Due to coursework and Christmas I ain't gonna be on here too much for a while
Due to coursework and Christmas I ain't gonna be on here too much for a while
Member since:07.04.2007
Reviews:152
Members who trust:92
Going against the grain of everyone I know I can't stand Will Ferrell, (or Will Ferret as I call him due to his tiny eyes. I also hate ferrets, it all fits.) I hate the type of crappy, simple-minded comedies that he stars in and I avoid his movies now. However, I saw a trailer for Stranger Than Fiction and I was intrigued. He didn't seem to be playing the same dumb, slap-stick character and the film seemed to have a good story. The fact Dustin Hoffman was in it swung it for me and the fact the DVD cost me a nice £1 new off the internet swung it for me.
The film is about Harold Crick (Will Ferrell), Harold Crick is an IRS agent. He is a very introverted, lonely man who does nothing but work. He counts everything and his only pass-time is mathematics. As an IRS agent he is not well liked and has only one friend who he only talks to briefly in work. His life starts to change as he hears a narrators voice in his head. The voice seems to be narrating everything he does and it is driving him mad. Not only that but the narrators voice happens to mention his imminent death. At first he goes to a psychiatrist but unsatisfied he decides to go to a literary professor called Jules Hilbert played by Dustin Hoffman, a very funny guy. He decides
to help Crick and tries to work out what type of book he's in. The scene were he interviews Crick was brilliant and a somewhat higher form of humour than the crap kind in the usual Ferrell movie. A short excerpt:
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Are you the king of anything? Harold Crick: Like what? Dr. Jules Hilbert: Anything. King of the lanes at the local bowling alley. Harold Crick: King of the lanes? Dr. Jules Hilbert: King of the lanes, king of the trolls, Harold Crick: King of the Trolls? Dr. Jules Hilbert: Yes, uh uh uh a clandestine land found underneath your floor boards. Harold Crick: No. Dr. Jules Hilbert: Huh? Harold Crick: No. That's ridiculous. Dr. Jules Hilbert: Agreed. Let's start with ridiculous and move backwards. Now, was any part of you at one time part of something else? Harold Crick: Like do I have someone else's arms? Dr. Jules Hilbert: Well is it possible at one time that you were made of stone, wood, lye, varied corpse parts? Or, earth made holy by rabbinical elders? Harold Crick: No. Look, look. I'm sorry, but what do these questions have to do with anything?
Running along side this story is the story of Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson) a successful novelist who is famous for writing tragedies that always involve her main character dying at the end. However, she has writer's block and doesn't know how to end her book and kill her main character: Harold Crick. That's right she's writing the book. It's all neat and tidy. She enlists the help of Penny ( Queen Latifa) who is pretty much a pointless character only there for Eiffel to bounce dialogue against.
The film is actually very, very good and I really enjoyed it. Ferrell for once doesn't play a dumb, whacky character. His character is a very shy man who doesn't know how to interact with people. He starts to fall in love with the woman he is auditing Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhall). The two characters interact nicely with each other. I'd never seen Gyllenhal in anything before and she's not a bad actress though her performance her isn't anything outstanding. She does look something like Kursten Dunst to me. Ferrell definitely puts up the best performance of his career in this film, he was nominated for a Golden Globe and I think he deserves it. This is high praise coming from me because until seeing this film I completely hated him.
I really like the evolution of Ferrell's character within the film and the story had a nice moral to it. The narrating was also rather humorous and rather well narrated by Thompson as well. Thompson acted as if she has something mentally wrong with her. She reminded me a lot of Johnny Depp in The Secret Window and as he was also playing a writer either all writers actually act like that or she was imitating. It really wasn't too much of a problem though.
The script was funny and overall a rather good film for everyone. Similar to an extent to The Truman Show so anyone who enjoyed it may enjoy this. But it is very much its own film in style etc. and I really liked this originality. I haven't seen anything else by the director Marc Foster but he directed the upcoming Bond film which I'll be going to see even though I'm not a massive fan of Bond it is one of those things that just has to be done. He also directed Monster's Ball and Finding Neverland. Now the music for this film was brilliant, definitely my type of music. I generally don't care to much about what music is in a film and it's not often that it stands out but in this film it did amongst the tracks were: That's Entertainment by The Jam and Going Missing by Maximo Park and a few other great songs I didn't recognise.
Why does Ciao have that little Special Effects thing for every single film?
The DVD had a few deleted scenes that were quite good to watch and a trailer.
Comedy - Director: Tony Dow - Original Language: English - Classification: 12 years and over - Starring: John Challis, David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Tessa Peake-Jones, Gwyneth Strong
Comedy - Director: Richard Boden, Mandie Fletcher, Martin Shardlow - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Hugh Laurie, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry, Brian Blessed, Tim McInnerny, Tony Robinson, Rowan Atkinson
Comedy - Original Language: English - Classification: 12 years and over - Starring: Tessa Peake-Jones, Buster Merryfield, David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst
During the director's cut the special effects are taken up a notch, culminating in a mass war set in space while Dustin Hoffman looks on wisely and shakes his head as he thinks about the futility of modern warfare. Some of this comment is lies. In fact... all of it.
tallulahbang 13.07.2008 19:54
Phelim: wears glasses and is not at all fond of ferrets. That should be your about me. xx
Much was written about Will Ferrell's first "dramatic role" as Harold Crick, an IRS ... more
auditor who begins hearing a voice narrating his life. ButStranger Than Fictionis hardly a drama. However, what Ferrell does--like Jim Carrey before him inThe Truman Sh...
Postage & Packaging: £1.21 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Will Ferrell stars as Harold Crick, a lonely tax man whose world is turned upside-down ... more
when he starts hearing a mysterious voice narrating his life. With the help of Professor Jules Hilbert, the bewildered and hilariously resistant Harold discovers he'...
Advantages: Easy to understand - documents ALL her life and her impact upon England as a ruler. Disadvantages: Some people might prefer a 'traditional' film adaptation.
Advantages: Witty, gritty, thrilling... the best gangster film I've seen in years. Disadvantages: A bit of a Deus ex machina ending, some predictable moments...negligable really
Entwife 08.06.2007 (04.02.2008)
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Jul 12th, 2008
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