By Dave Montalbano
AdventuresOfCinemaDave.com
There is no denying the financial juggernaut know as Twilight: Breaking Dawn: Part I, which now owns the 5th largest box office gross of 2011. While this Twilight film is as limply-directed as the previous motion picture, the story does fulfill fans’ expectations about Bella Swan, Vampire Edward and Wolf Boy Jacob with a good cliffhanger ending for Breaking Dawn: Part II.
One of the sad casualties of this vampire monster box office was Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, based on Brian Selznick’s award-winning book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Hugo (Asa Butter-field) is an orphan who lives in a Paris train station who is pursued by a bumbling security guard (Sacha Baron Cohen) for annoying a man named George (Ben Kings-ley).
What starts off as a standard required reading Juvenile Fiction novel becomes a mystery about cinematic history. Given Selznick’s ancestry (his cousin David produced Gone with the Wind) and the appearance of Sir Christopher Lee as a book salesman, Hugo is a film that will be discussed in academic circles long after the stars of Twilight retire.
In Into the Abyss, initially, Werner Herzog uses an academic approach in his straightforward documentary about death row. Fortunately, the iconic German director also brings both humor and humanity to this bleak subject. While interviewing death row inmates, Herzog admits he is politically against capital punishment. However, Herzog presents such a fair and balanced approach that advocates will find support for their own political bias.
With his soothing grandfatherly voice, Herzog asks some pretty off-the-wall questions. However, these questions create an emotional intimacy between the viewer and the interviewee. For example, when a chaplain discusses the final steps of an execution, the man comes across as a dispassionate bureaucrat. Yet, when Herzog asks the chaplain about “the squirrel story,” the man becomes a blubbering mess. Into the Abyss opens tomorrow.
Also opening tomorrow is Answers to Nothing, a piece of Los Angeles fiction. With a title like that, this motion picture has a tough story to sell. Obviously inspired by Robert Altman movies and the Oscar-winning movie Crash, Answers to Nothing features a cast of 1990s television actors who seek answers in the noir-ridden city of angels. The four subplots actually answer some questions, but one has to wonder if the questions were worth asking.
