This really deserves bonus points for its shelf-life. 13 years on and god knows how many times that I’ve watched it, it is always a surprise and it’s always fresh somehow. Like Casper, which was released the same year, the visual effects still strike me as phenomenal over a decade on, not just in their execution but also the concepts.

But like any movie that I’ll watch over and over like this (though I’ll admit, it’s actually been a long time since I last watched this from start to finish), there’s something much bigger to sink one’s teeth into here, and in fact that thing hit me more this time than it ever has before. Scratch that – it definitely hit me this way before, but it was only this time that I really understood why. I think I only realised this time that Jonathan Hyde plays both Alan’s father and the hunter in the game. Of course, that’s the key to this whole message that has struck me all along. I love when Alan and Peter are walking down the street and Peter starts crying to which Alan’s response is to tell him, “chin up, act like a man,” etc, at which he halts himself, physically on the sidewalk, and says, “I’m sorry – 26 years in the deep dark jungle and I still turned into my father.” It’s perfect.

All this hangs around the ethereal moment at the end when Alan and Sarah meet Peter and Judy again in the “fixed” timeline. That “you’ll never know”-ness about that scene absolutely kills me; for a family movie like this, it’s almost mindblowingly deep. And all of this is constantly undercut by the humour which, again, makes me laugh just as loud now as it did when I was a teenager. The axe scene, the cop’s car being taken away by the plant (“Take it!”) and even in that goosebumpy final meeting, Bonnie Hunt and Robin Williams screaming, “No!” in unison at the mention of Peter and Judy’s parents’ ski trip, lol. It’s an insanely special experience.

“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.

“You’re wrong if you think the joy of life comes principally from human relationships.”

Well, 2007 just keeps getting better and better. As this began my first thought was basically whoops watching it so soon after Forbush ... but while there’s certainly a similarity in this story of man finding himself and humanity in nature, this has plenty more to warrant the extra hour of running time. It ends with less hope than Forbush, but somewhere in the midst of it is an abundance of the stuff.

I’d kind of convinced myself that it would be another of those 2007 movies to have a tremendous central conceit but one that’s simply not backed up enough by the unexpected stuff that surrounds it. It could easily have been exactly what it is but over 2 and a half hours got tired. But, and I don’t know what it is – I’d say Eddie Vedder’s songs, but they’re actually fairly sparse and I’d heard them before; I’d say Emile Hirsch’s performance but it’s really a mix of fresh-faced Leo DiCaprio-ness and emaciated Christian Bale that we’ve seen plenty of before (not to say it’s still not utterly compelling). I think more than likely it’s the whole combination – there simply isn’t a false note here. William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden are absolutely heartbreaking as the parents; Jena Malone about as perfectly cast as the almost psychically close sister as Maggie Gyllenhaal and Zooey Deschanel were in Donnie Darko and Almost Famous, her voiceover contributing to the constant reassessment of ideas this movie is. This really had me hooked from start to finish. It never stops clarifying and questioning its message. I haven’t read the book so I can only comment on Sean Penn’s screenplay and say his intelligence shines through with none of his occasionally grating self-righteousness. The dialogue is just about constant poetry, particularly in Alex/Chris and his sister’s voiceovers. I definitely picked the right movie to watch on my birthday.

Ah! I only just spotted on the IMDb that this actually came from a novel by Anthony Schaffer which explains a lot … had I known this I might’ve watched it even sooner than I have knowing it features Hayley Mills, albeit in a role so small her opening credit bizarrely reads, “Guest starring …” lol. But hers is one of those roles that, though small in screentime, is felt overwhelmingly at all times. She’s as beautiful a presence here as she has been anywhere – I think for me it all really clicks when it cuts back to her in Forbush’s last monologue, about all living creatures relying in some way or other on others, even (and there it cuts to Mills back at home) humans. It’s such a great moment, her face just sells what could easily be quite a corny message.

Much of the film is footage of the penguins themselves and there’s a sense in which it’s almost part-documentary, the story being fairly thin on the ground and really just being this portrait of man, and quelle man in John Hurt’s performance – Forbush being the kind of guy who won’t go to Antarctica without a few cases of Krug champagne and other fineries, declaring in a radio call that the electric blanket is the last thing he’s missing in the bed department, lol. It’s an amazing performance that goes from surprisingly young and feisty for Hurt through to something bordering on madness and finally despair only to come back full circle, completely changed; the last shot of Hurt returning to Mills is so simple but at the same time absolutely beautiful. It’s definitely a movie I’ll come back to.

If someone had told me this had been “Josie and the Pussycatzed up” on its way to the screen, I might’ve got overly excited. I was pretty excited to see a Chipmunks movie anyway, but slipping in a little music industry satire too? How could it fail?

Well, it turns out the brilliant Josie did just about all you can do with that without needing a repeat, and when it comes to the Chipmunks … I’d really prefer it were kept a little more cute and traditional.

I think it was of this Mark Kermode said, “it’s not quite Garfield ...” while I’d say, that’s just about exactly the level it’s at. It has its moments, at 90 minutes it’s not worth complaining about, but really, I’d sooner get some nostalgia and watch the old TV show and get the satire from Josie. That said, if a sequel means Chipettes? Well I’m so there, lol One thing’s for sure, the look of the chipmunks is the least of this movie’s problems … I know a lot of people nearly died when the teaser poster was unveiled but I really don’t see the problem … Theodore in particular is adorable, I want one! And they each have distinctive personalities to the point where you know which is which long before they don the colour-coded sweaters. The point where childhoods really start being raped is with the too-modern songs the guys are singing – but even that complaint gets fairly shot down by the closing credits showing all the albums released under the Chipmunks name over the decades … they have always changed with the times. There’s really nothing wrong with this movie, it’s really just a matter of how well you take it.

One thing I hadn’t bargained on was the major Christmas theme running through the movie. Of course, the Chipmunks’ Christmas album is one of their most popular recordings so I should’ve known. Still, at least I slipped it in before January was out … and it gives me a good excuse to watch it again since at that time of year I’ll pretty much watch anything

Now if nothing else, at least this one is a little Christmassy. It doesn’t get much more cutesy than hiding cute little dawgies from the mean man It’s about as by the numbers as the other Christmas movies I’ve watched so far this year, but I don’t know, this one just appealed to me more. It has a really nice score that hints at tons of carols and songs etc, and there’s something about even the worst Depression era movies that always manages to tug at the heart strings. Jordan-Claire Green (omg, one of the groupies in School of Rock, lol, just let out a little yelp at how she’s grown) is perfect in the lead.

The final school play scene is what it’s all about, though – let’s just say this is the second movie I’ve seen this week whose title was not betrayed. And the final hug between Emma and her dad is just beeeeeyootiful This one will definitely go into my yearly Christmas viewing I think. In fact, if I can’t see Eloise again this year, I might just have to get this out again that soon just for the “poodle in a dog house” girl, lol

It must be a good while since I last saw this one ‘cos it kind of felt like watching it for the first time, different things jumping out to a different me than before. The lovebirds swaying in the passenger seat of Melanie’s car; the scene with the postmaster, “You ever handled a boat before … want me to order one?” and the whole procedure of getting her to Bodega Bay. Was Hitchcock ever cheekier than he was here?

Is it still scary at all? I think certainly that final shot is one of the more chilling images in cinema. I’m always unsettled by the colour scheme too – a gorgeous mix of sickly greens and yellows, with blood-red spots of nail polish and lipstick on the women, ornaments in the background, Annie’s mailbox, a child’s cardigan at the school, a plush seat at the diner … and of course, ultimately, limited quantities of actual blood (in one scene, of course, actual blood). And somewhere in the last third, something switches, and the visceral terror of it all does take over – even as you’re still laughing at the sheer B-movie-ness of it all, the assault on the senses is undeniably effective, and Bernard Herrmann’s extraordinary sound design impacts above everything. Combined with the way the characters almost begin to sound like birds themselves towards the end (Hedren most of all – “Cathy! Where’s Cathy?” and that final “Nooooo!” as they attempt to get her out the door to escape), the whole combo is astoundingly primal, and there are psychological levels running through this movie that would take pages to address.

It starts as another of Hitch’s elaborate, playful “Boo!”s … but he really knows how to throw that switch, and on this occasion in particular, it really worked as a scary movie to a shocking extent.

I really wasn’t too excited about this one following the less than engrossing Cars. Even though I love food, I love cooking food, I love watching people cook; it seemed like an even stranger start-point for a Pixar movie than the last one. However, for at least the first hour here, I was completely enraptured by the smoother-than-ever animation, the truly humble voicework; and when the food started being thrown around, in the gorgeously rendered digital Paris? Let’s just say this one certainly has more than its share of moments that more than match the best parts of the Toy Stories, Finding Nemo, and Monsters Inc.

It’s not without its flaws. I didn’t really buy the whole Remy-controlling-Linguine thing, it got a little annoying at times. And I don’t mean like, I have problems suspending my disbelief kind of way – it’s just, alongside the much more subtle, even beautiful, way the unlikely pair first communicate, it’s just that bit too farfetched by comparison. Like Cars, too, it’s certainly a little overlong, and there’s a good slog in the second half that had me squirming a little for something to happen.

But then there’s all the good. I loved the vertically challenged head chef – everytime he thought he’d seen a rat he totally reminded me of Herbert Lom in the Pink Panther movies, and a quick Google search tells me I’m not alone in noticing this. Michael Giacchino’s score is sheer perfection, way better than his work on The Incredibles which I personally wasn’t as overwhelmed by as some.

Overall, this is a step up for Pixar following Cars, that’s for sure. It’s a movie I will certainly watch more than a few times again, and I think the highest praise from me must be that I won’t be too crushed if it beats out Meet the Robinsons at next year’s Oscars for the Best Animated Feature award. I only wish there’d been more of the digital Paris. They could’ve almost just had a virtual camera roaming the streets of that model for 2 hours to Giacchino’s music and I would’ve been in heaven.