CRUELLA

 

Publicity poster for Cruella (© Craig Gillespie/Walt Disney Pictures/Mark Platt Productions/Gunn Films/Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On 20 October 2022, I watched two movies. One of them was The Adventures of Pluto Nash (reviewed by me here), which I'd fully expected to enjoy, but didn't. Far more to my taste, though I hadn't expected it to be, conversely, was my second, and very different, movie watch on that same day – the Disney live-action feature film Cruella, set in London's late-1970s punk-pervading fashion world.

Directed by Craig Gillespie, and released in 2021 by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Cruella presents a newly-construed back story for one of Disney's greatest villainesses – the 101 Dalmatians' fur-obsessed nemesis Cruella de Vil. The notoriously nefarious fanatic is played with smirking, diabolical delight by Emma Stone, her spellbinding performance earning her in 2022 a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress.

Originally created by Dodie Smith in her delightful 1956 children's novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians, Cruella first appeared on screen as a Disney character in their classic 1961 animated feature film One Hundred and One Dalmatians (in which her distinctive appearance was apparently based upon flamboyant actress Tallulah Bankhead), as well as in a straight-to-video animated sequel movie, 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure (2002). She also stole the show in two live-action Disney films – 101 Dalmatians (1996), which was a reworking of their 1961 cartoon movie; and 102 Dalmatians (2000), presenting an all-new, totally original story – due entirely to the wholly unrestrained, fittingly psychotic, rabid portrayal of her in two outstanding performances by Glenn Close (who also served as an executive producer for Cruella). So Disney certainly has excellent form when it comes to providing superb big-screen representations of everyone's favourite fur fetishist.

Even so, I still began watching this newest Disneyfied Cruella incarnation with great trepidation, because I feared that in devising an original back story for her the Disney studio would repeat the travesty that imho they had concocted for Sleeping Beauty's wicked fairy Maleficent in their eponymous 2014 live-action/CGI feature film starring Angelina Jolie in the title role. Namely, seeking to transform an unequivocally, irredeemably evil entity into a misconstrued, misunderstood waif who'd simply had some bad press after she'd been done wrong by her lover (all of which was conspicuous only by its absence in Disney's original 1959 Sleeping Beauty animated feature!). Click here for my review of Disney's movie Maleficent.

Happily, however, I was both delighted and heartily relieved to discover that my fears were entirely unwarranted, inasmuch as this take is not taken in Cruella. Instead, we are shown a character who, even as a child, is, shall we say, difficult – and feisty, insanely so at times – albeit with a huge, innate talent for fashion design, not to mention her unique black-and-white hair that she dyes red throughout her youth to avoid unwelcome, unpleasant comments from outsiders.

Cruella's birth name is actually Estella Miller, but after her mother is killed, for which Estella wrongly blames herself, she decides that a radical reinvention of her life is in order. So she inveigles an initial invitation but subsequent formal engagement to work as a junior designer at the highly prestigious London fashion house of a ruthlessly despicable, shamelessly unprincipled, autocratic, egotistical, and thoroughly narcissistic monster of a leading designer named The Baroness – played in absolutely scintillating OTT style by Emma Thompson (who won the role over the likes of Nicole Kidman, Demi Moore, Julianne Moore, and Charlize Theron). However, she also creates a secret identity to use for future fashion design purposes of her own, separate from her work for The Baroness's fashion house, naming it Cruella (a childhood nickname), later expanding it to Cruella de Vil.

But when Estella discovers that it was The Baroness, not herself, who was responsible for her mother's death, she loses it big time, becoming thoroughly unhinged and determining to avenge her mother at all cost – by unleashing her still-cryptic yet coruscating fashion designer alter ego Cruella de Vil upon the unsuspecting fashion world in general, and the Baroness in particular.

Except, as it turns out, Estella's mother, so kind and demure (and hence entirely unlike Estella/Cruella), was not her real mother after all, Guess which ruthlessly despicable, shamelessly unprincipled, autocratic, egotistical, and thoroughly narcissistic monster of a leading designer (and therefore a wholly Cruella-comparable character) was – and still is??

 

My newly-purchased official Disney Store resin figurine of Cruella De Vil (© Wolfgang Reitherman/Clyde Geronimi/Hamilton Luske/Walt Disney Productions/Buena Vista Distribution – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Dastardly diva designer is promptly pitted against dastardly diva designer, daggers – and much else too! – are drawn, but there can only be one winner, one cut-throat cut above all others, when competing for the highest of stakes in the high-risk, hubristic, hedonistic fashion world. So who will it be?

Visually, Cruella the movie is a spectacular sight to behold, with extravagant costumes that make even the most flamboyant catwalk creations of late look positively bland and impoverished in comparison. Those in black and white are especially effective, like gothic versions of the iconic Cecil Beaton haute couture on show in the unforgettable Ascot Gavotte scene from the timeless 1960s movie musical My Fair Lady. Deservedly, therefore, in 2022 Cruella duly won both an Oscar and a BAFTA award for Best Costume Design.

Incidentally, if you've already watched this film and are wondering why Cruella is never seen with her trademark long-stemmed cigarette holder, smoking a cheroot, which was always so visible in Disney's earlier dalmatian movies, this is because since 2007 the Disney Studio has banned the showing of characters smoking in its films.

As for this movie's soundtrack – it samples snatches of an extraordinarily eclectic selection of popular songs – just about everything by everyone, in fact, from Doris Day, Judy Garland, Nina Simone, Nancy Sinatra, and Ken Dodd to Black Sabbath, The Rolling Stones, Ike & Tina Turner, David Bowie, and The Clash!

It may be over 2 hours long, but Cruella is – to steal the title of a popular TV comedy show – absolutely fabulous, with all manner of tantalising twists and turns unveiling themselves throughout the storyline. My attention never sagged, and its teasing ending left the door wide open for a sequel. Sure enough, Disney subsequently announced that a sequel is now being developed – I can't wait!!

If you'd like to venture briefly into the mad, bad, but bedazzling world of fashion à la Cruella, be sure to click here and here to watch on YouTube a couple of  devilishly delightful Cruella trailers, darling!

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Disney's original cartoon version of Cruella de Vil (albeit sans cigarette holder) from their 1961 animated movie One Hundred and One Dalmatians (© Wolfgang Reitherman/Clyde Geronimi/Hamilton Luske/Walt Disney Productions/Buena Vista Distribution – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

BIRDMAN

 

Meet Birdman, from Birdman (© Alejandro G. Iñárritu/Regency Enterprises/New Regency/M Productions/Le Grisbi Productions/TSG Entertainment/Worldview Entertainment/Fox Searchlight Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

A couple of months ago I posted on Facebook the Rotten Tomatoes list of its Top 100 Movies of All Time (click here to access it), and on 28 January 2021 I watched the DVD of #89 on it, Birdman. This must surely be the oddest movie ever to win an Academy Award for Best Picture, which it did in 2015 at the 87^th annual Academy Awards ceremony. Nevertheless, as a big fan of the super-hero movie genre I fully expected to be pleasantly surprised by this film. Let's just say that I was surprised by it…

Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, and released in 2014, Birdman focuses upon long-since faded actor Riggan Thomson (played by Michael Keaton). Two decades earlier, Thomson had been a major movie star, thanks to his massively successful on-screen role as super-hero Birdman – a bizarre character garbed in cerulean-hued avian attire complete with a sizeable pair of fully-feathered, fully-functional wings whose mighty pinions enable him to soar through the sky in pursuit of villains and other ne'er-do-wells.

At the very peak of his – and Birdman's – popularity, however, Thomson abruptly quit the role, and subsequently sank into obscurity. Now, he is attempting to make a belated comeback, but on his own terms, by directing and also starring in a Broadway play that he considers to be a worthy, literary production that will win him the critical acclaim that he always longed for, rather than the public adoration accorded him by his blockbuster Birdman movies.

Unfortunately, however, Thomson's hopes are not being realized, with Fate seemingly determined to thwart them at every available opportunity, and when his play's co-star is abruptly taken out of action via a bizarre freak accident, only to be replaced by a famous but infuriatingly pedantic method actor named Mike Shiner (Edward Norton), events rapidly go from already bad to even worse. Moreover, in an attempt to keep a close watch over his teenage daughter Sam (Emma Stone), a former drug addict, and help her stay on the straight and narrow, Thomson employs her as his PR, but as Sam clearly despises him and has no interest in the theatre, this plan is not working out too well either.

And as if all of these woes were not enough for him to deal with during his increasingly desperate attempts to turn impending disaster into increasingly unlikely success, Thomson is persistently mocked and psychologically undermined by a voice that may or may not be inside his head but which is apparently that of his former movie alter-ego Birdman, who alternately commands and cajoles him to forgo his futile attempts to be a worthy actor and return instead to being a mega-successful one in his Birdman role. We also see Thomson apparently performing some of his erstwhile super-hero feats in reality, such as telekinesis and levitation, but only ever when he is alone, never when anyone else is with him – so is he really doing this, or only imagining that he is? Ditto with the voice of Birdman – only Thomson hears it, no-one else does.

All very weird to say the least, replete with unresolved fantastical versus psychological ambiguity, but also, fatally, containing what proved for me to be some insurmountable, inescapable distractions. Namely, Keaton's perpetual, largely-unintelligible mumbling (he should have taken note of co-star Norton's lucid diction), and, above all else, the near-perpetual racket of a guy playing a full drum kit for no discernible reason other than to make hearing what the cast are saying even more difficult.

Why this insistent, almost incessant drumming through the film? The drummer and his drum kit are even seen on occasion – busking on the pavement outside the theatre, for example, and within an otherwise empty room inside the theatre, so it isn't just a soundtrack idiosyncrasy. No doubt this pernicious paradiddling has some deep symbolic meaning that will resonate with avant-garde aficionados, but for poor simple me it was just an ongoing aural annoyance that helped make some virtually inaudible dialogue even more so. And who thought it a clever idea for the performers to deliver their mumbling not only against an auditory backdrop of drumming but also with their backs to the camera sometimes, so that even lip-reading was foiled?

With these notable negatives added to what was in any case for me a turgid, often ridiculous plot, after watching halfway through Birdman I actually paused my DVD of it and left it alone for about an hour, in order to give my pained ears and numbed brain a chance to recover before ploughing through its second half.

This latter half was marginally better, but only because Birdman himself finally made his long-anticipated visual debut (as opposed to merely his disembodied voice throughout the first half), albeit only in an all-too-brief single scene (not counting his 'blink and you'll miss him' appearance sitting on the toilet near the movie's end...). As already noted above and also seen in this review's opening image, Birdman's costume is spectacular, especially his wings. Why, therefore, didn't he feature more extensively in the film, and Thomson's self-indulgent, self-pitying navel-gazing scenes less so?

After all, it is Birdman who is the novelty, the quirk, that sets this movie apart and defines it (hence its title, Birdman). So why utilise him so sparingly, relegated to little more than a walk-on (or fly-on?) part visually, merely a cameo appearance? Instead, we are treated to the dubious thrill of discovering whether Thomson's play is indeed a success, and an anti-climactic ending that is as disappointingly baffling as much else in this bewildering movie.

At the risk of sounding harsh, Birdman was 1 hour 54 minutes of my life wasted – as a result of which my advice to others would be to watch a clip containing the 5 minutes or so in which Birdman himself appears and forget the rest of what came across to me as predominantly pretentious nonsense. How it ever won Best Picture at the Oscars I just don't know, especially when it was up against such infinitely more deserving nominees in my opinion as The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, and The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Having said that, everyone's tastes are different – just because Birdman did nothing for me, that's not to say that you wouldn't like it. So why not find out for yourself by clicking here to watch a mercifully drumming-free Birdman trailer on YouTube? Who knows, it may be the very movie that you've waited your entire life for. Then again…

And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!

THE CROODS

Publicity poster for The Croods (© Kirk DeMicco/Chris Sanders/DreamWorks Animation/20^th Century Fox - reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On 27 January 2019, I watched the DVD of a great animated movie entitled The Croods (it had been shown on TV during Christmas 2018 but I forgot to watch it!).

Directed by Kirk DeMicco and Chris Sanders, produced by DreamWorks Animation, and originally released in 2013, The Croods features a somewhat dysfunctional family of cave-people, led by an overly-protective patriarch called Grug (voiced by Nicholas Cage), and reveals how he has to adapt his closeted views of the world following the arrival of a younger and much more inventive, outward-looking rival in the form of an ideas-packed youth named Guy (voiced by Ryan Reynolds – which meant that every time I heard Guy speak, I half-expected him at any moment to come out with some classic deadpan Deadpool drollery!).

Throw in some natural cataclysms and the tried-and-trusted storyline of an epic journey to safety, plus some wacky prehistory-themed slapstick along the way, as well as a blossoming romance between Guy and Grug's tomboyish, adventurous daughter Eep (Emma Stone), and you have a fun-time feelgood film that whiles away 90 minutes or so very satisfactorily.

But what I love about it far and away above all else is its totally crazy fauna and flora, which bear little if any resemblance to anything currently known from either the fossil record or the present day's zoological and botanical catalogue of living organisms. There are green sabre-tooths and a giraffe-patterned mammoth, ring-tailed lemur-like creatures but which are permanently attached to each other in pairs via a shared, conjoined tail, an actual land whale complete with fully-functional legs but also a typical aquatic-whale tail bearing a pair of horizontal flukes, voluminous flocks of scarlet piranha birds that make short work of said unfortunate land whale, huge anthropophagic flowers, and all manner of other creatures so weird as to be indescribable, so I shan't attempt to!

I was fortunate enough to find and purchase the rare 2-disc version of The Croods (for a mere £3 too), whose bonus disc has a section devoted entirely to this ancient world's bizarre (and wholly fictitious) biota, so I'll be watching that shortly with great glee.

And the icing on this primeval croodilicious cake for me is a wonderful song played over the end-credits by Owl City and Yuna (a Malaysian megastar singer) entitled 'Shine Your Way', which I like very much (until then, I knew of Owl City only via their first and biggest hit, 'Fireflies', which I've always found to be decidedly underwhelming, if truth be told). Incredibly, however, 'Shine Your Way' never made the charts either in the UK or anywhere else as far as I can tell (perhaps it was not released as a single?), but there is an excellent official music video here on YouTube that incorporates some spectacular excerpts from the movie alongside Owl City and Yuna performing this song.

Also well worth checking out on YouTube here, here, and here is this truly hilarious trio of official trailers for The Croods itself. Moreover, there is a Croods TV series, Dawn of the Croods, which debuted on Netflix in December 2015. However, it does not feature any of the voice cast from the original movie – speaking of which, after a few false starts a sequel is currently under development at DreamWorks Animation. So if you're a Croods fan, there is plenty more where The Croods came from!

And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE! 

Personae dramatis for The Croods (© Kirk DeMicco/Chris Sanders/DreamWorks Animation/20^th Century Fox - reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)