Past the Popcorn film roundup, Christmas edition: Naughty, Nice, and Everything In Between
Each week, Past the Popcorn offers a thorough look at the latest round of films opening on big screens.
Drawing a lot of attention as an “abortion issues” movie, Juno is much more than that, says Greg Wright. “What the film is really about is one young woman’s desperate need to believe in true love, and her own rocky path in search of that ideal.” Almost as idealistic as Disney’s Enchanted, Juno nonetheless depicts all the messy complications of being responsible for one’s choices.
Also drawing a lot of attention, mostly for being a “war” picture that is also entertaining, Charlie Wilson’s War manages to be “both a liberal indictment of the management of U.S. foreign policy and a rousing, conservative-pleasing portrait of one the Right’s (sort of) heroes.” According to Greg, it’s an adult-level depiction of what it means for the U.S. to “play with the big boys while swimming with the sharks.” And it earns both the superlatives ladles upon it, as well as it’s very serious R rating.
Kathy Bledsoe, meanwhile, raves about the romance P.S. I Love You, the latest from director Richard LaGravenese. The film “fulfills a longing for the desire to get away from happily-ever-after,” she says, “and into the exploration of relationships in which real people can see themselves.”
Jeff Walls is also as duly impressed with Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was one can be with something that feels as if “music had been added to one of those modern gore-fests like Hostel or Saw.” It’s a great fit for the talents of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, he says, though he cautions that the R-rated musical “is not for everyone as throats are slit and blood flies throughout.”
Another plus this week, says Mike Smith, is The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a French-language art film about a stroke victim who can only communicate by blinking one eyelid. “I predict that this film will be another powerful foreign movie that few will see,” he prophesies sadly. “And that will be an utter tragedy.”
So that’s it for the “nice.” Before getting to the truly naughty, there’s Book of Secrets, the disappointing sequel to National Treasure; Youth Without Youth, a serious film from Francis Ford Coppola that undoubtedly suits him (if few others); and Steep, a skiing documentary that manages to be repetitive and dull.
But the naughty award goes to Walk Hard, a music-icon satire entirely based on lewd double-entendres and frontal nudity. Says Jeff Walls, “I’m confident that Kasdan is a decent director, but he really doesn’t have anything to work with here. As a result, he’s forced to resort to gags involving frontal male nudity that are more disturbing than they are funny and many repeat jokes that don’t work, well, repeatedly.”
