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A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Wednesday 4 september 2019
‘It Chapter 2’ is a big-screen funhouse

By JAKE COYLE casts, battling the shape- oath sworn as kids to come
Associated Press shifting demon clown back to defeat Pennywise
It can be a cheesy thing Pennywise (a wonderfully again, if he ever reappears.
when a novel is split up and gangly Bill Skarsgard) in the But traveling away from
spread out over a handful Maine town of Derry. “It Derry has somehow made
of films, but Stephen King’s Chapter Two” takes up the their memories foggy, and
“It” is not one of those book’s second half when they come back with only
books. those kids, now grown, are a faint idea of why they’re
Andy Muschietti’s first called back 27 years later back.
crack at King’s 1,100-page to Derry after Pennywise re- Just as the first “It” was
doorstop, 2017’s “It,” dealt turns. a coming-of-age tale,
with the first half: the Losers That timespan gives Musci- “Chapter Two” is a home-
Club, a band of “Stranger etti’s “Chapter Two” some coming. It’s a reunion
Things”-like adolescent out- deeper meanings to play movie, just with some dead
kids here and there. Part of
This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Bill Skarsgard the appeal of both films is
as Pennywise in New Line Cinema’s horror thriller “It: Chapter 2,” in how they balance dark
in theaters on Sept. 6. and light. “Chapter Two,”
Associated Press
especially, is funny thanks
with: how many of our and “Chapter Two” such a in large part to Hader (who
darkest fears don’t change satisfying, if overstuffed, se- slides in a Jabba the Hutt
so much from childhood, quel. It has less to do with impression) and Ramone,
how the brutalities of life the scary clown and more the likably frenetic actor
bring new horrors, how fun to do with its maximalist who played Iggy in the sec-
it is to imagine Finn Wolf- nightmares. Hallucinatory ond season of “The Wire.”
hard growing up to be Bill but familiar visions come “It” also tips the other way,
Hader. alive. One ill-advised peek and as clever as some of
Made with the same vi- into Pennywise’s sewer, in the movie’s nightmare sce-
sual flair as the first movie a scene worthy of Dali, cul- narios are, a handful de-
by Muschietti, “It Chap- minates in a swarming hive rive cheap scares out of
ter Two” is likewise a big- of hands clawing at the in- terrible fates befalling chil-
screen funhouse full of vivid terloper. Once Pennywise dren in scenes drawn out
setpiece thrills animated is again on the loose and for suspense. It’s an easy
by each character’s fears. red balloons start ominous- route to getting an audi-
Some are better than oth- ly floating through Derry, ence’s adrenaline up, and
ers but they are consistently each receives a phone call a dubious method of mov-
imaginative. In one, a giant from Mike Hanlon (Isaiah iemaking. Hitchcock did it
Paul Bunyan statue turns Mustafa; Chosen Jacobs once and later called it “a
menacing and careens as a kid), the lone Losers grave error.” There is less
through the town square. Club member to remain evidence of contempla-
It’s stuff like this, I think, that in their Maine hometown. tion behind the violence in
made “It” such a sensation They return to fulfill a blood Muscietti’s film.q

For Julie Andrews, sudden success was

‘like an assault’

ment Award Monday eve-
ning. The 83-year-old said
Tuesday that success was
like an assault at first.
She had the unique expe-
rience at the beginning of
her career of having filmed
three films back to back
before any had come out.
Two of those would be-
come some of her most en-
during — “Mary Poppins”
and “The Sound of Music.”
Andrews says she is very
grateful for her success and
says she feels that she has
Actress Julie Andrews kisses her Golden Lion for Lifetime been racing her whole life
Achievement awarded at the 76th edition of the Venice Film to catch up. When asked
Festival, Venice, Italy, Monday, Sept. 2, 2019. if she had anything that
Associated Press proves she’s not practi-
By LINDSEY BAHR career at the Venice Inter- cally perfect in every way,
Associated Press national Film Festival, where Andrews revealed that she
VENICE, Italy (AP) — Julie she received the Golden can’t cook and swears a
Andrews is reflecting on her Lion for Lifetime Achieve- lot.q