Movie Review - The Fantastic Mr Fox
There's an old chum of mine (let's call him Charles, that being his name), who would go to a multiplex and just go into the next film that was showing, no matter what it was, believing that this random selection process presented him, sometimes, with quality movie offerings he'd otherwise have missed. His delight with random selection was less obvious when forced to live with some of my bidding decisions at bridge but that's a whole different bed of nails. Anyway, I prefer to make my own movie choices, Mrs Stuffy permitting (obviously).
Howsoever, C
haCha and I found ourselves with a couple of hours to kill recently and thus ambled, with no particular aim in mind, into the new Vue cinema in Newbury. The first movie that met our timescales was the Fantastic Mr Fox and having waited for the noisome swarm of baffled and bewildered in-bred halfwits to clear from the amazingly simple self-service booking machines we purchased a couple of seats, some revolting nachos and settled down, with few expectations, to watch this adaption of the Roald Dahl story.
It is a fantastic film in many senses, it's not, in my view, a kids film although ChaCha did enjoy it enormously, it is a very grown up, quite surreal approach to telling a very silly story in a captivating, engaging and totally different way. Using stop-action animation in a jerky, yet wierdly slick way puts it in a very different place to the, now commonplace, smoothly animated CGI offerings and the sharp edges of the story, the sharp edges of the script and the sharpness and detail of the model-making puts it miles away from Aardman's smoother, softer productions.
It was for me , a delight, a very different delight, a "we've a couple of hours let's go see a movie" surprising delight, go see it, then see it again to see the stuff you missed, and if you can explain how the wolf fits in I'll be eternally grateful to you.
A fantastic haiku ?
Fur and feathers fight
sharp surreal story takes flight
a delight, with bite
Beyonce at the O2 Arena
It's been a while since Lady Stuffy and I went to a concert featuring one of the current crop of popular beat combos or songsters, it's tough to identify performers who bridge our wildly divergent musical tastes, (from Barry White and Michael Jackson to Led Zep and Colin Hay). We agreed that Beyonce fit the spec, Mrs S liked her 'Destinys Child' stuff and adored the movie 'Dreamgirls', I however admire her magnificent bottom and the video for 'Single ladies'.
So off we hied to East London, the magical O2 Arena, (recommended by fellow blogger, passionate imbiber and knowledgeable gigger, Mark) It was an evening of contrast, the venue is amazing and seemed very well run, I'd forgottent that as an O2 subscriber I've got blueroom access but the normal catering seems fine.
The support acts were tedious, the audience was largely female, (good) and very high pitched, (not good). The less-than-thrilling support acts were followed by a 60 minute interval, which (with my legendary tolerance for hanging about) was not appreciated.
Eventually the lass herself finally deigned to step onto the boards in a stunningly lit and choreographed show.
There were a few clues that suggest that Mrs S and I are either a little rusty in the gig glands or may just be "so over it". No doubt that Beyonce has a great voice but the amplification or the acoustics of the dome made it, for me, a noise, without clarity, without personality.
The band looked fabulous and seemed very skilled but I couldn't really be sure because of the poor acoustics. Beyonce does have tons of energy and a great botttom which translated well to the massive screens, indeed the whole visual side of the show was really slick and imaginative.
To summarise, it was an experience but your aged correspondents left before the finale rather than face 20,000 squealing women trying to get on the tube.
I am Haiku fierce ???
Too many
people
Too much noise, too long to wait
that's the bottom line
Movie review........ ................. the men who stare at goats .....
Well, it's a great title isn't it ? andd a heck of a cast, George Clooney, Kevin Spacey, Ewan McGregor and Jeff Bridges trotting out his Big Leibowski routine. It's an attempt to bring the book by Jo
n Ronson to the screen and it works, to an extent. Clooney plays the sparkly-eyed psychic psycho and works well enough with young Obi Wan McGregor to deliver a film that, for me, was amusing throughout, a series of knowing chuckles rather than lots of laughs.
The intended criticism of war and the corporate feeding frenzy that accompanies and follows conflict got a little lost in the flashbacks and Mrs Stuffy found it necessary to grab a little nap throughout the mid section. So, two fluffy pillows on the Mrs S tediumometer and a recommendation from me of "not bad, catch it on Sky when it turns up"
Haiku time ?
Why not
Stare at the screen, stare
at the men, who stare at goats
and chuckle, or doze
The festive season starts here
Just made my first Mince pie of the season, and it's a biggie, had some puff pastry to use up, lattice cutter for the crust, mixed slightly caramelized eating apples (sugar and a dash of Calvados) with rich mincemeat, worked well,good feedback.
into the recipe book with that one...
The day after Bonfire night and I'm a fun guy - Sorry
Nine different varieties of eukaryotic organism discovered in the wood this morning, if there are no further posts would someone call Antonio Carluccio and tell him his book is wrong,
Thank you
Good news, parasols, wood blewits and amethyst deceivers, all good eating, might be a couple of others but they fall into the "just not quite sure enough" category.
haCha and I found ourselves with a couple of hours to kill recently and thus ambled, with no particular aim in mind, into the new Vue cinema in Newbury. The first movie that met our timescales was the Fantastic Mr Fox and having waited for the noisome swarm of baffled and bewildered in-bred halfwits to clear from the amazingly simple self-service booking machines we purchased a couple of seats, some revolting nachos and settled down, with few expectations, to watch this adaption of the Roald Dahl story.
