I'm still not sure how Barry Levinson's Toys managed not to make it into my original 31 days of film writeups, given that I seem to remember it being one of the titles I had in mind when I conceived the blog in the first place. I wouldn't say it's the kind of movie I love, but it's certainly the kind with which I have an unholy fascination, the sort where somebody clearly had a vision but things somehow went awry and the finished product landed up being not so much awful as genuinely mystifying.
This, apparently, is the film that Levinson wanted to direct all his life - not Good Morning, Vietnam, but this, a slightly satirical tale about the horrors of war starring Robin Wi - okay, a different slightly satirical tale about the horrors of war.
Our hero here is Leslie Zevo, a puckish manchild who stands to inherit the Zevo Toy factory. It's a gentle place, where a happy, dancing workforce cheerfully construct old-style clockwork dolls and stuffed animals under the watchful eye of Leslie's father, Kenneth (Donald O'Connor). Kenneth is dying, however, and while he always dreamed of handing the factory over to his son, he feels he lacks the necessary drive. His daughter Alsatia isn't suitable hands either, for various reasons, so he feels compelled to offer the factory to his brother, Lt. General Leland Zevo (Michael Gambon).
Leland is a senior military figure and a stern disciplinarian. He now has access to a factory full of charming, nostalgic toys. The rest writes itself, doesn't it? Watch, and you may land up wishing it actually had...
The good
I won't say that this is a visually appealing film, because it isn't, not particularly. Ferdinando Scarfiotti's set designs look unlike anything else I've ever seen before, though, like a pastel version of a city from an old Communist Bloc country, right down to the sweeping diagonal lines on the murals. It's nicely complimented by Albert Wolsky's costume designs, too, which walk the tightrope that divides the bizarre from the plausible without faltering, remaining notably attractive without detracting from the action, such as it is.
Thematically, too, there are definitely points of interest - narrative devices involving drones and video games are actively prescient, unfortunately. I'm paraphrasing quite heavily, but Terry Gilliam once said words to the effect that he'd never expected his Brazil to become a documentary, and the same, perhaps, could be said of certain plot elements here.
Finally, I just want to put a word in for the character of Patrick, as played by LL Cool J, who manages to be the most interesting human in the film by a long way. His speech about how he doesn't like things to touch on his dinner plate is one of the few genuine joys in a largely charmless endeavour.
The bad
Somewhere near the film's climactic battle, one of my cats brought a sparrow in. Eww, I said, A dead sparrow. Take it to Mr. Beaupepys, Arthur. And Arthur, being unusually generous with his kill, did just that, taking it to Mr. B and setting it down at his feet. The sparrow promptly flew away and out of the house, leaving us startled and laughing in relief while Arthur, baffled, retreated to his bowl, presumably in the hope of finding some food that would fight fair. Reluctantly, I turned my attention back to the movie. It's just one of those sorts of films, I guess; the sort where you can look at it for a few seconds and it's mildly interesting, but it doesn't take long for the interest to wear off and leave you seeking something shinier or flutterier or flat-out better.
I suspect the problem is that Toys' good guys are so hard to root for. Robin Williams in manic mode tends to be too hyper to make for a sympathetic hero, whilst Joan Cusack's Alsatia is weird to the point of being sinister for reasons which are never adequately explained until far too late in the day. They lead a workforce who don't seem so much cheerful as actively brainwashed, dancing along to a dirge that sounds like Kate Bush on an uninspired day even as they work at circular conveyor belts topped by blank-eyed toy heads. The toys themselves are grotesque as well, sinister clockwork things, all sharp edges and insectile scuttling, far more unsettling than an honest tank or toy gun.
Stood against them, meanwhile, is Michael Gambon, in a role for which he should be ideally suited. Poor scripting and direction, however, effectively neuter him, leaving the General unconvincing as either a pantomime villain or a genuine threat.
Towards the end, there were a couple of low-grade sex scenes, and I found myself wondering whether these were really appropriate for a kids' film. I'm not sure Toys is true family material, though - it might conceivably be nightmare fodder for certain kids, true, but more to the point, for long stretches it's simply deeply dull.
The verdict
An uninteresting treatment of potentially interesting subject material, and one which wastes a good cast and some genuinely intriguing production design. Toys is passable entertainment for curio hunters and completist fans of individual cast members, but there's little here that hasn't been done elsewhere, and done better.
Ah, bank holiday Mondays, those wonderful, magical days when I know I never need to hunt for something mildly interesting to review because there'll be at least four or five served up on a plate by the major TV channels. Granted, it can be a bit of a lottery as to what you get, but honestly? That's half the charm.
I've been in a pleasantly lazy mood today - too lazy, certainly, to look at more than the titles and synopses of the day's options. There were a few definite possibles, but in the end my eye was caught by The Spiderwick Chronicles, apparently based on a series of bestselling books about a bestiary of magical creatures. The title and the covers of the books in the library where I work both evoked memories of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, a delightful, mischievous little piece, and as I was in the mood to be delighted with mischief, I settled down with high hopes and a nice hot cup of tea.
Our protagonists here are the Grace family - twins Simon and Jared (both played by Freddie Highmore), older sister Mallory (Sarah Bolger) and mother Helen (Mary-Louise Parker), who move to an old country estate in the wake of Helen's separation from the children's father.
A born troublemaker, it doesn't take long for Jared to find the aforementioned magical bestiary. Unfortunately, it turns out to have been hidden for a reason, and soon the family are fighting for their lives against the villainous ogre Mulgarath, who longs to slay the other faerie races in order to become the most powerful creature in the world...
The good
A bunch of nice effects work and some appealing character design here, particularly with the goblins, who resembled nothing so much as loosely anthropomorphised toads. None of the CGI work was particularly glaringly obvious, even the griffin that showed up towards the end of proceedings, and whatever techniques were used to duplicate Freddie Highmore were enough to convince on the small screen, at least.
It's all kid-friendly stuff, provided your kids don't have a problem with homicidal monsters; director Mark Waters dips fairly deeply into the Big Bag of Cheap Horror Scare Tactics, but very little here is genuinely upsetting barring one or two well-telegraphed moments near the end. The comedy is broad without being scatological, and if the dialogue doesn't quite pass the Bechdel test, we are at least provided with two strong, brave role models in Helen and Mallory.
The bad
Remember that delight and mischief I described myself as so eagerly hoping for a few paragraphs ago? I believe the relevant descriptive phrase here would be shit out of luck. It's not that it's particularly rare for a film to be this charmless, it's just that murderously violent or not, magical creatures are supposed to evoke a sense of wonder. As brownie Thimbletack and hobgoblin Hogsqueal respectively, Martin Short and Seth Rogen did the best they could with cringe-inducing material, but Nick Nolte's Mulgarath lacked the seductive edge of the best mythical villains, leaving him bloodless and frankly rather uninteresting. What I found really grated, however, was the way that pretty much everybody in the movie delivered pretty much every line as though they hated pretty much everybody else. Highmore was the worst offender, I thought, and at times he seemed to be channeling two separate versions of Will Arnett's Lego Batman. Shouty and ugly-sounding, the dialogue's only saving grace was that it distracted the attention from James Horner's sweepingly manipulative score.
The verdict
Is The Spiderwick Chronicles a bad film? Probably not, not especially. It's easy on the eye and light on the moralising, and deserves credit for compressing the five slim volumes it tackles into a single film rather than trying to cash in by stretching it out to franchise length. It's loud, however, and aggressive, and scores low in the likeability stakes. Passable entertainment for bored tweenagers at the arse end of a long weekend, I suppose, but definitely not something to bother looking out for.
Was Ex Machina really only released this year? Time flies when you're struggling to keep your head above water, I guess. Still, I'm still here, still healthy and still employed, and much to my own surprise, I'm still writing about movies twice a week and still enjoying it very much indeed. Today's choice wasn't a difficult one, either, being as it is the directorial debut of one Alex Garland, the writer behind 28 Days Later as well as Enslaved, one of the smartest and most underrated titles to ever grace the Xbox 360. His worlds tend towards the bleak and nihilistic, but there's usually hope within the darkness, even if it's only a glimmer or two. Quite a lot like this year's been for me so far, actually... Anyhow, Ex Machina. The setup is intriguing, if not exactly original - a young programmer (Caleb, played by Domnhall Gleason) wins a raffle, the prize for which is a week at the luxury estate home of his employer, the reclusive tech billionaire Nathan (Oscar Isaac). Upon his arrival, more details are revealed: the raffle was held to find a random individual to act as the human component in a Turing test, considered the gold standard for artificial intelligence. Will Nathan's creation Ava (Alicia Vikander) be able to convince Caleb of her fundamental humanity?
The good
Ex Machina is absolutely everything I'd hope for from an Alex Garland film, and off the top of my head it's hard to think of much higher praise. It's a meticulously made piece of craftsmanship that looks fantastic, sounds amazing and continues to engage the brain long after the end credits have rolled. The starting concept was a simple one, but as the narrative unrolled I found myself asking question after question, only to have the film answer them before posing several more.
With the characters' perceived motivations constantly shifting, the audience is left every bit as baffled as Caleb, who functions as our window into the world. Gleason performs as solidly as you'd expect, but the role isn't any great departure for him; instead, it is Alicia Vikander as Ava that truly dazzles. A former dancer, Vikander infuses the character's every move with expressiveness; Ava's hands in particular give her away when the camera slowly closes in on her worrying at the fabric of her dress. It's a bravura performance, and one that hopefully heralds great things to come.
The bad
There's not a lot I'd complain about here, but I do think Nathan was written as too much of a pantomime villain, swarthy, bearded, sexually exploitative and utterly irredeemable. In a film all about people's motivations and the ways in which they express them he still seemed quite two-dimensional, and I was left waiting for some sort of interesting reveal that never came.
Speaking of sexual exploitation, I should probably add that I found these elements of the film quite difficult to stomach. My first instinct was to condemn certain scenes as gratuitous, but on further reflection I genuinely don't believe this to be the case. Besides, a good film doesn't always have to make for entirely comfortable watching.
The verdict
A beautiful, rather bleak vision of what might be the future or might simply be the present in a world too privileged for us to be able to imagine. Chilly and atmospheric, I get the feeling Ex Machina will remain with me for a very long time indeed.
Should I be writing about an overtly political movie while I'm still awash with grief and frustration at the transcendent idiocy of the British electorate? Maybe, maybe not. Probably not, in fact, as I generally do my best to keep my beliefs to myself and leave the arguing to those lucky people whose rage doesn't leave them tongue-tied.
Still, certain truths remain constant no matter who's in power, and chief amongst these is the one about those who most want power being those least suited to wielding it. It's a fact that's kept the best satirists happily employed since time immemorial, and right now the best of the best, in my opinion, is Armando Iannucci, one of the driving forces behind the Alan Partridge movie as well as any amount of other, more incisive fare.
In the Loop is Iannucci's first feature-length piece, not quite a spin-off from his acclaimed TV series The Thick Of It but definitely inspired by it. Rather than staying within Whitehall, however, the film elects to go transatlantic, taking Peter Capaldi's legendary swearmaster Malcolm Tucker and repurposing him as the UK government's Director of Communications, then putting him in charge of damage limitation when gormless Simon Foster (Tom Hollander), the Secretary of State for International Development, declares on national radio that war in the Middle East is "unforeseeable". Such a bold statement catches the interest of certain parties within the US government, such as Senator Karen Clark (Mimi Kennedy) and James Gandolfini as Lt. Gen. George Miller. Before long, Foster's status as a political pawn is confirmed, and it's up to him and aide Toby (Chris Addison) to... well, no, absolutely nothing is up to them, and that's kind of the point. It's possibly up to them to try and avoid yet another bollocking from Tucker, but try is very much the operative term.
Once again, I'm not entirely sure I want to criticise here, but it would be wrong of me not to mention certain genre limitations - the narrative structure is loose, to say the least, and requires a reasonable amount of attention for the viewer not to fall through the holes. Fans of The Thick Of It, meanwhile, whilst obviously being far too intelligent to be confused by series regulars in completely new roles, might at least find it rather distracting.
The verdict
A sweet, rather nostalgic reminder of those warm and happy times when all we had to worry about from our government was incompetence and a little light warmongering. Will we ever see those halcyon times again?
Attempting to breeze my monthly woes away today with something clean and shiny and computer animated. Not Pixar's godawful Up, fortunately, or I'd probably have slashed my wrists already - I saw it once and wondered whether its underlying message was don't get old, but after mentally re-living the opening musical montage over the course of all too many 3am panic attacks, I eventually came to the conclusion that no, the actual motto is that some things don't need to be tried even once. It's been a useful life lesson, and one that's kept me away from the likes of Movie 43 and Thor 2 as well as sundry other horrors without numbers in their names.
...Where was I?
Pixar, that was it. I always thought they got off to a blinding start with the original Toy Story, which was a rather charming parable about the male midlife crisis disguised as a colourful, funny kid-flick. The sequel dumbed things down a little, but hey, so long as they had the little green squeezy aliens I wasn't about to complain. For the most part, though, I tend to feel that their output amounts to the emperor pretending to don suit after suit of nonexistent finery.
Take A Bug's Life, for instance, populated by hordes of 4-legged ants - I'm not suggesting that absolute realism would have been the best path to take, but doesn't there have to come a point where basic anatomical structures get factored in somewhere? Bolt was one of their better titles, to my mind, but giving him an extra couple of legs would definitely have ruined it for me. There's been cute-but-saccharine nonsense like Finding Nemo and Wall E, and while I've never watched any of the Cars films I don't have any particular compunction about dismissing them out of hand.
Every so often, though? Yeah, they hit the sweet spot and come up with something warm and imaginative and ever-so-slightly batshit insane. Something like Monsters Inc, which compensates for its sentiment with endless brave inventiveness and actually earns any tears it presses you into shedding.
None of this, however, is relevant to the matter in hand, given that Wreck-It Ralph is not, in fact, a Pixar movie, as I just found out 45 seconds ago. Oops. It's apparently genuine Disney as opposed to merely being owned by Disney, this second category encompassing approximately 99% of movies I pretend are beneath me despite them being the only films I ever bother to see at the cinema.
It's an easy mistake to make, though, given that the subject material and prevailing sentiment is textbook Pixar - the only difference is that Ralph doesn't anthropomorphise something incapable of talking or even completely inanimate, but something that doesn't, in the strictly tangible sense, even exist. Welcome to a world where classic arcade game characters are merely actors, and their big box machines are just a stage.
Our hero, Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly), has been around a long time. His game, Fix-It Felix Jnr, is on the verge of celebrating its 30th birthday and is still perversely successful, having seen off wave after wave of competition like so many downward-scrolling space invaders. Ralph doesn't mind that it's not his name on the box - he's the villain, after all, and Felix (Jack McBrayer) is a genuinely nice guy. It does smart a little, however, when he's not invited to the anniversary celebrations. When he accidentally finds out about a party to which he hasn't been invited, he stops by to check there hasn't been some mistake. Ralph is a wrecker by nature, though - a big, clumsy creature with hands like giant hams, and where he goes, destruction inevitably follows.
Ostracised by the rest of the game's NPCs, Ralph starts searching for a medal - one that he's been maliciously misinformed will win him a party and plaudits all of his own. He finds one soon enough in first-person shooter Hero's Duty, but as always, his clumsiness gets him into trouble and soon he's fleeing in a stolen spaceship, with tough-as-nails Sergeant Calhoun (Jane Lynch) in hot pursuit. He lands up crashing into confectionery-themed karting title Sugar Rush, where he runs into Vanellope (Sarah Silverman), a snarky, sarky brat with troubles of her own. Back in Fix-It Felix, however, all is far from rosy - the game is out of commission, and if it remains that way too long the arcade owner will surely pull the plug, condemning its characters to lives sleeping rough in the subway like poor Qbert and his various antagonists.
The good
Honestly, I was kind of sold on this one from the moment I read the cast list, with the four key roles being occupied by four of my favourite actors. Nobody plays the put-upon everyman quite like Reilly, who manages to reuse the same basic persona in films from this one to We Need to Talk about Kevin without it ever seeming shoehorned in. I fell in love with Calhoun, as well, not only because she sounded like Jane Lynch but also because she looked a little like her. All four of the main protagonists are basically recognisable, in fact, although Sarah Silverman and Jack McBrayer may not have such familiar faces to mainstream audiences. Mr. Beaupepys thinks this film wastes Silverman by ignoring her natural talent for utter filth, and while I can understand the necessity, I do sort of agree.
Visually, it's more or less what you'd expect - something to worsen a migraine, or possibly induce one. The colours are hypersaturated and sharp, yes, but mostly they're just abundant. Where the film really succeeds, however, is in creating video game environments that aren't only believable but actually desirable, from Felix' retro shenanigans to the foreboding blacks and greens of Hero's Duty. Best of all, however, is Sugar Rush, crammed as it is with all those cute little tricks and details that make the likes of Mario Kart so utterly irresistible.
It's nice to see a film where the phrase something for the dads can be used so accurately and yet so innocently, and I feel that Ralph has true cross-generational appeal. Ralph himself is occasionally paternal towards the tiny Vanellope, true, but I found myself mostly identifying with him as a big awkward kid who couldn't be anywhere without feeling fundamentally in the way. The female characters, meanwhile, are proactive and strongly painted, with full agency within the stories of which they are a part.
The bad
I'm not saying this necessarily had the potential to be one of the greats, but I think that but for the product placement it could probably have been one of the very very goods. I'm not talking about the proprietary games, which I feel were essential to the authenticity of the piece, but a two second shot of a Subway-branded paper cup or a song whose entire lyrics consisted of a repetition of the word Oreo? Maaaybe not so much. It struck a sour note in a film whose messages were otherwise so positive.
Oh, and a quick word of warning: hand on heart, I swear that if I'd seen this as a kid, parts of it would have been too pants-wettingly terrifying for me to be able to see it as an adult. I was a wuss; your kids may be made of sterner stuff. If they're not, though, be advised that the eventual villain of the piece is creepy bordering on flat-out disturbing.
The verdict
A properly entertaining, thoroughly inventive little film that mostly steers clear of the usual pitfalls of family-oriented CGI. High on geek appeal, it lets itself down with the product placement but don't let that put you off if you think it might be your sort of thing.
It's been a wonderful weekend, and what better way to celebrate than by watching some proper grown-up drama for once? Heck, the way I've been feeling lately, I kind of want to celebrate the fact that I've actually been feeling like watching proper grown-up drama. A decent spate of DVD releases gave me a lot to choose from yesterday, too - well, that and the fact that I normally dive straight for the juvenilia, obviously. Yesterday, though? Yesterday I actually quite fancied something a little bit gruelling.
I'd been wanting to save Whiplash for just such an occasion; it definitely sounded like something I wanted to see, but only on a brave day. It sounded to me like it would probably be another Alien or Dangerous Liaisons, a genuinely thrilling experience, yes, but one that would leave me feeling like a wet dishrag afterwards. I scheduled my day accordingly: exhausting film at 3pm, painting a polymer clay seahorse with glitter at 5.
I get the impression this may be one that more people have heard about than actually seen, so I'll summarise: Andrew Neimann (Miles Teller) is a young drummer on a punishing jazz course at Shaeffer, a highly prestigious and entirely fictional New York conservatoire. Misunderstood by his well-meaning father and extended family, he wants nothing less than to be one of the greats, and is prepared to pay the price in not only sweat, but blood.
During a particularly vigorous practice session one day, he finds himself visited by one Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), conductor of the establishment's most highly-regarded jazz band, and a man for whom mere perfection is never enough. Fletcher's teaching methods are less unusual and more flat-out barbaric, and soon the lines of battle are drawn. One question remains, though - are they really on opposite sides?
The good
I was expecting this one to be one I appreciated rather than actually enjoyed. While I'm as fond of creative verbal abuse as anybody, the power dynamic makes a difference - watching the likes of Malcolm Tucker berate well-paid and powerful MPs, for example, is very different to overhearing a parent tear their child down on the bus. I was worried Whiplash would fall too close to the latter category, which is why I approached it with trepidation. The last thing I was expecting was for it to be fun.
And yet fun's exactly what it was - a tremendously good time, in fact, just campy enough to recall Black Swan but without Natalie Portman playing yet another wide-eyed ingenue ten years her junior. Make no mistake, this is a manly movie about manly men, soaked in sweat and drenched in testosterone.
Much has been made of Simmons' performance as Fletcher - it seems to have won him every supporting actor award going this year, and justifiably so. Fletcher is threatening, yes, but also occasionally amiable and ultimately understandable, the antithesis of a cardboard cut-out villain, and he occupies a perplexing moral grey area that makes him utterly compelling. Miles Teller, meanwhile, apparently went method as Andrew - the blood we see on the drumkits is his own - and is utterly convincing throughout.
There's plenty more to praise, too - the minimalistic staging, the ebb and flow of the dialogue and the glorious lighting of the Schaeffer scenes. Best of all, however, is the way that the soundtrack is allowed to exist in and of itself as an organic part of the film, dazzlingly performed and there to be appreciated rather than to manipulate audience emotion.
Oh, and the final, climactic scene? Sexy. There, I've said it. Incredibly well written and shot and directed and edited and acted, yes, but also something of a turn-on.
The bad
There seems to be a general concensus that the film gets a bit soap operatic when Andrew and Fletcher aren't going at it hammer and tongs, and I'd be inclined to agree. This leads to some dragging towards the end of the second act, and I found myself feeling the first stirrings of disappointment. Exacerbating this was the underwritten character of Andrew's father, as blandly sweet as Fletcher is dangerously exciting, whose presence feels as though it gets in the way of the central fireworks.
The verdict
A real rollercoaster ride that only dips when the two leads aren't together on screen. Black Swan with drums, or 50 Shades with cinematic merit? Watch it, and make up your own mind.
Sometimes, when picking a title to review for this blog, I deliberately go for something I love. Sometimes, I challenge myself by going for something I think or know I'll hate. Sometimes, I go out of my way to try and find something I think might make for an interesting writeup. And then, sometimes I'm at the scrag end of a long night and I look for whatever seems least likely to trouble me by making me engage my emotions and/or brain.
Can you tell what day yesterday was, folks?
All I wanted was some convenient background noise to keep half an eye on while I played with my Lego and tried really hard not to think about the election result. At times like these, iPlayer is usually the first place I start looking - once you get past the war films, it's a veritable repository of the sort of little-viewed British movie that gets billed as the next Full Monty and doesn't even make it onto the schedules except after 11pm on a weeknight.
Step forward Kinky Boots, then, which is allegedly based, as a lot of these types of film seem to be, on the true story of a Northampton shoemaker trying desperately to save the factory he inherited from his father. With the market flooded with cheap imports, his task seems doomed, as do the careers of the factory's ragtag band of long-serving employees. Then, one day, an idea hits him. Well, not so much an idea, more the badly-aimed thigh boot of a drag queen he steps in to try and protect from a bunch of thugs. Lola (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is more than capable of handling them, but the boot in question is a casualty of the skirmish, and when Charlie (Joel Edgerton) brings out his tools, an unlikely alliance is formed...
I just wish this sort of film hadn't become its own sub-genre, whereby parochial Brits are forced by circumstance to do something deemed very, very slightly socially unacceptable and thereby become freer spirits and better people. The Full Monty is the granddaddy of these, of course, but you get one coming along every few years - a Calendar Girls or a Saving Grace or a Pride, with the likes of Made in Dagenham falling somewhere on the continuum. The setting is generally the recent past, the characters are usually likeable and nothing's ever going to upset the horses. These are films that will always pull in an (older?) audience; you can watch them with kids and elderly relatives and nobody's going to be distressed or upset in the slightest. The cockles of your heart will be gently, sedately warmed and you won't even feel a scratch as the needle slips in to send you peacefully on your way to happy oblivion...
Okay, I exaggerate; films like this aren't about to bring about the downfall of Western civilisation, regardless of whether we want them to. And, as stated above, sometimes blandness is a virtue, sort of.
I'm just not sure whether this sort of movie doesn't encourage us all to sink into pleasantly stupefied apathy while the people in power slowly re-mould us into their own soulless, empathy-free image. Maybe the British film industry needs a few more angry people, and maybe it's good to be shocked and upset sometimes.
The verdict
An appealing telling of an appealing story, and one I liked, after a fashion. I give it a cautious recommend, but if this is the sort of thing that makes it onto your personal favourites list, you may want to stand back and take a long hard look at your life.
In the beginning (specifically, in 1960) there was the original Little Shop of Horrors, which was created by Roger Corman in a spare studio backlot after somebody bet him he couldn't make an entire movie in 9 days. It was a darkly amusing little story about a killer plant with a young Jack Nicholson in his first cinematic role, and while I'm not sure if it did great box office it was certainly an intriguing piece. So intriguing, in fact, that it was eventually turned into a stage musical. The musical, meanwhile, was so warmly received that eventually it got turned right back into a movie, and this is what I'm going to be discussing today.
I know I often talk at great length about the squeamishness of my younger self. Even with the horror themes, however, I always knew I'd like the 1986 musical version, and so it was probably the early 90s when I first saw it, tentatively, through spread fingers and sometimes through tightly shut ones. Even then, though, I was enchanted.
It's a simple enough story - boy (Seymour Krelbourn, played by Rick Moranis) meets girl (Broadway player Ellen Greene as Audrey), boy meets mysterious wish-granting plant (Audrey II, brought to life by Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops plus an army of puppeteers), plant persuades boy to help in world domination plot, boy decides he'd rather not, and then war ensues between boy and plant with girl as pawn. The setting is, I'm guessing, somewhere around the early to mid 1960s, and while the music is pure Broadway it takes its cues from the classic rock'n'roll of that period.
What follows will probably not be an entirely unbiased weighing up of the film's strengths and failings...
The good
If you want a reason to watch this one, the above scene should be everything you need. Without a doubt, it's my five favourite minutes of cinema, and has remained so for well over a decade. I could rhapsodize at length over everything that makes it so perfect, from the neat little character sketches to the use of organic percussion such as foot stamping and the swishing of a broom. A beautiful, painful musical landscape painting, it takes the audience on an emotional journey through resignation to anger, determination and eventually hope fuelled by searing ambition, and it gives me the chills every single time I watch.
Best of all, it's powered by the exact same things that make the rest of the film such a joy - fantastic performances, and with a script and cinematography that celebrate its stage origins rather than trying to conceal them. Nothing here is very subtle, of course, but why would it be? It's a musical based on a B-movie, so of course the emotions are big and the thrills are cheap.
I'll conclude the case for the defence by drawing your attention to a few more of my favourite things about this, one of my favourite movies:
So very many celebrity cameos
The Greek chorus of teenage girls Crystal, Chiffon and Ronette
The way Ellen Greene's voice shifts effortlessly from Audrey's breathless squeak to full-on powerhouse for her big numbers
The amazing detail inside the mouths of the various Audrey II puppets
Am I sounding like a bit of a fangirl here?
The bad
I've been over this in my head and tried to rationalise it again and again, but there's no way I can square the circle and make this right: while Levi Stubbs technically does a fine job voicing Audrey II the murderous plant, the role was clearly written in another, far less pleasant era. Audrey's voice is clearly that of the black mammy character from the early Tom and Jerry cartoons; at best, it's an embarrassing throwback, but frankly I lean more towards it being flat-out offensive and arguably the reason I haven't noticed this film on the TV schedules in years.
Elsewhere, the racial stuff is marginally better, but the black characters are still relegated to background and chorus roles. Did this reflect the social climate of the mid-60s? Possibly. More likely, however, it simply reflected the social climate of the mid-80s, and I like to think a modern remake would involve some more imaginative casting as well as a radical re-think of the character of Audrey II.
The verdict
I'm glad our society is more progressive now than it was when this one was first made; viewed through unbiased eyes, I suppose it's something of an embarrassment, really, to be swept under the carpet. The performances and the musical numbers mean I'd never want to disregard it entirely, though - given the recent spate of musical remakes, perhaps it's time for this one to shake off the past and become the guilt-free funfest it truly deserves to be.
