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Rings (2017)
As expected: drivel
The scariest aspect of this entire franchise is how Hollywood just won't let it lie down and die gracefully. If there's one thing you can take to the bank, it's that they will milk the cash cow until it bleeds. I mean, come on guys: we've said everything we can about cursed video tapes (seriously? We have to write in an entire scene where some nostalgic vintage tech lunatic buys a video machine just so he can watch the freaking tape. Because, you know, that tech is SO second millennium. It's not like anyone on the planet still watches videos, and even if they might have nothing better to do, where are they going to get the machine to watch it anyway? You can't hire them any more.) We've already said everything we can say about waterlogged pubescent girls crawling out of wells and TV screens. We've said all we can say about experimental art films which are just so bad they'll kill you stone dead within a week. But no, now we have to go over the same ground again, just in case anybody missed the previous instalments or anyone hasn't totally lost all interest in ever spending another cent for seeing anything to do with the Rings franchise ever again.
And boy, do they deliver on the promise to kill you. This sad little attempt badly needs a government health warning: DEADLY BOREDOM MIGHT RESULT FROM WATCHING THIS FILM. Before you sit down to watch it, they should call your phone and whisper "100 minutes" into your ear. The scares are non-existent; the performances lifeless; the effects absolutely no less than the industry can possibly deliver with computers doing everything; the direction manages to be both bored and boring. What else? Oh yeah: the entire premise. Unsurprisingly, it's uninspired, unoriginal, uninteresting and unintelligent.
Don't waste your money. There are far better scares out there. In fact, you'll probably find scarier stuff down the back of the couch, and you'll put the time to far better use with spring cleaning.
Under the Dome (2013)
Under the Dumb
If you're a fan of Stephen King, you might as well stop reading right here. If you're like me and completely fail to understand why his books are so popular, don't bother with watching this series, because it's a particularly poor adaptation of one of his sillier ideas. If you are one of his fans (why are you still reading this? Oh, never mind), you probably want to go find something else of his to watch instead.
Why's it so bad? Where to start? The stupid premise? Or maybe the cardboard cut-out characters, the mediocre acting, the cheap, "dramatic" TV music, the atrocious writing? OK, yes, the writing. Here's a single example: One of the main characters is a journalist, and her mission through the series is to try and find out exactly what's going on and let everyone else in the town know about it. Now, by the end of the first episode, pretty much everyone in the town - and I do mean everyone, including the new guy, the only one who doesn't previously know her - plus the entire audience, plus their next-door neighbours, plus their second cousin twice removed and their aunt Maggie May's dog knows exactly who she is and what her character's primary motivations are. Yet the writers feel the need to write a scene where she tells one of the other characters (who knows exactly who she is, etc.) "I'm a journalist, and my mission is to find out exactly what's going here and let everyone in the town know!" Um, what? Way to go for on-the-nose, retarded exposition, guys. Seriously. If anyone in the really, really cheap seats missed it because they're brain dead, well, now they're caught up.
This series is nonsensical tripe, retarded drivel of the worst kind, pure stinky bilge, unmitigated bull pucky. You name it. What it is not, is intelligent science fiction, decent TV or a good way to waste your time by watching it. I'm giving it 5 out of 10 because I don't much enjoy kicking mentally handicapped toddlers, but I'm being VERY generous.
The Purge (2013)
An exercise in poor taste
Starting out with a silly basic premise of allowing anarchy to reign unchecked for 12 hours once a year, this film has reasonably decent performances from its cast but is sold out by generally dull writing and consistently mediocre and uninspired direction. The idea that crime can be controlled by allowing a free-for-all one night a year is ridiculous, and it says much about a society which is so incapable of controlling itself that it needs to resort to a purge instead of finding healthy ways to channel aggression.
The writer/director relies far too much on stupid choices made by the characters (I counted four from the son before I just stopped counting) for his plot twists, and also far too much on last second saves of someone's life when all seems to be lost (again, I counted four separate incidents before I stopped counting). The cast works hard, but there's zero chemistry between the parents and nothing but smirking, mincing lunacy from the main antagonist. The fixed, passive-aggressive grins as everyone wishes everyone a safe night became simply annoying.
People who don't mind a bit of barely-motivated gore and violence will likely enjoy this without caring about the poor quality. People who want some intelligence in the films they watch would do better to look elsewhere.
Solaris (2002)
Not a sci-fi. It's a slow, dull romantic drama
I have both this and Tarkovsky's version of Stanislaw Lem's novel. I found both of them to be somewhat of a trial, although for slightly different reasons. Both are slow, and unless you are easily confused and generally clueless, they don't actually have much of a mystery to them because the secret of the "mystery" is kind of obvious very early on. Where this one fails compared to the 1972 version is that the science fiction is merely a shallow vehicle for a rather stodgy and slow treatment of a doomed romance. There's no actual science in the story at all. It's full of rather obvious logical flaws which distract from the story. There's also little to no science fiction in this version, since it revolves almost entirely about a lonely man's inability to deal with the loss of the difficult and rather fay woman he loved; the science fiction, such as it is, merely provides a pretty backdrop and an excuse for a series of dull flashbacks to the highlights of their relationship. Where the modern remake scores over Tarkovsky's film is that it's about an hour shorter, which means you can get it over and done with that much quicker. On the balance I found the modern take to be more accessible, the only problem being the lack of interest in what you are able to access.
To sum up: if you're a science fiction fan rather than a fan of romantic drama, don't bother. If you're a fan of slow, dense, intense romantic dramas with troubled characters who sit staring into space for unreasonable amounts of time, and with stories which have pretensions of being intellectual, then you will probably enjoy this.
The seven points I'm giving it are for a good cast who put in decent performances despite the stodgy material, and for fairly decent production values. I feel like I'm being overly generous and it actually doesn't deserve more than 6 points, but what the hell. At least they tried hard.
The Hole (2009)
*Yawn*
I can't believe I actually sat through this entire movie. What a total waste of time. I think it's the first horror I've ever seen that manages to be both completely boring, while simultaneously constructed almost entirely out of horror movie clichés: small town, check. Dysfunctional family moves into new home, check. Snotty kids, check. Distracted single mother, check. Precocious perky next-door teen girl, check. Creepy little dead girl, check. Creepy evil animated doll, check. Creepy old guy who knows too much, check. Complete failure to act intelligently around supernatural threat, check. About the only thing the film makers didn't use was the screaming cat trope. That's probably the only shock of the entire movie.
Best moment of the movie: when Dane accidentally backs into Julie's boobs, and there's a resounding metallic CLANG on the soundtrack.
Worst moment: most of the rest of the film could qualify, but probably the worst worst was the entirely flat performances in monotone voices from the cast during the climactic scenes. Oh, and Bruce Dern - who is less than Oscar material at his best - gets a Special Mention for the single worst performance of his career. Give it up, Bruce. It's time to retire, because you're just embarrassing yourself now.
The direction was dull, the story trite and boring, the script poorly written with some truly atrocious dialogue, the music was awful, the performances from the entire cast were poor. The cinematography was undistinguished. The special effects weren't the worst part of the whole movie, which doesn't say much.
If you're twelve and your parents don't mind you watching scary stuff, you might not find this a complete waste of time. If you're not twelve and you have a brain, you can do far better.
Beowulf & Grendel (2005)
Ho hum.
I had no high expectations (my crap detector predicting a "meh" out of 10) but was still disappointed. Don't get me wrong: I like Gerald Butler, for reasons which escape me, but hey, if you can stomach King Leonidas sporting a red Speedo and a Scots accent, you can handle Beowulf. Amiright? No fan of 300, I was pleasantly surprised to see Gerry manage an entire hack-and-slash movie role without displaying a six pack or a male nipple. I wasn't surprised that he didn't manage a single syllable of dialogue without the Scots brogue. His portrayal of Beowulf could charitably be called "competent"; he didn't fudge his lines and he didn't drop his sword, but he could have been replaced by any of a hundred other actors. Oh yeah, he ran up the hills fairly well. Not that it counts. Zero points.
I was very pleasantly surprised at possibly the best performance I've ever seen from Stellan Skarsgard. The man's an extremely accomplished actor, but watching him bring the conflicted, haunted, guilt-ridden, drunken sot King Hrothgar to life was a revelation. His was without doubt the best performance in the entire film, with one possible exception, of which more in a moment. Worth a solid two points alone.
The only real competitor for best performance was from Eddie Marsdan. Eddie's one of those character actors, someone who will likely never hold a leading role in any movie you'll ever see, but whose character portrayals provide a great foil to the leading actor's performance. His lunatic Brother Brendan was highly amusing, at times inspired, and only betrayed by poor direction and cinematography. They should have used him more intelligently. One point there.
Interesting to see Rory McCann in a role other than that of the Hound from Game of Thrones, but seeing him without GoT armour and prosthetics was the only interesting thing about his involvement in Beowulf & Grendel. His performance was flat, uninspired, completely forgettable. Zero points.
The rest of the cast can be lumped together, except for a shout out to the actor whose spastic village idiot reveals the location of Grendel's cave. One of the better mentally handicapped performances I've seen recently. One point.
The direction was lacklustre and dull, sometimes even tiresome. In some scenes it seemed like the actors had run out of things to do and were waiting for the director to remember to shout "Cut!" Many of the best moments - Grendel's first attack on the Danes for instance - were completely ballsed-up by bad direction, mediocre choreography and poor planning of shots, and then compounded by indifferent to awful cinematography. Those two elements together reduced potentially a great retelling of the epic story to the level of a low-budget TV movie made by the film industry rank-and-file. I'm tempted to deduct a point here, but let's face it, this film hasn't scored many yet, so I'll be nice and let them get away with an undeserved zero points.
The soundtrack was nothing but dull orchestral elevator music. In many scenes there was no music at all to help us feel the emotional tone. At others times it was intrusive, and it was almost always completely inappropriate. This is inexcusable. There are extremely talented film composers working in Iceland today - Atli Örvarsson's soundtrack for The Eagle is a fantastic example of the work coming out of there. The Norwegian band Wardruna contributed a great deal of absolutely superb music to the Vikings TV series. They use authentic instruments and Nordic singing, and their albums are nothing less than haunting. It's a crying shame that we had to sit through the audio drivel we were served up in this case. Minus one point.
The script was generally good and even at times very good, but it was badly compromised by modern syntax and grammar, modern colloquialisms and worst of all, modern Anglo-Saxon swearwords. The plot was decent enough in that it's fairly close to the original epic poem, but that wasn't so much a function of good scriptwriting as it was of good source material. One point for a nice effort.
The props, sets and costumes were generally good, especially the weapons and helmets. The modern, shiny-finish leather used in some of the armour was a serious mistake, as was the use of some modern textiles. And the hairy muscle suits worn by the trolls looked ridiculous in every well-lit shot. Someone should have noticed that during production and tried to fix it. One point there, but only because I can't give half points on IMDb.
One ludicrous moment was early in the film when Beowulf was introduced to us by swimming ashore in full armour, minus helmet, and wearing a sword in a sheath. The fact is that authentic Viking chainmail hauberks weighed something in the order of 10 or 15 kg - call it 25 to 30 lb if you think Imperial. Add another 3 kg - say 8 lb - for a medium sword, plus a few kilograms of assorted leather, and you're looking at probably 20 kg (50 lb) of weight he'd have to be carrying, not including shoes and other clothing. It doesn't matter how strong a swimmer he is, he'd just sink like a stone. The fact that the film industry uses aluminium and rubber in place of metal and leather armour specifically in order to reduce the weight worn by the actors is no excuse. None at all.
So the grand total is a whopping five points, which I think is probably far too generous. To sum up, if you decide to watch Beowulf & Grendel, don't expect much and you're unlikely to be disappointed. If you want to see something special then don't bother wasting your money unless you're a fan of Stellan Skarsgard. Or you have a crush on Gerry that doesn't depend on well-chiselled abs and the briefest of red briefs.
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Bring a seat belt. And leave your brain at the door.
I work in the South African film industry and I'm also an award-winning screenwriter, so I have the insider's perspective on film. It's with an industry professional's perspective that I sat down to see Fury Road.
A lot of my friends worked on this film during most of a year of principle photography in Namibia, on both sides of the camera, and what a hell of a film it has turned out to be. It's a slapdash, rip-roaring, runaway, balls-to-the-wall, anarchic roller-coaster juggernaut that rides roughshod, ruthlessly and deliberately, over pretty much every hallowed scriptwriting rule in the book. Then it throws them the finger in the rear-view mirror as it roars away, yet somehow it manages to get away with all of it. It's less of a film than a cataclysmic event, and make no mistake, it's highly entertaining. In the way of far too many Hollywood blockbusters, you might want to leave your brain at the door, and don't worry about such niceties as sense, or a plot, because there is none (yeah, that's a major spoiler right there). Having said that, there's no denying the entertainment value of Fury Road.
The downside, of course, is that if you begin to make a habit out of creating films with essentially no plots by shooting a bunch of footage and then trying to make a story out of it when you get to the editing stage, then someone might start to think that scripts are redundant, maybe even decide they don't need scriptwriters at all. Which couldn't be further from the truth, but let's face it, that has never stopped people in the past. Unfortunately I think this might be the beginning of a new phase in the film industry, and I'm afraid that we might start to see an even greater dumbing-down (if that's possible) of Hollywood film in general. Which is a crying shame, because despite all the ways in which Hollywood craps on film as a higher art, and their habit of aiming their releases at the lowest common denominator, they are still the biggest single influence on the medium, and the Hollywood 'tentpole' films tend to define the genres in which they're released.
So my 8 out of 10 is scored for high production values, good performances, decent music and high entertainment value, but not for intelligent writing or direction.
Supernatural: Man's Best Friend with Benefits (2013)
Fantastic episode of Supernatural
I work in the film industry and write for TV and film myself. I'm an award-winning scriptwriter, a director, and jack-of-all-trades in the film industry. I also watch a LOT of great TV. This is what I wrote about this episode:
Just finished watching one of the best TV episodes I've ever seen. Supernatural, season 8, episode 15. Brilliantly done. Incredibly intelligent writing. Excellent dialogue full of rich subtext, sometimes as much as two layers deep. Great story that works well as a standalone package, fits the series episode format, doesn't give too much away, has surprising twists, and some plot events that leave you on a cliffhanger with two equally possible scenarios of what's actually happening, then comes back later, advances them both further and yet still keeps you hanging. Same level of complexity with subplots. Showed solid development in the main plot arc and the main season arc. Introduced a solid advance on a major shift in the character dynamic between the brothers over the last couple of episodes, and shows their relationship go through a very strong arc within the episode and come out much deeper and better for it. Shows the brothers working at cross purposes, so that they are competing rather than cooperating, and that creates a whole lot of plot and character and relationship impact through the conflict in scenes through the entire episode. Referenced the critical events in the characters story arcs, kept the characters completely in character, introduced some very clever new ones, brought out superb performances from all the main cast. Even the guest stars had a relationship arc that worked well, full of depth, a picture of two people in love but beset not only by events, but also by internal conflict in themselves and also internal conflict in their relationship. Lots of excellent, truly funny and intelligent humour that references in-jokes running through the series. Plenty of reward for fans who have been watching the series, because there's so much depth. Strong conflict, nail-biting climax that really hits hard with the characters being forced to face deepest fears. Surprising story twists that are fully explained and never demand suspension of disbelief. Some extremely clever devices that work within the context of the episode plot to resolve the main story arc.
Boom. Pretty much as close to a perfect piece of TV writing as I've ever seen. Truly a superb script.
Digging to China (1997)
A mildly flawed gem
I watched Timothy Hutton's 1997 directorial debut last night, called Digging to China. It's an obscure, limited release, low-budget film, made from a great little script by Karen Janszen. I had never heard of it, but the review in my film guide made it sound intriguing. Kevin Bacon is usually highly watchable and I've always liked him and his work. It costars Mary Stuart Masterson of whom we never see enough these days, and best of all, it was Evan Rachel Wood's first film.
Timothy Hutton's direction was fine for the most part. It was understated and light-handed, allowing the actors to breathe in their roles and bring the characters to life themselves. At times it felt a little too light and left the film feeling essentially directionless. And occasionally it seemed as though the actors had run out of things to say or do in a shot and were just hanging around waiting for the director to remember to shout "Cut!" Despite being a fan of the man and his work, unfortunately I found Kevin Bacon's performance to be somewhat disappointing. In the first act he seemed to be working too hard at the character of Ricky, a mentally retarded man who stays over at a cabin motel run by the family of Evan Rachel Wood's character Harriet. I don't think he did as well with it as other actors have in similar roles. The performances by Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, Leo DiCaprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, Cuba Gooding Jr in Radio, Sean Penn in I Am Sam and Brendan Fletcher in Tideland were all far better in my opinion. It's only once he gets further into the role and the story settles down a bit, that he seems to become comfortable and more convincing in it, and by the end his performance was reaching deeply to bring out the emotions in the character.
Mary Stuart Masterson does a competent job of portraying Harriet's elder sister Gwen. She was convincing in a role which largely consisted of acting as a foil and an antagonist to Harriet. They seemed as contrary and hateful towards one another as only real sisters can be, and the circumstances they suddenly find themselves in made it hard for Gwen to cope.
But what lifted the film and made it well worth every one of the seven stars I've given it was young Evan Rachel Wood's portrayal of the ten-year-old Harriet. Digging to China is absolutely and completely her film. Everyone else was really only contributing a supporting role to her great performance. Harriet is endearing and sweet, a solemn and lonely little girl with knobbly knees and long blonde hair who is left to her own devices in order to keep herself amused in her small world of make believe. She's played convincingly and seriously by Evan, occasionally showing some of her future self confidence as she portrays a lonely child; a child whose inventiveness while she plays amuses us even as we realise these are not just games she's playing; they're attempts at escape from her lonely existence. It's Harriet and Ricky's deepening friendship in her life of desperation which gives the film its emotional depth and real poignancy.
The film won the Children's Jury Award at the Chicago International Children's Film Festival. Evan remembers the role of Harriet as initially being hard, but she said that it "eventually led to her decision that acting is something she might never want to stop doing." It's not always easy to find, but it will reward the effort of hunting up a copy if you're looking to see something a little different.
Nanjing! Nanjing! (2009)
A cinematic masterpiece
I am a dedicated fan of good war films, and have a substantial proportion of the greats in my own personal collection; so it is with some experience of the genre that I say that Chuan Lu's film is an absolutely outstanding cinematic masterpiece. This is an awesome achievement which stands head and shoulders above so much of the competition. Brilliantly written, brilliantly directed, topical and yet also historically authentic, it brings some fantastic talent to the screen who all give uniformly superb performances. The film is shot in black and white, which gives it a gritty, unsparing authenticity, and the cinematography is masterful and evocative. Every shot looks like a period photograph. The battle scenes are realistic, well choreographed, and technically accurate. And the music is haunting, contributing to the film at every level, and building to a heartbreaking climax. This is without doubt one of the best films I have ever seen, but it is also not for the faint of heart. The sheer squalor, horror, brutality and inhumanity of war is not shied away from, nor is the audience ever spared. Expect to come away from watching it emotionally drained.