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Good Grief (2023)
It's a long way from Schitt's Creek to Paris
Like half the Western World, I watched Schitt's Creek three times and, like half of that half, was half in love with Daniel Levy. So, a movie written and directed by and starring Daniel Levy sounded like too too much of a good thing. As it turned out to be. Except it also turned out that it is, honourably, not a spin-off. Yes, the Daniel Levy persona has many of the same tics as David Rose, except he dresses less flamboyantly and never shaves. But for the rest it's Another American in Paris, this time with karaoke and Profundity. Lord, is it Profound. The characters don't converse, they exchange Profundities about People. I stopped counting the generalisations after about number 120 or so. And most of them are extremely unhopeful about Life in general l and People in particular. And does Levy not notice how obsessively self-absorbed his characters are, or is it a deliberate minor-key variation on the Schitt's Creek obsessives? And all those gorgeous apartments: is this a wry corrective to that seedy motel? Does David Rose at last live in the style that he'd got used to? But mainly: is this what is meant by being miserable in comfort? As for the acting, well, it's highly competent and energetic; the characters are so self-dramatising that we can't really complain that the actors are over-acting: they're just getting into their roles. That said, the bust-up towards the end seems so arbitrary that the acting seems equally unconvincing. And really, really, why did they have to go to Paris for this? Isn't there a perfectly good Ferris Wheel in London? And an equally plush apartment? (Okay, the French Romantic Distraction is the least self-obsessed character in the movie, but I don't think Levy is making a point about French savoir fare as against Anglo-American self-dramatisation.) To be honest, I did feel myself tearing up at times, but also resenting the overload of suspect sentiment. Enough already. Moira Rose could have done this movie justice. It's sadly in need of some crows.
The Bubble (2022)
A terrible film about making a terrible film
I suppose in a sense this film was successful in a post-modern sort of way: it made us feel sorry for a bunch of mediocre actors trapped in an excruciating movie about a bunch of mediocre actors trapped in ab excruciating movie. By any other measure, though, this must be Apatow's worst and most unfunny movie. The first five minutes are funny, after which things get ever more desperate. I must confess that I only watched half the movie; had I watched all of it, I might have cut one of its two stars.
Byron Baes (2022)
I have to confess, I kept watching.
Why would one waste 40 minutes (X8) watching a bunch of self-absorbed and self-adoring late adolescents bitching each other and indulging in sanctimonious ego trips? Well, I guess because, without being in the least bit witty, it is very funny. There is a kind of innocence in the way the characters un-self-consciously display their superficiality trying for spirituality, the sham professions of friendship and admiration, the back-biting posing as moral concern. It is the kind of thing we did in high school, except we outgrew it. To see these vapid creatures taking themselves seriously is ... well, yes, funny, although it is also a bit disturbing that these people are aiming to 'influence' thousands of social media followers and apparently succeeding in it. There is apparently some disagreement as to whether it's all scripted or not. If it is, it is wonderfully done; if it's not, it's stomach-turning. Either way, I have now watched four episodes, and will probably watch the next four. But please, not another season. These people need to be put out of their misery. Find them a real job, please.
Minyan (2020)
A slow burn
It takes a while to get into this subtle, understated film. Exchanges between characters tend to be muted and at times abruptly truncated. This, you gradually come to understand, reflects the closeted world of the main character, David, whose most crucial interchanges are often a matter of a sidelong glance, a touch, amidst the garrulous world of his mother and fellow Jewish emigrés in nineteen eighties Brighton Beach. I was slowly drawn into thus milieu, permeated as it is by memories of the holocaust and ominous references to a disease affecting gay men, and ultimately found it deeply moving.
The Pursuit of Love (2021)
I suppose I should watch it all...
... but I don't think I could stomach it. The performances are over the top unconvincing, the sets and costumes all too obviously intended to awe us into admiration. What a waste of money ... and of talent, I would have said, except there is precious little on show here. Yes, I know, it gets better. But do I want to waste another hour?
The King (2019)
Why bother with history?
AS a swords and sorrow epic this is okay, good performances, pretty locations, but why bother to pretend that it's about Henry IV and V? Not to mention Falstaff? A straight fiction could have worked; but this half-assed gesture in the direction of historical accuracy is just irritating. And it sure drags.
Diecisiete (2019)
This is the one about the Troubled Teen and the Dog -- except it isn't
Full disclosure: I'm a sucker for movies about dogs. But I'm also, I like to think, a level-headed dog-lover, so I tend to be critical of movies that turn them into soppy love-sponges. The premise of this movie -- a troubled teen (possibly autistic?) is brought out of his shell of morose neediness by caring for an equally anti-social dog -- could, in the wrong hands, have yielded mainly schmaltz. Instead it has produced a wry, unsentimental, beautifully acted bromance -- well, I don't like that term, because it suggests Owen Wilson and Adam Sandler getting wasted together, but it's more apposite than usual, since it is mainly about two emotionally reticent brothers negotiating a fraught relationship -- the dog, in fact, is secondary, a kind of McGuffen to the actual substance of the movie. Biel Montero is irresistibly impossible as the ever-so-tough but emotionally fragile younger brother, and Nacho Sanchez counters perfectly as the exasperated, long-suffering but devoted elder brother. I particularly enjoyed his attempts to teach his brother what irony is -- a tricky concept, especially for a seventeen-year old with issues. There is also a hilarious performance from a prize cow. A gem of a movie. I watched it a second time to make sure that it was as good as I'd thought the first time. It was.
Tell Me Who I Am (2019)
I'm in two minds
My first response to this movie was, like the vast majority of responses here, Wow! And I was genuinely moved. But then things started niggling at me, little, well, niggling questions. In the first place, of course, the whole set-up is highly artificial: the re-enacted 'showdown', the withheld information, the pretense that Alex doesn't know what Marcus is going to tell him (via video!). Okay, fair enough, nobody said this was happening in real time; but it does make one wonder what exactly a documentary is, if it doesn't contain any (or much) actual documentary footage. This is, in short, a re-enactment passing as a documentary. Fair enough. But there were still others, and, reading the review headed "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?', I found myself, yes, thinking. The reviewer objects to the notion that a mother could shop out her own sons; now, that, I must confess, I don't find implausible: the newspapers offer plenty of evidence that, alas, there's nothing that some parents won't do to their children. So I didn't have a problem with that. And I took on trust the notion of extremely selective amnesia, unusual as that seemed. But then: we are told that the father didn't know that his wife was on a regular basis carting off one of their sons to spend the night in an unnamed location with an unknown person, leaving the other son behind to say ..what? to this father. Really? And given that the two boys were forced to have sex with each other and with their mother in each other's company -- would they not have discussed this with each other? Like WTF's with Mom? But there's no mention of that, central as it surely would have been to the relationship of two pubescent boys under such circumstances. And all the unopened Xmas and birthday gifts: why? And which family and friends did they have on a gift-giving basis who didn't suspect something was wrong? Like, I wonder why Marcus and Alex never thank us for the presents? And why are the boys made to sleep in the barn? Wouldn't Mom have wanted her sex objects nearer at hand? And why decapitate a naked picture of the two boys? And hide the picture in a locked secret compartment, the key to which is, miraculously, found in a house that makes a haystack look tidy? And and and ... once you start asking questions it all seems, not just implausible but impossible. Alex can't remember his former girlfriend, but, we gather, has sex with her again without her noticing that he doesn't know who the hell she is. And Marcus escapes from his mother's artist-rapist friend, travelling on the Tube without a ticket 'as one could do in those days' -- well, no, one couldn't. He'd have had to jump a turnstile. But that's a minor detail. It's just that there are so many implausible details that you have to wonder, and once you start wondering. ... It all reminded me of *Patrick Melville*, which, ironically, is presented as fiction whereas it's apparently largely autobiographical. And I must confess that I found myself, yes, wondering whether the brothers hadn't also read Edmund St Aubyn ... an unworthy thought, no doubt, but an irresistible one. Ultimately, it seems wiser just to take this as a well-made mockumentary-cum-fictional-dysfunctional- family saga. As that, it works well. The central performances are excellent.
London Spy (2015)
Non sequitur after non sequitur ad nauseam
Whatever happened to the well-made plot? This series just chucks one gasp-gasp episode on top of another, with no attempt even to suggest they might be relevant to each other. Sure, there's a story line of sorts, and it's all 'explained', clearly hoping that the viewer is so gobsmacked that s/he has forgotten about all the loose plot threads dangling all over the show. That said, some good performances from actors who shouldn't be wasting their talents on this hogwash. But I suppose times are hard for the likes of Jim Broadbent and Charlotte Rampling. But Ben Whishaw could surely land something better than this.