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Reviews
Kate Bush: The Whole Story (1986)
Strangely Affecting
I admit, I'm a huge fan of Kate Bush and that this may come over as somewhat biased, but hey! Them's the breaks.
Cloudbusting, which is based on Christopher Reichs "Books of Dreams" (memoirs of his life with his Father Wilhelm, yes THAT Wilhelm), is a strangely affecting video and puts Reich into the almost surreal position of being "sympathetic hero".
Featuring Donald Sutherland as Wilhelm and Kate Bush as Christopher, I have to say that I honestly think this is one of Sutherlands greatest performances; beautifully understated and fantastically uplifting.
The Cloudbuster itself is a wonderful piece of cartoon Gothic machinery which you can almost beleive does what it should.....
One of the few music videos that can reduce me to tears.......
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
I waited 28 years for THIS???
Dear god....I finally get to see a decent print of A Clockwork Orange and have to claim that it is without doubt the most disappointing movie I have EVER seen.
Badly acted, poor cinematography, lacklustre direction and a truly atrocious script.....I completely fail to understand WHY this is supposedly a ground-breaking and influential movie.
It comes over as a kind of warped hybrid of Porridge with pseudo-Ken Loach accents and The Carry On movies. What truly galls me is that the source novel was so horrifying...the Ludovico treatment was watered down to a bad MTV video from some sub-standard grunge band and I've seen worse - and far more convincing violence on East Enders. The only piece which had ANY chutzpah, verve or even the vaguest spark of life was the "Singing in the Rain" sequence.......nicely done but sadly highlighted exactly how appalling the rest of the movie was.
I'm with Kubrick on this one......it really should NEVER be seen!