Home » Movies

Movies

Sherlock Holmes
By Jonathan Weichsel

The short of it: Sherlock Holmes is not without its merits, but also not without its flaws. In the end the film's flaws outweigh its merits, but it should still have broad appeal to fans of stylized PG-13 rated action flicks.

A word of warning to anybody who might go to Sherlock Holmes expecting a Sherlock Holmes movie: This film has very little to do with Sherlock Holmes. Sure, the names of the characters are the same, and yeah, Sherlock does use his powers of perception to pick up on things others miss, and he occasionally uses deductive reasoning, but what is missing is the logic that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle brought to his mysteries. Without this logic, Sherlock Holmes doesn't have very much to deduce.

As I stated at the top, the film does have its merits. Chief among these is the chemistry between Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock and Jude Law as Watson. The repartee they have going back and forth is extremely amusing, and their witty retorts are often laugh out loud funny. Sadly, these two actors do not share the same chemistry with their female counterparts, making the movie seem at times like just another buddy comedy. In the film, Watson is set to leave Sherlock in order to marry Mary Mortsan, played with blandness by Kelly Reilly. Sherlock is jealous of Watson's relationship, and does whatever he can throughout the movie to thwart their marriage.

Irene Adler, the one woman who can outsmart Holmes, is played by Rachel McAdams. McAdams is really a doll in the movie, but sadly, the filmmakers don't have the imagination to let her be anything more than a doll. McAdams struggles with Adler's evil side, substituting the cunning lacking in the dialogue given her with the occasional sinister looking gaze.

While Sherlock Holmes is capable of wit, it is also the kind of film that thinks a farting dog is funny. Don't worry, the dog only farts once, but it happens, predictably, during the initial meeting between Holmes and Adler. Maybe it's just me, but I feel that if a movie is supposed to be escapist, maybe there should be just a hint of romance in it.

The frustrating thing is that reimagining Sherlock Holmes as an action movie is actually a brilliant idea, and the film pulls it off with enough audacity that it should work, and for the first half of the movie it does work. The fights are exciting, and the action sequences are cleverly staged. Parts of the film are visually appealing, especially where the costume and set designs are concerned. But then at about the half way point the film takes a nose dive, starts to drag, and it never really picks up again.

Most of the problem lies in the plot, which I have been putting off telling you about because it makes me embarrassed for the filmmakers to relate it.

Holmes and Watson capture Lord Blackwell, who has been ritualistically murdering women. Before Blackwell is to be executed, he for some reason tells Holmes that he has plans that he will carry out after his death. Lord Blackwell is executed, but soon rises from the grave, and starts terrorizing London. Irene Adler appears and hires Holmes to look for a midget. While on the case, Holmes discovers that Blackwell is the leader of a Free Mason like cabal, and plans to kill all of Parliament with a chemical weapon in order to take over Britain so that he can conquer America and the rest of the world. There are a lot of loose threads going on. Some of them are tied up neatly at the end, while others are ignored.

All this said, if you enjoy the kind of antiseptic PG-13 rated action flicks that have been coming out recently, then you should love this film.

'DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE MORGANS?'
NEW YAWKERS RELOCATED
By Sean Chavel

When you have this kind of poster, and this kind of match-up of tailor-made stars, and this kind of fish out of water premise, you deduce naturally that Did You Hear About the Morgans? is this Christmas' romantic comedy offering. If you've been indoors all-month long and haven't done your holiday shopping, then perhaps you haven't seen the poster. To sum it up, Hugh Grant looks befuddled and Sarah Jessica Parker looks… um, inconvenienced.

The Morgans are a separated New York married couple and heading towards divorce. Paul made a mistake, you see, that Meryl cannot forget. Paul wants her back and beckons her to join him for dinner. Afterwards they witness a murder where the hitman negligently sticks his head out on the balcony so he can be seen. Now these two have to enter the Witness Protection Program which will require them to adapt to rural Wyoming lifestyle.

The Morgans now go by the surname Fosters which is an inconvenience, for certain, but worse the two of them are not allowed to make phone calls back home or use the internet. These are federal protection rules or whatever, administered by Sam Elliott and Mary Steenburgen, who play a U.S. Marshall and a deputy respectively. Elliott and Steenburgen are long-time married, and so they serve as surrogate therapists to the Morgans, err, the Fosters meantime in their stay.

As a performer, Grant has always had a gift for depicting delicate discomfort. He underplays his discomfort here, ever so slightly squirming in the tenseness of his face, and yet redeemably speaks cordially and gratefully to his hosts Elliott and Steenburgen. The stuttering Brit from "Love Actually" and "Music and Lyrics" is still on display here, finding notes of forced politeness among an unwanted setting.

On the other hand, Parker is neurotic with a lack of modulation. This is an actress always high-pitched, and either whiny or flustered. Really, this is not far different from her latter years "Sex and the City" episodes. This strident neuroticism is certainly, what the script called for, and it is permissible to say that Parker has a knack for playing these kind of New Yorkers. The kind that have never left their own zip code.

What Marc Lawrence (the writer-director "Music and Lyrics") has done is adhere to the Fish Out of Water formula but designed characters who instead of outright complaining make efforts to not only make friends with the Marshall and his wife but to behave courteously among the rural folk. In private Grant and Parker bicker and banter but when outdoors they learn to jog in fresh air, shoot a rifle, ride horseback and run from bears.

Several consecutive episodes got me laughing although there was this nagging sensation that I wasn't completely satisfied. No it wasn't the occasional pokey pacing that got me. It was the idea that this is a packaged romantic comedy and the romance part didn't do it for me. I didn't care if the two of them resolved their issues or not (although the scene where Grant recites his own original poetry as a riff on his wedding vows was cute). Perhaps Paul and Meryl are convincing New York types, but just not convincing together. Forget the romance, but I'll endorse this as a halfway decent comedy of two New Yorkers dislocated in horse country surroundings.

'THE LOVELY BONES'
STORY OF A SAD SALMON FAMILY
By Sean Chavel

The reason why The Lovely Bones as a film connects emotionally with you is because of actress Saoirse Ronan as young teen Susie Salmon. And this occurs in a film studded with other well-known actors such as Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon and Stanley Tucci who himself does his first non-clichéd performance in at least a decade (he's that bald, hardnosed and snobby character actor). The young Ronan is a 15-year old actress who was nominated for "Atonement," an overrated film I do not care to remember strongly. After "Lovely Bones," I care to remember both her and the film strongly.

Set in suburban Pennsylvania in 1973, Susie is just a normal girl just beginning that phase of teenage life where passages of interest start to happen. The stuff before is just dollhouse stuff. She loves bicycling. She loves playing with her camera. She loves boys, particularly one. Father and mother (Wahlberg and Weisz) are variably supportive of her, and the sister (Rose McIver) is naturally competitive.

The pedigree source material is Alice Sebold's best-selling novel from 2002. This is the story of a young teen whose life is tragically cut short, before Susie ever experienced her first kiss - and she was close to achieving that. With Ronan's open-face and expressive eyes, you feel connected (and protective) over her within the first few frames. That makes the tragedy all the more wrenching. She falls into the hands of an unassuming neighbor who is a serial killer. He is played by Tucci, who is so absorbed in character, that you think you were looking at actor Peter Stormare.

In the aftermath, we see Susie stuck in confusion between Earth and Heaven.

For a few breathless moments, Susie is disoriented what has happened to her (the murder takes place off-screen), and we're enrapt in her fragility of how she will brace with the concept that she is now a spirit. She can't let go of the life behind her, and in subtle moments, makes ghostly reappearances in her family's home. She observes that Dad cannot forget or give up, Mom is stuck in depression, and a sister she feels the need to be protective over. Dad wants: her murderer.

Ghostly images, as conceived by Peter Jackson ("The Lord of the Rings"), are so evocative that it sends shivers up your spine. But as Susie settles in the afterlife, it becomes a playground. The heaven's gate, if you may, is Jackson's creation and liberal adaptation from the book and it has a fantastic Oz-quality. These visuals work because they feel invoked by Susie's own subconscious, it's her childlike creations. Jackson works up an extraordinary rhythm with these scenes, it's like when music is so lush that you are carried away on air.

It's unfortunate that Jackson breaks up this rhythm, with distracting business with Sarandon's character, a grandmother who smokes up a storm and overloads the washing machine, as seen in a useless montage. Sarandon has never been a nuisance before, but the entire character is an unnecessary plot device. As the grieving parents, Wahlberg's character is a much more convincing portrait than Weisz's - she is a mom that can't hack it so she walks out on the family.

Further unnecessary plot contrivances involve a beating by a baseball bat and penultimate natural justice that reeks of contrivance. There is a break-in however into George Harvey's home, the serial killer, which is orchestrated with breathless suspense. There are other moments where characters can feel Susie somehow hovering amongst them. Susie, a girl whose essence illuminates the traits of innocence, benevolence, and harmony.

For some reason the Academy does not promote girls who are 15-years old as Best Actress. They are shoehorned into that other category called Best Supporting Actress, even if Saoirse Ronan is the central heart of the film. If that shall be the case, then Ronan will be undervalued. Rest assured though that we will likely see much more of this lovely, wonderful young actress in the future.

Avatar
By Jonathan Weichsel

The short of it: Avatar is a heartfelt, sweeping epic, which despite its well publicized technological advancements, is at its core an old school Hollywood blockbuster. It is a great piece of entertainment, and it won my heart.

What, you may ask, do I mean by the phrase 'old school Hollywood blockbuster?' I am referring here to the great movies that were made by the likes of Lucas, Spielberg, and even Zemeckis during their 1980's heydays. Avatar has much more in common with these films, which were big but not frivolous, and commercial without being cynical, than it does with anything that has been made in recent memory.

And why, you may ask, do I compare Avatar to these films? For starters there is the style of acting. In the great Hollywood blockbusters from the 1980's, the actors all look like they are having a lot of fun. In more contemporary blockbusters it often looks like the actors would rather be anywhere other than on the set of a movie. In Avatar, the actors all look like they are having the time of their lives, and this is especially true during the motion capture scenes.

Sam Worthington's Jake Sully is a crippled ex-marine who has been given the chance to upload his consciousness into an alien-human hybrid body called an avatar. Jake's initial exhilaration comes from the ability to walk again, but this soon gives away to a sense of wonder as he explores his new body, discovering all the things it can do, and learns about the planet Pandora, and the culture of the Na'vi, the planet's indigenous inhabitants. Zoe Saldana is sleek, lithe, and sexy as Neytiri, a Na'vi who teaches Jake about the culture of Pandora, brings him into the tribe, and eventually falls in love with him. One of the chief joys of the film is watching the two of them traipsing around the jungle of Pandora as she teaches Jake the ways of the Na'vi.

Another thing that makes Avatar old school is the way the special effects are used. Contemporary films often try to overload your senses by throwing as many big explosions in your face as possible, creating an annoying sense of chaos. There is not a single special effect in Avatar that does not in some way contribute to the story. The physical laws of the film are set up early on, and kept to throughout.

Instead of trying to overload your senses, Avatar uses its effects in order to create a sense of awe and wonder. Sure, Avatar uses state of the art technology, but it does so in order to show you something you have never seen before. The old school Hollywood blockbusters also used technology in this way.
As a filmgoer, I don't care one iota about the technology that goes into producing a film.

What I care about is the beauty and intelligence of the production design. The beauty here comes from the lush, beautiful, wild, savage world of Pandora and the Na'vi. The intelligence comes from the contrast made between Pandora and the metallic, grey, lifeless, and just plain drab world of the humans.

Old school blockbusters were full of ideas. Avatar shares this quality with them as well. The humans, estranged from themselves and nature, live disconnected lives, and fall into three superficial categories. There are the corporate humans, who are only interested in making a buck. There are the militaristic contractors, ex-marines who are only interested in their own might, and the scientists, who are interested in learning about Pandora and exploring it. The Na'vi, on the other hand, are both figuratively and literally connected to nature. They live in tribal communities and communicate with nature through a means that I can't describe without giving away too many spoilers.

With Avatar James Cameron has accomplished no small feat. He has made the blockbuster relevant again, by bringing it back to its roots.

Nine
By Fiore Mastracci

Maybe it's the Italian theme or the bevy of sultry screen sirens encompassing four generations, but I enjoyed the hell out of Nine. The musical, originally brought to Broadway by Tommy Tune in 1982, has translated to screen as a visual pleasure. Much of the credit goes to Rob Marshall. He took a very exciting stage presentation and transformed it into an equally engaging film several years back with Chicago. I had seen the Broadway production of Chicago several times before the film and think the movie holds well as a different medium, much like Sweeny Todd. I have not seen the stage production of Nine, but after viewing the movie, I think even the most die-hard theatre patrons would be hard-pressed to find fault with this endeavor.

The main credit must go to Mike Baldassari, who is in charge of the film's lighting. It's rare, unless a film is inundated with SFX, for lighting to take such a prominent part of a production. Like the piano player in the orchestra, they generally provide foundation for the rest of the technical crew. Some years back, lighting took center stage in K-PAX, with Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges. Light was not only spectacular in the film, it also served as one of the movie's main subplots. I used the film in my Lighting 1 course with tremendous success. (It's well known students of my class are simply lighting marvels, at least those who passed.) Nine is the first film since K-PAX which could and should be used in lighting classes as an example of how techniques can take center stage; a type of technical piano solo, if you will.

Daniel Day-Lewis stars as Guido Contini, a film producer who has hit the proverbial wall in his filmmaking. As pressure mounts for him to create a movie similar to his early successes, he is befronted (apologies to George Thorogood) by the women of his life who all contribute to his creative genius. They include his mistress Carla (Penelope Cruz), his main film star Claudia (Nicole Kidman), his costume designer, Lilli (Judi Dench), the fashion reporter, Stephanie (Kate Hudson), the prostitute Saraghina (Fergie), his wife (Marion Cotillard) and of course his mother (Sophia Loren). They each appear in musical numbers that seem to compete with one another for seductiveness and appeal.
Key Scenes to Look For:

1. All That I Want

2. Be Italian

3. Contini’s Transformation into a Little Boy Again

The original Broadway show was adapted for the screen by Michael Tolkin and the late Anthony Minghella (a talent Hollywood will miss). Creative use of camera angles and judicious editing techniques help pace the film between musical numbers. Credit Dion Beebe for the former and Claire Simpson and Wyatt Smith for the latter. During the end credits, clips from the dance rehearsals are shown and all of Contini's women appear without make-up. With the possible exception of Penelope Cruz, the difference is striking. This is why thanks should also be bestowed on Peter King who was in charge of make-up.

Hollywood makes so few musicals nowadays, it's nice that when one is released, it can be as entertaining and provocative as NINE. For those of you who still like to catch the Golden Hollywood Musicals on TMC, I think you'll find this film just as enjoyable.

RATING FOR NINE = A

back to top