Music From The Movies,
Saturday, December 19th at 7pm
 SPIRIT OF THE SEASON...this week, two new movies with a love story at the center! Emily Blunt stars as The Young Victoria, with Rupert Friend her Prince Albert (music by Ilan Eshkeri). Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana are the leads in James Cameron's long-awaited 3D extravaganza Avatar (score by James Horner). Plus, holiday music by Alan Silvestri from The Polar Express.AND THE WINNER IS...you! The Houston Film Critics Society will announce their Best of 2009 Film Awards in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston's Brown Auditorium Theater at 4 p.m. on Saturday, December 19. The event showcases the winners of the major acting and production awards selected by the members of the HFCS and will be highlighted by numerous film clips and guest appearances, including actor G.W. Bailey. Members of the organization, which includes Regina Scruggs and Jared Counts, will announce the awards in 15 categories. The event is free and open to the public, followed by a reception in the museum galleries. We'll be looking for you! ****NEW IN THEATERS (by Regina with Jared Counts)****  INVICTUS. (Warner Brothers. 2 hours, 14 minutes. Rated R for brief strong language Directed by Clint Eastwood.) Morgan Freeman (Nelson Mandela), Matt Damon (Francois Pienaar). Music by Kyle Eastwood and Michael Stevens. "Rugby, however, is a hooligan's game, played by gentlemen." After his release from a 20-year prison sentence, Nelson Mandela (Freeman) is elected president of South Africa. In an attempt to shed the shadow of apartheid, he recruits the help of rugby team captain Francois Pienaar (Damon) to inspire his team to win the World Cup. Eastwood directs a compelling, if somewhat flawed retelling of one country's struggle for unity through the language of sports.As far as I'm concerned, Morgan Freeman is Nelson Mandela. I can't imagine another actor portraying him as skillfully. His speech, his demeanor and evens his looks are all spot-on, and his presence is magnetic. Damon holds up well as the rugby team captain (and has definitely shed his post-Informant! pounds). Eastwood balances the politics of the era with the rugby action, never letting one overwhelm the other or resorting to sentimentality. The tightrope act Mandela must perform, and the faith he requires from his people is fascinating to watch. Cinematographer Tom Stern ably contrasts the upscale neighborhoods with the shanty towns of Johannesburg, and the score by Kyle Eastwood and Michael Stevens is suitably grand. However, despite my interest in the political side of the movie, I felt a little let down by the sports side. This may be due to my unfamiliarity with the sport, but the matches in general, and the World Cup game in particular, left me a bit flat. They're well-presented, but they didn't grip me like I hoped they would. Having to compete with Morgan Freeman's performance certainly didn't help rugby's case. Still, it's definitely worth a watch. —Jared  FANTASTIC MR. FOX. (20th-Century Fox Animation. Rated PG for action, smoking and slang humor. 1 hour, 28 minutes. Directed by Wes Anderson.) Voices of George Clooney (Mr. Fox), Meryl Streep (Mrs. Fox), Jason Schwartzman (Ash), Eric Chase Anderson (Kristofferson), Bill Murray (Badger), Wallace Wolodarsky (Kylie), Michael Gambon (Franklin Bean), Willem Dafoe (Rat), Owen Wilson (Coach Skip), Jarvis Cocker (Petey). Music by Alexandre Desplat. Wes Anderson's first animated movie has a consistent wacky tone. Old-fashioned stop-motion technique is brought up to the 21st century; characters are enriched by the voice talents involved. Based on the 1970 book by Roald Dahl, the plot concerns a husband-and-wife fox, their son Ash, and his visiting cousin Kristofferson who seems superior to Ash in every way. Mr. Fox, after years of quiet domesticity, gives in to his wild-animal urges (much to the consternation of Mrs. Fox) and starts stealing from the neighboring farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean. Er, consequences ensue. I particularly enjoyed Streep, Bill Murray's puffed-up Badger and Willem Dafoe's slimy Rat. Bouncy music by Desplat adds to the carnival atmosphere. Fun for grownups and kids. —Regina RED CLIFF. (Magnet Releasing. 2 hours, 28 minutes. Rated R for sequences of epic warfare. Directed by John Woo.) Tony Leung (Zhou Yu), Takeshi Kaneshiro (Kongming), Fengyi Zhang (Cao Cao), Chen Chang (Sun Quan), Wei Zhao (Sun Shangxiang), Jun Hu (Zhao Yun), Chiling Lin (Xiao Qiao). Music by Taro Iwashiro. Just before the fall of the Han Dynasty, Prime Minister Cao Cao declares war on the southern warlords Sun Quan and Liu Bei. Facing a massive numerical disadvantage, the two warlords join forces and confront Cao Cao's army at Red Cliff. A sweeping, beautifully made epic about a key moment in China's history.Let me start by saying this movie is big. From the lavish sets to the sheer amount of people involved in the battles, the scale of this film is staggering. Woo manages these elements admirably, balancing large melees with much smaller, more human beats. The battles, being the meat of the film, are well-executed, featuring all of Woo's hallmarks (liberal use of slow motion, oblique camera angles, etc). The strategies behind those battles, provided by Liu Bei's chief strategist Kongming (Kaneshiro, a Japanese actor surprisingly cast in a Chinese film) and Sun Quan's viceroy Zhou Yu, are extremely clever and easily the most fascinating parts. The film is not without its problems, though. The pacing is choppy in places, some of the performances are iffy and the cast of characters gets painfully large, leaving some of them sketchy at best. Save for the performances, these problems can be attributed to the almost 1 and 1/2 hours of footage missing from the US release (the Asian release was 2 2-hour long films), meaning that much of the politics and characterizations for the second- and third-stringers has gone missing. Still, for half of a film, Red Cliff holds together surprisingly well, delivering a grand retelling of a pivotal conflict. —Jared  NINJA ASSASSIN. (Warner Brothers. 1 hour, 39 minutes. Rated R for strong bloody stylized violence throughout, and language. Directed by James McTeigue.) Rain (Raizo), Naomie Harris (Mika), Shô Kosugi (Ozunu), Ben Miles (Maslow). Music by Ilan Eshkeri. Mika (Harris), a forensic researcher for Europol investigating a string of high-profile assassinations, teams up with rogue ninja Raizo (Rain) to take down his former clan. What follows is a messy, underwhelming tangle of a movie. With a title like that, you can expect a bevy of gratuitous action, and with Joel Silver and the Wachowski Brothers producing, you can expect that action to be stylishly presented. Unfortunately, some of the more interesting set pieces are marred by choppy editing, jittery camerawork and a lack of lighting. I realize ninjas stick to the shadows, but how much visual interest can you generate with black-clad assassins fighting in the dark? The poor editing isn't limited to the fight scenes, as much of the story is told in oddly-paced flashbacks. Also, as simple as the story is, it contains a surprising number of plot holes (e.g., how can a bunch of ninjas be completely unstoppable in one scene and cannon fodder in the next?). Korean pop star Rain isn't given much to do save glower and kill people, but he does handle the action sequences admirably. Harris is easy on the eyes and talented enough, though she gets saddled with a groan-worthy romance with Raizo. Miles is also good as an incredulous special agent who provides the lone comic relief in the film. Fans of ninjas in specific or martial arts in general can find something to like here, but others need not apply. —Jared***WHAT'S NEW ON DVD!***  RESCUE ME (Season Five, Volume One). (Sony. 2009. 3 discs. 451 minutes. 11 Episodes. Not rated. Various directors.) Denis Leary (Tommy Gavin), Mike Lombardi (Mike Silletti), Steven Pasquale (Sean Garrity), Andrea Roth (Janet Gavin), Callie Thorne (Sheila Keefe), Tatum O'Neal (Maggie), Adam Ferrara (Chief Nelson), Larenz Tate (Bart), Michael J. Fox (Dwight). Popular FX series remains exciting in Season Five. Leary (star, co-creator, producer, and co-writer of most of the episodes) remains a dynamic lead as his character Tommy presides over the men of 62 Truck. He and his fellow New York City firefighters face personal issues as well as the continuing aftermath of 9/11. Tommy is dealing with the death of his father, his estranged wife Janet and son, and maintaining his sobriety; he gets a big surprise when he meets Dwight (Fox), the new man in Janet's life. Sean faces a major health issue and tries to keep it secret from the rest of the crew, who are entering a questionable new business venture: opening a bar. Meanwhile Tommy's former lover Sheila isn't quite ready to let go. If you haven't seen this series, be careful: you'll get caught up in this well-written, well-acted drama with touches of humor. Heed the (lack of) rating: the frank language and adult situations aren't meant for kids. Set extras include deleted scenes, a gag reel, and a featurette on stunts. —Regina  NICKELODEON. (Sony. 1976. Theatrical Color version, 122 minutes, rated PG. B&W Director's Cut version, 125 minutes, not rated. Directed by Peter Bogdanovich.) Ryan O'Neal (Leo Harrigan), Burt Reynolds (Buck Greenway), Tatum O'Neal (Alice Forsyte), Jane Hitchcock (Kathleen Cooke), Brian Keith (H.H. Cobb), Stella Stevens (Marty Reeves), John Ritter (Franklin Frank). Music by Richard Hazard. Bogdanovich's valentine to the early silent-movie era, now in two versions. I went to see a promotional screening of Nickelodeon in Manhattan in 1976 for 5 cents, just like moviegoers used to do in the time period depicted in the film (1910-15). The movie was in color; recently Bogdanovich "readjusted" it to the black-and-white he always wanted. Alas, it doesn't make for a better film. Movies are lighted, processed, etc. depending on whether they're in B&W or color. That's why those 1980s "colorized" films always looked wrong. Bogdanovich and crew, taking advantage of modern techniques in doing a reverse of the colorization process, came up with a pretty good B&W print.It's still slightly off, though. So are O'Neal and Reynolds in their roles as a fledging film director and his rough-hewn leading man. Bogdanovich spent so much time on accurately detailing the period, he forgot about writing a story; instead he stitches together a series of vignettes based on stories he was told by real-life silent movie directors Allan Dwan, Raoul Walsh, and others. He spends a good deal of time in the commentary name-dropping ("I got that idea from John Ford") or bemoaning the fact that his then-love and muse Cybill Shepherd wasn't in the film. Bogdanovich peaked early in his career with his three hits The Last Picture Show, What's Up, Doc? and Paper Moon. Those were followed by three flops: Daisy Miller, At Long Last Love, and this. He was just a couple of years away from the Dorothy Stratten/"Star 80" tragedy. Maybe his next project should be about himself and the other "maverick" 1970s directors; now that would be interesting. The two versions of Nickelodeon are paired in a 2-disc set with the director's cut of the excellent, Oscar-winning Picture Show (1971), which also has Bogdanovich's commentary, plus featurettes and a trailer. —Regina > view printer-friendly version > return to previous page |