If you’re interested enough to read about what went down in previous posts, here they are: 1-7 and 8-10. Here’s the last two … I’ll try to be nice.

Someone Like You (Tony Goldwyn, 2001)

Don’t watch this movie.

Van H — Oh all right, here’s the long version. Ashley Judd can’t act, Greg Kinnear can’t really act, and even Hugh Jackman isn’t exactly at his best. His character starts out promisingly, with a gleeful amount of sarcasm and innuendo, but by halfway he’s suddenly lost his entire persona and is just another washed-up and predictable character. Judd, for her part, is as full of expression as a block of granite; her narration at the beginning sounds like a bad lecture, and her most emotive gesture is opening her eyes wide as saucers. Kinnear delivers his lines like he’s in uncomfortable pain.

The title card gimmick gets tossed by the wayside part of the way through — not that it was funny in the first place — and most of the film is an excuse to man-bash, something I hate. That pastime gets partially redeemed in the end, but the happy ending is so badly set up that it’s not even worth it. They just had to get a kiss in before it ended, and Hugh Jackman was just there … ugh ugh ugh this is terrible. Just don’t bother.

Van Helsing (Stephen Sommers, 2004)

Oh yeah, this one sucks too. Ridiculously and unequivocally. A fabulous redeeming factor, however, is David Wenham — you might remember him as Faramir in Lord of the Rings, or the fabulously slimy Neil Fletcher in Australia — he’s super funny in this one, and provides at least a bit of relief from the ludicrous happenings on screen. Jackman is not that exciting (and that hair should be outlawed) and the CGI looks extra artificial, surprising considering it came out in 2004, and the dramatic lines are so overdone it hurts.

Also: does everything have to have an obvious love story? Is there one film like this that can have male and female leads without them having an angsty kissing scene in the middle somewhere? I’d really like that.

The bit at the end where the claws come out (sorry, I’m trying not to spoil this in case there are people left on this planet who somehow want to see this movie) is so Wolverine, though, that I had to laugh out loud. Seriously, I can’t imagine how that would have been overlooked … but this entire movie is a walking disaster, so maybe it was.

Final words

Man, I am tired of writing reviews of bad movies.

In all seriousness, though, this has made me realise a few things. One of them, and perhaps the most glaring, is that Hugh Jackman never gets to be Australian. He uses his native accent in exactly one of these films — Australia! — and otherwise is either English (Kate & Leopold, The Prestige, Scoop, Van Helsing) or American (X-Men, Someone Like You, Swordfish, The Fountain, Deception).

Not that this is a totally new problem. Other Australian actors seem to face the same thing: Nicole Kidman, Heath Ledger, Geoffrey Rush, Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett. Kidman, for her part, is one of Hollywood’s best-known Australians — though she was born in Hawaii, she grew up in Sydney — but in Luhrmann’s Australia, she played an Englishwoman. This is extra confusing.

Heath Ledger’s best known roles, arguably, are the Joker (American), Ennis del Mar (American — southern drawl), and his characters in A Knight’s Tale (English). Geoffrey Rush has a list of films in which he is English. When was the last time you saw an Australian character in a film? Australia doesn’t count. It’s probably been a while.

I guess the first thing that this says is that Australian actors are versatile — perhaps by necessity. They all have at least two accents on command, because Hollywood (being in the United States) seems to be of the mind that American accents are normal and the English have accents, and everybody else just sounds weird.

Looking back at Jackman’s list of films, some of the characters obviously required a different nationality (Leopold, for example, being an English duke); others, like Stanley in Swordfish, or Eddie of Someone Like You, could easily have been Australian without changing the story a whit. It sure would have made things more interesting. I find this phenomenon extra strange, and I hope that it changes — I am unable to explain it, but I don’t like it very much. I mean, it’s absolutely commendable that these actors can convincingly switch between three different nationalities, but sometimes they shouldn’t have to, you know?

Side note to Hugh Jackman: please, please stop making bad films. I love you, I really do, but that was a long two weeks. I suppose it’s a credit to your acting, though, that you were frequently the best part of a failing film — but not even you could save Swordfish. And you didn’t even try to save Van Helsing. (It’s okay, I wouldn’t have either.)

The good ones were really good, though. I mean, The Prestige. X-Men. Scoop. Please keep making decisions like those. I know, I know, you’re the Sexiest Man Alive (another side note: damn, I can’t believe how dumb the interview questions are for these things) and people will come see your movies anyway, but couldn’t you just keep making good ones? It’s really a win-win situation.

It’s been fun, though. Occasionally fun in the manner of throwing things at the television screen, but mostly real fun. I’m going to avoid your face for the next two months — it’s nothing personal, really — but you know as well as anyone that I’ll see you in May.

Ruhee out!

According to Amazon.com, the soundtrack for the film is pretty crazy — I’ve never seen one that combines Philip Glass and MCR, and I’m not sure that I want to. Here’s the full tracklisting:

1. My Chemical Romance, “Desolation Row”

2. Nat King Cole, “Unforgettable”
3. Bob Dylan, “The Times They Are A-Changin’”
4. Simon & Garfunkel, “The Sound of Silence”
5. Janis Joplin, “Me and Bobby McGee”
6. KC and the Sunshine Band, “I’m Your Boogie Man”
7. Billie Holiday, “You’re My Thrill”
8. Philip Glass, “Pruit Igoe & Prophecies”
9. Leonard Cohen, “Hallelujah”
10. Jimi Hendrix, “All Along the Watchtower”
11. Richard Wagner, “Ride of the Valkyries” (Budapest Symphony Orchestra)
12. Nina Simone, “Pirate Jenny”

Wow — what a playlist! I’ll be sure to let you know how that works out. If I can stay awake, that is … I think I’ve suddenly become ninety years old. Yikes. More to follow!

It’s not the soundest of logic, but those with such logic probably would never have embarked on such a quest in the first place. My list consists of 14 films: I’m not counting voice acting, shorts, or Oklahoma!. There’s enough as it is. Here’s my impressions of the first batch … I’ll try not to be too long-winded.

The Prestige (Christopher Nolan, 2006)

This is the one I started with, and it is absolutely one of Jackman’s best, if not the number one (I guess it depends on how much you love Wolverine). It currently stands at #83 on the IMDb Top 250 and is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. I’ve reviewed it already, so I won’t bore you by repeating everything, but I do want to mention one thing: this film comes between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, both of which were also directed by Christopher Nolan, and both of which feature Christian Bale and Michael Caine, the latter playing nearly the same character. Curious.

Anyway, it’s superb, watch it, etc.

Australia (Baz Luhrmann, 2008)

This movie kind of stinks.

There are definitely good bits — Brandon Walters, for example, and Jackman — but Nicole Kidman was just godawful, and the story goes on about an hour too long. Why did they have to get Kidman anyway? She is Australian (born in Hawaii, grew up in Sydney), but she plays an Englishwoman! Get an English actress!

There’s also some really bad gratuitous shot of Jackman soaping his bare chest in front of the fire and then dumping a bucket of water on himself, for the benefit of anybody who likes men. Cringeworthy. However, I have to grudgingly admit that the story sunk its claws into me, and by the end I was rooting for Nullah (Walters), and crossing my fingers when the war arrived, and getting sad when Drover (Jackman) cried in the bar. I guess it wasn’t all terrible. I suggest not watching it unless you have time to kill and the ability not to be embarrassed on Kidman’s behalf.

Deception (Marcel Langenegger, 2006)

I was expecting to hate this more than I did, considering it got a whopping 12% on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s absolutely no classic, but I did like the way it was put together: the music was used in a fairly unconventional fashion for deception films, and none of the scenes were played up with the usual adrenaline rush. The film instead happens in a bit of a haze, with desolate music accompanying nearly everything; it works really well.

Unfortunately, the storyline is painfully run-of-the-mill, and so the music and the sometimes-interesting cinematography isn’t enough to save it. Michelle Williams still manages to turn in a good performance, but Ewan McGregor is boring, and Jackman, while occasionally good at being cold and sleazy (seriously, very sleazy), doesn’t always hit the mark. Not a very exciting movie.

Swordfish (Dominic Sena, 2001)

TERRIBLE. John Travolta might as well have been a wooden puppet, and Halle Berry is ludicrously over-the-top. The plot is dumb, many of the loose ends are left untied, and none of the things that happen at the end are foreshadowed properly, even in the flashbacks. Even the title has only a tenuous link to the story since they develop it so badly.

What’s more, it features one of the worst scenes I’ve ever seen in a film: Stanley Jobson (Jackman), the top hacker in the world, trying to break into the US Department of Defense in 60 seconds while being given a blowjob in Travolta’s private den of sin to keep him from being able to concentrate. I can’t even begin to describe how awful this scene is. Kate hit it right on the head when she commented that it was probably written by some undersexed computer nerd who lives in his parents’ basement, writing code all day and thinking up stupid fantasies like this one. Painful to watch and not worth the time in the least.

X-Men trilogy:
X-Men (2000), X2 (2003) — Bryan Singer
The Last Stand (2006) — Brett Ratner

X-Men made Jackman a star, and with good reason. His performances in these three films are excellent. It’s hard to imagine anyone else ever playing Wolverine, and I think that stands as a perfect testament to how well he fit the character: he is Wolverine, not some guy pretending to be him. I was really impressed.

These movies are great. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed watching them — they do have a whole lot of special effects and crazy stuff happening, but there’s also a real story behind them, and interesting allegories (the second film draws a parallel between mutants and homosexuals, like Bobby Drake “coming out” to his parents about his mutant abilities and his mother responding “Well, have you tried not being a mutant?”). The story of X-Men has always been interesting, but Singer does a great job of making it work on screen.

X-Men 3: The Last Stand is worth it just for the last 30 seconds of the movie, the scene with Ian McKellen in the park (I won’t describe it too much in case some of you haven’t seen it). I was yelling at the television — a perfect mixture of disbelief, excitement, and “why the hell isn’t there a sequel to this yet”. Fantastic. I highly recommend the whole trilogy, especially all at once; the first film is all about exposition, so there’s not a huge amount of story involved, but if you watch them all in a row they pack a serious punch.

Seven more to go … oh, dear.

I’ll tell you right now that Australia stinks and Deception was actually OK. I’ve only seen two movies with Michelle Williams, counting the latter, but she was quite terrific in Brokeback Mountain and I am interested to see some more of her work.

I’m sure you’ve all heard by now, but in case you haven’t, frontman Steven Page has left the Barenaked Ladies. Read the story. Bizarrely, Paul McCartney was recently quoted as saying that BNL “sing much better” than the Fab Four, and that he would consider recording with them. Now’s your chance, Macca!

Also, in case you missed the boat the first two times, the Weakerthans have added a third show here in Toronto at the Phoenix Concert Theatre on April 2, following the selling-out of the shows on March 31 and April 1. They will be joined by The Constantines and The Waking Eyes; tickets are $25 advance.

Somewhat relatedly, Sloan have beefed up their CMW roster and added another band for both of their nights at the Mod Club Theatre, March 11 and 12. Joining them for the first night will be Zeus, while the second night will kick off with Hexes & Ohs. Both nights also sport a set by Murderecords fellows Will Currie & The Country French.

That’s all I have! Come back tomorrow for a new Tunesday track. I’ll also have a review of Watchmen here on Friday; tickets for the midnight showing are sitting right next to me. Awwww, yeah.