Review: Burlesque Never Quite Gets There

Amanda Mae Meyncke,  Nov 26, 2010

"Aims for classy and hits somewhere around inoffensive."

In the grand tradition of Chicago, Evita, and Showgirls comes the story of a small-town girl with big-city dreams. There will be tears, there will be dancing, and voila! What we have here is Burlesque, Christina Aguilera’s acting debut, the big-screen return of Cher, and a new attempt at an old genre standby: the sexy dance film. If all goes well, plot should play second fiddle to sassy songs and suggestive dancing.

Christina Aguilera is Ali, a young dancer and singer who makes her way toward Los Angeles and potential fame. Tess (Cher) is the owner of a burlesque nightclub that hasn’t been able to keep up on the mortgage. With financial ruin pending, Tess gives Ali the chance she’s been waiting for, and everyone is amazed at her natural talents. Caught between a handsome Realtor (Eric Dane) and a friendly bartender musician (Cam Gigandet), Ali must stay true to herself and live the life she's always dreamed of.

With hints of Moulin Rouge around the edges but without any of the grace, Burlesque pretty much has one job to do: show us some singin’ and some dancin’. As a dance film it certainly delivers a few great numbers. Fans of Dancing With the Stars’ Julianne Hough will find her in great abundance as the beautiful Georgia, though perhaps not used as much as she might have been. Hough seems such a natural choice for the role of jealous ousted star Nikki (played with overwrought abandon by the feisty Kristen Bell) that it’s confusing that she wasn’t given the larger role. Bell is perfunctory, her talents wasted on a script that has her playing drunk and envious for most of the film.

As I mentioned, plot isn’t the strong suit of Burlesque, and it's hard to care about a single character. The film is filled with many cringe-worthy moments as far as acting and script are concerned, with several idioms and tropes being repeated at least twice -- if not more times. My favorite misstep peddled as wisdom is Cher’s line: “When you are putting on your makeup, it's like you're an artist, but instead of painting a canvas, you're painting your face.” The sheer idiocy of that line cannot be overstated. Meditate upon it in your hearts and go forth into the world. The film is set in Los Angeles on the Sunset Strip, but the city isn’t really given any kind of fair treatment, existing only as a place where dreams come true. As I watched these women cavort and strut, over and over the phrase “Pussy Cat Dolls: The Movie!” ran through my head and for good reason: director/writer Steven Antin is the brother of Robin Antin, the human directly responsible for the existence of the aforementioned Dolls.

Aguilera’s performance is her first as an actress and I can only assume she thinks she is doing a subtle job of portraying Ali’s naivety and clumsy efforts toward success. Her portrayal of Ali can only generously be described as one-dimensional. In the time-honored tradition of singers trying to act, and actors trying to sing, Aguilera should stick to what she knows best: mopping the floor with her low range and busting the ceiling with her spine-tingling high notes. While her dance sequences ooze feminine charm and sexual power, when she’s not dancing, Ali has none of the bone-breaking intensity of Elizabeth Berkeley in Showgirls, none of the meticulous conniving of Madonna in Evita, and none of the glamor of anyone in Chicago or Moulin Rouge.

Cher has spent some 11 years away from the big screen, with only a small turn in a Farrelly brothers’ movie during that time. (At age 64, Cher is looking more and more like L.A. Ink’s Kat Von D; I realize this is neither here nor there but the resemblance is uncanny.) Her vocals and performance were good but not great. Special consideration and points must be given for the "But I’m a Good Girl" routine performed by Aguilera, which is absolutely beautifully shot, costumed, and sung. Stanley Tucci, as Tess’ right-hand man, can do no wrong and does his absolute best to keep this Zeppelin of a film from catching fire and smoldering to the ocean of schmaltz, but even his charm and subtlety are hard-pressed to counteract the hair-tossing and flashing eyes of Cher and Aguilera.

Keeping in mind that the entire film is essentially an extended music video-type vehicle for Christina Aguilera to wow us with her singing chops, Burlesque aims for classy and hits somewhere around inoffensive. If you like dancing, or like Christina Aguilera or Cher, you’re going to enjoy the film, and I suspect if you’ve been planning to see it you already know what to expect. All in all, the final product was eerily close to my earlier dissection of the trailer. The plot only distracts from the dancing which is plentiful but leaves you wanting more. At best it is a fairly run-of-the-mill dance film, and at worst a mediocre mishmash of genre conventions. In the future, let’s get less plot and more high kicks please.

Grade: C+

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Review: The Tourist Annoys

Laremy Legel,  Dec 10, 2010

"To battle the logic of the film would be to swat flies in a hurricane."

We'll resume our regularly scheduled review in a moment, but first, a riddle.

What does Johnny Depp playing a schlub look like?

Think on that, and let's talk about The Tourist. Angelina Jolie! Johnny Depp! Italy! A madcap tale of mistaken identity and embezzlement! Or so the marketing around the film would have you believe. Unfortunately, the film would be far better off if you entered sedated, having never seen a movie before, and unaware of who this "John Depp" fellow was. Still, even then I think you'd have an inkling, a feeling, something in the back of your mind saying "Hmmm, this chap doesn't seem to fit in this part."

And he doesn't, which is the entire problem with The Tourist. Is the film enjoyable if you're looking for a quasi-homage low consequence afternoon? Possibly. Is it good? It is most decidedly not. It doesn't add anything to the conversation, it doesn't earn its relationships, and it is painfully predictable. Plus, we haven't even gotten to how they handle Angelina Jolie in this film. Here goes.

If aliens landed and saw only The Tourist to judge us on, they would believe that Jolie was our queen. The camera lingers on her a good fifteen to twenty seconds too long every few minutes, and the people in the film treat her as if they'd never seen a woman prior. Even the women treat her this way. She'll enter a room, people will gasp and stare, and she'll smile like a Cheshire cat. It's confounding. Yes, she's an attractive lady, and sure, she seems to make the news on a regular basis, but she's not the only example of sexuality we're working with, is she? She's not so breathtaking that normal human interaction with her becomes impossible, right? Yet, The Tourist believes this is the case. Johnny Depp meets Angelina Jolie on a train, and he's immediately unable to speak. His entire life prior, his thousands of interactions with mortal women, they've all left him woefully unprepared to bask in the visage that is Jolie. And we, the audience, are supposed to take extreme joy in this, or else why would the film show this same interaction 750 times in a row? Jolie is pretty, Depp is confounded, Jolie smirks at his confounded nature, Depp drinks her in with his eyes, Jolie smirks at his wanton lust, Depp slightly recovers, Jolie is pretty, Depp is confounded, and on and on this goes. To talk about the plot would be silly, as they never get around to it. To battle the logic of the film would be to swat flies in a hurricane. At some point you've just got to give up and seek shelter.

Now then, the answer to the opening riddle. Johnny Depp, playing a schlub, still looks very much like Johnny frickin' Depp, sexy man extraordinaire. He'd be suave if you dunked him underwater and garnished him in a trash bag, and so the film's continual insistence that we view him as overwhelmed by Jolie's attraction is a faulty premise. Asking Depp to play a common man is like asking a cheetah to do the Macarena. Counterproductive, pointless, and a massive waste of everyone's time.

Grade: D

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Review: Warrior's Way Is Style Over Substance

Eric D. Snider,  Dec 06, 2010

"Not nearly as fun as a movie with this premise ought to be."

The Warrior's Way, according to the narrator, is "the story of a sad flute, a laughing baby, and a weeping sword." All of that is true, but the narrator has buried the lead! The Warrior's Way is also the story of an Asian swordsman hiding in the Old West, where he helps the locals battle a badly scarred villain and a team of ninja assassins. It's Seven Samurai meets Deadwood! It's Kurosawa meets Leone, filtered through a dozen Tarantino imitators!

It's also not nearly as fun as a movie with this premise ought to be. Written and directed by Sngmoo Lee, an instructor at New York Film School, Warrior's Way uses 300-style technology to produce handsome visuals and impossibly colorful sets. The first 20 minutes, with its whimsical backstory narration and unselfconscious oddness, reminded me of TV's dear departed Pushing Daisies. Yet the film is hollow and soulless, its energy sapped by its dull characters and completely derivative screenplay.

The year is 1880-ish. Our hero, Yang (Dong-gun Jang), is a master swordsman from an unspecified Asian country who refuses to kill the last remaining member of the rival clan on the grounds that the last remaining member of the rival clan is a newborn baby. Instead, he takes the baby and flees to the West (though he gets there by traveling eastward), arriving in a dusty California settlement called Lode. Yang opens a laundry service and tells no one of his sword-wielding past.

Lode is home to a circus troupe led by Eight-Ball (Tony Cox), a midget with an "8" painted on his head. There's also a town drunk (Geoffrey Rush) who used to be a marksman. And Lynne (Kate Bosworth) is a rootin'-tootin', steel-hearted gal bent on revenge against the dastardly Colonel (Danny Huston), who was responsible for the death of her family some years ago. The Colonel's hideous disfigurement, hidden by a mask, is courtesy of his previous run-in with Lynne.

Meanwhile, Yang's old crew is searching the world to find him and punish him for his betrayal. For this reason, Yang cannot unsheathe his sword, as doing so will cause the sword to weep audibly (with the souls of everyone it has slain), which will serve as a homing device for his former compatriots. You know how it is.

The film's greatest surprise is that it is not based on a graphic novel. The film's second-greatest surprise is that, for as cheap and daffy as it sounds, it's often beautiful to look at. Lee takes his visuals seriously, composing shots and staging action like someone who has taught such things to film students for several years.

But apart from the drunk and the villain -- thanks, Rush and Huston! -- none of the characters is remotely interesting, so the action never means anything. Yang is a blank page; Lynne is page with a lot of cliches written on it. 'Tis a pity, because the film's details suggest potential for a lively, bizarre, action-comedy cult classic. It just never comes together the way it needs to. Chalk up another win for style in the style-vs-substance rivalry.

Grade: C

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Eric D. Snider (website) would freak out if he heard a sword weeping.

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Review: Black Swan More Than Meets the Eye

Laremy Legel,  Dec 03, 2010

"Natalie Portman's take on searing sensuality fused with desperate depression cries out for attention."

There's a theme hinted at during Black Swan, whispered quietly against backdrops both spartan and despair, which seems to imply that lightness of being comes from the darkness of existence, which was borne from previously contextual lightness. This is a big concept to grapple with, this endless cycle of good and evil, but you'll have plenty of time to ponder it as the plot of Black Swan is left purposefully threadbare. Everything is faded or muted color, everything is creepy, and director Darren Aronofsky has made this a far less accessible piece of cinema than his previous film, The Wrestler. Of course, that's not necessarily a bad thing; his iconic work The Fountain is at once inscrutable and beautiful, but Black Swan seems to nibble around the edges of greatness without ever taking a full bite.

Natalie Portman, as Nina, is a ballet dancer seeking out the prestigious part of Swan Queen in Swan Lake. The director of the ballet (Vincent Cassel) is demanding and demeaning, as most clever tyrants are. He's ushering his previous protege (Winona Ryder) out the door, all to make room for a new and powerful force that might end up being Mila Kunis. Portman's talents within the plot construct are the embodiment of innocence and light. Kunis, however, is all darkness and edge. She's a natural counterpoint to Portman, exemplifying sneering sexuality while Portman's withering innocence undermines her ambition.

So who will get the role? Perhaps Portman. Maybe Kunis. Or Portman. There's vacillation all around as Portman continually shines as the White Swan but suffers in comparison to Kunis' naturally darker Black Swan. The director needs a dancer with range, a performer who can do both parts fluidly. But black and white remain at odds, innocence and cynicism wage continual war.

And then there's the mother figure. Yikes. Barbara Hershey portrays Erica Sayers, who emotionally (and occasionally physically) bullies Portman at every turn. Portman always seeks to please, but there's clearly no pleasing a true sadomasochist. Tension pervades the piece as Portman's decision looms. Will she be able to tap into her darker nature before the role of Swan Queen is gone forever? Is Kunis a rival or a friend? Is Cassel a predator or a genius? And so on. Black Swan is not a work of art based in certainty, nay, this is where strong conclusions go to die, unless you count the constant feeling that something is wrong with each of the protagonists. The one thing that is for certain is that five actors turn in wonderful performances. Natalie Portman's take on searing sensuality fused with desperate depression cries out for attention.

Still, Black Swan is not quite fully cooked. It is almost a horror film. It's almost a romance, and it's almost a drama. The film makes a feint toward the sacrifices needed to attain perfection, but as every character is so flawed, it's tough to place much value there. We've seen the pursuit of perfection personified in films like Searching for Bobby Fischer and The Natural, but in those films the excellence of seeker was placed right up front. Not so here.

Black Swan definitely evokes -- you won't be able to watch without questioning what you know, and why you know it, but it's hard to pinpoint what precisely is effective. Black Swan is four-fifths of a magic trick. With this much dread on-screen you're bound to fill in a few of the gaps with your own emotional coping mechanisms. But it's difficult to judge the strength of the work when it's just barely there, inhabiting some undefined region, largely stuck between black and white.

Grade: B

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Review: Tiny Furniture Is Deeply Satisfying

Amanda Mae Meyncke,  Dec 03, 2010

"Dunham has created something magical."

Have you ever seen a movie that seemed to be based on your own life? A movie so eerily similar in texture and tone that the filmmaker had to have known everything about you, known the town you grew up in, and made it all into a sweeping cinematic portrait? At best, most films only seem to touch upon truths here and there, a few moments that quietly remind you of things you had forgotten, or feelings you hadn't felt in years. Writer/actor/director Lena Dunham throws this model entirely out the window in her film Tiny Furniture, a film so modern and absolutely of-the-moment in its composition that Dunham could only be taking the story from the back pages of her own life, and as it turns out, she is.

The setting, though perhaps not the particulars, will be all too familiar to many of those who just graduated from college. Aura (Lena Dunham) comes home, with her useless film theory degree from her liberal arts school in Ohio (cough, cough, Oberlin) to New York. Her mother, Siri (Laurie Simmons), is a successful artist who shoots pictures of miniatures (hence the title); her sister, Nadine (Grace Dunham), is tall, accomplished, uniquely good-looking, and popular. Life has kept on going at their immaculately mid-century modern apartment while Aura has been away, friends and family moving forward without her input, and when she arrives back she is almost a stranger. Adrift and stunned from a breakup with her boyfriend, it's a struggle to find work, and she spends time reconnecting with her childhood best friend, the gorgeous Charlotte (Jemima Kirke). A few boys enter the picture, including a literary sous-chef as well as a freeloading YouTube star (Alex Karpovsky) who's in town to shop his TV pilot around to HBO and Comedy Central, but nobody who really seems to like her. Aura insists that she's trying her hardest, but at what, exactly?

The film excels in many areas, including the jokes, which are casual and hilarious, measured and moment-appropriate. New Yorkers will gag slightly over the TriBeCa chic setting, but it feels authentic, and the greater reason for this is that the film seems to be entirely autobiographical. Director Lena Dunham plays a version of herself, and cast her artistic mother as her artistic mother, her sister as her sister, and filmed in their real-life apartment. A momentary aside to laud the remarkable choice of Jemima Kirke, whose performance I so wholly enjoyed I was shocked to learn this was her first film. From the casually amazing oufits to the insane things she says, Kirke's portrayal of best friend Charlotte is part Courtney Love hysterics, partly a waifish British Joanna Newsom, and part my newfound spirit animal. She bursts onto the scene with a heavy slap to the face, and is entirely too fabulous. Rather intentionally, she steals every scene she's in, and makes off with the best lines in the film, including: "On my resume, under skills I put 'has a landline.'" And in one substance-addled moment, drops the little gem: "It's kind of like that book, The Giver, you know, where that kid stores everyone's emotions. [beat] No, it's not like that at all."

It seems entirely obvious to me that the reason the film feels so genuine is because it is created from the stuff of life. Details are noticed and replicated -- the little fights between siblings, the awkward conversations you have with people you work with, the way you say horrible things you immediately regret -- these are all stops along a well-traveled territory. Lena Dunham has directed her family in a movie about themselves, where they are playing themselves. This could be seen as taking self-documentation to an almost embarrassing level, but Dunham has done something more than navel-gaze. She has created an outstanding work that presents an entirely relatable version of one girl's post-grad delirium. Aura is living the sad life of so many people I know, and this is their story. The not-pretty smart girls who went to college, got their hearts broken by men they expected to marry, and lost many of the college friends they expected to be friends with forever. Aura is a little awkward and oscillates between trying to obtain control of situations in which she has no control and not caring at all, but ultimately she's fighting the same battle as everyone else, attempting to make deep and satisfying connections with the people around her.

Trying to have a life in a city when you have no money can feel deadly depressing, and the thought of working retail for pennies when you've already spent so much money on what has turned out to be an entirely useless degree is heartbreaking. Since the recession, no one can afford to live on their own and so everyone moves back in with their parents. Aura is a little too forward, a little too willing to over-share in that dark way that everyone who's had the Internet their whole life is. A few nebulous, undefined relationships with boys and a very minor pill dalliance round out the drifting. In one stunning moment Siri asks Charlotte if she feels the same stunning sense of entitlement as Aura, and Charlotte giggles then says, "Oh, believe me, mine is much worse."

Much more like an incredible short story than a tired-out trope of a film, Dunham has created something magical in 98 minutes flat. Though this is an indie film, it lacks the terrible quality that many independent films seem to tout. Artfully shot, and reminiscent at times of a Wes Anderson film (of course), there's plenty of style, smarts, and fun in Tiny Furniture.

Tiny Furniture opened in New York City on November 12 and in Los Angeles on November 26.

Grade: A

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Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt 1" (2010) - Warner Bros. Pictures Laremy Legel,  Nov 19, 2010

"There is much to love in the latest offering from the Potter franchise."

One doesn't really review a Harry Potter film. The best you can hope for is to sidle up, make sure it contains adequate wizardry and a bespectacled hero, and call it good. In that sense, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is good. Quite good, in fact, possibly even great. The fact that it's not a stand-alone movie? Pish posh. The minor detail that there isn't a true story arc? Ah, whaddya gonna do? You could say the Harry Potter franchise is akin to a war elephant. Getting in the way only gets you trampled, for no apparent gain. Better to note the loveliness of the epic animal and the visceral feel of the earth shaking under your feet as she rumbles by.

This film, the seventh and penultimate in the series, wisely focuses on the original power trio that comprises the strength of the franchise. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are cast into a dangerous game (surprise!), battling the forces of Voldemort and his minions in an elemental tale of good versus evil. And whoo boy, what a hand evil has to play this time around. The Potter franchise gets darker each time out, the stakes get higher, the causalities harder to bear. Make no mistake, this is a film that comes by the PG-13 rating honestly, with scenes of terror and sacrifice ratcheting up the tension throughout.

Story-wise, we start out with a logistics session. Harry needs to be moved from his hiding place to an alternate safehouse, but agents of Voldemort are obsessively pursuing him, and they've got spies lurking around every corner, waiting to ensnare the young savior. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 has an action beat every 10 minutes, but the opening one might set the gold standard, director David Yates showing off the majesty of the night sky as blanketed by wizards, witches, and beasts aplenty. I was reminded of the chaos that surrounded the long-gone Quidditch matches at ol' Hogwarts, and how much circumstances had changed since the biggest thing on everyone's mind was merely house pride.

Where the film falters is through the calculated exclusion of anyone not already steeped in Harry Potter lore. You'll need to come in emotionally invested, though the chances of that are solid if you've read this far. Newcomers need not apply, as the whole affair would likely come off as a blustery exercise without prior knowledge of the books or films. However, this is a reasonable problem to have, given the final book was split into two movies. It must have been an impossible task to form a smaller and self-contained narrative where none previously existed within the source material.

Still, there is much to love about this Potter. There are heartstrings pulled, and the chemistry between Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint has blossomed into something more than friendship meeting contractual requirements. The gang knows where the weaknesses are, and how to play to everyone's strengths -- one could make the case that a decade and eight films has finally shown us a true melding of emotional evolution and shared suffering. Additionally, the film features an animated sequence of amazing quality (seriously, it's spectacular), a tiny nugget of artistry buried amidst the live-action Potter mania.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One might be awkwardly titled and strangely paced, but you'll still find much value in the raw entertainment power generated.

Grade: B

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Review: Voyage of the Dawn Treader Sails More or Less in the Right Direction

Eric D. Snider,  Dec 10, 2010

"This one aims for middle-of-the-road and basically hits it."

After Disney gave up on distributing the Chronicles of Narnia films, disappointed that what should have been a gold-pooping goose had failed to produce sufficient piles of gold, Twentieth Century Fox stepped in to save the day. Not that you'll be able to tell the difference. Part 3, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, might be better than its predecessors, which were so-so, but only barely. Something about this series just isn't connecting, though that apparently isn't going to stop them from adapting all seven books.

World War II is still taking place in the real world, and the two youngest Pevensie children, Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and Lucy (Georgie Henley), are staying with relatives while their older siblings are in America. (Spoiler alert: If you, like me, have not read the C.S. Lewis book this is based on, and if you, like me, keep waiting for the big brother and sister to show up, then you, like me, will be disappointed.) It isn't long before the two are whisked away to Narnia again, this time accompanied by their unwilling cousin, Eustace (Will Poulter), a sour-faced brat who does not believe in all this Narnia nonsense even when he is standing in it.

You will soon be deeply concerned that bringing a petulant, irritating fellow such as Eustace on this journey was a mistake, but do not fear. This problem is dealt with in a magical fashion.

Edmund and Lucy are reunited with Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) on a ship, the Dawn Treader. Much of the film is set at sea, with appropriate swashbuckling and swordplay; if the first two films felt like Lord of the Rings, this one is more like Master and Commander. (Not Pirates of the Caribbean. Not silly enough.) The whole gang embarks on a mission to find out where legions of innocent Narnians have been taken, daring to sail where no one has sailed before, perhaps even to where Aslan the Christianity-lion lives!

Also: seven swords, seven lords, you have to put all the swords on a table, evil forces are after them, there's a mouse that can talk and a dragon that can't, et cetera.

The messages are basic and unobjectionable. Lucy, fast developing into a bright young lady, wishes she were prettier. Edmund, eager to prove his worth as a soldier, desires more power. Both are tempted by evil (Tilda Swinton makes a brief cameo as the White Witch) before learning to appreciate what they have and love themselves for who they are.

There's a new director this time around, Michael Apted (The World Is Not Enough), and a new writer, Michael Petroni (with rewrites by former Narnia scribes Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely). The film is a half-hour shorter than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian. I doubt that's an accident. What begins to feel sluggish and repetitive at 145 minutes can seem much zippier at 115. A few of the action sequences are fairly exciting and energetically produced.

What's more, Voyage of the Dawn Treader isn't as convinced of its own epic importance as the other two were. It is far more unassuming and direct, content with telling a good-enough story in a good-enough fashion. Where the others aimed for greatness and missed, this one aims for middle-of-the-road and basically hits it. I still don't feel much connection to the characters, but maybe this is as good as we're going to get in that department.

Grade: B-

* * * *

Eric D. Snider (website) is an Aslanist.

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Review: Love and Other Drugs Isn't Addictive

Laremy Legel,  Nov 24, 2010

"Adds up to very little that's cohesive."

There are certain enjoyable aspects of Love and Other Drugs. Anne Hathaway, for instance. She's a young actor on the rise, and we could well find ourselves pointing to this role as evidence of her continued maturation. The themes presented are initially compelling too, be it pharmaceutical sales or Parkinson's, we haven't seen many films constructed in this manner. But tonally? It's not great. By which I mean it's not good. So there's that.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays a drug rep for Pfizer, and he meets Anne Hathaway through a bit of chicanery. He job shadows a doctor who tells him to just pretend he's an intern. Hathaway has many physical ailments, so she heads into see a doctor, and during the course of her examination Gyllenhaal sneaks a peek at her, topless. When Hathaway realizes, a few minutes later, that Gyllenhaal is just a smarmy salesman she's rightfully less than pleased. That's your meet-cute, and it's the foundation of Love and Other Drugs. From there on out the couple will be subjected to trials, occasional tribulations, and most of it will add up to very little that's cohesive.

The issues with the film start with the scattered approach. Is this a ringing indictment of Big Pharma? Is it an insightful look into what it's like to be young, single, sick, and afraid of attachment? It's a little of both, and of course it is effectively neither, because the track of the film shifts every five minutes. We're left with a very wishy-washy story, as if director Edward Zwick knew in his heart he wanted to execute a modern romantic comedy, but lacked the resources to do so.

Love and Other Drugs is also a film that relies on montages for nearly every moment of exposition. The two are in love? Montage. The couple can't make it work? Montage. Hathaway's disease leaving her feeling fatigued and vulnerable? Montage me, and lay on the sappy lyrics if you please. This is no way to run a drama or a comedy, and Love and Other Drugs suffers mightily for the transgression. This is a film bathed in music, but not meaningful dialogue, and all the acoustic cheese in the world can't save it from the pointed lack of contribution from the script.

That said, the elements were in place for Love and Other Drugs to be a solid film. The rise of Viagra seems perfect for a "tale of excess" tale in the vein of Wall Street. Likewise, Parkinson's disease is a worthy subject, and Hathaway was just the actress to cast, as she's got excellent emotional range. Edward Zwick has directed great films, amazing films, his skill made evident over the past two decades. Jake Gyllenhaal is drawn to difficult acting assignments, and his ability to make characters both sympathetic and scorn-worthy in the same scene should have been an asset. But things never really come together, we never really understand where the characters are coming from, and it's never clear if this is a film that's anti-drug or just pro-montage. Love and Other Drugs isn't a story about love or drugs, which is kind of shame, given those were clearly two great starting points.

Grade: C

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Review: Tangled Is Newfangled Disney Fun

Laremy Legel,  Nov 24, 2010

"The best Disney animation in years."

If one were feeling charitable, one could say Tangled is a return to form for Disney animation. As we're at the starting line for the holiday season I'm feeling rather charitable, so I'll opine that Tangled is a return to form for Disney animation. It's not to the level of modern classics like Aladdin (1992) or The Little Mermaid (1989) and of course it shouldn't be compared to classic classics such as Dumbo (1941) and Lady and the Tramp (1955), but for 2010? It's certainly in the top three, just short of the groundbreaking work Pixar and Dreamworks are producing.

Tangled puts a contemporary spin on the classic Rapunzel tale. Gone is the original darkness of the Brothers Grimm story, replaced with an evil stepmom and a hero / thief / vagabond / orphan named Flynn Ryder (voiced by Zachary Levi). Mother Gothel (Donna Murphy) is the evil stepmom; she kidnapped Princess Rapunzel from her royal crib when she was just an infant.

As for Rapunzel (Mandy Moore), she's a torrent of hair and innocence, and she's been beguiled by her nefarious stepmom into believing she shouldn't ever leave the tower. Her hair has magic powers, naturally, and witchy stepmom is using it for immortality. But deep in her soul, Rapunzel knows something is not quite right. Every year her grief-stricken parents release thousands of floating candles into the sky to celebrate her birthday. She decides to make a pilgrimage to see the lights up close, which runs her afoul of Gothel. The story proceeds as you'd expect, peppered with moments where lead cast members break into song.

The writing is also strong to quite strong. At 100 minutes, the film is brisk, and the moments of levity are continual. There's a horse that features as much hilarity as any non-speaking animated animal has a right to hope for. There's a chameleon named Pascal who definitely keeps the mood light. And the interplay between Ryder and Rapunzel is dynamic enough to keep the adults interested too. My only complaint with the story would be the overall vibe of Gothel. Her main motivation, vanity, seems a far cry from the evil excellence of Ursula or the creepiness factor of Scar.

The animation of Tangled feels bigger and more technically savvy than ever. Many wideshots are employed, and sweeping panoramas are the norm and not the exception. Singing and dancing vignettes are handled with aplomb, Rapunzel's glorious locks showed off to the maximum. The 3-D? Egh, it's well thought out, but not particularly dynamic. Tangled is not a film that needed 3-D treatment, even if Disney is a parent studio that likes extra profit.

Still, Tangled is well worth a watch. It's the best Disney animation in years, and a natural counterpoint to the contemporary comic style that has come to dominate the industry. We still need our fairy tales, we could still use a simple yarn every so often, and it's nice to see a quality film that opens with those old familiar fireworks over that old familiar magic kingdom.

Grade: B

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