from the Pearl & Dean Depa pa pa paa pa pa pa pa paartment*

I seem to have seen a lot of films recently, either at the cinema, or on DVD. I've not had time to write individual pieces about them, so I now present a summary of each. They're listed alphabetically, because frankly (Mr Shankly**) I can't be arsed remembering the order in which I saw them.

The Dish
This is an Australian film, so immediately, we know to expect a good film, with gentle humour, earthy characters, and lots of crocodiles all drinking Foster's lager.

In the past few years, I've enjoyed pretty much all Australian films I've seen (Muriel's Wedding and The Castle are two I can remember).

The highlight for me, was seeing a Hillman Minx on the big screen. My dad used to own one of these, back in the early 1970's.

The film is about actual events that happened, during the Apollo 11 mission to land the first man on the moon. During certain parts of the mission, the only tracking station that was large enough to receive radio, telemetry data and video back from the Apollo 11, was near the small town of Parkes, Australia.

And so, this becomes that classic, "small town lads save the day" movie.

There's all the characters you'll have come to expect from an Australian movie; the slightly dorky hero, the naive young guy, the brash middle-aged father figure, the crocodile hunter, the suave guy who doesn't wear a hat with corks dangling from it.

My favourite quote:
American NASA Guy: So, we dont know where Apollo 11 is?"
Australian Tracking Station Bloke: Yeah, it's on it's way to the Moon."

All in all, a gentle, enjoyable comedy, that won't have you clutching your sides, but is a nice way to spend 101 minutes. Unless you've got crocodiles you should be hunting.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Unless you've been living under a rock for the past several years, you'll have heard fo the British literary success that is Harry Potter. If, on the other hand, your interior design choices do involve moss, click on the link above for the details about the film.

Harry starts off as the adopted child of a couple who, should being gits become an Olympic sport, will be on the British team. They have a son of their own, modelled on Augustus Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the film had a different name). In short, they make his life hell.

Harry is eventually asked to join Hogwarts, the school for wizards and witches. This first film in a planned trilogy, focuses on Harry's first year at the Academy.

The young actors in it were good, the special effects were superbly crafted, and ... hold the front page:... Alan Rickman plays a sinister creepy guy, and Robbie Coltrane plays a tall fat guy.

Fierce Creatures
The A Fish Called Wanda crew team up again, joined by a bunch of familiar faces (to British TV), in a story about what a bastard Rupert Murdoch is.

Well, they don't actually come out and say this, but you'd have to be clinically dead not to spot the subtext here.

The villain of the piece is Australian Media Magnate Rod McCain, based in the US, who spends his day buying and dismantling other media and entertainment companies. For reasons best known to John Cleese and his co-writers, he buys a zoo, somewhere in Britain, and sends his henchmen to make it profitable.

Cleese plays an Englishman who's been living and working as a policeman in Hong Kong for the past 20 years, and is now in charge of the zoo. Jamie Lee Curtis does, "a bit of a Sean Connery", and plays herself, with a bad haircut (how could you tell the difference, some of you might be saying), as the American career gal with a heart. Even more improbably, she ends up falling for Cleese.

The reviews for this film were mostly negative, but I enjoyed it. It wasn't side-splittingly funny, but I chuckled at quite a few bits. Anyway, it's good to see Ronnie Corbett getting work.

The Importance of Being Earnest
Take today's two best-looking British actors, add one portion of Dame Judi Dench, a lass†† who looks just like Minnie Driver, but isn't, add a dash of 'token American actress to help US sales', dink around with the original script and stir well.

The link above includes a useful 'user review', that talks about how the producer has augmented Wilde's original story, in order to get more of the younger generations going to see the film.

Well, Mr Parker, it's like this. The younger audiences aren't going to be drawn in by Gwendoline getting a tattoo. The moment they see that it's Oscar Wilde, and not Adam Sandler, they'll be off on their skateboards as fast as their $200 Nikes will carry them.

Mallrats
Kevin Smith, as you may already know, is one of my favourite filmmakers.

Mallrats is yet another film about the whole middle-America slacker culture, and features the inimitable Jay and Silent Bob, in supporting roles.

The film didn't do brilliantly as far as the critics were concerned, but who gives a toss about them. Personally, I loved it! It had all the components of a good Kevin Smith film.

Epilogue
So that's it. We're up-to-date. Sorry it was such a long post. If you're still reading this, then you can now proclaim yourself part of the EID-hardcore (ooh let's just watch all the porn-related searches pick up this site now I've used that word!).

*US readers won't get this joke. Tough luck. It'd take way too long to explain.

**See the lyrics of Morrisey. Bill Shankly was the manager of Liverpool FC in the seventies, when Liverpool† were known as The Red Machine, and seemed unstoppable.

†A city in northern England famous for being my ancestral home. Oh yeah, and some band called The Beatles came from there too.

††Frances O'Connor