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Marionette (2020)
A proper, decent film
That's more like it. A decent story, with a proper build up, proper character development, and a quality cast which all hit spot on for realism. No CGI nonsense, no string of meaningless explosions. No daftness.
I watched this due to having spent a lot of time in Portsoy (Aberdeenshire) over the years. My ex texted me and said she'd seen a film which was shot partly in Portsoy, so I thought I'd watch it. What I was expecting was to fast forward through the film to see my favourite fishing village. What I found was an intricately woven story, steady progression of the story, decent real characters, and excellent direction / lighting / cinematography / foley / score. Of particular note is some of the framing of the shots, partcularly toward the end. First class. The director clearly made sure this film didn't fall into the ' "let's just wrap it up" can't be bothered-ness'. Quality retained through to the end.
The cast, especially the leads, are excellent. They hit the personality of their characters spot on. In fact nobody feels out of place, and the dialogue is as natural as everyday life. It's not overplayed, it's not underplayed. Just "right".
The story itself is a question that any intelligent person will have asked themselves many times. I'm saying no more about it as I want to give nothing away. For this you have to watch it. And just when one believes it's all wrapped up, it ain't!
I love this film, I wish there were more like it. Far superior to the garbage gumph that pours out of Hollywood these days. It's a 'proper film mate'. Like a book.
So why 9/10? Just a little too slow at the start, for 20 minutes or so - almost to the point where it felt like a Scandinavian film. But it didn't take long after to pick up the pace and hold it there,
Worth watching, most definitely.
For clarity, this film is titled 'Repression' in some places (Amazon Prime for example). I'm not sure why as 'Marionette' is a far better title, but there we go.
Lastly, a special mention for Elijah Wolf, who is without doubt the creepiest child actor I've ever seen. Bravo!
The Hills Have Eyes II (2007)
And the award for...
Dreadful, unintelligent dialogue
Appalling acting
Lazy, meaningless story
Idiot characters
Worse depiction of any military corp
Unsurprising jump scares
Predictability
Disinterested actors
Terrible direction
Every cliché in the book
...goes to 'The Hills Have Eyes 2'
Just don't bother, at all, ever, even if you're drunk and need some eyeball chewing gum to pass the time. It's truly awful in every single respect.
I saw the remake of Hills for the first time the other day and it was very, very good. Genuine, interesting characters and a deftly woven and gradual increase in suspense. The direction was very good, adhering to the Hitchcock rule of 'it's not what you can see, it's what you can't see'. The situation for the characters gets steadily worse and the resultant character development feels as real as it could be.
But this film is the absolute opposite. I really wish I could find one good thing to say about it, but I've racked my brains.
Pass.
The Watcher (2022)
It won't keep you watching
I just couldn't take any more than 45 minutes.
The writing is laughable; nonsensical characters, especially the weird couple next door who are instantaneously aggressive for seemingly no apparent reason. There's little in the way of character development or back story. The whole thing just doesn't seem cohesive enough to keep me watching, and I don't care about the characters either.
And stop shaking the damn cameras! This ain't the 90s or an action movie. It looks silly, is frustrating to watch and doesn't match the tone of the show.
Pass on this, save yourself the time and spend it on watching something by Mike Flanagan instead.
Moana (2016)
It gets worse and worse
What a total bunch of typical, self-righteous, pro-feminism, anti-masculine, standard Disney, cut and paste garbage. The writers must have used another one of the wealth of 21st century, standardised Disney films and simply altered the names of the characters to produce something 'new'.
Dull characters, including a daft chicken who adds nothing, and of course the male is a meaningless, unimportant dunce. The star is of course a run-of-the-mill Disney Princess who of course saves the day and "breaks the mould" - yawn.
Creativity is dead, and were left with this rubbish.
The two stars I've awarded are for the geniuses who animated this movie beautifully, particularly the water which is mesmerisingly good. The void of 8 stars is for everyone else involved in this loser of a film.
Put it on, sit your six year old in front of the TV, then leave the room and do something else for an hour and a half. If you have some paint that's drying, then watch that as it will have more story and more interesting characters.
What more can I say?
Geostorm (2017)
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
Seriously, Roy from the IT Crowd would have solved the problem that is the premise of this film with that one short sentence. Essentially that's what the entire film seems to be about. Yet again, the wise writings of Graham Linehan would apply here.
Normal guff; absurd science, explosions for little reason, standard Hollywood "inclusive" characters, laughable computer code appearing on screens, naff script and an underused host of actors (a couple being top notch) who could have done much better with good words.
So why 3 stars and not one? Well, it's a great film to have playing in the background whilst you have your iPhone open in front of you reading IMDB about how terrible this film is.
Passes the time. Little else.
Meltdown: Three Mile Island (2022)
Not really a documentary
Way too long and vastly over emotional. Interviewees getting all teary-eyed over relatively moderate occurrences (that really came to nothing in the end), more than 40 years ago, makes it feel like a bit of a soap opera.
It could have been wrapped up in an hour quite easily, and would have been improved by utilising proper scientific analysis and periodic footage rather than Rick banging on about how he'd kill for his sons (eh?) and various other unrelated nonsense.
Was it really necessary to use 90 minutes to explain that there was a potential problem with the crane, and how it was prevented from being used for the clean up? Six minutes at the most.
It simply tries too hard to make this quite minor occurrence seem more impactful than it was, but it doesn't really work. It gets silly and unnecessary. It wasn't a nuclear disaster, it was a small incident which caused a partial meltdown, but one which remained controlled with very little spurious output. It's not Chernobyl and it's not Fukushima.
Don't waste your time.
Haunted (2018)
Like like like...
It's like quite like interesting like if you like know like what I like mean. Very like dark like photography which like makes it like all like spooky.
If you've read that sentence and it hasn't annoyed you, this is the show for you.
If on the other hand you have a modicum of intelligence and a grip of grammar, then don't even bother watching it. Aside from the topless girl at the start, there's little reason to watch it past the first couple of minutes.
Superstore (2015)
Very subtle and well observed
Retail seems to attract the strangest blend of folk; people who wouldn't normally run together in any walk of life. This comedy captures it perfectly.
Being British I'm not hugely aware of US retail chains, although they're not much different from here I'd be prepared to bet. Watching this series confirms that nicely however. It is exceptionally well observed and clearly highlights that the writers have plenty of experience in this walk of life. The range of characters just works, some right at the edge of believability (Glenn the Manager being one of those, still feels 'right' though), others are obviously just clearly bored by their work and it shows beautifully on their faces.
America Ferrera and Ben Feldman lead comfortably, the whole cast though playing their characters just right (Colton Dunne especially). Some laughs are crazy, some are slight chuckles, most are just through the realism of the strange world of retail and the subsequent madness one finds in such an environment. In any case, the balance is deftly woven and subtly even. Moments of mundanity and 'everyday-edness' suddenly get barged aside by chaos and madness, and the characters' reactions are just right.
Nice to see some strong sarcasm (we Brits love that) and plenty of genuine irony too. This really is worth a watch. Clever, subtle, observant, brilliant.
Our Friends in the North (1996)
Blurs the line between drama and real life.
Realistically, words cannot describe just how superbly written and beautifully played this drama is. It grips so tight that it's almost hard to imagine that it is in fact a story and the characters become real people, almost giving the impression that their very existence influenced certain political factors throughout the 1970's and 1980's.
It begins in 1964 with the main character Dominic Hutchinson (Christopher Eccleston) arriving home in Newcastle after a trip to New Orleans, and follows his life and the lives of his three childhood friends. It begins so innocently in fact that it's hard to imagine where the story is heading when one first sits down to view.
It's soon apparent though that the main driving subject of the drama (and in fact the stake that's driven through the friendships of the characters) is the politically uneasy period in British history, and the story is exceptionally deftly woven with real life occurrences, from the electricity rationing and the resulting three day working week to the surge of pornography, strip clubs and Police corruption in Soho, from the uprise of Thatcherism to the destruction of the mining industry.
Everything that happened in this time period in Britain has a showing here, whether it be a main hinge-point of the story or a television programme in the background. And just as it affected our lives at the time (storm of 1987 for example), it affects the lives of the characters in turn. It also highlights the rags to riches to rags nature of life that luckily only taints a few of us, but one poor soul - Geordie - has the kind of life that would send most of us to tears, played beautifully by Daniel Craig in the role he was really made for.
Geordie is the epitome of 'floating down the stream', and literally goes from unemployed Newcastle escapee to Soho Porn King's number 2. His portrayal of the character is absolutely superb, with real attention paid to the nuances one would expect to see in life without noticing.
In fact all the cast play beautifully, the main four being Christopher Eccleston, Gina McKee, Daniel Craig and Mark Strong supported by the acting superiority from the likes of Peter Vaughan, Alun Armstrong, Malcolm McDowell, Donald Sumpter and many others besides.
The one thing that really struck me was in the final episode. There is a momentary glance between all four of the characters when after all the years and all the problems and all the arguments, they've all ended up exactly where they started, it's just 21 years later.
It made me realise (bearing in mind I was only 19 when I first saw it), why people say 'I don't feel as old as I am', and why I now don't feel any older than I did fifteen years ago. It can't be quantified, you'll just have to watch it to understand.
I don't know of any other drama/film/series that could convey so much sense of focus and proportion and really show life for what it is (and what it was in the 70's and 80's), but if there's something out there that does, I'd love to see it.
Just sit down quietly with this drama, listen to every word, watch every scene and concentrate on the social commentary. I swear if this doesn't communicate, you can't be a human.