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Memory (2023)
Selective dementia
This seems to be a trope of many films depicting some kind of brain damage/injury.
Saul's dementia is all over the place. He remembers Sylvia but the not the waitress of the restaurant he visits all the time or his "favourite".
She accuses him of rape and then backs off when she finds out he was not even at her school when it took place. She mistakes a rapist? Never explained.
I was massively uncomfortable with the consent issue. And thought if the sexes were reversed and it was a woman impacted with dementia would it have been OK for the male to have sex with her? A resounding NO was my response.
I understood his brother being upset as he was the responsible adult and concerned for Saul. And then oddly, Saul remembers he paid for the house, out of the blue. Saul has no backstory to justify this. Whatsoever.
Sylvia's incest by her father is revealed but then again, her brother in law is angry about her talking about incest. What's with him?
An oddly disjointed film, begging more questions than it answers.
For instance how can Sylvia, a single mother treat her job as if it's just a hobby she can waltz in and out of at leisure?
The cast is great doing their level best with the uneven script. Hence the 5/10.
An abrupt ending. As if no one knew what to do when it was time to wrap it up. And two impoverished people (no source of income?) shack up together.
Waste of time.
To Kill a Tiger (2022)
Extraordinary doc
At the end of this documentary, I wondered why it didn't get the Oscar.
The film making is extraordinary on every level, telling this horrific story of the gang rape of a thirteen year old girl in India woth respect and care.
Misogyny is a way of life in rural India and the condemnation of rape victims is par for the course. In fact rape victims are encouraged and urged to marry their rapists to protect their honour.
Ranjit and his daughter Kiran fight for justice all the way to the courts in spite of threats from the villagers who side with the rapists.
Ranjit's love for his daughter shines through, he supports her every inch of her steadfast and courageous way, the look in his eyes is heart breaking at times, he conveys so much devotion and respect, never doubting her for one minute.
Co-incidentally, the film makers happened to be there at the time of this terrible act and were able to follow the story through from beginning to end over a period of years.
Not to be missed. Uplifting in its final resolution and Kiran was so brave to come forward and reveal her identity to help others in her country who are cowed by the onslaught of further victimization.
10/10.
The Outreau Case: A French Nightmare (2024)
And the abuse of these children continued....
In the courts. I was appalled watching this series and the further victimization of the children who were traumatized by the horrific abuse and possible manipulation of their abusers.
The whole focus was on the adults - supposedly wrongly convicted - the completely egregious magistrate in charge of the case who went on to great glory - and the mixed bag of adults who were accused.
All of it would be a laughable skit of a series only that the children, the after affects of the horror, their testimony of a murdered little girt, is given short shrift in the efforts to exonerate the perps.
Netflix did a terrible disservice to these children as no follow-ups were instigated and only one child was ever interviewed at length in this whole miserable mess of a 4-parter.
The traumatized children must have suffered terribly in the aftermath. Where was their story?
It would make anyone's blood boil.
0/10.
Priscilla (2023)
Pitiful
An appalling treatment - by Sofia Coppola no less -of the pedophile Elvis and his child-prey Priscilla.
Murky images, film jumping timelines like a bunny rabbit, no character development whatsoever and actors looking like they don't know what to do with the appalling script and inadequate direction.
It begs more questions than it answers. Why on earth would two responsible appearing parents pimp out their daughter to a man like creepy Elvis? (And yes, before I knew all this I was a fan of his, being of an age with him). They should have been charged with child neglect.
Not one whit of Elvis music is offered to dispel this absolute drivel.
Just this Svangali Elvis controlling every petty move of Priscilla's while he has multiple liaisons with every woman on set.
A tired Priscilla finally leaves him but nothing is shown as to how she gets to that point or how she secured an exit with adequate wealth for herself and her daughter.
A travesty of a film and one to avoid.
0/10.
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)
Did not expect such brilliance
Melissa McCarthy and Richard Grant are stunning as the two leads in this.
Melissa McCarthy I viewed as a light rom-com presence but here, sans makeup, she shines as the fraudster Lee Israel, a writer who has seen better days, alcoholic, with no attachment to anyone apart from her cat. I do hope her career expands to these kind of roles as she was amazing.
I have no idea how this was made as there are none of the usual tropes and fixations on sexy stars. Here the two main characters are basically deadbeat scammers.
Richard Grant is also a powerhouse as her ally, a gay man. They could be classified as losers as neither have a loyalty to the other or to anyone else.
But somehow they are appealing and they make the viewer care about the ultimate disaster they are surely heading towards.
It's a roller coaster of a ride and the pacing is excellent, script, direction and cinematography are also bang on.
For fans of the offbeat this is a winner.
9/10 but nudging on a 10/10.
The Lovers (2023)
Bingeable fluff
The characters are engaging and believable at the outset and funny too. But believability was stretched far too much in the public storming off the set scene as this trope is more overdone than burned toast.
They are both likeable and engaging and the script is good and the scenery itself is breathtaking at times.
The characters are completely at odds in every aspect of their personalities and the overall feeling is they would never make it in real life.
How long can one be amused at the other's foibles (and ignorance) and as the old saying goes, how can one build a relationship on the heartbreak and deceit of another?
Overall they missed the mark of a good romcom.
6/10.
Unforgotten (2015)
A 10 out of 10
I have watched all episodes (to date) and though I'm not a fan of Walker, the script kept me engaged, well written, no plot holes and fully developed characters.
I love the scientific aspect in the detail offered in analyzing corpses, finding stray bullets and blood stains and the whole detailed process of the forensics in coming up with solutions to the mysteries of old corpses and graves. The lives and connections of these ded people giving up their secrets in painstaking ways.
The team of detectives is fully rounded with their back stories and personal histories and challenges.
The slow unwinding of the salient facts is never drawn out or filler sused, it all makes sense in the end with the odd shocker thrown in to keep the viewers off balance.
Sanjeev Bhaskar is particularly brilliant in his role, his calmness and doggedness exquisitely portrayed and Sinéad Keenan (to me) is a huge improvement over Nicole Walker. I love how their slow acceptance of each other is so beautifully portrayed. Tears here.
Not to be missed by fans of this genre. It's up there with the best.
10/10.
Dave Chappelle: The Dreamer (2023)
A very low bar
An odd show. Full of non-jokes and lecturey bits. I was surprised, kept thinking it was going to get better.
Didn't like the strip show piece, the jealous husband spying on his own wife and low grade snipes at trans, handicapped, doing drugs with his son. The rare funny bit got a laugh but on the whole there was a nasty edge to the humour and a wandering focus with him smoking on stage and abandoning the audience at one point to change his clothes. If I'd paid for a ticket I'd have been annoyed and some annoyed audience members were quite visible.
He seemed oddly braggy too, as in anyone can be him.
I'd pass.
2/10.
En helt vanlig familj (2023)
Well done out of Sweden
The ending was a bit of an eyebrow raiser, an odd (to us on this side of the Atlantic) way of handling a murder case, even odder the courtroom was so swanky and very non-threatening in its gentle environment.
But aside from that, I found the six-parter very engaging, well written and totally believable in that rapists get away with it 90% of the time as trials can be grueling and the victim is victimized once again with invasive questions and disbelief when she says she was frozen in fear and didn't fight back.
Stella is fantastic, a great actor in a first major role and her parents are believable in their angst and over projection of her after her rape.
The pacing was excellent as was the script in that everyone has secrets which can tumble out in a crisis and investigation.
A satisfying ending in that Stella's motives are completely believable.
But I have question marks around that "court" case.
8/10 overall for how engaging it all is.
Maestro (2023)
Where's the biography?
Yes, good acting, great music but absolutely no story. At all. Apart from his bisexuality which dominated the script.
Bradley Cooper was too greedy in writing, directing and starring. What did he write? Not much of a story. I'd like to have seen Lenny's childhood explicated, more meat on the bare bones offered here.
Also, why so little on West Side Story - one brief extract and not the huge explosive hit it was at the time. The adulation which followed.
The teasing bits of his Missa were beautiful and far too much of his Mahler, though lovely, had little bearing on the overall story.
Brad's prosthetic nose was distracting in that it gave a nasal whiny tone to his dialogue. And he might have done better with another actor.
Carey Mulligan, as always was amazing in her role but again, underplayed the distress she must have felt at his infidelity/. At one point he left her for a young (male) lover and only returned when she was diagnosed with cancer. (in her breast, from a broken heart? Who knows)
The great man of music was not served well here, far too shallow a treatment of his genius.
5/10.
Archie (2023)
A Total Misnomer
"Archie" gave short shrift to the supposed star.
The actual "star" was Dyan Cannon, a feast of self--dulation for a woman who spent only 6% of his long life with him but devoted about 95% of this film to herself. Not surprising of course as she was the executive producer. So the film would have been more aptly named "Dyan".
Archie's real life was an interesting one and deserves, at some point a genuine biographical take on it, warts and all.
Many of the well based facts were erased for he was equally charmed and charming to both men and women.
Another was the fact his brother died before Archie was born and not after.
And on, and on, easily checked by biographies written about him by reputable sources and not by Dyan Cannon, one of his five spouses. Short shrift is given to his other marriages, his last appearing to be the most meaningful and long lasting.
The lead doesn't look remotely like him, and to add insult to injury doesn't speak in that uniquely clipped way Cary had and also his height is shrimp-like compared with Cary's real height which gave him that sophisticated limber walk and gravitas.
His genuine friendships with both men and women were tossed aside as well in favour of Cannon ogling and flirting.
Avoid. 0/10.
Madeleine Collins (2021)
Good thriller/psychological study
Bottom line on this is I enjoyed it. I was never sure where it was going and the uncertainty of the viewer contributed to the ongoing tension of the film.
I won't throw out spoilers. The opening scene is puzzling involving the fall of a young woman.
But the story shifts immediately to another similar young woman navigating her way between two families, her maestro husband and her boyfriend. The former with her two sons, the latter with her daughter.
The challenge comes with keeping her stories straight in each household as her job as a translator takes her all over the place (or does it?)
The lead does a marvelous job in all the screen time she has and so does the supporting cast with some beautiful scenes.
The little actress who plays her daughter is incredibly good.
The slow denouement of the plot is gripping and the unexpected ending quite satisfying. And the opening scene explained.
8/10 from me.
The Killer (2023)
Tedium from beginning to end.
A complete yawnfest. I persisted because I thought there has to be a pay off, some kind of twist, some kind of perhaps possible redemption. And because Netflix told me it was a 98% match for my film interest. But no. Bomb. Big.
There is a stream of consciousness inner dialogue from the killer which borders on cliched repetitive boredom.
It shows him artfully having hundreds of identities and credit cards in storage units all over the place. But never a clue as to how he acquired all this. He breaks into wherever he chooses, again we don't quite understand the methodology apart from him flashing access cards at everything.
Tilda Swinton has a tiny part so that was a rip off also.
Honestly, I don't know how this was made without some producer rolling on the floor thinking it was a huge joke.
Michael Fassbender is always riveting but here he's an unconvincing robot riding in cars playing loud music, talking to himself and watching his pulse.
Don't waste your time.
1/10.
Escaping Twin Flames (2023)
I get how the victims fall for this.....
They are lonely and feel rejected by life and buy into the premise that their soulmate (read twin flame) is out there just waiting to be lassoed in, or wait for it, maybe if you switch gender you can snare someone.
It is incredibly sad to watch these vulnerable, often highly intelligent, people be roped into this cult and eventually work for nothing for the two most narcissistic people I've ever seen. These two would put Jim and Tammy Faye Baker to shame in their manipulation and egregious and constant abuse of their followers.
And this cult is still in business in spite of multiple complaints to police departments.
The couple are so repulsive as to make one nauseous.
Worth the look and well made to show how this can happen. My heart breaks for the parents whose children were so victimized and for the couples forced to live together as "twin flames."
Evil, evil.
8/10.
The Crown (2016)
Season 6 has jumped the shark,
Totally inaccurate picture of Diana, Seriously. This woman craved the press, flirted with the paparazzi and squeezed in her children when she wasn't busy courting the limelight and looking for her own Onassis to maintain her lifestyle.
She might have found him in Dodi who is portrayed abysmally here. Close to racism. Particularly after her death. Where the blame shines on his family and never on the total lack of security provided to her by the RF.
But the very worst of this whole half a series is Diana as a saintly ghost counselling Charlie AND the queen.
Charlie bawling his eyes out is another figment of someone's imagination. Thin plot stretching at its finest.
Speaking of plot, it appears some pressure was put on the writers to show the RF in a more favorable light. Witness Charlie and Cam dancing the night away while he recites Jane Austen. Nope.
They trashed a reasonably good series. It's laughable.
If I have the energy rather than the ennui I will watch the December finale.
2/10 for the moors and Balmoral and Imelda Staunton.
Payback (2023)
Annoyingly inept...
But I stuck it out. Challenging, as Britbox released 1 episode a week and it was hard to keep track of all the comings and goings with so little character development as to make it laughable.
Peter Mullan is always a joy, but here he is underused as the Bad Guy, making odd threats and entering the victim's home at random moments sitting down with her children grinning evilly, or trying to.
The plot has more holes than a colander and the cops are all pitifully inept and all should have been fired. They placed the victim's life in jeopardy more times than I could count.
I resist posting spoilers as there are far too many and the ending? A total bust and not worth the time invested.
Scottish scenery was beautiful so I gave it a four for that.
But hell, my time could have been far better spent than on this mess.
4/10.
Nyad (2023)
Good film.
What was really fascinating to me was that the two leads, Benning and Foster looked their ages. A totally refreshing appearance from all the botox and cosmetic surgery of most actors of their ages.
Nyad was shown warts and all, her massive ego and narcissism well portrayed.
But most of all the plot was about the friendshhip between the women, and the acting was superb, particularly by Foster. A tour de force. Bening is also good, a difficult role but we catch the humanity beneath her dominating personality.
The supporting cast is also well done, and the ending, triumphant, would bring tears to a stone.
An extraordinary feat by an extraordinary woman.
8/10.
Pain Hustlers (2023)
Quite a romp
I have watched the docs on the Sackler Family and their horrendous responsibility of hiring young women to pimp out drugs to doctors and clinics causing the deaths of millions. Still in court I believe with a huge settlement on the horizon.
Emily Blunt and Catherine O'Hara are a feast of good acting and the supporting cast are excellent.
I am familiar with the story line but here it is told from the point of view of one salesperson (they were all attractive, sexy drug pushers) hauled into the marketing by force of her poverty and inability to make ends meet.
The story unwinds well and a story of rags to riches to rags is always entertaining.
8/10.
Rebus (2000)
Could not finish episodes
I watched the first two and was baffled as to the storylines which generated not a whit of tension or even sympathy for the characters, including the lead, John Hannah playing Rebus.
The two episodes were drawn out, and well boring in the extreme as it was really difficult to care about any of them. Hannah portrays Rebus as out of control, flaunting authoritiy, running off half cocked in all directions without any kind of disciplinary action whatsoever, even involving himself in a crime committed against a family member without reprimand.
Far too much suspension of disbelief, it all felt like hard work.
1/10 for wasting my time.
Memories of a Murderer: The Nilsen Tapes (2021)
Worth the look
A very revealing, well made and interesting documentary about one of Britain's worst ever killers, Nilsen. It's so unusual in that much of what's being said is from the voice of the man himself, it's chilling.
Good on Netflix for not dragging this documentary out to breaking point. It's remarkably well constructed, short and concise and hammers home the points from all involved, the press, the police the surviving victims and Nilsin himself via the mutliple tapes he recorded.
Like many serial killers, Nilsin targeted a marginalized group: "rent boys" in the eighties in London. Sadly among the at least 17 boys he strangled to death only eight have been identified. These poor displaced boys and men were never missed by families. Such shame attached to who they were in that discriminatory era.
7/10.
Enemy (2013)
Pretentious Twaddle
I really can't believe the reviews given this - film is such a high falutin' word in this context - utter twaddle.
For a while I thought I was losing my sight as everything takes places in shadows and inept lighting.
Squinting at the screen gave me a massive headache.
There is no plot, just the pained anxious face of Jake ambling through most scenes along dim murky corridors, purposeless.
Is it a dream? Is it his alter ego?
I decided I didn't care a whit for the outcome or the passionless sex or sad Jake at podiums talking nonsense at an empty lecture hall.
I gave up. Jake? Seriously! This is not art. It's not anything. It's pretence at art house or whatever.
Yikes!
0/10.
Who Killed Jill Dando? (2023)
A Waste of Time
This is a doc that could have been over with in an hour. Instead it runs for 3 excruciating episodes.
I had the thought that the producer could have been guilty having received a lashing of cash into his account a few days before? Why? Her generosity? He was never questioned as to his jealousy over her new lover/fiance.
But the suspects who were left off the hook were a mystery. We were never informed of their alibis.
Also a key question was never asked - who stood to gain the most from her death?
The police were text book incompetence all the way.
That so-called intellectually challenged suspect who was first convicted and then released (that wasn't fully explained either) was a violent brutal rapist with convictions as long as your arm. Why was he presented so sympathetically? And not interviewed properly?
I was literally gobsmacked at this going nowhere repetitive pointless doc.
Avoid
1/10.
The Hunt for Raoul Moat (2023)
Good gripping film of true events
It featured the continuous abuse of a young woman and the ignorance of police in paying scant attention to so-called "domestic situations" a demeanng term if ever there was one.
So very many women. All the time, every day ,are the victims of what I could call "domestic terrorism" by a toxic violent male.
Sam was only 16 years old when she met this monster who was 20 years older than her. A red flag of course. He behaved as if he owned her and their child and bullied her incessantly and went to prison for abusing their child. Even when he was in prison and a guard overheard him and reported it to the police the only response was *crickets*.
The manhunt itself was really well done, full marks for the tension and the pacing as it all unravels into the inevitable ending.
No holds barred on the police behaviour which was very good.
8 out of 10. Excellent for its calibre and only the British have the skill for this type of series.
Grey Gardens (1975)
Difficult to look away
I saw this doc many years ago on TV and had a recent viewing.
It's still challenging to watch it without enormous compassion for these obviously disturbed, mentally ill mother and daughter duo living in squalor and filth in a dilapidated old mansion on the coast. The aunt and cousin of the late Jackie Onassis.
Cats and racoons run amok in this horror of a place (and I understand it was cleaned before the film makers came to intrude and document the lives of the two women.
This time I found it exploitive. Today (not back then) we recognize that hoarding and living in such appalling surroundings, no running water, holes in the walls, cat urine, eating cat food (they spread it on crackers) is a sign of severe mental illness.
Edith and Edie are immune to it all, savouring the past - they were beauties in their time - and have a passive agressive endless argument going with each other. Clothing is optional.
Edie wears blouses and sweaters tied up around her head due to skin condition of baldness.
Like a train wreck, it's impossible to look away but I am shocked that a health department wasn't called in to fumigate and rescue these two.
A huge level of exploitation by the two brothers who filmed it all and the final insult was in not putting the names of the women in the credits.
They were used in their utmost vulnerability.
Liebes Kind (2023)
Excellent Series
Netflix has taken it up a notch and i would encourage them to do it again even if it means taking series out of Europe.
Their programming has been dismal. The shows targeted to whom exactly? Youth? Appalling romcom fan bait?
I was mesmerized by this series and had to reluctantly drag myself off to bed after Episode 3.
A few minor plotholes but they didn't distract from the overall excellence, casting, writing, production and the endless guessing of what was actually going down.
No clues as to the actual whodunnit. For most of it I suspected the wrong guy. Completely.
North American series makers of good thrillers with no shootouts or car chases or 2X4s could do well to study the expertise in series like this.
Totally engaging with well drawn characters which touched the emotions in a non-sappy way.
Well done to all.
8/10.