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oloiatao
Reviews
This September: Family Secret (2010)
I've been there myself
Dear Charles,
I still love you. Know that.
This series is terrible. Very pretty to look at--I sure hope you were able to have some fun and enjoy the place while you were shooting it. It's nice to know you've had crappy jobs just like me!
Maybe you thought it was going to be a good project. I sure thought it would be great to teach at (university name deleted to protect the guilty). Turned out the "students" all had the brains of an average canine bowel movement.
Perhaps the writers all were graduates of the college where I suffered? After all, the plot, writing, and most of the acting share the same wallpaperish qualities as my "students."
The plot was, I'm sure, committed by a thirteen year old girl. Has all the tropes--wealthy aristocrats, beautiful scenery, glamorous parties, corrupt business deals, contrary old ladies, secret bastards, and illicit sexual affairs. Definitely the script was produced by committee. At times, the dialogue is wooden and at others it's fluid. Somehow, you're able to spin hay into gold. Eileen Atkins does pretty well, too.
Ah, well. You did your best in "Shades of Love" and I did my best at the University of Name Deleted. Neither of us can be held solely responsible for the end result.
If it helps, know that my mother is enjoying "Shades of Love." And since her memory is going, she'll be enjoying it for the first time for many years to come.
Yours sincerely,
Oloiatao
Trinity (2009)
A laudable effort
Dear Charles,
Once again I watched something simply because you were in it, and I'm compelled to say, day-um, you're *good.* Of course, my love for you makes me a less-than-objective reviewer. But even adjusted for infatuation, your score is stratospheric. Damn curve- raiser, your castmates grumble. With good reason.
It's rotten bad luck the series wasn't renewed. But it's not your fault. It's the writers, bless their hearts.
I think what they meant to do was to create a quirky dramedy in the fashion of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Unfortunately, they made several key errors:
1. While the mystery was certainly compelling enough to keep viewers tuning in, it was strung out too long. If the writers had moved some of the revelations into earlier episodes, viewer appetites would have been whetted for more. Instead, they became frustrated and gave up.
2. The unlikeable characters--Dorian, Maltravers--were at first too unpleasant for a viewer to endure very long. Yes, these characters were eventually revealed to have redeeming features, but too late and too little.
3. Lacking better information about the role it played in the project, the injunction to "protect the Dandelion Club" became annoyingly nonsensical.
4. It wasn't clear how seriously the viewer was meant to take certain aspects of the plot. Yes, viewers yearn for television which does not pander to the lowest common intellect. But there's a big difference between being clever and being impenetrably obscure. Again, more information provided earlier in the series would have been helpful.
Darling Charles, my love for you is true. I'll always cherish the moments Maltravers was on screen because of your delicious performance. The urgency of your search of the "statue" for the hourglass, the gusto with which you swung that golf club--moments I will treasure forever.
I sympathize with your anger. It *was* incredibly insulting to postpone your program in favor of Paris Hilton. But it was also a sound business decision, as was the decision to give up on "Trinity."
However, there's a golden lion-ing to even the darkest of clouds: had ITV2 ordered more "Trinity" your schedule might not have permitted you to play Tywin Lannister in "Game of Thrones." And had you not played Tywin, I might not have ever come to love you. So. In the end, you're better off this way. Or in the words of a bumper sticker I saw recently "manure happens."
Love always,
Oloiatao
Screen Two: The McGuffin (1986)
Actually, it's pretty good
As I work my way through Charles Dance's c.v., I've found myself frequently disagreeing with other reviewers, and that is especially true in the case of "The McGuffin."
It's a straightforward tribute to Alfred Hitchcock's immortal "Rear Window." Dance plays Paul Hatcher-not-Thatcher, a part-time teacher and film critic with an inexplicably nice home for one so underemployed. When not watching films or poking pretty girls, he's watching his neighbors. When he sees an elderly neighbor in trouble, his fundamental niceness drives him from strict voyeurism to meddlesome irritant with astonishing speed for an otherwise bog-standard urban Englishman.
Of course, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and hell is briefly where poor ol' Paul ends up as The Bad Guys torture him. But our guy is as brave as he is nice. Others have criticized poor Paul for being unlikeable, and I'm confused. In an uncaring, violent world, here's a guy who helps little old ladies; adopts ugly, ill-behaved dogs; rescues porn actresses from a baying mobs of reporters; and stubbornly pursues justice on behalf of people he doesn't really know. What's not to like?
For me, the only jarring note was a scene where Paul makes love to the porn actress. In my mind, a memory of my mother scolding my little brother clanged "Don't touch that! You don't know where it has been!" A feature, I suppose, of how much AIDS has changed the way we live since the film was made.
A final note: kudos to Jerry Stiller for the absolute funniest cameo ever.
Out on a Limb (1987)
An open letter to Charles Dance
Dear Charles,
I sure hope you were well-paid for this toe-curlingly awful vanity project. Not yours, of course. No man could possibly be vain and appear in dreck like this.
Your performance was perfect, of course. You convincingly embodied the romantic intellectual. You made it very easy to believe in Gerry's fascination with Shirley.
I've got to give you lots of respect: clearly, as an artist you're willing to take on risk. You've done (what must be unpleasant) work in order to fulfill your responsibilities as a husband and father. You've consistently delivered top-quality performances in the most unworthy projects. And in addition to all that, I've never seen or heard you even once complain or disparage anyone.
But Charles, even my love isn't enough to withstand watching "Out on a Limb." Taking most excellent advice from another of your pictures,* I decided to leave off watching after fifteen minutes. It is better to preserve my love for you than immolate it in service of checking off another item on your c.v.
Yours affectionately,
Oloiatao
*Dorothy: I believe in love. Not just getting it, but giving it. I think that if you're able to love someone, even if they don't know it, even if they can't love you back, then it's worth it. (Gosford Park)
Hidden City (1987)
Strange but good
I only watched this picture because of my current obsession with Charles Dance. It's a very strange film, rather too artsy and noir for my taste, but in general a pretty good picture.
A few items: far too much is made of the "hidden city" component. Any older city has subterranean tunnels and chambers. Disused subways, dry drains, utility shafts and connectors, power cable channels, catacombs, and sewage pipes form a veritable honeycomb beneath a city's surface. Not secret so much as not relevant to the daily life of ordinary people. That these areas might be useful for file storage is sensible and efficient.
The more intriguing mystery for me was why the writers writers (who otherwise did an excellent job) failed to give us explanations to these questions:
Why would an intelligent, sophisticated, educated man disregard several days' worth of scheduled meetings in order to assist a complete stranger in an ill-defined quest for information of questionable value?
Why, having learned the mysterious government secret, do the pair do absolutely nothing with what they've learned? It's implausible that anybody would go to so much trouble merely to satisfy idle curiosity.
And finally, why do the pair decide to continue rummaging for secrets?
On the plus side, "Hidden City" does include a very excellent performance by Charles Dance. I think that one of the more difficult challenges for an actor is speaking lines that convey information the audience needs but would never be uttered in real-life conversation. The film contains an astonishingly large number of such lines, and Dance delivered them so naturally that only when I'd finished watching did I realize. In fact, I can't think of a better example of that sort of acting. Well done, Charles Dance!
Patrick (2013)
Ugh.
I only watched "Patrick" because I admire Charles Dance so much. Dance is his usual competent self--but I can't shake the impression that he just wasn't really engaged with the project. We all have to pay the light bill, I suppose. I just hope he got his money up front and in cash.
I don't know who to blame for the excessive use of traditional scary movie devices: creepy lighting, suspenseful music, heavy breathing, squeaky sound effects, startling surprises abound. These devices are so overused that less than fifteen minutes in, all they generated in me were yawns. Cumulatively, the overuse makes the picture seem amateurish.
I've seen that in general the reviews of "Patrick" have been good. I don't like horror/suspense film and only watched this one because Charles Dance was in it. Consequently, I'm willing to concede that my opinion is of little use to that genre's fans. But to those who might want to see their favorite actors, as I did, my advice is to skip "Patrick."