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Reviews
American Fiction (2023)
A true masterpiece
If you have come jaundiced by dreadful diversity casting in pretty much everything netflix produces, and more or less the other networks, to the point that if you see a largely black cast you roll your eyes in anticipation of a cast of Mary and Gary Sues, with hapless white cast members there only to look foolish and incompetent, dont look over this.
This is a tremendous funny film that pokes a lot of holes. If you have wondered why new written fiction all seems to be so formulaic, the clue is this film.. The commissioning process selects the stories it wants to hear, in which the characteristics of the author are more important than the substance.
Great performances all round. A modern satire that hits home. Black people are more than drugged up single mums committing crime! They like art, literature, their parents are lawyers and doctors just like other middle class people.
Spaceman (2024)
Disappointing lack of anything of substance
I heard the film was coming out, and thought it sounded interesting, so hunted out the source material, the book "The Spaceman of Bohemia".
It was an odd but also interesting book. None of these things are spoilers because the film doesnt deal with them at all.
The book is based around the childhood of the main character and the legacy that his father a Stasi agent who tortured people, how his mother and father died, and then how he and the remaining family suffered in their community with the fall of the Soviet Union.
The book followed the vengefulness of one of his father's victims, and ultimately how that person was responsible for him being in space. A bit Great Expectations twist in there.
As I said, a weird book, but original and interesting. Not just a man meets a space alien, which is what the film seemed to be.
The film is devoid of all this background, we see lots of flashbacks as if they mean something, but they dont, just flashbacks without any purpose. It seems odd, it is as if they just extracted all the interesting stuff and maybe left it on the cutting floor. The book has a great scene near the end which would have really put an 'edge of your seats' end to the film, which they seem to have maybe just filed under too difficult or too expensive to film.
A travesty, if i was the author, I would be disappointed with the final outcome (think of the comedy Episodes...)
The Iron Claw (2023)
What a great film
My wife and I really enjoyed this. We were pretty cold to the whole thing not really aware of who von erich family were. Just heard positive things about it.
The story really is about the curse that seems to impact the family. And if anything the movie plays down the tragic nature of the family and the event focussing on the main story.
Tremendous acting by Zac Efron (things you never thought you would be writing in an IMDB review!), the whole cast are fantastic. It's brutal in telling the story but not gratuitous in the violence. It's a good film for a couple to watch.
Great story, good pacing, the tragedies hit you hard, with great pacing.
Jury Duty (2023)
Wait, wait, what happened?
I think my faith in humanity has been restored. What an incredible piece of television. Absolutely incredible. Everyone involved needs to get their own personal award.
Just happened to come across it by accident.
The main person seems such an all round nice guy, he is tested gently on his ethics and he passes everything with ease. James Marsden is hilarious in spoofing himself.
You need to watch this to understand just what an achievement it was, some really clever psychology involved to give the illusion of choice.
So happy that is just kind of wandered onto this from Freeve. A streaming service i had never used before.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022)
Classic Trek with a great makeover
Gone is the dull tedious Discovery, what we have is good old fashioned trek, with injections of humour and sadness. I initially found the first few episodes difficult to watch. Came back to them and watched both seasons back to back. One duff episode out of twenty. An absolute joy to watch.
I like the intertwining of classic characters. Over egging the how amazing Unura is. But that's just identity driven tv these days. But an ensemble of gray charcuterie, well acted, well written and fun to watch.
I now have to wait a year for a new season, assuming it is renewed for one.
Currently best show on tv.
World Without End (2012)
Why why why?
Similar to Pillars of the Earth, a butchering of a great story. And for reasons I cant quite fathom, theyve butchered it. It is quite possible to tell the whole story in ten episodes, or if they want a mildy cut down one.
But the decisions here are just odd, characters rewritten, miscast actors. Crucial points in storylines that explain why later plot lines develop are just missing.
They've fundamentally changed the storyline, but have made it much worse than the original material.
It's not the acting, though not GOT level, its not the weakest point, the set design, again not GOT, but manages, the failure falls on the script writing/screenplay, done by someone with no joy for the original material.
The Diplomat (2023)
Why ruin it? Great actors, corny script, fun, but predictable.
I've given this show an eight, but that's the strength of the two main actors. Fun to watch.
But, you have to be a bit new to the "this is a bad character and we are going to let you know as soon as we see them" to not work out who was responsible for the whole thing.
Full on tv tropes everywhere, try not to roll your eyes every time you see them, with hammed up English accents from English people(!)
Not sure I'm willing to take a scalding about racism in the British Conservative Party from a party that was vociferously doing it's best to maintain segregation in the deep south.
With my wife telling me to just ignore the obvious. And it was obvious, and enjoy it for what it was, I did.... And it was enjoyable.
Inside Man (2022)
First ten minutes
Ok. Do people really believe what is happening here? The race reversal of course is deliberate. Anyone who has ever spent a bit of time on public transport in London knows that the problem isnt with young black girls getting sexually harassed off white boys. It's absurdly ridiculous, but everyone pretends otherwise, then drop in a bit of 'toxic masculinity'
To change it around it. Maybe in some circumstances this could be classed as subversive. But it isnt, it's jsut tired old tv tropes. All the tv does it now, in an attempt to 'uplift marginalised voices' we have to all fall into this collective delusion that the truth is the opposite of what we know it is.
House of the Dragon: The Heirs of the Dragon (2022)
So far so good. But very earnest.
You can feel they've deliberately tried to create a different era feel, and in many ways it works. The reports of being "woked up" not obvious so far. Of course like most extremist ideologies once it infests it will take over. But so far so good.
What seems missing though is the glint in the eye. There was only really a small number of GoT characters who were relentlessly serious all the time. By the end of GoT the interplay and banter between the characters gave some of the best performances.
The Last Ship (2014)
So good and bad...
It's not too bad, no really it is ok. But can I jsut make an observation from a British perspective.
All the negative British characters have a variety of English working class accents, with mary poppins level of chim chim chimer-ee extra grit, unwashed and rough.
While the decent good English characters all have an English accent only ever played out on american TV shows, but think ultra cut glass posh, well educated, well dressed, always looking immaculate and calm.
Hilarious to watch sometimes.
But, having said all that it is a good bit of fun...
Here We Go (2020)
I liked it
I havent seen the Christmas pilot that people seem to be making reference to, just the first episode going to the theme park.
It feels a bit wooden sometimes, but that's just a style thing. The Office and Peep Show felt like that at the beginning also.
It really borrows heavily from that style of comedy, some of it feels a bit forced, but it is really funny. I laughed out loud at a few points.
The BBC, being the BBC of course cant help the obligatory tick boxing. But. It was a good show.
The Passage (2019)
3/4 through the first book, watched the show
Was reading the book following a recommendation, not really into vampires etc, but the vampires were just the backdrop in the way that the triffids are a backdrop in Day of the Triffids.
The book is enjoyable, but is split into a few parts. Season 1 of the show only really cover the first third of the book. The most interesting part of the book is about how a band of humans have survived, losing all the skills and knowledge of the modern world except that needed for their continued existence, but theyve reached the point where they cant continue to survive using technologies they dont understand.
Unfortunately we dont get any of that here. Even what they have put into the show they've changed much of it, and im not even sure what for.
The main character in the book, the little girl, the tv show does no better in explaining why her then the book does, but the book adds a mysticism, about how her been chosen is not an accident.
The book has a storyline about a nun from west africa who suffered some very horrible child hood trauma, but has picked up a sense about things.
This character is now played as a gun totting ex military nun who despite her size seems to handle a weapon like a member of the special services.
Theyve sanitised the oddest bits. So in the book Amy's mum is a prostitute scraping money together to keep her and her daughter alive. Sees that shes about to be turned into a play thing for a fraternity and kills someone in defence.
In the show she is a drug addict who is also simultaneously the best mum in the world. The only real 'race dimension' in the book is about how a down and out is helped by a well to do white woman to get on his feet. When an event happens that is misconstrued and things escalate to the woman dying in the pool because him and her both fall in and he cant swim, she dies and he doesnt.
This becomes the two of them having an elicit affair and her killing herself.
As i said shame that the scope of the book wasnt thought through, first part hard action, second part strong survival.
Since it got cancelled we will never know. If i was the author i think it would be a bit frustrated about how poorly it was adapted for TV.
Stay Close (2021)
Utter hogwash
Underneath this seems to be the bones of a good story, utterly ruined by the most preposterous casting and location choices.
I can only assume Netflix pays a lot of money, for an author to allow their work to be so badly presented. The individual acting isn't in itself bad.
This gibberish is the future of things to come, sadly.
Out of the Unknown: No Place Like Earth (1965)
A dull start out to the Out of the unknown series
First one i have watched. I agree with the sentiments of the other review. Simplistic, slowly paced, poor dialogue. I do hope the series gets better.
PS. I only heard about this show from watching Disney's The Beatles: Get Back documentary.
The Pillars of the Earth (2010)
How did it go so wrong?
It feels like an attempt to mash up the Tudors and game of thrones. Finished the first episode. By any standards an all star cast of fabulous actors who all seem to have fallen into a school play. Very ropey wooden performances. Never seen Rufus Sewell bad at anything before. How is it possible not to get a good performance out of Donald Sutherland?
The Tomorrow War (2021)
It's a terrible great movie!
Ok, its full of clichés, i counted about ten scenes that could have been lifted from other films. Some of them so close they deserve some kind of copyright fee. Alien, Terminator, Aliens, Alien again, in fact there's a bit of every alien movie ever made in there, except alien 3.. War of the worlds, Die Hard (you'll know it when you see it), Predator, Jurassic Park World, World War Z not to mention the obvious literature rip offs from the forever wars etc. The plot is full of holes some scenes have been trimmed so they dont quite make sense sometimes.
But, and it's a big but, it is actually really good fun, its well produced, the acting is pure blockbuster material, special effects are good. It's an entertaining two hours. Classic Father Son redemption, Father Daughter redemption monster movie.
I suppose its standard hollywood now though, but pretty much every character that isnt related to the Chriss Pratt character is black. Which just felt a bit forced. Loved the guy from Veep, though it did feel like he was playing a very similar character to that from Veep. Good to see people making the transition from TV to movies, pretty much the main cast are tv actors and the film is not worse because of it.
Time Jumpers (2018)
embarrassing convoluted reverse cliches
Grim, what sounds like might be an interesting first story turns into school play level script on racism. It's so bad. Not necessarily the acting, it is what it is. But it just so clearly contrived.
Vice (2018)
Good and bad, but a nasty unpleasant undertone.
Some of this film is fantastic. I dont mind a warts and all look at who this person is, who suddenly became vice president of the USA. But some of this is just deeply unpleasant, really unpleasant.
Mild spoiler, throughout the film there is a person who keeps popping out (an actor from friday night lights) and we keep having to wonder what his role in it all is.
We find out at the end. And it might just be the most, ugly, vindictive, nasty and malicious piece of film work ive ever seen in a movie that presents itself as a drama of actual events.
All involved in this should be really looking at themselves and thinking about the values they claim to hold.