Today's Review: Cinderella

Finally, another review up!

Cinderella review

Okay, so this movie serves us a most oldfashioned fairy tale imaginable and displays a shockingly conservative view on the role of women. Nobody will deny it. But if you can swallow that, it's indeed quite as magical a movie experience as it aims to be (and not even in obnoxious 3D, for a change!). I don't think the studio is excusing reverting to old social values, it just acknowledges a classic tale without feeling the need to utterly change it by updating it to appease a modern audience. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, as this movie proves much more enjoyable than similar recent rehashes of old glory like Maleficent and Alice in Wonderland, which were quite bland and forgetful despite making the female protagonists tough and independent. Both qualities are sorely lacking in the victimized Cinderella, I admit. But this movie seems to say 'Oh, the heck with it! Let's embrace such ridiculously backward gender patterns for a change and acknowledge our true classics as they used to be, not as they should be today!' If Disney meant to say explicitly that women are either weak willed victims or total bitches with this movie, you honestly think grand dames of cinema like Cate Blanchett and Helena Bonham Carter, let alone promising new faces like Lily James, Holliday Grainger or Sophie McShera, would voluntarily have signed up for this slap in the face of their sex? I think they just recognized the obviously outdated romantic plot for what it was and decided to run with it just to enjoy getting a chance to play such outrageous roles, so seldom seen today. And for the better, since if they occurred more often, that would indeed be suspicious and uncalled for. But it's not wrong to indulge in reactionary storytelling every once in a while, to appreciate just how much female roles have changed since the days these types of women were seen everywhere on the big screen.

Plus, the movie is at least a little modern in other regards. There's a black guy playing the captain of the royal guard in a court full of white folk. And him and the prince certainly seem like close chums. That wouldn't have happened in the original animated classic for sure. What a long way we've come!

Today's Triple News: sequels, fairy tales and super heroes

New news keeps pouring in on a daily basis, faster than I can discuss it here. Doesn't stop me from trying though:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/154509/sofia_coppola_regisseert_mogelijk_the_little_mermaid_

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/154508/disney_maakt_cars_3_en_incredibles_2

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/154488/mangold_terug_voor_wolverine_2

People who think Coppola might not be suited for directing a fairy tale are overlooking the fact that the basic contents of The Little Mermaid are much like some of Coppola's earlier work, they're just packaged differently. Stories about teenage girls living in a fantasy world all their own and trying to have things their way which backfires on them doesn't sound so different thematicaly from the likes of The Bling Ring, Marie Antoinette or The Virgin Suicides to my mind. They just appear dissimilar on the surface. That said, the notion of doing a "kid-friendly" family film is probably what deters most people who prefer to see Coppola tackling more (young) adult oriented material, as she hasn't done a project like this yet. However, that's not to say she is not capable of making such a movie. Let's face it: Coppola's career as a director of feature length films spans nearly two decades but has only spawned five movies in total. That's not enough of an output to judge a director's capacities on, it's only an indication of what type of films he/she is particularly drawn to. As I have stated before, directors need change, and I'd say here's a chance for Coppola to prove her directorial versatility. She has two young kids of her own, for crying out loud; why wouldn't she be interested in a fun movie for the whole family, that still allows her to incorporate her signature themes to some extent? Even though I'm personally not all that stoked for this project - which definitely has something to do with the fact the Disney version of The Little Mermaid is the first movie I ever saw in theaters, and the second too - I think the studio might just have made the perfect choice with Coppola.

Speaking of Disney, they're steering Pixar, formerly known for their sublime creativity, into a rampant case of suffering severe sequelitis. Currently, the studio is working on only a single original project, The Good Dinosaur, which was already put on hold for a whole year. Other than that, it's all sequels for the next few years: Planes 2, an alleged Toy Story 4, Finding Dory, Cars 3, The Incredibles 2. People used to praise Pixar for doing something new every time, while their competitor DreamWorks was maligned for milking itself dry completely. They won't be doing that anymore, as by now the situation seems to have reversed entirely. It appears Disney decides to play it safe by counting on established multi-billion dollar franchises instead of letting original ideas take precedence. And if those sequels weren't enough, there's a few more 3D re-releases slated too, making the studio more money by pushing the same stuff on us again, just at higher admission prices. That said, I prefer a re-release, so we can all enjoy those classic Pixar movies again before they're totally spoiled by their unneccessary and undesirable sequels. However, Pixar proved with Toy Story 2 and 3 that they can do justice to the originals be making sequels that manage to actually surpass the quality of their predecessors, but ever since Cars 2 and the terribly uninspired spin-off Planes - at a point when Disney had taken over the company - the odds of that happening again are not in our favour. Let's hope The Good Dinosaur will at least live up to its name.

And the X-universe just keeps on Xpanding cinematically (see what I did there?). Ever since the mind boggling success of Marvel's The Avengers, rival studios that own a piece of the Marvel Universe have taken a hint as to how they ought to approach handling their properties to achieve similar success. Unlike Sony, which only manages a single big name and its various supporting characters, Fox has the luck of owning a big name tentpole franchise, X-Men,  that consists of a lot more characters and therefore a lot more possibilities for sequels, spin-offs and such, making for an easily growing cinematic legacy. Apparently the 'Avengers approach' is already applied in full swing with X-Men: Days of Future Past, a storyline which will continue into X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), the latter of which might actually deal with the infamous Age of Apocalypse mirror universe, or else with a variation on the established cinematic X-routine. Days of Future Past might end with its broken time line fixed or not, and still able to pave the way for coherently branching off into multiple temporal directions. X-Force (2016 or 2017) for eXample will certainly pick up where Apocalypse left off, as it deals with Apocalypse's primary nemesis Cable and his merry band of young mutant acolytes, but it can still take place alongside the regular X-storyline that we last saw in last year's The Wolverine, either being interwoven with characters we already know, in various possible iterations (future/present/alternate universe) no less. And now The Wolverine is getting a sequel too (2017/2018?), which most likely will continue on the events of Days of Future Past - as those were already foreshadowed in its mid-credits bonus scene - but could skip over Apocalypse altogether, while still relating to X-Force in a minor capacity. And if things aren't complicated enough by all these Xses being thrown around, Fox still has to think of how on Earth they're going to incorporate their other Marvel franchise, the Fantastic Four, into all this too, as they have stated to be their intention. Because of all the time travelling and alternate reality possibilities, directors working on this corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe might face a tougher job that those who work on Marvel's own, which is served more straightforwardly on a narrative level. James Mangold might just have his job cut out for him. Or he may ignore Days of Future Past, Apocalypse and X-Force completely and just have The Wolverine 2 follow his previous movie directly, focusing only on its titular character. For Sony, such a reliance on a single character is kind of a curse, but for Mangold it just might be a luXury.

Today's Mini(?)-Review: Frozen

Frozen: ****/*****, or 8/10

Say what you will about conservative Disney, there is some form of modernization in progress in that studio. You might even label it a feminist wave of sorts. Frozen marks Disney's first feature length animated film (co-)directed by a woman and only the second whose screenplay was written by such a creature. Not counting Pixar, since then it would have to contend with Brave, a movie where the girl power backfired, as did the quality of the piece as a whole. And while Frozen largely stays within the trite-and-true boundaries we've come to expect from Disney's fairy tale movies, including princesses, charming princes, faraway lands, comedic (animal) sidekicks and plenty of catchy songs, enough of such regularly exploited material is directionally changed to make the film feel as fresh and cool as the imagery the title inspires. Jennifer Lee's directorial debut introduces not one, but two beautiful young princesses, Elsa (voiced by Idina Menzel) and her younger sister Anna (Kristen Bell), heirs to the kingdom of Arendelle. Both are kind, independent and energetic spirits, but the older girl carries a terrible secret: she's basically a mutant with the power to control ice and snow, except she doesn't control it at all, since her fear to wield it controls her instead. She has cause to be afraid of her powers, as she nearly killed Anna at play as a child. Her parents tried to keep her out of harm's way by largely keeping her confined to her chambers, much to the dismay of her sister, who had her injury and memory of the incident erased by a nice wizard troll (this is a work of fantasy, need I say more?). After the death of their parents and the coming-of-age of the elder sister, a coronation takes place where Elsa is crowned queen and where Anna – hilariously – meets her apparent groom-to-be, the latter event uterly disrupting the former as Elsa unwittingly gets pushed so far she sparks an endless winter that covers the entire kingdom in frost. Fleeing the palace to built her own on a high mountain precipice where she finally starts to accept her powers in her moments of isolation, Anna is determined to bring back her sister and get her to undo her unintentional damage to the realm, which leaves her land vulnerable to the shady ambition of certain visiting foreign dignitaries. Accompanied by a simple but reliable young backwoods man named Kristoff, his carrot obsessed reindeer Sven and a wacky living snowman named Olaf, Anna sets out on a tough voyage to reunite with her wayward sister and bring summer back to Arendelle. And, in typical Disney fashion, to discover True Love in the process. But not in the usual sense of old.

Frozen proves a worthy successor to the similarly themed, equally wonderful Tangled (2010), which also re-established Disney's formidable talent to craft charming, adventurous and romantic fantasy films for all ages after over a decade of creative drought, as well as updating its female characters to the 21^st century, a time in which the main focus of a woman is no longer a man to marry (but also not excluding the possibility as not to upset the traditionalists in the audience). Frozen introduces two solid female characters who care first and foremost about eachother, though one of them does not allow herself to show said fact. Both women are sizzling with recognizable character flaws and strengths, familiar emotional family conflict and the talent to burst into song, so despite their ultimately antagonistic nature (though the traditional 'good versus bad' set-up is carefully avoided in their strained relationship), you root for them and their sibling affection both to survive against all odds. Simultaneously, while the sterotypical good looking prince to wed is not an image to be discarded, it develops into quite another direction than is usual, and the expected notion of cheesy True Love messages doesn't end up covering the usual sexual connection between boy and girl. The voice cast delivers impeccable acting and shares an audible chemistry, standout performances including a hilarious Scandinavian tradesman (jå!) and Olaf, the token sidekick, who is not nearly as irritating as he could have been and actually warms everybody's heart with his simple but unattainable desire. Similarly enjoyable are the clan of stone trolls, Kristoff's surrogate family, a group of Smurfesque creatures with the ability to succesfully camouflage themselves as rocks, and who unfortunately don't nearly have as much screen time or background exploration as we would have liked. And if you're afraid the reindeer talks (since animals with the ability to speak are an oft dreaded Disney staple still), fear not: his master does so for him to witty, almost self-reflective results. The songs are a welcome return to tradition; though for a moment at the start of the film they seem to comprise most of the dialogue, better balance to the music is applied later on. Apart from pleasing the aural senses, Frozen offers a delightful visual feast as well with its wondrous winter landscapes and ever present snow motifs, but considering the darkness of many scenes coupled with the obligatory 3D effect, not all the imagery ends up looking as amazing as it could have been. However, many of the 3D shots in the lighter scenes hit their mark, especially those involving snow and icicles, so seeing the 2D version instead isn't wholly recommended either.

In a time where Pixar is increasingly going down the drain creatively because of its lack of inspiration and its current focus on prequels and sequels, a thoroughly wonderful and ideologically original pure Disney film like Frozen is a welcome sight. Even the coolest minds and the coldest hearts will find it hard not to melt due to this film's built-in warmth, and with the dominant motif of snow and ice, Frozen proves to be a perfect Holiday movie for old and young alike.

Today's mini-review: Jack the Giant Slayer

Here's a quickie for ya. Saw this movie two months back but didn't get around to post stuff about it.

Jack the Giant Slayer: ***/*****, or 7/10

Bryan Singer's reimagining of the story about the farmboy Jack who fought savage giants mixes the cheerful British fairy tale Jack and the Bean Stalk with the darker and more violent related tale of Jack the Giant Killer, resulting in a hybrid which incorporates the key narrative elements of both for its own plot purposes. The result is an entertaining adventure flick which sadly looses some of its pleasuring punch by trusting in overly trite but true fairy tale signifiers too much. Simple country boy Jack (Nicholas Hoult, X-Men: First Class) meets gorgeous princess Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson), who prefers adventure over the boring life of royalty. She gets more than she bargained for when she seeks shelter at Jack's home during a stormy night, just when alleged magic beans he spilled take root and quickly form a giant bean stalk, rising to a strange land above the clouds and sweeping the girl along. The King sends a rescue party to retrieve his daughter, and Jack volunteers to save this girl that's oh so out of his league despite their mutual attractions. Unfortunately for their young love, the land in the skies is inhabited by a race of brutal giants, who were exiled there in ages past so their taste for human flesh would no longer plague mankind. Of course, upon learning a new connection between their two worlds has been established, the monsters soon plan to make use of it to return to Earth and scour the land for human snack food. Thrown in the mix is a subplot regarding a treacherous count (Stanley Tucci) set to marry Isabelle, who only wants to use her to become king himself, and eagerly turns towards controlling the giants via a magic crown to achieve his goal. A solid and simple plot, devoid of surprises, and regrettably hindered by cliché character building, clearly delineating the good guys from the bad, while centered around a fairly boring love affair that all too typically rises above class dinstinctions. It's all a tad too 'Disney' for a capable director like Singer, but there's still a few things to enjoy here. For one thing, there's the abundance of good character actors the likes of Ian McShane and Ewan McGregor (with intriguing facial hair!) that take good care of the supporting roles, but unfortunately can't make the bland performances by the main couple more lively. For another, there's the impressive array of nasty giants that make for a formidable enemy and fun action scenes galore, as well as a bunch of morbidly gory instances of suspense. It's clear the huge budget went first and foremost to the FX departments, who did a hell of a job with the overall design of the vicious creatures – the grotesque two headed giant leader particularly – and their grandiose final battle against their favorite food. If only Singer had spent more time finetuning the story to make it feel a little less old-fashioned and predictable, this movie might have done more slaying at the box office.

Mirror, Mirror on the wall, Charlize Theron is fairer than y'all

Snow White and the Huntsman: ***/*****, or 6/10

Re-imagining fairy tales feminist style seems to be getting all the rage lately. After having young Alice don armour to fight the evil queen in Tim Burton's recent Alice in Wonderland, Snow White now gets to do the exact same thing (courtesy of the same producer, Joe Roth, no doubt). Considering her previous failure as a comedian in Tarsem Singh's Mirror, Mirror only two months ago, applying a more action oriented approach might not have been a bad idea. It obviously sets this Snow White apart from that disappointment. Unfortunately, the resulting Snow White and the Huntsmen still leaves a lot to be desired, and makes it frustratingly clear just how damn subjective the term 'fair' actually is.

Snow White and the Huntsmen does away with the overly feel-good style of both its comedic predecessor and the classic Disney version, instead traveling a grittier, bleaker and definitely gorier road, making it feel more like a Tim Burton or Peter Jackson flick at times. At least first time director Rupert Sanders took hints from his accomplished peers instead of slavishly rehashing the many versions of the Snow White tale that came before. His best card comes in the shape of casting Charlize Theron as the evil queen, in this version named Ravenna instead of just dubbed 'evil queen' as happens more frequently. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Sanders' biggest problem turns out to be Kristen Stewart's performance as Snow White herself, a rather soulless and bland piece of casting that fails to convince the audience to root for her as a brave and inspiring leader of men in their desperate struggle against tyranny. For this is basically what the tale of Snow White has been turned into in this film, a typical fight between good and evil that never leaves the viewer pondering whose side the characters are on since both terms are clearly delineated and leave no room for compromise.

The movie opens with a lengthy but intriguing flashback revealing the series of events that lead to the status quo as it is when the story truly kicks off. For unclear reasons this prologue is narrated by the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth largely reprising his role as Thor, playing an impulsive and stubborn though often foolish but ultimately likeable strongman, but with a Scottish accent this time), who takes no part in this background history himself, probably to give Hemsworth something to do before entering the movie after it has been running for 40 minutes already. The backstory tells of the birth of Snow White in a beautiful kingdom under the happy reign of her wise and beloved mother and father, before it falls into ruin and despair when the queen dies and her husband is tricked into marrying the beautiful Ravenna, only to be murdered by the treacherous wench on his wedding night. When this pretender usurps the throne, young Snow White is swiftly locked away and all those who oppose the new queen's reign are ruthlessly disposed of. The movie does not hesitate at all to portray Ravenna as a vile witch with no sense of good in her at all, while Snow White simply can do no wrong and is eventually heralded a female Messiah for the otherwise nameless fantasy realm the movie takes place in. It's this overly simplistic way of depicting both sides of the coin without any possibility for overlap to the other side from either character that makes Snow White and the Huntsmen loose touch with the older demographics the movie aims for- the film is rated PG-13 in the USA, while it's '12' in the Netherlands – since few people in the audience would ever swallow good and evil are so easily and strictly defined.

At least Charlize Theron got it easy, since her Ravenna is not just a wholesomely despicable person, but also dabbles in the dark arts, thus allowing the accomplished actress (who can currently be seen delivering another stellar performance in Ridley Scott's Prometheus) to have a ball playing this wicked witch, wearing impressive gowns, surrounded by beautiful eerie castle sets and pointy props, going around viciously intimidating and torturing people and poking into bird guts in her spare time. She has good cause for engaging in such naughty behavior, having been used and abused by men since childhood, turning to black magic to ensure her ongoing beauty so she would never be powerless against men again and instead could use them for her own purposes. Thus, the movie gives the queen some much needed character background most other versions of the fairy tale have lacked, making Ravenna initially sympathetic until she does to Snow White what has been done to her. Theron makes no secret she's enjoying the role immensely, and delivers the movie's standout performance, ranging from subtle manipulation of ill-fated prisoners to boldly going over the top when throwing temper-tantrums at her incompetent inferiors who keep messing up her plans for total domination.

Perhaps it's due to the excessive amount of screen time the poor Snow White spends huddled in dark dungeons, wading through sewers or crawling in mud that Kristen Stewart's portrayal pales so much in comparison. Stewart, of Twilight fame, spends most of the movie running for her life from the forces of the queen, ending up in the so-called Dark Forest, a generally unpleasant place filled with creepy crawlies, damp fog and the like, a place from which only one man has ever returned. And so Ravenna tasks this man, the nameless Huntsman of the title, to track the renegade royalty, since it conveniently occurred she happened to escape on the very day the queen found out she had to consume the girl's heart to gain eternal beauty and immortality, after having locked her away for ten years without ever taking the time to decide what to actually do with her. The Huntsman reluctantly agrees to pursue the runaway in the exchange for the resurrection of his dead wife by the queen, something both parties fully realize isn't gonna happen at all.

Warning! Here be spoilers! When the Huntsman locates Snow White after about a five minute search, Stewart finally gets someone to play off against, but again fails to prove her worth as an actress, instead delivering a fairly uncompelling performance against Hemsworth's more agreeable portrayal of a man who lived a shallow life due to lack of faith in himself, found happiness in life with his wife and lost everything again when she was taken from him, being reduced to a much maligned drunkard. Apparently even a drunkard can find his way through the Dark Forest, so after predictably having switched allegiance, him and Snow White set out in search of the rebel fortress ruled over by an old friend of Snow White's father, whose son, Prince William (Sam Claflin as the less robust looking hunk of the film, for those girls in the audience who like their men less hairy and muddy) once fell in love with the princess but, along with the rest of the outside world has considered her to be dead since Ravenna took control. Apparently, where ever Kristen Stewart goes, love triangles follow, as she has romantic interludes with both the Huntsman and William the moment the latter joins up with her again. Anyone who wants her to hook up with either guy gets cheated in the end as the plot doesn't resolve the issue of which man will be hers, but leaves it open for the sequel. (A sequel already has been announced, despite the fact this movie has an otherwise closed ending that covers most of the original fairy tale. As was the case with Clash of the Titans, when the promise of money is involved, Hollywood will itself decide when a story is done, going so far as to make more of it up if needs be.)

On the way to the rebel stronghold the movie trades in a dark Gothic horror atmosphere for a more typical fantasy feel as Snow White and her friends encounter ever more diverse creatures of various shapes and sizes, including a giant troll, fairies and a forest god, indicating Snow White's power to inspire life and natural growth, as opposed to Ravenna who only deals in death and decay. The generally overtly digital characters only make Stewart's performance more inadequate, but fortunately eight (!) new characters soon enter the story to add some much need acting talent (mostly British) and some humour (since the film has so far taken itself overly serious), and few things in life are a funny as dwarves. These are not your average little people though: in fact, they're not little people at all, but normal sized actors having undergone digital alterations to make them appear smaller. Already an uproar has been created within the little people community over the absence of actual dwarves in favour of talented British actors of normal stature. It's an understandable reaction considering the already limited number of possible movie roles for little people, but the fact remains these eight dwarves add some much needed levity and heart to the film, mostly because of the talent assembled here, which includes Ian McShane, Ray Winstone, Bob Hoskins and Nick Frost. Lamenting the decline of the Dwarves (as a fantasy race, not as a medical condition) since Ravenna seized power, they willingly pledge their lives to Snow White's cause, but don't fret, they also sing and dance.

After having arrived at her allies' base and rallying the noble men to her cause by use of a rather uninspiring and unconvincing battle speech, the company of heroes set out to vanquish Ravenna in her dark tower, which leads to an not all that epic battle, and the pay-off between the two women, one pure, one evil, the movie has spent the last two hours to set up. Snow White dukes it out with Ravenna and her insidious sorcery over the dominion of the realm and the right to be called 'the fairest of them all'. Of course, the movie takes the meaning of the word 'fair' to include mental and spiritual beauty instead of solely referring to physical attractiveness, which is what Ravenna is all about. Though few men (and/or women) would seriously pick Stewart over Theron when it comes to physical looks (or acting skills), Theron's Ravenna obviously is a mean bitch and you wouldn't want her “ruling your country”. However, the movie defeminizes Snow White in the climax, having her confront Ravenna fully battle clad in shining armour and equipped with a particularly sticky sword, and as such completely masculine instead of fighting the queen on feminine terms, thus making her cheat. Even though Ravenna uses men to fight for her while Snow White gets men to love her (mostly in a platonic sense), in the end she feels more like a brother-in-arms to the Huntsman, the Prince and the Dwarves, a feeling which is reinforced at the end of the movie when Snow White refuses to pick one potential love interest over another, having reconquered her throne on their terms by vicious bloodshed in battle. The alternative of course would have been to let either the Huntsman or the Prince save the day and fighting her battle for her, as was the case in the classic Disney movie. But such stereotypical male gallantry is not desired in this day and age, especially when the movie needs to appeal to the modern teenage girls for who Stewart undoubtedly is the main draw of the piece. As for keeping it open who she ends up with, it took her four Twilight films to decide to finally have sex with that vampire instead of the werewolf, so she's just catering to her fanbase's expectations.

So the final score is:

-acting: Theron 1, Stewart 0

-physical appearance: Theron 1, Stewart 0 (too much mud)

-playing a nice girl: Theron 0, Stewart 1

Theron is fairest! Besides, many guys generally prefer bad girls anyway.

Overall, Snow White proves to her own weakest link in Snow White and the Huntsman, as she is outperformed by the evil queen, outcharmed by the Dwarves, outmuddied by the Huntsman and outed as a tomboy by wearing battle armour to kill the witch. In short, Stewart's Snow White has no heart, which makes it hard to compellingly win those of her fellow freedom fighters, and impossible for the queen to rip out of her chest, forcing the latter to steal the audience's hearts instead by doing a better acting job by far. The movie at least delivers great visuals and decent action scenes, plus the most fun Dwarves and grimiest Huntsman so far. A good look, excellent cast of supporting characters, cool evil queen and teen heroine in shining armour: basically the producer of Alice in Wonderland gives us more of the same with Snow White and the Huntsman. There's many other fairy tales left to apply the same tactics too, so maybe we'll see the Little Mermaid or Sleeping Beauty in a similar fashion too in the not too distant future.

And watch the trailer here:

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/universal/snowwhiteandthehuntsman/

Big Fish

Rating: ****/*****, or 8/10

Delightful tragicomedy like only Tim Burton can give us, regarding a man (Albert Finney) who spends his entire life telling tall tales, to such an extent his son (Billy Crudup) can't separate fiction from reality, much to his chagrin. In search for the truth the son meets a variety of characters from his father's life, while the audience is treated to a wide array of very amusing and charming stories about the man's past, from his birth and his youth, the first time he falls in love as a young man (played with apparent enthusiasm by a vigorous Ewan McGregor), his days in the army and as a janitor at a circus to his dying days where he is fondly remembered by those he has touched in his eventful life. A wonderful ode to life, Burton mixes his oddball Gothic visual style with a decidedly positive attitude to the very nature of human existence, effectively relaying his carpe diem message of 'don't worry about anything and just enjoy life one day at a time'. In the end, the son and the viewer learn that the tales make the man, and it doesn't really matter what's true and what's not. Both visually and story wise, this is one of Burton's finest achievements – despite (or because of?) the absence of Johnny Depp – as well as a very fun but poignant film in general. Plus, it contains an always useful and welcome guide to conquering the girl of your dreams' heart.

Starring: Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Helena Bonham Carter

Directed by Tim Burton

USA: Columbia Pictures, 2003