Movie Nation

It’s Thursday, time for my regular chat with Mike “Bulldog” Bianchi over at the Open Mike show on 740 The Game.

We’ll deconstruct “Oz, the Great and Powerful,” with James Franco and Three Bland Witches.

We’ll parse the history of “Emperor,” the story of the investigation into Emperor Hirohito, and why he got off for his part in starting World War II and turning a blind eye to the atrocities of his armies.

And we’ll break down the glories of “56 Up,” the latest film in Michael Apted’s “7 Up” series of documentaries about British folks, followed since age 7 as they pass through all of life’s phases.

Oh, let’s not forget “Sound City,” a terrific music doc, about a famous recording studio in “The Valley” outside of LA, also opening at The Enzian.

That’s 740 The Game at 745 AM, or listen here if you’re not in the car.

“Wreck it Ralph” looks to come in around $450 million, when all the counting is done in all the movie markets of Planet Earth.

“The Hobbit: Part 1,” didn’t do well with critics, but cleared the $1 billion mark worldwide last weekend.

“Identity Thief” has stirred up over $100 million, just in the US.

“Django Unchained” is closing in on $400 million, worldwide. “Les Miserables” continues to best it overseas ($411 million and counting).

But for perspective’s sake, look at the middling performer “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.” It cleared $50 in the US, a 3D release. Not all that. But it’s closing in on  $200 million worldwide.

Love that Tina. Love that Paul. A rom-com with them co-starring in it? I’m there.

But “Admission” is a lot more complicated than that. She’s an Ivy League admissions counselor who stumbles into a Princeton prospect who might be a child she gave up for adoption when she was young and unable to raise a kid. Rudd’s the guy who sort of connects the dots with her.

Michael Sheen and Wallace Shawn are also in the cast.

Sounds promising. “Admission” opens March 22.

Gerwig, cute and perky and confused and not quite getting it together. Mickey Sumner, the daughter of Sting.

And the perfect David Bowie song for the soundtrack to the trailer.

The director of “The Squid and the Whale” co-wrote the script with Greta G., so this promises two offbeat sensibilities in one movie.

“Frances Ha” goes into limited release May 17.

Jon Stewart will take a shot at directing a movie he’s written, an adaptation of a true story of a British journalist held in an Iranian prison.

And that means he won’t be on “The Daily Show” for much of this coming summer. John Oliver will fill in while Stewart takes on “Rosewater,” based on the book Then They Came For Me: A Family’s Story Of Love, Captivity And Survival by Mazair Bahari.

This seems so off the wall, but Stewart has longed to be taken seriously. He’s appeared in a few films. He just finished a film titled “Skum Rocks.” So, it’s not like he’s new to film sets.

You almost need to see Dave Grohl’s documentary “Sound City” with headphones on. That’s the best way to pick up the nuances the legions of legendary musicians are talking about in this ratty old recording studio where some of the greatest rock records ever made were cut in the ‘70s through the ‘90s.

When Grohl, drummer with Nirvana and later Foo Fighters frontman, and other drummers such as Mick Fleetwood (Fleetwood Mac) talk about the presence, the unique sound that drums carried out of this dump of a studio in Van Nuys, California, headphones are the best way to sample that difference, that analog oomph that Sound City gave them.

And as Fleetwood, Grohl and the others, from Tom Petty and Kevin Cronin (REO Speedwagon) to Rick Springfield and Neil Young, will tell you – you get the drums right, and the rest just falls into place.

Sound City was the home to “Luck and magic,” super-producer Rick Rubin says. “You can’t control that.”

Grohl’s very entertaining and heavily musical film tears through decades of memorable bands and classic albums. Grohl got easy access to them all for a variety of reasons, not least of which was his ownership of the mixing console that was once Sound City’s claim to fame. These guys, from Fogerty to McCartney, Stevie Nicks to Cheap Trick, Ratt, Dio and Metallica, would love another crack at that magical mixer.

In meeting the people who owned and ran Sound City, we hear them talk about how Mick Fleetwood met Lindsey Buckingham on a visit there, and that’s how Fleetwood Mac blew up. Old home movies and outtakes recreate how Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers cut their breakout album, “Damn the Torpedoes,” and then moved on to record by “tracking live,” eschewing overdubbing – trying to catch that raw in-performance sound on later CDs.

Studio managers Paula Salvatore and Shivaun O’Brian, producers and recording engineers and others recall launching Rick Springfield’s career by convincing him to let Pat Benatar’s guitarist-husband do the guitar tracks on “Jesse’s Girl,” creating a blockbuster hit. Not that Springfield’s bull-terrier dog (in the studio when Neil Giraldo played) approved.

“Sound City” encapsulates the digital recording revolution that did in most sound studios, and the last third of the film – artists such as Paul McCartney, Springfield, Fear frontman Lee Ving, recording new songs on the old console – drags and makes the movie lose its way. It feels like this is the reason Grohl made the film, and faded in importance as the historical stuff turned out so interesting.

But it’s still a passion project, in all the best ways, a jaunty, juicy ramble through music history from Johnny Cash to Nine Inch Nails, Neil Young to the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

MPAA Rating: Unrated, with profanity, innuendo.

Cast: Dave Grohl, Stevie Nicks, Trent Reznor, Tom Petty, Rick Springfield, Paul McCartney

Credits: Directed by Sam Dave Grohl, written by Mark Monroe. A Roswell Films release.  

Running time: 1:47

In the movies’ version of March Madness, Sam Raimi turns out to be a much better Tim Burton than Bryan Singer. Unlike “Giant Slayer” Singer, Sam’s got a sense of humor. Taking on a prequel to the fairytale that frightened generations, Sam does scary. And does it well.

“Oz, the Great and Powerful,” is a winning back-engineering of the Oz fantasy, a “How the Wizard got to be Wonderful” romp that is a stunning update “The Wizard of Oz’s” effects, and the most gorgeous use of 3D since “Alice in Wonderland.”

Screenwriters Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire manage just enough whimsy to make the movie’s two hours pass without irritation. Raimi, having cut his teeth on horror and brought “Spider-Man” to life, was the right guy to make this emerald-tinted world pop off the 3D screen.

But the cast, plainly packed with second or third choices, lets it down. Is there anything in James Franco’s past that suggests larger-than-life, a fast-talking, womanizing con-man?

And the three witches – Theodora, Evanora and Glinda – are Bland, Blander and Blond Bland.

Oscar “Oz” Diggs is a magician who escapes the cut-rate Baum Bros. Circus in 1905 Kansas only to be swept, by tornado, to the Merry Olde Land of Oz. Where things aren’t merry.

The king is dead, and “the prophecy” says that only a great wizard can replace him. Plainly, the guy with the same name as the place is their man.

Intrigues? The witch Theodora (Mila Kunis, never prettier) is smitten with him, her sister Evanora (Rachel Weisz) is jealous. They want the wizard to rid Oz of the Great Menace, Glinda (Michelle Williams), which Oz, easily bribed, agrees to do.

Sidekick? That would be Finley, a flying monkey Oz saves, who then owes a “life debt” to the pretend-wizard. He’s amusingly voiced by Zach Braff.

Oz must trek and travel by bubble through the far corners of Oz and sort out who the real villain is and how to fight the hideous, 3D flying baboons who have supplanted the Flying Monkeys as the source of children’s nightmares.

Franco, as Oz, turns on the charm and oozes insincerity as he passes on what he’s learned, conning small town tent show audiences – “Lies, the stepping stones on the road to greatness.”

But the witches – an Oscar winner, an Oscar nominee and a Golden Globe nominee among them – haven’t the necessary vamp to make these conjurers sing. A trip to “Wicked” would have helped them all.

Even with the stunning production design — done by “Alice in Wonderland” Oscar winner Robert Stromberg — which starts our story in a black and white Kansas, and even with Danny Eflman’s playful score, this “Oz” starts to drag in under an hour.

You may miss the witches’ guards’ (Raimi crony Bruce Campbell is one) song – “Oooo weee oh.” As the “climactic battle” story arc of WAY too many filmed fairytales settles in, you may find yourself checking the time and asking, “Donde estan los Munchkins?”

But fear not. Uncle Sam knows what you want. And when he’s done giving a new generation of tykes frights about apes that fly in the night, he’ll cover it all. If it isn’t Oz without Dorothy and those Ruby Red Slippers, he’ll at least do justice to L. Frank Baum’s malleable wizarding world and give us an Oz worthy of our times.

(The cast “Oz, the Great and Powerful” ALMOST had)

(My James Franco interview is here).

MPAA Rating: PG for sequences of action and scary images, and brief mild language

Cast: James Franco, Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz, Michelle Williams, Zach Braff

Credits: Directed by Sam Raimi, written by Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire, based on the L. Frank Baum “Oz” books. A Disney release.

Running time: 2:10

Years in planning, with blockbuster expectations (an $85 million opening weekend is projected) — even if they didn’t match the masterpiece that the original film was, Disney’s “Oz, the Great and Powerful” is sharping up as the year’s first “BIG” film. But even as the dollars add up, this $200 million production has a whiff of “What might have been” about it, succeed or fail.

Robert Downey Jr. or Johnny Depp could have been the charismatic, fast-talking hustler/magician Oscar “Oz” Diggs, in Sam Raimi’s “Wizard of Oz” prequel, “Oz, the Great and Powerful.”

James Franco eventually got the job Depp was offered and Downey actually had. For a bit.

Following the movie industry trades, you could watch as Sam Raimi grabbed this project and wouldn’t let go after his “Spider-Man” dreams were dismissed. The longer the planning went on, the more the cast changed. The film was delayed many times, and with Disney involved — you can be sure budget issues had them sweating bullets for the entire time. Might that have killed any dreams of a dream cast?

Olivia Wilde, Amy Adams, Kate Beckinsale, Blake Lively, Keira Knightley and Rebecca Hall were considered possible witches. Wilde, Knightley and Beckinsale, in particular, have a vamp quality that the characters desperately need.

They cast Michelle Williams, Mila Kunis and Rachel Weisz. Any of them scare you?

While “Don’t look back” is a motto worth living by, try not to think about those combinations  when you watch the finished film. And try not to dream of what might have been.

(Roger Moore’s review of “Oz” is here).