I watched "Happy-Go-Lucky" again last night, this time with the wife and daughters. My few reservations about the movie remain but I was taken more than ever with Eddie Marsan's terrific performance as the sour, teeth-gnashing driving instructor Scott -- the yin to Poppy's yang, the dark cloud in her silver lining. I still think the character betrays the limitations of director Mike Leigh's approach to moviemaking (he builds the script up from extended improvisational work with the actors). Scott is such a compendium of foul beliefs and conspiratorial paranoias that I never quite bought him as a person: He really is a product of an actor's workshop. Yet on this viewing, Marsan papered over the cracks of my disbelief, especially when he pops his cork toward the end and showers Poppy (Sally Hawkins) with a torrent of invective that proves how little he actually understands her. The expression on Scott's face is that of a little boy who can no longer hold in his sorrow at a world that doesn't play fair. He thinks he's raging when he's really keening.

The daughters picked this up, by the way, and bandied it about (Eliza: "He's such a creep." Natalie: "No, he isn't. He's a sad little man."). Other aspects of "Happy-Go-Lucky" came in for post-screening chatter as well, such as the subplot about the bully in Poppy's class and her encounter with the homeless man. It's a surprisingly rich movie for young adolescents if you don't mind a little British gutter-talk and one discreet prelude to a shag. I think Leigh had posed a new one for the girls: Is it possible to be truly happy in this world? And does that have something to do with being (and doing) good? You have to like the movies that take a while to sink in.

On a semi-related note, faithful reader Al Chase adores "Slumdog Millionaire" and has posted the response of an Indian-born friend, a US Army officer named Rajiv Srinivasan, to the movie on his blog. Thoughtful reading.

Finally, happy holidays to all this blog's constant readers. I'm off and won't be posting for a couple of weeks, part of which will be spent on a cruiseship with my wife's extended family. I have never been on a cruise before, and since my only knowledge of the experience comes from the stateroom scene in "A Night at the Opera" and reading the late David Foster Wallace's brilliant essay "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" (linked here under its original Harper's title, "Shipping Out" -- this is essential reading, folks), I am properly terrified. In any event, the best of the season to you and yours. Here's to an interesting 2009.

Filed under: Action, Thrillers, Casting, Mystery & Suspense, Sony, RumorMonger, Celebrities and Controversy, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels

I have the sneaking suspicion that Seth Rogen's The Green Hornet remake may go the way of its failed predecessors. Over the weekend, Monika reported that Stephen Chow was no longer directing the film -- now comes the news that Chow may not remain as Kato, either.

Chow told the AP that he had abandoned directing the film in order to make a superhero comedy starring Jack Black. "If I direct The Green Hornet, the superhero comedy will have to be delayed for two years," Chow said. "The timing might not be right for a superhero comedy in two years. And I want to make a movie based on an original idea."

Presumably, directing Black might also interfere with his Kato-playing duties -- something Chow confirms by saying that continuing in the role depends on his schedule. If you're a conspiracy theorist, you can speculate away about whether Chow's really passionate about Black and original superhero comedy, or whether it's those vague "creative differences" reported earlier.

Judging from the comments, Rogen's Hornet isn't too popular anyway. I was unsure about the comedic angle the project was taking, but Chow's casting was something to hang your hopes on, particularly if they reined in his slapstick style. But maybe that's precisely what the "differences" are. Maybe they just need to quit forcing this one, and let the Hornet sit for the unforeseeable future?

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Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy, Newsstand

If you live in or around the New York City area, you're no doubt well aware of the Lillo Brancato Jr. murder trial. Brancato Jr., who's most known for his six-episode stint on The Sopranos and for starring in Robert De Niro's A Bronx Tale as Calogero (or 'C'), was on trial for murdering an off-duty police officer after breaking into a house to obtain drugs with a friend. The friend, Steven Armento, was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison earlier this month. Brancato Jr. claimed he did not shoot the officer, but only broke a window in the house because he was suffering intense heroin withdrawal. The house, according to Brancato Jr., belonged to a Vietnam veteran who gave the men permission to come over from time to time to get drugs.

But when no one answered the door that night, the two men -- itching for that next high -- decided to break in. That's when Daniel Enchautegui, a neighbor, came to check things out. Upon finding the two men breaking in, Armento shot Enchautegui, who returned fire hitting both Brancato Jr. and Armento several times. Apparently a jury found that Brancato Jr. had nothing to do with the murder and acquitted him of those charges, but did find him guilty of attempted burglary -- a charge that could send him to prison for up to 15 years (he's already served three).

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The director of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Summer of '42" is dead at 83, after a long battle with heart disease. The Times obit touches on the basics, and if you haven't seen "Mockingbird," you need to right now: the 1962 film stands as the high point of the earnest, socially conscious drama purveyed by Mulligan and the rest of the generation that came out of 50s television ready to take on the world.

Yet Mulligan never made the transition to film with as much ease as peers like Sidney Lumet or his one-time producing partner Alan J. Pakula. He had the misfortune to arrive just as American cinema was overtaken by the age of sensation, and that just wasn't Mulligan's strength: Sensitivity and stolid, character-driven honesty were. See his debut film, 1957's "Fear Strikes Out," for an example of 50s issue-drama at its most harrowing -- Anthony Perkins plays Jimmy Piersall, a Boston Red Sox player having a nervous breakdown on and off the field -- or look to his last movie, 1991's "The Man in the Moon" for an example of Mulligan's elegant, subtly resonant way with a story. That film, by the way, introduced an actress named Reese Witherspoon; Mulligan was especially good with younger characters and players. He'll be missed, even if the culture has long since gone crashing noisily past him.