startingwednesday MICHAEL JACKSON: THIS IS IT
Maybe not so much a movie as a cultural event. It’s not really as ghoulish as it sounds, since this backstage documentary about Michael Jackson creating and perfecting his latest show was apparently planned
all along. Of course, now it’s as close as anyone will ever get to seeing what that show would have been. You already know if you’re going, so the fact that it hasn’t been screened for critics is likely immaterial. (PG)
startingfriday THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX See review in “Cranky Hanke.”
COCO BEFORE CHANEL
What a relief! A French-language film that doesn’t have a trailer cut to omit all the dialogue, in an effort to bamboozle the unwary into thinking it’s not in French. But then French movies starring Audrey Tautou don’t usually need to resort to that kind of cheesy flimflam. This biography of the early years of Coco Chanel may prove to be a relief in other ways, since it gives every appearance of being something other than the stock biopic (read: it’s not another Amelia). Rather it seems to be a witty and sophisticated work about a unique woman. Friday will tell for sure. (PG-13) Early review samples: • “Perhaps because of its unsentimental approach to Chanel’s life, Coco Before Chanel strikes me as less of a biopic, more of a drama. It’s not about rags to riches but about survival of the fittest.” (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times) • “The blossoming of her ambition, as
Even the depiction of Amelia Earhart’s (Hilary Swank) extra-marital affair with Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor) is handled so decorously that it seems little more than our heroine making a faux pas by using the wrong fork at a formal dinner. In short, this is a rather dull, totally unadventurous biopic. The question arises as to just why someone would want to make an unadventurous film about an adventurous woman? That question becomes even more perplexing when you realize that this was done by Mira Nair, who isn’t typically associated with dull movies. Actually, Amelia isn’t as bad as the reviews would lead you to believe. There are, in fact, good things in it—not the least of which is Hilary Swank’s performance, and I am not one of Swank’s greatest fans. However, she holds the screen as Amelia Earhart. Her screen presence manages to suggest at least something of the charisma and complexity of the character in ways that the creaky screenplay never even hints at. It’s also a handsome film—with nice period detail and gorgeous cinematography. Unfortunately, this doesn’t alter the fact that there’s more corn in this one movie than is housed in the Corn Palace of Mitchell, S.D., and the Post Toasties factory combined. This is the Amelia Earhart story for the highschool-textbook market—or, with a little luck, for the Classics Illustrated comic-book crowd. It’s all here—the dreams, the triumphs, the commercialization of Earhart, the final ill-fated attempt
much as her love life, drives the story forward, and turns Coco Before Chanel into a costume drama worthy of the name.” (A.O. Scott, New York Times)
PLAY THE GAME
Just what the world has been waiting for — Andy Griffith in a sex comedy. Yes, you read that right. The premise has Andy in an old folks home with his eye on Doris Roberts — a prospect that’s threatened to be derailed when Liz Sheridan slips him some Viagra and takes advantage of him. Somewhere there’s an audience for this. (PG-13) Early review samples: • “It’s The Andy Griffith Show meets Seinfeld in the sack in Play the Game, which shows Andy is not too old to star in a sex comedy, I guess.” (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times) • “That’s the problem with making a movie where Andy Griffith’s character receives oral sex: People aren’t going to remember much of anything else about your film.” (Paul Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle)
OK, Amelia is watchable. Swank is good. Gere is all right. Most of the cast is wasted. It took 40-odd years for biopics to get as silly as Charles Vidor’s A Song to Remember in 1945. It took another 20 years for them to recover. In one fell swoop, Mira Nair and company have set the genre back 64 years. That’s probably some kind of accomplishment. Rated PG for some sensuality, language, thematic elements and smoking. reviewed by Ken Hanke Playing at Fine Arts Theatre, Regal Biltmore Grande Stadium 15.
Astro Boy JJJJ
Director: David Bowers (Flushed Away) Players: (Voices) Freddie Highmore, Nicolas Cage, Bill Nighy, Donald Sutherland, Kristen Bell Animated Sci-Fi/Adventure Rated PG
The Story: A robotic boy attempts to save his futuristic city from the machinations of its war-thirsty president. The Lowdown: A run-of-the-mill animated adventure that’s gussied up with a sardonic sense of humor and political satire. Sometimes, after weeks upon weeks of just watching the worst movies imaginable—the stupid, the puerile, the just plain awful—the simple act of watching a film that at least attempts to say something is something to applaud. No, David Bowers’ Astro Boy adds nothing new to the world of animated adventures, and its politi-
cal undertones are a bit on the obvious, heavyhanded side. But Bowers (Flushed Away), nevertheless, approaches the material with enough good nature and heart that it makes it all mesh together. Based on Osamu Tezuka’s more than half-century-old comic book and the subsequent animated show that it spawned, the movie is an attempt at updating, modernizing (with CGI animation) and introducing the character of Astro Boy to a new audience. The gist is the same. Earth has become a polluted, undesirable place to live, except for one technologically advanced city that floats above the surface where robots have been created to do everyone’s dirty work. Of course, like every sci-fi utopia, not everything’s as pleasant as it looks, especially since it’s an election year and the city’s president, General Stone (Donald Sutherland), is trying to win his re-election through warmongering. All this leads to a freak accident, where the son (Freddie Highmore) of brilliant scientist Dr. Tenma (Nicolas Cage) is killed, causing the griefstricken doctor—in a somewhat creepy stroke of mourning—to make a super-powered robot version of his dead son. But before this all gets too unsettling, Dr. Tenma realizes this substitute son, now christened Astro Boy, can’t replace his human son. The film does nothing really surprising from this point, and consists of Astro Boy figuring out where he fits in the world before taking the path of redemption and heroism. Nothing special by any means, but there’s a bit of humanity in the way not only Astro Boy is handled, but the supporting characters who surround him as well.
at a flight around the world in 1937—and it’s all here in an old-fashioned “ripped from the headlines” manner. And that’s the problem. It’s the stripped-to-the-headlines version of her life—complete with scratchy newsreel footage. Almost 100 percent of the time you get the story you already know. The film’s idea of fleshing out the public persona is perhaps best illustrated by her being forced to endorse Lucky Strike cigarettes and to say they had been along on her first Transatlantic flight, despite the fact that she didn’t smoke. And the film’s not even truthful about the extent of the requisite lie, as is obvious to anyone who’s seen the advertisement in question—which has her claiming they were smoked “nonstop” on the flight. Aspects of the film are close to risible in their clichéd nature. The whole affair with Gene Vidal threatens to become funny, with all its cutaways to worried looks from her husband, G.P. Putnam (Richard Gere), whenever Gene is in the area. Considering that Vidal’s role is so perfunctory that a cardboard cut-out of Ewan McGregor would have probably sufficed, it’s even sillier—and, frankly, seems more concerned with beating you over the head with the fact that she knew young Gore Vidal (William Cuddy). Taking Eleanor Roosevelt (Cherry Jones, looking nothing like Mrs. R. despite a set of oversized choppers) for a nighttime plane ride is just another name-dropping doo-dad that has little to do with the film as it’s presented.
mountainx.com • OCTOBER 28 - NOVEMBER 3, 2009 67