Posted on April 9, 2009 at 8:00 am
I’m delighted to have four copies of Tale of Despereaux to give away to the first four people who send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with Despereaux in the subject line. Good luck!
Posted on April 8, 2009 at 8:00 am
The visuals are rich and inviting but a complicated three-part story makes an uneasy transition to screen for the well-loved book by Kate DiCamillo.
Sigourney Weaver narrates the story, beginning with the description of a hero we will not meet for a while, the first of several confusing narrative zig-zags. Before we can meet the title character we must follow a sea-faring rat named Roscuro (voice of Dustin Hoffman) who causes a lot of trouble when he falls into a bowl of soup. And this is not just any soup. This is the soup of the queen of Dor, a country where soup is the national passion. The most important day of the year is the day the new soup presented by the royal chef (voice of Kevin Kline), a true artiste with a muse made of vegetables. Curious Roscuro accidentally falls into the bowl of the queen and she is so shocked that she dies. The grieving king bans soup — and rats — and the kingdom becomes cold and sad, the skies perpetually overcast but never finding the release of rain.
Meanwhile a small mouse with very big ears named Despereaux (voice of Matthew Broderick) cannot seem to learn important mouse skills like cowering. He is brave, adventuresome, and chivalrous. He is a gentleman. And a lonely gap-toothed scullery maid envies the princess and begins to think maybe she should replace her.
The animation is truly magnificent, brilliantly imagined and gorgeously realized. There are a hundred brilliant details from the play of light in the dungeon to the dash across the mousetraps and an Archimboldo-inspired vegetable-man muse. The vistas are jewel-toned and glowing and the physical properties are wonderfully real and thrillingly vivid. The story, however, is less so, over-complicated and murky. What happens in front of those beautiful backgrounds is never quite as interesting as the setting.
Posted on April 7, 2009 at 8:00 am
Before movies, there were plays, and before plays there were stories told around the campfire. One of the deepest human impulses is the need to tell our stories in part because of the way they help us make sense of the world. Stories have a beginning, a middle and an end and stories have a purpose. Extraneous details are excluded and everything we are told is there to help us understand. The power of stories is that they provide something life cannot — certainty and a sense of control.
“Doubt” is a story that turns this upside down. The title refers not just to the question of proof of the ugly allegation at the heart of the story but to our own need for certainty and understanding in a world that is ambiguous and contradictory.
It takes place in 1964, a transitional moment just after the assassination of John F. Kennedy and in the middle of the Vatican II Ecumenical Council that would bring great change to the practice of Catholicism. We smile now as school principal Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) , comes down firmly against ball point pens and “Frosty the Snowman” because we know how small those incursions on tradition are in comparison to the upheavals of the late 1960’s. Sister Aloysius wears the heavy, formal religious habit modeled after Italian mourning garb of the 19th century, with a black bonnet enclosing her head so completely it might as well be blinders.
Sister Aloysius, named for the patron saint of youth, knows about mortal sins far more serious than pens and secular Christmas songs. She thinks, no, she knows that one of the most horrifying has been committed in her school. She knows, without a doubt, that the priest, Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) has behaved inappropriately with a student. And he is not just any student; he is the first black child to enroll in the school.
Sister Aloysius is certain, but we are not, and the most compelling aspect of the movie, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, is the way that it keeps us from any kind of certainty. Every time you think you’ve made up your mind who is right, another scene challenges you assumptions. By the time the boy’s mother (Viola Davis, in one of the most mesmerizing performances of the year) gives her point of view, the movie becomes something of a Rubik’s cube, twisting not just facts but values in both directions at once. Like life.
Posted on April 7, 2009 at 8:00 am
Carrey-ologists will enjoy poring over the semiotics of “Yes Man,” in one sense a very slight variation of one of Jim Carrey’s biggest hits, 1997’s Liar Liar
Both films have wives who with new significant others who make the Carrey character feel diminished, and in both a large part of the screen time and all of the humor comes from Carrey’s squirming through the consequences of his reversal and the way he must deal with the larger consequences of his previous bad behavior. As always, Carrey makes some funny faces and uses his rubbery limbs to good comic effect.
But with nearly a decade between the two films, Carrey and Carl, his character, bring a more poignant sense of longing and lost chances. It is significant that this film does not require any hocus-pocus to get the story started. It just establishes that Carrey is a no-guy, feeling sorry for himself and turning down just about everything. Fortunately, he is a bank loan officer, so this tendency has professional benefits. But in his personal life, he says no to his friends and would-be friends (his nerdy boss) to stay home and watch DVDs and feel sorry for himself.
And then one day an old friend suggests that he go to a motivational seminar led by a man named Terrence (played by Terence Stamp, no idea why the character name has two r’s and the actor has just one) who persuades him to start saying “yes.” To everything. That means giving a ride to a homeless guy and going to his boss’s Harry Potter party, taking Korean lessons, and learning to fly. Not to mention approving a lot of loans. It seems to him that there is a pattern because each of those yeses leads to something unexpected and wonderful, the best of all being a free-spirited girl named Alison (Zooey Deschanel), a natural yes-er. Just a hop skip and a jump to the getting-to-know-you montage, the second act complication, and a happily-yessing-ever-after conclusion with a little gratuitous nudity.
The characters around Carl and Alison don’t add much and her character does not have much depth, but the Carrey and Deschanel have an easy chemistry that gives the film a strong center. And the film nicely hints at the interconnection of all things and the way the messages we send out to the universe — whether yes or no — reverberate and return to us.
Posted on March 31, 2009 at 10:44 am
Children and their families are lining up across the country to see “Dora Live,” an interactive adventure that leads Dora the Explorer, her cousin Diego, Boots the monkey, and all their friends on a fun-filled journey in “Search for the City of Lost Toys.” As it prepares to open in my home town of Washington D.C., I was able to interview the performers who portray both Dora and Diego, who told me how much they enjoy appearing in a show that has such an enthusiastic audience.
Susan Oliveras plays Dora, the curious and adventuresome young explorer.
Tell me about what you were doing before Dora.
I am a Brooklyn native, born and raised, and I went to the performing arts high school, the “Fame” school. I got my bachelor’s in music from Five Towns College. After I graduated I started auditioning for any show and I’ve been on the road ever since. I did a couple of seasons with “Sesame Street Live” and got to tour the world, then I did Royal Caribbean cruises as a singer-dancer. Then I came home and start auditioning for other things.
Was the audition for Dora different from others?
Yes! It was a lot of fun because you get to play around at the audition and a different tone because of the nature of the show. So everyone was just very very friendly and playful. I would go in and sing pop songs, and then they asked me to sing a selection from the show. They played it for me a couple of times, and I sang it on the spot and then I did a dance audition and then I had to come back and do it for the director, and then come back again and do it for the producer and director.
Is this a show with a story and songs?
In some ways it is exactly like a musical that any adult would see. It has a story line told with characters and music. Dora has lost her teddy bear, her favorite toy, and she goes on a journey to find it through the number pyramid, the mixed-up jungle, and then the City of Lost Toys, which has every toy ever lost by any child, so that’s like the golden city. And she has her friends, Boots the monkey, her best friend and cousin Diego, and of course her map and backpack.
What does Dora’s famous backpack look like in the show?
It’s taller than me! It is a huge prop with someone inside operating it, making the mouth and eye movement and an actor doing the voice.
What is the audience reaction like to the show?
I don’t need a career as a rock star because I feel like I’ve had that! They’re screaming — of course in delight, calling Dora’s name as soon as I step on stage. They know all the songs and sing along. They come in their Dora gear, t-shirts and sometimes dressed like the characters. In Chicago I looked in the audience and someone was dressed in a Boots costume. It was adorable!
Is that distracting?
The show thrives on audience participation. The story could not move on if the children don’t respond to the questions we are asking. We encourage them to shout it out — this is a place where you don’t have to raise your hand and be called on. I can really hear their answers and respond to them and react to them.
