See? Told You.

There’s something particularly peculiar about the adaptation of this particular novel. A children’s book with very adult themes, the story is told from the perspective of the narrator, an 8 year old boy who moves to Auschwitz with his family including his Nazi superior officer father, but without understanding the reasons behind the move, nor exactly what it is that his father does there. The story is revealed to the reader at the same pace as the lead character, and therein lies the problem. Not only has The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas been translated into 34 languages around the world, and remained in the Irish Bestseller’s List for over a year, the film has to take a different slant towards the story. Telling a story from a perspective is one thing, but showing it is something else entirely.

The film does take a fair amount of time to get going, especially considering its rather meagre running time of 94 minutes, but once it arrives at its destination, the sense of foreboding ratchets up constantly. As Bruno, the inquisitive boy always looking for adventune, Asa Butterfield delivers a performance that can be placed among the ranks of the Fanning’s and the Joel Osmand’s of the world; kids with scarily too much talent for their age. But even surpassing him is Jack Scanlon as Schmuel, aka The Boy, who’s expressions rarely fail to be set to either confused depression and rampant fear. The image of Bruno, son of the Soldier in charge of one of the Auschwitz concentration camps, trying to play a game with Schmuel, who doesn’t understand why he’s being treated so badly beyond knowing that its because he’s Jewish, across a barb-wired electrified fence is striking, and just one of the many images that will remain in your memory long after the film is over.

Outside of the children, the adults all step their game up. David Thewlis plays the German soldier/father with suiting subtlety, being impossibly creepy as a loving father all the while knowing exactly what his happening in his back garden. Vera Farmiga outdoes herself as the mother of the family, trying to keep a loving household together in the midst of such a violent atmosphere. And Rupert Friend is absolutely terrifying as a rage-fuelled soldier with a possible murky past of his own.

Director Mark Herman knows how to play down a situation and let the story speak for itself, and has proven himself fully capable of such in the past with small hits like Little Voice and Brassed Off, but here he seems overtly aware of the story’s power and where it is all inevitably heading, and underplays the entire thing to such a degree that for the most part it seems like nothing is ever going to happen. But lurking beneath all the scenes of emotional ambiguity and personality revolutions, there is a constant sense of dread, and while we may not know for sure, but we all know that this can not end well. The climax still retains the same power that the book had, perhaps even more so thanks to a fantastic score by James Horner.

But in the end, the movie will leave with the feeling that while very competently made and well acted, it was a 5 minute climax that merely required a 90 minute build up. Everything that had gone before was secondary to how it was going to end. In this case, where we got was the most important part, not how we got there.

Seven Out Of Ten

If we really wanted to, we could’ve put a much more disturbing picture of Mr. Radcliffe, so be grateful for small gifts like this:

Anyway, off the back of news that Half Blood Prince has been delayed to July ‘09, and the new rumour that the reasoning behind it is due to Radcliffe getting all nekkid and beastial for the Broadway release of Equus, which was due to bow around the same time as The Half Blood Prince’s original November release, is something even more disturbing:

“At first I thought I’d have pants (underwear) on for the scene, but apparently not. But I’ve sorta done that before on stage, so it’s all old hat now, really.“

Daniel Radcliffe talking there. About what, you ask? Possible an Equus movie adaptation? No. That would be for a scene in the first of the two Harry Potter And The Deathly Hollows movies. We knew it was getting dark, but now Harry’s getting nekkid? Dear God, won’t somebody please think of the children?!

Writer Justin Marks, the guy who what wrote Unbroken (no, us neither) and the forthcoming Street Fighter: The Legend Of Chun Li, comes the script for big screen adaptation of Voltron, the cartoon that pre-dated the similar but less apocalyptic Power Rangers by about 15 years.

Its been described as “a post-apocalyptic tale set in New York City and Mexico which follows five ragtag survivors of an alien attack who band together and end up piloting the five lion-shaped robots that combine and form the massive sword-wielding Voltron that helps battle Earth’s invaders.”

Appearantly LatinoReview have read the script, and announced it as “a fucking masterpiece” and Cinemablend’s opinion doesn’t differ too much; “a well put together, well intentioned, incredibly faithful Voltron script using modern sensibilities.”

We’re sorry, but just how well intentioned to you intend to be when we’re talking about a film involving aliens, lion robots, and a giant samurai that fights the bad invaders with a big sword? That kinda shit might fly in Manga-land, but the is Hollywood baby. Thats not kosher here.

Yes, its fake, but yes, its awesome as shit.

Brian Austin Green might’ve rocked our collective worlds in Beverely Hills 90210, and he might be making something of a “comeback”, if you can call it that, in The Sarah Connor Chronicles, but is that enough for Master Nolan to consider him? According to a recent interview with MTV, he believes so. We can but dream.

Despite James “Cyclops and then the boring guy from Superman Returns” Marsden trying to act all tuff and stuff, this trailer actually made Correct Opinion laugh more times than the entire of Step Brothers.

Take from that what you want.

Because we forgot to add previously, here is the Potter 6 teaser trailer:

As with all the films, its getting darker, to the point that by the time Potter 7 swings round, you may not be able to see the Warner Brothers logo. Also, at the end of the trailer, the word “Novemeber” pops op. Well…..

“Like every other studio, we are still feeling the repercussions of the writers’ strike, which impacted the readiness of scripts for other films—changing the competitive landscape for 2009 and offering new windows of opportunity that we wanted to take advantage of.  We agreed the best strategy was to move Half-Blood Prince to July, where it perfectly fills the gap for a major tent pole release for mid-summer.” From the pen of Mister Warner (or one of his PR people, at least).

The real reason, apparently, is because Warners also distributed a little movie called The Dark Knight this year, which made a butt load of money, so they don’t really need any more this year, and have moved it back to July 2009 cos it’ll have little to no competition. The only other film opening on the same day is Will Ferrell’s Land Of The Lost, which Paramount will probably move to a safer date now.

We’ve had Nights, Dawns, Days, Lands, Diarys, Dawns again….. other things….. And now, we have Dances. Straight to DVD, yes. Worth checking out, probably not.

New pictures from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince are online today, courtesy of USA Today (here). They show Tom Riddle aka the young Voldemort, and Dumbledore in full fiery action mode.

The young he-who-must-not-be-named is played by (see if you can guess which famous fellow cast member he’s related to!) 10 year old Hero Fiennnes-Tiffin.

Let me say that again: Hero Fiennes-Tiffin.

Who. The. Fuck. Names their kid that?! He has not one, but TWO chocolate bars in his name! Voldemort is meant to inspire fear and dread – not make me peckish for a cup of tea and chocolate treat!

Although he does now become our new favourite “child actor with hilarious name”. The previous title holder was Mackintosh Muggleton, the kid from 28 Weeks Later. His always sounded like a makey-uppy Harry Potter name anyway, so now our new favourite is actually in a Harry Potter film – brilliant!

Picture: Dumbledore couldn’t quite remember if he turned off the gas before leaving Hogwarts.

The film’s trailer will be online later today. We’ll have it up later. But only if it’s better than the shit teaser trailer (here).