Tag Archives: witch

Penelope [2006] Penelope [2006] 3 star

April 1st, 2008 by surlaroute

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I’m not about to spoil this movie for you. The tagline for this movie is “What Makes Us Different Makes Us Beautiful”. It’s about Christina Ricci born with a snout instead of a nose. By the end of the movie, she has a normal nose. I really think that’s all I need to say but bear with me ‘cos I feel a rant coming on. Now, maybe with The Hottie and the Nottie going around those cinemas that can afford to show it, my nitpicks over movies like this and Enchanted having fairly depressing implications about society seem beyond nitpicky. But hey, if nobody else is gonna say it then I will; if I didn’t just say what came to mind while watching a movie then I wouldn’t write anything at all.

“I know this face repulses you,” Penelope (Christina Ricci) tells Max (James McAvoy complete with pointless US accent) “… And I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t dream of asking you to accept it. But this isn’t me, the real me is inside here somewhere just waiting to get out and you can make that happen and once the curse is broken I’ll be just like anybody else.”

“What if the curse doesn’t get broken? What if the curse can never be broken?” Max replies.

“Then I’ll kill myself. I promise, I promise I will. Marry me, Max. Marry me.”

And there’s the rub. If you happened to like Enchanted, honestly, I couldn’t recommend a better double bill companion than Penelope more whole-heartedly. Personally, my luck amazes me that I resisted seeing both on my birthday in February because either one of them would, to be blunt, have put a damper on my day. Though this movie didn’t upset me quite as much as Enchanted did – duh, it’s Christina Ricci with a snout, frankly that alone is worth my 90 minutes – I spent all those 90 minutes, as I did in Enchanted, dreading how it all would end, hoping the film makers would explain why every man who looked upon The Nose had to jump through glass or cause a scene, why not one of them would even hesitate a moment and consider the rest of her. Is she supposed to look as grotesque as what these guys seem to be reacting to? In which case it’s bad casting and makeup, and I hope that’s the case. Otherwise, it really upsets me that apparently little girls across the land have gone cuckoo for this movie that is telling them this is what they should expect if they don’t look like Reese Witherspoon.

I’m sure I’m not just being my strange and kinky self … seriously, Christina Ricci with a snout is almost even cuter than just plain Christina Ricci. I know it’s a story and the movie would end pretty quick if someone just walked in the room and said, “Hey! Cute nose!” … what I’m saying isn’t as simple as that at all and you maybe need to see the whole movie to get the full sweep of how badly I feel it’s handled, I don’t know … it just basically sat badly with me. Maybe it’s as dumb as I’ve a feeling my response to everyone so rapidly believing Briony in Atonement was … but when something doesn’t sit with me, it doesn’t sit with me: all I can do is share the response.

I don’t have as many problems with it as I do with Enchanted – that movie had its wonderful moments and this one has even more on top of the simple fact of the Ricciness who can really do little wrong in my book. Joby Talbot’s music is gorgeous, one of those scores that, if I still bought soundtrack CDs, I’d snap up in a flash. Peter Dinklage is always worth the watch – he has one of the more interesting lines in the movie, perhaps moreso coming from him, when he says, “She’s out there on her own. Declaring her independence.” It even makes me happy enough that Christina Ricci even chose to do a project like this, it’s the kind of thing that made me go psychocrazy over her all those years ago. It’s quirky, it’s silly, it’s particularly indie-spirited even while being particularly appealing to the mainstream by its sheer freakshow nature.

But I’m loathe to sound too enthusiastic about the whole thing, because the overall message of it really makes my tummy squirm – from Grease to She’s All That I’ve always been sick of movies that basically tell people, especially girls and women, “Hey! You don’t have to be beautiful on the outside! But it helps …” and again, even though it comes from character and is a perfectly logical part of the movie, I have to say, the moment at the end here where Catherine O’Hara (being even more loathsome than she was in For Your Consideration) starts suggesting even more “work” on Penelope’s nose even when it’s back to human form, it actually almost made me feel physically sick. Given I’ll take any opportunity to tell people my own insane dreams of magical transformation, I know how this sentiment probably makes me a big hypocrit. I don’t know what to say to that. Maybe we’re all a little hypocritical sometimes, but with me these days honesty overrides everything, and like I said, this just did not sit with me.

As I’ve said on many an occasion: any movie that can get me in such a twist as this has gotta be worth the time somehow … it just depresses me if this is what it takes nowadays. It depresses me almost profoundly. Gimme Elphaba proudly getting in people’s faces with her green skin any day over this kind of thing. She had the good sense to leave the world entirely when it turned its back on her. Nobody should have to change to fit in. That Penelope’s transformation here comes right after and as a result of her own admission that she’s “happy the way she is” just adds insult to injury in my opinion.

The Wizard of Oz The Wizard of Oz 5 star

March 2nd, 2008 by surlaroute

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“Hearts will never be made practical until they are made unbreakable.”

It truly is the happiest film ever made. And perfect to boot, like, literally, perfect, so much so that I don’t feel I need to say a lot more than that. I was really drawn to the sheer number of immediately identifiable icons in the movie this zillionth time watching it – it’s something I’ve really started to be interested in in a lot of movies recently: like just those props and simple images you can remove entirely from their context in the movie and yet their association is so indelible that pretty much anyone will know the movie from them. The gingham dress, the ruby slippers, the green-faced witch, a witch in a bubble, another under a house, the poppy field, the Emerald City, the yellow brick road, the red sand hourglass – and of course the scarecrow, tin man and lion. Any one of these things captures the imagination enough in itself. To put them altogether in one ninety minute swoop with the songs and the simply perfectly cast Judy Garland tying it all together is for me to practically bottle everything it means to dream.

For me it mostly comes down to those last scenes; the wizard declaring, “No I’m not a bad man – just a bad wizard,” bestowing the gifts upon Dorothy’s friends at the same time really highlighting the worthlessness of the societal things that package us like diplomas, medals and testimonials, in turn proffering the slightly cheesy but no less truthful notion that it really is just who we are that counts; and of course, “Oh Auntie Em … There’s No Place Like Home,” that swell of music that never fails to make me cry my eyes out.

Yes, I guess it comes to the same almost dreary happiness in its close that I hated in Enchanted – “But that’s so easy!” the Tin Man even declares when Glinda reveals to Dorothy the means to get home – but it’s the way it elevates that normality to something fantastic, never dismissing the wonder of imaginary Oz (if it is imaginary at all, I feel the urge to add) in the process. I was reminded of that wonderful line at the end of the last Harry Potter book, “Of course it’s all happening in your head … but why on earth should that mean it isn’t real?” I’m babbling and I’ve done too much of that lately. It’s just a perfect movie, okay?

The Golden Compass The Golden Compass 5 star

January 28th, 2008 by surlaroute

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I guess a minor apology might be in order here, ‘cos I think I may have kinda sniggered at the “For Your Consideration” posters that came out for this movie, asking consideration not just in categories such as visual effects and such but right up to Best Picture. Now I’ve seen it, not only can’t I understand its exclusion from a bunch of categories (most particularly yet another great song – this one by Kate Bush, can’t believe I hadn’t heard about it – bashed out by the triple nod to “Enchanted”), but also the ridiculously whiny critical response from pros and ams alike. This movie is beautiful!

Yes – if you haven’t read the books and manage to miss the first few minutes of it (in which case, serves you right – learn to watch movies from start to finish and come back, mmkay?), you might have problems figuring out the minutia of the the plot. Myself, I’ve not yet read the books, though I’ll be plowing through them in the coming months, that’s for sure – weird thing is, it occurred to me as the story unfolded that one reason I wasn’t too keen on the books (in addition to the slightly shameful, “ugh, they just copied Harry Potter” knee-jerk reaction) was that, kind of like with the Lemony Snicket books, it just seemed so familiar to me already … like, everyone else seemed to be wowed by this set-up, for example with the daemons, while my response was like, “okay got it,” lol. I love that the explanation of things like this don’t bog down the entire movie as some people seem to have required. It reminded me of the subtlety of exposition in The Last Mimzy. I can’t express how much I envy kids last year, seeing all the great movies including this one; they’ll have learned more in around 10 hours than they’ll learn all year in the classroom. People didn’t think the movie conveyed the depth of the books enough? How deeper do you want in a kids’ movie than a child’s soul being ripped from their body? As I said to someone straight after the end credits rolled – compare it to the first two Harry Potter movies? And just wow.

Two paragraphs and I haven’t even mentioned Dakota Blue Richards. Again, a minor apology … stupid knee-jerk reaction to her casting was something along the lines of, “how dare she steal Dakota‘s name and be blonde!?!?” lol. Well, because she’s wonderful, that’s why. She has to do more in terms of physical, emotional, interacting with visual effects, than I think it’s safe to say any young actress has had to deal with in their first role (and not just first big screen role, it’s her first role ever) and she pulls it all off practically flawlessly. When she spits on the army and says, “Go on, then. Go on …” … God, goosebumps city. If you read my reviews you might’ve noticed I have a thing for young, precocious and forward heroines, and they really don’t come much more forceful than Lyra, and Richards is Lyra. There’s a moment where she rides the polar bear, and I mentioned a few times before here how I love “girl and horse” movies, and that moment is like a “girl riding horse” moment except the horse is a polar bear, lol. I just realised how dumb that sounds now I’ve said it, but that moment gave me such a rush, I wish the shot were longer.

The visual effects certainly give Transformers a run for their money (ha, which probably means Pirates will win :( ) … one drawback being that though the effects, the animals etc are fantastic – particularly the polar bears and as already mentioned, thanks to the jawdroppingly convincing way Richards “interacts” with them – I could really feel a change in the fluidity of the camerawork when the effects came on strong. It kind of revolves around the set-pieces in a dreary mechanical way that I found distancing.

Anyway, long story short, I pretty much adored it. Going by the vast majority’s response, it seems to me the movie is a lot like the compass itself. I was just talking earlier tonight to someone about how beautiful the thing is in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix about them not being able to see the Thestrals unless you’ve known death. Maybe it’s something like that going on here. Anyway, I certainly saw everything here. This movie tells the truth – if only you know how to read it. And I certainly can’t wait to read the books if there’s even more of the same in them.

La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc 5 star

January 20th, 2008 by surlaroute

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I wasn’t sure this weekend whether to watch this acknowledged silent classic version of the Joan of Arc story or Luc Besson’s lavish 1999 production first. I might’ve better understood what I wrote about the manic style of Milla Jovovich’s performance in The Messenger had I watched them the other way around – she was clearly trying to bring something of Maria Falconetti’s performance here in, in the same way there are some visual references I noticed like the cut between Jeanne’s burning face and the cross in the sky etc – but certainly watching that English language version first helped me understand the odd bits of the French interstitials here that I couldn’t quite translate (the DVD player’s still having problems with subtitles, lol – I was pretty impressed with myself how well I coped though :) )

The difference between Jovovich and Falconetti’s performances is hard to put into words that don’t include, simply, “Falconetti’s is just better“ – where Jovovich, like I said, came off mostly as plain crazy, Falconetti’s wide-eyed gazing comes across more like a superhuman degree of conviction obstructed by a mind too young and human to quite comprehend it; ie, simply closer to “the truth”. A sizable portion of the movie consists of simple headshots of her reacting to the men around her. It shouldn’t be anywhere near as compelling and hypnotic as it is … but it really is the greatest performance, male or female, I’ve ever seen and I don’t think I’ll ever tire of it on any number of repeat viewings.

This is before you even touch upon the aspects of the film outside of her performance. Though, like I said, it’s full of a lot of plain headshots, there are some camera moves that perhaps by sheer contrast blew my mind a little, like the rolling move that follows soldiers from an aerial angle to one level with the ground; one that tracks the spikes of a torture device down to the ground; another weird almost queasy motion while Jeanne burns, following maces thrown down to guards from a tower, up and back again, up and back again.

It’s not often I’m so immediately impressed by movies as old as this – though I consider myself to have a wider knowledge of cinema than most, it never really struck me as a given that older productions should necessarily be somehow better than modern stuff by default. Then you get exceptions like this – it is one of those movies, as François Truffaut has said, that simply “vibrates”, in this case sometimes so violently that it threatens to burst out of the screen. It amazes me that there are people who dismiss it so quickly as “just headshots” … it’s the person who’s in those headshots. For the performance alone it’s a masterpiece. But it’s so much more besides.

The Messenger: The Story Joan of Arc The Messenger: The Story Joan of Arc 3 star

January 20th, 2008 by surlaroute

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I worried for a moment that this was gonna be another movie to suffer from the “Jane Eyre syndrome”. Jane Valentine, the young girl who plays Jeanne d’Arc here aged 8, is not only extraordinary, powerful, everything I in my limited knowledge associate with this person and story, not only is she a dead ringer for Milla Jovovich in the eyes, but she’s also onscreen for a hell of a longer time than I ever would’ve expected. Unfortunately, following her breaking into the church and taking mass underage, it jumpcuts forward so harshly that if I weren’t watching on the TV I’d have feared a whole reel was missing.

When Milla Jovovich appears, she’s so alternately whimpering and up-in-arms it’s at times unintentionally laughable. She, or Luc Besson, or maybe someone else involved, seems intent on showing Joan’s fear under the circumstances and I don’t know if it works, at least not the way they do it. The whole movie, as a matter of fact, suffers similarly from its own desire to entertain and be epic and commercial, etc, and I’m not sure Besson’s frequently boyish direction (you wouldn’t expect it, but some of the goggle-eyed raving here is extraordinarily reminiscent of Jean Reno in Leon) is so suited to this particular story. The occasional attempts at deliberate humour (“There’s an arrow in your leg.” “Oh. So there is.”) didn’t go down well for me either.

It certainly happens upon some stirring and memorable moments … Eric Serra’s score is reassuringly sweeping, there’s some surprising gore in the battle scenes … and ultimately I did find myself believing even in Jovovich’s manic Joan as a leader – if only because she’s sold so much as a gal who did something while everyone else was talking about doing things. The dodgy reshoot hair on Jovovich that I think I’ve heard Mark Kermode mention a few times in talking about this movie didn’t really bug me as much as I expected either – going back to the Leon similarity, she actually looks a lot like Natalie Portman’s Mathilda in her last prison scene. I’m looking forward even more to seeing the old Carl Dreyer silent now, though.

Day Watch: Dnevnoy dozor aka Night Watch 2 Day Watch: Dnevnoy dozor aka Night Watch 2 4 star

December 11th, 2007 by surlaroute

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Even more lavish in the visual department than the first, at first I worried this would be at the expense of continuing what looked like a really nice story in the first movie. The second part in a trilogy is like the worst kind of second act in a regular movie – you’ve really gotta have something to pass the time. What better surprise, then, could I ask for here than a very well done gender-based body-swapping subplot, lol. Sometimes the humour in this part gets in the way of more poignant matters; sometimes, in fact, I fear it’s lost in translation entirely. But this is still a rip-roaring ride, if only for the visuals, and since there’s 2 years to wait for Twilight Watch, it’s mercifully wrapped up neatly in the end, so neatly in fact that I wonder how the story will continue. Can’t wait to find out, though.

Stardust [2007] Stardust [2007] 4 star

December 4th, 2007 by surlaroute

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Spoilers below … but not for this movie … if you’re seeing “Wicked” any time soon, best not read the last paragraph.

Though I was really looking forward to seeing this movie, I have to admit I didn’t really know exactly what it’d be. After a year or so of doing so, I still find myself calling myself a Neil Gaiman fan even though I’ve never read a word of his writing outside his blog, lol. This following MirrorMask, Beowulf later this month, and Coraline next year, will surely get me to the books eventually.

When it comes to this type of movie the quality range is vast from The Princess Bride via Shrek through to the abominable Ella Enchanted. I think it was Mark Kermode who preferred to compare this to Time Bandits and I can see that too. But this is really more its own creature. Ultimately it kind of defied everything I expected from what initially appeared to me to be quite a messy opening. There are a lot of different stories here that come together in the end, and though it takes its time, it’s ultimately quite amazing how the screenplay juggles them (could Jonathan Ross be gracing the Oscars next year not as a host and critic but as a nominee’s guest, perhaps?)

The magic and enchantment stuff is … well, magical. It gave me that kind of feeling like when you’re a child and you actually believe in witches and things and when you think about being turned into a toad or whatever, you actually get that sinking feeling in your stomach like it might actually happen. Now, I actually do happen to still believe in a lot of weird impossible things you’re supposed to stop believing in when you’re no longer a child … but not a lot of things give me that stomach feeling – the last thing to do so was the musical “Wicked” when Boq becomes the tin man. I got it tons here, and I was completely absorbed and unquestioning for the whole 2 hours. It’s actually the second movie this week (Once being the other) which I really could happily have watched all over again straight after the end credits.

The Three Lives of Thomasina The Three Lives of Thomasina 3 star

February 7th, 2004 by surlaroute

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Forgotten Disney movie about a cat. Has the Mary Poppins brats in it. The girl acts better than the boy, and it’s kind of disturbing in places (big chunk of the plot deals with her blaming her father for the death of the cat, at one point she tells the family doctor that her father, too, is dead, and concocts a whole story about how it “happened”) and Susan Hampshire as “witch” Lori Macgregor is gorgeous. But, kinda boring really lol.