I can’t not give this movie less than 5 hearts anymore – perhaps particularly since I changed my ratings from stars to hearts lol. Even the corny jokes (not to mention gag Bono) worked more on me third time around here and the good here is so good you just can’t help but surrender. It owes a terrific debt to one of my all-time faves, Pink Floyd: The Wall, not just in “Strawberry Fields” as mentioned below but also the whole “I Want You” scene is pretty much “Another Brick in the Wall”; and though Julie Taymor can’t (yet) hope to entirely compete with Alan Parker, it’s certainly a worthy comparison.

It’s all about the freedom the movie has – leaping from a Bono cameo to Eddie Izzard pretty much sums it up (incidentally, as I commented while watching it this time with my sister, it’s not so much the mere appearance and singing from Bono that wows here; it’s when he speaks following the song when you truly realise how it’s perhaps the most selfless thing he’s ever done); from a gorgeously scored climax intercutting Vietnam and Colombia University to the completely random but equally beautiful women in the sea over the eponymous song sequence. It’s a movie that’s undeniably “all over the place” and yet you can’t quite fathom how it could be any other way. I’ve watched it more now than any other film of the past year, and that stat will only increase as time goes on, so the watchability factor definitely comes into play in the rating too. And if I haven’t said enough about how incredible Evan Rachel Wood is, then mark my words I’ll have plenty more to add in the future, she blows my mind, nevermind every movie or scene I see her in, every frame.

January 10th, 2008:

I really need to start half stars here, I think, lol. That I couldn’t resist watching this again so soon should speak well of the movie in itself. When it’s good, like in “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” and “Strawberry Fields” as mentioned below, or the exploding newspaper over the instrumental climax to “Day in the Life” – not to mention just about every second Evan Rachel Wood occupies the screen – it’s great. When it’s bad, though – and I’d be amazed if even the most ardent of fans don’t feel this during at least some portion of the movie, though I’d personally cut half an hour or more – it’s even worse than I thought on the first viewing. I still really don’t know what to make of the rollercoaster of love and hate this movie takes me on. I’m often tempted to use the phrase “flawed masterpiece” but more often than not I ultimately fall down on one side or the other … but here … I really don’t think that phrase has ever applied more to a movie. I think I’ll be coming back to this many more times.

7th January, 2008:

Ah Julie Taymor First, this movie tackles the whole High School Musical thing into the dirt in just one 2-3 minute scene (“I Wanna Hold Your Hand”). There follow a plethora of standalone interpretations of Beatles songs set loosely to a little love story (rather than the other way around as some plot summaries will tell you :P) but I’m not sure it ever comes together in quite the way it should and for a Julie Taymor movie, no matter what anyone tells you, it’s really not that startlingly visual. Okay, no, it comes close to Pink Floyd’s The Wall during “Strawberry Fields” but that’s all I’ll give it; let’s face it, for the title track alone she had the Rufus Wainwright/Dakota Fanning and Fiona Apple/Paul Thomas Anderson music videos to contend with.

It’s just so about the Beatles songs; even the ones that aren’t sung come in in lines like, “She came in through the bathroom window!” and “when I’m sixty-four …” ... by the time a character called Dr. Robert walks in, you’ve practically cringed yourself inside out so it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m quite the pushover sometimes, so by the time it came to the two girls singing “love, love, love” to a couple of police officers on a rooftop as the hero (Jude) sings out for his Lucy (yeh), I can’t deny I was emotionally armless and I for one will be returning to this again one day, just to see if I was just another sucker or if there’s actually something here.

Watch if you can’t get enough of Beatles covers, pretty people and good lipsync; but don’t expect a whole lot more. For the visuals, I’d personally sooner watch Julie Taymor’s Titus again; for the music, I’ll keep praying Cirque du Soleil will tour their “Love” show or at least produce a DVD, in the meantime I recommend I Am Sam. Though it has its moments, this movie is in places so cheesy and simplistic in the worst way. I think it could’ve been much much more.

“They said we’re gonna fit right in over there. She said they’re kids and dreamers. They’re kids and dreamers!”

This is immediately cuter than expected – like, part of me was avoiding it for fear of just being jealous of the guy involved lol, like, come on, Drew is mine!!!! lol But as soon as the movie begins, you get a sense of the guy and his attitude, the silliness and whatnot, and it’s actually no surprise that his mission was ultimately successful (I’m sure that’s not too much of a spoiler: she’s in the movie; it’s the journey that’s the fun part) because – as far as I know, at least, and as someone even says on the street to him early on – he’s just exactly the kind of guy she’s always saying she looks for … he’s singing “Cool Rider” from Grease 2 at the end to psych himself up for the meeting lol, what more do you need?!

Basically, if you’ve ever had a celebrity crush – better still if you’ve taken that crush to levels bordering on obsession and psychosis, or if you’ve done the whole stage door or premiere thing or whatever (especially if you froze up to some degree while doing it lol) – the movie’s for you, it totally tackles that whole thing of the freaky way we sometimes think of ourselves as close to famous people etc. It kind of falls apart in some places when you see how many connections he has anyway (like, the fact he lives in L.A. makes it less impressive an endeavor to begin with – maybe I should do “My Date With Dakota” in a few years lol. THAT would be a challenge KIDDING! sorta …), the weird lookalike sequence, and the fake pass moment – but overall, it’s as sweet as any Drew movie I’ve seen … in fact, it’s probably sweeter in its own way than some of the more “official” productions. It’s just unbelievably sweet. The fact that for most of its duration it’s a Drew movie with no Drew yet I still was hooked on the screen speaks volumes; the fifth heart in the rating here is for the conversation with Drew at the end. If you’re not a big fan of Drew and all she stands for, you mightn’t get as much out of the movie as I did; but I’m sure you won’t be totally let down.

I don’t think I’ll have seen this since I was about 16 so maybe it makes sense just how much of it felt new to me this time around, not to mention how I couldn’t have hoped to understand it that first time watching. All I really recalled, and even that only partially, was the last 20 minutes or so, the “last temptation” itself – when the movie really deviates and, I guess, causes offense to some. But while this movie even opens with a scroll disclaiming any direct association with the Gospels (and, you’ve gotta give it kudos, warning that it will be more a discussion than a storytelling session), it’s pretty amazing how faithful it is to the big story, right down to details like the guard’s ear in Gethsemene, stuff that’s cut out of other retellings so often that I’d forgotten it entirely since whatever Sunday school type affair taught it to me lol Take that last temptation as a dream sequence, which is I think a perfectly valid interpretation of it, and I really don’t see the offense at all.

For a late Eighties production, it’s gotta be said up front, the production values are beyond astounding. One of the things that struck me most about it this time around is how for some unknown reason it never once feels like by rights it should – that is, not to sound condescending or anything, but, like a bunch of Americans doing the Crucifixion story, lol. It almost wouldn’t have felt out of place if Robert De Niro had shown up in a key role here. There’s just something about the way Scorsese pulls it all together, Peter Gabriel’s score over the top, I don’t know. I don’t know if the fact that even David Bowie makes a better Pontius Pilate here than James Nesbitt in the recent BBC production is indicative of just how awful that Beeb casting was (like we need more proof – I was thinking just this afternoon how the only way they could possibly have made their production original would be to finally have a black Jesus …) or again of how surprisingly well this production falls together considering the elements.

At the center of that “bunch of Americans” is Willem Dafoe, and I think in him I may have found my personal favourite movie Jesus. I believe him, to a frightening extent. I’ve always said that I’m more a fan of the musical versions of this story, but this version quite literally overwhelmed me at times. It’s the way in which it brings logic to the table with almost insane calculation – he was a carpenter, we’ve heard, but this suggests he may have built the very crosses he and his fellow Jews were crucified on; when he preaches to a crowd, this version gives him dissenters, not unanimous adulation; when he carries the cross, it’s only part of the cross, when he’s crucified, he’s bone naked; even when it comes to those last ethereal 20 minutes or so, the logic applied takes my breath away … that God would kill Mary, that Saul/Paul would invent the Jesus we know of even if he had fallen to that last temptation. This production has the kind of issues behind it that all religious movies should have – it’s the questioning we all have for it all. It shows what, perhaps, Jesus really sacrificed up there on the cross.

I know that last sentence makes me sound way too much like the kind of religious nut I can’t stand; the weird thing of all this is that I don’t consider myself religious in the slightest – like Jesus says here, “God is not an Israelite!” and too many people claim him for themselves, and that’s my problem so I just say there’s a Higher Power and that’s that, you don’t need to run around doing anything for it, just know that it’s there and try to work in its favour etc. That said, and I think I’ve said it before and will say it again, when the Jesus stories are done well, I can really get involved with it all. When he speaks of love here, for instance, I get it. When the people run from him to kill the people he has said are wrong and he yells after them, “Not death! I said love!” I get it. It really makes me wonder if we’re reaching a similar point now when so few people are willing to love in lieu of cynicism and suspicion. Is anyone gonna stand up at the 11th hour and risk making an ass of themselves to save us? It’s a movie I know that now it’s really in me – I almost don’t even count that first viewing as a teenager as really seeing it – is going to haunt me as long as my brain’s ticking.

Well, in answer to the question posed below, yes, it’s the original and best. I’m sure I must’ve reviewed this since 2004, but it must’ve gone missing so I apologise if I repeat myself (and if this sounds rushed, then it’s because the original version of this got lost in a disconnect fiasco).

I was pleased looking at the IMDb page for the movie to find that it won a fistful of technical Oscars in 2000 – which is even cooler when you remember that the movie actually came out pretty early in ‘99. It came practically out of nowhere, was never really talked about as so many mega-budget event movies are, and yet, almost 10 years on (which means I’ll be watching it again next year for sure – scary though!) it still blows my mind, if anything, more with every viewing. I don’t think I’d ever appreciated the complexity of the whole rooftop helicopter sequence as much as I did this time around.

And what this installment of the trilogy has over the sequels is something that kind of makes me loathe to even call it a trilogy anymore, and that’s its self-contained quality. As you’ll read elsewhere, I have a soft spot for the sequels, but the fact will always remain that they were fairly unnecessary in comparison to this. Compared to the other two installments, particularly Revolutions, this one feels much more written and considered, there’s humour, setpieces and ideas wall-to-wall and it literally never goes flat. And say what you will about Keanu Reeves … can you really imagine anyone else in the part?

April 14th, 2004:

The original and best? Or the best because it’s original? I think I’ve seen this one too many times compared to the sequels so it’s still impossible for me to judge. All I can say for sure is, it’s a completely different movie for where the triology ended up.

I remember when I saw it first, I saw it because I was a huge fan of the Wachowski’s Bound and wanted to see more clever camerawork like the gun/arm mounted camera moment and more great images like Joe Pantoliano’s blood spraying into white paint in slo-mo. The Matrix delivered, but not quite enough, and it never seemed anywhere near to me as good as Bound.

It is unique and self-contained and for many will continue to be the best by far in the whole Matrix Trilogy. For me, the jury’s definitely still out as I rewatch and rewatch the whole thing over and over, because I find it all increasingly intriguing – not just the movies themselves, but everyone’s reactions to where it went.

This movie is basically a giant nauseous leap into the cesspool that was the burgeoning media-driven culture of the Nineties that has by no means yet been flushed away. I watched the “Chaos Rising” mini-doc on the DVD for the umpteenth time after this viewing and in it Oliver Stone says how it’s the product of 2 years in which he was simply “disgusted” by what was happening in the world and really, that’s the best summation of the movie that you could ask for. It’s a movie that just boils with bile at a world that is, it’s so often hard to deny, going to hell. Even 14 years on it still feels perfectly relevant, not least because there are still hoards of people who think of it as just a piece of ultraviolent cinema.

The tone of that first “I Love Mallory” sitcom flashback still astonishes me – it feels so much like any sitcom, but the presence of Woody Harrelsson and Rodney Dangerfield, almost comedy icons in themselves, yet with those evil looks in their eyes, the words coming out of their mouths and the crucial intercutting with the “real” black and white stuff like Dangerfield fondling Juliette Lewis’ butt, it’s just simultaneously horrible yet fascinating to have the world laid bare in such a way.

It’s photographed by Robert Richardson. Whenever I see his name on a movie now it’s this movie that immediately springs to mind and the one I most associate with him – the horses, wolves, dust, clouds, and of course, the multiple film stocks … never used as a gimmick, always perfectly relevant to the scene in question.

On top of all this is Trent Reznor’s soundtrack. I still remember the day when my family were on the proper cliché family holiday in Orlando in 1997 and we went to the Florida Mall and my eyes were peeled specifically for this movie and The Exorcist on VHS (they still hadn’t been released here yet – I’m sure Clockwork Orange, Straw Dogs, Texas Chain Saw, Pretty Baby and even Kubrick’s Lolita were in the back of my mind too though), yet my heart first leapt on finding the mere soundtrack to the movie, and I’ll never forget the guy at the counter who sold it to me ‘cos it was like one of those first times a random adult (sue me, I personally feel blessed that I still felt like a kid at 17 lol) had spoken to me like I was just a regular person, and he said something along the lines of, “This CD rocks, I have it in my car all the time, it’s just like watching the movie,” which of course I didn’t know what he meant at the time because I hadn’t seen the movie yet, but it’s absolutely true, that soundtrack is one of the greatest of all time – both standalone and in the context of the movie, from the 50s “Back in Baby’s Arms” through Bob Dylan’s “You Belong to Me” right up to Reznor’s own “Burn” and “Something I Can Never Have”, the dialogue frequently cut into it almost rhythmically, my favourite of those moments being the Nixon, “As I leave,” during the Leonard Cohen “Waiting for a Miracle” opening (“There are lots of invitations …” “As I leave …”).

It’s just a brilliant, blistering assault that really defies any attempt to summarise as I’d like to do here. But I would just say, I should probably watch it more as the very world it portrays disgusts me more as time goes by. Those closing moments, the flicking between the channels, really caught me off guard this time around and they’re about the most crushing moments in a whole 2 hours of horrific acts. That this was so long before the rolling news that covered things like 9/11 (which Stone himself arguably overly sanitized in World Trade Center) is nothing short of a terrifying marvel.

Can’t help but mention Kermode yet again on this movie, but what can say, his review was probably his best since whenever it was he last spoke at length on The Exorcist, lol. Three times really is the charm on this movie, and I’m glad I didn’t feel compelled to try and write anything on the second viewing on Oscar day.

The second or third time is the time you’ll watch this movie and actually start to realise how packed with potential interpretations it is. There’s the look between Day-Lewis and his son after first encountering Paul Dano’s Eli. The first time I saw this look, I hadn’t really cottoned on to the fact that it was a separate character to Paul at the start (that realisation alone could save you a whole viewing, so pay attention). This time I saw it entirely from Day-Lewis’ side; in relation to his powerful stance on family matters; he simply realises how much Eli looks like his brother … something he’ll never see in his son, just as later when duped by an imposter, it’s the kind of thing that crushes the seemingly uncrushable Daniel Plainview. Well, that and religion. Who knows what I’ll see in that look the next time I see it.

There’s the sweeping shot of the barebones railroad town following the scene with Paul, that beautifully minimal Jonny Greenwood loop playing over as the camera pans from an empty railroad, past the empty platform, all the while following Plainview’s little motorcar that seemingly appears out of nowhere, completely selling us the space in which the rest of the movie will play out.

Someone criticised me in my review of Sunshine for calling Danny Boyle the new Kubrick. Though I still stand by that statement in terms of the quality of that movie, repeat viewing notwithstanding – and even though apparently the movie Paul Thomas Anderson watched most during the creation of this marvel was actually a John Huston movie, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre – I have to say, if it’d been shown to me at random without credits, I could have been fooled more easily into believing this was somehow Kubrick’s lost last masterpiece before believing it was made by the Paul Thomas Anderson that made Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and Punch-Drunk Love. Just the 2001-like opening, that oil-slicked rod completely reminding me of the monolith with all the eerie primal meanderings that preceed it, and the symmetrical, theatrical finale in the bowling alley, nevermind what falls in between. It’s pure perfection. But watch it 3 times – the first time with as little interruption as humanly or even inhumanly possible.

Addendum: I almost forgot the one thing I really wanted to say in this review what with my mood of late. I noticed reading the old review how even I got fooled into following the herd and describing this as a very masculine movie below, for which I can only apologise. Do not assume that because it’s mainly populated by penis-bearers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that this means it’s necessarily a “man’s movie”. As far as I understood it this time around, I can’t imagine a more anti-male film. It’s all about the destructive nature of greed, self-righteousness, pride … that is, of being that horrendous stereotype associated with the Y chromosome. Even I won’t deny the unfortunate truth of gender stereotypes in history ... I only ask that people don’t let them influence their expectations of the future. I guess if you view everything in terms of sex and gender you won’t be able to help seeing it so; but you’d do a lot better to view it simply as cinema that’s true to its world. (Addendum addendum?: I hope she doesn’t mind me mentioning it if she reads this but I was really buoyed by my sister saying she never once considered the lack of female characters in the movie.)

February 19th 2008:

I was lucky enough to (through no effort on my part, honest, it just kinda happened; I’m not that much of a nut lol) pretty much follow Mark Kermode’s advice on how to watch this movie verbatim – that is, almost empty cinema (about 3 other people in there with me I think, lol), decent sized screen, central seat (five rows back – can’t believe I used to obsessively want to be as close to the screen as possible, it’s a wonder I didn’t break my neck) ... and believe me, I’m glad I saw it like this. It does demand, at the least, your full attention. Usually I’d shun such advice – I always say a great film will grab my attention despite the attention I give it, the screen size, etc – but for Paul Thomas Anderson following his last hat trick of masterpieces? I’ll pretty much do anything.

I’ve said a few times since the nominations that this would probably be the film I ended up rooting for at the Oscars. That this film makes No Country for Old Men look positively mainstream pretty much ends any real hope I had that it had a chance, lol – I’m actually inclined now to think it’ll be Juno or Clayton that takes the gold, so similar and difficult are this troublesome pair.

This film and No Country for Old Men (Assassination of Jesse James perhaps completing the threefer) are like a characteristically perverse inversion of the old “waiting for a bus” thing – you’re waiting around for hours and then three show up at once. I don’t think anyone was particularly “waiting around for” these movies last year – except in that vague, ongoing way we’re always wanting something to blow us away and change the way we look at film. Yet show up they did anyway, and demanded to be seen. I’d love to know if the film makers concerned were aware that what they were doing wasn’t so unique – the whole thing’s like a mini New Wave to me.

If you noticed I’m babbling, it’s ‘cos I know it will take another viewing for me to feel like I know what I’m talking about on this one – it was churning around in my mind and slotting itself together even as I was walking home, and I think there are still a few things I surely missed. What I can say is, from the moment Daniel Day Lewis’ pickaxe first thwacks into that rock, it’s like Paul Thomas Anderson was doing the same thing to my skull – it’s really a movie that gets inside your skin … in fact, more than that, in this case you almost get inside its skin. And I guess I do now understand why this movie has unfortunately been seemingly reduced to nothing but Day Lewis’ performance in critics’ and awards circles. You come away from the movie almost feeling like some of him has rubbed off on you in some strange cinematic transference. He’s almost the ultimate anti-hero: almost in that by the time the movie’s over, though you know exactly why he did the things he did, you’d really be forgiven for not having a shred of forgiveness for him.

But it’s not just Day Lewis’ movie. Paul Dano, Dillon Freasier and all the supporting cast are perfect; Jonny Greenwood’s score, like Nick Cave’s for Jesse James in fact, is no iPod material in its dissonance but perfect support for Anderson’s imagery (No Country of course had no music so there’s another thing that ties these films together), and the sound ... I thought No Country’s sound was good, but, again that pickaxe, just wow … if it wins any Oscar outside of Day Lewis, and I hope it does, then I hope at least it’s that one.

Like I said, it’s gonna take at least another viewing for me to truly put it all together – and I’ve never been more excited about seeing a film a second time in my life … could even be the first time I see a movie more than once on the big screen in a long time if my multiplex still has it next week. BTW I can also understand how some people will absolutely hate the movie – as a PTA fan even I felt twinges of disappoint over how it lacks the slickness particularly of Boogie Nights and Magnolia. Kermode compared it most to Punch-Drunk Love and I’d agree – the scene around the son’s accident, score and all, reminded me completely of that movie’s most chaotic moments, particularly in the music department. It’s still a very different Paul Thomas Anderson though – I’d almost not even know it was his movie if I weren’t told … a few themes carry through, but visually it’s much grittier. It’s incredibly, almost repulsively masculine, too – which, if you know me, make the fact that (I think – that 5th heart is still pending) I love it even more of a testament to how good this film is.

“Take this sinking boat and point it home, we’ve still got time …”

Spoiler Warning I guess – not that you could possibly spoil this one.

Y’know, call me dumb just one more time but even at the Oscars after seeing the movie 3 times, I didn’t fully listen to that lyric until now. As the last couple of reviews might’ve shown, I’m still bobbing up and down a little off the ripples left by the wave of depression Enchanted left me with, and I couldn’t help but notice that this movie ends quite the same way as that one with the “lovers” at the outset not ending up together; but, I don’t know, here I bought it with tears in my eyes, perhaps because I believed they made the right choice … perhaps because I believed they knew there was still some work ahead … perhaps because in the end, it’s a matter of consistency, and this movie is 100% so.

While so many things now tell you, “if it’s f*cked, move on or replace it,” this movie presents us with a character who brings a lowly hoover for a busker to fix rather than simply buy a new one because all she can even afford to give him for his songs is 10 cents. It simply asks people to make an effort, all the while telling the inspiring story of someone far too old by society’s standards to be still living with his pa finally taking the steps to making a name for himself as a singer-songwriter in tandem with fixing an old and clearly dear relationship.

Again I find myself commenting on the thing I should find annoying about this movie that proves the movie’s brilliance by the sheer fact that it doesn’t annoy me. There’s a whole sequence that basically shows how everyone is trying to be a musician; from the trying to get the loan and the bank guy breaking into song, cutting to the street and a random busker drumming, to the party where it’s a requirement that you sing. I hate this kind of thing normally not because it’s false – on the contrary, it’s the truest and mostly most beautiful thing there is – but it’s very demoralising to anyone (in which case I guess, lol, everyone) wanting to get their songs heard. But like I say, it’s amazing that this really never gets to me like I’d think it would in this one.

Then there are the peripheral characters. The man in the clothes shop telling Guy, “You’re gorgeous,” the aforementioned bank guy, and my god, the studio guy – that in itself is the series of shots I’d personally say define this movie, him going from “these bunch of f*ckin …” to the total childlike enthusiasm at the mixing desk when he realises how good they are … it’s just an astonishing few pieces of film.

I’m just amazed by how much more I got out of this movie this viewing after seeing it at least 3 times already … you get this initial feeling like it’s that typical variety of indie movie where they just point the camera at two people and improvise or something, in this case perhaps buoyed by the quality of the songs … but, simply that whole thing about the hoover, I’d just never realised the significance of it as it compares to the big picture, the whole idea of fixing something that, in general, in today’s world, is more often just slung out for a new model, it just really shows how beautifully written and considered it is. It’s such an important message for the world right now.

December 3rd, 2007:

I’m slightly annoyed I didn’t get to see this a lot earlier than I ultimately have, because as soon as it began I realised that no matter what it did, it would be a miracle if it lived up to the expectations I’ve built up for it over the months and months of hype and general gushing of those who had seen it. It sounded perfect – in a nutshell, as a more recent review I read put it, it’s the Irish, musical, Before Sunset. The songs are beautiful even if, like me, you’ve heard them dozens of times before the movie begins.

For almost the whole first 85 minutes, I had that feeling. It’s not living up to what I psyched myself into expecting, etc, all the while cursing the destructive power of hype. “It’s good,” I thought – the music’s great of course, the story well-paced, the performances perfect – “but it’s not overwhelming me.”

But it’s all in the ending. When it all comes together, in at most 3 little shots. And it was literally like one second I was dry and the next my face was streaked with tears, and they didn’t stop till the last credit rolled off the screen. This movie is just too beautiful for words.

“We take to the breeze! We go as we please!”

Yeh … in that older review I had a severe case of the rambles, hehe. But I think I know what I was saying. I finally just actually got this on DVD since it came down to the price I was willing to pay for it since I thought it didn’t have too many extras on it, but actually they’re just not well-detailed on the packaging. There are actually two commentaries (not listened to yet) and almost an hour of other behind-the-scenes stuff featuring lots and lots of Dakota being her incredible self I would totally have paid double what I ultimately paid had I known this (yes I could easily have found out online; I just didn’t :P)

As to the movie – as below, there are parts that I still find unnecessary … like just watching the behind-the-scenes stuff beforehand, I was cringing because I’d forgotten all the little crowd-pleasing modernisations and stuff. I don’t broadly object to such a thing, don’t get me wrong; but y’know, there’s just a right and a wrong way to do it, and here it every so often comes across as purely crowd-pleasing and nothing more (not to say, I’ve gotta admit, that it didn’t even please me more on this viewing than the last …).

But most of my objections to the movie that first time really only stemmed from the fact it was the first time – because I really didn’t know the full story. Yeh, sue me, I’ve still not read the book even despite buying the tie-in edition with beautiful Dakota on the cover over a year ago lol. Anyway, I had none of my problems with Dakota’s portrayal of Fern this time around. Like I said before, I’d just assumed the character was younger – like physically and mentally – when I first heard of the story.

I guess it’s also a mark of how good the movie is – and I’m amazed I only just noticed this, I’m guessing it’s ‘cos whenever Dakota’s concerned I tend to put myself squarely in her shoes without a second thought – that I don’t mind the multitude of stereotypical clumsy, dumb, or generally boyish males that are in the story; at least, that’s the way it’s done here. I guess this also breezes past me because of the 50s Americana look and feel of the whole thing that if anything makes it more ‘acceptable’. For what it’s worth from someone like me, I think the whole gender thing, even like Fern’s slight tomboyishness developing into a full-fledged desire to wear the yellow dress and be with boys, is perfectly beautiful here.

I guess one thing I would say – and I’m about to babble about innocence again so be warned – is about the U certificate in the UK. I was aware I was taking a risk in watching this while still pretty wracked by the depression Enchanted left me with, ‘cos the whole “Fern growing up” thread will always upset me more than anything in the movie: not, I stress, in the same way as Enchanted did … I find the whole process of little girls growing up just as beautiful as I find it sad; but, like, I don’t know, I don’t know how to finish that thought but to say the sadness kind of always prevails for me.

Anyway, my mum commented during the movie about the “mild language” that’s referred to in the only comment on the BBFC’s official info on the movie. But that doesn’t bother me, ‘cos it’s truly mild, so mild I wouldn’t even have noticed if it weren’t pointed out. What bothers me is: U is meant to mean “anybody over 4” – and if I had a very young child and took them to see this (okay, I know I should’ve read the book or whatever beforehand but still – it’s what ‘U’ means that I’m talking about), I’d be pretty freaked by simply the father pulling out the axe so early in the movie, and the constant referral to what we do to pigs and other animals, not to mention the frank talk of death, throughout the movie.

I know: it’s the truth, and I know, they’re “just animals”. And I know some people would like if we just forgot about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and things like that and admitted that our line between imaginary creations and lies is pretty disturbing (something touched on beautifully, of course, by the movie Galaxy Quest) and that we should just confront our babies with reality from the off for the better – I get that argument, I promise. But I really don’t think there’s anything wrong with shielding very young children from this kind of thing. Innocence, or even its simple cousin naivety – believing in a stupid thing like Santa or just plain having a bacon sandwich without thinking of where it came from and just of how delicious it is – is something beautiful even grownups are capable of enjoying from time to time. You can turn off the bullsh*t and be a kid again; but, and this is the important part, only if you were one once. It’s a minor thing in this movie, and what I say here might’ve been better said in my already overlong review of Enchanted, which crosses the line for me a lot worse than this one. I guess to me it’s more a matter of consistency than anything else. Like I said, it’s a beautiful movie – nowhere near as depressing as Enchanted – but I would really think twice before letting very young children watch it … Babe is a safer bet.

January 24th 2007:

SPOILERS HEREIN, not to mention rambling, plus if I’ve read the book I don’t remember it so if I say anything stupid like blaming/crediting the movie for/with something that’s in the book, don’t yell at me, I’ll correct it next time around. In other words, don’t read this if you aren’t forgiving, I’d half the mind to save this until I’d read the book and seen the movie a second time but I’ve been doing pretty good writing about every movie I’ve seen recently and I don’t want to break the flow.

I wanted to love this so much, and honestly not just because of Dakota Fanning, about whom I’ve said more than enough elsewhere. Though I haven’t read the book (or don’t remember it, which seems unlikely), I was familiar with the story, and there was just something about that story being given the Walden Media treatment, now, with Dakota, with Danny Elfman music, just, everything … I was just really excited to see this movie – honestly, over the past few months I actually began to think it might be even another Casper for me … but as the first 20 minutes went by, my heart just sank and sank.

First it was Dakota. As much as I love her – even after what I’ll say later – I still have to say, she’s too old for this role, not just in mind as she always has been, but now in body too, she just really does not look right. She delivers her lines in that soulful old soul way that’s served her infallibly in the past but is just not right in this storybook world, and it is a storybook world, moreso than I expected, and that’s another thing it took me too long to adjust to. Then the animals spoke, and over a decade since Babe, I wonder, how have the visual effects gotten worse? Does Charlotte really need to have such a stupidly obvious face?

BUT, and that BUT couldn’t be bigger, makes me wish I had the guts to podcast so I could do a microphone popping Mark Kermode-ish plosive, LOL – SOMEHOW, and I can only put it down to the strength of the story, it eventually all falls into place. Fern is an older character than I initially thought – and though I still think Dakota is not right for this movie, I’ll admit, the “oh dear, she’s with a boy” scenes work amazingly well, really giving (to me, at least) the heartbreaky feeling dads probably get everyday, that “she’s not a little girl anymore,”-ness and most heartbreakingly when you realise, and it’s done so subtly, that like most of the baby spiders at the end, she too will leave Wilbur behind, not unlike Emily left Jessie in Toy Story 2 (stupid comparison, but I’ll admit, I’m really reaching for ways to put my feelings on this movie into words, lol), emphasising even more how important his true friends in the barn will be, and how it’s like the spiders who stick around that count, not that those just passing through can’t be as important. God, I hate when a kids’ movie makes me feel like I should’ve learned something when I was like 6 lol.

And then there’s Julia Roberts. If the following sounds stupid to you you can just leave, lol. I don’t like Julia Roberts, in fact on bad days I’d make a rare use of the word hate. Almost all her movies annoy me in some way or another. But second only to Hook (wow, don’t read that review, it must’ve been a bad day), this is my all-time favourite performance of hers. Her voice at the end as Charlotte is dying immediately opens the tear ducts, it’s just some of the most incredible voice work I’ve ever heard.

I don’t know if I’m overrating this with 4 stars … I don’t think I can be when there were those 20 minutes where I really began to hate it and it still managed to pull me back as hard as it did. When it comes to animal/little girl movies, give me Fly Away Home, give me Because of Winn-Dixie, heck give me Dakota in Dreamer, or the Velvet movies, long before I come to this. I’ve already said in at least one of those reviews how much I love this combo anyway, so obviously I’m biased here to begin with. But I have a feeling this one will grow on me with extra viewings. All the subtle stuff with Fern “growing up” really touched me and was the last thing I was expecting in this movie. Time will really have to tell on this one. I’ll definitely be buying the DVD.