The Tempest

Posted on December 9, 2010 at 8:43 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for some nudity, suggestive content and scary images
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Characters get drunk
Violence/ Scariness:	Shipwreck, fighting, threats of murder
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	December 10, 2010
Date Released to DVD:	September 12, 2011
Amazon.com ASIN:	B004M9ZI0M

Director Julie Taymor (Broadway’s “The Lion King”) has a gorgeous visual imagination and a love of spectacle, both lavishly on display in the latest version Shakespeare’s final play, the story of a sorcerer’s revenge. But she uses it to enhance, not distract from the real magic of dazzling language spoken by magnificent actors.

The play’s Duke-turned wizard Prospero now becomes Prospera (Dame Helen Mirren), the wife of the Duke who was so distracted by her study of magic that her position was usurped by her husband’s brother, Antonio (Chris Cooper). She escaped with her daughter Miranda, with the help of the king’s adviser, Gonzalo (Tom Conti). For twelve years, they have been living on an island, cared for by a sprite named Ariel (Ben Wishaw) and the son of a witch named Caliban (Djimon Hounsou). Miranda barely knows that any other world exists.

Returning home by ship after a wedding, Antonio, Gonzalo, the King (David Straithairn), and their courtiers encounter a storm called up by Prospera, and they are shipwrecked and separated, each fearing all the others have died. Promising Ariel and Caliban their freedom if they help her, Prospera directs — and misdirects — the bewildered survivors. She puts Miranda in the path of the king’s son, Ferdinand (Reeve Carney), and they fall instantly in love. Prospera is delighted, but pretends to be angry and orders him to hard labor: “this swift business I must uneasy make, lest too light winning make the prize light.”

Meanwhile, the king and Gonzalo are searching for Ferdinand, with Antonio and the king’s brother, Sebastian (Alan Cumming), who realize that if they can kill the other two, Sebastian will be king. Prospera stops them with magic.

And then there is Trinculo (Russell Brand), the jester and Stephano (Alfred Molina), the drunken butler. They find Caliban, who is happy to switch his allegiance to them, especially when they give him his first taste of liquor.

Mirren is fiery and magesterial, holding her magic staff to the sky and commanding Ariel and Caliban. But she shows us Prospera’s devotion to Miranda and recognition that she contributed to her fate by allowing herself to be too caught up in magic to notice that Antonio was betraying her. She understands that the price for this greatest display of her art and her gifts so that she can return home will be to give it all up forever. The young lovers are a little bland, but the rest of the cast is exceptional — and surprisingly organic, considering that it includes classically-trained British stage actors like Mirren, Cumming, and Molina with American performers Cooper and Straithairn, three-continent Honsou and all-around wild child Brand. The visual touches perfectly evoke the themes of order and chaos, with Escher-esque steps vertiginously reaching bannister-less up the walls, found object-based props, and Prospera’s final costume, a fabulous mixture of natural material and tight, civilizing straps and stays.

Disney’s A Christmas Carol

Posted on November 16, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Writer-director Robert Zemeckis wisely chose the most unquenchable of stories for his technological marvel. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, already filmed with everyone from Michael Caine to Patrick Stewart, George C. Scott, Vanessa Williams, and Mr. Magoo in the role of the skinflint who learns to give, can hold its own even surrounded by the most dazzling of special effects.

I actually gasped at one moment as the camera flew over London. It was not just that the Victorian setting was so meticulously created, though I plan to go back just to revel in the details. It was that I had never before seen a camera move so fluidly through so many different vantage points in the midst of a convincingly immersive 3D experience. It evokes a visceral sense of buoyant jubilation and freedom that immediately connects us to the movie’s setting, making us feel completely present in the story as it unfolds.

We meet Ebeneezer Scrooge (voice of Jim Carrey) as he is bidding farewell to his partner, Jacob Marley, now laid out in his coffin. Scrooge literally removes the coins from Marley’s eyes. It may be a custom, but money is money. Seven years later, Scrooge is well into his bah, humbug mode, turning down a Christmas dinner offer from his nephew Fred (voice of Colin Firth), turning down a charitable donation, and grudgingly agreeing to allow his poor clerk Bob Cratchit (voice of Gary Oldman) a day off to celebrate with his family. Scrooge goes home to eat his gruel by himself when, in one of the film’s most thrilling effects, Marley’s flickering greenish ghost appears, heaving the heavy weights he bears through the door ahead of him. As we all well know, he is there to announced that Scrooge will be visited by three spirits who will teach him about Christmas past, present, and yet to come.

Our familiarity with the story is an anchor in the sea of new visual stimuli, and it keeps our focus on what is happening to the characters, even when the technology goes slightly askew. Zemeckis said that the good news about making a motion capture film is that you can do anything. Whatever you imagine can be realized. But, he added, the bad news is that you have to do everything. The blank screen is there and every single detail, every button on every coat, every log in every fire, every reflection, shadow, and snowflake have to be separately created in three dimensions and designed to interact with every other element we see. Some of the figures are more solidly created while others seem a bit stiff and rubbery. Firth’s Fred is particularly awkward. Some of the scenes are hyper-realistic while others, like a dance at the Fezziwig’s Christmas party, play with space and weight, not always in aid of the story. It gets too frantic, especially during a non-Dickensian insert of a chase scene that has Scrooge shrinking like Alice in Wonderland. The decision to double up on voices (Carrey plays all three spirits, Oldman plays Cratchit, Tiny Tim, and Marley and Robin Wright Penn plays both Scrooge’s sister and his girlfriend) is distracting and occasionally confusing.

But oh, there is a visual sumptuousness here to rival even the merriest Christmas celebration. Scrooge’s flights through time, the glorious bounty of the Ghost of Christmas Present, the Victorian streets, the costumes, the warmth of the fire, the magic of Scrooge’s first dance with Belle — make this an instantly indispensable classic. It’s all there, Scrooge’s bitter loneliness to his thrilling giddy-as-a-schoolboy realization that he can change, and that the power of giving is greater than any power of having. And for the people who gave us this great gift, God bless them everyone.

Magnificent Obsession

Posted on November 15, 2010 at 8:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	NR
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, references to drunkenness
Violence/ Scariness:	Off-screen accidents
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	1954
Date Released to DVD:	2009
Amazon.com ASIN:	B001ILTUL0

Celebrate Rock Hudson’s birthday this week with the movie that really made him a star, a remake of a Robert Taylor movie based on a popular book by Lloyd C. Douglas, who often included religious themes in his stories. (Both movies are included in the Criterion edition.)

Hudson plays a careless playboy whose boating accident deprives a beloved doctor of lifesaving equipment. The doctor dies. His widow (Jane Wyman) discovers that he had been quietly helping dozens of people, requiring only two things: that they never tell anyone and that they never pay him back. He asked them to pass the aid along to others instead. That was his “magnificent obsession.”

No one was better with melodrama than Douglas Sirk. In his first American film, he amped up the luscious technicolor but it was still not as purple as the emotions, especially after the playboy has another catastrophic encounter with the widow before finally finding a magnificent obsession of his own.

Ramona and Beezus

Posted on November 2, 2010 at 3:00 pm

Walden has just about mastered the art of turning the very best in children’s literature into very fine family films. It doesn’t get any better than Beverly Cleary’s marvelous series of books about Ramona Quimby and her family, and here director Elizabeth Allen (who showed a gift for stories about young girls with “Aquamarine”) brings them to life in a way that both fans and those new to the characters will enjoy.

Joey King is just right as Ramona, age 9 years and 3 months, a girl with a big imagination and an even bigger heart, both of which get her into trouble when she tries to help out without thinking things through. As in the books, the Quimby family is instantly relatable and utterly irresistible, funny, touching, and completely endearing.

It helps to have first-class talent among the adult performers. John Corbett (“Sex and the City” and “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”) and Bridget Moynahan capture the believably lived-in feeling of experienced parents who are almost always there when needed and are always ready to be captivated by their kids. The always appealing Josh Duhamel as the uncle of the kid next door and Ginnifer Goodwin as Ramona’s beloved Aunt Bea make their love story work while keeping the focus on Ramona and her view of the world.

Ramona’s perspective is expertly handled, and some of the best moments give us the world through her imaginative point of view, whether turning a hole in her house during construction into a portal into adventure or believing that an embarrassing moment on the jungle gym is a humiliation heard around the world. The harshest criticism of Walden’s faithful adaptations of children’s literature classics is to say that they are a little too faithful. They err on the side of literalism rather than taking greater liberties to get the benefit of the full range of cinematic storytelling. That saps some dramatic tension from the movie, making it feel a little too episodic and discursive. But if it re-creates the feeling of the book that way and especially if it inspires young viewers to read it for the incomparable pleasure of Beverly Cleary’s writing, then that is fine with me.

The Karate Kid

Posted on October 4, 2010 at 8:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for bullying, martial arts action violence, and some mild language
Profanity:	Brief mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Character gets drunk
Violence/ Scariness:	Martial arts action and violence, some graphic
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	June 11, 2010
Date Released to DVD:	October 5, 2010
Amazon.com ASIN:	B002ZG99CC

“Play the pauses,” the stern, English-accented music teacher tells his violin student (Wenwen Han as Meiying). Watching, and clearly paying close attention, is Dre (Jaden Smith, son of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith), just arrived in China from Detroit, where he has left behind everything he knows and cares about. Young Smith himself was paying attention, too. Watch him hold the screen even when his character is not doing anything special. Smith knows better than many adult actors how to play the pauses. In his first starring role, his deft and engaging work is the heart of the film.

The first “Karate Kid,” released in 1984, starred Ralph Macchio as a teenager who gets martial arts lessons from a handyman (Pat Morita) and takes on the guys who have been bullying him at a big climactic karate match. There were two sequels with Macchio and then “The Next Karate Kid” starring future Oscar-winner Hilary Swank. In this version, Smith plays a 12-year-old who moves to China when his mother (Taraji P. Henson) is transferred to Beijing. At first he feels lost. Bullies attack him, leaving him humiliated and angry. When the maintenance man, Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) comes to his rescue, Dre asks for lessons. And when Mr. Han commits to have Dre compete in the kung fu championship in just three months, it’s time to cue up the training montage and zoom in on the Great Wall.

Even if they had not already made this movie four times, there would not be any surprises in the story. But the movie can still surprise us with its specificity of choices and the connections of its characters. Chan, who has too often been ill-served in his American movies, is well-suited to the role of the taciturn mentor. His one fight scene is as electrifying as ever and should bring a new generation of viewers to his Chinese classics. Smith has his father’s confidence and charm on screen. And it is a pleasure to see the match of the dedicated, courageous young man and the wise teacher work as well for the performers as it does for the characters.