mr_underperson Reviews

Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

unmissable

[10/10 · 3 February 2005]

Stephen Chow has finally come home.

For sure, this is the movie he always wanted to make; a dazzling, in-your-gonads kick of a mind-blowing kung fu flick! I watched this about a month ago, and I'm still ranting about it to friends and family.

Descriptions are pointless, words useless; if you like kung fu movies, hell, just movies! go see this! go now! Almost no aspect of the movie-making craft is left unmastered. An object lesson in how to push the boundaries of art and technology, and yet still make a funny-as-hell kung fu movie.

total respect

-mu

The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003)

Ignore the critics.

[8/10 · 30 January 2005]

I promised to watch this with a friend, and I wasn't much looking forward to the experience. Thankfully, I was wrong.

"Pleasantly Surprised" would be understatement. The Lizzie McGuire story is tremendous fun. I'm no Hillary Duff fan, but after watching this, I'll be keeping an eye on her, for sure.

The whole film, save a brief introduction (in which Lizzie screws up so gloriously it ends up on CNN), is set in Rome, on Lizzie's school trip. Their tenacious chaperon "The Ungermeyer" has a culture-packed join-the-dots tour of Rome planned for all the "halflings", but after a chance encounter with Paolo, a famous Roman pop-star, Lizzie decides to feign illness and embark on a different kind of holiday, one filled with adventure, fun and romance, like all good holidays should be.

Amazingly, she's the spitting-image of Paolo's estranged singing partner, and our Roman Prince Charming has an enticing proposition that Lizzie simply can't resist, and so begins the adventure of a lifetime. Will she fall flat on her face again? Or will she rise to the challenge? Lizzie's inner thoughts take the form of a cute animated Lizzie cartoon (A clever wee alter-ego device which I will refer to as "The Lizziette") that pops in and out of the film and also moonlights doing the opening titles. At one point The Liziette spits out her coffee in shock, and I, also drinking coffee then, did exactly the same. Priceless.

Miss Ungermeyer, a full-on fantasy stereotypical military-style headmistress, gets most of the best lines, and enjoys nothing more than propelling disdainful abuse at the "back-talking miscreants" she has to accompany, anyone, in fact. Her opening line is.. "Attention Parents! Shut your Pie-holes!", which she delivers via her own personal amplification system. I fell in love with her character immediately.

There's a couple of scenes where you can actually smell her lipstick, and I couldn't get the image of her standing with a whip in her hand out my mind. I found myself looking forward to her next scene. Fortunately she has quite a few, even some potential love interest. From that very first glance at Sergei (Paolo's bodyguard) you can feel the chemistry between them (certainly more highly charged than Paolo's limp romantic efforts), and I half expected some kind of torrid encounter to follow. Maybe in the sequel.

Okay, it's for kids, and it's stuffed with all the feelgoodness and simple moralising we've come to expect from Disney's live features (albeit often flawed moralising). But that doesn't stop it being a cracking story, with a lovely twist in it's tail, and plenty of laughs along the way. Jerzy Zielinski does a beautiful job with the cinematography (it certainly gave me the urge to fly to Rome immediately!) and Jim Fall (a bold choice from Disney) turned the directing of a simple teen-idol vehicle into the creation of a modern teen classic.

The supporting cast mostly do a fine job, too. Okay, Yani Gellman's (Paolo) performance is dismal, but is in fact *acted* that way, I believe (I'm being kind perhaps), and Jake Thomas needs to get back to school immediately (he's still very young), but for an hour and a half, I didn't care much about all that, I was too busy enjoying the movie, laughing a lot. If you don't laugh out loud during this film, you must be dead.

They're on holiday, you see, and that's the spirit in which to watch The Lizzie McGuire Story; kick off your shoes, loosen your belt, enjoy the songs, the gorgeous views of Rome, the clever script (oh yes it is), and Hillary Duff's radiant, and surprisingly fine-tuned performance.

The soundtrack isn't my cup of tea, but it certainly works well in the movie, and for the life of me, I can't get that damn "What dreams are made of" out of my head. It's a pity they never recorder a full-length "Ballad" version. (did they? the album version is only one verse-one chorus, hmm)

In the grand scale of "film" it probably rates around a 7, but I'm giving it 8 because it was such an unexpected pleasure, and the current rating here at IMDb is just plain WRONG!

8 out of 10

I want to watch it again.

-mu

For the Birds (2000)

three minutes of bliss

[10/10 · 23 January 2005]

Okay an hour, if like me you watch it twenty times, and then watch it again. I recommend copying it from the DVD onto your hard drive, keep it handy.

"For The Birds" is another slick, colourful vignette from the wonderful Pixar animation studio, a delightful moral tale, and simply essential viewing for anyone following their remarkable output.

A masterwork of lightening fast character sketching and feathery CGI texture work, comic at every turn, and still laugh-out-loud funny after two dozen viewings or more. Watch out, most of the best action happens at the left hand side.

The sort of thing you could imagine some Pixar genius tossing off over lunch-break, just for fun, except it probably took months to create and weeks to render. But sure worth every single CPU cycle.

Will get a belly-laugh even from problem children.

-mu