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More than a month ago, they started appearing: Best of 2011 lists. … (more…)

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My review of Steven Spielberg’s War Horse is up at Image’s blog, Good Letters.

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Anne writes poetry.

But lately, she’s been asked to write a few essays. Some of them appear between the poetry collections in her new book Delicate Machinery Suspended.

And one of them is published today at Christianity Today: An eyewitness testimony about what it’s like to celebrate Christmas in Seattle. (more…)

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In my book Through a Screen Darkly, I wrote quite a bit about the films of Steven Spielberg. But those thoughts are scattered throughout the book.

Today you can read my new overview of Spielberg’s entire career as a director…  (more…)

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A review by Jeffrey Overstreet.

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Director – Steven Spielberg; writers – Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish; based on the books by Hergé; visual-effects supervisors – Joe Letteri and Scott E. Anderson; animation supervisor – Jamie Beard; editor – Michael Kahn; music – John Williams; art direction – Andrew Jones and Jeff Wisneiwski; producers – Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and Kathleen Kennedy. Starring - Jamie Bell (Tintin), Andy Serkis (Captain Haddock), Daniel Craig (Sakharine), Nick Frost (Thomson), Simon Pegg (Thompson), Toby Jones (Silk), Mackenzie Crook (Tom), Daniel Mays (Allan), Gad Elmaleh (Ben Salaad), Joe Starr (Barnaby) and Kim Stengel (Bianca Castafiore). Paramount Pictures and Columbia Pictures. 1 hour 47 minutes.

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In the opening scenes of The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, the new 3D motion-capture-powered animated spectacle from director Steven Spielberg and producer Peter Jackson, one character in an open marketplace happily informs a stranger, “Everybody knows him. That’s Tintin.”

And yet, after two hours of nearly perpetual, elaborately choreographed action, the audience still doesn’t know who Tintin is.

Those who have lined up to see a comic book character they already know and love may recognize him, but if they do, they’re only recognizing a haircut, an outfit, and the elements around him. To all appearances, Tintin is as blank as any character a film has ever been built around. That signature pinch of hair on the front of his head is actually a clue: Tintin isn’t a cartoon character with thought balloons. He is a balloon, and that point on his head is the knot tying it off! As Manohla Dargis describes him in The New York Times, he’s “lifelike, but without the pulse of real life.”

The boy android in Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence had one hundred times more life than Tintin. In fact, Tintin sometimes feels like a movie that the “mechas” might have assembled inside their own circuitry, unable to locate what it is that differentiates human beings from computers.

I almost feel that I should congratulate Jamie Bell, the actor whose motion-capture performance is animated here — it takes some real genius to create a character so utterly devoid of personality, so convincingly lacking in history, so unaffected by fear or physical stress, so free of meaningful relationships or concerns.

That is a problem.

It doesn’t help that the character who becomes Tintin’s fellow adventurer, the almost perpetually intoxicated Captain Archibald Haddock (“played” by Andy Serkis), is the sort of obnoxious, talkative drunk you try to avoid at parties — flamboyant and exaggerated. When he steals the show from Tintin, you might be tempted to demand that he give it back.

There are plenty of forgettable supporting characters and, strangely, there is not a single female of any importance. Remember the complaints about the lack of women in The Lord of the Rings? Tolkien’s epic feels like a feminist manifesto compared to Tintin, a world in which women appear even more fleetingly than pauses in the film’s action.

Ah, but what about that action, which so many moviegoers are gushing about?

Well, that’s a problem too.

The action in Secret of the Unicorn is as complicated and as carefully engineered as it gets. Throughout, it’s the kind of action that fans of Spielberg’s other action movies — from Raiders of the Lost Ark to Minority Report — love. Chases down sidewalks and streets, chases by car and airplane and ship. Narrow escapes, spectacular explosions, duels on the decks of flaming ships.

But while this action is quite impressive in its Rube-Goldberg-esque design, where is the suspense in action that never bruises its hero, that conspires such preposterous rescues and escapes that we know nothing serious will ever go wrong, that assures us from the opening scenes that all of the apparent danger is just that — apparent danger? Tintin will slip through it as gracefully and confidently as Tweety Bird through the clutches of Sylvester the Cat, but with far less depth of character.

He’s a crash test dummy who never hits a wall. As balloons go, he’s unbreakable.

Further, the animation only distances us further from any sense of suspense, since these can’t properly be called “stunts” and thus convey no real sense of risk. (This is where Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol reigns supreme among 2011′s action-adventure movies.) Animated films can be suspenseful, but they have to cultivate suspense in storytelling and character development, or through action that draws us in and makes us believe. Tintin‘s action overloads the senses. I was checking my watch at the one-hour point.

I’m told that the script by Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish interweaves three existing Tintin adventures (The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn, Red Rackham’s Treasure). There’s a snarling and entirely uninteresting villain named Ivan Ivanovich Sakharine (and it’s interesting that the villain’s name is pronounced like “saccharine” when the whole movie feels like it’s made of frosting). There are two identical and mildly amusing police inspectors voiced by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost who manage to slow the action down from time to time for some delightful but fleeting comic interludes. (I would have preferred a whole movie with these guys, who seem to live in a world of playfulness inspired by Jacques Tati.)

I suspect I’ll be thrown off a bridge by fans of the artist Georges Remi — also known as Hergé — for daring to nay-say the comics that delighted them in their childhoods. Hey, I have no experience with those comics, so I have nothing negative to say about them. They may be as enthralling for readers as The Lord of the Rings was for me when I was growing up. The fact remains that while Peter Jackson drew new generations into a love of Tolkien’s Middle Earth, giving them characters they would care about, environments of natural beauty so enthralling that we’d want to go back there someday, and a high-stakes plot rich with suspense and surprise, he doesn’t come anywhere close to achieving that here. Watching Tintin, I felt as detached as if I were looking over the shoulder of a kid playing a non-stop, high-speed video game.

Reading a comic book, you can take your time, study the action, and get to know your characters at a gradual pace. Watching Tintin, you’re tied to the back of a runaway train and told to keep up if you can. I wasn’t very intrigued by the quest, and the more the “secrets” of the Unicorn were revealed, the more underwhelmed I became. And I don’t know that I’ve ever been so thunderstruck and dissatisfied by the film’s abrupt conclusion, which seems to happen during one of the film’s rare pauses. I was still waiting for something that felt significant enough to mark the close of an episode.

Film critic Glenn Kenny mentions Wallace and Gromit in his review, which gave me a sort of “a-ha!” moment. In a short Wallace and Gromit cartoon, we do see action sequences that are similarly elaborate, similarly mechanical, similarly preposterous. And yet, running through it all are a man and his dog whose relationship anchors us to unfolding action. We are happy to chase them through one circus act after another because we enjoy their company. We’d be as happy to sit with them and eat slices of cheese as we are to see them escape the gears of a deadly machine. I watch those claymation cartoons over and over, delighting in their unique camaraderie. I get the feeling, watching Tintin, that if he stopped running he’d vanish like a puff of smoke.

So I’m left not with a finale that gives me any reason to be glad I made the journey, but with a jarring “To Be Continued,” the promise of a sequel that I will make a point to avoid (unless I am powerfully persuaded otherwise by early reviews heralding the arrival of a much, much better movie). This treasure hunt left me without the greatest treasures of all — characters worth visiting, a story worth telling, a reason to care.

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A review by Jeffrey Overstreet, originally published at Filmwell.

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Director – Brad Bird; writers – Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec; based on the television series created by Bruce Geller; director of photography – Robert Elswit; editor – Paul Hirsch; music – Michael Giacchino; “Mission: Impossible” theme – Lalo Schifrin; production design – Jim Bissell; costumes – Michael Kaplan; producers – Tom Cruise, J. J. Abrams and Bryan Burk. Starring – Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt), Jeremy Renner (Brandt), Simon Pegg (Benji), Paula Patton (Jane), Michael Nyqvist (Hendricks), Vladimir Mashkov (Sidorov), Josh Holloway (Hanaway), Anil Kapoor (Brij Nath), Léa Seydoux (Sabine Moreau) and Tom Wilkinson (I.M.F. Secretary). Paramount Pictures. 2 hours 13 minutes.

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It is a pleasure to announce that director Brad Bird’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is worth every penny of today’s high ticket price. In this moviegoer’s opinion, it’s easily the finest installment in an otherwise mediocre franchise. Moreover, it’s leaves X-Men: First Class, Captain America, and the rest of 2011′s glorified Saturday morning cartoons in its dust.

Give me another ticket, Mr. Bird. I want to take this ride again.

This Mission: Impossible episode begins with our hero, special agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), in a jail cell in Russia. Why? Long story. The movie will get around to that eventually.

What really matters is this:

A renegade Russian named Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist of the original Dragon Tattoo film) has decided that the world needs to be “rebooted” through an act of nuclear devastation. It has something to do with his wacky theory that this will advance human evolution. Whatever — he’s just a few launch-code numbers away from launching nuclear missiles that will trigger a war between the U.S. and Russia.

Sounds like a job for the Impossible Missions Force (IMF)… right?

Well, if you’ve seen the previous films, no… the IMF team haven’t exactly become heroes of choice for moviegoers over the past 15 years. Brian De Palma’s initial feature was enjoyable enough, especially for introducing a large American audience to the international film goddess Emmanuelle Béart and for helping to revive John Voight’s career. But John Woo’s sequel was atrocious. J.J. Abrams, in his first attempt as a feature film director, improved things, but the movie amounted to little more than a two-hour episode of Alias starring Tom Cruise instead of Jennifer Garner. Meanwhile, audiences kept referring to the hero as “Tom Cruise.” The name and personality of his character, Ethan Hunt, just weren’t sticking.

Nevertheless, Ethan Hunt’s Russian imprisonment brings a team of talented action-movie sidekicks too set him free. They need him, you see, so he can lead them into action and save the world one more time.

As Ghost Protocol revs its engines, things get complicated in a hurry. No sooner has Hunt made his first move against the villain than he and his team are framed, made to look like they’re the real terrorists. To make a long story short, these undercover agents have to go even deeper undercover, operating without the protection of the American government, in order to prevent humankind from being vaporized. They need somebody to lean on, and have nobody but each other.

Yeah, I know. It sounds like the conventional absurdity of a zillion action movies.

But as you may remember, this stuff can be a whole lot of fun if it’s done well.

At the feast of cinema, action flicks like these are the plate of chocolate chip cookies, or the bowl of buttered popcorn. Their plots are so mechanical, their characters so sketchy, they make the Indiana Jones narratives look like Shakespeare. They’re circus acts, and they run on stunts and cleverness and surprise. They appeal to the Saturday morning cartoon fan in all of us. We’ve worked hard, and now it’s weekend: We want to see something outrageous, zany, an adrenalin rush that will make us forget our troubles for a while. If we ask for that and are instead delivered something deeply meaningful — or worse, realistic — well, it won’t be very satisfying.

But action flicks are not an easy art. Some action filmmakers fulfill the recipe with cheap ingredients and sloppy cooking. They make disposable, forgettable movies. But once in a while, you find a director who takes this stuff seriously, demands excellent ingredients, and invests so much imagination and invention that the result is memorable, worth revisiting, and worth recommending.

What does an action movie need to rise above predictability and mediocrity?

First, it needs engaging action-movie personalities. And this one has them.

Tom Cruise, looking a little more rugged (and thus, a little more human) than normal, is allowed to do what he does best: Play a determined, unbreakable action figure.

Unlike Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, or even Bruce Willis, Cruise has never created characters who convey much complexity, depth, intelligence, or emotional range. His irrepressible zeal is both a weakness and a strength. It prevents him from excelling in quieter moments, in emotional scenes, or in ensemble settings (Cruise cannot help but become the center of attention). But it enables him to commit to scenes of flamboyant action with such enthusiasm that we can almost believe him when he dodges bullets, or sandstorms. He’s more athlete than actor.

Ethan Hunt, being a man of action, determination, and courageous acrobatics, is the most perfect fit for Cruise’s talents that I’ve seen.

Cruise’s colleagues are also fit for their tasks. Simon Pegg is endearingly amusing as a somewhat untrustworthy tech wizard. Jeremy Renner is a rather unnecessary but engaging new addition, playing an analyst dragged into action that uncovers his secret abilities and wounds. Paula Patton is the fighting machine/supermodel who is as ready to use her sex appeal as her deadly kickboxing skills to get the job done. (If she’d been given some fight scenes in Precious, I might have liked that movie a great deal more.) She even gets to beat the snot out of Léa Seydoux, which I enjoyed more than I should have. (Seydoux’s character in Lourdes was so aggravating that I found genuinely guilty pleasure in seeing her so vigorously punished.)

Villains are usually the highlight in films of this genre. They give us the most colorful characterization, the most flamboyant performances. Not this time. As the nuclear-war-wishing madman, Nyqvist isn’t asked to do much more than carry a steel briefcase, look menacing, and fight Tom Cruise. It’s a shame. Villains don’t have to steal the show, and frankly I’m grateful when they don’t. But they should certainly be better than boring.

Second, a great action movie needs a propulsive soundtrack to enhance — but not overwhelm — the action. Michael Giacchino delivers just that here, embracing the franchise’s theme to excellent effect.

Third, it needs three or four thrilling action sequences that are just persuasive enough to seem dangerous and just imaginative enough to surprise us.

That’s where Ghost Protocol is supremely satisfying.

If I described these scenes to you — the jailbreak, the escape from a third-story window, the infiltration of the Kremlin, the adventure in Dubai’s skyscraping Burj Khalifa tower, the adventure on the exterior of the tower, the high-speed-chase in a sandstorm, the climactic battle in an automated parking garage — they would sound absurd. And they are.

What makes them so thrilling is how they manage to be convincing, suspenseful, and full of surprises in spite of their absurdity. How is this accomplished in a way that makes audiences cheer instead of scoff? We need actors who fully commit to every moment, stunts that are breathtakingly executed, editing and direction that draws us in rather than beating us senseless, and good sense of pacing between fast and slow, noise and silence, chaos and control.

Brad Bird, directing his first non-animated feature, shows he has the stuff of action-movie genius.

Some amusement park rides invite you to sit in a stationary chair, strap on goggles, and fly through a simulated environment. But there’s no real wind, no real sights and sounds, no real sense of risk. It’s all just the simulation of action. Me… I prefer real roller-coasters. I like to move through real space, feel wind in my hair, and see that I am actually suspended high above the earth before the rush of plummeting.

Ghost Protocol succeeds by doing action-movie thrills the old-fashioned way.

During the best scenes, I remembered why I still love Raiders of the Lost Ark and Die Hard so much. This movie isn’t nearly as supreme an accomplishment as those action films, but in the age of 300, Clash of the Titans, Immortals, Avatar and Tin Tin, it’s refreshing to watch an action movie made primarily of footage, not animation. While there is a lot of digital enhancement at work, it’s just that — enhancement. We always have at least one foot firmly planted in the stuff of performance and real-world materials. Actors, stunts, environments: The stuff that makes us ask “How did they do that?” That’s a question we don’t ask if the images appear overly altered by digital effects. The vehicles, the expressions, the animals, the dizzying falls, the explosions, the environments — it feels more staged than illustrated, more captured than generated.

When we watch an onstage escape artist submerged in a water tank try to escape a straitjacket, or watch a professional magician “saw a woman in half”, we feel a different kind of suspense than we do if we’re watching a cartoon of the same thing. There is a greater sense of mystery as to how the illusion is being achieved under such restrictions, with such limited resources. There is a sense of risk that something could go wrong.

Similarly, there is a reason we enjoy watching live sports more than cartoons of sports.

I don’t mean to criticize digital animation. That’s an art all its own. But it’s a different art than cinematography — the preservation of events that played out before a camera. The thrills of the original Star Wars films were a different experience than those of the subsequent “prequels,” primarily because so much of what we saw onscreen in 1977, 1980, and 1983 had been incarnate, embodied, existing in three-dimensions with weight and texture and color. Much of what we saw in the prequels was painted, representing environments and objects and costumes that no one ever touched. Thus, the Yoda performed by Frank Oz holds our attention in a more exciting way than the one created by a team of digital artists.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol could have been just a digital cartoon with a few familiar human faces pasted over the top of its animated automatons. What is refreshingly remarkable and compelling is that so much of its cartoonish action is made from real-world stuff in front of cameras.

That’s why the real hero of Ghost Protocol is Brad Bird.

With three celebrated animated features to his name Bird has earned a sterling reputation. Put him at the controls of a cartoon adventure, and you’ll get something worth watching over and over and over again. His films excel in visual design, character development, and thoughtful storytelling that subverts clichés and steers us in unexpected and rewarding directions.

Note how The Iron Giant — perhaps the most beloved “Transformer” the big-screen’s ever seen — is not known for how he smashes and destroys and fights, but for how he protects a boy and resists the impulse to blast away at what opposes him.

Note how The Incredibles are unusual in the realm of superheroes in that their real triumphs can be found in how they function as a supportive and loving family, how they resist temptation, how they invest their powers in service with excellence and responsibility.

Note how Ratatouille does not conclude with the hero’s success in business terms, but with his success in matters of art and conscience. (Remy the Rat doesn’t defeat his enemy; he appeals to what is best in the enemy, leading to redemption. What does he defeat? Cynicism. Arrogance. Resentment. He wins not by violently opposing someone, but by doing good with excellence, so that mediocrity is exposed for what it is.)

So how does Brad Bird surpass our Mission: Impossible expectations?

Where many filmmakers strive to create animated features that look like a real world, Bird, having already achieved that, is now demonstrating that he can do the opposite — create real-world scenes in which things happen that would only seem possible in cartoons.

That’s really Tom Cruise leaping from a ledge toward a passing vehicle and dodging bullets on a Russian street. That’s really Tom Cruise hanging from wires outside of the 130-story Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai, the tallest building in the world. Cruise isn’t in as much danger as he seems to be, but still… we’re watching stunts performed high above the earth by the same actor who will do interviews later, not by a stuntman or an animated avatar.

Seeing this, I think I have finally come around to appreciating Tom Cruise’s place at the movies. We just don’t have many actors willing to throw themselves into actual action the way he does. And Brad Bird has given him a perfect opportunity to do just that.

With help from screenwriters Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec, Bird also upends several of the franchise’s conventions. In this episode, the fictional super-spy technology that is always designed to excite our imaginations… fails. Repeatedly. This strips the superheroes of their usual advantage, and requires them to think fast, devise scrappy solutions, and behave with compelling desperation. This cynicism about technology is refreshing. And more importantly — it’s familiar. It is part of our daily experience, and that makes the world of Ghost Protocol more persuasive, its characters more sympathetic.

I do say “characters” with some amusement. Mission: Impossible has never given us characters of any particular depth. Bravo. Appelbaum and Nemec deserve credit for not pretending that this is Shakespeare. They give the characters just enough personality. And they give the story just enough drama, context, connection to previous installments, and just enough slack for us to sense a sequel on the horizon.

But if we’re lucky, Bird won’t just direct the next one — he’ll write it too.

Bird has already raised the bar for feature animation in both spectacle and storytelling. Could he be planning to do the same thing for live-action adventure films? If that’s his mission, it looks like he’s chosen to accept it.

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A review by Jeffrey Overstreet.

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Director – Ron Howard; writers- Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman; based on the book by Dr. Seuss; director of photography – Don Peterman; editors – Dan Hanley and Mike Hill; music – James Horner; the song “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” written by Albert Hague and Theodor S. Geisel and performed by Jim Carrey; production designer – Michael Corenblith; special makeup effects – Rick Baker; producers – Brian Grazer and Ron Howard. Starring – Jim Carrey (Grinch), Jeffrey Tambor (May Who), Christine Baranski (Martha May Whovier), Bill Irwin (Lou Lou Who), Molly Shannon (Betty Lou Who), Taylor Momsen (Cindy Lou Who), Kelley (Max the Dog), Frank Welker (Voice of Max the Dog) and Anthony Hopkins (Narrator). Universal Pictures. 102 minutes. Rated PG.

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Some stories are short for a reason.

Dr. Seuss’s children’s book How the Grinch Stole Christmas tells a simple tale about a mean old grouch who learns that love conquers all. The Grinch hates the Whos, it’s as simple as that. But no matter how much adversity he throws down on the town of Whoville, he’s never able to spoil Christmas. Animator Chuck Jones made a beloved animated cartoon of the story that stuck to the script, provided perfect voices for the characters, and added a memorable, brilliant song.

But Ron Howard’s movie adaptation stretches the story out to 109 minutes, gets preoccupied with why the Grinch is grouchy, and uses Whoville as an opportunity to show off special effects and a cast of seemingly hundreds. It also gives Jim Carrey the opportunity to turn in the most superhuman comic performance of his career. For the spectacle of this performance, I’m almost glad the movie was made.

Almost.

But the rest of it is just bad storytelling, totally devoid of restraint. And worse — it is the opposite of a faithful adaptation. It is a betrayal of the original story’s lesson.

Excess is often a problem in Ron Howard movies. Backdraft, Parenthood, and Willow all had memorable moments, but collapsed under the weight of numerous uninteresting subplots, indulgent effects scenes, and/or too much melodrama. We didn’t get to know characters enough to really care about them, because we were so busy trying to keep track of everything. (A few exceptions — Apollo 13, Cocoon, and Ransom – demonstrate that Howard is better when he reins in the spectacle and lets actors do what they do best.)

To make matters worse, this Grinch’s soundtrack is spread on like ten layers of Cheez Wiz and recycled Danny Elfman themes. Sappy, shallow, forgettable songs are thrown in, like it’s a bad Disney straight-to-video sequel. And the town of Whoville is so busy with activity that you don’t get a chance to focus on any of its details or appreciate it.

It’s a tragedy, because Jim Carrey’s work here is so good.

Some people will say that this performance is nothing new for Carrey. And I agree — Carrey as an actor has not yet demonstrated much in the way of range. He can be manic (The Mask,Dumb and Dumber) and he can be sincere when he plays damaged childlike characters (The Truman Show, Man on the Moon). But this is his greatest performance, because he’s never had a character so suited to his strengths. Carrey, above all, is great at exaggeration. He doesn’t need special effects… he is a special effect. His rubber face stretches like a Tex Avery cartoon. He could win an Olympic medal for the athletic feats he pulls off here. He makes Robin Williams look cool, calm, and collected by comparison. Friends have told me they dislike him because he’s so over-the-top, but I think that’s because, when placed in a normal movie environment, he’s just too out-of-control. Here in Seuss-land, everything around him is out-of-control, so he fits right in with his surroundings.

Not only that, but he’s delivering this performance within what must have been a stifling costume. It’s like watching Michael Jordan win a championship in a straitjacket. Rick Baker’s makeup for The Grinch may be the most brilliant creature costume I’ve ever seen. Its magic is that somehow you can’t understand how Jim Carrey got inside it. And you can’t understand how Carrey makes every part of that outfit work. There’s not a moment where you can see the seams, where you can take time to figure out how he’s making it all so real. It’s the perfect fusion of a clown and a costume. He shoves his face into the camera and sinks broken yellow teeth into that trademark improvisational wackiness. And he digs deep for a guttural monstrous voice that’s half Sean Connery, half Jimmy Stuart.

That alone could have been enough to make this film a classic. Carrey did his job. Now… just follow the story, and everything’s fine.

But after the opening 30 minutes, which are magical and exhilarating, we are yanked off the track and given a whole new twist… flashbacks of the Grinch’s childhood. Why the Grinch is so grumpy? Unrequited love, and people laughed at his ugliness. Yep. It’s as boring, as unimaginative, and as plain as an After-School Special. The marvel of Jim Carrey’s performance is that he gives us just enough of a glimpse of the Grinch’s heart so that we care about him. But then the movie doesn’t trust that to be enough, and shoves this boring, awkward, and unnecessary explanation under our nose.

Dr. Seuss books are about the outrageous, about whimsy, about where a fantasy can take you if you follow the rhyme scheme. This childhood chapter is rhymeless. It takes the Grinch far more seriously than he should ever be taken. It ruins the tone of the story. And, in spite of many great Grinch moments, it never recovers the joy of those first 30 minutes.

This “artistic license” steers the story so off-course that when the conclusion comes around, it lacks the resonance it should have. In Seuss’s story, the Grinch just hates Christmas until he understands it. In Howard’s version, the Grinch is mean because he’s angry over unrequited love, so it seems unlikely that the Christmas carols of the Whos would solve his problems. In fact, his problems aren’t solved at all. When the Grinch goes back down, supposedly full of love and a healthy heart, one of the first things he does is steal the girl and laugh vengefully at his old nemesis. No love or compassion here. This indulgent “nyah nyah-nyah nyah-nyaaaah nyah” at the rival’s expense spoils any sense we have of the Grinch becoming a compassionate soul. It is a clear sign that the storyteller doesn’t understand the story he is telling.

So in the end, I feel sorry for Jim Carrey. He is so good at his job, whether you like what he does or not. And he’s never had an opportunity to demonstrate his talents like he does here. When I pick up a copy of the video someday, I’ll fast-forward through it and watch his finest moments and then skip the rest.

Unfortunately, Ron Howard is the Grinch who stole Christmas from Jim Carrey, Dr. Seuss, and the children who deserve a better story.

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Here’s a message from Anne: (more…)

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It’s already started, but if you act fast you can tune in to this free live stream of tonight’s NYC concert by Milk Carton Kids and Over the Rhine.

http://www.livestream.com/lepoissonrouge  (more…)

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In February, I’ll be speaking at Seattle Pacific University about the films of 2011. I’ll also be appearing on Dick Staub’s Kindlings Muse live-podcast show to talk about the same subject.

What 2011 films showed us something new, challenging, and worth seeing many times? What movies showed us what we wanted to see, and told us what we wanted to hear, instead of giving us something that we really needed. What movies provided mere entertainment instead of art? What filled the screen with vision and poetry, and what just projected the faces of celebrities for our distraction and amusement?

To prepare, I’m seeing films that are likely to earn Oscar nominations. So today I saw Alexander Payne’s celebrated drama The Descendants.

Here are my first impressions…  (more…)

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