jemery Reviews

When the Road Bends... Tales of a Gypsy Caravan (2006)

Too much film; not enough music

[5/10 · 11 July 2007]

Wonderful music. I wish that film makers would get over their fear of music. Time after time these wonderful musicians would begin to meld on stage into a gorgeous multi-ethnic stew of style and spirit, and bang-o, off we'd go to Roumania or Macedonia to see the musicians on their home ground. There's a place for both, of course, but more often than not the latter occurred at the expense of the former. Then there was an astonishingly bad editing choice at the end of the film, when a perfect coda of sadness and longing was stepped on by the film maker in favor of the big bang theory of ending movies. The musicians deserved better and the audience deserved better.

Bleak House (2005)

Terrific acting wasted

[1 February 2006]

There are the wonderful faces of Timothy West, Charles Dance, Pauline Collins, and Ian Richardson in this depiction of one of Dickens's best and largest novels. Unfortunately the direction obscures the good acting. It's awful, with constant nausea-inducing visual glissandi, and lighting that ranges from dark to obscure. Along with the unnecessary motion, there are zis-boom-ba sound effects more appropriate to a Batman sequel or a neo-Vincent Price B-movie. For the real thing, do yourself the favor of finding the wonderful 1985 Denholm Elliott/Diana Rigg mini-series, in which Ms. Rigg as Lady Deadlock,unlike Gillian Anderson, appears truly forlorn, not just drugged.

March of the Penguins (2005)

Penguin glop

[2/10 · 15 August 2005]

Take one part "Winged Migration" and 10 parts Disney animal shorts from the 1950s and you have "March of the Penguins." There's about 15 minutes of good information and an hour of damned cute penguins. A treacly (and self-contradictory) narration (containing both "We don't know much about these penguins" and assurance that all partings are sad and all reunions are joyful) mixed with the gloppiest of new-age background music overwhelm a good story about the animals. No opportunity for simplistic anthropomorphism is missed in a tour de force of dumbing down a genuinely fascinating story. Too bad for the penguins. Too bad for the audience.

Blue Note - A Story of Modern Jazz (1997 TV Movie)

Spend your money on BlueNote CDs

[5 May 2004]

A bizarrely and sadly incoherent collection of fascinating clips and interviews, with few whole performances (Cassandra Wilson's appearance an exception for some reason.) The music is wonderful, if frustratingly edited, and the visuals are all over the place with historical and recreated film footage. Why do film makers (and public radio poobahs) prefer talking about music to playing it? If you're fascinated with this great period of American artistic creation (and you should be) do watch it in spite of itself. If you're hoping to learn about it, spend your money on CDs. Better yet, haunt the used record stores and find those original LPs with brilliant cover art and the best liner notes ever.

Me & Mrs Jones (2002 TV Movie)

Nothing there

[3/10 · 28 January 2003]

Russell Baker asked us to suspend our disbelief for "Me & Mrs. Jones". Suspension of disbelief is an important aspect in the observation of drama, but only when it's worth while to allow the appreciation of the drama (There was none; it was perfectly obvious from the beginning how it would end.) or comedy (which consisted mostly of Robson Green squinting thoughtfully and his friend the fund-raiser hyperventilating.) There's nothing really wrong with it as a TV-movie, but there's nothing particularly interesting either.