Blindness
NoHa
Not hard to see why opened last week to barely $2.5 million--not exactly a viewer-friendly film, but a courageous one, faithful to the disturbing novel by José Saramago. A second-class citizen locally: did not open at the Post 14 in Milford, as films that open in North Haven almost always do, and this week it's down to two screenings per day at NoHa.The reviews have been mixed and mostly unenthusiastic, and I'll grant that Saramago's tightrope-walking brand of (god, I hate this term) magical realism works better on the page (yes, even in English: Saramago has always paid close attention to the translation process, working for more than a decade with a single translator who rendered his niggardly punctuation and dialogue sans quotation marks and clear indicators of who is speaking), but a negative reaction to the film is really a negative reaction to Saramago's leftist-humanist fable--an understandable reaction, but one I clearly don't share.
To mimic the novel's pointed obscurity of place, the film creates a city that is a digital composite mostly of São Paulo, Montevideo, and Toronto. Oh, and speaking of Canada, fans of Twitch City and Slings and Arrows will be glad to see Don McKellar (who also wrote the screenplay) and Susan Coyne.
Body of Lies
NoHa
Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe) loves his family, America, spycraft, and Ben & Jerry's; Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio) loves truth, honor, justice, and an Iranian-born Jordanian nurse who gave him his rabies shots after he was bitten by two dogs while assassinating a guy (it's a long and implausible story; just trust me). A lot of familiar ground covered, but Ridley Scott knows where all the buttons are. I have to assume it was some meddlesome producer who insisted, "But there's gotta be a love story!"Trailers
- Twilight--Looks pretty pro forma, Dr. Debs; my vampire movie of choice for the weekend remains Låt den rätte komma in (Let the right one in).
- Bedtime Stories--Isn't it about time for career intervention for Adam Sandler?
- Yes Man--Isn't it about time for career intervention for Jim Carrey?
- Also, saw a longer, more-backstory, but no more persuasive version of the Defiance trailer, but the real killer, which I had to sit through twice, was a 2½-minute National Guard commercial in the form of a music video of a "song" called "Warrior" by Kid Rock, with participation by Dale Earnhardt. "Freedom ain't so free when you breathe red, white, and blue." Hey, wait a minute: isn't that from Wag the Dog?
4 comments:
I find it interesting that magical realism--possible in books--is so impossible in the hands of most directors. What gives?
I saw that "Warrior" ad too. It made me think of "America--Fuck yeah!" or whatever that was from Team America. It's embarrassing to see it in a theater where other people are present.
just caught the "pro forma" remark about Twilight. If it weren't pro forma, there would be a lot of upset teenage girls on 11/21. My niece is going with 6 friends at the 12:01 AM showing. She's 13. Need we say more? Oh, except my mom and and I are attending the 12:01 showing in LA the same day. Maybe it's genetic??
Has anyone NOT made a pro forma vamp flick? I saw Van Helsing again, sadly, this weekend.
Gee, if you've sat through Van Helsing twice, I guess my daughter's vampire musical Scarlet Lines, if it ever gets made into a film, can count on at least ten bucks' worth of West Coast box office. Have you been watching True Blood? I don't have HBO, but I already have it in my Nf futures queue--great poster.
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