Ten Deep 12.24.08: Greatest Fantasy Films #20-#11!

Posted by Lucas Huddleston on 12.24.2008

Like Roland to the Dark Tower, so does the list near the Top Ten. Come on in as 411's Lucas Huddleston draws nearer to the end of the Top 50 Fantasy films.

Hello, and welcome to Week 14 of Ten Deep! Wow, is it Christmas already? Well, actually for me, it just ended! Yay! You see, due to the threat of horrible weather for Christmas Eve and Day here in Mid-MO, we all decided to have ours today! I got, of course, a veritable smorgasbord of DVD's, ranging from The Dark Knight to Adventures in Babysitting (hey, it's a great movie), as well as a ton of books, most of which are written by either Stephen King or Robert Jordan…which, of course, means that I have enough reading material to last for two years, as those two guys write huge books at times. I also got two different versions of Monopoly, one a Lord of the Rings themed set, and the other with a St. Louis Cardinals 2006 World Series Champion theme. Good stuff, all the way around. Of course, our early celebrations put a cramp in my writing time, so let's get right to the list!

THE TOP FIFTY: #20-#11!

20. Edward Scissorhands (1990)



Ah, now here's a film that I really truly adore, and yet, whenever it comes time for me to talk about it (like right now), I find the film as being a bit hard to talk about…I just don't really know what to say about it, honestly. Some have described the film as being as ‘suburban fantasy', but not me, as I've never lived in the suburbs and thus wouldn't have the slightest clue about what would be there to fantasize about. No, apart from being a fairy tale, to me the film is more along the lines of a ‘teenage fantasy'. At least, to me it is, as I throughout most of my teenage years, I had feelings of inadequacy and alienation, feelings that had bubbled up inside me from as far back as my early grade school years when things like ‘being cool' and girls became somewhat important to my classmates. At times, I easily felt like Edward appears in this film: awkward, socially inept at times, isolated. I suppose I couldn't be the only one who sees a bit of themselves in Edward, as someone who's gone from being neglected, then to accepted, then finally to being cast out…well, that's almost the very essence of human relationships, no? Of course, while many of the themes in the film can touch on the negative aspects of human (teenage) emotions, it also touches on something that's not negative at all: self-discovery. While the film is indeed about Edward being accepted and rejected and isolated and what-not, it's also the story of Edward finding himself amidst a world that's filled with people different from himself, many of whom approach him with sympathy (though there are those who have the ‘fake sympathy', who're only attracted to him because he's different). Actually, now that I think about it, there's quite a bit deeper-meaning stuff that can be pulled from this movie; I'd suppose that it would just depend on the person as to what it was that they took from the thing.

This is indeed a Tim Burton film, and as such, there's a considerable amount of visual flair that accompanies the film. Burton's vision of suburbia is something akin to eye candy, as even though it's a rather familiar and symmetrical place, it's subtly stunning at the same time. Also, Johnny Depp stars as the titular character, and for me, this is the film where the then young man showcased just what it was that he could do. Despite the fact that Depp has a rather limited number of dialogue in the film, he still earns honors for the best acting job in the film, as his facial expressions and wordless reactions to certain happenings within the film are very well done. In my opinion, this film stands as being Burton's best work, and I mean no disrespect for Big Fish, as I love that film too; I think that it's just because I essentially grew up watching Edward Scissorhands. A modern-day masterpiece, and one of my own personal beloved movies.

19. The Harry Potter series



When the very first Potter books were released in the mid-to-late 90's, they were able to fly underneath my radar enough that I was in turn able to largely ignore them. Now, that's not to say that I hadn't heard of them; it was impossible to have not to, in those days when Harry Potter was still a fresh phenomenon…and I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't the least bit interested in the books. However, I was of that age when I hid certain things that I liked that weren't ‘cool' from prying eyes in public, and, since Potter was indeed labeled as a children's book series in those days (or, at least, thought of being as such), I avoided reading anything about them going into my college years. Of course, by the time that had happened, the release of the first film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, was drawing near like a massive thundercloud, one that was nearly impossible to avoid…and, I might add, one that (to me at least) seemed to be a bit more acceptable for me to watch as a film than it might've been for me to be caught reading the book. Of course, since I wasn't any kind of die-hard fan, I waited until the film had been released on DVD to watch it…and it wasn't too long afterwards that I found myself walking out of the local bookstore with the book of the same name tucked under my arm. That first film, as far as being an adaptation of the first book of the same name, was honestly probably one of the best and truest adaptations that I've ever seen for a film, as the movie perfectly captured the heart and wide-eyed innocence of the book, and from then on I became a sworn fan of the novels and world that J.K. Rowling had crafted.

What's most amazing about the films is that, even though the series has been rather lengthy, the films have yet to really suffer from any lackluster efforts. Perhaps it's mostly due to the cast, as the young people in the film have always seemed to tackle their parts and the happenings in the films with a certain amount of gusto and likeability. Every film of the series has been rather top-notch, with nary a truly lackluster entrant to the series yet to be found, which leads me to believe that the people that are behind the scenes for the franchise are truly capable and have a certain amount of care and respect for what they're creating. The Potter books are, of course, relatively big-time merchandise to the people behind the curtain (i.e. the ones that really make money from it), and it would've been so easy for them to just merely push out some tepid crap in order to make a bundle of money quickly. They didn't, however, and what we have left from that is a long-running series that, perhaps even despite its longevity, has yet to falter from the high production values and craftsmanship that was set when the first film was released…and I don't see that routine ending anytime before the final two films have been released.

18. Legend (1985)



Here's a film that my past history with is a bit odd, in that I feel like I've grown up with the film, and yet, in reality, I haven't. As I've stated before, my father, like myself (or is that the other way around…), is a big fan of all things Fantasy; in fact, I'd even go so far as to say that my own predilection with the genre (particularly those in the vein of High Fantasy) is almost ninety-nine percent derived from him, and the ‘brainwashing' that he gave me as a child, what with reading me The Hobbit and such at a very early age. So it should come as a fairly ample surprise that, way back when my parents rented this movie in the ‘80's, my father watched about half of it…and then turned it off. Of course, I was rather enjoying the thing as it played on our old, super-small television, and after my parents had gone to bed, I risked their wrath by breaking my ‘bed-time' and quietly snuck back into the living room to finish the movie. The next day, my mother took it back to the video-store, and I wasn't to sit down and watch it again for over a decade, until my mom surprised me one Christmas by giving me an old, used copy of the movie as a gift. My dad never really explained why he hadn't liked the film, and if I was to ask him about it nowadays, I doubt he'd even remember the movie itself, let alone why he hadn't liked the thing back in the mid-‘80's. But then again, even if he was to actually tell me why, it really wouldn't do anything for me, as my feelings about this film are pretty much one and same as when I first watched it long ago: I think it's great.

First off, the film stars Tom Cruise as the lead (which I'm sure makes those who haven't seen the film VERY happy), as Legend was one of the first films released shortly after Cruise's breakout performance in Risky Business a couple of years earlier. His performance in the film is good…and so is everyone else's in the movie, from Mia Sara as the princess, all the way down to the goblins and dwarves; however, they're not the reason why the movie is as great as it is, as that particular honor goes to a handful of things. The first would be the cinematography, as the scenery and setting (not mention a lot of the lighting effects) are fabulously gorgeous and eye-popping, as the forest that the film takes place in is simply majestic, whether it be shown in the reflection of spring or the heartless winter that much of the film takes place in. The second great thing about the film would have to be the make-up effects and such…which leads us directly to the third (and perhaps greatest) thing that makes this movie so awesome: the villainous Lord of Darkness, as played by Tim Curry. Curry (who also delivers the best performance by far) is totally unrecognizable in his role as Lord Darkness, unrecognizable in both physical terms as well as his voice…in fact, it's one of those roles where, if his name wasn't posted in the credits, you'd have a tough task in placing the performer's face to the character. Darkness, in my opinion, also stands as being one of the most visually striking villains to have ever graced the big screen, which, it should go without saying, places the character up there with Darth Vader and other lofty company in my eyes. While Legend may very well be one of director Ridley Scott's least talked about films in this day and age (and perhaps even back then as well, as the film really didn't do all that well at the box-office), and while that my be the case, it does indeed stand as being one of the absolute best in the ranks of Fantasy films.

17. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)



During my very first semester at college, I meet a guy who would go on to be a fairly good friend of mine. When said guy discovered my taste for the Fantasy genre, he brought up this movie, and went on and on and on about it. When I told him that I'd never seen it, he went digging through his bookshelves that were lined end to end with VHS tapes, eventually uncovering his old copy of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. I took it from him without hardly even glancing at it; though once I got back to the dorms and I'd popped the film in my VCR, I glared at the tattered, well-worn case that the film had come in. Judging by the box-art on the thing, the film looked suitably…strange. At the time, I wasn't really all that well known for ensconcing myself in the weird…but, Fantasy it was, and I was determined to watch it.

Now then, before I give anybody my thoughts on the film, I think that it would appropriate for me to divulge a little about the history of the making of the movie, as it's rather infamous. This film wasn't the first adaptation of the classic character from late-18th Century literature; however, it no doubt was the most expensive, with the film's budget resting at just a tad over twenty-three million…a budget that, by the time the shoot was completed, had ballooned to over forty-six mil. Yes, that' right – this film ended up going DOUBLE over its initial budget. But that was the least of the movie's problems, as at that very same time there was a change-over in power within Columbia Pictures, and the new figurehead of the company was nowhere near being fully behind the picture. As such, the film saw a relatively limited release with very little promotion, all of which led to a total box-office revenue of…(drum roll, please)…eight million dollars. Which, of course, means that the film ended up losing well over thirty-eight million dollars. A true box-office bomb if there ever was one, no doubt, and a film that supposedly placed a black mark of death on director Terry Gilliam's career from that point on (and I use the term supposedly because the man has had success since then with films like 12 Monkeys and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas). However, I won't deny that when people bring up the ‘Gilliam Curse', which deals with various problems that the man has had over the years during the making of a majority of his films, that The Adventures of Baron Munchausen should stand front and center, as, according to Gilliam himself on the newly released DVD (which everyone should go buy right now), it would appear that Gilliam's movie set was in a constant state of chaos and panic.

However, when watching the film, you'd know never know of the chaos that apparently ran roughshod behind the camera, as no traces of the horrid experiences in making the film can be seen. Though what you DO see is perhaps one of the most beautifully crafted films in the history of the medium. The set design and landscapes utilized in this film are truly nothing short of awe-inspiring, as well as being astoundingly beautiful. The level of craftsmanship in this film is at such a high level that it's easy to tell just how indeed Gilliam and company was able to skyrocket above the budget limit, but, then again, it's just as easy to tell that every last penny of that money was spent in the creation of this film. Indeed, I'd even go so far as to say that, of the Gilliam films I've seen, this film represents the man at his most imaginative, and I shudder to think just what he could do if he were ever given a film with a budget the size of, say, The Lord of the Rings. Everything else in the film is suitably top-notch as well, from the music to the performances (with the absolute best being Oliver Reed as the Greek god Hephaestus). All in all, this film was an absolute gem that was shamefully hidden away by head-office egos, and while it's a crime that the movie did so woefully upon it's release, it has since carved it's place as one of the most gorgeous and inventive films to have ever graced a screen.

And now, for my sad duty to admit to a great shame on my part…and I do indeed think that it's a shame, believe you me. After almost twenty-seven years of my existence, I have never, EVER seen Gilliam's Time Bandits or Brazil, the two films that precede Munchausen as a part of a trilogy of sorts, called the ‘Trilogy of Imagination' (or so it's dubbed by some). Actually, while I can indeed honestly say that I've never seen Brazil, I should clarify that I've never seen Time Bandits in its entirety. Over the years, I've noticed it on DirecTV, and I've clicked over on the channel that was carrying it, only to find the film half-over, or near the end, or what-have-you. The DVD of Time Bandits was at the local Wal-Mart here for a time (even as late as early this very year), but I always passed over it, intending to buy it ‘the next time'…which, of course, never came, and the DVD has since been pulled from the stock down here, never to return (or so it seems). Out of all the films that didn't make the list due to my having not seen them, I personally feel that the exclusion of Time Bandits is the most erroneous, and the film now tops the list of my films to buy on sight.

16. Willow (1988)



At the tail-end of my first-grade year, shortly before the summer break took hold, a most wonderful thing happened. During one particular recess, I was playing on the teeter-totter (teeter-tottering?) with a former friend of mine; as recess came to a close, it naturally came time to get off of the thing. So we did it the traditional way, and we balanced the thing out. He slid off first unexpectedly, causing my end to go crashing to the ground, and as I was getting off, with me still seated on it as I swung one leg over to the other side, my ‘friend' essentially performed a cross-body block on the end of the board that was suspended in the air. Of course, this caused what could only be described as a catapult effect, which propelled me high into the air, since I was in no position at the time to actually brace myself against the board. To this day I can still clearly remember the feeling of myself flying through the air, the world spinning all about me…I can even remember peering down at the hard asphalt below me and seeing my shadow, upside down with my arms extended (I can only assume what I must've looked like, tumbling through the air every which way). What I don't remember, however, is the landing, as the next thing I knew I was in the school nurse's office, laid up on the couch with my arm in a sling, with my dad (who worked at the school) standing over me. No sooner had my mother arrived at the school we were off to the University Hospital in Columbia, where I was diagnosed with (surprise) a broken arm. It was a clean and thorough break, one that basically separated my forearm from the bicep directly at the elbow, and, needless to say, there was no swimming for me that summer, no tee-ball, no exploring the hidden reaches of the forests around our land with my cousins. There were, however, two things that I did indeed have going for me that summer: old-school NES action (called ‘Regular Nintendo' by myself), which I had just received for Christmas earlier that year; and movies galore. For you see, that summer, my parents acted completely out of character for them, before and since (out of sympathy for their baby boy…by the way, have I ever mentioned that I'm an only child?); normally, outside of Christmas, my parents weren't too keen on going to the movie theater, or buying me movies on VHS, and especially buying me video games. However, that summer, they did ALL of that. It was 1989, so that summer saw me going to see the likes of Batman, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and no less than six other films in theaters…I was given Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and Castlevania II: Simon's Quest in that summer as well (two games which I have NEVER beaten, by the way). However, the one gift that I almost literally wore out over that summer was Willow on VHS.

Now, I had seen Willow in theaters the year before, but, since I was given the NES for Christmas, I wasn't given the movie on VHS…and since I was laid up with nothing to do except toil away on two games that felt impossible at the time (especially to a six year old), I found myself watching Willow, almost literally day-in and day-out. I was enamored with the film for much of my childhood, and to this day I have much of the film as close to being completely memorized as can be. I'd say that given the relatively slim pickings of really great films in the vein of High Fantasy in the decades of the ‘70's, ‘80's, and ‘90's, Willow was one of the best of the High Fantasy genre of films, and remains to be to this day. Everything about the film is magical, in my opinion, from the performances to the special effects to the music (I still can't get the main theme to the movie out of my head); Warwick Davis is nothing short of great in his role as the titular character, and Val Kilmer truly shines as Madmartigan, in what I believe is one of his best roles he's ever done. The plot and story of the film was dreamed up by none other than George Lucas, and at times similarities between this and the main points behind Star Wars can be seen, perhaps the most (at least visually speaking) of the character of General Kael, whose appearance would seem to have been birthed from somebody wondering just what Darth Vader would look like had he been placed in a pseudo-medieval setting (for example, the skull masks both wear). However, that shouldn't be construed as me believing that something like that is a negative on the film; far from it, as I really don't think that there's a whole lot to say negatively about the film. In fact, I wouldn't dare dream of doing that.

15. Excalibur (1981)



Excalibur is another one of those films that I can remember having seen as far back as my long-term memory will allow to reach. Looking back on it now, that's actually fairly amazing, considering my mother. Whenever my parents would watch a movie, ANY movie that had even the slightest bit of female nudity, my mom would force me to leave the room. Excalibur was one of the very few that didn't see me ushered out of the room during the opening credits, a fact made all the more astounding by the fact that my mother had seen the film long before I had (perhaps even before I was born); she knew what was coming, and yet she didn't act on it, probably because she knew how tightly the film would hold my attention…or the fact that I probably would've thrown a fit had I not been allowed to watch it. Had it not been for this movie, it could very well be that my love for Arthurian Legend may not have come to its full fruition…well, actually, that's pretty doubtful, but I for certain wouldn't have known about the man and the myth at quite the young age that I did. Of course, as I stated last week, Excalibur almost didn't exist at all, as originally director John Boorman had began work on an adaptation for The Lord of the Rings, an undertaking which was far enough along that Boorman had actually had a few sets created in preparation for the shoot. However, Boorman's LotR adaptation fell through shortly thereafter…an occurrence that was perhaps a blessing in disguise, as: one, we would've been treated to what may have been one of the most horrible film adaptations ever, as the script took many liberties with Tolkien's original books in order to cramp the epic story into a mere one-hour-and-forty minute long single film; and two, we wouldn't have been treated to what is quite unarguably the greatest film to cover the legend of King Arthur.

The film that had risen from the ashes of the dead LotR attempt, being Excalibur, was itself basically an adaptation of a literary work, as the film is mostly derived from Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, from 1485 (though the film does indeed take inspiration from other Arthurian sources, as well). Much like Boorman's screenplay for Tolkien's masterpiece had been fairly loose with the source material, so was the screenplay for Boorman's Excalibur; however, whereas in the case of LotR that would've been nigh unforgivable, with Excalibur it's more acceptable. The myths of Arthur have existed for perhaps even well over a millennia, and as such, while Malory's wasn't the first to write tales of the legendary King of England, Le Morte d'Arthur was the first book to create an actual written canon for the figure, which many more writers, even to this day, have expanded upon, rearranged, or just plain rebuilt from the ground up…and, as such, a loose adaptation of Malory's classic is more than acceptable. Boorman sought to create a film on the life of King Arthur not in a historical sense, but in a Fantastical sense in a Fantasy-type setting (hence Mordred's odd choice of armor styling)…which is how it should be done but no longer is, as recent Arthurian films such as King Arthur or The Last Legion have attempted to display the myths in a more historically appropriate manner. However, even though that's not how it should be done (or so I think), I find it hard to fault the creators of the those two respective films for their choice to do that, as not only had Excalibur done the ‘right' way, but it also did it PERFECTLY, and so any attempts to create the ‘mythological' Arthur would be (and is) doomed to be compared to Excalibur. Of course, the sets and landscapes of the film are beautiful, and most of the acting done within are quite good (even though Nigel Terry as ‘young' Arthur starts off a bit on the wrong foot, though as the film progresses through Arthur's life Terry gets better), particularly Helen Mirren as Morgana le Fay and Nicol Williamson as Merlin…and while Williamson might not appear quite like what most of us have imagined Merlin to look like in our own imaginations, his performance gives us what is essentially the definitive Merlin on film. Overall, Excalibur is a great classic of cinema, a film that's richly deserving of any and all praise that it has earned over the years.

14. King Kong (1933)



When I first started to assemble this list, King Kong was indeed one of the very first films that popped into my head. I believe that it does indeed qualify as being a Fantasy, as one genre of Fantasy deals with the ‘lost world' dynamic, and, of course, the setting of the much of the classic film serves in that capacity, as Skull Island is inhabited by dinosaurs and such that we able to exist long after the rest of their species went extinct. In fact, I think that it would safe for us to assume that the rise of said ‘lost world' film genre (such as Journey to the Center of the Earth and, well, The Lost World) was a direct result of the popularity of King Kong. Of course, while I do indeed consider it to be Fantasy, I was almost tempted to NOT include the film on the list. In the early days of the film, the movie was pretty much considered to be strictly a Horror film, and to this day a lot of people would still classify the film as being such. Now, that's not a problem in and of itself, but I did lay out the rules as excluding any film that was predominantly Horror. As such, I felt that including King Kong on the list would've been in violation of the rules that I myself had laid out; however, as I reflected on it over the weeks that I was preparing the list, I ultimately decided to myself that it wouldn't have been in violation of the rules, as enough time has passed and Kong has become so entrenched in everybody's minds as no longer being horrific. As such, I said to hell with it and kept it on the list.

At any rate, King Kong stands as perhaps being one of the most important films in the history of cinema, perhaps even being the first big ‘special effects extravaganza'. This is, of course, one of those films that make me wish that the means for time travel were indeed possible, as I'd love to go back in time to the early-‘30's and sit in the theater during the original release of the film, as I bet that people's reactions to the film were nothing short of fantastic. Sure, as I've said before in regards to Harryhausen's work on Clash of the Titans, by today's standards the stop-motion animation utilized in this movie are undoubtedly archaic; however, that doesn't make them any less good. I've always been somewhat in awe of the time and dedication that it would take for one to create something in such a manner, as stop-motion is a fairly time consuming method. Naturally, there's really nothing I can say here that nobody's read before or that nobody already knows, so I'll just say this for me personally: ever since I was a kid, I've owned the original Kong in black-and-white, the original Kong in colorized, Son of Kong, King Kong vs. Godzilla, Kong '76, King Kong Lives, and the Peter Jackson Kong. Kong, while being one of the most important films in history arguably, has also always been one of the films that I've cherished the most over the years, and any type of recognition on any type of list that the film could get, it SHOULD get.

13. Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)



By now, it should be fairly obvious to those who've been reading my Top Fantasy lists over the past few weeks that I'm an unabashed fan of animation. And if you dare to combine that obvious factoid with another obvious aspect of myself (namely my love and familiarity with films from a by-gone era), you'd better believe that I grew up watching old Fleischer cartoons such as Popeye or Superman, any and all Disney films I could get hold of (whether they were short films or feature length), and, of course, all the old Warner Bros. produced Looney Tunes cartoons that aired on Saturday mornings, even on up until I was in college (perhaps even to this day). Once you come to that particular realization, you'd better believe me when I tell that when I first witnessed the trailers for this film, I immediately became obsessed with the film. I believe that my line of thinking at the time was this: any movie that has Mickey Mouse AND Bugs Bunny in it, side-by-side, shouldn't just be good, it should be GREAT. While my parents didn't take me to see the movie when it was playing in theaters, they did bypass renting the thing and just simply bought the film when it was released on VHS a few months later…though my own particular anticipation for the film hadn't receded in the least in those passing months, and I went into the film for the first time salivating over the film just as much as I had when I'd first seen the trailers weeks upon weeks earlier.

Once I'd finished watching the movie, I knew that I was right. Who Framed Roger Rabbit wasn't good – it was great. While Roger Rabbit wasn't the first film to feature live-action performers playing against animated characters, WFRR was (and still is) the most accomplished of that particular vein of films, as not only does the blending of live-action and hand-drawn animation look good, it looks good enough to almost seem REAL, as though Bob Hoskins really is riding in an animated talking cab with an anthropomorphic rabbit riding shotgun through the streets of Toontown. As we all live in an age of things such as ‘copyrights', it was (and still is!) a thing of excitement to see two icons from two different companies interacting with one another at the same time (rather than not having it at all due to somebody getting angry with not enough money or such-and-such), whether it be the piano duel between Daffy Duck and Donald Duck, or Bugs Bunny's sadism rubbing off on naïve and innocent Mickey Mouse…or seeing Betty Boop, former animated sex symbol, complain about the hotness of Jessica Rabbit (who's in color). Everything about this movie is classic, in my opinion, as all of the performances were excellent (especially Bob Hoskins, as look what he had to work with – nothing), the animation is superb and holds up well to this day, and the comedic parts continue to open more to me now that I'm an adult than when I was a kid. The worst thing that I can say about this movie is that I didn't see it in theaters when it was originally released.

12. Stardust (2007)



When the previews for this film began to be slowly churned out in leading up to the film's release, I had no clue what it was about, and neither had I read the book that it was based upon…which that in and of itself is actually particularly amazing, as the part of the trailers that pushed the film into ‘definite must-see' for me were the words ‘Neil Gaiman', whose book exists as the source material to movie. Now, while I indeed had never heard of Stardust as a book, I was very well familiar with just who Gaiman was due to his Sandman stuff and some other stuff…familiar with him enough to know that the man knew how to pen a good Fantasy yarn, and that was more than enough to get me excited about the film. In fact, to be honest with you, that was about the only thing about the film that got me even the littlest bit excited for it, as at that time I was going through what can only be termed as Fantasy-film overload. The massive successes of Fantasy films in the early part of this decade served as a catalyst for a veritable Fantasy film ‘boom', if you will, and over the years ever since, more and more Fantasy films have been shoved into production and through the theaters with each passing year. Quite a few of the films I liked (and have indeed appeared on these lists); however, it should be said that, in leading up to Stardust, I'd been left disappointed more often than I'd been left amazed. So it was that I went into Stardust for the Gaiman story, and nothing else, really.

Of course, that's probably why I came out of the film enjoying it so much. Perhaps the greatest bit of adulation that I can lay on the film is that, even though it was birthed in an era where the popularity of the LotR films and the Harry Potter series has indirectly (directly?) dictated the look and feel of certain blockbuster Fantasy films, Stardust, by and large, exists outside of that influence, striving to be nothing more than its own film. To me (and this may very well be blasphemous to some), after I'd finished watching the movie for the first time, I felt that the film was almost like a spiritual successor to The Princess Bride, so clever, charming, and honest was Stardust. The cast of the movie are all great, with Robert De Niro as a homosexual pirate serving up a few good laughs, and Michelle Pfeiffer proving that she still looks pretty damn good for her age. The movie is also incredibly witty and smart while also able to retain a feeling of naïveté and innocence throughout, something that may sound simple but can be tricky to pull off completely. All in all, Stardust remains to be great to me, because I went into the film expecting minimal at best, and I ended up getting one of the greatest Fantasy films ever crafted. Well done.

11. Alice in Wonderland (1951)



You know, it's funny when you take certain things, things such as many of the Disney films that were created during the Golden Age, that most of us now believe to be great and classic in every sense of the word…and then you turn through the pages of history to find that a few of those masterpieces were considered to be failures, some even reviled. Such is the case of Alice in Wonderland, a work which had been a part of Walt Disney's life from the beginning it seems. When Uncle Walt was first beginning to break into the animation business, some of his very first work that he was able to sell were his ‘Alice Comedies', a series of short films that ran from roughly 1924 and 1926, and were a mixture of a live-action Alice interacting with animated characters. The shorts were fairly popular, and by the time that Mickey Mouse had come along and Disney was preparing for his first feature length film, Walt had dearly wanted Alice in Wonderland to be that first full-length animated Disney film. Of course, it wasn't, though once Disney had finally created the film on Lewis Carroll's famous book, to say that the film was well-received would be laughable. The film was often panned by film critics of the time, as well as taking some fairly harsh criticisms from literary critics who decried the film as being heretical to the classic literature that the film is derived from. As well, unlike other Disney films of the day, Disney didn't even bother to re-release Alice in theaters.

It wasn't until the late-1960's that Alice in Wonderland finally found an audience that appreciated the film for what it was – another classic Disney film (perhaps even after Disney's death, which would be incredibly sad). One of the things that separates this film from other Disney films is, obviously, the animation. Everything seems to be much bolder than that of the ‘normal' Disney films of the day, which is indeed quite suitable. The film and its animation almost comes across as Disney and company trying their hardest to think outside of the box, and by-and-large are successful with it. Alice in Wonderland probably also stands as being one of the most clever of the Disney films, by way of its dialogue and songs and such. It had been said that Carroll's classic novel is almost unfilmable due to its lack of a formal narrative story and what would be needed for the visuals and such (or, at least, was before the days of CGI), and if that was the case, then an animated Disney film does indeed seem the best way to go. However, I think that Disney's classic ended up being more than just ‘the only way to film it', as I believe that ever since the creation of Disney's Alice in Wonderland, the classic Carroll book has gone from being ‘can't be filmed', to ‘shouldn't be remade'.

That's it for this week! One more week, and then it's the end of the Fantasy list! And my birthday!