Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Grade: B

I wish I could say that Tim Burton's adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's stage classic is "a cut above your average musical." I mean, what better praise could you give to this story of a revenge-bent barber who slits throats and leaves the leftover body parts for a purveyor of meat pies? But the quality of the songs and the storytelling is all over the map, and even the lavish, computer-enhanced production design looks hokey at times.

That said, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are terrific. With their dark-rimmed eyes and ratty black & white hair they look like human-sized skunk twins. Sacha Baron Cohen is great as fraudulent hair tonic vendor, though Alan Rickman treads overly familiar waters in a villainous role that's too close to Severus Snape for comfort. I've never been a big Sondheim fan, which probably accounts for my tepid response to most of the songs. A couple of numbers are wonderful, however, most notably the ones that accompany the shaving contest between Sweeney Todd and Cohen's character, and the ditty during the mass cannibalism scene when Mrs. Lovett (Bonham Carter) treats her unknowing customers to her tasty new menu offering: human meat pies.

All things considered Sweeney Todd emerges as an ambitious but underwhelming Burton effort, along the lines of Sleepy Hollow. It ain't no Pee Wee's Big Adventure or Batman Returns, that's for sure.

Confessions of a TV Whore

It's been well over a decade since I last subscribed to cable. On a good day I get four fuzzy stations on my TV set. I'm an incurable cinephile, and I mostly use my set to watch movies on DVD. I take a pompous pride in the fact that I don't watch network TV, but today I took a glance at my compact mirror of self-deception and decided that it's time to admit that "Game Over" is flashing above my elitist little charade.

Couch time doesn't lie: In the past two months I've spent about 60 hours watching mainstream shows on DVD - shows that rarely aspire to the artsy cinematic qualities that turn HBO series like The Sopranos and Six Feet Under into "not guilty" pleasures.

Here's a glimpse at the shows that conquered my heart despite all my efforts to condemn them to the trash bins of pop culture.

Dynasty (Seasons One and Two)

A month ago, while renting a DVD at the massive Portland video store Movie Madness, I watched a bunch of clerks fiendishly giggling while watching an episode of the notorious 1980s prime time soap opera. I just had to give it a whirl and - despite frequent stretches of brain-deadening, softly lit Cinemax After Dark-esque melodrama - I pretty much fell in love with it.

These are a few of my favorite Dynasty things: When Krystle's hair bounces every time she walks...When Alexis (Joan Collins) fires a gun to ensure that Krystle falls off her horse, gets dragged on the ground and suffers a miscarriage...when Sammy Jo (the wonderful and completely ludicrous Heather Locklear) calls a stiff-upper-lipped waiter "Hot Rod" and proceeds to trash an elegant party by gyrating to the theme from Peter Gunn...when Blake recovers from hysterical blindness but doesn't tell anyone so he can spy on them...and, of course, when Krystle and Alexis wrestle, tear up fancy pillows and throw vases at each others heads.

Veronica Mars (Seasons One and Two)

Beverly Hills 90210 meets The Maltese Falcon in this occasionally lame but surprisingly fresh and intelligent drama about an impossibly cute and precocious high schooler (Kristen Bell) who sniffs out mystery cases when she's not securing valedictorian honors at So Cal's Neptune High even though we never once see her doing homework. I've heard that season three differs in structure, but in seasons one and two the writers effectively string us along with BIG mysteries (a murder case in season one and a school bus disaster in season two) that span many episodes, and also throw in lots of single episode brainteasers. My favorite character is Keith Mars, Veronica's funny and adorable PI daddy.

30 Rock (Season One)

This Emmy winner for Outstanding Comedy series doesn't really qualify as a guilty pleasure because - with the exception of one or two painfully unfunny episodes - it's very witty and almost always favors rude barbs over cheap sentiment. As the head writer for a Saturday Night Live-esque variety show Tina Fey makes fun of her own bitchiness and she gets lots of chances to show off her formidable talent for physical comedy. Tracy Morgan is hilarious and unpredictable as a mentally unstable comedian, and Alec Baldwin chews up one of his best roles ever as an insensitive-and-conservative-but-somehow-lovable-corporate-bigwig named Jack.

Elf Fever

I just received a hilarious email from my cousin, Jaimie. It linked me to Elf Yourself, an OfficeMax-operated site that lets you upload digital photos onto the faces of wildly gyrating elves. You may know about the site already. If not, it's a fun place to play around for awhile.

Here are my three creations so far. One features Drew, our cats Chicklet & Confetta (sorry for leaving you out, Rupert!) and me. The second features Margaret Cho, a sketch of my muse Cleo, Steve Buscemi and Karen Carpenter. Finally we have the Jerri Blank montage with Amy Sedaris in various states of hideous ugliness.

After you watch the clips I think the site will give you a chance to try your own chance to play god with the precious DNA strands of elves!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1491225544

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1491748651

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1492235674

The Savages (Grade: B+)

Like Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale, Tamara Jenkins' The Savages is an exceptionally well-written dysfunctional family comedy that is alternately hilarious and devastating. While Baumbach showed a little mercy by keeping his film well under the 90-minute mark, Jenkins goes for the jugular for two full hours. If her intention is to make us feel like we're trapped without oxygen in this family trainwreck, then she has certainly succeeded. Still there's no getting around the problem that the quality of the dialogue and the storytelling drops considerably in the final stretch, leaving me convinced that Jenkins really could have hit this mother out of the park if she had spent a little more time in the cutting room.

Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman do what they do best (that is, masterfully portray the most neurotic and annoying people on earth) as a pair of estranged siblings who reunite when their father (Philip Bosco) rapidly succombs to dementia. The catch is that Daddy is a violent guy who used to abuse his kids, causing his considerably maladjusted offspring to wrestle with extremely mixed emotions, especially in regard to their caretaking obligations.

All the acting is top-notch, and the unflinching attention to the day-to-day realities of old age and senility give the film a honest feel that's hard to come by these days, even in indie films. For over an hour I was convinced that The Savages would easily emerge as one of the year's best films. It remains an impressive and refreshing effort, but sadly the almost unbearably redundant final stretch knocks it off the 2007 all-star team.

Best of 2007

1. Away From Her (Directed by Sarah Polley)

2. The Host (Joon-ho Bong)

3. No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen)

4. Red Road (Andrea Arnold)

5. Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud)

6. Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg)

7. The Trials of Darryl Hunt (Ricki Stern & Anne Sundberg)

8. Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy)

9. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Tom Tykwer)

10. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson)

Honorable Mention (in no particular order):

Rocket Science

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Deep Water

The Savages

Stephanie Daley

Crazy Love

Zodiac

Death Proof

The Devil Came on Horseback

Fay Grim

The Secret Life of Words

Once

A Mighty Heart

Knocked Up

Hairspray

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Ratatouille

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

The Darjeeling Limited

Lars and the Real Girl

Southland Tales

American Gangster

Favorite Performances:

Julie Christie in Away From Her

Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone

Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood

Robert Downey Jr. in Zodiac

Ruby Dee in American Gangster

Johnny Depp in Sweeney Todd

Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose

Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men

Tilda Swinton in Stephanie Daley & Michael Clayton

George Clooney in Michael Clayton

Jennifer Garner in Juno

Patricia Clarkson & Ryan Gosling in Lars and the Real Girl

Sarah Polley in The Secret Life of Words

Imelda Staunton & Helena Bonham Carter in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Adrien Brody in The Darjeeling Limited

Reece Thompson & Anna Kendrick in Rocket Science

Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts Vincent Cassell & Armin Mueller-Stahl in Eastern Promises

Cate Blanchett in I'm Not There

Kate Dickie & Tony Curran in Red Road

Me and Marjane

Graphic novelist and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi was a bit standoffish at the start of our recent interview at the Hotel Monaco in downtown Portland. But soon she unleashed her enthusiasm and discussed her creative process, her influences and some thoughts on queer culture.

Born into a liberal family in Iran in 1969, Satrapi witnessed a violent revolution and lived under an oppressive fundamentalist regime until her parents sent her to school in Austria in the early 1980s. She now lives in Paris, and has secured a spot in the pantheon of great graphic novelists with the Persepolis series that recounts her childhood in Tehran and her teen years in Europe.

The excellent film adaptation opens on Christmas Day in big cities, and in smaller locales in early 2008. Directed by Satrapi and comic artist Vincent Paronnaud, the film won a jury prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, and it is France’s official entry for this year’s Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

Here's an excerpt from my conversation with Marjane Satrapi:

Me: What were the major differences in your approach to writing the graphic novels and doing the film?

Marjane: Well when you write you work by yourself. You work all alone. With the film not only do you have to work with 100 people but you’re responsible for these people.

Me: When you wrote the graphic novels did you have a movie in mind?

Marjane: No, never.

Me: What influences did you draw on?

Marjane: My inspiration comes from everything. In the movie it was from F.W. Murnau [German Expressionist director of Nosferatu] to Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas by use of the narration and the way the story is told.

Me: Are there any graphic novels that inspired you to go into this field?

Marjane: I read Maus by Art Spiegelman. I was just like everybody else. I thought comics were just for kids or adolescents or retarded adults. Then I read this book and I realized that it was a masterpiece. It frees you when you realize you can tell any story with comics.

Me: How often do you go back to Iran?

Marjane: I don’t go back.

Me: What’s your next project?

Marjane: I would really like to make another movie, and I would really like to write another book. But right now I am so empty. For me to be creative I have to have at least five hours for myself. Now with the promotion for the film I never have five hours.

Me: In your memoir you seem right at home with gay men.

Marjane: For me people are just people. I never think about who does what in their bed. If a gay guy is bad and mean he’s not my friend and I will not be nice to him just because he is gay. I have lots and lots of gay friends.
One of my favorite movie makers is John Waters. I love his stories and all the transvestites and the completely crazy words. Once I wrote about my favorite holiday movie for The New York Times and my favorite Christmas movie is Pink Flamingos I’m so fed up with all the sweetness that I need to see this movie to free myself of all of that.

Me: Do you think your outlook on gays is influenced by growing up in an oppressive culture?

Marjane: If you’re born in the U.S. in a very religious family you are growing up in an oppressive culture. You don’t need to be in Iran. It can be anywhere. I had the good luck to grow up in a very open minded family. They didn’t judge anybody. Anybody could do whatever they wanted. But people were judged if they were mean. If you don’t do anything bad to anybody I don’t know why there’s a problem.

Juno (Grade: B)

Accidental pregnancies are all the rage this year at the movies. This summer we had Knocked Up, and just in time for awards season director Jason Reitman serves up Juno, a film that's gotten extremely positive press since it premiered at this year's Toronto Film Festival. Ellen Page (Hard Candy) is wonderfully snarky as the title character, a 16 year old girl who consults the want ads to handpick a pair of yuppies (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner) to parent her unborn child. Garner delivers her best performance yet as the anxious and vulnerable adoptive mother, and Allison Janney is terrific as Juno's smart-ass stepmother.

Screenwriter Diablo Cody is getting raves for her script, and she just won the National Board of Review's award for Best Screenplay. Indeed the film is brimming with great-one liners and some genuinely moving scenes, but Cody's insistence on folding heaps of sarcasm and heartwarming blather into one big burrito makes for a mushy mix at times. Juno is much better than Little Miss Sunshine - last year's Little Indie That Could - but it falls short of greatness because it wants to be quirkier-than-thou and an enormous crowd-pleaser all at once, and there's just no way to do that without piling on some of the schmaltz that it sets out to obliterate.

The Golden Compass (Grade: B)

Even though I adored Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials fantasy trilogy, I awaited the film adaptation of The Golden Compass (the first installment) with suspicion. First the directing honors went to Anand Tucker, who helmed the lackluster Steve Martin movie Shopgirl. When he dropped out of the project I hoped a visionary director like Terry Gilliam or Peter Jackson would sign on, but instead Chris Weitz of American Pie and About a Boy fame got the gig.

The good news is that the long-awaited film looks terrific and it features great performances from Dakota Blue Richards as the young heroine, Lyra, and Nicole Kidman as the icy beauty who oversees a scheme to sever children from their daemons (everyone has an animal soul mate called a daemon in the parallel world in which The Golden Compass takes place). And after a slow start, the film wraps up grippingly with an extended series of action and battle scenes in the freezing far North.

A few themes that worked just fine on the page, however, are stilted and downright irritating in the film. In his trilogy Pullman talks a lot about "dust" and particle physics in relation to theological issues such as original sin. To his credit Weitz tries to do justice to these concepts, but he doesn't have nearly enough time to develop the ideas in a clear and satisfying fashion. I suspect that newcomers to PullmanLand could end up scratching their heads when presented with concepts that, quite frankly, are pretty fucking abstract for a family film.

The Golden Compass deserves a better film treatment. Still, Weitz has delivered a a reasonably ripping yarn with plenty of slick CGI effects to keep your eyes dancing even when those pesky puffs of dust get in the way.

My cat Confetta winterizing her wardrobe

CUTE ALERT!