OliverTwist Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Uh-oh.

Submitted for your approval: a berk named Merk in bed with his bird. The fuzzy photo cannot really sum up what's going on here. The still I would have preferred is this film's money-shot: a red-cloaked Milton Berle conducting a Satanic mass in convincing Latin. Somehow this is not available on the Internet. Here, instead: a relatively chaste shot of quintuple threat Anthony Newley (actor/director/co-writer/singer/composer) grappling his real-life wife (the beeyoutiful and talented Joan Collins).

The still is a relic of what I've sometimes thought was the worst film ever made by a human being in world history.

Here's a quick guide to the films reviewed on Cinematical this week:

"They never touch on the issue of physical congress between living and dead; I imagine it would require lots of lubrication." -- Ryan Stewart on The Corpse Bride

"Sergei Eisenstein must have worried about the jump cut falling into the hands of the bourgeoisie. It turns out he had every reason to be concerned." -- Karina Longworth on Proof.

"Remember Disney's Beauty and the Beast when the big talking dog-man bought it and you thought for a split-second that he was really dead? It's kind of like that. But maybe that's just my own abandonment issues at play." -- Robert Newton on Just Like Heaven

"Everyone around me was saying, "Wait - that was it? That's how it ends?" as the final credits rolled, and that's pretty much how I felt about it." -- Kim Voynar on Cronicas

"Charles Dickens probably never imagined a day when children would be romanticized and envied their innocence by a population of fat, paedomorphic adults. He certainly didn't anticipate such a day in his writings." -- Ryan Stewart on Oliver Twist

"No, this is not an 11th-hour "Verbal Kint is Keyser Söze" denouement, but the kind that blindsides you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday (and perhaps after watching it for a second time." -- Robert Newton on Lord of War

"Watch Dean's performance in any of his three films, and then go watch A River Runs Through It with a young Brad Pitt, and you can't help but notice how Pitt has picked up on certain quirks of mannerism and facial expression that made Dean's performances shine" -- Kim Voynar on East of Eden

"Kelli Garner is phenomenally sexy in a real-life-girl sort of way. She and Rachel McAdams, I think, represent a new trend in Hollywood beauty: 2006 will be the year of the Big-Eyed Brunette." -- Karina Longworth on Thumbsucker

"Is Risky Business a hot DVD rental in Judea and Samaria? Someone should check into that." -- Ryan Stewart on Campfire

"It's a great film for a girl's night out, or to take your mom to, or even for a date night (unless your date is more likely to enjoy something like 9 Songs than the relationship between a crusty old rancher and his friend and granddaughter)." -- Kim Voynar on An Unfinished Life

• Ben Kingsley and Roman Polanski worked hard on stripping the character of Fagin from its usual effeminate airs, in their new adaptation of Oliver Twist: "We've lived long enough to know that certain things should be done for certain reasons. Without analyzing it. Which would be embarrassing, you know?"
• No one has ever made a great movie out of an F. Scott Fitzgerald story, but now that David Fincher is giving The Curious Case of Benjamin Button a shot, Steve Chagollan takes a look at some past attempts.
• "I suppose I grew up wishing I was an American Jew for the comedy and the one-liners." Ricky Gervais discusses his new series, which co-stars Kate Winslet as an "actress who does a Holocaust movie because, as she explains, it's a surefire way to finally win an Oscar."
• "You can readily imagine the happy night when IFC veterans of the festival circuit came up with phony indie film titles, including "Love Vigilantes," "The Meaning of Velocity" and "The Unreasonable Truth of Butterflies." You can hear them sending up, among themselves, the feeble or pompous types who turn up in knit caps at the festivals: the distributors and sponsors and actors and, of course, filmmakers. It must have been fun for them." Virginia Heffernan looks at IFC's new indie film scene mocumentary, The Festival.