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Reviews
Watergate: Blueprint for a Scandal (2022)
Style defeats substance
This is obviously an important part of history. Unlike some other reviewers, I can see the parallels to today regarding official attacks on democracy and don't have a problem with that. However, I gave up after 30 minutes because of the awful, annoying music and loud sound effects constantly playing over the talking heads, which seems to be the modern style for some bizarre reason. Is it necessary to have a loud "Whoosh!" or "Boom!" when there is a cut? Does John Dean have to talk like he's inside a dance club? Network documentary makers, stop this!
Backstage with Katherine Ryan (2022)
Interesting premise but...
Beware of reviews that give 9 or 10/10 and sound like manic handouts from the publicity department. Anyway, I liked the premise of this series - to see the acts behind the scenes interacting naturally so you not only see their stage persona but something of their real selves. In the first episode, for example, we see Jimmy Carr comfortable and confident but Seann Walsh is nervous and insecure. There are 4 comedians in each episode and which ones you like is a matter of taste, of course. Where the series falls down for me is Katherine Ryan's perhaps strange decision to have Geoff Norcott as her writer. I think Ryan is talented but she loses it a bit here having to use Norcott's material. He also appears and is in every episode. Norcott is well-known as being one of the few right-wing comedians around and like all right-wing comedians he isn't very funny and can be quite nasty. In episode 2, Ryan's friend Sarah Pascoe appears and Norcott, asked to come up with something for Ryan to say about her, can only come up with, "Looks like a horse in a dress." It's interesting that in the same episode Norcott avoids Frankie Boyle.
Worth a watch if you could edit out Norcott's stuff.
Perry Mason (2020)
Why Mason?
After viewing the first episode, this has all the atmosphere, intrigue and complexity of a Chandleresque noir thriller. What is totally incomprehensible is why they call it Perry Mason. Give people different names, have it as a new, original work...why not? You could have had a universally admired piece of work on your hands. So why tie it to Perry Mason, who the main character in this series has no resemblance to whatsoever? I can only think it is to get advanced publicity, which a) implies a lack of faith in the strength of the work itself, and b) is only going to backfire when people see - despite the possible merits of the story, acting, direction and atmosphere - that its connection to Perry Mason is not even tenuous but actually non-existent.
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
Movie=Novel, in a sense
It's a pretty poor movie but it's faithful to the novel in one sense....it's a pretty poor novel. The first 50 pages of the book are good but then it becomes deadly dull at best and ridiculous at worst. If you want an interesting movie you have to take liberties with the original novel. That's why most Dracula films are totally different. This film, though making changes to try to put some excitement into the story (such as putting the most interesting character, Dracula himself, into it beyond the opening, which doesn't happen in the novel) doesn't manage to create an interesting work. The least said about Reeves and Rider's acting the better.
A more faithful rendition of Stoker's Dracula is possible but it would be even worse than this and that's why it hasn't been done.