Are there five less inspiring words in the English language than “based on a video game”?
There’s a villain with magical powers — but instead of Disneyfied magic, like Aladdin’s friendly genie, the film’s New Orleans voodoo is an occult world of terrifying powers and principalities in which the villain himself is at much at risk as anyone. It’s almost Disney’s most overtly Christian depiction of magic and evil at least since Sleeping Beauty, if not ever — though the waters are muddied by a benevolent, swamp-dwelling hoodoo mama in a sort of fairy-godmother role.
Rob Reiner’s great cult classic The Princess Bride is one of those rare satiric gems, like The Court Jester and Galaxy Quest, that doesn’t just send up a genre, but honors it at the same time, giving us the excitement and pleasure of the real thing as well as the laughs of a comedy.
Everyone knows going in that Hathaway’s frizzy hair, horn-rimmed glasses, pratfalls, slouch, and puckered expressions aren’t going to hold her back for long. (Indeed, it takes a formidable effort to suspend one’s disbelief and accept that they hold her back at all. Hathaway manages to be suitably awkward in the medium shots, but every closeup blows the girl’s cover by revealing her cover-girl beauty. Casting the gorgeous 20-year-old "Get Real" actress as an 15-year-old ugly duckling is about as plausible as Jennifer Lopez playing a wedding planner who can’t get a date or Drew Barrymore playing a late bloomer who’s Never Been Kissed.)
The ongoing Hollywood deconstruction of Eisenhower-era American values hits a speed bump of sorts in The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio, a whimsical, stylish tribute to the wit and inner strength of a Donna Reed–esque housewife and mother of ten (Julianne Moore) whose bouyancy and creative flair holds her family together in spite of little help and indeed much resistance from her alcoholic, bullying husband (Woody Harrelson).
Last week’s “Reel Faith” season finale is now online at the show’s website. This is the end of regular “Reel Faith” programming until next year’s summer season, although we may come back for one-off episodes a couple of times in the interim, and we’ll continue to produce 30-second reviews.
Tonight’s episode of “Reel Faith,” is the season finale, and partly for that reason this week I attended an almost unprecedented four screenings: the latest Twilight, Happy Feet Two, Arthur Christmas and The Muppets. Another reason for the heavy screenings was for the sake of my Friday morning radio shows (since of course I’ll be off next week.
I don’t mind that Prometheus raises big questions without ultimately answering them. Unanswered questions are part of life, and there’s no reason you can’t have them in art. I do mind that Prometheus raises big questions and has virtually nothing interesting, insightful or thoughtful to say about them. If the questions aren’t interesting in this film, why should anyone care whether they’re answered in another one?
Prometheus in 60 seconds: my “Reel Faith” review.
With its well-staged stickups and shootouts, its snappy fedoras and jaunty automobiles, it seems to be all surface — a glossy updating of 1930s Hollywood gangster melodrama without any substantial commentary or insight.
Regarding Punch-Drunk Love, much has been made of the sense of not knowing what’s going to happen next. Anderson’s opening scene is like a manifesto of unpredictability. Opening with a phone conversation in a stark warehouse space, the scene follows Barry Egan (Sandler) outdoors, where the morning waits in expectant silence for the day to begin, as the audience waits for the movie to begin. What kind of day will it be? What sort of movie are we watching?
Banderas’s swashbuckling Puss in Boots first appeared in Shrek 2, quickly establishing himself as one of the most popular supporting characters in the franchise. Now in a starring role in this spinoff, Puss spins the story in a direction strikingly different from the Shrek films.
Copyright © 2000– Steven D. Greydanus. All rights reserved.