What to say about
Manderlay? Writer/director Lars von Trier follows up his 2003 film, Dogville, with a continuation of the story. Sort of. Grace leaves Dogville with her gangster father, and they travel until they come upon a plantation where slavery is still in effect, even though it is now the 1930s. This time, however, Grace is played by Bryce Dallas Howard ("Spider-Man 3") instead of Nicole Kidman ("The Golden Compass"), and James Caan ("Elf") has become Willem Dafoe ("Anamorph"). Maybe I got too caught up in the compare and contrast. Maybe it had been too long since I had seen Dogville, which I enjoyed, but I just did not feel this movie. Howard's naivete drove me crazy, and I couldn't remember Kidman being so oblivious in the first film. The first hour and a half had me shaking my fist trying to figure out why everyone was behaving the way they were. But the second hour and a half were a bit more interesting examination of social, race and class structures. Like Dogville, Manderlay has minimal sets and is told in a series of chapters complete with narrator. I can't really recommend it. But if you liked Dogville, there will be something here to enjoy.
I think I am more in love with the title, the book upon which it is based, and the idea behind
Something Wicked This Way Comes, than I am the movie. I read the Ray Bradbury novel last year and it was amazing. I had seen parts of this film when I was young and remembered it to be spooky, so I wanted to check it out. I was somewhat disappointed. I know that movies rarely capture the splendor of the book, but I still want it to be so. The travelling carnival that comes to town and captures the residents souls did not live up to the horror of the book. The friendship between the two main boys did not feel as tight, nor did the father/son relationship really develop. It's like a PG "Needful Things." I still enjoyed it. I was just let down.
Eyes of Laura Mars sounded really cool. A photographer, Faye Dunaway ("The Gene Generation"), suddenly begins to see through the eyes of a killer when she looks through her camera lens. Tommy Lee Jones ("No Country for Old Men") stars as the detective investigating the case. Sadly, the movie didn't live up to the description. Though it's supposed to be very tense, most of the time it isn't. The music is so cheesy, it made me laugh. And even when she's young, Dunaway seems like an old person is trapped inside her face. I did enjoy the photo shoot scenes and some of the killer's POVs were interesting. On a side note, young Tommy Lee Jones looks quite a bit like Josh Hartnett. He's even got the unibrow. Weird.