Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas review

 Number 555 on the top 1000 films of all time is Terry Gilliam's black-comedy 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.'

Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp) is a journalist sent to Las Vegas to cover an important motorcycle race. He is joined by his friend and laywer Dr Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro.) Once there, they get high on every drug doing and get into all manner of chaos.

Terry Gilliam is well-known for his surreal, incomprehensible films like Brazil and Twelve Monkeys. However, while those films had some semblance of a storyline 'Fear and Loathing' was an exercise in excess. 'Brazil was about a civil servant looking for love in a hellscape world while Twelve Monkeys focussed on trying to reverse an apocalypse. Sure these films were weird, but I think there was at least supposed to be a point. Or for Twelve Monkeys anyway. Like Brazil, Fear and Loathing seemed to be weird for the sake of weird.

The antics of Raoul Duke and Dr Gonzo soon became tiresome especially as Dr Gonzo is a pretty nasty psychopath. It didn't help that neither Depp or Del Toro were particularly memorable in their roles. And this is saying something considering the calibre of the actors: Del Toro went onto win a Best Supporting Oscar for Stephen Soderbergh's Traffic a few years later. Depp also has a few Oscar nods under his belt. Yet he was just boring lacking any of the usual charisma he brings to a role. And I didn't like Dr Gonzo so I didn't care for Del Toro's performance.

In terms of comedy, it didn't make me laugh very much. Sure, the situations are black and we're supposed to be laughing at and not with the characters, but I spent much of the film rolling my eyes rather than laughing out loud. None of the psychadelic visuals or quirky camera angles could do anything to make the film more interesting.

Instead this was a tedious, overly-indulgent affair which was about two hours too long. I was very glad when the credits started rolling.

Dead Man review

 Number 531 on the top 1000 films of all time is the acid Western 'Dead Man.'

William Blake (Johnny Depp) is a 19th century timid accountant who accidentally kills a man. He is forced to go on the run. While a fugitive, he befriends Nobody (Gary Farmer) an enigmatic Native American who believes that Blake is the reincarnation of the famous poet of the same name.

After Down By Law and Night on Earth, this is the third Jim Jarmusch film that I've seen. Although Jarmusch rejects the idea of being an auteur, I can't think of a better description of his films. They are always on the weird side with a healthy slice of surrealism. Dead Man was no exception.

Just like his third film Down by Law, Dead Man was in monochrome. This feeds into Jarmusch's minimalist style, but also removes any distraction for the audience. Instead their focus is purely on the characters led by the accountant William Blake played by Johnny Depp.

In many of his films, Depp plays an oddball character in a normal world. Here the inverse is true. Depp plays the relatively normal William Blake in a strange world full of strange characters such as the very surreal Nobody. It was enjoyable seeing Depp in a fish out of water role even if it wasn't one of his most memorable performances. Farmer was also enjoyable as Nobody.

Jim Jarmusch, perhaps because he is a musician himself, is well-known for casting musicians in his films. Johnny Depp also has an accomplished music career while Tom Waits has appeared in a couple of Jarmusch films. But as well as having music royalty appear in his films, he also has them provide scores. The brilliant Neil Young composed a largely guitar soundtrack that fitted the film perfectly.

Dead Man was an enjoyable film. It was surreal and strange with an interesting lead performance from Johnny Depp.

Finding Neverland review

 Number 481 on the top 1000 films of all time is Marc Foster's biopic fantasy drama 'Finding Neverland.'

Finding Neverland tells the true-life story of Scottish children's author JM Barrie (Johnny Depp.) After his latest play flops, he is desperately looking for a new idea. This is when he meets widow and single mother Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Kate Winslet) - she and her children serve as the inspiration for Barrie's most famous story: Peter Pan. Julie Christie and Dustin Hoffman co-star.

Finding Neverland started slowly, but once it got going it became a touching and surprising story about connection and childhood innocence. I say surprising, because, as a general rule, I'm generally not interested in biopics/period dramas. Neither am I much interested in Peter Pan. I don't know anything of the story outside of the Disney cartoon.

Yet that didn't matter with the ever-impressive Johnny Depp at the helm. Having become better known as a character actor with eccentric and off-beat roles, it was refreshing to see him in one of his most human roles. I'm not sure how much of Finding Neverland was fact and how much was fiction, but it did portray Barrie as a wholly complicated and interesting character. It's no surprise that Depp was Oscar-nominated for the role.

As for Kate Winslet, she was good but I felt that in her early career, she was often typecast as an upper-class aristocratic woman whether that is Sense and Sensibility or Hamlet. True, she does it well and she did well opposite Depp, but it did feel like Llewelyn Davies was just another similar character in a very long list.

Although it tells a story of fantasy and escape with multiple sets and like a pirate's ship or a desert, Marc Foster always kept things firmly grounded in the real by partly how Barrie was inspired by the people or events around him basing Peter Pan on Sylvia's son Peter, Freddy Highmore in an early role.

Overall, I enjoyed Finding Neverland. I wasn't sure whether I would, but it pleasantly surprised me. Now say it with me...I do...I do... I do believe in fairies. 

Ed Wood review

 Number 378 on the top 1000 films of all time is Tim Burton's 1994 biographical comedy-drama 'Ed Wood.'

Ed Wood (Johnny Depp) tells the real-life story of the film-maker Ed Wood and his ascension through the Hollywood ranks to become affectionately known as the "Worst Director of All Time." The film portrays his personal and professional relationships including with Dracula actor Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau) and drag queen John "Bunny" Breckinridge (Bill Murray.) Sarah Jessica Parker plays Ed Wood's first girlfriend Dolores Fuller, but when their relationship deteriorates he starts anew with Kathy O'Hara (Patricia Arquette.)

Tim Burton is well-known for gothic horror and dark fantasy films being the director of such films like Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride, Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice. Yet Ed Wood was an interesting mixture of the real and the fantasy. Being a biopic, the story was founded in truth. It portrayed the life of famed B-movie director Ed Wood, but did so through a fantasy lens. The use of black-and-white gave the film a timeless element - although it was depicting the 50s it could have been set anywhere. Martin Landau and Johnny Depp's performances were suitably surreal too.

Johnny Depp has become well-known for playing off-the-wall eccentric characters. We've already talked about Edward Scissorhands, but there's also Sweeney Todd, Willy Wonka and of course, his most famous role, Captain Jack Sparrow. I would argue that Ed Wood was just as off-the-wall and as eccentric as any of these characters. He soon became known for his unconventional production techniques such as providing little direction for his actors, only shooting one take and filling any gaps with stock footage. Having said that, George Lucas was also notorious for only saying "faster" and "more intense" to his actors, so maybe that point isn't that unconventional, but I digress. 

And, most eccentrically of all, there was also Ed Wood's transvestism. Yet despite all this, Johnny Depp gave a three-dimensional and well-rounded portrayal of the ill-celebrated director. Granted both and he and Burton admitted to being overly-sympathetic side to Wood. Reportedly, the real-life director suffered from alcoholism so bad it was the true reason why Dolores left him. These scenes were not included in the film.

Finally, let's talk about Martin Landau who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing Bela Lugosi. In the fifties, Bela Lugosi's best days were long behind him. Similar to Ed Wood he also had his own alcohol problems. Yet his collaborations with the ill-famed director saw a minor resurgence to his career. Just like Depp, Landau brought a vulnerability and tenderness to the damaged character.

Ed Wood was an enjoyable enough film. It had all the surrealism and eccentricity you would expect from a Tim Burton film and it also had Johnny Depp in one of his trademark off-the-wall roles. 

Corpse Bride review

 Number 911 on the top 1000 films of all time is Tim Burton's stop-motion, dark-fantasy 'Corpse Bride.'

Set in Victorian London, Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp) is a respectable young man who is betrothed Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson) a sweet-natured, young woman. However, cold feet leads to him messing up the ceremony and running into the nearby forest in shame. While rehearsing his vows, he inadvertently awakens the titular corpse bride Emily (Helena Bonham Carter.) She believes the two are now married and Victor finds himself caught between his alive bride Victoria and his dead bride Emily.

In Corpse Bride, Tim Burton blended together a charming, but strange narrative with some brilliant visuals. The animation was absolutely gorgeous if surreal at times. Stop-motion is always so impressive due to its pain-staking nature. Production for this film lasted for over a year and there were over 100,000 individual frames to be animated. But the finished product was a visual feast for the eyes. I loved the colour scheme. In the Land of the Dead, everything is so bright and colourful, whereas in the real world, everything is daub and downtrodden.

But it's in the Land of the Dead where things get really weird. Especially during the musical numbers, it was like watching an acid-trip. But it's this trademark surrealism that made this film so memorable. It was so creative; I can safely say that I haven't seen a film quite like it. And although the musical numbers are few and far between, they are catchy and thoroughly entertaining. The Remains of the Day was one of my favourites especially with its striking visuals.

Corpse Bride is also littered with acting talent. We've already mentioned Johnny Depp, Emily Watson and Helena Bonham Carter, but Christopher Lee, Richard E.Grant, Joanna Lumley and Albert Finney all lend their voices to this fun little flight of fancy. Johnny Depp sounded almost unrecognisable as he lacks the same accent he adorns for the Pirates of the Caribbean series or Sweeney Todd.  It was also a great script with plenty of jokes as well as some real emotional notes. I particularly loved the final image of the eponymous Corpse Bride dissolving into a group of butterflies. I thought this was a touching and elegant image.

Overall, I really enjoyed Corpse Bride. It was so creative, so colourful with some great musical numbers and voice performances. And the stop-motion animation was absolutely brilliant. It proved that stop-motion animation should be respected as much as any other medium within cinema.