FIVE GREATEST FANTASY FILMS: Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

The next in my series of five greatest: this time, fantasy films:

The Lord of the Rings

 

 

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: The Lunchbox, The Missing Picture, Two Men in Manhattan

I once worked for an intellectual property law firm. One of the most unusual countries to deal with was India. By the time the renewals for trademark registrations were due, the original registration itself had yet to be accepted. I’m not sure what this says about bureaucracy in that country except that it definitely exists.

DOUBLE CROSS: Enemy

Before I begin, a quiz:

Let’s say that you were watching a movie and you saw someone in said movie that was the spitting image of yourself, and I mean, as far as you can tell, he could be your identical, not fraternal, twin.  You know, like in that movie starring Haley Mills (okay, okay, if you really feel the need to brag and say you are too young to have seen that, then the one starring Lindsay Lohen).   Would you:

PEOPLE COME, PEOPLE GO. NOTHING EVER HAPPENS: The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Grand Budapest Hotel, the new demi-farce written by Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness and directed by Anderson, is like a box of chocolates.  The outside is lovely to look at, even entrancing, and when you open it up, the chocolate itself gleams with droolful anticipation.

And then you bite into one and sometimes you get the deep, rich double chocolate you have always dreamed of, and sometimes you get the sour cherry cream (or whatever ingredient you consider to be the one you grimace at and throw back in the box after taking one quick bite).

OH, THE LACK OF HUMANITY: Junk and Cecil B. DeMille’s Madam Satan

As far as I’m concerned, Junk, the new movie about the independent film and film festival world, is the perfect example of what is right and wrong with American indie cinema today (I say indie as opposed to independent to distinguish it from movies made on a higher budget through major independent production companies).

WORST DATES EVER: LUCKY BASTARD and IN FEAR

Lucky Bastard, the new movie written by Lukas Kendall and Robert Nathan (who also directed) has one swell line of dialog.  Someone rings a doorbell and the heroine (porn star and amateur averse Ashley Saint) says it’s the real estate woman.  Our hero (the psychotic, premature ejaculator Dave G.) says, “no, it’s not the real estate woman”.

Exactly why this is such a bees’ knees and cats’ pajamas of a line will only be revealed upon seeing the movie.  But trust me, it’s damn swell.

OF MICE AND FRENCHMEN: ERNEST & CELESTINE and MAUVAIS SANG

In Ernest & Celestine, the Oscar nominated animated film from France, anthropomorphized bears dwell above ground, live like humans (one owns a candy store), and claim that mice fairies will come by in the night and leave money whenever a cub loses a tooth.

Meanwhile, anthropomorphized mice dwell in the sewers and steal bear teeth to use as dentures.

REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST: THE WIND RISES and JE T’AIME JE T’AIME

If one is Japanese, I suppose The Wind Rises, the latest and quite possibly lastest animated movie from celebrated filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki (of Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, et al.) is about an aviation engineer who brought Japan into the 20^th century in his design of airplanes.

MAMI DEAREST: CHILD’S POSE

The camera is hand held; the colors are muted; the subject matter is edgy, personal, biting, vicious even.  It must be Romanian new wave time.

CAUGHT BETWEEN HASSAD AND A HARD PLACE: OMAR

Omar, the new Palestinian thriller written and directed by Hany Abu-Assad (who also directed and co-wrote Paradise Now), is about Omar (natch), a Palestinian involved in a group fighting against the occupation and who soon finds himself caught between Hasan and a hard place (the hard place being the Mossad, or Israeli secret police).