Word: comical
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Fans of the feisty Gallic comic character Asterix have always loved the monumental brawls their hero regularly finds himself in. Few, however, are taking pleasure in the latest Asterix fight - an ugly donnybrook between the comic's illustrator Albert Uderzo and his daughter Sylvie over her accusation that Uderzo was sweet-talked into selling his beloved creation to crass business interests. Now father and daughter are locked in battle over the future of the diminutive Gaul - and the $15 million or so he generates every year...
...They are a uniformly frustrating lot, brightened only by regular quips from Mirren or the always marvelous Jim Broadbent, who plays the fictional Inkheart's author, Fenoglio. He and Mirren mine their parts for any comic angle, wisely staying out of the dramatic fray. Bettany looks as though he's itching to do the same, but he gets stuck with a lot of self-important strutting and moping and as result, he fares the worst. The movie veers between silly and scary, but ultimately, its tone and level of violence seem inappropriate for either a typical PG audience or Funke...
...picked the Oscar nominations again this year. The voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences don't care that you liked The Dark Knight, which is the second biggest dollar-earner in movie history, and which kids and critics alike appreciated less as a live-action comic book than a triangular battle of stern Good, giggling Evil and two faces in between. Except for a Heath Ledger memorial citation (Supporting Actor), the film was shut out of all major award categories, taking seven other doorstop prizes like Sound Editing and Sound Mixing...
...story out of its period whenever she's on screen. (Changeling, directed by Clint Eastwood, took three nominations; Eastwood's much superior Gran Torino, none.) It would have made far more sense, though obviously not to the Academy, if she'd been cited as the succulent succubus of the comic-book film Wanted - a true demonstration of star quality.
...gained early notice with 1957's The Dock Brief, a comic tale of an inept counsel. It was done on radio, TV and stage, then filmed with Peter Sellers. The autobiographical A Voyage Round My Father starred Alec Guinness on a West End stage and Laurence Olivier...