For Your Anticipation: What in the Hell's A Bean?

Having already seen "The Secret World of Arrietty", I can vouch that is an absolutely heartfelt and beautifully drawn film. But I do take issue with the voice cast, which is absolutely ridiculous in the U.S. dub of the film. Casting Will Arnett and Amy Poehler in roles that were already perfect with Mark Strong and Olivia Colman seems more than a few steps overdone. And the random girl they found to play Arrietty is already proving more distracting than inviting. The U.K. dub wasn't about drawing attention to the voice actors. It was about fitting the characters, which they did beautifully. See the film anyway, but know that I fell in love with the U.K. version. Also, let me know if that Jonsi song from the trailer is in the film. If it is, that' just another issue.

Short Take: "The Guard" (***)

I'll say that it's taken too long for me to get around to reviewing this film, and in fact it feels somewhat irrelevant at this point given how long it's been in theaters. Still, I felt suddenly compelled to give whatever thoughts I had on this particular film before the opportunity is gone altogether. I saw this film at the impetus of my planning towards studying away for next year, and at that time I was considering Galway, Ireland. Of course I don't expect Galway to be nearly as corrupt a drug and sex ring as depicted by the film, and somehow that lessened my interest in going there.

The film starts out in a rather strange way, with car full of reckless young boys are seen speeding across the countryside, blasting abrasive music, and I started wondering if I was in the right film. Then, of course, they speed past a police car, and crash shortly afterwords. Out comes Brendan Gleeson's Sergeant Gerry Boyle, examining their bodies, picking their pockets, and then getting on with his routine. He's clearly lacking any righteous motivations typical of the job, and there's the idea that this isn't going to be quite a cheery affair.

"Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" Poster

It matters not to me if you spend the hours of laborious geek-work to decode the numbers displayed in this poster. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy remains one of my more anticipated films of this fall, and I can't imagine it failing.