Short Takes
This week in local theaters
MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS I can’t put it any plainer: This belongs near or at the top of anyone’s list of the great American movies, and the chance to see it on the big screen (especially at Christmas) is a gift in itself. The honey-dipped heartland Americana of Vincente Minnelli’s musical looks as corny today as it must have in 1944—at first. Even in the ’40s, the movie’s turn-of-the-century “simpler time” was distant, and Arthur Freed’s fabled MGM production unit burnished it to a nostalgic glow for heartsick wartime audiences. But the emotional intensity, fondness and empathy of Minnelli’s direction make the movie anything but sappy: This is a beautiful, bittersweet imagining of a collectively dreamed past. The setting is St. Louis in the seasons leading up to the 1904 World’s Fair; its promise consumes the entire Smith family until patriarch Alonzo (Leon Ames) suddenly announces that they’re moving to New York. To evoke public, private and inner space, Minnelli varies the depth of the frame for expressive effect, isolating characters within the household’s bustle or embracing them fully into the fold. His emotional palette is keyed to a pair of stunning performances: Judy Garland as the lovestruck daughter Esther, singing “The Boy Next Door” and “The Trolley Song” with a desperate torrent of feeling that’s just this side of neurosis; and Margaret O’Brien as little Tootie, who gives full vent to a range of childhood terrors. These fears culminate in the most disconsolate Yuletide song ever: “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” sung by Esther to Tootie, one breaking heart to another. It all ends happily, of course, but with the lingering poignance of a snapshot moment frozen in time—which, unbeknownst to the subjects, will eventually yellow and fade. —Jim Ridley (Shows noon and 2:15 p.m. Dec. 8-9 at the Belcourt)
WHAT WOULD JESUS BUY? Although What Would Jesus Buy? was directed by Rob VanAlkemade, it bears the unmistakable imprimatur of its producer, Morgan Spurlock. Much like Spurlock’s Super Size Me, this production is slick, well paced and tremendously entertaining. It follows a group called Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping on a pre-Christmas tour through an endless parade of dreary Midwestern malls. According to his press bio, Reverend Billy is “an officiant of the rites of marriage in New York City, and a lifelong lover of birds of prey.” More to the point, he’s a performance artist riffing on the persona of an evangelical minister in order to drive home to Americans just how in thrall we are to the church of consumerism. Unfortunately, WWJB never pushes past the surface of this shtick to explore the deeper forces behind our impulse to buy. It could use more interviews with the free-trade experts and anti-sweatshop activists, and fewer shots of the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir exhorting Wal-Mart shoppers to, well, stop shopping, no matter what they’re buying and why they need it. —Julia Wallace (Opens Friday at Green Hil
