Too early for Christmas?

Some would say a Christmas movie in November is a little too soon, and one that’s released on 11^th November defiantly too early, but here it is Arthur Christmas. Having such an early release could go ever way, either it enjoys a large box office share being the only festive film in sight, somehow flourishing like the preverbal rose that grew from concrete, or it flounders like a grounded mackerel, causing a slight stir but eventually dying of death. But then the festive fish death could well happen with a later release as it gets lost in amongst other Christmas themed offerings.

Arthur Christmas is the youngest son of the current reigning Santa Claus, and works in the letter department reading and replying to children’s Christmas wishes, while is older brother Steve runs the whole operation  with military procession, that is until he misses a child. Steve deems this as an acceptable margin of error and decides not to make the delivery, whereas Arthur feels otherwise and decides to take it upon himself to fulfil the forgot child’s festive dreams, and of course hilarity ensues.

Arthur Christmas is the latest film from Aardman studios, the Bristol based animators responsible for the likes of Rex the Runt, Angry Kid, Morph and of course Wallace & Gromit. Anyone of my age will remember watching Morph on Hartbeat, the children’s art programme presented by the legendary Tony Hart. But the thing that first brought Aardman to everyone’s attention was the Creature Comforts adverts for Sweb, in which the dialogue of Sweb customers talking about their heating needs, was married up with the visual of Claymation animals delivering it, most famously by Frank the Tortoise.

Then we come to the studios most successful creation, the aforementioned Wallace & Gromit, in their first animated short A Grand Day Out, in 1989. Although nominated for an academy award, it wasn’t until the Oscar winning sequel 4 years later, The Wrong Trousers, that the world became obsessed with one man and his dog. Which given the brilliance of The Wrong Trousers is no surprise; I’d say it was easily the greatest Claymation film ever made. Then in 1995 the duo became a trilogy with A Close Shave, which also won an Oscar.

In 2000 Aardman ventured on to the big screen in a partnership with Dreamworks, who had in recent years ventured into animation with the Brilliant CGI film Antz, in which Woody Allen wins the heart of Sharon Stone, goes to war and eventually saves his Colony from the malevolent Gene Hackman. As well as the less brilliant, but still noteworthy Prince of Egypt.  

Aardman stuck to what they knew, and created that rarest of beasts a feature length Claymation, in the form of Chickenrun. Their new adventure into film didn’t win any academy awards, as it didn’t fall into the shorts category dominated by stable mates Wallace & Gromit, and the Best Animated film category didn’t launch until the following year, however it was nominated for best British film at that years BAFTA’S.

Their next film was the first, and as yet only, big screen outing for Wallace & Gromit, in Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Released in 2005, it was that year’s winner of the best animated feature Oscar. Its success quickly being followed up by the studios first CGI film, the highly under-rated Flushed Away, originally titled Ratroplis, and changed due to its similarity to Pixar’s Ratatouille. Dreamworks had previously had a similar idea clash with Pixar in 1998, when Antz and  A Bug’s Life were  released in the same year. This was, to Aardman’s annoyance, be one of many changes the film would go through during its production, and ultimately lead to Aardman and Dreamworks parting was, citing creative differences, or to translate, it’s my ball and I don’t want to play anymore.

But Dreamworks loss was Sony Pictures gain, as they became Aardman's new filmic partners, and the two consummating their union with Aardman’s second CGI adventure Arthur Christmas. I know what you’re thinking that was seamless, how did I possibly go full circle like that, and the answer is simple, I’m simply brilliant. Trumpet blown.

But what of Arthur Christmas? I hear you cry. What is it like? Is it any good? I must know before my life is complete.  And jury’s verdict is Arthur Christmas is a welcome addition to the festive arsenal, to sit up alongside Santa Claus the Movie and Home Alone. But where it stands apart from those two examples, there’s no villain of the piece, like John Lithgow’s money hunger toy manufacturer B.Z. in the former or crooks Harry & Lloyd in the latter. It’s more about showing the people responsible for Christmas the true spirit of the holiday, that every child is important.

One of the elements of the film that I particularly enjoyed, were some of the little details, one such example is near the beginning of the film where Santa’s delivering one present, and the parents of the presents future owner are watching Raymond Brigg’s The Snowman. Another such detail is the location of the forgotten child; of course this will only stand out to someone from my neck of the woods. The location being a place called Trelew, which for the Cornish inclined is approximately 2 miles north of Falmouth, near the village Mylor Bridge. Of course any association with Cornwall sets the locals off, which for me was ehighlighted during the end of Alice in Wonderland, with various audience members going ‘that’s Charlestown ya know’, and obviously being Cornish myself I appreciate it, but what I like about this detail is, A: it’s not the usual big city location, and B: it’s a real place, it could easily have been some fictional town.

Right I think that’s enough, time to leave before we all get bored. To summarise Antz is good, so is Flushed Away and Arthur Christmas ain’t bad either.

ARTHUR CHRISTMAS Trailer

Arthur

When I was a kid we were lucky enough to have sky, this is back when your sky box had a separate button for each of the 16 channels, half of which were either in French or German, or better yet just static. Back when there was Sky Movies Plus, which started at four in the afternoon, and as well as showing the latest releases also showed pay per view events like boxing and Wrestlemainia (at that point for free). After a while more and more channels started to appear, and the ones that were already established started to increase their transmissions. Eventually Sky Movies dropped the plus, and started going around the clock, and because they showed every film twelve times, I saw a lot of films a lot of times, films like: Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, Earth girls Are Easy, Scooby Doo & The Reluctant Werewolf, and Arthur 2: On The Rocks.

The first Arthur followed the exploits of Dudley Moore’s drunken millionaire; this was back in the good old days when alcoholism was funny. Arthur is reluctantly set to marry the daughter of a rather wealthy and ruthless business man, after his father threatens to cut him off if he doesn’t sort is life out. Then he meets and falls in love with Linda (Liza Minnelli), a poor city girl.

Arthur 2: On The Rocks catches up with the happy couple after they’re married, and trying to start a family.  After they find they can’t have children they decide to head down the road of adoption, a story strand threaded throughout the story, but the main storyline focuses on Arthur losing all his money. 

Arthur was a great success, winning Oscars for best song and best supporting actor for John Gielgud’s portrayal of Hobson, Arthur’s long suffering Butler/surrogate father, as well as nominations for Dudley Moore as best actor and best original screenplay for Steve Gordon, who also directed the film, and was the only film Gordon ever made, dying from a heart attack the year following release. However Arthur 2 was such a failure that Dudley Moore actually disowned it.

Then some years later Mr Hollywood decided rather than come up new ideas, he’d recycle some old ones, not only would this be cost effective, but recycle was one of those new buzz words that Jonny public responded to nowadays.

First he ravaged the television of yesteryear for parts, constructing giant Frankenstein blockbusters, designed to place fear and wonderment into the heart of Jonny Public, and untold riches into the pockets of Mr Hollywood. But rather than rampage through the villages of imagination, they just groaned slightly and fell over. One by one they puffed out their chest, to quickly run and hide, Lost in Space, Dukes of Hazard and the most hideous mutation of them all…Thunderbirds.

Not to be deterred by this Mr Hollywood went back to the drawing board, and began work on plan B. This time he’d plunder the world of cinema, but he didn’t know where to start, it was then he decided to investigate another buzz world he had heard of late, called something like the interweb. It was then that he stumbled upon the answer, it wasn’t the giant blockbusters that every talked about, or the ones that had won countless awards, but the funny and farfetched. Films which basically fell into two categories: Horror films & 80’s movies. Dollar signs rolled in the eyes of Mr Hollywood.

And soon the freaks began to plague the world of cinema, first with the soulless monstrosities of Horror named Nightmare on Elm Street and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, quickly followed by creatures harvested from the decade of imagination. But these beasts were far more devious, somehow taping into the life blood of their former incarnations.

There was Karate Kid, and then Arthur, two films which given my personal love of the 80’s I should hate, but I don’t, just as Karate Kid found in Jackie Chan the only person who could possibly do justice to the icon of Mr Miyagi, Arthur found Russell Brand.

There are a lot of people who don’t like Brand and I didn’t to begin with, he’s been described to me like marmite, either you love him or hate him, I would describe him more like vegetables, had first you hate them, but a time goes on you start to not mind them as much, then you start to like some, and before long you’re having a pub roast and marvelling at their wide selection. That pretty much describes by appreciation for Mr Katy Perry, when I first experienced him on Big Brother’s Big Mouth I couldn’t understand why they had such a monumental dick fronting a programme of this nature, but the more you watch him in action the more you start to get it, putting the whimsy and gibberish aside he’s actually a quite intelligent, and well informed character. But I still wasn’t wholly convinced, then some time later a friend of mine lent me two stand-up DVDs, namely Dara O’Briain and Russell Brand. I was excited by O’Briain, and it was brilliant, but I only kept the Brand DVD out of politeness, eventually I got round to watching it and that was it, I’d finally been convinced.

But that’s enough about how I got a hard-on for Russell Brand, the point is when he started making films, it didn’t seem like much of a leap, always seeming to play some extension of himself, either in look or attitude. Which is why when I heard that they were remaking Arthur, I was happy that the role had fallen to Brand. Arthur is eccentric, and so is Brand, which is part of his charm, and while Brand may not be a functioning alcoholic like Arthur, he has reached near self-destruction with drugs. Thirdly they’re both well practiced womanisers, until they settle on that one girl. So while he may not be heading too far in to parts unknown, he is a perfect fit. Life imitating art.

Although the Brand remake is unlikely to win the praise and awards of the original, I actually think its better. Maybe that’s just through my own perspective, as a kid I’d seen the sequel several times, before I’d seen the original, which on that first viewing was a little disappointing.  But the remake is charming and funny, and sometimes ridiculous, but most of all its not taxing, a Sunday teatime kinda film, grown-up enough for the grown-ups and childish enough for the children.

Arthur 2011 Trailer

Arthur 2 On The Rocks