In the Company of Wolves

In the Company of Wolves

Right away I want to say, In the Company of Wolves is a weird dark movie even by 1980’s movie standards, which is saying a lot. It is a deeply symbolic movie with some really creepy and disturbing images.

It is based on Little Red Riding hood and was also based on a short story by Angela Carter from The Bloody Chamber anthology . The film came out in 1984 admits a lot of other werewolves movies. It was directed by Neil Jordan who was a writer/producer for Ondine

So how is this movie with all it’s weird creepiness?

Sarah Patterson as Rosaleen and Micha Bergese as Huntsman In the Company of Wolves

Sarah Patterson as Rosaleen and Micha Bergese as Huntsman

The plot is very untraditional for most movies. The movie’s approach to the narrative is to have stories with story or what the director called “a Chinese Box Structure.” So it’s starts with an adolescent girl, Rosaleen sleeping is her locked bedroom. In her room there are many, many creepy dolls. She dreams that her sister is killed by wolves in a dark yet beautiful forest. She then stays with her Granny who tells her stories about how men, adulthood and sex are all evil and are products of the devil. Rosaleen doesn’t like these stories. Her Granny give her the the soft red knitted cloak.

Rosaleen also has to deal wit the advances of a boy in her village that clearly wants her but she is not as interested in him. On her way to her Granny’s house, Rosaleen meets a charming huntsman. He makes a bet with her that he can make it to her Granny’s house using his compass while going off the path before she can get there using the the path. If she wins she gets the compass and if she loses she has to give him a kiss. He beats her there and kills her Granny by smashing her head off which turns to be porcelain. When Rosaleen arrives at the house she isn’t deceived by the huntsman being a wolf and she tries to shots him. This causes him to scream in pain. This causes Rosaleen to empathize with the wolves and she comforts him with her own story. In the end Rosaleen turns into a wolf and runs off with the pact.

Rosaleen then wakes up from her dream to find wolves breaking in and she screams in terror.

Sarah Patterson as Rosaleen with the wolf In the Company of Wolves

Sarah Patterson as Rosaleen with the wolf

Generally speaking with movie is weird, much weirder than my attempt at a summery makes it out to be. But to make this movie’s symbolism and theme simple, this movie is about how adulthood and sex are not evil or bad and one must let go of childhood. So often in traditional fairy tales, men and sex are pegged as evil or just dangerous but as Rosaleen’s mother said women can be beast too. In the end Rosaleen can’t return to her childhood or the village because she is something dangerous and has to live in the forest or adulthood.

Sarah Patterson as Rosaleen and Angela Lansbury as Granny In the Company of Wolves

Sarah Patterson as Rosaleen and Angela Lansbury as Granny

The characters in this movies are mute point. They don’t matter that much in terms being deep or complex. Rosaleen is the only one with a character arc as she learns that the dangerous wolves or men have feelings and emotions and becomes an adult. Rosaleen’s granny is interesting as she herself is actually a doll in Rosaleen room. She is innocent yet sinister but all her stories and advice are hollow like her head. The huntsmsn is intriguing too, charming yet devious but he does seems to like Rosaleen more than just as a snack.

Sarah Patterson as Rosaleen in the forest In the Company of Wolves

Sarah Patterson as Rosaleen in the forest

The we have the technicals which give this movie all its weird, creepy and unsettling imagery. Most of the disturbing parts deal with the transformation of men to wolves. One guy literally tears his face off. It’s effective especially given the nightmare/dream concept. There are of crazy visuals, like Rosaleen’s dolls which I thought would give me nightmare. But nothing is bad, everything gives with movie a sense style and it a visual language. It’s a good example of a movie showing and not telling as it communicates its point.

Though it unclear why Rosaleen screamed at the end. Speaking of Rosaleen the acting is okay. It feels like an 80’s style of acting.

Sarah Patterson as Rosaleen with a nest of eggs In the Company of Wolves

Sarah Patterson as Rosaleen with a nest of eggs

The Company of Wolves is a strange movie with lots of powerful symbolism. It’s not your standard coming of age story. I enjoyed it in an academic way. It’s not a movie I wouldn’t re-watch again and again but I would recommend you check it out if you want to watch something weird, very weird.

The Promise picture image review

The Promise

Do you ever watch a movie and you don’t know what to think? I actually shrugged in confusion after I finished watching The Promise. The Promise is the English title for 2005 epic Chinese called Wú Jí. It was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language film.

I should note that I watched this in  I guess the US version which is different from the original which is such BS but that is it.

Jang Dong-gun as Kunlun & Cecilia Cheung as Qingcheng The Promise picture image review

Jang Dong-gun as Kunlun & Cecilia Cheung as Qingcheng

Ok so the plot, such as it is, goes a little like this. There is a staving girl named Qingchen, who steals from the dead but a boy catching her and wants her to be his slave. She lies that she will but hits him and runs off. She then meets a Goddess who offers her beauty, riches and luxury but she she will never find everlasting love. She accepts this deal. The only way to break this fate is for Time to flow backwards, for Snow to fall in spring and for the dead to come back to life.

Flash-forward. General Guangming defeats a bunch of barbarians with slaves. One speedy slave catches his eye whose name is Kunlun. Kunlun loses his master in the battle so Guangming makes him his slave. Then King is in danger from an evil Duke names Wuhuan. As Guangming and Kunlun race to save the king they are attacked by some dude who wears a black feather cape, who is the Duke’s minion as well as super fast. Guangming gets injured so he has Kunlun puts on his armor to save the king. Guangming tells Kunlun that he will know the king because he will the only one unarmed.

However Kunlun kills the King has the king was armed and he mistake Qingcheng, king’s concubine as the King because she wasn’t armed. However Kunlun jumps off a waterfall and Qingcheng is taken by Wuhuan and put in a golden birdcage.

Kunlun survives and him and Guangming decide to save Qingcheng because apparently Guangming and Kunlun are both is love with her now, I guess. Qingcheng falls in love with Guangming by mistake because she think he was the one that saved her but it was Kunlun. So they live together for awhile despite Qingcheng’s fate of never having a lasting love.

Kunlun then learns from feather cape minion whose name is Snow Wolf, that he is from the Land of Snow. In the Land of Snow everyone can run SUPER fast but that didn’t help when Wuhuan came and killed everyone. Snow Wolf was scared of death so he opted to wear Wuhuan’s cape which keeps him alive.

Then Guangming gets captured by Wuhuan. He puts him on trail for killing the king but Kunlun confessed that he did it with Qingcheng saying that she had a hand it in. She then realizes that Kunlun saved her and not Guangming. Wuhuan sentences them all to death and tells Qingcheng her that  was the boy she tricked and it taught him not to trust anyone. There is a fight which ends with Guangming and Wuhuan killing each other and Kunlun fatally wounded. He puts on Snow Wolf’s cape (who took off in another scene and died) which grants him immortality which breaks Qingcheng’s fate.

I just want to point out that the Netflix summary makes this movie seem way different. It makes it seem that Qingcheng has a more active role with a character arc but nope.

Hiroyuki Sanada as General Guangming The Promise picture image review

Hiroyuki Sanada as General Guangming

This movie must of undergone several rewrites because I think there is an interesting story here with some interesting ideas but at some point it got lost. The plot is the most disjointed thing I have seen it a very long time. In a way it’s the opposite issue I have with some movie, the show don’t tell. This movie is all show to the point where there is no emotion despite emotions being necessary to the story. I don’t care about any of these people and when you  “I don’t care about a movie like this it means the love story is dumb and the fight scenes are tension-less dance numbers.

Nicholas Tse as Duke Wuhuan The Promise picture image review

Nicholas Tse as Duke Wuhuan

All the characters are bland. They have no personalities except Wuhuan who is just generically evil. I don’t understand his motivation for his coup, I found his mistrust of people comically simple. A little girl didn’t want to be his slave and stole the bread he stole from her? What? I get this movie opted for that Fairy Tale simplicity but that is an excuse for weak filmmaking.

Jang Dong-gun as Kunlun & Hiroyuki Sanada as General Guangming The Promise picture image review

Jang Dong-gun as Kunlun &
Hiroyuki Sanada as General Guangming

Speaking of the filmmaking, same of the technical work is great. This movie is all style and negative substance. The cinematography is lovely. The costumes are all very cool. And the fights/action part are mostly appealing. My favorite was the one with the bird screen, too bad there was no tension to give that fight any drama. It’s a very visually pleasing to look at, maybe as a silent movie it would have functioned better.

However the CG effects were not that great, they boarded on silly. That could be because this movie is eleven years old and a lot the effects just didn’t age well. That would be forgivable if that story and character were interesting.

Hiroyuki Sanada as General Guangming & Cecilia Cheung as Qingcheng The Promise picture image review

Hiroyuki Sanada as General Guangming & Cecilia Cheung as Qingcheng

On a technical level The Promise is pretty but the story and characters are so devoid of themselves that there is no emotional resonance.

Also how did the super fast Snow people get capture by Wuhuan in the first place? That seems like it shouldn’t have been possible.

Paheli picture image

Paheli

Today we have a different fairy tale movie because it’s a Bollywood movie. Fantasy movies are uncommon in Bollywood and more to the point this movie is based on a folk tale. It’s also based on a short story written by Vijayadan Detha which also had another Bollywood movie based on it called Duvidha from 1973.

However the movie we’re going to look at today is called Paheli which means Riddle. It came out in 2005, stars Shah Rukh Khan in a double role and Rani Mukherji. It was also India’s entry for the 79th Academy Awards but since it’s not about Indians having issues with being Indians or some historical events it didn’t get the nomination.

Rani Mukherji as Lachchi and Shah Rukh Khan as the Ghost Paheli picture image

Rani Mukherji as Lachchi and Shah Rukh Khan as the Ghost

The plot goes that a young lady named Lachchi is getting married and she is pretty excited. On her way to her new husband’s home, they stop at a place where it’s said a bunch of ghosts lives erm haunt or really just hang out. One of these ghosts falls in love with Lachchi. And stalks her a little bit.

On their wedding night, Lachchi’s husband, Kishanlal, is more interested is managing accounts, much like he did on the road. He then tells Lachchi that his father is making him leave on a seven year business trip the next day, so it’s better if they do nothing on their wedding night as Lachichi has to stay behind. This devastates her. Kishanlal stops at the same place with ghosts from before, it’s like watering hole rest stop type of place. The ghost who loves Lachchi recognizes Kishanlal and takes on a physical form and learns about Kishanlal’s extended business trip. The ghost then takes on Kishanlal’s likeness and goes to his home so he can be with Lachchi. He does tell her that he is not her husband but a ghost that fell in love with her and he asks her what she wants. This moves her as no one ever asked her what she wanted before so she accepts him and his love.

They spend four blissful years together while Kishanlal pines for home and writes letters that don’t get deliver because the Ghost pissed off the messenger. However he returned home when he hears rumors of Lachchi’s pregnancy. To settle the two  Kishanlals the men decide to go to the King as one Kishanlal is totally cool and the other one is a massive whiner. Before they get to the king they run into a shepherd, who makes them perform tests to prove who is the real husband. The final test is that the Shepherd asks the real lover of Lachchi to enter a water bottle which the Ghost does and is sealed inside. This devastates Lachchi but then it’s revealed that the Ghost possessed Kishanlal before entering the water bottle so they can be together.

Just to note, the book ends with the Ghost staying in the water bottle.

Rani Mukherji as Lachchi and Shah Rukh Khan as the Ghost Paheli picture image

Rani Mukherji as Lachchi and Shah Rukh Khan as the Ghost

On the one hand this movie is very mean to Kishanlal who is just presented as weak-willed man who is just doing what his parents told him and he does harbors affection for his wife and then is all but abandon in his duty. However on that pesky other hand, the preceptive the movie took is about a woman who is posed with a riddle, live a sad life as the duty of marriage forces on her or take the love she is offered. According to Shah Rukh Khan it’s a woman’s liberation movie though small in scope.

This movie really is a riddle because Kishanlal and Lachchi are two side of the coin, Kishanlal does his duty and is punished for it to the extent that he is possessed by a Ghost for the sake of Love while Lachchi takes love in a selfish manner and is reward for it. The way the movie presents it, you’re on Lachchi and the Ghost’s side but it still misguided even with a nobler theme.

 

 Shah Rukh Khan as the Ghost Paheli picture image

Shah Rukh Khan as the Ghost

Given as the movie has its core story components at the start and end you would think that this would mean that the Characters would be a least be interesting. Well no.  The Ghost’s characterization is he is a bit of a prankster, nice and charming. That’s not bad but it’s very typical of characters played by Shah Rukh Khan which are ubiquitous. Lachchi doesn’t seem to have much of a personality either. She likes love but that is kind of it.

Rani Mukherji as Lachchi and Shah Rukh Khan as the Ghost Paheli picture image

Rani Mukherji as Lachchi and Shah Rukh Khan as the Ghost

As is standard with Bollywood movies this one has musical numbers. The songs aren’t bad but they are not that interesting either. All the songs are nice but run together in terms of sound. It could be because the movie is a period movie so there isn’t a ton of variations of style they could use effectively. Again the songs and choreography are nice and nothing more.

Rani Mukherji as Lachchi Paheli picture image

Rani Mukherji as Lachchi

Where this movie really shines is the technicals. It’s pretty! Most Bollywood movies are pretty, it’s their style but this one is lavish. The jewelry even gets its own credit. It was done by Tanishq and at the time of this movie’s release they offered a Paheli collection. The costumes are very nice too, nothing is very like distinctive as a stand-out but Lachchi is often seen wearing oranges with blues which is a striking combo.

Rani Mukherji as Lachchi Paheli picture image

Rani Mukherji as Lachchi

Paheli is a beautiful movie on the visual level but the spirit of love is well intentioned but misguided.

Big Fish picture image

Big Fish

Big Fish is 2003 movie by Tim Burton based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Daniel Wallace. It looks at the father-son relationship as well as storytelling. The fairy tale elements are woven into the story the father tells which creates a nice somewhat fluid narrative though this movie is not without its flaws.

Ewan McGregor as Edward Bloom & Alison Lohman as Sandra Big Fish picture image

Ewan McGregor as Edward Bloom & Alison Lohman as Sandra

This movie presents a very simple story in a very complicated manner. Very simply, it’s about a man who is trying to reconcile his father’s tall tales with his real life. In hearing the stories and seeking them out he learns that there is a half true to them but the impossible and grand stories are better to leave behind as a legacy. Of course the stories feature things like, giants, conjoined twins, werewolves, witches, mermaids and a very creepy yet happy town.

Ewan McGregor as Edward Bloom picture image

Ewan McGregor as Edward Bloom

The biggest thing about this movie is that all the stories were true to a far degree just mostly exaggerated to give them more importance and so that the father would in a sense live on through the stories. However this movie despite it grandness in a normal life is predictable and doesn’t offer any surprises. Is that a bad thing? No, but it worth noting and by the film’s own admission it complicates a simple story.

Albert Finney as Edward Bloom & Billy Crudup as Will Bloom Big Fish picture image

Albert Finney as Edward Bloom & Billy Crudup as Will Bloom

In a weird way this movie with its dreamy story vignettes would make you think this story wasn’t about the characters. And while the technicals stand out more than the characters, I would say this should be a character piece at least it’s about the father and son, but no one else really has a personality.

In fact the father, Edward Bloom has two personalities. Older Ed seems to only want to tell his stories and talk about himself while the younger version is a people person who wants to help. Both are ambitious and want to be “Big Fish” but I can’t really reconciles my mind around these two facets and I’m left not really liking either of them.

The son Will is a complainer. He wants the truth but he can’t handle the truth. Actually the truth is boring. Really he just the foil to his dad and nothing else. Though I did like the touch that he is a reporter, where he has to report the facts as they are.

Ewan McGregor as Edward Bloom Big Fish picture image

Ewan McGregor as Edward Bloom

The de-facto star of the movie are the technicals. It is a really lovely and dream-like in the shots and cinematography. The use of colors of bright and cheerful for the stories and darker for hard realities. It’s a great movie to watch.

The acting is mostly good but nothing amazing, though listening to Ewan McGregor do a Southern accent made me think of Vivien Leigh, though didn’t he use a Southern accent in Down with Love, which I saw on a plane.

Also The Danny Elfman score is very Elfman-eseque which is lovely, fitting to the story and predictable.

Albert Finney as Edward Bloom & Jessica Lange as Sandra Bloom Big Fish picture image

Albert Finney as Edward Bloom & Jessica Lange as Sandra Bloom

Big Fish is a lovely movie though it has its issues it well paced and is touching.

The Secret of Moonacre picture image

The Secret of Moonacre

The Secret of Moonacre is a 2008 girly fantasy movie aimed at young girls who like jewelry and horses. It’s based on a book by Elizabeth Goudge called The Little White Horse. Now while I like jewelry and horses, I admit I’m not the target demographic. However this movie knows who it’s aiming at and there is Tim Curry in it so it’s not all bad. Also I’m really trying to resist making a Sailor Moon joke.

Dakota Blue Richards as Maria Merryweather & Natascha McElhone as Loveday de Noir The Secret of Moonacre picture image

Dakota Blue Richards as Maria & Natascha McElhone as Loveday  

Movie starts off with a newly Orphan tween girl Maria getting a historic book and then sent off to the country to live with her uncle in a manor house that is falling apart, though she gets an awesome bedroom, seriously it’s magical. Maria soon learns that her family, The Merryweathers, have an ancient grudge with a rival family, the De Noir. It started when one of the daughter of De Noir was given a necklace of pearls by the moon. She was about to marry a Merryweather but the family fought over the pearls so she put a curse on them, that if the pearls were not returned to the sea before the 5000th moon by another Moon Princess who is pure of heart then the valley would be plunged into eternal darkness. So Maria has to race against the full moon to save the valley from the two families’ pride.

Natascha McElhone as The Moon Princess & Ioan Gruffudd as Sir Wrolf Merryweather The Secret of Moonacre picture image

Natascha McElhone as The Moon Princess & Ioan Gruffudd as Sir Wrolf

In this movie a “moon princess” is marked by the fact that she can see a magical white horse, so that and the fact the whole plot boils down to pearls, mixed in some pretty costumes with nice sets and you have a movie that six to ten years old will love. But there is something a bit more going on here than just little girl wish fulfillment.

There is a proverb that goes “Pride comes before the fall” meaning that overconfidences leads to destruction and that is very overtly what is happening in the movie. Everyone’s pride gets in the way of ending the feud between the two families and they are willing to let their valley get destroyed because of their pride. It is only fixed when Maria actually throws herself into the sea so the pearls can be return that they let their pride go.

To most adults this moral is very much a slap in the face but it’s not that bad for children. It addressed to them in easy to understand manner.

Dakota Blue Richards as Maria Merryweather, Juliet Stevenson as Miss Heliotrope, Michael Webber as Digweed and Andy Linden as Marmaduke Scarlet The Secret of Moonacre picture image

Dakota Blue Richards as Maria, Juliet Stevenson as Miss Heliotrope, Michael Webber as Digweed and Andy Linden as Marmaduke Scarlet

So what are the character like? They are not very interesting or deep. I would say Maria doesn’t have much of a personality as she is nice and curious but her curiosity is the result of a weird house and getting the plot to move forward. Probably the most interesting characters are Loveday, what a name, and her brother, Robin.

Loveday is interesting because she a weird bohemian that lives in the woods and her pride is a weird combination shyness and a broken heart. She also keeps a lot of animals in her dwelling. Robin is really the only character who seems to get a slight arc as he starts off as a bad guy but helps Maria out and even seems to like her romantically a little bit.

Dakota Blue Richards as Maria Merryweather & Augustus Prew as Robin de Noir The Secret of Moonacre picture image

Dakota Blue Richards as Maria & Augustus Prew as Robin

The style of this movie has a very shabby chic dreamy and for lack of a better description fairy tale. The shabbiness of the house is a plot point but it does add some interest however there are some very weird style choices. For instance all the costume have weird textures to them that sometimes look cool but mostly it looks awkward. Like Maria’s bustles that look like shelves, most of Loveday’s costumes and Robin’s feather chocker where the feathers look like spikes. There is a nice organic look to the costumes but mostly they look unpleasant. Though I want Maria’s Saturn necklace.

The acting is what you would expect for a movie aimed at little girls. It’s cheesy and over the top but it’s serviceable. No one here is out to win any awards but they do their best with the material.

Dakota Blue Richards as Maria Merryweather & Ioan Gruffudd as Sir Benjamin Merryweather The Secret of Moonacre picture image

Dakota Blue Richards as Maria & Ioan Gruffudd as Sir Benjamin

The Secret of Moonacre is perfectly adequate children fantasy movie. It spelled out a moral with cute and pretty things and if you need more than that this movie isn’t really for you.

March 2023 Update- I recently rewatched this movie for a costume ranking involving burgundy costumes from fantasy movies. Mostly I stand by my opinion on this movie though the acting was not as “serviceable” as it recalled. I mean it’s fine not great but that could have a directing thing more than the actors. I have soften on the costumes though, I don’t hate the exposed caged bustle.

Black Swan picture image

Black Swan

If Red Shoes and Perfect Blue had a baby it would the 2010 movie, Black Swan. It’s a movie that looks at the break down of a young ballerina in her quest to be perfect which is set against a metaphoric and literal retelling of Swan Lake. Let’s just say I hate respect this movie.

Natalie Portman as Nina Black Swan picture image

Natalie Portman as Nina

The plot follows Nina Sayers, who is a young woman trapped in childhood by a fairly controlling mother. Nina wants to play the lead in the her ballet company’s new production of Swan Lake where the innocent white swan and the seductive black swan are played by the same dancer. Nina doesn’t have the inner sexiness to play the black swan but lands the role after kissing/biting the head of the ballet. She then thrown into a paranoia spiral of trying to become a more sexual person at the cost of killing her innocence self all while thinking that another lady in the company, Lily, is replacing her. But in the end she does away with the perfect little girl for the imperfect sexual woman and find she was perfect.

Black Swan picture image

Natalie Portman as Nina

So what don’t I like about this movie? Well in my humble opinion, the movie tries WAY too hard to be edgy and artistic that is just comes off as pretentious. It just has some downright unpleasant imaginary which really just a style thing so if you like this style, that is cool, I just think it tries way too hard that it became almost cute in a way.

Along the same lines there is the editing. The editing plays with reality and Nina’s crazy fantasies to the point were you really can’t trust anything that the movie presents or the characters. There is the 1994 French movie called L’Enfer which has this sort of editing but I prefer this style of editing in that movie  because the rest of the technicals are kept simple. Another movie that  plays with weird editing as part of the narrative is the 1999 Japanese movie Audition, which I don’t recommend. In that movie a scene is shown twice with different dialogue to show one character is not listening to what the other character was telling him. Again that is just me and my preferences. Though when I first saw Black Swan I had recently seen L’Enfer so I liked it in Black Swan more but on a second viewing is came off as really gimmicky.

Black Swan picture image

Natalie Portman as Nina

Also I don’t care for the characters. Black Swan is a character study of a dancer going crazy with a fairy tale woven throughout. Besides Nina’s perfection tendencies and being girly we don’t know that much about her. We know that she got into ballet because of her mother but that isn’t that much. We pretty much meet her and she starts going cuckoo. She couldn’t go a twenty minutes without the crazies starting. Now she did have the scratching habit and an eating disorder (I think) before but is that enough for very quick mental decline based on playing a dual role and taking a method style acting before she even starting rehearsing? I don’t think so, she just starts off crazy.

The other character are also one note, either sexy or prudes. The only character that has a little more than nothing going on is Beth a.k.a the dying Swan. A ballerina who is getting too old to dance and tries to commit suicide because Nina in a sense replaced her.

Natalie Portman as Nina (white swan) Black Swan picture image

Natalie Portman as Nina (white swan)

Now I get that the reason for the simple characters is that they are all dual role with character from the ballet and ballets aren’t know for their true to life characters and this duality is some thing I like. I like how the movie merged Swan Lake with a story about crazy dancer trying to be perfect while not being perfect. The duality of the white swan being childhood and innocence and killing that aspect and embracing a budding powerful sexuality to be a whole person is interesting. And the prince/Ballet head guy choosing the woman (black swan) over the child (white swan) is clever.

Black Swan picture image

Natalie Portman as Nina (black swan)

Despite the pretentious of this movie, it is really well down, though all the following Nina shots got old fast but it’s still a well crafted movie that does keep one guessing.

Though I gotta say I really loved the costumes, especially the ballet costumes. But the costumes fit into the simple nature of the characters. Mostly they all wear black and Nina where mostly whites and pinks and then shift to dark grays. I really liked Nina’s white gown but I love the Black Swan crown. I love how dark yet organic is it which is a combo you don’t see very often.

Natalie Portman as Nina becoming the black swan Black Swan picture image

Natalie Portman as Nina becoming the black swan

Black Swan is a polorzing movie, some people love it and others loath it. I can seem both sides which is why I hate respect Black Swan.

Ondine picture image

Ondine

Ondine is a 2009 modern telling of not so much a fairy-tale but more of the concept of Selkies. Selkies are a mystical creature that are like seals in the water but assume human form on land and if they are like the film’s idea of the they have a lot of rules.

Colin Farrell as Syracuse & Alicja Bachleda as Ondine Ondine picture image

Colin Farrell as Syracuse & Alicja Bachleda as Ondine

Ondine is about a down on his luck Irish fisherman, Syracuse who is a recovering alcoholic. He is divorced and his daughter has kidney failure, I know what a cliche. One day he pulls up a lady in this nets who doesn’t want to be seen by anyone. She goes by the name Ondine Also his luck starts turning around as he he catches more lobster and other big fish. Syracuse and his daughter, Annie start really thinking Ondine is a seal maiden but this story has a twist to it, which I won’t spoil.

Though they never explain how Syracuse caught those Salmon

Colin Farrell as Syracuse, Alicja Bachleda as Ondine & Alison Barry as Annie Ondine picture image

Colin Farrell as Syracuse, Alicja Bachleda as Ondine & Alison Barry as Annie

So while it turns out Ondine isn’t a selkie the movie REALLY plays up that she is till Syracuse hears the song she had been singing the whole time is real-world song by Sigur Ros. So if you don’t know that she isn’t one the movie gives some world magical coincidences that point it being true, the movie tricks you.

And I will say that the big reveal/climax and ending are a little weird and silly in not the best way.

Alicja Bachleda as Ondine Ondine picture image

Alicja Bachleda as Ondine

But why does Ondine play that she is a selkie? She doesn’t really deny it. The reason is she wants to escape her sordid life and gives in to the fantasy that Annie and Syracuse come up with to explain it. I should make it clear, the idea that she is a Selkie comes from a hypothetical story that Syracuse tells Annie and she say “oh the story you’re telling is a about a selkie.” This gives the story and the way the characters operate in the story fell organic even though they are flawed.

The shots of the Irish ocean and seaside are lovely. It has a very monochrome color palette that works for the story. There is also a understated rustic bohemian style. The acting is fine on the whole, nothing feels unnatural.

 

Alicja Bachleda as Ondine Ondine picture image

Alicja Bachleda as Ondine

Ondine is a take on the selkie myth with interesting characters and a story that doesn’t speak down the audience, though the ending is rather weird.

Sydney White picture image

Sydney White

In the scope of movies, this shit isn’t the worst thing ever made by humans but it comes so close. Sydney White is “modern” retelling of Snow White from 2007. It’s tries really hard to be funny, clever and delightful that it is unsettling, beyong dumb and painfully unlikable.

Amanda Bynes as Sydney with The Seven Dorks Sydney White picture image

Amanda Bynes as Sydney with The Seven Dorks

If you want to know the plot it’s Snow White but in college with  frats and sororities. But instead of evil witch, it’s bitchy rich sorority girl, instead of a  magic mirror it’s a Myspace list, instead of dwarfs they are dorks and instead of a poisoned apple it’s a Mac that gets a virus.  The virus mac really only pads out the movie for like a minute and half. Really she does what every other college student has to do, write a paper the night before it’s due, and she does, great conflict there movie.

Also the Prince’s last name is Prince, ZOMG is so fucking CLEVER. And the bitch blonde girl’s last name is Witchburn. My mind is blown by this movie’s cleverness.  Pfffffft.

Amanda Bynes as Sydney and Sara Paxton as Rachel Witchburn Sydney White picture image

Amanda Bynes as Sydney and Sara Paxton as Rachel Witchburn

This movie operates on tried boring stereotypes. Like that all rich blondes who care about their looks and like designer labels are terrible people, it’s like Clueless and Legally Blonde never existed.  Or all “dorks” are all a socially awkward losers with allergies. And cool girls are like dudes, in that they read comics and know football.  And popular guys are normal and like video games.

It is interesting to watch this movie in nearly a decade later as the “dorks” are more socially acceptable. Like making video game is great and Star Wars Episode 7 is the highest grossing movie ever. But the climax is everyone saying they are dork, yay fitting in? It’s dumb.

Also Syndey herself as mention is one those chill, nice, pretty girls who is more like a dube-bro. But the films tries to make her comfortable with the dorks by making her like “comics” BUT there isn’t a SINGLE scene of her reading one. She just has them and refers to the once or twice same with football. She is a jock and that makes her attractive in the movie world. But women who like being “feminine” are “bitchy” and “shallow.” This a girl-power movie at it’s most superficial from the male-gaze.

Amanda Bynes as Sydney and Matt Long as Tyler Prince Sydney White picture image

Amanda Bynes as Sydney and Matt Long as Tyler Prince

So the characters are all one dimensional ass-hats even the so-called likable ones, so the real question is that since the plot is just Snow White at college with stall characters right out of script from the early 1980’s  how are the technicals. Well, the acting is shit. It feels likes  VERY sitcom circa 1980’s.  But with Bynes’ acting I couldn’t not made a distinction between her being snarky, sarcastic and nice.

Also what was up with Sydney’s tan? It was distracting and not even from the source material angle, she just looked orange. So the technicals sucked.

Amanda Bynes as Sydney with two dorks Sydney White picture image

Amanda Bynes as Sydney with two of the Dorks

I pretty hated everything about Sydney White, but more than that I hated that some wrote this thinking they were being clever, funny and charming and got paid money and have a career. I hate that shit like this gets made when there are literally thousands of more talented people writing better stories, scripts and characters on fan-fictions site.

Also Kappas are a creature from Japanese Folklore. They are a River Imp.

A Cinderella Story 2004 picture image

A Cinderella Story

A Cinderella Story is a by the book modern telling of Cinderella. It used to be a guilty-pleasure of mine. I know it’s dumb, cliched and very early 2000’s but really there something clumsy and likable about it that I don’t dislike it,  I don’t it but this shit could be so much worst.

Hilary Duff as Sam & Chad Michael Murray as Austin A Cinderella Story 2004 picture image

Hilary Duff as Sam & Chad Michael Murray as Austin

Story follows smart, down-earth Cinderella named Samantha in this movie. Of Course, in the  trope of making her “likable,” Sam is more “guyish” as she doesn’t like fashion or girly stuff like her arch-rival, the popular bitchy mean girls, who prefer rice crackers to big macs. Anyway, she has the world bestest childhood evar, till her dad remarries and dies. She the does chores and works at a diner so she can go to Princeton, which is why she stays the awful people. Through a chat she meets the Prince character  who is the popular guy at her high school. He plays  football but also likes Lord Alfred Tennyson because it’s he is less well known than Shakespeare.  Also her mean nickname is Diner Girl, real clever kids.

It’s pretty by the book, you have the godmother, who is Sam’s kick-ass manager, a cell phone fills in as the slipper. And instead of getting “married‘ they both go off to New Jersey.

Hilary Duff as Sam and Regina King as Rhonda A Cinderella Story 2004 picture image

Hilary Duff as Sam & Regina King as Rhonda

I think the real reason I don’t dislike this movie as much as I probably know it, is the supporting cast sells the movie more than the leads. Like everyone but the leads are making the cast work, maybe because they don’t need to be likable and perfects and since Sam and Austin are bland and boring, there is nothing to work with for characterizations.  But methinks Duff isn’t the most talent actress and a better actress could have made the dialogue more natural sounding.

Jennifer Coolidge as Fiona, Madeline Zima as Brianna, & Andrea Avery as Gabriella A Cinderella Story 2004 picture image

Jennifer Coolidge as Fiona, Madeline Zima as Brianna, & Andrea Avery as Gabriella

The Technicals aren’t specials in any way. They feel a lot like Ella Enchanted with the cheesy styling. The camera work and editing is very basic. There isn’t much to it. This movie also seems to be ad for it’s soundtrack.

Hilary Duff as Sam & Dan Byrd as Carter A Cinderella Story 2004 picture image

Hilary Duff as Sam & Dan Byrd as Carter

A Cinderella Story is like sugar-water, it’s too sweet, sappy and doesn’t have any substance but more or less harmless. I wish I disliked more.

This movie like next week’s movie has a be your self theme, which is trite and has been done a billion times because it’s easy yet seemingly genuine, very basic.

 

Grimm's Snow White picture image

Grimm’s Snow White

Guys, you have no idea how rancid this “movie” is.  So Grimm’s Snow White is another 2012 Snow White movie which was ONLY made to capitalized on Snow White and the Huntsmen.  It was made by The Asylum films who made Sharknado and I hate to this it but Sharknado at least is more entertaining than this. The filmmakers gone on record to say that people shouldn’t even pay attention to it, it’s meant for people to get drunk while it’s on in the background. Also like our old friend The Flight of Dragons, it a made on demand type DVD and again I hate to say it bit The Flight of Dragons was better. So guy we have a level shit-vomit movie here.

Jane March as the Evil Queen Grimm's Snow White picture image

Jane March as the Evil Queen

The movie starts with some backstory and if you thinks it about Snow White’s mother wanting a child with ebony hair, blood red lip and skin as white as snow, then you are a fucking idiot. This back story is about how a star made this magic flame that created some cheap dragons who protects the flame and Legolas Elves who can use the flame’s magic and there is a prophesy about some chosen on who will bring peace or something. After that two minutes of exposition I needed a five minute break because this shit is fucked. What story am I in? Because it’s not Grimm’s Snow White.

Anyway from there we have FAIRlY standard Snow White story plotting along. The Evil Queen doesn’t like Snow White, who I have to mention is blond. There is a Prince and the Queen wants to marry him because that stupid green flame is on his land, supposedly. But the Prince like-likes Snow and gives her a ring. The Queen tries to kill Snow but before the Huntsmen can a CG dragon thing attacks. He doesn’t kill Snow but she is hurt because the plot need to knock-out to meet the Dwarves erm I mean Elves, who  are enslaved by humans or something, they just don’t like people.

More standard stuff, the Queen poisons Snow with a fucking ring, which is dumb. Kiss stuff blah blah blah. Not too epic fight, not sure where Snow learn to use a bow and arrow. Prince is hurt, Snow kills the Queen and magic love bull-crap save dumb prince and stupid trite ending. Hooray it’s over and you didn’t die from either bashing your head on your desk repeatedly or choking on your vomit.  I mean the smart thing is just to turn the cursed movie off after the first two minutes because you know it’s bad after that.

Eliza Bennett as Snow White and Jamie Thomas King as the Prince Grimm's Snow White picture image

Eliza Bennett as Snow White and Jamie Thomas King as the Prince

What story were they trying to tell here? A Snow White knock-off? Maybe but with Lord of the Rings mixed in and devoid of ANYTHING good. I’m not sure why they bother with one or the other because they didn’t gel together. Well actually it was because of the Hollywood movie and this was literally a VERY cheap knock-off. I will say that some of the principle actors make some of it work but not enough to make it. Just bless the actor for being in this shit, I hope you guys were well paid.

Eliza Bennett as Snow White Grimm's Snow White picture image

Eliza Bennett as Snow White

But maybe you say, well the story is shit but how about those  characters? What characters? I mean there were humanoids talking and in the story but they are so bland that the CGs act more real, I kid those CGs are shit but we’ll get to that. So yes that characters sucked and had nothing interesting about them EXCEPT for the yellow elephant of this movie, the Blond Snow white.

Now personally, I don’t care, this movie is beyond a floating turd in a gas station toilet that to harp on this seems like I’m yelling at rock. This movie got nothing right but why? Snow White is so engrained with a set look and they didn’t even try. The Queen looked like she should have been Snow White. I’m not sure what the decision process was behind it because it just so weird. Did they think there were being edgy? Because she looked more like Sleeping Beauty, or Cinderella, or Alice Wonderland than Snow White. why does this movie make fucking K-Stu’s Snow White look respectable?   Did they think a wig would have looked fake? I know that can’t be the case because of those FUCKING CGS.

Eliza Bennett as Snow White with shitty CG dogs Grimm's Snow White picture image

Eliza Bennett as Snow White with shitty CG dogs

Now let’s talk about those CGs and the technicals because you know they are vile odorous shit. The CGs are so bad, they make me cringe any time the come into frame or even mentioned. They look so fucking cheap and  fake. Sock Puppets would have looked better or Clay animation. Anything!

The rest of the movie looks and feels like low budget movie made by LARPers who had some means but not enough. Like sets are poop and the costume are uninspired. I’ve seen skits at REN Faires that are better. But you know what was REALLY funny in a bad way it that when you looked at the elves ear tips they were never the shade of the actors and they have this weird corpse like gray color to them. So Again it was all shit.

Jane March as the Evil Queen, Eliza Bennett as Snow White and other people Grimm's Snow White picture image

Jane March as the Evil Queen, Eliza Bennett as Snow White and other people

And that what Grimm’s Snow White was; Shit. It wasn’t “Grimm’s” story, it wasn’t enjoyable. Just don’t watch it. I wished to I could have been so lucky as to turn it off or better still if I had never heard about it.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to bleach my brain in a vain attempt to forget this ass-fart of moving picture played in a sequence because it is not a movie.

It’s so bad I’m not even putting links for it.

Also no Clues this week, I’m taking a break from these Thrusday movie reviews. We’ll resume them in January but I will say there is a bit of a theme to them for next month.