Rock of Ages

Posted on June 14, 2012 at 6:00 pm

The era of big power ballads reaching to the back rows of big stadiums filled with big crowds of fans with big hair is paid big tribute in this irresistibly entertaining anthem-rock love letter to the 80’s. Sung almost entirely by actors rather than rockers, the music is homogenized, somewhere between a “Glee” episode and a real glee club performance. But, let’s face it. Some of these songs were close to parody even at the time.

Marx famously said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce. When it comes to music, history repeats itself, too. First — at least ideally — it is raw and authentic expression of emotion and, as “School of Rock” reminds us, “sticking it to The Man.” When it repeats itself, it is The Man. Yes, “Rock of Ages” is a jukebox musical that turns the barbaric yawps and screeches of rock and roll into something between karaoke, elevator music, and Up with People. Journey’s “Anyway You Want It” is currently being used as an insurance company jingle and background music in an animated kids’ film, Madagascar 3 and Dee Snider sings in an ad about cleaning the rock and roll out of your carpet. So it’s hard to say that it dilutes the authenticity of these songs to be performed by Mary J. Blige, Constantine Maroulis, and Julianne Hough.

Various romantic, business, and existential conflicts provide excuses for songs from Bon Jovi, Guns N Roses, Def Leppard, Twisted Sister, Poison, and Pat Benetar. Hough plays Sherrie (how did they not include “Oh, Sherrie?”), a small-town girl, living in a lonely world, who takes not the midnight train to anywhere but the midnight bus from Oklahoma to Los Angeles, in search of the excitement and adventure she has glimpsed through her beloved collection of record albums. They — along with everything else she owns — are stolen as soon as she arrives. But Drew (Diego Boneta), a city boy who works at a club and wants to be a singer, gets her a job as a waitress. The club is owned by Dennis (Alec Baldwin), who is hoping that an upcoming show from a superstar rock group he helped in their early days will solve his financial problems. His devoted techie (that’s sound technology, not computers, back in the 80’s) is Lonny (Russell Brand).

The group is the fictitious Arsenal and this is their last show. Their rock god frontman, Stacee Jaxx (Tom Cruise) is leaving them for a solo career. Also arriving is the Rolling Stone reporter who is, uh covering Jaxx (Malin Ackerman). And also on her way is the wife of the mayor (Catherine Zeta Jones), leading the charge against rock and roll for its outrageous lyrics and sexual rhythms, in support of her husband’s plan to drive out sex, drugs, and rock and roll so he can let his business cronies gentrify the area. The irony is not lost that the storyline in the movie gentrifies not only the music it portrays but the plot of the already-prettied-up musical playing since 2009 near the already-gentrified Times Square. The script has a few choice moments, including a funny joke about another element of 80’s music — boy bands. And it is cute to have the protesting women sing a real rock anthem, “We’re Not Going to Take It” while the rock fans sing the song even the Jefferson Starship (nee Airplane) is embarrassed by, “We Built This City.” (Look carefully in the crowd for some real 80’s stars including Debbie Gibson and Sebastian Bach.)

If the songs are a little soft in the middle, well so are the teenagers of the 80’s who are this film’s target audience. Hough and Boneta are so bland they all but disappear fromt the screen. The only real singer in the cast is Mary J. Blige, but Cruise vamps like a superstar and his performance is choice. As the rock star who is as zonked by ennui as he is by substance abuse and groupies but who comes alive on stage imploring us to pour some sugar on him, he is a hoot. He is clearly having the time of his life and the pure enjoyment he, Baldwin, Brand, and Zeta Jones bring to the film is as buoyant as the still-hummable music. Yes, we were young, heartache to heartache we stood, and like the brick-sized cell phones, buying albums at Tower Records, and cassette tapes, the memories bring a smile. And some devil’s horns.

Parents should know that this film includes gay and straight sexual situations and explicit situations including groupies and strippers, drinking and drunkenness, and some strong language.

Family discussion: What has changed the most in popular music since these songs were hits? Which of today’s songs will still be popular 30 years from now?

If you like this, try: “Across the Universe” and concert films from some of the groups whose songs are featured in this movie like Def Leppard’s “Rock of Ages,” Bon Jovi’s “Life at Madison Square Garden,” and Guns ‘n’ Roses’ “Use Your Illusions” I and II

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Can You Write a 140-Character Movie Review?

Posted on June 13, 2012 at 3:58 pm

The website Movie Tweeviews is conducting a competition for tweet-able movie reviews of classic films for inclusion in a possible book. Ira Deutchman will post the title of one classic film each day and invite all who want to enter to submit via twitter a review in 140 characters or less. Here is what Deutschman says about the rules:

Contributors are invited based on their standing in the industry, or based on the quality of their tweets. They can be critics, curators, distributors, filmmakers or articulate fans.

The ground rules are simple…

Reviews should be honest.

They should not be self-promotion.

Distributors should not include anything about films they are distributing.

Producers, writers and directors should only review films that they have nothing to do with.

Do not use the #MTRV tag on anything that isn’t a review.

If you re-tweet other #MTRV tweets, remove the hashtag so that those reviews do not end up in the feed twice.

Do not include links to longer reviews.

Don’t use the word “awesome” more than once per year.

Try to be clever.

I reserve the right to remove people from the feed if they break the ground rules, but professional critics can do as they please.

If you would like become a contributor, just start tweeting with the hastag #MTRV for anything you would consider a review. Just be mindful of the rules above. If your tweets seem like they would fit in, I’ll add you to the official feed, and your tweets will magically appear (even the one’s you’ve already tweeted).

I’m anxious to see whether this turns into something useful.

He will pick one winner each day. Here are some of the entries so far:

DAY 7 (June 10) #WestSideStory

@carynjames: #WestSideStory Prettiest gang fight ever. Romeo/Juliet update. Nat. Wood lipsynchs;glorious Bernstein music makes up 4 Hollywd glitz #mtrvc
@nyindieguy: #WestSideStory: Gloriously cinematic choreography, brilliant score & can’t miss R&J adaptation…1 of the great musicals of all time. #mtrvc
@SatriVision: #WestSideStory Bernstein/Sondheim/Robbins/Wise do beautiful NY Shakespeare. Marni Nixon makes Natalie Wood feel pretty, witty & gay. #mtrvc

DAY 6 (June 9): #Alien

@nyindieguy: #Alien: Successful cross between sci-fi & horror marked the first credible female action hero along w/ pulse quickening scares. #mtrvc
@SatriVision: #Alien – Claustrophobic, feminist sci-fi nightmare. If a phallic monster pops out of a guy’s chest, get your cat off that spaceship! #mtrvc
@TheCinemaGirl: #Alien redefines space as intimate sphere where wisdom is as vital as bravery in creating a hero. No wonder a woman like Ripley rules. #mtrvc

DAY 5 (June 8): #ItHappenedOneNight

@tobinaddington: Between trumpets, curtains, and a bit of leg on the highway, the sexes battle it old school. Snappy Capra. #ItHappenedOneNight #mtrvc
@TheCinemaGirl: Template for sophisticated romantic comedies, #ItHappenedOneNight makes journalist & heiress smart, funny & sweet – no small feat. #mtrvc
@nyindieguy: #ItHappenedOneNight: Capra hits all the right notes in classic screwball comedy…slyly suggestive for its time, and still hilarious. #mtrvc

DAY 4 (June 7): #MyOwnPrivateIdaho

@carynjames: #MyOwnPrivateIdaho Gritty dreamlike VanSant breakthru, druggy River Phoenix char., feels creepier over the yrs.Not so private anymore #mtrvc
@TheCinemaGirl: Shakespeare’s brash Hal is a gay hustler, but My Own Private Idaho belongs to tender narcoleptic River Phoenix & vast Western skies. #mtrvc

DAY 3 (June 6): #HoopDreams

@TariqRButt: The stakes are high, the drama intense in this pioneering indie doc. #HoopDreams plays with all the intensity of a championship game. #mtrvc
WINNER OF THE DAY
@DavidJaeilKim (Facebook): Portrait of moms, dads, sons; our hood, frnds & dreams defrrd. Not just bout ball: #HoopDreams is n American prophecy that gets finer w/age #mtrvc

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Snow White and the Huntsman

Posted on May 31, 2012 at 6:06 pm

Director Rupert Sanders is known for making television commercials that look like fairy tales, with angels falling from the sky for a guy who uses Axe body spray and a boy battling samurai warriors with Excalibur to sell X-Box game consoles. With his first feature film he has made a fairy tale that looks like a commercial, with every frame filled with eye-popping images and a lot of dramatic posing. A 30 second version would have made a great commercial for perfume or skin cream. As a movie, it is just so-so, with uneven performances and dodgy pacing. After over 100 movie versions of the classic fairy tale about the girl whose lips are red as blood, skin is white as snow, and hair black as ebony and the evil stepmother who orders her taken into the woods and killed, the Disney animated version is still the fairest of them all.

Like Tarsem’s superior “Mirror Mirror,” released earlier this year, this version makes Snow White into an action heroine, leading the battle against her evil stepmother. Charlize Theron plays Ravenna, who literally bewitches a king grieving for his late wife. She murders him on their wedding night, taking over his kingdom with the help of her creepy brother/henchman Finn (Sam Spruell) and locking the young princess in a grubby tower. Ravenna cares for just one thing — eternal beauty. She swans around looking haughty in fabulous Colleen Atwood costumes that can best be described as haute predator couture, with all kinds of intricate spikes and skulls. Everything is either sharp or poisonous and laced-up tightly, with talon-like finger-armor. She stalks and flounces nicely but when it is time for her to get ferocious she is all eye-rolls and screeches, a bad version of Carol Burnett doing Norma Desmond.

Ravenna has an enormous gold mirror that looks like giant frisbee hanging on the wall, and the robed creature who lives inside assures her that she is the fairest in the land. She also gets some reassurance from skeevy Finn, with whom she shares the creepiest brother watching his sister take a bath scene since “Bunny Lake is Missing.” You also know he’s twisted from his terrible haircut, a sort of medieval mullet.

While Ravenna is bathing in thick cream and literally sucking the life out of young women, Snow White (Kristen Stewart) is still locked in the tower. For years. But she stays so pure that when the birds come to perch on her window, she does not grab and eat them. She just allows them to show her a loose nail she can use as a weapon, which comes in very handy as Finn arrives shortly to indicate some predatory tendencies and take her to the queen. The mirror guy has informed Ravenna that Snow White has come of age. Her purity is so powerful that she alone has the power to destroy Ravenna, says the mirror. But her power is so great that if Ravenna can eat her heart, she will no longer need touch-ups and refills. Her beauty will stay as it is forever.

When Snow White escapes into the Dark Forest, where everything is creepy and scary and even Ravenna has no power. The only person who knows the Dark Forest well enough to bring her back is The Huntsman (no name), played by “The Avengers'” Thor, Chris Hemsworth. Ravenna promises to bring his dead wife back to life if he will capture the prisoner and he agrees to go. But Snow White isn’t the only one who gets tripped up in the forest. Sanders gets much too enmeshed in all of the tree-branches-turning to snakes-style special effects and the forest section of the film goes on much too long, with at least three too many set-ups and confrontations, including the return of Finn. And it gets worse when they emerge into a sort of Light Forest fairyland, when the story really starts to go haywire, with a whole “chosen one” theme that had people in the audience groaning. Stewart is out of her league. She is fine playing characters like the vulnerable Bella in “Twilight,” but when called on here to inspire the troops, she sounds like she is ordering pizza.

And then there are the dwarfs. It is hard to imagine that in 2012 anyone could think it is appropriate to cast full-size actors, no matter how talented and no matter how persuasive the special effects, as little people. It is a shame to see Bob Hoskins, Nick Frost, Ian McShane, Toby Jones, and others in roles that should be played by little people. By the time they show up, the plot has fallen apart, with an unnecessary love triangle and a preposterous encounter with a troll. Nearly everyone’s accents waver, some of the dialogue is truly awful, and I am certain no one in a fairy tale should ever use the word “okay.” Recasting Snow White as the hero of her own story is long overdue and production designer Dominic Watkins creates some real magic. But this is not only not the best Snow White; it’s not the best one in the last four months.

Parents should know that this film includes fantasy and battle violence with many characters injured and killed, and some graphic and disturbing images including bloody wounds, bugs, and snakes. There is brief partial nudity and some scenes of a brother watching his sister bathe and then suggestively touching a young woman in a predatory manner.

Family discussion: How did Ravenna’s costumes reflect her character? How did the three drops of blood spilled by both characters’ mothers show their connection?

If you like this, try: Some of the more than 100 other movie versions of this story including the recent “Mirror Mirror” and the Disney animated classic

How to Write a Movie Review

Posted on May 26, 2012 at 3:55 pm

People often ask me how to become a movie critic, and I usually reply: “You watch a lot of movies and you write movie reviews about them. This is the world’s best time to be a movie critic because anyone can find a place to publish reviews. The trick is to make them good enough that people will want to read them.” (The other trick is getting paid for them, but if you accomplish the first, the second will follow.) For some guidance on how to write good movie reviews, Chris Klimek of the blog “Swagger, Not Style” has an excellent set of guidelines. I especially like these:

Your review should let your reader know these three things: What is this production trying to achieve? Was it successful? Is the thing that it succeeded or failed at something that’s worth doing at all?

and “Be funny….but never be mean.”

Adding some more specifics is Katherine Dacey of The Manga Critic, with some guidance for movie reviews of superhero films. In other words, this is one category of fan explaining the world she lives in to those who just visit it. And hmmm, she and Klimek agree on one crucial and too often overlooked piece of advice: “Do Your Homework.”

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Paulzeye Interviews Me!

Posted on February 25, 2012 at 8:00 am

Many thanks to Paulzeye for the opportunity to answer very thoughtful questions about being a movie critic. I was very touched by his kind words:

Whether Minow’s busy being a mom or busy being the Movie Mom, one thing is certain: she encompasses all the qualities and virtues of the hard-working 21st Century woman. And her commentary is a reflection of her own persona: honest, sharp, to the point, and always very insightful.

Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

Paulzeye: As a critic, you’ve seen a fair share of good films and bad films. How would you define a masterful or good film? How would you define a bad film?

Nell Minow: I evaluate every movie according to its aspirations – otherwise, every review will be, “It’s not ‘Citizen Kane.’” How well does it meet the expectations of its intended audience? If it is a silly comedy or a chases and explosions film it makes no sense to compare it to an Oscar contender. But, at its core, every movie should be grounded in the sincere commitment of the people who made it to do the best they can for the audience they are trying to reach. The one kind of film I really hate is the kind that condescends to its audience.

Paulzeye: What are five films, new or old, that should be on every family’s ‘must-see’ list and why?

Nell Minow: “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “The Court Jester,” “Some Like it Hot,” “The Miracle Worker,” and “The Wizard of Oz” are all classics that have something for every age and give families a lot to talk about.

Paulzeye: People tend to think that being a film critic is an easy profession but surely it must be difficult to spend hours in a multiplex watching several films back to back and then reviewing them. Talk to us about that process. What’s a day at the movies like for you?

Nell Minow: Most days, I see only one or two movies. The independent and foreign films are most often in a little screening room at the Motion Picture Association building across Lafayette Square from the White House during the day and the big studio films are in the evening, in movie theatres with a couple of rows reserved for critics and the rest filled with people who won tickets on radio stations or other giveaways. I really enjoy the other local critics, who have become friends and colleagues. They make even the worst movies fun to watch.

Paulzeye: As a critic, what do you feel more comfortable writing about: a film that you absolutely loved or one that you absolutely loathed?

Nell Minow: Both are fine because they both inspire a lot of thoughts. The toughest ones are the bland and mediocre movies, because it is so hard to think of anything to say or any vivid way to say it.

Paulzeye: You’ve interviewed several important figures (politicians, actors, and directors) over the years. What are some of your most memorable interviews and why?

Nell Minow: I especially like talking to writers and directors, who are not interviewed as often as actors and who are more interested in talking. Some of the most memorable include John Irving, Jason Reitman, Randall Wallace, Mike Mills, and John Cameron Mitchell. One of my favorite recent interviews was with Martin Sheen for “The Way.” He is an enthralling raconteur and I could have listened to him all day. I was also very impressed at how kind he was to the staff in the hotel, introducing himself to everyone and really listening to them. Another actor I won’t name infuriated me by being very rude to the waitress and maître d’.

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