16 Apr 2008

Pall in the Family: "Smart People," "Street Kings," and "Prom Night"

By Mike Schulz

Dennis Quaid and Sarah Jessica Parker in Smart PeopleSMART PEOPLE

This past Friday, a couple of friends and I were discussing the long-delayed return of new episodes of NBC's Thursday-night comedies - the unfailingly hysterical 30 Rock and The Office, the shrill, irritating My Name Is Earl, and Scrubs, a show I've occasionally endured when I was feeling too lazy to change the channel. One of my friends admitted that Scrubs has been off its game for quite a while, but said he sticks with it because, after seven seasons, he's become too invested in the actors and their characters to stop watching. I felt the same way during director Noam Murro's Smart People.

02 Jan 2008

Razor D'etre: "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," "The Great Debaters," and "Charlie Wilson's War"

By Mike Schulz

Johnny Depp and Alan Rickman in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet StreetSWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET

As the title character in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Johnny Depp gives a controlled, admirable one-note performance in a role that calls for many more notes. This isn't a knock - well, not a huge knock - on his singing of this legendary Stephen Sondheim musical; Depp may not have the vocal power or range to do full justice to Sondheim's and book-writer Hugh Wheeler's masterful creation, but he gives it a good shot, and his morose speak-singing fits director Tim Burton's interpretation of the work. It's the interpretation that's the problem.

02 Apr 2002

Fincher's Latest Leaves No Room for "Panic": "Panic Room" and "Death to Smoochy"

By Mike Schulz

Kristen Stewart and Jodie Foster in Panic RoomPANIC ROOM

David Fincher can pull off some amazing tricks. Early on in Panic Room, the director's latest thriller, the camera, initially located in an upstairs bedroom where newly single mom Meg (Jodie Foster) rests, glides away from the bed, through the banister of the staircase, and down the flight of stairs, and then scoots through the kitchen - and, it must be added, over countertops and appliances - until it finally lands on the kitchen doorway, where a shady character is waiting to break in.

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