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Coraline

Too often I hem and haw and hedge and meander before getting to the point, so let’s jump ahead: Coraline is an absolute treasure. Not to mention, rich, dazzling, scary, and technically mind-boggling. Whether you see it in 2D or 3D, whether you’ve read Neil Gaiman’s book or not, whether you mind or don’t mind celebrity voice work, whether you’re a teenage Goth girl or a 20-something dreamer or a 30-something parent or a 40-something fanboy geek. When us critics whine about there never being any good movies out, this is the kind of thing that snaps us out of it and reminds us why we love pure film so much.

Now, with that out of the way, let me say that some critics and filmgoers have had or will have quibbles with Coraline as adapted by director Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas) from Gaiman’s novel. The stop-motion Coraline (i.e. puppet animation) has been accused of being too dark and creepy for younger kids (it probably is), of having a somewhat frantic and overwrought third act (it sort of does), but mostly of being long on visual spectacle (oh boy is it!) and short on the warmth of humanity—that it's emotionally detached and cool.

That last charge is the most interesting. I do agree with it—as a fantasist in both comic books and prose fiction, Gaiman has always been more entranced by the dizzying, dark potential of epic imagination and storytelling than in the intricacies of the human heart. (I'm a devoted fan of Gaiman's Sandman...his prose novels, eh, not so much.) And if Coraline prompts viewers to discuss that notion further, then that’s a testimony to the film’s artistic power, not a knock on it.

In the meantime, don’t let any of that dissuade you from giving Coraline a shot. This is a marvelous achievement, from the insane technical feat of stop-motion filming all of the visual splendor on display, to the way Selick captures the melancholy joy of solitary childhoods filled with exploration and flights of daydreaming fancy.

Freeze Frame, Get Yer Freeze Frame Right Here!

The past few weeks I've been posting the Friday Freeze Frame challenge at night, so today I thought I'd mix things up and give you the latest trio of mystery stills while the sun's still high in the sky.

You know I'm constantly struggling with how hard to make these, and today I fear I'm back on the "too easy" side of the scale, but I guess we'll let your responses be the judge of that, now won't we?

So here we go... what are these three films?

Movie #1

Movie #2

Movie #3

Submit your guesses through the comments link directly below this post, and I'll let you know on Monday who the big winner is.  The big winner of WHAT, you say?  The big winner of a self-made aluminum foil trophy, of course!  (And -- new this week! -- if you guess the common thread you can throw in the task of making a cool little button for yourself, too.)

I'm going to hold all answers until Monday, so don't freak out when you can't find your submission in the comments section.  There won't be anything there until the winner's revealed in a few days.

And remember that since these are a bit tougher for people to get right when compared to Tuesday's and Thursday's Threes challenges, keep those answers coming throughout the weekend... there have been a few people who didn't give the game a shot until Monday morning -- and still won!

Good luck!

Thursday Threes: The Answer

Ah, after the rout that was Tuesday's Finding Nemo quiz, it seems I did manage to stump a few of you with Thursday's Threes.

Of course, even a somewhat more obscure quiz didn't slow down Donna--she was there right away with the correct answer and so pulls down yet another Threes homemade construction-paper medal! Well-earned congrats to Donna, and to Fiirvoen and Clint M., who came in second and third. (Alas, Millar guessed second, but she doubted there even was a real answer.)

So, what actor was in Rent, There's Something About Mary and The School of Rock? Saddle up the ol' Inviso-Text!

It was Sarah Silverman, folks! (Sorry, Adam Pascal was in Rent and School of Rock, but not Something About Mary). Now normally I tie these quizzes to the cast of a film opening the coming weekend, but this week there's only Funny People, and frankly we've either done Threes with a lot of its cast, or they would have been too easy. But Silverman is in Funny People--along with many other real-life comedians, she plays herself in a cameo.

Anyhoo, I won't go into the usual long, rambling explination of my feelings for Silverman--at one time I thought she was absolutely brilliant, but the past few years have felt a bit coast-y, a bit same-y. Still, she's a tremendous, shocking, disturbing, controversial talent. Which is why it's always fun to see her pop up, on occasion, in semi-straight roles.

Such as Rent, where she had a small part as the Alexi, the music-video network executive who offers Anthony Rapp's Mark a series based on his film footage. And in There's Something About Mary, Silverman plays what I believe is her one shot at the usual role for off-beat, edgy female comedians: the off-beat, edgy best friend of the rom-com lead. (Though it feels a bit odd to call Mary a rom-com, and Silverman's role as Brenda is miniscule.)

But perhaps the biggest cast-against-type role for Silverman was in The School of Rock, where she played Patti, the uptight, harping girlfriend of (screenwriter) Mike White's Ned. That's right, Sarah Silverman of all people was the one saying stop being immature and settle down and fit in.

The Rocchi Files: Why Bother?

I've spent a lot of this week running around trying to track down a "yes" or a "no" answer from the PR department of a major motion picture studio to determine if their upcoming high-budget, high-concept, action film is going to screen for critics. They aren't sure yet; no one would dare say it, but you can feel them balancing their desire to not look like they're hiding the thing versus the potential opening-week word-of-mouth box office damage that could be done by uniformly bad reviews.

Meanwhile, a friend and fellow critic noted that she hasn't seen anything she's really loved lately, and that worries her, considering that she makes her living writing about movies with insight and enthusiasm. Meanwhile, talking guinea pigs are at the top of the box office (and I was told G-Force was "not screening for online press,") and this week's family film contender, Aliens in the Attic, didn't screen for press either. And that made me wonder -- do you know, or care, about any of this stuff? Or is it just inside baseball? And if you don't know or care about it, then what could I say to make it matter?

I guess what I'd say to try and make it matter is this:

This Just Proves My Point

Little did I know when I wrote about my annoyance with celeb voice work yesterday that there'd be another prime example of this Hollywood trend gone awry delivered to us today. Behold the trailer for Fantastic Mr. Fox (yep, it's another childhood classic turned movie -- the original story was by Roald Dahl). 

Is Mr. Fox's voice recognizable? Absolutely -- I'd know George Clooney's deep, sultry sound anywhere. Does it make sense that he is voicing this character? That's a negative, my friends.  Nothing about his voice fits with the look of the character -- it seems like a major mismatch.  Tell me if you agree.

I'm not going to reveal who the other A-list stars are in the cast just yet -- watch the trailer (which I have issues with beyond the voice work, but I'll get to that in a minute) and see if you can identify who's who before the -1:04 mark when a few others besides Clooney are revealed.

Are you kidding me with Meryl Streep, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody and Willem Dafoe? Seriously, Wes Anderson, are you kidding me?

Fantastic Mr. Fox is Anderson's first animated film, and I think it's also going to be his first film that I do not like. (In fact, as of right now I have zero desire to see it). When I came across some stills from it earlier this week, I was really impressed, but now that I've seen the stop-motion technique in action, my attitude has done a 180.  And besides the weirdness of the stop-motion, overall those two and a half minutes were a snoozefest for me. That doesn't bode well for the rest of the movie.

The good news is that while I still think it's silly that Anderson lined up so many famous folks for his voice cast, outside of Clooney none of them sounded too out of place (though we also didn't hear all of the actors I listed yet). Brody, Schwartzman and Murray are in Anderson's little clique so I'm not surprised that they're involved.  Streep seems like a weird choice (Cate Blanchett was originally supposed to voice Mrs. Fox but had to back out of the project) and I actually wouldn't have known it was her on my own -- so her involvement seems like kind of a waste, too. But, as we discussed yesterday, there's gonna be one helluva PR blitz for this film once all of its stars begin popping up on talk shows.  Or, should I say, it'll be a fantastic PR blitz. (Am I officially the first person to start making lame title references for this one?)

The Hurt Locker

You're probably hearing two things about The Hurt Locker, director Katheryn Bigelow’s fictional look at a US Army bomb dispersal unit in Bahgdad. One is that it’s the first really great Iraq War movie. The other that it’s a “smart” action movie, much-welcomed in a summer dominated by a very dumb action movie.

And those things are true, but they're true because of one another. The Hurt Locker is an effective Iraq War movie because it focuses on the (unbelievably riveting) actions of its characters rather than the big speeches they make about the moral or political “worthiness” of the war. And it comes off as a smart action movie because the characters, the dangers, and the stakes all feel very real thanks to the Iraq setting.

The Hurt Locker follows three bomb dispersal specialists day after harrowing day as they near the end of their combat-zone rotation. Sgt. Sanborn (the terrific Anthony Mackie) keeps his stuff wired tight, wanting only to stick to procedure and get home alive. The fresher-faced Specialist Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) is trying to hold it together as he copes with the death he’s seen and the actions he’s taken. And thrust into the middle of this fragile ball of nerves is Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner), a crackerjack bomb technician whose possibly reckless, seemingly fearless methods put the other two men even more on edge.

The job is deceptively “simple”: Someone sees a suspicious object or car, James and his team roll in, assess the situation, and if there is an explosive device, James dons massive space-suit-like protective gear and helmet and walks right up to the bomb and tries to disarm it.

What makes The Hurt Locker such a mesmerizing work of pure cinema is that Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal (who was an embedded reporter with such a team in  2004) don’t take any cheap or easy ways out with their characters or the action. On paper, James may sound like another gung-ho cowboy type, but as played by Renner he’s anything but. He’s quiet and introverted, laser-focused on not just his job (which he’s very good at) but the idea of his job—what it means to him and does to him, to walk up several times a day and fiddle around with wires on a device that—bulky protective suit or no—is intended to liquefy him. Most of the film’s best scenes come from James’s dealing with mind-bogglingly dangerous mechanical (and sometimes interpersonal) problems, where we see his calm cool is merely a clinging-by-the-fingernails defense and survival mechanism that kicks in on adrenaline-fueled instinct.

Renner is an unknown, unless you caught him as the title character in 2002's creepy little indie film Dahmer. But after this summer, Renner is likely on the way to the spotlight. His masterful, low-key achievement is he plays James simultaneously on three levels: the cocksure machismo surface where the daredevil intensity is balanced by a good-natured, caring demeanor; the single-minded obsession below—fueled by fear—that drives him and makes him so good at his job; and finally, the man struggling with the psychological fact that he has become addicted to fear and its attendant rush. James is learning that, as the opening quote from New York Times writer Chris Hedges notes,  “War is a drug.”

But the reason The Hurt Locker is garnering so much praise (and Oscar rumblings) is simple: the film does not spend much time sitting around pondering the philosophical, political, or psychological trappings of war. Those ideas are there, but they’re shown, not told. And they’re shown by having James and his team wade into one gut-twisting situation after another.

Better than the Book?

Where my bibliophiles at? 

Did you enjoy Part One of my interview about book-to-film adaptations with the fine folks over at 5 Minutes for Books?  Yes?  (Of course you did.)  Then be sure to check out Part Two, in which we continue the novel-versus-movie discussion and I share my fears about some upcoming adaptations.  

In fact, there was soooo much to talk about that some of our back and forth had to be edited down so that the article didn't get too long... but you can read the "leftovers" here. 

I'd like to thank the team at 5 Minutes for Books for including me in their Books on Film series -- and I hope you lit-loving redblog readers found it interesting!

Your Thursday Threes

Ready for the weekend? Not so fast, Sparky. First you have to get through the Thursday Threes.

I give you three films, you tell me what one actor was in all three films.

Enter your guess in the comments section directly below this post, and if you are first with the correct answer you win a fantabulous homemade construction-paper medal. Best part is, you get to make it yourself, so arts and crafts project! Yay!

I won't publish any guesses until tomorrow when I put the correct answer up.

What one actor was in all three of these films?

Rent

There's Something About Mary

The School of Rock

Miss March

If I were a sports buff, I'm sure I would know of great career-ending debuts: Football players who stepped wrong and shattered their ankle in their first game. Baseball players, who, in their first time pitching, not only loaded the bases but then gave up a home run. Gymnasts who, in their first ever Olympic event, leapt for the vaulting horse and missed. I don't know sports, though, but I do know movies, and Miss March, the big-screen writing, directing and acting debut for Zach Creggar and Trevor Moore of the sketch comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U Know is the comedy-on-film equivalent of shattering your ankle while you give up that home run and smash your gut into the vaulting horse.

And you may ask "Really? That bad?" To which I would say, "Yes." Part of the problem may be that many comedy sketch troupes don't make it on the big-screen because of the same reasons (to continue straining our sports metaphors) many sprinters can't cut it as marathon runners. Sketches are about hustle and bustle, quick idea to quick idea, and if there's no real transition from idea to idea, scene to scene, good; makes people feel like they're getting a show. But movies should -- ideally, anyhow -- cohere and work as movies, as stories that go from point 'a' to point 'b,', and have transitions between scenes and characters who show some kind of development. But Miss March has none of that.

Gossip Roundup

- The "Eclipse situation" we discussed yesterday has gotten even more curious over the past 24 hours.  First, Rachelle Lefevre -- the actress who got the boot and is being replaced by Bryce Dallas Howard for the role of Victoria -- made a statement to the press in which she claimed to be totally stunned by Summit's decision to fire her.  Then Summit responded with a stinging release of their own, which basically painted Lefevre as unprofessional and uncooperative.  Of course industry pundits (and Twilight haters) are having a field day with all of this... and everyone's having a grand ol' time debating whether or not Rachelle is actually benefitting from all of the hullabahoo.  After all, her name shot up to be one of Google's most searched terms, and there was a "#bringbackrachelle" movement on Twitter.  So I don't think this story is going to go away any time soon, especially since many seem to think there might be a legal battle over whether or not the actress is still entitled to partial payment for Eclipse, based on the terms of her contract.  The fangs are out, people!  Stay tuned!

- Mel Gibson brought the drama last night when he allegedly ripped a photographer's shirt at an L.A nightclub -- apparently Gibson thought the guy was getting a little too close for comfort.  No police report has been filed yet, and I'm sure Gibson does not want to be back in the headlines for bad-boy behavior, so my guess is that this will all be swept under the rug quickly.  He's got a pregnant girlfriend to worry about, after all...

- Speaking of babies, guess who's going to become a dad for the fourth time?  Jude Law.  Haven't heard much about him for a while, have we?  But we will soon, because not only is he appearing in Hamlet on Broadway starting in October and then will be making the promotional rounds for Sherlock Holmes, but he's also now going to have the tabloids hounding him about the identity of his future son or daughter's mother.  Right now, no one knows who it is, since Jude is "no longer in a relationship with the individual concerned," according to his representative.  Niiiice, Jude.  I always knew there was something sketchy about you.  Maybe it was the whole Nannygate thing that clued me in.  Now I just wish I could go back in time and advise my late '90s self to not waste any daydreams on your nastiness.

- Let's end with the most head-scratching news I've heard in a while: there is a new religion, and that religion is Shiantology.  Before you ask, the answer is no.  Just because I love me some LaBeouf does not mean that I am the founder of this sect.  I'm crazy, but I'm not that crazy... though I have to admit that I am, uh, impressed by the Shiart and Creashian Gallery.  (By "impressed" I mean "scared out of my mind and confused," just to be clear.)