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CXLIV: Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Nick Park and Steve Box, 2005)
I suspect this may be the only feature-length W&G film, and I gather somewhat of a battle to get made as once more Hollywood wants an idiosyncratic filmmaker to look mainstream (and Flushed Away was harder to make for them).
W&G's latest business, Anti-Pesto, is to guard the village vegetables in the run up to the annual veg show, but something is out there ... eating...
I saw the twist coming miles away, but otherwise a bewitching parody of Hammer and Universal Horrors, blink and miss sight gags (did anyone else spot Gromit's Bagpuss in A Matter of Loaf and Death?), slapstick, Laurel and Hardy to camera-style sighs and the willing suspension of disbelief. Helena Bonham-Carter was more bearable than usual, and Ralph Fiennes seemed to be channeling Leonard Rossiter/Rigsby.
CXLV: Gone With the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)
One of the Top 100, and it should come as no surprise to learn that it left me rather cold. Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) marries her way through the Deep South as a survival tactic around the time of the US Civil War. Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), a passing millionaire, foolishly fancies her, stupidly marries her, and eventually dumps her.
The sexual politics get a little confused, so far as I can see: O'Hara can but be defined by her choice of man, and it takes a war for her to be able to earn her keep. She's no doormat, but I found her aggrannoying. Such individuality has to be punished in a Hollywood film, of course, although the coda to Gable's final line (which clearly I'd never seen in context before and doesn't end the film) allows her a chance to regroup; she is irrepressible. But I can't say it did much for me.
145 (Cinema: 67; DVD: 72; TV: 6)
I suspect this may be the only feature-length W&G film, and I gather somewhat of a battle to get made as once more Hollywood wants an idiosyncratic filmmaker to look mainstream (and Flushed Away was harder to make for them).
W&G's latest business, Anti-Pesto, is to guard the village vegetables in the run up to the annual veg show, but something is out there ... eating...
I saw the twist coming miles away, but otherwise a bewitching parody of Hammer and Universal Horrors, blink and miss sight gags (did anyone else spot Gromit's Bagpuss in A Matter of Loaf and Death?), slapstick, Laurel and Hardy to camera-style sighs and the willing suspension of disbelief. Helena Bonham-Carter was more bearable than usual, and Ralph Fiennes seemed to be channeling Leonard Rossiter/Rigsby.
CXLV: Gone With the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)
One of the Top 100, and it should come as no surprise to learn that it left me rather cold. Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) marries her way through the Deep South as a survival tactic around the time of the US Civil War. Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), a passing millionaire, foolishly fancies her, stupidly marries her, and eventually dumps her.
The sexual politics get a little confused, so far as I can see: O'Hara can but be defined by her choice of man, and it takes a war for her to be able to earn her keep. She's no doormat, but I found her aggrannoying. Such individuality has to be punished in a Hollywood film, of course, although the coda to Gable's final line (which clearly I'd never seen in context before and doesn't end the film) allows her a chance to regroup; she is irrepressible. But I can't say it did much for me.
145 (Cinema: 67; DVD: 72; TV: 6)
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