“Never forget, never forgive”? A slouching Johnny Depp in striped pants and a shock of white hair with a big straight razor? Tim Burton doing his usual indulgent production-design wallow with cooler-than-cool photography? Is this anyone’s idea of a likable slogan and an enticing “key” image for a big-studio, gotta-see-it, end-of-the-year musical?

I’ve seen Sweeney Todd twice on stage and enjoyed it greatly both times — it’s a brilliant work — but there’s something about the energy and attitude that this DreamWorks-funded film (opening 12.21.07) is putting out that I don’t much care for. Call me nuts, but this is translating into (I’m admitting it) a donkey-like resis- tance to the film, sight unseen. I’m not saying I can “tell” anything. Obviously I’m clueless about how the movie plays. Completely. I’m just being honest. Something about this film is dislikable.
I can’t quite figure what this is about except for my belief that Burton is over. Well, isn’t he? His last half-decent film was Sleepy Hollow, and that was eight years ago — two or three zeitgeists have come and gone since then. The appalling Planet of the Apes was the first harbinger of the downturn, Big Fish was under- whelming at best (it certainly didn’t come together emotionally), and if you ask me Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was poison. I’ve done no calling around, but something tells me others may be feeling the same way.
Every now and then an audacious, high-profile, summer or year-end movie gets beaten up and slapped around by everyone (straight press, bloggers, critics), and something’s telling me that Sweeney Todd is shaping up to be one of those punching bags — the Munich of musicals. I’m not trying to be a jerkwad. I’d seriously like to be wrong. I’d love to see Sweeney Todd work as a film musical. I’d like to see Burton come back. I’m just saying that three and half months out, something feels twitchy…not right.
This piece was triggered by a snap of a Sweeney Todd one- sheet that I received today. There’s no poster art sitting on the official website. I’ll admit that David Poland got me going about Sweeney Todd way back when he predicted last February that Depp “is a 95% bet to be nominated for Best Actor” for his lead performance in Burton’s film, but that was then and this is now.

“We both were looking to do something different. We both were single at the time, and we would compare these stories [about our personal lives]. We wanted to do a frank, romantic comedy about sex and relationships. Aaron Abrams is fond of saying romantic comedies usually end with a kiss. But for us, the really interesting stuff happens after the kiss.” — Vancouver-based director Martin Gero speaking about Young People Fucking, his $1.5 million feature that ThinkFilm has picked up, and which will launch Canada First! program at September’s Toronto Film Festival.
Does that title set off warning alarms with anyone out there? I don’t know squat about this movie — for all I know Gero is the new Francois Truffaut — but I’ve learned over the years that films with pistol-hot, attention-grabbing, hot-marquee titles can be worrisome.

Paul Haggis‘s In The Valley of Elah (Warner Independent, 9.14) turns on an act of savage murder by a group of soldiers recently returned from the Iraq War, and the efforts of the father of a victim of this act (Tommy Lee Jones) to find out what the hell happened. In the view of N.Y. Times reporter Michael Cieply, Elah will be asking moviegoers “to decide if the killing is emblematic of a war gone bad.”

Tommy Lee Jones, Susan Sarandon in Paul Haggis‘s In The Valley of Elah

In a broader context, Cieply observes, this anti-war viewpoint puts Elah in the vanguard “of a new and perhaps risky willingness in the entertainment business to push even the touchiest debates about post-9/11 security, Iraq and the troops’ status from the confines of documentaries into the realm of mainstream political drama.”
Ciepley’s piece (titled “While Real Bullets Fly, Movies Bring War Home”), which appears on the front page of today’s Times and not the Arts section, reviews various upcoming Hollywood films that “use the damaged Iraq veteran to raise questions about a continuing war.”
In this light as well as own one of general “immediacy” he mentions Kimberly Pierce‘s Stop-Loss, Paul Greengrass‘s currently-preparing Imperial Life in the Emerald City, Brian De Palma‘s Redacted, James C. Strouse‘s Grace is Gone and Gavin Hood‘s Rendition.
Cieply doesn’t mention Kathryn Bigelow‘s The Hurt Locker, a film about an elite bomb squad unit in Iraq that’s either rolling right now or fiarly close to that status. And he doesn’t mention the Americans-in-Afghanistan films — Robert Redford‘s Lions for Lambs, Mike Nichols‘ Charlie Wilson’s War, and Oliver Stone‘s planned movie of Jawbreaker. Or Peter Berg’s The Kingdom (FBI guys in Riyahd). Or Marc Forster‘s The Kite Runner, which is set in Kabul, spoken largely in Farsi, and, as far as I’ve been able to tell, doesn’t reflect upon political or cultural conflicts caused by or involving Americans at all…but then I haven’t read the book.

But “among the new films, Valley of Elah is sure to be one of the most closely examined,” Cieply says, “thanks to Mr. Haggis’s credentials — he shared an Oscar for writing Million Dollar Baby and was nominated for another as co-writer of Letters From Iwo Jima — and because of his opposition to United States policy in Iraq.”

In yesterday’s item about Kimberly Pierce‘s Stop-Loss (Paramount, 3.8.07), I quoted a plot synopsis that used the term “Iraqi war hero” and thereafter wrote in parentheses, “What would that be exactly?” Those five words brought down a torrent of hate. I won’t dignify what was said by quoting the bashers (read ’em if you want), but I tapped out a response this morning.
Wells to All Vigilant Defenders of U.S. Military Guys in Iraq: Sorry, but as soon as I read the term “Iraqi war hero” in that synopsis of Stop-Loss, I flinched. I regard the word “hero” seriously, you see, unlike some of the jerkweeds who joined last night’s lynch mob. It doesn’t mean being a hard-ass mo’ fo’ or simply a guy who’s over there and toughing it out as best he can. It means someone who’s commits a profound act of selflessness or sacrifice, who comes to the aid of those who desperately need help, who does the strong and noble thing when push comes to shove. And a question in my mind was lit — how does heroism fit into the day-to-day calamity and misery over there? A question, not an indictment.
Anyone with a passing familiarity with what U.S. soldiers are up against over there knows that heroism as I’ve defined it here is a little outside the realm (or certainly on the fringe) of what the armed forces are encountering and dishing out. At least as far as I’ve what I’ve picked up from news reports, books, book reviews, first-hand accounts, documentaries and whatnot.
Maybe some of the wolf-packers can show me all the accounts by imbedded journalists (or those on G.I. websites or G.I. chat rooms) in which classically heroic actions have been observed and written about. If they’ve happened with any frequency or regularity, great — I stand corrected. Believe me, any soldier who toughs it out over there with a semblance of focus and honor (i.e., shooting straight, keeping it tight and being vigilant within his area of responsibility without giving in to Abu Graib sadism or otherwise grinding the faces of Baghdad citizens into the dust or cement as U.S. troops bust into their homes at 4 a.m.) and watches the backs of his buddies has my deepest respect, but (it is indicative of the level of awareness that I detect among some HE readers that it actually seems necessary to point this out) we are not the good guys over there.
It would be great to hear about good things happening between U.S. forces and Iraqi citizens (apart from handing out the proverbial footballs and Hershey bars, I mean), but my understanding of the situation is that the day-to-day experience of U.S. forces is not fulfilling anyone’s definition of shining knight-ism or good-guy heroics. Anyone who believes that the day-to-day over there is glorious or noble needs to take the needle out of their arm. We are not up to good things. We can’t be. Ask H.G. Wells about the fate of all foreign invaders and occupiers. (He wrote about them in “War of the Worlds.”)
In the Valley of Elah (which I’ve seen twice) advances the notion that the Iraq War experience is generating a kind of poison that is affecting the souls of the troops (and in turn U.S. citizens). Other films about the Iraq War being planned or shot will, trust me, have this element in their narratives as well to whatever degree. The Iraq War docs that I’ve seen or read about have also passed along despairing messages and conclusions about the dehumanzing aspects — the brutality, the cruelty, the ugliness.
Hence, when I saw the terms “Iraq War” and “hero” side by side, I paused. I said to myself, “Really? How would that be exactly?” On an incident-by-incident, day- to-day survival basis, I’d like to think that U.S. soldiers are doing the hard brave thing for each other each and every day. But the overall mission over there is vile, founded upon smoke and lies and neocon delusion, and those being ordered to fulfill it are doomed to failure and, in the long historical sense, ignominy.

Good heavens, another movie — Grace is Gone, a Sundance ’07 entry that echoes Iraq anguish but doesn’t quite deal with it in a specifically confrontational sense — wasn’t previously put on the Hollywood- Iraq-Afghanistan list. So make it eleven films now — six Iraqs (In The Valley of Elah, Redacted, Stop Loss, The Hurt Locker, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, Grace is Gone), four Afghanis (The Kite Runner, Lions for Lambs, Charlie Wilson’s War, Jawbreaker) and the Riyahd shoot-em-up thriller that is Peter Berg‘s The Kingdom.
I’m not at the present time including Gavin Hood‘s Rendition (New Line, 10.12.07), although I could in the same sense that The Kingdom is included. It’s about U.S. counter-terrorism efforts, more particularly about the wife (Reese Witherspoon) of an Egyptian-born terrorism suspect (Omar Metwalley) trying to discover the reason for his disappearance, and a CIA analyst (Jake Gyllenhaal) who has played a part in her husband’s fate. It deals with the post-9.11 climate and threats from the Middle East, so I guess it sort of belongs. All right — let’s make it twelve.

Okay, I missed another Iraq film — director Kimberley Pierce and producer Scott Rudin‘s Stop Loss (Paramount, 3.08). About an “Iraqi war hero” (what would that be exactly?) who freaks when his enlistment is extended and he’s ordered to return to Iraq. Channing Tatum, Ryan Phillipe, Mamie Gummer, Timothy Olyphant, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jay Hernandez and Abbie Cornish costar.
So that makes ten upcoming Hollywood movies either set in or dealing in some way with Iraq and Afghanistan — five Iraqs, four Afghanistans, and a thriller set in Riyahd, Saudi Arabia film (i.e., The Kingdom). The Drudge Report is saying that Rudin is quoted in Michael Ciepley‘s 7.26 N.Y. Times story about this recently evolved genre.

A professional guy who knows the dog track has seen Tony Gilroy‘s Michael Clayton (Warner Bros., 10.3), and he’s calling it “a superior, impeccably crafted piece of big-studio entertainment.

“Aside from being a terrific legal drama, it’s especially noteworthy for the astonishingly assured direction by Gilroy. The pared down, rat-tat-tat efficiency he brought to the Bourne scripts is very much in evidence here. Pic otherwise reeks of the serious-cool craftmanship of other Soderbergh/ Section Eight productions like Out of Sight, Traffic and Syriana. What a debut!
“Onscreen talent is all top grade. The front-and-center Clooney manages for the most part to avoid his usual droll-sardonic schtick, and is complimented by right-on-the-money supporting perfs by Sydney Pollack and especiallyTom Wilkinson and Tilda Swinton.
“The film might be just a little bit too dour to be a massive mainstream success, and perhaps has a slightly inflated sense of it’s own importance. Ultimately it presents a fairly simplistic message about corporate greed, but from frame to frame I’d challenge anyone not to be entertained by it.”

John Stockwell, whose career took an exploitation turn after the success of crazybeautiful and Blue Crush, has finally broken out of the youth-in-peril genre that he’s been shackled with over the last three years (Into The Blue, Turistas). He’s about to direct Middle of Nowhere, a decently written relationship drama with Susan Sarandon as a flaky, irresponsible mom who squanders her eldest daughter’s college fund ($30 grand) on her youngest daughter’s beauty pageant campaign. I had a chance to flip through Michele Morgan‘s script earlier today, and it’s obviously a straight character-driven thing — no babes in bikinis, no buried booty, no tropical waters. Costars include Anton Yelchin, Justin Chatwin, Willa Holland and Eva Amurri.

It turns out that Film Jerk’s announcement about Brian De Palma‘s Redacted now being a December 14th release came from a bum source. (FJ’s Edward Havens simply ran with what he was given; bogus information was put out.) A Magnolia Pictures source has just told me that this lower-budgeted Iraq War feature will in fact hit theatres sometime in November, and that a booking at September’s Toronto Film Festival wouldn’t be totally out of the realm.
The fact that Redacted, which has been described on the IMDB as “a montage of stories about U.S. soldiers fighting in the Iraq conflict,” was shot in Jordan in a verite fashion conflicts, of course, with DePalma’s rep as a dispenser of visual opera, being an acknowledged master of bravura, carefully choreographed photography in a controlled setting. Does Redacted have two or three of De Palma’s signature sequences? “I think it’s better that I don’t put up expectations one way or the other” the Magnolia guy said. All he would say is that “it’s very, very different.”

That pounding fuzz-bass rock track on that Blackberry Curve ad that’s been playing over and over and over again on MSNBC is called “Jique“, by a New York group called the Brazilian Girls. The embedded code has been withdrawn by request, but here’s the YouTube video of the group performing the song. Everyone’s heard it. A sassy-voiced lady singing, “You know I really, really like you…he said I really, really like you,” etc. The Blackberry people are obviously going for 30-and-under single women.
Brazilian Girls, a quartet, has no Brazilians and just one girl — vocalist Sabina Sciubba, who performs in various states of disrobe-itude. There’s also keyboard player Didi Gutman, bassist Jesse Murphy and drummer Aaron Johnston.

The Guardian‘s Geoffrey McNab has written about the the radical youthifying of Beowulf costar Ray Winstone by director Robert Zemeckis and the sophisticated CG monkeys hired to facilitate. Interesting, but I’ll take bets with anyone that the final visuals won’t be convincing. I just don’t think we’re “there” yet. Ian McKellen‘s digital facelift in Brett Ratner‘s X-Men: The Last Stand didn’t get it.

Ray Winstone in Sexy Beast (’01); in Robert Zemeckis‘ upcoming Beowulf

I first met Winstone in ’79 at a Manhattan party for Scum, a good tough drama about British “borstals” (prisons for juvie delinquents). I was with two women — a slender blonde I was seeing at the time and her pretty, endearingly buxom friend. I was feeling a little fizzy, but Winstone was even more in his cups because he told me he wanted them both. “What about it?” he said with a smile. I was startled for a second or two, but I laughed and said, “Sure, man…go for it.”
I said this knowing two things. One, his chances were zip with the blonde, and two, that he therefore had very little chance of scoring with her friend. (They were totally glued together that night — Winstone would have had to have gone home with both or neither.) Besides, Winstone wasn’t serious. He was probing to see if I’d get pissed or defensive. When I said okay he smiled and put his arm around my shoulder and said “you’re okay, man” or words to that effect.
I’ve never forgotten this night for one other reason. What Winstone was dreaming about came to pass for yours truly. Thank God for the spirit and generosity of the times.
The irony is that he said he remembered this episode when we met again in Toronto in ’01. Or at least, he gave that impression. Instant recognition, instant smile. I remember also how he pronounced my first name in that Cockney or East London accent of his — sounded a little bit like “jayfe.”

Windy City film critic Erik Childress has announced that the Chicago Film Critics Association and 20th Century Fox have resolved their screening and embargo issues. Of course, I posted an e-mail heralding this agreement last Friday (7.20) and was asked by two or three CFCA members to please take it down because Fox flacks were angry about some parliamentary detail. (Trust me, it takes very little to raise the hackles of certain Fox publicists.) And it only took another three business days for Fox and CFCA to iron things out.