Thursday November 3
Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant [M-Net.02.50]
Friday November 4
After.life [M-Net.21.30]
GI Joe: The Rise of the Cobra [M-Net.02.30]
The Descent 2 [M-Net.12.20]
Unleashed [SABC1.22.00]
Predator [e.tv.20.30]
Saturday November 5
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past [M-Net.05.20]
JOHNNY, HELENA AND MIA
Alice in Wonderland [M-Net.07.00]
The Boys Are Back [M-Net.21.00]
Gridiron Gang [e.tv.20.00]
MEG RYAN AS KAREN WALDEN-HER CHARACTER APPEARS ONLY IN FLASHBACK
Courage Under Fire [e.tv.22.35]
Sunday November 6
Fantasia 2000 [M-Net.10.00]
Despicable Me [M-Net.20.05]
RHONA MITRA WITH BOB HOSKINS IN DOOMSDAY
Doomsday [M-Net.Sunday.00.05]
Kickboxer [SABC1.20.00]
Gridiron Gang [e.tv.13.05]
Monday November 7
Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant [M-Net.03.05]
Wrestling Ernest Hemingway [SABC3.01.00]
Tuesday November 8
The Boys Are Back [M-Net.00.30]
The Descent 2 [M-Net.02.55]
Wednesday November 9
Despicable Me [M-Net.22.30]
After.life [M-Net.01.05]
***
DODGSON DREAMED UP A GAME WHICH WOULD LATER BE KNOWN AS SCRABBLE
Charles Dodgson was a Victorian mathematician who invented a word game that would later be patented as Scrabble and was fond of photography; often taking photographs of small girls. Thousands of modern words have been written about his sexuality; I am not about to add any at this stage.
JOHN TENNIEL'S VERSION OF THE MAD HATTER'S TEA PARTY
Rather, let’s look at Fantasy; for many people, a safely exciting rabbit hole far away from the bleak reality of daily living. Charles Dodgson writing as Lewis Carroll invented Fantasy when he took his readers down the first rabbit hole of this kind; in the company of a heroine he named Alice.
HOLLYWOOD ATTEMPTED ALICE IN 1933
Carroll’s Fantasy masterpieces, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There might have been written with director Tim Burton in mind. Mind you, Alice and her Adventures have enticed filmmakers since the early Talkies, the first Hollywood version dates back to 1933, in which W.C. Fields played Humpty Dumpty!
AN OLDER ALICE
In Burton’s reinterpretation of the classic story, written for him by Linda Woolverton; an older Alice, played by a spirited Mia Wasikowski, spends time meeting familiar characters as she tries to save the Kingdom.
JOHNNY DEPP HAVING FUN
Alice in Wonderland [M-Net.Saturday.07.00 and Tuesday.09.30] is filled with Burton stalwarts; Johnny Depp as a stoned Mad Hatter (the mercury used in hat making was poisonous and did make hatters act strangely ) and Helena Bonham Carter, who is suitably over the top and very funny as The Red Queen.
COLIN FIRTH AND HELENA BONHAM PLAY THE ROYAL COUPLE
Since she and Burton have been a couple, Bonham Carter has often appeared in costume and plenty of slap; her acting certainly doesn’t need augmentation, for example, she was terrific as the harassed Jewish mother in Sixty Six; and of course, superb as a young Queen Mum in The King’s Speech.
THE ANNOTATED ALICE
A last word on the film, watch and enjoy Alice in Wonderland; it is opulently made and a great deal of fun , but find time to reread the books, they have something fresh to say every time. There is a marvelous edition called The Annotated Alice, which I think is still in print.
SWEETLY FAMILIAR
Disney, who made an Alice-by-numbers in 1951, made a Fantasia for the new millennium; Fantasia 2000 [M-Net.Sunday.10.00], filmed in 1999. It is, I guess, a sequel of sorts to Disney’s 1939 classic Fantasia. The movie is fine, especially the Pomp and Circumstance sequence, but by 2000, animation as an industry was heading in new and different directions.
I ALWAYS GIVE OLD JULIE A PLUG WHEN I CAN!
Advancement in animation technology has been at the gallop for over a decade now, innovations with almost every new movie; Despicable Me [M-Net.Sunday.20.05 and Wednesday.22.30] is very much part of the new breed in look and style, but when all is said and done, the plot and many of the characterizations are as sentimental as any Victorian Melodrama.
AN IN-CHARACTER MICHAEL DOUGLAS
Charles Dickens turned Victorian Melodrama into an art form and his work has been turned into films, plays and musicals. Often, poetic license is taken, shall we say rather liberally, as in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past [M-Net.Saturday.05.20], with Mathew MacConaughey as the Scrooge of Love and Michael Douglas camping it up rather well as the Ghost of LoveRats Past.
TO STEAL FROM MONTY PYTHON-'I'M NOT DEAD; YOU SOON WILL BE!'
After.life [M-Net.Friday.21.30 and Wednesday01.05]may have a smart e-mail sounding title, but the plot, convoluted as it is, boils down to basic melodramatic cliché; the fear of being buried alive. Imagine if you dare; trembling hands, scrabbling pathetically at the closed top of a closed coffin.
CHRISTINA RICCA WHEN SHE WAS WEDNESDAY
To give the man his due, Liam Neeson, does his best to appear menacing while Christina Ricci spends most of the time, gasping into the middle distance, dreaming of Wednesday.
IF I WERE JOHN REILLEY, I'D BE LOOKING GLUM TOO!
I think if I’m forced to review another Vampire movie, I’ll start spitting blood myself. The Weitz Brothers have much to answer for, trying to out Vampire each other, Chris was responsible for the second Twilight flick while Paul must take the blame Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant [M-Net.Thursday.02.50 and Monday.03.05]. Happily, no sequel is envisaged; this one was a resounding flop.
A SMOKING GUN IN THE DAYS BEFORE HE BECAME A SMOKING GUN
While in the realms of fantasy, I wonder who ever told athletes that acting was a viable second career. No fewer than four of the crossovers this week, here they are, in no special order; Arnie chases an alien even bigger and meaner than he is in Predator [e.tv.Friday.20.30]. To be fair, the movie does have a certain grim panache.
ONS EIE TREVOR RABIN WROTE THE MUSIC
From the world of wrestling comes Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson, this time a true story about gridiron as a rehabilitation tool; In Gridiron Gang [ e.tv.Saturday.20.00 and Sunday. 13.05] it is obvious that naughty boy Dwayne has been bunking his acting lessons again.
LESSON 4a- PENSIVE WHILE BALANCING ON ONE LEG
The Muscles from Brussels can’t quite read the instructions on his ‘do it yourself’ acting kit. But he does kick and snarl and grimace quite a bit in Kickboxer [SABC1.Sunday.20.00].
MAN AS KILLING MACHINE
Unleashed aka as Danny the Dog [SABC1.Friday.20.30] stars the man whose name sounds like a brand of cleaning fluid, Jet Li. Bob Hoskins plays a Glaswegian baddie who trains Jet Li as a human pit bull.
EMMA THOMPSON AND HER MUM
Luc Besson wrote the screenplay, Yuen Wo Ping choreographed the fight sequences and Morgan Freeman plays a blind piano tuner. Need I say more? By the way, if you spy a woman who looks remarkably like Emma Thompson, you would be right; it’s her mother, Phyllida Law.
MARSHALL IS A POPULAR NAME AMONG FILM DIRECTORS- HERE IS NEIL; WHO IS NO RELATION TO PENNY, GARRY OR ROB
Bob Hoskins is also in Doomsday [M-Net.Sunday.00.05], another one of those ‘vicious virus’ movies, directed by Neil Marshall. Doomsday has a sequence that should keep you away fro m the braaivleis fire for a while. Marshall’s other flesh eating classic Descend 2 [M-Net. Friday.12.20] is also on the spit this week.
GI JOE
GI means General Issue, which has come to mean your average American serviceman. GI Joe began life as a doll in 1964; released just in time to brainwash another generation of small boys into thinking of conflict as a game.
COMES TO LIFE-WELL SORT OF
Anyway, games, dolls and toys often become movies these days and GI Joe: The Rise of the Cobra [M-Net.Friday.02.30] is no exception. The 2009 movie is very much a ‘general issue detonate and explode’ with Channing Tatum and Sienna Miller above the titles and Joseph Gordon Levitt and Dennis Quaid below.
DENNIS QUAID WAS MR MEG FOR A WHILE. RYAN PICTURED HERE WITH MATT DAMON
A very different story with a military setting is Courage Under Fire [e.tv.Saturday.22.35] directed by Edward Zwick, who made Glory, which won Denzel Washington his first Oscar back in 1989. Washington stars again, this time with Meg Ryan, then at the height of her popularity. really about human emotions (guilt, truth and perceptions of courage) rather than war itself; finely put together and beautifully acted.
DENZIL WASHINGTON
Courage Under Fire is
DUVALL AND HARRIS
Wrestling Ernest Hemingway [SABC3.Monday. 01.00] is a poignant character study, about two old men; directed by a woman ( Randa Haines) and written by a 21 year old man (Steve Conrad.) Robert Duvall, a Cuban barber, and Richard Harris, an ex sea captain, share no common ground but are strongly linked by but the persistent calling of mortality.
RANDA HAINES FINEST MOMENT WAS CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD
These two fine actors are ably supported by Shirley MacLaine, Piper Laurie and Sandra Bullock—almost at the beginning of her career back in 1993.
CLIVE OWEN AND HIS BOYS
Clive Owen gives a wonderful performance in The Boys Are Back [M-Net.Saturday.21.00], a movie set in Australia, about a family setup much in the spotlight today, single parenting. This is a neat little drama, with plenty of bonding and belly laughs.
MICHAEL MORIARTY WITH DENZEL WASHINGTON IN THIS RASHOMON TYPE TALE
I tossed Wrestling Ernest Hemingway [SABC3.Monday.01.00] and Courage Under Fire into the air, and Courage Under Fire [e.tv.Saturday.22.35] came up trumps. That sentence won me a 'mixed metaphor of the year' award.