The Fantasy Hall of Fame

-- a side quest --

Tideland by Mitch Cullin

I decided to venture from the main quest too, and do some side quests for the loot and glory. I got into my hands an ancient manuscript foretelling the events shown in my nomination and was astounded by the clarity of this ancient prophet's vision.


After reading the novel, it's easy to believe that Gilliam loves it. His film is one of the most faithful adaptations I know. The differences between the two works are mainly cosmetic: the movie tells the story in chronological order while in the book, the events preceding the farmhouse are shown as flashbacks, there's a little difference in the order things happen, and we get little more character details (especially for Jeliza-Rose). Other than those, it's very much the same story.

The way the book is written takes some getting used to. It's sparse and hectic first-person narration, like a mixture of childish thinking and competent prose. I didn't like it at first, but it did grow on me. Maybe (probably) because I've seen the film first, I did find the voices of the characters to perfectly fit with Gilliam's film (to a degree, that I was reading Dickens' lines in his movie-voice). The two versions of the story are inseparable.

And about Alice in Wonderland? All the references are from the book (I think it actually has little more of them than the film). I wouldn't call it a retelling of Alice (any more than a retelling of Psycho), but it certainly has affected the book, and therefore the movie as well. The sexual themes in the book are slightly more profound than in the film, so if they bothered you in Gilliam's vision, you may want to skip the book.

Just like the movie, I found the novel Tideland to be good. I don't know if it would work as well without the film, but it's a great companion piece to that (in a way, the film brings the book's slightly flat characters to life).

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I love the introduction you wrote! Thanks for taking the time to let us know about the film's source material. Did you recently track down a copy of the novel, or have you had it for some time?

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Quite recently (meaning after I rewatched the film for this HoF).

So the copy of Kiki’s Delivery Service is all scratched up and skipping insanely. It’s unwatchable. I returned it, and looks like I may need a link.
Or I could buy it I guess.....hmmm

I have one, check your PM

Beauty and the Beast


This foreign version of the French fairy tale is a more darker telling, staying closer to its source material then the more well known Disney animated version. I have not seen Cocteau’s 1946 version Nor Disney’s live action update. Not the other reversion that I’m less aware of. So I can’t compare them accurately.
As it is, this film does a decent job of telling the story. We get the feeling of wonder and danger that surrounds the castle of the Beast/Prince. It seems a bit more reliant on CGI, and I found myself wishing they would have used an actual castle.
Belle and The Beast are well cast, Leya Seydoux and Vincent Cassell respectively. Seydoux captures both her beauty and her adventurous spirit, while Cassel brings a sad quality to the Beast. He captures both the pride of the prince he previously was, and the menace of the beast he currently is, while lamenting his curse he brought upon himself. Balancing these is no easy task.
I do wish they spent more time developing the rapport between Belle and Beast, and less time on his background that brought upon his curse. And the ending with the vines felt like cheap terror. But this isn’t a bad film. It’s ok. I feel the same for it as I did Excalibur and The Dark Crystal.
A decent film that could have been more.

Pssst.
I’m catching up to you Ed. 👀

This pretty much sums up how I feel about several of the movies in this HoF.

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If I answer a game thread correctly, just skip my turn and continue with the game.
OPEN FLOOR.

I’ll have a write up for Kiki later tonight. I have Tideland saved on Prime and my brother owns LoTR so I can finish This easily, and I can probably find Dragonheart at my local rental.
Dare I say I may finish this before the deadline????
Madness....

Ooh...I forgot Kwaidan. (And I’ve always enjoyed Siddons noms as well.....unforgivable) That may be tricky to find.
I’ll Check on Prime when I get home.

Kiki’s Delivery Service


Studio Ghibli has a way with stories. When one mentions animation, they’re up there with Disney and Pixar.
Kiki tells the story of a young precocious witch who flies off to start her own life. She brings along her cat, Jiji, voiced by the marvelous Phil Hartman In his final role before his untimely murder.
Kiki is cute, I’ll just say it. Voiced by Kirsten Dunst, she’s naive and a bit stuck up when a young boy Gives her some attention. She doesn’t have any particular skill, even as a witch. So she just relies on her flying and opens her own delivery service.
What follows is a somewhat interesting story of a young girl trying to make her way in a large city. Until one day, Things go wrong. It’s a cute story, and it’s filled with regular characters that one could meet pretty much anywhere. Miyazaki is able to capture the personalities effortlessly here, such as the painter Ursula, and the two old ladies Kiki befriends on one of her deliveries.
But at the center of it all is Kiki. It’s her story, and a wonderful one at that.

You've managed to catch up now, assuming you get another film done by the end of the week.

Nice work!

Will be either LoTR or Tideland since I have both available. Going to switch to a few films for the 2020 challenge for a few days yet though.

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What I actually said to win MovieGal's heart:
- I might not be a real King of Kinkiness, but I make good pancakes

~Mr Minio

Trying for Excalibur tonight

Excalibur

So I'm not going to lie, I thought this would be one that I would enjoy. I actually saved it near the end of my watching because of that. But I was oh so damn wrong.

Just about everything to do with the movie doesn't work for me. Arthur is as bland a character as can be. Yet that isn't even the end of the badness for me as the guy who played Merlin who was even worse. Just about every character in the film had me wishing I didn't have to watch this film.

The film feels oh so dated. Yeah it's almost 40 years old but it sure as hell wasn't entertaining. The visuals were pretty bad IMO and the battle scenes were just purely lame.

If I had to make some sort of an analogy to watching this film, I'd say it is like watching YouTube clips of people scraping their nails on a chalkboard. Dear God please never let me watch this again.

Do I have anything positive to say? Unfortunately I'm still fishing.

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I'd honestly rather watch Youtube clips of people scraping their nails on a chalkboard than have to sit through a single minute of Yellow Submarine again, so while I obviously enjoyed Excalibur a lot more than you did, I can certainly sympathize haha. Sorry the film didn't work for you at all.

It's interesting that there have been several reviews that were about how much someone hated a specific movie, but it's been a different movie for each person. I didn't like Tideland, but it sounds like @rauldc14 and @CosmicRunaway hated Excalibur and Yellow Submarine even more.

But on a lighter note, I rewatched Kwaidan, and while I still didn't like the movie that much, at least I understood more about what was going on in each of the stories, so it was definitely better than it was on the first watch.

Dragonslayer

Valerian: Are you afraid of dragons?
Ulrich: [confidently and calmly] No. In fact, if it weren't for sorcerers, there wouldn't be any dragons. Once, the skies were dotted with them. Magnificent horned backs, leathern wings... soaring... and their hot-breathed wind. Oh, I know this creature of yours... Vermithrax Pejorative. Look at these scales, these ridges. When a dragon gets this old, it knows nothing but pain, constant pain. It grows decrepit... crippled... pitiful. Spiteful!

When this first came out I wasn't much of a fan of it.
It didn't work for me at the time. Didn't think much of Peter MacNichol's Apprentice character, it took far too long for the dragon to finally appear and by then my interest had dropped too much to actually enjoy it. And I felt gypped when the very cool sorcerer got taken out so quickly and, like the dragon, his return didn't help my already aggravated viewing experience.

In short, as a teenager I had not the patience to appreciate this film properly.

I do now.
Very much so.

For one, while MacNichol's Galen is, as is typical of novices and apprentices, a bit on the whiny side, I have enjoyed his portrayals in a number of comedies and TV shows since then and with those enjoyed viewings, I actually did tolerate and, at times, enjoyed his performance.
The dragon's minimalist appearances works a lot better for me now. Like an old time ghost film, the lack of presence enhanced the menace far more. Like when you looked through his eyes and heard the rumble of fire within the pit of his stomach as the camera pulled back before the flame burst forward was pretty d@mn cool.
The same can be said about the slow rise of its head on a few shots had the same enjoyment for me. And when we got a good look, up close, the sinister aspect of his visage said everything. This wasn't a magical, mystical creature of lore. It was a volatile, dangerous beast of violence and fire.
And, like a number of theatrical thespians before and after him, Ralph Richardson was an absolute treat as Ulrich. I still would have loved to seen more of him but, in its place, I relished the time I DID get to see his character. Along with Hodge (Sydney Bromley) as the cantankerous servant.


All of it making for a rather pleasantly surprising enjoyable revisit. F@ckin YAY