Crum on Showbiz

My choices for best & worst movies of the year was originally published in Kansas City’s Sun Tribune, Sun Gazette and Liberty Tribune newspapers on Dec. 28, 2006. 

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By Steve Crum 

Both diversity and sameness painted the film product landscape for 2006. Studios again went with sure things via franchises for the mass audience that flocks to remakes and sequels of favorites. Among several, The Man of Steel flew back in Superman Returns; Jack Sparrow floated again in the second Pirates of the Caribbean; and Bond went retro in Casino Royale.

The year had its share of unique and at least semi-original products too, represented by The Devil Wears Prada, Little Miss Sunshine, The Illusionist, Prairie Home Companion, and Flags of Our Fathers. As always, choosing the good, bad and ugly movies of any year is subjective objectivity—a dubious task. Nonetheless, take these lists and accept or reject. 

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The clunkers of 2006

•All the King’s Men—Sean Penn was miscast, for starters.

•Basic Instinct 2—Sharon Stone sex scenes smoldered the murder plot.

•Firewall—Long-in-tooth Harrison Ford is still playing an action hero?

•The Hills Have Eyes—The popcorn bag doubles as a barf bag.

•Lady in the Water—This one’s sunk and gurgling.

•Larry the Cable Guy—This good ol’ boy cracks ‘em several ways.

•Nacho Libre—Jack Black attack down for the count. 

•Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest—It garnered public adoration despite serious flaws. 

The 10 best of the bunch

•Babel—Intriguing multiple stories that are cleverly linked make it almost as last year’s Crash.

•Bobby—A stunning ensemble cast is paired with impressive direction by Emelio Estevez.

•The Departed—Terrific Nicholson, DiCaprio, Damon and Wahlberg make direction Martin Scorsese’s jolting, complex crime saga.

•The Devil Wears Prada—The smart, original script focuses on character interplay, which was superbly acted by Meryl Stree and Anne Hathaway.

•Dreamgirls—When was the last time an audience repeatedly broke into applause and cheers during a movie musical? Jennifer Hudson, Beyoncé and Eddie Murphy make it happen.

•Flags of Our Fathers—Clint Eastwood’s homage to WWII heroes also addresses the war’s public relations campaign back home. By the way, Eastwood’s companion film, Letters from Iwo Jima, is even better. (It opens in January.)

•The Illusionist—The fascinating murder plot mixes with professional (or is it real?) magic.

•A Prairie Home Companion—Robert Altman’s film directing finale is among his best, and that is high praise.

•United 93 and World Trade Center—Both are must-see films, at least once. The subject matter is grim but ultimately heroic.

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This overview of summer movies was published in The Kansas City Kansan on Aug. 18, 2004.

By Steve Crum 

Comic book sci-fi still dominates summer of 2004 movies, but other choices play on. Salt that popcorn.

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•ALIEN VS PREDATOR: What you see in the title is just what you get, although it should be called Aliens vs Predators since this is a tag teamer. Director Paul W. S. Anderson (Resident Evil) helms the story of a scientific team (Sanaa Lathan, Lance, Henricksen, others) exploring an Antarctic pyramid housed with biters. Actually better than expected with slash and jab special effects. [GRADE C]

•CATWOMAN: Halle Berry is Patience Philips aka Catwoman in a very disappointing take on the comic book anti-heroine. Tries to be funny, tries to be S&M. Directed by a guy called Pitof. Me-owwww! [GRADE D-]

•DE-LOVELY: A handsome musical about the most ambiguous of American composers, Cole Porter. Stars Kevin Kline as Porter and Ashley Judd as his beleaguered wife. [GRADE B]

•THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR: Start engraving that Oscar for Jeff Bridges. Bridges stars as Ted Cole, all around free soul and author of children’s books. He and his wife (Kim Basinger in another Oscar-worthy performance) separate after a recent tragedy. How each deals with denial is the crux of the story. [GRADE B+]

•I, ROBOT: Will Smith is a detective who suspects subservient robots in 2035 are turning on their masters. Based on Isaac Asimov’s short story collection and directed by Alex Proyas, who did much better with Dark City and The Crow. [GRADE C+]

•THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE: Sure the original 1962 version with Sinatra was better, but still this Jonathon Demme (Adaptation) take is pretty chilling. Denzel Washington is the Army officer trying to convince his former sergeant/now running for President (Live Schreiber) that they were captured and brainwashed during the Persian Gulf War. Meryl Streep is a conniving senator and mom of the would-be Prez. [GRADE B+]

•THUNDERBIRDS: A gloomy, live action adventure yarn based on the 1960’s British puppet TV series. A villainous one called The Hood (Ben Kingsley) tries to demolish the worldwide rescue fortress of the Tracy Family, located on hidden Tracy Island, and headed by the elder Tracy (Bill Paxton). Director Jonathan Frakes (Star Trek The Next Generation) keeps the action moving amongst exotic and astro-tech sets. Not a bad family flick. [GRADE C]

•THE VILLAGE: Dreadfully disappointing and predictable, particularly with Oscar-laden stars (Sigourney Weaver, William Hurt, Adrien Brody), and writer-director M. Night Shyamalan’s track record (The Sixth Sense). The snail-paced plot and dialogue grates to the point of wanting to exit the theater after the first 15 minutes. [GRADE F]

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[The following review was my very first published in The Kansas City Kansan on Nov. 8, 1994. Since the now long gone Kansan was a local newspaper, the editor included the fact that I was also teaching at a local high school.]

By Steve Crum

Not far into Neil Jordan’s Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles, one realizes that a more apt title would be Therapy Session with the Vampire. For here is a bloodsucker in deep depression with a number of connected problems.

Using Anne Rice’s popular novel, director Jordan and screenwriter Rice open the story in a modern day San Francisco hotel room where a newspaper reporter (Christian Slater) has been “summoned” to document the last two centuries of Louis Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt). A plantation owner in 1791 New Orleans, Louis’ life is shattered when his wife and child die in childbirth. He then succumbs to vampirism as “a release from the pain of living” when Lestat de Lioncourt (Tom Cruise) sells him on the idea of a happier, and eternal, life. Louis becomes a team player, er, biter. 

During the course of the “interview,” we see the perverse Lestat teach Louis the skills of vampirism. But Louis has an aversion to human targets, preferring rats, chickens, and in one very darkly comedic scene, an elderly lady’s poodles. 

When Louis finally victimizes a human, it is 12 year-old Claudia, brilliantly played by Kirsten Dunst. Her Claudia evolves into a truly tormented soul—intellectually a woman forever trapped in a child’s body. Dunst’s performance is Oscar caliber. 

So is Cruise’s. His vampire is really wacko. Always flamboyant, Lestat is way over the top…like his dancing with Claudia’s long-dead mother’s corpse in a Beetlejuice/Fred Astaire parody. He is the mentor-friend who keeps popping in and out of Louis’ life. 

Lately, much has been said about the overt sexuality with this “family”of three vampires. There are moments of near homosexual embrace (Louis and Lestat) as well as a liaison between Claudia and Louis. 

Certainly, director Jordan’s previous work in The Crying Game had similar dealings, minus vampires. Vampirism in film and literature has always included lustful implications, homoerotic and otherwise.

Interview includes great gothic sets, marvelous period costumes and chilling vampire makeup. (Check out those varicose-like veins in Cruise and Pitt’s pallid faces.)

One of several memorable fire sequences occurs during the time Louis and Claudia spend with a decadent theatrical troupe of vampires, led by Antonio Banderas. It is unforgettably surreal.

Interview with the Vampire is the film Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities bolted from the screening in shock and disgust. Be forewarned that it is deservedly rated “R” for violence and nudity.

Maybe Oprah thought that “interview” meant “talk show.”

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GRADE on an A-F Scale: B+

(Steve Crum is the journalism teacher at Washington High School.)

[The following review was published in The Kansas City Kansan on Dec. 23, 1994. Since The Kansan was a local newspaper, the editor included the fact that I was also teaching at a local high school.]

By Steve Crum

It is the innocence of Nell in Nell that will squeeze tears out of most viewers. In fact, it is sometimes a rating experience to watch Nell because we know the at any minute Nell’s world will be invaded, her private life savaged. 

Jodie Foster is Nell, and Jodie Foster will surely be nominated for an Oscar. Bank on it. Foster, who also produced, is stunning as the backwoods child-woman whose link with humans has been almost solely through her late mother. Since her mother was partially paralyzed and her speech grossly distorted, Nell’s speech is similarly impaired through exposure. Add to that the mother abusive control over Nell. (She was never permitted to leave the house in daylight.) 

So what happens when a local doctor (Liam Neeson) is called to trek the boondocks after the mother’s corpse is discovered? He finds Nell in hiding, and is obsessed with trying to communicate with her. A local psychiatrist (Natashia Richardson) is also involved. Piecing together Nell’s language and personality, the two are fearful early on of a media circus once Nell’s existence is known.

Another Oscar envelope, please, to Neeson. Neeson is a fascinating actor. As Oskar Schindler in last year’s Schindler’s List, Neeson underplayed with powerful reserve. Now he excites us about discovering what makes Nell tick. He makes us care that he cares. That he knows too well how vulnerable Nell is only frustrates us more.

1948’s Johnny Belinda is the story of a deaf-mute young woman whose innocence was corrupted. Thanks to a sensitive local doctor who teaches her sign language, Belinda is able to tell him and community her story.

The parallel to Nell is striking. The joy of communication lives in both films. Nell’s doctor is driven in similar was as Belinda’s, and once the truth is known, then what? The doctor has become the protectorate—or as Nell calls Neeson’s Lovell, her “guardian angel.” It is at this point, the last third of the film, that Nell becomes contrived. Blame

the writers, William Nicholson and Mark Handley, for tacking on an epilogue (“Five years later…”). Tack on director Michael Apted as well. 

But it is the first two-thirds, encompassing the discovery of Nell that spotlights Foster, Neeson and Richardson’s ensemble performances, that clinches. 

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GRADE on an A-F Scale: B+

(Steve Crum is the journalism teacher at Washington High School.)

By Steve Crum

The Secret Agent is a fascinating, at times confusing, historical political thriller set in Brazil during 1977. Corruption and turmoil abound with a military dictatorship in power. What a not so great time for widower Armando Solimões (well played by Wagner Moura) to return home to his young son Fernando (Enzo Nunes). 

Incidentally, much of the story confusion is attributed to the film’s Brazilian Portuguese language. Sure, it is subtitled in English, but…be aware. The plot centers on Armando, who left the country some time ago due to both the death of his wife as well as his work with anti-government resistance. His son has been staying with elderly relatives. Because the police are still searching for Armando, he uses the alias Marcelo. 

It doesn’t take long for Armando/Marcelo to encounter crooked police as he stops for gasoline on the outskirts of Recife. A man’s rotting body is partially covered by a sheet as it lies where it has been for several days. And that’s a few feet from the gas pumps! No doubt the police killed him. I won’t go into detail about all the violence in The Secret Agent, but it is plentiful—based on the facts of that time. 

Produced, written and directed by Kleber Mondonça Filho, The Secret Agent follows Armando as he reconnects with his son, becomes active once again with his dissident friends, and eludes being killed when a contract is placed on his life. The action becomes even more intense and bloody. 

Along the way, expect mini-adventures with a severed leg (which makes headlines in local news), a man-eating shark, a hungry pack of dogs, open sex on the streets, and great comradery among the dissidents. 

There is also a clever conclusion, per se epilogue, featuring Wagner Moura in another surprising role. 

A supporting cast led by Carlos Francisco, Tânia Maria and Robério Diógenes are pluses. Add Evgenia Alexandrova’s cinematography. And tack on that yellow VW Beetle! 

At the film’s beginning, 1977 Brazil is described as a “period of great mischiefs.” Indeed so. 

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GRADE on an A-F Scale: B+