Category: Reviews

Review: ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ Centennial Collection

Review: ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ Centennial Collection

Paramount Home Video concludes their Audrey Hepburn review with the fifth entry in their Centennial Collection, the classic Breakfast At Tiffany’s, on sale today.  It’s interesting that they’re celebrating a century but the first five releases are all from the same era, the 1950s and while this was released in 1961, still has that same look and feel.

The film has withstood the test of time very nicely given the loving touch of director Blake Edwards who oversaw this adaptation of Truman Capote’s novella and made it uniquely his own.  In the prose, Holly Golightly never sang “Moon River” nor did she really have a happy ending.  Characters differ between story and screenplay and by now, most people know Capote always envisioned Marilyn Monroe in the lead. He was crushed when Hepburn was cast.

While Monroe would have been good in many ways, this was all about style and elegance, the upper crust of Manhattan society and as a result, Hepburn was a better pick.

Making the movie was a challenge for Hepburn, playing the extroverted socialite escort (not a call girl) who ran away from her “hick” life and husband (an underrated Buddy Ebsen).  Instead, the social whirl of Manhattan at its finest was seductive and she wanted to live life to its fullest.  The pinnacle for her was Tiffany’s, the legendary jewelry store. Naïve in so many things, her actions are not always conscious ones and she pulls new tenant Paul Varjak (George Peppard) along in her wake. Her life is filled with fascinating people and annoying ones, such as the Japanese photographer, buffoonishly played by Mickey Rooney. The film is filled with terrific character actors including Martin Balsam but it’s also Peppard’s best role.  He is earnest and cool at the same time, working to craft a character, rather than easing his way through later roles as Banacek and Hannibal Smith.

Blake Edwards showed what he can do with comedy and subtle character interplay here, a visual style that became his signature for years to come, capped by [[[Victor/Victoria]]].  He’s accompanied by composer Henry Mancini who made his name with the score plus earning an Oscar for “Moon River”, which had lyrics from Johnny Mercer.  As we’re told at least twice on the extras, a Paramount exec felt the movie ran long and wanted to cut the song until Hepburn effectively said, “Over my dead body.”

The love story is a valentine to a time and place that no longer exists although the hopes and dreams of those escaping their homes for the City That Never Sleeps remain the same.

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Review: ‘Funny Face’

Review: ‘Funny Face’

Paramount Pictures’ Centennial Collection chugs along, mining the 1950s and Audrey Hepburn again with the release on Tuesday of Funny Face. The musical, with Fred Astaire and Kay Thompson, unlike the earlier offerings in the series, has not aged well despite the loving restoration of the visuals.

Pop culture in the 1950s certainly centered on glamorous celebrities like Hepburn and the films were experimenting with visual techniques to combat the rise of television habits but sometimes their subjects were treated outlandishly.

Maggie Prescott (Thompson) is the force of nature that edits [[[Glamour]]], er, [[[Mode]]], er, [[[Quality]]] magazine.  The magazine wants to shoot on location, to lend a patina of intellectual sheen to the usually vapid model who seems more interesting in exaggerated poses than anything natural. She and top fashion photographer Dick Avery (Astaire) spontaneously decide on a “sinister” looking bookstore in Greenwich Village, hail a few cabs, and go in search. They find a dark, dusty shop with a young bookseller, Jo Stockton (Hepburn) as the sole occupant.  They storm in, take over the joint and include her in one picture then lock her out of the store since she was objecting to their disruption of the place.

Later, Avery latches on to the notion that she could be the fresh face a new campaign could be built around. He convinces her that by agreeing to model, she could be taken to Paris where she could be exposed to the great philosophical thinkers, including Prof. Emile Flostre (Michel Auclaire), who influenced the naïve girl. She accepts and is whisked to Paris where she at first indulges her intellect then gives in to her beauty.  The rest of the film chronicles her struggle to find herself as she straddles two worlds, neither very well.

Adapted from the 1927 stage musical, the update retained but four songs, two of which are memorable standards.  The rest are entirely forgettable including the signature opener, “Think Pink”.

As a story, it mocks the Beat Generation on two continents and treats Flostre as a great thinker, but his mind appears to be on one subject which is getting in to Hepburn’s pants. The rest of the script is breathless but you keep stopping to wonder about the absurdity of booking everyone into separate hotels or no one giving Stockton a schedule so she would know what was expected from her. Also, Stockton seems to suddenly give up on her interest in philosophy in favor of being a famous model when she could do both, it never had to be an either/or situation.

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Review: ‘The Alcoholic’ by Ames and Haspiel

Review: ‘The Alcoholic’ by Ames and Haspiel

The Alcoholic
By Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel
DC Comics, October 2008, $19.99

The main character of T[[[he Alcoholic]]] is one Jonathan A., a writer who looks very much like writer Jonathan Ames and whose life has been exceptionally similar to Ames’s. Those who have read Ames before know that this is nothing new: he is his own best subject, either transformed fictionally in novels like [[[I Pass Like Night]]] and [[[Wake Up, Sir!]]] or poured out in his rawly hilarious nonfiction in [[[What’s Not To Love?]]] Jonathan A. is and is not Jonathan Ames; The Alcoholic isn’t a memoir but a novel (a graphic novel – very graphic in places), and so we must treat A. as a fictional character.

(I think I’ll refer to him as A. from here on; it adds an oddly Kafkaesque air – or, and perhaps more appropriately, a sense of anonymity and confession.)

The Alcoholic is A.’s life story – or at least as much of his life as concerns alcohol and sex – from 1979 through late 2001, high school through early middle age. It opens in August 2001, as A. is waking up in a station wagon in Asbury Park, with an old, very short woman trying to seduce him after a long night of drinking.

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Review: ‘Bottomless Belly Button’ by Dash Shaw

Review: ‘Bottomless Belly Button’ by Dash Shaw

Bottomless Belly Button
By Dash Shaw
Fantagraphics, June 2008, $29.99

Wrapped up inside [[[Bottomless Belly Button]]] is the realistically-depicted story of a family – aged parents, three grown children, and few others – coming all together for one last time as the parents divorce after forty years of marriage. But Dash Shaw is in no hurry to tell that story; he wraps the three sections of this graphic novel in metaphor and metafiction, graphically depicting the Looney family and their world in various forms – as water, as sand, as maps, as diagrams and lists. Shaw takes the time and space to tell his story slowly, to circle around it from all sides, and to focus on each member of the Looney family in turn.

David Looney is the patriarch: his word has always been law. We see the least of him in Bottomless Belly Button, but he’s clearly diminished from the authoritarian, demanding man we see in flashbacks – he’s no longer in charge. The divorce probably isn’t his idea.

Dennis Looney, the older son – the good son. Married, with a baby. Somewhere in his mid ‘30s. Dennis can’t accept the divorce – in the Looney’s view of the world, families always stick together, because families are the core building blocks of the world. Something must be wrong – something he can fix. So he gets angry inappropriately, takes long runs on the beach to think through things, roams restlessly through the house, looking for clues and reasons for something he can’t accept.

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Review: ‘French Milk’ by Lucy Knisley

Review: ‘French Milk’ by Lucy Knisley

French Milk
By Lucy Knisley
Touchstone, October 2008, $15.00

The first thing to know – and to keep in your head – is that Lucy Knisley is twenty-two years old. That’s fantastically young to be planning and executing a nearly two-hundred-page-long drawn book, and the mere fact that she did it is impressive. And so if I say that [[[French Milk]]] is a bit thin, a bit obvious, and clearly created by a very young woman – that’s only to be expected, and not a major criticism.

French Milk is a sketchbook diary, something like Craig Thompson’s [[[Carnet de Voyage]]] or Enrico Casarosa’s [[[The Venice Chronicles]]]. Knisley flew to Paris with her mother just after Christmas of 2006 – she was turning twenty-two, and her mother was turning fifty, which added up to a good enough excuse – and the two of them lived there in an apartment for just about a month. French Milk is the story of that month, and of a few days before and afterward – several pages are devoted to each day, with photos and drawings and narrative.

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Review: ‘Babylon A.D.’

Review: ‘Babylon A.D.’

Babylon A.D. is actually two separate films, one with some noble themes worthy of exploration and one that is a derivative action film.  Unfortunately, you have to suffer through the latter before the film oddly shifts gears and begins lightly exploring the former. The film is based on Maurice Georges Dantec’s [[[Babylon Babies], a science fiction novel exploring the notion of artificial intelligence being given organic life. In an interview on the DVD, on sale Tuesday, he wisely notes that he had written the book, said what he had to say and left the rest up to the filmmakers.

In the hands of writer Éric Besnard and French director Mathieu Kassovitz, the movie is a mess. The dark near-future, Europe has collapsed and anarchy or big business rules in place of government.  Vin Diesel stars as Toorop, a mercenary, who is coerced into boydguarding a young woman, heading from his monastery home to New York City.  Given little choice, he agrees and discovers she has a chaperone, a strong-willed Michelle Yeoh.  The girl, Aurora (Mélanie Thierry), seems an innocent at first but then begins displaying knowledge and experience impossible for someone raised in solitude.

Of course they’re chased and that’s where the mindless, seen-it-before action comes in.  While Diesel excels at this sort of stuff, it was not in the least bit thrilling, with the exception of the chase across Alaska.

Upon arrival in New York, the film suddenly changes gears and tone as we begin exploring the concepts involved but they are done in a monotonous way set against opposing forces who wish to control Aurora’s immaculately conceived children and the future of mankind. While there are plenty of good notions here, they’re buried under poor acting and pacing.

Diesel and Yeoh form an interesting bond during the few quiet moments but Thierry is such a blank slate it’s hard to tell if she has any talent. Lambert Wilson and Charlotte Rampling are wasted as the creators of the AI and therefore battle over its destiny.

Kassovitz blamed 20th on butchering the film and abandoning it this August after he labored for five years on bringing it to life.  Unfortunately, after five years of development work, one expects a more even, better conceived production.  Even the music from the normally reliable Hans Zimmer is uninspired.

Fox is releasing the film with the theatrical release and an unedited version, which does not help the story one whit.  The plethora of extras are nice, especially as you hear Dantec talk about his book and it makes you long for a film that interesting.  There are the usual making of features including a nice one on the arctic chase.

A special edition two-disc set comes with a few extra features including an animated prequel (erroneously billed as a graphic novel) that fills in some of the dramatic gaps that would have enhanced the overall production. A second disc contains a digital copy for computers and iPods.

Review: ‘Frisky Dingo Season Two’

Review: ‘Frisky Dingo Season Two’

Reviewing the Adult Swim DVDs has been educational and occasionally entertaining.  I find the third series, [[[Frisky Dingo Season Two]]], the most enjoyable because it takes absurd situations and characters and uses smart humor to get its point across.  The series, about Killface, an alien super-villain come to Earth and his struggles against the heroic Awesome X, pokes fun at the conventions of animation, super-heroics and action flicks.  They ratchet things up in season two, collected here, as Killface finds himself accidentally solving Global Warming and running for president.

Now the humor sharpens as creators Adam Reed and Matt Thompson skewer politics and does so while serializing the campaign across most of the twelve episode season, which ran on Cartoon Network from August – October 2007 and March 2008.  The escapades build as Killface’s newfound popularity has him begin ton contend with the political machine and rivals begin to figure out how to campaign against him.  You see everyone pander to one base after another; especially hilarious was when Killface discovers the Bible in “The Miracle”. Another fun running gag is the confusion between Fred Hunter and Fred Dryer, who starred in the NBC series [[[Hunter]]], with the notion that either is Vice Presidential material pretty offbeat.

Killface learning about life on Earth makes for some pointed commentary on society

The animation is as simple as Metalocaplypse but better designed with terrific, rich backgrounds plus varied looks to the people.  The dialogue and voice work is rather good which matches the quality of the writing.  Reed voices both hero and villain which is a nifty feat and he brings individual personality to both as he plays off himself, which is not easy.

The single disc DVD, on sales January 6, comes with a skit featuring the Xtacles, which is spinning off from the show.  They are dim-witted armored forces normally controlled by Awesome X, but with him currently off planet, they are without guidance leading to humor.  The series debuted two episodes in November and based on this skit, looks to be a little less clever than its host. The other extra is a political ad parody promoting the release of the DVD itself.

Review: ‘Watching the Watchmen’

Review: ‘Watching the Watchmen’

Watching the Watchmen
Dave Gibbons
Titan Books, $39.95
In January 1985, DC Comics sent me to England to begin meeting with the talent working across the pond, reminding them of our needs and working environment.  Dick Giordano and Joe Orlando had been out a few years prior so this was like a booster shot, a tangible sign we loved them and wanted to keep working with them. Titan Books’ Nick Landau helped me organize two group dinners with the rising stars working for [[[2000 AD]]] and [[[Warrior]]] and it was first introduction to them all.

Apart from that, though, was an afternoon session with Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.  Alan’s work with [[[Swamp Thing]]] had already proven captivating and I was an instant fan.  Dave’s work was newer to me but I immediately liked his style.  Interestingly, Dave’s first issue as penciller of [[[Green Lantern]]] and Alan’s first issue as writer of [[[Saga of the Swamp Thing]]] were both cover dated January 1984, just months before I joined DC in the actual January 1984 so I had a year to know their work before meeting.

Both were brimming with enthusiasm for [[[The Watchmen]]], the project they were just getting started on and I had heard about in the hallways. We spent the afternoon sipping tea at the Tower Hotel as Dave pulled out pages of drawings and sketches while Alan talked through the themes of the series. If Dave’s chronology in [[[Watching the Watchmen]]] is correct, our meeting was weeks before the first script was delivered. By then, though, they already had the tag line “Who Watches the Watchmen?” and the bloody smiley face design.

This was going to be a sophisticated story, the like of which was just beginning to find a place amidst the more traditional good versus evil stories that filled the racks. That translated to cover design and even the gents’ notions of how to market the book.  Dave showed off designs for cocktail napkins and coasters that they’d imagine DC printing up to entice college kids and adults to be made aware there was something new to read.

Sadly, those marketing designs seem to have vanished but most of Dave’s other designs, sketches, notes, annotated scripts and paraphernalia was retained.  The result is this handsomely designed book that enhances your enjoyment of the graphic novel and keeps you enticed until the feature film finally arrives in March.

Gibbons writes honestly about the creative process, nicely explaining how things were done back then compared with today.  His recollections are vivid and explain much of what went into the process of conceiving something entirely new rather than rehashing the Charlton heroes (truth be told: I was the one to commission Dave to draw the characters for the aborted [[[Comics Cavalcade Weekly]]] for that very reason). Some of his personal thoughts about favorite characters, scenes, and moments would have been icing on a rich, delicious cake.

Chip Kidd’s design lets the work breathe and makes certain you can see the detail in the thumbnails or color guides.  He takes Dave’s traditional comic book approach to storytelling and enhances it with size and scope. My only quibble is that he lets thumbnails run in the gutters and spoils some of the clarity.  Also, it’d be nice to have seen more of Alan’s scripts and Dave’s notes to better understand the process.

Overall, the big is a huge visual treat and one of the few in-depth looks into the creative process behind any single title.  It’s really the first Making Of book for a comic book that I can recall and there’s no better series than The Watchmen to get the in-depth examination.

Review: ‘Eagle Eye’

Review: ‘Eagle Eye’

Action adventure movies work best when you have someone to root for or something to think about. Ideally, the movie offers both otherwise the action is mindless and the time in the theater wasted.  [[[Eagle Eye]]] makes you think about the price of privacy as a government entity known as Aria uses every digital piece of data available to manipulate people into help it execute a program design to sever the Executive Branch of the government from the waking world.

The film focuses on the prime players, a slacker named Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf) and a thirtysomething paralegal Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan) who are directed by a feminine voice to comply with orders or things would get bad for them.  In Jerry’s case, he’s framed by Aria as a potential terrorist in the wake of his Air Force lieutenant twin’s death.  For Rachel, her eight year old son’s life is threatened as the boy travels with the school band to Washington to perform at the State of the Union address.

The computer gives them no choice and sees to it that they can follow orders by keeping the police and federal investigators, headed by Billy Bob Thornton and Rosario Dawson, at bay by manipulating street lights, automated construction equipment, and much more.  All along, others have been manipulated to help construct and deliver the means by which Aria intends to rid America of its “corrupt” leaders and begin anew.

Jerry and Rachel find themselves thrown together and learn to trust one another as their three day odyssey takes them from Chicago east towards Washington.  Given their age and background differences, the two avoid the film cliché of falling in love and pausing form saving the world to having sex.  Instead they rush breathlessly towards their destiny.

While the film has lofty goals it fails to work on several levels.  Watching the film with a member of the federal government meant a running commentary of security flaws such as Thornton and Dawson discussing sensitive matters over an unsecure channel.  Also, we’ve seen the computer taking the world to the brink of destruction once a generation starting with the brilliant [[[Colossus the Forbin Project]]] and more recently in John Badham’s [[[War Games]]]. Heck, Aria is merely a cousin to HAL and needs to be deactivated for many of the same reasons. The cross country chase, playing beat the clock, has also been done to death especially when you add in the pursuit in the form of Thornton’s dogged fed. The nice thing about the latter is that at least screenwriters Dan McDermott, John Glenn, Travis Wright, and Hillary Seitz rounded out Thornton’s character without making him the usual one- note player.

That Aria can control all these devices is interesting and when she projects Jerry and Rachel’s lives on television screens to demonstrate how much is recorded and available for research (or blackmail) purposes, the message comes through loud and clear that we have all given up our privacy bit by bit. That’s plenty of good for thought and the featurette “Is my Cell Phone Spying on Me?” is the most compelling piece on the two-disc collector’s set, now on sale.

The variations on a theme are all appreciated but still don’t add up to something that’s greater than the sum of its parts.  We lose all sense of time and place since we never see them eat or sleep or hell, wash up.  To the viewer it’s an endless journey while it isn’t until you watch the extras you realize it has been only three days. Director D.J. Caruso moves things along almost too quickly, not letting the relationships build while continuing to amp up the stakes.

LaBeouf is 21 and plays 25 pretty well, avoiding to come across as any of his previous characters.   He and Monaghan play off one another rather well but his Jerry rises to the occasion and becomes a hero like his deceased twin but the film ends before we find what he chooses to do with this newfound knowledge. Monaghan’s single mom is less developed and goes along for the ride in the name of her son.

The extras provide a glimpse at a nice alternate ending, a handful of deleted scenes, and some fun bloopers.  The various pieces on the making of the film feel perfunctory but provide some nice insight into the filmmaker’s goals.  There’s also a conversation between Caruso and Badham comparing their films and how much technology has changed over the last 20 years.

Review: ‘Metalocalypse: Season II’

Review: ‘Metalocalypse: Season II’

I somehow missed the advent of Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim but recognize its contributions to pop culture.  As a result, as the DVD sets have been arriving for review, I’ve managed to play a bit of catch-up.  The random humor of [[[Aqua Teen Hunger Force]]] was lost upon me and I was excoriated for being too old to appreciate it.

Well, I certainly enjoyed the second season of [[[Metalocaplypse]]] a lot more. Largely, this had to do with the level of wit and creativity that is brought to each episode of the series, which aired from September 2007 through September 2008, with a six month break in between.  The cartoon is derived from the [[[This is Spinal Tap’s rock mockumentary]]] roots but works because there’s so much that can be parodied.

Deathlok is an unnaturally popular metal band and the performers are great when on stage and totally dysfunctional away from the crowds.  Each of the 19 episodes comprising [[[Metalocalypse Season II: Black Fire Upon Us]]], currently in stores,  has fun with some aspect of stardom and rock’n’roll.

The writing is sharper and the animation better, although still rather limited. Brendan Small and Tommy Blacha are to be commended for sustaining what could have been a one-note concept.  Having said that, the introduction of the Tribunal, the shadowy governmental force that works to tamp down their rising popularity feels like an ill fit, especially since the band triumphs over “The Man” each time so becomes flat and predictable.

Favorite episodes out of the bunch include “Dethfashion”, “Dethgov”, and “Dethweedding”.

While some shows work through a single sitting, this does not.  You find some of the gags and character bits repetitious atop the boring Tribunal crap. And if you’re not a metal head, the music can switch from entertaining to pounding real fast.  

There aren’t a lot of extras but they’re all hidden including five deleted scenes, music videos, and Klokateers: In Memoriam, and Nathan reading [[[Titus Andronicus]]].