Ntuple Indemnity

The Philosopher’s Stone was a screen test: the characters were cast, the sets were built, and we saw the definition of some design conventions that would guide how J.K. Rowling’s imagination would look on film. The Chamber of Secrets was a exercise in refining the execution, with more attention to visual effects and cinematography, and served as a vehicle for Chris Columbus to develop as a director. But now, at long last, we have Alfonso Cuaron’s The Prisoner of Azkaban: the first real Harry Potter movie.

For the first time, we have a Harry Potter film that not only feels complete, but achieves what made the books the phenomenon they are – a balance of gleeful entertainment and meticulous artistry. Steve Kloves’ adaptation of Rowling’s third novel cuts its losses and accepts that some things only work on paper – something that he did to a lesser extent with the first two films – but the big difference is what Cuaron did and Columbus did not, which is recognize there is a lot of unfulfilled cinematic potential lying in the fact that conversely, some things only work on film. Azkaban actively takes advantage of cinema as a medium of expression, and adds a whole new dimension of what the magic of Potter is all about: imagination.

Take, for example, the way the cutting room tackles the passage of time. Because the Potter novels each last a full academic year in what can be perceived as a rather serial fashion, jumping from summer vacation to the first day of school to Halloween to Christmas, there are some inherent pacing issues to resolve. While the first two films negotiate this with jump-cuts that drop requisite visual clues like holiday decorations and the presence or absence of snow, the seasonal transitions in Azkaban are demarcated by a recurring visual gag involving the Whomping Willow, The effect is not only charming, but also serves the literary function of reminding the audience that the Willow is there, and acting as a framework for structural coherence.

This is not the only indication of how the editing work has matured tremendously. The Prisoner of Azkaban is a textbook example of when and how to execute fade-to-blacks for dramatic effect, as whenever Harry is approached by Dementors and falls unconscious to the sound of a woman screaming. On a more general level, the Dementors are everything that the encounter with Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest in The Philosopher’s Stone was supposed to be. Whereas that scene in the first film amounts to all of a cloak floating around a dead unicorn while Harry clutches the lightning scar on his forehead, Cuaron’s vision of the Dementors stops and asks: how is it that one visualizes fear – or soul-sucking, for that matter? Rowling describes the approach of a Dementor as akin to a sinkhole for warmth and happiness; the film conveys this by having these foul creatures freeze everything around them as they pass, with a creeping frost effect very similar to the one in The Day After Tomorrow, only here, it makes sense.

That is what sets The Prisoner of Azkaban apart: its embrace of the medium of cinema defines a magical tone and atmosphere that its predecessors did not possess. Because of this, it stands out as an independent work of art in its own right, instead of relying entirely on Rowling’s contributions alone. The Marauder’s Map is far more than just a leaf of parchment with moving labeled dots on it; it unfolds in all manner of directions like Hogwarts itself, movements are traced with tiny pattering footprints, and the labels themselves are stylized to fit a medieval aesthetic. The Invisibility Cloak is no longer just a close-up of Harry traipsing around under a semi-transparent cloak; it does not stop him from leaving revealing footprints in the snow. The climax is bookended by shots that pass out of Hogwarts and back in through the gears of a large and very symbolic clock, and its initiation – when Hermione activates the Time Turner – is without question the single best moment I have seen in any film this year, a shot that trumps its counterparts in even the most legendary movies that involve the manipulation of time.

The casting work deserves a great deal of recognition, in supporting roles big (Gary Oldman as an appropriately scruffy and bonkers Sirius Black) and small (Lee Ingleby as Stan Shunpike), the best of the lot being David Thewlis’ precisely-in-character performance as new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor Remus Lupin. The concern of the main and recurring characters outgrowing their roles is not too much of a problem at this stage, but definitely shows through (a fancy way of saying, “Gosh, Neville Longbottom is tall”).

What holds the film back is the difficulty of reconciling a consistent linear structure and pace with the complexity of Rowling’s book. In The Prisoner of Azkaban in particular, Rowling constructs her plots very much in the style of Agatha Christie, dropping seemingly unrelated clues to a grand and sinister mystery for ninety percent of a work, then tying them all together in a singular denouement that answers every lingering question in one fell swoop. Even the 1974 film of Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express discovered that with so many interrelated clues, the adaptation process that leads to a coherent screenplay is a game of pick-up-sticks. The remedy that screenwriter Kloves tries this time around, which peels off a few of the outer layers of the mystery and spreads the rest of it out so as to achieve a relatively even distribution of clues and solutions, is an improvement upon the last two films in the sense that the adaptation work seems considered right from pre-production and not in the cutting room; however, the consequence is a barrage of abrupt revelations and name-dropping that would be an information glut for all but those who have a thorough memory of the original work.

To illustrate some of these concerns, I am now going to discuss a plot-specific adaptation issue, so if you have not read the book, go catch up with the text and come back later.

The biggest omission in the film is a critical one, and sorely missed, which is that the identities of Mooney (sic), Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs are never revealed, and Remus Lupin never explains how it is he knows how to operate the Marauder’s Map, even though Snape’s implicit line about Harry getting it “straight from the manufacturers” (in a perfectly executed staging of the scene where Snape catches the boy wizard out of bed at night) remains intact. It would have taken a minute – just one question from our dear inquiring Harry, and an answer in return. It is only excusably problematic that the details of how the whole matter of betrayal and the Secret Keeper charm are never explained, but an understanding of the roles of Lupin, Pettigrew and Black in relation to James Potter is key to what Azkaban contributes to the grander saga, which is an introduction to the dynamic of the parental generation, as well as a clue to the form of either Potter’s Patronus.

It should be emphasized that we do see individual scenes that go into the various relationships with the elder Potter on a one-on-one level. A delightful chat between Lupin and Harry about the latter’s parents whilst all the other students are at Hogsmeade, a scene not in the book, may well be what Rowling referred to as the unintended clue to Book Six. Still, it would have been nice to see such a vital clue tie it all together. As it stands, the fact that Lupin could read the Marauder’s Map at all is a plot hole; and while tackling the Shrieking Shack as a ten-minute dialogue sequence would not have been feasible, whittling it down does make it look like Harry trusts Black’s side of the story far too quickly.

These complaints aside, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is in every way a superior film compared to its two precursors, and the first one that is not only highly watchable, but a lot of fun. No longer does it feel like the whole affair probably looks a lot better on set than it does on screen; and finally, we see some literacy in the language that is unique to cinema. While The Chamber of Secrets was developing this communicative aptitude with key scenes like Tom Riddle’s diary and the fight with the Basilisk, now we have an entire movie that does J.K. Rowling justice, a movie that captures the dark, yet lively spirit of Harry Potter from beginning to end. It could have been longer without penalty, but that does not stop it from already being a must-see for veteran Potterheads and non-fans alike.

Ideally, Alfonso Cuaron should be invited back for at least one Potter movie. Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral) is already working on The Goblet of Fire, and I maintain that there is no better person for The Order of the Phoenix than Terry Gilliam, but Cuaron now has a proven record of knowing how to commit Rowling to film.

Next: some equally belated thoughts on the Calgary Flames’ blaze just short of glory.

Roland Emmerich’s latest Movie of Mass Destruction, in which the culprit responsible for desecrating the Statue of Liberty yet again is neither an invading race of space aliens nor a knockoff of a radioactive Japanese lizard, but no less a threat than global warming, is a movie in two parts. The first half of The Day After Tomorrow deals with the melting of the polar ice caps triggering a cataclysmic change in the North Atlantic Current that, in a dramatic reversal of Inigo Montoyan proportions, brings about the abrupt glaciation of all of North America. Think of it as Kill Bill, Vol. 1, but with the Los Angeles skyline shredded by tornadoes instead of masked henchmen shredded by a Hattori Hanzo blade. The second half focuses on the survival of a group of teenagers stranded in New York on account of a trivia competition, particularly Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Laura (Emmy Rossum), while Sam’s father (Dennis Quaid) embarks on an epic snowshoeing trip to rescue them. Think of it as Kill Bill, Vol. 2, but with kids buried in the New York Public Library under twenty feet of snow instead of Uma Thurman buried in a coffin under six feet of dirt.

Likewise, I will follow the same narrative structure in this review by doing it in halves: the part that everyone actually came to read, followed by a few paragraphs of melodrama where this reviewer valiantly begs to be taken seriously.

Roland Emmerich is often criticized for being one of those filmmakers whose films quite unfortunately started making money before he ever learned the fine art of subtlety. The naysayers need not say nay to this latest movie of his, as it embodies all manner of clever literary devices in its very title. Now, while pretty much everybody in the business of making fun of movie titles has already trodden on this with the standard attempts to emulate Abbott and Costello (“Did you buy tickets for The Day After Tomorrow?” – “No, I bought them for today.”), what has not been done thus far is its subjection to the rigorous critical analysis that it deserves, an appraisal that exposes its true genius.

What the target audience of “people who inexplicably still watch television dramas” will miss completely, but any respectable aspiring film scholar should pick up on right away, is that the title The Day After Tomorrow is an obvious allusion to Casablanca. In Rick’s last speech to Ilsa before she boards the plane to Lisbon, the same one where he makes the observation that “the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world,” he also says: “If you don’t get on that plane with him, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life.” This applies very well to a scene early on in the film that establishes the father-son dynamic in preparation for the second half of the film, where Sam’s father rushes home to send his son to the airport for his flight to New York. Besides that – if not today, and not tomorrow, then when doth regret arrive? That’s right: The Day After Tomorrow.

The Casablanca connections don’t stop there; recall how Rick tells Major Strasser, “There are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn’t advise you to try to invade.” The subtextual point is that according to Emmerich, the coming of a new ice age heralded by global warming is analogous to no less than the Third Reich. Take that for what you will.

But let it not be said that this is the be-all and end-all of subliminal allusions in the piece. For a moment, let us turn our attention to the real reason anybody would pay to see this movie: not the thunderous wanton annihilation of an entire continent, but whether or not Emmy Rossum is a good enough actress to carry The Phantom of the Opera. Sadly, as was the case with Gerard Butler (who plays the Phantom) in Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, the jury is out. Perhaps what The Day After Tomorrow needed more than anything was a musical number about how “the sun’ll come out tomorrow,” not that it’s been done or anything.

Still, even without any singing and dancing – not even on ice skates – Emmerich does not ignore the Phantom Phactor: that if the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical makes a successful transition to film, people may one day watch his apocalypse flick and exclaim, “Hey, that’s Christine!” like how they pick out Bob Falfa in American Graffiti as Han Solo with a cowboy hat. Observe the two-part structure of the film I pointed out earlier, and how this is really two movies in one – one before the disaster that befalls the United States, and one after, which works its way towards a big happy reunion. Now observe what Christine sings in Act II of Phantom: “Past the point of no return – no going back now, / Our passion-play has now, at last, begun… / Past all thought of right or wrong – one final question / How long should we two wait, before we’re one?” Case closed.

And now for something completely different – the boring part where I actually talk about the film.

For a movie boasting variants of the typical Roland Emmerich clichés – the Sceptical Authority Figure whose negligence and resemblance to Dick Cheney lead to the deaths of millions, crowds huddling around televisions watching the disaster on a breaking-news segment, a sympathy-wrenching boy afflicted with an incurable disease (a level down to which even Don Cherry would not sink) – The Day After Tomorrow feels surprisingly fresh. On a visual level, it is almost the opposite of a standard disaster movie: there are no fiery explosions that blossom into the lovely mushroom clouds of a nuclear spring, but tidal waves that engulf cities and icy winds that creep along walls and chase you down and freeze you on the spot. Count on Emmerich to preserve his long-standing tradition of defying physics and explaining it with threadbare junk science, but innovate when it comes to executing such defiance itself. As an effects spectacle, it holds up well, and in all likelihood there is little about its images of an apocalypse-in-progress that will look dated a decade from now. The five-minute destruction of Los Angeles by tornado has more visceral impact than all of Twister put together, and the flooding of Manhattan is a serviceable prequel to A.I. if there ever was one.

The most significant change from the norm is that this time, the world is faced with a disaster that cannot be defeated or stalled; nobody flies up to Mother Nature with an Apple Macintosh and infects her with a virus. The characters have to accept the consequences, suck it up, and sit around trying not to die. It makes Tomorrow a lot more human and mature than the average movie of its sort, and justifies the implausible survival of the protagonists without going one step too far and having them save the rest of the world, too. It is easy to pass off the human-driven drama of the movie’s post-disaster phase as extraneous and juvenile – and admittedly, it is written that way – but at the end of all things, the actors do what they can considering the material they are given, and emerge with their careers largely unscathed.

The political messaging does not fare so well. (Note that I said “messaging” and not “subtext”. Messaging is overt, and subtext has already been discussed.) It is tellingly comical that The Day After Tomorrow is a hot-button topic in political circles when its grasp on how policymaking actually works is more of a children’s fantasy than its pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo. Basically, the movie is trying to tell us all that global warming will doom the human race, in the same way that every other movie back in the 1950s had nuclear fission heralding the environmentalist’s Cassandra. At one point it even dares to slip the K-word (rhymes with “Schmyoto”). This is not to say that the politicking is not at least somewhat intentionally tongue-in-cheek; there is, I kid you not, a mock newscast about an hour in that makes a passing mention of the President suddenly forgiving all Latin American debt. So much for your aid budget, Mr. P.

Notably, this is Emmerich’s first motion picture since Manhattan was actually sacked back in 2001, but it pulls no punches when it comes to tearing the island apart. If anything, the eponymous event of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 almost lends false credence to the reality depicted in Tomorrow, now that the images of unfortunate innocent extras panicking in the shadow of skyscrapers getting their windows knocked out are no longer as far-fetched as they once may have seemed. Some may call this penchant for picking on New Yorkers a demonstration of cinematic insensitivity, but this is a case where the circumstances enhance the experience.

The end product of The Day After Tomorrow proves to be a very watchable, albeit forgettable film that in many ways represents a high point for everybody’s favourite Hollywood sadist with a Lady Liberty fetish, but should not be seen for anything more than what it is: a disaster effects extravaganza that just happens to substantiate the theory that in the world of cinema, every story has already been told – by Casablanca, that is.

In honour of tonight’s 3-0 victory over the Lightning, at which the audience was entirely in varying degrees of red, I am going to write some more about the euphoric atmosphere in this here city of Calgary.

From the Yellow Journalism Files comes this little gem I saw in this week’s FFWD Weekly, which, for you Edmontonians reading this, is Calgary’s equivalent of your SEE Magazine: a brief observation by one Jason Lewis that the sports fans leading the charge of Flames fever here in Calgary “are not only a little hypocritical, but also a bit nutty.”

This by itself is not so objectionable, but read on. “You know when the latest Star Wars movie comes out and people line up for five days dressed up as R2-D2 to buy tickets?” asks Lewis. “You folks in the Flames jerseys with the thermoses of soup outside the Saddledome at 5 a.m. to get playoff seats are the sports-world equivalent of those sci-fi geeks.”

Speaking as someone who indeed lined up for five days (okay, three) to buy tickets for one of the Prequels – and let’s not even get into The Lord of the Rings Trilogy Tuesday or the midnight launch of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – it’s easy to take this as a compliment to Flames fans everywhere. But in light of what he says in the first paragraph about hypocrisy, is it just me, or do I detect a bit of negativity? Lewis goes on and makes an entirely anecdotal argument that we “didn’t see [him] walking around in a yellow track suit for the opening weekend of Kill Bill,” which is a rather misguided take on the motivations underlying the dress-up, line-up subcultural phenomena we are seeing more often in this age of tentpole events.

The Kill Bill argument falls flat because as good a film as it is, and as recognized as it has become in the Internet film geek community in particular, Miramax never let it dabble in big licensing deals, which meant the burden of acquiring a yellow track suit (itself an homage to Bruce Lee’s Fist of Death) demanded that you make it yourself. That already eliminates the first pillar beneath a public demonstration of one’s admiration and support for something: the commercial infrastructure.

With the Calgary Flames, you have both the merchandise and a team whose performance makes it fashionable. In the case of films that have yet to establish both a major commercial presence and a fan base willing to spend hard cash on it – a fan base that needs to be earned on merit – this does not happen. This is why the hype machine comes into action primarily for sequels to films that are mainstream cultural phenomena, which Kill Bill, Vol. 1 sadly was not.

For instance, the amount of costuming that happened going into The Fellowship of the Ring on opening night was minimal; without the images from the movie imprinted on society at large, and given that the mass merchandising of Tolkien was just getting off the ground, it was impossible to tell the Aragorns apart from the Boromirs anyway, unless you somehow managed to procure a Horn of Gondor. The openings of The Two Towers and The Return of the King, however, saw a whole lot more in the way of elf fashion and hobbit pageantry. The first Star Wars underwent a similar pattern, and by passing off its growth with every passing film as the development of a geek subculture, it is easy to ignore how this culture was driven by the general public. Tellingly, nobody went to The Passion of the Christ decked out as Jesus despite its record-shattering run at the box office. The exception to the rule was the film of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, but only because the kids already had costumes they wore to the release of The Goblet of Fire or the previous Halloween.

The thing to remember about dressing up for movie openings and sports games is that it only works, and it is only fun, if a lot of people are doing it. Even when you put aside the commercially licensed paraphernalia you are still left with what is, in its own right and on its own terms, a crafts fair. On one hand, you have your tinfoil Stanley Cups and “Cup Belongs in Calgary” signs; on the other, you have the latest handmade Stormtrooper costume projects like the ones coordinated by The 501st Legion. Ultimately it has little to do with the event, and a lot more to do with the sense of community. It may seem obsessive to the layman, but that does not make it a bad thing.

Lewis may contend that the bodypainting of red flaming Cs on game nights is no better than mock fighting in a cinema parking lot with glowing plastic lightsabres, but it would be more accurate to say it is no worse.

Perhaps it is fitting that the hundredth post on this weblog concerns what is only the second film to date to have opened above $100 million domestically in its first weekend, Shrek 2. This film is an interesting one to critique for a number of reasons, one being that Andrew Adamson’s next directorial project is the biggest blip on the 2005 radar not entitled Star Wars Episode III, The Goblet of Fire or Cars: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach. Okay, so maybe I made that last part up, but one can only dream.

Another reason why Shrek 2 is notable is because it is a model fence-sitter when it comes to a diagnosis of acute sequel-itis, a movie that falls short of its predecessor in many respects but does not fail to deliver a fresh experience in its own right and do what good sequels are supposed to do, which is to reveal an understanding of the first film that nobody knew needed revealing, and enhance the canon of the franchise in question on the whole. If there are any comparisons to be made here, it is not to the zenith of sequels (The Empire Strikes Back), the forgettable and pointless rehashes (Men In Black II), or even the disputed territory in between (The Matrix Reloaded), but to the other big parody sequel in recent memory, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.

Now here’s a critical quotation they should put in the ads that pretty much sums up what an audience can expect: “Shrek 2 is the Spy Who Shagged Me of animation!” Even ignoring the Mike Myers factor, the approach is similar: satisfying the reason why audiences demand sequels in the first place by giving them more of what they saw in the first: more of the same type of humour, but with send-ups that were left out of the original or simply could not be done at the time; for an idea of the latter case, the references to The Lord of the Rings and Spider-Man. Given that Shrek planted itself firmly as the definitive cinematic representation of the “fractured fairy-tale” subgenre, the territory of Jon Scieszka children’s books, this is hardly a bad thing.

The casting is nothing short of ingenious. Antonio Banderas lends a swashbuckling personality to the hired assassin Puss in Boots that overshadows the returning characters from the first movie. The Fairy Godmother, played by the latter half of French & Saunders, has a few bouncing musical numbers to herself that are among the movie’s more whimsical moments. Even bit parts are spot-on when it comes to the voice work: Joan Rivers as herself? Larry King as the Ugly Stepsister? It’s all here, and it all works.

On a purely visual level, the first Shrek was impressive enough, but by the time the sequel is over, one can tell that this franchise has defined a stylistic palette to call its own. The technical advances are clearly visible in the final render, but feel like a natural and evolutionary extension rather than an overhaul. The human characters look and move more fluidly without shooting straight for realism like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, and the designs seem inspired by the Claymation eyes, ears and cheeks of the Aardman variety; think Wallace and Gromit. Shrek 2 is also no slouch when it comes to pulling off what the first did in spades, some of the most radiant and magical transformative sequences committed to film. They are but subtle scenes with flashes of light, yes, but the way they are staged has an atmosphere about it that is quite reassuring when one takes into consideration that the same imaginative aptitude is going to make a stop in Narnia.

Some of the fairy-tale cameos in the first film such as Magic Mirror, the Gingerbread Man and Pinocchio return in the sequel as a cast of second-tier sidekicks, and it is a mixed blessing. On one hand, it makes for the best film spoof in the movie, and I’ll give you a hint: it’s based on something released a full three years before The Matrix but feels at least three times more refreshing than the bullet-time rehash in Shrek‘s Robin Hood fight. However, this ends up feeling very much like a pale imitation of an established Pixar tradition, and these guys don’t match up to Rex, Hamm and Slinky Dog. Ironically, Shrek 2 is at its best when it does what Pixar does, but it defines itself by doing what Pixar doesn’t – in particular, the subtle adult humour of Austin Powers territory.

Substantially, though, the main reason why the sequel falls short of being a classic is that despite its serviceably amusing extension of Shrek‘s wry humour, it misses the boat on something key. The quality of the first movie was not due to its humour, but rather because it explored the entire range from Jar Jar Binks flatulence to something ultimately more sentimental and self-contained, and knew how to switch between the two at a moment’s notice with impeccable timing. Shrek 2 has but a fraction of the heart, and its lack of a deep emotional core reduces it to no more than a lighthearted and fun movie. This may be enough for some fans of the original, but it comes off as a step backwards in comparison.

Part of the reason behind this deficiency may be that the relationship between Shrek and Fiona has little room to develop. We do see a greater exploration of what the first film hinted at about Fiona’s personality, which is that she did harbour expectations of living her adult life as a beautiful princess who lands herself a handsome prince, as opposed to say, an ogre who lands herself another ogre. This is all well and good, and what I earlier referred to as “what good sequels are supposed to do,” but it never legitimately puts their marriage in danger, even when one takes into account the major plot device of Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) trying to steal her away.

The movie ends far too quickly and feels much too short, but that is to its credit, and speaks to the frantic pace of the superbly entertaining last half-hour. The final impression as the credits roll, though, is that while Shrek 2 complements its precursor well and proves to be a lot of fun, it is just that and little else. For an ogre movie, it sure is a lightweight when it comes to actually being emotionally affecting, and that relegates it to being a cotton-candy summer sequel – sweet, but it could have taken a lesson from onions and had a few more layers beneath the surface.

This story broke two weeks ago, but my intention was to put it off until after I had seen the touring production of Rent at the Jubilee Auditorium, for reasons that will become immediately clear. Before long, E3 and Waterloo DDT got in the way as far as coverage goes, but I digress. The story is that Chris Columbus, whose name will be conveniently lost in history because of a) that fifteenth-century explorer guy and b) Bicentennial Man, is planning to adapt and direct Jonathan Larson’s Pulitzer-winning musical.

Even without the supposition that the film adaptation of any seminal work from another medium should immediately raise eyebrows, this is one of those things that you hope turns out way better than it looks on paper. Rent is a mature, contemporary and dynamic work of theatre that deals with the less fortunate denziens of Lower Manhattan – and by “less fortunate” I mean homeless and dying of AIDS, for starters. Then we have Chris Columbus, who has directed exactly two films worth watching, both on the merit of J.K. Rowling (who, by the way, has a brand-spanking-new website that everyone should check out).

Now, not to be an armchair director or anything, but as good as Columbus is at drawing quality performances out of child performers – please ignore Macaulay Culkin for a second – the last thing that any film audience would associate him with is dynamism. Columbus needs to get a top-notch cinematographer on board and work with him to shoot the movie with a tone that matches the rest of the source material, and do what he started doing on The Chamber of Secrets, which is breaking the habit of visualizing scenes with stationary cameras sitting around and watching the soundstage.

The central character of Rent, Mark, is a video artist who documents everything with a handheld he takes everywhere. It would be kind of sad if a director couldn’t live up to the work of one of his characters, no? That in itself proposes an interesting concept: shoot the entire film in handheld, giving it the feel of an urban documentary. As far as I know, it has never been done in an A-list movie musical, though it would not fit anywhere else, whilst for Rent, it’s so perfect that somebody out there should hire me for even mentioning the idea.

Speaking as optimistically as possible, though, this could prove to be a breakout project for Chris Columbus’ skills and reputation as a filmmaker. It’s good to see that he is taking on something challenging that may, in fact, finally provide an opportunity for him to develop.

In any case, I should be far more concerned about Joel Schumacher marching into sacred territory with The Phantom of the Opera, but casting Emmy Rossum as Christine indicates that he’s doing something right. I say that solely on the basis of Rossum’s brief role in Mystic River, and it would be best if next week’s The Day After Tomorrow does not shatter that perception.