Lopez Blogs

It’s all rather marvellous when a book you love is made into a film that you end up adoring and that doesn’t suck. It’s currently happening in reverse with Dexter, as I adored the tv show enough to hunt down the books (and am now racing through the first novel...) but this is about the magnificent Stardust. Neil Gaiman has created an utterly enchanting fairytale about a young man (Tristan Thorn) who leaves the boundaries of his Victorian home town, crosses the Wall into the Faerie Realm to retrieve a fallen star for the god-i’m-gorgeous-and-i-know-it Victoria, who is a right little madam. There he encounters a whole host of magical creatures, some good, some bad, who are vividly bought to life in a beautiful, creative and imaginative way. As he further adventures with the star (whose heart can grant eternal life)Yvaine, the plot picks up pace and is a mixture of beautiful details and advancing plots. Some parts of the book are quite Grimm (unicorns skewering witches – yikes) and the author frequently pauses to detail the surroundings of the Stormhold, which has been under tyranny rule for many a year. Of course, in the ending there is beautiful symmetry as Tristan gets his Heart’s desire, while Yvaine loses her heart to him. The illustrations in the book are just sumptuous and glorious and bring it to life in a quite charming way. Miraculously, the movie loses none of the magic contained with the book’s pages and does an incredible job of representing the densely populated Stormhold and bringing the characters to life. Charlie Cox (A spitting image of a younger Dazpants so I feel no guilt in getting the general horn in a shock display of red bottomosity) is genuinely loveable as Tristan and Claire Danes doesn’t need the SFX to radiate as star Yvaine. Robert DeNiro (and actually the actors who play his crew) do a marvellous job as the cross dressing Captain and the pirates who love him anyway. Oh and Michelle Pfeiffer – i love the part where she gets her youth (“”) back, shrugs off her clothes and looks back at herself in the mirror in a “rar kitty kitty” way. Actually, it inspired me to try doing that with Darren this morning, but he just looked at me strangely and barged past to brush his teeth. I hurriedly retrieved my towel, covered my immodesty and ran shamefaced and spurned into the bedroom. And oh! You can’t discuss the book and film without mentioning the spot on movie song Rule The World by Take That. Sure that little x-factor minx has outsold them, but for lyrical content and a sweeping powerhouse of a chorus that matches the joi de vivre of the film, you can’t go wrong. Favourite bit I like to misinterpret? The start of verse two where Gazzapies sings “if angels fly” I like to think the start of it is a bit of a tip of the hat to Yvaine in the way he pronounces it (“Yvaine-gels fly!!”) Marv. AND! Oh my days, the dvd is out a week before Christmas. I am getting the vapours just thinking about it!!! What with that and Hairspray I think i may have an early luvspurting situation...