Talking About Stuff, with Mike and Christiana

Movie Reviews: Corpse Bride, and Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit

I don't know if you are an animation lover like I am, but there's something charming about stop-motion animation. I can't quite put my finger on what it is, but the sometimes jerky, hand-posed movements of stop-motion characters just has a different feel to it, just as different as hand-drawn versus computer-animated. That is not to say that any one of these three styles is superior to any of the others, but all of them, when created by expert animators can provide their own special nuances.

Stop-motion, simply by the virtue of its extreme difficulty, is a little less common these days, so having two of them in theaters at the same time is such a treat that I decided to take them in as a double-feature. (Another fun bit of trivia; Helena Bonham-Carter is featured in both films, as the titular Corpse Bride, and as Lady Tottington, in Wallace and Gromit.)

First up: Corpse Bride






Next up: Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit





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A History of Violence is the latest from David Cronenberg, who is probably best known for his gross-out sci-fi horror flicks like The Fly, The Dead Zone and Scanners. (eXistenZ is also very good.)

A History of Violence is a bit of a departure for him, in that it doesn't include any kind of fantastic or science-fiction elements. (His last film, Spider, didn't really either, but that involved a man with very little mental stability, thus allowing for plenty-o-weirdness.)

This time around, he's laid out a pretty mainstream story, which is not to say boring. For starters, it's got Viggo Mortensen, Ed Harris and William Hurt in it.

If that weren't enough already (it was for me), it's got a complex, sophisticated story about how violence, even when justified, has a way of propogating itself, turning a completely defensible act into a ever-worsening chain, where the lines between good and evil start to blur.

Viggo plays Tom Stall, family man and the owner of a small-town diner. When a pair of murderous robbers invade his diner one night, Tom has very little choice. Unless he does something, the robbers will kill everyone. So he does something.

Only thing is, he does it a little too well.

Next thing he knows, he is labeled a hero and his face is all over the television, attracting the attention of Carl Fogarty (Harris), a gangster from Philadelphia who is convinced that Tom isn't who he claims to be.

Things get progressively worse for Tom and his family, and I won't reveal any more about the plot, except to say that it really treats the situation in a fascinating way, revealing how sometimes even doing the "right thing" can lead you down the wrong path, and how violence, no matter how justified has consequences that are not easily forgotten.

In addition to the interesting script and story, there are some truly fantastic performances from the entire cast, but especially from Mortensen, Harris, and Hurt. Hurt doesn't show up until late in the film, but I hereby nominate him for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar anyway. He takes what could have been a stock character and adds enough quirkiness and complexity to make him instantly memorable.

A warning: this film doesn't contain the same level of gore and such that some of Cronenberg's films do, but if you've never seen one of his films before, you might not be expecting some of the effects here. When people are brutally killed, they don't die with neat little holes in their chests that trickle a pretty little stream of blood. The violence in this film reflects that.

Still, if you've got the stomach for it, I definitely recommend this film as a dark, psychological thriller with serious meditations on the nature of violence and its consequences.

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I can't review Serenity like a normal movie.

You see, I'm a Firefly fan. Whether you are a fan already or not will affect how you approach this movie.

If you're not a fan already, you'll likely be looking at this film with a little curiosity. You've heard how some people talk about Firefly, though, so you wonder if maybe the film might be worth seeing.

Well, I'm sufficiently emotionally involved that I don't know if I can really make an objective judgement of whether you will like it or not. I think you will, but I'm biased.

If you are a fan and you haven't already seen it, it's probably only because something actually stopped you from going last night when it opened. So I probably don't have to convince you to see it.

Fortunately, nothing stopped me, I saw it, and wow.

It wasn't really what I expected.

Of course, in retrospect, I'm not sure why I wasn't expecting it. Firefly has always had a funny side and a serious side. The threads left hanging from the cruel mid-season cancelling of the show were all on the serious side.

Then, they make a big feature film of it, so why should I have been surprised that the plot would focus primarily on the serious side? *shrug* I dunno, but I was.

Don't worry, there's still a lot of humor. I laughed out loud a lot. But the plot is not some funny heist-episode. Big stuff happens. I won't say any more than that, but if you spoil yourself with this film you are doing yourself a real disservice.

Speaking as a fan, the film is really good. Really good. In truth, I can't remember the last time I was as viscerally excited and moved by a film. Not to say it's the best film EVER, just one that grabbed and shook me harder than any other film in recent memory. It's also a lot of fun, and leaves you with a smile on your face.

This is probably an odd-sounding review to a non-fan. But what can I say? I'm a fan. Maybe if you go to see it, or check out the series on DVD, (preferably both), then you'll become a fan too. Then you'll understand.

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