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mwid09
Reviews
3 Body Problem (2024)
Comically absurd
This was a slow starter. It wasn't until episode that I realised that, far from being serious science fiction, 3 Body Problem is a gloriously bonkers comedy.
It wasn't easy to work out for a start as there was a pretty decent sci-fi storyline emerging in the early episodes. Unfortunately it turned out that the scenes set 60s/70s China were only provided the background for the confused main plot line.
There's these scientists or something. Some of them put on VR headsets and play a fancy game made by some people on a boat because of aliens and stuff. There's also a guy who made his fortune selling snacks and his school teacher mate... it was so rushed it was hard to tell. Oh, and a boat gets chopped in half with some carbon nanotubes. Then the sky goes weird and everyone decamps to a stately home to make a nuclear bomb spaceship. Huh?
The script is clunky and often laugh-out-loud bad. The only character of any interest is Liam Cunningham's Wade - perhaps the most bonkers and fun character in the whole thing. Wade is the boss of a secretive anti-alien agency which is in the unfortunate situation of having to save humanity on what looks like a budget of a couple of hundred quid. The "agency" starts off as just Wade and his gumshoe detective sidekick Da Shi, before rapidly expanding by hiring a Navy captain and some glum looking scientists. When the agency relocate from what looks like a 1970s office block to a stately home, the new found power and an expanded budget go to his head and Wade starts issuing increasing bizarre orders, like: build me a spaceship that can go as fast as light, wake me up from cryo-freeze so I can watch the tennis, blast a teacher's brain into orbit with nuclear bombs. He also spends quite a long time shouting at invisible alien computers (the "siphone", the "cellphone"?).
Maybe the book is brilliant. If so, I imagine it was more epic science fiction than batshit comedy romp. And that's the problem. Epic sci-fi is pretty... epic. Stories are often long and complex and it takes real skill to convert them into coherent, well paced scripts which are able to carry an audience without decending into absurd nonsense. It all felt a bit rushed and, ultimately, comically absurd.
The Kitchen (2023)
In the best tradition of speculative fiction
I can imagine you would be disappointed if you were expecting an epic sci-fi spectacle, but I'm afraid that this film firmly belongs in the other great tradition of speculative fiction - the near-future, tightly focused drama.
The Kitchen is set in a future that, given the state of Britain, is unsettling tangible: the in-work poverty, the lack of decent housing and the police behaving like occupying power. The is science fiction as thoughtful (and often angry) social commentary.
This is not a film set within a simple moral universe. There are themes of resistance, violence breeding violence and, of course, abandonment.
And the acting is supreme. There's a beautifully portrayed small-scale drama at the centre of this film which is often moving. Credit to the actors for delivering such quietly emotional performances.
The Silence (2019)
I'm sure I've seen this before...
I swear I've seen this before. It's hard to tell because there are so many apocalyptic CGI-monster movies where the only way to survive is by not speaking/seeing/giving off warmth (I'm thinking of Predator there). Some are very good - Cloverfield was one, another was the film adaptation of The Mist. The Silence is one of the more forgettable examples of this genre.
All the tropes are here: the ominous TV reports, the risky trip to the pharmacy to obtain antibiotics, the apocalyptic cults, the rumours of survivors' colonies. Who knows, maybe this is how it would actually go down if evil CGI bats started to eat everyone.
Still, it's watchable and well acted.
A Bunch of Amateurs (2022)
Well made, thoughtful and amusing
This film was shown on BBC iPlayer under its Storyville banner which is usually the sign that you are about to watch a well crafted, thoughtful and perhaps offbeat documentary. This ticks all those boxes and presents a real life story about the often overlooked need for artistic expression present in working class men and women.
A Bunch of Amateurs also tells a poignant story about our neoliberal age and the general loss of social capital. Behind the sometimes bizarre movies and minuted AGMs is the quiet struggle of a aging group of amateur filmakers to keep their club going - if only as a place to meet friends - in the face of mounting unpaid bills and an indifferent wider public. Like many clubs and societies, this club, formed in 1932, is a relic of another age and its heyday has long since past. There is the fear throughout the documentary that the club shares its destiny with its elderly former president, Colin - that both are frail and in the latter years of their lives.
Lucy (2014)
A review as rushed and baffling as the movie
This is a movie that can hardly wait to finish: ingests some drugs; gun fight; quick chat with mom; gun fight; gets on plane; wakes up in hospital; car chase; bit of philosophical reflection; was that Morgan Freeman; gun fight; New York;×dinorsaur; turns herself into a memory stick; end titles.
What?
The Conjuring (2013)
Masterclass in the Jump Scare
I read in advance that this movie contain minimal violence (although it certainly does contain some violence), little swearing and no sex or nudity. Why the reputation for being such a terrifying movie then? Simple answer: this is a masterclass in the art of the jump scare.
The premise is familiar: family move into a haunted house and turn to experienced 'demonologists' for salvation. Nothing original there. The fun (if you can call it that) comes with the masterful execution. The acting is pretty good for haunted house movie and the characters have enough depth to be emotionally engaging. The real driver of this movie is in the deployment of jump scares. Jump scares are such a horror trope and can come across as cheesy and cheap but this movie is built on them and does then really really well.
I'm tempted now to watch the sequels although, given that this movie makes you feel constantly on edge, this could make for more stressful (but satisfying) viewing.
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
A flawed spectacle
This film has moments of stunning brilliance and moments of almost embarrassing slapdash shoddiness often following each other closely. I'm not really a Queen fan so I can't really comment on the story or the veracity of the portrayal of Mercury's life, so all I can do is offer my opinion on a film.
Two elements carry this film - Rami Malek's dazzlingly captivating performance and the music itself. Malek's portrayal of Mercury is reason alone to see this movie. The final twenty minutes of music give the audience a rush of fast paced musical excitement and is, in the true meaning of the word, awesome (and remember, I'm not really an admirer of Queen so their fans will bloody love it).
That said, the film feels rushed and, at times awkwardly didactic - an introduction to Queen from the perspective of the producers ('Look audience, I wrote this song, look look!). While Malek's acting is sublime, the supporting band members are protrayed as 2D and rather dull. May, Deacon and Taylor are flat characters - at best laddish and played for warmhearted laughs, at worst simply boring. I'm sure there is much more to the real life surviving Queens than this.
For all the talk of this being a film about Queen, it ended up as a film about Mercury and some nice blokes he hung around with in the studio.
At times, the script was poor and the dialogue felt forced as if the film makers had to elbow in utterances that form part of the Queen cannon without any concern about how they would come across on screen. This gives the overriding feel of: 'this happened, then this happened, then this happened...' with die hard fans expected to smile knowingly at each famous quote.
You should see this film though. Really you should. For all its clunky dialogue, often flat supporting cast and bitty storytelling, it is a spectacle.
The Snowman (1982)
Simple but emotionally engaging and effecting
The Snowman is pure joy.
Thinking about it, I've probably seen this film more than any other; I'm watching it now with my daughter who can't sleep. It's October.
It's a seemingly simple film: a simple plot animated by pencil drawings.
The way the animated pencil drawing flicker and the crayon lines obvious in the scenery are part of the innocent joy.
The apparent simplicity of the animation (only apparently - long hours have gone into this) is countered by a score as sumptuous and descriptive as that of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. The music builds to that famous song, sung by the choir boy Peter Auty (not Alex Jones) which, even as a slightly sozzled late 30s Christmas eve cynic like me evokes the mystery and emotion of the season. Damn, it nearly makes me cry before giving way to the joyous Snowman's party.
As for the ending, I used to work with a woman who could not bear the sight of a melted snowman.
Joyous and, actually quite emotional