Pulpmovies Reviews

Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson take the two losers from Bottom (Ritchie and Eddie, although their surnames are changed for this film) and put them in charge of the sleaziest hotel in England. What then follows is 90 minutes of violent slapstick comedy as the pair letch, lie and steal their way from one disaster to the next.

Guest House Paradiso doesn’t have a much of a storyline, preferring instead to string together a series of comic set-pieces. But let’s face it, no-one is watching this for Rik Mayall’s insight into the human condition or for Adrian Edmondson’s sensitive portrayal of a thieving alcoholic. Mayall and Edmondson have stuck to what they’re good at and done it well.

This is a funny film and it kept me laughing pretty much the whole way through - Rik and Ade’s mindlessly gratuitous and excessively violent slapstick style of comedy has a hell of a long way to go before it’s going to start looking stale and there is still something inherently funny about watching Ritchie try to walk with a pencil rammed up his rectum. That said, Rik and Ade’s usual nastiness has been toned down for the film and a lot of the scenes involving Ritchie and the hotel guests leave Ritchie looking like a weak imitation of John Cleese’s Basil Fawlty.

Also, there are a few scenes where they have tried to carry over some of the running gags from Bottom, but undermined them by holding back from going all the way - presumably because a non-UK audience who aren’t familliar with the sitcom just aren’t going to know what the hell they’re going on about. The ‘blouse’ joke which is cut short with a pencil springs to mind as do a couple of instances which appear to set up a joke between Ritchie and Gina Carbonara and then not carry it through. But these are few and far between and only a minor criticism.

Rik and Ade have taken their Bottom characters out of their sitcom environment before with their Bottom Live shows. Guest House Paradiso feels very much like the next step along this path and, if the live shows are anything to go by, we could be looking forward to another Ritchie and Eddie film in the future. I, for one, certainly hope so.

In short, if you find the idea of two grown men beating each other about the head with a fire extinguisher, watch Guest House Paradiso. If you don’t, watch it anyway - you may well change your mind.

The First, and my favorite, of Nick Park’s Wallace and Gromit films. This is a simple but incredibly well executed story about crackpot inventor, Wallace, his long suffering dog, Gromit and their grand day out.

On discovering that they are out of cheese, Wallace decides that their hunt for the perfect holiday is over and they will go somewhere where they can enjoy some cheese.

As everyone knows… the moon is made of cheese…

The characterisation in A Grand Day Out is superb. Wallace’s none too bright and inconsiderate inventor plays wonderfully against Gromit’s intelligent and sensitive personality. This is made more impressive whe you consider that, being a dog, Gromit obviously can’t talk, so everything he thinks and feels has to be portrayed through his incredibly expressive face.

Then there’s the sheer inventiveness of the film. From the cutesy style of the machines to the quick succession of great jokes, everything simply works… and if you blink and miss one joke, you can always be sure that there’ll be another along in a couple of seconds.

On the back of the video box it claims that “A Grand Day Out will captivate adults and children alike”. For once, the film lives up to it’s marketing. No-one with a sense of humour should miss this.

Wow.

The 1931 Tod Browning classic with a whole new score written by Philip Glass. I saw this in Het Muziektheater in Amsterdam with the score performed live by Philip Glass and the Kronos Quartet and it blew me away.

First of all, the film. This is a great interpretation of the Dracula story with Bela Lugosi playing the count with a powerful and hypnotic intensity. But, for me, the film is stolen by Dwight Frye’s manic portrayal of the insane Renfield. While still sane, the Renfield character is a wonderful collection of English stereotypes transported into an evironment that is simultaneously derelict and unnerving. But once he goes mad, the manically grinning lunatic wandering Dr Seward’s sanatarium seemingly at will (there are a couple of references to his constant escaping, but no evidence of any real attempt to find out how he’s getting out or how to keep him locked up) dominates every scene he appears in… and Browning does a lot more with Renfield than I have seen in a long time.

Lugosi’s Dracula hits all the right notes as the timeless Transylvanian trying to fit into modern (okay, 1930’s) English society. The contrast between Dracula’s decrepit castle and the comfortable English society in which he tries to move combined with Lugosi’s halting and heavily accented English combine to effectively undeline the vampire’s outsider status. This is visibly the perfomance that Christopher Lee drew on when he portrayed the (for me) undisputed personification of Dracula for the Hammer House of Horror.

The film is packed with great set-pieces, the battle of wills between Dracula and Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan) is particularly memorable as is Renfield’s journey to Castle Dracula. This had a particularly eerie quality because, during the night time scenes, Glass and the Kronos Quartet were visible behind the screen and from where I was sitting I had a great view of one of the violinists looming out of the storm ravaged mountains.

I even enjoyed the porter’s terrible cockney accent. Every time he spoke, I was half expecting Mary Poppins to fly in and complain about the state of the chimneys - and this is supposed to be in Whitby! One of the maids took a stab at the same accent, but it was so bad that it almost passed unnoticed.

And then there’s the music…

Although there were a few bars from Swan Lake in the original film, Browning largely avoided using any music at all, preferring to rely on the silence and the background noises to generate an oppressive atmosphere. For this re-issue, Philip Glass was commissioned to write a wholly new soundtrack and it’s an amazingly good fit, adding hugely to the tense and brooding atmosphere of the film. I don’t normally notice a films soundtrack unless it’s jarringly bad, but this one does a great job of carrying you along with the sweep of the film.

Faultless!