Word: dahling
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MATILDA (August 2), about a girl's revenge on her cruddy parents and evil schoolmistress, has the potential delectations of a Roald Dahl story and Danny DeVito's knowing comic direction. DeVito also plays Matilda's dad, expectorating lines like, "Why wudja wanna read, when ya got the television set sittin' right in frunnaya?" Or, we might add, when ya got a 'plex-full of icky kids' films...
...fully anticipate the wrath of several generations of possessive children when we declare that the new Disney film of James and the Giant Peach is an improvement on Roald Dahl's 1961 backyard fantasy. Director Henry Selick and his team of screenwriters (Karey Kirkpatrick, Jonathan Roberts, Steve Bloom) and technical specialists have given the story balance and emotional heft. Mixing stylized live action with stop-motion animation, they have reconciled the tale's realistic and surreal elements and, in five sprightly Randy Newman tunes, made the story sing...
...page 1 of the book, Dahl kills off James' parents--they are devoured by a rhinoceros--and, soon after, the wicked Sponge and Spiker. The story then lurches picaresquely amid near catastrophes. Selick gives this all a bit more focus by making sure the early events, including the rhinoceros, resonate throughout the film. He also gives James (winningly played by Paul Terry) a mission: to find his dream city, a Deco-delicious Manhattan. Spider (voiced by Susan Sarandon) here has the melancholy hauteur of a Garbo femme fatale; and the Centipede, obnoxious in the book, is now a Leo Gorcey...
...Oscar winner Nick Park (A Close Shave) and Selick, whose previous feature was Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. This is a jauntier piece--more Disneyfied, perhaps, but still apt to leave a haunting impression on the children who see it. And when they finally read the Dahl book, they may be annoyed. Why, they will wonder, couldn't it be more like this movie...
...their roots with their new film "Fargo," set in Minnesota where they grew up. "Fargo" is also a return to the world of the grisley murder, a genre which owes a lot to the Coens, who have written and directed five films together. Back when Quentin Tarantino and John Dahl were still just film geeks, Joel and Ethan Coen made "Blood Simple," a completely original and seductively seedy neo-noir. The film propelled them into the spotlight, where, for a time, they were "the" cool independant filmmakers. Now, of course, we have lesser directors hosting "Saturday Night Live" and telling...