Reviews

This is something I told my son repeatedly as he grew up. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that this is a message Ms. Cunk's parents conveyed to her, or if they did, she certainly wasn't listening, nor, it seems, Netflix executives (or quite a few of its viewers it seems). So maybe some (or even a lot) of people think stupid IS funny. But I don't. The running gag of the glazed eyes of the experts (who clearly were prompted to respond this way to her, rather than simply sneering as any unrehearsed person would) who are subjected to her feigned stupidity runs thin the first 10 or so times (well in fact the 2nd) it was presented. Of course I get the fact that Ms. (or possible Dr.) Cunk in reality probably knows vastly more about history than I do and quite possibly a number of her experts. But she is now working as a comedian and that is an art about which, in my soon to be ridiculed opinion, she knows absolutely nothing. Or rather, what she thinks she knows is wrong or, more to the point NOT FUNNY.

Still the program might have been redeemed if it actually conveyed a reasonable amount of historical knowledge, thus justifying her posing as contemporary ignoramus by providing the "spoonful of sugar" that "makes the medicine go down". But no, the history is garbage also, and what isn't (ineptly) made up is almost non-existent.

It short, to quote Jon Lovitz's immortal "Critic" (who actually did know a thing or two about humor), "It Stunk".

As the world extravagantly mourns the death of a woman whom, rather like Paris Hilton, is famous mostly for being famous, many cannot help but wonder what all the fuss is about. A Royal Night Out endeavors to answer that question. Like the Beverly Hillbillies, or My Blue Heaven, A Royal Night Out is a study in cultural conflict, here between the "posh" world of the English royal family and the decidedly proletarian one inhabited by most of its subjects, whom we are told here the royal princesses secretly envy for their uninhibited lifestyle. But more importantly, it is in many ways sheer Royalist propaganda. "See how the British love (or at least respect) the Royal Family" is the main message of the film. Thus a less than worshipful airman is battered and ejected from a working class pub for adversely commenting on the King's speech celebrating the end of the war against Germany, while Princess Margret need only casually refer to herself as "P2" (second princess) to place the proprietors of a marvelously named "knocking shop" at her service as wholly as a virus invading a cell.

But the point is laid on the thickest in the climactic scene in which the working class soldier who has essentially been drafted by Elizabeth, misidentifying herself to him as "Lizzy", as her informal guide and protector during her epic search for her sister (who wandered away from her to look for a "hot" club where she can dance the "Lindy Hop") is arrested by military police. This prompts "P1" to intervene by loudly identifying herself as "the Princess Elizabeth". The sudden freezing of the chaotic ballroom that occurs with the knowledge that royalty is among them is an enthusiastic paean to the power of what even by then was already an essentially decorative institution. As the future Queen and her entourage exit the ballroom each man she passes gives her a rigid salute while the ladies, including a number of prostitutes, show off their best curtsies. Everyone wants the Royals to know that they know how to behave in their presence even as they are well aware that the princesses couldn't care less.

The Guardian informs us that the film is (surprise surprise) a work of fiction and that the princesses real night out on VE day was far tamer. That is, of course, as irrelevant as revealing that George Washington never actually chopped down a cherry tree. The film is a fable and like any other fable is important primarily for its symbolic truth. The symbolic truth which it seeks here to convey is that the Royals, despite being decidedly ordinary people, with no special talent except for highly proper and (needless to say) entitled, behavior, give meaning to the lives of the English by their mere existence. In this it succeeds brilliantly. God Save the King!

Not recommended for anyone suffering from any kind of breathing problems. May cause shortness of breath, asthma attacks, and/or asphyxia. Only recommended to be seen under doctor's observation with a canister of oxygen available. I am aware of at least one class action currently pending against the producers for failing to issue a warning before Fred Armisen's speech as Bishop Bartolomeo in the "inquiry" scene. Caveat viewer.

Rahdhika Apte burns up the screen just like Kathleen Turner did in the original. But now she no longer has weak pliable William Hurt to wrap around her little finger but macho tough guy Dev Patel. And when the sparks fly the results are incendiary. 9 flames!

Our Kind of Traitor provides a highly skillful presentation of the kind of film that Alfred Hitchcock used to specialize in - a naïve everyman suddenly pulled into a paranoid world of suspicion and intrigue with nothing but his good moral instincts to guide him. As indicated in the trailers, a British professor of poetry is suddenly befriended by a Russian mafia money launderer for the purpose of aiding his defection to the U.K. with evidence of massive Russian corruption of leading English politicians. The professor and his wife soon find themselves quite unwillingly dragged into situations in which prolonged torture followed by a terrible death is quite possible and in which their only defense is to pretend that everything is normal. Such a film can succeed only if credibility is carefully adhered, which is certainly the case here. This is the way to do political thrillers and the creators of this film have done it very very well.

Lobster fails as a film because it is burdened with far too many incredible features to make the viewer accept the reality of the bizarro world it exists in. It begins with the totally unexplained premise that an alternative universe exists in which single people are required to find a mate within 45 days or face being turned into an animal and goes down from there. For example, the primary means of attracting a mate in this alternate universe is to have some sort of defect shared by a potential lover such as nose bleeding or the inability to feel compassion. Nor is it clear why virtually every character speaks in the same stilted pseudo-Stalinist manner, or why the hotel in which they must search for a mate seems to be lifted straight from 1930s Soviet Union . In short, all credibility seems to been jettisoned in an efforts to create some kind of black humor. But the artists seem to have forgotten the humor is only funny if it is found in a credible context. There is nothing credible about any of these robotic characters nor the weird illogical world in which they live. Therefore when the film reached its final idiotic and yet repulsive conclusion I felt nothing but relief that the torture was finally over.

From the freakishly bizarre opening of a tiny Korean girl singing a hymn to American destruction to the freakishly bizarre ending of which virtually the entire world (with the possible exception of North Korea) now knows all too well this is a masterwork of the comedian's art. James Franco and Seth Rogen take the straightman / wildman duo to the absolute limit as they caricature the entertainment "news" culture as mercilessly they do the weirdly appealing Kim Jong Un. Say what you will about its film's very nutty wingnut politics, the humor here is nonstop, like Family Guy and its very finest and most manic, layering one joke upon another and then repeating them over and over, each time with a new and wilder spin. This, and not the moronic "Ted" or the empty "Million Ways to Die in the West" is the film Seth MacFarlane should have made, and James Franco and Steve Rogan can now claim to be the rightful heirs to his sex / potty humor / politics / wtf throne. Really, really funny. You've just GOT to see it.

The Great Gatsby is a feast for the eyes in its vivid and loving recreation of the 1920s New York bubble society. Unfortunately, the retelling of the Gatsby story did not work nearly as well as the cinematography if for no other reason than the central theme which drove the novel seems curiously out of date in contemporary America. Surely no present day Gatsby would've responded with violence to Tom Buchanan's suggestion that a self-made man like Gatsby could never be the equal of men who inherit their wealth. To the contrary, today, it goes without saying that a person who earned his billions is more admirable than one who inherits. Further, it is hard to picture a person as stiff as DiCaprio's Gatsby as a great confidence artist. Finally, the shrinking violet delicacy of Daisy Miller compares unfavorably by today's standards with the uninhibited sexuality of Tom Buchanan's whores. In short, this is a fabulous work of cinematography and reimagination of 1920s New York party culture. But as a drama it seems stiff and quaint.

You must see this film. Utterly and totally amazing. A perfect film, matched only by Body Heat and Fargo for its merciless exploration of the phenomena of criminality. The plot is so tight you can't put a razor blade between its uncemented blocks. The protagonist is trapped on the horns of terrible a dilemma, and does the only thing he can do in the situation. His choice is utterly believable and utterly horrifying. The consequences equally so. The ending is as inevitable as it is appropriate and yet I wish it weren't. But, like everything else in this film, it is as it must be. But the worst thing of all is that it could happen to any one of the tens of millions of equally vulnerable citizens of the great Uninsured States of America just as easily as in a Second World backwater like Serbia. Now that's really horrifying!

This film is a simple and direct portrayal of the lives of urban Chinese women in the interior of China - here Sichuan province. It is a world of quiet desperation as they struggle to survive and find meaning in a world filled with unreliable men, irresponsible employers and indifferent government. The gritty portrayal of Zigong City is particularly memorable. It shows a life with although far from wealthy is neither necessarily poor so much as uncomfortable and inconvenient and almost, but not quite, hopeless. Even though it does not have a strong plot line it is nevertheless completely involving. It is currently available for rent on Amazon's Video-On-Demand.

This movie attempts to tell the story of Arab-Americans living in post 9/11 Los Angeles. It is definitely a message film, and its commendable message is that Arabs are human beings just like anyone else, and that they are finding it particularly difficult to cope in the U.S. due to American fears of terrorism and stereotyping. Unfortunately, the message at times seems more important than the story, which is an amalgam of a wide variety of problems facing Arab-Americans today. Consequently, AmericanEast often feels more like a primer on the problems of Arab-Americans than an actual movie. This is best illustrated by one inadvertently humorous segment in which the history of Islam's interactions with the West is presented in a cartoon. Seemingly aimed at easily bored junior high school students, it would be best entitled "Middle East History for Super-Super Dummies" - i.e., typical young Americans. AmericanEast should be strongly praised for its many very real, well portrayed Arab-American characters. If only they were in the service of a more focused plot this would have been a fine film.

Slumdog Millionaire seamlessly combines an expose of the Darwinian struggle for survival among the abandoned poor children of urban India with an underdog's struggle against all odds and a touching romance. It portrays an India that is as attractive and modern as it is archaic and repulsive. Astonishingly it even succeeds in presenting Indian police as both brutal and sympathetic, both the guardians and prisoners of a corrupt society. Finally, it manages to be both angry and yet hopeful and even proud of India, an indictment and a celebration of all that is ugly and beautiful about this newly emerging service superpower. It is great entertainment, great education, great drama and even great comedy. In short, it is simply a great film.

The Butterfly Effect centers around the use of time travel to undo the ravages of a truly disastrous childhood. The protagonist suffers one of the worst childhoods known to film, the child of a mentally ill father, the victim of neighborly pedophile and an utterly vicious playmate. When he realizes that his cowardice and passivity in the face of evil has resulted in the death of one of his friends and the mental illness of another, he uses his inexplicable powers of time travel in a desperate effort to make it all right. In doing so he establishes himself as a realistic Harry Potter, a genuine if tragically flawed wizard in an epic battle against the overwhelming forces of evil that lurk in contemporary America. And yes, evil is not pretty, as many commenting upon this film have noticed. Let me end with the advice to anyone who didn't like the film to see the director's cut on DVD. It is even, amazingly enough, darker than the theatrical release, which was dark enough. Yet in its truly dark ending it is most true to the artistic vision of the film, and shows us the real nature of heroism.

Atonement beautifully and lovingly reconstructs the high life of the British aristocracy between the wars and the early, dark days of World War II. Unfortunately, there is much less to it than meets the eye. While the filmmaker clearly wishes us to feel a profound sense of horror and injustice at the false accusation laid against an innocent man which rests at the heart of the film, I couldn't help but feel that somehow the real horror was that this charge was laid against someone who was model handsome and well-educated, and that the punishment he suffered was relatively light by contemporary American standards. Nor could I feel anything at all for the girl whose efforts to atone for these accusation give the film its name, in large part because her initially interesting and lively character is replaced mid film by a zombie-like creature whose sole expression is a vacant stare. The film is redeemed from near triviality by a rather ingenious deus ex machina. Still, for me at least, it worked only as lavishly illustrated historical fiction, and not as drama.

Although A Mighty Heart, a fictional recreation of the search for the kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, centers around the character of Pearl's wife (persuasively evoked with a very convincing French accent by Angela Jolie), the real stars are the Pakistanis who dominate the screen and get almost all the action scenes, while Jolie mostly sits at home looking very worried, pregnant and beautiful. Mighty Heart portrays a wide tapestry of Pakistani policemen, jihadis and civilians, all of whom are presented just as three dimensionally as the Westerners around whom the film and, to a certain extent, the world, necessarily revolves. A particular kudos should go to the filmmakers for their even handed portrayal of what are normally the least sympathetic of characters, the officers of the Pakistani secret police, who are shown using a wide range of tactics from quiet persuasion to outright torture to energetically and relentlessly investigate the Pearl kidnapping. In short, Michael Winterbottom et al have taken what could have easily been a vehicle for the crudest sort of Muslim bashing and produced instead a fair and yet unblinking view of the best and worst of Pakistani life and culture.

Sydney Lumet treads on a path already well broken by the Coen Brother in their classic Fargo - crooked middle class people who commit crimes of violence against their own family to cover up their earlier crimes of deceit. However, while Fargo was cleverly plotted and darkly humorous, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is not only deadly serious, but so predictable as to be tedious. It was obvious from early on in the film that the protagonists were damned, and so each further step they take into debauchery is almost wearisome. Further, the drama was aided not one wit by the annoying use of non-chronological story telling. Mr. Lumet seems to have forgotten the basics of drama in his anxiousness to tell the world just how despicably money hungry and self-indulgent the American middle class is.

Warning: this film is vulgar and violent. If you can't get beyond the fact that there is much too much discussion of defecation and killing in this film then don't watch it. But for those who can overlook the aggressively adolescent fascination with feces and fighting will find beyond it a rather diverting discussion of political instability. Much like the Cambodia government of 1975 or any number of contemporary African government, the political authorities of the world envisioned by this film are facing an insurgency of fanatical children soldier led by a cult-like totalitarian leader. And much like the same governments, the authorities respond with equally ruthless violence and complete indifference to the well-being of their citizens or even allies. Trapped between these two equally vicious groups are our anti-heroes, interested only in making easy money. Their anti-heroic struggle against overwhelming odds to control the unlikely source of energy in their bizarre world should be an inspiration to entrepreneurs everywhere.

A movie is interesting only if it makes sense. Despite a plethora of visually intriguing animation and lots of conversation that hint at or suggest possible meanings behind it, this movie is a complete artistic failure because ultimately nothing that happened in it could be explained in some coherent fashion. Instead ideas and images flashed across the screen like the raw product of an artistic bull session. At the end of the movie my wife asked me to explain what had happened. I had no explanation to give her because none existed. Only watch this movie if you appreciate visual eye candy for its own sake. If you want your movies to mean something you will be deeply frustrated.

The problem with this series is that it is too real. I am watching it on Amazon "Unbox" and having just finished episode 2 I hate, absolutely hate, Fark, the leader of the Cell. I cannot recall any television series ever having this emotional impact. Remember the old tag line for horror movies "Just keep telling yourself its only a movie"? Well I find myself repeatedly reminding myself that its "only TV". But of course it isn't only TV is it? The possibility of a cell such as the one portrayed here actually operating in the United States is certainly within the range of plausibility. That's what gives this program its vicious authenticity. And that's why I hate it so much.

This cartoon is only half a cartoon really, and half animated comedy routines between Dr. Katz and his guest stars, who pose as his patients. As a consequence it rose and fall on the strength of its "guest patients", which was uneven. In particular, the program relied inordinately upon Ray Romano and Dom Irrera, neither of whose bits were more than occasionally funny. Perhaps this program would have lasted longer if it relied upon a more diverse cast of celebrities. In particular, I noticed that the women guests tended to be much funnier then the men, but the men predominated. Also, it could have used some character development, rather than, for example, Ben and Laura spinning around and around in the same old rut of him flinging himself at her and her putting him off, even though this is perhaps more true to life. Nevertheless, it was still one of the most entertaining programs to appear on television. I still can't understand why the brilliantly laconic Laura Silverman isn't a star!

Flushed Away is a highly entertaining and spirited comic adventure that explores the traditional theme of what happens when a highly civilized man (or, in this case, rat) is forced to survive in a new and relatively hostile world. As is traditional in this genre he flutters about helplessly for awhile before ultimately proving himself a hero. What makes FA remarkable for this genre is its tremendous enthusiasm and energy. The plot is non-stop razzle dazzle roller coaster ride in which one challenge follows another with hardly a moment to catch one's breath. Whatsmore, it achieves the rare feat of being simultaneously funny and exciting. It reminded me of nothing so much as a really really fun and funny computer adventure game.

Matchpoint is a powerful repudiation of the perception that artists do their greatest work when they are young. It is far away Woody Allen's finest drama and indeed one of the cleverest, most disciplined and seamless examples of the film noir genre that I've encountered. Allen explores the all too common dilemma of a man drawn to two different kinds of women, the good woman who offers him success and stability, and the bad woman to who offers him excitement and desire. His resolution of this dilemma seems inevitable without ever being predictable. Further, the film has important, indeed, almost profound things to say about the nature of reality itself as the story vividly illustrates. Matchpoint is not merely a good movie, but, in my opinion, a great one which is second only to Body Heat and Fargo as a compelling exploration of the themes of love, lust ambition and evil.