O JerusalemBuddy story meets History Channel remake October 24,
2007 11:45:03 AM
O JERUSALEM: Lacking dramatic grace.
|
In its attempt to cover the 1948 war that kicked off modern Israel, Elie Chouraqui’s O Jerusalem forges a regrettable two-state solution. As with another two-state solution one could mention, neither side goes home happy. One of the movie’s factions is a laughable drama wherein a New York Jew meets a Palestinian student. They become pals and wind up in Palestine just as the UN votes on what to do about Zionism. The result sends them to their respective sides, but it’s a small Holy Land, and the ex-friends keep running into each other at every big gun battle. Awkward. The other side aims for the Big Picture, with a Groucho-inspired Golda Meir and Ian “Bilbo” Holm in an Einstein wig as a pocket-sized David Ben-Gurion. The buddy story and the History Channel remake clash; neither wins. It doesn’t help that Chouraqui’s direction shows all the dramatic grace of an IMAX ballooning film.
|
|
|
- Inside the prize-filled trophy home of a seemingly obsessive-compulsive contest enterer
- A do-gooder who recorded abusive Boston police officers was himself arrested under a controversial ‘wiretapping’ law
- That intoxicating smell, the siren-call sizzle — looks like pop culture has gone hog wild
- Never mind its tough-girl alt-porn feminism: SuicideGirls has already moved on to a new generation
- We already know about politicians’ capacity for coarse behavior. But how low can the press go?
- Body modification as art at the Peabody Essex Museum
- That intoxicating smell, the siren-call sizzle — looks like pop culture has gone hog wild
- Is there one political story the press shouldn’t report?
- Dutoit and Elder at the BSO, Collage’s Berio, Boston Conservatory’s Turn of the Screw, and Kurt Weill at the Gardner and the MFA
- Body modification as art at the Peabody Essex Museum
- The right of a performance artist represents the rights of all Americans. Plus, an opportunity with Cuba.
- We already know about politicians’ capacity for coarse behavior. But how low can the press go?
|
-
Disinterestedly coughed up
-
Not original "original" screenplay
-
Juno is in the family way
-
Hallmark cribbing
-
Better than fairy-tale straightjackets
-
The Honda Accord of movies
-
Monumental clunk
-
Adding to Odenkirk's cinematic slump
-
Some words with the class clowns of Superbad
|
- Unintentional laughs
- A step ahead of the rest
- Too many weird gimmicks
- Religious groups and the environment
- A rich kid on the road to comeuppance
- A shambling charmer
- Revisit one of the great films about the artistic process
- Seraphim in France
- Poignant enough
- An 88-minute flop
|
|
|
|