Stars on Ice @ BOk Center
Cross-posted at: Tulsa Today
Figure skating is an unusual beast: it’s sort of dance, sort of athletics, and sort of – um – skating. It’s something of an artistic endeavor, but it’s always hard to watch a competition without feeling that in some sense, the “artist” – the skater – is somehow holding their vision back in order to ensure the highest marks. For this reason alone, it’s always nice to see skaters let loose and do some truly fun, crowd-pleasing stuff – as was the main event Sunday afternoon when the Smuckers-sponsored “Stars on Ice” tour came to the BOk Center.
[review]: Valkyrie
United States, 2008
Directed By: Bryan Singer
Written By: Christopher McQuarrie, Nathan Alexander
Starring: Tom Cruise, Tom Wilkinson, Kenneth Branagh, Christian Berkel
Running Time: 120 minutes
Rated PG-13 for violence and brief strong language
3.5 out of 5 stars
Every year, December rolls around, and every year, we get the usual glut of movies that really, really, really, want to win Oscars. It’s simply a foregone conclusion, and that little statuette has been around long enough that people know by now what the Academy likes. And one of the things that it likes is, of course, World War II. Read the rest of this entry »
[review]: Ghost Town
United States, 2008
Directed By: David Koepp
Written By: David Koepp, John Kamps
Starring: Ricky Gervais, Téa Leoni, Greg Kinnear
Running Time: 102 minutes
Rated PG-13 for some strong language, sexual humor, and drug references
4 out of 5 stars
Ghost Town is a film that’s somewhat obviously inspired by M. Night Shyamalan’s hit 90’s horror film The Sixth Sense, and it makes no bones about that — going so far as to use the tagline “He sees dead people…and they annoy him.” As the second half of the line suggests, however, Ghost Town is about as far from a horror film as this sort of story gets. The ghosts here bear no gruesome marks to indicate how they died (although they do wear whatever they died in — making things a bit awkward for those that died in the shower or while engaged in coitus), and you won’t hear a single bloodcurdling scream. No, Ghost Town is a simple romantic comedy — and a very good one, at that.
Buddy Guy & The Rev. Horton Heat @ Cain’s Ballroom
Cross-posted at: Tulsa Today
It’s easy to take rock and roll for granted. It’s been the dominant musical form in the western world for more than half a century now and there isn’t a genre whose modern form doesn’t owe something to that surprisingly potent blend of country and blues. For anyone who’s forgotten what we owe to our musical forebears, however, Cain’s brought a couple of messengers for rock’s roots to their main stage in the last week: living blues legend Buddy Guy on the night of December 10th, and “psychobilly” veterans The Reverend Horton Heat on the 12th. Both acts played sets that acted as retrospectives of the last 50 years of music history, and both had crowds begging for encores. Read the rest of this entry »
[review]: The Day the Earth Stood Still
United States, 2008
Directed By: Scott Derrickson
Written By: David Scarpa
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, Jaden Smith
Running Time: 103 minutes
Rated PG-13 for some sci-fi disaster images and violence
2.5 out of 5 stars
Three years ago, I made the acquaintance of a little horror picture called The Exorcism of Emily Rose. I didn’t walk in with anything resembling high expectations – history told me that horror films about demon possession were, as a rule, terrible (thanks to the fact that genre-definer The Exorcist couldn’t possibly be improved upon, of course), and director Scott Derrickson’s only previous credit was that direct-to-video classic Hellraiser V: Inferno – but I walked out pleasantly surprised. The film was a funky little exercise in eclecticism – combining courtroom drama with spooky atmosphere and jump scares – plus, it spoke somewhat directly to the times, and while it might not have reached Bergman levels of profundity, it surprised me with its depth of emotion and it even made me reexamine bits of my worldview. It wasn’t a particularly well-reviewed film (though it did make the Chicago Film Critics Association’s list of the “Hundred Scariest Movies of All Time”), but it did manage to change the way I thought about horror movies, and – most importantly – it got me interested in Derrickson.
Well, perhaps that interest was a bit misguided. Or perhaps he’s hit a sophomore slump (this being his second theatrical release). Or maybe he’s simply not at his most comfortable working with a script he didn’t write. Or (most likely) he simply can’t make a great film when he’s not working with great talent. But for whatever reason, his latest – a remake of the 1951 science fiction classic The Day the Earth Stood Still – just doesn’t make it over the bar he’s set for himself. Read the rest of this entry »
[interview]: Taking Back Sunday
Cross-posted at: Tulsa Today
“So what’s going on?”
“Well, I woke up this morning, and brushed my teeth.”
“Great.”
“Yeah, now I’m driving to Dallas.”
That would explain why the cell phone reception is so lousy. I’m trying to interview Adam Lazzara, lead singer of Taking Back Sunday, the emo/alt-rock band playing Cain’s Tuesday night. Lazzara, however, is known as the member of the group who tends toward manic-depressive — and I clearly caught him in a manic moment.
[review]: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
United States, 2008
Directed By: Andrew Adamson
Written By: Andrew Adamson, Christopher Markus, and Stephen McFeely; from the novel by C.S. Lewis
Starring: Ben Barnes, Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Liam Neeson, Eddie Izzard
Running Time: 144 minutes
Rated PG for epic battle action and violence
4.5 out of 5 stars
Those who are of the opinion that C.S. Lewis wrote The Chronicles of Narnia as an allegory designed to convert children to Christianity (I’m looking at you, Phillip Pullman) would be well advised to check out Prince Caspian, the latest entry in the eponymous film series (by the way, they should also look up the word “allegory”—but I digress). Make no mistake about it—Lewis, as a former atheist, wrote just as much out of doubt as he did out of faith, and his books were no mere morality plays. Caspian in particular is a dark meditation on the coming of age—the story of children realizing that fairytales simply aren’t true. At the center of it all is the question of what humanity can do when its God has left it alone on the earth. In other words, this ain’t kid stuff; nor is it particularly “religious.”
But it is truth. Read the rest of this entry »
[review]: The X-Files: I Want to Believe
United States, 2008
Directed By: Chris Carter
Written By: Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz
Starring: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Bill Connolly, Xzibit
Running Time: 104 minutes
Rated PG-13 for violent and disturbing content and thematic material
3.5 out of 5 stars
Movies based on television shows generally fall into one of two categories: either they’re direct continuations of the show that wind up in theaters shortly after the show is cancelled, or even while it’s still on the air (The Man Called Flintstone), or they’re what might be called “re-imaginings,” released decades after the show ends, in a cynical attempt to cash in on the nostalgia of past fans (The Flintstones). Then there’s that nebulous third sort, like The Nude Bomb (sorry, I ran out of Flintstones examples) — the sort that come out within a decade of the show’s end, having given the show’s fans enough time to forget about it, but not enough time to wax nostalgic. Even for those who root for them, it’s hard not to admit the timing is strange, if not downright bad. This can easily color perceptions of the film, and, as you might expect, the new X-Files flick is no exception to this.
But if you’re worried about that, I’m your man, as I guarantee I was the most ignorant person in the audience at the screening I attended of The X-Files: I Want to Believe. I never got around to watching more than a few minutes of the TV series (what can I say, except that it was on TV during the 1990’s — which all took place within the first 15 years of my life, and were arguably a golden age of TV cartoons?). I never even attempted to watch the first movie. I hadn’t even read any reviews of the new film. In other words, my thoughts are the least biased you’re likely to hear. Read the rest of this entry »
[review]: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
United Kingdom, 2008
Directed By: Mark Herman
Written By: Mark Herman, from the book by John Boyne
Starring: Asa Butterfield, Jack Scanlon, Amber Beattie, David Thewlis, Vera Farmiga
Running Time: 95 minutes
Rated PG-13 for some thematic marterial involving the Holocaust
3 out of 5 stars
Making a World War II-themed film is a prospect fraught with peril, in no small part because filmmakers have been churning them out since the moment World War II began. It’s hard to imagine that there’s really that much left to say about the conflict, and while the occasional film (Saving Private Ryan and Life is Beautiful come to mind) proves me wrong in this respect, most ultimately fail. Compounding the problem is the fact that the war is one of the few moments in history that is seen by most in stark shades of black and white. The Holocaust, along with other atrocities committed by the Axis powers, was a purely evil thing, and regardless of whatever failings can be ascribed to the Allies, it’s hard not to love them for putting an end to it. In other words, it’s not a very nuanced time of history, unless you’re ready to say that mass genocide can sometimes be justified (and five bucks says you’re not). Read the rest of this entry »
Metallica @ BOk Center
Cross-posted at: Tulsa Today
Anyone who reads my stuff regularly knows that I usually find it hard to look at heavy metal with anything other than amusement. That a style of music can be so obsessed with death and yet survive for so many decades is, at the very least, ironic (and probably even kind of funny). And I don’t think it’s a secret that t-shirts covered in skulls with band names in jagged fonts ran out of shock value sometime in 1984. It would be fine if it were a joke, but for every hip metal act that’s being ironic about it, there are always ten bands who think said hip acts are serious and adopt the pose with a completely straight face.
