“BEING ELMO: A PUPPETEER’S JOURNEY” My rating: B (Opening Jan. 6 at the Tivoli)
80 minutes | MPAA rating: PG
Documentaries can be many things, but sweet is not usually one of them.
“Being Elmo,” though, is just that. Sweet.
Kevin Clash, Elmo and friend
Sweet in the same way that a child bestowing a kiss upon a beloved grownup friend is disarmingly, heart-grippingly sweet.
The “Elmo” of the title isn’t a person. Not technically, anyway.
Elmo is a puppet of shaggy red felt, one of the Muppet characters who inhabit “Sesame Street” on the PBS network.
Physically he reminds a lot of Grover or Cookie Monster. His personality, though, is uniquely his own. This is due entirely to the man who performs Elmo, Kevin Clash.
Clash is a black man, raised in borderline poverty in a not-so-good Baltimore neighborhood. But as a child he fell in love with puppets he saw on TV, began making his own (probably not the coolest pastime for a young man in the ‘hood) and by the time he was a teenager was a fixture on the Baltimore television scene.
“HYDE PARK ON HUDSON” My rating: B(Opens wide on Jan. 4)
94 minutes | MPAA rating: R
The natural reaction upon learning that comedy legend Bill Murray is portraying Franklin Roosevelt is to expect some sort of farce, perhaps a feature-length version of a “Saturday Night Live” skit.
Nope. Murray’s carefully-contained performance in “Hyde Park on Hudson” is the real deal, an attempt to present an historically plausible FDR. This does not mean that Murray and the film are solemn and humorless; merely that they story they tell is bigger than one star turn.
Actually, this piece of history from director Roger Michell (“Notting Hill,” “Changing Lanes”) is several stories mashed together (not unpleasantly).
It begins with Daisy Suckley (the ever-superb Laura Linney), spinsterish sixth cousin of the President, receiving an invitation – a plea, actually – to leave her wooded rural home in upstate New York and visit the summer Presidential compound in nearby Hyde Park.
Franklin, she is told, is restless (actually he’s driving his staff nuts) and could use some fresh companionship.
Through Daisy’s eyes we are introduced to the President’s near and dear. Most of them are very strong women: The First Lady, Eleanor (Olivia Williams, looking very horsey with a mouthful of prosthetic teeth), who spends most of her time at a sort of all-woman commune. Also FDR’s assistant Missy LeHand (Elizabeth Marvel), who knows her boss so well she can anticipate his whims. And the President’s mother (Elizabeth Wilson), whose main job is to serve as official hostess (Eleanor’s rarely around) and nag her son about drinking and his health.
Though surrounded by women devoted to him, Franklin makes Daisy feel like a co-conspirator in defying their dictates. He proudly shows off his stamp collection (he has found it useful in repelling blowhards). He engages Daisy in long conversations. He takes her racing down country roads in an open-air touring car equipped with hand controls (the president was paralyzed from the waist down after a bout with polio).
And, on one such ride, after ditching his Secret Service escort, Franklin parks in a flower-dappled meadow and places Daisy’s hand on his crotch. Evidently he’s not entirely paralyzed.
From this introduction (all of this takes place in the first 20 minutes) you expect “Hyde Park on Hudson” to be the Franklin-and-Daisy story.
But that is merely the first chapter in playwright Richard Nelson’s screenplay.
The bulk of the story concerns the 1939 visit to America of King George VI (the stammering protagonist of “The King’s Speech”) and his wife, Queen Elizabeth. Not only was this the first time a British monarch had set foot in America, it was a desperate time in George’s reign. War with Germany seemed inevitable and His Majesty badly needed American aid to prepare for the conflict. But most Yanks were isolationists unwilling to get involved in a European war.
Nelson does a terrific job of presenting the two sides in this historic encounter. Being Yanks, the White House regulars are bowled over by the very idea of meeting royalty, but at the same time are astonishingly plebeian in their tastes (they plan a picnic for Their Majesties featuring hot dogs and Native American tribal dances).
For their part, the King (Samuel West) and Queen (Olivia Coleman) are nursing badly frayed nerves. Away from the comforts of home they feel insecure and clownish. They’re determined to make a good impression, but are sadly out of practice when it comes to being “just folks.” Nelson has written for them a wonderful marital spat that’s doubly tense because it takes place in a bedroom at FDR’s Hyde Park home, a structure with paper-thin walls.
And in the film’s best passage Nelson delivers an astonishingly satisfying late-night exchange between FDR and George. Murray’s Franklin is at his charming best here, recognizing the younger man’s acute discomfort and loosening things up with alcohol, humor, and a fatherly demeanor.
It’s funny, inspiring and unexpectedly touching, not in the least because of Franklin’s willingness to show his own vulnerability by pulling himself out of his wheelchair and painfully making his way around the room supported only by his arms.
Just two world leaders, trying to get on like drinking buddies.
Eventually (and somewhat abruptly) the movie returns to the long-ignored Daisy, who is about to learn a disheartening lesson in Presidential romantic politics.
A diverting bit of history with some soap on the side, “Hyde Park on Hudson” is lightweight but satisfying. And while I can’t claim to have ever forgotten that this was Bill Murray (this isn’t a total immersion on the level of Daniel Day-Lewis’ Lincoln), the comic actor does a credible and occasionally exemplary job.
“LE HAVRE” My rating: B (Opens Jan. 30 at the Tivoli)
93 sminutes | No MPAA rating
I’ve never known quite what to make of Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki. I guess you could say he makes dour comedies (“Leningrad Cowboys Go America,” “Man Without a Past”), though in truth it’s sometimes hard to know if we’re supposed to laugh or not.
But there’s no missing the intentions of “Le Havre,” which might be described as a Communist fairy tale. However you describe it, it is the most audience friendly film Kaurismaki has yet produced.
In the French port city of Le Havre the graying shoeshine man Marcel Marx (Andre Wilms) plies his trade, even though he’s frequently hassled by the police and pompous merchants who don’t want him conducting business outside their swank shops.
In the nearby dockyards authorities hear noises coming from one of those big steel shipping containers. Inside are a dozen illegal immigrants from Gabon who have been locked inside and forgotten for several weeks.
“WAR HORSE” My rating: C+ (Opening wide on Christmas Day)
146 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13
Visually rich and dramatically undernourished, “War Horse” is director Steven Spielberg’s attempt at a David Lean-style epic.
It’s big. It’s gorgeous.
And, unfortunately, it is largely uninhabited despite a deep cast of yeoman British thespians.
The source material, Michael Morpurgo’s 1982 book for children, already has become a hit West End and Broadway show. The dominant critical view of the stage version is one of indifferent material elevated by brilliant staging, with breathtaking life-size puppets portraying the equine characters.
The question going into the Spielberg film, then, was whether the yarn would still deliver in a “real” world without that awe-inspiring stagecraft. The answer: Every now and then the movie is magic. But too often it feels overplotted and plodding.
“THE ARTIST” My rating: B (Opening Dec. 23 at the Glenwood Arts and AMC Town Center)
100 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13
When everyone from the coastal heavy hitters to the Joe Blow bloggers declare a movie a masterpiece, you’re probably smart to take it with a grain of salt.
So it is with “The Artist.”
French filmmaker Michael Hazanavicius’ daring update on silent movies is wildly creative, often quite funny, extremely well acted and peppered with philosophical implications.
It’s also a bit too familiar, being basically yet one more variation on “A Star Is Born.”
Here silent film matinee idol George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) sees his career hit the skids even as vivacious newcomer Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo, the director’s wife) becomes a new audience favorite thanks to her embrace of the newfangled sound technology. Continue Reading »
“YOUNG GOETHE IN LOVE” My rating: B- (Opening Dec. 23 at the Tivoli)
100 minutes | No MPAA rating
Think “Shakespeare in Love” — German division — and you’ve pretty much got the number of “Young Goethe in Love,” a pleasant little romance about an artistic genius in his formative years.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is to German literature what Shakespeare is to English literature. Nearly 300 years after his birth Goethe remains the single most celebrated and influential poet/dramatist/essayist in the German language.
But as Philipp Stolzl’s film begins, young Goethe is facing early burnout. He shows up late to face a panel of educators who will rule on whether he gets his law degree; it soon becomes obvious that Goethe (Alexander Fehling) has spent most of his university years partying and scribbling fiction.
“THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN: THE SECRET OF THE UNICORN” My rating: B-(Opening wide on Dec. 21)
107 minutes | MPAA rating: PG
Steven Spielberg’s “The Adventures of Tintin” has so many jaw-dropping moments of visual splendor that it takes a while to realize that there’s really nothing much of interest here except the jaw-dropping visual splendor.
Employing the motion-capture animation techniques employed in films like “The Polar Express” and the Jim Carrey “Christmas Carol,” this screen adaptation of the late Herge’s universally popular comic book hero should please long-time fans. But it’s hard to imagine it winning many new converts to the Tintin brand.
Tintin (voiced by Jamie Bell of “Billy Elliott” fame) is a perpetually boyish, carrot-topped newspaper reporter who goes nowhere without a tan trench coat, brown knickers and a white pooch named Snowy.
He’s sort of like a junior Sherlock Holmes who’s always up to his neck in one mystery or another.
“THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO” My rating: B(Opens wide Dec. 21)
158 minutes | MPAA rating: R
Like a lot of movie fans, I greeted with a big dose of cynicism the news that Hollywood was remaking the Swedish thriller “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.”
That film, which introduced to the world actress Nomi Rapace as the gloriously twisted investigator/hacker Lisbeth Salander, was more than adequate. Why remake it for a bunch of ignoramuses too thick to read subtitles?
Well, I was wrong. The American “Girl…” is the equal of the Swedish version in most regards, and in its technical production vastly superior. That’s because it was directed by David Fincher (“Fight Club,” “The Social Network,” “Zodiac”), an exacting filmmaker who composes and lights every scene for maximum visual impact. (Don’t forget, the three Swedish films based on Stieg Larsson’s MillenniumTrilogy were made for television and suffered somewhat from limited production values.)
The tale remains essentially the same (with some minor variations) and the overall effect — a queasy blend of serial killer thriller, unrepentant male piggishness and offbeat relationship flick — very similar to the original. Continue Reading »
The Robert Downey Jr.-powered “Sherlock Holmes” franchise, like the “Transformers” franchise, makes me feel very, very old.
Both series are hugely successful. Apparently they make other moviegoers terribly happy.
But they leave me feeling…empty. For all their visual razzle dazzle, there’s no there there. I might as well be beating myself over the head with an inflated pig bladder for all the pleasure these movies provide.
I know, I know. What a disagreeable old man I have become.
It’s not that I cannot appreciate superficial charm. But these movies aren’t charming. Just superficial.
“MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL” My rating: B
133 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13
If “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” feels like a live-action version of a cartoon, it only stands to reason.
The man behind the camera is animator Brad Bird, who gave us “The Iron Giant,” “Ratatouille” and “The Incredibles,” three of the smartest and most ambitious animated features of recent years. And he brings to the “M:I” franchise the same breathless pacing, eye for action and sly humor that has marked his animated work. Continue Reading »
Butler's Cinema Scene 