motta80-2
Joined Nov 1999
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motta80-2's rating
Rarely seen (though that's soon to change we're told thanks to a BFI DVD release in June) Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary? is a fun, breezy comedy which sees some cracking performances delivered with a palpable energy.
Admittedly seen 50 plus years on what was no doubt a very funny entertainment for its week (this was my parents childhood time when, as they delight in telling me, only one or two people on the street had a TV and they went to the cinema every week) but today it does seem slight. There's little to the story with any sense of reality going out the window early on. Not that you don't expect a farce to be ridiculous, that's the point, but when done really well they can tread the fine line between the credible and the ridiculous. I think this one goes past it by the end. It says something that probably 10-20 minutes before the end i was starting to think "this is going on a bit" - when it's only an 80 minute film.
Okay, so it's no classic but there's lots to enjoy here. Although David Tomlinson (probably best known to modern audiences as the father in Mary Poppins and for other Disney roles in films like Bedknobs & Broomsticks and The Love Bug) and Diana Dors get top billing the film belongs to the frantic antics (and shameless mugging) of Bonar Colleano. He's a hoot as the American serviceman who finds he may inadvertently be a bigamist and has to juggle both wives in adjacent rooms of a hotel suite. I didn't know Colleano before this movie but as he died in a car accident at the early age of 34 he was perhaps cut off too early to have made the lasting impression on film that his performance here makes me think he could have.
Diana Dors is dynamite on screen and the comparisons to Marilyn stand up. The camera loves her and she knows how to use it, but while many would be distracted by the image if you pay attention you can really see a talented performer beyond it. I know a lot of people that peg Marilyn as just a pretty face (and dynamite body of course) but you watch her in films like Seven Year Itch, Don't Bother To Knock (a fascinating performance) etc and you see a genuinely talented performer. I haven't seen enough Dors to qualify it but the way she uses her persona and profile here suggest more than just the image she's remembered for.
Tomlinson plays the befuddled, bumbling British gentleman with aplomb as usual - though you never really believe the relationship angle to his storyline. Sid James takes some getting used to as an American serviceman for those of us used to his Carrying On but he is great and very funny, especially in his scenes with the delightful Audrey Freeman.
Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary? may not stand up as a classic but it doesn't need to. It does stand up as a fun, playful little story with a good cast giving it their all. Well worth a watch.
Admittedly seen 50 plus years on what was no doubt a very funny entertainment for its week (this was my parents childhood time when, as they delight in telling me, only one or two people on the street had a TV and they went to the cinema every week) but today it does seem slight. There's little to the story with any sense of reality going out the window early on. Not that you don't expect a farce to be ridiculous, that's the point, but when done really well they can tread the fine line between the credible and the ridiculous. I think this one goes past it by the end. It says something that probably 10-20 minutes before the end i was starting to think "this is going on a bit" - when it's only an 80 minute film.
Okay, so it's no classic but there's lots to enjoy here. Although David Tomlinson (probably best known to modern audiences as the father in Mary Poppins and for other Disney roles in films like Bedknobs & Broomsticks and The Love Bug) and Diana Dors get top billing the film belongs to the frantic antics (and shameless mugging) of Bonar Colleano. He's a hoot as the American serviceman who finds he may inadvertently be a bigamist and has to juggle both wives in adjacent rooms of a hotel suite. I didn't know Colleano before this movie but as he died in a car accident at the early age of 34 he was perhaps cut off too early to have made the lasting impression on film that his performance here makes me think he could have.
Diana Dors is dynamite on screen and the comparisons to Marilyn stand up. The camera loves her and she knows how to use it, but while many would be distracted by the image if you pay attention you can really see a talented performer beyond it. I know a lot of people that peg Marilyn as just a pretty face (and dynamite body of course) but you watch her in films like Seven Year Itch, Don't Bother To Knock (a fascinating performance) etc and you see a genuinely talented performer. I haven't seen enough Dors to qualify it but the way she uses her persona and profile here suggest more than just the image she's remembered for.
Tomlinson plays the befuddled, bumbling British gentleman with aplomb as usual - though you never really believe the relationship angle to his storyline. Sid James takes some getting used to as an American serviceman for those of us used to his Carrying On but he is great and very funny, especially in his scenes with the delightful Audrey Freeman.
Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary? may not stand up as a classic but it doesn't need to. It does stand up as a fun, playful little story with a good cast giving it their all. Well worth a watch.
Like so many of Terry Gilliam's films The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus is one that is going to need multiple viewings to truly form an opinion on. Like Brazil, Adventures Of Baron Munchausen, Fisher King, Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas and Tideland (even Time Bandits really) there is so much going on here that expectations or reputations get in the way and make it hard to digest and appreciate on a single viewing. No bad thing necessarily.
Of course Parnassus has the particularly insurmountable problem of being the late Heath Ledger's final performance and following on from his superb, Oscar-winning turn in The Dark Knight. It is impossible to see the film through eyes that don't see it as the film he died making. Some parts of the film may perhaps work even better than they may of done had he lived – some of the best films are triumphs over adversity and adverse conditions don't come much greater than your star dying mid-shoot. But whatever works and doesn't in the film it is hard – impossible on a first viewing – to divorce yourself from the knowledge you bring into the theatre.
On first feeling Parnassus seems patchy, and curiously it feels like a film that may not have worked as well as it does had nothing happened to Ledger. Don't get me wrong I'd rather have a Gilliam failure and Ledger still alive to put it behind him and move on than a wonderful film that is largely the result of his tragic death. But we don't have that so I'm just looking at what's there.
The fact is the film is at it's best when galloping around the fantastical worlds of the Imaginarium, with Ledger's character Tony now played by Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell. Depp and Farrell are particularly good and imbue the film with an energy lacking in much of it.
The casting generally is good. Christopher Plummer is steadfast excellence as always. Lily Cole is a surprisingly strong choice. I've never understood the viewpoint of Cole as "sooooooo beautiful" that the gossip sheets and magazines espouse but she has a quirky intrigue that works wonders in a Gilliam world and proves herself as an actress amongst a proved group of impressive performers. Hers is probably the best debut performance I can recall of a model or singer turning to acting. She puts a lot of professional actresses (no Keiras named!) to shame.
Andrew Garfield is that intriguing mix of annoying and brilliant. Like DiCaprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? I started out thinking he was terrible and then grew to realise it was just that I hated him, his character. He annoyed the hell out of me. In another words he had inhabited the character so fully, so convincingly that my negative feelings toward him where directed at the fictional character. A superb performance.
Tom Waits steals moments constantly. Waits hasn't been given such a juicy role that fit him better since Renfield in Coppola's Dracula and he revels as Dr Nick (the devil) here.
Oddly the performance that, again I specify on first viewing, leaves you a bit underwhelmed is Ledgers. It is not a bad performance but the expectations as you go in, knowing it was his last performance, means you expect something special. Brokeback Mountain/Dark Knight special. But of course not every role is as powerful as his in Brokeback or as scene-stealing as the Joker. I mean he didn't know it was his last performance for crying out loud. Therefore it cannot possibly live up to expectations and is destined to underwhelm until multiple viewings and some distance allow it to be judged fairly. That there was such a fully formed character there that three other actors could step in to play alternate universe versions of it entirely convincingly is arguably a testament to how strong a performance Ledger did give. It is not a likable character or a flashy character (it doesn't even really seem the main character until the alternate worlds with the alternate Tonys come in) and so Ledger's understated subtleties are easy to miss.
When you watch Fisher King the first time you remember Robin Williams, not Jeff Bridges. In Twelve Monkeys it's Brad Pitt that comes away with you not Bruce Willis. And yet on further viewings Bridges' performance seems superb, Willis' perhaps the best of his career. I suspect on repeated viewings I'm going to see the strength of Ledger's performance better. I hope so.
And of course this is a problem much of the film has. Gilliam doesn't make simple, overly explained films for the masses – thank Gilliam – you have to work with them. The problem here is that with your mind distracted with thoughts of Ledger and expectations built on that promise of Gilliam at his creative best, three step-in performances and Ledger's final performance it's hard to get your mind around the story and enjoy it as a piece of work.
Sometimes Gilliam films work, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they get better and better on repeat viewings (Brazil); sometimes they work instantly (Twelve Monkeys); sometimes they seem to work but the more you see them or think about them they crumble and ultimately don't (Brothers Grimm). Sometimes they just seem to be a mix of great ideas, wonderful performances and ingenious set pieces but hampered by an overabundance of theatricality and almost too much going on for its own good (Baron Munchausen). On a first viewing Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus feels like this latter. Bits work, bits don't. It's enjoyable in places but perplexing ultimately.
I will definitely revisit it though to see if changes on repeat viewings. I feel sure it will, but whether that's a good or bad thing, well, I'll have to wait and see.
Of course Parnassus has the particularly insurmountable problem of being the late Heath Ledger's final performance and following on from his superb, Oscar-winning turn in The Dark Knight. It is impossible to see the film through eyes that don't see it as the film he died making. Some parts of the film may perhaps work even better than they may of done had he lived – some of the best films are triumphs over adversity and adverse conditions don't come much greater than your star dying mid-shoot. But whatever works and doesn't in the film it is hard – impossible on a first viewing – to divorce yourself from the knowledge you bring into the theatre.
On first feeling Parnassus seems patchy, and curiously it feels like a film that may not have worked as well as it does had nothing happened to Ledger. Don't get me wrong I'd rather have a Gilliam failure and Ledger still alive to put it behind him and move on than a wonderful film that is largely the result of his tragic death. But we don't have that so I'm just looking at what's there.
The fact is the film is at it's best when galloping around the fantastical worlds of the Imaginarium, with Ledger's character Tony now played by Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell. Depp and Farrell are particularly good and imbue the film with an energy lacking in much of it.
The casting generally is good. Christopher Plummer is steadfast excellence as always. Lily Cole is a surprisingly strong choice. I've never understood the viewpoint of Cole as "sooooooo beautiful" that the gossip sheets and magazines espouse but she has a quirky intrigue that works wonders in a Gilliam world and proves herself as an actress amongst a proved group of impressive performers. Hers is probably the best debut performance I can recall of a model or singer turning to acting. She puts a lot of professional actresses (no Keiras named!) to shame.
Andrew Garfield is that intriguing mix of annoying and brilliant. Like DiCaprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? I started out thinking he was terrible and then grew to realise it was just that I hated him, his character. He annoyed the hell out of me. In another words he had inhabited the character so fully, so convincingly that my negative feelings toward him where directed at the fictional character. A superb performance.
Tom Waits steals moments constantly. Waits hasn't been given such a juicy role that fit him better since Renfield in Coppola's Dracula and he revels as Dr Nick (the devil) here.
Oddly the performance that, again I specify on first viewing, leaves you a bit underwhelmed is Ledgers. It is not a bad performance but the expectations as you go in, knowing it was his last performance, means you expect something special. Brokeback Mountain/Dark Knight special. But of course not every role is as powerful as his in Brokeback or as scene-stealing as the Joker. I mean he didn't know it was his last performance for crying out loud. Therefore it cannot possibly live up to expectations and is destined to underwhelm until multiple viewings and some distance allow it to be judged fairly. That there was such a fully formed character there that three other actors could step in to play alternate universe versions of it entirely convincingly is arguably a testament to how strong a performance Ledger did give. It is not a likable character or a flashy character (it doesn't even really seem the main character until the alternate worlds with the alternate Tonys come in) and so Ledger's understated subtleties are easy to miss.
When you watch Fisher King the first time you remember Robin Williams, not Jeff Bridges. In Twelve Monkeys it's Brad Pitt that comes away with you not Bruce Willis. And yet on further viewings Bridges' performance seems superb, Willis' perhaps the best of his career. I suspect on repeated viewings I'm going to see the strength of Ledger's performance better. I hope so.
And of course this is a problem much of the film has. Gilliam doesn't make simple, overly explained films for the masses – thank Gilliam – you have to work with them. The problem here is that with your mind distracted with thoughts of Ledger and expectations built on that promise of Gilliam at his creative best, three step-in performances and Ledger's final performance it's hard to get your mind around the story and enjoy it as a piece of work.
Sometimes Gilliam films work, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they get better and better on repeat viewings (Brazil); sometimes they work instantly (Twelve Monkeys); sometimes they seem to work but the more you see them or think about them they crumble and ultimately don't (Brothers Grimm). Sometimes they just seem to be a mix of great ideas, wonderful performances and ingenious set pieces but hampered by an overabundance of theatricality and almost too much going on for its own good (Baron Munchausen). On a first viewing Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus feels like this latter. Bits work, bits don't. It's enjoyable in places but perplexing ultimately.
I will definitely revisit it though to see if changes on repeat viewings. I feel sure it will, but whether that's a good or bad thing, well, I'll have to wait and see.
There was a great line in Edward Porter's review of the new Fame in the UK Sunday Times newspaper that said something along the lines of "Remember their names? I can barely remember their faces!" This essential sums up all that is wrong with the new Fame movie. There is nothing memorable about it.
You would think that when making a film about a group of dramatic arts and music students you would seek out the most talented unknowns out their. There must be dozens of them surely. Which makes you wonder how on Earth they finished up with this bunch of no-hopers! There is only one kid with any discernible talent, the pianist-turned-singer who has a teen Jennifer Hudson vibe, amongst the young cast. The rest is filled with lousy singers, uninspired dancers and wooden actors.
It does serve to make the underused teaching staff (Kelsey Grammar, Megan Mullahy, Bebe Neuwirth, Charles S Dutton) stand out more but I doubt that was an intention. In fact the script and direction goes out of its way to underserve these actors. Mullahy is given a terrible song to sing at a karaoke bar which does nothing to serve her natural singing talent, serving instead to make her sound shrill. It does perhaps show why her character did not make it as a successful singer and is just a teacher but that would be giving the director far too much credit I suspect and, besides, just not explain the awed gawping of the students. Grammar crops up in this scene out of nowhere making you think he was maybe just shoved in to give him more screen time. While Dutton has an hilarious storyline where one "troubled" student is telling a story and, in the timeline of the movie, it takes Dutton 2 years to ask the logical response question. What have these guys been doing for 2 years?! And that brings me to the script which has two huge problems. The first is the timeline. The film follows the students over 3 years at the school, but does so so swiftly that it allows no time for growth. Most of the scenes follow in an ordered logic that would work just as well in a film that spanned a single week as 3 whole years. There is no growth. From one year to the next none of the characters appear to have developed, to have learnt a single thing. Those that are morose and troubled in year one are the same in year three. Naïve on day one? Yup, naïve on graduation. And this equally serves to kill any possible chance of rooting for a character to succeed. You don't see characters getting better. Suddenly you are just jumped to another year and lo and behold someone quitting because they have an acting or dancing gig and you not only wonder "how did that happen?" but "who is that anyway?" The script does such a poor job of setting the characters up that often a characters "big moment" seems to be their only moment, leaving the audience shrugging and looking at their watches.
The other problem is the phenomenal lack of tension and drama. There seriously is none. It appears to be a phenomenon in Hollywood films I'm noticing more and more that they are so determined to hit all bases and offend absolutely no one that there is an almost comical lack of drama. The recent "thriller" Obsessed was this way. It had zero thrills. Fame is the same and hint as possible drama through unhappy parents or disappointments is so instantly resolved that no tension had built. A scene with one character possibly suicidal I was audibly rooting for the guy to kill himself just to give the film some sort of drama, an element of edge, a moment of guts, but no. Nothing. The closest thing you get to anticipation watching Fame (2009) is hoping it may at some point actually have something to anticipate! This is probably partly the problem with hiring a choreographer to direct the movie. A good director (like the original film's Alan Parker) can hire a good choreographer to help him but I guess a choreographer can't exactly hire another director for advice. This films screams "I have no sense of story and drama" and while much of the blame can clearly be assigned to the script and the awful casting a good director would have seen those problems and, at least casting wise, probably helped avoid or overcome them. The director here is massively out of his depth.
Fame's worst offence though is the truly unrealistic view of the world it portrays. The original went some way to at least suggest the work that such students have to put in, though perhaps in this age of reality TV where any moron can become an instant star this would be an unteachable, untenable lesson. Here any success any of the students have comes seemingly by luck and "right-place right-time" factors or from outside help. The school doesn't seem to have helped them at all. And on top of that none of these students would make it because they are so phenomenally devoid of talent. A cast of talented unknowns with a choreographer director proved what can be done in Disney's High School Musical. Given the potential for revisiting Fame in a modern day setting everyone involved should be ashamed of what they've turned out here.
You would think that when making a film about a group of dramatic arts and music students you would seek out the most talented unknowns out their. There must be dozens of them surely. Which makes you wonder how on Earth they finished up with this bunch of no-hopers! There is only one kid with any discernible talent, the pianist-turned-singer who has a teen Jennifer Hudson vibe, amongst the young cast. The rest is filled with lousy singers, uninspired dancers and wooden actors.
It does serve to make the underused teaching staff (Kelsey Grammar, Megan Mullahy, Bebe Neuwirth, Charles S Dutton) stand out more but I doubt that was an intention. In fact the script and direction goes out of its way to underserve these actors. Mullahy is given a terrible song to sing at a karaoke bar which does nothing to serve her natural singing talent, serving instead to make her sound shrill. It does perhaps show why her character did not make it as a successful singer and is just a teacher but that would be giving the director far too much credit I suspect and, besides, just not explain the awed gawping of the students. Grammar crops up in this scene out of nowhere making you think he was maybe just shoved in to give him more screen time. While Dutton has an hilarious storyline where one "troubled" student is telling a story and, in the timeline of the movie, it takes Dutton 2 years to ask the logical response question. What have these guys been doing for 2 years?! And that brings me to the script which has two huge problems. The first is the timeline. The film follows the students over 3 years at the school, but does so so swiftly that it allows no time for growth. Most of the scenes follow in an ordered logic that would work just as well in a film that spanned a single week as 3 whole years. There is no growth. From one year to the next none of the characters appear to have developed, to have learnt a single thing. Those that are morose and troubled in year one are the same in year three. Naïve on day one? Yup, naïve on graduation. And this equally serves to kill any possible chance of rooting for a character to succeed. You don't see characters getting better. Suddenly you are just jumped to another year and lo and behold someone quitting because they have an acting or dancing gig and you not only wonder "how did that happen?" but "who is that anyway?" The script does such a poor job of setting the characters up that often a characters "big moment" seems to be their only moment, leaving the audience shrugging and looking at their watches.
The other problem is the phenomenal lack of tension and drama. There seriously is none. It appears to be a phenomenon in Hollywood films I'm noticing more and more that they are so determined to hit all bases and offend absolutely no one that there is an almost comical lack of drama. The recent "thriller" Obsessed was this way. It had zero thrills. Fame is the same and hint as possible drama through unhappy parents or disappointments is so instantly resolved that no tension had built. A scene with one character possibly suicidal I was audibly rooting for the guy to kill himself just to give the film some sort of drama, an element of edge, a moment of guts, but no. Nothing. The closest thing you get to anticipation watching Fame (2009) is hoping it may at some point actually have something to anticipate! This is probably partly the problem with hiring a choreographer to direct the movie. A good director (like the original film's Alan Parker) can hire a good choreographer to help him but I guess a choreographer can't exactly hire another director for advice. This films screams "I have no sense of story and drama" and while much of the blame can clearly be assigned to the script and the awful casting a good director would have seen those problems and, at least casting wise, probably helped avoid or overcome them. The director here is massively out of his depth.
Fame's worst offence though is the truly unrealistic view of the world it portrays. The original went some way to at least suggest the work that such students have to put in, though perhaps in this age of reality TV where any moron can become an instant star this would be an unteachable, untenable lesson. Here any success any of the students have comes seemingly by luck and "right-place right-time" factors or from outside help. The school doesn't seem to have helped them at all. And on top of that none of these students would make it because they are so phenomenally devoid of talent. A cast of talented unknowns with a choreographer director proved what can be done in Disney's High School Musical. Given the potential for revisiting Fame in a modern day setting everyone involved should be ashamed of what they've turned out here.