Gateway Cinephiles

Review: High School Musical

August 1, 2008 Libby Reviews, Film Diaries - Libby, Kid Stuff, Musicals Comments Off

2006 (USA)
Director: Kenny Ortega
Viewed: July 31, 2008
Format: DVD - Disney (2006)

Okay, get the teasing done now. You over there, I know you have a smart-ass comment to make about this being posted on a “serious” film blog. Go ahead. I’ll wait. And the oh-so intellectual Disney-gentrification-of-culture comments? Finished? Good.

As a childcare professional who works primarily with school aged children, I have seen this movie many, many times. I’ve seen the sequel. I’ll watch the threequel one too. Why? This is good, age-appropriate entertainment for my students.

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3-Minute Intro: The Wizard of Oz

July 21, 2008 Andrew 3-Minute Intros, Kid Stuff, Fantasy, Musicals No Comments

Screened: July 18, 2008
Format: DVD - Warner Broethers (2005)
Selected By: Beth

What more can be said of Victor Fleming’s 1939 musical fantasy triumph, The Wizard of Oz, that hasn’t already been said before? It is the kind of film that proudly embodies the best features of cinema. It plucks out the affirming fable in L. Frank Baum’s original turn-of-the-century fantasy, wraps it in Broadway melody, and then adds movie-making opulence at its most wondrous. It is a glorious, shameless kind of film, one that succeeds and endures because of its fierce ambition to be a unprecedented work of imagination. What film before Oz contained such human warmth, such otherworldly delight, such grotesque terror, all in one package, and then had the audacity to add catchy show tunes?

At this point, perhaps we should just journey down the list of rumors and legends that swirl around the film. Most notoriously, no, the film does not capture an on-set Munchkin or stagehand suicide. Yes, actor Buddy Epson was slated to play the Tin Man, but was replaced by Jack Haley after the aluminum dust in his role’s makeup severely poisoned him. Yes, a second-hand coat purchased for Professor Marvel’s costume turned out to have been owned by Oz author L. Frank Baum. Yes, MGM originally wanted W.C. Fields to play the Wizard, and yes, the studio originally intended for the Cowardly Lion to be a live lion with a dubbed voice. Yes, many of Margaret Hamilton’s scenes as the Wicked Witch of the West were cut from the final film because they were deemed to frightening.

Yes, Terry the Dog, who plays Toto, was paid more than twice the rate received by the actors who portrayed the Munchkins. Yes, the original silver slippers of Baum’s novel were changed to ruby slippers to better show off the Technicolor film process. And, of course, yes, there are eerie synchronicities between this 1939 film and Pink Floyd’s 1973 concept album, Dark Side of the Moon. Since awareness of the phenomenon first surfaced on Usenet in the 1990s, it has been dismissed by the band and album engineer Alan Parsons, but this has not dissuaded film and Floyd devotees from exploring this odd coincidence.

3-Minute Intro: Hustle & Flow

June 15, 2008 Andrew 3-Minute Intros, Dramas, Musicals 2 Comments

Screened: June 14, 2008
Format: DVD - Paramount (2006)
Selected By: Teresa

The verdict may still be out as to whether American writer-director Craig Brewer is a crass peddler of stereotypes or a fearless filmmaker who delves deep into crannies of the American soul that have too often been neglected and caricatured. Brewer was blessed with a middle class youth characterized by generous artistic encouragement from his parents. Initially, his interests lay in the theater, but after moving to Memphis in 1994, he began penning screenplays. His father’s sudden death left him with a small inheritance which he spent on his first feature film, The Poor and The Hungry, shot on digital video. The film was never distributed, but it proved to be a foot in the door for Brewer. Boyz n the Hood producer Stephanie Allain and director John Singleton became champions of Brewer’s next project, a hip-hop rags-to-not-quite-riches tale. Singleton’s enthusiasm was such that he actually mortgaged his house to help bring Hustle & Flow to the screen.

The film became a smash at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, where Brewer won the Audience Award for Drama. Significant buzz swirled around the lead performance by Terrence Howard, fresh from a breakout role in the ensemble drama Crash. Howard and the film’s signature song, Three 6 Mafia’s “It’s Hard Out There for a Pimp” were both nominated for Academy Awards, with Three 6 claiming a coup as the first hip hop artists to perform at the Oscars.

Hustle & Flow reflects Brewer’s enduring interest in capturing textured, affecting portraits of people in the meanest corners of society. His backdrop is often the dusty, sticky Tennessee that he grew to love in the 1990s. Yet Brewer has faced criticism for his lack of Southern credibility, and Hustle & Flow in particular engendered controversy with its arguable misogyny and glorification of the criminal life. Nonetheless, Brewer and his slate of remarkable performers discover a striking vision of human striving, ugly survival, and artistic ecstasy from a deceptively simple premise. Howard in particular offers a potent, nuanced portrayal. He convinces us that a lowlife pimp and drug dealer could posses dreams and talents that can make him into perhaps not a good man, but a better man.

Quick Review: Shine a Light

April 13, 2008 Andrew Film Diaries - Andrew, Reviews, Documentaries, Musicals No Comments

2008
Director: Martin Scorsese
Viewed: April 12, 2008
Format: IMAX Theatrical Print

Martin Scorsese’s Shine a Light, depicting a two-night Rolling Stones performance at the Beacon Theater, aims for something a little higher than mutual artistic backslapping, just not much higher. This is Stones worship at its purest, but that purity is fairly stunning. The undisciplined tendency that has at times infected Scorsese’s more recent dramatic work is nowhere to be found in this endeavor. If nothing else, Shine a Light is a work of cinematic virtuosity. Shot with plethora of cameras placed jaw-droppingly close to the action, it boasts an intimacy that vividly captures the Stones’ everlasting fire and their sheer joy at performing. It’s dizzying to contemplate the challenge that this film must have been to edit. Scorsese doesn’t strive for the genuine exploration of Gimme Shelter, but he does utilize the medium to discover something akin to a live concert experience, yet also something different and distinctly cinematic. Shine a Light has an undeniable and sustaining energy, but there’s not much to it other than great music from artists you’ll never be this close to again. If that’s enough for you—and it should be—you’ll regret missing an opportunity to catch it in IMAX.

3-Minute Intro: Once

March 11, 2008 Andrew 3-Minute Intros, Musicals No Comments

Screened: March 11, 2008
Format: DVD - 20th Century Fox (2007)
Selected By: Eric

Among the critically hailed films of 2007, John Carney’s Irish musical Once stands apart. This is not a film that sparked blistering critical debates about its bold cinematic vision or artistic merit. Its ambitions are sweet and unsophisticated: a simple story about attraction, affection, and the power of music. It was shot for just $160,000 over seventeen days, and its performers are musicians, not actors. Several European festivals rejected the film, but following a warm reception in Dublin and at Sundance, something happened. Word of mouth began to spread, and audiences began to flock to its limited release showings. By the time of the film’s DVD release in November, the buzz was a roar. To say that a film “captured the hearts of viewers” might be unforgivably trite, but there is no other way to describe Once’s success.

A former bassist for the Irish rock group The Frames, Carney left the group in 1993 to pursue his interest in film. With over a decade of modest success directing music videos and Irish short films, Carney conceived Once as his first full-length feature. When his first choice for the lead role—fellow Irishman Cillian Murphy—and his producers pulled out early in the film’s development, Carney turned to longtime friend and Frames frontman Glen Hansard. Hansard was allegedly reluctant, his only previous acting experience being a small role in 1991’s The Commitments. Carney agreed to grant Hansard significant control over the creative process, and to keep the film small and personal. For his female lead, Carney tapped one of Hansard’s musical collaborators, Czech singer and songwriter Markéta Irglová.

Most of Once’s running time consists of people listening to or creating music, yet its scruffy, naturalistic style is worlds away from the surrealism of the Broadway musical tradition. Hansard and Irglová might be actors secondarily, but their deep personal and professional love for music shine through. They and Carney understand the fleeting mystery of art and love, and somehow they capture it like bottled lightning. What Once achieves is so authentic and painfully human that it has melted the hardest hearts, becoming one of the most universally acclaimed films of the past year.

Review: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

December 23, 2007 Andrew Film Diaries - Andrew, Reviews, Film Diaries - Libby, Film Diaries - Teresa, Horror, Musicals 1 Comment

2007
Director: Tim Burton
Viewed: December 21, 2007
Format: Theatrical Print

Two disclaimers: First, I had never seen Steven Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street on the stage, although the story was familiar to me. Second, I am not generally a fan of musicals, whether live or on film. With these facts in mind, I found Tim Burton’s film adaptation of Sondheim’s musical to be the director’s most thoughtful, magnetic work since his superb 1990 gothic-suburban fable Edwards Scissorhands. Whether Burton deserves the credit for the achievement of this new Sweeney Todd is debatable. The wide adoration lavished upon Sondheim’s musical—from undiscriminating Broadway tourists and devotees of American music history alike—suggests that much of the film’s depth is a product of the source material. What Burton doubtlessly brings to the tale is his studied eye for sumptuous, gloomy detail and the bittersweet poignancy he coaxes from his performers. Sweeney Todd is, admittedly, heavy on the bitter, and mostly bereft of sweet. It serves up a vision of human behavior that is easily the most brutal and bleak that Burton has ever dabbled in.

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Gateway Cinephiles

Review: High School Musical

3-Minute Intro: The Wizard of Oz

3-Minute Intro: Hustle & Flow

Quick Review: Shine a Light

3-Minute Intro: Once

Review: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

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