ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS: THE MOVIE

I had such a bad time watching the AB-FAB movie I couldn't bring myself to review. The 1990s sitcom was so joyous - so well acted and written - so scabrous in its ridicule of drunken, free-loading PRs and the insecurities of middle-aged women - and the movie was so, so awful.  But I was finally moved to write by a story on twitter proclaiming this to be the most lucrative British opening weekend since SPECTRE.  Of course! I cried in dismay. It's because of people like me!  We all went to see this film on a wave of nostalgia and were bitterly disappointed by the results. The back-slapping will no doubt end when a precipitous decline in weekly ticket sales is reported on the back of abysmal word of mouth.

So as you all know, AB-FAB the TV show featured PR exec Edina Monsoon (Jennifer Saunders) and her ex-model/stylist sidekick Patsy (Joanna Lumley).  In the old days they used to lurch around London, shopping at Harvey Nicks, swilling champagne they hadn't paid for and putting two fingers up to Eddy's sensible daughter (Julia Sawalha).  In a world obsessed with youth, where women over a certain age can't act a certain way, it was a delight to see these two behaving so very badly. And yes, there was the occasional moment of piercing insecurity and self-doubt, but that only made the jokes better. 

MINIONS

You can listen to a podcast review of this film here or subscribe to Bina007 Movie Reviews in iTunes.

THE MINIONS, as any fule kno are the ridiculously and surprisingly popular side-kicks of Gru, the star of DESPICABLE ME. These yellow-bean-like energetic, gibberish-speaking cheeky chappies arguably already hijacked that franchise, as evidenced by the fact that they, not Gru and his daughters, were on most of the posters. So I suppose it was inevitable that we would get a spin-off.

The fantastic news is that the movie more than stands up on its own two feet.  Despite the quasi-unintelligible talk, we absolutely understand that our protagonists, Stuart, Kevin and Bob, are different personalities.  This is more than helped by an hilarious deadpan witty voice-over from Geoffrey Rush (PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN) at the start of the film.

We open with a natural history of the minions - starting as little amoeba in the opening credits - haplessly following whoever is the Big Bad of the moment, until the dinosaurs become extinct and they have to find evil men to follow.  In classic minion style, their eagerness overmatches their competence and they end up stuck in an icy waste having followed Napoleon into Russia.  At this point, the story truly picks up, with three minions going on an adventure to find a new evil henchman to follow. They sail to the USA and journey to Villaincon (a wonderful satire on the insanity that is Comicon) where they fall into the service of Scarlett Overkill (Sandra Bullock in a self-satirising villain role).  I guess the moral of the story is be careful what you wish for - and through a series of accidents Bob becomes king of England, and then has to rescue the nation from Scarlett and find their new master on the way.

Kudos to co-director Pierre Coffin who also voices ALL of the minions  - creating separate characters and also enough actual language that we can keep up with them.  The movie has wit, a warm heart and is a worthy addition to the DESPICABLE ME world.  There's nothing here not to like!

MINIONS has a running time of 91 minutes and is rated PG.  The movie was released in June in Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Armenia, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Croatia, New Zealand, Slovakia, Uruguay, the UK, Ireland and Poland. It was released earlier in July in the Netherlands, Sweden, Argentina, Austria, Colombia, Germany, Denmark, Israel, Estonia, Spain, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania, Latvia, Norway, Belgium, France, Iceland, Jamaica, the Philippines, Trinidad and Tobago, Azerbaijan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Hong Kong, Hungary, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Macedonia, Mexico, Russia, Thailand, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, India, Pakistan, Puerto Rico, Romania, Taiwan, the USA and Vietnam. The movie opens in Cambodia on July 14th, in Peru & Portugal on July 23rd, in Albania on July 30th, in Japan on July 31st, in Serbia on August 20th, in Italy on August 27th, in Turkey on September 4th, in Greece on September 25th, in South Korea on October 15th and in China on November 25th.

CORALINE - psych horror for kids

When you boil it all down, CORALINE is an animated kids film that plays like a psychological horror flick. And, I'm not being trite. CORALINE is everyone's worst nightmare. She's a young teenage girl who lives in a crumbling old house, with creepy neighbours, and workaholic parents who just want to get rid of her. No wonder her sub-conscious creates an alternate universe in which she is very much the centre of attention. The other mother is always cooking a tasty meal and the other father is always ready to play Coraline-centric games. Of course, this sort of Stepford existence is as dysfunctional as the real world, and the price of staying is to become an automaton - symbolised by having buttons stitched on your eyes. And thus, Coraline battles to return to her own world, but there are no happy endings. Mum's bought her some new gloves but she's as crotchety as ever, and Dad is as pussy-whipped. Coraline is still self-absorbed, it's just that now she knows there are consequences.

The resulting film is beautifully drawn, truly psychologically scary (that's a good thing), and faithful in most part to the Neil Gaiman original story. OK, so director Henry Selick added Wybie, the dumb-ass side-kick to lessen Coraline's isolation, but then again, he stripped down the up-beat musical numbers to a single song from They Might Be Giants. Following on from THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS and JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH, Selick has cemented his reputation as the pre-eminent director of intelligent children's movies - movies that understand that childhood isn't schmaltzy and sun-lit as symbolised by cute talking animals, but dark and insecure and selfish and savage. The only real criticism I could make of CORALINE is that, technically, it's a tour-de-force of stop-motion animation but it barely uses, and doesn't need, the added layer of 3-D. Presumably this was just a shameless cash-in on the part of the studio.

CORALINE was released earlier this year in the US, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Portugal, Panama, Argentina, Hungary, Poland, Kazakhstan, Russia, Romania, Lithuania, Norway and the UK. It opens next weekend in the Netherlands, Estonia, Sweden and Turkey. It opens later in May in Bulgaria, Iceland and Greece. It opens on June 5th in Finland and Spain; on June 10th in Belgium, France, the Czech Republic and Denmark; in Israel on June 25th; in Italy on July 3rd; in Germany on July 20th; in Australia on August 6th and in Singapore on September 3rd.