HARRY POTTER AND THER GOBLET OF FIRE / Mike Newell (2005)
November 20th, 2005 by Scott Marks
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
Directed by: Mike Newell
Written by: Steve Kloves, J.K. Rowling
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Maggie Smith, Brendan Gleeson, Eric Sykes, Timothy Spall, David Tennant, Mark Williams, James Phelps, Oliver Phelps, Bonnie Wright, Jeff Rawle, Robert Pattinson, Jason Isaacs, Tom Felton, Stanislav Ianevski
Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1
Running Time: 157 min.
Genres: Adventure, Family, Fantasy, Mystery
For years I successfully avoided the Harry Potter franchise. Fantasy films were never my drug of choice. After a screening of the original Star Wars I remember turning to a friend and asking, “Who the hell wants to see this?” A bunch of midgets in garbage cans with laser beams spouting dialogue that would embarrass the Bowery Boys.
So much for having my finger placed firmly on the pulse of popular taste
The problem with most contemporary fantasy films is their inability to establish and sustain a fantasy universe. That filthy puppet E. T. is able to strap a full grown boy to his bicycle and pilot him past the moon, yet he can’t figure out how to phone home.
So much for suspension of disbelief…
In the Harry Potter films magic presents an escape hatch that the filmmakers, and audiences eager to buy in, jump through whenever logic rears its ugly kisser. Continuing plot points notwithstanding, the one thing that perplexed me throughout was the noticeable absence of electricity. The kids appear dressed in contemporary garb, yet everything is lit by candles. If these kids are so smart can’t they figure out how to plug in a lamp? Didn’t their parents inform them of the horrors of reading in low light levels? A friend’s son informed me that electricity is beneath the kids of.Horwart’s. When asked why a band complete with an electric guitar and amplifier was able to rock out, his response was, “Magic!”
The production design is appealing and the special effects enormous, but in service of what? Another joyless blockbuster, void of wonder and geared for 7-year-old boys that whisks us from one “adventure” to another. Stylistic flourishes and any form of personality on the part of the filmmakers are discouraged. As far as film is concerned, this is a vision-proof series. Don’t you find it odd that directors come and go, but all four films were written by the same screenwriter? Were it not to remain unflinchingly loyal to the text, there’d be more in-theater shootings than at a thirty-plex with all screens showing Get Rich or Die Trying.
There is one addition to the story that almost made it worth the two-and-a-half hours. As Alastor ‘MadEye’ Moody, Brendan Gleeson steals every scene he’s in. In an era where everyone wants to be a star, Gleeson is content to plug away as one of the most reliable character actors at work today. It doesn’t hurt that ‘MadEye’ earned his nickname from a transplanted left eye that resembles a floating-ball car compass gone wild.
Fortunately, this one is beyond criticism. Whether reviewers love it or hate it won’t put a dent in the cinematic coffers. Given what I saw, unless trapped with one on an airplane, there is zero chance that I’ll be checking out the first three installments in this lifetime.
Rating: 
Filed Under Reviews, Theatrical
RENT / Chris Columbus (2005)
November 20th, 2005 by Scott Marks
Rent (2005)
Directed by: Chris Columbus
Written by: Stephen Chbosky, Jonathan Larson
Cast: Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Rosario Dawson, Jesse L. Martin, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Idina Menzel, Tracie Thoms, Taye Diggs, Julia Roth, Porscha Radcliffe, Stephen Payne, Darryl Chan, Ken Clark, R.C. Ormond, David Fine
Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1
Running Time: 135 min.
Genres: Drama, Musical, Romance
Chris Columbus continues to leave no fingerprints in this big, loud, colorful version of Jonathan Larson’s Pulitzer Prize winning Broadway show.
As was the case of A Chorus Line, successfully adapting stage to the screen, particularly a musical with so much built-in over-theatrical theatricality, appears more difficult than translating cuneiform.
We follow a band of scruffy Bohemians living in a gutted tenement. Collectively they can’t raise one month’s rent, let alone five, yet they still have plenty of booze to drink, pot and cartons of Marlboro’s to smoke, and only the flashiest of trend-setting rags to wear.
Mark (Anthony Rapp), a nerdy, heterosexual ‘documentarian’ who makes Andy Dick look like Sid Luft, acts as our narrator. On a purely technical note, Mark’s 16mm spring-wound Bolex camera (that he never reloads and never puts down) holds maybe five to seven minutes of film. His Kodak bills would cost more than a Manhattan penthouse.
Mark still loves his ex Maureen (Idina Menzel), who jumped ship for Joanne (Tracie Thoms), a public interest lawyer. HIV+ Roger (Adam Pascal) rooms with Mark and loves Mimi (Rosario Dawson), a HIV+ stripper at a Gentlemen’s Club where the dancers wear more than the customers.
Tom Collins (Jesse L. Martin), Mark and Roger’s former roommate, is a computer genius involved with Angel (Wilson Jermaine) a HIV+ transsexual street performer. Former group member Benny (Taye Diggs) is the “Buppie” who rose above it all and now holds the lease.
With all the broad, Liza-like theatrics, forced cheer, and eagerness to elongate every note, it plays like a special, AIDS-themed edition of American Idol written by Andrew Lloyd Weber.
The simplistic “moon/June/spoon” lyrics comprise almost 75% of the film’s dialogue. Rare exceptions (Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort, Milos Forman’s Hair, Ken Russell’s delirious Tommy and would I dare overlook The Three Stooges in Women Haters) come to mind, but this trademarked A. L. W. talk/sing approach to musicals leaves me cold. You should also note that out of the five films cited above, only one was based on a play, and while Tommy was drawn from a rock-opera it remains one of the great (and few) movie musicals of the past thirty years.
Although based on Puccini’s La Boehme. Rent has as much to do with legitimate opera as The Marx. Bros. Attempts to ‘open-up’ the play (Mark singing and peddling his heart out down the streets of New York) might have been pulled-off in more skilled hands, but a director with a vision would never tackle such a pre-ordained, tamper-proof project..
On a positive visual note, the film is photographed by the superb Stephen Goldblatt (who knew Batman and Robin would make a perfect warm-up?), and Howard Cummings’ production design invites the eye to comb the screen while bored with the music. Maureen and Joanne’s engagement party (reminiscent of Hair’s title number) was the film’s only saving moment.
The story takes place over the course of a now famous “five-hundred-twenty-five-thousand-six-hundred minutes.” Can I get a one-hundred-thirty-five-minute refund?
Rating: 
Filed Under Reviews, Theatrical
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