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jonduckworth
Reviews
The Possessed (1977)
Thank you IMDb
Thank you IMDb. I remember seeing this as a kid back in the 1980s when my dad taped it after a late night BBC screening. For years that nail spewing scene has lived with me. Recently, I found myself thinking "Why have I never seen that film where a woman vomits nails again? Surely it's a horror classic." That bit scared the hell out of me when I was a kid, even though I remembered next to nothing else about it. Google searches along the lines of "puke" "nails" "school" came up with nothing. No one else seems to remember it. And then, thanks to IMDb, I find that I hadn't just imagined it! It exists. Glad that other people shared the experience of seeing this as a kid. I'd love to watch it again, although I understand it may not be as good as I remember it.
The Golden Compass (2007)
Cold Product
I have always been sceptical of the trend (kickstarted by Harry Potter) for adults to read children's fiction. That said, I was aware of the controversy around Pullman's trilogy and, after seeing the trailers, had high expectations for The Golden Compass, so I dutifully took my daughter to see it.
Well...I don't know if I left my brain at the office that day, or if I was a little tired, but the first hour or so was so confusing and muddled that it really tested my patience. Set in an alternate reality to our own (a world run by powerful bishop-types where everyone is accompanied by an animal incarnation of their soul linked to them by something called Dust) the film skirted around too much scene-setting. What should have been mysterious and intriguing was just baffling, and came across as bewildering nonsense. (Even by the end of the film, we're no wiser about what Dust actually is...and yet the characters talk about it endlessly).
This movie is a real botch job. To keep things short, the action skips from one confusing event to another without much plot logic. Characters are left to speak ridiculous lines of exposition just to help you keep up with what's happening. Unfortunately, not much is happening. People move from place to place (though without the sense of scope and journey of, say, Lord of the Rings), meet people, talk about Dust. Then two polar bears have a scrap (very graphic for a PG - some of the kiddies were traumatised), we learn about a process called "intercision" (a sort of castration or circumcision to separate kids from their "daemon" animal spirits), it gets suddenly more exciting for 15 minutes, and then it ends. And you haven't learnt much more than when you went in.
The whole production lacks the requisite sense of wonder and magic. What you're left with is some inconsistent CGI effects and so much snowbound landscape you'll wish you'd wrapped up warmer.
Performance-wise, Kidman looks stunning and delivers a subdued menace. Sam Elliott as a ballooning cowboy has charisma. McKellan gives good voice as an alcoholic polar bear. But a lot of the other actors fail to make an impression thanks to their underwritten parts.
Ultimately, this is an entirely underwhelming start to a proposed trilogy. That said, my 9 year old daughter seemed to enjoy it. More fidgety kids and picky adults might not find as much to satisfy them.