neilanderson-96913 Reviews

Saltburn (2023)

Overlong and poorly constructed

[1/10 · 7 January 2024]

Starts off interesting, but it soon becomes clear it's the old "scholarship boy can't get accepted by the posh crowd" trope.

The idea is over-used. The movie is over-long. The editing is all over the place. There's so much staring into space and overly arty shots. The plot, when it remembers there's supposed to be one, is unlikely and poorly thought out. The characters are two dimensional and the ideas don't run.

Despite some great performances, and cinematography there's little can save this. Possibly cutting an hour out of the finished version may have made it more watchable, but for me it was painfully slow, ridiculously stereotyped, impossibly flawed, and has several loose ends that never get tied up.

The Bear (2022– )

Too frantic.

[1/10 · 16 October 2022]

Frantic and jarring, with multiple characters talking at once, a weird and unfitting soundtrack and characters you can't like.

I'll give that, having working in restaurants, there's a huge amount of unlikable people there, but why anyone needs to see them escapes me. If there's a story in amongst the screaming I didn't notice it.

I imagine the reasons I didn't like this are the ones others live it for, but I found this stream of consciousness screaming approach unwatchable.

Great if you really like watching noisy sandwiches being made. I really didn't get the point of why this exists.

Not for me thanks.

Scandal (1989)

Worth watching but not unmissable

[6/10 · 5 October 2022]

A good all round telling of the Profumo affair that eventually brought down the government. Whaley, Fonda, Mackellen and Hurt are excellent as always.

Expertly acted, with a good score, but could have lost half an hour in editing.

It lacks some emotional depth and an explanation around the political issues that caused the problem.

A good view 60s London and crossroads between the old imperial attitudes and those of young "swinging london" is presented, although little in the way of explanation of either is given.

It seems so keen to end on a specific point that it misses some potentially important issues.