Taking Woodstock

Cert 16

SO what did happen to all the hippies after they shook the flowers out of their hair? Recent evidence would suggest that a disproportionate number moved to Hollywood and started making movies. A by-product of last week's release, The Men Who Stare at Goats, was the tacit supposition that the world would be a gentler place if hippie values were in the ascendancy, and a similar aesthetic is suggested by director Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock.

Based on a true story, proceedings revolve around the era-defining music festival that took place in New York's Catskill Mountains 40 years ago and the unlikely Bethel resident Elliot Teichberg (Demetri Martin) who helped make it happen.

The opening scene-setting centres on the dilapidated El Monaco motel run by Elliot's parents Jake and Sonia (Henry Goodman and Imelda Staunton). Devotion to filial duty has seen Elliot relocate from Manhattan to Bethel, with a view towards turning around his irascible parents' fortunes but it's proving to be hopeless task.

Opportunism knocks for Elliot, however, when he learns that a nearby town has refused to grant a permit for a planned music hippiefest. As acting head of Bethel's Chamber of Commerce, he's in a position to offer the organisers an alternative. The rest is rock history. Not that music gets a look in. The director's approach is much more about spliffs than riffs, as all the action takes place off-stage with the build-up to the festival shown as the catalyst that opened Elliot's doors of perception courtesy of his first acid trip, his first gay experience, etc.

Production values can't be faulted and Taking Woodstock also works reasonably well as both a valentine for, and an insight into, Sixties counterculture. But who could believe hippies were wacky enough to believe, as a banner depicts, that "Maoism=Life?" Decent enjoyment levels are dependent on a high tolerance for hippie culture together with a belief that drug consumption doesn't have a downside.

PMcK

Taking Woodstock is now showing

Jennifer's Body

Cert 16

IN a recent Life magazine interview, Megan Fox, stated that she had "a mouth and she's not afraid to use it." She could have been talking about her latest performance in teen horror com Jennifer's Body. Talk about a role to get your teeth into.

When the aforementioned orifice isn't feasting on the flesh of sundry local high-school jocks it's being used as an instrument for projectile vomiting courtesy of her demonic possession. And it's probably best not to go with the part it plays in the girl-on-girl make-out scene with her co-star, Mamma Mia's Amanda Seyfried. It's this joined-at-the-lip... sorry, hip, friendship that provides the main focus of proceedings.

Fox stars as the sassy Jennifer Check, Devil's Kettle resident babe and "best friend forever" of the dorky Needy (Seyfried). An innocent trip to see a fame-hungry indie band triggers a scenario that threatens their life-long friendship. It turns out that the band has made a pact with the devil that will see them achieve world domination in return for the provision of a sacrificial virgin. They opt for the bodacious Jennifer, but the ritual goes wrong. Cue a scenario that sees good going toe-to-toe with evil, thanks to Jennifer's subsequent feeding frenzy.

With a quirky plot, Academy Award-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody (Juno), and a star with the er... pulling power of Megan Fox, Jennifer's Body has many of the raw materials required of an instant teen classic. It doesn't quite work out, however, in terms of finished product as both humour and horror deficiencies are likely to confine its appeal to teens in the mood for disposable fun. Fox gives a good account of herself in the central role and shows signs she's capable of making the transition from Hollywood's hottest to Hollywood's hippest. All she needs is the right script.

PMcK

Jennifer's Body is now showing

Christmas Carol

Cert PG

Ebeneezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey) plucks the pennies from the eyes of his dead partner Jacob Marley and returns to work, counting money and tyrannising Bob Cratchit (Gary Oldman). Seven years later, not even his ebullient nephew Fred (Colin Firth) can talk him into breaking his legendary loathing of Christmas. Then Scrooge is visited by the clanking spirit of Marley who foretells the apparition of three ghosts, and advises that should Scrooge wish to avoid the same eternal misery as has befallen him, he heed their advice.

The Dickens classic is familiar to most, except perhaps children, and this animated incarnation is not especially child-friendly. It's scary in places, quite scary for little kids, however the real issue is that the concept -- this is who you were, this is who you are and this is who you might be -- is a bit obtuse and this version does nothing to make it clearer.

The animation, using the same "performance capture" technique as Robert Zemeckis' previous animated offerings The Polar Express and Beowulf. Here, it's coloured in a rosacea-cheeked Norman Rockwell style and the result, especially in 3D, is harsh but effective.

Carrey plays Scrooge reasonably straight, right up until the end when Ebeneezer goes all Ace Ventura. The ghosts, he plays somewhat camper, and really, it is a one-man show, with the other performers contributing only cameos.

All in all, it's a film for Carrey fans and older children.

AOC

A Christmas Carol is now showing

- PADRAIC McKIERNAN, AINE O’CONNOR

Sunday Independent