'Objects In Space'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
So Gar, you're saying there was some blood in SWEENEY TODD?
Yeah, I know it seems like an odd complaint. But in the play is ABOUT violence. Violence is not an independent co-star, outshining the actors. (That Mrs. Lovett was completely miscast, and that they chose someone to play Joanna who could neither act nor sing did not help. They did not even choose (IMO) a great Pirelli.)
Juno has been in the top 10 since its release. As of Thursday, it had grossed a little over $15 million.
Which is pretty amazing when you consider it's only showing in 998 theatres.
Oh, I loved Cohen as Pirelli. I thought he had the right mixture of bluster, evil and vulnerability.
I loved both Pirelli and Johanna. Her voice was odd, but in an unearthly type of way. And her acting worked for me too, in that I-am-so-helpless-and-slightly-crazy-not-to-mention-really-funny-looking-and-possibly-stupid sort of way. Not exactly the show's character, but considering how her story was shaved, it worked for me in the movie's character.
I thought both Anthony and Johanna were altered in interesting ways. They were both so very young, and really, I thought both of them came off as already kind of crazy. The NYT review touched on that, saying something like it was the kind of movie where innocence had no chance to survive.
Pirelli may have worked. It may have been I was already grumpy at the time. But I can't see the Joanna. In terms of acting she projected nothing. She did not convey helpless stupid and possibly crazy. She conveyed absolute vacancy and vacuousness. And she showed absolutely no singing ability.
There's no way to sing that song without some ability. It's too hard.
OK - then she did not have enough. She was unable to get any feeling in that song. The efforts on the high notes showed - a lot.
I just noticed that Roger Ebert ranked Juno as his favorite film of 2007. [Link]
Just got back from Enchanted, which I fairly well enjoyed despite the watch-from-the-hall factor. I think it was the little cynical touches like Giselle's song attracting all the urban vermin to help her clean, and the pigeon eating the roach next to it after the song was done.
I am in awe of the animators for conveying the essence of Timothy Spall into his animated analog so that I was disgusted by him at first sight without any foreknowledge that he was in the movie. It was exactly the same visceral reaction I have to the man in all his live action roles—apparently I object to his very existence on some fundamental level.