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Stranger Than Fiction

Friday, October 29th, 2010

Stranger Than Fic­tion is the story of Harold Crick, an IRS audi­tor, played by Will Fer­rell. While this film is a bit of a com­edy, it’s not Will Ferrell’s stan­dard fare. In fact, he plays this role fairly straight. In the movie he’s liv­ing a pre­dictable life of his own choos­ing when sud­denly he hears a voice, one no one else can hear, that begins to annoy­ingly nar­rate his life. That being chal­leng­ing enough to bear, the always accu­rate nar­ra­tive voice one day pre­dicts his death which changes every­thing. The ‘voice’ is that of Karen Eif­fel, played by Emma Thomp­son, who is cur­rently writ­ing a novel that is indeed telling the story of Harold Crick and hav­ing trou­ble fig­ur­ing out how to kill him. A cer­tain amount of this movie is about her char­ac­ter. Dustin Hoff­man plays the role of lit­er­ary advi­sor to Harold and Mag­gie Gyl­len­haal plays the woman who makes him want some­thing more in life.

Thought it was a lit­tle slow at times, I found this movie intrigu­ing. Part of the time I was wait­ing for Will Fer­rell to do some outrageously, comedic, stupid bit which amaz­ingly didn’t hap­pen though much of his more sub­tle funny stuff made it through. The other part had me won­der­ing where it was all going as, over time, it seemed to become less and less of a com­edy and more of a roman­tic drama. I’ve never been much of a fan of Will Fer­rell and tend to pass on films he stars in but I’m moved to say I liked him in this. In fact it was such a sur­prise that I give it a 4 out of 5 marks. It’s one of very few films that I’ve sit through more than once.

29.10.2010 Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Romance No Comments

Highlander: The Search for Vengeance

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

High­lander: The Search for Vengeance tells a story of Colin MacLeod, an immor­tal on a quest for vengeance as the title sug­gests. Like most movies in the long run­ning series, the story takes place over hun­dreds of years and includes many flash­backs. One of the first things you notice on see­ing this film are the amaz­ing visu­als. There’s plenty of sci-fi action includ­ing post-apocalyptic weapons and robots. The pace of the story is good and if you’re already a fan of the wain­ing series, this is a spe­cial treat. You don’t need to have seen any other install­ment of the many movies or series how­ever, as the movie works well on its own.

After hav­ing been dis­ap­pointed with every­thing that has come out of the High­lander sto­ry­line of late, I have to say I was pleas­antly sur­prised by this film. Already an Anime fan, I appre­ci­ate the visual qual­ity and over­all look of the film. It is an untold story of the High­lander mythos and fits well into that fran­chise, paving the way for new sto­ries to be told. That I am already a fan of the High­lander con­ver­sa­tion is what got me to check out this film and I am happy I did. I found it to be pleas­ing on many lev­els and eas­ily rec­om­mend it, giv­ing it a 4 out of 5 marks.

05.01.2010 Action, Animation, Fantasy, Sci-Fi No Comments

The Cat Piano

Monday, December 14th, 2009

This Ani­mated Short has been nom­i­nated for an Oscar this year but has already received numer­ous awards. The Cat Piano is a noir sort of film and is described as fol­lows, “A city of singing cats is preyed upon by a shad­owy fig­ure intent on per­form­ing a twisted feline sym­phony.” Want to find out more about it? Check out the offi­cial site. In the mean­time watch it now while it’s still on YouTube before they lock it in a vault some­where for posterity’s sake. Enjoy!

14.12.2009 Animation, Fantasy, Mystery, Short Film, Thriller No Comments

Inkheart

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

InkheartInk­heart is the story of a man who finds he has the power to bring char­ac­ters from sto­ries he reads aloud out of the book and into the world of the liv­ing. His dis­cov­ery, how­ever is tragic as it brings sto­ry­book vil­lains into the real world and leads to the loss of his wife. Bren­dan Fraser plays the role of the ‘Sil­ver­tongue’ who searches des­per­ately for the pos­si­bil­ity of bring­ing his wife back but the vil­lains he has freed like it here in the real world and have no inten­tion of return­ing to the book. Paul Bet­tany plays the hero of the book Inkeart, try­ing to find a way back into the book. The main vil­lain of this piece is played by Andy Serkis, (you remem­ber Gollum?).

It was a pleas­ant sur­prise to see Bren­dan Fraser in a role that’s not some silly over the top action movie. He’s quite lik­able in this film. In fact the entire film is quite lik­able. This is a fam­ily movie so it has some­thing for the young ones as well as the chap­er­on­ing adults includ­ing appear­ances by clas­sic char­ac­ters and crea­tures of lit­er­a­ture. It’s a fan­tasy adven­ture so you sus­pend your belief going into it and while at some times it is quite pre­dictable, the jour­ney is still fun. Bren­dan Fraser kindly moves aside for the vil­lain and hero of the Ink­heart book to shine a lit­tle brighter than him in this movie, another depar­ture from what we have seem from him lately. While it may never achieve the sta­tus of  the clas­sic fam­ily fan­tasy adven­ture, it is enjoy­able and worth rent­ing for fam­ily night. I give it 4 out of 5 marks.

28.10.2009 Adventure, Family, Fantasy No Comments