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thedisastertourist
Reviews
Raise the Titanic (1980)
For Sheer Enjoyability This Gets My Personal Oscar
I watched this last night on a streaming service, never having seen it before and so many decades after reading the book that I had forgotten all the salient points.
I was thrilled. A straight forward rollicking adventure.
I was especially taken by the skill of the model makers and the set designers. It is clear that the producers spent an enormous amount of money researching how the Titanic looked, and may have looked like under the sea. There are no special effects here, such techniques did not exist in more than rudimentary form back then so the achievements of the production team are theirs alone.
The fact that the ship lies in pieces, rotting on the ocean bottom and can never be raised does not spoil the movie. This is a different story
The plot feels very close to how Cussler played out his novels but the plot simply does not matter. Will they raise the ship? Will it reach its destination? That's all that matters.
Apparently Cussler hated the movie, If so then this is the second movie based on his work that I have felt was very good. The other being Sahara over which Cussler fought a multi million dollar lawsuit.
Terror in the Skies (2019)
Brilliantly made
I came across this by accident on Am Prime. I would not normally even glance at something with a title like this thanks to all the nonsensical and stupid Aliens Among Us type stuff on cable channels.
But, out of boredom (thanks Covid-19) I watched it for two minutes and I was hooked, not by the subject matter but by the cinematography and the audio production. The camera work is flawless and backed by some subtle editing. I appreciate the slightly desaturated look of the images which seemed to add a visual quality that was simply outstanding.
The idea of the documentary is that there might be giant birds or flying things all over Illinois, including Chicago. This doc does not go into whether these things are real and draws no conclusions. What it does do is delve into the psychology of our culture and our belief systems; why we believe, what we believe.
Apart from the cinematography, the other standout for me was the quality of the audio. Several people are interviewed throughout and lot of work has evidently gone into matching the audio quality of each interview segment. The quality is exemplary.
This allowed the director to pull off some impressive edits involving two or more speakers. More than once a person will start speaking about some aspect of the giant birds thing but never get to finish the sentence because another person has picked up the thought and carried on. It is a sophisticated technique that really does a good job of strengthening the narrative flow.
This is an outstanding piece of work, and while I have zero interest in crypto/alien/conspiracy stuff I'll watch anything else by this director and crew whether flying saucers or not.
Carnival Row (2019)
I Am Trying Not to Binge
I deeply appreciate the work that went into making this series. The effects, the acting, the direction and cinematography is top of the game.
It is a deeply detailed and layered work that would be almost incomprehensible for some people to rush through by watching episode after episode. I find that I need a day to ponder each episode and think about all the stuff that is going on.
One of the reasons why the professional critics seem to be lukewarm is because, in my opinion, they had to gulp down the whole season in one day and just overloaded.
There are no politics as such that can relate to our reality but there is a deep exploration of the racism, discrimination, and hatred for those who are different which is unfortunately too common in all societies. It does not form the main thrust of the show but it is there all the time in the background and helps to ground the plot and characters. None of the bad guys resemble any living politician or public figure in our world. They are just there.