Black Sheep Reviews: A film review site.

Black Sheep @ The Box Office: A Very Full Moon

2009-11-22T14:29:00.004-05:00

You will have to excuse me; I was away on business. Now that I am back, I am exhausted so I will be doing nothing for the rest of that day. That said, I could not overlook what amounted to the third best opening of all time. THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON opened to the best opening day of all time on Friday with over $70 million and finished the weekend with roughly double that. Everyone knew it would be huge but who could have predicted this? The true test will be next weekend. Most fans caught it right away so next weekend will show how far past its fanbase the film will play.

In other box office news, Sandra Bullock has a great year with THE BLIND SIDE opening over $34 million, following her summer hit, THE PROPOSAL. PRECIOUS continues to expand to incredible numbers, almost increasing by 100% over last week after adding approximately 450 screens. There was nothing out of this world about PLANET 51's fourth place opening. Below the TOP 10, FANTASTIC MR. FOX took in another per screen average of nearly $50K before expanding to over 2000 screens next week. Werner Herzog's update of BAD LIEUTENANT starring Nicolas Cage brought in a mild per screen on of jut under $10K but good word of mouth could turn that around as it expands. And this week's biggest per screen average went to Pedro Almodovar's latest, BROKEN EMBRACES, pulling $54K on just 2 screens.

NEXT WEEK: Happy Thanksgiving everyone! John Travolta and Robin Williams are looking for WILD HOGS numbers with OLD DOGS opening on 3300 screens. James McTeigue, director of V FOR VENDETTA returns with NINJA ASSASSIN on 2500 screens. The critically acclaimed THE ROAD with Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron opens wide. And on the smaller end, character films like THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE and ME AND ORSON WELLES open on a handful of screens and Disney platforms THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG on just two screens before going wide in December.

Source: BOX OFFICE MOJO

FANTASTIC MR. FOX

2009-11-20T07:11:00.006-05:00

Written by Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach
Directed by Wes Anderson
Voices by George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray

Mr Fox: This is going to be a total cluster-cuss for everybody.

Let me just get this out of the way; Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox is certainly aptly titled as the perfect word to describe it is simply, fantastic. This stop-motion Roald Dahl adaptation about man versus animal honours its roots and broadens its ideas into a contemporary family classic that is both insightful and yet still playful. In his first foray into animation, Anderson does not bend to the style but rather turns the style itself inside out to become the perfect compliment to his quirky and expressive nature.

Despite being fantastic, Mr. Fox (voiced by a spry George Clooney), has gotten himself and his neighbours into a hole they can’t get out of. After promising his wife, Mrs. Fox (a sly Meryl Streep), that he will never steal again once she announces that she is pregnant, Mr. Fox deliberately breaks that promise and angers the biggest farmers in town, Boggis, Bunce and Bean. The farmers drive the animals underground and they must come together to dig their way out. The battle is on and the delight with which Anderson seems to be having with it all, draws the viewer as deep into the depths of the film as the tunnels being dug on the screen.

While Anderson, along with The Squid and the Whale writer, Noah Baumbach, infuse the screenplay with adult themes a plenty, from resisting your natural instincts to rising above the hand that feeds you, they create a pace that is delicate and quiet but never so much so that younger viewers will lose interest. Under Anderson’s always mindful and always expansive eye, Fantastic Mr. Fox is as cunning and as sharp as one would expect a fox to be. It is its unexpected charm though that will make it Anderson’s most endearing work.

Best of Black Sheep: TWILIGHT

2009-11-16T16:18:00.002-05:00

Written by Melissa Rosenberg
Directed by Catherine Hardwicke
Starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson

Edward Cullen: I wanted to kill you. I never wanted a human being’s blood so much.

It may occasionally sound like a vampire movie but TWILIGHT certainly doesn’t look like any vampire movie I’ve ever seen. For starters, some of these particular vampires are vegetarians. It is much less a movie about vampires as it a movie that just happens to have vampires. You might even say it is the BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN of vampire movies. This is not to say it is anywhere near as good; just that director Catherine Hardwicke cleared the path so that you could see the love and not just the blood lust one would expect. That love is shared between Bella and Edward (played by Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson). She just moved back to this tiny town to spend some time with her estranged father and he too just moved back to this same town after being away for a few decades. She is 17 and he looks like he’s 17 (he also looks like he’s ready for an all vampire cabaret revue with all that face makeup but that’s besides the point) but really he was born way back near the turn of the century, the last century. Doesn’t anyone else see something wrong with this picture? He could realistically be her great grandfather, people.

This is Bella’s story really and her perspective is what brings both sensitivity and assertive confidence to TWILIGHT. Bella’s relationship with her father is understandably tricky. Her newfound friends from school take some definite getting used to. And as if her life weren’t complicated enough already, what with the big move and the inevitable adjustment period, she just had to go and fall “hang upside down from the rafters” in love with a vampire. The best part about the somewhat ridiculous premise (I say somewhat because maybe vampires really do exist, even vegetarian ones), is that Hardwicke has grounded it firmly. Imagine a teenage movie where none of the “youngins” utter inspired brilliance every time they open their mouths. No, these folks are actually awkward; they actually don’t know what to say sometimes. And they actually live in a place where not everything they wear is right off the runway. All of this realism helps make the supernatural element all the more plausible but it also brings to light a couple of points of concern about the teenage girl.

TWILIGHT reinforces one of the most unfortunate clichés around these days. Every girl out there just really wants a bad boy. They don’t even care if they have admittedly drained innocent bodies of all their blood before. We should definitely make sure that the legions of young girls who see this film, or read the Stephanie Meyers book it is based upon, believe that love can resolve any obstacle, be that a difference of opinion, a disagreement or the distinct possibility that your boyfriend may one day wake in the middle of the night to find he can no longer resist the urge to drink your blood. It is easy to get sucked in to TWILIGHT’s lore (Get it? Sucked?) because we all have these distorted ideas of love ingrained inside of us but last I checked, a guy who sneaks into your room to watch you sleep is called a stalker, not a romantic. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from TWILIGHT though, it is that a teenage girl’s love is infinitely stronger than a vampire’s lust for blood. Oh, and that girls love all things that sparkle.

My apologies to the technical geeks and true fans out there. I had too much to say about this film to go into detail about all the blu-ray special features. I will just say that if you are a fan of this film, you will not be disappointed with which your admiration has been rewarded. There is feature commentary with the director and two leads; the behind the scenes featurettes go through most of the production stages and can be seen picture in picture on blu-ray (which, if you're like me and didn't know what that was before, means that you can watch the film and a separate screen will appear in the corner to give you information about the scene that is playing). On the whole, all the special features point towards the care with which this production came to life and how much it has meant to legions of fans. There are even music videos by Linkin Park and Paramore. You tell me, what more could a bloodthirsty teenage girl want?

FILM

BD

BLU-REVIEW: NORTH BY NORTHWEST

2009-11-16T16:02:00.006-05:00

Written by Ernest Lehman
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason

In 1958, Alfred Hitchcock, considered by many in the industry to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest filmmaker of all time, released what many would also consider to be one of his greatest films off all time, VERTIGO. In 1960, Hitchcock released PSYCHO, perhaps his most infamous work. In between these two films, Hitchcock released one of his most stylish and ambitious projects, NORTH BY NORTHWEST. And with that, you have a period considered to be the most creative of his entire career.

While Hitchcock is often seen as larger than life, he is but a man, just like the man at the center of NORTH BY NORTHWEST, Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant). Thornhill, a fast-talking ad man in Manhattan thinks he’s flying high on life until the most mundane of events causes him to be mistaken for a man named Kaplan. From that moment on, he might as well be Kaplan as no one will believe him when he says he isn’t. As Thornhill suffers, ever so dashingly thanks to the debonair Mr. Grant, Hitchcock delights in every moment of it. In turn, his delight becomes ours.

NORTH BY NORTHWEST celebrates its 50th anniversary this year and Warner Bros. has released a newly restored version to commemorate not just this occasion but also Hitchcock’s HD debut. It has been packaged as one of their distinguished Blu-Ray books and the special features will please fans of the film while educating newcomers. There are two brand new behind the scenes features, one about the making of the film and one about the man behind the camera. Screenwriter, Ernest Lehman provides an insightful commentary track and Eva Marie Saint, Grant’s love interest in the film, gives you a first hand account of what it was like on the set. All of these special features and the handful of others I didn’t mention, are nothing in comparison though to the crisp restoration that ensures that NORTH BY NORTHWEST will go on to be appreciated for years to come.

Whether you’re on the edge of your seat during the airplane chase in the cornfield, completely taken with Grant And Saint’s playful exchange on the train or just plain floored by the magnitude of the climax on Mount Rushmore, there is no denying the place NORTH BY NORTHWEST holds in film history. It is iconic; it is memorable; and thanks to the genius that is Alfred Hitchcock, it is both a fine piece of cinema and also one heck of a good chase.

FILM AND BLU-RAY

Black Sheep @ The Box Office: 2012 Flattens the Planet

2009-11-15T13:47:00.003-05:00

The end of the world is a popular topic in film and television these days but no picture deals with it more directly or exploits our fear surrounding the subject more than 2012. I don't know what our fascination is with wanting to see potential scenarios for our demise but we are definitely fixed on it - 2012's $225 million global take is the 9th biggest in history. $65 million of that came from its domestic tickets, including my own. I caught the Roland Emmerich hit on Saturday morning and the theatre was packed. Did I mention it was morning? It must be bittersweet for Sony though. They have a huge hit on their hands but no possibility for a sequel.

If I were Oprah, I would be doin' a little dance right now. Her pet project, PRECIOUS, continued to devour everything in its indie path this weekend. After debuting to record breaking figures last week on just 18 screens, it managed to make the Top 5 on just 174 screens this weekend. Maintaining an excellent per screen average of $35K, PRECIOUS is redefining the traditional expectations of art house releases. As its wide release isn't even expected for another couple of weeks, it looks like PRECIOUS is going to be around for a while. Look out, Oscar!

The rest of the Top 10 saw a much needed strong hold for Disney's A CHRISTMAS CAROL, a significant loss of interest in MICHAEL JACKSON'S THIS IS IT and both PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and COUPLES RETREAT crossed the $100 million mark. The week's biggest per screen average went to a title outside the Top 10, despite the strong numbers posted by PRECIOUS and 2012. No, this week's highest per screen average was $65K and that was had by the wonderful, the tremendous, the FANTASTIC MR. FOX. Wes Anderson's first animated feature showed strong legs on four screens in NYC and L.A. and will try to steal away the rest of the country on Thanksgiving when it goes wide. Other indie successes this week include Oscar contender, THE MESSENGER ($12.5K on 4 screens) and AN EDUCATION continued to expand gracefully (a 24% increase on 37 new screens).

NEXT WEEK: Sandra Bullock shows off her southern side in THE BLIND SIDE (3100 screens) and PLANET 51 tries to pretend its a Pixar feature on 2600 screens but it doesn't matter. How could it when TWILIGHT: NEW MOON attacks over 4000 screens?

Source: BOX OFFICE MOJO

A PRECIOUS JOURNEY (part two)

2009-11-14T10:07:00.005-05:00

An interview with director, Lee Daniels and star, Gabby Sidibe

Now that PRECIOUS has started playing in limited release, I will finally get an answer to something I’ve been wondering since I saw it last September. Will audiences choose to see a film in theatres knowing that it will likely kick them in the gut repeatedly, leaving them bloody and bruised on the floor? It broke records on 18 screens last weekend and unrolls onto another 174 screens this weekend. Lionsgate plans to push it to 600 screens in time for Thanksgiving, a holiday that Precious herself would never have had the opportunity to experience.

It has been selling out screenings all week so the future looks bright. I am both pleased and relieved by this. The biggest impact PRECIOUS has on its viewer is to bring a mirror to the viewer’s face, exposing a layer of ignorance so deep that the viewer may not even be aware of it prior. Precious is the kind of girl one walks right past in the street while casually judging her weight and making presumptions about who she is as a person. PRECIOUS forces you to think about how every person has a story that brought them to precisely where they are. The film has the potential wake people up, to make them more open but we cannot see how closed we are if we never walk past her to begin with.

When asked how he did it, director, Lee Daniels, attributes this effect to one specific approach in his direction. “I just tried to capture moments of truth.” And the truth subsequently follows through on its promise to set things free.

These moments of truth depended on Daniels getting his cast to understand their characters’ truths and with a cast that consists of an unknown, a comedienne and a diva, that could not have been easy.

“I knew exactly what I wanted from every one,” Daniels answers when asked about the eclectic cast. “I knew when I hired them what I was going to get.”

I’m glad he knew because I would never have suspected that any of these actors were capable of pulling the sincerity from their souls that they did. In fact, I would never have necessarily referred to a couple of them as actual actors. Again though, it is about opening your mind and that is clearly what Daniels got them to do.

“Mr. Daniels and I had so many conversations about who this character was and that helped me get it,” Precious herself, Gabby Sidibe, admits when asked how she found this character. Her trust in her director was so strong she even refused to talk to the author of the original book, Sapphire, prior to filming. “I didn’t want any different direction about who this character was. The creator of this character, she really could have thrown me off.”

With that much trust in the captain, how exactly does he run his ship? “When I am doing a film, it is very much like a theatre piece,” Lee begins. “There are no egos except mine.” Having worked in theatre, I can attest that this is pretty much the only way it comes together but does Daniels seriously expect me to believe that Mariah or Mo’Nique left their egos at home?

“Mariah came with zero – no posse, no makeup – and she remained that way. She was putting makeup on Gabby. Mo’Nique was feeding people at the service table.” Daniels beams with pride as he tells me this. “It was a union nightmare but I believed that we were one. I think that’s the magic of the film.”

With material as difficult as this, I cannot imagine the cast not bonding. If anything, they would need to in order to just get through it all. Still, it could not have been an easy set to be on.

“The air was stale and shady sometimes,” admits Sidibe. “Most of the time, Mr. Daniels would call cut and we would laugh. With other scenes though, between takes we would just sit there and avoid eye contact.”

Daniels remembers it the same way but he seems as if part of him is still there. “I get transported back into just being there,” Daniels confides but not before getting choked up and noticeably emotional. “It was a very powerful thing, to just let the material speak for itself.”

So what is the secret formula to make something as tricky as this work so beautifully? “Anything to get the performance!” Daniels proclaims before getting specific about his technique. “I didn’t want tears at all. By not wanting tears, we got the truth. So by not directing them, I did direct them. I knew that if we were just in the moment, then it would happen.”

I will point out at this stage that there are plenty of tears in PRECIOUS. Daniels may not have asked for them but he still got them.

Mariah and Mo’Nique aside, Sidibe, the only actor coming in with zero experience, is perhaps his greatest achievement. The performance he pulled from her is so transformative that when I met her in person, I was myself floored by her outgoing personality. I never saw that coming.

“I don’t know if I can yet say that I am proud of myself because I can’t really see that yet,” Sidibe earnestly confides. “It feels like such a conceited notion to be proud of yourself. It is a completely different girl up there though.”

This whole other girl is changing the lives of everyone she comes in contact with. But has Precious and the subsequent whirlwind the film has been picked up into changed the girl who brought her to life?

“No,” Sidibe asserts by tacking on at least ten more O’s on the end of that word. “There are maybe ten days out of the year where I’m a big deal so this is still something big for me.”

Wait until you hear your name called out for an Oscar nomination, Gabby. Talk to me then.

It was a pleasure meeting both of these talented, appreciative people. I urge anyone who reads this to see PRECIOUS when it plays in your city. We all need to be set free.

A PRECIOUS JOURNEY (part one)

2009-11-12T17:37:00.008-05:00

Interviews with PRECIOUS director, Lee Daniels and star, Gabourey "Gabby" Sidibe

It didn’t always have this name. Back in 1996, when Claireece “Precious” Jones was first introduced to the world, it had another name altogether. Back then, it was a book and it was called “Push”. It was still called “Push” when its film incarnation debuted at the Sundance film festival in January of this year. In fact, it was still called “Push” when it went on to win both the audience and the critic’s award at that festival, a rare feat. It was only then that things changed. It had moved people; it had floored them. It was then that “Push” became “Precious”.

More specifically, the film adaptation of Sapphire’s acclaimed novel is called PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL “PUSH” BY SAPPHIRE. And to be fair, the name change did not come about because the new title was more emotionally evocative than the original. A superhero movie called PUSH that came and went pretty quick this spring owned the rights to that name so it was necessary to change it when Lionsgate came on as North American distributor at Sundance. I personally prefer the new title.

“Really? I was so hurt by the change.” This is the first thing that Gabourey Sidibe says to me when we meet at the Toronto International Film Festival. Things are off to a great start.

When a little known film producer named Lee Daniels first approached Sapphire about adapting the novel that meant so much to so many, she wanted nothing to do with him. It wasn’t until he had some concrete experience directing (his first feature was the critically panned, SHADOWBOXER, starring Helen Mirren and Cuba Gooding Jr.) that she even allowed herself to consider his request. Sapphire appreciated Daniels’ seemingly natural interest in difficult subjects – Daniels had previously produced THE WOODSMAN and MONSTER’S BALL – and figured him the best man for the job.

Once Daniels had the rights, he was not letting go of the direction he wanted to take. “I had fought so long to get to do PRECIOUS. I knew what I wanted and what I was doing. I didn’t care what anybody else said,” Daniels tells me when we meet at TIFF. “It was my book. It was my story.”

While this may at first sound somewhat arrogant, I assure you there is nothing remotely smug about Daniels. In person, he is self-effacing and clearly overwhelmed by the heaps of praise both he and the film have received. He is also warm, receptive and surprisingly candid, whether he is talking about the film, his cast or himself.

Daniels worked with first time screenwriter, Geoffrey Fletcher, to adapt Sapphire’s harrowing stream-of-consciousness novel. It was not easy. “If I had done the book the way it is written, it would be x-rated,” he proclaims rather starkly. “Sapphire’s book delves deep into the truth and stays there. Just when you think you can’t take it anymore, she just goes right back there.”

To alleviate some of the tension the novel manifests, which is not to suggest that Daniels and Fletcher sugarcoated any aspect of it, they included a fantasy world for Precious to escape to whenever necessary. This is the most significant departure from page to screen and, so far, enthusiasts of the novel have not had any major issue with the addition. Of course, everyone involved in the project wanted to honour the book and its fans. “Being a fan of the book, I just really, really wanted to get it right,” confides Sidibe, perhaps the person with the most pressure to perform after Daniels himself. “I wanted to stay true as a fan myself,” she continues. “I hate it when adaptations don’t get it right.”

To meet Sidibe in person is mind-blowing. How could this jovial, delightful girl have transformed herself into such an introvert? Sidibe landed this demanding role in what seemed to her like the blink of an eye. “There weren’t a lot of girls who met the physical requirements of the role,” she quips as if her weight, which was beefed up an extra seventy pounds prosthetically during filming, was the only reason she got the role. “Monday was the audition; Tuesday was the callback; Wednesday I got the part without having to audition again.” Sidibe had responded to an open casting call in Manhattan and prior to this, she had only appeared in some college theatre productions. She seemed destined for this part and now she is an Oscar front-runner. Not bad for her first role.

Destiny, whether that be a great personal triumph or a great tragedy, is central to PRECIOUS. And right now, it would seem that PRECIOUS is destined to reach many people and move even more. Of course, lots of movies move people on a regular basis but PRECIOUS is different. PRECIOUS is an experience that most infrequent filmgoers are unaccustomed to. It deals with illiteracy, poverty, abuse of all kinds, teen pregnancy and incest. When was the last time the masses came out for something like that?

Suddenly, the girl that everyone would walk right past in the street without noticing is the one that everyone wants to see. And who do we have to thank for that? Oprah, of course.

Oprah Winfrey and independent movie mogul, Tyler Perry, both signed on as executive producers after PRECIOUS premiered at Sundance. As a result, the attention the film is getting is almost deafening. It was honoured with standing ovations at Cannes. It won the Audience Award at TIFF. It broke records for limited releases when it hit theatres last weekend, pulling in nearly $2 million on just 18 screens. A Best Picture nomination is almost guaranteed.

How does this affect the director? “I am humbled by all of it,” Daniels states with sincerity and cracks in his voice. “I have to embrace this moment, savour it. That is ultimately what PRECIOUS is all about, appreciating what you have.”

Imagine, there’s only more greatness to come.

(Part Two of Black Sheep’s PRECIOUS feature will run tomorrow.)

Best of Black Sheep: PRECIOUS BASED ON THE NOVEL "PUSH" BY SAPPHIRE

2009-11-11T14:10:00.010-05:00

Written by Geoffrey Fletcher
Directed by Lee Daniels
Starring Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz

EDITOR'S NOTE:
By now, you have certainly heard about PRECIOUS. It is certainly connecting with people in an inspired fashion and Black Sheep Reviews will be taking a closer look at the Lee Daniels film over the course of the next few days. PRECIOUS has had an incredible journey and Black Sheep will break that down for you with interviews with the film's director and its star, Gabourey Sidibe. For now, here are my initial thoughts on the film when I caught it at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award.

Changing the name from “Push” to “Precious” was a smart thing for Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry to do after theysigned on as executive producers on this one. If there is one thing that Lee Daniels’ PRECIOUS does, it reminds you just how that word applies to life. No matter how bad you thought you might have it before you see this movie, you will think you’re living large by the time it is over. And the best thing about PRECIOUS is that it doesn’t ask us for our sympathy, it inspires it.

Newcomer, Gabby Sidibe, plays the title character. At 16 years old, she can barely read, she is seriously overweight and is pregnant with her second child. She lives with her mother (Mo’Nique), who sees her more as a means to get bigger welfare cheques and much less an actual daughter. She treats her with even less respect than that, if you can believe it. I am only scratching the surface here. Precious has problems that I cannot even imagine and the stark manner in which Daniels lets bomb after bomb drop on the Harlem circa 1987 setting not only shakes you out of your comfort with the film but also with yourself.

PRECIOUS boasts incredible performances from the entire cast – including smaller parts from The View’s Sheri Shephard and a completely stripped down Mariah Carey as a lowly cubicle social worker. (Diva even has a mustache!) It is the mother/daughter dueling between Mo’Nique and Sidibe that will be getting the most attention though and deservedly so. Their relationship is so strained but these two actors fill the wide space between them with complexities so deep that you are not comfortable being in the same room as both of them. Novice director, Daniels has guided some of the most unexpected and delicate performances of the year.

Ordinarily, modern human nature dictates that we should look away from such hardship – that matters like these are private ones and we have no business getting involved. Of course, this is just an excuse we tell ourselves so that we don’t actually have to get involved. PRECIOUS doesn’t allow you to look the other way though. More importantly, it reminds us that problems do not belong to one but to all and that everything is a gift of the universe.

Best of Black Sheep: IN THE LOOP

2009-11-10T09:36:00.002-05:00

Written by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Arnando Iannucci and Tony Roche
Directed by Arnando Iannucci
Staring Tom Hollander, Chris Addison, Anna Chlumsky and James Gandolfini

Michael Rodgers: No, you needn’t worry about the Canadians; they’re always happy to be there. They’re always surprised to be invited.

EDITOR'S NOTE: IN THE LOOP is by far one of the most hilarious films I have seen all year and it is now available to rent and own, courtesy of Alliance Films here in Canada. Not only is it hilarious but it is also biting and fearless politically. Oh, and it has some of the most outlandishly foul language I've ever heard on film. See this film! Here are the extras on the home video release:

Deleted Scenes
Audio Commentary with Cast and Director
Interview with Gina McKee and Chris Addison
Interview with Tom Hollander
Interview with Peter Capaldi
Interview with Director Armando Ianucci
Trailer
Webisodes

And now, here is my review from its theatrical release this past summer.

Pretty much everyone knows what it means to be in the loop and naturally, pretty much everyone wants to be there as often as possible. When it comes to the political players of British comedian, Arnando Iannucci’s first feature film, IN THE LOOP, people are falling in and out of the loop several times an hour. To watch them all scramble makes for two hours of absolutely hilarious political satire that not only exposes the buffoonery of both the American and British governments but also exposes the harsh realities that come to existence because no one seems to know what they’re doing.

That isn’t quite fair. Everyone in IN THE LOOP seems to know what they’re doing, well mostly. They’re just doing everything for their own gain without any regard for the people who elected them to be there. This isn’t exactly a revelation but the language in which Iannucci lets us in his own personal loop is certainly pretty close to revelatory. Never before have I heard such inspired, outrageous dialogue. For instance, I have never heard anyone referred to as a lubricated horse cock before. If you can handle the dirt, then IN THE LOOP will pull so many laughs from your gut that you will feel as though you have been doing crunches the entire time you’ve been watching it.

IN THE LOOP tells its own version of how the United States and Britain convinced (or conned, depending on how you want to see it) the United Nations that they could go to war in Iraq despite their objections. Granted, they are still there and people are dying so perhaps we shouldn’t be laughing this hard but that’s the great thing about satire when it is done right. It is not only sharp, brilliant and hysterical but it is also a scathing condemnation on war profiteering and personal gain at any expense. Iannucci has plenty of experience with the topic, having produced the British show, “The Thick of It”, which IN THE LOOP is based on, and he uses his expertise to cut through the superfluous so that he can kick hard where it truly hurts.

It pays to be those in the know. When the potential of the Iraq war was being talked up all over the news and Washington, those of us sitting at home were frustrated because we were simply not in that particular loop. We were being fed certain stories that were being used as justifications and even though none of it seemed to be based in any fact, we had to accept it for what it was because there was no way for us disprove any of it. IN THE LOOP finally gets us in there, even though it is making it all up as it goes along. That’s the funniest part though; they were making it all up back then too.

Black Sheep @ The Box Office: Christmas Comes Early ... Too Early

2009-11-08T13:17:00.008-05:00

It seemed promising enough on Friday. Robert Zemeckis's expensive remake of A CHRISTMAS CAROL, starring Jim Carrey, debuted strong, prompting some to expect a weekend take north of $40 million. The final tally came in around $31 million and begs the question, why? Could be that audiences aren't ready for Christmas just yet but it could also be that audiences are not connecting with Zemeckis's obsession with motion capture animation. His previous effort, THE POLAR EXPRESS, was hardly a resounding success and the word on A CHRISTMAS CAROL is that some of it works but it is just as cold and lifeless this time out with Carrey as it was with Tom Hanks. The past and present are pretty shaky for motion capture animation so unless the ghost of Christmas future has a few tricks in store, Zemeckis might have to go back to making movies the old fashioned way ... just once.

This week's big winner is a pleasant surprise. Yes, it won the Audience Award at this year's Toronto International Film Festival. Yes, Mo'Nique was on Ellen and Mariah did Larry King this week. And yes, Oprah has been telling all of her minions to see it for weeks now. Still, PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL "PUSH" BY SAPPHIRE is difficult movie to watch so it would naturally repel certain viewers. I'm happy to report that audiences in the four cities that it is currently playing in decided not to cower but to face the harshness head on. PRECIOUS earned over $1.8 million on just 18 screens in all of America. That makes its $100K per screen average a record breaker for an urban picture and one of the 25 greatest per screen averages of all time. It should be noted that the greater per screens are for lower screen counts, making PRECIOUS look even more impressive. Best Picture, here we come? (Note: Black Sheep's interview with the director and star is coming soon!)

There was a lot of other activity in the Top 10 and for the first time in while, it wasn't paranormal. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY did continue to hold up well though. I can't say I understand why now that Halloween is done with and everyone should know by now that it isn't anywhere near as scary as was suggested. Its continued success may explain why THE FOURTH KIND did not blow up, instead managing a respectable fourth place finish. Coming in ahead at number three was the George Clooney/Ewan MacGregor war farce, THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS. Adult films are harder and harder to sell and subsequently, the $13 million debut is considered to be a win for Overture. Neither film was able to take down MICHAEL JACKSON'S THIS IS IT. I finally caught that one this weekend and the theatre was definitely packed so Jackson's music is alive and well. I cannot say the same for Richard Kelley's follow-up to DONNIE DARKO, THE BOX. The film, which fizzled in sixth place, asks if you would take a million dollars if you knew someone random in the world would die. The answer: Nobody cares.

NEXT WEEK: PRECIOUS will expand slowly and Wes Anderson's first foray into animation, FANTASTIC MR. FOX, debuts on 4 screens. I caught it this week ... see it! PIRATE RADIO wants to dominate the airwaves on 900 screens but none of this matters. Nope because next week the world ends when 2012 debuts on 3000+ screens. It was nice knowing you.

SOURCE: Box Office Mojo

ABC: E is for EDWARD SCISSORHANDS

2009-11-07T13:22:00.007-05:00

EDWARD SCISSORHANDS
Written by Caroline Thompson
Directed by Tim Burton
Starring Johhny Depp, Winona Ryder, Dianne Wiest and Alan Arkin

I can’t say how many years it has been since I last saw Tim Burton’s EDWARD SCISSORHANDS but I can say that I wasn’t prepared to have it come over me the way that it did when I watched it again recently. There I was, just sitting in my living room alone one night, taking notes on this variation of the “Frankenstein” story, and before it ended, I was crying. I was fully moved by the palpable love that was emanating from my screen and then I remembered something … This is a Tim Burton movie and I’m overwhelmed with love. Hmmm …

In case you’re not familiar, this 1990 film, tells the story of Edward, a man-made man who was unfortunately unfinished at the time of the inventor’s death. He had a head, a heart and a soul but he had no hands. In their place, he had scissors. Having scissors for hands and no interaction with anyone for an undetermined amount of years left Edward detached from society and, without the reassuring touch of another human being, he felt incapable of connecting. He lived in peace, albeit lonesome, atop a hill in a mansion that overlooked this quaint suburban Burbank neighborhood, until one day, when none other than Peg, the Avon lady, knocked on his door. When Peg (Dianne Wiest) saw that Edward (Johnny Depp) needed so much more than cosmetics, she decided to take him home with her. What she didn’t anticipate was how a supposedly normal society would react to such a supposed freak.

Burton considers EDWARD SCISSORHANDS to be one of his most personal works and, when you consider it to be the birthplace of so many recurring Burton themes and motifs, it is easy to see why. Burton himself grew up in Burbank and, although I cannot personally attest to his accuracy in recreating it, I can certainly feel what it must have been like for such a unique artist to have grown up in this type of environment. Edward, with his pale skin, unkempt black hair and, well, scissors for hands, is at first the object of total fascination in this community that consists of cookie-cutter houses that vary in pastel exteriors. Inside these houses are men who all leave for work at the same every day and their wives, the originally desperate ones, who need the drama of the neighborhood to give their lives meaning. With everyone playing house, there is no room for different and no reference as to how to deal with it.

Being the outsider, being misunderstood, being dark and having people wrongly equate that with evil – these are all themes that Burton is obsessed with and certainly also themes that spring directly from his own experiences with society. EDWARD SCISSORHANDS allows him to put himself out there and allows the viewer to see what he presumes to be how a wider audience will react to him. And so, his expectation is that they will embrace and admire his differences at first but eventually come to revile him for them. A burst of excitement is all these rutted people crave but they learn quickly that they prefer the comfort that ruts also often offer. Of course, Burton’s onscreen representation is exaggerated by Depp. At this stage in his career, Depp was seen as merely a teen idol, which was not meshing with how he wanted to be seen or where he wanted his career to go. With his sweet face covered in makeup and scars, Depp was able to show audiences his Keaton-esque side – his humour, his empathy and his charm.

At one point, Edward is on a daytime talk show and one of the audience members asks him if he would have his scissors replaced by hands if that were possible. Edward doesn’t hesitate and says, “Yes.” But then, the lady in the audience points out, he would be just like everyone else, that there would be nothing special about him. This is where this unexpected Burton-esque optimism fills the screen. Peg, sitting next to Edward, says that he will always be special. In that moment, we are all Edward. We all have something unique about us that, if we cannot hide, ostracizes us from everyone else. When you live your life removed from everyone, you do not know the healing qualities of human touch. And when no one has touched you in a long time, you can lose the confidence to reach out and touch someone else. You may even think that you are not even capable of it.

Behind the scissors that keep everyone at a distance, Edward is just a man and, like any man with a sensitive heart, he simply wants to love. And what could be more lovely than the image of a young Winona Ryder spinning freely underneath the snow-like shavings of an ice sculpture that Edward is carving just for her? With EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, Burton shares this wonderful gift with his Edward, with his audience and with himself. Suddenly, the Burbank boy that always felt different knows what its like to touch the hearts of others.

Paranormal Goat Activity

2009-11-07T08:44:00.001-05:00

Ok, so I love this trailer. I thoroughly enjoyed THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS and actually thought that PARANORMAL ACTIVITY was one of the biggest disappointments of the year, a lame goat, if you will. That said, I am loving this mashup!

Best of Black Sheep: THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS

2009-11-02T17:23:00.005-05:00

I’m not sure what I was expecting considering the title. I can say that what I got from Grant Heslov’s new film, THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS, I could never have expected even if I tried. Heslov tells you right away that most of what you’re about to see is truer than you would think, which implies that at least some of what you’re about to see is a fat lie. What actually follows is so entirely ludicrous that it’s hard to imagine it as either made up or the truth. The other thing I wasn’t expecting before going in was laughing as hard and as often as I did.

Ewan McGregor is back in familiar territory as an earnest, likeable lead. He plays reporter and underachiever, Bob Wilton. His wife has just left him and he has, in turn, left the United States for Iraq. It is 2003 and he wants to prove to the world and himself that he is worth something by writing the best post-Iraq war feature ever written. He decides the best angle for his story is to be found with Lyn Cassidy (George Clooney). Cassidy, an army man himself, used to roll with the U.S. Army’s New Earth Division, a division based on the principal that peace is the only thing that can actually win a war and that takes from the paranormal studies to develop its weaponry and calls its top soldiers Jedi warriors. Cassidy himself is said to be able to stare at goats long enough to make their hearts stop. How the U.S. army could have funded any of this is beyond me but it was … or at least some of it was.

I’ll be honest; I am not sure whether Heslov is suggesting that this approach is just as nonsensical as the military methods that we’re familiar with now or that war makes no sense no matter what your plan of attack is. All I know is that when McGregor asks Clooney what a Jedi warrior is, the theatre erupts in laughter. Now, that’s using the force.

Best of Black Sheep: FOOD INC

2009-11-02T16:15:00.003-05:00

Written and Directed by Robert Kenner

“It looks like a tomato but it’s more of a notional tomato, the idea of a tomato.”

Editor's Note:
FOOD INC, one of the most compelling and essential documentaries of the year is now available on DVD courtesy of Alliance Films. The DVD release itself contains the following extras:

- Deleted Scenes
- Celebrity Public Service Announcements
- Resources
- ABC News Nightline "You Are What You Eat": Food With Integrity
- "The Amazing Food Detective" and "Snacktown Smackdown": Stay Active and Eat Healthy

Please take the time to check out this fantastic film. I know that knowing what you're really eating is frightening but it is also vital to your health. In the meantime, here is my review of the film from its theatrical release ...

If we are what we eat, then none of us are going to make it. FOOD INC is one of the scariest movies of the year and also one that will sadly not be seen by as many as it should. Our parents watch over us when we’re young and stop us if we are going to put something in our mouths that we shouldn’t, like gum we find on the floor or something equally bacteria ridden. And yes, these same parents would put the best possible food they could on the tables but no one wants to ask any questions about how this food actually got from the farm to the table. Whenever I have recommended to anyone that they see FOOD INC, the first thing they ask is if this is the kind of movie that shows us what we’re really eating. When I tell them it is, they want nothing to do with it. Apparently, when it comes to food, ignorance is bliss … with a big fat side of fries.

First time feature filmmaker, Robert Kenner has put together an important film that is actually a lot easier to chew and digest than you would expect. Watching FOOD INC is not going to make you lose your lunch. It will however open your eyes to what you really were packing for lunch. At first, Kenner had been working with author, Eric Schlosser, to make a documentary of Schlosser’s fascinating expose, FAST FOOD NATION. That was unfortunately made into a lackluster fictional work instead but now FOOD INC is the movie I always wanted FAST FOOD NATION to be. Schlosser is still on hand as an expert (whose favorite meal, ironically, is burgers and fries) but this film does not focus solely on the role fast food has played in the decline of our food production. Instead, it starts there and looks at the cleanliness of slaughterhouses, the conglomerate control of farming and the government bias that ensures that manufacturers are better protected than the consumers.

FOOD INC is not some prejudicial disparagement of the American food industry. In fact, it is almost forgiving of the corporate driven field as it states a number of times that the situation we find ourselves in today was likely unintended at the onset. Like other documentaries that cry out for change that will benefit humanity though, it offers little advice to go forward with. There are a number of suggestions at the close of the film of how we the little people can make a difference for our selves and for others but after seeing just how much excess fat we are already drowning in, it is hard to think that these suggestion truly will better future generations. Still, we must start somewhere and we should all start by seeing FOOD INC.

For a list of things you can do right now to improve how you eat, visit the film’s website.

Black Sheep @ The Box Office: The Saw Is Finally Dull

2009-10-25T14:23:00.004-04:00

It may not be too fair to say so but it would seem that the SAW series has finally warn out its welcome. Ordinarily, it isn't Halloween if it isn't SAW but the sixth installment of the consistently successful franchise pulled in less than half of what the fifth film did. The reason I say it may not be fair to send SAW to the grave just yet is because the SAW series has never had a force as monumental as PARANORMAL ACTIVITY to deal with in past years. This phenomenon added over 1100 screens this week and saw its earnings increase another 12% for a first place finish six weeks after its initial release. With Halloween coming next week, there is no question that the film will continue to haunt minds and multiplexes for at least the next little while.

Last week's champ, WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, suffered a non-too-surprising 55% drop, suggesting that fans have come and gone already and that it doesn't have the legs to really let loose. Still, it was the top family draw this weekend as audiences showed little interest in the animated big screen adaptation of ASTRO BOY, which landed hard in sixth place. That landing is nothing compared to the nosedive crash of AMELIA. The Hilary Swank Oscar bait missed out on the Top 10 entirely, coming in 11th place, with just over $4 million. Other notable films this week include continued success for the Coen Brothers' A SERIOUS MAN (12th place finish with a 34% increase), Chris Rock's documentary, GOOD HAIR (pulling in over $1 million on 460 screens), the delicate and lovely AN EDUCATION ($13K per screen average, more than any other film in release) and the not to be missed, THE DAMNED UNITED (115% increase on 36 screens). Finally, Lars Von Trier's latest, ANTICHRIST, debuted to an average of $12K per screen on just six screens and will expand next week. Speaking of which ...

NEXT WEEK: Nobody wants to get in the way of the king ... Michael Jackson's THIS IS IT is the only major release next week, hitting 3400 screens on Wednesday for a limited time. I don't know about you but I am very curious to see if this is really it finally.

SOURCE: Box Office Mojo

AN EDUCATION

2009-10-24T16:25:00.005-04:00

Written by Nick Hornby
Directed by Lone Scherfig
Starring Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina and Emma Thompson

Jenny: All that poetry and all those songs for something that doesn’t last long at all.

For a young lady in the 1960’s, options were slim. Girls went to school to learn about Latin and literature but also, and perhaps more importantly, to learn about posture and poise. Educated or not, a lady must be proper first and foremost and able to provide for her man as he sees fit. And if one of these fine girls also happened to show academic promise, then she could push herself as hard as possible to go on to higher learning. Unfortunately, all that would be waiting for her on the other side would be marriage or maybe a teaching job. There is really nothing wrong with either of those options but it does seem an awful lot of work to get there and one wonders why go through all the trouble. The understated beauty of Lone Scherfig’s AN EDUCATION is how it allows for life to do what it will regardless of chosen paths, schooling its characters and subsequently enlightening its audience.

Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is but 16. She is the only girl in her classes who seems to get anything at all and it isn’t long before she starts to see through it all. One day, while she waits for a ride in the rain, a strange yet handsome man of nearly twice her age (Peter Sarsgaard) pulls up alongside her to offer her a lift. He is witty and charming and their chemistry is almost instantly perfect. When she accepts his offer, she essentially goes against the number one rule enforced by all parents – never get in a strange man’s car. Naturally, it feels terribly wrong. Given his age, what could he possibly want from this girl? Still, he is dapper and has a wonderful way about himself. Mulligan is boisterous and beautiful in this breakout performance, one that will certainly get her some well deserved notice. And of course, Sarsgaard is easily likable as her suitor, David. Together, they just click and before long, the initial hesitation is set aside so that their love can be given a shot.

Natural reticence is part of what makes AN EDUCATION such an engaging experience. Jenny is precious. She has great potential and parents (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour) that, while strict, clearly hold her in the highest regard. And yet still, these educated people allow David to breeze into their home with his dashing good looks and pockets full of money and make them completely ignore his age and his intentions for their daughter. Her father will not allow her to enjoy anything on her own that doesn’t directly enhance her scholastic education but when a handsome man comes knocking, it would seem that marrying his daughter off, especially to someone so well to do, is a lot more affordable than sending her to Oxford. At the same time, Jenny is completely taken with the life of fancy that David offers and begins to see how being taken care of can be a lot easier than taking care of yourself.

Nick Hornby’s elegant screenplay poses a very familiar dilemma to the audience. What is more valuable – a formal and well rounded education in a class room or the kind of learning that only comes when experiencing life outside of the classroom? What makes this simple question so complex in AN EDUCATION is that it constantly forces you to reevaluate where you stand on the subject, subsequently reminding you that nothing is as simple as you think when love is involved. I learned a thing or two myself while I sat back and absorbed this masterful picture. The main lesson? AN EDUCATION, both the film and the arduous right of passage, are both well worth the time.

BLU-REVIEW: WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

2009-10-19T17:36:00.008-04:00

Watching a kids’ movie when you’re actually a kid is really something. Watching that same movie years later can be pretty risky. You could taint the entire memory by watching it with jaded, adult eyes. Or, if you want to see things more positively, maybe you get to escape your difficult adult life for a couple of hours and feel what it felt like to be a kid again. With WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, just re-released by Warner Home Video as a BD book, the experience offers a little from column A and a little more from column B. I don’t remember the oompa-loompas being quite so judgmental but I had also forgotten something infinitely more important – that anyone can find a golden ticket if they look for it.

The picture has been beautifully restored, allowing Mr. Wonka’s factory, made almost entirely of candy and chocolate, to burst with fruit flavour right off the screen. The budgetary and technological limitations that the production would have endured in 1971 are fairly evident now but the unbridled imagination of director, Mel Stuart, and writer, Roald Dahl, still shine through. As for the preachy lessons each little girl and boy learn along their journey from the little orange men who run Wonka’s factory, whether it be not to be a brat or not to watch too much television, they certainly can be a little jarring. That said, what does one expect from a film that was originally conceived to be a promotional tool to launch the new Wonka chocolate bar from Quaker Oats?

The BD book is naturally stunning. Each page explodes with colour and the content is a great surface read about the production and its players. Special features include a vintage featurette from the period about the film’s art direction as well as a new featurette that allows us to catch up with all the kids and of course, Mr. Wonka himself, the incredible Gene Wilder. The feature commentary track that reunites all the kids from the film is a little awkward but who needs that when all the songs have a sing-along option?

Who can take tomorrow, wrap it in a dream, suck out all the sorrow and collect up all the cream? You guessed it; the candyman can! And thanks to this new BD re-issue, the candyman can for generations to come.

FILM & BD FEATURES:

Black Sheep @ The Box Office: Number 1 Is Where they Are

2009-10-18T13:44:00.007-04:00

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE was originally slated for release in the spring of 2008. It was delayed until the fall of 2008 and then delayed again for a whole year because Warner Brothers and director, Spike Jonze, could not reach a place where they were both happy with the film. Maurice Sendak's book is considered to be one of the most popular children's books of all time and Warner Bros. was afraid that Jonze's stark interpretation was too real to appeal to kids. Once again, the little guys have been underestimated.

Warner's worries were appeased on Friday when WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE pulled in $12.1 million, a record one-day gross for a live-action picture in October. The film polled an A- grade from filmgoers and the love was spread across the weekend, allowing Jonze's third film to easily surpass its competition and become its own king. The second place was nowhere near the $32.5 million gross WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE pulled in but it was an interesting race regardless. In a tight race, the win went to LAW ABIDING CITIZEN - the one where Gerard Butler takes on the judicial system and Jamie Foxx from inside prison. Just another unbelievable premise that was seen by another unbelievable amount of people. Giving Butler and Foxx a run for their money was the third place, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. Up another 155% this week after adding 600 more screens. That scorching $26K per screen average suggests that come next weekend, this Halloween may not be about SAW at all. The very happy people at Paramount will be bumping the theatre count up to about 1800. The only other debut this week, THE STEPFATHER, was met with about as little interest as I met my real-life stepfather with, pulling in just over $12 million for a fifth place finish.

Below the Top 10, two emerging Oscar contenders continued to perform well in limited runs. Both the Coen Brothers' A SERIOUS MAN and AN EDUCATION saw solid increases as their expansions proceeded. COCO AVANT CHANEL and THE DAMNED UNITED enjoyed solid holds on their audiences but showed no signs that a wide release would amount to anything. And NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU, a collection of short films inspired by the similar project, PARIS JE T'AIME, failed to excite anyone the same way the city itself does, pulling in an average of $3K on approximately 115 screens. New York, we love you but we see you on screen enough as it is, I think.

NEXT WEEK: SAW VI looks to get the early jump on Halloween as it slices its way onto 3000 screens. Opening with a similar theatre count, the big screen adaptation of ASTRO BOY. In case you aren't tired of vampires yet, you can catch John C. Reilly and Selma Hayek in CIRQUE DU FREAK: THE VAMPIRE'S ASSISTANT (2750 screens). And in case you aren't tired of Hilary Swank appearing in Oscar bait yet, you can catch her turn as Amelia Earhart in AMELIA (800 screens).

SOURCE: Box Office Mojo

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

2009-10-18T10:32:00.008-04:00

Written by Spike Jonze and David Eggers
Directed by Spike Jonze
Starring Max Records, Catherine Keener and Mark Ruffalo
Voices by James Gandolfini, Catherine O’Hara, Forest Whitaker, Chris Cooper and Lauren Ambrose

Judith: Happiness isn’t always the best way to become happy.

It’s been a fair amount of time since I was a young boy. Fortunately for me, it has not been so long that I have grown past the age where I can get completely lost in the wonderful world of Spike Jonze’s WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. Jonze must have had to fight his own wild beasts during his lengthy and tumultuous journey to bring the 1963 Maurice Sendak classic picturebook to such exquisite life. Originally due to be released in the spring of 2008, Jonze had to fight the studio to make the film he wanted and believed in when it was being criticized for being too dark a work to be considered a family film. A year and a half later, Jonze has made a film that both parties are happy with and, while it still may be too dark to play to the littler ones, WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE is a modern family classic in every possible sense.

In the original Sendak tale, Max (played here by the precocious boy with the power name, Max Records) is sent to bed without supper for being bad. From there, he escapes to another world complete with a monster community that he incorporates himself into quite nicely. When his adventures are over, he returns home to find a plate of food waiting for him by his bed. At under 500 words, it’s pretty sparse but Jonze, alongside AWAY WE GO co-writer and novelist, David Eggers, has transformed WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE into a contemporary exploration of how a child might deal with the changing face of his family and finding a way to fit in it. Max’s Mom (Catherine Keener) still sends him to bed without supper for acting up but his wild outburst now has context and his adventure offers a healing that stretches past the troubled boy to touch the inner child of anyone watching.

The wild things themselves are mostly giant, furry monsters and precisely where Max stumbles upon them is never pinpointed but, once he gets there, he declares himself king and rightfully so. After all, this place is essentially inside his head and even with the wild things running, well, wild in there, he is still aware enough to know that he is in charge of all these extensions of his own personality. Max’s family issues are mirrored in Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini), a monster with his own difficulties keeping his rage in check. Whether the monsters and Max are trying to build a perfect living space or whether they are just pouncing on top of each other in one big giant pile, they are doing things together and the conversations that take place in between are simple musings, not unlike those that Max might have with himself in his mind. Never do Max’s two worlds resolve each other perfectly but nor could one live without the other.

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE is simply unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The screenplay is elegant and uncomplicated; its ferocious beauty is matched only by the magnificence of its aesthetic. With the help of two-time collaborator and handheld guru, Lance Acord, Jonze creates a world that is at times tender and warm while at others, frightening and fragile. Who would ever expect a family film to be so visceral, let alone so disarming? Learning to accept your family, or even life, as it is can be difficult at any age but leaning into it brings security and tames the wildness of the mind. Perhaps we all could stand to learn a lesson from Max and get a little wild when needed instead of always quieting what needs to get out. While WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE may be lost on the truly young, it will not be lost on the young at heart.

CONTEST: FESTIVAL DE NOUVEAU CINEMA (MONTREAL)

2009-10-14T14:33:00.005-04:00

Montreal's Festival de Nouveau Cinema is well underway and the good folks at the festival want to give Black Sheep readers the opportunity to see two of the more buzzed about films playing in the next couple of days. Be the first person to contact me at joseph.belanger@gmail.com with the name of the film you want to see and your name will be added to the guest list for the screening. The pass is for two.

Here are the film details (synopses provided by the festival):

Trash Humpers @ the Imperial, 15 October 21h30Harmony Korine | U.S.A. | 2009 | 78 min. | English

Three very strange old men (of the dim, coarse grotesque type devoted to frantic idiocy) go about their usual pastimes. What kind of pastimes, you ask? Well, what they like most is dirty stuff. Particularly dumpster fucking. They also like poetry, murder, doing wheelies on bikes, while dragging dolls, obese hookers singing “Silent Night”, and wondering if the world would be a better place if people were headless. OK, so like it or not, could these guys be on to something?

Eccentricities of a Blond Haired Girl @ the Imperial, 16 October 18h00
Manoel de Oliveira | Portugal, France, Spain | 2009 | 63 min. | Portuguese (s.t. English)

Luisa, young and blonde, sits at her window in Lisbon holding an exotic Chinese fan. Across the street, working in his uncle Francesco’s office, Macário watches her and falls under her spell. He immediately makes up his mind to marry her. But between the romantic dream of this innocent young man and the reality, there are miles to go and much to learn, not the least of which is the discovery that one should always be wary of mysterious, young, blonde women. Adapted from a short story by realist writer Eça de Queiroz, the Portuguese Consul-General in Paris in 1888, Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl is a timeless, moral tale told with effortless and arresting simplicity. Director Manoel de Oliveira, now 100 years old, offers his charming and mischievous musings on love elegantly recounted with beguiling twists and turns and just the right touch of fantasy.

Black Sheep would like to thank the Festival de Nouveau Cinema for this great opportunity and should you need any more information about these films or any of the other fantastic films still left to screen, check out the festival website. The Festival de Nouveau Cinema runs until Sunday, October 18.

Black Sheep @ The Box Office: The Sheep Retreats

2009-10-12T09:04:00.002-04:00

I am in Montreal, visiting my family and friends for Thanksgiving, the Canadian one. Therefore, there will be no official box office report this week. Just a brief message to ask the filmgoers what is exactly wrong with them? Hollywood throws a bunch of oafish funny men and their pretty wives with whiny, pathetic problems into a tropical paradise so that they can complain about being there and you all run in droves to buy tickets to see COUPLES RETREAT. Bad moviegoers, bad. Meanwhile, last week's champ, ZOMBIELAND, which I hear is kick-ass, held up well, as did fellow Sony holdover, CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS, which I did finally see this weekend and did not stop laughing practically the entire way. Even last week's disappointments, THE INVENTION OF LYING and WHIP IT and FAME have capitalized on decent word of mouth to manage nimimal declines. Michael Moore's CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY couldn't seem to capitalize on anything. If you haven't seen the TOY STORY double feature, do it soon, as it is only in theatres until Thursday and, having seen it yesterday, I can tell you it is a real nostalgic treat and has been restored to greatness. The big story of the week though in the Top 10 is clearly PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. This horror flick reportedly cost $11K to make and this week pulled a per screen average of four times that on just 160 screens and has now pulled in over $8 million. Below the Top 10, Chris Rock's documentary, GOOD HAIR and TIFF success, THE DAMNED UNITED, had solid but not groundbreaking starts. COCO AVANT CHANEL and A SERIOUS MAN pursued their successful expansions. And Oscar hopeful, AN EDUCATION took in an average of $40K per screen, schooling everyone else on how it's done.

NEXT WEEK: Cheap thrillers, THE STEPFATHER and LAW ABIDING CITIZEN open on 2700 screens each but the biggie and the one I cannot wait for is Spike Jonze's WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, getting wild on over 3500 screens.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Source: Box Office Mojo

Remembering the year 2005

2009-10-11T10:02:00.005-04:00

CRASH
Written by Paul Haggis and Robert Moresco
Directed by Paul Haggis

NOTE: This article has spoilers aplenty and should not be read by anyone who has not seen the movie.

I can still remember the feeling of my stomach dropping when Jack Nicholson announced that the 2005 Best Picture Oscar was being awarded to Paul Haggis’s CRASH, and not the frontrunner, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. I wasn’t the only one either who was floored; you could here the jarred pause in Nicholson’s voice when he announced it. The signs were pointing in that direction throughout the evening. First, CRASH took Best Editing, the only award it won that I genuinely feel it warranted, keeping all those simultaneously told stories in check and well balanced. Then it came along and took Best Original Screenplay. I say took but I really mean robbed considering there were three better screenplays that should have won (Woody Allen’s MATCH POINT, George Clooney and Grant Heslov’s GOODNIGHT AND GOOD LUCK and Josh Olsen's A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE). After those two wins combined with the previous win for Best Ensemble Cast at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, taking it all became a serious possibility. After it happened, the guests at my Oscar party could seriously see I was disappointed, distraught even. I popped Gustavo Santaolalla’s BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN score and began picking up after the mess.

It’s not that I don’t care for CRASH. I was just as mortified when Matt Dillon had his hands up Thandie Newton’s dress and just as gripped when he had to rescue her from her burning vehicle the next day. I was just as devastated when that adorable little girl was shot and just as exalted to witness the man-made miracle that allowed for her to survive. CRASH is not without its merits. Incredibly powerful scenes made all the more poignant by often surprising turns by Dillon, Newton, Terrence Howard and Michael Pena. To call it Best Picture though meant ignoring its condescending and manipulative storytelling techniques in favor of the ignorance it so aggressively draws to the surface. Of course race, prejudice and hatred are just as relevant now as they always have been despite the advances made, but Haggis, and I doubt he did it intentionally, preys on his viewer by using the inherent ignorance in each of us to make the film seem superior and revelatory.

CRASH takes place in a rough 24-hour period. In that period, a handful of Los Angeles inhabitants from all walks of life experience so much suffering that you would think the end of the world had arrived. Now, all that transpires is certainly possible but too darn convenient for me to swallow. Newton and Howard are seriously abused by a racist police officer (Dillon) one night and the next day, she ends up in a massive car accident and he ends up in a carjacking that turns into a run-in with the law. I bet the “Honey, how was your day?” conversation between those two had to be impressive after that. And imagine when Newton reveals that Dillon had to save her from the car and Howard is flabbergasted because Dillon’s partner (Ryan Phillippe) from the night before ended up saving his ass earlier that day. The scene between Newton and Dillon in the car cannot work as effectively if the previous scene they share doesn’t happen first but the odds are too overwhelming for me to accept. If this storyline stood on its own then perhaps it would be easier but taken with everything else, it all just feels as though Haggis is moving the pieces on the board one at a time to make the game play out as he needs instead of how it might.

The other writing technique that infuriates me more and more with further viewings of CRASH is the way Haggis delights in playing with his viewer’s ignorance. Larenz Tate and Ludacris walk down a trendy L.A. street at night and debate racial complacency and prevalence in modern society. They look like thugs but everything they’re saying about contemporary attitudes toward race make so much sense to me and must naturally appeal to my white liberal sensibility. It is so obvious that Haggis wants us to sympathize with these poor black guys who can’t get a break. Consequently, we are also supposed to feel disdain for Sandra Bullock and Brandan Fraser as they walk past in their fancy outfits toward their expensive car. Not because their combined acting performances cannot amount to anything more than embarrassment (which might explain why they are the least featured characters in the ensemble) but rather because they judged these fine, young gentlemen by the colour of their skin as they walked past them. They assumed that they look like thugs and therefore must be. Imagine the audience’s shock and disgust with themselves when the thugs actually are thugs and they steal the white people’s cars. Haggis spends all this time exposing the audience’s ignorance in hopes of opening their eyes to it but he finishes by simply reinforcing the stereotypes and insulting my intelligence.

I am aware that I am gay and I am siding with the gay-themed film but BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN had won nearly every major award leading up to the Oscars and was considered a near-lock. The win for CRASH only shows me that the mainstream Academy was not ready to bestow accolades so publicly on a gay-themed film. Not to mention, that as a gay man, I am still a minority, just an invisible one. This can get pretty ugly sometimes when people don’t censor themselves because they don’t realize that we are among them. I suffer prejudice; I am still fighting for some basic human rights because I am still seen as less than human. It is exactly this kind of hatred that makes it impossible for the characters in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN to experience the love they are so obviously meant to. It is also the exact kind of hatred that CRASH tries so hard to bring to light but yet shines no light on the plight of the gays because theirs is not a racial issue. It still sure feels that way sometimes. As for the love that BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN fights so hard to foster, troubled or not, the characters in CRASH still get to have that and don’t even see for a second how fortunate they are for that opportunity. Despite this, they choose to live in their misery and all any of them can seem to do is blame everything bad in their lives on race.

Black Sheep’s 2005 Top 10

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, Directed by Ang Lee
CAPOTE, Bennett Miller
THE CONSTANT GARDENER, Fernando Meirelles
GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK, Grant Heslov
A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, David Cronenberg
MARCH OF THE PENGUINS, Luc Jacquet
MATCH POINT, Woody Allen
MUNICH, Steven Spielberg
MYSTERIOUS SKIN, Gregg Araki
THE SQUID AND THE WHALE, Noah Baumbach
WALK THE LINE, James Mangold

A SERIOUS MAN

2009-10-09T10:19:00.007-04:00

Written and Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen
Starring Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Fred Melamed and Sari Lennick

Larry Gopnick: It’s not always easy to decipher what God is trying to tell us.

Let alone deciphering, it isn’t always that easy even hearing what God is trying to tell us most of the time. Imagine trying to hear God speak to you when you walk in the house at the end of an incredibly long day, only to hear your trouble-making son complain about how the television reception is off, your daughter complaining about how the uncle that is staying with you never leaves the bathroom so that she can do her hair and your wife, after barely acknowledging your presence, asking when you’re going to make that appointment with the divorce lawyer. This is Larry Gopnick’s life, as told by Joel and Ethan Coen in their latest and most personal film, A SERIOUS MAN. Clearly, God is trying to tell Larry something about his life but with the Coen’s playing God, it isn’t the least bit surprising that there is nothing clear about it at all.

A SERIOUS MAN takes place in 1967 in the suburban Midwest. This would be about the time and place that the Coen’s were coming into their own as young men. Larry, his eclectic family and his neighbours were inspired by a pastiche of the adults that surrounded the young filmmakers during that time. And while this is without question their most personal work, it is by no means an autobiography of their own family. What it is, is a morality tale about one man, who could be any man, and his test in life. Yes, this man is a serious man; he tries to do right by others and himself and for him, this is the definition of taking life seriously. How can we take life this way though when there are so many factors beyond our control and how can we then turn to God for both guidance and blame?

The Coen’s here delight in taunting the powers that be in a day when people are looking for answers from powers as vague and as vast as the universe itself. The story is set long before these days but we cannot help but watch from our current perspective. Adding an extra layer of existentialism is the devout Judaism of almost the entire cast. The film opens with a tale of a couple who inadvertently invite a dybbuk (the soul of a dead person) into their home, subsequently cursing their family for eternity. It isn’t confirmed whether Larry Gopnick is a direct descendent of these two but with everything he has to go through, you’ve got to assume he must be. The deep roots that ground Judaism in tradition and bond its people to each other and to their God don’t necessarily provide answers as welll and while this could be interpreted as criticism, it feels more like a sympathetic and jovial send-up instead.

At the center of it all, there is an ordinary man going through an extraordinarily difficult time that he cannot seem to take control of regardless of the efforts he makes. The Tony-nominated stage actor, Michael Stuhlbarg, cements that center with a remarkably memorable performance. His face may be weathered but it is also one of genuine earnest that is increasingly more stupefied with every new burden he must bear. His misfortune inspires both sympathy and big laughs, proving that we all know that life is hard; that we’ve all been there to some extent and that if we were lucky enough to get out of there, we can look back and laugh. And try as he might to be that serious man at all costs, the one lesson that Larry cannot seem to grasp is that no matter how hard we fight, maybe some of us are just plain cursed to begin with.

Black Sheep presents: The Belanger Brothers vs. The Coen Brothers

2009-10-08T08:45:00.005-04:00

PART FOUR: O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?

Joseph:
I suppose it is somewhat fitting that our final Coen Brothers face-off is about O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? This is not just because I find myself asking that question most times we talk about film in general but also because one of the film's major themes is brotherhood. I was not a fan of this one when it first came out but I have to say that I enjoyed it a lot more this time around. I won't suggest that this is a film for all. It is intentionally and often overly symbolic and it takes itself very seriously, sometimes far too much so. That said, it has a peaceful tone to it. If you read it like one big Homer-style odyssey, then it is a lot easier to enjoy the journey, no matter how lost it may seem at times. Oh, and to properly honour the film, I was sure to download the soundtrack when I was done watching. In fact, I'm listening to it now. Go ahead; mock me.

Matthew:
I wasn't going to mock you at all. The soundtrack is one of the best soundtracks to a film ever. I loved the music. Just thinking about the movie I have "Down to the River" in my head. For me it was tough to watch this movie. Setting the Odyssey in modern day seemed completely out of place and made this movie look like a poorly made fantasy/bank robbery/escape movie. It just seemed all over the place. Lost doesn't even seem to cover what this movie felt like. I enjoyed a few scenes, but this is not even close to being a good movie.

Joseph:
I find it funny that you would call the turn of the last century to be modern times but I suppose it is in relation to when Homer walked the earth. I have to agree with you; the setting is awkward and does not always come across the way it should. The Coen's were stubborn with this project. They tried to make something work when they might have known it wasn't. That said, I think that the scenes that do work, which is a good deal of them - the baptism by the lake, the sirens song, the Big Dan scene - make it functional, if not fully. What you need to carry you through this film is something to follow as a leader and as George Clooney is not strong enough in this film to do that, I chose to follow their unintended path - pursuing a treasure blindly because it is a seemingly easier score when there are already riches in their lives that they just don't see.

Matthew:
"Riches in their lives..." I almost gagged when you said this. All you need is love, blah blah blah. Hippy. They were unwashed and running from the law. A little money would have been good. Anyways, I did enjoy the Big Dan scene. The thing is, when it comes down to it, this movie isn't worth the memory it's taking up in my head. If I'm going to watch a quirky fantasy movie set in more modern setting, I'll watch THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN. Much more enjoyable film.

Joseph:
For one, all you do need is love but that wasn't what I was talking about when I referred to riches. I simply meant that while they are focused on a treasure, the Soggy Bottom Boys could be raking it in. You see? They had the treasure all along; they were just going about it all wrong.

Matthew:
The Soggy Bottom Boys make them sound like a tag team of bed-wetters. That would have made for a better movie.

Joseph:
O Brother ...

Black Sheep would like to thank Matthew Belanger for putting his disgust for the Coen's aside and participating in this series. That's my little brother y'all!

Come back tomorrow for a full length review of the Coen's latest film, A SERIOUS MAN.

Black Sheep presents: The Belanger Brothers vs. The Coen Brothers

2009-10-07T08:46:00.005-04:00

PART THREE: THE BIG LEBOWSKI

Matthew:
So when we talked about FARGO, I mentioned that it was one of the most overrated movies of all time. THE BIG LEBOWSKI is the other one. I always compare this movie to SCARFACE. Wait for it. SCARFACE and THE BIG LEBOWSKI have some great quotes to them. Some of the most quotable movies ever. But that's all they've got. When I talk to fans of the movie and tell them how much I don't care for it, their usual response is something like: "The Dude abides." I do enjoy the two John's (Goodman and Turturro) in this movie. I think they made their scenes entertaining. But I don't care to watch some useless layabout strive to do nothing and fail at that (and life) for two hours. The Matt does not abide this. The Dude is up there with Ernest (Ernest Goes to Camp) and Freddie (Freddie Got Fingered) as one of the stupidest characters of all time.

Joseph:
Yes, to think about The Dude for any lengthy period of time would lead you to think he is a waste of space. Coen characters are often those without voices though. You might argue that they don't deserve voices but in this day when everybody has a voice online, why shouldn't The Dude? That said, I don't feel that THE BIG LEBOWSKI ages well. I am not laughing as hard as I did when I first saw it but maybe the drugs I'm taking aren't as strong as they were when I first saw it either. This is a Coen Brothers stoner flick, which is to say I guess, an artsy stoner flick and I think, once the buzz wears off and the smoke has cleared, there may not be so much art to speak of waiting. Premise-wise, it is still a hilarious mistaken identity caper.

Matthew:
Why shouldn't the Dude have a voice? Because he doesn't want one. He wants nothing. He just wants to drink white russians and bowl. Which, sounds like a decent existence to some of this movie's cult following, but is a waste of space both in this world and on the DVD shelf. You call it a hilarious mistaken identity caper. Why? They have the same name. Are these gangsters from FARGO? Can they not think a little harder and realize that this might not be the right guy? I once lived on the same street as another Matt Belanger. That Matt Belanger has a blemish on his credit which showed up on my credit report. You know how long it took to clear up? 5 minutes. The only reason these storylines work is because the Coen Brothers live in a cartoon world where you don't need actual thought. I feel like Beavis and Butthead have not only been allowed to make movies but are considered brilliant for doing it. I feel like when these guys aren't directing they're just banging their heads against a wall and calling it brainstorming!!

Joseph:
Isn't that part of the point though? The Dude wants nothing to do with anything. He just wants to bowl and get stupid peacefully but life will not leave him alone. Sometimes life shines its light on those who would rather stay in the dark and that is what the Coen's have done with The Dude. He is a reluctant hero, which I suppose can be off putting to someone like yourself, who likes his heroes to smile, show up and want to be there, but that just isn't always the way life works. Yes, the plot could have been nipped in the very beginning but The Dude keeps it going by demanding compensation for his poor pissed-on rug. I agree that the Coen's take some elaborate liberties in this one but this doesn't come from banging their head on the wall ... "bonging" their heads against the wall is more likely.

Matthew:
I have no problem with a reluctant hero or one that doesn't smile. Some of the best heroes never smile. Jack Bauer. Batman. Bilbo Baggins. I have a problem with a hero that doesn't think. I have a problem with calling him a hero at all. This movie doesn't even deserve this much attention.

Joseph:
I don't think The Dude would want to be called a hero either but here we are. And you may noth think it deserves it but it's gotten this much attention and then some. THE BIG LEBOWSKI remains a favorite amongst Coen Brother fans. Can they all really be wrong?

NEXT: O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?