Adventure

I love this film, I think its one of the best animation shorts ever made and one of my all time Christmas favourites. Based on Raymond Briggs' classic children's book, it tells it's story entirely through animation which looks like coloured pencil/pastel drawings.

I think this animation would definitely lose something if it had any spoken dialogue. The music (which is composed by Howard Blake) compliments the images so well, from the little boy running downstairs to go out to play in the snow, playing a game of dress-up with his new friend in his parents bedroom, to the boy going on a motorbike ride, but one truly memorable sequence is the Walking in the Air song with the boy and snowman flying through the air, which is amazing.

In fact, this song is the only time any words are heard throughout the picture.

Interestingly, though Welsh choirboy Aled Jones scored a UK hit with the song, the version in the film is actually sung by Peter Auty.

Once the film even breaks the fourth wall as the Snowman sees a little figurine on a cake that looks exactly like him, which I thought was a cute touch.

I'm not ashamed to say I cried at the end. It was so sad and beautiful.

It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film in 1982.

This US DVD contains the original, unedited introduction, featuring author Raymond Briggs' solemn narration that I remember from when I was growing up. Nowadays, the version most available on DVD (and shown on TV since 2002) has a new animated opening, with Mel Smith (as Father Christmas) introducing the film. Having the author introduce it is much more meaningful.

I really enjoyed this film a lot, it is certainly a classic. This picture probably got made in part because of the success of Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and, like that film, it is a fantasy that has something for everyone and also a timeless appeal that we recognise even though it was made many years ago. Also like that film, it was a big challenge to make. It used lots of special effects, many of which hadn't been attempted before, such as the flying house in the tornado.

There were several directors on the film - Victor Fleming, George Cukor and King Vidor.
It looks fantastic on Blu Ray with a brilliant restoration (the switch from the sepia tones of Kansas to the Technicolor world of Oz is amazing). I think the use of a sepia tint makes Kansas seem old fashioned and quaint (even for 1939), thus making the jump into colour even more amazing. The original book came from about 1900 so maybe the use of sepia was an artistic choice by the film makers.

There are certainly many things to enjoy in the film, the memorable songs from childhood like We're Off to See the Wizard and Follow the Yellow Brick Road that have been ingrained in pop culture. I knew them from when I was young, but I hadn't seen the film then. The film is so seminal that it's inspired so many parodies and references over the years, in cartoons like Spongebob Squarepants and other films and TV shows, Broadway/West End shows like The Wiz, and Wicked - even a song by Australian folk-group The Seekers in the 1960's.
The Wizard of Oz has fantasy and fun-scary parts too (like the flying monkeys and Wicked Witch of the West).

The most iconic performance and song of all, I think, is when Dorothy sings the song Over the Rainbow to herself after her Aunt Em tells her to "Find yourself a place where you won't get into any trouble!" This is a song of longing, dreams and hope, as Dorothy wishes she were somewhere else more exciting.

Incredibly, this song almost didn't make it in the film because studio head Louis B. Mayer thought "it slows down the picture" and "our star sings it in a barnyard". But the writers including lyricist EY "Yip" Harburg, wanted it to stay. It paid off, as he and Harold Arlen won the Oscar for Over the Rainbow (Best Song).

It's interesting that over the course of the film, I think Dorothy learns to grow up and be more resourceful and stand up for herself. I think Judy Garland gives a very good performance. Her character and performance has a childlike, innocent quality (especially in the earlier stages of the film).

In fact, to make her appear younger than she really was, and not a teenager (she was really 16 at the time of filming), she was made to wear an uncomfortable corset style costume that strapped her down and tore some of her bust tissue.

As she grows braver, she also pours scorn on the Wizard, getting angry with him when she finds out he isn't all he seems....

Being whisked away to Oz itself, a strange land, plays on a child's fear of being in an odd, unfamilliar place and not being able to get back - which shows there is some darkness in the film as well as humour. Bert Lahr's voice as the Lion sounds like a cartoon character to me for some reason. I did really like the part when the Scarecrow tries to quote Pythagoras' theorem after getting a brain - except he applies it to an isosceles triangle instead of a right triangle. Guess he got a faulty brain from the Wizard.

If the film has a moral, I think it shows that maybe you shouldn't take what you have for granted - Dorothy's life in Kansas seemed boring, with dull sepia tones, so she goes away to a fantastic land (in colour) but still misses her home, as she says as the film ends "There's no place like home", because she realises that Kansas was where she really wanted to be all along.

I think the film also teaches that, what you think you may want is always there inside you, you just need to look deep enough. Dorothy always had the power to go home, and the Wizard says that her companions always had a brain, heart and courage - they just didn't know it.

The Blu Ray set has some excellent extras, including lots of trailers, a very interesting 50 minute Making Of documentary, interviews with the surviving Munchkins (sadly, now they have all passed on I believe) and short subjects. One is a cartoon short from 1933 that while interesting, pales in comparison when placed against the much more lavish film. But it was the first screen presentation to show Kansas in black and white, and Oz in colour.

In this film, the title character Shrek (voiced by Mike Myers - Austin Powers, Wayne's World) is a big, green ugly ogre who lives alone in a swamp. When Lord Farquaad (Third Rock From The Sun's John Lithgow) overruns his swamp with famous fairytale characters, he has to go off on a quest with a wisecracking donkey (Eddie Murphy, who is just so funny!) to rescue a feisty kidnapped Princess named Fiona (Cameron Diaz) from a fire breathing dragon, and (you guessed it) Shrek falls in love with her on the way home.

The plot of this film is like a traditional fairy tale - specifically a Beauty and the Beast scenario - turned on its` head and stretched sideways. As well as being quite sweet, it contains some very funny jokes (there are some wonderful digs at the Disney studio - and the "Bullet Time" Matrix spoof is a hoot). The computer animation in this film looks phenomenal and beautifully detailed, showing us just how fast technology has progressed since Toy Story, the first full length computer generated motion picture, back in 1995.

Despite what some critics may say, I would submit this is not just a young children's film, as some of the references to other movies and the humour (which can be rather lewd) will fly right over their heads. That's` not to say children won't be entertained though - like all the best cartoons and animated features, it works on a number of levels. The charming story is in its` own a way a fairy tale, and yet it is also a parody of more traditional fairy tale movies, with its` sly digs at established characters. (There is a surprising twist at the end of the movie, but I won't spoil it for you).

I think this is an excellent movie - a cute plot combined with some great humour proves (to my mind anyway) that cartoons and animation aren't just for kids. It has something for everyone - its` a really funny comedy but it also has incredible heart.

The DTS track on this film (available on Disc 2) is amazing - not so much because it enhances music/dialogue, but because of the little things - in some scenes you can even hear birds chirping or bees buzzing in the background. These little details show a lot of care and attention went into the making of it. Because it was all made on computers, the transfer is also bang on - with fantastic colours (check the bright green of Shrek and the way you can see fur on his tunic for example).

Superb.

At the end of China`s warring states, the Kingdom of Qin is the most ambitious and ruthless of the seven states. Its` King is the target of assassins from all over China. Of all the would be assassins, Broken Sword (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk) and Sky (Donnie Yen) are the most dangerous. When Nameless (Jet Li) kills all three of them, he is offered a chance to meet the King. Nameless explains how he used their personal relationships to expose and attack their weaknesses, but - in a similar scenario to Akira Kurosawa`s Rashomon (1950) the King tells a different version of the same story....

There`s no denying a lot of care was put into this film, it is amazingly shot and beautiful to watch (what do you expect when Wong Kar Wai`s cinematographer Chris Doyle is at the helm?). I liked the clever use of the colour scheme (green/red/white/blue) that was used by Zhang Yimou to emphasise different things.

An all star cast was assembled for this film - and everyone performs well in their own ways I think. Tony Leung and Maggie especially are excellent, turning in a performance which draws comparisons with the Wong Kar Wai movie In The Mood For Love (2000). Playing the role of Broken Swords servant Moon, Zhang Ziyi (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Road Home) is gorgeous, though her turn perhaps reminded me of Jen Yu in Crouching Tiger too much, as if she`d phoned her performance in. Donnie Yen`s part is sadly also little more than an extended cameo, though his fight in the rain with Nameless (Jet Li) is very impressive.

Of course, comparisons are bound to be drawn between CTHD and this film - Maggie`s/Zhang Ziyi`s forest fight reminded me of the sword duel of the earlier CTHD, as did the balletic walking on water or flying through the air. To top it off, the composer Tan Dun wrote a score for Hero that is not too dissimilar to the one in CTHD (particularly at the beginning and end with the drums and violins).

If I have any complaints at all, I would have liked to have seen more character development and backstory. I also wasn't sure about the way the tyrannical King is portrayed as simply a misunderstood man, ignoring what he was really like in Ancient Chinese history and what he did to his people. This doesn't show the whole picture.

Plot gripes nothwithstanding, bear in mind that what we have here is essentially a Producer`s Cut of the film, assembled by American company Miramax and missing about 20 minutes from Zhang Yimou`s original vision. One can only hope the rumored Extended Edition of the film gets a release on DVD in Hong Kong or the US someday.

Overall though, I think this is an outstanding piece of cinema.

"The Beginning" is a BBC box set encapsulating the first three adventures of the First Doctor, played by William Hartnell.

This is where it all began, folks. From such humble beginnings: two school teachers Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton follow one of their pupils home. Susan seems out of sorts with the world around her: she has an in-depth knowledge of history but her knowledge of science dwarfs even Ians, yet she has hardly any street savvy and acts extremely mysterious, so much so that Ian and Barbara want to learn more about her. When she leads them to a junk yard on Totters Lane and walks into a discarded Police Telephone Box they are both bemused. They are surprised when she never comes out, and shocked when they force their way inside and are faced with the incomprehensible sight of an interior that is not only completely alien but also much larger on the inside. It is then that they are introduced to Susan's grandfather... The Doctor.

This is a masterful introduction, full of mystery and intrigue and when we first see the TARDIS interior (even after 46 years) it's still a shock -and we know what to expect. Quite what this did to audiences back then is beyond me. The Doctor though is the real enigma. We are so used to the Doctor being a friendly and upbeat character that to see William Hartnell as an irascible and thoroughly unfriendly old man is a shock. In the early episodes of the series he is shown to be an unpleasant troublemaker and the story focuses on the plight of the two schoolteachers. This changes, of course, as the series progresses, but for these first three adventures we are witness to the growing tensions and disputes between the TARDIS crew.

The first adventure, "The Unearthly Child" has a rather forgettable storyline as the TARDIS crew are transported to the beginnings of time by mistake -due to Ian's meddling. However the storyline merely serves as a backdrop to the growing tensions between the two groups of characters: the school teachers and the time travellers. It's this tension that drives the story and means you can almost forgive the dodgy sets and special effects. However, one must remember that this was never envisaged being a cultural phenomena and none of the BBC executives had any idea what it would lead to. None of them could ever have dreamed it would become world renowned as one of the most popular science-fiction franchises.

The second adventure sees the TARDIS landing on an alien planet, which has been decimated by nuclear war. The Doctor wants to investigate further by Ian and Barbara want simply to go home. The Doctor deliberately sabotages the TARDIS so they will have no choice but to explore further, putting the whole crew at risk to radiation poisoning. On discovering a vast metallic city Barbara is separated from the others and trapped deep within where she is faced by something menacing and frightening. Something that would lodge deep within our collective subconscious and send child after child to the back of the sofa: The Daleks. I've often wondered about the reasons for their longevity - why they frighten people still. It could be because of their complete lack of emotion and their total single-mindedness. They are a faceless killer, one you can not reason with or emote against. They live to kill and destroy; annihilate and exterminate. And it is because of the Doctors meddling this time that the companions are threatened by this unimaginable evil.

With The Edge Of Destruction, the third episode in this box-set, the story focuses solely on the four characters and is centred wholly in the TARDIS. Something causes the TARDIS console to explode mid-flight, rendering the crew unconscious. When they all come to they're confronted by a TARDIS which behaves strangely: the main doors open of their own accord and tensions start to fray amongst the teachers and the time-travellers as they have to deal with the realisation that something very deadly might be going on. This is a tense and fraught episode, and a stroke of genius focusing on just the underlying conflict between the TARDIS crew. This is the type of story writing I feel is sorely missing from the recent episodes of Dr Who where they focus on either the big events happening at the cost of the interactions between the characters or focusing on minute details of the characters at the cost of the story.

This is where it all began, as I said at the start, and its easy to see why Dr Who has had such an impact on the imaginations of the thousands and thousands of lives its touched. It was a stroke of genius -as much as out of budgetary constraints, etc- for the writers to shroud the Doctor in mystery and led to the creation of one of the most enduring characters in popular culture of the last century.

To my blinkered, Hollywood-ised eyes this film should not have worked. It's an obscure story about a visionary entrepreneur / madman who dreams of building the first Opera House, in the middle of the Amazon! To do this he opens up a shipping route in order to transport huge quantities of rubber in an old passenger liner and at one point he enlists the help of the rain forest inhabitants in transporting this liner up a mountain to a parallel river running down hill! This is a scene that needs to be watched in order to be believed - it is truly remarkable and only Werner Herzog would have both the genius and tenacity to conceive of it!
Klaus Kinski is electrifying as the title character -and his performance onscreen was as "exhilarating" off-camera as it was on - there was even a documentary made of his many exploits.

This is a stunning film and once seen never forgotten - it's a dark reflection to David Lean's epics and deals with personal obsession and determination to a obscene scale! Be warned, it is a long film but ultimately rewarding.