Tuesday, November 24, 2009

STARDUST

Wow, the last 15 minutes is just %$#@# AMAZING, isn't it?

Seriously, best swordfight/chandelier/true love rescue in ... I don't know how long. Plus, Mark Strong bonus points.

(I know, I know, took me long enough.)

71 comments:

  1. Yes, yes it did take you long enough.

    I sat down to watch that movie without making the connection to Gaiman, so the dark humor came as a complete surprise. It was awesome.

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  2. It's one of the few movies I've ever seen that I thought was BETTER than its literary source (I read the book after seeing the movie, and couldn't finish it, I was so bored). An outstanding movie.

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  3. I really don't know how Stardust didn't get better press. Between that and Beowulf (which I also thought was really good) if it wasn't for Coraline, I'd assume there was some kind of Gaiman curse.

    Mark Strong's learning the swordfight at the end without being able to see - just stunning. And the casting's fantastic too.

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  4. DeNiro kind of ruined the movie for me. Badly miscast, and hammy.

    Can you imagine how much more awesome it would have been if they cast Stephen Fry in the role?

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  5. I liked both the movie and the book in completely different ways, which I consider to be a pretty major freaking achievement.

    (Although I think I slightly favor the book for having the other girlfriend be apologetic and more mature, instead of getting her comeuppance at the end.)

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  6. I saw a prerelease and thought everything was great until the song they used for closing credits made it all come crashing down. I really need to watch it again and see if that was changed or if I just need to stop the movie before the credits start.

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  7. I kicked myself also for waiting so long to see it, and then I became that annoying person at my office who runs around and demands everyone take it home and watch it.

    @Tom See, I thought DeNiro made the film. He had too much fun spoofing, well, pretty much every other role he's ever played.

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  8. Count me among those who thought DeNiro was a blast in Stardust. Very fun film, and I say that as an inveterate curmudgeon when it comes to such things.

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  9. Loved this movie.

    @DrGaellon the text-only literary source isn't nearly as engrossing as the illustrated color edition with Charles Vess. You might enjoy that one more. They managed to capture some of that feel in the film, but I agree with @John Seavey - both are enjoyable in their own way for different reasons. I adore the battle with the unicorn that's missing from the film for instance.

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  10. I saw this in the theater and had a big stupid smile on my face for hours afterwards.

    A worthy inheritor of the Fantasy Movie Pretty Damn Near Everybody Can Like title, held for decades by The Princess Bride.

    My sister and her husband are very cautious about what movies they let my nieces watch. I mean, it's perfectly OK for them to watch Twilight and all of those horrible Disney Channel girly shows, but it took a major effort to get them to play the copy of Spirited Away I lent them.

    Last winter I managed to get them to watch Stardust. The kids have watched it several times since. I've essentially written off that DVD. They're welcome to it.

    @Tom: I love Stephen Fry, but I think DeNiro is better in this case because he's better able to pull off the Ruthless Pirate side of his personality.

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  11. Loved this movie. Didn't think I would - thought at first it would be a cheap ripoff of Princess Bride.

    And the sword fight at the end is so much fun to watch! The little humorous bits throughout the movie made it that much more enjoyable.

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  12. My weekly D&D4E game is based on Stardust, or rather, what Stardust would have been like had Neil brought Guy Ritchie on as a director. But same idea of a town/settlement on the border of Faerie, noble intrigues, magical curses, etc.

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  13. I haven't seen the movie, but have been a long-time admirer of the badly under-appreciated Mark Strong. Saw him years ago in "Closer" in the role Clive Owen originated. He's an amazing actor and a leading man in search of a leading man's role.

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  14. I had tons of cognitive dissonance the first time I saw the movie; I'd read the four-part illustrated book several times, and Charles Vess's illustrations had given me a very specific image of what faerie was like. When the movie got these "wrong" (such as Tristan's mom) it ruined my suspension of disbelief. I walked out of the theater knowing that I hadn't been able to give it a fair shot.

    Seeing it a second time was much more fun! By then I'd separated the two in my mind, and the completely new ending was fun instead of awkward.

    - Kevin

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  15. Listened to the book on tape, read by Gaiman himself. Then I read the book with Vess's illustrations. Next will be the movie.

    I try not to compare the adaptations to the original, because different mediums offer different tools for storytelling. So I'm looking forward to seeing the movie.

    By the way, have you read Gaiman's American Gods? Now, I picture Christian Kane (complete with that awesome hair) as Shadow. Somebody please make that movie!

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  16. Went to see that when it was first released, whole family loved it, and I recommended it to *everybody*. But then it vanished from theaters immediately. Seemed to get very negative critical reaction as well.

    Loved the book as well, but obviously they're quite different works.

    And I agree with those who enjoyed DeNiro.

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  17. "(I know, I know, took me long enough.)"

    That's okay; the fun people always come to the party fashionably late.

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  18. I thought it couldn't hold a candle to the book.

    But now I'm beginning to think they're both very different animals, and that the thing about Gaiman's stuff that always gets lost in adaptation is his tone.

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  19. Plus Robert Deniro as a gay sky-pirate(seriously). I'm fairly sure the man could make eating a sandwich fascinating.

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  20. Yeah, I was disappointed by this, having read the book first. The book is hardly a classic, but it's genuinely romantic and poignant, something the movie seems to go out of its way to strip from the story, turning it into a mindless FX spectacle.

    (SPOILERS)

    The movie's biggest screwup is turning Victoria into a villain. The whole point of the book was that Tristran was a hopeless romantic who wanted to prove his love to her, and she saw sending him to retrieve a falling star before she would marry him as a perfect way to let him down easy, since she was already engaged. She had no ill intentions, and--and this is the important part--she never expected him to actually try and bring the star back, let alone succeed. The fact that Tristran then runs out and actually does it, meeting his actual true love in the process, is what makes the story surprising and touching.

    The movie, weirdly, goes to great lengths to eliminate any of this nuance or surprise, becoming thuddingly predictable and incredibly boring, not to mention insulting to the viewer's intelligence. You could argue that Vaughn was pitching the story at a younger audience, but...why? The cool thing about the book, and much of Gaiman's work, is that it's pitched at a genuinely adult level, with complex characterizations and narratives that aren't easily resolved by killing the bad guy. But apparently the fact that this was a fantasy story turned these features into bugs.

    It's one thing to see a good story be mishandled, it's another to see everything that made it good be methodically and deliberately removed. It's akin to what Zemeckis just perpetrated on "A Christmas Carol".

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  21. When, oh when, will this movie be put on Blu-ray? It's already beautiful on DVD, but would be STUNNING in high def. (There is an HD DVD version, but I have no player for that.)

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  22. Anonymous4:30 PM

    I thought it was a piece of shit. But who am I? Just some anonymous jackoff on the internet. The fantasy world didn't seem internally consistent and none of the characters compelling.

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  23. Anonymous3:42 AM

    For what it's worth, I agree with Prankster that the character of Victoria seemed to have been made more two dimensional for the movie.

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