The new musical version of A Christmas Carol on NBC… that is what I see as the crap film that people who despise the film of The Phantom of the Opera seem to be talking about. Banal, horrid lyrics with no wit and performers with no apparent soul, though most of them have proven to be of value in other venues in the past.
Where is the Albert Finney Scrooge when you need it???
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DP/30: Fill The Void, director Rama Burshtein, actress Hadas Yaron
Weekend Estimates by Cap’n Klady
Review-ish: Star Trek: Into Darkness (spoiler-free)
DP/30: Erased, actor Aaron Eckhart
Cannes Day 2: Girls Just Wanna Have… (Part 2 of 2)
Cannes Day 2: Girls Just Wanna Have… (Part 1 of 2)
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RT @lurie_john: you know what I like? moronic unsolicited advice, it is worth its weight in cannon fodder
MT @drgrist: It may be the McCainiest thing McCain's ever done. MT @UsedBeyond Grumpy old man yells at Apple CEO?
RT @NotoriousJLD: Ugh. Print Variety is getting to be like homework.
DP: Harvey Weinstein just drove by. Only word I could hear him say was “fucking.”
DP: It’d be all to easy to discount Michael Douglas’ all-in perf as Liberace b/c Liberace was so flamboyant. But he walks the line perfectly
Sunday, May 19 2013 12:52:48
“Two hours in the labyrinth of Paramount’s Avarice…. It was my first–and my last–IMAX venture. Haven’t been to a 3-D movie in years, and it’s bye-bye to THAT scathing visual transgression for the remainder of MY lifetime… It was an unceasing, unrelenting, take-no-audience-prisoners audial and visual back-alley mugging for two hours… I have been beaten up many times; I know what it feels like: this was a two-hour assault. I weep, as Jesus wept, for the generations that will grow up thinking this is what it means to “go to the movies.” I am near-on 79, and I [understand] that this is a generational opinion, but I do not think any sensible person not of a tot age where videogame… overkill is pro forma, could confuse the IMAX “experience” with a Saturday matinee outing. The term “author” as regards Summer Blockbuster movies, is not only moot, it is Urdu. Mountains heave mightily, and give birth to volcanic ant-hills.”
~ Harlan Ellison Takes In Star Trek: Into Darkness
“One of the things I wish I could do in my life would be to watch this film through somebody else’s eyes. I just can’t. I still see it as just a giant mess, and other people are seeing that it has a shape. That’s really exciting, because I still have a hard time seeing it clearly.”
~ Sarah Polley’s Greatest Wish About Stories We Tell
Kelsey “In my defense, Niles is the only one who has ever seasoned his crepe pans” Grammer as Scrooge. Good God. Where is Bill Murray staplin’ antlers to a mouse when you need him?
the people that are gonna trash phantom were gonna trash it no matter what. it could be the greatest film in history and they would trash it. personal resentments fuel a lot of the critic industry now.
You guys are like a dog with a bone about Phantom of the Opera. I was at the MCN screening and saw the film. I am not a film critic nor do I have any grudges against WB or Andrew Lloyd Webber. But I agree with the opinions that the film is crap. It’s very well designed but very poorly directed. The showcase numbers are good but the rest of the talking/singing in the film is pretty dull. Butler is a no-show as the Phantom. It’s not just that he can’t sing (and he can’t), but his character is given less prominence than the play where the Phantom is the lead character. Plus the odd choice in the film to stop the movie dead with the long sequence that explains how the Phantom became the Phantom, which it seems to copy from The Elephant Man. Not to mention the framing sequence out of Titanic. I’m in the minority in the fact that I like musicals…but this one bored me to death. The guest that I brought to the screening felt the same way and kept tugging at my sleeves to leave early (which we didn’t, and for which I had to buy her dinner for after the film). So give it a rest…if someone doesn’t like Phantom (and it seems that many don’t, and won’t)…it’s not some grudge…it’s just that the film, IMHO, sucks.
OT I know but….
What’s with “banal” this week? Did it pop up on your Word A Day toilete paper this week – first in the hot button, now here.