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leslietwalters
Reviews
Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)
Mike Leigh gets it off his chest, unfortunately
What was Mike Leigh thinking? You could put this lead character in front of a starving child and she would just giggle and call it a miserable sod. This film is abysmal beyond belief. How people can possibly call this uplifting is beyond my comprehension. It is amazingly depressing that the central character is such a stupid scumbag and we are, I think, supposed to like her. She is worse than many a movie villain. I mean she does not have to be unhappy, but she is so incapable of taking anything seriously she becomes disgusting, and yet she tries to impose her stupid nature not just onto but into all those around her. The script, as it sees the world through her eyes, is inevitably equally stupid and irritating. This is an abysmal, awful pukebucket of a film. Mike Leigh get back to your supposedly depressing films because they are not as depressing as this one. I think he just wanted to prove to us he is capable of making something other than the bleak stuff for which he is known. He failed. I think his motives were as flawed as his craft in this case.
This Life (1996)
Just another step in television's ruination
'This Life' is truly as bad as it gets. Its cast of mercenary, lascivious, ruthless, duplicitous, shallow characters are intended as a reflection on its post-eighties setting and I have to admit in this regard it is an accurate creation. Unfortunately, it leaves me nothing to sympathise with or care about and I regard it as just another step toward the television premium-rate phone in scams; astonishingly bad, cheap, reality and 'celebrity' saturated television; and other cut and run attitudes that have destroyed this medium and, indeed, much of British society. Sounds exaggerated? I don't think it is. In this regard programs such as 'This Life' have indeed been as influential as they are often called.
Braindead (1992)
Can't believe it has taken me until 2006 to see this little gem
Since The Lord of the Rings films are all more tedious than eating your way through Saturn with a teaspoon, I was very surprised that in his earlier, less mainstream days, Peter Jackson made this delightful little splatterfest. This Australian film is great fun(what Australia makes films? next you will be telling me France does), with obvious nods to Raimi's Evil Dead and Romero's Zombie flicks. It is difficult to believe that this piece of low budget enthusiasm and the production line trash of the rings trilogy are by the same man, except possibly for one thing - both display his love of excess, and this must rank among the goriest movies ever (all done in delightfully bad taste of course).
The Italian Job (2003)
Italian Job 2003 - too much garlic and no base
I have read the other comments on on this page regarding this film and most, if not all, praise it. Yet, throughout the entirety of these(inane) 'reviews' no one compares it to or even mentions the fact that it is a remake of the vastly superior 1969 Michael Caine vehicle. I have to admit I had low expectations of this new film, and they were not disappointed, it was actually even worse than I anticipated. All performer presence, witty dialogue, and the action of one of the best car chases on celluloid (perhaps the best) has been removed to be substituted with blinding teeth, slicked back hair and constant, unimaginative, intrusive cutting. Even if the director wished to have a car chase to match the earlier set piece (he does not) he could not accomplish it because the demands of the ludicrously short takes in mainstream modern American cinema (to suit short attention spans) mean the stunt drivers cannot drive more than a few metres before 'CUT' must be called. The performers of the first film have, as with so many modern examples, been replaced by young, vacuous, uncharismatic and ineffectual model types. On the strength of the first film I went against my better judgement and gave part of my life to this trash: its enough to make me now hate the first film too.