Stardust — A review
Friday I scrammed out of work a bit early to get to the new local la-dee-da cinema for the 4:45 viewing of Stardust. This is a fairy tale, written by Neil Gaiman, and a film that I had been looking forward to seeing, especially since I had recently coincidentally reread the book.
As I settled into the tall-back rocking chair type seat something unusual — nay, unprecedented! — happened: all five of the trailers made me want to see those respective films! After the first trailer I actually got out my wee notebook and started writing down titles so I wouldn’t forget what upcoming movies they were.
First up was Beowulf, which made me swoon a bit with the cast listing. John Malkovich? Anthony Hopkins? Crispin Glover? Okay, the third guy is hypercreepy but dang, the first two alone got my blood pounding, not to mention Robin Wright Penn (who is still lovely) and Angelica Jolie who is easy on the eyes in a “oh my god that woman is insane” way. Not to mention manflesh galore from the looks of it. And dragons! Dragons! Dude!
Here’s the trailer via YouTube for those of us who don’t like Quicktime *coughDadcough*:
This was followed by The Spiderwick Chronicles, which is apparently a book series of some sort, flying on Harry Potter’s coattails. After seeing the trailer elsewhere for the abomination they have made of The Dark is Rising I was just as happy to not have already read these books.
Check it out! Leaf Toads! As in toads made of leaves! Big ones! and fairies, aw I am still 7 years old because I do love the little flower fairies flitting around.
GIVE. ME. THE. BOOK.
Mmmkay, here you go, dude. God, I’m a wuss.
Next up, aw Cate Blanchett is my secret girlfriend, and her starring in a follow-up to Elizabeth is good news for armchair historians everywhere. I had no idea this film was being made. The Golden Age apparently covers the Bloody Mary and Armada period and also features Geoffrey Rush (who I like more and more every time I see him in a film) as well as some hunk I’ve heard about (Clive Owen) as Sir Walter Raleigh. Mostly I’m staring at Cate though, because she is the most mesmerizing female movie star today.
God, she’s something. Maybe I’m naive too but I reckon that they’ve put a lot of research into costuming, settings et cetera in this film so even if it sucks it’ll be worth seeing.
The next trailer was again for a film I had never heard of and at first I was terribly blah about it. Meh, a family feel-good movie, el pucko. Also, is Freddie Highmore in every film this year? But as I watched Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys Meyers interact (and he wasn’t being all Gormenghast); and Freddie, well I really liked him in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and damn, the story began to draw on my heart-strings a little. Even Robin Williams didn’t give me the gigantic heebie-jeebies which is saying a lot. Yeah, I’m interested, I’ll see this movie, this August Rush.
And the final trailer was for The Golden Compass, based on the first book of a trilogy by Philip Pullman. I have read the book but didn’t bother with the second and third volumes because despite the intrepid girl (!! not a boy, how enlightened !!) with some magical powers is in peril, journeys with friends, witch is after her, yadda yadda plot I just could not find myself remotely liking the main character, Lyra. I will see the movie though, based on the steampunk look that I’m currently addicted to as well as…
wait for it…
CGI POLAR BEARS!!!
Here’s the trailer, hello Holst music. In terms of cast, Nicole Kidman and her scaryass “fivehead” is well offset by Sam Elliott who I would watch trim his fingernails if he would talk at the same time. And the polar bear, rock on!
And that was what showed prior to the main feature beginning.
On to my review of Stardust:
Fantastic film, thoroughly enjoyable, you don’t have to have read the book, I liked it immensely and would see it again in a second, I strongly recommend it. (Also, I wager someone I know is going to want to own the soundtrack. #;)
August 12th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
After finishing Golden Compass/The Subtle Knife/The Amber Spyglass jr said he could see why fundie Christians might have a problem with it. I liked all 3 books, they get less adventurey in the last 2 but are still good. Thanks for the previews, off to watch.
August 12th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
On The Dark is Rising from wiki: “The planned film diverges from the book on several fundamental points, including the decision to rewrite Will Stanton’s character to change him from an eleven-year-old English boy to a fourteen-year-old American boy, significant changes to the mythological structure of the plot, re-setting the story to occur in the present-day, and the addition of a brother of Will’s as a potential “Judas” character among them.”
So they take a story based on mythology, then throw out the mythology? Why bother? Bah.
The Spiderwick Chronicles looks cool though, and I think they got the characters well cast in Golden Compass.
August 12th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Quoting from a different site:
“…movies about eleven-year-old British boys who suddenly discover they can do magic and are members of a society hidden from the ordinary world and are also part of a prophecy about defeating evil just aren’t doing well at the box office these days.”
August 12th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
I just don’t like QuickTime as it takes up lots of space on my little hard drive plus, unless I’m really careful when installing it, QuickTime insists on taking over for all of my other picture and movie programs. Thus, I currently do have on one of my backup CD-RW discs a copy of a program named, “QuickTimeFullInstaller.exe” So when I really have to watch a QuickTime movie I copy that onto my “Junk” section of my hard drive, and then install it, making sure that it only plays quicktime movies. Then when the particular movie has been seen, I delete the whole QuickTime bit and simply go back to using the MS MPlayer once again. I’m just not a true believer in Apple products.
August 12th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
No worries, Dad, I just like to jerk your chain a little sometimes because I am a brat. YouTube works just fine, except the fidelity is often not quite as clear as in QuickTime.
Personally I think Apple products are rather nifty except for my (likely illogical) obstinate opposition to their monopoly on components and a lot of peripherals, not to mention certain software applications (iTunes can bite me.) It gives them premium pricing, for one thing, which I think lends their products cachet for some people but for me results in “neener neener you dumb poor person” snottiness. After all these years I wish there was more of an egalitarian sensibility to the company (especially since they have — with supreme foresight — infiltrated many pre-college school systems’ computer labs.)
Having said all that, if I were in a position with, you know, having won the lottery, I’d buy one of the hybrid Mac/PC systems in a heartbeat. They are lovely looking and from what I have read and heard work rather well.