Short takes

Elvis: The (CBS?) two-part TV movie. I had read that Jonathan Rhys Meyers was amazing in the lead role. He was, but only sporadically. Same with Randy Quaid, whose Colonel Tom Parker weirdly echoes Joe Aguirre, the abrasive rancher he played in Brokeback Mountain the same year. He deserves credit for trying to merge Dutch and Southern accents, but it ends up more of a switching back and forth. Meyers lipsyncs to the original records rather than singing, which is distracting but ultimately proves the point of the film: Elvis was one of a kind.

The Last of the Mohicans: Again looking for a strong lead performance, we rented this after reading that Daniel Day-Lewis prepared for this by carrying a real flintlock rifle around with him for weeks. This clearly paid off, as his gun-handling is excellent. He also built a canoe. I wish he'd helped out with the screenplay instead, or perhaps done a different movie altogether. The period details are probably more accurate than in the 1936 Randolph Scott version, but the James Fenimore Cooper story is still romantic hokum from beginning to end.

I Am Legend: This far outpaced that other survival movie at the box office, but it's pretty clear that we're venturing Into The Implausible when Will Smith starts careening around New York in a red Mustang years after a plague emptied out the city. Who's maintaining the streets? Certainly not the zombies (going by some fancy other name) who dominate the second half of the film. I Am Legend is like Sunshine, giving up a strong premise for cheap horror-movie tropes, but it surrenders earlier and is never that mind-blowing to start with.