Stardust - digg this
I saw Stardust (2007) on DVD over the holiday. I'm a pretty big fan of Gaiman and though I've never read the book this was based on I had much anticipation that this would be good I wasn't familiar with the director though I'd heard good things about Layer Cake. I went in pretty blind overall. The only thing that I kept hearing were references to Princess Bride. As that happens to be one of my faves I took the comparisons with a grain of salt.
If you enjoyed this entry subscribe to this blog by email or feed readerI get the comparison. Both are fairy tales to be sure, though TPB spins the yarn with tongue in cheek. This is a straight up tale for the most part. The main part of the movie involces Tristan Thorn searcing for a falling star that he promises to his unrequited love Victoria. The search takes him through a gap in a stone wall that turns out to be an entrance into a wildly different world filled with magic and fun, interesting characters.
The filming is absolutely beautiful. The major plot is engaging and the actors do their jobs very, very well. The reason that I'd recommend this movie though has little to do with any of that. When you write fantasy or fairy stories you're up against a pretty major obstacle. These are the kinds of stories that we've all grown up with, so how do you manage to make it interesting and diferent while remaining true to the genre? Gaiman, presumably, and the director/screenwirters certainly have done it by creating a world rich with its own mythology with just enough of the familiar so as not to lose us.
The best part of the whole movie is the time that Tristan and Yvaine the Star (did I mention that the star turns out to be a girl?) spend on Captain Shakespeare's lightning collecting ship. Shakespeare is played by Robert De Niro and seeing him as the bloodthirsty Captain who hides his habitual cross dressing and more feminie side from his crew is AWESOME.
The rest of it is great and you should rent this stat. Only time will tell if this will be as big a cult classic as TPB and if it is it will be so for entirely different reasons, but it deserves your time.
Total Number of Comments: 1
I grabbed this last night. I'll tag it for watching this weekend.