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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 11/08/2009 : 16:38:58
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A Christmas Carol
What have Alastair Sim, Buddy Hackett, Tim Curry, Albert Finney, and Sid James all have in common? They've all played that old curmudgeon Ebenezer Scrooge. And, now, joining them is Jim Carrey. Damn, the guy is talented! Even through the souless process of motion capture he carves out a character that perfectly serves this umpteenth interpretation of the Dickens classic. Robert Zemeckis asks Carrey not only to voice the old man, but all his younger selves, as well as the three Christmas spirits who visit him and change his misanthropic life.
Trusting Carrey so completely Zemeckis can concentrate on the look of the film. I saw the 3D version, but I'm sure IMAX or 2D would have produced the same enchantment with the visual imagination. Dickens was always fascinated by the magical and a world experienced by the mind as well as the senses. Zemeckis takes this as his theme, composing shots to reflect the dichotomy. Technically it's a delight.
It's also of course a morality tale, which I wasn't sure would appeal to a generation so enured to violence and bite-sized narrative. But you could hear a pin drop in the cinema, and I believe I wasn't the only grown-up rooting around for a kleenex.
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Joe Blevins 
"Don't I look handsome?"
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Posted - 12/05/2009 : 01:46:24
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I saw two films over the Thanksgiving holiday -- A Christmas Carol and Planet 51.
As for Planet, there is very little to say. The film is pleasant to look at and amiable enough but never, ever catches fire. I desperately wanted it to take a wild left turn into madcap brilliance, but it just sort of puttered along. In the age of Pixar, it's just not enough. The script feels like one high concept (a human astronaut stranded on a world of aliens) awkwardly welded to another (a planet where it's still the 1950s), and neither one is strong enough to carry a movie. The characters are well-voiced but weakly developed. The astronaut is just your standard macho, egotistical lunkhead, and the main alien is far too nebbishy and indecisive. The robot dog was the most involving character. I'd rather have seen a film in which we follow his (its?) exploits for the entire running time, except then the film would have garnered unfavorable comparisons to Wall-E.
As for A Christmas Carol, I must say I was pretty darned impressed. Of course, there are many filmed adaptations of this story, and I've seen plenty of those -- cheering the (few) good ones, jeering the (many) bad. Zemeckis' version definitely falls into the first category, though you'd never know that from the reviews. This is a visual stunner, one of the best looking films of 2009. The level of detail is amazing. I could have spent 5 minutes just examining the gate outside Scrooge's home! Zemeckis himself penned the adapted screenplay, and for the most part, he's done a fine job of it. He's added a couple of action/chase sequences here and there, but largely he's stayed amazingly true to the Dickens text, much more so than, say, the beloved 1938 version with Reginald Owen (which is a fine film in its own right). One addition -- a brief prologue about the death of Marley -- is excellent and chilling. One of the things I liked best about this version is that it certainly does not play down the scary/creepy aspect of Dickens' tale. On the contrary, this is the scariest version of the story I've yet seen. Compared to other versions, the only area in which it is lacking is in emotional impact, and this only slightly. Carrey, I agree, makes a fine Scrooge. His performance is one of the film's many delights. I strongly recommend this one to pretty much everyone except those who are strongly antithetical to Zemeckis' recent motion capture animated films. If you haven't liked the look of the others (Polar Express and Beowulf), you may well be turned off by this one, too. But who knows? Maybe this is the one that changes your mind. I should point out that the film is very nicely scored as well and -- mercifully -- makes no apparent attempt to modernize the story or throw in gratuituous contemporary references.
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Edited by - Joe Blevins on 12/05/2009 02:03:22 |
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ChocolateLady 
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 12/05/2009 : 08:33:27
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| I haven't seen this latest Xmas Carol (although it is running here - surprisingly enough), but I did see a clip of it. Did I hear Carrey attempting a British accent in this? Whatever he was attempting, it sounded very fake to me. |
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A Christmas Carol
