Across the Universe et al.

I was sort of hot and cold on this one when I saw it in the TIFF book at last month's festival and I should have stuck to my instincts. Julie Taymor's Across the Universe is a baby boomer's dream come true about 1960's angst, love, loss and redemption infused with a wall-to-wall Beatles songbook. Where Moulin Rouge soared and this film fizzes are in the gaping holes of the narrative that are hard to fill with smushed strawberries and tiring psychedelic sequences of blue people in tents. Although if truth be told, the singing and choreography are solely spectacular. I would have liked to learn more of Prudence-the-lesbian from Ohio or about JoJo the guitartist's life in Detroit---hard to do with an ensemble cast that mixes a Liverpool limey looking for his GI American father who befriends an Ivy league dropout and then moves to New York in with Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix wannabes and the draft and 'Nam and the civil rights movement and police brutality and Bono the Walrus and Joe Cocker and Eddie Izzard the Kite Man and....who cares? Obviously the freedom 55 crowd that made up the majority of the audience. ***

The She Found Me
Helen Hunt wrote and directed this film about an adopted Jewish woman trying desperately to have a baby with her dolt of a husband played by the weenie Matthew Broderick. She resists adoption from her pushy dying mother and well meaning brother even after Weenie dolt dumps her and she takes up with an adorable yet exhausting and bordering-on-schizo bloke played by the edible Colin Firth. WASP queen Hunt does not have Jewish believeability despite the Sabbath candle lighting and reconnecting with birth mother (played by Bette Midler) solely because she plays the same character she always plays (i.e.Mad About You Jamie or As Good As It Gets Carol or Cast Away Kelly to name a few). ***

Married Life- My least favourite flick of this year's festivale. Chris Cooper plays Harry a middle-aged, middle-class, post-war family man having an affair with should-not-be-blonde widow Kay (Rachel McAdams). In his love for Kay, Harry decides to pop off his smart and sensual wife Pat (played by the stunning Patrica Clarkson). Plagued by jealousy, Harry's best bud Rich (Pierce Brosnan) swoons Kay for himself leaving crusty Harry with a botched murder scheme and Pat's own knickers around her ankles for some other horndog in their dysfunctional 1950's circle of Jones'. The film flops because there is positively no chemistry to be found anywhere with any of the characters. Cooper is a fine actor but Harry's character is an utterly unbelieveable paramour for lusty Kay. Even as Rich sweeps Kay off her feet, or Pat's doing the nasty at the cabin with you-hoo, there is nary an iota of lust or caution or pash or nothin'. **

TIFF Updates

Sorry for being a shitty blogger but I have not stopped (but to belch and expel other gases). TIFF feels like moons ago and before these films make wide release I thought I'd throw in my two cents.

Elizabeth the Golden Age

Hands down. Stamped it. Double locked it. No rubbsies. Cate Blanchett is the BEST actress working in Hollywood today. I have become obsessed with all things Tudor as a result of her SPECTACULAR performance of the regina vergine opposite sexy Clive Owen as Sir Walter Raleigh and Geoffrey Rush as Sir Francis Walsingham. This is the film I have been waiting for all year and Indian director Shekhar Kapur does not disappoint. Although I was expecting some sexytime betwixt Cate and Clive (Sir Robert Dudley he is not) but Kapur more than makes up for it with an amazing montage of the fall of the Spanish Armada. Elizabeth was 55 at the time and past her blushing English rose prime although she still beats the tar out of her lady-in-waiting and sends Raleigh to the Tower for fornicating. Kapur sat down for an intelligent and surprisingly long (he loves talking about this film) Q&A where I asked him how much creative license he allowed himself given that his films will ultimately become texts for learning about the period for this and generations to come. We can expect a third part to this trilogy about the end of Elizabeth's life but Cate's gotta be older and willing to do it.*****

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

With the exception of one train robbery we are largely spared the predictable shoot ups of America's most notorious outlaw and his band of ho-bo-pick-em-up-bad-guys-for-hire. Filmed in Winnipeg, Calgary, and Canmore (director Andrew Dominik failed to comment on filming in Manitoba's capital and when asked in a press conference by a journalist from the Winnipeg Free Press, he answered 'Yeah. Calgary was great...) 'MM thinks she caught a glimpse of her brother Sam who played an extra in the train robbery sequence.

The film is composed of mostly watching creepy Robert Ford (Casey Affleck) stalk Jesse (Brad Pitt) for 2 hours and 40 minutes. Not a huge fan of Westerns or the dialogue flick of which this film is both. Sam Shepard gets star billing and is in the film for 5 minutes. Pitt, however is outstanding as the dark, scary, bad guy you love to root for. My bet is he'll be nominated for (and likely win) the Oscar depending on the competition. ****