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Rating:  - I practice ping pong in the nude in the mirror every day
Oh boy. I just don't get the foreign angle to most stories. They just keep going and going and going. Just when you think it's over, bam! something else comes up. At the end I always feel like saying "What just happend?"
Also, the boy/girl love connection is a bit off. The girl seems way too young for the male love interest. I guess we're supposed to believe 10 years passed by without the girl maturing AT ALL. I guess it could happen like it did in Star Wars except it still wasn't convincing.
Rating:  - Mirrormask - Blu-ray Info
Version: U.S.A / Sony Pictures / Region A, B, C
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
MPEG-4 AVC BD-50 / High Profile 4.1
Running time: 1:40:45
Movie size: 29,51 GB
Disc size: 34,00 GB
Average video bit rate: 26.32 Mbps
Dolby TrueHD Audio English 1470 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 16-bit / 1470kbps (AC3 Core: 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps)
Dolby TrueHD Audio French 1499 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 16-bit / 1499kbps (AC3 Core: 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps)
Dolby TrueHD Audio Portuguese 1483 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 16-bit / 1483kbps (AC3 Core: 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps)
Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Thai 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps
Dolby Digital Audio English 192 kbps 2.0 / 48kHz / 192kbps
Number of chapters: 16
Subtitles: English, English SDH, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, Korean, Chinese, Thai, Indonesian
#Director/writer audio commentary
#Featurettes:
1. Neil Talks
2. Dave Talks
3. Beginnings
4. Cast & Crew
5. Day 16 - Production
6. Flight of the Monkeybirds - Production
7. Giants development - Production
8. Questions and answers
#HD Trailers
#BD-Live
Rating:  - Images and Ideas, Mirrormask
The Jim Henson Company, Dave Mckean and Neil Gaiman are binge stealing unique images and ideas from talented artist around the world, making "their big names" out of it.
In 1998 I worked for the Jim Henson Creature Shop in London. They scaned a lot of my artwork during my job interview with them (producer Michael Turoff).
In 2004 Jim Henson Creature Shop in London, Dave Mckean and Neil Gaiman used my imagery without a permission as a blueprint for character design for the Mirrormask.
I won six awards for illustration in Canada and they are published in the Creative Source of Canada in 1996 and 1997.
Shall we stop the mediocre Dave Mckean and Neil Gaiman from robbing unique artist and writers!
Tanya Doskova
Rating: - A slightly warped, slightly cracked Wizard of Oz...
So, basically, this is a special effects piece through and through. And a rather bizarre one at that (my first impression was "Wizard of Oz on LSD"). The imagery is strange, ethereal, slightly jarring at times and occasionally a bit dark (though never frighteningly so).
The movie is, in large part (aside from the beginning and end), a dream-world. And, much as dreams often don't make sense, neither does this world when it comes right down to it. As such the plot seems a bit contrived at times with semi-random events happening and semi-random resolutions to situations.
While the visuals are sometimes cool and the movie is relatively inventive, somehow the movie still didn't do much for me. I can't really put my finger on it. I guess it was the somewhat jarring and unsettled feeling / mood of the movie that was offputting.
The special features are fairly interesting, with some "making-of" material, etc.
Rating:  - Close to You?
I came to Mirrormask with no expectations other than that the film was Neil Gaiman's pet project, and anything Gaiman passionately believes in is something I wanted to see.
Mirrormask's style is a combination of those psychedelic Beatles cartoons mixed with The Neverending Story, Legend, and Labyrinth - appropriate, since The Jim Henson Company helped create the virtual world where the movie takes place. At its heart, Mirrormask is about a girl, Helena (Stephanie Leonides) and her independence from her mother Joanne (Gina McKee). Like so many impetuous young girls in movies, Helena ranges from clingy devotion to her mother to feckless rage, and it's during one of her darker moments that she wishes Joanne dead ... which ends with Joanne in the hospital.
The guilt that this tantrum engenders in poor Helena is enough to send her on a Hero's Journey. And wrapped up in this journey isn't just a quest to save her mother, but to save herself; as an adolescent, there are clear signs that Helena is on the wrong path. Throughout the bizarre universe that Helena travels, she discovers the duality of self: between darkness and light, affection and possession. Windows are gateways to the real world. Creatures have bizarre features or none at all, and the few humanoids that live in Helena's fantasyland all wear masks, which they believe are their real faces.
And what a strange world it is! Labyrinth was odd, but the protagonist was grounded in reality. Helena comes from a junk pile universe of recycled material and garish display, and her imagination reflects her circus origins in every character and building. In that regard, Mirrormask is a breathtaking spectacle.
Story-wise, Mirrormask isn't quite as interesting. Helena discovers that she's not just in a dream world, she's actually switched places with her evil twin. While Helena is exploring her childlike fantasies her doppelganger is exhibiting, as child advocates say, "risky behavior" in her body. It's up to Helena to take back her real self, both physically and spiritually, and maybe save her mother's life in the process.
Mirrormask is a surprisingly feminine fantasy, all too lacking in a genre dominated by sword and sorcery. It's also marketed to a very specific niche, that of the tween heroine fantasy, and that might not go over well with everyone. My wife thoroughly enjoyed it; I was so caught up in staring at all the backgrounds that I didn't always track the plot.
Ultimately, Mirrormask is more of a tour of a bizarre universe than a movie, and worth watching with female company. You will never listen to "Close to You" the same way again.
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