STRANGER THAN FICTION (DVD Review) - 23/7/07
Sometimes life is "Stranger Than Fiction" and ice cream proves that. Having made a journey to the local cinema now called Empire instead of the UCI I had a yearning for a white chocolate Magnum ice cream and was dismayed to find that they had stopped selling them and it was only Ben & Jerry's franchised that they sold. After the last tub of Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Cherry Garcia turned into an anal explosion & retching session due to the crap that they put in it, they were definitely off the list! Luckily I had been told on a recent visit to Mr. Periwinkle's and Our Wife that "Stranger Than Fiction" was a film to catch and so hunting out a copy on DVD I sat down in the comfort of my own lounge with a white chocolate Magnum purchased from Waitrose (In a totally different aisle from where they usually are - Only took me two weeks to find it) and proceeded directly to the film. 
Will Ferrell (who I had not seen in any of his other films) comes over as an OCD victim with a mathematics problem in his role as Harold Crick but the clever conceit of this film is that he hears a constant narration of his life in voice-over from obsessive & neurotic writer Emma Thompson as Karen Eiffel who has a writing block on the story of his life. With Queen Latifah as Eiffel's PA and Maggie Gyllenhaal as Crick's love interest we round out the cast with Dustin Hoffman as Professor of Literature Jules Hilbert. Weirdly enough all the characters and various events in the film portray actual real-life mathematicians names. Briskly rolling along in this light comedy with a straight edge we suddenly hit tragedy at the end which would have been even more shocking if they had left it like that - But do the decent thing and have the typical Hollywood ending. A film about how people can change - in more ways than one - that affects all the characters. A smart, clever movie, played straight with it's conventions being broken and all the better for it! 
The Region 2 (UK) DVD has a nice selection of Special Features covering six Featurettes over various Production aspects of the film. With Deleted/Extended Scenes and a pile of Trailers. LANGUAGE: English. Audio: 5.1. English Audio Description Track. Subtitles: English (HOH) - Movie Only English, Hindi. Aspect ratio: 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen. PAL Colour. Runtime: 1 Hr 48 Mins Approx. Rating: 12. Sony/Columbia Pictures. 41272-UK-S/ISBN # 5035822127234>
Will Ferrell (who I had not seen in any of his other films) comes over as an OCD victim with a mathematics problem in his role as Harold Crick but the clever conceit of this film is that he hears a constant narration of his life in voice-over from obsessive & neurotic writer Emma Thompson as Karen Eiffel who has a writing block on the story of his life. With Queen Latifah as Eiffel's PA and Maggie Gyllenhaal as Crick's love interest we round out the cast with Dustin Hoffman as Professor of Literature Jules Hilbert. Weirdly enough all the characters and various events in the film portray actual real-life mathematicians names. Briskly rolling along in this light comedy with a straight edge we suddenly hit tragedy at the end which would have been even more shocking if they had left it like that - But do the decent thing and have the typical Hollywood ending. A film about how people can change - in more ways than one - that affects all the characters. A smart, clever movie, played straight with it's conventions being broken and all the better for it! 
The Region 2 (UK) DVD has a nice selection of Special Features covering six Featurettes over various Production aspects of the film. With Deleted/Extended Scenes and a pile of Trailers. LANGUAGE: English. Audio: 5.1. English Audio Description Track. Subtitles: English (HOH) - Movie Only English, Hindi. Aspect ratio: 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen. PAL Colour. Runtime: 1 Hr 48 Mins Approx. Rating: 12. Sony/Columbia Pictures. 41272-UK-S/ISBN # 5035822127234>
posted by Hugh Jarrs | 3:33 am
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