Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

 

Director: Bill Silberling

Cast: Jim Carrey, Merryl Streep, Jude Law, Timothy Spall, Billy Connelly, Catherine O'Hara, Liam Aikens, Emily Brownings, Kara and Shelby Hoffman

Genre: Adventure/Comedy 2004

Running time: 108 mins.

Rating:★★½ 

Based on the novels written by Daniel Handler, three children; Violet, Klaus, and Sunny (Emily Brownings, Liam Aikens, Kara and Shelby Hoffman), are left in the custody of cousin and stage actor Count Olaf (Jim Carrey) after a massive fire kills their parents. Through a series of unfortunate events, the children must stop Count Olaf from achieve is goal of stealing their parents vast fortune.

Surreal imagery, an all-star cast, and just a delightfully fun film to watch. However, just because it's a "children/family" film, doesn't mean you have to skimp and overreach the big mystery on the children's parents' secret. And the artsy-fartsy rip-off of Tim Burton-esque dark-blue contrasts in costume design, make-up, and set designs, which makes you quite quizzical on the director of the tv show, Judging Amy, on this particular project. Jim Carrey's comedy has gone stale with immature-frat boy-nothing new nor whimsicalness about his performance. Who would I have chosen for the role of Count Olaf then? Not Johnny Depp, even he has unfortunately lost his edge. Merryl Streep, Billy Connelly, Timothy Spall, Jude Law, AND (oh yes! A surprise appearance) Dustin Hoffman are the only reasons that would make the film worth while to see.

I can not help, but to hear the voice of my mother, when she says that "the book is always better than the movie." Although, I have yet to read the series, based on watching this film, my mother maybe right. There is also, Nanny McPhee-esque rip off too, which is odd to say because that film came out the following year. Nonetheless, Nanny McPhee was a much better film than this overachievement. Finally and on a pleasant note, a scene, I did enjoy the most as far as imagery goes, was when the last reminents of Aunt Josephine's (Merryl Streep) house is engulfed by the sea. The hope of a home is yet again lost, unattainable, and seemly without reason. Which the children find, as the audience finds, that home was with them all along, in each other.

Ben-Hur

Director: William Wyler

Cast: Charleton Heston, Jack Hawkins, Haya Harareet, Stephen Boyd, Hugh Griffith, Martha Scott, Frank Thring

Genre: Adventure/Drama 1959

Running time: 212 mins.

Rating:★★★★

During the birth, lifetime, and death of Jesus Christ; comes a story of Judah Ben-Hur (Charleton Heston), a wealthy prince and merchant in Jersulem. A childhood friend, now a Roman tribune, Messala (Stephen Boyd), betrays Ben-Hur into slavery. After many years of struggle, Ben-Hur takes revenge for his people, and triumphs in freedom. 

Oh the good ol' days, when there was still an overture. Not only setting the tone of story about to be told, but allowed any strangling movie goers, who were late in coming, wouldn't miss anything. The set was elaborate, theatrically epic, and breathtakingly beautiful. The script was powerfully poetic, an art form, and unrealistic. The extras and the costume designs aided beautifully in setting the tone along with the music, the struggle of hardship towards the lead characters, and the god-like perfection of other characters. And scenes that gave just enough for the audience to catch wind into the psyche of a character or what is going on and didn't just assume that the audience was too stupid to figure stuff out on their own. This film is a perfect example of what a movie should do, an escape from the viewer's own life and transported into a fantasy and a dream. It speaks for itself. Plus, you have Charleton Heston, what more could one ask for? Nothing.

Dolls

Director: Stuart Gordon

Cast: Ian Patrick Williams, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, Carrie Lorraine, Guy Rolfe, Hiliary Mason, Stephen Lee

Genre: Fantasy/Horror 1987

Running time: 77 mins.

Rating:★★

A wealthy and nasty couple, David and Rosemary Bower (Ian Patrick Williams and Carolyn Purdy-Gordon), along with the man's daughter, Judy (Carrie Lorraine), get their car stuck in the middle of nowhere during a storm. The Bowers seek refuge in an old mansion, where they are welcomed in by an elderly couple, who make toys. What David and Rosemary want more then anything is to send Judy, who has a very "active" imagination, back with her mother. The surprise they receive, along with the other stranded guests, will make them wish that they were still a child at heart!

A Vincent Price-esque-Seventies horror movie flare with some pretty awesome Eighties special effects. However, some of the problems of this film is that it leaves too much assumption that the audience knows what's going on with the personal tensions between David, Rosemary, and Judy, the horridness of David and Rosemary, and the imaginative, innocence of Judy, and the mysteriousness-eerieness of the elderly couple that the film becomes a bit campy. AND, so you don't question their existence/need in the film, the two Mandonna-wannabes almost get run over by the Brewers near the beginning. A LOT! Of the performances were over acted, minus perhaps Guy Rolfe's, Carrie Lorraine's, Hiliary Mason's characters as the elderly toy makers and Judy, that you kind of that someone would swat them with a flyswatter, so that they would either tone it down or actually act! 

The subtle build up to revealing that the Dolls are not only alive, but malicious too is pretty fantastic, as well as, what ends up happening to the not-so-nice people. Yet, the film leaves you with a lot of questions that the director must have thought he made clear. Were all the toys once people? What happens once the people do turn into dolls? Do they continue "the punishment" of any visitors who have lost the child within? Why do they have to die or near to death to become dolls? The dolls are evil, but somehow never harm children because of the "obvious"? Do the toymakers actually make any of the toys non-magically? Nonetheless, the film gives you enough of a scare to want to be nice and appreciate dolls. Bells sot of covered on my end.

Gnomeo and Juliet

Director: Kelly Asbury
Cast: James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Ashley Jensen, Michael Caine,  Matt Lucas, Jim Cummings, Maggie Smith, Jason Statham, Ozzy Osbourne, Stephen Merchant, Patrick Stewart, Julie Walters, Hulk Hogan, Kelly Asbury, Richard Wilson, Dolly Parton
Genre: Animation/Comedy/Romance
Running time: 84 mins. 2011
Rating:★★★

In the neighboring gardens of Montague and Capulet on Verona Avenue, the red and the blue gnomes are at war with one another. But for Gnomeo and Juliet, in this animated film retelling of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, it is love that may triumph a new ending.

As probably with the majority of the population, who had seen the advertisements and trailers of this film (when it was released to the silver screen in 2011), an overwhelming feeling of disgust. Here seemed like another perfect example of Hollywood running out of ideas for films. Throughout cinematic history, Romeo and Juliet has been retold several times from Jerome Robbins's and Robert Wise's in 1961 (West Side Story),  Franco Zeffirelli's in 1968 ( which is the only film on the list that should matter, aside from West Side Story, which is neither here nor there), Baz Luhrmann's in 1996 (a vommit-garbage of a shit film... If you're going to do modern adaptation then use modern language and that's only skimming the surface of this horrific monstrosity. Another horrendous element was Leonardo Di-Crap-pio), Alan Brown's in 2011 ( gay cadets in a military? Could be interesting, but then again, I've seen a LGBT-Shakespeare film that tried too hard, it went limp), and Carlo Carle's in 2013 (which might have been a good idea that I didn't know it's existence during it availability in the theaters because I would keil over in more disgust from Hollywood's continuos proof of their lack of new ideas). 

In finally seeing this film, the intial disgust turned into an enjoyable retelling that has similar wittiness as Shrek and Toy Story. Well, depending on how you want to look at, the subtle or not so subtle references to Shakespeare's work. For instance the mailboxes of Capulet and Montague,  2B and not 2B. But overall, a delightful twist that is better than one would intially think, offshoots from the already well known tragedy into the inner-child imagination of what lawn ornaments do when we're not around. Finally, with an all-star cast that makes the film worth seeing, if you still have hesitation or disgust in watching it.