Special Advance Peanut
Jun. 5th, 2007 01:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
i_kenderHooray! I've just seen the best film of the year.
Stardust. (Official website here) The film is released on the 19th October in the UK and on the 10th August in the US. Thanks to the malificence of blankbadge I got to go along to a special advance preview screening of the film at Paramount's private screening rooms in Soho... followed by an exclusive Q&A with Neil himself. It was all very swanky, we were served canapes and alcomoholic beverages before setttling into our plush seats in a tiny theatre along with 30 other lucky geeks.
The film itself is fantastic, so very much worth watching. My only regret is having to wait until October before seeing it again! AND of course, before being able to discuss it with you all. It has pirates (RRGH!) and particularly great turns from Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert DeNiro among others.
Surprisingly quite a lot of changes from the original book, but all for the good, I think... they have turned it into a kind of rollicking action adventure (with fencing, and magical duels, and sky pirates) that seems to work best in a film. It feels like The Princess Bride or Time Bandits, with DeNiro's Captain Shakespeare perhaps the closest to his anarchist revolutionary plumber Archibald "Harry" Tuttle (from Brazil... and if you've never seen it, shame on you, and I hope the idea of a revolutionary plumber makes you seek it out at once!) than any character he's played since, and Pfeiffer clearly relishing chewing the scenery with her wicked witch Lamia (shades of Death Becomes Her, and Witches of Eastwick) There are surprises (the best of which I'm not allowed to tell you because Neil swore us to secrecy) and comic flourishes and wondrous effects and cool magic and all, but at the heart of it is the same story -comic, romantic, and strangely otherwhere.
I was joking that Hollywood would probably release a sequel if the film did well (Stardust 2: The Wandering Star!) and I've no doubt there will be very odd merchandising tie-ins that will leaving me scratching my head ("the brilliant novelisation of the blockbusting Matthew Vaughn film from a screenplay by Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn based on the original award-winning nearly graphic novel by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess" ... Sheesh!) but it was great to see Neil again - we were in the front row, so he was sitting literally in front of us! - and to see the film before (almost) anyone else, and I look forward to seeing it again (in its final cut... I'm hoping they fiddle with it a little more... as well as fixing up the final few effects, and sorting out the soundtrack, I hope they put back some more scenes with the ghosts in!)
Surprisingly quite a lot of changes from the original book, but all for the good, I think... they have turned it into a kind of rollicking action adventure (with fencing, and magical duels, and sky pirates) that seems to work best in a film. It feels like The Princess Bride or Time Bandits, with DeNiro's Captain Shakespeare perhaps the closest to his anarchist revolutionary plumber Archibald "Harry" Tuttle (from Brazil... and if you've never seen it, shame on you, and I hope the idea of a revolutionary plumber makes you seek it out at once!) than any character he's played since, and Pfeiffer clearly relishing chewing the scenery with her wicked witch Lamia (shades of Death Becomes Her, and Witches of Eastwick) There are surprises (the best of which I'm not allowed to tell you because Neil swore us to secrecy) and comic flourishes and wondrous effects and cool magic and all, but at the heart of it is the same story -comic, romantic, and strangely otherwhere.
I was joking that Hollywood would probably release a sequel if the film did well (Stardust 2: The Wandering Star!) and I've no doubt there will be very odd merchandising tie-ins that will leaving me scratching my head ("the brilliant novelisation of the blockbusting Matthew Vaughn film from a screenplay by Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn based on the original award-winning nearly graphic novel by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess" ... Sheesh!) but it was great to see Neil again - we were in the front row, so he was sitting literally in front of us! - and to see the film before (almost) anyone else, and I look forward to seeing it again (in its final cut... I'm hoping they fiddle with it a little more... as well as fixing up the final few effects, and sorting out the soundtrack, I hope they put back some more scenes with the ghosts in!)
Watch it! :)
