Cynical Cinema

Neverwas is a movie in the tradition of Hook and Bridge to Terabithia, where fantasy and reality intersect in some bizarre way. It stars Aaron Eckhardt, Brittany Murphy and Ian McKellan. This film was made in 2005, never hit the theatres, and finally gets it’s first release, courtesy of Alliance Films, on DVD. It’s the story of an imagined land called Neverwas. Like Narnia or Oz or Middle Earth, Neverwas exists only in a children’s book written by Nick Nolte. The star of this book is Zachary, Nolte’s son. While writing the book, Nolte is losing his mind, and gets sent to a mental institution. For the next few years, he made life very difficult for his family before dying a strange and unpleasant death. The movie picks up about thirty years later. The book is now a worldwide classic, and Nolte’s son is a grown man (Eckhardt). He is now a psychiatrist, who takes a job at the institute that once housed his father.

There are some other big names here. Notably Vera Farminga, who starred as the psychiatrist in The Departed and has become one of the most respected actresses in the business. But then, this film was made in 2005, before she was famous. And although the credits use her name, she has one line in the movie and maybe six seconds of screen time. Which indicates something about the film. Neverwas was made three years ago, but released only now. And they put a famous name in the credits, even though that person had very little to do with the movie. Maybe they are trying to compensate for something? Hide something? Like the fact that this movie is not very good? Well, it isn’t. In fact, it would be quite terrible without one key ingredient. Ian McKellan.

I like Brittany Murphy, she has a very charming and childlike innocence about her, which works well in this film. She plays a reporter who is doing a story on the phenomenon of Neverwas and the enigma that was it’s author. I also like Aaron Eckhardt, who has the sort of cocky arrogance that works in Thank You For Smoking, but not here. The two are supposed to be some kind of meant-for-each-other couple, but does that ever feel flat, and leads to a painfully contrived oh-my-god-she’s-really-a-reporter-and-I’m-furious scene. Then there’s a maudlin, staggeringly stupid scene where Eckhardt reveals that he BLAMES himself for his father’s DEATH! But thankfully, right when each of these terrible scenes gets so obnoxious that you want to give up on the movie altogether, here comes Ian McKellan again, and things pick right back up.
McKellan plays a patient at the mental hospital who believes that he is the king of the actual land of Neverwas. He is magnificently looney, a wonderfully deranged old man but…is he maybe telling the truth? Is Neverwas…actually real? I won’t reveal the details there, but the journey to that point is terrific. Without McKellan, this movie would be incredibly awful. But whenever he’s on the screen, the film has a certain electricity which is well worth watching. McKellan is one of the greatest actors working today, and although he will likely be remembered for playing Magneto more than any other character, he has done wonderful work in many fine films. And some otherwise horrible ones, like Neverwas.

It’s clear why this didn’t get a theatrical release. It’s too old for kids and too young for adults and too cheesy for cynical teenagers. And what happens to good movies that are too old for kids and too young for everyone else? They go direct to DVD. Apparently, so too do the bad ones.

The beginning of Enchanted stressed me out a lot. It is painfully irritating in that Disney princess kind of way. The girl is singing in her hut in the forest, she’s a poor working girl who is friends with all the woodland creatures. The chipmunks and owls and foxes and such are not eating each other, because they are busy helping her sew her dress. She sings about the man she wants to marry, and True Love’s Kiss or something like that. Then she meets the man, of course he is a prince, she will never have to work again and he rides away with her on his white stallion. NOW she’ll be able to buy all the dresses and diamonds she wants, and tell commoners like herself what to do. What a life! What a dream come true! Now, I must say that I knew a little about Enchanted already. I knew that this was supposed to be a satirical moment in the film, and as satire, it was terrific. That song is as good as the songs in Spinal Tap for dripping with sincerity while at the same time oozing ironic excess. The beginning WAS beautifully done. But that didn’t stop it from irritating me with the familiarity to all other Disney Princess motifs.

Then the real movie begins. The wicked step-mother (because in Disney all girls marry princes and all step-mothers are wicked. Or evil. But mostly wicked) would have to give up her throne if her step-son married, so she banishes this girl to…real-life. Manhattan, specifically. I think Moose Jaw would have been much funnier, but I guess it’s less familiar and Disney is all about the money. Which, I realized, is why this movie is a family movie. I don’t think I have ever seen a movie that cries out for an R-rating as much as this one. And I mean that with dripping sincerity while simultaneously oozing ironic excess. And it’s not that I want to see Amy Adams naked. OK, it’s not just that I want to see Amy Adams naked. It’s that so many scenes cry out for nudity, violence, and most of all swearing. When Amy Adams emerges from a Manhattan sewer in her ridiculous princess wedding dress, and runs afoul of various angry New York residents, the proper response is not “are you OK”, it’s “are you f-ing mental, you lunatic?” When the prince shows up and follows her through the city, attacking people with his sword, it would be far funnier if he actually stabbed people and maybe killed a few. And when Amy Adams comes out of the shower and is caught in a compromising position with Patrick Dempsey by his girlfriend, some nudity would have been a propos.

But I digress. The important thing here is that Enchanted shows that in the real world, a Disney princess would be less a princess than an idiot. And I’m begging for the destruction of the princess myth, the ethos that creates gold-diggers at a young age! Amy Adams is terrific as the wide-eyed, totally clueless roses-and-fairies-and-bunnies princess who is totally lost in the real world. The main problem with the movie, however, is that she never knows she’s lost. She has no idea that she is a weirdo, and no one seems willing to fully point that out to her. The songs strike the right note of sugary-sweet parody, but the movie falls short. Mainly because insteand of crushing her spirit and showing her that she is an idiot, it does the opposite. As she goes around in the real world, SHE changes the WORLD. Example: Patrick Dempsey’s girlfriend catches him with a naked hot chick. She is furious, and runs off. But when flowers magically show up at her office along with tickets to…a ball…she forgives everything and looks the other way. Why? Because she is being treated like a princess! And she LOVES it.

So…this is what a princess does. She gets dressed up in fancy clothes. Attends fancy events. Has things bought for her and receives compliments about her loveliness. And this movie, rather than mocking that concept as fully as it ought to be mocked, reinforces it. It shows that being a totally shallow, substance-free woman is the ultimate goal for everyone, and it can change the world! One pom-pom and Singapore Sling at a time. All that aside, I did enjoy the movie. There were some good moments, including one with rats and cockroaches and pigeons, and the songs were absolutely perfect. If they were meant to be ironic. But boy, what I wouldn’t have given for an R-rating. Or Abel Ferrara as the director.

I tried. I really, truly tried to like Southland Tales. I liked The Rock in it. That’s right - The Rock, the wrestler, I liked him. I liked Seann William Scott - Stiffler from American Pie, the guy who has only ever played a drunken frat boy, I liked him. I liked Bai Ling -the Chinese actress who was recently busted for shoplifting. I also liked Jon Lovitz (Newsradio), Cheri O’Teri (irritating name), Christopher (there can be only one) Lambert, Justin (my music is obnoxious) Timberlake, Mandy (look how big my eyes are) Moore, Sarah Michelle (I have two first names) Gellar and John (remember me) Laroquette. I liked them all! I liked the camera work, I loved the layout of the scenes, I enjoyed seeing what was coming up next. I was desperate to like Southland Tales. The movie begged me to like it, and I said OK movie, I will try my very best to do so, just don’t let me down. And the movie did not let me down. But I can’t recommend it because it is awful.

Here is a plot synopsis, as best I can make out. Perhaps once you have read this you will understand. World War 3 has begun. There have been nuclear bombs set off in Texas, so the Americans have responded by bombing Iran, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Korea, Afghanistan, and possibly Belgium. The US army is running out of oil. It is the near future, but George Bush is still preisdent. (In fact, at one point they use actual file footage of Bush speaking.) As the oil runs out, a mad scientist invents a way to get energy directly from the ocean. He is either bent on world domination, or he’s crazy, or he’s just a nice old man with evil advisors. Still don’t know. The Rock shows up on a beach. He has amnesia. He is a famous actor, but he doesn’t know that, and he hooks up with Sarah Michelle Gellar, who is a porn star. He has a wife that he has forgotten, however, and she is Mandy Moore, who is the daughter of the man who is running for vice-president of the US in the elections on the Republican ticket. There are cameras everywhere, and one of the major election issues is bill 69, which would restrict the ability of the government to invade the privacy of people. Take a breath for a moment.

We continue: Seann William Scott is a cop who has a twin brother who is a left-wing extremist, and he has kidnapped his twin in order to pose as him in a large conspiracy that will see him, posing as his brother, commit a double murder with racist overtones, that will be filmed by The Rock before he finds out who he really is, and this will be released to the media to discredit both the cops and the Republicans all at once. There is musical montage, a music video, a song-and-dance number, a soap-opera going on in Mandy Moore’s family where some people are sleeping with some other people, there is a world domination theme, there is drug trafficking, somehow related to this machine in the ocean that produces energy and also perhaps some variation on Soylent Green. Everything in the country is sponsored by either Hustler or Budweiser, and the grand finale of the movie involves a giant Zeppelin, a riot, a fireworks display, a rift in the space-time continuum, and a flying ice cream truck.

So…yeah. Southland Tales is about all of this, and none of this. The movie is two and a half hours long, and to cram all this stuff in and make us care, or understand, it would have to be eleven hours plus. There is just way too much going on. And yet the movie seems to have a rather laguid pace, like it isn’t hurrying anywhere. It feels good to watch it. It is visually impressive. The writing is very good. There are some great lines, and great moments. The little old lady from Poltergeist is in the movie, and she has a great moment at the bottom of a staircase straight out of that movie. The little old smart guy from The Princess Bride is in it a lot too, and he throws it to that film with the word “preposterous”. Kiss Me Deadly, the classic 1955 film noir, is playing on the TV in the porn star’s room. The porn stars have their own TV shows and energy drinks. There are so many cool actors doing cool things. Justin Timberlake is awesome. And yet - there really is no movie here. You can sit there for two and a half hours. You might be entertained, you will be mildly stimulated, and you may even think you are enjoying yourself. But when the movie ends, you won’t know what it was about, you won’t care, and six minutes later you will have forgotten everything about the film. It’s heavy on style, but the substance is almost non-existent.

The back of the box I got from Rogers when I rented The Seeker: The Dark is Rising is hilarious. It’s a kids’ movie, about time travel and enchanted stones and bad guys and so forth. So the parental “flags” are listed on the back of the box. Mild nudity! (I saw no nudity, mild or otherwise. There was a bare elbow, I think.) Drinking! (It took me a while to realize that this meant that at one point an old man had a brandy in his hand.) No objectionable words or phrases…then this:

violence/scariness: knocking others around, property damage.

Yes, the young boy DID knock another boy down. And there WAS property damage. A house was flooded. Which was very scary and violent. Well, for a flood it was, anyway. Don’t let your kids watch this movie! There is property damage!

This is the story of a young boy (Alexander Ludwig) who turns fourteen. And in movies like this one, for whatever reason, a certain birthday for certain young boys means that certain things happen in the world, and in this case it means that he now has superpowers. He discovers these superpowers when two cops take him in to interrogate him for shoplifting. (Don’t worry, he didn’t actually shoplift. There might be property damage in this movie, but there is no theft.) The cops start to grill him, then shoot crows out of their mouths and pants. Which is awesome. But he gets away with some kind of super strength, and then hides at his house. These are some pretty intense scenes that are marred by weird editing and dizzying camera angles. Young Will Stanton - what a perfect name for the saviour of the world, eh - sees a vision of the world ending without his help. You can tell the world is ending because the Statue of Liberty gets smoked. Whenever the world ends, the Statue of Liberty is always first to go. Curse of Planet of the Apes, I suppose.

Will quickly finds out that he is the seventh son of a seventh son - how original - and that this means he is the only one who can find the “signs” which appear to be rocks of some kind. He is the latest in a line of warriors who must bring light to the world to stave off the forces of darkness. He is being helped by a group of people who can travel through time to find these signs. Through his travels he is pursued by The Rider (a terrific Christopher Eccleston) who represents the forces of darkness. Of course, there is a final showdown, one that really lets the steam out of the movie with it’s brainless simplicity. Oh wait, I know the answer. I win. The end. There is also a subplot that is just about completely useless, about a twin brother that Will has who was abducted many years ago but whom the family seems to have completely forgotten. The Seeker: The Dark is Rising is yet another in the terribly unchallenging series of mystical children’s movies that are a dime a dozen. Children might not care that it plays strictly by-the-numbers, but you will. This movie will bore you to tears.

When The Golden Compass was released into theatres, it created a gigantic controversy due to it’s purported anti-Catholic overtones. All kinds of right-wing Catholic wing-nut groups protested the movie, demanded that their congregations not attend, and complained bitterly about it in the media. Which, of course, increased the box office immensely. And the fact that it was still a dud at the box office indicates that had all these ridiculous groups just shut up, it would have disappeared from the public eye, made virtually NO money, and we wouldn’t even remember it today. Today being the day it is released on DVD, courtesy of Alliance Films. And I couldn’t really watch it without thinking about this anti-Catholic controversy. That was all I could think about. What are they so angry about? Where is the problem coming from?

Have you ever noticed that what you think of yourself makes you especially sensitive? Like, if you think you might be a dirty slut, you get extra angry when someone calls you a dirty slut? Or if you’re fat and you hate being overweight, then you flip out when people call you fatso? (This doesn’t happen to me - I don’t mind being overweight at all.) My personal hot-button is when people call me pretentious. Because, on some level, I am afraid that I might actually be pretentious. So, there must be something in this movie that the Catholic elite see in themselves that makes them crazy. I mean…crazier. So…what is it?

OK. This movie is about a parallel universe to our own. This parallel universe is run and overseen by a mysterious, evil religious-type institution called The Magesterium. Alright, they’re a religious-type organization…so maybe the Catholic church sees a bit of themselves in that. Perhaps they see themselves in the repressive, thought-police style administration run by this group. And maybe they think the hats and chains are reminiscent of their own. Or perhaps they saw the nazi-style uniforms of the soldiers who spoke German and said “oh my God! That’s us!” Actually, I made that up. Hardcore Catholics never say “oh my God”. But if this is what made them sit up and take notice, they must be a really self-loathing bunch, dem Catholics.

And the thing is, this isn’t a very good movie. It’s OK, it does the job, kids will probably like it alright. But it isn’t as good as it should be. As I watched it, I couldn’t help but think of a movie that was even worse - Sky Captain And The World of Tomorrow. Remember? Angelina Jolie, Gwenyth Paltrow, Jude Law, in a movie full of ancient bi-planes…in the future? The Golden Compass may well have been done by the same set designer, because it has the same ancient-future vibe to it. There are soldiers who are clearly Nazi-inspired. There are futuristic, long-distance high-tech zeppelins and dirigibles and hot-air balloons. There are flying machines that are like ancient Chinese junks with wings and balloons. It’s a bizarre past-future world in the present. And it definitely looks amazing, but it’s fairly irritating.

There seem to be no original ideas here at all. The characters have names like Azrael (Daniel Craig), which had me waiting for a while for the appearance of Gargamel, who never materialized. Another (evil character played by Nicole Kidman) is named Mrs. Coulter. Hmm…maybe that’s what has the zealots up in arms. A vixen who embodies all that is evil in the world called…Coulter? Perhaps a reference to Ann? Well, in the movie her first name is Marisa. We see it written down. Everyone in this alternate universe has “daemons” walking around with them. There is a group of rebels called the “Gyptians”. So…Egyptians without the E. These “daemons” are like our souls here on Earth, only they are manifested in animal form and walk around beside people. Which is pretty cute some of the time. But why “daemons”? Why couldn’t the author of this series of books have come up with a new name for them? I’ve heard of daemons before. These aren’t them. Anyway.

This is the second movie this year that teams Nicole Kidman with Daniel Craig. And, like in The Invasion, Daniel Craig has very little to do. He shows up at the beginning as the uncle of the little girl (Dakota Blue Richards) who is the star. The Magesterium tries to poison him, because he has discovered something that they want to keep hidden from the rest of the world. But Richards saves him, and then he goes off on a journey. And we don’t hear from him again. Then there is a really strange revelation toward the end of the movie, and I still have no idea whether it was for real or a ploy on the part of the evil people. But you see, this is actually the first film in what I imagine will be a forty-one part series, and as such there are many loose ends when it’s over. Also, this is the second movie this year to team Daniel Craig with Eva Green (you might remember Casino Royale). And neither of them gets enough screen time.

A few good scenes (like the polar bear fight) and a few great appearances by some cool actors (Sam Elliott, Christopher Lee), and an amazingly vivid set design make The Golden Compass pretty cool to look at. And I expect the series to get better. Dakota Blue Richards is very good as the young lead actress. More Sam Elliott, more Daniel Craig, and more Eva Green could really liven this thing up. But as it stands with this first movie, it ends up being much less than the sum of it’s parts, and it’s kind of boring. The best thing The Golden Compass has going for it is it’s message. The idea that kids need to learn to think for themselves, that independent thought is essential, and that not all authority is good authority. Hmmm…maybe that’s what got all those Catholics so riled up!