BACK to the movies!

Enough with the travelogues, I've got movies to review!


The Dark Knight
I'm not damning it with faint praise to call TDK the best Batman movie ever made. No doubt director Christopher Nolan has turned this franchise into something much more than just a very good comic book adaptation (he proved that with Batman Begins). But here he has created an unsettling, exhilarating future of moral ambiguities, impossible choices, and damaged individuals. At the center of it all, of course, is the black hole of amorality that is Heath Ledger's Joker. He is so frightening because he doesn't believe in anything! It is a searing portrayal envelopes the movie the way both Daniel Day Lewis' Daniel Plainview and Javier Bardem's Anton Chigura did, to cite two recent (Academy award winning) examples. And yes, the late Heath Ledger should join their ranks in Febraury 2009, as Best Actor! (Don't try to ensure a win by promoting him as a 'supporting actor' Warner Brothers!)

Two more observations: After seeing the movie you will also understand why Katie Holmes took a powder on the sequel (Maggie Gyllenhaal got the most out of the role, but I would have liked to have seen what either of the other of the other two actresses up for the part would have done with it: Emily Blunt and Rachel McAdams, because let's face it, they are more in the Katie Holmes mold).


Brideshead Re-Revisited

To anyone old enough to remember the "original" classic, 11-part British ITV production (seen in the States on PBS in 1982), two questions immediately come to mind:

1) WHY?
2) Could anyone in the cast possibly live up to -- let alone surpass -- the original actors??

After sitting through Julian Jarrold's 133-minute adaptation at the River Oaks theater, I still have no anwser to the first question. The second answer has a somewhat more satisfactory answer. First, the pace feels like a Cliff Notes version of Evelyn Waugh's story: Oxford, then Brideshead, Venice, back to Oxford, Morocco, back to Brideshead, etc. etc. If you didn't know better, you'd swear they had high-speed rail in the 1920s. Sure, all your favorite characters make an appearance (Bridey, Cordelia, boorish American Rex Mottram), but all of the nuances and small pleasures of the book are lost. My favorite line, for instance, didn't make the cut:
Julia: "Oh Bridey, don't be so Jesuitical." (I love that line!)

What is shocking is what little impact many of the actors have in their respective roles: Matthew Goode (as Charles Ryder) is little more than a cypher -- vaguely resembling a young Jeremy Irons is not a qualification for starring in a movie! Emma Thompson fares little better: no, she does not get the screen time that Claire Bloom had to fully-develop her character, but in the scenes she does have she does not acquit herself well (at all). Bad director, maybe? And the guy who tries to compete with the great John Gielgud as Ryder's memorably wacky father? His performance simply falls flat.

What does work? Not surprisingly, Ben Whishaw is an effective Sebastian (he played Bob Dylan, after all!) But the only true improvement is the actress who plays Julia Flyte. Hayley Atwell brings all the youthful insecurity, guilt and confusion to her character that I seem to recall the original actress (Diana Quick) masked with a cool British veneer, until the very end.

The second greatest performance in the film actually makes a repeat performance: the grande dame Castle Howard reprises its role as Brideshead. And the Yorkshire mansion hasn't aged a bit!

Full disclosure: been there!

Upcoming reviews:
Tell No One (France)

La France (France (naturally) 2007)

Heads-up for Houston film lovers:
Aurora Picture Show outdoors!
Saturday, August 23, 8PM
Menil Park, 1515 Sul Ross
FREE Admission In collaboration with The Menil Collection, Aurora presents a selection of early 20th-century short films directed by artists like Fernand Léger, Rene Clair and Hans Richter.
"Bring your blanket, picnic, and your avant garde-loving dog!"