Hannah Swithinbank

Fantastic Mr Fox

The new trailer is out for Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox movie.  Oh wows. I want to see it so much.  It looks all twonky and lo-fi and wonderous.  And that game is so going to catch on.

State of Play: this time in movie form…

Ok, I take it back. That trailer which I really didn’t like was clearly the result of the powers that be thinking that people would only go and see a political thriller if it had guns and actionythrills, and is not actually a reflection of the film at all. The film being, actually, genuinely really good.

It’s a bit like ‘variations on a theme of state of play’ – I think that’s the best way to explain it. You have this original story that’s really frakking great, and it’s made into an awesome TV series. But what’s being re-made isn’t the TV series, per se, but the story, which is still a frakking great story. I mean, you’d go see several productions of, say, Twelfth Night over the course of your life, if you liked Shakespeare, because they’re all different but equally valid. If it’s a bad production you’re pissed off and regret it, but if it’s good you enjoy it and you get something out of it. State of Play: Teh Film is like a good new production, which takes a slightly different slant on the original story than the TV series did.

The basic plot is the same, although I did for most of the film think they were going to leave out the grand finale – so kudos on them for not bottling it – but details are different, which knocks on into the film feeling different from the series, and yet recognisable. So, f’r'instance, the inquiry Collins is involved in is about defence contracts, not environmentalism and big oil – times have changed, and the film chooses to take a new element in the ‘world going to hell in a handbasket’ theme. It works. Also, the casting makes the dynamics different. Russell Crowe is older and less boyish than John Simm as Cal, but also than Ben Affleck, as Stephen Collins. So the relationship between Cal and Collins is different. There’s less sense of Collins as having been a mentor to Cal, but more the other way around, and so the sense of betrayal at the end is different. There’s also a different Cal-Della dynamic, less equal, more tense, but with Della learning from Cal – it works, and it also lets the film ask questions about the ethics of journalism, whilst simultaneously slimming down the role of the editor from the TV series in order to get the running time down to film-lengths.

So, all in all, State of Play the film is a different beast to the TV series, yet recognisably the same, and it’s equally good, but in a different medium. And I like that I’m going to get to have both. An incidentally, it’s probably Ben Affleck’s best ever part.

In which my inner fanboy goes awry

Oh Watchmen Watchmen Watchmen.

So here’s the thing, I get why the Watchmen fanboys have gone to town on their love for it. And I get why the snotty-nosed (and also, few less snotty-nosed) don’t. It is both a brilliant film adaptation of the comic, and a fairly rubbish film. Simultaneously.

It’s just too damn faithful, which is the reason for its success and its downfall. They clearly haven’t massacred the source material, so yay, BUT, it also doesn’t add anything to it, and if it doesn’t do that, what is the point of filming it at all? It tries to bring in everyone’s backstories, and everyone’s arcs, and get everyone from character point (a) to character point (b), and completely fails to focus the viewers attention on any particular elements. And the film just can’t cope, it’s collapses under the weight of the material of the book – a book just can do so much more than a film in that regard. The film really needed to decide whether it wanted to focus on either Rorshach *or* Nite Owl/Silk Spectre, and do more with Ozymandias before the end, and follow that through in a way that would do at least for them what the novel does for them all – which is to show the problems inherent in “superheroes”.

So although it’s a very faithful film, it just doesn’t really work as a film. You might as well read the comic whilst listening to the soundtrack.

Coraline

It’s been a wee while since I read Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, but I do remember really enjoying it. Gaiman is a greater storyteller than he is a writer, I think, so it makes sense that his kids stories and fairytales are better than his adult novels. I far prefer Stardust to American Gods, for instance.

Anyway, the trailer for Henry Selick’s film version is now online. As I can’t bring to mind too much of the plot of the novel, I can’t really comment on that aspect of it, but I really do like the look and tone of it. Stop motion is beauteous.

catholicism makes you miserable. no really.

I went to see the tnew film of Brideshead Revisited last night. Brideshead Re-edited.

First off, I’ll admit that it was not at all the trainwreck I was expecting. Nor was it wholly and unentirely unlike the book – except that the Catholicism Screws You Up Theme was much much stronger in a way that Evelyn Waugh might not have liked. And of course the inevitable plot changes – Julia in Venice, WTF?

It was, however, Brideshead Revisited at Warp Speed as whole years went flying out of the window and everything crashed about at the same time in the plot. Bridey and Cordelia nearly ended up flying out of the window after them. Surely the fact that Cordelia is by-and-large content should be important, especially in contrast to her siblings? And whilst Ed Stoppard is a thoroughly repulsive Bridey, he is thoroughly repulsive, where beloved Simon “Arthur Dent” Jones in the TV series was perfectly disconnected, which is how I think Bridey should be. Cousin Jasper wouldn’t say of FilmBridey: “Brideshead went down last year, a very sound fellow…” FilmBridey is not sound to any point of view.

The film is held together by Matthew Goode, who really is a very good Charles. He doesn’t quite match up to Jeremy Irons, but he doesn’t get the material (or the voice over) to do it with. He’s also, perhaps, a little too likeable (or maybe that’s just me nurturing a little crush) – he’s not quite as ill-at-ease in Brideshead as Irons’ Ryder. His outsider-ness is made clear in the fact that he comes from Paddington, and is continually stated, rather than shown. Ben Wishaw is a fairly annoying Sebastian. I didn’t really care at all when he fell apart – which happened FAR too quickly. I think the genius of Anthony Andrews’ performance is that everybody fell in love with him alongside Charles. Perhaps part of the problem is the speed of the film – the first year at Oxford blinks in a click of the fingers, and the languid days at Brideshead exist only in montage – so there is no time to get to care about Sebastian. But it is a problem nonetheless. Poor Julia is also hard done by – her marriage to Rex slams in out of nowhere, with no understanding of wherefores and whys until later – whereas Charles always understood why, and wasn’t personally injured at the time. In this Julia is running away from Charles as much as her family. Emma Thompson is a glorious Catholic Matriarch though. She’s tougher than Claire Bloom was, but it’s just a slightly different take on the character – both are valid, and indeed, the speed this film works at requires that Lady Marchmain be much more forcefully insidious. She and Goode are probably worth going to see the film for – or for waiting for it on DVD.

It wasn’t a bad film. Neither was it a particularly good film, and it certainly was not as good a version of the novel as the TV series. In fact, if there were no novel, it still wouldn’t be a good remake of the TV series. And it really is impossible not to compare the two, especially if you know the TV series well. But I think the book requires a longer telling, where there is dialogue that isn’t simply there to advance the plot, and perhaps a quieter one. The story is a slow burning move towards misery and emptiness – the film features a crashing downfall.