Admittedly, real life isn't funnier with a midget. Real life is far tougher for midgets, and I feel awkward around...um...little people because they're so darn funny in movies (evidence: tomorrow's post).
But I digress...Death at a Funeral is absolutely hilarious, laugh-out-loud hilarious stuff. This isn't the American version that came out last year and was populated by Martin Lawerence, Danny Glover, Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan. This is the original British version populated by white guys, British white guys.
The set-up is pretty simple: dead guy, family getting together, accidental ingestion of hallucinogenics (repeatedly), unrequited love, revelations of gay midget extramarital affair, killing of midget, naked guy on roof, surprising opening of casket - from the inside, heartfelt resolutions. At least it plays like it's pretty simple. Honestly this is spectacular, typically British farce with a couple of American faces thrown in for seasoning.
To the movie then...
This isn't a movie intended to result in belly laughs, but there were a few times throughout when I inappropriately let them out.
Our unnamed but titular character signs on to ghostwrite the memoirs of a Tony-Blair-inspired British ex-Prime Minister who is now holed up in Martha's Vineyard. From the first moments of the movie, our ghost (as he notes himself to be) feels that he's in over his head and announces such to us. He's mugged on his way home from the initial job interview. He sees a surprising news story that the ex-PM has just hit the news as having been outed as an authorizer of torture during his reign, and the story moves along quite quickly from there - far too quickly to be believed at times.
In the movie's three or four days, the ex-PM goes from being mentioned in the news for authorizing torture to being investigated by the International Court to being charged to being unable to leave the US for fear of being arrested. I've watched some news involving the Hague in the past few years, and if ever there was a court that moved with glacial speed, they would be it. Three days from first mention of investigation to accusations to charges is ridiculously but it does, at least, push our main character directly into the plot more quickly.
Once in the plot the ghost - who announces that he's not an investigative journalist - starts investigating that things that don't feel right about the situation. We know they don't feel right because he tells another character "things just don't feel right." Seriously...
At one point he heads down the beach to investigate the murder/suicide/accidental death of his predecessor and finds a gruff, old man who suggests he speak to Mrs. (something) who had told the police that she'd seen flashlights on the beach the night of the prior ghost's death. Only he can't talk to her because just after she talked to the police, she fell down the stairs and has been in a coma EVER SINCE.
I applaud Polanski for not bringing out all the Dun-Dun-Duns at every mention of something like this. The ghost shows up to the house of a man with some mysterious connection to the ex-PM (played with excellent low/high Scottish accent by Pierce Brosnan) and is greeted inside as we hear the wife on the phone saying "yes, he's here now" and then closing the doors.
In one of the DVD special features, the screenwriter talks about his and Polanski's efforts to produce a modern-day Hitchcock thriller in which the main character is an everyman to whom a series of entirely plausible events happens as he gets swept up further and further into the fantastic circumstances, but this appears to be more the work of amateur Hitchcocks that pro's.
When the aforementioned mysterious connection ushers the ghost out of his house, he reminds the ghost to turn right at the end of the driveway because if he turns left, he'll go deeper into the woods and may never be heard from again.
I swear, that's almost the exact phrasing of the line. "If you turn left, you'll go deeper into the woods and may never be heard from again."
As the film spent its first 80-90% leading us into the tightening web pointing directly at Pierce Brosnan's character, I kept hoping that there would be some twist, something to suggest that where we were being lead wasn't really the final destination. The only acceptable twist, however, was a classic and fairly transparent (spoiler) Lady MacBeth move which is right where the filmmakers took us.
The film is poor, and the revelation at the very end of the film is too obvious to be shocking.
I don't get why this one got positive reviews.
Thor by J Michael Straczynski - Just finished up with the three-volume collection so JMS's run on Thor in which the Thunder God returns from the dead, recreates Asgard (in the center of the Oklahoma plains), brings back all of his Asgardian brethren, and gets immortally screwed over by his half brother, Loki.
It's that immortal plot from Loki that really is the showpiece of JMS's story here. The recreation of Asgard in Oklahoma sets up a number of interesting plot threads that really aren't much dealt with here (they do get slightly wrapped up in the eventual Siege), but the rebirth of Loki (in female form for reasons that become apparent in the pace of the storyline) is the shining star here as he claims to have turned over a new leaf and continues to let loose truths that seem to cause more damage than could any lie that he has put forth in his time in Thor.
In the course of his scheming, Loki kills his father, births his younger self into the Asgardian royal family, and removes Thor from that self-same family. The plot reveals itself in such slow, trickling fashion that it's much too far along for any character to stop once we finally sense the scope and breadth of the treachery that is afoot in New Asgard.
The rest of the storyline - Thor interacting with Donald Blake (which offers little in the way of introductions for those of us jumping on at this point in Thor's run), with the Oklahomans, with Sif - all seems far more secondary - and less interesting - than does Loki's plan. Yes, we get the Asgardians fleeing Oklahoma for Latvaria (speaking of dun-dun-duns) which is obviously a temporary destination, and we get the distraction of mortal-Asgardian love, but nothing seems permanent, engaging, interesting when compared to Loki's machinations.
This three-volume run is worth reading. Check out what Loki has done and be awed.
Before she can understand any of what's happening, she is ushered out of the bookmobile as browsing hours are ending with the rise of the sun. The main character returns the next night only to find the bookmobile gone, and she spends years searching for the bookmobile only to find it three more times when and where she least expects it.
This certainly isn't a graphic novel for the youngsters as the woman's obsession with the bookmobile wanders some fairly dark paths. It's also not a story that requires much time as it's a quick read with only three total characters, one of which who exists for one panel and in passing mentions along the rest of the book. This is a tale of obsession and the results thereof, but it's a tale that has been dwelling and haunting since I read it a week ago.
I'm thinking it might be one for you as well. I don't know that it gets a strong recommendation but it certainly gets a recommendation for curiosity-sake if nothing else.
2 comments:
I love the original Death at a Funeral. I watched it some Saturday morning by myself and woke up my roommate who was sleeping the floor above. Very, very funny.
CMorin - I had no idea how hilarious it was. Great stuff there. Have you seen the American remake? I'm guessing it'd be a sad rip-off, but I haven't seen it to confirm.
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