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Reviews
Motherland (2016)
Brilliant comedy writing and production
I can understand people hating this, either because it's irredeemably middle class or because it pillories the middle class mercilessly.
But the fact remains - yes, it's a fact - that this is some of the best comedy writing ever seen on television. It moves forward like a dense comic fugue, rather than a series of set-ups for punchlines or pratfalls. Every moment is comic, often in several ways / on several levels simultaneously. The writing, the production and the actors inhabiting the characters are all up to the mark and make this work. It's a thing of wonder - as densely constructed as any classic comic movie or play.
There are actually a couple of moments in season 2 - and they literally are moments, and just a couple - when the show lets itself down with a cheap, throwaway line. But these stand out like...well... like someone playing the wrong note in a fugue.
The Heat (2013)
I blame the editor
Wildly uneven and too long. I suspect it would be getting much better ratings if at least some of the dud scenes and lines that fell painfully flat had been edited out. There's lots of room for doing this in a movie that's two hours long with credits.
Plenty of very funny scenes, and excellent work by a lot of the supporting actors. Overall quite enjoyable. I feel like a lot of the painful moments stemmed from a failure to define any coherent sense of the two leads' characters - especially Bullock's. I suspect it's hard to deliver comic lines convincingly without a sense of who's supposed to be delivering them.
Karate Kill (2016)
Not a great movie, but rich with sociological insight.
Good Karate, and Asami is a compelling character if the protagonist really isn't. The film's main value is its insight into the culture and values of Trumpistas and the alt-right - which really should be called the alt-rite, for its essentially K-mart values. From the news I've watched from abroad, the villains in this film are pretty indistinguishable from the average pro-Trump demonstrator, save for being better-looking and a lot more articulate. Sometimes it takes an objective, outside perspective to really shine light on a phenomenon.
Into the Forest (2015)
A different sort of chick flick
Enjoyed it a lot. Slow but convincing; well written, well-made, well-acted.
My guess is that 98% of those who hated it simply object to the idea of a post-apocalyptic film that isn't about men saving the day. Hence the broad vein of affront at the decisions the sisters make. The unspoken implication is that a couple of husky young Aryan preppers would have sorted them out.... and (more important) learned them to be good, obedient wives that knowed their place.
I'm sure there are any number of films the haters here would hate just as much - but don't feel the need to pan. That's because they haven't gone to watch them by mistake, imagining they're going to be rewarded with another pandering, exploitative affirmation of identities rooted - if we're being honest -in always making the easiest choice.
Excalibur (1981)
Ugly patriotic codswollop
By turns pompous, portentous Tolkienesque posturing and crudely-signposted drama and symbolism - all of it trying to make a silk purse out of the sow's ear of a phony patriotic national identity. And is there a more irredeemably ignoble project than that? Some thoroughly enjoyable overacting and delightfully half-hearted special effects; just a shame it was all undertaken to such a sad, empty, squalid end. It's the sort of thing that makes one embarrassed to be British. It could have been made about motorcycle gangs fighting over control of a post-apocalyptic Shropshire and been just as effective.
Did I say just as effective? - MORE effective, if only because the sentiments would have been more suited in consequence and scale to the context. Magical fiction is used to more worthwhile cinematic ends in everything from the Harry Potter series to the classics of Chinese and Japanese cinema.
Martyrs (2008)
A snuff film for eunuchs
Well made and effective: 8/10.
Voyeuristic, pointless and and morally empty: 1/10.
I'm guessing that the scriptwriter and director of this movie are the sort of people who'd happily collect ivory, or invest the loot they've made from this film in a Bangladeshi sweatshop.
It's 'a snuff film for eunuchs' because it scrapes the bottom of the same dreckish barrel, for (as far as I can make out)the same sullenly nihilistic reasons, but is devoid of any sexual element whatsoever. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the actresses were treated with appalling brutality.
It made me angry.
Flushed Away (2006)
Loads of fun, but less than the sum of its parts due to a charmless protagonist .
Beautiful animation. Loads of great secondary characters and engaging details. Non-stop visual humour of the highest order. I quite fell in love with Rita.
It's all spoiled a bit by the protagonist Roddy - who seems to be modelled on the jejune, generic, wise-ass protagonists in '80s American teen flicks and TV. If they'd pushed that angle, to the point of making his character an over the top parody of Michael J. Fox, at the nadir of his entire career singing rock and roll in Back to the Future, it would have added to the film. Rita would have been a far more engaging central character. Instead, they've bottled out - doubtless a decision made for commercial reasons, but a bit disappointing from Aardman.
Nihon chinbotsu (2006)
Unique addition to the disaster genre
A moving and quite different disaster movie. It gives us sadness, stoicism, everyday solidarity and love of place where an American film would serve up a roller coaster of forgettable adrenalin-sodden individual heroics.
The science is credible, the special effects (at least on my grainy streamed version) convincing and believable, and the reactions of the Japanese people are portrayed with a realism rare in a disaster movie.
There's one moment where a trite pop song sabotages a touching farewell, which in itself is an eminently Japanese touch, and the last minute or so strain credulity. But other than that it's emotionally consistent and quietly powerful. As a film, 7/10 - it's no Citizen Kane. As a disaster film, 11/10: it injects a rare degree of intelligence and nobility into a pretty debased genre.