allyoursphotography Reviews

Still Alice (2014)

Very sanitized view of the disease

[4/10 · 11 March 2015]

Not a bad movie, but where was the aggression, despair and loneliness? Julianne Moore just played as she always plays, brittle and prickly, but with a worse memory. Oscar bait it may have been, but if you want a truer picture see Iris.

Julianne looked so good at the beginning I assumed that she'd go downhill, but no, she looks just as good at the end! How Hollywood is that?

The supporting cast were pretty good, but my main complaint is that they've made the subject into a bit of a date movie - if you'd never heard of Alzheimers, it's the gentle intro you need. Even when she confuses her daughter with her sister (a big deal, I'd have thought) it's glossed over. No sexual advances to the wrong people, very few night terrors.

Overall, it's OK, but a very superficial view and dull script. Much better films out there that need your money.

Tales of the Grim Sleeper (2014)

Making a story where there might not be one, as usual

[9/10 · 4 February 2015]

It's not bad - it shows that LAPD are incompetent, and that in South Central life is very cheap indeed. Usual Broomfield faux-incompetence. Can't quite prove the allegation that LAPD were complicit rather than incompetent in the non-arrest of a prodigious serial killer.

The impressive thing is the interviews, which Broomfield plays down. He can have people who were hurling insults at him tearfully recollecting, or admitting their own complicity as they realise they cleaned bloodstains or found victims.

I'm surprised some local tough guy didn't take him out, there seems to be a strange reliance on the police, who no-one remotely trusts for anything else, to solve the problem of a serial killer in the neighbourhood - looks like local people who weren't related to the victims didn't care any more than the LAPD.