Jane Campion’s latest, Bright Star, explores the love affair between poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne. For all its literary ambition and handsome styling, it’s never more than a coffee table book of a film – very pretty to look at, but totally devoid of substance.
When we first meet Brawne (the round, vacant Abbie Cornish), she’s a superficial fashionista who finds literature and poetry a total bore. That’s until she meets Keats (the brooding, whisp-thin Ben Whishaw). He sulks around the grounds, writing verse and wearing his impending demise like the latest fall fashion. Of course she falls in love with him and their mutual infatuation swiftly moves into doomed love affair territory. With echoes of Julianne Moore’s nagging cough in The End of the Affair, Keats begins hacking up blood and though we know how this story will end, Campion chronicles his slow end at a snail’s pace. I suppose that I was meant to feel something, but as I watched Whishaw wither away, I couldn’t help but think how much better Bright Star would have been if he died at the beginning of the film.
It doesn’t help Campion’s case that Cornish, meant to be the film’s heart, is an utterly hollow screen presence. Best known for being the third wheel in a campy love triangle with Cate Blanchett and Clive Owen in the mess that was Elizabeth: The Golden Age, she has the look of a younger Kate Winslet with none of the depth. Whishaw fares slightly better, though as written Keats is more of a lovesick teenage girl’s fantasy of who Keats might have been rather than a fully formed character. Paul Schneider (so good in Lars and the Real Girl and currently on TV in Parks and Recreation) delivers the film’s only real performance as Keats’ pompous fellow poet and confidante.
This is a rare misstep for Campion, who even when she is off (the bizarre Kate Winslet and Harvey Keitel two-hander Holy Smoke!) is at least interesting. While nice to look at, Bright Star lacks the visual whimsy and dazzle of either The Piano or In the Cut, not too mention the dramatic urgency.

god, not more phlegm

Long before he burned the image of Tobey Maguire in spandex into our minds with the Spider Man franchise, Sam Raimi was the master of B-movie schlock. His Evil Dead films are the gold standard for blood-splattered, midnight-showing-worthy guts and gore. With Drag Me to Hell, Raimi returns to the genre, this time with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Much like Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino did with their Grindhouse double bill, Raimi delivers a gleeful, self-referential horror send-up.

When we meet Christine (Alison Lohman), her life seems full of potential. She’s ripe for a promotion at work, is about to meet her brainy boyfriend’s parents, and has bouncy blonde hair worthy of a shampoo ad. Everything changes when she turns down an old woman’s request for a third mortgage extension. The old woman begs and pleads, but with that promotion in sight, Christine has security escort her from the building. Big mistake. Christine quickly learns that the last thing you want to do is shame a gypsy, especially during the housing crisis. The old woman puts a curse on Christine that she has three days to reverse, otherwise she will, as the title suggests, be dragged to hell.

As Christine works tirelessly to undo the gypsy’s curse, demons from the underworld unleash an increasingly horrific barrage of terror upon her. It’s gross, visceral stuff — geyser-like nose bleeds, home-wrecking phantasms, and phlegm, lots of phlegm. There’s an especially memorable sequence when Christine finally meets her boyfriend’s comically snobbish parents that involves a piece of cake that bleeds and spews flies.

Raimi pulls all the gross excess off because he’s winking at us the entire time. The film sustains an elevated comic tone throughout and crescendos at a memorable, shocking climax.

Lohman, best known for enduring an embarrassing succession of wigs and the foster care system in White Oleander, gamely traverses the corporeal horrors that Raimi springs on her. The film rests on her shoulders, and she carries the narrative with dignity and pluck. As her improbably supportive and understanding boyfriend, Justin Long reminds us why he’s most famous for those 30-second Apple ads — he’s a TV-sized personality who does not seem comfortable on the big screen.

Drag Me to Hell knows exactly what it is. The production values, including a memorable score by Christopher Young, conjure memories of dated, low-budget staples of the horror genre. One gets the feeling that it would feel more comfortable being watched in the middle of the night on one of the lesser cable networks. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

what's your state of play? yeah, you've got no game.

I'm currently reading Don DeLillo's Players. Written in 1977 and largely taking place on the 79th Floor of the World Trade Center's North Tower, it reads like a time capsule of sorts. Being a DeLillo novel, it's no surprise that everyone's paranoid. One character wanders the trading floor on Wall St. consumed with the fear that people are reading his thoughts. There are also terrorists everywhere, of course.
Speaking of the 70s, and getting to what this post is really about, ha, Hollywood in the 70s brought us my favorite sub-genre of film, the paranoia thriller. Think The Parallax View, Marathon Man, and The Stepford Wives. The new film State of Play, based on the highly acclaimed British mini-series, seems to be trying to channel these genre standards. Oh, and because it's centered on journalists pursuing the truth, there are shades of All the President's Men throw in for good measure.
Russell Crowe, or rather a puffy, sweaty fleshball somewhat resembling Russell Crowe, stars as a haggard DC reporter who happens to be besties with a dignified-looking, but totally duplicitous Senator (Ben Affleck). When Affleck's pretty, young aide dies a mysterious, accidental death, Crowe investigates and before you can say "Deep Throat" there's talk of a conspiracy. Crowe and the hip/young/stubborn blogger on staff (Rachel McAdams in some terrible outfits) work together and uncover a potential conspiracy involving a Blackwater-esque private mercenary company. The plot contorts into a messy web, characters say things like "this is a conspiracy to the highest levels", and there are some fairly unconvincing chase scenes (one involving a wheezing Crowe ducking behind cars in an underground parking garage). Basically, it makes The Pelican Brief look like art.
It doesn't help that Affleck, he of the Keanu Reeves school of inexpressive acting, stars as the two-faced Senator at the center of the tangled web. An eyebrow raise or pouty lip does not an emotion convey, Mr. Affleck. Other odd casting decisions abound. A surprisingly off-center Jeff Daniels plays a Cheney-like powerbroker, Jason Bateman bizarrely beams down from another planet (or another movie) as a sleazy PR slack, and Robin Wright Penn has nothing to do with the thinly conceived "scorned political wife" role. Thank goodness Helen Mirren stomps around as Crowe's coarse, broadly-conceived editor. She looks fabulous and curses a blue streak (score).

phasers set for stun

I’ll start with an embarrassing confession. When I was a kid, I was a trekkie. I had the action figures. I snuck into the TV room late at night to watch re-runs of the original show. I even had my mother sew me an officer’s uniform for my costume one Halloween. I patrolled the neighborhood that night in full anticipation of a Klingon attack. Few pop culture narratives have achieved such a cult status. It’s the exploration of unusual worlds, the bold vision of the future, and the constant peril that befalls our heroes that has kept scores of fans rabid for every iteration of the popular series.

It’s no surprise, then, in Hollywood’s era of the reboot, that audiences would be given a slick, youthful reinvention of the classic tale. This, after all, the same town that will show us remakes of Friday the 13^th, The Taking of Pelham 123, and Sherlock Holmes in this year alone. There’s even talk of a new Footloose for 2010. Lucky for us, director JJ Abrams, the man who has millions of TV viewers in awe and constant head-scratching with his hit series Lost, manages to pay due homage to the original show while creating one of the most thrilling adventure films I’ve seen in years.

Abrams’ interpretation is an origin story. We first see James Kirk and Spock as two very different children – Kirk as a mischievous rebel and Spock as a brilliant, if tortured young mind. Abrams sidesteps the narrative issues that normally plague exposition-heavy background stories and quickly flashes forward to the two men as students at the Star Fleet Academy and eventually onboard the fabled Starship Enterprise. Along the way we meet the new versions of other members of the original show including Uhura (a knockout Zoe Saldana), Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban) and Chekov (Anton Yelchin). Abrams wisely doesn’t spend too long on the introductions, and the Enterprise is soon locked into heated combat with a rogue Romulan vessel. The action scenes are visually stunning and incredibly well-paced.

Abrams and his actors should be credited for delivering finely etched characterizations while hoping from one elaborate action set piece to the next. As Kirk and Spock, respectively, newcomer Chris Pine and Heroes’ Zachary Quinto ooze matinee idol charisma. The other members of the Enterprise crew do justice to their predecessors, most notably the hilarious Simon Pegg as Scotty.

Much like last summer’s The Dark Knight, Star Trek proves that Hollywood is still capable of raising the bar for summer action epics. And seeing as though Abrams ends this chapter ripe for a more, I fully expect him to somehow top this adventure.

her again?

Well I am just blogging all sorts of things today.

I read this item about Scarlett Johansson replacing Emily Blunt in the next Iron Man movie on Nikki Finke's blog this morning, and was totally disheartened. I had heard rumors about it elsewhere (perhaps from Finke, perhaps elsewhere), and was hoping some other actress (anyone, really) to fall from the sky and into the lap of the casting director. Or for something terrible to befall the over-employed Johansson (not like tragic-terrible, more like gain-a-bunch-of-weight or caught-in-an-embarrassing-scandal terrible).

Blunt is a far more interesting choice (not only can she act, but she's funny and mischevious and not a cookie cutter starlet). It's bad enough that we had to endure Johansson in Vicky Christina Barcelona (so joyless compared to the rest of the game cast). Why more? Why?

P.S. - I try not to make a habit of Finke's blog ... it was a must when I lived in LA, but now it's not crucial for my day-to-day (obvs). She's a course, overzealous, mean-spirited know-it-all. So it's kinda like reading a train wreck. Or, rather, a five car pile-up on Sunset.

row e, center

I haven't used this space for notes on theater before (well, lately I haven't used this space for notes on anything, but that's another matter entirely). I'm lucky to live in New York, and to have friends (well, a friend, really) who works in theater and therefore gets free tickets to many things. I'm a frequent companion, and I take her out to dinner. It's a great deal for both parties.

Last night we saw God of Carnage, the new Yasmina Reza play which was a big success in London and has now transferred to Broadway with a new (stellar) cast. It's about two very different pairs of Brooklyn (tony Cobble Hill) parents who meet after their young children get into a fight. In its opening moments, the play feels like a sassy jab at bourgeois parenting, but as it progresses, and as everyone starts behaving badly and gulping rum, it turns into so much more.

The actors (Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini, and Marcia Gay Harden) are all fantastic. Daniels' role is the least interesting (a stock lawyer type), and Gandolfini's unsophisticated hardware salesman could live around the corner from Tony Soprano (it's a niche, but nobody does it as well as him). The women are the standouts. Davis is game for some hilarious physical comedy, and Gay Harden, in the play's plum role, blows everyone out of the water. As she's such a commanding presence onscreen, it's no surprise to see her milk every line reading and moment here. She's a pleasure to watch (and quite funny).

And the audience ate it up. It's currently in previews, and will assuredly open to stellar reviews. I can't help but think back to a time (and I don't know when this was, but it's certainly not now) when a show like this would be the talk of the town. Something on Broadway that New Yorkers (not tourists) saw and talked about. Oh well.

(A note on the headline. And this is really gay. In All About Eve - yes, I'm going there - Addison DeWitt comments in the film's opening voiceover that nothing in the playwright's wife's background should have brought her closer to the stage than Row E, Center. I've always thought that it would be great to date a stage actor - wouldn't it? - and to make a living running a bistro called Row E, Center. That, or Theater By Marriage).

turf wars?

Moma has launched a hella creative ad campaign in the Atlantic/Pacific subway station in Brooklyn. Above you see a print of a famous Pollock ... also on the walls are Lichenstein, Cindy Sherman, Mondrian, etc. It's an inventive take on the station's white tile walls, and it works because they've taken over all the ad space.
But let's look at the subtext. Atlantic/Pacific is the stop you get off at for a number of things. Target. And Flatbush Farm. Oh, and BAM. Maybe the MOMA folks are trying court those on the way to the Brooklyn's cultural gem (the cinema and theater programming has blown me away), but one can't help but sense that there's a little bit of a cultural turf war afoot. BAM vs. MOMA ... with MOMA on the offensive.