Volume 39, Number 03
Movies
Movie News
By Bill Hersey
Sweeney Todd director and long-time friend Tim Burton, producer Richard Zanuck and superstar Johnny Depp were here for the promotion. Tim’s worked with Johnny on several hit movies. Actress Helena Bonham Carter who co-stars in the film with Johnny couldn’t be here; she and Tim have just had their second child.
With Johnny, Helen and the rest of the cast under Tim’s direction, Sweeney Todd has turned out to be a real winner. It did, as you probably know, take the Golden Globes award for best musical comedy picture and Johnny took the award for best actor in a musical comedy.
Tim told the press that this was a special movie and the first time Johnny had taken on a singing role. Johnny added, “I didn’t take any singing lessons”. Richard was really proud of the film and has the highest respect for the director and cast. Tim wanted to use actors not singers, as he felt they really gave the emotional quality to the music.
Over 300 fans slept overnight at Narita the day before Johnny Depp’s arrival and around the same number slept overnight at the Roppongi Hills arena the night before his appearance at the 6pm premiere the following day.
Johnny is always at the top of the 'nice guys’ list with a reputation of going out of his way to be nice to his many fans all over the world. The Tokyo premiere was no exception as he happily signed autographs and posed for pictures wherever he could.
Other News
I just finished watching the TV series Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee. The series starred Canadian Indian actor Adam Beach who I got to know when he was here promoting Clint Eastwood’s Flags of our Fathers. Adam’s filmography includes some 50 films—he keeps busy. I’m looking forward to his next TV series Comanche Moon in which he plays one of the leading roles, Blue Duck.
I watched some of the off-the-wall Scream Awards recently and looks like horror films are becoming more and more popular all the time. 28 Weeks Later which 20th Century Fox will release here soon won Best Picture at the awards. The new Batman film Black Knight was named the most anticipated film of 2008.
Movie Reviews - American Gangster / Evening
by William Casper
American Gangster
Ridley Scott's American Gangster is based on the truelife story of Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), a black gangster who ran Harlem in the late 60s and for most of the 70s. Throughout that period he was the leading importer of heroin to the US. Lucas came to power by cutting out the middleman and buying pure heroin directly from Thailand's infamous golden triangle. Notorious for smuggling his narcotics in the coffins of dead GIs, at one point it was estimated Lucas was worth $250 million—and that's in 1970s' money.
Scrupulously honest New York police Detective Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) was Lucas's Ahab-like nemesis and spent years of his career vainly trying to make a case against the gangster, all the while falling foul of some of his more corrupt colleagues.
Were American Gangster the first gangster film you'd ever seen it would make for a very satisfying cinematic experience. It's visually superb—the recreation of New York circa 1970 is wonderfully authentic, it has two great characters portrayed by two powerful A-list stars, there's a classic rise and fall storyline with a solid subplot (police corruption), an excellent supporting cast featuring the timeless Ruby Dee in the kind of role that wins Oscar nominations, all topped off with a fantastic soundtrack.
Unfortunately it probably isn't the first gangster film you've seen, perhaps not even the 50th, and a lot of what is up on the screen feels very familiar. This is a problem for all genre films and when American Gangster is judged against the best of its genre it doesn't quite make the top table. Good as it is, the film lacks an angle uniquely its own. The racial politics would seem the obvious angle, especially as one of the reasons Lucas stayed at large for so long was the authorities' inability to believe an uneducated black man could run such a complex operation. This and other racial issues are touched on, but never fully explored. The police corruption subplot, although handled well, has already been covered superbly in two earlier films (Serpico and Prince of the City are based on the same real life cops) and I personally would have liked the film to focus more on Lucas and his incredible operation. The South East Asia sequences are interesting, but are not fleshed out enough.
For all that, if gangster movies are even remotely your thing, you will not be disappointed. And if American Gangster is your first gangster film—lucky you.
Evening
Based on the novel by Susan Minot and directed by Lajos Koltai, Evening tells the story, with the use of flash backs, of a pivotal time in a dying woman's life. It's beautiful to look at—the flashbacks at least—and a poignant meditation on life, regrets, unfulfilled dreams, family and friends.
The screenplay was co-written by Minot and novelist Michael Cunningham and it shares a certain sensibility with The Hours, the film based on Cunningham's novel of the same name; it never quite reaches the earlier film's dramatic and emotional heights though. The very deliberate pace doesn't help; ‘The Hours on Valium' in a sense.
Like The Hours, Evening is something of a leading lady's dream film. The great Vanessa Redgrave plays Ann Lord, who floats in and out of consciousness on her deathbed, reliving incidents from 60 years before. Claire Danes shines as the Young Ann and Mamie Gummer does a great impression of her mum, Meryl Streep, playing Ann's best friend Lila.
Toni Collette and Natasha Richardson (Redgrave's real life daughter) play Ann's chalk and cheese daughters, who are anxiously waiting for their mother's life to end and irritating the hell out of each other as they do. Glenn Close plays Lila's uber WASP mother and the lovely stage actress Eileen Atkins plays the aged Ann Lord's night nurse, dispensing wisdom and compassion in a soft Irish brogue. Meryl Streep, playing 20 years older, shows up for five minutes towards the end and, as ever, is excellent.
In comparison, the males involved, perhaps deliberately, all come up a little short. Toni Collette's musician boyfriend barely registers. Hugh Dancy seems lost as Lila's effete, lush, brother Buddy, and Patrick Wilson playing Harris—the film's supposed heartthrob—doesn't exude the magnetism his role surely requires. Overall a good film for sisters and daughters; but doesn't quite make a great one.
Showing from Feb. 2. at selected theaters.
On DVD
OCEAN'S 13—Third in the glossy, over-elaborate heist series. Lots of stars—mostly on autopilot.
THE PRESTIGE—Intriguing story of rival magican/illusionists in the 19th century. Great cast including an excellent turn by David Bowie as electricity genius Nikola Tesla.
THE FLOCK—The first English language film from Andrew Lau. Richard Gere and Claire Danes ‘star’ as sex offender monitors. Not exactly laugh a minute.
BLACK SNAKE MOAN—Samuel L Jackson aims to ‘cure’ the town tramp by chaining her to a radiator. Stunning performance by Christine Ricci as the tramp.
A GOOD YEAR—Miscast and unoriginal. Ridley Scott and his golden boy, Russell Crowe, get it very wrong with this ‘nasty businessman finds a heart in France’ tale.