y halo thar pingwins.

We went to see Happy Feet yesterday. The rest of the family had already seen it, but I hadn't, and it was the only movie that was really appropriate and at the right time. Hey, dollar cinema! $4.50 for tickets, $11 for snacks. Always the way.

I honestly can't recall the last time I so thoroughly enjoyed a film. It was probably Dead Man's Chest or Prisoner of Azkaban. I can see why it didn't do as well as hoped, between the IMAX release (too expensive!) and the length of it (too long for wee kids), plus I'm sure the religious right was thrilled about the way they were portrayed, but there was really nothing about it that I didn't like. The animation was stunning, especially the ice-falls and the masses of penguins, and I'm blown away by the near-seamless melding of CGI and live action. I'm not a huge fan of CGI monsters in live-action films, but slinging a handful of humans into a CGI movie about penguins could have been a disaster and instead it was absolutely compelling. (I do think it's much better on a big screen and I'm glad I saw it in a cinema.)

And then there are times you just laugh, because it's fucking penguins. You just sit there and all of a sudden it dawns on you that you're watchin' penguins have serious conversations. Also, there's an avalanche and in the middle of the avalanche a tractor falls off a cliff. No warning, just, BAM, TRACTOR INNA AVALANCHE.

Plus, I'm a huge fan of tap from way back, and was following Savion Glover when he was the little punk in Tap, so that was neat to see. I leaned over to mum halfway through and said "They modeled Glover for this, didn't they" and we checked the credits and sure enough, Savion Glover was the dance model for Mumbles.

So, overall, A++, would groove again.

(no subject)

I've been trying to enjoy The Prestige, but there's so much wrong with it.

I had thought it was going to be a fantasy story about a magician who really could do magic competing with one who couldn't. I know better than to create these stories in my mind. What the story is in fact about is two horrible borderline sociopaths playing increasingly homicidal tricks on each other, neither of them doing anything for the love of performance, both destroying everyone in their path. I could have at least enjoyed the story if it were more about the epoch-changing introduction of controlled electrical power, but that's barely a sidenote, bright lights back of the magician.

The major problem is that the story is set in three separate parts of the mens' lives, all of which begin to converge as the first two move forward in time towards the third. The second two also involve two men reading a journal, the second journal based on observations from the first, switching hands back and forth. It's a very intricate piece of screenwriting, but it's not very convincing or compelling. Isn't there any trick better than killing someone and bringing them back to life? I can think of a handful that I'd be more interested in seeing, because when someone dies there's a highly limited number of ways to bring them back.

The upshot? The problem with both The Illusionist and The Prestige is that you can write about magicians or you can be a magician, but you can't do both at the same time. A two hour movie is too long to sustain a magic trick when your audience is looking for the handkerchief up the sleeve.

It'd be worthwhile to write about a rivalry between two magicians, one who performs using tricks and sleight-of-hand, one who has actual magic at his beck and call. Watching those two people interact, that would be fun to see. Watching the illusionist win would be even better. But why bother turning the whole movie into a magic trick? It's not clever and it's not entertaining, the two things that your audience generally requires if you are going to show it a magic trick.