Warning: this piece is only tangentially about the movie in the title.
A couple of weeks ago, Paul was on rotation on Film4 and I was vaguely wondering whether I should watch it again. I'd seen it shortly after it was released on DVD and been bitterly disappointed, but sometimes time can be a healer. Besides, if I had all these strong feelings about the film, wouldn't my brand new movie blog be the perfect place to examine them?
Before I start getting all overwrought on you, here's the obligatory plot synopsis.
Graeme and Clive (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost respectively) are a couple of British sci-fi geeks on the trip of a lifetime, starting out at San Diego Comic-Con and then taking a Winnebago and heading out to look at places such as Roswell and Area 52. Whilst driving across the desert late at night, they witness a car crash and stop to help the driver, who turns out to be the small grey alien Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen). It's tempting to describe what ensues as ET but with (lots) more anal sex jokes, but... no, what the hell, it really is.
The good
The animation work on Paul himself is really adorable; the character designers have seen fit to give him huge blue-grey eyes rather than the standard expressionless black jobs, and it works beautifully. Appropriately, he's the best-realized character in the film, and it isn't hard to empathize with his plight.
There's also a few lovely cameos here to be enjoyed - Jeffrey Tambor stands out as a relentlessly pragmatic sci-fi author, and Jane Lynch is just as enchanting as always as a kindly diner owner.
The bad
I keep wanting to point out that this isn't as bad a film as I'm about to imply, but... I'm honestly not sure.
Here's the deal, then: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and I have history. Along with Jessica Hynes and Mark Heap, I loved them in Spaced, the first TV programme I ever saw that felt as though it was about people like me. Then came the Cornetto Trilogy, starting with Shaun of the Dead, the first zombie movie I ever saw and an absolute masterclass in narrative structure - it didn't hurt that it was incredibly bloody funny, either. After Shaun came Hot Fuzz, which did for buddy cop movies what Shaun had done for the undead - it wasn't so perfectly constructed but the jokes were arguably better, and if it took me a little longer to warm to it, well, I re-watch it several times a year now and it still makes me laugh out loud.
Then came Paul, and I was disappointed, but I put it down to Edgar Wright not being involved and eagerly anticipated release of the final part of the Cornetto Trilogy. It took another two years for the World's End to be released, and if I'm being completely honest, I'm still not entirely convinced. Thematically, it's a mess, but I'm tackling it the same way I did Hot Fuzz, by repeatedly re-watching it until I love it. Besides, it was filmed very close to where my mother grew up, which gives the images of body-snatcher related destruction an extra level of appeal.
Anyhow, we'll set Shaun aside for the moment because it gets everything right.
Hot Fuzz got most things right, too, but a lot of that was due to Nick Frost. As gormless plod Danny Butterman, he lent the movie its heart, presenting a far more likeable figure than Simon Pegg's supercop. It's easy to dismiss Frost as the fat sidekick, but he's a great screen presence and a damned fine actor - perhaps (whisper it), a better actor than Pegg.
The fact is that in recent years, Simon Pegg has been writing himself a bunch of roles that border on being outright Mary Sues. In Hot Fuzz, he's the perfect cop who saves the day; in The World's End, he's the tormented rebel who stands up to the alien menace and eventually ends up as a living legend. In the background, meanwhile, Frost plays a sympathetic figure on the receiving end of a bunch of jokes that tend to play off his physical bulk. Pegg is undoubtedly a very talented writer, but damned if his past decade's work doesn't look like the result of a bunch of therapy sessions in the face of a mid-life crisis.
All of which finally brings me back to Paul, where Pegg plays a thoroughly decent bloke who eventually saves the alien, gets the girl and helps write an award-winning book about it all. There can't be anything wrong with that, can there?
Well, no, except for the fact that the girl's been abducted and he's made jokes over her unconscious body, and the sole thing that seems to attract him to her is that she's the only female his own age in the movie. As for saving the alien, well, that's a little more complex and has to do with narrative structure and character arcs - right through the movie, it's Frost's character who starts out suspicious and gradually grows closer to Paul; I can't help feeling that it would have been far more emotionally satisfying, therefore, if it had been his character who'd been ready to sacrifice himself for him. It's also the Frost character who's the author of the pair of them, so I'm not sure what sense it made to have Pegg's cartoonist as eventual joint winner of the literary award. It feels to me as though Pegg isn't prepared to share the narrative spotlight with anybody, which makes me feel kind of embarrassed on his behalf.
Oh, and up top, where I made the comment about anal sex jokes?As writers, Pegg and Frost evidently think these are hilarious; for long stretches of the film they pop up every five minutes, generally with rape as the implicit context. This destroyed any real sympathy I had for their characters before we even get into the female kidnapping subplot, which is unfortunate, given that apart from the alien himself, they're the only characters meant to be deserving of our affection. Dammit, I know that there's nothing your average self-identifying male geek finds quite so charming as one of his own, but give me a break here? These two seem to be up against it from absolutely everybody they meet. Every other character is a broad caricature, from the religious fundamentalists to the homophobic rednecks, never mind that our heroes are guilty of constant low-level homophobia themselves. This is a mean-spirited movie and an intolerant one, unless you're a card-carrying emotionally stunted sci-fi fanatic yourself, in which case it may be one of the most inclusive films you'll ever see.
The verdict
Paul isn't the worst film I've ever seen, not by a long chalk. There's a fundamental grubbiness about it, though, and it exhausted me, leaving me missing the good old days and wondering whether we'll ever see them return.
It's been a frantically busy weekend, so today's entry is basically the first film I could find on TV when I got in. There's a couple of movies I'd rather have written up, but they can wait for next weekend.
I hadn't seen The Golden Child since within a year or two of it first coming out, and I remembered a couple of things about it: firstly, that I'd rather enjoyed it, and secondly, that the only other people who had were those of approximately my own age at the time. I'm always interested in revisiting the films that fascinated me as a kid and finding out whether the spark of interest still remains - obviously people mature over time, but are our artistic sensibilities something we're somehow born with? I can certainly remember being nine or so and feeling a certain level of cynicism over the likes of Grease and Dirty Dancing, much to my mother's chagrin.
Getting back on topic, however, The Golden Child tells the story of Chandler Jarrell (Eddie Murphy), a self-described finder of lost children. Presumably he earns a living via cash rewards, or possibly he's capable of surviving on the sheer gratitude of the families he helps - I have no idea. After a TV appearance he is contacted by Kee Nang (Charlotte Lewis), who wants him to rescue a young Tibetan boy with mystic powers, who is apparently destined to bring peace to the world. Jarrell isn't entirely convinced by her story, but her beauty is enough to persuade him to try and help. A variety of perils ensue, varying from hostile bikers to Charles Dance as the devil's emissary, while Jarrell tolerates it all with the bemused good nature and casual prejudice that are a hallmark of Murphy's family films.
The good
Before watching, I was slightly worried that this one was going to be a flat-out stinker - anything from the 80s that deals in Eastern mysticism tends to carry that risk. It wasn't. It was a mildly diverting piece of fluff that holds up tolerably provided you're prepared to disengage a significant proportion of your higher functions. The performances are workmanlike, the set design was appealing and I got a massive kick from revisiting some of the special effects tricks that were prevalent at the time. There's nothing here that's particularly crass, and I think that in the right company, it could probably still constitute a fair afternoon's entertainment - at least, for the nostalgically-minded.
The bad
I suppose my biggest quarrel with The Golden Child is that it's so incredibly, stonkingly lazy. I wouldn't go so far as to call it racist, but it makes repeated use of racial stereotypes as shorthand, so I suppose it depends on where your boundaries lie. So we have, therefore, the Chinese restaurant that hides various magical practices, and it's a given that anybody with even a vaguely Asian skintone will be resolutely enigmatic and, when the shit hit the fan, will know kung fu. Is this problematic? I'm not sure. Certainly it's nothing like as offensive as the likes of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but it's the thin end of a very nasty wedge indeed.
The same goes for the casual sexism. Again, this is presumably all part of Murphy's schtick and he's often the punchline of his own joke, but it irked me to see a beautiful, capable female character repeatedly save the day only to require rescuing when the time came for Jarrell to reveal his true self, who was apparently slightly less of a prick than his false self in that he didn't want to allow the woman he was lusting after to die. Yeah, there's some major altruism going on here.
To be honest, I suspect the problem might rest with wanting Eddie Murphy to play likeable. At his best, he's an inspired comedian, but not one who necessarily engenders any real warmth. The story tells us Jarrell is a good guy, but honestly? He comes across as a self-mythologising dick.
One final point: a quick check of the imdb reveals that while the titular Golden Child is a male character, he's actually portrayed by a little girl. I don't doubt that the production team played fast and loose with plenty of other aspects of Tibetan mythology, so is there any real reason we couldn't have had a female saviour for once?
The verdict
This one might make for a fun watch if you're a child of the 80s or an Eddie Murphy fan. Moral and intellectual reservations mean I can't actually recommend it, though.
Just a quickie today, I'm afraid, because this is one of those rare weekends when my real life has managed to get a look in and I've been run half off my feet. In light of Monday's entry, however, I've still managed to make time to watch the original Hairspray, and now I'm trying to assemble some of my thoughts.
So, the basics: I'm not going to go over the storyline because the remake didn't change too much - it simplified a few things, but the characters and the narrative arc are more or less identical. The only thing you really need to know if you didn't already is that the original isn't a musical, although it has a strong enough soundtrack that lovers of the genre likely won't be too disappointed.
The good
Say what you like about this one, it has a certain authenticity about it - it's hardly cinema verité, but if they attached one of those based on a true story captions to it as seems to happen with every third horror movie these days, it wouldn't feel like too much of a stretch to believe that at the very least, there was a real Tracy Turnblad. The kids fight and swear and preen; they look like real kids and not like vat-cloned Disney monstrosities. The dancing is frequently awkward, too, and none of Corny's Council look like professionals. It's a million miles away from the polished, pastel wonderland created by the remake, and I think a lot of people will appreciate that.
I loved the location set-pieces, too - the Tilted Acres theme park and the motor show in particular both made me grin like an idiot. I'm aware that not everybody shares my passion for historic fairground rides and the cars of the fifties and sixties, but they still add context and, these days, look thrillingly exotic as well. There's none of the staginess here of the remake, and the only scenes that look as though they were shot in a studio are those actually set in one.
One more point of note is that the film is far more of an ensemble piece than the remake - as played by the late Divine, Edna Turnblad doesn't need her daughter to pull her out of her shell. Penny Pingleton is also a far stronger character, much more outspoken here than in her musical incarnation. True, nobody quite attains Nikki Blonsky's levels of sweetness and positive energy, but in a low-budget, relatively low-key satire this simply isn't what's required.
The bad
I feel like a bad film buff for saying this, but I just wasn't able to connect with this one on the same level that I did with the remake. I had the same trouble with Little Shop Of Horrors, actually; the musical is one of my cinematic happy places but the original feels ugly, bitter and a little bit, well, drab. It's not that I like my movies to be overly-polished, overly-sanitized Hollywood megaplex fodder, I just like a spot of musical fantasy sometimes, particularly if it's adding bite to darkly comedic subject matter.
I'm not going to criticise the original Hairspray for not having the budget of the remake, because I'm not sure whether or not that's relevant. In general, I didn't feel the performances were as good, but I'm unsure whether that's due to the performers or the direction. My preference is for Shankman's more naturalistic style over Waters' more mannered one, but I cannot stress enough that this is purely a matter of personal taste. Likewise the colour schemes; I prefer the harmoniousness of the remake to the jarring clashes of the original, but I'm pretty sure in this case that that's just standard Waters grotesquerie. It's not for me, but if it's for you then I'm not about to pass judgement.
You may be thinking right now that I'm being very halfassed in my opinions, and you'd be right; it's because they are the opinions of somebody who, having expressed them, is terrified that another unidentified somebody is going to come out of the woodwork and accuse me of being the sort of somebody who likes Mamma Mia or that sort of guff. I'm not saying that either one of the films under discussion here is the better, simply that I do have a clear personal preference.
For the record, the slight racial concerns that bothered me about the remake arise here, too; the caricaturing of the black characters is even clumsier, and as the movie progresses the integration plotline gradually takes a back seat to Tracy's ambitions to be a beauty queen. It's messy, and it's unfortunate, and it dilutes what could be a really positive message. There's also plenty of ableist language here; I know it was the 80s, but I find it difficult to hear a character use the word retard without them losing a lot of my goodwill.
The verdict
A perfectly serviceable little comedy with a very distinctive aesthetic sensibility. I enjoyed it on an intellectual level, but I can't honestly say it ever got particularly close to my heart.
I remember vividly the first time I saw the 2007 Hairspray remake. I was in bed, in February, suffering from the sort of epic flu that causes one to lose control of multiple bodily functions, sometimes simultaneously. I was lonely, too, because Mr. Beaupepys was a couple of days ahead of me in our mutual suffering, so I was still burning up in the coldest room of the house while he was shivering abjectly a couple of rooms away in front of the gas fire. I'd been watching Quest, the Discovery Channel's freebie cousin, but there's only so many cheerfully talky engineers a sick Sarah can endure and I eventually summoned up the energy to start channel hopping.
I managed to find the second half of Zoolander, which wasn't ideal but was still much, much better than no Zoolander at all, and by the time Zoolander Junior was performing his first look for the camera (sorry for spoilers) my will to live had been at least partially restored. Changing the channel, however, still seemed like a huge mountain to climb. For Titanic, perhaps, I might have found the energy to switch to something different. For War Horse, even, (had it been made). A cute sixties-set musical based on a John Waters film, though? That actually sounded like sort of fun, even if it did feature a female character played by a man in a fat suit.
Three years on, give or take, and I still feel a little bounce of happiness every time I see the title on the TV listings.
Hairspray is a movie based on a musical based on the aforementioned John Waters movie, which I haven't seen and so can't offer a comparison. From what I can surmise, the remake offers a tamer, more family-friendly version, but please don't quote me on this? In any case, the plot, setting and major characters remain the same. We have, therefore, chubby teen Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky) living in Baltimore in 1962, when rock'n'roll was in the ascendant and the civil rights movement was finally starting to gain serious momentum.
Tracy dreams of being one of the well-scrubbed, wholesome kids on the local American Bandstand-style dance show, but when a slot becomes free for audition her mother Edna (John Travolta - I kid you not) discourages her, not wanting to see her feelings hurt. Tracy, however, is one of life's optimists, and besides, she's been practicing some moves she's been working on with the black kids in detention. Even when she's summarily dismissed from the audition by vampish producer Velma Von Tussle (Michelle Pfeiffer), her persistence and ingenuity mean she soon wins the role she desires.
In some films, this would already have taken us to the happy ending, but Hairspray has loftier goals in mind. After all, Von Tussle's stranglehold on the show means that the black kids are only permitted to perform once a month on the designated Negro Day, and even this seems to be under threat. Tracy determines to change this, no matter what the cost might be to her status or career.
The good
Did I mention that I love this film? It's an injection of positive energy delivered straight to the heart, and one that lifts me even on my very darkest days. The only question is, where to begin?
We'll start, I think, with the performances, which vary from the good (Michelle Pfeiffer, purring and sashaying as an evil former beauty queen) to the excellent (John Travolta, in a role I'd expected to find uncomfortable to watch). It's tempting to single everybody out for special credit, but here are a couple more of my favourites: Elijah Kelley as Seaweed, whose voice is pleasantly reminiscent of Smokey Robinson, and sometime Cyclops James Marsden, looking more at home than I've ever seen him before as dance show host Corney Collins. It is to Nikki Blonsky's Tracy Turnblad, however, that the film really belongs - she's in almost every scene, and her powerful voice and great dance moves are almost secondary to the radiant good-heartedness she exudes whenever she's on camera. It's a travesty that she hasn't been swamped with work ever since. Finally, for those interested in such things, John Waters also appears, in a cameo to make Stan Lee hang his head in shame.
Visually, the film is appealing, too, presenting a sugar-frosted fantasy of the early sixties even as it gently undermines the mores of the period. It could be argued that it looks a little stagey at some points, but I'm not sure this is a bad thing - this is a musical, after all, and so we don't necessarily want Dogme 95 rules to apply. Speaking of the music, it's a loving and fairly accurate pastiche of the period, although obviously it knocks off any rough edges. This is compensated for by the lyrics, which are sly but never spiteful. It's all eminently hummable, and the big final number You can't stop the beat is definitely a classic in waiting.
All of this is great, obviously, but it doesn't even come close to being the best thing about Hairspray. John Waters, you see, as well as being a gross-out merchant, is definitely a humanitarian, and remake director Adam Shankman has ensured this spirit carries over. It's an incredibly inclusive film, with the overt message that everybody deserves to be celebrated, regardless of gender, race or size.
Yes, size. The, um, elephant in the room, and the reason it took me several years to get round to watching the film in the first place. I'd assumed that the character of Tracy was going to be a figure of fun, and that's before we get anywhere near the implications of putting John Travolta into a fatsuit (horrible things, should be banned). This has to be the most fat-positive movie I've ever seen, though, and I wish it had been around during my awkward teenage phase when I was starving myself and miserable. Tracy is a fantastic role model, clearly aware of her size but never letting it hold her back - after all, it's just one aspect of the smart, spirited, talented person she is. I repeat, just one aspect, not the defining one, so she's not constantly eating on camera. Thank you, Adam Shankman. Tracy's mother Edna, on the other hand, is thoroughly ashamed of her own weight, despite being a good mother and a sharp business brain, but as Tracy blossoms she's determined to bring Edna forward with her, and by the end of the film the character has had the chance to go on a journey of her own. Oh, and did I mention that Tracy has a skinny, conventionally pretty blonde best friend who nevertheless always remains slightly in her shadow? It's a beautiful little piece of trope subversion, because none of the other characters ever seem to bat an eyelash.
You'll notice I'm not mentioning many male characters here. This is because by and large, they're not the decision-makers in Hairspray - sure, they get the odd song here and there but they don't drive the action, and come the finale they're relegated to chorus line status. What they do do, however, is support the women in their lives, and when push comes to shove they can always be relied on to do the right thing. This is that sort of movie, one where everybody gets their chance, and for me at least, that's part of the joy of it.
The bad
This just leaves the question of race, which is unfortunate, given that it's such a complex topic and not one I find easy to discuss. It is, however, every bit as relevant to Hairspray as size, and sadly, it isn't handled quite so well. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing offensive here - I loved a shot where the black kids sang and danced on a bus while our three white protagonists sat and watched from the back of the bus. In the midst of all the good vibrations, however, there's a definite tendency to use cliche as shorthand - we're not quite talking Magical Negroes, but at times it gets close. The black kids are the best dancers, therefore, and the best songwriters, and matriarch Motormouth Maybelle (Queen Latifah, always welcome on screen) cooks soul food to die for. The white characters had their own individual story arcs and personality quirks; the black characters had soul, apparently, and that was their sole collective distinguishing mark. Perhaps this is because of the editing involved in compressing a musical down to popcorn-movie length, but I haven't seen the stage show, so that might just be me putting the most positive spin on a less than ideal situation.
The verdict
Definitely my favourite movie musical of recent years, and likely to remain so until The Book of Mormon gets filmed and released. If you're any sort of fan of the genre and haven't already seen this one, you owe it to yourself to take a look as soon as possible.
It would be wrong for me to say I'm still processing the death of Robin Williams - three months later, I seldom think of him. When I do, however, I can't help but feel sad at such a colossal waste of potential. All it takes is to watch a few minutes of his stand-up or even (whisper it) the Genie in Disney's Aladdin to realize the sort of talent we're looking at here. Were looking at here. Damn.
I know his films veered too often into dangerously saccharine layers of sentiment, but by and large I've been able to avoid them. I'm a smart viewer and I know my limits, which is why Jack somehow mysteriously failed to make it onto my list for the 31 Days challenge. When Williams played darker, though, that was when things got interesting - I have a soft spot for Death to Smoochy that all the reasoned critique in the world can't alter, and even writing the title makes me want to watch it again in time for Christmas.
My favourite Robin Williams film, however? One Hour Photo, with no need for me to stop and think before responding. Granted, credit has to be given to director Mark Romanek and cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth for creating some of the most atmospheric backdrops of the noughties, but it's Williams' heartbreaking but restrained performance as photo lab operator Seymour Parrish that lends the movie its quietly shattered soul. It's probably not one I'd watch again, but why would I need to? It's stayed with me for a long time now, and I suspect it always will.
So, we've established that I like my Robin Williams movies dark. When I read, therefore, that he'd been involved in World's Greatest Dad, a Bobcat Goldthwait comedy, it seemed like a match made in, well, not heaven, but somewhere that's a lot of fun to be. Goldthwait has a history of nudging at the boundaries of taste and decency, and I couldn't help but be excited at the glorious nastiness that was to follow. The plot was promising, too - teenage boy dies whilst masturbating; father disguises this as suicide, fakes his journal and becomes a local hero - and I found myself wondering once again where this movie had been all my life.
The good
I loved the last few scenes. I mean, I really, really loved the last few scenes, where the cinematography, the soundtrack, the scripting and Williams' performance combined to pack a tremendously satisfying emotional punch.
Problem being, it was preceded by...
The bad
Honestly, I've been thinking about this one for the better part of a day now and I'm still stuck for what to say - can the last ten minutes compensate for the 90 or so that went before? The temptation is just to refer you to Roger Ebert's review, which expresses my feelings more or less exactly, not to mention a lot more elegantly than I ever could.
What we have here is the dark and rotten core of a truly nasty black comedy buried deep within layer upon layer of Williams' trademark schmaltz. It felt to me that somebody couldn't decide whether the film was intended as a satire or a drama, and consequently, it frustrates on both levels.
This isn't Williams' fault. He keeps it low-key and naturalistic as failing poetry teacher Lance Clayton, creating a genuinely likeable character, if not quite so likeable as the slightly intrusive alt-rock soundtrack wants us to think. I don't think blame lies with any of the actors, in fact - former Spy Kid Daryl Sabara is suitably loathsome as Clayton's soon-to-be-deceased son Kyle, but imbues him with a slight edge of unhappiness that never allows us to forget this is a real human being we're watching.
This is sort of the problem, though; it's hard to enjoy what happens when the main players are so relatively well-rounded - how can we be amused by Kyle's demise when we have to watch a prolonged sequence with his father cradling his corpse and sobbing in anguish? The only character I felt truly worked within the genre was Alexie Gilmore as fickle teacher Miss Reed, a human moth drawn inexorably and erotically to the most poetic male in the vicinity.
Possibly the film's biggest misstep, however, is to name a minor character Heather. It might make sense for a dark comedy about teen suicide to pay homage to Heathers, but the minute I heard the character's name I received a vivid reminder of something I'd much rather have been watching instead.
The verdict
Whoever it is that castrated this one has a lot to answer for. With a little less restraint and a bit more courage, it could have been something rather special. As stands, it feels like nothing so much as an all-time great opportunity missed by a country mile.
Only about six weeks now until Christmas, so I probably shouldn't be complaining about it clogging up the TV schedules. In truth, it's not the programming that bothers me so much as the advertisements, and the way they've become televisual events to the point where they get trailers in their own right. Is the shopping really the only thing that matters? I don't know, but what I do know is that a movie blog isn't the place for rants about consumerism, no matter how crass it might be.
Mostly, I just noticed this weekend that the usual glut of bad family movies had suddenly acquired a touch of festive sparkle. I did toy with writing about Santa With Muscles, but that would have contravened my rule about shooting fish in a barrel, as well as necessitating watching it.
The Polar Express is one of these films that I've only ever seen piecemeal, as something vaguely visually distracting whilst I was waiting for something more interesting to show up on TV. I knew, however, that it was based on a picture book by author Chris Van Allsburg, and I knew it used motion-capture animation to allow Tom Hanks to play several of the major roles, including the unnamed Hero Boy (luckily, he allowed Spy Kids' Daryl Sabara to take on voice acting duties for this one.) I knew we first met our hero one Christmas Eve when he was starting to have his doubts about Santa Claus and the magic of the festive season, and I knew it was about how he got invited aboard a mysterious train bound for the North Pole and the trip he took.
I also knew Mr. Beaupepys flat-out refused to watch it on grounds of excessive creepiness, and from the snatches I'd previously seen I was inclined to think he had a point. Still, part of the reason I'm writing this thing is to take a good hard look at popular prejudices, which means that every now and then I should probably put my own under the magnifying glass, too.
The good
The visual style is really, umm, distinctive? Faint praise, I know, but the backgrounds in particular occasionally display a genuine beauty, even if it is of the very loneliest variety, like that of a windswept moor or a ghost town. Sometimes the composition of a shot will look almost painterly, as with the glowing lights of the train as it ascends a spiral mountain. It is at those points, I think, that The Polar Express comes closest to finding a sense of genuine wonder. The rest of the time, well, the motion capture animation is really clever, I suppose?
The thing I liked the most about the movie, though - well, admired, because I can't honestly say I felt a genuine warmth towards any aspect of it - was Hero Girl, a young African American girl who joins the hero boy on his journey and precipitates most of the action with her bravery and compassion. Her belief in the Christmas spirit is unquenchable, and I would have loved to have seen her as our main heroine. That's not how the book works, however; Hero Boy isn't sure he believes, and there's more rejoicing over one sinner who repents, etc, etc - it's unsurprising if vaguely depressing that (spoilers) he's the one selected for the honour of receiving the first Christmas gift from Santa.
The bad
Believe it or not, I don't enjoy eviscerating movies. I particularly don't enjoy eviscerating kids' films, and I most especially don't enjoy eviscerating the Christmassy ones. I find myself feeling obliged to pre-emptively defend myself by pointing out that I get up at 5am every Christmas morning to watch favourites like Olive the Other Reindeer, and that if I ever were to miss The Snowman or Muppet Christmas Carol I'd feel as though Christmas hadn't really happened at all.
So... not a Scrooge, okay?
It's just that The Polar Express is so unrelentingly bloody bleak and chilly that I find myself wondering whether Zemeckis didn't do the majority of his work on it whilst channeling the childlike wonder and warm humanitarian soul of Christopher Nolan. Oh, and just so we're absolutely clear, 1) that was sarcasm and 2) this is my second attempt at writing a sentence featuring both those names because 3) the first one conjured up the sort of unpleasant images that I, unlike Zemeckis, wouldn't want to burn into your brain.
Let's deal with the animation first. Yes, the characters do undeniably look creepy. I don't think it's the visuals themselves so much as hyperrealistic motion animation married to artwork intended to resemble Allsburg's illustrations. We're deep into Uncanny Valley here, and it's worsened by the mental image of Tom Hanks underneath, wearing a blue suit covered with ping pong balls and pretending with all his might to be a small child experiencing wonders and horrors untold.
This actually wasn't my biggest problem with the film, though; no, that one's reserved for the narrative. I haven't managed to lay my hands on a copy of the original picture book and so I'm not sure who gets the blame for this one, but my God, a lot of dangerous stuff happens in this movie. Scarcely five minutes pass without our young heroes falling prey to some sort of unspeakable danger - this usually involves falling, either from a great height, at a great speed or, frequently, both. There's also the ghost hobo who generally provides a last-minute rescue but whose identity and motives are never entirely clear, and who himself apparently meets various terrible fates at various points during the 100-minute running time.
Under the circumstances, my usual pet peeve of an overly heavy-handed soundtrack hardly even registers. Yes, though, there is one, and yes, it does grate. Similarly annoying is the film's single named female character, and the relentless middle-classness of the whole affair; anybody not obviously at least comfortably off is treated either as a figure of pity (Lonely Boy) or of fun (the engineers). This isn't a terribly inclusive Christmas we're looking at, and nor, despite Hero Girl's best efforts, is it a particularly compassionate one. As far as I can tell, the only morals of the story seems to be that all the best stuff is reserved for those who believe unquestioningly, and that adulthood is a tragedy because it robs us of the capacity for unquestioning trust.
Yeah, if you dig beneath the surface there's some really worrying stuff going on here.
The verdict
I know a lot of people really love this one, but I'd no more show it to a young kid than I would Inception - as with Inception, some stunning visual trickery can't compensate for worrying messages and a complete lack of a human heart.
We all remember Jackanory, don't we? Don't we? I get the horrible feeling that recent revival notwithstanding, it's one of those things that died out decades ago and thus marks me out as an old person. Oh, and a British person; there's probably any number of people in other countries who don't remember it and plenty of them probably don't even have TV sets, or didn't at the time. Heck, I don't really remember it myself, I mostly just remember it was a thing. So yeah, a small minority of us remember Jackanory.
Anyhow, for those who don't, the concept isn't hard to grasp: it features a person sitting in a chair reading a story, with rudimentary live action or animated segments as illustrations. Nice TV for kids, and possibly even for harrassed parents. Soothing.
When, therefore, I heard that UK TV channel Dave was introducing something similar aimed at adults and calling it Crackanory, yeah, I had to give it a go. Was I impressed? Not particularly. The stories (all black comedies) are mostly a bit obvious, and the presenters are almost invariably a lot self-satisfied. Still, I continue to watch, because, well, it's sort of soothing.
I was catching up on Crackanory yesterday when I noticed that one of the live action sections starred Steve Oram and Alice Lowe. Awesome! I thought, They were both in Sightseers! ... ... ...Why on earth haven't I written about Sightseers?
Luckily, it's not too late.
Sightseers is a deliciously dark little comedy directed by Ben Wheatley - he's done Kill List and A Field In England, both of which you also probably haven't seen (don't worry, neither have I). It's written by its two stars, the aforementioned Oram and Lowe, although I believe there was also a heavy improvisational element. It tells the story of Tina and Chris, a couple of societal misfits taking their first holiday together in a mobile caravan in the north of England. Are the consequences hilarious? For the viewer, maybe, but not necessarily for the people they meet on their travels.
The good
In theory, I love the British film scene - it's fresh, it's ours and it provides a bunch of interesting alternatives to the immaculately-buffed turds produced by the Hollywood blockbuster machine. In practice, though? Experience shows that the ratio of hits to misses is about the same. For every hidden gem I manage to locate, I land up sitting through a bunch of faux-gritty crime dramas and self-consciously quirky sci-fi that makes me long for the kind of budget that doesn't even have to run to decent effects, just the services of a proper scriptwriter.
Luckily, Sightseers is one of the gems. A blood-slicked, petty little gem, maybe, but that's half the fun of it. It's a thoroughly bleak little piece without an ounce of respect for anybody, especially not our two protagonists. But then, life's never shown much respect to Chris or Tina either, which is why he's grown intolerant of even the smallest of life's irritations and her mind is altogether too open to any sort of new experience. She offers him unquestioning adoration and he offers her guidance, at least at first - it's the gradual shift in their roles that makes this film such an utter joy.
Oram and Lowe are both standups, so it's probably not surprising that the script is full of quotable one-liners - they generally keep these for themselves, but as Tina's mother, Eileen Davies also gets some absolute doozies. It was an accident, Tina whines about the death of the family dog. So were you, retorts her mother, without missing a beat.
The soundtrack, too, is fantastic, consisting of patient, winding piano interspersed with various rock tracks and, in one particularly memorable segment, a spoken-word rendition of part of Jerusalem. It's smart, in an unobtrusive sort of a way, and I particularly liked the way different versions of the same songs were used to illustrate the shifting power balance within Chris and Tina's relationship.
For those concerned about these sorts of things, the gore level is relatively low. The sound engineering, however, fills in the gaps that the visuals leave blank, so people with vivid imaginations will probably find themselves cringing regardless.
The bad
Only a few minor niggles here, to be honest; this is a very, very nice little film indeed.
The cinematography is solid rather than spectacular; it tells the story well enough but with the Yorkshire landscape practically a character in its own right, I would have appreciated a greater sense of place. Perhaps the narrow focus was a stylistic choice, but I do feel as though the bleak landscapes would have really complemented the exceptionally bleak narrative.
There isn't much else to complain about; the film does possibly sag in the middle a little, but at 88 minutes, you have to ask what would have been left if all the slack had been cut away.
The verdict
Bleakly funny and as British as complaining about the weather - it's a crime this one hasn't received the attention it rightfully deserves.
So, after a month of movies, I thought it might be nice to close things off with a bit of an awards ceremony - after all, what's the point in watching a bunch of films if you don't compare them with one another?
Without further ado, therefore, allow me to present to you:
THE INDEFENSIBLES!
Best Actor (gender neutral)
Nominees: Alan Arkin (The Return of Captain Invincible) Rinko Kikuchi ( The Brothers Bloom) Billy Zane (The Phantom)
Winner: Alan Arkin, with a performance of dazzling sincerity that cut through a campy script and turned it into something genuinely moving.
Worst Actor (gender neutral)
Nominees: Diego Boneta (Rock of Ages), Julianne Hough (Rock of Ages), Ryan Reynolds (Green Lantern)
Winner: Diego Boneta, purely because I forgot his surname and was forced to check it on imdb and remember the damned film all over again.
Best Movie
Nominees: Black Sheep, A Life Less Ordinary, The Return of Captain Invincible
Winner: Black Sheep, for nuanced performances, great pacing and proving that low-budget creature flicks don't always crawl out of the kitsch abyss.
Worst Movie
Nominees: The Green Lantern, Ishtar, Rock of Ages
Winner: Rock of Ages. Anybody can make a mess of a complex concept, but it takes something truly special to fuck up boy-meets-girl to the point of unwatchability.
Best Soundtrack
Nominees: Kicks, The Phantom of the Paradise, The Return of Captain Invincible
Winner: The Return of Captain Invincible, because the performers clearly enjoyed it most and you can't get a higher recommendation than that.
Worst Soundtrack
Nominees: Rock of Ages, Tooth Fairy, Xanadu
Winner: Rock of Ages, for taking some of my favourite 80s rock tracks and gleefully castrating them with a rusty teaspoon. Not my favourite film in the world, all things considered.
Best Visuals
Nominees: A Life Less Ordinary, Dune, Speed Racer
Winner: Speed Racer. So beautiful it breaks your heart even while it's burning your eyes.
Worst Visuals
Nominees: Green Lantern, Space Jam, Tooth Fairy
Winner: Green Lantern. It's just really, really ugly, okay?
Pleasantest Surprise
Nominees: Footloose, The Phantom, Pret-A-Porter
Winner: The Phantom. A genuine slice of old-fashioned adventure. Why hasn't Billy Zane played more superheroes since?
Biggest Disappointment
Nominees: The Brothers Bloom, Hudson Hawk, Ishtar
Winner: The Brothers Bloom, for making a caper movie without the caper. For shame!
Guiltiest Pleasure
Nominees: Biggles: Adventures in Time, G-Force, Phantom of the Paradise
Winner: Phantom of the Paradise. Morally reprehensible, but the music, visuals and general mood are harder to resist than I'd like.
Greatest Waste of a Cool Concept
Nominees: Hudson Hawk, Ishtar, Life After Beth
Winner: Life After Beth. How could this not have been laugh out loud funny?
Greatest Waste of Actorly Talent
Nominees: Bryan Cranston (Rock of Ages), Dustin Hoffman (Ishtar), Aubrey Plaza (Life After Beth)
Winner: Bryan Cranston. Was it the lure of the easy paycheck, or the thrill of being spanked on camera? Sadly, we may never find out.
Most Misunderstood Work of Genius
Nominees: Dune, A Life Less Ordinary, Speed Racer, Pret A Porter
Winner: Dune, for not being half as impenetrable as most people seem to think.
Happiest Ending
Nominees: A Life Less Ordinary, Footloose, Magicians
Winner: Magicians. A perfect buildup to one of the most flat-out heartwarming scenes in cinematic history. Spoilers forbid me from offering further details, so you'll just have to watch it for yourself and see.
This concludes the 2014 Indefensible Awards. Please return next year for more of the same. Alternatively, check back every Monday and Friday for more of me talking about films I like and loathe.
