Ferdinand the duck, witness to insanity.

Babe: Pig in the City

(1998)

George Miller seems to have a knack for box office oblivion with sequels to family films. Happy Feet 2 met with extreme indifference, whereas Pig in the City was greeted with outright rejection. Arguably, neither film merited a sequel but Miller’s choice to take the sheep pig on a twisted journey into the heart of darkness is at least unexpected and unyielding to the sensibilities of the little darlings who were its target audience.

Alarming also that Babe sets in motion the chain of danger and disaster when he hospitalises Farmer Hoggett. With the threat of foreclosure on the farm, he is sent with the farmer’s wife to the Big City to display his talents in a show with the promise of payment. Things don’t go as planned, however, and before long they end up lodging in animal-friendly hotel replete with all sorts of waifs and strays. Babe’s presence there is also a negative, leading to the occupants being captured and imprisoned (for animal testing?) The film is chock full of mortal thoughts, including a bull terrier that nearly drowns and a crippled dog with wheels experiencing heavenly fields before being called back.

Even if Miller doesn’t follow through with a downer ending, it’s admirable in a way that he was willing to go where he does. As precedents in his work go, there’s the same garish sense of humour on display that was evident in his earlier Witches of Eastwick. For the most part the film is engagingly surreal, even if the slapstick antics of Mrs Hoggett at the climax test the patience.

****

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She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

Life is like a box of timelines. You feel me?

Russian Doll Season One
(SPOILERS) It feels like loading the dice to proclaim something necessarily better because it’s female-driven, but that’s the tack The Hollywood Reporter took with its effusive review of Russian Doll, suggesting “although Nadia goes on a similar journey of self-discovery to Bill Murray’s hackneyed reporter in Groundhog Day, the fact that the show was created, written by and stars women means that it offers up a different, less exploitative and far more thoughtful angle” (than the predominately male-centric entries in the sub-genre). Which rather sounds like Rosie Knight changing the facts to fit her argument. And ironic, given star Natasha Lyonne has gone out of her way to stress the show’s inclusive message. Russian Dollis good, but the suggestion that “unlike its predecessors (it) provides a thoughtfulness, authenticity and honesty which makes it inevitable end (sic) all the more powerful” is cobblers.

My name is Dr. King Schultz, this is my valet, Django, and these are our horses, Fritz, and Tony.

Django Unchained (2012)
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We’re not owners here, Karen. We’re just passing through.

Out of Africa (1985)
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I don’t think you will see President Pierce again.

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Rejoice! The broken are the more evolved. Rejoice.

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Shyamalan has seized on a horror staple – nubile teenage girls in peril, prey to a psychotic antagonist – and, no doubt with the best intentions, attempted to warp it. But, in so doing, he has dragged in themes and threads from other, more meritable fare, with the consequence that, in the end, the conflicting positions rather subvert his attempts at subversion…

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You use a scalpel. I prefer a hammer.

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Just make love to that wall, pervert!

Seinfeld 2.10: The Statue
The Premise
Jerry employs a cleaner, the boyfriend of an author whose book Elaine is editing. He leaves the apartment spotless, but Jerry is convinced he has made off with a statue.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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