Wiz Plaizair

Rating: 8/10 (12 February 2012)

Of course I resisted seeing this movie for an unreasonable, an unconscionable amount of time: popular, critical smashes, particularly those redolent of "feel-goodiness", have that effect on me. It took a rare rainy San Francisco night (and the fact that there appears to be f***-all else watchable playing in movie theaters at the moment) to get me in to see this. And of course it was just what the doctor ordered.
I'm not entirely sure that I was watching the same film as the gentleman seated two rows behind me, who spent the entire movie laughing like a hyena. To me, the laughter was of a more subtle and restrained order, and manifested itself in minor, off-key touches, such as Valentin's "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" clock (in fact, all of his furniture was quite fairly risible), and Peppy's "I want to be alone" moment of Garbo-ism. I am fairly certain that I was grinning throughout at the sheer cleverness of the camera work and production, and the staging of Valentin's dreams and delirium tremens. And of course it goes without saying that Uggy the Dog deserves a Canine Oscar.