ken_speckle Reviews

Facing Evil (2010– )

Sure... But She Knew a Man Once!

[3/10 · 20 May 2024]

Each episode comprises former FBI profiler Candice DeLong interviewing a woman who was convicted of a terrible crime.

But - no matter that she planned the murder, pulled the trigger, was convicted of it and now admits it to camera - Ms DeLong knows she is blameless because women don't do wrong. Instead, we must find a man from the perpetrator's past to carry every ounce of culpability and, helpfully, Ms DeLong is here to identify him: the father, son, lover, ex-husband who psychologically tortured her by requesting visitation rights or lending her money when she asked for it, man whose ex she offered to kill, man she paid to pull a trigger or man who paid her to do so.

And certainly some of the men Ms DeLong identifies are terrible people... always assuming you accept the word of a convicted murderer and, as a documentary maker, why would you not?

The premise of the show, in a nutshell, is that women have no agency and no culpability for criminal actions, even those they committed. Some of the subjects profess their innocence, which helps support Ms DeLong's world view. When one makes things awkward by admitting causing harm we can safely dismiss this by saying "she is suffering from survivor guilt." The alternative - that she accepts wrongdoing because she did wrong - is unthinkable.

Exception: we learn in Season 2 Episode 1 that Ms DeLong believes that a lesbian may have partial culpability.

Murder by the Sea: Hazel Williams: The Secret in the Cellar (2022) Season 7, Episode 5

Wait - we are just to take the killer's word that he deserved it?!

[3 December 2022]

The first 20 minutes are dedicated to victim-blaming: justifying a killing by calling the victim an abuser. Certainly the killer had been seen to be bruised in the past but if this resulted from such abuse the producers failed to mention any evidence of this beyond the killer's own word. This is especially troubling since we know the killer had repeatedly lied about the victim to family, friends and the court.

If the premise of a programme is that a killing is justified (a strange premise for a programme with "murder" in the title, by the way), its makers are surely beholden to us to demonstrate this using more than the killer's say-so. The wait for some justification of their position, a justification which would never come, very much diminished the telling of this tale.

Murder by the Sea: Craig Belcher (2022) Season 7, Episode 1

An Interesting and Sad Retelling Diminished by Bigotry

[7 September 2022]

A murder whose retelling was sad, interesting and, with knowledgeable contributions from an involved police inspector and a clinical forensic psychologist, insightful. I would have liked to have known more about the life and character of the victim, Kirsty Carver, but was glad to have heard her unfortunate story.

In choosing to watch recent series of this programme we accept that the presenter, Nell Darby, will sew low-level denigration of male-kind into each episode. This time she oversteps the mark, however, by repeating the twin lies that all men, unlike women, may safely "access all spaces" (70.2% of murder victims in the UK are men, 29.8% women) and that in preventing men from attacking women "the focus is always" upon women to take steps to make themselves safer with no responsibility landing upon men, and she jumps from these inaccuracies to the misandrist conclusion that boys must be re-educated since all men constitute a societal problem. Miss Darby is, of course, entitled to her own opinions (if not her own facts), but the producers should be wary of their presenter disaffecting viewers by placing anti-male rhetoric ahead of information, and failing to respect the victims of crime and their families by co-opting their individual tragedies for her political agenda. (That she openly admits to regularly going armed - apparently illegally - in case she might encounter a man might have been a red flag to them.)

Urban Myths: Agatha Christie (2018) Season 2, Episode 6

Oh, Grow Up!

[3/10 · 2 August 2022]

All men are shallow, sexist, delusional, weak, incompetents and philanderers, and every woman will use her intellectual superiority, coolness and efficiency to top the men in the end. How much longer do we have to have put up with commissioning editors choosing our fare based not on narrative or wit but on how well the script meets outdated and childish sexist stereotyping?

An Inspector Calls (2015 TV Movie)

Not so much a Plot as a Hole

[6/10 · 6 March 2022]

After being fired, the dead woman gains employment in the very shop at which his wife and daughter happen to buy their clothes. It could happen: say 10-to-1? The daughter also gets her fired from there. 1000-to-1? The dead woman and the daughter's intended go a bar which neither of them has entered before at the same time. 100,000-to-1? And, of all the people in the bar, these two leave together. 1m-to-1? With no connection through the family, the dead woman now becomes the lover of the daughter's brother. 100m-to-1?

Yes, it is a morality tale of sorts and is intended to display a certain mysticism, but for me a good script and cast could not save this from the interminable "Oh please: not another unexplained coincidence!" moments.

Charlie Says (2018)

Lulu / Leslie Tightrope Successfully Walked by Hannah Murray

[7/10 · 27 September 2021]

I only want to talk about the acting.

Many fine acting performances took us into the very different mind-set of a very particular subculture in a very different time, with Matt Smith (Charlie) and Sosie Bacon (Katie) deserving of special mention.

However, it is Hannah Murray as Lulu / Leslie whose performance was a revelation. Charles Manson said ego would make you fool yourself, and that it had to be killed. Actors are often walking egos, so when Murray buried any self-conceit deep enough to provide her warts-and-all performance we saw vulnerabilities and flaws beyond those offered her by the somewhat sympathetic scripting. Murray's interactions with and reactions to the other lead actors in every case also helped with their believability.

Murray succeeded in letting us wholly disapprove of the action of her Lulu while at the same time causing us to relate to her Leslie, and even somewhat understand and sympathise with her. That is impressive, and I am away now to find another Hannah Murray film!

Cheat (2019)

Men Cannot Think; Women Cannot be at Fault

[3/10 · 3 April 2021]

With so much fine female-written television nowadays it is a disappointment when we slip back to the old-time, sexist "woman good, man bad" school.

The three principal males require no development as none has a character: each is a slave to his libido, and suffers no thought or deed motivated from outwith his trousers. And when the writer serves up a wicked female character she cannot allow her to bear responsibility for her wickedness, and so must provide an aloof, uncaring father as the root cause of her every flaw.

Others have spoken of the implausibility of the story, the clichés (including the bunny boiler) and, apart from adding that the dialogue was unsuited to the characters, with many Cambridge academics acting and speaking without ever aspiring to even an averagely reasoned thought, I shall leave it there.

Murder Maps: Ruth Ellis (2017) Season 3, Episode 4

Best of the Series

[7/10 · 16 December 2019]

Writer William Simpson and Director Daniel Kontur deserve particular credit for two decisions. With the first they include extensive imagined re-enactment featuring not the principals to the crime but a woman passionately opposed to Ellis's hanging and an indifferent train passenger whom she seeks to sway to her thinking. As a result of the second decision - to have them explore non-confrontationally both sides of an emotive argument - we join the everyman passenger in learning historical detail without the feeling of being spoon fed, and we think through the pros and cons alongside him. The understated yet emotionally charged acting of Sophia Del Pizzo and Simon Wright in these scenes is also enjoyable and to be commended.

(P.S. That's a high star rating from me.)

Christmas at the Palace (2018 TV Movie)

The Only Christmas Movie You (Don't) Need to Watch This Year

[3/10 · 1 December 2019]

Great news! If you crave movie clichés about Christmas, about royalty, or about stuffy Europeans and free-spirited Americans then you only need to watch one movie this year! Better news! Take the phrases "Christmas at the Palace", "skating pageant" and "single-parent king" and now you don't even have to watch that movie, 'cos you know every single thing which is going to happen. We know that Christmas movies will demand a wide-eyed acceptance from the audience - of course they will - but other ones made a modicum of effort to earn this. Here they put the keywords into the slot, pushed the button and accepted unaltered the story and dialogue which fell out the other end. Actual dialogue: Cardboard cut-out king: "What are you watching?" Princess: "Christmas movie." Cardboard cut-out king: "Well, we both know how that's going to end!" Yes, yes we do. But this is not witty self-awareness: it is an admission of the film makers' laziness. There were positives: young India Fowler as Princess Christina (whom I hadn't seen before) is an actor, and may have a lot of potential. Okay, there was one positive. Let's be generous and assume that the people reviewing this highly are pre-teens who haven't seen a Christmas romance movie before, and say no more about it.

Millions Like Us (1943)

When "I Don't Mind" Means "Yes. Yes! YES!"

[8/10 · 23 March 2016]

There will be a propagandist's agenda behind any film made in and concerning WWII Britain but, where others use a shovel, 'Millions Like Us' lays it on with a velvet glove. It finds no need to make a hero of everyone in British uniform or to chest-thump over every patriotic act. Instead, it warms us to real and ordinary people – people like "us" in the factories, dance halls and Dad's Army – each playing his or her usually unremarked role during the siege of Britain.

Here is the writer/director pairing of Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder at its best. Their dialogue is wonderfully natural, and they allow their expert cast to play for authenticity, with only as much commotion and comedy as will keep us involved in their characters.

The evolution of Celia (the delightful Patricia Roc) is particular engaging: the mousy member of an otherwise colourful family becomes our romantic lead while changing believably and almost imperceptibly. With air gunner Fred (Gordon Jackson, wonderful as always) complementing her honesty and shyness, we find a couple about whom we soon care greatly. Any foreigner who would comprehend how Britons relate to each other need merely study Celia's "I don't mind" in answer to both to the most mundane questions and to the longed-for proposal of marriage: this is the level of nuance and understatement from which we come in only a couple of generations.

Bigger characters provide a light in which to notice how unassuming Celia and Fred matter to us. Jennifer (Anne Crawford) and Charlie (Eric Portman) play out a side-story, asking what role this war will have in breaking down the classes as the Great War had before it and, with strange prescience, it is the aspiring, salt-of-the-earth Charlie who will not commit to girl-about-town Jenny, foreshadowing the real-world Labour landslide two years later when the have-nots established themselves. While I could mention of any of the supporting players, I shall finish with the low-key comedy of Celia's father Jim (Moore Marriott) and the forever train-travelling double-act of Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, keeping austere Britain from being sombre.

That this story of quite ordinary people turns out to be so compelling while still delivering to the propagandist's brief is a great tribute to all involved. (8.5/10)

Memphis Belle (1990)

Would Have Been Better but the Dog Ate My Final Draft

[4/10 · 14 February 2016]

World War II flying films are just my thing. Battle of Britain (1969), the Dam Busters (1955), Reach for the Sky (1956), Twelve O'Clock High (1949)... even The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress (1944) – I can't get enough. And so I came to Memphis Belle (1990) generously disposed and both hoping and expecting to like it. Spoilers follow.

Firstly, open your book of stock characters: one virgin, one fatalist, one phony, one inept and uninspiring leader, and deprive them of all inner depth. Next, when bringing them together as a team, rather than having them gel into right stuff, the best of the best, just make them a panicky, disorganised, undisciplined, incompetent and self-defeating rabble. Finally, ask your audience to believe that this collection of human detritus was the very best that VIII Bomber Command had at its disposal.

There are positives. In spite of the clichéd speech he has been handed, David Strathairn makes us feel the weight of many lives upon his shoulders, and John Lithgow has good moments (when away from the aircrew) as the PR man, but his character seems to be written just as the anti-Strathairn. Actually, much of the characterisation and dialogue has the feel of a school project we didn't have time to think through, so we went with the first idea that came into our head each time. Easily checked errors (use of modern phonetic alphabet and CPR, etc.) can be forgiven when the movie has already drawn us in, but here they just add to the sense of "the dog ate my final draft."

The aircrew actors are largely fine and, given the script, could not have been more. Eric Stoltz is the best of the group while (is it just me?) it is hard to get past Courtney Gains channelling young 'Lizabeth from the Waltons. Jane Horrocks in a minor role serves to remind us that good things can be done with only moments of screen time.

The in-flight filming ranged from disappointing (tens of identical Airfix planes motionless relative to one another, not quite pointing in their direction of travel and illuminated to not match their background) to excellent (especially the shots of action looking into the airframe from just outside). A crewman screaming into the radio as his doomed craft falls to earth was straight out of Dr. Strangelove, except that here it was not intended to be comedic. Or perhaps I am wrong, perhaps this was a comical interlude, as we are surely not to believe moments later that the ball-turret gunner had actually reached through solid metal to grasp the plane while blessed with the foresight that his turret would very soon fall off. (Don't worry, turret fans, it will re-attach itself in time for them to land with it.)

I wanted to like it more. 4.5/10