New Line (R.I.P.)

As you've heard by now New Line Cinema has been absorbed into Warner Bros. The gargantuan corporate beast still thrives and grows. It will eventually own your very soul. Reel Fanatic has written a fine if measured eulogy, praising them for bringing us several John Waters classics and the neo classic Lord of the Rings trilogy, damning them for Brett Ratner and other blights. New Line's death undoubtedly kills off any His Dark Materials: Golden Compass sequels but they didn't really go for it anyway so no big loss. I realize that my initial review was a thumbs up ... but like Sweeney Todd, which I liked much more, it faded rapidly, replaced as it should be with memories of the superior source material. I'm only human and sometimes --well, all the time actually (and I think this is a universal truth though many people refuse to acknowledge it) what I bring into the theater affects how I respond to the movie.

People will worry about the future of the troubled LotR prequel The Hobbit but if you ask me, we're better off without it ...though we won't be without it. Warner Bros won't be able to let it rest since Rings was a cash cow. Even if the property is entirely damaged it will one day walk the movie theaters like a miserable shuffling reanimated corpse. I say let it rest in peace with the Golden Compass sequels. It's sometimes best to quit while you're ahead. Every new morsel of info regarding the infinite lawsuits over Tolkien's material and Hollywood's profits or non-profits (hee, who are they trying to fool?) from the same... and every new idea -'let's make it two films since there's not enough material for one' (huh?) makes me say: no thank you. I'll always have 10+ hours of Frodo, Aragorn and Legolas and that's enough for me.

So New Line is dead. Long live Warner Bros. When it comes to the cannibalism of corporate Hollywood I stay very zen. Hollywood is immortal. In some way or another all of its severed heads regrow. I remember when Orion folded, I think around the time they won a Best Picture prize (for Silence of the Lambs), I was heartbroken. I had been conditioned to be excited when I saw their logo because they had delivered me many formative treasures. Other studios delivered goodies thereafter. All was well. I was a baby cinephile. I hadn't yet seen the way great studios (early Weinstein Miramax) can become embarrassments (Chocolat-pushing Weinstein Miramax) or even how they can be reborn and revitalized (the new Weinstein-free Miramax). Early this decade I became really fond of USA Films and then they were suddenly Focus Features (my current favorite) but they were even better. As long as there's a studio here or there and a mover and shaker behind the scenes that cares about quality, it's all good
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more at twiigs.com...

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Rant From a Defensive Kidman Fan

I normally enjoy the snark and wit of the blog "by Ken Levine" but I took issue with this post which takes easy potshots at one of the best actresses on the planet. The usual complaints are there: botox, box office poison, weird movies, etcetera. I'm not sure why hating on Nicole Kidman became such a popular sport. It can't only be her ubiquity. Cate Blanchett is even more irremoveable from magazines and screens these days and it's definitely uncool to hate on her as I've discovered ... I'm still dressing the wounds, you savage unforgiving beasts!


I think quite possibly the reason it's cool to hate on Kidman is sadder to point out: her artistry. It's true that her mainstream efforts tend to stink a little. She doesn't have the best taste in mall films or her heart isn't in them. And just as the haters suggest Kidman makes small weird and unsuccessful films, too. These intermittently challenging volleys to the audience --Fur, Birth, Dogville, Margot at the Wedding etcetera-- seem to upset people, else why would they so frequently be used in the targeting of the star? I don't think we're used to behemoth stars confronting us with our own limitations as movie consumers and I think it's even more discomforting -- for whatever reason...I'm no psychologist-- to realize that this type of film/role is what makes one particular A Listers heart beat quickly and fondly. And I think even the people who won't watch these movies have realized this about Mrs. Urban by now.

Our other formidable and über famous actresses who could handle the auteur driven tasks that Kidman takes on, or the burdensom warped psychologies she attempts to illuminate choose not to. Streep, Dench, Blanchett, Winslet etcetera mostly don't go to such dark and weird places... at least not with such persistence. Helen Mirren has some peculiarities in her filmography but people weren't paying such close attention. After the Queen she chose National Treasure 2 (maybe that was an avant garde tribute to Charlize Theron and Halle Berry's post Oscar choices? Oh Helen you sly silver fox) Even Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, former darlings of iconoclast auteurs and the avant garde respectively, are spending lots of time in mainstream Hollywood pictures.

I think the public at large would probably prefer it if they didn't have to hear about little oddities like Fur and Birth and, here's the truth about fame's power, they wouldn't if people like Kidman weren't in them. Which brings us to The Golden Compass. I'll give you that it's messier plotwise than most of the would be blockbusters you see out there. But cut it a small break, it's got much more complex material and themes to deal with. So F'in What if The Golden Compass isn't half as successful monetarily as the simple Christ metaphors in Narnia. Who cares?

The old cliché that awards bodies don't cotton to unlikeable characters (unless they happen to be showy "love to hate" villains) is holding true this year for Kidman's impressive if highly confrontational work in Margot at the Wedding (my thoughts). Is the problem that she doesn't give the audience a good light charming woman as a buffer inbetween the disturbed ladies? Or is the problem that she's just not great at the light stuff that's usually a requirement for supersize celebrities who command $15 million a picture?

Can't we at least look at The Golden Compass (my review) and recognize that Nicole Kidman understands and is beginning to illuminate a character with an unusual surplass of mental baggage. Or is that verboten in a children's fantasy flick, this discomforting psychology as obvious as the golden monkey on her back? Shouldn't the reviewing types be writing about these things rather than bitching about how smooth Nicole's face looks. That particular quibble wasn't in Mr. Levine's post but I've seen too many reviews that complain about the way she's lit, as if her scenes were filmed in such a way entirely to serve her vanity. Newsflash to all people bitching: look at the movie. Numerous surfaces are filmed this way. Kidman's face is but one of hundreds of elements that get that airbrushed glossy sheen) But, oh yes, sorry. Nobody wants to think about cinematography and production choices when they watch a movie. They just want to love or hate on celebrities and gawk at CGI.

Pass the popcorn. [/rant from a defensive Kidman fan]

These posts aren't Nicole Kidman related but they're in the same field on the commerce/art battleground: NovaSlim has a funny post on the whack criteria of judging musical talent by bank accounts; Low Resolution takes Richard Corliss to task for his oddly incoherent and pandering article on "out of touch" critics. Imagine it... critics daring to trumpet movies that haven't come out yet and adult oriented films that don't play with the Transformers crowd.

Classic Kidman Quiz: We Are All Nicole Kidman
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Everyone and Their Dog

To celebrate The Golden Compass' wide release today (review), a film in which every human has an animal "daemon" companion to represent their soul, I'd like to suggest "daemons" for the other movies in release right now... and point you towards earlier posts on the same films. I can't be bothered to write about them again --It's December! Hollywood demands that I try to cram in several movies a week. Since everyone and their dog will soon be celebrating "best of the year" this & that, you'd better cram in several too.

N O W * P L A Y I N G

the links take you to previous posts or reviews

American Gangster


Beowulf


The Diving Bell and Butterfly


Enchanted


Gone Baby Gone


I'm Not There

lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll lll
lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll lllllllllllllllllll llllllllllll

Juno


No Country For Old Men


and coming soon...

Charlie Wilson's War

Relax, I'm kidding. It's not that bad.

As for new releases, The Golden Compass is the only wide release this week. It's impossible to give it one animal, since it's veritably teeming with them. But as for quality, is it a rare exotic breed or a mutt? Depends on if you've read the book I think. My review is up @ Zoom-In

Now you play Which animal spirit would you assign to 2007 releases like Eastern Promises, Stardust, Zodiac or others?

READER SUGGESTED DAEMONS

Sweeney Todd

(thx Seth!)

Hairspray

("black AND white, fat, fuzzy and adorable" - thanks Katey!)

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Queen LaLinkah

Defamer Pretend to look surprised. Is Queen Latifah really about to come out?
"Of Interest" Draco Malfoy and Nicole Kidman
The Hot Blog Poland hates to be a dick -- but y'ar Blanche, y'ar. Why else would you imply that you can recommend a certain movie only to girls and "some boys" and then say it's not all that. The implications... oy
Dennis Cozzalio's "faces I love" column. Interesting look at actors
Empire Ridley Scott to take on the Gucci empire? What a glitzy art directed biopic that could be
NewNowNext Katharine Heigl thinks Knocked Up is "a little sexist" ... maybe I should reconsider a little Katharine Heigl

Yahoo has the first five minutes of The Golden Compass online. The "first (however many) minutes" movement in web sneaks is a good one I think, but it's not for every film. I'm not sure this will help this particular movie, since there's lots of exposition you have to get through early on. I remember when Dune came out in the 80s (god I'm old. sigh) and when I arrived at the theater (I had never read the book) they actually passed out a glossary sheet of terms you should know from the books. I was worried immediately... "I have to study before it starts?!?" The Golden Compass, I fear, might be impenetrable to newbies.

Please Calm Down

<--- Melania (who you met a few posts ago) and I are off to see The Golden Compass. Less than three hours to go. Wheeee. I am really trying to contain my excitement in order to prevent hopping up and down and other sudden movements. Melania is very skittish. If you're attending the sneak preview please enter and exit the theater in an orderly fashion so as not to startle her.

In other news: Some updates to the Oscar prediction pages and tomorrow I'll try to have that Max Von Sydow interview up --am experiencing some technical difficulties.

Now Playing: Diving Bells and Savages

Oscar Watching

In Hollywood's effort to jam all awards season contenders into December --annoying the hell out of me and other year round moviegoers -- Julian Schnabel's artful disability weepie The Diving Bell and Butterfly (my review) and Tamara Jenkins comedic nursing home weepie The Savages have finally opened on both coasts. Either one could catch on with wider audiences if they catch on with Academy voters. They might -- and for similar reasons, too. Both expertly portray moving familial bonds with the aid of brilliant actors. At this point we need to crown Laura Linney as the best "sister act" in all the cinema, don'cha think? Max Von Sydow's confused father in Diving Bell is a major highlight of the other film.  Cross your fingers for both actors to make it to the endless red carpets this winter.

psssst. I also interviewed Max Von Sydow today. He was gracious, friendly, well spo

ken and I'll try to have the interview up real soon.

Also opening:

Awake -Jessica Alba freaks out because Hayden Christensen might die on the operating table. Please let it be so! ...what was that... It's only a movie!? damn, never mind
Aaja Nachle -a new Bollywood film starring Madhuri Dixit
Chronicle of an Escape Rodrigo de la Serna (Motorcycle Diaries) stars in this film about an Argentinian kidnapping.
The Protagonist -a documentary with Greek drama overlay. Looks interesting.

The Rocket an ice hockey biography

Most importantly:
His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass sneaks on nearly 900 screens tomorrow. Eeep. The Boyfriend decided yesterday whilst rereading the great book this is based on that my cat Montgomery is actually my daemon, since we are both wildly moody and often [cue twilight zone music] in the exact same mood. But get this... when I went to the official website and asked to meet my daemon they tell me her name is Melania and she's ... a mouse ??? 

Monty will not be pleased and "Melania" probably won't survive for too long in his apartment. (Then again the website also tells me I'm "spontaneous, modest, outgoing, competitive and inquisitive" and  well, interactive games aren't perfect. I suppose 3 1/2 out of 5 isn't so bad as character trait guesswork goes...)

We Can't Wait #9 His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass

Dakota Richards asks the compass a life-altering question: "Will I be as famous as Dakota Fanning?"

My friends are mostly voracious readers. Me, not so much. It sometimes takes me months to slog through a book. That's partially because I am easily distracted but mostly because I like pictures - pretty pretty pictures. Nevertheless I read through all three books in the pictureless His Dark Materials trilogy so fast I was breathless from the journey and shocked at my stamina. What's more there were some incredible pictures bursting in my mind's eye. Philip Pullman's fantasy epic is too difficult to summarize (good luck marketing team) but the extreme basic is this: In an alternate version of our world, A young girl Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards) who lives among academics in Oxford is torn between two extremely powerful and mysterious adults (Nicole Kidman & Daniel Craig) with no idea how to navigate the world's political/religious tensions. Lyra discovers she's in great danger. Unsure of who to trust she embarks on an incredible journey involving witches, child thieves, magical compasses, armored polar bears, witches, and gypsies.

It's an enormous fantasy trilogy both in theme, story, amount of characters and breadth of vision. Like Lord of the Rings, which became a phenomenon all over again six years back, these books almost seem too gargantuan for the screen. I wouldn't be surprised if the budget set new records. The Golden Compass is being directed by Chris Weitz (About a Boy) and is due in theaters everywhere on December 7th.

So I'm asking my blog friends the questions this time. Joe, the production crew for The Golden Compass includes Alexandre Desplat (Composer), Dennis Gassner (Art Direction) and Ruth Myers (Costumes) all of whom are completely capable of delivering the 'wow'. Will this be the best looking / sounding movie of 2007?

Joe: It’s in the running with Sweeney Todd (Darius Wolski, Dante Ferretti, Colleen Atwood, Sondheim) and There Will Be Blood (Jon Brion, Robert Elswit), but yes, this has got some stellar below-the-line talent.

Nathaniel: The book is famously anti-religion... or, at the very least, adamantly anti organized religion. This ain't Narnia. Discuss.

Lulu: I'm dying for some fantasy flick to do the hero thing w/o Jesus imagery (Narna, LotR, Pan's Labyrinth). But I's gots a funny feeling that this'll either bomb harder than we can fathom or go all cultural phenom on us. 'Twill be innersting.

Nathaniel: How the hell will they pull off an armored talking polar bear without making the audience erupt into giggles?

JA: I would've asked the same question about a walking and talking tree or an armored giant elephant or a tiny person fighting with an invisible tiny person on his back for a piece of jewelry pre- LoTR, and Peter Jackson managed those without inciting giggles, but rather awe (well, the invisible Gollum fight is a little silly still), so if Weitsz can manage to get Iorek's fearsomeness across, I think we'll be okay.

We need all the violence of that bear-on-bear battle intact, in other words.

Nathaniel: Finish this mathematical equation. Nicole Kidman + Daniel Craig =

Gabriel: Gabriel exploding with hormonal happiness

Nathaniel: Finally, this perplexes me. Why are all child actors named Dakota?

Joe: Because that generation of parents didn’t want their child to grow up with a name so drab and common that, say, they were the fifth “Joe” in their classroom and thus reduced to ridiculous additions of their last initial in order to maintain any semblance of identity. Uh...probably. And, because irony’s a bitch, now there are five Dakotas and six Austins per classroom now.

previously on "we can't wait"
#10 Grindhouse, #11 Bug, #12, Sunshine, #13 Southland Tales, #14 300, #15 Hot Fuzz, #16 Stardust, #17 The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, #18 Spider-Man 3, #19 Rendition, #20 The Bourne Ultimatum
Intro -films that didn't make the list

related articles for new readers
"reel diversons/reel despair" -my worries about religious pressures neutering the adaptation of His Dark Materials * Daniel Wroughton Craig -one of my favorite actors well before Casino Royale brought him a new legion of fans * "We Are All Nicole Kidman" -a quiz * Nicole Kidman She's (Almost) Back *

tags: Daniel Craig, Golden Compass, Nicole Kidman, movies, polar bears, Dakota Blue Richards, fantasy, books, trilogy

reel diversions / real despair

In case you're computer isn't on 24-7 like mine, here's some goodies you may have missed.

Cinemarati's Dan Meyer on The Last Kiss
Nick on the actressy ups and downs of The Hours.
NY Times' AO Scott on the always divisive DePalma.
TIFF passes out its awards. Peoples Choice went to Bella. The Peoples Choice has done wonders for other films but Bella doesn't have a release date.
Music is My Boyfriend on James Bond theme songs and Casino Royale
As Little As Possible on the ravishment of Birth
EW Popwatch on the Saw III poster. I agree.

Warning: Politics and Religion ahead...
I've been in a horrid mood these past few days. The current downward spiral of the world is a contributing factor. So I was reading about movies to distract myself and came across this old news regarding the film version of The Golden Compass. I'm not sure how it escaped my attention before. When I was reading the Phillip Pulman trilogy, His Dark Materials, I kept thinking to myself: How will they get away with this pro-humanity anti-religion message on film? I guess they're not trying to. Hearing that they're neutering it has me losing interest. If you take out the progressive worldview of His Dark Materials, you're left with cool magic bits, talking animals, and action setpieces: fairly normal elements of fantasy. But the story itself no longer has deeper meaning. It's disposable. We've already had a religious film fantasy (Narnia) so why can't we have a secular one, too?

Religion has been a major part of my entire life: embracing it, questioning it, moving away from it, searching for it, leaving it behind --lots of soul searching. I've run the whole gamut. I've read several blog entries lately about the pope's speech and Islamic fundamentalism and though I tried not to go here I feel like I need to get this off my chest.

It comes down to this: I really can't tell the difference from one religious radical to another. It's the same mindset. Since religion does not pretend rational critical thinking it's super dangerous as a worldview (unless you're an inherently peaceful person like, say, Jesus Christ and unlike, say, his followers) since you need critical thinking skills in the real world. So it's out of the frying pan into the fire if Americans continue to vote for candidates who want to abolish our separation of Church and State (i.e. Republicans). Maybe I'm wrong --god, I hope I'm wrong --but I assume the only thing that keeps radical Christians from devolving into the violent atrocities of radical Islam is that they mostly live in countries which are not officially controlled by their own religious views and in which, though it's not exactly encouraged, diversity of opinion and freedom to express the same, is very much allowed and par for the course. In modern countries the less rational impulses of religious types are kept in check by civilized secular laws. This way people can enjoy their religions and the non-religious or otherwise-religious can enjoy freedom from religious opression.

Maybe I shouldn't brain vomit like this but I figure the more non-fundamentalist voices we hear the better because it comes down to this: I've seen very little evidence that organized religion is healthy for mankind. Certainly spirituality can benefit people. But religion? I don't see the positive effects. It closes minds, even those of good people whose kindness you can see in their actions otherwise. I don't care if people are Jewish, Scientologists, Muslim, Christian, whatever. When it comes to the process of zeroing in on absolute stated beliefs and joining those beliefs with other people there are inherent traps: demonization of others (who think, live, or feel differently) and rigidity of thought (due to echo chamber socializing) being the two most noticeable. I fail to see how organized religion does anything but diminish our capacity for peace, love, and understanding. Ironic, isn't it?

This may read as enormously naive but the only religious concept needed for a good life is also a secular one: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That's a pretty easy law to remember, pretty adaptable to everyone's particulars, and pretty hard to misinterpret. Imagine if everyone just lived by that. Peace is what you'd get. Peace on earth, goodwill toward men. Finally. But we'd have to leave religion behind to get there. Which sucks because nobody will. Which means we're all doomed.

(Told ya I was in a bad mood.)