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This bleak, violent, post-apocalyptic picture is involving up until the point you realize it’s just another example of religious propagandizing. Starring Denzel Washington as a mysterious stranger who walks alone and comes upon a town ruled by a dictatorial Gary Oldman (fabulously chewing it up like an older version of his drug-addicted bad cop in The Professional), the grizzled solitary man carries a Bible, speaks in riddles, and winds up dressed as a Moslem in a progressively dull movie. The Book of Eli borrows nihilism from The Road Warrior and Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Westerns with Clint Eastwood, a cheap trick from The Sixth Sense, and preachy religion from any of a variety of recent Christian pics. Also featuring Jennifer Beals (Flashdance) in the film’s best performance as a blind woman and a young actress named Mila Kunis as a nubile type. Its theme that religion will save the world is pure hokum. Despite fine turns by leads Washington and Oldman, this book sermonizes more of the same.

Tribute Film Classics (TFC)—composed of John Morgan, Anna Bonn, and William Stromberg—is proof that not everyone in Tinseltown chooses to ‘go Hollywood’. These diligent musicians recently released another exquisite recording, the complete Erich Wolfgang Korngold score to the 1937 Errol Flynn classic adaptation of the 1882 Mark Twain novel, The Prince and the Pauper (available from this vendor).

Here’s what I wrote in an online column about TFC when they started up last year:

“One need not be a fan of the literary-themed pictures to enjoy the first two recordings … definitive compact disc editions of composer Bernard Herrmann’s scores for Mysterious Island and Fahrenheit 451. The CDs alone are impressive.

“Besides the score for Francois Truffaut’s 1966 adaptation of a novel about a totalitarian regime that bans books, Universal’s Fahrenheit 451, TFC offers the complete 61-track score for Mysterious Island. The release includes entire cue cuts, with notes by TFC principal William Stromberg, who conducted the Moscow Symphony Orchestra’s performance, and TFC co-founders Anna (Mrs. Stromberg) Bonn and John Morgan. Their approach is admirably meticulous.

“The 1961 adventure classic, Mysterious Island (Columbia Pictures), based on the novel by French writer Jules Verne, features two Union prisoners of war (POWs) who escape in a hot-air balloon during the American Civil War. They drift to the titular fantasy isle, encountering giant creatures, a volcano, an earthquake, a honeycomb and another famous Verne character, Captain Nemo (Mr. Verne’s Mysterious Island is a sequel to his 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea).

“Mr. Herrmann’s memorable music accentuates the movie’s thrills and the accompanying 32-page booklet is more intelligent and informative than most books, with time stamps and notes on chords, instruments and scenes. That doesn’t really do this labor of love, which must be seen to be appreciated, justice. The same caliber of top production values is present on TFC’s booklet for Mr. Herrmann’s complete Fahrenheit 451 score, which includes notes from author Ray Bradbury. Both CDs are a rare accomplishment in today’s movie-related products: they take motion pictures—their artists, scores and history—seriously.”

So does The Prince and the Pauper, recorded in Moscow, Russia. It is another outstanding accomplishment.

I’m pressed for time—I’m planning to attend this year’s Objectivist Conference (OCON) in Boston, which starts in a few days—and I know I’m backlogged on posts. I have to report that Fox’s third Ice Age installment is harmless and happily dialed down, so it’s suitable for smaller kids.

Sid the sloth has something of an identity crisis and thinks he’s a surrogate mother, so he’s off and wandering into a subterranean world of dinosaurs and, sparing the details, the regulars are back in action and re-bonding when one of them has a child. The series’ innocuous theme that a loving family is made, not born, comes through with fine results and an adventurous new character. Recommended for young families and those with low expectations. Again, it’s not disgusting and the 3D technology works very well. Scrat’s back in the picture, too, falling for a female equivalent and forgetting about the acorn for a while.

I will probably write a review of Warner Bros.’ My Sister’s Keeper, one of the best movies this year if you can stand its subject: a young girl dying of cancer. More on this picture by Nick Cassavetes later but the well-made movie is poignant, thoughtful, and honest. I also saw two movies at the Los Angeles Film Festival: The Stoning of Soraya M, an indictment of Iran’s Islamic fundamentalism, and an absolutely dreadful attack on a great American business, Dole Foods, called Bananas. I’m still thinking about Soraya M. But the anti-capitalist latter movie, thoroughly discredited by a judge’s ruling, is a disgrace to the L.A. Film Festival, which should have shown this trash the door.

I’m reading interesting new books and I am working on several writing projects that I am enjoying. For now, I’m off to OCON 2009 but not before I happily endorse my favorite new pop album this summer: Lionel Richie’s Just Go, a collection of 14 new tunes, mostly ballads. It’s an infectious batch of romantic piano songs, with strings, synthesizers, and softly manipulated vocals, and I’m finding it irresistible. The perfect summer album. I have more to say later—on the loss of Farrah, Michael Jackson and more—and look forward to posting.

Avoid Confessions of a Shopaholic like a government handout with strings attached. This stinker feels as if was swiped through a credit card machine a zillion times and it’s chiefly the fault of an atrocious script and a lead character (played by someone named Isla Fisher, apparently Borat’s real-life girlfriend, which explains everything) who’s as appealing as a root canal. The dishonest character is utterly irredeemable and Fisher’s bland presence sinks the movie.

Confessions is a rehash of every tart-with-a-heart-of-gold pic in the past five years and this ditz—who’s supposed to be a fashion genius—dresses like a trollop. She looks like a cross between Pebbles on The Flintstones and one of those plain Janes who overdoes every part of her ensemble. My screening companion, Laurie, tells me this stuff is designer-made and highly popular but it still looks like crap to me. Fishnet stockings—chain-link necklaces—a magazine journalist who writes one column and becomes the toast of the town—a bank that actually loans money to a businessman—hair that goes from straight to curly in a millisecond—this movie, which gets a second wind thanks to director P.J. Hogan, desperately trying to create something of quality, is awful. You know you’re in trouble when the bridesmaid’s dress is better than anything else on screen. The talents of Joan Cusack, John Lithgow, and—in the only part that works—Kristin Scott Thomas are wasted. The same goes for poor Hugh Dancy as the love interest. Hogan, a fine director who gave us Universal’s wonderful live action Peter Pan, indie gem Unconditional Love and the irresistible My Best Friend’s Wedding, deserves better. A textbook case of unwarranted above-the-title billing, Confessions of a Shopaholic runs counter to its attempted theme of earning it.

I hear from composer Nile Rodgers that the guitarist who wrote the infectious tunes “Upside Down” and “I’m Coming Out” for Diana Ross is working on new material for the singer (see 26 July 2008 post for her concert review). Mr. Rodgers’ impeccable work has lasted for decades, from his band CHIC’s popular records and “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge through his albums for David Bowie (Let’s Dance), Madonna (Like a Virgin) and Duran Duran. One of my favorite songs is his idealistic “Original Sin” by INXS, which harmoniously blends horns and riffs into an uplifting anthem. I can hardly wait to hear—and dance to—what he makes for Miss Ross.