REVIEW: Juno, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

JUNO
Directed by Jason Riteman
Starring Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman



There is something so irresistible about the film's titular character- smart, witty and engaging, this is a movie that wraps around your head with pitch perfect dialogue and all-natural performances.
Juno, the film's titular character, finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy after a night with her boyfriend Paulie Bleeker.
I always thought that for a movie of this caliber to really capture its audience, it needed a great plot. This movie scoffs chewed popcorn kernels at that concept and steps on it like a half-dead cockroach. Throughout the span of the film, one tends to get lost in the fluidity and magic of the film's magical scenes, one then tends not to realize that as a story it was really plain out simple.
It's not to say it isn't good, if anything the simplicity and straightforwardness of the plot helps establishes the natural feel of the film, each character feels alive and human and every actor delivers their line as the cinema equivalent of a pitch-perfect Opera Singer.
Which leads us to Ellen Page who, like that little kid that belly, popped out of nowhere. Last I saw of her was in X-men The Last Stand as the invisible Kitty Pryde, and she was exactly that- invisible. No one had any idea how much talent she had and in this movie she plays with the character so much, I half expected to find Juno right beside me scoffing at the silly kids on the screen. She has a big future ahead, and the Oscar nomination is well deserved.
This movie is the gentle, sweet and just plain honest movie everyone has been talking about and no wonder too, this movie is the dark horse of this year's Oscar race and Juno is swinging out some really fast punches, just like her quick one-liners.
Oh and the soundtrack rocks. Really, I've never heard music so enchanting yet charmingly unique.

9 out of 10

SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET
Directed by Tim Burton
Starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bohman Carter and Alan Rickman


Boy am I glad we get these tiny little razors these days.
This bloody spectacle of a musical has been pulling off heads for quite some time now and it encompasses this year's great musical achievement. Hairspray had spunk, but Tracy doesn't hold half a meter against Johnny Depp's spectacular turn as the throat-slitting Sweeney Todd.
After watching several Tim Burton films, one tends to catch on the style pretty quickly. The dark quirky sets, the playfully grim characters and the funny morbidity of just plain everything. This movie takes a turn though for old Tim Burton, for while the movie does have quirky fun with itself from time to time, this is a movie about pure vengeance and murder. The cinematography just screams such with the nearly black and white vision with huge splashes of bright crimson blood spatter; the film produces a daringly twisted vision of Stephen Soddenheim's 1976 musical.
You won't see fun dance numbers here, instead you get sweeping spectacles of blood, gore, drama, riveting melodic sequences of human tragedy and evil. All these are set in some of the best set designs I've seen in quite some time. The grandeur of the sets and costume alone are worth the ticket price. Add in Johnny Depp's best character since Jack Sparrow and you have Tim Burton's best film since Edward Scissorhands, which ironically starred Johnny as well.
The actors are not the best singers in the world, but their presence carries well on screen and they demand attention with each scene, from nostalgic solos to quirky musical conversations. This movie fills itself with enough blood and gore to put the blood bank out of commission, and the darkness of the film vibrates with every line.
This movie is Burton film-making at his finest and already I'm disappointed at just how snubbed it was in the Oscars. This is a masterpiece, and by far the best Musical yet since Chicago.

9.3 out of 10

REVIEW : Sweeney Todd

REVIEW: National Treasure The Book of Secrets, The Golden Compas (film), His Dark Materials (book)

NATIONAL TREASURE: THE BOOK OF SECRETS
Directed by John Turtletaub
Starring Nicholas Cage, Diane Kruger, Hellen Mirren, Jon Voight, Ed Harris and Justin Bartha



Take the formula of the first film, add in another ludicrous plot, and what you have is a mediocre adventure filled with romping fun, nice little chuckles but really nothing much else.

Which is just about everything that can be said of this film, and it's first movie as well for that matter. It's been a few years since Dan Brown started a world-wide craze for Historical thrillers and nothing after his two Robert Langdon books, movie or book, has been up to par (including the film interpretation of the Da Vinci Code). This film is no exception and while others actually want you to take a serious look into their historical pedigree, doing so with this film would be a complete waste of time.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, because chances are with the way this film bounces from one clue to another, the film makers themselves are completely aware of the plot's silliness and just play along with it. If you want to get your money's worth, I suggest you play along as well, otherwise you'd be taking more trips to the bathroom than you'd initially thought you would.

When it came to the actual acting, there was nothing wrong, though nothing quite brilliant as well. The on-screen interaction between Jon Voight and Hellen Mirren are lovable but not original, and one just can't help but like the quirkiness of several of the characters.

Overall, everything about this movie just screams goofiness, and the plain result is that it's a pretty silly film. Fun -yes, well made- no. There is potential in the Family Gates adventures, but right now they just tapped out all sense of hope for a better portrayal from it. Oh well, no big loss there.

6 out of 10

THE GOLDEN COMPASS
Directed by Chris Weitz
Starring Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Sam Elliot and Dakota Blue Richards


When I first heard of this project I was fairly optimistic. It had a good cast, lots of great names. I had also been terribly missing the good old days when there was a Lord of the Rings film coming out every December. And while no Fantasy films have yet matched in scale and brilliance, there have been solid ones, such as The Chronicles of Narnia and even the Harry Potter films have started to suck less with each film. Of course, there were apprehensions, for every Narnia or LOTR film made, there's an Eragon or Dark Seeker, films with no sense ambition and largely fails in any way to give the audience a compelling world.

I then banked quite a lot of hope on this movie. The trailer did nothing to enhance that hope, but I'm pretty stubborn. I love the Fantasy genre and Jackson's return with The Hobbit is still a long while off.

I have to say then that I am extremely disappointed, though I would be lying if I were to say that I didn't expect this one way or another.

The film is a complete mess of plotlines, and while the book may have juggled quite a bit of these as well, it did so with linear ease. This movie just seems rushed at best, and its best as well not to say the worst. Each scene seems to be a simple excuse to get to the next one and as a result, the film falters on stunning variety of levels. The script for instance draws none of the magic that Philip Pullman did with the novels. And while I understand that many plot points had to be changed for filming sake, some of the changes just seemed to do a whole lot more damage than it did good.

As for the big talents in the roster? Well they're all there, just not as big as one would hope. While the director failed to pull of any coherent story out of the film, he also fails to put to any good use many of the stars here. Kidman is effective, though nothing special. Craig is invisible (though to be fair so was Asriel in the books), Elliot is wily and good, Eva is set piece and Christopher Lee has just ONE freaking scene (another proof that they had absolutely no idea how to go around with the film) . If anything, the best performance were the Daemon voices, particularly that of the always great Ian McKellen, who embodies the only god thing coming off this film.

Armored Bears. Lots of them.

But once these cool behemoths stop smashing stuff, everything is as dull as ever. Even the bears are strangely feel only as a filler.

There was a whole line of controversy surrounding this film. I find it ironic that the Church is now laughing their heads of now that they've discovered that there really was nothing to worry about. If any sort of anti-Catholic argument was to be spread out by a film, first and foremost that film had to be good enough for people to actually get into it. And this film is far from it.

5 out of 10

HIS DARK MATERIALS
Written by Philip Pullman

I made one grave mistake. I watched the movie before reading the book.

Yes, yes I know, that is one thing a reader/viewer must never do. Rarely does a movie ever live up to the book and even when it does, it always presents a different view. And more importantly, you've already spoiled the plot.

While the film itself was a complete mess, it was still enough to ruin majority of the book's premise. What I then had to bank upon wasn't the novel's spoiled plot but rather the execution which thankfully works pretty well.

The dialogue works much better here, more natural and much more character. And while the prose isn't a literary classic, Pullman has a way of haunting you and mystifying you at the same time. The adventure here is much heavier than it was in the film, and the novel reaches far darker tones, allowing the characters to shine even more.

The more I read the book however, the more I felt just a tad bit more sympathy for the movie. This was a difficult book to translate, mostly because it was a difficult book to place.

More than a few moments however, felt like I was being dragged around in the story. I don't know if it is the fault of Pullman's constantly moving prose or the film. To be fair, I'd rather wait until the second book to judge that portion.

The book has a certain fanatical drive to it, and a fantastic world that has its own share of originality in a genre nearly pumped dry of it. It has its own feel, its own world and its own sense of grandeur. For that alone it receives applause, add the fact that this is actually a fairle well-written book I must say it is a worthy entry to the Fantasy World.

7.5 out of 10