The King of Kings, from Angel Studios

For millions of families, reading A Christmas Carol is a holiday tradition. For Charles Dickens’ family, it was reading The Life of Our Lord, which he also wrote (obviously based on Biblical sources). However, the rest of the world would not be able to read it until 1934, after the death of his four children. It was a major literary event at the time, but the novella has sadly fallen out of fashion. Yet, the story is timeless and Dickens remains perennially popular. Animator Seong-ho Jang adapts Dickens’ adapted story and depicts its first telling in The King of Kings, released by Angel Studios, which opens this Friday in theaters.

If you do not know the basic events of the life of Christ by now, either your Sunday School teacher should be ashamed, or you are just a heathen. Dickens and Jang give us all the highlights: the manger, the fish and loaves, the moneychangers, and indeed the Last Supper (which is currently having its movie moment). However, it is all seen through the eyes of Dickens, his son Walter, and their fat cat, Willa.

Initially, the naughty Walter disrupted his father’s staged reading of A Christmas Carol with his King Arthur make-believe games. However, at the behest of his eternally patient wife Catherine, Dickens tells him the story of a far greater king, who eventually inspired the legend of King Arthur—even though he was not really a king in the traditional sense.

Some of the business with Walter and Willa gets a little too silly, but the episodes of Jesus’s life are handled quite nicely. Jang and English-language co-writer Rob Edwards (who co-wrote Disney’s Treasure Planet and The Princess and the Frog) fully explore the drama of each memorable story, but always in a respectful way. The film is undeniably reverent, but it never feels stilted or sermon-like. Arguably, Jang’s film is more successful than its 1961 namesake at realizing Biblical stories as big-screen entertainment.

Unfortunately, the character design is a little clunky. Apparently, people had honking big noses back during the days of antiquity. However, there are several visually arresting sequences that appropriately invoke awe and “mystery,” as the term is understood in a Biblical context. Indeed, these include every big crucial scene, such as the crucifixion.

The all-star voice cast is also quite a surprise, starting with Kenneth Branagh, who probably covers the greatest range, from comedy as Dickens, the exasperated father, to hushed devotion, as Dickens, the faithful Christian. Uma Thurman also brings warmth to the somewhat slap-sticky prelude as kind-hearted Catherine.

Without question, the voice of Jesus represented a tricky bit of casting, but Oscar Isaac turned out to be a wise choice. He definitely sounds like an “important voice,” but he is not instantly recognizable. Likewise, Forest Whitaker has the right modestly devout tone for Peter. Sir Ben Kingsley and Pierce Brosnan lend their commanding vocal talents as High Priest Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate, respectively, while prolific voice-over artist Fred Tatasciore (whose credits include The Day the Earth Blew Up and JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time) can be heard as Pharisee Eleazar.

Branagh’s Rockin’ Death on the Nile

Who knew Hercule Poirot had such hip taste in music? It came as a surprise to him too, but he really grooves to Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Technically, she is called Salome Otterbourne, but she plays electric guitar and her repertoire includes “Rock Me” and “Up Above My Head.” However, she is not completely Sister Rosetta, since she might possibly be kind of slightly interested in him too. Regardless, Poirot will have to concentrate on the bodies that start piling up in director-star Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile, which releases Tuesday on DVD and BluRay.

Like Branagh’s Wallander, his take on Poirot is decidedly sadder and, in this case, even tragic. Screenwriter Michael Green punches up Dame Agatha’s popular novel by giving the Belgian sleuth a rather heartbreaking backstory, flashing back to Poirot’s service in WWI. The truth is, it does help explain why Poirot is so fastidiously Poirot.

Regardless, Poirot finds himself in Egypt, along with newlyweds Simon Doyle and Linette Ridgeway-Doyle, who met at a Salome Otterbourne gig (that Poirot also happened to attend). At the time, Doyle was engaged to Jackie de Belfort, Ridgeway’s dirt-poor best friend. Since then, Doyle traded up to the heiress. De Belfort took the news quite badly. In fact, she has chased the happy couple every step of their Nile cruise honeymoon. Her stalking has grown so unhinged, Poirot agreed to give her a fatherly talking-to. Despite his concern, Ridgeway-Doyle is soon bumped off, but it happens after De Belfort is sedated, following a violent altercation with her former fiancé.

That leaves Poirot with literal boatload of suspects (all aboard the S.S. Karnak), all of whom have motives. Naturally, the elite detective proceeds to investigate, with the help of his old friend Bouc, substituting for David Niven’s Col. Race in the 1978 film. Several of the supporting characters have been reconfigured and assigned different jobs and stations in life, but the fundamental murder mystery remains the same.

However, the music is way better this time and Branagh maybe even makes better use of the grand Egyptian settings. He is a more neurotic Poirot than Ustinov ever was, but he also develops some unusually bittersweet, ambiguously romantic chemistry with Sophie Okonedo’s Otterbourne.

Macbeth: Branagh Storms the Armory

Much to the regret of cineastes and Shakespeare connoisseurs, we can only speculate about what Olivier’s aborted Macbeth film could have been. At least we have auteurist adaptations from Orson Welles, Roman Polankski, and (sort of) Akira Kurosawa. Sir Kenneth Branagh (who picked up his fifth Oscar nod playing Olivier in My Week with Marilyn) has not yet helmed a big screen version of the Scottish Play, but patrons attending his new staging at the Park Avenue Armory will feel like they have seen it anyway, in widescreen 3D. An extremely cinematic Macbeth directed by Rob Ashford & Branagh officially opened last night, thoroughly dominating the cavernous Wade Thompson Drill Hall (promo here).

When transplanting their critically acclaimed Manchester International Festival production to the Armory, Ashford and Branagh decided to go large—really, really large. Seriously, we are talking big here. It is hard to describe the initial awe experienced walking to one’s seat through a recreation of Scotland’s moors, illuminated by hooded torchbearers, under the shadow of an enormous druid stone circle. That essentially covers the price of your ticket right there.

The druid stones are at one end of the stage and a massive candle-lit altar stands at the other. In between is a dirt battlefield, where Scotland’s thanes will get muddy, bloody, and dead. Two tiers of risers define the sides of the performance space, but despite their imposing size, it still feels like a surprisingly intimate viewing experience.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of set and costume designer Christopher Oram’s work. Yet, the show starts even before patrons enter, when they are assigned a clan and assemble with their kinsmen in one of the Armory’s historic chambers. (This might be a good place to send out a war yalp to Steve at Unseen Films, who made our group of cult film reviewers’ night of culture possible. Ross Clan Rules!) There is no audience participation, per se, but it puts you on notice—this will not be a typical night at the theater.

Branagh brings it right from the start, with a full-scale battle sequence that brings to mind the melee of his classic Henry V. As you really ought to know, Macbeth is initially a heroic supporter of the king. Then three witches enter. They offer up a series of cryptic prophecies and soon Macbeth is up to his neck in murder most foul. Even with all the jaw-dropping spectacle on display, Branagh and company have to get down to business at some point, but fortunately he comes to make a statement.

As an old theater pro, Branagh could project to the back row with his head wrapped in gauze. While not a huge man, his Macbeth bristles with power, suggesting a sociopathic Medieval Napoleon. Frankly, most audience members are coming to give him a standing ovation, but he truly earns it. At times, Alex Kingston’s Lady Macbeth might be a bit too quiet for the staging, but her one-on-one scenes with Branagh have a raw physicality that is almost shocking. (Still, probably no one will ever match the sheer force of Roseanne Ma’s psychotic breakdown in the Pan Asian Rep’s Shogun Macbeth.)

Unfortunately, several of the major thanes are rather overwhelmed by the staging, but Richard Coyle is the standout exception as Macduff. He was quite winning in Grabbers and impressively intense in Pusher, but he takes it to another level here, holding his own with Branagh. Just so we do not forget this is a Branagh show, Jimmy Yuill once again rejoins his frequent comrade as an unusually crusty and battle-hardened Banquo.

You really have to see the Armory Macbeth to fully get its full scope and impact. Ashford & Branagh have mounted what might well be the most ambitious staging of Macbeth, perhaps ever. Yet, they do not neglect the dramatic essentials. There is no need to tip toe around, referring to it as the Scottish Play sotto voce. This is Macbeth and it means business. Highly recommended for anyone who can possibly get to the Upper Eastside, Ashford & Branagh’s Macbeth ends its limited engagement on June 22^nd at the Park Avenue Armory.

Stars in Shorts: Branagh, Firth, Knightley, and Company

Following his epic adaptation of Henry V, Sir Kenneth Branagh’s third Academy Award nomination came for a short film—a treatment of Chekhov’s Swan Song.  Although he has now reinvented himself as a tent-pole director, with the new Jack Ryan thriller on the way, Branagh periodically returns to shorter forms of filmmaking.  That is indeed Branagh appearing as the villain in Benjamin Grayson’s Prodigal, which screens as part of Shorts International’s Stars in Shorts program (trailer here), opening this Friday at the IFC Center.

While Branagh is a delight as Mark Snow, the head of a shadowy research group (and namesake of the X-Files composer), Prodigal (trailer here) largely recycles a number of the themes and motifs familiar from Chris Carter’s television series.  David O’Neill regrets entrusting Samantha, his young daughter with powerful telekinetic abilities, to the Prodigal institution.  He enlists the help of a secretive branch of the federal government, but in retrospect, this is probably a further mistake.  Aside from Branagh, the cast is a bit colorless, but Prodigal certainly looks like a polished production.  Fans of Winter Ave Zoli (from Sons of Anarchy) will be also interested to see her as David’s wife Angela.

Probably the funniest short of the block is Robert Festinger’s The Procession, starring Lily Tomlin and the sort of starrish Jesse Tyler Ferguson as the shallowest, most self-centered mother-and-son tandem you would never want to be trapped in a car with during a funeral procession.  It basically plays like an unproduced episode of Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm, but it works.

One of the standouts of the program, Rupert Friend’s Steve also starts out in a somewhat comedic vibe, but takes a decidedly dark turn.  A couple’s bickering is interrupted by a neighbor’s seemingly reasonable inquiry about a leak.  However, the title character will be back, with weirder complaints.  He will also expect tea.  Colin Firth is memorably off as Steve, while the glammed down Keira Knightley is convincingly harried as his reluctant host.  It is a nice short acting showcase, fittingly helmed by Friend, recognizable as the protag-journalist in Renny Harlin’s 5 Days of War, among other big screen roles.

Film and sound editor Jay Kamen’s Not Your Time is pretty amusing as well.  Featuring Jason Alexander as Sid Rosenthal, an editor who always wanted to helm a Busby Berkley musical, it mines Player style laughs by featuring a cast of Hollywood insiders as themselves.  Music students will also appreciate Kamen’s send-up of atonal avant-garde classical composition.  While the humor is distinctly dark, Alexander’s shticky persona best fits brief running times, like NYT’s twenty five minutes.

Neil LaBute continues to seek redemption for his The Wicker Man remake with two characteristically cutting contributions.  Jacob Chase’s After School Special, written by LaBute, is an ironic twist kind of short, with its name “star,” Wes Bentley, not really factoring in the business end of the film.  Nonetheless, the closing scene definitely stings.  Sexting, both penned and helmed by the playwright, builds to a more obvious punchline, but Julia Stiles is deliciously catty as the other woman, burying herself in a mountain of LaButian dialogue.  It is smart gig for Stiles, who was terrif in Shakespeare in the Park’s Twelfth Night years ago, but seems to get the dumbest parts offered to her.

Perhaps the slightest constituent film is also the one with the greatest built in audience anticipation.  In Chris Foggin’s Friend Request Pending Dame Judi Dench and her crony engage in a bit of social networking and cyber flirtation, presumably before they nip off to India’s greener retirement pastures.  One of the floating heads on the program poster, Tim Hiddleston also eventually appears in a jokey cameo during Pending’s closing seconds.  A harmless reunion of My Week With Marilyn assistant director Foggin and co-stars Dench and Penny Ryder, it will probably endear itself to the Marigold Hotel set.

Though shorts programs are often inconsistent by their aggregated nature, there is no out and out clunker in Stars.  Steve might be the high point, but it notably represents a good way to see Branagh, Stiles, and LaBute doing their thing.  Recommended for fans of short films and LaBute, Stars in Shorts opens this Friday (9/28) in New York at the IFC Center.

Wallander III: The Brooding Continues

Inspector Kurt Wallander might have the most annoying ringtone ever.  He would not mind changing it, but he is not a gadget guy.  His specialty is the dark recesses of the human soul.  The Swedish detective will be put through the psychological wringer again in the third season of Wallander (promo here), which premieres tomorrow night as part of the current season of PBS’s Masterpiece Mystery.

As the season opening An Event in Autumn begins, Wallander is trying to pull his act together and start a new chapter in his life.  Together with his lover Vanja and her young son, he has moved into a comfily restored farmhouse.  Yet, then the dog goes and digs up a dead body in their front bushes.  Wallander reacts rather badly when the site of his hoped for domestic tranquility becomes a crime scene.  It also brings him into conflict with the seedy former tenant, whom Wallander suspects, but cannot pin anything on.  Things really get bad when a colleague is gravely injured, partly due to Wallander’s recklessness.  As you might expect, he takes this turn of events rather badly.  However, his other active investigation starts to overlap with the case of the corpse in his yard.

Autumn is absolutely vintage Wallander, filled to the brim with his angst and self-recriminations, with everything he says making matters worse.  Though grim even Wallander’s standards, it is a pretty solid crime story.  However, Sakia Reeves’ Vanja gets a bit tiresome.  After all, what does she expect from Kurt Wallander?

The clear high point of season three comes with the middle episode, The Dogs of Riga (airing 9/16).  Now shockingly living on his own, Wallander meets an even more miserable copper when Major Karlis Liepa of the Latvian police comes to inspect the bodies of some Russian gangsters that washed up on shore.  It turns out the victims were his confidential informers and members of his own force were probably responsible for their murders.  When the world weary Major also meets an untimely end, Wallander is sent to assist the Latvian police.  It is hard to tell the cops apart from the gangsters, but they are all hassling Liepa’s widow Kristina, looking for his case notes.

While the Baltics are still pretty Nordic, both in terms of climate and temperament, the change of scenery does Wallander the series and character good.  It gives director Esther Campbell an opportunity to stage some respectable cat-and-mouse games and Branagh quickly develops some nice chemistry with Rebekah Staton’s unmerry widow.  There is also an intriguing plot point involving the old archives of the Soviet-era secret police that adds some historical perspective.  It also features one of the overall series’ best guest-star performances from Søren Malling as the soon to be late Major.

Unfortunately, Riga is followed by Before the Frost, a series low point that thoroughly reflects Wallander author Henning Mankell’s strident leftism.  A childhood friend of Wallander’s semi-estranged daughter comes looking for help, but he inadvertently pushes her away with his clumsy interpersonal skills.  He will soon be desperate to find her, fearing the worst about the Christian doomsday cult she has fallen in with.  It is pretty clear Mankell considers Sweden’s biggest problem to be a surfeit of Christianity and anyone believing in Creationism is a potential terrorist waiting to snap.  Frankly, Frost is so didactic, it gets rather silly (and distracting).  For fans though, at least it reveals a bit more of Wallander’s backstory.

Despite ending on a comparatively flat note, season three of Wallander represents a rebound from the somewhat disappointing second season.  Branagh so thoroughly plums the depths of the detective’s depression, one fears for his own mental health when each season wraps.  The tense and cinematic Dogs of Riga gets the highest recommendation, but An Event in Autumn is also worth seeing, as a particularly representative day at the office for Wallander, when season three kicks off this Sunday (9/9) on most PBS outlets nationwide.

Norma Jean and the Brits: My Week with Marilyn

Sir Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe were on the brink of career highpoints in John Osborne’s The Entertainer and Billy Wilder’s Some Like it Hot, respectively. However, their chemistry was somewhat lacking in their one and only film together, The Prince and the Showgirl, tepidly received by critics and audiences alike in 1957. The behind-the-scenes story of their rocky shoot is told from the perspective of a smitten production assistant in Simon Curtis’s My Week with Marilyn (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Though to-the-manor-born, young Colin Clark wants to make his own way in the world working in motion pictures. Refusing to take no for an answer, Clark parlays a dubious introduction into a gofer job with Olivier’s production company. Recently knighted, the great actor is planning to direct the American bombshell in a light comedic role his wife, Vivien Leigh, originated on-stage. Unfortunately, when Monroe shows up with full entourage in tow, it is quickly apparent she deeply enthralled by the method school of acting, dubious claptrap Sir Laurence has little patience for.

Despite beginning a healthy romance with Lucy, a wardrobe assistant arguably as attractive as the childlike and frequently doped-up Monroe, Clark falls hard for the famous sex symbol. While not exactly mutual, Monroe starts to rely on the solicitous young man’s emotional support. It all leads to much gossip and quite a bit of ill will on the set.

If Marilyn Monroe truly was a ragingly insecure woman who lived in a pronounced state of arrested development, then Michelle Williams plays her quite well indeed. Though she has been doggedly positioned as an Oscar contender, her Monroe seems to be a blank slate on which the other characters project their desires. Was that all there really was to her? If so, how very sad.

In welcomed contrast, the British ensemble cast, including the likes of Dame Judi Dench, Michael “Foyle” Kitchen, and Julia Ormand (as Leigh, no small part to step into either), plays it to the hilt, bandying about witticisms as if they are in The Bad and the Beautiful, as rewritten by Noel Coward.

Yet, the casting of Kenneth Branagh as Olivier is particularly inspired. Not only does Branagh have the right “classically trained” presence and flair for razor-sharp dialogue, one can see parallels of his own career in that of Sir Laurence. Earning acclaim and the not infrequent comparison to Olivier with his early Shakespearean films, Branagh’s recent career had been somewhat checkered (including a critically drubbed remake of the Olivier vehicle, Sleuth), until scoring an unlikely comeback with Thor. Regardless, he plays the iconic thespian with genuine depth and charisma.

Granted, Week is based on his memoir, but the amount of screen time devoted to Eddie Redmayne’s Clark seems wildly misspent, considering the far more interesting actors and greater larger than life figures of cinema history that are also assembled in the film. Frankly, his sad-eyed, love-struck act quickly gets rather dull. Fortunately, the seasoned veterans like Branagh, Dench, and Sir Derek Jacobi can be relied upon to supply Week periodic jolts of energy.

Curtis certainly keeps the film breezing along nicely, capturing a nice sense of the era along the way. Mostly pleasant viewing, Week features some wonderfully tasty supporting performances. It just seems to consistently focus on the two dullest people at a banquet of greatness. A case of a film whose sum of its parts is probably greater than its whole, Week opens today (11/23) in New York at the.AMC Empire and Chelsea Clearview.

NYFF ’11: My Week with Marilyn

Sir Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe were about to achieve career highpoints in John Osborne’s The Entertainer and Billy Wilder’s Some Like it Hot, respectively. However, the chemistry was somewhat lacking in their one and only film together, The Prince and the Showgirl, tepidly received by critics and audiences alike in 1957. The behind-the-scenes story of their rocky shoot is told from the perspective of a smitten production assistant in Simon Curtis’s My Week with Marilyn (trailer here), the centerpiece selection of the 49th New York Film Festival.

Though to-the-manor-born, young Colin Clark wants to make his own way in the world working in motion pictures. Refusing to take no for an answer, Clark parlays a dubious introduction into a gofer job with Olivier’s production company. Recently knighted, the great actor is planning to direct the American bombshell in a light comedic role his wife, Vivien Leigh, originated on-stage. Unfortunately, when Monroe shows up with full entourage in tow, it is quickly apparent she deeply enthralled by the method school of acting, dubious claptrap Sir Laurence has little patience for.

Despite beginning a healthy romance with Lucy, a wardrobe assistant arguably as attractive as the childlike and frequently doped-up Monroe, Clark falls hard for the famous sex symbol. While not exactly mutual, Monroe starts to rely on the solicitous young man’s emotional support. It all leads to much gossip and quite a bit of ill will on the set.

If Marilyn Monroe truly was a ragingly insecure woman who lived in a pronounced state of arrested development, then Michelle Williams plays her quite well indeed. Though she is already being positioned as an Oscar contender, her Monroe seems to be a blank slate on which the other characters project their desires. Was that all there really was to her? If so, how very sad.

In welcomed contrast, the British ensemble cast, including the likes of Dame Judi Dench, Michael “Foyle” Kitchen, and Julia Ormand (as Leigh, no small part to step into either), plays it to the hilt, bandying about witticisms as if they are in The Bad and the Beautiful, as rewritten by Noel Coward.

Yet, the casting of Kenneth Branagh as Olivier is particularly inspired. Not only does Branagh have the right “classically trained” presence and flair for razor-sharp dialogue, one can see parallels of his own career in that of Sir Laurence. Earning acclaim and the not infrequent comparison to Olivier with his early Shakespearean films, Branagh’s recent career had been somewhat checkered (including a critically drubbed remake of the Olivier vehicle, Sleuth), until scoring an unlikely comeback with Thor. Regardless, he plays the iconic thespian with genuine depth and charisma.

Granted, Week is based on his memoir, but the amount of screen time devoted to Eddie Redmayne’s Clark seems wildly misappropriated, considering the far more interesting actors and great larger than life figures of cinema history that are also assembled in the film. Frankly, his sad eyed, love-struck act quickly gets rather dull. Fortunately, the seasoned veterans like Branagh, Dench, and Sir Derek Jacobi can be relied upon to supply Week periodic jolts of energy.

Curtis certainly keeps the film breezing along nicely, capturing a nice sense of the era along the way. Always pleasant viewing, Week features some wonderfully tasty supporting performances. It just seems to consistently focus on the two dullest people at a banquet of greatness. A case of a film whose sum of its parts is probably greater than its whole, Week screens again tomorrow night (11/12) at the Walter Reade Theater as the Centerpiece of the 2011 NYFF. However, only standby tickets are available, so good luck.