Moonrise Men in Shadows - Cinebinge

Eva Green (Photo credit: Photogrammaton)

Another cinebinge for me yesterday. Sadly Two Days in Paris has been completely ignored in this area and equally sadly, I failed to notice Raid until too late and missed that too. Meanwhile there were new films by two distinctive "auteur" directors whose work I like and the third outing for a franchise I've enjoyed, so it wasn't hard to find a triple bill.

CANNES, FRANCE - MAY 16: (R-L) Actor Jason Schwartzman, actor Bruce Willis and director Wes Anderson pose at the 'Moonrise Kingdom' photocall during the 65th Annual Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals on May 16, 2012 in Cannes, France. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

First and best was the new Wes Anderson film "Moonrise Kingdom". Another sweet slice of whimsy from the writer and director of The Life Aquatic, Rushmore, Royal Tenenbaums, Bottle Rocket, Fantastic Mr Fox and Darjeeling Limited. This is typically quirky, with every frame carefully coloured and composed and with some oddball characters with their own logic.

It features a very good cast including Bill Murray from Life Aquatic as well as Francis McDormand, Bruce Willis, Ed Norton, Harvey Keitel, Tilda Swinton and others. The two unknowns playing the unlikely lovers at the heart of the story (Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward) are also very good. Jared (Sam) is one of an unlikely bunch of "Khaki Scouts of North America", led by well meaning if ineffectual scout leader Ed Norton, and uses his wilderness skills to run away with fellow misfit, Suzy. Meanwhile, the rest of the scouts and the aforementioned adults form a chaotic search party.

There are some stylised touches which echo some of the oddity of The Life Aquatic, in fact our exp

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (soundtrack) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

loration of the Suzy's house at the beginning of the film immediately brought that to mind as the camera pans about, looking through the side of the house and catching vignettes of the characters going about their lives. Here though it never overwhelms the film or distances us enough that the film and its characters are not engaging. This was a lovely cinema experience for me. A delight, which I would like to see again and at the very least will hopefully be in my DVD collection before too long.

After that start, inevitably the rest suffered a bit by comparison. A quick lunch break and then it was on

Cover of Men in Black (Deluxe Edition)

with Men in Black 3. Nothing wrong with the film, and I did enjoy it, but whether for the fact that its "back in time" plot deprived us of a lot of Tommy Lee Jones or for its overreliance on plot at the expense of the inventiveness of the previous films I can't decide. Perhaps it's just that we have seen it all before now. We know to expect big guns and butt-ugly monsters with lots of goo and slime and unpleasant orifices.

Even the always delightful presence of Emma Thompson didn't quite lift the excitement for me. I suppose you can't say that a film featuring giant fish monsters, people jumping off the Chrysler building and the launch of Apollo 11 etc isn't exactly just doing it by the numbers so perhaps it's just me that's jaded. Plenty of fun to be had but less originality I suppose...and why do we always have to be massively high up in every film these days?

English: Johnny Depp at a ceremony for Penélope Cruz to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Which brings me to the last film of the day (because of some cliff-edge teetering and plummeting). This was "Dark Shadows" by another quirky director whose work I love: Tim Burton. Not surprisingly the cast included his best pal Johnny Depp and his missus Helena Bonham-Carter as usual, and also included Michelle Pfeifer, Eva Green (as the evil baddy) and perhaps in a nod to the history of such gothic grand guignol, another Burton regular:  Christopher Lee.

The material is originally from a television series of the sixties and seventies about a cursed family and including vampires, witches and werewolves. Unfortunately I had never seen it so I didn't have the affection for the idea that I might have or spot the cameos by the original stars of the show, so it had to stand on its own as a film.





I must say I enjoyed it, but it is somewhat chaotic, and must be less original seeming to an audience post  Buffy, True Blood, Being Human, Twilight, Addams Family and endless other franchises than it appeared in the sixties.

Ideal material for Tim Burton of course as he is a lover of the fantastick, gothic and  macabre. In its way, often great fun especially if you can relax and go with Depp's camp and over the top performance. I enjoyed it, but both this and MiB felt lacking in originality in the wake of the delicious daftness of Moonrise Kingdom.