Gulliver's Travels falls short on the tall order of humor By MICK LASALLE San Francisco Chronicle Dec. 21, 2010
Like a rare and delicate flower, Gulliver's Travels will bloom for one day — Christmas — and then start to fade. It will play as a fairly satisfying and cheerful little movie when buoyed by a packed holiday crowd and the presence of glowing children and happy adults looking forward to a few days off. But on Dec. 26, it won't be nearly as fresh, and by Monday, it will have to rise and fall on its own merits. And that won't exactly be pretty.
So, if you're planning to see it, go on Christmas Day. The holiday spirit just might be enough to give Gulliver's Travels the magic it lacks.
It's not bad. It's cute. The 3-D is pretty much wasted - for long stretches it hardly seems to be in 3-D at all — but everything to do with Gulliver being a giant among the tiny Lilliputians is handled consistently (no size ratio changes) and seamlessly. Jack Blackradiates good-nature without pressing his luck, and Amanda Peet is in it, and she's pretty radiant and good-natured herself. Take any movie. Then add Peet — she always makes it a little better.(Really. It works with just about any movie. Imagine Peet in The Godfather, or in Some Like it Hot, or in Citizen Kane. They all get a little bit better. Not a lot, but a little.)
In this loose modern adaptation of the Jonathan Swift classic,Lemuel Gulliver works in the mailroom of a major New York newspaper, and he's secretly in love with the travel editor (Peet). To impress her, he bluffs about his supposed travel-writing experience, and so she sends him on a three-week assignment to pilot a boat into the Bermuda Triangle to see what he finds. It's just "a little story," she tells him. What a good deal: Three weeks, all expenses paid, for a little story. And who said the newspaper business is hurting?
And so he hits a storm and wakes up in Lilliput, where everyone is about 3 or 4 inches tall and where the architecture, clothing and government are stuck in the mid-19th century. Gulliver is known as "the Beast" and is kept in chains, until a fire rages and he's able to save the day by putting it out. Not with a hose exactly. He has to improvise. ... Are we on the same page here? The sound you're hearing is of Swift trying to claw his way out of the grave, just so he can kill himself.
The nice thing about Black onscreen, in addition to his being funny, is that he really does seem to care about people. He's warm. So he's nicely placed as the plainspoken fellow who sees wrongs in Lilliput and wants to right them, including the princess's plans to marry an egotistical oaf instead of a sweet commoner (Jason Segel). As Gulliver, Black listens, thinks and offers advice. He's engaged and engaging.
But somewhere by the middle, the souffle collapses, and the movie becomes sleep-inducing. Gulliver doesn't have much to do in Lilliput, and we notice that before he does. As short as the movie is, the screenwriters have a difficult time coming up with enough incidents to hold audience interest, and what they devise for the climax is worse than flat. It's cartoonish in the way of a bad action movie.
Still, here's a little good news to mix with the not-so-good: Playing on the same program with Gulliver's Travels, as a curtain raiser, is a little cartoon about a squirrel who tries to bury an acorn and ends up changing the face of the Earth. The cartoon is brilliant and cut above even the best of what follows. See the original article here
Jason Segel's 'Gulliver's Travels' full of his favorite things By Brian Truitt For USA WEEKEND December 17, 2010 in The Daily News
Jason Segel feels like his dream is coming true, even though his workload is starting to look like a nightmare.
He's lovable goof Marshall on the CBS sitcom "How I Mt Your Mother." He voiced a pint-sized supervillain with a shrink ray in "Despicable Me," now out on DVD and Blu-ray. He plays another little guy opposite Jack Black in "Gulliver's Travels," in theaters Christmas Day. And to top it all off, he co-wrote and stars in The Muppets, which is filming now and hits theaters next Christmas.
"It's kind of unreal at the moment, but it's all good stuff so that's good," Segel says. "I'm doing proper seven-day weeks, which I've never really done before. It's pretty intense."
Even while also writing the comedy "The Five-Year Engagement" for Judd Apatow, the Los Angeles native did find some time to talk:
How was it being the main Liliputian in Gulliver's Travels?
I'm in Jack's pocket for a lot of it or standing on his shoulder or riding on his shoe. ... There were a lot of times when I was just acting to a tennis ball or something like that, but it was a really cool experience.
At 6-4, you're this tall guy in real life, and I'm sure the irony is not lost on many.
I tried really hard to put in a joke that I'm the tallest Liliputian, but it just didn't translate. We're all so little that a height difference of like 8 inches becomes literally millimeters when you're looking at it in that scale. The joke didn't translate unfortunately.
If you had your own shrink ray, like your character in Despicable Me, what would you shrink?
I would shrink Verne Troyer and see if I could push it even further.
That movie was in 3D, and so is Gulliver's Travels. What movie of yours would you go back and convert to 3D?
Well, I think it would have to be "Sarah Marshall" just for the nude scene. That would be great in 3D. [Laughs] It's one of my more embarrassing and one of my prouder moments. The fact that I even did it just shocks me.
How much has How I Met Your Mother helped in getting you out there in the acting world?
It's interesting, everything came together just at the right time. Season 1 of "How I Met Your Mother" was the same year I did "Knocked Up," and season 2 was the year I did "Sarah Marshall." Everything changed for me all at once. It's a little hard for me to differentiate what did what, but everything came together really to be honest just when I needed it to. I was getting pretty close to feeling like it wasn't going to pan out.
How close did you get?
I have no other discernable skills, so while mentally I might have gotten close, there really was a thought like, what was I going to do? [Laughs] I wasn't going to go back to college at 26 years old. I suppose I could have. That's a movie in and of itself. But I really didn't have much to fall back on, so thank God it worked out.
You were born and raised in L.A. Had you ever thought of moving anywhere else?
I lived in New York for a tiny bit, and I lived in London for a while. If any place, I think I could move to London. London and I get along really well. We're a good match. You're basically allowed to start drinking at noon and it's totally normal. [Laughs] In L.A., they look at you a little bit like, "Oh (no), he's drinking again." But in London, everyone's drinking!
See original article here
He's lovable goof Marshall on the CBS sitcom "How I Mt Your Mother." He voiced a pint-sized supervillain with a shrink ray in "Despicable Me," now out on DVD and Blu-ray. He plays another little guy opposite Jack Black in "Gulliver's Travels," in theaters Christmas Day. And to top it all off, he co-wrote and stars in The Muppets, which is filming now and hits theaters next Christmas.
"It's kind of unreal at the moment, but it's all good stuff so that's good," Segel says. "I'm doing proper seven-day weeks, which I've never really done before. It's pretty intense."
Even while also writing the comedy "The Five-Year Engagement" for Judd Apatow, the Los Angeles native did find some time to talk:
How was it being the main Liliputian in Gulliver's Travels?
I'm in Jack's pocket for a lot of it or standing on his shoulder or riding on his shoe. ... There were a lot of times when I was just acting to a tennis ball or something like that, but it was a really cool experience.
At 6-4, you're this tall guy in real life, and I'm sure the irony is not lost on many.
I tried really hard to put in a joke that I'm the tallest Liliputian, but it just didn't translate. We're all so little that a height difference of like 8 inches becomes literally millimeters when you're looking at it in that scale. The joke didn't translate unfortunately.
If you had your own shrink ray, like your character in Despicable Me, what would you shrink?
I would shrink Verne Troyer and see if I could push it even further.
That movie was in 3D, and so is Gulliver's Travels. What movie of yours would you go back and convert to 3D?
Well, I think it would have to be "Sarah Marshall" just for the nude scene. That would be great in 3D. [Laughs] It's one of my more embarrassing and one of my prouder moments. The fact that I even did it just shocks me.
How much has How I Met Your Mother helped in getting you out there in the acting world?
It's interesting, everything came together just at the right time. Season 1 of "How I Met Your Mother" was the same year I did "Knocked Up," and season 2 was the year I did "Sarah Marshall." Everything changed for me all at once. It's a little hard for me to differentiate what did what, but everything came together really to be honest just when I needed it to. I was getting pretty close to feeling like it wasn't going to pan out.
How close did you get?
I have no other discernable skills, so while mentally I might have gotten close, there really was a thought like, what was I going to do? [Laughs] I wasn't going to go back to college at 26 years old. I suppose I could have. That's a movie in and of itself. But I really didn't have much to fall back on, so thank God it worked out.
You were born and raised in L.A. Had you ever thought of moving anywhere else?
I lived in New York for a tiny bit, and I lived in London for a while. If any place, I think I could move to London. London and I get along really well. We're a good match. You're basically allowed to start drinking at noon and it's totally normal. [Laughs] In L.A., they look at you a little bit like, "Oh (no), he's drinking again." But in London, everyone's drinking!
See original article here
|
Page 2 of movie news. Scroll down to read them. Go to page 1 here
|
Jack Black takes on the challenge in Gulliver’s Travels By SETO KIT YAN in The Star Online Friday December 17, 2010
It’s no Lilliputian task stepping into the shoes of a classic hero like Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver, but Jack Black takes on the challenge with a stout heart ... and lots of laughs.
WHEN I arrived at Sydney Airport late last month, the immigration officer jested upon hearing of my impending interview with Jack Black forGulliver’s Travels: “That’s a crazy guy. He’s going to try and marry you to keep you from leaving.”
So, when Black walked into the room, I half expected something as crazy as that to take place. But surprise, surprise. The man who greeted the media for a round-table interview at the Park Hyatt Hotel was clean-shaven, sporting short-cropped hair, sunny and breezy. Not a hint of “crazy” was evident.
When congratulated on stellar performances in his previous movies, Black graciously replied: “Thank you. I’ve been very lucky. I think fun has been the key.”
A “veteran” of 55 films and 41 TV shows, the 41-year-old Golden Globe-nominated American actor and musician has won recognition at various awards and film festivals for movies including High Fidelity (2001), Run Ronnie Run (2002), Melvin Goes to Dinner (2003), School Of Rock(2003) and Kung Fu Panda (2008).
In his latest movie, Gulliver’s Travels, Black plays the larger-than-life titular hero. The poster for the Rob Letterman-helmed movie screams “Black is the new big” and when asked to describe his comedic style, he confirmed as much.
“I would say that I am on the large side of comedy,” he replied, eliciting some chuckles, “not so much the subtle. And, that’s why this role is perfect for me. Because, I was literally a giant. I could bring all of my large-style comedy to the screen. I would describe myself as a physical comedian, and musical.”
Black said the first thing he did was to read the 18th century novel by Jonathan Swift “as a good researcher should”
“Because, I had not read the book when Twentieth Century Fox first said, ‘Hey would you like to be Gulliver in Gulliver’s Travels?’ I thought, ‘Well, let me read the book first. And, I loved it. It was an amazing piece of literature.’ ”
Apart from taking on the leading role, Black is also executive producer for the movie. “It was just a great opportunity to update an enduring classic. I love the challenge of that, and the shaping of the story from the beginning. It was a really fun challenge, producing it. I’ve a very special feeling about this project.”
In the 3D family comedy, Black plays Lemuel Gulliver, a lowly mailroom clerk at a New York daily – a small man in a big pond. The man talks big but achieves little due to his fear of failure, yet has always dreamed of becoming a travel writer. He tricks travel editor Darcy Silverman (Amanda Peet) – also his love interest – into letting him take a writing assignment in the Bermuda Triangle and somehow lands in Lilliput, where everybody is tiny, making him gargantuan. Visual effects houses hy*drau”lx and WETA Digital created a Lilliputian land and even a robot, which Gulliver’s nemesis General Edward built.
When asked about his favourite part in the story, the comedian offered: “In the book and in the film, there’s an iconic scene in which the castle is burning. And, Gulliver has to think fast and extinguish the flames with some bodily fluids that really cannot be named. And, it leads to some very powerful comedy. It’s one of my favourite scenes. There’s a lot of great scenes that I’m proud of.”
Another story thread in Gulliver’s Travels tells of how the giant has a hand in fanning the romance between Lilliputian commoner Horatio (Jason Segel) and Princess Mary (Emily Blunt).
“I like the whole love story. Because, it points out a sort of societal thing that has bothered me for awhile. There’s a trend with men treating women badly in order to make themselves more attractive. And, I don’t like that strategy. And, so this movie, I feel, deals with that in a very funny way, and debunks that horrible myth that that’s the way to get women to like you.”
Being larger than life posed a few challenges, but nothing too big for Black to handle. “The challenges were technical and special effects challenges for the most part. Just pretending that there were tiny, little people there when there weren’t. It was important that my eyes looked at exactly the right spot. Because, even if I was an inch off, it would look wrong. And that can really ruin the scene, when you’re dealing with something so specific.
“But, I was no stranger to that. Because, I dealt a lot with that when I was in King Kong in 2005. I was always imagining that there was a big monster there that wasn’t. So, I knew about that kind of acting. But, this time, I was the monster. Yeah, I was the King Kong. The shoe’s on the other foot. But more handsome,” he quipped.
Behind the movie scenes
Black was born in Santa Monica, California, to a couple of satellite engineers (his Jewish mother worked on the Hubble Space Telescope). Married since 2006, Black has two sons, Samuel Jason, four, and Thomas David, two. His wife Tanya Haden is a cellist, her sister Petra a violinist and their father Charlie, a jazz double bassist.
“The whole family is really musical. My wife is one of a set of triplets and all of them are beautiful singers. They sing in harmony. They do a lot of covers of an old American trio called the Carter family – folk songs and bluegrass music,” said Black who is a passionate musician himself.
Relishing his role as a father, Black let on that he is a hands-on kind of dad. So, does he read bedtime stories to them?
“I do read books to the kids. But, not Gulliver’s Travels. Gulliver’s Travelsis really for older kids. I like to read them Dr Seuss. That was my favourite when I was a kid so I’ve introduced them to that.
He looked pensive for a moment and continued: “Also, Everyone Poops(the English translation of a Japanese children’s book called Minna Unchi). It’s a big hit. Have you ever heard of that book? Very funny.”
While he enjoys playtime, Black also takes parenting seriously. “I like to have fun with the boys. We do a lot of playing around, and joking around. When it’s time to clean up, I have my limits. No more fun time. Now, it’s bath time or clean-up-the-room time.”
Black is perhaps best known to kids as the voice of Po, a bumbling panda who dreams of becoming a kung fu master in the Academy Award-nominated 2008 film Kung Fu Panda. So what do his two boys think of that? “My two-year-old doesn’t really know what’s going on. But my four-year-old is starting to realise that there is a connection. Yeah, he’s getting wise.
“When we go out and play in the park, sometimes people will want a photograph of me. And, he said to me, ‘Does everyone know you?’ And, I said to him, ‘A lot of people know me, Sammy.’ Then, he said, ‘Does everyone know me?’ Then, I said ‘No, but a lot of people know you. So, yeah, I sense he’s starting to understand what it’s all about.”
Then there is Tenacious D, a satirical rock duo he formed in Los Angeles, California with Kyle Gass. I told him that I watched him in a hilarious music video on TV in the morning singing Tribute, where the duo have to sing the “greatest song in the world” to save themselves from the clutches of the devil. When he heard that his eyes widened as he declared, “Really, I was on TV this morning? Wow! Breakfast with the Devil!”
Tencious D has two albums, a film, two documentaries, a TV series and have held concerts touring the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Asked to bring his act to South-East Asia, he mused: “We only like to go where we know there’s a lot of love for us. You’ll be there? Will you bring a lot of friends? We’d need at least a hundred people that are real fans, not just your friends who’ve never heard of us. People who’ve heard our music and know some lyrics and can sing along. Otherwise, it’s very depressing. You don’t want to play a show where there’re just a handful of people who’ve never heard of you before.”
Now, everybody knows that the jolly chap enjoys acting and singing, but we discovered that he’s got another passion we haven’t heard about.
“I would love to be a great painter. Or an animator. I loved to do drawings – little sketches and animations when I was younger. Pretty much all of the arts. Visual arts like painting, drawing, animations. Then there’s singing and music. And, for performing arts, acting. Only thing left is dancing. I never really thought, ‘I really need to be a dancer.’ That’s the only art form that I’ve left in the dust.
“Although, I do a little bit of dancing in Gulliver’s Travels. And, you’ll see why it’s not my main source of income.”
Active in the entertainment industry since 1991, the funnyman says he does not have career goals but lists certain criteria for picking roles. “I like things that are funny. But if it’s just funny, that’s not really enough anymore. I like things that have a message that I think is important, or is breaking new ground – funny in a new way. Otherwise, I’m just not really interested,” he explained.
Black is probably one of the more laidback members of the Frat Pack (group of male Hollywood comedy actors, which usually includes Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Steve Carell). While most of them would take some two or three leading roles in blockbusters every year, Black prefers to take it easy.
“I don’t feel under-recognised or under-achieving. I feel just right. There’re no parts that I feel like ‘Wait! Why didn’t I get that role?’ I feel like I’m pretty blessed.
“Well, I don’t get the same roles as Vince Vaughn. Just because, you know, he’s a sex symbol. And, I’m not deluded. I know I’m not going to be getting those kinds of roles.
Then, he sat up and teased: “But, you never know. I might start working out. Right now. And steal some of the roles right out from under him. It’s not too late.” Then raising his voice another notch, he stressed with a raised eyebrow for added effect: “It’s never too late to be sexy.”
Almost instantly, he contradicted himself by adding: “Well, maybe it’s not true. I’m not like that,” he drawled as he leaned back in his seat.
Having said that, the man actually has three films awaiting release next year. Come May, he will be back as Po in Kung Fu Panda 2. Then in the grown-up comedy The Big Year, he shares screen time with Steve Martin and Owen Wilson. He is also the title character in the dark comedyBernie, which stars Matthew McConaughey, Rip Torn and Shirley MacLaine.
See the original article here
Gulliver's Travels Movie Review by surreycomet.co.uk 15th December 2010
Size most definitely does not matter in Jack’s Black’s latest laugh fest, writes Rhian Morgan.
Anyone bored to tears by the ubiquitous Orange ad trailer for the film (which seems to have been assaulting eyes and ears at a multiplex near you for at least six months) should put their concerns aside – the film is a lot funnier than the ad suggests.
The story begins in modern day Manhattan, where Guitar Hero-loving Lemuel Gulliver (Jack Black) has been stuck in a dead-end job, secretly lusting after travel editor Darcy (Amanda Peet). Provoked to action by a mean-spirited new recruit, the portly postie impresses her with a plagiarised sample of writing and gets sent on an assignment no-one wants to the Bermuda Triangle.
On the way, he is plagued by a storm and ends up on a beach surrounded by mini people – the Lilliputians - who first denounce him as The Beast before gradually being won over by his tall tales of grandeur focusing on his supposed exploits on the Millennium Falcon and a near-death escape from The Titanic.
As you can imagine, this version of Gulliver’s Travels bears little relation to the original Jonathan Swift 18th century satire, though reference is made by reproducing Lilliput as a miniature 18th century England, with overly mannered subjects providing much of the comedy.
And, despite a lot of toilet humour on the part of Jack Black, this is a family-friendly film that will have children giggling throughout at the naughtiness. Plus, the action speeds along quicker than a dog chasing a ferret, so they will have little chance to become bored.
But will their parents be entertained as well? From the fantastical opening credits of Manhattan filmed through a special camera lens so it resembles a miniature city, to the beautifully realised Lilliput, the film looks amazing and certainly engages your attention.
At first glance, the unlikely alliance of Billy Connolly, Catherine Tate, James Corden and Emily Blunt as the royal family seems disastrous but actually works well, with Tate’s performance thankfully kept to a minimum.
The true star is Emily Blunt’s suitor, General Edward Edwardian, who is played brilliantly by Chris O’Dowd as a stiff-upper-lip Englishman. This may be a time-worn practice by Americans, who seem to think the epitome of British humour is embodied in Hugh Grant, but O’Dowd’s performance is spot on – a perfect foil to Black’s childish exploits. From his hilarious stand-off in his first encounter with Gulliver, right through to his evil machinations, his comic timing is excellent. And he also works well alongside Blunt who gives a deliberately wooden performance as a spoiled princess.
At times, the film does seem chaotic and rushed – and the last 15 minutes is pure cheese. But really, do you expect anything else from a happy holiday children’s movie? This version was never meant to withstand too much critical scrutiny and should be judged as such, with the love story between Darcy and Gulliver particularly unconvincing and stereotypical Hollywood.
After all, this was never aiming for big things at the Oscars. But, for a funny tale about a big man with a big heart surrounded by small people, I’m sure it will bring in big bucks at the box office over the school holdays.
You can read the original article from surrey comet here
The (really) big man on campus December 17, 2010 at The Sydney Morning Herald
The reimagining of Gulliver's Travels is the perfect vessel for the larger-than-life Jack Black, writes Stephanie Bunbury.
WAR! What is it good for?" Edwin Starr's 1970 soul hit blasts across the vast and gracious grounds of the park in Greenwich that, along with the Maritime Museum and the Queen's House, is the classical setting for the Trinity College of Music.
In one of its wide paved quadrangles, a gaggle of stars in fairytale clothes and a dance chorus of Bollywood proportions swing into their moves as Starr's voice growls out for the umpteenth time. This is today's set for Gulliver's Travels, an enterprise so huge that even the leftover people just milling around seem to number in the hundreds.
The main action, however, is going on behind a green screen about 300 metres away. Jack Black, short and stout and frenetic, is also hurling himself into action each time War booms out. A few of us bunch around a video monitor. There is Black, in the middle of the screen, playing air guitar. The faraway dancers are there, too, but they appear to be moving around him. They also appear to be about 15 centimetres tall — barely up to Black's ankles.
This is new technology, he explains between takes, that allows two elements of a special-effects scene to be shot simultaneously.
"You move one camera and they both move because they're tied together through computers," he says with that trademark lugubriousness; there is no mistaking that voice, even when it comes out of a cartoon panda. "I don't even understand it, to tell you the truth."
Jonathan Swift himself might have trouble recognising this Gulliver. Under Black's guiding hand, the intrepid 18th-century traveller has been transformed into a 21st-century tubby slacker of the kind that has become Black's trademark. Lemuel Gulliver is a disgruntled mail-room assistant at a big New York newspaper and, again true to Black's type, believes his talents go unrecognised.
"He has these dreams of being a big-time travel writer but he's too afraid to go out there," Black says. "So he kind of makes up stories about being a big shot. When he ends up on Lilliput, he not only can tell them whatever he wants — that he's president of the United States, that he wrote all the Beatles' songs, that he made all these movies — but he is literally a huge, huge man in this place."
Black is something of a huge man in this place, too; as part of the so-called Frat Pack, which also includes his mates Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, he is a member of one of the most powerful cliques in Hollywood. "He's a guy who's a bona-fide movie star," says James Corden, of Gavin and Staceyfame, who is playing a Lilliputian named Jinks. "And no one would have thought 20 years ago that people like Jack and Will Ferrell and Seth Rogen would be. Comedy's the king, man. Comedy can do anything." Not that it was an easy ride. Black's parents were both rocket scientists — his mother worked on the Hubble telescope — and separated when he was 10. Not long afterwards, he was sent (at his own behest) to a school for children who didn't fit in. Later he dropped out of university to join Tim Robbins' agitprop theatre group, The Actors' Gang. Robbins, a good friend, also cast him in all his films but for a decade he mostly played bit parts.
He might be doing that still if it hadn't been for his breakthrough role as Barry, the overbearing vinyl geek in Stephen Frears'sHigh Fidelity. Every night, Frears said later, the whole crew would gather to watch Black's rushes. "People say, 'Oh, you discovered him,' " Frears later told the Observer. "But you haven't. It's just that you were present when they decided to let rip. I think he kept his head down and then, for some reason, decided to lift it."
That large, square head is well above the parapet now, his stardom confirmed by his leading roles in films such as School of Rock, King Kong and Be Kind Rewind. At the same time, Corden says, he is exactly as you might hope he would be. When Kanye West dropped out of an awards show Corden was helping to host, Black offered to step in.
"He said, 'What if I come down and you rap to Kanye West and I do beatbox?' and he did," Corden says. "And the place went mad . . . Essentially, he just wants to have fun."
Here on set, it is Black's enthusiasm that has persuaded most of the cast to start learning ukulele. They jam in each other's trailers and there is excited talk, not entirely in jest, of putting out an album.
"War! What is it good for?" Black's stunt double steps in to do a few handsprings. He looks uncannily like him but you can spot the difference when his T-shirt rides up. There is no way the real Jack Black has a six-pack, except the kind you consume during an afternoon of unemployment. So he would like you to think, anyway. But he is back on the catwalk now; slacker Jack has work to do.
See the original article at The Sydney Morning Herald
Gulliver’s Traumas Why does the famous literary classic inspire so many bad movie adaptations? by Jaime Weinman on Thursday, December 16, 2010 at macleans.ca
The new movie Gulliver’s Travels, opening Dec. 22, is yet another opportunity for Hollywood to ruin a classic book. This time, Jonathan Swift’s 18th-century bestseller has been updated to modern times, with Jack Black playing the title character. Black enthusiastically said that the best idea they had for the production was that instead of Gulliver being a traveller who gets shipwrecked in fantasy lands, “we have him going through an inter-dimensional portal to an alternate, not altogether different place.”
English professors are used to this by now. There have been many film versions of Gulliver’s Travels, but few have much to do with the original book, a satire that Dutton Kearney (a professor at Aquinas College who edited a critical edition of the work) calls a story of “misanthropy and self-hatred.” If Black’s version fails, it might be a slap in the face to Swift, but it’ll be well within the tradition of a beloved book that Kearney calls “difficult to adapt successfully.”
It’s easy to see why there have been so many attempts to film Gulliver’s Travels: like Alice in Wonderland, it has a Hollywood-friendly appeal for both adults and kids. Michael Seidel, a professor at Columbia University, says that though the book is an allegory about “events, ideas, or intellectual controversies,” much of it also can be enjoyed by kids “because the adventures are so primal.” Because the first two of Swift’s four parts are about Gulliver getting in trouble with people who are bigger or smaller than he is—part one is about tiny people in the kingdom of Lilliput, and part two about a land of giants—Seidel says these sections “turn on things of matter to children: relative size.” Children also “identify with Gulliver’s innocence and powerlessness in the early books,” adds Natalie Neill, a professor of English at York University.
As if cross-generational appeal wasn’t tempting enough to movie companies, Swift’s classic also has the potential to bring in everyone from highbrows to nerds. Though it’s a high-class literary story, it also features lowbrow jokes; Neill says that children particularly enjoy the moment when Gulliver puts out a Lilliputian fire by urinating on it. And many of its ideas have become mainstays of modern storytelling. Part three is about impractical people whose university learning is useless in the real world—a joke that is seen on sitcoms like The Big Bang Theory every week. And part four is about two races, one that exists on pure reason, the other on pure animal passion; without those concepts, there’s no Star Trek. Throw in fantasy ideas that beg to be brought to life with modern movie technology—or even the fake 3-D of the Jack Black version—and you might think this would be the perfect opportunity for a literary movie that actually resonates beyond literary circles.
Instead, most movie and television versions have turned it into a pure children’s story, and not even a particularly scary one like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. When Max Fleischer, Walt Disney’s greatest competitor in animation, decided to make his first full-length feature film, he chose Gulliver, added songs and a romantic subplot, and awkwardly animated Gulliver by tracing over a live-action model. And that’s one of the more successful versions. More typical is The Three Worlds of Gulliver, a 1960s family extravaganza from special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen (Jason and the Argonauts) that had Gulliver’s fiancée travelling with him so there would be a love interest who wasn’t a few inches tall. Or a 1977 live-action/animated musical where Richard Harris, as Gulliver, mixed with poorly animated Lilliputians who serenaded him with lyrics like, “Your popularity is flowering, towering!”
The most faithful modern version was a 1996 miniseries starring Ted Danson as Gulliver, which was lauded for the filmmakers’ decision to adapt all the parts of the book. But Joseph McMinn, a Swift authority whose books include Jonathan Swift: A Literary Life, says even it wound up “avoiding the grotesque and the violent passages that lie at the heart of the tale.” Still, it got closer to Swift than the others (“I thought it was very good,” McMinn says) and was rewarded with several Emmys and high ratings. Yet it didn’t inspire feature filmmakers to go back to Swift, the way the hit Pride and Prejudice miniseries inspired the faithful Keira Knightley feature. Instead, Black’s film will once again concentrate on Lilliput, add more emphasis on romance among the little people Gulliver meets, and aim itself more at a young audience.
Why does Gulliver get butchered so often, in so many different ways? McMinn thinks that part of the explanation might be that the book is “not a novel, with a single narrative: in fact, it’s the opposite, a fable comprised of lots of stories, held together simply by Gulliver. Cinema has always found novels likeRobinson Crusoe much easier to adapt.” But in today’s moviemaking world, where many of the most acclaimed films are episodic (like some films by Quentin Tarantino or Wes Anderson), that shouldn’t be a big problem. But Gulliver isn’t only episodic; it’s an episodic satire, and satire doesn’t translate well to the screen—particularly when, like Swift, the writer is making fun of people no one outside of his time will have heard of.
Some of the satire in Gulliver is timeless, like a giant king criticizing the human race as “little odious vermin” for things like deficit spending and lawyers. But in Swift’s era, the popularity of the book had a lot to do with spotting the topical barbs. Seidel says that readers bought it because they were “eager to uncover the contemporary references,” like Gulliver’s impeachment by Lilliput and his flight to a nearby kingdom—a send-up of a real-life nobleman who got impeached and left for France. Today, that’s a liability outside of the classroom. “To include too many obscure early 18th-century references risks alienating contemporary film audiences,” says Neill. “Unlike an editor of a modern edition of the book, a filmmaker cannot include explanatory footnotes!”
That’s why other satirical classics tend to get the satire drained out of them as well. L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz books are dark and filled with allegory about U.S. politics, but little of it is left in the classic movie. And don’t ask Lewis Carroll fans about what Tim Burton’s version of Alice in Wonderland did to the social commentary of the original.
At least Carroll’s Alice and Baum’s Dorothy have spawned classic movies. But they have one advantage for adapters: likeable heroes. Swift’s Gulliver, on the other hand, is something of a jerk, described by Kearney as a “know-it-all curmudgeon” who is “keen on telling people how to live.” What gives a sense of unity to the four parts of the book is that Gulliver gets increasingly disillusioned with humans until, in the end, he simply gives up and decides that he prefers the company of animals.
So even when movie adaptations try to stick closer to the book, they find it necessary to turn Gulliver into a hero, or at least change the arc of the character—instead of getting nastier as the story goes on, a movie will always make him increasingly nicer. The Danson version does this by creating a framing device where Gulliver is falsely accused of being insane, and has to prove that his travels were real; it also added a happy ending for the character. As for the new movie, it offers Black as a Gulliver who’s an aspiring writer, familiar with modern pop culture, who goes from fooling the tiny folks to helping them. Kearney says that this solution involves “making Jack Black an immature man who grows into likeability—unfortunately, that’s not Swift’s Gulliver.” It’s also the same character Jack Black plays in every other movie.
What would a really faithful version of Gulliver look like? Critics who have lived with the book for many years all agree that one of the keys to it is that Gulliver isn’t just accused of being crazy—he really is. “The critical consensus,” McMinn says, “is that Gulliver goes insane at the end, having seen far too much madness and vanity in the world to accept it as ‘civilized’ anymore,” while Seidel goes further and says that Gulliver might be crazy all along: “Gulliver is a madman at the end and at the beginning of the writing.” A really faithful adaptation of Gulliver’s Travels might wind up something like Shutter Island—a dark story told by someone who is probably insane from the start. Maybe it makes sense that there’s never been a classic adaptation of Gulliver’s Travels: a real version of the book would be too depressing. Besides, the presence of Jack Black may be all the depression modern audiences can take.
See original article at macleans.ca
'Gulliver's Travels' moves to debut in theaters on Christmas Day by examiner.com December 11th, 2010
Adventure/comedy Gulliver's Travels has changed the date of it's theatrical release and is now scheduled to open on Christmas Day, 2010.
The Wrap reports that executives for 20th Century Foxdecided to postpone the premiere of the fantasy film by 3 days as part of a new marketing strategy to makeGulliver's Travels the only major family movie to premiere as the Christmas crowds flood theaters.
Furthermore, the new show date puts greater distance between Gulliver's Travels and other big-name 3D features including: Walt Disney Pictures "Tron: Legacy "(starringJeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner), Warner Bros.' "Yogi Bear (starring Dan Aykroyd, Justin Timberlake), andFox Walden's "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader."
Starring Jack Black (Kung Fu Panda, The School Of Rock) as "Lemuel Gulliver," Jason Segel (How I Met Your Mother, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) as "Horatio," andEmily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada) as "Princess Mary," this classic, 1721 social satire by Jonathan Swift is directed by Rob Letterman (Monsters vs Aliens, Shark Tale) and adapted for theaters by screenwriters Joe Stillman (Shrek, Shrek 2) and Nicholas Stoller (Fun With Dick And Jane, Get Him To The Greek).
Updated for modern audiences, the film is Rated PG for rude humor, action and language -- some of which was included in Swift's original version.
Did you know? Gulliver's Travels was written as a narrative in the first person -- and the name "Gulliver" never appears in the book except for its title.
You can read the original article from examiner.com here.
Jack Black Has 'Gulliver's Travels' Deja Vu - by Celebuzz on Nov. 29, 2010
No, that's not Jack Black on the shores of Lilliput shooting his new movieGulliver's Travels; that's him with his tiny son.
The celebrated funny man and his wife Tanya Haden spent Sunday with their two sons Samuel and Thomas at the Coldwater Canyon Park in Beverly Hills, California.
For more photos & info go to Celebuzz.com
Fairy tales go flying back onto the big screen Updated 11/27/2010 By Maria Puente, USA TODAY
And opening on Dec. 22 is Gulliver's Travels, starring Jack Black, a live-action 3-D retelling of the classic of English satiric literature. Originally intended for adults, nearly 300 years later the book has become a children's adventure story thanks to Hollywood's selective focus on just one of the book's four parts, Lemuel Gulliver's encounter with the diminutive Lilliputians. The same is true in this film, only Gulliver is a modern-day New York would-be travel writer who gets lost in the Bermuda Triangle and encounters Lilliput — in 3D, of course.
"Visual effects make that world spectacular, epic — and for the first time," says producer John Davis, even though the story has been made repeatedly, most recently for television. "You've never seen it like this before — no one has ever done the big 'wow' version of it."
Gulliver's Travels has long been required reading but few have attempted to film all four books, which were written in the 1720s by Jonathan Swift as a scatological and excoriating send-up of English government and politics of the day. (The word "Yahoo" comes from Gulliver's Travels, and it doesn't mean search engine.) Ann Cline Kelly, an English professor and expert on Swift at Howard University in Washington, says every generation has found something meaningful, useful and new in Gulliver.
"Plus, the visual aspects are amazing," she says. "When you're reading it, it's like a movie, it has a lot of cinematic elements. And all of this appeals to children."
Not to mention the adventure, fantasy and goofy comedy that seems to fit with Jack Black. Still, adults will get something from the new Gulliver, too, says director Rob Letterman, who says the scatological stuff has been handled "delicately."
"It's a parody of our times and makes comments about us that are relevant to our time now," he says. "This version is a modern-day take but deep down it stays true to the spirit of what was in the original. And at end of the day, it's the characters and the story and how compelling they are that makes a movie great.
"If people appreciate the movie and find out it's based on a book written 300 years ago, and more people read it, all the better."
This excerpt contains only references to Gulliver's Travels. See full article in USA Today
"Visual effects make that world spectacular, epic — and for the first time," says producer John Davis, even though the story has been made repeatedly, most recently for television. "You've never seen it like this before — no one has ever done the big 'wow' version of it."
Gulliver's Travels has long been required reading but few have attempted to film all four books, which were written in the 1720s by Jonathan Swift as a scatological and excoriating send-up of English government and politics of the day. (The word "Yahoo" comes from Gulliver's Travels, and it doesn't mean search engine.) Ann Cline Kelly, an English professor and expert on Swift at Howard University in Washington, says every generation has found something meaningful, useful and new in Gulliver.
"Plus, the visual aspects are amazing," she says. "When you're reading it, it's like a movie, it has a lot of cinematic elements. And all of this appeals to children."
Not to mention the adventure, fantasy and goofy comedy that seems to fit with Jack Black. Still, adults will get something from the new Gulliver, too, says director Rob Letterman, who says the scatological stuff has been handled "delicately."
"It's a parody of our times and makes comments about us that are relevant to our time now," he says. "This version is a modern-day take but deep down it stays true to the spirit of what was in the original. And at end of the day, it's the characters and the story and how compelling they are that makes a movie great.
"If people appreciate the movie and find out it's based on a book written 300 years ago, and more people read it, all the better."
This excerpt contains only references to Gulliver's Travels. See full article in USA Today
