Lejink
Joined May 2007
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Who doesn't love a maze? I know I do, even if I'm not sure I've ever been in one. In this Jim Henson directed fantasy movies, Jennifer Connelly as Sarah is the lucky, or unlucky young girl who gets the opportunity to enter an absolute doozy of a maze after she rashly wishes away her crying baby brother to the goblins while on baby-sitting duty.
As a result of the baby's kidnapping, she finds herself transported Alice-like to the amazing labyrinth ruled over by David Bowie's malevolent maze-runner goblin-king Jareth who has evil designs on the baby. To rescue baby brother, she must find her way to the end of the maze inside the next thirteen hours. Game on, as they say and so she sets out on her quest but in true Dorothy-like fashion she picks up three very different companions along the way, a querulous troll, a massive honey-mobster type and an uppity guard who gads about on his big shaggy, but slightly cowardly dog.
Jareth of course will stop at nothing to thwart her and puts a succession of obstacles in her way, including at one point giving Sarah a Snow White-like contaminated fruit to make her lose her memory. Eventually she makes it to the end, only to be confronted with a gravity-defying Jareth in a final reckoning between the two.
The previous adventures of the three afore-mentioned universally-known girlish heroines certainly inform much of the narrative but it's the wonderful animatronics and puppetry combined with the imaginative set-design which together really do the heavy lifting here. Connelly in her first major role is well-cast as the initially trepidatious teenager embodying an early version of girl-power although I was less convinced of Bowie, not helped by his wearing a crazy wig and tights throughout.
Nevertheless, helped by some lively if unessential songs by Bowie himself, I found it impossible not to get caught up in Sarah's adventure, the better for its reliance on pre-CGI effects to create the dream world. Maybe I wasn't quite amazed but I certainly had fun following her steps in this enjoyable modern fairy tale.
As a result of the baby's kidnapping, she finds herself transported Alice-like to the amazing labyrinth ruled over by David Bowie's malevolent maze-runner goblin-king Jareth who has evil designs on the baby. To rescue baby brother, she must find her way to the end of the maze inside the next thirteen hours. Game on, as they say and so she sets out on her quest but in true Dorothy-like fashion she picks up three very different companions along the way, a querulous troll, a massive honey-mobster type and an uppity guard who gads about on his big shaggy, but slightly cowardly dog.
Jareth of course will stop at nothing to thwart her and puts a succession of obstacles in her way, including at one point giving Sarah a Snow White-like contaminated fruit to make her lose her memory. Eventually she makes it to the end, only to be confronted with a gravity-defying Jareth in a final reckoning between the two.
The previous adventures of the three afore-mentioned universally-known girlish heroines certainly inform much of the narrative but it's the wonderful animatronics and puppetry combined with the imaginative set-design which together really do the heavy lifting here. Connelly in her first major role is well-cast as the initially trepidatious teenager embodying an early version of girl-power although I was less convinced of Bowie, not helped by his wearing a crazy wig and tights throughout.
Nevertheless, helped by some lively if unessential songs by Bowie himself, I found it impossible not to get caught up in Sarah's adventure, the better for its reliance on pre-CGI effects to create the dream world. Maybe I wasn't quite amazed but I certainly had fun following her steps in this enjoyable modern fairy tale.
Okay, so if Steven Spielberg wants to turn his formative years into a movie, he can, of course. Doesn't matter if it's the most clichéd, sentimental, self-indulgent piece of mush I think I've ever seen, he can do it. He's Steven Spielberg.
I've enjoyed some of his movies in the past, probably not the majority of them, but certainly a number of them. I know where I'm placing this two and a half hour pile of corn so high it could reach an elephant's eye. I get that his parents nagged him to put his family's story on film, that he clearly loved his family and if he wants to paint having five minutes of an ageing John Ford's time as some sort of symbolic meeting between Old and New Hollywood, he can. He's Steven Spielberg isn't he?
So he's produced this ribbons-and-bow-tied love letter to himself, where children speak like grown-ups and have soul-baring heart-to-hearts with adults, especially their parents. His camera lingers way too long on the faces of his actors, who think they're emoting when they're just mugging. He also thinks that inserting a condensed mash-up of every episode of TV's "The Wonder Years", with himself of course in the Fred Savage role, can stand in as light relief. All this he can do, naturally, because he's Steven Spielberg.
I can't remember a film which made me wince and want to look away so much as this one. What was the worst scene? Maybe when his kid sister comes into Little Steven, okay Sammy's room and they dissect their parents' impending divorce like a pair of marriage counsellors. Or maybe when his mother pours out her heart to him once she decides to split from his dad and return to her lover, played by Seth Rogen in a calamity of mis-casting. Certainly up there is the cringe-worthy supposed vignette with David Lynch, of all people, dossing down as old Papa Ford and talking utter nonsense about where the best horizon is. But no, I'm giving the laurels to the scene where the school bully somehow finally connects with his true self through watching the teenage Sammy's home-movie of the high school's fun day. I really had to force myself to watch it through to the end, he is still Steven Spielberg isn't he?
Will I watch another Spielberg movie? Not soon, that's for sure. It'll be tough to do as this avalanche of treacle will be hard to dispel from my memory and has really lowered the bar for me. Even if he is Steven Spielberg...
I've enjoyed some of his movies in the past, probably not the majority of them, but certainly a number of them. I know where I'm placing this two and a half hour pile of corn so high it could reach an elephant's eye. I get that his parents nagged him to put his family's story on film, that he clearly loved his family and if he wants to paint having five minutes of an ageing John Ford's time as some sort of symbolic meeting between Old and New Hollywood, he can. He's Steven Spielberg isn't he?
So he's produced this ribbons-and-bow-tied love letter to himself, where children speak like grown-ups and have soul-baring heart-to-hearts with adults, especially their parents. His camera lingers way too long on the faces of his actors, who think they're emoting when they're just mugging. He also thinks that inserting a condensed mash-up of every episode of TV's "The Wonder Years", with himself of course in the Fred Savage role, can stand in as light relief. All this he can do, naturally, because he's Steven Spielberg.
I can't remember a film which made me wince and want to look away so much as this one. What was the worst scene? Maybe when his kid sister comes into Little Steven, okay Sammy's room and they dissect their parents' impending divorce like a pair of marriage counsellors. Or maybe when his mother pours out her heart to him once she decides to split from his dad and return to her lover, played by Seth Rogen in a calamity of mis-casting. Certainly up there is the cringe-worthy supposed vignette with David Lynch, of all people, dossing down as old Papa Ford and talking utter nonsense about where the best horizon is. But no, I'm giving the laurels to the scene where the school bully somehow finally connects with his true self through watching the teenage Sammy's home-movie of the high school's fun day. I really had to force myself to watch it through to the end, he is still Steven Spielberg isn't he?
Will I watch another Spielberg movie? Not soon, that's for sure. It'll be tough to do as this avalanche of treacle will be hard to dispel from my memory and has really lowered the bar for me. Even if he is Steven Spielberg...
I'm the first to admit I had to look up the meaning of the word ,"internecine", I'm not even sure how you say it!
James Coburn heads a cast of notable British actors in this spy thriller set in London. A noted American professor, he was previously a secret agent dealing in murky operations, employing a cell of four independent British operatives. On a promotional trip to London, he's casually told by his boss-to-be over a game of golf that a lucrative position is his for the asking but will require him to permanently and literally clean up his past CV by disposing of the old gang. But how to quickly and efficiently carry out this instruction without drawing attention to himself, especially as he's due to promptly jet out of the country Scot-free, his cover still in place?
So he devises an intricate and ingenious plan where he arranges a murderous round-robin ploy, effectively coercing each one of the team to kill the other all in the one night. The four targeted individuals comprise a doctor, lawyer, male masseur and a call-girl, all of whom cave in to Coburn's blackmail, and are assigned to follow his precisely detailed agenda to get the jobs done.
Set to another tense Roy Budd soundtrack, this movie is somewhat short on dialogue but otherwise long on suspense. One of the murders is a tad far-fetched, having apparently wandered in from an episode of The Avengers TV show while another is only a shower-screen away from a duplication of Hitchcock's famous Psycho-killing.
With a neat and credible twist at the end, a cast full of recognisable British stalwarts like Ian Hendry, Michael Jayston and Harry Andrews and a touch of glamour from Lee Grant and Christine Krüger, led by the long, tall Coburn, it's all tidily dispatched by director Ken Hughes inside 90 minutes and worth tracking down if you're a fan of British spy movies of the 60's and 70's.
James Coburn heads a cast of notable British actors in this spy thriller set in London. A noted American professor, he was previously a secret agent dealing in murky operations, employing a cell of four independent British operatives. On a promotional trip to London, he's casually told by his boss-to-be over a game of golf that a lucrative position is his for the asking but will require him to permanently and literally clean up his past CV by disposing of the old gang. But how to quickly and efficiently carry out this instruction without drawing attention to himself, especially as he's due to promptly jet out of the country Scot-free, his cover still in place?
So he devises an intricate and ingenious plan where he arranges a murderous round-robin ploy, effectively coercing each one of the team to kill the other all in the one night. The four targeted individuals comprise a doctor, lawyer, male masseur and a call-girl, all of whom cave in to Coburn's blackmail, and are assigned to follow his precisely detailed agenda to get the jobs done.
Set to another tense Roy Budd soundtrack, this movie is somewhat short on dialogue but otherwise long on suspense. One of the murders is a tad far-fetched, having apparently wandered in from an episode of The Avengers TV show while another is only a shower-screen away from a duplication of Hitchcock's famous Psycho-killing.
With a neat and credible twist at the end, a cast full of recognisable British stalwarts like Ian Hendry, Michael Jayston and Harry Andrews and a touch of glamour from Lee Grant and Christine Krüger, led by the long, tall Coburn, it's all tidily dispatched by director Ken Hughes inside 90 minutes and worth tracking down if you're a fan of British spy movies of the 60's and 70's.