THE NIN9S
(Review)

A MAN’S HAND unwinds a short length of green string. We’re extremely close, with a shallow, blurry focus. It’s like the first moments after a dream—just fragments.
Scissors cut the string. The man wraps it around his left wrist. A loop. A bracelet.
We see the man’s teeth, the edge of his chin as he pulls the knot tight.
His fingers pull against the string. Solid. It won’t break easily.

FADE OUT.

John August is a screenwriter who can come up with scripts like those for Doug Liman’s Go! and Tim Burton’s Big Fish (two personal favourites), then can go all the way to the far end of the spectrum for McG’s Charlie’s Angels movies.
Now that’s displaying a range.
With The Nin9s—which has the structure of Go! (three discrete yet inter-connected sections) and the thematic complexity of Big Fish—August broadens his range even more, by not just delivering another intricate and ambitious screenplay, but by directing it as well.

Gary Banks (Ryan Reynolds) is the star of the hit police procedural Crim9 Lab (“This fall, Mondays are killer.”), who has a minor meltdown as a result of having his heart broken by a woman. A baggie of crack later and he’s under house arrest (in a house that he claims is haunted by a “zeitgeist”), and in danger of being written off the series by its showrunner.
Or is he?

If you’ve seen the trailer of The Nin9s, it’s pretty evident that this is the sort of film you can’t really talk about lest the cat prematurely get out of the bag.
What I can say is that this is another fantastic script by August, and his handling of the intricate and delicate material displays a steady and confident directorial presence.
He also gathers a great cast for The Nin9s, starting with Reynolds, who shows a sharp versatility here I’ve never really seen before; usually he gets to play variations of his wise-a$$ sitcom self, as in Blade: Trinity. Here, he’s given the opportunity to inject nuance and a certain amount of subtlety in his performance, and he doesn’t disappoint.
He’s then supported by Hope Davis (always a treat to watch) and Gilmore Girls’ Melissa McCarthy. Like Reynolds, McCarthy’s another eye-opener, as not only is she allowed to make a departure from her Sookie TV persona, she also gets a chance to play herself.
(E.R. fans should also note that Dahlia Salem is in here too, also as herself.)

There. I may have already said too much.
Let’s just leave it at this: if you like your cinema complex and layered, The Nin9s should be on your radar.
At the very least, you’ll learn something really, really interesting about koala bears.

Parting shot: Reviews of Blade: Trinity and The Amityville Horror, in which Ryan Reynolds also appeared, can be found in the Archive, as well as a Tim Burton retrospective, where Big Fish is mentioned.

(The Nin9s UK quad courtesy of impawards.com; DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com; image courtesy of lookforthenines.com.)

(The italicized first section of the review is from John August’s final shooting script for The Nin9s.)

SWEENEY TODD:
THE DEMON BARBER
OF FLEET STREET
(Review)

“For what’s the sound of the world out there?”
“What, Mr. Todd? What, Mr. Todd? What is that sound?”
“Those crunching noises pervading the air!”
“Yes, Mr. Todd! Yes, Mr. Todd! Yes, all around!”
“It’s man devouring man, my dear!”
“And who are we to deny it in here?”
-- “A Little Priest”

It’s odd that for a master of mainstream macabre, the film that turns out to be Tim Burton’s darkest and bloodiest, is a musical. That’s rated R.

Burton’s adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s Tony Award-winning Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is yet another triumph for the 49-year old director who made a name for himself with his Gothic (and highly visual) romanticism for all things shadowy and decayed.
It’s his sixth collaboration with his cinematic alter-ego, Johnny Depp, and his fifth with his lady love, Helena Bonham Carter, both of whom acquit themselves admirably as the obsessed, single-minded barber out for revenge, and Mrs. Lovett, owner of a decrepit meat pie shop and adorer of all things Todd.
And not only do they have to act, Depp and Bonham Carter (and the rest of the film’s delectable cast) have to sing too. And these musical numbers sound tricky, in all probability a challenge to professionals, and certainly not a cake walk for untrained vocal chords. But they pull it off with skill and talent to spare.

Burton meanwhile, paints the multiplex canvas with yet another darkly gorgeous portrait of the outsider coming up against “normal” society, though admittedly, it’s been awhile since said outsider was homicidal (the last time we had one of those from Burton was Batman Returns).
The director’s assembled band of creative cohorts are, as always, impeccable. Colleen Atwood’s costumes (BAFTA and Oscar nominations; her 7th collaboration with Burton), Dante Ferretti’s production design (Oscar nomination), Dariusz Wolski‘s camerawork (Wolski also shot Alex Proyas’ The Crow and Dark City), all bolster performances by an excellent cast that includes Alan Rickman, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Timothy Spall, giving us a film that not only moves, but looks good while doing it.

Having never been exposed to Sweeney Todd in any of its previous incarnations before, what came as perhaps the biggest surprise for me, was the music. By turns sweeping, infectious, sobering, and chilling, Sondheim’s musical landscape for this tale of tragic tale of obsession and revenge, is astounding.
Consider: one of the musical’s cheeriest numbers is entitled “The Worst Pies In London.” No mean feat, that. Then, to have that triumph and the audacious cannibal anthem, “A Little Priest,” all in one musical. Sheer bloody genius!
Getting Burton as appointed cinematic translator was a match made in Grand Guignol Heaven. When you can expertly juxtapose a beautiful number like “Johanna” with shots of throat-slitting and body dumping, well, surely you understand the material, right? (The pastoral idyll of “By The Sea”—in the midst of the pervasive ash grey palette of the film—was another masterstroke as well.)

With Sweeney Todd, Once, and Across The Universe (Julie Taymor’s Beatles-inspired work may be uneven, but no one can deny its daring), 2007 should go down in cinema history as the year the movie musical proved it could be so much more than just fat-suited A-listers in drag.
It no longer has to be just about people busting out into boisterous song and energetic, jazz hands-inflected dance. Like Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge before them, these musicals obliterate the common perception of the genre.
With Sweeney Todd, Burton and Sondheim give testament to the fact that you can have blood and cannibalism—with the R rating to go along with all that wholesome family entertainment—and still have an emotionally involving narrative that utilizes the grammar of brilliant songwriting as its alluring language.
And let’s face it, if asked which was the more disturbing thought, Johnny Depp as a fright-haired, murderous barber, or John Travolta in drag and a fat suit, I know what my answer would be.
What about you?

“We’ll take the customers that we can get!”
“High-born and low, my love!”
“We’ll not discriminate great from small! No, we’ll serve anyone, meaning anyone…”
“And to anyone at all!”
-- “A Little Priest”

Parting shot: After Javier Bardem’s killer ‘cut in No Country For Old Men, Sacha Baron Cohen’s coif as Signor Adolfo Pirelli, takes runner-up as Dodgiest Cinematic ‘Do for 2007.

Parting shot 2: Reviews of Once, Across The Universe, and No Country For Old Men can be found in the Archive, along with a Tim Burton retrospective (“In The Shadows of Mainstream Cinema”).

(Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street OS courtesy of impawards.com; images courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)

(Thanx to Bianca, for springing for the ticket.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (17)

17.1 Well, this year’s Emmys have all been given out, and I’d just like to say “Congratulations” to the following for their well-deserved wins:

79th Annual Academy Awards
Outstanding Art Direction for Variety, Music or Nonfiction Programming (J. Michael Riva, Production Designer; Gregory Richman, Art Director; Tamlyn Wright, Art Director)
Outstanding Music Direction (William Ross, Music Director)

Battlestar Galactica
Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series (“Exodus, Part 2”)

Dexter
Outstanding Main Title Design (Eric Anderson, Creative Director; Josh Bodnar, Editor; Lindsay Daniels, Designer; Colin Davis, Main Title Producer)
Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series (Elena Maganini, Editor)

Entourage
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (Jeremy Piven)
Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (Half Hour) and Animation (“One Day in the Valley”: Steve Morantz, C.A.S., Production Mixer; Dennis Kirk, Re-Recording Mixer; Mark Fleming, Re-Recording Mixer)

Family Guy
Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation (Steve Fonti, Storyboard Artist: “No Chris Left Behind”)

Lost
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (Terry O’Quinn)

South Park
Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming Less Than One Hour) (“Make Love, Not Warcraft”)

In his acceptance speech, Terry O’Quinn said, “Sometimes when we’re hitting each other and stabbing each other and shooting each other and they’re pouring blood and turning on the sprinklers, I wonder what it would be like to bake a sheet of cookies on Wisteria Lane and get one of their checks. But then I think about my cast mates and crew mates represented here by the glorious Michael Emerson, and I realize why I have the best job in the world.”
Hear, hear.
And wouldn’t that be an odd sight? John Locke in an apron, baking cookies, while a dead woman does a voice-over.
Season 4 should open with that shot.

Check out all the winners here. (Lists are downloadable in PDF and Word format.)

17.2 Congratulations should also go out to Bryan Fuller and everyone involved in Pushing Daisies.
Broadcasting & Cable asked a panel of critics to rank the best and worst of this fall’s pilots, and Pushing Daisies ran away with 63% of the vote. Second on the Best list was Reaper, with a distant 15%.
The worst pilot this fall? Cavemen, with 51% of the vote.

Check out the complete list here. (It just saddens me that Chuck wasn’t anywhere on the list.)

17.3 And finally, congratulations to Tim Burton, for receiving a Golden Lion lifetime achievement award at this year’s recently concluded Venice Film Festival.
Burton was praised as “one of America’s bravest, most visionary and innovative directors.”

(Images courtesy of space.com [Battlestar Galactica]; tv.com [Dexter]; aol.com [Entourage]; sparklies.org [Lost]; and thepiemaker.com [Pushing Daisies].)

THE DIRECTOR’S CHAIR (2)

TIM BURTON in
“THE BEST OF BURTON (In the Shadows of Mainstream Cinema)”

"Tim's kind of an interesting, eccentric sort-- although I don't know him too well as a person. He's the kind of guy you could talk to for three hours and still not know what he's all about. I think Tim is an intrinsically shy person, very closed, and won't open up to a stranger."
-- Bob Kane, creator of Batman (1992)

To a devoted film fanatic, the name "Tim Burton" evokes a very specific mood and atmosphere: the baroque finery of the gothic; the agony and ecstasy of the deviant; the elegance and beauty of the dark and sinister—all distilled through the mind of a Goth Peter Pan who happens to be an ex-Disney animator.
Taking a look at his body of work, it quickly becomes clear that the best of Burton's films display a strong underpinning of absurdist humor, which cohabits well with the often dark surroundings; a quirky sensibility that can be both ghoulishly macabre and hilarious at the same time. And though Burton stumbled with the lamentably horrid Planet of the Apes, he returned to the dark fairy tale whimsy of his earlier work with the moving Big Fish, which helped pave the way for his take on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the stop-motion animated feature, Corpse Bride (co-directed with Mike Johnson), and the upcoming (and long-long-long awaited) film adaptation of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

It is in the light of this latest collaboration with his cinematic alter-ego, Johnny Depp, that this article looks back to view, through a looking-glass darkly, the best of Tim Burton's ouvre.

1) Edward Scissorhands (1990): a loving, moving paean to the life of the outsider, Johnny Depp's unfinished, leather-clad Pinnochio is every single one of us, incomplete and fractured, merely looking for someplace where we can belong

2) Batman/Batman Returns (1989/1992): quite possibly the most subversive of all the superhero movies made thus far; in what is, ostensibly, PG-13 kiddie fare, Burton injects strains of insanity, disfigurement, child abuse and abduction, attempted infanticide, and duality. Aided and abetted by scripts filled to the brim with zingy one-liners and double entendres, Burton targets dead-on, what Batman is all about: sex and psychology

3) Ed Wood (1994): based on the true-to-life story of the man responsible for what is largely considered the worst film ever made (Plan 9 from Outer Space), Ed Wood is another moving tribute, this time, to the misunderstood artist, the low-brow visionary whose self-belief serves as armor against the banal mundanity of life and society; with an Oscar-recognized performance by Martin Landau (as washed-up horror icon Bela Lugosi)

4) Big Fish (2003): the winsome, Technicolor fantasia of this adaptation of the Daniel Wallace novel is a brilliant return to Burton’s brand of moving, magical film making; the often tumultuous relationship of fathers and sons is explored within the context of a tale about stories and storytellers, with the ultimate postmodern turn of the storyteller becoming his own story in the end

Truth to tell, nearly all of Burton's films are worth seeing (the exception being Planet of the Apes), though Sleepy Hollow is pure eye candy with a rather lame and predictable script topped by a Scooby Doo ending.
(And lest anyone go up in arms over my choices, The Nightmare Before Christmas was based on a story by Burton, and produced by him, but directed by Henry Selick, who went on to direct the equally interesting James and the Giant Peach, and the underappreciated Monkeybone, as well as providing stop motion animation for Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and who is currently wrapping up the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline. Since Nightmare wasn't directed by Burton, it was ineligible for the list.)

So, for those of you who prefer walking the darker shadows of mainstream cinema, hearken to the works of Tim Burton, who, at his best, understands the universal truths that lie hidden in childhood bogeymen and fairy tales, and who, with a curious, innocent optimism, invites us to tread the twisted and tangled paths of the haunted forests of our own less-than-perfect existences.
And in so doing, in telling his quirky, fractured tales, he is, perhaps, opening up to millions of strangers worldwide, in the best way he knows how.

(The above article is a revised version of its identically-titled predecessor.)

(Tim Burton image courtesy of façade.com; Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, and Big Fish OS’s courtesy of impawards.com; Ed Wood DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com.)

reVIEW (17)
BATMAN BEGINS

With The Dark Knight currently filming and set for a 2008 release, I thought I’d take this one out of deep freeze.

Since the turn of the millennium, DC Comics has had a nearly null presence in the multiplexes, while their long-time four-color competition, Marvel, following its surprise hit in 1998 in Blade, has littered the pop culture consciousness with X-Men and Spider-Men, Hulks and Daredevils. And while DC attempted to rise to the challenge with last year’s Catwoman and this year’s Constantine, neither were what one would classify as excellent cinema.
Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins changes all that.

It’s been 15 years since Tim Burton’s hit, Batman, and 8 since the florid, gaudy explosion of Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin (which effectively killed the Bat franchise), and Nolan has managed to bring us the first Batman film that really and truly is, about the Batman.
Whereas past Bat films have had the tendency to play up the eccentricities of the Dark Knight’s bizarre villains, casting recognizable, A-list Hollywood names to further that agenda, Begins’ sights are firmly set on the tortured psyche of Bruce Wayne, on the dynamics of his guilt and fear, so thoroughly intertwined in the tragic murder of his parents in front of his little boy eyes.
Excellent choice, Christian Bale, to essay the Dark Knight this time out. The young actor’s physicality, intensity, and commitment (he quickly bounced back from the emaciated insomniac he played in the ultimately disappointing El Maquinista to get into shape for Begins) serve him well, as we see Wayne from more dimensions and angles than we’d previously been allowed access to. What we have is the most substantial, and thus, most credible Bruce Wayne/Batman thus far. It was, after all, Bale’s intent to give the definitive performance of the character(s), and in this, he has succeeded admirably.

Of course, even the best actor can crash and burn if the script and the director are inept. Thankfully, that isn’t the case here.
Sharing co-writing credit with David Goyer (who also penned the scripts for the Blade films, as well as Dark City), Nolan delivers a film that is decidedly more complex—emotionally and psychologically—than past Bat films, and one that clearly has more adult sensibilities. For all their dark subversiveness, Tim Burton’s Bat films had a quirky streak of humor running through them; Nolan’s Begins is far less cartoony, more grounded in the reality of the character, and the seedy, corrupt milieu of Gotham City.

Presented as a tightly-packed, urban sprawl, this Gotham is no less the nightmare of a city than the gothic noir metropolis in Burton’s films (as realized by the late Anton Furst in Batman, and Bo Welch in Batman Returns). Here, Gotham is a city where hope lies bleeding in the filthy gutter, where criminals like Tom Wilkinson’s Carmine Falcone flood the streets with drugs, line their pockets with politicians, judges, and cops, and profit from the misery of the masses. The kind of city whose hero would be a creature of shadow, treading the fine line between justice and vengeance; a hero who isn’t scared of collateral damage (though I had hoped that as Bruce Wayne, he’d have paid for all the property damage the Batmobile caused), a hero whose greatest weapon is fear.
Ideal then, that the film not only feature the villain Scarecrow (28 Days Later’s Cillian Murphy, who was actually on the shortlist to play Batman before Bale drove off with the cape and cowl), who uses a chemical to amplify his victims’ phobias, but that the story focus on Bruce Wayne’s fears as well, not simply of bats, but of the possibility of failing in his dead father’s eyes.
There hasn’t been a comic book film with this much thematic cohesion—of story, plot, and action—since Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man (for my money, still better than the sequel).

With material of this integrity already in hand, Nolan takes the further step of surrounding the lead star with heavy-hitting thespians like Wilkinson, Gary Oldman (as Sgt. Jim Gordon, one of the few good cops left in Gotham), Morgan Freeman (as Lucius Fox, Wayne’s personal Q), Liam Neeson (as Ducard, Wayne’s Miyagi), and Michael Caine (as Alfred, Wayne’s Man Friday). In fact, there’s enough Oscar mojo here for younger cast members Bale, Murphy, and Katie Holmes (as Wayne’s childhood friend/love interest, Rachel Dawes) to get their own gold statuettes through osmosis.

Thus, with the leathery flap of a bat’s wings, and the sturm und drang theatricality of the operatic undertones of Bob Kane’s 66-year-old Dark Knight, DC Comics has snatched silver screen glory back.
And with Bryan Singer’s eagerly-awaited Superman Returns set to take flight on June 30, 2006, DC looks to be seriously flexing its celluloid muscles, something that should give even the mighty Marvel pause.

(Batman Begins OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

(The above review was previously published in 2005 under the title, “Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Bat?”)