Angry Ant

In the animated kingdom of Andalasia lives a beautiful maiden named Giselle, who loves to sing and play with her forest animal friends. She is delicate and graceful, has big eyes, perky nose, and long flowing hair - unmistakably, a Disney heroin.

One day, Giselle meets Prince Edward who is brave and handsome and has been looking for a girl of his dreams to “to complete his duet”. They fall in love and rather hastily, as often happens in fairy tales, set their wedding for the very next day.

Edward’s evil stepmother, Queen Narissa who doesn’t want anyone to usurp her throne, wastes no time either. She promptly lures Giselle to a magic well and dispatches her through it to a place “where there are no happily ever afters”. Giselle emerges out of her animated paradise right in the middle of Times Square (through a sewer manhole at that) – in flesh, looking like Amy Adams.

Wandering the streets thoroughly bewildered, she befriends Robert (Patrick Dampsey), a single dad whose little girl is instantly convinced Giselle is a real princess. Robert is more inclined to think she’s a nutcase, what with her proclaiming she’d like to take a nap in a tree hollow and cutting up his curtains to make dresses out of them.

Meanwhile, Prince Edward (taking the form of James Marsden) dashes to New York determined to rescue his true love. His faithful chipmunk, Pip, follows, horrified to discover that in this world animals don’t talk which means he is forced to mime to the not-so-bright, Edward what is really going on. (Watch out for Pips’s mute rendition of the apple scene from Snow White - one of the funniest bits in the movie.)

Disney was the brand of my childhood (coming just above Barbie and Lego). I was a model little consumer of their products - comics, cartoons, books, toys – I had them all and wanted more. I dreamed about going to Disneyland, a dream which as yet remains unfulfilled, mostly because these days it doesn’t rank very highly on my list of must-see places.

A big part of my love affair with Disney were animated movies featuring princess-type heroines, so Enchanted was always going to have nostalgia value for me if nothing else. From the opening tunes of When You Wish Upon a Star, references to past Disney movies flow fast. I probably missed more than I picked up but I knew right away that Queen Narrisa was modelled on the evil witch from the Sleeping Beauty. Knew this, because her fiery first appearance in that movie positively traumatised me as a kid.

But, Enchanted is so much more than just a pastiche of Disney’s past efforts. It manages to find the perfect tone, successfully walking the line between clever self-mockery and actually creating that feel-good Disney world that gives you a goofy grin and makes you go “awww”. It’s also just plain hilarious. (For example, you know how in a magical forest, when you make a sing-song call to your animal friends to come and help you clean the house – who arrives but squirrels, deer and bunnies. Guess which animals arrive when you make the same call in the middle of Manhattan… Yep, you end up with sewer rats cleaning your toilet with toothbrushes. Priceless.)

I also have to mention Amy Adams who is wonderful in this. She conveys just the right mix of adorable and dopey, cartoon princess and real girl. Even though I spent a good part of the year convinced she and Jenna Fischer were one and the same person (and apparently, I am not alone in this), I can’t imagine anyone else handling this role better.

So there you go. Even though I am now older, supposedly wiser and certainly more cynical and do know that Disney is just a giant money-making corporation – I can’t help but continue to love their stuff, Enchanted included.

Barry B. Benson (Jerry Seinfeld) is a recent college graduate. He is reluctant to commit to a career just yet so he ventures into the big wide world where he meets a girl and experiences a life changing adventure. Familiar story, except… Barry is a bee. A talking bee. (more…)

Unlike most movie orphans, Laura remembers fondly her childhood spent in an orphanage. Hers was a great old mansion on a wild peninsula with a lighthouse overlooking as she and her friends played happily in the garden. That is why years later, Laura returns there with her husband and young son Simon, to restore the now rundown place and open it as a home for the disabled children. (more…)

Who’d have thought you could enjoy a book so much even if the subject matter was something you could absolutely not identify with? Like say, the contraception problems of young, married Catholics in the early 60s, as was the case here.

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I have a colleague who cannot express a thought without using the words ‘stakeholder’, ‘road map’ or ‘deliverables’. Don Watson, author and former speech writer to Paul Keating, wouldn’t have much time for him. (more…)

I’ve been a fan of The Chaser ever since their excellent CNNN in 2002. Their popularity (infamy?) has been steadily growing over the past few years but the APEC stunt really clinched it. In fact, I am surprised they still manage to find people who are genuinely bewildered by the Citizens’ Infringement Officer or the Surprise Spruiker. (more…)

Tom (Patrick Dempsey) and Hannah (Michelle Monaghan) have been best friends for 10 years. Hannah unexpectedly meets Colin (Kevin McKidd), decides he’s the man of her dreams and calls a shotgun wedding asking Tom to be her Maid of Honour. Problem is, Tom has chosen exactly that moment to realise that he’s in love with Hannah and sets out to sabotage the wedding. Ding dong, ding dong! Does that ring some bells? It should, because it’s the plot of My Best Friend’s Wedding only with the genders reversed! Also, My Best Friend’s Wedding was a great movie while Made of Honor revels in its triteness. (more…)

Nim (Abigail Breslin) is an 11 year old girl living on an island paradise with her marine biologist dad (Gerard Butler). Beach is her playground, seals and albatrosses are her pets and her favourite fictional hero is Alex Rover (Gerard Butler again), the brave adventurer whose books she devours. (She also has full internet access despite the fact that the island is supposedly not on any maps, wonder who her ISP is?)

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Richard E. Grant is best known for his acting but he is also a terrific writer and as anyone who has read his books or seen his interview with Andrew Denton on Enough Rope would attest, a total charmer. (I notice there’s a Facebook group called ‘I fell in love with Richard E. Grant after watching him on Enough Rope’.)

Wah-Wah, Grant’s directorial debut about his troubled childhood in Swaziland, came out in 2006. Released to coincide with the film was The Wah-Wah Diaries, his hilarious written account of what it took to get the movie made.

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I orginally wrote this DVD review for The Australian back in November 2006. Posting it here now to go with my review of The Wah-Wah Diaries.

As a boy, actor Richard E. Grant witnessed his mother having sex with his father’s best friend. Later, in an alcoholic rage, his father nearly shot him. This doesn’t make for much of a childhood but it certainly gave Grant all the material he needed for Wah-Wah, his semi-autobiographical debut as a writer and director.

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