Ahoy, squirts! Quint here, typing quickly away with the window open, thanking God or whomever's in charge for the first cool front to hit Austin since March. I'm getting behind on reviews, having seen both ELIZABETHTOWN and WALLACE & GROMIT: CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT in the last couple days and heading into the first day of FANTASTIC FEST in less than 2 hours.
But I had to put in my two cents on the WALLACE & GROMIT movie and Cameron Crowe's newest. My set-up: I love Nick Park's shorts (films, that is, you pervs), but I haven't watched them in years. I dug the hell out of CHICKEN RUN. I love Aardman Animation's style and I loooove Park's sense of humor and I'm here to say that I've never liked WALLACE & GROMIT as much as I like 'em in CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT, which is saying something.
If Dreamworks were smart, they'd contract Aardman Animation and Nick Park and give them the budget of all the Shrek-ish 3D movies. Their style is completely different than Pixar, but the quality is right up there.
What I love about WALLACE & GROMIT IN THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT is that it's essentially a kids friendly gateway to the horror genre. The pacing, the music, the atmosphere, camera angles and stalwarts of the genre are represented, but by making the monster a giant bunny rabbit and the victims prized oversized inanimate veggies the gore is PG.
There's literally the scene in 80% of horror movies where the mauled body of a hapless victim falls unexpectedly on the hood of a car. It's in here and happens to Gromit, but instead of a bloody corpse, it's a giant electric carrot sign that is mutilated by the fearsome wererabbit.
Not only are the gore moments recreated, but there is also quite a bit of subtle lewd humor, like invitations by the Helana Bonham Carter voiced Lady Tottington for Wallace to observe her "juicy melons" while they sit at chest level. That one is actually one of the more blatant cases of innuendo, so blatant that it even made some of the littler kids laugh... or maybe they were just laughing because their folks were. But there are tons of pretty raunchy innuendo that flies over the heads of the little ones, but goes straight to the funnybones of the grown-ups.
This is a perfect family movie, one that adults will enjoy just as much as the kids and one of those rare films that kids will rediscover as they grow older and they get the more adult humor. I can't recommend this flick enough.
ELIZABETHTOWN
I've never been shy about my love of Cameron Crowe's films. ALMOST FAMOUS means more to me than you'll know and FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH was a sort of sexual awakening for me. Who knew girls could look as sexy as a fresh from the pool red two-piece (soon to be one-piece) wearing Phoebe Cates? Of course Crowe served as writer for the film, not director, but I still count it like I still count PRETTY IN PINK as a John Hughes film.
So, I took all the mixed reviews of ELIZABETHTOWN in stride because not only do I have a major, major soft spot for Crowe, I also don't think Orlando Bloom is a terrible actor. He hasn't had his star-making role yet. He's been made an icon by LOTR and did a solid job counter-balancing the craziness of Johnny Depp in PIRATES, but he needed a great role to show off a great character with.
So, how come I walk away from ELIZABETHTOWN slightly puzzled? I get the movie, but it seems the most unfinished of any Crowe film I've seen to date. Unfinished and uneven. What works works great, what doesn't work won't make you go crazy with how bad it is or anything, but just feels flat.
Let's start with Orlando Bloom. He's the center of the film and my first impression of him in the first 5 minutes was that he dropped the ball. He opens the movie helicoptering in to the multi-billion dollar shoe magnate where he works. This company recently just found out they're taking a nearly billion dollar loss on the shoe that Bloom's character designed.
It wasn't his acting in the opening of the film that gave me pause for thought, but rather his narration. His narration, and this is true for the entire film, is awful. Canned, flat, awkward... he's trying too hard in the sound booth and it came through. It almost felt like a trailer narration instead of a narrative narration (how's that for two words together?)
His acting in the film is actually quite strong, very underplayed, but very nuanced and well done. It's just his damn narration that sounds half-finished and almost not part of the film.
Like any great Cameron Crowe vehicle, the real meat and potatoes on this story about a man having to put his suicide on hold long enough to bury/cremate/whatever his newly dead father, is the romance angle between him and Kirsten Dunst. While there are a lot of whacky small town sweet/funny characters we meet as Bloom gets to know his father's friends in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, I don't think the movie really finds its footing until it focuses more on Bloom and Dunst's strange romance.
The now much talked about phone scene that lasts all night with the two leads talking about any and everything is fantastic and so true to life it's not even funny. I had an experience very much like that, but it was on a cordless phone instead of a cell phone, so unfortunately when my battery went balls up I couldn't just plug a power cord into the wall and keep talking. I could relate to each little smile and stupid story they laugh at during this montage. The joy of discovering another person, that spark of chemistry... not knowing if the girl you're talking to is going to be your best friend or your lover or both, but nevertheless knowing that they're digging your company just as much as you're digging theirs. Crowe captured that beautifully.
There's also a subplot involving a big, loud wedding taking place at the hotel Bloom's staying at that is wonderfully done. It includes the best hugging scene ever (especially since it has a sound effect to go with it).
The evolution of the romance between Dunst and Bloom is a little frustrating, but it's designed that way. This whole "Won't we make better friends?" thing between two people obviously hot for each other is always frustrating to someone who believes "The One" should be your best friend, not just someone hot who you can tolerate.
So, all that's to say that I love moments in ELIZABETHTOWN, but can't say it's a perfect film. It's never bad, it just shifts from really good to alright. At least it does for me. It falls into the flawed, but still very good category for me. I'm curious to see the full cut.
Sorry if these reviews have been a bit funky, but I'm running off of 4 hours of sleep. I'm currently on hour 17 of being awake, having seen 4 films theatrically today. I'm a bit pooped and tomorrow is another busy day, one that I will be lucky to do on 6 hours if I wrap up everything I have to do right now.
So, whether expressed well or not, those two reviews encapsulate my thoughts on both of those movies. Now I'm going to fall into a 6 hour coma before another handful of films and two interviews in the morning. Look for my Fantastic Fest coverage to start tomorrow with reviews of THE BIG WHITE (Robin Williams, Tim Blake Nelson and Holly Hunter), ZATHURA and FEAST. 'Til then, this is Quint bidding you all a fond farewell and adieu.
-Quint
