Celine: Through the Eyes of the World

She: Not Right
Celine's Strange Distribution
By Cole Smithey

Presented as a "performance" rather than a documentary of her 2008-2009 "Taking Chances" world tour, "Celine: Through the Eyes of the World" is an insult to your intelligence on many levels. Television writer/director-turned-glorified-editor Stéphane Laporte spastically splices together performances of the same song from various concerts in diverse global locations like Cape Town and Dubai so that you don't get the continuity of a single Celine Dion show. Back stage shenanigans, photo-ops with foreign children, teary-eyed press conferences, and saccharine moments with her family, bodyguards, and dance crew substitute for a storyline. Perhaps the most glaring example of corporate pop music on the planet today, Celine plays to the lowest common denominator masses who have sipped from her egomaniacal Kool-Aid and are only too happy to blabber on about it.

Like an amped-up cross between Ann Coulter and Sarah Jessica Parker, the singer gesticulates and pulls faces like a circus clown as she exaggerates the literal import of every oh-so-spirit-lifting power ballad. Think of her as the anti-Sinatra. Distrustful of her abilities, Celine smothers every song with cloying histrionics tilted to make you feel like you're being force-fed a giant box of gooey chocolates with a rhinestone-encrusted funnel. There's nothing smart or natural in her performance. Even as a skilled vocal technician, here is a singer who doesn't know the first thing about phrasing or mood. Perhaps a few years with some Graham Parker records would help. I'm not kidding.

A day visit for Celine, her husband, and child to Hitler's Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin provides an opportunity for Celine to experience some deep feelings that she'll repurpose in that night's duet with a German opera singer. Whew! While in a South Africa, a visit to Nelson Mandela's former prison cell provides yet another chance for Celine--sans make-up--to pull sad faces like a vaudeville child actor seeking applause.  The film also loses points for stealing part of its title from "Muhammad Ali: Through the Eyes of the World" (2001). The most satisfying moment of the film arrives in a backstage scene with Celine doing an imitation of a horse that is spot-on. Oh yes friends, we've got a "special" one here.

The irony is that Celine's overkill act might work better as an off-off-Broadway performance art piece about greed. In New York City, cinemas that charge $12.50 for films that screen several times a day, "Celine: Through the Eyes of the World" costs $15.00--because it's a "performance"--and is shown only once a day in a logic-defying schedule that switches from 7:30 at night to two-o'clock in the afternoon depending on the day. The unspoken reason is that the film is scheduled to screen only eight times at each cinema it plays for its limited week-and-a-half run to work fans into a tizzy of anticipation for her upcoming tour. The Associated Press reported recently that Celine is due to return in March of 2011 to Caesars Palace in Vegas where her new show will feature songs "incorporating the romance of classic movies."

Not Rated. 117 mins. (D) (One Star)

Shutter Island

Instant Classic
Lehane Novel Sets Table for Scorsese to Soar
By Cole Smithey

For his forty-fifth film Martin Scorsese crafts a gorgeously stylized psychological thriller full of darkly lush horror that torments its obsessed protagonist. As former WWII vet and U.S. Marshal, Edward "Teddy" Daniels, Leonardo DiCaprio  hits every psychological mark that Scorsese dynamically orchestrates against a vast metaphorical natural and unnatural setting. Peddocks Island in Nahant, Massachusetts stands in for "Shutter Island," a Boston Harbor land mass, circa 1954, that contains a private prison hospital for the criminally insane where a female inmate named Rachel Solondo has recently escaped from her unbroken cell. Teddy and his first-time partner U.S. Marshall Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) arrive on the fog-shrouded isle to investigate the patient's disappearance but don't receive much cooperation from the hospital's governing psychiatric doctors (played by Sir Ben Kingsley and Max von Sydow). The manically obsessed Teddy suffers from terrible migraines and has walking nightmares that recall his wife's tragic death and terrible atrocities he witnessed while helping to liberate Jews from the Nazi Dachau concentration camp as a U.S. soldier. Teddy has his own private agenda to investigate the facility on informed suspicions that the doctors are performing outrageous experiments on its patients ala the Nazi's Dr. Mengale. The island's wide open and yet closed-off perimeter represents a physical corollary to the internal mystery that paralyzes Teddy with grief and confusion.

The obvious bond that has developed between Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio over the course four films ("The Gangs of New York" - 2002, "The Aviator" - 2004, and "The Departed" - 2006) presents audiences with a rare phenomenon of fulfilled potential. With the ever dependable DiCaprio as his modern-day De Niro, Scorsese is at liberty as a storyteller to dig far deeper into narrative depths than most filmmakers could ever imagine. Along with Daniel Day Lewis, Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the few film actors around who goes beyond creating a character to bite and scratch at the very edges of what human identity is made up of.

"Shutter Island" is a complex mystery that exponentially folds back on itself during the third act. It is not a narrative that a novice filmmaker, no matter how talented, could execute well because of the demanding nature of the material's precarious "state of mind." Crucial to the palpable tapestry of sociological themes that Scorsese juggles is the way the director moves the camera and shifts perspectives from an icosahedron of perspectives to give the audience a sense of physical context with which to judge dangerous themes at play.

Teddy suffers from what we would term today as a severe form of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). He witnessed evidence of experiments performed on Jews in Hitler's camps, and now has information that similarly grotesque experiments are going on at Shelter Island where one inmate has vanished and another one may be unaccounted-for. A personal ghost haunts Teddy in the form of his deceased wife Dolores (Michelle Williams) who died in a fire set by a man who Teddy is trying to find.

Shot in visually opulent "widescreen," Scorsese draws on a variety of cinematic references for a psychosomatic puzzle of foreboding and suspense. Whatever faults audiences might find with Dennis Lehane's imperfect yet solid source material, Scorsese uses the convoluted narrative to create layers of stylized and historic textures. Even the color of the blood that we see so much of is an abstract confection of cinematic intentionality. In another gesture to old friends, Scorsese used Robbie Robertson to curate the film's expressive soundtrack of previously recorded material. America's most accomplished and inspired director has made yet another truly engrossing picture.

(Paramount Pictures) Rated R. 138 mins. (A-) (Four Stars)

The Ghost Writer

Invisible Ink
Polanski's Political Thriller Evaporates
By Cole Smithey

It's a big deal when Martin Scorsese and Roman Polanski release mystery thrillers in the same week. Coincidentally, "Shutter Island" and "The Ghost Writer" are both set on islands and both begin with the arrival of a boat coming directly into the frame. "The Ghost Writer" draws the short straw against Scorsese's stronger effort, but that's not to say Polanski has lost his touch. Co-written by Polanski with political journalist Robert Harris, upon whose novel the film is based, "The Ghost Writer" is full of plot holes yet still entices.

Ewan McGregor plays an unnamed English writer who takes up a surprisingly dangerous job, as a ghostwriter/autobiographer for Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), a former British prime minister accused of war crimes. Following the mysterious drowning death of his literary predecessor, McGregor's ghostwriter sets up temporary shop in his publisher's American bunker-styled beachfront home, which Lang shares with his wife Ruth (Olivia Williams) and his mistress-assistant Amelia (Kim Cattrall). Leaked information about Lang's involvement in the "extraordinary rendition" of terror suspects forces Lang to take off on a United States PR tour to stanch his public bleeding in the media. Meanwhile, the ghostwriter digs deeper into Lang's past, where disturbing secrets lie waiting. Despite Robert Harris's personal experience as a journalist once close to Tony Blair, upon whom Adam Lang is clearly modeled, the screenwriter fails to sufficiently ignite explosive plot points for Polanski to examine under his camera's steady gaze.

Because of the sluggish way he approaches his work, McGregor is never entirely believable as a journalist. Given just six hours to read a manuscript that he must retool in a month's time, he reads aloud to himself rather than speed-reading it the way an actual editor would. He's a protagonist who barely shifts attitudinal gears. Forgetting that he's being well paid to perform a task that ostensibly got the guy before him killed, he allows himself to be misdirected by such low orbiting forces as Lang's temperamental wife when the cat is away. Within the concrete and glass surfaces of the modern beach house that Polanski films with fetishistic enthusiasm, we quickly comprehend the kind of politically-charged isolation that Lang, and later his ghostwriter, experience. Lang's spacious office has a floor-to-ceiling window that offers a stunning view of a foggy beach that waits beyond the room's hermetic seal. When a news helicopter flies over, apparently for an inside look at the home's inhabitants, the audience is pulled between a comfortable kind of claustrophobia and a threatening surveillance that breaks all sense of privacy.

"The Ghost Writer" arrives at a moment when political thrillers and mysteries are about to flood cinemas. The film is an enjoyable if not satisfying experience. When the GPS system of the car that McGregor's character drives becomes a dead-end suspense device, you know you've been had. The redeeming factor is that you've been had by Polanski.  

(Summit Entertainment) Rated PG-13. 128 mins. (B-) (Three Stars - out of 5/no halves)

February 12th Episode

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Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightening Thief

Trading Down
Mythology Inflected Romp Has Nothing on Harryhausen
By Cole Smithey

Aside from some non-PG-rated emphasis on an abusive home life and a lot of underwhelming CGI, "Percy Jackson" is a well-paced kids' action picture that flirts with Greek mythology to create its otherworldly spectacle. Rising child star Logan Lerman plays Percy, a Manhattan teenager living with his mom Sally (Catherine Keener) and her less-than-desirable boyfriend Gabe (Joe Pantoliano). During a school trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art Percy discovers that he is the demi-god son of Poseidon (Kevin McKidd). It seems that the Lord of the Seas had a fling with Percy's mortal mother. Someone has made off with the lightening rod that Zeus uses to control the heavens. Needless to say, the King of Olympus is plenty steamed about it. Believing Percy to be the thief, Zeus dictates that the bolt must be returned before the approaching solstice if an apocalyptic war with Hades (Steve Coogan) is to be avoided. Percy's wheelchair-bound teacher Chiron (Pierce Brosnan) accompanies him to a camp for demi-gods where Percy hones his fighting skills. With fellow demi-gods Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario), daughter of Athena, and his half-goat protector Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) Percy sets off to rescue his kidnapped mother from Hades and return Zeus's purloined lightening rod. Uma Thurman makes the most of her limited screen time as a sunglass-wearing Medusa who takes off the shades when visitors are around. The gorgon with snakes for hair performs her famous trick--turning anyone who gazes upon her to stone before Percy and his heavenly-blessed pals make their way to Hades' hellish hole.

Director Chris Columbus and his crew take a literal approach to spectacle that denies the magnificent use of weirdness and scale that famed stop-action animator Ray Harryhausen brought to such myth-inspired classics as "Jason and the Argonauts" (1963) and "Clash of the Titans" (1981). To think that child audiences in 1963 had a far more earth-shattering theater experience than today's young viewers will have with "Percy Jackson" speaks to the effect that "Harry Potter" films have had on reconfiguring what is expected of this kind of picture. It doesn't help that Chris Columbus directed "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" (2001) and "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" (2002) because it affords him the liberty of repurposing ideas and techniques he learned on those films, rather than thinking anew about how a modern movie with mythological characters should look and feel. It's an outsized magical framework where action scenes should progress to maximize their dramatic potential, and then go even farther to dwarf humanity's tiny imprint on the cosmos. If you've got Neptune in your movie, then there had better be a scene of an inky, cold, vast ocean surface being broken by Poseidon's trident before giving way to the colossal king of the seas. The same goes for the multi-headed Hydra whose snakelike necks should blossom with hundreds of new heads, rather than two, when one is severed by Percy's sword during a fierce battle.

The Hollywood rumor mill has been abuzz with news that the "Spider-Man" franchise is about to be rebooted with Logan Lerman pushing out Tobey Maguire as the web-weaving crime-fighter. The consumerist logic of throwing out the old to usher in an inferior replacement is a knee-jerk way of thinking that is every bit as destructive when it's applied to movies. "Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightening Thief" is a fair movie, but it's no "Jason and the Argonauts."

(20th Century Fox) Rated PG. 120 mins. (B-) (Three Stars)

Posted by Cole Smithey on February 11, 2010 in Fantasy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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Valentine's Day

Half-Eaten Chocolates
A Sampler You Don't Want to Give
By Cole Smithey

"Valentine's Day" is yet another date movie that's less than the sum of its parts. The sheer number of A-list actors involved spells trouble. Jessica Biel, Julia Roberts, Jamie Foxx, and Anne Hathaway provide cast padding for the likes of B-listers Taylor Swift, George Lopez, and Emma Roberts. Intertwining romantic threads weave a haphazard pattern in the City of Angels where Ashton Kutcher plays Reed, a pink-shirt-wearing flower shop owner who prematurely proposes to Jessica Alba, playing a typecast role as Morley, a snooty little minx who rejects his offer. Reed's platonic gal-pal-since-childhood Julia (Jennifer Garner), is dating a doctor with big secrets, and has her own love lessons to learn. Anne Hathaway falls on her actor's sword as Liz, a temp office receptionist who has a sideline as a phone sex entertainer when she isn't pursuing a "simple" relationship with Topher Grace as her doormat-to-be. With half as many sub-plots the filmmakers might have been able to keep the plates of passion spinning atop their spindly knees. As it stands, by the time Liz's office boss Queen Latifah experiments with some off-hours phone sex as an African dominatrix, there's far too much broken china for anyone to escape without bloody feet. Screenwriter Katherine Fugate, whose credits include "Xena: Warrior Princess" and "Max Steel," should stick to her day job as a TV writer. Hollywood is full up with hacks as it is.

"Valentine's Day" so wants to be a platform for Ashton Kutcher to inhabit a cupid who gets shot with his own arrow that the film all but collapses around him. The disparate narrative sampler starts out with Reed rolling out of bed with his fresh-faced girlfriend Morley. He gets down on his knee at bedside to propose to her. When Morley refuses to wear the ring, for fear of attracting too much attention at work, we know Reed will not be having the Valentine's Day he imagines. With this single scene, the filmmakers unknowingly paint the movie into a corner because Kutcher's energetic comic touch is better suited to the confection than every other character. Julia Roberts is Grace, a soldier flying home on a leave that will give her only a handful of hours to spend with her significant other before she has to return to duty. Bradley Cooper plays Grace's seatmate Holden, who imposes his kinder-than-thou personality on her so that the audience is left waiting for the other shoe to drop. The filmmakers hoard personal revelations about Grace and Holden for a miscalculated emotional climax that discharges the last bit of helium from this heart-shaped fiasco.

Most of the film has a perfunctory going-through-the-motions kind of vibe that reflects the way many people think of Valentine's Day. Everyone knows that florists jack up the prices on flowers for an occasion built around initiating consumer spending. We're already used to watching Ashton Kutcher sell cameras in commercials that repeat the same kind of whispered flirtation that momentarily erupts from the half-eaten chocolates of "Valentine's Day." That his florist character has to suffer the emotional indignities of his profession is the perhaps the best consolation of sitting through this romantically inept film.

Rated PG-13. 117 mins. (C) (Two Stars)

Posted by Cole Smithey on February 10, 2010 in Film | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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February 5th Episode

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Posted by Cole Smithey on February 6, 2010 | Permalink
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From Paris with Love

Videogame Mentality
Action Post Card from Paris Self-Destructs
By Cole Smithey

As with Spaghetti Westerns and sit-coms, you know they've jumped the shark when the tone turns to self-mockery. So it is that in one fell swoop John Travolta and suicide bombers have bid audiences their valediction. With Luc Besson's name prominently displayed as its story source, "From Paris With Love" is a shameless shoot 'em up body-count movie with barely enough humor to distract from the pejoratively exploitative nature of its relentlessly bloody action. There is no character or story development here, only innumerable excuses for the seemingly endless homicides that they provide Travolta's impudent trigger-happy CIA hit man Charlie Wax. Waylaid at Charles de Gaulle airport upon his arrival in Paris, Charlie needs wannabe special ops agent Reese (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) to liberate him. "Wax," as his likes to be called, is in town to fulfill a vague mission busting up a Chinese cocaine ring and a Pakistani terrorist cell when he isn't munching on yet another "Royale with cheese"--just like in "Pulp Fiction." Travolta himself is the only other thing this hot-mess-on-a-greased-platter has in common with that astronomically better film. Adi Hasak's screenplay sounds like it was written by a French junior high school kid who just discovered he can curse in English as much as he wants. Wax takes Reese under his itchy wing long enough to teach him the finer points of cold-blooded killing with a "look-no-hands" attitude that comes off as more of an insult than a joke.

I'm the first to admit that I'm a fan of violence in movies. I remember the fallout in Hollywood after David Fincher's "Fight Club" (1999) that limited violence in mainstream movies for about three years. Those were some sad years. But I'm also sensitive to violence when it's served up as an obvious attempt at legitimizing prejudices and promoting a reckless approach for already trigger-happy civil servants to follow.

John Travolta's Wax represents everything that foreigners abhor about the American male identity. Wax is a big mouth badass who grooves on his own fast-twitch instability to do a renegade job of crime-fighting. Reese figures that Wax kills about one person every hour that they are together. The actual figure is much higher. Wax is a self-reflexive post-modern stereotype derived all too loosely from his much hipper Vincent in "Pulp Fiction," and lesser so from his FBI agent in John Woo's "Face/Off" (1997). With a shaved head and a carefully manicured goatee, Wax is killing machine whose ruthlessness is cloaked in his frat boy sense of raunchy humor and adolescent tastes. If anything, it's a role that erases the more developed characters Travolta has created within his limited range as an actor over a long career.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers takes a few demerits with an Oakie American accent that evaporates after the first few scenes. Meyers plays Reese with a lightness that validates the film's shallow attempt to replicate the tone of films like "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" (2005). Put simply, there's nothing at stake here and no ethical substance to justify the honky-donkey blood letting on display. It isn't fare to an audience to glorify armed attacks on society in the bluntly racist terms that Wax repeatedly uses to describe the "bad guys." It's not a ratings consideration. It's a matter of responsibility. Director Pierre Morel's brand of videogame action is something that denigrates the medium of cinema and elicits a numbed response to its glossy presentation. Reese and Wax aren't fighting for the citizens of Paris, they're fighting against them. With friends like these, you don't need any enemies.      

Rated R. 94 mins. (D) (One Star - out of five / no halves)

Posted by Cole Smithey on February 1, 2010 in Action/Adventure | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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