Hellboy II: The Golden Army has no bad scenes and about five great ones, the best of them as memorable as anything in sci-fi & fantasy cinema. It’s a far out fairy tale, more fun (and more weird) than the first Hellboy, but it lacks the satisfying coherence of a great start-to-finish story like Pan’s Labyrinth or the original Star Wars.
The tone of Hellboy II is set as the film opens with our hero’s adoptive father reading a fairy tale to him. Say goodbye to demons, say hello to elves, trolls and fairies. In this way Hellboy II feels more like Pan’s Labyrinth than the first Hellboy.
There’s a Troll Market scene, which is a long, cool drink of distilled joy. As Hellboy and friends explore the market nestled beneath the Brooklyn Bridge (where else would trolls hang out?) every monster, every activity, every backdrop is eye-popping. It’s reminiscent of the Mos Eisley cantina scene in Star Wars (”I don’t like you either!” and Ben Kenobi cuts off a guy’s arm), but the Troll Market is even better than Lucas’ Mos Eisley. Hellboy’s essentially Han Solo and Chewbacca in one guy, as dangerous as he is funny. …Read more
Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy II: The Golden Army hits theaters this Friday. Del Toro is a rare filmmaker who, despite his unique vision, often works on projects based on material from an outside source (Pan’s Labyrinth being a notable exception). Assuming all the legal issues get ironed out, he’ll next direct a two part film adaptation of Tolkien’s The Hobbit, the most prestigious property to date to get the del Toro treatment. Here are seven either failed or unjustly obscure movies ripe for being remade by Hellboy’s father.
1. Spawn - Todd McFarlane’s comic about a Hell-trotting anti-hero indebted to the Devil opened my young eyes to genuinely dark storytelling. While the 90s were a simpler time in terms of comic to movie adaptations, I was already dreaming about a big screen adaptation after reading the first issue. Unfortunately, my dream came true in 1997, when Mark A.Z. Dippé’s god-awful Spawn slumped into theaters.
When a short student film described by the director as “an exercise for school” wins the Palme d’Or at Cannes, you can be sure this is someone to watch. Elisa Miller’s Ver Llover (translated Watching it Rain) was featured with a host of other shorts by Mexican directors in this year’s Great Expectations program. The lineup was dominated by hard-hitting dramas with more than their share of gritty sex and death (taking a cue from Iñárritu?). In contrast, Miller’s ode to young love reads like a deceptively simple haiku.
She told me how the true drama is often in the little things, and we talked about the exciting new crop of young Mexican directors, supported by the more established “Tres Amigos” (Iñárritu, Cuarón and Del Toro).
So it turns out that Alfonso Cuaron, director of Children of Men, is kind of resenting the sudden attention and praise being lavished on Mexican films (his as well as Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritus’ Babel). In a post Cuaron wrote this week, he said this:
…What I resent, however, is the notion that the Oscars are somehow bestowing legitimacy on Mexican cinema. We don’t need this legitimacy.
I can get my head around that kind of resentment. I can also understand why Cuaron doesn’t want to define or represent “Mexican cinema.” As he points out in his post, the three films getting all the attention are set in a variety of places other than Mexico–from London to Spain to California and Morocco. I think he just wants to be known as a great filmmaker–one who isn’t put in a box.
But at the same time, attention and praise are still attention and praise, even if they’re long overdue or not in the most appealing package. The amount of interest being stirred up around Mexican directors and films right now is to be expected, considering the box office numbers and Oscar nominations (16 between the three titles) these three films have generated. According to indieWIRE’s BOT, Pan’s Labyrinth surpassed Like Water for Chocolate as the highest grossing Spanish language film in the US ($21.7 million as of yesterday). All kinds of people watching a subtitled movie in multiplex theaters. I love it (even if it is a ridiculous thing to love).
It’s true. American audiences blinded by Hollywood blockbusters can be a bit clueless. They might even need to be hit over the head before they sit up and take notice. But personally, I’m just glad they’re taking notice. I’m glad more films from more places are being seen by more people.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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