c-r-bennett-571-908031 Reviews

Camelot (2011)

Shame

[3/10 · 12 June 2011]

Diary of a wimpy kid with added sex and violence.

I have seen the first episode only and I'd say that there are great sets some interesting ideas and maybe closer to the idea of Arthur that I grew up with. But so many flaws. Fiennes as Merlin is good - but the supporting cast are so much more interesting than Arthur himself and as someone else pointed out - the actor playing Kay would have been a much better lead. Also very annoyed about the Ector story line - the man who uses his head and is responsible for teaching Arthur wisdom going all Rambo at the end.

As for 'Arthur' himself - he is supposed to be the son of the greatest warlord of his time and a man who will turn into a great warrior in his own right - just one that uses his head. And what we get is a boy who could pass for a girl.

The Shadow Line (2011)

So much is good about it but its not as good as it thinks it is

[4/10 · 10 June 2011]

Well I am watching it and will watch it to the bitter end. There is a lot to enjoy but I am increasingly disappointed and am finding more and more things annoying. It has a lot of very good actors working their socks off with something that tries to be clever.

But that seems to be half the problem. They try so hard to put so much stuff in so that people think that's 'clever' that it helps to highlight things that don't work - little details like people never locking cars after leaving them which contrast so strongly with the little details we are 'supposed' to notice. There is also the level of violence which doesn't always work and feels that its just there for effect. And its increasingly full of clichés. In other words they just seem to try too hard and when it clunks it really clunks. The whole thing in the hospital ward for instance.

I know its a very different beast from Edge of Darkness to which it has been compared and maybe its just that I saw that a long long time ago - but that was so much better structured and shot - and the Wire - well that was a lot of not much happening with occasional dramatic events which were so much more effective for being a little unusual. This tries but sadly its nothing like as good as either

The Killer Inside Me (2010)

Disappointing

[5/10 · 2 September 2010]

Cant help expecting more.....

The good things -

Casey Affleck and the character of Lou Ford as the baby faced psycho who thinks he is smart but isn't as clever as he believes Plausible violence - It wasn't good to watch but the situations felt real. I am still not convinced it was so necessary to have so much as you can get the point fairly quickly and then it just starts eating up film time which you could probably use better doing other things.

The bad things The ending - was stupid on so many levels. If by some chance it wasn't in his imagination then what are the chances that so many people have no sense of smell... Would have been much better to finish the film 10 minutes earlier. Dialogue. Maybe its just me and maybe it was the cinema but I just didn't catch what was being said a lot of the time. The Elias Koteas character in particular was hard to understand, and with so many little clues and pointers to whats happening and the different relationships its frustrating when you start missing things

The film as a whole felt incoherent, and I cant help thinking that there are much better films covering the same sort of area

Rolling Family (2004)

very very very dull

[1/10 · 19 June 2010]

Its bad, sorry 'naturalistic'. A bunch of unlikeable people go on a road trip and you don't find out anything about them. Or maybe you do, its just that we decided we couldn't last longer than about 45 minutes into the film. We'd have lasted a lot longer if it had just been a film taken by someone poking a camera out of a car window for an hour, because some of the scenery could have looked lovely, and there would certainly have been more action.

I had wondered if it was a cultural thing, if it was a problem with the humour not being translated well into the subtitles, but to be honest I really think it really is that dull. There is an issue with the style of movie and the subtitles, in that its often hard to work out which of the characters mumbling in the background the subtitles actually refer to.

There have been some comparisons with little miss sunshine but there is no comparison. One has interesting characters well developed in a very economical way, poignant moments and some real humour, the other has a guy swearing at toll booths every few minutes.