Movie Club for June 13th: Labyrinth

Welcome to the Movie Club discussion for June 13th. This week's film, selected by Minion TV, is The Labyrinth.



Please debate and discuss safely, and considerately.

Kong believes that MovieFan is supposed to pick next, but who can be sure these days?

Kong will jump into the fray a little later.

Sorry this thread wasn't posted earlier, but Kong's phone line has been on the fritz and Minion TV appears to have gone on vacation or something. Maybe we should get an official thread starter for the club's selections so that there isn't anymore confusion; Kong would be willing to do it if no one else wanted to.

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Kong's Reviews:
Stuck On You
Bad Santa

Hooray for Kong!

I'll be gone during the weekend. I'll post comments on Sunday.

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NEW (as of 1/24/05): Quick Reviews #10

I'm finally posting on the Movie Club!

Alright. First off, I'd like to say I have always liked this movie.

David Bowie gives a unique performance as the villian. It is stylishly menacing in some parts, loving in others, and forces the watcher (or at least me) to feel sorry for him as his plans fail. (And the songs are pretty good)

Jennifer Connelly gives the star making performance, (or at least a performance that led to a star making performance). Thats pretty much all I have to say about her, except I believed her characters emotional transformation, and I thought her performance was good.

Jim Henson gives the film a feel that resembles (get ready to be confused) what I believe the combination of The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland mixed with bleakness would look like. It also has his wonderful creatues, which work well in the film.

I liked the plot, and loved the Happy ending.

Thats about all.

I'd give it a ***1/2 out of **** (Hard movie to rate though)

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"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" - Howard Beale

A few things.

1) Nice poster Kong.
2) Someone add me to the Movie Club list. (I found time to post finally!!!!)

Here are some pics:

I loved the movie I haven't seen it for years, always love David Bowie.

The sound track and Bowies singing great.

This is the first and only thing I have seen Jennifer Conely in, she was good as the petulant teenager, not happy with Daddy's new wife and to make things worse a new brother.

Thought all the puppets etc rally cute.

I love the part where they encountered the place of terrible smells I was laughing and grimacing at the same time, as my dog farted at that point and I got the smell full on.

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Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Buddha

Kong used to love this movie when he was a kid, but seeing it again, after so many years, didn't bring back that same joy. It isn't a bad movie by any means, but it definitely doesn't live up to all the fond memories Kong had for it. As an adventure geared for younger audiences it works quite well, but for older audiences there is something missing.

In Roger Ebert's review of the film he said, "I have a problem with almost all nightmare movies: They aren't as suspenseful as they should be because they don't have to follow any logic. Anything can happen, nothing needs to happen, nothing is as it seems and the rules keep changing. Consider, for example, the scene in "Labyrinth" where Sarah thinks she is waking up from her horrible dream and opens the door of her bedroom. Anything could be outside that door. Therefore, we're wasting out psychic energy by caring. In a completely arbitrary world, what difference does anything make?.....One other problem is that the movie is too long. Without a strong plot line to pull us through, all movies like this run the danger of becoming just a series of incidents. There's no structure to the order of the adventures. Sarah does this, she does that, she's almost killed here, almost trapped there, until at last nothing much matters."

Kong agrees with much of Ebert's views here. Because the rules of the Labyrinth are in constant flux we can never hope to figure it out on our own as an audience; we are forced to sit back and follow behind Sarah in a passive sort of manner. As a five year this didn't bother Kong, but now it feels a bit irritating. Luckily, Jim Henson has made each incident Sarah encounters to be entertaining enough to pull us on to the next, but when it's all said and done there is something slightly unsatisfying about it all.

A 16 year old Jeniffer Connelly gives a performance that is suitable for the material, but nothing worth writing home about. (She has certainly improved as an actress over the years.)

David Bowie playing Jared the Goblin King does quite well in the role.

The muppetry in the film is excellent, and has certainly stood the test of time. CGI has taken over the industry and it was nice to see how good puppets/muppets can look in comparison. Is Kong the only one who thought the old puppet Yoda from Star Wars episodes IV-VI looked better than the new CGI Yoda used in the recent Star Wars films?

I agree with Kong's statement above, however, this was a first-time viewing for me. If I had seen this as a kid, I might have fond memories, but as an adult, it didn't bring much entertainment.



If I didn't know who Jeniffer Connelly was, I would have dismissed her as the "poor man's Brooke Shields of the 80's." However, having won an Academy Award, and performing in some very critically aclaimed films, I'd say she has more than surpassed Brooke as an accomplished actress.


I've always loved David Bowie, but Jared's clothes and hair seem a little dated now. It screams of the 80's! Villians who stand the test of time are usually not dated. His character also didn't seem to be a real threat, either. He didn't seem ominous, menacing, or evil. It was almost as if he was teaching the Sarah "the brat" a lesson.

I agree with Kong 100%. The muppetry was very good. Hoggle and Lewdoe (sp?), as well as the rest of the muppets were very convincing. Yoda was better in STAR WARS V and VI (he wasn't in IV, was he?). There is more of a realistic feel to the muppet characters.

Pretty funny, nebbit! I loved the "Bog of Eternal Stench." The noises of the bubbling bog remined me of the scene in BLAZZING SADDLES in which the cowboys are eating beans around the campfire.

Here are a few more things I liked about this film:

The dialogue exchange between Hoggle and the talking walls:

Wall#1: Sorry, just doing my job.
Wall #2: Come on, I haven't said it in so long.
Hoggle: Ok, but don't expect a big reaction.

Also, the encounters with the passage guards in which one always tells the truth and the other always lies, as well as the encounter with the door knockers. Those scenes were pretty funny.

The film entertained my 4 year-old, but it's not something that I'll be watching again someday. It wasn't boring, by all means, but it doesn't seem like the type of kids film that stands the test of time (THE WIZARD OF OZ, WILLIE WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, CHITTY-CHITTY BANG-BANG, just to name a few).