okpilak

No there are not sweet little mice sewing the gown, but there are silkworms adding finishing touches. Elvira really is an ugly duckling, and wants to marry the prince. And her father died, so her mother is penniless, and needs Elvira to marry into wealth. She has a younger sister, Alma, who isn't quite at the age to marry. There are scenes that are not for the squeamish. Elvira is treated like dirt, and where she is now living, Agnes gets all the attention. But Elvira's mother pulls out all the stops, and gets what passes for a plastic surgeon to take care of Elvira's problems. The braces she is wearing (and they were used at that time) are yanked out, a hammer and chisel is used to change the nose, and later eyelashes are sown onto her eyelids. The doctor's motto is "Beauty is Pain" and it fits. Agnes get caught in a tryst, so that knocks her value down, as the prince is seeking a virgin of noble birth. Since Elvira is overweight, she swallows a tapeworm. She loses weight, but there are side effects. The sets are lavish, and it really is a costume drama, with a healthy side of horror. It is a deliciously twisted tale told from the stepsister point of view, and Agnes (Cinderella) is not an angel either.

The fate of Earth will depend on one person on Earth being given the powers to do anything, and how that person handles those powers, given by aliens. And as they spin the wheel, those powers are given to Neil (Simon Pegg). He has three days, and if the aliens approve, Earth will be spared. If not, goodbye Earth. Neil doesn't understand what he has been given, and experiments with silly little commands. He is a teacher, and Class 10C is terrible, so he wishes them gone, and the classroom is destroyed. Oops, so he wished everyone be alive, and people start rising from all graves. Then he corrects that for only those in 10C, and then realizes none of them should be injured, and finally settles on cancelling what happened to 10C. For instance, Ray is in love with another, so suddenly he is granted worship by that person, which doesn't work out the way Ray expected. And that sums up a lot of what Neil can do by saying and waving his hand. He doesn't give a lot of thought to what his powers can do. He does discover he has to undo some of his wishes, as they really worked for the worst. As the three days draw to a near close, the aliens have decided he failed his test. But seeing the flaws of his powers, he winds up talking with Dennis. Yes, Dennis, a dog to whom he gave the power of speech. A very light comedy, with some important lessons but also easy to forget. From the notes, it didn't seem to do well in release, and quickly went to DVD. And that is probably just as well.

Richard has invited Jen, his mistress, to his posh hunting 'lodge' near the Moroccan desert, and invited two hunting buddies to come along, Stan and Dimitri. The house is accessible by helicopter, which is how Richard and Jen got there and it suggests Richard has wealth. There is some very nice scenery, and very good camera work, especially the scene of blood dripping on ants. Also, the wounds and body damage are done very well, so there is craftsmanship in this movie. Anyway, the next morning while Richard is away, Jen gets raped. Richard says he will take care of it, and seems to consider it no big deal. Jen disagrees. Jen decides to flee the house into the desert, and the three men chase her. Richard then pushes her off a cliff, and she is impaled on a tree branch. The only way this movie works is to accept the idea of human beings able to lose huge amounts of blood and not only survive, but be strong at the same time. And while she manages to remove the branch and cauterize the wound, there is still the matter of the entrance wound which is on her back. The three men know they have got a problem as long as Jen is alive, and they are hunters, so they work on tracking her down. The remainder of the movie is her trying to get her revenge, and evade being killed. Expect to see copious amounts of blood. For what it wants to be, it meshes well as long as one does not expect realism. And it is just a movie.