Park City's Flick Chick by Jill Adler
January 2005 - Lastest Movie Reviews in a Nutshell
Phantom of the Opera
Film Rating: PG-13
It’s
a January film –cold, haunting, seductive yet slightly off.
Unlike Chicago and Moulin Rouge, this big-budget musical, produced
directly to screen by the Broadway creator himself, Andrew Lloyd
Webber, seems to have spent all of its money in the wrong places.
The sets, photography and costumes are gorgeous. The story, in
a nutshell, starts with the auctioning of items from a decrepit
Paris opera house then washes into a Technicolor past to display
the place in its heyday. Italian diva Carlotta (Minnie Driver)
steals every scene but she is quickly upstaged by the doe-eyed
Christine (Emmy Rossum) after The Phantom (a long-term, secret
‘evil’ resident of the opera house who’s obsessed
with her) makes the theater’s owners (one of who is also
in love with Christine) , er, an offer they can’t refuse.
Can you say typical love triangle? Loved the bigness of this pic
but damned if I wasn’t completely annoyed by some MAJOR
issues – the lip syncing sucked (you could tell none of
the characters were singing, even if their own voices were looped
in), The Phantom (Gerard Butler) is neither scary-looking nor
can he sing and when they’re in The Phantom’s lair
it looked strangely like Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean
ride. I’m recommending the play over the movie, Folks.
The Sea Inside
Film Rating: R
I
had a conversation with my roommate on a chairlift about what
if you were paralyzed from the neck down in a skiing accident.
He said, “Kill me.” I argued that there would still
be much to live for and much you could contribute to the world.
That night we saw The Sea Inside. Based on the true plight of
Ramon Sampedro, a Spanish sailor who broke his neck diving into
shallow water and spent 28 years fighting for the right to euthanize
himself, The Sea Inside ironically played out our debate. Javier
Bardem as Ramon is remarkable as the poet seeking to “die
with dignity”. Using only his head and voice, he carries
this film; showing how Ramon affected everyone around him, filling
his small room with passion, love and life even though he desperately
wished to escape his own. In the end, I left thinking maybe assisted
suicide after a devastating accident might not be a bad thing.
My roommate wanted to live. This five-hanky independent film is
one heavy flick, beautifully told and indelibly thought-provoking.
Movie Magic Screenwriter
Film Rating: NR
In
honor of Sundance, instead of reviewing another film (slow month
anyway) we'll review a tool that makes the movies possible. Movie
Magic Screenwriter 2000 brings screenwriting to the masses. If
you've never had a writing class or you are absolutely lame at
formatting your MS Word for a screenplay, MMS has virtually every
feature imaginable to get your film out of your head and onto
a page. Though it takes a little getting used to, this program
is the bomb. It automatically formats the necessary elements like
scene headings, dialogue, character names, scene breaks, freeing
up your time for crafting expert prose, or cheesy dialog. It also
has a dictionary, thesaurus, an option for a live script reading
with the Text to Speech function. After you finish your script,
register it with the Screenwriter's online registration, then
save it in (HTML) and Adobe Acrobat (PDF) formats so anyone with
a computer can read your script. Now, maybe by next year you'll
have that script ready to shop around at Sundance.
Fomoinfo go to www.screenplay.com
