***~~ (3/5)

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Dorian Gray (Ben Barnes) is a young, innocent country gentleman who arrives in London and becomes the subject of a campaign of corruption and induction into cynicism by the highborn, civilly sordid Harry Wotton (Colin Firth). As Dorian commits sin after sin, a beautiful portrait drawn after he first arrived in the city begins to show the signs of his wounds, his age, and his wanton lifestyle, while he himself remains young and beautiful.

The film stays quite true to the original story by Oscar Wilde. Filmed in beautiful smothered colours, with a powerful score, it draws in the viewer much like a pretty but inconsequential painting might. Nothing in the storytelling distracts from the tale. Firth and Barnes do justice to their parts. Firth strikes the right note both as a wicked man on the edge of middle-age, and as a responsible elderly father. Barnes manages to play an innocent, a hedonist and a villain, all, though the transition between these states is not always smooth. The script fails to marry these extremes into a logical continuum, and the effect is a somewhat disjointed storyline.

In this film, Dorian’s corruption comes across as something not only created by Harry, and also for Harry. Dorian’s embracing of sexual excess (for which he seems at first downright reluctant) and cynicism, and his eventual focusing on Harry’s progressive daughter (a delightful brief turn by Rebecca Hall) as someone who can save him from himself, are tied up with Harry in what could be a fixation on Harry as a substitute father or as a longed-for lover, or both. The final conflict between them brings this into clear focus, and also juxtaposes their inverse moral (or social) development.

As it is based on a novel from a period of Victorian double morality, sex and violence are shown as equivalent sins and indelibly linked. Dorian’s first crime is cheating on and then abandoning his pregnant, low-born fiancée (Rachel Hurd-Wood), and that keeps haunting him a long time after, even when direct murder doesn’t. A life lived “for nothing but pleasure” leaves his picture gnarled and monstrous, suggesting venereal diseases, which could be construed as Mother Nature’s punishment for the Biblical sin of promiscuity. This doesn’t pack quite the punch these days as it used to, but the film does make an effort to describe the key change in Dorian as cruelty. The final message is a surprisingly Christian one: Dorian cannot be absolved while he still fails to confess his sins.

Although I found the film enjoyable and a good central moral dilemma, whether you think it’s legitimate, is always going to be fascinating to watch, the film may be too sombre for some tastes, and it is a bit too shallow considering the psychological potential of the setting. Nonetheless, it was a better than average and a fairly faithful adaptation of a classic novel in a pretty, easy-to-consume package.

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Bechdel test:
1. It has at least two female characters,
2. who talk to each other
3. about something other than a man.

I think this may be a pass! Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think a young lady and her mother talk about correct presentation at her coming-out ball, before Dorian screws them both for a bet. It would be kind of hard to have a more faily pass, though.

****~ (4/5)

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Ever since he was a little boy, Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) has dedicated his life to mad science, inventing utterly awesome devices that nobody wants. In adulthood, he still lives with his bait-selling father (James Caan) in a little island community devoted to sardine fishing, his treehouse having grown into a high tech laboratory.

Nobody likes Flint because he’s nerdy and because his inventions tend to destroy public property. Success eludes him. Sardines taste horrible. His father is starting to talk about giving him a partnership in the bait and tackle shop. It’s at this low point that Flint accidentally makes something people actually love – a machine that hovers above the city and rains down food of whatever description ordered.

Enter Sam Sparks (Anna Faris), perky meteorologist and love interest, to cover the story, and when the island’s economy has become dependent on tourism and free food, the stage is set for something to go horribly wrong.

The plot in this Sony Pictures animation (and how refreshing it is to get a break from a steady alteration of Pixar and Dreamworks) depends on a number of near-successes that fail at the last moment, bringing on a steady shower of disasters, and leading to an ending that, while uplifting, leaves a lot yet to be done. Sure, it stopped raining giant steaks and the spaghetti hurricane has abated, but there’s a lot of destruction left behind and still no viable economy for their one-industry island.

Much of the humour, originality and gross-factor of the film is made up of all the ways that giant food can be used for purposes it was never intended for. I find this magnifies when you remember what a roasted chicken actually is: a dead bird. A bird that used to be alive. A corpse. Which is now sentient. And now, here you have the roasted and skinned zombie bird being worn like a suit by a naked man. Think about it! That alone should make this film a hit with a certain age group.

That’s not the only thing to recommend – or condemn – the film, though. It has an adorable nerd hero (the man has a Nikola Tesla poster) and heroine (all it takes is a jell-o scrunchie), the mockery of everything essentially cool such as elaborate fights, heroic cops and CSI-style sexy science montages, and a hilarious dressing-down of jock-favouring superficiality. The best character in the whole film, though, is Flint’s father Tim Lockwood, whose steady, slow, responsible persona is at odds with Flint’s chaotic high energy and scientific brilliance, and whose sorrow and perseverance are shown rather than told to heartbreaking effect.

Romance and self-actualization aside, the story was about fathers and sons, and the miscommunication, generational language barrier and underlying love – and the pain that arises from it – is pitch-perfect and almost painful to watch, but worth it just for that final coming-together.

Was it perfect? What is? Parts were predictable, even more seemed contrived just to keep up the tension and excitement and the edge-of-final-destruction scenarios, and as I mentioned before, there was the small matter of the town remaining essentially unsaved in the end. All in all, though, the film was laugh-out-loud funny, heart-warming (I know, what a word), charming, moving, somewhat infantile and immensely entertaining. What more do you want?

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Bechdel test:
1. It has at least two female characters,
2. who talk to each other
3. about something other than a man.

There were three women with lines and names in the film, that I recall: the dead mom (by now all but obligatory for feature animations), the love interest and the police constable’s wife.

****½ (4.5/5)

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Andy is grown up and going to college. His once-beloved toys have spent years tucked away in a box, and are expecting to either go to the attic or to the landfill. Instead they end up donated – by accident – to the Sunnyside kindergarten. Sunnyside seems like a dream come true for discarded toys, but the dream soon turns into a nightmare.

The toys have to deal with the heartbreak of rejection as well as trying to find a place in a world where they have no owners. It seems almost cruel that they also need to fight some of the creepiest evil toys ever created by human imagination. I say that, and I have seen Akira.

What can I say? They really pulled all the breaks in this one. I laughed, I cried, and I found myself surprised and impressed by its emotional brutality. I had been expecting more of the same kind of light entertainment that we got with Toy Story and Toy Story 2; instead, this film explored themes such as loss of family and identity, the cyclical withering of love and innocence, and even the quiet acceptance of impending death. Heavy stuff – and unflinchingly delivered. And did I mention the creepy toys?

There was a lot of fun and funny stuff in this film too, from the opening live action version of playtime as it appears in a child’s imagination, to toy-like action heroics by Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) – not to mention his Spanish mode – but as my girlfriend put it: “If this didn’t make you cry, you have no soul.”

I should mention that we also meet the cutest little animated girl since Lilo, that I want a son just exactly like Andy, and that I seem to have a soul.

Dreamworks has been focusing on Ken (Michael Keaton) – Barbie’s boyfriend – in some of their promos, and he’s worth it. He got some of the biggest laughs. You could write a paper just on the film’s depiction of Barbie (played by Jodi Benson, and no longer the brainless sex object of Toy Story 2) and Ken and what it says about gender and presentation. Suffice it to say that Ken’s fabulousness is made into a running joke. Perhaps we should look into exactly why a metrosexual man is so funny. Is it because this is Ken, a picture of perfect masculinity presented to pre-teen girls, or because a man who loves glittery tuxedoes is automatically ridiculous? I’m happy to say that Ken does get to be a real character with an arc instead of just a punchline. Ken has agency, and the toys we actually like – Buzz and Woody, etc – accept him and his baby blue safari neck scarf without so much as a blink. In fact, his joining the good guys’ side coincides with his final happy acceptance of his own nature as a “girl’s toy”. Make of that what you will.

Other potentially objectionable jokes/stereotypes include the afore-mentioned Spanish Buzz, which presents a stereotypical (if not negative) Latino masculinity along the lines of Shrek’s Puss in Boots, and the continuing heteronormativity of Mr and Mrs Potato Head. The romance between Buzz and Jessie (Joan Cusack), though fun to watch, seemed as forced and pasted on as it did in the end of Toy Story 2, but then this film isn’t about them – it’s about the love between toys and their owner, and the sense of family that has developed out of years of friendship, and that packed all the punch you could hope for.

Children are strange creatures, so I can’t say how much they will enjoy this film, if it will make them scared or make them cry. Maybe that’s just us adults. If you’re an adult reading this, though, I can only recommend you see this film. Bring a handkerchief.

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Bechdel test:
1. It has at least two female characters
2. who talk to each other
3. about something other than a man.

Andy and Bonnie’s mothers talk to each other about their children, though that conversation turns to Andy. Bonnie and her mother talk to each other, and Andy’s mom talks to his sister about her toys. There were plenty of female characters among the toys (Mrs Potato Head, Barbie and Jessie being the most prominent ones, but there were also some new female toys), but I can’t remember for sure if they spoke to each other.

***~~ (3/5)

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Prodigal son Lawrence Talbot (Benicio del Toro) returns to the country house of his estranged father (Anthony Hopkins) after hearing his brother has gone missing, but finds he has come too late. His brother’s dead body was found in the forest, mauled by a strange beast, which the villagers say is a demon. Lawrence promises to find the cause of his brother’s death.

This film is pretty much exactly what you’d expect, right down to the wolfman makeup reminiscent of Lon Chaney’s, the Oedipal issues, the analogy between the transformation and sexual arousal and/or “lunacy”, cobwebbed manors, a joyless virgin/mother figure as a love interest, angry mobs, rooftop chases and copious amounts of gore. The plot may have been altered from the 1941 original, but the elements are all there.

That it is just what you would expect is both the film’s charm and its letdown. We’ve all seen this before, and even if we haven’t, we’ve probably learned about it via cultural osmosis, but it’s comforting in a nostalgic way to see it again without he taint of modern film conventions, save for the improvement in visual effects. This, however, also leaves the film rather serious and oppressive, and full of dated moral lessons*. The only glee to be found is that apparently put into depicting the bloody mess the lycanthrope leaves in his wake. Forget about dreams of sex and power. In The Wolfman‘s world, those things are evil, and will see you destroyed.

Benicio del Toro’s soulful face and nuanced performance is perfect for the role, but Anthony Hopkins steals the show with one simple stratagem – by delivering his lines, whatever they be about, nonchalantly, mildly. His Mr Talbot brings into perfect balance the distant father, the maniac and the good, law-abiding victim of circumstances. Emily Blunt as Gwen, Lawrence’s dead brother’s fiancée, Lawrence’s love interest and his mother ‘s lookalike, doesn’t have much to do but be pure, honest and unhappy. Hugo Weaving does an excellent turn as a cold, efficient detective on the trail of the killer, a character that could have used a lot more screen time. 

The most chilling moments, perversely enough, are offered by the scenes of Lawrence’s incarceration in a mental asylum, and the “scientific process” (mental and physical torture) to which he is subjected. 

If you’re a fan of classic horror movies, you’ll either hate this as an inferior copy or enjoy it as a shiny fan creation by someone who obviously shares your love for the genre. For everyone else, it’s worth it for the performances, and as a fresh look into cinema history and the thematics of Victorian and early 20th century horror – but don’t expect a joyride.

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* Not to imply moral lessons are dated by definition; just all that shit about how having a stiffy will turn you into a sociopath. Did I mention how problematic it is to conflate sexual arousal and wanting to rip a woman’s throat open?

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Bechdel test:
1. It has at least two female characters,
2. who talk to each other
3. about something other than a man.

There was the love interest (Gwen), the dead mom and the gypsy fortune teller. It may be there was some dialogue between two gypsy women, but I’m not sure.

***~~ (3/5)

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Alice Kingsley (Mia Wasikowska) faces a choice that will affect the rest of her life – whether or not to make an advantageous match with a man she does not particularly like. Instead of deciding, she takes a moment to follow a white rabbit, who leads her down a rabbit hole and into a crazy world from her childhood dreams – one that now needs her to fight its battle against the Jabberwocky and the Red Queen (Helena Bonham-Carter).

I don’t usually give an extra star, or as I do now, half a star, just for visuals, but in this case it was worth it, just for the unbridled invention involved in creating the costumes and wigs, creatures and landscapes. The visuals were strange, colourful and gorgeous, from the insanely coloured nobility to the subtle purples of the Cheshire Cat and forests at nighttime, and the brilliance of the White Queen’s palace and the greys of battlefield. The story, unfortunately, was not worth three on its own.

Considering that the film concerned a return to Wonderland rather than a retelling or transformation of the original, far too many events remained unchanged. Iconic scenes such as Alice shrinking and growing and her meetings with the Caterpillar and the mad tea party happened almost exactly as they did in the original. It seemed that the scenes were worked in just because they would be expected, rather than because the story required it.

The central external conflict in this new story also failed to impress a sense of gravity, as the only political difference between the Red and the White Queens (the White Queen played to a creepy, funny, excellent effect by Anne Hathaway) was that the latter seemed a little nicer, had a normal sized head, and the people seemed to prefer her. I was not left convinced she would implement any significant social improvements. The underlying story, which was of Alice finding her assertiveness, played out in the background, and ended up in her taking control of her life in a way that it’s hard to believe would actually be possible considering the era and her age.

No-one should be surprised at this point that in a Hollywood movie – one based on a Victorian novel, no less – looks equal goodness. The fat twins are funny and the court full of malformed freaks is the one that’s evil, whereas the pretty women in white dresses are the embodiment of virtue.

In order to fully enjoy this film, you will have to ignore silly, even cringe-worthy decisions by the filmmakers, as well as some cliches and repetition. Be prepared for those, however, and you may be in for quite an enjoyable ride.

Thanks to Allie for the link.

You know, I didn’t want to go see Prince of Persia for a number of reasons.  Number one, I have to admit, was because it was based on a video game. Number two was that the stars were white Europeans. Number three is that I just had a feeling it wouldn’t satisfy.

I mentioned the first two to the friend who persuaded me to go. He said, “It’s not a problem that the actors are Caucasian. Persians came from the Caucasus mountains!”

I didn’t think that was quite the point, but it got me thinking suitably confused thoughts about race and descent and terminology and at time didn’t have time to think about the question much further. I never did have that think, but went on ahead and watched a bubblegum kind of movie and wrote a quick review because I was behind on reviews for the blog. This is no excuse. I knew there was something wrong about having swarthy Anglo cast set in Iranian past, so why didn’t I mention it?

Here’s hoping I’m not so remiss next time. :( Anyway, what Ms Haghdoosti  said.

**½~~ (2.5/5)

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Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal, pretty as ever) is a street urchin adopted by the king, who is impressed by his running and jumping, and grows up as the third prince of Persia. After a successful victory over the city of Alamut, the king is poisoned, and the blame falls on Dastan’s shoulders. He also comes In possession of a sacred dagger capable of turning back time. The princess of the city of Alamut (Gemma Arterton, also pretty) is sworn to protect the dagger, and wants to hide it so it won’t cause the end of the world, whereas Dastan wants it to prove his innocence, and the villain (I shall not spoil it) wants it to rule the world. Cue wandering in a desert bickering and fighting people, and a great deal of running and jumping.

If it seems like a video game, it’s because it is. Luckily it’s a video game with a rather cinematic plot. The focus on a complicated mystical device bespeaks the origin, as does the hero’s need to bring device A to device B in order to accomplish objectives. This gets a little tiresome, but in the meanwhile there is a lot of entertainment to be had in watching the lovely choreographed fighting, the prince and princess’s slap-slap-kiss-kiss, and the side characters and villains, who, true to heroic action movie form, are more entertaining than the main characters. The Ngbaka knife thrower’s bromance with the tax-hating ostrich race organiser was one of my favourite things in the film.

How historically accurate it is, I can’t say, but I wouldn’t bet it was terribly so. While light, I should point out the film also gets quite violent; people die in battle, and not entirely bloodlessly, and some of them are people we liked a great deal.

Despite the antagonistic romance being quite central, the emotional core of the story lies in Dastan’s relationship with his family and specifically the bond of brotherhood. Brothers are pitted against each other in two generations, and it’s brotherly affection and trust that saves the day. Dastan also gets to grow through his experiences, from a rascally younger brother to someone who knows when to speak up, and when to be humble – something in which the princess has a hand. It’s a good lesson to walk away with from an action movie.

In conclusion, while fun and colourful and visually masterfully realized, the film was essentially forgettable. I suppose one needs to spend hours trying hard to achieve Dastan’s various objectives to really appreciate it.

***½~ (3.5/5)

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In an undefined past in an undefined part of North America, young Kenai, a member of an undefined tribe, receives his totem and loses his older brother on the same day. Rejecting his totem, “the bear of love”, he hunts down and kills the bear he blames for his brother’s death. His brother’s spirit then turns him into a bear, so he can learn the lesson of his totem. The rest of the film concerns Kenai’s quest to turn himself back into a human, while being chased by a hunter and bonding with a lost bear cub.

I have mixed feelings about this one. I’m bothered both by the fact that Kenai’s tribe is undefined, and by the oddness of having a “bear of love” and an “eagle of guidance” as totems, rather than just a bear and an eagle. Who came up with these associations? Setting the story in the past and being unspecific about the nation Kenai’s tribe may have evolved into over time does give the writers a certain amount of freedom, but if they thought that would stop the movie from still being somewhat incorrect and/or offensive, they weren’t right. (See more discussion on this here.) On the other hand, I’m thrilled to see a Disney movie starring an (however vaguely) American Indian tribe that isn’t Pocahontas.

The film is absolutely gorgeous, with beautiful wilderness vistas and attractive character designs for both human and the animal characters. Aside from the pop songs slapped here and there on top of the film, there are surprisingly few cringe-worthy elements, the others worth mentioning being somewhat offensive Canadian stereotypes in the form of the two comic relief moose, the lovefest of bears feasting on Nemo’s relatives (all other animals talk and are sentient, but a slaughter of salmon? Cute!) and bears having human-like eyes only when we’re meant to identify with them. The pop songs are pretty dreadful, though.

The good stuff includes some laugh-out-loud moments, the aforementioned beautiful animation, a better than usual attempt at portraying a non-Anglo culture in a non-stereotypical way (perhaps because it was made up, simply borrowing material from several cultures), the basic lesson of love and responsibility being quite manly actually, and the warning against the mistake of prejudice (unless it’s fish).

The weight of Kenai’s transgression and the loss of Koda’s family struck me as unusually harsh for a children’s film, but I find that to be a good thing – allowing fake deaths to become an animation cliché in the recent past has been, I think, a mistake. Children’s stories are not meant to be brainless and light. The best stories for children are about growing up, about identity, ethics, responsibility, and quite often a parent’s death that leaves their child vulnerable, forced to come into their own. These stories are hugely important, and making that death a ploy to provoke a fleeting emotional response is downright deplorable.

Brother Bear is a story about finding your own identity and about the worth of compassion, and that, I believe, along with the comparative lack of cringes, makes it one of the better Disney feature animations of the noughties.

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Bechdel Test:
1. It has at least two female characters
2. who talk to each other
3. about something other than a man.

***** (5/5)

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Judging by the cover, Hot Fuzz looks like another dumb action comedy parody, in line with such wastes of space as Loaded Weapon 1 and Epic Movie. Chances are, though, that if you’re reading this blog you’ve already found out that it’s actually awesome.

The markers for awesome are there for those in the know. It’s an Edgar Wright movie, written by Wright and star Simon Pegg, who also collaborated on Spaced and the zomcom classic Shaun of the Dead. It’s set in a quiant English village. Those two officers not looking at the explosion are not hardened L.A. cops, but scrawny Pegg and sizeable Nick Frost dressed in English police uniforms. Still… ngh. If you’re like me, “movie parody” tends to suggest toilet humour, people falling down a lot, repeating scenes from popular movies but done in funny voices, and not one laugh in the whole dreadful hour-and-a-half run.

Well, that’s not what you get here.

Nicholas Angel (Pegg) is the ultimate police officer, by the book at all times, who catches more criminals than any other officer in the force. In fact, he’s so good that he’s making all other officers look bad, and so he gets shipped off to the country as the new sergeant of Sanford village.

The reported crime rate in Stanford is so low that the local police station feels more like a social club. Everybody knows everybody and the main cause of concern is kids wearing hoodies in the town centre. Sandford is so idyllic that when people start turning up dead, Angel is the only one who suspects murder.

Wright and Pegg’s writing is rife with references to action films, as well as being self-referential to the point of obsessive. The film reads as a cavalcade of clichés that refer to no particular action film so much as to all of them, and it’s not made funny by actors making faces but by actors taking themselves entirely seriously. It’s hard to say where exactly it passes beyond clever and funny into awesome. Shortly after the credits, when Angel is stabbed by Peter Jackson dressed as Santa Claus? When Nick Frost’s Danny Butterman stops in the street in shock – “You ain’t seen Bad Boys II?” When Angel makes paperwork look badass? When action buddy film queer subtext is fully acknowledged (though stopping short of nookie)? When handguns are grabbed from a bicycle basket and the town centre becomes a Wild West style shooting range? Oh god, I can’t even choose. The film is a whole cavalcade of awesome.

I’m trying to find something to criticize, and it’s not easy. Don’t see this film if you will be upset by the sight of the following:

- gory, graphic murder scenes
- explosions
- swans
- little old ladies getting kicked in the face
- little old ladies with shotguns
- too many iconic actors and actresses to keep track of
- cussing
- horseback riding
- James Bond taking a beating
- unrealistic survival
- Oscar-winning actresses with face-masks
- creepy villagers
- really, really, I mean seriously bad rendition of Shakespeare

If that’s all right with you, seriously, give it a shot.

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Bechdel Test:
1. It has at least two female characters
2. who talk to each other
3. about something other than a man.

****~ (4/5)

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Young Viking Hiccup just doesn’t seem cut out for dragon-slaying, being more inclined towards building contraptions and swooning over the local teen champion Astrid. When, desperate to prove himself, he manages to capture a mighty dragon whose death would cement his social standing, he finds himself unable to slay it even as it lies helpless. Instead, he ends up befriending it.

Yes, it has dragon-riding Vikings. If you’re anything like me that’s all you need to know. The film kind of got me with the first teaser poster I saw.

It’s not perfect, hence four stars instead of five, despite the fact that the film made me personally happier than any other in a very long time, and despite the pure awesomeness that is the whole concept of dragon-Vikings.

The film is based on a children’s book by the same name by Cressida Cowell, but the plot, setting and even the dragon called Toothless were completely reworked by Dreamworks. I can’t judge if this was the right decision or not, but it does explain why the plot is typical enough to be predictable almost plot-point by plot-point. This is easy to overlook since, sadly, predictability is almost to be expected in a feature animated film – though I might argue How To Train Your Dragon has an even less original plot than most. For me, the one cliché too much was the fake death scene. You know the one – you see it in just about every animated film. X is dead! Oh no! The crowd stares at the spot where X fell with hope failing on their expressive faces. Someone falls on his knees and delivers a heart-felt speech to the departed. But X is not dead after all! Everyone cheers! Yeah. That one.

The film does kick the corporate creative cowardice on some notable issues, such as portraying a pleasing amount of violence, tough girls (well, not many), non-heteronormative (though hetero) teen romance, nerd pride and loss of limb. Plot predictability is made up for by the originality of the setting and some of the characterisation – which I suspect has more to do with Cowell than the Dreamworks writers (or their marketing and research department) – and in, well.

Being awesome.

If one’s adult brain can shut up long enough to accept and ignore the clichés, one gets an amazing animated film of dragon flight, fighting giant monsters, flaming islands tumbling down into the sea, nerd-boy social success, laughs, vivid character design, and goddamn Vikings on dragons.

Yeah. What are you waiting for? Go see it!

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Bechdel Test:
1. It has at least two female characters
2. who talk to each other
3. about something other than a man.