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KittieC
Reviews
Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (2019)
Worth waiting for
What a gorgeous, tender film.
Marianne is a young artist brought to a desolate but very telegenic island to render a portrait of Heloise, who is closely sequestered by her mother and a maid in a rambling villa. Heloise has been recently withdrawn from a convent in order to be married off to a Milanese man. Given the apparent absence of a father or brother, presumably the marriage is to secure the family's position. She is his second option, as Heloise's elder sister has escaped the fate by throwing herself into the sea, and the portrait is required to seal the match.
Heloise resists the task, no doubt hoping to postpone her fate. Marianne's presence loosens Heloise and as they slowly connect, they form a doomed attachment that ends, physically at least, when the portrait is complete and shipped away, along with Marianne.
One of the saddest takes I've seen on imdb was a user review saying this film is 'about lesbianism', which it absolutely is not. It certainly is a film that reflects on the commodification of women and beauty; it highlights - in Heloise's destiny, and in the journey of the maid, Sophie - the perils of being a woman in the 18th century; and it celebrates in gorgeous ways the power of sisterhood and female relationships. The sexual relationship between Marianne and Heloise is, for them, a natural culmination of the love and bond they are briefly able to share.
This is a cleverly produced film with limited dialogue, almost no musical score, and natural lighting but these components, when used, are done so very powerfully. As you would expect in a film structured around art, the use of colour and framing is also precise and meaningful.
The resolution of Marianne and Heloise's story could have gone in so many directions, but for me it is done perfectly - it's both tragic and uplifting. Director and writer Celine Sciamma executes this so deftly, providing a visual and narrative conclusion that contrasts vividly against the bulk of the film but lands on a great emotional note.
I know that many people won't like a 2- hour film that offers such restraint in action and words, but in my view Sciamma finds a satisfying pace.
This isn't typically my 'kind' of film but I'm so glad I finally got around to watching it.
The Essex Serpent (2022)
Too much but not enought
There's about 5 worthy story arcs in the Essex Serpent and I've given them each 1 star because even though they've got merit, none ended up feeling fulfilling for me.
I don't know the source material but I feel like the space of a novel lends itself more hopefully than the half dozen hours of this limited series.
Maybe it was wrong of me to assume I was getting into a Victorian gothic, Sherlock-ian semi-supernatural hunt for a mythic creature by a feisty female. I certainly didn't expect glancing blows with religious, class and cultural conflict, several-many romances, an exploration of 19-th century feminism and burgeoning socialism, and some limited exploration of the revolution of surgical procedure. About the only thing that doesn't get a run is the substantial and obvious age difference between the protagonist and one of her admirers which would absolutely have drawn some stares but is politely overlooked.
Ultimately there was some great stuff in all those themes, but they emerged and disappeared with such a muted sense of development and crescendo that it all got a bit soupy.
Th Essex moor landscape does its job, and the casting is great. With the unfortunate exception of the marvellous Claire Danes who does a great job but didn't need to be imported for the purpose.
This was a holiday binge for me but if I'd been watching at a slower pace I think I would have found the lack of tension in any of the storylines along with an attendant failure to really invest deeply in any of the characters a good reason to tune out.
Jungle (2017)
Wild episode of I'm A Celebrity Get Met Out of Here
The romanticising of non-indigenous people doing stupid things in hostile territory they're clearly and profoundly ill- equipped to enter yet again gets a tonne of coin thrown at it by producers who, for whatever reason, think that boys-own adventures are the bestest.
This is a film based on a true story, for sure. And props to Yossi & Gale who no doubt had plenty of time to consider their own foolishness as they battled to survive rapids, jaguars, fire ants, flesh eating infections and parasites, starvation, poor weather, and reluctant female companions in their weeks of isolation.
But it's a story, to me, without merit. These aren't intrepid explorers, they're wealthy-enough white people ignoring good advice and their own instincts.
And the film isn't that much better. Hours went by watching poor Daniel Radcliffe battling his Potter legacy in various perilous activities. Poor lad is trying his heart, out but I gained little sympathy because ultimately Yossi and his mates were rifling through the list of dumb ways to die but somehow came out alive anyway.
At least, he and one mate did. A far more interesting postscript is what the hecking hell happened to Marcus and the sneaky fella Karl who both may, or may not, have paid the ultimate price for their shenanigans.
A couple of stars for Radcliffe, who clearly got dirty and probably quite uncomfortable making this.
The Deliverance (2024)
Not terrible... until the 'horror'
What a shame that the early themes of intergenerational abuse, trauma, poverty, and marginalisation aren't explored more thoroughly in the back-end of this film when all the 'spooky' stuff starts.
I was quite enjoying the baseline of tension being created and, then ... somehow it feels like the work-experience kids took over and everyone threw in at least one horror trope they'd had a lecture on at film school then BOSH! It's all over.
Anthony B Jenkins acts his heart out as the make-up department slowly amps up his dark eye rings and crusty white mouth. Mo'Nique plays the universe's most attentive case worker. Glenn Close goes High Camp. Other, talented actors get vaguely sketched in for zero purpose. And the effects department loses their collective mind deploying every trick in the book only to prove that more is sometimes less.
The tension slips away and honestly, I've never been less scared.
I truly wish I could, but I do not recommend.
Midnight Mass (2021)
Too much of a reasonably good thing?
Mike Flanagan and his writers really exhausted themselves to fill 7 hours and, like many reviewers, it feels to me like the story could have been better served by that number being a few less.
Personally, I thought the extended monologues - of which there are many - were beautifully written and generally well delivered. But it was maybe too much of a good thing. The impact they could have made was crowded out by them tumbling on top of each other. In several cases I found myself thinking how stunning they could have been in a theatre (not movie) setting as a crescendo, but just as that happened another Big Speech came along.
Flanagan's beef with zealotry, and perhaps more specifically Catholicism, isn't so much hammered as pounded into the audience. And while the concept I found novel and interesting, a 7 hour treatise on our place in the cosmos as specs of stars, and the place of faith in the concept of death is just an awful lot to digest, especially when served with a side of vampirism.
And while Flanagan's habit of bringing a repertory troupe to his productions is quite sweet, it does mean that actors can be cast out of age, and sometimes out of character. When the make up prosthetics didn't smooth that over it really did bring me out of my suspension of disbelief from time to time.
Hamish Linklater was a standout for me, and Zach Gilford I thought brought the right amount of skepticism and sadness to his role, although his character was spared most of the convulsions of the last 90 minutes or so.
In the end, I felt like the concept could have been better served without the nod to horror. If the monster was perhaps unseen, or even less seen; the crackpottyness of the Bev character (played with the ham dialled up to 10 by Samantha Sloyan) toned down a bit; and some sacrifices made in editing this could have been a more compelling thriller/drama piece.
Anne Boleyn (2021)
There are other stories worth telling
If there is an afterlife, poor Anne Boleyn must surely be begging for some divine intervention to stop people dramatising her life and death ad nauseam.
There's nothing original or novel about this interpretation. Aside from the casting, which for me didn't diminish the production but neither did it add value, this is a boilerplate rendition.
It picks up the story less than a half a year from her execution, at least sparing us the convulsions of Henry VIII's laboured efforts to extricate himself from his first marriage. Its focus instead is on those 20 or so weeks of vain attempts to secure Henry's faith, if not love, in her and their daughter's claim. We all know of course how it all ends.
Anne's place as an avatar for the mere transactional value of women, and the cost of trying to be more, is cemented already in history. We hardly needed this re-telling to describe it further.
In history there are so many fascinating women, with complex, important lives and stories that deserve to be told. Anne Boleyn is certainly one, but it would be delightful to move on.
Taskmaster NZ (2020)
Heck no
When even the live audience can barely be bothered applauding, you know it's not good.
The influence of a host is often under-rated and no more apparent than here because the NZ TM fails the either land any jokes or bring the best out of his panel and it cruels the show right out of the blocks.
All too frequently the cast resorts to infantile humour and double entendres, which CAN be hilarious - but rarely are here. The tasks themselves also fail to live up to their job of pulling the best/worst out of their challengers.
A couple of the comedians are trying their best, and a couple are chewing the scenery.
This isn't a failure of the either the concept or the humour to translate but rather a piece of miscasting that stifles any chemistry.
Such a shame because the NZ comedians I've seen imported into UK panel/comedy shows have been brilliant.
Maggie (2015)
Under-rated still doesn't mean it's good
The idea of a film that focuses on the emotional rather than the physical drama of an undead apocalypse is a neat idea. And I feel like everyone got the memo - this is a film that simmers rather than boils; it's going to have atmosphere rather than action; it's going to focus on the conflict of humanity rather than the un-human.
But, for me, Maggie doesn't quite stick the landing. The set up is rushed, and the ending takes a last-second swerve away from confronting the question we've been building up to all along - how does a loving parent protect a child that they now need protection from?
In between there's some unfortunate reliance on cliche from a conflicted step-mother, a tender doctor, and a belligerent 'bad cop'.
My feeling was that in spite of trying to take the zombie genre in a new direction, there was still a failure of style over substance. The moments that should have created the tension or pathos simply weren't given enough time, contrast or energy to build. Meanwhile, we wasted precious minutes on moody b-roll.
The leads do their best, but I'm unconvinced that drama is a genre where either Bresling or Schwarzenegger do their best. And even the visuals that should be holding the whole thing up lets us down from time to time. A garden of daisies looks like they arrived from the nursery 10 minutes ago. The smokey urban and rural wastelands are either too wasted, or too pristine depending on the moment. I admit I also got distracted that a chap with a ground-in European accent is called 'Wade'.
A valiant attempt and while it may be overlooked, and even under-rated, Maggie still isn't, in my opinion, a good film.
Eric (2024)
Tries to do everything and succeeds at nothing
1980s New York City had a lot going on, and unfortunately Eric tries to wrap all that together around a runaway child and his father's descent into mental oblivion.
Benedict Cumberbatch is a fine actor but his New York accent and and the magic realism of his psychosis combine to erase any subtlety. He's a shouty mess and defies any empathy.
His madness and failings as a father are meant to somehow reflect the stable of other forms of rot going on around him. Corruption and brutality in both the Police and City Hall. Child sex work. Racism. Mental health. Homelessness. Classism. Capitalism and 'progress'. Intergenerational family breakdown. Homophobia and AIDS. Even the garbage collection crisis of NYC in the 80s gets a bit-part. Even over 6-parts, there's not enough time to do any of these justice, and then the avatar of the lost child gets, well it gets even more lost.
To me, it felt like Eric was trying to go where Birdman and The Wire went, but that's a pairing that makes almost no sense and would have required a whole lot more finessing to make good.
Happy-ish endings abound though, so I guess the good guys got their garbage collected in the end.
I liked the sound track, and I thought McKinley Belcher III did a great job as the Missing Persons detective.
1923 (2022)
Started bad, got worse
I'm bamboozled by how much love this gets because, for me, the silliness of the story was only matched by some of the truly rotten dialogue.
The series obviously has investment - the settings and production by and large are stunning. And there's some heavyweight acting chops available with Ford, Mirren, Dalton and others.
But there's a helix of story arcs that coil around each other without building to anything.
Jacob Dutton grumbles about the world changing and the horse gives way to the car ("Where's mah hitching post?!?") while the fight for the storied Yellowstone ranch heats up. Timothy Dalton's Uber-villain is so disgusting and arch (we know this because of laboured sexual deviancy scenes) he may as well be stroking a white cat.
Meanwhile, Jacob's nephew sets sail from his dream job of big game hunting in Africa to chart a course home, picking up a feisty damsel along the way. These two, Spencer and Alexandria, get the absolute worse of the dialogue but they sure do have some crazy adventures. Lion attack! Ghost ship! Shipwreck! Ship-board duel! These crazy kids can't catch a break.
Also meanwhile, young First Nations girl, Teonna, stolen from her family, is tortured into violent revenge by missionaries from central casting. While maybe the most compelling of the stories, it's a colour-by-numbers escape quest that, unsurprisingly, eventually leads to Montana.
Which, I guess, is where all roads lead for Season 2.
I rather enjoyed 1883 and have never seen a second of Yellowstone but even so, I hope that other seasons of this part of the canon make for better connective tissue between the two than this series is.
John Wick (2014)
If someone killed my dog I'd be angry too
Is this meant to be a cartoon? It has all the right ingredients.
Dumb baddie hurts smart good/baddie's feelings so he kills...everyone. All the time. Everywhere.
Elaborate, fantasy world-building, surreal settings, lots of pop-pop, bang-bang. Minimal dialogue; and what there is feels pretty pedestrian. Maximum action; and every bit of it is straight out of a gaming console. It's less fighting than it is ballet, but generally with a distracting soundtrack that feels like WWF wrestlers should be walking into a ring with it in the background.
No one did anything to give me someone to cheer, boo or even be that interested in. I mean, I liked the dog, but his screen time was limited.
I can suspend my disbelief with the best of them, but this feels like an absolute phone-in.
Sunshine (2007)
Wait... what?
I'm not a sci fi nerd. I know that there IS gravity, but don't ask me to explain it.
But I do know that a crazy dude with full thickness burns is unlikely to survive for 7 years on a dusty, broken down ship. Is he microwaving a pie every day with his burnt up fingers and chewing it with his burnt up mouth? What is he drinking? How is he pooping?
I also reckon that a HAL-level computer might toot a klaxon when a complete stranger sneaks onboard and starts using his scorched up murder mittens to take out the good guys.
Like most others who didn't fall in love with this film, I found the first two acts ok. By now we've been inoculated against the idea of completely ill-equipped space crews being selected to undertake humanity's salvation. So the fact that each crew member occupies a trope so rigid they may as well be the Spice Girls is acceptable. The film looks good, the pace seemed right, the ratchet/release of tension was a bit sloppy but passable.
The third act is a such a bizarre left turn that it was like a separate movie was accidentally spliced in. Everything and yet nothing happens and the shudder-cam, stop/start, glitchy focus nonsense isn't a suitable replacement for an actual emotional or narrative resolution.
I just found it weird. And not in a good way.
Under the Banner of Heaven (2022)
A lot of quality does not equal great
Everyone's performance is great. Soundtrack - tick. Script and dialogue - good. Locations and cine - excellent.
But sometimes the some of the parts is disappointing. I'm clearly not the only person that thought pacing and timing was an issue here. In the end, for me, the drift away from a solid murder mystery with heaps of personal skin in the game simply got sidetracked by fancy footwork in the form of historical and personal flashbacks. Such an unnecessary distraction from outstanding acting and a solid premise.
Also - hair and wigs. A small detail but if your plot is invested in hair (and this plot definitely is), then blow your budget on it because otherwise you've got me having a giggle at all the wrong moments.
The White Lotus: Departures (2021)
Just not that into it
I don't need a hero or a villain but at least a character to either like or dislike would have been great.
There's about 4 hours of useful plot in series 1 once you take out the lengthy montages and about an hour of that I truly enjoyed.
The soundtrack is full of beautiful music that's over employed and while the production value is lovely, it's at the expense of both drama and comedy.
I like the 'fly in the wall' approach but it didn't have a pace I found compelling, dialogue I found engaging or characters I found completely interesting.
Murray Bartlett's Armond vears toward slapstick but at least it's a somewhat useful through-line in a stop/start collection of character developments. Jennifer Coolidge's Tanya is similarly cartoonish but her inability to make eye-contact, while consistent with character, was distracting for me.
The balance of the ensemble were just a disappointment, without sufficient highs and lows to make them keep my attention.
I really wanted to care about someone, anyone, for any reason. I'm rooting for Quinn but everyone else was about as disappointing as a resort buffet breakfast.
Becoming Jane (2007)
Hits and misses
I don't have any problem with productions that use a historical character or event/s as a jumping off point, but Becoming Jane tries to out Austen Jane Austen and that just leapt too far for me.
The film tries to take the established Austen trajectory, but her works are a roller coaster ride infused with spunky dialogue. Comparatively, Becoming Jane is derivative and dull.
The production values are as lovely as you'd expect but didn't see the chemistry between the leads that others obviously have, and the supporting cast don't get enough opportunity to really support. I enjoy Hathaway and McAvoy but neither the script nor their performances ramp up the frisson.
And when Hathaway's Austen tells fellow female author Mrs Radcliffe that she wants to write about matters "of the heart", mine sank. Sure, Austen's works are romantic, but they aren't romances - they're social commentary in which love (of a person, of choice, of self) bangs up against the strictures of the times. Maybe that isn't such a snappy substitute response, but that one line reduces Austen dreadfully. Even in such floridly imagined fiction, her legacy deserves better.
The Silence (2019)
Irrelevancy is the least of its worries
We all love Stanley Tucci. And what's not to like about Kieran Shipka, Miranda Otto and that fella that was the nice boyfriend of Carrie's in SATC?
But no amount of likeable cast can make up for complete lameness in every other facet.
Monster movies should be about the monsters we are capable of becoming as much as the ones that arrive. However, The Silence under-delivers on both fronts with the plucky suburban Andrews dropped into a rapidily dystopianising world when a flock of hungry bats are unleashed on humanity.
The bats have epic hearing and so, yes, like Birdbox and A Quiet Place, people are robbed of one of humankind's natural advantages - our ability to communicate. And our unfortunate habit of just being really noisy.
In spite of a series of failures in logic and commonsense, the Andrews find themselves a safe harbour in a nicely decked out cabin. And while the fright bats pose an existential threat, that's trumped of course by the other monsters - people. Mysterious people with vague, rape-y ambitions.
Combat ensues, and while I was hoping Tucci would go full-Leeson, the confrontation is short and predictable.
In spite of the vast landmass involved, Team Andrews somehow navigate successfully to a happy ending at The Refuge, above the snow line where the bats aren't fond of the weather.
The plot line is succinct, but it's journey is ungratifyingly paced, without any great sense of urgency or relief to keep us engaged. It's silly, telegraphed, and poorly rendered. Not only does it measure poorly against its other mute counterparts, it doesn't meet any threshold of decent monster movie, and isn't camp enough to qualify as a terrible one. It's a sad fate for a good cast.
The Gift (2015)
Pretty but shallow
A bit like Bateman's character, for me this film was all veneer without a lot substance.
The much referred to 'plot twist' isn't exactly well disguised but what was interesting was a plot where the two key protagonists are profoundly un-likeable, leaving Hall's character as possibly the least dynamic but also the only character one worth rooting for (except maybe for Jangles the dog who is a total cutie).
Some of the gaping plot holes could have been easily plugged. No internet searches? No home security - the guy works in security for Pete's sake! And the world's weirdest maternity ward at the end was almost as creepy as the awful dye job of Edgerton's hair.
This is a movie that looks good and has fine aspirations but could have ratcheted up the tension with at least 20 minutes less screen time and some more pulling back of that veneer in the second act.
Joe vs Carole (2022)
The real deal is more entertaining
To get us excited about a story we already know, a production has to bring something really unique to the table - a new dimension, a brilliant characterisation, an evocative rendering.
The problem with Joe vs Carole is that the version already told had all those elements dialled up to 12 already and there was nowhere new, or at least different enough to transport us, for a dramatisation to go.
The clunky CGI (mind you, props to them for avoiding any real animal use), the slightly surreal use of Queensland, Australia as a Florida substitute, and the fact that every main character is already basically a live-action cartoon, push the whole production into 1990s family adventure territory. If Brendan Fraser had jumped out of a tree I wouldn't have been surprised. But none of this imparts a charming quality; more one of cheapness.
John Cameron Mitchell and Kate McKinnon are fiercely into their characters, but a good impersonation doesn't necessarily make for compelling viewing. Some of the peripheral characters hold up well, particularly Nat Wolf and Sam Keely as two thirds of the tragic throuple, and Brian Van Holt as Joe Exotic's loyal ballast. Kyle McLachlan is consistent as Carole's long-suffering husband.
At the end of it all though, this is a story where truth IS stranger than fiction, and the dramatisation is left with nowhere to go and, frankly, not enough appetite to satisfy given what was served up in Tiger King.
Disappointingly for me, it was, like the documentary, a missed opportunity to promote the unnecessary horror of exotic animals being bred and kept for pedestrian purposes. Yet again, the selfish narcissism of humans overshadows a nasty, cruel industry that could so easily be ended if we chose to put the needs of these animals first for once.
Spencer (2021)
Awful, which would be ok if it wasn't also pointless
I kind of get where Pablo Larson was going but, for me, it was wildly off the mark.
This is a horror film. It's protagonist is a vulnerable young woman who is kept a virtual prisoner in a spooky old house by a creepy family who live in virtual isolation from the normal world, and by a set of rules that are impossible to follow. Our heroine brings her own ghosts with her but also has some set upon her. She's desperate to protect her children, and she's desperate to escape. It's kind of The Others but with less interesting twists.
As a plot summary it reads fine, but the problem is that we already know the story. As a fiction it's a series of tropes that are so worn out that the concept and presentation would have to be immaculate to feel fresh. It isn't, and it doesn't.
And as a posited version of factual events, well we already know that story too. Or think we do, at least.
The score is a dominant player, but the loopy discordant jazz is too irritating to be atmospheric and the contrast with 80s escapist pop is well intended but hammy.
It's basically a solo show for poor Kristen Stewart. Alistair Gregory is wasted as the gross ringmaster called in to break the back of Diana's rebellion either by negotiation or by shoving her completely over the edge - a tactic in part achieved with a dreadfully rendered Anne Boleyn ghostie conjured up. Jack Farthing gets one half good scene as Charles. Sally Hawkins and Sean Harris are the two points of adult humanity drafted in to amp up the contrast with the grim Family - that they are staff I guess telegraphs that apparently those 'downstairs' have hearts, while the monsters upstairs don't. Hearts which, in the case of Hawkins' Sally are maybe a little too fully given. But who doesn't love a princess, right?
So it's the Kristen Stewart show and she is working SO hard, but for me it's an uneven and distracting performance. She takes the Diana-isms so far that I worried she'd end up with either a neck injury or an asthma attack. I took heart from her scenes with Jack Nielen and Freddy Spry who are charming as William and Harry. The interaction between the three approaches feeling authentic, but falls apart when William is forced to parent Diana as her mental health unwinds.
For me, this is one of those movies where both too much, and too little happens. It ended up feeling campy, but not in a good way. Frankly I would have been happier if they'd lent in and gone full horror vibe, but Larson pulls up short, creating a pretty 'meh' vibe and adding nothing to the canon of the global Diana obsession.
Station Eleven (2021)
If you left early, you missed out
This is a 'circles within circles' proposition. Not concentric circles though, but ones that overlap creating multiple timelines, plot lines and characters that intersect, particularly in the first half of the series.
I stopped and started a fair bit, but the complexity pays off as the various threads draw together and gain resolution. The consistent attraction is the powerful performances throughout. Mackenzie Davis has a lot of hard work to do and I found her uneven in a role that calls for both childlike naivety and dark, violent sophistication. She's buttressed by a really great cast though, particularly by Matilda Lawler as her younger self, Daniel Zovat as her darker reflection, and Himesh Patel and Nabhaan Rizwan as her fellow travellers.
The staging and costumes are also compelling, with the whacky, comic-book tone of the future-state contrasting with an often cold and starkly rendered past-state.
I don't think any of us expect to see travelling troupes of orchestras and actors a mere couple of decades after the fall of civilisation, but this isn't meant to be a documentary. It's a parable with a nice truth at its heart that one person can make a difference to another person, whether it's in the here and now, on a lonely space station, or in a dystopian future.
I ultimately found the series to be moving, rewarding and original (in spite of it leaning heavily on Shakespeare to amplify both the plot and vibe). It's also refreshing to reach a conclusion that feels resolved and well-paced, something which doesn't seem to happen a lot these days when producers have one eye on their prospects for a pick up, and another on the need to reach some kind of conclusion before budget or audience tolerance runs out.
My advice is to stick with it, and even to binge if you can to keep the various relationships fresh in your mind.
This Is Paris (2020)
Even 'It Girls' are real girls
There are some really uncharitable reviews on here. Not necessarily about the film itself which is an ordinary production, but about its subject who, like it or not, is an actual person.
Privilege shouldn't equal excuse but neither should it equal dismissal. Does Paris Hilton have a privileged, largely vacuous life? It seems so, and in fact it's pretty much repeatedly admitted by Paris herself. But that doesn't protect her from either injury, nor the long-term consequences that can come from injury, especially when they are inflicted on a child.
Spoiler - Paris reveals, and is supported in her disclosures by multiple other victims, that as a child she was hauled from her bedroom during the night by strangers and taken to what might be described as a reform school. With the consent of her parents, upset by her teenage rebellion and it's stain on their conservative family brand, Paris tells of physical and emotional abuse. Her peers also refer to sexual abuse. In light of what we now know about institutionalised child abuse, these claims have a ring of truth.
Now an adult, an insomniac, a work-a-holic, a recipient of domestic violence, and largely friendless, Paris' fantasy lifestyle has all the hallmarks of a seriously damaged young woman, albeit on a very luxurious scale.
Enter the judgement of a lot of reviewers who can't get past the gowns and jewels to offer any sympathy to a woman who, to me, seems obsessively committed to creating a safe space she can cocoon herself inside of. All the 'stuff', the transient lifestyle, the collection of animals, the relationships with unworthy men, the creation of an alter ego - none of this will be unfamiliar to anyone who has spent time with damaged children who've grown to adulthood.
The film itself is patchy and while I'm sympathetic to Paris, it is, as any autobiography is inclined to be, an exercise in curation and indulgence.
Ultimately, it's not going to change any of our lives but maybe it could help Paris change hers.
The Stand (2020)
Torture
Haven't seen the previous version, haven't read the book so at least I can't criticise this absolute shambles compared to them.
As a stand-alone (pun intended) piece though, it's hard to imagine how this could be worse. It would have been smart to stop watching but it's a proper car-crash so it was hard to look away. It took me weeks to watch it though - it's impossible to binge without becoming stupider.
The plot is so nonsensical that I have to presume that some important arcs have either been left out or terribly damaged. When the plot isn't breaking your brain, the over-blown performances (I'm looking at you, Skarsgard) send everything spiralling into farce.
Of course, it's entirely possible, with a deft hand, to bring together farce, drama, comedy, pathos and deliver well-formed entertainment. The Stand does not do that. It lurches around, building zero tension or character development, and occasionally has an explosion of sets or bodies that look like they were executed by the work experience team.
The final episode in particular is a relentless, irredeemable mess that just becomes (unconvincingly) preachy.
I hope that everyone involved at least got to pay their rent for a while, because there's pretty much no other reason for them to be happy about their participation.
The dog was good.
A Discovery of Witches (2018)
If Twilight and Outlander had a baby...
I haven't read the books, so I'm unprejudiced by the source material. This isn't the worst tv, but the tropes are well-used and pretty predictable but I've also only seen series one, so can't speak to further character and plot development.
It probably borrows the best bits of Twilight's gothic fantasy of advanced communities of 'monsters' co-habitating with the human world, but de-tweens it, with a dash of Outlander's more adult characters and themes.
Like both other series, it leans heavily into the consequences of inter-relationships between groups historically separated by time, bloodline, culture and history. Of course, the 21st century thus far lands these themes firmly at the centre of the zeitgeist.
Series leads Teresa Palmer and Matthew Goode have believable chemistry and while some of the action sequences are definitely tv-grade, the locations and sets general uphold some pretty good production values.
This didn't dazzle me but it's an ok solid watch.
Nightcrawler (2014)
Satire more than thriller
From the first scene in which we see protagonist Lou Bloom, we know what he is. He's an amoral liar and thief who doesn't bat an eyelid when cornered, or when he sees a thing he wants. His first go-to is violence. Within minutes we also know he's a bizarrely confident slick- talker, albeit with delusions of grandeur.
So what do you get if you cross a thug with a car salesman? A psychopath. And where better for a psychopath to find his niche than within the orbit of journalism as a collector of carnage video content for fee-for-service news programming?
This package of information is delivered deftly in the first act but the trajectory for Lou Bloom is well sign-posted which, for me, deprives Nightcrawler of 'thriller' status.
It does rate as satire, although the use of a psychopath to represent the distillation of our own most base and craven instincts and behaviours is a well-trodden (and more successfully trodden) path. Let's face it, since the chase that ended Princess Diana's life we've all known that it's our own weirdly voyeuristic drive to see each other, and our celebrities particularly, at our most vulnerable or hurt that feeds the paparazzi and shock journalism.
Jake Gyllenhaal does do a pretty neat job of capturing Bloom's twitchy descent (or ascent, depending on your POV). Rene Russo is the most improbable local news director ever rendered and suffers from the weird, unresolved and ultimately unnecessary sexual interest sub-plot. Similarly, the glancing blow Bloom has with law enforcement feels lacking in tension and intent.
For me, Nightcrawler was more an interesting film than a compelling or thrilling one. Props to Dan Gilroy - the film looks slick and gritty with Bloom's wild, shining eyes the focus of the frequent night-time scenes, then hidden behind sunglasses in daylight like he's developing into some sort of modern-day vampire. The soundtrack is grinding and unsettling. But for me these couldn't compensate for a lack of slow-burn and points of tension release that a really great thriller needs.
A solid 7 though.
Gangs of London (2020)
If Peaky Blinders & GOT had a baby
Not terrible, but certainly not original either. And very confusing. It swings from gritty realism to ultra-florid Tarantinoism without ever really settling into a clear vibe. It's graphic and violent but that's ok. It's well choreographed in a '300' type of way, with lots of shakey camera work amping up the tension.
In addition to the Blinders/GOT foundation of a family in ascendancy under siege from rival clans and cliques, there's an undercover infiltration thread that harks back to .... every crime show that has an undercover infiltration thread. Throw in a bit of The Wire with a complicated web of property development, financial district and political intrigue.
If you feel like if references a lot of stuff above, it's because Gangs of London is highly derivative, which doesn't mean it's bad, but you should be prepared to never once be surprised.
Joe Cole does his best with a role that doesn't offer a whole lot for a lead. Sope Dirisu gets all the action and it's nice to see Colm Meaney off the helm of the Enterprise.
Probably a few hours longer than it needed to be in spite of not having a strong arc of development in any of the many interwoven threads and back stories.
It's ok, not great.