THE GOLDEN COMPASS
Chris Weitz had a hefty task ahead of himself when he set out to adapt Philip Pullman’s “The Golden Compass,” the first in the sprawling, rich, and layered “His Dark Material” series. I certainly don’t envy him the job, but then again, given the series’ ambitions I wouldn’t have recommended it for feature film adaptation to begin with. Sadly the film provides a perfect example of how not to adapt a novel. Weitz remains loyal to the original source material in the wrong ways. Instead of capturing the spirit of the book, he excises its best scenes and elements, and desperately tries to stitch them together into a cohesive film narrative, creating a Frankenstein monster instead: something that resembles a proper film, but isn’t. It doesn’t help that the film becomes bogged down by excessive exposition, noble – but foolish – attempts to somehow find a way to convey the numerous laws of Pullman’s universe. In the end the film is really something of a soulless experience, devoid of the fantasy, joy, and wonder material like this should easily elicit.
Overall rating: C-
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Roland Emmerich hates you
Admittedly our world sometimes has its darker moments, but I’m really beginning to wonder what the heck the world ever did to Roland Emmerich to make him take it so personally and want to blow it up in every one of his movies. As of last night, his latest project 2012 (a mighty jump in time from his upcoming 10,000 B.C.) sold to Sony after every studio in Hollywood was foaming at the mouth for it. What’s the project about? Well, this time it seems Emmerich got tired of some of the more novel ways of taking down our world a notch (aliens, global warming, Mel Gibson), and is now going right for the jugular: the apocalypse. You see, many people believe that December 21st, 2012 will be the apocalypse because something in the Ancient Mayan’s calendar or something. So it seems once again everyone on planet earth’s lives will be threatened. Now since there are no specifics as to what shape or form this apocalypse will take, based on Emmerich’s other films, I’m going to go ahead and say it’s some sort of imperialistic invading force. I base this on the fact that every film he’s ever done has had one. In INDEPENDENCE DAY aliens want to colonize Earth. In THE PATRIOT, America was a colony and didn’t want to be, so England tried to squash the ensuing revolution. In THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, nature itself essentially invaded mankind to re-colonize Earth without humans in it. In 10,000 B.C. (or as I refer to it, APOCALYPTO 2) from what I can tell it’s the same deal. At times I wonder – give that he is German – if the prevalence of invading forces in his films is possibly a subversive critique of American imperialism, just wrapping it around the kind of grand spectacle everyone loves, cleverly using one of the central mediums of cultural American imperialism (bid budget Hollywood films) to simultaneously criticize it. Kind of like an ideological Trojan horse, if you will. But then I realize a) my MA in Film possessed me for a moment and let me get out of hand, and b) that’s really giving him too much credit, and I really just think he likes blowing stuff up.
Source: Variety
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Katherine Heigl is a movie star.
Knocked Up was the opportunity that opened the door for her and despite her comments to Vanity Fair, I’m sure she is appreciative to Judd Apatow for everything that movie has done for her. She wasn’t really the star of that movie, but with 27 Dresses, that isn’t the case any more.
27 Dresses is the story of Jane, a woman infatuated with weddings and the person who must have been the inspiration for the phrase “always a bridesmaid, never a bride.” Jane works at the corporate office of an outdoor supply company and is equally as infatuated with her boss, George, played by Ed Burns. In her free time, Jane plays wedding planner, helping her friends (and friends of friends) to manage the stress of planning their special day. She has a closet in her Manhattan apartment filled with nothing but the assorted heinous bridesmaid dresses that she’s collected over the years.
Jane also loves to read and collect the columns of Malcolm Doyle, a writer for the New York Journal newspaper who covers the “Commitments” section of the Sunday edition. Jane doesn’t know that Malcolm is actually Kevin Doyle (played by James Marsden), a man whom she met at one of her weddings who sees tremendous story potential in her after finding her day planner and looking through it. The chemistry between Heigl and Marsden is definitely there. The two spark between their witty and cynical conversations and two scenes at different bars showcase this nicely. One of them features background music by Heigl’s new husband, musician Josh Kelley, and the other features a drunken and hysterical take on an Elton John classic.
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