Movie column by Eleanor Ringel Cater
Any movie that begins with a quote from Arthur C. Clarke means to be taken seriously.
And for much of “Dark Skies,” that respect is earned. So much so that I’m a bit surprised the studio did so little to market it. Not even one of those garish nightmares called “word of mouth” screenings.
Like the best haunted house movies — which this is not; remember Clarke is a sci-fi guy — “Dark Skies” works through suggestion, misdirection and just enough shocks to keep you on your toes.
Where were you when they announced Best Picture at the Oscars on Sunday?
I was in bed, but, showing stamina I hadn’t mustered in years —stamina, mind you, not enjoyment — I actually saw the very end. I mean, the very, very end, including, the song that Kristin Chenoweth (who is her agent; she was everywhere) and host Seth McFarlane did about the losers.
I don’t even watch the whole Oscar show anymore (Feb. 24). Yet, as I wrote in the Atlanta Business Chronicle, I can’t break my addiction to trying to predict the top 6 categories.
I once had a boss/colleague who was either so obsessed with the Academy Awards or so competitive that he would insist on predicting every single category. Sorry, I just have no idea who deserves best sound editing. Nor, I’m afraid, do I much care.
Yeah, I’m a shallow Philistine who much prefers to stick to the top six groups, i.e., Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress.
We all know those commercials for the miracle pill that’ll cure what ails you.
Some actor is lying around barely able to pet the dog. Then a handful or so of pills later, he or she is up and about, tossing Frisbees on the beach, embracing everything good and healthy.
But as we vicariously enjoy life as a day at the beach, the narrator’s voice gets just a shade more business-like. What follows is an endless litany of potential side effects. Everything, it seems, from difficulty sleeping to your arm falling off.
You may know Michael Apted as the prize-winning director of “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “The World is Not Enough,” “The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader” and dozens of other movies.
However, the work that has secured him a unique place in cinematic history began over 50 years ago when he was working for Granada Television.
There’s an old show biz chestnut, variously attributed to different people that goes something like this:
A famous comedian is terminally ill. One of his buddies goes to see him in the hospital. The guy says, “This must be so hard for you.” And the sick man replies, “Dying’s easy. Comedy’s hard.”
“Quartet” is the movie I wanted “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” to be.
Yet again, some of England’s very best have been gathered together for a little heart, a little soul and some expertly executed comedy. But “Quartet,” blithely handled by Dustin Hoffman in his directorial debut, actually gives these golden oldies something to do.
Based on a play by Ronald Harwood — who also did “The Dresser,” which, in its movie incarnation, starred Laurence Olivier and Tom Courtenay — “Quartet” takes place at Beecham House, a home for retired musicians. It’s a nice place, well kept, with lovely grounds.
Kathryn Bigelow doesn’t fool around.
She never has. Think of the tense and ultimately explosive opening of “The Hurt Locker.” Or the fatal pick-up outside a bar in her vampire-cum-biker flick, “Near Dark.”
In her Oscar-nominated movie, “Zero Dark Thirty,” she goes straight for the jugular. The screen is black and on the soundtrack we hear a building babble of voices, which — it’s almost immediately clear — are real-life phone calls made from those trapped in the World Trade Center on 9/11.
The Golden Globes, Oscar’s younger, dumber and prettier sibling, threw a nice little monkey wrench into the eternal question: who will win what on Oscar Night.
Well, it’s eternal for movie critics and for pundits in general who suddenly morph into movie critics around Oscar time. I think I read what Bill O’Reilly was picking a few years ago.
The Golden Globes began as a joke: a doling out of awards by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a somewhat dubious group made up of somewhat dubious people. Well, dubious in the implication that they make their living writing about movies. A lot of them have other real jobs, but moonlight as movie reviewers.
The Oscars are a bit like an old boyfriend you once dumped.
Or maybe he dumped you.
Or maybe it was mutual.
Anyway, you basically don’t give a rat’s butt about him, but every so often his name comes up and you find you’re still hooked.
In that I-really-don’t-care, but now that you mention him…
That kinda hooked.
The holidays may have come and gone.
But for movie reviewers and critics’ groups, there are still a few shopping days left in which to express our opinions about the best and worst of the year.
In fact, one of the groups I belong to — The National Society of Film Critics, which meets in Manhattan — holds its gathering this year on Jan. 5.
So, what sort of year was 2012? A very good one if you were a Hobbit, a Dark Knight or an Avenger.
“This Is 40” isn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but it’s certainly somewhere within that black hole’s gravitational pull.
Writer/director Judd Apatow calls it a sort-of sequel to “Knocked Up.” Translation: Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen’s characters aren’t even mentioned as far as I remember.
Our leads now are Pete and Debbie, played so amusingly in the first film by Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann (Mrs. Apatow in real life).
J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” is a children’s book.
Let me repeat that.
“The Hobbit” is a children’s book.
Not a little kid’s book, but definitely aimed at eight and older fantasists. I can’t imagine anyone over 13 reading it, unless, they love “Lord of the Rings” so much, they must have more Tolkien.
That doesn’t mean adults wouldn’t enjoy it, but probably more in the way they enjoy “Harry Potter” (as I do). “The Hobbit” is about dwarfs and dragons and trolls and orcs and elves and stolen treasure and a wizard and a Hobbit and a wretched creature that calls himself Gollum.
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire? Hanukkah acandles blowing in the wind? Little ones with their eyes all aglow?
Dream on. The holidays are hard work for most of us. Do the door. Do the tree. Do the special goodies. And most of all, do the mall.
Who among us doesn’t dread that dive into the 8th circle of hell otherwise known as going to the mall over the holidays?
The quips come quick and smart in “Hitchcock,” a delicious “re-imagining” of Alfred Hitchcock and the making of “Psycho,” his celebrated 1960 horror film.
Of all the Must-See Movies avalanche between now and Christmas, so far “Hitchcock” is the most fun. Not the best or most thought-provoking or insightful. Just a lot of Old Hollywood fun.
Coming off the immense success of “North By Northwest,” Hitch (played with stiff, portly commitment by Anthony Hopkins) is unhappy to find the movie critics feel he should “quit while he’s ahead” at the ripe old age of 60. However, the director isn’t ready to say “Good Night;” he’s still quite comfortable saying “Good Evening” — the signature opening of his popular TV series, “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.”
Tiger, Tiger burning bright. In the movies of the night.
Whose mortal hand and eye framed thy fearful symmetry?
I can tell you who: A cinematic master named Ang Lee who has opened up the possibilities of film in ways James Cameron never dreamed of.
This seems to be the year for the “unfilmmable” book. First “Cloud Atlas;” now “The Life of Pi” which takes place almost entirely on a small lifeboat shared by a very lean 16-year-old Indian boy named Pi (Suraj Sharma) and a very large Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker (It’s…complicated).
Those of you who prefer their Tolstoy straight up are going to be mightily disappointed by Joe Wright’s dazzling —sometimes-dizzying — adaptation of the famed 1877 novel, “Anna Karenina.”
With his usual leading lady Keira Knightley (“Atonement,” “Pride and Prejudice”) in the title role, Wright has created a sort of phantasmagorical exegesis of the book, which, despite its heftiness, can just about be reduced, plot-wise, to a country song. “Say, Your Cheatin’ Heart.”
Anna is a well-to-do respectable woman with a well-to-do respectable husband, Karenin (played by a cold-eyed Jude Law who brings enormous dexterity to a stiff character). They have a place in the country, a place in Moscow society, even a beloved young son — on whom, it’s clear, what’s left of her passion for life has been lavished).
Denzel Washington’s new film, “Flight” isn’t about the non-stop Atlanta-to-Denver sort of flight. It’s about the frenzied flight from reality that every addict takes with every snort and swallow.
Washington does play a pilot — cocky Capt. “Whip” Whitaker, who can fly anything with wings and a cockpit.
Even when he’s coked to the gills and coasting on some well-spiked orange juice.
I’ve been hoping SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS would stick around for another week for one reason and one reason only.
I want to bash the hell out of it.
It has and here goes…
“Seven Psychopaths” belongs to a genre I like to think of as “Quentin said he loved the script, but he’s booked solid through 2014.”
I picture it being screened in front of a bunch of giggly slightly-coked baby moguls who saw “Pulp Fiction” when they were about 12. They are sons of privilege who wish they could be tough guys. And they can…vicariously…in jumped-up movies like this. Especially one that wraps itself around Hollywood insider jokes.
In politically-themed movies, it’s often not whether you win or lose, but how you played the campaign.
Though there are some exceptions (Oliver Stone’s “Nixon” comes to mind), the drama is in the running for office.
Once he’s in, a movie President generally has to deal with aliens (“Mars Attack,” “Independence Day”), terrorists (“The Sum of All Fears”) or Russkies (“Dr. Strangelove,” “Fail-Safe”). Economy and social issues just aren’t movie-sexy; though, if your movie president is sexy enough — like Jeff Bridges in “The Contender” — you might get audiences to sit still while he tries to get a female (Joan Allen) confirmed as Vice President.
