What a difference two days makes: Less than 48 hours after the launch of Movieline’s “Consider Uggie” crusade , the movement’s Facebook page has acquired 1,100 followers and counting, its honoree has his own Twitter page, and Uggie himself joined trainer Omar Mueller for a campaign stop on E! News. Crazy! And overdue .
When Australian writer-director Julia Leigh’s Sleeping Beauty made its debut at Cannes last May, the responses among critics I talked to veered from bland outrage to vexed boredom. That doesn’t leave a lot of middle ground, and I had to see Sleeping Beauty a second time before I was reasonably sure what I thought about it. I’m still not reasonably sure what I think about it: The picture is clinical in its approach and its technique, yet it leaves so many questions unanswered — it’s straightforward in a vague, maddening way. It’s also strangely, obliquely compelling.