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Hollywood's Top 10 Fables on Screen
Jack Black stars in the latest, slapstick adaptation of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, hitting the screen this
Friday.
Reviews haven't been kind to the new film. So we have decided instead to explore 10 other fables, which made more memorable impact.
The Fantastic Mr Fox
In Wes Anderson's stopmotion adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic story, George Clooney plays the titular Mr Fox, a charming, silvertongued rogue who just can't seem to give up his thieving ways.
A great all-star voice cast -- including Meryl Streep, Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman -- just helps in making this simple story more unforgettable.
Where The Wild Things Are
Spike Jonze took on Maurice Sendak's beloved story and added much texture to come up with this terrific, inventive film -- the story of a young boy who escapes into his imagination and finds out what really matters in life.
The Wild Things are a delightful bunch of freaks, and the story is absolutely impossible to resist.
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory
While not a patch on the yummy yet creepy 1970s adaptation of Roald Dahl's book (starring Gene Wilder), this Tim Burton film featuring his muse Johnny Depp is nevertheless a rather well-concocted piece of cinematic confectionary. Candy, in fact.
Depp plays Willy Wonka, an unnervingly reclusive chocolate maker, who, in the film, teaches children a few lessons about greed and envy before opening up his own heart.
Alice In Wonderland
Another Depp-Burton collaboration, this might not be the best of Lewis Carroll adaptations but won over the box office in a massive way, emerging as one of the most successful films this year.
Burton predictably created an interesting 3D landscape, and while wife Helena Bonham Carter was great as the Queen of Hearts, the film became too formulaic to truly enjoy.
Enchanted
In this refreshing modern-day take on Disney fairytales, an animated princess ends up getting sent to the real world, with hilarious consequences.
In a complete star turn, Amy Adams rocks the lead role as the hapless Disney princess encountering love, traffic and ill-tempered people in New York City.
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events
Daniel Handler's Lemony Snicket book series is a work of sheer joy and wonder, and director Brad Silberling brought the first three volumes to the big-screen in this one feature film.
About a trio of orphans who face many evil adversaries (or just a wicked Jim Carrey in many outfits), this film is a great watch and features some of the most stylish credit sequences.
Peter Pan
JM Barrie's legendary tale of a young boy who refuses to grow up has been a childhood classic for generations of readers and cinegoers, and director P J Hogan's 2003 adaptation was just the most recent on-screen take.
Peter Pan is a green-clad leader of kids in NeverNeverLand, and the story is about him taking three British kids along with him to the place where nobody needs to grow up. But all isn't well there, not with the nefarious Captain Hook.
Big Fish
No modern director quite does fables as beautifully -- and frequently -- as Tim Burton, and he exceeds even himself in this marvellous, truly original father-son story.
It is a story of a man on his deathbed while his son makes peace with his father's lifelong fibs and exaggerations. But are they fibs after all? A truly special film, this.
Edward Scissorhands
This Burton tale of a young, pale freak with scissors for hands is one of the director's most poignant and darkly romantic tales, a modern day Frankenstein story but with a very attractive young protagonist in Johnny Depp.
Watch out also for the way Burton pays tribute to the one and only Vincent Price by casting him as the scientist-creator.
Aladdin
One of Disney's best pre-Pixar features, this wonderfully warm musical tells the age-old story with added wit, verve and Robin Williams.
So Aladdin rubs an old lamp and finds himself with a genie. We all know the story, but it was clearly begging for the Disney treatment, with everything -- from pet tigers to gruff-voiced parrots to carpets with character -- dazzling, all the time.