As Alice peers down the rabbit hole, she wonders whether she’ll make it into Odeon. You may have heard over the last few days that Odeon Cinemas were refusing to show Tim Burton’s new film version of Alice in Wonderland. The meat of the matter? Disney wanted to release Wonderland on DVD 12 weeks after it’s theatrical release. Hit the jump to see what the fuss was about.
People who shout at pigeons. Men who stick their penises in toasters. Women days before they bleed out of their vaginas. Members of the George Lamb fanclub. Those who believe in Global Warming, when it’s clearly snowing at least somewhere in the world.
Sadly none of these people feature in the latest horror remake from zombie legend George A.Romero. On the plus side The Crazies does feature a character going from bed to bed stabbing people in the chest with a pitchfork. Cool!
Someone once told me that the key to great drama is conflict. Thus, with a film entitled ‘Everybody’s Fine’ the scope for two hours worth of engaging drama would seem limited on the surface at least. Of course as is the trend these days, everybody is in fact not fine.Based on Italian movie ‘Stanno tutti bene’ Bobby De Niro’s latest pic see’s him in the guise of a recently widowed father of four, the much beleagured Frank Goode. After a failed attempt to draw his offspring home for the holidays Frank sets out on an ill-advised road trip in order to pay each of his kids a surprise visit.
When I think of dragon tattoos, I think of overweight, middle-aged men sat outside British pubs called The George that casually place BNP flyers on the bar. And in the toilets. And stuffed inside every Kick-‘Em-Out ice cream sundae, like little papery flakes of racial intolerance. You know the kind of tattoos: those really horrid bluey-greeny faded ones, yellowed over the years by an abundance of nicotine and cirrhosis of the liver.
Thankfully though, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is set in rural Sweden, not Burnley, and while it may be the world’s most blue-eyed-blonde-haired country, the movie isn’t a tribute to white supremacy. In fact, Millennium Trilogy author Stieg Larsson was an ardent Trotskyist, so on the political spectrum sat a good few places to the left of Nick Griffin and his loveable ilk.
Larsson’s communist outlook in mind, it’s hardly surprising that corporationy corporations and Nazis in the story aren‘t portrayed too favourably. The coporationy Nazis are even more rubbish, evidently painted in light conditions similar to those of Christmas at the North Pole circa 10,000BC. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I haven’t read Alice Sebold’s ‘The Lovely Bones’. I was going to read it before I saw Peter Jackson’s adaptation of the best-selling novel, but then I thought that for the purposes of my blog it would be easier to analyze the film if I wasn’t affected by the books alleged power. I was hoping that as a stand alone piece, the core material would transfer faithfully enough to move me all the same. The last time that Peter Jackson adapted from literature, he created the Lord of the Rings trilogy (and we all know how that turned out).
Carey Mulligan at last nights BAFTA’s not only took home the Best Female award but also wowed audiences with her innovative choice of gown. For me she was the best dressed of the evening in her beautiful Vionnet floral monochrome gown and this I would say is her best appearance on the red carpet in this current award season where she has always looked good but last night this dress made her look like the winning actress that she is:
Like Nostradmus and George Orwell before me, I predicted, and events shaped themselves around my words of wisdom. With my BAFTA’s drinking game (written coincidentally whilst under the influence of lighter fluid) I set out a checklist of things that vexed me about these particular Awards ceremony and lo and behold hardly any of them came true.
Now many will think that’s because my finger is firmly jammed up my butt-crack and not on the pulse, but actually the truth is Wossy and co. read my hilarious ‘article’ and had to change tack. Out were the jokes about John Terry and the BBC, in came ones about “3-D being like really real”. All thanks to me! Don’t believe me, how else do you explain the calibre of gags spewing forth from JR’s lips.
“They say in heaven love comes first/ We’ll make heaven a place on Earth.”
First adaptations of books. Then adaptations of computer games, theme park rides, adverts, trailers. Now, Peter ‘Lord Of The Rings’ Jackson has taken on the work of the late, great Belinda Carlsle.
Of course he hasn’t you silly sausages, instead it’s the latest literary adaptation to hit the screens based on the wonderful best-seller, The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. Prepare for your tears to be well and truly jerked.
If anyone reading this has ever uttered the words ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ to a member of the opposite sex then you will have an immediate understanding of my personal relationship with the films of Hayao Miyazaki.
At the risk of being shunned by my fellow, pretentious film studies graduates I feel I must confess to what I am led to believe is a most heinous mortal sin. I am not a fan of Studio Ghibli. There, I said it. Spirited Away failed to move me and I failed to absorb Princess Mononoke, turning it off half way through. All in all, when watching the past works Hayao Miyazaki I find myself longing for the badly dubbed familiarity of 80’s small screen gems such as Speed Racer and Battle of the Planets.
Having said all that, I do not seek to question the ‘genius’ status that has been bestowed on Miyazaki and his staff because as I said earlier, it’s not them, it’s me. I concede that the dreamlike qualities of his modern fairy tales are matched only by the painstakingly hand crafted backgrounds. For me however, it’s simply doesn’t float my boat.
This Sunday sees the annual ‘We Love America More Than Ourselves’ Awards for outstanding contributions to the world of cinema. Or the Baftas for short.
In honour of this wonderfully British mentality of putting ourselves in second place (see also the Brits) here’s a fun game for all the family to play come the 21st of February.