The Rum Diary

Based on Hunter S Thompson's book of the same name, The Rum Diary is the story of Kemp (Johnny Depp), a journalist who travels to Puerto Rico to take a job at a small newspaper that seems to be on the brink of shutting down. He meets a cast of unusual characters, and is hired by a mogul, Sanderson (played by Aaron Eckhart) to help spin a slightly illegal and somewhat immoral land and development deal into something positive. When he falls in love with Sanderson's girlfriend, Chenault (Amber Heard), everything starts to go down hill...

The Rum Diary has its moments, but, as a complete film, is uninteresting. There never, really, seems to be too much at stake in the film. Kemp needs the job, but he seems to always get by when things happen. The deal that Sanderson involves him in seems to be going somewhere, but fizzles as a plot element, and Chenault feels like a red herring, but with nothing to cling to when she's gone. I haven't seen Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, another adaptation of a Thompson work with Depp in the lead, but I can only imagine, considering its rabid fan base, it has to be more interesting than this was.

Public Enemies

Michael Mann... Oh, Michael Mann... What happened? Were you high? Did someone smack you over the head, causing brain damage in the area that made you a good director in the first place? Or has getting older just made you lose your marbles?

Public Enemies was supposed to be a movie about John Dillinger, one of the most prolific bank robbers in American history, and an icon in its history. He was a celebrity in his time. Instead, what we got was an incoherent mess that was kind of about Dillinger, but was also about half a dozen other people. The film had no real narrative structure to speak of, and, instead, seemed like a simple retelling of (mostly) uninteresting events. Where were the bank robberies? Where were the fast cars? the women? All the stuff that Depp speaks so highly of in character as Dillinger? Where was the character development? I didn't care about anybody in this film, and especially didn't care when they got killed. Okay, Pretty Boy Floyd gets shot. So what? Baby Face Nelson kills some people, then gets shot. So? I didn't even care about Dillinger. I didn't even care about his girlfriend.

And then there's the technical aspects of it... Ugh... The HD? Looked like crap. HD already looks kind of half ass when blown up to 35mm, but this looked REALLY bad. Miami Vice looked better, and Miami Vice didn't look that good...

Oh Michael Mann... What happened?

Sweeney Todd:The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

If I could sum up my reaction to Sweeney Todd in a simple gesture, it would be this - Picture me holding my nose with one hand, sticking my tongue out, and, with the other hand, starting in a thumbs up position, and then my hand moving in a counter-clockwise motion into a thumbs down position (trust me, it's a simple gesture when its acted out. Writing it takes a lot more effort).

Not a fan of the Todd (and there may actually be some Scrubs fans who get the inside joke in that statement). The film is about a man named Benjamin Barker, who is falsely accused of a crime and  sent to jail for life. The judge who accuses him and sentences him, then takes his wife and daughter and forces them under his care. Fast forward, roughly, twenty years or so, and Barker breaks out of prison and returns to England, seeking vengeance on Judge Turpin, the man who destroyed his life. Now, though, Barker is older and filled with piss and vinegar, and with a new hair-do and some fancy black duds, he is "reborn" as Sweeney Todd. Sweeney Todd resurrects Barkers old barber shop with the help of the buildings owner (and proprietor of the restaurant downstairs), Mrs. Lovett, but his plans aren't to rebuild his life, only to seek vengeance on the man who destroyed it. I'm not going to say too much else, or it feels like giving the plot away.

As you may have been able to tell from the opening paragraph, I wasn't exactly impressed by the film. Tim Burton, in general, has been on my bad side for a while. I just don't enjoy his work anymore. And the one thing I probably enjoyed the most, The Nightmare Before Christmas, isn't even really a Tim Burton film. It's just a "Tim Burton presents".

What was my issue with Sweeney Todd? Well, I can sum it up, mostly, in one word - Musical. I don't like musicals. Never have. If people are singing more than 25% of the time in a film, I'm pretty much out. If I wanted to sit and listen to people sing for 2 hours, I would go to live theater. On film, though, musicals are often boring and flat. They often times come off as pretentious, or lacking relevance, and there is very little anyone can do to fix this (on a personal note, I can't believe they made Mamma Mia! into a film. That looks like the most pointless piece of cinema this year).

It seems like Burton made this film so that he could fill in the blanks of that which was missing from the stage show, but, when you see the kinds of things he does with it, you're left to wonder if we, as an audience, need any of that stuff in the first place. Is the CGI London any more real because you can see a little more of it? Or because they do that fancy (computer generated) shot at the beginning? Are Todd's acts any more gruesome because, as a film, Burton can have a sliced throat spew blood almost endlessly? You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that when a straight razor is dragged across someone's neck, it's probably going to cut them open, and they'll probably die. What I'm trying to say is - Burton's over the top, gothic  imagination, in my opinion, lends nothing to the story. 

All told, though, it wasn't a complete wash. The film is worth watching, at least on the big screen, just to see it. I wish I hadn't paid full price for it, though.