FRANKENWEENIE

Tim’s Burton’s latest attempt to scare us is a quite delightful homage to film noir that turns out to rather a tame spoof of a horror movie that makes one laugh rather than cower in fear. It’s a stop-motion animation (that I saw in 3D) about an ingenious young elementary school boy named Victor Frankenstein who lives with his nice middle class parents in New Holland, an all-American suburb.  Victor is a real geek and so his worried father only agrees that he can enter the School’s Science Fair, if Victor agrees to starts acting like other kids his age and plays baseball.

However during the game Victor’s best friend … his dog Sparky … is in a fatal accident. Very soon after that the school’s science class has a new rather exotic foreign teacher and he inadvertently plants an idea in Victor’s mind. In his attic cum laboratory Victor conducts an experiment to use the energy of lightening to bring his precious dog back to life.  When he succeeds he tries to keep Sparky hidden away especially with the two big bolts either side of his neck there is more than a passing resemblance to Boris Karloff’s monster!

In such a small town that seems to have more than its share of oddball characters it doesn't remain a  secret  for long, and soon some of his school chums who are desperate to win the Science Fair usurp Victor’s idea and bring their own dead animals back to life with hilarious consequences which end up almost wrecking their small town.

Burton’s highly stylized imagery is enchanting as always, and the characters in shape of puppets (British ones  at that) and as voiced by a wonderful cast that includes  Catherine OHara, Martin Sheen, Martin Landau & Wynona Rider are totally captivating. Where it excelled best was the very Burtonesque collection of quirky eccentric neighbors and their pets too that gave a much needed edge to the movie.   But the story however was a little weak and tame even, which probably was fitting for a Disney Production (which this is) but not what one expects from the filmmaker who's previous animation includes the brilliant ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Corpse Bride’.

It’s a fun movie and really worth seeing especially if you are a classic horror movie buff and as long as you set aside expectations that it’s one of Tim Burton’s best, because it simply isnt.

★★★★★★★

MY DOG TULIP

J R Ackersley was a British writer and editor who started working with the BBC in London the year after its founding in 1927.  He published many emerging poets and writers who became influential in Great Britain, and later wrote his own highly successful memoir. He was also openly gay, a rarity in his time when the law forbade homosexuality and gay men were socially ostracized.

He always wanted a find a ‘special friend’ to share his life but this was something he never achieved, but in 1946 he obtained a German shepherd dog that became the object of all his affection, and the one real love in his life.  JR wrote a best-selling account of his relationship with his dog Queenie in 1956, which was made into a movie in 2010.  (The dog’s name was changed to Tulip to avoid obvious innuendos).

It's an exquisite hand-drawn animated movie that is a sheer joy to watch.  A tender love story between this articulate middle-aged man and his dog, which is peppered with a whole litany of eccentric british characters that J.R. deals with trying to make Tulip as happy as she can be.  It’s very much an adult’s story told for adults’ ….and not just because of the minute detail of Tulip’s toilet habits or her attempts to get pregnant.

Mr Ackersley was by all accounts a fascinating man in real life who mixed with the likes of E M Forster and a gay Indian Maharaja and whilst not a hint of this detail is in the movie, it does go towards explaining his wonderful dry wit, which pervades throughout the telling of this story.

It’s narrated by the wonderful sonorous tines of Christopher Plummer as JR and with Isabella Rossellini and Lynn Redgrave too (the film was the last Ms. Redgrave worked on before her untimely death and is dedicated to her memory)

If you a dog lover, you won’t be able to miss this one.  And evidently all Brits are according to J.R. as we are unable to love each other we English turn naturally to dogs.  Really?

Now available on DVD.

★★★★★★★★

THE ILLUSIONIST

Based on a script by the late great Jacques Tati the French comic genius and directed by Sylvain Chomet ('The Triplets of Belleville') one knew that this film would have to be good.  And probably even much better than that.  And it was, and more.

The story involves a sad lanky French magician named Tatischeff who is slowly coming to realize that now it's the early 1960’s the Music Halls are a dying art.  He therefore has to take work wherever he can and when he lands up in a Pub on a remote Scottish island, he discovers he has one fan at least.  She follows him to Edinburgh and cooks, cleans and does everything to make him happy (other than THAT!).  He lavishes what little money he has on her even though he now struggles to find any work at all, and she is making eyes at the handsome young romeo that lives next door.

If you have seen ‘the Triplets’ then you will know the wonderful exaggerated sense of style of Chomet’s beautiful animation that is a sheer joy to watch.  (If you haven’t seen it, where have you been?)  Tatischeff is a re-incarnation of Tati’s M. Hulot and is as poignantly funny, though of course nothing ever goes right for him.  And once again M. Chomet proves that words are really not necessary to tell a story.

I first viewed this in London c. 18 months ago when it was just released, but never got around to ‘blogging it’ which was the main reason I sat down to watch it again.  I’m so pleased that I did because there is so much wonderful fine detail in every nuance of the film that I had somehow  overlooked or had simply forgotten.

A worthy successor to his Oscar Nominated ‘Triplets’ and I’d like to think that M Tati would approve too.  If you didn't see it first time around, its now available on DVD,  put it on your 'Must See List'.


★★★★★★★★★

THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN

When one legend takes on another legend, you know that one of them is not going to come out of it looking good.  In this instance it’s Steven Spielberg and his encounter with Herge’s Tintin in  a new animated 3D movie where the intrepid boy reporter and his cute white terrier Snowy get out of their depth when Mr Spielberg gives them the whole 'Indiana Jones' treatment.

It’s a manic plot that starts off well and then has the boy wonder pursuing baddies through the city, over oceans and through the desert in search of some lost treasure.  The action is incessant, and towards the end there is a ridiculous frenzied, seemingly never-ending, car chase where Mr. Spielberg loses all restraint, and we are lose our patience.

The movie, stitched together from three Herge books, has a Tintin who is neither fully human nor fully animated but  with clever technology has the actor’s movement and facial gestures transmitted via electrodes to a computer.  The result is weirdly lifelike but totally lacking any emotion or depth as it  has to rely too much on the actor’s voice (in this case the boy who never grew up: Jaime Bell).  The visual look which has a vague 1940’s feel to it in part, is rather wonderful and is by far the best part of the whole movie.

I think my overwhelming perception of the movie as I left the theatre somewhat bored and a little stunned, was that Mr Spielberg essentially failed to give us any inkling that he understood Tintin, or even appreciated the reason why he is so very well loved and has been for decades.  Where was even a hint of the passion he showed for ET?  Or even Mr Jones?

Wait for the DVD, as you will so want to fast-forward.

★★★★★