The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus movie image - slice.jpg

I saw a screening of Heath Ledger's final film, "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus", the other day and am surprised to say....it completely works and the film was great.  Director Terry Gilliam has made his best work in years and even with other actors having to step in to help complete the movie, nothing felt forced and it's like it was meant to be this way all along.

For those not familiar with the movie, "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" is Heath Ledger's final performance as he died while filming.  After he died, production was halted as Gilliam tried to figure out how to salvage what he had.  To make it work he got  Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law to step in and play Heath Ledger's character at different points in the movie. While you're probably thinking there is no way this could work...I thought the same thing and I was 100% wrong.  Trust me, the film is a big surprise and it's absolutely worth seeing. Anyway, while the film doesn't get released till the end of December, we've been given seven clips from the movie and they're after the jump. Take a look:

imaginarium_doctor_parnassus_movie_poster_01.jpg

Here's the official synopsis:

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a fantastical morality tale, set in the present-day. It tells the story of Dr. Parnassus and his extraordinary 'Imaginarium', a travelling show where members of the audience get an irresistible opportunity to choose between light and joy or darkness and gloom.

Blessed with the extraordinary gift of guiding the imaginations of others, Doctor Parnassus is cursed with a dark secret. An inveterate gambler, thousands of years ago he made a bet with the devil, Mr. Nick, in which he won immortality. Centuries later, on meeting his one true love, Dr. Parnassus made another deal with the devil, trading his immortality for youth, on condition that when his daughter reached her 16th birthday, she would become the property of Mr Nick.

Valentina is now rapidly approaching this 'coming of age' milestone and Dr. Parnassus is desperate to protect her from her impending fate. Mr. Nick arrives to collect but, always keen to make a bet, renegotiates the wager. Now the winner of Valentina will be determined by whoever seduces the first five souls. Enlisting a series of wild, comical and compelling characters in his journey, Dr. Parnassus promises his daughter's hand in marriage to the man that helps him win.

In this captivating, explosive and wonderfully imaginative race against time, Dr. Parnassus must fight to save his daughter in a never-ending landscape of surreal obstacles - and undo the mistakes of his past once and for all!

The film stars HEATH LEDGER (Tony), CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER (Doctor Parnassus), VERNE TROYER (Percy), ANDREW GARFIELD (Anton), LILY COLE (Valentina) and TOM WAITS (Mr. Nick), with JOHNNY DEPP (Tony), COLIN FARRELL (Tony) and JUDE LAW (Tony).

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS will be released December 25th, 2009.  Rated PG-13 for violent images, some sensuality, language and smoking.  Run Time: 122 minutes.

-

And one last thing, we've started posting film clips in a new way. Since the site runs pre-roll (it pays for all the bandwidth), we've started posting all the clips in one video. What that means is, once you push play, you'll probably have to sit through one commercial and then all the clips will play in order.