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Bright Star a sumptuous banquet
by Rajkhet Dirzhud-Rashid - SGN A&E Writer

Bright Star
Opening September 18

When I tried giving my own presentation of reading Robert Burns' A Red, Red Rose, trying desperately to do an Irish accent in my junior year high school English class, I was met with giggles and some sneers. That put the kibosh on my first attempt to bring others into the warm bath that English literature was for me, and got me more threats of bullying from some of those same classmates.

Ah, but at the ripe age of 53 and a half, sitting with my 54-year-old sweetie (in drag, no less!) in a darkened theater with other critics - some of them maybe with similar geeky histories - watching Bright Star, I felt much vindicated. After all, I might have stopped trying to impress my classmates with my knowledge and love of English poetry, but I did not stop my voracious study of my favorites, the Romantics, including John Keats.

The movie is about Keats (Ben Whishaw), or rather his relationship with his young neighbor, a perky seamstress (sweetly beautiful Abby Cornish), his best friend Brawne (Paul Schneider), and the girl's mom (Kerry Fox), who tries to stop their courtship.

Amid lush landscapes and to-die-for costumes from a much gentler age, Whishaw and Cornish move from being skeptical of the girl's ability to absorb the seriousness of Keats' poetry to an almost obsessive adoration for each other. In the background are Keats' friends and fellow poet/writers and young Fanny's patient, but increasingly alarmed mother and two younger siblings, who often accompany her on sashays into idyllic forest meetings.

As Keats - a poor and malnourished weakling - becomes more and more ill from a journey to London (an attempt by best friend and mother to keep the two lovers apart) without proper weather gear, Fanny becomes more determined that they spend their lives together. Eventually, fate and his illness win, leaving young Fanny devastated after his death in Italy. He leaves his mother, siblings and friends to pick up the pieces of this doomed relationship.

Absolutely the most gloriously romantic film I've ever seen (and, no, I have to admit I didn't see The Piano), this is why we all love director Jane Campion. Her sure vision guides this film in a stately, but accessible way that draws in the viewer and touches the heart so much I'd advise taking along a box of Kleenex, as you're sure to need it - that is, unless poetry bored the hell out of you in school and gothic romance makes you roll your eyes.

Otherwise, grab a sweetie, or just a good friend, and see this sumptuous banquet of a film.

One and Only '50s family melodrama a mixed bag
by Scott Rice - SGN Contributing Writer

My One and Only
Now Playing

I wasn't expecting much. My One and Only, directed by Brit Richard Loncraine (Wimbledon), sounded like a vanity pic produced by a D-list has-been with too much money and too many connections who is way too fascinated with his own story. While I wasn't totally off the mark, there are still some things to like with this melodramatic period piece set against the highway car culture of 1950s America.

The cars were lower, wider, and longer. The interstate system was taking shape. Rockets to outer space were on the verge of reality. America was in love with itself and its post-war prosperity. When you went to movies, or better yet, flicked on the television in your very own living room, all you saw was perfection. The perfect clothes, the perfect car, and nothing but happy endings all around. Too bad life couldn't imitate the images.

That's why I first fell in love with the beats. Kerouac and crew chipped away at the lovely veneer of 1950s America with pen and ink and an exhausted insistence on bearing witness to those characters not shown in prime-time advertisements.

And that's why I love contemporary movies set in the '50s. It may be akin to shooting fish in a barrel, but I'm fascinated by modern attempts to capture the dissonance between a '50s era Madison Avenue kitchen and the real thing on an anonymous street in an anonymous Springfield, US of A.

I'm thinking of Todd Haynes's lovely homage to Douglas Sirk, Far from Heaven, Stephen Daldry's The Hours, and Sam Mendes's Revolutionary Road.

Anne Devereaux (Renée Zellweger) catches her one-hit-wonder bandleader husband (Kevin Bacon) in bed with his singer. Unshaken in that '50s sort of way, Anne buys a Cadillac Eldorado and scoops up her two sons George (Logan Lerman) and Robbie (Mark Rendall) from their ritzy private schools and their ritzy New York high-rise and heads out on the road to find a man who will make everything all right - again, in that '50s sort of way.

I still don't get Renee Zelwegger. Every squinty-eyed chipmunk-cheeked pouty-lipped inch of her is a mystery to me. I think she might be okay here, but I find her so irritating that I'm not sure.

The supporting cast does good work with fun turns by Eric McCormack, Chris Noth, Steven Weber, and a scene-stealing David Koechner as one-note send-ups of suitors for Anne. Sure, the actors have little to work with, but all wade bravely into the roles as men who seem almost perfect, almost.

Molly C. Quinn steals a couple of scenes as the girl next door, and Bacon is great as usual as the father. It would have been nice to see a bit more of him.

Young Lerman as George Devereaux, a thinly veiled George Hamilton (Where the Boys Are), is the center of the story and the narrator. George loves Catcher in the Rye (argh!) and seems wise beyond his years, yet still has room to learn a couple of things. Holden, where are you when we need you? He tells the story knowing it won't ring true because it's all too fantastic, and yet he sells it anyway. Sometimes life does imitate art, or whatever this movie is.

George's half-brother, Robbie (Rendall) is my favorite character. Rendall is perfect as the older sibling with a knack for needlepoint and an eye for color. He is unabashedly Queer, even a bit nelly, without once seeming cartoonish. The character is totally secure in his identity and supported at every turn by the immediate family. Sure, outsiders can seem uncomfortable with him or employ the easiest epithet in anger, but the family knows who their boy is and seems unquestionably supportive.

My One and Only most certainly is a vanity pic produced by a D-list has-been (sorry, Mr. Hamilton) with too much money and too many connections who is way too fascinated with his own story. And who gets way too much sun, by the by. However, it's also solid family melodrama (I don't use that as a pejorative) with awesome costumes and period-perfect art direction that looks back to the '50s with a knowing wink, even if it takes itself a tad too seriously at times. If you like '50s era family melodrama, check it out.

Characters undefined in visually rapturous 9
by Sara Michelle Fetters - SGN Contributing Writer

9
Now Playing

Based on his own 2005 Academy Award-nominated animated short film, director Shane Acker's 9 is a darkly imaginative post-apocalyptic thriller that is visually astonishing, viscerally exciting and disappointingly short on character and story development. While its 79-minute running time passes quickly, and while the admittedly somewhat cheesy finale broke my heart, the simple fact is that this movie impresses more as a technical achievement than it does as anything else.

Set in a world devastated by war, a group of strange, diminutive, hand-stitched creatures struggle to survive while under almost constant siege by horrific mechanical beings apparently bent on their annihilation. Given numbers instead of names, things begin to change when a newcomer, 9 (voiced by Elijah Wood), appears out of the wasteland looking to help.

Protected by the resilient and stalwart 2 (voiced by Martin Landau), befriended by the affable and good-humored 5 (voiced by John C. Reilly) and feared by the Machiavellian and overprotective 1 (voiced by Christopher Plummer), 9 speaks his mind and shows a curiosity most of his companions lack. But discovering the truth comes with a heavy price, and after he accidentally awakens a monstrous, long-dormant machine apparently responsible for wiping out all of humanity, it falls to him to solve the riddles left by the creator and free the planet from its malevolent, soul-sucking presence.

9 begins magnificently. Acker's early glimpses of the world created by him and his screenwriter Pamela Pettler (Monster House) is beyond spectacular. No detail is too insignificant, everything on the screen popping with an invigorating electricity that boggles the mind. The animators pull out all the stops, and the main character's first clueless and questioning steps into this demolished netherworld of shrapnel and desolation are eerie and suspenseful.

Unfortunately, even though much of what happens next is well-staged and breathlessly exciting, the movie devolves into a series of seemingly endless confrontations and escapes which ultimately grow wearisome. Characterization isn't given the nurturing it deserves, and new heroes like 7 (voiced by Jennifer Connelly) are so speedily introduced that they're never given the opportunity to evolve and grow. While I appreciate the fact Acker wants to keep up the pace and not draw his scenes out any longer than necessary, the hows and whys are sadly disregarded in order for him to keep things racing along like an out-of-control rollercoaster.

Still, the level of creativity here is positively impressive, and some of the vocal work (most notably by Reilly and Plummer) so surpasses what's in the script it elevates things to a level they'd never have gotten to otherwise. And while some of the action sequences can't help but feel a bit repetitive, some of them (like an early battle between 2 and a cat-like creature or the group's second act escape from a malicious flying machine) are so marvelous I almost didn't want them to end.

I was also completely devastated by the emotional nuances of the climax. While a little maudlin and melodramatic, Acker nonetheless handles these penultimate scenes with an assured grace that hit me like an arrow to the heart. Even though I knew better, I almost couldn't help but begin to cry, and by the time the film was over the amount of tears I shed felt like they could have filled an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

Be all that as it may, the lack of character development and cohesive storytelling does hurt Acker's debut quite a bit. This is a movie I find myself wanting to love and embrace, but thanks to these regrettable slipups, I just can't do it. What I can do is say that 9 is a visual marvel filled with numerous delights, hinting at a budding greatness on the part of its creator to come. Like a rose struggling to bloom in the middle of a disaster zone, this is one animated spectacle where I find heavenly hope amidst the irritating chaos.

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