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9/10
If you like Louis Theroux, you'll like this (and vice versa)
22 June 2006
I'm not a great fan of reality TV but here is a film that shows you how it should be done. I have no idea whether this is a genuine documentary or an original film script, and frankly I don't care. This film is positive, warm, witty, and fun. Camera work and sound quality are convincingly amateur, and the telephone conversations especially are a bit unclear. There's something about Brian that makes him likable - he's naive, harmless, up-beat. Anyone who likes this should look out some of the TV documentaries made by Louis Theroux - they have a similar style. Theroux tends to tackle more risky subjects, but he has a similar open honesty and humor in his approach.
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8/10
So much better than the book
10 June 2006
After reading two of Tom Clancy's books I would say you would get more intellectual challenge by watching "Wheel of Fortune". The characters are flat stereotypes, the plots are obvious, and his background research is at best cursory, at worst completely wrong. However, the film version is incomparably better, thanks to the stylish direction of John McTiernan and an excellent performance by Sean Connery (earning a BAFTA nomination for best actor). In the film, Connery's character, Capt. Ramius, has a depth and purpose - you can understand what's driving him and the whole situation is believable as result. The film is so much better balanced than the horrible flag-waving Clancy novel, it's a shame that TC is given any credit for movie.
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Proof (2005)
8/10
Good, but not as good as...
20 February 2006
This could have been a great film, but we'll have to settle for very good. With the same subject matter of mathematical genius and madness, comparisons with "A Beautiful Mind" are inevitable - and it doesn't quite match up. Not that that is the fault of Gwyneth Paltrow, who plays the unstable and tortured Catherine with beautiful understatement and control. Nor of Sir Anthony Hopkins, who gives an effortless performance. I've seen criticism of Jake Gallenhaal, but as he reminds me of a mathematician that I was at college with, he seemed believable to me. The weakness of the film lies in the script and direction; fearing mathematics is too complex, it was simply ignored - the conjecture that is the subject of the proof, central to the plot, is never even named! Even the mathematical joke, a song called "i", is clumsily flagged in the hope, I suppose, that non-mathematicians will get it. I enjoyed the film but it left me a little disappointed - I do wish film-makers would credit the public with a little more intelligence.
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10/10
Compulsive viewing - watch it again and again
21 January 2006
A story about a family (and associated friends) where most of the characters are either selfish or inadequate seems an unlikely hit, but I continue to find this one of my favorite winter evening viewings. The story is told, as in the book, with flash-forwards that help crystallize your opinions of the characters and their motivations. With promiscuous behavior throughout, various unconventional relationships (Polly and the twins, Max and his town wife/country wife etc), it would have been all too easy for the series to dissolve into an orgy of explicit sex; this was, after all, made by Channel 4, who can teach HBO a thing or too about the subject! It runs along a pace, and as each episode ends, the temptation to just press play and watch the next is strong.

The performances are wonderful. I loved Felicity Kendall as the bad-tempered matriarch in the flash-forwards. Jennifer Ehle is, of course, delectable, and completely gorgeous, and acts the pants off everyone. Her accent is a wonderful mids-40s upper-class English, taken straight from Brief Encounter and the like. I didn't realize until today that she was born in North Carolina, I had her marked an English rose! Tara Fitzgerald plays Polly, the most likable character, a strong, self-minded and tolerant person. The male characters are weaker, but Oliver Cotton and the late Paul Eddington make the best of the material they're given.

The production is great - period detail is excellent, although perhaps the grimness of war on the Home Front is not given enough emphasis. However, these are privileged people, they would have had it better than the masses simply because they had more to start with.

You can watch this series over and over, like rereading a favorite book.
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It is on DVD...
13 August 2005
...well, it is in the UK anyway. My wife brought both Rock Follies series back from the UK this summer. Excellent. When they were originally shown in the UK, the second series had some associated industrial dispute and I never got to see the last episodes.

The music is great, Andy Mackay (Roxy Music) showing a huge range of styles. Only JC can actually sing, but the band holds it together. Well worth a watch. I think the songs are better in series one, the "single" in RF77 is okay, though the B side is more to my taste, despite Charlotte's dodgy voice.

There are obvious comparisons with other fictional rock-mock-umentaries, but for my money this is up there with "The Commitments".
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