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The
Omen: There’s Something About Damien John Moore’s remake of The Omen slithered into theaters on 6-6-06, but the world didn’t end. I left the theater somewhat satisfied and not feeling like I was going straight to hell, the way I do when I listen to Slayer CDs. This is, to my knowledge, the only motion picture to take advantage of such a bizarre release date—they can release a new Halloween movie every October 31, and more than a few opportunities come up during the calendar year to unload another Friday the 13th dud. But fans of Damien the Antichrist child will have to wait another hundred years for an opportunity like this (maybe they’ll hold off the movie’s DVD release until 6-6-3006). Considering the sheer number of remakes dominating the big screen lately—from Peter Jackson’s superb King Kong to the recently panned Poseidon—I wasn’t sure what to expect going in. I’ve never been a fan of Richard Donner’s original, a film that I consider a low point in the career of Gregory Peck. Some regard The Omen as a minor classic, but you may recall that it was one of the 50 Worst Movies of All Time in Harry and Michael Medved’s first book on cinematic turkeys. Moore and screenwriter David Seltzer—he penned the original, too—haven’t changed much of anything. Cell phones and computers show up from time to time, but there’s no attempt to be “modern.” You don’t hear hip-hop beats in the background and the actors don’t pepper the wooden dialogue with 21st century vernacular. Story-wise, it’s almost identical to the 1976 movie. A young American ambassador makes a deal with a shady priest to raise an orphaned baby after his unknowing wife loses theirs. After the nanny hangs herself at a birthday party and young Damien freaks out in the car on the way to church, Mom expects things are not what they seem. Her vivid nightmares don’t help. But the ambassador has a devil may care attitude. He’s slow to accept the most obvious clues, ignoring a creepy priest who shows up at the U.S. embassy in London to warn him. Our hero hires a new nanny, played with relish by Mia Farrow. Damien causes Mom to take a bad fall in the obscenely roomy house. Finally, a shutterbug turns the dope onto some startling photographic evidence and drags him into the priest’s Bible-wallpapered living quarters. Pete Postlethwaite, one of our best character actors, is perfect in the priest role. Despite the on-screen credit, I’m not certain Seltzer had anything to do with this version. The filmmakers could easily have dusted off the old script and added the opening scene’s references to 9/11 and Katrina. (Strange that the Pope and his crew do not view gay marriage as a sign of the apocalypse.) Seltzer is apparently the only guy who can tell this admittedly dopey story, the increasingly poor sequels to the old Omen notwithstanding. There is hardly any suspense — is there ever any doubt that this brat is the spawn of Satan? — but there are plenty of well-earned jolts. The director has bettered Donner in his use of locations and clever ways of doing in his characters. An early scene involving an ambassador’s demise is a stunningly choreographed piece of work. A first-rate cast helps considerably. These are actors who were not hired for their striking profiles, although I have always found Julia Stiles attractive in an unconventional sort of way. Great roles have somehow eluded this talented actress. Liev Schreiber is effective as always, underplaying most of the time and somehow managing not to look like a clueless twit as the devilish action unfolds. David Thewlis makes the most of his role as the sidekick who meets a rather graphic — but still fake-looking —demise. Michael Gambon makes a brief but commanding appearance as the alcoholic priest who holds the key — knives, actually —to the evil child’s destruction. But just what is it about this goofy story that attracts good actors? Certainly, Moore’s earlier films Behind Enemy Lines and Flight of the Phoenix gave little indication he could direct a great movie, much less a good one. I hoped the plot would deviate a little from the old version — surely even younger viewers have seen the Donner version on television or DVD. The 2006 Omen is better than most horror films and doesn’t get bogged down in nutty conspiracy mumbo jumbo like this summer’s other religious-themed movie, but they could have tweaked it a little, had some fun with it. It’s not like the Damien story is, um, sacred. Bottom Line: Clever, once-in-a-century marketing scheme that betters the 1976 original. |
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A
Prairie Home Companion: Minnesota Variety on the Big Screen
A Prairie Home Companion is an adaptation of Garrison Keillor’s long-running radio variety show. Rather than being a concert film, a recording of the live show that creates the radio version, the existing premise was fit onto a more dramatic storyline. The owner of the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, an evil, capitalistic Texan played by Tommy Lee Jones, has decided to level it and put in a parking lot instead, leaving the Companion crew homeless, and bringing an end to the show. Rather than appealing to the audience and the world for salvation, most of them accept it gracefully, if sadly, figuring that all things must end sometime. This make-believe version of Companion doesn’t abandon all of the real elements of the show. Many musicians, such as the Guy’s All Star Shoe Band, made the trip from radio to screen, and creator/MC Keillor transitioned as well. Considering that for most of the film, actors and movie stars and other people who are used to being seen on film surround him, he shifts well. He couldn’t have very well been written out, or played by someone else, as the radio show is too closely identified with his voice, writing, and vision to exist without him. Still, he could have easily been out of place, as people often can be when they go from one medium to another, a vestigial part of the adaptation, included as a cameo and nothing else. Rather than being a side note, a box checked on the way to a fairly faithful version of this, his part is as big as Meryl Streep’s or Virginia Madsen’s, and it’s bigger than Lindsay Lohan’s. Just like on the radio show, he pulls the entire thing together. The separate pieces of acts and of backstage drama are united with his presence and his narration. The only awkward part is when Meryl Streep’s country singer brings up their shared romantic past, and he looks as surprised as the audience feels. However, in turning it into a cinematic story, there’s an odd addition. Virginia Madsen is officially credited as “Dangerous Woman,” which is true, but shuffles around the truth that she’s apparently an angel. If she functioned as a deus ex machina, and she actually saved the day, it might work — an admission that everything eventually ends, if left to its own devices. Instead, she doesn’t, and her presence is even more mystifying. As it is, all the part does is provide a bright, otherworldly counterpoint to the hominess and simplicity that defines Prairie Home Companion. Like Walk the Line, everyone featured in the film does their own singing and playing, although here they were done as live performances, with no dubbing or studio versions used. With the freshness of seeing actors turn into singers for a little while added to the energy and skill of the seasoned musicians, the show itself is good beyond what is necessary. Instead of being connective tissue for the different scenes set backstage, they justify their own existence. Alas, the stumble of this movie is a surprising one. A variety show doesn’t offer any obvious ways of conversion into a linear story, but Keillor and Altman did that part well, offering a narrative flow and a sense of drama without compromising the original reason for making the film. It’s the end that lacks — the Companion folks accept their fate, but intervention by a supernatural being and a strange reunion set a few years after the story’s end mar what’s otherwise a good job done of a difficult thing. The show of the movie offers some thrilling parts, like any good live show would, but it doesn’t save it from the surprisingly strange taste the movie leaves once the credits roll. Bottom line: for die-hard Prairie dwellers only |
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