Ha ha.
1. Tom Cruise panned in Valkyrie:
Tom Cruise made an excellent sword-swishing American samurai. He even saved the Western world a few times - but he does not quite make the grade as a German war hero.
That was the first verdict of German film critics after the New York premiere of Valkyrie, the Hollywood re-make of one of the country's most sensitive historical episodes: the unsuccessful military plot to kill Hitler in July 1944.
It marks the end of months of nail-biting tension among German cultural commentators and historians. Would Cruise make a hash out of playing Claus Count Schenk von Stauffenberg, the very model of a Good German?
Well, yes, according to Der Tagesspiegel, the Berlin daily.
The prosecutor said: "The conspirators cannot expect to expiate their crime by having their life ended by a decent cartridge"
"The only thing that can definitely be said about this cinema adventure is that Tom Cruise, who has been damaged by his bizarre talk show behaviour, may well continue storming the heights of the Scientology hierarchy as a Thetan, but his image as an actor has been finally ruined by Valkyrie," said the paper's critic.
Valkyrie, he concluded, was set to fail at the box office and miss out for the Oscars. "It doesn't dare to be popcorn cinema and at the same time lacks any conceptual brilliance."
It was always going to be difficult to please the Germans. There have been four previous German productions depicting Stauffenberg's attempt to blow up Hitler by placing a briefcase bomb next to him during a military briefing; each has depicted Stauffenberg as a near-saint, the closest the country has to a modern military hero.
He acted not only out of patriotism but also as a member of an aristocratic caste whose sense of honour had been upset by SS thuggery and the incompetence of Hitler.
The Germans were sure, in advance of the premiere, that Cruise wasn't up to the job.
Berthold Schenk Count von Stauffenberg, eldest son of the resistance hero - Hitler had him shot - told Cruise to go back to America. Some commentators doubted that a Scientologist could ever capture Stauffenberg's spirituality. Welt am Sonntag reckoned: "Cruise as Stauffenberg is about as deep as a bowl of corn-flakes."
The first notices are a little more charitable. The film, runs the consensus, is not as bad as it could have been. But Cruise, well what could you expect from Top Gun?
"If you look at the long list of his credits over the past 25 years," said the Die Welt critic, Hanns-Georg Rodek, “then he comes over best as an American hero, someone who battles for respect with aggression and energy. But Stauffenberg was a German hero, with aristocratic bearing, and Cruise cannot carry that off."
"His Stauffenberg is honorable and serious and determined - but why the young count managed to draw so many people in his wake is not conveyed by Cruise," writes Rodek.
The British supporting cast, Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy and Tom Wilkinson - who all play stiff-backed Prussian officers - manage just fine.
The film does not appear in Germany until January 20 and it may be that the public will take a more gentle view. Certainly the mass circulation Bild gave it a generous plug - "A cinematic monument for a German hero".
The Oscar-winning German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck is an enthusiast. "It should be compulsory viewing for all German school-children," he said after the premiere, and there really is no greater praise in Germany than saying that something should be put on the national curriculum.
The film has been dogged by misfortune, as if spooked by some ancient Prussian curse. Parts of the film had to be re-shot after they were damaged in the photo-lab.
Politicians complained when Cruise wanted to use the Defence Ministry courtyard, where Stauffenberg was actually executed, as a film set. Eleven extras fell off a truck and demanded millions in compensation .
Perhaps that is what the critics meant when they opined yesterday: "This film is Hollywood with the brakes on."
and
2. Will Smith gets an awful review
Will Smith and his sanctimonious movie are unbearably full of themselves
By Alonso Duralde
Film critic
“Seven Pounds” slogs about, impressed with its own supposed depth, as we watch Will Smith play a man attempting to pay for his past sins. Director Gabriele Muccino (“The Pursuit of Happyness”) seems to think he’s in Ingmar Bergman territory, but he’s actually made the longest, most dour episode of “My Name is Earl” imaginable.
The film begins with Ben Thomas (Smith) calling 911 to report his own suicide - this literally happens in the first five seconds, so it’s not a spoiler - and then, rather than putting all of us out of our misery at the same time, “Seven Pounds” spends the next two hours telling us how he got there.
Probably because there’s almost no other way to sell this movie, the marketing campaign for “Seven Pounds” has been aggressively vague about what actually happens and even what the title means. All that mystery is pretty much for naught, since any attentive viewer will figure out the ending (and also what, exactly, those 112 ounces represent) about half an hour in.
Suffice it to say that Ben feels wracked with guilt and loss, and his coping mechanism brings him into the lives of various people, including a print artist (Rosario Dawson) and a blind, piano-playing telemarketer (Woody Harrelson).
One thing I can give away, since it’s in the trailer, is that Ben gives his house to an impoverished Latina mother (played by Elpidia Carrillo) looking to get out of an abusive relationship. “Seven Pounds” never addresses what’s going to happen when her property tax bill comes due; did we learn nothing from Oprah’s “Everybody gets a car” fiasco, when her needy donors had to report their automotive gift to the IRS?
Coming off his extraordinary work in “I Am Legend,” here Smith gives a horrendously disappointing performance. All of Ben’s grief is presented in the most externalized, indicating manner possible as Smith jumps back and forth between inert and manic, pausing occasionally for the shedding of one single tear, the male version of Demi Moore in her heyday.
The only saving grace of “Seven Pounds” is the luminous Rosario Dawson, who seems incapable of ever being artificial onscreen. She takes an underwritten character in an overblown movie and creates a real person, finding the grace notes and even elevating Smith out of ham-handedness in their scenes together. Dawson is one of the more underappreciated artists in contemporary American cinema, and if we have to sit through as turgid a vehicle as “Seven Pounds” to give her an opportunity to show her stuff, then so be it.
“Seven Pounds” ultimately delivers the usual phony baloney that the major studios offer up in thick slices at the end of the year. It’s the kind of tediously moralizing parable that wants audiences to leave the theater thinking about doing unto others, but its real target demographic is Oscar voters. Those Academy members may find themselves feeling less inclined towards generosity.
LOL.
Tom Cruise made an excellent sword-swishing American samurai. He even saved the Western world a few times - but he does not quite make the grade as a German war hero.
That was the first verdict of German film critics after the New York premiere of Valkyrie, the Hollywood re-make of one of the country's most sensitive historical episodes: the unsuccessful military plot to kill Hitler in July 1944.
It marks the end of months of nail-biting tension among German cultural commentators and historians. Would Cruise make a hash out of playing Claus Count Schenk von Stauffenberg, the very model of a Good German?
Well, yes, according to Der Tagesspiegel, the Berlin daily.
The prosecutor said: "The conspirators cannot expect to expiate their crime by having their life ended by a decent cartridge"
"The only thing that can definitely be said about this cinema adventure is that Tom Cruise, who has been damaged by his bizarre talk show behaviour, may well continue storming the heights of the Scientology hierarchy as a Thetan, but his image as an actor has been finally ruined by Valkyrie," said the paper's critic.
Valkyrie, he concluded, was set to fail at the box office and miss out for the Oscars. "It doesn't dare to be popcorn cinema and at the same time lacks any conceptual brilliance."
It was always going to be difficult to please the Germans. There have been four previous German productions depicting Stauffenberg's attempt to blow up Hitler by placing a briefcase bomb next to him during a military briefing; each has depicted Stauffenberg as a near-saint, the closest the country has to a modern military hero.
He acted not only out of patriotism but also as a member of an aristocratic caste whose sense of honour had been upset by SS thuggery and the incompetence of Hitler.
The Germans were sure, in advance of the premiere, that Cruise wasn't up to the job.
Berthold Schenk Count von Stauffenberg, eldest son of the resistance hero - Hitler had him shot - told Cruise to go back to America. Some commentators doubted that a Scientologist could ever capture Stauffenberg's spirituality. Welt am Sonntag reckoned: "Cruise as Stauffenberg is about as deep as a bowl of corn-flakes."
The first notices are a little more charitable. The film, runs the consensus, is not as bad as it could have been. But Cruise, well what could you expect from Top Gun?
"If you look at the long list of his credits over the past 25 years," said the Die Welt critic, Hanns-Georg Rodek, “then he comes over best as an American hero, someone who battles for respect with aggression and energy. But Stauffenberg was a German hero, with aristocratic bearing, and Cruise cannot carry that off."
"His Stauffenberg is honorable and serious and determined - but why the young count managed to draw so many people in his wake is not conveyed by Cruise," writes Rodek.
The British supporting cast, Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy and Tom Wilkinson - who all play stiff-backed Prussian officers - manage just fine.
The film does not appear in Germany until January 20 and it may be that the public will take a more gentle view. Certainly the mass circulation Bild gave it a generous plug - "A cinematic monument for a German hero".
The Oscar-winning German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck is an enthusiast. "It should be compulsory viewing for all German school-children," he said after the premiere, and there really is no greater praise in Germany than saying that something should be put on the national curriculum.
The film has been dogged by misfortune, as if spooked by some ancient Prussian curse. Parts of the film had to be re-shot after they were damaged in the photo-lab.
Politicians complained when Cruise wanted to use the Defence Ministry courtyard, where Stauffenberg was actually executed, as a film set. Eleven extras fell off a truck and demanded millions in compensation .
Perhaps that is what the critics meant when they opined yesterday: "This film is Hollywood with the brakes on."
and
2. Will Smith gets an awful review
Will Smith and his sanctimonious movie are unbearably full of themselves
By Alonso Duralde
Film critic
“Seven Pounds” slogs about, impressed with its own supposed depth, as we watch Will Smith play a man attempting to pay for his past sins. Director Gabriele Muccino (“The Pursuit of Happyness”) seems to think he’s in Ingmar Bergman territory, but he’s actually made the longest, most dour episode of “My Name is Earl” imaginable.
The film begins with Ben Thomas (Smith) calling 911 to report his own suicide - this literally happens in the first five seconds, so it’s not a spoiler - and then, rather than putting all of us out of our misery at the same time, “Seven Pounds” spends the next two hours telling us how he got there.
Probably because there’s almost no other way to sell this movie, the marketing campaign for “Seven Pounds” has been aggressively vague about what actually happens and even what the title means. All that mystery is pretty much for naught, since any attentive viewer will figure out the ending (and also what, exactly, those 112 ounces represent) about half an hour in.
Suffice it to say that Ben feels wracked with guilt and loss, and his coping mechanism brings him into the lives of various people, including a print artist (Rosario Dawson) and a blind, piano-playing telemarketer (Woody Harrelson).
One thing I can give away, since it’s in the trailer, is that Ben gives his house to an impoverished Latina mother (played by Elpidia Carrillo) looking to get out of an abusive relationship. “Seven Pounds” never addresses what’s going to happen when her property tax bill comes due; did we learn nothing from Oprah’s “Everybody gets a car” fiasco, when her needy donors had to report their automotive gift to the IRS?
Coming off his extraordinary work in “I Am Legend,” here Smith gives a horrendously disappointing performance. All of Ben’s grief is presented in the most externalized, indicating manner possible as Smith jumps back and forth between inert and manic, pausing occasionally for the shedding of one single tear, the male version of Demi Moore in her heyday.
The only saving grace of “Seven Pounds” is the luminous Rosario Dawson, who seems incapable of ever being artificial onscreen. She takes an underwritten character in an overblown movie and creates a real person, finding the grace notes and even elevating Smith out of ham-handedness in their scenes together. Dawson is one of the more underappreciated artists in contemporary American cinema, and if we have to sit through as turgid a vehicle as “Seven Pounds” to give her an opportunity to show her stuff, then so be it.
“Seven Pounds” ultimately delivers the usual phony baloney that the major studios offer up in thick slices at the end of the year. It’s the kind of tediously moralizing parable that wants audiences to leave the theater thinking about doing unto others, but its real target demographic is Oscar voters. Those Academy members may find themselves feeling less inclined towards generosity.
LOL.