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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This review was originally published in The Kansas City Kansan on Sept. 22, 2004.

By Steve Crum

Anyone under 30 years old seeing Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow will love the film for reasons different from the over 30 crowd. Those young will be dazzled by the cutting edge, digital look of the film. It is the first feature ever to be mostly shot using “blue screen” with computer graphics later added. 

Then there is the non-stop action including car-crunching, giant robots, outer space dinosaurs, and wing-flapping, drone airplanes. 

Writer-Director Kerry Conran’s debut film has a second hook for older viewers: their own movie memories.

There are not only quick references, but entire sequences, settings and dialogue cut and pasted within Sky Captain’s busy framework. Don’t get me wrong, this is not a collage of film clips from other movies. Instead it is a remarkable picture peppered with stream-of-consciousness, 1930s media imagery. And it is all wrapped around a corny, hero-to-the-rescue formula that works. It is also 98 percent animated.

Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow star as Joe “Sky Captain” Sullivan and reporter Polly Perkins. Along with a handful of actual human beings including Angelina Jolie’s eye-patched heroine, Captain Franky Cook, Law and Paltrow act in their real human skins. Director Conran has made sure their costumes are classic comic book correct, however.

Adding a curious blend of sepia tones with subdued colors, the overall film really nails the period look. Plot wise, the story opens as the Hindenburg III dirigible floats near the top of New York’s Empire State Building. As clouds roll in and snow starts to fall, radio broadcasts bellow that the world’s top scientists are mysteriously disappearing. Lumbering robots fly into the city and land upright, smashing everything in their pats as they march along busy streets. Lucky for the Big Apple that Chronicle reporter Polly Perkins knows Sky Captain’s private phone line. (They have had adventures together before, you see.) Soon the air ace speeds his Flying Tiger plane toward NYC and…and—continued in the movie theatre. I can’t spoil too much of this good thing.

Be aware that there are more good guys, including Giovanni Ribisi’s Dex Dearborn. Think of Dex and his relationship with Sky Captain as what Artemus Gordon was to James West in TV’s The Wild, Wild West. There is also a really bad guy called Dr. Totenkopf, “played by” the late Laurence Olivier. Yes, Olivier died 15 years ago, but his face has been digitalized onto this animated villain! Make that a very posthumous appearance by Lord Olivier. How retro can one get?

The movie’s 107 minutes manages to layer in so many fun images and action sequences that a second viewing is advised. You are bound to enjoy it just as much the second time around. Then you can savor the clever references to classics like Metropolis, Buck Rogers, and Flash Gordon. Even the Fleischer Studios’ Superman cartoons (particularly “Mechanical Monsters”) are recalled. If you are familiar with Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds radio broadcast, you are in for another treat. 

As for main characters, Sky and Polly borrow from the Indiana Jones school of relationships. It’s the love/hate thing Indie has with all his heroines. 

Surely the duo have signed for Sky Captain’s next nail biting adventure. 

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GRADE on an A-F Scale: A

[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.)