Tag: goodness

Mob Land

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 23 August 2023
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Director – Nicholas Maggio – 2022 – US – Cert. 15 – 110m

****

Needing money to pay off debts, a family man, mechanic and racer gets sucked into a robbery by his uncle, then finds himself working alongside a mob killer hired to clean up the loose ends of the crime – out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 25th

A small. rural town in the Southern States. Shelby Conners (Shiloh Fernandez) completely in love with wife Caroline (Ashley Benson) and devoted to young daughter Mia (Tina DeMartino), pops pills to get through the day and hasn’t yet told his wife about the mounting household bills. His uncle Trey (Kevin Dillon), the proud owner of an expensive, lurid lime green, Japanese car, offers him a way out in the form of a sure fire robbery about which Shelby is less than sure.

There’s this pills / meds store called the Happiness Pain Centre which, Trey explains, is turning over a huge amount of money a day and is only guarded by a couple of hicks, so it would be a pushover. And all Shelby needs to do is drive the car, something both men know he’s really good at, especially as Trey can provide the car to Shelby’s specification.… Read the rest

Animation Features Movies

Guillermo del Toro’s
Pinocchio

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 9 December 2022
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Pinocchio
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Directors – Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson – 2022 – US – Cert. PG – 114m

*****

Created as a puppet by a bereaved, religious woodcarver father, a little wooden boy must make his way in a world of ruthless show business, Fascism and war – stop-frame puppet movie is out on Netflix on Friday, December 9th

Co-helmed by Will Vinton alumnus Gustafson, del Toro’s Carlo Collodi adaptation sees him return to the theme of the Catholic Church collaborating with Fascism that he previously explored in Pan’s Labyrinth (2006). The story roughly follows the familiar template of Disney’s Pinocchio (1940), even down to punctuating the action with songs, but with the loosely defined place and time of a fairytale shifted to a very specific Italy before (briefly) and during World War II, with Pleasure Island replaced by a boys’ military training camp. The emphasis has shifted, too, from the notion of the narrator cricket character as conscience to coming to terms with mortality, although the idea that just because things appear to be fun they may not necessarily be good is knocking around in there too.

A narrator who will later identify himself as Sebastian J. Cricket (voice: Ewan McGregor) introduces us to churchgoing woodcarver Gepetto (voice: David Bradley), who is working on a statue of Jesus Christ crucified for the local church, raising dutiful son Carlo (voice: Gregory Mann), an equally religious child with a true sense of wonder at the world around him, including planes in the sky.… Read the rest

Tags accent, action, adaptation, afterlife, anteroom, assistant, bad contract, bereavement, blue fairy, blue wood sprite, bring to life, Burn Gorman, Burn!, burning, Carlo Collodi, Cate Blanchett, Catholic, Catholic Church, Catholicism, child, Christoph Waltz, church, churchgoer, conscience, contract, cricket, crucified, David Bradley, death, drunk, drunk parent, earnings, Ewan McGregor, fairytale, fascism, fathers and sons, feet, Finn Wolfhard, fish, Frank Passingham, fun, goodness, Gregory Mann, Guillermo del Toro, home, island camp, Italy, James Bond, Jesus Christ, Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, local church, maltreat, Mark Gustafson, miniature, miniature sets, model, model animation, monkey, monster, mortality, musical, narrator, nose, one night releasing the last of their bomb, parent, planes, politician, politics, priest, puppet, puppet animation, puppetry, religion, right and wrong, Ron Perlman, school, sea, showman, sky, snake tail, soldier, songs, statue, stop-frame, stop-frame animation, stop-motion, stop-motion animation, Tilda Swinton, torso, training, travelling, tree, US, war, Will Vinton, wonder, wood, wood sprite, woodcarver, World War Two

Features Live Action Movies

Charlie
and the
Chocolate Factory

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 29 July 2005
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and the
Chocolate Factory

Director – Tim Burton – 2005 – US – PG – 115 mins

*****

UK release date 29/07/2005. Currently screening on Netflix

An adaptation of Roald Dahl’s eponymous 1964 children’s book previously filmed under the title Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (Mel Stuart, 1971), this also marks the second collaboration of Burton with screenwriter / adapter John August. The duo previously made Big Fish (2003), which film had all the desired Burton trademarks (larger than life, nonconformist outsiders, sense of wonderment, distinctive and zany visuals) while sidestepping the flaws (narrative incoherence, weak characterisation) which beset many of the director’s previous films. They’ve repeated the trick with Charlie, elaborating upon and extending Dahl’s original text without ever compromising it. Lead actor Depp is something of a Burton regular, having previously appeared in Edward Scissorhands (1990), Ed Wood (1994) and Sleepy Hollow (1999).

Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore, current critics’ favourite child actor following his terrific turn in Finding Neverland, Marc Forster, 2004) lives with a family (Helena Bonham Carter, Noah Taylor and grandparents including David Kelly and Liz Smith) so poor they live on cabbage soup in the shadow of the Wonka Chocolate Factory. Mysterious, reclusive owner Willy Wonka (Depp) closed it years ago following his celebrated recipes’ theft by rival confectioners and hasn’t been seen in public since.… Read the rest