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Reviews
Ripley (2024)
Masterful and glorious
What a sumptuous, classy treat.
If you loved The Third Man, this is like an 8-part feast in a similar cinematographic vein.
Every frame is exquisite. Gorgeous lighting, magical locations, incredible sound design and editing. Andrew Scott is as astounding as ever of course, but all the cast are superb. There's even some occasional Tati-like levity. Even if you know the story you'll still be carried along with the tension, the all-too-relatable messiness and the nail-biting near-misses.
How refreshing are the long, long sequences without any music? But music is elegantly used where it does appear.
Something this good doesn't come around often.
Bravissimo to everyone on this production. Enjoy!
Maestro (2023)
The nose is the least of its problems
Some lovely noir lighting, of course a big spend, but this doesn't do any justice to the great LB.
Admittedly this would be hard to achieve for anyone; but Cooper doesn't really achieve the depth, the nuance, the voice, the facial expressiveness (OK maybe that is The Nose) or gravitas.
It's an angle to explore, the homosexuality and relationship with Felicia; but to major on the personal conflicts rather than the huge musical life creates such a reductive skew of Bernstein's towering musical achievement and reach.
Couldn't catch much of the rushed/thrown away dialogue either. Overall, pretty disappointed.
A Haunting in Venice (2023)
Well, Venice looks nice anyway...
A big 'don't bother' otherwise for this viewer. Directing: nuls points. Branagh's Belfast was good, so there'd been hope that his next Poirot film would be ok, but sadly nope, and for multiple reasons. His version of Hercule is charmless and unconvincing. Tina Fey's Ariadne is even less convincing - odd casting. Sound not great and much dialogue rushed and/or thrown away. The camera angles are annoying and alienating, music meh... Some great actors, all ill-served. If only we cared who'd done what and what happened, but sadly nope again - couldn't finish it.
This might tempt you to visit Venice though, if nothing else. Still one of the best film locations in the world.
Great Expectations (2023)
Just. Don't.
What the Dickens? Not the Dickens, by any stretch.
Vaguely based on his plot and characters but stuffed with 'kna' I mean' modern dialogue, sexual perversion and drug taking. What's the point of 'authentic mud' realism and then all that totally unnecessary inauthenticity? The additions don't illuminate, only confuse.
The thing about Dickens was that he offered the possibility of redemption in his elegant writing. You were invested and you rooted for people. Not here. Someone here is so keen on being ooh, all gritty and that, yeah, kna' I mean, that there's none of the charm, humour and possibility of goodness in characters that makes you able to enjoy them. Everyone is soooo miserable it's all monotone.
Couldn't get past ep 1 it was so awful. Avoid.
This use of license fee-payers' money is a self-inflicted nail in the coffin for the desperate-for-the-youth-market-who-ain't-interested-and-ain't-its-audience Beeb.
Syk pike (2022)
Ghastly/hilarious/disturbing
Funny-awful characters and an exploration of how far someone's competitive narcissism might lead them in their desperation for significance.
Funny enough to get you past Signe and Thomas's deeply unsympathetic natures, some of the script is laugh out loud and other lines and bits of action just make you gasp. You can't quite believe what you're watching and are left feeling weird anxiety that someone somewhere might actually do something like this...
The makeup is brilliantly done, building from touches through fascinating to horrific, and will hopefully win the MUA team a good bundle of awards.
In short, cleverly compelling, funny, horrific and thought-provoking.
Spencer (2021)
Hatchet job
Nobody is in the least sympathetic except the chef, and there's no way Diana was as histrionic as she's portrayed here.
Not a royalist here by any means, but found this film a distasteful character assassination of the whole family.
Some people think KS is Oscar-worthy here.
Not in this viewer's opinion - total caricature.
A big fat no.
The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun (2021)
Indulgent mess with good moments
Half a dozen elaborate and expensive set pieces in search of a story.
Excited anticipation quickly turned to dismay and disappointment. Confused, rush-along script and many thrown away big set pieces. Wait! Stop! We were trying to take that in - oh - gone. Whimsical, thin, mocking storylines. Music score lazy, thin, repetitive, got very annoying.
Some truly gorgeous art department work though, and great performances from Benicio Del Toro, Timothée Chalomet and especially Jeffrey Wright, who managed to finally breathe some human warmth into this overindulgent dog's dinner.