Movie Hawk

An old conversation that seems appropriate today:

Me: What’s the best sports movie ever?
Mike: …is fishing a sport?
Me: Sure.
Mike: Jaws.

Rest in peace, Roy Scheider.

As excited as I am for the upcoming film version of Sweeney Todd – with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp on board, it’s hard to resist – I can’t help but be a little disappointed that the trailer includes almost no music. The backbone of the show – indeed, the reason it is so brilliantly dark – is the music of Stephen Sondheim. Clearly, this December will be filled with Sondheim’s devilishly good lyrics, but it’s such a tease not to include more of it in the trailer.

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A combination of infrequent circumstances – including my reading of the Philadelphia City Paper – inspired me to travel downtown this weekend to visit the Ritz at the Bourse for the first time since the chain had been bought out by Landmark Theatres. The reason? To catch a limited-engagement showing of the 1986 classic Labyrinth.

I hadn’t seen the movie in full in at least a decade, and like too much visual media from the 1980s, it doesn’t age perfectly. Labyrinth is a movie that makes it hard to believe that Jennifer Connelly ever won an Academy Award, impossible to believe that David Bowie went on to be a serious actor, and easy to believe that Jim Henson did some fabulous drugs. Even so, Henson’s homage to The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and a slew of other children’s stories is a wonderful bit of entertainment, and a must-see for Muppet fans and 80s nostalgists alike.

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Thrity years ago today, a strange film about aliens, evil empires, and a mystical force debuted on a few dozen screens and changed the world as we know it. Sure, Jaws officially started the “blockbuster” trend in Hollywood two years earlier, but Star Wars perfected the idea. Films have come since that have outsold Star Wars, but it still stands in history as one of the biggest and most influential films of all time. I won’t try to philosophize about what the movie did to me when I saw it for the first time, because I don’t really remember. And I won’t reminisce on how much the film mean to me, because it doesn’t mean that much. I really really like Star Wars, and I appreciate its part in cinematic history, but I don’t worship at its altar. At the same time, if it weren’t for Star Wars, most of the movies I love today wouldn’t have been made. And for that I thank George Lucas and his space story. So happy thirtieth birthday, Star Wars. I’m sure the people in the comments will have a lot to say about you.

I’ve been living on the outskirts of Philadelphia for nearly 25 years (that is, my entire life) and have been writing amateur film reviews for only five or so, but, embarrassingly, I have only recently learned to take advantage of the art house Ritz Theaters chain in the city. For the longest time, I was afraid of the big, bad city and relegated my movie watching to big chains in the burbs. Even so, I feel a bit nostalgic and a bit upset to learn that the three Ritz Theaters are being sold to a national indie theater chain.

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Surprise winners ruled the evening at last night’s Academy Awards. Alan Arkin took home a well-deserved Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and Happy Feet stole away the animation award from Cars and Monster House, but perhaps the biggest shock came from the Best Original Song category. With three numbers from Dreamgirls dominating the nominees, it was expected that it would be an easy category to handicap. And though two of the songs were only half decent, “I Love You, I Do” deserved recognition but had to defer to Melissa Etheridge and her ballad created for the global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

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And now, for a new Movie Hawk feature, the Trailer Park. This will be a sporadic feature (then again, what here isn’t), reserved for when an extraordinarily interesting trailer hits the Interwebs or when I have nothing else to write.

• TMNT – I’m still pumped for this movie, even if the trailer affirms fears that the tone will be more cartoonish than dark, forsaking the TMNT origin for the gags that made the cartoon wildly popular in my childhood. I’m all for “Cowabunga,” but it’s a proven fact now more than ever that you can put some dark material in a movie and still have young kids be interested.
• 300 – Frank Miller gave us one of the better movies of last year with Sin City, but I wasn’t initially interested in this film based on his graphic novel of the same name. This trailer has intrigued me a little more than previous efforts, but it still strikes me as a movie I’ll go see at 10:40 at King of Prussia with my friend and fall asleep.
• Blood and Chocolate – I include this because I saw the trailer in the movie theatre and most of the audience cracked up when the title card flashed. Can we discuss the fact that they’ve run out of movie titles? Anyone?

One of the great things about these here Internets is that it seems that every minute, someone is releasing their “Top (Number Here) Greatest (Noun Here) of (Time Frame Here)” list. It’s like every day is Total Request Live, without the shrieking teenagers, toolbag hosts, and lame music videos. Perhaps the most prolific listmaker is the American Film Institute, who Sunday released their list of the best 25 movie musicals of all time. Tops on that list was Singin’ in the Rain, followed by West Side Story, neither of which anyone can really argue with.

As the list gets nearer to its end, though, there arise some questions: Chicago at 12? Guys and Dolls at 23 (to be fair, they didn’t list anything that Brando sang as a “memorable song”)? Moulin Rouge! at 25 (you can argue that it belongs higher or not on the list at all)? The most glaring omissions, to me, are The Music Man and South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. As with all lists, though, everything is up for debate. If you feel so inclined, knock yourself out and comment.