Critical Defense of "Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back in the Jungle"

I thought that the review of “Rambo” by A.O. Scott, which appeared in Friday's arts section, was very well-done. It was overall, a negative review of the dialogue and Sylvester Stallone, “His face looks like a misshapen chunk of granite, and his acting is only slightly more expressive”. The description of Julie Benz’ role in the movie also warned potential viewers of the sexism in the film. The reviewer obviously had seen the other Rambo films and gave the article some context by briefly describing them before he delved into a description of the newest one. I thought that his placement of his opinions on the movie after the plot summary was a very good choice. I might not have continued to read about the plot after seeing how bad he thought the movie was. The description of the movie was very witty and gave me a perfect image of what the movie was like. Scott did comment near the end that he didn’t think the Rambo films were as bad as everyone made them out to be, staying open-minded, but he made it clear that the only thing that would draw someone to this movie is the violence.

Once Film Review

ONCE FILM REVIEW/Luthy

JOHN CARNEY’S MUSICAL FEATURES DISMAL ACTING

By Allison Luthy

John Carney’s new film, “Once,” valiantly attempts, but fails, to redefine the genre of musical. Where a normal musical would have songs expanding on the dialogue, “Once” features a man who carries his guitar with him and starts singing songs unrelated to the plot.

While the music itself was not bad, its placement in the movie was. The entire movie seemed built around getting from one song to the next, with bits of plot and dialogue thrown in to serve as transitions. Anyone hoping for more from the writer than a fourteen-year-old’s choppy English paper will assuredly be disappointed.

Carney made the decision to cast musicians rather than actors in the film. This
choice did make the performances at times painful to watch, but gave “Once” the ability to let its one good feature stand out—its music. There is so much focus on the Oscar-nominated soundtrack that at times the movie feels more like a series of music videos than a story.

Set in Ireland, “Once” depicts the life of a street musician who works in his father’s vacuum shop and aspires to one day be a recording artist. Playing guitar on the street one day he meets a Czech immigrant who needs her vacuum fixed. After he agrees to fix it for her, he finds out that she can play piano and sing as well.

With her help, he forms a small band and records his music in a studio so he can take it to London and get a music contract. While they are working on the recording, the man unsurprisingly falls for the girl. Their romance is prevented, however, by his slow recovery from his past breakup and her marriage to the absent father of her child.

Glen Hansard tries to play the part of the sad man recovering from a breakup with his unfaithful girlfriend. He blunderingly only ends up resembling an abused dog at the humane society that everyone feels sorry for but no one wants to adopt and eventually gets put to sleep. Unfortunately, in the instance of this movie, euthanasia is not an option either for the actor or the audience members.

The movie as a whole is overdramatic in its attempts to be viewed as artistic. With scenes of the musicians standing on a cliff overhanging the North Sea discussing love, much of the footage could be reused in any independent arts film. The acting and writing through most of “Once” try to hard to be unique for an independent film, resulting in only
being generic in the extreme.

The redeeming qualities of “Once” are not nearly enough to make up for the poor acting and the pathetic writing. Those looking for good music should just buy the album and save themselves 85 minutes in an uncomfortable seat.

Response to Writers' Strike

I think that the production companies should give in to the demands of the writers’ strike. They are losing money from only being able to air old episodes of their TV shows and, although the movie companies are getting by right now from having scripts already written out before the strike, eventually when the writers do start writing again, there will be a shortage of scripts from the period when no one was writing. I find the incident of the America’s Next Top Model employees being fired for voting to join the writers’ union especially bad. I don’t think that it is unreasonable for the writers to want a cut of the money made from people watching television shows on the internet. As this strike is proving, there couldn’t be television without the writers. It would be ridiculous for the Oscars to be canceled because the producers don’t want to give up a small amount of their profits to the people that make the shows possible. This strike has been going on since November and the writers have not caved in yet, so the amount of money the producers would have to give to the writers will probably be about the same amount of money the are losing right now from not having any new episodes to show on TV. I think that the sooner the producers give in to the writers, the better.

Response to "Women Are Never Front-Runners"

The article “Women Are Never Front-Runners” by Gloria Steinem had quite a few good points and, generally, analyzed the issue fairly. I had never thought of the point that she raised of men feeling as though they are regressing to childhood when they experience strong women because women are still the predominant caregivers in families today. It is a very different theory from most about why sexism exists. While this could be a contributor, I am not sure if I believe that it is one of the key causes. Steinem also brought up the key issue of women in political office being accused of being over-emotional. Even going so far as to applaud Hillary Clinton for being willing to cry, she argued that women need to be less emotional than men to be taken seriously. The stereotype that women let emotions influence their decisions more than men may be a factor in Clinton’s chances of getting elected president. One point, which I was glad to see Steinem raise was that of people who are voting for her simply because she is a woman. Rather than getting elected for the sake of electing a woman, Steinem hopes that people will vote for Clinton because she is a good politician.

Critical Response to Review of "There Will Be Blood"

http://movies.nytimes.com/2007/12/26/movies/26bloo.html

Manohla Dargis’ review of “There Will Be Blood” was in general a well-written piece, but had some flaws. Dargis started out with a very strong lede, stating what the article was about in a clever, punchy manner. ‘“There Will Be Blood,” Thomas Anderson’s epic American nightmare, arrives belching fire and brimstone and damnation to Hell.’ The review held my interest for most of the article, but started to drag towards the end. Dargis comments about the director were rather boring and some were completely irrelevant to the film being reviewed. At one point she actually started commenting on other films that the director had made, abandoning what had been an interesting description of “There Will Be Blood”. After this, I lost most of my interest in the article for the last paragraphs. The descriptions of Daniel Day Lewis’ acting were very thorough and engrossing, revealing the many other influences that Lewis probably used in his performance. I think that a description of Lewis’ past work would have also have done a good job of expanding on his performance. The kicker accomplished its purpose, but could have been made stronger and more interesting for a better finish.

Sweeney Todd Review

SWEENEY TODD REVIEW/Luthy

THE CLOSEST SHAVE YOU’LL EVER GET

By Allison Luthy

Sweet is hardly an apt word for Tim Burton’s most recent film, “Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street”. Although this movie tells a story of love, it definitely earns its R-rating. A half hour into the film so much blood will be dripping down the screen that you won’t want be able to finish your soda.

“Sweeney Todd” tells the story of a barber who returns to London after nearly two decades to seek revenge for the destruction of his family. With Mrs. Lovett, a woman who owns a meat pie shop, he begins killing the clients that come in for a shave in his barber’s chair. They dispose of the bodies by butchering them and turning them into meat pies that become the hit of London.

The violence consumes Todd as he murders innocent people out of love and grief over his deceased wife. Mrs. Lovett participates in the murders out of love for Todd, out of hope that he will finish his revenge and live with her.

Johnny Depp stars as Sweeney Todd, the barber with a crazy streak to match the white in his hair. With sickly pale skin and dark shadows under his haunted eyes, Depp makes even the obsessed murderer seem deserving of pity. Depp, whose other films include “Pirates of the Caribbean”, “Finding Neverland”, and “Chocolat”, provides one of the strongest performances of his career, proving himself as a singer, and earning an Oscar nomination for best actor.

Helena Bonham Carter brilliantly offsets Depp’s character, playing Mrs. Lovett, the woman in love with Sweeney Todd. Oscar nominated for best actress in this role, Carter has also recently appeared in “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” and Tim Burton’s film, “The Corpse Bride”, alongside Johnny Depp.

Oscar nominated for best director, Tim Burton directed “Sweeney Todd” very much like his other movies. At times the lighting and costumes looked so much like that used in “Beetlejuice” that it seemed that they had been taken directly from his old movie. This creepy effect only heightened the almost supernatural and hellish sense about the film. Burton’s other films include “Big Fish”, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, “Planet of the Apes”, and “Sleepy Hollow”.

This adaptation of the Broadway hit remained remarkable in its transition from stage to screen. If anything, the film still felt like a stage production with its simplistic sets leaving nothing to distract the audience from the performances onscreen.

Depp’s masterful portrayal of Todd remains bleak and seemingly unfeeling throughout the film, but the character gradually becomes more demonic as he nears his goal. By the end of the movie, Depp transforms a loving barber into a chillingly realistic sociopath who can barely remember the family that he loved and kills for.

Nominated for four Academy Awards, few films this year are as deserving of recognition as Tim Burton’s tragic, bloody, musical masterpiece.