Change Your Image
grangers-1
Reviews
Sherwood (2022)
Ex-local man liked this show
I was 11yrs old when the miners' strike started. Six months in and I started secondary school at the comprehensive in the town along the road from where Sherwood is set.
I didn't realise that adults could hate each other as much as they appeared to. Bricks were being thrown at people travelling to work.
And, in the end, whatever side of the economic and/or political argument you were on is now irrelevant as the whole industry died some years ago.
Sherwood shines a light on the complexity of that time and the nature of us humans to linger on things gone by.
The acting and writing were faultless.
The only actor (a well respected one) with a mildly questionable accent fortunately died in the first episode.
The only downside is that I'm now lingering again on that strike 🙂
The Strangers (2008)
Beautiful in its simplicity
The film begins with no horror or suspense. Just the story of an evening wherein the guy proposes to the girl and she says: "No".
Then the menace begins to creep in. First, the couple find goings on weird. This later turns much more threatening.
The main theme of the film being that this could happen to you. They are not in a house in the worlds where a family were previously butchered, or in a Deep South rural community were families breed amongst themselves and outsiders are on the menu. They are in a house on a road with little traffic at night and the neighbours are out of earshot.
The film treads a fine line between life-realistic torment and being too mundane. But, its Tyler and the 'Strangers' outside her house that ensure that we are kept hooked.
There are a lot of little visual details in the film that add to the sense of forthcoming possible doom whether it be a shaking camera (just at the right time), or the unloved dated look of the interior of the house.
On the face of it this is a film that on paper sounds like a few dozen earlier examples of the horror/suspense genre. But, this stands out for its life mimicking simplicity, our attachment to the guy and girl and the beauty with which it is shoot.
(My 13 year old daughter didn't sleep well the night after we saw it.)
The Eye (2008)
Alba reminds us that you may want to check where that donated organ came from.
Jessica Alba plays a woman who undergoes cornea transplants in a remake of a Chinese film of the same name.
The moment she opens her eyes she starts to see things that aren't there. These include (a) a number of grim reapers, (b) recently dead people, (c) vivid images of someone else's past premonitions, and (d) a director and editor who aren't sure whether their making a horror film, thriller or a 'who dunnit?'.
There is a faint oriental air to the film with does add a bit of mystery. This is essentially a relatively cheaply made Alba-vehicle. There is no-one else in it other than a periodically appearing sister and a doctor who you never quite get interested in as he has nothing of worth to say.
You do jump from minor shock every now and then (but then an unexpected rapid orchestral crescendo does that to most people).
The film is similar in feel to Sarah Michelle-Gellar's The Grudge. You are left with a similar feeling when you leave the cinema; a resigned "it was okay".
There Will Be Blood (2007)
A mighty classic. Day-Lewis please have my babies.
You hear stories of how directors (e.g. Scorses for Gangs Of New York) run elaborate plots to try to pin-down Daniel Day-Lewis, get him to read their script, and sign up to their current project. So craved is his talent.
You imagine that from his first reading Day-Lewis put pen to paper with excitement in anticipation of what he knew he could do with the character. As in every moment of his presence in this film you can see that he gives his all. He takes hold of this film and the character takes hold of him. Day-Lewis is Daniel Plainview, a man on his own, an almost penniless oil prospector scratching holes in the ground. You watch him change over a 30 year period of his life.
The film begins with a sequence of scenes with an absence of dialogue. However, there is a mighty score reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Oddessy. This is a glorious decision by the filmmakers as the film now belongs less to the early 1900s of its setting and more to today (thankfully no twanging banjos here.)
You and Plainview develop an understanding. You admire his hard-working regime and his negotiation skills with the locals that he come across. You would trust him with your offspring. But, over time Plainview adds demons into his character. I will refrain from giving any more description on this. I feel that Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now was trying to achieve what Day-Lewis pulls off in this film.
I love films. There Will Be Blood is what makes me love films. This now means that I can optimistically go forth into the future and watch a whole heap of mediocre/poor films all the time knowing that one day there will be another mighty classic such as this.
Highlander (1986)
Fantasy, Queen, sword-fights and mild sex. Hooray.
Upon it's release in 1986 I, and millions of other teenage boys, were ready for Highlander. Like others I: (i) thought that Queen were the best group ever (only a year after Live Aid), (ii) had seen and enjoyed Christopher Lambert's previous two films (Greystoke... and Subway), (iii) exploring the idea of immortality, plus (iv) the minor bonus of Sean Connery playing himself again. The trailers on TV had me hooked. The film itself was no disappointment. Russell Mulcahy's direction led him to make the Queen tracks highly prominent. Plus, the story jumps chronologically back and forth (like Pulp Fiction and Momento). Something I always enjoy. In short; The Kurgen (an evil immortal chap) knows that Lambert is immortal and tries to kill him (in 16th century Scotland). The only way this is possible is by decapitation. He fails. Thereafter the two avoid losing their heads in wait for the final battle, in modern day New York. The effects, particularly in the final scenes, are clumsy. But, this does not distract you from a glorious journey through time, music and the love of two women. For a couple of years after the film I, and three of my friends, wore long grey raincoats reminiscent of Lambert's attire. Sad but true. Something unique to Highlander is that if I meet up with my friends from that era occasionally we slip into the bits of script that we can remember: "You cruisin' for a piece of ass?!...", "Don't banish him, burn him!", "You've got your sheepskins on and the boats I made for you...", "It's better to burn out, than to fade awayyy!..."
I Am Legend (2007)
You're Legend, I'm left wanting.
A bit like the first Fantastic4 film or The Day After Tomorrow. You feel that you're watching a big film, but then you realise that nothing is actually happening. The few scenes that make up the film are of generally important or even life and death situations, but you remain only mildly impressed by what you see as there is no depth to the story. There are so many elements/avenues that could have been explored but weren't. I felt like I was being hurriedly led down a corridor having chance to only snatch a peek into the rooms that lay to each side, before being pushed back outside. Apologies for straying into nerd-dom but Will Smith's character's name (Robert Neville) gives us an inkling into what's in store. It's anagram is "Terrible Novel".