Directed by J.J. Abrams
Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Bruce Greenwood and Alice Eve
Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure
132 Mins
PG-13
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Comic Review: Bikini Cowboy
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Friday, 17 May 2013 15:14
- Written by Renzo Adler
It’s time for a history lesson, kids. According to the information zeitgeist that is Wikipedia, the bikini was invented in 1946 by Louis Réard. Monsieur Réard named the two-piece after the Bikini Atoll, home to the world changing nuclear bomb tests. So what is a woman doing wearing a bikini and carrying a surfboard in the American west in 1812?
Bikini Cowboy by Fresherluke initially grabbed me because its title and premise sounded like cheap schlock, but I stuck with it because it was funny, charming, and has some genuine pathos. Whisky Jill is the titular Cowboy that wanders the desert with her anachronistic clothes and surfboard. Hints are dropped that Jill is not of this era, but thankfully, the story never drags out tired tropes from time traveling tales. Jill rescues a young boy named Rod that is wanted by some dangerous men because he possesses a strange power. Together the two evade Rod’s greedy pursuers, while Jill is dogged by a viscous Marshall with a predilection for quoting Bible verse.
One of the great things about this story is that there are all sorts of little touches of the strange and fantastic, but the story doesn’t feel the need to explain them, they just are. Some might complain that this gives the story an anything goes set of rules, but really it keeps things fun and charming.
Weber’s art has a great sense of motion, so it’s no surprise that he also works in the animation industry. The character’s expressions flow from panel to panel, everyone is very elastic, and Jill in particular is posed like a coiled spring. The sketch like quality of the art helps to give the western locales and characters a sense of grit, though there are few parts where I felt like the line-work could be a bit more refined.
The characters of Whisky Jill and Rod are not extremely complex, but that’s okay because they’re very charming and the way they help each other and get to know one another doesn’t feel forced. Rod never feels like just some kid that follows the hero and Jill isn’t simply talking eye-candy. The dangers the two face, and the joys they discover bring them closer in a way that feels natural.
The story also frequently touches upon themes related to faith, what with the Bible quoting villain, and Jill’s quest. There is a potential for someone to have a knee-jerk reaction and think that the story is saying “Christianity bad, animism good,” but that aspect of the story is more nuanced. I don’t want to get into spoilers, so I’ll just say that the story makes a distinction between having a character be guided by faith, and having a character use faith as a justification for their actions.
Bikini Cowboy is the sort of story that could have just been some cheap thrills, but turned out to have, fun characters, tense action, and genuine charm. It is definitely worth checking out. Bikini Cowboy is currently available from Comixology for a pittance as part of their Comixology Submit program, which allows indie creators to self publish their works through Comixology's online service.
Film Review: "Star Trek Into Darkness" Is a Cluttered Letdown
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Friday, 17 May 2013 12:23
- Written by Matt Oakes
"Star Trek into Darkness"
Directed by J.J. Abrams
Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Bruce Greenwood and Alice Eve
Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure
132 Mins
PG-13
Directed by J.J. Abrams
Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Bruce Greenwood and Alice Eve
Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure
132 Mins
PG-13
I'd be lying if I said that J.J. Abram's Star Trek into Darkness isn't a bit of a misfire. Beleaguered with sky-high expectation, anything short of true greatness was destined to drag this sequel down and, sadly enough, Abram let this film flutter into darkness. Between the numerous character reveals, the big action set pieces, and the bounty of threats to the USS Enterprise, there's just too much going on. So much, in fact, that Abrams never lets it settle into one thread for long enough to really generate and grow our interest and our sympathy. Instead, it charges at light speed from plot point to plot point, forgetting to make the pit stops along the way that we would remember for years to come.
May '13 Digital Week II
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 13 May 2013 00:58
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Barrymore
(Image)
Finally here’s a filmed record of Christopher Plummer’s enchantingly witty interpretation of another great actor, John Barrymore, in William Luce’s one-man (but two-voice) play—for which Plummer won the 1997 Best Actor Tony Award.
Director Erik Canuel keeps the focus tightly on Plummer, whose juicily idiosyncratic performance is a glorious capper on an unrivaled career. The Blu-ray image is excellent; Backstage with Barrymore, an hour-long making-of documentary, is the lone extra.
(Echo Bridge)
Stephen Frears’ wickedly black 1990 comedy, with a superb script by Donald Westlake from Jim Thompson’s novel, follows a trio of con artists pitted against one another. The dream cast comprises Angelica Huston and John Cusack as estranged mother and son and Annette Bening, hilarious and erotic as a sexpot who shed allegiances more quickly than her clothes.
Too bad that Bening’s marriage to Warren Beatty derailed her career for awhile. The Blu-ray image, as on all Echo Bridge releases, is underwhelming; extras are Frears’ commentary and on-set interviews.
The Hoax
(Echo Bridge)
(Echo Bridge)Lasse Hallstrom will never return to the sublime heights of his 1985 masterpiece My Life as a Dog; but of his American films, this 2007 comic drama comes closest with its tongue-in-cheek look at Clifford Irving’s Howard Hughes forgeries, with little of the sentimentality that marred even The Cider House Rules.
Richard Gere gives a rare unbridled performance as Irving, and the supporting cast—Hope Davis, Marcia Gay Harden, Alfred Molina—is equally good. The movie looks decent on hi-def; extras comprise Hallstrom’s commentary, deleted scenes, making-of footage.
(New Video)
The new animated feature by the creator of the uneven biopic Gainsbourg shows off director Joann Safr’s visual ideas at their most playful and pure.
The earlier film’s best bits were surreal puppetry; this story of a feline who begins to talk after eating a parrot has visuals that are the equivalent of the irreverent cat’s profane but philosophical musings, which shock everyone with their religious and moral provocations. The Blu-ray’s bright colors look exquisite; extras are a making-of segment and featurette on Safr.
Safe Haven
(Fox)
(Fox)After My Life as a Dog, Lasse Hallstrom left Sweden for crass work in Hollywood, where he’s become a go-to director for potboilers and melodramas (with the odd witty entry like The Hoax, above), and this silly Nicholas Sparks adaptation is yet another.
Julianne Hough, not a serious—or even semi-serious—actress, provides a credibility hit, but Josh Duhamel’s presence is more on the romantic mark. The Blu-ray image looks good enough; extras include alternate ending, deleted scenes and featurettes.
(Music Box)
Sean Baker’s well-meaning but amateurish character study about an unlikely bond between a young porn actress and an elderly lady remains trite, despite Baker’s obvious empathy for his characters. His heart is certainly in the right place, but a game cast (led by Dree Hemingway, Mariel’s daughter, and Besedka Johnson in the leads) can’t make this flat-footed drama any more affecting.
Stella Maeve makes an indelible impression as a drugged-out porn failure. The Blu-ray image, while soft, looks pretty good; extras include Baker’s commentary, featurettes, behind the scenes footage and interviews.
Upstream Color
(New Video)
(New Video)Actor-turned-director Shane Carruth has been watching too much Kubrick and Malick, if this second feature, a willfully obscure—but exceedingly preposterous and quite quickly ponderous—sci-fi feature is any indication. In his familiar-looking drab world where the heroine is implanted with a worm that places her under another’s control, Carruth confuses portentousness with pretentiousness.
This melancholy romance and lament for our alienated society is too simplistic, and Carruth relies on other, better directors’ movies to make his not so original points. The Blu-ray looks immaculate.
Broadway Musicals—A Jewish Legacy
(Athena)
The history of the American musical, with a few exceptions, overflows with the talents of Jewish lyricists and composers, which this 90-minute documentary sketches intelligently and entertainingly.
Moving from the Gershwins to Jerry Herman, Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim, Broadway Musicals (narrated by Joel Grey) is crammed with interviews, old and new, with many luminaries, and generous clips from shows like Cabaret and Fiddler on the Roof. This trip down memory lane doesn’t skimp on the historical and cultural significance of these creators. An extra disc has more interviews and musical selections.
The Great Gatsby—Midnight in Manhattan
(BBC)
(BBC)In anticipation of the new Gatsby movie (rather ludicrously shot in 3D), this 2000 documentary about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most famous novel gets re-released. Narrated by Tara Fitzgerald and including interviews with biographers and literary experts, the 47-minute doc abridges the history of its genesis, a video equivalent of Cliffs Notes about Fitzgerald’s classic work.
An extra is a BBC version of the play Private Affairs: A Dream of Living, about Fitzgerald, wife Zelda and Ernest Hemingway, with David Hemmings.
(Mill Creek)
These DVD sets illuminate a great 19th century martyr and the most evil 20th century dictator. The Reich set comprises 10 Charlton Heston-narrated documentaries, the most interesting being Hitler’s Last Days.
The 10-disc Lincoln Chronicles is dominated by Sandberg’s Lincoln, a five-hour 1974 mini-series with a forceful Hal Holbrook in a far subtler and wide-ranging portrayal of Honest Abe than Daniel Day Lewis in Spielberg’s biopic. Beware: the order of Sandberg’s Lincoln episodes is jumbled. D.W. Griffith’s epic 1930 feature, Abraham Lincoln, is also included.
Private Practice—Season 6 (Warners) and
The Roman Holidays—Complete Series (Warner Archive)
The Roman Holidays—Complete Series (Warner Archive)The final season of the current hit medical drama Private Practice—starring Kate Walsh and Benjamin Bratt—is wrapped up on a three-disc set that includes all 13 episodes and extras like deleted scenes and bloopers.
The often cringingly unfunny The Roman Holidays—a Flintstones/Jetsons rip-off that’s set in ancient Rome—is on a two-DVD set that contains all 13 episodes of its first (and only) season, which was in 1972.
(Sony)
Robert Harling’s humane if occasionally sappy play—which I saw in its first-rate off-Broadway incarnation in 1989—first became a saccharine movie with Julia Roberts.
The new version, which features an all-black cast (Queen Latifah, Phylicia Rashad, Alfre Woodard), is played more for laughs like the play was—but without the original’s perfect balance—but it provides the requisite tears of a movie on the Lifetime network.
CDs of the Week
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau (Aparte)
Romanian soprano Teodora Gheorghiu and pianist Jonathan Aner pair up for this sparkling recital of songs from the early 20th century, when expressionism, modernism and romanticism coalesced.
Two ravishing Richard Strauss cycles—including the Ophelia Lieder—and a charming Alexander Zemlinsky set give way to several elegant melodies by Maurice Ravel, followed by Ottorino Respighi’s lovely Deita Silvane, as Gheorghiu moves easily from German to French to Italian.
(Decca)
It must be nice to call five friends who are world-class musicians to play sublime music: but that’s what violinist Janine Jansen did for this exceptional disc of chamber masterpieces from the beginning and end of the 19th century.
Arnold Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night, which started clearing the path to modernity in 1899, is played with pungency and refinement, while Franz Schubert’s String Quintet—a towering work written just before the 31-year-old Schubert died in 1828—has the essential balance of weight and melancholy, particularly that draining marathon first movement.
Film Review: "The Great Gatsby" Is More Like the Pretty Good Gatsby
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Saturday, 11 May 2013 08:42
- Written by Matt Oakes
"The Great Gatsby"
Directed by Baz Luhrmann
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey MacGuire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton, Elizabeth Debicki
Drama, Romance
143 Mins
PG-13
Cut through the glitzy spectacle of Baz Luhrmann's ambitious adaptation of The Great Gatsby and you'll find the same enthusiastic spirit that defined Fitzgerald's timeless opus about tragic love amidst the underbelly of American opulence. Rather than stripping the story down, Luhrmann indulges the more caricaturesque elements of Fitzersgerald's tale, painting an almost unimaginable sketch of wealth during the roaring '20s. But in trying to replicate the tone-poem of the prosaic novel, Luhrmann goes with some unfortunate filmmaking tactics, such as back-reaching recollection via plagiarized voice-overs, which rob the film of its full emotional and visceral impact. On a visual level, The Great Gatsby is beyond perfect but its lingering emotional stasis and hackneyed, choppy editing limit it from reaching the greatness it promises.
Like the great novel, The Great Gatsby follows the perspective of Nick Carraway, an aspiring novelist who has abandoned his dream to chase illusions of riches in the bonds business. When Nick moves into a humble abode on West Egg, sandwiched between castles of old and new wealth, he discovers that his mysterious neighbor, Gatsby, is a man of many rumors. After being formally invited to one of Gatsby's famous parties, Nick strikes up a chance friendship with Gatsby as his true motivations come to light.
Although Luhrmann's film sticks closely to the book, it breaks away in the opening moments as we meet soft-spoken protagonist Nick in the throes of an up-class psychiatry institute. Recalling the circumstances that led to his disillusionment with the city of New York and his history with his friend, the illusive Gatsby, Nick's story is seen as a therapy of sorts - an unloading of demons and a second-look at a time littered with boozing and schmoozing. As Nick writes, we fall into his tale of the magical and notorious Gatsby.
Rather than axing the first person recollection of the novel, The Great Gatsby adopts it, at once revealing its soft belly and opening it up for easy criticism. As a golden rule, recollection is a storytelling crutch and even though Fitzergerald's novel used that method, film is held to a different standard. Unfortunately, Luhrmann carries the shoddy first act on the shoulders of voice-over and recollection and it's not until the 30-minute mark when we actually met Gatsby that the voice-over fades away and the disparate pacing changes to a more manageable and enjoyable cadence.
Moving outside of his faltering editing tactics and onto the visual spectrum, Gatsby is a thing of awe. Luhrmann paints on thick coats of grandeur and offers up true aesthetic decadence, realizing the spectacular vision of Fitzgerald's novel with exemplary panache. Like a child playing with ants, Luhrmann peels back the castle-tops and mansion walls, exposing the hive of manufactured social circles pettily scurrying around. He has captured the dreamlike quality to Fitzergerald's work, particularly during the lavish party scenes. The music is lively and explosive and his choice to approach the soundtrack with a more modern flair works for the most part. These are the parties of our dreams and it's no wonder that they and Gatsby cast a spell on the whole of New York.
But beneath all of the glamorous appearances, the caked-up faces, the flapper dresses and penguin tuxedos, Gatsby's guests are petty people glomming onto unattainable rumors and silly assumptions of their host. Amidst tales of espionage, murder and thievery, Gatsby has a mythology all of his own and this mystique only seems to ignite the townsfolk's attraction. Slashing through the cascades of sparkling streamers, beneath the fireworks and beyond the reach of the blaring jazz, we discover Gatsby is a quiet entertainer, carefully biding his time and allowing these many rumors to wash over him. The execution of Gatsby's big reveal, when he and Nick first meet, is a visceral gut-punch, exhibiting the fact that Luhrman can be a cunning and tasteful director when he puts his mind to it.
For the most part though, the aesthetics take precendence over the story, which often feels piecemealed together. Events are pasted together, lacking the natural flow of time and circumstance that defines more fluid efforts. Time in the film jolts unmarked from one event to another without much explanation and this rocky sense of a time frame yanks us out of the moment, back into our theater chairs. Without an organic sense of inertia, the story feels inconsequential and loses any sense of realism that it fleetingly grasps.
But behind the lavish set designs, shimmering costuming and Luhrmann's many crane-cam flourishes, the performers can be seen taking their roles seriously, digging into them as much as the material allows and each player acting out this ill-fated romance fits the bill of their respective, iconic roles perfectly.
Gatsby is an iconoclast set on fulfilling the grandiose illusions he has dreamed for himself and Leonardo DiCaprio fills those heavy shoes with careful trepidation. This is a man submerged within himself, who rides the spectrum of emotion and only an actor with such broad range as DiCaprio could bear that hefty burden. The man behind the curtain of Gatsby is caught in the trappings of hubris, set with the false assumption that wealth can overcome all odds. In his belief, he is a man both empowered and terrified, bold yet bumbling. In his depiction of the great Gatsby, Leo lives up to his namesake and delivers another great performance.
While Tobey MacGuire aptlytakes the reins of the squeamish, easily agitated Nick Carraway (and his off-camera chemisty with DiCaprio works to their character's relationship on-camera), he is more of a supporting character even though he's our guide narrating us through the story. He's happy to be a bystander and play lapdog to the grandeur of Gatsby so he's somewhat easy to overlook in the long haul.
At the center of the equation is Daisy who is an inherently difficult character to play, as she essentially is a smart, witty girl playing the role of the dullard. Some of the first words out of her mouth are --"the best thing a girl can be in this world is a beautiful little fool." From here, her character is born. Afraid of breaking out of the role that society has placed her in, Daisy refrains from exposing her true self and falls back on parroting the bold men she surrounds herself with. Carey Mulligan captures the hopeful emptiness of Daisy in her portrayal but in doing so it's hard to draw the line of disengagement considering that trait is built into the fundaments of her character. Where she's faking it or her character is at times unclear but in the time of false people and pseudo-love, isn't that the point?
Rounding out the ménage-à-trois of doom is Tom Buchannan, the hard-handed ruffian raised on old money and whitewashed with Americano ornaments. Joel Edgerton's gruff face and wary eyes fit Buchanan like a tailored suit and he is able to be a truly detestable scourge without flying off the handle or leaping over-the-top. He's the odd man out in this love triangle and a sore loser at that but Edgerton manages cool restraint even when driven over the edge and this calculated performance adds life to an otherwise one-dimensional bully.
As such a classic piece of work, audiences go into The Great Gatsby with a sense of ownership. Whether that will paint your existence one way or the other really depends on the level of flexibility you're willing to engage in with Luhrmann's work. While it closely encapsulates the inimitable essence of the loosely moralized jazz age, it does so in such a way that is sure to scrub your own imaginary palette clean for its duration.
Whereas the novel was a piece of work worthy of being slowly digested, cherishing each beautifully piercing line of prose, this adaptation fails to cast the same enchanting spell. While it's a worthy adaptation of one of the greatest works of American literature, it feels, at times, flat and uninspired. A mere coughing up of something great; pre-digested, regurgitated and spray-painted with gold.
Baz Luhrmann has an alleged fascination with tragic romance and The Great Gatsby is no exception. From a purely aesthetic point of view, his film is dazzling - capturing the spectacular life of something assumed unfilmable. The performers are all on pitch and manage to breathe life into these characters to help weave the caricature of a time on the brink of moral and financial collapse. Regrettably, the film overextends its boundaries, aided by poor adaptation prowess, and disappoints on its pledge of greatness. The true tragedy is that the film settles for being pretty good.
C+
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