adamk-2 Reviews

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2024– )

Dull, dull, dull

[2/10 · 27 February 2024]

I was looking for a slick, fun, action-packed show to enjoy, and I thought this would be it. It's emphatically not. This is, instead, just a terrible chore. Just to set things straight from the off: I have absolutely NO interest in the film, which I saw years ago on TV and instantly dismissed and forgot, so I'm not even beginning to compare.

After a cracking opening scene, this settles into a pattern of two ill-matched characters, played by bland actors with all the chemistry of two damp and mis-matched socks, mumbling, meandering and bickering all over the place. There is an endless conversation, early on, about what to call the cat, which will serve as a warning, as that slack, flaccid tone permeates this series. There is no tension, nothing of the intrigue and suspense that you'd think would come of two people having to live a cover story in the heart of New York City while serving as hunting/killing/espionage agents for an unseen department. They swan around their luxury brownstone with the rooftop garden, or in exotic locations, sticking out a mile. He smirks, she sulks, they bicker about family, kids, gender roles and bodily functions. Occasionally something happens. Just when you think it can't get any worse, they act as stupidly as possible (honestly, episode 4 is a head slapper, where they are as indiscrete as two people could possibly be, while episode 5 has them committing major errors of judgement that a rookie uniformed cop wouldn't make). It's all dispiriting and soul-sapping and limps on its dreadful way. What a waste. I can only wonder what spark might have remained had Sophie Waller-Bridge remained.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith: Do You Want Kids? (2024) Season 1, Episode 5

It just sinks lower and lower

[3/10 · 26 February 2024]

Just when I think this series couldn't get any worse...it does. It's not enough to have to sit through the meandering, drawled dialogue or complete lack of chemistry, in this episode we're also treated to an insight on how utterly terrible they are at their job. Assigned to exfiltrate a mysterious financial figure (a lugubrious Ron Pearlman, doing what he does best) they find their safe house compromised and crawling with what one assumes is highly trained assassins armed with submachine guns who, fortunately and in the nature of B-movies, cannot hit the side of a barn. They flee to another convenient hideout that John has seemingly not only purchased but also tastefully furnished and decorated in the few days they've been staking out their mission, and -- having warned Pearlman to stay away from the windows -- sit down to dinner at a table in front of said expansive windows, fully illuminated, before then sitting outside and getting stoned. Good thing these highly trained killers only attack in daylight, eh? It's an astoundingly stupid episode, and the stupidity on display compounds the utter lethargy that swamps the odd action/chase scene.

Fleishman Is in Trouble (2022–2023)

A Waste of Talent and of My Time

[1/10 · 30 March 2023]

I watched Fleishman Is in Trouble due to a rave review by Lucy Mangan in The Guardian. I love her writing, and she made it sound great, so I thought I'd give it a go. Aware, even from her review, that there'd be a major "flip" late in the series, I perservered through to the bitter end and absolutely hated every minute of this awful, awful show, with its whiney rich white people endlessly ruminating about their angst and their terrible lives and decisions. I hated every irredeemably solipsistic, self-centred character, I hated the ponderous, droning voiceover and the leaden script and the arse-grindingly slow development of what little plot there was. Jesse Eisenberg, for some reason, does Woody Allen, while Clare Danes sob and cries when she's not being self-centred. For the first few episodes I was staggered at the misogyny, and thought that whatever the "flip" was, it had better redeem this awful mess. It didn't. Claire Danes came on for one episode (Ep 7 of 8), explained herself, cried a lot, felt sorry for herself, and was then swiftly forgotten by her friends. By the last half of the final episode I was so angry with the narrator I was barely listening, and then it was over, and I felt frustrated and cheated. This really rates, already, as the worst TV show I've seen this year. Probably even next year, as well.

Nope (2022)

A Misbegotten Mess

[2/10 · 22 November 2022]

I loved "Get Out" but thought "Us" was an overcooked muddle. One of the few good things about "Nope" is that it makes "Us" look like a masterpiece of incisive filmmaking. This is an incoherent mess, with a terrible script and unintelligible dialogue (Kaluuya mumbles, Palmer jabbers) , and what just might have been a promising storyline, although possibly half-cribbed from 50s cheapie "It Conquered the World", rendered asunder in the edit. For the first hour or so, people just talk and things happen, but they really don't. Then, when they do, they don't seem to stop, but it's hard to work out what it is or why. Then there are horses, a contrived plan to...do something, and then it finally stops. Its big budget ensures that it looks good, but...well, that's about it. What a waste of time.

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

How Did This Happen?

[2/10 · 13 June 2022]

I went in to this thinking I would absolutely love it, and that it would save me from a bad film-going streak I seemed to be on. No such luck.

Who thought this gibbering, nonsensical pile of rubbish was a good idea? Its greatest sin, though, apart from its self-satisfied incoherence and gleeful, endlessly stupid cartoon violence, is that it takes its hyperactive, sugar-rushed, calorie-free content and sticks a sickly sweet, syrupy blob at its heart, pretending it has substance and that it's one of your five a day.

This was the equivalent of a migraine: The first half gave me a headache, the second made me want to vomit. I never walk out of a cinema, but during this film's seemingly interminable length I came so, so close so, so many times.

Parallel Mothers (2021)

Motherhood...and other stuff

[3/10 · 7 February 2022]

I'm not an Almodovar fan -- I've seen several of his films, and never remember any of them two days later, and just don't get what the fuss is. The reviews for this,however, were so insistently good that I thought I'd see if it could change my mind. It hasn't. It's a neat enough little melodrama, with the odd plot contrivance (Ana's getting a job in Janis' building) and hole (Janis giving Ana a DNA test, but not explaining why) as well as a superfluous lesbian scene. It all wraps up this plot sweetly -- transgressions forgiven, lovers reunited -- before taking a sharp swerve into a sub-lot and foregrounding it so violently, as if to insist that it's been a vital political film all this time. The parts don't really make up a whole, and it feels jarring and just...doesn't fit.

The acting's great, certainly, from top to bottom, but it's still nothing more than a soap confection, and hasn't changed my mind about Almodovar at all.

The Power of the Dog (2021)

A Hard Slog on the Old Ranch

[4/10 · 14 October 2021]

"The Power of the Dog", written and directed by Jane Campion, is a prarie-set family drama. Two brothers run the family ranch in 1925 Montana. Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a diamond in the rough, sort of, in that while he's dirty and smells of cattle, he's educated and sneers cruel jibes at everyone. Sherlock in a stetson, if you will. His doofus brother, (Jesse Plemmons) takes up with a local waitress (Kirsten Dunst) and marries her, which pleases the possessive Phil not at all.

It's all rather dreary and dull and overlong. Each scene and pause therein takes just a few seconds longer than it really should, sabotaging the prospect of any tension rising at all. Cumberbatch is mediocre, Plemmons is surprisingly dull, while Dunst resorts to amdram acting when her character takes to the bottle, staggering everywhere. There's a surprise cameo from Keith Carradine, which is nice, and some great scenery, but my god, Terrance Malick could have done something wonderful with THAT. Kodi Smit-McPhee is wonderfully unsettling at Dunst's son, and there is a nice twist at the end in his story arc, but that's about it. Oh, and there's also Jonny Greenwood's music, all droning, queasy strings that really, really gets annoying. A palpable miss, this one.

The French Dispatch (2021)

An Absolute Treat

[10/10 · 11 October 2021]

I'm not a diehard Wes Anderson fan (I loathed "The Royal Tannenbaums) but I bloody loved this film. It's a loving tribute to the lost age of journalism, when giants stalked the corridors of The New Yorker, as well as an inventive and inspired paean to the art of storytelling, as plots, subplots and digressions are juggled like plates or nested inside one another like Russian dolls. While there's certainly a surfeit of whimsy and Gallic je ne sais quoi, it's stylish, beautifully photographed and boasts a cast to die for. I wasn't entirely sure why it kept switching from colour to black-and-white, but there are also delightful animated sections, sly humour, dry wit and...oh, so much, it's almost overwhelming and would definitely reward a second look. Great stuff.

Last Night in Soho (2021)

A Curate's Egg and OTT Missed Opportunity

[7/10 · 10 October 2021]

At its heart, this is a neat little ghost/parallel time lines flick, in which wide-eyed fashion student Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie, brilliant), with a fixation on the Sixties and a family history of mental illness, moves to present-day London and soon finds herself sucked back into her favourite time period, playing the part of Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy, ditto) a wide-eyed aspiring singer who soon discovers the seamy, sleazy side of Swinging London. This rabbit hole, Eloise discovers, goes deep and dirty. At first, it's lovingly filmed, fiendishly clever and, natch, extremely well acted by the absolutely sterling cast, but as the plot (and Sandie's fate) unravels, things go ludicrously over the top, and Eloise is soon haunted by lurid dreams and shambling, zombie-like spectres and it all gets very, very silly and irritating, compounded by the monstrous, unforgiveable cop-out of an ending. I left shaken, but for all the wrong reasons.

The Feast (2021)

Don't Mess With Mother Nature

[8/10 · 8 October 2021]

In this Welsh-language horror film, a rich and dysfunctional family prepares for an important dinner in their minimalist, all-mod-cons house, accompanied by the enigmatic young woman whom they assume has turned up to help with the catering. At least, that's who's she's supposed to be... It starts out quite slowly, like a family drama or prime-time soap, with a lot of bickering and bad behaviour and tension over the canapes, but as it progresses, strange things start happening and everyone finds they face a reckoning for not respecting the land along with the myths and magic embodied there. It all builds up to a bloody, violent, batshit crazy climax and a somewhat heavy-handed eco revenge message, getting weirder, more stylised and quite gory, but...well, I liked it. It had its faults but the cinematography and design were great and there were some nice themes in there about family tradition and responsibility.

Cadaver (2020)

A Distinctive Banquet

[9/10 · 11 November 2020]

In a desolate, starving post-apocalyptic world, the people of one particularly hard-up town are invited to the grand hotel on the hill for a meal and a submersive show, where they're asked to don masks and follow the actors from room to room. And things slowly start to go very wrong. I had to post here and speak up for this little gem, as I've just finished watching it and loved it. The grim world is stunningly created - dank, impoverished, bodies lying in the street, it's all too real and convincing. Up at the hotel, everything is scarlet and gold, sumptuous food served on silver platters. The excellent cinematography and design create a dark, disorientating atmosphere and as our protagonists get drawn further and further in, the suspense builds. This has a lot going for it, and if it's not the "Hostel" -like bloodfest people somehow expected, it's something a lot more ambitious. There are faults, naturally, and it could use tightening up a bit, but on the whole it's an immersive experience in itself and well worth a look.

Tales of Halloween (2015)

Feeble Tales

[2/10 · 23 October 2020]

This is one feeble, flaccid piece of ho-hummery. I was hoping for something creepy and unsettling, but these stories start exactly as they mean to go on, with no surprises, no attempt at atmosphere, just a lot of camp. Basically, each story starts, does the set up, then plays out exactly as you'd expect it to. So, in "Sweet Tooth" and "Grim Grinning Ghost", a ghost story is related by characters and...yep, they come true. "The Ransom of Rusty Rex" replays O. Henry's classic short story, "The Ransom of Red Chief" to little effect (whoever thought that a man chasing a diminutive demon round a warehouse could be so boring?). To be fair, "Trick" brings a nice, disturbing twist, and in "Ding Dong" Pollyanna McIntosh is a stand-out in an otherwise bland cast, looking as if she's having an immense amount of fun and being genuinely disturbing -- or as close as anything in this film gets. There are puzzling cameos (how did such talent? Did any of them read the script? Could none of them help?) and self-aggrandising references (ie, a riff on Carpenter's "Halloween" theme every time a pumpkin is shown) but this film is too camp to land a blow anywhere: it's not funny and it's not remotely scary.

Wade in the Water (2019)

A Low-Key Delight

[10/10 · 28 September 2020]

Low key and Lo-Fi it might be, but this still exerts a powerful pull. "Our Man", the dysfunctional main character (as listed in the credits) receives a packet in the mail that's not meant for him, which sends him on the road to retribution and the confronting of his own demons. It is, in its own way, bleakly funny, almost serving at times as a "Taxi Driver" parody, and someone else has rightly identified "Blue Ruin" as another strong influence. As Our Man, Tom E Nicholson is quietly effective, but the real find is Danika Golombek, as the daughter of his victim, with whom he forms an unlikely friendship. She has an amazingly expressive face and is genuinely touching and funny in their scenes together. If you're looking for thrills and excitement, this might not be for you, but it's definitely worth a look.

Coriolanus (2014)

Shouty Shakespeare

[4/10 · 7 June 2020]

I've only seen one other production of this play, about 40 years ago in NYC, with Morgan Freeman in the lead role and Denzil Washington being a spear-carrier. I remember enjoying that, which is more than can be said for this. Josie Rourke's production is one of those that puts me right off Shakespeare, in which everyone spends a lot of time lustily shouting at each other for no apparent purpose, issuing strings of seemingly random words at great volume. I couldn't make sense of what anyone was saying or what it all meant, but could only go, "Right, well she's obviously very cross with him, so I'll just go with that". At the core of it is Tom Hiddleston, bland and dull, the cheese string of the acting world, turning Coriolanus into a walk-on in his own play. Only Mark Gatiss and Elliot Levey manage to make sense of their lines If I'd seen this as a kid I'd never watch another Shakespeare again.

This Beautiful Fantastic (2016)

Forty five minutes was all we could take

[2/10 · 22 February 2020]

That's how long we lasted when catching up with this on Amazon, when we were interrupted and grateful for an excuse to turn it off. It's a twee little film, self-consciously "quirky" which aims for a whimsical charm and falls terribly flat. A lot of this has to do with the flat, vapid lead performance from Jessica Brown Findlay, the fussy, weedy one from Andrew Scott, an OTT one from Anna Chancellor (in a terrible permed wig) and Tom Wilkinson just cruising for the money. It aspires to be a sort of horticultural "Amelie", but is just tediously, painfully cute, as well as heavy handed and actually very dull. I hate judging a film that I haven't watched all the way through, but I really couldn't stand another minute.

Knives Out (2019)

Passes The Time

[6/10 · 17 October 2019]

"Knives Out" is a perfectly entertaining, perfectly agreeable little film, a star-studded old-style murder-mystery that's good fun while it lasts. The actors involved all seem to be having fun and the plot keeps you engaged, even right up to the reveal when you will, as can often happen with these things, find yourself saying, "Oh, so that's...hang on, that doesn't make any sense". For indeed, plot and motivation holes abound and ultimately you're left with a decent film (although some might find the lie/reflux plot point a trifle irritating). It's fun enough, the kind of film best watched after Christmas lunch with the family, but it's not a game-changer in any way.

Marriage Story (2019)

An Overly-Familiar tale

[2/10 · 8 October 2019]

I normally love Noah Baumbach's films -- he has a way of skewering pretences and portraying very real people in the midst of an emotional crisis. When I booked for this at the 2019 London Film Festival, it sounded like it would be Baumbach's "Annie Hall", and it certainly starts well, with a sparky script and a great cast, but it soon grinds to a plod due to the complete lack of chemistry between the leads and therefore absolutely no feeling, no matter how much they talk about it, that they have any kind of shared history (even their son, used - natch - as a bargaining chip throughout the messy divorce, has about as much appeal as a potato). During one particularly lengthy argument, Scarlett Johannson glows with incandescent rawness, but can't strike a spark from her co-star, the dead-eyed and apparently sedated Adam Driver. I'll admit, his appeal escapes me, but he sure can sing -- he inexplicably gets to sing an entire number from "Company" at a piano bar, and pulls it off admirably well. But this film is overlong, over shouty and brings absolutely nothing new to the table. I think I'll watch "Annie Hall" again, thanks.

Wanderlust (2018)

A Very Adult Comedy, for Grown Ups

[8/10 · 17 September 2018]

Make no mistake, this is not easy watching, as sexual topics are discussed frankly and openly and, through all of the frustration and failure, laughs are found.

The cast are all top-notch, but Toni Colette continues to astonish, with a perfect English accent, intonations and mannerisms and all, along with excellent comic skills and believable sexual tension. And it gets very, very tense, sometimes so awkward it becomes almost unbearable to watch. I can see why so many people have trouble with this!

The couple are faced with an age-old problem that most likely affects a majority of couples, and one which they are doubtless are too embarrassed to talk about. Because, really, how do you talk about something like this and still try to convince your partner that, while they might not do it for you sexually, you still very much love them?

It's an interesting premise approached in a very adult way, using humour to deflect the more crushing moments. I hope that the writers can, ahem, keep it up for the run.

The Shape of Water (2017)

Disappointing Twaddle

[2/10 · 14 October 2017]

This has absolutely so much going for it - beautifully filmed, with a magnificent, sweeping score and a stunning performance from Sally Hawkins - but crashes and burns in sentiment, cliché and cartoon supporting acts. It comes across, ultimately, as a cack-handed mash up of "E.T.", "Splash" and "The Creature From the Black Lagoon", as an aquatic man is captured and brought into a secret military American laboratory in the 1960s at the height of the cold war, and Sally Hawkins' mute cleaner develops a bond with it and, ultimately, falls in love.

Sounds interesting, doesn't it? It certainly has potential, but if the sassy black friend, constantly yammering on about her feckless husband (Octavia Spencer, surely tiring of this kind of role) doesn't get you, or the inefficient gay neighbour/best friend (Richard Jenkins - not his finest two hours) or Michael Shannon's cartoonish, 2D villain, then stay tuned for the ghastly black-and-white fantasy dance number, in which Hawkins and the creature cavort on an elaborate set like Astaire and Rogers. It truly is a ghastly mis-step, jaw-droppingly stupid. The film never really recovered for me, and it lumbered to its predictable climax and ending with numbing melodramatics and sentiment.

Toni Erdmann (2016)

Excruciating, for all the wrong reasons.

[1/10 · 27 February 2017]

I cannot emphasise how painful this film was for me to sit through. I had been told that I would be howling with laughter one moment and sobbing with sadness the next. As it was about a father-daughter relationship and I have my own complex and historically fraught relationship with my own daughter, I thought that this might be just the thing I need and that I'd find something I could relate to.

I didn't. Nor did I find anything to laugh at. For nearly three hours.

I have never, EVER checked my watch so much while watching a film: regularly checking, counting down the time and thinking, for instance, "It's been an hour, now. Surely something funny has to happen soon?". But no. Unless you consider someone wearing a wig and false teeth hilarious (and for some reason plenty of people do) then there's not much else in here. Oh, and spunk-topped petit fours. Apparently, these are quite a crowd pleaser.

This is one overlong, dreary and tedious film, and I didn't even smile once. The acting is blank, the script sounds as if it were improvised by performers who aren't actually very good at improvising. There is something creepy about the father's stalking of his own daughter, especially when he sneaks into her conveniently unlocked flat and, on hearing her coming, decides to hide in the cupboard.

Hilarious. I can only imagine.

Awful, awful, awful film. I'm so glad it lost out at the Oscars, and I cannot even think what people see in it.

We Are the Best! (2013)

Charming, but slight

[3/10 · 3 January 2016]

"We Are The Best" features two just-about teenage girls in Stockholm in the early 80s who, fascinated by what seems to be a lingering punk scene, accidentally start a band, recruit a third girl who actually knows how to play and...well, that's about it. There is, of course, the climactic debut gig which is something of a triumph for them, if not for the audience, and if you didn't see this coming you should get out more.

It's a charming but utterly inconsequential film, boasting some nice acting from the leads, but that's about it. The three kids are all middle-class and, while one is being raised by a single mother who obviously likes to keep her, um, options open, she doesn't seem particularly alienated just somewhat embarrassed by her behaviour. The third girl, the slightly older Hedvig, is a serious, Christian classical guitarist, and at this point the film falls down seriously in plausibility, as Hedvig goes along all-too swiftly with the two exuberant punks and abandons her old identity. She also seems to come from a single-parent family, but her mother, while Christian, is sensitively portrayed as a fair and balanced woman. When Bobo and Klara cut Hedvig's hair, her approach is sly but perfectly reasonable: to make them realise not only the consequences of their actions, but that there are different forms of consent. And yet....Hedvig appears at school in an ugly knitted hat, apparently to hide her haircut, but then proceeds to tell Bobo and Klara that she was embarrassed by her mother's behaviour and loves her haircut and...no, I didn't buy it for a moment. This grave, serious Christian girl just jettisons not just her faith but any emotional baggage that might go with it (I'm speaking as an atheist, here) and it's all too glib. She teaches them chords, they teach her attitude to rebel against...well, not a lot, to be honest. None of them seem to be rebelling or making much of a statement, but they take to the stage, enrage the locals, seem very pleased with that and...that's the end. There's an end-credits scene that shows them larking about that adds nothing to the film or the narrative, and that's the end.

You won't learn much about being a teenager or about being a punk from this film. Or even much about Stockholm. You won't learn much about anything, to be honest, apart from the names of some 80s Swedish punk bands.

Two Days, One Night (2014)

Humdrum Social "Drama". With very little drama.

[2/10 · 3 February 2015]

When this came out, I read the five-star, hyperbolic reviews with interest and hoped to see this in the cinemas, but - like most foreign films - it came and went too swiftly. So, it was with great anticipation that I caught up with this just the other night on DVD.

My lord, I'm glad I didn't pay out cinema prices for this.

Flat, dull, dramatically inert and lacking any cinematic language, this piece does exactly what it says on the tin: no more, no less. In short - in case you didn't know - a worker in a factory has a weekend to sway a vote taking place on the Monday that will give her co-workers a bonus but deprive her of her job. Her task, over "Two Days, One Night" (although technically it's two nights) is to convince her fellow workers to forego their bonuses and let her keep her job. A big ask, ripe with dramatic potential.

Or so you'd think.

Instead, we watch as the character plods from place to place, rings doorbells, recites the same plot précis over and over again, receives one of two answers or some mealy-mouthed in-between, then plods to the next place. If they're not in and she's directed to somewhere they might be, you get to see her walk there, too. It feels, almost as if it's shot in real time. It's irritatingly repetitive and flat. The protagonist has suffered a mental breakdown of some unspecified sort, and is popping Xanax along the way to keep her going, which also results in the actress, Marion Cotillard, approaching the role looking slightly stunned, stressed and unhappy, which adds further to the lack of drama. Despite the fact that she's fighting for her life (or so you're led to believe - the ending belies this) she doesn't seem to really care, and at times appears to be doing the rounds only because her husband and two of her work colleagues are pushing her to do so.

And so it goes. Plod, plod, plod. Recap, answer, recap, answer. It's dreary, dull and drained of any vestige of drama in an effort for some sort of social "realism", as if it's a fly-on-the-wall documentary. It is anti-film, with no trace of imagination, no spark of inspiration and an ending that undermines all that's gone before. Even this might - just MIGHT - have worked with a bit of focus, a bit of cinematic intelligence, but it passes off as the rest of the film has, in monotone.

All in all, this is a deeply enervating experience and a waste of a potentially interesting story.

Taken (I) (2008)

Bad, so bad.

[2/10 · 6 March 2011]

How bad? Holey, moley, where does one start? Well, how about the apparent message: Don't let you kids go to Europe, it's full of sleazy furrner flesh traffickers and corrupt cops. Let's then go on to the characterisation, including the bitchy ex-wife and the stupid and gormless daughter and her even more gormless best friend, not to mention Liam Neeson's uptight, obsessive, one-note performance which, as you are aware of his character's background and skills from the start, offers nothing in the way of growth or surprises, just added violence. And for the violence: I've no problem with violence, I like a bit of action, but the fight scenes reminded me of latter day Steve Siegal, with two protagonists happy-slapping each other, and a car chase in a quarry (a neat idea) which is basically almost identical white cars driving at speed and Neeson inexplicably coming out on top. Oh, and throw in those sleazy (and totally inept) furrners who fire multiple shots at Neeson, completely missing only for him to step out from behind a door frame and take them down with one or two well-placed shots -- I mean, "Police Squad" took the micky out of that one THIRTY YEARS ago. And the less said about the "Escape from Peril" scenario, which adds up to a "and with one bound, he was free" trick that died out in the Republic cliffhanging serials of the 40s, the better. Best of all, though, has to be the scene in which Liam Neeson penetrates the enemy lair in Paris by pretending to be a French(!) detective, and manages to fool them by not speaking any French at all or knowing anything about their set-up. Good points, to be fair: a surprisingly non-clichéd turn by Xander Berkeley as a not-at-all smug and slimy stepfather, and a really refreshing one from Gerard Watkins as one of the many Mr Bigs Neesom meets. After so many swarthy and unshaven villains, the light and civillised touch he brought to his role was a revelation, and to him went the best line of the film: "Kill him quietly, I've got guests".

But otherwise: Lord almighty, what a clichéd bunch of pants. Up next: Kenneth Branagh re-makes "Death Wish"!

Skeletons (2010)

A unique experience

[10/10 · 6 March 2011]

This beautifully unique and idiosyncratic film reminded me of a low-budget Brit version of "Inception", dispensing with the grandiose score, the overblown special effects, the derivative gun fights and car chases and the constant exposition to just strip it down to two guys in suits with briefcases walking around the British countryside and dealing with the same themes of dreams, memory, loyalty and loss. Totally original, it makes no concessions, doesn't explain anything (not, for instance, grinding to a halt every 20 minutes to explain/contradict the plot like, you know, some other film I could mention). You just have to go with it, accept its bizarre internal logic and not over-think things. Nonetheless, one of the most memorable and intriguing films I've seen for a while, with a great cast. Standout for me was Paprika Steen who I thought was SENSATIONAL: earthy, mature and downright sexy. It's a damning indictment of the entertainment industry that she's not better know. Mind you, I could say the same of this film. Be brave: give it a go and surrender to its skewed and surreal charms, because it has charm and imagination a-plenty.

Triangle (2009)

Labyrinthine Thriller

[10/10 · 28 April 2010]

"Triangle" is an absolutely fascinating mind-warp of a film that takes you on a hell of a trip, and in the end you still have no idea where you've been or how you got there -- much like Jess, the protagonist.

After a few fractured fragments of Jess and her autistic son, the film seems to settle into fairly recognizable thriller territory: a group of friends go on a boat cruise, get hit by a storm and left adrift, only to be rescued by a mysteriously empty cruise ship. Well, so far so "Death Ship", but even by then the viewer will have noticed that this is no ordinary thriller: the director has ambition and talent to spare, and stokes up a palpable sense of menace that tugs at the nerve ends, even when you're expecting a standard slasher plot. But it doesn't work out that way: the film goes into utterly loopy, "Twilight Zone" territory but never becomes an exercise in style over substance. No matter what tricks are played on the viewer, or how many twists and turns are thrown out, the film never loses its heart and its intelligence, and the result is a unique and infinitely rewarding little thriller that will haunt you for a long time.