Archive Review: Shine (1996) - 4/5 Stars

A great piece of music -- and this is especially true of works for piano -- conveys a mood or sometimes many moods; it is incredibly affective. While listening you might feel comfortable and at ease at one point and then suddenly chaotic and unsettled at another. This is certainly true of Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 3 in D minor, the challenging piece that "Shine" main character David Helfgott aspires to master. The piece plays a pivotal role in Helfgott's story and as such, this film based on him brilliantly reflects its beauty and turbulence.

"Shine" is not a typical biopic in this way: there are no scenes written or dragged out solely to open your tear ducts. If that happens at all, it's purely incidental. The only thing that's truly reminiscent of a standard biopic is the first half of the film telling the story of Helfgott's childhood and rocky relationship with his father.

The beginning is chronological as one would expect, moving logically from scene to scene, showing Helfgott's talents and his father's refusal to let him become his own person. Armin Mueller-Stahl is excellent as the father. He manages to take what we first associate as merely stubborn, stern and demanding and make us really understand that it's not black and white. Though he beats David on two occasions, he doesn't simply become the "abusive father" you get in many biopics: he is clearly struggling with David's success and and blind to the fact that he's become possessive and is living vicariously through him. He might indeed be unfairly manipulative, but we clearly see the world view (Holocaust survivor immigrated to Australia) behind it.

When Helfgott finally escapes to London to learn at the Royal School of Music, attempts Rachmaninoff for a recital and suffers a breakdown at the conclusion of the piece, suddenly the film becomes a series of clips: scenes that appear to be in order but lack clear objective and purpose with exception of David's piano skills returning bit by bit.

This recital/Helfgott's breakdown scene is the best in the movie. It's the first act climax that takes the story out of childhood and into David's struggle to become himself again as seen through the incredible Geoffrey Rush. The Rachmaninoff starts off easy, comforting and grows in intensity. Suddenly there's great suspense to the film and we see David sweating profusely, cut-ins of his father listening to a recording and then silence and blurred camera-work. In the moment, director Scott Hicks' work here might feel over-dramatic, but as the story continues and we never fully get an explanation of what happened (such as why Helfgott needed shock treatments) it becomes emblematic of the struggle Helfgott went through.

The end feels disjointed and its pacing frantic. The expectation is that David will make this miraculous comeback and in truth he does, it's just not with the surge of a full string orchestra playing in the background -- it's with the subtlety of Liszt, Rimsky-Korsakov, Schumann or Chopin. It's a bit devoid of feeling or satisfaction but it's justified by the way Jan Sardi has "composed" the film. The story is happy being focused on the upbringing and less so with Helfgott's rehab despite Rush's Raymond Babbitt-quality performance. The lack of a cookie-cutter emotional climax and crying and hugging scenes will rub some average viewers the wrong way, but "Shine" deserves a good deal of admiration.

4/5 Stars

"Shine" (1996)

Directed by: Scott Hicks

Written by: Jan Sardi, Scott Hicks

Starring: Geoffrey Rush, Armin Mueller-Stahl

Weekend Recap: "Blind Side" pushes "New Moon"

I would say about 10 percent of my box office projections are based on what I overhear/word-of-mouth, but when people I never expected started talking about how they saw or were going to see The Blind Side and that it was really good, I up that number. That being the case this Thanksgiving, New Moon was almost completely blind-sided this weekend.

Most projection artists such as myself are breathing a sigh of relief at the moment. I nailed my estimate that New Moon would fall to $40 million, but to expect “Blind Side” to climb upward after last week and nearly overtake it was not in my plans. I called for $18 million, a modest drop-off considering its strong opening weekend. What I didn’t account for was that if positive word of mouth builds at the holidays where nothing new is an obvious choice, then word will become a more powerful factor at the box office. “Blind Side” has more than $100 million total now in just two weeks. By comparison, 4-week old A Christmas Carol just eclipsed the $100 M mark.

Leftovers would best describe the taste of moviegoers this weekend. Only Disney’s Old Dogs managed to make the Top 5 of all the Thanksgiving new releases and unimpressively so. In fact, it was enough to earn this week’s biggest flop crown.

1. The Twilight Saga: New Moon - $42.9 M (weekend) … $230.9 M (gross)
2. The Blind Side - $40.1 M … $100.2 M
3. 2012 - $17.6 M … $138.4 M
4. Old Dogs - $16.9 M … $24.2 M
5. A Christmas Carol - $15.8 M … $104.9 M
6. Ninja Assassin - $13.1 M … $21.2 M
7. Planet 51 - $10.2 M … $28.5 M
8. Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire - $7 M … $32.4 M
9. The Fantastic Mr. Fox - $6.9 M … $10 M
10. The Road - $1.5 M … $1.9 M

Now is when I do a little venting. I’d been predicting all month that A Christmas Carol would start to do better the closer we came to the Holiday season and nothing ever happened so I gave up on that idea. Then boom, a near-30 percent surge keeps it at No. 5. I don’t expect any more increases, but it should decline at a slower rate than most films at this time of year.

My other failure was that I slightly underestimated the fan base for Ninja Assassin (even though “Carol” kept it out of the Top 5 for me) and overestimated the wide release of Fantastic Mr. Fox, which did well, but only half of $15 M well and even then I thought I was underestimating.

I’m happy, however, because of my moral victory over Old Dogs. I flagged the shit out of this movie and enough other people did for it to pull just $16.9 M. Suddenly nobody’s slobbering all over creator Walt Becker’s over-the-hill movies anymore. He can forget about his plans for a future Christmas movie likely entitled “Yule Logs.”

The Road also impressed making the top ten in 111 theaters only.

Now on DVD: Observe and Report (2009) - 1.5/5 Stars

Somewhere between "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" and "Observe and Report," there has to be at least a decent movie about a mall security guard. Or maybe Hollywood should just forget about this cliché-ripe "genre" altogether.

"Observe and Report" is the latest film to shove a tubby comedian (Seth Rogen) into a mock police officer's uniform and endow him with an exaggerated sense of justice and self- importance. Ronnie Barnhardt is a gun-loving ignoramus who turns everything into a joke and believe it or not is surrounded by even less competent and pathetic co-workers. Their livelihood is threatened when a flasher begins visually assaulting people in the parking lot, namely Ronnie's crush, Brandi (Anna Faris) the shallow cosmetics girl, and the police (fronted by Ray Liotta) are brought in to handle the mess.

Ronnie is a pretty poorly executed character to begin with. By far Rogen's worst performance, Ronnie's idiot charms are not funny and he doesn't come off as lovable as creator Jody Hill intended. Hill's previous morally questionable protagonist, a karate instructor in "The Foot Fist Way" -- his debut film -- played by Danny McBride, was far more successful at earning sympathy despite an abundance of character flaws. McBride belongs in the role (he was reduced to a cameo) but Rogen got the part for having a bigger name.

It's actually kind of sad: Ronnie not only has big dreams for himself, but he has a history of psychosis and a temperamental moral compass that says it's okay to have sex with a girl who's drunk and vomiting but that it's not cool to steal from the mall. That's a hint as to how this comedy that purports itself as a run-of-the-mill ends up rearing its explicit, politically incorrect and shockingly dark head to an unsuspecting audience. It's pretty messed up and Hill wanted it that way, leading us in with a stereotypical cast of misfits and deadpan humor only to redirect us in a way that simply doesn't jive.

At one point when Ronnie's at his lowest, he turns to his friend Dennis, a Mexican security guard with a lisp, who says he knows exactly what Ronnie needs, which is hardcore drug usage of every kind. Conceptually, it's funny, but it's just kind of disturbing when you actually see it. Snorting cocaine and injecting heroine can only be so funny -- I know, who'd have thought? This is one of many ineffective soundtrack montages.

"Observe and Report" was supposed to be a politically incorrect comedy about what happens when your ridiculousness and reality are forced to confront each other, but the message I took away was that under no circumstances, ever, should you stop taking your medication if you're bipolar unless a doctor says it's okay. If you do, you'll start doing drugs, violently commit acts of civil disobedience and make the cute girl at the coffee counter who you're too dumb to notice cry her eyes out. If only we could be so wise.

1.5/5 Stars

"Observe and Report" (2009)

Written and Directed by: Jody Hill

Starring: Seth Rogen, Anna Faris, Ray Liotta

Now on DVD: Whatever Works (2009) - 3.5/5 Stars

For those wondering what happened to the old Woody Allen, here he is. "Whatever Works" is a script from the 1970s. I noticed that without even knowing Allen has been forthright about it. A few script rewrites -- talk about the Taliban and not the Communists -- and old Woody works in a modern context. Then again, "Whatever Works" is not a film that anyone will herald the second coming of great Woody Allen comedy, but it is one that will win over a handful of audience members.

"Whatever Works" is pure vintage Woody. Boris Yellnikoff (Larry David) is a cynical, neurotic and suicidal man that Allen would've played himself in 1977 had he been old enough. He's an elitist intellectual jerk who loves classical music and literature and spews life philosophy. He is a Harvard grad physicist-turned-chess-teacher who considers himself a genius and everyone else a peon. He delivers an opening monologue. He and the characters in this film go to the movies, reference movies and attend art gallery showcases -- and it takes place in New York. This is the comfort food of Woody Allen movies.

If one considers the film's title a mantra, then Allen must've applied it in casting Larry David. David ... works. He's got only a few gears as an actor and we've seen plenty of his main gear on HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm." We get lots more of it hear, only Boris spouts some of Woody's wittiest lines and insults of all time. It's great, but it comes with the price that Boris is a jerk and his thoughts about life -- we only grow closer to death, love is a waste of time, there's all this crap to worry about -- make him overbearing. It's to Allen's point, but it's difficult to listen to Boris at times.

In a twist of Allen's love for cosmic coincidence, Boris meets a 21-year-old runaway Southern girl named Melodie St. Anne Celestine (Evan Rachel Wood) who he takes in and via foot in the door, ends up letting stay. She's a completely naive and uneducated stereotype, the complete opposite of Boris and all Woody prototypes (with great purpose, however). Mistaking his crafty insults and fatalistic world view for great intelligence, Melodie develops a crush on him and Boris, with his "take what you can get/enjoy what you have" mentality, agrees to marry her. All manages to work until Melodie's mother (Patricia Clarkson) finds her in New York and her traditional views act as a major countering force to their relationship.

Allen's crafty little concoction about not being able to plan for life and love and all its overwhelming negatives that can pop up at any moment is nearly charming. Truthfully, it's a bit sophomoric for his capability level in terms of comedy. The Southern stereotyping, random sharp turn of events and his choice to break the fourth wall (in a film no less) might all be leading somewhere, but it's nothing you totally bite on. The situations are funny and interesting but not believable or sophisticated enough to convince you to start popping Allen's philosophy pills.

"Whatever Works" is neo-classical Woody Allen. It's like asking your mother to cook you something she always made when you were a kid only it's 40 years later and not all the same ingredients are present and she uses some different and not as sophisticated ones as a replacement. In other words not quite what it used to be, but it's still pleasantly palatable and it takes you back in a positive way.

3.5/5 Stars

"Whatever Works"

Directed by: Woody Allen

Written by: Woody Allen

Starring: Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood

Review: The Road - 4/5 Stars

The challenges awaiting Joe Penhall and John Hillcoat in adapting and directing (respectively) Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" had to be numerous. This post-apocalyptic father-and-son story about whether struggling to survive as long as possible is worth the pain is a bleak tale and one that grinds along much of the time. It doesn't have more than a handful of eventful or visually stimulating scenes. They manage, however, to not only be faithful to McCarthy's elegy, but also add great details to make it into a solid film.

For starters, Penhall gives us more context than the novel provides in terms of what's happened to turn the world into a barren place. Fires, earthquakes and other natural disasters have devastated the landscape and although we don't experience what it was exactly that was horrible enough to drive people to kill themselves instead of endure it and drove many to looting and cannibalism, we still understand the gravity of the situation. In this way, "The Road" is more inviting to those who've never read the book and need help suspending disbelief.

The script also stays true to the book's structure. The book is a series of brief paintings with candid dialogue between father (Viggo Mortensen) and son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) as they try to survive and reach the southern coast where they won't have to try and last through another brutal winter. The scenes are strung together without any traditional "acts" dividing up the story. The film delivers in this way, but it expands and breaks up this grinding structure with flashbacks/dreams which is helpful for the lesser attention spans of movie watchers.

Most additions to the original story are to clarify context and also add emotional impact. The mother (Charlize Theron) is not part of the main story, but she's woven in through dreams and flashbacks. We see her give birth to the son in the midst of this apocalypse and how her regret bringing him into the world clashes with the father's steadfast belief in survival at all costs. We see brief moments of her and the father in love, too, and his character becomes much more emotionally complex. Instead of being just the brave, cunning hero, Mortensen also plays the widower and the emotional mentor to his son. He works all these facets to his character into a truly excellent performance that's believable in every way.

Hillcoat tries to add where he can as well, focusing a lot on hands and finding really touching or moving shots that effectively echo McCarthy's narrative snapshots in the book. He also spares no detail. Great credit to the thorough realism in the make-up, props and costumes department; images of dirt caked in all the characters' fingernails linger as does the greasiness of their hair and beards and the dirt on their faces. When father and son find an empty home where they can shower, watching the dirt come off them has far more of an impact than it does in any other film. Wounds are also focused on for shock value -- there's a concerted effort to shake any viewer that might be too complacent and not realize the gravity of the characters' situation.

Much of what made McCarthy's story award-winning is captured by this film. There isn't much of an effort to go beyond some of those basic concepts or really hammer them in deep, but on the flip-side it aims for emotional impact, something far more universally appreciated at the movie theater than a deep meditation on human nature or how much it's worth fighting to stay alive with grim chances of dying anything but a painful or reluctant death. Instead of leaving the film with deeper philosophical/ethical questions, we get a touching story of father and son doing anything to stay with each other as long as they can, which is a fair trade off. Ideally we get both, but a job well done considering the challenging nature of the source material.

4/5 Stars

"The Road"

Directed by: John Hillcoat

Written by: Joe Pendhall, Cormac McCarthy (novel)

Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee

Archive Review: Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) - 3/5 Stars

Kurt Vonnegut Jr's book "Slaughterhouse-Five" is a classic and the film version gets by on this fact alone. The rather faithful adaptation is enough to satisfy fans of the novel, but not even the great George Roy Hill can manage to turn Stephen Geller's uninspired script into a more meaningful movie experience.

To its credit, the film does find a handful of moments to illustrate how its main character, Billy Pilgrim (Michael Sacks), is unstuck in time. Vonnegut Jr's book is all about its fragmented and displaced structure, making the film's transitions key to visually re-creating "Slaughterhouse-Five." A number of these transitions work nicely, but mostly they feel like shifts between Billy during the war, Billy and his family life and Billy on the planet Tralfamador. They're sometimes quick and uncreative and we fail to ever fully enter Billy's shoes.

It's a shame, because Billy Pilgrim is an easy character to sympathize with. His horror stories as a prisoner of war in Germany, living through the bombing of Dresden and the unsatisfactory marriage that he's sort of participating in are emblematic of many average peoples' lives. Compound that with the idea that he experiences his life out of order, unable to put anything in the past or avoid the future and his existence is something we can't help but wonder how we would handle -- and ultimately be glad we don't have to.

Part of the problem is that Vonnegut Jr's beautiful but difficult prose is lost. Say "So it goes" at the end of a sentence and any literature lover will get your reference. The phrase doesn't so much as earn a cameo to my recollection in the entire film. Rarely does a film beg for a film-making technique like "Slaughterhouse-Five," but it's painfully obvious that it needs voice-over narration, or some kind of guiding force to help us through this structurally disjointed journey.

Hill and Geller create some nice moments that weren't notable or even included in the book, but it's all throwaway without something to tie it together, something to complicate Vonnegut Jr's themes and allude to the epiphany about time at the climax. Instead, Pilgrim's explanation of time in the final ten minutes is the crux of the entire film, the only moment that really exposes the goal of the story's chronological experiment.

Geller's adaptation is just not enough. It's satisfying and faithful, but it doesn't leave an imprint like the novel does. The screenplay doesn't match the intensity of the creative energy from Vonnegut Jr's classic, it merely attempts to mimic it in the most basic way.

3/5 Stars

"Slaughterhouse-Five" (1972)

Directed by: George Roy Hill

Written by: Stephen Geller, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (novel)

Starring: Michael Sacks, Ron Liebman, Sharon Gans, Valeri Perrine

Weekend Preview (11.25.09)

I have a lot of fond memories of seeing movies on Thanksgiving Break as a child. After nearly three months of school, to go to the movie theater and enjoy something during a weeknight knowing you don’t have to go to school the next day is pure bliss.

The movies I remember seeing the most? Toy Story and Toy Story 2. Talk about going to see a great movie with that precious time off of school. This was back before Disney/Pixar’s regular slot was early June, when they owned Thanksgiving week. Now, they still have a piece of it, but Old Dogs is far from Toy Story.

This would’ve been a great time for The Princess and the Frog, but apparently they are tiptoeing and wading slowly in with that one, trying to generate positive reviews with a limited release first and avoiding direct competition with The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Instead, we get middle-aged actor crap.

That doesn’t mean the Thanksgiving movie tradition should end. My preference, however, is not relegated to PG. Today, we get the overdue release of The Road and even then that’s not as wide as initially expected. I’ll still be making it my priority, however, to see it.

Other options are stylish action flick Ninja Assassin and as previously stated, the wide release of Wes Anderson’s stop motion cartoon The Fantastic Mr. Fox.

My Endorsement: Film festival buzz has been so positive for The Road, I was of the book and I think Viggo Mortensen is perfect for the father. With a bit of action to keep things interesting and small roles by Guy Pearce and Robert Duvall thrown in, this is sure to be worthwhile.

Red Flag: Much like its director’s rhyming predecessor starring John Travolta entitled Wild Hogs, Old Dogs might be good for a few laughs, if the old blunt-object-to-the-balls gag gets you every time. This will be exactly the kind of movie you’ll be glad you didn’t pay for and instead saw for free on the airplane on your way to Spring Break. There’s also no William H. Macy, who made Wild Hogs work at all, plain and simple. Seth Green is also not a redeeming factor. Avoid.

Box Office Prediction: When a film conquers the box office as mightily as The Twilight Saga: New Moon did, it’s hard to figure just how closer to Earth it might fall in just one week. Considering it was poorly reviewed and received by most people, I’m using Spider-Man 3 as a comparison. The only difference here is that Spider-Man has a bigger following and nothing strong enough came out that next week to compete. Having said that, it’s reasonable to expect, The Twilight Saga: New Moon to make about $40 million in its second week, which would be good enough beat Old Dogs no matter how many new tricks they may or more likely may not have learned. The film should eek out second place, however, with something near $30 million

Then it’s time to look at returners. The Blind Side is really the only movie working with positive reviews as it rolls into week 2. Modestly predicting how far it will fall, I’m going to say about $18 million.

Next, I’m going to slate The Fantastic Mr. Fox with about $15 million, though I think I’m grossly underestimating it here due to Thanksgiving weekend and all. With positive reviews and at least the appearance of being kid-friendly, it should do very well in wide release.

That’s also the reason I’ve got 2012 at the five spot. It should earn around the $15 million mark as well, but I’ve got more faith in “Mr. Fox” earning more.

I feel pretty good about this prediction; my research was more thorough than usual. We’ll see how it shakes out.

1. New Moon
2. Old Dogs
3. The Blind Side
4. The Fantastic Mr. Fox
5. 2012

Archive Review: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990) - 3.5/5 Stars

Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead" is a brilliant existential twist on a classic story (Shakespeare's "Hamlet") and classic storytelling. It's sharp, witty, well-acted and thought-provoking in any number of ways, being both memorably absurd and surprisingly truthful.

It's hard to scrutinize, but the truth is that Stoppard's Tony-winning 1968 play doesn't offer an ounce of proof as to why it belongs on the screen. It's a contemplative story, one that's heavy and dependent on dialogue. It's the struggle of all stage-to-screen adaptations, but where others have succeeded in shedding new light through that transition, Stoppard's re- imagining of his own work lacks a visual edge, perhaps explain why he never took up the director's chair again.

The story follows "Hamlet" characters Rosencrantz (Gary Oldman) and Guildenstern (Tim Roth), two remarkably unimportant characters from the play who are part of the tragedy's final body count for no reason other than being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Stoppard's story explores the play from their perspective: Were they even aware of what was unfolding around them? What was the point of them being there -- their purpose? Why did they die? These questions also fuel the film.

Stoppard paints them as goofball characters that despite great wit and sophistication, remain completely oblivious to everything around them until it's too late and their prescribed fate takes over. Roth and Oldman handle these extremely random conversations that bounce between the literal and figurative playfully yet with great strength. They're a heck of a duo. Rosencrantz also has a knack for discovering basic laws of physics but then losing them amidst his and Guildenstern's struggle to figure out what exactly it is they're doing in all of this Hamlet business. Stoppard uses these examples and a fitting opening bit about the probability of a coin flip to suggest the conflict between randomness and order in life and nature.

Also significant is the group of traveling tragedians led by Richard Dreyfuss, who end up being the ones to put on the play that Hamlet uses to catch his Uncle Claudius realizing his sin. They add the element of theater and tragedy into the meditative stew, reminding us that this story ("Hamlet") is indeed a work of fiction that was created to a purpose. He preaches in fate, that in tragedy everyone who dies dies because that is what's expected of them.

It's a real head-churner, but as philosophically impressive as it is, none of that juicy thought is derived from the visual experience of the film. What characters say in this film is ten times more important than what they do, or namely how they do it. Stoppard throws in some smaller visual elements and undoubtedly he must've added something to the screenplay that wasn't on the stage. After all, he had nearly 20 years to think about his work between the play and the film, so naturally he would've wanted to make some changes. But nothing about the way he films this story enhances the existential dialogue between characters as well as between film and audience.

Having never seen the play, "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead" was an enjoyable, thought-provoking film experience, but I would imagine having already been exposed to its meta-exploratory ingenuity, those coming to the film with previous exposure might not feel anything more fulfilling than simply seeing it in a three-dimensional world.

3.5/5 Stars

"Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead" (1990)

Written and Directed by Tom Stoppard

Starring: Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, Richard Dreyfuss

New on DVD and Blu-ray: Angels & Demons (2009) - 3/5 Stars

Here's a link to my Funny People review, another DVD released today

If we learned anything from the film adaptation of "The Da Vinci Code," it's that Dan Brown's best-selling religion-centered mystery novels don't translate into great films. Entertaining, sure, but great, no. The dialogue gets bogged down with historical explanation and the characters get little attention because there's simply no time with all the symbol decoding. But box office receipts are another story: "Da Vinci" fell just sort of earning twice its budget, so great film or not, there would be "Angels & Demons." Not surprisingly, this film suffers from the same deficiencies despite being a bit better.

I have read both books and seen both movies and "Angels & Demons" the film is easily a notch better than its film predecessor. Unlike "Da Vinci," focused on the mostly little known ideas of the sacred feminine, "Angels" is about the inner-workings of the Catholic Church, which requires considerably less audience educating than the sacred feminine. Writer Akiva Goldsman, who penned both Brown adaptations, doesn't have to waste all his time explaining the history/mythology as he did in "Da Vinci" ... only most of it.

"Angels" is more of a thriller and a tad better suited for film than "Da Vinci." This film is a sprint from start to finish, taking place in under 24 hours and its premise is very simple: 15 minutes in you learn that a legendary group of scientists from the 17th century who were persecuted by the church have risen again and threatened to kill four cardinals every hour starting at 7 p.m. and follow that up at midnight by exploding the Vatican with anti-matter - - unless Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon (Hanks) and an Italian anti-matter scientist (Ayelet Zurer) can stop them by decoding a set of ancient clues planted throughout Rome. The suspense comes much easier because they have to solve the clues on time or people die. "Da Vinci" was much less straightforward. This moves quick and is consequently more entertaining. It also doesn't hurt that the backdrop for the story is the stunningly beautiful Rome: it's more dazzling to watch.

As for the problems being the same, Tom Hanks is yet again wasted talent. He has the Robert Langdon look and the reputation to bring in profits, but his character just has to sound like he knows what he's talking about and spit out mythology and history quick enough so that we can get on to the next scene. Of course Hanks does this well, but anyone could. These films just have no room to develop character or elicit any emotion from the audience. At least this time, Goldsman and acclaimed director Ron Howard don't even pretend like they can create catharsis and focus on making this film as fast-paced and thrilling as possible. They succeed here better than in "Da Vinci" and smart artists don't make the same mistakes twice.

Viewers that read the books, saw "Da Vinci" and still didn't like "Angels & Demons" have no one to blame but themselves for giving in and buying tickets to see something proved not to translate well into film despite being in the hands of a master like Howard. Anyone who walks in and expects to at least be entertained by a mystery for 2 hours with no expectation of being as good of the book will find they get exactly what they paid for and maybe even find it was better than "Da Vinci."

3/5 Stars

"Angels & Demons" (2009)

Directed by: Ron Howard

Written by: David Koepp, Akiva Goldsman, Dan Brown (novel)

Starring: Tom Hanks, Ayelet Zurer, Ewan McGregor

Weekend Recap: New Moon, New Record

Whoa. I knew you people liked vampires, but you really like vampires. If you haven’t heard by now, The Twilight Saga: New Moon now ranks third in all-time opening weekends with a whopping $140 million take. It also ranks No. 1 in single day ticket sales with the $72.7 million it made on Friday alone.

It’s a new milestone for bad movies trying to kill at the box office. “New Moon” is now the most successful movie based on a book ever. Depending on how the total gross shakes out, “New Moon” could eclipse (unfortunate pun) every Harry Potter film, all of which were better than this movie, probably. Thanks to your unfailing support of this book series and craving to see those stories come to life on the big screen no matter the cost or quality, producers everywhere are going to try and give us more stuff like the “Twilight” series.

So you had your itch scratched to see Bella, Edward and Jacob’s next adventure in abstinent romance, but is that worth the message of “who cares about quality, give us familiarity” being broadcast in dollar signs to the doorstep of every producer in Hollywood?

I can’t say I don’t love it when books that I’m a fan of make it to the big screen. There’s an undeniable allure there, but I can’t say I’d go opening weekend no matter what if the movie got a scathing review.

There’s already massive oppression of adapted material over original material in the movies. There was a report recently published across most film sites pointing out how few films that won Best Picture were original works. The success of “New Moon” (while not part of the Oscar conversation, obviously) is more ammunition for producers to say no to aspiring writers with original ideas. In other words, for every District 13 there’s a “New Moon” reminding producers that it’s a far better investment to make a movie from something that already has a fan base/following.

So yes, if you saw “New Moon,” particularly if you’re not a big fan but you went anyway, you should feel a bit guilty after reading this post. As exciting as new records are, they shake the industry. I’m sure this week alone studios will secure the rights to 50 different vampire or romance or tweenage-centeric books and more than ever those projects will be put into production whereas previously there was skepticism.

1. The Twilight Saga: New Moon - $140.7 M (weekend) … $140.7 M (gross)
2. The Blind Side - $34.1 M … $34.1 M
3. 2012 - $26.4 M … $108.1 M
4. Planet 51 - $12.28 M … $12.28 M
5. A Christmas Carol - $12.27 M … $79.8 M
6. Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire - $10.9 M … $21.3 M
7. The Men Who Stare at Goats - $2.8 M … $27.7 M
8. Couples Retreat - $1.9 M … $105 M
9. The Fourth Kind - $1.7 M … $23.3 M
10. This Is It - $1.6 M … $70.2 M

Appropriately, inspirational true sports story The Blind Side blindsided most prognosticators to be the biggest surprise. I had pegged it as a possible dark horse but nevertheless predicted it to finish only fourth, so I can’t give myself too much credit.

For a sports film, that’s an impressive pull and you can give all the credit to Miss Sandra Bullock. Make no mistake, the difference between $20 and 35 million is definitely Bullock and her undeniable appeal to women filmgoers.

There’s no obvious flop this week, but 2012 dropping off as much as it did in its second week says something about the film’s long-term staying power. It might not make the Top 5 next weekend.

A Christmas Carol also went down more than expected. I figured the closer it got to Christmas, the better off this film would be, but it’s not close enough to Christmas yet. Perhaps the lesser drop off will occur next weekend, but almost a month into its run, that might be tough.

Out of the spotlight, Precious continued to climb upward taking in nearly twice as much as last weekend in an additional 455 theaters, but not enough to hang with the big releases. Also continuing to improve is An Education, the English indie ‘60s period romantic drama partly written by Nick Hornby (About a Boy, High Fidelity)

Check back for my weekend preview on Wednesday thanks to the holiday. I’ll still be predicting the 3-day weekend totals, but I’d have an unfair advantage by looking at the Wednesday and Thursday numbers to tell what would happen over the weekend.

Archive Review: Amores Perros (2000) - 4.5/5 Stars

"Amores Perros" is a three-vignette film that's not so much concerned about creating a harmonic epiphany among its three plot lines, but rather it aims for compelling stories with a brutally honest portrayal of life, love, sin and redemption. Getting a unified message out of the film is about as difficult as translating its title.

Literally translated the title doesn't make much sense, but "amores" translates to loved ones or while "perros" literally means dogs but is also an obvious pejorative for lowly people such as criminals. The title can also be broken into "Amor es Perros" which means "Love's a Bitch." All of these are fitting for the film and their multitude is appropriate considering the open- ended nature of the truths the film preaches.

Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and writer Guillermo Arriaga give us three stories from Mexico City that are biblical in nature, each named for the two focal characters of the given story. All the stories deal with violence in some way, crime, love and lastly, each has a vital connection to dogs. Each story is as complicated as human beings ought to be portrayed in film. The characters are people of great love and passion, but with great capacity for error and sin. The dogs in their lives serve as instigators of conflict, distractions, sources of comfort and more, taking the emotion of these difficult stories to the next level.

"Octavio y Susana" is about Susana, a young married woman with a baby who lives with her abusive criminal husband, Ramiro, and her brother-in-law Octavio (Gael Garcia Bernal), who keeps asking her to run away with him. Octavio trains the family dog, Cofi, to fight and wins money that he uses to support her and convince her to leave Ramiro.

"Valeria y Daniel" is about a supermodel, Valeria, who is having an affair with Daniel, a businessman married with children. Daniel buys them an apartment announcing he's leaving his wife when a horrible car accident caused by the characters of the first story puts Valeria in a wheelchair. Both the incident and the disappearance of their dog, Ritchie, under the floorboards of the apartment tears at their relationship.

"El Chivo y Maru" is given to us in bits and pieces throughout the first two but eventually gets its own focus at the end. El Chivo (Emilio Echevarria) is the film's most complicated character. Seen in the beginning as a homeless man with a half dozen dogs who also doubles as an assassin, we learn that he left his wife and daughter to be a guerrilla fighter and landed in prison for 20 years, at which point he wanted his daughter to believe he was dead. After he was let out, the man who captured him gave him a place to stay and employed him as an assassin. During the story he tries to carry out a job while gathering the courage to see his daughter again.

The summaries might be long, but grasping the compelling circumstances, complication and depth of each story is essential to understanding what "Amores Perros" is trying to do. The stories are meant to show us the many facets of life and human nature. The film is not trying to find that one common denominator, but the several. We're supposed to experience internally somehow that connection that makes all of the film's difficult stories clear, not be lectured on it by the filmmakers.

"Amores Perros" is not a film for people looking for cathartic satisfaction from movies. There is no moment of feeling "at one" with the film or that pleasant feeling when you feel all the loose ends are tied up. It's also one that animal-lovers should be careful with. There's a lot of suggested animal violence -- dogs that appear to be bloody and or dying. It's a tragic and beautiful (in the literary sense) comparison to the brutality of human nature in the film, but it's not one that's easy to handle.

Most people, however, will appreciate the great storytelling and intensely interesting characters and events in this 2.5-hour film.

4.5/5 Stars

"Amores Perros" (2000)

Directed by: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Written by: Guillermo Arriaga

Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal, Emilio Echevarria, Goya Toledo

Archive Review: Food, Inc. (2008) - 4/5 Stars

Robert Kenner's documentary "Food, Inc." sounds like something you've heard of before. When Eric Schlosser's book "Fast Food Nation" first woke America up to the horrific way that fast food meat is processed and Morgan Spurlock's documentary "Super Size Me" exposed the deadly health concerns of too much fast food, most Americans began to associate fast food with unhealthy food. The organic food movement began to take off and most well- educated Americans began to take what's in their food more seriously. But it hasn't been enough -- "Food, Inc." breaks down why in this highly educational investigative film.

The documentary highlights the problem on a corporate scale. Although we appear to have a wealth of options at the supermarket, just because we're not buying from the big companies or going to the fast food restaurants as much doesn't mean we're not buying from the same process. The food industry has changed so much over the last 50 years because of the big companies that the way cattle, chicken and pigs are raised have completely changed. The battle for healthier and safer food goes beyond choosing fast food.

Kenner visits chicken farmers who are basically controlled by the big industry names. Not moving toward more engineering and efficiency is cause for loss of contract. These farmers are constantly in debt to meet these standards imposed by the major brands and thus have to meet them in order to work out of debt. He talks to a soybean cleaner being run out of business by Monsanto, the company that engineered a pesticide-resistant soybean and won the right to enforce that patent so that no farmer could save an unused engineered bean.

The strength of the food lobby and the business people making the policy decisions in government is incredible. Kenner shows us how protected they are, reminding us of when Oprah was sued for saying she wouldn't eat another burger on her show and had to fight forever before winning the case. The disconnect between the decision-makers and the farmers is vast.

"Food, Inc." also tries to inform us as much as possible for ways to instigate change, rather than let us be completely overwhelmed by the apparent lack of control both the public and farmers have over food production. There are people out there fighting (such as the mother- turned-advocate of a boy who died of e.coli infection) and there's proof that consumer choice can drive even the giants like Wal-Mart to do things like only provide milk from cows without growth hormone.

It also doesn't lean on the many possible gross-out factors. If you've been eating processed meat all your life, you won't come out of this film saying "I'm going to be a vegetarian," but you'll be wiser when it comes to your food purchases and who you support (namely organic and local brands) when you are at the grocery store.

Food production has changed so much that it feels like "Food, Inc." is opening up a huge can of worms in terms of just how much is wrong with the process, but the awareness that it will create in each of its viewers is enough to justify the documentary's broad scope.

4/5 Stars

"Food, Inc." (2008)

Directed by: Robert Kenner

Weekend Preview (11.20.09)

This is one of those weekends where you avoid movie times after 5 and before 9 pm. Unless you are an adolescent girl or you like being around crowds of them (if the latter applies to you, I hope to God you’re an adolescent boy), pick your showtimes wisely.

The first blockbuster of the season, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, hit theaters at midnight. The film adaptation of the second book in Stephenie Meyer’s series of vampire romance novels had record-breaking pre-sales and is surely poised to outdo its predecessor, a film that made about $70 million in its opening weekend.

So I reiterate: vampire romance. That’s all you need to hear to know what the crowds will be like in theaters all over the country.

For those of you non-fans wondering if it will be worth swimming through seas of Twi-hards to learn if New Moon will be better than the last film that you took a chance on, don’t count on it. Early reviews have said this is fan-fare only and that the believability doesn’t get any better from Twilight. With Chris Weitz at the helm I thought this would at least be more entertaining, but it looks to be another cash-earning clunker for the series.

There’s not much else to get excited about this weekend. Sony tries to take the family audience from A Christmas Carol with its alien invasion role-reversal comedy Planet 51, the studio’s first major attempt at computer animation feature films which will likely fall short.

The other contender is inspirational football drama The Blind Side based on the true story of Baltimore Ravens rookie tackle Michael Oher. It’s the only film drawing positive early reviews (60% on Rotten Tomatoes), yet one I flagged in my preview because of my dislike for Sandra Bullock and tired sports movies. As a sports fan, however, I’m impressed that they used the real college coaches that recruited Oher in the movie. Other than that, not interested.

My Endorsement: By now, Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire has probably reached a theater near you. With no must-sees coming out (unless you’re a Twilight fan), it might finally be time to see that first difficult but award-worthy drama of the season.

Red Flag: Because of the poor early reviews, The Twilight Saga: New Moon becomes my film to be wary of (once again, not including the books’ fans). This is one of those movies that fans are going to try and drag their non-fan friends to because they have to see it, and you might be that non-fan friend, so I’m arming you with things to say when you’re being roped.

Box Office Prediction: There’s an old saying in the world of box-office predictions and by old I mean circa 2008: don’t bet against Edward and Bella. The Twilight Saga: New Moon will be the second poorly reviewed movie in a row to dominate the box office and it will do so with ease. With last year’s film making $70 M, I predict at least that much if not more. This film will not take a step back, that’s for sure. For all the people that won’t be fooled twice, the Twi-hard army has gained twice as many new followers.

None of the other movies have enough to compete with last week’s champion, 2012, so expect another good weekend for the disaster flick at about $25-30 million. No. 3 will belong to A Christmas Carol. At this point, the closer it gets to Christmas, the stronger the legs will get for the animated film. It only dropped 25 percent in its second weekend, which is very little. Look for $15-20 million there.

Next should be new release The Blind Side. With decent reviews, real-world sports ties and Sandra Bullock, $15 M should be possible at the least. If I had to pick a dark horse to come up and surprise, this could be it, but it seems doubtful that it could upset “Carol.”

Finally, as mediocre as Planet 51 might be, the positioning is ideal with the weekend before Thanksgiving and kids have school off as early as Monday in some cases. Even if Precious expands fairly wide, it doesn’t seem likely to outdo it. I’m going to downplay this one, however, and predict it for $8-10 M. With “Carol” as competition and the fact that space-based animation films don’t do all that well unless they’re named WALL*E (take last month's Astro Boy for instance and previous flops Fly Me to the Moon and Space Chimps.)

1. Twilight Saga: New Moon
2. 2012
3. A Christmas Carol
4. The Blind Side
5. Planet 51