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karlpaananen
Reviews
Swallows and Amazons (2016)
See the 1974 version instead.
This is an example of a movie that did not need to be made. Arthur Ransome's classic work "Swallows and Amazons" has already been adapted perfectly to a movie in 1974. I can't think of any way that someone could improve on the 1974 version.
Alas, that doesn't seem to have stopped the BBC when they made this film. This is one of those examples of the BBC's recent habit of adding things to great works of literature. The additions certainly do not improve the work at all.
To be fair, it was a bit of an interesting idea. Some of what they are incorporating comes from the historical fact that the author of the book, Arthur Ransome, had actually worked for British Intelligence spying on the Russians. (For example, in this movie at one point the code name "S76" appears, which was Arthur Ransome's actual codename!) The true story of Ransome's espionage work is very complicated. But I think this spy stuff really doesn't work here. In the original book the whole "Captain Flint" subplot had nothing to do with international espionage, it was simply about a small scale theft of opportunity. Much more appropriate for a children's story. Children today have no memory of the Soviet Union, they won't understand what the issue is between the Soviets and the British at the time.
This also means that firearms show up in the movie, another thing missing from the original book (and 1974 adaptation). And at one point, a child has a firearm. Perhaps the issue of firearms is addressed in an appropriate way by the filmmakers, but the issue wouldn't come at all if they had stuck to the original story.
So many things from the original story get dropped to make way for this espionage stuff. Some of the great scenes and lines from the original story have disappeared. For example, they mention that Nancy has changed her name from "Ruth", but Ransome's hilarious explanation of why she did so has gone absent--strangely, because this line would only take about one second of screen time.
The original story climaxes with an attack on Captain Flint's ship. But this film has to replace that with a scene that really belongs more in a Steven Spielberg or a James Bond movie.
The characters have been changed as well. At one point in the movie, the Walker children are basically grounded, forbidden from sailing any more (another thing that does NOT happen in the original story). So the children sneak off without permission from their mother, stealing the key to the boathouse so they can take the boat. The Walker children from the original story would never have never been so extremely disobedient.
Ransome wrote a whole series of "Swallows and Amazons" books, this was just the first. Each book really centers on a different child in the group. This first book focused on the character called "Titty". In the 1974 film Titty was played incredibly by Sophie Neville. The young Neville was able to capture the intelligence, creativity, competence and courage of the character. In this new movie, the character is renamed "Tatty" (reasons I think obvious). The makers of this new movie do keep Tatty's creativity, but the rest seems to be lost. Tatty is shown screaming on several occasions, such as when she sees a snake or hears an owl at night. Also, Tatty is responsible for the Walker's children's greatest triumph almost by accident, unaware of what she is doing. Very different from Ransome's original character of Titty. These new filmmakers have taken one of the greatest examples of a strong female character from classic children's literature, and turned her into a simpering wimp. And she really is no longer the central character, because her part has to also be cut down to make room for the espionage subplot.
If you really want to introduce children to Arthur Ransome, seek out the 1974 film and give this one a miss.
Across the Universe (2007)
Mixed Feelings
I've just seen the movie, and I came out with very mixed feelings.
I think that in this day and age, the traditional "movie musical", where folks keep suddenly bursting into song at odd moments, no longer works. "Chicago" dealt with this problem by putting all the musical numbers into fantasy sequences. "Moulin Rouge" made the whole film look more like a stage play then a movie. Because film has a tendency to "literalize"--in real life I can't walk down a street singing a Beatles song and then suddenly find all the passersby joining in. I think in "Across the Universe" often the musical numbers worked better when the characters were actually performing on stage, or tripping on drugs. But usually (not always, but usually) it seemed awkward when at other times the characters would just start singing in their "normal life". There were times towards the beginning of the film when the songs were so embarrassing I felt like walking out, but gradually the film pulled me in after I stuck with it.
Yes, every character is named after a Beatles song. Every time I heard a character's name, I cringed. Because I was afraid that somehow they were going to try to incorporate all those songs into the plot. Thankfully, the only two of these "name" songs that are actually sung are "Dear Prudence" and, yes, "Hey Jude". And these two were not too badly performed (although "Hey Jude" does seem to have all the inhabitants of a Liverpool neighborhood joining in, but at least we are spared too many of the "Nahs"). Additionally, they save "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" for the closing credits.
Covering a song is always difficult, because there is always going to be a comparison with the original performance. And sometimes the film's songs are far shot of the original, but sometimes the cover version is quite successful. I think that Eddie Izzard's performance of "For the Benefit of Mr. Kite", which basically becomes a Taymor-designed-and-directed music video, may have been worth the price of admission itself. Bono's cover of "I am the Walrus" is also a high point--Bono also sings "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" in the closing credit. But, for example, I thought the performance of "I want you/she's so heavy" to be a low point, the "I want you" sung by Uncle Sam and caricatured recruiting sergeants (who "want" the young men for Vietnam), the "she's so heavy" referring to Lady Liberty (!).
This has all the characters you expect to find in a film set in the Hollywood version of "the sixties". There is the kid who drops out of college to move to Greenwich village, there is the bohemian artist, there is the guitarist strongly reminiscent of Jimmy Hendrix, the female singer who I think is supposed to at least slightly suggest Janis Joplin, there is more than one young man who is drafted to Vietnam, (with the obligatory "medical examination" scene) there is the daughter of middle class parents protesting the war, plus one or two drug gurus reminiscent of Timothy Leary. In some ways, there are too many characters to give them all proper development and still have room for the songs. I would have liked to know a lot more about the character of "Prudence" who seems to have an interesting story of her own, that we are told very little about. Also the relationship between the characters played by Dana Fuchs and Martin Luther McCoy was not very detailed.
Plus the usual supporting cast of assorted war protesters, hippies, beatniks, soldiers in Vietnam, and phalanxes of policemen. There is marijuana and LSD, together with the obligatory imagery that feels like a groovy acid trip, and imagery that feels like a really bad acid trip. We've seen it all before, and I don't know that this film has anything new to tell us about this period of history.
Go see the film just because some of the performances of Beatles songs are quite good, I thought that although Fuchs and McCoy weren't given much to do with their characters they both did a good job of making the songs they were given "their own". But you will have to also sit through some performances that are almost painful. Maybe your choices about best songs and worst songs will be different from mine, but I don't think anyone will leave saying that the film maintains a consistent high quality throughout.
Matchstick Men (2003)
If you like con movies . . .
I enjoy caper, heist, and con movies. However, I have seen so many con movies by now that usually I can figure it all out before the end. So it was great fun to actually get taken in and totally surprised by the ending to this movie! I really did NOT see it coming!
The ending is really rather sad, a "downer" ending. The filmmakers seem to have softened it by giving us glimpses of "what happened next", essentially an epilogue to show that a life was NOT just completely destroyed.
The film uses all sorts of misdirection to keep you from paying attention and catching on to the con, it makes the viewer a "mark" just like the character in the movie. Afterwards I had to sit back and think it through ("So, wait, who was in on the con? . . . Ohhh, now I get it!")
Doogal (2006)
RE-RECORDED WITH AN American CAST
AAARGH!!! Nobody told me that this U.S. version had been re-recorded WITH AN American CAST!!!!! Lines were definitely changed. The American cast always said "Carousel" instead of "Roundabout". I think that some references to "sugar" were changed to "candy" or "caramels".
The actors kept from the UK version of this movie (released under the title "THE MAGIC ROUNDABOUT") were Judi Dench as the narrator, Ian McKellen as Zebedee and Kylie Minogue as Florence. All the other roles were substituted with the voices of American actors.
The kid who speaks Doogal (why did they change the spelling of this from "Dougal"?) is high pitched and annoying. Substituting the voice of Whoopi Goldberg for the voice of Joanna Lumley (Ermintrude the cow) was a bit strange. But what I thought was unforgivable was substituting the voice of Jon Stewart ("The Daily Show") for that of Tom Baker ("Doctor Who" (and many other roles)). This was the role of "Zeebad" the villainous enemy of Zebedee. There's even a scene where Zeebad and Zebedee have a wizardly duel, like Saruman and Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. But instead of Tom Baker facing Ian McKellen, it's Jon "The Daily Show" Stewart!!! Find a way to see the version with the British cast. Skip the one with the American cast.
Karl