Sweeney and The Golden Compass

I went to see Sweeney Todd yesterday at around mid-day.

I had my doubts about the singing, but I was most pleasantly surprised. The acting talent involved were more than equal to their singing parts. Also, as a friend commented to me, Johnny Depp and Alan Rickman singing a duet: AWESOME.

The colour scheme is typical Tim Burton–varying gray tones with brilliant splashes of colour where they will make the most impact. What sticks out in my mind most is Sacha Baron Cohen’s jewel-tone blue ensemble. As per the usual, Cohen makes a hilarious spectacle of himself.

I do have a complaint or two with where they left certain of the story arcs. Benjamin Barker and his wife Lucy have a daughter, and a ship boy falls in love with her, but we don’t really see how that turns out. Without giving away more than necessary, Sweeney mistakes her for a boy and nearly kills her, and that’s the last we see of her before the credits roll. I just would have been happier to see some kind of resolution there. Granted, I didn’t expect any kind of happy Father-Daughter reunion between Sweeney and Johanna–Sweeney is way too far gone for him to resume any normal sort of lifestyle–but I would have like to see how the young romance between the girl and the ship boy turned out.

It’s one of Tim Burton’s gorier achievements, I must say. To give you an idea, it’s rated R, but there’s no excessive cursing or sexuality. The rating is specifically due to the violence.

After the movie, I walked down to my office to pick up my pay checks, and talked with the skeleton crew. I had to clear up my time-sheet with Zina, and we got to talking about movies. I told her that I intended to go see The Golden Compass … Zina’s response: “Oh, you don’t want to see that! It’s all about atheism!”

Yeah, I don’t care. That really doesn’t bother me.

I went to see it today. And, apart from the mouth-breathing cud-chewers sitting behind me, it was a fun time.

Also, I wouldn’t really classify the movie as being “all about atheism.” It really isn’t. It’s more anti-establishment–of all kinds, which I suppose could include religion, government, and society–than atheistic. The movie is really about the individual’s capacity for free choice versus outside control over the individual’s thoughts and actions; and the message of Christianity places a decent emphasis on making choices, choosing right from wrong, etc. So, I don’t know, maybe I’m being naive, but I don’t know what the fuss is all about.

It’s an exciting, fun movie–and it uses CGI in a way that actually doesn’t make me want to kill the producers (please see Zemeckis).

the Golden controversy

This from IMDb.com:

The Vatican Condemns ‘The Golden Compass’

Catholic Church officials at The Vatican have condemned Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig’s new family film The Golden Compass, stating the movie is anti-Christian. The religious leaders claim the movie, based on author Philip Pullman’s fantasy book Northern Lights, promotes a cold and hopeless world without God. In an article in The Vatican’s newspaper l’Osservatore Romano, Pullman is also heavily criticized for writing the book. Catholic leaders urged the faithful to boycott the movie when it was released earlier this month. The Golden Compass director Chris Weitz stripped all references to the church from the movie, fearing he’d offend religious film fans. But it seems his efforts weren’t enough. In Pullman’s fantasy world, the Church’s governing body is linked to cruel experiments on children. In The Vatican newspaper editorial, the film is dubbed “the most anti-Christmas film possible.”

This just makes me want to see the film more. Out of spite. Plain and simple.

sequel

I didn’t think much of the casting decision before, but I’m starting to get the choice of Heath Ledger in the role of the Joker for the next Batman.

Mostly due to this picture:

Yeah, I’ll give it to him. He’s scary just sitting there.

My only current dissatisfaction comes from the fact that the so-called trailer for The Dark Knight is nothing more than special-effects tearing up the CGI logo with a voice-over of Christian Bale, Michael Caine, and–very briefly–Heath Ledger.

I guess I was really hoping for something beyond a teaser trailer. Oh, well. Soon enough, right?

I still haven’t seen The Golden Compass, but I was calculating what I want to spend on remaining Christmas presents (and postage), and decided to hold off on going to the cinema until I go home. And then I have a list … which is another good reason to not tell my parents what I want; because, then, they can just take me to see movies, and that can be my Christmas present.

Actually, even my movie list isn’t much of a list. The Golden Compass, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and maybe I Am Legend (but maybe not on that one … we’ll see).

l’heure verte

So after disembarking from the New Jersey Transit at Long Branch last Wednesday, my friends were waiting for me on the ramp to the parking lot. As we piled into John’s car, Rodney announced that they had a present for me–and handed me a box of sugar cubes.

And because they had been talking about seeing it at a restaurant a few days earlier, I knew what was coming.

Absinthe. Well … sort of. The brand name is Absente, Absinthe Refined.

The difference between this and brands that come from, for example, Alandia, is that it contains no Grand Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) and little to no Thujone. They’ve replaced the Grand Wormwood with Southern Wormwood (Artemisia abrotanum), an innocuous cousin. Also, it’s not distilled; it’s the “macerate & mix” kind. In short, it isn’t really absinthe, which is not surprising because absinthe is still mostly illegal in the United States.

The result is that Absente is mostly harmless–or as harmless as any other 110 proof liqueur (our personal result was that we stayed up and laughed until 4:30 on Thursday morning).

There were no “Green Fairies,” but the ritual is still fun–even though, as it turns out, we didn’t do it quite right.

If you look around on many absinthe sites (and there are a lot), there are several recommendations for the absinthe ritual. The claim is that purists will only accept absinthe straight or in the “traditional French ritual”–slowly dripping ice-cold water on a sugar cube that has been placed on a special slotted absinthe spoon over 1-3 ounces of absinthe. The desired visual effect is a “louche,” when the absinthe turns from emerald green to a light milky jade opacity. This will apparently only happen when there is anise present, so if you don’t like anise (it’s the flavour of black licorice), then you might want to avoid absinthe altogether.

I actually haven’t had absinthe in this way since the Czech Stromu brand that I bought while I was living in Auckland, and there was absolutely no “louche,” no matter what I did (low, very low anise content). It took me right until the end of my time in New Zealand to finish off that bottle. It’s not that it was bad, but it isn’t something I would drink all the time.

The ritual that we performed on this Thanksgiving Eve was somewhat different. We poured about two ounces into a glass, set the absinthe itself on fire, and then put it out by pouring the cold water over the sugar cube on the absinthe spoon.

This was not, strictly speaking, the traditional “Bohemian ritual.” Actually, before I go on, it should be noted that the “Bohemian ritual” is more of a modern contrivance than it is “tradition.” Actual French Bohemians at the turn of the last century were more likely to drink it in the aforementioned “traditional French” way. But I digress. On to the “Bohemian ritual” …

I quote Absinth24.Net (and correct their spelling where that needed to happen) in their instructions regarding the absinthe fire ritual:

As absinthe usually contains more than 60% alcohol, you should be careful with the Bohemian ritual, as the absinthe in the glass shouldn’t begin to burn. [oops.]

a) Pour absinthe over the sugar cube or dip the sugar cube in the absinthe.

b) Light the sugar up and wait until it’s fully caramelized.

c) Mix the sugar with the absinthe.

d) Add ice cold water, and you are ready to enjoy the absinthe!

We have a plan to break this out next weekend after more sugar cubes have been acquired, as I opted to leave them behind at Casa Manna.

Actually, I also have a plan to make an order from Alandia at some point, but shhhh, we’re not suppose to import the stuff to this country. And, yes, I recognize the idiocy of announcing illicit dealings in a public forum, but I’m telling myself that nobody [official] is reading this … I’m not sure how Alandia gets around the absinthe ban; but according to their FAQ, if your absinthe gets seized by U.S. customs en route to your address, they’ll refund your money.

obscure television, obscure film

Lately with Netflix I’ve been watching Beauty and the Beast (a show that first aired in 1987, staring Ron Pearlman and Linda Hamilton). I only vaguely remembered watching it with my mom when I was younger, but I did recall that we both enjoyed it, so I decided to rent it.

It’s a little saccharine, and more than a little melodramatic–leading me to the conclusion that it was best taken in small, hour-long, weekly doses. You know, rather than three hours in one shot. Watching four episodes, one after the other, the dialog becomes repetitive; and Linda Hamilton’s behaviour is noticeably wishy-washy. I keep expecting her to do something bad-ass and Terminator-ish, so the softer-side-of-Sears attitude of Catherine just seems fake and annoying.

Even after all of these criticisms, I still enjoy the show. There’s something distinctly nostalgic in the feelings that I get from watching it. I remember sitting on the foot-end of the bed in my parents’ bedroom, eating popcorn, and being allowed to stay up late and watch this show. I always thought that Vincent and Catherine should get together–in spite of his being a mutant cat-faced man.

And I still think that ‘Vincent’ is better looking than Ron Pearlman. ****
I feel that I should say something about The River King as well, since that was the last actual movie that I received from Netflix. I can’t think of anything clever at the moment, though; only that it’s weird to hear ‘Elizabeth Bennet’ (Jennifer Ehle) with an American (or maybe it was supposed to be Canadian?–I know that she is actually from one of the Carolinas) accent and to see her with straight blond hair (though, for all I know, that may be her real colour).

It’s a hazy, gray film, and the surprises are more like depressing disappointments; but its brooding quality is also what makes it a beautiful piece. ***1/2

a brief introduction

“I have only got down on to paper, really, three types of people: the person I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I’d like to be.”

- E. M. Forster

My blog entries have always tended in this sort of direction–my fiction, too, but that’s another matter and has rarely been viewable to the public. There’s boundless introspection, complaining, and dreaming to be read; that said, I suspect that more than half of what I think about myself and others is untrue or misguided, and that many (if not all) of my dreams are unhealthy and ‘all wrong-headed.’

Not that that nagging suspicion is ever going to stop me from saying what I want …

What will I write here? I will write about my adventures! — What adventures? — I have yet to have them, but they will be perfectly thrilling! (Thank you, Peter Pan.) No, really. I love to travel, and I love to write about my travels–the sights, the people, the food. After all, if you’re visiting exciting places, you may as well brag about it, post gorgeous photographs, and make the rest of the world insane with envy, yes?

I also write about the things I watch, read, hear (film, television, books, news articles, web comics, music, radio, etc.). I may copy and paste entries from my other journals, respond to comments or personal e-mail (if there are any), and react to the web logs of others.

In regards to this web log’s chosen title, I have a fascination for Venetian masks and masquerade-style masks, in general. Even when representing the sinister or the grotesque, they’re beautiful and unique, no one like any other. I have collected a few over the years after purchasing my first on my fourteenth New Year, a yuletide holiday that found me wandering through Italy and Switzerland for two weeks via motor coach. Venice remains my most favourite destination ever.

“when you think as I do”

Malcolm McDowell and David Warner have similar voices. Well, if they try, they have similar voices: sneering, British, “I’m-smarter-than-you” voices. And, really, either one of them makes for a decent villain.

Time After Time – Jack the Ripper (David Warner) is back to continue his ghastly reign of terror; this time, he’s found his way to the late 1970s, intent on taking care of unfinished business. H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell) uses a time machine to pursue Jack into the future, where he meets Amy (Mary Steenburgen), a bank clerk who teaches Wells about life in the ’70s while helping him hunt for Jack.

At the beginning of watching this, I’d forgotten who was going to be who; and the film opens on the Ripper murdering some prostitute (you know, like he does), but never showing his face. We do, however, hear his voice–which I mistakenly believed was McDowell, for all of three minutes until the scene changed to Wells’ sitting room where other actors were clearly addressing McDowell as Herbert. Then Warner enters and everyone is calling him Stevenson (and I thought for a moment that they were going to have him be Robert Louis Stevenson so they could pull in the whole Jekyll and Hyde thing to have that be the reason why he’s a crazy murderer–even though Wells and Stevenson weren’t really contemporaries, since Stevenson was a Scottish Neoromantic and Wells was a younger London sci-fi man–but, anyway, no, his name is John “Jack the Ripper” Stevenson and there’s no connection like that at all).

The movie is fun and weird and strangely frank about things you might not expect them to be as frank about with a PG rating. And poor H.G. has ideas about society being some kind of utopia in 1979 (hopes which are mercilessly dashed within a few moments of his arrival in, yes, his time machine).

I forget about the things people did and didn’t have in 1979 (wasn’t there, was I?)–the non-biodegradable McDonald’s containers (yes, Wells visits McDeath), electric tooth-brushes, etc. What they most certainly didn’t have was CGI technology. The special effects are typical to the time right before the entrance of CGI, but the cameras are better, so things even out. It’s not all the greatest, but we suspend our disbelief, and it works itself out.

Strangely enough, even with the memory of “Alex” in my mind, Malcolm is adorable when he’s so hapless and helpless; it’s not a faithful portrayal of H.G. Wells, per se, but it’s a portrayal that fits the story extremely well. He’s a good actor and it’s a pity he was type-cast to the villain, though I’m sure it’s paid the bills all around. The DVD has a few special features–the writer/director and McDowell comment on the film, and there’s a text section entitled “It’s About Time” that runs through a fairly good list of the time-travel genre from books to movies.

The message? Screw time paradox and the importance of not tampering with the time-line. Also, screw that useless career. If you fall in love with a time-traveling sci-fi author, just go with it–and him/her back to his/her time, regardless of your inability to deal with the very real social aspects of this situation or the possible diseases with which your body won’t be able to deal without the benefits of modern medicine. This is romantic sci-fi, after all, not reality (see: Kate & Leopold). ***1/2

bare-bones reviews: Anne of Green Gables

I rented from Netflix and watched a 1985 made-for-TV version of Anne of Green Gables. I’ve never read the book(s?), never watched any version on film. I was just curious about what I was missing, since I know a few people for whom this was one of their favourites as a child.

I’m sorry. I just don’t see it. She’s too bloody perfect and winsome for me. I’m not a big fan of the winsome orphan-heroine of young adult fiction (this includes Anne Shirley, Sara Crewe, and even Mary Lennox to a certain extent–though she’s kind of a bitch to everyone).

Actually, I just wasn’t much of a fan of young adult fiction. I think I went from Berenstain Bears to Stephen King and Ray Bradbury without a big transition in the middle. I seem to recall somebody trying to introduce me to The Babysitter’s Club, and being BORED OUT OF MY MIND. I did, however, enjoy Madeleine L’Engle and some R.L. Stine (not Goosebumps, anything but Goosebumps).

The redemption of Anne of Green Gables (over three hours long, by the way) was the rest of the cast. The side characters are much more real to me than Anne; their behavior, their reactions, their speech–all of it is more believable than Anne’s anything.

no ideals

Impromptu – Nineteenth century feminist author George Sand (Judy Davis), as famous for her cigar-smoking and pants-wearing as she was for her writing, is at the center of this literary drama. Although she’s fallen for composer Frederic Chopin (Hugh Grant), a number of obstacles stand in their way — rivals, former lovers … even duels! This film was nominated for a New York Film Critics Circle Award and an Independent Spirit Award.

I think I added this to my Netflix queue based on the involvement of Julian Sands, but he’s not a major character; actually, all characters play second fiddle to George Sand (Judy Davis)–even Frederic Chopin (Hugh Grant).

Foolishly longing for art’s influence in her circle, the Duchess D’Antan (Emma Thompson) invites a group of artists to her estate for a fortnight, and Sand invites herself along in hopes of trailing after Chopin–not that the Duchess seems to mind, finding the impertinence more amusing than troubling. It’s a recipe for battling eccentricities–and trouble–that eventually turns on the Duchess in an evening’s entertainment produced by Alfred De Musset (Mandy Patinkin), the sole purpose of which is to ridicule the host and hostess.

Franz Liszt: [as God] Hurry, Noah, to the Ark, and fill it with two each of the creatures of land, sea, and air.
George Sand: [as Noëtte] Lord, we have no need for animals – art alone will save the world. Let’s see, we’ll need two of everything: two poets, two painters, two musicians…
Franz Liszt: [as God] Impossible, they will not come. Your conversation is not witty and you have no ideals.
George Sand: [as Noëtte] Ha ha, true, but we shall also give them free food and lodging for forty days and forty nights. Now, we shall also need two playwrights, two composers, two makers of velvet flowers…

Chopin, responsible for composing and playing its music, stops the play once he realizes its nature; for though the Duchess is generally vapid, it is fairly nasty payback for her generosity. As one of the other characters remarks at some point, Chopin is the girl of the relationship between him and Sand–kinder, frailer, better-mannered.

The cast is superb and the relationships feel possible and true–and truth is one of the more difficult things to get at in a period drama. ****

bare-bones reviews: Alfie

Why didn’t I like Alfie? Because there’s no redemption for him. At all. Okay, so Jude Law is hot, and that’s a redeeming quality, but the character has no redemption. He’s a sleaze who sleeps around A LOT, loses friends because of it, and learns nothing by the end. He just goes on. And again, if not for the fact that Jude Law is so damn good-looking, the film would be a complete wash-out. **