Al_Sutton Reviews

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

Hmmm...

[6/10 · 29 January 2009]

It's not a BAD film, but then it's not a good film. It's rather pointless and doesn't really have a story (per say). It's a tricky one to really talk about because there is so much that is good about it, it really should be better than it is, but then there is so much wrong with it that it really should be terrible...

But then that just leaves me with no comment on it because i have absolutely no feeling about it at all.

What i can say is that it's FAR to long, some of the acting is good, some of the design is good, some of the direction, editing, etc, is good... Desplats score, however, is Awful and there are distinct hints of BIRTH in there and at one point, inexplicably, the X-Files....

Couldn't care less that it was framed by Hurricane Katrena, maybe thats why it's been nominated for so many awards....

Anyhow, i felt particularly numbed by it and wanted to watch FIGHT CLUB after it immediately to not make me think less of David Fincher.

The Jeremy Kyle Show (2005–2020)

Like art house..... sorta

[10/10 · 1 October 2008]

This is predominately a very dull program.... and it varies between a 5 and a 10..

however, when it's good it is truly brilliant. There is nothing better than watching very stupid, grotesque and pointless humans being so horrifically vile to each other, to then be shouted at like naughty children by a hilariously vile lower middle-class man.

It's always a massive wake up call (well it is to me) to constantly remind myself that these people exist. It can get so psychologically extreme that i cant quite believe what's happening..

However i should point out that it isn't Jerry Springer. It is not sensationalist in the same way Springer was. This is far more British in its expositions of how horrific the UK really is.

These people get to vote!!! Now thats really distressing....

The Golden Compass (2007)

dull

[5/10 · 10 December 2007]

I saw this in the Coronet Cinema in Notting hill.. which was rather surprising because it is a building funded and run by very VERY religious happy clappy types..

However, now having seen the film i understand that they must have wanted to show it because it makes atheism dull, very VERY VERY dull... my my my... how dull and considerably boring was this film?? i cant believe i waited all this time living in hope that it would be amazing.. however it;s just dull.... it felt like it was 4 hours long, nothing happened, there are some incredible inconsistencies (such as when people die there daemons turn into visible particles of dust, far too many windows in the building at the north pole, etc,etc) Just very dull...

dull dull de dull.... so dull in fact i cant even get angry about the adaptation, other than to say the screenplay was shockingly bad in most parts, but kept all the atheistic ideas there without saying God, Church or original sin.

dull.... don't make any more please.

oh.. and they changed the ending of the film so it's not the end of all the promotional material they released and just a bit rubbish.

Stardust (2007)

dull....

[5/10 · 20 November 2007]

Blimey,

How very VERY bland this film is. It must have done wonders for the tourist trade to the lake district, however, it seemed to miss the mark in every twist and turn...

i think it failed because it just wasn't odd enough, it sorta had it... but not quite....

I couldn't quite believe how dull and dreary and absolutely underexciting it was........................... oh how the hours dragged so badly....

ohhhhhhhhhhh...

Can't we do any better than this?........... probably not.....

24: Day 6: 5:00 a.m.-6:00 a.m. (2007) Season 6, Episode 24

Disappointing

[6/10 · 20 November 2007]

Well... thats that then... Day 6 over with at 6am, however it did feel like it ended at about 1am (apart from the meandering 5 hours of 'Find the child, loose the child' 'find the dad, loose the dad' and 'find the Chinese, loose the Chinese' plot, which was as interesting as Sainsbury's economy cheese on toast with no ketchup or Wocester Sause... or bread.... or cheese....) This particular episode had an odd last 25 mins of nothing much happening and just, sorta, well.... ending.... like we believe that Jack runs off with the vegetable like state of Audry...... please....

Now this is a hard thing to say, because 24 takes up at least 4 days of my life as a dutifully watch it back to back from beginning to end in complete euphoric Ecstasy...... except Day 6....what a load of toss..

Please make Day 7 better or i believe even the die hard fans will get a bit bored and tune into Heroes..... no.. sorry... we've tuned out of season 2 of that already........ errr.... we'll tune into The Bionic Women... no thats crap too (Sorry Michelle.... you shuda done something where they didn't replace your deaf sister with a pretty hearing one after the industry pilot and the USA premier)...

well... we'll watch something better.....

so there..

However..... still cant wait for DAY 7.. WOOOOOOO

Heroes (II) (2006–2010)

season 1 is ace.... Pity about season 2

[6/10 · 31 October 2007]

Well...... season 1 is great.. really really great..... but then there's season 2... 6 episodes in and i really really REALLY want something to happen..

to many boring plot lines: Peter in Ireland (what??), the woman who crys black stuff (sounds far more interesting than it is), hiro in historical Japan (coem on GET A MOVE ON), and Clairs father STILL not learning his lesson of just TELLING CLAIRE ANYTHING HE KNOWS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)

all of this would have been great over an episode... but 6????? dull dull dull dull dull..

make it better immediately.

Heroes: Chapter Six 'The Line' (2007) Season 2, Episode 6

getting BORED!!!!

[4/10 · 31 October 2007]

Getting really RALLY hacked off that this season isn't going anywhere... nothing is happening.. and some of the plots are pointless... OR aren't coming together properly.

1.Hiro in Japan is just getting silly.

2. Claire's Dad should have told her about the painting (did season 1 not happen??)

3. The Woman who cries black stuff, brilliantly unusual power BUT GET ON WITH IT!!! DOOOOO Something!!!!!!

4. Peter in Irland... awful awful story..

Don't try and be LOST... that would be irritating beyond words, and Heroes is essentially a comic book story.. not some existential 1960's Beckett ... Thing

oh.. Don't think i haven't seen Stephen Berkhoff in that picture of Hiros dad and the Pitrelli's Mother... Where is he? We're six episodes in and nothing has happened..

Do something quick please producer people. please...

Sunshine (2007)

good-ish

[7/10 · 13 April 2007]

I wanted this to be amazing.

Truly truly i wanted this to be amazing..

However it's nothing more than an interesting concept realised as a homage to 'Alien', '2001', 'Dark Side of the Sun' and 'Event Horizon'.

I really wanted Boyle and Garland to do something new with the 'small crew in space' genera, but it was just a bit meandering and said nothing that we didn't already know from said other films. It felt as though it wanted to be a dogme-ish hand-held shaky 24 extravaganza but also wanted to capture the foreboding atmosphere of clinically precise and still Kubrick style shots which confused things a bit visually but it did retain the sense of optimistic-peril that was so startling in '28 Days Later'. Could this film really be a way forward for Boyle's developing language? who knows? I'm really looking forward to his next project to see how this hommagy thing effects it.

oh and the parts which involved suddenly ranting about religion and the sun and the really burned madman and the hilarious Kylie minogue in concert spacesuits which were just comically bad.

Dreamgirls (2006)

Bland....very very bland

[2/10 · 22 January 2007]

Slightly pointless filming of 'not a very good musical to begin with'. Every thing about this film is distinctly lacking in vision and imagination... It plods merrily away for many hours and you are numbed into submission by it's blandness and the sporadic nature of it being a 'musical'.

No.. I've changed my mind. This is an awful awful film and i'm so glad i didn't have to pay to see it. It so boring.. rather like this review..

the same thing over and over and over again relentlessly forcing to hear how long and loud the actresses can belt those top notes... yes you can sing, well done... but please PLEASE stop.... but it doesn't and rather like the never ending car chase in Terminator 3.. it still goes on and on and on and on and on..

and finally when you think it's going to stop, people randomly burst into song in real life (yes i know it's a musical.. but it's set itself up as a review rather than a musical) it makes no sense and the story (aparently there is one) is rubbish.

and still it goes on and on and on.. and the belting gets louder and louder and louder and the melismatic phrasing in the 'tunes' gets more and more elaborate.. and then heads explode and Diana Ross makes a special guest appearance to re-enforce that this is NOT a story about her. (this is a lie... it just makes this pointless review go on a bit longer.. just to re-enforce how long dull and pointless this film is)

Dark Season (1991)

Well good... before the well bad

[8/10 · 23 September 2006]

This is the pinnacle of children's drama from the BBC... They wetted our 80's child appetites with 'Moondial' (actualy.. thats another pinnacle..but you know. peaks and troughs.. peaks and troughs) and then gave us incomprehensible (but genius) babble like 'Earthfasts' that one with the woman in the golden mask coming out of a burning Greek temple.. and then gave us this glorious piece of televisual extravagance.

'Dark Season' not only is two three part stories that are interconnected with an amazing plot twist (well amazing for a 10 year old), spooky BBC micro B computers, hockey sticks, a machine called Behmouth, green lighting, has a woman who looks like Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd. and a man in shades who may have been from the band Bross (or that one form the really wild show with short hair... apparently he has nerve endings in it so cant get it cut very often.. well thats what my mate said at school).. but it also features Kate Winslet. Amazing.

well done BBC...... however you are not excused for the tragedies that followed.. 'Elidor'? 'Return of the Psamiad'? 'Kerching'???????? .. hang your heads in shame!

Mirrormask (2005)

poor

[1/10 · 6 September 2005]

I saw the UK premier of this at the Edinburgh film festival and was uninspired.

Mirrormask had the capacity to be amazing, but its painfully obvious that McKean has never directed before. In fact he freely admitted at the post show discussion that he had never worked with actors and it was obvious that McKee and Brydon (clearly an odd choice) had just been left to there own devices, and unfortunately fail to be even remotely interesting. However, the film is centred around the outstanding performance of Stephanie Leonidas who is superb as Helena and who brings the film back form being a complete wash out.

The Story is basically the same as labyrinth (just replace the baby with a mask) and throw some of Riddly Scott's 'Legend' in there for good measure, so nothing to get overly excited about.

What was really infuriating was the CGI. All of it. All the sense of magic and wonder in films such as 'The Dark Christal' and 'Labaryinth' was completely drained by this overload of graphic twoddle.

The thing is that this really REALLY could have been an excellent film if McKean had only designed it and let someone who knew what they were doing do everything else (and reduced the CG to at least a 1/4 of what it was)... but alas.

For me the whole film was summed up when i asked McKean of the musical score 'What is it about jazz which reflects your interests in this film as a director?' he answered 'I really love music, i really love soundtracks'....... Hmm.... a director? i think not.

Birth (2004)

Interesting study in the creation of loss.

[8/10 · 23 June 2005]

There's something very very odd, and strangely moving about this film. I can't quite place my finger on it, but it may have something to do with the soundtrack. I think the film is very much about the emotional release from the process of stasis. The minimal-isms of the flute trio set the film up and almost preempt the long scenes of watching the release of inner emotional turmoil.

It is very odd, but the long drawn out scenes of watching Kidman in the theatre, or watching her husband run, almost have a Wagnerian endless quality to them that when it finishes creates a sense of release.

The impression the film left on me was one of a real melancholic sadness. I don't think it matters what Kidman's relationship with her dead husband was, if someone you know dies, its the prolonged inner melancholia that prevails, not the grief and tears. And in effect this is what Glazer has achieved in 'Birth'.

sorry if this is a bit fragmentary

Rubber Johnny (2005)

Not very good. C- for effort

[5/10 · 21 June 2005]

so warp records makes us wait and wait ...................... and wait ................. .............................

and wait..

for rubber johnny.. and then this is all Cunnigham can come up with?? It's not a 'BAD' music video by any stretch of the imagination.. its far better than nearly all the video's around at the moment, but its so obvious. the teaser trailer and the booklet with the DVD are far more interesting than the video itself, which feels as if the collaboration was just a bit... 'hey wouldn't it be cool if..' then ran out of ideas. very very disappointing. try harder. (and for £15!!!! get real)

Flex (2000)

Genius bottled.

[10/10 · 12 February 2005]

I saw this in its entirety at the royal academy's otherwise appalling 'Appocalypse' exhibition a few years back. I don't really want to try and theorise about it, but flex seems to be an exploration of the human body taken to its extremes both sexually and physically, and clearly shows (like his music videos) Cunninghams preoccupation with the human form and how it functions when juxtaposed/fused with the Aphex Twins unsettling electronic landscapers. The brutality that Cunningham brings out of the man and the woman in FLEX is superb, and for once it seems that there is actually an artist who is able to create a fight between a man and a woman that doesn't hint that this is a battle of the sexes... rather it just presents people as sexual and violent... its a bit like Sarah Kane's play's. Unfortunately the DVD of Cunnighamns work only contains 3 Mons of this 17 min film.. upsetting..

In My Skin (2002)

A superb work

[10/10 · 15 January 2005]

This is an extraordinary piece of drama, but as you can read from other peoples comments.. will confuse you if you can't think for yourself. It is an intensely academically positioned film which seems to draw much on the so called 'postmodern objectivity' and the disconnected self. What is most interesting in this film is that it is void of constructed meaning so whilst watching it De van never gives us answers, but goes directly to the establishment of a thinking feeling subject trying to reconnect with herself against the capitalist/consumerist world she lives in. A truly intelligent film which demands further discussion and thought.

The Fairy Queen (1995 TV Movie)

Mish-mash on screen

[7/10 · 26 August 2004]

The Fairy Queen, being the bizarre affair that it is, can only really be loosely based on the Shakespeare, so what we're presented with here is a trippy drug infused campfest which would make for glorious ENO viewing, but doesn't quite relate onto the screen very well. Whats left is a celebration of hilarity, but unfortunately the extremity of love-loss, isn't quite reached, despite Kenny's beautifully sung 'lament'. Saying this, its short and too the point, and a treasure from the baroque English operatic rep. a good staging, but flawed.

Josie and the Pussycats (2001)

clearly the best film in the world.. ever

[8/10 · 31 January 2004]

Mel Warner introduced me to this classic piece of camp comedy. Everything about this film is ragingly homo, but in the best possible sence of the word. I wasn't particularly familiar with the comic book but who cares... its the most joyfull film any musicologist of popular music and culture could wish for. Semiotically speaking Any film with Misy Pyle and Parker Posey and Alan Cumming is going to have some classic alan partridge moments... but just mix that with the most hillarious product placement, and lyrics such as 'punk rock prom queen, brown paper magazine' and instant quotes like 'we're special... yeah... special ED.', 'i used to summer on the continant, fancy a snog' and the profound meaning of 'take the shevy to the leavy' you get a film which will be universally hated and adored. its a phucking class film, but very very gay.