This is part of a series of No Shame Movie Reviews. For reasons I won’t speculate and rant about now, we have been told that only some movies are worth enjoying. Only artsy movies with a meaningful and/or ambiguous message, perhaps. To that, I say phooey. I say that you should be able to watch and enjoy any movie you want – from low-budget children’s movies to dramas about the hopelessly romantic. If you enjoy them, then why the heck should you not be able to watch them without shame?
Oh procrastination. How many hours I have spent with you – hours that, in hindsight, I still wouldn’t have spent on my neuroscience readings. Yes, procrastination isn’t good, blah blah blah. But it can sure lead to some great memories. For instance, in the throes of avoiding homework, some friends and I watched Stardust on a random Wednesday night.
Stardust, surprise surprise, is about a star. More specifically, it is about all the people searching for a specific fallen star, Yvaine (Claire Danes). We have Tristan (Charlie Cox), an adorable and naïve boy searching for the star to give to his annoying, shallow, all-around-terrible “true love.” We have the head witch in charge, who wants to regain her youth by eating Yvaine’s heart. And we have three brothers, each trying to murder their way to their father’s crown. (Plus Robert De Niro as a cross-dressing pirate named Shakespeare…). Quite an adventure, if I do say so myself.
The first thing that struck me about Stardust was how grown-up it seemed. Yes, it’s rated PG-13. Yes, it’s based on a book by Neil Gaiman, who isn’t exactly known for writing about sunshine and daisies. But still. One of the major plot points involves killing a main character and eating her heart. That’s not even mentioning the mangled ghosts of the other dead royal brothers or the guy whose throat gets slit in a bathtub. There were probably five storylines going on at any given moment. I went into this movie expecting adorableness and fairy tales, but got so much more than that.
Speaking of adorableness and fairy tales, those are certainly present as well. We have the British village of Wall separated by (gasp!) a wall from the magical kingdom of Stormhold. We have nefarious witches, captured princesses, princes on a mission, and plenty of wandering through the woods. And we have a pure-hearted boy’s quest for true love.
When she picked this movie to watch, one of my friends described it as the most romantic movie ever. And in the interest of not giving away (too many) spoilers, I won’t elaborate on this too much further. But I will say she can make a decent argument to that end.
Despite the end being a bit anticlimactic, this movie was a crowd-pleaser (based on the remarkably unscientific sample of three college-aged girls). We were yelling at the character when they made stupid decisions and cheering when they made the right ones. We clapped and waved our arms around in joy. We got way more into this movie than we probably should have.
We had a dang good time, and, at the end of the day, that’s what really matters.
And there we have it. Just a few of the reasons that you should not be ashamed to watch and enjoy Stardust. If you have any ideas for a movie that you want me to review, then let me know! Bad, fun, silly, adorable, enjoyable, romantic, anything that you shouldn’t be ashamed to watch and love! (Bonus cookies if it’s also on Netflix.)
Image Sources: IMDB