Hello, loyal reader- and according to my site stats, there is only one of you.
How are you today? Good, good- shut up a minute. I've got news. After being my home for about 4 or 5 years, I've decided to move on to less shitty pastures. My new site is the easily remembered www.thepopcornbucket.com. Click on over and you'll soon be enveloped by a familiar feeling thanks to the crappy Geocities-esque design and unreasonably angry reviews of things only made to try and entertain the masses. This blogspot page will obviously still be about, but the dot com address is where all the action will be happening from now on.
See you there (probably),
Ben x
Thursday, 17 January 2013
Saturday, 12 January 2013
Les Misérables
Back to Potter goodness in a bit. I saw this last night and considering my overall opinion on it, plus the fact it's been nominated for countless awards, I deemed it worth interrupting my Potterthon for. Same will probably happen for Life of Pi in a few days.
Les Misérables (2013)
When it comes to favourite movie musicals, there are only two possible options when it comes to answering as a stereotypical, media propagated blokey bloke. 1) "Sweeney Todd was alright" (I think the Burton-ness and all the throat slittings help with the man-cred of this one) and 2) "Musicals? Fuck off, love- I'm watching Top Gear". If you were to ask me, a proud unstereotypical lad with crippling nerdlinger addictions, I would say "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" and then desperately ask you not to tell anyone. I'm no musical expert but I've seen a few. I knows what I likes and Les Misérables is definitely one of the best musicals I've seen.
"I had a dream my life would be/ So different from this hell I'm living!"
19th Century France. Hugh Jackman plays the convict Jean Valjean, a man who was arrested for stealing a loaf of bread for his family and forced to work as a slave for nineteen years. He finishes his sentence but it warned by prison guard Javert (Russell Crowe) that he is to be on parole for the rest of his life and if he misses a hearing, he'll go back in the le slammer. Valjean runs away, skips parole but eventually finds God and turns his life around, becoming the mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer under a new identity. After he makes a promise to the dying Fantine (Anne Hathaway) to look after her daughter, Cosette (Isabelle Allen, later Amanda Seyfried), Valjean must run again after the tenacious Javert finds out his true identity and vows to lock him up once more.
Full disclosure time- I've never seen Les Misérables in any form. I knew the basic story and several of the songs by osmosis, but never sought it out. So if you're here to find out how faithful it is to the book/play/downloadable app/lunchbox then I'm afraid I can't help you. What I will say is this: it's easy to see how this is one of the longest-running musicals ever. It's a classic tale that involves everything from war, resistance and hate to love, dreams and redemption. It's an epic ride. Hugh Jackman once again proves there's more to him than adamantium claws by giving a career highlight performance as Jean Valjean. He's bloody brilliant. Russell Crowe is fine as a screen presence, but his voice isn't up to the notoriously difficult Les Mis numbers. He sounds like a ageing pub rock singer. It doesn't spoil the film though. It just sounds like he's trying too hard to strain out those notes, especially compared to some of the other voices in the film. Film-stealer and dead cert Oscar winner though is Anne Hathaway who gives a heartbreaking turn as Fantine. She's absolutely incredible. Her version of I Dreamed a Dream shows how the song should be sung. It's powerful stuff. The cast are all fantastic, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Samantha Barks as Éponine. I shall begin my official wooing of her tomorrow.
Director Tom Hooper is gunning for your parents' DVD collection. Just look at his last couple of flicks. The Damned United (for the Dad who is a massive Cloughhead), The King's Speech (probably more of a Mumsy film) and now Les Mis. It's a weird thing to say, I know. My point is that he's a damn fine director and I've enjoyed all of the films mentioned above. It's a slight shame that I found the way he shot Les Mis to be quite juvenile. Every so often there were big ol' swooping shots of the French scenery accompanied by whooshing noises. I'd expect that from a Spider-Man flick (the swooping, not the Frenchiness), but not here. The brief bursts of action are shot in a shakycam-like style, resulting in me having no fucking idea what was meant to be happening. Personal gripes though, I don't think it matters too much. Whilst I'm on criticism, I've read that people find the story between Cosette and Marius (Eddie Redmayne) to be too drippy and flimsy, pointing out that all they need is a shared song to fall completely in love with each other. Here's where I show my vulnerable underbelly when it comes to musicals, but aren't they supposed to be like that? Isn't a shared song with harmonies shorthand for the whole courting thing? I'd much prefer one love song that several numbers like "Third date/and I want to stick it to her/ I'm insecure/can I call her my GF?" anyway.
Whilst I may have a problem with how brief moments were shot, the decision to have the cast sing live and set and record that is a fantastic one. Often in musicals, I find there's a disconnect between the big numbers and the rest of the film, almost as if someone backstage has to press play on the CD player. Here it's not an issue and it gives the songs a sense of spontaneity and realism. The sheer number of songs probably helps with this too as the spoken dialogue is pretty sparse throughout. It's pretty much wall-to-wall warbling and that's a great thing in the film's favour.
"To love another person is to see the face of God."
To be honest, I was completely swept up by Les Misérables. It's not totally perfect, but as far a big, epic musicals go, it's the best I've seen. I loved it and I don't care if that makes me a battyman gaylord.
Friday, 11 January 2013
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Day 2 and we're predictably entering the Chamber of Secrets. What the hell are you looking up here for? The review's below.
General consensus is that Chamber of Secrets is one of the worst Potter films, if not the worst. I'm really not sure why. It's got the same basic flaws as Philosopher's Stone, but improves on the first Potter outing in a few substantial ways. Could this be instance #12365486906 of me being right and everyone else being wrong? Not my place to say, really- but it's obvious the answer is yes.
After considerable difficulty thanks to Dobby the House Elf (voiced by Toby Jones), Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) returns to Hogwarts to find that there's a new danger to student safety. After learning that the school's legendary "Chamber of Secrets" has been re-opened and has released some kind of terrifying creature into the school halls, Harry, Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) strive to get to the bottom of the mystery. Time's against them though as more and more students are being frozen in a corpse-like state. Since Quirrell turned out to be housing Voldemort under his turban and ended up as an ashpile after Harry touched him (an early contender for "weirdest sentence I wrote in 2013"), the vacant Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher position is taken up by smarmy celebrity wizard Gilderoy Lockhart (Kenneth Branagh). The plot is a lot more interesting than Philosopher's Stone. There are some decent twists and turns and it's not afraid to go darker, something which the first film only had elements of.
At this point in the series, the main kids still aren't great. D-Rad still reads his lines like he's recovering from a back-alley lobotomy and Rupert Grint is suddenly intent on overacting, often pulling cartoonish looks that undermine the fairly understated work he did in the previous one. Emma Watson has improved, although only by a smidge. Good thing Tom Felton's here to show the kids how it's done. He hams up Draco considerably in this one and the film's all the better for it. He's genuinely funny too. Good on him. Of the new additions to the cast, Branagh is great as Lockhart, giving us an air-headed smug bellend to actively hate. Jason Isaacs also gives us a fantastic turn as Draco's icy father Lucius. One little scene with him and you understand entirely why Draco's such a jumped-up little shit. Mark Williams also gives us an incredibly likable Weasley patriarch. Miriam Margolyes also adds to the already incredible Brit-cred of the cast with her appearance as Professor Sprout. Toby Jones does well as the voice of Dobby, but unfortunately the character belongs more down the Jar-Jar end of the CGI character scale than he does up the other end with Gollum and Sarah Jessica Parker. Sure, he's there for kid appeal, but by all that is unholy, he's irritating. I suppose the only other qualm I have is the casting of Shirley Henderson as the ghostly Moaning Myrtle. It's an odd choice to have an actor clearly in their late thirties play a schoolgirl, albeit a thoroughly dead one. Henderson is fine as she is, but it's a baffling decision. It's a real shame that this is Richard Harris' last turn as Dumbledore. To be honest, I found that his Dumbledore was a lot closer to the literary version than Gambon's. That's just personal preference though.
The film does not start well. D-Rad flatly clunks out his lines to Hedwig before being called downstairs where they keep the real actors. We have some fun with them and Harry goes upstairs only to find the irritating Dobby being irritating. Acting with a pure CGI creation is a tough challenge for a good actor, so his scene with Dobby is painful for me to watch. After Harry gets busted out of Chez Dursley, the film thankfully gets a lot better.
I find Chamber of Secrets to be a hell of a lot more watchable than Philosopher's Stone. There are loads of great scenes and neat little touches. A favourite of mine is Lockhart's first lesson where he causes havoc by releasing a cageful of Cornish pixies onto an unsuspecting class of kids. If you listen carefully, you'll notice that amongst the squeaking and fluttering, some the pixies have strong Cornish accents- a detail which I'd missed up until now and laughed my head off at. The wizard duel between Snape and Lockhart and then Potter and Malfoy is fantastically done too. Quidditch is better handled this time round, with the advances in technology leading to a more convincing and exciting spectacle. With Harry being cursed and nearly falling off his broom in the first one, having a rogue Bludger hound him in this one and the knowing what's to come in the next films, I have to ask- does Potter ever get to play a "normal" game of Quidditch where some bastard isn't trying to do him in? I'll pay attention to that as the films go on. The scene where Ron and Harry meet the fuckin' massive spider Aragog (voiced by Julian Glover) and are surrounded by hundreds of other huge spiders is downright skin-crawling- even to a non arachnophobe like me. Especially a shot where Ron looks up at dozens of the creepy bastards webbing down from the trees. Brr. I think Chamber's finale is also more satisfying than the last film's with Potter actually using his brawn and his brain rather than just dumb luck alone.
I'm going to be controversial and give Chamber of Secrets 4 stars. Why? Well, it's significantly better than the first film. Don't just argue with me on principle, go back and watch the first two films. Chamber of Secrets is a more assured and accomplished film. It does what any good sequel should do- takes the building blocks the first one made and makes something fun out of them. Shut up, general movie-going public- I have spoken.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
General consensus is that Chamber of Secrets is one of the worst Potter films, if not the worst. I'm really not sure why. It's got the same basic flaws as Philosopher's Stone, but improves on the first Potter outing in a few substantial ways. Could this be instance #12365486906 of me being right and everyone else being wrong? Not my place to say, really- but it's obvious the answer is yes.
"Enemies of the Heir Beware"? You'll be next, mudbloods."
After considerable difficulty thanks to Dobby the House Elf (voiced by Toby Jones), Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) returns to Hogwarts to find that there's a new danger to student safety. After learning that the school's legendary "Chamber of Secrets" has been re-opened and has released some kind of terrifying creature into the school halls, Harry, Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) strive to get to the bottom of the mystery. Time's against them though as more and more students are being frozen in a corpse-like state. Since Quirrell turned out to be housing Voldemort under his turban and ended up as an ashpile after Harry touched him (an early contender for "weirdest sentence I wrote in 2013"), the vacant Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher position is taken up by smarmy celebrity wizard Gilderoy Lockhart (Kenneth Branagh). The plot is a lot more interesting than Philosopher's Stone. There are some decent twists and turns and it's not afraid to go darker, something which the first film only had elements of.
At this point in the series, the main kids still aren't great. D-Rad still reads his lines like he's recovering from a back-alley lobotomy and Rupert Grint is suddenly intent on overacting, often pulling cartoonish looks that undermine the fairly understated work he did in the previous one. Emma Watson has improved, although only by a smidge. Good thing Tom Felton's here to show the kids how it's done. He hams up Draco considerably in this one and the film's all the better for it. He's genuinely funny too. Good on him. Of the new additions to the cast, Branagh is great as Lockhart, giving us an air-headed smug bellend to actively hate. Jason Isaacs also gives us a fantastic turn as Draco's icy father Lucius. One little scene with him and you understand entirely why Draco's such a jumped-up little shit. Mark Williams also gives us an incredibly likable Weasley patriarch. Miriam Margolyes also adds to the already incredible Brit-cred of the cast with her appearance as Professor Sprout. Toby Jones does well as the voice of Dobby, but unfortunately the character belongs more down the Jar-Jar end of the CGI character scale than he does up the other end with Gollum and Sarah Jessica Parker. Sure, he's there for kid appeal, but by all that is unholy, he's irritating. I suppose the only other qualm I have is the casting of Shirley Henderson as the ghostly Moaning Myrtle. It's an odd choice to have an actor clearly in their late thirties play a schoolgirl, albeit a thoroughly dead one. Henderson is fine as she is, but it's a baffling decision. It's a real shame that this is Richard Harris' last turn as Dumbledore. To be honest, I found that his Dumbledore was a lot closer to the literary version than Gambon's. That's just personal preference though.
The film does not start well. D-Rad flatly clunks out his lines to Hedwig before being called downstairs where they keep the real actors. We have some fun with them and Harry goes upstairs only to find the irritating Dobby being irritating. Acting with a pure CGI creation is a tough challenge for a good actor, so his scene with Dobby is painful for me to watch. After Harry gets busted out of Chez Dursley, the film thankfully gets a lot better.
I find Chamber of Secrets to be a hell of a lot more watchable than Philosopher's Stone. There are loads of great scenes and neat little touches. A favourite of mine is Lockhart's first lesson where he causes havoc by releasing a cageful of Cornish pixies onto an unsuspecting class of kids. If you listen carefully, you'll notice that amongst the squeaking and fluttering, some the pixies have strong Cornish accents- a detail which I'd missed up until now and laughed my head off at. The wizard duel between Snape and Lockhart and then Potter and Malfoy is fantastically done too. Quidditch is better handled this time round, with the advances in technology leading to a more convincing and exciting spectacle. With Harry being cursed and nearly falling off his broom in the first one, having a rogue Bludger hound him in this one and the knowing what's to come in the next films, I have to ask- does Potter ever get to play a "normal" game of Quidditch where some bastard isn't trying to do him in? I'll pay attention to that as the films go on. The scene where Ron and Harry meet the fuckin' massive spider Aragog (voiced by Julian Glover) and are surrounded by hundreds of other huge spiders is downright skin-crawling- even to a non arachnophobe like me. Especially a shot where Ron looks up at dozens of the creepy bastards webbing down from the trees. Brr. I think Chamber's finale is also more satisfying than the last film's with Potter actually using his brawn and his brain rather than just dumb luck alone.
"Well, take a good look lads. This night might well be the last you spend in this castle. Oh dear, we are in trouble."
I'm going to be controversial and give Chamber of Secrets 4 stars. Why? Well, it's significantly better than the first film. Don't just argue with me on principle, go back and watch the first two films. Chamber of Secrets is a more assured and accomplished film. It does what any good sequel should do- takes the building blocks the first one made and makes something fun out of them. Shut up, general movie-going public- I have spoken.
Thursday, 10 January 2013
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Here we are again. The start of another foolhardy review crusade to distract myself from the daily kicks in the nuts that life provides. 8 films, 8 days. See you on the other side.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001)
... aka The Sorceror's Stone. Why? Some bullshit U.S. book title reason. It's not, as I've seen widely reported, because Americans are thicky thick thick stupid cheeseburgers who wouldn't know what the word "philosopher" meant if it flew in on a bald eagle. Having gained unbelievable success by ripping off Dr. Henry Jones Jr. it was a dead cert that Rowling's Potter books would become films. When it was officially announced, I remember being incredibly excited at the prospect. How were they going to do Quidditch? Why was Snape the guy from Die Hard? These questions and more buzzed around my head. I liked it a lot when it came out. A hefty 12 years later, it's time to revisit it with my critical eyes screwed in.
Neglected 11 year old Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) lives with his Aunt Petunia (Fiona Shaw), Uncle Vernon (Richard Griffiths) and his spoiled cousin Dudley (Harry Melling). Suddenly, a hairy giant by the name of Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) tells Harry that he's a wizard and carts him off to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry where he is to learn magic. Harry discovers that not only is there a whole magical world running in parallel to our own, but that in this new world he's known as "The Boy Who Lived" and famous for surviving a spell that murdered his parents and inadvertently defeating the evil Lord Voldemort. Along the way, Harry meets the shabby Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and know-it-all Hermione (Emma Watson) and enlists their help to uncover some dark goings-on at the school. Philosopher's Stone sets the pattern that the first few films stuck to. There's something going on at the school and Harry, Ron and Hermione have to work together to save the day. It's like an Enid Blyton/Famous Five type thing crossed with The Worst Witch (a property which I'm surprised hasn't rung its lawyers over some uncanny similarities). It's a classic plotline- an everyday kid gets drafted into a magical land and becomes a hero of said magical land. Philosopher's Stone is smartly written enough that you won't notice it's basically a retread of every '80s fantasy movie ever.
There are two things that completely justify the decision to turn the books into films on their own. 1) the cast and 2) the John Williams score. The cast are almost uniformly brilliant. We have some proper thespian heavyweights in the forms of Richard Harris, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Julie Walters, Robbie Coltrane, Richard Griffiths and John Hurt who all pop up to be brilliant at various points during the film. I do wish the kid actors were better though. Daniel Radcliffe hadn't learned to act yet and is often shown up by Henry Melling's hammy turn as Dudley. Rupert Grint is almost alright, as is the precocious Emma Watson. At its worst, some of the acting is school play standard. Bad child acting is a real bugbear of mine. In terms of adult acting, Rickman's Snape almost manages to walk away with the entire film. It's a great performance that verges on parody at times, with him drawling out certain words and taking dramatic pauses whenever the hell he feels like it.
The rest of the film is exactly the sort of fantasy adventure that kids lap up. The magical world we're given here is amazingly designed and wonderfully realised. It's one of the great movie universes that I wish I could live in instead of a dreary, rainy Welsh town. The sleuthing around school and working on a big mystery is a tried and tested kids' staple and it just works. Quidditch also looks like a hell of a lot of fun. The Williams score is bloody brilliant too. Easily as iconic as his work on films like Jurassic Park. It just lifts the film to a higher plane. I genuinely think the aforementioned Quidditch match wouldn't have been nearly as much fun as it is without Williams being whimsical in the background.
Despite a lot of elements working fantastically well, there's just something holding the whole film back. It's an above-average children's film, but that's about it. I think it's the fact that it's aimed squarely and solely at kids. Whilst I do agree that yes, a children's book should be turned into a children's film, this kid targeting is the special Hollywood kind of kid pandering that laser-targets its chosen kiddie demographic and to hell with anyone over the age of 15. None of the interesting little character moments or nice little backstories are explored. Outside of the writing, some of the effects are god-awful and were pretty ropey even back in 2001. The troll scene especially loses nearly all of the excitement it's expected to create but being a huge, unconvincing lump of pixels. Quidditch suffers too, but not to the same extent.
Philosopher's Stone is a decent start to the Potter franchise. It's a bit unsteady at times but it creates a fantastic world and has a real sense of fun about it.
"You're a wizard, Harry!"
Neglected 11 year old Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) lives with his Aunt Petunia (Fiona Shaw), Uncle Vernon (Richard Griffiths) and his spoiled cousin Dudley (Harry Melling). Suddenly, a hairy giant by the name of Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) tells Harry that he's a wizard and carts him off to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry where he is to learn magic. Harry discovers that not only is there a whole magical world running in parallel to our own, but that in this new world he's known as "The Boy Who Lived" and famous for surviving a spell that murdered his parents and inadvertently defeating the evil Lord Voldemort. Along the way, Harry meets the shabby Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and know-it-all Hermione (Emma Watson) and enlists their help to uncover some dark goings-on at the school. Philosopher's Stone sets the pattern that the first few films stuck to. There's something going on at the school and Harry, Ron and Hermione have to work together to save the day. It's like an Enid Blyton/Famous Five type thing crossed with The Worst Witch (a property which I'm surprised hasn't rung its lawyers over some uncanny similarities). It's a classic plotline- an everyday kid gets drafted into a magical land and becomes a hero of said magical land. Philosopher's Stone is smartly written enough that you won't notice it's basically a retread of every '80s fantasy movie ever.
There are two things that completely justify the decision to turn the books into films on their own. 1) the cast and 2) the John Williams score. The cast are almost uniformly brilliant. We have some proper thespian heavyweights in the forms of Richard Harris, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Julie Walters, Robbie Coltrane, Richard Griffiths and John Hurt who all pop up to be brilliant at various points during the film. I do wish the kid actors were better though. Daniel Radcliffe hadn't learned to act yet and is often shown up by Henry Melling's hammy turn as Dudley. Rupert Grint is almost alright, as is the precocious Emma Watson. At its worst, some of the acting is school play standard. Bad child acting is a real bugbear of mine. In terms of adult acting, Rickman's Snape almost manages to walk away with the entire film. It's a great performance that verges on parody at times, with him drawling out certain words and taking dramatic pauses whenever the hell he feels like it.
The rest of the film is exactly the sort of fantasy adventure that kids lap up. The magical world we're given here is amazingly designed and wonderfully realised. It's one of the great movie universes that I wish I could live in instead of a dreary, rainy Welsh town. The sleuthing around school and working on a big mystery is a tried and tested kids' staple and it just works. Quidditch also looks like a hell of a lot of fun. The Williams score is bloody brilliant too. Easily as iconic as his work on films like Jurassic Park. It just lifts the film to a higher plane. I genuinely think the aforementioned Quidditch match wouldn't have been nearly as much fun as it is without Williams being whimsical in the background.
Despite a lot of elements working fantastically well, there's just something holding the whole film back. It's an above-average children's film, but that's about it. I think it's the fact that it's aimed squarely and solely at kids. Whilst I do agree that yes, a children's book should be turned into a children's film, this kid targeting is the special Hollywood kind of kid pandering that laser-targets its chosen kiddie demographic and to hell with anyone over the age of 15. None of the interesting little character moments or nice little backstories are explored. Outside of the writing, some of the effects are god-awful and were pretty ropey even back in 2001. The troll scene especially loses nearly all of the excitement it's expected to create but being a huge, unconvincing lump of pixels. Quidditch suffers too, but not to the same extent.
"It does not do to dwell on dreams, Harry, and forget to live."
Philosopher's Stone is a decent start to the Potter franchise. It's a bit unsteady at times but it creates a fantastic world and has a real sense of fun about it.
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