WOODS AND WOLVES

If any further proof were needed that fairy tales are taking over our popular culture, consider this—a new trailer for the movie version of Into the Woods!

While this musical fairy tale mashup from composer Stephen Sondheim and scriptwriter James Lapine wowed Broadway in 1987, it's taken almost 30 years for the show to make it to the big screen. But now, at last, the timing seems to be right.

For one thing, Disney's live-action Once Upon a Time TV series (or, as we like to call it around my house, the mosh pit where old Disney characters go to die) continues to be a big hit.

Yes, I despair of them ever giving their Captain Hook character anything to do besides trail around in Emma's wake, pining for her.

 Still, I hear from many readers of Alias Hook how much they adore Colin O'Donoghue in the role, so I'm grateful to him and the show for helping to make the character sympathetic to the mass audience.

Anyway, it's no coincidence that the Disney company is also responsible for getting Into the Woods up on the big screen. (There must be a Faustian bargain inked in blood somewhere that no fairy tale spinoff can ever again be produced without Disney participation.)

And it's interesting that the director is Rob Marshall, famed for his film adaptation of Chicago. More recently Marshall directed the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, On Stranger Tides, which no doubt accounts for Woods securing Johnny Depp in the featured role of The Wolf.

I understand there's some distress in the blogosphere over this casting, that some fans were hoping for a wolfier, perhaps CGI version of this character in all his scary beastliness. (Although I do think it would sort of break the illusion when he bursts into song.

But wolves exist in fairy tales to symbolize the dangers of the outside (read: grown-up) world to supposedly innocent children like Red Riding Hood. And what more dangerous predator is there than Man?

Besides, look how cool Depp looks in his Zoot Suit and big, furry ears! I can't help but think of the slick, anthropomorphic wolves in the old Warner Brothers cartoons drawn by Tex Avery.

The rest of the cast is not exactly chopped liver either: Meryl Streep as the Witch, James Corden and Emily Blunt as the pivotal Baker and his Wife, Anna Kendrick as Cinderella, and Chris Pine (newly discovered—by me—as an entertaining comic actor) as Cinderella's Prince, to name but a few.

Onstage, Into the Woods was a sardonic meditation on what happens after Happily Ever After, and a wistful cautionary tale to be careful what you wish for.

If you've never seen the stage production do what I did: nip off to the library and borrow the original Broadway cast production on DVD.

So when the film version opens Christmas Day, you'll be all set to marvel at how enduring, alluring, and open to endless interpretations fairy tales continue to be.

SPIRIT MISGUIDED

The reviews are pretty awful, and the box office is tanking. But, seriously, can The Lone Ranger really be that bad? Well, there's nothing wrong with this movie that couldn't be fixed by cutting out about 45 minutes and hiring new scriptwriters who know how to set and maintain a consistent tone, tell a coherent story, and develop characters we care about.

That leaves out Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, the main culprits here, along with director and fellow PotC alumnus Gore Verbinski; together with third credited screenwriter Justin Haythe, they prove they ought to be making amusement park rides, not movies.

Armie Hammer (he played both Winklevoss twins in The Social Network) stars as the deputy Texas Ranger turned masked avenger for justice, but he's stuck playing a dull-witted, square-jawed, prig. There is no there there. Resurrected from the brink of death after an ambush, he's still a stiff; his only heroic attribute is an (undeserved) reputation for not staying dead.

It's Johnny Depp who gets the plum role of wily "sidekick," Tonto; he's the most consistent thing in the movie, and there's pleasure to be had if you tune out all the sturm and bluster in the overcooked plot about ruthless railroad men vs. vicious outlaws vs. noble Indians and view his performance as an extended homage to the deadpan physical slapstick of silent comedians Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd.

But these two "heroes" have no chemistry or camaraderie; the characters dislike and mistrust each other, falling into pathetic bickering at the most inappropriate moments. The non-stop jokiness is also a big problem, especially when the movie tries to shift gears and address the spirituality and suffering of Native American peoples at the hands of the white man. A couple of times we are asked to ponder the sobering aftermath of a massacre, then up pops Depp to crack another joke so the audience can start laughing again.

Comedy and tragedy coexist in life, of course, but can only be combined onscreen by writers who know what they're doing. Here the juxtaposition is not well integrated, so the movie doesn't feel more resonant, it's just schizoid. The big action finale featuring three runaway trains on split-level, intersecting tracks is a marvel of stunt choreography, but like everything else, it goes on forever. This isn't a thrill ride, it's an endurance test.

Btw, much virtual ink has been spilled over Tonto's dead crow headdress, including on this blog. Depp claims he was inspired by this painting, I Am Crow, by contemporary southwest artist Kirby Sattler, from which Depp also evidently borrowed make-up tips.

I don't know how authentic this painting is supposed to be, or whether the crow is metaphor, or if the image is meant to represent a man of the Crow nation. (In the movie, Tonto is supposed to be Comanche.) But Depp has said in interviews that he got into the idea that a native warrior might wear his totem animal spirit guide on his person, and that actually is fine with me. (In fact, the crow becomes a character in the story, in flashbacks.) It's just too bad the rest of the movie lacks the wit, purpose, and spiritual depth of that dead crow.

PS: And don't even get me started on the rabid bunnies....

DEPP PERCEPTION

This image crossed my virtual desk last week, and I just had to share it.

Yes, they're making (yet another) retread of The Lone Ranger, due out in May of 2013, and this is the "first look" still sent to the press. That's Armie Hammer behind the mask, looking suitably stalwart as lawman John Reid-turned-masked avenger for justice.

And beside him his faithful Indian guide. Check out the long braids, the warrior paint, the bandana, and the entire dead crow (I think it's dead) perched on his head. Yes, it's none other than the irrepressible Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Tonto.

Rumor has it that Jerry Bruckheimer, producer of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, had a yen for a Lone Ranger remake. He offered the title role to his PotC star, but Depp was savvy enough to opt for the far more interesting role of Tonto—which also evidently comes with a much cooler wardrobe.

It's not that I'm expecting much from this production. The reunion of Bruckheimer with PotC director Gore Verbinski and screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio almost guarantees another bombastic triumph of slapstick over substance. On the other hand, it's pulp fiction, not Eurpides. And Johnny Depp wearing a crow may be its own reward—at least, we can hope so!

REELING

PotC4 not a complete shipwreck, but could have been so much more.

Almost nothing remains of Tim Powers' gorgeous historical fantasy, On Stranger Tides, in the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. ("Suggested by," is the way the book is acknowledged in the credits.) Still, incoming director Rob Marshall's film is a more seaworthy vessel than the leaky old rustbucket that was PotC 3: At World's End. Johnny Depp's reeling and raucous Captain Jack Sparrow is front and center, providing droll commentary and having a blast. Penelope Cruz is on board in fine swashbuckling form as Angelica, daughter and first mate of legendary pirate Blackbeard—played with dark, ferocious brio by Ian McShane. And Geoffrey Rush is back, stomping around on a peg leg in a powdered wig as pirate Barbarossa-turned-privateer for King George.

There are a lot fewer undead pirate crews than is usual in the franchise (surprising, since they feature so prominently in Powers' book), and believe me, those rotting, eyeball-popping skeletons are not missed. And the action is more focused: everyone is searching for the Fountain of Youth. But, as usual, it's in the storyline that the movie starts to lose steam.

Longtime scriptwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio don't so much craft a narrative plot as string a bunch of gigantic comedy set-pieces together (most of which involve Captain Jack extricating himself from some tight situation). These can be amusing; it's always fun to see Depp swinging across the screen on a rope, or launching himself out of a palm tree as if it were a giant slingshot. But when it comes to the basics of plot construction, like character motivation, the writers remain clueless.

As in the book, the Fountain doesn't restore youth; it's a magical place where death can be defeated—temporarily—if a supplicant performs a ritual by which he can steal the extra years of a designated victim. Or something. Unlike the book, immortality doesn't seem to be part of the deal, and so the writers are overtaxed trying to explain why everybody is all afire to go there. Blackbeard has heard a prophecy that he'll be killed within a fortnight, and so wants to be prepared. Angelica apparently wants to buy her father a few extra years in order to save his soul—she's Spanish, see, and the Spanish are shown to be a nation of religious zealots who are also searching for the "pagan" Fountain in order to destroy it.

Still with me? Barbossa is sailing to the Fountain because he has a grudge against Blackbeard and wants a showdown. And Jack Sparrow? Well, um, he was once in possession of a map to the Fountain, so he's shanghaied aboard Blackbeard's ship to guide them there. Otherwise, he seems to have no particular interest in the Fountain, as either a power source or a potential profit-making venture. Indeed, Jack has no motivation of any kind except saving his own skin from one scene to the next, and this is where the film (and the series) fails its audience. Jack Sparrow never has any desires, none of the compulsions to do or achieve or win anything that creates plot. He's just along for the ride, making witty remarks, and although he's an entertaining companion, you'd think that after nearly a dozen hours of screen time in four movies, the writers could have developed a more complex character for Depp to play.

Disappointing too is his pairing with the fiery Angelica. Sure, they argue and swordfight, but they're never allowed to graduate into a grown-up relationship. They once had a tempestuous affair (notice how all of Jack Sparrow's notorious affairs are in the past, so the writers never have to show us any mushy stuff), but now she's just another character with an angle for Jack to be wary of. Seriously, would it kill this franchise to let Jack Sparrow have an onscreen relationship with a real woman? It wouldn't have to be X-rated; a bit of fun, sexy, camaraderie from two people who obviously enjoy each other would be so refreshing. But, no; the PotC franchise might let its heroines dress in trousers and wield swords, but it continues to shy away from the dramatic possibilities of introducing a complicated grown-up woman into the mix. They're still Wendys among the overgrown Lost Boys of the PotC world.

Still, Cruz and Depp have some fun with their banter. (Trading insults, Jack finally blurts, "You walk like a girl!" Angelica ripostes, "You should know!") There's a lyrical eeriness to a sequence involving mermaids surrounding a boatload of men—until they turn into bloodthirsty sirens, with vampire teeth, yet. And even though it's never explained where Blackbeard gets his magical powers, we get some cool scenes of his ship reefing up its own sails and live, slithering ropes that suspend a bunch of would-be mutineers at odd angles in the rigging.

Locations (mostly in Hawaii) are ravishing, and everyone seems to be having a hell of a good time. (Including Keith Richards in his obligatory cameo as Jack's father, asking sardonically, "Do I look like I've been to the Fountain of Youth?") As always, we just wish there was a bit less empty razzmatazz, and a little more there there.

Remember the scene at the end of the very first PotC, when Captain Jack is finally restored to his ship, the Black Pearl? Standing at the helm, gazing out over an infinite sea, he commands his eager crew, "Fetch me that horizon." That's the kind of stirring moment, full of the promise of adventure, that we long for more of in this series.

YO HO HO

Long before Captain Jack Sparrow came reeling out of the fervid imagination of Johnny Depp, there was Jack Shandy, reluctant pirate captain and hero of Tim Powers' gorgeous historical fantasy adventure, On Stranger Tides. Now that the folks at Disney have appropriated Powers' novel for the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie (due on local screens Friday, or 11:59 tomorrow night, for the terminally obsessed), I thought it was time to put in a good word for the original book.

I first encountered On Stranger Tides in the spring of 1989, when this paperback cover leaped out at me from a shelf at the old Bookshop Santa Cruz. Back then, I was reading everything I could find about pirates, getting ready to write my own pirate novel, The Witch From the Sea. With its elements of dark magic, voudon (or "voodoo"), zombie pirate crews and the Fountain of Youth, you couldn't exactly classify Powers' book as strict historical research. But unlike the PotC movies, the novel is rooted in a very specific historical time and place—chiefly, the pirate island of New Providence in the Bahamas, ca. 1718. This was the year Governor Woodes Rogers came out from England to "reform" New Providence by buying off the pirates with the King's Pardon to give up the trade. It was also the last year in the short but spectacular career of Ed Teach, aka Blackbeard.

Even though Powers' book is set a century before mine, I started reading it for its realistic depiction of the pirate life on board ship and ashore. But pretty soon I was devouring it for its lush, and simmering sense of magical forces bubbling just under the surface of real life (and history). Powers contends that magic has run its course in the Old World, but is still viable in some wild, remote regions of the New World, where it has not yet been civilized out of existence. The "Fountain of Youth" at the heart of his story does not restore youth; rather it's a power spot of dark sorcery where the living can be made immortal, and the dead resurrected (albeit zombie-style).

The action gallops from New Providence to Port-au-Prince on Hispaniola (now Haiti), to Kingston, Jamaica. Young Englishman and puppeteer John Chandagnac is sailing into the Caribbees to claim a family inheritance when his ship is captured by pirates in league with Blackbeard. They are there to rendezvous with another passenger, Hurwood, an elderly Oxford don and magical scholar who's en route to the Fountain; maddened by the death of his wife, he's planning to resurrect her in the body of his nubile young daughter, Beth. Determined to save Beth, Chandagnac joins the pirate crew, who rechristen him "Jack Shandy," and after several raucous adventures in which his desperation or sheer foolhardiness are mistaken for bravery, he's elected their captain.

The centerpiece of the story is a hair-raising trip to the eerie, demon-haunted Fountain in the company of Blackbeard himself, the only man who's ever been to the Fountain and come out again. (Hurwood needs the pirate to show him the way.) I just love how Powers seeds his supernatural plot so plausibly into what is historically known about Teach. According to Powers, he didn't do the immortality rituals properly the first time, and came away troubled by phantoms and ghosts—which neatly explains Blackbeard's historically well-known nuttiness and rages. Powers also suggests that Blackbeard engineered his own "death" in that famous fight with Lt. Maynard (which occurs in the book) in order to come back in a completely new—and immortal—identity. How does this ruse play out? Read the book and find out! (Shop local: pick up a copy at Bookshop Santa Cruz , or Capitola Book Cafe.)

One shudders to think how the PotC franchise will adulterate this material. Parts of the book seem tailor-made for the series, what with all those pirates getting killed and resurrected as zombies. There's even a sea battle between two historically correct ghost ships, the Charlotte Bailey and the Nuestra Señora di Lagrimas, resurrected from the bottom of the sea with their phantom crews when a magic spell goes astray.

We also know in advance that Blackbeard appears in the movie (although this time, he's the one with the daughter), and the plot evidently revolves around the Fountain of Youth. But the mermaids who figure so prominently in the movie PR are not to be found in Powers' story at all. And how are they going to insert Jack Sparrow into all of this? We can only hope the PotC brain trust rises to the occasion with a movie that's worthy of Powers' book, Depp's marvelously loony creation, and the eager viewing audience.

In the meantime, if you find yourself in the mood for more buccaneer action, check out my pirate movie review page. (Yes, that's me over there, in full yo-ho-ho regalia.) Granted, this personal and eclectic list doesn't include every entry in the genre, but there's still plenty to choose from, good, bad, and ugly, vintage or contemporary, from Anne Of the Indies to Yellowbeard. Cruise around and enjoy!

GREEN PARTY

Johnny Depp has always been an experimental character actor trapped in the body of a guy who looks like Johnny Depp. But he finds a way to do an end run around the burden of his own good looks—and unleash his inner clown—in Rango, an abundantly silly and entertaining animated family comedy in which Depp brings voice and life to the film's unorthodox hero, a bulbous-eyed green lizard with big dreams.

Directed by Gore Verbinski (who has shepherded Depp through all three Pirates of the Caribbean movies), from a very funny script by John Logan, Rango both spoofs and celebrates the traditional Western set-up about a lone stranger in a hard-luck pioneer town. (Complete with a hilarious owl mariachi quartet singing a ballad of the story as it unfolds.) Big kudos are due to Industrial Light and Magic for its remarkable CGI animation; sure, the anthropomorphic cast of reptiles, rodents, and birds talk, walk upright and wear clothes, but each creature is rendered in impressively lifelike detail, right down to the tiniest scale and whisker. But the film is also a freewheeling pastiche of movie references (all genres, all eras) that will keep trivia fans on their toes, while amusing the young'uns with its slapstick verve. (Read more...)

One very cool thing about this movie is the way they filmed it with all the actors actually playing their parts on a soundstage together. Using an updated digital version of rotoscoping (the motion-capture cel animation technique pioneered by Disney in Snow White), Depp and his co-stars acted out entire scenes together on camera, from which their animated characters' physical movements were generated. This not only imbues the characters with loopy humanoid grace, the actors playing off each other keeps the dialogue fast and fresh as well.

Watch this funny featurette about how they shot it, then tell me your'e not dying to go see the movie right this minute!

SINS OF OMISSION

Sorry, but I'm not one of those people who gets all worked up about Oscar's sins of omission. I know my personal taste in movies is way off in the outer limits of mainstream Hollywood culture, so I never expect the movies I like best in any given year to even be in the running, let alone win gold. Imagine my shock in 2009 when my second-favorite film of the previous year, Slumdog Millionaire, actually won the Academy Award for Best Picture. I figured either the Academy was getting smarter or I was getting more lenient in my dotage. Or Door Number Three: the Academy had been taken over by aliens, still the most logical explanation.

(What beat out Slumdog for my favorite movie of 2008? It was the magnificent The Fall, which went on to rank #3 in my Top Ten Movies of the Decade, although—surprise!—it received zero recognition from Academy voters.)

So I have to say that this year's Oscar nominations are at least (and at best) par for the course. This year's safe, "Masterpiece Theatre" entry, The King's Speech, cleans up in nominations—as well it might, excellent as it is in every department. Expanding the Best Picture category to 10 titles gives the Academy a chance to recognize some smaller, dark horse contenders that might formerly have slipped through the cracks at awards time (like the equally excellent—in its own, weird way—Winter's Bone), although we all know the five serious contenders are those whose directors are also nominated in their category. With the addition of Toy Story 3D, that places three of my personal 10 favorite movies of the year on Oscar's list—a pretty remarkable average, all things considered. (Hmmm ... maybe the Academy IS getting smarter...)

(Btw: conventional wisdom says that TS3D won't win because it's also up for Best Animated Feature, which it IS sure to win. Apropos of which, don't miss Wallace Baine's impassioned article calling on the Academy to disband the Animated Feature category and let the worthy animated films duke it out with the live action features. Good point, sez I. It's the message, not the medium; a beguiling film like TS3D (like the utterly wonderful Up last year, also nominated for Best Picture) is equal in emotional resonance, wit, and heart to any other film on the list—and superior to most.)

By now, we all know how often Oscar accolades are cumulative, honoring a body of work (think of John Wayne in Rooster Cogburn, or Paul Newman in The Color of Money, or Martin Scorsese for, erm, The Departed?). Or at least retroactive. Don't get me wrong, Heath Ledger deserved every inch of Oscar gold he won for his breathtaking Joker in The Dark Knight, but you know the Academy was suffering a collective case of (posthumous) bestowers' remorse over not having awarded him the Best Actor Oscar he so richly deserved for Brokeback Mountain a couple of years earlier. The retroactive factor is the primary reason we can expect to see Colin Firth claim the gold this year for The King's Speech, after his fine performance last year in A Single Man lost out to Jeff Bridges—who was winning HIS well-deserved cumulative award for Crazy Heart. (How Bridges himself managed to evade Oscar recognition for so long in such incredible performances as Fearless, and Starman remains one of the great mysteries of the age. Not to mention his criminally un-nominated performance as the scruffy, disorderly children's book author/artist in The Door in the Floor in 2004. He even did his own artwork!)

(Jeff Bridges in The Door in the Floor. Go stream it this minute!)

I'm convinced the main reason Johnny Depp was getting all those nominations for awhile (Finding Neverland; Sweeney Todd) was because Oscar voters neglected to hand him the gold after nominating him for Best Actor in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. I'm serious! Nothing against Sean Penn (who won that year for Mystic River), but any great actor can act. What Depp did was create a classic and enduring movie icon, virtually out of whole cloth. Captain Jack Sparrow as we know him was not conceived in the script or out of the director's vision; he sprang as fully-formed as Athena out of the fervid, goofball imagination of Johnny Depp.

But I digress. Despite my habitually lowered expectations, there is one especially glaring omission among this year's Oscar nominees that can neither be ignored nor rationalized away. The category is Best Actress, and, Academy voters, I have two little words to say to you: Noomi Rapace. She is, of course, the woman who played Lisbeth Salander in all three of the "Millenium Trilogy" movies released this year: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. Yes, the films and the performance are in Swedish, but that doesn't stop the incendiary Rapace from giving the iconic female movie performance of the year. It might be argued that the part itself is so iconic, half the actress' work is done for her, but an actress with one iota less of Rapace's guts, sass, vulnerability and smoldering righteousness could never have brought it off. Oscar voters, what were you thinking?

On the other hand, it's nice to see Christian Bale moving into the frontrunner's position in the Supporting Actor race. Although his career trajectory put him on the fast track for leading man roles early on, he's always been a character actor at heart, with a taste for the edgy. (How about his self-imploding insomniac in The Machinist, or downed Air Force pilot Dieter Dengler in Rescue Dawn? And what other actor would even consider American Psycho?) He's paid his Hollywood superhero dues as well, but he's savvy enough to know you don't win Oscars for playing Batman; you win them for playing The Joker. Bale gets his juicy Joker role in The Fighter, as a jittery, crack-addled ex-boxer running on the fumes of a once-promising life (and career), and he makes something pretty amazing out of it.

Finally, in the Heath Ledger Memorial "What's A Guy Gotta Do To Get An Oscar Around Here?" category, consider Christopher Nolan. It's one thing that he's not nominated for directing Inception, one of the year's most intriguing thrill rides (although the film itself made it on to Oscar's Top 10). But neither Nolan nor his phenomenal Memento was even nominated back in 2002. In both cases, Nolan at least snagged a screenwriting nomination (impossibly, he didn't win for the intricate and audacious Memento, losing to the safe bet, Gosford Park), but come on, kids, these movies don't direct themselves.

PS: If you want to see where the next generation of Christopher Nolans is coming from, drop by Open Projector Night on Thursday (Feb 3), 5-8 pm at the Vino Tabi Winery in the Swift Street Courtyard out on the West Side. Presented under the auspices of the Santa Cruz Film Festival, it's a chance for budding filmmakers to bring their short films (10 minutes or less) to show on a big screen before an appreciative audience. No entrance fee; first come, first screened. There'll be wine, munchies, and camaraderie; here's the lowdown.