Category Archives: Fantasy

Movie Review: Heavenly Creatures

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Peter Jackson’s “Heavenly Creatures,” the breakthrough film from the director of “The Lord of the Rings,” might as well be in a genre of its own. Call it fantastical nonfiction. That is, it bridges the great divide between fantasy and a frightening reality that actually occurred.

In 1954, quite, rural New Zealand was shaken by murder. Two teenage girls had murdered one of their mothers in what one could describe as “a crime of friendship.” The two were caught, imprisoned, and later paroled on the condition that they would never see each other again. Jackson did not make a story about the trial but rather about the events that led up to the murder, based on what is true, what is thought to be true, and what can’t be true under any circumstance.

The events of “Heavenly Creatures” take place in and around the small town of Christchurch on New Zealand’s southern island. The two teenage girls, Pauline Parker (Melanie Lynskey) and Juliet Hulme (Kate Winslet) meet in Catholic school. The introverted Pauline is immediately transfixed by Juliet, and how Juliet will talk back to the French teacher without even thinking about it. The two soon become inseparable best friends. They frequently escape into a fantasy world that they created, one that brings them away from their dull, suppressed lives. The fantasy starts to become too real and while the girls are present physically in reality, they are mentally gone.

After feeling that their friendship is becoming unhealthy, Pauline and Juliet’s parents make the decision to separate the two of them. The separation does no good and instead drives the pair into bouts of insanity. They ultimately hatch a sinister plan to be together forever, one that, even they admit, could only end in tragedy.

“Heavenly Creatures” is a movie of many questions, and many frightening possibilities. The whole story is one giant question about who the driving force of insanity here is. Were Pauline and Juliet naturally troubled, or were their descents into insanity caused by their separation? In a society that stressed conformity and deemphasized creativity, perhaps madness and fantasy were the only means of escape. However, this in no way justifies the terrible actions carried out in the film’s terrifying finale.

A driving force in the narrative of “Heavenly Creatures” is the widely circulated rumor that the two girls in question were lesbians. This is not played for an exploitative purpose, or to create controversy, but rather it serves as a lens into the psyche of these two teenage killers. Could physical love have explained why they were so inseparable, and why they so despised both the religion and the adults who raised them?

“Heavenly Creatures” is one of the great underappreciated gems of the 1990s. Jackson showed the ability of a director who would soon be able to make great movies on a much larger scale. The fantasy world created in “Heavenly Creatures” is one that seems fake, yet so tangible. The creatures the girls create look like a cross between Play-Doh and those little green toy soldiers. The special effects, while dated by today’s standards, still look impressive for something made outside of Hollywood, and without a blockbuster budget. I can’t wait to see what else the other filmmakers of New Zealand can offer in the years to come.

“Heavenly Creatures” begot not only a great director, but also two great actresses. This was Winslet’s debut role, and from her performance one could see why she would later become an international star and an Oscar winner. She gets so into this role, and she is so sinister yet so innocent at the same time. Lynskey  unfortunately has not achieved the same level of success as Winslet. She has had bit roles in a few very good movies (“Up in the Air”) and a few very good TV shows (“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”), but she never achieved real stardom. Her performance here is as subdued and creepy as her character. She acts mostly through her narration and her disgruntled facial expressions and most of the time, you can never tell whether she is about to scream or about to kill someone. Hopefully, Lynskey makes a comeback one of these days.

There have been a lot of scenes of violent cruelty in movies, but few have effected me as deeply as the ending scene of “Heavenly Creatures” did, despite being so quick and so sudden. What creates the impact is that there is 90 minutes of dread building up to it. Like in the ending of movies such as “The Conversation,” making an entire movie based off dread until the very final minutes is ultimately more rewarding. The more you wait, the more horrifying the crime feels. Peter Jackson is a master of suspense in disguise.

“Heavenly Creatures” should be seen for all of the reasons that people watch movies in the first place: to be transferred off to a place they normally wouldn’t be able to go to, to feel sympathy for people we shouldn’t feel sympathy for, and to simply be thrilled. We see both a foreign country in a time few of us would’ve known it in, and a world that exists entirely inside of two girls’ heads. Juliet and Pauline might be murderers, but they are also angst-ridden, isolated teenagers that anyone could relate to. It also shows a director’s admirable mission to painstakingly tell a difficult story right. And tell it right he did.

Harry Potter: From an (In)different Perspective

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WARNING: This article contains a brief, but pretty major spoiler for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” If you care that much, I suggest you stop reading now.

When “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two” concluded, a saga that had lasted over a decade had ended. Some people in the audience cried, others cheered, and pretty much everyone clapped wildly. For these people, it was a truly emotional moment.
Me? I made a fart sound with my mouth.
Maybe my reaction was a little bit immature. However, it summed up why I could just never get into this series. No matter how eye popping or imaginative “Harry Potter” could be, it just never clicked with me, whether in novel or film form.
My indifference to “Harry Potter” was never too personal. I read the first two books, and thoroughly enjoyed them. I saw the first two movies, enjoyed those, too. The series started to lose me around the fourth film, though I have always appreciated the increasingly dark tone of the series. Looking back on it, the “Harry Potter” series did many good things. Most importantly, J.K. Rowling inspired children not only to read, but to enjoy reading, and to want to read, and to finish a book that was over 800 pages in one sitting. Even Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl would have had trouble pulling that off.
I never made it to the seventh book, and after giving up on movie number four, I only saw the second half of the seventh film (longest second act, ever). Harry’s original story, as a misfit who doesn’t understand his potential power is easily relatable to any young teen trying to figure out who they are. I could relate to this (no, I am not a wizard and no, my parents never forced me to live in a closet under the stairs). Yet, no real emotional connection ever forged between me and the young witches and wizards of Rowling’s universe.
When I was younger, I became attached to certain sagas and passed over all others. The world of “Harry Potter” never appealed to me. I tried “The Matrix” for one film and while I love “Star Wars” I could never call myself a fanboy. Rather than obsessing over Potter, I spent most of elementary and middle school as a “Lord of the Rings” geek. Later on, it was the two part universe of “Kill Bill” that somehow got the best of me and made me embark on my never-ending journey to watch every movie I could find at the public library.
“Harry Potter” has always felt strangely cartoonish to me. Even in its most serious moments, I never got a grasp in my mind that this world of magic could actually exist, that Hogwarts was a place I could put myself into. As far as the movies ago, I was never a fan of its mentality of making a gripping and dark action scene and then trying to end it with a light-hearted moment. That one little one liner would always devalue some of the previous scene’s seriousness. That’s just taking the idea of comic relief too far. Maybe it’s just an English thing.
At this point you are probably wondering: where the hell is my review? I just spent $10.50 and two and a half hours of my life on this movie, so shouldn’t I have some clear, formulated opinion? Well, here it is: “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part 2″ is a highly entertaining summer blockbuster. Its special effects are dazzling and show the very best Hollywood has to offer in the latest CGI. This film shows how much the series has changed since its humble roots. However, if this is your first “Harry Potter” film, or your first “Harry Potter” film in quite some time, then you will not find yourself enjoying it so much. I would offer another big blockbuster for you to see but unfortunately, the only other ones currently out are sequels. So instead, I’ll request you go watch the pristine images and dinosaurs in “The Tree of Life.” That’s what you get for not liking “Harry Potter” more, you resentful jerk.
Anyway, there are some things I really do like about “Harry Potter.” I really like what the series did with Snape. I also admire the film’s special effects, which are the moviemaking equivalent of magic. The CGI felt organic, not forced. But because this film took place in the middle of a story that I was never involved in, I don’t feel I can properly review this film to the highest degree. Therefore, I leave you with these last two paragraphs.
All in all, not feeling an emotional connection with Harry and his friends doesn’t mean you’re missing a piece of your heart. Those tears that people felt once future Harry, Ron, and Hermione sent their kids away to Hogwarts is the exact way I felt after watching Andy give away all of his toys last year in “Toy Story 3.”
When some people walked out of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” a piece of their childhood ended along with the franchise. Everyone my age grew up alongside the “Potter” kids. Their awkward changes once they hit puberty only rivaled our own.
For me, once the screen faded to black, I just continued living from where my life had left off right before the film. However, I did feel an immense sting of disappointment that I didn’t stick around for the trailer for “The Dark Knight Rises” that played following the credits.

Movie Review: The Prestige

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Only Christopher Nolan could turn something dumb into something smart, and something smart into something artistic. There have been a lot of movies made about magicians, but none quite like this. “The Prestige” makes magic seem real, and it portrays the ways to obtain it as truly genius.

“The Prestige” follows the same vain as films such as “Sunset Boulevard” and “American Beauty” and uses a narrator who speaks from beyond the grave. Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman), an American magician, begins the film by being murdered by rival British magician Alfred Borden (Christian Bale).
From there on, the film flashes between many different points in time. All of the jealousy and obsession between the rivals is revealed to show how it all leads up to the film’s deadly conclusion. If you think I’ve given away the whole plot just because I revealed the ending, you don’t even know the half of it.
“The Prestige” is the maximum potential greatness that “Inception” could’ve been if it had a stronger screenplay. While “The Prestige” might not have had the budget or effects of “Inception,” it is an underrated gem that outshines it simply for its story.
Writing is a small factor that matters much more than most people realize. “The Prestige” has just about as many twists and complicated layers as “Inception,” yet it handles them in a much clearer way. “Inception” was like a puzzle where you were given the pieces, but had no clue what they were supposed to create. “The Prestige” is like a puzzle where you know what it wants to create, you just have to figure out how to piece it together. This is not meant to speak ill of “Inception,” simply to try and understand why “The Prestige” fell so under the radar.
Like the characters in every single one of his films, Nolan is something of an obsessive. That helps give way to his strikingly accurate image of England in the 1800s. He also obsessively strives to make magic and the world of magicians not just performance, but art. Nolan puts the magic back into magic, which was taken away intentionally by Gob Bluth in “Arrested Development” and unintentionally by “The Illusionist.”
In the world of “The Prestige,” magic doesn’t just involve a straight face; it requires the magician to be intelligent, innovative, and artful. Magic tricks should actually be magical. Although in this world, some of it could actually be real.
As for the acting, Jackman shows he is not quite as world class as some of his co-stars, but he is certainly trying his best. Bale meanwhile, is as wildly spot-on as always. Even in moments that seem genuine, he is always projecting a dark underside that is just waiting to be revealed at every moment. That is what truly makes Bale such a great actor: his unpredictability.
Nolan favorite Michael Caine also starts in “The Prestige” and for the first time in years, he plays a large, incredibly vital part of a story. While he usually plays the nice old mentor who helps the hero out, in “The Prestige,” his role is less good and much more ambiguous. None of the characters in the movie would function without him. Also, for the sake of getting my hits up on Google, I thought I’d mention that Scarlett Johansson is also in this movie.
“The Prestige” reminded me of the recent “Black Swan,” mainly in its final twist. Like “Black Swan,” it pulled off an ending that could’ve been guessed and still makes it both shocking and exciting. Even if an end twist is obvious, it can always be good as long as the filmmaker isn’t pretentious about it.
Some might call Nolan a modern day Spielberg for his ability to convert smart ideas in huge blockbusters. “The Prestige,” meanwhile, is Nolan at his most Hitchcockian. Everything about it from the perils of obsession to the way the twists and thrills are laid out would make the British master of suspense proud.
“The Prestige” takes a genre that was stretched to its end and makes it fresh and captivating again. “The Prestige” is the best kind of psychological thriller: it actually makes you use your brain to enjoy it.
If You Liked This Movie, You’ll Also Like: Black Swan, Fight Club, Inception, Memento, Moon, There Will Be Blood, Vertigo

Movie Review: Alice in Wonderland

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This is not the Alice you were expecting. Or so we are reminded throughout. This is a new Alice, in a new Wonderland, for better, or for worse.

Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” gives you exactly what you’d expect in a Tim Burton film: weirdness, darkness, and madness. Although it misses out on some of the depth of his earlier work, “Alice” shows that this man still understands the concept of the fairytale.
Rather than making this “Alice” exactly like the original, Burton decided to give it a little twist. Thirteen years after first discovering Wonderland, Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is curious teen, totally loathing her dull Victorian lifestyle. As she is proposed to, she follows that same white rabbit with the stop watch and falls down that same rabbit hole. She’s back where she’s been before but this time, she can’t remember a thing.
While in Wonderland, she meets the very mad Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), who convinces her to team up with the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) and defeat the evil, reigning Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) by slaying the Jabberwocky.
To this minute, I still feel split in my thoughts on this film. On the one hand, it was thoroughly entertaining. On the other hand, it’s filled with flaws.
My biggest problem with “Alice” was that it felt as if Burton was rushing through the story. Even though Alice has existed for almost 150 years, this is obviously a different Alice than we’ve seen before. It’s apparent that she’s a bored free spirit living in the wrong universe. However, barely any background is given as to how she became this way. I thought one of the stronger aspects of “Where the Wild Things Are” (a film I use as a basis of comparison because they are actually very similar) was that it built up all of Max’s anger and alienation into this alternate world. He earned his rite of passage into the Land of the Wild Things. Alice should’ve waited a bit longer.
“Alice in Wonderland” is perhaps the most ambitious experiment in converting a film into 3D. However, this story should’ve been kept in the second dimension. None of the visuals seem to pop out at you in an “Avatar” way. Seriously, that 3D cat food commercial that ran before the movie started used the technology better. A film that isn’t shot in 3D isn’t shot in 3D for a reason. Burton was probably trying to keep his vision two dimensional on purpose.
Despite the failed 3D, the set design and cinematography are nothing short of stunning. Burton creates a world that’s been seen so many times before in a surprisingly unique way. He tries to turn Wonderland into his own land. Meanwhile, the lush yet dark photography perfectly matches the film’s tone.
Rather than going with a known lead to play Alice, Burton went for newcomer Wasikowska. She’s a welcome breath of fresh air, and certainly a promising future star. She takes a 19th century character and fills her with relatable, 21st century teenage angst. It’s too bad she wasn’t given a better script, though. Same goes for Depp. Based on interviews, it’s obvious how much amazing work Depp did to portray the Mad Hatter. However, he’s given such little time to do his thing. I think with a little less constraint, Depp could’ve done the same thing with the Mad Hatter that he did with Jack Sparrow in “Pirates of the Caribbean” and Hunter Thompson in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”
I think what this is all leading up to is an unfortunate amount of superficiality. That’s disappointing for a director who’s brought humanity to both a man with scissors for hands (“Edward Scissorhands”) and the guy who directed “Plan 9 from Outer Space” (“Ed Wood”). Burton has always put much effort into the world he creates, but he never abandons the humans that inhabit it. And even here, Burton doesn’t seem to relish the wonders that Wonderland provide. You stare, but don’t gaze, at it.
I hope I’m not sounding too negative because overall, “Alice in Wonderland” is a good film, but just not the great one that it could’ve been. “Alice in Wonderland” might give us a new story, and a new Alice, but something about it just doesn’t seem inspired enough.