Dark Shadows

I would be lying if I said I was a fan of the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp partnership. Sleepy Hollow and The Corpse Bride are their only collaberations that I have voluntarily watched more than once.

I had no prior knowledge of Dark Shadows as I was lucky enough to miss all televised promotion but alas the price of having very good friends, who had the foresight to bring me a rather fantastic present, means that I didn’t escape the one hour fifty minute monstrosity that was Dark Shadows.

PLOT: Barnabus Collins (Johnny Depp) is turned into a vampire and buried alive by spurned lover and immortal witch Angelique (Eva Green). One hundred and ninety six years later the film ends Barnabus is released from his coffin and he moves back into the family home with his oh so quirky family. Barnabus and Angelique go to war to see who can run the most successful fishmongers. There is a love story but Burton didn’t bother developing it so I don’t see why I should write about it. The Collins family kill the witch in the entrance with a chandelier. END PLOT

The plot of Dark Shadows is nonexistent. It jumps around all over the place with the main Collins family being totally underused, the love interest being forgotten about for large chunks of the film and the unexpected introduction of werewolves in the final act. It felt as though the writer had put a selection of plot points in a hat and just picked out five at random to form the basis of his script.

The tone of Dark Shadows is as uneven as the script as it couldn't find a balance between bright/quirky and dark/gothic. The comedy was half-baked and lazy. The fish out of water theme got old extremely quickly and although Johnny Depp can speak quickly in ye olde American it began to grate very quickly.

The potential was there – the “Top of the World” montage of the Collins family rebuilding their factory worked very well but for every section that worked we got several than didn’t. The love scene between Barnabus and Angelique was woefully ill-conceived.

I am not a Johnny Depp fan and I will repeat my usual proclamation that if all his performances are quirky none of them fucking are. His shtick is as tiring as Burton’s film making.

Eva Green took overacting to catastrophic levels and the rest of the cast, which boasts names such as Helena Bonham Carter and Michelle Pfeiffer, are so underused I don’t know why they bothered showing up.

Chloe Moretz is going to have a long and successful career ahead of her but at the minute she is fourteen years old. There were occasions that she was over sexualised and acted far older than her years. It was unnecessary.

Dark Shadows is an over stylish and empty mess but these are not the films greatest faults as Dark Shadows had the audacity to be one of the most boring films I have had the misfortune of sitting through.

Hopefully Dark Shadows spells the end of Burton and Depps relationship. They had little to offer in the first place but now there is no barrel left to scrape. Dark Shadows get a 2/10. If The Hobbit trailer didn’t play before the film began it would have scored lower.

YellowBrickRoad - spoiler free

If I watch a horror film, and that isn’t often, I prefer it to be of the supernatural kind. I don’t like ultra violent gorno films such as the Hostel franchise as I’ve always maintained that the less blood in a horror film the scarier I tend to find it.

Even though horror isn’t really my genre if someone takes the time to recommend a film that under normal circumstances would pass my by I will seek it out. YellowBrickRoad is one of those movies.

PLOT: In 1940 the inhabitants of Friar, New Hampshire, left their town and walked into the thick surrounding forest for no apparent reason. After a wide scale search many of the bodies were found murdered or frozen although the vast majority remained unaccounted for. Despite the story passing into legend husband and wife authors Teddy (Michael Laurino) and Melissa (Anessa Ramsey) Barnes lead a team into the forest to retrace the “YellowBrickRoad” and discover where the townspeople were headed and why. END PLOT

The concept of YellowBrickRoad is decent – the opening credits give the back story of Friar then after a brief round table introduction to the characters we head straight into the forest.

The characters don’t get much development but I can remember all their names thirty minutes after the final credits have rolled. The key point with these characters is that at the start of their journey they are all sane individuals but as they walk deeper into the forest they start to unravel and suffer murderous fits of rage and insanity.

I started watching YellowBrickRoad with the belief that it would turn out to be yet another gory horror flick. This isn’t what I got as the film turned out to be more of a psychological thriller.  The tension slowly builds and like the characters I had no idea what was happening or why. The unknown element of YellowBrickRoad does make for some unsettling viewing.

I don’t mind when films end openly with unanswered questions especially when the set up is so engaging. I didn’t like the ending of YellowBrickRoad as it took the answered questions into "What the Fuck" territory which was frankly one yellow brick too far. I didn’t like the final scenes and if I were editing it I know the exact moment I would have ended the film.

YellowBrickRoad is written and directed by first timers on a budget of $500,000.00 (IMDB) and you almost have to give it extra credit for they almost pulled of ninety minutes of pure mind-fuck. It gets a generous 8/10.

It's when I watch films like YellowBrickRoad I do have to wonder just how big a kick up the arse I need to make me sit down and just write something.

Hansel and Gretel

I’ve watched enough Korean films to have a favourite but that is not to imply I know anything about Korean cinema as I don’t. I bought Hansel and Gretel as the dvd cover dared to proclaim that the film managed “to outdo the likes of Pans Labyrinth and The Orphanage” and I thought that I shall be the judge of that!  I then proceeded to mentally trash talk the dvd cover all the way to the checkout.

PLOT: Eun-Soo (Jeong-Myeong Cheon) crashes his car and ends up losing his way in the woods. He is found by Young Hee (Eun Won-Jae) and taken to her house wherein he meets her mother, father, brother and sister. Eun-Soo stays the night and leaves the following morning to find his way back to the main road but by nightfall he has arrived back at the house. After their parents mysteriously disappear the Eun-Soo is trapped in the house by the children who don’t want him to leave. Eun-Soo discovers the children are not what they appear but before he can escape a sinister man arrives and puts their lives in danger. END PLOT

The plot moves along at a steady pace with Eun-Soo slowly getting to grips with his new surroundings. The main twist in this version of Hansel and Gretel is that it is the children who are bewitching the adults.  The parallels with the traditional fairytale become clear in the third act when the horrific reasons for the children’s actions are revealed.

The cast are all unfamiliar but Cheon does make for a great everyman who transforms into the hero by the end of the film.

The three children, Eun Won-Jae, Kyeong-ik Kim and Ji-hee Jin are all suitably creepy/innocent. By the third act the cast raise their game with the child actors all putting in impressive performances during flashbacks.

Hansel and Gretel is a picture perfect fairytale full of bright colours, sweets and toys but as the film progresses the bright colours turn darker, the toys become broken and even the origins of the food has dark connotations. The film looks stunning from start to finish and there are some nice special effects scattered throughout to enhance the fantasy element.

The similarities to del Toro’s films are justified and I am hard pressed to see what the Great One may have done differently. Hansel and Gretel is a slow burner but a totally engrossing one from start to finish - it gets 9/10.

I have to admit that the film was purchased just after I had bought tickets to see Hansel and Gretel: The Opera.  This turned out to be an excruciating experience that I wouldn't wish upon my greatest enemy.

Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast has always had a place in my top ten favourite films list. It was one of the first VHS tapes I ever owned and at the ripe old age of twenty-six my love of the film hasn’t waned.

PLOT: Belle's father Maurice gets lost in the woods and seeks shelter in an old castle. After Maurice is taken captive by Beast Belle offers to take his place as the Beast’s prisoner. Little does Belle know that the Beast, his staff and the castle are all trapped under a spell. The Beast must fall in love and be loved in return by his twenty-first birthday otherwise the castle will remain enchanted forever. END PLOT

As I have previously said that Beauty and the Beast is one of my favourite films perhaps you will forgive my gushing when I freely admit that it is also my favourite love story. The film captures the romance and the fantasy element ridiculously well and I am trying to resist using the word magical to describe it.

I love Belle, who is a nerdy social outcast, and also the Beast, who is angry and frustrated by his predicament. By the time Beast has given Belle the library my mind has turned to soppy mush – this is coming from someone who prefers swearing and explosions over hearts and flowers!

Beauty and the Beast is probably one of the few Disney films that doesn’t have a celebrity voiced sidekick – there is no Genie or Mushu to give us comedy relief. Instead we get the bickering double act of Cogsworth and Lumiere and the kindly Mrs Potts as support. There are light hearted moments but Beauty and the Beast focuses more on the story of Belle and the Beast rather than broad comedy.

Despite Beauty and the Beast being just over twenty years old the arrogant Gaston remains a brilliant villain. The fact that he is the villain just for being an obnoxious prick makes him one of the most realistic bad guys in the Disney back catalogue!

The score is instantly recognisable with the piano heavy “Prologue” and “West Wing” being two of the most listened to songs in my movie play list! "Be Our Guest" is one of Disney's most famous songs but I have always thought it to be the weakest in the film. “Kill the Beast”, “Gaston” and "Belle (reprise)" are all stronger offerings.

Seeing Beauty and the Beast at the cinema was an opportunity not to be missed but I was surprised by how different it looked from my dvd. On the big screen the background animation, the horizon and at times the villagers, looked noticeably basic although it has to be said that the main animation was fine. It is very likely that a blu-ray release is on the way and I don’t doubt that I will be crying over how beautiful it looks when it arrives.

I skipped the 3D version although I can’t imagine that I have missed much. The ballroom dance scene is probably the only part of the film that may have been enhanced by 3D.

Beauty and the Beast is a film I absolutely love and one that I will never tire of – it is the easiest 10/10 I will ever give. Disney loves to double-dip therefore it is very likely that in another twenty years time Disney will re-re-release the film and I’d like to think that I will take my kids to see it. If not I will be there on opening weekend at the very ripe old age of forty-six still living my life with the naive notion that I could still be Belle.