Tag Archives: transformation

The Wolfman [2010] The Wolfman [2010] 3 star

July 20th, 2010 by surlaroute

Tags: , , ,

This is another, I feel compelled to begin by saying, that I really wasn’t over anxious to see, merely one of the more interesting looking available to me as we approached midyear and I struggled to reach a grand total of 10 in the 2010 releases I’d seen, therefore enabling me to post a top 10 list at last (additional: lol, like I said, I’m a few weeks behind… said list is coming VERY soon I swear…)

This has a hugely excruciating build to anything of note actually happening, I guess you could call it character development but it really didn’t draw me in or attach me that much to the characters. In retrospect I have to kind of admire even this aspect of the movie. It’s extraordinarily classical in its approach and really at pains to revive the old Universal horror “thing” and to me that’s something, even if it fails, that’s worth gambling on especially in as high profile a release as this.

Finally, Del Toro’s first big transformation occurs, and I have to say that at this stage I feared I was done with the movie for it’s not exactly satisfying. Coupled with the slow faux-romantic buildup, I found myself comparing it unfavourably on Twitter (live-tweeting as I often do while watching movies, it’s a nice notepad and now’s a good time to suggest you follow me there for quicker thoughts on what I’m watching!) to the Twilight movies. Like I said there, it’s almost like someone made a movie for people who hate Twilight who still for whatever reason wanna watch Twilight. (If you think that’s bad, read this … lol).

I have to say, the overriding classicism of the whole thing kinda even helped me through this. There’s a real respectfulness to this movie, with the makeup mirroring the original Karloff Lon Chaney Jr. (update: God, so sorry I left that error in here so long…) monster, the deliberation over the build before the storm, Anthony Hopkins being part his own Helsing of Coppola’s “Dracula”, part Oliver Reed in Curse of the Werewolf, part Orson Welles had he ever played such a role late in life. Even Danny Elfman’s score almost deliberately echoes Wojciech Kilar’s “Dracula” score from 1992. Charlie Chaplin’s daughter even appears in a minor role too, just in case you needed further connection to old Hollywood.

It’s after I’d made all these excuses for the movie that the unexpected occurred… a second, serious transformation, in a lecture theatre filled with skeptical scientists and Del Toro strapped to a chair. There’s literally nowhere to hide and the movie explodes right in front of you. Suddenly it’s as gory and brutal as it needs to be and I found myself loving the slow build even more.

I’ll be honest, I’d still prefer to watch Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer in the sexy, satirical, but still homage-ridden Wolf. I count that movie in a very special horror trilogy with Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula and Kenneth Branagh’s Frankenstein as almost all the adaptation these classic tales need, and while Del Toro’s more classical Wolfman might seem to fit better in that set than Mike Nichols’ modern take, it really doesn’t quite do it for me. I certainly can’t blame these guys for trying, but it’s something I feel could never really have worked any better than so many things that came before.

The Princess and the Frog The Princess and the Frog 5 star

January 19th, 2010 by surlaroute

Tags: , , , , , ,

This is not a movie I expected to wind up liking anywhere near as much as I did as the end credits rolled… those who know me will know I have been a pretty huge fan of Disney in my time and even in those times when I mightn’t have liked the product, I always found them to be a fascinating company, in the way they’re perceived both positive/negatively, in the way they change (or try to change) with the times, and yet the way they seem to (most of the time) retain the spirit of Uncle Walt all the way.

I was one of those who never quite understood the decision to quit 2D animation. Yes: Home on the Range was a disappointment that seemed to confirm whatever reasoning lay behind it, but I was never one of those who considered the likes of Atlantis, Treasure Planet, and most of all Lilo & Stitch (which gets better every year, I swear), to be so much worse than the most average of their earlier output (Robin Hood, *The Great Mouse Detective*… they haven’t always been classics, is what I’m saying); and while it’s true they weren’t living up to the heights of Pixar’s CGI work, or constantly doing their best, they were for the most part easily still better than the output of Dreamworks etc.

That long intro is a way of saying, I was never going to be saying in this review, as so many have, “at last, Disney return to form!” because I honestly don’t think they ever lost it. Mis-steps, yes; total betrayal of their roots? No. The only time I feared they had lost it, as a matter of fact, was much more recently than their closing of the 2D department. If you’ve read my reviews before, you might have seen my semi-rant about Enchanted… another movie which people embraced with strangely deluded arms which seemed to think Disney hadn’t been doing 2D Princess stories for half a century let alone half a decade. I thought the animated sequences in that movie were honestly just embarrassing – and I thought its message, its way of taking the whole “love at first sight and happily ever after” thing of old and treating it “responsibly”, was plain depressing and couldn’t be further removed from what I (and I’m sure many others) turn to Disney for.

I mention that because (finally we can get to the movie!) this was what I really worried for a while would be repeated here. I’ve been following this movie (and the next big 2D from Disney, Rapunzel, about which I at least had the same reservations) since it was announced and especially after Enchanted I really thought my time for loving Disney was coming to an end with the changes I kept hearing. I won’t get started on the other embracing comments about this being Disney “finally” having a black Princess (wow, it only took ‘em 80 years, amazing), despite that princess turning into a bright green amphibian 30 minutes in…

There’s a moment very early here when the heroine’s father informs her, “you can wish on a star but the star can only take you part o’ the way…” The heroine in this scene is still a very young girl. It brought me right back to that scene in Enchanted when the little girl’s father says something similar to her, to which she replies astutely, “I’m only six!” to which he retaliates, “You won’t always be.”

Luckily, The Princess and the Frog has this moment for a better reason.

What this movie does for much of its first hour is similar to what Disney tried to do with Enchanted, this new “responsible” approach, telling kids you can’t just dream your life away or rely on daddy’s credit card to get you out of trouble or, indeed, just wish upon a star which (among many things) are all things Disney have been criticised for doing for decades now. I understand these criticisms and the well-meaning behind them, but I can’t agree with them. Disney is dreaming. In any case: here it isn’t, as was the case in Enchanted, the whole message. The responsible approach to magical thinking – the “having a fall-back plan in case your dreams don’t come true” thing – here is a starting point from which the film makers then work towards delivering the old Disney message in a way that works better than ever in a world where that former message is all too hopelessly prevalent.

I cannot find the words to express the relief I felt and how astonished I was when the final act of this movie came out of nowhere to make all my pent-up frustrations with the run-up to it completely blow away. Like I said, I’m not gonna go all out and say it’s their best since Beauty and the Beast or Lady and the Tramp or god forbid further back (really would you believe there are people on this earth who completely dismiss the 90s resurgence stuff as “not really Disney”?), but it is certainly for me their best since Lilo & Stitch, and there are elements, particularly in the last half hour, that really did take my breath away like nothing from the studio has since Tarzan. I haven’t even talked about the quality of the animation itself or Randy Newman’s songs etc, but it’s probably been covered plenty elsewhere. I really cannot wait to see it again without all the fears I came to it with this time around, and my hopes for Rapunzel are beginning to crawl their way back too a pretty frenzied peak.

Troll 2 Troll 21 star

March 3rd, 2009 by surlaroute

Tags: , , ,

So, apparently I’ve been infected. I wasn’t aware of just how large a cult following this dire, mindrottingly bad sequel had until I was searching for images and info after the end credits rolled. Trying to find some kind of explanation for what I’d just seen, you might say. This one is truly, truly bad. It’s the kind of movie that leaves me trying to remember the other movies right down the bottom of my bad list that it might be in contention with. Thing is, I can’t deny, the phrase touted by its fans – “best worst movie” – really is kind of fitting. I can’t put this right at the bottom of any list, for the simple reason that it kinda blew my mind so much by its badness.

At its centre for me is the girl pictured above, Deborah Reed as the witchy character Creedence Leonore Gielgud. Now, I know, I’m weird, but there is something about a hellish woman like this able and willing to transform people’s bodies in weird and wonderful ways that appeals to my strangest inner child – the one that would’ve gone to Ursula after watching The Little Mermaid even knowing that she’d ultimately turn me into one of those funny slime things just ‘cos she might turn me into something else beforehand, lol. And this character serves perfectly. Reed revels either knowingly or not in the trashiness of the movie and was surely an inspiration for Uma Thuman’s Poison Ivy in Batman and Robin. For her alone, the movie is more than worth watching. It’s worth watching without her though – you just come out of this thinking one word questions like “how?!” “why?!” … the effects and make-up are hysterically awful. Yet you just can’t keep your eyes off. I’m sure I’ll watch this again some time … but I have no idea why …

Alice aka Neco z Alenky Alice aka Neco z Alenky 3 star

May 5th, 2008 by surlaroute

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Last Alice movie for now, lol, I promise – normal service will resume soon. Oh and I did watch this yesterday – well, early this morning – I just, y’know, had to sleep eventually :) Most of this was written while watching anyway.

I was worried at first here because I have an horrendously dubbed version of this perhaps the creepiest of all Alice adaptations. Luckily, it’s really more about the images and sound effects than anything, the dialogue being mostly either sparse or redundant (I’d say at least 50% of it consists of “said the rabbit” lol which in the end becomes very annoying) – which makes the very first line, “this is a film for children. But remember to shut your eyes, or else you won’t see anything!” deliciously ironic in addition to being a fine warning for those of a sensitive disposition (I’ll just say it was probably unwise of me to add this to the schedule at the last minute as the last thing I watch before bedtime at 4 in the morning, lol – I’m writing this while watching because I’m sure in the morning I’ll either plainly think I dreamt it or will have merged it inseparably with whatever nightmares I might have after a full afternoon and evening of Alice …)

In short, it’s “Alice: The WTF Edition” – the images are so arresting and nightmarish that you genuinely can’t take your eyes off them; the sound and pace so visceral that you genuinely fear for the actress in the lead, for example when the mouse (actually it’s more like a rat here) in the pool of tears sets up camp on her head thinking it’s an island, hammering sticks into her scalp, her only protest “That’s too far!” coming as he tries to set fire to her hair. Perhaps surprisingly given the wacky means by which it’s done, the movie actually stays pretty close to the story – which makes it even more amazing that it feels so unpredictable compared to other adaptations. Each time, for example, that Alice breaks into one of the tiny desks that litter her journey, I found myself seriously not knowing what might come out of it or where she might be taken next or what might happen to her. It somehow lulls you into a state of anxiety, something that’s perfectly understandable when it comes to Alice but that none of the other adaptations really do so well as this one.

At 90 minutes the jerky motion and incessant sound effects certainly start to grate towards the end – I’ve a feeling this might be something that’s not so bad in the original Czech language version with the truly horrible dubbing girl’s voice taken away … in any case, it’s still another great interpretation of the story that’s worth watching if you like seeing things you’ve never seen before.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 5 star

May 5th, 2008 by surlaroute

Tags: , , , , , ,

“The me I never knew
Begin to stir sometime this morning;
The me I never knew
Appeared without a word of warning.”

I’d forgotten entirely how this version, too, replicates that “golden afternoon” feeling at the start so well, also that it begins in such a fashion in a framing device of “Mr. Dodgson” (Lewis Carroll) telling the three Liddell sisters the story. All bonus points in my book.

What I always remember about the movie are the songs, John Barry’s score, and Fiona Fullerton, who is absolutely beautiful in the central role – I don’t care what people say about her being too old for it, she’s young enough in spirit and appearance for me. The visual effects, it bears repeating from below, I still find absolutely stunning. The slow shrinking over “Curiouser and Curiouser”, ending with the trackback to reveal the pool of tears, is simply perfect, as is the later growing in the White Rabbit’s house.

It’s certainly still my favourite adaptation (so far). It also has the benefit (I think – as I’ve said in other Alice reviews today I only discovered this past week) of being one of the few to focus solely on the first book (hence the title, presumably).

September 8th, 2005:

This movie has a beautiful look to it, the kind they simply don’t do anymore, all foggy and mysterious like The Water Babies, not slick and perfect like today’s fantasy adventures. There’s some great music by John Barry (slightly dodgy lyrics by Don Black though) and an enchanting performance by then 16-year-old Fiona Fullerton as Alice. What’s most wonderful about the whole thing is its infectious innocence. The cast is packed with stars, from Peter Sellers to Spike Milligan and Michael Crawford, if you can recognise them under all the make-up. The effects are flawless, too. For a 90 minute movie, it tires towards the end, but overall it’s a fairly fantastic adaptation.

Alice in Wonderland [1951] Alice in Wonderland [1951] 4 star

May 5th, 2008 by surlaroute

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Of course, as the Disney version, this is the best-known, most-loved, most stylised and standardised of all the adaptations. As far as I know, it was likely my only source of the story for a good chunk of my life, and by that I mean, I don’t even remember reading or being read the book (sniff lol): I only realised this past week reading the first of the books that parts of this and the other adaptations, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee for example, were in fact taken from “Through the Looking Glass” which I’ve yet to read. In this version, in fact, they even pull in a couple of elements from Carroll’s “Jabberwocky”, as well as throwing in some genuinely clever characters and lines of their own (“You gave me quite a turn!” “She’s stark raven mad!”) … all in 70 minutes. I still prefer the Fiona Fullerton version by a smidgen, and who knows what Tim Burton’s going to deliver, but this is one of Disney’s best, it’s eyepoppingly colourful particularly when you consider the year it was made, and the character designs etc certainly stick in one’s memory.

Alice in Wonderland [1966] Alice in Wonderland [1966]

May 4th, 2008 by surlaroute

Tags: , , , , , , ,

This one is fascinating – another TV production, this time by the BBC for the “Wednesday Play” series, and boy does that show: the word “pretentious” certainly comes to mind but I for one won’t be using it because this is one of the best adaptations of the book that I’ve yet seen. It begins by perfectly recreating the part of the story that has always been the most strongly evocative part to me: the simple, lazy image of Alice and her sister on the bank on a hazy Summer afternoon (“All in a golden afternoon …”). From there it launches into some of the most surreal, dreamlike progressions I’ve ever seen on film. It captures some part of the book that few other adaptations would dare. Through clever editing, it’s the closest and most prolonged replica of the dream experience I’ve seen.

I wouldn’t have thought it, as I’m quite attached to the innocent and gracious image of Alice in the blue dress with blonde hair in a bow etc, but I quite like this Hermione-haired, black-dressed, aloof version as played by Anne-Marie Mallik, too; I love how she’s always walking away from people with a “hmph!” flick of her hair. The look she almost gives the camera as the caucus-race “winners” gather around uttering, “prizes, prizes, prizes”, quite like zombies droning, “brains”, lol, is quite priceless, it’s the look of a person bemused by the herd-like behaviours of society.

In short, what it lacks in colour, effects, costumes and comprehensiveness, it makes up for entirely with the feeling it gives by the extraordinary stillness, both in the image and in the soundtrack, Mallik’s whispery distant voiceover, and that very BBC “Play for Today” type score (excepting the odd moment when it, like the imagery, goes a little mental). At 70 minutes, there’s no excuse to pass up the chance to see it.

Alice in Wonderland [1999] Alice in Wonderland [1999]

May 4th, 2008 by surlaroute

Tags: , , , , , , ,

I love Tina Majorino in just about anything so I kind of knew that I’d be comfortable through most of this despite some bad comments about it (Martin Gardner calls it “undistinguished” and “boring” in “The Annotated Alice” and considering how great his insights are in the margins of that volume, I couldn’t well not believe him). With the book very fresh in my mind (I just finished reading it minutes before putting this on), I was pretty dazzled by how faithful it is to the text (to “Wonderland” at least; I can’t speak for the episodes towards the end I’m assuming are from “Through the Looking Glass”, which I’ve not yet read). That, however, turns out to perhaps be the production’s singular problem. There’s a fine line between being faithful and too damn literal, and this certainly crosses that line eventually.

As expected, I found Majorino delightful as Alice (I don’t like the yellow dress though :P ) – her English accent is a little too clipped at times but mostly it’s perfect, as is she. The rest of the cast is certainly impressive (how often do you find Ken Dodd, Martin Short and Gene Wilder in the same place, lol?) but often just plain annoying; for me nothing much compares to the fantastic supporting cast of the Fiona Fullerton version. The visual effects are fairly clunky at times and the production and costume design etc (I already mentioned the yellow dress) is some of the most garish and unappealing I’ve seen in any artwork based on the story – towards the end, in fact, it almost looks like they’re running out of money by the scene. For Majorino and the details in the script, however, it’s certainly worth seeing if you’ve read and enjoyed the source material.