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Reviews
Broadchurch (2013)
Promises More Than It Can Deliver
This contains spoilers and is only about the first season.
The show has some great atmosphere and some wonderful strengths that differentiate it from other "cop shows."
It has a nice refreshing pace at times that allow human experiences like grief, fear and sadness to unfold dramatically. The setting and acting all contributes to an engaging show for the most part.
However, there are two flaws in the show that make the season disappointing.
A basic rule is that a character needs to have choices and change to be interesting. While Hardy (David Tennant) is an interesting guy at first, his character is doesn't really do anything and gets to be rather boring. He doesn't seem to be that great a detective, just average, which could be OK if there were something he could deal with. But his health problems and his guilt are underutilized and just, well, boring.
Another idea is that stories should be surprising and convincing. The show does offer a little surprise (although we are running out of suspects pretty quickly) but it is very unconvincing. The show tries to compensate for this unconvincing problem through hysterics and an appeal to "I just can't explain the power of the attraction" but, for me, the writers just didn't do a good enough job of planting clues and moving me to the place where I could buy the ending.
For me, a fatal flaw and won't be watching the second season.
Young Adult (2011)
Beautifully written, novelistic film
This movie is not a comedy, even if it was packaged that way. I can imagine the marketing people sitting around asking, what do we do with this one to make it fit into the neat little categories that sell movies these days? Thankfully, that problem didn't stop the writer, director or producers from making this movie.
It is a character study and doesn't offer any easy or simple answers about people. It asks lots of questions and doesn't try to spoon feed you or offer some weak Judd Apatow-like response to the complexities of our own weaknesses. In this way, it reminds me of a very satisfying novel.
There are some very funny moments in the film, but the kind that make you cringe more than cackle.
I really wanted to dislike Diablo Cody cause Juno, while I enjoyed it, was kind of smug. This movie shows she's a very good writer though.
(And if people think this movie is criticizing or mocking small towns, they are not watching it very closely.)
The Mosquito Coast (1986)
A Movie About a Man, not Ideas
I've recently re-watched this movie and, after looking up the reviews on here, was quite surprised to see such a low rating and such negative reviews. I'm still not quite sure why, but my thoughts are that 1. people mistake this for a movie about ideas instead of a movie about a man, and 2. people think this will be a movie in which Harrison Ford plays the same old character instead of acts.
Ford's character is not likable, which I think is the point. He is a narcissist blinded to the way the world works. He believes he can force the universe to his own will, as a narcissist will do. Certainly, the film takes this character to an extreme, but isn't that the point of drama? I found the characterization to be very spot on.
This isn't the usual Hollywood slop pretending to be intellectual and deep. It is a study of complicated characters living in a complicated world without easy answers or neat conclusions.