Showing posts with label Hugh Laurie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hugh Laurie. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

The Canterville Ghost, with the Voice of Stephen Fry

Not all ghosts are scary. Some are rather sad, because they mark the passage of time. Sir Simon de Canterville is definitely like that, but he also shares a kinship with Captain Gregg, Mrs. Muir’s ghost. He was once a holy terror, but he meets his match in a thoroughly modern American family in Kim Burdon’s animated adaptation of The Canterville Ghost, co-directed by Robert Chandler, which opens Friday in theaters.

For three hundred years, Sir Simon scared the willies out of everyone who tried to inhabit Canterville Chase. Unfortunately, Yanks like the Otis family are far too materialistic for ghosts. Virginia’s father Hiram considers himself a man of science, whose electric lights frazzle the ghost’s nerves. Her bratty twin brother torment poor Sir Simon with practical jokes. Of course, she is not scared of him either, but as the late 19
th Century equivalent of a moody goth teen, she is drawn to Sir Simon’s tragic romanticism.

Alas, the ghost would much prefer to be dead, so he can finally be reunited with his beloved wife. Death played a mean trick on him, which made him onery. Otis would like to break his curse, but that will be a complicated and dangerous proposition.

Screenwriters Cory Edwards, Giles New, and Keiron Self collectively did a nice job adapting Oscar Wilde’s novella, retaining his major themes, while punching up some of the dark and stormy bits, for Halloween. Wilde scholars might take issue with Hugh Laurie’s Angel of Death character, but he helps stir the pot and raise the stakes. There is plenty of animated mayhem, but deep down, this film is sadder and wiser than
Casper or Topper.

Canterville is indeed a tragic figure, given Shakespearean dimensions (and references) by Stephen Fry’s hammy voice. Emily Carey makes Virginia Otis appealingly smart and sensitive, despite her teen angst. Freddie Highmore sounds appropriately young and befuddled as the Duke of Cheshire, but his voice works surprisingly well in conversation with Carey’s.

Thursday, February 02, 2023

The Amazing Maurice, Terry Pratchett Animated

In some ways, Terry Pratchett was a more up-scale Piers Anthony, who created a funny fantasy world that satirized genre tropes (he had a solid fandom here, but nothing like his popularity in the UK). Technically, this big orange cat is part of his Diskworld universe, but you do not have to be familiar with any of those books to appreciate his fairy tale misadventures. The Pied Piper legend gets mashed-up and riffed on, but the rats themselves are his friends, at least the talking ones are, in Toby Genkel’s animated The Amazing Maurice (with Florian Westermann also credited as “co-director”), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Maurice acts as the advance-pitch-man for the Pied Piper scam he worked up with Keith, the naïve human piccolo player, and their talking rat friends. Needless to say, his piping always manages to lead the rats out of town—for a fee. The rodents became conscious and gained the ability to talk after munching the trash thrown out by the Unseen University, a school of wizardry that will mean something to Pratchett fans. How Maurice gained that ability too is an awkward subject he tries to avoid.

After their latest Piper-scam, Maurice and Keith enter a town that mysteriously has no rats. It is also depressingly low on food. Somehow, the shadowy Rat Catchers League seems to be involved. The mayor’s daughter is Malicia is determined to get to the bottom of things. She is an avid reader with a thirst for adventurer, so she takes her discovery of Keith’s talking animal friends in stride. However, her fairy tale binging may have built-up unreasonable expectations for heroics that Keith will have difficulty fulfilling.

The Amazing Maurice
is definitely Shrek-like. It was even adapted by Shrek franchise screenwriter Terry Rossio. Indeed, Genkel’s animation is colorful and unflaggingly energetic, while the humor is mischievously droll. Yet, it is hard to overstate how much Hugh Laurie’s roguish voice performance enriches the film. Thanks to him, there’s no mistaking Maurice for Garfield.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

House of Blues: Hugh Laurie’s Let Them Talk

If you have spent much time in Starbuck’s lately, you have surely heard a good portion of British actor Hugh Laurie’s new CD, a tribute to the music of New Orleans. Though undeniably the beneficiary of a considerable marketing campaign, the man known as Dr. House can definitely carry a tune in his medical kit and has an agreeable touch on the ivories. Laurie explains his love for those Crescent City sounds and performs a set of jazz and blues standards in Great PerformancesHugh Laurie: Let Them Talk (preview here), which premieres on most PBS stations this Friday.

In his introductory voice-over, Laurie tells viewers every man is entitled to one pilgrimage in his life. Laurie had the good taste to take his in NOLA. He took the scenic route getting there though, stopping off at bluesy-rootsy roadside attractions, like Euclid Records, whose mail-order operations are well beloved by many of us, and sitting in at Maggie Mae’s in Austen, Texas, with Miss Lavelle White, who can vocalize a mean harmonica.

Granted, just about anyone would sound okay fronting a band assembled by New Orleans R&B maestro Allen Toussaint, performing with special guests Irma Thomas and Sir Tom Jones. In truth though, Laurie is at least pretty good in his own right on vocals, piano, and a spot of guitar. He offers the appropriate support to Thomas, “The Soul Queen of New Orleans," on “John Henry” and backs up Jones nicely during “Baby Please Make a Change,” a soul shouter perfectly suited to the Welsh icon. Laurie also has a surprisingly strong left on the ivories, opening a real can of barrelhouse on “Swanee River” and gamely tackling the Professor Longhair classic “Tiptina.”

As a vocalist, Laurie has a strong, clear tone that expresses the plaintiveness of “St. James Infirmary” quite strikingly. Arranged with stately funkiness by Toussaint, it is obviously positioned as the concert’s showcase number, and rightly so. The highlight of the set, it is here that Laurie really puts his stamp on an old school New Orleans classic. It ought to be the title track, but it might have confused some of his House fans (though it sounds medical).

Mostly, Let Them Talk is a respectfully traditional celebration of the NOLA songbook, (though Laurie earns further credit for capturing Jelly Roll Morton’s idiosyncratic attitude in “Buddy Bolden’s Blues”). Much like the still vital local music scene one can find in the small clubs on Frenchmen Street, Laurie and Toussaint effortlessly blend jazz, blues, and R&B throughout the set. It is quite pleasant, but if it rocks your world, just wait until you check out the original recordings from Toussaint, Louis Armstrong, James Black, and ‘Fess Longhair.

While some of Laurie’s narration is a bit hokey, the music will remind many of us once again why we fell in love with New Orleans, which is what good valentines are supposed to do. There is one glaring misstep though: Toussaint’s band is never introduced on camera or allowed to take the bow they earned. An enjoyable love letter nonetheless, Laurie’s Let Them Talk airs on most PBS outlets this Friday (9/30), including New York’s Thirteen, as part of the current season of Great Performances.