Burlesque

Posted on March 1, 2011 at 8:01 am

Somewhere on the continuum that connects “Showgirls,” “Glitter,” and drag shows is a place for “Burlesque,” a vanity project from producer Christina Aguilera for pop star and would-be actress Christina Aguilera. That doesn’t mean it isn’t entertaining. It just means it is not a good movie. It’s more hallucination than story, but hey, If you think of it as a slightly deranged long music video divathon it can be a lot of fun.

Aguilera plays Ally, a spunky small-town girl who buys a one-way ticket to Los Angeles and find a home at one of those only-in-movies places that is about to go broke but is always packed to capacity because it puts on big-budget musical numbers with expensive (if tiny) costumes and choreography. Oh, and at least one regular customer is a zillionaire (Eric Dane of “Grey’s Anatomy”).

She starts as a waitress under the direction of a friendly bartender (Cam Gigandet of the “Twilight” series, “Easy A”) and talks her way into getting hired as a dancer. The club is owned by Tess (Cher looking so diva-esque she might as well be a drag queen playing Cher) and her ex-husband Vince (Peter Gallagher, looking seedy). Vince wants Tess to take the generous offer from the zillionaire. Even though she really does not have another option (she doesn’t even try to find one), she just keeps on going, attaching bugle beads with a glue gun, counseling a girl with an unexpected pregnancy, and, of course not just creating all the musical numbers but belting out the only songs in the show that are not lip-synched.

And then it turns out that little ex-waitress has what another character refers to as “mutant lungs.” It also turns out that not being good at blending in may be a problem in the chorus, but it’s part of what makes a star.

The story is dumb. The dialogue is intended to be sassy; it’s also dumb. Aguilera cannot act and Cher, who used to be able to (she was hilarious in her most recent film, “Stuck on You” in 2003), has two insurmountable obstacles: her face doesn’t move and her character is supposed to be both imperious and tenderhearted, savvy but clueless. However, Aguilera is indeed a star and the musical numbers are entertaining. They may be sadly chopped up by people who spend a lot of time choreographing dances and then think the audience can’t pay attention to more than one step at a time. But I appreciated the shout-outs to greats like Marilyn Monroe, Billie Holliday, Bob Fosse, and Madonna, and respect Aguilera’s respect for their traditions and for burlesque as well. It is still a lot of fun to see those bugle beads bounce.

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Drama Musical

Alice in Wonderland

Posted on January 31, 2011 at 8:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	All Ages
MPAA Rating:	N/A
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	During the psychedelic 1960s, the scene with the caterpiller puffing on a hookah was popularly considered to be a reference to opium or hashish, possibly because the movie, like the book, has such a surreal and dream-like quality, but there is nothing in
Violence/ Scariness:	None
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	1951

Almost 150 years ago Oxford mathematician Charles Dodgson published his wildly imaginative story about Alice’s adventures down a rabbit hole. And now the wildly imaginative director Tim Burton has brought Wonderland to the 3D movie screen. It is less faithful to the original story than many of the previous dozen or so movie versions, but I think Dodgson, better known by his pseudonym, Lewis Carroll, would approve of Burton’s bringing his own take to the classic characters.

He brings his own story as well. Carroll’s Alice is a little girl bored by her sister’s dull book, and her journey is episodic and filled with wordplay and references to Victorian society that fill the annotated edition of the book with witty footnotes.

To make the story more cinematic, Burton tells us that all of that has already happened in what young Alice thought was a dream. This is her return visit. Alice is 18 years old and has just been proposed to by a dull but wealthy lord with no chin and bad digestion. As she meets up with the Cheshire Cat, the White Rabbit, and the Mad Hatter, she is not the only one who is confused. Characters seem puzzled and unsure about whether she is the real Alice. The Mad Hatter peers at her perplexedly. She may be Alice, and yet not quite completely the Alice they are looking for. “You were once muchier,” he tells her. “You’ve lost your muchiness.” In Burton’s version, Alice’s adventures are about her finding her “muchiness.” Her visit to Wonderland is a chance for her to understand what she is capable of and how much she will lose if she makes her decisions based on what people expect from her. As in the Carroll story, she is constantly changing size, and Burton shows us that she is really finding her place. She believes she is once again in a dream but increasingly learns that it is one she can control. By the time she faces the Jabberwock, she knows that she is in control — and that her courage and determination can create the opportunity she needs to follow her heart.

Johnny Depp brings a depth, even a poignance to the Mad Hatter, and Helena Bonham Carter is utterly delicious as the peppery red queen, hilariously furious over her stolen tarts. There’s a thrilling battle, the visuals are dazzling, with references to classic book illustrations by Maxfield Parrish, and the 3D effects will have you feeling as though you are falling down the rabbit hole yourself. The frame story bookending the Wonderland/Underland adventure is tedious and, oddly, less believable than the disappearing cat and frog footmen. But Burton’s re-interpretation of the classic story is filled with muchiness and the result is pretty darn frabjuous.

Willow Smith to Play ‘Annie’

Posted on January 28, 2011 at 8:00 am

“Whip my Hair’s” Willow Smith, the daughter of mega-stars Will and Jada Pinkett Smith and sister of “Karate Kid’s” Jaden Smith is going to have a big-screen remake of her own. She will play Little Orphan Annie in the third version of the musical based on the plucky Depression-era girl with the red hair and the indomitable spirit.

Aileen Quinn starred in the musical film Annie, along with Carol Burnett as the wicked Miss Hannigan and Albert Finney as Daddy Warbucks, the Wall Street financier who learns from Annie the importance of family. A somewhat livelier version of Annie was remade for television with Oscar-winner Kathy Bates as Miss Hannigan and an all-star cast of Broadway veterans including Victor Garber, Audra McDonald, and Kristin Chenoweth.

Before she sang about the hard knock life and the sun coming out tomorrow, Annie was the star of a comic strip created by Harold Grayin 1924, appearing in newspapers through June of last year. After Gray’s death, the strip was drawn and written by other artists, most notably the brilliantly talented Leonard Starr.

Annie was also a long-running radio series (you can hear it in “A Christmas Story”) and, an early example of multi-platform marketing, she appeared in books, comics, and as a doll, a game, and many, many other collectibles. A bittersweet documentary, Life After Tomorrow, is the story of the high-pressure atmosphere behind the scenes for the little girls who played Annie and the orphans in the musical show.

Who should co-star with Willow? And should they try to make it contemporary?

Contest: Alice in Wonderland

Posted on January 23, 2011 at 3:47 pm

I am overjoyed to have two copies of one of my very favorite Disney classics to give away. This is the Blu-Ray/DVD 60th anniversary edition of “Alice in Wonderland.” I have loved this film since we watched it at my own 6th birthday party. Of all the many versions of the book by Lewis Carroll, this is my favorite. Alice took Walt Disney full circle, as he began his career with films that featured a real-life girl playing Alice in an animated wonderland.
In addition to the movie with its memorable score (“A Very Merry Un-Birthday,” and “I Give Myself Very Good Advice”), the package includes some behind the scenes footage hosted by Kathryn Beaumont, who provided the voice for Alice (and for Wendy in “Peter Pan”), and some deleted scenes — featuring a newly discovered Cheshire Cat song called “I’m Odd” and the “Pig and Pepper” episode. There’s also a Mickey Mouse through the looking glass cartoon, for the first time in Hi-Def.

Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Alice” in the title and tell me your favorite Alice character. On Feb 4, I will randomly select two lucky winners.

My policy on conflicts and accepting prizes from film-makers.

Change of Plans — Family Movie Night on FOX

Posted on January 6, 2011 at 8:00 am

The latest in the WalMart and P&G-sponsored Family Movie Night series is “Change of Plans,” starring “American Idol’s” Brooke White as a free-spirited singer married to an engineer and pilot (Joe Flanigan of “Stargate Atlantis”). When her one-time best friend, a Peace Corps volunteer, is killed, the couple find themselves guardians for her four children. They agree to suspend their casual lifestyle temporarily while a permanent home is found for them, but, well, there’s a change of plans.
White has a natural ease and sparkle on screen and the show gives her a chance to sing as well. The saga of children thrust upon carefree characters and a relationship that evolves from thinking of them as an inconvenience to thinking of them as family is a well-established one, but there are some nice moments and I especially liked the interactions with the children, three adopted from Guatemala, Uganda, and China. They bring their own cultures to the story (“football” means something different everywhere but America and African drums can work well in a pop song). Jayme Lynn Evans, who plays the oldest of the children, has some lovely moments as she moves from resentful caretaker of the younger kids to acknowledge her own vulnerability and sense of loss.
I really appreciate the commitment to movies that families can watch together and look forward to more.
Watch the trailer here and be entered to win a big-screen TV.

Change of Plans