The Sapphires (**3/4)

The novelty of its subjects, an aboriginal girl group who cut their teeth entertaining the troops in Vietnam, just barely raises this above showbiz cliché. Despite being (loosely) based on a true story, the prejudicial episodes generate more sympathy than a true understanding of Australia’s history with its native population. But this isn’t Rabbit-Proof Fence, nor the failed epic that was Australia, so it doesn’t need to do that, but only to function as a streamlined underdog story with musical interludes. Funniest moment: Chris O’Dowd, as the semi-alcoholic emcee who becomes the group’s manager, telling them to drop their Merle Haggard covers and embrace soul.

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viewed 10/26/12 7:20 [Philadelphia Film Festival screening] and reviewed 10/30/12

Rock of Ages (**)

Somewhere there must be rock music fans, folks who likely came of age in the era of Reagan, who do not cherish the age of “classic rock,” or the 1990s grunge-rock explosion, but to that in-between era swept aside by grunge and its cousins. Sure, in this time, the 1980s, there were green shoots of “alternative” rock — R.E.M., the Replacements, even early U2 —but mainstream rock fans, and the characters in this movie —were hearing other sounds. I speak of Journey, and Def Leppard, and Bon Jovi, of course, but also second-tier acts such as Extreme (“More Than Words”), Poison (“Every Rose Has Its Thorn”), and Night Ranger (“Sister Christian”). It was rock at its most theatrical, thus, in that sense, perfect for a    musical. Playwright Chris D’Arienzo gets a screenplay credit in Hollywood’s version of his Broadway hit.

The plot is typical: midwestern girl (Julianne Hough) comes to Los Angeles to make it as a singer, meets like-minded boy, settles for being a club waitress. Yep, same plot as Burlesque, with different tunes. Oh, it’s fun to see Alec Baldwin as the hippie-era refugee running the club, with Russell Brand as his equally hairy sidekick. And Tom Cruise certainly embodies the stereotypically decadent rock star, Stacee Jaxx, he plays. Catherine Zeta-Jones is the mayor’s (Bryan Cranston) wife, a Tipper Gore caricature crusading against heavy metal. Malin Åkerman is a big-haired Rolling Stone reporter. Mary J. Blige, who covers Pat Benatar, is a strip-club owner. They all sing these bombastic songs (“Wanted Dead or Alive,” “I Want to Know What Love Is,” even, egads, “We Built This City”), sometimes as Glee-style medleys, usually trading off vocals. “Sister Christian” is a spontaneous sing-off among bus passengers. It’s mind-bogglingly earnest. But my favorite part might have been when the boy shyly plays the girl the song he supposedly just wrote, and it turns out to be Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing,” after which the girl says, “I can’t believe you wrote that!” Indeed.

Hairspray’s Adam Shankman directs with a similar flair, making 1980s L.A., like his 1960s Baltimore, a little shinier and smoother than the real thing. The pacing is also fine, but other than the idea of employing famous actors to sing straightforward versions of 1980s rock (no pop or R&B), there is nothing original here. (Reprising the stage version’s incorporation of characters addressing the audience might have been a novelty.) The first half is cheesy and rarely witty, although Brand has a good line or two, like one about “hibernating in Margaret Thatcher’s bumhole.” The second half remains cheesy, but at this point seems to be self-consciously so, as if it’s become aware of how dumb it is. I heard the guy behind me describe it after as “so bad it’s good.” My guess is that if you are fond of the songs, you’ll feel the same. If not, this will seem pretty tedious.

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viewed 5/30/12 at Ritz East [PFS screening] and reviewed 5/31–7/3/12

Damsels in Distress (***1/2)

Watch this for five minutes and you’ll probably know if you’ll like its alternate-reality take on college life, as seen by a quartet of female roommates at the fictional Seven Oaks. Greta Gerwig, Ben Stiller’s mumbling love interest in Greenberg, plays the much perkier, talkier Violet, leader of the quartet, who in the space of the film’s first five minutes nearly faints from “acrid” B.O., discusses “the problem with contemporary social life,” laments that an “atmosphere of male barbarism prevails” at her institution, extols the virtues of dating “sad sacks” and plain-looking and/or unintellient men, and thwarts a potential suicide. Violet and her stylized dialogue are the creation of director Whit Stillman, who with just four films (in 22 years) is easily one of the more stylistically distinctive filmmakers around. All of his films feature what might be called the intellectually aspirational class, twentysomethings who might in ten years be Woody Allen characters, but here it’s in a playful way.

As the title may suggest, the movie has the flavor of a period piece, but one in which a 1990s song* is a “golden oldie” and anal sex is (obliquely) referred to. Violet dreams of initiating a “dance craze,” and a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers-inspired musical number caps the film. At the same time, it doesn’t really seem like any actual old movies, although it slightly made me think of the recent French musical 8 Women. Of Violet’s friends, the one played by Megalyn Echikunwoke made me laugh the most by repeatedly issuing Anglo-Nigerian accented-warnings about “playboy-operator type” guys. Much of what amused me about the movie is hard to convey, but comes down to its unique brand of whimsy. For example, at Seven Oaks, there are no Greek-letter frats, only Roman letter ones, where the inhabitants are so dumb that they try to commit suicide by jumping from a second-story window.

The plot has something to do with Violet and her friends’ crusade to purge the campus of its coarser aspects, and some romantic mismatches, but, really, you won’t care about how any of that resolves itself. I’m not sure if Stillman intends to say anything about college, romantic attraction, suicide, the value of intelligence, lying, or any of the other things these damsels discuss, but that in no way distressed me.

* “Another Night” by Real McCoy

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viewed 4/25/12 at Ritz 5 and reviewed 4/25/12 and 4/26/12

Burlesque (**1/2)

There’s nothing especially wrong with the musical, which represents the film debut of singer Christina Aguilera and the first musical (and first film in seven years) for Cher. But there’s nothing especially good with it either. Aguilera plays Ali, a spunky waitress from Iowa who hightails it out of there to make it in the big city (Los Angeles). With no plan and little money, she insists her way into a job at a club run by motherly but spunky Tess (Cher). She’s befriended by the bartender (Cam Gigandet), who tells her they’re “practically neighbors,” since he’s from Kentucky. Now only in the mind of a Hollywood screenwriter, or someone who’s never left the coasts, are an Iowan and a Kentuckian neighbors. Apparently also Hollywood’s version of Iowa had no singing jobs, but somehow the inexperienced Ali can belt it out like…Christina Aguilera, if only they’d let her on stage. (The real Christina, of course, spent her teen years developing her voice with professionals.)

For my taste, Aguilera has for the most part been more impressive than listenable, but her vocal histrionics are just the thing for the movie’s show-stopping numbers. Much of what she’s doing here isn’t too different from the throwback numbers on her 2006 album Back to Basics. It’s all loud and brassy, but more traditional in the beginning and edging toward techno-pop in the second half. Cher’s two numbers are the only ones I think I’d remember if I heard again. The opening title track, in which she also dances, is a pretty good show tune. Her other song is a Diane Warren power ballad that sounds a lot like other Diane Warren power ballads (“Because You Loved Me,” “How Do I Live,” “Un-break My Heart”). Various pop tunes (everything from Madonna’s “Ray of Light” to Boston’s “More Than a Feeling”) round out the soundtrack, so there’s something for everyone, more or less.

In the non-musical scenes, Aguilera projects the sort of pleasant vacuousness of Jessica Alba, but then, she wasn’t chosen for her acting skills. Cher is still a good actress, even if half of her lines are some variation on, No, I won’t sell this club. Tess is broke, but somehow you know she won’t sell the club, and Ali will save it. The one surprise in the movie is how. Always reliable Stanley Tucci plays a variation of his Devil Wears Prada character, Tess’s faithful and skillful assistant and would-be husband, if only he were straight. Kristin Bell plays the nemesis whose dislike for Ali comes entirely from Ali having made a joke at her expense early in the film.

For a film set in the world of Burlesque, there’s less fancy choreography than you’d think, and less sex too. You can watch with your pre-teen with only occasional, mild embarrassment, and even then it will probably involve the scenes with Ali’s eventual boyfriend. So, all in all, this is a bland affair that serves up a lot of clichés, but it’s not without entertainment value (and eye candy for both sexes). This is no Chicago, and it’s even a notch below Nine, but it will please fans of Aguilera and maybe even fans of musicals. Skeptics of either should look elsewhere.

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viewed 11/17/10 at Ritz East [PFS screening] and reviewed 11/18–12/6/10

Nine (**3/4)

A look at the principal cast—Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren, Kate Hudson, and Fergie—might lead one to suspect that the title refers to how many Oscars they’ve collectively received, but that number is actually seven. (The late Anthony Mingella, who co-wrote the script, won one as a director.) The title is a play on 8½, the classic Federico Fellini film adapted first into an Italian play, then a 1982 Tony-winning musical with songs by Maury Yeston. There are a dozen songs, including three new ones by Yeston.

It took me ten minutes to recall that it was Day-Lewis in the role of Guido Contini, a great Italian director modeled on Fellini, and not some Italian actor. (He speaks English, like everyone else, but with an accent that even comes through when he sings.) Contini is a vastly popular figure who has, however, had a couple of recent flops and can’t come up with a story for his newest film, despite the fact that pre-production is already well under way. Cotillard has the second largest role as his sweet, cheated-upon wife. Writer’s block is the storyline, but the theme is all of the women in Contini’s life: his mother (Loren), his mistress (Cruz), his leading lady (Kidman), his costume designer (Dench), his childhood object of lust (Fergie), and an American journalist (Hudson). All of them appear in the first musical production, a fantasy sequence involving a bevy of skimpily clad women on what’s supposed to be a film set.

Nine follows the sci-fi films 9 and District 9 into theaters in ’09. It would be unfair and too easy to say that Nine is “by the numbers,” but the storyline feels overfamiliar, or at least the infidelity theme does. It is more correct to say that the film is “for the (musical) numbers,” which are elaborately staged and surprisingly well sung by the actors, who are generally not known for singing. Of course, Fergie is the exception, and belts out “Be Italian” with fervor. Yeston’s songs are wordy rather than clever or elegant, but are very descriptive of the storyline. A couple of them stuck in my head. All in all, though it might be obvious to say, this is a movie for lovers of big, fancily costumed musical production numbers. I am not such a person, but I still loved director Rob Marshall’s previous musical adaptation, Chicago. That was, in a way, just as much about moviemaking as this, since it was really a parody of a gangster movie, and the clever songs worked well with that kind of storytelling. Here the mixture of frothy production and serious themes tends to underscore how little is actually being said.

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viewed 12/26/09 at Ritz East and reviewed 1/2/1o

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (**1/2)

Tim Burton was the right director for this adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim/Hugh Wheeler musical, itself adapted from an earlier play by Christopher Bond, who based his story on a long-told urban legend. The legend concerned a murderous barber in league with a purveyor of meat pies. The title character is played by Johnny Depp, who has already played an assortment of oddballs for Burton, including Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, and Willy Wonka. Burton is one of the film world’s most distinctive visual stylists, and the success of his movies tends to rest on what you think of the stories he adapts. When they’re thin, you get a movie as one-dimensional as Mars Attacks! With better material, Burton’s visual sense has greatly enhanced movies such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Big Fish. Almost all of the director’s films have had a fantasy element, and this visually recalls another retelling of a legend, Sleepy Hollow. With a filter casting a bluish pall over most scenes, Burton brings out the grime and gruesomeness of industrial-age London. Only a lovely looking fantasy sequence, and the copious outpouring of blood, put a little color into the picture. If you fancy the story, and the song-speech that propels much of the plot, and you’ll probably like the movie. I’m not crazy about those things, and didn’t like it. I did appreciate the casting of Helena Bonham Carter as Todd’s partner in crime and Alan Rickman as his nemesis.

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reviewed 1/09/08

Hairspray (***1/4)

Like Little Shop of Horrors and The Producers, Hairspray has made the rare circular journey from screen comedy to Broadway musical to screen musical. Directed by choreographer Adam Shankman, this new version stars newcomer Nikki Blonsky as bubbly, chubby Tracy Turnblad, whose dream is to dance on Baltimore’s hottest teen dance show. It’s 1962, and The Corny Collins Show is still reserved for “nice white kids.” Once a month, there is Negro Day, hosted by Motormouth Maybelle (Queen Latifah). Standing in Tracy’s way is the station manager (Michelle Pfeiffer), who doesn’t want either blacks or fat girls dancing.

Shankman’s non-musical credits include weak family comedies The Pacifier and Cheaper by the Dozen 2, but the slick patina he provides is just right for a musical, and it’s not as big of a deal that the re-worked plotting at the end isn’t exactly believable. What does remain from the 1988 John Waters movie is the sense of place and time. The prevalent pastels, teased hair, and other fashions help establish the scene, and the songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman owe a lot to girl-group hits like “Chapel of Love,” one of the songs seen on the Top 10 chart in the TV studio. Waters has said that he intentionally set his movie right before what most people think of as “the Sixties.” (Look for Waters as “the flasher who lives next door.”) Unlike with Grease, set slightly earlier, the Hairspray characters don’t feel like modern people in period couture. Thus, in a comically shocking aside, we see a pregnant woman drinking. Thus Tracy sings that she “won’t go all the way, but I’ll go pretty far.” The black characters, who seem relatively unidimensional, represent to the whites either a threat or something tantalizingly forbidden and cool, but they are apart either way. Social progress, not upheaval, is the order of the day.

The Broadway cast has been replaced, mostly by Hollywood pros like James Marsden as Corny Collins, Amanda Bynes as Tracy’s best friend, and Christopher Walken as Tracy’s dad. In the cross-dressing role of Tracy’s Mom, John Travolta may not be Divine, but he’s pretty good and, in a fat suit, looks a lot like Blonsky. He and Walken dance and sing in the movie’s most old-fashioned number, “(You’re) Timeless to Me.” Blonsky, plucked from community-theater obscurity, is a fine choice as buoyant Tracy. Possessed of a clear powerful voice, she sings what I thought were the most memorable tunes, including the opening “Good Morning Baltimore.” With nearly 20 songs crammed into two hours, I found myself slightly wearied by the time this ended, but overall it was a lot of fun.

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written 7/27/07

Dreamgirls (***1/4)

 ? The Broadway musical based loosely on the story of the Supremes comes to the screen. Beyoncé Knowles takes on the Diana Ross role, the pretty girl singled out by a record company mogul (Jamie Foxx) to lead the “Dreams,” while the ostensible group leader (Jennifer Hudson), the plump Effie, gets pushed to the background despite her powerhouse voice. The overarching theme of the story is the desire for authenticity, which is contrasted with the pressure for commercial success. Foxx’s Curtis Taylor Jr., modeled after Motown founder Berry Gordy, represents the latter.

+ Like Chicago, this made me forget I didn’t like musicals. Hudson is already famous for this, her debut role, and her character is the one who goes through the most changes and whose vocals must carry the greatest emotional weight. Besides Hudson’s Effie, the most compelling character is Eddie Murphy’s, playing a singer whose career is revitalized when he signs with Taylor’s label. Murphy shows none of the mannerisms of his comedy roles and with his singing atones for his big bad hit single “Party All the Time.” The music includes both “period” songs incorporated into the story, the best of which I found to be the ersatz Motown ones from the first half of the film, and the burst-into-song numbers that sound like a soulful take on traditional Broadway show tunes. That all of the music (not the lyrics) was written by Henry Krieger is impressive given this stylistic range.

- Chicago screenwriter Bill Condon has the directing chores here too, and he’s certainly competent, but the film lacks the visual panache that Rob Marshall gave to that musical. Moreover, whereas Chicago was essentially finely polished fluff, Dreamgirls is a movie that’s meant to seem realistic despite being a musical. Given that, I thought that a couple of the characters, especially Effie, seemed to have personality shifts that seemed jarring. The performances and the music definitely fill in some of these gaps, but they’re still there, mostly in the 1960s scenes. And the music snob in me compels the minor complaint that most of the “early 1960s” songs sounded a few years ahead of their time. An admittedly funny scene goes the opposite way: a white group does a bland cover version to prevent the more soulful original from charting. Although this was done often in the 1950s, the practice had declined, and the performance in the movie would have already seemed dated by the time the scene takes place. I’m being picky, but a movie like Ray did just a little better job of portraying the music business.

= ***1/4 The movie contains some dramatic lapses that would be more noticeable in a non-musical, but the performances (musical and dramatic) are on the whole tremendously entertaining, even touching. At over two hours, the movie still goes by quick.

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Happy Feet (***)

? It’s the November of the penguins in this computer-animated feature about a young emperor penguin who becomes something of an outcast because, unlike the rest of his colony, he can’t carry a tune. He can, however, tap dance, and finds some acceptance with some folks in a neighboring colony where everyone sounds Hispanic. George Miller (The Road Warrior) directed the Aussie-made movie, which features the voices of Elijah Wood, Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman and, doing his best Isaac Hayes impression, Robin Williams as a comical guru who also narrates the story.

+  Antarctica and the penguins are rendered with an almost photographic accuracy. (The penguins actually look pretty much alike, so size is mostly used to distinguish one from the other.) The musical numbers, even the medleys, are mostly well produced. Since they’re hits of the last 50 years, they’re guaranteed to push the buttons of anyone from 6 to 66. Amusingly, a major plot point involves whether “aliens” exist. A flying bird that almost eats the hero insists that he was the victim of an alien abduction that resulted in the tag he sports on his leg. For a story that appears headed for a familiar destination, the route is surprising. If this weren’t a family-oriented cartoon, I might even call the last segment existential. Like some kind of mini-Penguin of the Rings, it was definitely the most interesting segment for me, even if it might confuse the youngest viewers. The movie also carries a pro-conservation message.

- Perhaps reflecting the four credited writers, this is a somewhat disjointed movie. The first 2/3 has about 12 minutes of plot and a lot of visual and musical riffs that collectively made the movie seem a little long. (For an animated movie, it is.) At times the plight of the hero seems to be a metaphor for gay rights, at others a shot at cultural reactionaries. But then the last part of the movie is chock full of plot, and, as noted, possibly confusing for little kids. (A sequence where whales nearly have penguin tartare might frighten them too.) The fact that nearly all the penguins look alike might prevent the characters from leaving as indelible a mark as some other cartoon heroes.

= *** I’m not sure what kids will think of this. It’s warm and fuzzy in parts, not in others, but they’ll like the singing penguins. The ending is magical for all ages.

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Cote d'Azur (***)

This is a frivolous French sex comedy about a family whose summer holiday reveals some sexual secrets. The family's staying at a seaside villa for the summer. The daughter’s gone off with her boyfriend, while the teenage son’s having his best friend over. Mom and Dad speculate about exactly what kind of friend this boy is, and what, if anything to say. Meanwhile they've got lusty secrets of their own. Comical twists follow. There’s even, apropos of nothing, a couple of kooky musical numbers featuring most of the cast. Worth watching to see a light approach to sexuality (and nudity) that's pretty rare in American cinema.

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viewed 7/15/05 at Prince Music Theater [PGLFF] and reviewed 12/05/05

Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride (***)

I have to admit, I was a bit sleepy and sort of fell asleep during parts of this short (1:18) animated musical, so my rating is kind of tentative. Anyway, it’s a dark fairy tale in the vein of the Burton-produced Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), which with it shares one of its writers. In Burton's world, the land of the dead, shown in various states of decomposition, is literally more colorful than that of the living. Curious that the nervous groom voiced by Johnny Depp (with a British accent) wants to return to the dark Victorian place he came from, although, on the plus side, his fiancée there (Emily Watson) has no holes in her face, and no worm eating her eye socket. This contrasts with her decaying rival (Helena Bonham Carter). The contrasting visual imagery is stunning, the story less so. Longtime Burton collaborator Danny Elfman contributes one of his better scores, though I thought his songs in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Burton's other 2005 film, were better.

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circulated via email 9/29/05 and posted 11/18/13

Littlde Shop of Horrors (***1/4)

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viewed 1/8/1987 at Fashion Square 8 in Florida