zanmorrow Reviews

Margaret (I) (2011)

Please fix this movie

[3/10 · 25 June 2016]

This is a film about Lisa, a 19 year old spoiled girl living in Upper West side Manhattan, going to a private school. This is the sort of school where a teacher coming across Lisa and a friend smoking a joint in the park, just tells them off and walks on. They call him by his first name and mimic him. Lisa purposely distracts a bus driver because she likes his cowboy hat, he goes through a red light and kills a woman pedestrian who dies in Lisa's arms. They both say the light was green. She feels guilt. This story is about a moral dilemma (does it matter that she lied, as the woman is dead and the bus driver will lose his job). Her mother is an actress, her father lives in California. They profess concern but don't offer much guidance. The other issue is communication, Lisa's family don't communicate, her friends don't. The film is clunky - ie what is Lisa's mother's new boyfriend's job? 'I help pc's that can't communicate.' Clunk. She has meaningless sex but rebukes a boy who really likes her. He says she's putting him off because love scares her - clunk. There are mad subplots - the mother's affair with a man who loves opera, the cringy scene between the acting class, telling each other home truths, her meaningless sex with a classmate (do you want to come over and deflower me?) The crazy lawsuit against the bus company makes no sense and introduces yet more side characters - two different lawyers, family members etc, who then leave the story. Really just too bonkers to be enjoyable. Anna Paquin overacts - Matt Damon and Mark Ruffalo try to calm her performance but it's too rabid. The mother is the best of the lot.

A Simple Life (2011)

A simply lovely film

[7/10 · 25 June 2016]

This is a lovely film, made in Hong Kong, about a woman who had been a maid in a family for 60 years, her family had traditionally worked for this family. At the point of the film, there is just the made Ah Tao and her 'master' Roger left - the rest of the family have died or moved away. When Ah Tao has a stroke, the tells Roger (a film director) that she wants to move to an old age home. It seems that after decades of looking after people, she wants to be looked after. Roger takes great concern over her, visiting her in hospital, looking for the best home for her and paying for it. To western eyes the home looks pretty basic but Ah Tao is happy there and Roger visits her regularly. It is a pleasure to see the joy they take in each other company. The film is careful to show that Roger has many friends, and a good relationship with his family, so his relationship with Ah Tao is not needy, simply a lovely friendship. Nothing much happens in the film, there is some interesting discussions about food, where to buy it and how to cook it but it is mainly a look at life in Hong Kong and a depiction of a close relationship that goes beyond master/servant, young/old, male/female. Worth watching.

Upstream Color (2013)

Pigs!

[4/10 · 19 June 2016]

I'm not averse to complicated films but I didn't understand this. It dealt with drugs (a hallucinogenic worm inserted in the bloodstream). A woman seems to be brainwashed under this spell. She meets a man, not sure if this was planned or random. He is also lost but it's unclear if he's also had the worm. There is a man who looks like a geography teacher behind all this. He's also a pig farmer and some kind of sound engineer. Somehow the lives of the man and woman (Chris and Jeff) are linked to what's happening to the pigs. They figure this out using random memory fragments. They find the farm and Chris murders the pig farmer and finds his scientific research files. At the end Chris and Jeff and others who have had the worm (all linked by the book 'Walden' for some reason) come to the farm, find the pig linked to them, set them free, paint the walls... cuddle the pigs. One of the more annoying things in this pretensions film were voice overs in scenes when the characters were taking, voice overs of their own speech. There were some nice scenes on a train which were reminiscent of Eternal Sunshine, in fact this film made me want to watch that one again. Really not worth the time.

The Great Beauty (2013)

A little too languid

[7/10 · 19 June 2016]

I try to watch the foreign language film winners and have seen some very moving films. But this was just too languid for me. Rome looks beautiful but the people within it in this film aren't really happy and quite dismissive of it. Jep is the protagonist, a party animal who realises at age 65 his life has been quite wasted after becoming famous for one small novel written decades ago. He does interviews for newspapers and his editor is the only sympathetic character in the novel. The rest rely on drugs, sex, clothes, parties to give them satisfaction. This could make a good film but Jeb just wanders around getting sadder and sadder. Friends leave Rome, die, suffer despair. The film has some nice surreal dream sequences and beautiful views, gorgeous rooms. Sitting under the stars at night in an outdoor sitting room with sofas, tables and lights looks divine but that's the on,y bit of this film that reached me.

The Interpreter (2005)

Don't bother seeing this film.

[5/10 · 18 September 2005]

I watched this film the day after seeing Hotel Rwanda so perhaps I made unfair comparisons of films about terror in Africa. But that said, this film had little to recommend it. Kidman is dire - wooden is the best that can be said for her performance. Maybe she thought she was showing repressed emotion but nothing came over. Penn was good, as good as he could be working opposite her - in fact at times he seemed to overact, especially at the end, but it was welcome because I just wanted to see some warmth. He has played the hard bitten cop probably a few too many times. The plot was confusing and not really believable and just not tense enough for what was supposed to be a thriller. By the end I was waiting for it to be over. Not recommended.

Pride & Prejudice (2005)

Lively start but ultimately disappointing

[7/10 · 15 September 2005]

I prepared for this film by watching again the 1995 BBC version - perhaps a mistake. Still when the film started I was heartened by the opening scenes of the Bennett home and family. The assembly and Netherfield ball were terrific. But I gradually found myself getting bored. Plot development faltered, there was nil on-screen chemistry between Knightly and McFadden, the Lydia/Wickham subplot came and went with only one sentence to explain its significance to the rest of the girls' futures. The costumes and settings began to jar and instead of just enjoying the film I kept wondering about it's accuracy - did Mr Bennett really keep farm animals? Would he really have hugged Mary after the piano incident in quite such a modern-Dad sort of way?.

Knightly looks good, too good, but I just couldn't see her as Lizzie, and several times her voice tone and inflection exactly mirrored Ehle's. McFadden is not convincing. The music is excellent, the humming of the servant girl a lovely touch. The scenery and settings are beautiful, but again they didn't seem quite right for Austen. Much of the dialogue is dull. I just couldn't settle into this film.

Random Hearts (1999)

Dumb and boring

[6/10 · 11 November 2000]

I knew i would see this movie because I like the two main characters but I was bored and only stuck with it to see if anything would happen. Unfortunately nothing ever did. The scenery was beautiful at times and the main characters' acting was intriguing (how will they play against each other?) but ultimately a big zero.

An Englishman Abroad (1983 TV Movie)

I love this drama

[9/10 · 11 November 2000]

I watch it every time it comes on TV. Alan Bates is perfect and the fact that Coral Brown plays her younger self is so perceptive - she's an old woman in the play - does she play herself exactly as she was - if so she was old before her time. Russia looks so grey - it makes London look bright and bustling. And the final scene makes the whole thing worth it.