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Kill Switch (2017)
Movie directed as video game cut scenes
Basically, the cinematic conceit, here, if you will, is first-person view. It reminds me why I generally prefer movies over video games. It could have been a good movie, or a good video game. Presented as a video game where the player (viewer) is just along for the ride, though, it's essentially like the bits you skip forward through in a video game. Tedious. And while there are snippets of good acting, the director doesn't want you to dwell on them. To be honest I think three stars is generous, mostly for the respectable SFX. I've labelled this review as containing spoilers mostly because I think the whole FPV thing is this movie's essence - the plot, the pseudoscience, could have sustained a proper movie, but they're bit-parts in the whole "let's shoot a video game movie" thing.
Emily in Paris (2020)
To be fair...
To be fair, having abandoned this two thirds of the way through episode one, I'm not really giving it a fair chance. To be (in my mind) equally fair, I'm in no way convinced that it deserves one. There are many "Netflix Originals" that are in some way flawed despite high production values, but mostly they have some appeal: likeable characters; difficult scenarios; controversial social commentary; etc. This one, not so much. It's like the writers watched "Au Service de la France" and "The Good Place" and "Ugly Betty" and consistently missed the point in each case, perhaps because of having no notion that it is possible for people not to be awful.
Click (2006)
Truly dreadful
I ticked the "spoiler" box because of the dire warning about future reviews being discarded. And also out of a sense of irony - I can't see how one could possibly spoil this movie.
It is truly dire. It is not *remotely* funny (oh ho ho, see what I did there? That's quality joke-writing, that, compared with the dreck you'd have to put up with if you were incautious enough to sit through "Click".)
I watch a lot of films, and my tolerance for utter rubbish is very high indeed. I sat through "Zombie Strippers" without particular pain. I watched more than one of the "Starship Troopers" movies (at least, I think I did, it's sort of hard to tell).
But I walked out of this one, and demanded a refund. I have *NEVER* done that before, or since.
It is impossible to overstate how utterly dismal, how *embarrassing* this movie is.
Every "joke" manages to be banal, insulting, tedious. There are some real actors in this, people who've been in decent films, and the fundamental premise (a magical remote control to skip reality around, and how this might end badly) isn't an impossible thing to base a watchable film on, but Click is just a terrible, depressing, steaming pile of a movie.
Far Cry (2008)
A far cry from "good", but not totally terrible.
There's nothing much that's inspiring about this film, but I didn't have very high expectations of a first-person-shooter game spin-off, and, actually, this could have been a lot worse. It's not taking itself too seriously, for one thing. The plot is pedestrian, clichéd and totally predictable, but then one gets the feeling that it's supposed to be. I've seen much worse acting, worse effects and sets, and worse action sequences.
I've neither played the game, nor watched any of Boll's other movies, so although my expectations weren't terribly high, I wasn't offended by the film's take on the game (as I had no comparison) nor was I predisposed to hate it because of the director (never heard of him).
Unlike certain other movies (I'm thinking the execrable "Click", for example), if I'd watched this in a cinema I probably wouldn't actually have walked out.
Unexciting but not offensively bad. OK to watch on a boring flight or when suffering from insomnia, I would say, so long as you're not precious about the game it's meant to represent.
A for Andromeda (2006)
A is for "awful"
It's hard to believe this film was (re)made in 2006. OK, it's a low-budget production shot on video for TV, but the production values aren't really the problem - plenty of shot-for-TV-on-a-shoestring stuff is watchable without cringing embarrassment. Nor is the plot, per-se, the problem - as Sci-Fi goes it's a respectable enough premise, and it ought to have been possible to make a decently entertaining film out of it.
No, what staggered me was the incredible way in which even the most basic appreciation of contemporary science and technology seems to have eluded the writers, script editors and director.
I know this is a common complaint about sci-fi adaptations, and sometimes seen in artistic circles a churlish and unfair criticism - after all, these are "creative people", not "cold-fish scientists" (as the stereotypes go) - but this film is scarily Luddite to the point, as I said, of embarrassment. The most self-consciously "arty" of my friends and acquaintances have a better grasp of basic technology than the writers involved in this turkey. I have to wonder if the makers of this film are the ones featured in all those myths you encounter: Folk who think covers on their wall sockets stop the electricity dribbling out; people who use their computer CD ROM trays as cup holders; those who try to copy floppy discs on a photocopier or staple documents to their computer screen by way of e-mail attachments.
Here, it seems a real pride has been taken in ensuring that most of this film's potential audience, who in 2006 might be assumed to be vaguely technically literate, would suffer tooth-gnashing agony every three to five minutes.
So given the above, I hope it's meant to be a parody.
Taken as a parody of the genre it fares a bit better, but it's still deficient insofar as it's not so much funny as painful, and badly paced at that.
To steal a phrase, this movie fills a much-needed gap.
9 Songs (2004)
Boring, badly shot
Michael Winterbottom is undoubtedly a good and serious writer/director, and I have to say that if the point of this film is to push the censorship envelope then it clearly succeeds (which is why I have slightly mixed feelings about it). That it does so on a rather low budget is, sadly, apparent in the cinematography.
Shot (badly) on video, the colour balance is all over the place. The lighting is mostly pretty awful, giving a sort of ugly documentary feel which doesn't quite come off because sometimes it looks like a failed attempt at sensuous and beautiful. Or perhaps that's deliberate and ironic? Frankly, I don't much care because the film, for me, had a peculiarly effective way of sapping any enthusiasm I originally felt for watching people having sex on-screen, and went on to nibble away at my enthusiasm for staying awake, breathing etc.
Music I don't like, no plot whatsoever, awful dialogue and an uninspired, un-believable sex-based relationship lacking any convincing chemistry left me with the (uncharitable) impression that the casting was mostly about who was prepared to be filmed having sex for general release and that the writing was mostly about leaving the actors to make it up as they went along.
In fairness, I suspect that if the protagonists had looked like they actually enjoyed having sex, the censors mightn't have passed it, which is perhaps the point of this film. My hope is that it was worthwhile and, having classified this, the BBFC must now take the position that adult British audiences are to be considered grown-up enough to watch consensual sex by way of entertainment. (However badly done, it's got to be better than being entertained by bloody violence, I think.) Perhaps worth (Brits) watching for the novelty value of uncensored sex in a movie on general release, just don't expect it to be any good. Probably an "important" film in the UK, and I daresay it paid handsomely. If I had to choose between this and some gangster movie or bloodthirsty thriller, I'd have to go for this, but I might take earphones and an alternative soundtrack and possibly something to read.
When Night Is Falling (1995)
One of my favourite films
This film is tremendously human, and very beautiful. Watch it.
That's really all I want to say, but the IMDb, in its wisdom, insists on an essay.
While most lengthy comments truly are useful, considered and very detailed, they don't necessarily give you any better an idea of what a film is *like*, beyond what the blurb on a video box tells you. I saw such a blurb for this film and it dissuaded me from bothering to watch it until I'd forgotten about it.
I like it. Other things I like are people, love, closeness. I'm white, Western, middle-aged, male, bisexual, middle-class.
This is a film about people, love and closeness. It's tremendously optimistic, and it's completely devoid of the spiteful "cleverness" which seems to blight so many adult-targeted films. People rave about, say, The Godfather, which I detest, or Pulp Fiction, which I detest even more. If, like me, you find you have better things to do with your time than sit through three hours of gangster-related faux intellectualism, you might, like me, find that you very much enjoy this fabulously directed and produced feast for the sympathetic.
Nothing, but nothing truly awful happens to anyone in this film. No vengeful, base emotion is indulged in the viewer, no cheapening of pain or trivialisation of death. The characters, though, are solid and believable.
There are some delicious love scenes, and the plot is unashamedly up-beat. If you liked "Nine Songs", you might not like this. If you liked "The Dreamers" or "Holy Smoke" or "Gauzon Maudit" then you might like this, although apart from sumptuous cinematography it's not that similar to any of those.
If you're apt to be offended by a perhaps jaded (if sympathetic) view of a Christian church, or by homosexuality (lesbianism), love, women, interracial relationships or happiness then stick with pretentious films about murder or whatever. If you like people, I think it's hard to dislike this film.