in what is suppose to be a funny scene, continuously slapping herself to see if Jack feels it.

Somehow, Jill doesn't appear aware that her Bronx manner would be off-putting to anyone, let alone her endlessly frustrated brother.  However, things take a patently bizarre turn when Al Pacino (as Al Pacino) has a meltdown on stage, with the publicity embarrassing him.  Seeing this as his chance, Jack attempts to get Pacino to do the commercial, but Al isn't interested.  Al Pacino, however, IS interested in Jill. 

Jill, apparently  unaware who Al Pacino is, has no interest whatsoever (although the date Jack wrangled for her, for some reason, decides to hide from Jill).  She is perplexed as to why Jack doesn't appear to stand her, even as she extends her stay from Thanksgiving through Hanukkah through Christmas to New Year's and after.  Pacino becomes thoroughly enthralled with Jill, willing to do the ad for a chance to have Jill for his own.  Therefore, it's off to a European cruise with Jack's whole family.

Eventually, Jack in desperation dresses as Jill to fool Pacino, Jill finds a welcoming group in the family of gardener Felipe (Eugenio Derbez--whom I didn't find funny in Spanish, let alone English), and the Sadelsteins realize how important family is.

Again, I point out that Adam Sandler comedies are those that are a one-joke setup that attempts to throw in a great deal of violence and dim-witted characters with some sort of redeeming value.  That being the case, I find it difficult to trash Jack and Jill because one should know that it is going to not only be stupid but that will be devoid of many laughs.  However, Jack and Jill in its mercifully short 90-odd minutes wears its premise thin. 

It also manages to be highly insulting, not just to the intelligence of audiences.  Maybe Sandler (along with co-writer Steve Koren from the story by Ben Zook) thought that ethnic stereotypes are funny because they think humor aimed at the characters being Jewish are funny.  Therefore, when they show Felipe's family picnic, it's all right to have all the characters named "Jose, Jose Jr., Josefita," etc.  It brings to mind My Big Fat Greek Wedding, when we were introduced to "Nick, Nick, Nicky, Nick Jr.".  I didn't find it funny there and don't find it funny now (and seeing Derbez with both a ridiculous make-up job as Felipe to make him DARKER than the Mexicans I know or in make-up AND drag as the family grandmama).  Ethnic humor can easily slip into offensive stereotypes (like all Mexicans coming from large families where there's a Jose, play soccer and eat too much). 

There aren't any performances in Jack and Jill, except for Al Pacino, who delivers his best performance in years (decades maybe) as an unhinged version of himself.  It's clear Pacino was taking pleasure in playing "Al Pacino", who is so besotted with Jill for no discernible reason.  I'll leave it up to you whether it's good that Pacino can laugh at himself or sad that he gave a better performance in Jack and Jill than he has in such more serious fare as 88 Minutes or The Son of No One. 

Holmes just does what most wives of Adam Sandler characters do: just stare lovingly at her older husband and be supportive to the point of idiocy.  Erin apparently is the only character who doesn't see that Jill has...issues.  This is where Jack and Jill fails as entertainment (even if granted, I don't think they were actually trying).  We are asked to care about Jill, to like her, but the character is so boorish and so clearly out-of-touch one wonders whether she is either mentally ill or just plain crazy?  She tells her Indian-born nephew that she's surprised his sister figured out "this computer thing" given he's from India.  Really classy, Sandler.

The whole sequence of her attempting online dating shows her as a person who appears never to have actually SEEN a computer, let alone used one.  When she attempts to "press here", she puts her finger on the screen repeatedly.  In what I consider curious, the dating sites selected for her are odd given how Jewish she is.  Even I, goy bourgeois that I am, have heard of J-Date, a website specifically aimed at the Jewish community.  What, the Sadelsteins, both paradoxially hyper-Hebrew and WASP never heard of it? 

I digress that in a cameo, I could almost see Norm McDonald tell himself, "this movie is bad, even for me". 

As I was stating, Jill is a remarkably unpleasant woman: bigoted, uncouth, oblivious to how she treats others or embarrasses Jack or herself at every opportunity, and apparently one who delights in her ignorance and poor public behavior.  With all that, in typical Sandler fashion, he and director/enabler Dennis Dugan almost demand that we feel for her, even love her, when they go out of their way to present her as someone you don't want to be around.  It does, when one thinks on it, make no sense that Jill is so quick to reject the one person who shows her any interest (and who also is the only person who is patient with her issues, because again we're not sure if Jill is merely mentally ill or just as the saying goes, batshit crazy).

I won't lie: there ARE laughs to be found in Jack and Jill.  All of them come from Pacino, such as when Jill (who has apparently never seen a baseball or a baseball bat despite coming from the Bronx) accidently smashes his Oscar.  After apologizing, she tells him he must have plenty of those (since she doesn't appear to know what she actually broke).  His (remarkably calm) response is, "You'd think so, but I don't".  The final number where he does a Dunkaccino Rap is hilarious (and I can see Pacino and Chris Cooper teaming up to give Dr. Dre and Eminem a good run for their money).   Who knew a couple of old white guys could turn out to be such good rappers?

Jack and Jill is Junk.

DECISION: F

Personal Reflections on John Carter

Let me go on record to say I did not hate John Carter. I didn't think it was a great film, but it was slightly entertaining.  That is why I gave it a C+, something that you could rent without feeling bad. 

I certainly didn't hate it the way so many of my fellow critics do.  I hear the words "flop", "fiasco", "disaster" being bandied about.  It's almost as if other reviewers are revelling that John Carter has done so poorly.   I have a terrible habit of rallying to those I think are being beaten up unfairly, a weakness for the underdog.  I know John Carter cost $250 million, so the concept of "underdog" may be a stretch, but there is to my mind some almost pathological and irrational hatred aimed at what is at heart suppose to be a space romp. 

I take it as an article of faith to review a film based on what it is trying to accomplish, and I trust others will do the same.  The standard for something like The King's Speech is different than something like The Hangover, but I thought both film did what they did brilliantly.  When it tries for something and fails, such as The Hangover Part II or Green Lantern or I Melt With You, then and only then do I take it to task for botching the job.

It may sound strange that I find myself coming to John Carter's defense (up to a point, in many ways it failed, but more on that later), but for what it tried to do (entertain me with a story about a man on Mars), it was not all bad.

HOWEVER, I think there are many good reasons why John Carter failed, both financially and critically.    

The first big fiasco when it comes to John Carter is in the marketing of the film.  I kept seeing the ads and trailers and while I got some jist of the story, I never understood why Disney opted to make so much of the story so opaque.  We start with the title.

JOHN CARTER.

What is that, a documentary about Jimmy's smarter brother? Granted, I think the only brains in that family is Rosalynn (and that's because she is a Carter only by marriage, but I digress). 

The title won't attract people because no one knows who John Carter is.  If they had used a readily-available optional title, such as John Carter of Mars or my personal choice, A Princess of Mars, we would have had a slightly clearer idea of what John Carter was suppose to be...a science-fiction adventure. 

I understand the good folks at Disney dropped any reference to Mars after the disaster/fiasco/flop of Mars Needs Moms.  Apples and oranges, Mickey.  Mars Needs Moms was targeted at children, John Carter of Mars wasn't.  If they can't tell the difference then one wonders how they got to positions of power. 

I wrote that we would have had a slightly clearer idea of what John Carter was because another big problem with the advertising is that it was so idiotically mysterious with the plot.  Did they not have confidence in the public that it would not understand it is science-fiction?  The trailers appeared to almost be hiding the fact that he is suppose to be leading a revolution on the Red Planet (a Martian Spring, so to speak), or even what kind of fantastical creatures reside on the planet.   I don't think a film has gone through greater efforts to build interest without actually giving people something on which to build interest on.

Hence Section Three on Problem One: the big build-up.  In what can be contradictory thinking, the publicity for John Carter was big, attempting to promote the film as the "next big thing", something we were all clamoring for without giving us great detail about what the film was about.  To my mind, that made no sense.  As much as a company may push for me to get excited about something, I can't if I don't know anything about it.  This is why, for the moment, I have been resistant to the push for The Hunger Games, since I have never read any of the books.  Truth be told, it's rare when I get excited about any upcoming film, and the last time I remember doing that, I ended up with Sherlock Holmes. 

The difference at least between The Hunger Games and John Carter is that the former is still in the minds of the teens who worship Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mallark, while the latter is from a book around one hundred years old that, shall we say, isn't on the Bestseller List. 

The second reason John Carter failed is because of the man holding that Oscar.   That's right, the director of John Carter is a two-time Oscar-winner: one Andrew Stanton.   Mr. Stanton won Oscars for Finding Nemo and Wall-E (legitimate in first, haven't seen the second).  HOWEVER, I should point out that John Carter is the first film Stanton has directed that is live-action. 

One wonders what possessed the Disney Corporation to turn over what was clearly going to be a big-budgeted spectacle to someone who had never directed outside a computer.  Stanton didn't have a large wealth of experience on which to draw on: no small art house fare, no independent film.  Think on it: Marc Webb, the director of the upcoming The Amazing Spider-Man, at least has the brilliant (500) Days of Summer on his belt.  While it remains to be seen if Mr. Webb can translate the quirky tone of (500) Days to a tentpole film like Amazing, Webb has experience directing people on camera.  Stanton did not.

BIG movies, lavish spectacles, can sink even the greatest directors.  Few directors can make large, epic films (Cecil B. DeMille is perhaps the best example because he was so used to making things bigger, from Cleopatra through The Greatest Show on Earth and BOTH versions of The Ten Commandments).  Joseph L. Mankiewicz won back-to-back Oscars for both writing and directing A Letter to Three Wives and All About Eve (one of the greatest films ever made).  However, even with his vast experience and technical ability, even Mankiewicz could not control the spectacle that was 1963's Cleopatra (no relation to the DeMille version). 

By the time Cleopatra premiered, even he knew the film would be a critical disaster (if one is able to watch The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson's live broadcast of the premiere, one can see Mankiewicz refer to the event as 'waiting for the guillotine to drop', even joking that everything involved with Cleopatra was out of his control).  Here you had a great director who was overwhelmed by a movie that today would cost far more than John Carter (adjusted for inflation, Cleopatra would be $325 million to Carter's $250 million).  If someone like a Mankiewicz was overtaken by a big-budget spectacle, what made anyone think a first-time director would do better?

The hiring of Stanton, a first-time director of a live-action film, was a disaster (far more than the movie itself).  With the exception of DeMille or someone like Ben-Hur's William Wyler (who said he took the job because he wanted to see if he could make a "DeMille picture"), the overwhelming nature of John Carter would have been too much for an experienced director, let alone someone who had never directed anything outside a recording studio before.  You don't try to hit your first-ever home run at Yankee Stadium or try to throw your first football at Lambeau Field.  Likewise, you don't try to make your first live-action film to be a massive production like John Carter. 

Remember, strictly speaking Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz had multiple directors (although Victor Fleming gets credit for both).  It was sheer madness to hand over something this massive, on which so much was riding on, to someone with no live-action experience.

Finally, Reason Three: the screenplay.  What is extraordinary to me is that the screenplay is the work of Stanton, Mark Andrews, and most shocking of all, Michael Chabon, as in Pulitzer Prize-winning, Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay Michael Chabon.  I'm not the greatest writer in the world (my parent's protestations notwithstanding), but even I could see that a line like, "If Helium falls so does Barsoom" was just laughable.  In fact, I did laugh. 

The dialogue was already a bit peculiar, but given that there are as I understand it ELEVEN stories on which to draw on, did this trio really try to put in so much into just one film?  At over two hours long, John Carter feels like it was two or even three movies colliding.  Curiously, Joseph Mankiewicz wanted Cleopatra to be two parts: Caesar & Cleopatra and Antony & Cleopatra.  His great wish until his dying day was to restore the project as he would have liked it to have been seen (two parts), and I get the sense that John Carter could have benefited from trimming the story (say by cutting out the hints of John Carter's Confederate past) and set up the conflict on Barsoom faster.  It was entertaining (at least to me), but it felt like it was all too much to take at once.

Now, I tire about repeating myself when it comes to setting up movies for sequels (a bane of my cinematic experience), but given that I know John Carter has other stories, I didn't mind that idea all that much.  Curiously, when I ended the movie, I didn't think it set up a sequel (even if Stanton, in his hubris or sheer madness) envisioned an epic trilogy.  How I saw the ending was thus:

John Carter has defeated the alien priest that took him from his Princess, his nephew helped, and now he went back to Mars...and they lived happily ever after. 

I didn't see a cliffhanger ending.  Therefore, when I learned Stanton thought there would be more, I was genuinely shocked.  Again and again, NEVER END YOUR MOVIE BY SUGGESTING THERE WILL BE A SEQUEL.

Finally, while I won't ever say John Carter is a hallmark of great filmmaking, I think the almost malevolent glee others are taking that the film has taken a bath is highly exaggerated.  This gentleman has been following the fall and further fall of John Carter, and he makes very solid points.  The difference is he didn't like John Carter, and...well, I didn't hate it.  I thought it was passable but with problems. 

As it stands, I would recommend John Carter for a Netflix or RedBox (formerly known as Blockbuster) Night.   It could have been better, but it was not as worse as people are being led to believe. 

Doctor Who Story 007: The Sensorites

STORY 007: THE SENSORITES

I Can Read Your Mind...

I had heard of The Sensorites, but this Doctor Who story, if I understand things, is one that is not very popular.  After watching the six-part The Sensorites, I don't understand why it isn't as well-known or liked by Whovians.  Despite its length The Sensorites moves fast, has an interesting story, and has better aliens.  Granted, it has some issues (oddly, or perhaps Oodly, that we will see later), but The Sensorites should rank higher in Who circles. 

Picking up from The Aztecs, the Travellers: the Doctor (William Hartnell), his granddaughter Susan (Carol Ann Ford), and her teachers, Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill), and Ian Chesterton (William Russell) find that the TARDIS is travelling inside a spaceship.  They find a crew whom they at first think are dead.  Instead, they are under deep hypnosis.  The three crewmembers, Maitland (Lorne Cossette), Carol (Ilona Rodgers), and her fiancee John (Steven Dartnell) are in a curious position.  They are being held hostage by the residents of the planet they are orbiting but are being sent food by the same.  In short, they are not being killed by not being allowed to leave.  John is the most affected crewman: his mind is almost totally controlled by the strange beings holding them.

Eventually, the aliens from the Sense-Sphere come to meet the new visitors.  They are the Sensorites, and we find that they are not true villains.  Instead, they are afraid of the humans.  The last time the Sensorites and humans met, there came a plague that is killing the Sensorites off.  The previous ship had five humans, but it exploded before departing.  Now fearful that this second ship will increase the plague, the Sensorites are holding the humans hostage. 

Susan, who can communicate with them telepathically, convinces them that no harm is meant towards them.  The Doctor, in fact, can help find what is causing the Sensorite plague and perhaps a cure.  Leaving Maitland and Barbara aboard the spacecraft, the Doctor, Susan, and Ian travel to the Sense-Sphere.  There, we find evil afoot.  The Sensorite Leader, the First Elder (Eric Francis), welcomes them, but the City Administrator (Peter Glaze), who is third in command, is convinced the humans will bring more destruction.  The Doctor soon traces the plague to the water supply, and finds the antidote. 

However, in his paranoia, the City Administrator has already plotted a coup.  He has killed the Second Elder and now plots to kill off the humans.  John, having gone to the Sense-Sphere for treatment to the mind control, knows the City Administrator's plans but is too confused to be much help.  We discover that the waters are being poisoned by the humans left behind from the previous expedition, who want to exterminate the Sensorites to then claim the planet and the valuable material of molybdenum of which the Sense-Sphere has in abundance.  With the humans captured, the City Administrator's treachery exposed, and the antidote in the Sensorites' hands, the travellers are allowed to go.

The best quality in Peter R. Newman's script is that each of the six episodes (Strangers in Space, The Unwilling Warriors, Hidden Danger, A Race Against Death, Kidnap, and A Desperate Venture) move on the whole fast and don't get bogged down too much.  However, that very quality pushes The Sensorites down a bit as well.  In Episode Five we get a little too caught up in the Sensorite politics (the fact that the Sensorites themselves look so alike that only the sashes make them distinct does not help), and the resolution to both the plague and smoking out the source of the plague come with little to no buildup.  In fact, the discovery of the humans comes near the end of Episode Six and the revelation of both what the humans are up to and the removal of the City Administrator (who by that time had been appointed as Second Elder) was done with rather quickly to where it was almost irrelevant. 

Moreover, there are one or two points that The Sensorites didn't address.  The big one was how the humans found the deadly nightshade (the atropa belladonna) and placed it to make the poison, but another one is exactly who attacked the Doctor when he was going through the aqueduct.  We are given indications that it is a monster (the growling appears to come from a bear), but what we find is that it must have been a human.  I don't know if that's a cheat but it comes awfully close.

However, one of the bright ideas Newman came up with was to explain how the Sensorites all looked alike.  According to the First Elder, the Sensorites themselves were content in their similarity, thus we could get away with the population looking exactly alike.  Even better, there were moments of humor: the Sensorites are sensitive to loud sounds, so all the times the Doctor rages he inadvertedly becomes violent. 

It was a good idea to start out thinking the menace came from the Sensorites, only to find that they weren't the bad guys.  However, neither were the humans on the spacecraft, since they had not done the Sensorites any harm themselves, only having the misfortune to be humans.  Directors Mervyn Pinfield (Episodes 1-4) and Frank Cox (Episodes 5-6) worked so well that one never noticed the switch.  The closest to anything that could be noticable is the greater use of lighting with Cox: the scenes inside the aqueduct had more ominous lighting than when Pinfield was directing the spaceship scenes.  Pinfield, for his part, directed the actors quite well, keeping the tension building throughout his episodes. 

Both directors were aided by the editing: the montage where the Doctor is searching for the source of the poison juxtaposed with Ian fighting for his life aided so well in both setting the scene and moving the story forward with no dialogue.

Of particular note is Norman Kay's score, which were excellent in setting the mood, in particular when danger or fear was called.  His music for when we finally see the Sensorites at the end of Episode One, which short, set the tension for next week's episode.  In the previously mentioned montage scene from Episode Four the music is so vital and well-written that it helps in getting things going.

The regular cast continues the great work.  Hartnell has softened up a bit in his interpretation of the Doctor, but when he gets mad (causing the Sensorites pain) it shows he means business.  His scenes with Ford show the relationship between grandfather and granddaughter is evolving, and Ford shows that she is slowly coming into her own as a woman.  Hill comes close to being a damsel in distress and Russell continues being guided as the man of action, but in The Sensorites we see that Barbara is a highly intelligent woman who is afraid but works despite of it, while Ian is vulnerable when his life is in danger. 

On the whole, I thought The Sensorites was a well-paced, well-written, entertaining story with slightly better aliens than the First Doctor's era is usually given credit for (and better than some that are to come). 

In conclusion, here is a Sensorite from The Sensorites...

Is it me or do they look similar to The Silence from Day of the Moon Parts 1 & 2...

Just a thought.

I'm told the Sensorites are closer to the Ood...

Potato, potato... I won't argue against the idea.

7/10

Next Story: The Reign of Terror

Academy A'Woes

The Academy Awards are losing viewers, and there are various theories as to why.  I can offer my own ideas, but I think the Oscars might benefit from my own suggestions as to how to make things better for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Awards of Merit.

A chief complaint about the Oscars is that no one has seen the nominated films.  This is a perfectly valid complaint.  Back when the Oscars were THE dominant film prize, everyone knew the nominated films because they were all major releases from the major studios.  People knew Best Picture winners and nominees because they'd seen them.

Take 1952 as a prime example.  The five films nominated for Best Picture were all released across the country, so when the competition emerged between the Western High Noon, the Irish romantic comedy The Quiet Man, the lavish medieval epic Ivanhoe, the lavish Belle Epoque romance Moulin Rouge, and the big-budget spectacle The Greatest Show on Earth, the public was well aware of which films were up for the Top Prize.  The eventual winner: The Greatest Show on Earth, was the biggest hit of the year (perhaps not with current-day critics, but I think it's an entertaining picture even if I think The Quiet Man should have won). 

Compare that with the 2007 awards.  The nominated films were box office failures with the possible exception of the comedy Juno.  The others: Atonement, Michael Clayton, There Will Be Blood, and that year's winner, No Country For All Men, were roundly rejected by the public.  However, the Academy, enthralled with a parade of critical praise for little-seen films, lavished praise and awards on films that not only weren't popular with audiences but that were very dark, depressing, almost nihilistic. 

Academy, Academy.  People want to go to movies to be entertained, not to come out thinking life is meaningless and absurd.  The Academy was completely surprised that it was the lowest-rated telecast in its history.  How could they honestly be surprised?  If you nominate films few have seen and even fewer want to see, why would you care who wins?  Think about it: more people wanted to see Norbit than wanted to see No Country For Old Men (I fall in the 'I wouldn't want to see either' category).  I'm not advocating a Best Picture nomination for Norbit, but I am advocating that the Academy has got it all wrong.

Their answer was to broaden the nominees to Ten, then to a number between Five and Ten (I can hear them now: Pick a Number, Any Number...).  I would argue this does not resolve the main issue: people simply don't know the nominated FILMS.  Changing the number to "include" more popular hits like Avatar or Toy Story 3 won't fix the problem.  It's not size, but access that is the problem

At the moment, to receive a Best Picture nomination, a film must play in a Los Angeles theater in a qualifying year (from January 1 to December 31) for one week.  This is why many potential Best Picture nominees are given a quick one-week release in L.A. to be considered before being rolled out across the country.  That explains how Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close received a surprise Best Picture nomination when it had barely been released everywhere else.

This rule made sense when all major films were released simultaneously across the country.  Since that no longer happens, and the smaller "art house" films sometimes never make it to the smaller markets, the potential viewers (of both the film and the Oscar telecast) may never know about said film.

Allow me a digression.  Long ago, America was primarily a rural country.  As such, children were allowed three months off from school (June, July, and August) to help out in the harvest.  In other words, school policy was dictated by local circumstances.  America is now an urban country, but yet we still have those same three summer months off from school.  It is traditional, but is now thoroughly illogical.  I know it's considered sacrosanct, and granted when I was a child I enjoyed time off from school.  However, I didn't spend those months locked in my home.  I went to the park, definitely the library, and perhaps a week of actual travel.  It no longer makes sense, but no one has either the sense or the courage to say, "let the kids stay during most of the summer", with the possible exception of year-round schools. 

In the same way we should eliminate summer vacation (what adult gets three months off from work?), we should reform the policy of having films play for one week in Los Angeles for Oscar consideration.  With that, I offer this solution:

A Requirement that Any Best Picture Nominee Play for Three Weeks in the Top Twenty Cities in America.

That means in order to be considered for a Best Picture Oscar, a film HAS to play for nearly a month in the following cities:

• Los Angeles, California 
• New York City, New York State
• Chicago, Illinois
• Houston, Texas
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Phoenix, Arizona
• San Antonio, TX
• San Diego, CA
• Dallas, TX
• San Jose, CA
• Jacksonville, Florida
• Indianapolis, Indiana
• San Francisco, CA
• Austin, TX
• Columbus, Ohio
• Fort Worth, TX
• Charlotte, North Carolina
• Detroit, Michigan
• El Paso, TX*
• Memphis, Tennessee

Coincidentally, I happen to live in El Paso, so it certainly would help me, but that just happens to be a happy coincidence.  With this new rule, a wider expanse of America would have access to the films in question.  El Paso has an 80% Hispanic population, a community that is ignored by Hollywood, not just in how it is represented, but in how it's perceived.  These people wouldn't follow or care for such films as The King's Speech or The Artist, I can imagine the bigwigs thinking.  Neither would, they probably think, the rednecks in Fort Worth, the hillbillies in North Carolina, or the factory workers in Ohio.  This is snobbish thinking, but also backward.  Expanding the range the film receives will only lead to either positive or negative reaction from the filmviewing public (like them shouting, "How in HELL did No Country WIN...at least I was shouting that, but I digress).

Another point of contention is in the so-called 'minor categories' such as the short-subjects (Documentary, Live-Action, and Animated).  People, it has been argued, don't care about those, and the idea of eliminating them will help attract more people.  I see this as a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Again, people don't care about these categories because they simply don't know about them.  Long ago, when one theater would show one film the feature would be included with a secondary movie (the B-Picture), a cartoon, a newsreel, and a short film (maybe a one-reeler lasting fifteen minutes, or a two-reeler lasting thirty).  Therefore, when those films were nominated or won, the audience at large would have seen them. 

Today, an audience is overwhelmed with commercials that one skips on television.  I love the little piggy from the GEICO commercials as much as the next guy, but I didn't pay to see HIM, nor local ads pushing breast enlargements on me.  I'd rather see a short film or an animated short (like the Toy Story animated short Small Fry that played before The Muppets). 

The rules to be nominated for Best Documentary Short-Subject are more antiquated: it has to play for one week in Los Angeles and New York, play twice a day between noon and ten, and have a review published in either the New York or Los Angeles Times with ads announcing it in those newspapers and a few others in the New York and Los Angeles area.  No television review (and I figure no online review) will be accepted.

I won't quibble with their requirement that it not be shown on television before being shown in a theater to be considered, but everything else insures that a Documentary Feature or Short-Subject simply won't be seen by anyone outside the Documentary Branch (and if allowed, I think it shows the Academy has its head up its ass when it comes to documentaries).  Their rules for Animated Shorts is even more ridiculous: the running dates are October 1 through September 30 to qualify, with three straight days and two screenings a day.

Talk about byzantine...and stupid.

Does the Academy really want to make the nominated films that unavailable to people?  The reason no one cares or knows the nominated animated/short-subject/documentaries is because they've set the system up to insure the smallest number of people see them. 

AMPAS, You Are Officially Stupid.

To fix this problem, first, allow us critics a wider say.  There are many qualified film reviewers across the country, not just LA and NYC (case in point, me).  Perhaps this is why Hoop Dreams, Grizzly Man, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, and Senna (my Number 2 film of 2011) all failed to receive nominations when they certainly were all brilliant films.  Therefore, expand the location of reviews beyond the coast to "fly-over country".  How about, again, the Top Twenty Cities?

My own suggestion is to tie them in to major releases.  Will it really kill people to have to sit through The Fantasic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore rather than have them watch a commercial for Rizzoli and Isles?  I'd sooner watch Laurel & Hardy's The Music Box (one of the funniest films I've seen, long or short) than have to endure ads for dentists or those damn boob jobs or a trailer for The Closer (is that show still on?).

I've long argued that it's the lack of exposure that keeps people away.  Once you introduce them to short-subjects and documentaries, they will embrace them.  I think Undefeated is a better and more moving film than the revolting The Hangover Part II, and if people were given a chance to see it, they would get into it as much as those who were fortunate to see it either in a theater or a screener sent to critics like myself.  I'd rather see Undefeated than Green Lantern simply because the former is a masterpiece, the other a piece of junk.  Yet, the studios think people won't watch a documentary because it's "too high" for the general public's 'small minds', and thus something like Green Lantern might be more palatable to the mainstream audience's intelligence.

In short, they think you are too stupid to follow along or appreciate a film like Undefeated or If A Tree Falls, Hell and Back Again, or Senna. 

With that, my suggestion:

a requirement that potential nominees in all short-subject film categories also play three weeks in the Top Twenty Cities. 

Tie them in to the major releases, and I think studios and filmmakers will be amazed at the reaction...and these categories will be 'minor' no more.  Expand the critical reviews to include said cities (including television, radio, and online), and maybe even allow the short list of potential nominees to come from outside LA and NYC.  They won't vote for the winner, but they could submit their choices to allow a wider selection.  Finally, the film has to be watched from beginning to end. 

The Dean of Film Reviewers, Roger Ebert, was apoplectic about how Hoop Dreams was turned off after fifteen minutes.  The people watching didn't give it a chance.  Still, despite being a major critic, under today's rules, he has little sway: he doesn't write for the Los Angeles or New York Times. 

If Roger Ebert can't sway the Documentary Branch, how does a little ol' kid from West Texas do it?  Well, he does it by speaking out, by taking the idea that one person can make a change, and taking it from there. 

In any case, those are simple suggestions coming from someone who loves movies, all movies: animated, documentaries, foreign-language.  I don't claim great education or wisdom.  I only claim a different view and some common sense. 

Footloose (2011): A Review

FOOTLOOSE (2011) 

I'm at a curious disadvantage when discussing Footloose in that I've yet to see the original.  Therefore, I can't compare the original to the remake nor do I go into the 2011 Footloose prejudiced for/against it.  That being said, this Footloose is knows what it is: a film about growing up where the biggest problem a teen faces is whether they can dance or not.  Nothing heavy, nothing Earth-shattering, but quite delightful and entertaining.

A car accident resulting in the deaths of five teens after a night of drinking and dancing cause the town of Bomont, Georgia to outlaw dancing without it being supervised and sanctioned.  The accident has taken the life of the son of the local pastor and city council member Shaw Moore (Dennis Quaid).

Three years later, Bostonian Ren McCormack (Kenny Wormald) has gone to live with his uncle and aunt in rural Bomont after the death of his mother. Being an outsider with his accent and his city ways raises the ire of local elders, but soon some of his fellow high schoolers take him in.  Chief among them is good ol' boy Willard (Miles Teller), a lovable hayseed.  His dance moves also attract that oldest of cliches: the preacher's daughter, one Ariel (Julianne Hough), who can move her money-maker as well as anyone.  She's having a wild fling with rich racecar driver Chuck (Patrick John Flueger), as bad as bad boys can come. 

Ren, not surprisingly, is attracted to Ariel, but this dance thing has got him upset.  He loves to dance, doesn't see why dancing is seen as so dangerous.  With that, along with help from Willard and the members of the football team, Ren decides to take on the ban.  Preacher Moore is having problems of his own, namely his wild child who won't be tamed.  Eventually Ren takes up his cause, and while he is technically defeated Shaw sees that he addressed the consequences, not the cause, of the troubles.

As I said, Footloose isn't a deep film.  The characters are pretty basic (the rebellious PK-preacher's kid, the not-so-moody outsider, the sweet/dumb best buddy) but it is nice to see that care was taken not to make the protagonists cartoonish (the antagonists, well, a little).  This is especially interesting since Footloose takes place in the South.  It would have been easy for screenwriters Dean Pitchford and director Craig Brewer to portray both the adults and kids as yahoos, but Footloose takes care to present the ban on dancing not as a result of religious repression but as an overreaction to a terrible accident.  The kids of Footloose are shown to be regular kids, with the insecurities and joy of living that accompanies those years.

Granted, perhaps the "Angry Dance" Ren does in an abandoned factory may be a curious way to release pent-up frustration (when I'm angry, I tend to just yell myself, but to each his own I suppose).  I could also ask how a Yankee like Ren could so quickly pick up country line dancing, but that's just a quibble.

The performances were good.  Wormwald acquits himself well as the semi-brooding Ren (and given he is from Boston, has a better accent than whenever Leonardo DiCaprio trots out his exaggerated "Aah" sound).  He doesn't overact but manages to keep an even tone throughout the film: looking with a mixture of love and lust when Ariel is shaking her booty, being encouraging to get his buddy Willard to get up offa that thing, or talking about his mother's last difficult days.  Quaid also did not make the preacher into the cliched raging religious intolerant lunatic but as a well-meaning man who loves his daughter but cannot let go of his paternal instinct to protect his only surviving child.  Hough, like Wormald a trained dancer, got the moves, and while she's not the greatest actress she did create an emotional reaction to her rebellion being an outlet to get her father's attention. 

It is Teller that runs away with Footloose.  Willard is an endearing character: not dim by any sense, more innocent in certain respects but still a lusty teen.  He provides the comic moments when he is trying to get his groove on (one of the subplots is his inability to dance), but Willard is presented as a fully-rounded individual, a boy growing to be a man, loyal to his friends, defending the girl he loves...all while proudly being a Georgia country boy who wears cowboy hats and overalls. 

I digress to say that, minus the overalls, Willard reminds me ever-so-slightly of my brother Gabe.  Perhaps that's why I thought well of his performance.  I further digress to say that Ariel's best friend and Willard's girl Rusty (Ziah Colon) may not have been Anglo (Colon is Puerto Rican but Georgia-bred) but the ethnic differences between them was never raised or mentioned.  Certainly a step forward. 

There were a few curious points with Footloose.  By the time we got to the Big Dance, we had all but forgotten the Chuck subplot, which seemed to come and go without adding much other than a chance to fight the "bad guys", and it is a shame that we were not allowed to see more of Andie MacDowell (as Viv, Ariel's mother and Shaw's wife).  She's another actress that should work more, and it's unfortunate the script didn't give her a larger role. 

These are minor points.  On the whole, Footloose is a delight, with a great soundtrack (given I do enjoy country music, perhaps I'm a bit biased on the subject), the songs both reminding people of the original Footloose while sounding contemporary.   The slow-tempo rendition of I Need A Hero works beautifully, and seeing the montage of Willard learning to dance with an update of Let's Hear It For the Boy is fun to watch.  Yes, it might be just like the original, but in this case, I think there can be a joyful co-existence. 

You know that joke about Baptists?  You know: why are Baptists against premarital sex?  It might lead to dancing.  I imagine that this version of Footloose won't cause the Baptists (or any othe denomination) any fits, other than the desire to step up and hit the dance floor.

DECISION: B-