FunBlog

I’m a great fan of Christopher Guest’s “mocumentaries” and I enjoyed his latest: For Your Consideration, but while it has some hilarious moments it is not as consistently funny as some of his earlier works such as Best in Show and Waiting for Guffman.

Part of the problem may be that by setting the story in Hollywood and making it about professional actors and filmmakers he has aimed too close to home. The characters sometimes seem a bit too real and we feel their pain a bit too much, so that we are tempted to cry with them instead of laughing at them. And this isn’t supposed to be that sort of movie.
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I put a bunch of notes here about common symbols. These are my own interpretations and speculation. You can take it for what it is worth.

I’m getting a little tired of constantly typing “this series is not suitable for young children”, or words to that effect. So here is one that won’t require me to write that.

This is basically a charming children’s show, but one that can also be entertaining for adults, provided that the adults have a high degree of tolerance for cute characters and sentimental story lines. If mainstream America ever starts to take anime seriously this may come to be considered a children’s classic.
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I associate Will Farrell with comedies that are funny but rather dopey; his last movie Talladega Nights is a classic example. However his latest movie is different. It’s a low-key fantasy; clever, witty and somewhat dark.
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(…moving from the sublime to the ridiculous…)

I’m giving this movie a mild recommendation because it is extremely funny, and I’m prepared to forgive just about anything if it is funny enough. However be warned that it is also very offensive. In fact, however offensive you think it might be based on what you have heard, it is probably a lot more offensive than that.
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Can a television series qualify as great literature? In principle I don’t see any reason why one couldn’t, but few of them have any such ambitions. In any case great literature has to pass the test of time, and perhaps the medium hasn’t been around long enough.

If one ever does qualify, it might well be this strange haunting story about people who have wings and halos, but who are not angels.
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I can’t avoid comparing The Prestige with The Illusionist, a movie that I saw a couple of months ago. Both are rather dark stories about stage magicians practicing their craft in Europe about one hundred years ago.

However they are actually quite different. The Illusionist is fundamentally a romantic tale of the supernatural. The Prestige is a grittier story with no supernatural elements (science fiction maybe, but nothing supernatural). Most people will probably prefer the ending of The Illusionist but from a purely technical standpoint The Prestige is the superior film: exquisitely crafted with a tight though convoluted plot.
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