It’s a big weekend for not very good movies, including one featuring a character that I like to call “Jesus Kitty.” “There are some people here who don’t appreciate that sort of humor,” a gentleman sitting in front of me at the screening of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader chastised after he overheard me describing to another reviewer what I considered to be the advantages of having a personal savior who was also a talking lion. (“I like you; that’s why I’m going to kill you last,” I replied to him.) With that in mind, I dialed down the attempted sacreligious yucks in my review of the picture for MSN Movies. Because I’m sensitive like that. And still, I say: “Kitty!”
Also in my assessment docket: The fact-based crime melodrama All Good Things, which has some acting mojo and not a lot else, reviewed here; and the unusually not-good The Tourist, which has star mojo that is actually no mojo at all, reviewed here.
Blogging will be light over the next few days owing to considerations of family visits and whatnot, and also, haven’t I done enough for you people goddamnit I give and give and give and what do I get back in return etc. If everything goes according to plan, I may actually bring my in-laws to an all-media screening of Little Fockers. I shall let you know if they disown me.
(“I like you; that’s why I’m going to kill you last,” I replied to him.)
Considering Sully worked for Arius, does this analogy make Dan Hedaya Jesus?…
A cat person, Glenn? Really? So, so disappointing.
Great reviews! I especially appreciated the takedown of “The Tourist.” Disappointed to hear that “Dawn Treader” isn’t good– I liked the first film (didn’t see the second), and remember the book from childhood– it was an eerie, effective fantasy tale. A shame that Michael Apted (whose work I usually quite like, and whose UP films would seem to make him its ideal translator) doesn’t sound like he was able to capture that spirit.
Well, nertz. I thought THE TOURIST looked fun.
Am I the only sourpuss who *hated* Narnia even as a child? The only way I’d like that lion would be if he behaved more like the ones in Quo Vadis.
Is there any shot, however brief or distant, in any of the Narnia movies where Aslan is actually a living, breathing lion, rather than a testicle-free CGI simulacrum?
I second bill’s “nertz.” THE TOURIST seemed to have a lot going for it, on paper. Von Donnersmarck’s THE LIVES OF OTHERS was a good story, well told, and much of the telling was visual, so I’ve been eager to see what he’d do next. Depp is usually interesting, to say the least. And Jolie always interests me. I’m a bit surprised that Glenn is questioning her talent, as though this film were just the latest in a string of bad performances. While I won’t hold SALT up as one for the ages, Jolie has an almost mystical ability to bring humanity to that kind of outlandishly efficient superheroine role. She knows just when to hold back, just when to show a flicker of emotion, and just when to let it all out. And I believe her every second, no matter how absurd the context. I thought she was the best thing in WANTED, too. And I found her excellent in CHANGELING, which was only two years ago, y’know. That said, the trailers for THE TOURIST gave me pause – I got enough of her British accent in the Lara Croft flicks.
Siren– as a religious nut child I remember liking Narnia when I was young, but as I grew older, and started desiring more verisimilitude from my fantasy (and, suffice to say, shook off some of that nuttiness), both the whole allegorical angle and the randomness of the world (hey, let’s throw in Santa for good measure) that reportedly irked even Lewis’s good friend Prof. Tolkien became a little hard to take.
I’m actually curious how the filmmakers are going to tackle a book like The Magician’s Nephew, which is basically a Narnian creation myth, with very little to provide by way of action or excitement.
Perhaps the trouble is that von Donnersmarck isn’t cut out to make a film with the tone of a CHARADE. He seems like an odd choice to direct this sort of property.
I’ve always wondered if there were any kids who read The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe who, upon hearing the story of the Christians being fed to the lions, thought that God was eating Christians. Then perhaps the next day they read Dante’s Inferno and get to the part where Lucifer is endlessly chewing on Judas and, well, who knows what happens from there. These are the problems of making a predatory beast into a divine feline.
@Asher: I agree, it would seem like it plays to none of his strengths. I seem to be alone in this, but I thought that Knight and Day was actually quite a pleasant attempt at the Charade tone.
@Leaves – I had no such confusion when reading TLTWTW, although that made me laugh. I just knew that religion was once again being fed to ME, which I had quite enough of on a daily basis in Alabama and didn’t want from something I’d checked out from the library. The charm eludes me, always has.
“haven’t I done enough for you people goddamnit I give and give and give and what do I get back in return etc.”
Well, sir, you’ll just have to take solace in our appreciation of your ever-growing reputation as critic, scholar, wit, raconteur, and sex symbol.
Siren: I, too, grew up in Alabama, but in a fluke for which I am forever grateful, I found myself in a pocket of indifference to religion. When I tell people that my redneck classmates and I never ever discussed religion and, with one exception, hated country music, they think I’m lying. I think I’ll send this to Ripley.
Mister Kenny,
In the tourist review located at http://movies.msn.com/movies/movie-critic-reviews/the-tourist.2/ in the following excerpt you claim:
“Gare de what?” asks an inspector in Scotland Yard who’s in touch with the French cops who are tailing her. Hmm. A Scotland Yard detective, and he doesn’t know the name of the most famous train station in the famous capital city of a directly neighboring country.”
To wit :
Hmm. A movie critic whom is unaware “Gare de Lyon” is but one of the railways in France. Clearly the inspector wouldn’t want to go to Gare de Nice-Vilee. Of course you wouldn’t catch the inspector at Gare de Nord or Gare de Nimes!
After all the inspector doesn’t know the names of those train stations in his neighboring country.
He had to know it was that train station at Gare de Lyon, right?
Let’s just resort to calling the inspector the “Stumbebum” from here-on-out for the geographical landmark numbskull he is.
‘Inspector’, I like you so I’ll kill you first!
And please, at the risk of my keypad coming to life again, do tell, the last Inspector remark isn’t as difficult for you to understand as Duplicity was!
Um, not to put too fine a point on it, but if the femme for who the inspector is cherchez-ing is in Paris, there would be only one Gare de Lyon to which she would be taking the Metro. In any event the pertinent point was how many pretexts the filmmakers needed to repeat “Gare de Lyon” in less than three minutes.
Apparently many. Now, let’s talk about your love of obfuscation.
Ha, just kidding!
I feel guilty not clarifying the Bay quip I done did which might at first have been done as a kind of joke but has, now that my wee intellect thinks about it a bit more, kind of worrying implications. But a paper due is a paper due.
Oh, you card. I’m a little slow on the uptake lately, clearly. Good luck with that paper!…
Merci.
@ Um
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stations_of_the_Paris_M%C3%A9tro
nuff’ said?