Jumanji

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Rating 3¾


Directed by Joe Johnston

Written by Jonathan Hensleigh, Greg Taylor and Jim Strain, based on the book by Chris Van Allsburg

Starring Robin Williams (Alan Parrish), Kirsten Dunst (Judy Shepherd), Bradley Pierce (Peter Shepherd), Bonnie Hunt (Sarah Whittle), Bebe Neuwirth (Nora Shepherd), David Alan Grier (Carl Bentley), Jonathan Hyde (Van Pelt / Sam Parrish), Patricia Clarkson (Carol-Anne Parrish), Adam Hann-Byrd (Young Alan) and Laura Bell Bundy (Young Sarah)


12-year-old Alan Parrish is bullied by other boys because of his friendship with Sarah Whittle. His father is a cold and distant figure in his life who plans to send him away to boarding school. Alan finds a strange board game that had been buried a hundred years previously and is literally sucked into the game when he and Sarah start to play it. She flees from the house in terror, pursued by African bats, but nobody believes her story of what happened and Alan’s disappearance remains a mystery from that day on. Twenty-six years later Nora Shepherd moves into the house once occupied by the Parrish family with her young niece and nephew Judy and Peter. Their parents were killed in an automobile accident. The children find the board game in the attic and when they start to play it they release Alan, now a fully-grown man, but (with the help of Alan and Sarah) they must complete the game to save the local community from the chaos and destruction they have unwittingly unleashed.

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‘Jumanji’ is a 1995 family film based on a 1981 illustrated children’s book by Chris Van Allsburg, who also wrote ‘The Polar Express’. The film employed what were then state-of-the-art special affects and had a production budget of $65 million. It grossed just under $263 million at the box office. Reviews were mixed. 26 reviews are collected at Rotten Tomatoes and result in a 50% rating. At Metacritic the rating is 39% from 18 reviews. At Amazon the brief write-up by Jeff Shannon describes the films as, “A chaotic and misguided attempt at family entertainment, the movies does offer a few good laughs, and the effects are frequently impressive, if not entirely convincing to the eye.”

I certainly agree about the special effects, which are at once impressive (although slightly ragged looking fifteen years on) and yet strangely unconvincing. However, this is a film I like very much. I did not see the film at the cinema and I have never owned a copy on video or DVD, but I have now watched it about half-a-dozen times when it has been shown on television and I have enjoyed it immensely each time.

It’s a spirited romp with a touch of invention in the story and a perfect vehicle for the feverish mugging that is the stock-in-trade of Robin Williams. He is on good form here, but his over-the-top antics do not overwhelm the film and his odd combination of frenetic over-acting and mawkish sentimentality (a kind of mixture of the Three Stooges and Charlie Chaplin) works impeccably. The film has a strong cast generally, including 13-year-old Kirsten Dunst, a year after ‘Interview with the Vampire’, and a blink and you might miss her appearance by Patricia Clarkson.

‘Jumanji’ is a contender for my all-time favourite family/children’s film. Great stuff.

Review posted 22 March 2010


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The Woods

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Rating 2¾


Directed by Lucky McKee

Written by David Ross

Starring Agnes Bruckner (Heather Fasulo), Patricia Clarkson (Ms Traverse), Bruce Campbell (Joe Fasulo), Emma Campbell (Alice Fasulo), Lauren Birkell (Marcy Turner), Rachel Nichols (Samantha Wise), Kathleen Mackay (Ann Whales), Jane Gilchrist (Ms Cross), Catherine Colvey (Ms Leland), Marcia Bennett (Ms Mackinaw), Cary Charevoix (Ms Cary Lawrence), Colleen Williams (Ms Arbor), Jude Beny (School Nurse), Gordon Currie (The Sheriff) and Angela Bettis (Voice in the Woods)

1965: When she starts a fire in a forest that nearly burns down her parents’ house, Heather Fussulo, a rebellious and sullen teenager, is sent to the strict Falburn Academy, an isolated all-girls boarding school. She repeatedly hears voices in the surrounding woods and is plagued by strange nightmares – and then some of the other girls begin to mysteriously disappear.

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In 2002 Lucky McKee wrote and directed the low budget independent psychological horror film ‘May’, starring Angela Bettis and Anna Faris, which received a lot of critical attention, won several awards and became a cult favourite. His next film ‘The Woods’, this time as director only, working from a screenplay written by David Ross, gathered dust for three years after it was made until finally being released on DVD in October 2006.

‘The Woods’ is a creepy psychological horror film, employing witchcraft as a kind of allegory for sexual repression, and is clearly influenced by Dario Argento’s hugely influential 1977 film ‘Suspiria’, as has been mentioned more than once in articles and reviews I have read. It has a deliberately slow pace that helps to create the atmosphere of soul-destroying oppression and tedium caused by the strict and repressive regime in the school. There is all kinds of repressed sexual imagery represented in scenes throughout the film. However, the pace is so slow that the sense of suspense does begin to dissipate after a while and there are no surprises to be found here. It is possible to surmise almost from the start exactly where the film is going and once it arrives there it does prove to be a rather flavourless, unsatisfactory and frankly botched climax. Having said that, it is a film that refuses to tread the same by-the-numbers path of most current horror films and there is much to admire here, including nice understated use of some Lesley Gore tracks, even if it perhaps never fires on all cylinders and ultimately disappoints more than not.

‘The Woods’ has a 67% fresh rating from twelve reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, although there are extremes of opinion expressed. Nick Schager calls it “polished and inventive”, but David Nusair thinks it “a complete misfire”. I think it is perhaps a misfire, but one that is certainly worth watching.

Review published 22 November 2009


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Simply Irresistible

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Rating 3½


Directed by Mark Tarlov

Written by Judith Roberts

Starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Sean Patrick Flanery, Patricia Clarkson and Dylan Baker


‘Simply Irresistible’ is, as far as most people who have seen it are concerned, a turkey -- and I absolutely adore it!

During her break following the end of production on the second season of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, Gellar filmed ‘Cruel Intentions’ in New York City and then joined the production of ‘Vanilla Fog’, a romantic comedy, also shot in the city. To ensure that filming was completed before Gellar’s commitment to the third season of ‘Buffy’, the first-unit production was wrapped-up very quickly. The intention was always that the film be ready for release in February 1999 to coincide with Valentine’s Day and cash-in on Gellar’s increasing “teen appeal”, which was then at its peak.

With a change of title to ‘Simply Irresistible’ (personally, I think they should have stuck with the original), the film opened in America on 5 February 1999 and had a domestic box office gross of less than $4.5 million, against a budget of $6 million. Oddly enough, the target audience for ‘Simply Irresistible’ was probably largely stolen by the Freddie Prinze Jr film ‘She’s All That’, a film in which Gellar makes a cameo appearance, which was released one week earlier and went on to pull in $103 million at the box office.

‘Simply Irresistible’ was written by a film industry lawyer and first-time writer, Judith Roberts, and directed by her husband Mark Tarlov, a former speech writer for the Chief Justice and producer of the films ‘Mortal Thoughts’, ‘Serial Mom’ and ‘Copycat’. Gellar has subsequently said she made a mistake signing to make the film, giving a number of reasons including the fact that she was simply too young and ill-equipped at that time for the role. There is undoubtedly some justification in her comments but I do think she is being overly self-critical. Its weaknesses are very evident, but this film really isn’t all that bad.

With a few exceptions, critics didn’t savage the film, although there were the predictable comments that it was ‘simply resistible’. Whoever came up with the change of title really should have seen that one coming. They merely gave it muted reviews, pointing out that it’s very derivative (several made reference to the similarities to ‘Like Water for Chocolate’) and meanders along without ever really going anywhere. Gellar, in general, got fairly good notices, although there were critics who took the opportunity to really stick the knife in.

“A graduate of the head-tossing school of acting with no depth and the emotional palette of a tuna fish, Gellar is not suited for the romantic lead… It is astonishing that Gellar, apparently unable to produce any range of emotion at all, was chosen by director Tarlov as the lead in this highly emotional story. But perhaps it was intentional; maybe we’re supposed to guess her feelings by her food, in the absence of any other clues… The love story of Simply Irresistible is satisfying in an offbeat way, and the film is visually mouth-watering, but the terrible juvenile Gellar’s lacklustre performance brings it down several steps from what it could and should be.”
John R McEwen: The Republican


So what’s it about? It will hardly come as a surprise to learn that it’s a bog standard rom-com storyline. Two people from very different backgrounds meet and fall in love. They become estranged (in this case, he thinks she’s a witch), but circumstances conspire to bring them back together and everyone lives happily ever after.

The celebrated New York fashion designer Todd Oldham designed Gellar’s wardrobe for the film. His designs were criticised for being wilfully garish and idiosyncratic, but they are typical of his style. I really like them, not that I could exactly be called a fashion expert! They do fit in nicely with the autumnal setting and the many visual references to Art Deco to be found in film. These days, Oldham has turned his attention to furniture design.

‘Simply Irresistible’ is not a great film. It is probably not even a very good film. However, it certainly isn’t a terrible film by any stretch of the imagination and it is genuinely and unashamedly warm-hearted. Gellar is very engaging in the lead role. It’s not an acting tour-de-force by any means, but it’s a nicely judged performance that plays to many of her strengths as an actor. She possesses something of the magnetic quality that many of the iconic film stars have, although I am not suggesting for one moment that she falls within this category. However, she does genuinely have the ability to project a very strong presence in front of the camera. What is perhaps lacking here is much in the way of any real chemistry with her co-star Sean Patrick Flanery.

In the end, had more time been spent polishing the script, had the production not been so rushed and had the ‘magic conduit’ not been a crab seemingly controlled by puppet-strings (I am not joking), ‘Simply Irresistible’ would have undoubtedly been a better film. Aiming a ‘grown-up’ rom-com at a teenage audience was perhaps a mistake, but the film was trying to cash-in on two affordable young actors who were both creating names for themselves in TV shows at the time. It is what it is and it has its own genuine charm.

“Simply Irresistible is old-fashioned and obvious, yes, like a featherweight comedy from the 1950s, but that’s the charm. I love movies that cut loose from the moorings of the possible and dance among their fancies… It’s not a great movie, but it’s a charmer.”
Roger Ebert: Chicago Sun Times

The picture scans from 'Simply Irrestistible' used here were scanned by Jules for smg-pix.com



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