Reviews

I missed the first airing of the pilot but caught an encore Saturday night, and I am glad I did. The plot was challenging, characters engaging, dialog tight and raw, atmosphere gritty.

I have an inexplicable soft spot in my heart for Gypsies, and I am usually disappointed in how cold and inaccessible modern nomads are in film and T.V. The Riches family are portrayed with enough warmth and pathos (and unexpected poetry!) to let the viewer in, while in no way slipping into the criminals-with-a-heart-of-gold cliché. This ain't no Hallmark channel program!

I was particularly impressed with Eddie Izzard's rich use of language which really did touch on the poetic at times. Minnie Driver was especially compelling and complex. And their marriage was one of the few believable mature relationships I've seen on television in a long time.

With the absurd premise and the comedy-background casting, I expected a few laughs, but didn't find them. Instead, I had the strange yet familiar feeling reminiscent of picking up a Frank Miller comic book the first time, expecting superheroes and finding horror in its place.

But I just can't. I get that Bakshi's rotoscoping was cutting edge, but to me it just looks awful. That's not what kills this film, though. In a nutshell, the pacing makes the actual story nearly impossible to follow for anyone who hasn't already memorized it. In some parts, it moves too quickly (obviously there were time considerations), but other scenes drag out forever without actually contributing to the plot. The orc battle scenes in particular felt like the same images over and over and over and over again (drenched in the murky rotoscoping), to the point where it was impossible to tell what was actually supposed to be happening. It almost feels like Bakshi was more interested in splashing images on the screen than in telling a story. I guess if you like the images, and you already know the story (or aren't interested in it), then this movie will be great fun for you.

I won't bother with purist complaints about the movie not following the book. Literature and cinema are two related but vastly different forms, and what works for one often does not work for the other. If anything, part of the problem is that it follows the book too closely at times, not allowing for how awkward the written dialog sounds when actually spoken. The only real complaint I have about the adaptation is Bakshi's reading of Sam as a gay, retarded circus midget. I also get the sense that this portrayal was somehow intended to be comic relief. Why take such pains to render such an important character so impossible to take seriously?

I so wanted to like this movie. I really did. I kept thinking that I would like it better after reading the book (the first time I saw it was in the theater, and I didn't understand most of it), or when I had gotten old enough to appreciate it. I even thought it might be fun to do a compare and contrast with the new films. None of it helped. I understand that this movie has many devotees and many more apologists. I wish I could see whatever it is you all see when you watch it.

I saw this show twice, about ten years ago. I don't remember it well enough to be very specific, but I do remember finding it funnier than some others who have commented on it here. I wish it were available on video so that I could have another look. I do remember one sketch where Emma and another woman were at a nice restaurant, having an animated discussion about flatulence. I don't generally find potty humor amusing at all, but this one I thought was very, very funny. The punch line had me in stitches.

I almost skipped this movie, on the advice of a friend and so many IMDB users. I decided to take a chance anyway, and I'm glad I did. It's hard for me to see what all the venom is about. This was a fantasy movie, pure and simple, with a completely preposterous premise and an absurd plot. I loved every minute of it. I expected it to be over the top, and it was. I have read most of the source material (the comic series and about half of the original novels), and I thought this movie did the characters justice. My complaints are few and minor. Tom Sawyer grew up in antebellum Mississippi, and should have been about fifty years old by the time of this film, and I was disppointed by how Dorian Gray was handled. That's a shame on both counts, because I thought adding those two characters was inspired, and I wish they had been more satisfactorily developed. In general, though, I thought this movie was great fun, and I find myself wondering as I read through these loathsome and unforgiving reviews, just what it was that these critics were expecting.