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Reviews
The Looming Tower (2018)
Unconvincing with occasional brilliant moments.
After watching two episodes, I'm hoping it will get better. There are moments of fire-cracker dialogue and fine acting. But the 'foreign' locations are irritatingly unrealistic. London? Which part of my capital city still looks like a shot from a British B movie made in the 1960s? Does Albania really look like the Middle East, despite being in the Balkans? As for the giraffe viewed from the train window in - where was it? Suburban Nairobi? Don't make me laugh!
It can only get better - but not sure I can be bothered to sit through too many more episodes. John Le Carré it ain't!
Hell's Angels (1930)
Unwatchable.
The aerial scenes may be spectacular, especially for a film made in 1930. However, this film is unwatchable for several reasons. The story line is ridiculous, the acting inept, the dialogue unrealistic and the pace glacial. A vanity project which fails at every level.
The Square (2017)
A structureless mess. May contain spoilers.
This film falls straight into its own trap. It appears to ridicule the pretentious nonsense that is conceptual art. But in so doing, it results in a disconnected run of perplexing scenes which are as incomprehensible and absurd as the art it tries to satirise.
There is no story structure nor even the faintest suspicion of a plot. Instead we endure 2.5 hours of disconnected scenes. Many of those are obscure or disjointed, presumably to impress. What was the purpose of the tug of war with the used condom? What was the purpose of the strange man impersonating an ape?
At the end, I felt cheated. There was a potentially good film somewhere in the mess. And it's high time some of the crap that is admired as Art was more brutally satirised. But The Square has missed its target, if that's what it was aiming at.
Die andere Heimat - Chronik einer Sehnsucht (2013)
Beautiful, profound and deeply moving - a work of fine art
As a companion to the outstanding Heimat TV series, this film has immense value. We see an exquisite portrait of rural life in the Hunsrück during the troubled 1840s. These were troubled times through much of Europe when rural poverty was severe, and oppression by the landed gentry was ruthless.
But this is more than just a story about a small village not far from the Rhine. Reitz' entire work - the three Heimat series and this prequel - is one of greatest cinematic endeavours of our times. The beauty of the photograpy is unsurpassable, even by the standards set by Ingmar Bergman's wonderful filmographer Sven Nykvist
The story lines are deftly crafted and the characterisation is faultless. Enjoying a work of such stature has been a wonderful experience
All the Money in the World (2017)
Disappointing.
Poor casting, a disappointing screenplay, dreadful sound quality and bad structure all helped to make watching this film an ordeal. The acting was unremarkable, Christopher Plummer's make-up made him look like a monster, Mark Wahlberg under-acted and the rest of the cast's performances were pretty forgettable.
The Getty kidnapping was a loathsome event and provides brilliant potential for a gripping thriller. But that film has yet to be made.
Mænd & høns (2015)
It only hurts when you laugh.
This is dark comedy at its best. A macabre mix of Gothic squalor, perverted family values, hideously debased 'science' and above all, brutal but hilarious slapstick.
Mads Mikkelsen's performance is outstanding but the entire cast is convincing, drawing you into their nightmare world.
The setting is perfect, too – a crumbling mansion on a pancake-flat island possibly somewhere in the Kattegat and reached by a one-car ferry which only sails every few days.
Despite the clowning, this film has greater depth which merits further viewing. The message is dark, satanic and disturbing – but we laugh at the pain.
An American in Paris (1951)
A Cardboard Paris in Hollywood
Take an accomplished director, one of the world's most famous dancers, a dreamily romantic setting and music from none other than George Gershwin and what do you have? In the case of An American in Paris, you have a film which, for me, falls flat on its face.
The winning combination of talent and reputation thrilled the critics, back in 1951 and the film was showered with awards including six Oscars. But, looked at coldly and in retrospect, it's difficult to understand why . Right from the opening scene, when Gene Kelly – who is supposed to be starving in a Paris garret – wakes up looking prosperous, over-confident and heavily made-up, you can already hear the turkey feathers starting to rustle.
The story falters and bumbles its way through yawning intervals which separate the big numbers and the characters become less convincing with every scene. Leslie Caron, when she finally turns up, looks terrified and toothy and though she dances superbly, seems too timid to bring magic to any of her scenes. She and Kelly dance pretty well together, technically, but without the slightest sense of partnership. Watching them, I got the impression that each would rather have been somewhere else.
The music, despite such great numbers, seems to have been shoe-horned into the narrative and often, doesn't fit. The scene where Gershwin's rattlingly wonderful Concerto in F is performed, for instance, has nothing to do with anything else in the film. It does, however, provide moments of sweet relief from the limping story and embarrassingly stilted scenes.
It's hard to believe that Oklahoma was released only four years later, in 1955 and yet, seems to belong to a different era. Oklahoma succeeds in every respect where An American in Paris fails. The acting is convincing, the story works well, the casting is faultless, the choreography - apart from the disappointing dream sequence - is sublime. But above all, the characters in Oklahoma perform with zest and sparkle in overdrive. That makes the film overflow with a sense of freshness, excitement and overflowing 'joy de vivre'. What a difference!
Taken (2008)
Action plus violence minus plot equals a wasted 90 minutes.
It's hard to believe that with such ritzy credits this film could be so spectacularly awful. The story begins with the insulting premise that for teenage American girls, anywhere outside the US - even Paris - is likely to be dangerous. And it's downhill from there on.
Dire warnings, of what a nasty place the rest of the world is, quickly come true when the girls are kidnapped and Daddy (Liam Neeson) has to come bounding over the Atlantic in hot pursuit of the villains.
With the flimsiest of evidence to work on, and with the help of a conveniently cobbled together but ludicrously unconvincing back story, Neeson runs amok in Paris, leaving a trail of criminal damage, indulging in gratuitous violence and homicide - and all, of course, in a frightfully good cause.
The derring-do is so improbable that it tries one's patience. At one point, for example, Neeson drives a high performance car at top speed, through Paris, miraculously avoiding collision, in pursuit of a boat on the Seine travelling at about about 10mph. He'd have found it easier on a bicycle!
The characters of the fatuous main victims are so poorly drawn that one doesn't really care what happens to either of them - they've been deceitful anyway - and Neeson's character, as a devoted and loving father who is dedicated to violence and brutality is almost impossible to understand - or perhaps I'm just stupid.
Driving Lessons (2006)
Teenage angst, religious zeal and the frustrations of age - what a cocktail!
I was persuaded to watch this film but approached it with reluctance, expecting a tedious 'rites of passage' cliché cache with obligatory feel-good ending. But it was a lot better than that.
The cast looked promising, and without exception, delivered. I've long felt that Rupert Grint, somewhat squashed by pedestrian screenplays in the Harry Potter series, had a lot more to offer than we've seen so far. Anything with Laura Linney has to be worth watching and with Nicholas Farrell there too, not to mention the incomparably hyper Julie Walters, one knew there'd be some terrific acting.
The Linney character is so unspeakably zealous, self-righteous and awful that even her husband (Farrell,) seems unable to cope with her, despite his being an Anglican priest. Ben (Rupert Grint) desperately needs friendly guidance and a more helpful introduction to adulthood than appears to be forthcoming from his nearest and dearest - but from where? From whom?
His relationship with the foul-mouthed, neurotic, failing actress, (Walters) follows predictable lines but these are carried off by a terrific chemistry, between the two actors and the story turns enough, just, to hold one's attention to the conclusion.
A hugely enjoyable film but one that with a lot more work on the script, a sharper, more deftly plotted screenplay and ruthless elimination of hackneyed ideas, could have been a truly great one.
Grint underplayed his role, particularly in the first third of the film, but to great effect.
The Fall (2006)
Sublime beauty - shame about the story
The strength of Tarsem Singh's remarkable film lies in its visual artistry. Multiple locations in some of the world's loveliest places - Southern Africa, China, Spain - were just the beginning. This was so much more than just a fantasy with lots of exotic scenes. What made each scene so memorable was the use of contrasting colour combinations, geometric shapes against natural backgrounds, stark scenes with simple lines which looked drawn, rather than photographed and fascinating, mesmerising movements. The human bodies were beautiful, but mainly because of how they were dressed and positioned; the actions were balletic and choreographed to fill the entire visual space and the sound worked beautifully with the whole.
There were visual 'in-jokes' and references which kept jolting one's attention. Darwin's pet monkey was called Wallace, for example, after Alfred Russel Wallace, the man who contributed the keystone - Survival of the Fittest - to Darwin's theory of evolution. The monkey reaching for a butterfly recalled a scene from the original All Quiet On The Western Front. Even the butterfly itself was, I believe, a false Monarch - an example of insect mimicry - rather than the true species. I'd watch this film again and again, for all that beauty.
But, as film expert Robert McKee would probably say, 'the story sucks.' The plot lines, both of the fantasy tale and of the real life narrative hobble along with little pace. The child actress, Cantinca Untaru is wonderfully natural, though frequently inaudible, and draws much sympathy. Lee Pace, however, has the most clunking, unconvincing lines and scenes and despite acting superbly, simply hasn't enough material to be able to construct a role. The pacing is all wrong - erratic, at times, frequently stagnant and by the end of the film, one feels sorry not to see more of the breathtaking scenery but relieved that the whole limping narrative has finally bumped blindly into the buffers.
Le voyage du ballon rouge (2007)
Interminable single parent angst in Bohemian Paris
I had a sinking feeling when going to see this film because I'm old enough to remember the 1956 Red Balloon, which I hated like poison, despite the critical acclaim of the day.
The redeeming features of this Hsiao-hsien Hou film are an inspired performance from Juliette Binoche, as a harassed, over-worked single mother, struggling with her career as an artist as well as trying to bring up her young son - beautifully and naturally portrayed with lots of obviously ad lib lines and actions skillfully preserved.
The grimy and claustrophobic photography of Paris - without the glamour - was inspiring, too, and apt for the film's theme. At times, there were sequences so languidly beautiful that one could forget the rest of the film and just enjoy the pictures.
But more merit than that was difficult to find. There was plenty of drama but no plot; no clear protagonist; an apparent total lack of direction; characterisation so diffuse that it was difficult to know - or want to know - much about anyone. After an hour, I still had no feeling for, or interest in any of the main characters, all of whom seemed to behave as childishly as the little boy. The Chinese girl, employed as a nanny said and did little, and it was difficult to understand why she was there at all, unless she found the French psyche as impenetrable as we did in the audience.
I suppose Jean Luc-Godard was responsible for starting the trend for aimless, directionless, plot less, pointless, self-indulgent French cinema style with his 'classic' A Bout de Soufflé.
I watched the audience for a lot of the time, since the film was so boring, and discovered that most were fidgeting and looking around the theatre as I was. And yet as we left, no one dared to say an adverse word. It's ART, I suppose, and therefore one must not mock! But it's worth remembering that even Shakespeare wrote some absolute turkeys. There, I've said it!
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
Albee's greatest play makes a perfect transition to the screen
Many attempts have been made, to transpose a theatrical play into a good movie and many have failed. This one succeeds gloriously, largely because the theatrical atmosphere - with stage rather than cinematic moods and setting - is rigorously sustained. After the initial scene, with what appears to be a harmonious couple walking across a campus (our first and last glimpse at the real world outside) the entire action, for the rest of the film is locked into sets as confined as a theatre stage.
The agonies of George's and Martha's marriage unfold within those tatty, dusty sets, at a cracking pace and it is impossible not to be drawn into the action. Their dysfunctional relationship is made all the more painful when paraded in front of their injudiciously invited guests - a younger, more idealistic couple. As the booze flows, values shift, cracks widen, loyalties switch and, as a viewer, one feels increasingly uneasy about where to place one's sympathies.
Edward Albee is a great playwright, easily in the top American three, along with Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, but that alone would not make a film. (Think how many awful Shakespeare films there are in the world!) What makes this film succeed is the impeccable casting. Taylor and Burton are better than in anything made, before or since. His shabby academic, and her frustrated, discontented university wife are totally convincing but the supporting roles by Segal and Dennis round off the acting to a tee.
I first watched this film when living on an Ivy League campus, in the 1960s and was deeply moved by the experience. I have seen the play performed by amateurs and professionals - ironically, the best production was by a local amateur group in the UK - and recently re- watched the film on video. I still leave it as impressed as I was in the 60s. One of my top 100 movies for sure. Do not miss it.