hobbitbev Reviews

The Essex Serpent (2022)

Fantastic cinematography but awful story.

[6/10 · 8 July 2022]

I'm really not sure how I feel about this story but it isn't happy. I love period drama, I'd never heard of this, just found it and thought it looked good. I watched all six episodes today.

The score was beautiful, the cinematography and the costuming were wonderful. It was visually so pleasing no matter in the London slums or on the Essex marshes. I feel like some of the overview shots of the marshes were really marvelous.

I'm a fan of all the main actors: Posey, Danes, and Hiddleston and I feel like they did their best with the material. Posey was soooo underused though.

The story was so awful. It started out great but other reviewers have pointed out how implausible the relationship issues become in episode 4. By the end of the birthday party you pretty much know everything that will happen ... and it does. The story falls into predictable Victorian tropes and I feel really let down. In some ways, I finished it because I wanted to know what happened because I was hoping it would surprise me. It did not and the ending was wholly undeserved.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2017 TV Movie)

A Work of Art

[10/10 · 1 September 2021]

I have no idea what about this movie made other reviewers dislike it so much. It's beautiful. It is full of uncomfortable emotions, it's filmed beautifully, the soundtrack is amazing, it melds science with ethics and hagiography ... it is just real. That shining bit of crazy within each human, that ordinary and mundane bit of us that makes us ourselves, comes out in the performances of the actors who play the family. Oprah was magnificent.

Day of Wrath (2006)

Not a Bad B Movie

[7/10 · 6 August 2006]

I agree with the previous commenter about the script and the fast pace of the editing. It does the movie disservice. What would have made it better would have been to let the characters shine through a little more. I do think that for a low budget film it had an interesting, well thought out story. I was surprised by this, and despite the poorly choreographed fight scenes (why were all fighters, even henchmen, better than Lambert), I was still interested because of the historical engagement of the plot. I also agree with the previous commenter that the Hungarian actors were good. I think it is clearly a B movie, but not a bad one.