Category Archives: Movies

Movies

Review: “Les Miserables” the movie

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My wife and I took in the screen adaptation of the hit Broadway musical “Les Miserables” this afternoon. My recommendation: see the stage version, and skip the movie.

It’s not that this musical couldn’t have made a successful transition from stage to screen. There were two major problems with this particular movie: casting and directing.

There were two major characters that were poorly cast: Fantine (played by Anne Hathaway) and Javert (played by Russell Crowe). Hathaway’s melodramatic performance was way, way over the top. Broadway performers know how to act and sing at the same time. Hathaway appears able to do only one or the other at any given moment. Crowe is less objectionable. His characterization of Javert was quite good; however, his voice is simply not strong enough to carry Javert’s singing part. Crowe can carry a tune, but he can’t sell the song. And, seeing as how this is more or less an opera, that’s no small deficiency when you’re the antagonist for close to three hours.

But the biggest problem with the screen adaptation was the directing, which consisted of primarily two shots: closeups and extreme closeups. (I’m exaggerating, of course, but only a little.) Watching Marius sing “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables,” or Fantine sing “I Dreamed a Dream,” while on a static closeup for nearly the entire song did not display a great deal of either acting or directing skills. If this directing choice was meant to provoke pity and sadness, it only succeeded for the first forty-five seconds or so. After that, the viewers become anxious and jittery as their eyes begin searching for something — anything &mdash else to look at: the out-of-focus background, the borders of the screen, the exit sign, whatever can be found. The poignancy of “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” would be captured better by seeing Marius alone in the room with the abandoned furniture for at least part of the time he sings about it. But alas, the set designer’s work is barely seen, and the actor is called upon to convey the full emotion of the moment solely through his face and voice.

Not that the film was all bad. Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), Enjorlas (Aaron Tviet), Gavroche (Daniel Huttlestone), and of course the Bishop (Colm Wilkinson, who played the original Jean Valjean on stage) were high points as they all turned in exceptional performances, both in acting and singing. The Thenardiers (Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter) were entertaining, and Marius and Eponine (Eddie Redmayne and Samantha Barks) performed well. The set design was excellent.

If you’re a die-hard “Les Miserables” fan, you’ll want to see this movie regardless of the reviews. But if you’ve never seen the musical, don’t judge it based on the movie. The stage version is far superior.

Movies

“The Hobbit” at 48 frames per second

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The nearest theater to Peoria that is showing the movie “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” in the new “high frame rate” (HFR), or 48-frames-per-second format, is the Rave theater in Davenport, Iowa. I hear tell the HFR version may make it to Peoria eventually, but until then, it’s worth the drive up to Davenport to see for yourself. (Note: if you use Google to look up showtimes, it says that Carmike, formerly Rave, at Grand Prairie has the HFR version, but they don’t.)

The crispness of the images and the smoothness of the motion shots is incredible. It took a little while to get used to it, but not long. I understand the criticism this format has received, but I’m not certain it’s all due to the format. There were some scenes that had a definite look of a BBC videotaped series to them, but I’m not so sure they wouldn’t look that way even at 24 fps.

At times, the limitations of the special effects were exposed (i.e., they looked fake); especially noticeable was when Radagast is racing around on his sled. Also, some normal movement, such as walking, in the early scenes looked like they were a little sped up. Not sure if this got better as the movie went on, or if my eyes just got used to it after a while. Other reviews online have made the same observation.

But other than that, everything looked (strange as it may sound to say about a fantasy-genre film) realistic. Perhaps even hyper-realistic. It certainly is a noticeable advance in film.

As for the movie itself, it’s a good prequel to The Lord of the Rings, but the pacing is slow. There really was no reason to take this little book and turn it into three two-and-a-half-hour films. The result is the inclusion of too much footage that should have been left on the cutting-room floor. Many scenes are needlessly drawn out, especially the whole opening, which does nothing more than set up The Hobbit to be one big flashback.

The big teaser of the film is the dragon Smaug, which we never get to see completely. We see its effects, its tail, its shadow, and ultimately, its eye. But we never see the whole dragon. They’re saving that for the next film, no doubt.

Once the action gets going, however, the movie sucks you in just like the original LOTR, and it’s fun to visit Middle Earth once more as the wizard Gandalf and the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins help the dwarves reclaim their home from the dragon Smaug, and encounter more adventures than they expected along the way.

Movies

IMAX opens at Rave

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A new IMAX opened at Rave Motion Pictures Grand Prairie 18 this week. I checked it out yesterday, and the screen is undeniably big for a multiplex theater at 1,800 square feet. But that’s smaller than traditional IMAX theaters which have screen sizes of 3,600 to 4,900 square feet. But the screen does stretch from floor to ceiling and wall to wall, and is moved closer to the audience than a normal multiplex screen, creating the perception of a much larger screen. The images were bright, in focus, and crystal clear, with no jitter. Interestingly, the movie that was shown was not the same aspect ratio as the screen, so it was shown in a letterbox-looking format — i.e., the movie filled the width of the screen, but there was unused screen space at the top and bottom, a total of roughly a sixth of the screen.

Not only was the screen bigger than average, the sound was enhanced as well. It was noticeably louder than a regular theater, but not distorted in any way. Dialog was clear without being piercing, low rumbles were sufficiently forceful to vibrate your internal organs — overall good frequency range and intelligibility throughout. And did I mention it was loud?

The movie itself was 2D, so I didn’t have the opportunity to check out their 3D capabilities. The movie was “Fast Five” (rated PG-13, starring Vin Diesel and Paul Walker), which was forgettable and ridiculous. It not only routinely defied the laws of physics, it often defied the laws of cartoon physics. I’d give you the most egregious example, but it would give away the ending. Meanwhile, the female lead character, who is a criminal, is pregnant (evidently first trimester). She doesn’t let that stop her from jumping off buildings, through roofs, and other death-defying feats that would undoubtedly put her baby at risk, but later she responsibly refrains from having a beer. What a good mother.

Upcoming movies include “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” (May 20), “Cars 2” (June 24), and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” (July 15). Tickets are $10 for matinees, $12 for evening showings ($10 for children and seniors), plus a $3 surcharge for 3-D films.Икони

Education, Movies

“The Cartel” touts vouchers, school choice

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I went to see “The Cartel” at The Peoria Theater over the weekend (it’s playing through Sept. 16). From a technical standpoint, I was immediately disappointed that it was a DVD played over an LCD projector. When I go to the theater, I expect to see an actual film. I recognize that many films today use digital cinematography, but 4K or even 2K digital film resolution is a far cry from a standard-def TV signal output to an LCD projector.

But leaving aside that pet peeve and getting into the actual content, “The Cartel” breaks no new ground. You’ll find the usual complaints against public education in this country — and the usual solutions. Some critiques are better than others. Teachers unions and tenure are criticized for protecting bad teachers and not adequately rewarding good teachers (good critique). Top-heavy administration and patronage hiring are blamed for keeping money away from the classroom (good critique). One of the interviewees claims there’s an inverse correlation between the quality of the school district and the number of luxury cars parked in the administration lot (ridiculous critique).

The film focused almost exclusively on New Jersey public schools, but the filmmaker stated emphatically this wasn’t a New Jersey documentary, but rather a documentary on the entire American public school system. He apparently feels the problems in New Jersey are a perfect example of what’s wrong everywhere. By and large, that’s probably true, although earlier in the movie he had some nice things to say about Maryland public schools, so evidently not all the problems addressed in the film are universal.

As for solutions, there seemed to be an implication that teachers unions have to be busted. But the most overt solution presented was school vouchers. A good part of the film was spent presenting and defending the use of vouchers. He deals head-on with the usual criticisms of voucher systems, and steadfastly defends the redeeming power of free-market forces (if kids get vouchers, the free market will create lots of high-quality private schools, the public school system will improve because they’ll want to compete with the private schools, etc.).

From a film-making standpoint, I thought the music and graphics were good, as was the editing. The movie is broken up into chapters, and each chapter forms a cohesive unit that is well-put-together and keeps your interest. However, the chapters don’t feel like they tell a story when put together. They feel more like discrete issues presented in no particular order. In other words, there’s not a sense of flow to the film. While most of the film was well-argued (whether you agreed with the arguments or not), some parts of the film felt a little too heavy-handed and propaganda-ish.

All in all, I would recommend seeing this documentary. I think it would make a good jumping-off point for discussion on the issues surrounding public education.икони

General News, Movies

Speaking of IMAX, have you heard of “fake IMAX”?

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Frequent commenter “Mahkno” mentioned in response to a previous post that “IMAX was [as of the last time he looked into it] moving away from the singular movie theatre venues. Their principle growth has been in partnering with large theatre chains to sell their IMAX brand, equipment, and format. It might be more likely at this point that one of the area multiplexes would adopt the IMAX format before the museum would.”

As a matter of fact, IMAX has indeed been partnering with large theater chains, including Goodrich Quality Theaters (which owns Willow Knolls 14 in Peoria) and AMC (which will soon own ShowPlace 14 in Pekin). But these multiplex IMAX theaters are not the same as standalone IMAX theaters. They’re smaller. A lot smaller. In fact, here are a couple of screen-size comparisons that I’ve shamelessly swiped from other websites (here [WARNING: lots of profanity] and here):

Click on the images to enlarge. As you can see, the retrofitted multiplex theaters don’t really hold a candle to a true IMAX giant-screen experience. But that really isn’t what has gotten everyone so upset. After all, the screen is larger than most multiplex screens, and the sound is far better.

What bothers critics — including Roger Ebert — is that IMAX is not differentiating these smaller theaters from their traditional giant-screen theaters. So Joe Blow goes to his local AMC multiplex and plunks down an extra five bucks for the IMAX experience, walks into the theater and… surprise! It’s not a giant-screen theater, but just a slightly-larger-than-average multiplex theater screen. And he feels scammed. Ebert offers some common-sense advice:

But apparently, IMAX is not going to do any such thing. This whole outrage over what many are calling “fake IMAX” broke out nearly a year ago, and so far no differentiation has been forthcoming from IMAX.

Nevertheless, given AMC’s deal with IMAX and the fact that AMC is buying Kerasotes Theatres, I wonder if the museum might have some competition for landing a local IMAX theater. Time will tell.

General News, Movies

AMC is buying Kerasotes ShowPlace Theatres

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With the exception of three theaters, Kerasotes is selling its entire chain to AMC. That means the Kerasotes ShowPlace 14 in Pekin will be acquired if the sale receives regulatory approval. Incidentally, for you local history buffs out there, before the ShowPlace 14 (originally the ShowPlace 12) was built, this was the site of the Starlite Drive-In Theater, one of several drive-in theaters in the greater Peoria area. It was destroyed by fire in October 1991. The drive-in was owned by Kerasotes Theatres, and when it burned down, they opted not to rebuild it, but instead put up the largest local multiplex at the time. You may recall that there was another theater chain in the area with a similar name: George Kerasotes Corp., or GKC. (Anyone remember the jingle? “Tonight I feel like GKC!”) It was unaffiliated with Kerasotes Theatres and was sold to Carmike Cinemas in 2005.

Now it looks like the Kerasotes name may soon be gone forever from the area. Here’s the press release:

Kansas City, Mo. (Jan. 19, 2010) – AMC Entertainment Inc. (“AMC”), and Kerasotes Showplace Theatres, LLC (“Kerasotes”), two leading theatrical exhibition and entertainment companies in the U.S., announced today that they have entered into a definitive agreement pursuant to which AMC will acquire substantially all of the assets of Kerasotes. Kerasotes owns 96 theatres and 973 screens in mid-sized, suburban and metropolitan markets, primarily in the Midwest. More than three quarters of the Kerasotes theatres feature stadium seating and almost 90 percent have been newly built since 1994. Following the consummation of the proposed transaction, Tony and Dean Kerasotes will retain and operate their two new ICON concept theatres in Minneapolis, MN and Chicago, IL; and one Showplace theatre in Secaucus, NJ. Kerasotes is currently owned by the Kerasotes family and Providence Equity Partners.

“Combining Kerasotes’ highly-regarded assets and operations with our own is a natural way for us to continue re-defining the future of our industry,” said Gerry Lopez, AMC CEO and president. “With almost 200 years in the exhibition business between us, our collective experiences and our complementary geographic footprints will allow us to maintain the reputation for excellence and leadership that is part of each company’s culture.”

“Our team has delivered a consistent, high quality experience for customers, and we have appreciated Providence’s partnership over the last six years in helping Kerasotes grow into the sixth largest motion picture exhibition company in North America” said Tony Kerasotes, Chief Executive Officer. “We expect these theatres will be a strong addition to the AMC theatre circuit, and look forward to successfully completing the transaction with AMC and to beginning our next chapter.”

Completion of the acquisition is subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions for transactions of this type, including Department of Justice antitrust approval.

Movies, Nation/World

I.O.U.S.A. sobering look at national debt

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iousa-poster-large1I attended a movie at the recently established Peoria Theater on Saturday. It’s located in the Landmark Plaza; two of the screens that used to be part of the old Landmark Cinemas (later Nova, currently Reynolds) now make up the new independent film theater. In addition to the usual popcorn and soda, you can also buy beer and other alcoholic beverages, making the place an adults-only (over 21) establishment.

I went to see the film “I. O. U. S. A.,” about the skyrocketing national debt and its implications. You can see an abbreviated (30-minute) version of the film at their website and on YouTube.

Admission was inexpensive ($5), as was the popcorn and soda — at least, for a movie theater ($7 total for both). The screen was small, but the theater was clean, and they showed real film, not a DVD on an LCD projector like another local theater. At 4:45 on a Saturday, it turned out to be a private screening, since I was the only one there for this particular film. The service was friendly, and it was a pleasant experience overall.

The film itself, however, was as interesting as it was depressing. It chronicled America’s budget deficit over the life of the country, as well as its more recent deficits in savings, trade, and leadership. The film mainly focuses on the work of Robert Bixby of the Concord Coalition (a “non-partisan, grassroots organization advocating generationally responsible fiscal policy”) and former U.S. Comptroller-General David Walker, who is now the President and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation (whose mission is “to increase public awareness of the nature and urgency of key economic challenges threatening America’s future and accelerate action on them”).

The problem in America, according to the filmmakers, is that we spend more than we produce. It’s a problem that plagues the nation from federal policymakers to individual citizens. We’re living beyond our means, feeling a false sense of wealth due to easy credit. And whereas your personal debts will more or less die with you, the public debt will be passed on to the next generation to pay.

Furthermore, because of our savings deficit in America, most national debt is held by foreign countries, which leads to some sobering implications. One that the movie points out is our vulnerability to “financial war.” This is where a creditor country can pressure a debtor country into modifying its policies by threatening to tighten credit. They use the example of the Suez Crisis when the U.S. forced our allies into a cease fire with Egypt by threatening to sell part of the U.S. investment in British government bonds, which would have significantly devalued the pound. As Proverbs 22:7 says, “the borrower is slave to the lender.”

I thought the film was well-done (production-wise), although I certainly haven’t seen as many documentaries as the Washington Post movie critics, who panned the film for being formulaic. I thought the slick graphics made a difficult topic easy to understand. Also, the movie moved at a good pace.

Substantively, the conclusions drawn by the filmmakers are, naturally, not universally held. The Center for Economic and Policy Research has published a paper titled, “IOUSA Not OK: An Analysis of the Deficit Disaster Story in the Film IOUSA,” in which the authors (Dean Baker and David Rosnick) give a real-time, point-by-point counterargument. While they take issue with several points made in the movie, the main thrust of the report is their contention that health care costs are the major culprit causing dire debt projections, and that if the country can rein in these costs, national budget deficits and their resulting debt will be no big deal:

The federal government pays for almost 50 percent of the country’s health care costs through Medicare, Medicaid, and other health care programs. Almost all of the payments in these programs go to private sector health care providers (hospitals, doctors, nursing homes etc.). The government projects that private sector health care costs will rise far more rapidly than the economy grows. This assumption leads to projections of massive deficits in the next few decades.

While these projections of exploding health care costs imply that budget deficits will be a huge problem, if the United States can contain its health care costs, then budget deficits will be very manageable….

In other words, the real problem facing the country is a broken health care system. If health care costs continue to grow at the projected rate, then future generations will see relatively little gain in their living standards, even if we eliminate all government spending on health care.

Nevertheless, if something isn’t done about the health care crisis, then projections are that the debt will rise not only in real dollars, but as a percentage of gross domestic product. Even critics of the film agree that this scenario would be bad for the country. Whatever the solution is, something needs to be done soon to address this issue.