'The Princess and the Frog'
Richard's Review: 4 stars
Walt Disney is back in the fairy tale business. After a long layoff from both hand-drawn animation and fairy princesses and the like, Disney offers up a film that not only reaffirms their status as the premier purveyors of classic animation, but will also have you humming the catchy songs as you leave the theatre. "The Princess and the Frog" is a welcome addition to Disney's legacy, comfortably sitting alongside "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Lion King."
Set in the French Quarter of New Orleans the action in this Broadway-style musical really takes off when a free-spirited Maldonian prince named Naveen (voice of Bruno Campos) is magically transformed into a frog by voodoo magician Dr. Facilier (voice of Keith David). To break Facilier's evil spell the prince must convince a princess to kiss him. So far it's a Big Easy take on the traditional Frog Prince story, but when Naveen hops into a costume party and mistakes a beautiful girl named Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) for a princess the story takes a different turn. Convincing her to kiss him, she puckers up, gives him a smack, but because she's not really a princess--she's just dressed like one--he doesn't change, but she does, into a frog. Together they search for Mama Odie (Jenifer Lewis), a 197-year-old voodoo priestess who can turn them back to their human form.
Disney has scored a home run with "The Princess and the Frog." Their first full-blown fairy tale since 1991's "Beauty and the Beast" is a return to beautiful traditional animation. The artwork is stylish--particularly during two early musical numbers, the 1930s art deco inspired "Almost There" and the wild voodoo tune "My Friends on the Other Side"--and firmly in-line with classic 70s and 80s Disney. That means sophisticated drawings, dramatic camera moves and colorful backgrounds.
Complimenting the visuals is a score by Randy Newman that includes a variety of songs with a Louisiana flavor. Newman infuses the score with hints of zydeco, jazz and gospel call-and-response, creating a sonic landscape that perfectly compliments the film's sultry bayou setting.
As for the voice work, Disney keeps things fresh by not hiring recognizable a-list talent to voice the characters. Robin Williams brought a unique, manic energy to "Aladdin" that enhanced the film, but that's a rare case. Too often the big names offer little other than recognizable voices, and that can work against the part they're playing. Can you hear James Earl Jones as Mufasa without thinking of Darth Vader? Me neither, but here Disney is allowing the material to sell the show. Among the well cast voices are Keith David as Dr. Facilier, Anika Noni Rose as Tiana and Bruno Campos as Naveen. Good actors all, but hardly household names and that lack of familiarity allows the characters to live and breath, not simply be an extension of an already well-known celebrity persona.
"The Princess and the Frog" is a welcome return to form for Disney, but, as it also features their first ever African-American princess, a welcome step toward the future.
'Invictus'
Richard's Review: 3 stars
After watching "Invictus" I'd vote for Morgan Freeman. He plays Nelson Mandela with an impressive mix of gravitas, intelligence and humanity, perfect for a mayor or even higher office, but just because I'd give him my vote doesn't mean he's made a good movie.
"Invictus," Clint Eastwood's thirty-first film as a director doesn't feel as slap dash as "Gran Torino," his exercise in first takes and weak performances from last year. It's a more ambitious film, shot on location in South Africa, and featuring some flashy production design, but like his 2005 Oscar winner "Million Dollar Baby," it is a human story set against a sports back drop. This isn't a biography of Mandela or a study of race; it's the story of the Springbok, a champion rugby team who became a unifying symbol of the new South Africa.
Freeman cuts an impressive figure as Mandela, capturing the man's grace; unfortunately every line out of his mouth sounds like it should be engraved on an inspirational commemorative plate. It's understandable to paint Mandela as a philosopher king, he is, after all one of the most impressive figures of our recent history, but according to "Invictus" he only speaks in platitudes. It doesn't feel like a full portrait of the man, just an inspirational glimpse of a great man.
The other major character, Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), captain of the Springboks, is similarly underdeveloped but made interesting by Damon's performance. He's becoming a great character actor who shows his versatility in roles as diverse as the bi-polar whistle blower in "The Informant" and the super spy character from the "Bourne" movies.
There is a good ninety minute movie hidden in the 133 minute running time. An underdeveloped subplot about Mandela's strained relationship with his family doesn't do much except slow the movie down and the important stuff--Mandela's rise to power and the story of race reconciliation--is dispensed with in the sixty minutes, leaving us with over an hour to ramp up for the big game.
Despite drawing out the final game--it drags on for half an hour when a highlight reel would have sufficed--there are some very effective sequences. The bits of the film that work best are the small moments that don't involve Mandela's inspirational chestnuts. It's strongest when the Springbok team go to the townships to teach the kids rugby or Pienaar sizes up Mandela's old cell, using his arms to measure the width of the tiny enclosure. These are powerful moments and give the movie much of its oomph.
"Invictus" (it's Latin for "invincible" and the title of an 1875 poem Mandela used as inspiration when things got rough during his 27 years in prison) takes a real story and filters it through a typical sports movie set up--the World Cup game in South Africa is a microcosm of the larger issues of acceptance--but misses most of the true drama inherent in the story.
'A Single Man'
Richard's Review: 4 stars
Tom Ford, ex-designer for Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, founder of his own eponymous menswear line, makes his debut as a director with "A Single Man," an adaptation of the 1964 Christopher Isherwood novel of the same name, and, as you might have guessed given his pedigree, this is a great looking film. The former fashionista hasn't art directed it with Joel Schumacher style bombast, but with elegant good taste. He has steeped the film in beautiful people, places and things. Even an off camera voice over is done by Jon Hamm, who "People" called one of the "sexiest men of the year." But don't think "A Single Man" is all style and no substance. Ford paid attention to the pictures, but like another film sensualist, Pedro Almodovar, he also got the emotion of the piece right.
Set in early-'60s Los Angeles, "A Single Man," is a slice of gay English professor George's (Colin Firth) life. "I'm having a serious day," he says on a smoggy LA afternoon as he makes preparations for his suicide following the sudden death of his longtime partner Jim (Matthew Goode). As he meticulously tidies up the odds and ends of his life he takes time to have dinner with Charlotte (Julianne Moore), an old friend and chat with a curious student.
"A Single Man" is a study of grief. Ford portrays the scale of George's loss through carefully rendered flashbacks and dream sequences, alternating between a cold color pallet for the post-Jim scenes and vibrant, lively hues for when he was still alive. It's an old trick, but the subdued look of George's sad life packs an emotional wallop. This is a man who, after losing his love and not being allowed to go to the funeral--it's for "family only" he's told--has lost the will to live. "For the first time in my life," he says, "I can't see my future." His outlook is as murky and grey as the film stock.
Firth oozes repression and sadness as George. He's low key, a shadow of the man George was before Jim's death, but Firth adds small details that add color to his character. When he spots a dog like the one he used to share with Jim the random sense memory catapults him back to a different place and time, a happier place and time. Firth and the film do a good job at portraying the small things that keep the memory of a lost loved one alive.
"A Single Man" isn't a feel good movie, it's an art house picture about loss and sadness, but as one character says, "Sometimes awful things have their own kind of beauty."
'Me and Orson Welles'
Richard's Review: 3 stars
The star of "Me and Orson Welles" should be Zac Efron, the "High School Musical" heartthrob who makes his non-singing-non-dancing debut here. His Disney good looks have made him a star and he's an agreeable presence on screen but he is overshadowed by another actor playing a man who died many years before the core audience of this movie was even born. Newcomer Christian McKay plays Orson Welles with such panache that Efron becomes a supporting player in his own movie.
Efron is Richard Samuels, a teenager with dreams of being on stage. So far it doesn't sound too different from "High School Musical," I know, but in this case the year is 1937 and the stage in question happens to be at the Mercury Theatre on Broadway. After an impromptu audition--he plays drums and sings a Wheaties jingle on the street in front of the theatre--Richard is hired as a bit player for Orson Welles's (Christian McKay) landmark production of "Julius Caesar." He is given little rehearsal and only one piece of advice; don't criticize Orson Welles, ever. It is, he's told, a privilege to be "sprayed by Orson's spit" on stage. When Richard falls for pretty production assistant Sonja Jones (Claire Danes), however, he puts himself in the cross hairs of the temperamental Welles.
"Orson Welles and Me" is set years before Hollywood beat the stuffing out of Welles. Here he's still a boy wonder--a maverick (before Sarah Palin came along and ruined the word for everyone else) and womanizer who financed his theatre company with the money he made as a radio actor. McKay is pitch-perfect in a role that has defeated other good actors in movies like "The Cradle Will Rock" and "Fade to Black." The British actor, who played Welles in a one man show before making the film, looks the part and really gets inside the head of this brilliant but difficult man.
When McKay isn't on-screen, however, the story tends to sag a little. Efron and Danes do some good work and director Richard Linklater dies a nice job of showing the chaotic week leading up to the opening night of "Caesar," but when the story leaves the theatre it becomes much less interesting. The backstage machinations, on-stage work--we see a hefty chunk of the play during the film's climax--and attention to period detail--people actually say "Yowza!"--elevate it beyond a typical coming-of-age story but it really only comes to life when MacKay is front and center.
