See also: Recent Animations
Stalin
Roger Bunce
Last night (18 October 2017), my son took me to a preview of Armando Iannucci’s film "The Death of Stalin" at the NFT – a brilliant tragi-comedy – with extra tragedy. Very enjoyable, in a horrible sort of way.
I found myself speculating that I was probably the only person in that audience who had actually seen Joseph Stalin, in the flesh. Not that he had much to say for himself, having been dead and embalmed for the previous eight years, and I certainly didn’t try to shake his hand! But, given that there was a fairly narrow window of time, between foreigners being allowed into the Soviet Holy-of-Holies and Stalin being thrown out, there probably aren’t many non-Russians who can think that smug, but grizzly, thought..
Anyway, I recommend the film.
Paddington 2
Alec Bray
I went to see “Paddington 2” on Tuesday 28th November 2017. In many respects it was better than the first Paddington film.
There was a nod to the original television films of Paddington. In those originals (from the late 1970s onwards), Paddington himself was three-dimensional, fully animated (stop frame), whereas the other characters in the story (and the sets) were basically cardboard cutouts (although there was limited animation of the characters). Here Paddington is entering a shop:
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from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mClA14WQFu8
In the film, there is a section where Paddington opens a pop-up book of London landmarks, and imagines himself showing Aunt Lucy the sights: here he is meeting Aunt Lucy’s ship:
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from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52x5HJ9H8DM
That was a little bit of nostalgia!
I did get a jolt at one point: Paddington and his interlocutor swapped sides of the screen – I think!. Only happened once, and I will have to wait to see the DVD to be sure. But a crossed line – reverse cut – on an animated feature? Tut.
There were several flights of fancy – surreal episodes – in the film. The prisoners were all eating porridge (an English joke) … but …but…
Paddington Station was shown in all it’s current (pristine) glory – but the railway sequences were out of the American Wild West and cowboy adventures. Wagons with verandas on the ends, train dispatchers (no signals), single lines, parallel lines, an isolated coaling stage – enough to make a railway enthusiast weep. And there were many of the old clichés from train feature films past – including the unhitching of the last carriage (whenever did a coupling look like that!). The only thing it missed was a giraffe sticking its head out of the roof (but then, circuses don’t have animals any more …)
Oh! Oh!
Another borrowing from comedy shows past was the old gag of a load going up – and the person hauling the load going down. They could perhaps made a bit more of that – and used more of the characters played by Jessica Hynes and Ben Miller.
In spite of all that, I recommend the film.
