sandgroper66 Reviews

Ray Donovan (2013–2020)

For grow ups

[6 August 2013]

This is a brilliant show. The acting is incredible, from everyone. It is totally captivating. It's great writing, the scripts aren't clunky, it moves at a steady and mesmerizing pace. It feels like we are in the hands of real film makers here. It doesn't deserve comparison with dexter which signposts everything and relies on lazy narration and low production values. This is much more sophisticated and subtle. Dexter is a cartoon compared to this. It's my new favorite show, from Mad Men and Homeland. This is much more satisfying. The cast is superb, they are a caliber above anything else on TV. This really is a master class in every way.

Daughter from Danang (2002)

A courageous woman

[10 January 2013]

I really think that Heidi at only 22 with her cultural and emotional background showed extraordinary strength and tolerance. It is easy for others to judge when they have not walked in her shoes. I was surprised at how much she was willing to try to immerse herself in her birth family's world and how much she was willing to try and modify who she was to suit them and their behaviour. She was courageous in her honesty of how she was feeling and some people have betrayed that honesty by judging her. She's a tough cookie. She grew up with a cold, distant mother who told her that she should be grateful to have her, because essentially no-one else wanted her. She felt tremendous abandonment not only from her birth mother but her new mother also. She grew up in a very homogeneous American world & despite very little nurturing as a child grew into a remarkably self confident woman. She was of course totally unprepared for her experience with culture shock but did her best to integrate and understand. She was only 22 and meeting her birth family for the first time, away from her kids, husband, and all she knows. She's bombarded with her birth family's and birth mother's expectations of how she should respond & behave. It was too much. Her birth family are poor but they have not had to jump out of their comfort zone on their own as she has done. They were still all with each other and in the place they know. Their level of poverty is not extreme for their culture. Of course as westerners we are shocked by their living standards. For Heidi, she was willing to integrate herself into their way of life in a pretty brave way for a young woman from her emotional & physical background. She was upset by their request for money because it made her feel used, like it wasn't about her, but about the money she represented. It made her question the sincerity of everything. For a woman who grew up with no physical affection, the suffocating physical attention from a woman that to her is essentially a stranger, is as foreign as the country. No doubt she would doubt the sincerity of that contact when she is aware how much they want her financial support & she doesn't know these people and what they are really like. I don't blame her one little bit for her reactions. With all the resources she had - she did the best she could. I think her birth family were as insensitive as she has been accused of being, but. Because of their cultural and financial situation it is easier to expect less from them. Some of you may have done better, others may not have been able to have handled as much. I feel for her,now she has even more reason to think she's a "bad" person, when she isn't. She's human, a human who was not nurtured or raised properly, who is doing the best she can for herself & her own children. She had dreams for what kind of a mother she would find, based on years of fantasizing about it, when she finally meets her actual mother there's not the fairytale connection that she had expected, and instead of just being gently loved and given time to let it grow, they grabbed her & expected her to fit right in & behave as "one of them". She went to them as open hearted and as open minded as she was able to. If not, she wouldn't have had the courage to do it. She obviously only imagined the best outcome. I think her birth family were, in their excitement, too aggressive with her, hopefully well intentioned. But I'm not sure that all of their enthusiasm & emotion was entirely authentic, and this is what Heidi was reacting to.

Woodley (2012)

Beautiful

[11 March 2012]

Refreshing, charming - a lovely nod to buster Keaton & Charlie Chaplin. It's so great to see something on TV that is without guile and violence - well malicious violence! It is beautifully realized with appropriate and restrained images that allow Woodley to shine. Very clever and charming. Well done ABC for not doing the same old cop show, family gangster or law show. Justine is perfect as his foil, and his daughter is a delightful combination Of wisdom, mischievousness & love for her hapless dad. The sets & design is quaint and clever. The whole series has been made with affection & passion. The music is also a nostalgic nod to silent cinema & French mime.

The Social Network (2010)

Far from Fincher's best

[29 October 2010]

I have to agree with one of the other reviews here - if Facebook were not so popular, there would not be so much credit given to this film. Its far from Zodiac or Seven, Fincher's best films by far. This is competent film making from Fincher and no more. It is him going through the motions of what he's done before. He's not pushing or using his craft as he has done in the past. Also the dialogue, while clever, fast paced and self aware, means that all characters sound the same, its more about showing off with dialogue than being true to the characters or story. I was soooooo looking forward to this, and was really disappointed.

Australia (2008)

There's been nothing else quite like it and yet its everything that we've already seen.

[26 November 2008]

So much hype, such a big build up, so much expectation and so much money! Australians desperately wanted this film to be a success, in every way. Big stars, big crew and big country.

Baz is known for his exuberant, over the top, comical yet melodramatic style. And Australia is all of that. But it is so clearly a homage to all the movies Baz has loved, poured into one mixing pot that it truly does feel like a Frankenstein style, dreamlike amalgamation that is at once bizarrely captivating and embarrassingly cringeworthy.

There are moments of pure melodrama and plot twists that feel like an episode of "Neighbours". Some of the dialogs is pure unashamed schmaltz. But interspersed with this hyper realism is an attempt at educating the audience on the stolen generation, but it is done in such a Hollywood style that it almost seems to undermine how painful, damaging and complicated the issue was.

Its a story of an outsider who is changed by the landscape, but you never really get a sense of that transition other than as a brief montage my the Nulla character. Nicole's character is at first an outsider, but then a few scenes later a convert, with not much in between. Its a romance but once again in early scenes they are fighting and at odds with each other Mills and Boon style, and the next minute kissing behind a tree. Its a social commentary on the injustices of past governments towards the indigenous community, but is handled in such a lightweight way, with our indigenous character being spared from the true terrors that were inflicted on so many that it seems almost insulting. Its a historical picture with the bombing of Darwin, but once again it seems as much a nod to "Pearl Harbour" and a desperate attempt at drawing Australia into world events that it feels too lightweight and not really indicative of reality.

The visual style is partly studio lighting, obvious fake visual effects all leaning in the direction of a fairy tale world. Some sequences reminded me of "A Series of Unfortunate Events" in that they are "exteriors" obviously shot in a studio. This style is beautiful, but then it is mixed up with stuff that has been shot in a much more raw manner on location. Its the real stuff that to me feels the most powerful because then you get more of a sense of the landscape and the complexity of the environment. The clashing of the visual styles, the fairy tale with the realism has a similar effect as the clash of the genres. It is hard to know how to take this film, to recognize what it is.

Mostly "Australia" feels like a film unfinished. It feels like the script was still being worked out as production started, and that Baz was still trying to figure it out in the edit suite. It doesn't feel cohesive or that they totally got to where they wanted to go. Much has been made of Baz's shooting style, that he needs to find his way rather than necessarily knowing where he is going before hand. In the past he's pulled it off. I'd love Baz to be able to keep editing and deliver us something when he's had more time to play with it.

Given the resources this film had, its a disappointing experiment not quite realized.