Ghost World

SPOILERS ABOUND, BEWARE

I’ve haunted by Hollywood lately.

Or to be specific, hack Hollywood writers.

This week marks the third film I’ve seen this year where ghostly daughters visit their grieving fathers.

First there was Creation where the adorable Annie Darwin caused her Papa (Charles Darwin) to be reduced to tears, chasing a phantom across his estate.

Then there was Mad Mel Gibson playing a bereaved father on mission of revenge in Edge of Darkness. As Thomas Craven, he can shed blood with the best of them, but he’s not above calling out for Emma, his recently dispatched daughter. And while the movie is aiming for Dirty Harry status, the Hallmark Card ending with father and daughter arm in arm would make the hard-boiled hero want to swallow his Magnum.
(Spoilers, remember?)

Which bring us to today and Martin Scorsese’s pretzel-plotted thriller Shutter Island.
Here we see US Federal Marshall Teddy Daniels visited by not just his daughter, but also his dead wife. As Teddy, Leonardo DiCarprio copes as best as he can with these chalk-coloured phantoms, but there’s a fine line between ghoulish visions and The Ghost Whisper.

So Hollywood hear my plea. Enough with the ghost writing already. Surely you can find another way to show the father’s grief. I know “Show Don’t Tell” is screenwriting 101. But some things are better implied than described.

RETREAT! RETREAT!

My Couples Retreat review?

Meh.

No it's not the worst comedy in the world.

But it certainly is lame.

Lame, predictable and with about as much bite as a Friends sitcom.

Surprised? I doubt it, but I was disappointed considering the talent available for this one.

As I've being talking about on air, Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughan made a big splash with Swingers in '96. They put their heart on their sleeves, poured their own money into it and made something real, something funny and touching.

You may not have liked the guys hitting the clubs in Swingers but I think you believed them. Do you believe Vince Vaughan as the henpecked husband? Not for a second. It's because Swingers came from a place of truth. Couples Retreat? The place of "Wouldn't it be flash to shoot a film in Bora Bora?"

Alack and alas.

Although I do want to draw your attention to one of my particular hang ups. Trailers That Don't Match Their Movies. If you watch the trailer to Couples Retreat you'll see some shots making it incredibly obvious Jon Favreau and his wife Kristin Davis are cheating on each other.

Now, unless I dozed off it seems those two little moments of infidelity are missing from the movie. Gone. Deleted.

The not-so-happy-couple still act like a couple of cheaters, so why snip out the evidence?

My theory is that when they tested the film audiences didn't like the couple's behaviour. So, bam, it's gone. Although most of us saw it in the trailer anyway. Silly and gutless.

And what about Vince Vaughan? Remember when he first burst on the scene? Sure there was the swagger, but there's was also an edge there. An actor not afraid to push the audience.
So what happened? Well here's his buddy Jon Favreau with the answer. This is from the great show Dinner for 5. It starts with Tony Shalhoub talking about actors who take risks.

(Follow the link or skip ahead to 1.42 in the video below.)

There you go. "Protecting the franchise." Now, of course Favreau wasn't talking about Vaughan there, but it's perfectly applicable. And we all know what the Vince Vaughan franchise is: The smart-ass friend. The angry tall dude with a penchant for put downs. What kills me with something like this is I know Vaughan can be funny. I watched him joshing with the cast during the promotional interviews. He's a naturally charming guy. But not the best choice for a puffy comedy about husbands and wives.

Sour Grapes (Cheri)

Ah-hoy! Spoilers Ahead.

Cheri (based on the novel by Colette) is a romance starring Michelle Pfeffier as an older woman whose place of business is her bed.

Pfeffier plays Lea, a legendary whore with a string of lovers. They've kept her living in fine style until she falls for her co-worker's son, nicknamed "Cheri".

Cheri is the son of Madame Peloux (played by Kathy Bates) a former competitor until she hung up her boots as it were.


As the son of a whore, Cheri has a certain sense of detachment when it comes to romance. He's also a bit of a strange duck, with a vampire's complexion and the hair of Edward Scissorhands.



Due to the strange casting it took me a while to decide that yes, they are in England, sometime before the First World War. You see the Butler is British, the housemaid is British...and Kathy Bates and Michelle Pfeffier's characters? Well they sound outright American, let's call them "refined".

To his credit director Stephen Frears doesn't keep us in suspense for too long regarding the romance of the snarky couple. It's barely ten minutes before Cheri says "Kiss Me" and and a boy-toy is born.

The initial romantic encounters are sensual, the screen covered in the slurps and skin of the two lovers. Soon they fall into a comfortable state of affairs, neither needing to put on airs. The arrangement last for six years until Mama Bates decides to marry her young man away.

And here we get to the crux of the story. The two lovers, both too proud to admit their feelings, each walking away from each other, each afraid to turn around. It's a familiar set up, and while we wait for the inevitable reunion what are we treated to?

Lea and Cheri, mooning over each other. One a scowl with a top hat. And the other, the tragic beauty. Cheri moves onto breaking in his wife with astounding brutality. And Lea spends her time seducing muscle boys and looking at herself in the mirror. Tracing the pale lines beneath her skin.

Now some may find it revolutionary to have Michelle Pfiffier playing a woman who is beautiful and yet over the age of 26. But there is something to be said for acting, rather than just posing and hoping your perfect frame will do the heavy lifting for you.


When Lea sits up in bed one night, crying out "Cheri!" It's laughable. When the two finally reconnect, it's predictable. The only emotion I felt was relief after 45 minutes of the inevitable. A couple meets, parts and returns. That's not a plot, it's a dance step.

Cheri is trying to pose as a tragedy, a woman who discovered her heart, only too late in life. But with the unconvincing performances and super-busy set design this movie is strangled by superficially. All the more amazing if you remember director Frears' The Queen a movie rich in subtly and moments of contemplation. (Think of the Queen staring at the proud buck in the wild.)

Sadly no royalty here, just a limp love letter to faded beauty. Pity.

Minor Movie Update, Some Catching Up

Well it's beeen a while since I last updated, and there's a number of movies I've seen, but not enough time to write about them all.

I'm not going to mention the major movies. You can catch up on those with my podcast, (Glasner on Film in iTunes) and there's quite an archive there. Instead I'd wanted to rundown some of the smaller films. (And i'm not going to hotlink everything to imdb, because if I do that we'll be here all night. Yes I'm a lazy lazy man.)

YEAR ONE - Oy. How is it Harold Ramis. He of Groundhog Day fame. He of Ghostbusters genealogy. He of the almighty SCTV coughed out this cold fish of a comedy? It's Michael Cera and Jack Black as, as well I think their names were something like Ogg and Ugh. But really it's Jack Black and Michael Cera wearing pelts. Year One is a long succession of bad biblical skits with misplaced modern jokes. It's essentially an extended SNL skit, but not the good ones. The ones they put on at 12:50 before the show ends. Yeech.

FOOD INC - A documentary about the dangers of factory farming and a bit of a wake up call about what's in the local supermarket. Done in the now familiar Michael Moore style it's a heavy-handed and slickly packaged product. The general gist of the message wont surprise anyone whose read books like The Omnivore's Dilemma. But still there are some shocking moments there, such how little a chicken farmer raising hundreds of thousands of chickens actually earns a year. Also kudos for showing how some organic producers are teaming up with the big guys like Walmart. It's rather one-sided but does that surprise you? A good place to start if the topic interests you, but I imagine you'll head to the library/bookstore to fully satisfy yourself afterward.

O'HORTEN - A train conductor retires. But what does a conductor do when the train leaves the stations without him? From Norway a comedy of manners as gentle as it is observant. The perfect tonic to the mid-summer silly season at the cinema.

SUMMER HOURS - No one make films about families eating meals together like the French. You could go see this for the voyeurism aspect alone. But then you'd miss the finely calibrated performance by Juliette Binoche, the mother in a family slowly spinning apart, wondering what's worth holding onto.

Also, as mentioned earlier, I heartily recommend Away We Go & Easy Virtue.

First Photo from X-Men: First Class Revealed!

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

I'm on the radio* today talking about how the mutant muddle of a movie Wolverine sets up Marvel's next movie X-Men:First Class.

Hopefully the next movie will look a little more grown up.

Image via Topless Robot, who have a fun list of some of Wolverine's least-than-stellar moments.

(*You can catch me on morning or afternoon shosw for CBC Radio in St.John's, Cornerbrook, Thunder Bay, Regina, Whitehorse, Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Sudbury, Quebec City, Winnipeg, Montreal, Windsor and on Ontario Morning heard outside Toronto.)

Earth's Secret Side

Well I finally figured it out.

I've been talking about Disneynature's new Earth movie all day. And all day I've been seeing the figure of 60 percent thrown around when describing how Disney reused the footage from the Planet Earth BBC series. But how could it be 60 percent? It didn't look like there was anything new there. It must be 100 percent recycled.

Well here at the bottom of a comment field on the always great Vulture pop culture blog I've think I've finally found the answer.

The answer is Disney bankrolled part of the original series in the first place. And the same team worked on both films. The Mousehouse paid for the aerial shots, and perhaps if you add all of those up you'd get something like the 40 percent of new material.

Now I can't confirm this, but gosh darn it, it feels right. So thanks Clunybrown whoever you are. And if you haven't seen it, go check out Planet Earth for a lot more than cuddly polar bears.

I Guess "A Bunch of Guys in a Steel Box" Didn't Work Either...

Ladies and Gentlemen....I give you the lamest title of 2009 (So far.)

Coming next September.

Prepare your self for Armored.

And the trailer which you can see by clicking above is equally lame.

Strange choice of music for the end don't ya think?

And here I thought Matt Dillon's career was turning around...

Flat Fanboys

Take a good look at that poster.
Because it's a sign of what went wrong with Fanboys the movie.

Take look at this Wired article to see the long tortured history of Fanboys, but the short version is Ernie Cline, the ultimate Stars Wars fan, harnessed the power of Lucas fandom to make a movie about Star Wars fans.

Fanboys the movie is actually about a group of Star Wars fans driving across country to break into the Skywalker Ranch to see The Phantom Menance. Oh, and of course of their friends has cancer.

The movie's been in film limbo for years. Fans were teased at comic conventions. Producer Kevin Spacey kept tinkering. Studios cut the cancer plot out. Then put it back in.

Now here it is, 3 years late. Stale and sadly unfunny.

It's not for lack of trying. Fanboys is crammed with Star Wars humour. Every freakin second line of dialogue is a lift from the movie. "The force is strong with this one...." "She's got it where it counts" etc. There are Star Wars sound effects. Everyone wears Star Wars t-shirts. There are even Star Wars edits, the famous Lucas screen wipes.

But somewhere in the middle someone forgot to make a GOOD MOVIE.

A road movie where a bunch of dudes drive across country isn't breaking new ground. Having the pretty girl fall for the shy nerd doesn't either. No amount of cameos (Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Wiliam Shatner) can save this film.

Which brings me back to the poster. Again it's a collection of in-jokes. If you're a geek you probably can tell they're riffing off the "motivational posters" meme that's all over the net.

Funny? Well maybe if you're one of geeks who get the joke.

But what about the rest of us? What about the average movie going public? All they'll see is an ugly poster with a lame graphic.

Now compare that to this. Much better poster, that's at least visually interesting.

Seems to be a sign of what wrong here with this film. Someone that's happening a little too often. Increasingly fans and filmmakers are feeding off each other. Look at Watchmen. Fans were in the loop from the get go. But at some point you need to stop and make your own movie. You can't make a movie by committee. That why they have directors. What the real fans appreciate is vision, originality, something fresh.

Goodness knows there's a movie to made about living in the Star Wars universe. As someone raising a budding Star fan I've thought a little to long about what Lucas' re-imagined fairy tale brought to audiences.

But Fanboys doesn't do that justice. Frankly Fanboys insults it. Replacing best elements of an ambitious space opera with boob jokes and bad puns.

EPIC FAIL as the kids say.

Eyes Wide Shut (The Watchmen movie)

Oy.
How's that for a review?

Ahem.

Well, since I'm working at Q this month I wont be doing my regular movie column.

But you can tune in this Saturday on The World This Weekend on CBC for thoughts on Watchmen, superhero cinema and future of spandex on screen.

Now, the hour is late, so let me leave you with a few brief thoughts on the film.

Too literal. Full Frontal. Too slow (motion.) Action? Sure. Pathos? Not so much.

Not every book makes a great movie and not ever comic works on the big screen. Terry Gilliam had the rights to the Watchmen once. He gave them up, because he realized what made it work as a comic book wouldn't survive the translation.

It is one thing to see Rorschach mumble and mutter on the page. But hearing him rant about commies and whores on the big screen, in a growl that would give Christian Bale a run for his money...well, film is not that forgiving. Especially when it seems the director has a near-religious reverence for the source material.

The orignal Watchmen was a slow march to a cliff, a wry look at the men and women under the mask, told by comic book fans tired of writing funny books.

The movie is a love letter to the original, where director Zack Snyder drowns any depth with his own fetish for slow motion shots and shattering femurs.

The book is all there on the screen, except it's not.



Well I had predicted this. Although, the past couple weeks as the day approached, I allowed myself to hope that I was wrong. I wasn't.

More Jonas Than You Deserve

Talking about the Jonas Brothers today on the ray-dee-oh and on the podcast.

Couple more Jonas Bros tidbits for you to enjoy.

This is great article on the JoBros phenom from Details. Talking about how they were spotted, their Christian Rock connection and how they share the same managing team as Miss Britney.

This is a snarky little item on why those Chasity Rings might not mean what we think they mean.

Enjoy!