The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

Title: The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

Director:  Terry Gilliam
Released: 1988
Starring: John Neville, Sarah Polley, Eric Idle, Jonathan Pryce, Oliver Reed, Uma Thurman, Bill Paterson, Charles McKeown, Winston Dennis, Jack Purvis, Robin Williams, Valentina Cortese, Peter Jeffrey, Allison Steadman, Ray Cooper, Sting

Plot: The fantastical tale of 18^th century aristocrat and teller of tall tales Baron Munchausen (Neville) who along with his band of talented henchmen and theatre owner’s daughter Sally Salt (Polley) must band together to save a city from the invading Turk army.

 

Review: Opening in an unnamed and war-torn city in Europe, during the late 18^th century in a period dubbed “The Age of Reason” while more precisely on a Wednesday were a theatre troupe are putting on a production of Baron Munchausen’s life and adventures, despite the city currently being under siege and city official “The Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson” (Pryce) continues to reinforce the city’s commitment to reason or more precisely uniformity. Its at this moment that an elderly man claiming to be real Baron Munchausen bursts into the theatre critizing the players for getting his story wrong and essentially setting in motion the many strange and wonderful events which follow, while equally setting the tone for this third and final entry in Gilliam’s “Trilogy of Imagination” which started with “Time Bandits” and “Brazil” and which could in many ways been seen as the films that the Monty Python team would have made, had they not called it a day with “The Meaning of Life”.

This film is also the one which has since its release become something around of a millstone around the neck of Gilliam’s career thanks to its trouble production and spiralling costs which saw his original budget of $23.5 million balloon into $45.63 million by the end of production, while Columbia’s new CEO Dawn Steel refusing financing previously agreed by her predecessor David Puttnam. The situation also not being helped by the film failing at the box office despite highly positive reviews it would only claw back a paltry $8 Million. Despite the film going on to become a cult favourite it has however continued to dog Gilliam career ensuring that he’s constantly had to fight for funding for the films which followed and no doubt explaining why he’s remained more of an indie director in the years which followed starting with his “Trilogy of Americana” made up of The Fisher King, 12 Monkeys and Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas.

Unquestionably this film is one of Gilliams most fantastical films as he seemingly sets out with a vision to try and top the imagery of Brazil and Time Bandits, while crafting what could almost be seen as a “Gulliver’s Travels” style adventure as we follow this fantastical creation on a series of ever more fantastical adventures as he rides a cannonball, escapes a city in a hot air balloon made of women’s undergarments, meets the king of the moon (Williams credited here as Ray D. Tutto) and the roman god Vulcan (Reed) and even gets eaten by a large fish. It’s really the sort of film that only Gilliam could think about attempting while one he is yet to top in terms of imagery with “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” being the closest he’s come, though even that film doesn’t really come close to matching the feeling of scale and grandeur that this film has, no doubt as the result of this film being shot purely with the use of practical effects.

While it is easy to get caught up in the all the visual flair, this is actually a surprisingly straightforward tale with the Baron and Sally escaping the city and along the way meeting up with the older versions of the Baron’s loyal henchmen made up of Bethold (Idle the world’s fastest runner, Adolphus (McKeown) the crackshot marksman with superhuman eyesight, Gustavus (Purvis) the dwarf who not only has super hearing but also the ability to blow down an entire army and finally the super strong Albrecht (Dennis). More amusing is seeing these heroes as their younger selves in the Baron’s first tale of how he avoided being beheaded by Sultan Mahmud (Jeffrey) and then as we follow the Baron on his journey seeing them all as old men, with Gustavus now pretty much deaf while Adolphus is by all appearances now blind. Seeing them all pull it together for a final showdown with the Sultan unsurprisingly left me with a dopey smile especially when this battle contains so many comical moments such as Bethold attempting to outrun a snipers bullet only to turn it into the world’s greatest trick shot.

One of the real strengths of the film is in its casting especially when it comes to the supporting cast which amongst them sees Robin Williams here working for free camping things up as the king of the moon, whose head and body are able to work separate from each other, while more surprising is the fact that this role had originally been written for Sean Connery only for him to deem it not kingly enough for him. Oliver Reed meanwhile is equally fascinating to watch as the roman god Vulcan when the baron and his followers seemingly get sent to hell and were Reed seems to be more concerned with projecting his own performance and giving us odd little touches such as turning a piece of coal into a diamond. These stop off each coming with something different and it’s these characters we encounter on these stop off which make the journey so fun that you never really question the fact that none of it really makes a lick of sense.

For the established fans of Gilliam's work there is much to enjoy here, especially when he is playing up the visual side of things as much as he does, especially using some great touches such as theatrical flat screens to tell his story and while some aspects might not work such as the reoccurring character of the Angel of death whose effects are especially ropey and some of the plot might be more plodding than it needs to be this is still a highly memorable and entertaining film and one which is truly deserving of its cult status, even with its confused ending this is still a fun fantasy film directed in a way that only Gilliam can.  

Avengers Grimm

Title:  Avengers Grimm

Director: Jeremy M. Inman
Released: 2015
Starring: Casper Van Dien, Lauren Parkinson, Lou Ferrigno, Milynn Sarley, Marah Fairclough, Rieah Vanderbilt, Elizabeth Peterson, Kimo Leopoldo, Andrew E. Tilles, Justine Herron

Plot: Rumpelstiltskin (Van Dien) has escaped to the modern world using the magic mirror and now it’s up to Cinderella (Sarley), Sleeping Beauty (Fairclough), Snow White (Parkinson), Rapunzel (Vanderbilt) and Red Riding Hood (Peterson) to stop him, before he enslaves everyone on Earth.

 

Review:  So for some reason while sitting down to watch “Avenging Eagle” following a recommendation from Francisco “The Film Connoisseur” Gonzalez, but for some reason I zigged when I should have zagged and ended up for some reason stumbling into this offering from “The Asylum” whose production logo at the start should have been enough of a warning sign but alas here we are.

Seemingly taking a break from their usual shark related antics here instead they make their second stab at ripping off the Marvel Cinematic universe having previously given their stab at “Thor” with “Almighty Thor” and now turn their attention to “The Avengers” as they give them a fairy tale twist, replacing the comic book heroes with Fairy tale characters which honestly sounded like a pretty decent twist but alas wasn’t to be as like so many of “The Asylum” productions the construction never quite lives up to the premise.

Opening in the magical land of Once upon a time were the forces of good and evil are caught in a full scale conflict, with Van Dien’s Rumpelstiltskin hamming up his villainous side as he ruthlessly despatches the king of Once upon a time, while essentially giving us the fairy tale version of Loki with honestly not too shabby results, especially when both characters are known for being tricksters. From here we are then thrown disappointingly into the real world were things quickly fall apart.

While the main fairy tale princesses might be featured here, these aren’t your usual damsel in distress as what we get here are super powered warrior visions of these popular characters, with each having a power relating in some way to their story so hence Rapunzel uses her hair, Sleeping Beauty can put people to sleep and Snow White can use snow and ice….because you know she’s Snow white. The most interesting of the group though is Red Riding Hood here known simply as Red and who has been turned into a huntress obsessed with hunting down the humanoid version of the Wolf who here is less concerned with trying to disguise himself as Red’s granny and instead takes on the role of hired muscle for Rumpelstiltskin.

Once in the real world the plot quickly falls apart as it becomes unclear what exactly Rumpelstiltskin is trying to achieve for when the group arrive in the real world he has already taken over as the mayor of the city, while randomly turning those who oppose him into zombie like drones, which is something I don’t remember him ever doing in the original stories. By that same note I can’t remember him ever having a fondness for Nazi style uniforms which it seems under his regime are the style of choice, which bizarrely always seems to be the case when we see these kinds of adaptation much like “The Nutcracker 3D”. He also brings in a local gang boss called Iron John (Ferrigno) who soon lives up to his namesake when his body is turned into Iron, which essentially equates to Ferrigno playing a silver version of his Hulk alter-ego.

The cast are a mixed bunch with Van Dien and Ferrigno standing out as the better performances here, with Van Dien clearly having a blast playing the villain, while when it comes to the princesses they really are a mixed bunch of unknowns whose performances vary greatly as to be expected even if they are mainly watchable, its just more of a shame that they've not been given anything particular interesting or dramatic to get their teeth into, but hey this is an Asylum production so what were they expecting.

Action wise this film isn’t anything special thanks largely to none of the cast being especially fight trained it would seem with the two that are getting their own fight scene, which randomly takes place next to the LA river after a sudden smash cut which magically transports them from the building they were in front of prior to the fight in one of the most random scene jumps since “Sister Street Fighter” though its hard to say if this is more random than the silver hulk…I mean Iron John who charges into a fight only to slip on ice and fall out the side of the building, which  I guess only continues the theme of random fight scenes here while at the same time providing the same kind of head scratching logic that the guy falling through the floor had in the bell tower finale of “Batman”.

It’s hard to really say how this one could have been better as outside of a great premise and a couple of half decent performances this is pretty rotten throughout, especially when it attempts to take the story into the real world which was really the first warning sign of what would lie ahead. Out of the princesses though only Red is the one who really stands out and a character I would have liked to have seen been given her own film, especially if it was kept to a fantastic realm. What we have though here though instead is a grinding experience which fails at even the base level of casual entertainment as this is low even by the standard that we’ve come to measure any production from “The Asylum” ultimately this is one best skipped.

Ruby Sparks

 

Title: Ruby Sparks

Director: Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton
Released: 2012
Staring: Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Elliott Gould, Chris Messina, Annette Bening, Antonio Banderas, Steve Coogan, Alia Shawkat

Plot: Calvin (Dano) a struggling young novelist and writing prodigy, who after being launched into superstardom with his first novel, now finds himself plagued with writer’s block while working on the follow up. Unwittingly though he manages to bring his latest character Ruby Sparks (Zoe Kazan) to life, whom he soon embarks on a relationship with having based her on his dream girl, only to find that even the seemingly most perfect girl can be less than perfect.

Review: Despite releasing the wonderful “Little Miss Sunshine” to critical acclaim it has taken another six years for us to finally receive this follow up from the husband and wife directing duo who truly established themselves as an original voice of indie film making with their debut feature, especially after having spent the early years of their career directing music videos for the likes of “R.E.M.” and “The Smashing Pumpkins” and it was great to see them able to carry their unique visions into feature film making and something which thankfully still remains here, while Zoe Kazan who appears here as the titular Ruby makes her own writing debut with a non the less confident voice.

Bizarrely the script was inspired by a random combination of a discarded mannequin and the Greek myth of “Pygmalion” the sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved. Working with the equally imaginative Faris and Dayton they have together crafted here a highly unique rom-com of sorts via the way of “Stranger Than Fiction” which is also looked at the idea of fiction shaping reality, something which especially comes into play during the second half of the film when Calvin realises that he can still shape Ruby’s character with a few keystrokes on his typewriter, he can make her speak fluent French or even change her personality completely. While portrayed in the trailers as a light hearted rom-com, the film also hides a much darker side, especially once Calvin starts adjusting her personality to smooth over the things he doesn’t like, as he makes her more clingy and carefree before finally taking out an unnerving dominant side on her, as he further enforces just how control he is of her life, while his performance during this scene means that I won’t surprised if we see him playing a serial killer in the near future

Right from the start though this film just oozes indie cool, as you realise that this film could only have been made as an indie film, as it requires the level of subtlety that this film brings to the table, even go so far as to not complicate the sudden arrival of Ruby nor the rules of her existence. Honestly I don’t even think they explain how she came to exist in reality, but rather the film takes the tact of throwing the idea out to the audience and challenging them to go along with it, which thanks to how engaging these characters are is never a problem, even if Faris and Dayton do give into convention for the ending which seemed perhaps a little more traditional than I would have expected from this film, which seemingly has it’s ending only to tact a happier one on top of it.

Both Dano and Kazan give amazing performances here and despite being an off screen couple, manage the not so easy feat of showing real on screen chemistry, with both actors playing off each others performances well, with Faris and Dayton reuniting here with Dano convincingly  playing the fumbling and reclusive literacy prodigy, who spends his days walking his dog Scotty (named after his favourite author F. Scott Fitzgerald), pottering around his minimalist LA apartment or sitting in front of his classic typewriter crippled with the pressures of producing a second novel and whose only real connection to the outside world being through his therapy sessions Dr. Rosenthal (Gould) or gym sessions with his brother Harry (Messina) who is essentially the complete opposite of Calvin as he exudes confidence and generally lives the life which Calvin wishes he could have. Kazan here embodies the character the character of Ruby, not only in her quirky original form, but also as she is gradually changed by Calvin over the course of the film, embodying each change with an air of indie cool so that you truly believe that Calvin is changing and reshaping her personality with the keys of his typewriter.

While Faris and Dayton hit casting gold with their leads, this luck also extends to the supporting cast aswell with Annette Bening and Antonio Banderas, proving a fun addition as Calvin’s hippy mother and her boyfriend, whose carefree lifestyle sits in direct opposition to the organised and high stress life Calvin currently finds himself in. Elsewhere Steve Coogan puts in a fun cameo as Calvin’s writing rival and friend Langdon Tharp, as does indie favourite Alia Shawkat who puts in a far to brief appearance as Calvin’s obsessed fan Mabel.

A film which falls between “Stranger Than Fiction” and “500 Days of Summer”, it is one which proves that you can make a rom-com without having to drown proceedings in saturnine sweetness and a top 40 soundtrack especially with the film favoring a decidedly classical soundtrack. At the same time the film also proves that you can make an enjoyable film with some element of mystery to it, without fear of excluding the majority of your audience more used to having every plot point expanded and explained in its simplest terms. Although to some Faris and Dayton might seem like indie film making tourists with their by the book style and certain restraint in pushing conventions too far, this film does continue to highlight them as talent to watch, only heres hoping that the wait won’t be so long for the next film.

Happy Birthday Ron Pearlman!!

Today the gravelly voiced giant Ron Pearlman turns 60, with a career that is still going strong, while also currently appearing in the fantastic “Sons of Anarchy” alongside one of my heroes for life Henry Rollins and as I sit down to write this I am still eagerly awaiting season two which is to be soon shown here in the UK.
Still the dream at the moment is that he will take on the role of Tom Waits when someone finally gets around to making his biopic, which in an idea world open with Waits himself sitting on a barstool smoking and reminiscing, before flashbacking to Perlman as Waits or even if the whole film was like this clip from “Coffee and Cigarettes” I’d personally be happy.



Still in the meantime to celebrate today, here are my top five Ron Pearlman roles.

Hellboy (2004): Honestly if there was one role he was born to play, it really is the titular role of Hellboy, the demon who was brought to earth by the Nazis during WW2 only to be recruited by the allies. Now present day he works for the Bureau for Paranormal Research (BRPD) as a paranormal investigator.
When it came to casting the role both director Guillermo del Toro and Hellboy creator Mike Mignola both named Pearlman for the role and it proved to be a wise choice, as Pearlman here shines as the wisecracking demon, embodying the character and even managing to squeeze out a one liner, even when facing certain death.
It’s this world of Hellboy that Del Toro also manages to faithfully recreate; thanks to a potent combination of being a huge fanboy of the series and by using old school effects were possible, as he brings to the screen a truly memorable cast of characters.

The last supper (1995): A black humoured tale of five liberal students and the dinner parties they hold, poisoning their guest if they decide that they don’t like their views and burying their bodies in the tomato patch.
True Pearlman might only have a small role, as the controversial pundit Norman Arbuthnot (based loosely on real life pundit Rush Limbaugh) whose presence is always there in the background, usually in the snippets of interview footage which appear throughout the film, before becoming their guest at their final supper.
Its not a perfect film, but if you can look past a few minor scripting errors, it makes for dark hearted fun, while certainly providing an interesting solution for dealing with annoying dinner party guests.

City of lost children (1995): A wonderfully bizarre movie, in which Pearlman plays One, the whale harpooner turned circus strongman, who teams up with the orphan Miette, to rescue his little brother who has been kidnapped by the mad scientist Krank, who plans to steal the dreams of children, in order to help stop his rapid aging.
Packed with interesting and unusual characters which would become the calling card of the work of directors Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, whose film often present themselves as grown up fairy tales, this film is certainly no different.
As the sole American member of the French cast, Pearlman doesn’t standout as he plays the slow and almost childlike One, having learned all his lines so well, he gives a flawless performance in French which blends his performance seamlessly with the others, completing the illusion of this surreal society.

Afro samurai (2007): A fantastic exercise in genre mashing as Blaxploitation, Kung fu, Splatter flicks and Westerns meet in a head on collision, wrapped up in Japanese animation, to create the most exciting ninja anime since “Ninja Scroll” (1993) as the titular afro samurai (voiced here by Samuel L. Jackson) hunts for his fathers killer Justice voiced by Pearlman, who brings a full on western drawl to the character, who dresses anyway like he’s stumbled out of a western. Still Pearlman certainly embodies the role, making the character of Justice not, just clearly evil, but chilling in how cold and calculating he really is, especially when it comes to maintaining his spot as the number 1.
Containing some fantastically choreographed fight sequences, while never worrying about what seems plausible and what should appear in this vision of a feudal Japan, with a futuristic twist, which honestly only adds to the fun and madness and after all how bad can a film, featuring Jinno a samurai who wears a giant teddy bear head actually be??

Alien Resurrection (1997): True it might not be the most popular of the Alien saga, but it is certainly the last of the good films, before the series went to pot with its sterile “Alien vs. Predator” spin offs. Still there is a lot to like here, as visionary director Jean-Pierre Jeunet attempts to bring take his surreal visions in a more nightmarish direction with Joss Whedon appearing on scripting duties, a lot of the ideas introduced are clearly with the intention of keeping the series fresh, such as a human alien hybrid, while keeping a sense of familiarity with its setting, that the series had built up with it’s previous three films.
Pearlman here plays the muscle headed jerk Johner and its certainly the kind of role which he does well, as a character who cares mainly about saving his own hide than the fellow members of his team, while also taking great delight in taunting Vriess, by memorably dropping a knife into his paralysed legs.

So there you have it my five favourite roles portrayed by our friend Mr. Ron Pearlman, who hopefully will continue to bring even more iconic characters to the screen for even more years to come, maybe slapping on the red body paint once more to bring us, one final Hellboy adventure….well I can but wish.

The Fall

Title: The Fall
Director: Tarsem Singh
Released: 2008

Staring: Catinca Untaru, Justine Waddell, Lee Pace, Robin Smith, Jeetu Verma, Leo Bill, Marcus Wesley, Julian Bleach, Daniel Caltagirone

Rating: 5/ 5

Plot: Roy (Pace) an injured stuntman, forms a friendship with a young girl Alexandria (Untaru), who is recovering from a broken arm, as Roy tells her a story of five mystical hero’s and their quest to kill the oppressive governor Odious (Caltagirone). Though as the story continues the lines between reality and fantasy begin to become all the more blurred.

Review: Some times it amazes me how great films get so overlooked, films which not only challenge their audiencebut at the same time, take them on a journey of lush visuals and fantastic storytelling, as the director challange themselve to give thier audience somthing which they havn't seen before. I guess in a way the same question could also go a long way in explaining why we continue to get sequels to the Scary Movie franchise being churned out on an almost yearly basis.

“The Fall” is certainly one of these movies which sorely deserved to reach a larger audience than it did, upon it’s initial release, especially seeing how it pretty much skipped a cinematic release, suddenly turning up on DVD it would seem , making it only more of a shame, especially seeing how it is certainly a film which deserves to reach a large audience, were now instead it seems to have been left to find it’s own audience, which if there is any justice it will.

Right from the start it is clear that you are watching something special, as Singh skilfully combines slowed down black and white imagery, with his skilful use of Beethoven’s "Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, II. Allegretto” which here becomes more of a title piece to the film and certainly put it on a par with Clint Mansell’s “Summer Overture” which was most memorably used in “Requiem for a Dream” (2000). The score by Krishna Levy is the perfect accompaniment to the images on screen, not only helping to set the scene, but in some cases helping to emphasise the power of the imagery being shown to us and seems to mis-step though out, even if this sole Beethoven piece seems to dominate over the other pieces of music used thought.

Storywise it’s safe to say that it falls somewhere between the adult fairy tales of Guillermo del Toro and Caro & Jeunet, especially seeing how it contains none of the horrors of the real world, which are fused into the stories of del Toro’s work, while at the same time it doesn’t slip into the more obvious surreal world of Caro & Jeunet whose films such as “The City of lost Children” (1995) are probably best known for such a style of storytelling, instead “The Fall” sits somewhere between the two styles, especially seeing how Singh is keen to keep the two worlds he shows throughout separate, often having the bandit speaking directly at the screen as Roy, when he chooses to take us out of the world of his story.
Roy’s tale of the masked bandit and his mismatched group, is really brought to life by the imagination of Alexandria, who inserts people she see’s around her into the roles of the various characters, making it fun to try and place who each of the characters are in the real world, as she takes the descriptions Roy gives her, applying them to the people she see’s walking around the hospital, even using the x-ray technician, as the basis for how the henchmen of governor Odious look, while characters like the mystic are less obvious as to who they might be in the real world, with Singh only giving us the most subtle of clues as to their identity.

Pace is on fantastic form here, moving seamlessly from the role of Roy to that of the masked bandit and even though we know that Alexandria is using him as the base for the bandit, it never feels as if you’re just watching Roy, dressed as a bandit, but rather watching Pace as a completely separate character. However as the film progresses and the lines between these two worlds begin to blur, we start seeing more and more of Roy appearing in the character of the bandit, such as his sudden addiction to morphine pills, aswell as the various touches which Alexandria adds herself to the point, were she appears as a character herself, taking on the role of the bandit’s daughter. Still as Roy becomes more suicidal his story becomes all the more darker, while certainly not going as dark as Del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006) which also featured an equally sudden dark turn, which might not sit well with some viewers, but it is clear that when this appears, that Roy is simply trying to break the connection which he shares with Alexandria. However it does also form some of the more gut wrenching moments of the film, as Singh takes the hatchett to his list of characters.

I suppose the main downside for myself, was with the character of Alexandria, who it is true is Romanian, but her broken English meant that it felt like half the time she was simply improvising her dialogue and really relies often on Roy, to translate to the rest of us what she actually saying. Still her cutesy performance never reaches the level of being overly saturnine sweet, thanks to Singh never allowing the camera to focus for to long on her, without tingeing the scene with some element of darkness, which appears to surround her outside of the safety of Roy’s hospital bed, such as the hypochondriac patient, who Roy shares a hospital ward with, while further driving home the idea of this film being a grown up fairy tale.

Singh who is probably best remembered for “The Cell” (2000), another equally underrated classic, which might have been more popular had it not featured Jennifer Lopez, but still managed to remain highly memorable, thanks to it’s incredible nightmarish imagery, as he took us inside the mind of a serial killer. Thankfully the six year gap since then seems to have not caused him to tone down his mindblowing imagery any less, in fact it seems to only have given him more time in which to think up more breathtaking imagery and by signing up fellow visionary film makers David Fincher & Spike Jonze who both signed as Executive producers (Singh would later provide second unit work for Fincher on “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)), he has only expanded his canvas and certainly makes the most of it, seeing how the film was shot in 18 different countries, resulting in a film which is nothing short of breath taking and without a hint of CGI to be found, proving to even the most jaded amongst us, that modern film making can still be exciting and interesting, without losing its a accessibility to a mainstream audience, which we have seen over the years happening with a number of equally great foreign films, only for the language barrier to eliminate the majority of their potential audience.

I can only hope that the wait isn't so long for Singh (Or Tarsem as he's now started calling himself) to release his next film, as if his current film making reseme is anything to go off, he could certainly be a director worth watching and I can only hope that his future output remains as exciting and intresting as what we have seen so far.