The biggest acting achievement in this film is four Oscar winners valiantly managing to hide their embarrassment in appearing in sheer holiday dreck. Its leads are not as successful. Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn cannot manage to disguise their shame and all but skulk through this latest lump of coal in the cinematic stocking.
We get a couple of “Christmas Craziness” movies every year, shrill, over-the-top extravaganzas about dysfunctional families and holiday pressure, ending with some realization of a highly secularized discovery of the true meaning of Christmas. Following in the miserable tradition of Surviving Christmas, Christmas with the Kranks, Deck the Halls, this is one more overstuffed turkey of a movie trying to draw laughs with barfing babies, bratty children, embarrassing revelations, and old people talking about sex.
Funny, huh?
Not only that, it begins with our heroes, Kate (Witherspoon) and Brad (Vaughn) in the midst of a sex game in which they pretend to meet for the first time, taunt each other with crude insults, and then have a quickie in the bathroom. Yes, these are the lovebirds with whom we’ll be racing to four different homes, each designed to illustrate Tolstoy’s view that every family is unhappy in its own way.
Kate and Brad plan to avoid Christmas entirely by telling their families they are on a humanitarian mission but going to Fiji for a fabulous sun ‘n’ fun vacation. But they are busted when the airport is fogged in and they appear on the news, so they are stuck visiting their parents on Christmas. Since both parents are divorced, that means four houses. Robert Dvuall is Brad’s father, who hosts them with Brad’s cage-fighting brothers (“Iron Man” director Jon Favreau and country star Tim McGraw) and their children. After a few rounds of insults and smackdowns, it’s off to cougar-ville with Kate’s mother, Mary Steenburgen and her female relatives, who enjoy hugging Brad so much he wishes he was back in the hammerlock. Brad and Kate get dragged into playing Joseph and Mary in the mega-church nativity with preacher Dwight Yoakam. Brad’s mom Sissy Spacek and her boy toy host them for a game of “Taboo” that reminds Brad and Kate how little they know each other and then Kate’s dad John Voight goes all Bruce-Demi-Ashton with the whole family at his house.
Director Seth Gordon is an able cinematographer and documentary-maker (“Shut Up and Sing,” “The King of Kong”) but he shows no feel whatsoever for comedy pacing or romantic banter. A battalion of writers apparently each worked on different pieces which were thrown together without any effort at consistency. Kate has a completely different relationship with her sister in one house than she did in the other and the evolving interest in building a family is forced and flimsy. All four visits and the interactions between Kate and Brad feel slack and saggy and after sitting through it, so do we.
Harvard professor of Symbology Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) returns for another round of save the world heroics peppered with chases, kidnapping, murders, clues, codes, and ancient manuscripts, a beautiful and very erudite woman, murky motives, and a lot of historical, religious, and artistic arcana, all to the music of angelic choirs and crashing horns.While the book occurs before the blockbuster sequel, this movie begins after the events of The Da Vinci Code. Langdon is not the Catholic church’s favorite guy, given his heretical findings about the role of the real-life Mary Magdalene and the efforts of the church to suppress it. The Vatican has repeatedly denied his request for access to some of their historic documents. But when a crisis hits just as the cardinals have convened to select the new pope and the four leading candidates are kidnapped, with the clues pointing to a secret and possibly terrorist sect of Catholic rebels, the Vatican calls on Langdon to solve the mystery.To make things more complicated — and believe me, this gets very complicated — something else has been stolen. It is “antimatter” created by a supercollider that is intended to find “the God particle,” the piece of matter that will answer some important questions about how the universe began. And if they don’t get to it by 8 pm, there will be a very, very big boom.It isn’t just atoms that are colliding here. Author Dan Brown specializes in dark conspiracies of power in the name of faith. He posits this story as a conflict between religion and science going back hundreds of years. Once again, he takes intensely detailed research into church culture, history, and canons, even the intricacy of Vatican succession and chains of command plus Galileo, Raphael, sculpture, and architecture, and then he builds a fictional story around it, giving a standard chase and explosion saga some added weight, freight, and interest. Once again, however, the heavy exposition translates unevenly to the screen as the actors have to chew through paragraphs of detailed information as they are careening through the streets of Rome.Hanks (without the scholar’s mullet this time, thank goodness) is game throughout, always seeming skeptical without being cynical, though for a guy who says he is “anti-vandalism” he leaves a lot of destruction in his wake. Ewan McGregor seems a little lost as the assistant to the late pope whose position gives him a fragile claim to authority. And the lovely Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer is wasted in a role that calls on her to provide instant expertise in everything from astrophysics to Latin and pharmacology. Like its predecessor, this book and film have been controversial, challenging the church for the way it responds to challenges. For much of the story, Langdon is chasing after the Illuminati, for the purposes of this story a pro-science group “radicalized” by mistreatment hundreds of years ago and allegedly seeking the destruction of the church hierarchy by infiltration or violence. The bark of author Brown and director Ron Howard is provocative but the bite is thoroughly de-fanged and by its fictional overlay and its conclusion. Most of those who have what Langdon describes as the gift of faith will be satisfied. (more…)
I was looking forward to Adam Lambert’s performance on the American Music Awards last night because I was impressed with his ability and stage presence on “American Idol.” The show included some of the industry’s biggest stars, but they saved him for the last song of the night and really built it up as something special. Knowing that his first album has been released to such glowing reviews heightened the anticipation.
So it was a terrible disappointment to see the almost desperate gyrations that were not just awkward and vulgar but a distraction from the song he was trying to deliver. Wearing some sort of outfit that looked like a spacesuit from a cheesy 1950’s sci-fi movie, Lambert made the number into a quick trip through a manual of sex acts. According to a slightly stunned Entertainment Weekly column by a committed Idol fan, the song featured:
Adam dragging a female backup dancer across the stage by her leg, as if she were a lace-covered sack of potatoes; Adam grasping the head of a submissive-styled male backup dancer and pulling him into an uncomfortable round of simulated oral sex (while ABC muted the audio to protect us from who only knows what); a tutu-clad woman cupping Adam’s nether-regions; Adam grasping and snapping the leather “bikini area” (for lack of a better term) of a female dancer’s costume; and Adam taking a break from his singing duties for an impromptu game of tongue twister with a keyboardist of indeterminate gender.
Was Lambert trying to get Britney-kisses-Madonna headlines? Was the Idol contestant making up for lost time playing coy about his sexual orientation until after the Idol votes were in and he came in second? Is there any chance it was a genuine expression of some artistic statement by this very commercially-oriented performer?
EW says it was more likely to be the former:
But the bottom line is that Adam’s AMA performance felt less like a genuine expression of his high-octane sexuality (so playfully erotic when he fondled the mic stand during “Whole Lotta Love” this summer), and more like a carefully planned stab at dominating the post-AMA blogosphere/water-cooler discussion. I’m certainly no prude…the idea of saucy boy-on-boy/boy-on-girl/boy-on-not-quite-sure action does not rattle my cage — certainly not at 10:55 p.m. on a school night. And yet, what’s sad is that unlike, say, a J.Lo or even a Rihanna, Adam could’ve had tongues wagging just from his vocals alone. Instead, that golden voice took a backseat tonight at the AMAs, and I’m not sure exactly who was occupying the driver’s seat.
“American teenagers – and especially teenaged girls – are literally under siege by the entertainment media. It is outrageous that children today cannot watch a televised awards program for an industry that is built squarely on their backs. Teens comprise a huge portion of music sales, yet this is how they are treated? It is beyond contemptible,” said PTC President Tim Winter.
ABC has already received thousands of complaints, which it described as a “moderate” response, according to the Huffington Post. Lambert “told CNN that his kiss was ‘in the moment’ and that if people were upset about it, ‘That’s a form of discrimination and it’s too bad.'”
The kiss was not the problem. And the objections are not discrimination. The star of a top-rated show that is often watched by families chose to pay less attention to staying on pitch and delivering a top-quality musical performance than to a desperate, clumsy, and crude effort to be shocking. To send your objections to ABC, use this form. You can reach Dick Clark Productions at 2900 Olympic Blvd, Santa Monica, CA 90404
310-255-4600
To speak with a representative from the Parents Television Council, please contact Kelly Oliver (ext. 140) or Megan Franko (ext. 148) at (703) 683-5004.
I spoke to John Hillcoat, director of the apocalyptic new film, “The Road,” based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy. We do not know what caused the cataclysmic damage that has wiped out most forms of life on earth and left everything covered in ash. All we know is that there is a father (Viggo Mortensen) trying to protect his young son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) from the physical and spiritual consequences of the devastation.
NM: Do you see this as a spiritual film?
JH: It can definitely be read that way. Yes, absolutely. I never wanted to be heavy-handed about the approach. I wanted it to be open to interpretation according to your own belief systems. It’s certainly got a kind of ancient, Biblical parable feeling to it. There’s a morality tale there. But in terms of essence of humanity, that’s really brought to the fore because everything’s stripped bare. There’s nowhere to hide. So it definitely has those dimensions to it. There are many spiritual aspects, but the whole idea of carrying the fire is an ancient one.
NM: I do not diminish the power of the film at all when I say that it seems like an exaggerated version of what every parent goes through in trying to both protect the children and give them the survival skills they will need when we are not here to protect them.
JH: Yes, absolutely. Knowing Cormac and his son, he calls him “Papa,” like the boy in the story. It’s obviously a personal work and that personal relationship is definitely embedded into the text and that’s also why it strikes such a deep cord, even thought it is set into such an extreme scenario. There’s a truth to it.
NM: For me, one of the most wrenching scenes in the film is when they return to the house the father grew up in, and it is only there that the father truly realizes that his son has no frame of reference to understand what life was like.
JH: Where does he learn? How does he become this amazing being? It’s like a scientific experiment. That drive to keep going and the hope they create in this idea of going to the coast. Every parent starts from scratch, but this story just makes that more stark. Ultimately, the boy becomes the teacher. That is something all parents see.
NM: I was very surprised to find Guy Pearce and Robert Duvall in the film. I did not recognize them at first.
JH: We tried to quite change their appearance quite a lot.
NM: The New York Times said that Kodi Smit-McPhee, the now-twelve-year-old who plays the boy, was so shocked by the cold water he was dunked in that he began to sob for real, but that he kept acting and you did not know how distressed he was until the scene was over. Is that true?
JH: Yes. It was actually a real turning point, early on in the shoot. My job was also to protect the boy. But Kodi was such a consummate professional. He didn’t tell anyone how cold he was. And afterward, we had an understanding that if there was any time that he felt real uncomfort that he’s got to tell us. He was so determined to get the best for everyone and the best from him as a performance. The most incredible thing was his maturity; he really understood what the story was about, what each scene was about. His instincts were razor-sharp. And yet, as soon as we stopped filming, he became this kid, joking around, playing. And we really encouraged that.
With that scene, I was about to call cut, and then I heard the dialogue, and everyone’s glancing around at each other, and we see that Viggo is actually responding totally. It’s this incredible thing of being real, Viggo’s concern for Kodi, and playing their parts. That was a great gift and I wouldn’t mess with that. Luckily, we shot it on two cameras, so that was it. And when we were done, Viggo kept holding Kodi. None of us had put two and two together to realize why he was so upset. I had spoke to him about coming out of shock. Kodi’s father was there; he played one of the cannibals. Viggo started to hand Kodi over to them but he stepped away. Kodi knew he was there but he and Viggo from that day had this incredible bond.
NM: Tell me how you achieved the look of the film. It is so bleak and stark and powerful.
JH: The spark for that came when I read the book. I was always trying to be true to the spirit of the book. Usually the post-apocalyptic films are about the big event and they feel so much like a spectacle and there’s no real human dimension or spiritual dimension or any other dimension really other than the roller coaster ride. So it was that feeling of authenticity, really simple things like pushing the shopping trolley with all your possessions in it. That’s the homeless in every city. And the dirty ski jackets. So it felt familiar. It’s almost like I’ve seen this before, not as a vision or a premonition, but we’ve actually witnessed these elements, just not on a local scale. That is what led us to those locations, and the locations were the key to the look. The bulk of what we got was in camera. We filmed in the winter in places like Pennsylvania like where all the mining leftovers are, the ash piles in the winter time. Where are the trees are bare of leaves. We had the aging and the muted colors of the wardrobe. There’s a strange beauty in these desolate locations. Then it also gave a real poignancy to working in a place like New Orleans, where the post-Katrina clean-up was still happening. When half your crew has lived through that, it really added focus. It also became something that the actors could really react off of, so it was like there was a third character working with Kodi and Viggo the whole time. We went to Mount St. Helens. We went to Oregon, the gray beaches. It was a patchwork tapestry of man-made and natural disasters that have already occurred. We added physical effects like spraying biodegradable ash and paper, but whatever we couldn’t get in the camera, CGI took over to eliminate signs of life, green pine needles, birds, jet streams. It was more to take out or put in. The challenge was when it was beautiful blue skies and sunshine, because we had to block the sun. There’s a shot of two ships sitting on a freeway. That’s 70 mil. IMAX footage from two days after Katrina. We had to replace the blue sky and green grass in that shot, but everything else is real. Even the smoke billowing in the background we took from was from 9/11. We deliberately used images we have all seen to make it more real and to give more poignancy and a warning sign and to surround it, because that’s what the book is about, grace under pressure. When you’re surrounded by your real fears, things that you know are possible in some way, it makes hope all the more special. The light shines brightest when it is surrounded by dark.
A girl makes a Thanksgiving meal for her estranged family in this bittersweet indie film filled with unforgettable characters. It is available this week only at no charge on Hulu.
