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Reviews
Guilt: Episode #1.4 (2019)
Tumbling Down Hill
First let me say that this drama is very well done. Writing, acting, production, all first rate. I would have given it a higher score if it was a story I enjoyed.
If this was another police procedural, detective story, well, for me, that would've been been better. At the beginning of the 4th episode I realized the difference. When we're looking at these events from the police perspective the arc of the story is, typically, one of success.
But stories like this, people with marginal lives getting mixed up in circumstances that sweep them into misery or worse don't have much appeal for me. My wife ate it up, but I had to turn away.
Grantchester: Episode #5.6 (2020)
An Outstanding Episode - Intense, Intimate
I found this to be a fascinating interweaving of several families' psychodynamics, Will and his mother, Leonard and his father, the murder victim and her family, as well as Geordie and his. Throw in social attitudes regarding homosexuality and you've got more than enough to fill an hour.
Those are the barest bones of the episode, the plot lines.
I thought the writing was artful, sensitive, nuanced and gave the cast material they could really sink their chops into. Lotta Drama, masterfully done. Perhaps the best of the series.
Murder on the Orient Express (2017)
Set Design Best Part of this Turkey
At the outset I thought this movie was going to be interesting, the exotic scenery and locales. Quirky characters and good actors. But somewhere in the middle, well, right after the murder, it turned clunky and UNinteresting. And the fact that it was the same plot as the original, which had a better cast, was also disappointing. No, sorry Kenneth, that was weak, two dimensional.
Demolition (2015)
A Movie About Men Feeling
I thought this was a brilliant movie. Jake Gyllenhaal, as Davis Mitchell, gives a tour de force performance as a man who suddenly loses his wife. Davis is a man out of touch with his feelings and with only a primitive grasp of the underlying dynamics of relationships.
Men, in my experience, can often be unclear about what they're feeling. Often our emotional vocabulary is inadequate for circumstances in which we find ourselves. In Demolition Gyllenhaal's character, Davis, is overwhelmed with feelings he has no conception of how to express or deal with.
The devastation of his loss forces him to wake up to what is most essential in human existence, our relationships with each other. He'd just been inhabiting roles previously. Is that a spoiler?
OK, I'm a therapist and a carpenter, so the idea of taking things all apart to put them back together has immediate resonance. Though I did not lose my wife to breast cancer a couple of years ago, the experience forced me to contemplate the loss. That experience certainly added depth to my experience of the picture.
Well, I thought that the way the script, the direction, and the acting portrayed his metamorphosis into a more whole human being was fascinating and beautiful. Naomi Watts is excellent as Karen, the catalyst for his transformation, as is Judah Lewis as her son. Gyllenhaal was perfect and inhabited the part with power and sensitivity. I think it's a great picture.
Doctor Foster (2015)
Strong Family Drama, Great Acting
This is great TV. I found it entirely engrossing. Though I was a little tense by episode three and went to the garage asking my wife to summarize it. Yes I'm a total wuss, I know. But the next two episodes were so excellent.
My wife and I both enjoy Suranne Jones very much, hated seeing Scott & Bailey go off the air. And she is wonderful in this series. The scene at the Park's dinner table was just stunning and how we were waiting for it over the stretch of the season. Everyone was just genuine.
I also liked the scene at the neighbors where her marriage is described as a sham, and their piercing view of Gemma is revealed.
I also wondered where they would go in a season 2, but wherever that may be, I'll follow. If she's in it, I want to see it. Wonder where I can view old Coronation Street episodes in the states.
Noah (2014)
Would have been better as a silent movie
I gave it a four because they tried so hard, but all the way through I was bored and, well, sad. Sad that so many talented people had worked so hard to make such a piece of claptrap.
It would have been improved if it had been silent, let the sets and special effects carry the movie. The dialog was just awful - pretentious, overwrought drivel.
The bible is full of great stories, fairy tales from the childhood of our culture, but great stories. What Aronofsky has done is such a hatchet job. And this is the guy who made Pi, a wonderful picture. I wonder if privately he knows this is awful.
BTW I don't know why the hullaballoo about christians being upset, Noah wasn't a Christian, I don't think he was even a jew- pre-Abraham, ya know. He was a heathen.