ooooooooooooh
<don't tell anyone - i usually buy her a tea and biscotti before the show>
Oh well. I guess I'm prepared to try to be amazed. :wink:
I can listen to parts of the score of "Phantom," the big tunes. However, it's a quasi-operetta that tries to reach beyond the pop-rock genre that made this composer's work affable. I'm sure we are going to see more musicals but they're bound to be some lackluster efforts flashing across the screen. If it does a reasonably good box office it can only encourage the filmmakers. Chosing gay directors may be a plus as who puts together the best Broadway shows? However, Schumacher is a film director and I suspect his affinity for musicals could be lacking, especially with this material which lends itself to being slicked up without regard to any substance.
"Million Dollar Baby" is one of the best reviewed films of 2004. Here's Ebert's turn:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041214/REVIEWS/41201004
Rotten Tomatoes guage is at a nearly unprecedented 98% -- no small feat and I would say it's assuring this is going to show up on the Oscar Best Picture list.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/million_dollar_baby/
Just returned from seeing "Million Dollar Baby" and found it terrific. My only complaint is that it is a bit long as are many of Eastwood films. My theory is that he loves all of his scenes (which are indeed well done) so much that he is reluctant to cut any of them. He, Swank and Freeman all were outstanding as were the score and screenplay. I felt a relationship with "Rocky" and "Magnificent Obsession" though the film is in no way derivative. It is now one of my top three for the year, the others being "The Invincibles" and "House of Flying Daggers". How to pick from three so different films escapes me.
Great, flyboy and this is a really diverse top three for sure! Anyone else?
I just recalled another that must be added to my best of the year list: "Maria Full of Grace".
I agree 100% about Maria Full of Grace being one of the best films of the year, flyboy.
Saw Phantom of the Opera last night. The thing that most sticks in my head is an odd rendering of something like "nighttime's splendour" which sounded more like "nighttime's blender". There were a few moments when all we could think about was "Disney could have done this so much better". A few special effects would have been more impressive if they didn't get measured against Pirates of the Caribbean. And Minnie Driver, oy! She seemed to be doing a bad take-off of Jennifer Saunders of AbFab fame. People who are hooked on Lloyd-Webber will go.
Funny how the music sounds more and more like a bad Queen knock-off, the further you get from the 1980's.
I've got "Maria Full of Grace" on my NetFlix queue.
I've posted this elsewhere but here's the critic's best movie and the AFI selections for the year (their panel includes film scholars):
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
Best Film: Sideways
Best Actor: Liam Neeson, Kinsey
Best Actress: Imedla Staunton, Vera Drake
Best Supporting Actor: Thomas Haden Church, Sideways
Best Supporting Actress: Virginia Madsen, Sideways
Best Director: Alexander Payne, Sideways
Best Screenplay: Sideways, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor
New York Film Critics Online
Best Film: Sideways
Best Actor: Jamie Foxx, Ray
Best Actress: Imedla Staunton, Vera Drake
Best Supporting Actor: Thomas Haden Church, Sideways
Best Supporting Actress: Virginia Madsen, Sideways
Best Director: Martin Scorsese, The Aviator
Best Screenplay: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Charlie Kaufman
AFI'S Top 10 Films of 2004
The Aviator
Collateral
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Friday Night Lights
The Incredibles
Kinsey
Maria Full of Grace
Million Dollar Baby
Sideways
Spider-Man 2
Maria Full of Grace is excellent. Has Sideways opened across the nation? I haven't seen it on any local listings yet.
Saw The Incredibles on Christmas, not really my cup of tea, but certainly
well made.
Have heard great things about Hotel Rwanda.
Both "Sideways" and "Hotel Rwanda" are on limited release.
Looks like a trip to the IMAX theater near you to see James Cameron's latest documentary which was inspired by his film "The Abyss" could be a necessity for anyone enthralled by the sea. "The Love Song of Bobby Long" is also getting a raft of great reviews.
SUNDANCE REVIEWS from Variety:
SUNDANCE COVERAGE
1. REVIEW: THUMBSUCKER
What at first looks like a standard if well-crafted tour through familiar coming-of-age territory takes some interesting detours in "Thumbsucker," writer-director Mike Mills' impressive first feature. Tale of a 17-year-old Oregon high schooler coping with semi-hapless parents and his own behavioral problems is most comparable to similarly themed Amerindie "Donnie Darko." Both offer eccentric humor within a fairly somber overall tone, support-cast surprises, and (to a lesser degree in "Thumbsucker") fable-like, hyperreal elements. "Thumbsucker" -- also like "Donnie" -- is more likely to prosper in the long haul as a home-format cult fave than in its initial arthouse tour.
2. REVIEW: BRICK
Hardboiled '30s detective fiction invades a SoCal high school with moderately tasty results in "Brick." At its core, writer-director Rian Johnson's first feature is a stunt, putting Dashiell Hammett-like tough-guy vernacular into the mouths of contempo teens. But the story, while derivative, isn't half bad, and the picture gains in finesse and confidence to the point where Johnson more or less pulls off his peril-fraught exercise. Distinctive lingo provides a talking point, and youthful cast creates possibilities for some theatrical payoff.
3. REVIEW: HOW THE GARCIA GIRLS SPENT THEIR SUMMER
Writer-director Georgina Garcia Riedel's first feature "How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer" -- no connection to Laura Alvarez's popular novel "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents" -- is a dusty Arizona bordertown-set seriocomedy that slowly ingratiates with its warmth and humor. Very, very slowly. Indeed, while there are rewards to sticking with this tempest-in-teapot saga of sexual awakening across three family generations of Mexican-American women, its pacing is leisurely to the brink of stasis. Promising debut effort has minimal commercial potential in its current drawn-out form, but should travel well on the fest circuit.
4. REVIEW: DUANE HOPWOOD
What "The Good Girl" did for his "Friends" co-star Jennifer Aniston, "Duane Hopwood" may do for David Schwimmer. Pic gives the under-appreciated actor a full-course role about a character who's surrounded by failure on every side. Writer-director Matt Mulhern confidently anchors his drama-comedy about an alcoholic Atlantic City pit boss with good writing and sharp dialogue. Script never treats characters as less than human, and, though it ultimately feels slight, pic could find an aud with careful handling.
5. REVIEW: THE FALL OF FUJIMORI
Episodes out of the 10-year Peruvian presidency of Alberto Fujimori have been adapted in various forms of fiction -- including John Malkovich's film "The Dancer Upstairs" and Ann Patchett's novel "Bel Canto." But as documaker Ellen Perry seems keenly aware, there is really no need to embellish the Fujimori story, which has enough unlikely melodrama for six Italian operas. Pic can look to a healthy life internationally wherever political docus are welcome, on the tube and in possible limited theatrical situations.
The reviews are coming in on "Constantine" and it doesn't look pretty -- maybe one you might put on your DVD rental list or wait for an HBO or Showtime screening:
A. O. Scott of the NYT:
You may recall that in the "Matrix" trilogy, Keanu Reeves played a haunted, expressionless traveler between metaphysical realms whose mission was to unravel a vast, complicated plot to ... well, to do something very bad involving a lot of computer-generated imagery. It may therefore not surprise you to learn that Mr. Reeves, in "Constantine," a new theological thriller from Warner Brothers, plays a haunted, expressionless traveler ... but you get the idea. The thing is, this time his character, John Constantine, wears a skinny tie, white shirt and dark suit combination almost exactly like the one worn by Agent Smith, who was Mr. Reeves's archnemesis in the "Matrix" pictures. I'm still trying to get my mind around that.
BALANCE OF REVIEW (REGISTRATION REQUIRED)
Watched Nicholson hamming in As Good As It Gets. What's your opinion? Script, acting etc.
Nicholson always hams it up but it's great hamming -- he get's away with it. His stint as The Joker in "Batman" was the epitome of hamming it up. I'm not so sure one can even call it hamming as it's his own comedic twist on each of his characters. He does push out the envelope and it can get close to bursting into a thousand pieces but he almost always holds back enough to make the performance work. I thought it was a good script but not a great script and Greg Kinnear actually stole the movie. Not a film I'd go back to again and again.
Has anyone seen "Downfall"? It's a German film on Hitler's final days amidst his circle in the bunker. Bruno Ganz is brilliant, and all the acting is excellent. It wasn't an easy film to sit through, but it was riveting.
Anyone else see it?
I just read that Keanu Reeves might be the new Sinbad. I can't really see him in that role.
Saw Million Dollar Baby last night. Too long by far. Cardboard characters. Way over-rated!
A plethora of independent films have hit the silver screen and hopeful one has an art house theater nearby. The documentary on Enron is being shown on cable, either HBO or Showtime I believe and I DVR'd it but have not watched it as of now.
