Arthur Christmas ***½

Director: Sarah Smith

Leave it to the Brits to make a film so good and unique that Americans almost had to spoil by way of terrible marketing. The ad campaign and trailers for Arthur Christmas made it seem like it would be one of those "hip" animated comedies that rely on cheap jokes about modern issues to attract the masses, but then are all but remembered three hours after they've over. The truth is in fact, that Arthur Christmas has all the elements of a timeless classic in the making.
Few movies feel the need to feel audiences with joy - they're usually more concerned about pleasing themselves - this one however reaches out to you with such sincerity that you have to wonder how Pixar didn't make it.
The simple answer is because it was made by Aardman Animations (in collaboration with Sony Pictures Animation), the people responsible for Wallace & Gromit.  
Arthur Christmas might not be claymation, but its computer generated images contain such beauty that you might want to revisit it just to admire the great detail with which the animators created every single character and setting.
The film opens with a gorgeous vista of a small English town, where a little girl carefully deposits a letter for Santa Claus in the mailbox. When Christmas arrives we see how the once quaint and rustic North Pole, has become almost militarized and Santa's big mission is a task worthy of an army.
Thousands of elves behind computers check and see that nothing goes wrong, while Santa's older son Steve, supervises the entire operation. We see how Santa's sleigh has been replaced by a modern spaceship that can camouflage itself in the night sky to help the delivery.
The elves enter people's houses using all sorts of spy techniques and we are told, more than once, how important it is that nobody discovers them. Back in the North Pole, Santa's younger son, Arthur, watches the entire operation with admiration and a deep desire to be part of it all. His job is less important, nobody thinks he'll amount to much.
When Santa returns, Arthur realizes one present wasn't delivered and he makes it his mission to deliver it himself. After this setup, we are treated with a lovely take on the "black sheep" story as the courageous Arthur overcomes all obstacles - including genre stereotypes - to become a man and gain his father's respect.
The superb screenplay (written by director Smith and Peter Baynham) could've easily relied on complicated setpieces to keep us entertained, instead they devote such care to developing every character that we could see entire movies dedicated to each of them.
From Arthur's own brand of meek heroism, to Steve's brand of creepy perfectionism (there's a Margaret Thatcher book in his room!), the film is more interested in reveling in these characters' humanity than in their comedic skills. A feisty elf named Bryony and a scene-stealing Grandsanta, round up the film's most memorable characters.
Best of all must be the joy that emanates from every single scene in the movie. Where it could've been moralizing and trite, instead it delivers a unique brand of existentialist thinking, leading us to wonder whether we've corrupted the spirit of Christmas or if it has corrupted us in a way.
The film thrives with clever dialogues, stunning action sequences and pierces your heart in the most unexpected of ways. It will move you to tears and leave you yearning for the times when you too believed Santa was real.
Kudos to director Smith for finding the perfect balance between originality and homage (there are several sequences that can only be called Spielberg-ian, a la E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and Close Encounters, mind you...) don't let phony advertising fool you, Arthur Christmas is truly a present you'll love to unwrap.

Short Takes: "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work" and "Another Year".

The word is thrown around lightly nowadays but few people in the entertainment industry can be considered "survivors". Joan Rivers would be one of these people and as this clever documentary shows us, she's not just the loud mouthed, plastic surgery freak who disses red carpet dresses...she's the loud mouthed, plastic surgery freak who has survived forty years in the business and is still around.

A multi-talented performer, Rivers confesses she's only happy when she's onstage after she had revealed previously she never really wanted to do comedy and it's this kind of revelation which makes the movie such a refreshing entertainment.

As with any so called non fiction film you are left wondering what's "real" and what's staged yet the truth is that regardless of this issue, the film is superb entertainment. It makes you laugh, can move you to tears and sometimes even borders on something similar to enlightenment.

Fans of Joan will probably be thrilled to see her during her most intimate moments, people who don't know about her will leave the theater exhilarated and wanting to YouTube the hell out of her (even she does this in one scene showing her need to be up to date in technological advancements) and those who dislike her probably won't be converted but as a story about growing old this documentary can't hide its wisdom, even if it's usually covered in glitter.

After the strangely optimistic Happy-Go-Lucky it would've been easy to assume that Mike Leigh's next movie would possess the same sort of joie de vivre he seemed to have just discovered; however Another Year is instead an elegiac look at coming to terms with the deep dissatisfaction and regrets some might face as they become old.

The film, which is divided into four chapters (one for each season) shows us with situations peripheral to Tom (Broadbent) and Gerri (Sheen), a married couple who have to deal with their friends, their son (Maltman) and themselves.

The film consists of vignettes where we see these people interact and we begin to get to know them in a way. The movie is one of those where "nothing happens" and it becomes more of an intimate character study as we see how people around Tom and Gerry seem to be unhappy, while they appear to be rather content with their lives. We often see these people in private situations yet Leigh allows us to feel invited, his technical work is never intrusive.

Sheen and Broadbent both share very sweet personalities that make it easy for us to understand why the people around them, and the movie, have chosen them as a sort of moral center.

Perhaps the most interesting character around them is their friend Mary (Manville), an insecure divorced woman who fears aging without a partner.

Several scenes concentrate on Mary and her restless appeals to find someone to be with. Whether it's with Tom and Gerri or their son Joe, Mary seems terrified of being left on her own. She is played with fearlessness by Manville who doesn't seem to mind how obnoxious and pathetic Mary can become. Several scenes have her portraying some of the worst things about humans, yet Manville is so committed to her character and so devoid of any vanity that you can't help but feel, or at least try to feel for Mary.

Her last scene is a thing of heartbreaking beauty and makes everything that preceded it shine under a different light. Leigh's ability to take us from one emotion to another and in the process transform his movie from depressing to poignant, make this movie a truly bittersweet experience.

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work ***

Another Year ***

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I **

Director: David Yates
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Ralph Fiennes
Helena Bonham Carter, Robbie Coltraine, Jim Broadbent
Michael Gambon, Brendan Gleeson, Rhys Ifans, John Hurt
Julie Walters, Imelda Staunton

Have you ever noticed how the trailers for the Harry Potter movies often make for much more exciting experiences than the films themselves?
Judging from what we were presented in the previews for this (the first part of two, in the series finale) this movie should've made us be on the edge all the time, gasping for air and having our jaws fall to the floor in amazement.
The truth is that the film feels like nothing else than a marketing ploy to extract every single penny from Potterites and those who accompany them to the cinema.
It's said that this film was meant to be as close to the book as it possibly could and perhaps that is why it fails to be engaging in a purely cinematic level.
The filmmakers seem to have forgotten that not everyone has read the books (or ever intends to) and besides recreating entire passages from J.K. Rowling's prose, they should also be creating something worthy of being transferred to the silver screen. Something that will feel magical for everyone who buys a ticket.
Instead we get almost three hours of Harry (Radcliffe), Ron (Grint) and Hermione (Watson) moping and setting up tents in lush forests where they hide from Lord Voldemort (Fiennes).
The kids are looking for the horcruxes they began looking for in the previous installment but now have to deal with the fact that the entire magical world is under Voldemort's rule.
Still there's not even a single moment when we feel these people are real and before you make some joke about Muggles keep in mind that these characters should be true to the world they inhabit.
This almost never happens, except of course with the mature actors but this movie belongs mostly to the children. Yates is often redundant (how many times can we see Ron feeling Potter envy in this series?) and while he concentrates on silly twists we never understand how is it that the kids have no protection against evil but still packed a different coat to wear during their escape.
The action sequences are limited and as usual character development is restricted to a few moments of big dialogues that often result more stilted than not (why are they wasting Carter's Bellatrix Lestrange so much? She has such potential!)
It's a shame that the film feels so stale when absolutely everything is so handsomely crafted. The cinematography by Eduardo Serra evokes ancient carvings and even when he tries too hard to emulate Andrew Lesnie's magnificent work in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Alexandre Desplat provides a sumptuous score that perfectly works with John Williams' already iconic theme.
When you come to think about it, this movie might be the exact opposite of The Two Towers, an introspective chapter that serves mostly to link plot turns. While Peter Jackson's movie managed to make the film a stand alone piece upon itself, Yates makes this Potter feel like waste the movie's almost three hours long and we find out what the deathly hallows are during the last fifteen! He even includes his own Gollum in the shape of Dobby (and sometimes even Ron) but fails to make any sort of emotional connection between what we're seeing and what we're supposed to be feeling.
Speaking in simple literary terms Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I is a luxurious hardcover version of a silly airport novel.