HAROLD AND LILLIAN: A HOLLYWOOD LOVE STORY — CANNES 2016

An ebullient filmic love letter to one of Hollywood’s most endearing creative couples, this gratifying documentary is essential viewing for budding filmmakers.

There is a lot of valuable artistic information to be gleaned from storyboard artist/production designer Harold Michelson and film researcher Lillian Michelson, a married duo who worked together in Hollywood for six decades.

The couple contributed to films as varied as Hitchcock’s “The Birds” and “Marnie,” to Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket,” to “The Graduate.”

Much of the narration comes from Lillian, a spitfire sprite with an encyclopedic mind. Harold’s love of sketching scenes from their marriage, provides a seemingly endless parade of cartoon images of the idealized couple tackling life’s curveballs with an undeniable mutual respect and adoration for one another.  

If you saw “Shrek 2,” you might remember that the King and Queen were named “Harold” and “Lillian.” The glitzy animated hat-tip came from a DreamWorks team so enamored of the couple that they considered them family. You’ll feel like part of the Harold and Lillian family too as you watch the story of these two unsung innovators of American Cinema.

In an age where Hollywood movies have lost their charm, you can find plenty of charisma to spare here.    

Not Rated. 94 mins. 

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon. Thanks a lot pal! Your generosity helps keep the reviews coming!

SAUSAGE PARTY

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon. Thanks a lot pal! Your generosity helps keep the reviews coming!

Even without the hullabaloo of discontent expressed by an army of animators (who worked for this film’s Vancouver-based Nitrogen Studios), “Sausage Party” is a comedy whose ribald humor can’t mask its weaknesses.

As is a common corporate model in the 21^st century, animators were made to work overtime without being compensated. There is, after all, no union for such artists in Canada.

Animators described the workplace as hostile. If these skilled artists refused to comply with working the required unpaid overtime conditions, they were threatened with being blacklisted in the industry. If they left the production rather than be a party to their own exploitation, they were not given a credit on the picture. If “Sausage Party” lacks visual variety, then these untenable working conditions may have something to do with it.

Such background knowledge should be enough of a motivator to prevent concerned audiences from rushing out to see this disposable movie.

As a critic, I’m sufficiently soured on the film by these revelations to advise viewers to boycott “Sausage Party” out of hand. Apart from a goofy food orgy (yes, that kind of orgy), the movie is lightweight to a fault.

You might get a few chuckles out of watching “Sausage Party,” but at what cost to professionals who deserve to be treated with respect and to be paid an industry standard of financial reward for their work? 

Rated R. 89 mins.

THE BFG — CANNES 2016

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon. Thanks a lot pal! Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

 

CANNES, FRANCE —Steven Spielberg’s fudged adaptation of Roald Dahl’s problematic children’s tale of giant (human-eating) cannibals is a drab affair. From its creepy style of animation to its dragging tempo, “The BFG” never engages the audience. It’s not fun. Even those looking to savor a few morsels of gallows humor are denied satisfaction. The film played to packed crowds at Cannes, but few walked out with a good impression of what they saw.

The story opens in the bad old 19^th century London of Charles Dickens. Little orphan Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) gets snatched from an orphanage by a friendly giant (Mark Rylance) who takes his new little human pet to Giant Country. Strains of John Fowles’s “The Collector” come through. There’s also a little “Alice in Wonderland” at play here.

The giant effectively kidnaps 10-year-old Sophie because she has seen him, and will certainly report his existence to others. Nevermind that once ensconced inside the giant’s cavernous dwelling, Sophie can never leave its front door, lest she be eaten by much larger giants with names like Fleshlumpeater or Meatdripper.

Oh yes kiddies, it’s “eat or be eaten,” except that Sophie is far too small to ever pose a threat.

It’s convenient that the only non-cannibal in the country happens to be a runt who is about five-times smaller than his brethren. The best thing you can say about the friendship that develops between Sophie and the mini-giant is that it’s a perfect marriage of dim wits.

Mr. "Friendly Giant" speaks in “squiggly” gobblefunk language that bastardizes words. Fart, for example, becomes “whizzpoppers.” When the movie sinks to a farting sequence involving the Queen of England, you know you have been brought low. Very low indeed.

Someone could write a Freudian thesis about how, by diminishing a female child character even further than her undeveloped stature, in “The BFG” feeds into the imperialist patriarchy that the story ultimately hands itself over to.

I hated every second of this movie; I couldn’t wait for it to be over. As for Roald Dahl’s easily mocked title (“The BFG”), the author did at least have the decency to let his audience what to expect little from this SPOS.

Rated PG. 117 mins.