Scrooge

Events traditionally unfold in the 1970 version of Scrooge, known perhaps for its musical flourishes and alternative takes on narrative contentions.

Scrooge remains as thoroughly miserly as one would expect if even vaguely familiar, and greedily refuses to grant the slightest clemency to any of his festive hard-working debtors.

To be expected, he also treats Bob Cratchit with cold and calculated avaricious disdain, and once again denies his humble nephew as he pleasantly invites him to Christmas dinner.

Many of the lines no doubt are almost identical to the 1951 classic, as it proceeds with temperate respect to the ageless wonder miraculously crafted.

It does struggle somewhat at times when the story isn't enriched through upbeat song, the less melodious dramatic scenes lacking convincing qualities effectively managed.

I did rather like the songs however and their exuberant convivial ecstatic fortitude, the fitting emphasis on play and fun mellifluously denoting communal cohesion.

Some of them are quite elaborate as well with dozens of extras performing in unison, the intricate nature of the ebullient dancing considerably impressive in stride and swoon. 

In this version, more attention is paid to Scrooge's apprenticeship with ye olde Fezziwig, and Alice is presented as Fezzi's daughter who Scrooge freely falls for even though he can't dance.

An extended scene romancing in the countryside adds much more romantic and amorous depth, Scrooge's inevitable inestimable turn all the more cruel and dishearteningly tempered. 

I always love the Fezziwig scene and it is rather short in some of the versions, I often think all of that effort for such a short time but at a younger age it did seem much longer.

Another notable difference looks at Scrooge's imagined descent into Hell, where he encounters Jacob Marley again and finds himself enlisted as Satan's clerk. 

The final song the purchase of the toys is rather well done Scrooge's generosity unsurpassed.

Not in keeping with the season to state overzealous!

How could it be!

Merry Christmas, everyone. 🎄🎅🤶🌟⛄𐂂👼

Don't Play Us Cheap

Lo and behold, a classic dinner party festively abounding with rhythmic song, the random celebratory inspired exclamations as unconcerned and versatile as they are contagious!

But the laidback chill and welcoming get-together has found its pernicious carnal adversaries, uptight individuals austerely prone to bombastically break up the tranquil merrymaking.

Imps from Hell in fact who can instantaneously change their shape and form, initially existing as vainglorious bats before diabolically transforming into humanoid revellers.

They strive to impress the Dark Lord by ruining an otherwise felicitous night, seeking reward recompense and favour in abysmal pits ominously inhabited. 

Fortunately, the guests assembled are far too good natured to fall for their traps, and easily find reflexive criticisms carefreely capable of sustaining the fun.

Most of the characters have a song to sing that's full of harmonious hard-working accords, mellifluous tales of united resplendency avidly coaxing freeflowing rebellion. 

Salt-of-the-Earth recitals fluidly enchant with gracious exactitude, Melvin Van Peebles having written the songs while expertly directing the feature as well (originally performed as a live musical).

I loved it so much I found the soundtrack and listened to many of the songs again, impressive soulful collaborative music gossamer gospel Motown motivation.

The music continuously innovates the feverish climax bewitching ensemble, as many of the characters gather together and sing several songs at the same chillaxed time.

It starts out humble and modest and slow then virtuously builds as other artists join in, before suddenly emerging as a bona fide fulcrum of synergistic spectacular stardust.

Why not simultaneously compose mischievous quotidian narrative accompaniments, cheerfully championing hard work and play and teamwork and friendship and family and Christmas (not technically a Christmas movie)?

The food looks so good too and there's so so so much of it freely available.

Fortuitously praising one more Saturday night.

Tantalizing treatise.

Mind-blowing maestros.

Bedknobs & Broomsticks

If the world somehow is an elaborate computer program far too intricate and complex to be deciphered, enticing clues bewilderingly illuminating ephemeral features from time to time, then perhaps such a program indeed scrutably encourages the experimental study of magic, peculiar words and nonsensical sayings at times im/materializing the byzantine matrix.

With no television or lively books to asymmetrically animate for thousands of years, creative peeps were left to improvisationally conjure with inspired wordplay to pass the millennia.

The matrix no doubt multivariably arrayed with extraordinarily advanced multilayered codes (prone to mutation), random thoughts and stray meanderings no doubt appearing like miraculous magic.

If someone was somehow born with a heightened degree of latent microcomputational moxie, gregariously gifted or hypertextually attuned, they could perhaps intuit manifold enchanting mélanges which in turn would seem like bewitching spells.

But such knowledge, atypically obtained, may lead to periodic problematized predicaments, when unheralded random unexpected individuals effectively emerged with historic independence. 

Sensing a challenge to orthodox hegemonies these sorcerers were traditionally met with rancour, the sure and steady domesticization of sensation much more reliable and routinely applauded.

Eventually science and medicine found clever ways to outwit them however, and emboldened unsung wizards and witches began sharing their experimental work.

Through the creation of accessible journals they could work together as an international eclective, and gradually build upon one another's work to eventually create the postmodern world.

As science became more bold and the international network more habitually astounding, the computational framework of the natural environment began to present itself with enlightened dignity. 

Still far too advanced to suddenly unravel with universal elasticity, the meticulous stewardship of the magical journals discovering different aspects piece by piece.

Perhaps far too complex for even a dependable millennia of journalling to understand, the knowledge and hypotheses still collectively remain to encourage growth and metaphysical realism.

Loved Bedknobs & Broomsticks in my youth and it suddenly popped into my head during the winter, the classic blend of live action and animation brought to life with a wholesome macabre touch.

Within the magic of knights and animals contends with brutal mechanized efficiency. 

With the help of intuitive wonder.

Probably still a cool film for young families. 

*Written on eclipse day. 

Sing

I always marvel at how tolerant my parents were regarding my singing when I was younger.

Before I learned to just take it easy and productively chill out when performing, I used to take on elevated subject matter, and my poor father had to listen as I bellowed Life on Mars? on the family piano, yet he still never let loose his irate criticisms, and let things take their natural course.

Sing gathers the harmonically gifted from a modest lively urban centre, and fortuitously unites them in passionate song, the reputed prize worth $100,000.

Unfortunately, the prize was a typo that greatly exaggerated the MC's income, but the lofty sum still motivated many, and a solid crew was melodiously assembled.

It must be the case the far reaching talent obliviously chillin' in so many towns, just waiting for similar opportunities to feverishly break out with elaborate invention.

Obsessions with being the best or not simply as good as a friend or relative, prevent so many from pragmatically proceeding as if there ever was an artistic superlative.

If you don't think you're the greatest singer or you needlessly worry how your words will sound, note that the most consistent songwriter in legendary memory won the Nobel Prize and he couldn't even sing.

American Idol is no doubt well-known for giving a shot to inspired local talent, and creating a vast incredible network of aspiring singers across the land.

But are local garage bands still seeking to frenetically emerge ultra summa cum laude, or just exist in the embryonic ether everlastingly invigorating rhythmic liaison?

Dylan, Bowie, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones seemed to me like they worked like it was their job to write song after song, and didn't just lounge about on the old trust fund seeking performative disruptive accolades. 

You get that rush outside of your comfort zone that effortlessly produces irresistible novelty, and as you constructively/bitterly/imaginatively/proactively/distractedly/vituperatively react there's no all-encompassing parallel for what you come up with.

Liked Sing's city of animals and the collective beasties intuitively enthralling.

Dreams effervescently accruing. 

Multivariable shapeshifting cascades.  

West Side Story

Intriguing to consider a massive fertile thriving landscape, where millions of people routinely flocked in search of work and wealth and romance.

If a more respectful and mutually beneficial way had been found to share the land with its Indigenous inhabitants, the situation would be even more compelling, true adventure emboldened quests.

West Side Story passionately chronicles a dispute between two groups who have yet to prosper, who fight each other for turf and are none too hospitable across the board.

The social safety net lacks efficient robust ubiquitous munificent potency, and even when it attempts to assist, its generosity is at times vilified. 

Love remains the key as it always has as it always will, two enthused youths from opposing ethnicities, their inspiring union communally detested. 

Perhaps it was that way when the feisty Irish moved to Québec in the 19th century, initial hostility eventually giving way to amorous endeavours through the passage of time.

There were none such clashes in my youth the different cultures tended to bond, coming together productively for a time ignoring race, religion, and class.

It's a preferable more constructive sociocultural model to craft, communally sound and reciprocally uplifting, generally united with the most predominant language, citizens free to speak how they want in their private lives.

There were jokes about race and ethnicity while I was growing up, but they were so ridiculous not many took them seriously, film and television often fought perverse racism, no one wanted to reignite despotic Naziesque tensions.

Unfortunately, misguided sensationalists overturned hard fought logical accords, instinctual rhythms lacking rational guidelines paving the way for bellicose jingoism. 

There's a fight near the end of West Side Story a wild clash between volatile leaders, followed by death and chaotic discord, desires for vengeance, shattered l'amour.

Steven Spielberg still deserves the nomination, this film is a masterpiece 50 years later.

The amount of planning that must have gone into it.

Incredible genius. 

Intricate fathoms. 

Jingle Jangle

A brilliant inventor modestly celebrates his most recent creation's genesis, a free-thinking figure that consciously reckons with independent advancing foresight. 

But as he sets off to rest, his apprentice walks in to tidy his animate workshop, and he encounters the enlivened toy who turns out to champion corrupt self-interest.

The toy passionately convinces him to dishonourably steal their benefactor's book of ideas, and create a toy shop of his own to slyly compete and wickedly conjure.

The inventor is thoroughly devastated upon discovering his sudden misfortune, and loses the ability to create, his mind stricken with disbelief.

His business slowly fades and his wife and daughter grow more estranged with each and every glum passing day, 30 years pass in fact in total depression borderline madness crippled ambition.

His former apprentice has gaudily emerged as their realm's dazzling preeminent toymaker, furtively driven by the conniving contraption who never relents lets go subsides.

But so much time has woefully passed that another generation has nimbly ballooned, and Jeronicus's (Forest Whitaker) granddaughter soon comes curiously and cleverly and ebullient and pensively calling (Madalen Mills as Journey). 

Has she arrived in time to help grandfather realize his last vital dream?, before the bank reluctantly forecloses, on Christmas day, the timeline's obscene.

Fortunately, she's incredibly gifted, and at a young age rivals gramp's brilliance, and is therefore able to adroitly assist even if her ideas are initially unwelcome.

The most important thing he's lost is the belief he once had in himself, which is why his latest idea won't jive, won't exceedingly generate awestruck wondrous je ne sais pas uncontrived.

It's more like a film that takes place at Christmas than a supple salute to the season, although traditional spiritual surges assuredly sanctify seasonal synergies.

I suppose it's a sign of the times, that an ingenious toy would be full of deception, as opposed to lighthearted wonder, it's certainly not Cabbage Patch or My Buddy. 

Too much of an emphasis on immoral resolve in recent years to be shocked by a malicious toy, it's like themes oft reserved for horror have been whitewashed to critique widespread greed.

The new toy in question resembles E.T so perhaps it represents a manifest willingness to move past blunt impulses, and return to the less self-obsessed guidance of the 1980s, Foucauldian investigation pending.

Does Jingle Jangle's playful synthesis of machine and spirit foreshadow upcoming advances in artificial intelligence?

The rise of robotic humanism?

Computationally coaxing.

Hopefully not, hopefully hearts and hearths continue to flourish organic. 

There's nothing quite like biodiversity.

Born of ancient mutation.

Cats

I hesitate to suggest that Tom Hooper's Cats produced its desired affects upon its audience, insofar as laughter was consistently generated within the theatre where I recently saw it, but that's not necessarily a bad thing if entertainment value is taken into account, for that very same audience no doubt foolhardily enjoyed themselves, even if their applause was critically attuned to camp as opposed to melodrama.

Is there a difference?

That would be a fun essay to write (in detail).

I would argue that Cats sets out to romantically investigate life on a thriving fringe, within a talented artistic community, independently predisposed.

It's a wonderful idea.

It introduces a variety of vigorous individuals who have taken the time to melodiously compose themselves, in preparation for a carnivalesque soirée, abounding with life and perhaps reincarnation.

A wicked cat who jealously seeks to live again nefariously disrupts the proceedings with cruel and covetous intent.

The historical social interactions of the innovative neighbourhood are observed by a fascinated newcomer who's introduced after emerging astray.

The songs are sung very well, there's no denying the musical talent, the robust sincere efficacious concerned camaraderie erupting with ecstatic charm.

But they rarely stop, there isn't much intermittent dialogue, and I'm afraid they're somewhat abstruse, or lack helpful points of clarification.

It's not that you can't figure out what's going on or find yourself lost within a byzantine delirium, but if you're not familiar with the story beforehand, you may find it somewhat obscured in the opening numbers, which are rather wordy if not longwinded, and lack sturdy lucid foundations.

Even if they are cats.

But they are cats, and there are a bunch of cool animated felines singing and dancing with paramount glamour, so if you aren't worried about what's actually going on, you have recourse to the wild absurdity.

Even though it's just a bit garrulous, I still wondered if it was primarily made for children, because the cat expressions employed fall flat throughout, but may appeal to the more innocently minded, if they're seeing a musical for the very first time.

The constant close-ups too, which seem like they're trying to generate wonder, but often cause people to burst out laughing, don't worry, the same thing happens to me.

So the melodrama's there, Cats at least approaches serious subjects with a touch that's light of heart, and leaves room for scandal and intrigue as it proceeds with the best intentions.

But if it's meant to be taken seriously, and I can't really see that happening, even if it improves as Ian McKellen (Gus the Theatre Cat) begins to sing, and there's a wonderful break where's there's no singing at all, just dancing, it may not universally succeed, although my hypothesis could be way off.

Nevertheless, films that are meant to be taken seriously which create serious comic appeal can be transformed into cherished camp, if the audience is there and willing.

The audience whom I watched Cats with was overflowing with playful cheer.

Is it always that way with melodrama?

To tell you the truth, I'm far from certain.

But people get angry if you don't take what they're taking seriously sometimes.

A matter of perspective, I try to keep quiet.

Rocketman

Abounding with characteristic irresistible melody, Rocketman presents the early life of Elton John (Taron Egerton/Matthew Illesley/Kit Connor).

By no means like warm fuzzy lighthearted hot cocoa, it hits hard at John's blunt childhood trauma, while illustrating how it affected his sudden rise to fame, and led to years of conflicted unrestrained hitched soul searching.

But it's not all that depressing, that's just the frame his actions are depicted within, and at times it overflows with chill wonder, rich with doubts and expedient sublimation.

He was younger once, not so long ago, and although the details of his youth aren't elaborately nuanced, we learn that his father (Steven Mackintosh as Stanley) never loved him, his mother (Bryce Dallas Howard as Sheila) could be mean, and his grandmother (Gemma Jones as Ivy) recognized his talent, which began to flourish at a young age.

He could play anything he heard and write soulful original music, the former winning him a scholarship at Britain's Royal Academy of Music, after which he found himself leading memorable bands.

Rocketman features his lifelong working relationship with gifted lyricist Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell), and how the two have productively worked together for a mind-boggling 5 decades strong.

With Taupin's lyrics John wrote so many enduring classics, many of which are still played regularly today, and shot them into the stratosphere in the early '70s, from which they've never really descended.

But the excessive wealth and wild lifestyle took its toll, especially considering that he fell in love with his hard-edged manager (Richard Madden as John Reid), who was strictly a man of business.

Rocketman's recalled through a series of defining moments John shares with a self-help group after seeking aid to attain sobriety.

According to the film, he was never really that rowdy, that vain, that hostile.

That much of a prick.

On the contrary, he was a humble brilliant laidback musician who wanted to showcase his talent but didn't do anything excessive to gain recognition, like a really fun cool guy whose ambition was acknowledged without spectacle.

After he became a star his outfits were flamboyant but that was and possibly still is part of the show, part of the thrill of seeing him perform.

Costume design by Julian Day.

The film's musical biography so it isn't overflowing with details from John's life, but the music's enticing and creatively interwoven to sympathize, emphasize, ritualize, and contextualize, reimagining so many great songs, with a damn fine new version of Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting.

It doesn't shy away from presenting hardships but in so doing adds depth to John's character, the chosen details resonating with significance, his style still diversifying to this day.

An incredible artist.

And a cool guy too.

Taron Egerton puts in a great performance.

Gentle intense life.

La La Land

Heartbeats in harmonized constructs and contrasts, patience, impertinence, concessions, gall, twirling unfurling enduring expressionless fancies and flights intertwined with supine toyed devotion, blinding cataracts effervescent turbulence trusted and truly exonerating impressions jocose and dear starstruck fearless appearances awe inspired odysseys, caféd candlelit assuréd indiscretions, caught up in each others arms, candied (torn) in La La Land.

The stubborn and the starboard expressly romanticizing multigeneric medleys, relational urgencies bejewel tranced sashays.

That's me being romantic.

A life, of solitude.

Fluttering jittery animated embraces, what seems eternally inclined must professionally brace itself for itinerant scheduling, Mia (Emma Stone [outstanding]) and Sebastian's (Ryan Gosling) relationship fond of its festive familiarity yet troubled by tangents, sand duned by success.

But there's a classic Hollywood ending that anyone who's ever loved and lost may find sorrowfully endearing, the music and the magic and the mirth meteorically meshing with cosmic interplay.

An excellent beginning too, either I've lived long enough to start liking musicals or Damien Chazelle's La La Land is a notable exception, the film thoughtfully mixing different catchy styles to metaphorically synergize loveable forays, ones which last for a while anyways, the mundane micromovements, passionate parlays, intimate insights, and unique syntheses generated through sustained commitment viscerally subsumed.

The film's full of troubles and tearjerks and hugs, celebrating resiliency as it's dismally challenged, the authority a couple creates enigmatically as their own.

For themselves.

Pour La Strada.

Incrementally partitioned with existentially aligned spice, it swirls as it seasons, dips as it sways.

*Couples can be existential.

Yes they can.

Les Misérables

And another film operating within an ethical economic matrix was released, whose focus is more generalized and critiques less gaudy, pursuing similar ends through divergent means, incorporating adherents of courage, wisdom, moderation and justice, religiously and managerially inundating the hardened prejudice of the absolute, with vibrant, comprehensive, itineraries, of conscience.

Also reducing a novel of considerable length to a lively cross-section, condensed further through the articulations of musical abbreviations, it, while lacking the artistic particularity of Anna Karenina, the meticulous style, still uses its harmonies to manufacture practical progressions, one of its most salient themes reminiscent of a concluding remark from Cloud Atlas.

The Master's logical mischievousness innkeeps, while Argo's spirit internally manifests.

Lengthy and full of purpose, Tom Hooper's Les Misérables chants out between two worlds, mercifully punishing criminal constabularies, while seeking to secure democratic law and order.

And another viewing of Lincoln. 

Joker

Wow. There's a lot goin' on in this film.

Antiquated misunderstood terminologies are cartographically forsaken for reasons of self-preservation only to remain fluid within their own internal landscape within which a lyrical agrarian dynamic flourishes in isolation.

Until external structural constructions cut off their carnivalesque currents.

Enter Agastya/Sattu (Akshay Kumar), a community member who tackled adversity and found himself a job attempting to establish communications with radical otherness within an international setting.

His talents are extraordinary and he returns home with his adventurous wife (Sonakshi Sinha as Diva) to altruistically put them to work.

The lone village is situated along the border of three Indian states, and he hopes to negotiate a resolution (a communal pact) with one of them in order to resurrect its crops.

While doing so, he adapts to local customs out of respect for their traditions.

Finding no bureaucratic streamline, he employs his knowledge of the sensational to create a spectacle, based upon one appropriated from another domain, with the aid of compatriots, which intrigues the media.

They promptly capitalize on the reconceptualized market as the villagers begin to exchange services for currency.

But a competitive dimension seeks to expose their fantasy's reality which results in the expansion of its theatrics and the intrusion of the American military.

Meanwhile, the three states attempt to incorporate that which they previously disregarded.

But when radical otherness miraculously appears, it becomes apparent that the misunderstood antiquated terminologies that had been topographically eclipsed possess the means through which to intergalactically communicate, and a gift is presented.

The gift enables the village to refuse each of its suitors and remain independent.

Unfortunately, it will also introduce an industrial peculiarity (at the beginning of the film the village has no electricity).

It's quite the present . . .

Yet hopes remain high and Agastya's wit is unmatched, which suggests a sanitary synthesis between two polar means of production loosely intertwined by an improvised intermediary stage.

Scintillatingly scored and jocosely choreographed.

Ai to Makoto (For Love's Sake) (Fantasia Fest 2012)

Presenting a comic romantic over-the-top ultraviolent musical, wherein bourgeois values resolutely seek to pacify a versatile tumultuous rogue, the undying and overpowering intensity of love unwaveringly guiding their reformative resolve, streetwise unconditional consistent combative tenacity governing his, Takashi Miike's Ai to Makoto (For Love's Sake) does not refrain from elaborately executing every consummate class cliché ever created, sensationally synthesizing quixotic and hardboiled extremes, relentlessly reproducing unerringly awkward amorously explosive motifs, in the implacable pursuit, of emancipated co-dependence.

Group dynamics repetitively insist that young Makoto Taiga (Satoshi Tsumabuki) obediently pay his respects, but as their challenges are uniformly discombobulated, his limitless disenfranchised individuality, and consequent unwittingly seductive magnetism, remain intact.

Attaching a monetary value to the ability to maintain specific ideological viewpoints, while catastrophically choreographing their constructive affects, Ai to Makoto pugnaciously parodies the domain of rehabilitative reckoning, while chaotically kitschifying the practice of revenge.

For love's sake.

Rock of Ages

Well, without digging too deeply into the ideologic-socio-political dimensions of Rock of Ages, here's a brief snapshot of what happens.

A beautiful young girl (Julianne Hough as Sherrie Christian) travels from Oklahoma to Los Angeles in the hopes of becoming a singer. It becomes clear early on that the odds are stacked against her but she's fortunate enough to catch the eye of a barback (Diego Boneta as Drew Boley) with similar dreams who finds her a job at the prominent nightclub (The Bourbon Club) where he works.  

In less than a week they've developed a strong emotional bond.

Known, as love.

Legendary demonic alcoholic singer Stacee Jaxx (Tom Cruise) and his band Arsenal are scheduled to play their last collective performance at the Bourbon Club, and the sultry studious astute Constance Stack (Malin Akerman) of Rolling Stone hopes to ask Mr. Jaxx some sharp related critical questions beforehand.

After three or four minutes she's prancing around in her underwear.

She does still publish a vitriolic article later on.

But by the end of the film she's carrying his baby.

Meanwhile, the clueless adulterous Mayor Mike Whitmore's (Bryan Cranston) religious wife Patricia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) hopes to put an end to the Bourbon Club's cult and is crusading against Mr. Jaxx as well.

The only man who ever made her feel like a real woman.

By the end of the film she's back in the audience, hoping Stacee will notice her once again.

Sherrie and Drew break up and she finds a job stripping while he gets stuck in a boy band.

And another monster rock ballad is sung.

I'm not really looking to complicate this film or anything, but it does present politics and feminism as hypocritical meaningless endeavours whose initiatives crumble beneath the seductive gaze of the established subterranean patriarch.

In this case, the political initiatives are invasive and counterproductive but if they function as a foil for such initiatives generally they can be considered belittling and grossly disproportionate (there is no alternative political option presented).

I prefer grassroots music to that manufactured by market based research but it's not as if classic rock isn't alive and well.  

It's nice to see gay characters given a strong masculine structural role within, not in terms of encouraging anti-feminist apolitical activities, but in regards to taking risks in order to establish an integral celebrated entrepreneurial identity.

I can't think of any other things to say besides the fact that the film's soundtrack contains some songs that I like.

Rock of Ages. 

Rollin' along.

Across the Universe

Beatle's songs, Beatle's songs, and Beatle's songs. Beatle's songs abound in Julie Taymore's new film Across the Universe, a musical examination of 1960's America tailored by the insight's of John, Paul, George and Ringo. About 15 minutes in I remembered that musicals aren't really my thing, but I relaxed, ignored my pretensions, and slowly fell for Taymore's vivid visual style. It's a well choreographed musical melodrama, filled with blooming relationships, anti-war imagery, psychedelic surges, and corny cliches. All packed into some 15 odd music videos, some of which motivate the plot, others which praise the music for its own sake. Across the Universe caught me in its vision and I enjoyed watching the myriad musical numbers interrupt and reinterpret the narrative. The depth of its set-list and commendable costumes make up for its predictable plot, and even though its characters are hard to take at times, overall, they're a commendable bunch of confused individuals, trying to make ends meet practically and idealistically. Come for the music, stay for the theatrics, ignore the dialogue, and simply let it be.

The Fox Family (Fantasia Fest 2007)

When I heard about a new Korean film where a pack of foxes is transformed into a human family by a magic spell in order so that they can devour human livers during a lunar eclipse, livers which will provide them with the nourishment they require to maintain their human form, a chance they are only offered once in a thousand years, I figured I was in for a treat. And I figured correctly. Director Lee Hyung-Gon's The Fox Family delivers an hilarious, gruesome, off kilter horror/comedy/musical/romance that leaves most North American flicks cowering in their burrows. Sort of reminded me of Dead Alive. The Kumiho family has 30 days to figure out how to live amongst humans so that they can be guaranteed access to fresh livers on the night of the lunar eclipse. And how do they intend to obtain their meal? Why, opening up a circus of course! Their nimbly foxiness predisposes them to the acrobatic arts and soon they find themselves performing for kiddies in an urban centre, with one skit having the older sister's arms chainsawed off, squirting stump blood all over the crowd. Somewhat off-kilter.

I was a bit worried when I read that The Fox Family was a musical because I rarely take to such films but some of the numbers aren't bad, notably the lighthearted love songs. The song which accompanies the troupe's first experiences in the working world was a bit much, but it was overshadowed by the number which explores their attempts to get livers to join their entourage. The choreography is solid and one wonders how money was left over in the budget to create sprightly little special effects regarding humanoid foxlike behaviour.

Ki-Dong adds quite a lot to The Fox Family as he falls in love with the elder sister even though he knows she plans to feast upon his liver. It certainly doesn't stop him from pursuing some fertile fervid felicitous fox action. He remains with the family with the hopes of filming them in fox form, thereby providing the world with its first encounter with human-fox video, whereby he can earn enough scratch to pay off some goons. Like skirting the realms of heroine addiction in order to create some artistic legend before succumbing to devastation. And his comedic presence gives the film that extra bit of ridiculous depth which saves it two thirds of the way through as it starts to drag.

If you can get your hands on a copy, don't hold out on this hidden Korean gem. Come for the acrobatics and cringe whenever the motif of lips eating something disgusting reappears. It’s worth it for the ways in which it nurtures comedic insight, if not simply for the perfectly placed jilting opening line: "where can we find a lot of humans." I really don't know how to answer that question.