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Get Out (2017)
Entertaining but could - and should - have been a lot sharper.
In many ways Jordan Peele's film Get Out is what we Brits call 'a shaggy dog story'. Why? Because the ride - listening to the story and getting to the end - is fun, but given the ride, the pay-off is a little lightweight.
Oh, it's entertaining enough and does make some satirical points, although they are delivered less like Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's 'polished razor keen' than Alexander Pope's 'oyster knife that hacks and hews'. But given its target, rather smug and quite commonplace left-liberal attitudes on 'blacks' and 'race' which are much in need of some critical attention and debunking, it would have benefited from rather a lot more lethal satirical cuts.
It also sails under false colours: the film you thought you might be getting is not the film you eventually get. And there's rather less to the film you do get, though it has its intriguing moments of suspense, than you might expect.
To be blunt, at the end of the day it is just another conventional horror flick, well-executed, certainly, but in no way is it original.
By chance I watched another horror flick recently, Jeremy Saulnier's Green Room and that, too, while broadly conventional did bring along several original twists. Peele doesn't.
Peele began his career acting in comedy sketches, and in some ways Get Out is pretty much a comedy sketch played out to a film's length. But I must be fair: it never drags or feels contrived as the charge of 'extending a comedy sketch' might suggest, and Peele certainly manages to take us, the audience, along with him at every turn.
A last point to be made is that, oddly, Get Out could only have been made by a black man (although Peele was born to a white mother and black father). Some white dude making it - satirising his own left-liberal attitudes to 'blacks' and race - might well have misfired. But in the satire, though, in my book we are rather short-changed, Peele doesn't misfire but his shots are increasingly blunt.
Lil Rel Howery as a very good Daniel Kaluuya's black buddy, who in some ways saves the day, provides a great turn.
My star rating might seem a little mean to some, but I justify it on the grounds that at the end of the day where we thought we would get a telling satire on smug liberals, we get nothing more astonishing than a pretty standard horror film.
Nothing wrong with that, but I can't help feeling it could just have been a bit more.Well made, entertaining satire that could just have been a little bit better.
Late Night (2019)
Neat little film that just about survives drowning in Tinseltown syrup
Why on earth do so many American producers want to drown everything - every emotion, every sentiment, every vaguely moving theme - in lashings of syrup? Why? It ruins everything. OK, so there is a subway army of jerks out there who disagree with me and can't get enough of this mawkishness but, let's be honest, they are jerks and wouldn't know excellence if it bit them on the bum ten times an hour for the rest of the year.
At least one good thing came out of watching Late Night: appreciating that one Mindy Kaling is 1) a good writer, and 2) is not a bad actor. I'd never heard of here before but I shall keep and eye out for what might be coming up. If, of course, she is responsible for most of the syrup then all bets are off. But I rather doubt that. I think it's likely that the Tinseltown moneymen had a greater hand in shaping this piece than was good for it. And that had Ms Kaling been given her head, it might not have been allowed to drown in so much syrup.
At least going by some of the lines (and implicit attitudes she came up with) there is a little more acid in the head of hers and it might hold her in good stead. I like to think that in her heart (her Indian heritage coming to the fore) she wretched as much as I did at the very last scene of the film in which we are presented with the 'perfect' 'ethnically diverse' writing team because of plucky little Molly. Well, pass the sickbag and spare me such sentimental drivel.
An astute writer, now long dead who went by the name Oscar Wilde (like Ms Kaling/Molly another outsider) once observed that 'sentimentality is a bank holiday from cynicism'. Think of those Christmas carol concerts organised by the SS in extermination camps when half-dead Jews on their way to a nearby gas chamber were forced to enchant their killers with sweet festive lullabies for the delectation of SS families, and you will know what he was getting at.
Similarly, no number of sickly sweet 'diversity' scenes as in the film's final shot of the writers' room can make up for nasty, unsentimental statistics that if you are ethnic and poor in the US, you are pretty much screwed. As Wilde reminds us: 'Sentimentality is a bank holiday' etc.
What does partly save the film, quite apart from the encouraging Ms Kaling and her gift for telling lines, are the performances by the, remarkably small, cast. I came across the film after looking up what else Reid Scott (the 'monologue' writer Tom) was doing as he is very good in the rather more satisfying - and a lot less sentimental - political satire Veep in which he gives us the horrifically cynical but very, very entertaining Dan Egan.
Then there's Emma Thompson and John Lithgow, two stalwart thesps who pretty much always bring a little extra zing to whatever they are presented with. And a potential flood of syrup was neatly avoided by the two of them when in a rather touching scene of a husband confronting his wife about an affair she's had they hit just the right note, and that is not easy.
Other performances in slight parts were also good so Late Night cannot be completely written off. But please, Hollywood, please, spare us the gallons of syrup. I know it's difficult to ditch the habits of a lifetime but do, at least, try. It might bring in less money but you will make better films. I dread to think of what Tinseltown would make of The Second Coming.
Time Trap (2017)
No great shakes, but it achieves something. I just wish I knew what
Time Trap is a curious mish-mash of genres which should please young viewers. I gather it was made on a shoestring so the writer/directors deserve credit for pulling off whatever they have pulled off. It's not really clear: what starts as a teen movie becomes a 'will they, won't they' adventure, then a sci-fi puzzler with no end of hokum, and ends finally on an upbeat note which I doubt any of us saw coming. I certainly didn't.
Along the way we touch upon - but swiftly pass by - any number of stock sci-fi tropes, as well as dip a toe in a some vague mythology, before alls well that ends well.
That at the end of the day, and despite initial hopes and suggestions of a white picket fence all-American apple pie happy ending, nothing much adds up to a row of beans curiously doesn't matter.
If the journey is more significant than the arrival Time Warp just about pulls it off. And the pre-teen to late-night viewing half-drunk student market will feel well served. The rest of us? Well, read the above but be reassured there is something likeable about this film which persuades you to forgive plot holes you could lose yourself in for ever and ridiculous twists that make Jack and The Beanstalk hard news reportage.
Go for it (and if you don't expect too much you won't be disappointed.)
Project Blue Book (2019)
The X-Files rides again (if that was our thing, it wasn't mine)
Project Blue Book might well be described as 'The X-Files' lite, except that when all is said and done The X-Files, though entertaining enough, was itself 'lite'. Both series employ that useful but ultimately dishonest technique of intriguing the viewer and dangling some kind of eventual explanation to keep up the viewer's interest, but finally never delivering. And the thing is nothing can be delivered, for two very good reasons: however likely it is that alien life does exist elsewhere in the universe - I don't quite know the figures, but there are more than a billion galaxies out there, each with more than a billion stars, each with its own solar system of planets and, for all I know, each planet with more than a million branches of Starbucks - the chances of us 'earthlings' ever meeting or communicating with them (let alone sharing a skinny latte) are as close to zero as it is possible to be.
For one thing, the speed of light - it would take more than a decade to get a message off to some planets and more than a decade to get back the dispiriting information 'sorry, wrong number' - mitigates against any possible exchange of views.
The second reason is that more pertinently for the makers of Project Blue Book (as was also the case of The X-Files) any 'reveal', 'grand explanation' or 'solution' would not only disappoint, it would also bring the shutters down: with no more intrigue left in the bottle, the fickle viewer would soon be off to favour some other tipple.
Having said all that, Project Blue Book is essentially weeknight TV entertainment and it fulfils its role just fine. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it on that level. For my taste it is distressingly formulaic. There is an openminded not-so-whacky professor trying to get at 'the truth' and who is cannier than one has any right to expect from an academic (and drives a beat-up saloon as we all know academics are not very well paid). There is his sidekick a USAF pilot who finds himself caught between two stools, i.e. The Truth and his career (but whose heart apparently is in the right place - that is also part of the formula).
The series also includes two 'bad guy' USAF generals (or whatever rank they are) who have an agenda of their own. Thrown into the mix is also a mysterious 'man in a hat' who is not above murder when he chooses, and who has a - I would like to say 'supernatural' but that would mislead - enviable ability to get from here to relevant there in no time at all and seems to know exactly where the not-so-whacky professor will be before even the professor does.
Grafted on to all this is an attractive blonde Soviet spy and her sidekick (good to see that in the 21st century roles are reversed and admirably the sidekick is a guy and the main spy a woman) who is keeping tabs on the not-so-whacky prof and if that were not just a tad improbable, even more improbably - and it is a wholly irrelevant plot line - we even get hints of a possible future lesbian relationship between the blonde red and the not-so-whacky profs wife. And that covers all the TV angles admirably: there's something for everyone, except, perhaps, for those looking for a reasonably intelligent series which treats the viewer as worthwhile rather than as weeknight fodder for the intruding ads.
In sum: if The X-Files was your thing, go for it. Project Blue Book is well-made (and with high production values) so you will get what you want and might even find ourself wondering why there is in this review a persistent and niggling griping quality in this review. I'll tell you why: however entertaining both The X-Files and Project Blue Book are, neither is quite my thing.
By the way: each episode begins with the legend - i.e. warning - that 'it is based on real events'. A short translation would be: it's completely made up. A longer translation would be: yes, it is based on real events in that real events gave us the impetus to come up with a lot of entirely fictional twaddle you might well find entertaining. We hope you do because we hope to make quite a bit of money by producing it.
This gets a 6/10 because it isn't at all bad (if it's your thing). The 9/10 and 10/10 and the 3/10 and 4/10 verdicts are way off-beam.
Jazz (2001)
Useful but - sadly - just a tad limited. But still worthwhile
Very useful view of the history of jazz but oddly limited. Perhaps that was unavoidable given the essentially amorphous nature of the beast. But don't let me quibble: after watching Burns's 12-parter I now have a far better idea of how jazz evolved and thus a framework on which to build other knowledge.
There is a great emphasis, necessarily I suppose given the route jazz took in the beginning of the 2oth century, on horn players, and that emphasis continues, again necessarily when we get to the evolution of bebop (which is pretty much where jazz burst out and asserted itself). But the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s also saw other instruments make their mark, particularly the guitar and piano.
The piano gets half a look-in with segment a segment on Thelonius Monk, and other pianists get a mention, but the focus is pretty heavily on the sax and the horn. What about the very, very many jazz guitarists - guitar is my instrument? Why no mention not just of the playing but the contributions made by Wes Montgomery, Grant Green and others? Mingus also gets a look-in, but . . .
Burns might respond that he wanted primarily to outline the development of jazz over the last century, and he has a point. But the topic does cry out for a broader, a far broader attempt.
As I say, though, here is not the place to quibble. Burns's Jazz does (as we say in Britain) what is says on the tin and I for one have gained from it. Now I look forward to similar broader enterprises.
The Irishman (2019)
Tinseltown old timers try it one last time (and really should not have bothered)
Hollywood thrives on cliches: in many ways they are its lifeblood, but we shouldn't castigage the Tinseltown moguls. The moviegoer thrives on cliches, too, and if a mogul is criticised for serving up for the umpteenth time cliche 123/A, he or she is perfectly entitled to the defence that 'that's what the punter wants'. Because that is what so many of the punters want.
The punter, or most of them, want - no, they demand! - predictable. They want to see the same storyline over and over again. Give them something halfway original (as in all that dubious European art stuff) and many just run scared: the punter wants to see the world (which is usually just the American corner of it) on the edge of destruction saved by the love of a good woman for a man. Furthermore, they want that man to start out as a coward, but one who is able to find the brave core he did not suspect was there because of that woman's love. Or something like that.
Cliches are great both for directors and writers and for moviegoers, and work for both. Cliches mean that neither the director, the writers nor the moviegoers have to think at all. All they have to do is fill in the boxes and trace the story from A to Z. They are not required to use their nut one little bit.
To be fair, if the wind were to blow in the opposite direction and the moviegoing public suddenly decided it will settle for nothing less than pure originality and good writing, there is certainly enough talent in Hollywood that could supply that demand. But back in the real world a growth in demand for originality is as likely as Britain's Queen Elizabeth ditching Phil the Greek and shacking up with Pope Francis. Thus the cliche rules and rules supreme.
Naturally, cliches do move with the times because they have to - the 'good girl holds back from being bedded' routine would be risible in a modern film. Now it is de rigueur for ten minutes of no-holds barred sex pretty much from the outset. Yet essentially the cliches are the same, but in newer clothes.
I happen not to like cliches. After a lifetime working in newspapers, I have had it to here with cliches. At first they amuse, then they amuse because their use is so predictable. Finally, they irritate as little else can irritate once you allow it to do so.
One Hollywood cliche I spotted years ago, an evergreen that is about as entertaining as a day in the rain without a coat is the one when 'old timers' - whether soldiers, football players, mercenaries, an ageing band or what the hell you like - are summoned to come together for one last time and prove they can still cut it. And of course they always can. 'There's life in the old dogs yet' is the message, and ageing, geriatric cliche-loving moviegoers leave the cinema relieved that they aren't quite yet dead (which, of course, they are, but . . .)
Invariably, the old timers in the 'old timers' films are themselves old-timer actors whose day came and went long, long ago, but who, like the old-timer characters they portray on screen, want to prove to the up-and-coming young turks that they can still cut it - 'you snivelling upstarts, make no mistake, we're still around!'
Well, of course, they aren't at all really 'still around'. They are nothing but old lemons out of which Tinseltown wants to squeeze the last of the juice in one last film before dementia carries them off and TV rushes in to make those mawkish 'bios' in which we are assured by other old timers not yet scythed down by Death just how fabulous they were and how we'll never see their like again.
Such old-timer films in which the dried-up old lemons are squeezed ever more remorselessly are - for me at least - as embarrassing and pitiful as watching your grandad on the dance floor and realising he has no idea how bloody ridiculous he looks.
The film that always comes to mind when I think of the 'old timers' cliche is The Wild Geese (1978): in it old-timers and time-served 'stars' Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris, Hardy Krüger and Stewart Grainger strut their stuff as mercenaries who - would you know it! - are called out of retirement to make more money for the Hollywood moguls. But there are others.
It was the old timers' cliche which very, very soon came to mind when I saw The Irishman. The old-timers who we meet yet again in it are time-served stars Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel and - sad but true - the otherwise highly respected director Martin Scorsese, all going through the motions of strutting their stuff. All, even Scorsese, are as convincing as a cheap toupee.
They all, again even Scorsese, simply parody themselves. Quite apart from all of Scorsese's stylistic tricks, we get De Niro's wry smile, we get his menacing smile, we get his rueful smile; we get Keitel's menacing snarl, his menacing one-liner; we get Joe Pesci's menacing calm, his menacing frustration; we get Pacino chewing the carpet, Pacino being wry, and on it goes.
The problem is that we are just too familiar with all their schtick. It is no longer fresh, charming and new, not by a million miles. And we sit there - well, this viewer did - with that rictus smile we employ so as not to hurt feelings when some old relative bores us rigid with an 'amusing' anecdote she or he has told us a thousand times before.
It certainly doesn't help that all of them, Pesci, De Niro, Pacino and Keitel look way, way over 70, even when in flashback they are required to portray the young thugs on the make they once were - the digital whatever just does not work, and someone with a little integrity should have told the producers before this abortion was completed. Oh, but silly me: why bother with integrity and doing the right thing and wasting a good pay check?
In many ways the worst offender is Scorsese: he has proved time and again that he is an intelligent filmmaker, and he really should have known better. But he apparently didn't, and so he pretty much serves up a parody of a Scorsese film: if you've seen Mean Streets, Goodfellas and Casino, you've seen The Irishman.
It has the lot: his 'trademark' tracking shots, his convoluted storyline, his freeze-frame to give a brief biographical outline of a newly introduced character, his 'cool' violence, his voiceover - it's all there and it's all more than a bit sad in that what was once exciting is now terrible, terrible old hat.
OK, you might be part of the 99pc who like their cliches served lukewarm and who is only too happy to applaud a faded nightclub singer warbling off-key and forgetting lyrics because you are nostalgic and you liked his hits when you were younger. That's not me.
With all respect to Scorsese and the other old-timers, they really should have known better: it's all very well having to make a living, but I can't imagine any of them is on his uppers and needs those extra dollars. It can only have been vanity.
A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)
Solely one for boys who love big bangs, but even they are being short-changed
I have to confess that I didn't make it to the end of A Good Day To Die Hard. This is solely one for boys (and some girls) who like toys, big bangs, dislike dialogue and were happiest in primary school. Of its kind - genus mindless blockbuster - it might seem exemplary, even here it cheats. The first set-piece car chase goes on for far, far too long and must be filed under 'padding out the film'.
The usual ultra-fast cutting from scene to scene ensures you don't have a clue as to what is going on during the chase, and even the most simple-minded will have wondered 'they couldn't have done that, surely not?', but they did and do, time and time again, destroying most of the traffic on the Budapest ring-road (Budapest standing in for Moscow which wisely decided to have nothing to do with this rubbish). I also found myself, rather bored with all the chasing, wondering just how many cars were smashed up and marvelling at the budgets this kind of film gets.
But I persevered and only gave up after the scene in which Jai Courtney, the CIA agent outwitting the Russians at every turn (now there's a marvellous fictional twist) conveniently goes off somewhere to do whatever, allowing his dad Bruce Willis to confess to the nominal third character (Sebastian Koch) that he had been a bad dad, always working when he should have been at home with his wife and family.
Equally conveniently son returns just in time to overhear, unseen by dad, what dad says. Thus a second dimension is added to the film: sentimental garbage, and all the little boys watching can persuade themselves that it is all right to be in touch with your emotions.
Then I gave up: I had no idea what was going on and who the baddies were. Introducing Courtney as the second lead had a practical reason, too. It meant Bruce Willis, who must by now be be getting on a bit and feeling the strain, has to do none of the macho gymnastics and performs throughout either standing still or at a slow walk.
Oh, and this is the kind of film where Willis can, from nowhere, suddenly have to hand when he needs one a high-velocity, ultra-powerful, machine rifle (forgive me, lads, if I don't know the jargon) and can hijack a van or SUV with no hassle at all. Yes, it's that complex.
Oddly enough I am giving this a 4 rather than anything lower because the male toddlers for whom this is intended will most certainly love the flash, bang and wallop, but no higher because even they are being sold more than just a tad short.
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)
The latest in a long, long line of Tarnatino clunkers. Baffling - why was it made?
First of all a fact: IMDb reports that Tarantino's latest (as of January 6, 2020, when I am writing this review) cost an estimated $90 million and recouped almost half that in its opening US weekend ($41 million). Released six months ago, it has already grossed $141 million in the US and £372.5 million worldwide. There will be more moolah to come, and even more once it is released on video. So there's just one reason why Tinseltown's moneymen will gladly finance any old hooey that Tarantino wants to produce: the returns are fabulous, and we all know that at the end of the day we must ignore all the bull about 'an important new film', 'artistic integrity' and I don't know what else and just listen to the sound of the only thing that counts, continual ringing of the till.
I liked Tarantino's first 'breakthrough' film, Reservoir Dogs, and I liked Pulp Fiction. Both were in their own way originals. Jackie Brown was also quite good, though I suspect that was more down to Elmore Leonard's story than Tarantino's filmmaking. But since then? Dear soul, what is going on? But while he sucks in the readies, Tinseltown doesn't care.
Tinseltown doesn't care in the slightest that Tarantino cannot for the life of himself, or rather seems to have forgotten how to, pace a film. He can write the occasional good line, but a good line here and there can't and doesn't excuse some of the mish-mash dreck he has been coming out with for quite a few years.
Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight and now this, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood are simply not very good at all. Certainly far worse films have been made and will be made, but far better films have been made, too. But not by Tarantino. But - I repeat - no one in Hollywood is going to argue with the simple fact with which I began this review: he makes very, very good money for folk who seem to be interested in little else.
What, specifically, to make of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood? It is certainly well-made, though that might be more to the credit of Tarantino's producers, but many TV commercials are superbly produced. And everything else about is confusing to pointless to incomprehensible. Essentially the obvious question is: just why did Tarantino bother? Why?
When it was released media reviews spoke (in that arch way reviewers have when confronted by yet another clunker by a former wunderkind and they haven't quite got the stomach to say so) of 'Tarantino's love letter to Hollywood', that 'Tarantino pays tribute to filmmaking' and more along those lines. Well, Quentin darling, every thought of making a documentary instead? Why waste your time - and not least our time - with this kind of self-indulgent bull?
What is it about? By my reckoning - the 'action' takes up the final 30 minutes of a very long film - something like nine-tenths of the film is redundant, utterly superfluous, pointless: so why include them.
Why rewrite the whole Manson family murder tragedy? What was the point? Was there a point? Tarantino must have had something in mind because it certainly isn't entertaining.
There are two saving graces to this film: Brad Pitt and Leonardo Di Caprio. Both can add polish to the biggest turd. As for the other actors, well, they just had nothing at all to do. Zilch.
So there you have it, another horrible, well-made, pointless clunker from Tarantino. But there will be more, don't worry, as many as he can make will he carries on turning dross into dollars.
Britannia (2017)
TV by numbers - you might be entertained, I'm not
OK, I'll be straight: so far I have only seen about 30 minutes of this show, but I am not holding my breath. This kind of cod 'historical' nonsense is essentially TV by numbers. It has all the elements deemed necessary for 'a hit' but none of the elements necessary for 'a great show', one which treats the viewer as an intelligent being rather than as someone killing an hour of her or his time.
The opening scene was a giveaway, four Roman deserters strung up in the general's tent, each urged to win his freedom by killing the other three. What, messy blood-letting in the general's tent? Then, once the deed is done, it's immediately onto the ships to invade Britain? As I say, it's
TV by numbers.
To prove the point we then transfer to the 'mystical' Brits and some kind of initiation of teenage girls into womanhood, with lots of white honkey voodoo going on. More TV by numbers.
Can you blame me for suspecting this is NOT going to get better in any way at all?
Certainly there is an audience out there for this kind of lowbrow. If you are part of that audience, go for it, you won't be disappointed. Me, I really can't be bothered. There's loads of other, far better stuff out there on which I can waste my time.
Deep State (2018)
It'll do if you got nothing better on, but no great shakes
Well, I've seen three and a half episodes of the first series of Deep State, and let's be honest: it's pretty low grade stuff. It's the world of television 'spying' where an operative sitting 1,000 miles away at a computer terminal can track down someone's whereabouts within 20 seconds by trawling I don't know what database and someone's life history in just another 20 seconds.
Back in the real world it's nothing like that (I know, my long-deceased father 'helped out' with Britain's SIS and told me a thing or two when he reached his dotage and he wasn't a show-off. Like 99.9 per cent of all like him who 'helped out' he was very discreet).
That makes many claims here in other user reviews complete nonsense: for example: 'You've got to peek (I think what the writer means is 'you get a peek') at the ugly workings in the intelligence and private military world'. Oh really? So how would the writer know? Did a bit of spying between leaving uni and getting a job running the Waitrose in Alderly Edge?
Intelligence gathering is necessary in even the dullest and most mundane of international dealings - knowing what the 'other side' knows or think they know can be very useful indeed and they are all at it. But 'spying' is not glamorous and can often be exceedingly dull, involving days and weeks laborious and monotonous trawling through list, files and I don't know what else before any analysis of what is known can be made and plans shaped. As for a department being run by just one man with apparently no need to clear matters with any superior of any kind and who can order assassination as easily as a skinny latte, well tell that to the marines.
OK, you say, but this is TV entertainment so don't get so anal and picky. Fair enough, but even as a piece of TV entertainment Deep State gets only two cheers, if that.
The story is both obscure and vague enough to carry you along but is distressingly two-dimensional. The various characters have no problem at all travelling between countries at the drop of a hat (one chap, dropped off in the back of beyond on the Turkmenistan managed to get back to Teharn - more than 500 miles away - with apparently no hassles at all and got straight back to work. Give that man a medal! The men never seem to need a shave, have access to unlimited funds, despited looking like tramps on their uppers never attract the attention of the police and never, ever, ever seem to charge their mobile.
I have gone to town a little because inexplicably Deep State gets an overall 7/10 from assorted fanboys but at the end of the day it is just one of several hundred such series produced annually the world over. It's not bad by any means, but it's not particularly good either. And because I have seen far better, it is irritating that the producers go for second-best because really that's all they need to do.
Whether or not this is your bag depends on your standards. If you want just the usual evening TV thrills with predictable lines and predictable plots, go for it. If you like something a little more challenging, give it a miss - you won't be any worse off by any means.
LATER: A few more episodes down the line and appalled by how bad Deep State has become, I couldn't resist an edit to say so.
Deep State really is the most one-dimensional twaddle I have chanced upon. Certainly there are contenders for silliest 'thriller', but Deep State has a head start. Since I wrote the above, the 'hero' and his son travel from Lebanon to France with ease, pick up two high-velocity rifles with ease, get involved in a gun battle which attracts no attention whatsoever, eventually cross the Channel where just as he is about to torture his former MI6 boss, the boss kills himself - and on and on and ridiculously on.
Deep State is not intended for those who have a small brain, but for those who have no brain at all. It is garbage. Don't bother unless you don't mind admitting your are less intelligent than a flea.
Be Cool (2005)
Astonishingly awful - nothing about it works
It is quite difficult to convey how surprisingly bad Be Cool is. It has all of the potential elements - well most of them anyway - for succeeding but somehow misses the target each time. That is not to say it could have been great, just not quite as bad as this.
Pretty much everything, from the cliched script, the cliched dialogue, the cliched performances, the cliched direction and the cliched setting hits the wrong note. In fact, it must be as difficult to hit the wrong note each time as to hit the right note, but Be Cool manages to do so with aplomb.
Really, there's nothing more to say. Quite obviously after the success of Get Shorty, which did manage to hit all the right notes, the producers took to heart Sam Goldwyn's dictum that 'if they liked it once, they'll love it twice' and went to broke, but broke is what they got. No one, not one of the 'name stars', and there are several luminaries who don't give the impression they think they are slumming it, has done him or herself any favours by being involved in Be Cool and I don't doubt that when they saw the finished product they wished they had said 'thanks, but no thanks'.
Elmore Leonard (who wrote both the novels Get Shorty and its sequel Be Cool) is on record as saying that of all the films made from his books, Get Shorty is the only one that he thinks is halfway decent, so perhaps his work doesn't easily transfer to the screen. Who knows?
So if this comes your way, somehow - I would never suggest you actually go looking for it - do yourself a favour and find something else to do. Whatever it is will be a damn sight more entertaining than this dire, sorry film.
The ABC Murders (2018)
A tad confused and not an 'Agatha Christie' mystery, but a decent enough arty-farty film for all that
This latest adaptation of Agatha Christie's The ABC Murders is a strange fish, at once both confused and stylish. In fact, I suspect that had it been presented not as an Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot mystery but as a slightly left-field arthouse film, it might well have fared a great deal better with some of the reviewers here and in Britain.
As it is the Agatha Christie fans complain that it's 'not Agatha Christie' and for a nation brought up on David Suchet's rather dapper and rather camp sleuth, John Malkovich's Poirot, a dour rather depressed man apparently on the skids, doesn't press the right button. Result? The film (well, three-part series) loses out and attracts rather low ratings from many, which is a little unfair.
If, on the other hand, it had been played, not as a mystery, but as a somewhat obscure character piece about a foreigner nearing the end of his life in a country not his own and haunted by memories, I suggest it would have won more fans. Such a film would also have justified several otherwise inexplicable elements which seem, for no reason I can guess at, grafted on.
There are, for example, the ongoing references to some English fascist movement which has it in for foreigners. These references are not developed in any way and have no relevance to the story, let alone the central mystery and are generally a mystery all of their own. Then there are the flashbacks to Poirot's experiences in World War I when Belgium was invaded by Germany: what purpose do they serve? Perhaps there is one but I am too stupid to spot it. Who knows?
As it stands these two elements stand out high and dry and are irrelevant. In an arthouse movie, though, the kind we are quite happy to be baffled by if, for example as here, the cinematography is good to excellent and interesting in its own right, we wouldn't complain at all, telling ourselves 'some things aren't meant to be completely understand in 'art' such as this'. Or something like that - we've all met the 'buff' who can come out with such trite.
In fact, the filming , direction, the stylised characterisations and the general feel of the film goes a hell of a long way towards saving an otherwise rather uninspiring 'mystery' which is only a mystery because, to be blunt, Agatha Christie cheated (or I'm assuming it was her fault if it followed her plotting). So there you have it: pretend the BBC's The ABC murders is not what it was presented as and enjoy a halfway decent series. Just don't expect to understand it all.
By the way: some reviewers have accused the film of being pretentious. Well, I am happy to report that whatever its minor faults pretentiousness is not one of them, and I pride myself on a keen nose for that kind of thing. You can rest easy.
Midnight in Paris (2011)
Not just a very, very silly film but downright embarrassing. Avoid
Is it OK to review a film of which you have seen only 40 minutes? Discuss. But on the assumption that I won't be shot at dawn for daring to do so, let me carry one (and confirm what I'm sure you already suspect) that for this viewer Midnight In Paris is another Woody Allen clunker. In fact, it is often so wooden, so badly directed, so trite, so superficial, so unconvincing and, finally, so downright bloody dull that you really wonder whether all those quite good Allen films you saw in the past are just rose-tinted false memories. Whoever coughs up the readies for Allen to produce this kind of silly dross must still be convinced the old phoney still has it, or perhaps it is merely a tax scam. Who knows? Who cares?
The idea behind Midnight In Paris is not a bad one, but it needed a script and direction by someone with less of a dead hand than Allen to carry it off. As it is the whole exercise is an embarrassing waste of time.
The script: it might well have been written by a would-be filmmaker of minimal talent it's so threadbare and thin. (And by the way at the time the film was set Hemingway had not yet published his first novel and only published two very slim volumes of short stories, and had not yet ever gone big-game hunting so he would not have known any 'rhino hunters'. As for Hemingway's reference to a battle in which he fought the Germans, that, too, is complete tosh - he did not fight but served as an ambulance driver after the US army, navy and marines turned him down because of an eye defect - though as Hemingway was something of a self-aggrandising mythomaniac, at least his account of battle is in character.)
The direction is equally amateurish: two-dimensional, static, flat and - yet again - dull, just how did Allen ever gain his reputation in the first place?
So there you have it: if this review appears I shall know that charitably (they probably also disliked Midnight In Paris) IMDB's editors have allowed it to slip through even though this writer could not bring himself to see the whole film.
My advice to you is don't even bother to see any of it. Find something else to do, wash up, clean the house, memorise the Bible - all three and many other pastimes will be far more appealing and satisfying.
The Accountant (2016)
Convoluted and confusing mess, but it does entertain
Here's the puzzle: what's it all about? What just happened? The Accountant succeeds in that it entertains, holds your attention and intrigues. It behaves as if it is making a significant point, but doesn't get around to making it. OK, if the point is that those with autism are no lesser mortals than those of use who aren't autistic, all cheer to that, but forgive me if that isn't a rather trite point to build a film around.
As for that film, being intriguing shouldn't mean being confusing. I can settle for not being spoon-fed - in fact, I rather like it when I'm not - but there is an obligation on a filmmaker (or writer) to supply all the bits from which we the viewer (or reader) can piece together what we are intended to piece together. The Accountant doesn't do that. Worse, it pulls that rather sneaky trick of pretending to be more than it is.
Convoluted doesn't begin to describe The Accountant, and that it doesn't end up being something of a mess is probably more luck than judgement. The questions mount up but are not just not answered, but are given a spurious significance. Why is it important, or rather how is it relevant that the junior Treasury analyst should have a criminal past she never disclosed and which fact her Treasury boss uses to coerce her into a covert investigation? Why does that investigation have to be covert? We are given a confusing scene in which the boss 'explains' what motivates him, but blow me if I understood. Perhaps I'm just a little bit thick. Or perhaps I'm not and the film is cheating.
Who is the British women who organises the accountants work? How come she is somehow omnipotent? Who is the accountant's brother and what is his line of work? And on and on. Yes, it is good to be intrigued but there must be a pay-off line of some kind.
Irritatingly, these huge flaws are to a certain extent offset by the film being very entertaining (these even a long gunfight in the dark in which our hero takes out about a dozen heavily armed men). So there you have it.
Top Dog (2014)
Better than you might expect (and ignore the sniffy purists)
I'm rather surprised that director Martin Kemp's London gangster drama Top Dog gets only an average 5.2 based on user ratings here. Although the figure is nominally above average, I've always thought that anything less than a 6 implies not only that the film is not very good, but that is rather bad. Top Dog by ex-Spandau Ballet bassist Kemp (and I'm sure he must hate that description - I mean no one refers to ex-RC seminarian Martin Scorsese or former jobbing artist Adolf Hitler) also got less than admirable reviews in the Guardian and the Huff Post and I do wonder why: it wouldn't have won an Oscar and does tread well-trodden ground but it does so with aplomb. In simpler words: as one of its kind Top Dog isn't at all bad and a lot better than some.
Were I writing for the Guardian I might write - although it didn't, it described the film, which it gave only one star out of a possible five, as 'witless' and 'low-level ladsploitation' (note the 'clever' wordplay there which will have amused guardianistas if no one else) - that Top Dog is an investigation into what happens when testosterone-fuelled male bravado gets way out of hand. In one sense 'witless' is apt as it does well to describe the leading figure (Leo Gregory), a man astute enough to run a car dealership well enough to afford him a nice lifestyle but who otherwise can see no further than his own ego and addiction to fighting with the fans of rival clubs.
The Guardian is very unfair: Gregory's Billy Evans, a man who gets way out of his depth when he locks horns with a local gangster and then eventually comes into the sights of a far more important - and far more dangerous - gangster, is neither glorified nor portrayed in any way as enviable. In that sense Kemp's film takes quite a moral stance although I doubt he would be too happy to have that sign hung around the film's neck.
Gregory gets great support from fellow actors, but a special mention should go to Vincent Regan who as the man Billy Evans should never have tangled with - though he certainly didn't do so on purpose - can get more menace into his Northern Irish brogue when ordering a glass of orange juice in a pub than many a man could get toting a handgun. The two female leads also do a good job at portraying long-suffering wives who love their husbands but do wish they would finally grow up.
So there you have it: ignore the average '5.2' the film gets here on IMDB and most certainly ignore the sniffy review in the Guardian. Top Dog does the job and does it well - as I say better than many such films. And the ending did take me by surprise. Give it a whirl if you come across it. (I caught it on Netflix.)
My Cousin Rachel (2017)
Very worthwhile adaptation of du Maurier's great novel
I watched this latest film version of Daphne du Maurier's novel My Cousin Rachel immediately after finishing reading the novel itself and was reminded what, in some ways, a thankless task it is to 'make the film of the novel' or even to 'make a film of the novel'. The saying - well, make it 'the cliche' - is 'comparisons are odious', but all too often 'the film' is adversely compared to 'the novel' and all to often comes off second-best by stalwarts who 'just loved the book, loved it!' It would seem filmmakers just can't win.
Those who do make such comparisons are being unfair. For one thing a writer can do things which a conventional filmmaker simply cannot (and I stress 'conventional' filmmaker because those of a more arty and experimental bent sometimes do attempt to translate literary devices into film techniques, quite often successfully, although the rule of thumb seems to be that there is an inverse proportion between how arty and experimental a film is and the numbers which bother to see it). So perhaps it would be best if we spoke of 'the film based on the novel' rather than 'the film of the novel'.
Bearing that in mind, writer/director has made a very good fist making his film based on du Maurier's novel, and those coming to it who have not read the original will enjoy a well-made, intriguing and entertaining two hours. He has necessarily adapted the story a little and 'left out bits', but - well, see above. I can recommend it. But I can also recommend du Maurier's novel, and it is not for nothing that her biographer, the novelist Margaret Forster insists that du Maurier should be regarded as a bona fide literary writer rather than its poor relation 'the romantic novelist'. She is that, certainly, but she - sometimes - is much more, too.
As for the film, go for, it's worth every minute. In his conclusion Michel does rather water down the essential ambiguity which makes the novel so intriguing, but his film is none the worse for that, and as his conclusion is the one I reached after reading the novel, I don't disagree with it. Sorry, but I can't say more for risking of spoiling a rather good mystery.
Westworld: The Passenger (2018)
Complete and total hokum - but magnificently done
The best advice - OK, the most sensible advice - is not to try to make head or tail of Westworld over its two seasons (and a third is planned and has already been set up in the final episode of the season 2 finale). Don't just suspend disbelief, ditch disbelief entirely and let it all wash over you and, who knows, you'll probably enjoy it.
Fifteen years ago when my two children were still young, our regular Saturday night routine was to sit down after supper and watch Doctor Who. I must confess that I, by no means a complete idiot, gave up trying to follow the story each week about halfway through. 'But how could he do that?' I asked my youngsters. 'He used his sonic screwdriver, Dad!' they came back, puzzled that a 'grown-up' could be so stupid as not to understand a simple ruse quite obvious to children. It's in that frame of mind I suggest you watch Westworld.
I have no idea whether two (or even three) seasons were planned from the off, but seasons 1 and 2 do differ in treatment. The pseudo-intellectual notions pitched up by the writers in season one - musings on what it means to be 'conscious', what it means to be 'human', that kind of thing - were interesting, if still a little middle-brow going on banal.
The second season ditches much of whatever subtlety season 1 attempted and managed to portray, and goes hell for leather for all-out hokum, which does raise the question as to whether the producers knew they would be filming a second season - except from the final scenes, season 1 would stand up well on its own.
It also resorts a great deal more to a gun battle and actors racing round in futuristic utility vehicles when, if truth be told, the gun battles and utility vehicles don't necessarily serve the best interests of the protagonists but certainly do keep the story rattling along nicely.
Instead, in season 2 we get far more of that old and useful standby 'confusion': one trick TV and movie producers increasingly resort to is flash-back, flash-forward and here in Westworld even 'flash-sideways', which leave the viewer pretty confused but impressed, content in the knowledge that all will be revealed in the final scenes.
Clever producers, writers and directors - and Westworld has those - spin all the confusion in such a way that more likely than not the viewer feels they are to blame if they don't have the faintest clue as to what is going on. The vital point is to keep the story gripping enough to keep the viewer watching throughout long periods of such abject confusion and that is what happens in season 2.
So, for example, in season 2 echoes and references galore of all kinds of myths, legends and religious and metaphysical themes give the whole shooting match - a very apt description for season 2 - a spurious intellectual credibility. However, what was attractive about season 1 - a variety of ostensibly independent and intriguing storylines - gets more than a little out of hand in season 2, so that 'variety' becomes 'something of a mish-mash', all of which storylines, though, must be concluded in some way in the series finale (though in the event not all storylines are granted that courtesy).
Actually, whereas the puzzles of season 1 are intriguing, the puzzles of season 2 all too often make no sense at all when the credits roll on the finale - but who the hell cares? If we are able to swallow notions such as the god of gods, Zeus, changing himself into a swan to be able to seduce the young woman he fancies (why a bloody swan?) or that one of three very ugly sisters - she had snakes for hair, for God's sake! - can turn a man to stone just by looking at him, you should be able to swallow wholesale the magnificent hokum served up here. And there is something magnificent about both seasons, if only at times magnificently mad.
Plot holes? You want plot holes? You've got them in spades. And it becomes rather too obvious that Westworld is cutting corners when protagonists manage to turn up at just the right moment or are able to cover a vast distance in a matter of minutes or just how such a super-secret complex - the various parks - could have been constructed with such efficiency. And exactly where does the electricity come from to power the whole complex - but again it doesn't matter: the whole Westworld team have approached producing the series with such verve and panache - and more than a little CGI larks - that you are apt to forgive the many, many, many plot holes and inconsistencies like that.
So don't ask questions, don't pick nits, just enjoy. Let the shambolic glory of it all wash over you. And don't take any of it in the slightest bit seriously, especially the cod-philosophical ontological musings which seem to have impressed other reviewers. It's all just outright hokum, though I'm glad to report it is 24-carat, grade A+++ hokum, so roll on season 3.
Emma (1996)
Good but not great screen adaptation, which seems to do little to convey Austen's satire
I had just finished reading Emma by Jane Austen when I took a fancy to watching a screen version to see what was made of it, and chose to watch the TV version starring Kate Beckinsale. I was surprised to see it getting an overall rating on IMDB of 7.1
Don't get me wrong: it isn't at all bad and for its kind quite good, but after reading Austen's subtle novel and having fresh in mind the nuances with which she conveys all the - essentially trivial - goings-on in Highbury, I do feel it somewhat misses its target. Not a lot, but enough to challenge that 7.1 overall rating.
Naturally, a screen or TV adaption of a novel is in many ways restricted, and I have borne that in mind. But there are one or two other details which I feel don't do the novel justice. For example, Emma is undoubtedly a rich woman - her 1816 fortune of £30,000 translates into 2018's more than £2.6 million, and she and her father can afford to live a life of ease.
But their circumstances as portrayed in the TV film do over-egg the pudding to an alarming degree. They - and George Knightley - were most certainly not titled. They were simply well-off landed gentry able to live off the rents they received for their land. So the super grand homes they are shown to live in - and the number of uniformed flunkeys the Woodhouses are shown to employ - are, to be blunt, ludicrous. This is TV early-19th century life.
The social divergences and disposable income in the early 19th century were certainly far, far wider than they are today (at least here in Britain - I can't speak for the US), but the Woodhouses, Knightley and the Weston's were fundamentally well-off middle-class folk. Yes, they had no financial worries, although fate and fortune could, and very often did, pitch such families down the social scale quite fast as they had no way of insuring themselves.
In those days, a candle falling over and starting a fire which could burn their houses to the ground was a perpetual fear for them and did easily bankrupt many a well-to-do family. (A good example is how TV portrays the ball at the Crown: despite the availability of staff, in the novel it was very much a small-scale DIY affair, more a fun gathering than the full-blown event shown.)
The TV film portrays them otherwise. As shown in the film they would be living as minor aristocracy. In this regard Knightley's grand pile is especially ludicrous. Austen herself and her family, however impeccably middle-class, were certainly not well-off and were forever teetering on the brink of penury, all to often relying on the goodwill of family. Hence the then sheer necessity of a young woman 'marrying well'.
These might be minor points, of course, and after all it is fiction. But as in this regard it does not reflect on Jane Austen's world, other infelicities also creep in.
My second reservation is that the TV film falls short of conveying the subtleties of the different situations the characters find themselves in. Again to be blunt it is all just a tad too cut and dried.
Screenwriter Andrew Davies, the go-to chap for this kind of stuff, otherwise does reasonably well: though at times a little broad-brush, he does Austen's characters s0me justice, although his script does rather take too little account of Austen's sharp with and satirical eye.
The plot of Austen's novel is also far to syncopated in this adaptation, with the various developments simply not being sufficiently established to make much sense. Overall, I was disappointed and would recommend anyone so inclined to head for the far more substantial novel. But that said, as a piece of costume drama this version can still hold its head high for those who go a bundle for this kind of thing.
Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
Perhaps a tad baffling to be really great
Several claims have been made about Blade Runner 2049, including one in review that appeared in the UK's Guardian, that it is destined to become a future 'sci-fi classic'.
Other reviewers suggest that in some kind of profound way the film examines what it is to be human (or something). Both claims might well be true: but either way, the film does go on for quite some time and almost - almost - overstays its welcome. As for 'being profound', well, if that's another way of saying the film occasionally gets close to being a little baffling, so be it.
Oddly, I never saw the first Blade Runner all the way through - I always grew a little bored and doing something else seemed a little more attractive, but I understand that first film is now a 'sci-fi classic'. Perhaps, but by my own admission, I'm in no position to say yay or nay.
As for Blade Runner 2049, I can see how some might like to make the claim, but as for being profound and some kind of ontological examination of both humanity and whatever '-ity' droids will claim for themselves, the jury is still out and won't be back for a while.
Even if the production company's publicity department had thought of describing the film as such, it will surely soon have been obvious to them that they would run the risk of alienating all those fans who like their words to have no more than two syllables.
Visually, Blade Runner 2049 is magnificent, so it is a shame that the storyline - 'plot' is a little too mundane for a 'sci-fi classic' - meanders rather more than a tale told by the local bar bore.
It hooks into the first Blade Runner outing and in a somewhat convoluted way - I've already used the word 'baffling' so I'm attempting what is often called 'elegant variation' - doing so make sense. It's just that the sum of the parts doesn't quite add up to a satisfyingly coherent whole. You can admire each part, but drumming up total admiration for the whole is rather a challenge.
I feel rather guilty being so apparently mean-spirited, but I have no choice. Blade Runner 2049 is a well-made, well-acted, well-directed and well-produced film, but doesn't quite pay the full shilling. Go for it and make your own mind up. Who knows, you might even decide that I'm talking cobblers. Or perhaps not.
Sliver (1993)
Completely ludicrous 'suspense' film which is best ignored
A well-known phrase is 'nice try, but no cigar', Sliver doesn't even rate as a 'nice try'. That's a shame because Sharon Stone deserved better than this (though as a working actress, I'm sure she enjoyed, well, the work). The film starts in a pretty conventional manner, though in a manner you have seen many times before, but a slow decline starts quite soon. For one thing William Baldwin is throughly miscast, and although Tom Berenger is not, there is so little meat to his role that the guy has nothing to work with.
The whole set-up is not even two-dimensional and there is just so much you just don't buy: the 'relationship' between Baldwin's character and Stone is at best ludicrous. None of the characters is fleshed out in any way at all, they are cyphers and nothing more. I've read that Stephen King described Ira Levin, who wrote the novel Sliver on which the film is based (he also wrote the novels Rosemary's Baby, The Stepford Wives and The Boys From Brazil which were all subsequently filmed) as 'the Swiss watchmaker of suspense novels, he makes what the rest of us do look like cheap watchmakers in drugstores'. Fair enough, though as I haven't read any of the novels I can't comment. What I can certainly say is that any subtlety and wit Levin put into his stories has completely disappeared in the film of his novel Sliver.
It's as though the producers took various elements of what is known as a 'suspense' film and jammed them altogether without having much of an idea as to what they were doing. Well, I could go on, but what's the point. In sum: don't waste your time. Really. If you want to see how good an actress Stone can be in the right hands, get a copy of Scorsese's Casino. She nails it.
Anonymous (2011)
A potentially good film pretty much ruined by an unsubtle blockbuster approach
Is there anyone here who is familiar with the name Fred Quimby. I'm sure it rings a bell. Here's a clue: Tom and Jerry. And what does Mr Quimby have to do with Tom and Jerry? Well, very little, actually.
Those – in my view spectacularly good – cartoons were the creation of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, as in Hanna-Barbera, when they were working for MGM. Quimby, whose name appears prominently – very prominently – as the producer in the final credits had, on the other hand, very little to do with their creation. He was, in fact, merely the head of the department which produced those gems.
Reputedly, Quimby was a rather humourless man forever at odds with Hanna and Barbera and the suggestion has even been made that although Quimby originally gave the green light to the long series of Tom and Jerry cartoons, he contributed almost nothing to their success. So what has Mr Quimby to do with Roland Emerich's film Anonymous? Well, this
Emerich made his mark with Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and other rather unsubtle blockbusters, and who can't doubt that he has a certain gift of some kind in that field. Those films are not at all to my taste, but their success cannot be gainsaid.
So on the face of it Anonymous was a rather odd choice for the man. Certainly, he had far more to do with the film's production that Mr Quimby had to do with Tom and Jerry, but those cartoons sprung to mind while I was watching Anonymous in that the whole experience is oddly cartoonish. Subtlety is not Roland's strong suit, and what Anonymous and its 'story' desperately needs is subtlety. So on that score it's 1-0 to failure.
What Emerich can and does bring to Anonymous is spectacle: Elizabethan London with all its squalor is brought to life with vigour, his actors perform with vigour, everything is a rousing spectacle – and so on and on an on. And that is exactly what Anonymous, or rather the film, its theme and suggestion and execution doesn't need. It needed a light touch, not the Germanic vigour so capably and so unnecessarily applied by Emerich.
The suggestion that Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, was, in fact, the true author of the plays attributed to a glover's son from Warwickshire, is a contentious one. It has it's champions, and although I am not one of them, it would be quite amusing to see the theory propounded in a film such as Anonymous. Add to the mix the volatile question in the last years of Queen Elizabeth's reign of who would succeed her, and there is very fertile ground for a good, interesting and amusing film. Sadly, Emerich's film isn't it.
The actors, some of the best in the business it has to be said, are required by Emerich to declaim their lines and outline the plot in a manner which was the hallmark of Hollywood 50 years ago. But filmmaking has since moved on considerably, and a better producer/director might well have made a good fist of Anonymous. But instead we got the dead hand of Emerich.
Oh, all right it is, in its peculiar mish-mash of a way it is entertaining enough - and a mish-mash it most certainly is - but it could have been so, so much better. And there's the shame.
TURN (2014)
Well-made and engaging history which neatly avoids the many possible pitfalls
Here on IMDb users' reviews and elsewhere Turn: Washington's Spies has been castigated for 'historical inaccuracies', and I don't doubt the series is guilty of changing the facts to suit itself. For example, Anna Strong and Abe Woodhull, part of the Culper Ring of spies, were not romantically involved and, furthermore, Strong was ten years older than Woodhull, and apparently there are many more instances where the series doesn't stack up with what we know about the spy ring. But that begs the question: is AMC's series intended as an historical document or as entertainment? If the former, if the series was produced as a documentary, then certainly playing fast and loose with what historians have established really happened is unacceptable. But it doesn't to me seem that it was.
AMC is in the entertainment business, and I think we can be sure that Turn was intended more as commercial evening entertainment than has a history lecture. But that doesn't mean it is all fictional and 'made up' or not in any way worthwhile. In fact, I think it has struck the right note between a broadly historical account and out-and-out fiction rather well, especially for a US company: I have watched too many American films and series which have laid on the patriotic schmaltz rather to much for me to have acquired a taste for it (Designated Survivor, and Steven Spielberg's Lincoln and the thoroughly dishonest Amistad spring to mind. It might be worthwhile if parts of America took to heart the observation by non-Americans that no country on Earth prides itself on being 'the second greatest nation in the world').
Dealing as it does with the beginnings of the war of independence, AMC seems to get it right not to stick to the Dick and Dora version of history so love by Hollywood of a 'freedom-loving people struggling to shake off the yoke of British tyranny'. If only it had been that simple (though many Americans still like to push that line).
Obviously, there are many different interpretations of the genesis and motivation for the formation of the Continental Congress and its aftermath. But one of these interpretations is that essentially the struggle for independence was by some of the ruling classes in the colonies who simply wanted to call all the shots rather than just some of them and most certainly not on behalf of a king several thousand miles away. Oh, and they also wanted to keep more of their money. There is scant evidence of a 'popular uprising' by 'the people' who had come to hate the king, and as revolt against the Crown and his representatives in the colonies grew, many remained loyal to the king simply because independence would make very little, if any, practical difference to their lives: it didn't matter who they were paying rent to or for whom they toiled: they still had to pay rent and still had to toil for a pittance, and were hounded if they didn't.
Essentially the colonies were divided, and war was, at first at least, civil war, and AMC's Turn conveys that sense well. Many of the 'Americans' were, in fact, British, some third and fourth generation, who had settled in the colonies and who, crucially, still regarded themselves as British.
As for the production itself, Turn deserves a lot more bouquets than brickbats (in fact, so far I can't even think of a brickbat I might want to wield). The actors are all well-cast and persuasive, the direction is unobtrusive (and successfully avoids pretty much all patriotic grandstanding and posturing), the story neatly interweaves the political and historical with the personal, and there is, thankfully, none of that 'olde English' 18th-century speak which can mar and jar just as much as using modern anachronism. (So far no one has said anything along the lines of 'General Washington, I've got to do this thing, for me its personal!' and we can thank God for small mercies.)
So if you come across Turn and are tempted to look in, do so by all means. It does a good job very well, although given the period it covers, you will be disappointed if you crave bucketloads of patriotic syrup and a rousing soundtrack. I, you might have gathered, don't.
Cannabis (2016)
Convoluted, gripping full-blooded Med crime melodrama. I love it.
Had enough of the usual formulaic schlock schlock you are fed on mainstream and, increasingly, on cable TV? Want something different from the standard story lines, plots, characters and situations you know so well you could write them yourself (well, you almost could)? Well, give Cannabis a whirl.
I have to say that I have been watching it through Anglo-Saxon eyes and experiencing it with Anglo-Saxon sensibilities, for which read US/Northern European eyes and sensibilities. So if you are French, Spanish, Italian, North African or from somewhere where the days and nights are hotter (so I might as well include you guys and gals from South America) you might well tell me Cannabis and its almost grand guignol melodrama is pretty run-of-the-mill stuff and you see it on your screen seven nights a week. Well, we rather more reserved, not to say damp-souled lot up in the North don't: so Cannabis is a very refreshing change.
I like that there are no good guys or bad guys, no good girls and bad girls. I like the oh-so utterly convoluted storyline which keeps you guessing and then some. I like the lack of grandstanding, the lack of posturing, the feeling that many of the characters seem - I have to say 'seem' because this is, after all, fiction - quite true to life. I like that, as in real life, the wrong people get killed and even the heroes aren't immune. Above all, I like the moral ambiguity.
At points your credibility might be stretched and the filming is not as polished as it might be, but the whole shooting match is carried off with such panache that you really don't care. So if you want far spicier fare than your more usual diet of plastic men and women we are served up all too often on TV, give Cannabis a go. I doubt you will be disappointed.
Designated Survivor (2016)
Standard schlock for the 8pm drama slot
If it's entertainment you want, Designated Survivor fits the bill. It has tension, suspense, intrigue, explosions, downhome family scenes and oodles of that peculiarly American schmaltz where everyone loves their country and is just doing his job, sir, just doing my job and which turns off a good many Brits like me, I have to say. And this Brit is also turned off by the somewhat formulaic nature of it all.
This, sadly, is once again drama by numbers, the kind of thing you have seen often before and will see often again before you pop your clogs. And if it's nuance you want, subtlety, ambiguity, something pitched a little higher than just 8pm evening fodder, go to The Leftovers, Boardwalk Empire, or one of several other excellent series which have hit our screens these past few years. There are too many plot holes, too many occasions when you ask yourself 'but why did she/he/it do that? Why not
? And there are to many clichéd characters - clichéd liberals, clichéd foreigners, clichéd journalists. So if you want clichés... But as entertainment, Designated Survivor will do, and do just fine.
That isn't, though, meant as much of a compliment.
I'm Dying Up Here: Pilot (2017)
Promising, but it's early days yet
Well, so far this has had one review and two down votes, so let me even the balance a little. For what it is, it's good, or better than it might be. There's a fair amount of new age schamaltz, but toned down for the millennials who are, you know, cooler than their older brothers and dads. But on the evidence of the pilot, this could be promising. You can't really tell too much from a pilot, because if it is picked up, the picker-uppers will insist on all kinds of tweaks, but let's see how it goes.