2003 – NZ Film Freak

elf Director: Jon Favreau
Writer: David Berenbaum
Released: 2003
Starring: Zooey Deschanel and Will Ferrell
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‘Son of a nutcracker’! It’s almost Christmas.

Not only did Elf win the poll, but it is also appropriate as it is the festive season. This is a pretty funny Christmas comedy movie with many hilarious one-liners that have really stuck, even after all these years!

Will Ferrell does a great job playing “Buddy the Elf” – the human who was raised by Santa’s elves – who goes on a journey travelling through the seven levels of the candy cane forest, past the sea of swirly-twirly gumdrops, and then, walks through the Lincoln tunnel to discover New York. This is where he finds that he is, in fact, human not elf. Along the way he spreads Christmas cheer, falls in love and meets his biological father.

His child-like innocence makes him relatable to children and misunderstood by adults resulting in very awkward, but funny situations.

This is a fantastical story touching on all of the typical Christmas morals of honesty, family and priorities. Although it is essentially a children’s film (as many festive movies are), it is a very enjoyable movies for the older audiences too, especially since Will Ferrell is in it.

elf_buddy_and_jovie_1 It includes my favourite Christmas song; Baby, It’s Cold Outside, sung by Zooey Deschanel and Will Farrell. The same song on the official soundtrack is by Zooey Deschanel and Leon Redbone which is a great version.

Don’t be a ‘cotton-headed ninnymuggins’, this will be an entertaining Christmas film for the whole family to watch. Although I am not a fan of Christmas movies in general, Elf is a pretty good one, if not storyline-wise, at least for the comedic value of Will Ferrell‘s character.

Jodie’s rating: 7/10

Director: Conor McPherson
Writer: Neil Jordan
Released: 2003
Starring: Michael Caine, Dylan Moran, Lena Headey, Michael Gambon, Miranda Richardson, Michael McElhatton, Abigail Iversen, Aisling O’Sullivan, Ben Miller, Simon Delaney, Alvaro Lucchesi
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The funniest movie I have seen in a very long time.

It’s intelligent-funny… Not happy-clappy, seen it before, recycled Hollywood shizz. With Dylan Moran playing the protagonist and the supporting act being Michael Caine, this concoction of pure awesome is sure to be a pleaser.

Surprisingly, this film is not well-known. But it is a film everybody would enjoy with its ironic plot line and an under-lying love story, which I am happy to say doesn’t take centre-stage regularly. Dylan Moran’s character, Thomas Quirk, is indeed a quirky guy who loosely calls himself an actor working in play with a fellow actor, Anthony O’Malley (Caine).

Dylan Moran undercover

O’Malley soon hears about a scheme going down in the local bar where
“a certain somebody owes money to another certain somebody, but they have never met”. He decides that Quirk does need to practice his acting skills and convinces Thomas to be the collecter whom the debtor has never met. Of course, how could something like that ever be as straight forward as it sounds!?

Dylan Moran’s disguises throughout this scheme are hilarious and you will be sure to be repeating and imitating the characters after! This script is so funny and its catch-phrases remind me of the film Juno.

The Actors Caine

Despite being an up-beat comedy, the camera work (particularly lighting) in many scenes are spot-on and very well done, so is the music. Now I really want to buy the soundtrack! The songs and compositions by Michael Nyman are spectacularly emotional and support the visuals very well.

It’s a film that merges the stage actors and improvisation actors which I thought was really clever and it gave the film a really unique twist.

I can’t believe the negative reviews I have found on this film… How? o.O I thought it was HILARIOUS and I watch it regularly.

Jodie’s rating: 8/10

I can’t find a trailer, so here’s a pretty funny scene where Dylan Moran is playing Thomas Quirk who is undercover as “Barreller”. Barreller accidentally gave the money to Quirk earlier on. Now, Quirk is pretending to be Barreller, confronting “Jock” who the money was supposed to go to… Ugh, don’t worry, it makes more sense in the film.