whynotgoglobal Reviews

On a Clear Day (2005)

A very fine film with a magnificent performance at its heart

[10/10 · 13 March 2022]

We've seen plenty of feelgood stories about underdogs taking on a challenge and finding inner peace and self-respect, and this fine film proves that a talented group of people can still find something new to say. On a Clear Day has a heart and a brain, it says things worth saying and Peter Mullan's mighty performance holds everything together. It's a worthwhile journey, and the closing scenes are immensely rewarding. Ten out of ten, not because it's perfect but because it moved me and made me feel better about the world. Thank you to everyone involved.

Happiest Season (2020)

Great script, great cast, great movie

[10/10 · 2 February 2022]

I've always liked Clea Duvall as an actress and after watching this hugely enjoyable movie I like her even more as a director. She's assembled a terrific cast, and having people of the calibre of Mary Holland, Aubrey Plaza and Alison Brie in supporting parts is a major coup. Each of them has the talent and presence to carry a romcom as the star, and their commitment to their roles, and the quality of the writing and direction, ensures that we have a believable tapestry of extended family and friends. This makes a nice contrast with lesser romcoms that give us minor characters that are too cliched or poorly drawn to matter to the audience. In Happiest Season we believe in the characters and we care about what happens to them. Most of all we care about what happens to Abby and Harper, beautifully played by Stewart and Davis. Ten stars, because this movie made me really happy. Thank you Clea Duvall.

The Twilight Zone: The Rip Van Winkle Caper (1961) Season 2, Episode 24

Too stupid to be enjoyable

[2/10 · 2 February 2022]

I'm a Twilight Zone fan and I always look for something positive, even in the less successful episodes, but I can't see anything of value in this one because the basic plot premise is completely ridiculous. No one would hide in suspended animation for 100 years with no idea what kind of world they'd be waking up to. This episode was filmed and screened at the height of the Cold War, so it was anybody's guess if civilization would have lasted to 2060 (and frankly it still is today). I know this is a TV show and we need to suspend disbelief sometimes but suspending it this far is too much to ask. Nobody is that stupid. And why on earth was Farwell risking everything and hiding in a cave for a century for a quarter share of $1 million when he was sitting on suspended animation technology that would have made him a billionaire? I'm guessing that Rod Serling (who I admire greatly) was in a desperate rush to meet a deadline and turned in a script that was a hasty first draft. If he'd had time for a second draft he might have made it work. If they'd planned to hide for one year, for example, and something went wrong with the process so they ended up oversleeping by a century, Serling's points about greed and material value could still have been made, and the confusion and fear of people waking up in a world they never expected to see would have been powerful. As it is, it's laughable because they all made such an implausible decision. A missed opportunity and my least favourite episode.

Last Christmas (2019)

A massive missed opportunity

[4/10 · 27 November 2020]

I love Christmas movies, I love romantic comedies, I love Paul Feig, I love George Michael's songs and I love Emilia Clarke. But I just watched "Last Christmas" on Sky Movies and I feel like kicking the TV screen in. The final twist becomes obvious about 20 minutes in, which leaves us twiddling our thumbs for over an hour without a decent joke or a properly realised character to keep us company. You can combine all the promising ingredients you want, but if the script is rubbish the film will be rubbish, and this one could have been written by a bot. Emma Thomson should hang her head in shame.

10 Things We Should Do Before We Break Up (2020)

Poignant and very well acted

[7/10 · 30 June 2020]

With a 70 minute running time you'd think this would be on the short and lightweight side, but the opposite is true. Two very fine lead performances and a grown-up approach to its subject give us a poignant snapshot of a relationship. Things may not work out the way we want them to, but that's what happens when a film maker tries to give us a slice of life instead of crowd-pleasing cliches. And Galt Niederhoffer deserves particular credit for telling the story with economy. It would have been easy to pad it out with another 10-15 minutes to give it a more conventional running time, but that would have detracted from an intelligent, worthwhile movie.

Patrick the Pug (I) (2018)

Genuinely baffled that this film got made

[2/10 · 15 May 2020]

By Hollywood standards £6 million is a very small budget, but it still beggars belief that anyone put up a penny for "Patrick". The biggest problem is the script, clearly the work of someone who's never written one before and decided to copy and paste every romcom cliche and lovable-pet-changes-your-life cliche rather than write one here. Nothing that happens in this film is the product of genuine character interaction or development. People say and do things because those things are in the script and they're required to get us from one scene to the next, regardless of how little purpose there is to it. Every plot line is artificially bolted on to every other, and the performances are all kinds of bad, from Ed Skrein phoning it in to Beattie Edmondson overacting like a twelve year old trying to impress the teachers in a school pantomime. No jokes, no believable relationships - between humans and humans or between humans and dog - and no point. A lot of favours must have been called in to get this amateurish mess produced, and I can't imagine anyone involved now believes it was worth it.

The Running Man (1963)

Elevated by two fine performances but dragged down by one typically bad one

[6/10 · 7 May 2020]

The first half of the movie could have been handled better. The appearance of the supposedly deceased Rex Black a few moments after his mourners have departed his flat, and at the same time as a visit from an insurance investigator leads to something that resembles a scene from a bedroom farce without the laughs. When the action switches to Malaga things improve significantly, partly because it's beautifully filmed but mainly because Lee Remick and Alan Bates are convincing and appealing together. This was an early glimpse of what a fine, sympathetic leading man Alan Bates would be for decades to come. Unfortunately it was also confirmation of Laurence Harvey's limitations. A better, more subtle actor might have retained at least part of our sympathy to the end, giving the final twist an element of tragedy. Harvey loses the audience every time he opens his mouth, though, and that torpedoes The Running Man in spite of the good work of his co-stars and the attention to detail of gifted cinematographer Robert Krasker. Worth watching but a missed opportunity.

Breaking the Bank (2014)

Three stars for the cast, none for the writing

[3/10 · 13 April 2020]

A glance at the cast list of Breaking the Bank raises expectations. There's a huge amount of comic talent here, but good actors need a good script, and they don't have one. Plot and characterisation are hackneyed. Pearce Quigley's turn as a wise homeless man is a particularly unwelcome cliche, and Mathew Horne's investment banker is as one-note as an electric drill. If Vadim Jean wanted to make a comedy that exposed the absurdity and irresponsibility that led to to financial crisis of 2008, there was merit in the idea and a big target to aim at. Unfortunately he missed it by a mile. Good actors are often reduced to trotting out well-worn one-liners that might have come straight from a Google search for jokes for a best man to make at a wedding. Just as disappointingly, the expositional dialogue designed to show us the workings of the financial world sounds as if it was lifted from Wikipedia. Vadim Jean remains a talented director but on this evidence he's lost his ear for dialogue. Three stars for a cast that work hard and do their best with terrible material.

Little Monsters (2019)

A fun movie elevated by a wonderful actress

[9/10 · 15 November 2019]

I've heard people say the zombie movie genre has run out of steam, but I disagree. The best zombie movies aren't about zombies. They're about people, and Little Monsters succeeds because we care about the people. Alexander England does well as the slacker who finds himself in uncharted territory and Kat Stewart is very good in a well judged supporting performance. The kids are fun, and Josh Gad does what he always does. If you like him, you'll like him here; if you don't, you won't. Little Monsters stands or falls on the performance of Lupita Nyong'o, and she is dazzling. Beautiful, funny, charming, intelligent and brave, she brings real movie star charisma and lights up the screen. Little Monsters is fun and vibrant, and it stars an actress who is always worth watching. Highly recommended.

Juliet, Naked (2018)

Charming, beautifully acted movie

[10/10 · 9 July 2019]

Juliet, Naked is nicely constructed and well written but it owes everything to the talent and appeal of its stars. Chris O'Dowd does a fine job conveying the selfishness of a man who takes others for granted without ever completely losing our sympathy. Ethan Hawke has had a run of golden performances over the past few years and after his great work in Boyhood, Born to Be Blue and First Reformed he nails Tucker Crowe's vulnerability with every line. But it's Rose Byrne who holds everything together, making us feel every scrap of her frustration and hope. The "Waterloo Sunset" scene is a thing of beauty, and it pushes this lovely movie from nine out of ten to ten out of ten. Thoroughly enjoyed, absolutely recommended.

Blue Iguana (2018)

Thoroughly Enjoyable

[9/10 · 22 March 2019]

Just caught this one on Sky and I'm wondering why it isn't better known. It's a smart, well constructed caper movie with a charismatic Oscar winning star (Sam Rockwell, watchable as always), good support from Ben Schwartz and best of all a wonderful performance from Phoebe Fox, who can express more with a wrinkle of her nose than most actors can with a thousand words. The characters are nicely drawn, the jokes are funny - the running gag about Fox's messy eating hits the target every time - and the whole thing works very well. If you don't like swearing you might have a few uncomfortable moments, but personally I found the dialogue entirely appropriate to the characters and their situation. I've now watched Blue Iguana three times and it felt fresh and enjoyable every time. With just about any other female lead this movie would be a good, solid seven out of ten, but the brilliant Fox elevates it. Recommended.

Scottish Mussel (2015)

Just too derivative

[4/10 · 9 December 2017]

Talulah Riley clearly wanted to send out a positive environmental message when she started out with this story, and she might have succeeded if she'd trusted a script editor or producer to knock things into shape. Specifically: Someone should have gone through the script scene by scene and put a red line through every detail and plot contrivance that was directly lifted from "Local Hero". Someone should have realised that setting up the female lead as a beautiful, angelic eco-warrior and then having her fall simperingly in love with a scruffy little chancer for absolutely no reason wasn't going to make sense. Someone should have spoken up for the idea of casting Scottish actors in Scottish parts. They would at least get the accents right. Someone should have been concerned that absolutely nothing that happens in this movie is any kind of surprise. It's difficult to lose yourself in a story when every scene signposts exactly where it's heading and the script and characterisations aren't engaging enough to make you care about how you get there.

A.C.O.D. (2013)

Made worthwhile by two very fine actors

[8/10 · 18 November 2017]

This movie is held together by a typically intelligent, sympathetic performance from Adam Scott, with fine support from Mary Elizabeth Winstead. I believed in and cared about them as the central couple, with Scott struggling to deal with the chaos created by others and Winstead the voice of reason in his life. Other performances capture the selfishness of a dysfunctional family nicely, and I quickly found myself rooting for Scott and feeling the pain when his life is derailed. This movie doesn't patronise the audience with clichéd resolutions, it's funny enough to keep us amused and thanks to Scott and Winstead it never slips into pointless farce.

Lucky Feller (1975–1976)

What were they thinking?

[2/10 · 25 August 2017]

In many ways this is a typical 70s sitcom, and I don't mean that as a compliment. I watched its original run and the current revival on UK Gold is bringing back the awkwardness and bemusement I felt then. The stock characters and stock jokes aren't funny but they're no worse than what you'll find in On The Buses and a lot less offensive than what we endured in Love Thy Neighbour. The fact that the central family consists of a mother in her mid-40s and two sons who are clearly in their late-30s makes no sense, but I'll let that pass too. What marks this down as a major turkey is

(1) The insistence on drowning every situation in sentimentality.

(2) The series of unfeasibly stupid coincidences that lead David Jason's character to believe the object of his affection feels the same way about him, despite all evidence to the contrary.

(3) The shockingly unpleasant and manipulative way Jason's girlfriend behaves towards him.

Yes, I know it's a sitcom, not a morality play, but it's a sitcom that gets down on its knees and begs us to care about its characters. It's hard to do that when our hero is an irredeemably weak and stupid stooge, the woman he loves manipulates his feelings with the sole aim of getting into bed with his brother and then manipulates them further to con him into marriage, and the mother he adores plays along with it. When the last episode ended with Jason's beaming smile about to be wiped away by a punch from his girlfriend's father while he stands expectantly at the altar, I remember wondering what I was supposed to be feeling at that point. What were the writer and the cast trying to elicit from the audience? It wasn't funny, it wasn't clever, it wasn't satisfying and it wasn't fair. It was just a horribly misjudged mess, a waste of the cast's talent and a waste of the audience's time. On the plus side, I learned an important lesson watching this show. Just because someone is paid to write a sitcom, that doesn't mean they understand how to create believable characters, funny situations or good jokes. Message to UK Gold - don't ever show this again.

My Son Reuben (1975)

Very odd casting

[2/10 · 7 May 2017]

I can't criticise this show too much for being unfunny because most mid-70s sitcoms were unfunny. I do have to comment on the casting, though. This was a sitcom about a bachelor living at home with his over-protective mother. Both actors were doing their best with poor material but the mother didn't look particularly old and the son didn't look particularly young, and the interaction between them seemed strange (even to me, and I was ten years old at the time). After the show had been on for a couple of weeks I remember reading a feature about the two stars, and it turned out that the actor playing the son was ten years older than his screen mother. "My Son Reuben" sank without trace and judging by the response to it on this site I may be the only person who remembers it at all, but if there's anyone out there who can shed light on the casting choices I'd appreciate it.

David Brent: Life on the Road (2016)

Ricky Gervais lets sentimentality get the better of him - again

[4/10 · 30 November 2016]

There are good jokes and good moments here, but like so much of Gervais's work it's compromised by sentimentality and crushed by his determination to tell the audience exactly how they should feel about what they're watching. The irony here is that Gervais makes exactly the same mistake as his protagonist. We're invited to laugh at Brent explaining his song lyrics in excruciating detail but then offered the same clumsy preaching in the character's paint-by-numbers redemption in the final ten minutes. When Tim and Dawn finally got together in The Office's closing moments we believed it and we cheered for it because the writing and acting had earned that response. Thirteen years on Gervais no longer respects his audience enough for such trivia as character development. He offers us constant buffoonery and tells us to laugh at it for almost an hour and a half but then cheer for it right at the end for no reason other than that he wants to give his alter ego a happy ending. Next time out I sincerely hope he collaborates with another writer, director or producer with the authority to remind him of the basics of storytelling.

The Breakfast Club (1985)

Sums up everything bad about 80s teen films

[1/10 · 12 June 2015]

Inexplicably hailed as a cult classic, when I first saw this atrocious film I was the same age as the main characters (but not the same age as some of the actors playing them. Judd Nelson looks all of his 26 years). It seemed empty and utterly false then and 30 years on it looks even worse. It's on TV right now, the characters are impossible to like or care about and the script is arguably the worst thing John Hughes ever wrote (he never wrote anything good but this garbage screams to be taken seriously without doing anything to earn the right).

Some people like this movie because it reminds them of teenage rebellion. I hate it because it has nothing honest or interesting to say about people of any age. No character says or does anything believable, and the hasty boy-girl pairings shoehorned into the final five minutes come out of absolutely nowhere (the "prettying up" of Ally Sheedy's token weird girl to make her an acceptable make-out target is particularly baffling).

This film has no insight, no truth, no entertainment value and no point. Everyone involved should have been given Saturday detention for life.