Britain, France push NATO allies on Libya
AFP
Britain and France have pressed NATO allies to step up air raids in Libya by deploying more combat jets to protect civilians, as rebels claimed Muammar Gaddafi's regime killed 10,000 people.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, complaining that NATO was not doing enough, said it was unacceptable for the rebel-held city of Misrata "to continue to come under fire from bombs" launched by Gaddafi loyalists.
"I hope other countries will come to relieve us," said Juppe, whose country had been reluctant to hand command of the campaign to NATO, after a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Luxembourg.
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After talks with the EU ministers, Ali Al Isawi, a representative of Libya's rebel National Transition Council, said that Gaddafi forces have killed 10,000 people, while 20,000 were missing and 30,000 wounded.
"We want more efforts regarding protection of civilians against this aggression," he said after the first meeting between the opposition group and the 27-nation bloc.
French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet complained that Paris and London, the nations that launched the first salvos against Gaddafi's regime on March 19, have been left to bear "the bulk of the effort".
He noted that the United States was now only providing logistical support to the operation after withdrawing its combat jets last week.
"Today we have no support in the ground attack role, without which there's no chance of breaking the siege of towns like Misrata or Zenten," he told the French parliament.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague, taking a less forceful tone, noted that London had supplied additional ground-attack aircraft and said he would "welcome if other countries also do the same".
"We must maintain and intensify our efforts in NATO," Hague said.
In the US, the Pentagon said it had no plans to alter its role in the air campaign in Libya, with NATO allies taking the lead in air strikes.
"We're not reassessing whether or not we should stick with the strategy," press secretary Geoff Morrell told AFP.
The US military's ground-attack aircraft remained on standby pending a request from the allied commander of the air operation.
After earlier criticism from Libyan rebels over the pace of strikes, a NATO general said the alliance was doing a "great job" with the assets available to the Western military organisation.
NATO has led air strikes against Gaddafi's forces for almost two weeks since taking over from a US-led coalition that began bombing the regime's heavy weaponry on March 19.
"NATO absolutely wanted to lead this operation at the military level, well, now I trust Mr. Rasmussen to gather the necessary assets," Juppe said, referring to NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
Juppe said he would raise his concerns at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Berlin on Thursday and Friday.
Spanish junior minister for European affairs, Diego Lopez Garrido, however, said more contributions were "not necessary."
Italy said it was considering taking a direct role in strikes, but that its principal concern was the safety of civilians on the ground.
EU foreign ministers also discussed whether to throw EU military resources behind humanitarian aid delivery to Misrata.
Although NATO has 28 members, not all of them have the capability or desire to take part in the strikes, especially Turkey and Germany, which were opposed to any military intervention from the start.
AU urges Libya rebels to cooperate, France slams NATO
The African Union urged Libyan rebels on Tuesday to "fully cooperate" as it fought to salvage its tottering ceasefire plan and France accused its NATO allies of not pulling their weight.
The AU reacted swiftly to the rebels' rejection of a truce plan presented by the continental body on Monday.
"Due to a political demand set as a pre-condition by the Transitional National Council (TNC) to launching urgent talks on the implementation of a truce, it was not possible at this stage to reach an agreement on the key issue of a cessation of hostilities," said an AU statement on the visit to Libya by a high-ranking African delegation.
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The delegation "makes an urgent call on the TNC to fully cooperate, for the sake of Libya's higher interests, and assist in the quest for and implementation of a fair and lasting political solution", the statement said.
Libya's strongman Moamer Kadhafi accepted the AU's plan but the rebels' leadership in the city of Benghazi argued the initiative was obsolete and insisted Kadhafi should be ousted.
Former foreign minister Mussa Kussa, who is in Britain after defecting from the regime, said Monday the restive nation could become a "new Somalia" if civil war broke out.
"I ask everyone, all the parties, to avoid taking Libya into a civil war," the former minister said in a statement issued to the BBC. "This would lead to so much blood and Libya will be a new Somalia.
"We refuse to divide Libya. The unity of Libya is essential to any resolution and settlement for Libya," he added. "The solution in Libya will come from the Libyans themselves through democratic dialogue."
France's NATO allies are not pulling their weight in Libya and their forces should do more to help destroy Kadhafi's heavy weaponry, Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Tuesday.
"NATO must fully play its role, and it is not doing so sufficiently," the minister told France Info radio, adding that France would bring the matter up with EU ministers on Tuesday and with NATO in Berlin on Thursday.
France which, with Britain and the United States, led the drive for air strikes, was sceptical about handing political control of the operation to the NATO Western alliance.
Now, Juppe said, it feels that the full coalition is not taking a robust enough attitude in pushing forward with the bombardment of Libyan government forces besieging rebel-held cities.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also stuck to US demands for Kadhafi to step down and leave Libya as part of a peaceful transition, but declined to comment on the proposed African Union deal before being fully briefed.
She told a news conference in Washington however that "there needs to be a transition that reflects the will of the Libyan people and the departure of Kadhafi from power and from Libya".
Kadhafi's son Seif al-Islam admitted that it was time for "new blood" in Libya, but called talk of his father stepping down "ridiculous".
"The Libyan Guide (Kadhafi) does not want to control everything. He is at an advanced age. We would like to bring a new elite of young people onto the scene to lead the country and direct local affairs," he told France's BFM TV.
"We need new blood -- that is what we want for the future -- but talk of the Guide leaving is truly ridiculous," he added.
In Benghazi, rebel leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil said the African initiative did not go far enough.
"From the first day the demand of our people has been the ouster of Kadhafi and the fall of his regime," he said.
"Kadhafi and his sons must leave immediately if they want to be safe... Any initiative that does not include the people's demand, the popular demand, essential demand, we cannot possibly recognise."
NATO, meanwhile, said it struck more loyalist targets around Ajdabiya and the besieged port of Misrata on Sunday and Monday, destroying 11 Kadhafi regime tanks and five military vehicles.
The regime warned that any foreign intervention under the pretext of bringing aid into Misrata would be met by "staunch armed resistance," the official JANA news agency quoted the foreign ministry as saying.
Diplomats in Brussels said on Friday that the EU was gearing up to deploy military assets for a humanitarian mission to evacuate wounded from Misrata and deliver food, water and medicine to the city.
NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned that warplanes will keep pounding Libyan forces as long as civilians are at risk.
"I would also like to stress that the guiding principle for us will be how to implement the UN Security Council resolution fully, that is to protect the civilians against any attack," he said.
Shamsiddin Abdulmolah, a spokesman for the TNC, welcomed the African Union efforts but demanded Kadhafi's overthrow.
"The people must be allowed to go into the streets to express their opinion and the soldiers must return to their barracks," he told AFP.
"If people are free to come out and demonstrate in Tripoli, then that's it. I imagine all of Libya will be liberated within moments."
He also demanded the release of hundreds of people missing since the outbreak of the popular uprising and believed to be held by Kadhafi's forces.
South African President Jacob Zuma said earlier that Tripoli had accepted the African Union plan for a ceasefire.
"We also in this communique are making a call on NATO to cease the bombings to allow and to give a ceasefire a chance," he said.
The rebels, however, doubted Kadhafi would adhere to a truce.
"The world has seen these offers of ceasefires before and within 15 minutes (Kadhafi) starts shooting again," Abdulmolah said.
France bans Muslim full-face veil
AFP
Police in France, home to Europe's biggest Muslim population, have arrested two protesters wearing niqab veils after a ban on full-face coverings went into effect.
The women, part of a demonstration that erupted in front of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris on Monday, were detained for taking part in an unauthorised protest rather than for wearing their veils.
But, in theory at least, French officials can now slap fines on Muslim women who refuse orders to expose their faces when in public.
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"Today was not about arresting people because of wearing the veil. It was for not having respected the requirement to declare a demonstration," said police spokesman Alexis Marsan.
Two women in niqabs, a woman wearing an Islamic headscarf that did not cover her face and a protest organiser were arrested, Marsan said.
Separately, businessman and activist Rachid Nekkaz told AFP he and a female friend wearing the niqab were arrested by police in front of President Nicolas Sarkozy's Elysee Palace.
"We wanted to be fined for wearing the niqab, but the police didn't want to issue a fine," said Nekkaz, who has promised to auction off a two-million-euro ($A2.74 million) property to start a fund to pay off fines for veil-wearers.
One of those arrested in front of Notre Dame was 32-year-old Kenza Drider from the southern city of Avignon, who was due to appear on television and has become a symbol of France's tiny community of niqab wearers.
"This law infringes my European rights; I cannot but defend them. That is to say, my freedom to come and go and my religious freedom," Drider told reporters as she boarded a train for Paris before the protest.
Many French police fear the law will be impossible to enforce, since they have not been empowered to use force to remove head coverings, and could face resistance in already tense immigrant districts.
"The law will be infinitely difficult to enforce, and will be infinitely rarely enforced," said ManuelRoux, deputy head of a union representing local police chiefs, in an interview with France Inter radio.
"It's not for the police to demonstrate zeal," he said, predicting that when patrol officers meet veiled women they will simply try to explain the law to them and to persuade them to remove their face covering.
"If they refuse, that's when things get really complicated. We have no power to force them," he said.
"I can't begin to imagine we're going to pay any attention to a veiled woman in a sensitive area, where men are proud."
But Interior Minister Claude Gueant insisted the ban would be enforced, in the name of "secularism and equality between men and women ... two principles upon which we cannot compromise".
"The police and the gendarmerie are there to apply the law and they will apply the law."
The law came into effect at an already fraught moment in relations between the state and France's Muslim minority, with Sarkozy accused of stigmatising Islam to win back votes from a resurgent far right.
French officials estimate only about 2000 women, from a total Muslim population estimated at between four and six million, wear the full-face veils that are traditional in parts of Arabia and South Asia.
Many Muslims and rights activists say the rightwing president is targeting one of France's most vulnerable groups to signal to anti-immigration voters that he shares their fear that Islam is a threat to French culture.
But support for the ban bridges the left-right divide.
Although the bulk of opposition lawmakers abstained from the vote on the law, 20 supported it and some feminists traditionally associated with the left support a ban on a garment they feel demeans women.
Anyone refusing to lift his or her veil to submit to an identity check can be taken to a police station.
There, officers must try to persuade them to remove the garment, and can threaten fines.
A woman who repeatedly insists on appearing veiled in public can be fined 150 ($A205.50) and ordered to attend re-education classes.
There are much more severe penalties for anyone found guilty of forcing someone else to hide his or her face "through threats, violence, constraint, abuse of authority or power for reason of their gender".
Clearly aimed at fathers, husbands or religious leaders who force women to wear face-veils, and applicable to offences committed in public or in private, the law imposes a fine of 30,000 ($A41,096) and a year in jail.
Florence + The Machine earns praise for “Ceremonials”
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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Florence Welch may be indulging in her own ceremonial celebration on Tuesday after critics praised her widely-anticipated new album, "Ceremonials."
After scoring a huge hit with debut album "Lungs" in 2009, the 25-year-old Welch, lead singer of the British band Florence + The Machine, brought out "Ceremonials," a 12-track record exploring themes of love and romance amid death and violence.
The singer reunited with "Lungs" producer Paul Epworth, and the new album is the new album is receiving mostly positive reviews. Rolling Stone's Jody Rosen called "Ceremonials" "dark, robust and romantic," and praised Welch's ability "to turn the ridiculous into the sublime."
The Washington Post's Bill Friskics-Warren called the album "an unabashedly big record," adding that listeners should "let the majesty and bombast wash over you and not only do these performances redeem their rococo excesses, they deliver their share of catharsis as well."
The Los Angeles Times' Margaret Wappler gave "Ceremonials" three and a-half of four stars, praising Welch for becoming "a better actor, a keener listener and still manages to let it rip on occasion."
But not all critics are sold on Welch's grandiose style in her new record. Kitty Empire of British newspaper The Guardian said the record "more closely resembles a banshee convention in a wind turbine. It should come with a scarf."
The Grammy-nominated singer achieved international chart success with singles like "Dog Days Are Over" and "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)," from "Lungs," which was inspired by a failed relationship.
(Reporting and Writing by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
“Melancholia” a film for Lars von Trier haters
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AppId is over the quota
By Alonso Duralde
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - After enduring "Antichrist" a few years ago and then listening to Lars von Trier shoot off his mouth with an ill-advised "joke" about Nazis this spring at the Cannes Film Festival, I wasn't exactly rushing into "Melancholia" with hopes raised. Von Trier's recent films feel like the work of a man who uses the camera as a magnifying glass the way that a sadistic six-year-old would use that same implement to torture and destroy helpless ants.
As a non-fan, then, it is with utter surprise that I can report that "Melancholia" is the Lars von Trier movie for people who hate Lars von Trier movies. (Or for this person, at any rate.)
Visually stunning -- cinematographer Manuel Alberto Claro's work here is jaw-dropping -- and intensely moving, "Melancholia" earns its perfectly-chosen soundtrack of Wagner, unfurling its tale with the heft of grand opera and the immediacy of the best contemporary storytellers.
Kirsten Dunst stars as Justine, whom we first see as a positively glowing bride, riding in the back of a stretch limo with her new husband Michael (Alexander Skarsgard). The fact that the limousine can't make it through a tight turn in the woods, leaving the newlyweds to arrive at their reception hours late and on foot, serves as an omen that not everything is as picture-perfect as we might immediately think.
As the evening wears on, with Justine's sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) managing the proceedings with the assistance of a high-strung wedding planner (Udo Kier, of all people), it becomes more and more clear both to the wedding guests and to viewers that Justine has issues -- namely, a crippling depression that sends her off to take a long bath in the middle of her own wedding-night party.
While various scenes are made by Justine's divorced parents (John Hurt and Charlotte Rampling), her demanding boss (Stellan Skarsgard), and Claire's harrumphing millionaire husband John (Kiefer Sutherland), both the party and Justine's new marriage fall irrevocably to pieces.
But all that turns out to be prologue, as the rest of the film deals with a rogue planet called Melancholia that's on a collision course with Earth. Amateur astronomer John assures Claire that there won't be an impact, but as the two worlds come closer to colliding, it's surprisingly Justine -- perhaps due to her familiarity with a more terrestrial brand of melancholia -- who emerges from a near-catatonic state to swap roles with her sister and become the family's pillar of strength.
"Melancholia" is one of those movies that defies easy description by merely recounting what happens in the plot. Love him or hate him, von Trier is a master of making the silences count. His films demand a level of attention, in that it's the little moments, the minuscule gestures, that tell us so much about the characters.
And this time, for a change, it feels like the director doesn't despise his creations. He threatens them with doom, yes, but his characters don't feel like cogs in a giant everyone-is-awful machine, and that feels like a radical switch from the man who gave us such exercises in S&M as "Breaking the Waves," "Dancer in the Dark" and "Dogville."
The blonde Dunst and the dark Gainsbourg make a perfect yin and yang, and while I never bought that these two were sisters (much less the results of a Hurt-Rampling coupling), they're both utterly riveting, to the extent where you can hardly picture anyone else in either role. But the whole cast is great, from the Skarsgard pere et fils to Rampling to Brady Corbet (as Justine's boss's nephew, whom the bride uses to set a land speed record for adultery) to young Cameron Spurr as Justine's loving nephew.
Admirers of von Trier's filmography will no doubt find much to admire in this soaring, moving work of art, but film lovers who might have written off the erratic auteur (and can forgive him for his Cannes Film Festival shenanigans) should open themselves to the apocalyptic possibilities of "Melancholia." There's no discussing the major films of 2011 without seeing this first.
Review: Tom Waits’ ‘Bad as Me couldn’t be better
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AppId is over the quota
By Chris Willman
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Tom Waits has been called a lot of things, but "rockabilly cat" was probably never among them. That's just one of many guises the veteran eccentric takes on in "Bad as Me," his first all-new release in eight years and a leading album-of-the-year contender.
Just when you think you've got Waits half-figured, the king of grizzled-dom -- and musical gristle -- goes all Eddie Cochran on us in "Get Lost." "Roll down all the windows, turn up Wolfman Jack/Please, please love me tender, ain't nothin' wrong with that," he sings, sounding a little like "Love and Theft"-era Dylan suddenly overtaken by the booming voice and spirit of the Big Bopper.
Little else on "Bad as Me" is quite so unexpected, or certainly not so turn-back-the-clock youthful, given the sense of mortality that runs through other songs. But it does point toward just how much of the album actually rocks, with Waits mostly foregoing the chain-gang-style clanging percussion he favored in his experimental middle period for a traditionally bangin' rhythm section, not to mention some very loud blues guitars.
Waits is really what you'd get if you could somehow combine Dylan, Springsteen, Sammy Cahn, Howlin' Wolf, a Waring blender, an out-of-control assembly line, and -- last, but certainly not least -- Screamin' Jay Hawkins, all of whom come to mind at various points in this brilliant but unassuming assemblage of rank Americana.
Since it's almost Halloween, let's start with the Screamin' Jay influence, which comes to the fore on the hilariously sexy/nasty title track. "You're the same kind of bad as me," Waits literally screams, letting everything in his dirty soul loose, singing not just from the gut, but the lower intestines.
But "Bad as Me" also gives you the Waits who can come up with crooner-friendly ballads like "Downbound Train."
Any torch singer worth his fire would be a fool not to cover this album's "Kiss Me," as good a song as has ever been written about reigniting the flames in a relationship gone passionless. "Kiss me like a stranger once again… I want to believe that our love's a sin," he sings in his least tortured voice, over the sound of standup bass, distant piano, and the subliminal sound of crackling vinyl.
The acoustic-guitar-backed "Last Leaf," could almost be out of the Great American Songbook -- although, with Keith Richards adding a harmony vocal, no one will mistake it for a Bing-and-Frank duet. It takes "September of my years" to new levels: "I'm the last leaf on the tree/The autumn took the rest/But they won't take me."
Richards also plays a fierce guitar on several tracks, including, amusingly, "Satisfied," a blues stomp apparently written as an elderly answer song to the Stones' "Satisfaction." In case there's any doubt about that, Waits actually name-checks "Mr. Jagger and Mr. Richards" in the lyrics, in-between couplets like "Roll my vertebrae out like dice/Let my skull be a home for the mice."
This is his most easily accessible album in decades. But for anyone who misses the more avant-garde Waits, there's the penultimate "Hell Broke Luce," a stunning four-minute encapsulation of the modern soldier's lot, framed as a stream-of-consciousness marching chant with otherworldly percussion and occasional bursts of Metallica-style guitar. Its abrasiveness doesn't quite fit with the rest of the album, but it's tour de force enough to be worth the price of admission.
Then again, it's hard to say the standout isn't "Face to the Highway," a spooky road song Bruce himself will wish he'd written. "Ocean wants a sailor, gun wants a hand, money wants a spender, and the road wants a man," he sings, chillingly describing the siren song of itinerancy and personal betrayal. "I turned my face to the highway, and I turned my back on you."
That's austere stuff, but it's not long before the nervous laughs resume. With "Bad as Me," you get high comedy, high tragedy, and the unlikely conflagration of musicians as great as Richards, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea, Los Lobos' David Hidalgo, Mark Ribot, and Sir Douglas Quintet organist Augie Myers kind of but not quite colliding with one another.
If Dylan ever made an album this good again, it'd be cause for a day of national celebration. But don't let Waits' slightly less celebrated status get in the way of your own "Bad" bash.
Spielberg’s “Tintin” lands closing night at AFI festival
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AppId is over the quota
Writer J.K. Rowling and actress Sienna Miller gave a London courtroom a vivid picture on Thursday of the anxiety, anger and fear produced by living in the glare of Britain's tabloid media, describing how press intrusion made them feel like prisoners in their own homes.
Florence + The Machine earns praise for “Ceremonials”
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AppId is over the quota
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Florence Welch may be indulging in her own ceremonial celebration on Tuesday after critics praised her widely-anticipated new album, "Ceremonials."
After scoring a huge hit with debut album "Lungs" in 2009, the 25-year-old Welch, lead singer of the British band Florence + The Machine, brought out "Ceremonials," a 12-track record exploring themes of love and romance amid death and violence.
The singer reunited with "Lungs" producer Paul Epworth, and the new album is the new album is receiving mostly positive reviews. Rolling Stone's Jody Rosen called "Ceremonials" "dark, robust and romantic," and praised Welch's ability "to turn the ridiculous into the sublime."
The Washington Post's Bill Friskics-Warren called the album "an unabashedly big record," adding that listeners should "let the majesty and bombast wash over you and not only do these performances redeem their rococo excesses, they deliver their share of catharsis as well."
The Los Angeles Times' Margaret Wappler gave "Ceremonials" three and a-half of four stars, praising Welch for becoming "a better actor, a keener listener and still manages to let it rip on occasion."
But not all critics are sold on Welch's grandiose style in her new record. Kitty Empire of British newspaper The Guardian said the record "more closely resembles a banshee convention in a wind turbine. It should come with a scarf."
The Grammy-nominated singer achieved international chart success with singles like "Dog Days Are Over" and "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)," from "Lungs," which was inspired by a failed relationship.
(Reporting and Writing by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
“Jack and Jill” confirms it: Sandler is the new Tyler Perry
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AppId is over the quota
By Alonso Duralde
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Grotesquely caricatured, over-the-top drag? Check. Schmaltzy, comedy-killing homilies about the importance of family? Check. Loud, stupid scatological humor that makes the latest "Harold & Kumar" movie look like Moliere? Check. Patronizing digs at atheists? Check.
"Jack and Jill" makes it official: Adam Sandler is Tyler Perry.
And while this new comedy featuring Sandler as male and female fraternal twins offers the occasional silly chuckle, just like Perry's Madea movies, it's another train wreck from the fine folks at Happy Madison, Sandler's production company.
What makes "Jack and Jill" different from the star's usual catastrophes is that there are enough successful elements to make one think that this film might actually have worked had it not been left in the legendarily clumsy hands of Dennis Dugan, Sandler's go-to director. With someone at the helm who possesses a modicum of taste and comedic timing, this dorky farce could have made it off the launching pad.
If there's one reason to see "Jack and Jill," it's for Al Pacino's over-the-top performance as Al Pacino, a neurotic actor who barks gibberish orders at foreign-language-speaking staff, freaks out when cell phones ring during his performances, and finds himself helplessly smitten with Jill Sadelstein (Sandler), a dorky spinster from the Bronx who's in L.A. spending the holidays with her short-fused brother Jack (Sandler), a director of TV commercials.
Jack keeps trying to rid himself of Jill, who is loud, obnoxious, and mostly clueless about the world around her, but her Thanksgiving visit extends into Hanukkah and eventually New Year's, first because of her refusal to leave and later because Jack needs Jill so that he can land Pacino to do a spot for an new Dunkin Donuts coffee drink called a "Dunkaccino."
Watching Sandler get all goosey in a dress reminded me that he's the new millennial Jerry Lewis, a somewhat dashing Jewish leading man (and Sandler brings his Jewishness front and center, in this film particularly) who feels most comfortable playing child-men or doing the least subtle drag imaginable. And the scenes in which Jill resists Pacino's advances, while understanding none of his cultural references, will make you wish that Sandler had abandoned Jack and just played Jill throughout.
But no, Jack has to be an abrasive jerk to his sister so that, in the final act, he can learn his lesson and embrace his twin and blah blah blah fart joke.
While the scenes of Pacino and Johnny Depp playing themselves are pretty hilarious, the movie pours on the L.A. locations as though the audience were an out-of-town client whom Jack is trying to impress. "Look!" Dugan and Sandler seem to be yelling, "We can shoot our stupid movie at a Lakers game! And at Morton's! And on the set of 'The Price Is Right'!"
We've grown to take this sort of movie magic for granted, but the twinning of Sandler is seamless throughout; you'll quickly forget the trickery and over-the-shoulder shots involved in turning one actor into two characters.
Less impressive, however, is the use of the supporting cast. Thankfully, we get a minimum of Sandler's posse of irritants (Nick Swardson, Allen Covert, David Spade, et al.), but why cast Katie Holmes as Jack's converted-shiksa wife and then give her literally not one thing to do?
At no time during "Jack and Jill" did I find myself praying for the sweet release of death, which automatically makes it better than "Just Go With It," but it's still a juvenile mess. Still, I laughed enough to where I'd recommend catching this one on cable, which is a recommendation I'm more likely to give to Tyler Perry's movies than to Adam Sandler's.
Review: “Like Crazy” an irritating tale of twits in love
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AppId is over the quota
By Alonso Duralde
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - In an era when the U.S.-born children of Mexican immigrants are afraid to go to school in some states because of threatened roundups, and American gays and lesbians aren't allowed the option of marriage to provide citizenship for their foreign-born partners, it's hard to muster up much sympathy for a privileged white Brit who's not allowed back into this country after she willfully violates the terms of her student visa.
But that's what "Like Crazy" expects to feel about poor pampered Anna (Felicity Jones), who couldn't bear to return to the U.K. for three short months if it means being away from her l-u-v, furniture designer Jacob (Anton Yelchin). Cry me a river of Cheez Whiz.
Even putting immigration issues aside, Anna and Jacob are generally so short-sighted and shallow that their whirlwind romance is eminently resistible.
Director and co-writer Drake Doremus clearly wants us to be enchanted by the moony eyes they make at each other, but we never get much of a clue as to who these kids are and why they're so enamored. Every time the two of them threaten to have a conversation that's about something other than their passion or their love of high-end Scotch, Doremus takes a page from "Team America: World Police" and goes all "You Need a Montage!" with his romantic leads.
Anna and Jacob meet as college classmates, then spend the summer together when she's supposed to go home. He opens a small factory, while she climbs the ladder at a British fashion magazine, but then she can't come back to the U.S., boo hoo. So Jacob starts dating comely co-worker Samantha (Jennifer Lawrence, Yelchin's co-star in "The Beaver"), but just as things start getting serious, Anna cajoles him into visiting her a few times.
The closer that the couple comes to working out her immigration difficulties and finally cohabiting, the less each seems committed to actually keeping the relationship alive -- Jacob can't quite get over Samantha, while Anna gets something going with yuppie Simon (Charlie Bewley).
So you wind up with a movie that's supposed to make us all heartsick about how these pretty white people with problems just can't make it work. But anyone over the age of 25 or so will recognize that these two ninnies have no idea what relationships are about, what measures one has to take to keep them alive, or how to recognize when, to paraphrase "Annie Hall," you've got a dead shark on your hands.
Anton Yelchin is an amazingly empathetic young actor -- and based on the little I've seen of Felicity Jones, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt -- but these characters have been written to be so annoyingly unaware of consequences or even the future that they're just exasperating.
Much has been made over the improvised dialogue in "Like Crazy," but Doremus and his collaborator Ben York Jones fail to provide an interesting enough framework for their cast while, as mentioned, never letting them discuss anything of substance that might make them feel like something more fleshed-out than a couple in an engagement-ring commercial.
John Guleserian's bright-and-fuzzy cinematography suits the material, even if it's not particularly groundbreaking, and Dustin O'Halloran's score goes leagues further than any other facet of the production when it comes to invoking a sense of melancholy.
"Like Crazy" might have worked better if Doremus had doubled down and made the whole movie a series of wordless montages, since that would have covered up many of the film's flaws while accentuating its strongest assets.
Teens, and the adolescent of mind, will no doubt sigh wistfully over the goings-on here, but it should come with a "Jackass"-style disclaimer: "Don't try this at home. Or abroad."