Tag Archives: Roald Dahl

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A fascinating literary turducken that captivates you.  

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this film.

A writers writing room.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar Review –

In the last week, we have looked at first The Rat Catcherand thenPoison, two fascinating adaptations of Roald Dahl’s short stories by Wes Anderson. It was at this point that I discovered that they were from a group of four that were released, and I had missed the first two. Well, that can not do, so we got back to the start with The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, which may have given some critical context for the ones that followed.

So to set the scene, we open with ‘a writer’ (Ralph Fiennes) explaining their process of getting ready to write when he introduces us to Henry Sugar (Benedict Cumberbatch). Henry is a rich man and one of the many useless rich people floating around like seaweed in the world. But Henry liked to bet. So, on one wet and dreary day, he drifted through a grand house till he came across a peculiar book in the library, A Report on Imdad Khan: The Man Who Sees Without His Eyes by Dr. Z.Z. Chatterjee, dated December 1935, Calcutta. Henry was immediately engrossed with the tale.  

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Poison – Movie Review

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TL;DR – Tense, engaging, and captivating.    

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this film.

the bungalow.

Poison Review –

After watching The Rat Catcher last night, I discovered it was not just a one-off, with Wes Anderson producing several of Roald Dahl’s short stories. With that in mind, I needed to see if they were all as absurdly compelling as the first, and I jumped into Poison.  
                          
It was midnight when Timber Woods (Dev Patel) drove home, trying not to wake his roommate. He should not have bothered because Harry (Benedict Cumberbatch) was still awake. Perplexed, Woods stuck his head in to see how he was when a barely audible whisper sang out ‘Help!‘.  

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The Rat Catcher – Movie Review

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TL;DR – An uncomfortable tale that draws you in, holds you captive, and then leaves you thinking.    

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this film.

Richard Ayoade

The Rat Catcher Review –

As I sat down to wonder what I would watch as the weather wandered by and the well-lit day wound to a weary – what the word for end is that starts with a w would be that I can’t think of at the moment even though I scoured my mind looking for one. I looked at Netflix to discover that there is a Wes Anderson production of a Roald Dahl short story, and that is a combination you don’t say no to.

So to set the scene, one morning, an editor (Richard Ayoade) tells us of the life of a Rat Man (Ralph Fiennes) who has come on behalf of the town to a local garage run by Claud (Rupert Friend). He is a peculiar man who looks much like the prey he hunts. But then you see, rats are clever prey, as they are watching you as you pursue them.    

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Movie Review – The BFG

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TL;DR – Beautiful, touching, funny, heart-warming, if you go you will have a good time

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

The BFG. Image Credit: Disney.

Review –

I grew up during the Disney Renaissance, in a time of The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and Mulan. It was a great time for fairy tales … but they all have that Disney-fication about their stories that removed a lot of the weird, I mean have you ever read the One Thousand and One Nights, or the original Hans Christian Andersen version of The Little Mermaid, that stuff be messed up. So when I was growing up the were two sources of weird that you could come across, the first was Paul Jennings which was adapted into the Australian mainstay of Round The Twist, and the other was Roald Dahl. His work was wired and wonderful, books like The Witches, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach, were irreverent, weird, wonderful and full of heart. Now, movie adaptions of Roald Dahl’s books have been hits and misses, and Roald Dahl himself had been generally really negative about all the movie adaptions of his books. So with this in mind we have The BFG, a book I loved as a child, but with movie adaptions of books being such a mixed bag, how does this one go? The BFG is one of the best I have seen.

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