Babe (1995)

Amazingly, as I rewatched it recently, I realised that I hadn't seen Babe in about twenty five years. I'd rented it when it was a major home release, and remember it being an enjoyable, if very cutesy, time. Based on a novel (The Sheep-Pig) by Dick King-Smith, it actually holds up as one of the best live-action family movies of the past few decades.

Babe (voiced by Christine Cavanaugh) is a pig won at a market fair by Farmer Hoggett (James Cromwell). Destined to be a centrepiece of the Christmas dinner table, Babe instead finds itself helping out around the farm, helping to look after the sheep alongside, and sometimes in place of, the sheepdogs. Developing quite the talent, thanks to some special knowledge delivered by a caring sheep, Babe is seen by Farmer Hoggett as a chance to excel at the upcoming Sheepdog Trials.

There's no place here for grouchy cynics, Babe is a film of absolute sweetness and joy throughout, and it feels all the more refreshing for it. We're more used to modern family movies having sly gags for adults, moments of darkness to make the lighter scenes shine brighter, and a scattering of little details that have become part of the fabric of modern cinema. Babe is very old-fashioned in many ways, absolutely earnest and optimistic throughout, and that heart complemented by the excellent film-making techniques on display (the animatronics, the trained animals, the voice cast) make it a rewarding viewing experience.

Cromwell is a kindly adult figure, almost the lone main character, despite others having some screentime with him, but he's secondary to the animal stars, all of them feeling like very real characters. Babe itself is a curious and polite child, even in the middle of some sequences that are set up to make the poor piglet look like a trouble-maker, and Cavanaugh has a great voice for the role (as does E. G. Daily, who voiced the character in the strange, darker, sequel). Hugo Weaving voices a god, Russi Taylor is a scheming cat, Danny Mann has fun as a mischievous duck named Ferdinand, and you have solid turns from Miriam Margolyes, Miriam Flynn, narration by Roscoe Lee Browne, and some people providing the voices of three little mice who pop up to introduce each main segment of the story.

Director Chris Noonan, who also co-wrote the script with George Miller, hasn't done many other movies that I have felt the urge to seek out, but he can happily hold on to this as the shining star in his filmography. It's hard to think of anyone really hating it, and I can only assume that it's the hardest and coldest hearts that stay that way by the time the end credits roll.

Truly delightful, and an easy one to stick on whenever you want to feel a bit better about the world, Babe is a film that deserves your time. Watch it with kids, watch it with elderly family members, watch it with anyone you can make sit down and watch it with you, watch it on your own. Just watch it, and let it put a big grin on your face.

9/10

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The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert (1994)

Hugo Weaving plays Tick, a drag queen who gets a phone call from his estranged wife (Sarah Chadwick) asking if he can head to Alice Springs and put on a show at her hotel. Figuring that he owes her at least that much, Tick persuades the younger and cattier Felicia (Guy Pearce) to join him, as well as an older transgender woman named Bernadette (Terence Stamp). It's not long until personalities clash, but the trio stick together when entering small towns on their journey and battling against the small-minded attitudes of residents with a selection of fine insults, fun song and dance numbers, and the ability to hold their drink.

Written and directed by Stephen Elliott, Priscilla (truncated for handiness) is one of those feelgood, fun movies that Australia seems to deliver every few years. It's a superb mix of memorable characters, a fun script, and a lively soundtrack punctuating events. I was initially a bit wary of the over the top nature of the performances from the three leads, but felt better when considering that all three aren't just portraying gay men, they're portraying veteran performers.

All three actors do very well, and all three are very different from one another. Weaving is the solid core of the film, in many ways. He's the reason for the whole thing, and he is the one who reveals the most about himself on the journey. Pearce is as brash and catty as needed, often to the point of others turning on him, but he also has a fearlessness that helps the others swallow their reservations and get on with things. Stamp is given, in some ways, the most important role, and he helps to make Bernadette a very real, savvy, tired, woman who is just hoping to take her mind off things after the recent loss of her younger partner. Bill Hunter also does very well, playing a man they meet on their travels who helps to keep the bus in working order (just).

Deftly moving through a range of emotions in each scene, tension can make way for comedy and even the most joyous scenes can have an undercurrent of sadness running through them, Priscilla manages to be thought-provoking, inspirational, and simply entertaining throughout. It serves as a reminder of the problems faced daily by members of the LGBT community and does so by making the three main characters unafraid (okay, maybe they can be a bit nervous) of putting on their best dresses, their best faces, and diving headlong into environments that don't always welcome them with open arms. Which is how more people would like to be. And if you can do that while accompanied by a toe-tapping bit of ABBA, all the better.

8/10

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Americans can pick it up here.

V For Vendetta (2005)

"Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V."

It's sometimes heavy-handed, it's sometimes simplistic, it's NOT The Matrix (which is what many expected, I think, when this was heavily pushed as being from the Wachowskis, who wrote the script), but V For Vendetta is also absolutely brilliant stuff that packages some very interesting ideas in a mainstream blockbuster form. A lot of the themes explored in the movie are scarily pertinent to civilians living in first world countries nowadays and it's nice to be able to enjoy something so subversive that also has a couple of good action scenes thrown in for good measure.

Natalie Portman plays a young woman, Evey, who has her eyes opened one evening when she is saved from a nasty situation by a masked terrorist, V (Hugo Weaving, behind a Guy Fawkes mask for almost the entire runtime). V takes a liking to Evey, but things get complicated when she gets in the way during another of his spectacular strikes against the repressive government. This means that Evey becomes almost as wanted by the authorites as V, but one policeman (Stephen Rea) starts to dig around and starts to see what V might be trying to show the entire nation.

Directed by James McTeigue, and developed from a graphic novel by David Lloyd and Alan Moore, this is an action movie not designed for those who need a fight sequence every few minutes. It's paced carefully, allowing more time for the dialogue and ideas than the actions that they necessitate.

The cast all do a fantastic job. Portman just about carries off her English accent from start to finish, despite a few wobbles, and Weaving somehow invests his character with so much wit and intelligence that the mask he wears SEEMS expressive, despite the fact that it never really changes. Rea can do the tired, hangdog act about as well as it can be done, and his performance here is a treat. The casting of John Hurt as the leader in a Big Brother world may be a bit of a stunt, but it works. Elsewhere, Stephen Fry does a great job (perhaps, mostly, because he's voicing opinions that don't require him to stretch himself in the acting department), Tim Pigott-Smith and Rupert Graves do well with lesser roles, and Eddie Marsan, Sinead Cusack and Imogen Poots also do well, despite very limited screentime.

But the cast have the Wachowskis to thank (who can, in turn, thank Lloyd and Moore) for such great material. Love or hate their movies, it's hard to argue with the fact that the siblings have succeeded more than any other modern film-makers in packaging smart and/or potentially off-putting material into mainstream blockbusters.

I liked V For Vendetta when I first saw it, but now I love it. Part of that is, undoubtedly, to do with my recent, growing displeasure with the British government and the ever-growing economic divide. But a lot of it is to do with the fact that it's just a bloody great film.

9/10

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