Thursday, December 29, 2005
Joyeux Noel
Now, here is a perfect present that celebrates the true meaning of this festive holiday, as well as reminds the audience, the futility of war, among other lessons. Daniel Bruhl (the very fillial son in Goodbye Lenin!), and Guillaume Canet (the forlorn lover in Love Me if Your Dare) are two of the three officers in charge of opposing regimes in the European war front during 1914. They decided to put down their arms and got together to celebrate a sombre and tense Christmas, with little nothing but a few mini trees, some chocolates, wine, and lots of singing. Life goes on at the end of the movie, everybody got moved around to fight in other battles, but it just goes to show that the soldiers on the other side of the trench are just as human as we are. Definitely worth recommending!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Narnia
Goblet of Fire was a disapppointement, Zathura was so so, so hopefully this is better. One big question will children fantasy films is that, with CGI taking up so much screen time and space, how much more can the actors do to get their own credibility on the screen? Narnia is obviously a great story to put into film, and looking at getting a few more episodes under the belt for Disney too. It was obviously a great touch to bring in two excellent actors, Tilda Swindon (cool!) and Jim Braodbent (grossly underutilized) to anchor the film. There were some excellent voice-overs, I was delighted to hear Dawn French in particular as Mrs Beaver. But the children, the children, gee, they don't hold my attention, they don't hold my attention, they don't have the charisma. This was also the problem for Zathura, and as for Harry Potter, well, too many faces to remember any of them ... my favourite (children) ensemble cast this year is still the four Japanese sibblings in Nobody Knows ...
♥
11:01 am
