Greetings, web heads! Hope the holidays treated you better than a box full of Green Goblin pumpkin grenades. Just fyi, your man Spidey made out like a bandit in the gift department. Seriously dudes, I’ve been shredding on Guitar Hero II since like 10a on Xmas Day. Thanks MJ.
So, still in limited release (until next Friday, I think), Pan’s Labyrinth is the latest stylish freak out from director and almost-cult-superstar Guillermo Del Toro, the justifiably acclaimed helmer of such smart and imaginative entertainments as Blade 2, Hellboy, and the underseen Devil’s Backbone among others.
First and foremost a tense and brutal drama of Franco-era Spain that includes dark and monumentally creepy supernatural elements (see: above pic), Pan’s Labyrinth is also another young-girl-on-the-uncomfortable-cusp-of-womanhood tale a la Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Wizard of Oz, and Spirited Away, and Del Toro’s film gives each of those classics — along with the writings of Borges, Dunsany, and others I missed — subtle shout outs.
Stunning and well-told, wondrous, beautiful, and heartbreaking, with this film Del Toro takes another step towards directorial greatness. Although in the Battle of the Mexican Auteurs 2006, I have to give the slight edge to Alfonso Cuaron’s even more astonishing Children of Men. Go see both.
