July in December

Away We Go
Starring John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Catherine O'Hara, Jeff Daniels, Allison Janney, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Chris Messina

An odyssey of discovery for a grungy couple who discover they're going to have a baby. Excellent performances from the "monsters" on the road. Also, Dave Eggers and Vendela (actually married in real life) write an excellent, realistic screenplay allowing natural chemistry for Krasinski and Rudolph.

Grade: B+


Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Starring Daniel Radcliff, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Jim Broadbent, Michael Gambon, Helena Bohnam Carter, and Maggie Smith

One of the better "Harry Potter" films, but the writers or director or editors failed to include a pulsing battle at the climax of the plot. Beautifully shot, but hugely anticlimactic.

Grade: B-


Bruno
Starring Sacha Baron Cohen

Indecent, overtly raunchy, pointless, and unfunny. I loved "Borat", but "Bruno" was just horrible.

Grade: D-

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Starring Johanny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen & Jamie Campbell Bower

The themes are revenge and love, the symbols are blood and barber knives, and the motif is a barber chair that sends murder victims down a hatch, crunching on the stones below, only to be used for meat pies sold to the general public. And are we hungry! Tim Burton's film adaptation of the ground-breaking musical that showcased Broadway's darkside, "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," does just as Todd's mechanical chair. We are shot down a hole of music that knocks us senseless, characters so interwoven that we fall for the spell of the unpredictable, and whole lot of blood. With original music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, a most intricate composer, and the horrific unusualness of Burton, Sweeney's story unfolds beautifully.

The beauty of blood is shown in the very first scene. As we listen to the introductory music, we watch blood drip and flow through London's underground. London is dark. London is dangerous. With a sailor boy named Anthony (Jamie Campbell Bower), Sweeney (Johnny Depp) arrives after years of imprisonment and is out to kill the man who wrongly accused him, putting him away: Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman). However, before he tries to hack the judge, he meets Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), who owns a shop, selling "the worst pies in London," according to the song. Anthony falls in love with a young girl tucked away in a house. She is Johanna (Jayne Wisener), Todd's daughter and now captive of Turpin. We learn that Turpin wishes to marry the young Johanna, which of course puts pressure on Anthony to rescue her. We are also given other characters who play great roles in the rising of the plot: Toby (Ed Sanders), the boy who begins to work for Mrs. Lovett; Beadle (Timothy Spall), who weasels his way in and out of the streets, working for Turpin; Signor Pirelli (Sacha Baron Cohen), who loses a barber contest to Todd (and later loses a bit more); and the beggar woman (Laura Michelle Kelly), the only character to sense the evil going on in Todd's barber shop.

Every actor and actress sings and performs incredibly well, bringing the musical's usual thrusting melody to a cold whisper. Depp is creepy as he was in many-a-film, and Rickman, Cohen, and the other cast members were are great, however, the real triumph was Helena Bonham Carter's Mrs. Lovett. Her voice is soothing and crisp, while her portrayal was desperately great. The newcomers caught on to Burton's oddities, particularly Jamie Campbell Bower. The usually dull innocence of Anthony was annoying in the stage production (I Netflixed it), but Bower - and I'm sure with the help of Burton - gave the role a wolfish sense, something wild and hungry, yet his voice was high and chilling.

And on top of all this, there was blood. Burton reached back to classic horror films and brought the red stuff streaming out. With every slash of the barber knife, it poured, sprayed, splattered. It looked great, and with significant killings, Burton changed the ways of his blood dripping mechanics. Bloody perfection.

It looked great, sounded great, and felt great. "Sweeney Todd" is at the top this year for it's ability to bring the stage to life on screen.

Grade: A+

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint & Ralph Finnes

In Harry's fifth year, he finds that Hogwarts quickly changes into something he didn't expect. Controlled by the Ministry of Magic, and particularly the newly appointed High Inquisitor, Professor Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton), a sweet-faced, spine-tingling, toad of a woman that if you've read the immensity of the 870 page book, you'd know that just at the sight of her name you want to resort of gauging your eyes out. Harry is also dealing with unhinged dementors, girl trouble, Dumbledore's obvious disregardance of Harry, news of the Order of the Phoenix, and the memory of last year's death of Cedric Diggory and Lord Voldemort's return to the Wizarding world.

"The Order of the Phoenix" as a novel, is long, indulging, tedious, and only worth reading about half of the 870 timeless pages. It is full of nonsensical details that neither heighten the book nor are important to the main plot. It is by far the worst written and edited book of the series. However, that does not go for the film. In the adaptation, director David Yates (who will be returning for "The Half-Blood Prince" in 2008) brings us Harry's world as we have read it in the book. It deals with Harry's mental situation - being tormented by his natural surroundings at school and with the impression Voldemort has left him with, not to mention dreaming exactly as Voldemort sees. With breath-taking scenes and excellent filming, "The Order of the Phoenix" looks and is the best film of the Harry Potter series thus far.

Not only is the directing better in the fifth movie, but the acting is incredibly enjoyable and so much better. Radcliffe, Watson and Grint are finally discovering their characters, as they have shown awkwardness and ignorance in the past - save Grint who's humor has always been fun to watch. "The Order of the Phoenix" also brings an exceptional supporting cast. Actors such as Alan Rickman as Snape, Maggie Smith as McGonagall, Emma Thompson as Trelawney, and of course Ralph Finnes as Lord Voldemort are having loads of fun with their characters, while fresh roles such as Umbridge played superbly by Imelda Staunton, Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange, and Evanna Lynch as the strange Luna Lovegood add a sense of superiority to the film. But still, after three movies filmed with Michael Gamdon as Dumbledore, the headmaster is still not adapted as he should be. The late Richard Harris, who appeared in "The Sorcerer's Stone" and "The Chamber of Secrets" before passing away, captured Dumbledore's age and power, whereas Gamdon appreciates only his wizarding caliber and brings an unneeded brutality to the headmaster.

Like the fourth film, "The Goblet of Fire," which is an exceptional book but a dimwitted swoosh of a movie, "The Order of the Phoenix" does not stick to the book as close as the first three films - which isn't always a bad thing. "The Goblet of Fire's" demise was its lack of exciting flair. But the current film has so much flair and creativity that it is delightfully overwhelming. Screenwriter Michael Goldenberg, in his first "Potter" movie, fixes what J.K. Rowling failed to do in the book, by simplifying complicated, inessential material, arranging the storyline to a generally easy-to-follow mode, and also threw in a few minor details of dialogue that gave readers a chance to know the back story of the scene without taking away from the movie's main drive. Usually, Rowling has an ability to make the book better than the movie, however, in the case of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," it is certainly not the case.

Grade - A-