Change Your Image
Slip_de_Garcon
Reviews
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
Title is accurate I guess.
Read the reviews, knew what I was letting myself in for.
Plus points:
Soundtrack, both music and sound effects, is excellent. Particularly the brooding rumbling at the key disappearance scene.
Cinematography excellent.
Minus points:
The all-important picnic happens very early in the film. Yes, I know it's all about the after effects, but the problem is there is minimal characterisation pre-picnic. Consequently, I'm a bit like 'oh well' when they vanish.
Someone has to say this: the depiction of the schoolgirls is a little bit 'middle aged bloke's fantasy', with them doing each other's corsets up and drifting around being fey and wistful.
The overall effect is somewhat of a 70s pop video, all a bit lacy and soft-focus. To be fair, after a good hour of people ruminating about the fact they've definitely vanished, the last ten minutes are fairly decent, though almost as ambiguous as the preceding hour and three quarters.
Lost Hearts (1973)
Ghost Story for Christmas (kids)?
OK, first off the bat, I'm a great fan of M R James, so I came at this from that angle. But I'm not the "actually, the short story is different" guy, don't worry.
So, back story, the BBC have gone through stages of doing a 'ghost story for Christmas', and the early 70s M R James adaptations are widely regarded as the best (though Dickens' The Signalman' from a year or two later is arguably superior).
Initial impressions are that this is one for the kids. The protagonist is an 11 year old orphan, going to live with a kindly old relative, albeit one who seems oddly obsessed when the boy's birthday will fall.
The two ghosts are similarly-aged, and up until the final scene seem fairly benign. But I suspect the shots of their very long fingernails, and the scene in which their mortal wounds are revealed would have given me nightmares for weeks if I'd seen it as a child.
Like all James stories, the horror is in the atmosphere and small details, and the iterative hints that our young hero's host is aware of the ghosts' existence, and as we proceed, of the reason they are ghosts, are chilling.
It's not perfect. The boy's acting is wooden, and the film makes less use of landscape than other adaptations by the same director. When it does, the flowering horse chestnut trees (May?) immediately preceding Halloween raised a chuckle in this gardener.
Viewed back-to-back with the best one (A Warning to the Curious) shows its limitations, but that film has a downbeat, adult theme from the off, so is far less suitable for drawing in and then traumatising children. I noted how much shorter it is than 'Warning', and wonder if a few more lingering exterior shots would have improved the atmosphere, but my suspicion is this was kept short and snappy for the same reason.
Keep the little-uns watching to the finale, and they will never hear a hurdy-gurdy without wetting themselves until they are old enough to drive.
Midsommar (2019)
Swedish Wicker Man with even less plot
Having read a few reviews, I sat down to watch this with very low expectations, which was lucky.
Plot summary: unlikeable Americans go to weird Swedish midsummer festival. Sole female is made May Queen, after a couple of hours. So it's May then, not mid summer? Maybe I missed this clarification.
Plot largely consists of a repeating pattern: smug Swedes (to be fair I think that's just how Swedes appear to the rest of us) feed Americans a series of psychoactive drinks. Americans in a state of confusion then enter a whole series of 'forbidden buildings', making smug Swedes very angry, and the non-Swedes get iteratively disappeared.
I'd say 'actions have consequences, guys', but here they don't. In the style of Wicker Man, and famously Raiders of the Lost Ark, absolutely nothing our protagonists do has any influence on the final outcome of the film.
This film really is an oddity. I know folk horror is universally considered a Good Thing, but this seems like the video to an unusually populous folk band's breakout single, but the director misread three minutes as three hours.
I was convinced that every non-Swede would die, and actually one survives. One point for surprising me.
The Swedes also lapsed into prolonged communal jazz-hands at the drop of a hat, which was actually ace, so another point for that.
The only thing that kept me going for the last hour was the promise - sorry warning - of nudity, and sure enough there was some near the end. Nudity earns a point, so 3/10 it is.
Lifeforce (1985)
How high a rating can a 80s British space vampire film realistically get?
Picture the scenario: you've just watched a 1985 film, made in the UK, the subject of which is vampires from space.
How high a rating is it possible that that film could achieve? I'd say 8/10.
I give this film 8/10.
I'm not going to list all the reasons this film is not 10/10 that are inherent in it being the film described in line one. It's very 1980s. It's by its subject matter not something that was considered for Oscars. But it's literally as good as a 1980s British space vampire film could possibly be, and here are the reasons:
1. Mathilda May.
Apart from being unclothed in most of her scenes, and having a figure that probably wore a lot of 80s VHS tapes extremely thin at the relevant points, she's stunningly beautiful, and has an extremely intense stare when the plot demands it. The demands in her acting abilities are thankfully limited, but that isn't to say that she isn't a perfect bit of casting.
2. The special effects.
Particularly the early sequences in space and the (?) stop motion zombie scenes are outstanding for the age of the film. I mean really, really good. The skill of the production team was blending different effect techniques (animation, stop motion, etc) and choosing the right ones at the right time.
3. John Hallam.
One of my favourite under-utilised minor actors, here just a hospital orderly, but he has a dark, saturnine presence that steals the scene every time.
4. That cathedral steps scene.
Near the end there are a crowd of zombies lying on the steps of the cathedral. It's so wonderfully arranged. It has something of a Hogarth painting about it. It's hard to describe, it has no relevance to the plot, but they did it anyway. You'll see when you see it.
So, start watching this with the idea in your head of just how good it could be, given the age and subject material, and I think you won't be disappointed. Especially with Mathilda May's scenes.
The Mist (2007)
Bloody hell, this film is just awful!
I'm not saying I like all my films like a technicolor 1950s musical. But this film is just the most bleak, awful, and downright unpleasant for its own sake thing I've ever seen. I *almost* thought it was parody.
Not solely because of what happens, but because every single character is nasty, acts like no human being would in any situation. Literally everyone does the opposite of what you'd do. Every. Single. Time. From the first shot, it's just hilariously zero-dimensional stereotypes being wildly unpleasant towards each other. If everyone is a dick, who cares what happens to them? Lucky, that...
It feels about four hours long.
The audio, as is the modern style goes from inaudible to deafening. So at least I've had something to do, constantly adjusting the volume.
Oh, and the CGI is as bad as The Hobbit's, if not worse.
Genuinely one of the worst films I've ever had the displeasure to watch. Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies relinquishes its crown.
Doctors: Whistle... (2014)
M R James would actually be rather proud...
Well here is a review I never thought I'd be writing.
First off, I've only seen a few episodes of Doctors, my crime being having a proper job and not much appetite for soaps, let alone daytime soaps. That said, when I ever saw it, despite the obvious limits of budget and the production schedule, to my eye it seemed to be made with some enthusiasm.
But this... well, it's an oddity.
It's a surprisingly accurate retelling of the famous M R James short story 'Oh whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad.' More accurate by far than the ~2010 'remake in name only' with John Hurt. Less accurate in terms of setting, character names, etc, than the ~1968 Michael Hordern version, but perhaps closer in tone.
The main character is clearly a star of the show, and is... adequate; the knowledgeable old colonel in the pub is played with some skill by old hand Paul Moriarty.
I can only imagine the reception it must have received from a few bored pensioners and students at the time, though I note it was first broadcast on October 31, 2014. I sincerely hope it led one or two people to discover this wonderful author.
The Stepford Wives (1975)
Makes its point... eventually.
Won't repeat what other reviews have said. Just a couple of points.
First off, if second-wave feminism was distilled into a film, it would be this. So there's something highly amusing about the fact it's a male director's adaptation of a male author's book. But then it was the 70s.
This film is one of those films you should watch exactly once, as:
a. It has a 'twist'. Though it's so glaringly obvious what's coming that it makes the end of The Sixth Sense come as a shock by comparison. Once you know the twist, it's a bit "get on with it".
B. It simply doesn't have near enough plot to sustain a 1h 40m of runtime. Charitably there's an hour's necessary dialogue and action. Charitably.
Don't do what I did and buy on DVD, as I felt compelled to rewatch it today, and I've found it disappointing to repeat view. Though on this note, have other UK film buffs noticed that it is *never* shown on terrestrial TV? Seriously, when I bought it I'd been keeping an eye out for it for two decades. I wonder why?
Finally, without making an overly petulant 'not all men' complaint, while I'm not sure I'd want to be married to a bra-burning 70s feminist, I certainly wouldn't want a doe-eyed, utterly subservient slave wife, dressed in half an acre of curtain fabric.
The Big Bang Theory (2007)
If this had ended after four seasons, it would be a cult classic
I loved this when I first started seeing it on heavy rotation on (British) TV.
The first few seasons are hilarious. The stand-out episode is when the guys go to Las Vegas, and the stand-out scene in that is when they get Howard a hooker and get her to pretend to be Jewish.
Then at some point in season 5 or 6, it goes horribly, horribly wrong. And then goes for many more seasons with none of the establishing charm.
Why?
The main issue is that TBBT is fundamentally a character driven comedy. I don't mind admitting, the first few times I saw this I didn't get it. This is because in order to appreciate character comedy, you need to know the characters. But you stick with it and the cumulative character humour gets cumulatively funnier.
Exactly the same thing happened in 1993 when I was first exposed to The Simpsons... now there's another show that would be a cult classic if it had ended after, say, six seasons.
What is the golden rule of character comedy? The characters have to behave in character.
Yes, they can evolve and be changed by events. But the second they start acting out of type, it all falls apart.
Worst culprits:
Bernadette goes from saccharine-sweet and unworldly to permanently shouting, wildly competitive and plain mean overnight.
Amy goes from female Sheldon to libidinous I don't know what overnight.
Sheldon goes from emotionless stereotypical need genius to wildly camp man-baby, admittedly over a series or two.
Howard goes from wannabe lothario to henpecked husband more or less when Bernadette starts shouting.
Like any series that goes on this long, it acquires too many second-tier characters, some of whom just make me wince. Ditto, once the celebrities arrive (see also The Simpsons) it's past its prime. With the exception of Bob Newhart, who is the saving grace of some mid-period episodes.
Finally, while the four male characters were never exactly alpha males to start with, they were the sympathetic focus of the show. By the end they are the weak, pathetic foils for their respective comparatively alpha female partners. I guess that's just aligning with the rest of modern TV and film.
Melissa & Joey (2010)
If you like Baby Daddy, you'll love this!
I reviewed Baby Daddy a while back, and I fear this review is somewhat of a repeat.
I find myself watching this simply because my other half, who - bless her little socks - has fairly simple tastes in both TV and men, and hence has a bloodhound's nose for utterly witless bottom tier American sitcoms.
So I often find myself half watching this midden and amusing myself by trying to apply some analysis to it, to ease the pain.
Bullet points to look out for:
* Joey's hair goes through a stage in about season 3 where it looks shiny and utterly rigid. At the same time his eyebrows acquire a curiously painted on quality. I defy you not to be distracted by this. He has a generally shiny aspect at this stage, almost as if he's a CGI character.
* Melissa owns the largest wine glasses on TV. One really requires a large TV to appreciate their magnificence.
But here is the meat of my review: the humour.
I referenced Baby Daddy in the review title as the writing is very similar. I'm too lazy to see if there is any writer/producer connection, but it's the same weird pattern of joke delivery:
Cast, rather in the manner of a Greek chorus, prophecy the coming of The Joke.
The Joke is told.
Cast then explain that The Joke has happened.
Once you spot this pattern, it's impossible to ignore. It's either a realistic appraisal of the target audience, in that they can only handle so many jokes and it's likely best they know what the joke's about and when it has happened. Or it's just that the writers don't have that many jokes to fill the run time.
Second (and here's a 2nd parallel with Baby Daddy, as the loud, obnoxious mother in that does the same), a lot of the 'joke climaxes' consist of Melissa yelling. Hilarious.
I have asked, even pleaded with, my beloved to explain the appeal. She shrugs and says she likes the love story thread throughout. But then she finds me attractive, so I'm not sure that's a compelling reason to forgive it anything.
Preacher (2016)
Review having just binged the entire thing
I was an enormous fan of the books. "Oh no, here we go", I hear you groan, "this is going to be some comic fan neckbeard moaning about the inaccuracies". I promise I will try not to be that guy.
Let's start with the casting, which by and large was just excellent. I'm going to name them by character, for simplicity:
Jesse Custer - excellent. Being a fellow Brit, how good was his accent? I can't tell. But his general attitude/motivation was bang on.
Tulip - not a fan. She seemed permanently angry, and the chemistry with Jesse was not there for me. Ironic, as apparently the actors were a couple when filming started I'm told. Oh, maybe they weren't by the end and that could explain it.
Cassidy - superb. He is the comic book character made flesh.
Saint of Killers - excellent. As above.
Herr Starr - excellent. Again, the comic book made flesh.
Now, the best way to treat this is as four separate series. It felt like that, as each series (the books are *fairly* similar) has a geographical base, and feels quite distinct.
Series One:
Off to a great start. Obviously it benefits from freshness and the introduction of the characters, but it hangs well together, it sets up where the show is going to go, but the writing and pacing are good. Compared to the others, its small town setting gives it almost a soap opera feel... but don't worry, that is dealt with by the end... as far as the books go, it's a mashup of two books and two small town settings, but that actually makes perfect sense.
Series Two:
The weakest link of the show. The New Orleans location gets tiring quite quickly, particularly the endless scenes in the dingy flat. And the Dennis character is like a narrative time-filling device. The decision to have him just speak French probably made some sense at the time, but my God the clock slows down when he's on screen. The 'search for God' element of this series is verging on the whimsical. On the plus side, the Grail makes an appearance, and livens things up.
Series Three:
Partial return to form. Despite the random changes to the plot to make it some sort of weird business, Jesse's childhood home is well realised, and Jody/TC are well realised. There is a story arc to the series.... but the things I dislike about the final series are starting to become apparent...
Series Four.
Oh crap, we've got to wrap this thing up! The action moves to Australia, though most of the characters seem to be on their way somewhere most of the time. Each series has a 'base' and this one's nominal base is Massada (filmed somewhere in Oz), and the way some characters, e.g. Tulip, seem to be in and out of here once per episode is bizarre, but there we are. Like she just escapes then it's like "oh I have to break in to Massada again". On the plus side, it has a satisfying, wrapped-up ending (quite an emotional one if I do say, though diametric to the book's one), though it's a bit Return of the King in how long it takes.
On the plus/minus side.... fan service. It is clear the writers knew they were getting cancelled, so had to get everything tied up by the end of the series, so there are so many set-pieces from the whole book series jammed in here, it almost felt like watching the highlights. So as a fan of the books, it was like "Oh here's the Mafia torturer with the Lee-Enfield, oh they are setting a bomb off in the desert"... but in a lot of cases, these didn't make a lot of sense in plot terms, it was almost like the plot was bent to get the incidents in.
So in conclusion... did I like it?
As a fan, this was close enough to the books to keep me satisfied. I'm old enough not to expect adaptations to be super faithful. The overall plot arc resembles the books. That said, there are some characters that are introduced that - to me - add very little to proceedings (Dennis, Hitler, Jesus).
But by and large, the look, the dialogue, elements of the humour all resemble the books.
Budget. I don't know this, but I'm guessing it didn't cost a lot to make. But it makes the best of it. The most obvious manifestation of this is the obvious 'base' of each series, and the inevitable reuse of said base's sets. I don't know if this is good or bad, but it gives each series a very different 'flavour', series two in particular has a very distinct claustrophobic air to it, while series four feels more like a road movie.
On the minus side, the fights... In series one the fights are rather a pleasant surprise. There are admittedly plenty in the books, and they are fairly well choreographed and played for comedy at times. As the series progresses though, it starts to feel like "oh, here's this episode's big fight" to the extent I started to skip through them. The choreography starts out excellent, to the end, not so much... There's one with Tulip in a hospital which is worth watching closely for the series of 'baddies' helpfully offering themselves up to be punched.
The general narrative flow and character development.
Remember that series of Game of Thrones (2? 3?) where everyone seemed to be perpetually travelling somewhere? Some of the characters in this are like that. Eugene Root a good example. What's his motivation? Where is he aiming for?
Tulip spends a lot of time driving her muscle car, and I can't help thinking this is this is attempting to give this a 'road movie' vibe.
Back to my early remark about the dynamic between Jesse, Tulip and Cassidy. Jesse (spoiler alert!) in the books is revealed to have a much nastier streak, and his attempts to woo Tulip acquire a much more exploitative nature. Jesse and Tulip have a loving, passionate relationship, and despite everything that happens, clearly belong together.
In this...? The chemistry between Tulip and Cassidy is much more natural, they spend more time & dialogue on screen. Jesse and Tulip seem to be permanently bickering when they are on screen together, and drift into different plot arcs with no real reasoning. So Tulip: you belong with Cass this time - the final scenes make me think the writers agree.
So if you've read this far: do I recommend it?
1. If you've read & liked the books: surprisingly yes. It's never going to be adapted again. It doesn't do the source a complete disservice, it's quite fun to see it on screen, as most of the characters are just as they should be. Watch once.
2. If you are coming to this fresh: watch series one. If you don't 'get' it, give up then. If you make it through series two, the worst is over and you should stick with it.
Reading this back, I feel like I've come across in a rather negative way, then given it 7/10. My finger has hovered over the 6 * a lot - it's 6.5/10 I think - but I did enjoy it. It's entertaining, laugh-out-loud funny, full of great action/fight scenes and great characters.
But it's nowhere near perfect.
Dragonwyck (1946)
Perfect film with one weakness: the story
Golden age Hollywood, what Halliwell would have called a 'woman's picture'.
Summary:
Cinematography: A+
Cast: A+
Acting: generally good
Script and storyline: absolute bobbins
I love films of this period, with the attention to detail in creating a bygone era that probably never existed, in that luminous pre-safety stock, with actors like Vincent Price chewing the scenery (in a good way), Walter Huston as good as ever, Gene Tierney utterly beautiful (somehow magnified by that nitrate film stock).
But the story is nonsense from beginning to end.
It it had been written in 2023 we'd be blaming a badly programmed AI.
You've got:
* mysterious harpsichord playing ghost - barely mentioned again
* painting of former family member (who: paradoxically is no oil painting)
* evil landlord, who suddenly isn't an evil landlord any more, but this crucial change happens off screen
* mysterious tower Vincent Price spends all day in, why is he there? Well, he explains near the end, and Gene Tierney is like "rightyho", and the conversation just carries on
* the melodrama of the bedside baptism is so high, if it had been a Monty Python sketch, it would have flashed "melodrama" on the screen.
So in conclusion, the best shot and acted two-hour soap opera you'll ever see. If you like your films to look and sound wonderful, and drench you in a wave of Hollywood nostalgia, but you don't care if they make any sense, this is for you.
Psychomania (1973)
It's not *that* bad
As usual, I won't repeat what others have said, if I can avoid it.
Yes: it's cheesy, it's in pretty poor taste by the standards of the time, the acting of the bikers is shaky (charitably), and all the other faults listed by the prosecution in other reviews, but, the defence argues:
1. George Sanders - even suffering from early dementia and depression in his final role - is George Sanders. He was dead by the time the film came out.
2. Robert Hardy - in a camel coat no less - racing round the (?) Milbrook test track in various ace British police cars.
3. The pair of them on screen with Beryl Reid in a house so 70s modernist in style that makes the set design of Clockwork Orange look tastefully restrained.
4. The big one for me is the incidental music. Perfect for a biker movie from my year of birth, it's a cross between Prog/Space Rock and early Black Sabbath. It *really* lifts a lot of the key scenes.
5. The ending is great; you can see it coming a mile off, but the final scene (with admittedly Doctor Who level effects) is great. See incidental music above.
BUT
My one big gripe - well, two I guess - is the biker gang and how their 'bad guy' status is manifested.
1. They are really quite posh. It's not how I imagine a biker gang.
2. Their idea of bad biker gang stuff, other than the odd random murder, seems to consist of messing about in the middle of Walton-on-Thames. The overall effect was of some Surrey University students on rag week. Some traffic cones were knocked over, but I can't confirm whether any ended up in a halls of residence.
Oh, and the suicides are little bit laboured. There's got to be an easier way to kill yourself than taking a skydiving lesson... one may assume that you come back as you were pre-death, rather than a red splat on an airfield.
In conclusion though, I just watched it on YouTube (hint, hint), and I would happily watch it again, even if just for the soundtrack, and the general period feel.
Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies (2016)
Possibly the worst film I've ever seen
A lot of cheap genre films are in the "so bad it's good" camp. This isn't.
It would be possible to make a good low budget zombie horror film, purely based on a title like this, and yet here the makers have failed enormously.
1. The acting is beyond atrocious. Not "cheesy bad", just bad.
2. Characterisation is literally nonexistent. I defy you to tell the two male leads apart.
3. If you want a proper movie goof, look out for the MG3 machine gun apparently working with its ammo belt in back to front.
4. The big one: the 'bait and switch' act of the title. I recently reviewed 'Nude Nuns With Big Guns'. It's an interesting comparison, as that couldn't have been a lot better, given the limitations of its budget and subject matter; this film couldn't have done much worse.
Crucially 'Nude Nuns...' delivered on its title. '...Lederhosen Zombies' features precisely zero Lederhosen zombies, it's merely a zombie flick set in a ski resort.
Being a middle-aged lecher, I had visions of buxom ladies dressed in the 'Oktoberfest style', albeit in some stage of decomposition, and the film cheated me. This alone damns it.
2/10, purely because there were moments of the usual humour, and an MG3, which even incorrectly loaded, is a sub-zero-cool gun.
One Tree Hill: Some You Give Away (2006)
Mid mark, as this is either terrible or perfect
My partner likes watching this show, and occasionally I pay it attention, and this time I did, and I am left with a perhaps unanswerable question:
A. Is it actually being played in all seriousness, in which case it is laughably bad?
B. Or is it a a straight-faced parody, in perhaps the mould of Police Squad, because if so it is a masterpiece?
I won't delve in to the details, suffice to say the action centres around a clearly very important basketball game. As a product of the English state school system, the level of reverence with which a school sports fixture holds over a small town doesn't really translate across the pond, so I'll have to assume that this being played live on radio and being important enough to be the the subject of big money crooked sports betting is realistic.
Anyway, two plot features of this game stand out most sharply:
1. The Baddies - two gentlemen - somehow involved in loan-sharkery and game fixing (my partner helpfully explains) attend the match in person, and they ironically/unironically (depending on the correct answer to my opening question) look like they were from Miami Vice. One was Generic Ruffian, the other was Generic Pimp. Every time they appeared on screen I got the giggles.
2. The game - obviously - went down to the absolute wire. The last 1.8 seconds - and I kid you not - lasted about 15 seconds. Again, hilarious or terrible, depending on opening remarks.
Extra points if you spot the baffling inclusion of literally a second of obvious stock footage of a crowded stadium. Baffling, in that they weren't so poor that they needed to use loads of stock footage, but they cheapened the whole thing by using one second. Again, incompetence... or art?
Which leads us to the stunning finale...
Happily pregnant cheerleader and alpha male from central casting decide to pontificate on how amazing their lives are going to be, having used time distortion technology to win a basketball match (see above) IN THE MIDDLE OF A ROAD. Generic Pimp - aggrieved because his betting on sports day had gone wrong, decides the only course of action is to stealthily drive at this couple at full speed to knock them over, manages to get cheerleader, but his plan founders on the fact the road is a dead end, so he then crashes hard into some roadworks.
Alpha Male (bear with me, this is epic) goes to his car to wreak revenge, Miami Vice guy basically falls out when he opens the door, Alpha guy punches him three times, then Dad turns up, announces Miami Vice Guy is dead. The implication is clearly that Alpha Male killed him, despite the fact he'd just crashed head on into something at high speed. Dad tells him to run away, then in the space of a few seconds the police arrive, not before dad has managed to bloody his knuckles somehow.
You don't think this episode can get any better/worse?
Then, for want of a better name, Troubled Alpha Male Guy turns up, sees Pregnant Cheerleader lying on the ground... and immediately drops down (we assume) dead.
Camera pans artfully up on crane...
And there you have it. Like the lovechild of William Shakespeare and Quentin Tarantino, but filmed by Zucker/Abrahams.
I honestly can't recommend this enough, I haven't laughed so uncontrollably in years.
The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971)
Not a perfect film by any stretch, but a flawed masterpiece
In my reviews I try not to repeat what others have said. I will, however, draw attention to the fact that this was planned as an anthology of stories set in the same 18th century village in the same period, then only in development were the three stories spliced together, and it shows.
(In the same way, IIRC, the script for the Wicker Man was shortened to remove one day and night's events from the story, which also has a rather disjointed feel)
So, sure: it's rather disjointed.
But...
It has a simply fantastic score.
It has equally fantastic and evocative location cinematography, perhaps the fact I'm a rather self-consciously rural Englishman makes this have a more profound impact on me, I don't know.
The sound recording in general is excellent, the inclusion of the skylark singing over many unnerving scenes is wonderfully jarring with their content.
Patrick Wymark - dead by the time of release - is as good as ever.
Linda Hayden is great, creepily erotic as Angel Blake.
Now I'll completely spoil her performance for you. Try and watch her with the drawn-on eyebrows at the end and not think of Cara Delevigne. I dare you.
So yeah, it's not great, it makes very little sense. But I love it.
Im Westen nichts Neues (2022)
Didn't make a lot of sense
I won't repeat an in-depth analysis of this, as a lot of other reviews have put it better than I can.
It was too long, and yet there were vast sections where very little happened, but even so the scenes seemed to start and end rather abruptly.
It was almost like watching the edited highlights of a far longer film, but where the editing was done at random.
The trench scenes were excellent and form the majority of the stars I'm giving it, but in-between there were sections where the soldiers just sort of walked about, in a surprisingly sparsely populated landscape.
I was very impressed by the way our protagonists' rifles disappeared and appeared at random, too, depending on whether the scene required rifles.
The ending did stretch credibility a bit, too. Apart from anything else, why would the French advance into no man's land? Plus the timed precision of the "Isn't War Awful" ending was bordering on the laughably clichéd. But at least his hair looked nice to the end.
A lot of the high scoring reviews attest to what a powerful anti war message this delivers. Well yes, it does, but a lot of other films have done that, and better.
Nude Nuns with Big Guns (2010)
A better Tarantino film than some Tarantino films
OK, so imagine one of Tarantino's more self-aware homages to trash movies, but made on a tiny budget, but on the other hand with much more leeway to show boobies.
You have Nude Nuns With Big Guns.
On the minus side:
1. Some of the acting is just awful
2. It just sort of meanders along with very little in the way of plot structure
3. It's a little bit self-conscious in its aping of the Tarantino style (see especially the captions in the first half as new characters or locations are debuted)
4. There is a lot of gratuitous nudity of the like you just don't see these days
On the plus side:
1. While she's not a great actress, the female lead possesses a certain grace of movement which singlehandedly lifts the film out of the gutter.
2. The incidental music is excellent for the film
3. There is a lot of gratuitous nudity of the like you just don't see these days
The impression I was left with was of having been a lot happier to sit through this than an awful lot of far more high-budget films trying to achieve a similar effect with a lot less success.
Is it a good film? Not really. Would I watch it again at midnight after a few drinks. Oh yes.
Baby Daddy (2012)
The yardstick by which other sitcoms should be judged...
I came here in a state of existential despair, as my partner is currently watching yet another of the apparently endless episodes of this travesty on TV.
Either she has a. Suffered a blow to the head, b. Her taste in TV is in some kind of weird parallel dimension, like most of the other reviews I'm seeing on here, or c. It's a none-too-subtle attempt to make me leave her.
It's painfully bad.
I could go on about why for some time, but I'll focus on a single aspect I've noticed with other really bad US sitcoms: the three-stage delivery of the jokes.
Writers: think of funny line, write scene as follows
1. Lengthy set-up that makes impending joke glaringly obvious.
2. Joke.
3. Repeat of joke in slightly different terms, perhaps involving exposition on what the original joke was.
It's like they don't have enough jokes per episode, and yet by using this technique, once you notice it, you can't un-notice this.
Genuinely, it's the sitcom equivalent of the Bubonic Plague.
The only saving grace is reading on here that it was eventually cancelled.
Fiend Without a Face (1958)
Not a great film, but great cinematography
I did a bit of sniffing round after reading the trivia about the director losing interest, and funnily enough he came up through the UK film industry as a cinematographer.
It really shows, certainly in the use of light and shade, which has a very 1940s look to it. Example: the 'experimenting with the radar' scene, where all the operators heads are shadowed on the walls.
To be fair, the stop motion monsters aren't too shabby either.
(That's all I wanted to write, but padding required, apparently)
And bizarrely it's British! I don't think I've ever watched a British film that so well hid the fact.