Oh Klaatu, how could you do this to me?
I was all set to love you in the remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic “The Day the Earth Stood Still” but then your alien brain in Keanu Reeves’ body grew distant. That was after I learned your admirable but predictable purpose on Earth. And then that astrobiologist chick chauffeuring you around town tried to convince you humans were worth saving, and you fell for it.
While studying humankind for generations, how could you have not seen a mom and son hug before? Or heard Bach’s “Goldberg Variations”?
Of course it wasn’t your fault completely. Screenwriter David Scarpa, who wrote the 2001 military prison flick “The Last Castle,” turned your story — in what could have been a timely cautionary tale — into a series of predictable sermons: We should listen to potential invaders (foreigners) before firing shots; we should stop destroying the Earth; we should remember we don’t own the Earth — home to thousands of other species; And, we really can change if we have the will to.
Though great-looking, your remake doesn’t stand a chance in the eyes of purists. But even if audiences evaluate your tale without ties to the past, it still lacks tension, the ability to frighten, character and commonsense.
That’s why I’m with “A Christmas Tale” now.
Steeped in rich subplots, scathing exchanges and cigarettes, the subtitled flick is a French version of “The Family Stone” if you replace all the Hollywood melodrama and hokiness for imaginative visual techniques and realistic dialogue that captures natural humor while dealing with darker themes.
» “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”
2 p.m. today; Rock Candy, 4321 Harford Road, Baltimore ; $5, 50 percent of proceeds go to the Neighborhoods of Greater Lauraville, Inc.; www.rockcandybaltimore.com
» “The Black Candle”
Maya Angelou narrates the “The Black Candle,” directed by Morgan State University professor M.K. Asante Jr. The film explores Kwanzaa’s origins and effect.
6 p.m. Friday, Druid Heights Community Center, 2140 McCulloh St.; Free; 410-523-1350, www.druidheights.com www.theblackcandle.com
Many threads steal a scene here or there, but the driving force behind the Vuillard family sleeping under the same roof for the first time in five years is Catherine Deneuve as Junon, the Vuillard matriarch who learns she can die of liver cancer or potentially “burst into flames” from treatment.
Revealing which of her three children and grandchildren could donate his or her bone marrow would be where most screenwriters would rest, but co-writers Emmanuel Bourdieu and Arnaud Desplechin, who also directs, continued weaving alluring relationships into the script.
Establishing the bad blood in the family and complications such as one grandson “going bonkers” in the first few methodical sequences may turn off some who don’t enjoy character-driven dramas, especially movies that clock in at two-and-a-half hours. But Desplechin’s narrative, told with creative flair, is so well done it’s worth riding out.
In Desplechin’s hands, characters can even turn to the camera to talk to the audience, and the technique doesn’t reek of a failed series pilot or B-movie destined for straight-to-DVD release.
I smile when Jean-Paul Roussillon’s Abel, Junon’s older husband, asks his grandsons whether they’ve seen Anatole, the wolf that lives in his basement, and then sigh when a daughter-in-law discovers her fate was determined by her husband and in-laws without her knowledge.
