Sweeney Todd — Or Not
December 5th, 2007
Because of a bloody embargo, I can’t yet share my thoughts on Tim Burton’s adaptation of the Sondheim musical, starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Instead, here are clips from twelve musicals I love. Enjoy.
What good is sitting alone in your room?
“Cheek to Cheek”
“Wig in a Box.” I once saw John Cameron Mitchell perform this with the Polyphonic Spree, and it was a perfect fit.
Lars gets his Björk on — in DV!
“Well Did You Evah?” with Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. Some people apparently prefer The Philadelphia Story, but I don’t.
“Let the Sunshine In/The Flesh Failures”
I wish there was a longer clip of “Crash the Party” online. Anybody?
I like the island Manhattan.
The video of “Girls & Boys” from Prince’s woefully underrated second film. Also: Mountains. Wrecka Stow!
Israel in 4 B.C. had no mass communication. Also: Gethsemane.
“Falling Slowly”
The first time I ever teared up over a YouTube clip.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Tim Burton, 2007. N/R
Southland Tales
November 3rd, 2007
Goldwyn has asked for an embargo on reviews until the week of release, so at this point there’s not much I can tell you about Richard Kelly’s follow-up to Donnie Darko. If you see me around town though, buy me a beer and I’ll let you know exactly what I think.
David Hudson rounds up the devastating reactions from Cannes; Kelly has since cut 19 minutes from the the apocalyptic romp and added a bunch of special effects. Starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Seann William Scott, Mandy Moore, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Curtis Armstrong, Cheri Oteri, Justin Timerblake, Jon Lovitz, Bai Ling, Kevin Smith, Miranda Richardson, Amy Poehler and Wallace Shawn. Southland Tales will open on November 14.
Southland Tales. Richard Kelly, 2007. N/R
Apocalypto
December 1st, 2006
In February of 2005, I was in the Guatemalan jungle, on top of what archaeologists have designated Temple IV in the ruins of the ancient Mayan city of Tikal, standing next to the chamber where the priest-king used to gobble magic mushrooms. Sound Tribe Sector 9 was playing on the iPod.
You’ve seen the view from Temple IV before: it’s the jungle hideout where the rebels regroup for their attack on the Death Star in Star Wars. Tikal was a city designed specifically to align with the Maya’s advanced astronomical knowledge. Rumor has it Sector 9 arrange their setlists according to the Mayan calendar. At the base of the pyramid, our guide Daniello was waiting with far-out theories about the end of the Long Count on December 21, 2012.
Back in New York (a city specifically designed to allow immigrants to make it to work on time), I played around with a bizarre screenplay called Twenty-Twelve for a couple of weeks. Then there was news of Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto, and I read Daniel Pinchbeck’s follow-up to Breaking Open the Head, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, a daring work that combines personal history with way-out ideas about the nature of time, the emergent noosphere, crop circles, the theories of Rudolf Steiner and Jose Arguelles, and the end of the Mayan Long Count. I shelved Twenty-Twelve.
Tonight I saw Apocalypto, and I’m absolutely dying to tell you what I thought–but Disney embargoed all reviews until the December 8 release, and you know how it is: when the Mouse asks, you don’t refuse–and you definitely wouldn’t want to get Mr. Gibson angry. The most I dare say is this: Apocalypto has nothing to do whatsoever with anything that interested me about Mayan culture in the first place, and Marcy might be wrong about Babel. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll bite my tongue for a week and leave you with some photos from Tikal and a video of Sector 9 playing Tokyo:
I’d love to know what Daniello has to say about Apocalypto.
Apocalypto. Mel Gibson, 2006. (No rating yet.)
[tags]sound tribe sector 9, film, mel gibson, maya, mayan calendar, time, guatemala, tikal, youtube, flickr, daniel pinchbeck, tikal, apocalypto, 2012, babel, star wars, quetzalcoatl, noosphere, rudolf steiner, jose arguelles, tokyo, crop cirlces, temple of the jaguar, temple IV, daniello, disney, mickey mouse, embargo, paramount building[/tags]
