...yet made of stars

Stars on Ice @ BOk Center

Luke Harrington — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 20:13:02 +0000

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.

The show was performed by an all-star cast of some of the world’s best figure skaters, including Americans Sasha Cohen (Olympic silver medalist 2006), Todd Eldredge (world champion 1996), Michael Weiss (U.S. champion 1999, 2000, and 2003), John Zimmerman (U.S. champion 2000-2002), Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto (Four Continents champions 2004-2006), Kimmie Meissner (world champion 2006), and Evan Lysacek (Four Continents champion 2005 and 2007); Russian Ilia Kulik (Olympic gold medalist 1998); Chinese skaters Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao (world champions 2002, 2003, and 2007); Japanese skater Yuka Sato (world champion 1994); and Canadians Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon (Four Continents champions 2007), Jennifer Robinson (six-time national champion), and Jeffrey Buttle (world champion 2008).

All of the performers possessed impressive resumes, but Sunday afternoon, they projected a definitive vibe of simply wanting to have a good time and entertain the crowd. And indeed, there was no shortage of crowd-pleasing moves like jumps and flips; the performers even occasionally performed some sketches, much to the delight of the audience (most cast members showed a surprisingly deft touch with comic timing).

Nowhere was this better exemplified than an early routine performed by Yuka Sato, who entered the rink in a pink sequined dress. As she was about to begin her routine, she was interrupted by video of herself, which played on four large video screens that surrounded the rink. “This is why I like to do skating,” the live Yato told herself. “Because I get to wear pretty clothes and skate to pretty music.” “Come on,” the prerecorded version responded. “Loosen up. Let your hair down. Go for it!” Yato then (literally) let her hair down and pulled off her outfit to reveal a much more free-spirited sundress and proceeded to do a very animated routine set to Feist’s “1234″.

This was more or less the overall tone of the show, which featured some rousing routines set to the music of John Mayer, The Beatles, Meat Loaf, and Journey. The skaters all poured enthusiasm into their routines, playing to the crowd rather than to impress judges. In between leaps, jumps and spins (and during costume changes), the crowd was entertained by public service announcements, ads for Smuckers products and a segment entitled “DON’T SKATE” (an absurdist parody of the much-maligned celebrity “DON’T VOTE” ad that circulated around the Internet during the last presidential election).

The highlight of the afternoon was arguably a routine performed by Kulik to the blues classic “Sixteen Tons,” which he performed in a blue-collared shirt and suspenders. Kulik’s routine was as much bar brawl as figure skating routine, as he punched and kicked the air, flexed his muscles, and mimed shoveling coal. Thirteen-year-old boys can say what they want, but Kulik single-handedly brought more masculinity to the ice than an entire NHL team could have in a season’s worth of games – and more importantly, he had the audience enthralled.

Unfortunately, much of the second act wasn’t quite as exciting as the first. Several of the performers apparently thought they needed to prove they could do “real” figure skating, and for a while things got bogged down in blandly pretty routines set to classical music (including Beethoven’s way-overplayed hit “Moonlight Sonata” – really, guys?) and performed in sequins. It was all right, of course, but it just wasn’t as exciting as seeing them let loose in the first. Fortunately, Michael Weiss kept things alive with a piece set to AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long” (of all things), and the entire cast returned to the ice for a very rousing finale that had the audience on their feet applauding long after the lights went up. All told, it was an enthralling performance overall, and was a big hit with the audience.

[review]: Valkyrie

Luke Harrington — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 19:59:34 +0000

Cross-posted at: MovieZeal

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.

So every December, we relive the hell of the battlefields of the early 1940s so that studios can take home a couple statuettes. It’s not hard to understand why, of course: nothing sells to critics like excessively heightened emotion, and the evil of the Nazis is a quick way to get there; on the other hand, the Academy always shies away from controversy, and few things are less controversial than calling Hitler evil. And this year’s crop is no better or worse than usual: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The Reader, Defiance, Good (I admit that I haven’t seen those last two yet), and of course, Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie.

Valkyrie is something of the odd man out here, for a number of reasons: it debuted in wide release (rather than starting in the New York and L.A. circuits, before expanding once it received awards and nominations), it leans more in a “thriller” direction (rather than being a straight-up “drama”), and of course, it was directed by Bryan Singer. Singer, as the director of everything from X-men to The Usual Suspects, is known for directing relatively “smart” movies that are still palatable to the masses. Valkyrie isn’t all that different: it’s a “genre” film — much of it plays out like a heist movie, although the “heist” to be pulled off is an assassination (and not a robbery) — but it’s more-or-less historically accurate, and it features a large number of talented actors.

The box-office draw here, of course, is Tom Cruise, who plays Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, a German officer who played a key role in a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler toward the end of the war. He’s paired here, however, with a number of talented thespians, including Kenneth Branagh (where has that guy been lately, anyway?) and Tom Wilkinson. Also along for the ride are Bill Nighy, Terrence Stamp, Eddie Izzard and Jamie Parker. In other words, we have all the requisite British actors for an Oscar-winning film, plus a star that still might bring in some money.

But of course, the only relevant question is, does the thing work?

The answer: better than you’d expect it to. Obviously, anyone who knows World War II should know that this particular cartel’s plot ultimately failed. Hitler lived another year — long enough to drive all of his military campaigns into the ground and then commit suicide before he could be brought to justice. Somehow, though, Singer still manages to generate a degree of suspense — probably by keeping the focus on the moment-by-moment progress of the operation, instead of its ultimate success or failure (one particularly tense scene has Stauffenberg attempting to trick Hitler into signing a policy change that will allow for their coup). And once the plot actually goes into motion, there’s admittedly a degree of tension in the air.

More than anything, though, it plays out as a tribute to the German resistance, which is admittedly a commendable undertaking, but it doesn’t manage to match its own virtue with an equal dose of entertainment value. In the end, it’s merely yet another dry historical picture with excellent production values and a talented (and arguably underutilized) cast. It doesn’t add up to all that much, but it goes down pretty easy.

[review]: Ghost Town

Luke Harrington — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 19:49:16 +0000

Cross-posted at: MovieZeal

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.

It’s probably an old cliché to say so, but Ghost Town really is the sort of movie that Hollywood just doesn’t make anymore: a sweet, but not cloying, romantic comedy that — despite its fantastical trappings — features relatively down-to-earth characters (lonely middle-agers, not beautiful twentysomethings already making six-figure incomes), and which gets its most of its humor from characters cracking actual jokes, not acting stupid, or passing gas, or quoting other movies and winking. It’s the sort of film that, if it weren’t filmed in color, you’d almost expect to see Frank Capra’s name in the credits.

The setup goes something like this: Ricky Gervais, the comedian best known for portraying David Brent (the character known to Americans as “Michael Scott”) on the original British version of The Office, plays Bertram Pincus, a self-absorbed and misanthropic dentist living in New York City. When he visits a hospital for a routine colonoscopy, he’s given an overdose of anesthetic that leaves him temporarily dead. The staff successfully revives him, of course, but the ordeal leaves him in an awkward position, straddling the here and the hereafter. In other words, he’s the only person in NYC that can communicate with both the living and the dead.

As we all learned from Shyamalan nine years ago, the reason the dead walk among the living is because they have unfinished business to attend to — and Bertram learns this too, when he runs into Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear, formerly of Talk Soup), a Manhattan businessman who’s been dead nearly a year. Frank is desperate: his widow Gwen (Téa Leoni, Fun with Dick and Jane) is seriously dating a man he hates, and he needs Bertram to break it up. Bertram, of course, thinks he’s the ideal candidate to lure Gwen away.

All this exposition probably makes the film sound like yet another dumbed-down high-concept comedy, but in all honesty, nothing could be further from the truth. Within the first half-hour of the film, you simply forget that anything out of the ordinary is going on at all — you simply take the ghost element for granted while the interactions between the characters play out naturally. The filmmakers clearly weren’t afraid to hire non-“name” actors (no one in the film is particularly well-known on this side of the pond), and this pays off in a big way. This is true in the obvious sense — the audience isn’t carrying the baggage of the actors’ previous roles — but also in the sense that each actor is perfect for his or her role, and doesn’t feel shoehorned in simply to sell tickets. The chemistry between Gervais and Kinnear strikes just the right chord between desperation, jealousy and loathsomeness; the interactions between Gervais and Leoni hit all the right moments of awkwardness and sparks of connection. The characters may seem to be empty archetypes at first (particularly Gervais’s, who initially appears to be a mere self-absorbed snot who has to learn Important Lessons), but the actors and the screenplay work together seamlessly to turn them into real people, all of whom manage to make you love them.

Ghost Town is the same sort of “man-is-privy-to-information-about-the-woman-by-supernatural-means” film as (for instance) Groundhog Day and What Women Want, but like the former (and unlike the latter), it manages to be memorable because it goes beyond its initial Big Idea and takes a long hard look at real people: their lives, their longings, and their failures. Despite its genre trappings, it has much more in common with The Sixth Sense than it initially seems to: like Shyamalan’s film, Ghost Town is a story about those who are dead, whether they know it or not: those who have dead bodies, and those who have dead souls. Watching a spiritual resurrection take place on the big screen is nothing new, but it never gets old, especially when there are actors like Gervais to make it feel so real.

Buddy Guy & The Rev. Horton Heat @ Cain’s Ballroom

Luke Harrington — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 19:43:21 +0000

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.

Guy, who has been recording since 1956, took the stage with all the energy of a musician thirty years his junior, playing song after song, and rarely even stopping for applause. Indeed, thanks to his extended pentatonic improvisation, each song blended into the next, giving the show the feeling of some of the great psychedelic bands of the 60’s (who, of course, all owed a huge debt to Guy). Guy powered through a long set that included songs he had popularized, in addition to some blues standards like Muddy Waters’ “Hoochie Coochie Man.”

Guy made it clear, however, that he was there to teach the audience a thing or two about music history. “In the 1960’s you all had something called the ‘British Invasion,’” he said, “when some of those boys from England came over and introduced you to the blues. It wasn’t anything new-you just needed the Brits to tell you what you already had! You didn’t know what the f— you had.” Guy then launched into an extensive improvised solo in which he did his best imitations of the guitar styles of John Lee Hooker, Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, and-yes-even Jimi Hendrix. Guy played his (wirless) guitar behind his back and between his legs without missing a beat, and even wandered out into the audience (where he was, of course, swarmed by people with camera phones). His guitar’s screams and his own cathartic moans continued long into the night.

Guy took a break from straight blues, however, for a song or two in order to tell the story of the title song (a country ballad) from his latest album, Skin Deep. “This is a song,” he said, “that I actually began writing when I was nine years old. I grew up in Louisiana, and my best friend was white-then we got a little older, and they told us we couldn’t play together anymore. But I know-you know-that underneath, we’re all the same. Our differences are only skin-deep.” Tom Hambridge, the white trad-rock drummer who had played the opening set, joined him onstage to sing backing vocals for the song. Racial unity may be a trendy topic, but it was clear that Guy meant every word he sang-and that, of course, is the true hallmark of a great bluesman.

Two days later, the Reverend Horton Heat-a three-piece group from Dallas, Texas-took the stage to connect the dots a bit more. The group has been performing “psychobilly”-a raw, sped-up combination of blues and country-since 1985, and are still going strong. They took the crowd on a frenetic tour of their hits from the last couple of decades, including “Callin’ in Twisted,” “Revival” and “Psychobilly Freakout”-much to the delight of the crowd surfers.

“It’s almost Christmas time,” lead singer Jim Heath told the crowd, to scattered applause. After pausing for a moment, he added, “Well, I’m glad nobody booed Christmas. Sometimes I’ll say that and people will actually boo. I mean seriously, it’s not a bad season, right? Well, we’re going to play a couple of Christmas songs for you. This one is probably one that The King himself, Elvis, probably sang on this exact same stage,” he said before playing a thoughtful rendition of “Santa Bring My Baby Back (To Me).” The band then played a couple more numbers from their recent Christmas album We Three Kings, including “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” (which they paired with the old Batman theme, of course) and Chuck Berry’s “Run Rudolph Run” (for which Heath and double bassists Jimbo Wallace traded instruments), before Heath said, dismissively, “Okay, no more Christmas music.”

The band then proceeded with the remainder of the set, which included a more classic cuts and some new ones from their upcoming album (including the insightful “Ain’t No Saguaro in Texas”). Heath’s formidable, eclectic guitar skills were on full display as he shot gunned his lyrics into his old-timey-looking microphone, and when the band left the stage, the crowd was more than happy to demand an encore. Like Guy had two nights ago, The Rev had succeeded in entertaining the crowd while sneaking in a lesson about music history.

All photos by Kevin Pyle.

[review]: The Day the Earth Stood Still

Luke Harrington — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 19:10:17 +0000

Cross-posted at: MovieZeal • Tulsa Today

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.

Talk to your kids about smoking. Or some superior alien race will do it for you.

Acting talent seems to be the biggest culprit here. When he made Emily Rose, Derrickson somehow managed to recruit two of the best character actors available – Tom Wilkinson and Laura Linney – in addition to talented newcomer Jennifer Carpenter. Even when the script faltered, the cast was able to save it with nuanced acting and genuine emotion (in addition to some astonishing body contortions – which Carpenter apparently did herself). With his latest film, we get stuck with Keanu “Ted” Reeves and Will Smith’s son. With that in mind, I can’t believe I ever imagined the project wouldn’t fail.

Now – to be fair – Reeves might actually be one of the better parts of the film. As he’s proven over and over again since Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, he has a serious knack for looking bemused, bewildered, and confused (perhaps this is why the first Matrix was popular but the other two weren’t – once he figured out what was going on, his character ceased to be interesting) – and of course, in the new Day, he has every opportunity to do this, since he plays Klaatu, an extraterrestrial who was recently reborn in a human body in order to warn humanity of its impending destruction. Watching him figure out how to work his arms and legs isn’t without its charm, and the way his character communicates badly with the surrounding humans fits in perfectly. The problem, of course, is that he’s one of three main characters here – and, as such, he has to grow and change.

It’s a change that’s impossible to accept, since it’s nearly impossible to determine exactly what precipitated it – especially with the lukewarm performances we get from his two costars. Jennifer Connelly arguably does her best here, but the script gives her little more to do that blubber repeatedly about how humanity deserves a second chance. As for Jaden Smith, the less said about him, the better. He won some acclaim for The Pursuit of Happyness (which I admit I haven’t seen), but nothing he does here rings true. The role calls for a child who is deeply wounded by the death of his father and mistrustful of his stepmother; unfortunately, he can’t seem to fathom even half that depth of emotion. He comes off as just another child actor trying to get by on apple-cheeked cuteness – the absolute worst thing that could have happened to the role. Even when the script should work here, the actors manage to bring it down.

I'm going to ask you some simple questions. First off: Why, exactly, did we need to remake this film?

This is all terribly unfortunate, since The Day the Earth Stood Still definitely had the potential for greatness (no matter how ill-advised the remake was in the first place). The special effects are arguably some of the best to be put forward this year, striking the perfect balance of 1950s cheese and 2000s whiz-bang CGI (with just a dash of Close Encounters of the Third Kind) – in other words, they effortlessly pull off what Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull tried so desperately to do just a few months ago. The modern interpretation of Klaatu’s robot Gort is a thing of terrible beauty, and probably as close as they could have come to evoking the same feelings that the original might have in the 1950s. The initial, wordless encounter between Klaatu and Helen (Connelly’s character) is a truly emotional experience. And when humanity’s impending doom is finally unleashed, it’s a sight to behold. Too bad none of it means anything.

More than any other film, The Day the Earth Stood Still reminds me of Roland Emmerich’s clunker 10,000 B.C., which came out earlier this year. Like 10,000 B.C., it has an undeniable beauty – it makes you believe its action – but it fails to connect emotionally, or even thematically. While 10,000 B.C. was possessed of a bland New Age formula, however, The Day the Earth Stood Still continues Derrickson’s habit of dipping into Christian mythology – here telling the story of an all-powerful being who must sacrifice himself to save humanity from, paradoxically, his own judgment. Unfortunately, this is just another theme that gets lost in the muddle – and while it’s nice to see Derrickson attempting something a bit more complex than Emily Rose’s themes of faith vs. skepticism, bad acting and bland pacing ultimately do it in.

The spaceships have been upgraded once or twice since 1951. (Now they have cupholders, which really should have come standard in the first place. Why won't Detroit acknowledge the needs of the common extraterrestrial?)

It should go without saying, of course, that the original film is by far the better choice here. What’s frustrating, though, is that this new version could have, like Peter Jackson’s King Kong a few years back, been a colorful fantasia on the motif established by the original. Instead it tries too hard to update it, deviates too far from its themes, and simply fails to develop its characters. In this, it does a disservice not only to the original, but also to itself. Those who loved the original will no doubt be angered, and those of us who are true believers in Derrickson’s skills are left with nothing to do but wait for his next project, which is – I kid you not – an adaptation of John Milton’s Paradise Lost. So, without any irony intended: let’s all pray he doesn’t muck up that particular classic quite as much as he did this one.

[interview]: Taking Back Sunday

Luke Harrington — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:53:22 +0000

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.

I ask him what fans can expect from the live show. “It’s awesome. It’s just a good time. Who doesn’t like a good time? There’s gonna be fire, dragons, and wizards, man. And Robo-Cop? Yeah, he’ll be there.”

Great.

I can’t blame him for wanting to have a little bit of fun. TBS is a band that—whether they like it or not — is riding a cultural wave. Their brand of hard-hitting emocore is simply what’s hot on the charts right now, and while that serves to pay the bills pretty well, it also means they have to answer the same inane questions from dozens of reporters. Like for instance, “How will your new album be different from your last few?”

Yeah, I make the mistake of asking him that particular question, as well. (What was I thinking?) “It’s all banjo,” he laughs, in reference to New Again, TBS’s fourth album, which is slated for a early 2009 release. (Actually, if you’re reading this, Adam, I would like to hear that.)

Then for a moment, he gets serious. “We’re trying out a lot of the new songs on the road,” he adds. “That’s definitely the best part — it’s like when you get someone a really sick Christmas present and can’t wait for them to open it. The new stuff is definitely a little different. We’re growing, we’re taking steps forward. Hopefully folks will be really into it. ‘Cause if not, I’ll be really sad.”

I laugh. For the twentieth time.

“Seriously though,” he says, “we’re trying some different things. We have this new song called ‘Winter Passing’ — it’s like an eighth grade dance where the boys and girls are standing on opposite sides of the room, afraid to talk to each other. I think people will be surprised.”

Eighth-grade awkwardness in song form? Now that sounds like something worth checking out.

[review]: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Luke Harrington — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:40:53 +0000

Cross-posted at: MovieZeal

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.

And appropriately enough, Caspian is a film where the questions arguably possess more truth than the answers themselves. Keeping in line with Lewis’ dark, semi-tragic vision, the film invites viewers to draw their own conclusions. Now in the interest of full disclosure, I was a huge fan of the Narnia series as a kid (who wasn’t?), but it’s probably been at least ten years since I last read Prince Caspian. For this reason, I can’t entirely vouch for its faithfulness to the source material, but if I remember right, it’s pretty close—aside from a handful of plot truncations and thematic updates. What’s really important, though, is that Walden Media has improved upon the previous entry in the series—which was merely so-so—by leaps and bounds. The four central characters have grown tremendously as actors, the special effects have been greatly improved (though I’ll admit that the world has yet to see a truly convincing CGI mammal), the themes run much deeper and darker, and the violence—which felt a bit neutered and whitewashed in the first entry—has been ratcheted up, while somehow maintaining a PG rating (presumably, Disney fought the MPAA on this all the way down to the wire—I still have yet to see a poster or any sort of promotional material for this film that even mentions a rating). Put simply, Prince Caspian is breathtaking, moving, and exhilarating.

The story takes place 1,000 Narnian years after the events of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which roughly translates to one earth year (don’t ask me to explain this—even Lewis was far from consistent in his parallel chronologies). The Pevensie children (Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley and Anna Popplewell) are returned to Narnia, only to find that it’s become a savage dystopia. Most of the original Narnians have been exterminated by a horde of humans who invaded from earth, and the (illegitimate) throne has been usurped by the evil King Miraz (Sergio Castellitto), uncle of the rightful heir, Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes). Caspian is on the run from his uncle, and the humans are encroaching further into the territory of the remaining Narnians. And no one has seen Aslan in centuries.

Thus the conflict is set up between the believers and the skeptics—those who would continue to seek the lion and those would look for power within themselves—or in others (Oscar winner Tilda Swinton makes a chilling cameo, reprising her role as the White Witch). If The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is an epic about God’s quest for man, then Prince Caspian is a meditation on man’s quest for God—and all that divides the one from the other. Caspian is not afraid to address issues like racism, war, greed, and genocide; nor does it imply that there’s an easy answer to any of these. But the central question it posits is a daunting and worthy one: Does God have to prove himself to us—or is it we who have to prove ourselves to him?

As “children’s” movies go, this is a very “adult” one, sporting some heady existential questions and some overtly sexual undertones (Anna Popplewell does nicely with the sexual empowerment that the role of Susan demands). This works greatly to its benefit, forcing the franchise to grow up, and establishing it as a philosophical and artistic powerhouse. It remains to be seen, of course, whether Disney and Walden can maintain this kind of momentum, but after seeing Caspian, I’m unreservedly rooting for them. In the meantime, the second chapter of the saga offers vivid imagination, beautiful cinematography, and an excellent cast (special shout-outs to Ben Barnes as Caspian and Eddie Izzard as the voice of Reepicheep the swashbuckling mouse)—not to mention a lot to think about. I honestly can’t recommend this film enough.

[review]: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

Luke Harrington — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:41:25 +0000

Cross-posted at: MovieZeal • Tulsa Today

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.

Mulder and Scully, doing their thing

Between reviewing this and, last week, Brideshead Revisited — based on a novel which I had also never heard of — I’ve decided that I need to educate myself a bit more, but in the meantime, you get to hear the thoughts of someone who knows nothing about the franchise’s past. So here they are:

It wasn’t bad. It was good. Go see it if you want.

Sorry if that was anticlimactic, but this is really the sort of film that you can’t say a whole lot about. It feels exactly how I expected it to feel: like an extra-long episode of a TV show that was once really great, and still holds its own okay, but is straining a bit to come up with new stories on the one hand, and to maintain its relevance to a modern audience on the other. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson are (still) compelling in the lead roles, and manage to create a tension that pulls the film through its weaker spots. And the themes, despite feeling a bit dated, for the most part ring true. It’s not perfect, but it’s a taut, fun mystery with a little bit of something on its mind.

The film opens with Agent Dana Scully (Anderson) now working as a pediatric brain surgeon at a Catholic hospital and Agent Fox Mulder (Duchovny) hiding out, on the run from the FBI (I suppose that a fan of the series could tell you why this is). But the FBI has decided they need Mulder back, as they’re facing a case that involves the paranormal. Scully tracks him down and drags him in, and they’re on the case once more. Turns out an FBI agent is missing, presumed dead, and the only lead they have on it is a defrocked Catholic priest who has visions.

Oh, did I mention he was defrocked for being a convicted pedophile?

The proverbial hunt is on. Go FBI, Go!

This appears to be the film’s bid for relevance — after all, Catholic sex abuse scandals became big in the new after the series’ cancellation — but it should go without saying that it doesn’t entirely work. A couple of years ago, it might have felt cutting-edge, or at least current enough to be interesting; unfortunately, here, it works against the film somewhat, making it feel a bit stale and vindictive. Not surprisingly, the film fights an uphill battle in making itself matter; but surprisingly, it succeeds pretty well.

As its once-pervasive catchphrase of a subtitle suggests, this is a film about faith, particularly of the religious variety, and Bill Connolly’s Father Joseph Crissman is the lone (alleged) supernatural bit in the film. Duchovny and Anderson do essentially the same believer vs. skeptic bit that they did on the show (I hear), and keep it relatively fresh, but the emotional crux of the film turns out to be the interaction between Scully and Father Crissman. As a woman of both faith and skepticism, Scully struggles with the idea that God would choose to speak through a man like Crissman, and abuses him to no end in an attempt to get at “the truth.” At the same time, her practice has her working on a child suffering from a fatal and incurable brain disease.

I may not know much about 'X-Files,' but I know a good Internet meme when I see one.

Yeah, yeah, I know — but somehow, they make it work. While the proceedings occasionally descend into sentimentality, this is less about the question of God’s existence than it is of God’s necessity. While we may like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, the fact remains that even the simplest actions require faith (a fact the film is quite fond of). Some of us bear faith’s burden, and some of us the burden of skepticism, but to jettison one in favor of the other would be lunacy for any number of reasons — and this is what The X-Files is really about.

I assume.

Philosophical pretensions aside, though, X-Files is a well-paced little film that doesn’t break a lot of new ground, but manages to bring most of the chills at just the right moments. It’s not the sort of thing that you’ll be telling all your friends about for weeks, but it’s a good way to spend a couple of hours.

[review]: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Luke Harrington — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:28:26 +0000

Cross-posted at: MovieZeal • Tulsa Today

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).

Such clearly defined good guys and bad guys should, I think, illustrate why the war is so popular a subject for films, but so difficult a subject to make a great film about. “One-note” and “overdone” is not a good combination (as any quick listen to your local “Pure Rock” radio station will prove), but of course, filmmakers keep trying. The latest entry, Mark Herman’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas tries to shake things up a bit by telling its story from the perspective of the family of a German soldier — and specifically his eight-year-old son Bruno (Asa Butterfield), who unknowingly befriends a Jewish boy interned at the concentration camp his father is charged with running. It’s a valiant effort, but ultimately one that fails to impress, primarily because it can’t think of anything new to say. The result is a beautiful piece of art that’s disappointingly hollow.

The failure here isn’t a problem with the filmmaking. Every shot in the film is gorgeous and meaningful (the stark, gray, art deco house into which the family moves in Poland; the mass grave of dolls Bruno’s sister creates in the cellar when she decides to “grow up”); the characters all put in solid, believable performances; the dialogue is all spot-on (Bruno’s character treads just the right line between naïveté and denial). The trouble is the story, which hits all the notes you expect it to, and nothing more. Herman works hard to make the family sympathetic, but he ultimately can’t side with them since they’re perpetrators of — or at least accessories to — the Final Solution. Ultimately, everyone in the family must learn they were wrong and pay for their mistakes. From the moment Bruno first discovers the internment camp (which he calls “a farm run by people in striped pajamas”), the film runs out of surprises and becomes a slow, sad march toward the inevitable tragic end.

In this sense, the deck was really stacked against the film in the first place. The simple story, which worked well as an allegory in the novel on which the film is based, becomes a bit too real on screen, and the viewer keeps waiting for something surprising to happen. Nothing does. The friendship between Bruno and Shmuel continues its uneasy growth, Bruno’s mother (Vera Farmiga) finds out what her husband is up to and is appropriately horrified, Bruno’s sister Gretel (Amber Beattie) hangs pictures of Hitler on her walls to impress the soldier she’s crushing on. The devastating end feels far too contrived on screen, and it feels like the movie is beating you over the head with THE MORAL (“Genocide is bad!!!”).

Of course, it’s not that we disagree. One of the major lessons of the Second World War is that genocide is an ugly, terrible thing that should be stopped at any cost. This is an important lesson, and I hope we never forget it. The real question, though, is do we need another patronizing movie to tell us this? Well — no, and certainly not yet another one set during World War II. The reason that great evils like genocide still occur is not because their perpetrators haven’t seen the misery it brought on Germany (a misery that is particularized quite well in the film); it’s because (among other things) they see their situation as fundamentally different. Of course it’s not — it never is — but making more and more WWII dramas about it just serves to distance its evil further for a modern audience. The Holocaust was a terrible time in human history — in some ways the worst ever — but to dwell on it when genocide, slavery, and all sorts of other inhuman atrocities surround us would be just as big a mistake as forgetting it entirely. In other words, the lessons of the Holocaust are invaluable, but we should put them into practice, rather than merely parroting them and then patting ourselves on the back for doing so.

Metallica @ BOk Center

Luke Harrington — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:22:21 +0000

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.

When I entered the BOk Center arena to see those titans of the genre Metallica play, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes just a little bit. The stage lights were mounted in coffins. Yes, coffins (intended, of course, to go along with the motif of the band’s latest album, Death Magnetic). Giant, brushed-steel, coffin-shaped apparatuses, no doubt forged in the pits of hell by Lucifer himself. (Actually-and I’m just guessing here-they were probably built by some union steelworker named Larry, who probably then went home to his wife and kids, where they no doubt spent the remainder of the evening in quiet meditation on the sublimity of man’s mortality. That would make sense.) When the madmen of Metallica took the stage, however, it was clear: they were in on the joke.

Kirk Hammett

Of course, there’s no reason for them not to be. To have existed so long and remain so successful, they’d have to be. When the band formed in 1981, they picked what just might be the most generic name in history for a metal band, thus (consciously or otherwise) setting themselves up as the go-to group for all things, erm, metallic. Fortunately, they have the chops to back this up. Metallica is, in many ways, the quintessential veteran act, having weathered the onslaught of death metal, thrash metal, speed metal, alt-metal, nu metal, rap metal, and all other manner of trends-including grunge and alternative, once hailed as a metal killer (ha!)-and come out on top, with their thundering drums, thudding bass, and shredding guitars still pounding out anthems of awesomeness.

I shouldn’t need to tell any long-time Metallica fans that they put on an incredible show, that every single note, drumbeat and vocal growl was as technically proficient as it was menacing, that there was hardly an empty seat in the house (with a crowd that ran the gamut from long-haired metalheads to middle-aged audiophiles to baseball-cap-wearing frat boys), or that the crowd was on their feet, demanding encore after encore, and refusing to let them leave the stage. The real surprise of the night was that, despite piling on the skull imagery like it was 1983, Metallica came off as genuinely nice guys who were just there to play their music and have a good time.

I probably shouldn’t have been surprised by this, but after being burned by the world of metal twice within a month (having subjected myself to both the adolescent whining of Papa Roach and the more-badass-than-thou posturing of Mudvayne), it was a pleasant surprise. When singer James Hetfield asked all the first-time Metallica concertgoers (guilty as charged) to raise their hands so he could welcome them, it felt good. It was like being part of a family-a family with a thing for skulls and coffins perhaps, but a family nonetheless.

...a bunch of people who like Metallica (I'm just guessing here)

Yes, the light-filled coffins eventually dropped from the ceiling and spun around. Yes, the show was accompanied by a flashy display of lasers. Yes, the very fires of hell eventually burst forth from the stage in time with the music. And yes, it was really, really cool (particularly when combined with awesome hits like “Enter Sandman” and great new stuff like “Cyanide”). But what I’ll really remember about the evening was when the band reentered the stage for their encore and Hetfield asked the crew to turn on the houselights so he could thank the crowd for coming. (“Are you all still with me?” he asked the crowd. “Raise your hand if you’re still here. Now raise your hand if you’re not here. Ha! Gets ‘em every time.”) The band played its final songs, rocking as hard as ever, but with every light turned on and every fan on their feet (while giant, black beachballs inscribed with the words “Metallica” and “Death Magnetic” fell from the ceiling).

It says something about a heavy metal song-a genre so frequently self-conscious in its own obsession with darkness-when it still holds up in the light. And I think it said even more that every member of the stage crew rushed guitarist Kirk Hammett to cover him in cream pies and silly string during the final song. As it turns out, it was his birthday-and instead of closing with yet another face-melting thrash anthem, Hetfield led the entire sold-out crowd in a rendition of “Happy Birthday to You”-complete with four-part harmony, of course.

When the crowd finally agreed to let Metallica stop playing, Hetfield remarked, “Y’know, it’s been sixteen years since we played Tulsa. We have to make sure to come back again-sooner rather than later.”

We can only hope.

All photos by Kevin Pyle.