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kroekus
Reviews
Flashforward: Better Angels (2010)
Demetri and Janis - out of character
Demetri and Janis getting off with each other was so clumsy and so out of character for both of that I have to suspect some real world agenda. A sop to the religious viewer by watering down Janis' gayness?
Janis did look like developing into a really well rounded character but her budding romance was killed off almost before it started. I have been watching in the hope that romance might be revived. The way Janis broke off with Maya was a bit extreme but not so extreme that a plausible explanation of Janis's reaction could not have be introduced or for Maya to be reintroduced at a later stage. However, this episode does seem to suggest that there has been a decision not to develop Janis' character fully.
Paris, Texas (1984)
DNA v love
It has nice stark images and a cool sound track .
But Reality Check:
The boy is being taken from the two people who have shown they love him, who are his real parents even if not his biological parents, and handed to a someone who is a stranger and clearly has serious issues about relationships of any sort. Sure she sends a sum of money at regular intervals but given that she has made no attempt to contact him for for years it clearly is not about real love. People who like the film talk about how it deals with loss, alienation and an inability to communicate. Fine. But why is it supposed to be a good thing to dump the boy into that nightmare? Just to sacrifice him on the altar of DNA?
For One Night (2006)
Pooly plotted, unbelievable and inconsistent characters
There are two problems with this film. First it focuses on one student Brianna McCallister, almost exclusively devotes far too much to the reporter. We get to know a good deal more about the reporters father than any student other than Brianna. Something like this could not happen without the students sticking together and this is not shown beyond the most superficial level.
Secondly, none of the characters are written to be remotely consistent.
The result is a series of episodes that gives little feel for how a group of students might succeed in integrating their prom. There is a good story in the real events that this film is based on - this is not it.
If Only (2004)
it's the feelings that make the plot come alive
It's no mystery why this film wasn't taken up in Hollywood. For Hollywood, the mantra that our fate is in our hands is so ingrained that the fatalism that this film is steeped in must have gone down like a lead balloon. In the world of this film it is fate (personified by a London Taxi Driver) that holds our future in his hands. He may give us second chances but that is entirely in his gift. However, beyond the friendly advice given fate has no control over our feelings.
What makes the film is how perfectly Jennifer Love Hewitt and Paul Nicholls create the relationship of Sam and Ian. Ian is in the role of the one who takes Sam for granted while Sam is in the somewhat desperate position of the one who loves more. Because they do that so successfully, because while watching you believe the emotional growth of Ian are completely real then what you actually think of fatalist back drop is unimportant. I suspect this is the reworking of some medieval romance. If so they have done far more than rewrite it for the 21st century – they have created the perfect love story.