FANTASTIC MR. FOX (2009). Whatever is in the water out in Los Angeles is forcing today’s most acclaimed young filmmakers to bring beloved children’s books to the big screen. First it was Spike Jonze directing an adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, and then it was Wes Anderson helming a motion picture version of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. At this rate, can we soon expect Darren Aronofsky to tackle Dr. Seuss’ Hop on Pop and Paul Thomas Anderson to serve up Arlene Mosel’s Tikki Tikki Tembo? As for Anderson’s stop-motion-animated opus, the mistake would be in categorizing it as a children’s film, since it largely leaves out the sort of oversized humor found in movies made for the small fry. Instead, its pleasures, including Anderson’s painterly compositions and the A-list vocal cast, seem more likely to win over viewers of voting age and above. George Clooney brings his usual mix of leading-man swagger and character-actor eccentricity to his interpretation of the title character, a newspaper columnist who once promised his wife (a largely wasted Meryl Streep) that he would leave behind his life of danger (i.e. stealing chickens) but instead finds himself being lured back by the prospect of sticking it to a trio of wicked farmers (the leader being voiced by Dumbledore himself, Michael Gambon). Moving to its own laid-back rhythms, this likable lark functions as a reprieve from the plasticity of most modern toon flicks. It may not be fantastic, but it’s good enough.
DVD extras include a 7-minute featurette on bringing the story to the screen; and an 8-minute look at the film’s puppet animation.
Movie: ***
Extras: **
THE ICONS OF SUSPENSE COLLECTION: HAMMER FILMS (1958-1963). Building on its enjoyable Icons line (past collections include Icons of Horror: Boris Karloff and Icons of Adventure), Sony Pictures’ home entertainment department devotes a set to six suspenseful yarns from Hammer, the British studio best known for its string of horror classics starring the likes of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.
The Snorkel (1958) is a nifty thriller in which a suave gentleman (Peter Van Eyck) devises an imaginative way to murder his wife (it involves the titular underwater apparatus); his plan works until his teenage step-daughter (Mandy Miller) starts to figure out his m.o. The dimness of the teen’s guardian (Betta St. John) is tough to take, but Van Eyck is suitably menacing, and the ending is terrific.
Never Take Candy from a Stranger (1960) is the best movie in the collection, a startling drama about a Canadian family which moves to a small British town, whereupon an elderly eccentric (Felix Aylmer) lures their 9-year-old daughter (Janina Faye)l to his home and gives her treats in exchange for watching her dance naked. The parents (Patrick Allen and Gwen Watford) are outraged and press charges, only to learn that the old man was once responsible for building the town out of nothing and thus is considered above the law. An unsettling opening gives way to tense courtroom confrontations that are then followed by a seat-gripping final half-hour.
Daft stabs at psychoanalysis are at the heart of Stop Me Before I Kill! (1960), which originally premiered in its U.K. homeland under the title The Full Treatment. Newlyweds Alan and Denise Colby (Ronald Lewis and Diane Cilento) are involved in an automobile accident that leaves her unharmed but results in serious head injuries for him. His cerebral damage leads him to want to strangle her; a lecherous psychiatrist (Claude Dauphin), smitten with the young woman, hopes to cure him instead. Val Guest’s smooth direction and Cilento’s fine performance can’t overcome a talky script and an obvious twist ending.
Hammer superstar Peter Cushing headlines Cash on Demand (1961), a pleasingly low-key thriller in which a humorless bank manager who holds nothing but contempt for his employees finds himself at the mercy of a sophisticated bank robber (Andre Morell) who threatens to kill his wife and son unless he helps him clean out the vaults. Cushing and Morell bounce well off each other, though that should come as no surprise, as Morell had previously played Dr. Watson to Cushing’s Sherlock Holmes in Hammer’s solid 1959 adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Not nearly as shocking as its title would indicate (it’s no Psycho – or even Homicidal), Maniac (1963) stars former Sinbad Kerwin Mathews as an American artist who winds up in a desolate French town, where he becomes romantically involved with both a sultry salon owner (Nadia Gray) and her sheltered step-daughter (Liliane Brousse). In time, he agrees to help the girl’s father escape from an insane asylum – a move he may end up regretting. The love-triangle material is unexceptional, but scripter Jimmy Sangster makes up for any lulls by providing not one but two satisfying twists during the home stretch.
The most famous film in the set turns out to also be the most disappointing. These Are The Damned (1963), also known as simply The Damned, finds an American tourist (Macdonald Carey, amusingly looking like M. Hulot in the opening scenes) running afoul of some British street toughs – even more so after he takes off with the sister (Shirley Anne Field) of the snarling gang leader (Oliver Reed). The pair hide out near a top-secret facility, only to learn that the government is involved in experiments centered around radioactive children. Director Joseph Losey’s classical style is all wrong for this picture, which contains all manner of intriguing elements but never figures out what to do with any of them.
The only extras are the theatrical trailers for all six films.
The Snorkel: ***
Never Take Candy from a Stranger: ***1/2
Stop Me Before I Kill!: **
Cash on Demand: ***
Maniac: **1/2
These Are the Damned: **
Extras: *
SHERLOCK HOLMES (2009). The stench of Van Helsing hung heavy over the theatrical trailer for this interpretation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s sleuth extraordinaire – hyperkinetic editing, loopy deviations from the source, an unintelligible plot – but, happily, the end result turned out to be far more successful than those early warning signs indicated. To be sure, this isn’t a great film by any stretch of the imagination, but director Guy Ritchie’s full-speed-ahead effort still qualifies as above-average couch-potato fare. Robert Downey Jr. vigorously portrays Holmes as a brawny, brainy gentleman-lout while Jude Law provides measured counterpoint as sidekick Dr. Watson; various plotlines include Holmes getting mixed up with a woman from his past (Rachel McAdams), Watson contemplating marriage, and both gents tangling with a sinister figure (Mark Strong) who apparently possesses supernatural abilities. The story isn’t always interesting as much as it’s overextended – at least one plot strand could have been excised – and Ritchie’s pumped-up techniques often make this feel less like a movie and more like a video game promo. But there’s still plenty to enjoy here, and the ending all but guarantees a sequel – a no-brainer given its international half-billion-dollar box office take. In related news, another company has re-released The Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection, containing the classic films starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Watson.
The only DVD extra is a 14-minute behind-the-scenes featurette.
Movie: **1/2
Extras: *1/2
TOY STORY (1995) / TOY STORY 2 (1999). Choosing favorite Pixar flicks is as daunting a task as, say, singling out favorite David Bowie tunes or naming favorite Shakespeare quotes – when the high quality comes flying fast and furious, it’s hard to get a bead on the best. Forced to choose, though, I’m still most impressed with Pixar’s first feature-length effort, the picture that jump-started the whole field of computer-animated toons. As with Star Wars, we can’t hold it responsible for the inferior products that followed – none, it must be noted, from Pixar itself (though plenty from Disney and other studios’ cartoon divisions). It’s best, then, just to rediscover the pleasures of this first adventure featuring cowboy Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks) and spaceman Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), a film that’s as delightfully scripted as it is cleverly animated. Equally noteworthy is Toy Story 2, that rare sequel that lives up to the high standards of its predecessor – in part because of the introduction of the great new character Jessie (Joan Cusack). In anticipation of this upcoming summer’s Toy Story 3, the first two installments have been released on Blu-ray and re-released on DVD; grab ’em while they’re hot.
DVD extras on the discs include audio commentaries by Pixar head John Lasseter and crew members; sneak peeks at Toy Story 3; Pixar anecdotes told (and animated) by studio artists; a piece on the genesis of the original Toy Story; and a salute to the late Joe Ranft, a key figure at Pixar who passed away in 2005.
Both Movies: ****
Extras: ***
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON (2009). Hollywood’s second foray into the Twilight zone features enough fantasy and romance to satisfy most hardcore devotees of Stephenie Meyer’s vampire saga, but just as many viewers will notice that this is too often a case of the emperor – or, more specifically, buff teenage boys – wearing no clothes. Twilight might have been occasionally ripe, but that worked for the material, as director Catherine Hardwicke instinctively fed into the oversized angst that all too often defines the lives of teenagers wrapped up in their daily melodramas. By comparison, new helmer Chris Weitz keeps the proceedings on a low simmer, an emotional oasis only punctuated every once in a while by Bella’s howls as she pines for her one true bloodsucking love. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. In New Moon, vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) has decided that it’s too dangerous for his human girlfriend Bella (Kristen Stewart) to be around his kind, so he and his family pack up and leave their Forks, Wash., home, ostensibly for good. Missing her soulmate, Bella shuts down completely, and is only slowly drawn out of her shell by her friend Jacob (Taylor Lautner) – and by the discovery that Edward appears in ethereal form whenever she’s in danger. Bella repeatedly puts herself at risk – riding motorcycles at daredevil speeds, diving off impossibly high cliffs, gorging on fast-food combos every day for a full month (OK, kidding on that last one) – but soon discovers that an even deadlier option materializes with the return of some vampiric foes. And what’s with those gigantic werewolves stomping through the Pacific Northwest woods? In my review for Twilight, I wrote that the movie was “a love story first and a vampire tale second.” Given Pattinson’s ascension to pinup star as well as the pack of shirtless hunks filling out this latest film’s supporting cast, it’s safe to amend that statement to read that New Moon is a love story first and a male-model calendar second. The vampire tale has become almost incidental.
DVD extras in the two-disc set include audio commentary by Weitz and editor Peter Lambert; a 6-part, 65-minute making-of documentary; and music videos by death Cab for Cutie, Anya Marina and Mutemath.
Movie: **1/2
Extras: **1/2
This article appears in Apr 13-19, 2010.
