BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


MirrorMask: Gaiman/McKean Film

 
  

Page: 1(2)

 
 
Ganesh
02:58 / 17.06.05
Leafed through the inevitable glossy McKean coffee-table-book-of-the-film/script in Teh Comic Pit yesterday, and it seemed business as usual, really. Pretty to look at, particularly in the form of lush static imagery, but the standard Gaiman tics (faintly gothy childwoman, mysteeerious catbeasts, portentously-named quirksters) all present and correct, a sort of virtual swathing of the project in an old familiar '80s-styled black leather blouson.

Without wanting to be heeyooogely prejudiced before the event, I strongly suspect it's gonna be rather less appealling onscreen than on paper.
 
 
*
04:48 / 17.06.05
Oh, no. Please do not embarass me by topping this thread. More people will see it and throw rotten fruit. I hate rotten fruit. I have allergies. Please, I'm begging you.
 
 
■
06:56 / 14.07.05
Me, I'm rather excited by the fact that this is going to be at the Edinburgh Film Festival, because I happen to like whimsy. Whimsy is underrated.
 
 
Ganesh
15:29 / 14.07.05
Not amongst Gaiman's fanbase it isn't.
 
 
lekvar
21:21 / 15.07.05
Oh come now.
We of the Gaiman fanbase have little enough whimsey-with-dark-undetone in our lives. Please allow us our small pleasures.

I liked what I saw of the preview. Yes, it could, with a modification here or there, easily be a preview for a film version of Coraline, but I'd love to see McKean's artwork spread across the big screen.

I'm a little curious about the antipathy towards Gaiman, frankly. I can see how Sandman/Death would get on people's nerves after a while, especially after the goths appropriated them, but there seems to be a level of distain reserved for him that isn't expressed for other hacks, I mean genre writers.
 
 
Keith, like a scientist
02:30 / 16.07.05
careful there. i posed just such an observation before... wasn't pleasant.
 
 
Cat Chant
09:55 / 16.07.05
My theory about the Gaiman-hate, based on my own feelings about him, is that he attracts a disproportionate amount of bile because, for the people who dislike him, he's so close to being really good. Some/many of the people who hate him like the same kind of thing as he likes - Neverwhere is a good example there. I should have loved it (low-budget British sci-fi/fantasy/horror reminiscent of Doctor Who, Sapphire & Steel and a ton of other stuff which I love and which is all too rare these days), but I thought it was boring and rubbish. There's not many people who have the right vocabulary, the right genre orientation, the right skills and the right passions, to make the kind of stuff I like: Gaiman is one of that very small number of people, but I don't like his work, which means I really don't like it. (Like Rowling: if she was an adult fantasy writer, I wouldn't give a toss about her, but because she's a kid's fantasy writer and therefore in the same bracket as the books that have shaped me and seen me through depressions and, perhaps literally, saved my life, I really fucking hate her.) Does that make sense?
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
11:15 / 16.07.05
I think it's also true that a lot of what gets mistaken for "bile" directed at Gaiman is actually fairly affectionate humour.
 
 
+#'s, - names
20:52 / 28.10.05
so anyways, im gonna go see this goddamn movie tonight. just opened in cleveland today. i will be the judge of whether it was sweet or not. i will be the one that will have the final say of whether gaiman sucks it or if he rocks. I shall either sing the praises of McKean or be the one that points out he is just a hack with photoshop and his style is the style of the software, and not his imagination...

it will be i, +#'s.... that will have the final say of whether it deserves to be in the canon of mystic puppet movies, or should be banished and sent on some fantastic journey where it could try to find redemption, with it's rag tag team of ne'er do wells lighting the way.
 
 
PatrickMM
23:26 / 28.10.05
Bringing it back to the film itself, I saw it a few weeks ago and really liked it. McKean's visuals are astonishing, but it's not just the animated part, he's got a great feel for editing and music as well, so this feels like a fully realized film, rather than just a bunch of storyboards, which was the problem with the Sin City movie. The editing in the opening circus sequence is phenomenal.

Narrative-wise, the film definitely takes the structure of most 80s fantasy movies, like Labyrinth. However, here the 'real' world is more developed and doesn't feel like just a bookend. In fact I was enjoying those parts so much, the dreamworld scenes at first were rather weak. The film spends way too much time drifting through the fantasy part, with no real narrative drive. I was getting close to losing the movie in the second chunk, but the film comes back strong, and the last third or so is great, the fantasy stuff is more emotionally grounded, and as a result it doesn't just feel like an effects demo reel.

Yes, it has a lot of Gaiman's tropes, and the weak part of the movie is similar to the weaknesses in his other works, where he spends too much time on these wacky ideas, without any emotional resonance. If this was a book, I'd definitely criticize it for being too similar to Coraline, but seeing as how it's a different medium, Gaiman can get away with bringing back some of his favorite stuff.

If you cut out about fifteen minutes in the middle of this movie, I'd consider it a great film. As it is, it's really good, but flawed. But, I'd still reccomend seeing it.

Is it better than Labyrinth? Labyrinth may be more enjoyable, but some of that enjoyment lies on a camp level, with the 80s music and bizarre Bowie performance. Nothing here reaches the level of the ball sequence from Labyrinth, that owned, but there are a couple of scenes here that get pretty close, and on the whole it's stronger. There's a lot of interesting themes to discuss, if you're not wary of spoilers, you can read my review of the film at my blog.
 
 
Olulabelle
21:12 / 05.03.06
I went to see this this evening and loved it. it's so beautiful, a visual feast. I don't really know much about Gaiman, or even Dave McKean so I think I have the advantage in that I have few preconceptions.

I took my son and two other barbeloids. We all thought the story was interesting and clever and we had a big conversation about afterwards which I always think is a good yardstick.

It's worth seeing just for beauty of it; the giants and the silly, clever bits like Bob, Bob, Bob, Malcolm.

The sound design is wonderful - the dissonance of 'Close to you' is eerily beautiful.

It was a moving painting and I want to put it on my wall. I also want to draw like that, or at least have that imagination.

If you see it, you should do so on a big screen. One of the Barbeloids I went with had already watched it on download and because of that he needed to see it film screen size. My advice would be to stop thinking about where it's come from and just watch it as a film you know nothing of the history of.
 
 
Olulabelle
21:20 / 05.03.06
Note: The above post does it no justice. It's really hard to describe. My eight year old son loved it, but when someone rung him up and asked him what it was about he ended up saying it was about a girl looking for a mask. This, after at least half an hour's far more worthwhile discussion on the film.
 
 
cusm
00:35 / 09.03.06
Dave's art is stunning, and exactly what you expect it to be. Neil's writing is a bit thin, about as the bashers would expect it to be. The movie itself was too much of clever details of dream-world physics and wacky character designs, and not enough actual story. I certainly enjoyed it, even more so on the second viewing, but was not as blown away as I had expected to be. Its clear from the story though that Neil has a daughter, and his inspiration comes from his struggles as a parent.

The main subtext appears to be the relationship of the girl with her mother. The dark queen is the side of motherhood of using your children as possessions, an extensions of yourself or as a doll, and not allowing them to develop into independent adults. The light queen the side that smiles pretty, steps out of the way, and loves you without ever sending you to your room without supper. The dark princess is the punky blind rebellion caused by an opressive parental environment. The Scarecrow is Hunk, the Cowardly Lion is Zeke, and the Tin Man is Hickory, side characters doing little to develop the relationship but add color and costumes. The sphinxs are just cool. The resolution is all about the girl finding a balanced relationship with her mother, addressing their issues in the dreamlands rather than in a therepy session on Ganesh's couch where it belongs. The moral? Don't be too controlling of your kids or they'll wear too much mascara.
 
 
PatrickMM
01:23 / 09.03.06
The moral? Don't be too controlling of your kids or they'll wear too much mascara.

So, apparently most of Neil's fans come from very controlling households.
 
 
lonely as a cloud...
11:35 / 09.03.06
Slight threadrot - but *apparently*, during the making of Mirrormask, the animators used four computers networked together to do the rendering. Their names were John, Paul, George and Ringo. When they needed more computer speed and power, they added a fifth, Yoko, after which the computers stopped working together entirely.
 
At least, that's what Neil Gaiman said...
 
 
Alex's Grandma
12:03 / 09.03.06
So, do we know if Haus made the final cut of this?
 
 
Olulabelle
20:22 / 10.03.06
I sincerely hope so. How utterly wicked!
 
 
MissLenore
00:01 / 11.03.06
I recently bought the DVD even though I hadn't seen it in theatres, but I was disappointed to find that the sound quality was absolute shit. I could barely hear any of the dialogue and ended up turning it off after a half an hour of frustration. I find this particularly bizarre since there were a bunch of previous comments mentioning how good the sound was. Did anyone else buy the DVD and find the sound quality to be crap?
 
 
DaveBCooper
10:35 / 13.03.06
Saw this the other night, and though I wouldn’t recognise Haus, I think there were a couple of Ibis-headed folks in a scene in a library – Valentine and Helena walk past them. Would this be the scene in question?

Overall, I enjoyed it, though I couldn’t help wondering why the White Queen didn’t have a daughter too, if things were totally balanced. But that’s a minor quibble, I thought it was pretty good.

As for the sound and vision, I saw it at the ICA, where there were quite a few pops and crackles on the sound, and the picture occasionally seemed to jump a bit; shame, as it was very pretty, and the sound seemed well-designed; was Gina McKee actually responsible for the staccato Destiny’s Child-style vocals on the rendition of ‘Close to you’, does anyone know?
 
 
This Sunday
12:51 / 13.03.06
What makes me terribly sad is that I'd like to say it was Gaiman and McKean overkill, recognizable from a mile away and three random frames of the film... but, it hit me, mid-viewing, that there's a whole lot of folks for whom this was an entirely - or almost entirely - new experience. And that's not even counting the kids.
 
  

Page: 1(2)

 
  
Add Your Reply