The Final Take with Parker Mott

The tragic Fantine (played memorably by Anne Hathaway) in Tom Hooper's adaptation of "Les Miserables".

Les Miserables is a wildly flawed display of musical numbers, that for the most part wildly evoke the misery of urban class living in mid-19th century France (although, yes, the performers chant with mint British accents). There’s little depth (or, heck, logic) to how this tear-jerking show finds its way, but it’s as if King’s Speech director Tom Hooper does this purposely by cutting off our peripherals. He frames most of the action in loopy steadicam closeups (behold, a Terrence Malick musical!), occupying faces – not sets or, you know, narrative. (continue reading…)

Rating: PG
Run Time: 123 minutes

The "legendary" Stacie Jaxx (Tom Cruise) rocks out in "Rock of Ages".

1987. Sherrie Christian (Julianne Hough) flips through ads of Aerosmith’s signature album Permanent Vacation. She’s on her way to the low hills and Hollywood lights of Los Angeles, traveling on one of those ashen Greyhound buses. The camera slowly zooms in on Sherrie and then the piano starts – it’s Night Ranger’s 1984 hit “Sister Christian”. Suddenly, the bus joins in with “we’re motoring!…”, and so forth. I grow giddy, mainly because I haven’t heard this song in a movie since Alfred Molina rocked out to it in a cocaine frenzy in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights. (continue reading…)

3 Stars out of 4
(139 minutes)

Selma (Bjork) searches for the sounds in Dancer In The Dark.

Danish director Lars von Trier plays Russian roulette with his audience again in Dancer In The Dark. It’s an audacious work, a musical that realizes the absurdity of its world. Its plot is preposterous, but surely all musicals are. I would argue that musicals are intrinsically optimistic but here von Trier’s Dogme 95 ways translate onto this last feature of his Golden Heart Trilogy. This means he spares the melodrama and makes a film that is sordid, raw, and purposely amateur. (continue reading…)

4 Stars out of 4
(122 minutes)
REVIEW WRITTEN IN 2008

The Stones take a bow in Shine A Light.

Shine A Light does more than remind us how good the Rolling Stones were. It’s a film that captures every movement, highlight, reaction of a concert alas helmed by venerable director Martin Scorsese. He is not new to the musical genre. He did The Last Waltz in 1978 on The Band’s last concert ever after a 16 year journey. He also did a music video for the song “Bad” by Michael Jackson in 1995, and finally, his well-known documentary on Bob Dylan called No Direction Home: Bob Dylan. After winning his first Best Picture at the Oscars in 2006 for The Departed, Martin Scorsese still is continuing to deliver some of his greater flicks in recent times. (continue reading…)

3 Stars out of 4
(106 minutes)

Meryl Streep and Lindsay Lohan croon in A Prairie Home Companion.

I feel to really embrace Robert Altman’s A Prairie Home Companion you need to watch his earlier films. You will get a sense of his magic, rhythm, and technique and how this film is just another daffodil in Altman’s garden. Does that make this an important film? No, but it emits the beauty of a life unfolding and a career taking one more humble bow.

Altman was a great director. He loved characters which is why he had so many of them. He was so interested in what they had to say that his dialogue would overlap itself. Altman made works from film noir (The Long Goodbye) to political satire (Nashville). All of them, magnificent or not, had something to say about cinema. His camera was always thinking, which was why it was always moving. A Prairie Home Companion is a recollection of what was so great about Altman. It is a film that comes and goes so passively you might miss it. Don’t. (continue reading…)

4 Stars out of 4
(159 minutes)

Henry Gibson breaks a smile in Nashville.

“This isn’t Dallas, this is Nashville. They can’t do this to us here in Nashville! Let’s show them what we’re made of. Come on everybody, sing! Somebody, sing!”

Those words are the final cries and pleads of Robert Altman’s Nashville, a tragic musical painted in the facade of happiness. This is a musical that seems nonexistent today, where people sing in a fake cordial tone when actually exposing their inner depression. Every tune in Nashville is a soulful commentary, nowhere close to the likes of Brecht buy layered in its own gap of reality.

Director Robert Altman (Shortcuts) tells Nashville, a sad, enjoyable, long, but breathless and triumphant piece of cinema, through 40 different stories using 24 actors. His films, Nashville most notably, are known for the ensemble to create this semblance of blissful community and friendly interaction. Sometimes Altman goes so far out of his way to unite his actors, he’ll have a car pile up. Nothing like ensemble in a pile up. (continue reading…)

2 Stars out of 4
(118 minutes)

Daniel Day-Lewis gets his Fellini on in Rob Marshall's Nine.

It was difficult watching Rob Marshall’s Nine. Not because it was boring, but because it tried to exude such vitality, such a pulse, and such a unique flavour. But somehow, none of that comes through. From the reviews I have read of the broadway version of Nine, they have been blown away by the artistic grandeur – sets, props, and costumes. However, the emotion is too detached, as if the material does not have the efficacy to create introvert characters. (continue reading…)